Made for each other: The interdependence of deconstruction and philosophical hermeneutics

Philosophy & Social Criticism

Volumn 26, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 51-70

  Feldman, Stephen M ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TULSA   (United States)

Author keywords

deconstruction; Derrida; Gadamer; hermeneutics; justice; philosophical hermeneutics; postmodernism

Indexed keywords

EID: 84992784495     PISSN: 01914537     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/019145370002600103     Document Type: Article

References (108)

1. Jürgen Habermas, A Review of Gadamer's Truth and Method, in Understanding and Social Inquiry 335, 357 (Fred Dallmayr & Thomas McCarthy eds., 1977);
2. John D. Caputo, Radical Hermeneutics 5 (1987);
3. John D. Caputo, Gadamer's Closet Essentialism: A Derridian Critique, in Dialogue and Deconstruction 258, 259 (Diane Michelfelder & Richard Palmer eds., 1989) [hereinafter Caputo, Derridean Critique];
4. John Brenkman, Culture and Domination 30 (1987).
5. G.B. Madison, Beyond Seriousness and Frivolity: A Gadamerian Response to Deconstruction, in The Hermeneutics of Postmodernity 106, 108 (1988);
6. Robert Sokolowski, Gadamer's Theory of Hermeneutics, in The Philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer 223, 229–31 (1997);
7. Richard J. Bernstein, Foucault: Critique as a Philosophic Ethos, in The New Constellation 142, 151 (1991) (“slippery slope”);
8. Ernst Behler, Confrontations: Derrida, Heidegger, Nietzsche 151 (Steven Taubeneck trans., 1991) (Habermas characterizes Derrida and Foucault as “neo-conservatives”);
9. John D. Caputo, A Commentary, in Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida 31, 50 n.2 (John D. Caputo ed., 1997) (quoting Michael Howard, The New York Times Book Review, March 6, 1994, at 11–12).
10. Some helpful sources focusing on postmodernism include the following: Zygmunt Bauman, Intimations of Postmodernity (1992) [hereinafter Bauman, Intimations];
11. Richard J. Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis (1983);
12. Steven Connor, Postmodernist Culture (1989);
13. David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (1989);
14. Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991);
15. Hilary Lawson, Reflexivity: The Post-modern Predicament (1985);
16. Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Geoff Bennington & Brian Massumi trans., 1984);
17. Christopher Norris, What's Wrong With Postmodernism (1990);
18. Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979);
19. Andreas Huyssen, Mapping the Postmodern, 33 New German Critique 5 (1984).
20. One can possibly distinguish premodernity from premodernism, modernity from modernism, and postmodernity from postmodernism. See, e.g., Stephen Toulmin, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity 6 (1990) (distinguishing modernity from modernism);
21. Dorothy Ross, Modernism Reconsidered, in Modernist Impulses in the Human Sciences, 1870–1930, at 1 (Dorothy Ross ed., 1994) (offering distinctions among different forms of modernism and modernity). Such a distinction can be based on the association of, for example, postmodernism with culture, and the association of postmodernity with social, political, and economic arrangements. Such distinctions, however, often collapse as cultural and social practices conjoin. Cf.
22. Connor, Modernism Reconsidered, in Modernist Impulses in the Human Sciences, 1870 at 44–51.
23. G.B. Madison, Gadamer/Derrida: The Hermeneutics of Irony and Power, in Dialogue and Deconstruction 192, 192 (Diane Michelfelder & Richard Palmer eds., 1989);
24. see Diane Michelfelder & Richard Palmer, Introduction, in Dialogue and Deconstruction 1, 1–5, 295 n.3 (Diane Michelfelder & Richard Palmer eds., 1989).
25. Jacques Derrida, Three Questions to Hans-Georg Gadamer, in Dialogue and Deconstruction 52, 52–53 (Diane Michelfelder & Richard Palmer eds., 1989);
26. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Reply to Jacques Derrida, in Dialogue and Deconstruction 55, 55 (Diane Michelfelder & Richard Palmer eds., 1989);
27. Behler, Confrontations: Derrida, 151 1991 at 144.
