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105-482: Deconstruction is a philosophical theory. Deconstruction or Deconstructed may also refer to: Deconstruction In philosophy, deconstruction is a loosely-defined set of approaches to understanding the relationship between text and meaning . The concept of deconstruction was introduced by the philosopher Jacques Derrida , who described it as a turn away from Platonism 's ideas of "true" forms and essences which are valued above appearances. Since

210-436: A thesis , giving rise to its reaction; an antithesis , which contradicts or negates the thesis; and the tension between the two being resolved by means of a synthesis . Although, Hegel opposed these terms. By contrast, the terms abstract , negative , and concrete suggest a flaw or an incompleteness in any initial thesis. For Hegel, the concrete must always pass through the phase of the negative, that is, mediation. This

315-630: A "convenient organizing category". The philosopher of science and physicist Mario Bunge repeatedly criticized Hegelian and Marxian dialectics, calling them "fuzzy and remote from science" and a "disastrous legacy". He concluded: "The so-called laws of dialectics, such as formulated by Engels (1940, 1954) and Lenin (1947, 1981), are false insofar as they are intelligible." Poe Yu-ze Wan , reviewing Bunge's criticisms of dialectics, found Bunge's arguments to be important and sensible, but he thought that dialectics could still serve some heuristic purposes for scientists. Wan pointed out that scientists such as

420-399: A Japanese term contrary to deconstruction 's actual meaning, Derrida began his response by saying that such a question amounts to "what deconstruction is not, or rather ought not to be". Derrida states that deconstruction is not an analysis, a critique, or a method in the traditional sense that philosophy understands these terms. In these negative descriptions of deconstruction, Derrida

525-418: A concept must be understood in the context of its opposite: for example, the word being does not have meaning without contrast with the word nothing . Further, Derrida contends that "in a classical philosophical opposition we are not dealing with the peaceful coexistence of a vis-a-vis , but rather with a violent hierarchy. One of the two terms governs the other ( axiologically , logically, etc.), or has

630-413: A critique—then this would make the concept of critique immune to itself being deconstructed. Some new philosophy beyond deconstruction would then be required in order to encompass the notion of critique. Derrida states that "Deconstruction is not a method, and cannot be transformed into one". This is because deconstruction is not a mechanical operation. Derrida warns against considering deconstruction as

735-539: A developmental process and so does not naturally fit within classical logic . Nevertheless, some twentieth-century logicians have attempted to formalize it. There are a variety of meanings of dialectic or dialectics within Western philosophy . In classical philosophy , dialectic ( διαλεκτική ) is a form of reasoning based upon dialogue of arguments and counter-arguments, advocating propositions (theses) and counter-propositions ( antitheses ). The outcome of such

840-499: A dialectic might be the refutation of a relevant proposition, or a synthesis, a combination of the opposing assertions, or a qualitative improvement of the dialogue. The term "dialectic" owes much of its prestige to its role in the philosophies of Socrates and Plato , in the Greek Classical period (5th to 4th centuries BC). Aristotle said that it was the pre-Socratic philosopher Zeno of Elea who invented dialectic, of which

945-528: A dialectic that has the purpose of resolving it into a synthesis. The presence of Hegelian dialectics was enormous in the intellectual life of France during the second half of the 20th century, with the influence of Kojève and Hyppolite , but also with the impact of dialectics based on contradiction developed by Marxists , and including the existentialism of Sartre , etc. This explains Derrida's concern to always distinguish his procedure from Hegel's, since Hegelianism believes binary oppositions would produce

1050-408: A difference generally implies positive terms between which the difference is set up; but in language there are only differences without positive terms. Whether we take the signified or the signifier, language has neither ideas nor sounds that existed before the linguistic system, but only conceptual and phonic differences that have issued from the system. The idea or phonic substance that a sign contains

1155-477: A mechanical operation, when he states that "It is true that in certain circles (university or cultural, especially in the United States) the technical and methodological "metaphor" that seems necessarily attached to the very word 'deconstruction' has been able to seduce or lead astray". Commentator Richard Beardsworth explains that: Derrida is careful to avoid this term [method] because it carries connotations of

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1260-406: A number of signs, composed of a signified (the meaning) and a signifier (the word itself). Derrida proposed that signs always referred to other signs, existing only in relation to each other, and there was therefore no ultimate foundation or centre. This is the basis of différance . Hegelian dialectic Hegelianism refigured "dialectic" to no longer refer to a literal dialogue. Instead,

1365-490: A philosophy of dialectical materialism . These representations often contrasted dramatically and led to vigorous debate among different Marxist groups. The Hegelian dialectic describes changes in the forms of thought through their own internal contradictions into concrete forms that overcome previous oppositions . This dialectic is sometimes presented in a threefold manner, as first stated by Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus , as comprising three dialectical stages of development:

