Jacques Derrida’s bricolage: An

Intellectual and Mytho-poetical

Activity

A Dissertation

Submitted to

AMITY University Kolkata

For the partial fulfilment of the award of the degree of

MASTER OF ENGLISH STUDIES

BY

RIA PAL

ENROLLMENT NO: A91610316003

GUIDE : Prof. Amrita Bhattacharyaa

AMITY UNIVERSITY, KOLKATA

April 2018
 DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the dissertation entitled “Jacques Derrida’s bricolage: An

Intellectual and Mytho-poetical Activity” submitted by me in partial fulfilment
of the requirements for the award of the Degree of MASTERS of English Studies
to the AMITY UNIVERSITY, KOLATA is based on the experiments and studies
carried out by me. This work is original and has not been submitted in part or full
for any other degree or diploma of any university or institution.

Date:
Place: Kolkata

Ria Pal

Roll no: A91610316003

 AMITY UNIVERSITY
AMITY INSTITUTE OF ENGLISH RESEARCH AND STUDIES
KOLKATA

CERTIFICATE

The research work embodied in this dissertation entitled “ Jacques Derrida’s

bricolage: An intellectual and mytho-poetical Activity” submitted by Ria Pal,
Enrollment no: A91610316003 in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the
award of the Degree of Master of English Studies to the Amity University,
Kolkata is based on the experiments and studies carried out by her. This work is
original and has not been submitted in part or full for any other degree or
diploma of any university or institution.

Date: 30/4/2018

Place: Kolkata

Faculty Guide

(signature)
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my guide Ms. Amrita

Bhattacharyaa for the continuous support of my dissertation and related
research, for her patience, motivation and immense knowledge. Her guidance
helped me all the time of research and writing my dissertation. I could not have
imagined having a better advisor and mentor for my dissertation assignment.
 CONTENTS

-Introduction
(What is bricolage?)
-The concept of structuralism
-Post-structuralism
-Deconstruction and Jacques Derrida
-Metaphysics of Presence
-Nullification of Binary opposition
-Trace as central concept
-The concept of ‘rupture’
-Concept of ‘Arch writing’
-Concept of ‘supplement’
-Bricolage is Mytho-poetical
 INTRODUCTION

In The Savage Mind (1962), the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss

used the word bricolage to describe the characteristic patterns of mythological
thought. Bricolage is the skill of using whatever is at hand and recombining
them to create new. Levi- Strauss compares the working of the bricoleur and the
engineer. The bricoleur, who is the savage mind “savage mind”, works with his
hands in devious ways, puts pre-existing things together in new ways, and
makes do with whatever is at hand. What Levi- Strauss points out here is that
signs already in existence are used for purpose that were originally not meant
for.

The working of the bricoleur is parallel to the construction of mythological

narratives. As opposed to the bricoleur, the engineer, who is the “scientific
mind”, is a true craftsmen in that he deals with projects in entirety, taking into
account the availability of materials and crafting new tools. Drawing a parallel,
Levi- Strauss argues that mythology functions more like the bricoleur, whereas
modern western science works more like an engineer. He suggests that the
engineer creates a holistic totalising system, in which there are elements of
permanence.

Derrida in Structure Sign and Play criticises Levi-Strauss’ conception of the

engineers totalizing narrative, arguing that is not possible for anyone to be the “
absolute origin of his own discourse” or to “ construct the totality of his
language, syntax and lexicon.” Consequently he remarks that the engineer is a
myth created by the bricoleur, because the bricoleur would not be as exciting
and inventive if the engineer were not so dreary and unimaginative. As soon as
we cease to believe in such an engineer and as soon as we admit that every
finite discourse is bound by a certain bricolage, and that the engineer is also a
bricoleur, then the very difference upon which bricolage took on its meaning
breaks down. Derrida agrues that based on bricolage, Levi-Strauss’ discourse on
myths attempts to abandon “ all reference to a centre ,to a subject, to a
privileged reference, to an origin” , and that his discourse is decentered.
 The Concept Of Structuralism

Structuralism in Europe developed in the early 1900s, in the structural

linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the subsequent Prague,
Moscow] and Copenhagen schools of linguistics. In the late 1950s and early
1960s, when structural linguistics was facing serious challenges from the likes
of Noam Chomsky and thus fading in importance, an array of scholars in
the humanities borrowed Saussure's concepts for use in their respective fields of
study. French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss was arguably the first such
scholar, sparking a widespread interest in structuralism.

The structuralist mode of reasoning has been applied in a diverse range of

fields, including anthropology, sociology, psychology, literary
criticism, economics and architecture. The most prominent thinkers associated
with structuralism include Claude Lévi-Strauss, linguist Roman Jakobson,
and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. As an intellectual movement, structuralism
was initially presumed to be the heir apparent to existentialism. However, by the
late 1960s, many of structuralism's basic tenets came under attack from a new
wave of predominantly French intellectuals such as the philosopher and
historian Michel Foucault, the philosopher and linguist Jacques Derrida,
the Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser, and the literary critic Roland
Barthes. Though elements of their work necessarily relate to structuralism and
are informed by it, these theorists have generally been referred to as post-
structuralists. In the 1970s, structuralism was criticized for its rigidity
and ahistoricism. Despite this, many of structuralism's proponents, such as
Lacan, continue to assert an influence on continental philosophy and many of
the fundamental assumptions of some of structuralism's post-structuralist critics
are a continuation of structuralism.
Structuralism is appealing to some critics because it adds a certain objectivity, a
Scientific objectivity, to the realm of literary studies (which have often been
criticized as purely subjective/impressionistic). This scientific objectivity is
achieved by subordinating ’parole’ to ‘langue’ ; actual usage is abandoned in
favour of studying the structure of a system in the abstract. Thus structuralist
readings ignore the specificity of actual texts and them as if they were like the
patterns produced by iron fillings moved by magnetic force- the result of some
impersonal force or power, not the result of human effort.

In structuralism, the individuality of the text disappears in favour of looking at

patterns, systems, and structures. Some structuralists propose that all narratives
can be charted as variations on certain basic universal narrative patterns.

In the structuralist mode of the thinking the individuality of the author is

cancelled out and the text is given a universality. The text is taken as a function
of a system, not of an individual. The Romantic humanistic model holds that the
author is the origin of the text, its creator, and hence is the starting point or
progenitor of the text. However Structuralism argues that any piece of writing,
or any signifying system, has no origin, and that authors merely inhabit pre-
existing structures that enable them to speak any particular sentence or parole.
We do not even new words or language or speak anything new instead what we
say or do is part of an pre-existing system or pattern or structure. Hence every
text, and every sentence we speak or write, is made up of the “already written”.

