Philosophy and Subversion

The necessity of questioning the privileged spaces of power—be it personal, social, political, or religious—is a demand intrinsic to philosophy’s very own structure. In this paper, an identification of the thinking and the practice of subversion with the essence of philosophy is undertaken as a response to the challenge of intellectual sterilization brought about by the insidious effects of an omnipresent techno-capitalism and academic complicity. In particular, I will discuss Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction as a fertile example of a subversive ethos that refuses to be complicit with the powers-that-be but transgresses the complacent order of the present so as to achieve an opening for a more just relation to the “other” of thinking that has always been marginalized by history and the philosophical tradition. If philosophy is to remain true to its originary inspiration, then, it must remain vigilant to the various moments and forms of fossilizations of power and truth. The achievement of a critical position ownmost to philosophy is incumbent to us: i.e., as a radical refusal to be complicit with the present effects of power and a continuous cultivation of an ethos of writing and thinking that does not concede its loyalty to anything, even to philosophy.