Deconstruction starts with an interrogation of a variety of contradictions and aporias in the discourse of philosophy. These are not contradictions and aporias proper, however, since the discourse of philosophy accommodates them without difficulty. In addition to these contradictions and aporias, which pertain to the formation of concepts and to the development of philosophical arguments, deconstruction addresses many other discursive and conceptual inequalities that have never before been questioned by philosophy. All these aporias, differences of levels, inequalities of developments, and disparities characteristic of the discourse of philosophy, yet which do not seem to disturb the logic of philosophy, also contribute to the establishment of that logic. All the gestures of philosophy - reflection and transcendentalization, all the themes of philosophy, but primarily those of subjectivity, transcendentality, freedom, origin, truth, presence, and the proper - are impossible without the differences and discrepancies that permeate philosophical texts. Yet these same disparities also limit the scope of these gestures and of the purity and coherence of the philosophical concepts or themes.
Deconstruction is an attempt to account for these various and essentially heterogenous aporias and discursive inequalities with what I have called infrastructures. These minimal structures are both the grounds of possibilities of the canonical philosophical gestures and themes and their ungrounds, that is, that which makes them impossible. These structures limit what they make possible by rendering its rigor and purity impossible. The infrastructures are the internal limit from which classical philosophical concepts and themes take their force and necessity. Deconstruction does not merely destroy metaphysical concepts; it shows how these concepts and themes draw their possibility from that which ultimately makes them impossible. The infrastructures achieve this double task.
Extending the requirement of philosophy that a ground must be different from what it grounds, deconstruction exhibits such an absolute other ground as “constitutive” of the canonical philosophical problems. As a solution of sorts to traditional philosophical problems, such as, for instance, the problem of how something absolute can possibly have a generating, engendering, or constituting function, deconstruction both conserves he immanence of philosophical argumentation and concept formation while simultaneously opening it up to that which structurally disorganizes it.... Deconstruction traces the inner limits of the project of a philosophy of philosophy. Yet without in the least trying to do away with philosophy, its style of argumentation, with the rigor of classical logic and without ever dreaming the empiricist - that is, the symmetrical - dream of a final impossibility of accounting and founding, deconstruction pursues the formulation of problems that, although apparently more easily accommodated by the discourse of literature and critical stylistics, are nonetheless not of that order. Deconstruction opens philosophy to its Others.
There are people for whom philosophy is not appropriate. That's OK. — Streetlight
Deconstruction starts with an interrogation of a variety of contradictions and aporias in the discourse of philosophy. These are not contradictions and aporias proper, however, since the discourse of philosophy accommodates them without difficulty
Thank you. That was neither clear nor informative. — Olivier5
Because if Derrida had wanted to refute Husserl or Saussure, then I don't think he'd have to develop deconstruction -- it would be straightforward, right? — Moliere
Thank you. That was neither clear nor informative.
— Olivier5
It was pretty accurate, from my limited POV. — igjugarjuk
Well, I guess it could be both unclear, uninformative and yet accurate. — Olivier5
Every sign, linguistic or nonlinguistic, spoken or written ...can be cited, put between quotation marks; thereby it can break with every given context, and engender infinitely new contexts in an absolutely nonsaturable fashion. This does not suppose that the mark is valid outside its context, but on the contrary that there are only contexts without any center of absolute anchoring. This citationality, duplication, or duplicity, this iterability of the mark is not an accident or anomaly, but is that (normal/abnormal) without which a mark could no longer even have a so-called “normal” functioning. What would a mark be that one could not cite? And whose origin could not be lost on the way?” — Derrida
This is content that needs time and aptitude. — Tom Storm
I don't quite get non-expressionist or non-subjective. Can a movement be alembicated to sterility? — ZzzoneiroCosm
Gasché is writing for insiders. But here's a decent expositor. — igjugarjuk
Deconstruction starts with an interrogation of a variety of contradictions and aporias in the discourse of philosophy [Deconstruction looks for contradictions and jumbles in philosophy].
These are not contradictions and aporias proper, however, since the discourse of philosophy accommodates them without difficulty [Philosophy, for it's part, doesn't really seem to care about these contradictions and jumbles].
In addition to these contradictions and aporias, which pertain to the formation of concepts and to the development of philosophical arguments, deconstruction addresses many other discursive and conceptual inequalities that have never before been questioned by philosophy [But apart from the contradictions and jumbles, there's a bunch of other stuff too that philosophy doesn't really deal with].
All these aporias, differences of levels, inequalities of developments, and disparities characteristic of the discourse of philosophy, yet which do not seem to disturb the logic of philosophy, also contribute to the establishment of that logic [Although philosophy doesn't really deal with them, they are nonetheless vital to the functioning of philosophy].
All the gestures of philosophy - reflection and transcendentalization, all the themes of philosophy, but primarily those of subjectivity, transcendentality, freedom, origin, truth, presence, and the proper - are impossible without the differences and discrepancies that permeate philosophical texts [In fact, all of the really important concepts in philosophy, like subjectivity, freedom, origins, truth and so on, depend on these contradictions and jumbles].
Yet these same disparities also limit the scope of these gestures and of the purity and coherence of the philosophical concepts or themes [But just as philosophy depends on those contradictions, and jumbles those contradictions and jumbles also limit what philosophy can do and lay claim to].
That sounds too rhetorical or poetic for my practical taste. I attach much importance to conceptual clarity. A good workman keeps a neat set of tools, and a philosopher's tool are his concepts. — Olivier5
That quote I do understand. And you have a talent for entertaining and pellucid explication. — Tom Storm
And that perhaps deconstruction deconstructing itself would actually be an affirmation? — Moliere
In computer science, bootstrapping is the technique for producing a self-compiling compiler — that is, a compiler (or assembler) written in the source programming language that it intends to compile. An initial core version of the compiler (the bootstrap compiler) is generated in a different language (which could be assembly language); successive expanded versions of the compiler are developed using this minimal subset of the language. The problem of compiling a self-compiling compiler has been called the chicken-or-egg problem in compiler design, and bootstrapping is a solution to this problem.[1][2]
We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction.[2]
wow, wiki. — Jackson
I'm passionately committed to elusiveness of meaning in such anti-practical contexts, but I feel like this motherfucker is as chill as possible. — igjugarjuk
Art is some zen state of being. The opposite of business. Almost a negative theology of the (purified) idea of art. Probably the Japanese philosophers of nothingness are relevant here. — igjugarjuk
I'm fine with poetry that helps relate to the essence of an issue, even with some rhetoric. In any case even a dry text seemingly avoiding any rhetorical effects... is itself using dryness for rhetorical effect!A clear writer minimizes the discomfort in interpretation. But clarity is not the only value. We also value a motivating dramatic context. We want to feel with the author. That emotional framing is not obviously secondary, unless we simply unphilosophically assume that philosophical truth is as cold a fact as a telephone number in a phone book. — igjugarjuk
Rightly or wrongly in aesthetic terms or our comfort, Derrida 'lives' his transcendence of various superstitions of philosophy (that it's only secondarily metaphorical or literary, that it's a solemn, serious business, ...) This is the main thing that pissed people off, IMO. Derrida is simply not an irrationalist. He's more serious about truth and reason than most people, just as Nietzsche was (hence his willingness to question the foundation of the philosophical project itself ( the idea of such a foundation?), perhaps the maximal philosophical gesture, its purity.)
The same people who love Wittgenstein (just as indulgent in his own way) reject Derrida, seemingly because Derrida is more of a jester than a holy ascetic.
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