The Post Card : From Socrates to Freud and Beyond

Rating:
Summary: Not your standard philosophical fare
Review: Admittedly, this book is not one for students of philosophy: I would agree with anyone who argued that this book has little to offer in standard philosophical terms. There's certainly no ethical content, probably no epistemological content or political content, and really very little of the postmodern linguistic discussion lay readers of Derrida (e.g., literary "theory" students) are familiar with. Most graduate philosophy students would have no use for it. Those admissions made, however, I would also defend this book against its critics, and if I were feeling more mischievous, even for the very reason that it has no "philosophical use". Instead, the book is idiosyncratic, anomalous, full of aporias (literally: gaps of 52 spaces interrupting the text irregularly, in the middle of sentences, between paragraphs of an otherwise complete discussion. . .). The effect is more like a novel than a philosopher's book (though I don't mean to recommend it thereby to readers of the usual narrative fiction). It's unusual, and it's difficult to describe or classify, and perhaps that's its "philosophical" intent and its value. While it can be intensely boring and frustrating during the oft-interrupted discussions of Derrida's more familiar philosophical subjects (especially boring for non-scholars), its three delights are stunning, and the lacunae only enliven the reading experience: 1. Its repeating rumination on the relationship between Socrates and Plato does manage to be both thought-provoking and playfully entertaining; 2. Its punning and wordplay is a pleasure (and very well handled by the translator); 3. The narrative of the romance (romances?) is captivating and moving. And how often is one able to use the word "moving" to describe a philosopher's book?

Rating:
Summary: Repetition is bequeathed; the legacy repeated.
Review: Contrary to the reviews thus far reported in regards to this "work in the traditions of Finnegans Wake," i would reccomend reading this book to all who are interested in Derrida's philosophy of ethics. Herein we may find ephemerally expounded glimpses at Postmodernism's notions of continuity and of the legacy of ideas: a gift which we neccessarely both receive and reinscribe - "What is tragic is not the possibility but the neccessity of repetition" (Writing and Difference). Many Derrida readers have shied away from this text because of its disparate and fragmented stuttering...Don't if you have patience to listen read this treasure. It is a pastiche, a montage and a rebus. An exquisite rendition on tradition and inheritance, on presence and absence. A reminder to never stop giving and giving and giving because the most ethical one can be is through the dissemination of ideas, the transformation of the recurring within which each becomes a relative of all and none. Finnegans Wake approximates the same themes with Vico's philosophy of history as an addendum. By the way Vico was an avid reader of the Cabbala...Only Walter Benjamin can better inspire the re-visions that we need for a tragic becoming tragic. This book is extremely personal and one of Richard Rorty's favorites I might add...he was not very fond of the early Derrida...Rorty understands Derrida as only Caputo and Bennington have...This is our modern day Novalis, we may dream of dreaming our dreams!

Rating:
Summary: A book which can only be read among *other* books.
Review: Derrida has stated that one of the main purposes of his decontructive readings, writing, and ruthless re-contextualization of various philosophical ideas is to minimize the "violence" of various philosophical practices- those ways of speaking, writing, which silently privilege various terms, and ideas and, perhaps unknowingly repress others. Given the other "esoteric" reviews here, its my duty to minimize the "violence" for those people who really want to know about the book, and not about namedropping, three lines of praise.

The Postcard is a "collection" of various love-letters, supposedly burned in a fire, which has left pieces of text missing. Derrida has also included a few essays which he believes continues the analysis begun in the loveletters [envois]. The content of the loveletters covers a broad range of philosophical and personal questions - from philosophy of language - to the relation b/w Socrates and Plato - to personal encounters in (I suppose) Derrida's life as a philosopher. But the over all effect of this - this "re-contextualization" or in other words, this casting of philosophical questions in a format not usually considered "serious" -> love letters... the profundity, the importance, the dissemination of the questions take on a wholly different feel and effect. The feel and effect, of course, is hard to describe, but it is a way of playing with "philosophical sensibilities" -- what is "real" philosophy? What is "serious" philosophy? And what is the meaning of such questions in the most private of all communications - love letters between two intimate lovers.

