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The term '''''deconstruction''''' was coined by [[French ]] [[philosopher ]] [[Jacques Derrida]] in the 1960s and is used in contemporary [[humanities]] and [[social sciences]] to denote a philosophy of meaning that deals with the ''ways'' that [[meaning]] is constructed and [[understood ]] by writers, [[texts]], and readers. One way of [[understanding ]] the term is that it involves discovering, recognizing, and understanding the underlying — and unspoken and implicit — assumptions, [[ideas]], and frameworks that [[form ]] the basis for [[thought ]] and [[belief]]. It has various shades of meaning in different areas of study and [[discussion]], and is, by its very [[nature]], difficult to define without depending on "un-deconstructed" [[concepts]].

The term ''deconstruction'' in the context of Western philosophy is highly resistant to [[formal ]] definition. [[Martin Heidegger]] was perhaps the first to use the term (in contrast to [[Friedrich Nietzsche|Nietzschean]] demolition), although the form we recognize in [[English ]] is an element in a series of translations (from [[Heidegger]]'s ''Abbau'' and ''Destruktion'' to [[Jacques Derrida|Jacques Derrida's]] ''déconstructiondé[[construction]]''), and it has been explored by [[others]], including [[Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak]], [[Paul de Man]], [[Jonathan Culler]], [[Barbara Johnson]], [[J. Hillis Miller]], [[Jean-François Lyotard]], and [[Geoffrey Bennington]].

These authors have resisted calls to define the [[word ]] succinctly. When asked what deconstruction is, [[Derrida ]] once stated, "I have no simple and formalizable response to this question. All my essays are attempts to have it out with this formidable question." (Derrida 1985, at 4.) There is a great deal of confusion as to what kind of [[thing ]] deconstruction is — whether it is a [[school ]] of thought (it is certainly not so in the [[singular]]), a method of [[reading ]] (it has often been reduced to this by various attempts to define it formally), or, as some call it, a "textual [[event]]" (a characterization implied by the Derrida quote just given) — and determining what [[authority ]] to accord to a [[particular ]] attempt at delimiting it.

Many pages have been devoted to attempts to define deconstruction or to demonstrate why attempts at delimitation are misconceived. Most of these attempts (including those signed by critics who are considered deconstructionist) are difficult reading and resistant to [[summary]]. On the [[other ]] hand, there is a [[cottage industry]] of writers of variably [[explicit ]] sympathy or antipathy to deconstruction (however they [[understand ]] it) who attempt to explain it to those who are reluctant to read the original deconstructive texts.

Surveying the deconstructive texts and the secondary [[literature]], one is confronted with a bafflingly heterogeneous range of arguments. These include claims that deconstruction can sort out the Western [[tradition ]] in its entirety, by highlighting and discrediting unjustified privileges accorded to white males and other hegemonists. On the other hand, some critics [[claim ]] that deconstruction is a dangerous form of [[nihilism]] that wishes the utter [[destruction ]] of Western [[scientific ]] and [[ethical ]] values. As a rule, deconstruction is ridiculed by members of the [[political ]] [[right ]] of just [[about ]] any stripe. Its reception on the [[left ]] is far more varied, ranging from hostility to co-optation:*While there is no doubting that principal [[figures ]] associated with deconstruction in [[France ]] have been "[[leftist]]" in their political positions, Heidegger's [[place ]] in deconstruction complicates matters considerably, as do the [[politics ]] of [[Paul ]] de Man in early [[adulthood]]. Heidegger assumed the rectorship of the [[University ]] of Freiburg from 1933-1934 as a member of the National Socialist [[German ]] [[Workers ]] Party ([[Nazi]]s), while de Man worked, during the German occupation of Belgium, as a writer for a collaborationist newspaper, ''Le Soire''.*From a racial-[[religious ]] perspective, deconstruction has no clear sectarian [[identity]]. For example, Derrida's views on [[religion ]] are anything but sectarian. As a Jew raised in a walled [[Jewish ]] [[community ]] in colonial [[Algeria]], Derrida rejected what he regarded as the countersignature of [[anti-Semitism ]] by Algerian Jewish institutions of the 1940s. He is almost certainly an [[atheist ]] in [[terms ]] of dogmatic [[theology]], and has written about religion in terms of what was shared among the Mosaic monotheisms.*Those [[writing ]] sympathetically about deconstruction tend to use an "idiosyncratic" (sometimes in fact imitative) style with numerous neologisms, a bent toward playfulness and irony, and a massive amount of allusion across many corners of the [[Western canon]].

