5.0 Objectives
5.1 The Problem of Defining Deconstruction
5.2 Background to Deconstruction
5.2.1 Derrida and Heidegger
Self-Check Questions for 5.2.1
5.2.2 Derrida and Ferdinand de Saussure
Self-Check Questions for 5.2.2
5.3 Difference
5.4 Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences
5.5 The Yale School of Deconstruction
5.6 The Influence of Deconstruction
5.8 Reading List
5.9 Glossary
Derrida combines two characteristics of the language mentioned above: the arbitrariness or the tendency to defer the ultimate and final meaning, and the systemic differentiality of language and coins a new term ‘différance’ – the tendency or the force of language to defer and differ that is intrinsic to language. The new term is a pun, and is possible in French as the word différer can mean either to differ or to defer, depending on context.
In his rigorous readings of classical western philosophical texts, Derrida overturns the binaries like ‘ nature’ and ‘ culture’ or ‘ speech’ and ‘writing’ to show that the whole idea that the first term is basic or central and the second term is derived or marginal -is actually illusionary and ‘metaphysical’. He demonstrates how the second term can also be considered ‘basic’ and ‘central’ to a philosophical system, and the philosophical text can be read to mean exactly the opposite of what it starts out to state. This results in ‘undecidability’ or ‘aporia’ regarding which reading or interpretation is the ‘true’ or ‘right’ one. He does this to demonstrate that any act of communication or significance is a function ‘differance’ rather than some stable entity outside of language.
The tendency in the western philosophy to repress or neglect writing- or as Derrida calls it ‘phonocentricism’ is a manifestation of ‘logocentricism’ of the western metaphysics- the tendency to privilege presence over absence, which is undone due to the force of ‘difference’ within the mechanism of language. Interestingly, what differentiates ‘différance’ and ‘difference’ is inaudible, and this means that distinguishing between them actually requires that they be written.
Derrida’s assertion that ‘deconstruction’ is not something that you do, but something which ‘happens’ to texts implies that it is the force of ‘differance’ which is the part of the system of thought that brings about the production and signification of binaries and their subversion and the resultant aporia, rather than a person, school or a historical period causing it.