Reading Jacques Derrida’s “Khôra” #2

How to talk about the unspeakable

In this post I would like to continue our reading of Jacques Derrida’s Khôra (1993). This is the second post in this series. You can read or reread the previous post here: Derrida.

The Continuation of the Part 1

I stopped the last post at the beginning of the first part of Derrida’s famous text, which left various logical and metaphysical considerations pending. I did not leave them hanging because I got bored of writing, but because it is exactly what Derrida did in that section. According to him, this justifies not proposing a translation of the word khôra that would work for the whole text, and constitutes an argument for rendering this word simply in Latin characters.

According to Derrida, translations are “stuck in networks of interpretation,” they are induced by “retrospective projections,” which can always introduce anachronistic aspects (p. 24). On the basis of such explanations, he criticizes Heidegger for engaging in “teological restrospection” and suggests that the German philosopher’s interpretations of Greek motifs may be (misleading) constructions. For Derrida, it tends to weaken the whole of Heidegger’s philosophy.

Focusing on Khôra again, he writes:

What has just been said about rhetoric, translation, and teleological anachronism could give rise to misunderstanding. This must be cleared up without delay. We will never claim to offer the right word for khôra, nor to finally name it, beyond all the twists and turns of rhetoric, nor finally to approach it for what it has been, outside of any point of view, outside of any anachronistic perspective. Its name is not a right word. It is destined to remain ineffable, even if what it names, khôra, cannot be reduced, above all, to its name. Tropic and anachronism are inevitable. And all we want to show is the structure that, by making them inevitable, turns them into something other than accidents, weaknesses, or temporary moments. (pp. 24–25, my translation)

Derrida’s ambition is not to elucidate the nature or essence of what has been calling khôra, but to approach its structure. For him, there is no essence of khôra, rather khôra is the word for a certain kind of structure.

It would indeed be a structure and not some essence of the khôra, since the question of essence no longer makes sense in relation to it. How, having no essence, could the khôra exist beyond its name? The khôra is anachronistic; it “is” anachronism in being, or rather, the anachronism of being. It anachronizes being. (p. 25, my translation)

What does this mean? Khôra is outside the determination of time (i.e. It is atemporal). Even if the many interpretations of khôra that can be found in the long philosophical history of this idea can be dated and historically traced, what khôra is about remains outside any temporality and outside any temporalization. The interpretations can therefore not say what this Greek word points to, but at best indicate its meaning and value in a specific context.

In other words, interpretations — like any linguistic description — give determination to khôra, determination to that which is free from determination. Language itself is a set of determination, and the willingness to describe such an ineffable, unformed object of reflection through language, whether natural language or not, determines it more than it should be.

Derrida goes on to remark that his own explanations are trapped within, or in strong relation to, Plato’s own views on khôra.

What we have just said, for example, about (“khôra” in Plato’s text, simply reproduces or reports, with all its patterns, Plato’s discourse on khôra. This is true even in the very sentence in which I have just used the word “scheme.” The skhemata are the figures cut out and printed in the khôra, the forms that inform it. They return to it without belonging to it. (p. 27, my translation)

What the word khôra points to is inaccessible, without form, “always virgin” (toujours vierge), but of a virginity free of anthropomorphism (p. 28). Derrida goes on to deny khôra its main Platonic designation as receptacle. He writes:

How can we deny this essential meaning of receptacle when the name itself was given to it by Plato? It is difficult. Perhaps we have not yet thought about what it means to receive, to receive from this receptacle, what dekhomai, dekhomenon, means. Perhaps it is from khôra that we will begin to learn this — to receive it, to receive from it what its name calls for. To receive it, if not to understand it, to conceive it. (p. 29, my translation)

Such a description by Derrida may seem rhetorical to many readers. Is Derrida not playing with words here? He is famous for that, is he not? Is that what French — and many continental — philosophers do?

