Talk:Deconstruction

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Contents 1 Definition, etc 2 A note about what is missing: 3 R.M. Bharanitharan 4 Re the Sokal Affair 5 Looney links 5.1 Reply 6 Deconstruction in Schools 7 Intellectually snobbery 8 Replace current intro 9 Hymen, or, a Small Request 10 Something I do not accept 11 a suggestion 12 Interesting 13 Copyedit 14 Obvious antipathy for the subject produces lousy articles 15 Include this dialogue in defintion? 16 What Deconstruction Has To Do With Language 17 Why Hasn't Khôra Been Mentioned At All? 18 Practical Examples Have Been Overlooked 19 Consensus on (what I believe to be) a minor edit 20 A suggestion 21 It wasn't vandalism 22 Further additions to criticism section 23 Deconstruction, defined: 24 a minor fix 25 new intro 26 "Undeconstructability"? 27 Derrida on justice and undeconstructibility 28 Undeconstructibility, Part II 29 Citation 30 qualifying a dubious claim 31 Hymen 32 Lack of simplicity vs. lack of clarity 33 nihilism or relativism 34 Meaning is "out there"

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for older discussion, see Talk:Deconstruction/Archive1 and Talk:Deconstruction/Archive2

To do: Under the section on Derrida, correct spelling of the expression to: "plus d'une langue"

	To-do list for Deconstruction:	edit  · history  · watch  · refresh
This is a brief review of issues behind the rewrite tag and a list of tasks necessary to the rewrite. Please note the term "deconstruction" has come into a second use: describing the systematic hand and mechanical dis-assembly of buildings to reuse their contents.**** The article in its current form is a patchwork of occasionally contradictory points which does not attempt general coherence and therefore poorly represents the subject matter and utterly fails to provide a general overview for the benefit of the vast majority of readers. The list below is a first cut to get discussion rolling on how to put together a rewrite. Let's discuss it to develop its contents into an agreed revision plan. Please do not alter the list without prior discussion on the talk page. The following is a draft proposal to guide a complete revision of the entry: determine what content in the current article merits separate entries to provide adequate exposition cull content that requires such exposition into separate articles settle on a general introduction deconstruction which should be: not reductionist allow an understanding of its specificity vis-a-vis its limits and volubility tie the former to correlative elaborations with respect to the philosophical tradition argue how deconstruction relates to literature and literary criticism argue how deconstruction generally relates to the humanities and social sciences (refiguring the death/hegemony of philosophy) argue how deconstruction approaches the institutions of philosophy and teaching generally take into account differences in deconstruction chez Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, Lyotard, Lacoue-Labarthe, and de Man (I have chosen these rather deliberately because of strong secondary literature on these figures; others may add to this list where such support can be tapped) elaborate an account of the reception of deconstruction into English-language scholarship explain how deconstruction has attempted to address geophilosophy and troubled national/linguistic delineation of philosophical traditions and communities explain why and how the notion of translation has been deployed in deconstruction and the significance of Derrida's definition of plus d'un langue set aside commonplaces identifying deconstruction too closely with continental philosophy, postmodernism, and poststructuralism by demonstrating ties to analytic philosophy (e.g. Austin and speech act theory) and elaborating on the ties between deconstruction and structuralism identify what influences on deconstruction are considered indispensable rather than important Bennington's claim that Freud and Heidegger are the two such influences for Derrida lay out the cases for whether Heidegger is an influence on deconstruction or is already deconstruction As this content is developed it may be broken out into separate entries. Once we decide what's on the list, we can decide how to collaborate on it. I'd like to have someone volunteer to be an editor to help clean up composition.

This page is here for discussion on what needs to be done to clean up this entry, which is already a lot (which is also to say: more than enough). In accordance with the soapbox policy, please abstain from arguing the general validity of the subject matter, as this page is here to argue nothing more or less than edits to the article, which are currently in need of a guiding program for a rewrite. Buffyg 18:56, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've also moved the article revision immediately preceding my rewrite tag into Deconstruction/Archive1. Buffyg 21:40, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC) _________________________
Hey, sorry but I'm not sure where to put this comment on an already cluttered page -- You (We... whoever) might want to rethink keeping the stuff about the Sokal hoax in this article. I'm not trying to sweep the hoax under the rug or anything, but it actually has very little to do with Derrida and deconstruction. Sokal did name-drop Derrida (I think) in his original article for Social Text, but the critique that followed had more to do with other theorists -- Lacan, Latour, Deleuze, Kristeva -- who had appropriated a lot of pseudo-science into their writing. Derrida has written a little bit about technology as a reaction to Heidegger's thinking on the subject; I think he was also asked during a lecture whether or not his theories could be compared to Einstein's theory of relativity, and he said something like, "Sure, why not" -- but, anyway, my point here is that Derrida/deconstruction wasn't really a target of the Sokal hoax; that Derrida really hasn't made much use of any kind of science in his writing. Now, I know a lot of people see Derrida/deconstruction as a stand-in for a whole set of theories and thought that WAS the target of the Sokal hoax, and that this fact means we should include something about the Sokal hoax, which is fine with me, but Derrida's relationship to it should be made clearer in the article.

Oh, and just so it's not assumed that I'm some pedantic apologist for deconstruction (I'm not), I think the wiki article is lacking in links/summaries of some of the best critiques of deconstruction, i.e. the serious ones from Anglo-American philosophers. A run-down of the Derrida/Searle debate that goes through their respective arguments point by point would be immensely helpful to anyone trying to understand deconstruction's relation to Anglo-American philosophy. Also, something about J. Claude Evans's book, "Strategies of Deconstruction" (I think that's what it's called) is absolutely necessary here. Evans critiques Derrida's early reading of Husserl, and talks about just what it means to discover "inconsistencies" in a philosophical argument and finds Derrida's claim that he has done so wanting. (Mr. W.H. -- October 2005)
_____________________________

A few coments on the to-do agenda just posted by Buffyg: first, there's an awful lot there, and it's not all of the same priority. Let's concentrate on producing a readable article first, even if limited in scope, and then addressing its shortcomings. Second, it fails to address the major problem with the current article, which is less philosophical than practical -- it is very wordy and syntactically muddy, and needs a thorough copyedit from someone who both understands the topic and is able to write simple Strunk-and-White-style prose. (I hope that neither Buffyg nor COGDEN will take this personally, because their contributions have been full of useful content, but the article's prose is in need of drastic simplification.) Third, and perhaps most importantly, several portions of the to-do list seem to me very close to asking for original research. The article should not "set aside commonplaces" but report them; it should not "argue" the relations of deconstruction to other fields but instead present a summary of others' accounts of those relations; and it should not attempt its own identification of the most "indispensable" sources. Please, let's stick to reporting well-sourced and accepted ideas here; part of the reason the current article is so muddy, it seems to me, is that it attempts to argue for ideas which stray a little too close to original work. -- Rbellin|Talk 20:36, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Brief response: the comment you make about the major revision of the article's cluttered style is exactly why I propose that we need an editor for the re-write. Someone needs to reign in the sort of complicated sentence structures that tend to be my hallmark. Most of the items I've laid out tend to be from what I take the be the strongest secondary literature on deconstruction (e.g. Gasché, Bennington, Spivak) and therefore can be to some extent synthesised rather than originally researched.

I tend to think that wikipedia tends to report a lot of commonplaces without offering critical offsets, which often amounts to encouraging people to swallow them whole and thereafter redeploy them polemically — that's why I think these should at least be shown to contested or at best pedagogical generalisations that ought not be overstated as to their veracity or authority. I also believe that a cogent account of deconstruction's positioning in a disciplinary framework is unavoidable, as any understanding of deconstruction would be severely impaired without it. I will have to admit that, at the end of the day, it is hard to draw out these differences without to some degree adopting a deconstructive perspective, which raises in turn the extent to which deconstruction can be bracketed or otherwise suspended in any robust account of it. So, yes, I recognise that the program statements I've proposed will need POV guidance. Buffyg 21:12, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It's been a while since I read the Derrida article, and I have to say, Buffyg, it's getting to be really good, particularly in its historical context of deconstruction. If we could end up with something like that historical context here, I'd be very pleased. One thing I think we need to end up with in addition to the above list is a good set of examples of deconstruction, and I think some of the best examples of deconstruction are connected to the concepts Derrida explored in relation to his new lexicon of such terms as (différance, trace, écriture, pharmakon, etc.) Of course, I don't think the article should just be a dictionary of Derrida's terminology, the way section 4 now reads, but I think these terms can be framed as good examples of deconstruction, much more so than the example of Derrida's reading of Lévi-Strauss (which now composes section 5). COGDEN 21:33, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

I'm pretty new to Wiki - just feeling my way and looking around - but having been looking at Truth, Discourse (by the way, it's worth noting also the confusion of spelling in Wiki with Discource,) and Foucault could I suggest that a historical approach would also help. 15 years apprenticeship with Foucault and then a falling out over the understanding of text and truth puts deconstruction into a copmprehensible wider context for the general reader. I am also deliberately showing my interest in the work by writing here, though I am not a specialist and may be unreliable with my time and enthusiasm: I simply don't know yet, till I test myself by working collaboratively with others. Jeffrey Newman 09:03, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Definition, etc

As a "civilian", I thought I should chime in. I am an engineer and a modernist, and I suppose I see things from what you would consider a drastically different world view. I think three things should be added to the to-do list:

1. An affirmation that this article should be accessible to the typical reader. I agree with Rbellin that readability is paramount.
2. A concise definition. Even controversial articles like abortion and religion start with such definitions. I seriously doubt that there is anything special about the deconstruction article. If something is truly not-definable, it can't be recognized for study, and thus does not deserve an article. People are recognizing and studying deconstruction and it does merit an article, thus it must have a definition.
3. That the Criticisms of deconstruction section should survive relatively intact. There is no mention of it in the to-do list, so I am curious if it is slated for removal, or is already good and in need of no improvement. Since deconstruction-ist beliefs are uncommon among and resisted by the mainstream, this section is of great importance.

-Casito⇝Talk 03:30, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Umm... exactly what "mainstream" are you referring to? I'd guess about 95% of the population of America has never heard of deconstruction, much less formulated a position on it. Also, can you explain exactly why you don't think the following qualifies as a "concise definition":

"Deconstruction is a strategy of critical analysis closely associated with Jacques Derrida, which aims to expose unquestioned metaphysical assumptions and internal contradictions in philosophical and literary language."

Umm... exactly what "mainstream" are you referring to?

Well, the mainstream academic community for one. I mean, outside the lit-crit cult. 198.59.188.232 18:30, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Someone dosn't have to know what something is called in order to dislike it. I suspect that much more than 5% of Americans have had exposure to deconstruction-ist arguements or ideas and form opinions about them, even though they can't identify them as deconstruction. Regarding the definition: The first sentence dosn't even begin to tell the reader what deconstruction is and how to recognize it. 3 paragraphs are needed to tell the reader what it is, after reading through multiple conflicting definitions, editorial comments on both of them, and statement about how the term can't be defined. I am particularly troubled by the sentence "...it is all but impossible to describe deconstruction in a perfectly satisfactory way." Again, anything that has been studied has to be defined. -Casito⇝Talk 18:22, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Also, as far as your quasi-argument about the necesssity of defining things, part of the idea of deconstruction is that definitions are bullshit--that you can never really arrive at and pin down the meaning of a word (in the way that a definition is supposed to). I personally think this idea is slippery, to say the least, because it leads to this sort of weird linguistic nihilism where nothing really means anything, which gets problematic fast since "deconstructionists" are still using language themselves (although Derrida, if you actually read him, tries to get out of this with friendly little "traces" and "cinders"--whatever the hell those are supposed to be). Still, that doesn't necessarilly mean I have the grounds to reject the idea outright.

All I'm really asking here is that you take a moment to consider what decontstruction is/isn't saying, before you return to repeating your assumptions. What's it saying/not-saying? That the transparency of language you and I find so important might be an illusion. If you can get that into your head, even for just a few seconds, you might see why it doesn't make sense here to assume that everything good, decent, and studyable must be definable. Perhaps, nothing is definable.

It's not that definitions are bullshit, or that nothing is definable. A more correct statement would be that all definitions are examples of deconstruction. The root meaning define is the idea that you are finishing something, or bringing it to a finite end. But the minute you "kill" a word by defining it is also the minute you give birth to a new definition. So, the difficulty with defining any word is that a definition is both "the final word", and "the origination" of what is to be defined. Thus, it's not that "nothing is definable", but rather, a definition is kind of like Schroedinger's cat: it's in a state of both life and death. And the word deconstruction is especially difficult to define, because the definition has to reflect the meaning of deconstruction on two levels: (1) it has to say what deconstruction is (or is not), and (2) the definition has to illustrate the definition of deconstruction by example. Any definition of deconstruction that claims to be The Final Word, without acknowledging the irony of that statement, and explaining why it is ironic, is incomplete. COGDEN 21:07, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

Right. Thanks for the much more elloquent and accurate response (although I still think we're saying roughly the same thing... If a definition is always giving "birth to a new definition" etc etc, then definitions in the sense that Casito is thinking of them--as "The Final Word"--are bullshit).

Are definitions imprecise things that require assumptions to me made? Definitely. Does that mean that they are worthless? Definitely not. Consider this analogy: It is impossible to make wrenches the exact size of the bolts they are to turn. Toolmakers don't throw their arms in the air like you have, since they know that a wrench of slightly incorrect size will still work. Similarly, we have designed power-plants, spacecraft, computers, and much more using our imprecise definitions and "nontransparent language" (not to mention lots of other assumptions and approximations). What have these semantic games that postmodernists play given us? The point is that definitions are a pragmatic necessity, and that is why they have their prominence in Wikipedia. -Casito⇝Talk 16:58, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't think anybody is against defining deconstruction, because all writings about deconstruction are an attempt to define it a little more. It's just that there is no such thing as a short definition of deconstruction which is both accurate and easily-understood by someone without the appropriate background in phenomenology, existentialism, structuralism, etc. COGDEN 17:18, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your responce. I understand your arguement, and I think that we are finally on the same page. I think I have found a solution to our definition problem: Consider the article Von Kármán vortex street -- it is about a very technical subject in my field, and a precise definition would require a huge amount of background information. While there are other unrelated repeating patterns of swirling vortices in nature, the definition gives a lay-reader enough relevent information to know what the rest of the article is talking about. Furthermore, the word swirling seems redundent to someone who has worked in the field, but it really helps out someone unfamiliar with the concept of a vortex. Lastly, examples are given (visual in this case) that would allow someone to easially identify the phenomonon if observed in nature.

Regarding deconstruction, (I hope I'm not accused of re-inventing the wheel) a concise and correct yet imprecise definition with context clues, followed by a concise example or two would probably be the best way to go. -Casito⇝Talk 19:42, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

In response to Casito about an easy to understand definition. The average person would not understand this definition but 'does' know what deconstruction is. I will give an example of a definition that I believe would be understandable, and fit with the definition of most people who have been exposed to it. (other than deconstructionists themselves) :)

• Deconstruction is attempting to find "hidden meanings" in text which is otherwise quite obvious, many times the meanings are so hidden that the original author would be surprised and dismayed. However, deconstruction's detractors define it as "Making obscure shit up so that you can sound smart when speaking with other people who also make up this sort of shit."

