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The Last Interview
Learning to Live Finally: The Last Interview
With death looming, Jacques Derrida, the world’s most famous philosopher—known as the father of “deconstructionism”—sat down with journalist Jean Birnbaum of the French daily Le Monde . They revisited his life’s work and his impending death in a long, surprisingly accessible, and moving final interview. Sometimes called “obscure” and branded “abstruse” by his critics, the Derrida found in this book is open and engaging, reflecting on a long career challenging important tenets of European philosophy from Plato to Marx. The contemporary meaning of Derrida’s work is also examined, including a discussion of his many political activities. But, as Derrida says, “To philosophize is to learn to die”; as such, this philosophical discussion turns to the realities of his imminent death—including life with a fatal cancer. In the end, this interview remains a touching final look at a long and distinguished career. Jacques Derrida was director of studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and professor of humanities at the University of California, Irvine. Among the most recent of his many books translated into English are Eyes of the University , Negotiations , Who’s Afraid of Philosophy? ,and Two Essays on Reason .
75 pages, Paperback
First published March 2, 2005
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About the author
Jacques Derrida
652 books1,798 followersJacques Derrida was a French philosopher best known for developing deconstruction, a method of critical analysis that questioned the stability of meaning in language, texts, and Western metaphysical thought. Born in Algeria, he studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, where he was influenced by philosophers such as Heidegger, Husserl, and Levinas. His groundbreaking works, including Of Grammatology (1967), Writing and Difference (1967), and Speech and Phenomena (1967), positioned him at the center of intellectual debates on language, meaning, and interpretation.
Derrida argued that Western philosophy was structured around binary oppositions—such as speech over writing, presence over absence, or reason over emotion—that falsely privileged one term over the other. He introduced the concept of différance, which suggests that meaning is constantly deferred and never fully present, destabilizing the idea of fixed truth. His work engaged with a wide range of disciplines, including literature, psychoanalysis, political theory, and law, challenging conventional ways of thinking and interpretation.
Throughout his career, Derrida continued to explore ethical and political questions, particularly in works such as Specters of Marx (1993) and The Politics of Friendship (1994), which addressed democracy, justice, and responsibility. He held academic positions at institutions such as the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and the University of California, Irvine, and remained an influential figure in both European and American intellectual circles. Despite criticism for his complex writing style and abstract concepts, Derrida’s ideas have left a lasting impact on contemporary philosophy, literary theory, and cultural criticism, reshaping the way meaning and language are understood in the modern world.
Derrida argued that Western philosophy was structured around binary oppositions—such as speech over writing, presence over absence, or reason over emotion—that falsely privileged one term over the other. He introduced the concept of différance, which suggests that meaning is constantly deferred and never fully present, destabilizing the idea of fixed truth. His work engaged with a wide range of disciplines, including literature, psychoanalysis, political theory, and law, challenging conventional ways of thinking and interpretation.
Throughout his career, Derrida continued to explore ethical and political questions, particularly in works such as Specters of Marx (1993) and The Politics of Friendship (1994), which addressed democracy, justice, and responsibility. He held academic positions at institutions such as the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and the University of California, Irvine, and remained an influential figure in both European and American intellectual circles. Despite criticism for his complex writing style and abstract concepts, Derrida’s ideas have left a lasting impact on contemporary philosophy, literary theory, and cultural criticism, reshaping the way meaning and language are understood in the modern world.
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October 9, 2024
How can ANY of us learn to Live, finally?
You know, we seem to ALL want to have an unbroken run of REAL LIVING. Finally and at Long Last!
But, as Piet Hein once said,
Living is something
We all do
Now or never -
Which do you?
What IS Real Living?
Why do we only seem to remember it AFTER we’d done it - like Papageno magically meeting a vision of his Papagena, in Mozart - then LOSING her? Is meaning in our life so elusive?
“It is impossible to say what I really mean!”
And T.S. Eliot’s not the Only one flummoxed by The Unbearable Lightness of Being: so was Jacques Derrida!
