and see it “as it is.” Even if we are reading a text, we can get past it to what is behind it or the thing it is pointing to. For Derrida, this is a naive assumption because it fails to recognize that we never really get “behind” or “past” texts; we never get beyond the realm of interpretation to some kind of kingdom of pure reading. We are never able to step out of our skins. Texts and language are not something that we get through to a world without language or a state of nature where interpretation
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