Derrida Specters of Marx Reading Group Minutes
Session #1 2 August 2024
Participants: Adan, Cecilia, Chris, Davis, Filip, Geoffrey, Ihueze, Joël, Kevin, Kooper, Miracle, Paul, Prabhsharan, Ruth, Sourav,
Thomas, and Victoria (Alvaro and Karan apologized for not being able to attend this week; Onai sent a message saying that
he still cannot join the meetings but will continue to follow the reading group minutes.)
[Please feel free to comment on or add to these minutes. My comments appear in blue in a slightly smaller font.
Extensive quotations from Derrida in green]
Preliminary Business
Participants old and new introduced themselves and Paul introduced the program and its aims.
The Inheritance of Marxism
Davis remarked that, living in Latvia, the Soviet heritage is still very much talked about and felt to this
day.
Adan thought it interesting that Derrida writes about 'mourning'. A lot of Marxists mourn the loss of
Marxism, but it is certainly not a dead tradition. Failed promises may need to be mourned before it is
possible to move on.
Kevin was present when Derrida delivered the lecture on which Specters of Marx is based. He recalls
being moved by the dedication to Chris Hani, who had recently been assassinated. The talk therefore
starts on a note of mourning. Marxism has traditionally not played much of a role in US politics, but
radical thinking has been shaped by it and such thinking is increasingly prominent in academic
discourse.
Ruth remembered the assassination of Chris Hani in South Africa. The event marked a rupture in
post-Apartheid history, as did the assassination of Prof. David Webster. At the time, prior to his
assassination, Hani had been held up as a frightening 'specter' by the reactionary right. Nowadays,
Marxism is alive and well in South African universities, in part because of the great social inequalities
in the country.
Victoria noted the two-pronged nature of the term 'inheritance,' referring both to a burden—the
idea that we could be doing something different, giving rise to a sense of responsibility—and to a
material bequeathment (which is another possible translation)—a gift from the past.
Paul noted that Derrida deliberately pluralizes the word 'specter,' suggesting that there are multiple
legacies of Marx.
Chris pointed to the seeming paradox that Marxism is still alive and kicking, despite or perhaps
because of constant criticism and declarations of its demise, most famously at the hands of Francis
Fukuyama. Marxism is often lumped together in populist right-wing discourse with other movements,
such as Critical Race Theory and feminism. On the other hand, many economists, even right-wing
ones, take for granted many theories that ultimately stem from Marx.
'I would like to learn to live, finally'
Paul wondered where this quotation-like phrase with which Derrida commences the book comes
from.
Chris suggested that it is, in some sense, a quotation from Derrida's own future writings, [since it
appears in his last interview. See Reference 1 in References section at the end of this document]
[The discussion moved on from here to the idea of the 'end of man' in Derrida's essay the "Ends of Man".
(Reference 2) I may have lost some the thread of the argument here due to an Internet connectivity breakdown]
Chris noted that Derrida was critical of Heidegger and accused him of substituting Dasein for human
being. Derrida was, to some extent, 'obsessed' with Heidegger. His book on the controversy
surrounding Heidegger's association with Nazism came out around the same time as Specters of
Marx. [The English translation of Derrida's Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question was published in 1991, two years before
Specters. The French version of Victor Farias's Heidegger and Nazism had been published two years earlier, in 1989. See
References 3 and 4]
Kooper suggested [citing Harold Bloom] that there was some 'anxiety of influence' in Derrida's
relation to Heidegger.
Prabh asked how Derrida responded to Heidegger.
Chris responded that Derrida defended Heidegger from his detractors, in particular the Farias book
on Nazism. He noted that only once, in the famous 1933 inaugural address as rector of Freiburg
University (in which he endorsed Nazi ideology) did Heidegger use the term Geist explicitly.
Elsewhere, he puts it between inverted commas.
Davis commented that, in a footnote in Positions, Derrida remarks that Heidegger's views regarding
Hegel had been passed down from Husserl. He did not agree with them 100%. [I think that Davis is
referring here to Note 32 on p.105 of the English translation. Reference 5].
Adan noted the way that Heidegger explored the richness of language. Derrida does the same but in
a different way.
Victoria agreed with this but steered the conversation back to the pseudo-quotation at the beginning
of the book. She argued that it is no mistake that Derrida makes it ambiguous, in particular, through
his use of the first-person singular pronoun. The use of 'I' rather than 'we' decenters the political
question, making it more about ethics and about the future of ourselves as individuals. Marxism
involves having a certain humility in relation to the future. Why does it still hold such appeal despite
its obvious historical failures?
