One more brief thread on Derrida, and then I'll drop it for a while unless Derrida comes up in my readings of Scotus. Over at Times and Seasons, Jim Faulconer made an interesting rejoinder to Damon Linker regarding whether Derrida was a "great" philosopher. "I wouldn't argue that Derrida is one of the best philosophers of the 20th century, so there is less disagreement between us than some might suppose, though I believe that our disagreement is not trivial. Whether there is anything in Derrida that one can't learn from Heidegger (or Schelling?) is a legitimate question, and I tend to agree with you that there isn't. I don't find anything in Derrida that I don't find in Heidegger."
I think he's right.
I tried and tried to think of something I find in Derrida that I can't find in Heidegger, and I just can't do it. It is often a very different perspective or illustration, but in terms of basic philosophy he's not original.
Now I don't think that a criticism. There are very, very few significant, original philosophers. And, as Jim continued on saying, Derrida allowed me to see things in Heidegger that I might otherwise have not seen. Further his way of writing did many great phenomenological analysis of various concepts, like the gift, justice or others. I think in Derrida the connection between Heidegger's form of phenomenology and hermeneutics and old neoPlatonism and Jewish philosophy like Kabbalism, was made very clear. Indeed I think Derrida helped usher in the so-called theological turn in philosophy. (Admittedly a movement much more significant in France than here)
Of course it perhaps isn't much of a criticism to say a person noted for his criticism of origins isn't original.
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and Theology
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