Fascetiously yours,
--Darkfred ^{Talk to me} 17:00, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

• Also just a footnote; Would it be possible to work the phrase "mental masturbation" into the definition somewhere, i think this would make it a lot clearer. Thanks :) --Darkfred ^{Talk to me} 17:03, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

While the tone is less than perfect, I agree that some articles are so far from the mainstream that they need to include a criticism in their definition (eg. Flood geology, holocaust denial). I think that deconstruction verges on that threshold. Perhaps it can only be understood by the layman when crizicized. I'll take a machete to the first few paragraphs with this model in mind.⇝Casito⇝Talk 22:02, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I think there are some good things about these edits. But you've also introduced some inaccuracies. If you have more edits to make, I'm willing to wait until you are done before making changes. For example, I really don't think we should be comparing deconstruction to ad hominem arguments in the first sentence. And you can't really say that deconstruction is far outside the mainstream, while still admitting that there are an "alarming number" of them in academia. COGDEN 02:08, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

The recent edit by Casito mostly looks like POV-pushing to me, as does the overblown rhetorical comparison to Holocaust denial. Problems with it include calling Derrida a "literary critic" rather than a philosopher and the addition of unsourced editorializing on the creeping menace it represents to unnamed "scientists" (see Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words). In response to Darkfred's comments, I'd like to remind all editors once again to work on the article rather than putting forth their opinions about its subject. -- Rbellin|Talk 02:56, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

POV-pushing was not my goal, however I agree with Cogden and Rbellin that certain parts of my edit were probably not as tactful as I could have made them. I have made the suggested changes, and I invite any editor to fix any other parts that were clearly influenced by my modernist point of view. I hope you understand that improving the accessibility of the initial paragraphs was my goal.

• I fixed the article by replacing literary critic with literary critic and philosopher, to parallel the Jacques Derrida page. Since deconstruction relates to both, I think this is quite appropriate.
• I mentioned holocaust denial because it is essentially a case study in the limits of NPOV that has been brought up in numerous discussions, and even has a mention on the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view page itself. I never intended to compare deconstruction itself to holocaust denial, I was only listing references to other articles well known for dealing with minority points of view. I am sorry that my wording was vague.
• Regarding the ad hominem comparison, I was providing a link for readers' reference to a very notable case where something other than the author's argument is criticized. While I added it for the purpose of clarification, in retrospect I can see that it was tainted by my point of view, and I am sorry for not recognizing that while editing.
• Something can be alarming even if it isn't mainstream or common. If a hundred people in the US had smallpox it would be very alarming, but the disease would be far from mainstream or common in a country of 300 million.

⇝Casito⇝Talk 04:39, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

I find it almost rediculous that this talk page section has done more to define deconstruction than the article itself does. I mean, honestly, I don't care if deconstructionists think that definitions are bullshit—Wikipedia isn't a deconstructionists' encyclopedia. Clearly, the above exchange proves that deconstruction can be defined and that any effort to proclaim it as undefinable is, in essence, deconstructionism in action "against" itself. Spending three sections leading up to a half-definition is, IMO, ludicrous and pretentious. Converting these into a section talking about deconstructionists not wanting to define deconstruction would be fine, but, as of now, this article actually says almost nothing. I felt like I learned less about the topic reading the article than I knew before I read it. RobertM525 06:12, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A note about what is missing:

I'm new to wikipedia but have a long history with Deconstruction and the writings of Derrida. there are many problems with the article for example it takes sides so quickly. the second sentence reads ""deconstruction" is a kind of interpertation that argues for what its practitioners regard as the impossibility of a complete or even coherent understanding of a text". So right off the bat deconstruction is defined as a type of interpertation. First of all this is a possibility that Derrida frequently denied. Second, the idea that deconstruction starts with an assumption of the impossibility of understanding is false. Through much of his work Derrida reveals the metaphysical apratus at work supporting what is understood as a complete / coherent meaning; but derrida's deconstructive texts do not propose this as a founding assumption, or starting point.

The article also spends too much time describing why deconstruction can not be defined, and puts far too much emphasis on the debates about deconstruction over the past 35 years. Deconstruction is not hard to define if one starts with the relationship between Derrida and Heidegger and how Derrida was extending a specific aspect of Heidegger's work on being to his own work on language. The first 20 pages of Of Grammatology are the perfect case in point. I think the article should start with this kind of definition / historical perspective that describes Derrida's use of the term as his way of writing through Heidegger to address the metaphysics of presence as found in language. this would be both historicaly accurate and would define the concept in a way that would be free from the overtly political claims that define the article as it is written.

From there the article could define the reception of Deconstruction in America that radically changed it from a structural function of the history of metaphysics within wester philosophy to an approach to the reading of literary texts. From there I think it could examine architecture and critical legal studies- perhaps the place where deconstruction in the way Derrida used the term returns as a form of neo-pragmitism. Of course later the article can address the use of the term in contemporary culture and some of the debates that surround it. Saving the debates for later in the article is essential if the article strives to be fair and to actually define the term. -Douglas Hunter 11/21/05

These are excellent comments from someone who obviously knows the material. Douglas, how do you think the article outline at the top of this page may be improved? Jamescole1980

Just jumping in here: as a novice, the first paragraph (as written as of my timestamp) seems like a perfectly reasonable introduction. 141.154.100.194 21:32, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] R.M. Bharanitharan

No indication that such a scholar exists as previously cited or that his opinions are notable and competence in the subject matter established. The only result for the last name and linguistics on Google is this article. Broader searches point to such a person studying for a Ph.D. in ESL instruction at Bharathiar Univeristy, Tamilnadu, India, with a further interest in English grammar. Even with a citation, I'm tend to think notability needs to be established. I believe this is intended to be vandalism by way of a subtle hoax. I will note this on Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress page and the talk page of the user who made the edit. Buffyg 19:25, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Re the Sokal Affair

Alan Sokal, and countless other benighted physicists, would be very "relieved" to learn that that which he wrote about quantum gravity was not actually nonsense.

Compare Sokal's text to the nonsense generated by the postmodern generator listed in the article and you'll understand. Did you actually read Sokal's article? It was garbage, sure, but it had to make some sense in order to get published. The stuff coming out of the postmodern generator is true nonsense.--csloat 17:28, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I have read Sokal's article, and it is as nonsensical as anything produced by the generator. This is basically what Sokal did -- take a dozen or so physics/science/math concepts, mix them with a dozen references to theorists and "theories", boil in a stew of run-on sentences and verbose expressions, and sprinkle with a flattering political turn of phrase. It's really very little different from what the computer program does. 198.59.188.232 18:22, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I just wanna say that Sokal's article makes a hell of a lot more sense than anything that comes out of the postmodern generator... there are long passages in Sokal's article that are basically exactly what social constructionists are claiming, while the generator really is inscrutible nonsense. If they look the same to you, it's because you don't understand enough of where social constructionists are coming from... the same way I might think an advanced-math-paper generator produces the same sort of inscrutible nonsense as actual mathematicians. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by BrownApple (talk • contribs) 09:05, 7 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Looney links

• How To Deconstruct Almost Everything by Chip Morningstar
• Deconstructing Deconstructionism, by Robert Locke (2001)

Those are excellent links and I barely have read a better comment on deconstruction until now. The reply of the next poster is not very convincing to me. May I turn an argument around:

"Wikipedia is not a web directory; there is no obligation to include links that purport to be about deconstruction. Deconstruction as a school of thought doesn't have any value at all. So why include a link about deconstruction on wikipedia either?!"

Get the point? Ones again we have an argument that could work both ways. I'd say include a view links into the article that are realy critical of deconstructionism, even if they include a total dismissal of this "school of thought". Even making fun of postmodernisme should be included: http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern/

There is nothing to justify the selection of these links. Wikipedia is not a web directory; there is no obligation to include links that purport to be about a particular subject. These links are written by people with no demonstrable understanding of the subject; in fact, these are links by people either complaining that they do not understand deconstruction or documenting that this is the case. Take the following quotations from the Locke essay:

Deconstructionism originally came from France in the ‘70s. It is also known as poststructuralism, but don’t ask what structuralism was, as it was no better. It is based on the proposition that the apparently real world is in fact a vast social construct and that the way to knowledge lies in taking apart in one’s mind this thing society has built. Taken to its logical conclusion, it supposes that there is at the end of the day no actual reality, just a series of appearances stitched together by social constructs into what we all agree to call reality. But not agree voluntarily, for society has (this is the leftist bit) an oppressive structure, so we are pressured to agree to that version of reality which pleases the people in charge. (If you specialize in studying this pressure, you are a member of the Michel Foucault school of deconstructionism.)'

The deconstructionist account differs from the Marxist one in that, while Marx believed that what we think is a product of our role in the economic system, deconstructionism prides itself on recognizing that there are lots of other systems besides economics forcing us to think this way and that. But in practice, it is very easy to write deconstructionist analysis that just harps on the economic angle, so much of deconstructionism is just cultural Marxism. Cultural Marxism (what Tom Wolfe calls Rococo Marxism) is to be distinguished from ordinary Marxism, which is about revolutions and socialism and boring things like that. Cultural Marxism is way too cool for that. It is popular with hip young academics who have read Solzhenitsyn, seen the Berlin Wall come down, like shopping at Crate & Barrel, but still want a philosophy that will distance them from bourgeois society and all those tasteless squares. (The sight of Marxists worrying about tastelessness would have reduced Lenin to a fit of giggles, but that’s another issue.) Cultural Marxism enables one to simultaneously sneer at popular culture, satisfying one’s elitist impulses, while taking a populist attitude towards it, because pop culture isn’t the fault of the populace but of the Big Bad Bourgeoisie, or in a more sophisticated formulation, of the system of which the BBB is the leading element. So Marxism tends to be a toy that deconstructionists pick up and put down at will. (If you emphasize the way in which the system has a mind of its own that is bigger than the BBB who run it, you are a member of the HardtNegri school, as epitomized by their wildly popular new book Empire.)

You may wonder how leftwing all this is, if these people are busy critiquing our consciousness of reality rather than trying to overthrow the state or achieve equality. In fact, some deconstructionists are apolitical, and serious leftists have been known to complain about this. They accuse the deconstructionists of playing abstract intellectual games while there is revolutionary work to be done. Intelligent leftists like Alan Sokal, a cardcarrying Sandalista physicist at New York University, have belligerently attacked deconstructionism because it leads, if taken seriously, to the conclusion that leftism is just another social construct to be deconstructed. It seems leftist to start with, but it eventually devours itself. The deconstructionists ran afoul of him by straying into what can only be described as the literary criticism of physics, an endeavor which ended up making physics as much a rat’s nest of opinion as the most gaseous poetry criticism. He got a parody of deconstructionist analysis, "The Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity," published in a deconstructionist magazine, Social Text, without telling them it was a parody just to prove how stupid this all is.

So that's the origin of the Sokal hoax, publishing a hoax in a "deconstructionist magazine" (which it certainly was not; I can pull a cite where Ross says that he wasn't comfortable with some of the Derrida and Lacan cites because he didn't want to get involved in pomo polemics — I'm not aware of deconstruction ever having a mouthpiece journal). This isn't criticism, this is howling at the moon by someone who read a book by someone who read a book by someone who obviously doesn't like deconstruction: that's about how garbled the above characterisations are.

Then's there's Morningstar:

It is not generally claimed that John F. Kennedy was a homosexual. Since it is not an issue, why would anyone choose to explicitly declare that he was not a homosexual unless they wanted to make it an issue? Clearly, the reader is left with a question, a lingering doubt which had not previously been there. If the text had instead simply asked, "Was John F. Kennedy a homosexual?", the reader would simply answer, "No." and forget the matter. If it had simply declared, "John F. Kennedy was a homosexual.", it would have left the reader begging for further justification or argument to support the proposition. Phrasing it as a negative declaration, however, introduces the question in the reader's mind, exploiting society's homophobia to attack the reputation of the fallen President. What's more, the form makes it appear as if there is ongoing debate, further legitimizing the reader's entertainment of the question. Thus the text can be read as questioning the very assertion that it is making.

Deconstructionism is obsessed with finding contradictions in our sociallyconstructed picture of reality. It takes these contradictions as proving that reality is a social construct, because if our picture were actually true, it wouldn’t contradict. (Marxists say that contradictions in the organization of our economic system produce these contradictions in our thinking and that the process of working out these economic contradictions will eventually work out the intellectual ones.) Deconstructionists who devote themselves to ferreting out how deeply these philosophical wrinkles are embedded in the structures of thought belong to the Jacques Derrida school. Martin Heidegger (a Nazi party member and author of books with titles like What is a Thing?) makes his appearance here as the grandmaster of ferreting out deep metaphysical contradictions in our structures of thought.

This may be a cut above (he read Culler, then some unspecified other works, possibly including Derrida given the reference by name, then alt.postmodernism; I suspect that the last is where the most bizarre bits above come in). Still barking as far as far as his account of deconstruction goes.

Since when does Wikipedia authorise these in its external link guidelines? I'll tell you what sections of the guideline doc wouldn't cover these:

High content pages that contain neutral and accurate material not already in the article. Ideally this content should be integrated into the Wikipedia article at which point the link would remain as a reference.

As for the following:

On articles with multiple Points of View, a link to sites dedicated to each, with a detailed explanation of each link. The number of links dedicated to one POV should not overwhelm the number dedicated to any other. One should attempt to add comments to these links informing the reader of what their POV is.

These links do not further substantiate any point of view presented in the article, and their POV is not given any critical commentary. It could be reasonably argued that what is being discussed in these links is not the subject of the deconstruction entry, including the criticism. To the extent that it represents rather than misrepesent anything in the article under the heading of criticism, it represents it so poorly as to bring discredit, which amounts to POV-injection by straw man argument. Buffyg 22:35, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree that these links don't belong in this article, for the simple reason that they are ill-informed and often factually incorrect about its subject. The extracts Buffyg quotes above are good examples of these sources' utter ignorance of deconstruction (though, I fear, this is not as obvious to a non-specialist reader as Buffyg hopes). These pages might well be interesting primary sources for an original study on misperceptions about deconstruction, but this is well outside Wikipedia's purpose; as sources about deconstruction, they are not just unhelpful but actively misleading. -- Rbellin|Talk 23:30, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I re-added one of the links not being aware of this discussion. I still think it deserves to stand because whatever they describe deconstruction correctly or not they do a very good job at representing how some people perceives deconstruction. As far as I can see there is a widespread lack of agreement about what deconstruction means, making this perceptions even more relevant. --Lost Goblin 23:31, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reply

I reverted simply in order to restore some balance into an otherwise overly sympathetic list. I didn't really expect the edit to incite sufficient passion to inspire a thousand words. But that might go part way to explain why this article remains moribund after so long.

