Abstract
While Wittgenstein crafts a method of thinking, Derrida constructs the linguistic structure of philosophy within literature. In his view, philosophy exists solely within language and the language of the pen is the primary form. Language, then, for both philosophers, is the sole arbiter of philosophy. Without language, there can be no salient thought. Language and thought combine to create a form, but not a substance. Wittgenstein worked within the form; Derrida worked to provide the substance. On discourse in thought and the use of language, Wittgenstein and Derrida differed at least slightly.

Abstract
This paper examines how Derrida applies his process of deconstruction to the term "animal." It looks at how Derrida asserts that "animal" and "human" did not always represent two distinct categories; rather, there are humans, mice, monkeys, snakes, etc., and a human is no more different from a mouse than a snake is from an elephant. The paper also discusses how, when Judeo-Christian thought became dominant, the concept of "the animal" came into existence as an absolute other and, with this linguistic separation, came a psychical divide that caused us to lose touch with the dark, mysterious, "animal" which resides deep inside of ourselves.

Outline:
Introduction
Derrida On Lacan: The Animal Cannot Cover Up Its Tracks. But Can The Human?
The Seer
The Great Disavowal

From the Paper
"An animal's relationship to the world is limited by its "disinhibitors" - its inner drives that render it completely passive to its bodily demands. Heidegger calls this state of passivity "captivation." The animal is completely at one with its disinhibitor - it does not have the reflexive ability to step back from its drives and perceive that it is controlled by them. Because it cannot see outside of its "disinhibiting ring," it only perceives the world insofar as it relates to its own instinctual demands. Not being able to escape this state of stupefaction, objects only exist for the animal in relation to its present needs. Unable to step out of its disinhibiting ring, it cannot perceive objects as existing in themselves, as more than a means to serve the ends of its disinhibitors. Passivity with respect to its disinhibitor implies passivity with respect to objects in the world - it must use and perceive them only insofar as its disinhibiting ring requires. "

Tags:deconstruction, linguistics, genealogy, animal-rights, post-structuralism

Abstract
The paper exposes certain key and central issues present in "Differance" that place the work in a framework in which it can be clearly understood. The paper shows how Derrida moves beyond the dualism of traditional Western thought to expose a view of reality which assumes that there is a permanent truth that can be discerned behind appearance. The paper examines Derrida's belief that meaning and truth are not static and that understanding reality through language is not a simple matter of connecting the signifier with the signified or the word and its apparent designated meaning.

Outline:
Preamble
Understanding the text of Differance

From the Paper
"Philosophy and Western thought has for centuries, since Platonic idealism, wrestled with the concept of a dualistic view of reality. The Platonic view of the ideal and the real forms constitute the underlying basis of Western thought. An implicit and critical part of Platonic thought is the separation between common reality and the ideal forms and Truth. This separation between being and Being is also, for Heidegger, the fundamental structure of Western metaphysics. The assumption of duality and reason as modes of reality in modern thought was radically questioned by Nietzsche and later in the works of Jacques Derrida and Martin Heidegger, among others."

Tags:Plato, dualism, reality, being, meaning

From the Paper
"Jacques Derrida, French critic and philosopher, argues that a science of writing can never exist because a completely coherent system depends on the what he says is the metaphysical possibility of the full presence of certain fundamental elements, while writing in his view "ruptures" full presence and thus makes a coherent system impossible. Derrida then concludes that simplicity should not be given privilege over difference and that the apprehension of full presence in the interior of the individual soul is merely imaginary.

Derrida begins with the statement that the concept of writing should define the field of a science (Derrida 27), and a science of writing, he says, should look for its object at the roots of scientificity. He says that the history of writing would turn back to the origin of historicity and stand as a ..."

Abstract
This paper examines whether it is justified for literary scholars to critique Derrida and post-structuralism as apolitical. It is evident that such criticism is accurate, for Derrida's theory of language holds that there is no inherent relationship between the linguistic signifier and the signified. The paper shows that this is broad implications, for accepting this denial of a relationship between signifier and signified requires acknowledgement that the meaning of a word issues from the structure of language itself.

From the Paper
"In analyzing whether it is justified for literary scholars to critique Derrida and post-structuralism as apolitical, it is evident that such criticism is accurate, for Derrida's theory of language holds that there is no inherent relationship between the linguistic signifier and the signified. This is broad implications, for accepting this denial of a relationship between signifier and signified requires acknowledgement that the meaning of a word issues from the structure of language itself. Even more implications ensue because of Derrida's argument that words gain their meaning through the process of difference, which he described as a dual process involving differing and deferring. In this theoretical process, every element has to refer to the other element in order to define itself."

Tags:derrida, and, lunatics

Abstract
This paper contends that Aristotle and Derrida both devote a great deal of attention to the issue of friendship. This paper analyzes both men's opinions on the question of whether reciprocity is necessary in friendship.

