Derrida Wiki

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DeconstructionFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is written like apersonal reflection or essayrather than an

encyclopedic description of the subject. Pleasehelp improve itby rewriting it in

anencyclopedic style.(May 2012)

For the approach to post-modern architecture, seeDeconstructivism; for other uses, seeDeconstruction

(disambiguation).

Deconstruction is a form ofsemioticanalysis, derived mainly from French philosopherJacques Derrida's

1967 workOf Grammatology. Derrida proposed the deconstruction of all texts wherebinary oppositionsare

used in the construction of meaning and values[1]

. The first task of deconstruction, starting with philosophy and

afterwards in literary and juridical texts, would be to overturn all thebinary oppositionsof metaphysics

(signifier/signified; sensible/intelligible; writing/speech; passivity/activity; etc). According to Derrida,

deconstruction should traverse a phase of "overturning" these oppositions. To do justice to this necessity,

deconstruction starts from recognizing that in a classical philosophical opposition readers are not dealing with

the peaceful coexistence of a vis-a-vis, but rather with a violent hierarchy. One of the two terms governs the

other(axiologically, logically, etc.), or one of the two terms is dominant (signified over signifier; intelligible over

sensible; speech over writing; activity over passivity; male over female; man over animal, etc). To deconstruct

the opposition, first of all, would be to overturn the hierarchy at a given moment[2]

. To overlook this phase of

overturning would be to forget the conflictual and subordinating structure of opposition.

The final task of deconstruction is not to surpass all oppositions because it is assumed that they are structurally

necessary to produce sense, they cannot be suspended once and for all

[3]

. They need to be analyzed andcriticized in all their manifestations; the function of both logical andaxiologicaloppositions must be studied in

alldiscoursesto provide meaning and values. Deconstruction does not only expose how oppositions work and

how meaning and values are produced in anihilisticorcynicposition, "thereby preventing any means of

intervening in the field effectively". To be effective, and simply as its mode of practice, deconstruction creates

new notions or concepts, not to synthesize the terms in opposition, but to mark their difference, undecidability,

and eternal interplay.[4]

Contents

[hide]

1 Influences of deconstruction

2 On deconstruction

o 2.1 From Diffrance to Deconstruction

o 2.2 Illustration ofdiffrance
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o 2.3 Derrida vs Hegel - Distinguish deconstruction from speculative dialetics

o 2.4 There is nothing outside the text

o 2.5 Deconstructing "normality" in analytical philosophy

o

2.6 Not a method

2.6.1 Not a critique

2.6.2 Not an analysis

2.6.3 Not poststructuralist

3 Alternative definitions

4 Etymology

5 Development after Derrida

o 5.1 The Yale School

o 5.2 Critical Legal Studies Movement

o 5.3Deconstructing History

o 5.4 The Inoperative Community

o 5.5 The Ethics of Deconstruction

o 5.6Derrida and the Political

6 See also

7 Notes

8 References (Works cited)

9 Further reading

10 External links

[edit]Influences of deconstruction

Deconstruction influenced Continental Philosophy, aesthetics, literary criticism, architecture,film

theory,anthropology,sociology,historiography, law,psychoanalysis,theology,feminism, gay and lesbian

studies and political theory.Jean-Luc Nancy,Richard Rorty,Geoffrey Hartman,Harold Bloom,Rosalind

Krauss,Hlne Cixous,Julia Kristeva,Duncan Kennedy,Gary Peller,Drucilla Cornell,Alan Hunt,Hayden

White, andAlun Munsloware some of the authors who have been influenced by deconstruction.

[edit]On deconstruction

[edit]From Diffrance to Deconstruction

Derrida approaches all texts as constructed around elemental oppositions which alldiscoursehas to articulate

if it intends to make any sense whatsoever. This is so because identity is viewed innon-essentialistterms as a

