More on Christopher Norris on Derrida

by Steve Rodgers

Christopher Norris claims that Derrida is first and foremost working within the philosophical tradition. To be sure, Derrida deconstructs philosophy: he's counterintuitive; he shows us that despite what structuralists would have us believe, words and meanings do not correspond perfectly; he questions the basic assumptions of logocentric reasoning. Yet, in Norris's mind, it is simply incorrect to presume that Derrida must abandon philosophy's "forms and protocols of argument" to do so ("Philosophy" 191).

In fact, Norris goes so far as to say that Derrida must think within the terms handed down to him from early philosophers, and that he must rigorously apply philosophical method, if he hopes to take philosophy apart and show its short-comings: "One can only work from within, so to speak, using the language that comes to hand (along with its inescapable logocentric residues), but using it in precisely such a way as to bring out its inherent strains and contradictions" (194). Thus he thinks philosophers like Rorty (especially Rorty, it seems) too quickly turn Derrida into an "antiphilosopher" who rejects serious argument and just plays games.

Norris may have a point. He does, in fact, come very close to suggesting how Derrida's late works, as indebted to philosophy as they are (and as they need to be), open up a whole range of possibilities of communication, and even noncommunication. Even in these late works, which seem "less concerned with arguments and more inclined to exploit the various possibilities of noncommunication with cross-purpose exchange [my italics]," Derrida is "resuming issues and problems that are worked over with meticulous care in his more "philosophical texts" (195).

But Norris stops short. In his efforts to distance himself from philosophers like Rorty who (he thinks) reduce Derrida to a gamester, he recoils; he does the opposite; he puts "play" aside, downplays it, doesn't explore its possibilities, and thus turns his back on a crucial part of Derrida's style. Derrida becomes almost an anti-poet, or an anti-player, who "insists" (197), "argues" (193), and "issues statements" (195).