You see, Jacques Derrida constantly DE-CONSTRUCTED himself. He was a collection of diminishing Russian Dolls, retreating ad infinitum into endless space!
And like Eliot, he walked “between the violet and the violet” - but totally and obscurely beyond the the range of his critics, who wanted to see him finally “pinned and wriggling on the wall.”
His biggest fear was to end up ‘defined’ in a book by one of ’em! So... he constantly raised the bar, and endlessly invented and re-invented his life. He lived his shadowy life as a “trace” on a tabula rasa.
Lived, in other words, and relived, his own constantly changing philosophy. No fit life for man or beast! A shadow among shadows... cause, I guess he thought that summed up our shadowy, unbearably evanescent, consciousness.
But, it turns out now, that’s Everybody’s life in cyberspace nowadays!
We are cloning endless replicas of ourselves out of necessity, to escape intimate detection. For in cyberspace, there is no ‘final’ way to live in public, though we may (and hopefully will have) an active inner life. That, in fact, may be the ‘only’ interim solution.
Nowadays, no one really knows us but God. We must secure our inner self.
If we want to be Real on social media, we have to find a way to be truly Real to ourselves. And the Only Way we’ll be Real is to find our Enduring Self.
This sounds easy but it’s not. Do we know what our ‘inner self’ looks like? Probably not, if we’re like most people!
But perhaps our Inner Self is a Work in Progress, to borrow the writer James Joyce’s expression...
And maybe that’s the only thing it can be in this life. And maybe all our friends can help us hone and cut this rough stone of a Self into a more permanent form through our discussions here.
W.H. Auden said when we speak publicly, we talk as a Quixote - an ego - or a Sancho - a Self. We have to kill our Quixote to let our Sancho LIVE! For Quixote is Calvino’s Non-Existent Knight (great book, btw).
To know what that our Sancho might look like, try this - the great psychologist Carl Jung, in his book Aion, says our role model is our own personal Image of Christ, or our own Personal Ideal.
Like Sancho, He’s the Suffering Servant - as in Isaiah.
For if we turn to him, Jung says, He Will RE-MAKE US. On the INSIDE. So that our Public Self becomes ancillary to that inner image: the way we IMAGINE ourself. That gives our Public Self a Foundation.
And then Rilke, to take another example, thought that our Original and True Self permeated the luminous world of our childhood dwelling places - and that Memories of the Lost Self we once had, back then, may be brought to vivid life again by reliving these memories in our dreams and our stories.
“All these are hints and guesses - hints followed by guesses,” the poet T.S Eliot said...
Is this the final result Derrida and the rest of us have lived to see, in a hyper-reflexive world where Truth is merely something marketable?
Glimpses of the Transcendent amidst all this Evanescence?
Faith has to complete the job.
And knowing that, can we - ALL of us - finally learn to ‘live, finally?’
The answer is YES - if our true reality is something human, and not just cybernetically verifiable. We must start at the beginning of ourselves, what WE know about our inner persona, and work from there.
And so we begin with the thoughts we cherish most deeply...
Sheltered in the “rag and bone shop of the heart.”
The workshop of our redemption from the world of our tenuous, fitful electronic dreams - and nightmares.
An inner place in which we will find ourselves -
And the life that used to elude us...
A life that will Always elude the world - AND Cyberspace:
So there’s no need to hide.
You know, we seem to ALL want to have an unbroken run of REAL LIVING. Finally and at Long Last!
But, as Piet Hein once said,
Living is something
We all do
Now or never -
Which do you?
What IS Real Living?
Why do we only seem to remember it AFTER we’d done it - like Papageno magically meeting a vision of his Papagena, in Mozart - then LOSING her? Is meaning in our life so elusive?
“It is impossible to say what I really mean!”
And T.S. Eliot’s not the Only one flummoxed by The Unbearable Lightness of Being: so was Jacques Derrida!
You see, Jacques Derrida constantly DE-CONSTRUCTED himself. He was a collection of diminishing Russian Dolls, retreating ad infinitum into endless space!
And like Eliot, he walked “between the violet and the violet” - but totally and obscurely beyond the the range of his critics, who wanted to see him finally “pinned and wriggling on the wall.”
