Abstract

Gasché proposes to bring forth in Derrida's writings a philosophical dimension that has gone largely unrecognized by "deconstructionist" literary criticism and by a philosophical community that has for the most part been able to see in his text only a scandalous refusal of the traditional techniques of philosophical argumentation. He attempts to demonstrate the systematic character of Derrida's thought and its general scope, and to do so he gives particular attention to the earlier and more properly philosophical writings. This is a gesture that will inevitably meet some resistance from those who admire the more written dimension of Derrida's work. But Gasché is fully justified in arguing that any attempt to assess Derrida's effort to assume in his writing what he attempts to think with a notion such as "différance" must proceed from an understanding of his philosophical project.