Dissemination - Softcover

Derrida, Jacques

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0485120933 ISBN 13: 9780485120936

Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd., 2000

Synopsis

The paperback edition of a work first published in 1981, this book is intended for students of literary criticism, linguistics and philosophy. It provides Derrida's most central and seminal works: "La Pharmacie de Platon", "La Double Seance" and "La Dessemination". The essays provide original readings of Mallarme and present a re-evaluation of the logic of meaning and the function of writing in Western discourse.

About this title

Review

The English version of Dissemination [is] an able translation by Barbara Johnson . . . . Derrida's central contention is that language is haunted by dispersal, absence, loss, the risk of unmeaning, a risk which is starkly embodied in all writing. The distinction between philosophy and literature therefore becomes of secondary importance. Philosophy vainly attempts to control the irrecoverable dissemination of its own meaning, it strivesagainst the grain of languageto offer a sober revelation of truth. Literatureon the other handflaunts its own meretriciousness, abandons itself to the Dionysiac play of language. In Disseminationmore than any previous workDerrida joins in the revelry, weaving a complex pattern of puns, verbal echoes and allusions, intended to 'deconstruct' both the pretension of criticism to tell the truth about literature, and the pretension of philosophy to the literature of truth. --Peter Dews, New Statesman

From the Back Cover

Derrida joins in the revelry, weaving a complex pattern of puns, verbal echoes and allusions, intended to 'deconstruct' both the pretension of criticism to tell the truth about literature, and the pretension of philosophy to be the literature of truth.

Edition details

• Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0485120933
• ISBN 13: 9780485120936
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400