Of course, in typical Derridean style, he puns, and jokes his way, throwing punchlines out of every page. The envois are not an easy read. They can be tough, and confusing, especially with the 'missing text" which link ideas. The other essays included in The Postcard are equally a tough read, with a very interesting, but treacherous deconstruction of Lacan's analysis of Poe's "The Purloined Letter".

The Postcard can only be understood as continuation of previously examined (Of Grammatology), argued (Limited Inc.), and illustrated (Glas) philosophical strategies employed by Derrida. And yes, Richard Rorty (an american post-enlightenment philosopher) totally misses the boat on this one. While, i believe Derrida is attempting to "play" with various aspects of the philosophical tradition (Derrida is by far the funniest philosopher, since, Nietzsche), The Postcard is merely an new way of asserting those same ideas Derrida laid out in Limited Inc and other books, that conceptual meaning is not fixed but disseminated and deferred [differance] to all possible contextual usages and instantiations.

I know, this is merely one small aspect of Derrida's enterprise. But it is, I believe, the main purpose of The Postcard: to see how the meaning of philosophical questions regarding language, history, and the sequence of events, take on new meanings in the context of lost love lettes-- the same way a Post Card, which never reaches its destination-- takes on new meanings for the unintended third reader.

Rating:
Summary: Hungry Hungry Hippos
Review: Derrida has stated that one of the main purposes of his decontructive readings, writing, and ruthless re-contextualization of various philosophical ideas is to minimize the "violence" of various philosophical practices- those ways of speaking, writing, which silently privilege various terms, and ideas and, perhaps unknowingly repress others. Given the other "esoteric" reviews here, its my duty to minimize the "violence" for those people who really want to know about the book, and not about namedropping, three lines of praise.

The Postcard is a "collection" of various love-letters, supposedly burned in a fire, which has left pieces of text missing. Derrida has also included a few essays which he believes continues the analysis begun in the loveletters [envois]. The content of the loveletters covers a broad range of philosophical and personal questions - from philosophy of language - to the relation b/w Socrates and Plato - to personal encounters in (I suppose) Derrida's life as a philosopher. But the over all effect of this - this "re-contextualization" or in other words, this casting of philosophical questions in a format not usually considered "serious" -> love letters... the profundity, the importance, the dissemination of the questions take on a wholly different feel and effect. The feel and effect, of course, is hard to describe, but it is a way of playing with "philosophical sensibilities" -- what is "real" philosophy? What is "serious" philosophy? And what is the meaning of such questions in the most private of all communications - love letters between two intimate lovers.

Of course, in typical Derridean style, he puns, and jokes his way, throwing punchlines out of every page. The envois are not an easy read. They can be tough, and confusing, especially with the 'missing text" which link ideas. The other essays included in The Postcard are equally a tough read, with a very interesting, but treacherous deconstruction of Lacan's analysis of Poe's "The Purloined Letter".

The Postcard can only be understood as continuation of previously examined (Of Grammatology), argued (Limited Inc.), and illustrated (Glas) philosophical strategies employed by Derrida. And yes, Richard Rorty (an american post-enlightenment philosopher) totally misses the boat on this one. While, i believe Derrida is attempting to "play" with various aspects of the philosophical tradition (Derrida is by far the funniest philosopher, since, Nietzsche), The Postcard is merely an new way of asserting those same ideas Derrida laid out in Limited Inc and other books, that conceptual meaning is not fixed but disseminated and deferred [differance] to all possible contextual usages and instantiations.

