Postmodern Views of Language

(Brief look at the Trachtenberg Introduction to get a sense of postmodern culture)

Deconstruction

There are a number of approaches to language in postmodernism, but the one which has attracted the most attention, and which seems to underlie the others, is deconstruction.

Derrida describes "a general strategy of deconstruction" in the following way:

In a traditional philosophical opposition we have not a peaceful coexistence of facing terms but a violent hierarchy.  On the of the terms dominates the other (axiologically, logically, et.), occupies the commanding position.  To deconstruct the opposition is above all, at a particular moment, to reverse the hierarchy. (Positions, pp. 56-57)

But deconstruction is not simply a strategy for reversing and reinstating the opposite hierarchy.  It involves several other stages, accurately outlined by Culler:

• reversal of the classical opposition
• displacement of the system (once its constructed character is demonstrated, usually through close reading of the text)
• intervention  in the field of oppositions it criticizes.

Let's look at this strategy in relation to a "standard speech situation" in philosophy: two interlocutors facing each other in argumentation oriented to finding the truth.  Through this situation, we can see the philosophical opposition of speech and writing, displace that opposition, and look at the effects of the resulting intervention.

On the standard view, "Writing is an unfortunate necessity; what is really wanted is to show, to demonstrate, to point out, to exhibit, to make one's inerlocutor stand at gaze before the world" (Rorty, cited in Culler 90).  Speech is the favored medium of communication in philosophy.  Philosophers tend to treat writing at a "dangerous supplement"

But speech is not only favored because it isn't writing, but also because it is closer to the pure presence of mind to ideas.  Especially in Platonic thought, speech is seen as  'spark' which ignites the connection of mind to idea.  This mythical "union" of mind and idea involves no language, according to Plato.

phoncentrism - the belief that speech is closer to reason and more central to the expression of meaning than writing.

logocentrism - the belief that transcendental ideas can be made present to mind through speech.  In structuralist terms, that signifiers delivers their signifieds without remainder.

The philosopher's attempt to privlege speech over writing is incoherent, Derrida argues in Grammatology, because speech and writing share in creating "differences" in meaning, and so both are part of a more fundamental system of signification.  Relative to this "arche-writing" both speech and writing are forms of "writing". (reversal) But neither can control the play of differences it initiates.  Thus, neither speech nor writing have priority in the logocentric project of philosophy. (displacement)

Discussion Interlude:

What does it mean to say, as Derrida does: "There is no outside of langugae?"

Differance

Culler introduces "differance" in connection with the paradox of structure & event:

Paradox of structure and event

We can extend to the system of signs in general what Saussure says about language: The linguistic system (langue) is necessary for speech events (parole) to be intelligible and produce their effects, but the latter are necessary for the system to establish itself. Positions, 39-40

Differance captures three simple points:

• signification begins with a system of differences,
• differing contextual placements create differences over time
• the fulfillment of any act of signification is deferred indefinately, infinitely.

The undecidable alternation between the perspectives of structure and event is part of what is meant by differance. idea has currency in Nietzsche, Saussure, Freud, Husserl, and Heidegger. Differance--sys. play of differences, at once passive and active,(see Positions, pp.38-39) taken from Saussure's def. of signifier in terms of diff. Saussure is at once critiquing metaphysics of presence and committing it by defining sign as structure of difference 98-99 Grammatology shows how Saussure's privledging of speech cannot be sustained . Concept of supplement and Rousseau's masturbation discussed 99-110.

Powell (Derrida for Beginners, 116-122) also discusses differance as the "non-arrival" of meaning based on Sausurrean thinking. The word itself is and instance of differance, since the "difference" of "differance" only shows up in the written expression of the word.  
 

Meaning and Iterability

The intellectual confrontation of Speech Act Theory and Deconstruction illustrates the "logic of supplementarity."

Background on speech act theory.

• constatives vs. performatives

What is the right relationship between truth telling discourse and performatives?

Starting from the philosophical hierarchy that makes true of false statements the norm of language and treats other utterances as flawed statements or as extra - supplementary - forms, Austin's investigation of the qualities of the marginal case leads to a deconstruction and inversion of the hierarchy: the performative is not a flawed constative; rather, the constative is a special case of the performative.

Austin starts out not wanting to explain meaning in terms of intentions, but ultimately needs to. Derrida: What is at stake is above all is the structural impossibility and illegitimacy of such an `idealization,' even one which is methodological and provisional. (Limited Inc. p.39/206).

The possibility of performatives such as promise making depend upon the possibility of faking a promise. This brings out the primary place of iterability in the system.

Derrida: This is my starting point: no meaning can be determined out of context, but no context permits saturation. What I am referring to here is not richness of substance, semantic fertility, but rather structure, the structure of the remnant or of iteration (Living On 81)
 

©1997 by Mark Alfino, Department of Philosophy, Gonzaga University.