Way back at basically the first post of my blog as a functioning blog I had discussed Derrida, Plotinus and Plotinus' notion of matter. There are two posts there. I was doing multiple posts on a page back then, so you'll have to scroll down a way. The basic idea I was getting at was that Plotinus had two different "absolute others." One was absolute Being or the One. The other, which is often neglected, was matter or perhaps more accurately prime matter. (He had two kinds of matter technically - but the difference while important is rather hard to explain) I'd argued that Derrida frequently denies that différance is Being. Rather he goes to explain that it is not the hyper-ousia or more than being but rather less. It is absolute negation in the sense of going the other way. Thus his use of the Greek term khora from Timaeus. The khora is nothing but place or receptacle. This, however corresponds quite well to Plotinus' sense of matter.
Now Matter is a thing that is brought under order - like all that shares its
nature by participation or by possessing the same principle - therefore, necessarily,
Matter is The Undelimited and not merely the recipient of a nonessential quality
of Indefiniteness entering as an attribute. [...]
Matter, then, must be described as Indefinite of itself, by its natural opposition
to Reason-Principle. [...]
Then Matter is simply Alienism (Other) [the Principle of Difference]?
No: it is merely that part of Alienism which stands in contradiction with the
Authentic Existents which are Reason-Principles. So understood, this
non-existence has a certain measure of existence; for it is identical with
Privation, which also is a thing standing in opposition to the things that
exist in Reason. [...] For in Matter we have no mere absence of means
or of strength; it is utter destitution - of sense, of virtue, of beauty, of
pattern, of Ideal principle, of quality. (Enneads, II.4.15-16, emphasis mine)
Note how for Plotinus, unlike the One which is ineffable because it is more than Being and the source of Being, Matter is the exact opposite. It is totally other (Alienism in the above translation) as opposition to all reason - all discourse and all intelligibility. If privation is the "gap" in a thing relative to its "complete" intended sense, then Matter is pure privation. It is the gap, the difference, in which all discourse finds itself.
Derrida's attempts to avoid the One of theology or neoPlatonism focus on a not-speaking not because what one does not speak of exceeds what one wishes to say. He wishes to avoid speaking because there in nothing to say. As Derrida says, "this secret can not be determined and is nothing, as these people themselves recognize, they have no secret." ("How to Avoid Speaking: Denials" in Derrida and Negative Theology, 89)
Now you're probably wondering why I bring all this up. I was glancing through my new copy of Lawlor's book Thinking Through French Philosophy and a point he brings up to clarify the difference between Merleau-Ponty and Derrida. The chapter is "Eliminating Some Confusion: The Relation of Being and Writing in Merleau-Ponty and Derrida." It's so good that I'll quote the first few paragraphs. The paper begins with a quote from both figures.
[Our life] is constantly enshrouded by those mists we call the sensible world or history, the on [on] of corporeal life and the one [on] of human life, the present and the past, as a pell-mell ensemble of bodies and minds, promiscuity of faces, words, actions, with between them all, that cohesion which cannot be denied them since they are all differences, extreme écarts of one same something. (Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, VI 116-17/84)
Does not this "dialectic"-in every sense of the term and before any speculative reconquest of this concept-open up living to différance, constituting in the pure immanence of lived experience the écart of indicative communication and even of signification in general? (Derrida, Voice and Phenomenon, VP 77/69)
Perhaps more than anything else, this word écart has contributed to the belief that Merleau-Ponty's thought, especially that found in The Visible and the Invisible, anticipates, if not matches completely, Derrida's thought, especially thoat found in early texts such as Voice and Phenomenon. What is basic in each -différance in Derrida's case; the flesh in Merleau-Ponty's - is reversible. Both the flesh and différance are described in terms of contamination. There is ambiguity in Merleau-Ponty, undecidability in Derrida. Derrida and Merleau-Ponty share the same concern for difference and absence. It even seems possible to develop an ethics on the basis of their respective thoughts. Yet, despite their undeniable proximity, one can establish distance between Merleau-Ponty and Derrida, first and foremost in the following way: Derrida is a grammatologist; Merleau-Ponty is an ontologist.
The decisive point is, as Derrida says, that "différance, in a certain and very strange way, [is] 'older' than the ontological difference or than the truth of being (MP 23/22; cf. DLG 38/23). This comment makes two claims. On the one hand, it claims that différance cannot be defined in terms of being. Différance refers to an absolute non-being. Defined in this way, différance refers to a negation, a nothing that can be defined neither as a dimension of one sole something nor as a variant of the real. We can come to understand "nothing" only if we recognize that the element that Derrida interrogates is logic, or more generally, language, and most precisely writing. In contrast the element that Merleau-Ponty interrogates is the visible, or more generally experience, and most precisely, being. On the other hand, the comment claims because of the strange sort of priority that Derrida mentions, that différance's structure is supplementary: what is second is first and nothing returns to it. In contrast, for Merleau-Ponty, the structure of the flesh is circular: what is first is first and everything else turns to it. (Lawlor, 47-48)
Now I'm sure to those not familiar with Derrida's writing on khora or différance this seems somewhat mysterious. What I wish to emphasize is that both are discussing very different topics. Although in a way both are discussing intelligibility. But whereas Merleau-Ponty is going in one direction - arguably towards Being - Derrida is in fact going the opposite direct. To this other other of Plotinus. To matter itself. The nothing.
