Deconstruction
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{{dablink|For the approach to post-modern architecture, see [[Deconstructivism]]; for other uses, see [[Deconstruction (disambiguation)]].}}
'''Deconstruction''' is a term in contemporary [[philosophy]], [[literary criticism]], and the [[social sciences]], denoting a process by which the texts and languages of [[Western philosophy]] (in particular) appear to shift and complicate in meaning when read in light of the assumptions and absences they reveal within themselves. [[Jacques Derrida]] [[word coinage|coined]] the term in the 1960s, <ref>One of the first times Derrida uses the term can be found here: Derrida, J., 1976. Of Grammatology. Translated with an introduction by Gayatri C. Spivak. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. p.10. This book is a translation from the original French edition first published in 1967.</ref> and proved more forthcoming with negative, rather than positive, analyses of the school.
Subjects relevant to deconstruction include the philosophy of [[Meaning (linguistic)|meaning]] in Western thought, and the ways that [[Meaning (linguistic)|meaning]] is constructed by Western writers, texts, and readers and understood by readers. Though Derrida himself denied deconstruction was a method or school of philosophy, or indeed anything outside of reading the text itself, the term has been used by others to describe Derrida's particular methods of textual criticism, which involved discovering, recognizing, and understanding the underlying—and unspoken and implicit—assumptions, ideas, and frameworks that form the basis for thought and belief, for example, in complicating the ordinary division made between nature and culture. Derrida's deconstruction was drawn mainly from the work of [[Heidegger]] and his notion of ''[[Heideggerian terminology#Destruktion|Destruktion]]'' but also from [[Levinas]] and his ideas upon the [[Other]].
==Development of Derrida's Deconstruction in Relation to Husserl's Philosophy==
[[Husserl]] is one of the major influences on the development of Derrida's thought<ref>"Sartre, Levinas, Lyotard and Derrida himself all started their publishing careers with a critique/ exposition of a certain aspect of phenomenology. Their works cannot be properly understood without some knowledge of what they are criticizing or refining ... He [Derrida] considers Husserl to have been one of the major influences on his philosophical formation." from Howells, C., 1999. Derrida: Deconstruction from Phenomenology to Ethics. Oxford: Polity Press. pp. 6-7.</ref> and Husserl is both mentor and foil to the development of deconstruction. In Derrida's first published paper titled "'Genesis and Structure' and Phenomenology" (1959) Derrida describes "two polemics which placed him [Husserl] in opposition to those philosophies of structure called ''[[Dilthey]]ism'' and ''Gestaltism''"<ref name = "ufdirp">Derrida, J., 1978. "'Genesis and Structure' and Phenomenology" from ''Writing and Difference'' trans. Alan Bass. London & New York: Routledge. p. 197.</ref>. These two polemics by Husserl are forerunners of Derrida's own deconstruction. Derrida notes admiringly that Husserl "ceaselessly attempts to reconcile the ''structuralist'' demand (which leads to the comprehensive description of a totality, of a form or a function organized according to an internal legality in which elements have meaning only in the solidarity of their correlation or their opposition), with the ''genetic'' demand (that is the search for the origin and foundation of the structure)"<ref name = "ufdirp"/>.
Derrida argues that "the objectivity of a structure ... is tied to the concrete genesis which must make it possible" and that "Husserl refuses, and will always refuse, to accept the intelligibility and normativity of this universal structure as manna fallen from a "heavenly place" ... or as an eternal truth created by an infinite reason"<ref name = "ufdirp"/>. As well as demonstrating the philosophical movement of deconstruction that Derrida would make his own, Husserl is also the thinker against which Derrida publishes his first book length deconstruction in the form of ''Speech and Phenomena'' (1967). Derrida's "rash of pregnancies" in ''Speech and Phenomena'' are with "the impossibility of maintaining the plenitude of the present, the purity of the origin, or the self-identity of the absolute in the face of 'delay', 'postponement' and 'originary Difference'"<ref>Howells, C., 1999. Derrida: Deconstruction from Phenomenology to Ethics. Oxford: Polity Press. p. 17.</ref>. These early preoccupations indicate the critical engagement of deconstruction with [[metaphysics]]. For Derrida metaphysics is the appeal to originary self presence in philosophy. This appeal is typified for Derrida within Husserl's phenomenology by the alleged immediate self presence of the real in the [[phenomena]] of conscious experience.
==Deconstruction and Derrida's Understanding of Language as Writing Rather than Speech==
Derrida first employs the term deconstruction in ''Of Grammatology'' in 1967 when discussing the implications of understanding language as writing rather than speech. Derrida states that:
<blockquote>[w]riting thus enlarged and radicalized, no longer issues from a logos. Further, it inargurates the destruction, not the demolition but the de-sedimentation, the de-construction, of all the significations that have their source in that of the logos.<ref>Derrida, J., 1978. Of Grammatology. Trans. G. C. Spivak. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press. p.10.</ref></blockquote>
In this quotation Derrida states that deconstruction is what happens to meaning when language is understood as writing. Derrida argues that people have historically understood speech as the primary mode of language<ref>On the historical understanding of language as speech Derrida writes that "These disguises are not historical contingencies that one might admire or regret. Their movement was absolutely necessary" and that "Within this logos [i.e. the western tradition of philosophical thought], the original and essential link to the ''phonè'' has never been broken. It would be easy to demonstrate this and I shall attempt such a demonstration later." from Derrida, J., 1978. Of Grammatology. Trans. G. C. Spivak. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press. pp.7-11.</ref> and understood writing as an inferior derivative of speech<ref>Derrida argues that writing has been considered "a particular, derivative, auxiliary form of language in general" from Derrida, J., 1978. Of Grammatology. Trans. G. C. Spivak. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press. p.7.</ref>. Derrida argues that speech is historically equated with [[logos]]<ref>Derrida considers the understanding of language as speech "The system of 'hearing (understanding)-oneself-speak' through the phonic substance" from Derrida, J., 1978. Of Grammatology. Trans. G. C. Spivak. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press. p.7.</ref>, meaning thought, and associated with the presence of the speaker to the listener<ref>"the co-presence of the other and of the self" from Derrida, J., 1978. Of Grammatology. Trans. G. C. Spivak. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press. p.12.</ref>. It is as if the speaker thinks out loud and the listener hears the speaker thinking and if there is any confusion then the speaker's presence allows them to qualify the meaning of a previous statement. Derrida argues that by understanding speech as thought language "efaces itself."<ref>Derrida, J., 1978. Of Grammatology. Trans. G. C. Spivak. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press. p.11.</ref> Language itself is forgotten. The [[signified]] meaning of speech is so immediately understood that it is easy to forget that there are linguistic [[signifier]]s involved - but these signifiers are the spoken sounds ([[phonemes]]) and written marks ([[graphemes]]) that actually comprise language. Derrida therefore associates speech with a very straightforward and unproblematic [[theory of meaning]] and with the forgetting of the signifier and hence language itself. Derrida contrasts the understanding of language as speech with an understanding of language as writing. Unlike a speaker a writer is usually absent (even dead) and the reader cannot rely on the writer to clarify any problems that there might be with the meaning of the text. The consideration of language as writing leads inescapably to the insight that language is a system of [[sign (semiotics)|signs]]. As a system of signs the signifiers are present but the signification can only be [[inferred]]. There is effectively an act of translation involved in extracting a significaton from the signifiers of language. This act of translation is so habitual to language users that they must step back from their experience of using language in order to fully realise its operation. The insight that language is a system of signs, most obvious in the consideration of language as writing, leads Derrida to state that "everything [...] gathered under the name of language is beginning to let itself be transferred to [...] the name of writing."<ref>Derrida, J., 1978. Of Grammatology. Trans. G. C. Spivak. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press. p.6.</ref> This means that there is no room for the naive theory of meaning and forgetting of the signifier that previously existed when language was understood as speech. Much later in his career Derrida retrospectively confirms the importance of this distinction between speech and writing in the development of deconstruction when he states that:
<blockquote>
[F]rom about 1963 to 1968, I tried to work out - in particular in the three works published in 1967 - what was in no way meant to be a system but rather a sort of strategic device, opening its own abyss, an unclosed, unenclosable, not wholly formalizable ensemble of rules for reading, interpretation and writing. This type of device may have enabled me to detect not only in the history of philosophy and in the related socio-historical totality, but also in what are alleged to be sciences and in so-called post-philosophical discourses that figure among the most modern (in linguistics, in anthropology, in psychoanalysis), to detect in these an evaluation of writing, or, to tell the truth, rather a devaluation of writing whose insistent, repetitive, even obscurely compulsive, character was the sign of a whole set of long-standing constraints. These constraints were practised at the price of contradictions, of denials, of dogmatic decrees"<ref>Derrida, J., 1983. "The time of a thesis: punctuations" from ''Philosophy in France Today'' ed. Alan Montefiore. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. p.40.</ref>
</blockquote>
Understood as writing language can be thought of as "dead" in the sense that once the markings are made they do not change in themselves. Thus, what an author says about their text doesn't revive it, and is just another text commenting on the original, along with the commentary of others. In this view when an author says "You have understood my work perfectly" this utterance constitutes an addition to the textual system, along with what the reader said was understood in and about the original text, and not a resuscitation of the original dead text. The reader has an opinion, the author has an opinion. It is the scope for interpretation derived from the understanding of language as writing that makes deconstruction possible.
==Derrida's negative descriptions of deconstruction==
Derrida has been more forthcoming with negative than positive descriptions of deconstruction. Derrida gives these negative descriptions of deconstruction in order to explain "what deconstruction is not, or rather ''ought'' not to be"<ref>Derrida, Jacques, "Letter to A Japanese Friend," ''Derrida and Différance'', ed. David Wood and Robert Bernasconi, Warwick: Parousia, 1985, p. 1.</ref> and therefore to prevent misunderstandings of the term. Derrida states that deconstruction is not an analysis<ref name = "lniltl">Derrida, Jacques, "Letter to A Japanese Friend," ''Derrida and Différance'', ed. David Wood and Robert Bernasconi, Warwick: Parousia, 1985, p. 3.</ref>, a critique<ref name = "lniltl"/>, or a method<ref name = "lniltl"/>. This means that Derrida does not want deconstruction to be misunderstood as an analysis, a critique, or a method in the traditional sense that philosophy understands these terms. In these negative descriptions of deconstruction Derrida is seeking to "multiply the cautionary indicators and put aside all the traditional philosophical concepts"<ref name = "lniltl"/>. This does not mean that deconstruction has absolutely nothing in common with an analysis, a critique, or a method because while Derrida distances deconstruction from these terms, he reaffirms "the necessity of returning to them, at least under erasure"<ref name = "lniltl"/>. Derrida's necessity of returning to a term [[sous rature|under erasure]] means that even though these terms are problematic we must use them until they can be effectively reformulated or replaced. Derrida's thought developed in relation to [[Husserl|Husserl's]] and this return to something under erasure has a similarity to Husserl's [[Bracketing (phenomenology)|phenomenological reduction]] or [[epoché]]. Derrida acknowledges that his preference for negative description “has been called...a type of [[negative theology]]”<ref>Derrida, J., 1985. "Letter to A Japanese Friend," ''Derrida and Différance'', ed. David Wood and Robert Bernasconi, Warwick: Parousia. p. 3.</ref>. The relevance of the tradition of negative theology to Derrida's preference for negative descriptions of deconstruction is the notion that a positive description of deconstruction would over-determine the idea of deconstruction and that this would be a mistake because it would close off the openness that Derrida wishes to preserve for deconstruction. This means that if Derrida were to positively define deconstruction as, for example, a critique then this would put the concept of critique for ever outside the possibility of deconstruction. Some new philosophy beyond deconstruction would then be required in order to surpass the notion of critique. By refusing to define deconstruction positively Derrida preserves the infinite possibility of deconstruction, the possibility for the deconstruction of everything.
