Talk:Jacques Derrida

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Jacques Derrida has had a peer review by Wikipedia editors which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

This page has been cited as a source by a media organization. See the 2004 press source article for details.

The citation is in: "Who's Who:Jacques Derrida", Sofia News Agency, October 9, 2004.

The idea of 'Derrida' and the encyclopedia itself would be cause for encyclopedic volumes - I really wonder whose texts (including oto- and bio-graphies) out of any thinker would be more appropriately (whatever this might mean) 'factually disputed' than Derrida's?

[edit] Quine is a has-been :-)

202.82.33.202 04:00, 3 March 2007 (UTC): it's illiterate in the (extraordinarily POV and lousy) section on criticisms of Derrida to say that Derrida's work "is regarded" by Willard van Orman Quine as anything at all, since Quine is dead and can't regard, or diss, or ignorantly trash multiple valued logic or Derrida any more from quondam perch as the midcentury enforcer of corporate "thought". So, I've repaired the grammar.

However, the whole goddamn section should be removed as POV UNLESS someone is willing to insert an attack on every philosopher at his or her entry.

Derrida was fair game because he spoke up for victims, and American philosophy departments are full of thugs.

[edit] Changes to Intro

Some mention of the respect accorded to him by even his critics for his erudition and close reading of texts is due. I am no fan in the end of either Derrida or his gaggle, but the man was extremely literate. It is ironic that the bete-noire of so many, was also an inspiring pedagouge and was noted for his effort to educate the young. DocFaustRoll 19:10, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 'Negative receptions' v. 'Criticisms'

Is there any particular reason why 'negative receptions' is being used as opposed to 'criticisms' which is far more widely used across wikipedia? Unless someone could provide some justification, I suggest we change it. 80.195.190.64 03:20, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

perhaps because it neatly mirrors derrida's own circuitous verbosity?

I've gone ahead and changed it 80.195.190.64 13:00, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

While I'm at it..."(2)that the popular demand that philosophers write for a wide audience is ideological and does not match, for example, the demands put upon mathematicians, physicists, etc., the specificity of whose argument cannot be explained to a general public (see Points... and Paper Machine) either, while the demand that he write for a broad audience by way of simplifying the philosophical tradition he is depending upon is plainly overly simplistic and liable to serious error."

This misses the point spectacularly. No-one was asking Dereida to write for a broad audience, instead they were asking him to write philosophy that is not deliberately obscure, ie. philosophy that is only as complicated as the material merits, but no more complicated. The situation with Derrida is not akin to a wide audience being unable to grasp the minutiae of some reasearch paper in physics- it is more like most of the scientific community being unable to understand it. Now, it could be that Derrida's work is so difficult because it really is just that good- but the fact that some of the world's most respected philosophers have studied it and come away convinced that, on the whole, it says little that is interesting or original, ought to make one rather suspicious.

There is really nothing too difficult about Derrida in the end. Ridiculously thorough and circumspect perhaps, but difficult? The analytic tradition has that down in spades. These entries should focus on the history, methinks, and on the different ways these figures are viewed both by themselves, their epigones, and their critics. You could accuse him of being tedious as well. One often wishes he would sacrifice a litte erudition for just getting to a point. But to deny him his erudition would be a flat out lie or to admit that one had not even scanned his texts. DocFaustRoll 19:15, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

One thing which is already gestured towards here (in the ref to Wolin) but which could perhaps be made more explicit is the way in which Derrida's reception by anglophone philosophers was symptomatic of a division between the work done in anglo-american philoshophy departments, and widely denigrated 'continental philosophy' in general. The basically Wittgensteinian, or else basically 'common sense' philosophy faculty at Cambridge for example hates Heidegger as much as Derrida, and doesn't have much time (with some exceptions) for Nietzsche either. I think it would be helpful to show that Derrida wasn't anomalous in any sense - he just got more famous than, say, Jean-Luc Nancy (who all those Cambridge chaps would loathe too). Ajcounter 17:13, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What's the Status?

I notice, while the article still remains tagged as under dispute and not meaning criteria, a wave of inactivity has dispersed in the previous months. I'm curious what anyone's thoughts for "where things stand," what corrections seem immediate priority, etc.

1. The introductory paragraph will clearly set the tone and "slant" of the article, by presenting Derrida (impossibly) in a few, concise sentences that seem to cast his life, project and work into a definable closure. And although his writing would therefore contradict that very possibility, this is an encyclopedia and introductory remarks have to begin somewhere, right. Hence, I think it is as important as possible to not be unnecessarily cursory or misleading in the focus.

A. I do not think Paul de Man's name should be within the foremost paragraph ala Derrida, deconstruction.

B. The haphazard collecting of de Man, Austin and Labarthe doesn't really foreground or warrant preliminary priority. (Husserl, Heidegger, Hegel, Nietzsche, Rousseau, much more so)

2. This paragraph in particular:

The 1966 paper, in addition to establishing Derrida's international reputation, marked the starting point of what is both Derrida's most significant and least-understood concept, deconstruction. Much of the mystique and confusion surrounding deconstruction stems from Derrida's insistence on not allowing the concept to be immune to its own critiques. That is, Derrida took pains to make deconstruction as impossible to essentialize as deconstruction made everything else.

This strikes me not so much as false as simply not true. Yes, Derrida evaded the classical limitization of "deconstruction," an operation that could not be confused with hermeneutics, analysis, critique, etc. But Derrida also did not prioritize this "term," and has spoken in many interviews about how his relationship to this word that would go on to define his work even as he set these very issues into abysmé, how this word was received and took on its own momentum. I recommended here, at this point in the article, we consult "Letter to a Japanese Friend," and notably "Difference" from Margins of Philosophy for a sense of deconstruction with obvious economy but no less attention to veracity and philosophical rigor.

3. While I find parts or components of the article linked to under the heading "Taking Derrida Seriously," this by no means should have its own category separate from the rest of the links within the body of the article. Aside from the fact it draws unnecessary attention and seems to offset itself from the other links as if some authority was being conferred, the article's title - placed as it is within the article - plays into a certain mass thinking that would have Derrida equated with nonsense, or linguistic nihilism. I don't believe we should cater to this belligerence enough by placing this article in such a way to say: "Look, here, here's an article to prove we should take this man and his work seriously." I can't stress this enough.

