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 coined the term in the 1960s, and proved more forthcoming with negative, rather than pined-for positive, analyses of the school. For other uses, see Philosophy (disambiguation). ... Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. ... The social sciences are a group of academic disciplines that study human aspects of the world. ... Western philosophy is a modern claim that there is a line of related philosophical thinking, beginning in ancient Greece (Greek philosophy) and the ancient Near East (the Abrahamic religions), that continues to this day. ... Jacques Derrida (IPA: in French [1], in English ) (July 15, 1930 – October 8, 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher, known as the founder of deconstruction. ... Words and phrases are often created, or coined, by combining existing words, or by giving words new and unique suffixes and/or prefixes. ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969. ...

Subjects relevant to deconstruction include the philosophy of meaning in Western thought, and the ways that 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 destruktion but also from Levinas and his ideas upon the Other. In linguistics, meaning is the content carried by the words or signs exchanged by people when communicating through language. ... In linguistics, meaning is the content carried by the words or signs exchanged by people when communicating through language. ... Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (September 26, 1889 – May 26, 1976) was a German philosopher. ... // Martin Heidegger, the 20th-century German philosopher, introduced to the world a large body of work that represented a profound change of direction for philosophy. ... Emmanuel Levinas (January 12, 1906 - December 25, 1995) was a Jewish philosopher originally from Kaunas in Lithuania, who moved to France where he wrote most of his works in French. ... The Other or constitutive other (also referred to as othering) is a key concept in continental philosophy, opposed to the Same. ...

The difficulty with defining deconstruction

The problems of definition

Within Western philosophy, "Deconstruction"'s formal definition is difficult to establish ^{[citation needed]}. Martin Heidegger was perhaps the first to use the term (in contrast to Nietzschean demolition) ^{[when? — see talk page]}. 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 to 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. Martin Heidegger (September 26, 1889 – May 26, 1976) (pronounced ) was a highly influential German philosopher. ... Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) (IPA: ) was a nineteenth-century German philosopher. ... 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 (IPA: in French [1], in English ) (July 15, 1930 – October 8, 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher, known as the founder of deconstruction. ... Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (born February 24, 1942) is an Indian literary critic and theorist. ... Paul de Man (December 6, 1919 – December 21, 1983) was a Belgian-born deconstructionist literary critic and theorist. ... Jonathan Culler (1944 - ) is an important figure of the structuralism movement. ... Barbara Johnson (b. ... J. Hillis Miller is an American deconstructive literary critic. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Geoffrey Bennington is Asa Griggs Candler Professor of French and Professor of Comparative Literature, Emory University, as well as a member of the International College of Philosophy. ...

These authors have resisted establishing a succinct definition of the 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 is deconstruction 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^[1] and Deconstructions: A User's Guide^[2]) have been academically criticized for being too removed from the original texts, and contradictory to the concepts of deconstruction. ^{[citation needed]}

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 ridicules deconstruction.^{[citation needed]} Yet, the Left Wing's reception of deconstruction varied from hostility to co-optation: This article is about the philosophical position. ...

• Indubitably, 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 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.^{[citation needed]}

The National Socialist German Workers Party (German: , or NSDAP, commonly known as the Nazi Party), was a political party in Germany between 1919 and 1945. ... Le Soir (meaning The Evening) is a Belgian newspaper in French. ... An Abrahamic religion (also referred to as desert monotheism) is any religion derived from an ancient Semitic tradition attributed to Abraham, a great patriarch described in the Torah, the Bible and the Quran. ... Jacques Derrida Deconstruction-and-religion -- also known as weak theology and religion without religion -- is a nontheistic mode of thought that proceeds from a theological and deconstructive framework. ... The Western canon is a canon of books and art (and specifically one with very loose boundaries) that has allegedly been highly influential in shaping Western culture. ...

What deconstruction is not

It is easier to explain what deconstruction is not than what it is. According to Derrida, deconstruction is not an analysis, nor a critique, a method, an act, or an operation (Derrida, 1985, p. 3). Further, deconstruction is not, properly speaking, a synonym for "destruction". Rather, according to Barbara Johnson (1981), it is a specific kind of analytical "reading": Barbara Johnson (b. ...

