DERRIDA’S DECONSTRUCTION

AS A METHOD OF ANALYSIS OF
LANGUAGE

Thesis submitted to the University of Calicut

By
DEVADASAN. P. (PAROL)

Supervised by
Dr. A. KANTHAMANI
Professor

DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY
UNIVERSITY OF CALICUT
2008
 Chapter I

'I am touched by Deconstruction'

THE LINGUISTIC TURN

1.1 The Linguistic Turn and the Deconstructive Turn: The

Entente Cordiale

The objective of the thesis is to widen the scope of the Derridean

rigours of deconstruction to cover the logic of the entire analytic traditions

found within the analytic traditions (Frege, Russell and early Wittgenstein), as

well as in the post-analytic traditions (Quine, Davidson and Dummett).

Before such an enquiry, it becomes necessary to unpack some of the leading

definitions of deconstruction at the outset, so as to take it in the ‘maximalist’

sense than the ‘minimalist’ construal of analysis as envisaged by Christopher

Norris.#

In his attempt to deconstruct logocentrism – the ‘ phonocentric’

suspicion of writing as a parasite upon the authenticity of speech – Derrida

translated and adapted the German words ‘destruktion’ or ‘Abbau’

#
The author of fifteen books. Dr. A Kanthamani construes the entire corpus as
analytical, post-analytical, hermeneutic and the cognitive turns. Norris seriously
believe that the last three phases are symptomatic of ‘dead-end predicament’.(6)
along with non-rigorous literary portrayals of deconstruction. For Norris, any
‘alliance’ between post-analytic and ‘depth-ontological’ (‘Heideggerian depth-
hermeneutics’ is an ‘improbable’ one (21). Again, the rapprochement between the
post-analytic and depth-analytical projects (40) emphasis in the original) have
nothing whatsoever in common (39). Contra Norris, my aim is to vindicate a thesis
according to which the combinatorial game (deconstruction, post-modernism and
critical theory) has a higher pay-off in the climate of naturalism.

1
(unbuilding) for his own convenience. How the word first occurred to him in

the ‘Littre/’, and the meaning it conveys, Derrida writes in the following way

in a letter to his Japanese friend Professor Izutzu.1

The grammatical linguistic or rhetorical senses [porte /es] were found

bound up with a ‘Mechanical’ sense [Porte /es ‘Machnique’]. Derrida explains

some of the entries from the ‘Littre/’, according to which deconstruction is:

‘Disarranging the construction words in a sentence’.*

‘ To disassemble the parts of a whole. To deconstruct verse, rendering it by

the suppression of meter, similar to prose'.+2

‘A language reaching its own state of perfection is deconstructed [se’st

deconstruive] and altered from within itself according to the single law of

change, natural to human mind’.3

According to Derrida, ‘deconstruction is not simply the decomposition

of an architectural structure; it is also a question about the foundation, about

the relation between foundation and what is founded; it is also a question

about the closure of the structure about the whole structure of philosophy’. 4

‘Any attempt to define ‘deconstruction’ must soon run up against the many

and varied obstacles that Derrida has shrewdly placed in its path’. 5 However
*
Of deconstruction, Derrida further explains, a common way of saying construction,
Lemare, De la maniere da/pprendre les langues, chap. 17, in Cours de Langue
Latine.
+
In the system of prenotional sentences, one also starts with translation and one of
its advantages is never needing to deconstruction, Lemare, Ibid.

2
interpreters of Derrida have attempted to define deconstruction and some of

them are given here.

Christopher Norris defines deconstruction as “the vigilant seeking out

of those ‘aporias’ blindspots or moments of self- contradiction where a text

involuntarily betrays the tension between rhetoric and logic, between what it

manifestly means to say and what it is nonetheless constrained to mean.” 6

And so, it is the “dismantling of conceptual oppositions, the taking apart of

hierarchical systems of thought which can then be reinscribed within a

different order of textual signification.”

Geoffrey Bennington is ready to give up it as “not as a theory or a

project”. It does not prescribe a practice more or less faithful to it nor project

an image of a desirable state to be brought about. All of Derrida’s texts are

already applications, so there is no separate ‘Derrida’ in the form of theory

who might then be applied to something else. ……… we cannot simply be

content to claim that Derrida (sometimes) applies his own theory or unites

theory and practice, or performs theoretical practice.7

Barbara Johnson admits that the word “deconstruction” is closely

related not to the word “destruction” but to the word “analysis”, which

etymologically means “to undo” – a virtual synonym for “to deconstruct”

…….8

3
 According to John D. Caputo the very meaning and mission of

deconstruction is to show that things, texts, institutions, traditions, societies,

beliefs and practices of whatever size and sort you need – do not have

definable meanings and determinable missions, that they are always more

than any mission would impose, that they exceed the boundaries they

currently occupy……….. A ‘meaning’ of a ‘mission’ is a way to contain and

compact things, like a nutshell, gathering them into a unity whereas

deconstruction bends all its efforts to stretch beyond these

boundaries………… Whenever deconstruction finds a nutshell – a secure

axion or a pithy maxim – the very idea is to crack it open and disturb this

tranquility….. cracking nutshells is what deconstruction is.9

Deconstruction tries “to undo” the structural significations by means of

analysis of language and reinscribe them in a different order of textual

signification. How do deconstruction undo the structural significations? What

type of analysis is involved in it?

Before making an assessment of the interface between deconstruction

and the analysis, we shall give a quick review of both analytical and post-

analytical traditions so as to keep them at the backdrop. Norris is an exemplar

because he borrows rigour from analytic philosophy and foists deconstruction,

thereby making it inseparably bound and non-distinct. To him, deconstruction

is not textual ‘free play’ but symbolizes the very notions of rigorous thinking

4
or conceptual critique. He is of the opinion that the central issues of

deconstruction can be set forth and defended in such a way as to engage the

serious interest of philosophers in the ‘other’, Anglo-American or analytical

tradition.10 Norris wants to expound a novel thesis which is stated as

Thesis I: Deconstruction is a sub-branch of philosophy (analytical

philosophy, to be more precise). To demonstrate the above thesis, Norris

conflates the post-analytical with post-modernism (sub-thesis). Both are not

in his good books. It is an open question whether his thesis and sub-thesis can

be sustained. We shall review his position Motif 3 after covering the post-

analytical motif (Motif 1 & 2) as dealt separately with two leading thinkers.

We shall review his position as motif 3 after covering the past-analytical

Motif (1 & 2) as they are dealt separately in chapters 2 and 3. Motif 3

(Derridean ‘Rigour of Analysis’) is subserved by the following

considerations:

1) There is a logic of deconstruction;

2) This logic has a certain argumentative rigour;

3) This is demonstrated by ‘close reading’ of the texts from ‘Plato-Nato’

(Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, Kant, Hegal and Husserl; Nato we shall see

in ‘late’ Derrida).

4) This subscribes to the Kantian enlightenment ideals (e.g rationality in

science);

5
 5) This requires the thematic closure from two key notions such as the

‘condition of possibility’ (Norris) and the ‘condition of impossibility’

(Rudolph Gasche).

6) This makes full use of resources of (minimal) realism/naturalism

(contra anti-realism/scepticism).

We can as well as counterpose the early part with the later which is

purported to be a short review of Norris to maintain the status-quo of the

combinatorial game. But it is not necessary as the lines of distinction between

modernism and post-modernism (unfinished project of modernity) as well as

the distinction between analytical and post-analytical tradition are only thinly

drawn. We shall take up issues with Glock for the broadside criticism on the

post-analytical ‘naturalism’. Norris’s ‘resources’ of realism is an option to be

reckoned with, but its efficacy is far from influential even in the recent

developments of cognitive science. Norris opts for a more narrower construal

given as

Thesis 2: Deconstruction is a sub-branch of ethics (Socio-political and ethico-

juridical claims) as it is true of ‘late’ Derrida.

