On Monday, October 11, 2004, at 10:56 AM, Ted Winslow wrote:
> A Guardian editorialist wrote:
>
>> He should be remembered as a profound thinker who
>> made a lasting contribution to intellectual discourse.
>>
>> Deconstruction, in terms of literary theory, springs from a simple
>> idea
>> that originated with Friedrich Nietzsche: that any text is open to an
>> infinite number of interpretations. That makes it possible to ignore
>> the
>> author's intentions, stated or otherwise, and examine a text for
>> meanings
>> that would otherwise be uncomfortable or hidden. This thought is
>> little
>> different to some of Ludwig Wittgenstein's ideas, but by
>> concentrating on
>> epistemology he avoided the obloquy heaped on Derrida.
>
> That idea that my experience is completely constructed by me has as
> its logical implication "solipsism of the present moment." When
> applied to language it implies that communication is impossible
> because the meaning of language to me is my subjective construction;
> it has nothing to do with any meaning outside of me. In the above,
> this is ignored and claims are made about the meaning of Derrida and
> Wittgenstein, Derrida's meaning being that it's impossible to know
> what Derrida or anyone else means.
wasn't it socrates who went on and on about how no one knew what they themselves were talking about, much less were they understanding anyone else?
>
> Radical skepticism is absurd; it's explainable as the product of the
> same structure of self I mentioned earlier, namely, a extremely weak
> unintegrated ego whose experience has significant delusional aspects.
> These prevent it from being experience of anything real. One of these
> aspects is the product of the sadistic attack on linking. It's this
> that makes language meaningless by fragmenting it into meaningless
> bits. The "meaning" this is hidden in this way is "the overwhelming"
> constructed through projective identification, a meaning only
> accessible through "mysticism" (assuming your able to see that that
> you can't self-consistently claim to be able to access it through
> "science"). So you get to it via a mistaken, i.e. a "mystical,"
> "reading" of Antigone.
>
more problematic pop psychoanalysis rather than rigorous philosophical analysis.
in the end, however, i would agree that there is something mystical going on in deconstruction. i just don't have a problem with that, in part precisely because i don't think it necessarily precludes rigor.
j