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I am certain there are many philosophers who would be embarrassed
to associate themselves with this self-righteous group. Nevertheless the following letter to The London
Times from May 1992, recording the indignation felt among self identified leading
professional philosophers regarding the initiative of the University of Cambridge
in conferring on Derrida an honorary degree, does provide some of the flavor
of the response to Derrida among large numbers of the Philosophical
community. The letter, by the way,
mentions standards of clarity and rigour.
Derrida, by any standards, has gone a long way in showing that
increased clarity tends to lead to lapses in coherence (and reciprocally, increasing
coherence tends to lead to lapses of clarity). What seems to have bypassed the notice of the following
signatories is that the clarity of their presentation has been undermined by
the incoherence of their dogmatic position. From
Professor Barry Smith and others: The Times (London). Saturday, May 9,
1992 Sir, The University of Cambridge is to ballot on May 16 on
whether M. Jacques Derrida should be allowed to go forward to receive an
honorary degree. As philosophers and others who have taken a scholarly and
professional interest in M. Derrida's remarkable career over the years, we
believe the following might throw some needed light on the public debate that
has arisen over this issue. M. Derrida describes himself as a philosopher, and his
writings do indeed bear some of the marks of writings in that discipline.
Their influence, however, has been to a striking degree almost entirely in
fields outside philosophy -- in departments of film studies, for example, or
of French and English literature. In the eyes of philosophers, and certainly among those
working in leading departments of philosophy throughout the world, M.
Derrida's work does not meet accepted standards of clarity and rigour. We submit that, if the works of a physicist (say) were
similarly taken to be of merit primarily by those working in other
disciplines, this would in itself be sufficient grounds for casting doubt
upon the idea that the physicist in question was a suitable candidate for an
honorary degree. M. Derrida's career had its roots in the heady days of the
1960s and his writings continue to reveal their origins in that period. Many
of them seem to consist in no small part of elaborate jokes and the puns
"logical phallusies" and the like, and M. Derrida seems to us to
have come close to making a career out of what we regard as translating into
the academic sphere tricks and gimmicks similar to those of the Dadaists or
of the concrete poets. Certainly he has shown considerable originality in this
respect. But again, we submit, such originality does not lend credence to the
idea that he is a suitable candidate for an honorary degree. Many French philosophers see in M. Derrida only cause for
silent embarrassment, his antics having contributed significantly to the
widespread impression that contemporary French philosophy is little more than
an object of ridicule. M. Derrida's voluminous writings in our view stretch the
normal forms of academic scholarship beyond recognition. Above all -- as
every reader can very easily establish for himself (and for this purpose any
page will do) -- his works employ a written style that defies comprehension. Many have been willing to give M. Derrida the benefit of
the doubt, insisting that language of such depth and difficulty of
interpretation must hide deep and subtle thoughts indeed. When the effort is made to penetrate it, however, it
becomes clear, to us at least, that, where coherent assertions are being made
at all, these are either false or trivial. Academic status based on what seems to us to be little more
than semi-intelligible attacks upon the values of reason, truth, and
scholarship is not, we submit, sufficient grounds for the awarding of an
honorary degree in a distinguished university. Yours sincerely, Barry Smith Hans Albert (University of Mannheim), David Armstrong
(Sydney), Ruth Barcan Marcus (Yale), Keith Campbell (Sydney), Richard Glauser
(Neuchâtel), Rudolf Haller (Graz), Massimo Mugnai (Florence), Kevin Mulligan
(Geneva), Lorenzo Peña (Madrid), Willard van Orman Quine (Harvard), Wolfgang
Röd (Innsbruck), Karl Schuhmann (Utrecht), Daniel Schulthess (Neuchâtel),
Peter Simons (Salzburg), René Thom (Burs-sur-Yvette), Dallas Willard (Los Angeles),
Jan Wolenski (Cracow) May 6. The
Times (London). Saturday, May 9, 1992 For
Steve Bell’s interpretation of the Cambridge debacle see this cartoon |
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