Doconstructive Approach to the Novels of Roderick Low

Dr. Husnat Ahmed Tabssam

The current study has primarily two aims; first one is to analyze the poem "The Road Not Taken" stylistically on different linguistic levels; Morphological, Syntactical, Semantic & Phonological and the second aim is to apply Derrida's deconstruction theory on to the selected poem to decode the implicit meanings of the poem. The study will also explore the contextual and hidden meanings by working on word, sentence and meaning levels. The analysis concluded that the poem is stylistically rich and implies a lot of implicit contexts.

Philosophy in Review, 2013

Academia Letters, 2021

2021

The term Deconstruction by the French theoretician Jacques Derrida has gained enormous attraction in the field of literary criticism. This revolutionary theory has challenged many clichéd ideals in criticism, be it literary or artistic criticism, in the twentieth century. Like literature, Deconstruction confronts the already established rules and standards associated with the meaning, understanding and discussion of and about art. Application of theory of Deconstruction on the western art is relatively a new concept adopted precisely in the latter half of twentieth century. Art produced by South Asian artists, has gone through many established sets of rules, that have been highlighted by many local and foreign critics and historians, time and again. However, application of theory of Deconstruction on a painting by a Pakistani artist is something new in art criticism. This study investigates and explores one of the famous figurative paintings, Talism-e Hoshruba, (magic that can blow ...

Ph.D Thesis -- University of Warwick. 1996 (submitted in October 1995)

"THE RULES OF THE GAME" -- Some of the principal themes of this Ph.D. thesis can be traced back to an early article that I presented at an international conference in philosophy held at Warwick University in 1989, entitled: “Différance Beyond Phenomenological Reduction (Epoché)?” – published in The Warwick Journal of Philosophy, Vol.2, Issue 2, 1989. This paper explores the development of the various phases of the movement of epoché in Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology and its relevance for Jacques Derrida’s project of deconstruction. The analyses not only attend to the need for an effective propaedeutic to an understanding of phenomenology as method, they also serve to demystify the logics of Derridian non-teleological strategy by explaining the sense of such a manoeuvre -- as a kind of maieutic response to the Husserlian project – which operates within the horizon of a radical epoché. According to this orientation, Derrida’s deconstruction of phenomenology is permitted to open itself up to a phenomenology of deconstruction. The present book develops these analyses and utilizes a form of critique that points the way to the possibility of a phenomenological-deconstruction of the limits of Derrida’s project of deconstruction through the themes of epoché, play, dialogue, spacing and temporalization. In order to trace the resources from which he draws throughout the early development of deconstruction, this study confines itself to a discussion on the texts published between 1962 and 1968. This subjection of deconstruction to a historical de-sedimentation of its motivational, methodological, theoretical, and strategic moments, involves a certain kind of transformational return to the spacing between phenomenology and deconstruction, which urgently puts into question the alleged supercession of phenomenology by deconstruction. The expression of such a ‘beyond’ is already deeply sedimented in contemporary deconstructive writing to the point at which it is now rarely even noticed, let alone thematized and brought into question. This conviction (regarding the transgression of phenomenology by deconstruction) traces itself out in the form of an attitude to reading which is, in fact and in principle, counter to Derrida’s own call for care. The meaning and limits of the very terms, transgression, beyond, supercession, etc., must be continually subjected to deconstruction. The notions of play, dissemination and supplementarity – with the concomitant sense of transformational repetition that defines them – do not function as a mere excuse for lack of scholarly rigour. Deconstruction is a movement of critical return, which must insert itself (with a sense of irony) within the margins and intersections of that which gives itself up to this practice of textual unbuilding. The strategy of play encourages the structural matrix of that with which it is engaged to turn in upon itself, exposing its limits and fissures in a kind of textual analogue to a psychoanalysis. To be sure, this does involve a certain kind of violence – a violation of the ‘system’s’ own sense of propriety (what is proper [propre] and closest to itself) – but in no sense is this an anarchical celebration of pure destruction. We speak rather of irony, parody, satire, metaphor, double-reading and other tactical devices, which permit a reorganization of the deconstructed’s (textual analysand’s) self-relation and the possibility of playful speculation. Such play demands care and vigilance in regard to the appropriation of the logics of the system with which it is in a relation of negotiation. In order to play well, one must learn the game-rules."