===Deconstruction is not a Method in the Traditional Sense===
Derrida states that “Deconstruction is not a method and cannot be transformed into one”<ref>Derrida, J., 1985. "Letter to A Japanese Friend," ''Derrida and Différance'', ed. David Wood and Robert Bernasconi, Warwick: Parousia. p. 3.</ref>. This is because deconstruction is not a mechanical operation. Derrida warns against considering deconstruction as a mechanical operation when he states that “It is true that in certain circles (university or cultural, especially in the United States) the technical and methodological “metaphor” that seems necessarily attached to the very word “deconstruction” has been able to seduce or lead astray”<ref>Derrida, J., 1985. "Letter to A Japanese Friend," ''Derrida and Différance'', ed. David Wood and Robert Bernasconi, Warwick: Parousia. p. 3.</ref>. Commentator Richard Beardsworth explains that <blockquote>
Derrida is careful to avoid this term [method] because it carries connotations of a procedural form of judgement. A thinker with a method has already decided ''how'' to proceed, is unable to give him or herself up to the matter of thought in hand, is a functionary of the criteria which structure his or her conceptual gestures. For Derrida [...] this is irresponsibility itself. Thus, to talk of a method in relation to deconstruction, especially regarding its ethico-political implications, would appear to go directly against the current of Derrida's philosophical adventure.<ref>Beardsworth, R. 1996. ''Derrida and the Political''. London and New York: Routledge. p.4.</ref>
</blockquote>
Beardsworth here explains that it would be irresponsible to undertake a deconstruction with a complete set of rules that need only be applied as a method to the object of deconstruction because this understanding would reduce deconstruction to a thesis of the reader that the text is then made to fit. This would be an irresponsible act of reading because it ignores the empirical facticity of the text itself - that is it becomes a prejudicial procedure that that only finds what it sets out to find. To be responsible a deconstruction must carefully negotiate the empirical facticity of the text and hence respond to it. Deconstruction is not a method and this means that it is not a neat set of rules that can be applied to any text in the same way. Deconstruction is therefore not neatly transcendental because it cannot be considered separate from the contingent empirical facticity of the particular texts that any deconstruction must carefully negotiate. Each deconstruction is necessarily different (otherwise it achieves no work) and this is why Derrida states that “Deconstruction takes place, it is an event”<ref>Derrida, J., 1985. "Letter to A Japanese Friend," ''Derrida and Différance'', ed. David Wood and Robert Bernasconi, Warwick: Parousia. p. 4.</ref>. On the other hand deconstruction cannot be completely untranscendental because this would make it meaningless to, for example, speak of two different examples of deconstruction as both being examples of deconstruction. It is for this reason that [[Richard Rorty]] asks if Derrida should be considered a quasi-transcendental philosopher that operates in the tension between the demands of the [[empirical]] and the [[transcendental]]. Each example of deconstruction must be different but it must also share something with other examples of deconstruction. Deconstruction is therefore not a method in the traditional sense but is what Derrida terms "an unclosed, unenclosable, not wholly formalizable ensemble of rules for reading, interpretation and writing."<ref>Derrida, J., 1983. "The time of a thesis: punctuations" from ''Philosophy in France Today'' ed. Alan Montefiore. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. p.40.</ref>
==Definition difficulty==
===Problems of definition===
It is difficult to define formally "Deconstruction" within Western philosophy. [[Martin Heidegger]] was perhaps the first to use the term (in contrast to [[Friedrich Nietzsche|Nietzschean]] 'demolition') {{when}}. Heidegger's central concern was the deconstruction of the Western philosophical tradition. The English word "Deconstruction" is an element in a translation series (from Husserl's ''Abbau'' to Heidegger's ''[[Destruktion#Destruktion|Destruktion]]'' to [[Jacques Derrida|Jacques Derrida's]] ''déconstruction''), and has been explored by [[Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak]], [[Paul de Man]], [[Jonathan Culler]], [[Barbara Johnson]], [[J. Hillis Miller]], [[Jean-François Lyotard]] and [[Geoffrey Bennington]].
These authors have resisted establishing a succinct definition of the word. When asked "What is deconstruction?": Derrida stated, "I have no simple and formalisable response to this question. All my essays are attempts to have it out with this formidable question" (Derrida, 1985, p. 4). There is much confusion as to what deconstruction is and determining what authority to accord to a given delimitation: a school of thought (not so in the singular), a method of reading (often so reduced by attempts at formal definition), or "textual event" (Derrida's implied characterization in the above quotation).
Most criticism of deconstruction is difficult to read and summarise. In contrast, there are many secondary texts attempting straightforward explanation of the philosophy of deconstruction, however, these works (e.g. ''Deconstruction for Beginners''<ref name="powell/lee">Powell, James and Lee, Joe, ''Deconstruction for Beginners'' (Writers & Readers Publishing, 2005)</ref> and ''Deconstructions: A User's Guide''<ref name="royle">Royle, Nicholas, ''Deconstructions: A User's Guide'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2000)</ref>) have been academically criticized for being too removed from the original texts, and contradictory to the concepts of deconstruction. {{Fact|date=April 2007}}
A survey of deconstruction texts and secondary literature reveals a wide range of heterogeneous arguments, including claims that deconstruction can entirely sort the Western tradition, by highlighting and discrediting unjustified privileges accorded to White males and other hegemonists. On the other hand, some critics claim that deconstruction is a dangerous form of [[nihilism]], the destruction of Western scientific and ethical values. As a rule, the political Right Wing is not sympathetic to deconstruction.{{Fact|date=September 2007}} Yet, the Left Wing's reception of deconstruction varied from hostility to co-optation:
*Many of the principal French deconstructionists have been Leftist, but Martin Heidegger's place in the deconstructionist camp is complicated, as are Paul de Man's early adulthood politics. Heidegger was Rector of the University of Freiburg from 1933-34 while a [[National Socialist German Workers Party|Nazi Party]] member; de Man wrote questionably anti-Semitic articles for the right-wing newspaper ''[[Le Soir]].'' (These articles were written between 1941 and 1943. This was well before de Man's critical maturity, much less his involvement with deconstructive theory; Derrida and de Man met in 1966.)
*From the racial-religious perspective, deconstruction has no clear sectarian identity, e.g. Derrida's views are not sectarian. As a Jew raised in a walled Jewish community in colonial Algeria, Derrida rejected the counter-signature of anti-Semitism by Algerian Jewish institutions of the 1940s. He is atheist in terms of dogmatic theology, and has written about religion in terms precepts shared among the [[Abrahamic faiths]]. Because of the open nature of Derrida's engagement with religion, [[deconstruction-and-religion]] attraction is inter-disciplinary.
*Writers sympathetic to deconstruction tend to use idiosyncratic, imitative styles; employing neologisms, irony, and inter-disciplinary allusions to and from the [[Western canon]]. Critics say that on deconstructing such writings they discovered it not worth the effort.{{Fact|date=September 2007}}
===Approaching a definition===
Part of the difficulty in defining deconstruction arises from the fact that deconstruction cannot escape itself. The word is subject to the linguistic limitations and effects which it purports in its own definition. Followers of Derrida do not view deconstruction as a concept standing outside of text, which can act upon all text without itself being affected. The act of definition, in this view, is an attempt to "finish" or "complete" deconstruction, yet deconstruction is never viewed as complete, but a continuous process; 'a living philosophy' being adjusted within itself.
