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This article explains how Derrida's notion of an originary or generalised metaphoricity can be understood in terms of the analyses presented in Voice and Phenomenon (1967) in response to Eugen Fink's question of a 'transcendental logos' and of the paradoxical ontological status of phenomenological language. Tracing Fink's impact on Derrida, as well as the key differences between them, the article shows that underlying Derrida's reappropriation of the phenomenological concept of 'life' is an expansion of indicative relations—which in Husserl typify the function of signs within intersubjective communication and modes of judgement characterised by the non-presence of the intended object—to a general feature of the 'living present'. While for Fink the indicative or metaphorical nature of the transcendental concept of 'life' does not threaten the founding unity it serves to name, for Derrida it is this very unity which is undermined by the proliferation of indication at the core of temporal experience.

Critically engages with Jacques Derrida's Politics of Friendship and with the limits of friendship as a political conceptReconsiders the importance of this relatively understudied key text in Derrida's oeuvre Includes two contributions on Geschlect IV, 'Heidegger's Ear: Philopolemology', published in the French edition but excluded from the English translationResonates with issues in contemporary politics such as nationalist and anti-nationalist political programmesOffers an interdisciplinary perspective from philosophy, comparative literature and French studies Brings together early career, established and emeritus scholars including Peggy Kamuf, Isabelle Alfandary, Timothy Secret and Pheng Cheah25 years after the publication of Derrida's Politics of Friendship (Politiques de l'amitié, 1994), this edited collection gathers 23 critical chapters that revisit this underappreciated text. Engaging closely with Derrida's text, the contributors analyse, extend and critique the work. They reconsider the place this book occupies in Derrida's political philosophy and its potential for contemporary politics, when the promises and perils of political friendship have reappeared