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By Dave Kelly

Sunday, November 08, 2026

CPA Run — Jacques Derrida — Version 1.0

 

CPA Run — Jacques Derrida — Version 1.0

Theoretical foundations: Grant C. Sterling (Eastern Illinois University). Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly. Prose rendering: Claude (Anthropic). 2026.

Classical Presupposition Audit (CPA) v1.2. Instrument architecture: Dave Kelly. Corpus opened for this run: the CPA v1.2 instrument document; CDV/DTI Reference Suite v0.5.4 — Three Worked Cases (for The Beginning).

Result in brief: four Contrary (C1, C3, C4, C5), two Partially Aligned (C2, C6), Partial Dissolution. Derrida is the only one of the four figures in this series not at Full Dissolution.

The Beginning

Copied from CDV/DTI Reference Suite v0.5.4 — Three Worked Cases, “The Beginning”:

Everyone wants happiness. Incomplete happiness is not worth accepting if complete happiness is available. Complete happiness must therefore lie wholly within our control. Only assent lies wholly within our control. Happiness is therefore correct assent, correct when it matches the truth about value. The truth about value is that only virtue is good and only vice is evil. Everything else is indifferent.

Key

  • CPA. The Classical Presupposition Audit. It finds what a named figure must presuppose in order to argue as he does, and tests that against six commitments.
  • C1–C6. The six commitments, in the canonical numbering. Each is defined below with its governing proposition.
  • P1–P7. The presuppositions this run finds in Derrida’s record.
  • Citations of Derrida.
    • SSP is “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences” (1966). Page numbers refer to the Bass translation in Writing and Difference.
    • FoL is “Force of Law: The ‘Mystical Foundation of Authority’” (1989–90). Page numbers refer to the 1992 Cornell, Rosenfeld and Carlson volume.
  • Verdict words and dissolution findings. These are defined below.

Definitions

The six commitments. Each governing proposition is copied from CPA v1.2 §IV, which quotes it from the source named.

  • C1 — Substance Dualism. Nine Excerpts, §4: “I am my soul/prohairesis/inner self. Everything else, including my body, is an external.”
  • C2 — Libertarian Free Will. Nine Excerpts, §7: “Choosing whether or not to assent to impressions is the only thing in our control — and yet, everything critical to leading the best possible life is contained in that one act.”
  • C3 — Ethical Intuitionism. Core Stoicism, Th 10: “The only thing actually good is virtue, the only thing actually evil is vice.”
  • C4 — Foundationalism. Stoicism, Foundationalism and the Structure of Ethical Knowledge: “The fundamental truths of ethics are necessary, self-evident truths that any rational faculty can apprehend directly.”
  • C5 — Correspondence Theory of Truth. Nine Excerpts, §6: “This belief is factually false. Note that this is not a psychological claim — it is a value claim.”
  • C6 — Moral Realism. Nine Excerpts, §3: “Only virtue is good and only vice is evil. All things not in our control are neither good nor evil.”

The verdicts. Each is the first sentence of its definition in CPA v1.2 §III, copied.

  • Aligned: “the figure’s argumentative record requires presuppositions that correspond to this commitment in both structure and substance across his public record.”
  • Partially Aligned: “the figure’s argumentative record requires presuppositions that correspond to this commitment in some domains but not others, or in structure but not in full substance.”
  • Contrary: “the figure’s argumentative record requires presuppositions that directly contradict this commitment.”
  • Inconsistent: “the figure’s argumentative record requires contradictory presuppositions with respect to this commitment across different argumentative domains.”
  • Non-Operative: “this commitment’s domain is genuinely absent from the figure’s argumentative record.”

The dissolution findings, from CPA v1.2 §III.

  • Full Dissolution: “Both Commitment 1 (Substance Dualism) and Commitment 2 (Libertarian Free Will) are Contrary.”
  • Partial Dissolution: One of C1 or C2 is Contrary and the other is Partially Aligned or Non-Operative. The run names which sub-case obtains.
  • No Dissolution: “Neither Commitment 1 nor Commitment 2 is Contrary.”

What Is the Classical Presupposition Audit?

The Classical Presupposition Audit identifies the presuppositions a named public figure must hold in order to argue as he does, and audits those presuppositions against the six classical commitments: substance dualism, libertarian free will, ethical intuitionism, foundationalism, correspondence theory of truth, and moral realism. The subject of analysis is the figure’s own argumentative record. The CPA issues findings about what that record requires at the level of embedded presupposition, and about what those presuppositions entail for an agent who takes up his framework as a governing account of his condition. It issues no findings about his inner life, his sincerity, or the correctness of his scholarship or policy.

