An Introduction to Deconstruction: Structure sign and play in the

discourse of the human sciences

Lison Joseph
Mob: 9946138576

The essay Structure Sign and Play in the Discourse of the human

Sciences was a paper contributed to a conference held at Johns Hopkins

University in 1966. Derrida has in this paper attacked the systematic, quasi-

scientific pretensions of the strict form of structuralism that is originated with

Saussures concept of the structure of the language, and later represented by the

cultural anthropologist, Levi-Strauss. Derridas paper attempts to subvert

classical structuralism as well as traditional humanism and empiricism.

Deconstruction has its origin in Derridas assertion in this paper that

language bears within itself the necessity of its own critique. Deconstructive

criticism based on this assertion, attempts to show that no text has a determinate

meaning, or the text itself subverts the possibility of determinate

communication and the reader can have his meaning out of the text. This paper
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may be considered the manifesto of post structuralism and of the indeterminacy

of meaning and the idea of free play.

Structurality of structure

Derridas essay begins with the word perhaps which signifies that in

deconstruction everything is provisional, you cannot make positive or definitive

statements in these area of criticism but we will proceed as we can. This is

another key to deconstruction even as you come to understand that nothing is

stable that meaning is always contingent and ambiguous you continue to as if

nothing is wrong.

Derrida introduces the idea that some event has occurred this event is some sort

of rupture or break in the fundamental structure of western philosophy. This

break is a moment where the whole way philosophy thought about itself shifted.

That shift or rupture, was when it became possible to think about the

structurality of structure .This is the moment became possible to think about the

idea of structure itself and how every system whether language or philosophy

itself had a structure .The moment when philosophers began to see their

philosophical system, not as absolute truth, but as systems as constructs.

The concept of centre

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The concept of centre has been practiced in structuralism as well as in

western thought, mainly to push the play of signs to the background .All

western discourses and thinking tend to be centered on the author or other

external factors without any freedom of interpretation.

A structure is made up of several components, it has a centre .It is the

function of the centre to give direction, organization and balance. In Saussures

theory of language this centre is assigned the function of controlling the endless

differential play of internal relationships while it remaining out side that play.

The hypothetical centre of structure makes it problematic in the sense

that it is supposed to control the structure and at the same time is not part of it.

The absence of the transcendental signified expands the scope of the domain of

interpretation or the play of signification endlessly.

All the structures depend on two aspects .they are the relationships of

parts and the structure to be organized around a centre. A structure presupposes

relationship of parts organized around a centre. It is the central principle that

defines its essential nature; this principle is seen in the wholeness of the

structure. A building is a building because of the joining of the together of its

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constituent parts .But the parts taken separately does not give its wholeness.

The wholeness of the building cannot be identified with any of its individual

parts. So the centre of a structure is not specific and present in it.

Play and presence

Stability or fixity caused by centre is what Derrida calls presence

something is fully present when it is stable and fixed, not provisional and

mobile. Play is the disruption of presence. There can be two attitudes towards

the idea of play. One is you can mourn for the loss of fixity of meaning or

rejoice in multiplicity. Derrida says enjoying play is better.

Bricolage

Once you deconstruct a system by pointing out its inconsistencies, by

showing there is play in the system, Derrida says we have two choices. One is

that you can throw out the whole structure as no good. The other option is to

keep using the structure and recognize that it is flawed. This means to stop

attributing truth value to structure or system, but rather to see that system as

system, as a construct, as something built around a central idea, even though the

central idea is flawed or even an illusion. Derrida calls this method bricolage.

The person who does it is a bricoleur. This is somebody who does not care

about the purity or stability of the system he uses, but rather uses what is there

to get a particular job done. In philosophical terms I want to talk about a belief
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system, so I refer to God because it serves as an illustration of something that a

lot of people believe in, I dont assume that God refers to an actual being.

Bricolage does not worry about the coherence of the words or ideas it uses.

Derrida in this essay attempts a definition of his concept of what a

structure is. He uses the metaphor of the centre in his definition of a structure.

He regards the passage from structuralism to post structuralism as a passage

from centered to decentred or centre less structures. There are no fixed points or

absolutes in the universe, everything is relative and the universe we live in is

decentred. All we have is free play. In other words Derrida rejects the

structuralist belief that texts have centers of meanings.

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