It is easier to explain what deconstruction is ''not'' than what it ''is''. According to Derrida, deconstruction is neither an [[analysis]], a critique, a method, an act, nor an operation. (Derrida 1985, at 3.) In addition, deconstruction is not, properly [[speaking]], a synonym for "destruction." Rather, according to [[Barbara Johnson]], it is a specific kind of analytical "reading":

:[Deconstruction] is in fact much closer to the original meaning of the word 'analysis' itself, which etymologically means "to undo"—a [[virtual ]] synonym for "to de-[[construct]]." ... If anything is destroyed in a deconstructive reading, it is not the [[text]], but the claim to unequivocal domination of one mode of signifying over [[another]]. A deconstructive reading is a reading which analyzes the specificity of a text's critical [[difference ]] from itself." (Johnson, 1981).

In addition, deconstruction is ''not'' the same as [[nihilism]] or [[relativism]]. It is not the abandonment of all meaning, but attempts to demonstrate that Western thought has not [[satisfied ]] its quest for a "[[transcendental ]] [[signifier]]" that will give meaning to all other [[signs]]. According to Derrida, "Deconstruction is not an enclosure in nothingness, but an [[openness ]] to the other" (Derrida 1984, at 124), and an attempt "to discover the non-place or non-lieu which would be [that] 'other' of philosophy" (Id. at 112). Thus, meaning is "out there", but it cannot be located by Western metaphysics, because text gets in the way.

Part of the difficulty in defining ''deconstruction'' arises from the fact that the act of defining ''deconstruction'' in the [[language ]] of Western metaphysics requires one to accept the very ideas of Western metaphysics that are thought to be the [[subject ]] of deconstruction. Nevertheless, various authors have provided a [[number ]] of rough definitions. The philosopher [[David B. Allison]] (an early translator of Derrida) stated:

:"[Deconstruction] signifies a [[project ]] of critical thought whose task is to locate and 'take apart' those concepts which serve as the axioms or rules for a period of thought, those concepts which command the unfolding of an entire epoch of metaphysics. 'Deconstruction' is somewhat less [[negative ]] than the [[Heideggerian ]] or Nietzschean terms 'destruction' or '[[reversal]]'; it suggests that certain foundational concepts of metaphysics will never be entirely eliminated...There is no simple 'overcoming' of metaphysics or the language of metaphysics." (Introduction by Allison, in Derrida, 1973, p. xxxii, n. 1.)

Another rough-but-concise explanation of deconstruction is by [[Paul de Man]], who explained, "It's possible, within text, to [[frame ]] a question or to undo assertions made in the text, by means of elements which are in the text, which frequently would be precisely [[structures ]] that play off the rhetorical against [[grammatical ]] elements." (de Man, in Moynihan 1986, at 156.) Thus, viewed in this way, "the term 'deconstruction', refers in the first [[instance ]] to the way in which the 'accidental' features of a text can be seen as betraying, subverting, its purportedly 'essential' [[message]]." (Rorty 1995) (The word ''accidental'' is usually [[interpreted ]] here in the [[sense ]] of ''incidental'').

In the context of religious studies Paul [[Ricoeur ]] (1983) defines deconstruction as a way of uncovering the questions behind the answers of a text or tradition ([[Klein ]] 1995).

Deconstruction's central concern is a radical critique of [[the Enlightenment]] project and of [[metaphysics]], including in particular the founding texts by such [[philosophers ]] as [[Plato]], [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau|Rousseau]], and [[Edmund Husserl|Husserl]], but also other sorts of texts, including literature. Deconstruction [[identifies ]] in the Western [[philosophical ]] tradition a "logocentrism" or "[[metaphysics of presence]]" (also known as ''[[phallogocentrism]]'') which holds that [[speech]]-thought (the ''logos'') is a privileged, [[ideal]], and [[self]]-[[present ]] entity, through which all [[discourse ]] and meaning are derived. This logocentrism is the primary target of deconstruction.

* [[presence ]] over [[absence]]

* [[mastery ]] over submission* [[life ]] over [[death]]

Derrida argues in ''Of Grammatology'' (translated by [[Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak]] and published in English in [[1976]]) that, in each such [[case]], the first term is classically conceived as original, authentic, and superior, while the second is thought of as secondary, derivative, or even "parasitic." These binary oppositions, or "violent hierarchies", and others of their form, he argues, must be deconstructed.

This deconstruction is effected in [[stages]]. First, Derrida suggests, the opposition must be inverted, and the second, traditionally subordinate term must be privileged. He argues that these oppositions cannot be simply transcended; given the thousands of years of [[history of philosophy|philosophical history]] behind [[them]], it would be disingenuous to attempt to move directly to a [[domain ]] of thought beyond these distinctions. So deconstruction attempts to compensate for these historical [[power ]] imbalances, undertaking the difficult project of [[thinking ]] through the philosophical implications of reversing them.

