Hyper-Sovereignty and Community derrida's reading of heidegger in the beast and the sovereign, volume II

The article retraces three important steps along the path of Derrida's Heidegger interpretation in The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume II. Readings of The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, Introduction to Metaphysics, and "The Onto-Theo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics" compleme...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAngelaki : journal of theoretical humanities Vol. 29; no. 1-2; pp. 71 - 84
Main Author Gower, Jeffrey D.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Routledge 03.03.2024
Subjects
Derrida
ethics
Heidegger
sovereignty
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Summary:The article retraces three important steps along the path of Derrida's Heidegger interpretation in The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume II. Readings of The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, Introduction to Metaphysics, and "The Onto-Theo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics" complement and further develop Derrida's deconstruction of Heidegger, which revolves around the term "Walten" and its role in the world-formation that makes community possible. The analysis of what Derrida calls the hyper-sovereignty of Walten reveals an ethico-political ambiguity in Heidegger's texts. On the one hand, this hyper-sovereignty registers as a super-sovereign violence that founds theological-political world-constructs through the exclusion of those deemed other. On the other hand, like différance it serves as the condition of impossibility of a common world. Following Derrida's provocation, I develop this second sense to argue that the dissolution of the common world entails an ethical imperative to carry the other with whom one has nothing in common.
ISSN:0969-725X
1469-2899
DOI:10.1080/0969725X.2024.2322260