The book under review is one of the
guidebooks from the Routledge Philosophy Guidebook series. This is a valuable
series of books which, in the publisher’s own words, painlessly
introduces students to classic works of philosophy, or, as in the present case,
introduces students to pioneer thinkers and their works. The series is unique because
the philosophers or philosophies are introduced painlessly, and yet they
are not "dumbed down" or merely caricatured as is generally the case
with other beginner series or "idiot’s guides."

Barry Stocker states in the
Introduction that his Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Derrida on
Deconstruction aims to "introduce and assess [a] Derrida’s life and
the background to his philosophy, [b] the key themes of the critique of
metaphysics, and the development of new positions in language, consciousness,
aesthetics and ethics that characterize his most widely read works, and [c] the
continuing importance of Derrida’s work to philosophy." Although the book
is eminently recommendable to students of Derrida or even to those new to
philosophy as such, it is necessary to point out that these enumerated aims go
largely unfulfilled: Stocker’s book ultimately focuses only on (a); and
although it half succeeds in (b), it makes no explicit mention of (c) at all.

According to Stocker, Derrida is in
the league of Hegel, Nietzsche, Sartre, and others who were "attacked…for
many years but are now being recognized as central figures in philosophy"
(3). This explains the author’s concern for defending Derrida from his
detractors. Stocker brushes aside each and every critique of Derrida, regarding
them either as misunderstandings or else as based on caricatures. Though
Stocker is likely right in most cases, being over concerned with the negative
stereotype of Derrida forces him to ignore exploring the nature of the critical
acclaim that Derrida has received — in many cases also possibly problematic.

Stocker’s assessment of Derrida is
that his greatest contribution to philosophy is deconstruction. He states that
in order to understand deconstruction it is essential to grasp primarily
Derrida’s early writing. If there is any critique of Derrida at all in Stocker’s
book, it lies in his designation of Derrida’s early philosophy as his real,
truly significant contribution to philosophy, and by inference his tacit
dismissal of the later, more artful and perhaps even decadent, but at any rate
less philosophically rigorous works. Stocker’s presentation of deconstruction,
then, is based on six early books: Introduction to the Origin of Geometry
(1961), Speech and Phenomena (1967), Of Grammatology (1967), Writing
and Difference (1967), Margins of Philosophy (1972), and Dissemination
(1972).

The chapters of Stocker’s guidebook
do not approach Derrida’s books independently, but instead rely on them
cumulatively to thematically treat of topics such as "Metaphysics"
(Chapter Two), language (Chapter Three), or "Consciousness: intentionality
and perception" (Chapter Four). The latter is interesting in that Stocker
observes that although Derrida’s work is based on Husserl’s phenomenology, the
more relevant context within which to situate a discussion of Derrida vis-à-vis
phenomenology would be the writings of Merleau-Ponty. Nevertheless, no analysis
of Derrida is complete without full discussion of the relevance of Husserl,
along with Hegel and Heidegger — whom Stocker occasionally refers to as "the
three great Hs." I seem to recall one of these great Hs having foolishly
remarked somewhere that the Germans will have cause to remember three great Hs:
Heidegger, Holderlin, and Hitler.

Chapter Five is about epistemology
("Knowledge: origin and structure"), and Stocker states and repeats
(98-99) the fact that Derrida does not offer a theory of knowledge. In this
chapter Stocker summarizes Husserl’s Origin of Geometry and discusses
Derrida’s engagement with it. The subsequent chapter treats of ethics and
social and political philosophy ("Values: ethics, sovereignty, humanism
and religion"). Here Stocker discusses Derrida’s remarks on sovereignty as
well as the concepts of ownership, possession and mastery. He also contrasts Derrida’s
viewpoint from that of Levinas, which is a bonus for students eager to
understand the thought of the latter, who continues to grow increasingly
popular. It must be point out, however, that Stocker’s summary of Derrida’s
political philosophy is curious to say the least: "Derrida’s position is
essentially that of a cosmopolitan individualist of a left-wing variety,
committed to legality and universal human rights as the basis for addressing
injustice between nations, genders and ethnicities" (143). If this is
true, Derrida is something of a lamb in wolf’s clothing — this inscrutable
thinker, this wizard, this legend: underneath it all is there really nothing
more than a cuddly John Rawls?    

In the final chapter, "Towards
a definition of deconstruction," Stocker first states that deconstruction
deals with duality and equivocation. The writings of both Rousseau and
Nietzsche are taken to be essential in comprehending the equivocation of
deconstruction (186). Stocker argues that deconstruction is not a theory, nor
is it simply a method that Derrida applies. Rather, it is an impulse from
within philosophy whereby philosophy becomes conscious of itself along with
what it is attempting to uncover, define or describe (177). This suggestion of
Stocker about the nature of deconstruction has the virtue, ironically perhaps,
of grounding Derrida’s innovation firmly within the tradition of
(historicist and phenomenological) philosophy initiated by Hegel, made rigorous
by Husserl, and then radicalized by Heidegger. Again, the three great Hs.  

Barry Stocker’s guidebook achieves
a great deal in 200 or so pages: he paraphrases numerous arguments, debates,
and even books in a lucid prose that serves to demystify both Derrida and
deconstruction. His extended exercise in contextualization, though tedious at
times, shows the author to be well versed in the historical conditions that
could produce a Derrida and in the contemporary debates that surround him.
Stocker does not presuppose that the reader has any familiarity with Derrida
whatever, and meticulously explains every term of art used or referred to in
the book. The manner in which Stocker summarizes Derrida’s own position on a
set of issues in the final paragraph of each chapter shows that the author is
committed to fulfill the aim of the Routledge Guidebook Series to painlessly
introduce students to great philosophers. Indeed, the total absence of
footnotes also helps to make the work painless for students — this is,
however, among the more painful elements of the book for those of us who are
not beginners.

© 2006 A. Singh & M.
Singamsetty

A. Singh & M. Singamsetty (University of Delhi, Department of Philosophy, New Delhi, India).

Categories: Philosophical