Exploring ‘the Impossible’: Jacques Derrida, John Caputo and the Philosophy of History

Abstract

In this paper I explore one possible motivational (quasi-) philosophy for historians continuing to write history in the wake of Derridean deconstruction. This philosophy of history is structured around one of the alternative terms for deconstruction in Derrida's work, namely the notion of ‘the impossible’. Throughout this paper I will be concentrating on John Caputo's interpretation of Derrida's work and, in the process, addressing some alternative (mis)readings of deconstruction (i.e. those at odds with my own reading and that of Caputo's) as they relate to the development of a philosophy of history and historical praxis generally. Specifically, I will argue for the importance of Caputo's exegesis of—and reflections on—‘the impossible’, as well as his own closely related notion of ‘a hermeneutics more radically conceived’, as important starting points for the development of a viable philosophy of history after the postmodern turn; a philosophy of history that is undecidably future oriented as opposed to closure oriented. I will argue that the implications of Derrida's work, and particularly of Caputo's reading of Derrida (and, in my estimation, Caputo is the most stimulating and suggestive interpreter and developer of Derrida's thought currently writing), opens up vital possibilities and challenges for historians in the production of their histories. Following Caputo, I will argue that a philosophy of history that is ‘open’ to and structured around exploring ‘the impossible’ is inescapably religious and messianic in structure—albeit in the Derridean sense of ‘religion without religion’ and ‘messianicity’—thus re-emphasizing the axioms of faith and belief vis-à-vis the role and work of the historian rather than—although not in opposition to—relativism and scepticism. In the course of this argument I suggest some possible distinctives of a philosophy of history that is shaped by a passion for ‘the impossible’—as opposed to appropriating it as just another method—as well as Caputo's associated desire for a hermeneutics more radically conceived and consider how they might, in turn, mould the types of histories produced by historians.