Jacques Derrida: Section 1
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- Опубликовано: 28 ноя 2024
- Jacques Derrida, the French philosopher credited with launching the Deconstructionist movement, argues his theories in this program. Derrida begins with a frank discussion on the ethical problems of Deconstruction, especially in relation to human rights. He argues that Deconstruction is not a disillusion of the subject, it is first and foremost a historical or genealogical analysis of that subject and an attempt to focus on a universal translation of it. Derrida points out that Deconstruction is mainly an affirmation-and it goes further and changes the nature of the subject-and is neither "reconstruction" nor "destruction."
Yes, thank you so very much flame0430! This made my evening. After a master's in English, Derrida is still amazing me and giving me hope. It is too bad he is so badly misread by so many. This lecture is such a beautiful example of how humane and lovely even the most rigorous and scrutinizing people can be. Thanks so much!
This is the best interview of Derrida I've yet heard. His technical English is superb, and he's quite clear here (as he usually is in interviews).
Love this. Thanks for posting. I studied with JD back when his english was not great. Nice to see him handling himself so well.
flame0430, you are truly doing us all a great service. Thank you so much.
For someone who caused so much “controversy” with his ideas, he is nowhere near as obtuse as he was made out to be. Also, what he is saying reality isn’t that radical. All he is suggesting is that we pull shit apart and stop lobbing everything into black and white absolute categories.
Absolutely. The philosophy professors demonize him, because they feel threatened by him. Why I do not understand.
Well Jacques Derrida isn’t Jordan Peterson’s Derrida. In fact the so called French Theory really is an American Theory. It was indeed inspired by important French philosophers (Deleuze, Foucault, Derrida, etc.) but with a huge alteration of their teachings. It’s not to say that those thinkers can’t be criticized (as every philosopher should be), nor that this American-French Theory is entirely bad. But most of the time I see someone calling out a Derrida or a Foucault (Peterson), they really don’t know what the hell they are talking about and instead are attacking a ... well a very deconstructed version of their opinions.
Derrida's writing itself is pretty complex and very nuanced.
@@JMP4it yes but his idea should not be demonized
Excellent summation.
You are quite welcome, there are 4 total sections, the 2nd and 3rd are processing and the 4th will be up in a little while.
flame0430 11 years ay...
How about this gem from an interview Derrida gave at SUNY Stony Brook:
"If one examines constructive precultural theory, one is faced with a choice: either reject social realism or conclude that the collective is capable of significance. Thus, the subject is contextualised into a capitalist dematerialism that includes truth as a totality. The premise of social realism suggests that art serves to exploit the proletariat."
I don't want to go in circles, but does this make sense to you?
Without the context of the rest of the interview, excerpting like this isn't that helpful. But what Derrida is suggesting - and Zizek here would also agree - is that "social realism" is in part a collective act, i.e., that "truth" is not a given but rather constructed "within" the system. Derrida here seems to be responding to the claims and context of a particular kind of "social realism," by which I would read, at the very least, the "realist" doctrines of 20thC Marxism, particularly Stalinist realism, etc., but also Benjamin (see "Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproductibility"), whereby art was distrusted (seen as a distraction, allure, seduction-derivative forms of capitalist nontruth) unless it serves "the revolution," aka "social realism." Hence the gulags, the purges, of artists, poets (among others).... For Derrida, such distrust of art parallels the (Platonic) structures of metaphysics that would seek to exclude or delimit art (tekhne, poeisis) as secondary to a "pure truth" (social realism). So yes, even without seeing the rest of the interview - this makes good sense to me; but then I can see the rest of the context, mostly, without reading it, as I'm educated in this tradition (and Derrida).
I think he is all over the place here; but some fundamentals are not difficult to grasp from here:
1) Deconstruction is an operation over concepts:
2) Negatively, it is not a destruction, dissolution or cancellation of the legitimacy of these concepts.
3) First, it is a genealogical study which traces the historical becoming of a concept, i.e. understanding the assumptions and hidden presuppositions that underlie the appropriation of concepts.
4) In particular, the usage of the concept of subject, in philosophy, is one which traces back to Greek, Latin and German philosophy, but which is relatively foreign to English.
