Derrida and the Inheritance of Democracy

Samir Haddad is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University.

• List of Abbreviations Introduction: Derrida's Legacies 1. The Structure of Aporia 2. Derridean Inheritance 3. Inheriting Democracy to Come 4. Questioning Normativity5. Politics of Friendship as Democratic Inheritance6. Inheriting BirthConclusion: Inheriting Derrida's LegaciesNotesBibliographyIndex

"Haddad lays out with unprecedented clarity some key features of Derrida's later thinking on several crucial ethical and political matters, including the very widely misunderstood issue of 'unconditional hospitality.'"—Geoffrey Bennington, Emory University"Samir Haddad demonstrates with force, lucidity, and intelligence that our inheritance of Derrida's work must be centered on Derrida's own thinking of inheritance. Derrida and the Inheritance of Democracy will reshape the way we read Derrida's work, the way we understand its promise, and, especially, the way we make it our own. If, as Derrida argues, an inheritance is never simply given but remains always as a task, then Haddad has lived up to this task in a truly original and responsible way."—Michael Naas, DePaul University"[A] highly valuable, probing, and critical discussion of normativity in relation to democratic inheritance. For those interested in deconstructive ethics and politics, this is an indispensable book."—Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews"Derrida and the Inheritance of Democracy is an excellent book, advancing an original, thoughtprovoking thesis about one of the most important ideas in the later Derrida's political philosophy. Haddad's argumentation is extraordinarily clear throughout—which is no small feat for a text on Derrida—and grounded in a thorough knowledge of the relevant literature. This book should be accessible to graduate students, although probably not to most undergraduate students. I would recommend it strongly to anyone interested in the later Derrida or in contemporary political philosophy."—SCTIW Review"[T]he readers of this book will gain significant insight into the Derrida's paradoxical notion of the inheritance of a democracy to come. Haddad's book should therefore be considered an authoritative text on Derrida and democratic theory."—Canadian Society for Continental Philosophy