“To expose the essential traits and the philosophical thrust of Derridean thought, I have chosen a triple approach. First, I ,situate and interpret Derrida’s philosophy with respect to one particular philosophical problem and its history: namely, the criticism of the notion of reflexivity. Second, while choosing that form of presentation, developed since Aristotle, that proceeds by logical dependency, I also link together a multitude of motifs in Derrida’s oeuvre in order to demonstrate the consistent nature of this philosophical enterprise, and to attempt to systematize some of its results. Third, I further develop these concerns, especially insofar as they impinge on the problem of universality, by analyzing a series of Derridean concepts that have been absorbed into deconstructionist criticism, and I clarify their philosophical status in Derrida’s work. This threefold intention broadly corresponds to the three parts of this book.
Unlike others who have attempted to situate Derrida’s thought in the history of the grand disputes concerning the question of being (Gérard Granel], or in the apocryphal history of the grammatological (Jean Greisch). not to mention certain histories bordering on the phantasmic which some philosophers and critics have devised, I discuss Derrida’s philosophy in terms of the criticism to which the philosophical concept of reflection and reflexivity has been subjected. The reasons for this choice are dearly circumstantial. Indeed the dominant misconception of Derrida is based on the confusion by many literary critics of deconstruction with reflexivity. Reflection and reflexivity, however, are precisely what will not fit in Derrida’s work – not because he would wish to refute or reject them in favor of a dream of immediacy. but because his work questions reflection’s unthought, and thus the limits of its possibility. This book’s title, The Tain of the Mirror, alludes t0 that “beyond” of the orchestrated mirror play of reflection that Derrida’s philosophy seeks to conceptualizc. Tain, a word altered from the French étain, according to the OED, refers to the tinfoil, the silver lining, the lusterless back of the mirror. Derrida‘s philosophy, rather than being a philosophy of reflection, is engaged in the systematic exploration of that dull surface without which no reflection and no specular and speculative activity would be possible, but which at the same time has no place and no part in reflection’s scintillating play.
Yet my history of the critique of reflection, outlined in Part I, is not a straightforward history. It does not describe the full range of answers suggested with respect to this question. Nor does it refer to the Anglo-Saxon and American authors who have broached this problem, from Shadworth Hodgson to Sydney Shoemaker. By contrast, Hegel’s speculative criticism of the philosophy of reflection is given what some may consider inordinate importance. But Part I is intended not as a total history of that problem, but merely as an oriented history that serves as a theoretical prelude to the systematic exposition of Derrida’s thought, which I undertake in Part II. In spite of my contention that Derrida’s philosophy must be related to the modern history of the concept of reflection and to the criticism it has drawn, I seek primarily to bring into view Derrida’s debate with the traditional paradigms of philosophy in general. The speculative form in which Hegel cast the unvarying philosophical topoi, and even their Husserlian or Heideggerian phenomenological form, are, undoubtedly, because of their strategic importance for Derrida’s writings as a whole, privileged means of access to this thinker’s discourse. But neither Hegel nor Husserl is truly at stake, nor is any other regional or historically limited form of philosophy. At stake rather is what in these authors touches on the enterprise of philosophy as such. Indeed to interpret Derrida is to confront the whole tradition of Western thought, not so much as a cumulative series of philosophical figures, however, but as a tradition rooted in and yielding to a set of unsurpassable theoretical and ethical themes and demands. These are, as I have tried to show, the real terms of reference and the adequate horizon of thought of Derrida’s philosophical enterprise, and they alone explain the radicality and contemporary attractiveness of his writing, however misconstrued they may have been.
In short, whether discussing Hegel, Husserl, or Heidegger, Derrida is primarily engaged in a debate with the main philosophical question regarding the ultimate foundation of what is. Contrary to those philosophers who naively negate and thus remain closely and uncontrollably bound up with this issue, Derrida confronts the philosophical quest for the ultimate foundation as a necessity. Yet his faithfulness to intrinsic philosophical demands is paired with an inquiry into the inner limits of these demands themselves, as well as of their unquestionable necessity.
