Abstract

To contemplate writing a comparison of aspects of the philosophical works of Śaṅkara, a major philosophical figure in India of the eight or ninth centuries, and Jacques Derrida, a so-called postmodernist thinker, gives a writer reason to pause and to consider moving forward with caution. A writer must proceed cautiously because writing is a risky endeavor, according to Derrida, who also perceives it as a violent exercise because language is more primary than writing in the sense that it is not possible to inquire about the origin of language because we already exist within it, and we cannot get outside of language to examine its origin.1 From another Derridean perspective within the context of interpreting Plato ..