Jacques Derrida dies at 74

Author of Deconstructionist Philosophy

French philosopher Jacques Derrida died yesterday at the age of 74:

Jacques Derrida, 74, originator of the diabolically difficult school of philosophy known as deconstructionism, died Oct. 9, the office of French President Jacques Chirac announced. French media reports said that the cause was pancreatic cancer and that he died at a Paris hospital.

Mr. Derrida (pronounced ‘deh-ree-DAH’) inspired and infuriated a generation of intellectuals and students with his argument that the meaning of a collection of words is not fixed and unchanging, an argument he most famously capsulized as ‘there is nothing outside the text.’

Now I have a problem with this, mostly because I don’t believe deconstructionist philosophy to be all that difficult to understand. I disagree with the criticism of the article regarding the so-called complexities of deconstructionism, not to mention the presentation of the opposing sides:

Supporters said this insight into the layered meanings and incompleteness of language subverts reason and rationality, stripping centuries of assumptions from words and allowing fresh ideas to emerge.

Critics called it nihilism (the denial of the meaning of existence, or denial of the existence of any basis for knowledge and truth), a charge he vehemently denied.

Take the color blue; think of the exact shade you are thinking of at this given moment. Now you, while reading this, could be thinking of a royal blue. Someone else who read this moments before could be thinking of peacock blue, while another could think navy blue.

The question is, what did *I* mean when I said “blue”? Deconstructionism offers one the ability to escape our inferences on the matter and focus (somewhat, I know this is generalizing) on what linguistic value the author placed on the word “blue”.

Now a common criticism is that there are two people interpreting the language at hand – the author and the reader. Who gets to determine what is truly meant? Most issues get resolved by the intellectual integrity of the reader, but much can be resolved by linguistic precision on the part of the author.

Unfortunately, with any portion of text being read, there is an instance of transmission, and within that transmission there is quite literally a process of translation. That is where the truth or meaning of an expression is lost (or gained, but imperfectly). The variance of values or definitions within a word is a concept known as polysemy, or that it has many (and contrary to the link, not always similar) definitions. Those varying definitions can radically change what the author is trying to transmit to the reader, and often do.

So is the philosophy of Derrida difficult to understand? Not if you understand two basic concepts; (1) that words mean things, and (2) words mean different things to different people. What does this do to truth? In my mind, absolutely nothing. It does shore up a basic premise that there are consistent problems with the transmission of truth between imperfect human beings. Sounds fair? To me it does.

For more information on the philosophy of Derrida, click here.