The enigma of validity: Speculations on the last paragraph of Donner le temps II
In the final paragraph of the concluding session of the seminar Donner le temps II, Jacques Derrida enunciates-but does not develop-what I shall term the “enigma of validity.” Following a close reading of Heidegger’s On Time and Being, the session abruptly ends with a promise to analyze a c...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | deu |
| Published: |
Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, Belgrade
2024-01-01
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| Series: | Filozofija i Društvo |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0353-5738/2024/0353-57382404829R.pdf |
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| Summary: | In the final paragraph of the concluding session of the seminar Donner le
temps II, Jacques Derrida enunciates-but does not develop-what I shall term
the “enigma of validity.” Following a close reading of Heidegger’s On Time
and Being, the session abruptly ends with a promise to analyze a certain
transition: from the es gibt (“there is,” “il y a”) to the es gilt (“it is
valid,” “il vaut,” and “il doit”). This suggest that a set of questions
organized thematically around the gift-prominent among these is the idea of
a Being that is there and gives itself as a gift-needs a supplement. The
enigma of validity pertains to the emergence of a normative vocabulary
divided into value, obligation, and interest. In this paper, I will trace
some of the clues Derrida leaves in Donner le temps II and other texts,
arguing that the “mystery of normativity” is bound to the ambiguous status
of legality within metaphysics. Validity, as the mystical foundation of
normativity, functions simultaneously as a metaphysical shortcut to secure
self-reference in philosophical thought and as the impossibility of any
foundational grounding (Grundlegung). |
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| ISSN: | 0353-5738 2334-8577 |