Aporias

by Jacques Derrida

Book Overview

"My death--is it possible?"

That is the question asked, explored, and analyzed in Jacques Derrida's new book. "Is my death possible?" How is this question to be understood? How and by whom can it be asked, can it be quoted, can it be an appropriate question, and can it be asked in the appropriate moment, the moment of "my death"? One of the aporetic experiences touched upon in this seminal essay is the impossible, yet unavoidable experience...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0804722528
• ISBN13: 9780804722520
• Release Date: December 1993
• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Length: 104 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Death as aporia, as wonderment

Is "death" a limit? For Derrida "death" is that which `involves a certain step / not ... pace' (il y va d'un certain pas) (p. 6). It is not a telos or a terma, a limit beyond which there is none, but rather a `step', a peras, a passage one traverses by penetrating. At the same time, it is the moment of a `not', of an impossibility. What is more, it is certain that one reaches this step as impossibility, as non-path at a certain pace. And in bringing forth Heidegger and the Aristotelian notion of aporia in the sense of being stuck in-between, Derrida is wondering whether "death" can be conceptualized in non-vulgar terms without being stuck in an impasse. To achieve this, he remarks that aporia is the border as limit, as oros, and at the same time as tracing, as gramme. Hence an `aporetology' (p. 15) as has been his key concern in numerous instances, when, what is at stake, is not the crossing of the border, but rather, the double concept of the border from which aporia comes to be determined. Thus the word "death" whose concept is `unassignable or unassigning' (p. 22). And to expand on this, Derrida explores two issues. First the idea of aporia as the impossible (in § 1: Finis) along with Heidegger's definition of "death" as `the possibility of the pure and simple impossibility for Dasein' (p. 23). In using the Heideggerian distinction between "properly dying" (tod - eigentlich sterben) and "perishing" (verenden), Derrida emphasizes that the problem of "death" concerns Dasein or the mortal, `not man (sic), the human subject, but it is that in terms of which the humanity of man must be rethought' (p. 35). A possible answer lies in "demise" (ableben) in the sense of walking away from life, thus placing an emphasis on the "arrivant" with no name or identity i.e. Dasein proper - death proper. Such delimitations institute a three-pronged inquiry for Derrida in one single braid: the problematic closure (conceptualisation of limit), anthropological border (discourse on limit), and conceptual demarcation (logical redefinition). Second the idea of aporia as the crossing of borders (in §2: Awaiting (at) the Arrival). To this purpose, to wonder what there is after death makes methodological sense if the ontological essence of death has been elaborated and existential analysis of death has been carried out. More importantly such decisions occur here, over this side (i.e. not after death): they concern Dasein in its essence of `the being-possible' (p. 63). With an emphasis on the possible, Derrida remarks that `death is the most proper possibility of this possibility' (i.e. being-possibility of Dasein): with death Dasein awaits itself, standing before the impending anachronism (contretemps) of death. To conclude I want to go to the beginning where Derrida dedicates this text to Koitchi Toyosaki, apparently for two reasons: Toyosaki's death and his father's (p. x). It seems to me that in citing `Toyosaki' and given that `names matter' (p. 21), Derrida is e

The Buddhist Connection

birth == death. Heidegger is wading into eastern philosophical waters here. The impossibility of Being through the possibility of death of Being or as Being.

disagree again

Dasein is not being towards death if death is non-relational and unrepresentable, and about those two points we seem to agree. Rather, dasein is death, it is not related to death. How else can one understand the equivalence birth=death? If that is the case, then the problem of the as such is not a problem, because dasein is not related to death, it is related to the nothing, and the nothing as such, the nihil absolutum, which opens up another big can of worms.Derrida does so much dancing around that he avoids the real problem.

disagree

Derrida has Heidegger wrong. Supposedly Heidegger understands death as the possibility of impossibility as such, and hence Dasein is the sein-zum-TOd, or the being towards the possibility of impossibility as such. Derrida denies the as such and asks, how can dasein be towards such an 'as such'? Heidegger says no such thing however. Dasein is not sein zum Ende, rather Dasein, correctly understood, is Ende zu sein. It is not toward an end, it is an end. Notice the even humorous inversion of Aristotle. Death is non-relational, it is unbezuglich. One cannot adopt a relation to death because death is impossibility, and Dasein is possibility: Dasein is the possibility of impossibility. Death is not ahead of Dasein, rather death can occur at any moment, hence death never "stands before" (bevorstehende), it is rather "unbezuglich," non-relational. Derrida fails to understand, once again, that he misunderstands Heidegger by trying to jump ahead of him.

A fascinating discussion of death and truth

This intriguing book discusses the literature of death by other authors such as Aries and Heidegger. In his attempt to get at the limits of our understanding of death, perhaps to find Truth, Derrida raises some interesting questions: Can one ever truly experience death as such? Is it possible to come to terms with the concept of "my death"? This book is a must-read for anyone interested in philosophy or studies of life and death.