Premium
D errida's “Antigonanette”: On the Quasi‐Transcendental
Author(s) -
Kramer Sina
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the southern journal of philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.281
H-Index - 21
eISSN - 2041-6962
pISSN - 0038-4283
DOI - 10.1111/sjp.12084
Subject(s) - transcendental number , hegelianism , transcendental philosophy , transcendental equation , transcendental function , epistemology , transcendental idealism , transcendental meditation , politics , mathematics , philosophy , theology , mathematical analysis , political science , law , numerical analysis , meditation
In this article, I rely both on D errida's 1974 work Glas , as well as D errida's 1971–72 lecture course, “ La famille de Hegel ,” to argue that the concept of the quasi‐transcendental is central to D errida's reading of H egel and to trace its implications beyond the H egelian system. I follow D errida's analysis of the role of A ntigone—or, as the lecture course has it, “Antigonanette”—in H egel's thought to argue that the quasi‐transcendental indicates a re(con)striction of empirical difference into the transcendental, which is thereby only ever provisionally transcendental. I then argue that the economy of difference indicated by the quasi‐transcendental is neither a general economy, nor is it in each case singular, but rather it ambivalently oscillates between these two. Finally, I treat the temporality of the quasi‐transcendental, arguing that the economy of difference indicated by the quasi‐transcendental is not prior to the re(con)striction of empirical difference, but is paradoxically produced by it by being retroactively constituted. I take up this analysis for the sake of describing what I contend is the quasi‐transcendental structure of constitutive exclusion, a way of understanding the conceptual structure of political bodies, and the political structure of concepts.