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Life Death
One of Jacques Derrida’s richest and most provocative works, Life Death challenges and deconstructs one of the most deeply rooted dichotomies of Western thought: life and death. Here Derrida rethinks the traditional philosophical understanding of the relationship between life and death, undertaking multidisciplinary analyses of a range of topics, including philosophy, linguistics, and the life sciences. In seeking to understand the relationship between life and death, he engages in close readings of Freudian psychoanalysis, the philosophy of Nietzsche and Heidegger, French geneticist François Jacob, and epistemologist Georges Canguilhem.
Derrida gave his “Life Death” seminar over fourteen sessions between 1975 and 1976 at the École normale supérieure in Paris as part of the preparation for students studying for the agrégation, a notoriously competitive qualifying exam. The theme for the exam that year was “Life and Death,” but Derrida made a critical modification to the title by dropping the coordinating conjunction. The resulting title of Life Death poses a philosophical question about the close relationship between life and death. Derrida argues that death must be considered neither as the opposite of life nor as the truth or fulfillment of it, but rather as that which both limits life and makes it possible. Through these captivating sessions, Derrida thus not only questions traditional understandings of the relationship between life and death, but also ultimately develops a new way of thinking about what he calls “life death.”
Derrida gave his “Life Death” seminar over fourteen sessions between 1975 and 1976 at the École normale supérieure in Paris as part of the preparation for students studying for the agrégation, a notoriously competitive qualifying exam. The theme for the exam that year was “Life and Death,” but Derrida made a critical modification to the title by dropping the coordinating conjunction. The resulting title of Life Death poses a philosophical question about the close relationship between life and death. Derrida argues that death must be considered neither as the opposite of life nor as the truth or fulfillment of it, but rather as that which both limits life and makes it possible. Through these captivating sessions, Derrida thus not only questions traditional understandings of the relationship between life and death, but also ultimately develops a new way of thinking about what he calls “life death.”
- GenresPhilosophyNonfiction
328 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2019
About the author
Jacques Derrida
655 books1,878 followersJacques Derrida was a French philosopher best known for developing deconstruction, a method of critical analysis that questioned the stability of meaning in language, texts, and Western metaphysical thought. Born in Algeria, he studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, where he was influenced by philosophers such as Heidegger, Husserl, and Levinas. His groundbreaking works, including Of Grammatology (1967), Writing and Difference (1967), and Speech and Phenomena (1967), positioned him at the center of intellectual debates on language, meaning, and interpretation.
Derrida argued that Western philosophy was structured around binary oppositions—such as speech over writing, presence over absence, or reason over emotion—that falsely privileged one term over the other. He introduced the concept of différance, which suggests that meaning is constantly deferred and never fully present, destabilizing the idea of fixed truth. His work engaged with a wide range of disciplines, including literature, psychoanalysis, political theory, and law, challenging conventional ways of thinking and interpretation.
Throughout his career, Derrida continued to explore ethical and political questions, particularly in works such as Specters of Marx (1993) and The Politics of Friendship (1994), which addressed democracy, justice, and responsibility. He held academic positions at institutions such as the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and the University of California, Irvine, and remained an influential figure in both European and American intellectual circles. Despite criticism for his complex writing style and abstract concepts, Derrida’s ideas have left a lasting impact on contemporary philosophy, literary theory, and cultural criticism, reshaping the way meaning and language are understood in the modern world.
Derrida argued that Western philosophy was structured around binary oppositions—such as speech over writing, presence over absence, or reason over emotion—that falsely privileged one term over the other. He introduced the concept of différance, which suggests that meaning is constantly deferred and never fully present, destabilizing the idea of fixed truth. His work engaged with a wide range of disciplines, including literature, psychoanalysis, political theory, and law, challenging conventional ways of thinking and interpretation.
Throughout his career, Derrida continued to explore ethical and political questions, particularly in works such as Specters of Marx (1993) and The Politics of Friendship (1994), which addressed democracy, justice, and responsibility. He held academic positions at institutions such as the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and the University of California, Irvine, and remained an influential figure in both European and American intellectual circles. Despite criticism for his complex writing style and abstract concepts, Derrida’s ideas have left a lasting impact on contemporary philosophy, literary theory, and cultural criticism, reshaping the way meaning and language are understood in the modern world.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 30, 2021
This is a dark, deep and desolate book. But it is also inspiring. Finally, we have Derrida's seminars for Life Death. They have been written about for thirty years. It was profound to read the original.
It is a text to relish. To sit with. To ponder. There may be too much Freud for my taste, but encircling Freud are phrases of depth and complexity.
I have been deeply impacted by this book. And the idea that it commenced through his teaching only adds to the power.
It is a text to relish. To sit with. To ponder. There may be too much Freud for my taste, but encircling Freud are phrases of depth and complexity.
