Secret and Silence: On the “Jewishness” in Derrida’s Deconstructionism

Abstract

Since the 1960s, with the publication of three important works such as Speech and Phenomena, Of Grammatology, Writing and Difference in succession, Jacques Derrida studied systematically and analyzed critically “logocentrism”, “phonocentrism”, “metaphysics of presence” hidden in the tradition of the Western philosophy. It is the thoughts and writings of Derrida that made “deconstruction” the most influential intellectual activity in that time. By exploring the quasi-biography Jacques Derrida written by Derrida and Geoffrey Bennington, and the interviews between Derrida and Didier Cahen, between Derrida and Elisabeth Roudinesco, it is found that there is a kind of feature as “exteriority” in the Derrida’s reflections on the legacy of Classical philosophy, which to a great extant resulted from the life experience and the psychic trauma of Derrida as a Jewish descendant. More than that, in an international symposium held at Jewish Center in Paris in December of 2000, through comparing the interpretations of the story about Abraham’s sacrifice in scripture between Franz Kafka and Soren Kierkegaard, Derrida discussed the question of “judeities”, and expressed his understanding the relationship between deconstruction and judeities. It is judeities rather than judasim that could guard and keep the secret of truth in the history.