The Tryst Between Derridean Deconstruction and Negative Theology: the Kenōsis of Language and the Excess of the Entirely Other

Abstract

Jacques Derrida proposes a critique of language starting from an analysis of the exemplary case of negative theologies, since it is the latter that bears the most relevance to thinking the limits of language. Both deconstruction and negative theology admit that a “residue” of our experiences escapes, leaving us unable to identify it within the boundaries of our knowledge and language. How can we, therefore, talk about this “beyond”, be this the transcendence of the other or of God? We find a way in Derrida’s comment on Angelus Silesius from Sauf le nom: by trying to set itself free from all language and narrative, negative theology comes to practice the kenōsis of language, but precisely this represents the condition for an event to come about. We are led to the paradoxical place where deconstruction meets the apophatic: the pragmatic path of indeterminate faith as such reveals the event of the entirely Other’s absolute singularity.