Only after this task is undertaken (if not completed, which may be [[impossible]]), Derrida argues, can philosophy begin to conceive a [[conceptual ]] terrain ''[[outside]]'' these oppositions: the next project of deconstruction would be to develop concepts which fall under neither one term of these oppositions nor the other. Much of the philosophical [[work ]] of deconstruction has been devoted to developing such ideas and their implications, of which ''différance'' may be the prototype (as it denotes neither simple identity nor simple difference). Derrida spoke in an interview (first published in French in [[1967]]) about such "concepts," which he called merely "marks" in [[order ]] to distinguish them from proper philosophical concepts:

:...[I]t 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. (''Positions'', trans. Alan Bass, pp. 42-43)

As can be seen in this discussion of its terms' undecidable, unresolvable complexity, deconstruction requires a high level of comfort with suspended, deferred decision; a deconstructive thinker must be willing to work with terms whose precise meaning has not been, and perhaps cannot be, established. (This is often given as a major [[reason ]] for the difficult writing style of deconstructive texts.) Critics of deconstruction find this unacceptable as philosophy; many feel that, by [[working ]] in this manner with unspecified terms, deconstruction ignores the primary task of philosophy, which they say is the creation and elucidation of concepts. This deep criticism is a result of a fundamental difference of opinion about the nature of [[philosophy]], and is unlikely to be resolved simply.

According to deconstructive readers, one of the [[phallogocentrism]]s of modernism is the [[distinction ]] between speech (''[[logos]]'') and writing, with writing historically [[being ]] thought of as derivative to ''logos''. As part of subverting the presumed dominance of ''logos'' over text, Derrida argued that the [[idea ]] of a speech-writing dichotomy contains within it the idea of a very expansive view of textuality that subsumes both speech and writing. According to [[Jacques Derrida]], "There is [[nothing ]] outside of the text" (Derrida, 1976, at 158). That is, text is thought of not merely as linear writing derived from speech, but any form of depiction, marking, or storage, including the marking of the [[human ]] brain by the [[process ]] of cognition or by the senses.

In a sense, deconstruction is simply a way to read text (as broadly defined); any deconstruction has a text as its [[object ]] and subject. This accounts for deconstruction's broad cross-disciplinary scope. Deconstruction has been applied to literature, art, architecture, [[science]], [[mathematics]], philosophy, and [[psychology]], and any other disciplines that can be thought of as involving the act of marking.

In deconstruction, text can be thought of as "[[dead]]", in the sense that once the markings are made, the markings remain in suspended animation and do not [[change ]] in themselves. Thus, what an [[author ]] says about his text doesn't revive it, and is just another text commenting on the original, along with the commentary of others. In this view, when an author says, "You have understood my work perfectly," this [[utterance ]] constitutes an addition to the textual [[system]], along with what the reader said was ''understood'' in and about the original text, and not a resuscitation of the original dead text. The reader has an opinion, the author has an opinion. [[Communication ]] is possible ''not'' because the text has a transcendental [[signification]], but because the brain tissue of the author contains similar "markings" as the brain tissue of the reader. These brain markings, however, are unstable and fragmentary...

Deconstruction makes use of a number of terms, many of which are coined or repurposed, that illustrate or follow the process of deconstruction. Among these [[words ]] are ''différance'', ''trace'', ''écriture'', ''[[supplement]]'', ''hymen'', ''pharmakon'', ''[[slippage]]'', ''marge'', ''entame'', ''parergon'', ''text'', and ''same''.

Against the [[metaphysics of presence]], deconstruction brings a (non)[[concept ]] called ''différance''. This French neologism is, on the deconstructive argument, properly neither a word nor a concept; it names the non-coincidence of meaning both [[synchronicity|synchronically]] (one French homonym means "differing") and [[diachronicity|diachronically]] (another French homonym means "deferring"). Because the resonance and [[conflict ]] between these two French [[meanings ]] is difficult to convey tersely in English, the word ''différance'' is usually left untranslated.

