Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: From language to writing: the interdisciplinary matrix
- 1 The passion of inscription (‘Force et signification’)
- 2 Infinity, inscription, the economy
- 3 Beyond the seen of writing (‘Freud et la scène de l'écriture’)
- 4 The element of play (écart, entame, [en]taille, articulation/double bande, tomber)
- 5 Evolution and the ‘life’ sciences
- Conclusion Metaphor and more than metaphor
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index of names
- Subject index
- CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN FRENCH
Conclusion Metaphor and more than metaphor
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: From language to writing: the interdisciplinary matrix
- 1 The passion of inscription (‘Force et signification’)
- 2 Infinity, inscription, the economy
- 3 Beyond the seen of writing (‘Freud et la scène de l'écriture’)
- 4 The element of play (écart, entame, [en]taille, articulation/double bande, tomber)
- 5 Evolution and the ‘life’ sciences
- Conclusion Metaphor and more than metaphor
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index of names
- Subject index
- CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN FRENCH
Summary
L'inéluctable, c'est la pré-impression et cela marque la désistance du sujet … Mais cela n'entraîne pas encore que l'inéluctable se laisse concevoir comme un programme génétique ou une prédestination historique. Ce sont là des déterminations supplémentaires et tardives.
(PS, p. 598)(Ineluctability is pre-impression, and this marks the desistance of the subject … But this does not imply that the ineluctable might be conceived of as a genetic program or a historical predestination; rather, the latter are supplemental and late determinations of it.)
(DE, p. 2)The analysis of the categories of system and writing attempted in this book might ultimately have followed any of a number of possible paths through Derrida's texts. The rhetorical coherence and continuity of Derrida's work makes it possible to depart from different sets of linguistic associations and still arrive at what would basically be the same formal structure. Expressed in system-cybernetic language, Derrida's discursive system is itself highly overdetermined or equifinal. Despite this ‘looseness’ or ‘play’ in Derrida's system, and hence the difficulty in reducing it to a set of isolable concepts, the formal rigour of his argument remains undiminished; and despite the differences in style and subject matter that characterize his published work of the past thirty years, his theory of system and writing remains remarkably consistent. The following description recapitulates some of the main elements of this theory.
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- System and Writing in the Philosophy of Jacques Derrida , pp. 188 - 200Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993