Now Thesis 2 is fully potent enough to counter the derogatory reading of

Thesis 3: Deconstruction is a sub-branch of literary theory. (a la Rorty)

6
 There is more politics of deconstruction than of analysis, that will

resemble post-modernist thinking let loose by Francis Fukuyma (‘end of

history’) or Habermas, in his ‘unfinished project of modernity’. So Norris is

after all blows hot and cold against the reading of post-analytical seriousness.

That bids us to move to Thesis 4.

Motif 1 (Quine’s ‘Deconstructivist Logic’) is subserved by Samuel

Wheeler’s reading which seeks out parallelism or analogism between Quine,

Davidson and Derrida and of course, Paul de Man as well. They nonetheless

reach similar positions on the basis of analogous considerations indicates that

from their different traditions in the exact sense that a common problem has

emerged that transcends the particularities of those traditions. The parallelism

also implies a sort of ‘competitiveness’ as evidenced in the way Philosophical

Investigations of Wittgenstein replies to Logical Investigations of Husserl.

Competitiveness apart, this motif moves the logic of post-analytical

philosophy towards the logic of deconstruction that is very similar to the

motif 2 which is placed next in the line.

Motif 2 (‘Structural Affinity Thesis’) is subserved by Henry Staten’s

direct comparison between Wittgenstein and Derrida tries to bring

“Derrida’s” project into relation with Wittgenstein and strongly suggests the

Anglo-American context of ‘ordinary language’ as an operational concept.

7
 It states that, “Wittgenstein’s Tractatus bears close affinities to

Husserl’s Logical Investigations” and that “Derrida’s penetrating

consideration and ultimate rejection of the basic principles of Husserl’s

philosophy of language is the historical analogue of Wittgenstein’s later

consideration and rejection of his own earlier work, the Tractatus-Logico-

Philosophicus. With a microscopic fidelity Staten observes the different areas

where Wittgenstein and Derrida’s philosophies come across and states that

‘there is a filation between the texts, and the new threads must be twisted onto

the old ones with the tightness appropriate to philosophical textuality’.

Staten chooses Husserl’s ‘Origin of Geometry’, as a “perspicuous

area” of “deconstructive reading of Wittgenstein’s work” taking this as the

historical analogue of Wittgenstein’s later considerations and rejection of his

own earlier work, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Hence Staten says

that the more one reads the Logical Investigations next to the Philosophical

Investigations, the more striking the relation between the two becomes, taking

the cue from Blue Book which, on his reading consistently deconstructive,

which acts as a bridge between the early and later Wittgenstein.

It is in this context ‘the linguistic turn’ in philosophy suggests certain

deconstructive motifs. Although this Rortian expression first occurs in 1967,

there are difference of opinions on the question of when did the linguistic turn

occur in the history of philosophy. While P.M.S Hacker traces the origin of

8
this turn with Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, a writer like Antony Kenny, following

Dummett, is of the opinion that if analytic philosophy was born when ‘the

linguistic turn’, was taken, its birthday must be dated to the publication of The

Foundations of Arithmetic in 1884 – when Frege decided that the way to

investigate the nature of number was to analyse sentences in which numerals

occured.11 Taking the term ‘analysis’ au pied de la lettre, twentieth century

analytic philosophy is distinguished in its origins by its non-psychological

orientation. One (Russellian) root of this new school might be denominated

‘logico-analytic philosophy’, in as much as its central tenet was the new logic,

introduced by Frege, Russell and Whitehead, provided an instrument for the

logical analysis of objective phenomena. 12 However, Motif 3 sponsors a

‘divide-and-rule’ strategy by aligning Derrida with the analytical tradition of

Frege, Russell and Wittgenstein and at the expense of the post-analytical

tradition of Quine, Davidson and Dummett. Such a strategy enables him to

overlook what is very likely to ‘survive’ the ‘crisis’ of analytic philosophy.

(see the remarks of Hintikka and Putnam on page 40)

Norris proposes the following counter-theses to support his

perspective:

[A] against Quine

(a) The two dogmas of empiricism:

9
 (b) The case of the field-linguist theory which holds that there is an

indeterminacy of radical translation; that is the anthropologist is not

sure whether

gavagai = rabbit

is the exact translation.

(c) Ontological relativity which holds that there is no way of individuating

objects or belief-contents except in relation to the entire ‘web’ or

‘fabric’;

(d) The meaning-holism which lacks any appeal to intermediary entities

(propositions/statements/sentences).

From (a) – (d), it follows that the Human predicament is not the Humean

predicament; realism wins hands down.

[B] against Davidson

(a) His dualism of scheme and content;

(b) His dualism or prior and passing theory;

(c) His principle of charity at maximizing truth-content;

(d) His throwaway pronouncement: ‘there is no such think as language’;

(e) His account of malapropism in interpretations;

10
[C] against Dummett

(a) His founding of analytic philosophy on the ‘foundation’ of a theory of

meaning; systematizing analytic philosophy into a coherent set of

beliefs.

(b) His using of Fregean doctrine of sense for an upbeat anti-realism;

(c) His using of Wittgenstein’s doctrine of ‘meaning-as-use’ to

counterpose the later Wittgenstein to the early Wittgenstein;

(d) His way of sustaining the anti-realistic tenure by holding that there

could not be any truth beyond what is verifiable (verification-

transcendent truth).

Does Norris using the above [A], [B] and [C], succeed to counterpose anti-

realism with a tenable realism (minimal realism), notwithstanding the inner

fissures? The question is answered negatively in the course of the thesis.

Together with their positives might, they extend Thesis (1).

FØllesdal has a definite answer with his ‘genetic affiliation thesis’

(Thesis 5). To him, the label ‘analytic philosophy’ is inappropriate even for

survey purposes, that the whole division of contemporary philosophy into

‘continental’ and ‘analytic’ is fundamentally flawed.13 The thesis states that

there is a genetic affiliation between the continental and analytic philosophy

(A.W Moore calls this as a ‘clumsy’ distinction). F Øllesdal looks at the

11
standard classification model of dividing philosophy between the analytic and

the continental with the following diagramme.

ANALYTIC
CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY
PHILOSOPHY
logical Ordinary phenome existe herm structur deconstru Neo Neo
Language nology ntiali eneut alism ctivism Thom Marxi
sm ics ism sm

FØllesdal’s ‘genetic affiliation thesis’ used the terms argument and

‘justification’ in a broader sense. The term ‘argument’ does not mean just

deductive argument, but something more than that. The types of argument we

find in philosophy and other areas, according to F Øllesdal are usually variants

of non-monotonic (not logical enough as per canons) arguments, that is, the

type of arguments in which adding new premises may cast doubt on a

conclusion that would follow without these premises.

Regarding the term ‘justification’, FØllesdal says that philosophy also

has to alternate between general connection and details. The details provided

by the theory of general connection must be proper and it must find a place in

a more general theory. It is through this kind of ‘reflective equilibrium’ that

we arrive at justification of our philosophical insights, of the general insights

as well as of the detailed specific ones, says FØllesdal.

12
 According to FØllesdal, it is the particular way of approaching

philosophical problems that make analytic philosophy distinct and this

method cannot even be identified with a specific method of analyzing

philosophical concepts. FØllesdal finds no unity between the three strands of

thinking namely (1) doctrines (2) problems and (3) ways of approaching

them. The way of treating the main currents of philosophy as philosophical

schools, according to FØllesdal is unsatisfactory. On FØllesdal’s view, the

‘genetic affiliation thesis’ (Thesis 5) implies a sub-thesis which can be called

the ‘continuum thesis’, where FØllesdal traces the genealogy of analytic

philosophy.