28. James Risser, Hermeneutics and the Voice of the Other: Re-reading Gadamer's Philosophical Hermeneutics 16 (1997). Rorty devotes several pages in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature to discussing Gadamer as a hermeneutician who denies “the classic picture of man-as-essentially-knower-of-essences.”
29. Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979);, at 364. At the end of this discussion, Rorty mentions that Derrida also follows this type of hermeneutics. Id. at 357–65.
30. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time 32, 65, 78–83, 169–72 (John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson trans., 1962) (1st published in German, 1927); see
31. Lawson, Reflexivity: The Post-modern Predicament (1985), at 58–89;
32. George Steiner, Martin Heidegger 82–84 (1978);
33. Dagfinn Follesdal, Husserl and Heidegger on the Role of Actions in the Constitution of the World, in Essays in Honour of Jaakko Hintikka 365 (E. Saarinen, R. Hilpinen, I. Niiniluoto, & M. Hintikka eds., 1979).
34. For a discussion of possible distinctions between the early and later Heidegger, see Lawson, Reflexivity: The Post-modern Predicament (1985), at 79–85;
35. Steiner, Reflexivity: The Post-modern Predicament (1985), at 3.
36. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Destruktion and Deconstruction, in Dialogue and Deconstruction 102, 109 (Diane Michelfelder & Richard Palmer eds., 1989) [hereinafter Gadamer, Deconstruction]; see
37. Fred Dallmayr, Self and Other: Gadamer and the Hermeneutics of Difference, 5 Yale J. L. & Human. 507, 515–16 (1993) (to Gadamer, deconstruction contains insights that are germane to hermeneutics). Gadamer's most comprehensive work is Hans—Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (Joel Weinsheimer & Donald Marshall trans., 2d rev. ed. 1989) [hereinafter Gadamer, Truth and Method] (originally published in German in 1960). Some other important texts by Gadamer include the following:
38. Hans-Georg Gadamer, On the Scope and Function of Hermeneutical Reflection (1967), in Philosophical Hermeneutics 18 (D. Linge trans., 1976);
39. Hans-Georg Gadamer, The Problem of Historical Consciousness, in Interpretive Social Science—A Reader 146 (Paul Rabinow & William M. Sullivan eds., 1979) [hereinafter Gadamer, The Problem];
40. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Text and Interpretation, in Dialogue and Deconstruction 21, 24 (Diane Michelfelder & Richard Palmer eds., 1989) [Gadamer, Text];
41. Hans-Georg Gadamer, The Universality of the Hermeneutical Problem, in Josef Bleicher, Contemporary Hermeneutics 128 (1980) [hereinafter Gadamer, The Universality]. Helpful analyses of Gadamer's work are Georgia Warnke, Gadamer: Hermeneutics, Tradition, and Reason (1987);
42. Joel Weinsheimer, Gadamer's Hermeneutics: A Reading of Truth and Method (1985).
43. Gregory Leyh, Introduction, in Legal Hermeneutics: History, Theory, and Practice xi, xii (Gregory Leyh ed., 1992) (arguing that Gadamer explores the conditions of human understanding).
44. See, e.g., Raoul Berger, Government By Judiciary 45, 363–72 (1977).
45. Gadamer, Truth and Method, Dialogue and Deconstruction 102, 109, at 89, 137, 140, 144, 159, 164–65, 462, 477–91.
46. Gadamer, Truth and Method, Dialogue and Deconstruction 102, at 282–84, 302, 306. In a similar vein, Stanley Fish talks of the “interpretive community.” Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in This Class? 303–04 (1980). For discussions of the concept of a text—analogue, see
47. Clifford Geertz, Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight, in The Interpretation of Cultures 412, 448–49 (1973);
48. Paul Ricoeur, The Model of the Text: Meaningful Action Considered as a Text, in Interpretive Social Science—A Reader 73, 81 (Paul Rabinow & William M. Sullivan eds., 1979). Gadamer explicitly discusses the concept of “prejudices,” Gadamer, The Universality, The Interpretation of Cultures, at 133, while Jürgen Habermas, in his early theory, developed the concept of human “interests,” arguing that knowledge is possible only because of human interests. Jürgen Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests (Jeremy Shapiro trans., 1971) (1st published in German in 1968) (delineating three “knowledge—constitutive interests”: an interest in prediction and control, an interest in understanding of meaning, and an interest in emancipation).
