35 ideas
| 21887 | Derrida focuses on other philosophers, rather than on science [Derrida] |
| Full Idea: We should focus on other philosophers, and not on science. | |
| From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
| 21888 | Philosophy is just a linguistic display [Derrida] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is entirely linguistic, and is a display. | |
| From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
| 21896 | Philosophy aims to build foundations for thought [Derrida, by May] |
| Full Idea: Derrida points out that the project of philosophy consists largely in attempting to build foundations for thought. | |
| From: report of Jacques Derrida (works [1990]) by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 1.04 | |
| A reaction: You would first need to be convinced that there could be such a thing as foundations for thinking. Derrida thinks the project is hopeless. I think of it more as building an ideal framework for thought. |
| 21893 | Philosophy is necessarily metaphorical, and its writing is aesthetic [Derrida] |
| Full Idea: All of philosophy is necessarily metaphorical, and hence aesthetic. | |
| From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
| 21892 | Interpretations can be interpreted, so there is no original 'meaning' available [Derrida] |
| Full Idea: Because interpretations of texts can be interpreted, they can therefore have no 'original meaning'. | |
| From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
| 20925 | Hermeneutics blunts truth, by conforming it to the interpreter [Derrida, by Zimmermann,J] |
| Full Idea: Derrida worried that hermeneutics blunts the disruptive power of truth by forcing it conform to the interpreter's mental horizon. | |
| From: report of Jacques Derrida (works [1990]) by Jens Zimmermann - Hermeneutics: a very short introduction 3 'The heart' | |
| A reaction: Good heavens - I agree with Derrida. Very French, though, to see the value of truth in its disruptiveness. I tend to find the truth reassuring, but then I'm English. |
| 20934 | Hermeneutics is hostile, trying to overcome the other person's difference [Derrida, by Zimmermann,J] |
| Full Idea: Derrida described the hermeneutic impulse to understand another as a form of violence that seeks to overcome the other's particularity and unique difference. | |
| From: report of Jacques Derrida (works [1990]) by Jens Zimmermann - Hermeneutics: a very short introduction App 'Derrida' | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure about 'violence', but Derrida was on to somethng here. The 'hermeneutic circle' sounds like a creepy process of absorption, where the original writer disappears in a whirlpool of interpretation. |
| 21895 | Structuralism destroys awareness of dynamic meaning [Derrida] |
| Full Idea: Structuralism destroys awareness of dynamic meaning. | |
| From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
| 21934 | The idea of being as persistent presence, and meaning as conscious intelligibility, are self-destructive [Derrida, by Glendinning] |
| Full Idea: The tradition of conceiving being in terms of persisting presence, and meaning in terms of pure intelligibility or logos potentially present to the mind, finds itself dismantled by resources internal to its own construction. | |
| From: report of Jacques Derrida (works [1990]) by Simon Glendinning - Derrida: A Very Short Introduction 6 | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Glendinning says this is the basic meaning of de-construction. My personal reading of this is that Aristotle is right, and grand talk of Being is hopeless, so we should just aim to understand objects. I also believe in propositions. |
| 21883 | Sincerity can't be verified, so fiction infuses speech, and hence reality also [Derrida] |
| Full Idea: Sincerity can never be verified, so fiction infuses all speech, which means that reality is also fictional. | |
| From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
| 21882 | Sentences are contradictory, as they have opposite meanings in some contexts [Derrida] |
| Full Idea: Sentences are implicitly contradictory, because they can be used differently in different contexts (most obviously in 'I am ill'). | |
| From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
| 21881 | We aim to explore the limits of expression (as in Mallarmé's poetry) [Derrida] |
| Full Idea: The aim is to explore the limits of expression (which is what makes the poetry of Mallarmé so important). | |
| From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
| 4756 | Derrida says that all truth-talk is merely metaphor [Derrida, by Engel] |
| Full Idea: Derrida's view is that every discourse is metaphorical, and there is no difference between truth-talk and metaphor. | |
| From: report of Jacques Derrida (works [1990]) by Pascal Engel - Truth §2.5 | |
| A reaction: Right. Note that this is a Frenchman's summary. How would one define metaphor, without mentioning that it is parasitic on truth? Certainly some language tries to be metaphor, and other language tries not to be. |
| 21877 | True thoughts are inaccessible, in the subconscious, prior to speech or writing [Derrida] |
