Terry Eagleton said this quote

“ Derrida… labels as ‘metaphysical’ any such thought system which depends on an unassailable foundation, a first principle or unimpeachable ground upon which a whole hierarchy of meanings may be constructed. It is not that he believes that we can merely rid ourselves of the urge to forge such first principles, for such an impulse is deeply embedded in our history, and cannot — at least as yet — be eradicated or ignored. Derrida would see his own work as inescapably ‘contaminated’ by such metaphysical thought, much as he strives to give it the slip. But if you examine such first principles closely, you can see that they may always be ‘deconstructed’: they can be shown to be products of a particular system of meaning, rather than what props it up from the outside. ”

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After all, if you do not resist the apparently inevitable, you will never know how inevitable the inevitable was.

~ Terry Eagleton

Terry Eagleton Apathy Capitalism Inevitability Inspirational Marxism Resistance Socialism

In the pragmatist, streetwise climate of advanced postmodern capitalism, with its scepticism of big pictures and grand narratives, its hard-nosed disenchantment with the metaphysical, 'life' is one among a whole series of discredited totalities. We are invited to think small rather than big – ironically, at just the point when some of those out to destroy Western civilization are doing exactly the opposite. In the conflict between Western capitalism and radical Islam, a paucity of belief squares up to an excess of it. The West finds itself faced with a full-blooded metaphysical onslaught at just the historical point that it has, so to speak, philosophically disarmed. As far as belief goes, postmodernism prefers to travel light: it has beliefs, to be sure, but it does not have faith.

~ Terry Eagleton

Terry Eagleton Atheism Belief Capitalism Faith Grand Narratives Islam Islamic Fundamentalism Islamic Terrorism Islamism Life Metaphysics Philosophical Scepticism Philosophy Postmodernism Pragmatism Religion Western Culture Western World

Not all of Derrida's writing is to everyone's taste. He had an irritating habit of overusing the rhetorical question, which lends itself easily to parody: 'What is it, to speak? How can I even speak of this? Who is this I who speaks of speaking?

~ Terry Eagleton

Terry Eagleton Jacques Derrida Parody Philosophy Rhetorical Questions Writing

[God] is a kind of perpetual critique of instrumental reason.

~ Terry Eagleton

Terry Eagleton God Instrumentalism