Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation With Jacques Derrida (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy)

Rating:
Summary: A note of caution
Review: ....for Derrida is not easy reading. This fine book takes some of his best concepts and explains them in a clear and witty style. Highly recommended starting point for the beginner to deconstructionist thought.

Rating:
Summary: If you don't have enough to write about for a whole book..
Review: ...repeat yourself 10 times! This seems to be the approach that Caputo takes in this book. This should come as a great surprise, of course, to readers of Derrida, who likely see no end to the amount you could write about this prolific and deeply influential contemporary philosopher. In support of Caputo, his writing comes with great clarity and does help the reader wade through the beginnings of the depths of Derrida; however, he neglects to address much of the scope of Derrida's work, and instead rewrites the first 30 pages 5 or 6 times. The interview, of course, helps bring clarity to Derrida's philosophical project, but for anyone who would be reading Derrida, the interview is straight-forward enough that the remainder of the book is excessive and unnecessary. Furthermore, Caputo uses this space to express not-so-subtle (and irrelevant to the text) personal grievances. Caputo writes of the "narrow and culturally irrelevant style of philosophizing in... the Ivy League departments of philosophy, resistant to its own history, to history itself, and to the socio-political matrix of philosophizing in every age." (p.39) As for his authority on this subject, Caputo has never studied nor taught at any of these departments (earning his B.A. from LaSalle University, M.A. from Villanova University, and Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr College) Remarks such as these have no place in literary criticism, and Caputo does well in demonstrating his lack of professional integrity here and elsewhere in the book. If you want an easy to read introduction to Derrida, try "Positions", a collection of three interviews translated by Alan Bass. Else, just take on "Of Grammatology".

Rating:
Summary: waste of money!
Review: Caputo's tone in the commentary, which constitutes all but the first 30 or so pages of this book, is infuriatingly cutesy and playful, and behind his cutness and attempts to paraphrase Derrida, there is very little interesting commentary. It is obvious that Caputo has a great deal of admiration and love for his subject, but beyond that, I found an awful lot of defensive rhetoric and lots of wonderful aspects of Derrida's work completely left out of the discussion. It seems Caputo's greatest interest lies in Theology and Deconstruction, and I was interested by his brief comments about Derrida's relationship to Judaism, but he barely gets into the subject in this book, and instead recommmends that the reader read one of his several other books on Derrida. One can only hope that his other books contain more original ideas and less of his own titles in the ever-present footnotes!

Also: although this title will undoubtedly attract "beginners" to Deconstruction, I must say I am grateful that this text was not my first introduction to Derrida. While Derrida has a reputation for being difficult reading, the rewards one gets are certanly worth the effort! There is bound to be something that interests you among the titles that make up his prodigious output. Buy Dissemination, or Writing and Difference, take it in, and then check this book out of the library, read the "Roundtable", bask in the brilliance, and return it. Now you'll have more room on your bookshelf for books worth owning!

Now, the "Rountable Discussion", which opens the book, was very enjoyable to read. Derrida is questioned on a wide range of his work, and anyone who likes reading Derrida will love reading his unprepared remarks in English, since it is the closest most of us will get to a dinner table discussion with the man!

Rating:
Summary: Interesting Roundtable Talk and Lively Commentary
Review: DECONSTRUCTION IN A NUTSHELL contains a series of questions to and answers by Jacques Derrida at the inauguration of Villanova's doctoral program in philosophy a few years ago. Why it is for the most part Catholic schools that are willing to teach any sort of innovative philosophy in the Anglo world I'm not entirely sure. Anyway, Derrida talks about justice, comparing it with the giving of a gift. Before quoting what he says, I'd like to bear in mind a few maxims from La Rochefoucauld:

"A man's ingratitude may be less reprehensible than the motives of his benefactor."

"Over-eagerness to repay a debt is in itself a kind of ingratitude."

"Almost everybody enjoys repaying small obligations, many are grateful for middling ones, but there is scarcely a soul who is not ungrateful for big ones."

