Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) was an Algerian-French philosopher and literary critic. Through a strategy of reading called “deconstructionism,” he challenged established postulations about metaphysics and the character of language and written texts.
Born in Algiers, Algeria, Derrida studied in Paris, and taught at the Sorbonne 1960–64 and at the École Normale Supérieure 1965–84. He wrote and lectured prolifically, and held academic posts in France and the United States.
Derrida’s work rejects earlier structuralist assumptions about the relationship between language and meaning and between text and the objective world, often converging on ambiguity and contradiction in meaning. His thorough critique of traditional Western philosophy and literary analysis led to the emergence of the school of “deconstruction” in Paris in the 1960s.
Among Derrida’s works are the influential La Voix et le Phénomène (1967; Speech and Phenomena,) De la Grammatologie (1967; Of Grammatology,) and ‘Écriture et la Difference (1967; Writing and Difference.) His later publications include Glas (1974,) on Georg Hegel and Jean Genet, La Carte Postale (1980; The Post Card) on Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan; Spectres de Marx (1993; Specters of Marx) on Karl Marx; and a collection of eulogies, Chaque Fois Unique, la Fin du Monde (2003; Each Time Unique, the End of the World.)
Derrida came to be one of the most debated thinkers of the 20th century because of his wide-ranging theories regarding the instability of language and the consequent impossibility of truth claims. In 1992, a plan to give Derrida an honorary degree from Cambridge University met with stiff academic opposition.
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Within the university… you can study without waiting for any efficient or immediate result. You may search, just for the sake of searching, and try for the sake of trying. So there is a possibility of what I would call playing. It’s perhaps the only place within society where play is possible to such an extent.
—Jacques Derrida
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