Introducing Derrida

Rating:
Summary: Honk if you Hate Metaphysics!
Review: I can't believe this book is not more popular! I loved it. It has pictures on every page which really helps keep your attention, at least for the first two-thirds of this 171-page illustrated book. This is difficult stuff, and the authors have done a very good job of introducing, simplifying, and illustrating Jacques Derrida's style and concepts. If you've had some exposure to either the Metaphysicians, Nietzsche, Heidigger or the Existentialists, it'll help. But this straight-forward format makes the new ideas extremely easy to understand. It gave me exactly what I wanted: Information about Derrida's roots, in Structuralism and Phenomenology, plus a springboard to allow me to read Derrida's books without any fear of misunderstanding or misinterpreting his ideas.

After a brief introduction to the core Viruses: Undecidability and Derailed Communication, the authors first use the concept of the Zombie in Hollywood movies to illustrate Derrida's concept of Undecidability, then Plato's Phaedrus to illustrate the concepts of Supplement and Difference which explain the magic, which metaphysics uses to disappear those nasty opposites! Phonocentrism and Logocentrism follow and whoopee! You're already starting to recognize a metaphysical concept coming from halfway down the block if you see one!

Seriously, the book is really THAT good if you like reading Philosophy and you've wanted to learn about Derrida's ideas. It pays attention to all of the important critical philosophers that preceded him, Hume, for example (p.45). After page 100, however, you realize you are reading about individual papers and speeches of his, which are a little bit like seeing advertisements and reading biography rather than seeing parts of the whole picture. You might want to skip through this section to whatever you're interested in. The problem is that Derrida happens to be a bit of a Rennaisance man, and the fact that he has an interest in architecture, or feminism, or people with disabilities is somewhat less interesting for me than what he is doing in Philosophy.

Rating:
Summary: humbug
Review: The book naturally focuses on 'deconstruction' - a nebulous
collage that has been rejected even by philosophers - which
should clue the public in to how soft the subject really is.
Additionally there are production flaws (dark shading in the
illustrations obscuring the text) to vex the weary reader.

Rating:
Summary: weak
Review: This rather impoverished account spends insufficient
time with each topic to provide traction
for the reader. Apart from the first section the
whole thing was a big disappointment.