The Domestication of Derrida: Rorty, Pragmatism and Deconstruction

Fabbri (philosophy, U. of California, Irvine) takes on Rorty's attempt to reconcile deconstruction with American pragmatist and liberal traditions, a challenging task as well as a risky business itself because Rorty's ideas were largely motivated by a need to contain Derrida's critique of Western philosophy and politics. Fabbri finds that Rorty's assertions that Derrida reduced philosophy to a collection of irrelevancies themselves do not have sufficient epistemological or political evidence. Further, Fabbri finds that Rorty's critique of the "privatization of deconstruction", especially his assertions that writing becomes merely an exercise in autobiography is directly counter to Derrida's intentions. Fabbri is also successful at identifying and nullifying Rorty's resistance to Derrida's project of engaging philosophy with political struggle. Fabbri also builds a cogent answer to Rorty's charge that there is little to do with politics and philosophy within deconstruction, pointing out the instances and evidence Rorty apparently chose to ignore. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Lorenzo Fabbri is a Sage fellow in the department of Romance Studies at Cornell University, USA.