I don't need anyone to explain it to me because I know it very well. I just find it interesting that many who like to talk about deconstruction can't substantiate much of what they say. Very often it seems to me they simply make things up. Pretty cynical if you ask me. Skeptical, even. — Streetlight

I have seen many informed discussions about Derrida on this thread.

I'm a stickler. Again, just one quote from Derrida about his supposed skepticism would be nice.

I'm a stickler. Again, just one quote from Derrida about his supposed skepticism would be nice. — Streetlight

Yes.

I don't need anyone to explain it to me because I know it very well. I just find it interesting that many who like to talk about deconstruction can't substantiate much of what they say. Very often it seems to me they simply make things up. Pretty cynical if you ask me. Skeptical, even. — Streetlight

Can you explain in your own words what deconstruction theory is?

The preconditions of skepticism are that there has to be an objective or 'true' world to be skeptical of? — Tom Storm

Skepticism is skepticism towards knowledge. This is actually what we throw doubt at whenever we are skeptical about a claim.

Heh. It's a good role to play. One I'm appreciating, given where my understanding is at.

I have no quote on his skepticism. One of the reasons I've said he's the opposite of his cartoon is it always seemed like he cared a great deal about the philosophical project -- just in his own particular way that seemed hard to enunciate.

Skepticism is skepticism towards knowledge. This is actually what we throw doubt at whenever we are skeptical about a claim. — L'éléphant

Indeed, but it is not just knowledge; we are skeptical in relation to certain knowledge. But I guess a precondition of skepticism is a notion of practice or certainty which needs examination.

Sure. Deconstruction is a process of transcendental philosophy which aims to show, by immanent means, that the conditions of possibility of any identity, system, or claim, are, at one and the same time, the conditions of their impossibility. One of the upshots of this process is to instill an unceasing sense of responsibility upon those who engage or uphold said identities, systems, or claims. This includes truth, to which deconstruction holds us responsible to, denuding us of any ability to disavow such responsibility. It's quite in line with say, the Kantian emancipatory project which of course Derrida claims fidelity to.

Now, I'm still waiting on my textual evidence for the claim about skepticism.

It's quite in line with say, the Kantian emancipatory project which of course Derrida claims fidelity to. — Streetlight

Kant is a sceptic. The thing in itself is the structure of scepticism.

Kant is a sceptic — Jackson

Fake news.

Fake news. — Streetlight

Don't be rude.

Don't be rude. — Jackson

I'm sorry, I can try again.

Your claim is false and a lie.

You are the only one making personal attacks on this thread. I will not reply to another ad hominem attack.

Last I checked I was talking about what you said, not you. But perhaps as with Derrida, we can settle this the good old way: provide a quote which demonstrates Kant's commitment to skepticism.

Don't be rude.
— Jackson

I'm sorry, I can try again.

Your claim is false and a lie. — Streetlight

:snicker:

I still prefer Tristan Tzara's playful dada to vaporous "deconstuctionism". More a radical relativist than (philosophical) "skeptic", Derrida's 'rhetorical critiques' amount to nothing but 'neo-scholastic dada' – the sound of one finger soluting. :mask:

Tristan Tzara — 180 Proof

Tzara wrote some brilliant poetry. Playful at times but not so playful in Approximate Man:



the bells ring for no reason and we too
we walk to escape the multiplying ways
with a flask of scenery one illness only one
one single illness that we nurture death
I know I carry the tune in me and am not afraid
I carry death and if I die it is death
who will carry me in its imperceptible arms
subtle and light as the smell of thin grass
subtle and light as the parting for no reason
without bitterness without commitments without regret without
the bells ring for no reason and we too

...

the bells ring for no reason and we too
we will rejoice in the clank of chains
that we will sound within us with the bells

Always telling when a request for a substantiating quote is met with silence.

But I'm not sure I gather why I should "reject" deconstruction... it just seems a bit silly. — Moliere

I never read Derrida. May I ask, what's the difference between "deconstruction" and "analysis"?

May I ask, what's the difference between "deconstruction" and "analysis"? — Olivier5

"Deconstruction" doesn't actually analyze.

What does it do then?

