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Derrida and Deconstruction - Coggle Diagram
Derrida and Deconstruction
Marx etc on truths and knowledge
humans manufacture truths, shaping what counts as true in the material world and reshaping themselves through this
creating new forms of knowledge and ways of being knowledgeable
this knowledge is not fixed, varying from time and place e.g Kuhn says revolutions and paradigm shifts occur in how we think about ourselves, society, practices
situated by culture, history and society and interwoven with politics as every system of knowledge privileges some groups or ideas over others
Genealogies of knowledge
this is tracing knowledge claims back to its point of origin/s by:
tracing back to practices/activities/settings that knowledge arises within (Schutz, Sacks, Wacquant and Fish, and Shapin)
tracing back to historical development - 'histories of the present' (Foucault, Marx)
tracing back to the point of articulation - moment claim is made (Derrida, Spivak)
What is deconstruction
adopts this^ 3rd strategy of interrogating the knowledge makming process at the start, the act of it being claimed
this prevents text (writing/discourse) from breaking free of context - Derrida argue that text could be anything at once without context 'there is nothing but context'
deliberately Derrida does not give a clear definition, as attempting to capture 'texts' in definitions in self-defeating, meaning can never be fixed - he wants to interrupt normal habits of thinking and liberate ourselves from preconceptions/restrictions
it is not a method to be mindlessly repeated, not an analysis or critique or argumentative style, but shares commonalities with these
it is a way of reading/analysing that questions assumptions, disrupts conventions and structures they depend on, exposes hierarchies, shows how texts undermine themselves and is unique each time as dealing with singular 'texts'
disrespectful, interruptive process that works by creating or locating interferences
The opposites game
Derrida says western thought relies on binary oppositions, agreed by structuralists that see them are fundamental, pre-given, determined by abstract structures e.g. metaphysics - determine ways we know the world through strutcures of thought
e.g. man/woman, reason/emotion, north/south, culture/nature, us/them, science/superstition, raw/cooked, good/bad
Derrida focuses on marginal/trivial details/cases e.g. minor term or image and use these as sources of insight to dismantle larger oppositions
there is a tendency to view oppositions as grounded in the ultimate nature of things
but through deconstruction reveals the instability of oppositions and how boundaries can be redrawn, they are not fixed
the oppositions/distinctions are not natural or equal (one side privileged) and they are historically constructed and politically loaded - reinforce hierarchies
deconstruction allows the oppositions to dismantle/expose themselves, bringing out its contextual/situated character - rather than resolving problems showing they are not problems at all (Wittgenstein's method of dissolving)
strategy
first locate use of oppositions in practice, is it presented as obvious, keeping an eye out for oddities, and the seemingly unimportant
reverse
the hierarchy of the opposition, exposing the hidden value system of the binary - finding either:
showing the argument contradicts itself, self-deconstructs as they undermine themselves e.g. human beings cannot fly, but we made planes that can so the statement is self-defeating
showing the statement is senseless, meaningless, may seem profound but not telling us anything, or seen that it is empty by imagining the opposite
hollow statement can still do a lot in particular contexts e.g.politically useful rhetorical devices, statements 'for' something suggesting others are 'against'
importance
many sociological theories rely on binaries e.g. structure/agency, individuals/society, sacred/profane, bougeoisie/proletariat
deconstruction exposes political implications, explains how they are constructed and how they shape knowledge, and challenges their authority
after reversing you disrupt the opposition by interfering with the way they work, suggesting a concept that collapses the binary e.g. inside/outside what about a doorway - this stops it from re-forming