Jacques Derrida’s Secret Pedagogy

This essay takes up Jacques Derrida’s ‘secret pedagogy’, that is, his pedagogy concerning the secret, particularly in his 1991-1992 seminar on the topic, and his pedagogy as what aims to safeguard the secret. It is in this latter sense, the essay suggests, that all of Derrida’s seminars – and not just those on the expressed topic of the secret – distinguish themselves from more traditional forms of pedagogy that seek to transmit some knowledge or truth. Derrida’s pedagogy might thus be best thought, it is suggested, through a comparison with the modern institution of ‘literature’, which, according to Derrida, produces a ‘secrecy effect’ through nothing other than the text. The essay concludes that Derrida’s secret pedagogy, which is anything but some esoteric teaching passed on from master to disciple, is today available – some two decades after his death – right on the surface of Derrida’s texts, and in particular in his seminars.