By focusing on the system itself, in a synchronic analysis, structuralists cancel

out history. Most insist, as Levi- Strauss does, that structures are universal,
therefore timeless. Structuralists cannot account for change or development;
they are uninterested, for example, in how literary forms may have changed
over time. They are not interested in a text’s production or
reception/consumption, but only in the structures that shape it.
From the structuralist mode of study emerges Derrida’s theory of
deconstruction. Derrida attacks all western metaphysics for the logo centrism
and hierarchy like in speech/ writing, nature/ culture etc. Logo centrism is the
tendency for seeking centre and presence. Derrida says that centre-seeking
tendency began to be questioned from Nietzsche who declared the 'Death of
God' and replaced god with superman. Another figure to challenge the
logocentrism is Freud, who questions the authority of consciousness and claims
that we are guided by unconscious. Heidegger also challenges the notion of
metaphysics of presence.

Derrida, therefore, primarily attacks structuralism. He views that the concept of

centre does work but it is not essential; hence centre is under eraser. Centre is
needed to form a structure but immediately it escapes from the so- called
centrality. Derrida, in fact, is not suggesting on the abandonment of the idea of
centre, but rather he acknowledges that it is illusory and constructed. He talks
about the binaries of structuralism which are in hierarchical order, in which the
first term is priviledge over the other. These binaries are not true representations
of external reality, rather are simply constructions. Any signified is not fixed.
Signified also seeks meaning. When it seeks meaning it becomes signifier. So,
there is chain of signifiers, there is no constant existence of signified. It means,
there is no centre, no margin, and no totality. As a result, meaning is not
determined in the text. In fact, meaning is like jellyfish and knowledge is a
matter of perpetual shifting. There is no single stable meaning. Since signifiers
do not refer to thing but to themselves, text does not give any fixed meaning. In
such situation, multi- meanings are possible. So, sign is only chain of signifiers.

Saussure views that signifier and signified are inseparable but Derrida attacks
Saussure that he himself separated the signifier and signified. Saussure says that
meaning comes in terms of difference. But Derrida says that such hierarchy is
constructed and the idea to understand one in reference to other is purely
haphazard, inhuman and unnecessary. One signifier has no completeness and,
therefore, we need other signifiers to understand it. It is endless process and
there is only chain of signifiers other than signified. Derrida says that centre and
margin are equally important for one depends on another. So, there is no centre
and no margin. Without female the concept of male can't exist. Structuralists
believe that from much binary opposition, single meaning comes but Derrida
says each pair of binary oppositions produces separate meanings. So, in a text,
there are multi- meanings. Since the centre lacks locus, centre is not the centre.
Therefore, the idea of decentering for Derrida is erasing the voice and,
therefore, avoiding the possibility of logocentrism. Structuralists believe that
speech is primary and superior to writing but Derrida opposes and says that the
vagueness of speech is clarified by the writing. Since, the writing has the
pictorial quality of the speech, both are equally important, there is no hierarchy.
To prove this he talks about 'Difference'. Derrida himself coins this very word.
It comes from the French verb' differer'- meaning both to ' differ' and 'defer'.

But the word ' difference' itself is meaningless for it does not give any concept.
Meaning is a matter of difference. It is a continuous postponement. It is moving
from one signifier to another and it endlessly continues. Since meaning is
infinite, we never get absolute meaning of any word. As we can't be satisfied
with meaning, we have to go further and further to search the meaning. As a
result, we don't have final knowledge. We don't get fixed meaning rather we
undergo chain of signifiers and as soon as we get signified it slides. Similarly,
Derrida subverts the concept of hierarchy of binary opposition created by Levi-
Strauss. He (Levi) creates hierarchy of nature/ culture and says that nature is
superior to culture. For him, speech is natural and writing is culture. So Speech
is superior to writing. But Derrida breaks this hierarchy bringing the example of
incest prohibition. Strauss says that ' Incest Prohibition' is natural and at the
same time it is cultural construction or the outcome of culture; hence it is a
norm. Therefore, it belongs to culture. So, incest prohibition can belong both to
natural and culture. In this way both nature and culture go side by side, so we
can't claim nature as superior to culture, both are interrelated and something can
occupy the nature and culture at the same time.

Similarly, Levi- Strauss has made the hierarchy between artist and critic. He
claims artist is originator but critic comes later. Likewise artist uses first hand
raw materials as engineer does but critics use second hand raw materials. In
contrary to him Derrida argues that neither artists nor critic works on first hand
materials, rather both of them use the materials that were already existed and
used. In this sense, there is no hierarchy between them.

In short, Derrida means to say that meaning is just like peeling the onion and
never getting a kernel. Likewise, the binary opposition between literary and
non-literary language is an illusion. But the prime objective of deconstruction is
not to destroy the meaning of text but is to show how the text deconstructs
itself. Derrida's idea of no-centre under erasure, indeterminacy, no final
meaning, no binary opposition, no truth heavily influenced subsequent thinkers
and their theories. These theories are: psychoanalysis, new historicism, cultural
studies, post colonialism, feminism and so on.
 Post structuralism

The terms structuralism and post-structuralism both refer to a political, literary,

and aesthetic expansion of CONTI- NENTAL PHILOSOPHY that developed in
the second half of the twentieth century in a fashion parallel to certain
developments in analytic philosophy. The post-structural approach is known for
its efforts to offer a critical review of normative concepts in classical
philosophy, and it makes use of the LINGUISTIC TURN (i.e., the revaluation
of language in theories of KNOWLEDGE), PHENOM- ENOLOGY, and
HERMENEUTICS alike.

As the term post-structuralism suggests, its representatives have been formed

especially through critical discussion with structuralists, such as Ferdinand de
Saussure (1857–1913), Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908–2009) and the so-called
Russian formalists. Among the most important representatives of post-
structuralist philosophy are Jacques Derrida (1930–2004), Gilles Deleuze
(1925– 1995), Jean-François Lyotard (1924–1998), Jacques Lacan (1901–
1981), Michel Foucault (1926–1984), and Slavoj Žižek and his school. Though
many of the representatives have French backgrounds, their theories have had
influence all over the world, especially in the areas of philosophy of language,
ETHICS, NEOPRAGMA- TISM, literary theory, and gender studies. In the
United States, the works of Richard Rorty (1931–2007) and Judith Butler are
often associated with post-structuralism. What distinguishes structuralism from
post-structuralism is not always easy to identify, but as a general rule
poststructuralists see their theories as based on structuralism’s philosophy of
language (Saussure) and anthropology (Lévi-Strauss), but they apply those
insights to a wider range of topics and radicalize some of structuralism’s
premises.

