(An apocryphal dialogue,
on reading Derrida¹s ŒThe Ends of Man¹)
José Angel García Landa
Brown University
1988 (rev. 2004)
Jean-Jacques
Rideau (Ecole Pratique de Théorie, Baton Rouge).‹ The conclusion of Monsieur Derrida's lecture has come
to me as a surprise. As I followed
his fascinating critique of humanist teleology it became gradually clear to me
that his title, ŒThe ends of man¹, was a piece of irony. Frankly, I did not expect him to
endorse with such enthusiasm Nietzsche's own narrative about man as a
transition towards higher ends‹a myth which maintains‹I think the word is not
inaccurate‹a strong dose of teleology, even of messianism. My question is, how
do you exempt your own analysis from the complicity with metaphysics and
humanism you denounce in Heidegger?
Derrida.‹ I do
not. As I pointed out, we are
allowed only false starts. My
analysis is not foreign to the tradition I criticize‹it cannot escape the gyre
of logos. Still, I would maintain that the circle and its center do not look
the same when they are seen from the periphery‹our duty [tâche], my duty if you will, is to avoid the center. Trying [tâcher] to avoid it.
We cannot think of this as other than a moral fable. But something takes its course through
us‹I use the metaphor of direction deliberately. Both Sartre and I read Heidegger as a humanist. Both readings are misreadings‹Heidegger
is a Gestalt against a background
of humanism at a given moment of the transformation of thought--but they are
hardly the same misreading. Sartre
is near the center, even passionately so, whereas I try to keep an eye over
certain temptations. Even if my
reading of Heidegger (or of the evolution of philosophical thought in France)
uses the language of humanism and remains within the boundaries of metaphysics,
it none the less has a certain centrifugal thrust. I am more interested in this
impulse than in the precise geometrical point where it is being activated. I do not take the Nietzschean narrative
at its face value‹in fact, the notion that it has a face value at all is to be
questioned. This version of the
old myth‹the myth of the ends of man‹has a musical function in my own version. It is a theme, a ready-made sign, easy
to recognize, of the way my text points to‹a way which I readily agree can only
be conceived of negatively (en creux) by our metaphysical
age. And if it comes (as it must)
to a question of strategy, of walking before we run, I believe that Nietzsche
deserves far more attention than he has got so far in the academia, especially
as respects the implications of this thought outside the strictly philosophical
concerns and departments of philosophy‹we are still learning to read Hegel.