What does it do then? — Olivier5

You've just got to see an example, if you really want to know. One my favorites is Derrida's reading of Saussure (in Of Grammatology). Saussure is himself quite a fascinating thinker, and, as I understand it, Derrida's version of the crucial concept of difference is an extension of Saussure's. And grasping Saussure tunes you into the structuralism that Derrida is building-on-and-attacking. Saussure is an easy read, while Derrida is not. Christopher Norris wrote two books that provide acceptable shortcuts (and it's nice to get a summarizing overview of such a prolific writer.) The second, Deconstruction : Theory and Practice, echoes my previous point.

If there is a single theme which draws together the otherwise disparate field of structuralist thought , it is the principle --first announced by Saussure-- that language is a differential network meaning. There is no self-evident or one-to-one link between 'signifier' and 'signified', the word as (spoken or written) vehicle and the concept it serves to evoke. Both are caught up in a play of distinctive features where differences in sound and sense are the only markers of meaning.
— Norris

This might be helpful as well.

Saussure states that "in language there are only differences without positive terms" (LT 88). Signifiers (sound images) and signifieds (concepts/meanings) are not fixed and universal and do not simply reflect or represent prior categories (the world/ideas/forms): language articulates or makes such categories and concepts possible. Because there is no necessary or inherent relation between words and objects, the relation between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary (e.g., similar meanings correspond in practice rather than in some natural or essential way to different words across languages or across time as words change). Yet because the sign's structure is arbitrary, it is subject both to history and to a synchronic study of its relational function within a signifying system (la langue) that is not arbitrary but conventional and socially constructed. To explain a signifying action (individual utterance, speech act, parole) is therefore to relate it to the underlying system of norms (conventions/practices) that makes it possible: hence, a structural rather than a strictly causal explanation (synchronic rather than diachronic/historical).

Saussure offers an analogy between language and chess: "The respective value of the pieces depends on their position on the chessboard just as each linguistic term derives its value from its opposition to all the other terms. . . . Language is a system of interdependent terms in which the value of each term results solely from the simultaneous presence of the others . . . .Signs function, then, not through their intrinsic value but through their relative position" (LT 82-86).
...
The supposed union of sound-image (signifier's abstract form) and its signified, however, may still suggest that signs mediate or represent a world of phenomena and ideas via a system of differences (language/discourse, though the production of meaning via such relational differences also suggests that language is prior to thought, and that we apprehend or determine reality via language). But if we think of the sign as the possibility of distinguishing signifier from signified, then the structure of the sign can be understood as an effect of difference or "différance" rather than as something stable and unified. "Language works--gains meaning . . . through opposition [and] identity is a function of difference" (Jane Tompkins 736). Linguistic values/meanings depend upon their relations to other terms within particular frameworks/contexts.

https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~sflores/saussure.html

A big theme/question here is how/whether language refers to the world. It's a tangent, but Brandom writes of a representer's/representing's responsibility to the represented. Referral involves a norm that governs claims and acting on such claims (still grokking this, but it feels like a lead.)

↪180 Proof What does it do then? — Olivier5

"Deconstruction" irrationalizes (i.e. fideistically accuses 'all discursive reasoning' of (transcendentally) being fideistic). :zip:

You may ask! However, there are others in the thread who'd do better than I -- and, in truth, the whole thread is basically asking this question :D What, after all, is deconstruction? Surely we should have read some Derrida before pondering this -- and I'll admit to simply feeling a little lazy -- but it would only be a pondering worth having if you've read something, I think. Else, you'd just repeat what I said.

This is good. Then I think I'm on the right track.

We all have our preferences -- surely you can see how there's more value to deconstruction than what the original article stated though, yes?

Thanks for all these. This is good stuff to work with. One of the problems I was having in thinking through what to quote is there was always these two layers of interpretation in quoting Derrida -- the text he's deconstructing, and his own moves with the text: but these are great bits for fusing those two nicely in a neat package.

We all have our preferences – — Moliere

– and what do "preferences" have to do with either 'what is the case' or 'what can be said/written intelligibly (about what is the case)'?

I was just responding to what you said -- you prefer Tristan Tzara.

I find Dada more insightful, intelligible and fun than derivative high-brow wankery like "differánce", so, yeah, I "prefer" what works to what refutes itself. If Derrida's your jam, bien pour vous! :up: