'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'
|
|
'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'
|
|
|
mourning
« Previous |
|Next »
|
|
|
August 15, 2006
A quote from Derrida's essay 'Violence and Metaphysics', ( in Writing and Difference) where Derrida responds to the ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas.
"That philosophy died yesterday, since Hegel or Marx, Nietzsche, or Heidegger—and philosophy should still wander toward the meaning of its death—or that it has always lived knowing itself to be dying... that philosophy died one day, within history, or that it has always fed on its own agony, on the violent way it opens history by opposing itself to nonphilosophy, which is its past and its concern, its death and wellspring; that beyond the death, or dying nature, of philosophy, perhaps even because of it, thought still has a future, or even, as is said today, is still entirely to come because of what philosophy has held in store; or, more strangely still, that the future itself has a future—all these are unanswerable questions. By right of birth, and for one time at least, these are problems put to philosophy as problems philosophy cannot resolve."
This reads like a mourning the death of philosophy, or metaphysics that suggests a finding a way out of philosophy, or the need to move to new ground. Of course, Derrida warns of the dangers of mourning, while insisting that mourning is both unavoidable and impossible? Mourning demands or obligates us to declare our debts. The act of mourning becomes a continued way of 'speaking to' the other who is gone, even though the other is gone, in spite of the fact that the other is gone, precisely because that other is gone.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|