Jacques Derrida’s philosophy of «positive» deconstruction

Philosophy

Abstract

It can be said that the concept and mechanism of deconstruction are almost never analyzed in an active, positive way. The negative pathos of the concept, which lies on the surface, is misleading and prevents from noticing that it describes the real situation of the world that developed earlier. In this context, the concepts of «deconstruction», «decentralization», and «destructuration» constitute the instrumental basis for the formation of a categorical apparatus that allows us to convey a new vision and attitude to the human universe. A fundamentally different attitude to the concept of «writing», the history of writing, and a retrospective look at writing opened up the opportunity to see it from the other side. Furthermore, since writing is the foundation of everything that makes up culture, Derrida’s concept entailed a truly grandiose transformation of the contemporaries’ worldview. The explication of well-known metaphysical terms required not so much a new interpretation as their radical destruction, their debunking as phantoms of consciousness, and the introduction of not just unexpected, but extremely indigestible terminology to convey the original shades of thought about reality. Of all postmodernists, Derrida has the most clear vision of the incompleteness of the development phase, which requires, which requires some time for the final effect. He considers this circumstance, saturated with chance, as a sufficient basis for the legitimacy of the game character of language. The discovery of a new kind of signs, literally silent ones (pause, trace, imprint, distinction), unaccounted for by previous semiology, allows Derrida, in actual fact, to build the foundations of a new metaphysics, which, however, does not prevent Derrida from fiercely criticizing it. Obviously, Derrida’s reflections do not leave the boundaries of philosophy, and his concept of deconstruction turned out to be an excellent way of philosophizing that conveys to the reader thoughts that had not been expressed and articulated before Derrida.