The Trace of Time and the Death of Life: Bergson, Heidegger, Derrida

Abstract

This essay develops Derrida’s logic of the trace in relation to the philosophical problem of time and the revival of “life” as a central category in contemporary thinking. Through a critical interrogation of Bergson’s and Heidegger’s conceptions of temporality, I show how the logic of the trace articulates an originary co-implication of the organic and the inorganic, the event and the machine. Refuting any vitalist conception of life, as well as any conception of an inherent dynamism of life, the deconstructive logic of the trace allows one to reckon with the philosophical implications of Darwinism.