His biggest fear was to end up ‘defined’ in a book by one of ’em! So... he constantly raised the bar, and endlessly invented and re-invented his life. He lived his shadowy life as a “trace” on a tabula rasa.
Lived, in other words, and relived, his own constantly changing philosophy. No fit life for man or beast! A shadow among shadows... cause, I guess he thought that summed up our shadowy, unbearably evanescent, consciousness.
But, it turns out now, that’s Everybody’s life in cyberspace nowadays!
We are cloning endless replicas of ourselves out of necessity, to escape intimate detection. For in cyberspace, there is no ‘final’ way to live in public, though we may (and hopefully will have) an active inner life. That, in fact, may be the ‘only’ interim solution.
Nowadays, no one really knows us but God. We must secure our inner self.
If we want to be Real on social media, we have to find a way to be truly Real to ourselves. And the Only Way we’ll be Real is to find our Enduring Self.
This sounds easy but it’s not. Do we know what our ‘inner self’ looks like? Probably not, if we’re like most people!
But perhaps our Inner Self is a Work in Progress, to borrow the writer James Joyce’s expression...
And maybe that’s the only thing it can be in this life. And maybe all our friends can help us hone and cut this rough stone of a Self into a more permanent form through our discussions here.
W.H. Auden said when we speak publicly, we talk as a Quixote - an ego - or a Sancho - a Self. We have to kill our Quixote to let our Sancho LIVE! For Quixote is Calvino’s Non-Existent Knight (great book, btw).
To know what that our Sancho might look like, try this - the great psychologist Carl Jung, in his book Aion, says our role model is our own personal Image of Christ, or our own Personal Ideal.
Like Sancho, He’s the Suffering Servant - as in Isaiah.
For if we turn to him, Jung says, He Will RE-MAKE US. On the INSIDE. So that our Public Self becomes ancillary to that inner image: the way we IMAGINE ourself. That gives our Public Self a Foundation.
And then Rilke, to take another example, thought that our Original and True Self permeated the luminous world of our childhood dwelling places - and that Memories of the Lost Self we once had, back then, may be brought to vivid life again by reliving these memories in our dreams and our stories.
“All these are hints and guesses - hints followed by guesses,” the poet T.S Eliot said...
Is this the final result Derrida and the rest of us have lived to see, in a hyper-reflexive world where Truth is merely something marketable?
Glimpses of the Transcendent amidst all this Evanescence?
Faith has to complete the job.
And knowing that, can we - ALL of us - finally learn to ‘live, finally?’
The answer is YES - if our true reality is something human, and not just cybernetically verifiable. We must start at the beginning of ourselves, what WE know about our inner persona, and work from there.
And so we begin with the thoughts we cherish most deeply...
Sheltered in the “rag and bone shop of the heart.”
The workshop of our redemption from the world of our tenuous, fitful electronic dreams - and nightmares.
An inner place in which we will find ourselves -
And the life that used to elude us...
A life that will Always elude the world - AND Cyberspace:
So there’s no need to hide.
June 30, 2010
I’m gonna have to get all irrelevant and anecdote-y for a second, before backdooring my way into Derrida (and don’t even think about trying to deconstruct my use of the word ‘backdooring’, because I’m way ahead of you).
So the other weekend, Iggy and the Stooges were in town, or as Iggy put it, ‘the ancient fucking remnants of the Stooges’. And it was a fun concert, I guess, if you didn’t think too much about the rather undignified spectacle of a 63-year old man throwing himself convulsively around the stage without a shirt on. Anyhow, at one point in the show, Iggy screams out, a propos of nothing, ‘Do you think this is a fucking democracy?’ I sort of shrugged it off as typical punk-rock posturing, but later on this girl I know was telling me how dumb and insulting she found it: ‘I was like, um, yeah, it kinda is a democracy, Iggy. Fuck you.’ And that’s punk rock, too, bless her.
