Derrida et al.

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There’s been considerable commentary on the death of Derrida – this from Johann Hari being the latest contribution.

One of the better books I’ve read on the subject of deconstructionism is David Lehman’s “Signs of the Times”. He concentrates mainly on the case of Paul de Man, the Yale post-modernist guru who was revealed after his death to have written anti-semitic articles for a collaborationist journal in his native Belgium. One of Lehman’s points is that a post-modern denial of the possibility of objective truth would be an excellent emollient for an uneasy conscience. If words are just signs which only attain meaning through their difference from other signs – if there is nothing outside the text – then writing is removed from the range of activities which might have consequences, and ultimately from the realm of morality. What I took from this, by extrapolation, was that the whole obscurantist movement in post-war French philosophy, of whom Derrida was perhaps the most famous exemplar, was a wonderfully French way of dealing with post-war guilt.

Yes I know, this is glib in the extreme (and no, I’m not saying each individual thinker had guilty secrets to hide – I realise Derrida was too young, nevermind being Jewish). I still like it though, as at least a partial explanation.

Comments

October 13, 2004

morgan

Derrida was Algerian. Same language, different mindset?

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October 14, 2004

tony h

Yes, I think there’s a valid point to be made about the politics of deconstruction in the context of the de Man affair.
A french thinker who engages in a much more fruitful and, needless to say, less tortuous way with this question of the relationship between politics and writing is Claude Lefort.
His book ‘Writing:The Political Test’ is well worth reading (don’t be put off by the unfortunate fact that it is published in a series entitled ‘post-contemporary interventions’).

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October 14, 2004

DMT

For a very interesting (and entertaining) exposition of the argument that postmodernism is a form of expiation for the sins of colonialism, read Ernest Gellner, ‘Postmodernism, Reason and Religion’. Excellent stuff.

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October 14, 2004

David Sucher

Your theory makes sense to me.

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October 14, 2004

roger

“If words are just signs which only attain meaning through their difference from other signs…” Wow. That Swiss guy, Saussure, who came up with this idea, must have prefigured French post world war II guilt in 1900 in Geneva!
The linguist as prophet. Excellent explanation, there.

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October 14, 2004

Andy

A fascinating theory. Now if you or Mr Lehman could provide just one citation to a passage in Derrida where he denies “objective truth,” the slumbering British can at least rest easily.
If the search begins to drag on into the next decade, perhaps you could ask that erudite Mr Hari for assistance. He has a double-first from Oxford, so he’s bound to be a bit of a whizz at the old exegesis.
I’ll check in this time next week for that reference.

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October 15, 2004

tony h

Andy–just make sure you have a reference to Derrida unequivocally affirming the idea of objective truth with you when you do check in.
For that matter a reference to Derrida being unequivocal on any point will suffice (although you certainly won’t find it in any of his commentary on the de Man affair).
Derrida was a moderately interesting practitioner of a philosophical tradition that goes back a long way: scepticism. It’s the ridiculously inflated nature of the ‘political’ claims made for his work that get my goat.
See, for instance, Eagleton’s disingenuous piece in the Guardian today.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1327834,00.html
Derrida, apparently, ‘spoke up for the voiceless from whose ranks he emerged’. I suppose that the fact that none of them could understand what the hell he was going on about was only a minor stumbling block.
I think Camus, as a working class French Algerian, has much greater anti-fascist credentials but he, of course, was a big, bad ‘imperialist’ so it’s hardly surprisng that Terry wouldn’t want to go there. Plus ca change.

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October 16, 2004

Andy

Tony: you seem like a man in need of help, so I’ll give you some. Derrida’s “AfterWord” to Limited Inc offers lots of specific claims about truth, context and objectivity. I’m sure you’ll be able to find that volume on somebody else’s shelf.
In the meantime, my interest in his refutation of “objective truth” remains.

Reply
October 17, 2004

Dan Skapolero

Andy
So Tony is in need of your help, who hasn’t all volumes of Derrida’s books on his shelves.
And that sarcastic comment about “erudite Mr Hari who has a double-first from Oxford and therfore a whizz at the old exegesis” makes a perfect argument, I suppose.
My guess is that you’ve probably just stumbled upon Argumentum Ad Hominem (abusive) in a book on sombody else’s shelf and your desire to master the craft of logical fallacies overcomes your notion of being almost entirely full of crap. (“Crap” in the deconstructive sense)
(And by the way, it’s Cambridge not Oxford).

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October 17, 2004

Andy

Daniel: thank you for sharing that with us. I’m sure you feel better, and and self-therapy is better than no therapy at all. It’s impossible to make perfect arguments against those, like the ludicrous Mr Hari, who refuse to read: that’s why Alex Duttmann’s response was appropriately to the point. But those who want to be helped can be helped: that’s why God gave us citations.
As for you, I can see the Debating Club Lingo is coming on a treat. Does it help with the ladies?

