Derrida’s Counter-Institution and Its Ethics of Promise and Responsibility

Abstract

In this article, we consider Derrida’s grasp on counter-institution and outline a peculiar modality of ethics that it engenders. After evoking his counter-institutional public engagements in the introduction, we begin an analysis of the word counter-institution. In the first place, the polysemy of its prefix “counter” is exposed, followed by the claim that in Derrida’s philosophy this term denotes proximity and contact, rather than opposition – thus determining the architecture of the counter-institution. Furthermore, we discuss Derrida’s critique of traditional, sovereign institutions that he saw as unjust and violent, relating it to his theory of decision, and making the claim that counter-institutions are inseparable from justice. In the second part, we conceptualize what is named the counter-ethics of promise and responsibility. By juxtaposing Derrida’s unorthodox views on the notions of promise and responsibility, we seek to formulate a counter-ethical thought that animates the relations in and of the counter-institution and challenges the limits of ethics. Finally, we propose that Derrida’s idea of unfaithful fidelity could be understood as the very condition counter-ethics, and by consequence, of deconstruction.

Keywords:

• counter-institution
• deconstruction
• ethics
• promise
• responsibility

disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 In this sense, we consider Derrida to be a committed, rather than a devoted, engaged intellectual. For a distinction between commitment and devotion in the context of engagement, see Perunović.

2 The verb “contrer” in French has a negative, even a pejorative dimension to it, which Derrida uses here somewhat provocatively, to deconstruct the dominant meanings of the noun “contre.”

3 It is worth noting that Derrida’s insight about the institutional Gewalt of legitimation and censorship corresponds to Benjamin’s differentiation between violence that creates (or institutes) the right and violence that protects it (Benjamin 54–55).

4 For a detailed genealogy of Derrida’s use of Kierkegaard’s phrase, see Bennington.

5 Derrida’s concept of unconditional, pure hospitality is a perfect example of the counter-ethical (and counter-institutional) thought that, from the standpoint of the impossible (Derrida doubts there was ever such thing as pure hospitality), opens up the space for new possibilities. As he puts it himself: “It is not for speculative or ethical reasons that I am interested in unconditional hospitality, but in order to understand and to transform what is going on today in our world” (Derrida, “Hospitality, Justice and Responsibility” 70).