1470-618: A position, it is not the case that deconstruction holds this as a sort of 'preference' ". [Deconstruction] signifies a project of critical thought whose task is to locate and 'take apart' those concepts which serve as the axioms or rules for a period of thought, those concepts which command the unfolding of an entire epoch of metaphysics. 'Deconstruction' is somewhat less negative than the Heideggerian or Nietzschean terms 'destruction' or 'reversal'; it suggests that certain foundational concepts of metaphysics will never be entirely eliminated...There

1575-504: A prejudicial procedure that only finds what it sets out to find. Derrida states that deconstruction is not a critique in the Kantian sense. This is because Kant defines the term critique as the opposite of dogmatism . For Derrida, it is not possible to escape the dogmatic baggage of the language used in order to perform a pure critique in the Kantian sense. Language is dogmatic because it

1680-444: A procedural form of judgement. A thinker with a method has already decided how to proceed, is unable to give him or herself up to the matter of thought in hand, is a functionary of the criteria which structure his or her conceptual gestures. For Derrida [...] this is irresponsibility itself. Thus, to talk of a method in relation to deconstruction, especially regarding its ethico-political implications, would appear to go directly against

1785-438: A process would never end. Derrida describes the task of deconstruction as the identification of metaphysics of presence, or logocentrism in western philosophy. Metaphysics of presence is the desire for immediate access to meaning, the privileging of presence over absence. This means that there is an assumed bias in certain binary oppositions where one side is placed in a position over another, such as good over bad, speech over

1890-494: A series of political moves, that is, a manifestation of the will to power , that at bottom have no greater or lesser claim to truth in any noumenal (absolute) sense. By calling attention to the fact that he has assumed the role of a subterranean Trophonius, in dialectical opposition to Plato, Nietzsche hopes to sensitize readers to the political and cultural context, and the political influences that impact authorship. Where Nietzsche did not achieve deconstruction, as Derrida sees it,

1995-466: A short article entitled "Some Critical Thoughts on 'Functional Specialties in Theology'" where he stated: "Lonergan's theological methodology seems to me to be so generic that it really fits every science , and hence is not the methodology of theology as such, but only a very general methodology of science." Friedrich Nietzsche viewed dialectic as a method that imposes artificial boundaries and suppresses

2100-733: A synthesis, while Derrida saw binary oppositions as incapable of collapsing into a synthesis free from the original contradiction. There have been problems defining deconstruction. Derrida claimed that all of his essays were attempts to define what deconstruction is, and that deconstruction is necessarily complicated and difficult to explain since it actively criticises the very language needed to explain it. Derrida has been more forthcoming with negative ( apophatic ) than with positive descriptions of deconstruction. When asked by Toshihiko Izutsu some preliminary considerations on how to translate deconstruction in Japanese, in order to at least prevent using

2205-536: A system is a lack of integrity". In the same book, Nietzsche criticized Socrates' dialectics because he believed it prioritized reason over instinct, resulting in the suppression of individual passions and the imposition of an artificial morality. Karl Popper attacked the dialectic repeatedly. In 1937, he wrote and delivered a paper entitled "What Is Dialectic?" in which he criticized the dialectics of Hegel, Marx, and Engels for their willingness "to put up with contradictions". He argued that accepting contradiction as

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2310-530: A term under erasure means that even though these terms are problematic, they must be used until they can be effectively reformulated or replaced. The relevance of the tradition of negative theology to Derrida's preference for negative descriptions of deconstruction is the notion that a positive description of deconstruction would over-determine the idea of deconstruction and would close off the openness that Derrida wishes to preserve for deconstruction. If Derrida were to positively define deconstruction—as, for example,

2415-484: A third term or leaving room for a solution in the form of a Hegelian dialectic (e.g., différance , archi-writing , pharmakon , supplement, hymen, gram, spacing). Derrida's theories on deconstruction were themselves influenced by the work of linguists such as Ferdinand de Saussure (whose writings on semiotics also became a cornerstone of structuralism in the mid-20th century) and literary theorists such as Roland Barthes (whose works were an investigation of

2520-463: A valid form of logic would lead to the principle of explosion and thus trivialism . Popper concluded the essay with these words: "The whole development of dialectic should be a warning against the dangers inherent in philosophical system-building. It should remind us that philosophy should not be made a basis for any sort of scientific system and that philosophers should be much more modest in their claims. One task which they can fulfill quite usefully

2625-428: Is a dynamic process that results in something new: For the sake of greater precision, let us say that a dialectic is a concrete unfolding of linked but opposed principles of change. Thus there will be a dialectic if (1) there is an aggregate of events of a determinate character, (2) the events may be traced to either or both of two principles, (3) the principles are opposed yet bound together, and (4) they are modified by

