Deconstruction Starts with Jacques Derrida

Deconstruction is a critical analysis of philosophical and literary language that emphasizes the internal workings of language and conceptual systems, the relational quality of meaning, and the assumptions implicit in forms of expression.

— Definitions from Oxford Languages, Edited

It All Starts with Jacques Derrida.

Jacques Derrida, an Algerian-born French philosopher, develops this philosophy. He was born in 1930 and passed away in 2004. He went to France in 1949. He studied and taught philosophy in Paris. From the 1960s, he published numerous books and essays on an immense range of topics and taught and lectured worldwide.

Jacques Derrida is a philosopher. Yet, he's never written anything straightforwardly philosophical.

The beginner book, Introducing Derrida, conveys why and how deconstruction does not define something but dissects the artifact and mediums by the relationship of meaning. In his writings, it's hard, even impossible to summarize his writing. The terms do not have a baseline or an approach. Oftentimes, it circles and convolutes around the articles, essays, and concepts. The process is like an iteration but no right or wrong, black or white definition. Thinking outside the box is a concept, more than the text itself.

To delve deeper into deconstruction, it is necessary to understand the background of Jacques Derrida. It matters and explains some levels of how and why Deconstruction was born. While jumping into his book, Of Grammatology, I read Introducing Derrida, by Jeff Collins and Bill Maybin, again to learn about the creation of Deconstruction.

Two Threads of The Viral Matrix in His Writing

Derrida's writing undermines our usual ideas about texts, meanings, concepts and identities – not just in philosophy but in other fields as well.

Derrida's writing questions the usual notions of truth and knowledge. The writing is controversial, difficult, and maybe subversive. How do I begin to read?

According to the book, the threads are DERAILED COMMUNICATION and UNDECIDABILITY. By his own account, he said

Everything I have done is Dominated by the thought of a virus. The virus being many things. FOLLOW TWO THREADS. One, the virus introduces disorder into communication, even in the biological sphere – a detailing of coding and encoding. Two, a virus is not a microbe, it is neither living nor non-living. Neither alive nor dead. Follow these threads and you have the matrix of all I have done since I started writing.

Starting with undecidability, take zombies as an example. They are alive but dead, dead but alive. It is between life and death, an uncertain space. It is threatening the comforting sense of the governed categories in the living world.

If life and death are no longer a binary opposition, is the existing definition incorrect? Our perceptions are challenged. The threads convey more than literacy. It makes people doubt what they have and what they are told. It's a debate among all concepts, challenging the definition of good and evil, life and death, right and wrong.

No Conclusion, Undecidable When Reading

Interestingly, Derrida's undecidability is not just offering us an agreement and disagreement. It's a reading guidance for me to NOT overthink when learning this philosophy.

For example, when Derrida talks about Plato. Derrida does not approve, counter, or modify Plato's arguments. Derrida only explains Plato's text as unfixing it, setting its undecidable into unlikely movement. This gives me an idea that when I start reading Derrida's writing: no expectation of a fixed conclusion but follow the trace to learn the ideas of this philosophy. A beginner guidance for me and for you if you've come across my blog!