5) Understood thus within the philosophical tradition in which the concept is developed, it has an originary meaning in the Aristotelian concept of the hypokeimenon.
6) The hypokeimenon has the following characteristics: a) it is identical with itself, b) it is indivisible, it is the essence or 'ground' of a being (i.e. that which underlies its accidental properties).
7) Later developments of this concept are traced through the Cartesian cogito and Kant's transcendental subject. In the latter, the subject is a common structure to all individuals (I presume he means that all individual subjects have the same structure transcendentally, e.g. they operate via the syntheses of intuition and the understanding, through the categories expressing concepts in judgments, etc...)
8) Even in these later ideas, he implies that the assumptions behind the Aristotelian concept of the hypokeimenon remain supposed or operative in these new versions.
9) It follows that Kant and Descartes are taken to think of the subject as something identical to itself, undivided, and which constitutes the ground of being. He does not say how this is so, but following how I think he is understanding Kant (see point 7) it suggests the transcendental subject have all of these qualities.
10) If there is a concept of 'human rights', this concept must be somehow translatable to any and every language, since everyone must be able to understand them.
11) I think he wanted to draw some kind of connection between the idea that the subject is a common thing to all individuals, which is an idea present sine classical philosophy, and the idea that human rights treat individuals as sharing something in common, i.e. the subject of human rights has something that is, like philosophy has stipulated, universal in the sense that it applies to everyone.
Anyway, that's the basic line of this part.
Yes, the themes he's expounding on here seem similar to the spirit of his essay 'White Mythology', which might be the tightest, most 'traditionally argued' essay in his repertoire.
What a lot of the critique of Derrida below seems to have missed is that the upshot of this essay is that philosophy 'proper' is dependent on metaphor, and these metaphors have been transformed and split apart across time until we have a philosophy that doesn't seem quite as mystical as it once was - though it's in mythology that it finds its history and its metaphors. And he actually picks this argument up from a story by Anatole France, so its literary nature is fitting. Not to mention France's character's rebuttal, mentioned by Derrida in the essay: "I leave unconvinced. If only you had reasoned by the rules, I could have rebutted your arguments quite easily."
This is why Derrida would consider the philosophy/literature distinction to be blurred. Philosophy all too often forgets its rhetoric in favour of its logic, whereas Derrida wants to keep both in play and see how they play out with and against each other. This isn't an attack on logic or a rejection of it, but it's a recognition that philosophy is not and cannot be the purely logical science that some tried to present it as. In fact, it resembles Adorno's observation that the story of Enlightenment progress is a mythology in and of itself.
Rick Roderick also discusses this and other parts of Derrida's thought in a brilliant lecture you can find on RUclips. He's a West Texan who talks in layman's terms (I do think Derrida could have done a better job at that most of the time, though his roundtable interview published as Deconstruction In A Nutshell does it well), and his explanation of Derrida is a great intro to the field.
Michael Lisinski
but don't you think an approach to philosophy that favors 'common language' as opposed to formalism and logic denies itself of meaning?
How does one keep track of definitions in Derrida's philosophy? or if definitions aren't important then what substitutes their influence?
I'm new to deconstruction, but it seems more like a gimmick than a philosophy
***** I think you might be puzzled because you're trying to ground deconstruction within the long-standing forms and institutions of philosophy, while Derrida's work is meta-philosophical -- it questions the authority of those forms in the first place.
This is *not* to say, mind you, that Derrida opposes the institutions and thinks we should rid ourselves of them. He's interested in exploring the problems that philosophy faces as long as those institutions stick around. Hence the trouble over strict definition -- Derrida recognizes the need to define what one's talking about in order to communicate, but he doesn't think that reason to ignore the conceptual pitfalls around that approach, like the fact that everything you talk about will always have many subtle, ever-shifting meanings no matter how hard you try to pin it down.