Davis noted that the text switches from politics to an engagement with ethics. Derrida works on the
intersection. He is not absorbed in ontology the way Heidegger was.
The Future and the Future-to-Come
Paul noted that the difference between 'l'avenir' and 'l'à-venir' is like the one between différence and
différance one that only appears in writing.
Davis compared this to Catherine Malabou's work on the future (of Hegel) [Reference [6]]. There are
various modalities of future, including a planned future.
Paul noted that both the future and past are oblique tenses. Some languages use the same form of
the verb to refer to both. English also does to some extent. English uses the 'past tense' in
counterfactual or improbable conditionals, such as 'if I were you,' for example. One difference
between English and Latin, and neo-Latin languages such as French, is that English has no future
tense so to speak. There are various forms that can be used to refer to different modalities of the
future (I count eleven! See Annex 2)
Cecilia referred back to Quotation 3, "what stands in front of it must also precede it like its origin: before it. Even if the future
is its provenance, it must be, like any provenance, absolutely and irreversibly past… To be just: beyond the living present in general—and
beyond its simple negative reversal. A spectral moment, a moment that no longer belongs to time, if one understands by this word the
linking of modalized presents (past present, actual present: “now,” future present)… Furtive and untimely, the apparition of the specter
does not belong to that time", suggesting that the term 'irreversibly' suggests that the future can, nevertheless, not
be avoided. She related this to the law of thermodynamics, according to which, entropy increases only as a
result of an irreversible process.
Chris noted that Derrida's interest in time and the future goes back to his early work on Husserl.
Derrida is a philosopher of logic, like Badiou. [Reference 7] All the binaries (culture/nature and so
forth) that Derrida discusses employ advanced speculative notions relating to time and change.
Derrida reflects, at some distance, on the paradox of time-consciousness.
Davis added that Heidegger, in Being and Time, describes history as a science that is directed towards
the future. [Reference 8]
Geoffrey likes the concept of different visions of the future, which do not necessarily refer to how the
future comes about.
Miracle suggested, in chat, that the future-to-come could be interpreted as an unattainable future.
Kooper, also in chat, concurred, adding that it is 'the future of the future or the possible other futures
in the future. The future that the escapes the totalizing of presence altogether'. Ruth agreed.
Miracle further suggested (in chat) that the future might be the specter.
Victoria (in chat) made the following comment: " L'avenir is a general concept of the future, it usually
implies something predictable, something expected with respect to our anticipations or in continuity
with our values L'à-venir ('the future-to-come") is more philosophical, about
unknown/unpredictable/transcendent/nonsense... there is more openness here, something
unexpected could happen that we don't anticipate at all."
Kooper added a quotation from page 34 of the text: “To be “out of joint,” whether it be present Being or present
time, can do harm and do evil, it is no doubt the very possibility of evil. But without the opening of this possibility, there
remains, perhaps, beyond good and evil, only the necessity of the worst. A necessity that would not (even) be a fated one.”
Joël added the following comment (in chat) "Le devenir is a concept from Deleuze which
encompasses the future. To become is to be carried simultaneously in two different directions,
implying the coexistence of past and future in a dodging of the present: "Such is the simultaneity of a
becoming whose very nature is to dodge the present. Insofar as it dodges the present, becoming
does not support the separation or distinction of before and after, past and future."
Justice and Law(s)
Paul asked about the difference between these terms, as Derrida distinguishes them.
Davis suggested that the latter are codified in discourse, while the former is more abstract and
conceptual.
Cecilia noted that, in Lacanian theory, both justice and law are needed.
Davis suggested Sophocles' Antigone as a play that deals with the difference between justice and law.
[Reference 9]
Cecilia suggested that, in Derrida, justice is about
impossibility and contingency, within the quadrilateral of
possibility and necessity. [See Figures 1 and 2 – taken from
Reference 10]
Cecilia wondered Figure
whether the use
1 Square of hyphenation in 'l'à-
of Opposition
venir' might be related to a distinction between a
nominal and a verbal form: 'the coming' and 'to come'.
Geoffrey suggested 'the future' and 'that which is to
come'.