Then, just this past weekend, another road show hit Toronto: that hard-partying nostalgia act, the G8. Okay, so a few disgruntled fans got out of hand and smashed some windows downtown. And maybe it wasn’t very nice of them to spraypaint ‘fascist police state’ everywhere, cuz, you know, somebody had to clean that up later. But I like a good time as much as the next guy, and there’s definitely something picturesque about a burning police car. I’ll even admit that ‘The Black Bloc’ would’ve made a great name for an indie band about ten years back. Still, the whole weekend, the grouchy old man in my head kept muttering, get off my lawn, you filthy anarchists. If I had any initiative to speak of, I would’ve organized a counter demonstration in support of the G8. Sure, these summit meetings are terminally uncool, but isn’t it kind of a good thing that the governments of the world get together to talk about stuff that concerns us all, instead of slapping trade embargoes on each other’s ass and whatnot? Besides, they can hardly agree on the dinner menu, these guys, so how are they supposed to go about building some nefarious global hegemony? Or am I being naïve now?
Give me a purple nurple for long enough, and I’ll probably confess to being left-wing, whatever that means these days, but the fact is, I’m getting too old for this radical chic business. In other words, I’m entering my Andy Rooney years. That’s not sad; it’s just life.
So where does Derrida come in? On his hands and knees (thanks, Beckett.) Okay, seriously. Learning to Live, Finally isn’t really a book: it’s a teeny-tiny pamphlet you can gobble down in about fifteen minutes, like a Happy Meal for on-the-go theorists. It consists of a single interview with Derrida, notable only for being the last one he ever gave. I wasn’t even going to review it, but these recent events have got me thinking about it again.
See, if Derrida and Iggy are, in their very different ways, the children of ’68, those kids out throwing bricks on Saturday are the grandchildren. Derrida, believe it or not, was a responsible thinker, a conscientious guy. That’s something that comes across in the interview (where he actually talks quite clearly and sensibly for long stretches). Pretentious and jargon-ridden he certainly was at times, but his jargon was in the service of something, which can’t always be said for his acolytes. Whatever his sins, he was hardly the gleeful relativist that conservative hysterics made him out to be. I think he genuinely believed in…certain stuff. But what stuff? Here Derrida, like many super-smart people, had a bit of a problem. While explicitly rejecting nihilism, he found it easy and fun and, well, kind of cool to destroy things. And he was very good at it. But when it came to proposing and affirming, he didn’t have much more of a clue than the rest of us. In Learning to Live, he says some nice things about human rights and the spirit of the Enlightenment, which I can assent to without misgivings. But behind all that, there’s this sense that he’s still coasting on the intellectual fumes of the 60s, still pining for the revolution, for some liberating rupture. And I think it would be interesting if someone—someone much cleverer and better-versed in the post-structuralist arcana than I am—deconstructed this assumption in classic Derridean fashion. Because it’s still very prevalent—in academia, in the art world, hell, in my circle of friends. It’s utopianism, pure and simple—the idea that America, the West, globalization or what have you is so inherently oppressive that the only possible solution is to tear it all down and build a just world order from scratch.
Call it middle-aged complacency, but I’m not terribly eager to flush three hundred years of liberal democracy down the crapper. And I don’t think Derrida or Iggy or those kids in black hoodies are all that keen on it, either, in their heart of hearts. I think they’ve been seduced by the glamour of the revolutionary gesture, of the punk-rock ‘up yours’ or its high-brow variations. I believe they’re nice, sincere people, most of them, just like those friends of mine who donate to Greenpeace, live in well-kept condos—and look forward to the collapse of Western civilization with a tiny shiver of delight. It’s political romanticism, in a word. It’s grand and theatrical and occasionally productive. At the harmless end of the spectrum, it’s just a confused old man screaming, ‘Do you think this is a fucking democracy?’ or a confused young man kicking in a window. At the other exreme, it’s a bunch of bearded guys in a cave, looking at floor plans. Alarmist and unfair? Probably, but I think the impulse is the same in both cases. And that’s what scares me—me and your mom and Andy Rooney.