Post-structuralists differ among themselves in their specific approaches, for

some proceed historically, some hermeneutically. In addition, some base their
work on discourse analysis, and others combine critical theory with
psychoanalysis. If there is a basic subject matter that connects these authors in
addition to their use of the linguistic turn, it is the influence of phenomenology
as found in the works of Edmund HUSSERL (1859– 1938) and Martin
HEIDEGGER (1889–1976).

Important Post-Structuralists. Key figures include Foucault, Žižek, and

Derrida, who is the most celebrated proponent of post-structuralist thought.
Although Heidegger worked in phenomenology and not in structuralism, his
thought is the essential reference point for Derrida, whose theory of
deconstruction was inspired by what Heidegger calls the “destruction” of
philosophy’s tradition.

From Heidegger to Derrida. For many poststructuralists, Heidegger’s Being

and Time has been understood as a critique of a tradition of philosophical
REALISM that goes back to PLATO’s understanding of BEING as a universal
and stable entity that guarantees that general terms can function predicatively in
a true subject-predicate sentence. Heidegger questioned the very notion of
TRUTH as something that could be determined through such UNIVERSALS.
He regarded truth claims to be misperceived when understood as correlated with
a horizon of everlasting (godlike) meanings untouched by time. Heidegger tried
to recast truth as a phenomenological quest based on experience rather than on a
priori concepts. In Being and Time he articulates the need for a destruction of
traditional philosophical thinking by going back to the “initial experiences”
(ursprüngliche Erfahrungen) from which conceptual thought nourishes itself.
The task of “going back” is supposed to not only make individuals understand
where their thinking and their categories come from, but to let them see that
philosophical thinking tends to conceal its own answers. For Heidegger, the
origin of philosophical thinking always stands in opposition to thinking itself,
understood as a discourse that proceeds through binary oppositions of positive
and negative (e.g., the distinction between the true and the false). Thus,
Heidegger believed that he had to go back to the historical beginnings of
philosophy, even before Plato, so as to counter Plato’s influence in Western
philosophy.

Derrida took up Heidegger’s call for a philosophical destruction (questioning)

of traditional categories and made the case that this destruction is already at
work in any philosophical text. This thesis is the foundation of his theory of
deconstruction, which he sees as a hermeneutical method that tries to find in
philosophical texts, and especially in their margins, what eludes conceptual
notions. Derrida urges that inner-conceptual contradictions invariably have to be
suppressed by texts as their authors work to establish various truth claims
(Derrida 1972). Deconstruction is his name for the art of reading by which one
finds the cracks and fractures in one’s thinking and self-understanding. Many of
Derrida’s interpretations of canonical texts in Western philosophy aim at
exhibiting how many games can be found in human language. In this respect
Derrida’s thought is like that of Ludwig WITTGENSTEIN (1889–1951), whose
Philosophical Investigations also argued against the idea of language as
communicating facts that could serve as the logical basis of truth claims. For
both Derrida and Wittgenstein, no language game constitutes the core of
language and logic; no one language game can be the origin of all others.
Truth In or Beyond Semantics? The realist branch of analytic philosophy sees
meaning as a semantic independent entity that can be defined through objective
procedures of truth-value analysis in sentences. For thinkers in this tradition,
truth is “not a property of sentences or thoughts, as language might lead one to
suppose” (Frege 1979, 234). In post-structuralist epistemology, on the contrary,
meaning depends on the inferential network of language, which spreads along
the whole chain of signifiers into ever-new differences and conceptual insights.
Meaning simultaneously “is” and “is not”—it is there, and it is always to come;
it is ever the result of a particular process of division and subdivision of signs
that receive their identity by reference to the entire network of signs. Signifiers
cannot exist in isolation but rather are dependent on a system within which they
must be deciphered. Meaning thus proves to be eccentric, for it cannot be
determined once and for all in any one epistemology. There is something
unstable about meaning itself. Derrida calls each system of thought that tries to
resist such INDETERMINACY of truth-values? or meaning “metaphysical” and
“logocentric” (in a negative sense). He thinks it erroneous to understand
meaning as contingent upon concept-independent facts, as if one could look
through epistemology to an epistemology-independent reality, or to
fundamental principles, or to an indisputable basis on which a whole hierarchy
of meaning could then be built from the bottom up. For Derrida, as well as for
Deleuze and Lyotard, the meaning of any given expression can never remain
identical with itself, and each new dialectical cognitive process presents itself as
an ever-postponed fulfillment to come. This last point can explain the
importance Derrida attaches to CRITICAL THEORY and literary theory. In the
humanities, post-structuralism has triggered many polemical debates where
some critics see it as a sophisticated form of NIHILISM and RELATIVISM.
Critics of post-structuralism tend to argue that the world consists of entities,
such as objects with various properties and relations between them. These
entities exist independently of one’s knowledge of them. For such critics, to
understand truth only semantically leads to self-contradiction, and in their view,
even an ideal epistemological theory could still be wrong. Truth must therefore
be understood metaphysically, as the correspondence between semantically
independent facts and a PROPOSITION. According to a realist philosophical
position, it is not language that makes a JUDGMENT objectively true but the
objective conditions of reality, and realist philosophers hold that language can
reflect (instantiate) this reality. Derrida’s philosophy is opposed to this view.
For him, meaning shifts because of a fundamental difference (différance) that
undermines every necessary binary structure of conceptual thought. It is this
difference that deprives every conceptual definition of the chance to find
stability in relation to some absolute truth-value or truth-maker. The debate
reflects, in some sense, the disparity between the philosophies of Immanuel
Kant (1724–1804) and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich HEGEL (1770–1831) in the
late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as well as the disparity between
Willard Van Orman Quine (1908–2000) and the logical POSITIVISM of the
VIENNA CIRCLE in the 1950s.

Michel Foucault. The transition from structuralism to post-structuralism is also

reflected in the work of Michel Foucault, and especially in his method of
genealogy. Among his various historical (genealogical) works, The Order of
Things and The Birth of the Clinic stand out. Foucault tried to develop a new
understanding of historical developments as processes of rupture, deviation, and
contingency. Although his research area was not philosophy of language or
hermeneutics but history, he can still be regarded as a post-structuralist insofar
as he understands history not as a matter of what subjects do but as a process of
almost subject-independent discourses. These discourses appear in his
interpretation as gravitational fields in which humankind is somehow entrapped.
In contrast to a traditional understanding of historical events, his view of history
allows for no rule directed or teleological processes. Rather, history is
essentially characterized by constant changes and by the reorganization of
various discourses and their practices. History so interpreted is not determined
by monocausal sequences of large events (wars, disasters, etc.), nor is it
animated by the actions of individuals (emperors, kings, popes, the people, etc.).
Instead, Foucault examines the constitutive processes of certain types of
knowledge (e.g. surveillance, punishment, hygiene) as the moving forces in the
respective periods that he studies.

