Jacques Derrida Critical Essay | Critical Review by John D. Caputo

SOURCE: "Derrida and the Study of Religion," in Religious Studies Review, Vol. 16, No. 1, January, 1990, pp. 21-5.

In the following review of The Post Card, The Truth in Painting, and Glas, Caputo discusses Derrida's use of psychoanalytic and theological ideas in his critique of traditional philosophy.

On the cover of The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond there is a reproduction of a drawing taken from a thirteenth-century fortune telling book by Matthew of Paris that portrays Socrates seated at a writing desk, diligently at work on a manuscript, while behind him stands a rather more diminutive Plato who appears to be dictating to him. Upon this "catastrophic" reversal of roles Derrida comments:

Be aware that everything in our bildopedic culture,… in our telecommunications of all genres, in our telematicometaphysical archives,… everything is constructed on the protocolary charter of an axiom, that could be demonstrated,...
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