Paul argued that Derrida is referring in this quotation to
two kinds of future—one is planned, the other unknown. Figure 2 Alethic and Deontic Squares of
The planned future is associated with 'provenance'. Just as Opposition
we can trace the provenance of an historical artifact, step
by step, so we can see the future coming step by step. Both future in this sense and the past can thus
be seen as irreversible in their provenance. But there is another sense in which the future is
unknown, radically unpredictable. [This could also be related to Aristotle's concepts of tuche and
automaton]
Davis remarked that Hegel and, in particular, Kojève's reading of Hegel, see the future in terms of the
first of these. It is a closed future, not open to any possibility…
Kevin noted that the Communist Manifesto is eschatological. It imagines the future. This 'past future'
has, however, not come to pass. This contrasts with the end of history.
Paul noted that both Marxists and 'End of History' theorists are now left asking themselves why
history didn't end. [Fukuyama himself has apparently abandoned the theory and is now interested in
socialism!]
Davis noted that Marxism-Leninism was always objectively disjointed. It was always referring to
something 'yet to come', never reached. Malabou suggests a similar kind of interplay between two
kinds of future.
Paul noted that there are two dichotomous interpretations of Marxism: one, the Marxist-Leninist,
dialectical materialist version, sees the future as being planned and going through necessary stages;
the other, that of Marx himself, sees capitalism as being doomed to come apart under its own
contradictions, but the future society beyond that as being unimaginable.
Davis pointed to Marx's study of the Paris Commune [The Civil War in France Reference 11] as being
the text in which this distinction is most clearly articulated.
Cecilia wondered to what extent this is related to the 'return of the repressed' in psychoanalysis. It is
this that differentiates one individual's suffering from that of another.
Kooper suggested that Derrida's text should be read solely in terms of this: the repetition of the
primal crime.
Davis asked whether Freud's observations regarding the fort-da game might be relevant here.
Joël explained that the fort-da game is about mastering absence. The origin of the idea is related to
the death of Freud's brother Julius, which was repressed and never elaborated in his work, because
Freud had feelings of guilt related to his murder wish in relation to his brother. The fort-da game is
also about the absence of the mother. Each time it is put into action, there is a distancing and a
return. The game re-enacts the process of desire. The idea is also related to the death of Freud's
daughter at the time when he observed a grandchild playing this game. The fort-da game is a tragic
game of repetition and the process of desire.
In relation to l'avenir and l´à-venir, Deleuze also introduces the term 'devenir' (becoming) as outlined
in Joël's previous comments. Devenir also relates to animals and specters. [also metamorphoses]
Kooper reminded participants that the fort-da game appears in Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle
and is addressed by Derrida in The Post Card. [References 12 and 13]
Davis suggested that there is also a fort-da game at play within Marxism.
Adan posted the following quotation from page 3. "But what goes on between these generations? An omission,
a strange lapsus. Da, then fort, exit Marx. In "La crise de l' esprit" ("The Crisis of Spirit, 1919: "As for us, civilizations, we
know now we are mortal "). the name of Marx appears just once. It inscribes itself, here is the name of a skull to come into
Hamlet's hands:"
Kooper posted in chat: "I think it’s important that Joel started by pointing to Freud’s repression, since
according to Freud, repression is the only way to guarantee a return of something. It seals or locks
the thing away in the unconscious rather than simply forgetting it. indeed, Lacan even says that the
return of the repressed and the repressed are part of the very same movement." Ruth endorsed this
view.
Joël noted that repetition is in fact impossible. As Heraclitus said, it is impossible to step into the
same river twice. People try to repeat things but they can't and this exposes them.
Paul suggested that the very way that time is structured in language may be related to the fort-da
game in some way. He recalled a study of child language acquisition (in Portuguese) in which the child
played a kind of fort-da game with food, saying 'acabou' ('It's gone') when the food was thrown away.
Except that the child pronounced only the past tense ending of the verb 'bou', suggesting that
awareness of the past tense ending precedes that of any specific verb. This further suggests that the
acquisition of some idea of pastness is associated at a very primordial stage in language development
with the play of absence and desire in the fort-da game. The da part of the game could then be
associated with the evolution of the idea of futurity and repetition.
'The time is out of joint'
Paul drew attention to the various etymological puns contained in Quotation 6: "Maintaining now the
specters of Marx. (But maintaining now [maintenant] without conjuncture. A disjointed or disadjusted now, “out of joint,” a
disajointed now that always risks maintaining nothing together in the assured conjunction of some context whose border
would still be determinable.)"
Kooper noted in chat: "I think own important connotation of “joint” is “hinge” or “turning point” the
critical point at which a revolution becomes possible. “Criticus”"
Ruth added that "time is foundationally disjointed".
Davis noted that the idea of conjuncture and conjunction suggests a joining together of different
temporalities and ideological worlds.
