Talk:Deconstruction

A Concrete Plan for What This Article Should Look Like When Finished

Based on the above criteria this is a plan for what the finished article should look like when it is based on primary material and the facts. I would strongly discourage people from trying to give inadequate definitions of deconstruction from introductory guides as the substantial content of this article. Please let us know if you're getting to work on one of these sections. Seferin (talk) 19:04, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Introduction

Don't worry about the introduction until the body of the article has been filled out - the introduction can be easily written as a summary of the points made in the body of the article at a later date.

Development and Derivation of Deconstruction

Please realise that Derrida develops his philosophy during critical engagements with other philosophers in the 1960's. It is therefore IMPOSSIBLE to give a faithful account of deconstruction without giving an exposition of how these critical engagements shaped the development of the term. There is currently a section on Husserl but a section on the influence of Heidegger (to lesser extent some consideration of Levinas, Saussure, Hegel and Nietzsche would also be beneficial). (Heidegger is outside my current expertise so I need help from editors on the Heidegger article to help with that aspect Seferin (talk) 19:04, 9 August 2008 (UTC))

Deconstruction and the Structural Problematic

An account of what Derrida terms the structural problematic in Husserl is required. From the tension of this problematic can be derived the two general tendencies of deconstruction: (1) genetic or phenomenological deconstruction in which Derrida problematises what he terms the metaphysical appeal to absolute presence evident in all strategies of legitimacy. (2) Structural deconstruction in which the development, instantiation, or origin of a structure is used to disturb its apparent neutrality and atemporality.

Deconstruction is what happens when language is understood as writing

This is the section that explains Derrida's first actual use of the term and is where the explanatory core of the article should probably be. This section could be carefully edited to say more about, for example, the operation of deconstruction in relation to intentional meaning (but don't start throwing in trite definitions...they can be mentioned in the section below on the reception of deconstruction in English).

Examples of Deconstruction

Two or three paragraph length summaries of deconstructions Derrida has has actually performed could be given here as examples. Alternatively this section could link to other articles summarising particular deconstructions by Derrida. These articles could be started here as examples and then moved to form new stubs elsewhere. I think the deconstruction of Husserl's phenomenology in Speech and Phenomena should be included on the deconstruction page because Derrida considered this the archetype of his later work (but an account of Speech and Phenomena could also be placed higher up in the article in the section on Husserl's influence on the development of deconstruction).

The Reception of Deconstruction in English Speaking Literature Departments

It is a fact that the term deconstruction was popularised in english speaking literature departments in the 1970's and an account of this must be given along with how this affected the (mis)understanding of the term. There can be a subsection here on (1) the YALE SCHOOL OF DECONSTRUCTION (2) The attempt to make deconstruction into a methodology or a new way to read a text (3) Problematic Attempts to neatly define deconstruction (This will include the definitions by Paul de Man, John Caputo etc.)

Derrida's Negative descriptions of Deconstruction

This section explains Derrida's clarification of the term deconstruction in light of how it was misunderstood by its critical reception in English literature departments. This should contain the following subsections: (1) Deconstruction is not a method (2) Deconstruction is not a critique (in the Kantian sense) (3) Deconstruction is not a type of analysis (4) Deconstruction is not poststructuralism.

Deconstruction After Derrida

This section should briefly indicate the substance of developments around deconstruction after Derrida and link to the releveant articles elsewhere. Things that should be mentioned include (1) Jean-Luc Nancy's attempt in The Inoperative Community to develop an undeconstructable understanding of community. (2) Simon Critchley's development of an Ethics of Deconstruction (3) Richard Beardsworths development of a Politics of Deconstruction (derived from Critchley).

Criticism

This section will give a brief overview of the attacks leveled at Derrida by (1) Foucault (see "My Body, this paper, this fire") (2) Searle (see Limited Inc.) (3) Habermas (see The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity) (4) Chomsky (see "Rationality/Science"). It should also demonstrate how Derrida responded to the criticism of each. (5) the "Open letter against Derrida receiving an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University".

The popular attacks on deconstruction are typically just the repetition of claims made by the above thinkers combined with even greater ignorance of the material actually being criticised and needs no special mention.

Non-Consensus Deletion of Large Parts of the Article based on Primary Sources and its Restoration

I am pleased that a number of other people have recently taken an interest in the page on deconstruction - I've often desired the assistance in improving the page of people with expertise beyond my own. I haven't had a look at it in two months because I've been busy writing up my thesis on Derrida and I am shocked to discover that in that short period of time the deconstruction page has been completely gutted of its substantial content. Many of the paragraphs that have been deleted in their entirety were extensively referenced material that represents almost a years work of carefully researched editing of this difficult topic. I am also concerned that the lengthy discussions concerning the development of the article over the last year has also been deleted without acknowledgment or explanation of why the deletion has taken place and that none of the material that has been removed has been preserved in the discussion section for others to see. It seems that the major deletion of material was undertaken by Rspeer on the 19th of July who does in fact attempt to justify this action a little further down this page. Rspeer states that some material was deleted that he expected to be re-instated. I'd respectfully suggest that Rspeer should be a little more conservative before deleting material if he is not certain that it actually merits deletion in future (though I must admit that I did have problems with certain parts of the article that were deleted by Rspeer and that there was some slightly reckless value in his deletion of such material). Rspeer's apparent intention to allow certain material to be reinstated is somewhat complicated by the the number of subsequent edits that have taken place since then. I am concerned that Rspeer justifies his deletion of material that he did not understand while calling for experts to get involved and criticising a "deconstructivist perspective" (people who work with Derrida professionally don't tend to refer to themselves as 'deconstructivists' and the term is used with more or less abusive conotations by Rspeer...perhaps if you are prejudiced against a particular topic you are not the most ideal editor to work in it?). Of less concern but still problematic is the apparently well intentioned but nevertheless destructive deletion of the section on Husserl claimed by 71.191.118.228. There is considerable work involved in restoring the material lost in the last two months and the assistance in its restoration and continued positive editing of the page are greatly appreciated. Seferin (talk) 14:15, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I've re-inserted the section "Deconstruction is what happens when language is understood as writing".This is as good as it gets for a definition of deconstruction by Derrida and is therefore valuable to the topic. It is also works extensively with the PRIMARY MATERIAL and the FACTS (this is the passage in which Derrida first uses the term deconstruction according to the extensive annotated bibliography by Schultz and Fried) and contains plenty of references and quotations. I've tried to explain the terminology and significance of Derrida's argument as best as I can without personal interpretation and if this explanation is confusing then feel free to improve it etc. in the regular wikipedian way...but ask yourself if you understand the material better and can explain it more clearly.Seferin (talk) 17:12, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I've also re-inserted the sections "Derrida's negative description of Deconstruction" and the subsection "Deconstruction is not a method". Derrida's negative descriptions of deconstruction are important on topic comments from PRIMARY MATERIAL that are intended to refute common misconceptions of deconstruction and is therefore a valuable asset to the topic. The latter subsection is designed to go some way towards explaining one aspect of Derrida's negative description of deconstruction and replaces the scrappy three lines under the heading of "Method" for obvious reasons - check the citations. In terms of how this page SHOULD be developing there should be other subsections here concerning why (1) deconstruction is not an analysis [ie. because there is no elemental level for the analysis to take place on] (2) A critique [this is a matter of where Derrida departs from Kant and it's something I don't currently feel able to edit up myself...perhaps an editor with a specialism in Kant would be interested in helping here?].I reproduce the three lines from the "Method" section below in case anyone wants to reincorporate this material at a future stage. I think that it WOULD actually be useful to have a section explaining how there has been an attempt to treat deconstruction as a new way to read a text as long as it is made clear that this is an appropriation of the term that ignores Derrida's warnings that deconstruction is not a method. Seferin (talk) 17:32, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Methods of deconstruction:

Though Derrida insists that there is no true method of deconstruction since the concept defies definition, there have nevertheless been numerous attempts to deconstruct texts. In Glas (1974) Derrida attempts to destabilize his own text by writing about the philosopher Hegel in the left column and the writer Jean Genet in the right. In doing so, he attempts to bring into doubt the questions of authorship and linguistic stability.