My goal is to demonstrate that Derrida’s philosophical writings display a subtle economy that recognizes the essential requirements of philosophical thought while questioning the limits of the possibility of these requirements. Deconstruction, as I show in Part II, is engaged in the construction of these “quasi-synthetic concepts” which account for the economy of the conditions of possibility and impossibility of the basic philosophemes. Infrastructures, a word used by Derrida on several occasions in reference to these quasi-synthetic constructs, seemed to represent the mast economical way to conceptualize all of Derrida’s proposed quasi-synthetic concepts in a general manner. “Undecidables” would have been an alternative, yet ‘‘infrastructure’’ has the supplementary advantage of allowing for a problematization of Derrida’s debate with structuralism and with the Platonism that it has inherited from conservative strata in Husserlian phenomenology. The notion of infrastructures has not yet been picked up by any of those who have written on Derrida. From the perspective of my analysis of deconstruction, however – its necessity, how it is carried out, and of what its conclusions consist-the occurrence of the word infrastructure in Derrida’s writings is more than a coincidence.
In Part III, I inquire into the problems of philosophical generality and universality from a deconstructive point of view by way of a discussion of Dcrrida’s use of the terms writing, textuality, and metaphor. In each case I try to reconstruct the precise context in which these concepts become operational in Derrida’s work, and thus to determine what philosophical task they are meant to perform. Here too I suggest some of the criteria that a possible deconstructionist literary criticism would have to observe.
As an investigation into the irreducibly plural conditions of possibility of all major philosophical, theoretical, and ethical desiderata, deconstruction is eminently plural. Derrida’s philosophy, as I shall show, is plural. yet not pluralistic in the liberal sense -that is, as Hegel knew, secretly monological. This plural nature, or openness, of Derrida’s philosophy makes it thoroughly impossible to conceive of his work in terms of orthodoxy, nor simply because, since he is a living author, his work is not yet completed, but primarily because it resists any possible closure, and thus doctrinal rigidity, for essential reasons. Still, such openness and pluralism do not give license to a free interpretation of Derrida’s thought. or for its adaptation to any particular need or interest. Nor are all the interpretations of Derrida’s thought that seek legitimacy in such openness equally valid. In this book I hope that I have found a middle ground between the structural plurality of Derrida’s philosophy – a plurality that makes it impossible to elevate any final essence of his work into its true meaning – and the strict criteria to which any interpretation of his work must yield, if it is to be about that work and not merely a private fantasy. These criteria, at center stage in this book, are, as I shall showphilosophical and not literary in nature.
Some might want to call my efforts a retranslation of Derrida’s writings back into the technical language of philosophy and its accepted set of questions. Indeed, in order to show at what precise point the questions and demands of philosophy are transgressed in Derrida’s thought, I have had to emphasize their techhnical aspects. Yet such a procedure can hardly he called a literal retranslation, since “philosophy” is spelled out in capital letters throughout Derrida’s work, his seemingly more playful texts included. If this is a retranslation at all, it is one that focuses on what Dupin describes, referring in The Purloined Letter to a certain game, as that which escapes “observation by dint of being excessively obvious.”‘ Yet this excessively obvious aspect of Derrida’s work, which so many readers have overlooked, is precisely what gives special significance to Derrida’s so-called abandonment of philosophy and its technical language.
Bur in addition to the danger of being too obvious in demonstrating the philosophical thrust of Derrida’s work, a more serious risk is involved in attempting a retranslation. Apart from the always looming danger of opacity and crudity owing to insufficient philosophical sensitivity on the part of the interpreter, the major danger is that this operation may be understood as an end in itself. Obviously this is the risk I encounter with the professional philosopher. Indeed, in referring Derrida’s philosophy back to the classical and technical vocabulary in order to determine precisely the level, locus, and effect of a deconstructive intervention in the traditional field of philosophical problematics, one may well confound the assignment of that locus with the debate itself. In spite of all the precautions I have taken – regarding, for instance, my reference to such Derridean concepts as originary synthesis and transcendentality to indicate the level on which his debate with philosophy occurs – my determination of the level and the scope of the debate may be mistaken by some for that which is at stake in the debate inelf. In this sense, rather than clarifying extremely intricate problems, my “retranslation” may even create a series of new obstacles to understanding Derrida’s thought. Yet this is the risk any interpretation must take, a risk that, as Derrida’s philosophy maintains, is always possible and thus a necessary possibility that has to be accounted for. And it is a risk that I happily assume, if I have been successful in providing some insights into a number of difficult matters not previously addressed, and especially if this book helps set forth more rigorous criteria for any future discussion of Derrida’s thought.”
Introduction to “The Tain of the Mirror: Derrida and the Philosophy of Reflection “, Rodolphe Gasché: (1986): pp. 15-19