Research: Jankélévitch and Derrida: silences and omissions around the theme of deathAccording to Vladimir Jankélévitch, death is «the problem par excellence and the only too» and in Jacques Derrida’s opinion, it is «what commands everything, everything I do, am, write, say». Critical literature did not hesitate to grasp and to amply analyze the link between the thought of the two philosophers, although limiting the inquiry to the only context of forgiveness, where Derrida himself refers to the colleague explicitly. On the contrary, around the theme of death, Jankélévitch is the great absentee in the derridean work. Nevertheless, Derrida draws from his colleague’s meditatio mortis images, lines of argument, terms and concepts which, peculiarly jankélévitchean, will form the basis of exquisitely derridean proposals. Why then, around the theme of death, is Derrida silent about Jankélévitch’s work? And why does Derrida make a series of singular omissions about the jankélévitchean origin of several elements which characterize his own reflection on death? Answering to these issues could reasonably lead to an inedited reading of philosophical matters which are nodal for contemporaneity, as well as to an important reconsideration of the roles, the balances, the influences and the intermittencies within the French and Continental philosophical stage of the late 20th century.
keywords
Jankélévitch, Derrida, Moral Philosophy, Death, Deconstruction, Ipseity, Forgiveness, Death Penalty, Animal Death