In the interview published in French under the title Politique et Amitié, Derrida says: "The 'political' itself is a philosopheme - and ultimately quite an obscure one." This obscurity is not easily dissipated, for sure, and perhaps not at all, because it is the synthesis of the three fearful obscurities: the "common", "power" and "sense". Yet it is at least possible to introduce a distinction between politics understood as assumption of the 'being of man in his relation to the being' and politics understood as the particular sphere responsible for holding open the access to such a relation. This makes a huge difference, and nonetheless we use the word with the two values alternating or even confused. If a difference comes to light, it is just between a restricted "politics", governmental, even derogatorily "political", and the great 'Politics'. A difference that arose with democracy.
Polis; politics; "politics"; sovereignty; community; sense; living-together; being-together