Applying the Phenomenological Approach to Khôra

This common misconception denies the value of such a text. Does he enjoy writing? Yes, certainly. Is it just rhetoric? No, not at all.

What Derrida is trying to do here is to apply a phenomenological approach to the concept of khôra. To put it simply: (1) not to presuppose what khôra is about — which is one of the dimensions of the suspension of judgment applied to this concept —; and (2) to look at it for what it gives you, nothing else.

Derrida insists on the importance of avoiding using a determinant and saying “the khôra.” For him, using a determinant leads to positing the object of knowledge as a thing. But khôra is not a thing. Derrida goes on to write that what it is is nothing like known or recognized beings. Known or recognized beings are beings that we usually describe or that can be describe through language, which is not the case with khôra.

There is khôra, one can even question its physis and dynamis, at least provisionally, but what is there is not; and we will return later to what this “there is” might suggest, which, incidentally, suggests nothing by giving rise to or suggesting anything, in what way it would be risky to see in it the equivalent of an es gibt, of that es gibt which undoubtedly remains implied in all negative theology unless it always calls upon it in its Christian history. (p. 30, my translation)

As I explained, Derrida was willing to use a phenomenological approach. But he also asked us to be careful not to apply it blindly. The German “es gibt” is taken to be characteristic of Heidegger’s phenomenological approach; Heidegger is usually seen as rejecting the Christian concept and removing it from philosophical inquiry. What Derrida’s word implies here is that for him there remains in Heidegger’s approach something that has to do with Christian conceptuality, something similar to negative theology —  a conceptuality that is seen as inefficient for grasping what khôra is about.

That is, through such an explanation, Derrida denies the possibility of understanding what khôra is about (1) through Heidegger’s phenomenological approach — some commentators say hermeneutic or talk about Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology (which is pleonasmic) — as well as (2) through negative theology — also called apophatic theology (Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, John Scotus Eriugena, and Meister Eckhart can be considered good examples of such Christian negative theological approach).

Derrida also rejected denomination such as ‘the concept’, ‘the idea’, ‘the notion’ of khôra, as well as referring to it as “genus, species, individual, type, scheme” (p. 31). He explains:

However, what we can read, it seems, from khôra in the Timaeus is that “something,” which is not a thing, calls into question these presuppositions and distinctions: “something” is not a thing and eludes this order of multiplicities. (p. 31, my translation)

By avoiding the use of both determinants and qualifiers, Derrida avoids overdetermining what khôra is about. At least he tries to. As he himself acknowledges, the question remains whether the designation of khôra (without both determinants and qualifiers), which in French tends to render it as a proper noun, is enough to avoid overdetermining it.

A proper noun remains a noun, distinct from both the thing and the concept. Moreover, a proper noun seems to refer to an individual, and in the case of khôra, according to Plato, it refers to a woman, a nursing mother, a passive and virginal material, etc. Derrida notes that all these determinations come from Plato’s words. That is why he thinks it is important to say:

However, although khôra does have certain characteristics of a proper noun, if only because of its apparent reference to something unique (and in the Timaeus, more strictly speaking in the passage of the Timaeus that we will discuss later, there is only one khôra, and that is how we understand it, there is only one, however divisible it may be), the referent of this reference does not exist. It does not have the characteristics of a being, meaning a being that is acceptable in the ontological, i.e., an intelligible or sensible being. There is khôra, but the khôra does not exist. (p. 32, my translation)

What we should avoid, according to Derrida, in trying to understand what khôra is, is to define it by something that does not come from it. Derrida invites us to talk about it and to name it in the same way. He concludes by asking:

And if it is important that the appellation remain the same, rather than the name, can khôra be replaced, relayed, or translated by other names, while ensuring that the appellation remains consistent, namely within a discourse? (pp. 34–35, my translation)

The pursuit of what khôra is about promises to be, even in our time far from Plato, whether technologically or in terms of knowledge, one of the most difficult tasks we may face.

To be continued…