Cinders

Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) is the philosopher of Deconstruction – perhaps the most radical, just and inventive of philosophical languages: the words that Dominique de Villepin addressed to him on May 25, 2003, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, on the occasion of his receipt of an honorary doctorate, seem to us to be very just: "Jacques Derrida, you once again give density to the strongest and simplest words of humanity [...] You are in the front row of those who have opened the way to new thinking. [...] "Deconstruction" is the attentive, scrupulous démarche of a thought that is formed in the test of its object. Eminently creative and liberating démarche. Undo, without ever destroying, to go further. [...] You are in the line of the intellectuals of honor, jealous of the universal, on the path opened by Voltaire, Bernanos, Zola or Sartre."
Author of an immense body of work, in addition to his teaching, first at the Sorbonne, from 1960 to 1964, then at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, from 1964 to 1984, and at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, in Paris, from 1984 to 2003, Derrida also developed an intense teaching activity all over the world. having been a visiting professor at several universities [namely, Berlin, San Sebastian, John Hopkins, Yale, Cornell, New York University, New School for Social Research, UC Irvine, Cardozo Scholl of Law, ...] and having also inherited the Hans-Georg Gadamer chair at the University of Heidelberg. Doctor Honoris Causa by more than two dozen universities, including the University of Coimbra, in November 2003.