The Event of the Thing: Derrida's Post-Deconstructive Realism

Jacques Derrida's writings often embed the key themes of deconstruction in a notion of the thing. The Event of the Thing is the most complete examination to date of Derrida's understanding of thinghood and its crucial role in psychoanalysis, ethics, literary theory, aesthetics, and Marxism. Arguing that the thing, as a figure of otherness, destabilizes the metaphysical edifice it underlies, Michael Marder reveals the contributions it makes to critiques of humanism and idealism. Subsequently, the new realism that emerges from deconstruction holds the possibility of an event that problematizes all attempts to objectify the thing. An illuminating analysis of Derrida and phenomenology, The Event of the Thing is an innovative and compelling study of a crucial aspect of one of the twentieth century's greatest thinkers.

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents Acknowledgements4 Introduction Hoc nihil ad rem 6 Chapter I: The Event of the Thing: 'Ereignis in Abyss' 13 I.1. Protocols of the thing: That the event will have been possible 14 I.1.1It's virtually happening…15 I.1.2Double affirmative, double perhaps24 I.2. In-to the things themselves! 33 I.2.1'What' 'is' 'inside' 'the' 'thing'? 33 I.2.2The event of expropriation, or how the thing 'spirits away'41 I.3. The literary and the poetic: A name without the thing and the things without a name 50 Chapter II: 'This Thing Regards Us': The Promise of 'Reified' Intentionality 60 II.1. The real of intentionality and the intentionality of the real 61 II.1.1The real of intentionality: Noema and hyle 61 II.1.2The intentionality of the real: Res nostra agitur 67 II.2. The thing of the senses 78 II.2.1Not-hearing-oneself-speak78 II.2.2The imperative for thinking the hand86 II.3. Being read: Under the eye of the text 93 Chapter III: Deconstruction of Fetishism: The Love and the Work of the Thing 101 III.1. For the love of the thing: Derrida's psychoanalysis 102 III.1.1Who/what is analyzed in psychoanalysis?103 III.1.2Psychoanalysis and resistance–of the (non-idealized) mother111 III.1.3How to love the thing, or what does psychoanalysis resist?122 III.2.The thing at work: On commodity fetishism, or the "phenomenology of value"130 III.2.1The enframing (of) value130 III.2.2Money, credit, and other 'counterfeit things'140 III.2.3Becoming-thing of the thing, becoming-world of the world148 Chapter IV: On the Thing that Deconstructs Aesthetics 154 IV.1. Style, the signature of the thing 155 IV.1.1The point of style155 IV.1.2Spongy stones, stony sponges, and the countersignature of the thing 160 IV.1.3Painting with an auto-affective eye ("double vision")165 IV.2. Subjectile, the 'epoch' of the thing 172 IV.2.1Reductio ad rerum: In the memory of…172 IV.2.2Thrown together: The artist and the thing178 IV.2.3Instead of arriving: 'The bottom without bottom of things'186 IV.3. Parergon, the thing alongside the work 192 Conclusion: Post-Deconstructive Realism: Of What Remains 199 Abbreviation Key 209 Notes 213

About the Author :
Michael Marder is an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at Duquesne University.

Review :
‘The Event of the Thing by Michael Marder is probably one of the most comprehensive and integrative readings of Derrida’s oeuvre to date … Marder’s confident and elegant prose reveals an original style, distinctly different from Derrida’s and yet just as carefully performative and rhythmic.’ - Roy Ben-Shai Telos