4. This following paragraph should be removed or drastically changed:

Finally, Derrida is a popular scapegoat of the American conservative movement in their critiques of a perceived leftist bias in universities. These critiques are, in many ways, less critiques of Derrida than of universities — he is generally invoked as someone so self-evidently absurd that no further argument need be made — the mere fact that English departments rely on Derrida is taken as clear proof of their flaws. Needless to say, most within the academy find these critiques excessively reductive.

While I might 'agree' vaguely with the sentiments lurking within that statement of opinion, or slant, or agenda, or counter-agenda, it is entirely inappropriate and unscholarly for an enclyopedia. It's [sic; What were you thinking? If you want to be taken seriously as a scholar you should know the difference between possessive pronouns and contractions.] language seems to be making an allegiance and implication of Derrida's politics, sympathies within the American academy that I believe he would reject be phrased so. This should be removed ASAP.

5. An example of an inappropriate sentence:

Whatever the outcome of these discussions, Derrida was often left in the unappealing position of having an opportunity for the last word in too many, as he outlived many of his peers.

The tone here is bordering of indictment - has Derrida eeriely outlived his colleagues or friends for reasons beyond chance? The sentence's ambiguous intent (on Derrida's intents, on those friends or non-friends he had and survived) - it seems to be verging on saying something else. It should be removed. ["unappealing" "too many" "many of his peers"]

An example of an appropriate sentence:

Death and mourning are foundational to the analysis which lead[develop or provoke] Derrida to his understanding of inheritance, interpretation, and responsibility.Adam Fitzgerald 19:26, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Adam Fitzgerald, the previous poster to whom I am responding, is reading far too much into the rhetoric used in the Derrida Wiki. If Derrida was your school, you would be the development office, paranoid beyond rationality that the college was being taken in a negative way by someone out there. Lest you forget, anyone reading these statements has a brain, and can knowingly sense and separate bias within a statement from the meat of it, for themselves -- not that the bias seems layed on thick, here. It rather seems judiciously applied in both directions, and I doubt if this weren't Derrida, anyone would be so uppity about it.

To refer back to your number 4: it reads to me as a statement of fact, not opinion, and a farely accurate fact as well, which you would know if you ever listened to conservative radio broadcasts in the USA. Perhaps you simply do not even want their opinion of Derrida even mentioned, even if it is passed along in such a way that, if anything, makes conservatives in America look bad (as if they need any help in that dept.). You do not see why it is relevant, but that does not make mentioning it any less related to criticism of Derrida, which was the subject header it was under.

As regards your point number 5: quite simply, you are projecting your own paranoia subconsciously onto the sentence, such that you are imagining an "indicting" tone that simply isn't present in the grammatical structure, the meanings of the words, or the context within which they were placed. It is simply preposterous to suggest or even imagine that any sane person reading this sentence would actually take it to mean that Derrida, as you say, "eeriely [sp] outlived his colleagues or friends for reasons beyond chance". Ridiculous. The sentence quite adequately says that Derrida was in a perhaps uncomfortable position in making statements that followed from past arguments with deceased peers -- perhaps when asked questions at symposiums or interviews. I mean, how would you feel, sir, if put in the same situation as Derrida when asked about what Foucault might have said about something? I would say "unappealing" might be even a euphamistic and kind-to-Derrida term to use here, since imagining myself in such a position is somewhat stomach-churning.

Look, we are all bricoleurs of whoever's thought, be it Derrida's or Zeno's. People are going to label and categorize things, because its useful and convenient. Just because Derrida, or at least you, might have rejected the notion that he could ever himself be categorized or summarized in any way, I'm afraid that does not mean that within the bricolage he will not have a label upon him. Just be thankful that unlike Nietzsche, Derrida is unlikely to have his works rewritten by a bunch of Nazis and used to justify the slaughter of millions. Don't think Derrida is so ultra-great that Paul De-Man or other contemporaries of his are too low to be uttered in the same breath as your Ubermensch -- that he must only be spoken of with Rousseau, Hegel, and, I know you didn't say it, but lets just throw in Goethe, eh? I know Goethe isn't very cool anymore, but still.

Look, it's simply unavoidable. So you might as well settle yourself now with the closest label, the best fit at least: "deconstruction." Because what is the alternative? I don't see you suggesting one. 67.160.140.100 11:01, 23 January 2006 (UTC)jon gilbert

[edit] Gerhard Anna Concic-Kaucic, Deconstruction, and Derrida

I'm not aware of Concic-Kaucic's work at all except through Wikipedia, and the English Wikipedia provides only cursory treatment. I've read Derrida's work fairly extensively and am reasonably familiar with at least some specifics of the relationships for all of the relationships mentioned in "Derrida as French Philosopher" and could provide citations for all of them except Gerhard Anna Concic-Kaucic (periodically added anonymously), whom I do not know Derrida ever to have referenced (and certainly not with the level of consistency of all others listed). If Derrida has a determinate trait, it is to reference whomever he is reading fervently, alive or dead, and to acknowledge his intellectual relationships; I therefore find it extremely suspect that Derrida has not referenced Concic-Kaucic, which either makes my ignorance or the absence of a relationship stand out. The only hits I find via Google that mention both Derrida and the latter are from the English, German, French, Italian, and (I believe) Hungarian Wikipedias and mirror sites (there were 247 hits). None of these provide any level of detail, and I find further cause for skepticism in the remark in the Concic-Kaucic Gerhard Anna Concic-Kaucic that "His method of writing is grammatology", which does not make sense to me and immediately called to mind Derrida's interview remark that he wrote about grammatology not to advocate but to delimit it.