Nevertheless, writers have provided a number of rough definitions. One of the most popular definitions of deconstruction is by [[Paul de Man]], who explained, "It's possible, within text, to frame a question or undo assertions made in the text, by means of elements which are in the text, which frequently would be precisely structures that play off the rhetorical against grammatical elements." (de Man, in Moynihan 1986, at 156.) Thus, viewed in this way, "the term 'deconstruction' refers in the first instance to the way in which the 'accidental' features of a text can be seen as betraying, subverting, its purportedly 'essential' message" (Rorty 1995). (The word ''accidental'' is usually interpreted here in the sense of ''incidental''.)
A more whimsical definition is by [[John D. Caputo]], who defines deconstruction thus: "Whenever deconstruction finds a nutshell -- a secure axiom or a pithy maxim -- the very idea is to crack it open and disturb this tranquility. Indeed, that is a good rule of thumb in deconstruction. ''That'' is what deconstruction is all about, its very meaning and mission, if it has any. One might even say that cracking nutshells is what deconstruction ''is''. In a nutshell. ...Have we not run up against a paradox and an [[aporia]] [something impassable]?...the paralysis and impossibility of an aporia is just what impels deconstruction, what rouses it out of bed in the morning..." (Caputo 1997, p.32)
Many definitions portray deconstruction as a method, project, or school of thought. For example, the philosopher [[David B. Allison]] (an early translator of Derrida) stated:
{{quotation|[Deconstruction] signifies a project of critical thought whose task is to locate and 'take apart' those concepts which serve as the axioms or rules for a period of thought, those concepts which command the unfolding of an entire epoch of metaphysics. 'Deconstruction' is somewhat less negative than the Heideggerian or Nietzschean terms 'destruction' or 'reversal'; it suggests that certain foundational concepts of metaphysics will never be entirely eliminated...There is no simple 'overcoming' of metaphysics or the language of metaphysics.|<ref>Introduction by Allison, in Derrida, 1973, p. xxxii, n. 1.</ref>}}
Similarly, in the context of religious studies Paul Ricoeur (1983) defined deconstruction as a way of uncovering the questions behind the answers of a text or tradition (Klein 1995).
==Structuralism and poststructuralism==
Derrida states that his use of the word deconstruction first took place in a context in which "[[structuralism]] was dominant"<ref name = "xbkhat">Derrida, Jacques, "Letter to A Japanese Friend," Derrida and Différance, ed. David Wood and Robert Bernasconi, Warwick: Parousia, 1985, p. 2.</ref> and its use is related to this context. Derrida states that deconstruction is an "antistructuralist gesture"<ref name = "xbkhat"/> because "Structures were to be undone, decomposed, desedimented"<ref name = "xbkhat"/>. At the same time for Derrida deconstruction is also a "structuralist gesture"<ref name = "xbkhat"/> because it is concerned with the structure of texts. So for Derrida deconstruction involves “a certain attention to structures"<ref name = "xbkhat"/> and tries to “understand how an “ensemble” was constituted"<ref name = "lniltl"/>. As both a structuralist and an antistructuralist gesture deconstruction is tied up with what Derrida calls the "structural problematic"<ref name = "xbkhat"/>. The structural problematic for Derrida is the tension between genesis, that which is "in the essential mode of creation or movement"<ref>Derrida, J., 1978. "'Genesis and Structure' and Phenomenology" from ''Writing and Difference'' trans. Alan Bass. London & New York: Routledge. p. 194</ref>, and structure, "systems, or complexes, or static configurations"<ref name = "mcoctr">Derrida, J., 1978. "'Genesis and Structure' and Phenomenology" from ''Writing and Difference'' trans. Alan Bass. London & New York: Routledge. p. 194.</ref>. An example of genesis would be the [[sense|sensory]] [[idea]]s from which knowledge is then derived in the [[empirical]] [[epistemology]]. An example of structure would be a [[binary opposition]] such as [[good]] and [[evil]] where the meaning of each element is established, at least partly, through its relationship to the other element. For Derrida, Genesis and Structure are both inescapable modes of description, there are some things that "must be described in terms of structure, and others which must be described in terms of genesis"<ref name = "mcoctr"/>, but these two modes of description are difficult to reconcile and this is the tension of the structural problematic. In Derrida's own words the structural problematic is that "beneath the serene use of these concepts [genesis and structure] is to be found a debate that...makes new reductions and explications indefinitely necessary"<ref>Derrida, J., 1978. "'Genesis and Structure' and Phenomenology" from ''Writing and Difference'' trans. Alan Bass. London & New York: Routledge. p. 196.</ref>. The structural problematic is therefore what propels philosophy and hence deconstruction forward. Another significance of the structural problematic for Derrida is that while a critique of structuralism is a recurring theme of his philosophy this does not mean that philosophy can claim to be able to discard all structural aspects. It is for this reason that Derrida distances his use of the term deconstruction from [[poststructuralism]], a term that would suggest philosophy could simply go beyond structuralism. Derrida states that “the motif of deconstruction has been associated with "poststructuralism"" but that this term was "a word unknown in France until its “return” from the United States"<ref name = "lniltl"/>.
==[[Logocentrism]] and the critique of binary oppositions==
Deconstruction's central concern is a radical critique of [[the Enlightenment]] project and of [[metaphysics]], including in particular the founding texts by such philosophers as [[Plato]], [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau|Rousseau]], and [[Edmund Husserl|Husserl]], but also other sorts of texts, including literature. Deconstruction identifies in the Western philosophical tradition a "logocentrism" or "[[metaphysics of presence]]" (sometimes known as ''[[phallogocentrism]]'') which holds that speech-thought (the ''logos'') is a privileged, ideal, and self-present entity, through which all discourse and meaning are derived. This logocentrism is the primary target of deconstruction.
One typical form of deconstructive reading is the critique of binary oppositions, or the criticism of [[dichotomy|dichotomous]] thought. A central deconstructive argument holds that, in all the classic dualities of Western thought, one term is privileged or "central" over the other. The privileged, central term is the one most associated with the [[phallus]] and the ''logos''. Examples include:
* speech over writing
* presence over absence
* identity over difference
* fullness over emptiness
* meaning over meaninglessness
* mastery over submission
* life over death
Derrida argues in ''Of Grammatology'' (translated by [[Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak]] and published in English in 1976) that, in each such case, the first term is classically conceived as original, authentic, and superior, while the second is thought of as secondary, derivative, or even "parasitic." These binary oppositions, or "violent hierarchies", and others of their form, he argues, must be deconstructed.