Foucault examines various areas of knowledge in the humanities and shows

how their knowledge procedures (administration, education, classification)
conceive the human subject. History, at least in an early work such as The Order
of Things, is a process piloted not by individuals but by the order of discourse
that constitutes (almost accidentally as a necessary by-product) subjects in
dependence to these discourse processes and their categories. Discourse is not a
tool of individuals but the frame within which subjects emerge. Going back to
Friedrich NIETZSCHE’s (1844–1900) concept of a “genealogy of morals,”
Foucault reflects some of the central themes of post-structuralistic thought: a
criticism of philosophical realism; a questioning of the Western subject, who is
decentered by the very language-frame within which he is constituted; and a
critique of history as rational totality. Just as for Heidegger people are subject to
language, for Foucault they are subject to administrative powers. Exposing
these networks of interacting relationships between knowledge, language
games, political power, and administration is what Foucault calls
“archaeology.” In this post-structuralist perspective, power is no longer
guaranteed by a single subject, the sovereign or the elected government, but is
dispersed more and more into modern biopolitical expert administrations where
the border between private and public life seems ever-more indistinguishable.
Foucault is interested in this nexus of knowledge and power; in his later works
he calls this “biopolitics.” This is his focus when he considers the system of
mental illness, the criminal justice system, biopolitical delinquency, or sexuality

Slavoj Žižek. This Slovenian philosopher is one of the leading figures of

contemporary post-structuralistic thought, even though he repeatedly criticizes
the epistemic premises of post-structuralist philosophy Slavoj Žižek. This
Slovenian philosopher is one of the leading figures of contemporary post-
structuralistic thought, even though he repeatedly criticizes the epistemic
premises of post-structuralist philosophy especially in regard to the philosophy
of subjectivity. Inspired by the works of Alain Badiou, Žižek has become
famous for propagating Lacan’s psychoanalysis and introducing it into
philosophy and cultural studies. Žižek’s writings revolve around the question of
identity and its interpellation by the symbolic networks of political and social
institutions that act on the subject’s unconscious. These interpellations can have
a deeply enigmatic nature, but they exert a decisive influence on the
development of the subject’s most intimate desires and aspirations. Žižek’s
work focuses on the philosophical aspects of Lacanian theory and leaves the
clinical dimensions of psychoanalysis aside. His reception of Lacan is therefore
based on a separation of psychoanalysis from its ancestral medical context. This
approach has contributed to his reputation, and his numerous publications are
influential in a variety of disciplines, including the philosophy of the subject,
critical theory, and psychoanalysis. Žižek describes being a subject along the
lines of Lacan and Hegel as a process of constant struggle to react to the various
identifications and (enigmatic) appeals that are presented to the subject from
birth on. For Žižek, following the investigations of Louis Althusser (1918–
1990), the subject is necessarily subject to ideological interpellation. Being a
subject means always being subjected, and thus ideological. Hence, the
ideological appeal succeeds as a condition of the constitution of subjects.
Culture and politics as the normative frameworks in which subjects interact
always maintain their normative claims with the help of techniques of
idealization, homogenization, and the repression of internal antagonisms. These
techniques are of interest for Žižek, since they generally tend to defend the
political status quo and to reduce anxiety over new political (radical) options.
For Žižek, living with these idealizations as unquestioned, fact-establishing
certainties means underestimating the political potentialities of the subject, who
is capable of setting the same techniques against what the established political
doxa (rule) defines as fact.
 Deconstruction and Jacques Derrida

Deconstruction by its very nature defies institutionalization in an authoritative

definition. The concept was first outlined by Derrida in Of Grammatology where
he explored the interplay between language and the construction of meaning.
From this early work, and later works in which he has attempted to explain
deconstruction to others, most notably the Letter to a Japanese Friend, it is
possible to provide a basic explanation of what deconstruction is commonly
understood to mean. Three key features emerge from Derrida’s work as making
deconstruction possible. These are, first, the inherent desire to have a centre, or
focal point, to structure understanding (logocentrism); second, the reduction of
meaning to set definitions that are committed to writing (nothing beyond the text);
and, finally, how the reduction of meaning to writing captures opposition within
that concept itself (différance). These three features found the possibility of
deconstruction as an on-going process of questioning the accepted basis of
meaning. While the concept initially arose in the context of language, it is equally
applicable to the study of law. Derrida considered deconstruction to be a
‘problematisation of the foundation of law, morality and politics.’ For him it was
both ‘foreseeable and desirable that studies of deconstructive style should
culminate in the problematic of law and justice.’ Deconstruction is therefore a
means of interrogating the relationship between the two.

Derrida takes as his starting point the assertion that modern Western philosophy
is characterized by and constructed around an inherent desire to place meaning
at the centre of presence. Put simply, what this means is that philosophy is
driven by a desire for the certainty associated with the existence of an absolute
truth, or an objective meaning that makes sense of our place in the world.
Derrida terms this desire ‘logocentrism’. Its effect is the placing of one
particular term or concept, such as justice, at the centre of all efforts at
theorizing or interrogating meaning. The term becomes the core around which
meaning is constructed, the reference point that determines all subsequent
knowledge. Derrida highlights how logocentrism assumes the existence of set
and stable meanings that exist to be discovered. The way in which this term—
the logos—is made known is language, the translation into words of a concept
or a way of thinking. This is described as the ‘metaphysics of presence’—the
way in which we make present the objects of our thought. The logos represents
nature, which is something different from the instituted form embodied in
language or in text. Crucial therefore is the idea of a rigid separation of the
origin of meaning (the abstract idea of justice, for example) and the
institutionalization of that meaning in ‘writing’ (or law).

