Disharmonious Continuity
Critiquing Presence with Sartre and Derrida
in Sartre Studies InternationalSearch for other papers by Gavin Rae in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
All currencies in US Dollar
Abstract
The traditional interpretation of the Sartre-Derrida relationship follows their own insistence that they are separated by a certain irreducible distance. Contemporary research has, however, questioned that assessment, mainly by reassessing the thought of Sartre to picture him as a precursor to poststructuralism/deconstruction. This article takes off from this stance to suggest that Sartre and Derrida are partners against a common enemy—ontological presence—but develop different paths to overcome it: Sartre affirming nothingness and Derrida affirming différance. While much work has been done on these concepts, they have rarely been used as the exclusive means through which to engage with the Sartre-Derrida relationship. Focusing on them reveals that while Sartrean nothingness and Derridean différance are oriented against ontological presence, the latter entails a radicalization of the former. Their relationship is not then one of opposition but rather one of disharmonious continuity.
Contributor Notes
Gavin Rae is Conex Marie Skłodowska-Curie Experienced Research Fellow at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain. He specializes in post-Kantian philosophy with an emphasis on sociopolitical philosophy, ethics, and theories of subjectivity. He is the author of The Problem of Political Foundations in Carl Schmitt and Emmanuel Levinas (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), Ontology in Heidegger and Deleuze (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), and Realizing Freedom: Hegel, Sartre, and the Alienation of Human Being (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), and is the coeditor, with Emma Ingala, of Subjectivity and the Political: Contemporary Perspectives (Routledge, 2017).