Geoffrey observed that the five-year-plans envisaged in the Soviet Union never worked. They were
always derailed by something unexpected. History never followed its expected path. It never
happened.
Paul referred back to the use of the term 'disjointed' and various similar terms and ideas in Hamlet. It
is as if there were two timelines—the one of the real world and the one of the ghostly world and
these become entangled when an injustice occurs. The plot of Hamlet is strangely disjointed and
contracted. Hamlet is forced into exile but is forced to return again almost immediately. When
Hamlet feigns madness and when Ophelia becomes mad, there is a lot of talk of words failing to
connect to reality. Even the title of the play reflects this disjointedness: Hamlet could refer to the
prince or to his father, the king, the ghost, the thing. And, of course, there is also the play within a
play, within which Hamlet inserts a section referring to real past events.
Davis recalled a Soviet-era joke about the generation of the members of the Politburo, who were all
in their 70s, surviving to live under communism. There was a radical disjunction between the
promised utopia and the everyday reality. This was in fact anti-dialectical.
Spirit and Specter
Paul suggested that the distinction is that a spirit is immaterial, while a ghost has a bodily form. The
ghost is a nothing that is a thing; while a spirit is a thing that is as nothing. [Both are distinct from a
simulacrum—one thing pretending to be, standing in for another]
Davis noted that, in many languages, as with German Geist, there is term that means both spirit and
ghost.
Paul observed that this is true to some extent in English, in phrases such as 'give up the ghost', 'the
ghost in the machine'.
Cecilia referred to Quotation 7 "One does not know: not out of ignorance, but because this non-object, this non-
present present, this being-there of an absent or departed one no longer belongs to knowledge. At least no longer to that
which one thinks one knows by the name of knowledge." focusing on the adverbial expression 'no longer'. She
noted that this is one of a trio of expressions (along with 'not yet' and 'always already') that Derrida
uses repeatedly. Marxism has often involved this idea of never arriving, a constant 'not yet', 'not yet'.
Paul will, in future, try to keep track of the original French Text Box 1
when providing quotations. On these particular terms, see Text Terms translated as 'not yet', 'no longer', and
Box 1. I also, in Annex I below, include some further observations on 'always already'.
the terms 'avenir', 'à-venir' and 'à venir'.
'Not yet' translates pas encore. The fact that the
negative French particle pas was originally a
It was agreed that next week we will continue our discussion
measure word meaning 'step/pace' can be
of the first 34 pages of Chapter 1 using the same questions exploited to produce a range of (largely
and quotations included in this week's agenda. If you would untranslatable) plays on words.
like to make any additions, please feel free to do so. 'no longer' translates the use of negative
construction ne…plus, which in some phrases is
References ambiguous, possibly also meaning 'no more.'
These ambiguous phrases are usually marked in
[1] Derrida, Jacques (2011) Learning to Live Finally. The Last the translation. For example, in the section that
begins on page 1 and stretches over onto page 2,
Interview. Translated by Pascal-Anne Brault. Melville House. plus d'un is translated as 'more than one' or 'no
more one'.
[2] Derrida, Jacques (1969) "The Ends of Man" in toujours déjà is the original French of the famous
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 30(1):31-57. and perhaps overused phrase 'always already'. It is
interesting to note that a technical use of this
phrase was first suggested by Althusser, in the
[3] Derrida, Jacques (1991) Of Spirit. Heidegger and the form of toujours-déjà-donné [always already given]
Question. Translated by Geoffrey Bennington. University to refer to the ideological givens that determine
our lives.
of Chicago Press.
[4] Farias, Victor (1991) Heidegger and Nazism. Temple University Press.
[5] Derrida, Jacques (1981) Positions. Translated by Alan Bass. University of Chicago Press.
[6] Malabou, Catherine (2005) The Future of Hegel. Plasticity, Temporality and Dialectic.
Translated by Lisabeth During. Routledge.
[7] Norris, Christopher (2012) Derrida, Badiou and the Formal Imperative. Continuum.
[8] Heidegger, Martin (2008) Being and Time. Translated by John MacQuarrie. Harper.
[9] Sophocles (2003) Antigone. Translated by Reginald Gibbons and Charles Segal. Oxford
University Press.
[10] Lima, João Alberto de Oliveira et al. (2021) "Casting the light of the theory of opposition
onto Hohfeld's fundamental legal concepts" in Legal Theory, 27(1):2035.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1352325221000070
[11] Marx, Karl (1966) The Civil War in France. Translated by Friedrich Engels. Foreign
Languages Press.
