The Biosemiosic Gaze of the “wholly other” and the Philosophical Exercise of “limitrophy” in Jacques Derrida’s Posthumous Philosophy

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter examines how Derrida’s destabilizing encounter with another semiotic agent and subject (i.e., his cat) serves as a philosophical catalyst for a radical (re-) conceptualization of the mechanistic tradition in philosophical and linguistic circles. Derrida adopts the biosemiotic vision of a universe teeming with purposeful and meaningful human and other-than-human semiosis in which we are immersed in his posthumous works. In the context of microbial ethics, the Derridean exercise of limitrophy is a reminder that we need to redraw the conceptual boundaries somewhere on a continuing basis when information from the hard sciences becomes available, or perhaps human life would even cease to exist. The greatest insight that can be gleaned from Derrida’s late philosophy is that the future of humanity and every other animot may be determined by our willingness to multiply the limit in order to increase the longevity of our beloved planet exponentially in the Anthropocene.