construct, and because constructs only produce meaning through the interplay ofdifferenceinside a "system of
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.org/wiki/H%C3%A9l%C3%A8ne_Cixoushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Kristevahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Kristevahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Kristevahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Kennedy_(legal_philosopher)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Kennedy_(legal_philosopher)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Kennedy_(legal_philosopher)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Pellerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Pellerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Pellerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drucilla_Cornellhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drucilla_Cornellhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drucilla_Cornellhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Hunt_(professor)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Hunt_(professor)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Hunt_(professor)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayden_Whitehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayden_Whitehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayden_Whitehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayden_Whitehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alun_Munslowhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alun_Munslowhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alun_Munslowhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deconstruction&action=edit&section=2http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deconstruction&action=edit&section=2http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deconstruction&action=edit&section=2http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deconstruction&action=edit&section=3http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deconstruction&action=edit&section=3http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deconstruction&action=edit&section=3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discoursehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discoursehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discoursehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-essentialismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-essentialismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-essentialismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differenceshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differenceshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differenceshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differenceshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-essentialismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discoursehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deconstruction&action=edit&section=3http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deconstruction&action=edit&section=2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alun_Munslowhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayden_Whitehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayden_Whitehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Hunt_(professor)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drucilla_Cornellhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Pellerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Kennedy_(legal_philosopher)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Kristevahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A9l%C3%A8ne_Cixoushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Krausshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Krausshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Bloomhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Hartmanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Rortyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Luc_Nancyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalysishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiographyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_theoryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_theoryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deconstruction&action=edit&section=1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#External_linkshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#Further_readinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#References_.28Works_cited.29http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#Noteshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#See_alsohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#Derrida_and_the_Politicalhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#The_Ethics_of_Deconstructionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#The_Inoperative_Communityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#Deconstructing_Historyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#Critical_Legal_Studies_Movementhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#The_Yale_Schoolhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#Development_after_Derridahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#Etymologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#Alternative_definitionshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#Not_poststructuralisthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#Not_an_analysishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#Not_a_critiquehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#Not_a_methodhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#Deconstructing_.22normality.22_in_analytical_philosophyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#There_is_nothing_outside_the_texthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#Derrida_vs_Hegel_-_Distinguish_deconstruction_from_speculative_dialetics


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structure, but also ofdiachrony, with everything that was said and will be said, in History, difference as

structure and deffering as genesis.[2]

:

2) "the a ofdiffrance also recalls that spacing is temporization, the detour and postponement by means of which

intuition, perception, consummation - in a word, the relationship to the present, the reference to a present reality, to a

being - are always deferred. Deferred by virtue of the very principle of difference which holds that an element

functions and signifies, takes on or conveys meaning, only by referring to another past or future element in an

economy of traces. This economic aspect ofdiffrance, which brings into play a certain not conscious calculation in a

field of forces, is inseparable from the more narrowly semiotic aspect of diffrance.

This confirms the subject as not present to itself and constituted on becoming space, in temporizing and also,

as Saussure said, that "language [which consists only of differences] is not a function of the speaking

subject."[11]

Questioned this myth of the presence of meaning in itself ("objective") and/or for itself ("subjective") Derrida willstart a long deconstruction of all texts where conceptual oppositions are put to work in the actual construction

of meaning and values based on the subordination of the movement of "differance"[2]

:

At the point at which the concept ofdifferance, and the chain attached to it, intervenes, all the conceptual oppositions

of metaphysics (signifier/signified; sensible/intelligible; writing/speech; passivity/activity; etc.)- to the extent that they

ultimately refer to the presence of something present (for example, in the form of the identity of the subject who is

present for all his operations, present beneath every accident or event, self-present in its "living speech," in its

enunciations, in the present objects and acts of its language, etc.)- become non pertinent. They all amount, at one

moment or another, to a subordination of the movement ofdifferance in favor of the presence of a value or a meaning

supposedly antecedent to differance, more original than it, exceeding and governing it in the last analysis. This is still

the presence of what we called above the "transcendental signified."

But, as Derrida also points out, these relations with other terms dont express only meaning but also values.

The way elemental oppositions are put to work in all texts it's not only a theoretical operation but also a

practical option. The first task of deconstruction, starting with philosophy and afterwards revealing it operating

in literary texts, juridical texts, etc, would be to overturn these oppositions[12]

:

On the one hand, we must traverse a phase of overturning. To do justice to this necessity is to recognize that in a

classical philosophical opposition we are not dealing with the peaceful coexistence of a vis-a-vis, but rather with aviolent hierarchy. One of the two terms governs the other (axiologically, logically, etc.), or has the upper hand. To

deconstruct the opposition, first of all, is to overturn the hierarchy at a given moment. To overlook this phase of

overturning is to forget the conflictual and subordinating structure of opposition.

