Talk:Deconstruction

Recent edits by Byelf2007

1. The article ought to explain what the X is as soon as possible. Currently in the second sentence it says "Although he avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply..." This is background info on *how* the concept came about by the creator but not *what it is*. Having "Derrida proposed the deconstruction of all texts where..." as the second sentence works much better in this respect.

2. The lede is currently very unprofessional: "On the one hand..." and starting a paragraph with "but" are particularly bad. I think I've cleaned them up pretty well.

3. A bunch of separate sections on what deconstruction is is very weird. I think it's much better to put them under "On deconstruction".

4. "Definitions by other authors" seems unprofessional to me. I prefer "Alternative definitions".

5. "Developments after Derrida" also seems unprofessional to me. I prefer "Post-Derrida development".

6. I believe etymology sections are encouraged. Byelf2007 (talk) 1 June 2012

Unjustified reverting

Omnipaedista, if you do not agree with my contribution, please, explain me why. Please:

Be polite

Assume good faith

Avoid personal attacks

For disputes, seek dispute resolution

On my side I try to respect article policies:

No original research

Neutral point of view

Verifiability

Thanks Hibrido Mutante (talk) 15:28, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

See WP:BRD. Please discuss before making changes against consensus. --Omnipaedista (talk) 09:22, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

You have made radical changes to the long-established lead section. Moreover, claims such as "Derrida called undecidables, that is, unities of simulacrum, 'false' verbal properties (nominal or semantic) that can no longer be included within philosophical (binary) opposition: but which, however, inhabit philosophical oppositions, resisting and organizing it, without ever constituting a third term, without ever leaving room for a solution in the form of speculative dialectics (e.g. Différance, Archi-writing, Pharmakon (philosophy), supplement, Hymen, gram, spacing)" are clearly original research. --Omnipaedista (talk) 09:29, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

LOL Sorry. You are wrong.

This is not “original research”, as you suggested. It would be easy for you to confirm that.

Please, do some homework before reverting the contributions from other users.

Please, confirm you are competent to do your own contributions, and, please, do a favor to yourself and to others: do not edit beyond your means (wp: competence).

Please confirm, Derrida own words (Positions p. 43), in a famous interview (and that is being used extensively in this article) are:

“I have called undecidables, that is, unities of simulacrum, "false" verbal properties (nominal or semantic) that can no longer be included within philosophical (binary) opposition, but which, however, inhabit philosophical oppositions, resisting and disorganizing it, without ever constituting a third term, without ever leaving room for a solution in the form of speculative dialectics (the pharmakon is neither remedy nor poison, neither good nor evil, neither the inside nor the outside, neither speech nor writing; the supplement is neither a plus nor a minus, neither an outside nor the complement of an inside, neither accident nor essence, etc.; the hymen is neither confusion nor distinction (neither identity nor difference, neither consummation nor virginity, neither the veil nor unveiling, neither the inside nor the outside, etc.; the gram is neither a signifier nor a signified, neither a sign nor a thing, neither a presence nor an absence, neither a position nor a negation, etc.; spacing is neither space nor time; the incision is neither the incised integrity of a beginning, or of a simple cutting into, nor simple secondarity. Neither/nor: that is simultaneously either or; the mark is also the marginal limit, the march, etc.). In fact, I attempt to bring the critical operation to bear against the unceasing reappropriation of this work of the simulacrum by a dialectics of the Hegelian type (Which even idealizes and "semantizes" the value of work), for Hegelian idealism consists precisely of a releve of the binary oppositions of classical idealism, a resolution of contradiction into a third term that comes in order to aufheben, to deny while raising up, while idealizing, while sublimating into an anamnesic interiority (Errinnerung), while interning difference in a self-presence.”

This interview is also used here:Stanford online encyclopedia("Derrida has provided many definitions of deconstruction. But three definitions are classical. The first is early, being found in the 1971 interview “Positions”):

“ Insofar as the difference is undecidable, it destabilizes the original decision that instituted the hierarchy. After the redefinition of the previously inferior term, Derrida usually changes the term's orthography, for example, writing “différence” with an “a” as “différance” in order to indicate the change in its status. . Différance (which is found in appearances when we recognize their temporal nature) then refers to the undecidable resource into which “metaphysics” “cut” in order to makes its decision. In “Positions,” Derrida calls names like “différance” “old names” or “paleonyms,” and there he also provides a list of these “old terms”: “pharmakon”; “supplement”; “hymen”; “gram”; “spacing”; and “incision” (Positions, p. 43). These names are old because, like the word “appearance” or the word “difference,” they have been used for centuries in the history of Western philosophy to refer to the inferior position in hierarchies. But now, they are being used to refer to the resource that has never had a name in “metaphysics”; they are being used to refer to the resource that is indeed “older” than the metaphysical decision.”