| Full Idea: 'True' thoughts are inaccessible, buried in the subconscious, long before they get to speech or writing. | |
| From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction | |
| A reaction: [My reading of some Derrida produced no quotations. I've read two commentaries, which were obscure. The Derrida ideas in this db are my simplistic tertiary summaries. Experts can chuckle over my failure] |
| 21878 | Names have a subjective aspect, especially the role of our own name [Derrida] |
| Full Idea: We can give a subjective account of names, by considering our own name. | |
| From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
| 21889 | 'I' is the perfect name, because it denotes without description [Derrida] |
| Full Idea: 'I' is the perfect name, because it denotes without description. | |
| From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
| 21879 | Even Kripke can't explain names; the word is the thing, and the thing is the word [Derrida] |
| Full Idea: Even Kripke can't explain names, because the word is the thing, and also the thing is the word. | |
| From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
| 21862 | Consciousness is based on 'I can', not on 'I think' [Merleau-Ponty] |
| Full Idea: Consciousness is in the first place not a matter of 'I think' but of 'I can'. | |
| From: Maurice Merleau-Ponty (Phenomenology of Perception [1945], p.159), quoted by Beth Lord - Spinoza's Ethics 2 'Sensation' | |
| A reaction: The point here (quoted during a discussion of Spinoza) is that you can't leave out the role of the body, which seems correct. |
| 20750 | The mind does not unite perceptions, because they flow into one another [Merleau-Ponty] |
| Full Idea: I do not have one perception, then another, and between them a link brought about by the mind. Rather, each perspective merges into the other [against a unified background]. | |
| From: Maurice Merleau-Ponty (Phenomenology of Perception [1945], p.329-30), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 3 'Perceptual' | |
| A reaction: I take this to be another piece of evidence pointing to realism as the best explanation of experience. A problem for Descartes is what unites the sequence of thoughts. |
| 21890 | Heidegger showed that passing time is the key to consciousness [Derrida] |
| Full Idea: Heidegger showed us the importance of transient time for consciousness. | |
| From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
| 21880 | 'Tacit theory' controls our thinking (which is why Freud is important) [Derrida] |
| Full Idea: All thought is controlled by tacit theory (which is why Freud is so important). | |
| From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction | |
| A reaction: This idea is said to be the essential thought of Derrida's Deconstruction. The aim is liberation of thought, by identifying and bypassing these tacit metaphysical schemas. |
| 21884 | Capacity for repetitions is the hallmark of language [Derrida] |
| Full Idea: The capacity for repetitions is the hallmark of language. | |
| From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
| 21935 | The sign is only conceivable as a movement between elusive presences [Derrida] |
| Full Idea: The sign is conceivable only on the basis of the presence that it defers, and moving toward the deferred presence that it aims to reappropriate. | |
| From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Simon Glendinning - Derrida: A Very Short Introduction 6 | |
| A reaction: [Glendinning gives no source for this] I take the fundamental idea to be that meanings are dynamic, when they are traditionally understood as static (and specifiable in dictionaries). |
| 21930 | For Aristotle all proper nouns must have a single sense, which is the purpose of language [Derrida] |
| Full Idea: A noun [for Aristotle] is proper when it has but a single sense. Better, it is only in this case that it is properly a noun. Univocity is the essence, or better, the telos of language. | |
| From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Simon Glendinning - Derrida: A Very Short Introduction 5 | |
| A reaction: [no ref given] His target seem to be Aristotelian definition, and also formal logic, which usually needs unambiguous meanings. {I'm puzzled that he thinks 'telos' is simply better than 'essence', since it is quite different]. |
| 21933 | Writing functions even if the sender or the receiver are absent [Derrida, by Glendinning] |
| Full Idea: Writing can and must be able to do without the presence of the sender. ...Also writing can and must he able to do without the presence of the receiver. | |
| From: report of Jacques Derrida (works [1990]) by Simon Glendinning - Derrida: A Very Short Introduction 6 | |
| A reaction: In simple terms, one of them could die during the transmission. This is the grounds for the assertion of the primacy of writing. It opposes orthodox views which define language in terms of sender and receiver. |
| 21886 | Meanings depend on differences and contrasts [Derrida] |
| Full Idea: Meaning depends on 'differences' (contrasts). | |
| From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
| 21894 | Madness and instability ('the demonic hyperbole') lurks in all language [Derrida] |
