Derrida, the Subject and the Other ─ Surviving, Translating, and the Impossible

This book presents the relation between the subject and the other in the work of Jacques Derrida as one of ‘surviving translating’. It demonstrates the key role of translation in thinking difference rather than identity, beginning with the work of Martin Heidegger and Emmanuel Levinas. It describes how translation, and its ethical demands, acts as a leitmotif throughout Derrida’s writing; from his early work on Edmund Husserl to his last texts on politics and hospitality. While for both Heidegger and Levinas translation is always possible, Derrida’s account is marked by the challenge of impossibility. Expanding translation beyond a merely linguistic operation, Foran explores Derrida’s accounts of mourning, death and ‘survival’ to offer a new perspective on the ethics of subjectivity. 

Lisa Foran is Teaching Fellow in Philosophy at Newcastle University (UK). She is editor ofTranslation and Philosophy (2012) and co-editor of Heidegger, Levinas, Derrida: The Question of Difference (Springer, 2016).