“a mortal can only start from here, from his mortality.  His possible belief in immortality, his irresistible interest in the beyond, in gods and spirits, what makes survival structure every instant in a kind of irreducible torsion, the torsion of a retrospective anticipation that introduces the untimely moment and the posthumous in the most alive … My Posts on Jacques Derrida’s Interpretation of Martin Heidegger’s Philosophy of Death: Afterword

(Jacques Derrida, wiki) (Martin Heidegger, wiki) These are my notes for an upcoming study of Heidegger’s Being and Time and Derrida’s response. I focus on philosophy of death and Derrida’s books The Gift of Death, On the Name, and Aporias. Foreword: Of course, most people live their lives “as though” the next moment won’t be … Jacques Derrida and Martin Heidegger on The Philosophy of Death

Nietzsche argued that early Jews and Greeks were fundamentally “attached to life” and paid little attention to ideas of a personal afterlife or postmortem rewards and punishments. In his 1881 work Daybreak (specifically Section 72), Nietzsche contrasts the early Jewish and Greek mindset with that of Christianity and later mystery religions: Priority of Life over … Jacques Derrida and the Philosophy of Death in Response to Heidegger in “APORIAS” (CONCLUSION)

Derrida notes no context, such as death, “can determine meaning to the point of exhaustiveness (Derrida, 9).”  Derrida connects this to the notion of aporia, a block in the path of appropriation that elicits wonder/thaumazein, something “fascinating/passionne (12)” that causes us to deconstruct and reconstruct our guiding perspective, such as when the beloved traditional definition … Jacques Derrida and the Philosophy of Death in Response to Heidegger in “APORIAS” (Part 4)

In Derrida’s Aporias, he says regarding Seneca and death “Seneca describes the absolute imminence, the imminence of death at every instant.  This imminence of disappearance that is by essence premature seals the union of the possible and the impossible, of fear and desire, and of mortality and immortality, in being-to-death (Derrida, Finis, 4).”  What did … Jacques Derrida and the Philosophy of Death in Response to Heidegger in “APORIAS” (Part 3)

Αἰὼν παῖς ἐστι παίζων πεσσεύων· παιδὸς ἡ βασιληίη. “The aeon (The Geschick of being) is a child at play, playing at draughts; dominion is the child’s” (that is to say, dominion over being as a whole). Heraclitus fragment 52: In the previous series I looked at Derrida’s critique of example thinking.  When we look at … Jacques Derrida and the Philosophy of Death in Response to Heidegger in “APORIAS” (Part 2)

This will be my last series on Derrida and Death and I will be looking at his book APORIAS. Here’s a little context for making sense of the series: Friedrich Nietzsche discusses ancient Greek “proofs” of the soul’s immortality primarily to critique them as life-denying inventions that paved the way for Christian asceticism. Nietzsche identifies … Jacques Derrida and the Philosophy of Death in Response to Heidegger in “APORIAS” (Part 1)

Derrida says Philosophical thinking is usually thought as taking up a guiding thread in a text  (e.g., negative theology) provisionally, and seeing what we can do with it (Sauf le nom, 62).  It concludes by going “back, then once more, briefly, to the beginning, and rapidly trace the steps that led us to the point … Jacques Derrida and Khora (conclusion)

I’m beginning my last two blog series on Jacques Derrida.  Previously I looked at his book The Gift of Death and essay Sauf le nom, and now I will be looking at his essay khora, which looks at Plato’s Timaeus.  In my last series I will look at Derrida’s reading of Heidegger in “Aporias.” In … Jacques Derrida and Khora (Part 1)

We’ve been thinking about apophasis/negative theology, a way of approaching God without attributing things to him.  This was popularized by the Christian mystic tradition.  Angelus Silesius mentions the heart becoming the Mount of Olives in Book 2, epigram 81 of Cherubinischer Wandersmann (translated as The Cherubinic Wanderer). The original German text reads: “Soll dich des … Jacques Derrida and Angelus Silesius in Sauf le nom (Conclusion)