Deconstruction has also been applied to architecture, in particular the works of Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi.

I've reinserted the section "Structuralism and Poststructuralism" as "Deconstruction is not Poststructuralism". Once again this section works with primary material and clears up common misconceptions. It is therefore valuable to the article. Seferin (talk) 17:46, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Definition

"It is difficult to define formally "Deconstruction" within Western philosophy."? Why not "It is difficult to formally define 'Deconstruction'"? Why within western philosophy? Does it become easy with reference to Lao Tzu? TheAnonymousHamster (talk) 04:48, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

While we're at it.... What is the sentence "Most criticism of deconstruction is difficult to read and summarise.", which reads as a dig at critics of deconstruction, doing in the Definition section at all? TheAnonymousHamster (talk) 21:14, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Very poor article

This article is piecemeal, poorly written and frequently wrong, lacking structure, clarity, and coherence. It needs to be abandoned and restarted. This, of course, is not possible unless a consensus forms in favour of deleting almost all the material currently included in the article. Until that consensus forms it is not possible to begin to create a worthwhile encyclopedia entry on this topic. Mtevfrog (talk) 22:45, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the article is quite poor in its current form (though you don't qualify your assertion that it is "frequently wrong") but I think this reflects the genuine difficulty of communicating the subject matter. I do not believe that it should be abandoned and restarted. Shabby as the page currently is I think it is unnecessarily destructive to arbitrarily delete it when what we should be trying to do is increase the amount of good information on the page and editing out the poor material as it is replaced. Seferin (talk) 11:22, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

This article definitely needs some work, I've read the first third of the article and still have no idea what exactly Deconstruction is. The opening paragraph is incredibly confusing. Maybe you guys should take a look at the Hyperrealism article, I think it does a good job explaining and defining, for what can initially be an esoteric subject. Vechs (talk) 10:29, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I read the first couple paragraphs and have no clue what Destruction is. I am college educated. 24.16.12.136 (talk) 04:59, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I respect that you are all intelligent people experiencing difficulty with the subject matter but this can also be said of other technical subjects also (for random example: matrix theory) and in these cases of real difficulty a wikipedia article could never be expected to simply give you understanding of the topic. This is not necessarily the fault of the best article nor your best efforts to understand. Seferin (talk) 13:43, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the problem is that deconstructionist analysis of texts has nothing to do with science, and should be viewed as something on par with creationist analysis of the origins of life, or astrological analysis of the future events. It uses a great lot of made-up words to obscure the embarrassing truth, that it has nothing to say. Obviously, deconstructivists won't ever admit that, and will vandalize any proper description of it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.190.70.129 (talk) 08:38, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Can one delete the comments of people like User:81.190.70.129, who have simply come here to be unpleasant? Che Gannarelli (talk) 14:01, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Guys, I just found out about this article and either I'm a freak of nature or you guys are trying to create some colossal pun. It's a fairly simple idea. The first paragraph pretty much puts it in terms anyone could understand if they cared to. Keep the article simple. Quote frequently, and CITE! Stop creating subjective comments like "he was a mentor and foil"--that's literary criticism of a historical event. It doesn't apply to an objective medium, and only seeks to further destroy the validity of the article. Just state something generic like "his opinions were supported/contradicted by the works of..." This article is about the idea that you can take any written/word item and use it as a time-capsule for humanity. You look at the basic assumptions present in the writer's mind when he wrote something: i.e. the funny use of imagery to describe technology in Fahrenheit 451 used probably because the writer didn't have better technology to insert, or was strongly influenced by surrounding forces (personal experience of profundidty, cultural norm, other writers pissing him off). Except these highlighted "forefathers" use grander ideas, like "Philosophy" and "Socialism" to try to bring themselves and perhaps others to a point of transcendence and understanding. Deconstruction is something that can only be done "in reading" if you're one of those people who does crossword puzzles all the time. It's a word study, and authors hate it. It debases the whole point of writing as an art. Call it the anti-author. Authors seek to build art out of assumptions and fads, the Deconstructionist seeks to bring everything back to the drawing board. This article demonstrates nicely the point that Wikipedia is not the world's greatest source of knowledge. It's just a site where people post what they want to. And usually the phallus wins. Stop groveling already. The later parts of the article really start to pull everything together. It is unfortunate that citation is badly needed. Please, someone from Yale try to find these guys and bring more examples to the table. The stumbling block is where strict philosophical, sociological, or scientific dogma is challenged for what it is: flawed ideas asserted by flawed human beings. Don't worry. The threads of existence aren't going to pull apart on you. E. Feldt

xkcd

http://xkcd.com/451/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.138.16.77 (talk) 04:16, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

The edit storm cometh... --Shay Guy (talk) 04:30, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

..and the ban hammer ensure Its xkcd, not Xkcd. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.233.185.66 (talk • contribs)

No no edit storm, despite that this aricle still has a "need improvement" tag, first thing that happens (after 10 edits) is a semi protection. Not good for the article, but is userly helps those who kill out the vandals. :07:45, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that the added publicity won't hurt this article -- in fact, nearly any edit to it will have no choice but to improve it. For example, the entire "Logocentrism" section could be replaced by "PENIS PENIS PENIS LOL" and it would greatly improve the overall clarity.

To be more serious: "Describe this universe" doesn't seem to apply to this article so far. Everything is written from within the world of literary criticism. The "Criticism" section doesn't even mention Alan Sokal. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 05:06, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Pages referenced by xkcd in the past have often been locked or protected. I noticed this one still is not. While the comic seems to call for improving the page I am worried whether all of the reader base will see it that way f4hy (talk) 06:35, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

"...I am worried weather all of the reader base..." lrn2english please.

The comic doesn't call for improving the page. The comic points at deconstructionists and laughs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.190.70.129 (talk) 08:44, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm an English studies grad student, and I find that strip rather true :) 80.121.49.79 (talk) 08:53, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

^Lies!!!--98.199.206.122 (talk) 18:08, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

The alt-text of the comic claims that the Wikipedia article is hard on deconstruction. (The alt-text is displayed in the properties of the image) --Cheeseball701 (talk) 23:22, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Not really. The alt-text is, "If you think this is too hard on literary criticism, read the Wikipedia article on deconstruction." It means that if you read the article, first of all, you won't understand it, and if you do, you'll realize how accurate the comic is. 164.111.199.1 (talk) 18:41, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Ironic that the external link to The Onion in this article has remained untouched. I thought the Wiki Community frowned on free publicity (they certainly seem to whenever xkcd is involved). Randall, you're right on the money about this one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SentoDude (talk • contribs) 01:48, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I was pointed this way from xkcd. I was hoping to edit and improve. Having read the article in its entirety twice I am now more confused than before. Might I suggest it be deleted in its entirety and rewritten from scratch? It can't end up more confusing than it is now.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.173.110.216 (talk) 18:35, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I can't fathom why an article of such poor quality would be locked. Thank you xkcd for pointing here, boo @ wikipedia for locking the article.--Thedagit (talk) 23:43, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

The xkcd cartoon was a comment about this actual article. This is noteworthy of inclusion, provided it is clear the comment refers to the current veriosn of the article (which will hopefully be improved one day). Timb66 (talk) 00:03, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, Timb66, I've undone your edit. XKCD's comic - while brilliant - is not relevant in an article about deconstruction. If there was an article about the wikipedia article on deconstruction, then the xkcd link would absolutely be appropriate. But XKCD is not relevant to deconstruction itself. - Snookerfran (talk) 00:09, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

But hey, we could put it in an "In Popular Culture" section! (sarcasm off) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Turiski (talk • contribs) 20:39, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully xkcd's publicity will bring peoples attention that "deconstruction" is nothing but a joke by Derrida in order to see just how many people would pretend they understand it.

