Abstract

At one time, and not so long ago, anybody writing on the topic “Derrida and Truth” would most likely have felt obliged to begin by asserting that it didn't amount to a downright absurd, indeed a near‐oxymoronic coupling of name and noun. According to Derrida, this is the sole mode of thought that is able not only to respect the validity‐conditions for determinately true or false statements but also, by its holding fast to those conditions for as long as possible, to take due stock of the particular resistance encountered when a text turns out to harbor anomalous features of just that recalcitrant kind. Argument‐oriented interpretation of Derrida entails that there is simply no grasping the project and the practice of deconstruction as Derrida conceives it without the commitment to a realist conception of truth.