The German wikipedia deleted this entry once (although it has since reappeared), as well as the related entry for the Dekonstruktion Roman (which has not reappeared) and (if I've translated the article correctly) appears to have banned the user who made these edits and links. I also find that German Wikipedia has generally been reluctant to accept links to Concic-Kaucic and they have reappeared there only recently (in the Derrida and the Dekonstruktion entries). More bizarre yet, the deleted Concic-Kaucic entry and references appear on Concic-Kaucic's home page, with the article deletion discussion below. I tend to think that Wikipedia is being used to promote the work of someone who otherwise lacks exposure and that, in any case, the verifiability of these links is complicated by the fact that they are effectively self-referential.

Unless someone can produce cites that otherwise demonstrates Concic-Kaucic's notability and citations demonstrating that his work has been given some scholarly attention in at least German-language scholarship, I am inclined to remove all references to him in the deconstruction category and articles so categorised. Buffyg 22:45, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

I thought the persistent reinsertion of links to Mr. Concic-Kaucic had already been handled before, both here and on the German Wikipedia (see [1] ), as vandalism. It is likely either self-promotion or a complete fabrication -- I'm not sure which, but it ought not to matter much. Concic-Kaucic is not a notable writer, if he indeed exists. I would suggest that the links be summarily deleted and the article on Concic-Kaucic himself placed on VfD; I'd do it myself, but I don't have the time now to handle the subsequent debate and (doubtless) the attempts to recreate it repeatedly. -- Rbellin|Talk 03:05, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Influences: the short list

An anonymous user suggested that Nietzsche should be on the short list of influences on Derrida. I'm not inclined to agree. Nietzsche may have an important place in Derrida's work, but so do Benjamin, Hegel, Kant, and Levinas (that's not trying to be comprehensive). When I put together the list of Husserl, Heidegger, and Freud, I was thinking of a number of criteria: all three are subjects of the early works, and Derrida returns to them every now and again. Bennington asked whose work is really indispensible to Derrida's: Freud is first on his list, followed by the possible inclusion of Heidegger. I included Husserl because of his prominent position in Derrida's early works and the revisitation of Husserl for his doctoral thesis. I can see much of this as controversial, but I would like to see citation of a reasonably authoritative commentator before as a basis for discussion (I've already named Bennington). Buffyg 11:59, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

That's an odd decision. It is 'well known' that N was an influence. The point really has to be addressed, anyway. Charles Matthews 16:15, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, Rorty writes Most of Derrida's work continues a line of thought which begins with Friedrich Nietzsche and runs through Martin Heidegger. (Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, vol. 8, p.168, first line of the section Deconstructionist theory). Now he could be wrong. Charles Matthews 16:22, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, it seems that there might also be those who agree with you, despite Éperons. Charles Matthews 16:37, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I would venture that Derrida recognised Bennington as his most authoritative commentator, and Bennington thinks very little of Rorty's attempts to interpret Derrida (see "Forever Friends" in Interrupting Derrida), a failing which is not very hard to diagnose on reading Rorty reading Derrida (take, for example, Rorty's essay in The Nation not long after Derrida's passing). Buffyg 17:00, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I would venture, in turn, that the article ought not end up on Bennington or Rorty's side, A, and B, that for a generalist audience, most of the detail offered by both Bennington and Rorty is simply beside the point - the article direly needs to refocus on Derrida, and on what someone who cannot be assumed to have read Heidegger, Bennington, Rorty, or any of Derrida's works would want to know about him. Snowspinner 17:14, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I cannot agree, although I realise you are trying to be emphatic about general accessibility. Sooner or later one has to draw on the strength of existing commentaries to get a reasonable generalist account. Reading Rorty on Derrida, one sees Rorty trying to claim that he and Derrida fundamentally share the same concerns, by which time you know his reading's gone horribly wrong. If you read Rorty on Derrida, you'll learn a lot about Rorty and not so much about Derrida. If that is useful to us here, one might expect it to help highlight the insufficiency of the supposedly pragmatic approach that conventionally attaches to "generalist" account and begin to understand what distinguishes deconstruction from anything else in the history of philosophy. Conversely, Bennington's collaboration with Derrida produced the book on Derrida. If you want to talk about how Derrida viewed the prospects for meaningful commentary on his work, which is inextricable from the question of how one might write a "generalist" commentary on Derrida, Bennington's would appear to be more than one example among others. I feel obliged take that into account in some way, shape, or form any time that I was looking at the work of either in the context of the entry.

If the question is looking to solid scholarship on Derrida's work to help with fundamental characterisation, you can always use the contrast to make the point, but I wouldn't be looking to Rorty here as an authoritative source to settle a claim under dispute. In other words: one ought not confuse deploying arguments of specific pedagogical utility with broader philosophical validity, which is not beside the point here. Buffyg 19:57, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Academic politesses aside, the point might actually be interesting. I see that Peter Dews reckons the Nietzsche influence in France arrived mainly before post-structuralism. The reason I recanted a bit was an odd feeling in looking in various books treating both the N influence and D is that they kind of seemed not to be on the stage at the same time. Well, more research required. A lot of criticism coming from the hard Left does reject N, reject D or at least aspects of deconstruction, and roughly speaking says the only good Nietzschean is a dead one. They could be lying ... Well, time to read the page again, and see how it now is. Charles Matthews 20:57, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

The problem is that I don't think it's a given that how Derrida viewed the prospects for meaningful commentary on his work is related to how to do a generalist commentary - in fact, I think the two are, for an NPOV encyclopedia, fundamentally at odds. There's a lot of debate on how best to understand and deploy Derrida - unsurprisingly. To ally the article with Bennington would be very, very bad NPOV writing. And I think until the article is clear and cogent on the question of what the fundamentals of Derrida's thought is and how best to explain them in simple, common language, the Bennington/Rorty debates are an issue that just don't need to be breached yet. Snowspinner 23:46, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I'd agree on two points: (a) NPOV is mandatory so Bennington cannot just be the ace of trumps here; (b) yes, some things can in WP terms be premature. Charles Matthews 11:05, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, now a German voice, Peter Zima in The Philosophy of Modern Literary Theory (1999). Chapter 7, The Nietzschean Aesthetics of Deconstruction. On p. 150 'In L'Ecriture et la différence, Derrida draws his inspiration from Nietzsche when he decides to replace the metaphysical concepts of Being and Truth with the notion of play.' And much more in this chapter. Charles Matthews 18:38, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Derrida has spoken of his influences and the idea of literary or philosophical influences often. A longer list (across time): Husserl, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, André Gide, Mallarmé, Plato, Rousseau, Hegel, Levinas.Adam Fitzgerald 19:32, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The rewrite needs a rewrite

