Derrida's Structure, sign and Play

Jacques Derrida 

Jacques Derrida is a French philosopher, was born on July 15, 1930 in Algiers of Algeria, the then French colony. He is famously known as the father of Deconstruction. He has published more than 40 books on various topics such as anthropology, sociology, semiotics, jurisprudence, literary theory and so on. Some of them  of “Grammatology”  is very  famous one that discusses   theory of deconstruction and its various aspects. Jacques Derrida was the founder of “deconstruction,” a way of criticizing not only both literary and philosophical texts but also political institutions. Although Derrida at times expressed regret concerning the fate of the word “deconstruction,” its popularity indicates the wide-ranging influence of his thought, in philosophy, in literary criticism and theory, in art and, in particular, architectural theory, and in political theory. Derrida died in Paris on October 8, 2004.

THE THEORY OF DECONSTRUCTION

Derrida has been interested in one particular opposition: the opposition between writing and speech. Derrida's critical approach to deconstruction shows us that dualisms are never equivalent; they are always hierarchically ranked. One pole (presence, good, truth, man, etc.) is privileged at the expense of the second.

In the case of speech and writing, we have attributed to speech the positive qualities of originality, centre and presence, whereas writing has been relegated to a secondary or derived status.

"Deconstruction refers to all of the techniques and strategies used by Derrida in order to destabilize, crack open and displace texts that are explicitly or invisibly idealistic"

However, to deconstruct is not to destroy, and deconstruction is achieved in two steps:

1. A reversal phase: Since the pair was hierarchically ranked, we must first extinguish the power struggle. During this first phase, then, writing must dominate speech, other must prevail over self, absence over presence, perception over understanding, and so on. 

2. A neutralization phase: The term favoured during the first phase must be uprooted from binary logic. In this way, we leave behind all of the previous significations anchored in dualistic thinking. This phase gives rise to androgyny, super-speech, and arche-writing. The deconstructed term thus becomes undecidable.

According to Paul De Man, a member of Yale school:

It is possible within text, to frame a question or undo assertion made in the text, by means of elements which are in the text, which frequently would be precisely structures that play off the rhetorical against grammatical elements.

Deconstruction is being applied to texts, most of which are taken from the history of Western philosophy. The new terms become undecidable, then, rendering them unclassifiable, and causing two previously opposed poles to become merged.

Difference:                          

Différance is a term that Derrida coins on the basis of a pun that the French language makes possible.  An understanding of this term is helpful because it can explain a lot about Derrida’s apparently “mischievous” playing with language and ideas.“Mischievous” in quotation marks because many people have misunderstood the powerful implications of his witty strategy. The pun is possible because in French the word différer can mean either to differ or to defer, depending on context.

            Différence: to differ from something and to defer full identity and presence

Derrida and differance:

The term différance originated at a seminar given by Derrida in 1968 at the Society française de philosophy. The term in itself represents a synthesis of Derrida's semiotic and philosophical thinking.

Ø Structure: Classic concept Derrida calls a” Contradictory     coherence”. There is never a centre without a margin.

Ø Sign: It is metaphysical concept. Meaning is arbitrary. Meaning is never present in the sign, it is always postponed.

Ø Play: “If the sun can stand for the truth of reason then where dose the play of possible substitutions end?

Derrida: Structure Sign and Play in the Discourse of Human Sciences

Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of a Human Science‟ was a lecture presented at a conference titled “The Language of criticism and the science of man” held at johns Hopkins university in Baltimore, USA in 1966, which was published in 1967.

Derrida begins the essay by referring to ‘an event’ which has ‘perhaps’ occurred in the history of the concept of structure, that is also a ‘redoubling’. The event which the essay documents is that of a definitive epistemological break with structuralist thought, of the ushering in of post-structuralism as a movement critically engaging with structuralism and also with traditional humanism and empiricism. It turns the logic of structuralism against itself insisting that the “structurality of structure”itself had been repressed in structuralism.

