Derrida, Jacques (1930–2004)

Jacques Derrida was one of the leading philosophical figures of the twentieth century. He is most famous for having pioneered a type of reading known as “deconstruction”—a kind of reading that entails a very close—some might say, excessively close—examination of texts. The practice of Deconstruction uncovers conflicting meanings that preclude the achievement of a single univocal meaning. The meaning of a text for Derrida is never present as a stable object. In addition, there can never be a successful appeal to a “transcendental signifier” or a hors texte, such as the author's intent, that would allow a reader to settle upon some fixed meaning.

Some interpreters of Derrida, particularly in the United States, have claimed that deconstruction implies that a text can mean anything. Some of those critics have claimed as well that the main lesson of deconstruction is that everyone's reading is as good as anyone else's is. Such criticisms entail a significant misunderstanding of Derridean deconstruction. Derrida claimed that each text has a certain play and that its meaning cannot be fixed, but it is a long way from such claims to the idea that this play is within the control of the reader or her desires. The reader is not an autonomous agent free from the effects of the text.

Deconstruction has had a significant and lasting impact in many fields, including literary criticism, anthropology, cultural studies, gender studies, and sociology. Few thinkers today, however, continue to practice [Page 405]deconstruction in the same sustained manner that Derrida and his followers did in the 1970s and 1980s.

Analytical philosophers have sharply condemned Derrida's work—though mostly through dismissal rather than rigorous engagement. Deconstructionists, on their side, have shown no patience for analytical philosophy. Each side views the other as lacking in rigor and as succumbing, very early in its game, to elementary mistakes that make any further exploration a waste of time.

Within the legal academy, deconstruction posed something of a challenge to conventional forms of thought, though it never gained many adherents. In the United States, the thinkers who actually practiced deconstruction (as opposed to writing about it) were few in number. Among the best-known practitioners of the genre are Jack Balkin, Clare Dalton, Gerald Frug, David Kennedy, Gary Peller, and Pierre Schlag.

Later in life, in the 1990s, Derrida came to concern himself with questions of ethics and justice. Wrestling with the thought of Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) and Emmanuel Lévinas (1906–1995), Derrida famously pronounced that deconstruction was justice. This later work by Derrida, at least in law, has been far less original and far less influential than his earlier deconstructive work.