Deconstruction

The term deconstruction (French déconstruction = separation, resolution, reverse engineer, disassemble ) serves as a buzzword for a number of currents in philosophy, philology, factory interpretation of works of literature, architecture and art since the 1960s. The term was coined by Jacques Derrida to refer to a reading and analysis procedures of texts, which distinguishes itself from hermeneutical theories and their practice of interpretation. A similar approach is found in the Yale Critics of Harold Bloom, Geoffrey Hartman, Paul de Man and J. Hillis Miller, who are striving to destroy the "interpretation delusion ".

The difference between hermeneutic and deconstructive ( antihermeneutischen ) " text surveys " is that hermeneutics assumes a quasi- dialogic relationship between text and interpreter that aims at an increasingly better understanding of a message contained in the text. This is a reconstructed unit of meaning, a sense of connection, assumed. Deconstructionists endeavor, however, to prove that - and above all: how - a text question his meaning itself thwarted and straight with paradoxes such creates sense, eg by contradictions between statement of content and linguistic form.

The method of deconstruction is a critical questioning and dissolving of a text in a broader sense. It is often referred to as deconstruction. It is a distancing designation by outside authors. Derrida himself has the deconstruction critically distinguished from " deconstructivism or Dekonstruktivismen " as dogmatic manifestations.

Concept of deconstruction and influences

Historically linked to the concept of deconstruction, among others, Martin Heidegger's use of the terms "construction" and " destruction " and their methodological entanglement. Other influences are less structuralism and from, among others, emerged theories about the nature and use of characters ( called semiotics ). The philosophical foundations of deconstruction, see the main article Jacques Derrida. Derrida developed deconstruction in connection with his concept of différance (the article is very revealing in terms of the explanation of deconstruction ). When deconstruction is about the analysis of language and texts, more specifically of characters, meaning and significance. Here, these terms are themselves questioned, just as the ontological status of the subject.

" What I call deconstruction, can of course create rules, procedures or techniques, but basically it is not a method, and no scientific criticism, because a method is a technique of interrogating or reading, without regard to the idiomatic features of the object in other contexts should be repeatable. Deconstruction, however, deals with texts, with particular situations, with the whole history of philosophy within which the concept of method has been constituted. If the deconstruction thus questioned the history of metaphysics or of methods concept, then they can not just themselves constitute a method. The deconstruction assumes the conversion even of the term of the text and font. [ ... ] I call an institution as well as a political situation, a body or a dance > Text <, which clearly led to many misunderstandings because you accused me to put the whole world in a book. This is obviously absurd. "

Deconstruction in practice

It must also be noted that the deconstruction is depending on to which the structure and constitution of opposites and their relative strengths to do it practically, their " new terms" either

A ) by neologism new forms ( so. eg Zirkumfession, composed of the words circumcision and confession; différance, which is formed from différence and the suffix - ance or the word formed from the destruction and construction, deconstruction ) b. ) enhances the substandard element and generalized ( such as font compared to the spoken word or the gift in relation to the goods) c. ) an existing, but (within the text ) does not or hardly reacted occurring or historically spilled terminus ( eg ghost ) or d ) a mixture of the above three versions represents (eg Grammatology, which represents both a the Greek word gramma of related sub ​​- neologism not only intends to upgrade the writing, and to generalize because gramma in antiquity the written letters of the alphabet called, but by and also displaced from their historical spill out )

For a better understanding of deconstruction, in practice, see also the examples of differance.

Deconstructive work of interpretations

Dialectical system experiments had provided that, in principle, can be joined opposites and antitheses to a synthesis. The deconstruction is in contrast skeptical about the extent they stressed that in such a synthesis always one of the previous two opposites is preferred. In addition, a text not from thesis and antithesis, but from a variety of other perspectives that exist simultaneously and are often in conflict with each other. However, this conflict is not directly visible, but disclose only means of deconstructive analysis.

The deconstruction generally assumes that the theming of certain items ( be it in scientific theory, whether in other systems of knowledge, forms of representation, or classes ) at the same time excludes others. Instead of just on explicitly communicated information to deconstructive analyzes therefore focus also and especially on those factors which have been marginalized. Systematically fundamentally this is a useful critical bracketing of meaning and reference relations as the elements of a text. This allows then to ask questions such as: which exclusion and establishing mechanisms which strategies of credibility making which allow hierarchical structures of a signifier structure to understand the relevant material microstructure as meaningful signifiers and reduce them to a certain meaning or "expressiveness intention "? Which constitutional conditions the corresponding meaning and validity claims are tied? This particular can make only conflict, aggression, covert contents and intentions visible.

Among other things, by binding to contingent extrinsic factors of meaning-making, the definition of a text as a manageable object is problematic. Particular texts are to be recognized not only in their internal structure, but also in its relation to other texts. This connects with the deconstruction theories of intertextuality, as they have developed as Mikhail Bakhtin and Julia Kristeva. In addition, the deconstruction relates concepts back to their history and establish ways. However, of the method of conceptual history distinguishes that deconstruction holds an intrinsically stable term significance for an uncovered insinuation.

Objects and applications of deconstruction

Each potential carriers of meaning is, according to Derrida, a dekonstruierbarer text:

"That is what I call text, everything is practically everything. It is everything, that is, there is a text as soon as there is a trace, a differential referral from one track to the other. And these references never stop. There are no limits to the differential referral of a track on the other. A trace is neither a presence nor an absence. Consequently, this new term sets the text that is without limits [ ... ] assumes that one can find in any moment something outside the range of the differential referral that a reality, a presence or an absence would be [ ... ] I have believed that it would be necessary to perform this extension, this strategic generalization of the notion of text to give their way to the deconstruction [ ... ] "

Derrida himself has spoken out against it to establish his philosophy as a literary method and to develop, for example, to a set of rules. He himself, as well as its related artists, like to talk instead of an attitude of deconstruction. Nevertheless, his ideas were taken up in the literature and cultural studies, initially mainly in the Anglo-Saxon context, especially within the so-called Yale School who, among other things Paul de Man belonged.

A special role is played by the practice of deconstruction in social science theories that deal with identities or identifications and power relations, such as queer theory and feminist theory of Judith Butler. In deconstructive theories of culture, the emergence of supposed entities and identities from a critical perspective makes is examined and also political alternatives are proposed.

Deconstruction can be applied as a method to texts or philosophical theories or as an artistic practice in the visual arts, fashion, music, architecture, and film. The architecture was influenced in particular by the approach of deconstruction, whereby the style deconstruction arose.