Dr Mark Alfino Philosophy Department Gonzaga University March 26 2012 Jacques Derrida July 15 1930 October 9 2004 Postmodern Slogans There is nothing outside the text Man is an invention of recent date And one perhaps nearing an end ID: 495781
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What Can we Learn from Postmodern Theories of Meaning and Truth?
Dr. Mark Alfino
Philosophy Department
Gonzaga University
March 26, 2012 Slide2
Jacques Derrida
July 15, 1930 – October 9, 2004Slide3
Postmodern Slogans
There is nothing outside the text.
Man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing an end.
Language speaks us.Slide4
Opening Lines of “Structure, Sign, and Play…” by Jacques DerridaSlide5
Opening Lines of “Violence and Metaphysics” by Jacques DerridaSlide6
Postmodern Slogans
There is nothing outside the text.
Man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing an end.
Language speaks us.Slide7
Word of the Night:
Semiosis
Semiosis
The general processes of meaning formation and change studied by semiotics. Slide8
Ferdinand de Saussure,
1857-1913Slide9
Saussure’s Concept of the SignSlide10
Image for the Arbitrariness of the Sign in SaussureSlide11
What makes the 8:25 Geneva to Paris train the 8:25 Geneva to Paris train?Slide12
The “UPS” theory of meaningSlide13
Signifier or Signified?
Lamborghini Murciélago Spyder, 300-400KSlide14
“Structure, Sign, and Play”
“the play of differences involves syntheses and referrals that prevent there from being at any moment or in any way a simple element that is present in and of itself and refers only to itself. Whether in written or spoken discourse, no element can function as a sign without relating to another element which is not simply present. This linkage means that each “element”—phoneme or grapheme—is constituted with reference to the trace in it of the other elements of the sequence or system. This linkage, this weaving, is the text, which is produced only through the transformation of another text. Nothing, either in the elements or in the system, is anywhere simply present or absent. There are only, everywhere, differences and traces of traces.” Derrida,
Positions p. 26, in Culler p. 142.Slide15
Key Terms
Metaphysics of Presence
Logocentrism - Phallogocentrism
Phonocentrism
Deconstructive ReadingSlide16
Postmodern Claims about Meaning
There is nothing outside the text.
Postmodernism readings defamiliarize ideas.
Language speaks us.
Presence of meaning is either an illusion or a careful construct.
Stability of meaning requires more explanation than meaning difference and drift.Slide17
Postmodern Claims about Truth (and Philosophy)
The history of Western philosophy is riddled with a logocentric, phoncentric, phallogocentric, metaphysics of presence which perpetuates the illusion of the possibility of philosophical truth.
In light of postmodernism’s critique of meaning and truth, philosophy remakes itself as a post-metaphysical participant in knowledge work and cultural criticism.Slide18
What Can we Learn from Postmodern Theories of Meaning and Truth?
Dr. Mark Alfino
Philosophy Department
Gonzaga University
March 26, 2012