Some detractors claim deconstruction amounts to little more than nihilism or relativism. Relativism consists of various theories each of which claims that some element or aspect of experience or culture is relative to, i.e., dependent on, some other element or aspect. For example, some relativists claim that humans can understand and evaluate beliefs and behaviors only in terms of their historical or cultural context. The term often refers to truth relativism, which is the doctrine that there are no absolute truths, i.e., that truth is always relative to some particular frame of reference, such as a language or a culture.. Its proponents deny this; It is not the abandonment of all meaning, but attempts to demonstrate that Western thought has not satisfied its quest for a "transcendental signifier" that will give meaning to all other signs. According to Derrida, "Deconstruction is not an enclosure in nothingness, but an openness to the other" (Derrida, 1984, p. 124), and an attempt "to discover the non-place or non-lieu which would be that 'other' of philosophy" (ibid. p. 112). This article is about the philosophical position. ... For the physics theory with a similar name, see Theory of Relativity. ... In philosophy, transcendental/transcendence, has three different but related primary meanings, all of them derived from the words literal meaning (from Latin), of climbing or going beyond: one that originated in Ancient philosophy, one in Medieval philosophy and one in modern philosophy. ... In semiotics, a sign is generally defined as, ...something that stands for something else, to someone in some capacity. ...

Approaching a definition of deconstruction

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.) Paul de Man (December 6, 1919 – December 21, 1983) was a Belgian-born deconstructionist literary critic and theorist. ...

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) John D. Caputo John D. Caputo, American Continental philosopher. ... Aporia (Greek: : impasse; lack of resources; puzzlement; embarassment ) denotes, in philosophy, a philosophical puzzle or state of puzzlement, and, in rhetoric, a rhetorically useful expression of doubt. ...

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:

(Introduction by Allison, in Derrida, 1973, p. xxxii, n. 1.)

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).

Deconstruction in Relation to Structuralism and Poststructuralism

Derrida states that his use of the word deconstruction first took place in a context in which "structuralism was dominant"^[3] and its use is related to this context. Derrida states that deconstruction is an "antistructuralist gesture"^[4] because "Structures were to be undone, decomposed, desedimented"^[5]. At the same time for Derrida deconstruction is also a "structuralist gesture"^[6] because it is concerned with the structure of texts. So for Derrida deconstruction involves “a certain attention to structures"^[7] and tries to “understand how an “ensemble” was constituted"^[8]. As both a structuralist and an antistructuralist gesture deconstruction is tied up with what Derrida calls the "structural problematic"^[9]. The 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"^[10]. Structuralism as a term refers to various theories across the humanities, social sciences and economics many of which share the assumption that structural relationships between concepts vary between different cultures/languages and that these relationships can be usefully exposed and explored. ... Post-structuralism is a body of work that followed in the wake of structuralism, and sought to understand the Western world as a network of structures, as in structuralism, but in which such structures are ordered primarily by local, shifting differences (as in deconstruction) rather than grand binary oppositions and...

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, Rousseau, and 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. Please wikify (format) this article as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... ... Plato (Left) and Aristotle (right), by Raphael (Stanza della Segnatura, Rome) Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the ultimate nature of reality, being, and the world. ... PLATO was one of the first generalized Computer assisted instruction systems, originally built by the University of Illinois (U of I) and later taken over by Control Data Corporation (CDC), who provided the machines it ran on. ... Jean-Jacques Rousseau, (June 28, 1712 – July 2, 1778) was a Genevan philosopher of the Enlightenment whose political ideas influenced the French Revolution, the development of socialist theory, and the growth of nationalism. ... Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (April 8, 1859, Prostějov – April 26, 1938, Freiburg) was a German philosopher, known as the father of phenomenology. ... The concept of the metaphysics of presence is an important consideration within the area of deconstruction. ... The centering of the masculine (phallus) in constructing meaning about or views of the world. ...

One typical form of deconstructive reading is the critique of binary oppositions, or the criticism of 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: A dichotomy is a division into two non-overlapping or mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive parts. ... This article is about the symbol of the erect penis. ...

• 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. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (born February 24, 1942) is an Indian literary critic and theorist. ... Year 1976 Pick up sticks(MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

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 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 history of philosophy is the study of philosophical ideas and concepts through time. ...

The second "science" 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: Différance is a French neologism, homophonous with the word différence, used in the context of deconstruction. ... Year 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the 1967 Gregorian calendar. ...

(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. For other uses, see Philosophy (disambiguation). ...

Text and deconstruction

According to deconstructive readers, one of the phallogocentrisms of modernism is the distinction between speech (logos) and writing, with writing historically being thought of as derivative to logos. As part of subverting the presumed dominance of logos over text, Derrida argued that the idea of a speech-writing dichotomy contains within it the idea of a very expansive view of textuality that subsumes both speech and writing. According to Jacques Derrida, "There is nothing outside of the text" (Derrida, 1976, at 158). That is, text is thought of not merely as linear writing derived from speech, but any form of depiction, marking, or storage, including the marking of the human brain by the process of cognition or by the senses. The centering of the masculine (phallus) in constructing meaning about or views of the world. ... This article is about logos (logoi) in ancient Greek philosophy, mathematics, rhetoric, Theophilosophy, and Christianity. ... Jacques Derrida (IPA: in French [1], in English ) (July 15, 1930 – October 8, 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher, known as the founder of deconstruction. ...

