Center & signifier
In order to talk about the center, it has to have a signifier-like the word 'god'. It has to exist in the world of language. the word 'dog' can only be understood by its difference from other words-'not a cat', 'hairy', 'four legs but not a horse', and so on. Its meaning cannot be centralised; it has to be constructed from other signifiers. The difference between these signifiers is what enables meaning. Derrida claims that, because meaning in language is established by differences between signifiers, meaning is actually always deferred. One signifier always leads to another, and meaning is chased down pathways of words without ever settling: "The absence of the transcendental signified extends the domain and the play of signification infinitely." (15) He is not arguing that there is no center, nor could not be, but that because of the endless chain of signification, any center we nominate is conditional, because it can be deconstructed. So, to do deconstructive criticism, whether in philosophy or literature, is to 'interrogate the center'.
Writing and speaking
The relationship between writing and speaking is of great interest to Derrida. Derrida attempts to show that writing is primary and meaning in speech is derived from meaning in text. Writing is merely a re-presentation of something that has already been said. The discussion of speech and writing highlights the pervasive issue of the death of the author, as raised by Roland Barthes. (18) When words are written and then disseminated, especially through mass publication, they leave the control of the author and become, arguably, subject to the whims of the reader.
The debate between structuralism and deconstruction:
Deconstruction is regarded as a form of anti-structuralism. Derrida attacked the Structuralism of Ferdinand de Saussure. Where structuralists, such as linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, see language and culture as possessing a grammar and a syntax in their organisation and formation, Derrida argues that all of these rules are merely functional and provisional. (8) They are not accurate constructions of the reality of language and culture. Every rule or set of relations can, according to Derrida, be shown to contain contradictions and confusions which undermine its foundations. Every opposition can be deconstructed. No structure of knowledge is a true expression of a corresponding reality. (9)
Derrida attacked Saussure's notion of the signified and the signifier. Saussure's theory of language explained linguistic 'signs' (that is, words) as a combination of two elements-the 'signifier' and the 'signified'.
According to structuralism, the only way meaning is established is by difference. In other words, structuralists do analysis by uncovering distinctions (Levi-Strauss used the distinction between 'nature' and 'culture' as a basis for his anthropology). (11) Derrida says that these differences never amount to an opposition. (12) Rather, there is a constant play between signifiers (words). Signifiers that may seem to be opposed are actually interdependent in order to mean anything.
- But "deconstruction rejects most of the assumptions of structuralism-particularly its systematic approach to texts and methodical forms of analysis."
- It rejects "binary opposition in structuralism on the grounds that such oppositions always privilege one term over the other-signified over signifier."
- Structuralism assumes that there must be an essential structure in a text. But to Derrida, it is to set up certain assumptions at first and then to analyze or to collect interpretations that fit to previous assumptions.
- Structuralism is the example of logocentricity of Western cultural discourse, "the belief that sounds, and words, are representations of meanings already present in the speaker's mind."
- Where is meaning?
- Derrida opposes the idea that "meanings can be fully present to individuals in their minds, without slippage of any kind of occurring."
- He thinks that "meaning is neither before nor after the act."
- "Meaning is not present in a text." It depends on "the individual reader." Because their different life experience and reading experience, each reader will have their own meanings when they read a text" (133).
- What does Derrida really fight against?
- "Derrida wants a free play of meaning; this suggests that it is not just logocentricity that Derrida is setting himself against, but Western culture's commitment to rationality and liner thought."
- "Derrida's argument is that structuralists are imposing a form on textual material, and that such a practice puts limits on human creativity" (134).
The key difference between deconstruction and structuralism is that the latter posits the stability of signs and language systems; and although it rejects attempts to justify systems of thought on referential grounds, i.e., attempts to find unshakable foundations for our beliefs by matching them up to the real world.
1. Signs only mean by difference.
You have heard this before from deSausssure. He worked through the concept of the sign, he argued that relationship between signifier and signified is arbitrary, and showed that signs only mean in relation to each other (remember "muton" and "sheep"?) Derrida quotes deSaussure, who wrote "in language there are only differences. Even more important: a difference generally implies positive terms between which the difference is set up; but in language there are only differences without positive terms." Derrida re-emphasizes the point that meaning isn't in the signifier itself, but that it only exists in a network, in relation to other things. Différance comes before being. This throws the idea of "origin," of true original meaning, into radical question.
2. At the heart of existence is not "essence" but différance.
With the idea of origin in question, Derrida pushes further than deSaussure did to claim that there is no absolute identity, nothing that "is itself" by virtue of its being. Thus transhistorical truth is now only truth by virtue of difference: nothing stands outside the system of differences. Derrida encourages us to think of this in terms of "play," by which he means both a kind of game where winning and losing happen in turn (as opposed to thinking this problem as the absolute loss of meaning) AND as something which has some "play" in it, like an "articulated" joint, another favorite Derridean term.
