Deconstruction as a Critical Theory

A school of philosophy that originated in France in the late 1960s, has had an enormous impact on Anglo-American criticism.
Differánce: Meaning does not reside in the sign. This difference is also the ultimate phenomenon in the universe. Everything can only be defined by its difference from other entities which means that there are no absolute identities..Nothing is itself by virtue of its being but owes its existence to its difference from other entities. Truth also exists by its difference from non-truth so that no ultimate truth can exist i.e. any truth exists only relationally, through differánce. Every concept refers to another by means of another and absolute meaning or identity is deferred infinitely in a chain or system of relationships. Signs or concepts keep within themselves the past element (because they differ from the past signs) but as they will also differ from the future signs, their meaning extends to the future. Consequently, meaning denotes absence rather than presence.

Derrida & Key Concepts

Erasure: In trying to understand Derrida’s work one of the most important concepts to grasp is the idea of “sous rature”, a term usually translated as under erasure. It means to write a word, cross it out, and then print both word and deletion. The idea is this: since the word is inaccurate, or, rather inadequate, it is crossed out, since it is necessary it remains legible. signifier-signified relationship: There is no one-to-one set of correspondences between them. In Saussure a sigh is seen as a unity, but in Derrida’s view word and thing or^ thought never in fact become one. Signifiers and signified are continually breaking apart and reattaching in new combinations, thus revealing the inadequacy of Saussure’s model, according to which the signifier and signified relate as if they were two sides of the same sheet of paper. If one answers a child’s question or consults a dictionary, one soon finds that one sign leads to another and so on, indefinitely. That means when we read a sign, meaning is not immediately clear to us. Actually signs refer to what is absent, so in a sense meanings are absent, too. One sign will always lead to another sign. For Derrida the sign cannot be taken as a homogeneous Unit bridging an origin (referent) and an end (meaning), as semiology, the study of signs, would have it. Meaning is never identical with itself; because a sign appears in different contexts it is never absolutely the same.

According to Eagleton: “Nothing is ever fully present in signs, it is an illusion for roe to believe that I can ever be fully present to you in what I say or write, because to use signs at all entails my meaning being always somehow dispersed, divided and never quite at one with itself. Not only my meaning, indeed, but I myself; since language is something I am made out of, rather than a convenient tool I use, the whole idea that I am a stable, unified entity must also be e fiction.” metaphysics of presence: Almost all philosophers rely on the assumption of an immediately available area of certainty. The origin and foundation of most philosophers’ theories is presence. But by denying presence, Derrida also rejects a single definable moment which is “now”. Phonocentrism-logocentrism: A priority has been given to speech over writing Derrida calls this phonocentrism. Saussure, Levi-Strauss, Jacobsen prescribe special emphasis to speech. Derrida tries to deconstruct the opposition between speech and writing. Writing has been considered as an appendage, a mere technique. logos: the word, the divine meaning, the self, presence of full self-consciousness. Saussure and Levi-Strauss assumed that they can spontaneously express themselves and that they can use language as if it were a transparent medium for an inner truth about their being. What this theory fails to see is that speaking could be just as much said to be a second form of writing as writing is said to be an inferior form of speaking. Western philosophy assumes that there is an essence, or truth which acts as the foundation of all our beliefs; hence there seems to be a disposition, a longing, or a ‘transcendental signifier’ which would correspond, to a secure stable transcendental signified’ (a logos) Examples of such signs are: Idea, matter, the world of spirit, God, etc. But according to Derrida such transcendental concepts are pure fiction. However there are certain signifieds or meanings attached to such signifiers as Authority, Freedom, order etc. Whenever we think of an origin we often want to go back to an even earlier starting point. These meanings are not always seen in terms of origin, they are often seen in terms of goals, other meanings are advancing, orientation towards a telos or end point -teleology-. Binary oppositions: Metaphysical thought depends on a foundation, a ground, first principle. First principles are often defined by what they exclude, by a sort of ‘binary opposition’ to other concepts. Signifier/signified, sensible/intelligible, speech/writing etc. Derrida’s importance is that he has suggested a method whereby we can subvert these oppositions and show that one term relies on and inheres within the other. There is always a longing for a centre, an authorizing pressure that spawns hierarchized oppositions. The superior term in these oppositions belongs to presence and the logos, the inferior serves to define its status and mark a fall. supplement: Culture functions as a supplement in two ways: it adds and it substitutes. Humanity developed from the state of nature to the state of culture so society is an addition to the original happy stage of nature. Culture as a supplement is potentially both detrimental and beneficial.
Derrida on Levi- Strauss
main charecteristics of structuralism
1) it shifts from the study of conscious linguistic phenomena to the study of their unconscious infrastructure
2) it does not treat terms as independent entities, taking instead as its basis of analysis the relations between terms;
3) it introduces the concept of system
4) it aims at discovering general laws.