2014

The term "deconstruction" decisively enters philosophical discourse in 1967, with the publication of three books by Jacques Derrida: Writing and Difference, Of Grammatology, and Voice and Phenomenon. Indeed, "deconstruction" is virtually synonymous with Derrida's name. Nevertheless, the event of Derridean deconstruction developed out of the phenomenological tradition. On the one hand, as is often noted, Derrida appropriated the term from Heidegger's idea, in Being and Time, of a "destruction" of the history of Western ontology (Heidegger 2010, 19-25 [ §6]), that is, a dismantling of the historical concepts of being in order to lay bare the fundamental experience from which these concepts originated (PSY2, 2). On the other, and less often noted, Derrida took constant inspiration from Husserl's idea of the epoché (Husserl 2012, 59-60 [ §32]), that is, from the universal suspension of the belief in a world having existence independent from experience (see, e.g., SM, 59). Both Heidegger's historical destruction and Husserl's universal suspension amounted to critical practices in regard to accepted beliefs and sedimented concepts. Likewise, Derridean deconstruction criticizes structures, concepts, and beliefs that seem selfevident. In this regard, deconstructive critique is classical (or traditional, Kantian), aiming to demonstrate the limited validity of concepts and beliefs, even their falsity, aiming, in other words, to dispel the illusions they have generated. In general, deconstructive critique targets the illusion of presence, that is, the idea that being is simply present and available before our eyes. For Derrida, the idea of presence implies selfgivenness, simplicity, purity, identity, and stasis. Therefore, deconstruction aims to demonstrate that presence is never given as such, never simple, never pure, never self-identical, and never static; it is always given as something other, complex, impure, differentiated, and generated.

2010

Abstract: This article provides, through a discussion of the work of Jacques Derrida, an examination of the philosophical basis of postmodernism. The first section identifies and explains the positive claims of postmodernism, including the key claim that all identities, presences, etc. depend for their existence on something which is absent and different from themselves. The second section further illustrates the positive claims through an analysis of Derrida's "deconstructionist" reading of Plato. The final section raises a number of critical problems for postmodernism: that it confuses aesthetics with metaphysics; that it mistakes assertion for argument in philosophy; that it is guilty of relativism; and that it is self-contradictory.

Cambridge History of French Thought

This chapter offers an overview of Jacques Derrida’s contributions to philosophy and related disciplines. Following a brief biographical résumé, the chapter provides an overview of some of the central ideas running through Derrida’s philosophy of deconstruction. Looking especially to Derrida’s conception of alterity, it offers an assessment of the ethics of deconstruction as well as a summation of Derrida’s reflections on politics and political philosophy. The chapter further provides an account of the reception of Derrida’s work, both in France and internationally. It looks in particular to key debates with John R. Searle, Jurgen Habermas, and Michel Foucault as well as more recent arguments centred upon the political limitations of Derrida’s work amongst some contemporary neo-Marxist political theorists. It is argued that Derrida’s corpus is amongst the most influential bodies of work for twentieth century Humanities and Social Sciences scholarship.

Research In Phenomenology, 2016

This article puts into play the ghostly horizon of “death” as it follows its semblances through Derrida’s reading of Heidegger in the French thinker’s last seminars as published in The Beast and the Sovereign Vol. ii. The moments I underscore are three, always marking the playing out or releasing of death’s ghost, its sovereignty over life, while the readings, drift off driven by other forces: 1. In Session iv, Derrida’s enjambment of Heidegger’s sense of dasein and Welt with Celan’s line from Atemwende, “Die Welt ist fort, Ich muß dich tragen” (“the world has withdrawn, I must carry you”); 2. The mutual displacement of the question of the other and the question of death at the beginning of Session v; and 3, the unfolding of Crusoe’s desire and fear of “living a living death” in Derrida’s discussion of survivance, also in session v. The discussion closes with the interpolation of Latin American thought through the introduction of the temporalizing movement of différance read in ligh...