Michael Naas engages Derrida’s notion of hospitality and inheritance by looking at Derrida’s writings and reflecting on his own personal encounters with Derrida. The central question “Alors qui êtes-vous?”or ‘who are you?’ marked the beginning of Naas’ first interaction with Derrida. Naas views this question as an invitation, not ‘who are you’ as in ‘what are you doing here’, but rather, ‘what is your name’ and ‘tell me more’.
Naas argues that for Derrida the inquiry as to someone’s name is central to hospitality. For Derrida the problem of hospitality is how you accept the other. Do you accept her/him unconditionally, or do you question them by asking their name and anything else? This is a significant problem. Does one question the other upon arrival, implying that hospitality is contingent upon their answers? Derrida contends that this would not be true hospitality. Hospitality requires an unconditional welcoming of the other. Derrida says that hospitality is “exposure to an arrivant, to someone who arrives or comes even before he or she can even be identified or greeted as ‘our guest'” (Naas quotes Derrida, 9). The other is a surprise, an “absolute arrivant” (9). Therefore, the other lacks identity; to ask about the other’s identity is to take away the hospitality. On the other hand, if one does not ask then one is not welcoming the singular other but rather an anonymous being. Derrida describes this situation saying that a “decision is made at the heart of what looks like an absurdity, impossibility itself (an antimony, a tension between two equally imperative laws that are nonetheless not opposed) (8).
Derrida argues that one has to both accept the other unconditionally and question them. The critical point is that the questioning must not be a condition. Hospitality must not depend upon what the other person’s identity is, but rather on acknowledging the other person’s distinct identity. This is a fragile distinction, but it is crucial. The extension of hospitality requires creativity. Naas quotes Derrida in saying that hospitality is “an art and a poetics” despite its political and ethical aspects, and that it should be reinvented every time (10). This focus on a hospitality that can be reshaped for each situation is very significant in its limitlessness, because it allows for any arrivant. An artful hospitality is an unconditional hospitality and one that deconstructs borders.
Naas argues that deconstruction is hospitality. He says that deconstruction is an affirmation of the best things about philosophy and life, and because of this, it is hospitality to the tradition or philosophy, as well as “to what exceeds and cannot be identified within the tradition” (11). In Derrida’s close textual analyses of the works he deconstructs, Derrida draws our attention to what else is there in the texts, to a further understanding of the concepts but with a respect to their original context. Naas contends that Derrida asked Alors qui êtes-vous? of everyone he read. In that question he addresses the singularity of their names. Deconstruction although not always welcome, welcomes the event in what is being deconstructed. Naas argues that the event is like the arrivant in that it is unforeseeable and importantly “disrupt[s] all our expectations” (12). Derrida’s deconstruction was hospitality, and as unconditional, always gave hospitality to the event.
Derrida, Naas asserts, was an heir to the tradition of philosophy and took that role seriously. Derrida said that the role of the heir is to reaffirm the past that we receive without a choice, but we also have to respond to if as a “free subject”. For him, to be alive was to be defined by the tension of being an heir. Derrida reshaped his inheritance in his own name. Naas begins his article by expressing the temptation to engage in some sort of “final judgment” on Derrida’s life and work, but he resists and instead adopts Blanchot’s idea that “those who were closest [to the deceased] say only what was close to them, not the distance that affirmed itself in this proximity, and distance ceases as soon as presence ceases (6, 7). Naas wrote a very personal article about Derrida, exposing what Naas himself feels is most important or moving in the inheritance that Derrida leaves behind, and committing to be an heir of that inheritance.
Leave a Reply