Stella Gaon provides the first fully philosophical account of the critical nature of deconstruction, and she does so by turning in an original way to psychoanalysis. Drawing on close readings of Freud and Laplanche, Gaon argues that Derridean deconstruction is driven by a normative investment in reason’s psychological force. Indeed, deconstruction is more faithful to the principle of reason than the various forms of critical theory prevalent today. For if one pursues the classical demand for rational grounds vigilantly, one finds that claims to ethical or political legitimacy cannot be rationally justified, because they are undone by logical undecidability. Gaon’s argument is borne out in the cases of Kantian deontology, Deweyan pragmatism, progressive pedagogy, Habermasian moral theory, Levinasian ethics and others. What emerges is the groundbreaking demonstration that deconstruction is impelled by a quasi-ethical critical drive, and that to read deconstructively is to radicalize the emancipatory practice of reason as self-critique.
This important volume will be of great value to critical theorists as well as to Derrida scholars and researchers in social and political thought.
Author(s): Stella Gaon
Series: Psychoanalytic Political Theory (1)
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2018
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Note
PART I: Naming the Stakes
1. The Danger of Rhetoric
Notes
2. The Apocalyptic Tone of Philosophy
Notes
3. Redefining the “Postmodern”
Notes
4. Deconstructing Kantian Critique
Notes
PART II: The Ends of Education
5. From“Neo” to “Post”: Strategies in Theory
Notes
6. Neomodernist Critical Pedagogy
Notes
7. Pedagogy without Foundations: Feminism and Anti-Racism
Notes
8. The Habermasian Gambit: A Critique of Discourse Ethics
Notes
PART III: On Deconstruction and Justice
9. Responsibility as Messianic Injunction
Notes
10. Derrida Contra Levinas
Notes
11. Conscience and the Aporia of Subjectivity
Narcissism
Melancholia
Notes
12. The Desire for Reason
Primal seduction and the logic of “afterwardsness”
The ego and “primary” repression
“Secondary” repression, afterwards
Notes
Conclusion: The Risk of a Certain Critique
References
Index