What follows in this article, however, is an attempt to bring out the philosophical significance of Derrida’s thought. Poised in the interstices between philosophy and non-philosophy (or philosophy and literature), it is not difficult to see why this is the case. Reflecting upon tales of Jewish tradition, he highlights the absolute singularity of responsibility to the other.ĭeconstruction has had an enormous influence in psychology, literary theory, cultural studies, linguistics, feminism, sociology and anthropology. In particular, the theme of responsibility to the other (for example, God or a beloved person) leads Derrida to leave the idea that responsibility is associated with a behavior publicly and rationally justifiable by general principles. In this period, the founder of deconstruction turns his attention to ethical themes. Because of this, it is undecidable whether authentic giving or hospitality are either possible or impossible. Undecidability returns in later period of Derrida’s reflection, when it is applied to reveal paradoxes involved in notions such as gift giving or hospitality, whose conditions of possibility are at the same time their conditions of impossibility. The strategy also aims to show that there are undecidables, that is, something that cannot conform to either side of a dichotomy or opposition. The deconstructive strategy is to unmask these too-sedimented ways of thinking, and it operates on them especially through two steps-reversing dichotomies and attempting to corrupt the dichotomies themselves. Metaphysics creates dualistic oppositions and installs a hierarchy that unfortunately privileges one term of each dichotomy (presence before absence, speech before writing, and so on). Starting from an Heideggerian point of view, Derrida argues that metaphysics affects the whole of philosophy from Plato onwards. The philosophical aspect concerns the main target of deconstruction: the “metaphysics of presence,” or simply metaphysics. The literary aspect concerns the textual interpretation, where invention is essential to finding hidden alternative meanings in the text. It seeks to expose, and then to subvert, the various binary oppositions that undergird our dominant ways of thinking-presence/absence, speech/writing, and so forth.ĭeconstruction has at least two aspects: literary and philosophical. Deconstruction is generally presented via an analysis of specific texts. Although not purely negative, deconstruction is primarily concerned with something tantamount to a critique of the Western philosophical tradition. Distancing himself from the various philosophical movements and traditions that preceded him on the French intellectual scene (phenomenology, existentialism, and structuralism), he developed a strategy called “deconstruction” in the mid 1960s. Jacques Derrida was one of the most well known twentieth century philosophers.