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Original scientific paper

Radical Modernism in Derrida and Nietzsche

Michael Steinmann orcid id orcid.org/0000-0002-3048-2931 ; Stevens Institute of Technology, College of Arts and Letters


Full text: german pdf 359 Kb

page 93-111

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Abstract

The paper discusses one of the later texts by Jacques Derrida. The text allows Derrida to be interpreted as a thinker of advanced modernity. Systematically it is possible to read modernity via the image of overcoming, which may be understood both in the sense of progress and restoration. The question Derrida asks is this: how can the potential of freedom to overcome be preserved without succumbing to teleology that informs it? The answer lies in the notion of future, which as the simply uncontrollable cannot be situated in any history. However, Derrida‘s attempt to normatively fill the uncontrollable future by relying on Kant‘s practical philosophy and legitimise it as a form of the mind fails. The notion remains empty, as can be shown by setting the boundary against Nietzsche. Nietzsche‘s notion of Übermensch hints at modernity as a future that liberates it from the pressure of history. Nietzsche reflects the figure of overcoming without impoverishing it the way Derrida does.

Keywords

Future; history; mind; modernity; nihilism; overcoming; teleology; the unconditional; Übermensch

Hrčak ID:

38858

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/38858

Publication date:

30.6.2009.

Article data in other languages: croatian german

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