Akademik

A sceptical approach to the possibility of coherent meaning initiated by the French philosopher Derrida . There is no privileged point, such as an author's intention or a contact with external reality, that confers significance on a text. There is only the limitless opportunity for fresh commentary or text (a linguistic version of the idealist belief that we cannot escape the world of our own ideas). A deconstructionist reading of a text subverts its apparent significance by uncovering contradictions and conflict within it. However, since it is impossible to take up a significant vantage point above a text, it is sometimes admitted that deconstruction leaves everything as it was; its attempt to think the unthinkable proceeds with puns and jokes as much as by recognizable argument. The apparently wilful obscurity of much deconstructionist writing has tended to outrage more orthodox philosophers. See Derrida, différance , postmodernism, post-structuralism.