Derrida, originary violence and metaphysics of presence

Résumé

Jacques Derrida, on one hand, is a thinker of violence. His scrutiny of the concept of violence has a long history. The earlier Derrida concerns more with the structural violence or the violence of logos, while the later Derrida concerns more with the empirical violence or the violence of the state. Certainly, violence plays a central role in his philosophy. Jacques Derrida, on the other hand, is famous for his critique of the entire European Philosophical tradition as Metaphysics of presence. He questions the metaphysical assumptions at the core of the philosophical tradition. Hence, this paper would like to explore one of his earliest essays, “Violence and Metaphysics”, and then illustrate how and how and why for Derrida, philosophy is, in fact, a philosophy of violence and always remains what he calls a metaphysics of presence.