Page 110 - DENG501_LITERARY_CRITICISM_AND_THEORIES

Literary Criticism and Theories

Notes his own text-about-another-text. He writes about Lévi-Strauss that "his discourse [...] reflects on
itself and criticizes itself" -- which is exactly what Derrida himself does with both the text he uses
to support his argument (Lévi-Strauss'), and with his own writing. Other deconstructive features
of Lévi-Strauss' text that Derrida mentions include the setting up and questioning of dichotomies,
the exposure of the fragmentedness and decenteredness of texts (here myths, and -- following
Lévi-Strauss' argument -- ultimately language itself), the impossibility of totalization when it
comes to the concept of language, and, finally, the concept of "play". (None of these issues are
addressed in this article, as they are all explained in a very comprehensible way in Derrida's
essay.)
Some of these arguments (in the fashion of "always already there") are developed by Derrida
himself, and -- since they are not explicitly mentioned in the texts he analyzes --read into Lévi-
Strauss' work. This is yet another instance where Derrida performs in praxis what he simultaneously
discusses in theory: The concept of play; The open-endedness of interpretation; The making-use of
the surplus of meaning and the lack of a center in order to validate new/further meanings,
meanings that the text itself might not have been aware of.
9.2 Critical Appreciation

As the title indicates, this essay is about the social sciences-about "Structure, Sign and Play in the
Discourse of the Human Sciences."To understand the essay, it is helpful to know where Derrida
is going, what he's up to.Grossly speaking, I would say the essay is about the fall of metaphysics-
about the disbelief in all secure intellectual and moral foundations. In any system of thought, play
(or contingency) replaces certainty and coherence. All meaning getes transformed into discourse,
the continual play of signification in which signs only point to more signs, never to things, beings,
presences, or other landmarks of security. As Derrida will say at the end of the essay, living with
the desire for metaphysics AND at the same time sensing the impossibility of metaphysics defines
the paradoxical situation and field of the social sciences.
That's what I think this essay is up to:
1. It charts the rise of the "incredulity toward all metanarratives," as Lyotard says, showing in
what way cherished values of the West have been irrevocably altered; and
2. it points, via Levi-Strauss, to the possibility of a new discourse and a new capacity for dealing
with the demise of metaphysics.
The social sciences reflect the Western situation; stuck between a desire for foundations and the
realization of the necessity of anti-foundationalism but the social sciences also offer at least the
suggestion of a new discourse for modernity. The essay charts both cases: the demise and the
future possibility.
Fleshing out some key terms may aid in understanding the essay.
By "structure" I take it Derrida means an intellectual edifice or philosophical system of ideas, a
kind of discourse in which all elements are defined by their relation to one another and given
meaning by the position they occupy in the system's total arrangement.
For Example, The constitution of the United States, Husserlian phenomenology, or Christian
cosmology. Each lends meaning and support to experiences within the system by defining
experience in relation to a definite, structured pattern.
A center is that part of a structure which focuses and organizes the entire system.
One good example is Aristotle's Unmoved Mover: the UM does not itself move but it nonetheless
guides and maintains the motion or animation of the entire ordered cosmos. Whatever accidents
or mutations may occur, the unmoved mover provides unshakable stability to the Aristotelian
cosmology.
Derrida's claim is that the West has been-and in part still is-obsessed with the search for a center.
And, again, the center's function is to supply a foundation which coheres the system and limits the
amount and degree of arbitrariness or play in "the total form." The center designates an invariable
presence.

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