In simple terms, this means that rather than privileging commonality and simplicity and seeking [[unifying ]] principles (or grand [[teleology|teleological]] narratives, or overarching concepts, etc.) deconstruction emphasizes difference, complexity, and non-self-identity. A deconstructive reading of a text, or a deconstructive [[interpretation ]] of philosophy (for deconstruction tends to elide any difference between the two), often seeks to demonstrate how a seemingly unitary idea or concept contains different or opposing meanings within itself. The elision of difference in philosophical concepts is even referred to in deconstruction as a kind of ''[[violence]]'', the idea being that theories' willful misdescription or simplification of [[reality ]] always does violence to the [[true ]] richness and complexity of the [[world]]. This criticism can be taken as a [[rejection ]] of the philosophical [[law of excluded middle|law of the excluded middle]], arguing that the simple oppositions of [[Aristotelian logic]] force a false [[appearance ]] of simplicity onto a recalcitrant world.

Thus the [[perception ]] of différance has two sides, both a ''deferment'' of final, unifying meaning in a unit of text (of whatever size, word or book), and a ''difference'' of meaning of the text upon every act of re-reading a work. [[Repetition]], and the [[impossibility ]] of final access to a text, of ever being at the text's "ground zero" so to [[speak]], are emphasized, indefinitely leaving a text outside of the realm of the knowable in typical senses of "mastery". A text can, obviously, be experienced, be read, be "understood" -- but that understanding, for all its deep [[feeling ]] or [[lack ]] of it, is marked by a quintessential provisionality that never denies the possibility of ''rereading''. Indeed it requires this. If the text is traditionally thought to be some perdurable sequence of [[symbols ]] (letters) that go through [[time ]] unchanged in the formal sense, différance moves the concept toward the realization that for all the perdurability of the text, [[experience ]] of this [[structure ]] is impossible and inconceivable outside of the realm of the unique instance, outside of the realm of perception.

The idea of ''différance'' also brings with it the idea of ''trace''. A trace is what a [[sign ]] differs/defers from. It is the [[absent ]] part of the sign's presence. In other words, through the act of ''différance'', a sign leaves behind a ''trace'', which is whatever is left over after everything ''present'' has been accounted for. According to Derrida, "the trace itself does not [[exist]]" (Derrida 1976, at 167)", because it is self-effacing. That is, "[i]n presenting itself, it becomes effaced" (Id. at 125.) Because all [[signifiers ]] viewed as ''present'' in Western thought will necessarily contain traces of other (absent) signifiers, the signifier can be neither wholly present nor wholly absent.

In deconstruction, the word ''écriture'' (usually translated as ''writing'' in English) is appropriated to refer not just to systems of graphic communication, but to all systems inhabited by ''différance''. A related term, called ''archi-écriture'', refers to the positive side of writing, or writing as an ultimate [[principle]], rather than an a derivative of ''logos'' (speech). In other words, whereas the Western ''logos'' encompasses writing, it is equally valid to view ''archi-écriture'' as encompassing the ''logos'', and therefore speech can be thought of as a form of writing: writing on air waves, or on the [[memory ]] of the listener or recording device.

The word ''supplement'' is taken from the philosopher [[Jean Jacques Rousseau]], who defined it as "an inessential extra added to something [[complete ]] in itself." According to Derrida, Western thinking is characterized by the "[[logic ]] of supplementation", which is actually two apparently contradictory ideas. From one perspective, a supplement serves to enhance the presence of something which is already complete and self-sufficient. Thus, writing is the supplement of speech, [[Adam and Eve|Eve]] was the supplement of [[Adam and Eve|Adam]], and [[masturbation]] is the supplement of "[[natural ]] sex".

But simultaneously, according to Derrida, the Western idea of the ''supplement'' has within it the idea that a thing that has a supplement cannot be truly "complete in itself". If it were complete without the supplement, it shouldn't [[need]], or long-for, the supplement. The fact that a thing can be added-to to make it even more "present" or "[[whole]]" means that there is a [[hole ]] (which Derrida called an ''originary lack'') and the supplement can fill that hole. The [[metaphorical ]] opening of this "hole" Derrida called ''invagination''. From this perspective, the supplement does not enhance something's presence, but rather underscores its absence.

Thus, what really happens during supplementation is that something appears from one perspective to be whole, complete, and self-sufficient, with the supplement acting as an ''[[external]]'' appendage. However, from another perspective, the supplement also fills a hole within the ''interior'' of the original "something". Thus, the supplement represents an indeterminacy between [[externality ]] and interiority.

The word ''hymen'' refers to the interplay between [[inside ]] and outside. The hymen is the membrane of intersection where it becomes impossible to distinguish whether the membrane is on the inside or the outside. And in the absence of the hymen (as in, once the hymen is penetrated), the distinction between inside and outside [[disappears]]. Thus, in a way, the hymen is neither inside nor outside, and both inside and outside.

