One day someone may make an inventory of the conferences, symposia, and colloquia, throughout the world, that were concerned with Derrida's work and at which he was present as an interlocutor. These would probably number in the hundreds. Countless, then, would be all those who had the chance to receive the generosity of his thought when, as so frequently happened, he was called upon to engage others in public discourse. I heard many such exchanges in the last twenty-five years, beginning in the summer of 1980 with a ten-day colloquium at Cerisyla- Salle in Normandy, France. There were three more “décades Derrida” at Cerisy-in 1992, 1997, and 2002-which remains an unprecedented series in the history of this legendary conference center. I also attended or participated in numerous other events, and can now reflect on some of the reasons for which Derrrida was repeatedly sought out in a public forum.

I have mentioned his generosity, an attribute invariably cited to characterize his response to interlocutors. But I believe this recognition arises from the experience of something altogether unlike ordinary ideas of generosity. It was certainly not the experience in the vicinity of the “great man” whose greatness is such he can bestow tokens on lesser mortals without diminishing his own store, indeed while adding to his reputation for generosity. As the greatest thinker today, or in any age, of the paradoxes of the gift, and as pitilessly lucid as he was about his own or anyone else's “greatness,” one may be sure Derrida was not easily deluded about the endless ruses of narcissistic calculation.