Namrataba Zala's assignment 2016-2018
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NAMRATABA ZALA
Semester:2
Roll No.: 20
Enrollment No.: 2069108420170033
Batch: 2016-2018
S. B. Gardi Department Of English
Bhavnagar University
Email id: namratazala2707@gmail.com
Paper no. : 7 Literary Theory and Criticism
Topic: Deconstruction
Deconstruction
Introduction
Structuralism flourished for a
relatively short period – about two decades or so. In the late 1960s,
another movement, deriving its
name from Structuralism began to emerge - Post structuralism.
“After” Structuralism, in terms
of time, as the term can be interpreted at one level, Post
structuralism can be seen
carrying forward certain ideas and issues within Structuralism to their
supposedly logical end. However
when the term is interpreted as
in the thematic
sense, Post structuralism begins
to emerge as a break away from conventional Structuralism.
Indeed, the underlying
theoretical matrix which supports Post structuralism has so radically
departed from the basic premises
of Structuralism that it seems justified to refer to it as an
independent movement. Post
structuralism turns certain insights of Structuralism against itself
and points to certain fundamental
inconsistencies in method, which the structuralist could not
correct. In his writings on
Saussure, Derrida shows where Saussure failed to grasp the full
significance of his own theories.
Having said this much, one realizes that it is difficult to catch
Post structuralism in any opening
statement-- precisely because of its multi-faceted nature. What
we have said until now is only
one way of entering this diffuse and diverse field.
Defining Deconstruction
Derrida has always resisted
attempts to reduce Deconstruction to a concept definable in terms of
a method or technique. For it is
precisely this idea or assumption that meaning can be grasped in
the form of some proper
self-identical concept that Derrida is most determinedly out to
deconstruct.
Introducing Deconstruction
Deconstruction has been presented
as a philosophical position, a political or intellectual stance or
just simply as a strategy of
reading.
Let us begin here with a simple
reading of Derrida describing a general strategy of
Deconstruction: Every
philosophical argument is structured in terms of oppositions and in this
“traditional philosophical
opposition we have not a peaceful co-existence of facing terms but a
violent hierarchy. One of the
terms dominates the other (axiologically, logically etc.), occupies
the commanding position. To
deconstruct the opposition is above all, at a particular moment to
reverse the hierarchy”.
Deconstruction, Derrida implies, looks upon a text as inherently riddled
with hierarchical oppositions. A
deconstructive reading uncovers not only these hierarchical
oppositions but also shows that
the superior term in the opposition can be seen as inferior.
When we put together some other
strategies of Deconstruction outlined in Derrida's writings, a
working definition begins to emerge.
“To deconstruct a discourse is to show how it undermines
the philosophy it asserts, or the
hierarchical opposition on which it relies, by identifying in the
text and then dismantling the
rhetorical operations that produce the supposed ground of
argument, the key concept or
premise.”
This explanation by Jonathan
Culler is comprehensive. So, let us treat it as a companion to the
description by Derrida cited
above in order to advance our working idea of Deconstruction.
Broadly speaking Derrida and Culler
are making these points:
1. Deconstruction is a
"searching out" or dismantling operation conducted on a
discourse to
show:
2. How the discourse itself
undermines the argument (philosophy) it asserts.
3. One way of doing it is to see
how the argument is structured/construct, that is investigate
its rhetorical status or
argumentative strategy. As Derrida argues, this structure is often
the product of a hierarchy in
which two opposed terms are presented as superior and
inferior. Deconstruction then
pulls the carpet from below the superior by showing the
limited basis of its superiority
and thus reverses the hierarchy, making the superior,
inferior.
4. This reversed hierarchy is
again open to the same deconstructive operation. In a way,
Deconstruction is a permanent act
of destabilization.
So, Deconstruction points to a
fallacy not in the way the first or second hierarchy is constructed
but in the very process of
creating hierarchies in human thought. Deconstruction does not lead us
from a faulty to a correct way of
thinking I or writing. Rather it shows us the limitations of
human thought operating through I
language even while harboring the same limitations itself.
Every deconstructive operation
relies on the same principle it sets out to deconstruct and is thus
open to I deconstruction itself.
Yet, Deconstruction is not simply
about reversing hierarchies. It is one of the things a
deconstructive analysis achieves.