In a sense, deconstruction is simply a way to read text (as broadly defined); any deconstruction has a text as its object and subject. This accounts for deconstruction's broad cross-disciplinary scope. Deconstruction has been applied to literature, art, architecture, science, mathematics, philosophy, and psychology, and any other disciplines that can be thought of as involving the act of marking.

In deconstruction, text can be thought of as "dead", in the sense that once the markings are made, the markings remain in suspended animation and do not change in themselves. Thus, what an author says about his 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. Communication is possible not because the text has a transcendental signification, but because the brain tissue of the author contains similar "markings" as the brain tissue of the reader. These brain markings, however, are unstable and fragmentary.

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.^[11] 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".^[12] Jacques Derrida Deconstruction-and-religion -- also known as weak theology and religion without religion -- is a nontheistic mode of thought that proceeds from a theological and deconstructive framework. ... For other uses, see Law (disambiguation). ... This article is about the concept of justice. ... Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (July 15, 1930 – October 8, 2004) was an Algerian-born French literary critic and philosopher of Jewish descent, considered the first to develop deconstruction. Positioning Derridas thought Derrida had a significant effect on continental philosophy and on literary theory, particularly through his long-time... This article is about the concept of justice. ...

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. This article is about the concept of justice. ... Specters of Marx: the State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, & the New International is a 1993 book by French philosopher Jacques Derrida. ... For the Venetian Snares album, see Hospitality (album). ... For other uses, see Friendship (disambiguation). ... The Other is a 1972 chiller directed by Robert Mulligan, adapted for film by Tom Tryon, from his bestselling novel. ... For other uses, see Future (disambiguation). ...

The terminology of deconstruction

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 article: 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 synchronously (one French homonym means "differing") and diachronically (another French homonym means "deferring"). Because the resonance and conflict between these two French meanings is difficult to convey tersely in English, the word différance is usually left untranslated. Différance is a French neologism, homophonous with the word différence, used in the context of deconstruction. ... The concept of the metaphysics of presence is an important consideration within the area of deconstruction. ...

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. The centering of the masculine (phallus) in constructing meaning about or views of the world. ...

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, Eve was the supplement of Adam, and masturbation is the supplement of "natural sex." Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean Jacques Rousseau (June 28, 1712 - July 2, 1778) was a Swiss-French philosopher, writer, political theorist, and self-taught composer of The Age of Enlightenment Biography of Rousseau The tomb of Rousseau in the crypt of the Panthéon, Paris Rousseau was born in Geneva, Switzerland... Michelangelos Creation of Adam, from the Sistine Chapel. ... Michelangelos Creation of Adam, from the Sistine Chapel. ... Woman masturbating, 1913 drawing by Gustav Klimt. ...

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"). “Excluded middle” redirects here. ...

Much in history of science and philosophy depended on the sanctity of this law of non-contradiction, for example see, Logical Positivism, Analytic Philosophy. Logical positivism grew from the discussions of Moritz Schlicks Vienna Circle and Hans Reichenbachs Berlin Circle in the 1920s and 1930s. ... Analytic philosophy (sometimes, analytical philosophy) is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century. ...

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: Derrida's reading of Lévi-Strauss

A more concrete example, drawn from one of Derrida's most famous works, may help to clarify the typical manner in which deconstruction works.

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. Structuralism as a term refers to various theories across the humanities, social sciences and economics many of which share the assumption that structural relationships between concepts vary between different cultures/languages and that these relationships can be usefully exposed and explored. ... This article is about the anthropologist. ...

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:

1. The revelation of an asymmetry in the binary opposition, suggesting an implied hierarchy.
2. The failure of the hierarchy: the two terms are found to fail in a certain case.
3. 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. Incest is defined as sexual intercourse between closely related persons. ...

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. The Nambikwara is an Amazonian Amerindian tribe, the subject of study by French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, which was itself then subjected to a deconstruction by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his Of Grammatology. ... In anthropology, the hunter-gatherer way of life is that led by certain societies of the Neolithic Era based on the exploitation of wild plants and animals. ...

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. The Nambikwara is an Amazonian Amerindian tribe, the subject of study by French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, which was itself then subjected to a deconstruction by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his Of Grammatology. ...

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 of deconstruction

Critics of deconstruction take issue with what they characterize as empty obscurantism and lack of seriousness in deconstructive writings. In addition, critics often equate deconstruction with nihilism or relativism and criticize deconstruction accordingly. Obscurantism in its current usage can imply one of two separate concepts, sometimes distinguished by capitalization: // The older sense of the term Obscurantism refers to a class of philosophies that favor limits on the extension and dissemination of scientific knowledge, believing it to be the enemy of faith. ... This article is about the philosophical position. ... For the physics theory with a similar name, see Theory of Relativity. ...

Anti-essentialist criticism

Neo-pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty has criticized Derrida's assertion that deconstruction is not a method, but something that is "already, all the time" ^{[citation needed]} occurring in texts. Anti-essentialists allege that Derrida's position is close to positing certain protocols, gestures, and structures which is 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..."^[13] 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."^[14] 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^[15] 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."^[16] 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. Categories: Possible copyright violations ... Richard McKay Rorty (October 4, 1931 in New York City – June 8, 2007) was an American philosopher. ... Pragmatism is a philosophic school that originated in the late nineteenth century with Charles Sanders Peirce, who first stated the pragmatic maxim. ...

History of deconstruction

During the period between the late 1960s and the early 1980s many thinkers influenced by deconstruction, including Derrida, Paul de Man, Geoffrey Hartman, and J. Hillis Miller, worked at Yale University. This group came to be known as the 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?") The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969. ... The 1980s refers to the years from 1980 to 1989. ... Jacques Derrida (IPA: in French [1], in English ) (July 15, 1930 – October 8, 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher, known as the founder of deconstruction. ... Paul de Man (December 6, 1919 – December 21, 1983) was a Belgian-born deconstructionist literary critic and theorist. ... Geoffrey H. Hartman (b. ... J. Hillis Miller is an American deconstructive literary critic. ... Yale redirects here. ... The Yale school is a colloquial name for an influential group of literary critics, theorists, and philosophers, all influenced by deconstruction, who were together at Yale University in the 1970s. ... Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. ... The University of California, Irvine is a public, coeducational university situated in suburban Irvine, California. ...

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."^[17]
• 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.

This article is about the philosophical movement. ... Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (April 8, 1859, Prostějov – April 26, 1938, Freiburg) was a German philosopher, known as the father of phenomenology. ... Martin Heidegger (September 26, 1889 – May 26, 1976) (pronounced ) was a highly influential German philosopher. ... pychoanalysis today comprises several interlocking theories concerning the functioning of the mind; the term also refers to a specific type of treatment where the analyst, upon hearing the thoughts of the analysand (analytic patient), formulates and then explains the unconscious bases for the patients symptoms and character problems. ... Sigmund Freud (IPA: ), born Sigismund Schlomo Freud (May 6, 1856 – September 23, 1939), was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. ... Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) (IPA: ) was a nineteenth-century German philosopher. ... De la grammatologie is a book by French philosopher Jacques Derrida, first published in 1967 by Les Éditions de Minuit. ... André Leroi-Gourhan (August 25, 1911 - February 19, 1986) was a French archaeologist, paleontologist, paleoanthropologist, and anthropologist with an interest in technology and aesthetics. ... Différance is a French neologism, homophonous with the word différence, used in the context of deconstruction. ... Structuralism as a term refers to various theories across the humanities, social sciences and economics many of which share the assumption that structural relationships between concepts vary between different cultures/languages and that these relationships can be usefully exposed and explored. ... Saussure Ferdinand de Saussure (pronounced ) (November 26, 1857 – February 22, 1913) was a Geneva-born Swiss linguist whose ideas laid the foundation for many of the significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... Maurice Blanchot (September 27, 1907-February 20, 2003) was a French philosopher, literary theorist and writer of fiction. ... Michel Foucault (IPA pronunciation: ) (October 15, 1926 – June 25, 1984) was a French philosopher and historian. ... Louis Pierre Althusser (Pronunciation: altuˡseʁ) (October 16, 1918 – October 23, 1990) was a Marxist philosopher. ... Jacques-Marie-Émile Lacan (French IPA: ) (April 13, 1901 – September 9, 1981) was a French psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, and doctor, who made prominent contributions to the psychoanalytic movement. ...

Deconstruction as literary trope

Deconstruction has been directly used and / or parodied in a large number of literary texts. Native American novelist Gerald Vizenor claims an extensive debt to deconstructionist ideas in attacking essentialist notions of 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’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 difficult and verbose nature of many deconstructionist writings makes them a popular figure of fun in both Campus novels and anti-intellectual fiction. This article is about the people indigenous to the United States. ... Gerald Vizenor (born 1934) is a Native American (Chippewa) writer. ... Percival Everett (born 1956) is an American writer and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California. ... David Lodge (born January 28, 1935 at London, England) is a British author. ... Nice Work (published in 1988) is a book by David Lodge which was also made into a television series. ... A campus novel is a novel whose main action is set in and around the campus of a university. ... Anti-intellectualism is a term that in one sense describes a hostility towards, or mistrust of, intellectuals and intellectual pursuits. ...

Deconstruction in popular media and culture

In popular media, deconstruction has been seized upon by conservative 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, despite Sokal's insistence that his hoax proved nothing of the sort.^{[citation needed]} Ths article deals with conservatism as a political philosophy. ... Academia is a collective term for the scientific and cultural community engaged in higher education and research, taken as a whole. ... Marxism is both the theory and the political practice (that is, the praxis) derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ... Paul de Man (December 6, 1919 – December 21, 1983) was a Belgian-born deconstructionist literary critic and theorist. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... The Sokal Affair was a hoax by physicist Alan Sokal on the editorial staff and readership of a leading journal in the academic humanities. ...

