Deconstruction by Derrida

Deconstruction by Derrida 

Name: 

Divya Parmar 

 Paper no:

204

Roll no:

5

Enrollment no:

4069206420210024

Email id:

divyaparmar07012@gmail.com

Batch:

2021-2023 (sem 3)

Submitted to: 

S. B. Gardi Department of English.

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University 

Introduction: 

Deconstruction theory, derived from the works of philosopher Jacques Derrida, is a theory of literary analysis that opposes the assumptions of structuralism. Its primary purpose is to discern the relationship between text and meaning. In performing this task, deconstruction theory is critical of the structuralist ideas of logocentrism and binary oppositions and instead seeks to understand the meaning as abstract and fluid. Deconstruction may be seen as a means to understand the relationship between text and meaning, institution and nature, dichotomies and the hierarchies created by language. It stands as a form of literary and philosophical analysis that has been derived from the works of the post-structuralist philosopher Jaques Derrida. His work asserts that meaning is not static and instead continually evolves and varies across time and space. 

Jacques Derrida: 

Jacques Derrida, (born July 15, 1930, El Biar, Algeria—died October 8, 2004, Paris, France), French philosopher whose critique of Western philosophy and analyses of the nature of language, writing, and meaning were highly controversial yet immensely influential in much of the intellectual world in the late 20th century.

Derrida was born to Sephardic Jewish parents in French-governed Algeria. Educated in the French tradition, he went to France in 1949, studied at the elite École Normale Supérieure (ENS), and taught philosophy at the Sorbonne (1960–64), the ENS (1964–84), and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (1984–99), all in Paris. From the 1960s he published numerous books and essays on an immense range of topics and taught and lectured throughout the world, including at Yale University and the University of California, Irvine, obtaining an international celebrity comparable only to that of Jean-Paul Sartre a generation earlier. 

Derrida is most celebrated as the principal exponent of deconstruction, a term he coined for the critical examination of the fundamental conceptual distinctions, or “oppositions,” inherent in Western philosophy since the time of the ancient Greeks. These oppositions are characteristically “binary” and “hierarchical,” involving a pair of terms in which one member of the pair is assumed to be primary or fundamental, the other secondary or derivative. 

Examples include nature and culture, speech and writing, mind and body, presence and absence, inside and outside, literal and metaphorical, intelligible and sensible, and form and meaning, among many others. To “deconstruct” an opposition is to explore the tensions and contradictions between the hierarchical ordering assumed or asserted in the text and other aspects of the text’s meaning, especially those that are indirect or implicit. Such an analysis shows that the opposition is not natural or necessary but a product, or “construction,” of the text itself. 

Deconstruction: 

"A philosophical or critical method which asserts that meanings, metaphysical constructs, and hierarchical oppositions (as between key terms in a philosophical or literary work) are always rendered unstable by their dependence on ultimately arbitrary signifiers" 

( Merriam-webster) 

Explanation of word 'Deconstruction' 

Deconstruction doesn't actually mean "demolition;" instead it means "breaking down" or analyzing something (especially the words in a work of fiction or nonfiction) to discover its true significance, which is supposedly almost never exactly what the author intended. A feminist may deconstruct an old novel to show how even an innocent-seeming story somehow depends on the oppression of women. A new western may deconstruct the myths of the old West and show lawmen as vicious and criminals as flawed but decent. Table manners, The Sound of Music, and cosmetics ads have all been the subjects of deconstructionist analysis. Of course, not everyone agrees with deconstructionist interpretations, and some people reject the whole idea of deconstruction, but most of us have run into it by now even if we didn't realize it. 

deconstruction is concerned not with the discovery of ‘truth’ or of distilling correct conclusions, but rather with the process of questioning itself. It is a process characterized by uncertainty and indeterminacy. For this reason, Derrida explains, deconstruction is not a ‘method’, and it cannot be transformed into one.10 One cannot ‘apply’ deconstruction to test a hypothesis or to support an argument. Rather it is an ongoing process of interrogation concerned with the structure of meaning itself. As explained in ‘Letter to a Japanese Friend’, for Derrida deconstruction is neither analysis nor critique. It is not done with a particular aim. It is not a search for a ‘simple element’ or ‘indissoluble origin’. The consequence of this is that its value is not linked to any subsequent reconstruction. As discussed above, it does not exist to take apart one structure to replace it with another, but exists simply to reveal the inner logic of that structure so as to better understand it. This has led to the charge that deconstruction is insufficiently concerned with questions of justice and ethics.

deconstruction is not an act or an operation. Rather, it is something that happens, something that takes place. It takes place everywhere. It does not require deliberation or consciousness, but rather its potential exists within our structures of meaning. It is interested in exploring and revealing the internal logic of ideas and meaning. It is concerned with opening up these structures and revealing the way in which our understanding of foundational concepts is constructed. This is internal to meaning itself and not dependent on external factors. What this suggests is that the possibility of deconstruction exists within the structure of meaning itself, within the structure of differánce, and is not something to be found and applied from the outside. It is primarily concerned with understanding ideas, not with their application. 

