Rigor And/In Deconstruction

Abstract

Assume for the moment that certain deconstructive events are successful. In particular, assume that the traditional ideal of grounded knowledge, the ideal of a theoretical coherence and rigor that can in principle completely master its object-and in so doing be master of itself-is being deconstructed. is the measure of a deconstruction? How can it be distinguished from an unsuccessful or inadequate, perhaps a not-yet-successful deconstructive event? Even if the very concept of success is deconstructed (and the phrase suggests a false finality), I suspect that we-and that would have to mean deconstructionists-will have to continue using it, and the question concerns how we are to do so. While there are surely many different aspects that would have to be taken into consideration, I want to ask what would it mean to speak of a rigorous deconstruction. While some partisans of deconstruction reject the very question, over the years Jacques Derrida has repeatedly committed himself to a certain ideal of rigor. He often insists that the texts he is dealing with are themselves rigorous, and this is important, since the deconstruction of a sloppy text would hardly yield of interest beyond the limits of the text in question. In such a case, deconstruction could not be distinguished from an old-fashioned critical reading of the text. But Derrida also commits himself to respect[ing] the norms, namely of interpretation (OG, lxxxix). Deconstruction never reduces to commentary, but rigorous commentary has its place in a deconstructive reading: To recognize and respect all its exigencies is not easy and requires all the instruments of traditional criticism. Without this recognition and this respect, critical production would risk developing in any direction at all and authorize itself to say almost anything (OG, 158). Thus, according to Derrida, deconstructive reading has to pass through traditional rigor even if the ultimate effect is to show that such rigor-when it is invoked-is never as absolute and well-founded as it claims to be. In other words, if we are to speak of success in deconstruction we must be able to speak of failure in deconstruction. For the purposes of this discussion, I am going to follow Derrida's lead. As Derrida himself notes, respect for the classical norms does not itself guarantee a good or even interesting reading of a text, much less a successful deconstruction. But if Derrida provides a reading consistent with the demands of traditional commentary, then the deconstructive force of his text will have to be taken very seriously indeed. I want to take a careful look at some aspects of Ousia and Gramme: Note on a Note from Being and which was originally published in Margins of Philosophy in 1972. This essay is a -reading of a footnote in Heidegger's Being and Time discussing Aristotle's and Hegel's treatments of time. It has played a fairly important role in discussions of Derrida, and has been taken seriously and praised by most of those who have mentioned it (Rudolf Bernet, Irene Harvey, Christopher Norris, Herman Rapaport, and David Wood, among others). (It has been discussed critically by M.C. Dillon.) In Being and Time, Heidegger distinguishes the vulgar and traditional understanding of which determines time as a series of nows, and beings as having their being within time, from the primordial time of the authentic temporality of Dasein. His charge is that the metaphysical tradition, in interpreting Being in terms of presence, overlooks primordial time. In Ousia and Gramme, Derrida develops a complex strategy. On the one hand, he offers readings of the treatments of time in Aristotle and Hegel, with the aim of showing that precisely as they commit themselves to the primacy of the present, moments in their texts simultaneously undermine this very commitment. What Aristotle has set down, then, is both traditional metaphysical security, and, in its inaugural ambiguity, the critique of this security. …