Jacques Derrida on the Metaphysics of Presence
I interpret (or “read”) the term “metaphysics of presence” as referring to the (philosophical) belief that there is a strict and determinate one-to-one relation between between a word (or concept) and our knowledge — or cognisance - of its meaning. I also believe that Jacques Derrida stretched this idea out to include many (or even all) aspects of Western philosophy — dating back to the ancient Greeks.
In clearer terms, Derrida claimed that this Western fixation (or belief) is that we can gain a precise and exact grasp of what a word (or concept) means. (Or, more broadly and concretely, what words like “truth”, “justice”, “knowledge”, etc. mean.) Yet in the case of words (or concepts), that’s impossible because they bear a stronger relation to other words (or concepts) than they do to their (abstract) meanings. (Or, in Derrida’s own — early — jargon, “signifiers” bear a stronger relation to other signifiers than they do to what they “signify” or to the “signified”.) What you get, then, is a kind of semantic holism in which a word’s meaning (as it were) ripples out to all the other words in the given language (langue or system) — or at least to those words to which it is directly connected. That means that no one person (by virtue of such semantic holism) can fully grasp the meaning — or determine the complete meaning — of any word (or concept) he uses or even thinks about.
This lack of “presence” (see also “trace”) also applies (as already stated in parenthesis) to all philosophical concepts: such as truth, freedom, knowledge, God, etc. In other words, there is no metaphysics of presence.
Again, this means that there’s no fixed center to, for example, consciousness or to the self either in that any indeterminacy when it comes to words (or concepts) must spill over into indeterminacy about things. (Derrida, of course, never put it in precisely these words!) However, if this is just a denial of the self (or a critique of essentialism), then Derrida was hardly original in this respect. That’s because such a critique can be found in, to take just one example, David Hume . In addition, philosophical anti/non-essentialism itself dates back to the ancient Greeks. As for Derrida’s semantic holism and the “indeterminacy of meaning” (here I use terms Derrida would never have used), variations on these theses can be found throughout 20th century analytic philosophy.
Of course Derrida’s views on the self or consciousness and his anti-essentialism generally are (somewhat) separable from his views on the metaphysics of presence (which I’ve commented upon); though there are obvious connections.
Derrida’s Prose Style
Despite all the above, it’s difficult to understand Derrida. Therefore it’s also difficult to know if anything I’ve just written is correct.
This means that I may well have “misread” what Derrida meant by metaphysics of presence. (Derrida once said that “all our readings are misreadings”.) But I’d say that’s mainly his own fault. If Derrida’s prose had been clearer, then there would be no large-scale misreadings of his ideas (if there can be such a thing — according to Derrida’s own lights) on my own and other people’s parts. (That said, all philosophers are misread to some extent — according to other readers.) In addition, Derrida and his fans/admirers can hardly be intolerant and authoritarian about my critical reading of his work because that would go against certain of Derrida’s own values and ideas. But, here again, I may have misread them too. That said, when Derrida found even the seemingly positive readings of his work in any way politically suspect, he raged against them too (see here.)
What’s more, because this piece is partly (or just vaguely) critical (as well as the fact that I’m well outside Derrida’s philosophical/literary tradition), his tribal fans in the Academy — as well as elsewhere — will go over this with a finer tooth comb that they would otherwise do… not that many (or even any) such people will ever read this.
In any case, Derrida’s work has been expressed more clearly by commentators — though Derrida’s acolytes will no doubt argue that these expressions are many rungs down the ladder from the Master himself. And arguably Derrida gained more from such “translations” (because they were “disseminated” more widely) than he ever did from keeping his prose deconstructively pure - and therefore only available to a tiny group of his (nearly always academic) faithful followers.
So I don’t think that the misreadings of Derrida have everything to do with the complexity or deepness of his thought. Often what he says (if only after you’ve attempted to unpack it) is fairly obvious and sometimes even truistic. Either that or it’s been said before by other philosophers. Of course this isn’t to say that no other philosopher has ever repeated what previous philosophers have argued.
What is different with Derrida is his (“deconstructive”) prose style; which largely belongs to a particular Continental (specifically French) tradition. Partly because of that you’ll find endless neologisms, convoluted sentences, name-droppings, “word play”, etc; which, to those outside Derrida’s fanbase, will prove to be flummoxing. In addition, there’s a strong sense of one-upmanship, outflanking, pretentiousness, being deliberately outré, self-conscious philosophical radicalism, excess, linguistic exhibitionism, point-scoring against the last (usually French too) “radical philosopher” who’s just died (or gone out of fashion), etc. which also makes Derrida’s work hard to understand — at least as far as most (educated) readers are concerned. However, if you’d said all that to Derrida himself (or to a admirer/follower of Derrida), you probably wouldn’t be able to understand his reply either. (Another admirer or follower of Derrida would — perhaps! — understand it.) And that, no doubt, would have been precisely Derrida’s intention.
Final Note on the Opening Teen Meme
It’s quite possible that Derrida would have taken the claim that he fucked minds (not my meme or claim) as some kind of compliment. Of course Derrida would never have said, “I take that as a compliment.” He would, instead, have said the same thing in pretentious deconstructionese; perhaps to hide the simplicity and possible banality of his words.