So the other weekend, Iggy and the Stooges were in town, or as Iggy put it, ‘the ancient fucking remnants of the Stooges’. And it was a fun concert, I guess, if you didn’t think too much about the rather undignified spectacle of a 63-year old man throwing himself convulsively around the stage without a shirt on. Anyhow, at one point in the show, Iggy screams out, a propos of nothing, ‘Do you think this is a fucking democracy?’ I sort of shrugged it off as typical punk-rock posturing, but later on this girl I know was telling me how dumb and insulting she found it: ‘I was like, um, yeah, it kinda is a democracy, Iggy. Fuck you.’ And that’s punk rock, too, bless her.
Then, just this past weekend, another road show hit Toronto: that hard-partying nostalgia act, the G8. Okay, so a few disgruntled fans got out of hand and smashed some windows downtown. And maybe it wasn’t very nice of them to spraypaint ‘fascist police state’ everywhere, cuz, you know, somebody had to clean that up later. But I like a good time as much as the next guy, and there’s definitely something picturesque about a burning police car. I’ll even admit that ‘The Black Bloc’ would’ve made a great name for an indie band about ten years back. Still, the whole weekend, the grouchy old man in my head kept muttering, get off my lawn, you filthy anarchists. If I had any initiative to speak of, I would’ve organized a counter demonstration in support of the G8. Sure, these summit meetings are terminally uncool, but isn’t it kind of a good thing that the governments of the world get together to talk about stuff that concerns us all, instead of slapping trade embargoes on each other’s ass and whatnot? Besides, they can hardly agree on the dinner menu, these guys, so how are they supposed to go about building some nefarious global hegemony? Or am I being naïve now?
Give me a purple nurple for long enough, and I’ll probably confess to being left-wing, whatever that means these days, but the fact is, I’m getting too old for this radical chic business. In other words, I’m entering my Andy Rooney years. That’s not sad; it’s just life.
So where does Derrida come in? On his hands and knees (thanks, Beckett.) Okay, seriously. Learning to Live, Finally isn’t really a book: it’s a teeny-tiny pamphlet you can gobble down in about fifteen minutes, like a Happy Meal for on-the-go theorists. It consists of a single interview with Derrida, notable only for being the last one he ever gave. I wasn’t even going to review it, but these recent events have got me thinking about it again.
See, if Derrida and Iggy are, in their very different ways, the children of ’68, those kids out throwing bricks on Saturday are the grandchildren. Derrida, believe it or not, was a responsible thinker, a conscientious guy. That’s something that comes across in the interview (where he actually talks quite clearly and sensibly for long stretches). Pretentious and jargon-ridden he certainly was at times, but his jargon was in the service of something, which can’t always be said for his acolytes. Whatever his sins, he was hardly the gleeful relativist that conservative hysterics made him out to be. I think he genuinely believed in…certain stuff. But what stuff? Here Derrida, like many super-smart people, had a bit of a problem. While explicitly rejecting nihilism, he found it easy and fun and, well, kind of cool to destroy things. And he was very good at it. But when it came to proposing and affirming, he didn’t have much more of a clue than the rest of us. In Learning to Live, he says some nice things about human rights and the spirit of the Enlightenment, which I can assent to without misgivings. But behind all that, there’s this sense that he’s still coasting on the intellectual fumes of the 60s, still pining for the revolution, for some liberating rupture. And I think it would be interesting if someone—someone much cleverer and better-versed in the post-structuralist arcana than I am—deconstructed this assumption in classic Derridean fashion. Because it’s still very prevalent—in academia, in the art world, hell, in my circle of friends. It’s utopianism, pure and simple—the idea that America, the West, globalization or what have you is so inherently oppressive that the only possible solution is to tear it all down and build a just world order from scratch.
