Of Grammatology

Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) was a philosopher who introduced the concept of deconstruction and contributed to the development of postmodernism and post-structuralism. He was born in Algeria to a Sephardic Jewish family. In 1949, Derrida moved to France, where he studied philosophy at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand and later obtained his master’s degree in philosophy at École Normale Supérieure. Derrida’s entrance into the world of philosophy was timely. France was experiencing a philosophical renaissance. Derrida’s peers were Foucault, Lyotard, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Levi-Strauss, and others. He wrote his master’s thesis on Husserl during the 1953-54 academic year, but he did not publish the work The Problem of Genesis in Husserl’s Philosophy until 1990. Derrida was critical of Husserl’s theory of phenomenology and structuralism. After graduating, Derrida taught philosophy at the Sorbonne and later at the École Normale Supérieure. Many other writers informed and influenced his own philosophical foundations, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, and James Joyce.

This time in French philosophical history is often compared to the German Idealism movement in the 19th century. The French philosophers, including Derrida, who emerged during the 1960s are sometimes referred to as “the incorruptibles,” a term coined by the French writer and playwright Hélène Cixous.