Picture

The animated picture in the article lead is very distracting, and makes it hard to read the text surrounding it - I'd suggest a non-animated one would be better. --Ozhiker (talk) 13:57, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

The caption of the opening picture seems to this naive reader to be some sort of parody. Perhaps it was added by a jokester? In any case, the reference to "topologically homeomorphic" is ridiculous to anyone who knows anything about mathematics. This leads me to fear that the references to Buddhism might be equally laughable, but that I do not know enough about Buddhism to notice. DWorley (talk) 14:19, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

How clueless are you? You'd have to be pretty stupid not to realize the picture was a joke. "Perhaps it was added by a jokester?" Do you really need a "perhaps"? If its not obvious to you you're a moron. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.80.165.218 (talk) 15:26, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

The insults are quite helpful, of course. DWorley brings up a valid point: does this text (recently added by a new user with a throwaway-looking name) belong in the article?

Heidegger wrote extensively on the temporal and liguistic components of existence, aspects of Socratic philosophy that were not adequately incorporated in contemporary western philosophies, and a reinterpretation of Nietzschean existentialism through an eastern (particularly Buddhist) lens.

Or is it nonsense? Is there anyone who can tell? Are there other parts of this article that are equally nonsensical? What about the completely unreferenced paragraphs under "Terminology"? rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 16:13, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

That paragraph looks legitimate - it agrees with Heidegger, anyway. God knows about the rest of the article. - Snookerfran (talk) 17:12, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I haven't read enough of Heidigger to tell for certain, but it fits with what I've heard from the philosophers I know -- the Buddhist connection has been made before, but I don't know how explicit or intentional it is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.191.118.228 (talk) 19:52, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Is this a bad time to point out that if no one can tell if specific parts of the article are nonsense, xkcd's point is rather more than proven?71.81.78.66 (talk) 08:59, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

It's never a bad time for Captain Obvious! xkcd wasn't the first to make that observation, by the way. Anyway, what we have here is a challenge: usually it's best for articles to be written by experts in the field, but experts in this particular field tend to write things that are indistinguishable from nonsense. Given that constraint, can we write a factual and clear article about this subject that seems to evade clarity and facts? rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 15:28, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

It's like you guys don't even read the talk page which you are editing. The pic is clearly a reference to today's xkcd comic, which is discussed just above this topic.146.243.4.157 (talk) 17:30, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

WTF

You know the edit making the page all black and nonsensical? I can't find it. Anyone know what happened and how? rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 16:16, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to assume it was an unprotected template. It's fixed now. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 16:21, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia and the Zodiac Killer for details. —Sbp (talk) 16:30, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

first Paragraph / Overview

First para is overly complex and hard to understand for a(n intelligent) layperson.

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.

Deconstruction isn't the process by which texts appear to shift (and complicate, wtf that means) in meaning. It's the process of analysing texts in light of the various cultural assumptions the reader brings to the task. It's also the process of discovering the various hidden cultural assumptions the author brings via the analysis of texts and language. Feel free to flesh this out if I'm missing nuances and details.

Jacques Derrida coined the term in the 1960s,[1] and proved more forthcoming with negative, rather than positive, analyses of the school.

I can't even begin to know what this means. I assume the writer means that Derrida stated what Deconstructionism isn't more often than saying what Deconstructionism is. If this is what you meant, perhaps use some examples of what Derrida wrote. And leave out the "proved more forthcoming". It isn't even interesting prose.

--Lizard1959 (talk) 10:03, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I nominate you for rewriting the article. Your definition is incredibly more clear than anything the actual article hoped to convey.

71.184.254.208 (talk) 18:31, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Section on Hymen

I can't make sense of this section - it's been written in a way that appears to misunderstand the law of excluded middle. According to LEM, one of

(i) The Hymen is on the inside.
(ii) It is not the case that the Hymen is on the inside.

is true. But that's not the same as saying that one of:

(iii) The Hymen is on the inside.
(iv) The Hymen is on the outside.

is true, as (iv) is not equivalent to (ii). The current text claims that it is, but (a) there's nothing in formal logic that would get you that, and (b) that's patently false anyway. I would suggest changing it, but they not be much left once the the mistake is removed - perhaps it should just be deleted? --82.35.233.76 (talk) 15:08, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

• • Isn't (i)-(ii) an example of the Law of Non-Contradiction? I was led to believe that LEM is a device for syllogistic reasoning, and (i)-(ii) doesn't have an evident third statement/conclusion that would make syllogism relevant to the logic of the situation.

I agree that (i)-(ii) isn't equivalent to (iii)-(iv). In order for that to be the case, there would have to be no such thing as a border separating inside from outside. (i.e. The Hymen could be inside the border, or outside the border, but not on the border.) It also assumes that the concept of Hymen can apply to objects in relation to other objects in ideal space, which isn't necessarily so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.191.118.228 (talk) 22:36, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm talking LEM to be something like the claim that for any statement, either it or it's negation is true. I guess LNC would be something like the claim that for any statement, it cannot be the case that both it and it's negation is true. But in any case, someone has already deleted the section!--82.35.233.76 (talk) 02:48, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah. Now that I look back on it, I made a mistake and confused the Law of the Excluded Middle with the Law of the Undistributed Middle. In the latter case, you need three propositions; but it wouldn't really be the LEM if there were more than two. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.191.118.228 (talk) 11:22, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Deconstructionism and Husserl

o I'm not sure how far y'all have gotten in re-writing/editing this article, but might I suggest that the section on the Husserl connection be left to the side until some semblance of coherence can be brought to the primary source material? Husserl's corpus is vast (45,000 pages!) and minutely detailed; it is highly complex and obscenely difficult to read, so that it is very challenging even to make statements about the internal relationship of his work to itself, to say nothing of relating Husserl to other philosophers. (Students of philosophy who have read Husserl's treatise on phenomenal time consciousness might, I think, empathize with my concerns on this point.) For my part, I vote that Derrida's house be set in order before building a bridge to Husserl's rather daunting intellectual fortress. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.191.118.228 (talk) 20:06, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate that the section on Husserl might appear somewhat unrelated to deconstruction if you are yourself unfamiliar with deconstruction but Derrida's philosophical development was inextricably linked to his study of Husserl and this shaped the development of deconstruction. It is impossible to adequately explain the topic without giving that exposition in relation to Derrida's engagement with Husserl. This isn't just a personal opinion of mine, its the opinion of the respected Oxford critic of Derrida Christina Howells in the opening section of her philosophically rigorous book Derrida, Deconstruction from Phenomenology to Ethics. I am therefore going to reinstate this section. Seferin (talk) 13:43, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

A starting point

I've tried to clarify the relevance of the section on Husserl and to briefly summarise the substance of his deconstruction of Husserl in Speech and Phenomena. I made this a new subsection so that it will be easier to move down the page to an examples of deconstruction section if need be. I've also asked for help editing on the Heidegger talk page so maybe we can find someone who can detail the role of Heidegger in the development of deconstruction. What are your thoughts on all this mtevfrog, rspeer, and snookerman? Seferin (talk) 14:11, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Nice work so far, Seferin. A few practical suggestions: 1. The "first class" quote in the introduction doesn't belong - not NPOV. 2. "Secondary definitions" does not belong in the early reception section. The current "Derrida's negative descriptions of deconstruction" section should be renamed "Definition difficulty" (as I believe it used to be?) and both the primary and secondary views on definition belong there. 3. "Continuing developments" could be a useful section but so far nothing in it is about continuing developments. (The most recent text listed is twelve years old.) I'm not sure what the purpose of that section is supposed to be, but if there is one then it should have a relevant title. 4. In general there are too many overly long sentences, but copy-editing's not vital till the content is all mostly there. - snookerfran ^(talk) 19:05, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice Snookerfan, keep it coming! BTW it's funny to be reminded that twelve years old is not considered current by most standards when the phrase "modern philosophy" typically refers to anything after Descartes in the last four hundred years...in an area like philosophy where people earnestly study texts from two thousand years ago anything from the last fifty years is decidedly cutting edge and something that happened a mere twelve years ago is very current in the sense that it would be ridiculous to say that it hasn't actually happened yet...even though for a lot of people that's true :0) Seferin (talk) 20:10, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I've just removed large parts of the article, so that we have something possibly more coherent to work on. The parts I removed include:

• Paragraphs apparently written from within the deconstructivist perspective, and incomprehensible to anyone outside it
• Definitions that were not backed by sources
• Discussions of other concepts besides the subject of the article, such as the other things that popular media use "deconstruction" to mean (let Wiktionary do that)
• Things that seemed to be going off on tangents
• Anything I wasn't patient enough to figure out

I also used User:Lizard1959's description to begin the article, as it was clearer than what was there before.

Some of the text can certainly be put back, but it will probably take an expert -- an expert with a good sense of perspective -- to sort out what really belongs in the article. However, my hope is that the shorter article is somewhat of an improvement.

rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 21:02, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I think this is a real improvement, a good starting point. The biggest omission is that there is no mention of what deconstruction actually involves: the idea of binary oppositions (undecidables), presence-absence, differance, etc. There ought to be a section mentioning each of these things in turn (in a coherent way) near the top of the article. I'm not an expert, so I'm a little wary of doing this myself. Snookerfran (talk) 21:28, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Hey, if you have some knowledge of what deconstruction actually involves, maybe you can get us started there and you don't need to be so wary. I know I basically left that out, mostly because I have no idea what deconstruction actually involves. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 04:23, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I've gone ahead and put in a big chunk about the theory. It's far from ideal, but hopefully it'll do until someone more expert comes along. - Snookerfran (talk) 13:40, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I would like to suggest further simplifying the first sentence. Most of the words have no value. "Deconstruction is a term used in contemporary literary criticism, philosophy, and the social sciences, referring to a process of..." --> "Deconstruction is the process of...". --23:12, 19 July 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.117.137.139 (talk)

I agree with simplifying the first sentence too. I think the best layout would be this:

[Opening paragraph]

Jacques Derrida coined the term "deconstruction" in the 1960s,[1] but later refused to define it, saying, “All sentences of the type ‘deconstruction is X’ or ‘deconstruction is not X’ a priori miss the point, which is to say that they are at least false.’ This owes to the implicit ‘undecidability’ in deconstruction. [2]

[Contents, with number 1 being 'Ideas central to deconstruction' or similar]

Then we need the actual description of deconstruction. I've drafted an example that I'm putting below in the hope someone who knows what they're on about can use as a template and put on the page.

Central to deconstruction is the idea of binary opposition and a text’s ‘undecidability’. Every term has a binary opposite, for example, something can be either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but not both. However, Derrida argues that because the two opposites are inextricably bound, a text can mean the opposite of what it apparently attempts to. [ref]

An example is the sentence ‘Socrates was a good person’. In reading this text the reader cannot help but question in what way Socrates was good, and why this needed stating. ‘Badness’ as well as ‘goodness’ is brought to mind, and in this sense, the text becomes ‘undecidable’.

The notion of ‘absence’ also comes into play when reading a text. [ref] Through deconstruction, the reader can attempt to read what a text does not say, for example, texts in a white, male-dominated society may not make mention of minorities. Deconstruction can therefore have political applications, although it does not have to. One of the things that Derrida feels history has slighted is writing itself: he says that western philosophy has always favoured speech over writing. [ref]

A further idea of ‘absence’ applies writing itself. Letters can function without the presence of either the writer or the intended reader. Where speech requires the presence of both speaker and listener, writing requires absence and delay and therefore ambiguity. Written words are “abandonable to their essential drifting”. [ref]

Derrida’s deconstruction is an attempt to shake the foundations of philosophy. He draws on and expands the opposing metaphysical philosophies of phenomenology and structuralism. [ref]

(Stuff about Saussure and the signifier and the signified)

(Stuff about difference)

(Whatever else the hell deconstruction’s about)

- Snookerfran (talk) 23:30, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I've added a new section on the methods of deconstruction and reordered the page a bit. At the moment the method section is extremely basic, and I'm not sure that the House of Leaves reference belongs there. Probably better to go into more detail about architecture and visual art contemporary of Derrida, which I personally know nothing about. - Snookerfran (talk) 12:20, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Rspeer and Snookerfan. I appreciate your enthusiasm but you admit yourselves that you know very little about the subject matter and I respectfully suggest that you reconsider the value of your recent re-organisation of the article. Some of the sections you have removed might appear to be tangents but, respectfully, if you don't understand the material then you are not really in a position to evaluate their relevance. Please work with the editors and material already involved in the page rather than trying to year zero it. Seferin (talk) 13:43, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Seferin. It's not so much that the removed material was tangential, but that it was incomprehensible. As I've stated and you've noted, I am not a deconstruction expert, but I do have a broad academic grounding in similar literary/philosophical ideas/techniques and the previous version of the article helped me Not At All. By all means we can (should?) add back almost all of the removed material, but we should conform to Wikipedia's standards in doing so. That is: a general introduction understandable to the layman, followed by more accurate, verifiable details with citations to established sources, all laid out in as concise and clear (jargon-free) a manner as is possible. Accuracy is absolutely important. Comprehensibility is indispensable. - snookerfran ^(talk) 00:50, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey Snookerfan. I appreciate that Wikipedia is aimed at the general population and not a masterclass. I am personally very committed to the challenge of making Derrida's ideas communicable to a wider audience - that's one of the reasons I'm involved in developing this article - but it just isn't the case that this is a trivial task. If we make mistakes simplifying the material then there will always be people coming along and telling us we've got it so wrong so its better to stick to the primary material and the facts. Just because deconstruction is associated with the arts and humanities doesn't mean that it is easier to understand than other technical topics from harder disciplines. We can't expect to be able to understand matrix theory (for example) just by reading the wikipedia article...that would require an understanding of the background concepts that matrix theory rests on like linear algebra and some practical familiarity with operations in the area. Derrida states in the "Letter to a Japanese Friend" (the best introductory text to deconstruction by Derrida as it's short and direct at only four pages) that he was translating Heidegger's term destruktion and you can see that the wiki explanation of this term is itself just three quotations from Heidegger...they obviously give the reader a clue but you can't force the uncomprehending reader to understand...if the reader is uncomprehending then the best you can do is give them a few facts about the origin of the term, some related concepts, and indicate the relevant area of the terms operation. Personally I'm not sure deconstruction makes sense without some understanding of how Derrida problematises Husserl's phenomenological reduction and Husserl's understanding of structuralism (as an inescapable aspect of philosophy not as an intellectual fashion). These are to deconstruction what linear algebra is to matrix theory. I'm not indicating these problems in order to discourage participation but merely to indicate the actual difficulties involved. Respected philosophers like Searle and Habermas have been honestly confused by Derrida's work and this just indicates that expertise in one area of philosophy is not necessarily transferable to another. Reynolds and Roffe in their introductory text Understanding Derrida argue that Derrida's work is an invitation to philosophise because there is no alternative to thinking your own way through the complexity of Derrida's writing. The challenge is very interesting though and that makes it worthwhile. Seferin (talk) 11:34, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

"Reynolds and Roffe in their introductory text Understanding Derrida argue that Derrida's work is an invitation to philosophise because there is no alternative to thinking your own way through the complexity of Derrida's writing." Good. That's the sort of thing that needs putting in the article, near the top, with citations to the page numbers, so that the amateur has a general idea of Derrida's deconstruction. Just because Derrida deliberately wrote badly does not mean this article should. A couple of examples: the contents box needs tidying. 1.2 should not read "Derrida's Deconstruction of Husserl's Phenomenology in Speech and Phenomena" - just call it "Speech and Phenomena". Then, in that subsection, state that Speech and Phenomena was Derrida's first book length deconstruction, published in 1967. In it, he etc. 3 should not read "Deconstruction is what happens when language is understood as writing" but simply "Language as writing". (It probably shouldn't be a section at all, it should be part of the theory section. The history section should be about people and ideas before Derrida, and not about Derrida at all; it should simply state that Derrida questioned stuff. Then, in the theory section, the article goes into the detail that's floating in the history section. The history section needs to be about history and the theory section about the theory.) - snookerfran ^(talk) 15:11, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Why the attack, Seferin? Both of us are working on improving the article. By no means am I insisting that the parts I took out need to stay out, but perhaps by taking them out I've encouraged people like you to put them back with more clarity.