I don't find the reasons given for removal very convincing. Chomsky openly admits his "utter ignorance" of deconstruction, but his criticism remains in the article. Nor is it sufficient simply to claim that the writers are "ill-informed", without being at all specific. The present article certainly does nothing to explain how Morningstar and Locke are mistaken.

Based on my experience I view "deconstruction" rather as a rhetorical technique that can be employed to derail the statement or argument of anyone else. Besides that it hasn't got any use. As deconstruction can work in both directions somehow can always fit, it hasn't got any heuristical value either. You can not prove or refute anything with deconstruction.

Both articles reflect common criticisms: Locke is a nice example of the flaky Right's view that Deconstruction is a tool of the flaky Left; Morningstar's of the scientistic view that Deconstruction shows the poverty of Humanities over Science. If neither view is expressed in the article, then that is a problem for the article.

But neither reference is especially good. I am not interested enough to push the point. The article as it stands continues to be quite disappointing. Banno 08:24, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the view should be more balanced. Allowing real criticism against deconstruction. I'd go so far as to suggest deconstruction is a fallacy per definition. At least that is the impression one gets when reading the "arguments" of those employing the technique.

I, too, would like to get cracking on the rewrite, as I am also disappointed by the current article. I just forked Deconstruction/Draft to allow this. As I'm going to be doing some work from the road in the next week, so the draft is likely to look skeletal for a while. There is also a peer review open on Derrida to get some feeling for where that article can be polished, which would help a bit in preparing for the rewrite here. Please feel free to pitch in. I think we agree that the article would need to contextualise these links better than it does and that these links could be included with adequate commentary. I tried to make that clear; sorry if I failed. As for Chomsky, I imagine that his page is not pending a complete rewrite, so I have NPOV tagged the section on French intellectuals in that entry and made some remarks on the talk page. Feel free to jump in there. Don't suspect for a second that Chomsky's opinions will simply be parroted here after the rewrite. Buffyg 09:37, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

I still can't read it (due probably to laziness and lack of philosophical education, in that order), but it starts much better than the current article - I'd say go ahead and replace it. 84.242.86.47 14:03, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deconstruction in Schools

Hi I'm a grade twelve student from Queensland, Australia. I was just wondering if anyone here was aware that "the constructedness of texts" plays a very large part in my state's senior English curriculum.

I came onto Wikipedia hoping to find an article that could help me seeming as though I'm failing the subject (the subject being a prerequisite to every single uni course there is). What shocked me though, was that there's so much criticism of this theory. They teach this stuff as absolute fact at school (though I obviously don't get much of it).

If we consider a subject like Biology, you can be pretty sure that creationism has absolutely nothing over Darwin's theory. This is obviously not the case with English though since there are so many criticisms of deconstruction.

So, should deconstruction be taught in high schools? Also, is this a world-wide thing or is it just my state?

Hmmm. There is considerable confusion as to what deconstruction is, mostly because of the refusal of its advocate to provide a clear definition. I have commonly seen it used to refer to any sort of textual analysis, rather than to the quite specific approach developed by Derrida. I think (hope?)that you will find that deconstruction forms only a part of what the curriculum calls the constructedness of texts.

Being able to describe how a text is constructed is not the same as being able to deconstruct (in Derrida's specific sense) a text. So the criticisms of deconstruction do not necessarily apply to "the constructedness of texts" that is the focus of the Queensland curriculum.

In any case, in your situation the only thing to do is to knuckle down and study whatever crap they expect you to. Worry about the criticisms after you matriculate. Good luck. Banno 20:33, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. Yeah I think you're right about the word "deconstruction" being used in a different sense since the stuff in this article is pretty complicated and I've never been taught it (i.e. differance and trace etc). They teach us about "discourses", "ideologies", "gaps & silences", "foregrounding & privileging", "reader positioning" and "invited/alternate/resistant readings" at school.

For example, the last piece of assessment was an exam in which we had to write a response to the statement, "Discourses operate in the shaping of identity at individual, group & national levels", having read an auto/biography of a famous person earlier in the unit. The idea (I think) was to analyse the way in which discourses operate within the book to shape the person's identity, which, in the way we've used the word, is to "deconstruct" the book.

I've looked up a few interesting articles on the web. They seem to point out that what's being taught is "[postmodernism] under the guise of 'critical literacy'" (The Australian). Anyway, if you're interested, here are links to some articles:

"States Deconstruct Postmodern Trend" http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16017455%255E13881,00.html

"'Mumbo Jumbo' Teaching to an End" http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16145987%255E2702,00.html

"This Little Pig Goes Postmodernist" http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16017455%255E13881,00.html

"Deconstructing Buffy Leaves Nelson Clueless" http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/deconstructing-buffy-leaves-nelson-clueless/2005/08/05/1123125908862.html

I'd hoped that if the "chickenness"example was unsatisfactory, someone would supply one that isn't. The abstruse concept of "trace" requires at least one example.

Here's another question for you. Is this Wikipedia entry *about* deconstruction, or just a bunch of people bashing it? Andy 21:50, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intellectually snobbery

Rather than write this out again--I'm going to repost some slightly edited comments from a usertalk discussion with a contributer to the Deconstruction article. It is as follows....

I've sporadically followed the evolution of the Deconstruction article for several years-- so I know you are a major contributer. I have a minor complaint about the article--over those years there is constant mention of something along these lines....

“there is a cottage industry of writers of variably explicit sympathy or antipathy to DECONSTRUCTION as they understand it who offer what they believe are programmatic characterizations in an effort to help those reluctant to read DECONSTRUCTION texts understand it.... “

Question: How does this statement add value to the article?

Answer: I don't believe it does. Every notable subject in the human experience gets subsequent critique and very often misrepresented and misquoted. Despite Deconstruction's take on this “effect” – it is no exception and holds no special status in that regard. To demonstrate my point of unnecessary text-- imagine we substituted “communism” or “laissez faire capitalism” instead of DECONSTRUCTION in quoted text above.

I think the reason why “cottage industry” type comments keep creeping into the article is because of personal biases of some recurring contributor (probably just intellectual snobbery). It has no place in the article and unnecessarily alienates readers.

Aloof comments of this sort always do a disservice to any subject matter as it belittles the people that explore the concepts--or even think they do. The article should not be a critique or indictment of people that write about Deconstruction (or even a skewed perception of it). This is especially forgivable considering the subject matter and the nature of Derrida himself. What really irks me about sophomoric comments like this is that Derrida's own books are the definitive authority for his views-- not a Wikipedia article written by “cottage industry” writers.

Therefore I propose that the criticism section is adequate for describing general alternate viewpoints/complaints with regards to Deconstuction--and any references of this sort be removed from the article unless empirical academically reviewed evidence can be offered that demonstrates Deconstruction somehow has more quacks than other subjects (something the comment implies)

..

Any how, the contributer disagreed with my assessment and stated that it is "indisputably true". I countered that I wished to dispute this “truth”. We mutually agreed it would be better to continue the debate here. So here I am.

Therefore I request empirical evidence from some credible non-Wikipedia peer reviewed source if anyone feels the statements should remain. Should evidence of some sort be provided or anyone disagree with my reasoning (regarding the need for a shred of emperical or peer review evidence for such statements)--I am open for discussion. However, if no attempt is made, I will make the edit after a two week period as I view this as a subjective seat-o-the-pants emotional opinion on a touchy subject— not remotely a fact.

Without evidence to support the case, if it is changed back afterwards I will assume this is a self-fulfilling prophesy of “cottage industry” writers taking control and I will leave the article in their hands.

In accordance to how I read Wikipedia NPOV, the onus of inclusion of a fact within an article is for the contributor to provide credible proof---not for me to disprove. Although I sympathize with the plight of any article that wishes to be true to its pedigree (especially one as complex as Deconstruction) it seems reasonable and polite that it should follow the rules of the Wikipedia house. (Nov. 7, 2005 Anon.)

The exchange discussed above can be viewed on my Talk page by interested parties. I will add here that, though I believe the statement ought to remain in the article for the time being, I share the anonymous editor's concern about its current wording, which appears unnecessarily prejudicial and a bit pejorative in using phrases like "cottage industry." However, it seems to me that the article ought to continue to note how commonly deconstruction is misunderstood and mischaracterized. Unnecessary time limits aside, I also concur that it would be very nice to have this remark (among many, many others in this article) supported by better citations; interested editors with more time than I have now might turn to Jonathan Culler's On Deconstruction or the work of Christopher Norris as likely and reasonably authoritative sources. -- Rbellin|Talk 07:01, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Reading J. Cullers book after several Derrida Essays, I stopped with the impression, either J. Culler didn't understand deconstruction, or he failed translating into a different philosophical language with incompatible context/background. No snobbery intended.

This quote from the article: "yet in Derrida's view, "meaning" itself is a form of text,..." : could be improved to " "meaning" obeys the same rules of textuality as the text itself, ..." . It has to be stessed, what does deconstructing different to (and more than ) interpreting does. So it is the many possible ways of reading a text, given a time, a language, and a cultural background within.

The notion of trace gives the assertion that there is such a textuality. As far as I read Derrida, the notion of trace is one big unfinished part of his philosophy, and he probably relies heavily on Levinas here.

[edit] Replace current intro

I would like to propose to delete the current intro and replace it with the following intro:

The term deconstruction was coined by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in the 1960s and is used in contemporary humanities and social sciences to denote a philosophy of meaning that deals with the ways that meaning is constructed by writers, texts, and readers.

Looking forward to your comments--Jahsonic 19:35, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps you might argue for why this would be an improvement? Buffyg 21:56, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

First, (and I forgot to mention this) the definition paraphrases the The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05 (sourced at http://www.bartleby.com/65/de/deconstr.html )

Secondly: it nicely stresses the concept of meaning, which, as can be seen from the current article, is central to the concept of deconstruction.

Thirdly, the article needs a complete re-write anyway, and I believe the intro is the weakest section

Fourth: we would get rid of meaningless (meaningless because they are provided here without context) phrases such as:

is a kind of interpretation that argues for what its practitioners regard as the impossibility of a complete or even coherent understanding of "texts."

deconstruction an indeterminate property of text, through which a text, quite in spite of itself, will convey different, often conflicting messages, or "voices," as deconstructionists say. (Texts having many such voices are called "multivocal.")

By the beginning of the 21st century, deconstruction theory was a significant, though still controversial, critical tool for a great many academics; some, like Derrida himself, were of international stature.

Deconstruction has also been criticized as focusing on superficialities of language at the expense of meaning; yet in Derrida's view, "meaning" itself is a form of text, and just as unreliable.

In each of these fields, deconstructive readings attempt to reveal the multivocality of texts, especially Western texts, how they are not very importantly works by individual authors communicating distinct messages, but instead can be seen as "sites of conflict" within a given culture or worldview.

much criticism of deconstructive readings comes from the political right; yet, some of its harshest criticism comes also from the political left.

Fifth: all this information in the intro should be explained in subsequent subheadings--Jahsonic 22:21, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hymen, or, a Small Request

Can someone who is more familiar with this subject than I am expand or clarify the section on hymen? The paragraph as currently written is absolute gibberish. The section on pharmakon is less gibberish, but still lacks anything that puts it in context in this subject, i.e. why it's relevant. YBeayf 05:35, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Something I do not accept

That deconstruction isn't relativistic. Since one interpretation of a given text is as good as another (due to the supposed less of foundation upon which metaphysics is built) the result is an intellectual demolition of most disciplines : science, logic, history, mathematics (etc). If you 'decenter', as Derrida might put it, absolute or objective claims, then you have "relativism" in all shapes and sizes. If there is a distinction to be had here that I am overlooking somewhat, then please present it to me.

Please bear in mind however that your response as such is guilty of phallogocentrism, a preference of the phallus over the female genitalia and that I may have to deconstruct your reply in order to grant equality to the 'Other'. Don't say I didn't warn you.--Knucmo2 23:09, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Please remember that Wikipedia Talk pages are for discussion directly related to improving the article, not for discussion (nor debate) of its subject. There are other places on the Internet where the kind of discussion this comment seems to invite are welcome. Please, everyone, let's confine the use of this page to improving this article. (If this comment is meant in earnest rather than as a troll, let me add that it displays a very minimal acquaintance with Derrida's thought, and appears to be based on untrustworthy, polemical second- and thirdhand accounts of his work. Readers interested in deconstruction and the philosophy of science, for instance, will find that copious serious literature on the subject exists. Take a look at Derrida's early work on Husserl and geometry, or Christopher Norris's books on deconstruction as a starting-point.) -- Rbellin|Talk 23:31, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Begging your pardon sir, but my posting is concerned exactly with improving the article. I am acquainted with his works, and perhaps my signing off comment was a little unfair. My point was that this article asserts that deconstruction isn't relativistic, something which I think is self-referential inconsistency. Since it is an ideal of Wikipedia that it such go for factual accuracy, I am indeed calling into question the idea that deconstruction isn't relativistic. I don't see why Wikipedia should assert such things if they happen to be false. By the way, seriousness is not a measurement for truthfulness (nor verifiability), just an indication of how some philosophers approach their work. --Knucmo2 00:37, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I apologize, then, for the accusation of trolling. Still, considering how thoroughly and constantly Derrida denied the charge of relativism, I'm surprised anyone who claims acquaintance with his work hasn't seen it. Deconstruction in a Nutshell is probably the easiest place to look for citations to support this (I am sorry to say I don't have time to do this myself right now), but really, this is a constant refrain in his lectures, interviews, etc. If your apparently original (as in WP:NOR) interpretation of deconstruction's "self-referential inconsistency" disagrees with Derrida's constantly reiterated interpretation in his own work, this contention needs to enter the public record before it has a place in Wikipedia's article. I've got neither time nor energy to devote to this article at the moment, for which I apologize. -- Rbellin|Talk 02:11, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I wish I could claim credit for deconstruction as having "self-referential inconsistency" but it is really a term for a theory that is self-refuting, and other philosophers (in published work) have noted it. As such my contention is not original. I haven't read the book you reference, so I might get around to it. --Knucmo2 11:39, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, Derrida has never argued that "one interpretation of a text is as good as another" --

Q: It might be argued that deconstruction inevitably leads to pluralist interpretation and ultimately to the view that any interpretation is as good as any other. Do you believe this and how do you select some interpretations as being better than others?

[Derrida]: I am not a pluralist and I would never say that every interpretation is equal...

He goes on to detail his method for selecting quotations, some thoughts on Nietzsche, etc. This is from "Literary Review" (Vol 14.18 April - 1 May (1980):21-22) if you want to read the whole thing.