This deconstruction is effected in two ways ('''La Double Séance'''). He argues that these oppositions cannot be simply transcended; given the thousands of years of [[history of philosophy|philosophical history]] behind them, it would be disingenuous to attempt to move directly to a domain of thought beyond these distinctions. So deconstruction attempts to compensate for these historical power imbalances, undertaking the difficult project of thinking through the philosophical implications of questioning and presenting complications to show the contingency of such divisions.
The second "session" involves the emergence or eruption of a new conception. One can begin to conceive a conceptual terrain away from these oppositions: the next project of deconstruction would be to develop concepts which fall under neither one term of these oppositions nor the other. Much of the philosophical work of deconstruction has been devoted to developing such ideas and their implications, of which ''[[différance]]'' may be the prototype (as it denotes neither simple identity nor simple difference). Derrida spoke in an interview (first published in French in 1967) about such "concepts," which he called merely "marks" in order to distinguish them from proper philosophical concepts:
{{quotation|...[I]t has been necessary to analyze, to set to work, ''within'' the text of the history of philosophy, as well as ''within'' the so-called literary text,..., certain marks, shall we say,... that ''by analogy'' (I underline) I have called undecidables, that is, unities of simulacrum, "false" verbal properties (nominal or semantic) that can no longer be included within philosophical (binary) opposition, resisting and disorganizing it, ''without ever'' constituting a third term, without ever leaving room for a solution in the form of speculative dialectics.|''Positions'', trans. Alan Bass, pp. 42-43}}
As can be seen in this discussion of its terms' undecidable, unresolvable complexity, deconstruction requires a high level of comfort with suspended, deferred decision; a deconstructive thinker must be willing to work with terms whose precise meaning has not been, and perhaps cannot be, established. (This is often given as a major reason for the difficult writing style of deconstructive texts.) Critics of deconstruction find this unacceptable as philosophy; many feel that, by working in this manner with unspecified terms, deconstruction ignores the primary task of philosophy, which they say is the creation and elucidation of concepts. This deep criticism is a result of a fundamental difference of opinion about the nature of [[philosophy]], and is unlikely to be resolved simply.
==Undeconstructibility==
{{see also|deconstruction-and-religion}}
Deconstruction exists in the interval between constructions and '''undeconstructibility'''. The primary exemplar of this relationship is the relationship between the [[law]], deconstruction, and [[justice]]. [[Derrida]] summarizes the relationship by saying that [[justice]] is the undeconstructible condition that makes deconstruction possible.<ref>Derrida, Jacques ''Acts of Religion'', p. 243.</ref> However, the justice referred to by Derrida is indeterminate and not a transcendent ideal. To quote Derrida, it is "a justice in itself, if such a thing exists, outside or beyond law".<ref>Derrida, Jacques "Force of Law" in ''Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice'', 1992, ed. Cornell, et al.</ref>
The law is made up of necessary human constructions while justice is the undeconstructible call to make laws. The law belongs to the realm of the present, possible, and calculable while justice belongs to the realm of the absent, impossible, and incalculable. Deconstruction bridges the gap between the law and justice as the experience of applying the law in a just manner. Justice demands that a singular occurrence be responded to with a new, uniquely tailored application of the law. Thus, a deconstructive reading of the law is a leap from calculability towards incalculability.
In deconstruction, justice takes on the structure of a promise that absence and impossibility can be made present and possible. Insofar as deconstruction is motivated by such a promise, it escapes the traditional presence/absence binary because a promise is neither present nor absent. Therefore, a deconstructive reading will never definitively achieve justice. Justice is always deferred.
Derrida works out his idea of [[justice]] in ''[[Specters of Marx]]'' and in his essay "Force of Law" in ''Acts of Religion''; he works out his idea of [[hospitality]] in ''Of Hospitality''; Similarly for [[democracy]] see ''Rogues: Two Essays on Reason''; [[friendship]] see ''The Politics of Friendship''; [[the other]] see ''The Gift of Death''; the [[future]] see ''Given Time: I. Counterfeit Money''.
==Terminology==
Deconstruction makes use of a number of terms, many of which are coined or repurposed, that illustrate or follow the process of deconstruction.
Among these words are ''différance'', ''trace'', ''écriture'', ''supplement'', ''hymen'', ''pharmakon'', ''slippage'', ''marge'', ''entame'', ''parergon'', ''text'', and ''same''.
===''Différance''===
{{main|Différance}}
Against the [[metaphysics of presence]], deconstruction brings a (non)concept called ''différance''. This French neologism is, on the deconstructive argument, properly neither a word nor a concept; it names the non-coincidence of meaning both [[wikt:synchronic|synchronously]] (one French homonym means "differing") and [[wikt:diachronic|diachronically]] (another French homonym means "deferring"). Because the resonance and conflict between these two French meanings is difficult to convey concisely in English, the word ''différance'' is usually left untranslated.
===''Trace''===
The idea of ''différance'' also brings with it the idea of ''trace''. A trace is what a sign differs/defers from. It is the absent part of the sign's presence. In other words, through the act of ''différance'', a sign leaves behind a ''trace'', which is whatever is left over after everything ''present'' has been accounted for. According to Derrida, "the trace itself does not exist" (Derrida, 1976, p. 167) because it is self-effacing. That is, "[i]n presenting itself, it becomes effaced" (Ibid., p. 125). Because all signifiers viewed as ''present'' in Western thought will necessarily contain traces of other (absent) signifiers, the signifier can be neither wholly present nor wholly absent.
===''Écriture''===
In deconstruction, the word ''écriture'' (usually translated as ''writing'' in English) is appropriated to refer not just to systems of graphic communication, but to all systems inhabited by ''différance''. A related term, called ''archi-écriture'', refers to the positive side of writing, or writing as an ultimate principle, rather than as a derivative of ''logos'' (speech). In other words, whereas the Western ''logos'' encompasses writing, it is equally valid to view ''archi-écriture'' as encompassing the ''logos'', and therefore speech can be thought of as a form of writing: writing on air waves, or on the memory of the listener or recording device, but there is no fundamental dominance at work. This, as described above, is an element of Derrida's criticisms against [[phallogocentrism]] in general.
===''Supplement'', ''originary lack'', and ''invagination''===
The word ''supplement'' is taken from the philosopher [[Jean Jacques Rousseau]], who defined it as "an inessential extra added to something complete in itself." According to Derrida, Western thinking is characterized by the "logic of supplementation," which is actually two apparently contradictory ideas. From one perspective, a supplement serves to enhance the presence of something which is already complete and self-sufficient. Thus, writing is the supplement of speech, [[Adam and Eve|Eve]] was the supplement of [[Adam and Eve|Adam]], and [[masturbation]] is the supplement of "natural sex."
