Derrida—De-Distancing—Heidegger

Abstract

human being is a creature of distance! And only by way of real primordial distance that human in his transcendence establishes toward all beings does true nearness to things begin to grow in him.-Heidegger, Metaphysical Foundations of LogicCommentaries on Martin Heidegger's Being and Time focus almost exclusively on time. focus is understandable since Heidegger announces, even before introduction proper, that book's provisional aim is interpretation of time as possible horizon for any understanding whatsoever of being.1 As a result, short sections on Dasein's spatiality (§§22-24) are easily ignored. Yet, seven issues of Critique from December 1972 to June 1973 (numbers 307-313) announced a forthcoming article by Jacques Derrida entitled, The De-distancing of Heidegger [L'e-loignement de Heidegger]. article never appeared.2 Spurs: Styles of Nietzsche, originally presented as The Question of Style in July of 1972, that is, shortly before article on de-distancing is first announced, offers an elliptic but decisive clue to Derrida's interest in problematic of Dasein's spatiality. In a discussion of way in which woman operates a certain 'action at a distance' in text of Friedrich Nietzsche, Derrida writes:Perhaps she is... abyss of distance, distancing of distance [ le distancemerit de la distance], cut of spacing, distance itself [elle-meme] if one could still say, which is impossible, distance itself. / Distance distances itself; moves farther away [La distance se distance, le loin s'eloigne] .Recourse to Heideggerian usage of word Entfernungwould be necessary here.3What, exactly, is nature of this recourse to de-distancing and why should it be necessary in a discussion of woman?Style, Work of DeconstructionTo understand Derrida's recourse to de-distancing in context of a discussion of woman, one must first understand his recourse to woman in context of a discussion of style. question of style, Derrida says, must be measured (se mesurer) with Heideggerian reading of Nietzsche.4 At time The Question of Style was presented, Heidegger's Nietzsche lectures had just been translated into French by Pierre Klossowski (1971), which is in part why Heidegger was at center of so many contemporary discussions of Nietzsche, but he provides measure,beyond historical circumstances, for at least two essential reasons. (1) If Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche reaches the thought that Nietzsche most intrinsically willed,5 then it comprehends Nietzsche himself, without remainder, such that to interpret Nietzsche would require passage through Heidegger. (2) If Heidegger's confrontation with Nietzsche becomes one with all Western thought hitherto,6 then Heideggerian interpretation consolidates entire history of metaphysics and would therefore be at work, whether critically engaged or naively ignored, in any philosophical reading of Nietzsche. Heidegger, in other words, will have already taken Nietzsche further than any future interpretation.The Grammatology specifies way in which this 'measure' must be taken and, in same stroke, provides program of Spurs. On one hand, Derrida holds that Nietzsche is far from remaining simply (... as Heidegger would want) within metaphysics.7 Specifying reassuring evidence at foundation of occidental tradition as derivation and derision of in relation to signified, Derrida writes that Nietzsche, by radicalizing interpretation, perspective, evaluation, difference, contributed to liberation of signifier and therefore cannot be reduced entirely to that tradition.8 On other hand, Derrida holds that it is not a question of withdrawing (soustraire) Nietzsche from Heideggerian reading. For at least two reasons that, strangely, come down to same. ( 1 ) Heidegger's reading is irrefutable; Nietzschean reversal remains captive to metaphysical edifice that it seeks to overturn. …