For the same reason there is nowhere to begin to trace the sheaf or the graphics of differance. For what is put into question is precisely the quest for a rightful beginning, an absolute point...

style”; and if there is style, Nietzsche reminded us, it must be plural.

Therefore we will not listen to the source itself in order to learn what it is or what it means, but rather to the turns of speech, the allegories, figures, metaphors, as you will, into...

essays” whose itinerary it would be time, after the fact, to recognize; whose continuity and underlying laws could now be pointed out; indeed, whose overall concept or meaning could at last, with all the insistence...

Today, Chanel sells nothing other than its griffe; the griffe is an absolute symbol for ‘fashion’ which, having become historical, is now able to sell this history better than it could sell fashion. Chanel’s lasting...

I always dream of a pen that would be a syringe.

In their effort to divorce language and experience, deconstructionist critics remind me of middle-class parents who do not allow their children to play in the street.

humanity suffers terribly from the demons it has created over lengths of time. we learn from nothing that we do. we create religions, heritage, race, traditions, then they all in turn become our stumbling blocks...

But because me and myself, as you no doubt are well aware, we are going to die, my relation—and yours too—to the event of this text, which otherwise never quite makes it, our relation is...

To express nostalgia for a childhood we no longer share is to deny the actual significance and humanity of children.

And still the text will remain, if it is really cryptic and parodying (and I tell you that it is so through and through. I might as well tell you since it won’t be of...

Marx was troubled by the question of why ancient Greek art retained an ‘eternal charm’, even though the social conditions which produced it had long passed; but how do we know that it will remain...

A text is not a text unless it hides from the first comer, from the first glance, the law of its composition and the rules of its game. A text remains, moreover, forever imperceptible. Its...

Certain American uses of deconstruction, Derrida has observed, work to ensure ‘an institutional closure’ which serves the dominant political and economic interests of American society. Derrida is clearly out to do more than develop new...

normal” functioning. What would a mark be that one could not cite? And whose origin could not be lost on the way?

Derrida… labels as ‘metaphysical’ any such thought system which depends on an unassailable foundation, a first principle or unimpeachable ground upon which a whole hierarchy of meanings may be constructed. It is not that he...

philosophical discourse”?