Please, do not revert all my contributions. It took me a long time to do it. You can change this or that sentence, even paragraph and explain me why. But do not revert everything I’ve done.

Thanks.

Hibrido Mutante (talk) 15:47, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Please avoid personal attacks. It is not OR sensu stricto, but it still is problematic. This is not the way we write articles. Copypasting long quotes from interviews is not appropriate when writing a lead section. The previous lead section is long-established. There is no consensus for your changes. Also, please explain your pointless changes to formatting. --Omnipaedista (talk) 17:02, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Read WP:OR again: "Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources." There is an abundant secondary literature on deconstruction. We need to have more citations to secondary literature (see the thread above). Accumulating overly long Derrida quotes is a terrible way to write an article on deconstruction. Your edits primarily consist in accumulating quotes. --Omnipaedista (talk) 17:21, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

See also WP:PARAPHRASE. --Omnipaedista (talk) 08:08, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

When you say "we" who are you talking about? I'm an editor just like you. Please, respect others. You are just like everyone else. And you have to prove you are competent to edit (and revert) contributions from others with valid arguments.

I made long contributions to this article during the last two years. Most of it includes now long contributions by me but also by many others.I accepted some of your contributions during the last two months, even when they were, in my opinion, incompetent, but I thought they were not totally wrong.

In my contributions I tried to maintain most of what was in the old version (except small parts that were only repeating without adding anything). This is how I understand pluralism. Please, do the same and try to get serious consensus with me.

If you want to correct something I have done, please feel free. BUT explain me properly why. And avoid ad hominem fallacies....

DO NOT REVERT everything. It is not polite!!(" reverting good-faith actions of other editors may also be disruptive and can even lead to the reverter being temporarily blocked from editing. Read the three-revert rule (part of the Edit warring policy")

Could you please explain what you do not agree with in my contributions before editing what I have done. If you want reach "consensus" you have to explain what you do not agree.

Your first explanation that I was publishing "original research" was false and proved to everyone that you are not competent to be editing this article. You should apologize...It would be nice.

We are talking here about 4 paragraphs. Please explain me what you do not agree in each one. Also, make it clear when your critics are about content or only about form.

It is not true that my contributions are only "primary sources".

First paragraph is based ONLY in secondary or tertiary sources to correct limited framing about deconstruction(including, but not limited to Encyclopedia Britannica about the subject): "deconstruction, form of philosophical and literary analysis, derived mainly from work begun in the 1960s by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida,(...) In the 1980s it designated more loosely a range of theoretical enterprises in diverse areas of the humanities and social sciences, including—in addition to philosophy and literature—law, psychoanalysis, architecture, anthropology, theology, feminism, gay and lesbian studies, political theory, historiography, and film theory."

Second paragraph adds important reference to Rorty to complement limited understanding about what is "difference" in previous version.

Third paragraph and forth are based on Stanford approach. Present version does not understand that there are 2 phases in deconstruction with important ethical and political implications, explaining its importance to other authors, specially in human sciences(and your accusation that this was my "personal research" is a symptom of your lack of understanding about the subject". ("Derrida has provided many definitions of deconstruction. But three definitions are classical. The first is early, being found in the 1971 interview “Positions” and in the 1972 Preface to Dissemination: deconstruction consists in “two phases” (Positions, pp. 41-42, Dissemination, pp.4-6)").

This was present in older versions but incompetent editing remove it. We must correct this.

I repeat:":“ Insofar as the difference is undecidable, it destabilizes the original decision that instituted the hierarchy. After the redefinition of the previously inferior term, Derrida usually changes the term's orthography, for example, writing “différence” with an “a” as “différance” in order to indicate the change in its status. . Différance (which is found in appearances when we recognize their temporal nature) then refers to the undecidable resource into which “metaphysics” “cut” in order to makes its decision. In “Positions,” Derrida calls names like “différance” “old names” or “paleonyms,” and there he also provides a list of these “old terms”: “pharmakon”; “supplement”; “hymen”; “gram”; “spacing”; and “incision” (Positions, p. 43). These names are old because, like the word “appearance” or the word “difference,” they have been used for centuries in the history of Western philosophy to refer to the inferior position in hierarchies. But now, they are being used to refer to the resource that has never had a name in “metaphysics”; they are being used to refer to the resource that is indeed “older” than the metaphysical decision.”

I believe we are doing a proper use of paraphrase here ( "Limited close paraphrasing is appropriate within reason, as is quoting (with or without quotation marks), so long as the material is clearly attributed in the text – for example, by adding "John Smith wrote ...," together with a footnote containing the citation at the end of the clause, sentence or paragraph".)

