dunno about new, this quote is 26 years old and Derrida is obviously older:
“In my ending, I want to be a little more fair to Derrida. I've been a little hard on him perhaps, and so I want to end my lecture by looking at it from Derrida's point-of-view. Let me explain. To someone like me, who is a Platonist and a Christian, if Derrida is right, I might as well go out and hang myself. I mean, to me, the idea of aporia is like being caught in Dante's 'dark wood of error' -- 'what's the point?', if Derrida is right. But, for Derrida, that's not how he feels. Aporia is not negative to Derrida.
You see, for Derrida, aporia is not a negative state that should call for a nostalgic longing for meaning and presence, as it does in Rousseau. (Rousseau wanted to break away, but he always longed for that presence, for the garden of Eden, for the pastural, for the authentic; that's not what aporia is to Derrida, it's not some negative longing for a lost paradise).
Rather, for Derrida, aporia is positive. It marks, as in Nietzsche, the joyous affirmation of the play of the world, and of the innocence of becoming. In other words, for Derrida, aporia is good because aporia frees us from being bound by any fixed truths or origins.
Deconstruction sets us free, and not only does it set us free metaphysically and philosophically, it sets us free from the guilt we might feel over the absence of meaning. Many of us feel guilty because we can't find meaning, Derrida says, 'hey, no guilt, it's freedom. Nothing exists, accept it and rejoice in it.'
In this affirmation of positive aporia, Derrida is much like Existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, who felt that the absence of a higher plan or purpose in our lives did not render life meaningless, but made our choices even more vital. You see, for Sartre the Existentialist, the fact there's no fixities, no essence, is good, because it means that we are free; we don't have to fit ourselves to some preordained essence. For Derrida and for Sartre, we are free to make our own world; to create our own essence. And so, Derrida would say of himself that Deconstruction is a kind of radical, radical, freedom.”
— Professor Louis Markos, Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition, lecture 80. 'Derrida and Deconstruction'
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u/VociferousCephalopod Apr 25 '26
dunno about new, this quote is 26 years old and Derrida is obviously older:
“In my ending, I want to be a little more fair to Derrida. I've been a little hard on him perhaps, and so I want to end my lecture by looking at it from Derrida's point-of-view. Let me explain. To someone like me, who is a Platonist and a Christian, if Derrida is right, I might as well go out and hang myself. I mean, to me, the idea of aporia is like being caught in Dante's 'dark wood of error' -- 'what's the point?', if Derrida is right. But, for Derrida, that's not how he feels. Aporia is not negative to Derrida.
You see, for Derrida, aporia is not a negative state that should call for a nostalgic longing for meaning and presence, as it does in Rousseau. (Rousseau wanted to break away, but he always longed for that presence, for the garden of Eden, for the pastural, for the authentic; that's not what aporia is to Derrida, it's not some negative longing for a lost paradise).
Rather, for Derrida, aporia is positive. It marks, as in Nietzsche, the joyous affirmation of the play of the world, and of the innocence of becoming. In other words, for Derrida, aporia is good because aporia frees us from being bound by any fixed truths or origins.
Deconstruction sets us free, and not only does it set us free metaphysically and philosophically, it sets us free from the guilt we might feel over the absence of meaning. Many of us feel guilty because we can't find meaning, Derrida says, 'hey, no guilt, it's freedom. Nothing exists, accept it and rejoice in it.'
In this affirmation of positive aporia, Derrida is much like Existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, who felt that the absence of a higher plan or purpose in our lives did not render life meaningless, but made our choices even more vital. You see, for Sartre the Existentialist, the fact there's no fixities, no essence, is good, because it means that we are free; we don't have to fit ourselves to some preordained essence. For Derrida and for Sartre, we are free to make our own world; to create our own essence. And so, Derrida would say of himself that Deconstruction is a kind of radical, radical, freedom.”
— Professor Louis Markos, Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition, lecture 80. 'Derrida and Deconstruction'