Derrida's secret : perjury, testimony, oath /

Barbour, Charles, 1969-

Derrida's secret : perjury, testimony, oath / Charles Barbour. - Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, (c)2017. - 1 online resource (x, 292 pages) - Incitements .

Includes bibliographies and index.

Introduction : Cavernosis anfractibus -- Under oath : secrecy, perjury and the social bond -- Open secrets : literature, politics and testimonial truth -- Between two solitudes : self-deception, consciousness and the other mind -- Being alone : death, solitude and the end of the world -- Conclusion : secretions.

The Snowden Affair, Wikileaks, the 'lone wolf' terrorist, Clinton's private email account - the secret is arguably the central element of our contemporary political experience. Now, Charles Barbour looks at the basic ontological question 'what is a secret?' Organised as a reflection on Jacques Derrida's later writings on secrecy, four chapters each look at a separate problematic: society and the oath, literature and testimony, philosophy and deception, and time and death. Barbour shows that secrecy is not a negation of our relations with others, but a necessary condition of those relations. We can only reveal ourselves to one another (and, indeed, to anything other) insofar as we conceal as well.



9781474425018


Derrida, Jacques--Criticism and interpretation.


Philosophy-Ancient
Secrecy--Philosophy.


Electronic Books.

B2430 / .D477 2017