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Very Short Introductions #278

Derrida: A Very Short Introduction

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Jacques Derrida, the French philosopher, wrote such famed works as Writing and Difference, Speech and Phenomena , and On Grammatology , has made important contributions to both post-structuralism and post-modern philosophy, and indeed has challenged some of the unquestioned assumptions of our philosophical tradition. But he is most renowned--or condemned--for his critical technique known as "deconstruction." In this Very Short Introduction , Simon Glendinning explores both the difficulty and significance of the work of Derrida. He argues that Derrida's challenging ideas make a significant contribution to, and providing a powerful reading of, our philosophical heritage. Defending Derrida against many of the attacks from the analytical philosophical community, he attempts to show why Derrida's work causes such extreme reactions. The author explains Derrida's distinctive mode of engagement with our philosophical tradition, and contends that this is not a merely negative thing. By
exploring his most famous and influential texts, Glendinning shows how and why Derrida's work of deconstruction is inspired not by a "critical frenzy," but by a loving respect for philosophy.

124 pages, Paperback

First published August 25, 2011

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Simon Glendinning

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
Profile Image for Jordan B Cooper.
Author 23 books414 followers
February 7, 2023
This text was not much of an introduction at all. It's more of an apologetic for Derrida from a glowing fan.
8 reviews1 follower
February 28, 2018
Derrida was obviously illiterate, "words is ultimately meaningless" no Derrida, they aren't you dumbo otherwise how would I read YOUR book, sheesh.
Profile Image for Samuel Morris.
Author 21 books4 followers
July 27, 2013
When you're reading Glendinning's comments on prefaces you're going to suspect this book of being an ironic/postmodern practical joke. Inasmuch as it prefaces a body of work that you'd really need to be quite familiar with in order to understand the preface.
This reads like a love letter to Derrida, but it doesn't work as a concise introduction. NOTHING with the neologism onto-theological in it can really pretend to be introductory.
Profile Image for Nicky.
4,138 reviews1,115 followers
March 4, 2014
As with most of the Very Short Introductions, this does its job. I'm a bit puzzled by people claiming Derrida is harder than Barthes -- I actually found it the other way round, and felt like I was clinging on a bit better to the meaning and key terms when it came to Derrida than Barthes. Glendinning writes well and engagingly, which helps.
Profile Image for Neil R. Coulter.
1,300 reviews150 followers
February 19, 2024
When I was in grad school a few decades ago, Derrida was still “edgy” and academic-cool. I’m pretty sure part of that allure was simply that he is hard to understand—and therefore, he must be super-intelligent, right? Well, that may be true, but he demonstrates a kind of intelligence that to me feels suffocatingly disconnected from real people. The final chapter of Simon Glendinning’s “Very Short Introduction” considers Derrida’s comments on what distinguishes humans from other organisms, and as I read, I almost laughed at the thought of this man, Derrida, determining what makes humans special. Because through most of the book, he seemed to be someone locked away in a labyrinth of words, playing around with oppositions and contradictions—but not someone with great insight into humanity.

Glendinning’s introduction to Derrida is helpful in explaining some of his key concepts (deconstruction, différance, iterability, iteralability, “specters of Marx,” and so forth), so I’m glad for that (though even a supposedly introductory text is rather complex to figure out). Glendinning obviously counts himself a Derrida super-fan, which I sometimes found annoying (could we possibly admit that at least sometimes, Derrida might have been wrong about something? What about Derrida’s defense of Paul de Man?); but then I though, who else could or would write an introduction to Derrida? Reading the words of a super-fan probably has to go with this territory.

By the end of the book, I felt wearied by the need to be always (already?) hyper-aware of the use of each word, and the careful reading required to make sure I’m correctly comprehending every use of “quotation marks” and italics and so forth. It’s an exhausting mode of scholarship. I remember that grad school was, in part, a socialization into that way of thinking, and I did my part and learned to love it. But now, as a regular adult? It wearies me, and I feel that all the attention on speaking and writing so Derrida-precisely pulls me away from other regular adults with whom I might be spending really excellent time. I also see that so much of what Derrida encouraged has by this point derailed a lot of education in the US. Some of that is due to people who picked up only a bit of a concept here or there during grad studies and have applied it haphazardly, but some of it is the actualization of what Derrida proposed, and it’s not working out well. I will gladly live out a warmer, more relational philosophy with other people, rather than what feels to me a cold, distant, “precise” philosophy that presumes the main traditional streams of philosophy were wrong, and humanity needs to relearn a very different way of being human.
Profile Image for Kyo.
520 reviews8 followers
December 7, 2019
An interesting read about Derrida's main ideas, but definitely not something I would call an "introduction".
During the last 3 years at university, I think I've covered Derrida in one way or another basically every year. While most of that was the same stuff (différance), I still already knew something about Derrida and other philosophers too. This turned out to be absolutely necessary, because this book definitely was not an introduction for those who never encountered Derrida before. Of course, Derrida is a difficult philosopher and his philosophy is often intentionally difficult and/or convulted, so I get that it is difficult to write a good introduction about him. Nevertheless, I think you have to have done something on Derrida before if you want to read/understand this one.
Yet, if you do already know something about Derrida, this book is quite interesting. It places Derrida in his philosophical contexts and follows the building blocks of his argumentation and philosophy.
One thing which did bother me was the intense idolisation of Derrida, especially in the two chapters. The first chapter is mostly dedicated to the description of a photograph of Derrida and I think Glendinning mentions at least 4 times how handsome Derrida is. The second chapter is interested in the controversy around Derrida. While interesting to see that side of the story, Glendinning was clearly describing the issue from the standpoint of his own adoration of Derrida, without really allowing any argument from the other side. Moreover, the book feels almost ironically post-structural, in the sense that Glendinning writes a lot about how he himself understands stuff, something I could quote from lists of poststructural characteristics I once studied in first year.