The word ''pharmakon'' refers to the play between [[cure ]] and poison. It derives from the ancient Greek word, used by Plato in ''Phaedrus'' and ''Phaedo'', which had an undecidable meaning which could be translated to mean anything ranging from a drug, recipe, spell, [[medicine]], or poison.

A more [[concrete ]] example, drawn from one of Derrida's most famous works, may [[help ]] to clarify the typical manner in which deconstruction works.

[[structuralism|Structuralist]] analysis generally relies on the [[search ]] for underlying binary oppositions as an explanatory device. The [[structuralist ]] [[anthropology ]] of [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]] argued that such oppositions are found in all cultures, not only in Western [[culture]], and thus that the device of binary opposition was fundamental to meaning.

Deconstruction challenges the explanatory [[value ]] of these oppositions. This method has [[three ]] steps.

In his book ''Of Grammatology'', Derrida offers one example of deconstruction applied to a [[theory ]] of Lévi-[[Strauss]]. Following many other Western thinkers, [[Lévi-Strauss ]] distinguished between "savage" societies [[lacking ]] writing and "[[civilized]]" societies that have writing. This distinction implies that human beings developed verbal communication (speech) before some human cultures developed writing, and that speech is thus conceptually as well as chronologically prior to writing (thus speech would be more authentic, closer to [[truth ]] and meaning, and more immediate than writing).

Although the [[development ]] of writing is generally considered to be an advance, after an [[encounter ]] with the Nambikwara Indians of [[Brazil]], Lévi-Strauss suggested that societies without writing were also lacking violence and domination (in other words, savages are truly noble savages). He further argued that the primary function of writing is to facilitate slavery (or [[social ]] inequality, exploitation, and domination in general). (This claim has been rejected by most later historians and anthropologists as strictly incorrect. There is abundant historical evidence that many [[hunter-gatherer]] societies and later non-literate tribes had significant amounts of violence and warfare in their cultures.)

Derrida's interpretation begins with taking Lévi-Strauss's discussion of writing at its word: what is important in writing for Lévi-Strauss is not the use of markings on a piece of paper to [[communicate ]] information, but rather their use in domination and violence. Derrida further observes that, based on Lévi-Strauss's own ethnography, the Nambikwara really do use language for domination and violence. Derrida thus concludes that writing, in fact, is prior to speech. That is, he reverses the opposition between speech and writing.

Derrida was not making fun of Lévi-Strauss, nor did he mean to supersede, replace, or proclaim himself superior to Lévi-Strauss. (A common theme of deconstruction is the [[desire ]] to be critical without assuming a posture of superiority.) He was using his deconstruction of Lévi-Strauss to question a common belief in Western culture, dating back at least to Plato: that speech is prior to, more authentic than, and closer to "true meaning" than writing.

Deconstruction is the subject of at least three main types of criticism. Critics take issue with what they believe is a lack of seriousness and [[transparency ]] in deconstructive writings, and with what they [[interpret ]] as a political stance against traditional [[modern philosophy|modernism]]. In addition, critics often equate deconstruction with [[nihilism]] or [[relativism]] and criticize deconstruction accordingly.

Many critics question the usefulness of deconstruction. They see it as little more than an academic word-[[game]], a clever way to discredit a text without having to refute any of the text's arguments. They argue that it is of no [[practical ]] assistance to scientists or philosophers, and [[suggest ]] that no one seems to benefit from deconstruction except its own practitioners.

Some literary practitioners, critics, and theorists are hostile to deconstruction, claiming that it is inconsistent with any meaningful discussion and analysis of literature, particularly of forms such as [[poetry ]] and [[fiction ]] that invite [[active ]] discussion. The criticism is that deconstruction fails to provide any substantial grounds for engagement with literary texts because it abruptly truncates all ideas and [[subjects ]] as equal and interchangeable. Because it essentially rules out nothing, it fails to provide any especially salient windows of thought to assist the understanding of texts, or to allow this to segue into any other topics of discussion. Deconstruction, according to this line of argument, cannot combine usefully with other [[schools ]] of literary criticism and actually impedes [[progress ]] in literary understanding.

As American Scholar Murray Rothbard has said: "Deconstructionism reduces to the claim that no one, not even deconstructionists, can understand literary texts - not even their own literary texts." This means that all writers under the observation of such are only "[[subjective ]] musings".

Deconstructive readings have been criticized both academically and popularly as largely [[Nonsense|nonsensical]] and unintelligible. Few would deny that any discourse may seem nonsensical to those who do not understand it, and that just because something is unintelligible to one doesn't mean it is unintelligible to another reader. On the other hand, the deconstructionist [[position ]] [[demands ]] that we take the meaningfulness and importance of what appears to be "nonsense" as an act of [[faith]]. There remains the question of whether deconstructive readings are at [[times ]] so unintelligible that, after peeling away the often dense and complicated language, anything remains.

