“In the Watermark of Some Margin”: Heidegger’s Other Gesture

This paper offers a reflection on the complicated relationship between Derrida and Heidegger, particularly as concerns the issue of difference in their respective thoughts. Taking one of Geschlecht III’s most stunning passages as my point of departure, I walk the reader through some of Derrida’s own remarks on his relationship to Heidegger, before arriving at the différend that seems to exist between them as regards the notion of difference itself. I argue that the margins of Heidegger’s text inscribe a quite radical thinking of difference not at all incompatible with Derridean différance. In conclusion, I turn to Heidegger’s “Anaximander Fragment” where, in the margins of Heidegger’s text, we find a marginal note that, given its content, could surely have been written by Derrida himself.