2730-568: Is acceptable, then there must exist at least one thing that is both pious and impious (as it is both loved and hated by the gods)—which Euthyphro admits is absurd. Thus, Euthyphro is brought to a realization by this dialectical method that his definition of piety is not sufficiently meaningful. In another example, in Plato's Gorgias , dialectic occurs between Socrates, the Sophist Gorgias, and two men, Polus and Callicles. Because Socrates' ultimate goal

2835-443: Is an approach that may be deployed in philosophy, in literary analysis , and even in the analysis of scientific writings. Deconstruction generally tries to demonstrate that any text is not a discrete whole but contains several irreconcilable and contradictory meanings; that any text therefore has more than one interpretation; that the text itself links these interpretations inextricably; that the incompatibility of these interpretations

2940-722: Is an approach to theology in Protestantism that was developed in the aftermath of the First World War (1914–1918). It is characterized as a reaction against doctrines of 19th-century liberal theology and a more positive reevaluation of the teachings of the Reformation , much of which had been in decline (especially in western Europe) since the late 18th century . It is primarily associated with two Swiss professors and pastors, Karl Barth (1886–1968) and Emil Brunner (1899–1966), even though Barth himself expressed his unease in

3045-427: Is because the possibility of analysis is predicated on the possibility of breaking up the text being analysed into elemental component parts. Derrida argues that there are no self-sufficient units of meaning in a text, because individual words or sentences in a text can only be properly understood in terms of how they fit into the larger structure of the text and language itself. For more on Derrida's theory of meaning see

3150-408: Is central to the development of dialectics: the progress from quantity to quality, the acceleration of gradual social change; the negation of the initial development of the status quo ; the negation of that negation; and the high-level recurrence of features of the original status quo . Friedrich Engels further proposed that nature itself is dialectical, and that this is "a very simple process, which

3255-399: Is concerned with the structure of texts. So, deconstruction involves "a certain attention to structures" and tries to "understand how an 'ensemble' was constituted". As both a structuralist and an antistructuralist gesture, deconstruction is tied up with what Derrida calls the "structural problematic". The structural problematic for Derrida is the tension between genesis, that which is "in

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3360-435: Is exposed and only constructive in that this exposure may lead to further search for truth. The detection of error does not amount to a proof of the antithesis. For example, a contradiction in the consequences of a definition of piety does not provide a correct definition. The principal aim of Socratic activity may be to improve the soul of the interlocutors, by freeing them from unrecognized errors, or indeed, by teaching them

3465-417: Is in its essence critical and revolutionary. Class struggle is the primary contradiction to be resolved by Marxist dialectics because of its central role in the social and political lives of a society. Nonetheless, Marx and Marxists developed the concept of class struggle to comprehend the dialectical contradictions between mental and manual labor and between town and country. Hence, philosophic contradiction

3570-412: Is inescapably metaphysical . Derrida argues that language is inescapably metaphysical because it is made up of signifiers that only refer to that which transcends them—the signified. In addition, Derrida asks rhetorically "Is not the idea of knowledge and of the acquisition of knowledge in itself metaphysical?" By this, Derrida means that all claims to know something necessarily involve an assertion of

3675-429: Is irreducible; and thus that an interpretative reading cannot go beyond a certain point. Derrida refers to this point as an "aporia" in the text; thus, deconstructive reading is termed "aporetic". He insists that meaning is made possible by the relations of a word to other words within the network of structures that language is. Derrida initially resisted granting to his approach the overarching name deconstruction , on

3780-476: Is largely based on the earlier work of Heidegger, who, in Being and Time , claimed that the theoretical attitude of pure presence is parasitical upon a more originary involvement with the world in concepts such as ready-to-hand and being-with . In the deconstruction procedure, one of the main concerns of Derrida is to not collapse into Hegel's dialectic, where these oppositions would be reduced to contradictions in

3885-606: Is no simple 'overcoming' of metaphysics or the language of metaphysics. A survey of the secondary literature reveals a wide range of heterogeneous arguments. Particularly problematic are the attempts to give neat introductions to deconstruction by people trained in literary criticism who sometimes have little or no expertise in the relevant areas of philosophy in which Derrida is working. These secondary works (e.g. Deconstruction for Beginners and Deconstructions: A User's Guide ) have attempted to explain deconstruction while being academically criticized for being too far removed from

3990-478: Is of less importance than the other signs that surround it. [...] A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas; but the pairing of a certain number of acoustical signs with as many cuts made from the mass thought engenders a system of values. Saussure explicitly suggested that linguistics was only a branch of a more general semiology, a science of signs in general, human codes being only one part. Nevertheless, in

4095-505: Is one statement by Derrida—in an essay on Rousseau in Of Grammatology —which has been of great interest to his opponents. It is the assertion that "there is no outside-text" ( il n'y a pas de hors-texte ), which is often mistranslated as "there is nothing outside of the text". The mistranslation is often used to suggest Derrida believes that nothing exists but words. Michel Foucault , for instance, famously misattributed to Derrida

4200-462: Is reestablished in Christ. For Barth this meant that only through God's 'no' to everything human can his 'yes' be perceived. Applied to traditional themes of Protestant theology, such as double predestination , this means that election and reprobation cannot be viewed as a quantitative limitation of God's action. Rather it must be seen as its "qualitative definition". As Christ bore the rejection as well as

4305-403: Is seeking to "multiply the cautionary indicators and put aside all the traditional philosophical concepts". This does not mean that deconstruction has absolutely nothing in common with an analysis, a critique, or a method, because while Derrida distances deconstruction from these terms, he reaffirms "the necessity of returning to them, at least under erasure". Derrida's necessity of returning to

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4410-515: Is so because identity is viewed in non-essentialist terms as a construct, and because constructs only produce meaning through the interplay of difference inside a "system of distinct signs". This approach to text is influenced by the semiology of Ferdinand de Saussure . Saussure is considered one of the fathers of structuralism when he explained that terms get their meaning in reciprocal determination with other terms inside language: In language there are only differences. Even more important:

4515-467: Is sublated, on the one hand, is overcome, but, on the other hand, is preserved and maintained. As in the Socratic dialectic, Hegel claimed to proceed by making implicit contradictions explicit: each stage of the process is the product of contradictions inherent or implicit in the preceding stage. On his view, the purpose of dialectics is "to study things in their own being and movement and thus to demonstrate

4620-492: Is taking place everywhere and every day". His dialectical "law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa" corresponds, according to Christian Fuchs , to the concept of phase transition and anticipated the concept of emergence "a hundred years ahead of his time". For Vladimir Lenin , the primary feature of Marx's "dialectical materialism" (Lenin's term) is its application of materialist philosophy to history and social sciences. Lenin's main contribution to

4725-516: Is that he missed the opportunity to further explore the will to power as more than a manifestation of the sociopolitically effective operation of writing that Plato characterized, stepping beyond Nietzsche's penultimate revaluation of all Western values, to the ultimate, which is the emphasis on "the role of writing in the production of knowledge". Derrida approaches all texts as constructed around elemental oppositions which all discourse has to articulate if it intends to make any sense whatsoever. This

4830-447: Is that standing at the end of modern history, modern thinkers know too much to continue to be deceived by an illusory grasp of satisfactorily complete reason. Mere proposals of heightened reasoning, logic, philosophizing and science are no longer solely sufficient as the royal roads to truth. Nietzsche disregards Platonism to revisualize the history of the West as the self-perpetuating history of

4935-411: Is the essence of what is popularly called Hegelian dialectics. To describe the activity of overcoming the negative, Hegel often used the term Aufhebung , variously translated into English as "sublation" or "overcoming", to conceive of the working of the dialectic. Roughly, the term indicates preserving the true portion of an idea, thing, society, and so forth, while moving beyond its limitations. What

5040-420: Is the observation that the meanings of words come from their synchrony with other words within the language and their diachrony between contemporary and historical definitions of a word. Understanding language, according to Derrida, requires an understanding of both viewpoints of linguistic analysis. The focus on diachrony has led to accusations against Derrida of engaging in the etymological fallacy . There

5145-506: Is the study of the critical methods of science ". Seventy years later, Nicholas Rescher responded that "Popper's critique touches only a hyperbolic version of dialectic", and he quipped: "Ironically, there is something decidedly dialectical about Popper's critique of dialectics." Around the same time as Popper's critique was published, philosopher Sidney Hook discussed the "sense and nonsense in dialectic" and rejected two conceptions of dialectic as unscientific but accepted one conception as

5250-562: Is thus a method by which one can examine social and economic behaviors. It is the foundation of the philosophy of dialectical materialism , which forms the basis of historical materialism. In the Marxist tradition, "dialectic" refers to regular and mutual relationships, interactions, and processes in nature, society, and human thought. A dialectical relationship is a relationship in which two phenomena or ideas mutually impact each other, leading to development and negation. Development refers to

5355-700: Is too abstract. Against this, Marx presented his own dialectic method, which he claimed to be "direct opposite" of Hegel's method. Marxist dialectics is exemplified in Das Kapital . As Marx explained dialectical materialism, it includes in its comprehension an affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time, also, the recognition of the negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose upon it, and

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5460-463: Is very general in applicability. Mathematician William Lawvere interpreted dialectics in the setting of categorical logic in terms of adjunctions between idempotent monads . This perspective may be useful in the context of theoretical computer science where the duality between syntax and semantics can be interpreted as a dialectic in this sense. For example, the Curry-Howard equivalence

5565-519: The 1980s, these proposals of language's fluidity instead of being ideally static and discernible have inspired a range of studies in the humanities , including the disciplines of law , anthropology , historiography , linguistics , sociolinguistics , psychoanalysis , LGBT studies , and feminism . Deconstruction also inspired deconstructivism in architecture and remains important within art , music , and literary criticism . Jacques Derrida's 1967 book Of Grammatology introduced

