Economy and strategy: From "Timaeus" to differance

Stephen Pluhacek, Purdue University

Abstract

There is a long tradition in philosophy which recognizes that the meaning of a text appears and is set off only within a context. This dependence of meaning on context insures that the strategy for reading a text is of capital import. The strategic introduction of a context, aimed at bringing forth a new experience and a new understanding of the text, is called in this work a reading protocol. In order to develop this notion of reading protocol and to demonstrate its effectiveness, several notions of economy are used as surfaces on and around which selected philosophical texts are made to unfold. The selection of philosophical texts, viz., the Timaeus and Jacques Derrida's “Différance,” while lacking an ultimate foundation or justification, is suggested by their more or less explicit concern with economy. On the basis of this concern, it is possible to disclose the underlying structures of these texts as well as the organizing principles around which they are (de)constructed. Beginning with a notion of economy as the distribution and allocation of parts within a unified whole, a strategic reading of the Timaeus unfolds. This reading and the economy it presupposes is solicited by another economy at play in the cosmology of Timaeus. The logic of this other economy, named here a (de)generative economy, is formalized through a re-reading of the Timaeus in conjunction with a reading of différence as it plays in the work of Derrida. As a result of this strategic reading, an alternative to the traditional understanding of both Timaeus' cosmology and Derrida's différence, as well as the relation(s) between them, is suggested. That is to say, both Timaeus' cosmology and Derrida's différence can be recast against the backdrop of a shared affinity. In terms of this shared affinity, any distance taken to separate Platonism from the deconstruction of Derrida finds itself resituated within a (de)generative economy that marks simultaneously its opening and its closure.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Schrag, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Philosophy

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