The ‘genetic affiliation thesis’, begins with argumentators opinion on

the origin of analytic philosophy. It has often been considered that the logical

branch of analytic philosophy begins with Frege and Russell and the ordinary

language branch with G.E. Moore. Likewise in connection with the

publication of Russell’s ‘Principles of Mathematics’ and Moore’s ‘Refutation

of Idealism’, the year 1903 is taken as the year of birth of analytic philosophy.

But 20 years earlier than this, Frege was engaged in analytic philosophy in

that sense, the date of birth of analytic philosophy is shifted back to 1879, the

year in which Beggriffschrift was published. But history tells us that even

before Frege, Bolzano anticipated many of the ideas of Frege, Carnap, Tarski,

Quine and others. The ‘continuum thesis’, therefore, supports that Bolzano

13
as the ‘Great grandfather of analytic philosophy’ and Frege the great

grandfather.

FØllesdal raises similar argument in the case of Von Wright’s finding

incompatibility between hermeneutics and analytic philosophy. The former

Von Wright claims, emphasizes the differences between Social Science and

Humanities and the latter speaks of the differences between naturalism and

Historical/Cultural Sciences. FØllesdal refutes Von Wright’s former claim

stating that not all analytic philosophers speak of unity of Science. Further,

we cannot say that Social Sciences and Humanities conduct experiments of

the kind common to natural sciences. F Øllesdal takes Wolfgang Stegmuller’s

article ‘The So-called Circle of Understanding’, as a best example for his

argument since it deals with analytic approach to hermeneutics and calls it

analytic hermeneutics. The latter claim of Von Wright is refuted by F Øllesdal

taking Dasenbrock’s work ‘Literary Theory After Davidson’, as a model for

his argument. Davidson’s efforts have aroused the interest of literary critics

and now a days literary theorists are looking for philosophical foundations of

literary criticism. FØllesdal’s arguments therefore comes to the conclusion

that the traditional classification of contemporary philosophy as one trend

among others, is misleading since the analytical/non-analytic distinction runs

across other divisions. One can be an analytic philosopher and also a

phenomenologist, existentialist, hermeneuticist, thomist etc. Whether one is

an analytic philosopher depends on what importance one ascribes to argument

14
 and justification. FØllesdal expressed the classification in the following

revised way.

Pheno Exist herme structu deconstr Neo- Neo- ethics natur Etc.
meno entia neutics ralism uctivism Tho Mar alism
logy lism Heideggor mism xism
Husserl

MORE
ANAL
YTIC

LESS
ANAL
YTIC

The takehome lesson is that deconstruction cannot be singled out for

privileging the ‘argument’ at the expense of the continental philosophy. That

is, the line of apparent distinction between analytical and post-analytical

tradition cannot provide any strong case against the latter.

1.2 Argument, Arguer, Explication: Tools for Derrida’s ‘Conceptual

Philosophy’

One major evidence for calling ‘analysis’ as ‘argument’ comes from

the important 1999 Ratio conference on Derrida, which was published under

the title ‘Arguing with Derrida’ (2001). The major focus of the volume is to

side-step the hear-say reception of Derrida’s work and to concentrate on the

‘argumentative strategies’ at two levels. One at the level of revisit of Derrida-

Austin debate and the other includes Derrida’s own responses to the ‘Reading

15
Affairs’*. Defining an argument “a sequence of propositions”, Geoffrey

Bennington notes that “it is largely mistaken to suppose that Derrida’s theses

(such as for example, ‘There is nothing outside the text’, ‘Perception does not

exist’, ‘Everything that is, is in deconstruction’, ‘In the beginning was the

telephone’, and so on), are not properly backed up by argument”. It means

only that deconstruction is not allergic to arguments but uses them up to a

point.

The only good argument – for Derrida’s being a philosopher,

being taken to be taken for a philosopher, at any rate, or being

accepted as a philosopher by those who are confident they

really are philosophers would be the presence of arguments – in

his texts.14

He suggests ‘transcription’ as a method, presentation of the relation of

Derrida’s thought to analytical philosophy, not as a relation of critique,

conflict or warfare but non-oppositional and non-conflictual way.

In this context, it would be worthwhile to look at how argument about

the concept of sign goes upto a certain point in ‘Structure Sign and Play’ or

Of Grammatology. It says that ‘sign’ is a metaphysical concept; this

metaphysical concept of ‘sign’ is the concept of its own teleological reduction

or disappearance in the presence of the thing signified; so we can do

something to metaphysics by maintaining (now: en maintenant –

16
deconstruction happens each time now)- by maintaining the sign short of that

reduction or disappearance).

The argument goes in a similar way at the end of ‘The White

Mythology’ regarding the remarks about metaphor. There it occurs, ‘the

concept of metaphor is metaphysical in that it is the concept of metaphor’s

‘death’ or effacement, its ending in the presence of proper meaning; but by

maintaining metaphor short of that telos (i.e. its death as prescribed by

philosophy) may be we provoke the death of philosophy in a quasi-

metaphorical textuality that never quite comes back down to proper meaning

at all (whence ‘dissemination’, which philosophy will never get on top of).

Quoting Derrida’s best known texts, ‘Differance’ and ‘Signature’,

Event, Context’, A.W Moore goes further to present a brief argument to

justify his calling it as conceptual philosophy (a term suggested by Simon

Glendinning).

Thesis 4: Conceptual philosophy is the staple of analytic philosophy.

Conceptual philosophy with a clear purport to argue. That is, if conceptual

philosophy is a staple of analytic philosophy, and deconstruction is a species

of analysis (in the wider sense), then conceptual philosophy is a special case

of analytical philosophy. He wants us to note the following features for his

argument.

1. It is a label – a better one than many others – (‘analytic’ (argument).

17
2. ‘The practice of conceptual philosophy’ is not to be identified with the

practice of science but it can be more narrowly defined in terms of two

features.

a. It is natural to disassociate it from the pursuit of knowledge or

truth, but concepts.

b. It makes claim about reality to demonstrate how these concepts

are put to work.

3. Following the above distinction, conceptual philosophy has a

commitment to the truth (so, it is analogous to science). That is, in

Derrida’s words, analytical philosophy has a commitment to truth.

Here Derrida says, ‘I too have such a commitment to the truth of only

to question the possibility of the truth, to the history of the truth, the

differances in the concept of truth, and not taking for granted the

definition of truth as tied to declarative sentences.15

4. It has some point of contact between conceptual (analytical)

philosophy and the works of Derrida.

5. This is illustrated by Frege’s analysis of the concept of horse as lying

in the following question.

‘Is the ‘concept of horse’ a concept’?

18
 Here Moore makes use of Kerry’s analysis according to which the

concept of horse is both an object as well as a concept, thus leading to a

‘paradox’ and Frege denies Kerry’s argument. Frege’s denial led to some sort

of confusion. This is an obvious ‘tangle’: how to justify whether it is a name

(object) or a predicate (concept)?

So Moore concludes that conceptual philosophy fails even in its own

terms. Moore wants to explore the points of contact in the light of the above

citing ineffable as an example (Ineffable = that which cannot be expressed (it

is expressed as ‘ineffable’). This case against conceptual philosophy has

certain clear echoes in Derrida’s remarkable essay ‘Differance’. Likewise,

‘diffe’rance’ = ‘differance is not’. So one can derive many such links

Derrida with Frege and Wittgenstein. The neologism ‘diffe’rance’, which is

the central characteristic of meaning in Derrida, is an echo of Frege. Just as

analytical philosophy can tolerate paradoxes, deconstruction can tolerate

falsehood and nonsense. It is not the same idea, but there is a common

predicament (even in Quine and paradoxes abound) in analytic philosophy.