Its not that the final task of deconstruction is to surpass all oppositions, because they are structurally

necessary to produce sense. They simply cannot be suspended once and for all. But this doesnt mean that
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they dont need to be analyzed and criticized in all its manifestations, showing the way these oppositions, both

logical and axiological, are at work in all discourse for it to be able to produce meaning and values.[13]

And its

not enough to deconstruction to expose the way oppositions work and how meaning and values are produced

in speech of all kinds and stop there in a nihilistic or cynic position regarding all meaning, "thereby preventing

any means of intervening in the field effectively".[14]To be effective, deconstruction needs to create new

concepts, not to synthesize the terms in opposition, but to mark their difference and eternal interplay:

That being said - and on the other hand - to remain in this phase is still to operate on the terrain of and from within the

deconstructed system. By means of this double, and precisely stratified, dislodged and dislodging, writing, we must

also mark the interval between inversion, which brings low what was high, and the irruptive emergence of a new

concept that no longer be, and never could be, included in the previous regime. If this interval, this biface or biphase,

can be inscribed only in a bifurcated writing then it can only be marked in what I would call a grouped textual field: in

the last analysis it is impossible to point it out, for a unilinear text, or a punctual position, an operation signed by a

single author, are all by definition incapable of practicing this interval.

This explains why Derrida always proposes new terms in his deconstruction, not as a free play but as a pure

necessity of analysis, to better mark the intervals:

Henceforth, in order better to mark this interval it has been necessary to analyze, to set to work, within the text of the

history of philosophy, as well as within the so-called literary text (for example, Mallarme), certain marks, shall we say

(I mentioned certain ones just now, there are many others), that by analogy (I underline) I have called undecidables,

that is, unities of simulacrum, "false" verbal properties (nominal or semantic) that can no longer be included within

philosophical (binary) opposition: but which., however, inhabit philosophical oppositions, resisting and organizing it,

without ever constituting a third term, without ever leaving room for a solution in the form of speculative dialectics

Some examples of these new terms created by Derrida clearly exemplify the deconstruction procedure[3]

:

(the pharmkon is neither remedy nor poison, neither good nor evil, neither the inside nor the outside, neither speech

nor writing;

the supplement is neither a plus nor a minus, neither an outside nor the complement of an inside, neither accident nor

essence, etc.;

the hymen is neither confusion nor distinction, neither identity nor difference, neither consummation nor virginity,

neither the veil nor unveiled, neither inside nor the outside, etc.;

the gram is neither a signifier nor a signified, neither a sign nor a thing, neither presence nor an absence, neither a

position nor a negation, etc.;

spacing is neither space nor time;

the incision is neither the incised integrity of a beginning, or of a simple cutting into, nor simple secondary.

Nevertheless, perhaps Derrida's most famous mark was, from the start, differance, created to deconstruct the

opposition between speech and writing and open the way to the rest of his approach:
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and this holds first of all for a new concept of writing, that simultaneously provokes the overturning of the hierarchy

speech/writing, and the entire system attached to it, and releases the dissonance of a writing within speech, thereby

disorganizing the entire inherited order and invading the entire field

[edit]Illustration ofd if fran ce

For example, the word "house" derives its meaning more as a function of how it differs from "shed", "mansion",

"hotel", "building", etc. (Form of Content, thatLouis Hjelmslevdistinguished from Form of Expression) than how

the word "house" may be tied to a certain image of a traditional house (i.e. the relationship

betweensignifierand signified) with each term being established in reciprocal determination with the other

terms than by an ostensive description or definition: when can we talk about a "house" or a "mansion" or a

"shed"? The same can be said about verbs, in all the languages in the world: when should we stop saying

"walk" and start saying "run"? The same happens, of course, with adjectives: when must we stop saying

"yellow" and start saying "orange", or exchange "past" for "present? Not only are the topological differences

between the words relevant here, but the differentials between what is signified is also covered by

diffrance.Deferralalso comes into play, as the words that occur following "house" in any expression will

revise the meaning of that word, sometimes dramatically so. This is true not only withsyntagmaticsuccession

in relation withparadigmaticsimultaneity, but also, in a broader sense, betweendiachronicsuccession in

History related withsynchronicsimultaneity inside a "system of distinct signs".

Thus, complete meaning is always "differential" andpostponedin language; there is never a moment when

meaning is complete and total. A simple example would consist of looking up a given word in a dictionary, then

proceeding to look up the words found in that word's definition, etc., also comparing with older dictionaries from

different periods in time, and such a process would never end. This is also true with all ontological oppositions

and their many declensions, not only in philosophy as in human sciences in general, cultural studies, theory of

Law, etc.: the intelligible and the sensible, the spontaneous and the receptive, autonomy and heteronomy, the

empirical and the transcendental, immanent and transcendent, as the interior and exterior, or the founded and

the founder, normal and abnormal, phonetic and writing, analasis and synthesis, the literal sense and figurative

meaning in language, reason and madness in psychoanalysis, the masculine and feminine in gender theory,

man and animal in ecology, the beast and the sovereign in the political field, theory and practice as distinct

dominions of thought itself. In all speeches in fact (and by right) we can make clear how they were dramatized,

how the cleavages were made during the centuries, each author giving it different centers and establishing

different hierarchies between the terms in the opposition

[edit]Derrida vs Hegel - Distinguish deconstruction from speculative dialetics

In the deconstruction procedure, one of the main concerns of Derrida is not to collapse into Hegels dialectic

where these oppositions would be reduced to contradictions in a dialectic whose telos would, necessarily, be to

resolve it into a synthesis,[15]
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The presence of Hegelianism was enormous in the intellectual life of France during the second half of the 20th

century with the influence of Kojve and Hyppolite, but also with the impact of dialectics based on contradiction

developed by marxists, and including the existentialism from Sartre, etc. This explains Derridas worry to

always distinguish his procedure from Hegel's one[16]

:

Neither/nor: that is simultaneously either or; the mark is also the marginal limit, the march, etc.

In fact, I attempt to bring the critical operation to bear against the unceasing reappropriation of this work of the

simulacrum by a dialectics of the Hegelian type (which even idealizes and "semantizes" the value of work), for

Hegelian idealism consists precisely of a releve of the binary oppositions of classical idealism, a resolution of

contradiction into a third term that comes in order to aufheben, to deny while raising up, while idealizing, while

sublimating into an anamnesic interiority (Errinnerung), while interning difference in a self-presence.

This difference from Hegel should be understood as essential from the start, and the Differance being one of

the first terms that he tried more accurately to distinguish from all forms of Hegelian difference when

proceeding with deconstruction[17]

:

Since it is still a question of elucidating the relationship to Hegel - a difficult labor, which for the most part remains

before us, and which in a certain way is (interminable, at least if one wishes to execute it rigorously and minutely - I

have attempted to distinguish differance (whose a marks, among other things, its productive and conflictual

characteristics) from Hegelian difference, and have done so precisely at the point at which Hegel, in the greater

Logic, determines difference as contradiction only in order to resolve it, to interiorize it, to lift it up (according to the

syllogistic process of speculative dialectics) into the self-presence of an onto- theological or onto-teleological

synthesis.

More than difference is the conflictuality of difference that must be distinguished from contradiction in Hegel to

clearly distinguish deconstruction from speculative dialetics[17]

:

Differance (at a point of almost absolute proximity to Hegel, everything, what is most decisive, is played out, here, in

what Husserl called "subtle nuances," or Marx "micrology") must sign the point at which one breaks with the system

of theAufhebungand with speculative dialectics. Since this conflictuality ofdifferance - which can be called

contradiction only if one demarcates it by means of a long work on Hegel's concept of contradiction - can never be

totally resolved, it marks its effects in what I call the text in general, in a text which is not reduced to a book or a

library, and which can never be governed by a referent in the classical sense, that is, by a thing or by a

transcendental signified that would regulate its movement. You can well see that it is not because I wish to appease

or reconciliate(sic) that I prefer to employ the mark "differance" rather than refer to the system of difference- and-

contradiction.

[edit]There is nothing outside the text
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There is one statement by Derrida which he regarded as the axial statement of his whole essay

onRousseau(part of the highly influentialOf Grammatology, 1967),[18]

and which is perhaps his most quoted

and famous statement ever.[5]

It's the assertion that "there is nothing outside the text" ( il n'y a pas de hors-

texte),[18]

which means that there is no such a thing as out-of-the-text, in other words, the context is an integral

part of the text.[19]

We can call "context" the entire "real-history-of-the-world," if you like, in which this value of objectivity and, even more

broadly, that of truth (etc.) have taken on meaning and imposed themselves. That does not in the slightest discredit

them. In the name of what, of which other "truth," moreover, would it?

One of the definitions of what is called deconstruction would be the effort to take this limitless context into account, to

pay the sharpest and broadest attention possible to context, and thus to an incessant movement of

recontextualization.

The phrase which for some has become a sort of slogan, in general so badly understood, of deconstruction ("there is

nothing outside the text" [it ny apas de hors-texte]), means nothing else: there is nothing outside context. In this form,

which says exactly the same thing, the formula would doubtless have been less shocking. I am not certain that it

would have provided more to think about.