Anyway, this is definitely an interesting read for anyone who has done some Derrida and wants to know a little more or wants to refresh their knowledge!
Profile Image for Blake.
196 reviews40 followers
September 26, 2013
A home that is all the forms disposed to clarify the small, which are perhaps even just preliminaries for the analytic philosopher, might be poorly placed from which to set out after a view of Derrida. However, this introduction ranges helpfully over thick fingers of Derrida's vocabulary and makes tips of his argumentation.

Glendinning does well to dispel some of the fog around Derrida, but in so far as the latter is a love object of the former there remains an aura against the hope of sharp percept.
Profile Image for Lucas.
240 reviews47 followers
April 29, 2019
A bit heavy on biographical details. Also I’m not sure how much of Derrida is possible to introduce in an admittedly very short space, but some of the introduction is still somewhat difficult to grasp which is either a fault of the introducer, the introducability of Derrida or both.
Profile Image for Ario.
14 reviews
December 16, 2021
Sometimes useful, somehow burdensome read.

This book took me quite a while to get through and I still don't know why
Profile Image for Goatboy.
273 reviews115 followers
March 28, 2018
I usually don't go in for these short introduction books, but as I've been meaning to get back to Derrida's works I thought this might be a good launching pad. I found Simon Glendinning's introduction to be extremely well written and clear, providing an engaging and enlightening summary of several of Derrida's main arguments. It felt both condensed (in a good way) and sufficiently rigorous to aid me in getting a re-grip on Derrida's thoughts before plunging back into the primary sources.
Profile Image for Nicole.
58 reviews1 follower
November 27, 2017
It was a grind to get through this book. And I'm not even a greenhorn in philosophical studies. I had to view The School of Life's introductional video to Derrida, before I could get a handle on where this book wanted to lead me. I admire Derrida's mindset and ambition. He deserves a much more approachable Very Short Introduction.
Profile Image for Nima.
48 reviews1 follower
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November 16, 2025
این کتاب را انتخاب کردم، نخست به اعتبار ترجمه مهدی پارسا از نشر شوند، مترجمی که برخی متون دریدا، از جمله "درباره گراماتولوژی"، را به فارسی آورده است. اما راستش این ترجمه، برخلاف انتظار، نه‌تنها دلپسند نبود بلکه نوعی سرخوردگی نیز پدید آورد. ترجمه‌های مهرداد پارسا که گمان می‌کنم با مهدی پارسا نیز آشنایی داشته باشد منو راضی کرده بود، اما این‌جا کیفیت کار مهدی پارسا به‌وضوح فرو‌افتاده است. افزون بر این، مولف نیز یا در شرح مفاهیم دریدایی چون دیفرانس، تاخیر، لوگوس‌محوری، نوشتار و واسازی ناکام مانده، یا تیرگی ترجمه بر دریافت آن‌ها سایه انداخته است. در مجموع، اثری خواندنی اما نومیدکننده است.
Profile Image for WIlliam Gerrard.
218 reviews10 followers
October 17, 2014
The philosophy of Jacques Derrida keeps cropping up on my reading in Translation Studies. I'm getting a vague idea of deconstruction but really need to tackle the works of the man himself to truly understand his philosophy. I thought I'd try this short introduction as a taster to better familiarise myself with his ideas. I think that Derrida is slightly more complex and difficult to understand than more traditional philosophers. He gathers poles of thought within the philosophical movement. It seems that either you love or hate Derrida. I think the fundamental precept of Deconstruction is to reevaluate one's ideals, to tear apart more traditional modes of thinking and to analyse a subject from a completely different, new perspective. This introduction left me, at times, feeling as though I was beginning to understand Derrida, yet at other times things went flying over my head and removed what knowledge I thought I had gained. I think the Derrida work on language is more accessible and I look forward to tackling 'On Grammatology'. His work with words and language seems more logical and accurate and easier to digest than some of the less direct musings on philosophy or the nature of animals. From reading this book I can see why some people could easily dismiss Derrida. His ideas do provoke strong reactions and nowhere more so can this be seen than the reaction to his honorary degree at Cambridge University. think that what is certain about Derrida was that he was a true intellectual, a clever man with original ideas, who wasn't afraid of ruffling the feathers of the established ways. The twentieth century was an era of vast change and there is no reason why new ways of dissecting the world should not arise. I anticipate building a deeper relationship with Derridean philosophy once I enter into his actual works. This introduction was enlightening in a sense but can be deconstructed into equally maintaining an illusion of confusion about this complicated man.
Profile Image for Chloe Lee.
Author 113 books12 followers
November 18, 2018
This would be interesting... if you have read Derrida beforehand, and would be turning to this as a companion instead of an introduction. When I wrote "read beforehand", I meant "be fully acquainted with Derrida's works", because Professor Glendinning does turn from text to text relatively quickly, and the lack of footnotes/ leaving the references to the very end will make it rather confusing for people like me, having only read a volume of Derrida so far. Moreover, Professor Glendinning has also referenced from a lot of other people, which makes it even more interesting - yet at the same time slightly even more challenging. Moreover, I think Professor Glendinning has been building a more favourable image of Derrida, and the defences take up quite a lot of space.

