What it's like to be a philosopher? Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, and nineteenth century anthropology


Author: Doctor Terence Rajivan Edward
Abstract. In this paper, I respond to the infamous letter to The Times attacking the University of Cambridge's decision to award Jacques Derrida an honorary degree. I draw attention to an assumption of that letter. Observing the resemblances between Derrida and Dadaists, the protesters assume Derrida learnt from them, exporting their tricks into philosophy. I consider the alternative that certain philosophical tendencies can independently emerge for people following a certain line of development, e.g. you move to the next stage of being a literary-philosophical figure and you do these things, whether familiar with Dadaists or not.
Draft version: version 2 2nd September 2026 (abstract added, minor edits; version 1 28 March 2022)
PDF at: https://philarchive.org/rec/EDWWII-2
Note: version 1 non-consensually deleted or not showing on Google docs.


There was a debate that dominated late nineteenth century British anthropology. It was between the evolutionists and the diffusionists. They were trying to explain cases where society A and society B have the same feature. The evolutionists thought that there are stages in the evolution of a society. If two societies have the same feature, such as that they are dominated by attempts to understand reality in terms of magic, then the evolutionists would often say that this is because they are at the same evolutionary stage. In some cases they would say that there is a shared feature because one or both societies have remnants from an earlier stage of evolution. The diffusionists, on the other hand, posited centres of creativity from which ideas and customs and technology spread (diffused). The evolutionists could explain why two disconnected societies have the same feature; the diffusionists took into account that societies learn from each other.


Now let us move forward about 100 years. In 1992, the University of Cambridge decided to award Jacques Derrida an honorary degree. A letter was written to The Times which opposed the decision. Here is one of the claims from this letter:
"M. Derrida seems to us to have come close to making a career out of what we regard as translating into the academic sphere tricks and gimmicks similar to those of the Dadaists or of the concrete poets."
The writers of the letter seem to be diffusionists. These tricks and gimmicks that Derrida uses diffused from avant-garde artistic movements. But perhaps there is a just stage in the development of a philosopher, or a philosophical culture, when one does something like that; or a pathway where it comes next, which even some analytic philosophers might be on.


        I do some Derridean things, tempered by the philosophical tradition I was trained in, such as producing subversive interpretations and philosophical puns, but I confess that I sometimes find myself doing even more Deleuzian things. It is a very strange "level," which I probably entered by operating in the space between anthropology and philosophy: long fingernails, botany, gateau, revisionary metaphysics, essays on capitalism and psychiatry, etc.


The preface to a book by Deleuze tries to capture Kant's philosophy in four poetic sayings, including one from Hamlet. I came up with the idea of inverting Hamlet to capture deconstructive interpretation: "There is more in your philosophy, than on heaven and earth." Further unintentional adventures in somewhat Deleuzian territory: I have seen quite a few advertisements at bus stands to do with being in line with one's gut and thereby producing ideal excrement. That led me to consider the question "Why be moral?" while focusing on a person who finds that they can achieve this ideal by engaging in immoral acts. Although they are not a psychopath, they might even end up crashing whole institutions for the sake of this ideal. I found myself writing sentences that make me think of the world of Deleuze: "Mommy and Daddy will be proud." Also to engage in more poetic adaptation: "There are times when the head has its reasons which the bowels know not."
 
References
Deleuze, Gilles. (translated by H.R.E. Tomlinson and B. Habberjam) 1984. Kant's Critical Philosophy. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press.
Smith, Barry, et al. 1992. Letter. The Times 9th May 1992. Available at:
http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/derridaletter.htm
(Other signatories: Hans Albert, David Armstrong, Ruth Barcan Marcus, Keith Campbell, Richard Glauser, Rudolf Haller, Massimo Mugnai, Lorenzo Pena, William Van Orman Quine, Wolfgang Rod, Edmund Runggaldier, Karl Schuhmann, Daniel Schulthess, Peter Simons, Rene Thom, Dallas Willard, Jan Wolenski.)