5670-524: The American Marxist biologists Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin (authors of The Dialectical Biologist ) and the German-American evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr , not a Marxist himself, have found agreement between dialectical principles and their own scientific outlooks, although Wan opined that Engels's "laws" of dialectics "in fact 'explain' nothing". Even some Marxists are critical of

5775-543: The Theory of Knowledge , 1977), and Frans H. van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst ( pragma-dialectics , 1980s). One can include works of the communities of informal logic and paraconsistent logic . Building on theories of defeasible reasoning (see John L. Pollock ), systems have been built that define well-formedness of arguments, rules governing the process of introducing arguments based on fixed assumptions, and rules for shifting burden. Many of these logics appear in

5880-428: The article on différance . Derrida states that his use of the word deconstruction first took place in a context in which " structuralism was dominant" and deconstruction's meaning is within this context. Derrida states that deconstruction is an "antistructuralist gesture" because "[s]tructures were to be undone, decomposed, desedimented". At the same time, deconstruction is also a "structuralist gesture" because it

5985-459: The boundaries they currently occupy" "While in a sense it is impossibly difficult to define, the impossibility has less to do with the adoption of a position or the assertion of a choice on deconstruction's part than with the impossibility of every 'is' as such. Deconstruction begins, as it were, from a refusal of the authority or determining power of every 'is', or simply from a refusal of authority in general. While such refusal may indeed count as

6090-516: The change and motion of phenomena and ideas from less advanced to more advanced or from less complete to more complete. Dialectical negation refers to a stage of development in which a contradiction between two previous subjects gives rise to a new subject. In the Marxist view, dialectical negation is never an endpoint, but instead creates new conditions for further development and negation. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels , writing several decades after Hegel's death, proposed that Hegel's dialectic

6195-441: The changes that successively result from them. Dialectic is one of the eight functional specialties Lonergan envisaged for theology to bring this discipline into the modern world. Lonergan believed that the lack of an agreed method among scholars had inhibited substantive agreement from being reached and progress from being made compared to the natural sciences. Karl Rahner , S.J., however, criticized Lonergan's theological method in

6300-423: The contamination of pure origins by the structures of language and temporality. Manfred Frank has even referred to Derrida's work as "neostructuralism", identifying a "distaste for the metaphysical concepts of domination and system". The popularity of the term deconstruction, combined with the technical difficulty of Derrida's primary material on deconstruction and his reluctance to elaborate his understanding of

6405-420: The current of Derrida's philosophical adventure. Beardsworth here explains that it would be irresponsible to undertake a deconstruction with a complete set of rules that need only be applied as a method to the object of deconstruction, because this understanding would reduce deconstruction to a thesis of the reader that the text is then made to fit. This would be an irresponsible act of reading, because it becomes

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6510-524: The dialectic in this sense is used to understand "the total process of enlightenment, whereby the philosopher is educated so as to achieve knowledge of the supreme good, the Form of the Good". Logic, which could be considered to include dialectic, was one of the three liberal arts taught in medieval universities as part of the trivium ; the other elements were rhetoric and grammar . Based mainly on Aristotle ,

6615-433: The dialogues of Plato are examples of the Socratic dialectical method. The Socratic dialogues are a particular form of dialectic known as the method of elenchus (literally, "refutation, scrutiny" ) whereby a series of questions clarifies a more precise statement of a vague belief, logical consequences of that statement are explored, and a contradiction is discovered. The method is largely destructive, in that false belief

6720-605: The election of God for all humanity, every person is subject to both aspects of God's double predestination. Dialectic prominently figured in Bernard Lonergan 's philosophy, in his books Insight and Method in Theology . Michael Shute wrote about Lonergan's use of dialectic in The Origins of Lonergan's Notion of the Dialectic of History . For Lonergan, dialectic is both individual and operative in community. Simply described, it

6825-514: The end, as Derrida pointed out, Saussure made linguistics "the regulatory model", and "for essential, and essentially metaphysical, reasons had to privilege speech, and everything that links the sign to phone". Derrida will prefer to follow the more "fruitful paths (formalization)" of a general semiotics without falling into what he considered "a hierarchizing teleology" privileging linguistics, and to speak of "mark" rather than of language, not as something restricted to mankind, but as prelinguistic, as

6930-411: The essential mode of creation or movement", and structure: "systems, or complexes, or static configurations". An example of genesis would be the sensory ideas from which knowledge is then derived in the empirical epistemology . An example of structure would be a binary opposition such as good and evil where the meaning of each element is established, at least partly, through its relationship to

