un/ir
What’s the difference between “irrepresentablity” and “unrepresentablity”? I saw these two in a translation of Jacques Derrida’s and he has a very careful language. So he must meant two different things.
Unpacking English, Bit by Bit
A community for questioning, nitpicking, and debating the quirks and rules of the English language.
This is somewhat off-topic and irrelevant, but the interesting thing about Derrida's use of language is that, though he is "careful", he is deliberately imprecise, because he wants to convey the idea that no word can precisely be fixed to a specific definition. In this sense, those two words you refer to (by the way, which book are they from?) may actually mean the same thing, just as he invented so many different words for "differance".
Dyske Feb-17-2004
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...blows up laughing at the mere thought of anyone trying to make sense of Derrida...
speedwell2 Feb-18-2004
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