Texts on Violence: Of the Impure (Contaminations, Equivocations, Trembling)

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1344/oxi.2020.i17.31566

Keywords:

deconstruction, law, Jacques Derrida, Giorgio Agamben, Walter Benjamin, critique of violence, justice

Abstract

This article interrogates a certain philosophical scene – one which constitutes itself through the position of what Jacques Derrida calls “the ethical instance of violence.” In the course of the essay, I analyze this quasi-juridical scene through readings of Aristotle, Walter Benjamin, and Giorgio Agamben among others. The scene, built on texts on texts on violence, demands a logic of purity; it is wary of contaminations and equivocations. And yet it thrives on them. In analyzing the implications of text, writing, and trace for the philosophical discourse on violence, I follow Derrida “just to see” what could make the scene tremble.

Author Biography

Thomas Clément Mercier, Universidad Adolfo Ibañez

Thomas Clément MERCIER was awarded a PhD in Philosophy and Political Theory by King’s College London’s Department of War Studies in 2017. He’s currently a FONDECYT Fellow at the Universidad Adolfo Ibañez in Santiago (Chile). His work has been published in journals such as Global Discourse, Oxford Literary Review, Derrida Today, Parallax, Ostium, Demarcaciones, Contexto Internacional, CR: The New Centennial Review, and Poetics Today. He specializes in political thought and international studies, with a particular interest in the multi-layered problematics of democracy, violence and political resistance from the perspectives of deconstruction, Marxism, queer and decolonial thought. Among other projects, he’s currently working on the edition of the correspondence between Louis Althusser and Jacques Derrida.

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Published

2020-07-07

How to Cite

Mercier, T. C. (2020). Texts on Violence: Of the Impure (Contaminations, Equivocations, Trembling). OXIMORA International Journal of Ethics and Politics, (17), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1344/oxi.2020.i17.31566

Issue

Num. 17: How to avoid trembling? Jacques Derrida and the Economies of Violence in Contemporary Political Philosophy (Jul-Dec 2020)

Section

Articles

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