Please, avoid being vague in you accusations and give "us" concrete critics and serious explanations why you do not agree with my contributions. Also, make it clear when your critics are about content or only about form.Edit step by step and avoid edit warring.

Please, respect other editors.

Thanks

Hibrido Mutante (talk) 02:13, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

(outdent) "I accepted some of your contributions during the last two months, even when they were, in my opinion, incompetent, but I thought they were not totally wrong." You do not own the article; moreover, you keep making ad hominem attacks. Regarding the lead I still believe that you are closely paraphrasing primary sources in an undue way. The old lead by AnotherPseudonym has been de facto accepted by many editors who have edited the article during the last few months. Your new version of the lead (essentially, a long quote from a Derrida interview) is obfuscating. --Omnipaedista (talk) 21:59, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

It is a fact, no one owns the article, not me, not you (but it looks you don't understand that). Respect others. The difference between me and you is that I don't come here and simply revert what others do, even when I do not agree with it. You should do the same.

No, I don't "keep making ad hominen". I use the word "incompetent" referring: do not edit beyond your means (wp: competence). You accused me of publishing original research. I proved you didn't know what you were talking about and, in my opinion, that proved you were editing beyond your means. You are still doing it.

Please, at least, apologize for the serious accusations you have made (don't defend your self attacking me).

You just have to read the posts here to confirm that most editors don't agree with AnotherPseudonym during December. You can find serious critics to him and his behavior (from all the editors except you). No one wants to talk with people with that king of behavior. No one wants to be insulted by people with any sense of social behavior. And if when you say "we" you are considering yourself and him... I would advice you to choose your partners better. But it is only a friendly suggestion.

All the rest of "us" do not agree with AnotherPseudonym and you. Maybe, we just need more time than you to make our contributions referring solid sources (at least reading the basic interviews referred by the experts in the subject, but also other encyclopedias about it). We are more than two, and we are giving small contributions for this article for many more years than you.

First: You should start by confirming that I respected most of your contributions (even if I think they are from people that do not understand properly what "deconstruction" is, how it proceeds and why it is useful to others and to whom).

It is totally false I added a "long quote from Derrida" (this is the 3rd time you give false justifications to your behavior.)

I proved you that each time. Last time, I explained my sources to the first paragraph( Enciclopedia Brittanica), and what I have added to the second (Rotry quotes) and to the last one (based on Encyclopedia of Stanford). Quotes from Derrida come from different interviews and articles (but most were contributions from many editors that are already in the rest of the article).

To each paragraph I explained the reasons to my contributions.

Please, avoid being vague in you accusations and give "us" concrete critics and serious explanations why you do not agree with my contributions. Also, make it clear when your critics are about content or only about form.Edit step by step and avoid edit warring.

DO NOT REVERT. It is not polite!!(" reverting good-faith actions of other editors may also be disruptive and can even lead to the reverter being temporarily blocked from editing. (part of the Edit warring policy")

Thanks

Hibrido Mutante (talk) 00:17, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

(outdent) (i) "incompetent editor" is indeed an ad hominem attack. Please refrain from making baseless accusations. (ii) I do not agree with the impolite way AnotherPseudonym addresses other editors, but this does not mean that I do not appreciate his/her efforts at improving the article. (iii) My first comment regarding your edits on your talk page was this: "Please stop messing up the formatting of pages and stop removing [...] content without a justification". I apologize for the "clearly original research" part of my criticism above but I still abide by the belief that messing up the formatting of pages and removing content without justification (as you did in the Jacques Derrida article) is not constructive. I also still abide by the belief that the new version of the lead is obfuscating and that the rest of your additions (superficial modifications of material from other sources) consist in closely paraphrasing Derrida and Rorty in possible violation of WP:COPYVIO. I will not revert your edits anymore but I still deem those contributions to be of questionable value. As Bhny wrote above "we need more secondary references and less Derrida quotes" ("we" refers to Wikipedia editors). Eventually many of those quotes will have to be removed. --Omnipaedista (talk) 13:32, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm glad you changed your tone. Now we can work consensus ;)

i) I've based my "accusation" in the "clearly original research" part of your criticism. You have apologize. I don't have more reasons to call your attention to it. I'm glad we can change tone.

ii)I've tried not to delete AnotherPseudonymous efforts at improving the article. Only to complement it with a) other areas where deconstruction is used b) explanations about the two phases of deconstruction

iii) I'm sorry if a) I've messed formatting.There were a lot of copy pastes and I agree that here and there I was not rigorous.Sorry. I see you already clean it up. Thanks, in the name of us all.b) It was not my intention to delete anything. I have already corrected it. If there was something that escaped me, fill free to point it to me. I will try to correct it asap.