Critics of Derrida have countless times quoted it as a slogan to characterize and stigmatize

deconstruction.[19][20][21][22]

Some commentators have said that it means that is not possible to think outside of

the philosophical system,[23]

or that there is no experience of reality outside of language.[20]

With regards to the

broadness of the concept of "text", he added:[5][6]

I take great interest in questions of language and rhetoric, and I think they deserve enormous consideration; but there

is a point where the authority of final jurisdiction is neither rhetorical nor linguistic, nor even discursive. The notion of

trace or of text is introduced to mark the limits of the linguistic turn. This is one more reason why I prefer to speak of

'mark' rather than of language. In the first place the mark is not anthropological; it is prelinguistic; it is the possibility of

language, and it is every where there is a relation to another thing or relation to an other. For such relations, the mark

has no need of language.

[edit]Deconstructing "normality" in analytical philosophy

Main article:Limited Inc

A sequence of encounters withanalytical philosophyis collected inLimited Inc(1988), having Austin and

Searle as the main interlocutors. Derrida would argue there about the problem he found in the constant appeal

to "normality" in the analytical tradition from which Austin and Searle were only paradigmatic examples. His

deconstruction there of the structure called "normal" is in many ways paradigmatic of his approach[24]

In the description of the structure called "normal," "normative," "central," "ideal,"this possibility of transgression must

be integrated as an essential possibility. The possibility of transgression cannot be treated as though it were a simple
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accident-marginal or parasitic. It cannot be, and hence ought not to be, and this passage from can to ought reflects

the entire difficulty. In the analysis of so-called normal cases, one neither can nor ought, in all theoretical rigor, to

exclude the possibility of transgression. Not even provisionally, or out of allegedly methodological considerations. It

would be a poor method, since this possibility of transgression tells us immediately and indispensably about the

structure of the act said to be normal as well as about the structure of law in general.

He continued arguing how problematic it was establishing the relation between "normal", "nonfiction or

standard discourse" and "fiction", defined as its "parasite, for part of the most originary essence of the latter is

to allow fiction, the simulacrum, parasitism, to take place-and in so doing to "de-essentialize" itself as it

were.[25]

He would finally argue that the indispensable question would then become:[26]

:

what is "nonfiction standard discourse," what must it be and what does this name evoke, once its fictionality or its

fictionalization, its transgressive "parasitism," is always possible (and moreover by virtue of the very same words, the

same phrases, the same grammar, etc.)?

This question is all the more indispensable since the rules, and even the statements of the rules governing the

relations of "nonfiction standard discourse" and its fictional"parasites," are not things found in nature, but laws,

symbolic inventions, or conventions, institutions that, in their very normality as well as in their normativity, entail

something of the fictional.

This quarrel (or this dispute)is well configured byUmberto Ecowhen, exposing the example of divergences

about the concept of "Denotation" in Staurt Mill and Hjelmslev, concluded that[27]

:

the reason for the confusions is not accidental, nor Esperanto full of goodwill will be able to solve it. It is that the

semiotic thought presents itself, from the beginning, as always divided by a dilemma and marked by a choice, more

or less implicit, that guides the thinker: is it his task when studying languages to know when and how to refer to things

properly (problem of truth) or to ask how and when they are used to produce beliefs? Or, downstream of any

terminological choice, there is a deeper choice between transparent systems of signification about things or systems

of signification as producers of reality. Pathetic confidentiality of this division, the two sides of the fence, when the

division is manifested, rate the opponent as idealist (at least in more recent times).

[edit]Not a method

Derrida states that Deconstruction is not a method and cannot be transformed into one. This is because

deconstruction is not a mechanical operation. Derrida warns against considering deconstruction as a

mechanical operation when he states that It is true that in certain circles (university or cultural, especially in the

United States) the technical and methodological metaphor that seems necessarily attached to the very word

deconstruction has been able to seduce or lead astray. Commentator Richard Beardsworth explains that

Derrida is careful to avoid this term [method] because it carries connotations of a procedural form of judgement.

A thinker with a method has already decided howto proceed, is unable to give him or herself up to the matter
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of thought in hand, is a functionary of the criteria which structure his or her conceptual gestures. For Derrida

[...] this is irresponsibility itself. Thus, to talk of a method in relation to deconstruction, especially regarding its

ethico-political implications, would appear to go directly against the current of Derrida's philosophical

adventure.[28]

Beardsworth here explains that it would be irresponsible to undertake a deconstruction with a complete set of

rules that need only be applied as a method to the object of deconstruction because this understanding would

reduce deconstruction to a thesis of the reader that the text is then made to fit. This would be an irresponsible

act of reading because it ignores the empirical facticity of the text itself - that is it becomes a prejudicial

procedure that only finds what it sets out to find. To be responsible a deconstruction must carefully negotiate

the empirical facticity of the text and hence respond to it. Deconstruction is not a method and this means that it

is not a neat set of rules that can be applied to any text in the same way. Deconstruction is therefore not neatly

transcendental because it cannot be considered separate from the contingent empirical facticity of the

particular texts that any deconstruction must carefully negotiate. Each deconstruction is necessarily different

