Assignment
Derrida’s structure, sign &
play
Vanita P.
Tadha
MA Sem:
2 Roll No. : 30
Year:
2014-15 Enrolment No. : pg14101029
Sub: Literary
Theory & Criticism (paper: 7)
Guided By:
Department of English [Dr.Dilip Barad]
Derrida’s structure, sign &
play
Introduction
“Structure, sing and play in the discourse of Human science
(1966)” at the John Hopkins International Colloquium on “The Language of
Criticism and the Science of Man” in October 1966 articulating for the first
time a post structuralist theoretical paradigm.
Derrida wrote “Structure, Sing and Play” to present at a
conference in Baltimore at John Hopkins University in 1966. He wrote it very
quickly (it took him 15 days) and as a result it presents an almost the
previous seven years of philosophical activity.
The conference was described by Richard Mackey and Eugenio
Donata to be “the first time in United States when structuralism had been
thought of as an interdisciplinary phenomenon”. Derrida begins the essay by
referring to ‘an event’ which has ‘perhas’ occurred in the history of the
concept of structure. He described distinction between what are called
“classical” or “classic” ways of thinking, and on the other hand “post structuralist”
ways of thinking.
In his essay he (Derrida) describes the idea of free play,
which is a decentering of systems within the systems themselves. Center of
system means limitation, yet this centering of systems, designed to give
coherence to the system because it is force of desire, not by any fundamental
principle. The basis of a structure comprise of historic patterns and
repetition that can be observed through historical records. The moment of substitutions
which Derrida called “rupture”, is the moment when the pattern or repetition
reasserts itself through decentering and re-centering the structure, an example
of freeplay disrupting history.
The three major critiques of de-centering use the language of
metaphysics to breakdown / critique / deconstruct the principle of metaphysics
itself. This paradox is relevant as it applies to the dislocation of culture,
where historically, philosophically economically, politically, etc. The development of concepts births their
opposing sides.
Derrida then moves into the discussion of Levi; Strauss
bricolage – the necessity of borrowing concept from other texts. This bricolage
leads to the idea of myth, and while it is assumed that all myths have an
engineering that 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.
Bricolage is not just an intellectual concept, it is also
mythopoetical. Yet for a myth – based concept it seems to command respect as an
absolute source. Myth has no author, therefore determining that it illusion,
which brings up the questions: does this principle also apply to other field of
discourse?
Derrida suggest that to go beyond philosophy it has to be
read in “a certain way”, not assume there is something beyond it. It 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 challenge as the concept of science calls for the concept of history,
as history records information / data and enables science to have a center for
reference in empirical principles.
Derrida next considers the theme of decentering with respect
to French structuralist Levi – Strauss’s ethnology.
Deconstruction
A post – structuralist term referring to the new way texts are read and
interpreted. It is a view of literature derived from Jacques Derrida’s theory
of writing and the linguistics of Saussure. Traditional interpretation of
author and suppressed the kind of subjectivity, which is often interfered with it. Traditional
interpretation also assumed that it is possible to get at the meaning of the
text because it is universal.
This is based on a language philosophy which stress the
relativity of meaning in as much as ‘language is a system of differences
without positive terms.’
It was Saussure who showed that signs differ from each other and they become
meaningful through their difference which often taken the form of opposition.
For ex: The red
is a traffic signal it means stop while green means go. The connection between
the signifier red and the signified stop is arbitrary, conventional; It is
defined not by its essential properties but by the difference that
distinguishes it from green or other signs.
This feature made Saussure describe language as a system of
difference without any positive terms.
This interdependence leads Derrida to the hypothesis that we
cannot say what any sign means without reference to its relation to other
signs. In other words signifiers differ from each other and from what they
signify. The differences that make them meaningful keep them from meaning
anything definite. He employs terms like trace / difference / differance/ supplement to
explain this interminacy or play.
He also shows by the same logic that logocentrism or phonocentrism or ‘privileging’ speech over writing has no validity.
Deconstructive criticism in practice derives from this notion
of the infinite regress of signifiers: and the acceptance of interminacy of
meaning or freeplay. The critic or the interpreter ‘dismantles’ analyses, turns
something unified back into detached fragments or part and reassembles them. He
coauthors the text; constructs in a different from what he has deconstructed.