| Full Idea: Madness and instability ('the demonic hyperbole') lurks behind all language. | |
| From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
| 21931 | 'Dissemination' is opposed to polysemia, since that is irreducible, because of multiple understandings [Derrida, by Glendinning] |
| Full Idea: The intention to oppose polysemia with dissemination does not aim to affirm that everything we say is ambiguous, but that polysemia is irreducible in the sense that each and every 'meaning' is itself subject to more than one understanding. | |
| From: report of Jacques Derrida (works [1990]) by Simon Glendinning - Derrida: A Very Short Introduction 5 | |
| A reaction: The key point, I think, is that ambiguity and polysemia are not failures of language (which is the way most logicians see it), but part of the essential and irreducible nature of language. Nietzsche started this line of thought. |
| 21885 | Words exist in 'spacing', so meanings are never synchronic except in writing [Derrida] |
| Full Idea: Words only exist is 'spacings' (of time and space), so there are no synchronic meanings (except perhaps in writing). | |
| From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction |
| 21891 | The good is implicitly violent (against evil), so there is no pure good [Derrida] |
| Full Idea: Even the good is implicitly violent (against evil), so there can be no 'pure' good. | |
| From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction | |
| A reaction: Is good implicitly non-violent? Appropriate anger seems to be good behaviour, and I can't see why it is impure. Maybe anger and violence lack the control needed for pure goodness. |
| 8430 | Causal statements are used to explain, to predict, to control, to attribute responsibility, and in theories [Kim] |
| Full Idea: The function of causal statements is 1) to explain events, 2) for predictive usefulness, 3) to help control events, 4) with agents, to attribute moral responsibility, 5) in physical theory. We should judge causal theories by how they account for these. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Causes and Counterfactuals [1973], p.207) | |
| A reaction: He suggests that Lewis's counterfactual theory won't do well on this test. I think the first one is what matters. Philosophy aims to understand, and that is achieved through explanation. Regularity and counterfactual theories explain very little. |
| 8396 | Many counterfactuals have nothing to do with causation [Kim, by Tooley] |
| Full Idea: Kim has pointed out that there are a number of counterfactuals that have nothing to do with causation. If John marries Mary, then if John had not existed he would not have married Mary, but that is not the cause of their union. | |
| From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Causes and Counterfactuals [1973], 5.2) by Michael Tooley - Causation and Supervenience | |
| A reaction: One might not think that this mattered, but it leaves the problem of distinguishing between the causal counterfactuals and the rest (and you mustn't mention causation when you are doing it!). |
| 8429 | Counterfactuals can express four other relations between events, apart from causation [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Counterfactuals can express 'analytical' dependency, or the fact that one event is part of another, or an action done by doing another, or (most interestingly) an event can determine another without causally determining it. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Causes and Counterfactuals [1973], p.205) | |
| A reaction: [Kim gives example of each case] Counterfactuals can even express a relation that involves no dependency. Or they might just involve redescription, as in 'If Scott were still alive, then the author of "Waverley" would be too'. |
| 8428 | Causation is not the only dependency relation expressed by counterfactuals [Kim] |
| Full Idea: The sort of dependency expressed by counterfactual relations is considerably broader than strictly causal dependency, and causal dependency is only one among the heterogeneous group of dependency relationships counterfactuals can express. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Causes and Counterfactuals [1973], p.205) | |
| A reaction: In 'If pigs could fly, one and one still wouldn't make three' there isn't even a dependency. Kim has opened up lines of criticism which make the counterfactual analysis of causation look very implausible to me. |
| 4781 | Many counterfactual truths do not imply causation ('if yesterday wasn't Monday, it isn't Tuesday') [Kim, by Psillos] |
| Full Idea: Kim gives a range of examples of counterfactual dependence without causation, as: 'if yesterday wasn't Monday, today wouldn't be Tuesday', and 'if my sister had not given birth, I would not be an uncle'. | |
| From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Causes and Counterfactuals [1973]) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §3.3 | |
| A reaction: This is aimed at David Lewis. The objection seems like commonsense. "If you blink, the cat gets it". Causal claims involve counterfactuals, but they are not definitive of what causation is. |