In what way does Derrida criticize of structuralism?

Firstly, he doubts the possibility of general laws. Secondly, he questions the opposition of the subject and the object, upon which the possibility of objective descriptions rest. In his view the description of the object is contaminated by the patterns of the subject’s desire. Thirdly he questions the structure of binary oppositions. He invites us to undo the need for balanced equations, to see if each term in an opposition is not, after all, an accomplice of the other. Levi-Strauss is in search for invariant structures or formal universals which reflect the nature of human intelligence, writing is an instrument of oppression, means of colonizing the primitive mind. According to Derrida there is no pure ‘authenticity’ as Levi-Strauss imagines, the theme of lost innocence is a romantic illusion. Writing is a late cultural arrival for Levi-Strauss, a supplement to speech, an external instrument. Speech is endowed with all the metaphorical attributes of life and healthy vitality, writing with dark connotations of violence and death. For Levi-Strauss nature is identified with dawn of tribal awareness, expresses nostalgia for lost innocence.

Foucault

He is against any form of global theorizing. He wants to avoid totalizing forms of analysis and is critical of systematicity. Though his works lack a system, they still display an underlying coherence and this coherence stems from the fact that Foucault’s ideas are based on Nietzsche’s perception of history. Nietzsche wanted delegitimize the present by separating it from the past. Also Foucault breaks off the past and, by demonstrating the foreigness of the past, relativizes and undercuts the legitimacy of the present. Foucault rejects the Hegelian teleological model, in which one mode of production flows dialectically out of another . He favours Nietzsche’s presentation of difference. In this case you start with the present and go backward until you reach a time where a difference is present. Then you proceed forward again in order to trace the transformation, but you have to preserve the discontinuities as well as the connections. In Foucault historiography the gap between the past and the present is established through the principle of difference. The role of cause or explanation is reduced to minimum, he avoids all evolutionist conclusions. 1) traditional history inserts events into grand explanatory systems and linear processes 2) it celebrates great moments and individuals and seeks to document a point of origin. (Derrida also refuses the idea of a foundation or first principle} Whereas Foucault establishes the history of singular events and preserves their singularity, discredited and neglected events are important for him. According to Foucault there has been an insurrection of subjugated knowledges, of a whole set of knowledges located low down on the hierarchy, beneath the required level scientificity. Foucault often uses the term genealogy to refer to the union of erudite knowledge and local memories which allows us to establish a historical knowledge of struggles and to make use of this knowledge tactically today. Genealogies focus on local, discontinues, disqualified, illegitimate knowledges against the claims of a unitary body of theory which would filter, hierarchize and order them in the name of some true knowledge. It rejects the pursuit of the origin in favour of a conception of historical beginnings as lowly, complex and contingent. It attempts to reveal the multiplicity of factors behind an event and the fragility of historical forms. In this view of history, which Foucault’s writings exemplify, there can be no essences, no immobile forms of uninterrupted continuities structuring the past. His books are an answer to the question of how the human sciences are historically possible and what the consequences of their existence are. He studies the eighteenth century-the period in which the human sciences in their modern forms were constituted. Throughout his life Foucault was interested in that which reason excludes: madness, chance, discontinuity. In literature the voice of the “other” is allowed to speak whereas in scientific discourse the voice of the “other” is suppressed or marginalized, in order to highlight the voice of the establishment or the authority.

- Edited from reading notes of Critical Theory course; discontinuity might be possible.