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Hegel’s Theory of Terrorism and Derrida’s Notion of Autoimmunity: Religious and Political Violence in the Name of Nothingness

Abstract Rather than model Hegel’s account of terrorism on the struggle for recognition and against domination, I maintain that his account is best understood according to Derrida’s notion of autoimmunity. The logic of autoimmunity models terrorism as a symbolic, suicidal act of violence that is created by and directed against the violence of hegemony. It is also continually stimulated by a messianic and nihilistic ideal. This article provides a historical account of Derrida’s elaboration of this concept through his continual dialogue with Hegel. That concept is then applied to Hegel’s account of religious and political terrorism. Ultimately, this analysis supports a reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology in which the confrontation with terrorism as autoimmunity is its lynchpin and which culminates in a moral community that is radically open to the other, to difference, and to the undecidable rather than being closed off and insulated by so-called absolute knowing.