But simultaneously, according to Derrida, the Western idea of the ''supplement'' has within it the idea that a thing that has a supplement cannot be truly "complete in itself." If it were complete without the supplement, it shouldn't need, or long for, the supplement. The fact that a thing can be added to make it even more "present" or "whole" means that there is a hole (which Derrida called an ''originary lack'') and the supplement can fill that hole. The metaphorical opening of this "hole" Derrida called "invagination." From this perspective, the supplement does not enhance something's presence, but rather underscores its absence.
Thus, what really happens during supplementation is that something appears from one perspective to be whole, complete, and self-sufficient, with the supplement acting as an ''external'' appendage. However, from another perspective, the supplement also fills a hole within the ''interior'' of the original "something." Thus, the supplement represents an indeterminacy between externality and interiority.
===''Hymen''===
The word ''hymen'' comes from the Greek word for skin, membrane or the vaginal hymen.
In deconstruction it is used to refer to the interplay between the normally considered mutually exclusive terms of inside and outside. The hymen is the membrane of intersection where it becomes impossible to distinguish whether the membrane is on the inside or the outside. And in the absence of the complete hymen, the distinction between inside and outside disappears. Thus, in a way, the hymen defies formal logic and is neither outside nor inside, and after penetration, is both inside and outside.
Showing the problematics of a simple word like hymen questions what "is inside" and "is outside" mean, they cannot here be considered in the usual logic of mutual exclusion (sometimes called [[law of excluded middle]]). Thus we get a contrast to formal logic, and especially the ancient and revered principle of non-contradiction, which from Aristotle says "one cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect and at the same time." Yet, the hymen is inside and is not inside in the same respect and at the same time (ie, using a formal logic translation of "inside" to "not outside").
Much in history of science and philosophy depended on the sanctity of this law of non-contradiction, for example see, [[Logical Positivism]], [[Analytic Philosophy]].
===''Pharmakon''===
The word ''pharmakon'' refers to the play between cure and poison. It derives from the ancient Greek word, used by Plato in ''Phaedrus'' and ''Phaedo'', which had an undecidable meaning and could be translated to mean anything ranging from a drug, recipe, spell, medicine, or poison.
== An illustration ==
A more concrete example, drawn from one of Derrida's most famous works, may help to clarify the typical manner in which deconstruction works.
[[structuralism|Structuralist]] analysis generally relies on the search for underlying binary oppositions as an explanatory device. The structuralist anthropology of [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]] argued that such oppositions are found in all cultures, not only in Western culture, and thus that the device of binary opposition was fundamental to meaning.
Deconstruction challenges the explanatory value of these oppositions but does not seek to abolish them.
There are three moments to deconstruction, which may be mixed and simultaneous:
#The revelation of an asymmetry in the binary opposition, suggesting an implied hierarchy.
#The failure of the hierarchy: the two terms are found to fail in a certain case.
#The third moment is the displacement of the terms of the opposition, often in the emergence of a neologism or new meaning.
Take, for example, the nature/culture opposition. This binary opposition was prevalent in many discussions during the 20th century. However, consider something like [[incest]]. Incest is a taboo, a "cultural rule," that is found by anthropologists, universally. Being universal it is then also indistinguishable from what is called "natural." Incest disrupts the simplicity of this nature/culture division and shows that the opposition relies for its meaning upon something else. The emergence then of a neologism to highlight this "weakness" in the nature/culture division can be considered.
In his book ''Of Grammatology,'' Derrida offers one example of deconstruction applied to a theory of Lévi-Strauss. Following many other Western thinkers, Lévi-Strauss distinguished between "savage" societies lacking writing and "civilized" societies that have writing. This distinction implies that human beings developed verbal communication (speech) before some human cultures developed writing, and that speech is thus conceptually as well as chronologically prior to writing (thus speech would be more authentic, closer to truth and meaning, and more immediate than writing).
Although the development of writing is generally considered to be an advance, after an encounter with the [[Nambikwara]] Indians of Brazil, Lévi-Strauss suggested that societies without writing were also lacking violence and domination (in other words, savages are truly noble savages). He further argued that the primary function of writing is to facilitate slavery (or social inequality, exploitation, and domination in general). This claim has been rejected by most later historians and anthropologists as strictly incorrect. There is abundant historical evidence that many [[hunter-gatherer]] societies and later non-literate tribes had significant amounts of violence and warfare in their cultures, though it must be added that Derrida never denied that such societies were significantly violent. For that matter, hierarchical and highly unequal societies have flourished in the absence of writing.
Derrida's interpretation begins with taking Lévi-Strauss's discussion of writing at its word: what is important in writing for Lévi-Strauss is not the use of markings on a piece of paper to communicate information, but rather their use in domination and violence. Derrida further observes that, based on Lévi-Strauss's own ethnography, the [[Nambikwara]] really do use language for domination and violence. Derrida thus concludes that writing, in fact, is prior to speech. That is, he reverses the opposition between speech and writing.
Derrida was not making fun of Lévi-Strauss, nor did he mean to supersede, replace, or proclaim himself superior to Lévi-Strauss (a common theme of deconstruction is the desire to be critical without assuming a posture of superiority). He was using his deconstruction of Lévi-Strauss to question a common belief in Western culture, dating back at least to Plato: that speech is prior to, more authentic than, and closer to "true meaning" than writing.
== Criticisms ==
Critics of deconstruction take issue with what they characterize as empty [[obscurantism#obscurantism (lower case)|obscurantism]] and lack of seriousness in deconstructive writings. In addition, critics often equate deconstruction with [[nihilism]] or [[relativism]] and criticize deconstruction accordingly.