Call it middle-aged complacency, but I’m not terribly eager to flush three hundred years of liberal democracy down the crapper. And I don’t think Derrida or Iggy or those kids in black hoodies are all that keen on it, either, in their heart of hearts. I think they’ve been seduced by the glamour of the revolutionary gesture, of the punk-rock ‘up yours’ or its high-brow variations. I believe they’re nice, sincere people, most of them, just like those friends of mine who donate to Greenpeace, live in well-kept condos—and look forward to the collapse of Western civilization with a tiny shiver of delight. It’s political romanticism, in a word. It’s grand and theatrical and occasionally productive. At the harmless end of the spectrum, it’s just a confused old man screaming, ‘Do you think this is a fucking democracy?’ or a confused young man kicking in a window. At the other exreme, it’s a bunch of bearded guys in a cave, looking at floor plans. Alarmist and unfair? Probably, but I think the impulse is the same in both cases. And that’s what scares me—me and your mom and Andy Rooney.
January 12, 2020
Derrida é, numa opinião muito pessoal, um dos maiores filósofos que a humanidade já conheceu. Pensador-escritor mais conhecido pela introdução da noção de desconstrução, pugnou ao longo de toda a sua obra pelo ideal de que "nada se pode isentar de ser pensado". Uma obra sempre comprometida com o real, como mostra esta última entrevista que concedeu a Jean Birnbaum, cujo prefácio serve, aliás, como uma belíssima introdução ao pensamento do autor. Derrida reflete aqui sobre essa inevitabilidade de sermos todos "sobreviventes condenados à morte", de mantermos uma "sobrevida" após a morte do Outro, a carregá-lo connosco muito para além do luto. Sobreviver não é para ele apenas o que resta da vida, mas a possibilidade maior da vida depois da vida. Mas fala-se também aqui do mundo editorial e da pressão da escrita simples para todo o entendedor - a que Derrida não cedeu -, da importância de dessacralizar o casamento, da desconstrução, do judaísmo, das circunstâncias de vida do pensador de origem argelina ao longo da sua existência e, enfim, da (im)possibilidade de aprender a viver ou aprender a morrer. Jacques Derrida, o filósofo que não teve medo de questionar o mundo, morreria alguns meses após esta entrevista. A sua obra, porém, continuará pelos séculos dos séculos.
"A sobrevivência [survivance] é a vida para além da vida, a vida mais do que a vida, e o discurso que eu mantenho não é mortífero, pelo contrário, é a afirmação de um vivente que prefere a vida e portanto o sobreviver à morte, porque a sobrevida [survie], não é apenas o que resta, é a vida mais intensa possível. Nunca me sinto tão assediado pela necessidade de morrer como nós momentos de felicidade e de fruição. Fruir e chorar a morte que espreita é, para mim, a mesma coisa."
"A sobrevivência [survivance] é a vida para além da vida, a vida mais do que a vida, e o discurso que eu mantenho não é mortífero, pelo contrário, é a afirmação de um vivente que prefere a vida e portanto o sobreviver à morte, porque a sobrevida [survie], não é apenas o que resta, é a vida mais intensa possível. Nunca me sinto tão assediado pela necessidade de morrer como nós momentos de felicidade e de fruição. Fruir e chorar a morte que espreita é, para mim, a mesma coisa."
May 14, 2017
On the brink of death, Derrida looks back upon the writings he has engaged in in order to learn to live, to bring this ever coming death closer, to prepare for the impossible, all the while affirming death through a spectral yes.
As Derrida notes, "deconstruction is always on the side of the yes, on the side of the affirmation of life" (50). It seeks the existence that bleeds through the concepts, that breaks in through the undecidable, that haunts language and thus life through its traces. This affirmation of life also involves the affirmation of death - not an acquiescence, but a heartfelt (if not heart-rending) calling out to death - the call to come. Writing allows Derrida to "live his death" (32), to attain to a survival that is a "life beyond life, life more than life" (50). For Derrida, as for anyone who (at)tempts the abyssal essence of writing, writing is a learning to live finally; to live terminally, to live through the end (of life), to live death. To learn, to teach (oneself) not to be oneself; to disappear - this is what writing affects. To write is to create, and to be destroyed, to be effaced - becoming otherwise (than onself). As Derrida wrote in Aporias, "To live, by definition, is not something one learns. Not from oneself, it is not learned from life, taught by life. Only from the other and by death" (quoted in this work on page 14). Only from the other and by death, can we learn to live; and we can approach this other and this death - these nigh unapproachables - through writing, the creative/destructive act which transforms, casts outside, alters and even violently de-forms.
