Abstract

This dissertation is an attempt to demonstrate the ethico-political horizon of deconstruction, by answering to the following question: does Derrida take a turn from the metaphysics to politics and ethics? The answer to this question is not characterized as the turn from metaphysics to ethics and politics; rather, it is the move to the foreground where Derrida unveils the ethico-political horizon in the metaphysical disclosure. This move occurs within his promise to take a further step toward the thinking of the political. It sets the tone for the meaning of the political in light of textual practices. ;The first chapter is an overview of deconstruction. This overview is an attempt to reveal that the gesture of deconstruction lies within a metaphysical domain. It provides important resources for the understanding of Derrida's later works, which I show to be en route to the ethicalization of the political. ;The second chapter is an attempt to examine the thought of Emmanuel Levinas. In it, I draw attention to Derrida's personal background. This is because he brings it out to demonstrate his philosophical enterprise. The demonstration in turn contains an argument through which the ethico-political horizon of deconstruction comes into fruition. ;In the third chapter, I principally examine the political engagement of deconstruction. In this way, Derrida's response to a political event defines the horizon in which politics must be coincide with ethics, at the same time that ethics needs to be actualized by its political exercise. ;The fourth chapter is not only devoted to the thought of difference and the notion of the alterity of the other, but also elaborates such major ethico-political texts as Specters of Marx, Politics of Friendship, The Other Heading, Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas and Of Hospitality. These texts explicitly contain a political response to an eventual moment. I place this response in the position to be perceived as political. ;The last chapter is devoted to the reading of "Force of Law." This reading explicitly reveals both the idea of justice and the notion of responsibility as the fundamental features of deconstructive politics. I conclude my dissertation with the affirmation that Derrida's conception of the political is conceived as the open onto the unconditional priority of self-righteousness