"My death―is it possible?" That is the question asked, explored, and analyzed in Jacques Derrida's new book. "Is my death possible?" How is this question to be understood? How and by whom can it be asked, can it be quoted, can it be an appropriate question, and can it be asked in the appropriate moment, the moment of "my death"? One of the aporetic experiences touched upon in this seminal essay is the impossible, yet unavoidable experience that "my death" can never subject to an experience that would be properly mine , that I can have , and account for, yet that there is, at the same time, nothing closer to me and more properly mine than "my death." This book bears a special significance because in it Derrida focuses on an issue that has informed the whole of his work up to the present. For the last thirty years, Derrida has repeatedly, in various contexts and various ways, broached the question of aporia. Making it his central concern here Derrida stakes out a new frontier, at which the debate with his work must take place from now on: the debate about the aporia between singularity and generality, about the national, linguistic, and cultural specificity of experience and the trans-national, trans-cultural law that protects this specificity of experience and of the necessity to continue working in the tradition of critique and of the idea of critique, yet the corresponding necessity to transcend it without compromising it; the aporetical obligation to host the foreigner and the alien and yet to respect him, her, or it as foreign. The foreign or the foreigner has always been considered a figure of death, and death a figure of the foreign. How this figure has been treated in the analytic of death in Heidegger's Being in Time is explored by Derrida in analytical tour de force that will not fail to set new standards for the discussion of Heidegger and for dealing with philosophical texts, with their limits and their aporias. The detailed discussion of the theoretical presuppositions of recent cultural histories of death (Ariès, for example) and of psychological theorizations of death (including Freud's) broaden the scope of Derrida's investigation and indicate the impact of the aporia of "my death" for any possible theory. "My death--is it possible?" That is the question asked, explored, and analyzed in Jacques Derrida's new book. Focusing on an issue that has informed his work for the last 30 years, Derrida stakes out a new frontier, at which the debate with his work must take place from now on. "My death--is it possible?" That is the question asked, explored, and analyzed in Jacques Derrida's new book. Focusing on an issue that has informed his work for the last 30 years, Derrida stakes out a new frontier, at which the debate with his work must take place from now on. Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) was director of studies at the école des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, and professor of humanities at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of many books published by the University of Chicago Press. Crossing Aesthetics Stanford University Press Copyright © 1993 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University All right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-8047-2252-0 Contents § 1 Finis.........................................1§ 2 Awaiting (at) the Arrival.....................43Notes..................................................83 Chapter One Finis "Limits of truth," with the prudence of quotation marks, is of course a citation. A concession to the times: today one would scarcely risk putting forth such a disquieting phrase without sheltering oneself behind some kind of paternity. In this case, Diderot's authority will appear all the more reassuring since he seems to denounce a "general defect," in particular that of "letting oneself be carried beyond the limits of truth." How can one cross the borders of truth? And what "defect" would this betray, what "general defect"? Crossing this strange border and "letting oneself be carried beyond the limits of truth" must be possible, indeed inevitable, in order for such a defect to exceed the singular cases, and thereby spread its contagion to the point of becoming "general." What does "beyond" mean in this case? By itself, the expression "limits of truth" can certainly be understood—and this would be an indication —as the fact that the truth is precisely limited, finite , and confined within its borders. In sum, the truth is not everything, one would then say, for there is more, something else or something better: truth is finite [ finie ]. Or worse: truth, its finished [ c'est fini ]. However, by itself, the same expression can signify—and this time it would not be an indication but the law of a negative prescription —that the limits of truth are borders that must not be exceeded. In both these cases it remains that a certain border crossing does not seem impossible as soon as truth