(otherwise it achieves no work) and this is why Derrida states that Deconstruction takes place, it is an

event.[29]On the other hand, deconstruction cannot be completely untranscendental because this would make

it meaningless to, for example, speak of two different examples of deconstruction as both being examples of

deconstruction. It is for this reason thatRichard Rortyasks if Derrida should be considered a quasi-

transcendental philosopher that operates in the tension between the demands of theempiricaland

thetranscendental. Each example of deconstruction must be different, but it must also share something with

other examples of deconstruction. Deconstruction is therefore not a method in the traditional sense but is what

Derrida terms "an unclosed, unenclosable, not wholly formalizable ensemble of rules for reading, interpretation

and writing."

[edit]Not a critique

Derrida states that deconstruction is not acritiquein the Kantian sense.This is becauseKantdefines the term

critique as the opposite ofdogmatism. For Derrida it is not possible to escape the dogmatic baggage of the

language we use in order to perform a pure critique in the Kantian sense. For Derrida language is dogmatic

because it is inescapablymetaphysical. Derrida argues that language is inescapably metaphysical because it is

made up ofsignifiersthat only refer to that which transcends them - the signified. This transcending of the

empirical facticity of the signifier by an ideally conceived signified is metaphysical. It is metaphysical in the

sense that it mimics the understanding inAristotle's metaphysics of an ideally conceived being as that which

transcends the existence of every individually existing thing. In a less formal version of the argument it might be

noted that it is impossible to use language without asserting being, and hence metaphysics, constantly through

the use of the various modifications of the verb "to be". In addition Derrida asks rhetorically "Is not the idea of

knowledge and of the acquisition of knowledge in itself metaphysical?"[30]

By this Derrida means that all claims

to know something necessarily involve an assertion of the metaphysical type that something is the case
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somewhere. For Derrida the concept of neutrality is suspect and dogmatism is therefore involved in everything

to a certain degree. Deconstruction can challenge a particular dogmatism and hence desediment dogmatism in

general, but it cannot escape all dogmatism all at once.

[edit]Not an analysis

Derrida states that deconstruction is not ananalysisin the traditional sense. This is because the possibility of

analysis is predicated on the possibility of breaking up the text being analysed into elemental component parts.

Derrida argues that there are no self-sufficient units of meaning in a text. This is because individual words or

sentences in a text can only be properly understood in terms of how they fit into the larger structure of the text

and language itself. For more on Derrida's theory of meaning see the page ondiffrance.

[edit]Not poststructuralist

Derrida states that his use of the word deconstruction first took place in a context in which "structuralismwas

dominant"[31]

and its use is related to this context. Derrida states that deconstruction is an "antistructuralist

gesture"[31]

because "Structures were to be undone, decomposed, desedimented."[31]

At the same time for

Derrida deconstruction is also a "structuralist gesture"[31]

because it is concerned with the structure of texts. So

for Derrida deconstruction involves a certain attention to structures"[31]

and tries to understand how an

'ensemble' was constituted."As both a structuralist and an antistructuralist gesture deconstruction is tied up with

what Derrida calls the "structural problematic."[31]

The structural problematic for Derrida is the tension between

genesis, that which is "in the essential mode of creation or movement,"[32]

and structure, "systems, or

complexes, or static configurations."[33]

An example of genesis would be thesensoryideasfrom which

knowledge is then derived in theempiricalepistemology. An example of structure would be abinary

oppositionsuch asgood and evilwhere the meaning of each element is established, at least partly, through its

relationship to the other element. For Derrida, Genesis and Structure are both inescapable modes of

description, there are some things that "must be described in terms of structure, and others which must be

described in terms of genesis,"[33]

but these two modes of description are difficult to reconcile and this is the

tension of the structural problematic. In Derrida's own words the structural problematic is that "beneath the

serene use of these concepts [genesis and structure] is to be found a debate that...makes new reductions and

explications indefinitely necessary."[34]

The structural problematic is therefore what propels philosophy and

hence deconstruction forward. Another significance of the structural problematic for Derrida is that while a

critique of structuralism is a recurring theme of his philosophy this does not mean that philosophy can claim to

be able to discard all structural aspects. It is for this reason that Derrida distances his use of the term

deconstruction frompoststructuralism, a term that would suggest philosophy could simply go beyond

structuralism. Derrida states that the motif of deconstruction has been associated with "poststructuralism"" but

that this term was "a word unknown in France until its return from the United States." As mentioned above in

section on Derrida's deconstruction of Husserl Derrida actually argues forthe contamination of pure origins by
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the structures of language and temporality andManfred Frankhas even referred to Derrida's work as

"Neostructuralism"[35]

and this seems to capture Derrida's novel concern for how texts are structured.

