Glendinning, Simon 
ORCID: 0000-0002-2312-1839
(2016)
Derrida.
In: Leach, Stephen and Tartaglia, James, (eds.)
Consciousness and the Great Philosopher: What would they have said about our mind-body problem?
Routledge, Oxford, UK, pp. 261-271.
ISBN 9781138934429
Abstract
If the ‘Hard Problem’ of consciousness concerns ‘how and why’ experiences ‘arise’ from a physical basis then it is clear that this is not among the many questions touched on in the writings of Jacques Derrida. He does not ask this question, nor do the questions he does ask indicate that he is especially touched by it. So I can’t explore or introduce what Derrida had to say about it. However, even if this Problem is not Derrida’s this does not mean that there are not Problems in the vicinity that are his. These mostly concern the nature of ‘experiences’, and the ‘subject’ whose experiences they are. I will pursue some of the details of his thinking on these themes in order to pose a question or challenge to those who claim to find a Hard Problem. One possibility is that it only looks like there is a Hard Problem here because the ones who suffer it are breathing in what Derrida calls ‘the ether of metaphysics’, and cannot see that their utterances only have their life there. Another possibility is that the Problem survives even when it is exposed to Derrida’s counter-traditional thinking in the vicinity. In that case Derrida’s thinking might assist those who pose the Hard Problem in specifying it more clearly.
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