7035-603: The field effectively". To be effective, deconstruction needs to create new terms, not to synthesize the concepts in opposition, but to mark their difference and eternal interplay. This explains why Derrida always proposes new terms in his deconstruction, not as a free play but from the necessity of analysis. Derrida called these undecidables—that is, unities of simulacrum—"false" verbal properties (nominal or semantic) that can no longer be included within philosophical (binary) opposition. Instead, they inhabit philosophical oppositions —resisting and organizing them—without ever constituting

7140-445: The finitude of the partial categories of understanding". For Hegel, even history can be reconstructed as a unified dialectic, the major stages of which chart a progression from self-alienation as servitude to self-unification and realization as the rational constitutional state of free and equal citizens. Marxist dialectic is a form of Hegelian dialectic which applies to the study of historical materialism . Marxist dialectic

7245-404: The first medieval philosopher to work on dialectics was Boethius (480–524). After him, many scholastic philosophers also made use of dialectics in their works, such as Abelard , William of Sherwood , Garlandus Compotista , Walter Burley , Roger Swyneshed, William of Ockham , and Thomas Aquinas . This dialectic (a quaestio disputata ) was formed as follows: The concept of dialectics

7350-434: The forms and varieties of the originary complexity of semiotics , and their multiple consequences in many fields. His way of achieving this was by conducting readings of philosophical and literary texts, with the goal to understand what in those texts runs counter to their apparent systematicity (structural unity) or intended sense (authorial genesis). By demonstrating the aporias and ellipses of thought, Derrida hoped to show

7455-431: The grounds that it was a precise technical term that could not be used to characterize his work generally. Nevertheless, he eventually accepted that the term had come into common use to refer to his textual approach, and Derrida himself increasingly began to use the term in this more general way. Derrida's deconstruction strategy is also used by postmodernists to locate meaning in a text rather than discover meaning due to

7560-466: The hierarchy of dual oppositions always reestablishes itself (because it is necessary for meaning). Deconstruction, Derrida says, only points to the necessity of an unending analysis that can make explicit the decisions and hierarchies intrinsic to all texts. Derrida further argues that it is not enough to expose and deconstruct the way oppositions work and then stop there in a nihilistic or cynical position, "thereby preventing any means of intervening in

7665-508: The history behind them. Derrida's concerns flow from a consideration of several issues: To this end, Derrida follows a long line of modern philosophers, who look backwards to Plato and his influence on the Western metaphysical tradition. Like Nietzsche, Derrida suspects Plato of dissimulation in the service of a political project, namely the education, through critical reflections, of a class of citizens more strategically positioned to influence

7770-424: The infinitely subtle ways that this originary complexity, which by definition cannot ever be completely known, works its structuring and destructuring effects. Deconstruction denotes the pursuing of the meaning of a text to the point of exposing the supposed contradictions and internal oppositions upon which it is founded—supposedly showing that those foundations are irreducibly complex, unstable, or impossible. It

7875-497: The key method and theory of the philosophy of nature, the second was the Soviet version of the philosophy of history. Soviet systems theory pioneer Alexander Bogdanov viewed Hegelian and materialist dialectic as progressive, albeit inexact and diffuse, attempts at achieving what he called tektology , or a universal science of organization. Dialectical naturalism is a term coined by American philosopher Murray Bookchin to describe

7980-425: The logical ends of structuralist thought). Derrida's views on deconstruction stood in opposition to the theories of structuralists such as psychoanalytic theorist Jacques Lacan , and anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss . However, Derrida resisted attempts to label his work as " post-structuralist ". Derrida's motivation for developing deconstructive criticism, suggesting the fluidity of language over static forms,

8085-415: The majority of ideas influential within deconstruction. Derrida published a number of other works directly relevant to the concept of deconstruction, such as Différance , Speech and Phenomena , and Writing and Difference . To Derrida, That is what deconstruction is made of: not the mixture but the tension between memory, fidelity , the preservation of something that has been given to us, and, at

8190-416: The metaphysical type that something is the case somewhere. For Derrida the concept of neutrality is suspect and dogmatism is therefore involved in everything to a certain degree. Deconstruction can challenge a particular dogmatism and hence de-sediment dogmatism in general, but it cannot escape all dogmatism all at once. Derrida states that deconstruction is not an analysis in the traditional sense. This

8295-586: The original texts and Derrida's actual position. Cambridge Dictionary states that deconstruction is "the act of breaking something down into its separate parts in order to understand its meaning, especially when this is different from how it was previously understood". The Merriam-Webster dictionary states that deconstruction is "the analytic examination of something (such as a theory) often in order to reveal its inadequacy". Derrida's observations have greatly influenced literary criticism and post-structuralism. Derrida's method consisted of demonstrating all

8400-580: The other element. It is for this reason that Derrida distances his use of the term deconstruction from post-structuralism , a term that would suggest that philosophy could simply go beyond structuralism. Derrida states that "the motif of deconstruction has been associated with 'post-structuralism ' ", but that this term was "a word unknown in France until its 'return' from the United States". In his deconstruction of Edmund Husserl , Derrida actually argues for