In his essay Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of Human Science, Derrida firstly describes the idea of free play, which is a decentring of systems within the systems themselves. Centering of systems is supposed to limit free play, yet this centering of systems, designed to give coherence to the system, is  contradictory because it is there by force of desire, not by any fundamental principle. The basis of a structure comprises of historic patterns and repetitions that can be observed through historical records and these patterns comprise of a series of substitutions for the center. The moment of substitution, which Derrida called "rupture", is the moment when the pattern or repetition reasserts itself through decentring and re-centering the structure, an example of free play (within the system) disrupting history (a series of events that provides linear, logical coherence to a system).

The three major critiques of de-centering (by Heidegger, Freud and Nietzsche) use the language of metaphysics to breakdown / critique / deconstruct the principles of metaphysics itself. This paradox is relevant as it applies to the dislocation of culture, whether historically, philosophically, economically, politically, etc. The development of concepts births their opposing sides (binary oppositions).

Derrida then moves into the discussion of Levi-Strauss' ‘Bricolage’ - the necessity of borrowing concepts from other text (obviously subject to change). This bricolage leads to the idea of myth, and while it is assumed that all myths have an engineer, [the concept/person] who creates concepts "out of whole cloth", the idea of the engineer is impossible since it would mean that a system is created from concepts from outside the system - so where did the engineer get these concepts from? Levi-Strauss suggests that the bricoleur invented it - but suspecting the engineer's existence would be to threaten the bricoleur's centered system.

Bricolage is not just an intellectual concept; it is also myth poetical. Yet for a myth-based concept it seems to command respect as an absolute source. To go back to an absolute source, it is important to reject existing epistèmè (foundations / sciences), yet to oppose mythomorphic discourse on myth, mythomorphic principles must be used. It is a similar quandary the triple philosophers have towards metaphysics.

Myth has no author, therefore determining that it requires a source is a historical illusion, which brings up the question: does this principle also apply to other fields of discourse?

Levi-Strauss only brings up this question, and Derrida does not attempt to answer it. Instead, he writes that there is an assumption on many philosophers' parts: to go beyond philosophy is impossible - there is no language beyond what is available, therefore there is no language that could explain the outer bounds of the centered system. Derrida suggests that to go beyond philosophy, it has to be read in "a certain way", not assume there is something beyond it. Empiricism (gathering of information which relies on what can be expressed within the system), which informs the language and information base we have to center our systems around, menaces scientific discourse by constantly challenging it, yet it is based in scientific discourse. Paradoxically, structuralism - the school of critique that emphasizes a system of binaries - claims to critique empiricism, and Derrida points out that Levi-Strauss' books and essays are all empirical stuff that can challenged as well.

The concept of sciences calls for the concept of history, as history records information / data and enables sciences to have a center for reference in empirical principles. Empiricism also fails as a system that informs because in order to be completely valid, all information must be gathered (totalization). However, due to free play (constant substitutions of the center), totalization of all this infinite information is impossible
Free play not only disrupts the sense of history, it also disrupts presence. Although Levi-Strauss points this out, there is a sense of centered-ness in his critique to ground its presence in a sense of origin, speech and an unmarred source.

Finally, Derrida points out the two reasons for schools of interpretations which are irreconcilable yet exist simultaneously:

1) The interpretation which seeks to decipher an original Truth that is uncluttered by free play, and 

2) The interpretation which affirms the role of free play within the system.

So, His philosophy of not being centered in a single one philosophy has validity. Derrida, as taught in the school of deconstruction, encourages the use of several perspectives (several centers, so to speak) to view a concept. This does not help to affirm any holistic view, but it enables a chance to find common ground between perspectives even though the idea seems impossible.  If the purpose of free play is to de-center within a system, then it is perhaps possible to use the idea of free play to develope and enlarged the system in order to accommodate new centers for thought. This seems to be the point of the post-modern spirit: finding new ways of viewing the world that is not set in any specific system, but constantly moving around with the principles of free play in order to participate in the world better.