Derrida and Deconstruction

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➡️ Who is Jacques Derrida?

Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) was the founder of “deconstruction,” a way of criticizing not only both literary and philosophical texts but also political institutions. Although Derrida at times expressed regret concerning the fate of the word “deconstruction,” its popularity indicates the wide-ranging influence of his thought, in philosophy, in literary criticism and theory, in art and, in particular, architectural theory, and in political theory. Indeed, Derrida’s fame nearly reached the status of a media star, with hundreds of people filling auditoriums to hear him speak, with films and televisions programs devoted to him, with countless books and articles devoted to his thinking. Beside critique, Derridean deconstruction consists in an attempt to re-conceive the difference that divides self-consciousness (the difference of the “of” in consciousness of oneself). But even more than the re-conception of difference, and perhaps more importantly, deconstruction attempts to render justice. Indeed, deconstruction is relentless in this pursuit since justice is impossible to achieve.

➡️ What is deconstruction?

Deconstruction by its very nature defies institutionalization in an authoritative definition. The concept was first outlined by Derrida in Of Grammatology where he explored the interplay between language and the construction of meaning. From this early work, and later works in which he has attempted to explain deconstruction to others, most notably the Letter to a Japanese Friend, it is possible to provide a basic explanation of what deconstruction is commonly understood to mean. 

Three key features emerge from Derrida’s work as making deconstruction possible. These are, first, the inherent desire to have a center, or focal point, to structure understanding (logocentrism); second, the reduction of meaning to set definitions that are committed to writing (nothing beyond the text); and, finally, how the reduction of meaning to writing captures opposition within that concept itself (différance). 

These three features found the possibility of deconstruction as an on-going process of questioning the accepted basis of meaning. While the concept initially arose in the context of language, it is equally applicable to the study of law. Derrida considered deconstruction to be a ‘problematization of the foundation of law, morality and politics.’ For him it was both ‘foreseeable and desirable that studies of deconstructive style should culminate in the problematic of law and justice.’

Deconstruction is therefore a means of interrogating the relationship between the two.

Now let's read about videos

➡️Video : 1

This first video covers three points:

1. Why is it difficult to define deconstruction?

2. Is deconstruction a nagative term ?

3. How does deconstruction happen on its own?

  

The term deconstruction was introduced by derrida and he refuses to define it. All other terms which we use in philosophy or  literary criticism for that matter even deconstruction can not be once and for all finally defined. Derrida is very hard to read, that's why the deconstuction term or idea is defined.  Deconstruction is not a negative term because derrida says that,

it is not a destructive activity.

It’s not something breaking down for the sake of deconstruction. He is inquiring into the foundations and is also inquiring into the condition of why something cannot be defined or a system cannot be finally closed off so he says that the deconstruction is not a destructive activity but an inquiry into the foundation’s causes of intellectual systems.

➡️ Video : 2  

1. The influence of Heidegger on Derrida 

2.  Derridian rethinking on the foundation of wester

In this video the points taken from the seeds of  Deconstruction sprouted from Martin  Heidegger (1889-1976). Heidegger with Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzche three important thinkers which derrida  acknowledges in his very famous essay “ structure, sign and play” in discourse of the human sciences. The ideas by these philosophers are in many ways continued by derrida. Heidegger and his philosophy deals with some very important themes which derrida continues in his own philosophy. The term ‘destruction’ in German translated as ‘deconstruction’ in French - is one of the many direct connections between Heidgger & Derrida. Heidegger wanted to destroy or dismantle the entire tradition of western philosophy by pursuing the question of being of beings. His famous book ‘Being and Time’ he says that he has taken the project of transforming the way westerners think. Heidegger says that it is language which speaks not man! Meaning is product of language. Man is  decentered from the language. Language displaces man from the center of philosophy so this was again continued by derrida.