Before returning to the above, let me say this about the rewrite: it certainly doesn't do much to make the article more readable, and it does a number of things to make it less so. If readability is a concern, there's no evidence that this was thoroughly read before it was left in its current form, resulting in major issues with ordering and introduction of issues and people. There's some weaseling to be found ("supporters of Derrida") and some failed attempts at summary ("leftist bias"). This is why it's preferable to do major re-writes on subpages and wait for consensus before clobbering the article. I will take a pen to a printed copy to put together another major edit. I've added a cleanup tag in the interim. Buffyg 09:43, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I too had problems with those edits. Charles Matthews 13:13, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Small things like weaseling are, I think, changable without a substantial rewrite. I do, however, strenuously disagree with the idea that the article is ordered badly - it's ordered much like any other biographical article. And I'm downright offended by the insistence on removing any definition of deconstruction from the article. Snowspinner 21:52, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I removed a downright wrong definition and am putting together a replacement. Buffyg 23:10, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

The definition was not "downright wrong," and I find your continued insistence on belittling downright offensive. You want to discuss on talk? Fine - give some sense of what your problem with the article is. Snowspinner 23:14, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

No, the definition was simply wrong. Deconstruction is not about exposing the plurality of meaning within texts. Such approaches to interpretation have existed for a very long time. Deconstruction certainly has a great deal of interest in interpretation because interpretation is part of the traditions that it assumes, but that's not quite got us to what makes deconstruction distinct or even unique. Deconstruction is a strategic approach to Western traditions of thought that is interested in asking questions that can be articulated on the basis of a text (the tradition) but which the text itself articulates inadequately but nonetheless allows to be thought. For example: When Derrida comes up with a theory of iterability on the basis of his reading of Austin, this reading is not simply an account of the disparate meanings of How to Do Things with Words. Derrida's notion of iterability accounts for what Austin acknowledges but does not render systematic: that the possibility of failure is inherent in all speech acts. It is not that there are categories of acts that happen under unfelicitous circumstances are therefore doomed to failure because of factors that we can isolate in individual instances. All speech acts, despite their conformity to a common structure can fail because they are also singularities qua events or acts. They are not magic spells. The notion of iterability introduced in Derrida's reading of Austin is an attempt rigourously to account for this exposure to failure. The notion of iterability is a more originary notion than the terms than Austin proposes in his account. It may be possible to think iterability by reading Austin, but what Derrida offers is a supplement that keeps the book open on Austin (indeed, speech acts appear in late works like "The University without Condition" and Typewriter Ribbon). Deconstruction does its work by thinking the decisions that it finds between these multiplicities of meeting. Saying that it is content to find them completely misses the point without effacing their status as textual events. This is what I'm trying to revise into the entry at the moment, mostly using some of the late interviews. Buffyg 00:00, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I hope your definition is going to be about five times more coherent to a non-expert reader than that was. (I also seriously question the use of the more minor, later sources over the early and much-more influential sources here. I'm not wholly inclined to priviledge Derrida's account of his project over the more general applications of his work - an encyclopedia reader is much more likely to be interested in understanding how Derrida is used than he or she is in understanding Derrida in an abstract and pure sense.) Regardless, this and a couple of other issues are making it so I'm failing to focus on my academic work, so I'm giving this one a break. Which is not to say that I am saying "Go ahead and do what you want with the article." If, when I get around to editing here again in a few weeks, I think the article has descended back into unreadability and arcane points, I will be revisiting it. Snowspinner 00:21, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I would like to point out that Derrida did not necessarily agree with Buffyg's definition of deconstruction. That is, on a number of occasions he does define it as "exposing the plurality of meanings in a text"; moreover, he also clearly states that deconstruction is NOT necessarily original or novel. He claims that it is in fact quite ancient. He may say that a particular use of it, or--for lack of a better word--"systemization" of it is novel, or at least a product of the more recent past, but it has been used and in existence long before his formulation(s) of it. Of course, in all of his purposeful elusiveness ol' Jacques gave many differing/defering definitions of deconstruction. It may be helpful to include a handful of these rather than argue pointlessly about what the "true" definition should be (particularly as he quite plainly didn't want anyone to think there were or could be a singular definition of the term). --MS

PS--I'd like to add that I think that the rewrites I believe Buffyg has done, have greatly improved the quality of the article.

Concision is far more easily achieved if one doesn't seem to think it equally important to be correct. I moved the pending edit to the subpage Jacques Derrida/Draft. I apologise for forgetting to pull the edit flag on the main page at that time. I would suggest per Wikipedia:Be Bold that a stable article should not be completely overhauled without conferring here and that it would be better to work out a mutually agreeable article on the subpage. If you want to revert, revert to the revision of October 7. There is ample evidence of consensus behind that revision vis-a-vis what you've produced thus far. I agree that the article needs revisions for readability, and I do appreciate your willingness to take a shot at it. I also insist that this cannot excuse the introduction of so many misstatements that indicate a thorough failure of [non-original] research, which badly mar the article in its current form. I believe a genuinely collaborative result will be superior to both. Buffyg 22:18, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I've changed the disputed tag to apply to the entire article. Some things which are verifiably incorrect:

Derrida did use the postmodern terms in his exchanges with Lyotard.