No, I don't know much about Derrida, but I know a bad Wikipedia article when I see one (especially when the article is getting wide publicity from places such as xkcd and Language Log for being so bad). If there were a good article here, it would be able to take someone like me, who starts from basically no knowledge of the topic, and give me some idea of what it's about. I strive to do the same when I work on articles within my own area of expertise. Please do work on that, just don't do it with some sort of grudge against me, because I'm working toward the same goal as you: turning this article into a good one.

Now, with that aim, I feel obligated to point out that the second section you added, about Husserl, is the very model of the "obscurantism" that is often referred to as surrounding deconstruction. That paragraph conveys nothing to a non-expert, so for the sake of the quality of the article it needs to be removed or rewritten. You might be the person who can rewrite it! You also seem to have inadvertently ended the History section, which was supposed to contain the "Precursors" subsection, by interposing the Husserl section there. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 21:30, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 21:23, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey Rspeer! I'm so sorry for any offense I have caused you and for over reacting when I saw the extent of the clean up. Obviously I'm not trying to claim ownership over the article but I have been working on it for over a year - slowly trying to increase the amount of sound material on the page - and I got a bit alarmed when I saw all that work had apparently apparently just disappeared. I am glad for the burst of momentum that has taken place recently in spite of the high traffic problems from the xkcd incident and, as you say, your critical eye has allowed me to see a lot of the material more critically myself. I'll try to clarify the relevance of the section on Husserl as per your advice and trim what isn't absolutely relevant. I've also been thinking of restoring the section on "Late Deconstruction" even though the old version that you removed was rather poor because there is a marked shift in how Derrida engages in deconstruction in the 90's (instead of a critical engagement with other philosophers there was a tendency to consider the strict impossibility of pure philosophical terms) and some treatment should be given of this in the final article. Seferin (talk) 22:13, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Picture of 'Glas' - fair use?

In the House of Leaves article there's a picture of Derrida's 'Glas' which would be very useful in the methods section on this page. I assumed we could use it and then it occurred to me that we probably couldn't. Can we? - Snookerfran (talk) 12:36, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Since it's copyrighted with no special license, we can only use it under fair use to illustrate anything the subject of the image itself... and then only if there's no free alternative. -- SCZenz (talk) 18:03, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Unclear paragraph

The paragraph that begins with "Derrida’s deconstruction is an attempt to shake the foundations of philosophy" is unclear to me. In the introduction we are told that "Derrida himself denied deconstruction that is a method or school of philosophy" [sic], but now we are told that it "draws on and expands the opposing metaphysical philosophies of phenomenology and structuralism," and then Derrida's thoughts on consciousness.

This is all very contradictory, and at the very least I think this paragraph should make it more clear how deconstruction is related to metaphysics and consciousness. I thought it was just a technique or process used to analyze texts; certainly not a philosophy of consciousness.

Also, in the intro, the phrase "center for media literacy" should be capitalized. I can't make these changes because the article is semi-protected, so I hope someone will help out :)

--76.195.6.113 (talk) 19:59, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

• Never mind, it's not actually semiprotected. I'll fix the grammar, but I'm not qualified to make the clarifications that I need. --76.195.6.113 (talk) 20:12, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Article Quality

This article needs to be seriously and thoroughly edited/re-written. It currently undermines itself by contradicting the very agenda it claims to support.--Mr. Unsigned-User —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.114.19.5 (talk) 17:49, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The article doesn't support any agenda; its aims are to be factual and coherent. If you can help it attain this, please do! - Snookerfran (talk) 23:57, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I think what 98.114 means is that the rather opaque and obfuscatory writing style of the article reflects some common criticisms of deconstruction. I have to agree; after reading the article, my understanding of deconstruction is not much better than before. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 06:43, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

This article remains extremely poor, and clearly written by editors without the knowledge or skills to convey the ideas correctly. Unfortunately, as I have previously pointed out, this situation is unlikely to be rectified unless there is a consensus about the best way to proceed. The first sentence is uncontroversial and OK. The current second sentence simply resorts to quoting a dictionary definition which is itself rather vague. Inclusion of this quotation in the second sentence of the article is tantamount to an admission of defeat. It is not impossible to define deconstruction within the context and requirements of encyclopedic writing, but comprehension of the topic of the article is of course a prerequisite to being able to do so. I have previously added the following as a second sentence for the article: "Deconstruction refers to an approach which rigorously pursues the meaning of a text to the point of undoing the oppositions on which it is apparently founded, and to the point of showing that those foundations are irreducibly complex, unstable or, indeed, impossible." Unfortunately, this sentence has been excised by editor Jefffire, who apparently believes this sentence to be "clear nonsense." I myself note that there is a substantial overlap with the dictionary definition which has now been added in its stead, but in my humble opinion the sentence as I have formulated it is clearer and more precise, as well as not being simply a quote lifted from a dictionary. Re-inclusion of the sentence which I have composed, and removal of the dictionary definition, will benefit the article. In addition, the entire "Theory" section is quite poor, and should be removed and replaced. As mentioned, no improvement of this situation is likely unless editors who are currently contributing rethink their role. Some editors would be well-advised to cut back their involvement to a minimum, and there is no point engaging in debate with these editors. In the current circumstances it is nearly impossible to contribute positively to the article. Mtevfrog (talk) 10:21, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Mtevfrog - Perhaps it would be useful if you specified the editors that you recommend should step back from the article? Seferin (talk) 13:43, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

The proposed second sentence -- 42 words long and laden with qualifiers -- exemplifies the "opaque and obfuscatory" writing that I referred to earlier. When my students write like that, I point them to this study. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 17:57, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Mtevfrog. I tried to persuade Jefffire to revert your definition (see his talk page) as it was much better than the stuff in the theory section (which I wrote from scratch and am waiting for people to improve upon). I agree on both levels: the definition is poor (though the OED's one is better than the medialit one Jefffire used originally) and the theory section needs serious improvement. But I disagree that it should be replaced: an article about deconstruction needs a section that explains the need for and the methods of and thought behind deconstruction. It does not have to have a single word penned by me. It just needs to be helpful and informative. - snookerfran ^(talk) 01:06, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