That's rather interesting. I'll just finish my contribution to this post by making a few points. These are not products of original research, just observations about the last post. Deconstruction is done according to the cycle of interpretation of previous knowledge. This is sort of like watching a film once, and then again subsequently, and "seeing" different things every time. I can imagine everyone nodding their heads still at this point (apart from those sheltered enough to have never seen a movie) because it happens all the time. Ok, since deconstructionists reckon there is no definitive foundation (P is Q or P is not Q) upon which to derive knowledge from, then deconstruction uncovers systems of knowledge. Knowledge therefore, is simply what it is interpreted to be. --Knucmo2 22:18, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] a suggestion

I'm unsure if I overlooked the citations, but when I read the article, there is alot of talk about the critics of deconstruction and though two names are mentioned (rorty and chomsky) I am still left wondering who all these critics are and what their names and works are. If I've somehow overlooked something, I apologize. Thank. DanteDanti 19 June 2006

Having just Rorty and Chomsky on that list is weird. Rorty, in fact, is not insignificantly sympatico with Derrida in as much as he ultimately comes down on the side of inexpressability/indeterminability of foundational questions (including, for instance, the identifiability of some set of 'the' foundational questions).

As for what to do about criticisms of deconstruction, I recommend simply splitting it off onto its own page. It's a rather large topic in itself seeing as how deconstruction is such a punching bag, both in some corners of acadmia and the greater public. --Apantomimehorse 03:24, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Interesting

I always felt that Deconstructionism was the greatest intellectual magic trick ever pulled, rivaled only by Scientology. No one can see that the emperor truely has no clothes, and interestingly enough the moment its criticised - it falls apart, and even more interesting - is when this point is brought up - a deconstructionist replies with "EXACTLY!" This seems like such a rediculous recursive childs' game, that it's most certainly not worth playing. Now, the very fact that there are pages and pages of rambling going on about what Deconstructionism is/isn't, should clearly show that it was a drug-induced theory to begin with, and is on par with "what if we are really just atoms in a larger being...whoa.." Sometimes that which is preceived as brilliant is really just idiocy with a new marketing director. To compare Deconstructionism to the likes of Merlou Ponty or Heidegger is like compareing stereo instructions to TS Eliot...the only commonality is that the both at times, use words.

By the way, whomever wrote the piece on Heidegger - has never studied Heidegger with any scholar of any kind, or if they had - then they clearly fell asleep when the important stuff was being discussed...

Also - I can't spell, I know this - but it is in no way indicative of my process of thought - so if that is all you have to go on for a valid criticism of my very terse set of comments above - try again. Capolan 01 February 2006

While I'm sure many folks would agree with you, I feel obliged to point out that the article is presently roughly 1/3 criticism of deconstruction--which seems a bit high compared to other articles. I guess giving such attention to opposing views makes some sense given the nature of deconstructive thought (and is also the reason why I'm responding) but unless there are some additional substantive ideas that need to be included in the critical sections, I don't think those sections need to be particularly expanded upon. Most of the ideas expressed above, for instance, are described in one way or another by existing text.

There is something to the idea that the second half the article should be critical of the ideas expressed in the first half... but that seems a bit hackneyed as a way of showing the method of deconstruction in practice.

geeman 28 June 2006

[edit] Copyedit

I'd like to see the whole article mercilessly copyedited for clarity and simplicity of expression, before any substantive changes are made. I've done this with one section - as best I can. I won't go any further for now, because what I've done is probably already controversial. If someone wants to revert it, I won't lose sleep, though I'd hope that it's possible to improve the new version rather than simply throw my work away.

In any event, it's offered as a possible approach. Of course, the subject matter is intrinsically difficult, so even the section I've tackled is still not a super easy read... If people think I haven't entirely wasted my time, I'm prepared to do more of this on other sections. Metamagician3000 03:23, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Obvious antipathy for the subject produces lousy articles

I find that I'm in a bind. Like most I feel that this article is not satisfactory. After reading through this talk page, I suspect that a large part of the problem with the article is that many of the contributors demonstrate contempt for the subject. And while I certainly don't contend that someone has to be wholly or even partially in agreement with a subject in order to write a quality encyclopedia article, I do think that it is an extremely difficult task when someone thinks that the subject simply has no value whatsoever. To the people who contend that deconstruction is merely "intellectual masturbation", or that deconstruction is so worthless as to not deserve an article, I question what additions of value they could add to an article like this. I invite criticism of any topic, an indeed there is more in the article to criticize decon than to argue in favor of it. But Wikipedia is not supposed to pass summary judgements of controversial subjects; and if only those who want to mock and degrade deconstruction post here, how can any neutral point of view be created?

Back to my bind: I keep reading the posts of previous editors to this talk page and wanting to respond to their criticisms of decon. But I know that doing so is contrary to the point of a talk page, which is a discussion about how best to create an accurate encyclopedia article, not a forum for debating the merits of the subject. So you see my dilemma. I do feel that there are some serious misunderstandings and mischaracterizations of deconstruction that are taking place which are hindering the creation of a quality article. All that I will say in this space in defense of decon is this: that most of the arguments against it are circular. Decon at times subverts traditional rationality and logic (some would say Aristotlean rationality) in order to better understand the ways in which rational arguments are constructed, to see the frameworks which make rationality possible. By refusing to step outside of classic rationality in order to understand decon, its critics assume as a starting point the very assumptions which decon hopes to question.

I'm willing to take on some of the editing that people are in agreement needs to be done (and will be no doubt savagely edited myself :) ). Right now I'm on vacation, so I don't have access to my books and journal articles that I would need to cite in order to provide references. I'll be home on the 18 and hope to get started then. Freddie deBoer 03:40, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Include this dialogue in defintion?

It strikes me as congruent with deconstruction to include the context of the creation of the article, and the evolution of thought that led to its development, as an ongoing and alive link to perhaps a summary of the stages of development of the article. With Wikipedia then, there might want to be a history of the article as part of the article with links to all prior versions and rationale for change. This idea allows the idea of deconstruction to remain alive to new thinking, and not die with Derrida et. al. --Cdonnan 16:24, 17 February 2006 (UTC)cdonnan

[edit] What Deconstruction Has To Do With Language

In the realm of Deconstruction, one must view langauge as something which is both differential and differed. This view towards language builds into a concept that Derrida calls différance.(Here I am not trying to define différance, which would be an inane understaking or even explain it as a stand-alone type entity, which can be done at a later point, but rather provide insight into Deconstructions relationship to language. Thus one should not see this as différance means "to be deferred and differential," but rather much like the word, the idea of différance is based on the concepts of language being differed and differential). When one speaks about différance, this is an allusion to the idea that language is an unlimited semiosis, in which meaning can never be said to have a confined self-presence. Language then is thought to be both differential, built upon constrasting negative relations, and differed, infinitely passed thorugh a series of linguistic substitutions and displacements.

What has been overturned? The traditional way of thinking about language is to view it as a set collection of external signs of pre-existing, pre-conceived internal ideas. In Deconstructionism, along with post-structuralism, one rebuffs this idea of language arising as a something which is itself meaningful. Rather, Deconstruction views the elements of language, its marks and traces as arbitrary and a conventional. Thus, the pieces which consitute a certain language are thought of as trivial and only important insomuch as they help the users conform to a certain disernable set of marks and traces.

What does this mean? The underlying point to be understood here is the Deconstructionist claim that language, itself, if there is such a thing, is "a play on differences." The meaning of a word is no more than a result of its position in relation to other words. The best example of this is a dictionary, in which one can plainly see that any given word is defined differentially, that is to say the word is understood through its relationship with other words. This trumps the classical logocentric view of language, which would positions that a word can be a, "word in itself." This is why typically people who work with a mindset towards Decontruction typically phrase sentences which seek to make a "thing in itself" claim, in the same manner I phrased the first sentence: "The underlying point to be understood here is the Deconstructionist claim that language, itself, if there is such a thing, is 'a play on differences.'"

What conclusions can be drawn from this? Well, as a conclusion to this argument one should see that any given concept cannot exist within an ideal realm of self-identical meaning/value. Also, another conclusion, which lends itself frequently to deconstruction: speech is not consistent with a thought or a concept.

What is the bottom-line? 1) The speech sounds and elements of language(traces) are arbitrary and conventional. 2) The meaning of a trace is purely a result of its spacing among other traces. 3) The meaning of a word is defined by its differentially and in relation to the meaning of other words. 4) One can never find a word that exists "without," or outside of other words and puports itself to be "transcendental signified"(a signified which transcends all signifiers/a meaning which transcends all signs). 5) The notion that ideal meanings, which pre-exist before language, or a presence which laguange must conform to, is false. 6) Presence is an effect of Representation, not vice versa. 7) Meaning and reference are constructed through the vast interconnectedness of assumptions 8) The play on traces/differences is open ended. --BorommakotTesshu 11:24, 22 February 2006 (UTC)BorommakotTesshu

[edit] Why Hasn't Khôra Been Mentioned At All?

I find it very interesting to note that the entire concept of Derrida's Khôra has been completely overlooked. For those who are familiar with this term, I find it quite difficult to come to terms with the idea that this concept has not yet been mentioned as even a potential addition to the article. To me, Derrida's work with the khôra offers an overwhelming legitimization to his philosophy and work in Deconstruction. The khôra offers one an opportunity to come face-to-face with a true deconstructive reading of a classical text. In his Decontruction of Plato's Timaeus, Derrida attempts to prove to his reader that, "the most radically decontructed motifs are at work 'in' what is called the Platonic, Cartesian, Kantian text." For those not familiar with khôra, here is a very brief summary. Derrida, in his work with classical literary/philosophical text, comes upon a topic in Plato's Timaeus, which is customarily overlooked in traditional readings, being swallowed by the wave of what Derrida calls, "The Philosophy of Plato," Platonism. Platonism being the "dominant" result of Plato's writing, the other voices and effects at work in his work typically are shut out or swallowed up in the name of Platonism. Khôra is a concept at work in Plato's Timaeus that starkly contrasts "The Philosophy of Plato," or Platonism and is typically cast aside. Khôra is neither a intelligible form or a sensible thing, but rather a receptacle, a concept which goes against the framework of Platonism. --BorommakotTesshu 11:42, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Practical Examples Have Been Overlooked

(Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics), anthropology (Lévi-Strauss’s Tristes Tropiques), and philosophy (Rousseau’s Essay on the Origin of Languages) I believe that many people fail to grasp the importance or significance of Deconstruction, mainly because they have been unable to come face to face with its actualization and application and are instead typically mired down in the details of defining and understanding its theories and ideas as stand-alone entities. Although much emphasis should be placed on the theoris and more abstract ideas of Deconstruction, ear should also be given to the more concrete examples of how Deonctructive readings may be applied. One example of this is Derrida's work with the Khôra, which I mentioned above. Some more examples follow and would be interesting to see some people take up some of these:

Deconstruction of the "Transcendental Signified."

Deconstruction of the classical view of writing, through "arche-writing."

Derrida criticism of Sassure's Logocentrism and Phonocentrism

Deconstruction of Rousseau In Of Grammatology, Derrida exposes Jean Jacques Rousseau's body of work as being disjointed and rejects claims that any semblance of unity, or overall all consistency exists within his work. Derrida is able to deconstruct, The Philosophy of Rousseau and Rousseaunism, by setting it against the text, much in thae way he did with Plato's Timaeus and the Khôra. --BorommakotTesshu 1:34, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Consensus on (what I believe to be) a minor edit

The section "lack of seriousness and transparency" concludes with the following paragraph:

One might say the same thing about the apparently unintuitive axioms of Non-Euclidean Geometry-- that they just do not make sense. Yet, these same (for some bizarre) theories end up being useful in understanding space near matter. Accepting what at first blush may seem to be "illogic" for the scientific positivist may be necessary in understanding deconstruction as well.

I must protest the analogy. The only possible criticism of non-euclidean geometry is that we may not see how its axioms can be true of the world. To have this inability, we must first be able to aprehend their meaning in some way. However, the detractors of deconstructionism claim they cannot even understand what is being said in postmodernist (or whichever umbrella term) discourse. To conflate these two very distinct phenomena — not seeing how a sentence can be true, and not understanding a sentence at all — into "does not make sense" is sloppy, as is the implicit assertion that mathematics is "illogic". I propose to erase the paragraph entirely. Pietro KC 07:37, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Seems like your argument echoes Chomsky's point. That notwithstanding, you're right, that is a pretty poor analogy. Ig0774 06:14, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A suggestion

There really isn't much about how deconstruction might be useful to a literary critic - which could presumably be used to bring balance to the idea that deconstruction is nihilism - and perhaps provide an example that some people have suggested. For example, we might show how Shakespeare in Othello sets up symbolic dichotomies with the opposition between white and black, darkness and light, life and death, but then perhaps shows these to be hierarchized - so that the white Iago turns out to be evil, and the suspected Moor demonstrates himself, at least at first, to be reasoned and honourable. That might not be the best example, but at least it shows the deconstructive move, which we might find difficult to define.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.67.10.115 (talk • contribs) .

Falsehood: Why does the association of Nazi followers such as Heidegger with deconstructionist dissociate it from the political left wing? The NSDAP were very clearly left-wing in their political beliefs, and the continued mis-association of them with the political right baffles me.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.63.179.228 (talk • contribs).

[edit] It wasn't vandalism

I was just trying to add a language and when I saved part of the text was erased. It was some bug, not vandalism.

[edit] Further additions to criticism section

I think before adding to the criticism section, editors should take the time to read the wiki pages on other contemporary philosophers of similar stature. I've noticed that several editors who have some sort of beef with post(modernism/structuralism/whatever) like to repeatedly expand upon and argue about the criticism sections of this page, Deconstructionism, Jacques Lacan, and a couple others. Often, these sections include a summary of polemical exchanges between these figures (or their contemporary supporters), and either analytic philosophers or random famous people who don't like post(modernism/structuralism/whatever). However, on the pages of the same luminaries who offered these devestating critiques of post-x, the fact that they did so is not even mentioned.

Example 1: while some find it necessary to include Noam Chomsky claiming to be unable to understand Jacques Lacan as a valid criticism of Lacan, no one sees fit to add any Lacanian (or Saussrian) critics to Noam Chomsky. Furthermore, while Chomsky has been invovled in numerous polemical debates with various academic figures (including John Searle, see ex. 2), few have found their way to the Chomsky article. Example 2: While the 1974 debate between Jacques Derrida and John Searle is referred to extensively on Jacques Derrida, it does not appear on John Searle Example 3: While all of the 'canonical' figures of 'continental philosophy' eg: Martin Heidegger Jean-Paul Sartre Sigmund Freud Friederich Nietzche (the list goes on and on) have a numbered, bulleted, at least paragraph long section of criticism, none of the 'canonical' figures of analytic philosophy enjoy such careful scrutiny on wikipedia. As it stands, a curious scholar would find that absolutely no one has ever written a single critical word toward Bertrand Russell, Gottlob Frege, Willard Van Orman Quine, AJ Ayer, George Edward Moore, J.L. Austin, Rudolf Carnap, the Vienna Circle or basically any analytic philosopher who is living or has ever lived.

