8. The Original Polemos: Phenomenology and Violence in Jacques Derrida –Valeria Campos-Salvaterra (original) (raw)

2018, The Meanings of Violence: From Critical Theory to Biopolitics, 1st Edition. Edited by Gavin Rae, Emma Ingala

Violence is a permanent and central feature of Jacques Derrida’s philosophy. While various commentators have noted the role it plays in his later works, in this chapter, I argue that these build on his early notions of ‘originary violence,’ ‘arche-violence,’ and ‘transcendental violence.’ I state that the relationship between violence and origin is found in Derrida’s analysis of the normative structure of Husserlian phenomenological discourse with this providing the ‘ground’ for Derrida’s subsequent critical readings of Levinas and Lévi-Strauss. Through his engagements with Husserl, Levinas, and Lévi-Strauss, Derrida unfolds a philosophical strategy that aims to question the very possibility of fully determining what is right and wrong, good and evil, violent and non-violent, and so on. If violence is originary, as Derrida concludes, then any attempt to criticize it must always be based on the arche-violence of meaning, with the consequence that any planned escape from violence and hence a pure non-violence is simply not possible. * This document is the proof Routledge sent me to correct, so is not the final publish version. To get the final paper go to https://www.routledge.com/The-Meanings-of-Violence-From-Critical-Theory-to-Biopolitics/Rae-Ingala/p/book/9781138570207