Talk:Deconstruction
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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
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)
- 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)
- Is there a version we can revert to? Bhny (talk) 06:36, 2 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)
AP thoughts
Oh, this self-nominated "expert" on Derrida and on Deconstruction is back with his crap, his thesis (actually, here on WP this is called Original Research), that the central core of it (Derrida's thought on Deconstruction) is this rather obscure notion of the 'metaphysics of presence,' which is now of course also back in the very first sentence of the article.
As I've told him before, true experts on their fields write books and publish articles on the subject (mostly under their own names, as openly identifiable individuals), which after due process of academic review and debate can also be reflected here on WP through reliable sources. Other, self-nominated "experts" such as this one, just hide behind other pseudonyms here on WP and try to own certain subjects and pages, and try to push their own agendas, their own biased points of view on these matters here.
Also, true expertise on a certain subject can come from positive motivations, such as the love of it and the pure admiration for knowledge. Or, in fewer cases such as this one (and fortunately I do believe these cases are indeed fewer), this "expertise" can come just out of hate, spite, and revenge for the subject and for knowledge and for the process of developing it in general.
Now, some positive WP editors also choose to edit from a starting position of collaboration and collegiality and respect towards other editors. Some, on the other hand (negative, unfortunately), choose to edit from a starting position of self-promotion and agrandizement, of open defiance and challenge towards other editors, actually of intellectual contempt towards any different views. This particular coward, furthermore, can only use foul language (which for me is just funny), and chooses to just call names and to heap as much scorn and ridicule as possible upon anyone else who dares to disagree with him. warshy (¥¥) 15:39, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
- You are a buffoon and you are thoroughly devoid of any integrity. You have nothing to say when Hibrido Mutante commits plagiarism—that's apparently fine. But you gird up your loins towards the task of retarding the improvement of the article. The metaphysics of presence is central to deconstruction. Yes it is an obscure concept, as is deconstruction. But it is essential to deconstruction. As I have told you before, deconstruction is incomprehensible without the notion of the metaphysics of presence. Rather than provide general criticism for rhetorical effect why don't you actually indicate what I have put in the lead/lede that represents OR, bias and peronal agenda. Please do. Educate us all. So tell us Mr Wishy-Washy, can a Jew not be an expert on Nazism? Can a Jew not be a Hiler expert? Are all Jewish WWII scholars "try[ing] to push their own agendas, their own biased points of view on these matters" when they write on WWII? Do you police the WWII Germany articles on Wikipedia to make sure Jews aren't ediiting them? You are a hypocrite as well as an ignoramus. For the sake of this article please just go away. AnotherPseudonym (talk) 10:47, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
You both seem like interesting characters, but we are here to talk about the article. The previous first paragraph, (that I replaced) was a tedious laundry list of disciplines. It really seemed liked WP:puffery rather than anything informative. The first paragraph should define the topic, not ramble on about how influential it is. As far as I can tell deconstruction's "metaphysics of presence" and "logocentrism" are central features in many references on this topic. Bhny (talk) 14:44, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
@Wishy-Washy: regarding your claim that the idea that the metaphysics of presence is central to deconstruction is WP:OR on my part, refer to citations 8-16 in the first draft of the lead. These citations from primary and secondary sources show that (a) there is no WP:OR on my part; and (b) deconstruction is nothing more than a critique of the metaphysics of presence. Read the quotes referenced by the citations from Derrida as well as his expositors. When you have done that please provide counter-citations that demonstrate that I am the origin of the idea. Until you have done that I kindly suggest that you STFU and go and educate yourself. You literally don't know the first thing about deconstruction and it is not incumbent on me to educate you even though I have tried more than once. Your ignorance should not be an impediment to other editors. AnotherPseudonym (talk) 15:29, 5 January 2015 (UTC)