Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) remains one of the most controversial philosophers of the 20th century. Accused of obscurantism and nihilism, yet celebrated as profoundly original, his work has provoked both fierce hostility and devoted following. The book clarifies Derrida’s project by showing how ‘deconstruction’ emerges from a critical engagement with the Western philosophical heritage rather than its rejection. Central to Derrida’s work is the critique of the logocentrism internal to the civilization of the European West, a civilization framed by a distinctively onto-theological conception of ‘Man’ as the uniquely rational animal, the animal capable of grasping an order of pure intelligibility (the logos). This conception, synthesizing Greek ontology and Christian theology, underpins European modernity’s understanding of history as the teleological progress of ‘Man’ from primitive origins towards civilized perfection. The book shows how Derrida’s ‘rehabilitation of writing’ provides an extraordinary lever for deconstructing this heritage. Tracing Derrida’s path from early grammatological investigations to his more explicitly political writings of the 1990s, the book highlights Derrida’s vision of ‘democracy to come’—not a vision of a future ideal democracy but of democracy’s essential openness to transformation. Throughout, the book positions Derrida between conservative defenders of tradition and radical rejectionists, showing how deconstruction works from within the European heritage to forge a future for it—a future beyond the logocentrism and Eurocentrism that has marked it hitherto while remaining faithful to the call of reason, the call for self-critique that never ends.</jats:p>