On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness

by Jacques Derrida

Book Overview

Is it possible to uphold international hospitality and justice in the face of nationalism and civil strife in so many countries? Using examples of treatment of minorities in Europe, Derrida probes the thinking behind cosmopolitanism.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0415227127
• ISBN13: 9780415227124
• Release Date: June 2001
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 80 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.1" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Impossible possible aporias

Derrida was fascinated by aporias: puzzlements, bewilderments, dilemmas. In the Anglo-American philosophical tradition, the urge is to unpack an aporia, to de-puzzle it, if you will. But so far as Derrida was concerned, the really interesting aporias are those that can neither be unpacked nor dismissed. He thought of them as "impossible possibles," in that the conditions for their being also entailed a negation or contradiction. Derrida speculated about several of these aporias. In these two essays, he's primarily concerned with hospitality and forgiveness. Both hospitality and forgiveness are gifts, says Derrida, and in doing so he follows Judaic-Christian-Muslim normative traditions. But giving in the pure sense of the word means that the giving is anonymous--so anonymous that the recipient neither knows the benefactor nor even realizes that a gift has been given. Unconditional hospitality and forgiving, then, are possibilities whose very possibility seems to make them impossible: how, after all, can hospitality or forgiveness be said to be given if the recipient isn't aware of receiving? And yet this ideal, the impossible possible, ought to be kept as a standard. Added to the paradoxical nature of giving is Derrida's claim that the only forgiving worthy of giving is for the unforgiveable. Otherwise, forgiving is always conditional--that is, we forgive on condition that the offense is forgiveable. Derrida's responding most directly to what he thinks is the philosopher Jankelevitch's claim that Nazi war criminals are unforgiveable. Actually, though, I think he misreads Jankelevitch. Jankelevitch argues that war crimes are unforgiveable if viewed from an historical/legal perspective. But when viewed from a pure perspective, they are forgiveable--precisely because they're unforgiveable. So Derrida, whether knowingly or not, is really knocking off Jankielevitch's thesis. Still, an excellent and accessible read which serves as a nice complement to the typical way in which analytic philosophers examine forgiveness.

Clear and Engaging--on the impossibility of doing and saying ordinary things

This book by Derrida is wonderfully synthetic. In it, he engages with a large number of other philosophers, including Hannah Arendt, Emmanuel Levinas, and Immanuel Kant, and he also discusses at some length the Hebraic and Pauline scriptures. The book is also remarkably clear. In my opinion, however, the clarity of this book makes it more difficult to read than some of his others, since its clarity might give the impression that a quick read would be sufficient. I think, instead, that one's guard should be up and that each word of Derrida's book should be read carefully, since many times the argument hinges on an 'if' or a 'perhaps.' However, having said that, I do believe that there is nothing in this book that an educated person (not just a philosopher) would not understand with a bit of work. Let me back up a second again. Although Derrida writes (actually, speaks)here to be read, the things that Derrida discusses can be quite challenging. But they are challenging here not because he uses jargon but for the simple reason that one _does indeed_ understand what he means. It is not easy to be confronted by someone who says that the concepts one takes for granted are not stable. In the first essay on Cosmopolitanism Derrida asks what it would mean to be hospitable to others and to create cities of refuge. Thinking of our own struggles in the US as we attempt to come to terms BOTH with the message on the Statue of Liberty that marks the beginning of New York City AND with current economic and political pressures that make any city living problematic, I find his essay exciting and troubling. As Derrida notes, the Torah in the book of _Numbers_ does seem to require a kind of hospitality in the very structure and experience of the city. But can we simply take over that requirement? If so, how? How can openness to others and to their plight be enacted without giving up the reliability and necessary limitations or boundaries of the city? How can openness not become overrun by those who seek it? In the second essay, Derrida shows that forgiveness is only what it is if the person or event to be forgiven cannot actually be reached or touched by my effort to forgive. Very notably, his discussion of forgiveness here is the contrary to that of Arendt and others on the Holocaust. Forgiveness for Derrida must forgive the unforgivable (read the Holocaust) to be what it is. And yet Derrida acknowledges that unconditional forgiveness must still negotiate the very real, conditional demands of life together. This essay very much troubles me. How can I forgive the person who will later not be the same as the one who wronged me? How can I forgive the unforgivable and not perish as a victim of my own far-too-universal love? [I hear in Derrida's description of the problem of unconditional and conditional forgiveness an acknowledgment of Freud's _Civilization and Its Discontents_.] For me, Derrida's second essay is more searing and interesting.

