Dictionary Definition
deconstruct v : interpret (a text or an artwork)
by the method of deconstructing
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Verb
- In the context of "often metaphorical": to break something down into its component parts
Translations
- French: déconstruire
Extensive Definition
- ''For the approach to post-modern architecture, see Deconstructivism; for other uses, see Deconstruction (disambiguation)
Subjects relevant to deconstruction include the
philosophy of meaning
in Western thought, and the ways that meaning
is constructed by Western writers, texts, and readers and
understood by readers. Though Derrida himself denied deconstruction
was a method or school of philosophy, or indeed anything outside of
reading the text itself, the term has been used by others to
describe Derrida's particular methods of textual criticism, which
involved discovering, recognizing, and understanding the
underlying—and unspoken and implicit—assumptions, ideas, and
frameworks that form the basis for thought and belief, for example,
in complicating the ordinary division made between nature and
culture. Derrida's deconstruction was drawn mainly from the work of
Heidegger
and his notion of
Destruktion but also from Levinas and his
ideas upon the Other.
Development of Derrida's Deconstruction in Relation to Husserl's Philosophy
Husserl is one of
the major influences on the development of Derrida's thought and
Husserl is both mentor and foil to the development of
deconstruction. In Derrida's first published paper titled "'Genesis
and Structure' and Phenomenology"(1959) Derrida describes "two
polemics which placed him [Husserl] in opposition to those
philosophies of structure called Diltheyism and
Gestaltism". These two polemics by Husserl are forerunners of
Derrida's own deconstruction. Derrida notes admiringly that
Husserl