What is Derrida deconstruction?

Jacques Derrida, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

Jacques Derrida answers

Deconstruction is neither a philosophy, nor a science, nor a method, nor a doctrine.1 I have said this many times, in many contexts, and the repetition has not settled the question — which is itself instructive. Let me try to say it more precisely. It is not an analysis, because analysis implies a regression toward some simple, undecomposable origin, and the very value of "origin" is among the philosophemes that deconstruction puts in question.2

It is not a critique in the Kantian sense, because the apparatus of transcendental critique — the instance of krinein, of decision and judgment — is itself one of the essential objects of the deconstructive operation.3 And it is emphatically not a method, not a set of transferable rules or technical procedures that a subject could master and apply to a text from the outside.4

What it is, then? I have said: the impossible, and the impossible as that which comes about, which arrives.5 Deconstruction takes place. It is an event that does not await the deliberation or conscious organization of a subject. Ça se déconstruit — it deconstructs itself.6 The "it" here is not an impersonal thing opposed to some egological subjectivity; it is already in deconstruction.7

This matters because the domesticated, methodological version — deconstruction as a technique one applies to texts in a seminar — misses the structural point entirely. What is called deconstruction in the sense of a relatively coherent set of discursive rules at a given moment in Western discourse is only a symptom, an effect of deconstruction at work in what one might call history: the geopolitical earthquakes, the world wars, psychoanalysis, the techno-economico-scientific mutations.8

The open, non-self-identical totality of the world is deconstruction.9 When deconstruction does engage the great texts — from Plato to Joyce, from Husserl to Kant — it is not performing aesthetic appreciation or even literary criticism in the conventional sense.10 It also works on bodies of writing that are not literary or philosophical at all: law, institutions, norms, programs, questions of signature and copyright, the politics of the institution of literature itself.11

The writing that interests deconstruction is not only the writing that libraries protect. What matters, finally, is the trajectory — the experience, not a system of rules for supervising an experiment, but the pathway in the process of happening, le frayage de la route, the breaking of a way through.12 And because the context, the mode of address, the situation are different every time, the experience is different every time — which is why I keep insisting, even now: it is always better to read the books.

Sources

  1. This variety is essential to deconstruction, which is neither a philosophy, nor a science, nor a method, nor a doctrine, but, as I often say, the impossible, and the impossible as that which comes about (arrive).
    Paper Machine, p. 151
  2. It is not an analysis in particular because the dismantling of a structure is not a regression toward a simple element, toward an undecomposable origin. These values, like that of analysis, are themselves philosophemes subject to deconstruction.
    Psyche, Inventions of the Other Vol II, p. 10
  3. No more is it a critique, in a general sense or in a Kantian sense. The instance of krinein or krisis (decision, choice, judgment, discernment) is itself, as is all the apparatus of transcendental critique, one of the essential 'themes' or 'objects' of deconstruction.
    Psyche, Inventions of the Other Vol II, p. 10
  4. I would say the same about method. Deconstruction is not a method and cannot be transformed into one. Especially if the technical and procedural significations of the word are stressed.
    Psyche, Inventions of the Other Vol II, p. 10
  5. This variety is essential to deconstruction, which is neither a philosophy, nor a science, nor a method, nor a doctrine, but, as I often say, the impossible, and the impossible as that which comes about (arrive).
    Paper Machine, p. 152
  6. Deconstruction takes place, it is an event that does not await the deliberation, consciousness, or organization of a subject, or even of modernity.
    Psyche, Inventions of the Other Vol II, p. 10
  7. It deconstructs itself. It can be deconstructed (Ça se déconstruit).
    Psyche, Inventions of the Other Vol II, p. 10
  8. what is called deconstruction in the sense of a relatively coherent set of discursive rules at a given moment in Western discourse is only a symptom—an effect of deconstruction at work in what one might call history (all of the geopolitical earthquakes: the 1917 revolution, the two world wars, psychoanalysis, the third world, the techno-economico-scientific and military mutations, etc.).
    Negotiations, Interventions and Interviews 1971-2001, pp. 199–200
  9. All this, this open and non-self-identical totality of the world is deconstruction. It's a deconstruction in act or at work.
    Negotiations, Interventions and Interviews 1971-2001, pp. 199–200
  10. Of course, deconstruction busies itself with what we more or less legitimately call the 'great texts.' Not just the canonical works, from Plato to Joyce.
    Paper Machine, p. 152
  11. it performs its exercises on bodies of work that are not literary, philosophical, or religious texts but writings on the law, or institutions, norms, and programs.
    Paper Machine, p. 152
  12. What matters is the trajectory, the pathway, the crossing—in a word, the experience. The experience is then the method, not a system of rules or technical norms for supervising an experiment, but the pathway in the process of happening, breaking a way through (le frayage de la route, via rupta).
    Paper Machine, p. 151