ABSTRACT
Why bother with deconstruction? This is a question that continually haunts the critical reader who has decided to follow Derrida. Why exactly are we seeking to deconstruct logocentric discourse? What or who calls for deconstruction? What necessity governs Derrida’s work? In this essay, I shall attempt to investigate these questions along two lines, each of which will intersect and interlace with the other, forming the χ of the figure of a chiasmus: first, I attempt to understand what takes place in Derridian deconstruction; and second, I point out and exploit certain thematic and strategic resonances that deconstruction shares with the ethics of Emmanuel Levinas. The goal of such a chiasmatic dialogue will be to bring into focus the following theses: (i) that a crucial aspect of the otherness which the logocentric totality has continually sought to reduce or expel is the singular otherness that is manifested in the face of the other; (ii) that the necessity for deconstruction can be understood as an ethical demand, a demand that is placed upon us by the alterity of the other person.