Suggestion based on above examples: please do not claim that poorly cited or sourced, unnotable, or generally dismissive criticisms of post-x need to be included on post-x wikipages to give a 'balanced' point of view. It is obvious that extensive reproduction of critical reception is not part of the general practice of reporting on philosophical movements in wikipedia. I also seem to recall that it is wiki policy to have an international viewpoint as much as possible. Given that the 'criticisms' sections in all of the abovementioned cases are focused entirely on anglo-american criticisms of european philosophers, one would think that this policy is being misapplied. When I get around to it, seeing no evidence provided against my assertions here, I will be extensively trimming and changing the criticism sections on all of these pages to make them more reflective of the rest of wikipedia Jimmyq2305 22:43, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I removed a fair amount of the criticism. Keep in mind that you cannot avoid wikipolicy on original research by imputing your views to an anonymous cabal of 'critics'. I will try to source some of the criticisms that have been made in print by peer-reviewed or scholarly sources, but I will continue to remove and/or change anything that stems from A) someone's website B) someone's cousin, who knows all about this kind of stuff or C) the editor themselves. Please, if you want to expand the criticism section (and please read the above post before doing even that), keep in mind that the object of the article is veracity rather than truth (ie: it should reflect the state of academic opinion in the field) and that all claims must be attributed and all sources cited. Also please keep in mind that deconstruction is a movement started by French academics whose influence is chiefly in continental europe. American academia is not academia as a whole, and wikipedia is intended to reflect an international viewpoint. In other words, to include negative reception in a foreign country as a large portion of an article on a school of thought is against wiki policy. I see absolutely nothing on this article on the reception of deconstruction anywhere other than the United States. While I would like to overhaul this completely myself, I cannot simultaneously manage and edit useless unsourced criticism and look up and add useful sourced criticism. Please do not edit the article (especially the criticism section - knowing little about a critized topic makes it very easy to believe the criticism regardless of its accuracy) if you are completely unfamiliar with the topic, even if you think that your viewpoint is important/neglected/oppressed/unfairly deleted/in keeping with the mainstream.

Jimmyq2305 04:42, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Regarding Chomsky-- I may add a somewhat deconstructive critique of his own work here or elsewhere in the article, if anyone else thinks it's relevant (I'll put the proposal on the discussion page first): I'll have to find the specific quote; it's in Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea and, more or less, constitutes an argument that an essentialism underlies his approach to linguistics, if I remember correctly.

I agree that a criticism of deconstruction as "vague" and "difficult", et cetera, is a poor criticism indeed, but I nevertheless think that it is quite appropriate to place such criticisms in this article as long as they are properly sourced. The reader should be allowed to make his or her own decision about the value of the deconstructive analysis of texts.

As far as the article's mainly-American approach to deconstruction: it's completely true that Wikipedia shouldn't be solely reflective of American views, but it's clearly the task not only of Americans but of non-Americans to change offending articles: that a person "doesn't have time" to fix something is a perfectly valid and reasonable, but rather unproductive, excuse for not fixing it.

I have one other problem here:

"[K]eep in mind that the object of the article is veracity rather than truth (ie: it should reflect the state of academic opinion in the field)"

Veracity is, in fact, truth. Look up its etymology; it comes from the Latin for "truth". I believe the author of the above statement meant to refer to verifiability, and not to veracity, since "the state of academic opinion in [a given] field" is most certainly not interchangeable with veracity simply because it is the opinion of an educated majority-- this doesn't mean that it can't be truth, but it isn't necessarily truth.

Wikipedia policy does, however, require the verifiability of statements made in its articles as attributable to credible sources of information.

Tastyummy 11:31, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Come to think of it, I'll have a look at the article on Chomsky and add Dennett's criticism of his work, if it's not already there.

Tastyummy 11:34, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

"Veracity" is the 'word for being' that specifically refers to the encyclopediac method of inquiry. Etymology is not so simple as "look it up, it comes from the latin for x". I'm well aware of the existence of the latin word 'veritas' and was before writing the above. I was incorrect in asserting that wikipedia policy mentions veracity. I do, however, maintain a distinction between the two, especially if they are to be used philosophically, and especially in the context of deconstruction. Veracity is checked against encyclopedic content, truth is checked against the external world. Deconstruction operates in the space of the subtle distinctions between the uses of "synonymous" words (and other ambiguous parts of language), and requires that the most precise definition be used for each - there is no place in it for synonyms (see - differance).Jimmyq2305 00:03, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, that came off rather snotty. I agree with almost everything you wrote, but maintain that 'veracity' is more equivalent to my definition than the one word definition 'truth'. Also, i do find 'vague' and 'difficult' based criticisms to be exclusively ango-american and useless even when sourced. The reason is that the sources are usually (as I alluded to above) either nonacademic or from outside the humanities. Again, I cannot think of a single wiki article where random people who don't like x (where x is the wiki page being contributed to) are given space on x. Also, I have seen numerous statements (even sourced statements) removed because the source is not considered 'serious' or 'credible' within the academic field in which x' (the direct object of x) is discussed. Richard Dawkins (Noam Chomsky, Alan Sokal, Jean Bricmont, Stephen Weinberg) are not professional philsophers or literary critics. The fact that they have a stated antipathy to a philosophical practice means precisely nothing. The fact that certain of them have printed articles (not one of which appeared in a peer-reviewed academic journal of philosophy, literary criticism, history, sociology etc..) attacking a philosophical practice means precisely nothing. They are as credible sources when commenting on Derrida (Spivak et al) as Derrida would be on nuclear physics (which, rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, he has never published about).

Imagine the wikipedia article on, say, first order logic, was bombed by a bunch of (sourced) criticism in which various thinkers were cited to have claimed that 'logic knocking' was an 'utter waste of time' and an example of 'mental masturbation'. And let's say that it was subsequently discovered that not only do none of the sources betray even a cursory familiarity with first order logic (perhaps they mixed up the meaning of basic symbols and used that to support the thesis that they were arbitrary), but also that not one of the cited sources was authored by a human being holding even an undergraduate degree in logic or philosophy. You would probably, at this point, feel like all of the editors who are interested in Derrida, Foucault, Nietzche, Heidegger or, especially, Lacan.

Basically, I think that these particular criticism sections are deliberate attempts to lower the quality of the wiki articles to support the assertions of certain editors that post-x is a waste of time. At least one "contributor" is more or less open about this. It's pretty easy to ruin a wiki article, just make a huge, unsourced, inelegant jumble of 'critiques' that serious editors have to delete or edit one at a time before even beginning to clean up the rest. I am fairly sick of it, because I like to use wiki as a resource, and would like to help others do the same. It takes a huge portion of my time just to remove POV-pushing from this article, Zizek, and Lacan. I am posting these admittedly long and general comments in the hope that others will feel similar and a consensus can be built to improve articles that have been gradually vandalized over a long period of time. I think that before that can happen it has to be acknowledged that editing an article about something you can't stand will more than likely make it worse. There are enough critics of deconstruction who know at least something about it to ensure that the articles will not become puff pieces (like, say, the articles on analytic philosophers).Jimmyq2305 01:24, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

You're right these pages are spotty at best and horrendous at times. It would be nice if such people would refrain from editing these articles in such a way. It's not that they don't like the subject that is a problem; it is that they steadfastly refuse to even try to understand the topic. Why would someone who has never bothered to read Derrida be so adamant about editing the Derrida page? I don't have this incredible urge to edit the Isaac Newton page.--csloat 23:02, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deconstruction, defined:

Absurdity par excellence. Chases its own tail, trying pathetically to find something concrete in language it can hold on to, can be sure of.

--Actually, that's just about the opposite of decon. Don't criticize what you don't understand.64.251.50.50 13:52, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] a minor fix

I found this remark to be bad: In addition, despite what Derrida's many detractors claim, deconstruction is not the same as nihilism or relativism. It is not [..] and changed it to: Some detractors claim deconstruction amounts to little more than nihilism or relativism. Its proponents deny this; It is not [..]

It's non-NPOV, basically stating the proponent opinion as fact, and the opponent opinion as if it were neutrally and factually false. Further, it's an overly strong statement, implying all Derrida's detractors claim this (unlikely) and also an overly specific characterization of their claims (exactly the same?).

I'm not 100% happy with the change, since it introduces the weasel-word "Some detractors..". But it's at least correct and neutral. Obviously not an insignificant number of critics claim this, so it's not misleading at least. I don't think a reference is necessary for this? I'd consider it to be general knowlege on the subject, more or less.

(The other line was far more amusing though! Someone promoting the deconstructionist POV by asserting one reading is more truthful than another? :) Not to mention citing Derrida's work as authorative? Doesn't that both imply presence and privledge it? ) -130.237.179.171 22:12, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

What is amusing is people who don't have a clue what they're talking about making such arguments as the above with a straight face. Of course Derrida is an authority on this issue and of course some readings are more accurate than others. To suggest Derrida or "deconstructionists" think otherwise is naive and requires a reading of such texts that is feeble at best.--csloat 22:53, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Not as much with straight face as with the tongue firmly in the cheek. I must clarify though: I did not imply or mean to imply that Derrida and/or deconstructionists (do you dislike that term?) don't consider some readings to be more authorative than others. Rather, in both cases, I intended to play on the central (or at least very popular) theme/idea/tenet/whatever of deconstruction to question authority in general and the authority of textual interpretations in particular. I thought there was a humorous dichotomy between the attitude of the subject and the attitude in which it was presented. I find your comment humorous for the same reason: to me, deconstruction is quite playful, challenging of authority and demanding humility of interpretations. But I feel your comment was humorless, arrogant and assertive. That might be because I don't have a clue of course. :) But I'm not sure I care for your reading if that's the attitude that results from it. --130.237.179.171 01:32, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I do have a problem with the term "deconstructionist," since it equates a reading strategy with a political platform. I agree that deconstruction is playful. But "playful" does not mean that all interpretations are equal, which you seemed to imply. "Deconstructionist" or no, I don't know anyone who would agree that, say, a 1040 tax form can be "interpreted" as a poem. "Deconstructionist" or no, I don't know a single instructor of literature or writing who would agree with your claim that no reading is more truthful than any other reading.--csloat 05:20, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay. Well that wasn't my intent with "deconstructionist", and it's an rather narrow interpretation. My usage was #3 here "An adherent or advocate of a specified doctrine, theory, or school of thought". I don't consider deconstruction to be an ideology. Anyway, I'm not sure why you're continuing to argue against a point I already denied making. --130.237.179.171 11:47, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

This is where you made the point I was refuting: "The other line was far more amusing though! Someone promoting the deconstructionist POV by asserting one reading is more truthful than another?" If you no longer support this claim, great; we are closer to being on the same page.--csloat 16:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Sloat, thank you for replying to this comment with more good humor and less frustration than I was able to muster (which is why I didn't). The phrase "Derrida's many detractors" is a bit weird, for the reason the anonymous editor suggests, but attributing to "proponents" the opinion that deconstruction is not nihilism or relativism is simply silly, and should be changed back. -- Rbellin|Talk 23:04, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, that change, like other similar changes, has made the page demonstrably inferior than it was before (not that the original wording was so stellar or anything). It's a shame to have to keep reverting such things; it would be nice if people could focus on improving the page rather than just undoing the damage done by people who refuse to even learn about the topic.--csloat 00:37, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks again for your constructive criticism. You do know there's a no-personal-attacks policy, right? It's unfortunate that you think my edit lessened the quality of the page. That was hardly the intent. But instead of lamenting my ignorance, perhaps you could provide some enlightenment and explain your reasons in the future. Three comments, yet I'm still in the dark on why it's justified to depict a position in a semantical/metaphysical debate as being objective fact. All I now know is that some people think I'm ignorant if I don't. --130.237.179.171 01:32, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

You do know that saying that an edit lessened the quality of a page is not a personal attack, right? As for objective facts, there are some, like it or no. It is an objective fact that Derrida has never endorsed the argument that you claim he has.--csloat 05:20, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Well I consider saying somone "has no clue what they're talking about" is a personal attack. Saying 'that is a completely clueless statement' is not. See the difference? Also, see WP:DICK. Seriously. Misinterpretations are one thing, but this is just outright fabrication. I never claimed that Derrida endorsed anything. Anywhere. The only mention I've made of him says I don't mean to imply he endorsed something. Do you always treat people like this? (Not that I'm a christian, but this is still good advice). --130.237.179.171 11:47, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, if you don't support the claim, then perhaps you are not so clueless. But I don't consider it a personal attack. If I were to expound on theories of railroad construction and you wrote that statements from people who have no clue what they're talking about shouldn't be given much weight, you would be quite correct. Calling someone a "dick," however, can be considered much more of a personal attack. I'm not sure what good this debate does; I have not personally attacked you; I have disagreed with your implicit argument, which you now claim not to support. If that is the case, fine, but then I'm not sure I understand your point at all.--csloat 16:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay. Could you elaborate? I mean, you seem to consider it an opinon as well? In which case it has to be attributed to someone. Since there's absolutely no well-defined meaning for the term 'deconstruction', much less a commonly agreed-upon one, there's very little room to assert specific things about it as objective fact. (The rest of the article does a pretty good job of not doing so as well) The value of the cited quotes and conclusion in resolving the criticism is entirely subjective as well, and the definitions of nihilism/relativism likewise. It also leaves out the position that Deconstruction is neither intrinsically nihilist or not, but that it's merely a question of how it is used. (An opinion I've seen) Anyway, it's *not* the point of the article to settle debates. Is there agreement on that much? --130.237.179.171 01:32, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, there is a pretty well-defined and commonly agreed upon meaning for the term deconstruction in this context. If you don't want to struggle with Spivak's excellent introduction to Of Grammatology, which lays it out rather clearly, I would suggest Culler's fine On Deconstruction, which does a nice job of simplifying the issue, I think. This isn't about settling debates - you're quite right there are various opinions about whether deconstruction is used in a manner that is or is not nihilist. But there is not a debate among people who have actually read this stuff about what it means in the sense that you are articulating.--csloat 05:20, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Well if you have some reliable and verifiable source for that assertion then by all means, include it. But it sounds a lot like a statement of opinion in itself, and one dangerously near the "No true scotsman" fallacy. But this isn't relevant to my objection on which form is required. A well-informed opinion is nevertheless an opinion. Not fact. Look at other articles on philosophy here. To pick one at random: Platonism. No part of the theory is stated as if it were objective fact. Either it's the theory claiming something, or the proponents/critics. Wikipedia itself isn't commenting. Now, the former isn't useful here, because the question of what the theory is (nihilist or not) is what's being disputed. Again, an interpretation is an opinion and the article's job isn't to decide which one is better. --130.237.179.171 11:47, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I cited two verifiable and reliable sources on the matter. My point is, people who argue about deconstruction as a theory of non-meaning, or whatever, are arguing about something other than "deconstruction" as the reading strategy endorsed by Derrida and those who are influenced by his work. So, sure, there are different opinions about it, but the problem is the different opinions are about two different things. So if you want an article that accurately states what deconstruction is in the Derridean sense, this distinction needs to be clear. If you prefer to discuss deconstruction in the sense used by its detractors, many of whom have not even read Derrida, that's fine, but then let's be clear that you are talking about a very different phenomenon altogether. It is not helpful to pretend these are two sides of a debate on the same issue, one side held by "proponents" and one held by "critics." They are two ships passing at night - no relation to one another. Frankly, you are incorrect that "an interpretation is an opinion and the article's job isn't to decide." Not all interpretations are equal or useful. Someone who interprets "deconstruction" to mean a war strategy or parlor game would not be quoted here. There are, in fact, right and wrong interpretations, and it is the job of an encyclopedia to help a reader sort those out. On matters of sheer opinion, that is another story, but interpretation is not just opinion -- it must be based on a text.--csloat 16:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

