Category: Linguistics
Interpreting Derrida: “There is no outside-text”
"There is no outside-text".
Since I am reading so much about Jacques Derrida it is only fitting to post on his philosophy. I am doing this for two reasons: (1) so that if I am wrong someone out there can correct my understanding and (2) if someone comes along later doing research on the subject this may help.
The first area of Derrida’s thought upon which I’d like to comment is his statement “there is no outside-text” (il n’y a pas de hors-texte). This last week a classmate of mine mentioned this statement (see here). He applied it to the study of biblical text by saying that essentially, if we follow Derrida, there is no reason to try to understand things like (a) authorial intent, (b) intended audience, (c) historical context, and so forth. There have been some biblical scholars–namely folk like John Sailhamer and Ray Lubeck–who have said “read the text”. Their argument is that we have the text, but we do not have the author, or the audience, or the historical events surrounding the composition of the text. We have the text so study the text.
If we interpret Derrida to say “there is no outside-text” as if it is applicable to only to how we approach things like studying biblical literature or other literature we will miss the point. Derrida is not saying that (a) there is no way of understanding things outside of written text, as if having a live one-on-one conversation is meaningless or (b) that if we are seeking to reconstruct meaning in a written text that all we have is “text” and therefore author, audience, and context are meaningless. This is missing the point of Derrida’s statement as I understand most scholars of his work to understand him.
Rather, Derrida is correcting what he perceived to be a mistaken notion since at least the time of Plato to the present, namely that verbal communication is more direct than written communication. Most scholars of language have understood audio-communication to have a shorter distance between signifier and signified. In other words, we can move from the speaker’s intent to the words used with less resistance. All the words that come from a speaker’s mouth have to point toward is back to the thought of the speaker.
This has led many to degrade written communication as even further away from the intent of the communicator. If written communication is marks-and-dashes that function as signifiers for audio words then the process is as such:
[THOUGHT --> AUDIO SYMBOL --> WRITING]
As we see from this model writing is at least an additional step away from verbal communication. Derrida rejects this. He does not see verbal communication as being as more direct than written communication. Both verbal and written communication have an infinite distance of possible means of interpretation between the thought and that which is communicated. Even psychoanalysis cannot retrieve the pure signified.
If verbal communication, or hand signals, or facial expressions must be interpreted these are no better than written text. Therefore, “there is no outside-text”. Derrida does not mean there is nothing outside of writing; he means that everything, like text, can be interpreted multiple ways and is never a pure signifier of the signified.
As an example, let us consider a lie. Is a lie spoken any easier to understand than a lie written? There are so many factors that go into uncovering the truthfulness of a statement and whether or not a statement matches the thought that was in the speaker’s mind. OR have you misspoken? Did you say something that you did not mean? If so, then we can see the distance between your “thought” (the signified) and your statement (the signifier) still has a great gulf fixed between the two.
This is not to say all communication is meaningless. Nor does Derrida say that we should not attempt to understand a speaker or writer because miscommunication happens. What he does want to avoid is the idea that language somehow purely encapsulates thought and that verbal communication is in need of less interpretation than the written form.
Derrida “Defining” Deconstruction
Since I have been trying to understand what Derrida meant by “deconstruction” (see here) it was fun running across this video on YouTube where Derrida is asked about deconstruction. In contrast with the quotation I shared that presented deconstruction as parasitic, Derrida says that it is, “to not naturalize what isn’t natural–to not assume that what is conditioned by history, institutions, or society is natural.”
When reading a text then this does not mean Derrida sought to denounce meaning, or that he did not see understanding as possible, but in some sense it appears that he asks us to read text with a critical eye. I see value in this aspect of deconstruction. When reading The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, or The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx, it would do a committed capitalist or communist well to deconstruct these text.
I know this doesn’t encapsulate deconstruction, but it is a valuable insight.
Is Deconstruction Merely Parasitic?
Derrida: One Confusing Philosopher
Over the last several weeks I have been wrestling with a definition for deconstruction as used by Jacques Derrida and his followers. I almost quit until I read this piece, again, from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (read the whole article here):
Deconstruction is parasitic in that rather than espousing yet another grand narrative, or theory about the nature of the world in which we partake, it restricts itself to distorting already existing narratives, and to revealing the dualistic hierarchies they conceal. While Derrida’s claims to being someone who speaks solely in the margins of philosophy can be contested, it is important to take these claims into account. Deconstruction is, somewhat infamously, the philosophy that says nothing.
Maybe I am now beginning to understand why Derrida refused to define deconstruction. If he defined deconstruction it would become something rather than nothing or it would become an overarching, guiding metanarrative itself rather than merely a critique of all such things. We can argue for or against his success in this matter, but this seems to make the most sense to me.
If you have read any Derrida, and you think you agree with what I presented here or you totally disagree, you opinion is very valuable to me. I need input.
Brain on Metaphors
Robert Sapolsky, Professor of Biology, Neurology, and Neurosurgery at Stanford University, has written an interesting article on how our brain handles metaphorical speech. For those interested in interpretation this is a worthy read. Also, I’d pay attention to how the content of this article applies to your understanding of the sacraments. Here is an excerpt:
Symbols, metaphors, analogies, parables, synecdoche, figures of speech: we understand them. We understand that a captain wants more than just hands when he orders all of them on deck. We understand that Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” isn’t really about a cockroach. If we are of a certain theological ilk, we see bread and wine intertwined with body and blood. We grasp that the right piece of cloth can represent a nation and its values, and that setting fire to such a flag is a highly charged act. We can learn that a certain combination of sounds put together by Tchaikovsky represents Napoleon getting his butt kicked just outside Moscow. And that the name “Napoleon,” in this case, represents thousands and thousands of soldiers dying cold and hungry, far from home.
And we even understand that June isn’t literally busting out all over. It would seem that doing this would be hard enough to cause a brainstorm. So where did this facility with symbolism come from? It strikes me that the human brain has evolved a necessary shortcut for doing so, and with some major implications.
Read the rest here.
With So Many Commentaries Does Anyone “Know” the Text?
Over the years it has been my experience that I think I understand a biblical text only to realize after obtaining new data that I was either very mistaken or partial in my understanding. This is a process documented by Grant Osbourne in the Hermeneutical Spiral and as I understand was something addressed by philosophers such as Wittgenstein and Gadamer. We have a “horizon” of language, culture, and time from which the author writes and the “horizon” of language, culture, and time from which we read. Often the task of hermeneutics is described as trying to bring these horizons together over time in a cycle of presuppositions to new data to new presuppositions and so forth.
When I want to know more about the Book of Genesis, or the Epistle to the Romans, or the Book of Revelation it would seem that one of the first tasks would be to find a good commentary. Anyone who has done this knows there are dozens upon hundreds of commentaries available. Where two authors may agree on one or two parts of a given text it does not seem possible for the entire text to ever be understood the same by any two people. This has been somewhat problematic for me.
It is not troublesome because I expect the opposite. It is troublesome because I wonder if the whole project of commentary writing is as valuable as we make it to be. If there are hundred people reading one text and it results in ninety-eight opinions what is the purpose of you formulating your own ideas? Do you see this as a worthwhile endeavor and if so, why? Or do you think there is another approach to the biblical text–for scholarship and the church–that would be more profitable?
I think commentary and journal article reading is worthwhile but mostly because I want to formulate my own opinions and be prepared for discussion and dialog on a given text. Is there more to it that this? What do you think?