If you read some (perhaps more) of Derrida's work ('Signature, Event, Context' is a good one), you'll find that he doesn't tend to set out a program of concepts. Many people who talk about his work try to do this to various degrees of effectiveness, but Derrida tends to make his points through his critiques of other philosophers' texts. Many points about language in Of Grammatology, for example, are rooted in the discourse around Ferdinand de Saussure because he uses Saussure and his ideas as a launching pad. The commentary on the texts supplants the need for free-standing concepts and definitions. An exception might be 'differance', though you can argue that this isn't really a concept because it doesn't refer to an idea, but more so illustrates the lack of stable meaning in an idea.
I guess the central difference of opinion might be this: if you believe that philosophy should adhere to the traditional conventions and basic concepts of its discourse, then you'll contend that deconstruction is not philosophy. If you believe there's room within philosophy for a self-reflexive and uncompromising questioning of its foundations, then deconstruction is the most rigorous candidate you can find.
Michael Lisinski Thanks, you certainly clarified a lot of my 'foundational' doubts (if you will indulge me). I'm gonna take a better look at his texts.
Thanks for taking the time to do so
***** Anytime! It's certainly very healthy to doubt as long as you aren't shutting your mind prematurely, and you seem to have a very open outlook.
I hope your reading rewards you!
i like how he went 'jargon free' then 'sugar free'
interesting
i didn't like him before this, thank you very much! he seems much friendly here
This interview is from the Channel 4's series *“Talking Liberties”* (part 1), recorded in 1992, featuring the host Jonathan Ree.
It was actually a part of the Oxford Amnesty Lecturers, 1992.
@@yusufayaz2356 Indeed. Jonathan Ree seized the occasion to set up the interview, right?
"The evil of writing comes from without. - Plato, Phaedrus (275a)" - referred to in "Of Grammatology". I don't have "Writing And Difference" to hand, but will have a look through it tomorrow.
@chazwyman : he's talking about Aristotle (which is part of the "trajectory of the concept" of subject) and not of his own notion! Please listen before shooting, ok?
Wonderful conversation with Derida !!
Meh.....all he said was to understand a text you need to read it carefully to fully understand it, is that right? Meh.......
There is an immense difference a) between deconstructing the subject and deconstructing 'the subject', and b) between the latter as a philosophical as opposed to everyday concept.
a conversation with a great philospher of our time!
Jonathan Re's introduction is rather misinformed. "Deconstruction is an approach to reading and listening, which rather than trying to uncover an author's essential argument or underlying intention, attends instead to the shifting and contradictory patterns that play on the surface of the text".
That simply isn't true. Derrida never disregards what the author is saying. What he does do is closely read the text to uncover the elements with the text itself (unexamined assumptions, binary hierarchies, moments of self contradiction etc) that essentially undermine the author's own argument and demonstrate that the author's ideas are rooted within the metaphysics of presence. In other words: he shows where an author's text deconstructs itself.
If Re really doesn't understand deconstruction then he should read Derrida's deconstruction of Levi-Strauss in Of Grammatology. It's simply the best place to start.
Oh yes, it did; thanks for your comment.
The first few paragraphs under "The Battle of Proper Names" are straightforward enough. Page 108, paragraph starting "The Nambikwara..." introduces page after page of journalistic clarity.
interseting to listen to but incomprehensible to like it
@MisterSimnock : Derrida speaks here of “genealogy” (actually a Nietzschian/Foucaultian term), which, for many reasons, is not reducible to etymology. Among these reasons which are the fact that: (i) as he explicitly states, it is not intra-idiomatic; and (ii) it is not even intra-linguistic, in the sense that it deals with both discursive and non-discursive elements: “the trajectory of the concept”, as he puts it, is never merely dependent on the signifier, nor is it separable from it.
