October 9, 2004

Jacques Derrida, (July 15, 1930 to October 9, 2004) in his later career, discussed The Animal That Therefore I Am (English trans 2008). The book brings this question

'[Would I be ashamed] naked before a cat that looks at you without moving,...I must immediately make it clear the cat I am talking about is a real cat....believe me, a little cat. It isn't the figure of a cat. It doesn't silently enter the bedroom as an allegory for all the cats on the earth, the felines that traverse our myths and religions, our literature and fables. There are so many of them. The cat I am talking about does not belong to Kafka's vast zoopoetics....'

This text is not the reason I consider Derrida the greatest academic philosopher of the last century. The reason is that in books like Of Grammatology (French translation 1967) we see an approach that is girded on the limits of the verbal. And of course, it is fun to see English philosophers sputter on the topic of Derrida.