➡️ Video : 3

1. How Derrida deconstructs the idea of arbitrariness? 

2. Metaphysics of presence 

The relationship between a word and its meaning is not natural but it's a conventional one! What connects a word with its meaning is the convention and the convention is always social. Derrida deconstructed this idea further by saying that “ the meaning of the word is nothing but the other word” Metaphysics of presence is a term that is taken from Heidegger. He points out that when we consider being of something often connects with its presence. This bias is one of the things which Heidegger is questioning. The presence is the present tense or proof of its existence which is in the language. Western philosophy is built on the differences, binary oppositions just like human language. There is no positive element in language, but only negative one!

“Presence of something can only be understood as absence of something else” when we see examples of good vs evil - Binary opposition: then evil is which lacks goodness and what is good is something which lacks evil. Here lack of something can be seen as inferior. 

➡️ Video: 4 

The relationship between a word and its meaning is not natural but it's a conventional one! What connects a word with its meaning is the convention and the convention is always social. Derrida deconstructed this idea further by saying that “ the meaning of the word is nothing but the other word” Metaphysics of presence is a term that is taken from Heidegger. He points out that when we consider being of something often connects with its presence. This bias is one of the things which Heidegger is questioning. The presence is the present tense or proof of its existence  which is in the  language. Western philosophy is built on the differences, binary oppositions just like human language. There is no positive element in language, but only negative one! 

“Presence of something can only be understood as absence of something else” when we see examples of good vs evil - Binary opposition: then evil is which lacks goodness and what is good is something which lacks evil. Here lack of something can be seen as inferior. 

1.Derridean concept of “DifferAnce” 

2. Infinite play of meaning 

3. diffreAnce = to differ & to defer the meaning 

DifferAnce does not have audible differences, thus it becomes difficult to understand. One word leads to another word and that word leads to yet another….and finally we never come out of the dictionary. There is no final meaning of any word. Saussurean sign is equal to signifier which signifies something ; but derridean sign is free play of signifiers, signifying nothing. 

➡️Video: 5 

structure , sign & play in the discourse of the human sciences 

“Language bears within itself the necessity of its own critique,” 

The essay ‘structure, sign & play’ is one of the most important documents of contemporary literary theory as it inaugurates what is known as post structuralism. Structuralism began as a criticism or attack on metaphysics on one hand and science on another science was the predominant way of getting knowledge. Structuralism began as a critique of the assumptions of the science as well as metaphysics. The center is, within the structure and outside it….the totality ‘has its center elsewhere.’ the center is not the center. Derrida pushes the destabilized notion of the center to the point of a ‘rupture’ in the history of thought on structurality. 

➡️Video: 6

The yale school - the hub of the practitioners of deconstruction in the literary theories 

The characteristics of the yale school of deconstruction 

During the 1970s, the Yale school has been the hub of the practitioners of deconstruction in literary theories. The four names 1. Paul de man (1919-1983) 

             2. J. Hillis Miller (1928)

             3.  Harold bloom (1930) 

             4. Geoffrey hartman (1929) 

These four people made deconstruction very popular. People consider them as a yale hermeneutic mafia. All four are different in their occupation and preoccupation with literary criticism but for the first time deconstruction became a school of literary criticism. Yale school is responsible for bringing deconstruction in literary criticism. They firstly look at literature as rhetorical or figurative construct. They showed that literature can create multiplicity of meaning by focusing on various figures of speech. 

Secondly, they question both the aesthetic as well as formalist approach to literature; and also question the historicist or sociologist the historicist or sociologist approach literature. 

➡️ Video : 7

How other critical school like new historicism, cultural materialism, feminism, marxism & postcolonial throries used deconstruction

Yale school was primarily preoccupied with rhetorical and figurative analysis of literary text and demonstrating that literary text has a multiple range of meanings. Postcolonial theories : fascinated by its ability to show that the texts or the discourse of the colonizers can be deconstructed from within the narratives. Feminist theories : interested because it deals with how to  subvert the binary between male and female - to subvert patriarchal discourse. 

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