For Derrida, it is this logocentrism, and the idea of the exteriority of meaning,
that opens up the possibility of deconstruction. He examines how the natural
‘origin’ of meaning and its ‘institution’ in writing cannot be so easily separated.
Rather than nature (justice) and institution (law) existing independently of each
other, Derrida suggests that nature itself is constructed only with reference to the
institution. So rather than law being a direct embodiment of justice, how we
understand both justice and law is determined by the interplay between the two.
This is a rejection of the rigid separation that makes the quest for certainty
possible — of the very idea that justice exists as a prior objective standard to be
discovered. By reading law as reflecting or embodying the natural origin of
justice, what is ignored or concealed are all the other possible interpretations of
justice that are not embodied or encapsulated in the law. In this way writing
defines nature, as well The idea of deconstruction is therefore concerned with
countering the idea of a transcendental origin or natural referent. It refutes the
notion that it is possible to transgress the institution in order to discover
something beyond — the existence of an independent origin. This idea is
famously encapsulated in the phrase ‘There is nothing outside of the text’, which
is often used to summarise Derrida’s work. For Derrida the origin does not exist
independently of its institution, but exists only ‘through its functioning within a
classification and therefore within a system of differences… In his own words,
Derrida terms this phenomenon ‘différance’, and it is this idea that forms the basis
of deconstruction. Différance refers to the fact that meaning cannot be regarded
as fixed or static, but is constantly evolving. It arises from the constant process of
negotiation between competing concepts. Rather than pursuing the truth of a
natural origin, what deconstruction requires is the interrogation of these
competing interpretations that combine to produce meaning. The act of
institution—or writing —itself captures this constant competition between the
differing possible interpretations of meaning within the institution. The effect of
the translation of thought into language is therefore to inscribe différance into the
structure of meaning. It simultaneously embodies the desired meaning as intended
by the author, and the constraints placed on that meaning through the act of
interpretation of the text. In this regard, meaning is defined equally by what is
included in the institution and what is not. At any one time, one concept will be
dominant over the other, thus excluding the other. However while the idea of
exclusion suggest the absence of any presence of that which is excluded, in fact
that which is instituted depends for its existence on what has been excluded. The
two exist in a relationship of hierarchy in which one will always be dominant over
the other. The dominant concept is the one that manages to legitimate itself as the
reflection of the natural order thereby squeezing out competing interpretations
that remain trapped as the excluded trace within the dominant meaning.

In Positions Derrida explains how the first task of deconstruction is to overturn

the hierarchy. This is necessary to highlight the ‘conflictual and subordinating
structure of opposition’. It emphasizes the dominance of one particular way of
thinking over others, and belies the idea of fixed meaning, overturning, and
therefore exposing, the existence of the binary and destabilizing previously fixed
categories of understanding. However this is only the first stage. Derrida
emphasizes how to remain in this phase is to remain within the oppositional
structure, allowing the hierarchy to re-establish itself. If deconstruction is limited
to the simple inversion of binaries, then inquiry remains trapped ‘within the
closed field of these oppositions’. What this means is that instead of making any
real change to structural conditions, what is happening is simply swapping the
positions of dominant and subordinate, allowing the same conditions to persist.
In order to move beyond this dynamic, and to break open the structure itself, a
second stage is necessary. This second stage is where the indeterminate element
of deconstruction becomes visible. Rather than resting with the inversion of the
binaries, and by extension accepting a different manifestation of fixed meaning,
the second phase requires us to step outside the oppositions, to remain in search
of new meanings, not by repeating ideas but by analyzing how ideas are framed,
how arguments are made. Speaking at the Villanova Roundtable, Derrida
described this as searching for the ‘tensions, the contradictions, the heterogeneity
within [the] corpus’. It is only through this element of endless analysis, criticism
and deconstruction that we can prevent existing structures of dominance from
reasserting themselves.

In this context, deconstruction is concerned not with the discovery of ‘truth’ or of

distilling correct conclusions, but rather with the process of questioning itself. It
is a process characterized by uncertainty and indeterminacy. For this reason,
Derrida explains, deconstruction is not a ‘method’, and it cannot be transformed
into one. One cannot ‘apply’ deconstruction to test a hypothesis or to support an
argument. Rather it is an ongoing process of interrogation concerned with the
structure of meaning itself. As explained in ‘Letter to a Japanese Friend’, for
Derrida deconstruction is neither analysis nor critique. It is not done with a
particular aim. It is not a search for a ‘simple element’ or ‘indissoluble origin’.
The consequence of this is that its value is not linked to any subsequent
reconstruction. As discussed above, it does not exist to take apart one structure to
replace it with another, but exists simply to reveal the inner logic of that structure
so as better to understand it. This has led to the charge that deconstruction is
insufficiently concerned with questions of justice and ethics. Derrida is clear,
however, that although deconstruction is not primarily concerned with advocacy
or activism, nor is it nihilistic or anarchic. It does not reject the need for law and
institutions, but rather seeks to work within those structures to reveal new
possibilities. It consists of dismantling not institutions themselves, but rather
‘structures within institutions that have become too rigid, or are dogmatic or
which work as an obstacle to future research’. Deconstruction is therefore an
affirmative force that opens up possibilities that have been suppressed by virtue
of the dominance of one particular way of conceptualizing justice.

Finally, deconstruction is not an act or an operation. Rather, it is something that

happens, something that takes place. It takes place everywhere. It does not require
deliberation or consciousness, but rather its potential exists within our structures
of meaning. It is interested in exploring and revealing the internal logic of ideas
and meaning. It is concerned with opening up these structures and revealing the
way in which our understanding of foundational concepts is constructed. This is
internal to meaning itself and not dependent on external factors. What this
suggests is that the possibility of deconstruction exists within the structure of
meaning itself, within the structure of differánce, and is not something to be found
and applied from the outside. It is primarily concerned with understanding ideas,
not with their application.

Deconstruction does not aim to provide answers. It does not seek to prove an
objective truth or to support any one particular claim to justice over another. For
this reason deconstruction itself is indeterminate. In Force of Law Derrida
concedes that deconstruction is ‘impossible’. The ‘happening’ of deconstruction
is not going to lead to a determinate outcome. It will not reveal the one true
meaning of justice that can be embodied in law. Rather, deconstruction requires
first and foremost the relentless pursuit of the impossible. What is ‘happening’ is
not the pursuit of an answer which marks the end of the inquiry, but rather the
ongoing questioning that keeps our minds open to the idea that there may be
alternative views and understandings of the meaning of justice. When seen in
these terms, it is not a method but simply a way of reading, writing, thinking and
acting. Rather than seeking an endpoint or a solid conclusion, the means cannot
be distinguished from the end. The ongoing process of questioning is the end in
itself. It is about negotiating the impossible and the undecidable and, in so doing,
remaining open to the possibility of justice.
 Metaphysics of presence

Among the many different terms Derrida uses to describe what he considers to be
the fundamental ways of thinking in the Western philosophical tradition. These
include: logocentrism, phallogocentrism, and perhaps most famously, the
metaphysics of presence, also called simply ‘metaphysics’. All these terms have
slight difference of meaning and emphasis. Logocentrism talks about the role that
logos, or speech, plays in the Western tradition. Phallogocentrism points towards
the patriarchal significance of this role. Derrida’s constant references to the
metaphysics of presence has been heavily inspired by the work of Heidegger, who
insists that the Western philosophy has continually given privilege to that which
is, or to that which appears, and thus has forgotten to pay any attention to the
reason or condition for that appearance. In other words, presence itself is
privileged, rather than that which allows presence to be possible at all - and also
impossible, for Derrida. All of these terms of denigration, however, are united
under the broad rubric of the term 'metaphysics'. What, then, does Derrida mean
by metaphysics?

