Ethical Consequences Of Derrida's Deconstruction Theory

Deconstruction was one of the most important ideas of the 20th century.The critique of metaphysics,structuralism and phenomenalism provided by the French thinker Jacques Derrida(1930-2004),as well as a number of vague and intangible concepts used by the latter,such as differance,supplement and archi-writing,have shaken the whole Western intellectual world."Deconstruction" became a new keyword in the humanistic discourse,and Derrida himself began to be considered as one of the most influential,provocative and creative thinkers of the twentieth century.This paper analyzes the ethical aspect of his thought.The early thought of Derrida focuses mainly on the problem of language.In the 1960s,Derrida revealed the relationship between metaphysics and the concept of sign as it had been conceived by Ferdinand de Saussure,and also severely criticized the phenomenological notion of the,,thing-in-itself" as well as the structuralist idea of the center.At that time,Derrida believed that the metaphysics based on the possibility of transcendental signified reached its completion,which would be marked by liberation of writing from the oppression of logocentrism.Derrida professed,,The End of the Book and the Beginning of Writing" and by employing a decentralizing logic of the supplement he attempted to remove the limitations of traditional ethics from the process of literary interpretation.The first part of this paper proves that the vision of the history of Western thought as provided by Of Grammatology in actuality is not that much different from the Platonism Derrida himself denounces.In fact,Derrida performs a significant simplification of history,so that the texts he analyzes conform to his point of view.My conclusion is that Derrida's early thought lacks general force,and contrary to its original intention actually develops metaphysics.In the eighties,Derrida's thought changed dramatically.Derrida started to directly examine the problems of politics,morality,ethics,law,theology,society etc.His principal aim was to find a kind of ethics which would be free from the oppositional thinking typical of metaphysics.In his view,deconstructionist ethics would be capable of avoiding,,the worst"violence caused by the traditional logic.His ultimate answer was aporia,because only through aporia can one guarantee openness and tolerance towards the Other.In opposition to Derrida,however,I believe that ethics is only possible if there is 1)a language that can perform a role of a medium for a value system,and 2)a possibility of confrontation of different(and determined)points of view.Because of the fact that the so-called differance means both "to differ(irreducibly)" and "to defer(eternally)",an ethics based on such a concept is incapable of solving ethical problems.