Here's Derrida: "The only thing I would say about the gift - this is an enormous problem - is that the gift is precisely, and this is what it has in common with justice, something which cannot be reappropriated. A gift is something which never appears as such and is never equal to gratitude, to commerce, to compensation, to reward. When a gift is given, first of all, no gratitude can be proportionate to it. A gift is something that you cannot be thankful for. As soon as I say 'thank you' for a gift, I start canceling the gift, I start destroying the gift, by proposing an equivalence, that is, a circle which encircles the gift in a movement of reappropriation. So, a gift is something that is beyond the circle of reappropriation, beyond the circle of gratitude. A gift should not even be acknowledged as such. As soon as I know that I give something, if I say 'I am giving you something,' I just canceled the gift. I congratulate myself or thank myself for giving something and then the circle has already started to cancel the gift. So, the gift should not be rewarded, should not be reappropriated, and should not even appear as such. As soon as the gift appears as such then the movement of gratitude, of acknowledgment, has started to destroy the gift, if there is such a thing - I am not sure, one is never sure that there is a gift, that the gift is given. If the gift is given, then it should not even appear to the one who receives it, not appear as such. That is paradoxical, but that is the condition for a gift to be given. "That is the condition the gift shares with justice. A justice that could appear as such, that could be calculated, a calculation of what is just and what is not just, saying what has to be given in order to be just - that is not justice. That is social security, economics. Justice and gift should go beyond calculation. This does not mean that we should not calculate. We have to calculate as rigorously as possible. But there is a point or limit beyond which calculation must fail, and we must recognize that."

To the extent that Derrida is not just being mystical, he seems to me to be talking about kindness, and would be better off using that word, even if Plato did not. Derrida takes La Rochefoucauld's ideas to an extreme, which is strange. La Rochefoucauld was convinced that there was no kindness in the world. He spoke of justice as a disguised expression of "self-interest," just as political theorists referred to it as a contract. Derrida seeks to promote more kindness in the world, well aware of its existence, by accepting La Rochefoucauld's assertion that it does not exist.

Rating:
Summary: A note of caution
Review: I would suggest that anyone (a "beginner") purchasing this book to understand "Deconstruction" as a philosophy in the grand meta-narrative sense will be disappointed. "Deconstruction" should be understood more precisely as a process of keeping a critical check on philosophical assumptions employed in philosophy in any historical time. It involves --as a process-- analysis of (un)warranted assumptions and conclusions in philosophy, and in that regard is extraordinarily helpful in assessing --to a certain extent-- philosophical arguments. One should be quick to add that "Deconstruction" is a tool, not a dogma or philosophical worldview per se, which the book attempts to address implicitly. I would take care not to recommend this and related works to those interested in analysis of pure philosophy, which does have value unto itself outside of socio-historical and linguistic criticism, which --to a large extent-- is the main thrust of "Deconstruction" as a "discipline." Overall, the book constitutes a good introduction to Derrida's thinking --thinking which has without doubt provided much of the furniture of the landscape of "Deconstructive" analysis. This book is a nice introduction to that landscape, not philosophical landscapes as conceived by philosophers. Though Derrida is an extraordinary philosopher, "Deconstruction" should probably not be thought of as a philosophical process. I am not sure if this book communicates this implicit distinction that is currently drawn among many respectable academicians.

Rating:
Summary: waste of money!
Review: Much of this book is seems to alternate between giddy celebration of Derrida and a prickly defense of Deconstruction. The latter is probably unneeded in this book, the former makes me impatient. Caputo's "playful" style becomes quite annoying - unfortunate because the material is very interesting (I particularly liked the chapter on Community).

The first part of the book, the interview, is quite good. The questions are engaging and Derrida's responses are clear and relevant. The rest of the book is more spotty. On the whole, the book is worthwhile but it might be more profitable to go straight to Derrida's writing.

Rating:
Summary: Quite frustrating, occasionally rewarding
Review: Much of this book is seems to alternate between giddy celebration of Derrida and a prickly defense of Deconstruction. The latter is probably unneeded in this book, the former makes me impatient. Caputo's "playful" style becomes quite annoying - unfortunate because the material is very interesting (I particularly liked the chapter on Community).

The first part of the book, the interview, is quite good. The questions are engaging and Derrida's responses are clear and relevant. The rest of the book is more spotty. On the whole, the book is worthwhile but it might be more profitable to go straight to Derrida's writing.