This article presents Derrida as a philosopher of history by reinterpreting his De la Grammatologie. In particular, it provides a schematic reconstruction of Part II of that book from the perspective of the problem of history. My account extends work on historicity in Derrida by privileging the themes of ‘history’ and ‘diagram’ in the Rousseau part. I thereby establish a Derridean concept of history which aims at accounting for the continuities and discontinuities of the past. This is in contrast to (...) some criticism that Derrida leaves behind, or inadequately accounts for history. Derrida describes a necessarily contorted condition of relating any historical event or development to itself or to another. This historicity informs other well-known aspects of Derrida's work, like the ‘quasi-transcendental’ terms he developed. I conclude that ‘history’ is a critical element in any understanding of deconstruction, and that deconstruction entails new kinds of history, but that some axioms of current historical thought require reformation. (shrink)

Abstract In this article, I attempt to trace Emmanuel Levinas's notion of transcendence and its relation to infinity to his Talmudic lectures to offer both a philosophical diagnosis as well as a counter to the essentialist logic of what Levinas considers the traditional or ?metaphysical? concept of time. This opens my speculative argument up to two levels of interpretation as it requires an historical investigation into the cultural context that conditioned Levinas's particular understanding of transcendence and infinity in relation to (...) his turn toward Talmud and sacred Jewish texts in the years following World War Two. But it also requires that we take seriously the critique of history as inadequate to such a task that is inherent in Levinas's presentation of these concepts. All of this hinges on the role and place of ?time? in Levinas. I consider Levinas's category of ?time immemorial? as a counter to the essentialist logic of what Levinas considers the traditional or ?metaphysical? concept of time which I claim is at the core of the ?realist? attitude toward the practice of history founded upon the categories of agency, experience, memory, testimony, and most recently the importance of ?presence?. This in turn leads me to propose two possible alternatives, through Freud and Derrida, that conserve Levinas's critique of the essentialist understanding of time uncoupled from any transcendent or theological mechanism. (shrink)