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Abstract

If the "being-one-self of anything' is already divided how is the self to relate with the other? Is this relation even possible for Derrida? In this chapter I further draw out Derrida's understanding of the subject/other relation as (im)possible through the figures of the arrivant and revenant. I do this by examining the relationship between the self and what might be termed an absolute alterity either under the name of God or Death. Both of these names call forth an understanding of possibility and impossibility. In the first instance I examine the relations between negative theology and deconstruction. Here I point to affinities between the two discourses but emphasize their differences. Woven into this analysis is the possibility and impossibility of naming God. Under the theme of Death, I discuss Derrida's reading of Heidegger's Being-towards-death and illustrate the manner in which death as a border is always already porous. Once again I mark Derrida's insistence on the impossibility of an absolute limit. What I show here is that what distinguishes Derrida's account of the impossible is both his insistence on its radical indetermination and its essential possibility.

Publication details

Published in:

Foran Lisa (2016) Derrida, the subject and the other: surviving, translating, and the impossible. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 215-256

DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-57758-0_6

Full citation:

Foran Lisa (2016) The impossible, In: Derrida, the subject and the other, Dordrecht, Springer, 215–256.