In Derrida, Myth and the Impossibility of Philosophy, Anais N. Spitzer shows that philosophy cannot separate itself from myth since myth is an inevitable condition of the possibility of philosophy. Bombarded by narratives that terrorize and repress, we may often consider myth to be constrictive dogma or, at best, something to be readily disregarded as unphilosophical and irrelevant. However, such dismissals miss a crucial aspect of myth. Harnessing the insights of Jacques Derrida's deconstruction and Mark C. Taylor's philosophical reading of complexity theory, Derrida, Myth and the Impossibility of Philosophy provocatively reframes the pivotal relation of myth to thinking and to philosophy, demonstrating that myth's inherent ambiguity engenders vital and inescapable deconstructive propensities. Exploring myth's disruptive presence, Spitzer shows that philosophy cannot separate itself from myth. Instead, myth is an inevitable condition of the possibility of philosophy. This study provides a nuanced account of myth in the postmodern era, not only laying out the deconstructive underpinnings of myth in philosophy and religion, but establishing the very necessity of myth in the study of ideas.

This is an examination of Derrida's work on myth and language, offering a postmodern, deconstructive theory of myth. In "Derrida, Myth and the Impossibility of Philosophy", Anais N. Spitzer examines previously unexplored areas of the scholarship of Jacques Derrida and Mark C. Taylor in order to propose a contemporary, postmodern, deconstructive theory of myth with provocative implications. "Derrida, Myth and the Impossibility of Philosophy" argues that the insights of deconstruction and complexity theory demand a re-examination of mythos (narrative, story, myth) in terms of its disseminative propensities and its disruptive interplay with logos (language, structure, word). Such a re-examination calls into question the relation of mythos and logos as it has been traditionally understood from Plato to modern theorists such as Mircea Eliade, Bruce Lincoln, Claude Levi-Strauss, and Paul Ricoeur. Spitzer goes beyond the limited conception of the relation of mythos and logos in order to provide a nuanced account of myth in relation to philosophy in contemporary theories of writing, philosophy, and religion, thereby setting the stage for future work with myth in a deconstructive mode. "The Philosophy, Aesthetics and Cultural Theory" series examines the encounter between contemporary Continental philosophy and aesthetic and cultural theory. Each book in the series explores an exciting new direction in philosophical aesthetics or cultural theory, identifying the most important and pressing issues in Continental philosophy today.