[edit]Alternative definitions

The popularity of the term deconstruction combined with the technical difficulty of Derrida's primary material on

deconstruction and his reluctance to elaborate his understanding of the term has meant that many secondary

sources have attempted to give a more straightforward explanation than Derrida himself ever attempted.

Secondary definitions are therefore an interpretation of deconstruction by the person offering them rather than

a direct summary of Derrida's actual position.

Paul de Manwas a member of theYale Schooland a prominent practitioner of deconstruction as he

understood it. His definition of deconstruction is that,"It's possible, within text, to frame a question or undo

assertions made in the text, by means of elements which are in the text, which frequently would be

precisely structures that play off the rhetorical against grammatical elements."[36]

Richard Rortywas a prominent interpreter of Derrida's philosophy. His definition of deconstruction is that,

"the term 'deconstruction' refers in the first instance to the way in which the 'accidental' features of a text

can be seen as betraying, subverting, its purportedly 'essential' message."[37]

(The word accidentalis used

here in the sense ofincidental.)

John D. Caputoattempts to explain deconstruction in a nutshell by stating that:

"Whenever deconstruction finds a nutshella secure axiom or a pithy maximthe very idea is to crack itopen and disturb this tranquility. Indeed, that is a good rule of thumb in deconstruction. Thatis what

deconstruction is all about, its very meaning and mission, if it has any. One might even say that cracking

nutshells is what deconstruction is. In a nutshell. ...Have we not run up against a paradox and

anaporia[something contradictory]...the paralysis and impossibility of an aporia is just what impels

deconstruction, what rouses it out of bed in the morning..." (Caputo 1997, p.32)

Niall Lucypoints to the impossibility of defining the term at all, noting that:

"While in a sense it is impossibly difficult to define, the impossibility has less to do with the adoption of a

position or the assertion of a choice on deconstructions part than with the impossibility of every is as

such. Deconstruction begins, as it were, from a refusal of the authority or determ ining power of every is,

or simply from a refusal of authority in general. While such refusal may indeed count as a position, it is not

the case that deconstruction holds this as a sort of preference".[38]
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David B. Allison is an early translator of Derrida and states in the introduction to his translation ofSpeech

and Phenomena that:

[Deconstruction] signifies a project of critical thought whose task is to locate and 'take apart' those

concepts which serve as the axioms or rules for a period of thought, those concepts which command the

unfolding of an entire epoch of metaphysics. 'Deconstruction' is somewhat less negative than the

Heideggerian or Nietzschean terms 'destruction' or 'reversal'; it suggests that certain foundational concepts

of metaphysics will never be entirely eliminated...There is no simple 'overcoming' of metaphysics or the

language of metaphysics.[39]

Paul Ricoeurwas another prominent supporter and interpreter of Derrida's philosophy. He defines

deconstruction as a way of uncovering the questions behind the answers of a text or tradition.[40]

Richard Ellmann defines 'deconstruction' as the systematic undoing of understanding.

A survey of the secondary literature reveals a wide range of heterogeneous arguments. Particularly problematic

are the attempts to give neat introductions to deconstruction by people trained in literary criticism who

sometimes have little or no expertise in the relevant areas of philosophy that Derrida is working in relation to.

These secondary works (e.g.Deconstruction for Beginners[41]

and Deconstructions: A User's Guide[42]

) have

attempted to explain deconstruction while being academically criticized as too far removed from the original

texts and Derrida's actual position.[citation needed]

In an effort to clarify the rather muddled reception of the term

deconstruction Derrida specifies what deconstruction is notthrough a number of negative definitions.

[edit]Etymology

Although he avoided defining the term directly, Derrida sought to applyMartin Heidegger's concept

ofDestruktionorAbbau, to textual reading. Heidegger's term referred to a process of exploring the categories

and concepts that tradition has imposed on a word, and the history behind them.[43]

Derrida opted

fordeconstruction over the literal translationdestruction to suggest precision rather than violence.

