Abstract
This paper examines one of poststructuralism’s most
sophisticated engagements with social change: Derrida’s Specters of Marx.
Derrida here takes up questions of progress of the kind that philosophers
of history from Immanuel Kant to Karl Marx would readily recognize and
yet which now carry a sense of disreputability. Derrida’s own analysis is naturally read as breaking with such traditional philosophy of history. Yet matters are more complex: I argue that Derrida ultimately fails to call into question a certain, distinctively modern, and deeply problematic conception of temporality. Otherwise put, the concept of social change which Specters of Marx uses, and which would thus frame individual or group agency, is itself neither deconstructed nor properly
interrogated. It is instead radicalized or “spiritualized”.
sophisticated engagements with social change: Derrida’s Specters of Marx.
Derrida here takes up questions of progress of the kind that philosophers
of history from Immanuel Kant to Karl Marx would readily recognize and
yet which now carry a sense of disreputability. Derrida’s own analysis is naturally read as breaking with such traditional philosophy of history. Yet matters are more complex: I argue that Derrida ultimately fails to call into question a certain, distinctively modern, and deeply problematic conception of temporality. Otherwise put, the concept of social change which Specters of Marx uses, and which would thus frame individual or group agency, is itself neither deconstructed nor properly
interrogated. It is instead radicalized or “spiritualized”.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Subjective Agency and Poststructuralism |
| Publisher | Routledge |
| Pages | 105-125 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| Publication status | Accepted/In press - 2024 |
Keywords
- Derrida
- Marx
- Temporality
- Philosophy of history