Derridean Deconstruction and the Question of Nature

• Published in: Derrida Today 2010-05, Vol.3 (1), p.56-74
• Main Author: Katsumori, Makoto
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animals; Conceptual analysis; Culture; Deconstruction; Derrida, Jacques; Metaphysics
• ISSN: 1754-8500; 1754-8519
• DOI: 10.3366/drt.2010.0005

This article inquires into a paradoxical position held by the concept of ‘nature’ in Derrida’s thought. While a pivotal part of his project of deconstruction is devoted to a critique of the metaphysical privileging of nature over its others (technics, culture, and so on), the same project also aims at dismantling the hierarchical binary opposition of man/animal. Insofar as the term ‘animal’or ‘animality’ to a large extent overlaps with nature, these two strands of his thought appear to stand in a significant tension with each other. I explore this conceptual tension by reexamining Derrida’s early critique of the notion of nature – specifically in his reading of Rousseau – in conjunction with his later engagement with the question of animality. As my reading shows, deviating from his early approach, his later work indicates the way in which animal others (and, by extension, all living and non-living others) are indeed constituted by supplementarity and yet, in their irreplaceable singularity, exceed the very structure of supplementarity. This opens up a new way of conceiving nature, no longer as originary presence nor simply as an effect of supplementary play, but in terms of the aporetic relation between supplementarity and what may be termed ‘the unsupplementable’.