Abstract
This paper undertakes to delineate some important characteristics of 20th-century French philosophy. On the basis of the work of Frédéric Worms, we propose to read the young Derrida and his influences so as to show how the debate around the idea of life and the biological features of thought defines the profile of French philosophy. Indeed, it is this debate, and not some other thing, that determines its peculiarity. The questions that we approach derive from the task of thinking how and why logical, mathematical, and by extension, scientific authority is grounded - so as to establish its legitimacy - on arguments that refer to life, and to the essence of living. The developments of the Husserlian phenomenology in the works of Cavaillès are, in particular, the aspects that will frame Derrida’s thought, for whom the question of death and sexuality was always central.
Keywords:
Derrida; Cavaillès; Life; Logic