Allow me a quote from the end of the essay.
We can summarize the differences between Merleau-Ponty and Derrida in the following way. We started with the difference between interrogative elements (and this is probably not the most decisive difference): being versus writing. Within this difference, we were able to see that while for Merleau-Ponty being is homogeneous, relatively continuous, and undivided, writing for Derrida is heterogeneous, relatively discontinuous, and divided. On the basis of this difference, the different structures of the flesh and différance arose: circularity versus supplementarity. What organizes the structure of the flesh in Merleau-Ponty is the notion of possibility; in contrast for Derrida the notion of impossibility organizes the structure of supplementarity. (ibid)
I'll probably continue along this line of thought next week, bringing in Heidegger.
Interesting post. Just some off-the-hip comments:
I think it's crucial to try to come to an understanding of Derrida's reading of the 'Khora (particularly as further developed, and in contrast to Kristeva and--as always, more delicately, Heidegger–in _Acts of Religion_) –as indebted to Blanchot's 'neuter. Quite a bit in Derrida's reading of H. is indebted to Blanchot, but the point about 'différance being 'older' than ontological difference especially, I think.
It's sometimes difficult to tell, especially in the early writings (such as Voice and Phenom, which I'm not v. familiar with) whether Derrida is doing a sort of extra-faithful exposition, and when he is trying to break away. Therefore one often has to be careful about reading into any one of his statements (reading someone else) anything like a normative claim, don't you agree? Frustrating, to be sure, because often the only statements that seem responsibly isolate-able are the most enigmatic...
I'm not sure about this substituting of 'Matter' for 'Khora, primarily because 'Matter' still necessarily defines itself "in opposition to" the One, without the assurance of which it therefore lacks definition.
Interesting comment on the difference between Derrida's Khora and Plotinus' matter. I'll have to think about that one for a bit.
My inclination, off the top of my head (which isn't worth much at the moment due to allergies - thus the paucity of posting of late) is that we can think opposition in two senses. If I read you right, you are thinking more of a Saussure kind of opposition - a binary pair where one is defined in terms of the other. I don't think that's what Plotinus means in the least. Rather I think he sees matter as the ultimate not.
Thus I read his comment, that matter isn't just differentiation or alienation so much as a kind of "hey, don't think this in terms of beings." I immediately think of Carnap's critique of Heidegger and how Carnap misreads the meaning of nothing. I think that Plotinus is making a similar move here to Heidegger. That is, the privation of matter isn't just an absence or empty set. Rather it is a kind of phenomena of notness that is perhaps understood only in connection to being (things that exist in reason)
Admittedly I read both Heidegger and Derrida as realists. That's why, as I've mentioned here before, I find Carman's Heidegger so true. It's how I always read both figures. Yet that's also the great danger since it may affect how I read both figures. That darn hermeneutic circle. (grin)
So whether Derrida's différance is something unrelated to what I see as similar notions in Heidegger is an interesting one.
I'll confess I'm not as familiar with Blanchot as I should be. (There's only so much time in the day)
As to Derrida being faithful to Heidegger, I guess it depends upon what one means by faithful. I think if we take both seriously then being normative and being faithful are somewhat at odds with each other. It seems that the normative is somewhat intrinsically at odds with an authentic taking up of a question.
You could always start with "The Madness of the Day;" it's short.
It seems to me that the Plotinian matter is the origin of modern (cartesian) space. The train of thought goes from the khora, thru Aristotle's passive mind in book three of de anima, then to Plotinus and his "intellectual" matter, then Proclus and his prolog to Euclid's Elements and his intermediate being, which was extensively quoted by, for instance, Kepler. Heidegger says that khora "prepares" the way for modern space, but Derrida intends to question any sense of "preparing" or teleology in the account. Now this space (or matter) is not any one specific thing but is potentially anything. This is equivalent to the "x" of algebra, which was first conceived by Proclus in his prolog. This "x" is the principle of repeatibility, the possibility of idealization: it is not any one thing and potentially anything. If you combine the two you get analytic geometry, then Descartes and his definition of substance as extension. Why do I point this out? No reason. I just think it's interesting to see the connections.
I think that the Timaeus is a strong genealogical background to modern views of space. I don't think Plotinus is really in on it though for either Cartesian mind or Cartesian space. Although clearly during that boundary from Scholasticism, Renaissance Philosophy, to the modern era, Plotinus was a key factor. Look at say Bruno Giodano and from there to Spinoza. But clearly even Descartes was caught up in the spirit of those times - he was a Rosicrucian after all as were many of the other big names of the era. I think it unfortunate that so many histories downplay the neoPlatonism of the era (and related movements like Hermeticism)
There is an interesting version of the argument by Vladimir Nikulin here.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/075461574X/qid=1128347469/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-7334208-5038443?v=glance&s=books
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