Writing and Differences (Upper, Lower)

Author: Jacques Derrida
Translator: Zhang Yu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-03-01
Features: Jacques Derrida, a representative figure of the deconstructivist movement in the latter half of the 20th century, is also one of the most controversial figures in the history of philosophy. The last mad Western thinker and word inventor to influence the East in the entire 20th century, he was obsessively engrossed in、. His greatness lies in his attempt to shift the war of physical (geographical) space into the space of words, so that the raging flames of war might say goodbye to the vast world, and in his effort to express and roam a post-heroic spirit in the discovered textual space under a postmodern high-tech context, in order to shake and deconstruct the self-destructing cultural-civilizational body.
Detailed Introduction: Writing and Difference: The Vine of Derrida's Thought
Review by Feng Zi (Scholar, Professor at Sun Yat-sen University)
In September 2001, Derrida came to China, and at the same time, the Chinese translation of Writing and Difference was published alongside him. Whether it was Derrida discovering the "other" of his own writing—the transformation of his French into Chinese or Chinese characters as "traces," or whether Chinese was waiting for this particularly respectful and responsive thinker—this would inspire Chinese to engage with its own "difference." The response to Derrida's visit to China might be to join the "deeds of words" he called for—especially the event of writing the heart! It is unknown whether this event has already gained momentum, but it is certain that it will not end with his departure. Entering Derrida's text is always difficult, not only because he fully acknowledges the difficulty of reading and writing itself, but also because he does not shy away from or attempt to resolve these difficulties. Writing is to endure and stretch open the, there is no ready-made method or answer as a universal key to unlock the text. Respect for the text lies in entering it and experiencing the unease and fear, surprise and joy of language's arrival that the author has undergone in writing from nothing to something. The text is always open and demands a response, so reading also takes on the ethical and responsibilities the author endured in writing. Therefore, this requires us to have ample patience when reading the swift and complex sentences in Writing and Difference. We must be willing to be attracted by the alluring, colorful words, yet remain keenly aware of the limits of our reading and understanding, and silently pray for enough time to pause between the text's intervals and margins to write our own words—words to summarize, to draw out, or to guide—so that we do not lose ourselves in the maze of the text. Readers must often ask themselves, "Who are you? Are you in that book?" Because the meaning of words always runs between the "flesh of the overheated textual event and the cold skin of concepts" (as stated on page 123 of the book), so your reading attention should not become lost in it, but rather remain at the "threshold," like the villager in Kafka's novel standing before the Law's gate.
The writing of Writing and Difference extends Derrida's early thought, specifically the entire 1960s. In this book, the vine of Derrida's thought has fully extended, and the various directions of his later thought have taken shape, awaiting differentiation. It is clear from the book that he deconstructs and shifts Husserl's phenomenology and Heidegger's "presence" ontology, striving to view Western philosophy itself from a "non-philosophical" position, yet not abandoning or discarding philosophy (which is a common misunderstanding of deconstruction). Deconstruction precisely aims to reveal, on one hand, how Western philosophy always saves phenomena with the core of presence, identity, and illumination without being aware of its own limits, and, on hand, that language itself is not constrained by the metaphysical "inside-outside" distinction. Through language, within the language of philosophy, one can find a non-philosophical position to reflect on the closure of philosophy and to reaffirm and open its future. Therefore, Derrida does not agree with Foucault's transcendence of philosophy through madness or Lévinas's non-violent transcendence from the "other," but instead defends the rationality of philosophy itself. At the same time, Derrida indeed finds a "non-lieu" through the literary writings of Mallarmé, Blanchot, and Artaud, tracing the traces of these writers' compositions to find the "other" of philosophy, and the relationship between them is differance. This differance is neither the difference that Hegel transforms death into negation—Bataille's writing discovers the absolute exhaustion of death's mockery and sacrifice, turning it to affirmation, nor the ontological difference Heidegger opens with death—where, in Blanchot and Lévinas, death is impossible, anonymous, and neutral, as the violence brought by the "other" and the "other" it brings. Once the writing of signs is no longer dominated by the game of "presence" and "presence-absence," it forms what Derrida later called "undecidability."
Our brief introduction may be misleading, and there is still a long way to go in our encounter with Derrida. Moreover, the cover of this Chinese translation mistakenly writes the French "différence" as "differance," and we are still too hasty. Like the translation of this book, Ms. Zhang Ning has brought us a substantial "gift" with her rare courage and remarkable accuracy. But if we had more time and more, there would be fewer errors, such as obvious printing mistakes, inconsistent names, and some awkward sentences. But this book is simply too important, especially as Derrida's dream of hieroglyphs and the discovery of the writing of the heart have shown us a path for the East and West to meet. Those who guide the "other" to this path are blessed. If true writing of the heart always writes hope and awaits the event to come, then let us read this book as Derrida beloved poet Jabès loved in his Book of Problems：“Hope: the next page. Do not close the book. I have turned every page of the book, but I have not found hope. Perhaps hope is the book.”