Fundamentally, it is a way of I understanding the structure of a
discourse, locating its
controlling centre and identifying the unfounded assumptions on which it
relies to function as a
discourse. It may be compared to a probing operation that uncovers fault
lines in a discourse, which may
include ideological assumptions and suppositions.
Why Deconstruct?
Some attacks have been made on
Deconstruction on these grounds but they seem to miss an
important implication of this
principle. In the process of reversing hierarchies a whole strategy of
the process of making hierarchies
is uncovered and found wanting. The strategy uncovered can
be roughly termed ideology and as
we all know ideologies have distinct political implications.
For instance, here, the ideology
which makes us perceive the pin as primary is one of rationality
from which causality derives.
Considering the hierarchy of
white/ black.
The supposed superiority of
whites over blacks operative in certain minds, (yet being
undermined progressively) was
responsible for the ideology of colonialism. This led to a brutal
and exploitative rule by colonial
powers over almost the whole of Africa and parts of Asia, for
over three hundred years. By
investigating and showing as groundless the thought process which
posited white as superior to
black, Deconstruction continues to counter the destructive potential
of racist ideologies. In
reversing the hierarchy, it helps initiate a process by which the politically
oppressed can be elevated to
positions of power and also reminds us that the new hierarchy too is
deconstructible.
Four important writers with whom
he gets affected:
Heidegger:
Being and Time has profoundly influenced 20th-century philosophy, particularly existentialism, hermeneutics, deconstruction, and the enactivist approach to cognitionHermeneutics
The total understanding of being
results from an explication of the implicit knowledge of being that inheres in Dasein.
Philosophy thus becomes a form of interpretation, but since there is no
external reference point outside being from which to begin this interpretation,
the question becomes to know in which way to proceed with this interpretation.
This is the problem of the "hermeneutic circle," and the necessity for
the interpretation of the meaning of being to proceed in stages: this is why
Heidegger's technique in Being and Time is sometimes referred to as hermeneutical
phenomenology.
Destruction
of metaphysics
As part of his ontological
project, Heidegger undertakes a reinterpretation of previous Western
philosophy. He wants to explain why and how theoretical knowledge came to seem
like the most fundamental relation to being. This explanation takes the form of
a destructuring (Destruktion) of the philosophical tradition, an
interpretative strategy that reveals the fundamental experience of being at the
base of previous philosophies that had become entrenched and hidden within the
theoretical attitude of the metaphysics of presence. This use of the word Destruktion is meant to
signify not a negative operation but rather a positive transformation or
recovery.
In Being and Time Heidegger
briefly undertakes a destructuring of the philosophy of René Descartes,
but the second volume, which was intended to be a Destruktion of Western
philosophy in all its stages, was never written. In later works Heidegger uses
this approach to interpret the philosophies of Aristotle, Kant, Georg
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and Plato, among others.
Transcendental perspectivism
is a hybrid philosophy developed by German-born philosopher, Professor Werner Krieglstein. A blending of Friedrich Nietzsche's Perspectivism
and the utopian
ideals of the Transcendentalism movement, Transcendental
Perspectivism challenges Nietzsche's claim that there are no absolute truths
while fully accepting his observation that all truth can only be known in the
context of one's own perception. This is accomplished through an appreciation
of the emotional relationship between two perceptions (the
"perceiver" and the "other").
Fraude:
At the center of Freud’s theory are psychopathologies that result in a mental illness within a subject. It is Freud’s premise that within the human mind is contained in three levels of awareness or consciousness. It is the introduction of these psychopathologies that affect people, thus requiring more than simply talking about them. The effective treatment of these deep seated psychopathologies is psychoanalysis.
Derrida
influenced by these theorist the most.
Summing up
The working idea that emerges
from the foregoing discussion is that deconstruction is a
"searching out"
or dismantling operation conducted on a discourse to show how the discourse
itself undermines the argument
(philosophy) it asserts. One way of doing it is to see how the
argument is
structured/constructed, that is identify the terms presented as superior and
inferior in
it. Deconstruction then pulls the
carpet from below the superior by showing the faulty basis of its
superiority and thus reverses the
hierarchy, making the superior, inferior. This reversed hierarchy
is again open to the same deconstructive
operation.
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