In the 'Afterword' to Limited Inc., Derrida suggests that metaphysics can be

defined as:

"The enterprise of returning 'strategically', ‘ideally’, to an origin or to a priority

thought to be simple, intact, normal, pure, standard, self-identical, in order then
to think in terms of derivation, complication, deterioration, accident, etc. All
metaphysicians, from Plato to Rousseau, Descartes to Husserl, have proceeded in
this way, conceiving good to be before evil, the positive before the negative, the
pure before the impure, the simple before the complex, the essential before the
accidental, the imitated before the imitation, etc. And this is not just one
metaphysical gesture among others, it is the metaphysical exigency, that which
has been the most constant, most profound and most potent".

According to Derrida then, metaphysics involves installing hierarchies and orders

of subordination in the various dualisms that it encounters (M 195). Moreover,
metaphysical thought prioritises presence and purity at the expense of the
contingent and the complicated, which are considered to be merely aberrations
that are not important for philosophical analysis.

Basically then, metaphysical thought always privileges one side of an opposition,

and ignores or marginalises the alternative term of that opposition.
In another attempt to explain deconstruction's treatment of, and interest in
oppositions, Derrida has suggested that: "An opposition of metaphysical concepts
(speech/writing, presence/absence, etc.) is never the face-to-face of two terms,
but a hierarchy and an order of subordination. Deconstruction cannot limit itself
or proceed immediately to neutralisation: it must, by means of a double gesture,
a double science, a double writing, practise an overturning of the classical
opposition, and a general displacement of the system. It is on that condition alone
that deconstruction will provide the means of intervening in the field of
oppositions it criticises" (M 195). In order to better understand this dual
'methodology' - that is also the deconstruction of the notion of a methodology
because it no longer believes in the possibility of an observer being absolutely
exterior to the object/text being examined - it is helpful to consider an example
of this deconstruction at work
 Binary opposition

Derrida is seen as the pioneer in the field of deconstruction, and his work
Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of Human Sciences is marked as the
very beginning of the poststructuralism movement. According to Derrida
language cannot be transcended and every form and structure is counterfeited
by its opposite. Western thinking Derrida states is founded on the theory of
binary opposition, such as mind and body, rational and emotional, freedom and
determinism, man and woman, nature and culture and one term is always given
a more priviledged position than its opposite, in a way typical od ideologies.

This view has been brought into psychology by Billig (1988, 1990), and in his
view of the nature of ideology one is 'persuaded' by the rhetorical force
of'common-sense' and 'lived' ideology such that the privileging of one side of
the dichotomy is seen as 'natural' and 'the way things are'. Yet there is no
inherent 'logic' to this 'either/or' dualism, says Derrida, because neither part of
the binary opposition can exist without the other since both are interdependent
and related:

to give anything an identity, to say what it is, is necessarily also to say what it is
not. In this sense, presence contains absence. That is, to say that a quality is
present depends upon implying what is absent

This, therefore, implies a 'both/and' logic. To oppose one side of a binary will
result in merely a reversal of the system rather than a revolution of it.
Deconstruction is not a replacement theory but a disruptive one which may
challenge the orthodoxy of dominant belief systems and set in motion another
shift in thinking that was not permitted before dislodging the 'giveness' of the
fixed sign. Derrida argues that the notion of structure, in theories like
structuralism, presuppose a 'centre' or 'transcendental signified' which is
fallacious . Derrida argues against classical structuralism, as well as traditional
humanism and empiricism. All such theories imply they are based on some
secure ground, yet Derrida claims these are no more than philosophical fictions
(based upon metaphors and metonymies that are 'read' as 'real'). The search for
an 'essential reality' or 'origin' or 'truth' is futile, because

language bears within itself the necessity of its own critique, deconstructive
criticism aims to show that any text inevitably undermines its own claims to
have a determinate meaning, and licences the reader to produce his own
meanings out of it by an activity of semantic 'freeplay'
 ‘Trace’ as a central concept

Trace is a result of the idea of the difference, i.e a trace is what a sign differ
from. It is the absent part of the sign’s presence. Trace can be defined by the
sign left by the absent thing after it has passed on by the scene of its former
presence. Every presence in order to know itself as present bears the trace of an
absence which defines it. It follows that an originary present must bear an
originary trace. The present trace of a past which never took place, an absolute
past. In this way Derrida believes he achieves a position beyond absolute
knowledge. According to Derrida the trace itself does not exist because it is self
-effacing i..e, in presenting it becomes effaced. Because all signifiers view as
present in Western thought will necessary contain traces of other (absent)
signifiers, the signifier can be neither wholly present nor wholly absent.

Trace can be seen as an always contingent term for a "mark of the absence of a
presence, an always-already absent present", of the 'originary lack' that seems to
be "the condition of thought and experience". Trace is a contingent unit of the
critique of language always-already present: "language bears within itself the
necessity of its own critique". Deconstruction, unlike analysis or interpretation,
tries to lay the inner contradictions of a text bare, and, in turn, build a different
meaning from that: it is at once a process of destruction and construction.
Derrida claims that these contradictions are neither accidental nor exceptions;
they are the exposure of certain "metaphysics of pure presence", an exposure of
the "transcendental signified" always-already hidden inside language. This
"always-already hidden" contradiction is trace. By the virtue of trace, signifiers
always simultaneously differ and defer from the illusive signified. This is
something Derrida calls "Differance". According to him, "Differance is the non-
full, non-simple "origin"; it is the structured and differing origin of
differences". According to Derrida language is labyrinthine, inter-woven and
inter-related, and the threads of this labyrinth are the differences, traces. Along
with "supplement", trace and difference conveys a picture of what language is to
Derrida. All these terms are part of his strategy; he wants to use trace to
"indicate a way out of the closure imposed by the system...". Trace is, again, not
presence but an empty simulation of it:

The trace is not a presence but is rather the simulacrum of a presence that
dislocates, displaces, and refers beyond itself. The trace has, properly speaking,
no place, for effacement belongs to the very structure of the trace. . In this way
the metaphysical text is understood; it is still readable, and remains read. It is
essentially an "antistructuralist gestures as he felt that the "Structures were to be
undone, decomposed, desedimented". Trace, or difference, is also pivotal in
jeopardizing strict dichotomies:

It has been necessary to analyze, to set to work, within the text of the history of
philosophy, as well as within the so-called literary text,..., certain marks, shall
we say,... that by analogy (I underline) I have called undecidables, that is,
unities of simulacrum, "false" verbal properties (nominal or semantic) that can
no longer be included within philosophical (binary) opposition, resisting and
disorganizing it, without ever constituting a third term, without ever leaving
room for a solution in the form of speculative dialectics.