No, not all interpretations are equal or useful. That doesn't mean you're allowed to dismiss them as a statement of fact. I agree that there's no reason to include fringe opinions which are widely held to be incorrect. I agree it's the job of the encyclopedia to help the reader determine which is more credible. But there's a big difference between helping the reader determine who to believe and outright dictating who they should believe. Elaborated below. --130.237.179.171 04:45, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

• On further reflection, maybe I just didn't make myself clear enough. If an article says: "Critics claim that John is a jerk. This is untrue, as John wrote "I am not a jerk.". Then we do agree that that's unencyclopedic, argumentative and non-NPOV? --130.237.179.171 01:57, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any relevance to this.--csloat 05:20, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Please try to be more helpful. Why don't you see any relevance? The point is: 1) An opinion is not fact. John's opinion isn't a fact, even though he's probably an authority. 2) An encyclopedia should not take any viewpoint, even that of an authority. 3) An encyclopedia should not make arguments. It should present arguments made by others. I'm not sure where the difficulty lies. --130.237.179.171 11:47, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

The "John is a jerk" analogy is inexact at best, and sounds like personal-bias-pushing to me, but leaving that aside for a moment: This line of reasoning could be used to justify attributing any statement in the article to "proponents of deconstruction" -- indeed, it could be used to justify adding a "some say" to anything at all, like, say, the theory of gravity. It would be great to have citations for everything in this article, but their current sparsity does not justify weasel-wording every (reasonable, accurate, descriptive, well-informed) claim about deconstruction. By an implication that no reader could miss, all description of a philosophical idea refers to what the originators, inheritors, and commentators of that idea have said about it. There are many problems with this article, but this is not one of them. Please, let's not waste more time on this. -- Rbellin|Talk 15:31, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd say it's not pushing of any personal bias. I don't have any strong opinion on the matter either way, except the opinion that opinions should be stated as such. I suggest you should follow up on that and check other philosophical articles: They do not dismiss criticisms with factual-founding statements, or describe philosophies or their interpretations as facts. Judgement of an opinion is always an opinion, and it doesn't matter how wrong the opinion is. To take an simpler example: "Jack contends that gravity does not exist. This is incorrect." - That is an non-NPOV statement, and does not belong in Wikipedia. It's the reader's job to form judgement. This doesn't mean a statement like "Gravity exists." needs to be regarded as mere opinion. It certainly doesn't mean I'm pushing an anti-theory-of-gravity POV. However, I still don't think you can state that Deconstruction either is or isn't relativism as fact. It's a fact that Derrida did not consider it to be relativism and didn't think it could lead to it; he made an unequivocal to that extent in the afterword to Limited Inc. Nor does it mean that I think that any statement defining a philosophy is non-factual. I just think 'relativism' is too subjective and imprecise. Hume's philosophy is often criticised as scepticist/relativist/nihilist, though noone disputes that he was not one himself, nor intended it in his philosophy. (Ironic since he leveled the same criticism at Berkeley) The relevant article does not represent either case as fact. Anyway: The reason why I'm wasting time on this (besides self-defense) is that I don't think the issue can be ignored without misrepresenting the entire debate on postmodernism-vs-modernism/enlightenment, which is all about relativism (and relative degrees of relativism). --130.237.179.171 04:45, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

There's a difference between the opinion that deconstruction leads to relativism and the incorrect interpretation of deconstruction as inherently relativistic. I think that seems to be the crux of the issue here. It is possible that some people believe deconstruction licenses a certain kind of relativism, and that is an opinion that can be debated. But it is incorrect to say that deconstruction is ipso facto relativism - that is a misinterpretation of what deconstruction actually is (again, at least as discussed by Derrida; most of the people who make this argument are discussing something other than Derridean deconstruction). As for "the entire debate on postmodernism-vs-modernism/enlightenment," that seems incorrect to me too, but "postmodernism" is too vague and overused a term to be precise about the way one can be precise about "deconstruction." I think you're opening up a can of worms there better left to the postmodernism page.--csloat 08:11, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't feel any need to get into that debate either. But it's good to see we seem to be reaching some kind of consensus here. I think it's true most of the people making this claim are not adressing "Derridean deconstruction". OTOH, not all of them purport to do so either. (Some do.) I don't automatically equate po-mo with deconstruction or Derrida though, unlike the cited author, who's criticism I find quite bad (essentially one big straw-man) I still find it a subjective issue whether deconstruction constitutes or leads to nihilism/relativism. E.g.: I think a person holding that a text can be interpreted with no ambiguity, if only in theory, could legitimately consider deconstruction to be "relativist". That is naturally not the same as implying total epistemic relativism either. Which I consider possible; But only if one takes the pernicious step of turning deconstruction into an epistemology, thus crossing the line between sceptical and scepticist. This is something the article could do well in clarifying, I think. --130.237.179.171 23:56, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] new intro

I have some problems with the new intro. I think the extra paragraph that was added is reasonable, but the paragraph that was added first is problematic:

In contemporary philosophy and social sciences, the term deconstruction denotes a process by which the texts and languages of (particularly) Western philosophy appear to shift and complicate in meaning when subjected to the textual readings of deconstruction. Jacques Derrida coined the term in the 1960s, and found that he could talk more readily about what deconstruction was not that about what it was, most especially in reply to questions posed by others about it. The problem was that deconstruction attempts to alter the ordinary understanding of what reading and method mean. One could say then that it is not a "method" in the sense of that word prior to deconstruction

First, the first sentence is circular. Deconstruction denotes a process by which texts shift when subjected to deconstruction? How is that helpful? Second, I'm not sure what is gained by the assertion that Derrida can talk more about what deconstruction is not. It is true he did a lot of this, thanks to many people misinterpreting him, but he also did spell out what it is, both in essays and interviews (and, indeed, there are many helpful secondary sources on this point). He also showed what it is through numerous essays that were deconstructive -- if anything, wouldn't it be better to say that he performed deconstruction than that he spoke "more readily" about what it is not? I prefer the previous version of this paragraph to the one added; I think the above is unnecessarily confusing.--csloat 19:43, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I have some problems with it as well. I wrote the first version, but I don't really like the additional edits that frame deconstruction as something which is "done". Certainly many people today use the term deconstruction is a method or process that is "performed", and even use the word deconstruct as a verb, as in "I am deconstructing this text"; but Derrida was apparently not one of them. He saw deconstruction as something that text does, or rather a way in which text is situated, rather than something that the proverbial logos does to text. Thus, the popular "I am deconstructing this text" usage should be mentioned, but the article shouldn't state authoritatively that this is what deconstruction means. COGDEN 23:08, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Derrida quite clearly said, in as many words, that deconstruction is not a method and cannot be proceduralized (e.g. see his "Letter to a Japanese Friend"). Some time ago I noted that this is one of the things Britannica's article on deconstruction gets completely wrong, and pointed it out as an opportunity for Wikipedia to do a better job. I'm concerned that this new lead paragraph pulls the article in the other (wrong) direction on this question, framing deconstruction as a method of textual criticism from the outset. This is sometimes done by introductory guidebooks just for pedagogical purposes, so it's understandable, but I think we should try to do better. -- Rbellin|Talk 23:41, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Undeconstructability"?

An anonymous editor(s) have been adding a section called Undeconstructability that suggests that there are certain terms that are "undeconstructable", such as hospitality, democracy, friendship, the other, and the future. (Or, I can't tell from the text here, but maybe the POV is that Derrida had a blind-spot in this regard.) This appears to be a view promoted by a group of theologists who see deconstruction as having a utopian "endgame". Certainly this POV should be included in the article, since it appears to be verifiable (and Derrida did write about each of these terms, although personally I thought he was writing about their deconstruction, not the impossibility of their deconstruction), but where should we put this theory? Is anyone else familiar with this school of theo-pomo, or know the extent of their influence? COGDEN 20:48, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The "undeconstructibility of a certain idea of justice" is central to the argument in Specters of Marx (see p. 90, for example), as well as the essay "Force of Law." Since Derrida also claims, in "Force of Law," that "deconstruction is justice," it's hard to construe the undeconstructible as unimportant in Derrida's work. John Caputo is probably the critic who has done the most with this element of Derrida's work. Libertatia 23:00, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Derrida on justice and undeconstructibility

Derrida first wrote about "justice" as undeconstructible in "Force of Law," which is in Acts of Religion, but it is not a theological idea. Note that the undeconstructibility of justice amounts to the statement that deconstruction IS justice. It corresponds, more or less, to the thought of Bernard Stiegler that justice is that which does not exist, but which consists. The relevant quotation from "Force of Law" is on pages 242–3:

"In the structure I am describing here, law is essentially deconstructible, whether because it is founded, that is to say, constructed, upon interpretable and transformable textual strata (and that is the history of law, its possible and necessary transformation, sometimes its amelioration), or because its ultimate foundation is by definition unfounded. The fact that law is deconstructible is not bad news. One may even find in this the political chance of all historical progress. But the paradox that I would like to submit for discussion is the following: it is this deconstructible structure of law or, if you prefer, of justice as law, that also ensures the possibility of deconstruction. Justice in itself, if such a thing exist, outside or beyond law, is not deconstructible. No more than deconstruction itself, if such a thing exist. Deconstruction is justice. It is perhaps because law (which I will therefore consistently try to distinguish from justice) is constructible, in a sense that goes beyond the opposition between convention and nature, it is perhaps insofar as it goes beyond this opposition that it is constructible—and so deconstructible and, better yet, that it makes deconstruction possible, or at least the exercise of a deconstruction that, fundamentally, always proceeds to quesitons of law and to the subject of law. Whence these three propositions:

• 1. The deconstructibility of law (for example) makes deconstruction possible.
• 2. The undeconstructibility of justice also makes deconstruction possible, indeed is inseparable from [se confond avec] it.
• 3. Consequence: Deconstruction takes place in the interval that separates the undeconstructibility of justice from the deconstructibility of law. Deconstruction is possible as an experience of the impossible, there where, even if it does not exist, if it is not present, not yet or never, there is justice [il y a la justice]. Wherever one can replace, translate, determine the X of justice, one would have to say: deconstruction is possible, as impossible, to the extent (there) where there is X (undeconstructible), thus to the extent (there) wherre there is (the undeconstructible).

In other words, the hypothesis and propositions toward which I am tentatively moving here would rather call for the subtitle: justice as the possibility of deconstruction, the structure of right or of the law [la structure du droit ou de la loi], the founding or the self-authorizing of law as the possibility of the exercise of deconstruction."

Mtevfrog 23:14, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

A gesture toward understanding this: Deconstruction is a way of reading that on the one hand does not hesitate to perpetrate a certain violence in the course of interpretation, while on the other hand attempts to maintain an utmost rigour, that is, an utmost fidelity to the text. What guides deconstruction in this faithful/unfaithful reading? What ensures the justice of deconstructive readings? The point is that there is no final guarantee, that is, what guides the reading cannot be an idea in the Platonic sense, and yet this does not imply that deconstructive readings are wild or arbitrary (no more than any other reading, at least). A deconstruction is always susceptible to another deconstruction, later. In other words, what guides the fidelity or infidelity of deconstruction is faith, but not in an idea or a God as that which exists more than anything else, but rather in justice or deconstruction as such, as that which does not exist but which consists, consists in the sense of being that about which it is possible to have faith, to have belief, but not final certainty. Justice guides interpretation, not as a shining beacon, but as that which we cannot give up believing in if we are to know how to interpret at all, without which we lack the motive to deconstruct, as that which we are struggling to see or grasp in interpreting. Mtevfrog 23:53, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I understand what Derrida was saying, but we have to be careful in the article text not to put words in his mouth. He didn't really say, positively, I don't think, that justice was indeconstructible. He said that justice is deconstruction, and justice has the same relationship to law as deconstruction has to text. And he said that IF justice exists outside of law, it is indeconstructible in the same way that IF deconstruction exists outside of text, deconstruction is deconstructible. Those are big ifs. I haven't read Critchley et al, but I wonder if what they are doing is taking what Derrida said and making it into a positive theory. COGDEN 02:11, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

In Specters of Marx, on page 90, Derrida explicitly says "A deconstructive thinking ... has always pointed out ... the undeconstructibility of a certain idea of justice." --the anonymous editor (Hay4)

Derrida says quite a bit more than the above characterization by COGDEN, I think, firstly because Derrida is tying deconstruction and justice much more tightly together. Deconstruction is justice: this means more than just that justice has the same relationship to law as deconstruction has to text. These are not just similar structures, but co-involved, such that, in fact, each requires the other. Deconstruction, if it exists, requires justice, in order to be justice, if it exists. Second, the "ifs" are not so much factual questions as they are professions of the faith required to do deconstruction. Again, this is not faith in an especially religious sense, if it is not in fact an explicitly non-religious sense. But when Derrida says "deconstruction, if it exists,..." or "justice, if it exists,..." it must not be forgotten that these are formulations coming from a man who believes in doing deconstruction (if it is possible), and who says that deconstruction is justice. The "if" involved here is not a question of fact but rather explicitly tied to the statement that "deconstruction is possible as an experience of the impossible." "If" is the way of phrasing the experience of the possibility of the impossible. This is why I say, following Stiegler, that it is not a question of existence but of consistence. We must act as if justice is possible to be able to deconstruct, and vice versa. But since deconstruction only applies to constructions, that is, to what exists, justice, as something which does not exist, but which consists, is something we cannot deconstruct but to which we must try to maintain fidelity, even though we can never be finally sure that we are maintaining fidelity, nor entirely sure what we are maintaining fidelity to, nor even entirely sure that we are the ones who maintain fidelity. There is, of course, a change in terminology from Derrida to Stiegler, from "justice, if it exists..." to "justice, which does not exist, but which consists": the question is whether this change in terminology, which appears to say two different things, does not conceal the fact that they express precisely the same thought. I would argue that the distance traversed by Derrida's "if" is equivalent to the distance from Stiegler's existence to consistence. Mtevfrog 03:45, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay. That's a very good explanation. I'll buy that. I'd like to see this explained in the article. COGDEN 07:28, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the details of this issue of the indestructible goes beyond the scope of an encylopedia article, the list of indestructibles is ridiculous. What else was Derrida doing if not deconstructing these values. There is a place for such thought and it is journal articles, read or unread, and in Critchley's writings and other context-less liftings and untested interpretations of Derrida. The way this discussion has gone here seems to be taking on a very assertion driven Anglophonic style of what "is" this, and what is that, as though deconstruction were a structure to be dissected and pieced together like a molecule. Of course decontruction is not justice in general, the statement is lost here for lack of context. The issue, I contend, is beyond the scope of the article but may the discussion continue here. --Lucas

If you read Rogues and thought Derrida was "deconstructing" democracy, then you just might be in the wrong business. --Hay4

If you believe this, then might I suggest you take this indestructible business, that some seem to have jumped on as the last word (or life-raft), and put it on Derrida's page or a special page for the indestructible (remember to disambiguate it from the super-hero children's movie).

