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WiP Seminar
WiP Week 8 - 'An inheritance to come: Derrida on history, the undecidable future, and the metaphysics of presence' - Efan Owen
The next postgraduate Work in Progress (WiP) seminar is taking place this Thursday 13th June from 5-6:15 PM in S2.77 and on Teams. Efan Owen will present 'An inheritance to come: Derrida on history, the undecidable future, and the metaphysics of presence'. Everyone welcome!
Abstract:
In this presentation I will explore the conclusions I came to in a recent essay and the questions they pose for my dissertation. I will give an overview of Derrida’s understanding of the relationship between that which is already past and that which is yet to come. I will examine here Derrida’s engagement with Heidegger’s rejection of a “metaphysics of presence,” as well as the specific implications of his own notion of différance, in the construction of meaning. Derrida holds meaning to be ultimately non-present and always referring to a presence beyond itself, and at the same time grounded in the material trace which signifies it.
In this sense, a future which is truly futural can only be comprehended as an anticipation of that which will never arrive. It is nevertheless determined by its origin, or past, in the trace signifier. I will argue that this leads Derrida to an understanding of the future as taking the form of an inheritance of things passed.
Finally, I will suggest that this approach allows Derrida to think of our relationship both to history and to the future in a manner which refutes the rationalism and calculability which characterise Kant and Husserl’s philosophies of history. In anticipation of my dissertation, I will also suggest that the decidability of inheritance nevertheless leaves it bearing resemblance to the regulative Idea as employed by Kant and Husserl. I will try to examine avenues I might take in exploring these similarities.
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