What do you think of Jacques Derrida?

[sidetrack]

I read a book about the deconstructionism made by Jacques Derrida,not long agne thing I hear about deconstructionism is how any attempt to define it goes against it’s point and how it’s more a method/way of reading things rather than a philosophy in-and-of-itself^1

There was a part where it also mentioned parrallels btw Derrida and the early Buddhist teacher Nagarjuna plus how Zen could be considered Japan’s own particular variant of deconstructionism^1.

For of those you who weren’t really following French philosophers on the scene in latter 1/2 (ex.Foucault,Lyotard and Baudrillard) of the 20th century but more eaily remember negative things ,the book brought up heard something about a “stink-up” in the late 80’s having to do with Derrida’s reaction Paul De Man’s involvement with Nazism which made some American academia ppl feel like pointing out how deconstructionism is to flimsy,esp.for politics.

^1 :ehh: While there’s a part of me that feel readily inclined to jump and say those are some far-fetched overglorifying laudations to Derrida,I don’t know enough about Zen and Nagarjuna (it gave an example of him to say that it’s not.If there’s someone who feels they know enough about both or either to negate or affirm that,your (name removed by moderator)ut would be cool and appreciated.

…still…the idea of a Francophonic Algerian born ethnic Jew,presumably raised on Western philosophy person making a philosophy that has “naturally” developed into something converging into Eastern philosophy in it’s form is…:ehh: fascinating

 

[levinas12]

…still…the idea of a Francophonic Algerian born ethnic Jew,presumably raised on Western philosophy person making a philosophy that has “naturally” developed into something converging into Eastern philosophy in it’s form is…:ehh: fascinating

There may be some eastern philosophy in Derrida … but the more immediate background for deconstruction is phenomenology and particularly Martin Heidegger; and then there’s structuralism; also Saussurean linguistics with its theory of differential meaning (all meanings are internally related or the meaning of a word is its difference from all the other words in the natural language). There may even be some inverted Hegelianism in Derrida.

A key term in Derrida is “differance” (difference spelled with an “a” instead of an “e” in the last syllable). “Differance” displaces attempts to find the one correct meaning of a text; it celebrates both “an indefinite plurality of meanings” and “deferral of meaning”. Of course, “differance” itself does not have “one” meaning.

Derrida deconstructs the “metaphysics of presence”. It’s hard to summarize what this phrase entails. With Heidegger, Derrida sees the entire history of western philosophy as a quest for knowledge of the Totality, of Utlimate Reality, of a “full presence without absence”. This quest according to Derrida is impossible.

Derrida was the major influence on Jean-Luc Marion, a Roman Catholic postmodernist philosopher/theologian. Marion became famous with a book titled, God Without Being. I started another thread on this forum, God Outside Metaphysical Categories, with Marion in mind.

So what appeals to you in Derrida?

 

[sidetrack]

So what appeals to you in Derrida?

Aside from how he died only a decade ago,is that he was a famous “French philosopher” .Up until recently I thought they went extinct sometime around Sartre’s death .

To me Derrida is/was a “game changer”.Up until fairly recently I thought that Western philosophy ended somewhere with the void Nietzche made and existentialism.Then I found out about how with “starting things from scratch” came the analytic and Continental school divide.

One thing we seemed to have gotten through our heads after Nietzche is that even if you are looking around for causation with your heart in a seemingly right place there will be times when you can’t find causality.Don’t dismiss it as “illogical” or “irrational” though,look at what remains there;structure (–>structuralism).

Imo this is so key and helpful to social sciences and humanities b/c a lot of ppl (during the “Modernist” phase) still thought things were causal and as a result ran to and gathered around to stuff like Social Darwinism, Marxism,political extremism,mass industrialization and callously dismiss so much previous lifestyle and knowledge in the misguided name of science,progress and superiority which led to some big messes (coughboth World wars imocough)^2

To me Derrida seems to neither condemn nor really praise/align himself with Western philosophy and his deconstructism makes him arguably a more…*objective *onlooker b/c he is/it makes him *so hard to touch * .

In it’s own way to me it sorta shows that philosophy isn’t an obsolete and ineffectual pursuit in a world where the ppl making those claims all crave a centering source.A common one:the unrelenting greed for money and the maturity and insecurity problems of jerks who feel unstoppable b/c of it :dts: plus ppl (wittingly and unwittingly) aspiring to be like those jerks.A significant issue at hand here is what purpose means.

There’s something about deconstructing and not giving into binaries that I feel impulsed to admire when so often in life the most complicated or frustratingly simple issues things get reduced to mere binaries we’ve been told we gotta decide (preferably unambigously) on.

…and he kinda showed that it doesn’t have to be that way,that were only stuck thinking that way b/c of a preoccupation with a center^1 that is as a subject to being broken down like anything else–the ability “to be” without a big monolithic metatnarrative center-construct (Lyotard here) is something some think is a defining feature of “post-modernism” whereas modernism was the last instance where we felt compelled for a center.

My enviromental teacher once said that the future of our planet and democracy seems to be pointing to “hyper-localism”^3 in part b/c it’s like the best way to make sustainability actually feasible.A quote from a class powerpoint

We must decentralize only up to a point where control is not lost,and centralize only up to a point where initiative is not killed.

.

I think there’s some ingredients that can be found in Derrida to make feasible decentralization a reality and help humankind drop the attitude of superiority,domination and power over one another at least a bit more ^4.