Subject and Locus

Jacques Derrida (1930–2004). His texts are under copyright, and none was opened directly. The locus is his words as quoted, with page numbers, in two openly licensed secondary sources:

  • Martin Eve’s lecture notes on SSP, published under the GNU Free Documentation License;
  • Simon Glendinning, “Derrida and the Philosophy of Law and Justice,” Law and Critique 27 (2016), on FoL, published under Creative Commons BY.

Where these authors interpret Derrida rather than quote him, the interpretation is marked as theirs and does not enter the profile as Derrida’s word. Derrida’s own words are paraphrased here with page numbers and quoted only twice, briefly.

The occasion of the run is J. J. Kimche’s “Four Species of Jewish Heresy” (30 September 2026), which is not part of the locus.

Step 0 — Protocol Activation

  • Texts. Both secondary sources were read whole.
  • Corpus. The CPA v1.2 instrument document was opened. No document on its corpus list was opened.
  • Input fit. Derrida is a named figure with a published argumentative record. That record reached this run only by quotation.

Self-Audit — Step 0:

  • Is the corpus in view? Partly. The exception is recorded here and ruled under Rulings on This Run.
  • Are the sources restricted to his own record? Only as mediated, as declared above.
  • Has a prior conclusion been stated or implied? Yes. Kimche calls Derrida “irredeemable.” That judgment is declared here and set aside.

Self-Audit Complete. Proceed to Step 1.

Step 1 — Presupposition Profile

Stage A — Argumentative Record Summary. Seven presuppositions are load-bearing.

P1 — There is no fixed center. Structure has always been thought around a center, a fixed origin, a point of presence, which limits the play of its elements (SSP 352). That center must now be thought as a function rather than a fixed locus (SSP 353). With “the absence of the transcendental signified,” the play of signification extends without limit (SSP 354).

P2 — No subject is the origin of his own discourse. Every discourse is bricolage, borrowing its tools where it finds them. The engineer who would be the absolute origin of his own discourse is a myth, and the notion of him is a theological idea (SSP 360).

P3 — The self is not present to itself. Among the events that decenter thought, Derrida names the Freudian critique of self-presence, beside Nietzsche and Heidegger (SSP 354).

P4 — There is no position outside the heritage. The critique of metaphysics must borrow its resources from metaphysics. Its problem is one of economy and strategy (SSP 354–357).

P5 — Play is affirmed over nostalgia for origins. Against Lévi-Strauss’s ethic of nostalgia for origins, Derrida sets the Nietzschean affirmation of play, which takes the absence of a center as something other than loss (SSP 369).

P6 — Justice is neither law nor convention.

  • “Deconstruction is justice” (FoL 15).
  • Justice exceeds law and calculation (FoL 28), yet it is just that there be law (FoL 22).
  • The founding of law is neither legal nor illegal (FoL 6), and authority rests on a “mystical” limit (FoL 14).
  • Glendinning’s own reading, marked as his: Derrida denies both conventionalism and any truth of justice that could be stated.

P7 — The just decision is free, and is neither calculation nor improvisation. Incalculable justice requires us to calculate (FoL 28). As Glendinning reports Derrida, the decision must be made by someone free and responsible: not a machine applying a rule, and not pure improvisation. At that moment, Glendinning adds, the one deciding is not the sovereign will of a self-present subject.

Stage B — Domain Mapping. There are two domains: the subject and language (P1–P5, from SSP), and justice and decision (P6, P7, from FoL).

One tension was mapped. FoL requires a free and responsible decision, while SSP denies that any subject is the origin of his own discourse. By the charity ruling of 20 September 2026, the two are joined, not opposed. The decision is free in that no rule or calculation determines it, but no sovereign subject originates it. No Inconsistent finding is available, and the expository exception is not invoked.

Self-Audit — Step 1:

  • Are the presuppositions drawn from his own record? Yes, from his quoted words, with interpretation kept separate.
  • Was the load-bearing test applied? Yes. The readings of Lévi-Strauss’s ethnology are excluded.
  • Was charity applied? Yes, to the tension above.
  • Were domain variations mapped? Yes.
  • Was the expository exception handled? It was not invoked.

Self-Audit Complete. Proceed to Step 2.

Step 2 — Commitment Audit

C1 — Substance Dualism: Contrary. P2 and P3 deny a self-present subject who is the origin of his discourse, which is the identity and unity C1 requires. This is load-bearing, because the decentering of P1 is applied to the subject.

C2 — Libertarian Free Will: Partially Aligned. The correspondence: the just decision is not determined by rule or calculation (P7), and it is required to be free and responsible. The residual: no subject originates it (P2, and P7 as joined), so the agent is not presented as the first cause of his own judgment.

C3 — Ethical Intuitionism: Contrary. Justice is never given as present, nor as content that can be grasped (P6). Nothing moral is apprehended as true. This is load-bearing for the identity of deconstruction and justice.

