Derridas Deconstructionism Issues - Essay Example

202525 Jacques Derrida's Deconstruction is a school of philosophy started in the 1960s with considerable impact on Western Metaphysical Tradition.Deconstruction is notoriously difficult to define, unless the definition is a very lengthy one, as it could neither be classified as methodology, pure philosophy nor, a system of thought. Derrida said it is nothing and everything. According to him, most things around us have to be deconstructed and reconstructed. He said this could apply even to Aristotelian logic in the shape of non-contradiction. "Deconstruction then is as elusive and slippery as it is, obviously because it defies (un)certainty of (im)positions in pursuing this kind of framework. It is a critical and yet uncritical in its subversion. Just like looking on how to destroy or to defeat an enemy" http://www.geocities.com/philodept/diwatao/derrida_and_saussure.htm Different scholars and critics defined Deconstruction in their own way. Somehow with many definitions the theory became richer over the years. "It represents a complex response to a variety of theoretical and philosophical movements of the 20th century, most notably Husserlian phenomenology, Saussurean and French structuralism, and Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis" http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/derrida/deconstruction.html Derrida starts with the structure, but he is not happy with the binary structure and showed that dualisms are never equivalent; but are hierarchically placed. He said one pole is privileged at the expense of the other. The centre and presence are the originally attributed qualities to the speech, which have been continuing for a long time now. Speech has been given more importance, whereas the writing has been relegated into the secondary place. He said the logocentric tradition of the western thought since Plato has made the written word as a mere representation of the spoken word. Paul De Mann is another critic who adopted the same style of criticism. It is best understood as a textual strategy. He posed a challenge to metaphysical speculation. He argued: "Structure has always been neutralised or reduced.by giving it a centre or referring it to a point of presence, a fixed origin," Derrida (1978, p.278) and even the quantitative enlargement of adding historical experience does not help it. He started with exposing the problems of centred discourses. "Derrida argues that the "structure" determining these discourses (including "structuralist" theory itself) always presupposes a "centre" that ensures a point of origin, meaning, being, or presence. What troubles Derrida is that the centre determines a given systems structure but is itself strangely above or transcendent of such structural analysis or scrutiny" http://www.usp.nus.edu.sg/post/poldiscourse/spivak/deconstruction.html His argument is that the centre that ensures a presence. The presence, he says, is the original state and should come first, just like how the world is present around us, and it is connected to the consciousness and self-reflection and gives a meaning. This means, presence is the predicate for a text's meaning, according to Derrida. It is accepted that Derrida had great influence on the intellectual thinking of the world. The paper he presented to John Hopkins University in 1966 changed the critical movement in United States. In this paper he uses the structure, structuralist theory while saying that there exists a centre in every structure. He argues that this is needed by the readers because it is definite that there is an existing presence. The centre is the main unity that supports the structure, which would not have contained much meaning without that centre. "if we try to undo the centring concept of 'consciousness' by asserting the disruptive counterforce of the 'unconscious' we are in danger of introducing a new centre, because we cannot choose but enter the conceptual system (conscious/unconscious) we are trying to dislodge," Selden (1985, p.144). Deconstruction and poststructuralism have been in close terms for a long time now. Curiously Derrida took it for granted that the days of structuralism was over for all. "The term "poststructuralism" refers to a critical perspective that emerged during the seventies which has dethroned structuralism as the dominant trend in language and textual theory" http://www.signosemio.com/derrida/a_deconstruction.asp The centre that Derrida points out is a point from which everything comes and to which everything refers or returns. This could be anything and in any matter, like literature, culture, language, speech, and mostly God is taken as the centre. Sometimes it could be the individual himself, or his mind, his conscience or sub conscience that might develop into a philosophical system or a set of beliefs about which one might like to talk or write. The most important points of the deconstruction idea are mainly two. According to the first point, all the systems and the structures will continue to exist and all of them, whether it is important or not, works around a certain centre, which becomes the point of importance and the place of origin which might have created the structure or system. So, the centre has power and influence over the system and structure. It is not easy to discard the centre completely. The second point is that all these systems or structures are created in either more or less identical pairs, or as opposite pairs against each other, or they are compared and contrasted against one another. Whatever this could be, these binary pairs are always placed in relationship with one another. In addition, the individuals work for or with the ideas like centre, man, God, truth, individual, self. At the same time, these terms are illusive and unstable. So they are deconstructive terms which get placed 'under erasure', he said. The idea of metaphysical centres around