eBook Limited Inc (English and French Edition) ePub

Adokelv

tough read.

Unereel

The Editor’s Foreword to this 1988 book explains, “‘Limited Inc’ collects in one volume for the first time, the two essays that constitute Jacques Derrida’s most sustained engagement with Anglo-American speech act theory. In a new Afterword… Derrida responds to questions… about the two essays and the criticisms they have received, as well as other controversial aspects of Derrida’s work… In its second volume (1977), [the publication] Glyph published a response to Derrida’s essay by John R. Searle … It was this ‘Reply’ that drew Derrida’s rejoinder, the essay ‘Limited inc abc’…; When Professor Searle declined to have his essay included in the present book, we decided to insert a brief summary of its main points in an editorial note between Derrida’s two essady… readers should be able to reconstruct the dispute between Derrida and Searle. But they are advised to consult the full text of Searle’s essay in Glyph 2.”

In the opening essay, Derrida states, “If we take the notion of writing in its currently accepted sense---one which should not… be considered innocent, primitive, or natural, it can only be seen as a MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. Indeed, one is compelled to regard it as an especially potent means of communication, extending enormously, in not infinitely, the domain of oral or gestural communication.” (Pg. 3) He lists the “nuclear traits of all writing”: “(1) the break with the horizon of communication as communication of consciousness or of presences and as linguistical or semantic transport of the desire to mean what one says… (2) the disengagement of all writing from the semantic or hermeneutic horizons which… are riven by writing; (3) the necessity of disengaging from the concept of polysemics what I have elsewhere called ‘dissemination’… (4) the disqualification or the limiting of the concept of context, whether ‘real’ or ‘linguistic’…” (Pg. 8-9)

He explains, “Deconstruction cannot be restricted or immediately pass to a neutralization: it must, through a double gesture, a double science, a double writing---put into practice a REVERSAL of the classical opposition AND a general DISPLACEMENT of the system. It is on that condition alone that deconstruction will provide the means of INTERVENING in the field of oppositions it criticizes and that is also a field of nondiscursive forces… Deconstruction does not consist in moving from one concept to another, but in reversing and displacing a conceptual order as well as the nonconceptual order with which it is articulated.” (Pg. 21)

In the editorial summary of Searle’s essay, they state, “Much of Searle’s reply responds to Derrida’s critique of the classical concept of writing ‘as the communication of intended meaning.’ Searle challenges Derrida’s argument that, as Searle puts it, ‘since writing can and must be able to function in the radical absence of the sender, the receiver, and the context of production, it cannot be the communication of the sender’s meaning to the receiver’. Searle argues that it is not, as Derrida claims, the ‘iterability, the repeatability of the linguistic elements,’ that distinguishes writing from oral speech, but the relative permanence of writing… He argues that ‘the way in which a written text is weaned from its origin is quite different from the way in which any expression can be severed from its meaning through the form of ‘iterability’ that is exemplified by the quotation… Searle disputes what he takes to be Derrida’s contention that written discourse involves a ‘break with the author’s intentions, in particular or with intentionality in general.’ … Searle then turns to Derrida’s interpretation of J.L. Austin’s theory of speech acts arguing that Derrida’s version of Austin in unrecognizable… In conclusion, then, Searle argues that iterability… is not as Derrida seems to think something in conflict with the intentionality of linguistic acts, spoken or written, it is the necessary presupposition of the forms which that intentionality takes.” (Pg. 25-27)

Derrida then comments on Searle’s essay: “I had, first of all, to resist the temptation of contenting myself with a commentary (in the American sense) on the thing…” (Pg. 30) He goes on, “I wanted, before all ‘serious’ argument to suggest that the terrain is slippery and shifting, mined and undermined. And that this ground it, by essence, an underground.” (Pg. 34) He continued, “I decide here and from this moment on to give the presumed and collective author … the French name ‘Société à responsibilité limitée’—literally, ‘Society with Limited Responsibility’ (or Limited Liability)---which is normally abbreviated ‘Sarl.’ I ask that the translator leave this conventional expression in French…” (Pg. 36)

He observes, “if there is only one sentence of the ‘Reply’ to which I can subscribe, it is the first (‘It would be a mistake, I think, to regard Derrida’s discussion of Austin as a confrontation between two prominent philosophical traditions’), although for reasons other than those of Sarl. I know of no one, aside from Sarl, who could have formed such an hypothesis… For I, too, consider it quite false, though for different reasons. Among the many reasons that make me unqualified to represent a ‘prominent philosophical tradition,’ there is this one. I consider myself to be in many respects quite close to Austin…” (Pg. 37-38)

He points out, “Sarl refers several times to articles of John R. Searle, which, dating from 1975, could not have been taken into account by Sec [Derrida’s essay, ‘Signature Event Context’] (1971)… This is why shortly, indeed as soon as possible, I shall incorporate these most recent publications of J.R. Searle into the dossier of this discussion. How, therefore, will it be possible, from now on, to know just exactly WHICH Searle Sec has failed to miss? I therefore prefer, out of prudence but also out of courtesy, to endeavor to respond---not reply---to Sarl.” (Pg. 42) He notes, “Sarl might have posed the question of why the word ‘permanence,’ which is used and attributed to Sec, NEVER APPEARS IN THAT ESSAY. And even if it had appeared there, what matters here is that it would never have been used to oppose writing to speech.” (Pg. 51)