^1 that doesn’t hold very well when were talking about human rights,lives at stake or someone about to die but it does interestingly tinker with the the big trio in Western philosophy of reason,empiricism and an absolute AND a common sociological analogue of many philosophical things;politics.

^2 -~- To be honest though,I feel that unfortunately a lot of those cruddy ~200 yr old “thinking attitudes” got marketed off to the Third world.The “global south” still does this sorta thinking imo and it’s also a reason why there’s more of us in urban than rural areas.

^3 Hopefully minus the aggression that comes from “tribalism” like what we’ve been doing for most of human history whenever we’ve been into localism

^4 Personal addition ? -that and a **BIG LONG “GLOBAL” TALK **on the meaning of epistemology (“knowledge is power… after all >:/”).It’s relevant to the present info age and from what I’ve read (in a book on Heidegger) depending on where you are it’s goes

Western world:knowledge comes from science
Eastern world:knowledge comes from within

BUT THERE’S ALSO

Africa:knowledge comes from realizing the animistic quality in everything

I lean towards the last one with some alterations of my own.

My msg to ppl?,it’d go something like this:Knowledge can come from a variety of sources whether it be from a method like science or reason or from the careful introspection,nuturing and commitment of a person but ultimately it’s humankind will always come under limitation to the face of the limitlessness of knowledge by itself,which for lack of better words “has a life of it’s own” and is a force unto itself for which if we neglect this factor we’ll forever remain achingly incomplete.Incomplete to coming full circle and authentic on the information flowing in our lives

Add in your comparisons to the infinite omniscience of God as you please .

 

[levinas12]

In it’s own way to me it sorta shows that philosophy isn’t an obsolete and ineffectual pursuit …

I think that what I like about Derrida - his questioning of fundamental assumptions.

For example, consider the differential theory of meaning that Derrida took up in the wake of de Saussure. Words don’t signify things directly; they are part of a language “system” which plays a major role in determining their meaning. The meaning of the word :tree" is caught up in a network of similarities, differences and associations with a whole bunch of other words in the English language - so that one could say that the meaning of a word is its “difference” from the other words in the respective natural language.

Of course, this leads up into Derrida’s “differance”, difference spelled with “a” and not an “e” in the last syllable - this “difference” in phonemes shows up only in writing, not oral speech. And so “writing” becomes a prominent Derridean theme. The classic hermeneutical problem is how do you determine the meaning of a text in the absence of the author. But for Derrida meanings are never nailed down (even in the presence of the author). New questions are always popping up - and this keeps the philosophical conversation going.

With “differance”, there are not only “different” readings but also “deferrals of meaning.” Derrida takes Hegel’s pronouncement about Minvera flying at dusk (you know the meaning of history only at the end of history) and pushes it further so that we don’t ever know the definitive meaning - ever). But the quest continues (this is the point Socrates made over and over again).

 

[sidetrack]

I think that what I like about Derrida - his questioning of fundamental assumptions.

For example, consider the differential theory of meaning that Derrida took up in the wake of de Saussure. Words don’t signify things directly; they are part of a language “system” which plays a major role in determining their meaning. The meaning of the word :tree" is caught up in a network of similarities, differences and associations with a whole bunch of other words in the English language - so that one could say that the meaning of a word is its “difference” from the other words in the respective natural language.

Of course, this leads up into Derrida’s “differance”, difference spelled with “a” and not an “e” in the last syllable - this “difference” in phonemes shows up only in writing, not oral speech. And so “writing” becomes a prominent Derridean theme. The classic hermeneutical problem is how do you determine the meaning of a text in the absence of the author. But for Derrida meanings are never nailed down (even in the presence of the author). New questions are always popping up - and this keeps the philosophical conversation going.

With “differance”, there are not only “different” readings but also “deferrals of meaning.” Derrida takes Hegel’s pronouncement about Minvera flying at dusk (you know the meaning of history only at the end of history) and pushes it further so that we don’t ever know the definitive meaning - ever). But the quest continues (this is the point Socrates made over and over again).

What your saying reminds me of how I should have mentioned this before how I also like how he thought that the written word takes precedence over the spoken word contrary to what philosophers like .J.J. Rousseau (not Abrams ) and Plato thought^1.

Not to mention for someone who questioned fundamental assumptions he wasn’t a super negative cultural critic like Nietzche whom Western philosophy had been “recovering” from,from the 60 years before he started teaching it the U of Paris but neither do I really feel he was an optimist per se.

There something about someone making a living breakdown the seeming inevitable firmness which self-contradictions and paradoxes hold which makes me happy b/c philosophy so often eventually finds a sociological-like analogue and being able to deconstruct the rigid paradoxes we seem to be forced to choose between may one day become exceedingly helpful as we come to terms with how absolutes and metanarratives don’t really cut it in the decentralized and wondrous interconnectivity of this realm of reality^2/life^3.

Fascinating that a guy who has up until lived fairly recently with the title “philosopher” had ideas that could give a new spin on John 1:1,eh ?.^4

^1 While Plato will probably never lose his impact and presence in philosophy,I’ve heard he actually encouraged illiteracy on account of how it diminishes the importance of memory for one reason. Derrida criticized him on that in “Plato’s pharmacy” .

^2 This is something that may have/make for a commonly accepted platform for the critics,the irreligious,the skeptics,non-believers,different belief groups etc

^3 Christian inclusivity and love,perhaps you have found an ally and friend

^4 Imagine someone on the forum to trying to do that !