Derrida's Theory Of Deconstruction

Deconstruction is a literary theory and philosophy of language derived principally from Jacques Derrida 's 1967 work Of Grammatology. The premise of deconstruction is that all of Western literature and philosophy implicitly relies on metaphysics of presence, where intrinsic meaning is accessible by virtue of pure presence. Deconstruction rejects the possibility of a pure presence and thus of essential or intrinsic meaning. Due to the impossibility of pure presence and consequently of intrinsic meaning, any given concept is constituted and comprehended from the linguistic point of view and in terms of its oppositions, e.g. perception/reason, speech/writing, mind/body, interior/exterior, marginal/central, sensible/intelligible, intuition/signification, nature/culture. Derrida says that one member is associated with presence (more highly emphasized) while the other is associated with absence. He proposes “difference” - a perpetual series of interactions between presence and absence - where a concept is constituted, comprehended and identified in terms of what it is not and self-sufficient meaning is never arrived at. Derrida 's theories on deconstruction were influenced by the work of linguists such as Ferdinand de Saussure and literary theorists such as Roland Barthes (whose works were an investigation of structuralist thought). Derrida 's writings on deconstruction are most strongly associated with literary criticism. However, they have also been applied to music, visual