Derrida's family did not follow him to France in 1949 (they remained until 1962 and the end of the Algerian War of Independence)

it is not true that "Structure, Sign, and Play" marked "the starting point of deconstruction"

we've already covered problems with the definition of deconstruction

I think there is one claim has been introduced that isn't simply a matter of NPOV or factual accuracy:

Derrida remains controversial not simply because the right can use him to argue about relativism and leftist bias in the academy; Derrida clearly states that he holds so many of the Enlightenment values which are the conventions of academic politics to be insufficient. People of all sorts of political persuasions aren't happy or comfortable about this. People can label it as a commitment to relativism and glue it on to a pre-fab attack on "left" academic commitments (forgetting, for example, that it is business and military leaders who wrote letters to the Supreme Court in the Michigan affirmative action case), but that's far from specifying the source of the controversy. That he goes on to say that the Enlightenment is a limit that can be passed, that we can and should have an enlightenment that belongs to our own time is often passed over and further fails to specify what's controversial, allowing that specification to be replaced here with polemics.

I do appreciate that some efforts are now being made at building consensus for revisions. Again, I would offer that it would be preferable at this point to revert the article to its state on October 7 and to continue work toward a consensus major revision on the draft subpage, which is based on the current revision. The article as it stands at the moment is, however, a product of impatience. There is no evidence of consensus favouring the article in its current form, although I believe there to be a general consensus about where improvements need to be made to the article before those revisions. I believe that it's going to take time to do an overhaul that is better-written, factually correct, and an otherwise reasonable account of its difficult subject matter, particularly if it is to be a product of consensus. The greatest measure of good faith is demonstrated by commitment to that rewrite rather than trying to defend non-consensus edits to a previously stable article. Buffyg 14:08, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Other Works (Addition to "Works on Derrida" section)

I would like to add "Philosophy In A Time Of Terror" to the works on Derrida secion. This would be my first edit. He gives some interesting insight into the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and terrorism in general (Symbolic Autoimmunity of the towers etc.). Does anyone think it is worthwhile commenting on this in the article? Szpak 06:26, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

It's mentioned in "Selected works by Derrida" and "External links", though not as a whole. The differentiation of works "by" and "on" once more proves itself to be arbitrary, doesn't it? Just joking, however I'm not sure about the current categorization ("by"), if these really are "dialogues", not having seen the book myself. Conf 19:32, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

You can check out bits and pieces of it if you do a google search. I'm reading it right now. The full title is "Philosophy In A Time Of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jaques Derrida", written by Giovanna Borradori. Szpak 19:40, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Written By Ishango

I must say, don't you find it ironic that, even though we try to explain the life and work of Derrida we end up being in dispute of what to write about him ? Aren't we also engaged in deconstruction when we do this? Isn't Wikipedia a kind of Deconstructive exercise? I am very happy there is a conference to do with deconstruction. I have heard it's on the wane, dying, for the last 30 years. I tell you, it is dead. If there is a difference between deconstruction and any other fashion, discipline and so forth, it is that it started with dying. Quote from [Applied Derrida|http://www.hydra.umn.edu/derrida/applied.html]

Alex K:

Could somebody please explain to me in plain English what the bloke has said and why I should care about it? I'm truly positively inclined but nobody anywhere managed so far to explain it to me. For many issues Wikipedia is the place to go for people like me, but (post)modern sociology seems a bit belly-gazing even here. Is the film good?

Well, you would first have to change your attitude and stop thinking that the complexities of knowledge and understanding can be understood or comprehended in short, bite-size chunks like a big-mac.

Alex -- The film sucks. Actually maybe others will disagree with me, but I thought it was a load of crap. The filmmaker(s) obviously knew next to nothing about Derrida's work and it shows. Instead of a patient illustration of Derrida's ideas for a general audience -- which I think is really needed -- the film gives us instead some out-of-context quotations from Derrida's work, shots of him buttering his toast, and questions like, "What do you think about love?" -- which, surprisingly, Derrida actually answers with some rambling platitude after looking confused for a couple minutes (he looks confused throughout much of the film actually -- that ought to give you an idea of the filmmaker(s) process).

OK, sorry about the rant. To answer your question:

This is going to be incredibly ham-fisted, but in as simple terms as I can muster, what Derrida does is read texts (philosophy, literature, whatever) against the grain. What do I mean by against the grain? Well, if the text says that it's doing one thing (making an argument about how speech is more important than writing, for example), Derrida shows how the text can in fact be doing a completely different if not contradictory thing (e.g., valorizing writing instead of speech). Now, how he actually accomplishes this type of reading and how it is philosophically justified is a different, longer story.

I think this essay is OK for a start -- http://www.nakedpunch.com/issues/03/critchley.html -- just ignore the intra-philosophical slagging in the beginning. I'd be happy to expand on or clarify any of the above to the best of my abilities. I could also recommend some books to start with, but I'm not sure how much you're interested in following this stuff.

To anyone else out there who feels they can do a better job of explaining Derrida's thought or feels that I've misrepresented it, please feel free to add.

[edit] charlatanism

Will the editor who claims that "the vast majority" of analytic philosophers consider Derrida a "charlatan" please provide a list of some of these philosophers in the majority? I find it unlikely that a philosopher who is considered a "charlatan" would be repeatedly asked to address the American Philosophical Association. I also disagree with the implication that Cavell and Rorty are at odds with the rest of the philosophical tradition or that they are the only ones who don't consider him a charlatan. I'm not a member of the APA myself so my apologies if I am speaking from ignorance, but my sense is that Derrida's work is taken quite seriously by many philosophers and that he is dismissed by a few who have not taken the time to read him or who have profoundly misinterpreted what they have read (e.g. Searle).--csloat 18:51, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dispute

Can someone remind me what in this article is actually disputed these days? Phil Sandifer 20:00, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Factual accuracy? The article looks okay to me--I'd say if it needs a tag at all, perhaps it should be the "article does not cite sources" tag. --The Famous Movie Director 06:59, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism paragraph order

I've changed the order of the paragraphs in the criticism section. It seemed a little silly to have the "Derrida was friends with a Nazi sympathizer" bit come before anything about his actual arguments. I know there was a major dispute about it for a while, but surely the other criticisms are of more pressing concern, since they actually relate to his ideas and legacy. --The Famous Movie Director 06:49, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Richard Rorty is not an analytic philosopher.

