The following, I think, is a not so much a crucial as a just definitive paragraph from The Politics of Friendship regarding everything that Derrida is consistently or recurrently (récurrente) trying to do. I put it up both in the French and English (modifying the translation in slight, but crucial, ways):En précisant «s'il y en a» de façon récurrente, en suspendant la thèse d'existence partout où, entre un concept et un événement, vient s'interposer, doit en vérité s'imposer pour y être endurée, la loi d'une aporie, d'une indécidabilité, d'une double contrainte (double bind). C'est le moment où la disjonction entre le penser et le connaître est de rigueur. C'est le moment où l'on ne peut penser le sens ou le non-sens qu'à cesser d'être certain que la chose advienne jamais ou que, même s'il y en a, elle soit jamais accessible à un savoir théorique ou à un jugement déterminant, à quelque assurance du discours et de la nomination en général. C'est ainsi que nous dison régulièrement, mais nous purrions multiplier les exemples: le don, s'il y en a, l'invention, s'il y en a, etc. Cela ne revient pas à concéder une dimension hypothétique ou conditionnelle («si, à supposer que, etc.») mais à marquer une différence entre «il y a» et «est» ou «existe», c'est-à-dire les mots de la présence. Ce qu'il y a, s'il y en a, n'est pas nécessairement. Cela peut-être n'existe ni ne se présente jamais, et pourtant il y en a, il peut y en avoir. Peut-être, encore que le peut-être français soit peut-être ici trop riche de ses deux verbes (le pouvoir et l'être). La possibilité originale dont nous parlons ne s'efface-t-elle pas mieux dan les adverbes d'autres langue (vielleicht ou perhaps, par exemple)?
-Politiques de l'amitié, «Aimer d'amitié : peut-être -- le nom et l' adverbe», 59
By specifying "if there is one" recurrently, by suspending the thesis of existence wherever, between a concept and an event, there comes to interpose itself -- and it must in truth impose itself there to be endured -- the law of an aporia, an undecidability, a double bind. This is the moment when the disjunction between thinking and knowing is de rigueur. This is the moment when one can think sense or non-sense only by ceasing to be sure that the thing ever occurs, or -- even if there is such a thing -- that it would ever be accessible to theoretical knowledge or determinant judgement, any assurance of discourse or of nomination in general. Thus we regularly say -- but we could multiply the examples -- the gift, if there is one, invention, if there is any such thing, and so forth. This does not amount to conceding a hypothetical or conditional dimension ("if, supposing that, etc.") but to marking a difference between "there is" and "is" or "exists" -- that is to say, the words of presence. What there is, if there is one or any, is not necessarily. It perhaps does not exist nor ever present itself, nevertheless, there is one, or some, there is a chance of there being one, of there being some. Perhaps, although the French peut-être is, perhaps, too rich with its two verbs (to be able/possible [pouvoir] and being [être]). Would not the original possibility we are discussing efface itself better in the adverbs of other languages (vielleicht or perhaps, for example)?
By specifying "if there is one" recurrently, by suspending the thesis of existence wherever, between a concept and an event, there comes to interpose itself -- and it must in truth impose itself there to be endured -- the law of an aporia, an undecidability, a double bind. This is the moment when the disjunction between thinking and knowing is de rigueur. This is the moment when one can think sense or non-sense only by ceasing to be sure that the thing ever occurs, or -- even if there is such a thing -- that it would ever be accessible to theoretical knowledge or determinant judgement, any assurance of discourse or of nomination in general. Thus we regularly say -- but we could multiply the examples -- the gift, if there is one, invention, if there is any such thing, and so forth. This does not amount to conceding a hypothetical or conditional dimension ("if, supposing that, etc.") but to marking a difference between "there is" and "is" or "exists" -- that is to say, the words of presence. What there is, if there is one or any, is not necessarily. It perhaps does not exist nor ever present itself, nevertheless, there is one, or some, there is a chance of there being one, of there being some. Perhaps, although the French peut-être is, perhaps, too rich with its two verbs (to be able/possible [pouvoir] and being [être]). Would not the original possibility we are discussing efface itself better in the adverbs of other languages (vielleicht or perhaps, for example)?
-The Politics of Friendship, "Loving in Friendship: Perhaps -- the Name and the Adverb," 38-9 (translation modified)
The last two sentences should not be forgotten. The conceptual knots that they are tying together are quite complex. What does Derrida mean by "rich" (riche)? And why the stress on the (two) verbs (making up one word) as compared with (singular) adverbs (of which we are given two examples).
But the statement that should ring in one's ears is the one regarding marking a difference between "there is" and "is." "There is," or "il y a," which is really Heidegger's phrase "es gibt" (cf. the "Letter on Humanism," especially) and "is:" the distinction between how being gives itself over to being, rather than remaining, as Heidegger wanted it to be, the realm of a similarity between this "there is" or this giving and being, a similarity beyond or prior to any identity between beings, a realm of the same, made or enowned into the same by enowning--this must be marked with a difference that is just as prior as the same. If the same is identity beyond or prior to identity, the identity of identity (cf. "Identity and Difference"), this difference is difference prior to difference, difference of difference. This is why asserting or marking this difference isn't advocating that everything become hypothetical: Derrida is not being any more hypothetical than Heidegger when he is saying that "there is" a similarity between being and that originary enowning that, prior to being, gives being by virtue of this similarity. Heidegger cannot say that "there is" this giving through similarity, this "there is," just as much as Derrida cannot say that "there is" this giving through this difference.
The last two sentences should not be forgotten. The conceptual knots that they are tying together are quite complex. What does Derrida mean by "rich" (riche)? And why the stress on the (two) verbs (making up one word) as compared with (singular) adverbs (of which we are given two examples).
But the statement that should ring in one's ears is the one regarding marking a difference between "there is" and "is." "There is," or "il y a," which is really Heidegger's phrase "es gibt" (cf. the "Letter on Humanism," especially) and "is:" the distinction between how being gives itself over to being, rather than remaining, as Heidegger wanted it to be, the realm of a similarity between this "there is" or this giving and being, a similarity beyond or prior to any identity between beings, a realm of the same, made or enowned into the same by enowning--this must be marked with a difference that is just as prior as the same. If the same is identity beyond or prior to identity, the identity of identity (cf. "Identity and Difference"), this difference is difference prior to difference, difference of difference. This is why asserting or marking this difference isn't advocating that everything become hypothetical: Derrida is not being any more hypothetical than Heidegger when he is saying that "there is" a similarity between being and that originary enowning that, prior to being, gives being by virtue of this similarity. Heidegger cannot say that "there is" this giving through similarity, this "there is," just as much as Derrida cannot say that "there is" this giving through this difference.
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