C4 — Foundationalism: Contrary. P1 and P4 deny a fixed center and any discourse free of borrowing. Justification ends at a “mystical” limit, not at a self-evident truth (P6). This is load-bearing.

C5 — Correspondence Theory of Truth: Contrary. With no transcendental signified (P1), meaning is not anchored in what it signifies. In law, as Glendinning reports, a performative force is irreducible to truth (P6).

C6 — Moral Realism: Partially Aligned. The correspondence: justice is not made by law, convention or calculation; it is what exposes their inadequacy (P6). The residual: justice is no truth that can be stated. Good and evil are not objective facts in the way that 2+2=4 is a fact.

Recorded, not tested.

  • Against Kimche’s ranking. Kimche calls Derrida the aravah, “unpalatable to the last.” On this audit Derrida keeps more at C2 and C6 than Spinoza, Marx or Freud keep, because he refuses both determinism and convention.
  • Not the corpus’s way out. His refusal of determinism does not reach the chain. He keeps the decision undetermined, but he gives it no agent and no truth for it to match.

Self-Audit — Step 2:

  • Were all presuppositions audited? Yes.
  • Was Non-Operative used to avoid a Contrary finding? No.
  • Were findings distributed for balance? No. The two Partially Aligned findings rest on his explicit refusals of determinism and of convention.
  • Were findings issued outside the corpus’s domain? None on literary method or politics.
  • Would the same findings issue for a sympathetic figure? Yes.
  • Was an Inconsistent finding considered? Yes, at C2, and it was resolved by joining.

Self-Audit Complete. Proceed to Step 3.

Step 3 — Dissolution Finding

C1 is Contrary and C2 is Partially Aligned.

Finding: Partial Dissolution, in the sub-case of Contrary paired with Partially Aligned.

The framework compromises agency at C1, since it has no self-present subject. It preserves something at C2: a decision that nothing determines. An agent who adopts it keeps a partial self-description compatible with the corpus, namely the undetermined decision. But he accepts that no self originates that decision. This is a finding about the framework, not about Derrida’s inner life, and it is not a political verdict.

Self-Audit — Step 3:

  • Does the finding follow mechanically from Step 2? Yes.
  • Is the sub-case named? Yes.
  • Is it stated of the framework? Yes.
  • Is it philosophical, not political? Yes.
  • Was there any Inconsistent finding on C1 or C2? No.

Self-Audit Complete. Proceed to Step 4.

Step 4 — Summary Finding

Part A — Commitment Pattern.

  • C1 — Substance Dualism: Contrary
  • C2 — Libertarian Free Will: Partially Aligned
  • C3 — Ethical Intuitionism: Contrary
  • C4 — Foundationalism: Contrary
  • C5 — Correspondence Theory of Truth: Contrary
  • C6 — Moral Realism: Partially Aligned

Overall pattern: 0 Aligned, 2 Partially Aligned, 4 Contrary, 0 Inconsistent, 0 Non-Operative. The root divergence is C4: the absence of any center is the move that decenters the subject, meaning and justice alike. The nearest alignment is C6, in his refusal of convention.

Part B — Dissolution Finding. Partial Dissolution, in the sub-case of Contrary paired with Partially Aligned.

Part C — Agent-Level Implication. An agent who adopts this framework holds that no center, no foundation and no self-present subject stands behind his discourse. He holds that justice calls on him but can never be known, and that his decisions are free of rules but are not his own originations. The framework keeps him from determinism and from convention. It leaves him without a truth about value for his assent to match, and without a self to give that assent.

Corpus Boundary Declaration. No finding is issued on literary theory, the readings of Lévi-Strauss, Derrida’s politics, or whether texts are unstable.

Self-Audit — Step 4:

  • Does the summary follow from the preceding steps? Yes.
  • Is it free of political verdict? Yes.
  • Is it addressed to the adopting agent? Yes.
  • Is the boundary declared? Yes.
  • Is the summary self-contained? Yes.

Self-Audit Complete. CPA run complete.

Rulings on This Run

  • The mediated locus stands. Derrida’s words are taken as quoted by Eve and Glendinning, since his texts are under copyright and none was opened.
  • C2 is Partially Aligned, because Derrida expressly refuses that the decision is determined. The dissolution finding is therefore Partial, not Full.
  • C6 is Partially Aligned, because he expressly refuses that justice is convention.
  • C5 is Contrary on this locus. The “Afterword” to Limited Inc (1988), in which he is reported to deny contesting truth, is outside the locus and was not opened.
  • The Step 0 exception stands: no document on the CPA corpus list was opened.
  • The ISF archive was not searched for anything Sterling said about Derrida. Dave Kelly recalls little from him on Derrida.

Sources

Theoretical foundations: Grant C. Sterling (Eastern Illinois University). Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly. Prose rendering: Claude (Anthropic). 2026.

posted by Dave | 5:57 PM

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