Although it is admittedly fledgling, my understanding of "deconstruction" is that it seeks to dispel the influence of logocentrism in philosophy and literature, and thus in writing which is a paramount medium of both; and this is because metaphysical ideations are produced by logocentrism, in that they have no objective correlatives in nature, or rather are not signifiers of actual phenomena, serving only to obscure the language-function and thus reality as it is communicatively exposed. For instance, deconstructive reasoning could prove to an open mind that religious ideas--such as the concept of "God," as it is known through writing--are language-constructions whose genealogies are metaphysically based. And thus discourse becomes a threat when it can become counterintuitive by interfering with genuine knowledge acquisition and its exposition. But then again this is only my *current* interpretation
@QuotidianPerfection Hi kitchenaut, Unfortunately, my computer eliminated the parenthetical mark that follows my second sentence above. Realistically, though, I am only mentioning that so I can ask you another question: who, in your opinion, is a better psychoanalyst, Lacan or Freud (or maybe both), and why? Take care. Best Wishes, QuotidianPerfection
@kitchenaut Hi kitchenaut, I just was curious to know whether or not you agree with Bahktin's theories. (I am specifically refering to Bahktin's conception of Carnival, or the "unofficial culture," when read in juxtaposition to Foucault's notion of "Discourse," or the "official culture." In my opinion, both theories are necessary: Foucault's theory is geared toward explaining cultural norms whereas Bahktin's model is meant to explain cultural abnormalities. Take care. Best Wishes, QP
@QuotidianPerfection Hi ItsOnlyHuman, I meant "manner," not "matter." I wish that RUclips had an Edit feature for posts. Take care. Best Wishes, QuotidianPerfection
I was expecting this to be impenetrable and abstruse but, unlike his written prose, perfectly lucid.
But I think that there is indeed an important difference you can level out, as everything is leveled out in the sublationist operation of the Notion, without getting the very different hermeneutic situation D is in contrast to Hegel
@ItsOnlyHuman not to forget about Quine. Quines attack on mentalistic meaning and Derrida's attack on the metaphysic of presence, appear quite similar to me
is it posible to have someone who has his lines written to interview Derrida?
Yes, the book is called Derrida & Education edited by Gert J.J. Biesta and Denise Egéa-Kuehne published by Routledge 2001
thank you very much for all those videos!
"Deconstruction of the Subject, if there is such a thing, which I doubt, can in no case amount to dissolution of the Subject."
I believe this has been the most wholly misunderstood idea Derrida ever conceived.
+John Sauls Agreed. I happened to look up "deconstruct" in the online version of Merriam-Webster today and found that the 4th definition given is "Destroy, demolish". I appreciate that language evolves but it seems pretty shabby to give false legitimacy to a definition that has arisen from ignorant & blatant misuse of the word.
+saxfreak01 As another philosopher once said, "Sometimes words have two meanings." Or in this case 4+.
It's not a misuse though. Take it literally de-construct. A concept like human rights has been constructed through various historical instantiations and derrida seems to want to highlight that.
Cole Heideman, I did not say it was a misuse. Now that you mention misuse, we must at least look at the way many sources have clamored to amplify "Deconstruction" as a tearing down of tradition. Otherwise, why not call the movement "Examination?"
To deconstruct is to dismantle a construct...with a view to constructing something else. In the word deconstruction the "construction" is more important than the "de", but many think the reverse is true. This is one of the most widely misunderstood things about Derrida's ideas.
So what was wrong with putting quotation marks after the first sentence and new quotation marks before the second quote?
"Your interpretation of the quoted material does not seem to me to be an elucidation of it". That's because you don't understand the issues at stake in Derrida, which is made clear in your two further replies to my post.
I will follow your lead Herr DocteurLariviere and take up Strauss on this shallow academic existentialism, which I also very much hear in Heidegger's ontologism, which does, however odious, contain a strand of fascism. But I of course take a more Jasperean approach to H's work, Jaspers being someone who actually knew H, rather than dogmatic one of the academic appropriation of H's work.
Derrida and Foucault should not be confused with the likes of Baudrillard and Lacan. They are analysts, and do not go so far to disregard logic or embrace anti-realist claptrap.
"that he means it is an artificial imitation?" It's not Derrida who considers writing to be an artificial imitation, it's the Western philosophical tradition that does so (as Derrida demonstrates time and time again via quotations from the the great texts of Western philosophy, etc).
Among other things, threatens to usurp the dominance of speech in human communication (don't forget we are going back to times when the written word was not commonplace), threatens the Logos, threatens presence, threatens "reason". Writing contaminates, perverts, etc. These are not Derrida's words or views, btw, but those of whom he quotes.
