28 August 2009

Johann Hari on Derrida

http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=461


This is a great essay. And the footnotes are fascinating too.
One thing not to be forgotten is that (I think) Derrida was sincere. He was a genuine philosopher. He wasn't deliberately trying to "destroy" philosophy. He didn't set out to do such a thing.
He wasn't deliberately being "incomprehensible."

Besides, his philosophy continues philosophy; it doesn't destroy it.

The "mad axe man of "Western" philosophy" was principally Nietzsche in my view.
He was a precursor of nationalism in World War One and of fascism and general irrationalism, whose spell is still sadly cast on some. Furthermore, Nietzsche is an ancestor of the dreaded post-modernism itself.