The French word equivalent of arguing is ‘arguer’. But there is

another word ‘explication’ which carries some of the same connotations as

argument. ‘S’ expliquer arec queiqu’un means ‘to have it out with them’

(combative). But ‘Explication de texte” is also French which stands for

‘close’ (sensitive) reading incidentally, it may be noted that for Carnap’s

19
Explication (explicandum-explicans relation) bears on philosophical queries

in science. Heidegger’s ‘Auseinandersetzung’ is an expression which stands

for both to argue and to explain, as well as ‘a kind of arguing’. What is to be

noted is that the word ‘explication’ contains the combative sense of having an

argument. In one sense, it gives the meaning of what we outlined as one side

of the debate and in the other sense, it explains what somebody else saying –

the other side of the debate. Both meaning are implicit in each other. This is

important in the discussion of deconstruction.

At this point let us turn our attention to Derrida’s text ‘Signature,

Event, Context’ in which Moore explains the Austin – Derrida debate.

Derrida raised the complaint against saying that Austin is over-sanitized, in

his rough and ready distinction between normal/abnormal or parasitic/deviant

expression. This second category suggests that by extension and analogy, we

can clearly separate the contexts in which it is possible to use any given word

with its (standard) meaning from those in which it is not. Quite contrary to

this, Derrida adopted a much more fluid method to explain the relationship

between how words are used and how they mean what they do. For Derrida,

meaning is its infinite potential for iterability in new contexts to new effects,

for new purposes, in playing new games. Derrida says that

‘every sign …….. can be cited, put between quotation marks;

thereby it can break with every given context, and engender

20
 infinitely new contexts in an absolutely nonsaturable

fashion……… This citationality, duplication, or duplicity, this

iterability of the mark is not an accident or an anomaly, but is

that (normal/abnormal) without which a mark could no longer

even have a so-called ‘normal’ functioning.’16

According to this, may be

1. ‘a’ is the correct usage (primary)

2. ‘a’ is the deviant usage (secondary: The Indian Dhvani is an echo of

this).

In the above, 1 and 2 (even with quotation) may roughly correspond to ‘use-

mention’ distinction of Carnap. The secondary (incidentally, if may be noted

that for Carnap, explication is defined as follows: explicandum = df.

explicans) may be non-serious in Austin’s sense; it may not have ‘uptake’.

Still one can claim that conceptual philosophy can eschew deviant expression.

Moore’s overall conclusion is that, ‘there is a curious and unexpected

convergence of Derrida’s style of philosophy with what he has been calling

conceptual philosophy.17

Derrida’s response is positive. He is doing ‘conceptual philosophy’ in

Moore’s sense. But Derrida terms it as ‘massive’ or ‘huge’ issue what is

conveyed by the quote:

21
 ‘Although I am professionally a philosopher, everything I do is

something else than philosophy. No doubt it is about

philosophy, but it is not simply ‘philosophical’ ‘through and

through’.18

Derrida concludes by saying,

‘I am an analytical philosopher – a conceptual philosopher’,

‘my ‘style’ has something essential to do with a motivation that

one also finds in analytic philosophy, in conceptual

philosophy’.19

In this context, I take Simon Glendinning’s ‘Inheriting ‘Philosophy’:

The case of Austin and Derrida Revisited.’ In what follows, I shall try to

capture the Austin-Derrida debate conceding that the general distinction

between analytical and continental philosophy is both ‘vague’ (since it lacks

accepts standards of clarity and rigour’) and overdetermined (since the

supposition of division is not an impartial one).

Glendinning proceeds to point out the nature of the debate saying that

it describes Derrida’s controversial reading of J.L Austin’s theory of

performative utterances as symptomatic of the above schism between

continental and analytical philosophy. Why ‘deconstruction’ and ‘ordinary

language philosophy’ congenial for a discussion is that Bennington finds that

its basic themes suggest that the idea of a distinction between analytical and

22
continental philosophy ‘clouds’ rather than clarifies what is at stake in the

‘ways of going on. Hence it does not go to any minimal extent to clarify the

two different ways of going on while being-an-heir to ‘philosophy’. 20 His

discussion on the ‘tidy-looking dichotomy’ falls into three parts such as (1)

there are parallels between Derrida’s and Austin’s criticism of a style of

thinking which they are willing to call simply ‘philosophy’. (2) Austin’s is

open to critics in the way he criticizes philosophy. Austin’s deployment of the

word Gleichschaltung (means ‘community’, ‘brings some money to line’,

‘inform to a certain standard by force’- originally used by Hitler as a

watchword for ‘integration’; Austin used it in the sense of abandonment of

philosophy’s deeply ingrained worship of tidy-looking dichotomies, for e.g,

between ‘constantive’ and ‘performative’ utterances). (3) It gives an approach

to contemporary philosophy.

The first point to be noted in this context is that, for Austin as for

Derrida, ‘the tidy-looking dichotomy’ is a ‘distorting idealization of our

language that is ‘philosophy’. We abandon it but to relocate the distinction in

inherit/dis-inherit at its most active form.

Searle in his ‘Reply to Derrida’, used the word ‘Reiterating’ (the

Differences) (Searle 1977) to which Derrida remarked: ‘the only sentence to

which I subscribe’ (meaning that I to reiterate the differences). Derrida

rejected the hypotheses of confrontation ‘not only’ because he considers his

23
own work to be importantly similar to Austin’s.21 Glendinning states that

Searle finds the necessity of a confrontation under the impression that Derrida

misunderstood and misstated Austin’s position, but such a confrontation never

takesplace since Derrida and Austin are close to each other. Derrida states

that

Among the many reasons that make me unqualified to represent

a ‘prominent philosophical tradition’, there is this one: I

consider myself to in may respects quite close to Austin, both

interested in and indebted to his problematic. This is said in

Sec, very clearly (Derrida, 1988, p.38). 22

Thus Derrida’s engagement with Austin mainly focuses on the attempt

to undermine a conception of ‘the meaning and utterances’. When Austin

considers meaning ideally be definite and exact, for Derrida, this is a

prejudice or injustice among others in philosophy. Derrida states that no

philosophy has renounced the Aristotlean ideal of ‘univocity of essence or the

telos of language’. This ideal is philosophy. It thus becomes the target of

Derrida’s attack. It is aimed at what is intrinsic to ‘philosophy’ as such.

Although Derrida’s mode of being an-heir to ‘philosophy’ this attempt ‘about

philosophy ……….. it is not simply “philosophical” through and through’.23

The two central developments of philosophical conceptions are (1) the

restriction of utterance to ‘meaning’ to the truth-evaluable content and (2) the

24
invariant nature of meaning in different contexts. It is against the second of

these assumptions Derrida, defends what is best seen as a radical form of

contextualism which is open to non-deviant readings. Derrida states that

‘intentional meaning’ allows ‘no dessimination escaping the horizon of the

unity of meaning’ (Derrida 1998. p.14). It is a logical incoherence to suppose

that there could be marks or signs (inner or outer) which might have this

properly. Further we cannot make sense of some “event” without taking into

account the other ‘events’ included in it. Here Derrida is not simply

advancing a claim about the (factual) repetability or multiple applicability of

words and signs in different contexts but a claim about the ‘eventhood’ of
24
such events’. The functioning of a word, in this context is associated with

its ‘iterability’, a quasi-technical term used by Derrida to capture this ‘logic

that ties repetition to alterity’. It makes the conclusion that epistemic intuition

are unacceptably dogmatic. Further ‘performative communication becomes

once more the communication of an intentional meaning in which there ‘no

dissemination escaping the horizon of the unity of meaning’. 25 However

according to Norris, despite the ritual show of hostilities (sadly typified by

responses to the Derrida-Searle ‘debate’) there is much to be gained from an

ecumenical approach that seeks out genuine points of content while avoiding

any kind of reductive or premature synthesis.’ 26 Then the debate is not

without any substance to which Norris agrees (especially in his remarks of the

later edition of the book ‘Theory and Practice’).

