Key themes in this collection of essays explore the complexities of Jacques Derrida's philosophy, challenging established interpretations from both philosophical and literary perspectives. Geoffrey Bennington argues that Derrida's work disrupts traditional metaphysics by emphasizing its inherent indefiniteness rather than redefining it. By suggesting that Derrida can be "interrupted," Bennington provides an innovative reading that opens pathways for future dialogues with Derrida's ideas, making this work a significant contribution to contemporary philosophical discourse.
Geoffrey Bennington holds the position of Asa G. Candler Professor of Modern French Thought at Emory University, where he specializes in contemporary French philosophy. His work engages deeply with theoretical frameworks and philosophical discourse, contributing to the understanding of modern thought.
"This book deconstructs the whole lineage of political philosophy, showing the ways democracy abuts and regularly undermines the sovereignist tradition across a range of texts from the Iliad to contemporary philosophy. Politics is an object of perennial difficulty for philosophy-as recalcitrant to philosophical mastery as is philosophy's traditional adversary, poetry. That difficulty makes it an attractive topic for any deconstructive approach to the tradition from which we inherit our language and our concepts. Scatter 2 pursues that deconstruction, often starting with, and sometimes departing from, the work of Jacques Derrida by attending to the concepts of sovereignty on the one hand and democracy on the other. The book begins by following the fate of a line from Homer's Iliad, where Odysseus asserts that "the rule of many is no good thing, let there be one ruler, one king." The line, Bennington shows, is quoted, misquoted, and progressively Christianized by Aristotle, Philo Judaeus, Suetonius, the early Church Fathers, Aquinas, Dante, Ockham, Marsilius of Padua, Jean Bodin, Etienne de la Boétie, up to Carl Schmitt and Erik Peterson, and even one of the defendants at the Nuremberg trials, before being discussed by Derrida himself. In the book's second half, Bennington begins again with Plato and Aristotle and tracks the concept of democracy as it regularly abuts and undermines that sovereignist tradition. In detailed readings of Hobbes and Rousseau, Bennington develops a notion of "proto-democracy" as a possible name for the scatter that underlies and drives the political as such and that will always prevent politics from achieving its aim of bringing itself to an end"-- Provided by publisher