I know, this is merely one small aspect of Derrida's enterprise. But it is, I believe, the main purpose of The Postcard: to see how the meaning of philosophical questions regarding language, history, and the sequence of events, take on new meanings in the context of lost love lettes-- the same way a Post Card, which never reaches its destination-- takes on new meanings for the unintended third reader.

Rating:
Summary: Hungry Hungry Hippos
Review: I like this book better than the game hungry hungry hippos. Catch all the marbles as fast as you can, beat your opponents with a slight of the hand!

Rating:
Summary: Read This Book
Review: I'm all for mindboggling esoteria and the impenetrable Finnegan's Wake but we should let leave the Post Card alone from these everlasting gobstoppers.

The Post Card is a great book for anyone obessed with language, but not because it will help them do research, but because it great fun to read while sunning on the beach or joke about while getting a cup of joe.

I didn't have any epiphanies while reading this book but I did get a tan.

Rating:
Summary: The first time is still best
Review: It took me a long time to crack the Derrida nut. But when I did, I did it with this book. Thus it will always be my favorite philosophical novel by Derrida. When I finished this book I picked up Badiou's book on Deleuze and he said I got everything right, only he said it better than I would have.

So far, all the other readers seem to have missed the point. First, this book is not about anything so feminine and smacking of vulgar Christianity as love and cushy feelings. Derrida says it's a poison pen letter. It's about hate. It may be "between lovers," but it's published for the whole world to admire and appraise, a radically different context than the relationship of husband and wife. Which the careful Derrida-phile will note was handled very carefully, almost cynically, in the Derrida "documentary." (Has there ever been a greater and more hilarious take on oral sex?)

One wag commented that the book is only good for beach-reading. But that misses the serious side of Derrida, which is also the point. Rhetoric can be philosophy. Derrida is one hundred percent hilarious. But he's always pushing the philosophical envelope with his puns. To resort to a distinction that has a pragmatic value even though it utterly lacks any philosophical foundation, the use-mention distinction, when Derrida uses the word 'this,' he also means _that_. (Why does the use-mention distinction make no sense? Because when you say 'horse,' a _horse_ comes out of your mouth. As per Wittgenstein and the Stoics.) It's up to us lesser mortals to tease out the strands and levels until we can produce something as thoroughly competent. And simultaneously beautiful and ugly. Like orgasm.

Which brings us to Lacan. Some say he's a charlatan. And you have to be suspicious of anyone who declares that they're not interested in truth, but falsity. But when the postmodernists say this what they mean is that the truth, which can potentially be known, is in being aware that you actually don't know. The idea goes back to Plato and his early Socratic dialogues. Stated like that, it isn't too far from Kant, who also believed that we can't actually know much, other than that there are stars above and some sort of moral rules within. (Nobody has ever agreed with him on his rules, including his great heir John Rawls.) Derrida doesn't differ much from Lacan. He abandons Oedipus for the same reasons as Deleuze (it's a self-fulfilling prophecy and alienated from real life). But the argument on the postal system only looks different from Lacan's account because Derrida says it is. That he got Lacan to agree with him says something about Derrida's prestige, so there must be something there. (Though Lacan's submission looks suspiciously like he doesn't submit--republishing the Ecrits in an edited down version where the offensive passages have been actively forgotten.) But when Lacan says that a letter always gets to its destination he means that it always misses its destination, because the person it's intended for is going to sometime pass away. ("The living is a species of the dead." Nietzsche.) Which is also Derrida's point. I haven't read Derrida's latest writings on Lacan but apparently there's a whole lot of a rapprochement. In his interviews with Roudinescu, A Quoi Demain, he considers his style to be Lacanian and a lot of his conclusions to be similarly disposed.

Here's hoping the most consistently amusing of the post-Heideggerians remains a liberal individualist. Though it's probably going to be tough for him, given that the Straussists of the Whitehouse talk a similar talk and walk a similar walk. ("Jewgreek is Greekjew.") I believe the fact that Derrida is explicitly against the death penalty is the deciding difference. QED.