In commemoration of the 45th聽publication anniversary of Jacques Derrida鈥檚聽Signature Event Context, the world renowned scholar on Derrida, Paul Patton, delivered a lecture titled, 鈥淒errida鈥檚 Political Philosophy: From Unconditionality to Limited Sovereignty鈥� last 6 September 2016, at the Martyrs鈥� Hall, Ecclesiastical Faculties, 六合彩直播开奖. It was attended by members of the Department of Philosophy, and students from the Graduate School and the Faculty of Arts and Letters.
Patton鈥檚 lecture revolved around Derrida鈥檚 critical engagement with politics. Specifically, he discussed the political configuration of Derrida鈥檚 well-known philosophy of deconstruction. According to Patton, 鈥淒econstruction seeks for the invention of entirely new concepts.鈥� He emphasized the development of Derrida鈥檚 political philosophy and argues some of the salient rethinking of the concept of the 鈥渇uturity of the Other鈥� found in his concept of 鈥淟鈥檃venir.鈥� Derrida鈥檚 thoughts cannot be separated from the political in as much as the mediative nature of deconstruction already invokes a displacement of stabilized concepts and norms.
In concretizing deconstruction to analyze contemporary society, it assumes the form of becoming-democracy. Essentially, becoming-democracy does not provide universal guides that will engender the achievement of an ideal democratic society. Rather, it critically diagnoses traditional democracy, which is based on the concepts of absolute sovereignty and the androcentric tradition. In doing so, it envisions a democracy without sovereignty and arborescent structures, in a way that it develops into an equal ontological plane for the rhizomic interplay of various people, relations, and forces.
Moreover, becoming-democracy analyzes the contradictions or tensions immanent in our understanding and practices of democracy, justice, governance etc. towards a people-to come. However, Patton elucidates, that this radicalized brand of democracy opens us to an absolute future characterized by pure becoming. It leads us to an unforeseeable future, since its possibility is always deferred by its historical concretization.
Patton contemplates Derrida鈥檚 anticipation of a receptive form of democracy in which cosmopolitanism provokes our thoughts on the possibility of living together in a community of plural identities with their respective plural norms. This thought is not only timely in a era of migration and political asylums, it also evokes the necessity of vigilant anticipation and reception of a future Other to come. In a similar vein with Nikolas Kompridis鈥� receptivity towards the new, Patton proposes that the challenge of today鈥檚 democracies is not merely to curate the inclusion of different identities, but also to maintain the continuous possibility of difference for those who are about 鈥渢o come.鈥� In this case, we see the anticipative role of hospitality as a continuing guarantor of a democracy of the future. Patton鈥檚 reading of Derrida gives this ethical turn of receptivity a critical continuity in Derrida鈥檚 latter texts. In contrast to Levinas, Derrida鈥檚 conception of diff茅rance as a starting point for establishing the possibility of mutual receptivity between 鈥渉ost鈥� and 鈥済uest鈥� in a cosmopolitan democracy. By establishing this subtle economy of relations, Patton sees Derrida鈥檚 thoughts as a viable theoretical foundation for ethics in a democracy that has yet to come.
A Scientia Professor in the School of Humanities and Languages, University of New South Wales, Patton obtained his undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Sydney and his postgraduate study at the University of Paris (VIII). Known as the translator of Gilles Deleuze鈥檚 Difference and Repetition, he has published widely on French poststructuralist approaches to political philosophy, especially the work of Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault, and Nietzsche.
