Humboldt-Univ., Diss.--Berlin, 2005.

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Diss. / Bibliogr. p. 209-216.

Texte remanié de: Diss.--Universität Salzburg, 2003. / Bibliogr. p. 218-227.

Under the general theme of language and meaning, my precise purpose is to investigate Derrida's notion of writing as differance in relation to the 'problem' of the nature of the text conceptualized in terms of the binary opposition 'inside imaginary'Zoutside real'. That is, language construed as grounded within an hermetic realm of inner fictions or representational of a foundational outside world - the two limiting positions invoked by various extreme and untenable forms of anti-realism and realism. Thereby, I hope to clarify a way of providing a possible 'solution' to one of the major issues now confronting the philosophy oflanguage by means of what I call, for reasons which will become apparent, Derrida's 'Middle Voice'. In both form and content, my thesis as a whole traces the rhythm of Derridian writing as it complicates and confuses such boundaries as 'inside imaginary'Zoutside real', re-inscribing them as 'limited functions' of its movement between 'desire' and 'truth'. Hence, my Introduction begins by briefly contrasting Derrida's 'dynamic', non-linear, writing with Saussure's model of language and meaning. I then proceed to consider the implications of this with respect to Derrida's deconstruction of that major 'insidc'Zoutside' dualism of Western metaphysics, and I do this through readings of thinkers whose positions I take to err by overprivileging either side of these two extremes. Thus, Chapter One, starting from ubiquitous desire, is mainly concerned with the deconstruction of Lac an's linguistic re-interpretation of the Freudian unconscious. Chapter Two builds on my findings and, using as a paradigm the Barthesian text, considers Derridian writing as exceeding and moving 'outwards' from the concept of language over-idealized as an 'inside imaginary'. This, because of what, in Chapter Three I reveal as Derrida's 'middle voice' in terms of the 'rhythm' of writing, moving 'beyond' and 'between' any 'inside'foutside' opposition. Chapter Four thus shows Derrida's notion of the text, though historical and ethical through and through, also disturbing all reference to any foundational 'outside real' of history as envisaged by Jameson, Eagleton, and others. Finally, arguing against many of the standard interpretations, I give an original'writerly' reading of 'post analytical' philosophy in the form of Davidson's truth-conditions theory of meaning, showing that despite their radical differences, some of Davidson's ideas are remarkably congruent with Derridian writing. I draw to a close with a brief Conclusion, summarizing my findings in each of the chapters and placing Derrida's scriptural model of ,language' in relation to more general notions of complex dynamics and translation systems in, for example, the fields of cybernetics and biology. Finally, I end with a comprehensive Bibliography.

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Derrida Animal Ethics, is a study of “the animal question" in the works of French Philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) and his relevance for the newly emerging and diverse field of Critical Animal Studies (CAS), Religious Studies, and the Social Sciences and Humanities more generally. Drawing on Derrida’s longstanding engagement with human-animal relations, in such texts as The Animal That Therefore I Am, “Violence Against Animals,” and his final seminars The Beast and the Sovereign, this thesis centers on his analyses of sovereignty, singularity, death, and responsibility, treating each of these concepts in a thesis chapter, and examining the potential of each for a rethinking of “animality” in discourses on ethics and human-animal relations.

Les sciences des religions acceptèrent l’universalité de la religion comme une prémisse indéniable dès sa fondation. Néanmoins, certaines réserves peuvent être émises. Cette thèse poursuit la problématisation de l’universalité de la religion, entamée par un groupe d’auteurs de la critical religion, et oriente la réflexion sur les conditions d’intelligibilité de cette croyance par l’entremise d’une analyse discursive déconstructiviste contextualisant l’universalité de la religion dans son épistémè. Plus précisément, cette thèse propose que la croyance en l’universalité de la religion soit supportée par des réseaux de croyances métaphysiques et ontologiques. La déconstruction des conditions d’intelligibilité du concept de l’universalité, juxtaposée à celle de la réification de la religion, expose des jeux de langage délimités et circonscrits par une ontologie moderne. Ces jeux de langage ontologiques sont déployés par des démarcations radicales où des séries dichotomiques, le sujet et l’objet par exemple, circonscrivent les discours dans une clôture métaphysique. Bref, cette thèse déconstruit le signifié transcendantal « religion » et expose les conditions d’intelligibilité de l’universalité de la religion, c’est-à-dire les jeux de langage ontologiques modernes étroitement tissés et calqués sur l’ontologie classique où les discours auxquels la grande majorité des approches en sciences des religions adhèrent puisent leur intelligibilité.

This thesis presents possibilities of meaning and communication in the light of the deconstructive thinking of Jacques Derrida. The central claim of the thesis is that meaning and communication are not only possible in deconstructive thinking but that their complex and contradictory relationship with one another is at the heart of that thinking. Deconstruction will be posited as an applied understanding of the generative (that is, lived) processes of meaning and communication. Deconstruction, the thesis argues, is not, as has hitherto been suggested, a process which undermines or negates the possibility of meaning or communication. Rather, the thesis concludes that provisional possibilities of meaning are contextually resigned acts of faith, whilst faith in the impossibility of future communication is the sense of faith. Where meaning stops and communication begins is where deconstruction's faith in impossibility makes that future possible. The thesis highlights six specific contexts within which meaning and communication are provisionally and generatively explored: Derrida's writing on meaning and communication; Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy's meaningful and communicative congruities; S0ren Kierkegaard's impossible marriages; John Cowper Powys's 'marriage'; the 'realities within reality' of the 'Stonehenge' chapter of Powys's A Glastonbury Romance; and, the author's own conceptions of 'act of faith' and 'sense of faith' employed in line with the previous contexts read through John Llewelyn's 'imagination'. These six contexts are underpinned by five principal questions: what is communication? what is meaning? who or what communicates? who or what means? and, where does meaning stop and communication begin?