25
1.3 The Rigours of Analysis

The twentieth century has witnessed a ‘linguistic turn’ in philosophy

were philosophy itself has come to be defined as:

Philosophy = df. as analysis of the underlying (deep) structures of

language (subject-predicate form of propositions) with reference to their

ontological import (subject stands for a named object, predicate stands for a

property) and the evaluation of truth or falsity of the class of propositions

(truth-telling discourse).

The revolution started with Frege. Giving reverence to Kant, Frege,

tried to provide a rigorous logical foundation – an ‘old Euclidean standards of

rigour’ for the proofs of arithmetic.# The purpose of Frege was to replace the

‘psychological’ with the logical, the subjective with the objective and the

rejection of meaning of a word in isolation to the context of a proposition.

The first major work of Frege, in ‘Concept Script’ was the ‘turning

point’ in which he devised a system of logic that marks the beginning of this

discipline in its modern form. It includes the notions of ‘assertible content’,

‘negation’, ‘conditional proposition’, ‘the universal quantifier’ and ‘identity’.

Frege also pointed out the analogy between the mathematical notion of a

function and the logical notion of a concept. Thus his function-theoretic logic
#
Famous works of Frege are “Concept Script” (Beggriffschrift), The Foundations of
Arithmetic (Die Grundlagen der Arithmetic), The Basic Laws of Arithmetik (Die
Grundgesetze der Arithmetic), and papers such as ‘Concept and Object’, ‘Function
and Concept’ and ‘Sense and Reference’

26
was supposed perform as an explanation of number-theoretic account of

logicism. It also explains how this analogy could help clarify what in the

older logic was called the predicate of a proposition. Further, Frege pointed

out the importance of the use of the notion of quantifiers and the variables

they bind, in order to thereby express the concept of generality.

Frege applied the programme developed in the concept script to the

most fundamental of mathematical theories, especially to the theory of

numbers in his Foundations of Arithematik. In this work, Frege, thus poised

between two discursive possibilities, one internal to the mathematics and the

other to analysis proving the basic laws of arithmetic from purely logical

principles. In order to overcome some of the shortcomings in The

Foundations, Frege, published a series of articles in which his distinction

between ‘sense and reference’ occurs.

In his Basic Laws of Arithmetic, the programme sketched in The

Foundations, was carried out with proofs set out as derivations within a

formal system (axiomatics). This system also embodies theory of classes for

which a contradiction was discovered by Russell. This is known as Russell’s

Paradox. This is the sample of rigour in analysis.

Frege has carried out his investigations into the nature of meaning.

Further, Frege treated concepts as special types of objective entities and

concept words, as special linguistic expressions that refer to these concepts. It

27
is with these concept words that a logician has to work out just as he do with

other types of linguistic expressions. Frege therefore, can be called a realist

who believed in the objective existence of concepts, relations and objects.

The objects in the world, in the Fregean view, are entities designated by

special types of linguistic expressions.

Frege’s notion of philosophical analysis:

Definition : assertibility = logic plus content (semantics) given

in terms of the theory of sense.

The above definition requires an equivocation like the following:

true = known to be true.

Frege also finds an indissoluble link between thought and meaning and

introduced the distinctions between ‘sense (Sinn) and reference (Bedeutung)’.

Unlike Saussure, he claims that the relationship of reference to the referent is

not arbitrary, but there is a notion of sense in which the sign belong. This

does not mean that reference and sense of a sign form the idea, instead, he

points out that reference and sense have to be distinguished from the idea.

Frege stated this by declaring p=q is logically true, if p and q have the same

sense, but empirically true, if they have only the same reference. Further for

Frege, all expressions in a well constructed language have sense. Ideally each

expression would have a single, uniform sense, shared and understood by all

28
competent users of language. It is on the basis of the sense of the expression

that one can specify the conditions for the truth or falsity of the sentence as a

whole.27 In short, according to Frege, the sense is that part of the meaning of

an expression which is relevant to the determination of the truth-value of a

sentence in which the expression occur. To know the sense of a proper name

is to know the criterion for identifying any given object as the meaning of that

name; to know the sense of a predicate is to know the criterion for deciding

whether it is true of an arbitrary object. ‘The distinction between sense and

reference thus brought the following changes in the analysis of the term

‘meaning’ itself. Accordingly, meaning is (1) the personal, subjective (and

therefore variable) associations, images, or ideas an expression calls up in

some mind; (2) the sense of the expression and (3) the referent of the

expression. Out of these three options, Frege rejects the relevance of

subjective associations, at the same time gives importance to (2) and (3) since

they are relevant for logic and a scientific use of language’.28

According to this Fregean semantics, some senses must be presented in

themselves, directly apprehended in their own nature. Although senses look

like signs in determining objects, they are different from ordinary signs in the

sense that there is no possibility of misinterpreting them. A sense, thus

becomes a sign that forces us to take it in exactly one way. It can be said that

Fregrean theory of meaning therefore, needs a kind of direct and unmediated

presence of sense. This Fregean semantics in many ways resembles Husserl

29
especially when Husserl deals with the nature of prepositional contents, our

access to them, and their acts of language production. According to Wheeler

both Frege and Husserl are antireductions. Both take the defense of

mathematical and logical consequence against psychologism to be of central

concern.’29 The ‘presence’ model common to Frege and Husserl, and shared

by many theories later are largely antimetaphysical. In that sense, Frege and

Husserl bespeak of a sort of interface with continental philosophy.

Russell’s notion of philosophical analysis involves logic-ontology

interface given as:

logic <=> ontology.

His metaphysical school of logical atomism is defined as follows:

Logical atomism = metaphysics based upon the logical analysis

of language.

Russell’s two major contributions to philosophical analysis are (a) Theory of

Definite Descriptions and (b) Theory of Types. The Theory of Types is

formulated as a solution to the ‘Russell’s Paradox’ found in Frege’s

philosophy of mathematics. His theory of definite descriptions is acclaimed

as the paradigm of philosophical analysis (Ramsey, Ayer).

30
 Russell’s philosophy of logical atomism makes explicit the principle

on which the metaphysical interpretation of logical constructionism depends.

Russell’s analysis aims to show:

Logical forms of proposition ‘correspond to’ worldly form of facts

The ideal language is essential to reflect the real structure of the world.

Russell formulated a basic “Principle of Acquaintance” as the important

requirement of an ideal language. As its name indicates, this principle enjoins

that the “atomic” sentences get their meaning through direct correlations with

experience. They therefore, become the names of particular sense-data and

terms of properties of sense-data and relations between sense data. Logical

atomism can therefore be explained as the thesis that all knowledge can be

stated in terms of atomic sentences and their truth – functional components.

Russell distinguished proper names from definite descriptions. The

existence of a proper name, according to Russell, is connected with the object

it represents but there are definite descriptions that have no denotation and

hence have no meaning. Such descriptions, according to Russell, do not

function as names. On analysis, they will disappear as putatively denoting

phrases that need re-writing. ‘To put it briefly and more or less neutrally,

logical atomism is a method analyzing definite descriptions, also called

singular descriptions’, i.e. phrases in English typically beginning with the

word “the”.30 In opposition to definite description, there is indefinite

31
description which does not designate a particular object and carries the words

such as “a” or “any”. This is the standard analysis on which one brings out

the underlying logical (deep) structure of subject-predicate propositions.

Calling definite descriptions as incomplete symbols, Russell argued

that ‘it is a symbol which is not supposed in have any meaning in isolation but

is only defined in certain contexts. The idea of incomplete symbol made a

revolutionary change in Russell’s thought. In the light of this, the primary

task of philosophy therefore becomes to keep away from the misleading

surface structure of language to the underlying deep structure or from he

grammatical form to the logical form’. The shift of attention towards

language – towards actual words spoken or written – was to be of the greatest

importance both for Russell’s own thought and for that of philosophers who

came after him.31

Wittgenstein made two revolutions in philosophy. One is his famous

work on the Tractatus and the second is the Philosophical Investigations.

