The Lucid Vigil: Deconstruction, Desire And The Politics Of Critique 1

Winner of the 2020 Symposium Book Award by the Canadian Society for Continental Philosophy Stella Gaon provides the first fully philosophical account of the critical nature of deconstruction, and she does so by turning in an original way to psychoanalysis. Drawing on close readings of Freud and Laplanche, Gaon argues that Derridean deconstruction is driven by a normative investment in reason's psychological force. Indeed, deconstruction is more faithful to the principle of reason than the various forms of critical theory prevalent today. For if one pursues the classical demand for rational grounds vigilantly, one finds that claims to ethical or political legitimacy cannot be rationally justified, because they are undone by logical undecidability. Gaon's argument is borne out in the cases of Kantian deontology, Deweyan pragmatism, progressive pedagogy, Habermasian moral theory, Levinasian ethics and others. What emerges is the groundbreaking demonstration that deconstruction is impelled by a quasi-ethical critical drive, and that to read deconstructively is to radicalize the emancipatory practice of reason as self-critique. This important volume will be of great value to critical theorists as well as to Derrida scholars and researchers in social and political thought. Cover 1 Half Title 4 Series Page 5 Title Page 6 Copyright Page 7 Dedication 8 Table of Contents 10 Acknowledgements 12 Introduction 14 Note 30 PART I: Naming the Stakes 32 1. The Danger of Rhetoric 34 Notes 51 2. The Apocalyptic Tone of Philosophy 53 Notes 66 3. Redefining the “Postmodern” 67 Notes 82 4. Deconstructing Kantian Critique 83 Notes 101 PART II: The Ends of Education 102 5. From“Neo” to “Post”: Strategies in Theory 104 Notes 114 6. Neomodernist Critical Pedagogy 115 Notes 136 7. Pedagogy without Foundations: Feminism and Anti-Racism 138 Notes 155 8. The Habermasian Gambit: A Critique of Discourse Ethics 156 Notes 172 PART III: On Deconstruction and Justice 174 9. Responsibility as Messianic Injunction 176 Notes 191 10. Derrida Contra Levinas 193 Notes 210 11. Conscience and the Aporia of Subjectivity 212 Narcissism 216 Melancholia 225 Notes 233 12. The Desire for Reason 235 Primal seduction and the logic of “afterwardsness” 236 The ego and “primary” repression 240 “Secondary” repression, afterwards 248 Notes 256 Conclusion: The Risk of a Certain Critique 258 References 265 Index 278