ABSTRACT

The concern with difference, and the rejection of essentialism that comes in its wake, reveals a strong antifoundationalist strain in continental philosophy, that situates it firmly within the tradition of scepticism. This chapter explores some examples of the antifoundationalist imperative in the continental tradition, and the critique of authority offered overall. Concentrating on flux and change at the expense of essence is a characteristic of the antifoundationalist temperament, and one that Derrida will proceed to exploit to the full. The entire thrust of Derrida's work is antifoundationalist in intent, with its refusal to countenance the possibility of a metaphysics of presence and its repeated attacks on the phenomenon of logocentricity. Foucault also aligns himself conspicuously with the antifoundationalist cause, and we find him claiming in The Archaeology of Knowledge that the project of archaeology depends on no other theory, that it constitutes 'a method of analysis purged of all anthropologism.