Is there an end to organicism? What is the extent of its dominion? While the romanticism of thinkers such as Coleridge and Friedrich Schlegel is characterised by an attempt to expand the jurisdiction of the figure of organicism to all areas of thought and writing, much modern thought has the opposite aim. The restriction — or even downright rejection — of the organism is what is sought. In this chapter I want to scrutinise this alternative strategy, by way of two different readings: the first will focus upon Maurice Blanchot's early theory of the work of art, and the second will look into Jacques Derrida's later resistance to organicism and the Western metaphysical tradition. In both, I will be scrutinising — and questioning — the radical nature of a movement that tries to set aside organicism in order to replace it with the alternative, ontotypological figure of the text.