Trace is also not linear or chronological in any sense of the word, "This trace
relates no less to what is called the future than what is called the past, and it
constitutes what is called the present by the very relation to what it is not, to
what it absolutely is not; that is, not even to a past or future considered as a
modified present". Trace is a contingent strategy, a bricolage for Derrida that
helps him produce a new concept of writing (as opposed to the Socratic or
Saussurean speech), where "The interweaving results in each 'element' -
phoneme or grapheme - being constituted on the basis of the trace within it of
the other elements of the chain or system. This interweaving, this textile, is the
text produced only in the transformation of another text".

The concept of ‘Rupture’ in Deconstruction

To best way to understand the concept of ‘Rupture’ is to make a critical

analysis of Derrida’s Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourses of Human
Sciences. The very beginning of the essay makes a reference to a recent event in
the history of the concept of structure, but immediately retreats to question the
use of the word “event”. He is concerned that the word “event” is too loaded
with meaning. Because the function of thinking about structure is to reduce
the notion of events. Why is it so? Because thinking about structure must
be abstract and exclude concretes such as events. Still, Derrida wants to
report on something that happened, which is relevant to the concept of
structure, so he allows the event to be admitted into the discussion,
provided it is enclosed in quotation marks, as a word and not an actual
event. The event is now identified as that of “rupture” and “redoubling.” Of
what? “The appearance of a new structure, of an original system, always
comes about--and this is the very condition of its structural specificity--by a
rupture with its past, its origin, and its cause”.

At the beginning, Derrida proceeds to talk about the center of a structure,

which controls the structure by orienting and organizing it. Derrida admits
that an unorganized structure is unconceivable and that a structure without
a center is unthinkable, but he contends that the centre delimits and diminishes
the possible play within the structure. Derrida points out the paradox that the
centre of the structure must be both inside and outside the structure. It must be a
part of the structure, but also independent of it, in order to control it. Next
Derrida surveys the entire history of the concept of structure, up to the recent,
still-mysterious, rupture, as a series of substituting one centre for another. Never
was there a structure without a centre, full of nothing but play. What types of
centres were there so far? Derrida names a few: essence, existence, substance,
subject, consciousness, God, man. The structure, then, is not just any structure,
but a structure of concepts, that is, philosophy, with one central concept that
controls it. According to Derrida, the event of the rupture occurred when there
was a disruption in the series of substituting one centre for another. (In plain
English, there was a disruption in the process of changing the central concept of
the prevalent philosophy.) This disruption occurred when the very idea of the
structurality of the structure became the subject of somebody’s thought.
(Somebody, probably a philosopher, was rethinking the very notion of the
centre and then there was no new centre to substitute the old one.) However,
according to Derrida, a centre cannot substitute itself, it cannot be repeated. The
old centre could not stay and there was no new one. Then, for the first time in
the history of structure, “it was necessary to begin thinking that there was no
centre.” Instead, “an infinite number of sign-substitutions came into play”.
Derrida describes how, once there was no centre, language invaded the scene
and everything became discourse. (Instead of a structure of concepts,
philosophy, there was only a collection of signs, language.)

THE EVENT OF THE RUPTURE

Finally, after some more linguistic musings, the event of rupture which was
introduced in the beginning of the essay is defined: “The appearance of a new
structure, of an original system, always comes about--and this is the very
condition of its structural specificity -- by a rupture with its past, its origin, and
its cause”. Derrida is still uncomfortable with the notion of historical events,
because “the internal originality of the structure, compels a neutralization of
time and history”. The nascent structure must be independent of the event of
rupture that brought it about. One must “set aside all the facts” in order “to
recapture the specificity of a structure”. The new structure, i.e., new philosophy,
must be purely abstract and free of the concrete realm. Events must be set aside
too, but Derrida would have had no reason to write his essay if there never was
an event of rupture in the history of the concept of structure.
 The concept of ‘Archi- Writing’

The concept of ‘Archi writing’ was introduced by Jacques Derrida in his

attempt to re-orient the relationship between speech and writing.

Derrida argued that as far back as Plato, speech had always been prioritised over
writing. In the west, phonetic writing was considered as secondary imitation of
speech, poor copy of the immediate living act of speech. Derrida argued that in
later centuries philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and linguist Ferdinand de
Saussure both gave writing a secondary or parasitic role. In Derrida's
essay Plato's Pharmacy, he sought to question this prioritising by firstly
complicating the two terms speech and writing.

According to Derrida, this complication is visible in the Greek word

φάρμακον pharmakon, which meant both "cure" and "poison". Derrida noted
that Plato argued that writing was "poisonous" to memory, since writing is a
mere repetition, as compared to the living memory required for speech. Derrida
points out however, that since both speech and writing rely upon repetition they
cannot be completely distinguished.

In the neologism archi-writing, "archi-" meaning "origin, principle, or telos",

attempts to go beyond the simple division of writing/speech. Archi-writing
refers to a kind of writing that precedes both speech and writing. Derrida argued
that archi-writing is, in a sense, language, in that it is already there before we
use it, it already has a pregiven, yet malleable, structure/genesis, which is a
semi-fixed set-up of different words and syntax. This fixedness is the writing to
which Derrida refers, just such a 'writing' can even be seen in cultures that do
not employ writing, it could be seen in notches on a rope or barrel, fixed
customs, or placements around the living areas.
‘Archi-writing’ according to Derrida is a form of language which cannot be
conceptualised within the metaphysics of presence. It is an original form of
language which is not derived from speech. Archi writing is unhindered by
difference between speech and writing. This is also a condition between written
and non-written forms of language. Derrida contrasts the concept of Archi
writing with ‘vulgar’ concept of writing. The ‘vulgar’ concept of writing which
is proposed by metaphysics of presence is deconstructed by Archi writing
 Concept of ‘Supplement’

Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) was contemporary to Merleau-Ponty, and directly

influenced by Phenomenology: his first university works were on Husserl. The
phenomenological heritage is perhaps not visible in the content of Derrida’s
work – Derrida is not remembered for his use of the phenomenological method
in any of his main studies – but in the form of the philosophical approach
already adopted by Heidegger and by another direct inspiration of Derrida’s,
Emmanuel Levinas. This formal peculiarity was to do with the value of the
philosophical discourse: profoundly aware of the reduction operated by any
language – Levinas would go further and discuss the violence of language –
they did not hope to rely on language to simply express their clearly thought
theories; instead, they pushed linguistic formulations to near their intuitions, and
often, they even played with language in order to attempt the expression of
truths in forms multiple and occasionally, contradictory. There is with
Heidegger, Levinas and Derrida a conscious, and painful effort to bend writing
and language’s limitations in order to express views that would be necessarily
corrupted if one were to follow language’s habitual usage.

Derrida undergoes an in-depth study of the discussions of writing and speech

from the Greeks to the latest linguistic theories, to show that Western culture
has always favoured speech over writing. This is how Derrida introduces a
concept later applied by him to other cultural items, and widely used, after him,
in multiple social theories: supplementation.

Derrida’s conceptual creations generally stem out of textual analyses. In one of

these, he notices that, as is well known, 18th century Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
author of The Social Contract (1762), argued that humans are fundamentally
good in their state of nature, and that it is civilization and culture that corrupt
them. This favoring of nature, the original, unperturbed good, over culture, the
artificial, later development and corruption, which Rousseau advocates, is
further elaborated in another set of binaries: “Languages are made to be spoken,
writing serves only as a supplement to speech … Speech represents thought by
conventional signs, and writing represents the same with regard to speech. Thus,
the art of writing is nothing but a mediated representation of thought”
(Rousseau, “Pronunciation” quoted in Derrida 1976, 144). Indeed, Rousseau
furthers the established views on the matter since the Greeks, who believed that
speech is the primary form of language for humans, with writing coming later,
as a secondary and anonymous rendering of the noble original verbal
expression. In other words, writing would be the supplement of speech.
Derrida’s use of the concept of the supplement has to do with the meaning of its
‘original’ French version: le supplement is the common derivation of two
verbs, supplémenter, to add on to, and suppléer, to substitute. A supplement is
simultaneously something that completes another thing, and something that may
replace it, play the role of substitute for it, and therefore, be a threat for it.

Derrida explored Rousseau’s writings and noticed that there are other instances
of supplementations. Education is one of them: with Rousseau, “all education . .
. [is] described or presented as a system of substitution” . Education, a medium
of culture, is criticized by Rousseau as a lower human activity to the primitive,
innocent and intuitive interaction of humans with nature. Supplementation is
also found in Rousseau’s views on music: melody, the ideal, unaltered musical
inspiration, is supplemented by harmony, its actual setting in configuration, the
arrangement of multiple voices in a musical
performance. Derrida’s deconstructive approach is not simply a destruction or
an inversion, the reversal of the observed hierarchy in order to posit
all supplements as actual originals. It is, rather, a destabilization of the orders in
place. Derrida shows that each author’s hierarchical discourse ‘bites its tail,’
that it encounters self-contradiction.

The power-relation of the original over the supplement is disturbed, according

to Derrida, when one realizes the extent of dependency of the former on the
latter. The supplement is not an optional add-on to the original: it is
the condition of the original. Through his analysis, Derrida shows that the
supplementary is, behind its assumed peripheral importance, essential to all the
ways in which we think.
 Bricolage: A Mytho-Poetical Activity

Levi-Strauss, in his The Savage Mind, describes the bricoleur as someone who
uses what may be called “the means at hand”, that is the instruments already
present around him, which have not been conceived especially for the means of
conducting the operation which they are to be used in. These instruments may
be adapted by trial and error, implementing changes whenever necessary, with
several of them being tried at once, even if their form and origin are
heterogenous. There is thus a critique of language in the form of bricolage, and
bricolage may even be called a critical language itself.
When bricolage is called the necessity of borrowing one’s concept from the text
of a heritage which is more or less coherent or ruined, then it may be said that
every discourse is bricoleur. In Levi-Strauss’ opinion, the engineer who
constructs the entirety of the language, syntax and lexicon is therefore, in this
sense, a myth. A subject who would supposedly be the absolute origin off his
own discourse and would supposedly construct it “out of nothing”, “out of the
whole cloth” and would be the creator of the verb, the verb itself. The notion of
the engineer who supposedly breaks with all forms of bricolage is therefore a
theological idea; and since Levi-Strauss tells us everywhere that bricolage is
mythopoetic, the odds are that the engineer is a myth produced by the bricoleur.
As soon as we cease to believe in such an engineer and in a discourse which
breaks with the received historical discourse, and as soon as we admit that every
finite discourse is bound by a certain bricolage and that the engineer and the
scientist are also species of bricoleurs, then the very idea of bricolage is
menaced and the difference in which it took on its meaning breaks down.

This brings us the second thread which might guide us in what is being
contrived here.
Levi-Strauss describes bricolage not only as an intellectual activity but as a
mythopoetical activity. Conversely, attention has often been drawn to the
mythopoetical nature of bricolage. But Levi Strauss endeavour would say from
the outset-to have the status which he accords to his own discourse on myths to
what he calls his “Mythologicals”. His discourse on myth reflects on itself and
criticises itself. This critical event is evidently of concern to all the languages
which share the field of human sciences.

The study of myths raises a methodological problem, in that it cannot be carried

out according to the cartesian principle of breaking down the difficulty into as
many parts as may be necessary for finding the solution. There is no real end to
methodological analysis, no hidden unity to be grasped once the breaking down
problem has been completed.

Nevertheless, even if one yields to the necessity of what Levi-Strauss has done,
one cannot ignore its risks. Levi Strauss said that empiricism is the matrix of all
faults menacing a discourse which continues and considers it self- scientific.

The structural schemata are always proposed as hypotheses resulting from a

finite quantity of information and which are subjected to the proof of
experience.

Levi Strauss has treated the formality of the problem as it deserves a concept
which has always been in complicity with a teleological and eschatological
metaphysics.

From authors part, although these two interpretations must acknowledge and
Accenture their difference and define their irreducibility. The author does not
believe that today there is any question of choosing- in the first place because
here we are in a region where the category of choice seems particularly trivial;
and second because we must first try to conceive of the common ground, and
the difference of this irreducible difference.