A broader view of Derrida’s philosophy

As a clinical professor in the Graduate School of Education of the College of Professional Studies at Northeastern University, Harvey Shapiro teaches courses on sociopolitical contexts of education, and on the relationships among faith, ethics, and educational leadership.

One of the pillars in which Dr. Shapiro bases the foundations of his classes is Jacques Derrida’s philosophies.

Jacques Derrida was one to doubt Western philosophy, philosophical traditions, and culture. It was Derrida who tried to democratize and politicize the universities of the Western world through what he called deconstruction.

As Dr. Shapiro dissected Derrida’s own philosophies, Derrida himself delved into those of Plato, Rousseau, and Heidegger, often mentioning that Western philosophy has allowed metaphorical depth models to go unchecked especially in the creation of language and consciousness.

Derrida believed that Western philosophy has caged itself in a metaphysics of presence, which is to simply say a collection of assumptions that have not been acknowledged. He has also mentioned that the logocentrism that exists in Western culture has given birth to a hierarchy in people’s own beliefs on a broad scope that includes ideas such as speech’s relation to writing to how racial differences are perceived.

It was Derrida’s aim to deconstruct the bound Western philosophy.

Dr. Shapiro, in many of his classes, requires students to read into Jacques Derrida’s philosophy of deconstruction, not to dissuade students from Western philosophy as a whole, but to gain another set of lenses by which to read and understand the written text.

Harvey Shapiro, PhD, is a clinical professor at the Graduate School of Education of the College of Professional Studies at Northeastern University. His courses focus on sociopolitical contexts of education, and on the relationships among faith, ethics, and educational leadership. He is also a writer whose work that has appeared in a number of journals. Dr. Shapiro is also an author of a number of books. For more about him and his work, click here.