ABSTRACT
Derrida’s ‘Tympan’, the opening essay of Margins of Philosophy, begins with three quotes from Hegel. The second and the third quotes are remarks about the essence of and the need for philosophy. The first and leading quote, though, concerns the logic of thesis and antithesis, and associates it with the mutually conflicting assertions, ‘that a limit is [eine Grenze ist], and that the limit has a beyond with which however it stands in relation [in Beziehung steht]’ (Hegel’s paragraphs from Science of Logic are quoted in MP: ix). The tension manifested here in the philosophical concept of limit sets up Derrida’s overall agenda, as it is explicitly expressed in an interview given to Henri Ronse:
I try to keep myself at the limit of philosophical discourse. I say limit and not death, for I do not at all believe in what today is so easily called the death of philosophy (nor, moreover, in the simple death of whatever – the book, man, or god, especially since, as we all know, what is dead wields a very specific power).
