Derrida and Deconstruction: Flipped Learning task
https://blog.dilipbarad.com/2016/01/flipped-learning-network.html
Jacques Derrida was an Algerian-born French philosopher best known for developing a form of semiotic analysis known as deconstruction, which he analyzed in numerous texts, and developed in the context of phenomenology. He is one of the major figures associated with post-structuralism and postmodern philosophy.
Video 1
1. Why is it difficult to define Deconstruction?
Derrida questions - is it possible to define?
Derrida questions - what are the limits or to what extent one can define something?
Derrida refuses to define Deconstruction
Because we are habituated for clear cut definitions, we want definition, whereas it is not possible to define Deconstruction.
2. Is Deconstruction a negative term?
It's not exactly a negative term. In fact it is not a negative term. Actually, Derrida is inquiring in to the condition or what causes philosophical system or meaning to stand up on its own and fall down. He is inquiring into the foundation.No, for Derrida it is not destructive activity but an inquiry into the foundations. It may happen that in the process, it destroys itself.Actually, it is not a negative term. Derrida wanted to transform the way people think.
3.How does Deconstruction happen on its own?
In a sense that the conditions which give 'meaning' to the system, that very conditions put a limit to it. So, when the foundations of meanings are inquired, it breakfree the limitations. Thus, an inquiry into foundations destroys the institution. So we can say that deconstruction happens on its own.
Video 2
1.The influence of Heidegger on Derrida.
Derrida himself in the famous "Letter to a Japanese Friend" (1983) pointed out that the term was a product of his wish, “to translate and adapt to my own ends the Heidggerian word Destruktion or Abbau. Each signified in this context an operation bearing on the structure or traditional architecture of the fundamental concepts of ontology or of Western metaphysics”.So this the influence of Heidegger on Derrida.
2.Derridean rethinking of the foundations of Western philosophy.
Heideggar wanted to 'dismantle' entire tradition of Western philosophy by pursuing the question of being of beings. So derridean rethinking of the foundations of Western philosophy.
Video 3
1.Ferdinand de Saussureian concept of language (that meaning is arbitrary, relational, constitutive).
The idea that what connects the word with its meaning is not natural - or the signal with its meaning is the conventional and is always social.
2.How Derrida deconstructs the idea of arbitrariness?
Meaning of the word is nothing but another word. One never arrives at meaning. It is just moving from one word to another. This how Derrida deconstructs the idea of arbitrariness.
3.Concept of metaphysics of presence.
Metaphysics of Presence is of binary opposition inherent in language and thus in philosophy binary opposition.
Example Man - Woman; Light - Dark; White - Black, Good - Evil .
Differentiate the meaning of one from the other in terms of one 'lacking' something. So, Dark is the one that lacks Light; woman is something that lacks Manliness etc.This lacking - the absence of something puts that things in inferior position in comparison to the one which have it - the presence of something.Thus, binary oppositions privileges one over the other.Derrida points out that these oppositions are not equal but hierarchic where the second term is considered either derivative or inferior to the first, the privileged one.
Video 4
1.Derridean concept of DifferAnce.
DifferAnce means its a force which makes differentiation possible , which makes postponing possible.By coining a word which is not different in 'speech' but is differently 'written' / spelt, what does Derrida tries to draw an attention towards privileging of speech over writing.
2.Infinite play of meaning.
There no specific meaning it keeps on changing. One word has many meaning. For example interest which is given video it gives us many meaning like attraction, money etc. So this is known as infinite play of meaning.
3.DIfferAnce = to differ + to defer.
Difference as we differentiate a word from another to understand its meaning. We do not define, actually, we differentiate.
Deference because the meaning is postponed - meaning is adjourned, put back.
It is difference + Deference. Derrida combines both word and coins a new word.
Video 5
1.Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences.
Structure Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences essay which was read at the colloquium on 'Structuralism' at John Hopkins University .The essay was a critique of Claude Levi-Strauss - Structural Anthropology.
2.Explain: "Language bears within itself the necessity of its own critique."
Structuralism began as the critique of the assumption science as well as metaphysics. On the other hand it uses similar assumptions.The centre is, paradoxically, within the structure and outside it the totality 'has its centre elsewhere'. The centre is not the centre.The ultimate meaning is never grasped.The finality is impossible as the one who critiques something uses same language. So it is trapped in the interplay and free play of meaning.The lack in the language the missing.It can be done only through language.
Video 6
1.The Yale School: the hub of the practitioners of Deconstruction in the literary theories.
During the 1970s, the Yale School has been a hub of the practitioners of deconstruction in literary theories. Four 'hermeneutic mafias' of Yale University who propagated thought of Derrida worldwide are Paul de Man,J Hillis Miller,Harold Bloom,Geoffrey Hartman.
2.The characteristics of the Yale School of Deconstruction.
Important characteristics of Yale School of Deconstruction are looking at literature as figurative or rhetorical construct.They questioned both the aesthetic as well as formalist approach to literature and also questioned the historicist and sociologist approach to literature.They were highly pre-occupied with Romanticism.
Video 7
How other schools like New Historicism, Cultural Materialism, Feminism, Marxism and Postcolonial theorists used Deconstruction?
Postcolonial theorists ability to show that the texts or the discourse of the colonizers can be deconstructed from within the narrative.
Feminist theorists deals with how to subvert the binaries between male and female. By its ability to subvert patriarchal discourse.
New Historicists its ability to see historicity of text and textuality of history. History is textual and text is historical.
Cultural Materialists its ability to emphasize materiality of language - Language is material construct and it has got ability to unmask hidden ideological agendas.
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