3. Différance calls into question time and space.
The header of this section should serve as a warning: this stuff is dense. Différance is a word Derrida made up to point out the following:
a) Writing is not secondary to speech. The "a" which Derrida puts into the term can only be read: it sound just the same as the "e" would in this word in French. He claims that it is merely a comforting illusion to think that speech and writing are separate, and that writing is a fallen version of speech. He will proceed to argue that speech as the prototype and more perfect version of writing tries to deny the radical insight of deSaussure.
b) Différance is not: it has neither existence or essence.
c) It comes from both "defer," to put off, which is what happens to meaning in language in a relational system where signs themselves do not have essential meanings, and from "differ," to be unlike, not identical. The "ance" gerund form of the word puts it somewhere between passive and active, like "resonance" or "dissonance."
d) He joins the sense of différance as time (defer) and différance as space (unlike, distinction between proximate things) to make the point that an idea of "being" and/or "presence" that has been so central to Western culture is not so authoritative. If meaning is not "present" within the sign, and if signs instead signify in relation to one another only, haven't we been hanging on to an idea of presence-as-authoritative meaning that has led us to privilege speech over writing? He turns "presence" into a philosophical security blanket. The instability of "presence" as being extends to consciousness, which is the idea of self-presence.
4. The trace is the after-effect of différance.
Although we don't get a terribly good definition of the trace in this section, it is important to Derrida's thought and will be important in Lacan as well. He discusses the trace as both the mark of the future and the past in a present moment which is neither. The idea of our present (a meaning-full present) depends on this trace, which is an effect of writing. He asserts that the concept of the trace is inseparable from the concept of difference. He also refers (defers?) to Freud's definition of the trace as an effort of life to protect itself by deferring the dangerous investment, by constituting a reserve. We will discuss this phenomenon in the context of psychoanalysis at greater length. Derrida tackles Heidegger's use of the trace and, as he does with deSaussure, pushes it further to suggest that the trace is the "essence of Being" that haunts language.
Some General Characteristics of Deconstructive Readings:
- -opposites are already united; they depend on each other integrally, thus, no presence without absence, etc.
- -difference and deferral is inherent in language itself; each word mobilizes the play of language.
- -deconstruction sees conflicting readings of a text as reenactments of conflict within the text. Each reading would be an attempt to simplify the interplay of meanings within the text.
- -deconstructive readings argue that texts deconstruct themselves, but that does not mean that the text is bad or meaningless. Rather, a thoughtful deconstructive reading tries to show the ways that literary writing, which is self-conscious about words and meaning, might have much to tell us about our fragmented reality, which is always already in language itself.
Deconstruction assumptions
at the very point of beingness of every thing there is difference -- or différance -- because only through différance is one thing not another thing instead. Différance comes before being; similarly, a trace comes before the presence of a thing. ); so too writing precedes speech.
There is no outside of the text; everything that we can know is text, that is, is constructed of signs in relationship. This claim does not mean that there is nothing outside of language: the claim refers to the realm of human knowledge, not to the realm of concrete existence (elusive as that might be). Deconstruction does not deny the existence of an independent, physical world.
All texts are constituted by difference from other texts (therefore similarity to them). Any text includes that which it excludes, and exists in its differences from/filiations with other texts.
Opposites are already united; they cannot be opposites otherwise. Nor can they be a unity, and be themselves. They are the alternating imprint of one another. There is no nihilism without logocentrism, no logocentrism without nihilism, no presence without absence, no absence without presence, and so forth.
deconstructive reading can be applied to any text. It is a theory of reading, not a theory of literature.
Reading these texts in the deconstructive mode is, however, not a matter of 'decoding the message'; it is a matter of entering into the thoughtful play of contradiction, multiple reference, and the ceaseless questioning of conclusions and responses.
The technique of deconstruction
- meaning defined relationally/oppositionally
- of two oppositional terms one is dominant e.g white is dominant in relation to black
- in texts there is a core and a periphery) also defined oppositionally
- deconstruction reverses the hierarchy of oppositions within the text - most significantly core and periphery
- deconstruction demonstrates the concealed metaphorical status of denotational meaning
-deconstruction demonstrates how texts undermine their own claims to truth
Some Derridean Propositions
There is no Transcendental Signified
Western Culture fixated upon the notion of 'presence'
There is nothing outside the text.
Social reality is discursively constructed
The concept 'differance' demonstrates performatively the infinite deferral of meaning - it requires contextualisation to be recognized.
Meaning is fundamentally elusive.