Deconstruction is also used by many popular sources as a synonym for revisionism - for instance, the CBS mini-series, The Reagans was presented as a "deconstruction" of the Reagan administration. Historical revisionism is the attempt to change commonly held ideas about the past. ... The Reagans is a controversial 180-minute television movie about U.S. President Ronald Reagan and his family which CBS had planned to broadcast in November 2003 during fall sweeps, but was ultimately broadcast on November 30 of that year on premium cable channel Showtime due to criticism over perceived... Reagan redirects here. ...

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.

The term is also popularly used as generally synonymous with analysis of any kind, though particularly the analysis of culture; this usage doesn't necessarily imply hostility towards the subject of analysis.

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 committment to deconstruction, particularly the Derrida model of same, has resulted in a notable degree of awareness of deconstructionism amongst Scritti Politti/'80s synthpop fans. Green Gartside is the primary force behind Scritti Politti, a band best known for their work in the 1980s, but who have recently enjoyed a renaissance through the 2006-released White Bread Black Beer. ... Scritti Politti are a Welsh musical band. ... Jacques Derrida (IPA: in French [1], in English ) (July 15, 1930 – October 8, 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher, known as the founder of deconstruction. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ...

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 fandoms in recent years. For other uses, see Shrek (disambiguation). ... Trade paperback of Will Eisners A Contract with God (1978), often mistakenly cited as the first graphic novel. ... For other uses, see Watchman. ... This article is about the fictional character and novel. ... First Edition of Gullivers Travels Gullivers Travels (1726, amended 1735), officially Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. ... Fandom (from the noun fan and the affix -dom, as in kingdom, dukedom, etc. ...

See also

Continental philosophy is a term used in philosophy to designate one of two major traditions of modern Western philosophy. ... A cultural movement is a change in the way a number of different disciplines approach their work. ... Libeskinds Imperial War Museum North in Manchester comprises three apparently intersecting curved volumes. ... Jacques Derrida Deconstruction-and-religion -- also known as weak theology and religion without religion -- is a nontheistic mode of thought that proceeds from a theological and deconstructive framework. ... Feminists redirects here. ... Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, or philosophical, ground. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The intentional fallacy, in literary criticism, is the assumption that the meaning intended by the author of a literary work is of primary importance. ... This is a list of notable thinkers that have been influenced by deconstruction. ... Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. ... Literary theory is the theory (or the philosophy) of the interpretation of literature and literary criticism. ... This article is about the philosophical movement. ... Postmodernism (sometimes abbreviated pomo) is a term applied to a wide-ranging set of developments in critical theory, philosophy, architecture, art, literature, and culture, which are generally characterized as either emerging from, in reaction to, or superseding, modernism. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... pychoanalysis today comprises several interlocking theories concerning the functioning of the mind; the term also refers to a specific type of treatment where the analyst, upon hearing the thoughts of the analysand (analytic patient), formulates and then explains the unconscious bases for the patients symptoms and character problems. ... The tone or style of this article or section may not be appropriate for Wikipedia. ... Recursionism means a variety of things to different people. ... Structuralism as a term refers to various theories across the humanities, social sciences and economics many of which share the assumption that structural relationships between concepts vary between different cultures/languages and that these relationships can be usefully exposed and explored. ...

External links

Look up Deconstruction in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• "Deconstruction: Some Assumptions" by John Lye
• A Bibliography of Literary Theory, Criticism, and Philology by José Ángel García Landa (Deconstruction subject not found)
• Ten ways of thinking about deconstruction by Willy Maley
• 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 Sorbonne in January 2006
• How To Deconstruct Almost Anything - My Postmodern Adventure by Chip Morningstar; a cynical introduction to 'deconstruction' from the perspective of a software engineer.
• 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
• A satirical look at deconstruction from The Onion.
• Ellen Lupton on deconstruction in Graphic Design
• Deconstruction of fashion; La moda en la posmodernidad by Adolfo Vasquez Rocca PhD

Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wiktionary (a portmanteau of wiki and dictionary) is a multilingual, Web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 150 languages. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

References

• Culler, Jonathan. On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism. ISBN 978-0-8014-1322-3.
• Derrida, Jacques, "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.
• Moynihan, Robert, Recent Imagining: Interviews with Harold Bloom, Geoffrey Hartman, Paul DeMan, J. Hillis Miller. Shoe String, 1986. ISBN 978-0-208-02120-5.
• 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.)
• Rorty, Richard, "From Formalism to Poststructuralism". The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, vol. 8. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995.
• Stiegler, Bernard, Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus. Trans. Richard Beardsworth & George Collins. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0804730415
• 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

Simon Reynolds (born 1963 in London), is an influential British music critic who is well-known for his writings on electronic dance music and for coining the term post-rock. ... Richard McKay Rorty (October 4, 1931 in New York City – June 8, 2007) was an American philosopher. ... Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ...

