Editing Jacques Derrida (section)

===''Of Spirit'' (1987)===
On 14 March 1987, Derrida presented at the CIPH conference entitled "Heidegger: Open Questions", a lecture which was published in October 1987 as ''Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question''. It follows the shifting role of ''[[Geist]]'' (spirit) through Heidegger's work, noting that, in 1927, "spirit" was one of the philosophical terms that Heidegger set his sights on dismantling.<ref>Derrida (1989) ''Of Spirit'', pp. vii-1.</ref> With his Nazi political engagement in 1933, however, Heidegger came out as a champion of the "German Spirit", and only withdrew from an exalting interpretation of the term in 1953. Derrida asks, "What of this meantime?"<ref>Derrida (1989) ''Of Spirit'', p. 1</ref> His book connects in a number of respects with his long engagement of Heidegger (such as "The Ends of Man" in ''Margins of Philosophy'', his Paris seminar on philosophical nationality and nationalism in the mid-1980s, and the essays published in English as ''Geschlecht'' and ''Geschlecht II'').<ref>Derrida (1989) ''Of Spirit'', pp. 7, 11, 117–118.</ref> He considers "four guiding threads" of Heideggerian philosophy that form "the knot of this ''Geflecht'' [braid]": "the question of the question", "the essence of technology", "the discourse of animality", and "epochality" or "the hidden teleology or the narrative order."<ref>Derrida (1989) ''Of Spirit'', pp. 8–12.</ref>

''Of Spirit'' contributes to the long [[Heidegger and Nazism|debate on Heidegger's Nazism]] and appeared at the same time as the French publication of a book by a previously unknown Chilean writer, [[Victor Farías]], who charged that Heidegger's philosophy amounted to a wholehearted endorsement of the [[Nazism|Nazi]] ''[[Sturmabteilung]]'' (SA) faction. Derrida responded to Farías in an interview, "Heidegger, the Philosopher's Hell" and a subsequent article, "Comment donner raison? How to Concede, with Reasons?" He called Farías a weak reader of Heidegger's thought, adding that much of the evidence Farías and his supporters touted as new had long been known within the philosophical community.<ref>Powell (2006), p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=sbhlgspwVwMC&pg=PA167 167].</ref>