Deconstruction does not aim to provide answers. It does not seek to prove an objective truth or to support any one particular claim to justice over another. For this reason deconstruction itself is indeterminate. In Force of Law Derrida concedes that deconstruction is ‘impossible’. The ‘happening’ of deconstruction is not going to lead to a determinate outcome. It will not reveal the one true meaning of justice that can be embodied in law. Rather, deconstruction requires first and foremost the relentless pursuit of the impossible.  

What is ‘happening’ is not the pursuit of an answer which marks the end of the inquiry, but rather the ongoing questioning that keeps our minds open to the idea that there may be alternative views and understandings of the meaning of justice. When seen in these terms, it is not a method but simply a way of reading, writing, thinking and acting. Rather than seeking an endpoint or a solid conclusion, the means cannot be distinguished from the end. The ongoing process of questioning is the end in itself. It is about negotiating the impossible and the undecidable and, in so doing, remaining open to the possibility of justice. 

Deconstruction in philosophy: 

The oppositions challenged by deconstruction, which have been inherent in Western philosophy since the time of the ancient Greeks, are characteristically “binary” and “hierarchical,” involving a pair of terms in which one member of the pair is assumed to be primary or fundamental, the other secondary or derivative. Examples include nature and culture, speech and writing, mind and body, presence and absence, inside and outside, literal and metaphorical, intelligible and sensible, and form and meaning, among many others. To “deconstruct” an opposition is to explore the tensions and contradictions between the hierarchical ordering assumed (and sometimes explicitly asserted) in the text and other aspects of the text’s meaning, especially those that are indirect or implicit or that rely on figurative or performative uses of language. Through this analysis, the opposition is shown to be a product, or “construction,” of the text rather than something given independently of it. 

In the writings of the French Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for example, society and culture are described as corrupting and oppressive forces that gradually develop out of an idyllic “state of nature” in which humans exist in self-sufficient and peaceful isolation from one another. For Rousseau, then, nature is prior to culture. Yet there is another sense in which culture is certainly prior to nature: the idea of nature is a product of culture, and what counts as “nature” or “natural” at any given historical moment will vary depending upon the culture of the time. What this fact shows is not that the terms of the nature/culture opposition should be inverted—that culture is really prior to nature—but rather that the relation between the terms is not one-sided and unidirectional, as Rousseau and others had assumed. The point of the deconstructive analysis is to restructure, or “displace,” the opposition, not simply to reverse it. 

Deconstruction in the social sciences and the arts : 

Deconstruction’s influence widened to include a variety of other disciplines. In psychoanalysis, deconstructive readings of texts by Sigmund Freud and others drew attention to the role of language in the formation of the psyche; showed how psychoanalytic case studies are shaped by the kinds of psychic mechanisms that they purport to analyze (thus, Freud’s writings are themselves organized by processes of repression, condensation, and displacement); and questioned the logocentric presuppositions of psychoanalytic theory.  

Some strands of feminist thinking engaged in a deconstruction of the opposition between “man” and “woman” and critiqued essentialist notions of gender and sexual identity. The work of Judith Butler, for example, challenged the claim that feminist politics requires a distinct identity for women. Arguing that identity is the product or result of action rather than the source of it, they embraced a performative concept of identity modeled on the way in which linguistic acts (such as promising) work to bring into being the entities (the promise) to which they refer. This perspective was influential in gay and lesbian studies, or “queer theory,” as the academic avant-garde linked to movements of gay liberation styled itself. 

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Image : 1 

Work Citation: 

Admin. “Jacques Derrida: Deconstruction.” Critical Legal Thinking, 14 Feb. 2021, https://criticallegalthinking.com/2016/05/27/jacques-derrida-deconstruction/. 

“Deconstruction Definition & Meaning.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deconstruction.

Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. (n.d.). Deconstruction. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved November 3, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/deconstruction  

Mambrol, Nasrullah. “Deconstruction Theory.” Literary Theory and Criticism, 9 June 2021, https://literariness.org/2019/03/03/deconstruction-theory/.