How, then, might one learn to live, to survive? Perhaps through writing, that spectral medium, which puts into play an erruption of differences which we may track in their rise and fall - we may follow their fading through our own effacement - we may, perhaps, rejoin existence's mad cascade through this passive act, this step back which would be a step outside and perhaps no step at all.
As Derrida notes, "deconstruction is always on the side of the yes, on the side of the affirmation of life" (50). It seeks the existence that bleeds through the concepts, that breaks in through the undecidable, that haunts language and thus life through its traces. This affirmation of life also involves the affirmation of death - not an acquiescence, but a heartfelt (if not heart-rending) calling out to death - the call to come. Writing allows Derrida to "live his death" (32), to attain to a survival that is a "life beyond life, life more than life" (50). For Derrida, as for anyone who (at)tempts the abyssal essence of writing, writing is a learning to live finally; to live terminally, to live through the end (of life), to live death. To learn, to teach (oneself) not to be oneself; to disappear - this is what writing affects. To write is to create, and to be destroyed, to be effaced - becoming otherwise (than onself). As Derrida wrote in Aporias, "To live, by definition, is not something one learns. Not from oneself, it is not learned from life, taught by life. Only from the other and by death" (quoted in this work on page 14). Only from the other and by death, can we learn to live; and we can approach this other and this death - these nigh unapproachables - through writing, the creative/destructive act which transforms, casts outside, alters and even violently de-forms.
How, then, might one learn to live, to survive? Perhaps through writing, that spectral medium, which puts into play an erruption of differences which we may track in their rise and fall - we may follow their fading through our own effacement - we may, perhaps, rejoin existence's mad cascade through this passive act, this step back which would be a step outside and perhaps no step at all.
Read
February 7, 2008way overpriced and not that substantive. Interesting to hear Derrida's last interview before his death, sure, and there's a few points of interest or places where he cogently summarizes a difficult earlier argument, but not a major work at all.
March 18, 2013
I found always found him provocative, and complicated. This short interview is the best read to sum him up though. He is human, and understands something deeply profound about being.
June 14, 2016
"If I had invented my writing, I would have done so as a perpetual revolution. For it is necessary in each situation to create an appropriate mode of exposition, to invent the law of the singular event, to take into account the presumed or desired addressee; and, at the same time, to make as if this writing will determine the reader, who will learn to read (to "live") something he or she was not accustomed to receiving from anywhere else. One hopes that he or she will be reborn differently, determined otherwise, as a result...Each book is a pedagogy aimed at forming its reader."
Short, personal and affirming.
Short, personal and affirming.
August 1, 2021
It's nice to skim through this every once in a while to remind yourself that a) you're going to die and b) you're going to want to die at a vantage point, a place where you can survey your life's work and be content with what you've made.
October 6, 2014
I had the opportunity to hear him at UCSD in the early '80s and he was really well regarded. Deconstruction was the hot topic but, frankly, I did not understand it. I like this little book and think JD would have been a wonderful person to know.
September 5, 2022
Exemplary, and nuanced this book can act as an accessible starting point or a poignant endcap to the musings of Derrida.
March 6, 2022
życie jako la survie..kochasz je tak bardzo, że gdy znikasz powoli, chce ci się płakać ze szczęścia
January 7, 2008
Derrida really seems to examine his own philosophy, at a time in his life when he knew he was dying; this doesn't change his philosophy, but it gives him insight into it that you just didn't get from his previous works. A great look at Derrida and his mind-set before he died.
November 6, 2007
This is an amazing book. It's actually the last interview Derrida gave before he died in 2004. It is a personal look at the life of an incredible man.
January 6, 2008
I learned I need to start at the beginning to understand "deconstruction."
