Introduction *

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book reviews Deleuze's and Jacques Derrida's early discussions of 'Platonism' in order to challenge the common claim that there is a fundamental divergence in their thought and the standard narrative that deconstruction is a successor to phenomenology. It highlights the limits of Derrida's work in responding to cultural singularities of memory. The book focuses on Derrida's 'inheritances' vis-a-vis the predicament of postcolonial inheritances. It explains 'Derrida and Religious Reflection in the Continental Tradition', Eric Boynton characterising, with the help of Kant, the continental tradition's general orientation towards philosophy of religion. The book explores the crucial and significant aspect of Derrida's work: cosmopolitanism, its limits and promises. It explains scrutiny Pierre Bourdieu's critique of the classical subject, the notion of ethical habitus, the sociology of the production of philosophy and Derrida's reading of the gift, the notion of good conscience, and undecidability.