Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) and the theory of Deconstruction

The Philosopher-Theorist

Intro

 Derrida is responsible for the pervasive phenomenon in modern literary and cultural
theory known as “deconstruction.”

 Derrida himself insisted that deconstruction is not a theory unified by any set of
consistent rules or procedures.

 Nevertheless, it has been variously regarded as

 a way of reading.

 a mode of writing.

 and, above all, a way of challenging interpretations of texts based upon conventional
notions of the stability of the human self, the external world, and of language and
meaning.

Brief Bio

 Derrida was born in Algeria to a Jewish family and suffered intensely the experience of
being an outsider.

 While in Algeria he undertook a study of several major philosophers, including Søren

Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger.

 He then studied at various prestigious institutions in Paris, eventually becoming a

teacher of philosophy.

 He also worked at Harvard and, in 1975, began teaching at Yale University.

 More recently, he has taught at various American institutions, in particular at the

University of California at Irvine.

 He established a reputation in France during the 1960s, a reputation which crossed to

the United States in the 1970s.

 Derrida’s transatlantic influence can be traced to an important seminar held at Johns

Hopkins University in 1966.
  A number of leading French theorists, such as Roland Barthes, Jacques Lacan, and Lucien
Goldmann, spoke at this conference.

 Derrida himself presented what was quickly recognized as a pioneering paper entitled
“Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences,” a text which shows
both what Derrida owes to structuralism and his paths of divergence from it.

First Publications

 The year 1967, marked Derrida’s explosive entry onto the international stage of literary
and cultural theory, with the publication of his first three books: La Voix et le
phenomène (Speech and Phenomena), concerning Edmund Husserl’s theory signs.

 De la grammatology (Of Grammatology), whose subject was the “science” of writing.

 and L’Écriture et la différence (Writing and Difference), which contained important

essays on Hegel, Freud, and Michel Foucault.

What is DECONSTRUCTION?

 Many deconstructionists point out that it is not amenable to any static definition or
systematization because the meaning of the terms it employs is always shifting and
fluid, taking its color from the localized contexts and texts with which it engages.

 deconstruction is often regarded as undermining all tendency toward systematization.

The basic project of Deconstruction

 The most fundamental project of deconstruction is to display the operations of

“logocentrism” in any “text.”

What Z Logocentrism?

 Etymologically and historically, this term refers to any system of thought which is
founded on the stability and authority of the Logos, the divine Word.

 The various meanings accumulated by this word in the Hebrew, ancient pagan, and early
Christian worlds are complex.

 The scholar C. H. Dodd explains that logos is both a thought and a word, and the two are
inseparable: the logos is the word as determined by and conveying a meaning.

 He also observes that the root of the Hebrew equivalent for logos means “to speak,”
and that this expression is used of God’s self-revelation
Origin of the word Logos

 The word and concept logos may have derived in part from the Greek thinker Heraclitus
and the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria.

 In its simplest meaning it can signify “statement,” “saying,” “discourse,” or science.

Logos in the Gospel

 In the gospel of John, the plural logoi refers to the words spoken by Jesus or others; but
the singular logos signifies the whole of what Jesus said, his message as both revelation
and command.

 The life of Jesus is the Logos incarnate, and events in this life are signs of eternal
realities.

 And the gospel in general is the record of a life that expresses the eternal thought of
God, the meaning of the universe (Dodd, 284–285).

 In its ancient Greek philosophical and Judeo-Christian meaning, then, the Logos referred
both to the Word of God which created the universe and to the rational order of
creation itself.

 In other words, it is in the spoken Logos that language and reality ultimately coincide, in
an identity that is invested with absolute authority, absolute origin, and absolute
purpose or teleology.

The Schema of Meaning

 If we think of the orders of language and reality as follows, it is clear that one of the
functions of the Logos is to preserve the stability and closure of the entire system:

 LOGOS

Language Reality

Signifier 1 -a- Signified 1 –b ––– Object 1

Questioning Logocentrism is the major project of Deconstruction

 If, now, the Logos is removed from this picture, what happens? The entire order will
become destabilized.

 Historically, of course, this disintegration does not happen all at once but takes
centuries, as indeed does the undermining of the Logos.
  Once the Logos vanishes from the picture, there is nothing to hold together the orders
of language and reality, which now threaten to fly apart from each other.

 In the chain of signification, the substitution of signified for the signifier and vice versa
continues endlessly thereby resulting in postponement of meaning Ad Infinitum.

 Derrida attributes the name of “metaphor” to this endless substitution of one signifier
for another.

 We can only use metaphor, hence language in its very nature is metaphorical.

 Hence there cannot be a sharp distinction between, say, the spheres of philosophy and
science, on the one hand, which are often presumed to use a “literal” language based
on reason, and literature and the arts, on the other hand, which are characterized as
using metaphorical and figurative language

Therefore…

 The most fundamental project of deconstruction is to reinstate language within the

connections of the various terms that have conventionally dominated Western thought:
the connections between thought and reality, self and world, subject and object.

 In deconstructive thought, these connections are not viewed as already existing prior to
(a`priori) language, with language merely being the instrument of their expression or
representation.

 Rather, all of these terms are linguistic to begin with: they are enabled by language.

 We don’t simply have thought which is then expressed by language; thought takes place
in, and is made possible by, language.

 The notion of language that is thereby reinstituted by deconstruction is partly

influenced by Saussure:

 It is a notion of language as a system of relations.