Critics identifying the difference constituting an opposition between early

‘realism’ and later ‘anti-realism’ gives meaning a truth-functional form.

Accordingly,

Realism: Meaning = definition: truth-conditions (True or false is

determined by the way they are distributed over propositions)

This gave a truth-conditional theory of meaning.

32
 In contrast, in anti-realism:

Meaning = definition: verification or justification condition.

This gave a justification condition theory of meaning (meaning

depends on cognitive procedure). Wittgenstein’s earlier notion of

philosophical analysis is given by truth-tabular conception of logical truths

(‘every proposition is a truth-function of elementary propositions’).

Sometimes the early theory of meaning is called the ‘Chess’ Theory of

Meaning (every move in language is governed by rules), whereas the later

theory is called ‘Mosaic’ theory where contexts are included in meaning.

Inspite of the above contrast or move poignantly put, the rivalry, there is a

deep continuity between early and later philosophy which is what we need to

exploit in this dissertation.

Wittgenstein’s Tractatus owes much to Frege and Russell. It is a

comprehensive work of extreme originality in which Wittgenstein explains

the limits of language and limits of thought. The chief motif behind this work

is to explain the nature of logical necessity that Russell had left unexplained

in Principia Mathematica. The marginal status of theories in his early

philosophy did not deflect this theory from its main goal, which was to show

that logically necessary propositions are a kind of by-product of the ordinary

use of propositions to statefacts.32 In the preface to the Tractatus,

Wittgenstein said, ‘the book deals with the problems of philosophy, and I

33
believe, that the reason why these problems are posed is that of the logic of

our language is misunderstood.33

In order to clear this misunderstanding, Wittgenstein therefore,

proposes the strategy of critique of language and thus explains the limits of

what can be said. What cannot be said lies outside the frontiers of thinkable

and they are non-sensical and cannot enquire by means of logic. On the

enquiry of it Wittgenstein introduces two concepts such as “picture” and

“truth-function.” According to the picture theory, a proposition is a picture of

reality in which the elements of proposition and of the world are structurally

related to one another. This picture may be either true or false.

The picture theory also gives an account of the nature of thought.

According to it ‘a thought is a sentence with a sense’ (Tractatus 4). Here the

relevance of language in the formation of sentences becomes explicit. The

totality of true thoughts thus give the true picture of the world.

Propositions describe the states of affairs and are composed of

expressions. Apart from the logical expressions, all expressions are either

analysable or unanalysable simple names. Simple names stands for the

objects in reality which in turn are their meanings. It is these simple names

that link language to reality, pinning the network of language to the world.

The elementary proposition is a concatenation of names in accordance with

the logical syntax, which does not name anything, but says that things are thus

34
and so. It represents the existence of a possible states of affairs that is

isomorphic to it, given the method of projection. Further, the logical syntax

of any possible language mirrors the metaphysical structure of the world.

The logical analysis of the structure of language distinguishes two

different possibilities of truth-conditions, as two extreme cases. “ In one of

these cases, the proposition is true of for all the truth possibilities of the

elementary propositions. We may that the truth-conditions are tautological.

In the second case, the proposition is false for all the truth possibilities: the

truth-conditions are contradictory. In the first case we call the proposition is

tautology; in the second a contradiction” (Tractatus, 4. 46).

Thus the tautology and contradictions are the two limits of language.

Only propositions show what they say. Tautologies and contradictions

‘show’ that they say nothing. Therefore neither tautology nor contradiction is

a true proposition. They lack meaning, as they are not pictures. However,

tautologies and contradictions are not nonsensical. They are part of the

symbolism as ‘0’ is part of the symbolism of arithmetic. Wittgenstein’s

distinction between ‘sense’ and ‘senseless’ as lying within the chosen

symbolism (truth-functional logic) and outside of it, later gave rise to

‘meaningfulness’ and ‘meaninglessness’ in Carnap. This overlaps Derrida in

a sense. We seek the post-analytical engagements in the following section.

35
1.4. The Post-analytical Engagements

There is controversy over whether there is continuity between the early

work of Wittgenstein (the Tractatus phase) to that of his later work, (the

Philosophical Investigations) or whether there is radical break. According to

MacDonough, there is a sustained theme that runs throughout Wittgenstein’s

writings – namely Philosophical Investigations, 352, 356, On Certainity: 199,

200 and Part IV of the Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics. This

theme is mainly concerned with the question of whether there is some ‘queer

argument’ (P1 352) or relationship which connects the tautologies to a set of

ontological or linguistic views. However, the context of allusions to this

argument in the later writings get altered from that of the Tractatus. The

difference is that in the later writings, Wittgenstein’s attitude to the argument

seems to have become critical. Wittgenstein’s rigour is rather legendary; but

the dismantling of his ‘extreme version’ of logical atomism brick by brick by

later work is strongly suggestive of deconstructive motif.

This extraordinarily simple and yet audacious, even revolutionary

move, Staten says, parallel to that of Derrida when he replaces the

phenomenology “voice” (silent, internal) with the concept of “writing”. This

becomes the focus of attention later in the thesis.

‘The Philosophical Investigations’ begins as an enquiry into

“meaning”. This enquiry leads to the intertwined concepts of

36
“understanding”, “thinking”, “grasping a rule”, “being guided”, “giving

orders”, “teaching and learning”, and so on. It not only rejects the subtle

medium of mind but also does not demarcate between words as a more nearly

spiritual medium and gestures, pictures and inarticulate sounds as sub

linguistic. Instead, the scene of language is unfolded as a rebus with an

indefinite potential for an indefinite kind of signifying sequences. 34 As

Wittgenstein said ‘it could be seen in the right light only by contrast with and

against the background of his old way of thinking.’

If this ‘old way of thinking’ was an intellectual exercise in the logical

versus rhetorical dichotomy, in the Philosophical Investigations, there is an

end to this practice, or it is, to quote Wittgenstein’s verbal mystification, ‘a

battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.’

Wittgenstein paid little attention to the history of philosophy. The only

reference text he wanted for the Philosophical Investigations, his own great

deconstructive work was his own earlier work, the Tractatus Logico-

Philosophicus. It makes Staten to say that ‘by bringing Wittgenstein into

relation with Derrida, we can overcome the historical amnesia Wittgenstein

can cause, without betraying the fundamental radicality, of his method.35

In the Philosophical Investigations, the logic of linguistic expressions

constructed in altogether different terms. The analysis of language is made

neither by means of depth-grammar that points to the truth-functions of

37
elementary propositions nor are propositions in their ‘basic’ constituents

made up of names. Language is ordinary language. Language is languages

that is, it consists of and can be conceived as exhibiting many different types

of or combinations of language-games. It is to be explained and understood

as it is found. The meaning of a word is its use. It speaks about the role

‘meaning’ plays in our language.36 It is neither logical nor rhetorical. The

concept of ideal language and thorough-going determinism disappears at this

level. In other words, the logic of truth-conditions in the Tractatus was

changed to the logic of “use-conditions”, and the primary role of philosophy

becomes a “critique of language”, an activity of clarification rather than as a

discipline that asserts various substantive propositions or factual claims about

the world. In Wittgenstein, the notion of language-game serves a number of

functions. Sometimes, it is used as a simplified model of a language, a cool to

be used in the analysts of complex many-sided ordinary language.

Wittgenstein’s later view on the nature of language, thus involves the

dissolution of a number of philosophical concepts like dogmatism,

determinism, essentialism, representationism, universalism, a priorism etc.

According to Christopher Norris, the whole point of Wittgenstein’s appeal to

language games and cultural forms of life is to coax philosophers down from

such forms of self-induced skeptical puzzlement.37

38
 Let us start with Quinean notion of philosophical analysis, by

comparing this with his predecessors in a rough and ready way.

1. For Frege, the conceptual notion gets the sanction of science, logic

provides the perfect canon.

