A Trace of Feathers: Derridean Ornithological Absence
(SA/2019)
(SA/2019)
I.
Yesterday was witness to an act of savage beauty as a sparrowhawk made a meal of one of the birds that live in the tangle of blackberry, honeysuckle and rose bush in the back garden, leaving nothing behind but a trace of feathers that gave rise to philosophical thoughts of presence and absence ...
II.
The ontological terms presence and absence have a long history within Western philosophy, usually with the former being privileged over the latter, referring as it does to being in a positive sense; i.e., that which is directly at hand in a non-mediated manner and therefore linked to reality and to truth (the ultimate form of presence for Plato).
Derrida, however, famously deconstructs such thinking and shows how absense is not merely parasitic upon presence - is not merely a form of non-being there - and how presence is in fact always mediated and, indeed, reliant upon absence (i.e., being rests upon non-being, not vice versa).
In so doing, Derrida is developing Heidegger's work on the metaphysics of presence, as set out in Being and Time (1927); attacking notions of origin, for example, and showing how the relationship between presence and absence is much more subtle - and much more playful - than many thinkers have realised.
For Derrida, representational absence is itself a form of presence; thus traces of feather, for example, speak not merely of a poor sparrow's death and absence, but also of their life and continued presence-as-absence.
Derrida, however, famously deconstructs such thinking and shows how absense is not merely parasitic upon presence - is not merely a form of non-being there - and how presence is in fact always mediated and, indeed, reliant upon absence (i.e., being rests upon non-being, not vice versa).
In so doing, Derrida is developing Heidegger's work on the metaphysics of presence, as set out in Being and Time (1927); attacking notions of origin, for example, and showing how the relationship between presence and absence is much more subtle - and much more playful - than many thinkers have realised.
For Derrida, representational absence is itself a form of presence; thus traces of feather, for example, speak not merely of a poor sparrow's death and absence, but also of their life and continued presence-as-absence.
And, in a similar manner, we might suggest that the purple ribbons presently tied all over Harold Hill - on trees, fences, lamp posts, etc. - speak of Jodie Chesney's continued presence-as-absence ...
III.
Nothing makes sense of the death of a sparrow - nor of a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl murdered as she sat in a park with her boyfriend, listening to music. But, thanks to the work of writers such as Derrida, it's at least possible to think beyond a dreary binary distinction that assigned value exclusively to presence and made of absence something inferior, something false.
Feathers and ribbons don't do away with or disguise the fact of death. But such traces provide poignant reminders of lives once lived and allow us to know that the dead are with us still ...
Thanks to Símón Solomon for suggesting a Derridean perspective on the subject matter of this post.