Notes

1. ^ Powell, James and Lee, Joe, Deconstruction for Beginners (Writers & Readers Publishing, 2005)
2. ^ Royle, Nicholas, Deconstructions: A User's Guide (Palgrave Macmillan, 2000)
3. ^ Derrida, Jacques, "Letter to A Japanese Friend," Derrida and Différance, ed. David Wood and Robert Bernasconi, Warwick: Parousia, 1985, p. 2.
4. ^ Derrida, Jacques, "Letter to A Japanese Friend," Derrida and Différance, ed. David Wood and Robert Bernasconi, Warwick: Parousia, 1985, p. 2.
5. ^ Derrida, Jacques, "Letter to A Japanese Friend," Derrida and Différance, ed. David Wood and Robert Bernasconi, Warwick: Parousia, 1985, p. 2.
6. ^ Derrida, Jacques, "Letter to A Japanese Friend," Derrida and Différance, ed. David Wood and Robert Bernasconi, Warwick: Parousia, 1985, p. 2.
7. ^ Derrida, Jacques, "Letter to A Japanese Friend," Derrida and Différance, ed. David Wood and Robert Bernasconi, Warwick: Parousia, 1985, p. 2.
8. ^ Derrida, Jacques, "Letter to A Japanese Friend," Derrida and Différance, ed. David Wood and Robert Bernasconi, Warwick: Parousia, 1985, p. 3.
9. ^ Derrida, Jacques, "Letter to A Japanese Friend," Derrida and Différance, ed. David Wood and Robert Bernasconi, Warwick: Parousia, 1985, p. 2.
10. ^ Derrida, Jacques, "Letter to A Japanese Friend," Derrida and Différance, ed. David Wood and Robert Bernasconi, Warwick: Parousia, 1985, p. 3.
11. ^ Derrida, Jacques Acts of Religion, p. 243.
12. ^ Derrida, Jacques "Force of Law" in Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, 1992, ed. Cornell, et al.
13. ^ Rorty, Richard, "Deconstruction and Circumvention" Essays on Heidegger and Others (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 104.
14. ^ "Deconstruction and Circumvention", Essays on Heidegger and Others, p. 87.
15. ^ See De Man, Paul, Blindness and Insight, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983)
16. ^ Rorty, Richard, "Two Meaning of Logocentrism" Essays on Heidegger and Others (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 117.
17. ^ Derrida, Jacques, Of Grammatology (Baltimore & London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), pp. 84–5, and cf. subsection above, "Bernard Stiegler on deconstruction."