Tags:aristotle, derrida, friendship

Abstract
This paper explains that, stressing the specific structure of scientific revolutions, Thomas S. Kuhn's structural account of the production of scientific knowledge constructs a generalized picture of the process by which a science is born and undergoes change and development. The author points out that Jacques Derrida's deconstructive viewpoint on structure complicates Kuhn's account of normal versus revolutionary science because Derrida opposes reason from the inside. The paper relates that Derrida's analysis of the construct of structure decenters Kuhn's notion of a paradigm in which Kuhn believes normal science takes place; that paradigm itself represents a fixed origin, which Derrida insists cannot exist independently.

From the Paper
"In order to fully understand how Derrida's deconstruction of discourse relates to Kuhn's structure of scientific revolutions, one must first analyze the process Kuhn exemplifies. For Kuhn, the production of scientific knowledge undergoes six main steps. The first is a pre-paradigm stage in which the natural phenomena that later form the subject matter of a science are studied and explained from widely differing points of view. Next comes the emergence of a paradigm that is published by recognized scientists and defines the concepts and methods of research appropriate to the study of those particular phenomena. The third stage in the development of scientific knowledge is a period of normal science in which theories are explored and scientific puzzles are solved. A critical stage is the discovery of new phenomena that violate the expectations of that particular paradigm."

Tags:paradigm, deconstruction, anomalies, rules, process

Abstract
This paper discusses postmodern philosophy and the term "differance," which was coined by Jacques Derrida to challenge the totalitarian view of being and attempt a more authentic description of our existence. The writer explains differance, which Derrida insisted does not have any kind of form, using several types of examples. The paper concludes that Derrida calls on us to remain disturbed - to keep us focused on the deferred presence-ing that ultimately leads us to the absolute.

From the Paper
"Post-modernism realizes that there is an open world out there. The metaphysics of being does not singly define the world that we live in. Instead there is a "breaking open" of long-held beliefs that we have grown accustomed to. This means then that the ground that we have all been relying upon has been removed. An imagery of the rug being swept under one's feet comes into mind. Derrida is an example of such a man who sweeps the rug and makes one off balance. It is his concept of the play of differance that seeks to replace the totality of being. Derrida then enjoins us not to fall trap to a totalitarian view of the whole but rather to a constant dynamism that truly characterizes our existence."

Tags:fixity totality concept paradigm science hospitality, constant flux, becoming justice

Abstract
This paper examines these three books and evaluates each in terms of its political feasibility. It explains that these writers, especially Rawls and Derrida, are well known in philosophical circles as being among the top abstract social theorists, but it is difficult for us to see their ideas in a social context other than when they pause to criticize society in their work. It discusses how Rorty considers himself to be among the premier "neo-pragmatists" and draws upon the tradition of Dewey. Derrida first came to the United States as a celebrity in philosophical quarters as he helped invent linguistic deconstruction. Rawls was Harvard's premier theorist, along with his contemporary, Robert Nozick, in the early 1970's.

From the Paper
"Richard Rorty is a self-described "neo-pragmatist," who considers himself a dutiful disciple of William James and John Dewey. James and Dewey were notably different from Rorty's contemporaries as he describes them; instead of limiting the study of philosophy to the abstract realm of discussing minor logical or epistemological points, James and Dewey proposed broad-sweeping social changes that were predicated on ideas of social embetterment. James, the first of these, proposed that the meaning of ideas is found only in terms of their possible consequences. Rorty expands this to a contrarian attack on the effete distance maintained by intellectuals from the goal of building an American democracy based on mutual improvement. Rorty proposes a "liberal utopia," but rather than believing that it is not so much the destiny of human nature or of history, he opines that it is simply the best idea that men have produced from the objectives for which they work."

Tags:linguistic

Abstract
Analysis of how Thomas Hardy's poem, "I Look into My Glass," illustrates Jacques Derrida's belief that it is a function of language that words and concepts do not have a perfect 1-to-1 relationship.

From the Paper
"Jacques Derrida's "The Exorbitant. Question of Method" from "Of Grammatology" articulates the concept of the supplement out of the writing of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Derrida views the usage of the word "supplement" as having both negative and positive meanings in Rousseau's work. The multiple meanings present in Rousseau's text are used to explain the ambiguity of written words. Ambiguity is not seen as writing's problem but rather its function. Derrida then goes on to enunciate how this function is both problematic and necessary. His characterization goes quite strongly against the idea of logos, that ideal of unity between thought and expression that is thought to be available in the presence of speech. Thomas Hardy's poem "I Look Into My Glass" can be used to display the necessary ambiguity of the absent language of writing, and how the interpretative dance is problematized because through textual interaction with the world meaning is endlessly deferred."

Tags:dictionary, signifying, structure, form, reader, reading, authorial, intention, shape