/lit/ - Literature

>>3203188

because it's useless and there are actually interesting and important ideas to think about instead

It means nothing. Everything is nothing. Nothing is real, any truth you've ever known is false. blah blah blah

I watched the Yale lecture on Derrida. The entire time I felt like I ALMOST got what deconstructionism means, like when you're fapping and on the edge of orgasm--but I never came. It felt like the entire hour long lecture was just dancing around and doing verbal flexings and things without actually saying anything of any real substance at all.

>>3203209
>It felt like the entire hour long lecture was just dancing around and doing verbal flexings and things without actually saying anything of any real substance at all.

This is what I hate about academia. And fucking Foucalt! Foucalt is one of the best examples of these worst practices! Don't take 50 pages saying what you could have said in 10 or even 5! FUCK YOU FOUCALT.

As for the "deconstruction" that is carried out (also mentioned in the debate), I can't comment, because most of it seems to me gibberish. But if this is just another sign of my incapacity to recognize profundities, the course to follow is clear: just restate the results to me in plain words that I can understand...

Since no one has succeeded in showing me what I'm missing, we're left with the second option: I'm just incapable of understanding. I'm certainly willing to grant that it may be true, though I'm afraid I'll have to remain suspicious, for what seem good reasons. There are lots of things I don't understand -- say, the latest debates over whether neutrinos have mass or the way that Fermat's last theorem was (apparently) proven recently. But from 50 years in this game, I have learned two things: (1) I can ask friends who work in these areas to explain it to me at a level that I can understand, and they can do so, without particular difficulty; (2) if I'm interested, I can proceed to learn more so that I will come to understand it. Now Derrida, Lacan, Lyotard, Kristeva, etc. --- even Foucault, whom I knew and liked, and who was somewhat different from the rest --- write things that I also don't understand, but (1) and (2) don't hold: no one who says they do understand can explain it to me and I haven't a clue as to how to proceed to overcome my failures. That leaves one of two possibilities: (a) some new advance in intellectual life has been made, perhaps some sudden genetic mutation, which has created a form of "theory" that is beyond quantum theory, topology, etc., in depth and profundity; or (b) ... I won't spell it out.

--Noam Chomsky on Deconstruction

Well, it's about decentering philosophy. It's counter to the idea that you can just lay out an idea and that's that (because you actually can't do that, someone will always come along and be all like "well, actually I think it's X").

So that's why no one can do what you're asking. Because they don't believe in what you're asking.

>>3203221

It's funny how a criticism of deconstruction concludes with a dichotomy.

>>3203221
I think Derrida and all those guys were just your average philosophy majors writing bullshit that sounds deep to pass their classes, then they realized they could make a living writing bullshit. The kinds of college administrators or whatever who give them awards and stuff probably weren't experts in philosophy, but just thought "man this guy must be saying some deep stuff in his work. I'll give him an award for it to make our college look better."

There you have it. Modern philosophy in a nutshell.

>>3203188
>le serious black & white costanza face

>>3203244
>2012
>still constructing things

>>3203208
Terribly false. There's is one universel and supra-temporal truth with Derrida : Différance who permit other terms in metaphysics. Its really more subtle then "relativism". You dont need philosophy if what you do is relativism.

There is no clear definition of Deconstrution because a simple definition would be a prison. As Heidegger says : langage is the house of being. If you only use one word for something, the house become a prison. You can never escape words, all you want to say will always be in something out of yourself (langage). You talk, you are something else then yourself. There's no clear definition because, only one definition would chain deconstrution in words. "More langages" said Derrida. You need to speak the most langage possible, you need all the words and even with all this, you wont be able to say the essentiel. This is Human condition. (Read Beckett's Unnamble to get the picture).

Btw, this is an Hermeneutic interpretation of Derrida, trying to be honest here!

>>3203239

How so?

>>3203241

I've always thought of it more as a function of Criticism-with-a-capital-C burgeoning in the early 20c, & suddenly there are lots of people with doctorates who are trying to "advance" some sort of formal study, and they just ran out of meaningful shit to say, but they were still getting doctorates and trying to make careers for themselves.

Bump

>>3203264

To give a perfect exemple of this : Subject and Object. You know what those word means in Latin?

Subject : Subjectum : what lies under = the fondamental, eternal, etc that lies and support everything else. Descartes took this word for ego. In modernity, ego is what hold all the word in himself.

Object : Objectum : what is seen by the conscience. Object is what is perceived. Descartes took this word and make it the eternal, fondamental, objective thing.

What we got in modern philosophy? Subjtum become the objective, and objectum become subjective. This is the exemple of the dangerousity of langage. Heidegger Destruktion and Derrida Deconstruction is a project to deconstruct, destruct what have been obstruct by langage. Words are prison of being, we need to deconstruct, destruct, etc to get to the fondamental meaning behind words.

Dont listen to analytical philosopher or other guys saying Continental and "post-modern" philosophy is bullshit because there are include in the severe criticism of Heidegger and Derrida : using word they dont understand the meaning like subject, object, and stuff.

Btw im not english, pretty sure you saw that :P

Derrida is no bullshit, its just tough, and positivism logical whining because they are not ok with their definition of langage.

this isn't just deconstruction, you would have a difficult time coming up with any simple definition to anything in philiosophy, mostly because of the problems >>3203221 identified

>the world is all that is the case

the struggle for definition is the essence of deconstruction itself

Paul Fry made it clear.

Derrida start with Levi-Strauss

Whatever may have been the moment and the circumstances of its appearance in the scale of animal life, language could only have been born in one full swoop (all at a time). Things could not have set about signifying progressively. A crossing over came about from a stage where nothing had a meaning to another where everything possessed it”.

Then, destruction of binaries and signifiers :as we examine the unfolding of a speech act, we see the way in which successive signs are contaminated. That's not meant to be a bad word but suggests being influenced, one might say, in the sense of "open the window and influenza," by those signs that precede it.

>>3203815

Then from Space to Time

That's what gives us, in the language of deconstruction, what we call "the chain," the signifying chain: not an organizational pattern but an ever self-replicating and self-extending pattern, irreducibly linear and forward-progressing through a sequence of temporal associations.

One of the things that happens when you demystify the relationship between a concept and a signifier or a sound image is that you also demystify the relationship between a set of associations, which exist somehow in space, and the way in which association actually takes place, which is necessarily in time:

in other words, if one signifier leads to another--if like history, where there's one damn thing after another, speech is one damn signifier after another-- then that is actually the nature of the associations that Saussure has been talking about in the first place.

But it doesn't exist in a systemic space; it exists in an unfolding time, right?

>>3203827

Then difference between preivous idols (Gods, God, Science, Man) and language and how language is both immanent and transcendental


God creates the world and then sort of, as Milton says himself, "uncircumscrib'd withdraws," right? God is not there. God is the Dieu caché: God is the hidden God who is absent from the world and is, in effect, also the structure of the world.

The same thing can be said of man. Man brings the sense of what the world is into being and then stands aside and somehow sort of takes it in through an aesthetic register or in some other remote way.

Language doesn't do that. Language is perpetually immersed in itself. Derrida is claiming that language is different in the sense that it makes no sense to talk about it as standing outside of what's going on..

>>3203815
>>3203827
What the fuck are you talking about? Is this deconstructionism? I can see Chomsky's point if this is actually deconstructionism.

>>3203838

Importance of time again vs space :

"stream of consciousness" is the key metaphor


Différence (with an e) is simply the Saussurian linguistic system, a system of differences understood as spatial: that is to say, understood as available to us as a kind of smorgasbord as we stand in front of it.

Différance introduces the idea of deferral and reminds us that difference-- that is to say, our understanding of difference, our means of negotiating difference-- is not something that's actually done in space; it's done in time.

When I perceive a difference, I perceive it temporally.

I do not understand the relation among signs as a simultaneity. .

I want to, if I want to pin it down scientifically, but in the actual--as Joyce would say-- stream of consciousness, I understand difference temporally. I defer difference. I unfold. I successively negotiate difference, and in doing that I need the concept of différance.

>>3203815
If this is really what deconstructionism is, then Zen buddhists have been doing it for centuries.

>>3203332
>>3203264
What do you think of the Searle-Derrida affair?

>>3203843
>What the fuck are you talking about? Is this deconstructionism? I can see Chomsky's point if this is actually deconstructionism.

Do you seriously don't get it or are you trolling ?

>>3203853

Yes. Breaking binaries, koan, all that.
There was a thread earlier in the week about buddhism and metaphor.

I gave some hint by Lacan on top of derrida

If you read a graduate level text in physics, you don't have any expectation of understanding it; you have not spent the countless hours studying the formulas, their derivations, the theorems and ideas, that the text expects you to comprehend.

Why isn't it the same with philosophy? There are no simple definitions for the terms used in philosophical texts, because there are entire other books which are spent explaining them.

>>3203332

Yeah !!

Another exemple is Freud paper "opposite meaning of primitive words"

"Des sens opposés des mots primitifs" to get the pdf in french

>>3203266

>How so?

Because one of the primary things they're trying to Deconstruct are binaries and binary modes of thinking.

>>3203241
Contemporary philosophy, not modern. Modern philosophy refers to people like Locke, Hume, etc. Philosophy requires precision in language.

>>3203884
I've always felt a similar frustration. Here's me, treating a web page like a philosopher's idea

>have zero familiarity or training with programming
>right-click
>"View Page Source"
>var ga = document.createElement('script');
>WTF? This doesn't make any sense. What a bunch of obscurantist drivel
>i give up trying to understand
>emperor's new clothes

except with philosophy you have to go back to plato

deconstructionism is a word that, when used, permits me to disregard everything the person is about to say, because chances are they're using that word incorrectly.

>>3203916

Yeah or more precisely breaking down the hierarchy involved by binairies.

If you say men are better than women or cooked is better than crude the pb is that to define what "man" or "cooked" is you need the notion of "woman" or "crude"

So "crude" only appears onces "cooked" exists.

Before "cooked" exists the positive notion of "crude" does not exist as everything is crude, so you cannot perceive it..

>>3203923

Yeah, but the same if you go to china without speaking chinese or to an arabic country without speaking the langage.

The only thing you will see will be the external forma of signifier with no signification at all.

You see signs but they have no meaning.

>>3203943

Hence the reader theory and the idea of connotation as several layer of depth meaniing behind the signifiers.

Hence the "basic pleb" vs the " trained upper-class". They do not see the same thing when listening to refined music for instance.

>>3203953

or to take a litterary example :

Jane Austen : "want" means to lack as well as to desire in the english oxford dico

So if you do not have access to this knowledge you will only see the desire, not the lack.


"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife"

a way, the subtle pun in the word "want," which means both "to desire" and "to lack"--well, if I lack something, I don't necessarily desire it. I just don't happen to have it, right? On the other hand, if I want something, I can also be said to desire it. Well, which is it? Is it a kind of lack that social pressure of some sort is calculated to fill, or is it desire? If it's desire, what on earth does it have to do with a good fortune? There are elements of the romance plot which raise precisely that question. Desire has nothing to do with fortune. Convenience, social acceptability, comfort: all of those things have to do with fortune, but desire, we suppose--having passed through our psychoanalytic phase--to be of a somewhat different nature

Perhaps we should all back up and start with explaining Saussure. To him, language is a system of signifier (words) and signified (things). For example: the word tree refers to a thing, but not because of any necessary reason. Language is arbitrary because there is no reason why the word "tree" should correspond with the thing that we usually think of when we say that word. There is a world and we superimpose language upon that world. In addition to all of this, we don't define words through their positive relation to things they're supposed to correspond to but in negative relation to there opposites. There is no real reason for "mom" to correspond to the thing we customarily think of when we say "mom," but we know "mom" is mom because "mom" is not "dad." The value of the sign is determined by all the other signs in the system.