The list of "indestructibles": democracy, friendship, hospitality etc. sounds like these things are un-deconstructible, however, like Justice, they have already been deconstructed by Derrida. The justice he refers to is only Derrida's aporetic notion of Justice, Friendship, etc. it is those that he finds have a certain undecontructibility. This is natural since they are already given to us at the limit of his thought and after they have been (partially) deconstructed and raised anew in a different light but without any fully new concept for this justice (perhaps, this is the "partial" bit).

Notice also that usually the -ibility form of the word is used, and only in the crytic sentence with erasure does he use the noun form, so that even the title, "The undeconstructibles", of this section is misleading.

To backup my comment above here I include a fuller quote from Spectres of Marx and try and give a fuller summary of Derrida's justice:

A deconstructive thinking, the one that matters to me here, has always pointed out the irreducibility of affirmation and thus of the promise, as well as the undeconstructibility of a certain idea of justice (dissociated here from law). Such a thinking cannot operate without justifying the principle of a radical and interminable, infinite (both theoretical and practical, as one used to say) critique. This critique belongs to the movement of an experience open to the absolute future of what is coming, that is to say, a necessarily indeterminate, abstract, desert-like experience that is confided, exposed, given up to its waiting for the other and for the event.

Note he says, "A deconstructive thinking...that matters to me here" and also note how it is distinguished from law and importantly is indisociabile from a future to come.

Derrida's Justice. The other quote above from "Force of Law" is also insufficient since it does not give the context of Derrida's idea of Justice upon which the whole meaning of the above is lost. The kind of Justice he refers to is quite complex, it is aporetic, ie, it has the chicken-egg problem of applying a rule and founding the rule, seen, for example, in the founding of a new system justice (eg, the US nation/constitution, promulgated without prior legal justification). Derrida's justice is also undecidable, not present to itelf, always revisable and finally it is has a mood of urgency (from the madness of decision required by not being able to wait an infinite time for gathering all the facts).

So we find that his idea of justice is quite close to his idea of deconstruction, understandably, since this is probably what drove him to come up with deconstruction in the first place, but it is also, I hope, why we have a page about it. However, to draw upon the everyday meaning of the word "justice" to explain deconstruction is to mislead. One would probably have to give a whole article on Derrida's idea of justice and then reference somewhere there, in some subsection, his reflection upon undeconstructibility.

--Lucas

(1) Using your logic, we should not use important words in Derrida's work like "event" because he uses it in a different sense than most people. Explain to me why this is a wise strategy. (2) If you think that using a word in a "different" sense means that it is "deconstructed," fine. I don't see how that matters. The point is, there are concepts called justice, et al that are very important in Derrida's work. (3) I will concede that the difference between "undeconstructible" (a word used by Critchley and Derrida) and "undeconstructibility" is something to pay more attention to. (4) Justice exists in a structure of messianic time, yes. So the sense of the undeconstructibility of the future and the undeconstructibility of justice are very much not dissociable notions. However, in a wikipedia entry it becomes necessary to try to spell things out as simply and plainly as possible so I decided to use a specific example concerning the law and justice so as not to invite too much confusion right off the bat. (5) I don't see how I drew upon "the everyday meaning of the word 'justice'" when I took great pains to describe justice as absent, impossible, and having the structure of of a promise that absence and impossibility can be made present and possible. Either you didn't read what I wrote or you're a liar. (6) Why did you use the Critchley reference as part of your mangled view of undeconstructibility when clearly you didn't read the referenced material? --Hay4

Leaving aside your more bitter comments on lying etc., yes one must not give a "simple and plain" reduction of something that is quite involved, to plead so is a failure to see the historical importance of not remodelling philosophers to the politics of later times. Anyhow in respnose to your numbered points above: (1) Yes Derrida's justice is different to your dictionary definition and it should not be just included in such a place as this without giving it its full context, hyperlinks allow one to easily provide such context. (2) Is Derrida's justice already deconstructed or not, I admitted above that this was an open question, I described it as partial deconstruction and explained why. But know this it is not justice as ordinarily considered, in fact, it is a non-present justice (3) I do not wish that you pay attention to "undeconstructible" and would prefer you stick to "undeconstructibility", I would really prefer that this complex issue was left out of this simplification, but this is what we argue about here (4) "Off the bat", you do need avoid open up the reader to the idea that these terms are rather involved, to give simple assertions in an opening paragraph, like "justice is the undeconstructible condition that makes deconstruction possible" without first elaborating the complex and aporetic (see my comment above) idea of justice is to draw upon the everyday meaning of justice. Derrida's idea of justice is just as complex as his idea of deconstruction, this must be first made clear. Throughout the paragraph justice is your touchstone, as though it were any less complext that deconstruction itself, as if it somehow explained deconstruction. Only after this do you then say:

In deconstruction, justice takes on the structure of a promise that absence and impossibility can be made present and possible. Without faith in justice there is no motivation to deconstruct.

Here you suggest justice "takes on" something as though it was not already a part of justice or Derrida's justice. The second sentence returns to your touchstone as though to rescue it from the real complications that aught not be glossed over and in fact are the only non-trite issues worth putting in.

(6) The point you make here is merely a reflection of my claim that you are mangling this idea and presenting it for misuse and misleading the reader.

Finally the list of "other undeconstructibles", "hospitality, democracy, friendship, the other, and the future" is really a gross inclusion of these rather large isues under this very badly explained notion of undeconstructibility, a notion that is only hinted at here and there by Derrida. And this is where you are drawing on the everyday meaning of these words as though the detail Derrida goes into describing the aporetics of these ideas were irrelevant. Nor does Derrida himself call these undeconstructibles.

(1) "one must not give a 'simple and plain' reduction of something that is quite involved" Oh really? This is so baldly wrong I am not going to address it. If you hate summaries so much, Wikipedia might not be the place for you. (2) "Yes Derrida's justice is different to your dictionary definition..." I wasn't aware that I had used a dictionary defintion. Would you mind pointing me to the dictionary I used? There is a dictionary out there that talks about justice in terms of "having the structure of of a promise that absence and impossibility can be made present and possible?" I'm sorry, but I find that to be incredible. (3) What are you talking about when you say this or that is "deconstructed?" Derrida never said he "deconstructed" something. So you may have to explain to me what you mean. Your point about a full or partial deconstruction is lost on me. That being said, I hear former English majors talking deconstructing this or that, so maybe such terminology comes from the Yale school of deconstruction. Hopefully you can fill me in on this one. (4) The difference between "undeconstructible" and "undeconstructibility" is not worth arguing about. If you think the message is clearer using "undeconstructibility," then fine. Derrida used "undeconstructible" at times but I guess you know better than he does. (5) I intended to use the example of law-deconstruction-justice to highlight how undeconstructibility works and show that the terms involved take on different roles in this discourse. I didn't intend to give the impression that Derrida's idea of justice is simple nor did I have the dictionary definition in mind when I wrote the entry. If that's how it read, then let's improve it. Like you said, this is a difficult issue that is exceedingly difficult to summarize and explain. But it must be done so as not to try to mystify the discourse to the detriment of the positive impact it can have. (6) A non-response to a non-point. Fair enough. (7) (a) "Finally the list of "other undeconstructibles", "hospitality, democracy, friendship, the other, and the future" is really a gross inclusion of these rather large isues under this very badly explained notion of undeconstructibility.." The idea is to improve the entry not give up after the first attempt. (b) "[U]ndeconstructibility [is] a notion that is only hinted at here and there by Derrida..." This is absolutely wrong. Starting in the early '90's, Derrida took his famous ethical (or ethico-political) turn. I'm not sure why you're unaware of this. In his writings since the early 90's, undeconstructibility is a major concept. (c) Again, like I said earlier, I don't think I had the dictionary definitions of the undeconstructibles in mind when I wrote the entry. If it read like that, then let's improve it. If you're just reaching for ways to criticize an aspect of deconstruction that makes you feel ill at ease, then you need to deal with it. (d) "Nor does Derrida himself call these undeconstructibles." You may be right, but I think it is a fair way of describing what is going on. If others disagree, then so be it. But I would expect a better manner of description proffered. Undeconstructibility is not "out there." It is a matter of a certain kind of faith. So we reach for it from the plurality of constructions in which we live our life. In this sense, there are more than one undeconstructibles. There would be as many undeconstructibles as there are orders of desire. Derrida specifically uses the term "undeconstrucible" to describe both justice and democracy (and maybe other concepts) so it makes sense to me to talk about "undeconstructibles." --Hay4

(1) What is the key word here is reduction, it is possible to give an opening description of something without reducing it or simplifying. Its primary duty is in fact to maintain in some way the complexity, I never suggested this would be easy. This article correctly goes into the difficulty of defining deconstruction. This recently added section betrays the main part of the article by coming close to defining deconstruction as justice (that is, justice as ordinarily (ie, from a dictionary) conceived).

(2) You didn't use a dictionary definition but in the first paragraph it is given without any hint that the use of the term justice here is quite far from the dictionary definition.

(3) Deconstruction as you are probably aware is hard to define. Certain aspects of it are obvious in Derrida's discussion of justice. Firstly the term is opposed, by Derrida, to Law (La Droit or Rights), identifying such an opposition is deconstructiive. Secondly it is given as being not fully present, this is also a deconstructive move that harks back to Heidegger's Destruktion of the philosophy of presence.

(4) The difference between undeconstructible and the -ility form is relevant, especially when a noun such as the undeconstructibles is used. Such use returns the words to a pre-deconstructive usage and gives them the very substantial form that Derrida attempts to avoid. This is why, I maintain, he only used the -ible form when giving his cryptic attempt to translate his thought, using erasure, into the old language of metaphysics: "deconstruction is possible, as impossible, to the extent (there) where there is (the undeconstructible)" Most notable, on this issue, is how few times this undeconstructiity(ible) term is used at all in Derrida's writing.

(5) That you didnt intend to give a simple explanation of justice is well and good. I maintain that as the article appears a simple justice, is something a reader of an encyclopedia might assume unless one first points out this critical issue to the reader.

(6) To talk of a huge ethical turn is something of a cliche, but by equating Derrrida's idea of justice to deconstruction, one can see that justice/ethics was there from the beginning. The few uses of this term undeconstructible in the reams of Derrida's writing is the salient issue. It is used a few times in Forces of Law and twice in Spectres of Marx. So should it be given all this space in the brief article. In my opinion he uses the term just to give priority to deconstruction and to promote it as the best, most just, way of interpretation and writing, in that only certain things might be un-deconstructible, those are deconstruction itself, justice insofar as it is already deconstruction. As to democracy and friendship and forgiveness etc. who could say they're normal usage is un-deconstructible. I maintain that in the 90s it was these that were subjected to and informed Derrida's deconstruction of them (and by them). These are the very things that must be open to deconstruction, in other words, "no democracy without deconstruction." If one is suggesting that Derrida reached a stage in deconstructing them which is unsurpassable then this is a point of view but it is not assured. Who might yet say that his idea of forgiveness, for example, is Christian centered and deconstruct it on that basis. Or who might say that his idea of democracy relies upon a Euro-centric and Hegelian world view.

--Lucas

(1) (a) I wrote: "Deconstruction exists in the interval between constructions and undeconstructibility. The primary exemplar of this relationship is..." to which you replied: "This recently added section betrays the main part of the article by coming close to defining deconstruction as justice (that is, justice as ordinarily (ie, from a dictionary) conceived)." Huh? (b) If anyone is going to explain how Derrida conceives of justice, she will have to use the word "justice" before the explanation is fully complete. To criticize such an explanation for using the word justice before its fully explained -- especially a purposefully short one -- is just a cheap shot. There is no way to explain it differently. (3) Defend your unproblematic use of the notion of deconstructing such and such. (Remember, it is a phrase deliberately avoided by Derrida. As our esteemed deconstruction wikipedia page says: "In popular parlance, 'to deconstruct' is often used with the sense of dismantling the opinions, legitimacy, or value of other groups or individuals; by 'deconstructing' your opponent, you lay bare their inferiority or their subconscious or ill motives. This sense of the term, however, was neither suggested nor endorsed by Derrida.") And then tell me what it means to deconstruct such and such without resorting to "it's difficult." A shitty summary will do. Please see my previous number 3. I don't think you addressed it. (4) "This is why, I maintain, he only used the -ible form when giving his cryptic attempt to translate his thought, using erasure, into the old language of metaphysics" This is just not true. See eg Specters, page 59 or Acts og Religion page 243.(5) If the section can be improved, then by all means improve it. (6) The words "undeconstructibility" or "undeconstructible" are not used frequently in Derrida's work, but the particular manifestations of undeconstructibility are: forgiveness, cosmopolitanism, friendship, the name of God, democracy, the to come, etc. etc. To speak of all the themes that play the role of undeconstructibity under the umbrella term "the undeconstructibles" is a fair thing to do in my estimation. It's such a huge part of his later work and a significant mutation of (or addition to) differance. To dismiss undeconstructibility is to seriously misread the later Derrida. (By the way, do you object to differance being used in noun form?) Hay4 00:37, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to ask all the participants in this discussion to take another look at WP:NOR. Please do not use this article to put forth any interpretation of Derrida or deconstruction which is novel enough that you need to support it by synthesizing quotations from primary texts. Instead, use the article to condense and summarize only what is already well-accepted, with citations to supporting secondary sources as much as, or more than, primary texts. (Ideally, I'd think the article would only need to cite Derrida directly when referring to his most famous and best-known pronouncements, and not when making its own synthetic interpretive claims.) There has been far too much original synthesis and idiosyncratic original interpretation here, and it needs to be cleaned up and clarified more than it needs to be augmented with new additions. -- Rbellin|Talk 01:22, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

That's an interesting way of opposing something without giving any reasons for your opposition. Hay4 21:18, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I've replied at User talk:Hay4, but my reminder was genuinely intended for all the participants in this discussion, and no one need take it as aimed at them personally. (This discussion seems to me to be straying very far from any genuine intention to improve the article, and cluttering the Talk page with a debate between several original synthetic interpretations of Derrida does nothing to help Wikipedia. This would be better continued on User Talk pages and/or in another non-Wikipedia philosophy forum). -- Rbellin|Talk 00:33, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Undeconstructibility has been written about at length elsewhere by Derrida's best commentators. I hope this helps. 141.161.127.75 17:37, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Undeconstructibility, Part II

In reply to Hay4, though Rbellin's point is taken, I agree with Rbellin that this whole issue is too esoteric and contested for the article.