July 8, 2024
Interesante entrevista. Responden voces de sabiduría. Es notable el giro desde la Destruktion que huele a muerte hacia la apología masiva de la vida. Esperar la muerte en los momentos intensos de la vida. Sentirse seguro. Todo dicho entre comentarios pesimistas sobre el curso del mundo, sobre la política. Es un pesimismo que cultiva optimismo. Por eso no es optimismo ingenuo, nada hay de voluntarismo. Hay una lírica de destrucción total que no alcanza al sujeto que la enuncia. Como en Wittgenstein, que se siente seguro en medio de la pulverización total de toda ambición expansionista del lenguaje. Es una entrevista reconfortante de horror y beatitud.
June 3, 2021
Uma conversa mais leve com um autor extremamente desafiador de ser lido. Vale para quem já tem alguma noção de sua obra para ver como os conceitos se relacionam. Vale para quem já conhece para entender melhor algumas motivações e tormentos. O principal, Derrida se coloca e se posiciona, se não há nada fora do texto, nele cabe tanto fantasia quanto política, teoria e prática, imaginação e ação. Seria um erro reduzir seu pensamento a idealismo ou escapismo, Derrida corta o fantástico com o real, com a necessidade do agir, sem abrir mão daquilo que há de indeterminado e indefinido na vida.
April 9, 2025
(paired reading with Hägglund's 'fan book' for Derrida) "I live my death in writing" & "I'm at war with myself"/ a book with a prophetic eye growing out of a daring mind that finds entertainment from troubling oneself; the bits about Europe, book market, and the university are still pertinent now. the "virgin boys" metaphor is quite problematic tho
March 12, 2021
"I leave a piece of paper behind, I go away, I die: it is impossible to escape this structure, it is the unchanging form of my life. Each time I let something go, each time some trace leaves me, 'proceeds' from me, unable to be reappropriated, I live my death in writing."
May 6, 2025
This is a trace I will carry with me for a while. I would also like to learn to live finally, to see that the war I wage with myself as what keeps me alive, to be able to stand always with the affirmation of life, to be able to bear in me the loss of another. To be responsible for my name at last.
Read
July 31, 2011This was Derrida's last interview before his death in the early 2000s, just as the Bush regime was in its formative years and the Iraq War seemed inevitable but not yet actual. Derrida metaphorically links his terminal cancer, his body turning against its self, to the myth of western democracy reinterpreting itself into oblivion.
In doing so Derrida, intentionally or not, reconsiders his totalizing anti-communism, which had bordered on a pro-Americanism. Instead, all attempts at a totalizing political out-look or philosophy must be refuted by deconstruction. So deconstruction, as the accidental inheritor of the European philosophical tradition, must celebrate its own demise through the death of its author.
So proclaims the author!
In doing so Derrida, intentionally or not, reconsiders his totalizing anti-communism, which had bordered on a pro-Americanism. Instead, all attempts at a totalizing political out-look or philosophy must be refuted by deconstruction. So deconstruction, as the accidental inheritor of the European philosophical tradition, must celebrate its own demise through the death of its author.
So proclaims the author!
February 12, 2008
Jacques Derrida was director of studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and professor of humanities at the University of California, Irvine. Among the most recent of his many books translated into English are Eyes of the University, Negotiations, Who's Afraid of Philosophy? and Rogues: Two Essays on Reason.
February 6, 2017
A coherent and interesting last interview. I cannot say I fully agree with everything Derrida says, but then again, I am not completely familiar (as of yet) with the majority of his works.
The length of this snippet of an interview was extremely disappointing. Perhaps a 20 minute read at best. This does not justify the book's 20$ asking price - so shame on me for paying it!
The length of this snippet of an interview was extremely disappointing. Perhaps a 20 minute read at best. This does not justify the book's 20$ asking price - so shame on me for paying it!
June 4, 2008
Interesting overview of his work and politics, but somewhat a marketing gimick.
May 27, 2012
one of my favorite Derrida books.
July 27, 2012
Read in one go at the cafe in Brunswick I live right across from the bookstore.
August 25, 2012
There is a lot to think about here, despite the interview being relatively short. I love Derrida.
October 2, 2013
I know he was one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century and he gave this interview knowing his death, but I still found it a little self-indulgent.
October 19, 2014
so wonderfully Derrida.
Read
December 20, 2015hi
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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