ABSTRACT
Jacques Derrida is either heir-apparent or pretender to the French intellectual throne vacated by Michel Foucault, depending upon one’s sympathy, or lack thereof, to postmodernism. Like Foucault, Derrida has been hailed as one of the preeminent philosophers of the twentieth century. An innovative critic, Derrida has developed his own personal “philosophical” vocabulary including the neologisms "differcmce" and "grammatology". Derrida acknowledges both individuals’ attempts to go beyond over-inflated notions of man such as humanism. He objects, however, that both thinkers retain latent metaphysical oppositions which imprison them within the hermeneutic circle of Western metaphysics. For Derrida, epistemological assumptions are like the myth of Sisyphus. Unless one rejects inscribed philosophical dualisms, and embraces conflictual and alternative textual readings, one is doomed, like the mythical king of Corinth, to perpetual and ineffectual labor. Derrida’s originality lies in the extent to which he subverts and distorts the traditional goals and methods of critique.
