Synopses & Reviews
Review
A brilliant book that holds more for students of philosophy or literature than any other single work on. -- Christina Robb - Boston Globe
Review
A formidable book ...[A] splendidly full and orderly synthesis of Derrida's thought, which makes a meticulous case for him as a philosopher of real substance, given the radical nature of his investigations in the philosophies of language and of meaning. -- J. W Maclnnes - Choice
Review
A challenging book . . . It is beautifully organized and clear throughout, and will repay extensive study. Gasche's success in situating Derrida in relation to the philosophical tradition is such that it should make Derrida's thought unavoidable (incontournable, Derrida might say) for anyone concerned, today, with the history of philosophy. -- John Sturrock - London Review of Books
Synopsis
Deconstruction is no game of mirrors, revealing the text as a play of surface against surface. Its more radical philosophical effort is to get behind the mirror and question the very nature of reflection. The Tain of the Mirror (tain names the tinfoil, or lusterless back of the mirror) explores that gritty surface without which no reflection would be possible. Gasche does what no one has done before in many discussions of Derrida, namely to tie his work in an authoritative way to its origins in the history of the criticism of reflexivity.
About the Author
Rodolphe Gaschéis the Eugenio Donato Professor of Comparative Literature at the <ânewâ>State University of New York, Buffalo.
Table of Contents
Introduction
PART 1: TOWARD THE LIMITS OF REFLECTION
1. Defining Reflection
2. The Philosophy of Reflection
3. The Self-Destruction of Reflection
Isolated Reflection
Philosophical Reflection
Speculative or Absolute Reflection
4. Identity, Totality, and Mystic Rapture
5. Post-Hegelian Criticism of Reflexivity
6. Beyond Reflection: The Interlacings of Heterology
PART 2: ON DECONSTRUCTION
7. Abbau, Destruktion, Deconstruction
8. Deconstructive Methodology
The Propaedeutics of Deconstruction
Against Neutrality
Infrastructural Accounting
The Marginal Inscription of the Ground
The Bipartite Operation of Deconstruction
9. A System beyond Being
The Infrastructural Chain
The General Theory of Doubling
The General System
PART 3: LITERATURE OR PHILOSOPHY?
10. Literature in Parentheses
11. The Inscription of Universality
Writing
Text
Metaphor
Notes
Bibliography
Index