Something that undermines something is clearly a threat to the integrity of what it undermines. Hence Derrida uses "threat". Philosophy regards writing as a threat. Not an absurd claim - philosophers have plainly stated this view from Plato onward. Read Derrida on Plato (in "Writing and Difference" if memory serves) for excellent illustrations of this. "System" is perhaps ill-chosen (I don't know what he wrote in French) but the meaning is clear - philosophy defends itself against writing.
the difference between a philosopher and a mystic is that the mystic sees himself at one with the philosopher, but the philosopher sees himself as something separate
I didn't say it's equivalent to political correctness. I said the word was used the same way in both sentences. For "political correctness" insert, as I said elsewhere, the conventions and orthodoxies of the Western philosophical tradition. AND its concepts (the ramifications of which are too complex to go into here - that's why Derrida wrote 40+ books).
I got his book, "Marges of the philosophy". Great book!
The conventions and orthodoxies of the Western philosophical tradition "forbids". Derrida tends to use "metaphysics" in instances where he believes philosophy is dealing with metaphysical issues (which tends to be what interests him - rather than ethics, say). "Historical appurtenance" -
the historical prejudice against/subordination of the written text by philosophy. "not a straight line" - complex, for complex reasons, not linear in other words. It's a metaphor.
@ItsOnlyHuman I'm not trained in anything but it seems to me that Wittgenstein's, Heidegger's, and Derrida's philosophies can be combined to create a sort of cohesive picture behind their individual versions. They seem, when they aren't diverging from their main paths of thought, to be getting at the same, always unexpressed point. They suggest more than they're actually saying. Heidegger drops the most hints, Wittgenstein is sparse and abstract about it, and Derrida circles around it all day
@ItsOnlyHuman Wittgenstein said that there are rules to language though, and that language is indeed a public matter.
Does not Derrida deny this?
The thing is, Philosophy does not have the same internal structure of many other sciences making them prone to simplifications which - however incomplete - still has way of getting ideas across to a non-specialized audience. To make a similar crude example: I need not know how cars, laserpointers or electricity works in order to utilize them. There is a certain pragmatic aspect inherrent to much science. We must, however, be vary of how far this way of thinking extends.(...)
Does anyone here know the DATE of this talk?
Brilliant lecture!
"Metaphysics has constituted an exemplary system of defense against the threat of writing... We know that the metaphor that would describe the genealogy of a text correctly is still forbidden. In its syntax and its lexicon, in its spacing, by its punctuation, its lacunae, its margins, the historical appurtenance of a text is never a straight line."
Are you seriously telling me that any of that is "completely straightforward" or even sensible? What do YOU think he's trying to say?
I liked the part where he set down some papers & everyone clapped.
@ItsOnlyHuman Hi itsOnlyHuman, I agree with your commentary. I would like to add, though, that some of the modern Deconstructionists, such as J. Hillis Miller, treat Derrida's complex critical instrument in an utterly reductive matter. Derrida's concept of "deconstructing a subject" involves the explication of the tiers of a given concept "built" up over "history" in a "geneological" fashion. Unfortunately, Miller has reduced Derrida's study to linguistic parasitism. Take care. Best, QP
@mikelheron20 I think speaking in a foreign language has both calmed and clarified Derrida. I'm almost surprised to see him humbled, in the sense that he isn't being quite as prickly as he often is (see his American Attitude video for a good laugh).
Nope. There are dozens of exact quotes from every major philosopher from Plato to Husserl, Heidegger et al that SPECIFICALLY rail against writing. There are very good reasons why they do this, as Derrida points out. And by "good" I do not mean "noble". I mean "good" in that it suits their purpose.
Read the part of "Of Grammatology" where Derrida actually deconstructs Levi-Strauss' "Tristes Tropiques" (page 107-140). It's beautiful and it's brilliantly written. You might start to "get" it.
Appurtenance - "something subordinate to another, more important thing; adjunct; accessory". (dictionary . com). Which in this case results from a deep-seated prejudice. If I can't use words other than those in question then we're stuck with the original words, which you claim not to be able to understand.
or you can criticise his work without dismissing it out of hand just because you don't understand it immediately, like habermas for instance.
he says right off.. they told me you cant ask questions, and that is that start if the violation of human rights... and they just applause, rather than intervene...he puts it in their hans to shift that, or not... as smart as he is, actually rather sad, glad for the greek philosophy nowadays
I don't want to get into the merits of what you assert that Derrida asserts, unless you can establish that he IS actually saying what you say he's saying (or indeed, whether he's saying anything at all).