2. For Russell, it is the logic ontology interface.

3. For Wittgenstein, it is the isomorphism (one-to-one relation) between

logic and ontology.

4. For Quine, logic itself is ontology. It is the ontic idiom par excellence.

Quine’s major pre-suppositions in philosophy can be classified under

two general headings, such as those having to do with philosophy of language

(logic) and those having to do with ontology. What he has to say on

naturalism (no dividing line between science and philosophy) as marked

affinities with the general orientation of empiricist and pragmatist

philosophers. Two of his papers ‘On What There Is,’ and ‘Two Dogmas of

Empiricism,’ gained him importance in the list of analytical thinkers.

Quine’s paper ‘On What There Is?’ explores a sound ontological base

for his naturalistic account. It is here that Quine sets down his criterion for

ontological commitment by means of which he has attempted to overcome the

hostility to metaphysics. It does not mean that Quine encouraged

metaphysics, instead he would revitalize and rehabilitate metaphysics as

ontology. This has been done by reconstructing the formation of the

39
questions with which ontology deals with in accordance with the guiding

principles of modern logic with precision and clarity. In addition to this,

Quine also makes use of the general power of predicate calculus in which lies

the use of the method of quantification. It is enough for Quine for purposes of

classifying one’s ontological commitments to make use of first-order

quanitifcation where the quantified variables range over one or more types of

individual objects. In short, Quine’s statement “to be is to be the value of a

variable”, sums up the essence of the criterion of ontological commitment.

Quinean pattern of argument in the ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’,

undermines the traditional analytic/synthetic distinction. Traditionally a

statement is analytic, if it can be reducible to a form governed by the logical

law of identity. Likewise, a statement is synthetic if it cannot be reducible to

a statement that is basically of the form of an identity. The main drawback in

all these kinds of approach, according to Quine, is the lack of holistic

approach. He believes that in determining the truth, and our knowledge of the

truth, we should consider not on individual sentence taken singly and apart

from its inter-relations with other statements in total network of beliefs.

Taskian disquotational theory and Davidson’s Principle of Charity are direct

descendants of this holism or ‘narrative turn’ as described by Richard Rorty.

According to Christopher Norris, Quine examines the essentialism found in

the logical empiricist distinction between analytic and synthetic statements (or

‘truths of reason’ or ‘truths of act’) and then goes on to argue in holistic

40
fashion that ‘our statements about the external world face the tribunal sense –

experience not individually but only as a corporate body.’ 38

Much more than Quine’s indeterminacy of radical translation,

Davidson’s doctrine of radical interpretation has an edge in that it is as much

an acknowledged model for literary criticism as deconstruction is in the ‘wild’

version. Starting from his contribution towards the semantics (meaning-

theory) for natural language, whatever realistic consideration that underlie it

by virtue of its affiliation to Tarski’s semantic conception of truth, it reaches a

paradoxical conclusively approximating interpretation with the way we use

language. Davidson concludes with a paradoxical remarks that ‘there is no

such a thing as language’. Davidson’s starting point is to bring a cohesion

between two radically different languages, but ends up with some sort of

indeterminacy.

Davidsonian theory of meaning thus states that meaning must to

language – like. Meaning is fundamentally linguistic, and not something

behind or expressed in language. In place of the term ‘means that’, Davidson

therefore elects the biconditional – ‘if and only if’ – as the connective needed

in a theory of meaning. Davidson’s theory of meaning accordingly associated

with the inter-related phenomena of belief, desire, intention and other mental

states which themselves form an autonomy of family of concepts. In that

sense, meaning is a conceptual content with wide and varied application. In

41
addition to the conceptual content, meaning also has other “senses” which

will cause into being only on interpretation. “Being subject to interpretation”

means that nothing intrinsic to the term determines that it must refer to a

given object, instead every mark is subject to interpretation without essence.

To have a meaning according to Davidson is that, to have a place in a

language-game. But such a meaning will not work in the case of metaphor.

Since metaphors do not have a special kind of meaning. It makes us to see

one thing as another by making some literal statement that inspires or prompts

the insight.39 This treatment of metaphor is a direct attack on the reductionist

view of metaphor used by the Platonists and Positivists according to which

metaphors are either paraphrasable or useless for the purpose of representing

reality and is usually literally false but uttered with the aim of bringing

something to the attention of the hearses.

Davidson also held the view that “giving the meaning of a sentence”

was equivalent to stating its truth-conditions. But Davidson considered the

notion of truth absolutely indispensable and primitive in the sense that truth

cannot be reduced to reference or to other notions. According to this theory,

all data for determining meaning and for determining truth-value consist in

what is said and when it is said. Davidson’s indeterminacy therefore becomes

a milder kind and in fact more radical and pure than Quine’s, since he denies

any sub-basement of content that can be separated from the linguistic

framework. Davidson’s abandonment of the division between scheme and

42
content also denies the notion that experience is something organized by

theory or that there are alternative schemes that does not make sense.

Similarly, Dummett who tries to systematize analytic philosophy was

forced to move a rather radically different counter-paradigm called anti-

realism which threatened to swallow all forms of realism. It is not therefore

without justification that Norris apprehends danger to his way of legitimizing

Derridean logic placing it in the camp of anti-realism. Norris’s efforts go in

vain by any simple move which efforts is purported to neutralized the radical

opposition between realism and anti-realism. Norris is not a safe bet against

the odd option. The crisis Derrida has generated will not subserve Norris’s

reading of Derrida.

The post-analytic engagement is not shown to be redundant in the light

of thesis 5. Thus Wheeler finds that Derridean notion of dissemination is

also paralled with Quinean indeterminacy of translation. Quine used the

metaphor, “the myth of the museum”, to point out the common misconception

of language with regard to sign and referent. By the term indeterminacy,

Quine points out the indeterminacy of translation in going from one language

to another. According to Wheeler, ‘a vivid way to express the view common

to Quine and Derrida is to say that all thought can be at most brain-writing or

spirit writing, both of which modes of inscription yield texts with at least the

hermeneutic problems of other texts. There is no meaning or meaning bearer

43
behind language that is not itself a language like phenomenon.’ 40 Similarly,

Norris also finds such a parallelism in Quine and Derrida stating that the

empiricist programme of Quine could scarcely be more remote from Derrida’s

ceaseless undermining of any assured link between sign and referent.

Nevertheless, it is clear that Quine like Derrida, perceives covert metaphysics

at work in traditional ways of conceiving philosophy; also that he shares the

deconstructionist will to demystify language by removing the appeal to, some

ultimate ground of concept or meaning.’41

Pursuing the same line of inquiry, Wheeler also finds so many

parallelisms in Davidson and Derrida. Both have arrived at analogous

positions after rejecting the dogmas of empiricism and phenomenology and

also on the denial of “magic language”. They also agree on fundamental

issues in the philosophy of language as they are committed to some degree of

indeterminacy of interpretation for the same reasons. According to Wheeler,

the Derridean phenomenon of dissemination is akin to the Davidsonian

variety of indeterminacy rather than to the kind of global, total sets of

alternatives that Quine envisions in word and object’. 42 However there is

difference between Davidsonian and Derridean indeterminacy. Derrida states

that truth, if anything must be a match between an utterance and a given, but

it does not speak of such a matching can be made sense of. Davidson not only

denies any such matching between an utterance and given but he also does not

consider whether any such matching is required for truth. Davidson considers

44
truth functions as an analytical interpretative concept rather than as a

metaphysical concept. Wheeler states that ‘the core problem driving the

analysis of both Derrida and Davidson is that allegedly non-Aristotelean and

non-essentialist accounts of the world (e.g., Kantian and “linguistic” ones)

still seem to rest on essentialism about conceptual or linguistic items………

The radical break that both Davidson and Derrida make is to work out the

consequences of denying essentialism and objective necessities across the

board.43

To Sum Up

1. The analytical model subsumes analysis.

2. The post-analytical is brought into the deconstructionist camp.

3. There is not much underlying difference between analytical and post-

analytical.

