(1989). The autonomy of social reality: On the contribution of the theory of systems to the theory of society 1 . World Futures: Vol. 27, No. 2-4, pp. 153-175.

‘Disastrologies’ explores Derrida's fascination with dates and how that fascination reveals a secret correspondence, in every sense of the word, with Walter Benjamin – a man who has the same birth-date as Derrida. It is, though, the date of Benjamin's death and indeed its infamous mise-en-scène, the cheap hotel on the Franco-Spanish border, that dominates this text which takes the form of a dramatic monologue delivered by the hotel manager, Juan Suñer, a man known to be both a manipulator of (...) dates and, indeed, close to the Gestapo. As the monologue unfolds, Suñer advances an elaborate calendrical re-reading of a host of Derrida texts which probes at the mystery not only of Benjamin's last night but also of living with both Jewish and Christian calendars. Finally, we see how this last of nights puts under unbearable pressure the infinite promise of both the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Sunday. (shrink)

Nel panorama della filosofia politica e sociale contemporanea la teoria del riconoscimento di Axel Honneth costituisce uno dei paradigmi più rappresentativi. A partire da Lotta per il riconoscimento, il volume del 1992 in cui Honneth espone per la prima volta la sua teoria, gli interventi e le discussioni riguardanti quest’ultima sono andati rapidamente moltiplicandosi, a riprova dell’interesse suscitato da una concezione in grado di far confluire, in una proposta originale e dotata di forza critica e descrittiva, motivi hegeliani e temi (...) marxiani, teoria critica francofortese e sociologia culturale anglosassone, storia sociale e apporti psicoanalitici. L’obiettivo di questo libro è tracciare un quadro dettagliato e al contempo sistematico dell’opera honnethiana, che permetta di evidenziare le molte acquisizioni positive di essa ma anche i suoi limiti e nodi irrisolti, a cominciare dai primi scritti fino all’ultima monografia ad oggi pubblicata da Honneth, Das Recht der Freiheit (2011). (shrink)

This paper deals with two forms of education—Platonic and Socratic. The former educates childhood to transform it into what it ought to be. The latter does not form childhood, but makes education childlike. To unfold the philosophical and pedagogical dimensions of this opposition, the first part of the paper highlights the way in which philosophy is presented indirectly in some of Plato’s dialogues, beginning with a characterisation that Socrates makes of himself in the dialogue Phaedrus. The second part details Plato’s (...) condemnation of writing in the Phaedrus, and draws on the critique by Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze to establish what is at stake in this condemnation. In the third part, the pedagogical and political implications of this condemnation are reviewed, and Plato is placed in a surprising position in relation to his own teacher, Socrates. Finally, through a comparison between childhood and philosophy, the educational value of putting childhood and philosophy together is questioned. Through a number of questions, the paper ends problematising the pedagogical, political and philosophical value of placing the practice of philosophy in the realm of childhood citizenship education. It also recovers the value of philosophy—as a form of questioning and unlearning what we know and affirming the value of not knowing—in a childlike education. (shrink)

Inaugural lecture as Professor of Women's Studies in the Arts Faculty of the University of Utrecht, May 16, 1990.

This essay will concentrate, somewhat voyeuristically, on a particular and very special textual encounter. For if there is one text in the psychoanalytic tradition that will have caused Derrida to spill more ink than any other – it's Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920). For ten years, from 1970–1980, Derrida returns not once but three times, on three separate occasions, in three different contexts, to Freud's text on repetition compulsion and the death drive, each time devoting more time and energy (...) – that is to say, more pages – to it. As we will see in this essay, what emerges from this textual encounter is not only a new kind of pleasure; it is also a chance event of repetition that brings with it something strikingly new. (shrink)

Este artículo es una lectura del problema filosófico del mal a partir del estudio de las figuras de la bruja, la vaca y la leche en la obra de Derrida. Seguiremos los desarrollos que de este problema se encuentran en sus lecturas de Hegel, Nietzsche y Freud proponiendo, en primer lugar, algunas variaciones filosóficas y psicoanalíticas para comprender un conjunto de intrincadas referencias cruzadas con el trabajo de Hamacher y el problema del comer y, en segundo lugar, mostrando cómo la (...) significación de esta discusión sobre el problema del mal en estos autores se pudo convertir en un lugar de referencia para las "lecturas deconstructivas". (shrink)