The Deconstruction of Ultra-Sovereignty and the Quasi-Concept of Khôra in Jacques Derrida

Authors: Martha B*

DOI: 10.23880/phij-16000256

Volume 5, Issue 2

Abstract

The article aims to shed light on Derrida’s criticism of the notion of ultra-sovereignty (walten in the original German) in Heidegger. We will show that, although this conception goes down in history in a post-ontological field in relation to traditional metaphysics, walten produces an ethical problem in the eyes of Derrida, since it affirms a non-human violence prior to the being itself and which would, therefore, cross the entire physis and the human. By inscribing it in a movement of de-ontologization, we will show that Derrida, with his quasi-concept of khôra, establishes an unconditional ethics prior to the being and in which the anthropos is placed. In doing so, Derrida thinks of sovereign violence as something secondary to non-violence (thus distancing himself from (post)ontological narratives as in Nietzsche, Artaud, Heidegger and Bataille) and, for that, he supports the notion of khôra.

Keywords: Derrida; Khôra; Sovereignty; Ethics; Heidegger

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