The question of whether deconstruction really "means anything" was explored through an experiment conducted by [[Alan Sokal]], a physicist who described it in an article in a leading (though not [[peer-review]]ed) journal using some of the language, [[vocabulary]], and rhetorical devices of deconstruction, but which he deliberately designed to be what he considered "self-indulgent nonsense". See [[Sokal affair]]. Sokal's critics claim, however, that his parody was not truly nonsensical, and had its own [[internal ]] logic. Regardless, the "Sokal affair" suggests that a work warranted by its own author to be outright nonsense may be received by deconstructionists as more or less sensible.

Another parody was created later by [[artificial intelligence]] researchers, who wrote a program they called [http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern The Postmodernism Generator], which produces a superficially genuine article on a [[postmodern ]] theme, using much of the vocabulary of deconstruction. When the hoax was revealed, deconstructionists pointed out in their [[defense ]] that the generated article is not an actual deconstructive reading and so cannot be used to discredit deconstruction. In other words, only a sincere deconstructive reading of deconstruction may be used to critique deconstruction itself; and since such a reading must utilize deconstruction to be persuasive, its critique of deconstructive techniques would actually be a vindication of them. One troubling thing about The Postmodernism Generator is that it uses structuralist techniques to assault an amorphous stance (deconstructionism), which approach may in itself have undermined the entire project.

Partly as a result of these incidents, critics of deconstruction now see reason to [[doubt ]] whether there is much difference between "[[real]]" deconstruction and parodies of it, and whether deconstruction is so unintelligible that it could be done by a [[machine]]. In other words, is deconstruction itself a hoax or parody?

As part of the tradition of [[modern philosophy|modernism]] and [[the Enlightenment]], matters of Western philosophy and literary criticism have generally been framed within a particular standard of formality, transparency, earnestness, [[rationality]], and high-mindedness. As a critique of modernism, however, deconstruction is usually [[rational ]] at least to an extent; but deconstruction is also critical of Western rationality. Deconstruction tends also to be comparatively opaque, eccentric, playful, imitative, and often crass. As a result, deconstruction takes place on the margins of modernist discourse, which invites criticism by modernists. There is a particular expectation of seriousness in Western philosophy. Therefore, many critics find it silly and uninstructive to analyze Western metaphysics deconstructively through the use of puns, wordplay, poetry, book reviews, fiction, or the analysis of [[pop culture]]. Yet the deconstructionist claim that rationality and [[coherence ]] are deceptive and manipulative would seem to lead inexorably to such productions in the place of traditional, intelligible argumentation.

In addition, deconstruction sprang in part as a critique of such philosophers as [[Edmund Husserl]] and [[Martin Heidegger]]. While the style of [[Husserl ]] and Heidegger was dense and opaque, Derrida's criticism of their writings was for some readers even more difficult to understand. Similarly, most deconstructive writings are relatively opaque and dense, and are [[full ]] of not only the terminology of the text being critiqued, but additional neologisms that many find hard to follow. This opacity in texts of the broader movements of [[postmodernism]] and [[post-structuralism]] has led to criticism of those movements, and implicitly of deconstruction, by many modernists such as [[Noam Chomsky]], himself a noted [[linguist]], who stated:

:I have spent a lot of my life working on questions such as these, using the only methods I [[know ]] of--those condemned here as "science," "rationality," "logic," and so on. I therefore read the papers with some hope that they would help me "transcend" these limitations, or perhaps suggest an entirely different course. I'm afraid I was disappointed. Admittedly, that may be my own limitation. Quite regularly, "my eyes glaze over" when I read polysyllabic discourse on the themes of [[poststructuralism ]] and postmodernism; what I understand is largely truism or error, but that is only a fraction of the [[total ]] word count. True, there are lots of other things I don't understand: the articles in the current issues of math and [[physics ]] journals, for example. But there is a difference. In the latter case, I know how to get to understand them, and have done so, in cases of particular interest to me; and I also know that [[people ]] in these fields can explain the [[contents ]] to me at my level, so that I can gain what ([[partial]]) understanding I may [[want]]. In contrast, no one seems to be able to explain to me why the latest post-this-and-that is (for the most part) other than truism, error, or gibberish, and I do not know how to proceed.

