<\/p>
Rereading the chapter on Derrida in Brian Ingraffia\u2019s Postmodern Theory and Biblical Theology <\/i> (Cambridge, 1995), I realize just how much my understanding of Derrida was formed by reading this book several years ago. Ingraffia highlights (as I have done in a previous post, erroneously thinking I had come up with the insight myself) the fact that Derrida renounces eschatology, and therefore offers infinite deferral without closure. Ingraffia also concisely summarizes the argument of Of Grammatology <\/i> to the effect that the Western conception of the sign (in Saussurean terms, constituted by the ideal signified and the empirical signifier) is complicit with a dualistic metaphysics that separates the intelligible from the sensible worlds. I was reminded how profoundly the early chapters of Of Grammatology influenced by work on sacraments. <\/p>\n
And I\u2019m reminded too of the intricacies and subtleties of intellectual and spiritual influences. I recall reading Ingraffia some years ago, and remember getting a lot out of it. But its best insights got lodged in my head in such a way that I forgot they were someone else\u2019s insights. Appropriately, it\u2019s a classic example of Derrida\u2019s point that alterity is not secondary but always already there: Even the voice in my head is (in)formed by the written signs I have read. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rereading the chapter on Derrida in Brian Ingraffia\u2019s Postmodern Theory and Biblical Theology (Cambridge, 1995), I realize just how much my understanding of Derrida was formed by reading this book several years ago. Ingraffia highlights (as I have done in a previous post, erroneously thinking I had come up with the insight myself) the fact […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy"],"yoast_head":"\n