Derrida Quote of the Day
Was Derrida a postmodern relativist?
[This passage is to be found in the context of his discussion of the possibility of a basic ground of understanding on which to base his debate with Searle. Limited Inc, p. 146]
For of course there is a “right track” [une 'bonne voie"], a better way, and let it be said in passing how surprised I have often been, how amused or discouraged, depending on my humor, by the use or abuse of the following argument: Since the deconstructionist (which is to say, isn’t it, the skeptic-relativist-nihilist!) is supposed not to believe in truth, stability, or the unity of meaning, in intention or “meaning-to-say” how can he demand of us that we read him with pertinence, preciSion, rigor? How can he demand that his own text be interpreted correctly? How can he accuse anyone else of having misunderstood, simplified, deformed it, etc.? In other words, how can he discuss, and discuss the reading of what he writes? The answer is simple enough: this definition of the deconstructionist is false (that’s right: false, not true) and feeble; it supposes a bad (that’s right: bad, not good) and feeble reading of numerous texts, first of all mine, which therefore must finally be read or reread. Then perhaps it will be understood that the value of truth (and all those values associated with it) is never contested or destroyed in my writings, but only reinscribed in more powerful, larger, more stratified contexts. And that within interpretive contexts (that is, within relations of force that are always differential — for example, socio-political-institutional — but even beyond these determinations) that are relatively stable, sometimes apparently almost unshakeable, it should be possible to invoke rules of competence, criteria of discussion and of consensus, good faith, lucidity, rigor, criticism, and pedagogy.
I rest my case.
UPDATE:
As for the “relativism” they [Sokal and Bricmont] are supposed to be worried about—well, even if this word has a rigorous philosophical meaning, there’s not a trace of it in my writing. Nor of a critique of Reason and the Enlightenment. Quite the contrary.
From Paper Machine, p. 71
Fabio Cunctator
Objective truth? A truth that really exists, outside of texts?
If you ask me, yes and no.
Yes if one (mis)understands ‘text’ as in ‘words on a page written by someone’.
‘No’ if one correctly understands ‘text’ as (material) reality as a whole. But there is nothing that transcends (nothing outside of) reality. So, in this sense only, there is no ‘objective’ truth as in ‘truth that is independent of that –differential, never self-subsistent, even ontologically un-necessary– material conditions in which truth is inscribed’. But it’s not (as postmodernist appropriations would) a matter of (human, subjective) ‘discursive practices’ or ‘language games’, but of a more radical archi-material ‘grounding’ of truth, without which there is just a sort of revealed truth. The text is not linguistic, it’s material.
I think your philosophy is more interesting than Derrida’s.
I am just good at arranging an attractive patchwork.
Even to ask whether there is an objective truth “outside of texts” is indicative of a serious lapse in sanity! It would also be an abuse of language to say “objective truth exists only inside texts”! Just look up what the word “objective” means in any good standard (not “postmodern”) dictionary.
Derrida, like Feyerabend, can deny the charge of irrationalism and relativism, but the crucial issue is whether their denial is consistent with the whole or rest of their writings.
“the value of truth (and all those values associated with it) is never contested or destroyed in my writings, but only reinscribed in more powerful, larger, more stratified contexts.”
What on earth does this mean? If it means that truth is determined by standards derived from “more powerful, larger, more stratified contexts”, this is just relativism in the typically convoluted language Derrida uses. To cover up one piece of nonsense, we need some more!
“And that within interpretive contexts (that is, within relations of force that are always differential — for example, socio-political-institutional — but even beyond these determinations) that are relatively stable, sometimes apparently almost unshakeable, it should be possible to invoke rules of competence, criteria of discussion and of consensus, good faith, lucidity, rigor, criticism, and pedagogy.”
“it should be possible”? Forsooth, it is actual, except in totalitarian systems.
I tend to think that Later Derrida spent a lot of time and effort backpedaling from Earlier Derrida.
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