Derrida's Writing and Difference

Derrida's Writing and Difference
Name	Writing and Difference
Author	Jacques Derrida
Country	France
Language	French
Subject	Philosophy, Literary theory
Publisher	Éditions du Seuil
Pub date	1967
Media type	Print
Pages	384

Derrida's Writing and Difference is a 1967 collection of essays by Jacques Derrida that consolidates themes of deconstruction across engagements with figures from Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud to Georges Bataille and Louis Althusser. The volume links Derrida's readings to debates in continental philosophy, literary criticism, and intellectual history, aligning with currents around Structuralism and the emerging post-structuralist movement associated with institutions like the École Normale Supérieure and journals such as Tel Quel.

Background and Composition

Composed during the 1960s intellectual milieu of Paris, the book gathers essays written between 1959 and 1967 at a time when Derrida lectured at institutions like the École Normale Supérieure and engaged with contemporaries including Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, Paul de Man, Maurice Blanchot, and Gilles Deleuze. The collection emerges against broader institutional debates involving the Sorbonne and intersects with political events such as the intellectual aftermath of the Algerian War and cultural shifts after the publication of works by Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Composition was influenced by Derrida's earlier works, notably his 1967 book-length study of Edmund Husserl and by exchanges with editorial circles around Grasset and Éditions du Seuil.

Key Concepts and Themes

The essays articulate concepts now central to debates in continental thought: différance (treated obliquely in these essays), trace, supplement, and critique of metaphysics rooted in authors like Plato, Aristotle, and Immanuel Kant. Derrida's analyses juxtapose classical texts by René Descartes and David Hume with modern thinkers such as Karl Marx and Martin Heidegger, linking linguistic structures to philosophical problems addressed by Ludwig Wittgenstein and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. He interrogates the status of writing relative to speech through readings of Ferdinand de Saussure and contrasts philological practice associated with Wilhelm von Humboldt with hermeneutic traditions tied to Friedrich Schleiermacher and Wilhelm Dilthey. The essays examine ethics and erotics via close attention to Sigmund Freud, Georges Bataille, and literary figures like Stendhal and Marcel Proust, thereby relating psychoanalytic and literary registers to questions posed by Immanuel Kant and Hegel.

Structure and Major Essays

The collection assembles essays organized around readings of canonical figures and debates. Major contributions include extended readings of Friedrich Nietzsche ("Cogito and the History of Madness" parallels other Derridean essays), detailed critiques of Edmund Husserl and phenomenology, and polemics on literary and philosophical figures such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Søren Kierkegaard, and Antonin Artaud. Several essays address historiography and critique, invoking the work of Michel Foucault and engaging with Marxist theory associated with Louis Althusser and intellectual institutions like the French Communist Party. The structure interweaves archival philology with contemporary theory, moving from textual exegesis to programmatic statements that prefigure later books such as Derrida's study of Jacques Lacan and his interventions in debates about structuralism.

Reception and Influence

Upon publication, the book generated responses across journals and academic circles including reactions from critics aligned with Structuralism and opponents in analytic milieus represented by institutions like Oxford University and Harvard University. The essays influenced subsequent scholarship by Paul de Man, J. Hillis Miller, and Hélène Cixous, and shaped theoretical developments in departments and programs at universities such as Yale University and Columbia University. Derrida’s approach fed into interdisciplinary fields involving scholars of literary theory, comparative literature, and historians of philosophy, and it reverberated through debates connected to the May 1968 events and the reconfiguration of curricula in faculties such as the Sorbonne Nouvelle.

Criticisms and Controversies

Critics charged Derrida with illegibility, relativism, and political ambiguity; figures like John Searle and proponents from analytic traditions contested Derrida’s methods and argumentative style. Debates involved exchanges with scholars associated with Cambridge University and with Marxist critics influenced by Louis Althusser and Terry Eagleton. Controversies also concerned Derrida's rhetorical strategy in readings of Heidegger and Nietzsche, prompting rebuttals in journals tied to The New York Review of Books and academic proceedings at conferences hosted by institutions such as King's College London.

Translation and Publication History

Originally published in French by Éditions du Seuil in 1967, the book was translated into English by Alan Bass and others and issued by presses active in Anglo-American markets, enhancing reception in the United States and the United Kingdom through editions from publishers connected to university presses such as University of Chicago Press and commercial houses engaged with continental philosophy. Subsequent reprints and translations into languages including German, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese facilitated diffusion across European and global intellectual networks tied to universities like Universität Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne and research centers in São Paulo and Tokyo.

Category:Books by Jacques Derrida