What I am saying is that all editors who do not feel confident that they have a grasp of the meaning of "deconstruction" should step back from any significant role in drafting substantive content for the article. That is, those who are not confident of their understanding of the subject should recognise that their potential to write worthwhile sentences and paragraphs is very limited, even if they consult primary and secondary literature on the topic. This is not to oppose the Wikipedian principle that anybody can edit, but to invite editors to question themselves about their own ability to do so. But in addition to this, even those who do feel confident they understand deconstruction should, I believe, ask themselves whether they truly believe that confidence is justified: this topic tends to attract editors who are simply dismissive of Derrida and deconstruction, and it is therefore easy for editors who are sympathetic to the subject to convince themselves that they are the ones who comprehend the subject, when in fact that comprehension may be rather deficient. Good faith and good will does not necessarily result in a good article. Both of these suggestions I am making, however, require self-reflection on the part of editors, which I have noticed cannot always be counted on at Wikipedia. At present, however, I do not feel it is possible to contribute effectively to this article. In the meantime, given the very poor state of the article, in my opinion the best option is to cut back the article to a minimum. Mtevfrog (talk) 00:28, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Mtevfrog, can you please be specific about what is wrong with the article? You request that non-experts take a step back, but we have all already done so. Rspeer has made no edits recently, and I have only made or proposed superficial edits to the layout to aid cohesion. (I am not in the slightest bit sympathetic to the subject; I am sympathetic to Wikipedia and people who want to know more about it.) You clearly have a thorough grounding in deconstruction, but like you say, most of us don't: we don't even know what the 'bare minimum' you propose actually is. If you list your problems with the article, then other experts (obviously not me) can work to fix them. - snookerfran ^(talk) 01:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Mtevfrog, I think the advice of people who don't fully understand the material has been very valuable here because they have helped to illustrate points of confusion in the article. I think the that the structure of the article has improved considerably in the last week and a sketch of the key areas of informational content has been produced. This is good progress. More expertise would, of course, always be lovely - but hard work is going into improving this article. Its not really helpful to just dismiss all that effort by reiterating your position from two months ago from before the current form of the article took shape. It's important not to just give up and wait for someone that will be recognised as the messiah to come and sort out the wikipedia page on deconstruction. I think the possibility of an effective summary is starting to emerge that will be based around the challenge deconstruction makes to intentional meaning evident in both the Speech and Phenomena and the Of Grammatology material along with some comments about its operation in literary and philosophical texts (ie. Writing and Difference) and the more Kantian deconstruction of transcendental themes in the late deconstruction. Seferin (talk) 11:32, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I am not attempting to disparage other editors, merely to point out certain truths about the situation. I believe I have indicated some specific problems, while also pointing out my belief that there is no benefit in getting into debates about this at the moment. As an example, however, every word of the following (from the "Theory" section) is terrible, and should be excised immediately on the grounds of being wrong, meaningless, and poor writing:

"Every term has a binary opposite, for example, something can be either “good” or “bad” but not both. Derrida undermines this, arguing that because the two opposites are inextricably bound, a text can mean the opposite of what it apparently attempts to.[11]

An example is the sentence “Socrates was a good person.” In reading this text the reader cannot help but question in what way Socrates was good, and why this needed stating. “Badness” as well as “goodness” is brought to mind, and in this sense, the text becomes “undecidable.”

The notion of "absence" also comes into play when reading a text. Through deconstruction, the reader can attempt to read what a text does not say, for example, texts written by a dominant group may not make mention of minorities. Deconstruction can therefore have political applications, although it does not have to. One of the things that Derrida feels history has slighted is writing itself: he says that western philosophy has always favoured speech over writing.[12]"

Mtevfrog (talk) 12:45, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

So go ahead, take it out. But the article still needs a theory section, with words that aren't wrong, meaningless, poorly written, offensive to the All Things Good, etc., etc. - snookerfran ^(talk) 13:09, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey Snookerfan I've rewritten the theory section. I hope you don't mind. Hopefully it's a bit better now but it needs copy editing. What do you think snookerfan and mtevfrog? Seferin (talk) 18:42, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Nice one. :) It does need simplifying a little, because the first bit needs to basically summarize things for the total amateur. (Then it can get more expert as it goes into more detail.) The first quote, for example, is rather cumbersome, and I don't think it would be very helpful to non-experts. (I've read it twice and am still nonplussed.) But it's definitely great to get some stuff down there written by someone who knows what they're on about. I hope Mtevfrog is likewise placated. - snookerfran ^(talk) 20:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I understand what you're saying about the opening quote but the problem is that I built the theory section around an exposition of what is said in the quote. The quote is therefore the textual support for most of what follows. I don't think putting the quotation in a footnote to the whole paragraph will not do because people will just red ink the individual statements in the theory section as unsupported material. Note also that its damn hard to find Derrida speaking explicitly about deconstruction as he does in that quotation (normally he just uses the term and the term is determined through its role in such usage) and it is therefore a kind of precious flower :0) ...I'm not really sure how to explain it for the total amateur but maybe the material in the second paragraph could be used first (whatcha think?) as it is a bit more general and talks about what a deconstruction means etc. Seferin (talk) 10:53, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Would it not be possible to simply paraphrase the quote, or only quote a phrase or two? Or to start the section a bit more generally still? For example, start out by stating that Derrida attempts to shake philosophical foundations, etc. You're right that it doesn't need to be fully comprehended by an amateur - it's too complex - but there are ways of making the sentences less difficult to read. The present quote isn't even grammatical: when we ellipse the qualifiers in the first part we end up with "To 'deconstruct' philosophy would be to think the structured genealogy of philosophy's concepts". That's not even a sentence. :) - snookerfran ^(talk) 12:21, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I've rearranged the two paragraphs in the theory section to try and make it a softer introduction to the topic for non-technical readers. I 100% agree that the sentences need to be less difficult to read but I need to come back to this section later with fresh eyes in order to see exactly where the redundancies can be omitted and sentences shortened. You seem to have a keener eye for copy editing than me so why don't you give it a go? I know that its contrary to academic standards but maybe we could just remove the ellipses from the quotation and indicate that the quotation is edited in the footnote? "To 'deconstruct' philosophy would be to think the structured genealogy of philosophy's concepts" could perhaps be paraphrased as "To deconstruct philosophy is to think carefully within philosophy about philosophical concepts in terms of their structure and genesis." The next part of the quotation is harder to paraphrase. Maybe: "To deconstruct philosophy is to think carefully within philosophy about philosophical concepts in terms of their structure and genesis. Hence deconstruction tries to understand the implications of this history of philosophy as if we could reflect upon it from the outside. Especially the implications of the history of philosophy that have been least obvious because they have controlled the operation of all philosophical thought. Deconstruction operates both faithfully within philosophy and violently tries to escape it to some degree in order to understand it better. Deconstruction does this in order to challenge the basic controlling operation of all philosophical thought: the meaning of being as presence." Such paraphrasing makes me nervous because I worry that it might lose some level of meaning I'm not fully aware of. In Derrida's defense - the quotation is from an interview and he was presumably improvising his explanation to some degree...and its translated from the original French (not by me!). Seferin (talk) 14:35, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm starting to think that the precursors section could actually be more complicated than the theory section to the amateur as its development continues. Perhaps it should be moved down after the theory section so that people get to the key goods first? I know that this would deviate from an approximately chronological article structure but I can't see an alternative if the precursors section is to be done properly - readers will be like "The limit of Hegelian sublation what?" and that wont do :0). Oh, Kant's aporia, critique of pure reason, and a-priori conditions of possibility should be mentioned in the precursors too. Seferin (talk) 15:43, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for the delayed reply. Re: the quote, I don't think we can remove the ellipses, even with a footnoted explanation. I'm not sure about putting precursors below theory, either - purely because the good or featured Wiki articles I've seen all use the chronological order, and these are great role models. (If there are good or featured articles that order things differently, then sure.) But I don't think it matters that the history section (or any section) becomes terribly complex if that's unavoidable. The important thing is that each section starts out as simply as possible and builds up to that complexity, so that people can stop reading when they've had enough. In the history case this is simple and it's already in effect. The section starts with an easy-to-read list and then goes on into more detail.

