Derrida and Post-Hegelian Kantianism in Eric Weil: Impossibility and Possibility

The references Derrida makes to Eric Weils work are rather indirect and derive mainly from his discussions with E. Levinas, G. Bataille and possibly from the links with PJ. Labarrière. Derridas approach to Weils thought is critical and places the author of the Logique de la philosophie as yet another representative of the Hegelian discourse of the absolute. In this essay, I will try to highlight, first, that Derridas interpretation of Weil is in line with a tradition of anti-Hegelian thought which not could see the novelty of his systematic approach. Second, I will show that the Weilian system, although it contains what Derrida rejects (a discursive system), is not based on the absolute system and is opened to a way of thinking about philosophy as a discourse of totality in an anti-ontological and anti-metaphysical manner. Indeed, Weil seeks to overcome the Hegelian conceptual constructivism, and he discovers in the Kantian thinking of finitude and Faktum (not entirely absent in Hegel) the possibility for philosophy to constantly open itself to the movement of history, to human finitude, and to the real and active presence of violence in the world.