But I just think it's facially absurd that philosophers are antagonistic toward "writing." From my recollection, his "evidence" is not anything Plato stated explicitly, but inferences made by reading motives into Plato, which Plato seems not to have intended.
@MisterSimnock
No it snot etymology but the study of the accretion of assumptions , not the basic underlying historical definition.
Etymology traced the roots, Derrida is interested in the tree and its branches
Boy, he was a sharp one. Huh..
@MisterSimnock : Still, deconstruction is not equal to genealogy, since it also regards non-historical and non-ontological factors, in what Derrida usually names the "affirmation of the alterity of the other" (which is not, of course, an other subject or even an other thing).
well yeah maybe it was a bad example, because the sciences are predominately involved in an unreflective enumeration of what things there are, as opposed to a more fundamental critique of discourse. The same is true of analytic philosophy en masse, which explains why Searle and co have such trouble with Derrida.
Yeah, I get that he thinks there's some sort of conspiracy against writing, which I think is a bit absurd, but even if it's the case, it's the "the metaphor that would describe the genealogy of a text correctly," which is "still forbidden."
You can't possibly think he means that it's (equivalent to) political incorrectness to state the metaphor that "correctly" describes the "genealogy" of a text. So in the same way it's forbidden to say, "nigger," you can't state the "correct" metaphor? What?
I really don't think I am splitting hairs. You're claiming that Derrida meant X, when X is not entirely consistent with what's written. And no, I don't think you need context to explain it.
If I say, "Plinks are a kind of plonk," then even without explaining any background about "plinks" and "plonks," it's entirely sensible that the claim is that there is a category called "plonk," of which "plinks" are one particular variety.
Also, by the by, I'd say that Nietzsche and Husserl are somewhat less despised than Foucault, if you're looking for possible "bridge" philosophers.
I dont understand how people "misinterpret" thinkers from heraclitus to derrida to Budda to heidegger so poorly....fuck me. My dog understands more better
'More better?'
+Halil Mutlu deconstruction.
4gelassenheit so you're way of interpreting is the correct way? We can go on and on. Whether his idea has been vilified or not. I suppose you can say the same about Marx, it depends on how you interpret them. But as we see, when the person who, I guess you could say, is the most capable of implementing that idea, is in power: The plan NEVER goes as promised. Now we argue.
@frogbuster20
How do you mean?
By minute seven (no more time for the remaining time given it promises to be useless) one has not heard a single phrase of the kind "deconstruction is" followed by some definitional element(s), so that one could see the world in a different way or disagree. Only metacommentary. This is not a general comment on the validity of the word/the thinker, but it makes one think...
I'm not Searle or Chomsky. I don't exclude Foucault from the rabble of postmodernist drivel. I mean, even if I grant you that postmodernists are trying to get at some sort of subjective interpretation of subject X, which BTW conflicts with what many CLAIM to be doing, then the value of it remains utterly opaque to me.
You seem to agree that it is at least bad poetry if it is poetry at all. And if it is supposed to contribute to the understanding of a topic, it does worse than the competition.
Well argued.
@wingedstatue That's a tired argument, that deconstruction has corrupted the hermeneutics of literary studies. The premise upon which that assertion is made is filled with numerous logical fallacies.
@qwer4o don't be afraid of losing your values. think with no restrictions.
But "appurtenance" doesn't mean prejudice. And how do you get "it's complex," from the phrase, "not a straight line"? And complexity and linearity are not opposites. I mean, the opposite of linearity is nonlinearity -- e.g., curves. So is he saying that the "historical appurtenances" of a text are curved? Okay, it's a metaphor, fine, so is he saying that it's metaphorically curved? I still don't get how you get from what he wrote to what you think he means.
You seem to have picked up a cliched view of Derrida as some sort of postmodern enfant teriible. It's actually debatable whether Derrida is really a postmodernist at all. You need to acquaint yourself with Saussure's concept of the linguistic sign and then see how Derrida introduced into that the idea that meaning is deferred in time and is not just a product of Saussurian "difference". This is the idea of "differance" and you cannot understand Derrida without getting to grips with this idea.