Now, go back to your Plato in Republic V-VII when he brings in the Forms (which he has no argument for and are entirely presupposed). In these sections he constructs a metaphysics of oppositions. Remember the finger example in Book VII which he uses to explain why sense perception sucks? Your index finger admits of being both big and small (in different respects) when compared to your ring and middle finger. This paradox summons your understanding, which he privileges over other forms of knowledge; see his divided line in Book VI. Plato uses this argument from opposites a lot in constructing his metaphysics, and his Forms privileges the positive predicate in the relationships (Beautiful, Justice, Equal, etc).

>>3203935
This is utter bullshit in so many ways. I'll name 2:

1. I can define man as a human being with an X- and a Y-chromosome on place N and have a correct definition. You may have noticed the absence of any "woman" in this definition. (Inb4 existence of X-chromosome entails females: no it does not, obviously).

2. This "breaking down of hierarchies" involving binaries as you present it is just some shit about morality, in essence. You throw away all value (men have more value than women becomes: both are valueless). This just seems like a wrong way of reading Nietzsche.

Didn't Heidegger dream up all this stuff about hierarchy and "binaries"? Yes he did, he showed that Western Philosophy consists of (as he called it) hierarchical oppositions and has a OnthoTheological character. This was all metaphysics, and nothing like the ethical shit being displayed ITT.

Seems like Derrida read Heidegger and thought he could get away with renaming it "deconstructionism".

>>3203857
To be honest, i dont know anything about the Searle-Derrida affaire, exept that it happened.

>>3203996
Derrida then comes along and points out that these binary oppositions permeating Western metaphysics (good/bad, big/small, etc) form hierarchies that are inherently unstable, especially in light of the negative knowledge that Saussure discusses and because of the arbitrary relationship between signifier and signified.

Derrida sees that texts are inherently unstable and deconstruct themselves. His task, and the task of deconstructionists becomes to pull at these threads and unravel the work. Deconstruction is always at work within the work...

This is a sketchy outline, but it could help in understanding Derrida.

>>3204000
>>3204009

And yes, Heidegger is the real deal. Derrida heavily rips him off.

>>3203996
>>3204009
>>3204013

In addition to all this, people have taken these theories to the point where it seems as though all positions - or ideologies - are inherently unstable and most people haven't checked the own underlying assumptions and/or contradictions in their beliefs. This leads to kind of radical relativism/nihilism in some people's opinion.

>>3204000
>I can define man as a human being
What a definition, that clears everything up.

>Didn't Heidegger dream up all this stuff about hierarchy and "binaries"?
Hegel did that earlier you dolt. The binaries come in as a criticism of Hegel, Heidegger is following on from the same critical tradition vein as Kierkegaard (omg Heidegger must be so derivative). The Socratic method even deals in binaries, how do you not know this?

>>3204000
1. You would know a creature have a x- and y- chromosome, you would not have nothing of men and Woman. This is not a definition thing, its a lot more subtle and precise.

2. I dont understand your conclusion. Plus, remeber what Nietzsche said, (and what Heidegger said afterward) the notion of value is taken from economy in 19e century. You talk about morality like bankers talk about goods. Heidegger in the letter on humanism : you cant think because of your logical (in the bad sens) thinking. Its not because we reject hierarchy that we say that everything is relative. Its not because we refuse humanism that we say that inhumanism is better.

Nobody actually understands Deconstruction. It's all pseudo-intellectual pretentiousness. It's disgusting that people accept this tripe and reject actual innovators for being "ostentatious."

>>3204061
OP here. I don't understand deconstructionalism, but this type of thinking right here is foolish. Dumb idiots who didn't understand Newton's laws of physics probably called it the equivalent of "pseudo-intellectual pretentiousness" back when he formulated them.

Deconstruction is just a copout for people who are terrible at arguing. In its very essence it is antilogical, and, by the account of Deconstructionists, "exempt from language".

>>3204094
These little two sentence responses that betray one's ignorance of the subject in question are just cop-outs for people who want to appear intelligent, but don't want to put in the work necessary to be intelligent. Try harder, pleb.

>>3204117
This is exactly what I mean.
You can't appeal to your own authority when that very authority is what's being called into question.

>>3204123
>You can't appeal to your own authority when that very authority is what's being called into question.
If you can only appeal to authority, you can't argue or debate for shit.

>>3204123
And this is the point Derrida & Co. are trying to make. All knowledge, authority, beliefs, identities, etc are inherently unstable. Shit is socially constructed!

>>3204132
I think you're on the wrong side of this argument, bub.

Madoka

>>3204139
Why does something being socially constructed make it unstable?

>>3204152
Because of history?

>>3204147
No. The opposition thinks deconstruction is terrible for arguing because no appeal to authority. This is bullshit.

>>3204152
It's not intrinsic and can vary from society to society. Example:
Society A believes incest is wrong.
Society B doesn't believe that.
Both have laws in place affirming their views and the citizens in those societies believe in both and consider them to be true when that "truth" is only relative to their society because it's socially constructed. This is only part of the argument.

Do you know much about epistemology? Reconsider Plato's divided line in Republic VI and his arguments against sense perception in Book VII which will explain why things in this world of flux (even check out Heraclitus, a huge influence on Nietzsche, Heidegger, and later thinkers) aren't true and the people who believe them to be true only have true belief and not understanding.

Would McCarthy asshat lit be considered deconstructionism? I always get the sense that I'm being shit on when I open one of his books and they seem to be anti directional.

>>3204139
You can't support circular logic with more circular logic.

>>3204182
To further the Society A/B argument I forgot to mention that incest can only intrinsically be right or wrong and not both [look up disjunctive syllogism & the law of non-contradiction].

One of the problems with humans is that language mediates our experience to the world and we take our beliefs and opinions to be true while forgetting to acknowledge our historical situation.

Consider Nietzsche's perspectivism: we're all thrown into the midst of a play of historical, social, political, religious forces that shape our perspectives on the world. This has had a huge affect on later thinkers. We're not autonomous beings and, in fact, are products of discourse; moreover, our identities are constructed through competing discursive systems.

"People's choice of words can have unintended meanings which can deconstruct (or dismantle) the argument they're trying to make."

Does that help?

>>3203996
>>3204009
>>3204027
>>3204139
>>3204182
>>3204212

Anywho, these are all me. I'm heading out for the night. I don't actually agree with Derrida and a lot of postmodern thinkers, but the questions were raised an I tried to explain things the best I could. I hope this helps anyone who comes across them. Happy arguing!

>>3204160
Congratulations, you completely failed to understand the post on all levels.

Please read again. It said that your argument is weak because it attempts to use circular logic. If you don't know what circular logic is, please use a dictionary or a reputable source to clarify your understanding of what it said.

The opposition said that your argument relied solely on an appeal to authority which, in this specific case, lead to begging the question.

>>3204225
Translation for the orators among us: We use the fallacy of equivocation to invent strawmen.

>>3204230
You mean:
>These little two sentence responses that betray one's ignorance of the subject in question are just cop-outs for people who want to appear intelligent, but don't want to put in the work necessary to be intelligent. Try harder, pleb.
?
First, anon is not one person, that's not my post. Second, what appeal to authority? Guy's just saying nothing of substance was posted because the post was short and the opinion uneducated. Which is true. Do you think he was using deconstruction or something? What authority is being appealed to here?

what the fuck i can't udnerstand any of the posts in this thread

>>3204247
He was appealing to his own authority, which seems to be the only basis for his accusations. I am questioning the authority of those who support Deconstruction in academic contexts.

Equally, you simply base your argument on an appeal to your own authority, if there's any rational basis to support your argument at all. In this light, calling my "opinion" "uneducated" only validates my argument that Deconstruction apologists are antilogical.

On a side note, claiming a post is "nothing of substance" simply because it is short is simply absurd. Of course a deconstruction apologist would judge a rebuttal by its verbosity.

>>3204293
The issue is not one of authority, but simply your inability to have any idea of what you're talking about. One does not have to be a champion of deconstruction or its greatest dissenter to see this, just to know what deconstruction is. You can choose to believe this or not, that's your perogative, but don't pretend you're having any kind of debate.

>>3204309
>just to know what deconstruction is.

Read the OP again and then reply to it

>>3204309
You haven't refuted my claims. You've merely called me an idiot, but these claims have no basis. Why are we to believe on faith that what you say is true? If you don't think it's possible you have misunderstood, you are arrogant. If you don't fear failure, you will lay down your argument based on real, tangible facts that we can all see and judge for ourselves.

>>3204265
Well some people says Derrida is a hack, others are like : "nay" and some : Please, read Heidegger.

>>3204340
First of all, to deconstruct in this case is an unfortunate translation of the French reflexive verb "deconstruire se", it is an event the object of deconstruction does to itself. It is never I or you deconstructing something else. In this event, binaries (as used in Hegelian dialectics) in the object show themselves to be contradictory, and thus undermine the authority of the dialectic they assume. The object then shows itself to be in pieces (because no coherent dialectical oneness can be formed), you see it just as differance and sign relations.

It's like a magic trick. If the object of deconstruction is a guy pulling a rabbit out of a hat, the event of deconstruction is seeing his sleight of hand. The object was always performing sleight of hand, and seeing this for the first time doesn't change the object, just like deconstruction doesn't change the object. But we now see pulling a rabbit out of a hat totally differently.

>>3204413
what the fuck

>>3204000
(different person than who you're replying to here)
1. But we understood "man and woman" before we knew about X and Y chromosomes. The first problem with this point is you're projecting backwards onto the past an understanding we only now have today. The second problem with this point is an essentialist view that conflates sex with gender. "Man and woman" do not refer to sex in the cultural sense (IE: Adam and Eve), they refer to gender. Your point says nothing about gender.

2. I'm not familiar enough to comment on hierarchy as it relates to Derrida, but looking at hierarchy does not entail a moral view. I can say for example: "The military is hierarchical" without passing moral judgment or making normative claims. I think what Derrida or the other poster might be getting at is not any social or moral implication of hierarchy, but trusting the hierarchical relationship between these binary oppositions is a poor or mistaken understanding. Another example: democrats are better than republicans. This is an obviously shallow comment, but it illustrates some of the effects of binary thinking. Not sure if this was the idea, anyone else better read feel free to correct me.

>>3204420
That's as babby as it's going to get. If you want a proper understanding, you have to tackle Derrida and even Heidegger to get it properly. It's not something you can bullshit like an idiot.

>>3204094
Most of the problems that Derrida looks at (justice, for example) involve taking the logic of a given process or idea and looking at it deeply and bringing it to a limit. From what I've read, I would actually say deconstruction is super-logical.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/derrida/#Dec
>For a decision to be just, not only must a judge follow a rule but also he or she must “re-institute” it, in a new judgment. Thus a decision aiming at justice (a free decision) is both regulated and unregulated... Each case is other, each decision is different and requires an absolutely unique interpretation which no existing coded rule can or ought to guarantee. If a judge programmatically follows a code, he or she is a “calculating machine.” Strict calculation or arbitrariness, one or the other is unjust, but they are both involved; thus, in the present, we cannot say that a judgment, a decision is just, purely just.

