Modulazioni di un’endiadi. Note su filosofia e letteratura

Abstract

There is one trait that is common to what are usually called “literature” and philosophy: writing. Writing responds both to the properly philosophical need and to the literary need, and it is therefore a question of interrogating this dual capacity of writing to respond to needs that are not only different from, but sometimes in opposition to or in conflict, with each other. Is it possible to hypothesize a performativity of writing whose functioning dictates the rules for both philosophical and literary discourse? Jacques Derrida has highlighted how the very idea of “text”, and the many ways in which philosophy offers resistance to literature and vice versa are an indication that in both fields there is always an excess (or a remainder) at work, of which writing is both a symptom and an attempt to dominate or control.