iv)I did not understand your criticism to my contributions to each paragraph and why you consider it obfuscating. I assume that after more than a quarter of a century reading about these subjects there are things that are obvious to me and can not be so to others. I assume that me, as Derrida,grown up in a different "form of life", playing a different "language game" and I would like to believe that, even so, it is possible to partially translate our perspective to English, even being aware of possible "indeterminacy of translation", "incommensurability" and/or "différend".

iv)Considering paraphrasing, as I pointed before, I believe we are doing a proper use of it: ( "Limited close paraphrasing is appropriate within reason, as is quoting (with or without quotation marks), so long as the material is clearly attributed in the text – for example, by adding "John Smith wrote ...," together with a footnote containing the citation at the end of the clause, sentence or paragraph".)

I believe you agree with first and second paragraph.

Third paragraph and forth are based on: Stanford approach.: "Derrida has provided many definitions of deconstruction. But three definitions are classical. The first is early, being found in the 1971 interview “Positions” and in the 1972 Preface to Dissemination: deconstruction consists in “two phases (Positions, pp. 41-42, Dissemination, pp.4-6)").

(...) “ Insofar as the difference is undecidable, it destabilizes the original decision that instituted the hierarchy.

After the redefinition of the previously inferior term, Derrida usually changes the term's orthography, for example, writing “différence” with an “a” as “différance” in order to indicate the change in its status. . Différance (which is found in appearances when we recognize their temporal nature) then refers to the undecidable resource into which “metaphysics” “cut” in order to makes its decision.

In “Positions,” Derrida calls names like “différance” “old names” or “paleonyms,” and there he also provides a list of these “old terms”: “pharmakon”; “supplement”; “hymen”; “gram”; “spacing”; and “incision” (Positions, p. 43).

These names are old because, like the word “appearance” or the word “difference,” they have been used for centuries in the history of Western philosophy to refer to the inferior position in hierarchies.

But now, they are being used to refer to the resource that has never had a name in “metaphysics”; they are being used to refer to the resource that is indeed “older” than the metaphysical decision".

I'm open to develop a new version of these 2 paragraphs that presents this phases. I used material that was already in the rest of the article. I think it is a good way to say the same thing (and even better).But I'm open to review its form.

I believe we Can do it together. Please suggest.

Thanks

Hibrido Mutante (talk) 00:01, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

I still think that the phrase "Derrida called undecidables, that is, unities of simulacrum, "false" verbal properties (nominal or semantic) that can no longer be included within philosophical (binary) opposition: but which, however, inhabit philosophical oppositions, resisting and organizing it, without ever constituting a third term, without ever leaving room for a solution in the form of speculative dialectics (e.g. différance, archi-writing, pharmakon, supplement, hymen, gram, spacing)" should not be in the lead section. By the way, another editor attempted a re-write which has many problems. Having the phrase "With his detailed readings of works from Plato to Rousseau to Heidegger, Derrida frequently argues that Western philosophy has uncritically allowed metaphorical "depth" models to govern its conception of language and consciousness" (copypasted from Jacques Derrida) in the lead section is also not helpful. --Omnipaedista (talk) 07:26, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Could you explain me why that phrase should not be in the lead? Is it the content or is it its form that make you uncomfortable? Could you propose another way to say the same thing?

As I told you before, this is a paraphrase of Derrida himself in "Positions", p.43 (I know you are aware of it).

I will give the long quotation (that puts it in context and shows how many other parts on this article are related to it). I believe it is easy to understand why it is so important.

We can try to say the same thing in an other way. But I think it is quite important to say it (in my opinion, and the opinion of many scholars, it is crucial to understand Derrida move, specially considering his own "context", where "hegel" and "marx" are considered "important" philosophers, and not what we could call "anglo-saxonic" readings of him)

Derrida interview with Jean-Louis Houdebine and Guy Scarpetta

Houdebine: Could you specify, at least under the rubric of an introduction to this interview, the actual state of your research, whose effectiveness immediately showed itself to have considerable bearing on the ideological field of our era, the state of development of the general economy again recently demarcated in three texts that are perhaps the symptoms of a new differentiation of the sheaf: your reading of Sollers's Numbers, in "La dissemination"and then (but these two texts are contemporaries) "La double seance" and finally "La mythologie blanche"?3(...)

Derrida: What interested me then, what I am attempting to pursue along other lines now, was, at the same time as a "general economy," a kind of general strategy of deconstruction. The latter is to avoid both simply neutrallzing the binary oppositions of metaphysics and simply residing within the closed field of these oppositions, thereby confirming it.