(1) The opening paragraph of the section calls justice that which makes deconstruction possible. Fine, it's from Derrida. But as I repeat Derrida's nuanced idea of justice needs to first be explained. Anyhow I added a qualifying sentence to that paragraph and you left it there, so I leave it open ot others to comment. I agree one must use the word justice to explain Derrida's justice, this is too obvious; all I say is explain it before you get to making sweeping declarations about it! Better, do a whole page on Derrida's justice and put undeconstructibity at the end of it. By the way, is your use of "Huh" supposed to mean anything other than lack of comprehension, I suggest it doesnt write well.

(3) I believe my previous explanation under this point, (3), was plenty. A "shitty desciption", as you say, will not do! In (3) above I explained how Derrida first deconstructs justice. You deny this? The deconstructed justice, Derrida's justice, is what I want explained first. He should have completed this deconstruction by baptising it with a neologism, and we would have avoided all this issue here. As my point (3) above I repeat, this justice is seen as in constrast to the Law (or Rights), this is decontructive move, can you not understand this or do you not agree that this is deconstructive? Secondly, he opens it up to the absences and tenses of non-presence, he declines it like a verb. I repeat, as above, this is also a deconstructive move, again do you agree this is deconstructive or not. It is not enough just to say you are confused by my point (3) each time.

(4) All you say here is that it is not true, please make a point

(6) This is key to your argument so I'll quote, you say:

The words "undeconstructibility" or "undeconstructible" are not used frequently in Derrida's work, but the particular manifestations of undeconstructibility are: forgiveness, cosmopolitanism, friendship, the name of God, democracy, the to come, etc. etc.

These manifestations are manifestations of something, they are manifestations of those issues which were very dear to Derrida. However, you must have some less hand-waving expression such as "Oh, they are all just manifestations of undeconstructibility", to call them undeconstructibles. You say it is "a fair thing to do in your estimation" to call them all undecontructible, ok, but arent you really just copy and pasting the deeper and more reflective idea that links deconstruction, justice and undecontructiblility and just plastering it all over these other areas that I agree have a sense of undeconstructibility and justice etc. but, I contend, are not there to equivalence as you suggest. I dont disagree that a huge part of his work was forgiveness, democracy, Marx, etc. all I say, is that undeconstructibility was not explicitly. By the way, you say "a mutation of differance"? In what way does it "mutate" what he set out in that essay? Again I remind you that in setting deconstruction as justice, he also included his previous work as the working out of justice in deconstruction and differance (with an 'a').

--Lucas

(2) I failed to delete your qualifying sentence, but that does not mean I think it fits in with the structure of the section. In the context of what I wrote, the little unsourced Derrida quote looks like intentional obfuscation, a warning that this subject matter is just too deep for normal people. (3) I don't understand why you use the syntactical structure "X deconstructed Y." This is not something Derrida ever did. I think this has as its source the Yale school of deconstruction. I'm not familiar with the Yale school, so please explain to me what it means to "deconstruct" something. I've asked you to explain this to me twice already and you've avoided an explanation each time. (4) I agree that Derrida developed a unique notion of justice, but that does not mean he "deconstructed" it, whatever that means. In fact, he identified justice as undeconstructible, which means it's not of the order of constructions to which we may apply deconstructive interpretations. By your accounting, Derrida saw fit to call something undeconstructible in the course of deconstructing it. This bears all the signs of a poor reading of Derrida. I really doubt that this is a point of view that you can coherently defend. (5) When I pointed out that you said something false and I provided proof that you were wrong, my point was simply that you were wrong. (6) If you were a competent reader of Derrida you'd realize that Derrida's writings regarding those things I called undeconstructibles follow the same pattern. Justice: laws are the deconstructible constructions, justice is the elusive goal. Democracy: historical, existing democracies or to-exist democracies are the deconstructible constructions, the democracy to-come is the elusive goal. Friendship: acts of friendship that occur within the context of Western assumptions are the constructions, a "pure" friendship is the elusive goal. Forgiveness: specific acts of reconciliation (which is what Christian forgiveness has become) are the constructions, a "pure" forgiveness of the unforgivable is the elusive goal. Gifts: acts of economic exchange are the constructions, a "pure" gift free from any economic rationality is the elusive goal. And on and on. This is such a pervasive pattern in his later work I am shocked that the idea of undeconstructibility is being resisted at all. Hay4 22:18, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

(2) You failed to delete it just as I failed to delete the whole section "undeconstrcutibles", I still hope someone else will.

(3) Decontruction as a verb, you say, is unfamiliar to you, and you admit that you do not understand it as a verb. I cant really help you anymore here, I have given already two paragraphs to you on this point, #3 and each time you say you do not understand. What is deconstruction? What does it mean to deconstruct? Well I'm not going to repeat myself again, I attempted to say how Derrida (to avoid the verb "deconstructed", which you seem to fear) reviewed, revised, criticised, dialecticised, examined, which amounts to at the end of the 20th century: deconstructed our ordinary notion of justice and my problem is that this this is not apparent in the summary you inserted on this page. I call it deconstruction because 1. he put it in a hierarchy or structure that opposes justice to law (rights) and 2. he distinguished it from being self-present. Again I say what is it you dont understand about 1 and 2, and why do you not think they are deconstructive? Derrida often used "to decontrruct" as a verb. As to the "Yale school", could you be more specific, who, in particular are you talking about?

Deconstruction, Derrida says, is close being a method but not one. A reading can be deconstructive, as I'm sure you will admit, one can read justice from the dictionary and deconstruct it, one can read it from the philosophy books and make a deconstructive reading of it (why is this strange to you?) at the same time each reading of justice is already deconstructed (this is the complication) since we do not take for fools the people who have written upon justice. And who, though they didnt say the word deconstruction, were somewhat aware of the issues of deconstruction.

(4) Yes he did say that deconstruction/justice was undeconstructible (note here there is a hint toward a verb, maybe now you know what "to deconstruct justice" means), but he did not make a big issue of it nor did he say that forgiveness etc. were undeconstructible. As to being a competent reader, well, touché, you are incompetent too, and sloppy into the bargain!

(5) I dont know why you made this point, I never included a #5 in my last comment, I left it because your previous #5 said "if you can improve the article please do". Perhaps you have mixed up the numbers?

(6) Let me quote your point again, you say:

If you were a competent reader of Derrida you'd realize that Derrida's writings regarding those things I called undeconstructibles follow the same pattern.

The issue I have here is that that you call them undecontructuctibles, nobody else in philosophy does (except some Yale ones, perhaps!). It is fine to call them that and I agree they are, in a sense, undecontructuctible, but only "in a sense." I think you fail to read Derrida, and Heidegger, when you want to make everything the same and easily identifyable, when each thing you value becomes an "undeconstructible" and each thing I value becomes one too. As to elusive goals, well I like your description of this and I think it might make a nice section in the article titled: "illusive goals" but please, less about undeconstructibles. By the way, you might include the following "illusive goals" or undeconstructibles, while you are at it (please delete when you have read them):

--Lucas

(3a) "Derrida often used "to decontrruct" as a verb." Please provide a link proving this. (3b) "As to the 'Yale school', could you be more specific, who, in particular are you talking about?" Paul de Man and his progeny (which seems to include you). (4a) You basically say it's okay to say that something undeconstructible was "deconstructed" because Derrida didn't make a deal out of it. Please attempt a genuine explanation. (4b) I haven't had time to go out and research the issue, but off the top of my head I know that Derrida said that (i) democracy is undeconstructible (ii) justice is undeconstructible (iii) and a messianism without religion is undeconstructible -- and this is a very open-ended category meaning that the number of undeconstructibles is not circumscribed and depend on the brew of constructions a person finds himself in. If you do a google search of "undeconstructible" and tack any number of additional words to your search, you will find that I am not the only person calling this familiar posture undeconstructibility. In fact, Derrida himself called it undeconstructibility. This discussion is going nowhere so I now gracefully bow out. 216.15.43.58 00:45, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

(3) I presume this last comment comes from Hay4. (3a) To deconstruct as a verb or action or activity or method is used even by yourself in the above youi say, and I quote you: "of the order of constructions to which we may apply deconstructive interpretations". Al the verb means is to apply deconstructive interpretations. So you also use the verb form, decontruction as a kind interpretion, and that is fine, this is what I mean by "to deconstruct". Paul De Man is another issue, though your own school seems to me to emphaisis a pre-deconstructive reading

(4) Justice was decontructed by Derrida, he read it interpreted justice in a way the was deoncstructive. Of course undecontructibility is the very opposite of deconstruction and lets us identify what deconstruction is by giving us its opposing value. I maintain Derrida didnt make a deal of undeconstrucibility cos it is quite obvious, in a way, and so he only mentioned it a few times. Yes we all know he said Justice like deconstruction, had an undeconstructibility, this is not an issue. It is when you apply it as a heading and equate in stasis to a whole slew of terms that it becomes problematic. I already agreed that there is a sense of undeconstructibility to these things but that it is not given that much importance in his writing. Messianism as undecontructible is now your only other "indesctructible", this is hearsay, youi have no backup. Glad to see you see we can now end this discussion and that you drop this reification of indestructibles seen in God, Democracy, Forgiveness, etc.

--Lucas

From Specters of Marx: "What remains irreducible to any deconstruction, what remains as undeconstructible as the possibility itself of deconstruction, is, perhaps, a certain experience of the emancipatory promise; it is perhaps even the formality of a structural messianism, a messianism without religion, even a messianic without messianism, an idea of justice--which we distinguish from law or right and even from human rights--and an idea of democracy --which we distinguish from its current concept and from its determined predicates today." I hope this helps you. 141.161.127.75 17:36, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for this quote, it is clear from it that the issue of undecontructibility is very complex and is in a sense "after deconstruction." It clearly doesnt lend itself to simple assertion, like those made in the article addition that provoked this discussion, this is because undeconstructibility is messianic without messianism, without religion. After justice, democracy etc. are deconstructed, what is left is obviously, and only for the time being, undeconstructible, but Derrida's decontructive decision in giving us his idea of Justice, can also be compared to a kind of madness, from a kind of promise, and importantly not given as final, the further deconstruction of justice is part of that promise. Some have written about undeconstructibility, it seems that it is a certain theology that is most at home with any reification of undeconstructibility. It is a failed attempt, perhaps, to re-colonise philosophy by a an old foe and sometime friend. I say keep indestructibles at arms length. --Lucas

[edit] Citation

Can anyone provide a citation for 'an inessential extra added to something complete in itself'? Jeangenie14 14:36, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] qualifying a dubious claim

"The work of Friedrich Nietzsche is alleged to be a forerunner of deconstruction in form and substance, as Derrida writes in Spurs: Nietzsche's Styles." Does this sentence make sense to anyone? Hay4 09:27, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hymen

Is this section a joke? Seriously, it doesn't seem to relate to the rest of the article at all. If so what about "Pharmakon"?--213.122.16.139 16:32, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Is it a joke? Of course not. Could it be better written, more accurate and detailed, and supported by specific textual citations? Absolutely -- all of the "terminology" sections are very stubby at the moment. -- Rbellin|Talk 16:42, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Well if you're sure. I was asking because it's spoken of in terms of "inside" and "outside", words that aren't used elsewhere. It seems to be a rather confusing definition of the biological hymen which, incidentally, is what it links to - and it comes complete with a reference to the hymen being penetrated, which is why I assumed a joke. Sorry to ask again but just to clear this up, have you seen the word used in the context of deconstruction outside this article? I'm not saying I know for a fact it's a hoax but can you see why I'm suspicious? Additionally the next definition is nothing but a definition of the Greek word for "drug" without any link made to deconstruction. Are these metaphorical hymens and pharmakons or literal ones? If they're literal ones how are they relevant and if they're metaphorical ones, what do they represent? And if that doesn't need clarification could I perhaps ...umm... introduce an "agora" or a "thalassa" or a "strategos" - if I were to use the right language I mean? "Agora refers to the method of interplay between demos and archon and comes from a Greek word..." --213.122.101.251 00:40, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

To be perfectly clear, I am completely sure there is certainly no hoax here, since these are important terms in Derrida's work -- what's missing (aside from better sections on the terms) are simply citations to the specific texts of Derrida's where these terms are most important (in the case of "pharmakon," for instance, an essay called "Plato's Pharmacy"). What's "metaphorical" and what's "real" is of course one of the central questions at issue in the texts which this article is trying to summarize (and ought to cite better). And please don't introduce your own pseudo-deconstructive or spoof interpolations. -- Rbellin|Talk 02:30, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Why not? It was an honest question. I introduced half a sentence modelled exactly on the two definitions we have here to make a perfectly valid point in the talk section (where WP:NOR doesn't apply). Philosophical questions about what's real are something entirely separate: the point I'm making is that these definitions seem to correspong exactly with those of a human hymen and a pharmaceutical drug not of any narrower uses. So my next question, accepting your assurance that these are valid terms in deconstruction, did someone see the list of terms to be defined at the top of the section and introduce his "own pseudo-deconstructive or spoof interpolations"? Is someone making fun of you and, if not, is the person who introduced these definitions at the very least guilty of original research? More specifically, does the hymen in deconstruction really get penetrated? And is it just coincidence that both definitions begin with something about the interplay between two things but are otherwise dictionary definitions as if someone's tried to write spoof definitions but is somewhat short of formulaic pseudo-postmodern verbosity. Looking back through the article's history it seems I'm not the first person to suggest it. --213.122.112.214 14:53, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lack of simplicity vs. lack of clarity

Regarding the comment

"Critics of Deconstruction take issue with what they believe is a lack of seriousness and simplicity in deconstructive writings,"

Critics of Deconstruction actually complain that deconstructionists are not making enough effort to be clear.

Proponents of D-ism respond D-ism is complex, and that the critics are not making effort to understand. Phrasing the complaint as "lack of simplicity" sides with the proponents. I move that this line should be changed to "Critics of Deconstruction take issue with what they believe is a lack of seriousness, simplicity and clarity in deconstructive writings,"

[edit] nihilism or relativism

In the "What deconstruction is not" section the article states:

"Some detractors claim deconstruction amounts to little more than nihilism or relativism."

Then in the "Criticisms of deconstruction" section it states:

"In addition, critics often equate deconstruction with nihilism or relativism and criticize deconstruction accordingly."

This seems repetitive.--Harpakhrad11 18:22, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Meaning is "out there"

"Thus, meaning is "out there"" - The idea of meaning being 'out there' as a determinate, objective 'thing' to be discovered directly contradicts the very aspect of meaning that deconstruction seeks to exploit. Following Wittgenstein; meaning is merely the correlate to understanding. And understanding is the ability to handle or respond to something in certain accepted ways which are consensually shared, sanctioned, and inculcated by the community, but nevertheless flexible and relative. It is this indeterminacy that allows the dissemination of variant interpretations that deconstruction relies on. I have read very little Derrida, does he really hold such a view? To do so would be immediately self-stultifying.

The sentence you're talking about is clumsy, imprecise, and most likely wrong. I'm not sure what the author of the sentence meant when s/he wrote "meaning is out there." I can tell you that Derrida does not hold a view that corresponds with a straightforward reading of the sentence. Hay4 14:02, 18 March 2007 (UTC)