I am slightly surprised to read that this book was completed with his pupils in mind - because having had Professor Glendinning in my lectures and seminars (I am also part of the European Institute of the LSE), this is slightly different from the way he conducts his classes, since he would cover more introduction in his classes.

Nonetheless, I did enjoy this book, but then I am arguably very biased since I am a student and I really enjoy his lessons usually.
684 reviews27 followers
August 21, 2013
The book I read to research this post was Derrida A Very Short Introduction by Simon Glendinning which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. This book is an introduction to the life and work of the philosopher Derrida who is widely regarded as the father of the deconstructionist movement. His work was very controversial among philosphers with many regarding him as antiwestern. He was born in a busy town near Algiers in Algeria & was educated at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1999 in a poll he was voted the most over rated philosopher of all time. He is the kind of philosopher you either love or hate. Much of his work was questioning what is reason, what is it based on & is it constrained by the limitations of language. I think coming from a completely different culture he could see there are alternatives to what we in the west might regard as normal. He died at the age of 74 & was given an honourary doctorate by Cambridge University. He spent much of his spare time reading works by the great philosophers like Plato & I enjoyed reading this book about someone who previously I had never heard of.
Profile Image for Mark Harding.
65 reviews2 followers
June 18, 2012
Doesn't convince me of the necessity to read Deridda. (This is a comment on the Introduction, rather than JD.)
Basically the book follows the format of:
- Spend a lot of time setting the scene
- Spend less time on obvious comments
- Spend virtually no time justifying the contentious stuff
- State very little that is a 'conclusion' -- that could actually be acted on; something that has traction.

Good quotes from other philosophers though. (Especially Cora Diamond looks cool.)
To be fair, I did get more understanding of why the notion of 'presence' is so important in discussions of JD. But not enough to be worth the cover price.
Profile Image for Steven Berbec.
26 reviews8 followers
January 3, 2013
Though it is not long, it makes up for it in content. Glendinning with grace handle's Derrida's complex text like one who has studied under his authority. He does this in a way that allows Derrida's forms of deconstruction to shine forth with clarity. As one digs deeper into this little pamphlet, he catches glimpses of the man that was Derrida. These glimpses reveal a Derrida many do not know. Rather, what one finds here is the beginning of (hopefully) a relationship with a revolutionary thinker that urges us all to become better readers, by retracing our steps, over and over again; so that we come to a better understanding of what we thought we knew all along.
Profile Image for Corey.
Author 1 book3 followers
February 1, 2020
I was very disappointed with this one because the previous books that I have read in this series have all been excellent.

The text (which is full of unnecessary qualifiers and repetitions) assumes far too much prior knowledge on the part of the reader for this to qualify as an introduction. It's more a discussion of rather than an introduction to Derrida.