Title says it all, this factual mistake should be corrected. While Cavell is an analytic philosopher I think there would be widespread agreement that Richard Rorty is no longer an analytic philosopher although he was once.

Was he when he made the comments in question? Phil Sandifer 07:16, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article in need of clarity

Hello. I see the article is written in the same obscure manner as Derrida's own work.

However, these "violent hierarchies", as Derrida termed it, are eventually silently challenged by the texts themselves, where the meaning of a text depends on this contradiction or antinomy. This is why Derrida insisted that 'deconstruction' (Derrida never really liked or approved of the term itself) was never performed or executed but 'took place': in this way, the task of the 'deconstructor' was to show where this oppositional or dialectical stability was subverted by the text's internal logic.

Etc etc. I suppose that's natural because only fans are really motivated to work on this article. Fair enough. But while you're at it, how about considering that the general readership is probably confused by this stuff. You can think of it as stooping to their level if it makes you feel better. 207.174.201.18 16:43, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Conservative, analytic, popular "criticisms"

Are these "criticisms" even noteworthy enough to warrant mention in an encyclopedic article on Derrida? They have nothig to do with him, his ideas, and the place of deconstruction in the humanities. They are mostly attacks from outside of the humanities and continental philosophy mostly depending on suspect normative assumptions about "clarity" imported from the ever-so-"clear" discourses of right-ring punditry and analytic philosophy. Moreover, these "criticisms" have nothing to do with the actual arguments and ideas at play within the continental tradition -- the context from which Derrida's ideas emerged and within which they must be interpreted. I feel there is too much emphasis on these "criticisms" (likely because there are many people trolling wiki who would rather have Derrida just go away than actually read him seriously) which have nothing to do with either Derrida or deconstruction -- but rather with conservatives, analytic philosophers, and their various normative-ideological agendas.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Agnaramasi (talk • contribs).

Mime:Here we have our modern day Nietzsche with those ever present problems of reception and the binding infirmities of the "philosophical" community (for example, one need only view Nietzsche to bear witness to it: apparently someone thinks his views of Hegel trump a straw-Nietzsche, yes, absurdly enough). On this sole point I am easily inclined to agree for I share these concerns as you do, since the conditions of these criticisms leveled at Derrida by many listed in the topical section have their origin in suppositions Derrida himself criticised. I would very well think they could be moved to some other article for their genuineness appears substandard out of hand (conversely, the entire section could be rewritten). It is typical to see such criticisms when there is a disturbing lack within the community itself, when there is an overwhelming egress of languid personalities. It is entirely possible that Derrida has yet to be rigorously criticised according to his own terms (and again Nietzsche appears in the same light). It is in this sense I would not even accord the denomination of "criticism" to the section in question.10:31, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

could this criticism section be moved to deconstruction with slight changes - there was originally a criticism section there, but it was complete bunk (unsourced, poorly sourced, poorly argued, full of OR and completely POV) so I axed most of it. AFAIK, its standard procedure on wiki to have criticism sections on articles about movements, and then assume that unless an individual thinker has had a highly critical reception within their movement, that critiques of the movement apply to the thinker and vice versa. All pages about analytic philosophers/schools of thought conform to this procedure, and I think it would go a long way to end analytic/right wing POV-pushing on cont. phil pages to sequester all of the 'criticism' on as few centralized pages as possible. As it stands, the exact same blanket critiques are schlepped onto each and every post-whatever thinker's articles, usually wasting about a third of the given space. Depending on what people say here, I'd be willing to move the Searle thing over to 'deconstruction' (since that is sourced, cited, notable, and important for derrida scholars) and maybe do another ax job on the rest.

The difficulty is how to define a person's movement/subject. If you define the notion narrowly enough we would never note criticisms of a person's philosophy because they would be part of the movement of those who agreed with them, e.g., one wouldn't note criticisms of Freud's ideas because they are widely accepted by Freudians. Check out the Freud page and you will note that it has a long criticism section as well. In particular as an analytic philosopher I notice that most people lump all philosophy as a monolithic subject so if you leave Derrida's page without the criticism section but including much of the positive reaction he engendered many people who come to this page looking to see who he is will get an incorrect idea of both his reception by the broader philosophical community and philosophy itself. The section does not need to be long but just like in the Freud case we should make sure the casual reader who doesn't click through to deconstruction is not mislead. Besides, the Noam Chomsky reaction is famous (I came here to find background on it) and can't go anywhere else but would be strange without context.Logicnazi 17:49, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Biased?

I'm no expert on Mr. Derrida, but it sounds way too friendly in my opinion. The clear impression you get from reading the 'criticism' bit is that Derrida's critics don't know what they are talking about.

Mime:The "bias" would more probably lean towards the opposite of this: the "criticism" section isn't friendly enough in that it doesn't subject Derrida to genuine critiques by competent people – and if you gather the "impression" they "don't know what they're talking about", well, that is only to be imposed upon what you've read; in other words, the section is not "friendly" based upon such an assumption, and, indeed, it would be enough to say they "don't know what they're talking about" is an accurate impression in any case. Of course, if you were familiar with Derrida, this wouldn't need to be spelt out. 10:11, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

dont deconstruct a persons question. thats just mean.

And they say Wikipedia is not elitist. 74.12.145.226 22:37, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

It would be nice to refocus the criticism section away from popular criticisms and towards actual involvements with Derrida's work, yes. Phil Sandifer 22:53, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with this sentiment, it seems a little ingenuine to say it's no good because "I can't understand it"; Many of the criticism are from people not familiar with Heidegger, for example. When you consider his drawing in of a multitude of thinkers, from Hegel, to Freud, to Levinas, Levi-Strauss, etc. etc., all fairly complicated in their own right, one is bound to have this problem of reading. Yet I think this very idea of drawing in all these thinkers and texts, was a major part of what he was about, his philsophy could be described as a kind of everest of philosophic thought. He is also then, in a sense, a conserver and refiner of all this thought, a conservative and, to that extent, does not fit with postmodernism (as is mistakenly affirmed on that page).

