Before I Lose It, An Anti-Derrida Comment

An interesting article, here. I'm not sure I agree with or understand it, totally. But I have an intense dislike for Derrida; it's a pleasure to read, "This isn't an insight, it's a tautology. Necessarily, every X excludes not-X, else it would not be X."

Or my favorite:

[S]kepticism about the existence of truth and/or absolute value, and our knowledge of either, has been a staple of Western philosophy in one form or another, from the Sophists to Hume to Michael Dummett. The problem with Derrida is that, unlike these other important philosophers, Derrida has no arguments that are both good and original; his case for skepticism is the stuff of bad sophomore-year philosophy papers.

My problem with Derrida is that he, so far as I can see, destroyed the act of reading for its own sake. While I'm not sure that's exactly technically correct — it's my story, and I'm sticking to it.