4. There is not much rivalry between realism and anti-realism.

5. There is no ‘divide’ between analytical and continental philosophy.

6. There may not be much discontinuity between modernity and post-

modernity in view of modernists ‘unfinished project’. Thus the

perspective on Derrida is a very legitimate one to be unfolded in the

coming chapters.

45
1.5 Taking it Forward:

In this context, we recall the four theses and three motifs before

entering into thesis 5.

T1. Deconstruction is a sub-branch of philosophy of analysis.

T2. Deconstruction is a sub-branch of ethics.

T3. Deconstruction is a sub-branch of literary theory (‘wild’).

T4. Conceptual philosophy is the staple of analytic philosophy.

The justification for (1) is derived from the tools of analysis in

conceptual philosophy as envisaged in (4). (3) is not very much favoured and

(2) waits for consideration towards the end of the thesis (‘late’), were we shall

also add thesis (5) and (6).

The three Motifs are reiterated once again.

Motif 1 Wheeler pushes analysis to the deconstructive side but competitive.

Motif 2 Derrida is quite analogous for deconstruction of Wittgenstein (in his

own work).

Motif 3 the way Norris divides analytic/post-analytic/continental altogether is

not correct in the light of ‘genetic affiliation’ thesis and its consequent

‘continuum thesis’. It is no longer possible to defend Norris even on grounds

46
of realism. Thus we tried to situate Derrida within a full-blooded analytical

perspective.

We shall now open continuity to the previous thesis.

Thesis 5: Deconstruction enters into ‘feud’ with speech-act variety of

analytical philosophy (Austin and Searle).

Critics points out that the debate between Austin and Searle on the one

had and Derrida on the other is illusory, because it represents the real talking

past to each other.

What survives the ‘crisis of analytical philosophy is the legacy of

Kripke’s reading of later Wittgenstein which has its focus on rule-following

considerations. This is a focus that adds as a ‘bridge’ both to critical theory

and post-modernism. Such a bridge is not provable within the compass of the

thesis. But its tenability is beyond doubt. And thus we pass on to say: If this

is taken for granted then we have a counsel for next thesis (6).

We have to admit to “a conviction that the present situation in

[analytic] philosophy is one that calls for a revitalization, a renewal, of the

subject” (Putnam, 1992, ix cf. Putnam, 1998). Similarly Jaakko Hintikka has

declared that………… ‘we have to have a new start in, practically in all

branches of philosophical studies including logic, foundations of

mathematics, language theory, epistemology and philosophical

47
methodology.44 This call for a realignment as seen in Kripke’s rule-following

which by and large brings an interface with Derrida, as Austins’. As if to

endorse this Staten argues that the concept of rule does not explain anything

in the Investigations: it is what has to be explained. The word rule is itself

subject to the same conditions for meaningfulness that other words are, and it

too has a vague and shifting family of meanings’. 45 Analysing the survival of

analytic philosophy, Jaakko Hintikka said, ‘……… survival of analytic

philosophy depends on philosophers acknowledgement and utilization of [the

opportunities for constructive philosophy to be found in Wittgenstein later

thought]46. Thus it is proved beyond doubt that Norris’s marginalizing post-

analytic motifs is a disaster. This goes directly against Derrida’s own

suspicion about the hard-and-fast distinction between ordinlary-extraordinary

(formal) language. Derrida says

I am suspicious of the opposition between

ordinary/extraordinary language. What I am trying to do is to

find – and I think this is close to the Wittgenstein that you

presented – the production of the extraordinary within the

ordinary and the way the ordinary is, as you put it ‘vulnerable’

to or not ‘immune’ to what we understood as extraordinary.’47

Thesis 6: The genetic affiliation between the analytical and continental

philosophies is warranted by analytic and post-analytic considerations. It

48
remains now to substantiate the above claims (Thesis 1 – Thesis 6) in the

pages to follow before capping it with a consideration of ‘late’ Derrida, the

philosopher of the public sphere, who comes to proximity with critical theory

of Habermas in sharing a platform against the terrorist attack on the World

Trade Centre.

49
Notes

1. Julian Wolfreys. Literary Theories: A Reader and Guide. Edinburgh

University Press. 1988. p. 283. (LTRG hereafter).

2. Ibid. p. 283.

3. Ibid. p. 283.

4. Jacques Derrida, Points – Interviews, 1974-1994. Stanford University

Press. 1995. p. 212. (Pts. Hereafter).

5. Christopher Norris: Derrida, Fontana, 1989. p.18. (Dda hereafter)

6. Ibid. p. 19.

7. Geoffrey Bennington, Deconstruction is Not What You Think,

Routledge. 1988. p. 7.

8. Barbara Johnson, in the introduction to Derrida’s work

‘Dessimination’, continuum. 2005. p. xv (Dsmn. Hereafter).

9. John. D. Caputo, Deconstruction a Nutshell: A conversation with

Jacques Derrida. 1997. p. 32 (D N hereafter).

10. Dda. p. 27.

11. P.M.S. Hacker, The Rise of the Twenteeth Century Analytic

Philosophy, Ratio (New series) ix 3 December, Blackwell, 1996. p.

258.

12. Ibid. p. 248.

50
13. Dagfinn FØllesdal, Analytic Philosophy: What is it and why should

one engage in it? Ratio (New series) ix 3 December, Blackwell, 1996.

p. 194.

14. Simon Glendenning, Arguing with Derrida, Blackwell 2001, p.37 (A.D

hereafter).

15. Ibid. p. 84.

16. Ibid. p. 66.

17. Ibid. p. 74.

18. Ibid. p. 83.

19. Ibid. p. 83.

20. Ibid. p. 11.

21. Ibid. p. 18.

22. Ibid. p. 18.

23. Ibid. p. 19.

24. Ibid. p. 21.

25. Ibid. p. 23.

26. Christopher Norris, Deconstruction Theory and Practice, Routledge

2003. p.144. (DTP hereafter).

27. Munitz. M., Contemporary Analytical Philosophy, Macmillan 1981. p.

114. (CAP hereafter).

28. Ibid. p. 114.

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29. Samuel C. Wheeler, Deconstruction as Analytic Philosophy, Stanford

University Press, 2000. p. 16 (DAP hereafter)

30. Nicholas Griffin (ed). The Cambridge Companion to Bertrand Russell,

Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 203.

31. Ibid. p. 224.

32. Nicholas Bunin and E.P Tsui-James. The Blackwell Companion to

Philosophy, Blackwell, p. 128.

33. L.H Holler, Philosophy and the Critique of Language : Wittgenstein

and Mauthener, Blackwell 1998, p. 65.

34. Henry Staten, Wittgenstein and Derrida, Blackwell, 1985, p. 90 (W &

D hereafter).

35. Ibid. p. 3.

36. DAP p. 207.

37. Christopher Norris, Truth About Postmodernism, Blackwell. 1993,

p.219. [TAP hereafter].

38. Christopher Norris, The Deconstructive Turn, Essays in the Rhetoric of

Philosophy, Methuen. 1984. p. 8. (D.T. hereafter).

39. Donald Davidson, Enquiries into Truth and Interpretation O.U.P. 1984.

p. 261.

40. DAP. p. 44.

41. Christopher Norris, Resources of Realism, Macmillan 1998. p.9.

42. DAP. p. 29.

52
43. DAP. p. 23-24.

44. Aaron Preston, Conformism in Analytic Philosophy, The Monist,

April 2005, Vol. 88, No. 2. p. 311.

45. W & D. p. 102.

46. Aaron Preston, Conformism in Analytic Philosophy: On Shaping

Philosophical Boundaries and Prejudices, The Monist. April 2005. Vol.

88, No. 2. p. 311.

47. A D. p.112.

53