===Anti-essentialist criticism===
[[Neopragmatism|Neo-pragmatist]] philosopher [[Richard Rorty]] has criticized Derrida's assertion that deconstruction is not a method, but something that is "already, all the time" {{Fact|date=March 2007}} occurring in texts. Anti-essentialists allege that Derrida's position is close to positing certain protocols, gestures, and structures which are intrinsic to all texts, and thus close to positing an "essential" privileged reading of a text. Rorty specifically criticizes deconstruction's tendency to "treat every text as 'about' the same old philosophical oppositions, space and time, sensible and intelligible, subject and object, being and becoming..."<ref>Rorty, Richard, "Deconstruction and Circumvention" ''Essays on Heidegger and Others'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 104. </ref> According to Rorty, in making the tacit assumption that the traditional structures and metaphors in philosophy are always and already present within all cultural discourse, philosophy is re-elevated to a position at the center of culture, a notion which [[pragmatism]] seeks to eschew at all costs. This, Rorty says, is a "self-deceptive attempt to magnify the importance of an academic specialty."<ref> "Deconstruction and Circumvention", ''Essays on Heidegger and Others'', p. 87. </ref> In addition (and this is less a criticism of Derrida himself than of his followers in literary criticism), Rorty regards the de Manian attempts to privilege literary language over others, and to repeatedly prove the impossibility of reading<ref> See De Man, Paul, ''Blindness and Insight'', 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983) </ref> as another form of metaphysics, "another inversion of a traditional philosophical position..that nevertheless remains within the great range of alternatives specified by 'the discourse of philosophy."<ref> Rorty, Richard, "Two Meaning of Logocentrism" ''Essays on Heidegger and Others'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 117. </ref> In general, anti-essentialists may still accept the validity of deconstructive readings but view them as the result of subjective interaction with a text. Then each reading is one of many possible readings, rather than an excavation of something "within" the text. "The truth" of any single reading is not privileged in that case but open to critical analysis.
== History ==
During the period between the late 1960s and the early 1980s many thinkers influenced by deconstruction, including [[Jacques Derrida|Derrida]], [[Paul de Man]], [[Geoffrey Hartman]], and [[J. Hillis Miller]], worked at [[Yale University]]. This group came to be known as the [[Yale school (deconstruction)|Yale school]] and was especially influential in [[literary criticism]], as de Man, Miller, and Hartman were all primarily literary critics. Several of these theorists were subsequently affiliated with the [[University of California Irvine]]. (At a faculty meeting of the Department of English, Professor Martin Price, the chairman, while observing the surfeit of deconstructionists flooding the University with more hires in sight, asked his colleagues, "I can understand hiring a few deconstructionists here and there. But do we really need to corner the market?"){{Fact|date=January 2008}}
=== Precursors ===
Deconstruction has significant ties with much of Western philosophy; even considering only Derrida's work, there are existing deconstructive texts about the works of at least many dozens of important philosophers. However, deconstruction emerged from a clearly delineated philosophical context:
* Derrida's earliest work, including the texts that introduced the term "deconstruction," dealt with the [[phenomenology]] of '''[[Edmund Husserl]]''': Derrida's first publication was a book-length ''Introduction'' to Husserl's ''The Origin of Geometry'', and ''Speech and Phenomena'', an early work, dealt largely with phenomenology.
* A student and prior interpreter of Husserl's, '''[[Martin Heidegger]]''', was one of the most significant influences on Derrida's thought: Derrida's ''Of Spirit'' deals directly with Heidegger, but Heidegger's influence on deconstruction is much broader than that one volume.
* The [[psychoanalysis]] of '''[[Sigmund Freud]]''' is an important reference for much of deconstruction: ''The Post Card'', important essays in ''Writing and Difference'', ''Archive Fever'', and many other deconstructive works deal primarily with Freud.
* 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''.
* In ''[[Of Grammatology]]'', Derrida makes clear that the work of '''[[André Leroi-Gourhan]]''' is important to the formulation of deconstruction and grammatology. Not only does Derrida refer the thought of ''grammè'' to Leroi-Gourhan's use of the concepts of "exteriorization" and "program," but he also makes use of Leroi-Gourhan's understanding of life and of human life to formulate his own concept of writing. Leroi-Gourhan, according to Derrida, makes it possible to think the history of life as the history of the ''grammè'', and in this context Derrida states that ''life''—in the sense of the great evolving movement of the inscription of difference in which the history of life consists—is "what I have called ''[[différance]]''."<ref>Derrida, Jacques, ''Of Grammatology'' (Baltimore & London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), pp. 84–5, and cf. subsection above, "Bernard Stiegler on deconstruction."</ref>
* The [[structuralism]] of '''[[Ferdinand de Saussure]]''', and other forms of [[post-structuralism]] that evolved contemporaneously with deconstruction (such as the work of [[Maurice Blanchot]], [[Michel Foucault]], [[Louis Althusser]], [[Jacques Lacan]], etc.), were the immediate intellectual climate for the formation of deconstruction. In many cases, these authors were close friends, colleagues, or correspondents of Derrida's.
==Literary trope==
Deconstruction has been directly used and also parodied in a large number of literary texts. [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] novelist [[Gerald Vizenor]] claims an extensive debt to deconstructionist ideas in attacking essentialist notions of [[Race (classification of human beings)|race]]. Writer [[Percival Everett]] goes further in [[satire]], actually incorporating fictional conversations between a number of leading deconstructionists within his fictions. Comic author [[David Lodge (author)|David Lodge]]’s work contains a number of figures whose belief in the deconstructionist project is undermined by contact with non-academic figures (cf ''[[Nice Work]]''). The prolix, insular and highly specific nature of many deconstructionist writings makes them a popular figure of fun in both [[Campus novel]]s and [[anti-intellectual]] fiction.{{Fact|date=March 2008}}
==Popular media and culture==
In popular media, deconstruction has been seized upon by [[Conservatism|conservative]] and libertarian writers as a central example of what is wrong with modern [[academia]]. Editorials and columns come out with some frequency pointing to deconstruction as a sign of how self-evidently absurd English departments have become, and of how traditional values are no longer being taught to students. Conservatives frequently treat deconstruction as being equivalent to [[Marxism]]. These criticisms became particularly prevalent when it was discovered that [[Paul de Man]] had written anti-Semitic articles during [[World War II]], due to what was seen as the inadequate and offensive response of many deconstructionist thinkers, especially Derrida, to this revelation. Popular criticism of deconstruction also intensified following the [[Sokal affair]], which many people took as an indicator of the quality of deconstructionism as a whole.
Deconstruction is also used by many popular sources as a synonym for [[Historical revisionism (negationism)|revisionism]] - for instance, the CBS mini-series, ''[[The Reagans]]'' was presented as a "deconstruction" of the [[Ronald Reagan|Reagan administration]].
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. In a related sense, the terms "deconstruction" and "deconstruct" have increasingly entered non-rigorous academic domains, popular discourse, and the media, and are used as being generally synonymous with analysis or close examination of any kind, and often with the analysis of culture; the use of the term in these contexts has little, if anything, to do with the Derridian notion of "deconstruction," and thus in such contexts may be misleading. This is especially evident when the term suggests understanding or, more plainly, "looking at or examining in a detailed way."
