Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Series Editor's Preface
- Dedication
- Introduction
- Auto-
- Jacques Derrida: … A life
- Foundations
- In the event
- That's life, death
- Handshake
- The limits of my language
- Derrida's ‘eighteenth century’
- Half-life
- Write, he wrote
- Beginnings and ends
- Salut à Jacques
- Jacques Derrida in America
- Foreign language (Jacques Derrida and me)
- Wormwords
- Index
Derrida's ‘eighteenth century’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Series Editor's Preface
- Dedication
- Introduction
- Auto-
- Jacques Derrida: … A life
- Foundations
- In the event
- That's life, death
- Handshake
- The limits of my language
- Derrida's ‘eighteenth century’
- Half-life
- Write, he wrote
- Beginnings and ends
- Salut à Jacques
- Jacques Derrida in America
- Foreign language (Jacques Derrida and me)
- Wormwords
- Index
Summary
Mais ni Descartes ni Hegel ne se sont battus avec le problème de l'écriture. Le lieu de ce combat et de cette crise. c'est ce qu'on appelle le XVIIIe siècle. [But neither Descrates nor Hegel grappled with the problem of writing. The place of this combat and this crisis is what is called the eighteenth century.]
… le ‘XVIIIe siècle français’ par exemple et si quelque chose de tel existe … [… the French eighteenth century', for example and if any such thing exists.]
Un texte a toujours plusieurs âges, la lecture doit en prendre son parti. [A text always has several ages and reading must take account of that fact.]
(Jacques Derrida, De la grammatologie)‘Ce qu'on appelle ….’ ‘What we call,’ ‘what one calls,’ ‘what is called’ – the Eighteenth Century.
These brief remarks bear the same title as the volume as a whole, with, however, this very slight difference: that the words ‘Eighteenth Century’ are now enclosed in quotation marks. So not ‘Derrida's Eighteenth Century’, but ‘Derrida's “Eighteenth Century”’. These quotation marks are supposed to function as ‘scare-quotes’, first, suspending a potentially problematic term or concept, ‘mentioning’ it rather than ‘using’ it, not quite wanting to subscribe to it, but they also function as ‘real’ quotation marks, because I am quoting Jacques Derrida's use of the words ‘Eighteenth Century’ (or at least « XVIIIe siècle »).
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Not Half No EndMilitantly Melancholic Essays in Memory of Jacques Derrida, pp. 100 - 110Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2010
Accessibility standard: Unknown
Why this information is here
This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.Accessibility Information
Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this chapter is currently unknown
and may be updated in the future.