>>3204420
you need to read more

a lot more

see >>3203923

>>3204449
I see the argument, but judges knowingly use inductive strength to guide their decisions in these events. This idea precedes Derrida. What is so Deconstructive about it?

>>3204504
3 responses come to mind from your comment.

1. Read the passage more closely, and read the entire "deconstruction" part of the article for greater illustration. "Inductive strength" (whatever that is) falls under the arbitrary aspect of a judicial decision. What is the source of this "inductive strength"? What's the basis for the choice? It's not in the law, it's not in the code; that's what's being shown here. Judges have independence, freedom, discretion. This means their decisions are to a significant degree arbitary.

2. As mentioned earlier, the original verb "deconstruire se" is reflexive verb. "It deconstructs itself." I took French in HS, so I know what kind of verb this is. Maybe you took German or Spanish where these verbs might not exist (i don't know). It's not that the analysis is unpacking and isolating the anatomy of a judicial decision. IE: it's not that we can "deconstruct and reconstruct." In this instance, any notion of what we might think is just dissolves in the actual tasks people do in a courtroom.

3. I can tell you are either still in HS/underclass college or have not studied law and philosophy in depth. For all my readings in law school, I have never come across a text that describes what a judge does as using "inductive strength."

huahuihue
>>3203239
[spoilers]2012 pseudo-intellectuals[/spoilers]

In "Letter to a Japanese Friend", Derrida tries to explain deconstruction to his Japanese translator.

http://hydra.humanities.uci.edu/derrida/letter.html

>>3205576
That's a pretty good way to test your ideas of deconstruction, though it's about as enlightening as a blow to the head.

>>3205576
Christ, what is it about academics that makes them drone on and on and on even in personal letters? Why can they never give you a straight answer/thesis? Why are they such giant assholes?

>>3205576
Well that was.... disappointing.
Does Derrida even know what deconstruction is?

>>3205598
It's not a personal letter, it's concerning the Japanese translations of his work iirc. Which is why there's no stright answer: Derrida was not good with Japanese.

>>3205603
The letter was written in French. Why would he try to learn Japanese to speak with his translator?

>>3205607
I mean he's not going to be like "Just translate deconstruire se to sepuku desu~, that's exactly what I meant", he has to try and convey the history and general gist of the terms.

>>3203221
HIGHLIGHT REEL:
>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.
Deconstruction is basically the subversion of the law of the excluded middle.

>>3205612
But surely if the translator understands French, he should be able to understand the original thesis; Derrida shouldn't have to hold his hand in this. Derrida is evidently a terrible writer. It's all the more evident in that fucking disgusting letter. Academics make me blackly furious.

>>3205612
Obviously, but he could have just said, "Deconstruction is the subversion of the law of the excluded middle" and everyone would have said "OHHH"
Source:
>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.
>Deconstruction takes place, it is an event that does not await the deliberation,
consciousness, or organization of a subject, or even of modernity. It
deconstructs itself. It can be deconstructed.

>>3205612
>>3205612
Obviously, but he could have just said, "Deconstruction is the subversion of the law of the excluded middle" and everyone would have said "OHHH"
Source:
>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.

>>3203264

What about music?

>>3205618
It's not excluded middle, it's outside of all that. He's referring to the Heideggerian metaphysics and transcendental signifiers and what have you.

>>3205615
>he should be able to understand the original thesis
>Highschool essays are the peak of academia
Yes, you Americans with your straightforward faeces. I mean thesis. Although with you general style of essay writing it can be hard to tell the difference.

>>3205641
pretentious |prəˈtɛn(t)ʃəs|
adjective
attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed: a pretentious literary device.

>>3205642
>anything more complex than highschool is pretentious

>>3205641
elegant |ˈɛləɡənt|
adjective
• (of a scientific theory or solution to a problem) pleasingly ingenious and simple: the grand unified theory is compact and elegant in mathematical terms.

>>3205644
>anything more complex than highschool is elegant

>>3205647
You seem to be missing my point. Maybe you should stop spouting that high school drivel and listen up!

>>3205643
>>3205647
I'm referring to simplicity vs complexity. I think there is a time and a place for both.

You're referring to high school. If you let that bit go we might have a shot at an intelligent conversation!

>>3203923
that is such a fucking cop out.
computer code has definitions, purpose, meaning. derrida and you claim to be sitting on some insurmountable plato-mountain of wisdom. well let me tell you, the wisdom is actually POOP

>>3205785

>definitions, purpose, meaning

Are complex notions

>>3205788
What does this post mean?
It doesn't really say anything.
Complex notions are complex notions.

>>3205788

Oh god... here we go, around and around the never ending academic loop of assfuckery.

Answer the fucking question: How does "deconstructionism" improve the human condition?

And no, "improve" is not a fucking complex notion

>>3205805

>improve the human condition?

Why is it necessary that deconstruction improves anything? Why are you wedding theory and praxis?

>>3205805
Yes it is. "Improve" in what ways? What would you say philosophy has to offer humanity in the form of "improvements"?

Btw, not the person you were responding to.

>>3205818
>Why are you wedding theory and praxis?
Why are you misusing the word praxis?

>>3204413

The problem with the argument of the chromosome Y to define a man lies in fact even deeper : Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome

http://www.newphilsoc.org.uk/wordpress/?p=1355


"if the person has an X and a Y chromosome, then they are defined as male.

This is complicated somewhat as sometimes three sex chromosomes can be held. Thus, another criteria is to simply say that the holding of a Y chromosome means that the person is male.

However, there are cases, defined as Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, where bodily tissue does not respond to the influence of hormones. As a result, the influence of the Y chromosome in developing male genitalia and subsequent secondary male characteristics is reduced or entirely prevented.

The external genitalia of some such individuals are clearly female (i.e. they have a vagina), as are the secondary characteristics. However, they hold a Y chromosome.

Granted, they lack ovaries and the ability to give birth, and contain internal testes.

However, despite holding a Y chromosome, and indeed containing (underdeveloped) testes, they are typically considered female (not just feminine). Indeed, they are often raised and treated as female.

Some biologists might argue that because a person has a Y chromosome, they are definitely male. But the point I am making here is that the classification of sex based upon the holding (or not) of a Y chromosome is not usually sufficient to encapsulate what we mean when we consider the terms "male" and "female".

Those lacking a Y chromosome will have ovaries, a clearly visible vagina, less facial hair, a reduced mass, and so on. However, people with a Y chromosome who have

Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome demonstrate a case where these binaries do not line up in this common way, thus revealing that sex cannot be defined absolutely, but is instead simply a convention.

I now want to introduce strands of psychoanalytic theory to firstly suggest how binary oppositions initially arise. I will then suggest that binary oppositions that form part of identities are particularly special as it is these that are so meaningful in our everyday lives through the tension caused by their opposites.

Psychoanalytic theory suggests that the use of binary oppositions to organise the world can be traced to the recognition of boundaries by the newborn child.

Jaques Lacan suggests that newborn children experience their existence outside of any system of signs, in a world where there are no boundaries that define objects and subjects. This world he terms the Real, and it is experienced as a completeness, a oneness that us who understand the concept of bounded objects have trouble conceiving of.

However, the child comes to experience its body as bounded into erogenous zones (e.g. mouth, genitals), and this terroritorialising of the body is seen to mark the imposition of boundaries that begins to partition reality into objects, thus beginning to separate the child from the Real.

The child eventually comes to perceive itself as separate from the mother and the rest of the world, creating a division between the self and everything else.

This division will come to be a central, foundational binary opposition. This division is referred to by Julia Kristeva as the abject.

This separation, of not being one anymore (particularly with the mother and the breast), creates a deep sense of loss, and the child wishes to re-merge with that which it has separated.

Kristeva suggests that this boundary threatens to be broken down in certain situations, however, such as when we observe a dead body. The process of death represents a transcendence of the boundary between the self (as a living human being) and the material objects of the rest of the world, and the corpse represents the breaking down of the divide between these.

The corpse represents both the human being, who we inherently recognise as a self, and the materiality of the world, since it is a rotting mass of flesh. In this moment we come to see the division between self and all other objects as broken down, opening up a route back towards the Real, to the complete oneness that was lost in early childhood.

However, this is "a reality that, if I acknowledge it, annihilates me."

Kristeva argues that the merging into a single completeness that was lost threatens the concept of self that has developed. Thus, despite a sense of loss at the separation from everything else, the possibility of re-merging produces a deep fear about the loss of the self.

Therefore, even as adults, we react in horror to the threatened breakdown of this division (i.e. the abject) in order to reassert it " what Kristeva refers to as abjection. Thus, the corpse for us is a "gruesome" sight, but it is precisely its gruesomeness that reasserts the boundary between self and object. The disgust associated with excrement, sick, spit, open wounds, blood, and pus are suggested to represent abjection, since all these things reveal that the boundary between self and all other objects ultimately breaks down. We react in horror to these in order to reassert the boundary. Paradoxically, however, Kristeva argues that despite the horror of abjection, we experience a sort of pleasure in it at the same time, a playfulness that is borne out by the frequent fascination with the abject in literature and art.

Essentially, the entrance into language allows for the establishment of identity"s fundamental binary opposite signifiers of "self" and "other". The increasing complexity of the system of signs that the child takes up and establishes in their mind allows the child to append additional binaries that give more meaning to their identity.

Thus, "I" can be tall, "they" can be small; "I" can be thin, they can be "fat"; "I" can be white, "they" can be black; "I" can be poor, "they" can be rich.

Kristeva"s writings suggest that the concept of the abject as the division between the self and every other object can be extended to the other binary oppositions of identity in general.

For her, the abject is "what disturbs identity, system, order", and abjection " i.e. horror " is the reaction to the threatened transcendence of any identity defined by a binary opposition. In fact, she suggests that all fear is actually an expression of abjection that is ultimately based upon the foundation of the fear of the annihilation of the self.

The act of purifying anything is abjection insofar as it involves disgust (i.e. horror) at the transcendence of the boundary separating two different types of binary opposite objects. This disgust encourages the active re-sorting of the objects so as they appear on their "correct" side of the divide, thus re-creating the concept of the divide, in other words reinforcing the abject.

To put that more simply, a person might be disgusted at clumps of mud on their carpet, and remove the mud through cleaning it and chucking the clumps outside. This act of purifying re-creates the binary opposition between clean and dirty in that very act.

To extend this further, the law represents an abject, with the police serving to purify our social spaces of the "criminals", reinforcing the binary opposition between "criminal" and "good citizen".

In this respect, this act of abjection actually serves to re-create the concept of "criminal", and all of the associated binaries that align with it (bad-good, dangerous-safe, and so on).

In similar vein, the fitting of security devices to properties is also an act of abjection, since its purpose is to purify the internal space of acts of theft and violence, thus reinforcing the binary opposition between "safe" (on the inside) and "dangerous" (on the outside), and even the more elementary binary opposite of "inside" and "outside" its

>>3205884
he isn't

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyOWAcpIaB8

I sort of get what deconstruction is and what pomo is getting at in general. My issue is with often needlessly complicated language.

If the modes of thougth and communication in earlier philosophy are so problematic then why stay so submerged in that tradition? Isn't it like writing about Goedel's Incompleteness theorem in the set-theoretical notation of Principa Mathematica?

What insight of deconstruction or postmodern philosophy in general isn't stated more elegantly and parsimoniously in the Buddhist and Daoist traditions?

Hardmode: What insight couldn't be stated more elegantly or parsimoniously in relation to those traditions?