8505-611: The philosophical underpinnings of the political program of social ecology . Dialectical naturalism explores the complex interrelationship between social problems, and the direct consequences they have on the ecological impact of human society. Bookchin offered dialectical naturalism as a contrast to what he saw as the "empyrean, basically antinaturalistic dialectical idealism" of Hegel, and "the wooden, often scientistic dialectical materialism of orthodox Marxists". Neo-orthodoxy , in Europe also known as theology of crisis and dialectical theology,

8610-412: The philosophy of dialectical materialism is his theory of reflection, which presents human consciousness as a dynamic reflection of the objective material world that fully shapes its contents and structure. Later, Stalin's works on the subject established a rigid and formalistic division of Marxist–Leninist theory into dialectical materialism and historical materialism. While the first was supposed to be

8715-435: The polis. However, unlike Nietzsche, Derrida is not satisfied with such a merely political interpretation of Plato, because of the particular dilemma in which modern humans find themselves. His Platonic reflections are inseparably part of his critique of modernity , hence his attempt to be something beyond the modern, because of his Nietzschean sense that the modern has lost its way and become mired in nihilism . Différance

8820-409: The position that it has multiple readings. There is a focus on the deconstruction that denotes the tearing apart of a text to find arbitrary hierarchies and presuppositions for the purpose of tracing contradictions that shadow a text's coherence. Here, the meaning of a text does not reside with the author or the author's intentions because it is dependent on the interaction between reader and text. Even

8925-577: The process of translation is also seen as transformative since it "modifies the original even as it modifies the translating language". Derrida's lecture at Johns Hopkins University , " Structure, Sign, and Play in the Human Sciences ", often appears in collections as a manifesto against structuralism. Derrida's essay was one of the earliest to propose some theoretical limitations to structuralism, and to attempt to theorize on terms that were clearly no longer structuralist. Structuralism viewed language as

9030-434: The process whereby the intellect passes from sensibles to intelligibles, rising from idea to idea until it finally grasps the supreme idea, the first principle which is the origin of all. The philosopher is consequently a "dialectician". In this sense, dialectic is a process of inquiry that does away with hypotheses up to the first principle. It slowly embraces multiplicity in unity. The philosopher Simon Blackburn wrote that

9135-453: The pure possibility of language, working everywhere there is a relation to something else. Derrida's original use of the word deconstruction was a translation of Destruktion , a concept from the work of Martin Heidegger that Derrida sought to apply to textual reading. Heidegger's term referred to a process of exploring the categories and concepts that tradition has imposed on a word, and

9240-485: The richness and diversity of reality. He rejected the notion that truth can be fully grasped through dialectical reasoning and offered a critique of dialectic, challenging its traditional framework and emphasizing the limitations of its approach to understanding reality. He expressed skepticism towards its methodology and implications in his work Twilight of the Idols : "I mistrust all systematizers and I avoid them. The will to

9345-404: The same time, heterogeneity, something absolutely new, and a break. According to Derrida, and taking inspiration from the work of Ferdinand de Saussure , language as a system of signs and words only has meaning because of the contrast between these signs. As Richard Rorty contends, "words have meaning only because of contrast-effects with other words ... no word can acquire meaning in

9450-410: The special area of artificial intelligence and law , though the computer scientists' interest in formalizing dialectic originates in a desire to build decision support and computer-supported collaborative work systems. Dialectic itself can be formalised as moves in a game, where an advocate for the truth of a proposition and an opponent argue. Such games can provide a semantics of logic , one that

9555-651: The spirit of inquiry. In common cases, Socrates uses enthymemes as the foundation of his argument. For example, in the Euthyphro , Socrates asks Euthyphro to provide a definition of piety. Euthyphro replies that the pious is that which is loved by the gods. But, Socrates also has Euthyphro agreeing that the gods are quarrelsome and their quarrels, like human quarrels, concern objects of love or hatred. Therefore, Socrates reasons, at least one thing exists that certain gods love but other gods hate. Again, Euthyphro agrees. Socrates concludes that if Euthyphro's definition of piety

9660-791: The term "dialectics". For instance, Michael Heinrich wrote, "More often than not, the grandiose rhetoric about dialectics is reducible to the simple fact that everything is dependent upon everything else and is in a state of interaction and that it's all rather complicated—which is true in most cases, but doesn't really say anything." Since the late 20th century, European and American logicians have attempted to provide mathematical foundations for dialectic through formalisation, although logic has been related to dialectic since ancient times. There have been pre-formal and partially-formal treatises on argument and dialectic, from authors such as Stephen Toulmin ( The Uses of Argument , 1958), Nicholas Rescher ( Dialectics: A Controversy-Oriented Approach to

