In this essay, Steven Burik discusses Jacques Derrida's position with regard to the place of education in philosophy within the university system, and then relates these thoughts to comparative philosophy. Philosophers find themselves constantly having to defend philosophy and the importance of teaching philosophy against pressure from the powers that be. Burik contends that the argument Derrida set forth to “protect” philosophy entails a double bind: Derrida emphasized the value and importance of philosophical thinking while at the same time criticizing the limits of philosophy, both self‐mandated and externally imposed. Derrida's defense of philosophy was anything but a protection of the status quo, according to Burik. Derrida ultimately argued that the teaching of philosophy and philosophy itself should be inherently open to new developments. Burik relates Derrida's defense of philosophy and attack on mainstream philosophy to comparative philosophy, demonstrating that both argue for an expansion of thinking beyond the narrow Western confines of philosophy as “pure” reason or rationality by showing how alterity always inserts itself, and that both seek to give this alterity a valid place in educational systems.

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Traditionally, metaphysical notions of self and other presuppose a dualism that underlies much of Western philosophy. This dualism is opposed by accounts of self and other in recent continental philosophy and classical Chinese philosophy, which I compare. I argue that the self is seen in continental and Chinese thought as embedded in (ethical) relations and language, and not as transcendent or prior in the metaphysical sense to them. I argue for this by focussing on three themes: self and language, self as relational and embedded in the world or contextual environment, and self and the particular other. These three themes show that the complexity and dynamic of the self‐other relation is much more realistically conveyed by continental and classical Chinese thought than by the traditional metaphysical account.