49. Gadamer, Truth and Method, Dialogue and Deconstruction 102, at 282, 293, 461–63;
50. J.M. Balkin, Understanding Legal Understanding: The Legal Subject and the Problem of Legal Coherence, 103 Yale L.J. 105, 142, 167 (1993); see also
51. J.M. Balkin, Ideology as Cultural Software, 16 Cardozo L. Rev. 1221, 1221–23 (1995) (acknowledging the drawbacks of the metaphor of cultural software).
52. Gadamer, The Universality, Destruktion and Deconstruction, in Dialogue and Deconstruction 102, at 133.
53. Gadamer, Truth and Method, Dialogue and Deconstruction, at 164–65, 281, 291, 462;
54. Gadamer, The Problem, Dialogue and Deconstruction, at 103, 146;
55. Paul Rabinow & William M. Sullivan, The Interpretive Turn: Emergence of An Approach, in Interpretive Social Science—A Reader 1, 6–7 (Paul Rabinow & William M. Sullivan eds., 1979).
56. Some of Derrida's important works are as follows: Jacques Derrida, Deconstruction in a Nutshell (John D. Caputo ed., 1997) [hereinafter Derrida, Nutshell]; Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology (Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak trans., 1976) [hereinafter Derrida, Grammatology];
57. Jacques Derrida, Positions (Alan Bass trans., 1981) [hereinafter Derrida, Positions];
58. Jacques Derrida, Cogito and the History of Madness, in Writing and Difference 31 (Alan Bass trans., 1978);
59. Jacques Derrida, Deconstruction and the Other, in Dialogues With Contemporary Continental Thinkers 107 (Richard Kearney ed., 1984) [hereinafter Derrida, Other];
60. Jacques Derrida, Différance, in Margins of Philosophy 3 (Alan Bass trans., 1982) [hereinafter Derrida, Différance];
61. Jacques Derrida, The Ends of Man, in Margins of Philosophy 109 (Alan Bass trans., 1982);
62. Jacques Derrida, Plato's Pharmacy, in A Derrida Reader 112 (Peggy Kamuf ed., 1991) [hereinafter Derrida, Plato];
63. Jacques Derrida, Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences, in Writing and Difference 278 (Alan Bass trans., 1978) [hereinafter Derrida, Structure];
64. Jacques Derrida, Force of Law: The “Mystical Foundation of Authority,” 11 Cardozo L. Rev. 919 (1990) [hereinafter Derrida, Law]. Some helpful discussions of deconstruction include the following: Christopher Norris, Derrida (1987);
65. David Couzens Hoy, Jacques Derrida, in The Return of Grand Theory in the Human Sciences 41 (Quentin Skinner ed., 1985);
66. Ronald K.L. Collins, Outlaw Jurisprudence?, 76 Tex. L. Rev. 215 (1997).
67. Gadamer, Deconstruction, Dialogue and Deconstruction 102, at 112;
68. Derrida, Grammatology, Deconstruction in a Nutshell, at 50, 73;
69. see Derrida, Positions, Deconstruction in a Nutshell, at 20;
70. Norris, What's Wrong With Postmodernism (1990), at 200 (placing Derrida in the Kantian tradition insofar as Derrida seeks to identify the irreducible conditions of human understanding). Derrida and Gadamer use the term, “play,” in different ways. See
71. Fred Dallmayr, Hermeneutics and Deconstruction: Gadamer and Derrida in Dialogue, in Dialogue and Deconstruction 75, 82 (Diane Michelfelder & Richard Palmer eds., 1989);
72. Neal Oxenhandler, The Man with Shoes of Wind: The Derrida-Gadamer Encounter, in Dialogue and Deconstruction 265, 266 (Diane Michelfelder & Richard Palmer eds., 1989).
73. Derrida, Grammatology, Deconstruction in a Nutshell, at 48;
74. Derrida, Différance, Deconstruction in a Nutshell, at 11;
75. see Derrida, Positions, Deconstruction in a Nutshell, at 26–27;
76. Derrida, Deconstruction in a Nutshell, 1997 at 110 (calling différance a non—concept).
77. Derrida, Grammatology, Deconstruction in a Nutshell, at 24, 70;
78. Derrida, Structure, Deconstruction in a Nutshell, at 280–81, 285;
79. Jacques Derrida, Like the Sound of the Sea Deep Within a Shell: Paul de Man's War, 14
80. Critical Inquiry 590, 631 (Peggy Kamuf trans., 1988);
81. see Bauman, Intimations, Intimations of Postmodernity (1992), at 23.
82. Weinsheimer, Gadamer's Hermeneutics: A Reading of Truth and Method (1985), at 9 (truth keeps happening); accord id. at 200 (the truth of a text exceeds each understanding); cf.
83. Bauman, Intimations, Intimations of Postmodernity (1992), at 31 (postmodern culture “is characterized by the overabundance of meanings”). On iterability, see
