Jacque Derrida's Limitations - Essay Example

Deconstruction is a form of philosophical and literary analysis which results from the work begun in 1960s by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. In this case, Derrida was trying to interrogate the essential theoretical differences, or "oppositions," in the western way of life through a close examination of the language and logic of ethical and literary texts. Many have got inspiration from his way of thinking. They include, Slavoj Zizek, Richard Rorty, Ernesto Laclau, Judith Butler and many more present-day theorists. Deconstruction studies involves the subjective judgment of any given text or discourse and helps to analyze the inconsistencies inherent in all schools of thought, and as such, it has proved radical in political analysis especially in ideology assessment. Thus, Derrida's book, Limitations, is ideal for all students of political theory, and anyone looking for an accessible guide to Derrida's thinking and how it can be used as a fundamental tool for political analysis. In this article, I will explore the criticisms that have been put forward by scholars to discredit Jacques Derrida's theory of deconstruction.

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Derrida's work on deconstruction is broad and gives us a wider and more critical view of various topics and propositions. Having brought the subject into the limelight, many writers and critics have risen to scrutinize his writing style and ideas. From his early writings on phenomenology and linguistics as well as the present work covering the meditations on war, terrorism, and justice, Jacques Derrida became a global icon and a household name since; he played a role in enlightening diverse audiences across the globe. In spite of widespread acclamation, Derrida's work has never been considered accommodative since he faces various critics from other scholars. Politics of Deconstruction offers some personal methods to reading, and Derrida requests readers to find their own while he was stressing on the connection between philosophy and politics. He discloses that the world is more at stake by tackling all the burning political and intellectual challenges of our time (Martin 61). From my proposition, the diverse topics addressed by Derrida which require readers to have a unique perspective of the work; are the leading causes of criticism.

There are various scholars who have come to question the validity of Derridas work over time by arguing that his proposition on the subject matter is constrained with some limitations. One of his critics is catalyzed and advanced by Jonathan Culler in his book "On Deconstruction." Culler focuses and raised questions on the psychoanalytic, feminist and reader response. However, we have come to expect Culler to give us clear explanations of difficult topics as he forged a type of style that attempts to undo the work and the concepts put forth by Derridda. They were supposed to be presented on a calm and reasonable manner so as to give the readers an opportunity to notice the difference since Derridas work is considered a masterpiece which has transformed the disciplines and humanities which touches the tenets of western metaphysics (Tom, 22). It thus makes the Deconstruction concepts to be much more complicated to be translated and comprehended in Culler's language.

However, Culler tries to defend his argument by postulating that he was only focusing on theory but not on the deconstruction per see (Culler 80). In real sense, while considering the literary work done by Derrida, the feminist concept is well explained and different components which touch the lives of the people living in the western cultures and regions are examined. Besides, many readers find it interesting and had a wish that everyone can get access to a copy. Therefore, Derridas masterpiece still needs recognition and a part at the back. It is thus a warning to the readers who seeks to know more about Derrida to cease from Cullers works since his aim was to distort Derridas work instead of improving it. The distortion occurs when giving a consideration to the radical disjunction between Derrida and Culler's styles, ideas and thoughts. In some circumstances, Culler presents us with a systematic collection of categories that supposedly does not make sense of Derrida. They include "Writing and Logocentrism," "Meaning and Alterability," "Grafts and Graft," and so on. (Culler 67) In doing so, he omits Derrida's poetry and outrageousness, his jokes and his anger, giving us mere formulas instead. What we get is a domesticated Derrida. We get an author safe for English departments so safe, in fact, that we can ignore him as well.

In addition, the second critic to Derrida's work is Joshua Kates. In his work, Kates argues that it is important to begin from a different frame other than Derridas point of view to get the solutions to the questions which are frequently asked by the readers of the book in question (Kates 165). Besides, Joshua further argues that as much as Jacques is viewed as a foundational and liberal French thinker, the most fundamental questions about his work in most cases are unanswered. Some of the questions which bring the dilemma comprise of: Is Derrida an acquaintance of reason, or even philosophy? Is he a radical of all skeptics? Do they consider language-based themes to be writing or rather semiosis? What is his central concern, or rather he sometimes writes about other things? The question whether his thoughts lead to the creation of a system or a crisis? There is also a possibility that the system is composed of commentaries by individual texts. Kate tries to address these inquiries by coming back to the history of events. He also advances these thoughts by the use of Husserlian phenomenology which enables him to recasts what has come to be known as the Derrida/Husserl banter, which aimed at giving a general improvement of his work (Kates 170). Since this formative work, a remarkable History comes up by offering discrete understandings of Derrida's early writings of 1967. A radical reinterpretation of Derrida's project and the work for which he is best known, Joshua Kates's study displays a new way of viewing the French thinkers work and he did display respects and fundamental uniqueness of the thought while giving an objective which Derrida wanted to achieve and the improvement the changes he is making will bring to the development of the readers understanding and way of life (Kates 171-172). It can thus be concluded that even though Kate provide some improvement on the work displayed by Derrida, his copies still remains very essential in the study of humanities and philosophical world. It is because; it forms the basis of knowledge in both politics and philosophy.

It is considered that Derrida was not realistic when he was asked questions on his literary work. As he was responding to a question asked by Toshihiko Izutsu concerning some first considerations on the ways that can be followed in order to translate words like deconstruction to Japanese without losing its real meaning, Derrida did give negative answers to the queries. He simply gave interrogations which could not sum up to bring a solution to the question at hand.

He further argued that deconstruction is not an examination, criticism, or technique and everyone should come to understand these terms in any context. In the scenario where deconstruction was described negatively, Derrida is looking for a way to "increase the warning pointers and ensure the out-of-date philosophical thoughts are all put aside." This did not necessarily mean deconstruction has got nothing in conjoint with an examination, criticism, or technique but he was just trying to reserve deconstruction from these particular terms. His necessity of referring to the phrase "under erasure" means that despite the fact that these words are tricky, we have to use them up to a point when they can possibly be replaced or changed to suit the context.

These are just some of the setbacks in Jacques Derrida's work on deconstruction brought up by scholars. Sure enough, from the study, I observed that the critics write from different perspectives which give deconstruction another meaning as far as ethics, literary styles, politics and philosophy. Like any other literary work which is prone to error, Derridas work is not an exception. Therefore, it can be concluded that his work can still be considered as one of the basis for philosophical reasoning in the pursuit to make the world a better place to live.

Works cited;Culler, J. On Deconstruction. Boston: Longhorn Publishers, 2007. Print.

Kates, J. Fielding Derrida. 1st ed. New York: Fordham University Press, 2008. Print.

Ludemann, S. Politics of Deconstruction: a new introduction to Jacques Derrida. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014. Print.

Martin M. The politics of deconstruction: Jacques Derrida and the other of philosophy.Pluto Press, Pluto.2007.Print

Simon,M. Wortham. The Derrida Dictionary. Chicago: ALA, 2010. Print.

Tom C. Jacques Derrida and the humanities. Cambridge University press, Cambridge UP, 2001.Print