v • d • e Sub-fields & Approaches of Human Geography

Sub-fields: Cultural geography · Development geography · Economic geography · Historical geography · Language geography · Marketing geography · Military geography · Political geography · Population geography · Religion geography · Social geography · Strategic geography · Transportation geography · Time geography · Tourism geography · Urban geography For other uses, see Philosophy (disambiguation). ... Eastern philosophy refers very broadly to the various philosophies of Asia, including Indian philosophy, Chinese philosophy, Persian philosophy, Japanese philosophy, and Korean philosophy. ... Western philosophy is a modern claim that there is a line of related philosophical thinking, beginning in ancient Greece (Greek philosophy) and the ancient Near East (the Abrahamic religions), that continues to this day. ... The history of philosophy is the study of philosophical ideas and concepts through time. ... This page lists some links to ancient philosophy, although for Western thinkers prior to Socrates, see Pre-Socratic philosophy. ... Philosophy seated between the seven liberal arts – Picture from the Hortus deliciarum of Herrad von Landsberg (12th century) Medieval philosophy is the philosophy of Europe and the Middle East in the era now known as medieval or the Middle Ages, the period roughly extending from the fall of the Roman... 17th-century philosophy in the West is generally regarded as seeing the start of modern philosophy, and the shaking off of the mediæval approach, especially scholasticism. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Philosophy is a broad field of knowledge in which the definition of knowledge itself is one of the subjects investigated. ... This page aims to list articles on Wikipedia that are related to philosophy, beginning with the letters A through C. This is so that those interested in the subject can monitor changes to the pages by clicking on Related changes in the sidebar. ... The alphabetical list of philosophers is so large it had to be broken up into several pages. ... Philosophies: particular schools of thought, styles of philosophy, or descriptions of philosophical ideas attributed to a particular group or culture - listed in alphabetical order. ... This is a list of topics relating to philosophy that end in -ism. ... A philosophical movement is either the appearance or increased popularity of a specific school of philosophy, or a fairly broad but identifiable sea-change in philosophical thought on a particular subject. ... This is a list of philosophical lists. ... The Parthenons facade showing an interpretation of golden rectangles in its proportions. ... For other uses, see Ethics (disambiguation). ... Theory of knowledge redirects here: for other uses, see theory of knowledge (disambiguation) According to Plato, knowledge is a subset of that which is both true and believed Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature, methods, limitations, and validity of knowledge and belief. ... Logic (from Classical Greek λόγος logos; meaning word, thought, idea, argument, account, reason, or principle) is the study of the principles and criteria of valid inference and demonstration. ... Plato (Left) and Aristotle (right), by Raphael (Stanza della Segnatura, Rome) Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the ultimate nature of reality, being, and the world. ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box:      Political philosophy is the study of fundamental questions about the state, government, politics, liberty, justice, property, rights, law and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why (or even if) they are needed, what makes a government legitimate, what... Philosophy of action is chiefly concerned with human action, intending to distinguish between activity and passivity, voluntary, intentional, culpable and involuntary actions, and related question. ... The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article are disputed. ... The philosophy of information (PI) is a new area of research, which studies conceptual issues arising at the intersection of computer science, information technology, and philosophy. ... Philosophy of History is an area of philosophy concerning the eventual significance, if any, of human history. ... Philosophical anthropology is the philosophical discipline that seeks to unify the several empirical investigations and phenomenological explorations of human nature in an effort to understand human beings as both creatures of their environment and creators of their own values. ... Philosophy of Humor is a branch of philosophy that is concerned with the philosophical study of humor. ... Philosophy of law is a branch of philosophy and jurisprudence which studies basic questions about law and legal systems, such as what is the law?, what are the criteria for legal validity?, what is the relationship between law and morality?, and many other similar questions. ... Philosophy and literature is the literary treatment of philosophers and philosophical themes. ... // Philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the philosophical assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics. ... A Phrenological mapping of the brain. ... Some of the questions relating to the philosophy of music are: What, exactly is music (what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for it)? What is the relationship between music and emotion? Peter Kivy, Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University, in particular, sets out to argue how music, which is... Metaphilosophy (from Greek meta + philosophy) is the study of the subject and matter, methods and aims of philosophy. ... Philosophy of physics is the study of the fundamental, philosophical questions underlying modern physics, the study of matter and energy and how they interact. ... Philosophy of psychology typically refers to a set of issues at the theoretical foundations of modern psychology. ... Philosophy of science is the study of assumptions, foundations, and implications of science, especially in the natural sciences and social sciences. ... Philosophy of social science is the scholarly elucidation and debate of accounts of the nature of the social sciences, their relations to each other, and their relations to the natural sciences (see natural science). ... The Philosophy of technology is a philosophical field dedicated to studying the nature of technology and its social effects. ... The Philosophy of war examines war beyond the typical questions of weaponry and strategy, inquiring into the meaning and etiology of war, what war means for humanity and human nature as well as the ethics of war. ... Analytic philosophy (sometimes, analytical philosophy) is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century. ... Aristotelianism is a tradition of philosophy that takes its defining inspiration from the work of Aristotle. ... Continental philosophy is a term used in philosophy to designate one of two major traditions of modern Western philosophy. ... Critical theory, in sociology and philosophy, is shorthand for critical theory of society or critical social theory, a label used by the Frankfurt School, i. ... Deontological ethics or deontology (Greek: δέον (deon) meaning obligation or duty) is an approach to ethics that focuses on the rightness or wrongness of actions themselves, as opposed to the rightness or wrongness of the consequences of those actions. ... According to many followers of the theories of Karl Marx (or Marxists), dialectical materialism is the philosophical basis of Marxism. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... In philosophy generally, empiricism is a theory of knowledge emphasizing the role of experience in the formation of ideas, while discounting the notion of innate ideas. ... Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of Epicurus (c. ... Existentialism is a philosophical movement which claims that individual human beings create the meanings and essence of their own lives. ... Hegelianism is a philosophy developed by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel which can be summed up by a favorite motto by Hegel, the rational alone is real, which means that all reality is capable of being expressed in rational categories. ... Hermeneutics may be described as the development and study of theories of the interpretation and understanding of texts. ... See also the specific life stance known as Humanism For the Renaissance liberal arts movement, see Renaissance humanism Humanism is a broad category of ethical philosophies that affirm the dignity and worth of all people, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appeal to universal human qualities... This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedias quality standards. ... Kant redirects here. ... Logical positivism grew from the discussions of Moritz Schlicks Vienna Circle and Hans Reichenbachs Berlin Circle in the 1920s and 1930s. ... Marxism is both the theory and the political practice (that is, the praxis) derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ... In philosophy, materialism is that form of physicalism which holds that the only thing that can truly be said to exist is matter; that fundamentally, all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions; that matter is the only substance. ... For other uses, see Monist (disambiguation). ... Neoplatonism (also Neo-Platonism) is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, founded by Plotinus and based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists. ... The New Philosophers (French nouveaux philosophes) were a group of French philosophers (for example, André Glucksmann and Bernard Henri-Lévy) who appeared in the early 1970s, as critics of the previously-fashionable philosophers (roughly speaking, the post-structuralists). ... This article is about the philosophical position. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... This article is about the philosophical movement. ... Platonic idealism is the theory that the substantive reality around us is only a reflection of a higher truth. ... // Positivism is a philosophy that states that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge, and that such knowledge can only come from positive affirmation of theories through strict scientific method. ... Postmodern philosophy is an eclectic and elusive movement characterized by its criticism of Western philosophy. ... Post-structuralism is a body of work that followed in the wake of structuralism, and sought to understand the Western world as a network of structures, as in structuralism, but in which such structures are ordered primarily by local, shifting differences (as in deconstruction) rather than grand binary oppositions and... Pragmatism is a philosophic school that originated in the late nineteenth century with Charles Sanders Peirce, who first stated the pragmatic maxim. ... The Pre-Socratic philosophers were active before Socrates or contemporaneously, but expounding knowledge developed earlier. ... In epistemology and in its broadest sense, rationalism is any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification (Lacey 286). ... Contemporary philosophical realism, also referred to as metaphysical realism, is the belief in a reality that is completely ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc. ... For the physics theory with a similar name, see Theory of Relativity. ... Scholasticism comes from the Latin word scholasticus, which means that [which] belongs to the school, and is the school of philosophy taught by the academics (or schoolmen) of medieval universities circa 1100–1500. ... Philosophical scepticism (UK spelling, scepticism) is both a philosophical school of thought and a method that crosses disciplines and cultures. ... A restored Stoa in Athens. ... Structuralism as a term refers to various theories across the humanities, social sciences and economics many of which share the assumption that structural relationships between concepts vary between different cultures/languages and that these relationships can be usefully exposed and explored. ... This article discusses utilitarian ethical theory. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Population density by country, 2006 Human geography is a branch of geography that focuses on the study of patterns and processes that shape human interaction with the environment, with particular reference to the causes and consequences of the spatial distribution of human activity on the Earths surface. ... Cultural geography is a sub-field within human geography. ... Development geography is the study of the Earths geography and its relationship with economic development. ... Economic geography is the study of the location, distribution and spatial organisation of economic activities across the Earth. ... Historical Geography is the study of the: Human Physical Fictional Theoretical and Real geographies of the past. ... A map of the language divisions within Justinian Is Byzantine Empire. ... Marketing geography is the study of marketing in certain places and where to market certain things. ... ... Political geography is the field of human geography that is concerned with the study of both the spatially uneven outcomes of political processes and the ways in which political processes are themselves affected by spatial structures. ... Map of world population density as of 1994. ... Religon geography is the study of religons in certain places. ... Social geography studies how society affects geographical features and how environmental factors affect society. ... Strategic geography is concerned with the control of, or access to, spatial areas that have an impact on the security and prosperity of nations. ... Transportation geography is the branch of geography that describes the spatial aspects of interactions between humans and their use of vehicles or other modes of travelling. ... Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... Tourism Geography (or the Geography of Tourism) is the study of travel and tourism as an industry, as a human activity, and especially as a place phenomenon. ... Urban geography is the study of urban areas. ... Approaches: Behavioral geography · Critical geography · Cultural Theory · Feminist geography · Marxism · Modernism (Structuralism · Semiotics) · Postmodernism (Post-structuralism · Deconstruction) Behavioral geography is an approach to Human Geography that examines human behavior using a disaggregate approach. ... The critical geography is one of the four major turning points in the history of geography (the other three being environmental determinism, regional geography and quantitative revolution). ... Culture theory is the branch of anthropology and other related social science disciplines (e. ... Feminist geography is an approach to study in human geography which applies the theories, methods and critiques of feminism to the study of the human environment, society and geographical space. ... Marxist geography is a critical geography which utilizes the the theories and philosophy of Marxism to examine the spatial relations of human geography. ... For Christian theological modernism, see Liberal Christianity and Modernism (Roman Catholicism). ... Structuralism as a term refers to various theories across the humanities, social sciences and economics many of which share the assumption that structural relationships between concepts vary between different cultures/languages and that these relationships can be usefully exposed and explored. ... Semiotics, semiotic studies, or semiology is the study of signs and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems. ... Postmodernism is a term applied to a wide-ranging set of developments in critical theory, philosophy, architecture, art, literature, and culture, which are generally characterized as either emerging from, in reaction to, or superseding, modernism. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ...