Derrida's Secret: Perjury, Testimony, Oath

A new philosophical reflection on the secret and its importance to our contemporary political experience The Snowden Affair, Wikileaks, the ‘lone wolf’ terrorist, Clinton’s private email account – the secret is arguably the central element of our contemporary political experience. Now, Charles Barbour looks at the basic ontological question ‘what is a secret?’ Organised as a reflection on Jacques Derrida’s later writings on secrecy, four chapters each look at a separate problematic: society and the oath, literature and testimony, philosophy and deception, and time and death. Barbour shows that secrecy is not a negation of our relations with others, but a necessary condition of those relations. We can only reveal ourselves to one another (and, indeed, to anything other) insofar as we conceal as well. Key Features • Develops a unique reading of the later work of the philosopher Jacques Derrida, particularly his largely overlooked discussions of the secret in his writings and seminars • Compares Derrida’s work on the secret with other important political thinkers, including Deleuze, Schmitt, Arendt, Bataille and Agamben • Draws parallels with the work of German sociologist Georg Simmel, showing Derrida's significance for sociological thought • Connects Derrida’s work to a series of philosophical debates in the analytic tradition, such as the problems of consciousness, self-deception and other minds.