Note on this edition: this is an electronic version of the 1999 book ...

Unravelling the Demonic Text 87struction of Western metaphysics is a persistent inquiry into our “belonging”to the language of metaphysics, and an attempt to discover the “nonplace”which would be the ‘other’ of philosophy. 31 In this sense the relationshipof deconstruction to philosophy is complex and ambivalent. On onehand, Derrida writes derisively about all the “empiricist” or “nonphilosophicalmotifs” that have constantly tormented philosophy, and “havehad nothing but the inevitable weakness of being produced in the field ofphilosophy […].” 32 On the other, Derrida grants a special role to the “demonichyperbole” (daimonias hyperboles); to the constant attempt of philosophyto break its own boundaries, the limits of reason. “The historicityproper to philosophy is located and constituted in the transition, the dialoguebetween hyperbole [the project of exceeding every finite and determinedtotality] and the finite structure […].” 33 The basic difference betweenthe readings of Derrida and Foucault on Descartes and madness reverts tolanguage as related to transcendent Being, or language as related to particular,historical and imperfect, corporeal beings. Derrida’s starting point is thatDescartes should be read beginning from “the internal and autonomousanalysis of the philosophical content of philosophical discourse.” 34 Foucaultgives no such privileges of autonomy to philosophy, but points out that theconcepts that Descartes is using have different (medical, juridical, political)histories, and that the analysis should not disconnect the text from this historyand the ideology it furthers.Dislocation and disruption of established, ideological conceptions andhierarchies is as important for Derrida as it is for Foucault. It is Derrida’semphasis on the primary status of writing in general that makes language inherently“demonic” for him, instead of making him address some resolvableconflict external to language, one that could be corrected by proper use of it.The theme of supplementarity leads Derrida to look into “the being-chain ofa textual chain, the structure of substitution, the articulation of desire andlanguage,” into “the abyss,” the indefinite multiplication of representation. 35Therefore he is very interested in how those who have thought and writtenabout language have identified “good” and “evil” aspects in the writing; “thegood and natural is the divine inscription in the heart and the soul; the perverseand artful is technique, exiled in the exteriority of the body.” 36 Derridais principally analysing language in a fallen world: there is only “fallen writing,”even if our communication is directed towards the dream of “divine inscription.”The demonic hyperbole of Descartes – the hypothesis of an evildemon counterfeiting everything we know and take for granted – is for Der-31 Derrida 1984, 111-12.32 Derrida 1967/1976, 19. Cf. Derrida in the context of Levinas: “[…] empirism, forthe latter, at bottom, has ever committed but one fault: the fault of presenting itself asphilosophy” (1968/1978, 151).33 Derrida 1968/1978, 60.34Ibid., 44.35 Derrida 1967/1976, 163.36Ibid., 17.