Page 89 - DENG501_LITERARY_CRITICISM_AND_THEORIES

Unit 7: Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences-Jacques Derrida

to be a faith or a decision at all. This description of the decision as a moment of madness that must Notes
move beyond rationality and calculative reasoning may seem paradoxical, but it might nevertheless
be agreed that a decision requires a 'leap of faith' beyond the sum total of the facts. Many of us are
undoubtedly stifled by the difficulty of decision-making, and this psychological fact aids and, for his
detractors, also abets Derrida's discussion of the decision as it appears in texts like The Gift of Death,
Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, Adieu to Emmanuel Lévinas, and Politics of Friendship.
In Adieu to Emmanuel Lévinas, Derrida argues that a decision must always come back to the other,
even if it is the other 'inside' the subject, and he disputes that an initiative which remained purely
and simply "mine" would still be a decision. A theory of the subject is incapable of accounting for
the slightest decision, because, as he rhetorically asks, "would we not be justified in seeing here
the unfolding of an egological immanence, the autonomic and automatic deployment of predicates
or possibilities proper to a subject, without the tearing rupture that should occur in every decision
we call free?". In other words, if a decision is envisaged as simply following from certain character
attributes, then it would not genuinely be a decision. Derrida is hence once more insisting upon
the necessity of a leap beyond calculative reasoning, and beyond the resources of some self-
contained subject reflecting upon the matter at hand. A decision must invoke that which is outside
of the subject's control. If a decision is an example of a concept that is simultaneously impossible
within its own internal logic and yet nevertheless necessary, then not only is our reticence to
decide rendered philosophically cogent, but it is perhaps even privileged. Indeed, Derrida's work
has been described as a "philosophy of hesitation", and his most famous neologism, différance,
explicitly emphasises deferring, with all of the procrastination that this term implies. Moreover, in
his early essay "Violence and Metaphysics", Derrida also suggests that a successful deconstructive
reading is conditional upon the suspension of choice: on hesitating between the ethical opening
and the logocentric totality. Even though Derrida has suggested that he is reluctant to use the term
'ethics' because of logocentric associations, one is led to conclude that 'ethical' behaviour (for want
of a better word) is a product of deferring, and of being forever open to possibilities rather than
taking a definitive position. The problem of undecidability is also evident in more recent texts
including The Gift of Death. In this text, Derrida seems to support the sacrificing of a certain
notion of ethics and universality for a conception of radical singularity not unlike that evinced by
the "hyper-ethical" sacrifice that Abraham makes of his son upon Mt Moriah, according to both the
Judaic and Christian religions alike. To represent Derrida's position more precisely, true
responsibility consists in oscillating between the demands of that which is wholly other (in
Abraham's case, God, but also any particular other) and the more general demands of a community.
Responsibility is enduring this trial of the undecidable decision, where attending to the call of a
particular other will inevitably demand an estrangement from the "other others" and their communal
needs. Whatever decision one may take, according to Derrida, it can never be wholly justified. Of
course, Derrida's emphasis upon the undecidability inherent in all decision-making does not want
to convey inactivity or a quietism of despair, and he has insisted that the madness of the decision
also demands urgency and precipitation. Nevertheless, what is undergone is described as the
"trial of undecidability" and what is involved in enduring this trial would seem to be a relatively
anguished being. In an interview with Richard Beardsworth, Derrida characterises the problem of
undecidability as follows: "However careful one is in the theoretical preparation of a decision, the
instant of the decision, if there is to be a decision, must be heterogeneous to the accumulation of
knowledge. Otherwise, there is no responsibility. In this sense not only must the person taking the
decision not know everything… the decision, if there is to be one, must advance towards a future
which is not known, which cannot be anticipated". This suggestion that the decision cannot
anticipate the future is undoubtedly somewhat counter-intuitive, but Derrida's rejection of
anticipation is not only a rejection of the traditional idea of deciding on the basis of weighing-up
and internally representing certain options. By suggesting that anticipation is not possible, he
means to make the more general point that no matter how we may anticipate any decision must
always rupture those anticipatory frameworks. A decision must be fundamentally different from
any prior preparations for it. As Derrida suggests in Politics of Friendship, the decision must "surprise
the very subjectivity of the subject", and it is in making this leap away from calculative reasoning
that Derrida argues that responsibility consists.

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