"defense against the THREAT of writing," I've already explained that Derrida believes philosophy & metaphysics consider writing to be a threat to the so-called "living presence" of speech. He is simply stating that belief in the quote. Christ almighty! "System" is perhaps a little fanciful but is used to describe the concerted efforts of phil & meta to discredit and rail against writing (which he has demonstrated over & over again with quotations from Plato onwards).
the only thing he said of modest interest is that the word 'deconstruction' is ugly....
I'm saying that the word "forbids" functions the same way in both sentences. That's all.
I agree about "inhabiting a text on its own terms," provided it's trying to say something. As I've indicated, I'm doubtful that postmodern texts are. It's just empty posturing with made-up words.
Also, I don't know why you think "poetry" is a pejorative term. If it's poetry, then that's fine. The problem then is not that it is poetry, but that it's bad poetry. But postmodernists SEEM to at least feint at asserting something about society, politics, sexuality, or whatever.
Yeah, okay, there may be translation issues. But "system" in French is simply "système," and is more-or-less synonymous with the English word.
Undermining and threatening are not the same at all. If something undermining another thing is therefore a threat to the thing, then what is it "threatening"? To undermine it again? To undermine it more? I don't get it. A threat to something presumably threatens TO undermine it in some way. If it undermines it, it's no longer threatening...
It is interesting how squeamish Derrida appears here, rather than affirming over against the questioner that the deconstruction of the subject, just as the death of God, is something that has already happened-"we are the ones who have killed God"-he waters himself down!
"Of Grammatology" is completely straightforward. There's nothing remotely difficult about it. Are you seriously saying that you could not understand the sections on Levi-Strauss or Rousseau? Are you kidding?
I'm pretty sure Plato never "railed against" writing. I'd be interested if you could cite where. Husserl and Heidegger, maybe. I wouldn't know. I regard them as being largely as nonsensical as Derrida.
So I read the page 107, and I doubt it's worth going through the next 32 pages. I can't make sense of a single sentence in there.
Continental philosophy was all I cared about in graduate school. Now I see in it a displaced religiosity my agnosticism finds impossible to countenance. They all seem unable to get away from a need for an unmoved mover or uncaused cause to explain the existence of the world & end up resorting to "Being-as-such" "Absolute Being" "genius" "superman" or "poet" to stop their reductio ad absurdum. Note the way the genius Derrida is here trotted out w a holy reverence akin to that of a Pope.
interesting to read the comments here.
however they seem compartmentalized into literary theoreticians, deconstructionists, and mathematicians.
to me this seems like the american way. and its pointless. I consider myself a philosopher simply bc I have read everything between plato and heidegger. eveything inbetween. and to me it seems impossible to attend universities and still have the time to read these things properly. it requires some sort of economical advantage to do whatever u want with ur time. to digest things 'unconsciously'. and it requires civilization. maybe some ppl in france were so lucky as to have civilization in the fifities and so on but today with the civilizatory climate its impossible to have anything worthwhile to say if ur enmeshed in middle class society lifestyle. there are certain things that cant be explained by the above compartmentalized way of thinking: schizophrenia, love, sex, and artistic experience. these things require a way of being which is forbidden to those enmeshed in the system today. and without access to these experiences/feelings any hold on theory is barred. with the exception of certain respected ppl like derrida/delueze most newer philosophers sound like the way schizophrenics talk and 'think'. u find immaturity and teenage-like ways of thinking in their 'works'. even an earlier example like ponty becomes ridiculous to any civilized lacanian when in the chapter on sex he talks about 'refusal of orgasm' and such like things in the naive way philosophers breach these topics (more naive than for example aquinas whose views were realistic in comparison). I've known many retarded good mathematicians but very few if any retarded good poets if I shall subscribe to one commentator here advocating analytic school and his distinction between good and bad ones. sure, newer writers are then bad poets. this doesnt help the mathematicians. if u dont get derrida or deleuze u havent read the things they have read. and americans who come to france and go home to write books like 'introduction to structural linguistics' or whatever are just these ppl. and I dont care if some of u are english. its the same. I dont know how these two very dignified philosphers have birthed such monster-disciples in the english speaking west. to me at least american mainstream culture makes more sense than its subculture even if theyr more honest in their pathetic despair than the academics in the us. reminds u of the pathetic smallnes of perspective that some decadent europeans have.
