Machine and event: Or of a performative without present

Abstract

A formula deployed by Derrida in “Typewriter ribbon. Limited Ink II” - “to think both the machine and the performative event together remains a monstrosity to come” - invites us to outline the scope that said conjunction of machine and event has in the deconstruction of “certain ontology” that backbone of the Anglo-Saxon theory of speech acts. Derrida tries to question the limits and possibilities of the theories of Austin and Searle, to examine their metaphysical premises, driven by the need to think of a performative without present, a thought of the performative dissociated from the value of presence. Derrida thus disturbs the calm security of the subject of what we call a performative, intertwining the performative event with a certain mechanical automaticity of the trace.