question
Ayman Ghaibeh
I was hoping someone here can explain to me the idea behind
deconstructionisn <deconstructivism?>. A professor once labelled me
as such (I'm not sure which one he said exactly) and I've been trying
to figure out what he meant ever since. The answer he gave me is I
ought to read Michel Foucault. I've tried. I'm still trying. I don't
think I'll find an answer for a long time yet. Can someone help me?
-very confused
Tom Asquith
answer you as quickly and briefly as possible. Dec-m is a movement tied to
the late French Existentialists (Jacques Derrida, the late Michel Foucault,
even Paul de Man). Due to the development throughout intellectual history
towards the greater subjectification of knowledge with no reaching of
absolute certitude (as of yet), this movement turned to language instead
of the various realms of philosophical fields in which to perform their
research (an interesting precursor to the movement was Levi-Strauss, the
anthro who looked at structural linguistics as the base for his studies--but
I digress).
The simplest way to explain dec-m is to ask you what do you see when
you look at this document--a group of coherent arguments or just a bunch
of inkblotches on paper or bits of light on a glass surface. According to
Derrida et al., when we come to such collections of words, there is a
number of assumptions present. Do the words carry a meaning? Yes. Do the
sentences have a logical and coherent structure? Yes. Is the author trying
to make a point? Yes. Often do we really stop and ask ourselves such
questions? (A slight hint of the concept of "logocentrism" that Derrida
likes talking about.)
Perhaps the above was a bit of an oversimplification. But I hope you
the idea. Dec-ists have maintained that when we come to a document we
come with prior histories or biases in interpretting certain words--i.e. a
priori. If we start stripping away the various possible subjective
influences present when we have a document in front of us, often we find
very little remaining.
But how did you get labelled a dec-ist? Perhaps, you asked one
too many times--"Do we really know that the author of this passage is TRYING
TO SAY THIS!!??" ;)
On a more serious note, if you wish to do more follow-up reading,
try the chapter on Jacques Derrida in Iris Murdoch's "Metaphysics as a
Guide to Morals." Not only is it easier to swallow than let's say
Derrida's "De la grammatologie" but it is written by a good literary critic
(a field influenced by dec-ism) and she is also an excellent wordsmith.
Tom Asquith
"When an idea is wanting a word can be found to take its place"
--Johann W. von Goethe
David Longley
tasq...@ualberta.ca "Tom Asquith" writes:
> On a more serious note, if you wish to do more follow-up reading,
> try the chapter on Jacques Derrida in Iris Murdoch's "Metaphysics as a
> Guide to Morals." Not only is it easier to swallow than let's say
> Derrida's "De la grammatologie" but it is written by a good literary critic
> (a field influenced by dec-ism) and she is also an excellent wordsmith.
>
And if you *really* want the good stuff, read Husserl's 'Paris Lectures'
or 'The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology'. He
is the source of it all really. ironically, perhaps the most clear & concise
account of Husserl's contribution I have read (and as an undergraduate I
almost lived on it!), is Cassirer's summary to be found in J. Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research in the 1940s (I forget the date).
I recommend this, because it is only now creeping into the mainstream, most
of the material only becomming widely available to Anglo-American philosophy
in the 1970s. Dennett and Fodor have Husserilan threads to their work.
--
David Longley
Tom Asquith
Although Mr. Longley, I do not deny that there is an undeniable value to
reading Husserl, I feel that perhaps it is not the best way to go. True,
the root of the tree of deconstructionism lies to a certain extent in
the firm soil of phenomenology, but to suggest that one can understand
the deconstructionism, structuralism, post-structuralism, post-modernism
and any other name one would wish to throw at this/these analytic movement(s)
, by reading Husserl I feel is in error. It reminds me of a graduate student
who was once told to read Aristotle to learn Thomism. True, the pre-cursor
gives one insight into certain aspects of the thought processes that go
on behind the movement but does not really assist one in their quest to
truly understand. Hence, excuse the ramblings to come.
<Rambling mode on.>
Deconstructionism has as its influences Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty,
Dilthey (a key but ignored figure), Wittgenstein, Gadamer, Levi-Strauss,
Saussure(*), Jakobson(*), Foucault, de Man and Derrida. It has fed off a
number of these movements producing another area, which has had indeed
its own pockets of "micro-movements".
Think of the German hermeneutic schools--did they not try to use the texts as a
means of understanding the various human activities and institutions of
society. In France they just merely carried things further to produce
deconstructionism (i.e., as one rag went and put it--all the world's a text
let's fight it there).
This attack was the micro-movement of structuralism, and it held that the interactions and
relations between the elements in a structure was of greater importance than
an element and an item exterior. For some, the movement of deconstructionism
starts here with this structuralism.
Post-structuralism, deconstructionism propre, carried it still further--such
that contradictions were soon discovered--"self-refutations in the theses".
The aim here was to study the elements of a text in the ABSENCE of any
extra-textual points. A text's extra-textual reality is now redundant in the
light even to the point that the author of the text's motives in writing said
text are also redundant. What does this mean then? Could not the reader
himself/herself be considered as extra-textual reality? I'll let you decide
this for yourself.
Lastly, I feel that I ought to justify my choice of Iris Murdoch's book as
recommended reading. The chapter in the book is a GOOD START, and allows one to
get a taste of deconstructionism (she is no slouch in philosophy) and also
is an excellent introduction into other realms of philosophy--phenomenology
included. <Rambling mode off.>
Tom Asquith.
"Philosophy is language idling." --Ludwig Wittgenstein