Anti-essentialist philosopher [[Richard Rorty]] has criticized Derrida's assertion that [[essentialism ]] is not a method, but something that is "already, all the time" occurring in texts. Anti-essentialists allege that Derrida's position is close to positing something which is intrinsic to the text, and thus close to positing an "essential" privileged reading of a text. Anti-essentialists still accept the validity of deconstructive readings, but view them as the result of subjective interaction with a text that is one of many possible readings, rather than an excavation of something "within" the text, and should not be privileged as reading the "truth" of the text. However, one might counter that this "reading" of deconstruction is itself a deconstruction, putting the anti-essentialist in the tricky [[situation ]] of having to admit that his "reading" of deconstruction is not privileged.

Deconstruction has also been criticized for its perceived political stance, in that it is perceived as advocating particular movements or points of view. An argument can be made that deconstruction is apolitical. Indeed, [[Jacques Derrida]] consistently denied any simple political aspect to deconstruction, and his later texts were concerned with complicating the [[relationship ]] between deconstruction and politics. Despite these denials Derrida made numerous statements supporting the spirit of Marxism, for instance:

"Now these problems of the foreign debt - and everything that is metonymized by this concept - will not be treated without at least the spirit of the [[Marxist ]] critique, the critique of the [[market]], of the multiple logics of [[capital]], and of that which [[links ]] the [[State ]] and [[international law ]] to this market". Spectres of [[Marx]], 1994.

So différance can also be understood as part of the revolutionary [[dialectic ]] that destroys the established order to permit the adoption of some new world order. In general the deconstructive writers are much more closely associated with the political left and various elements of academia than with the political right but their work may benefit either faction.

Thus, some critics view deconstruction as means of academic [[empire]]-building; they see deconstruction as elevating the [[practice ]] of reading and deconstructing a text to the same status as the original act of writing the text. For example, critics have taken issue with deconstructive writings which seem to elevate the ''[[criticism]]'' of Western science, metaphysics, and philosophy, such as quantum mechanics and the writings of [[Aristotle]], to the same political status as the original scientific and philosophical writings. This seems to give deconstructive writings a privileged position with respect to other writings. This, critics suggest, is arrogant.

Undoubtedly, however, everything that deconstructive writers do is not deconstructive, and deconstructive writers hold political views and take the [[role ]] of advocating aspects of Western metaphysics. Deconstructive writers do not view this as inconsistent with deconstruction. They do not see a [[paradox ]] in advocating a point of Western metaphysics with self-[[conscious ]] irony. Derrida stated, "Deconstruction is not an enclosure in nothingness, but an openness to the other" (Derrida 1984, at 124).

Critics of deconstruction commonly argue that it denies that authors can have a coherent [[intention]], or that a text can have a particular meaning. They suggest, therefore, that deconstructive analysis is little more than a form of nihilism or extreme relativism.

Deconstructive writers generally disagree that deconstruction is a [[denial ]] of the [[existence ]] of meaning and [[authorial intentionality]]. Rather, they say, meaning and authorial intent exist, but Western philosophy has failed to locate them outside the realm of texts. If one tries through metaphysics to find meaning or intent ''outside'' text, they say, one only finds a further web of text from which one cannot escape using Western metaphysics. However, there is value, according to some deconstructive writers, in following the textual threads of Western metaphysics, which is something like wordplay. And one may hope, they suppose, to transcend Western metaphysics. This is quite different, in their view, from the nihilist assertion that meaning and intent do not exist, or that it is futile to seek them.

Critics have also accused deconstruction of being a form of [[solipsism]], arguing that deconstruction implies the futility of seeking or trying to communicate accurate [[knowledge ]] about the world. Deconstructive writers reject this assertion. They say that the existence of knowledge is possible, but that Western philosophy and metaphysics have failed to prove a reliable source of it. All Western writers have done is to point to inherently untrustworthy texts. No text-based knowledge, they say, is trustworthy; therefore, it is not knowledge.

During the 1980s and '90s, the novelty of deconstructionist thinking helped to encourage the publication, by academic journals and university presses, of a great many deconstructionist readings. In retrospect, however, it seemed to many academic critics that such readings, even when viewed sympathetically, tended mostly toward a repetitious [[insistence ]] that no matter what the text, any meaning was entirely indeterminate (or "deferred"), and/or, whatever the author's intentions, the text was deceptive and manipulative. Critics argued that the project of applying this basic deconstructionist tenet to [[individual ]] works was sterile indeed. On a practical note, it is also observed that while deconstructionists deride objectivity and authoritativeness, they still go about their daily tasks depending as much as anyone else on the overall reliability of Western [[technology]], medical knowledge, and other manifestations of [[objective ]] and authoritative scientific findings. The sincere "[[living ]] out" of deconstruction theory would seem to result in state of [[consciousness ]] indistinguishable from extreme [[psychosis]]. As no deconstructionist is known to have chosen to live in such a state, or even to have attempted to do so, the sincerity and utility of deconstructive philosophy may be called into serious question. (But for an ancient advocacy of something similar, see Sextus Empiricus' defense of [[Philosophical skepticism#In the ancient West|Pyrrhonism]].)

