Desire for Purity and Inevitable Contamination: Derrida and Prayer

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to understand the reasons underlying Derrida’s interest in the phenomenon of prayer. The article traces the different directions taken by the topic in the over forty-year long reflection of the philosopher. I start off by highlighting the dichotomic structure around which Derrida lays out his entire analysis of prayer, describing it, in general terms, as an opposition between determination and indetermination: on the one side, the multiple concrete manifestations of prayer; on the other, the possibility of a pure address to the other as other, not marked by metaphysics. I proceed by examining the qualities of what Derrida calls the “pure prayer”, or “prayer in itself”, in direct contrast with the praising prayer. The issue concerning the autonomy and the specificity of this indeterminate act of addressing is especially taken into consideration. The fundamental question remains whether a pure prayer is truly conceivable, or whether its contamination is as inevitable as necessary for the actual possibility of religion, theology, and prayer itself.