Reply
October 18, 2004

Clark Goble

the unity of meaning, in intention
or “meaning-to-say,” how can he demand of us now that we
read him with pertinence, precision, rigor? How can he
demand that his own text be interpreted correctly? How can
he accuse anyone else of having misunderstood, simplified,
deformed it, etc.? In other words, how can he discuss, and
discuss the reading of what he writes? The answer is simple
enough: This definition of the deconstructionist is false
(that’s right: false, not true) and feeble; it supposes a
bad (that’s right: bad, not good) and feeble reading of
numerous texts, first of all mine, which therefore must
finally be read or reread. Then perhaps it wil be
understood that the value of truth (and all those values
associated with it) is never contested or destroyed in my
writings, but only reinscribed in more powerful, larger,
more stratified contexts. And that within interpretive
contexts (that is, within relations of force that are always
differential– for example, socio-political-institutional–but
even beyond those determinations) that are relatively stable,
sometimes apparently almost unshakeable, it should be possible to
invoke rules of competence, criteria of discussion and of
consensus, good faith, lucidity, rigor, criticism, and
pedagogy.” (Derrida, Limited Inc, 146)

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October 18, 2004

Dan Skapolero

Andy
Where ladys are concerened, I store my debating club lingo in the closet, next to logic.
I prefer using the sort of the above comment as a tool in creating an Intelectual Mystic Facade.
The ladys find that fascinating.
Some say that thinking with one’s dick is handy in those kind of situations.

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October 18, 2004

Andy

Ah. Mr Goble has done much of our work for us. Excellent. There are many other references we could add to assist those likely to be swayed by Mr Hari’s assault on truth – Derrida’s reference to the “indispensable guard-rail of authorial intention” (Of Grammatolgy 148) being a case in point – but the facts of the matter are clear for those who wish to see them.
Dan: your grammar is collapsing. Probably best to draw the proverbial veil.

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October 18, 2004

tony h

Andy, disappointing, as it is, to see that the old sixth form mistake of confusing wit with argument is alive and well even in such lofty Derridean milieus, I still hoped that you might get round to actually responding to the point…
Why are there so many silly claims made in connection with Derrida’s politics? Why did he go in for the obscurantist apologia vis a vis Heidegger, de Man?
I’m sure the points made in the Afterword to Limited Inc. with respect to truth and objectivity are, indeed, very ‘specific'(and why didn’t I think to look there-it seems so obvious now!).
Specificity was always a characteristic of Derrida’s thought. The trouble was that his philosophical acumen was often so ‘specific’ that it was only intelligible to the great man and a few self-deluding gnostic acolytes.
Deconstruction is clearly dead on its arse old boy. I know you’ve probably invested immense amounts of time and effort in Jackie over the years but now is as good a time as any to stop chasing your losses…

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October 18, 2004

Andy

Tony: I wouldn’t make great claims for Derrida as a thinker of politics; nor have I suggested I did. My interest in his work lies in other areas. My interest in your response, such as it was, was sparked merely by your recitation of the tabloid nonsense that his work eschewed consideration of objectivity and truth. Now that you appear ready to abandon this fabrication, I can go back to reading his books and you can find other ways of passing your time.

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October 18, 2004

gladney

Here’s a more recent example of Derrida on the need for truth in philosophy:
“In short [certain philosophers] want to confront us with the following dilemma: ‘We’ll grant you the right to treat philosophy as literature, but you have to forget this business of claiming to be occupied with truth.’
“Truth is not a value one can renounce. The deconstruction of philosophy does not renounce truth–any more, for example, than literature does.”
(A Taste for the Secret, 9-10)
not exactly obscurantist, is it?

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October 18, 2004

Clark Goble

I put up on my blog an extended interview from Literary Review with Derrida as well, which clarifies a lot of what he does. My personal feeling is the Derrida adopts a kind of semiotic realism, not that far removed from what C. S. Peirce does. Indeed he’s fairly explicit about that in On Grammatology where he basically says Peirce had most of what he calls Deconstruction. The difference is that Peirce didn’t really focus on the sorts of questions Derrida did – basically the “source” of change and a questioning of Being. Rather on in his career Peirce acknowledged such things and then since they were the unspeakable limits of philosophy, simply focused on what logic could deal with.
Hmm. Comments don’t allow links. So here’s the reference to the quotes:
http://www.libertypages.com/clark/10171.html

Reply
October 19, 2004

tony h

It was ‘affirmation’ of not ‘consideration’ of objective truth I was after Andy. Any old sophist can ‘consider’ it…
Just try going back to some other philosophical works for a month or so if you can bear it. You’ll soon discover that life is far too short to devote so much of it to a single sceptic.
Oh, and you’re also greatly deluded if you feel you can somehow subtract politics from any philosophical project. Philosophers inhabit as well as inform the political and moral circumstances they find themselves in.
The thread did commence with some ruminations on this problem.

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October 19, 2004

Andy

Oh dear.
I never said that “politics” could be subtracted from Derrida’s thought; merely that he isn’t primarily a political thinker. The same could be said, of course, of Kant. Perhaps we should throw his books away too.
What it means to “affirm” truth in the terms you use is anyone’s guess, but anyone who has read Derrida’s work knows that it is what he describes it to be: a philosophy of affirmation. No one who has read it seriously could think he was a “sceptic” – which is perhaps why you hold the tendentious views of it that you do.

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February 7, 2006

Annoying French Undergraduate

, now I’m trying to pin a concrete meaning on Derrida, but it does make more sense that way.
Still, there’s something to be said for Deconstruction as a way to deal not just with French but with pan-European guilt, and to distance European discourse from the absolutes that lead to Auschwitz and Gulags. His being Algerian does not exhonerate him from post-war guilt, the pieds-noirs were very eagar to join Vichy and let’s not forget the atrocities committed during the Algerian War of Independence.

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Derrida et al.

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