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Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics)

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Contrary to an above reviewer of this book, Derrida's project is not "designed to cast great doubt on the classical notions of truth, reality, meaning, and knowledge." Especially not in Derrida's writings of the last 15 years, following his so-called "ethical" or "religious" turn. This volume includes two essays, "Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas" and "A Word of Welcome." The former is the eulogy Derrida gave at Levinas's burial, and the latter is an excellent analaysis of Levinas's ethics in the terms of "hospitality." Valuable for anyone interested in Levinas, recent developments in ethics, or Derrida's later philosophy.

If you read Derrida's Of Hospitality, then you should read this one too. "Adieu To Emmanuel Levinas" explains the ethical side of Hospitality in correlation with the difficulties with the law of hospitality. I find that this book will shed more light on hospitality that Derrida doesn't cover in "Of Hospitality". Derrida's analysis between absolute or unconditional hospitality and lawful or conditioned hospitality is coherent along with the foundation of Deconstruction between the external and internal. When Derrida speaks of the differance of hospitality, he is saying the differance between the host and guest, native and foreigner, and the welcomer and the welcomed.

Derrida, the renowned French postmodernist and author of, among other things, "Writing and Difference", is at it again in his latest effort, "Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas." His work is designed to cast great doubt on the classical notions of truth, reality, meaning, and knowledge. The goal is reprehensible, but Derrida can usually pull it off. "Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas" is thus a major disappointment to all those fans of outmoded deconstructionist French philosophers. The book suffers from being far too personal, and lacks detail. Anecdotes abound, but they are, in toto, not particularly interesting or helpful ones, mostly along the lines of childhood vacations to the beach and the like. As for the few attempts Derrida makes to actually deal with PHILOSOPHY, detail is sorely lacking. When a reader comes upon phrases like "the hermeneutics of orangutans," he/she really deserves to have some idea what the author is talking about. Sometimes you just want to read about eschatalogical polemics or signifier/signified interrelations, but you won't find that here. Seen in this, or any other light, "Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas" falls pancake-flat. Spend your money on something that makes sense to somebody other than the author. I am sad now and it is Jaques Derrida's fault.