Jacques Derrida

French philosopher (1930-2004) · France · Academics · Died at 74

Jacques Derrida is read about 1,735 times a day, in 85 languages.

A typical day, 30 days to 15 October 2026

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He made "deconstruction" a word that escaped philosophy departments and infected literary theory, architecture, law, and decades of graduate seminars - then spent years insisting he'd been misread. His writing was famously difficult, his influence undeniable, his critics never short of ammunition.

Academics Academic Philosophy Literature France Europe 20th Century

A life in dates

2008Harry Oppenheimer Fellowship AwardAward2004Died8 October 20042003“Amy Kofman: Have you read all the books in here? Derrida: No, only four of them. But I read those very, very carefully.”In their wordsDerrida (2003 documentary), referring to his personal libraryRead the whole statement

2001Theodor W. Adorno AwardAward1993“Circumcision, that’s all I’ve ever talked about.”In their words"Circumfession." In Jacques Derrida, eds. G. Bennington & J. Derrida, trans. G. Bennington. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993, p.Read the whole statement

1982“The end of man (as a factual anthropological limit) is announced to thought from the vantage of the end of man (as a determined opening or the infinity of a telos).”In their words"The Ends of Man," Margins of Philosophy, tr. w/ notes by Alan Bass. The University of Chicago Press. Chicago, 1982. (original FrenchRead the whole statement

1978“In writing a history of madness, Foucault has attempted-and this is the greatest merit, but also the very infeasibility of his book-to write a history of madness itself. Itself.”In their wordsCogito and The History of Madness, p.37 (Routledge classics edition)Read the whole statement

“The history of metaphysics, like the history of the West, is the history of these metaphors and metonymies.”In their wordsStructure, Sign and PlayRead the whole statement

1972“A text is not a text unless it hides from the first comer, from the first glance, the law of its composition and the rules of its game.”In their wordsPlato's Pharmacy, introRead the whole statement

1930Born15 July 1930

Also in Deutsch

Photos 8

Derrida EHESS (cropped)

Chinmoy Guha with Derrida (cropped)

Chinmoy Guha with Derrida

Derrida Dibujo

Derrida EHESS

Derrida Voix&Phénomène

Derrida-by-Pablo-Secca

Eva Laquièze-Waniek, Erik Michael Vogt, Derrida und Adorno 2008

In their own words 10

Jacques Derrida

10 statements, newest first

Amy Kofman: Have you read all the books in here? Derrida: No, only four of them. But I read those very, very carefully.
2003, Derrida (2003 documentary), referring to his personal library, Own words
Circumcision, that’s all I’ve ever talked about.
1993, "Circumfession." In Jacques Derrida, eds. G. Bennington & J. Derrida, trans. G. Bennington. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993, p., Own words
I am one of those marranes who no longer say they are Jews even in the secret of their own hearts.
1993, "Circumfession." In Jacques Derrida, eds. G. Bennington & J. Derrida, trans. G. Bennington. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993, p., Own words

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Awards

Harry Oppenheimer Fellowship Award2008

Theodor W. Adorno Award2001

Family

Jacques Derrida

Partners

Spouse Marguerite Aucouturier

Children

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About this person

Born Jackie Élie Derrida on 15 July 1930, he grew into a French philosopher who built deconstruction through close readings of Saussure's linguistics and Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology. Between 1967 and 1972 he published the works that made his name - Speech and Phenomena, Of Grammatology, Writing and Difference, Margins of Philosophy - texts that redrew debates in ontology, epistemology, ethics, and the philosophy of language. Over 40 books and hundreds of essays followed, spreading his approach across the humanities and social sciences, from anthropology to psychoanalysis, historiography to political theory. He became Professor in Humanities at UC Irvine for his final two decades, a well-known public figure whose abstruseness made him as controversial as he was influential. He died 9 October 2004, having shaped fields he never set out to touch.

Country

France

In common with Jacques

Jean-Luc NancyAlso in Derrida's Elsewhere (1999)

Pascale OgierAlso in Ghost Dance (1983)

Kirby DickAlso in Derrida (2002)

Leonie MellingerAlso in Ghost Dance (1983)Safaa FathyAlso in Derrida's Elsewhere (1999)

Amy ZieringAlso in Derrida (2002)

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