Perhaps the most damaging criticism of deconstruction is the observation that if all texts subvert honesty and truth, deconstructionist texts are just as false and dishonest as any other. Why then, critics ask, should anyone "privilege" deconstructive texts? As just one more set of texts, Derrida's deconstructive philosophy itself can be neither accurate nor trustworthy. And if deconstruction cannot provide knowledge, and no other discourse can provide it either, then all that we [[think ]] must be pure [[illusion]]. Moreover, the critics continue, even if all that we think really is just illusion, our reason remains a most practical illusion that allows us to survive both as societies and as individuals. Deconstruction, they say, lends itself as an excuse to nihilists who [[wish ]] to see societies as nothing but contending, meaningless illusions battling ruthlessly for tyranny over the quite useless and dispensable human [[mind]].

During the period between the late [[1960s]] and the early [[1980s]] many thinkers influenced by deconstruction, including [[Jacques Derrida|Derrida]], [[Paul de Man]], [[Geoffrey Hartman]], and [[J. Hillis Miller]], worked at [[Yale University]]. This group came to be known as the [[Yale school (deconstruction)|Yale school]] and was especially influential in [[literary criticism]], as de Man, [[Miller]], and Hartman were all primarily literary critics. Several of these theorists were subsequently affiliated with the [[University of California Irvine]]. (At a faculty meeting of the Department of English, Professor Martin Price, the chairman, while observing the surfeit of deconstructionists flooding the University with more hires in [[sight]], asked his colleagues, "I can understand hiring a few deconstructionists here and there. But do we really need to corner the market?")

* The [[psychoanalysis]] of [[Sigmund Freud]] is an important reference for much of deconstruction: ''The Post Card'', important essays in ''Writing and Difference'', ''[[Archive ]] Fever'', and many other deconstructive works deal primarily with [[Freud]].* The work of [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] is a forerunner of deconstruction in form and substance, as Derrida writes in ''Spurs: [[Nietzsche]]'s Styles''.* The [[structuralism]] of [[Ferdinand de Saussure]], and other forms of [[post-structuralism]] that evolved contemporaneously with deconstruction (such as the work of [[Maurice Blanchot]], [[Michel Foucault]], [[Louis Althusser]], [[Jacques Lacan]], etc.), were the immediate [[intellectual ]] climate for the [[formation ]] of deconstruction. In many cases, these authors were close friends, colleagues, or correspondents of Derrida's.

Deconstruction has been directly used and / or parodied in a large number of literary texts. [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] novelist [[Gerald Vizenor]] claims an extensive debt to deconstructionist ideas in attacking essentialist notions of [[race]]. Writer [[Percival Everett]] goes further in satire, actually incorporating fictional conversations between a number of leading deconstructionists within his fictions. Comic author [[David Lodge]]’s work contains a number of figures whose belief in the deconstructionist project is undermined by contact with non-academic figures (cf ''[[Nice Work]]''). The difficult and verbose nature of many deconstructionist writings makes them a popular [[figure ]] of fun in [[anti-intellectual]] fiction.

In popular [[media]], deconstruction has been seized upon by [[conservative]] writers as a central example of what is wrong with modern [[academia]]. Editorials and columns come out with some frequency pointing to deconstruction as a sign of how self-evidently absurd English departments have become, and of how traditional values are no longer being taught to students. Conservatives frequently treat deconstruction as being equivalent to [[Marxism]]. These criticisms became particularly prevalent when it was discovered that [[Paul de Man]] had written pro-Nazi articles during [[World War II]], due to what was seen as the inadequate and offensive response of many deconstructionist thinkers, especially Derrida, to this revelation. Popular criticism of deconstruction also intensified following the [[Sokal affair]], which many people took as an indicator of the quality of deconstructionism as a whole, despite Sokal's insistence that his hoax proved nothing of the sort.

* [http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/hopkins_guide_to_literary_theory/deconstruction.html Deconstruction] from The Johns Hopkins [[Guide ]] to Literary Theory & Criticism

*[[Robert Moynihan|Moynihan, Robert]], ''[[Recent ]] Imagining: Interviews with Harold Bloom, Geoffrey Hartmen, Paul DeMan, J. Hillis Miller'' (Shoe String Press 1986). ISBN 0208021205.