He explains, “at no time does Sec invoke the ABSENCE, pure and simple, of intentionality. Nor is there any break, simple or radical, with intentionality. What the text questions is not intention or intentionality but their ‘telos,’ which orients and organizes the movement and the possibility of a fulfillment, realization, and ACTUALIZATION in a plenitude that would be PRESENT to and identical with itself. That is why…the words ‘actual’ and ‘present’ are those that bear the brunt of the argumentation each time that it is radicalized.” (Pg. 56) He asserts, “even if I had been able to calm Sarl down, I would certainly have had no luck with Searle, who, in the same chapter of ‘Speech Acts,’ mounts a crusade against that ‘philosophy of language’ which leads to the interminable multiplication of quotation marks upon quotation marks.” (Pg. 81)

He states, “In substituting ‘of writing’ for ‘of God,’ Sec has not merely replaced one word by another… Sec names writing in this place where the iterability of the proof (of God’s existence) PRODUCES WRITING, drawing the name of God … into a graphematic drift that excludes … any decision as to whether God is more than the name of God… etc…. The ‘perhaps’ of the ‘that it perhaps does not exist’ does not oppose the status of writing to that of God, who, Himself, should certainly exist. It draws the consequences from what has just been said about God Himself and about existence in general, in its relation to the name and to the reference.” (Pg. 83)

He says, “I would be tempted to repeat, with the very words of [Searle’s] Reply: ‘The problem is rather that Derrida’s Austin is unrecognizable…’ This is true. But what is unrecognizable, bearing no relation to the original, is not simply Austin, but indeed ‘Derrida’s Austin.’ I fully subscribe to what Sarl says: reading it there: ‘Derrida’s Austin IS unrecognizable.’ It will therefore not come as too great a shock to find that the five criticisms directed as ‘Derrida’s Austin’ are, from their very inception, trapped in the most resistant autism.” (Pg. 88)

He concludes his essay, “I promised (very) sincerely to be serious. Have I kept my promise? Have I taken Sarl seriously? I do not know if I was supposed to. Should I have? Were they themselves serious in their speech acts? Shall I say that I am afraid they were? Would that mean that I do not take their seriousness very seriously? What am I saying? What am I doing when I say that? I ask myself if we will ever be quits with the confrontation. Will it have taken place, this time? Quite?” (Pg. 107)

Derrida comments in the Afterword, “From the moment that Searle entrusts himself to an oppositional logic, to the ‘distinction’ of concepts by ‘contrast’ or ‘opposition’ (a legitimate demand that I share with him, even if I do not at all elicit the same consequences from it), I have difficulty seeing how he is nevertheless able to write this phrase… in which he credits me with the ‘assumption’… ‘that unless a distinction can be made rigorous and precise, it isn’t really a distinction at all.’ Among all the accusations that shocked me coming from his pen… why is it that this one is without a doubt the most stupefying, the most unbelievable? And, I must confess, also the most incomprehensible to me.” (Pg. 123)

He explains, “this is the true source of anxiety in certain circles, which is merely revealed by ‘deconstruction’; for before becoming a discourse, an organized practice that RESEMBLES a philosophy, a theory, a method, which it is NOT, in regard to those unstable stabilities or this destabilization that it makes its principal theme, ‘deconstruction’ is firstly this destabilization on the move in, if one could speak thus,’ ‘the things themselves’; but it is not negative. Destabilization is required for ‘progress’ as well. And the ‘de’ of Deconstruction signifies not the demolition of what is constructing itself, but rather what remains to be thought beyond the constructivist or destructionist scheme.” (Pg. 147)

I found it disappointing (if not exactly unexpected) that there was not a “genuine” exchange of views between Derrida and Searle that came from this exchange. But the philosophical “world views’ (Analytic vs. Deconstructionist) of these two philosophers are probably too far apart for such dialogue to take place. At any rate, Derrida’s explications of his views that are contained in this book are well worth serious study, for anyone interested in his thought, or in Deconstruction in general.

Kazigrel

"Let's be serious" Derrida writes. Then four paragraphs later he writes it again. Then several pages later again. What is the effect of this textual trope? It gives the reader the feeling that what Derrida has been writing, reasoning and arguing up to that point has not been "serious". And that means, it can't be philosophy, for philosophy concerns "serious" issues right? But all the while, Derrida continues to address important questions and "serious" arguments put forth by "serious" philosopher John Searle's... so surely he is in fact being serious? Can we be really be certain? Derrida, I think, wants to open up these questions and it is here where his style itself becomes the philosophical question: can we ever really be sure of conceptual serious and non-serious speech acts?
Limited Inc is a collection of three short pieces which encapsulate the famous exchange (or polemic?) b/w the late Austin, Derrida and american philosopher Searle. The first essay is Derrida's critique of Austin's earliest statement of Speech Act theory: "How to do things with Words". The second is Derrida lengthy reply to Searle's criticisms of Derrida's first essay (Searle is the crusader of contemporary Speech Acts.. Mr. Speech Acts, if you will) and the third, and perhaps most insightful is "Afterword" an interview with Derrida several years after the fact, where Derrida reflects on the "violence" of the earlier Searle-Derrida exchange.
I give Limited Inc a 5 star rating for simply the addition of "Afterwords". This interview is the (in my experience) clearest statement of Derrida's project of deconstruction-- to lessen the "violence" of philosophical practices and bring them to a new contextual level where they no longer operate undetected. It is also Derrida's first direct response to many of the (I believe) misdirected attacks on deconstruction -- e.g., the much misunderstood phrase "il n'y a pas d'ors text" -- there is nothing outside the text, which Derrida states vehemently, means not that there is no "reality" outside of a text (idealism) but, there is nothing outside of "context".
It is points like this, I believe, which will help clear up a lot of the speculation surrounding Derrida's philosophy *and* politics. Limited Inc, I predict, will be an integral text in bringing Derrida's unique philosophical enterprise its into the Post-Wittgensteinian analytic tradition where it deserves to be studied.