During his lifetime, Derrida elicited both intense celebration and intense scorn. Rather than judging
him in the manner of his disapproving critics, or celebrating him like his followers, I aim to explain his career. Now that Derrida is gone, it is time for a more measured assessment of his worth. His thought was neither as world changing as his disciples claimed nor as dangerous (or absurd) as his critics suspected. It does, however, offer us a necessary lesson concerning the self-imposed limits of philosophy: the way that it tries to purify itself, and the hazards of such purity. Derrida’s work, at once frustrating, diverting, and impressively self-sustaining even in its contradictions, contains a crucial message about what philosophy wants to exclude from its view—and what it finds itself forced to reckon with.