@Manwithcam agreed.
Okay. I'll bite. So what are those "stated goals"?
He’s so cool
It's a "threat"? From YOUR interpretation, it would seem to be "undermining" the living presence of speech, not "threatening" it. And a "system" is not simply a cooperative effort aimed at a common goal. Never mind whether such a concerted effort to "discredit" writing actually exists (an absurd claim, but let's charitably assume it's true), that's just not a "system" in any sense of the term.
Yeah, let's just nail this down. Rather than listing all the things that Derrida does and does not do, why not just state clearly what it is that Derrida does that disqualifies his work as poetry.
Also, "philosophy" has been considered a search for certain kinds of knowledge, usually of an abstract and general character. This definition extends from Socrates to the present day. "Playing with words" does not seem to qualify. So... you could explain how that fits with Derrida's work, too.
@analyticaa The issues the analytic tradition has with him are simple. 1. He has been very badly represented in Humanities departments by SOME staff members who have no formal training in philosophy. 2. Derrida is steeped in Husserl and Heidegger, as well as Saussure and Levi-Strauss...i.e. structuralism and phenomenology. These aren't familiar to the analytic/pragmatist tradition 3. His writing style performs his ideas like Hegel, Hei., Plato and as such is tough to grasp for Anglo-Americans.
I used ellipses because I'm limited to 500 characters. I pulled the quotes from the first page of the section you regard as "completely straightforward." There's nothing disingenuous or calculated about it.
Your interpretation of the quoted material does not seem to me to be an elucidation of it, so much as riffing on it. Like seeing butterflies in a Rorschach blot.
Never mind whether Western philosophy does what you say Derrida claims. Is that really what the text says there?
His "work" has been the subject of ridicule in innumerable books and articles. Of course, he had a response. Anyone who exposed the his flimflam tricks and intentional obscurantism, he would accuse of being part of the "establishment," and lambast for failing to understand the profundity of his point.
In Derrida's world, you either eat up his crap, pretending to "understand" what is gibberish, rubbing your chin thoughtfully, or else you're part of the academic "establishment," and evil.
Western philosophy and "metaphysics" are hardly synonymous. What in the world does he mean by "forbidden"? Who forbids it? How can you infer from, "...the historical appurtenance of a text is never a straight line," that he means it is an artificial imitation? What does that have to do with being a "straight line"?
I'm not asking about the ideas he's expressing/asserting (which requires background information). I just want to know what the sentences mean, and how you get that.
1) Simple. Derrida's point is that Western philosophy has gone out of its way to marginalise the written word as both inferior to, and a threat to, speech. Philosophy does this for a reason, which I can elaborate on if you wish.
Your "..." disingenuously removes half a page. Derrida is elaborating on his theme - writing is considered an artificial (partly due to spacing, punctuation etc) imitation of the spoken word because philosophy/metaphysics must view it in this way if it is to....
whatt?
fine!!!!!!!!!
look at little jacques and his uncharacteristic clarity.
how the world of literature has now fallen apart thanks Derrida
@IRBucephalus Bruce just go willies or th right purpose of denying!!!!
If you shit therefore you are.
But you can't even give this basic explanation (as in my "plink" and "plonk" example) of what these sentences mean. You claim Derrida is saying that the "Western philosophical tradition" claims that writing "threatens" something. Threatens WHAT?
He's not making descriptive claims, and he's playing with texts, but it's not poetry? Yeah, I get that he's saying that philosophy is a kind of writing, and that philosophical writing admits of multiple interpretations, and that there isn't a "right" interpretation. Why assume that this has "gone totally over my head"?
Who denies that philosophical writing is writing, with all the communication problems that ordinary discourse has?
You should explain WHY this stuff is different from poetry.
Take a seat, lobsters, this is some real shit.