Flipped Learning task on 'Derrida and Deconstruction'

This Blog-post is a response to Flipped Learning task on 'Derrida and Deconstruction' given by our professor Dr.Dilip Barad Sir. To know this task, CLICK HERE.

• Flipped Learning:

We studied from school to college. Usually, teachers are asked to find the solution and come up with answers in the next day. This is the traditional way to solve the questions. However, it flipped in modern education. Students are supposed to find questions and will come up with particular questions and teachers will solve them as a live method in the class. We saw the given videos and we had specific questions and we typed in our Google Classroom. We will discuss or solve it the next day. The main aim of this learning process is to maximum questions from the students which also developed the process of asking questions in students.

• About Poststructural theory :

Around 1960, structuralism term firstly used by French thinkers. Structuralism contains text and a particular structure. While other thinkers came up with their new theories which might apply to the author him/herself. Poststructuralists came up with a new insight to see the literature and gave the method of looking more at the particular structures. It is not about to destroyed and breaking the structure, but it is what we can see beyond the surface and the horizon between the text and structure.

• Derrida and Deconstruction:.

Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) was a philosopher who was best known for his theory on Deconstruction which he analyzed in many texts. He is considered the major figure associated with Post-Structuralism and Post-Modern philosophy. 

Video 1. 

Why it is difficult to define Deconstruction?

Is Deconstruction a negative term?

How does deconstruction happen on its own?

As Dr.Sachin Ketkar elaborates on the term, Deconstruction is not a destructive activity, but an inquiry into the foundation causes of intellectual. However, Derrida himself refuses to define Deconstruction. Speaker also elaborates that it is not a negative operation. Derrida wants to transform the way people think. The entire structure of Western Philosophy or thought has to be transformed and he also wants to emphasize and takes this from Heidegger's project. Which he wants to translate from German to French. 

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) was a German philosopher whose work is perhaps most readily associated with phenomenology and existentialism, although his thinking should be identified as part of such philosophical movements only with extreme care and qualification. His ideas have exerted a seminal influence on the development of contemporary European philosophy. (From Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

• Question from this Video:

Is it possible to translate any original text to another language without deconstructing it? 

Video 2. 

The influence of Heidegger to Derrida

Derridian rethinking on the foundation of Western philosophy.

The Speaker starts with Derrida's acknowledgment of three famous philosophers, Martin Heidegger, Sigmund Freud, and Friedrich Nietzsche in his very famous essay "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" it was his lecture presented at Johns Hopkins University which later on published in 1967 as chapter ten of "Writing and Difference".

He mentioned that very important theme which Derrida continues in his own philosophy. Relations in their philosophy which connect Derrida to Heidegger in that the term 'destruction' in German is translated as 'Deconstruction' in French. Heidegger transformed Western thinking and in the same way, Derrida continues this dismantling and transforming Western philosophy. They both want to rethink the very foundation of Western philosophy. The language of Philosophy is another thing that connects them. Heidegger later points out that, it is a language that speaks, not man, the meaning is a product of language. Man is decentered from the language and language displaces man from the center. Like Heidegger, Derrida wants to reinvent the language. The whole question of writing is neglected.  Language is 'Speak' than 'Writing' - Derrida called it "Phonocentricism."

Question from this Video:

'The whole question of writing is neglected.' please elaborate. 

Video 3. 

What Derrida Decounstruts the idea of arbitrariness?

Metaphysics of presence.

The Speaker starts by mentioning Ferdinand de Saussure(1857-1913) who elaborates in his book 'Course in General Linguistics' that, the relation between word and meaning is not natural, it's a conventional one. The speaker gave one easy example of the word Sister. The word Sister has no natural relationship with the person but it's just a convention that connects the word sister with the person. Word can be used to talk about anything but what connects a word with its meaning or as a signal with its meaning is the convention and the convention is always Social. Derrida points out that the meaning of the word is nothing but the other word. 

Heidegger pointed out in Metaphysics of Presence that when we consider being of something we often connect with its presence. Heidegger is saying that we seem to connect presence and as proof of its existence as more of its being. Then Derrida says that Western philosophy is again built on the different binary positions. Like this Yin-yang Circle.

Question from this Video:

Why Saussure said that."There is no positive element in language, but only a negative one."

Video 4.

Derridian concept of 'DifferAnce'

Infinite play of meaning

DifferAnce - to differ & to defer the meaning 

The Speaker starts by giving one practical example of finding the meaning with the help of a dictionary. We just find the word, for example, interest and we go to the word there are more words which we might find for the exact meaning of what we want. Ultimately this is a never-ending process and if the end is, it might be our illusion that we got the meaning. 

Saussurean sign is equal to signifier which signifies something but Derridian signifies the free play of signifiers, signifying nothing. 

Derrida combines two terms 'to differ' and 'to defer' because in French one word is used to imply both. It is a pun it means to differ it also means to differentiate and postpone only one word is used to signify both postpone and differentiate. Another thing is that we can pronounce it the same way but we can not spell both the same.  

Phonocentricism is the tendency in western philosophy to privilege Speech over Writing. Speech is considered present. Writing is almost a practice of absence while speaking is a practice of presence. 

Question from this Video:

What do we get the final meaning as Myth or Transcendental Signified? Or both? 

Why does Derrida consider writing as Primary and speaking as Secondary? Though, he focuses on speech and its privileged over writing.