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concept1960s-present

Deconstruction

Disciplines:
philosophy/philosophy of language
philosophy/continental philosophy
literary criticism/literary theory

Summary

Jacques Derrida's practice of reading philosophical and literary texts to expose the hierarchical binary oppositions they depend on and the internal contradictions that undermine their claims to stable meaning.

Core Contribution

Shows that texts are structured by oppositions (presence/absence, speech/writing, literal/figurative) where one term is privileged but depends on the other; deconstruction inverts and then displaces these hierarchies, revealing the undecidability at the heart of meaning.

Historical Influences

Jacques Derrida

Intellectual Lineage

No conceptual lineage found.

Allied Works

Of Grammatology Writing and Difference

Contemporaries & Peers

No recorded contemporaries.

Minds Influenced

No recorded minds influenced.

Intellectual Posterity

No conceptual posterity found.

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Deconstruction

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