After the birth/death of Kant/Derrida

In this paper I explore some points of cross-over (as well as points of difference) between Kant?s framing of critique and Derrida?s deconstruction of this frame. I begin by situating the question concerning ?where we stand now? in terms of some of Kant?s late (unpublished) thoughts on metaphysics and ?Fortschritt? (stepping-forward and progress) in his ?What Real Fortschritte has Metaphysics Made in Germany since the Time of Leibniz and Wolff?? I show how Kant inadvertently tears open a deconstructive space at the center of critique (a framing of a metaphysics of the future, of the to-come [Zukunft] which never properly comes) while eschewing an attempt to walk through it. With this in mind, I then read Derrida?s picking up of this tear in his discussions of the Parergon, Ergon and the hors d?oeuvres-the starter outside and before the main work-in The Truth in Painting. My aim is to unravel a view in which we can say simultaneously, perhaps metaphorically but also methodologically, that Derrida?s death frames Kant?s birth, and that the birth of deconstruction frames the death of critique.