Finally, I'd be willing to have a go at copy-editing, but since I'm neither experienced in WP copy-editing nor well-versed in deconstruction, I'd do more harm than good. However, there's a list of copy-editors at peer review and articles needing a copy-edit, so we could maybe pull in someone from there. - snookerfran ^(talk) 14:55, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Good point - I agree that its probably best to stick to the chronological order. If readers want to skip a section then that's what the links in the contents box are for. I'm trying to finish a paper and then I'm away for a bit so I'm not going to be able to do much else for a few weeks. It's a good idea for you to see if we can get help copy editing the page. Take care in the mean time. Seferin (talk) 15:34, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

No, don't stick to chronological order. If you do that, then making any sense out of the article will probably require reading it out of order. For someone to grasp "how deconstruction got this way", they first have to know what "this way" is. The article should progress in the order that best promotes understanding. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 05:47, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

nerd note

I want to point out, as a geek (and someone who doesn't understand literary criticism a bit) what I think about this article.

Article about deconstruction should, at least in the first few paragraphs, describe, what deconstruction is for those who does not know it. It shouldn't be a paper about deconstruction or discussion about it. BUT - the first three paragraphs, which should include the most important basis of the described thing, is written what desconstruction is not (i don't care what it's NOT!) and describing it all in some strange words I don't understand.

Just give a quick note at the beginning of the article to say, what deconstruction is - if someone can say it. If it's something that cannot be described as such, I don't know if it deserves an article :P --89.24.72.230 (talk) 14:06, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I once heard a philosophy grad student discuss, for an hour, whether meanings existed. At the end of it, someone raised their hand and asked him what he meant by "exists." Before he could answer, someone added that they weren't sure what he meant by "meaning." He answered with a quote from Quine (I think, or it might have been Hume, I've forgotten)... something like: "our argument is not circular. Rather, its approximate form is that of a closed curve in space."

The problem isn't that no one has defined deconstruction in this article, it's that no one has ever defined it at all (successfully), leaving no one with much of anything constructive to say. I suspect that, much like the philosophy of language, the entire field of deconstructionism is one gigantic logical fallacy, shrouded in the mists of increasingly obtuse terminology designed specifically to avoid the realization that everything its practitioners have ever done (usually with the best of intentions) has been undermined by faulty assumptions.

That said, I don't really understand deconstruction any better than I understand quantum computing or astrobiology, so who am I to pass judgment. 71.81.78.66 (talk) 23:56, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

You'll note that this page is for planning the wikipedia article explaining deconstruction not for debating the merits of the topic itself...but having said that I would like to respond on one point. Derrida's work emphasises the importance of the involvement of language when we are doing philosophy but language (and meaning and knowledge) are fundamentally metaphysical for Derrida. This is because they involve an appeal to a presence beyond themselves and are therefore tied up with questions of being and the basic transcendentalism of metaphysical thought. I'd therefore argue that Derrida is not operating in some kind of linguistic bubble constructed in false assumption, through circularity, as you suggest. Derrida's philosophy works intimately with questions of the real and of meaning and obviously operates with this concepts even while problematising them because (as you seem to imply) it would be difficult to philosophise or even write without these terms implicitly operating to a greater or lesser degree. If Derrida's questioning appears to denigrate the terms "real" and "meaning" more than you are comfortable with then this denigration as you see it does not originate with Derrida but with Husserl's phenomenology - where it is argued quite convincingly and, dare I say it, in an exceedingly analytic manner that all we know of the real and meaning is derived from our conscious experience...it is therefore the assumption of the supposed externality of the external world that one should reject first. If you are interested in logical fallacies then you could derive great enjoyment from Derrida's demonstrations of the aporia in pure philosophical thought (such as that in the purest of transcendental philosophical thought, that of an objective external world) but once again this manner of thinking does not originate with Derrida but with Kant - remember that Kant's text is titled the "Critique of Pure Reason". Seferin (talk) 10:42, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Say what? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 15:34, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

So try harder. Seferin (talk) 17:23, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for being a bit flip. I guess we just have different outlooks: my approach to writing is that the burden is on the writer to express himself clearly and concisely, rather than being on the reader to decipher sesquipedalian prolixity. Deconstruct that. ;-) Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 17:59, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry - but obviously it is easier to express yourself clearly when all you want to say is "The toast is on the table" as against trying to indicate to someone how they are subtly confused on a difficult topic. Not being able to understand the clarification could be considered part of their initial confusion and not necessarily part of my attempt to clarify the matter with limited space and time. If they already understood the clarification then they would not have been confused so some work is always required. My basic strategy was to demonstrate how much Derrida shares the concerns raised by 71.81.78.66 and indicate how the implied criticism of Derrida can actually be pinned on his predecessors Husserl and Kant (thinkers that no one ever derides as bullshit despite advocating some of the positions that are attributed to Derrida in the first place and the technical difficulty of their philosophical prose). [btw - love the thesaurus! I had to google "sesquipedalian" and "prolixity". So sometimes work is required to understand other people and our desire not to be confused is all that is required to take some responsibility for overcoming our confusion :0P ] Seferin (talk) 16:10, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

well, I have to admit I had to read your comment several times and I still don't understand it. Well, you are trying to say, that instead of cycling arguments, deconstruction somehow escape this cycle. Is this, what that term, deconstruction, mean? Or is it only a way to escape this cycle?

remember, I wrote, that I know nothing about this subject - and that's what encyclopedia should be for - to explain the term to me. There are many articles about nearly-undefinable terms. All I want to know is what deconstruction means, that means for example, what new it brings to philosophy.

it can use philosophic terms, but these should be explained - or linked to another article. Let's look at, for example, article Leaf node - it's explained in terms of CompSci, but these are all linked and explained elsewhere. .... I hope you get my point :) --89.24.72.230 (talk) 17:23, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry 89.24.72.230, I was replying to 71.81.78.66 rather than yourself. I'm sorry if you don't understand some of the words being used to explain deconstruction. I would love to be able to link to other articles that could explain the explanatory terminology itself that is being used on the deconstruction page but unfortunately a lot of those articles don't seem to exist yet. The page on structuralism might sound promising but it doesn't really help because Derrida refers to a structural mode of description in Husserl's philosophy that doesn't have its own article. Similarly there does not appear to be a page to explain what origin means in a technical philosophical sense that could be related to Derrida's use the term. I've linked to related terms like hermeneutics and immanent critique but these can't actually be expected to explain deconstruction merely by association. Perhaps one of the biggest problems is the lack of a page on the phenomenological reduction. Perhaps wikipedia is just stronger on CompSci pages at the moment than it is on continental philosophy?

Now it is complicated, but there is actually a serious amount of explanation on the page at this stage. Though maybe it can't be figured out without learning to philosophise at least a little bit. For example: Try asking yourself what is meant by methodology in the sense Derrida means when he states "deconstruction is not a methodology" and try to figure out what kind of methodology is leftover without that sense of methodology that Derrida rejects. If you can realise what Beardsworth means when he describes "a procedural form of judgement" and how that might be a problem then you have been prompted by deconstruction to think much more deeply about a fundamental tool of philosophy and your own interest of computer programming! (Since procedural judgement is the only kind of judgement that a computer programme can use) You will then have started to grasp some aspect of the significance of what deconstruction means. Figure it out in little bits at a time. I have barely a clue how deconstruction is related to Lacanian psychoanalysis because I've never read Lacan but I've a pretty clear idea of how it relates to Husserl's phenomenology...you don't have to understand absolutely everything all at once to get a sense of what the term deconstruction means and once you start to figure parts of it out you realise how exciting it is to begin thinking through the kinds of question it raises. Seferin (talk) 23:49, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Clarity

The lead of the article currently says: "In response Derrida clarified the situation by clearly stating what deconstruction is not."

