SOURCE: "Is Derrida a Transcendental Philosopher?" in Yale Journal of Criticism, Vol. 2, No. 2, Spring, 1989, pp. 207-17.

In the following essay, Rorty disputes the interpretations of Derrida's work put forth by such critics as Christopher Norris and Rodolphe Gasché, who argue that Derrida is a rigorous logician and a transcendental philosopher in the tradition of Hegel and Kant.

For years a quarrel has been simmering among Derrida's American admirers. On the one side there are the people who admire Derrida for having invented a new, splendidly ironic way of writing about the philosophical tradition. On the other side are those who admire him for having given us rigorous arguments for surprising philosophical conclusions. The former emphasizes the playful, distancing, oblique way in which Derrida handles traditional philosophical figures and topics. The second emphasize what they take to be his results, his philosophical discoveries. Roughly speaking, the first are content...