ראיון עם דרידה חלק 1
Published Sunday, April 25, 1999, in the San Jose Mercury News Q&A with philosopher Jacques Derrida The constructive deconstructionist THE TURBULENT 1960s gave birth to a number of well-known social and political movements that have shaped the world as we know it. But less famous are some of the intellectual advances made during that era. The peace movement, the women´s liberation movement, the civil rights movement: All owe part of their theory and success to the theory of deconstruction. The ideas that authority should be questioned, that oppressed people have stories too and that nothing is absolute are key tenets of the theory. One of the theory´s founders, French philosopher Jacques Derrida, this month visited Stanford University for two days of lectures and small-group discussion. Derrida, 69, described recently by the New York Times as ``perhaps the world´s most famous philosopher,´´ has been a lightning rod in philosophical circles for the past three decades. Born to a Jewish family in Algeria, Derrida was expelled from school during World War II because of the government´s anti-Semitic laws, an experience that later colored his work. Since 1962 he has written more than 450 books, articles and academic papers, questioning everything -- including the very idea of questioning -- from his deconstructionist perspective. He is a professor at L´Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales in Paris and at the University of California-Irvine. His lecture at Stanford focused on the role of the modern university in the next millennium. He urged the university to become the ``place of the critical question,´´ where ``nothing should be without question.´´ He spoke with Mercury News Staff Writer Marcus Walton at the Stanford Faculty Club. Below is an edited transcript of their conversation.
Published Sunday, April 25, 1999, in the San Jose Mercury News Q&A with philosopher Jacques Derrida The constructive deconstructionist THE TURBULENT 1960s gave birth to a number of well-known social and political movements that have shaped the world as we know it. But less famous are some of the intellectual advances made during that era. The peace movement, the women´s liberation movement, the civil rights movement: All owe part of their theory and success to the theory of deconstruction. The ideas that authority should be questioned, that oppressed people have stories too and that nothing is absolute are key tenets of the theory. One of the theory´s founders, French philosopher Jacques Derrida, this month visited Stanford University for two days of lectures and small-group discussion. Derrida, 69, described recently by the New York Times as ``perhaps the world´s most famous philosopher,´´ has been a lightning rod in philosophical circles for the past three decades. Born to a Jewish family in Algeria, Derrida was expelled from school during World War II because of the government´s anti-Semitic laws, an experience that later colored his work. Since 1962 he has written more than 450 books, articles and academic papers, questioning everything -- including the very idea of questioning -- from his deconstructionist perspective. He is a professor at L´Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales in Paris and at the University of California-Irvine. His lecture at Stanford focused on the role of the modern university in the next millennium. He urged the university to become the ``place of the critical question,´´ where ``nothing should be without question.´´ He spoke with Mercury News Staff Writer Marcus Walton at the Stanford Faculty Club. Below is an edited transcript of their conversation.