I think that I and the writer of that sentence have very different ideas of what "clarified" and "clearly" mean. That sentence basically promotes the point of view that the issues surrounding deconstruction are "clear" and that any lack of understanding is the reader's fault. To make it neutral, I suggest changing it to: "In response, Derrida stated what deconstruction is not." rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 05:50, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Derrida's negative descriptions are clear in the sense that they represent a fairly direct thematic discussion of deconstruction designed to correct misconceptions surrounding the term. Derrida states that he is explaining "what deconstruction is not, or rather ought not to be". Derrida therefore considers the negative descriptions a clarification of how the term deconstruction has been critically received (for example by the Yale School). Derrida's clarifications do clear up the meaning of the term within this context of professional philosophers and critics working with the term deconstruction when Derrida's work was just being translated from the original French. It does however operate upon some kind of prior [mis]understanding of the term that is assumed to be in place (i.e. that the relevant texts have actually been read in the first place). It is clear in the sense of a clear clarification but it's not clear in the sense of a clear explanation for someone completely unfamiliar with the area.

The allegation that it is partisan to suggest that "the issues surrounding deconstruction are "clear" and that any lack of understanding is the reader's fault" is necessarily somewhat partisan itself because it implies that this is actually not the case and that deconstruction is by implication some kind of nonsense. The article should be NPOV and that means that we should try to avoid prejudice concerning the subject matter - such as falsely inferring from incomprehension that the subject matter is nonsensical (i.e. a failure to explain maths or poetry to a student does not mean that the equations or poems in question are nonsensical, merely that they have not been understood). I suggest rewriting the sentence as "In response, Derrida attempts to clarify the situation by stating explicitly what deconstruction is not." That should cover it. Seferin (talk) 16:47, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Rspeer, you reinstated the header tags for cleanup and confusion when some other editor had taken them out. Perhaps you can suggest some of the actual points of confusion so that one might try to solve them. Seferin (talk) 22:46, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, the article still contains sentences like this (this is from the Husserl section):

Derrida refers to this tension between the incompatible but equally necessary demands of origin and structure as the "structural problematic" and it is within this tension that deconstruction operates - raising questions of origin when confronted with structures and questions of structure when confronted with origins.

Who does what now? For all the verbs and nominalized verbs in that sentence, there are only two subjects, and one of them ("deconstruction") nobody knows what the hell it is anyway. When you dig through all the passives you find that apparently origins and structure, whatever they are, are in some sort of tension with each other. Should I look backward for clarification? No, that's just a lengthy account of who wrote what that also uses the word "genetic" in a quite perplexing way. Should I look forward? Nope, then there's a hideously unclear quote from Derrida where he seems to be chiding Husserl for not accepting "an eternal truth created by an infinite reason". Or maybe he's doing the opposite, but you can't tell if it's in a positive or negative context because there's an ellipsis in between.

I found all this in one paragraph. This is clearly not the only problematic paragraph. It would take an incapacitating lack of perspective to think that the article is now clear.

I understand the urge to blame the reader for not understanding -- it's easier than successfully explaining things, after all. It seems to be a widely-used strategy in literary criticism. But you can't make a good Wikipedia article by blaming the reader. When you say passively that the concepts "have not been understood", you're omitting whose job it is to make those concepts understood.

Finally and somewhat unrelatedly, NPOV is not "sympathetic point of view"; an NPOV article should not ignore the widespread belief that deconstruction is nonsense, and it certainly should not dismiss thinkers who say so as "somewhat mistaken" as it does now. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 05:07, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey Rspeer, thanks for indicating some points needing clarification in the Husserl section. It would be helpful to indicate other points needing clarification elsewhere.

You seem to be slightly confused in the first passage you quote by Derrida's seemingly odd personification of deconstruction as an agent that does things. I agree that to ascribe actions to what appears to be an abstract noun is generally considered poor grammar. The guidelines of good grammar are therefore perhaps more suited to describing everyday situations in which people are said to do things not abstract nouns! Let me assure you however that Derrida's ascription of powers of action to terms like deconstruction and differance is theoretically deliberate. It is not really that uncommon either - people often use phrases like "love conquers all" or "time changes everything" and what is meant in this cases is well understood despite the slightly unusual grammatical construction.

To understand why Derrida deliberately employs this slightly odd mode of description just consider what would happen if this was not the case. If a person is said to be the agency of deconstruction, if it was correct to say that "I deconstruct the text", then the deconstruction could be easily dismissed as trivial. Critics could say "You just go looking for contradictions in the text and look so hard that you actually create them! Your deconstruction is not important to people that really care for the philosophy you refer to." For Derrida deconstruction happens to a text because it is always the illustration of problems that were already there in the text. It is for this reason that the deconstruction of a text is not the trivial whim of some prankster but the illustration of real problems that are simply made more obvious to other people. This is why Derrida states that deconstruction is "always already" in the text. For Derrida the text is pregnant with the possibility of deconstruction and the philosopher that produces the deconstruction is a kind of midwife that just helps bring it forth. Deconstruction is very much a work of communication and of neutral description. This emphasis on the neutrality of description is derived from Husserl's insistence on the neutral description of the phenomena of conscious experience in phenomenology rather than the explanation of phenomena that always risks prejudice. I'm not sure whether it would necessarily improve the clarity of the section by inserting this lengthy explanation of a point upon which there could be confusion. If I was writing a paper I'd put it in a footnote. I'll see what I can do for the article to clear this point up but I don't think that its necessarily a good idea to clutter up the theory section further with another subheading and I do not believe it is possible to pre-empt all possible confusion in the introductory paragraph to the theory section.

It is actually much easier to qualify the latter point of confusion. Derrida is admiring Husserl and taking on his argument as a model for deconstruction when he notes that Husserl refuses to accept structures as "an eternal truth created by an infinite reason". Personally I thought that this was clear from the previous material of the paragraph but it can be clarified easily in the article. People like specific examples when they're confused by the abstract argument so this is straightforward - Husserl will not allow the structure of the mathematical system to be considered an eternal truth created by an infinite reason (there is always a history of how this structure originated) and this type of argument influences Derrida's deconstruction.

I'm not sure what you mean by asserting that "one of them ("deconstruction") nobody knows what the hell it is anyway". Are you making an empirical assertion? Do you want me to simply state that I understand deconstruction or point to someone more famous like Geoffrey Bennington that can more authoritatively be said to understand deconstruction? The idea that no one understands deconstruction is a myth promulgated by people who don't. It's not a matter of blaming the failures of the reader for all misunderstanding of the topic but a matter of pointing out that to expect passive learning in the area is to expect too much. Coming to understand deconstruction isn't infotainment. No one is watching Fox News when they read this article. They're trying to understand a difficult twentieth century philosophy that is heavily based in previous, equally technical, philosophies while carefully challenging some of the most commonly accepted intellectual practices of methodology, analysis, and critique. I'm patiently putting a lot of effort into explaining deconstruction in the article and on this talk page. Taking this honest and voluntary effort into account I am most certainly not responsible for what other people don't know in this area or others and it is unreasonable to imply that there is some kind of conspiracy of nonsense at work.

You're right that a NPOV is not necessarily sympathetic to the subject matter of an article but that doesn't mean that it's a vox pop either. There is the outline of a lengthy criticism section and I've already fleshed out the Foucault section considerably. I'll get round to the section on Habermas soon but if you look at the section on Derrida and Habermas on the Jurgen Habermas page you will note that misunderstanding did largely characterise their disagreement. Having said that I don't have a problem with your NPOV'ing edit until the details of the disagreement can be fleshed out. Seferin (talk) 10:50, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

undoing the oppositions?

The lede doesn't even make sense to a fairly educated person (me). What does "undoing the oppositions" even mean?

Seriously, this article needs to be cleaned up or cut back to a stub. Having an article that is unreadable by the common man is NOT the point of wikipedia. 141.212.111.116 (talk) 13:16, 23 September 2008 (UTC)