It just seems like the whole thing is a critique of the western tradition that gets muffled because it's spoken from so far up the ass of said tradition

>>3207585
It's more like Chaos Theory in relation to periodic motion. The Enlightenment had a particular kind of ideology that caused thinkers to focus too much on special cases and then ignore other aspects of reality for which we did not have the appropriate philosophical/mathematical/mental apparatus to analyze. So with mathematics and physics there's this idea that the universe is like clockwork and regular and predictable because pendulae. In philosophy it's things like everything is interplay of binaries because dialectical oneness.

>>3207529
>"Distancing himself from the various philosophical movements and traditions that preceded him on the French intellectual scene (phenomenology, existentialism, and structuralism), he developed a strategy called "deconstruction" in the mid 1960s. Although not purely negative, deconstruction is primarily concerned with something tantamount to a critique of the Western philosophical tradition. Deconstruction is generally presented via an analysis of specific texts. It seeks to expose, and then to subvert, the various binary oppositions that undergird our dominant ways of thinking—presence/absence, speech/writing, and so forth"

So: "Western Intellectualism is fucked, but no talking about it if you aren't part of it."

Seems more like circling the wagons than criticism.
non?

>>3207621
So it's like a kid building a lego castle. Then another kid builds the same castle but upside down, then puffs his chest proudly and says "there"?

>>3207609
>In philosophy it's things like everything is interplay of binaries because dialectical oneness
Isn't deconstruction all about binaries though?

Are postmodernists just saying that Western Philosophy is just fine for many, many, many problems but needs to be expanded for some goofy shit we can tackle now?

>>3207647
Sounds like it.
This rightwing reaction in criticisms clothing makes we want to dig a big hole and polish up my capitalist hunting gun.

>TFW Zizek defends Obama

>>3204422
>2. I'm not familiar enough to comment on hierarchy as it relates to Derrida, but looking at hierarchy does not entail a moral view. I can say for example: "The military is hierarchical" without passing moral judgment or making normative claims. I think what Derrida or the other poster might be getting at is not any social or moral implication of hierarchy, but trusting the hierarchical relationship between these binary oppositions is a poor or mistaken understanding. Another example: democrats are better than republicans. This is an obviously shallow comment, but it illustrates some of the effects of binary thinking. Not sure if this was the idea, anyone else better read feel free to correct me.

mate I was the guy who you answered for.
I posted the stuff by Paul Fry + the analyses of Julia Kristeva.

The link http://www.newphilsoc.org.uk/wordpress/?p=1355

is one of the best account of deconstruction and binaries thinking I've come accross.

Feel free to comment

>>3207609
Also, Chaos Theory has led to complexity and other great things one can read about in books for the educated laymen written by important people in those fields who cite philosophy outside of the western tradtion, whereas postmodernism seems like it's still incomprehensible and pretty much stagnant.

Prigogine is not an easy read but he's understandable, doesn't have a ton of prerequisites and writes fairly clearly in spite of the fact that he doesn't write for a living.

Where are the Gliecks, Kaufmanns, Strogatzes, Gell-Manns, Lorentzes etc of postmodernism?

For the frenchfags :

example of breaking down binaries and construct stuff without hierarchy:

http://www.signosemio.com/derrida/deconstruction-et-differance.asp

>>3207724

APPLICATION : LECTURE DÉCONSTRUCTIONNISTE DE BAROQUE D'AUBE DE NICOLE BROSSARD.

Chez l'auteure québécoise Nicole Brossard, les stratégies de la déconstruction et de la différance servent un roman au féminin qui s'oppose au patriarcat et au logocentrisme. Une étude onomastique nous permet de voir comment la différance est présente et ce qu'elle permet.

Baroque d'aube (1995) raconte l'histoire de Cybil Noland, une romancière anglaise projetant d'écrire une fiction. Le récit s'ouvre sur une relation sexuelle lesbienne entre Cybil et une jeune femme, surnommée la Sixtine. La différance intervient dès les premières lignes : « Dé, vaste- moi. M'ange moi » (1995 : 13). « M'ange moi » plutôt que « mange-moi » fait apparaître le mot « ange », introduit du céleste et de la douceur dans un impératif sexuel, ce qui résulte en un glissement de sens. Il en va de même avec « vaste-moi » qui connote la grandeur, la conquête, l'étendue à perte de vue, et détourne le sens de « dévaster » qui, selon Le Robert, signifie « ruiner (un pays) en détruisant systématiquement » et a pour synonymes « désoler, détruire, raser, ravager, ruiner ».

>>3207726

Au départ simple personnage de la diégèse, de l'hôtel Rafale jusqu'à Buenos Aires, pour devenir occasionnellement un « tu », Cybil Noland devient un « je » énonciateur dans la réalité virtuelle, lorsque « la réalité se superposa à la réalité » (1995 : 174). Seulement, Cybil semble avoir du mal à se définir et c'est ici que la différance intervient : alors qu'oralement nous aurions cru entendre « Nolan », davantage commun, c'est plutôt « Noland » qui surgit par les signes. De cette façon, une lecture onomastique renvoie à une Cybil no land, sans terre, sans racine. De plus, cette idée se trouve accentuée par le fait que le personnage devient un « je » prenant en charge le récit immédiatement à la page présentant « la réalité virtuelle », sans attache dans le monde réel. Aussi, ce procédé se trouve directement relié à l'idée selon laquelle, outre le monde de la fiction (donc de l'écriture), rien ne permet à la femme de sortir de la fiction créée par les hommes au cours des années et où la femme est perçue comme insondable, collant ainsi à une « réalité » qui est celle de la philosophie occidentale et que Derrida tente de dépasser.

Une approche déconstructionniste permet donc d'instaurer une tension constante entre réalité et fiction (deux autres dualismes), dorénavant sur un même pied : des mots dont la différance est perceptible seulement à l'écrit (« m'ange moi », « f'éros », etc.) deviennent des termes indécidables qui permettent d'aller au-delà de la pensée binaire.

>>3207726
Oh look,

We've reached the same point we do in Bible threads where some zealous chode starts just posting entire passages like the HOLY SPIRIT will enter and convert us

>>3207716
You can read about post-modernism in books for educated laymen. Also, we're talking about post-structuralism here, not postmodernism. You can also read about post-structuralism in books for educated laymen.

>Where are the Gliecks, Kaufmanns, Strogatzes, Gell-Manns, Lorentzes etc of postmodernism?
What you're saying is "I spent all this time studying maths and science, how come I can't now instantly jump to the same level in philosophy?" The other issue may be that you are a novice in the above and simply don't realise how little you actually know, which is not uncommon.

"Deconstruction, " Derrida’s coinage, has subsequently become synonymous with a particular method of textual analysis and philosophical argument involving the close reading of works of literature, philosophy, psychoanalysis, linguistics, and anthropology to reveal logical or rhetorical incompatibilities between the explicit and implicit planes of discourse in a text and to demonstrate by means of a range of critical techniques how these incompatibilities are disguised and assimilated by the text.

>>3207737
>We've reached the same point we do in Bible threads where some zealous chode starts just posting entire passages like the HOLY SPIRIT will enter and convert us

To reach directly another line, I am gonna say that you are worst than Hitler and the nazis.

Otherwise, this is not from Derrida, it's just an illustration.

Really liked your comment otherwise on the Holy Spirit, so true.

Why do Lacan and Kristeva bastardize mathematical terms, it kind of strikes me as a charlatan's approach, ofc this doesn't negate their arguments, it just seems kinda fishy for a respected intellectual to have to pretentiously throw in set theory and topology when its clear they have no idea what those words mean. Why use them?

>>3207759
Because they know the Analytics are right, but they're too University-tier liberal artsy to exert effort.

>>3207759
>charlatan's approach

ding ding ding

good stuff

>>3207738
Nah, I've periodically banged my head against Derrida over the years but all I dig up is shaggy dog jokes. I've read a few books for laypeople just none that said anything particularly interesting or insightful. They seem to just want to communicate how ineffably clever their subjects are in pretty mystical way. Beyond platitudes one can read in the Dao that is.

>>3207874
It seems like more of a personality cult than anything else with D-bag. I have friends who can form coherent sentences about Foucault and to some extent Deleuze and Guattariri.

>>3207887
Thing is my chums are all actual leftists who think most of these radical intellectuals are actually rightwing reactionaries as per >>3207621

>>3207759
Where does Lacan do this? And what does this have to do with Derrida? Did he use mathematical terminology?

>>3207738
>What you're saying is "I spent all this time studying maths and science, how come I can't now instantly jump to the same level in philosophy?"

PROTIP: Most of those authors are pioneers in their fields and not random academics translating for laypeople. Where are the books for laypeople about post-structuralism written by important post-structuralist and not just professional dick-riders?

>>3207647
Not precisely. Your analogy assumes the castle is structurally sound. Deconstruction would be saying like, "there is a castle in your mind that appears sound, but if you looked at it closely it's made up of ideas that contradict one another."

You guys aren't going to get a good idea of postmodern philosophy just by reading Derrida and Foucault and all the other French poststructuralists.
Niggas, you gotta look at feminist studies. Postcolonial studies.

I'll tell you what postmodernism is about: it's against the privelaged stance that modern studies tend to take. It's against the idea of the objective scientist and the observable world. There's a focus on the deconstruction of language cause that's where the meat and potatoes of postmodernism is.
There's a lot of good stuff being written in contemporary philosophy. You just gotta look in the right place.

>>3207908
You probably won't find it in a book. Look in journals. By running "postmodernism" through my university library's site I can get to some good information regarding it. It's sorta like reading a wikipedia article, you're learning something but your ego doesn't like it because you can't show it off on your bookcase.

>>3207917
>it's against the privelaged stance that modern studies tend to take
LOL, you drank some fucking cool-aide there Monsieur.

Academic postmodernism is *opposed* to those things and seeks to denature and banalize them.

>>3207891
Just as long as they don't imply that Western bourgeois critique was in any way liberatory. And I am including Frankfurt here.

>>3207901
Lacan's metaphor for the phallus' "imaginary" nature.

>>3205785
my post had absolutely nothing to do with purpose or definition, but it was actually a demonstration of how meaning works

computer code is meaningless for me if i open up the code of a java program. in no way does it follow i can get mad at the programmer. it takes a lot of training, experience, and reading in order to see what the code actually means. this is similar to reading derrida. if you open up grammatology without having any prior training, experience, or reading, it will appear meaningless. and then people get mad at derrida.

if you think this is just a derrida problem, go read a random passage from hegel or heidegger and tell me you immediately comprehend what's going on in the text

here, i can show you a sample:
>And since, at the same time, this object of its exertions, instead of being something essential, is the very meanest, instead of being a universal, is the merest particular--we have here before us merely a personality confined within its narrow self and its petty activity, a personality brooding over itself, as unfortunate as it is pitiably destitute.
>hegel is meaningless garbage!
>liberal nonsense
>charlatan
>emperor's new clothes

>>3207917
>It's against the idea of the objective scientist and the observable world

that's patently false

>>3207938
I did some googling and some wiki'ing but I'm not turning up any citations. I get explanations of the imaginary and the phallus, but no math analogies.

>>3207953
>This argument
>If you disagree with Derrida then you are wrong, objectively, case closed no tag-backs times infinity plus two!
You do realize that Derrida is debunking the exact dialectical hierarchy you just imposed on your opponent, correct?
>inb4 namecalling
>inb4 Dunning-Kruger Effect

>>3207938
>Just as long as they don't imply that Western bourgeois critique was in any way liberatory. And I am including Frankfurt here.
Totes fair, but the world is full of people like this going full retard 24/7 >>3207917 the entire purpose of academic activity on these subjects is the creation of walking strawpersyns.

