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Single Idea 8210

[filed under theme 1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 6. Deconstruction ]

Full Idea

To 'deconstruct' philosophy would be to think the structured genealogy of philosophy's concepts, but at the same time determine what this history has been able to dissimulate or forbid, making itself into history by this motivated repression.

Gist of Idea

Deconstructing philosophy gives the history of concepts, and the repressions behind them

Source

Jacques Derrida (Implications [1967], p.5)

Book Ref

Derrida,Jacques: 'Positions' [Continuum 2002], p.5


A Reaction

All of this type of philosophy is motivated by what I think of as (I'm afraid!) a rather adolescent belief that we are all being 'repressed', and that somehow, if we think hard enough, we can all become 'free', and then everything will be fine.


The 11 ideas with the same theme [wisdom can only draw attention to human presuppositions]:

Deconstructing philosophy gives the history of concepts, and the repressions behind them [Derrida]
The movement of 'différance' is the root of all the oppositional concepts in our language [Derrida]
Derrida came to believe in the undeconstructability of justice, which cannot be relativised [Derrida, by Critchley]
Deconstruction is not neutral; it intervenes [Derrida]
We aim to explore the limits of expression (as in Mallarmé's poetry) [Derrida]
Sincerity can't be verified, so fiction infuses speech, and hence reality also [Derrida]
Sentences are contradictory, as they have opposite meanings in some contexts [Derrida]
The idea of being as persistent presence, and meaning as conscious intelligibility, are self-destructive [Derrida, by Glendinning]
On the surface of deconstructive writing, technicalities float and then drift away [Scruton]
Deconstruction is the last spasm of romanticism, now become hopeless and destructive [Scruton]
Post-structuralism focused on exterior determinants of thought, rather than the thinker [Oksala]