El tiempo de una tesis

by Jacques Derrida

Los textos aquí reunidos muestran un pensamiento vivo que nos enfrenta a la faz silenciada de la cultura occidental: lo indecible. Nos abren el camino práctico y efectivo de la deconstrucción y nos adentran en una nueva teoría de la escritura y la lectura textual.

112 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1997

About the author

Jacques 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.

Reviews

[Keomar]

"las ruidosas salidas fuera del discurso, del lenguaje o de la escritura en sentido obsoleto, e incluso fuera de la fraseología en general, terminarían conviertiéndose en charla doméstica, en fraseología revolucionaria, en bullicio escolar, en una serie de tracas, en cualquier caso, en entretrenidas, es decir -y eso es lo imperdonable-, en aburridas operaciones dentro de una combinatoria semántica determinada, dentro de un código de connotaciones poético-políticas archivadas: en reusmen, siempre en tesis o en gesticulaciones , espectáculo cuyo programa, impreso hace ya mucho tiempo, nos descorazona de antemano y nos indice, finalmente, a no molestarnos más".