This is diametrically opposed to the "ordinary language philosophy" of England and the US, where combining the thought of others, use of their names and ideas, is frowned upon, because it means "arguing from authority", or not being original enough; so instead, science fiction thought experiments are appropriated. In a way the two share a name, "philosophy", and some ideas, but it's a different task for the reader.--Lucaas 01:05, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

The article does seem to dismiss criticism of Derrida as ill-informed or simple or hung up on its difficulty. The negative reception of Derrida in the Analytic reception is huge and sophisticated. It’s not limited to misunderstandings but it evaluates the truth and pragmatic value of his works (though admittedly it’s usually quite harsh). I’m sure someone can provide a few specific points of criticism that come from analytic philosophers. Also, there has been quite a lot of criticism of Derrida from continental philosophers and those should be noted as well.

[edit] Questionable Choice of Paragraph Topics

Does anyone else think that the inclusion of whole sections on 'Of Spirit' and the idea of the Aporia are a little arbitrary? Especially considering that there are other texts and ideas within Derrida's oeuvre that are arguably more influentual, for instance Diffèrance, the Supplement or the Trace?

[edit] Clarity Not a Virtue

Fichte and Hegel led the way for Derrida by showing that obscure writing assures an academic career. No academic today would write clearly out of fear of being considered shallow or superficial. Only non-academic philosophers, like Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Peirce could dare to communicate clearly. They had no careers to lose.Lestrade 15:36, 11 October 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

French philosophy got an inferiority complex vis-a-vis Germany after 1870 and 1940, and Hegel Marx Nietzsche Heidegger Freud were big blows to take. That's why so many penseurs aspire to a rebarbative style - like Hegel or Heidegger on amphetamines. Nietzsche called it "muddying one's own waters to make oneself seem deep". Some philosophers in the English language (and I am sure other languages) still value clarity. Not every Frenchman succumbed. Chomsky did say that perhaps Derrida wrote obscurely to cover the simpicity of his underlying ideas. A few unexamined pages of Saussure seem to be expected to bear a lot of weight. Soane 17:46, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Clarity is what science attempted but failed at the quantum. One also gets it, sometimes, in the "thou shalt not" of religion & law. Clarity is what both of you are looking for, that is, simple declarative statements that you can carry around with you as if you might then be able to say you "possess" knowledge, as though knowledge were a thing to be held like money or gems Beware of any simple assertions in philosophy, they usually fall into contradiction. How could one seriously expect clarity after 2,500 years of philosophy's "muddying" of the already opaque waters? Chomsky can write simply in philosophy or linguistics because he thinks they have nothing to do with politics, this connection is unexamined by him in order that he can continue to write simply. None of Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche was un-academic, they were trained in academies, they had shorter careers at university either 'cos they failed, had enough money, or other careers. For example, Schopenhauer had to lecture next to Hegel's packed theatres, of course he left! Nietzsche was well up in philology academia. Locke was a doctor, Berkeley a highly trained, cleric. --Lucas

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Both the Off Topic Warning and the opinion of Lucas were directly expressed with great clarity. There was no ambiguity or use of neologisms. Therefore, I conclude that both authors had, in their minds, pure, well-formed ideas of the thoughts that they wished to distinctly communicate. Also, I speculate that neither author is an academic.Lestrade 19:19, 11 October 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

[edit] Write off

You've been doing a good job cleaning up and editing so far, for someone who feels this way. I see no reason to give up all hope for this article yet, though a lot of rewriting is still needed. I would caution that it's always better to rewrite rather than to delete -- and wholesale deletions are best avoided. Please, when it's possible, try to fix writing and sourcing problems rather than deleting whole paragraphs you don't like (and I say this despite my complete agreement with your edit comments' reasons why the paragraphs you've deleted need a lot of help). -- Rbellin|Talk 17:27, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

While I don't know enough about Derrida to criticize the content, the article is confusing and ambiguous. It states Derrida asked to teach soldiers' children in lieu of military service, teaching French and English from 1957 to 1959. Did he teach the French or Algerian soldiers' children? Also, one reads In 1995, Derrida was a member of Lionel Jospin's unsuccessful campaign for the French Presidency, although refused his support for a second attempt in 2002. Who refused who's support? It sounds like Derrida ran in 2002, though I don't think this was meant. Once these things have been fixed, feel free to delete this entry for the sake of discussion brevity. --67.85.178.56 00:36, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Editing the section on criticisms

I've recently edited the Wolin-Derrida debate section. I originally just intended to try my hand at helping the sections readability. But as I started working on it, I realized that the major issue of the debate was glossed over: The original author of this section never mentioned how Derrida's work was nihilistic. In addition, the major source was not cited. To address this, I've added one sentence with a quote from Wolin and its citation. I also created a reference for the citation. The whole Wolin-Derrida debate section points out the difficulty in editing a figure such as Derrida. On one level, this section really addresses a criticism of deconstructionism, Wolin argues that it is nihilistic and destroys important distinctions. Thus, Wolin's critique should be part of the deconstructionism page. On the other hand, the links to some of the sources of the Wolin-Derrida debate strike me as a nice illustration of one aspect of Derrida's personality, which is the purpose of a biography.

I think the problem with this section may be that the distinction criticism and controversy. Because we are looking at a biography rather than an in-depth analysis of thought, I'd like to suggest that the section be changed to controversies. Then, in-depth critiques of deconstruction, particularly those of the analytic philosophers be moved to deconstruction. Then the section can focus on controversies rather than criticism. The criticisms that give rise to the controversy can then be simply referred to in a sentence with a link to the source of the criticsm.