Le Grand Pardon

As Derrida points out, the two virtues of hospitality and forgiveness belong to the Abrahamic tradition common to Jews, Christians and Moslems. They were defined and codified at a time when nation-states didn't exist, and point toward forms of solidarity that are both archaic and highly modern, in the sense that they help us expand our legal and political horizon. Granting hospitality or giving forgiveness are what linguists call speech acts, when enunciation creates its own performance and engages the speaker through the strength of the given word. One would need to establish fine-grained distinctions between the related notions of hospitality, asylum, refuge, sanctuary, safe haven, tolerance, openness, or within the even richer field of words connected to forgiveness: pardon, clemency, grace, acquittal, amnesty, reconciliation, excuse, exemption, prescription, repentance, apology, self-accusation, confession, etc. These are not only linguistic distinctions: differences in legal status and socio-economic conditions between asylum-seekers, refugees, immigrants, foreigners, deported, heimatlosen, stateless or displaced persons have very real consequences. Derrida identifies a contradiction or a double imperative contained in these two notions, a tension that leads to unanswerable questions. Forgiveness presupposes a call for pardon, but usually the worst offenders don't ask for forgiveness and manifest no repentance: can one forgive the guilty as guilty? And if true forgiveness consists in forgiving the unforgivable, what does forgiveness forgive if the unforgivable is forgiven? Likewise, the concept of hospitality points toward a right of refuge that should be granted unconditionally to all foreigners; but all political organizations, be they the modern nation-states or the cities of refuge of the ancient Jews, impose limitations on the rights of residence. Hospitality and forgiveness therefore exhibit a tension between the conditional and the unconditional, the calculus of politics and the imperative of ethics. One should not try to solve this contradiction or reconcile those two poles: inflections in politics and international law, such as the notion of crime against humanity or the French law that makes such crimes imprescriptible, usually stem from this tension between the two orders of injunctions. Another point common to these two notions is that they belong to a 'politics of friendship', they create a personal bind between individuals or communities that can sometimes contradict the rules of citizenship and sovereignty imposed by the nation-state. Derrida's first lecture before the International Parliament of Writers occurred at a time when the tightening of laws against foreigners without rights of residence, the so-called 'sans papiers', generated mass protests in Paris. In a bold move, Derrida reconnects with the philosophical tradition that treats the city as the matrix of all political organizations and mulls over the ancient c

Towards a union of theory and politics

After seeing the new documentary on Derrida(Nov. 2002) I decided to reconnect with this thinker whose work I studied with great vigor twelve years ago. Coming back to Derrida through On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness was both interesting and enjoyable. In these all too brief essays Derrida addresses two concerns of human rights. The first being the ideas of hospitality and refuge in the contemporary geo-political environment. The second, being the nature, meaning, and limits of forgiveness. In on Cosmopolitanism he extends the existing call for "cities of refuge" while examining the rights of hospitality as they are(n't) currently allowed to refugees. these movements are part of Derrida's advocating for a new consideration of cosom-politics. When addressing forgiveness, Derrida argues against the economy of forgiveness that is created whenever forgiveness is called for, insisted upon, or deployed as a way of re-establishing normalcy. That is when the concept is used by a system of political / spiritual exchange. Derrida argues very well that the only things that can be forgiven are those considered unforgivable, and that the right to forgive is owned by specific individuals. Back in the 1970's and 80s one of the most common attacks launched against post-structural thought in general, and deconstruction in particular was that it lacked political utility, or worse, was apolitical, or even worse, was politically regressive. Many of us at the time felt that such criticisms were both over stated and ill-informed. A book such as this leaves no doubt that post-structural thought and methods are relevant and helpful to progressive politics. If you are new to Derrida and want to experience deconstruction this is not the book. Derrida's method here is well structured and worth examining, but, it is clearly not an example of the explorations he has undergone elsewhere to examine those elements "always already" present within philosophical texts that undermine in unusual and interesting ways both what and how we understand said texts to mean.