JACQUES DERRIDA is dead at age 74:

Jacques Derrida Dies; Deconstructionist Philosopher

By Patricia Sullivan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 10, 2004; Page C11

Jacques Derrida, 74, originator of the diabolically difficult school of philosophy known as deconstructionism, died Oct. 9, the office of French President Jacques Chirac announced. French media reports said that the cause was pancreatic cancer and that he died at a Paris hospital.

Mr. Derrida (pronounced "deh-ree-DAH") inspired and infuriated a generation of intellectuals and students with his argument that the meaning of a collection of words is not fixed and unchanging, an argument he most famously capsulized as "there is nothing outside the text."

[...]

Language, he said, is inadequate to provide a clear and unambiguous view of reality. In other words, the fixed meaning of an essay, a book, a personal letter, a scientific treatise or a recipe dissolves when hidden ambiguities and contradictions are revealed. These contradictions, inevitable in every piece of writing, he said, reveal deep fissures in the foundation of the Western world's civilizations, cultures and creations.

Supporters said this insight into the layered meanings and incompleteness of language subverts reason and rationality, stripping centuries of assumptions from words and allowing fresh ideas to emerge.

Critics called it nihilism (the denial of the meaning of existence, or denial of the existence of any basis for knowledge and truth), a charge he vehemently denied.

[...]

Jacques Derrida's work has been very influential in some sectors of biblical studies. My own take on him, as those who know me have heard me say, is that on average about a third of any given work of his was showing off, another third was deliberate obfuscation, and the rest was brilliant critical theory. Sorting out that last third from the rest is the challenge. Much of the work by "deconstructionists" who mean to follow the Master has been accused of partaking too much of the first two-thirds and too little of the last third, and sometimes not unjustly. But deconstruction has its uses and some of what has been published makes important contributions to literary theory. My own research in The Book is influenced by Derrida's ideas, especially in chapter three (shorter versions of which you can read here and here).

I never met Derrida, but I did hear him speak at the SBL meeting a couple of years ago in Toronto, when Yvonne Sherwood of Glasgow University arranged a extremely well-attended session with him as speaker.

What a fascinating, controversial, brilliant, infuriating man. May his memory be for a blessing.