Jacque Derrida died today in 2004. Among the most influential scholars of our age, Derrida’s method was to deconstruct our concepts of what is present by arguing for what is missing, its dyadic opposite. It is a powerful method and one that allows a spiritual practice.
Increasingly as his friends died, Derrida pondered the effect they had on his life. He found that when our friends and loved ones die they live on in us as ghosts that haunt our lives. He found that the pain of their absence does not get healed as Freud suggests but remains within our hearts and minds, generating an experience of “impossible mourning” for them.
It is perhaps a complete coincidence that Derrida should die on the birthday some 800 before in 1201 of Robert de Sorbon, the priest who founded the University in which Derrida lived, thought and taught.
– Posted by Douglas Racionzer (serendipiday.blogspot.com)