‘We Other Greeks’1

This previously untranslated essay is Derrida's most extensive discussion of his relationship to the Greeks. Derrida explores his debt to Greek thought and argues that his approach to antiquity has distinguished itself from that of Nietzsche and Heidegger. Derrida sees the concept of the ‘wholly other’ as central to his approach to the Greeks. He argues that the Greeks are not only ‘other’ to ‘us’, they were also ‘other’ to themselves.