With this in mind, there seems to be three controversies: Derrida's treatment by Anglo-American philosophers (i.e., the letter of protest regarding his honorary doctorate), Chomsky's argument that he is obfuscating. And Wolin's argument, which is less about nihilism, and more an argument that there is a "crypto-nazi" apologetic latent in Derrida's work. The section could then end with the Derrida's quote regarding reader's responses to his thoughts.Wtfiv 19:03, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I've further edited the first criticism section, I deleted reference to un-philosophical because it was redundant with pseudophilosophical, which was was more precise. I added some citations, one of Searle and one to a version of the open letter to Cambridge, which is available on the web. (Also, there were only 18 people, not 20). I was fascinated to find out why René Thom was amongst them. Most other changes were reorganization. I deleted some references to Derrida's own defense since the quotations lacked citation. I think in most cases, Derrida's defense stands: The open letter to Cambridge is just blatantly biased with a false accusation, and the Searle citation in NYRB comes with an exchange by Louis Mackey that answers Searle. I like the idea that Derrida saw the open letter as an attempt to Police academic freedom, but it too needs a citation. Also I renamed this section "Lack of Philosophical Rigor" to make it more consistent with the two sections to follow.

I deleted one section that I think belongs in Wikipedia, though somewhere else

. Most analytical philosophy critiques of Derrida follow the line set by John Searle in a 1974 response to Derrida's "Signature, Event, Context", itself a critical reading of John L. Austin's work How to Do Things With Words. Derrida responded to Searle in an essay entitled "Limited Inc., a b c...".

The original citation didn't flesh out Searle's critique, so a reader would wind up confused. (I added a link to Searle that major "anti-deconstruction points", which gives context to the criticisms of Derrida). . The original Searle/Derrida debate on the interpretation of Austin did a great job of showing the differences in the approach of the two thinkers with respect to the philosophy of language, though it eventually degenerated. I'd like to see the issue addressed by the quote fleshed out in the criticisms section of the deconstruction article.

I added an internal link to the Sokal affair, but I am in doubt about the central point of this entire paragraph. In a response to Fleury and Limet, Sokal states that Derrida was not a target of the hoax since Derrida didn't tend to abuse scientific jargon. Here's Sokal's reply to Fleury and Limet's accusation in French:[2] Thus, I feel it should be deleted as unsubtantiated unless counterevidence can be provided. (Though I didn't feel confident enough to make the deletion in hopes that somebody else will provide supporting evidence).

I ended the edited subsecton by letting Derrida have the last word.Wtfiv 05:25, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Value of Derrida?

Here is a non-troll question? Why should I *care* about Derrida? I tend to despise obfuscation, which Derrida displays in abundance, is there anything of real importance in his work? If there is - point it out! He is controversial (which is interesting), but I remain doubtful if his work has any profoundity at all (I doubt it) - perhaps he is an anti-philosopher(!)

My challenge to the philosophers in the wikipedia project. Make it clear why I should care about Derrida and his rambling writings. ;-) Mfgreen 04:43, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

That's not the place to such a question and further discussions. That page aims at the improvement of the article only. --Ironie 23:17, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Introductory paragraph

While I admit the paragraph is a sketch of what should end up, at this point I think this article lacks a general introduction to Derrida's very prickly thought; this is in response to commentators like the one directly above this paragraph, who dont understand Derrida's discourse. I do not think that the whole paragraph should be erased -- nor do understand how it was "poorly expressed" and "senseless". This should be discussed. Comments? Pablosecca 20:57, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree about the need for a better general introduction, but I don't think these paragraphs should stay. Apart from the grammar and coherence problems, this kind of unsourced interpretation and synthesis is original research, not Wikipedia material. A better introduction would cite other (reliable) sources' syntheses and general comments on Derrida's work. -- Rbellin|Talk 21:16, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article of use on his papers(?)

I do not feel comfortable enough with this subject to jump in and start adding information, however I would like to pass along this article that appeared in today's Los Angeles Times on the status of battle between Derrida (and now his Estate) and UCI over his papers. For a lay person to this issue, like myself, it did a good job of explaining what's been going on: UC Irvine to drop suit against philosopher's family [3]. Maybe one of the more experienced editors in this area might find it useful for the article (or not). --Bobak 16:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Knock Knock joke

I know this may sound pointless, even insulting to a degree from a cirtain perspective, but is it worth noting that Jacques Derrida is the blunt end of a common Knock Knock joke? It goes: Knock Knock. Who's there? Jacques Derrida. Jacques Derrida who? Exactly.

The joke is more about playing on someone's name who's relatively little-known, and plenty of people could be substituted for Jacques Derrida, but he's generally the one used in the joke. Kevin 22:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticisms section

This section strikes me as distinctly POV - it appears to consist mainly of attempts to refute criticisms of Derrida, rather than statements of the criticisms. For example:

An obituary by Jonathan Kandell, which appeared on 10 October 2004 in The New York Times, "Jacques Derrida, Abstruse Theorist, Dies at 74" was criticized by many academics as being ideologically motivated, intentionally offensive, and excessively critical, and a letter of objection was signed online by over 5000 academics, including professors holding endowed chairs in the humanities in every Ivy League school and professors from the vast majority of top-30 ranked colleges and universities. [5] (As a response to widespread academic anger over the obituary, the same paper also published two much more sympathetic assessments of Derrida's work: "The Man Who Showed Us How to Take the World Apart" (11 October 2004) by Edward Rothstein and "What Derrida Really Meant" (14 October 2004) by Mark C. Taylor. It did not publish many other critical responses to the obituary. The Economist's obituary (21 October 2004) attracted similar criticism. By contrast, the obituary in The Guardian was more favourable and extensive.

The above is not a statement of the criticism - it is a long list of criticisms of the criticism (whatever it was, we're not told), i.e. a rather transparent attempt to refute the criticism. Hopelessly POV.

Really I should just delete the whole of the above paragraph, but from past experience of trying to make changes to this article in the face of Derrida's supporters, I can't be bothered to try. ~~For now I'll add a POV notice to the section~~ (I see there already is one) and hope that intelligent readers of the article can draw their own conclusions. Ben Finn 12:52, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually on second thoughts I have now cut most of the above paragraph, which now just says that the two obituaries were critical and they were themselves criticized. It should really summarize what criticisms the obituaries actually made, but I can't be bothered. Ben Finn 15:46, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This article needs a picture.

I'm not sure wich ones have copyrights, but if I had absolute freedom of choice, I would choose between this one: http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f258/tito-/JacquesDerrida3.jpg; and this one, wich may be a little small: http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f258/tito-/JacquesDerrida1.jpg

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