I have been deeply impacted by this book. And the idea that it commenced through his teaching only adds to the power.
November 8, 2020
What is lifedeath? Is lifedeath? For it is not a being, an étant, but it would appear to suspend being, l'être, "itself." What would lifedeath be? This is one of the many questions opened, speculated upon, yet left suspended, hanging, in the abyss of the question (this abyss abyssally linked, in a mise en abyme, to lifedeath "itself").
Death not opposed to life, but as other to its other; an alterity internal to living, as its silent underwriting, the opening of the text of life without script; a different beyond ever repeated or reiterated, unavowedly and unspeakingly, in the movement of sur-vival (life always already beyond life, living off of death). Thus not beyond life (there is no beyond, nothing beyond - the beyond is denied), but the perpetual trace of the step beyond, the step of the beyond, internal to life itself. Life, separated from itself in itself, altering itself in itself, dying the life it would have lived and living the death which is never properly its own.
The whole work, as a non-totalized whole, a progressive suggestion or provocation to thought, of thought, remains in place and never goes anywhere. The step which negates itself, never fulfilling itself. Le pas pas. For this series of lectures is bound to what Derrida has called the paralytics, the limping of thought, which repeats its step in place, going nowhere. Le pas au-delà. It is traced out in the approach and withdrawal of the démarche and its dé-marche - reproducing the movement of suspension, of affirming refusal, staged in the abyss of mimesis, by which lifedeath is perpetually repeated and effaced.
Blanchot haunts these pages, and their questioning, all the more so when unindicated - like the limping figure of Oedipus "himself," banished, by himself but also his progeny, but also as the eponymous figure of the complex (haunting the final sessions of the work, on Freud, especially), named upon or bearing the name over that which seeks to erase, efface, and forget (rendering dead and forgotten) the donor or grantor of this sur-name.
Limping, suggestive, speculative, yet suspended, coming up short, before any answer or end (and thus faltering, stumbling, getting nowhere) - this work, the collection of heterogeneous sessions bound together by the common thread of the question of life and death, together yet held apart (by the silence of a breath) - lifedeath. Derrida inscribes the "motion" in this work of lifedeath "itself" - its perpetual (auto-)suspension, insofar as this "motion" is the very drive, pulsion, or force of thought and of writing itself, perhaps. Writing, thought, lifedeath - bound together, differently, in the (un)working (the double bind of the binding-unbinding, the pas au-delà) of biothanatography, and the limping indecision marked between the "auto-" and the "allo-" which would affix itself to this term without term, this endless inscription of ending, without end.
Have I said anything more, here, than Derrida has speculatively suggested? Yes, perhaps; and yet no. A faltering attempt, limping towards an altered expression. As it must be - the law of lifedeath limps, falters, as the beyond succumbs to its refusal, all the while undergoing its transgression. Pas - steps, in thought, of thought, taken, and yet not.
Death not opposed to life, but as other to its other; an alterity internal to living, as its silent underwriting, the opening of the text of life without script; a different beyond ever repeated or reiterated, unavowedly and unspeakingly, in the movement of sur-vival (life always already beyond life, living off of death). Thus not beyond life (there is no beyond, nothing beyond - the beyond is denied), but the perpetual trace of the step beyond, the step of the beyond, internal to life itself. Life, separated from itself in itself, altering itself in itself, dying the life it would have lived and living the death which is never properly its own.
The whole work, as a non-totalized whole, a progressive suggestion or provocation to thought, of thought, remains in place and never goes anywhere. The step which negates itself, never fulfilling itself. Le pas pas. For this series of lectures is bound to what Derrida has called the paralytics, the limping of thought, which repeats its step in place, going nowhere. Le pas au-delà. It is traced out in the approach and withdrawal of the démarche and its dé-marche - reproducing the movement of suspension, of affirming refusal, staged in the abyss of mimesis, by which lifedeath is perpetually repeated and effaced.
Blanchot haunts these pages, and their questioning, all the more so when unindicated - like the limping figure of Oedipus "himself," banished, by himself but also his progeny, but also as the eponymous figure of the complex (haunting the final sessions of the work, on Freud, especially), named upon or bearing the name over that which seeks to erase, efface, and forget (rendering dead and forgotten) the donor or grantor of this sur-name.
Limping, suggestive, speculative, yet suspended, coming up short, before any answer or end (and thus faltering, stumbling, getting nowhere) - this work, the collection of heterogeneous sessions bound together by the common thread of the question of life and death, together yet held apart (by the silence of a breath) - lifedeath. Derrida inscribes the "motion" in this work of lifedeath "itself" - its perpetual (auto-)suspension, insofar as this "motion" is the very drive, pulsion, or force of thought and of writing itself, perhaps. Writing, thought, lifedeath - bound together, differently, in the (un)working (the double bind of the binding-unbinding, the pas au-delà) of biothanatography, and the limping indecision marked between the "auto-" and the "allo-" which would affix itself to this term without term, this endless inscription of ending, without end.