I stopped at the halfway point because it was incomprehensible to me.
Profile Image for Jeremy.
68 reviews8 followers
March 15, 2014
This very short introduction to Derrida is a very good introduction to his use of deconstruction, particularly the concepts of différance and iterability, and particularly as they relate to Derrida's views on Marxism and the animal/human distinction in philosophy.
Profile Image for Vicki Scullion.
988 reviews1 follower
May 28, 2017
This book introduces some of the philosophical arguments of Derrida. Hopefully reading this (and referring back to it as needed) will help me understand Derrida's own texts. I do like this series of very short introductions and recommend them to anyone struggling to read difficult material.
Profile Image for George Margaritoudis.
2 reviews1 follower
June 20, 2018
It is indeed a very short introduction to the main ideas of Derrida. However i feel that the writer simply mention some of the basic topics of Derrida's philosophy and fails to explain them, for instance, democracy and the gift.
Profile Image for Charlotte.
162 reviews15 followers
November 20, 2016
There is so much about Derrida's thinking that I despise. I am grateful to Glendinning for reminding me.
Profile Image for ?0?0?0.
727 reviews38 followers
December 28, 2016
Good starting point like most of the books in this series.
Profile Image for W.
46 reviews
July 9, 2019
Uncompellingly fawning. Mostly mumbling. Derrida does seem like an interesting figure, but then it's difficult to perceive anything about him or his texts, and that's not a fantastic indication about either. There are some good moments (maybe they're good because they are actually lucid, maybe that's the ploy? Anyway, I admit to being too stupid to 'get' this book), which I salvage for you now...

On the importance of (written) text: '...how like a machine, how embedded within programs, within machination, both biological and cultural, is the life of a human being?' (52)

Very, sir? The value here is partially in this extension: if computers and robots are constituted by software, which is text, and they are constituted to simulate and replace human beings, does their impending historical victory mean that human lives are virtually comprised of only text in the first place? I ask this as a question in order to evade responsibility for what I say.

---

On looking for 'meaning': 'The task is no longer to achieve superlative conceptual clarity [bla bla] ..., but rather to learn how to endure reflectively what we already more less naively endure every day...' (54-55)

I admit that that is beautiful, but then again it had to be heavily trimmed down by me.

---

Democracy carries ' 'the power of universalizing beyond the State and the nation, the account taken of anonymous and irreducible singularities, infinitely different and thereby indifferent to particular difference, to the raging quest for identity corrupting the most indestructible desires of the idiom.' ' (87)

A rare leftist outburst against identity politics. I find it rather nostalgic and charming in 2019. The quotation comes entirely from Derrida and not Glendinning.

---

Expanding from the 'politically naive' David Wiggins, who has the temerity to not be Derrida, a woman, or from outside Eurotopia, and who is basically a little child for not acknowledging that he is a Marxist, considering that Marx influenced philosophy: 'In our time, we need to shift decisively from thinking in (classical messianic) terms of an end of Man in which we 'finally learn how to live' to (but holding on to something of that messianism) learning to endure interminably learning how to live, learning to live without the promise of 'finally' learning how to live.' (94-95)

It's poetic and inspiring, even if it doesn't seem very philosophically substantial.

Glendinning's book retains more than just something of a messianism. Even if he had got beyond trying to articulate a summary of Derrida's ideas, the hagiographical glow (a haglowography! Look Monsieur Derrida, I did it!!!) would have made it untrustworthy.

---

As another reviewer on this blog internet website indicates, you should just watch the School of Life YouTube video instead. Perhaps it is a less faithful representation of Derrida. If that's true and yet your perspective and imagination are much more greatly enhanced, does it really matter?
Profile Image for Roger.
70 reviews7 followers
November 7, 2022
I must preface this review by saying that I’ve recently read about 15 of these Very Short Introductions to individual philosophers, and that this is by far the worst of the bunch.

In the opening pages, Glendinning refutes the claim that Derrida is an obscurantist. However, he’d have a hard time defending himself from this same criticism.

Opening the book to any random page will show this. I have opened randomly to a page in the middle of the book (pg 65) where he writes the sentence/paragraph:
“It is for this reason that Derrida eschews recourse to the concept of the code or system of rules in an account of the discrimination of signs, and refers instead to the movement that produces the system of differences - the condition of possibility of all lexical and conceptual identities - by the neologism or neographism ‘différance’ (with an a).”

Pretty much every sentence in this book is like this: while not totally meaningless, a long and obscure sentence full of unnecessary parentheticals.

This is supposed to be a Very Short Introduction, seemingly written for beginners in a given topic. However, Glendinning would rather obscure his ideas behind long, complex (sometimes nonsensical) sentences and a mess of articles, prepositions, and all-together poor grammar.

Maybe Derrida would be proud, but one would have to think Glendinning is doing him a disservice by confusing any people interested in the ideas instead of the obscurantism.

If you’re looking for an introduction to Derrida’s ideas without being familiar with him, look elsewhere.

Instead of taking a few hours to read this, your time would be better spent reading Wikipedia and watching some YouTube videos (or reading another introduction, for which I have no suggestion).
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