Ideas of Jacques Derrida, by Theme

[French, 1930 - 2005, Born in Algeria.]

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1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 1. Philosophy
21887 Derrida focuses on other philosophers, rather than on science
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 3. Philosophy Defined
21888 Philosophy is just a linguistic display
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / e. Philosophy as reason
21896 Philosophy aims to build foundations for thought [May]
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 7. Despair over Philosophy
21893 Philosophy is necessarily metaphorical, and its writing is aesthetic
1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 3. Hermeneutics
20925 Hermeneutics blunts truth, by conforming it to the interpreter [Zimmermann,J]
21892 Interpretations can be interpreted, so there is no original 'meaning' available
20934 Hermeneutics is hostile, trying to overcome the other person's difference [Zimmermann,J]
1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 4. Linguistic Structuralism
21895 Structuralism destroys awareness of dynamic meaning
1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 6. Deconstruction
8210 Deconstructing philosophy gives the history of concepts, and the repressions behind them
8211 The movement of 'différance' is the root of all the oppositional concepts in our language
8216 Deconstruction is not neutral; it intervenes
6840 Derrida came to believe in the undeconstructability of justice, which cannot be relativised [Critchley]
21934 The idea of being as persistent presence, and meaning as conscious intelligibility, are self-destructive [Glendinning]
21881 We aim to explore the limits of expression (as in Mallarmé's poetry)
21882 Sentences are contradictory, as they have opposite meanings in some contexts
21883 Sincerity can't be verified, so fiction infuses speech, and hence reality also
2. Reason / C. Styles of Reason / 1. Dialectic
8213 I try to analyse certain verbal concepts which block and confuse the dialectical process
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 9. Rejecting Truth
4756 Derrida says that all truth-talk is merely metaphor [Engel]
21877 True thoughts are inaccessible, in the subconscious, prior to speech or writing
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / b. Names as descriptive
21878 Names have a subjective aspect, especially the role of our own name
21889 'I' is the perfect name, because it denotes without description
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / c. Names as referential
21879 Even Kripke can't explain names; the word is the thing, and the thing is the word
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / b. Essence of consciousness
21890 Heidegger showed that passing time is the key to consciousness
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 1. Thought
21880 'Tacit theory' controls our thinking (which is why Freud is important)
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 1. Meaning
21932 'Différance' is the interwoven history of each sign [Glendinning]
21930 For Aristotle all proper nouns must have a single sense, which is the purpose of language
21933 Writing functions even if the sender or the receiver are absent [Glendinning]
21884 Capacity for repetitions is the hallmark of language
21886 Meanings depend on differences and contrasts
21894 Madness and instability ('the demonic hyperbole') lurks in all language
21935 The sign is only conceivable as a movement between elusive presences
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 2. Meaning as Mental
8212 Everything that is experienced in consciousness is meaning
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 9. Ambiguity
21929 Derrida focuses on ambiguity, but talks of 'dissemination', not traditional multiple meanings
21931 'Dissemination' is opposed to polysemia, since that is irreducible, because of multiple understandings [Glendinning]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 10. Denial of Meanings
21885 Words exist in 'spacing', so meanings are never synchronic except in writing
22. Metaethics / B. The Good / 1. Goodness / a. Form of the Good
21891 The good is implicitly violent (against evil), so there is no pure good
24. Political Theory / A. Basis of a State / 1. A People / c. A unified people
21936 A community must consist of singular persons, with nothing in common [Glendinning]
21937 Can there be democratic friendship without us all becoming identical? [Glendinning]