84. Derrida, Nutshell, Deconstruction in a Nutshell, at 27–28;
85. J.M. Balkin, Deconstructive Practice and Legal Theory, 96 Yale L.J. 743, 749, 779 (1987). On the inexhaustibility of textual meaning, see
86. Gadamer, Text, The Universality of the Hermeneutical Problem, Contemporary Hermeneutics 128 (1980), at 24.
87. Risser, Hermeneutics and the Voice of the Other: Re-reading Gadamer's Philosophical Hermeneutics 16 (1997). Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, at 16.
88. Gadamer, Destruktion and Deconstruction, in Dialogue and Deconstruction 102, at 26.
89. Gadamer, Truth and Method, Dialogue and Deconstruction 102, at 101–69, 267, 293–94, 332, 362–79 at 293–94, Id. at 293–94, 307–08, 340–41; see
90. Stanley Fish, Normal Circumstances, Literal Language, Direct Speech Acts, the Ordinary, the Everyday, the Obvious, What Goes Without Saying, and Other Special Cases, in Interpretive Social Science—A Reader 243, 256 (Paul Rabinow & William M. Sullivan eds., 1979) (arguing that we always encounter a text in a concrete context, and hence, the text always has a determinate meaning, though that meaning can change as the context changes).
91. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Reply to Jacques Derrida, in Dialogue and Deconstruction 55, 55 (Diane Michelfelder & Richard Palmer eds., 1989).
92. Gadamer, Truth and Method, Contemporary Hermeneutics 128 (1980), at 293–94;
93. Hoy, Jacques Derrida, in The Return of Grand Theory in the Human Sciences 41, at 54.
94. Cf. Stephen M. Feldman, The Persistence of Power and the Struggle for Dialogic Standards in Postmodern Constitutional Jurisprudence: Michelman, Habermas, and Civic Republicanism, 81 Geo. L.J. 2243, 2282–88 (1993) (discussing how not all traditions and communities are equally distortive and exclusive).
95. Caputo, Derridean Critique, Radical Hermeneutics 5 (1987), at 263.
96. Collins, Outlaw Jurisprudence?, 76, at 215.
97. Derrida, Grammatology, Writing and Difference 278, at 62 (“no meaning would appear”); see id. at 47;
98. Derrida, Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences, Writing and Difference 278, 1978 at 118;
99. cf. Richard J. Bernstein, Incommensurability and Otherness Revisited, in The New Constellation 57, 67–75 (1991) (comparing Levinas and Derrida on the Other).
100. Derrida, Deconstruction in a Nutshell, at 13.
101. See Norris, Deconstruction in a Nutshell, at 197–98. In writing about law and justice, Derrida writes: “Since the origin of authority, the foundation or ground, the position of the law can't by definition rest on anything but themselves, they are themselves a violence without ground. Which is not to say that they are in themselves unjust, in the sense of ‘illegal.’ They are neither legal nor illegal in their founding moment.” Derrida, Law, Margins of Philosophy 3, at 943.
102. Cf. Derrida, Structure, Margins of Philosophy 3, at 292–93 (two forms of interpretation are “absolutely irreconcilable,” so there is no “question of choosing”).
103. J.M. Balkin, Transcendental Deconstruction, Transcendent Justice, 92 Mich. L. Rev. 1131, 1139, 1185 (1994). In a somewhat related vein, Tracy E. Higgins argues that postmodern feminists ought to accept responsibility for defining or constructing gender. Higgins insists that, exactly because ethical positions are ungrounded and meaning is contingent, feminists should “take responsibility for the exercise of power” that their normative claims entail. Tracy E. Higgins, “By Reason of Their Sex”: Feminist Theory, Postmodernism, and Justice, 80 Cornell L. Rev. 1536, 1541 (1995). While the possibility of responsibility is not necessarily inconsistent with deconstruction or other manifestations of postmodernism, Higgins unfortunately fails to explore the tension between her emphasis on responsibility and her other postmodern positions.
104. On Pareto superiority and optimality, see Richard Posner, Economic Analysis of Law (3d ed. 1986).
105. Derrida, Law, Margins of Philosophy 3, at 945 (emphasis added); see
106. Derrida, Other, Margins of Philosophy 3, at 119–20 (denying that deconstruction is apolitical); see also
107. Lawson, Reflexivity: The Post-modern Predicament (1985), at 113;
108. Collins, Outlaw Jurisprudence?, 76, at 237.