Have I said anything more, here, than Derrida has speculatively suggested? Yes, perhaps; and yet no. A faltering attempt, limping towards an altered expression. As it must be - the law of lifedeath limps, falters, as the beyond succumbs to its refusal, all the while undergoing its transgression. Pas - steps, in thought, of thought, taken, and yet not.
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June 25, 2025Derrida '75 - '76 õppeaasta seminar, mille teemaks elu ja surm kui vastandid; või kuidas nendevahelist suhet üldse mõista tuleks. Nendega koos ka kõikide filosoofiliste teooriate analüüs, mis on postuleerinud ühe või teistsuguse "(ürg)tungi", mis elu ja surma taga või ümber ringleb või tiirutab (või hoopis pendeldab, lonkab?). Eelkõige kommentaar Nietzsche "Ecce homole" ja Freudi esseele "Sealpool mõnuprintsiipi". Aga ka silla ehitamine kogu kuulsa võimutahte-teema ja psühhoanalüütilise teoretiseerimise vahele. Samuti F.Jacobi geneetilise koodi "kirjutatuse" filosoofiline analüüs. Kuigi umbes osa raamatust läks veidi üle pea, tasub selle juurde kindlasti tagasi tulla. Üsna põhjatu jäneseauk, mille põhjas liiguvad kuidagi Derrida jaoks loomulikul viisil Freudi eros ja thanatos, Heideggeri lõplikkuse-analüüsid, Nietzsche tervis ja haigus, tema mitmed elud ja surm, öö ja päev.
Kõigest mingit sünteesi vägisi kokku ei punnitata (sest sünteesi ei saa vägisi teha), aga seoseid luuakse olulisi, ja tuntud tekstidele tehakse kahtlemata huvitavaid kommentaare.
"Organism hoiab, päästab ja kaitseb end mitte surma eest, vaid surma eest, mis ei oleks tema oma. Ta kaitseb end selle eest, mis võiks talt tema surma ära varastada, võiks sellega põhjustada surma saabumise väljaspoolt. See 'õiguspärane' tung on siinkohal tugevam nii surmast kui ka elust, mis üksteisele enam ei vastandu"
Kõigest mingit sünteesi vägisi kokku ei punnitata (sest sünteesi ei saa vägisi teha), aga seoseid luuakse olulisi, ja tuntud tekstidele tehakse kahtlemata huvitavaid kommentaare.
"Organism hoiab, päästab ja kaitseb end mitte surma eest, vaid surma eest, mis ei oleks tema oma. Ta kaitseb end selle eest, mis võiks talt tema surma ära varastada, võiks sellega põhjustada surma saabumise väljaspoolt. See 'õiguspärane' tung on siinkohal tugevam nii surmast kui ka elust, mis üksteisele enam ei vastandu"
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September 27, 2026It’s been a while since I read Derrida, and I’d forgotten what it’s like to be in the hands of a master (ha!). All of it also sounds strangely familiar, which only goes to show how much of it has become integrated into humanities and social sciences scholarship. I’ve only read The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume I in this lecture series, and I’m certainly looking forward to reading more. It’s so much fun and chock-full of still-underexplored ideas.
June 28, 2024
Great wedding gift
September 13, 2025
At my graduation I was struck by how within academic philosophy discourses on life are not seen as having first order relevance to the development of the discipline. And yet if we define relevance as “a term which describes how applicable or useful findings are to real-world situations”, which discourses could be more suited to what people are searching for in their own disciplines and everyday lives and which the intellectual apparatus of philosophy is able to develop? I am not talking about those ridiculous instruction manuals on becoming the perfect neoliberal subject who is spiritual and zen under all circumstances: in fact I think the appetite for those self-improvement guides is because contemporary philosophy is often times irrelevant to people. I can’t even remember what the speaker was saying now. Something about statistical science encourages us to tolerate certainty and how this relates to the meaning of life. Anyway, my point would be that thought too is an action and the theoretical is always-already poised for practicality. To be pragmatic and action-oriented is a great comfort which must be won through the task of thinking well.
OK so the purpose of these seminars is to articulate a relation between life and death which is predicated neither on a logic of opposition (life and death) nor a logic of identification (life is death). Derrida charges the concept of the scientific model as being responsible for hiding that these both identification and opposition are insufficient logics for both science and philosophy when engaged with biological discourses. It is through the logic of différance that Derrida will come to lifedeath.
