[HOME] [BOOKS] [ORDERING] [JOURNALS] [ABSTRACTS] [LINKS] [SPECIAL OFFERS]

Roshan de Silva Wijeyheratne, Review of John Caputo, Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida, International Journal for the Semiotics of Law / Revue Internationale de Sémiotique Juridique Vol. XI no.31 (1998), 105-112: In this book Caputo provides a lucid introductory discussion of deconstruction. Caputo reveals how Derrida's strategy of philosophical interruption is not rigidly tied to the twin 'origin' of deconstruction, Heidegger's analytic of ontological finitude and Saussure's structural linguistics. Instead, as far as Derrida's 'ethical turn' is concerned, Caputo argues that the central theme of deconstruction, the relation to the 'other', owes more to the post-ontological ethics of Levinas and Blanchot. In this respect, Caputo reveals how deconstruction offers promise, (a promise that is always 'to come'), of an infinite responsibility to the 'other'. As such, in Caputo's analysis, deconstruction offers an alternative vision of the political, beyond both liberalism and communitarianism.

[HOME] [BOOKS] [ORDERING] [JOURNALS] [ABSTRACTS] [LINKS] [SPECIAL OFFERS]