[12] Freud, Sigmund (2015) Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Dover.
[13] Derrida, Jacques (1987) The Post Card. From Socrates to Freud and Beyond. Translated
by Alan Bass. University of Chicago Press.
Annex I
Reflections on 'l'avenir,' 'à venir' and 'l'à-venir'.
The consensus in our discussion seemed to be that l'à-venir emphasizes unpredictability, while l'avenir is a
more general term. The Littré dictionary defines l'avenir as "Le temps futur, ce qui doit arriver" and gives the
following examples: "Embrasser l'avenir dans sa pensée. L'humanité qui ignore l'avenir. Chercher à lire l'avenir.
Il s'était promis un long avenir. Dans un avenir prochain" Examples of usage from corpora of contemporary
French clearly show, however, that unhyphenated à venir is used adjectivally in much the same sense of an
expected future, as, for example, in such common phrases as les générations à venir, les mois à venir, which
would quite naturally be translated as 'coming generations', and 'coming months' in English.
Derrida does not start using the hyphenated term à-venir as a substantive until around the time that he was
writing Specters of Marx. Prior to this, however, going back as far as Of Grammatology, he can be found using
the unhypenated adjectival form in a very specific sense that lays emphasis on the verb 'come', 'venir' rather
than the more normal idea of futurity as a future space, or future present, into which we are moving. The first
instance of this phrase in Of Grammatology refers to a monde irréductiblement à venir ('world irreducibly to
come' in Spivak's translation). This world 'announces itself at present beyond the closure of knowledge' '
s'annonce au présent, par-delà la clôture du savoir'. In the same paragraph, Derrida refers to the present day as
the 'future anterior' (futur antérieur), in the grammatical sense. "The future [l'avenir] can be anticipated only in
the form of an absolute danger. It is that which breaks absolutely with constituted normality and can therefore
only announce itself, present itself, in the species of monstrosity." The paradox here is the unknowable 'future'
in so far as it is 'to come' or 'coming' must have already announced itself/presented itself in some way. It is
therefore ironically past. But it can present itself only as a danger, as a monstrosity, as a specter. Derrida will
make the same point in Politics of Friendship, now inserting the hyphen, "L'à-venir précède le présent, la
présentation de soi du présent, il est donc plus « ancien » que le présent, plus « vieux » que le présent passé.
[The to-come precedes the present, the present's presentation of itself. It is thus 'older' than the present,
'older' than the past present].
Later in Of Grammatology, on pages 89-90, Derrida refers to the practice of placing terms 'under erasure' as
marking the 'meditation to come'. And further on, page 141, he refers to the concept of 'thought,' in contrast to
Heidegger's use of the term, as being used here as "a perfectly neutral name, a textual blank, the necessarily
indeterminate index of an epoch of difference to come." "pensée est ici pour nous un nom parfaitement neutre,
un blanc textuel, l'index nécessairement indéterminé d'une époque à venir de la différance."
In a similar vein, in Du Droit à la Philosophie (p.66), Derrida writes of a 'democracy to come', "dont l'être à venir
n'est pas simplement le lendemain ou le futur, plutôt une promesse d'événement et l'événement d'une
promesse. Un événement et une promesse qui constituent le démocratique: non pas présentement mais dans
un ici-maintenant dont la singularité ne signifie pas la présence ou la présence à soi". [whose being to come is
not simply tomorrow or the future, but rather a promise of an event and the event of a promise. An event and
a promise that constitute the democratic: not in the present but in a here-and-now whose singularity does not
signify presence or self-presence]. Earlier in the same work, he describes the goal of the Collège International
de Philosophie (CIPh) as being something that "reste à venir, non pas comme une réalité future mais comme ce
qui gardera toujours la structure essentielle d'une promesse et ne peut arriver que comme telle, comme à
venir." [is still to come, not as a future reality but as something that always retains the essential structure of a
promise and can only arrive as such, as coming/to-come].
The way Derrida uses the term à venir in Of Grammatology and other works, suggests that he intends to
emphasize the paradox of a future that at once promises a radical rupture with the current epoch or episteme
and is unknowable in so far as it is bounded by the horizon of this epoch. In so far as it is a promise, however, it
nevertheless announces its coming in the form of traces and thus in some sense precedes the present.
Annex 2
Eleven
forms of the
future in
English
1. Will
(gen
eral
pred
ictio
ns
or
stat
eme
nts
of
inte
nt) –
e.g.
"Arti
ficial
intel
ligen
ce
will
mak
e
the
