Structure, sign, and play
in the Discourse of Human Sciences--Criticism & Theory
Jacques
Derrida
[This is a path-breaking essay, prescribed at different levels in various universities and colleges. The concept of 'Deconstruction' started with this. ]
Jacques Derrida
(1930 – 2005)
A French philosopher. The
present essay is a paper presented to a conference held at John Hopkins
University in 1966 at
which America
experienced the challenge of new ideas and methodologies generated by European
structuralism.
The essay marks the moment at which post structuralism as
a movement begins, opposing itself to classical structuralism as well as to
traditional humanism—when ‘the structurality of structure has to be
rethought’.
Derrida’s works: Writing
and Difference, Of Grammatology, Dissemination.
A A
rupture has occurred in the history of the concept of structure.
A The
concept of structure and the word ‘structure’ are as old as western philosophy.
A A
structure has a centre and we cannot imagine a structure with out a centre.
A The
centre is the point at which the substitution of contents/elements/terms is no
longer possible.
A It
has always been thought that the centre which is by definition unique,
constituted the very thing within a structure which governs the structure while
escaping structurality.
A Classical
thought could say that the centre is within the structure and outside it.
Derrida says that this is a paradox.
- Now Derrida makes his famous statement: “The centre is not the centre”. He argues that since the centre does not belong to the totality, the totality has its centre elsewhere.
- The need for a centre arose from the anxiety that in the absence of a centre everything will be free play.
- Anxiety is the result of being caught by the game.
Philosophy has given
different names to the centre—essence, existence, substance, subject,
consciousness, conscience, God, Man, and so forth.
In
the moment when the ‘rupture’ occurred ‘the structurality of structure has to
begin to be thought. In this moment in the absence of a centre everything
became discourse. Everything became a system where the central signified,
the original or transcendental signified is never absolutely present outside a
system of differences.
►
Where and how does this decentring of
structure occur?
a. The
Nietzschean critique of metaphysics where concepts of being and truth were
substituted by concepts of play, interpretation and sign—(sign without truth
present).
b. The
Freudian critique of consciousness.
c. The
Heideggerian destruction of metaphysics.
►
To attack metaphysics, the concepts of
metaphysics are needed.
►
We have no language, no syntax and no
lexicon which is alien to the history of metaphysics.
Ethnology
Like
any science comes about within the element of discourse—it is a European
science employing traditional concepts. Whether he wants it or not the
ethnologist accepts into his discourse the premises of ethnocentrism at the
very moment when he is employed in enouncing them,
E.g.
Levi-Strauss and the opposition between nature and culture.
In
his Elementary Structure of Kinship Levi-Strauss defines nature and
culture thus:
Nature:
universal, spontaneous, not depending on any particular culture or any
determinate form.
Culture:
depends on a system of norms regulating society and is capable of varying from
one social structure to another.
♣ But Levi-Strauss soon encounters a problem [‘scandal’]
♣ Something no longer tolerates the nature/culture opposition.
♣ This is incest-prohibition.
♣ Incest-prohibition is universal—one can call it natural.
♣ But it is a prohibition, a system of norms. In this sense it is
cultural also.
♣ The opposition between nature and culture which was always
assumed as self-evident becomes obliterated or disputed.
Bricolage—is another method
that Levi-Strauss presents in The Savage Mind.
1.The
‘bricoleur’ is someone who uses the means at hand, that is the instruments he
finds at his disposition around him, those which are already there, which had
not been especially conceived with an eye to the operation for which they are
to be used and to which one tries by trial and error to adapt them”. There is a
critique of language in the form of Bricolage. “..every discourse is
‘bricoleur’”.
2. Levi-Strauss describes ‘bricolage’
not only as an intellectual activity but also as a mythopoetical activity.
3. Levi-Strauss abandons all
references to a centre, to a subject, to a privileged reference, to an origin.
The theme of decentring could be followed throughout The Raw and the Cooked.
4. Speaking
about myths, Levi-Strauss says that there is no absolute source of the myth.
The focus of the myth is always shadows which are elusive, unactualized and non
existent in the first place. Myths rests on second-order codes (the first-order
codes being in which language consists).
Levi-Strauss’s book on myth offers a third-order code
(because of the possibility of translation of several myths). Thus the book is
a myth: the myth of mythology.
♣ Levi-Strauss on totalization of the myth
The totality of the myth of a people is of the order of a
discourse. Provided that the people does not become extinct, this totality is
never closed.
♣ Myth and Grammar. Rules of grammar formed from the analysis of a
small number of sentences. Similarly, there is no requirement for a total
mythical discourse.
♣ Totalization is therefore
useless. It is impossible also. Should new texts appear to enrich the mythical
discourse, some of the old concepts will be formulated.
Free Play.
Non totalization can be
viewed from the standpoint of ‘free play’.
♣ Totalization has no meaning.
♣ It is not because the infinity of a field cannot be covered by Levi-Strauss
a finite glance or a finite discourse.
♣ It is because of the nature of the field, that is language
excludes totalization. This is a field of free play. It is a field of infinite
substitutions. There is something missing from it: a centre which arrests and
founds the free play of substitutions.
Supplementarity
Free play is permitted by the
lack of absence of a centre of origin. It is the movement of Supplementarity.
One cannot determine the centre. The sign supplements it. This sign adds
itself, occurs in addition, over and above, comes as a supplement. Supplement
is a lack on the part of the signified. Levi-Strauss speaks about the
“superabundance of signifier”. The superabundance is the result of a lack which
must be supplemented.
Two interpretations of
interpretation.
1. Of
structure and sign.
2. Of
free play.
The first seeks to decipher a
truth or an origin which is free from free play and from the order of the sign.
The second is no longer
turned towards the origin. It affirms free play and tries to pass beyond man
and humanism. Man is the name of that being who , throughout the history of
metaphysics—through out the history of all his history—has dreamed of full
presence, the reassuring foundation, the origin and the end of the game.
è These two interpretations of interpretation are absolutely
irreconcilable.
è They together share the field which we call the human sciences.
è Today there is no question of choosing between them.
è ‘Choice is trivial; we have to conceive the common ground, and
the ‘difference’ of this irreducible difference.
Dr. S. Sree Kumar
ü
►
►
►
►
Tq so much sir this is helpful to us.....
ReplyDelete