which humans can build the notions of existence and reality did not appeal to him much. According to him these are artificially created and such metaphysical centres cannot represent our existence. They will be too unstable and feeble to support the notion of existence and reality. Because the humans have created these almost useless metaphysical centres which have resulted in inconsistent structures, our existence has been limited and never had the opportunity to stretch itself into its fullness. This relates to our existence, systems and our paradigms, none of which we have allowed to develop into their fullest. Instead, we have kept our realities limited, lifeless and mutilated. He said there are self-created walls around us in the shape of these self-created structures and substitutions. We have also adopted an attitude of 'blind arrogance' that has not allowed us to look beyond these false and self-erected walls. "Through exploration of these vital critiques and deconstructions, of which Derrida goes into with utmost depth, we can begin to gain clarity into the complex phenomenon of systems, structure, signs, symbols, play, and the consequences of limiting reality". http://people.tribe.net/raracheshcubumba/blog/1108c66b-5c05-491b-a124-9dbea03f1a56 His argument about centre has been sometimes baffling, say the critics, and with reason. Derrida clarified his points about the centre many times and stretched this point beyond the initial region. He always spoke of non-centre, but not of no-centre as he himself clarified. "First of all I didn't say that there was no centre that we could get along without the centre. I believe that the centre is a function and not a being - a reality, but a function. And this function is absolutely indispensable. I don't destroy the subject; I situate it," cited in Macksey and Donato (1970, p.271). Derrida knew how important these centres are for ordinary people in life. Without these centres and their presence, people would loose the meaning in the systems and structures. These centres extended to almost all the fields, and mainly to the activists, leaders, path-breaking individuals who dared to be different and show a hitherto un-trodden way to their followers. Nelson Mandela could be called a cultural centre because "he is precisely the type of transient centre of cultural deconstruction and reconstruction that emerges wherever there is effort to change events in a particular direction," Trifonas (2004, p.106). He continued his quarrel with logocentrism throughout, but argued in favour of the 'presence' which is important for every structure because it is connected to consciousness and all that it stands for. "The modern search for a metaphysics of presence that would summon the object of investigation directly to consciousness is and will always be a mistaken undertaking" Ward (1996, p.23). Derrida was interested in transcendental and self-present consciousness. He agreed that consciousness in whichever form it is, of clear evidence or just a feeling, is closely connected with the aspect of presence. "The factor of presence, the ultimate court of appeal for the whole of this discourse, is itself modified without being lost, each time there is a question of the presenceof any object whatever is to consciousness, in the clear evidence of a fulfilled intuition. Indeed the element of presence is modified whenever it is a question of self-presence in consciousness, means nothing other than the possibility of the self-presence of the present in the living present," Derrida (1973, p.9). He connected the self-presence into the living present and was of the opinion that it is how the presence could be modified according to the circumstances. Derrida did not confine his theory of Deconstruction only to centre and presence. He connected it with poststructuralism, literary criticism and reconstruction of the systems and structures. He also believed that words referred to other words and not to thoughts and feelings. His theory was hailed as a path-breaking one. He thought that the western philosophical tradition has knotted itself up completely with the desire for textual univocity. "But the impossibility of saturating textual contexts does not preclude some determination of textual context. In fact, to judge a text undecidably equivocal presupposes a minimal degree of textual determination," Cutrofello (1990, p.161). But there is no doubt that his theory of deconstruction lives on even after his death. It is now firmly connected with the poststructuralism and has become a much accepted and venerated theory of literary philosophy. Derreda has succeeded in changing the face of the western philosophical tradition of critical enquiry. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Cutrofello, Andrew, 'Derrida's deconstruction of the ideal of legitimation,' Man and World 23: 157-173, 1990. 2. Derrida, Jacques (1973), Speech and Phenomena, North Western University Press. 3. Derrida, Jacques (1978), Writing and Difference, Chicago University Press. 4. Macksey, Richard and Donato, Eugenio (1970), The Structuralist Controversy, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press. 5. Selden, Raman (1985), A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, University Press of Kentucky. 6. Trifonas, P.P. (2004), Derrida, Deconstruction and Education, Oxford, Blackwell. 7. Ward, Steven C. (1996), Reconfiguring Truth, Lanham, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. ONLINE SOURCES 1. http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/derrida/deconstruction.html 2. http://www.sou.edu/english/Hedges/Sodashop/RCenter/Theory/People/derdakey.htm 3. http://www.signosemio.com/derrida/a_deconstruction.asp 4. http://people.tribe.net/raracheshcubumba/blog/1108c66b-5c05-491b-a124-9dbea03f1a56 5. http://www.geocities.com/philodept/diwatao/derrida_and_saussure.htm 6. http://www.usp.nus.edu.sg/post/poldiscourse/spivak/deconstruction.html 7. Read More