Therefore we must proceed using a double gesture, according to a unity that is both systematic and in and of itself divided, a double writing, that is, a writing that is in and of itself multiple, what I called, in "La double seance ," a double science.

On the one hand, we must traverse a phase of overturning. To do justice to this necessity is to recognize that in a classical philosophical opposition we are not dealing with the peaceful coexistence of a vis-a-vis, but rather with a violent hierarchy. One of the two terms governs the other (axiologically, logically, etc.), or has the upper hand. To deconstruct the opposition, first of all, is to overturn the hierarchy at a given moment. To overlook this phase of overturning is to forget the conflictual and subordinating structure of opposition.

Therefore one might proceed too quickly to a neutralization that in practice would leave the previous field untouched, leaving one no hold on the previous opposition, thereby preventing any means of intervening in the field effectively. We know what always have been the practical (particularly political) effects of Immediately jumping beyond oppositions, and of protests in the simple form of neither this nor that. When I say that this phase is necessary, the word phase is perhaps not the most rigorous one. It is not a question of a chronological phase, a given moment, or a page that one day simply will be turned, in order to go on to other things. The necessity of this phase is structural; it is the necessity of an interminable analysis: the hierarchy of dual oppositions always reestablishes itself. Unlike those authors whose death does not await their demise, the time for overturning is never a dead letter.

That being said- and on the other hand- to remain in this phase is still to operate on the terrain of and from within the deconstructed system. By means of this double, and precisely stratified, dislodged and dislodging, writing, we must also mark the interval between inversion, which brings low what was high, and the irruptive emergence of a new "concept", a concept that can no longer be, and never could be, included in the previous regime. If this interval, this biface or biphase, can be inscribed only in a bifurcated writing (and this holds first of all for a new concept of writing, that simultaneously provokes the overturning of the hierarchy speech/writing, and the entire system attached to it, and releases the dissonance of a writing within speech, thereby disorganizing the entire inherited order and invading the entire field), then it can only be marked in what I would call a grouped textual field: in the last analysis it is impossible to point it out, for a unilinear text, or a punctual position, 'I an operation signed by a single author, are all by definition incapable of practicing this interval.

Henceforth, in order better to mark this interval (La dissemination), the text that bears this title, since you have asked me about it, is a systematic and playful exploration of the interval-"ecart," carre, carrure, carte, charte, quatre,lO etc.) it has been necessary to analyze, to set to work, within the text of the history of philosophy, as well as within the so-called literary text (for example, Mallarme), certain marks, shall we say (I mentioned certain ones just now, there are many others), that by analogy (I underline) I have called undecidables, that is, unities of simulacrum, "false" verbal properties (nominal or semantic) that can no longer be included within philosophical (binary) opposition: but which, however, inhabit philosophical opposition, resisting and disorganizing it, without ever constituting a third term, without ever leaving room for a solution in the form of speculative dialectics (the pharmakon is neither remedy nor poison, neither good nor evil, neither the inside nor the outside, neither speech nor writing; the supplement is neither a plus nor a minus, neither an outside nor the complement of an inside, neither accident nor essence, etc.; the hymen is neither confusion nor distinction, neither identity nor difference, neither consummation nor virginity, neither the veil nor unveiling, neither the inside nor the outside, etc.; the gram is neither a signifier nor a signified, neither a sign nor a thing, neither a presence nor an absence, neither a position nor a negation, etc.; spacing is neither space nor time; the incision is neither the incised integrity of a beginning, or of a simple cutting into, nor simple secondary. Neither/nor: that is simultaneously either or; the mark is also the marginal limit, the march, etc.).l1

In fact, I attempt to bring the critical operation to bear against the unceasing re-appropriation of this work of the simulacrum by a dialectics of the Hegelian type (Which even idealizes and "semantizes" the value of work), for Hegelian idealism consists precisely of a releve of the binary oppositions of classical idealism, a resolution of contradiction into a third term that comes in order to aufheben, to deny while raising up, while idealizing, while sublimating into an anamnesic interiority (Errinnerung), while interning difference in a self-presence. 12"

Since it is still a question of elucidating the relationship to Hegel- a difficult labor, which for the most part remains before us, and which in a certain way is interminable, at least if one wishes to execute it rigorously and minutely- I have attempted to distinguish differance (whose a marks, among other things, its productive and conflictual characteristics) from Hegelian difference, and have done so precisely at the point at which Hegel, in the greater Logic, determines difference as contradiction 13 only in order to resolve it, to interiorize it, to lift it up (according to the syllogistic process of speculative dialectics) into the self-presence of an ontotheological or onto-teleological synthesis.

Hibrido Mutante (talk) 15:11, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

French lead

I find the lead of the French version somewhat clearer:

La déconstruction est une méthode, voire une école, de la philosophie contemporaine. Cette pratique d'analyse textuelle est employée pour décortiquer de nombreux écrits (philosophie, littérature, journaux), afin de révéler leurs décalages et confusions de sens, par le moyen d'une lecture se focalisant sur les postulats sous-entendus et les omissions dévoilées par le texte lui-même. Ce concept, participant à la fois de la philosophie et de la littérature, a obtenu une grande notoriété aux États-Unis, où il est assimilé à la philosophie postmoderne, et plus globalement à l'approche divergente de la philosophie continentale d'Europe. Si le terme « déconstruction » a d'abord été utilisé par Heidegger, c'est l'œuvre de Derrida qui en a systématisé l'usage et en a théorisé la pratique.

Le terme de déconstruction apparaît chez Derrida pour la première fois dans De la grammatologie. Derrida expliqua qu'il souhaitait « entre autres choses » proposer une traduction pour les termes allemands de Destruktion et Abbau, que Heidegger emploie dans Être et Temps ; Derrida estime cette traduction plus pertinente que la traduction classique par destruction, dans la mesure où il ne s'agit pas tant, dans la déconstruction de la métaphysique, de la réduire au néant, que de montrer comment elle s'est bâtie.

En traduisant et récupérant à son compte la notion de déconstruction, Derrida entendait que la signification d'un texte donné (essai, roman, article de journal) est le résultat de la différence entre les mots employés, plutôt que de la référence aux choses qu'ils représentent ; il s'agit d'une différence active, qui travaille en creux le sens de chacun des mots qu'elle oppose, d'une façon analogue à la signification différentielle saussurienne en linguistique.

I tried to translate it:

Deconstruction is a method, or even a field, of contemporary philosophy. This type of literary analysis is used to break down a large number of written essays (philosophy, literature, newspapers) in order to reveal their discrepancies and confusions of meaning. This was done through a reading focused on implicit postulates and omissions exposed by the text itself. This concept, which takes from both philosophy and literature, became famous in the United States where it is linked to post-modern philosophy and more globally to l'approche divergente de la philosophie continentale d'Europe. (I can't really translate that). If 'deconstruction' was first used by Heidegger, it is Derrida's work that systematised and theorised its use.

'Deconstruction' first appeared in Derrida's book De la grammatologie, where he explains that, 'among other things', he wants to propose a translation for the German 'Destruktion' and 'Abbau', which Heidegger uses in Être et temps. Derrida feels that this translation is more relevant than the classical 'destruction' to the extent that the deconstruction of metaphysics is not as much about bringing it to nothingness as about showing how it is built.

By translating and appropriating this notion of deconstruction, Derrida wants to show that the meaning of a given text (essay, novel, column) is the result of the difference between the words that are used, rather than of the reference to what they represent: it is an active difference, qui travaille en creux le sens de chacun des mots qu'elle oppose, d'une façon analogue à la signification différentielle saussurienne en linguistique. (I can't really translate that either).

Cheers, Thouny (talk) 12:30, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the translation. I like your suggestion a lot, and I would support such a move, if the suggested text for the new English lead above would be worked on a little more among different editors here. I agree that this lead is much clearer and straightforward for the lay WP reader. warshy ^(¥¥) 14:23, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks :) But, yeah, sure, do work on it, it's a translation way above my level, and in a field I'm almost entirely unfamiliar with. Cheers, Thouny (talk) 14:26, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Undefined terms

" It has been presumed, for instance, that speech is "closer" to present consciousness -- and therefore at one with the "true meaning" of an iteration -- than is writing."

What is an 'iteration'? For that matter, what is "present consciousness"? Is this something to do with how when a person is speaking, they are right there speaking; whereas when you read a book the author is not there? Is there a way to express this idea without resorting to jargon? And why the weird sentence structure? Why not:

"For instance: It has been presumed that speech is "closer" to present consciousness than is writing and therefore at one with the "true meaning" of an iteration." Paul Murray (talk) 05:36, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

a) "iteration" is a common term used in mathematics, computer science (and semiotics). It is quite important to Derrida.

Let me give you an important quotation from Derrida in "Limited inc. (p.17-18 Signature Event Context):

"Could a performative utterance succeed if its formulation did not repeat a "coded" or iterable utterance, or in other words, if the formula I pronounce in order to open a meeting, launch a ship or a marriage were not identifiable as conforming with an iteration model, if it were not then identifiable in some way as a "citation"?

Not that citationality in this case is of the same sort as in a theatrical play, a philosophical reference, or the recitation of a poem. That is why there is a relative specificity, as Austin says, a "relative purity" of performatives. But this relative purity does not emerge in opposition to citationality or iterability, but in opposition to other kinds of iteration within a general iterability which constitutes a violation of the allegedly rigorous purity of every event of discourse or every speech act. Rather than oppose citation or iteration to the noniteration of an event, one ought to construct a differential typology of forms of iteration, assuming that such a project is tenable and can result in an exhaustive program, a question I hold in abeyance here. In such a typology, the category of intention will not disappear; it will have its place, but from that place it will no longer be able to govern the entire scene and system of utterance [l'enonciation].

Above all, at that point, we will be dealing with different kinds of marks or chains of iterable marks and not with an opposition between citational utterances, on the one hand, and singular and original event-utterances, on the other. The first consequence of this will be the following: given that structure of iteration, the intention animating the utterance will never be through and through present to itself and to its content. The iteration structuring it a priori introduces into it a dehiscence and a cleft [brisure] which are essential. The "non-serious ," the oratio obliqua will no longer be able to be excluded, as Austin wished, from "ordinary" language. And if one maintains that such ordinary language, or the ordinary circumstances of language, excludes a general citationality or iterability, does that not mean that the "ordinariness" in question - the thing and the notion-shelter a lure, the teleological lure of consciousness (whose motivations, indestructible necessity, and systematic effects would be subject to analysis)?

Above all, this essential absence of intending the actuality of utterance, this structural unconsciousness, if you like, prohibits any saturation of the context. In order for a context to be exhaustively determinable, in the sense required by Austin, conscious intention would at the very least have to be totally present and immediately transparent to itself and to others, since it is a determining center [foyer] of context. The concept of- or the search for -the context thus seems to suffer at this point from the same theoretical and "interested" uncertainty as the concept of the "ordinary," from the same metaphysical origins: the ethical and teleological discourse of consciousness. A reading of the connotations, this time, of Austin's text, would confirm the reading of the descriptions; I have just indicated its principle.

Differance, the irreducible absence of intention or attendance to the performative utterance, the most "event-ridden" utterance there is, is what authorize me, taking account of the predicates just recalled, to posit the general graphematic structure of every "communication. " By no means do I draw the conclusion that there is no relative specificity of effects of consciousness, or of effects of speech (as opposed to writing in the traditional sense), that there is no performative effect, no effect of ordinary language, no effect of presence or of discursive event (speech act). It is simply that those effects do not exclude what is generally opposed to them, term by term; on the contrary, they presuppose it, in an asymmetrical way, as the general space of their possibility.

b) I hope it will also help you to understand what is "present consciousness". In philosophy (at least as it is learned in continental europe, etc.) it refers to what is "immediate" (in contrast with what is "mediated"). It is connected with "intention". Normally the "paradigmatic example" that is used (and Derrida does it many many times) it is the "internal dialogue" where it seems we have an immediate contact with meaning (it is "present to ourselfs", "meaning is present to us", "not mediated"), independent of the "phonetic signs" we use to "think".

c) Concerning your proposal, this a paraphrase from a translation from Derrida, and, in my opinion, you can change it.

Hibrido Mutante (talk) 15:56, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Yuck. The fact that a term is co-opted from mathematics or computer science is a terrible justification for using it with a different, unclear meaning. A mathematician or computer scientist would not use the word "iteration" that way. This response does nothing to clear up any of the terminology -- I'd say Paul Martin's criticism is spot on. rspεεr (talk) 00:55, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

The sentence was deleted a while ago. What I find strange is that someone thinks it is ok to explain the meaning of the terms on the talk page rather than in the article. Bhny (talk) 01:07, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

?? I don't get it... Wiki explains that: "Iteration is the act of repeating a process with the aim of approaching a desired goal, target or result."... in the french wiki you can read: «itération » vient du verbe latin iterare qui signifie "cheminer" ou de iter, "le chemin"."... in Europe we use it in many disciplines (not only in maths and computer science).. it is not a term "we have to explain".. not even in the "talk page"... I was quite surprised that there were people that were not familiar with the term and were editing articles about Derrida...

why do you say Derrida is using it wrong?... I really don't get your difficulties here... maybe it is because you are from a different "form of life", playing different "languages games", where words have precise and closed meanings, some "essential meanings" from what I understand...not connected with how they are used, in many contexts, since the "roman empire"...

"Could a performative utterance succeed if its formulation did not repeat a "coded" or iterable utterance, or in other words, if the formula I pronounce in order to open a meeting, launch a ship or a marriage were not identifiable as conforming with an iteration model, if it were not then identifiable in some way as a "citation"?

Hibrido Mutante (talk) 22:46, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Plan of action (Oct. 2014)

Scrap/delete the article and start anew. It's a disaster. Describing it as a patchwork is being too kind. 98.236.50.229 (talk) 00:22, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

* Support - I agree. This article is incredibly inaccessible and must be rewritten in simpler, intelligible terms, in encyclopedic style. What is the process to scrap the article? Azx2 10:02, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Dear god

This article is one of the few that when you read it, you end up more confused than before you read it. Just wanted to say that on record. I agree this article should be nuked from space and rewritten from scratch. 109.186.67.185 (talk) 22:52, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

* Support - As stated above, I agree. This article is incredibly inaccessible and must be rewritten in simpler, intelligible terms, in encyclopedic style. What is the process to "nuke" the fcker? Azx2 10:03, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

* Support - As stated above, I agree. The lead/lede I composed was clear, technically accurate (corroborated by both references to primary and secondary sources) and omitted quoting Derrida's deliberately obfuscated prose (Derrida creates evidence for his thesis in his corpus). My lead was degraded by a series of incompetent editors (e.g. that French architect who presents himself as a Derrida expert simply because he can read French) and the clown 'HibridMutante' (who doesn't actually understand Derrida and resorts to quoting him at copious length because he is unable to paraphrase him). These incompetent and destructive editors (amongst others) are encouraged and abetted by the serial buffoon 'Warshy' who also knows nothing of the topic but feels compelled to provide an opinion on the matter. So long as this band of clowns hover around this article--like flies around a turd--any attempt to improve it will be in vain. Warshy, if you want a better article then just STFU; unless you actually understand deconstruction you are not in a position to have an opinion on whether this lead is better than that lead. HibridMutante, you are a vandal. From watching your edits for over a year it appears that it is your objective to create an abstruse article that communicates literally nothing, an article that means nothing to you or to anyone else--a mélange of Derrida's most obscure and most recondite quotes that you are incapable of paraphrasing because you yourself do not understand them. The article in its current form is a pile of shit, it should be scrapped completely. The Talk page archives contain a short essay which I wrote over a year ago on what it means to write an encyclopedic article on deconstruction: see here. I still stand by that and it remains relevant. AnotherPseudonym (talk) 05:17, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Is there a version we can revert to? Bhny (talk) 06:36, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

I've lost track of the best prior version of the lead but this is far superior to what is in place at the moment (but that wouldn't be hard to achieve given that the present lead communicates barely anything). The referenced version of the lead is incomplete but it is a good foundation: it is as lucid as I could render it at the time, it is technically accurate and it is is encyclopedic in style. AnotherPseudonym (talk) 03:10, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

I reverted the lead to that version Bhny (talk) 04:05, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

* Support As a random passer-by with no particular interest or expertise in the subject matter, I'd regardless like to voice my strong agreement with this. This article actually makes me angry by being, as far as I can tell, completely incoherent and almost entirely free of anything resembling useful information. Of course, that seems to be my reaction to Derrida quotes in general, and most of the text seems to be either those or slightly rearranged versions thereof. 87.92.107.210 (talk) 22:23, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Hibrido Mutante and Plagiarism

It is plain from the Talk page that Hibrido Mutante is not a competent reader/writer of English, many of the sentences (s)he posts here are grammatically flawed and incapable of being parsed. So where does the prose that (s)he is inserting into the article come from? Answer: it is being stolen. The text from the lead was lifted from the following source:

In the 1980s it designated more loosely a range of radical theoretical enterprises in diverse areas of the humanities and social sciences, including—in addition to philosophy and literature—law, psychoanalysis, architecture, anthropology, theology, feminism, gay and lesbian studies, political theory, historiography, and film theory. (Source: Encyclopaedia Brittanica)

Compare with:

In the 1980s it designated more loosely a range of theoretical enterprises in diverse areas of the humanities and social sciences, including—in addition to philosophy and literature—law,[2][3][4] anthropology,[5] historiography,[6] linguistics,[7] sociolinguistics,[8] psychoanalysis, political theory, feminism, and gay and lesbian studies.

Which was inserted into the lead. This is a clear case of plagiarism. AnotherPseudonym (talk) 04:17, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Furthermore, Hibrido Mutante has no real understanding of Derrida, the version of the lead (s)he created prior to my own had no reference to the metaphysics of presence--an idea central to deconstruction. This omission evinces an absence of understanding of deconstruction. From this absence of real understanding coupled with an incomptency in English flows the excessive quoting and the plagiarism.

AnotherPseudonym (talk) 04:21, 3 January 2015 (UTC)