[edit]Development after Derrida

Authors other than Derrida have also used the term "deconstructionism" with different definitions.[44]

[edit]The Yale SchoolFurther information:Yale school

Between the late 1960s and the early 1980s many thinkers were influenced by deconstruction, includingPaul

de Man,Geoffrey Hartman, andJ. Hillis Miller. This group came to be known as theYale schooland was

especially influential inliterary criticism. Several of these theorists were subsequently affiliated with

theUniversity of California Irvine.[citation needed]
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Miller has described deconstruction this way: Deconstruction is not a dismantling of the structure of a text, but

a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself. Its apparently solid ground is no rock, but thin air."[45]

[edit]Critical Legal Studies Movement

Further information:Critical Legal Studies

Arguing that law and politics cannot be separated, the founders of Critical Legal Studies Movement found

necessary to criticize its absence at the level of theory. To demonstrate the indeterminacy of legal doctrine,

these scholars often adopts a method, such asstructuralisminlinguisticsordeconstruction incontinental

philosophy, to make explicit the deep structure of categories and tensions at work in legal texts and talk. The

aim was to deconstruct the tensions and procedures by which they are constructed, expressed, and deployed.

For example,Duncan Kennedy, in explicit reference to semiotics and deconstruction procedures,maintains that

various legal doctrines are constructed around the binary pairs of opposed concepts, each of which with a

claim upon intuitive and formal forms of reasoning that must be made explicit, not only in their meaning but also

its relative value, and criticized. Self and other, private and public, subjective and objective, freedom and

control are examples of such pairs demonstrating the influence of this opposing concepts on the development

of legal doctrines through history.[46]

[edit]Decons truct ing History

Deconstructive readings of history and sources have changed the entire discipline of history. In "Deconstructing

History", Alun Munslow examines history in what he argues is a postmodern age. He provides an introduction

to the debates and issues of postmodernist history. He also surveys the latest research into the relationship

between the past, history, and historical practice, as well as forwarding his own challenging theories[47].

[edit]The Inoperat ive Commu nity

Jean-Luc Nancyargues in his 1982 book The Inoperative Communityfor an understanding of community and

society that is undeconstructable because it is prior to conceptualisation. Nancy's work is an important

development of deconstruction because it takes the challenge of deconstruction seriously and attempts to

develop an understanding of political terms that is undeconstructable and therefore suitable for a philosophy

after Derrida.

[edit]The Ethics o f Deconstruct ion

Simon Critchleyargues in his 1992 book The Ethics of Deconstruction that Derrida's deconstruction is an

intrinsically ethical practice. Critchley argues that deconstruction involves an openness to theotherthat makes

it ethical in theLevinasianunderstanding of the term.

[edit]Derr ida and the Poli t ical
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Jacques Derrida has had a huge influence on contemporary political theory and political philosophy. Derrida's

thinking has inspired Slavoj Zizek, Richard Rorty, Ernesto Laclau, Judith Butler and many more contemporary

theorists developed a deconstructive approach to politics. Because deconstruction examines the internal logic

of any given text or discourse it helped many authors to analyse the contradictions inherent in all schools of

thought, and as such it has proved revolutionary in political analysis, particularly ideology critiques.[48].

Richard Beardsworth, developing on Critchley's Ethics of Deconstruction, argues in his 1996 Derrida and the

Politicalthat deconstruction is an intrinsically political practice. He further argues that the future of

deconstruction faces a choice (perhaps an undecidable choice) between atheologicalapproach and a

technological approach represented first of all by the work ofBernard Stiegler.

[edit]See also

Jacques Derrida on deconstruction

List of deconstructionists

Post-structuralism

Post-modernism

[edit]Notes

1. ^Cf., Jacques Derrida, "Interview with Julia Kristeva" in Positions (The University of Chicago Press,

1981), pp. 21

2. âbcCf., Jacques Derrida, "Interview with Julia Kristeva" in Positions (The University of Chicago Press,

1981), pp. 28-30

3. âbCf., Jacques Derrida, "Interview with Jean-Louis Houdebine and Guy Scarpetta," in Positions (The

University of Chicago Press, 1981), pp. 43

4. ^Cf., Jacques Derrida, Positions (The University of Chicago Press, 1981), pp. 41-43

5. âbcRoyle, Nicholas(2004)Jacques Derrida, pp. 6263

6. âbDerrida and Ferraris (1997) p.76

I take great interest in questions of language and rhetoric, and I think they deserve enormous consideration; but

there is a point where the authority of final jurisdiction is neither rhetorical nor linguistic, nor even discursive. The

notion of trace or of text is introduced to mark the limits of the linguistic turn. This is one more reason why I prefer

to speak of 'mark' rather than of language. In the first place the mark is not anthropological; it is prelinguistic; it is

the possibility of language, and it is every where there is a relation to another thing or relation to an other. For

such relations, the mark has no need of language.
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