(These five stars are for Derrida, not Habermas) ( )

"To mark a date in history" presupposes, in any case, that "something" comes or happens for the first and last time. -- Jacques Derrida

There were measures of apprehension as I approached this book. Thankfully they proved unfounded. This text is comprised of two interviews and three essays by Giovanna Borradori: an introduction followed by an response to each interview with a philosopher.

I was struck by Habermas dwelling on the nature of the Event, as it were, how he pondered the difference between his own experience viewing such (along with the rest of the world) on television and those who viewed such from the streets and rooftops around the crash site.

Derrida disagrees with the nature of it being an Event, singular and epoch evocative. I suppose the latter point is what I truly appreciated here. Richard Rorty devoted a number of essays (which I'm presently reading) attempting to establish that Derrida should be approached primarily as a comic writer. I'll avoid that issue for the present and assert that the tone here is appropriately somber. My god, is it ever stimulating! The concepts of Tolerance and Hospitality are masticated slowly. With further deliberation Derrida delves into Kant and muses paradoxical.

I should read more Habermas. I've known that for years. Much like Sanjit Ray, this will need to wait for a better time. ( )

Habermas and Derrida doesn't get much better than this ( )

De idee voor dit boek werd geboren kort na de terroristische aanslagen van 11 september 2001. De Amerikaanse filosofe Giovanna Borradori ging in New York in gesprek met twee grootmeesters van de hedendaagse Europese filosofie, Jürgen Habermas en Jacques Derrida, over deze meest verwoestende terreurdaad uit de geschiedenis en over het thema terrorisme in het algemeen.

Two of the most important thinkers of the time deal with the impact of 11 September.