Pop music musician [[Green Gartside]] (of [[Scritti Politti]]) regularly utilized the theories associated with deconstructionism, particularly those associated with his favorite philosopher [[Jacques Derrida]] (who eventually befriended Gartside), when constructing his lyrics. His love songs were not so much straightforward love songs as they were songs about the process of falling in love, and other songs -- such as "The Word Girl" -- played around with and took apart the meaning of words that were/are commonly the central focus of most pop songs (in this case, literally the word "girl"). This added a degree of complexity that the casual listener often did not catch at the time Scritti Politti was at its commercial peak, but was eventually understood and appreciated. Also, it must be noted that Gartside's avowed commitment to deconstruction, particularly the Derrida model of same, has resulted in a notable degree of awareness of deconstructionism amongst Scritti Politti/'80s [[synthpop]] fans.
Finally, the term is used in pop-culture criticism to refer to a story (novel, film, etc.) which presents a well-known concept or plot in a way which intentionally reverses or subverts the common elements of the original, with the intention of laying bare the underlying assumptions in it. This can be done either as a criticism or parody of the original, or as an attempt to re-vitalize it by eliminating what the author sees as unnecessary accretions (the later is sometime referred to as a ''reconstruction'' rather than deconstruction). For example, the animated film ''[[Shrek]]'' can be considered a deconstruction of popular fairy tales, while the [[graphic novel]] ''[[Watchmen]]'' is often described as a deconstruction of the super-heroic genre. The term is also used in this manner to describe much older parodies such as ''[[Don Quixote]]'' and ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]'', which deconstruct the concepts of knightly honor and the genre of travelogues, respectively. This use of the term, which is only tangentially connected to Derrida's original, seems to be taking hold among various [[fandom]]s in recent years.
== See also ==
{{Human geography}}
{{Philosophy topics}}
{|width=100%
|-valign=top
|width=50%|
*[[Continental philosophy]]
*[[cultural movement]]
*[[Deconstructivism]]: an architectural movement inspired by deconstruction
*[[deconstruction-and-religion]]
*[[feminism]]
*[[feminist theory]]
*[[indeterminacy (philosophy)]]
*[[intentional fallacy]]
*[[list of thinkers influenced by deconstruction]]
*[[literary criticism]]
|width=50%|
*[[literary theory]]
*[[phenomenology]]
*[[post-modernism]]
*[[post-structuralism]]
*[[psychoanalysis]]
*[[queer theory]]
*[[recursionism]]
*[[structuralism]]
*[[deconstruction (building)]]: a way to un-build (deconstruct) buildings
|}
==External links==
{{Wiktionary}}
* [http://www.brocku.ca/english/courses/4F70/deconstruction.html "Deconstruction: Some Assumptions"] by [[John Lye]]
* [http://www.unizar.es/departamentos/filologia_inglesa/garciala/bibliography.html A Bibliography of Literary Theory, Criticism, and Philology] by [[José Ángel García Landa]] (Deconstruction subject not found)
* [http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/SESLL/EngLit/ugrad/hons/theory/Ten%20Ways.htm Ten ways of thinking about deconstruction] by [[Willy Maley]]
* [http://lacoue-labarthe.cjb.cc/ Archive of the international conference "Deconstructing Mimesis - Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe"] about the work of Lacoue-Labarthe and his mimetic version of deconstruction, held at the [[University of Paris IV: Paris-Sorbonne|Sorbonne]] in January 2006
* [http://www.fudco.com/chip/deconstr.html How To Deconstruct Almost Anything - My Postmodern Adventure] by Chip Morningstar; a cynical introduction to 'deconstruction' from the perspective of a software engineer.
* [http://www.sens-public.org/article.php3?id_article=312 Jacques Derrida : The Perchance of a Coming of the Otherwoman. The Deconstruction of Phallogocentrism from Duel to Duo] by [[Carole Dely]], English translation by [[Wilson Baldridge]], at ''Sens Public''
* [http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27794 A satirical look at deconstruction from The Onion.]
* [http://www.elupton.com/index.php?id=11 Ellen Lupton on deconstruction in Graphic Design]
* [http://www.enfocarte.com/5.26/moda.html Deconstruction of fashion; La moda en la posmodernidad] by Adolfo Vasquez Rocca PhD
==References==
{{refbegin}}
*Culler, Jonathan. ''On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism''. ISBN 978-0-8014-1322-3.
*Derrida, Jacques, [http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/Simulate/Derrida_deconstruction.html "Letter to A Japanese Friend,"] ''Derrida and Différance'', ed. David Wood and Robert Bernasconi, Warwick: Parousia, 1985, p. 1.
*Derrida, Jacques, ''Of Grammatology''. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. ISBN 978-0-8018-5830-7
*Derrida, Jacques, ''Positions''. Trans. Alan Bass. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1981. ISBN 978-0-226-14331-6
*Derrida, Jacques. ''Speech and Phenomena and Other Essays on Husserl's Theory of Signs''. Trans. David B. Allison. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1973. ISBN 978-0-8101-0590-4.
*Eagleton, Terry. ''Literary Theory: An Introduction''. ISBN 978-0-8166-1251-2
*Ellis, John M. ''Against Deconstruction'' Princeton: Princeton UP, 1989. ISBN 978-0-691-06754-4.
*Johnson, Barbara. ''The Critical Difference''. 1981.
*Klein, Anne Carolyn. ''Meeting the Great Bliss Queen: Buddhists, Feminists, and the Art of the Self''. Boston: Beacon, 1995. ISBN 978-0-8070-7306-3.
*[[John W McGinley]], " 'The Written' as the Vocation of Conceiving Jewishly". ISBN 978-0-595-40488-9.
*[[Robert Moynihan|Moynihan, Robert]], ''Recent Imagining: Interviews with Harold Bloom, Geoffrey Hartman, Paul DeMan, J. Hillis Miller''. Shoe String, 1986. ISBN 978-0-208-02120-5.
*[[Simon Reynolds|Reynolds, Simon]], ''Rip It Up and Start Again''. New York: Penguin, 2006, p316. ISBN 978-0-143-03672-2. (Source for the information about Green Gartside, Scritti Politti, and deconstructionism.)
*[[Richard Rorty|Rorty, Richard]], "From Formalism to Poststructuralism". ''The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism'', vol. 8. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995.
*[[Bernard Stiegler|Stiegler, Bernard]], ''[[Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus]]''. Trans. Richard Beardsworth & George Collins. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0804730415
*[[Bernard Stiegler|Stiegler, Bernard]], "Derrida and Technology: Fidelity at the Limits of Deconstruction and the Prosthesis of Faith," in Tom Cohen (ed.), ''Jacques Derrida and the Humanities''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521625653
{{refend}}
==Notes==
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[[Category:Postmodern literature]]
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