Deconstructive readings show scant respect for the wholeness or integrity of
individual works. He concentrates on parts relating them to material of diverse
sort and may not even consider the relation of any part to the whole.
Stanley
Fish does not call himself a deconstructionist but when he says
‘no reading however outlandish it might appear is inherently an impossible one’
he talks like a deconstructionist. Interpretive strategy can make noticeable
what is noticed. But he sets a limit to indeterminacy by binging in the
interpretive community.
Miller accepts the
omnipotence of language and defuses criticism as ‘a human activity which
depends for its validity on never being at ease within a fixed method’. It must
constantly put its own grounds in question.
Paul de man is
concerned with the inexorable working of language, while Bloom would examine
the relation of a text to its precursor text.
It is interesting to contrast this skeptical language philosophy
with the one which we, in India, know. We had our own skeptical and atheistic
philosopher who held the same vie as Derrida. But a more ancient philosophy
which accepted ‘presence’
‘Truth’ and ‘Meaning’ while granting
the impossibility or embodying it in human language except negative (neti – Not
this) – by mind or by logic – still maintained the importance of Vok, as capable of
expressing the truth. There is a verse which says:
‘Speech is measured out in four steps. The Brahmins who have
the understanding (the wise who have the knowledge of the Mantras), Three do
not move, only the speech in the fourth step, Vakbari (the last from above) me speak.’
An ‘event’ has occurred
The ‘event’ involves changes in structuralism, structure, and
particular “the struclurality of structure”, which has hitherto been limited,
writes Derrida through the process of being assigned a stabilizing “center”.
The “center” is that element of a structure which appears given or fixed,
thereby anchoring the rest of the structure all allowing it to play.
The ‘event’ under discussion is the opening of the structure,
which became inevitable “when the struclurality of structure had to being to be
thought” and the contradictory role of the center expose. The result of the
event, according to Derrida must be the full version of structural “freeplay”,
a mode in which all terms are truly subject to the openness and mutability
promised by structuralism.
Reciprocal
destroyers
Derrida depicts Nietzsche, Freud, and Heidegger, three of his
greatest influence, as ultimately trapped within a destructive spiral of
denunciation. Nietzsche questioned the power of representation and concepts to
really convey truth; Freud challenged the idea that mind was limited to
consciousness; and Heidegger criticized the idea of “being as presence”.
Derrida argues that these theoretical moves share a command.
Levi – Strauss
Having described a pattern – denouncing metaphysics, Derrida
suggests consideration of the same pattern within the “human science”, whose
subjection to the “critique of ethnocentrism” parallels the “destruction of the
history of metaphysics” in philosophy. He concerns “the opposition between
nature and culture”, as his case study and primary focus for the essay.
Bricolage
Derrida highlights Levi – Strauss’s use of the term bricolage, the activity of a bricoleur. Bricolage
becomes a metaphor for philosophical and literary critiques exemplifying
Derrida’s previous argument about the necessity of using the language
available. The bricoleur’s foil is the engineer, who creates out of whole cloth
without the need for bricolage – however, the engineer is merely a myth since
all physical and intellectual production is really bricolage.
Structure
and myth
Derrida praises Levi – Strauss for his insight into the
complexities, limitations, and circularities of examining ‘a culture’ from the
outside in Oder to classify its mythological systems. In particular he praises
Levi – Strauss’s recognition that a mythological system cannot be studied as
though it was
some finite portion of physical reality to be scientifically
divided and conquered. Derrida quotes Levi – Strauss explicitly describes a
limit to tantalization.
Conclusion
Thus, Derrida still remain ambiguous and interesting face in
literary theory. He suggests that to go beyond philosophy, it has to be read I
“a certain way” not assume there is something beyond it. We cannot say what any
sing means without reference to its relations to other signs. He employs term
like trace / difference / differance / supplement to explain this indeterminacy
or play. He also shows by the same logic that logocentrism or phonocentrism or
‘privileging speech over writing has no validity. Stanley Fish, Miller and Paul
de man also gives their view to prove the idea of deconstruction.
