This blog is solely dedicated to Jacques Derrida: The Father of Deconstruction. Deconstruction is one of the several doctrines in contemporary philosophy often loosely held under the umbrella terms post-structuralism and post-modernism. Jacques Derrida coined the term in the 1960s, and proved more forthcoming with negative, rather than a pined-for positive, analyzes of the school.
Derrida says, deconstruction is a word whose fortunes have disagreeably surprised me. Defining deconstruction is an activity that goes against the whole thrust of Derrida’s thought. Derrida has said that any statement such as “deconstruction is X” or “deconstruction is not-X” automatically misses the point. Not only is the definition and meaning of deconstruction in dispute between advocates and critics, but also among proponents.
Derrida’s disclaimers present a major obstacle to any attempt, to encapsulate his thoughts. He tells that deconstruction is neither an analytical nor a critical tool, neither a method, nor an operation, nor an act performed on text by a subject; that is, rather a term that resists both definition and translation. To make matters worse, he adds that ‘all sentence of the type “deconstruction is X” or “deconstruction is not X” miss the point. Which is to say that they are at least false.
Here an attempt is made to understand the term in a way, so as to simplify it, and give its philosophical significance. Your comments are most welcome…
Jayant Prasad, Research Student, Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay-400076