9765-485: The term takes on the specialized meaning of development by way of overcoming internal contradictions . Dialectical materialism , a theory advanced by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels , adapted the Hegelian dialectic into a materialist theory of history. The legacy of Hegelian and Marxian dialectics has been criticized by philosophers such as Karl Popper and Mario Bunge , who considered it unscientific. Dialectic implies

9870-555: The term, has meant that many secondary sources have attempted to give a more straightforward explanation than Derrida himself ever attempted. Secondary definitions are therefore an interpretation of deconstruction by the person offering them rather than a summary of Derrida's actual position. "to show that things - texts, institutions, traditions, societies, beliefs, and practices of whatever size and sort you need - do not have definable meanings and determinable missions, that they are always more than any mission would impose, that they exceed

9975-479: The topological differences between the words relevant here, but the differentials between what is signified is also covered by différance . Thus, complete meaning is always "differential" and postponed in language; there is never a moment when meaning is complete and total. A simple example would consist of looking up a given word in a dictionary, then proceeding to look up the words found in that word's definition, etc., also comparing with older dictionaries. Such

10080-453: The upper hand": signified over signifier ; intelligible over sensible; speech over writing; activity over passivity, etc. The first task of deconstruction is, according to Derrida, to find and overturn these oppositions inside text(s); but the final objective of deconstruction is not to surpass all oppositions, because it is assumed they are structurally necessary to produce sense: the oppositions simply cannot be suspended once and for all, as

10185-403: The use of the term. In dialectical theology the difference and opposition between God and human beings is stressed in such a way that all human attempts at overcoming this opposition through moral, religious or philosophical idealism must be characterized as 'sin'. In the death of Christ humanity is negated and overcome, but this judgment also points forwards to the resurrection in which humanity

10290-437: The very different phrase Il n'y a rien en dehors du texte for this purpose. According to Derrida, his statement simply refers to the unavoidability of context that is at the heart of différance . For example, the word house derives its meaning more as a function of how it differs from shed , mansion , hotel , building , etc. (form of content, which Louis Hjelmslev distinguished from form of expression) than how

10395-490: The way in which philosophers from Aristotle to Bertrand Russell have hoped it might—by being the unmediated expression of something non-linguistic (e.g., an emotion, a sensed observation, a physical object, an idea, a Platonic Form )". As a consequence, meaning is never present, but rather is deferred to other signs. Derrida refers to the—in his view, mistaken—belief that there is a self-sufficient, non-deferred meaning as metaphysics of presence . Rather, according to Derrida,

10500-587: The word house may be tied to a certain image of a traditional house (i.e., the relationship between signified and signifier ), with each term being established in reciprocal determination with the other terms than by an ostensive description or definition: when can one talk about a house or a mansion or a shed ? The same can be said about verbs in all languages: when should one stop saying walk and start saying run ? The same happens, of course, with adjectives: when must one stop saying yellow and start saying orange , or exchange past for present ? Not only are

10605-483: The written word, male over female. Derrida writes, Without a doubt, Aristotle thinks of time on the basis of ousia as parousia , on the basis of the now, the point, etc. And yet an entire reading could be organized that would repeat in Aristotle's text both this limitation and its opposite. To Derrida, the central bias of logocentrism was the now being placed as more important than the future or past. This argument

10710-405: Was "a lifeless schema" imposed on various contents, whereas he saw his own dialectic as flowing out of "the inner life and self-movement" of the content itself. In the mid-19th century, Hegelian dialectic was appropriated by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and retooled in what they considered to be a nonidealistic manner. It would also become a crucial part of later representations of Marxism as

10815-558: Was given new life at the start of the 19th century by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , whose dialectical model of nature and of history made dialectics a fundamental aspect of reality, instead of regarding the contradictions into which dialectics leads as evidence of the limits of pure reason, as Immanuel Kant had argued. Hegel was influenced by Johann Gottlieb Fichte 's conception of synthesis, although Hegel didn't adopt Fichte's "thesis–antithesis–synthesis" language except to describe Kant's philosophy: rather, Hegel argued that such language

10920-539: Was largely inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche 's philosophy, beginning with his interpretation of Trophonius . In Daybreak , Nietzsche announces that "All things that live long are gradually so saturated with reason that their origin in unreason thereby becomes improbable. Does not almost every precise history of an origination impress our feelings as paradoxical and wantonly offensive? Does the good historian not, at bottom, constantly contradict?". Nietzsche's point in Daybreak

11025-602: Was to reach true knowledge, he was even willing to change his own views in order to arrive at the truth. The fundamental goal of dialectic, in this instance, was to establish a precise definition of the subject (in this case, rhetoric) and with the use of argumentation and questioning, make the subject even more precise. In the Gorgias , Socrates reaches the truth by asking a series of questions and in return, receiving short, clear answers. In Platonism and Neoplatonism, dialectic assumed an ontological and metaphysical role in that it became

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