Whit allies like these who the fuck need COINTELPRO?

>>why can't any experts on Derrida seem to give a simple definition to this term

Probably because it's all just academic masturbation; that its, bullshit.

>>3207988
>implying it doesn't have the more insidious purpose of choking out real discourse

>>3207978
I'm not saying one who disagrees with Derrida is wrong, that's not what it's about at all.

It's someone who reads something they should not expect to understand but think they can comprehend anyway. And then, when (surprise) when they don't understand, they reject it as wrong, false, useless, obscurantist, etc. THIS is what I am criticizing, I am not at all trying to settle a debate about whether or not Derrida was "right."

To put it generally: anyone having unrealistically high expectations should not be upset when they are not met.

>I ate this entire loaf of wheat bread and I still don't have a six-pack. I am never eating wheat bread again.

>>3208022
Why should one read for expertise? What inherently makes expertise more metaphysically valuable than entry-level understanding?

>>3208022
Derrida-pushers constantly use the expertise argument to justify their own belief in Deconstruction and shut down perfectly valid concerns with the theory. My question to you is this: How do we tell if we understand Derrida or not?

>>3207908
That's what I'm saying. I've done my STEM double major, buddy, I'm familiar with all of them. Just because you can "get" Lorentz doesn't mean you're a level 9 Wizard that can now into anything whether it be Theology or Pop Culture or whatever. To the concepts of post-structuralism and post-modernism you are not an educated layperson, even if you might be in other areas.

On top of that, Zizek does write some pop philosophy stuff, a bit like Michio Kaku does write pop science, though that isn't what we're talking about.

ITT confusing Derrida as the representative of post-modernism

>>3208085
Where in my argument or reasoning did you get "one should read for expertise"? I've made absolutely no comment about expertise or entry-level, let alone one being better than another.

I'm claiming that one needs training and reading/familiarity in order to understand something Derrida wrote. It's not a matter of should. Just as one needs training and reading/familiarity in order to understand java code. From here, I am saying that a person who is not well-read in philosophy expecting to understand On Grammatology is mistaken.

>>3208101
Okay, let's drop Derrida. Let's try Heidegger. Go read something from Heidegger apropos of nothing.

>In spite of the fact that 'appearing' is never a showing-itself in the sense of "phenomenon", appearing is possible only by reason of a showing-itself of something. But this showing-itself, which helps to make possible the appearing, is not the appearing itself. Appearing is an announcing-itself [das Sich-melden] through something that shows itself.

now, cue the unjustly frustrated person: "i don't understand this nonsense, why can't anyone explain dasein to me very simply? The only possible conclusion is that Heidegger is a charlatan obscurantist who purposefully writes impenetrably to create a monopoly on the academy. He's a pseudo-intellectual with nothing new to say."

The change-up of course is that no one treats Hegel, Kierkegaard, Kant, or ANY OTHER philosopher this way. Knee-jerk reactionary ire tends to concentrate on Lacan, Foucault, Derrida, and others for some reason.

>>3207874
I can understand that. The problem with making it for the layreader is showing what deconstruction "looks like" since by its very nature one cannot say "deconstruction is...", nor is there any standard method that one can point to. It also relies on a different way of looking at how we think about the world, it is a continuation of part of Heidegger's project in Being and Time after all. And then to make it all worse, many phil. and lit. courses that love it can't go into it in depth because of time, but it's incredibly important. So there's times where people have deconstruction in papers or teaching and don't know what deconstruction is. They may know one small part of it, and maybe have some inkling how that works, and that can be enough for a lot of things.

If you want a maths parallel, look up Axiom of Choice and explain everything about that in layperson's terms.

>>3207958

nuh uh. one of the basics of postmodernism is the rejection of an archimedian point

>>3208311
>Knee-jerk reactionary ire tends to concentrate on Lacan, Foucault, Derrida, and others for some reason.

That reason is that they write stuff that even smart people can't understand. The 'quantum physics test' still applies - quantum physics is really complicated, but it can still be explained to a layman with no physics knowledge. Lacan, Foucault and Derrida just write "a-bleepy bloopy derpy doopy, QED."

>>3205602
lel

Derrida tl;dr

Think of lossy vs lossless formats.

Derrida - Language is a lossy format and so are our thoughts. Our thoughts don't precede language, therefore our thoughts are lossy. Whenever I say something, it's at best 99% of what I might have intended it to be, but then again, how do I know what I intended if I only have language? Basically, any communication your thoughts and your words, and your words and someone elses words, are inherently lossy. There is no FLAC, there never was a FLAC.

Deconstruction looks closely at texts and points out where there's this lossy 96kkps of ambiguity or no meaning.

Derrida is clever but fundamentally wrong because language has a rational foundation in our brains. Science confirms this. Derrida can't actually prove his claim, he can just give examples and say "see, look, I'm right" and then Phd sheeple will say "but of course, c'est magnifique!"

>>3210025
>Derrida is clever but fundamentally wrong because language has a rational foundation in our brains. Science confirms this.

AHAHAHAHAH bullshit. cf.:

>>3209987
>>3210011

“Deconstruction holds that nothing is ever entirely itself. There is a certain otherness lurking within every assured identity. It seizes on the out-of-place element in a system, and uses it to show how the system is never quite as stable as it imagines. There is something within any structure that is part of it but also escapes its logic. It comes as no surprise that the author of these ideas was a Sephardic Jew from colonial Algeria, half in and half out of French society. If his language was French, he could also speak the patois of working-class Arabs. He would later return to his home country as a conscript in the French army, a classic instance of divided identity.”
— Terry Eagleton, in a review of a new biography

>>3209538
No it can't.

>"If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."

This is from the apostle of physics Feynman.

>>3210025
>Derrida is clever but fundamentally wrong because language has a rational foundation in our brains.

>>3210039
Yeah cunt I came up hard in the 90s
Knocking shops online was my copyright thing
Po-structs roamed our nascent USENET
And here's what I said to these cis-feminist hets:

Like a dog lying in a corner we'll bite you and never give you a shout
We'll burn your wine bars out
Because everyone hates a sociologist, especially one who thinks revolutionary collective subjectivity is a laugh
"The rhyzome" is their will to tear you apart.

>>3210025
>Derrida is clever but fundamentally wrong because language has a rational foundation in our brains

What a shitty fucking straw man. I will give you the benefit of doubt by not questioning the fact that "science has proven that language has a rational foundation in out brains" (whatever the fuck that means - that brain activity occurs? gee, amazing), but how, in any way, does this discredit Derrida?

>>3203332
>fondamental meaning behind words.
>thinks words have inherent meaning

Holy shit, so deconstruction is the result of people not grasping one of the fundamental concepts of language

I mean, if words have inherent "actual" meanings, why are there different languages at all?

Ersparen wir uns doch den transzendentalen Quatsch, wenn das Ganze so eindeutig wie ein Kinnhaken ist.

>>3207759

They use them for the sake's of understanfing via imaginary forms and metaphors.

Because otherwise, it's going to be full of sentences after sentences and you're gonna fall asleep reading them.

An image is much more synthetic and explicit.

eg : Zizek explaining the real via the magnetic field and einstein for instance.

>>3210972

Or, it's a bunch of know-nothing assholes dressing up their hilarious bullshit in mathematical terms so it sounds all intellectual 'n stuff, even though to anyone with even a passing familiarity with either subject it's instantly revealed to be nonsensical meaninglessness.

Read "Intellectual Impostures."

http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/824

>>3211261

>dawkins

How's being 12?

>>3211261
>http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/824

Yes I know this book but the point is that these very mathematical example are not use for their mathematical point but for illustration at least this is how it looks to me.

When Deleuze is talking about the conics as section of a cone (ellipse, circle; hyberbola...) and saying that the cone is the origin of the point of view, his point is not mathematical, his point is to show how perception may occur inside our visual system.

How our vision are always a projection of 3D into 2D and how we only see "profiles"

Yes the math are not necesseraly accurate but this is not the point. The point is about conveying us with an image to feel something, not to gte to the "truth" but to have a creative intuition of something even is this intuition is "false"

It a kind of between the lines.

>>3211302

Zizek :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCY31ZJO0Zg&feature=endscreen

In a first approach, Freud imagines trauma as some kind of dense, rough presence, presence so real that brutaly intruds in our symbolic space and curves it, litteraly.

Let's imagine I have my well balanced symbolic space and then suddenly something traumatic happens to me : I am raped, I witness a terryfying event, I am tortured.

And because of the traumatic impact of this event, my symbolic space gets curved : some things can not longer be symbolized, the function of those symbols have to be tampered with other symbols.

There is some kind of unbalanced, there is a gap in my symbolic space

>>3211302

You should read a little further 'til you get to the Alan Sokal prank.

Or, I can sum it up -- he submitted a paper to Social Text called 'Transgressing the Boundaries: towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity" in the every same vein, a 'proof' of postmodernist nonsense loaded with physics jargon. It was published with great acclaim, and then Sokal revealed that he'd deliberately constructed it to be completely meaningless.

>Anyone who has spent much time wading through the pious, obscurantist, jargon-filled cant that now passes for 'advanced' thought in the humanities knew it was bound to happen sooner or later: some clever academic, armed with the not-so-secret passwords ('hermeneutics,' 'transgressive,' 'Lacanian,' 'hegemony,' to name but a few) would write a completely bogus paper, submit it to an au courant journal, and have it accepted . . . Sokal's piece uses all the right terms. It cites all the best people. It whacks sinners (white men, the 'real world'), applauds the virtuous (women, general metaphysical lunacy) . . . And it is complete, unadulterated bullshit — a fact that somehow escaped the attention of the high-powered editors of Social Text, who must now be experiencing that queasy sensation that afflicted the Trojans the morning after they pulled that nice big gift horse into their city.

To repeat: Deliberately constructed to be completely meaningless but all sciencey-sounding.

>>3211333
And then in a second approach, Freud shifted his position with regards to trauma in a way with is parallel to the shift in Einstein's Theory of relativity, shift from Special to General relativity.

This shift concerns the curvature of Time-Space.

In a first approach (special relativity), it was the presence of the density of matter, of stuff, which curves the space. Space was, originaly, perceived as empty space, abstractly symetrical, non curved, then, the presence of stuff curves it.

But then in a second step; Enstein accomplish a wonderful reversal.

He just turns the terms around: it was not the presence of matter that curves space; it was on the contrary, the curvature of the space that truly mattered, that was primordial, and what we perceive as matter is just a kind of a reified, fetichist misperception of a purely formal curvature of the space.

The psychanalysis notion of trauma is exactly the same.

>>3211339

Yes I know, Taleb talked about it in "Fooled by Randomness" years ago.

It's a classic example.

The point is, except for really realistic thesis that interest themand which are not about obscure concept, the thesis directors do not care about what's written and in order not to pass as fool they just pretend that is it meaningful.

>>3211341
>>3211333

See, this is what happens when someone who has never been inside even a first-year physics classroom decides to talk about physics.

The problem is not just that it's scientifically wrong, but almost completely the opposite of the basic idea of Einsteinian general and special relativity. It's the version of relativity that a sci-fi movie character might spout to another, because neither the writer nor the audience actually have any idea about the concept, and it's incorrect.

The problem is, if you understand anything about physics, you instantly understand with both things that you're dealing with pseudointellectual bullshit, but at least the sci-fi movie is not pretending to intellectual greatness.

It has as much relation to relativity as saying "the pebble of trauma disturbs the stillness of the pond of the mind" -- actually, it's saying exactly that, but trying to dress it up as science. If you're just going to use any old metaphor you can think of, the pebble is at least intellectualy honest.

>>3211339
>>3211366
A sociologist did the same thing for physics.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/oct/10/fakingthephysics

The ringer is that the journal Sokal submitted to was not even peer-reviewed.

>>3211366

It has as much relation to relativity as saying "the pebble of trauma disturbs the stillness of the pond of the mind" --

But the point Ziek is making is not that one.

Zizek is saying that the weakenss was already there, in the lake. The lake was not still but just appear to be still wheareas is was weak and then the wave of the pebble reveals this weakness and "destroys" the lake.

Wheareas a "normal" lake would then come back to stillness, this already weakened lake is badly injured (schzizophrenia).

>>3205805
>How does "deconstructionism" improve the human condition?

You've exposed yourself. Go the fuck back to /sci/.

>>3211425

+1

>>3203924
You can do that with literally most multisyllabic words. Words are misused, that is their fate.

>>3211436

Yes: signifiers and signifieds are deeply ingrained in our language. But I think the argument here is that there is nothing inherently "duck" about Daffy or any other duck. The argument is not that "duck" is not semi-universal in English.

The argument is instead that "duck" comes with baggage. No English speaker has the same understanding of the word duck. It all depends on other signifiers and personal understandings of other signifiers. Someone who was anally raped by a duck does not ascribe the same connotation to the word as a person who had a pet duck.

To have such radically different understandings of the word is to essentially say that the word duck is meaningless. There's also a bit about an endless chain of signifiers and signified, but I don't feel like that.

>>3211402
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/oct/10/fakingthephysics

>if you look at the answers given they are really very similar

So his answers were correct, even though he didn't understand the underlying math, because he'd been talking with physicists. I can tell you the basic method of operation of local anaesthetic without understanding ion transfer and the actual chemical mechanics involved. This does not mean that local anaesthetic doesn't work or that doctors are charlatans.

Simply, the sociologist knew how to answer a provable question correctly, despite not having the math background, whereas Sokal deliberately made up complete bullshit and got it published. See the difference?

>was not even peer-reviewed.

It was nonsense, friend. Nonsense. The editors of a Duke University academic journal should be able to recognize deliberate meaninglessness when it is submitted to them. Instead they thought it was keen and published it.

>>3211405

In that case, it has absolutely nothing to do with Einsteinian physics, and it is even more clearly pseudointellectual dishonesty to try to frame it in that terminology. Any metaphor that the audience will grasp will do there, but the deliberate choice of using the (totally wrong) pop-culture sense of relativity is worse than the pebble and the pond.

If you're going to try to dress up your philosophy in scientific terminology, you have to understand the science.

>>3211444
>Someone who was anally raped by a duck does not ascribe the same connotation to the word as a person who had a pet duck.

>>3211444
>the word duck is meaningless

Hmm, now I feel like reading the Tractatus.

>>3211444
>To have such radically different understandings of the word is to essentially say that the word duck is meaningless.

The understanding isn't different, both people will think of a bird in the Anatidae family.

They will feel differently about that same duck and ducks in general, but they'll know we're talking about ducks.

Therefore what you're saying doesn't make any sense.

>>3211444
>>3211468

I can't get past how hilariously wrong that is

>person A doesn't like Big Macs
>person B loves them
>therefore "Big Mac" is meaningless

>>3211473

You forgot person C who got raped by one.

>>3211495
>implying burger rape doesn't go without saying

>>3211468
I'm not sure who has been giving the best answers in this thread but what about words in the instance of religion?
Specifically, what does one think of when the word God is mentioned? Their interpretation of God is obviously not the same as one who does not even believe in him.
Perhaps religion is too abstract a concept? Sorry, I'm just trying to get this wrapped around my head.

>>3211520

I'm sure people have different ideas of Edward Cullen, too!

>>3211449
"Really similar" doesn't mean "his answers were correct." It remains analogous to the Sokal article in that the language Sokal uses is also "really similar" to post-modern philosophy. The larger point is to "simulate understanding" as the author says. Both Sokal and Collins simulated understanding.

>Nonsense, friend. Nonsense.
http://linguafranca.mirror.theinfo.org/9607/mst.html

Just because you personally feel incredulous doesn't make it nonsense. The link above shows in depth how the journal was not peer reviewed. Just because Duke publishes something doesn't mean they reviews and edit the submissions. It was, and remains, an independent journal.

Whether or not it's a great choice for Duke to print and distribute a non-peer reviewed journal is another question.

Further, Sokal's paper didn't prove anything. It's one point, and we are to draw conclusions from a single point of data? The only other attempt I know of to replicate Sokal's results ended in failure: Robb Willer's made-up article was rejected with the message "Revise and resubmit."

Have a couple more:
>theoretical physics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_Affair
>comp sci
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCIgen

>>3211520

Derrida answers himself somewhat about it :

>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyOWAcpIaB8

>>3211464
would actually be philosophical investigations

>>3211560

Gavagai !!!

>>3211549
>"Really similar" doesn't mean "his answers were correct."

Yes, actually, for a physics question, "really similar" to the actual authority's answer means "correct." Unlike, say, postmodernism, math-based stuff is either right or wrong. In this example, the guy was right, but didn't understand the underlying math.

If Person A tells you the answer of a complicated equation that you don't know how to do, and then Person B asks you for the answer, you can give the correct answer without understanding the math. Dig?

>Just because Duke publishes something doesn't mean they reviews and edit the submissions

Uh, actually, it does. That's how a submitted paper ends up being printed in the journal. You submit something, one of the editors reviews it, and decides whether to publish it or not. Or do you think manuscripts just transmute into journal pages by magic?

>Just because you personally feel incredulous doesn't make it nonsense

The thing they published was nonsense. It didn't make any sense, because it was deliberately constructed to make sure it didn't. But he used all the right buzzwords and took the right attitudes, and so to the presses it went!

>Further, Sokal's paper didn't prove anything.

Actually it did! It proved that you can carefully construct something to be deliberately meaningless, load it with hilarious math errors that a first-year student would easily identify, and submit it to a respected humanities journal, whereupon the editors will soberly review it, decide it's great, and publish it.

>Comp Sci
>doesn't know what comp sci is
>theoretical physics concerned with the moment of the Big Bang
>doesn't understand why that's hilarious

>>3211569
Dear Quine,

I wish you good luck with that one ;)

Signed : Daffy Duck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v5HlAx1Z40&playnext=1&list=PLzRgVwQtrMUZvnsOVry97UNlxipZ9vpV
q&feature=results_video

>>3211590

Open question :

Is Quine person C and Cahoone Person B ?

>>3203188
Deconstruction is what you get when you ask who made the Little Prince a prince, and what is he prince of except his own ego.

>>3211586
>Just because Duke publishes something

Not Duke but Duck, Daffy Duck (also know as Person A)

>>3211602

Deconstruction is holding a spare eyebrow.

>and being raped by it because it's a man's eyebrow

>>3211602

"A signifier represent a subject for an other signier"

Jacques L

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction

>>3211608

We see the way in which successive signs are contaminated. That's not meant to be a bad word but suggests being influenced, one might say, in the sense of "open the window and influenza," by those signs that precede it.

>That's what gives us, in the language of deconstruction, what we call "the chain," the signifying chain: not an organizational pattern but an ever self-replicating and self-extending pattern, irreducibly linear and forward-progressing through a sequence of temporal associations.

>>3211634

in other words, if one signifier leads to another--if like history, where there's one damn thing after another, speech is one damn signifier after another-- then that is actually the nature of the associations that Saussure has been talking about in the first place.

But it doesn't exist in a systemic space; it exists in an unfolding time !!!

>>3211639
>"A signifier represent a subject for an other signier"

A
signifier
represent
a
subject
for
an
other
signifier


Line after line, the meaning is built (or not)

>>3211644


If a = a represents identity, a = − a (not- a ) points to the fact that the signifier is
different to itself.

When Lacan defines a signifier as what represents a subject to another signifier, in this definition the subject is excluded/represented by the
signifier.

At the same time when the signifier is understood as different to itself,
then the signifier is also excluded in the process of representation.

Lacan says that the signified/meaning of a signifier is another signifier. In other words, a signifier

S 1 is defined by another signifier S 2 and in this signifying process S 1 becomes
excluded by S 2 .

By representing a signifier with another signifier, the first signifier
is excluded.

The principle of identity ( a = a ) is the same as the principle of noncontradiction,

whereas the principle of contradiction is the same as the principle of non-identity ( a = not- a ).

>>3211608

A signifier represents then, and what it represents is a subject.

But it only does so for another signifier.

What does the expression “for another signifier” mean, if not that the distinction between subject and signifier posed in the first part of the definition is being subverted in the second?

“Subject‘’ and “Signifier” are complicated in a definition that is unable either to separate them totally or to fuse them completely.

There are three positions in the definition, two of which are occupied by the same word, but that word is differentiated from itself in the course of the definition — because it begins to take the place of the other word.

The signifier for which the other signifier represents a subject thus acts like a subject because it is the place where the representation is “understood.”

The signifier, then situates the place of something like a reader. And the reader becomes the place where the representation would be understood if there were any such thing as a place beyond representation the place where representation is inscribed as an infinite chain Of substitutions whether or not there is any place from which it can be understood.

I find this an extremely subtle and useful discrimination of the extremely slippery relationship between subject and signifier in Lacan.

>>3211586
"Really similar" to what? So if I submit a paper that looks really similar to other papers to a physics journal and get it published, that means its correct?

>math based stuff is either right or wrong
I'm now confused. Sokal's beef was with people who use math/physics as metaphors, analogies, homologies, etc. This is actually a case in which the math itself is not right or wrong, but concerns the integrity of the analogy. Analogies illustrate arguments, and aren't instrumental. Even more: I thought the math had to be "right or wrong" in physics. Is this not the case? The math can be wrong?

>Uh, actually, it does
You're just going off assumptions on how the journal works. The editors of Social Text reviewed the article, not professors at Duke. The editors were voluntary, and not professionally appointed.

>It didn't make any sense
I'm not sure if you've actually read the Sokal paper, but formally speaking, the argument is intelligible and he comes to a conclusion from a clear line of reasoning. What is "bullshit" is the content. The paper is sensible, but the evidence is fraudulent and this makes the conclusion/thesis incredible.

>Actually it did!
You don't understand what it means to give proof. The publication is as I said one anecdote. Anecdotes are not sufficient for proof.

And just curious, what were the errors in the paper that a first-year student could easily identify? This is an unfair question, because there is no mathematical computation in the paper. You haven't read it, and are just arguing this entire thing from the seat of your pants. Please do some research and reading.

>>3211644
>Line after line, the meaning is built (or not)

So each line is a metaphor for how, when time passes the words takes new signification in our heads.

So that when the novel we were reading has come to an end if we reread it everything will have a new meaning because each word will be seen in context with the entire text.

Hence : unfolding time !!!

Social Text didn't send papers out for peer review. This was the intention of the journal—it was designed to cultivate atypical scholarship.

Sokal displayed intellectual dishonesty in trolling a low grade journal.

>>3203895

back in time", or it can mean "progressive" as in "to push back a deadline".

"To cleave" can mean "to cling" or "to split".
"Fast" can mean "moving quickly" as in "running fast," or it can mean "not moving" as in "stuck fast."

"To overlook" can mean "to inspect" or "to fail to notice".

"Oversight" (uncountable) means "supervision", "an oversight" (countable) means "not noticing something".

"Off" can mean "deactivated" as in "to turn off", or it can mean "activated" as in "the alarm went off".

>>3210924
hmm you didnt understand me. i said that there is a meaning behind words (which is always other words, because its a meaning).
I think you misunderstand totaly deconstruction if you think there's an inherent eternal meaning in the words, but the word express (consciously and mostly unconstiously) somehting, a signification, which is other words. So langage is basically a circle : to define words, you need words.

And to be honest, i think the way you answered me show the deconstruction point : you cant understand a simple definition in a sentence. You tried to argue with what i said without actually trying to see what i meant with my comment.
As someone said in the comments : deconstruction is the struggle for definition. Always searching for a definition, but its impossible, meaning is missing in all those words.
Derrida once said : more langages. i let you interpret that

>>3208292
>Michio Kaku

>>3211916
>>>3208292
>>Michio Kaku

>>3211870
My interpretation is an erotic dance that necessarily involves the political execution of Derrida. It can be performed once, and only in a country without murder laws.

>>3203188
that is literally costanza

>>3211916
>>3211918
>Carl Sagan was the best physician

>>3211717
>Sokal displayed intellectual dishonesty in trolling a low grade journal.

He also put out his "gotcha!" the day it was published. He gave no time fore any readers of the journal to call bullshit. It was nothing more than a publicity stunt. It was a bitch move and it ruined the joke. The prank would have been a lot funnier and more meaningful if he'd got some feedback.

What Watchmen and Evangelion do.

Science has actually proven Derrida wrong.

The tiny part of the brain that governs linguistic skills cannot account for the complexity of consciousness.

Chomsky's deep grammar is stronger than Derrida's linguistic nihilism.

>>3213506
fuck off.

>>>/sci/

>>3213507
Not from /sci/. He's just putting forth a theory that cannot be proven.

Then assholes like Paul de Man come and ruin the study of literature.

>>3213507
I'm sorry, so we're not allowed to critique Derrida?

Cool. So deconstruction is gonna last forever. Word.

>>3213506
Jesus fuck, please stop posting shitty pseudo-science.

The nativist language acquisition device has not been proved in any meaningful way, so to spout it as some kind of fact (i.e. that because there is a part that is always active when processing language and is essential that somehow this makes it the only thing that we call language. Part=! whole) is ridiculous.

If you have to bring /sci/-shit here then please check your source privilege, it is essential to empirical science, you gigantic faggot.

Do you seriously believe that Derrida is taken seriously because of some kind of "collective delusion" where he has already been proven wrong by science, like the case of the Earth being flat or not?

Fucking right; I am indeed mad.

>>3213549
It's called physics envy. And the french don't believe in science if it comes from outside of France.

>>3213549
Derrida isn't taken seriously in philosophy departments, only in north american English departments.

What are you even saying?

I never understood the hype around Derrida. I guess it's because I encountered Wittgenstein first, and no doubt he is the greater and more rigorous philosopher.

>>3209538
>>3209538
>>3209538
>>3209538
>>3209538
>>3209538
>>3209538

Truth.

What's that I hear? Justice cannot be deconstructed? Justice allows for deconstruction?!?

Wow, isn't that the most Jewish thing ever.

Deconstruction is essentially jewish gnosticism. It's hypocrisy 101.

>>3213578
Derrida was basically just an academic pop star.

>>3213570
I'm sorry, I am French not American and thus I can only speak from my own experience but Derrida is still considered relevant.

As to what I was saying: it is retarded to invoke science as an authority, ESPECIALLY when there is no conclusive evidence pointing towards either espousing Chomsky or refuting Derrida. It's plan bullshit, tjat is what I am saying.

>>3213602
ℵ0Deepℵ1U

>>3209538
Yes, and you can describe Derrida to a layman, but of course you miss out on the details or "mathematics" of the thing.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/derrida/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derrida

Just because you have some tic where you hand-wave off everything you don't understand and appeal to some imaginary group of "very smart people" who also don't understand it doesn't mean that everyone else doesn't understand it and are as intellectually impoverished and lazy as you.

>>3213602
Welp, I don't know nuthin' bout deconstruction, but I do like me my mystical tracts on the figure/nature of the Godhead.

Explain to me deconstruction in terms of Gnosticism.

>>3213642
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derrida
>Implying wiki articles on anything even remotely technical are readable and not autistic text dumps.

What if we understand what Derrida is getting at, but still think that deconstruction is garbage?

Is that ok? or are we required to love him.

>>3203188
>What is deconstructionism, and why can't any experts on Derrida seem to give a simple definition to this term? I refuse to believe that there is a term that cannot be defined in less than a paragraph.

If you're worried about that, get someone to try to explain what post-modernism is. It's leg-slappingly funny watching them trying to twist their bullshit into coherence.

>>3213649
I think the reigning idea among his fans is that not loving Derrida is de-facto evidence of not understanding him.

>>3213658

I just feel like if you can read Plato's Pharmacy and understand that, he basically just takes that template he comes up with there and applies it to other things for the rest of his career. Which I don't think really is all that revolutionary.

Also Lacan is garbage as well. Ecrits is hilariously bad, and I would recommend it to people here as a comedy piece.

>>3213658
>>3213658
This.

Pretty much no one is a deconstructionist, they are Derrideans.

They love that there's no stable meaning and that the author is never present, but they never critique or go against Derrida in any way. Any time someone critiques deconstruction the retort is one of two things
1. You misunderstand deconstruction
2. I can deconstruct your critique

>>3203208
nope, its not nihilism. Deconstruction is the idea of examining a concept by further examining the individual pieces as seperate, then by how they interact, with an inherent understanding that the pieces re symbols which only have the meanings that they are assigned. The idea was to counter the flaws of language, namely that the words used in language are symbols with assigned meanings that are generally agreed upon, but restricting because the agreement limits the ideas the words can express. Deconstructionism attempts to alter the agreed upon meanings to better express ideas or create new understanding.

>>3213697
Not a huge Zizek fan but these are great.
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p36NeCAucRI
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuZXplZvlVU

>I refuse to believe that there is a term that cannot be defined in less than a paragraph.

Reductionism much? good luck with college

>>3213697
but monsieur, are thou not the truest of deconstructionists then, no? willfully and proudly, the blond beast gallantly deconstructs the deconstructionists! naturellement, how else being the roi de deconstrution could he act; he accuses them of being Derrideans, charlatans- les bêtes noires! is that not the epitome of deconstruction, no? do you not agree, monsieur? can you not see the greatness of your act, the ultimate deconstruction?

mon dieu! of course you cannot, my beloved blond beast in the vanguard, of course. it is clear to me: being what you are, you must never surrender even to my sincerest of words. yes, even this flattery from the heart must be constructed. how tragic yet noble, monsieur, et how truly fortunate I am for this day. will I ever become upon such aristocratic radiance again? qui vivra, verra.. no?

>>3213708
There's two stances you can take towards deconstruction. One, that's just an unproductive nihilism. The other that it allows for an innumerable possibilities for new meaning etc

There are two stances and you ultimately need to choose one.
>>3213711
I feel you on this, brother. Derrida really started a cult.

>>3213732
You're back! <3

>>3213732
mfw the monsieur guy returns

>>3204000
nice trips
about your first example: deconstruction is not about devaluing at all. You said what a man was, and all the characteristics that define a man to you. but your definition is not the end-all of describing man. what about other people's and culture's definition of man? what about other attributes others would say your definition lacks? hell, just consider the arguments with cis supporters about being a man as merely a state of mind. The point is definitions are subjective and contextual, and this creates limits in the ideas any language can express.

>>3213732
2/10

>>3213732
>monsieur
>monsieur
>monsieur
you know, there are hackers that will make it their life goal to fuck you if you get anoying enough

>>3213738
But its not nihilism. saying "everything has no meaning" and leaving the argument there negates the possibilities that the idea presents. its more accurate to say "everything has given meaning." most excitingly, in my opinion, this means meanings can actively change based on a number of factors. i feel like this idea is core to the understanding of literature. just think about all the times a story greatly affected you, but not in a fantasy novel context, in a novel where only seemingly mundane things happened. those mundane things and actions obtained meaning via context, and so the very words you were reading fluidly gained additional definitions, even if they were temporary. this is how metaphors work. its how language works. deconstruction, even before it had a name, was always a fundamental concept that great authors had to have some understanding of. its inherent to storytelling.

>>3213745
Looks like he took a french class too.

>>3213769
>>3213791
Maybe this scared him off, we can only hope such hackers exist

>>3213769
may so be, monsieur, may so be!

"silence is the perfectest herald of joy", yes? so it may be, monsieur! but so it follows "I were but little happy, if I could say how much" - and i concur to trying, monsieur, yes i admit of your critique! but can you wholeheartedly, dans votre coeur, judge a man for trying, monsieur? i hope not, i hope not indeed, for such a thing would bring me to hell faster than expected.

as for these 'hackers', i am not in fear of them, i am most appreciate of them! c'est vrai, i am actually on of them - many times can i count when the ephitet 'hack' has been assigned to me. c'est ironique, no, that they should be my bane? if that is so, then peut-être i am my own end, monsieur. how tragic that is, yes? i hope you do not judge me vile for my act itself, monsieur, for that is my fear above all.

>>3213785
It is a nihilism because language resides on nothing. That's Derrida's big claim that allows him to go beyond Saussure and Wittgenstein and pretty much everyone else.

>deconstruction, even before it had a name, was always a fundamental concept that great authors had to have some understanding of. its inherent to storytelling.

Please, no Paul de Man. Literature is not authentic if its proto-deconstruction. Sorry.

>>3213834
Once i've read monsieur i stopped reading, i advice you all to do the same.
And to the monsieur guy I advice you to get a gf.

>>3208311
Worst. Post. In. This. Thread.

>>3208311
> why can't anyone explain dasein to me very simply?

I can.

Dasein = thing which naturally asks the question 'why is there something rather than nothing?'

>>3213769
>>3213842
>H4x0rs
>Advice you
>Get a gf

MG, you anger all the right people.
It is only gratitude that prevents me from wishing you never have anything better to do that troll /lit/.

>>3213877
you support shitty trolls, how edgy

>>3213896
Better edgy than dull.

>>3213900
16edgy246me

>>3213837
the idea is not that language resides on nothing, its that language resides on whatever we assign it to reside on. maybe a symbol in its base state means nothing, but its gains meaning as soon as one is assigned to it.

dont believe me. here's the number "0" it means literally "nothing" complete lack and absence. but it also has infinite other meanings. at the end of a 5 it means 50, even when its just a place holder.

proto-deconstructionism in literature merely refers to the ability for assigned symbols to attain new meanings via context.

define what makes literature authentic.

>>3213905
Too dull for me.

>>3213896
As if the monsieur posts aren't consistently better than 80% of the posts here.

>>3213915
423little creativy for someone who judges himself not dull142412412me

>>3213924
ℵ0obviously offended at having ones pretensions mocked by someone clearly more clever and erudite ℵ1 me not be consistently amused .

>>3213934
I pity the poor soul who thinks they have seen erudition in this forum.

>>3213910
> define what makes literature authentic.

That's exactly what Paul de Man does. He differentiates literature from other forms of writing and then he says that good literature is proto-deconstrutionist and any good author was already aware of deconstruction.

Basically, it shows how the biggest follower of Derrida is a retard.

>>3213937
i pity the modern daedalus, monsieur le scholastic blockhead, lost in a maze of a thousand references, figuring he is erudite, or something, when really he is just confused and unintelligible, a kind of absurd walking self-parody that writers don't parody anymore because it's a vile cliche to do so. you have to look up satires in the literary museums to see how fucking absurd they are.

>>3213937
It is strictly relative monsieur. What makes it so enjoyable is the facility with which one can outshine and outwit the average poster in this game of repartee in spite of the affectitions, which if believed would make one feel otherwise.

>>3213940
I wasn't saying deconstructionism defines good literature. i was saying the practice of deconstructionism is inherent, even when the idea did not yet have a name. its not good literature, its all literature.

btw, you not only failed to define what makes literature authentic but instead devolved your comment into personal attack.

>>3203827
This makes no sense.

>>3213647
>using fallacies
>missing the point of my post entirely

>>3208311
This is one of the most convoluted and illogical posts I've read on /lit/.

I congratulate you.

>>3213971
Are you dense? I'm saying that Paul de Man is making the exact argument you're making, and highlighting the problematic consequences of that interpretation.

I get that all texts are already deconstructed, cool, thanks.

>>3207465
Please go away
This is such horrible nonsense ;__;

>>3213997
What's wrong with it? Pretty clear imo

>>3214033
You have to read the post before that one to get it. He denies that one must possess expertise to read Derrida, then goes on to insist that one must have experience or knowledge pertinent to Derrida to read Derrida. In other words, he basically says "No, that's not what I'm saying!" and then says just that in other words.

Then he references a guy whose post he completely ignores as he goes on to repeat his thesis, as if that thesis wished away all of its own dilemmas and riddles.

>>3214022
no, all you said was Paul de Man said that, then you called me a retard. That's not an argument.

>>3214084
This.

I dont know why you guys are so mad about Derrida. There's a bunch of philosophers which have a more complex writing style then him and nobody complain. I'm thinking about Bataille who said that moon and earth were making love, and seas rise cause the earth is wetting. Saw nobody complain about that.
Pretty sure you guys are whining cause of pseudo-philosophers like Carnap or Searle. Damn Phalologocentric bitches

>>3214095
Nobody actually takes Bataille seriously, that's more "poetic" I use the term loosely than convoluted, and Bataille doesn't have an idiotic fanbase.

>>3214115
i bet there is some german somewhere in some german university with some german seriousness who is right now thinking some german thoughts about bataille and taking him very seriously.

>>3214127
It's possible, but inconsequential.
He's probably thinking, "This guy seriously sucks."

>>3214133
tell me about. everything in the universities is inconsequential and superfluous these days.

>>3214138
You have your opinions and I have mine.

>>3214145
quot homines tot sententiae

sometimes i just want to watch the world burn

>>3214155
>quot homines tot sententiae
Well I have two opinions so...
Which one of you fuckers doesn't have an opinion?!?

>>3214084
I didn't call you a retard. I called Paul de Man a retard.

At best I said your argument leads to something that was also propounded by someone who happened to have trisomy.

>>3214163
See
>>3214022
>Are you dense?

>>3214095
The problem is that Bataille never had a massive dogmatic cult following.

Searle is cool. Derrida's debate with him was bs. Derrida purposefully closed off discussion on points where they both have something valuable to say, just so he could arrogantly show off how much better deconstruction is than everything else.

Deconstruction claims to open up possibilities for discourse, but Derrida was actually closing that off.

Also, have you heard what he's got to say about the word apartheid?

>>3214163
wonderful, but you did nothing to disprove him. actually, you said "i get that all texts are already deconstructed" so you agreed with me.

>>3213785
That's still nihilism, bro.

Op here. Am I right to conclude that these two posts are the most accurrate summaries of deconstructionism:

>>3207743
>>3207621

If this is the case, then what derrida is doing is attacking the scholarly traditon of connecting this text and that text when there is no connection, correct? i.e. bullshit papers connecting every reference to the word mother in a book to freud

I also want to add that everyone attacking derrida seems to be conluding that his work is meaningless...but without any specific quotes from his text and explaining why

>>3214176
You just hit on a really big point for me as a reader.

Deconstructionists, Derridians, etc. All take these positions that things are relative etc. which is fine and all - They also try to knock down prior 'elite' thoughts and all that.
Also okay.

But you can't do that, pretend what you're doing is opening discourse, and then absolutely shut everyone and everything else down.

That is part of the nature of the deconstructionists to me - That they purposefully phrase things in such a way to overwhelm the common man into thinking either "I'm stupid" or "They must be right since it's so wordy' - Which is absurd to me. If anything, THAT is truly elitist and is degrading and stagnating towards the intellectuals attempting to branch out and learn. It is shutting people down who read it, dismissing those who challenge it as "misunderstanding", and it overall I think is an actual net negative to intellectual discourse - I HATE the idea of purposefully making the nature of academic literature and discussion something based upon elite-hood like that.

It makes me sad.

It just seems so hypocritical in nature to me.

>>3214407
Exactly. Deconstruction claims to open up discourse, but it puts the keys to that open discourse in the hands of a very select few people.

Most of what you said has been said by Foucault when he criticized Derrida for using deconstruction to constantly defend himself from the criticiques of others. Basically, no matter what you say, Derrida can always say, "a-ha! you misunderstand me! this is what I'm actually saying." Derrida never has to concede that he's wrong, and the other person is always felt like they're just too stupid and must be missing something.

Basically, deconstruction says the meaning of things, particularly with words, remains an open book. He's not saying that in the end things don't have any real meaning. He's saying that they can't have only one meaning, that the conversation of what things mean must remain eternally open. You can field a meaning, sorta analyze a boundary around it. But you can't directly point it out, meanings don't work that way.

His reasoning behind this has to with the phenomenon of meaning slipping in transmission. That is to say, as the connotations change around things so do the meaning of the things themselves change. The more connotations that go into the reading, the more meanings the things pick-up. It's to say that with every new reading, a new interpretation emerges.

Derrida's deconstruction was an reaction to Structuralism, which stated that meanings are eternal waiting to be released by analysis. Derrida hated that and thought it imposed some kind of social class ordering.

>>3214064
>he basically says "No, that's not what I'm saying!" and then says just that in other words.

This is standard. I'm pretty sure they spend an hour each morning on drill of this at Derridean colleges.

youmustbenewhere.jpg

>>3214416
>>3214407
>>3214176

>>3203188
Only read about a quarter of the thread so far, but... A quick read of the summary on Wikipedia (and a quick hop into the definition of a "Binary Opposition") leads me to believe this:

Deconstruction is about stepping back and re-examining your assumptions, especially the ones you didn't realize you made.

In the context of literature, a deconstruction would thus be when you keep the skeleton of a story ("teenage girls fight monsters using magic"), but tell it with different assumptions ("this is not a good thing").

>>3214789
>read 1/4 of the thread
>read Wikipedia
>???????
>interpretation

Wow. Deconstructionism seems like the best thing to apply to literature if you have to do an essay. No professor will ever be able to tell you that you don't understand Derrida.

>>3214407
>>3214416
You both seem like you just don't get deconstructionism. You can't just dismiss there being any meaning behind deconstructionism without posting textual evidence from Derrida's works.

>>3214873
All you had to do was read a few posts upthread and mimic that, it's no more original than rearranging the perspective in a greentext story, but I'll give you an 8/10 because it's still fucking obnoxious and part of me thinks you're serious.

>>3214416
>very select few people.

This is naive. If anything Deconstruction opened the conversation up to more people. It was Structuralism that limited the meaning of things to a select few, mainly Academia. (This was why he is still hated so much. His teachings are considered a threat.)

The thing about Derrida and not conceding wrongness, is missing the point. His reaction is to the logocentrism with calling things wrong. (Granted, he had an ego about it, but so is everybody else when confronted over something.)

So, when Derrida says, "No you misunderstand me!" he's not trying to dodge defeat, or escape admitting an error. He's reacting to the idea that if one meaning of something makes wrong, then all the meanings with it must make it wrong as well. A terrible assumption to make.

If anything can be said, Derrida spoke out against those privileged to be the definitive source of interpreting something--the authorities of meaning. Derrida charged that given how meaning works, they can't always be the ones to say what things mean, other people have very much the same right to call out other meanings as well.

>>3207703
>The link http://www.newphilsoc.org.uk/wordpress/?p=1355
>is one of the best account of deconstruction and binaries thinking I've come accross.

Yeah, and you can add Migley's point of view on the binary Nature/Culture

Culture is a natural function.

We have evolved to be the creatures who have cultures.

It could be said that we spin culture as naturally as spider spin webs.

If this is so, then we can no more do without culture than a spider can do without its web : our need for culture is both innate and natural.

In this way, Midgley hopes both :
-to account for human uniqueness
-to put us in the larger context of our evolutionary past

Midgley sees philosophy as plumbing, something that nobody notices until it goes wrong.

"Then suddenly we become aware of some bad smells, and we have to take up the floorboards and look at the concepts of even the most ordinary piece of thinking.

The great philosophers ... noticed how badly things were going wrong, and made suggestions about how they could be dealt with"

>>3203815
>Whatever may have been the moment and the circumstances of its appearance in the scale of animal life, language could only have been born in one full swoop (all at a time). Things could not have set about signifying progressively. A crossing over came about from a stage where nothing had a meaning to another where everything possessed it”.

Criticism that to suppose that yesterday there was no language, there were just things as they are without meaning, and that today there is language--that things have meaning as a result of there now being in place that semiotic system we call language-- he points out that this means that culture somehow or another must come after nature.

There was nature; now there is culture, which is very much like an event or birth in the older sense.

In fact, as soon as we have culture-- Levi-Strauss expresses this feeling especially in a famous book called Tristes Tropiques-- as soon as we have culture, we begin to feel overwhelming nostalgia for nature; but, says, Derrida, "What is this nostalgia other than the fact that the very thing we're nostalgic for comes into existence as a result of the nostalgia?"

In other words, there is no nature unless you have culture to think it.

Nature is a meaningless concept just like the lack of meaning within nature, where there's no culture until culture comes along and says,

"Oh, not so much there is nature, but I'm terribly unhappy because before I came along, there was nature."

Right? This is the nostalgia or regret of the ethnographer who says, "Now as a result of this terrible Eurocentrism, as a result of the terrible ethnocentrism of the Europeans studying these things, we no longer have a savage mind."

>>3203838
>Language doesn't do that. Language is perpetually immersed in itself. Derrida is claiming that language is different in the sense that it makes no sense to talk about it as standing outside of what's going on..

"Well, sure God came into being; man came into being; consciousness came into being. That's all very well, but they're just head signifiers in metaphysics. There's something different about language."

Right? What both Derrida and de Man say about the difference when one thinks of language coming into being, from thinking about all those other things coming into being, is that language does not purport to stand outside of itself.

It cannot stand outside of itself. It cannot constitute itself.

It is perpetually caught up in its own systematic nature so that it's a center.

We have to resist excessive commitment to this idea of it being a center, but it is at least not a center which somehow stands outside of itself and is a center only in the sense that it is some remote, hidden, impersonal, distant cause.

Language is caught up in itself in a way that all of these other moments were not.

>>3214789
>Madoshit

go back to /a/ and stay there

If you read just the opening to Violence and Metaphysics, you can understand what Derrida was trying to achieve with deconstruction: the death of philosophy.