To ask, ‘what is lifedeath?’ directly would be difficult: Derrida discusses the problematic of whatness in relation to the production and re-production schema: “The kind of being [être] involved in the "What is?" ("What is it?" or "What does it mean?") has a now all-too-obvious relation of synonymy with this producing-reproducing-oneself (through the information, the manifestation, the presentation of one's own essence, truth, etc., etc.) for this question not to be what I will call a tautological question, that is, a question dominated by its object, a question that takes the form of its object. The question "What is being?" to which it amounts is not itself a question; it is a contract with the self whereby the self divides and augments itself at the same time, produces-reproduces itself in dividing itself.”
“There is thus no model for reproduction except the model of the model or reproduction itself” (2020: 134). The discussions on production and self-reproduction, the demonstrations of the insufficency of the concept of the model are very pertinent for the philosophies of artificial intelligence in that Derrida is providing a framework for the problems which underpin LLMs (and I believe this critique must be developed prior to the haste of developing ‘practical philosophies’ of LLMs.
What I liked is how Derrida links death and sexuality outside la petit mort and considers sexuality in its most expansive sense. There is something here which strikes me as a discourse on loneliness (which makes itself felt in the third seminar) - that insofar that an entity is incapable of death it remains invulnerable and immune to external negativity - death never touches it but passes around it. He demonstrates with great precision how Jacob’s conception of sexuality (heterogeneity) and death (dilution of identity) are incoherent. I imagine this was before the mechanism of horizontal gene transfer was found. In any case, for Jacob, bacteria pass through life to non-life but do not die since they “reproduce themselves eternally” via asexual reproduction. The rationale given for this non-death is that the death “comes from the outside” (the external milieu) and so is contingent. In other words, for Jacob death must be essential and internal to life for it to qualify as death.
The adventures with Derrida’s-interpretation-of-Heidegger’s-interpretation-of-Nietzsche were beginning to move from deconstruction to the classic Derrida who goes-on-and-on without reason and once we get to Freud, despite my best intentions to read with attention, I find that it’s time for me to close the tab.
OK so the purpose of these seminars is to articulate a relation between life and death which is predicated neither on a logic of opposition (life and death) nor a logic of identification (life is death). Derrida charges the concept of the scientific model as being responsible for hiding that these both identification and opposition are insufficient logics for both science and philosophy when engaged with biological discourses. It is through the logic of différance that Derrida will come to lifedeath.
To ask, ‘what is lifedeath?’ directly would be difficult: Derrida discusses the problematic of whatness in relation to the production and re-production schema: “The kind of being [être] involved in the "What is?" ("What is it?" or "What does it mean?") has a now all-too-obvious relation of synonymy with this producing-reproducing-oneself (through the information, the manifestation, the presentation of one's own essence, truth, etc., etc.) for this question not to be what I will call a tautological question, that is, a question dominated by its object, a question that takes the form of its object. The question "What is being?" to which it amounts is not itself a question; it is a contract with the self whereby the self divides and augments itself at the same time, produces-reproduces itself in dividing itself.”
“There is thus no model for reproduction except the model of the model or reproduction itself” (2020: 134). The discussions on production and self-reproduction, the demonstrations of the insufficency of the concept of the model are very pertinent for the philosophies of artificial intelligence in that Derrida is providing a framework for the problems which underpin LLMs (and I believe this critique must be developed prior to the haste of developing ‘practical philosophies’ of LLMs.
What I liked is how Derrida links death and sexuality outside la petit mort and considers sexuality in its most expansive sense. There is something here which strikes me as a discourse on loneliness (which makes itself felt in the third seminar) - that insofar that an entity is incapable of death it remains invulnerable and immune to external negativity - death never touches it but passes around it. He demonstrates with great precision how Jacob’s conception of sexuality (heterogeneity) and death (dilution of identity) are incoherent. I imagine this was before the mechanism of horizontal gene transfer was found. In any case, for Jacob, bacteria pass through life to non-life but do not die since they “reproduce themselves eternally” via asexual reproduction. The rationale given for this non-death is that the death “comes from the outside” (the external milieu) and so is contingent. In other words, for Jacob death must be essential and internal to life for it to qualify as death.
The adventures with Derrida’s-interpretation-of-Heidegger’s-interpretation-of-Nietzsche were beginning to move from deconstruction to the classic Derrida who goes-on-and-on without reason and once we get to Freud, despite my best intentions to read with attention, I find that it’s time for me to close the tab.
December 31, 2025
Only got to sessions 1, 2, 11, 12, 13, 14 on this read. Incredible stuff. I don't know why people believe Zizek and the Ljulbjana School are the first to put psychoanalytic theory in conversation with thinkers like Hegel (not to mention Nietzsche, Heidegger, etc.); Derrida was doing this shit starting in the 70s or earlier.
April 17, 2026
li as três últimas sessões (coisa de umas 80 paginas) que correspondem ao "speculer — sur freud" do cartão postal, mas acho que vou ter que acabar lendo o cartão postal agora. Enfim, muito, muito foda, uma das coisas mais fodas que eu já li na vida
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews