The Paradox of Ipseity and Difference: Derrida's Deconstruction and Logocentrism

• Main Author: Roland Theuas S. Pada
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Santo Tomas 2007-06-01
• Series: Kritike: An Online Journal of Philosophy
• Subjects: Jacques Derrida; logocentrism; deconstruction
• Online Access: http://www.kritike.org/journal/issue_1/pada_june2007.pdf

In thinking of Derrida's notion of deconstruction as an attitude in understanding logocentrism, one might find it necessary to pre-empt this discourse by taking into serious consideration three words: center, consciousness, and difference. These words offer the key towards the problem of logocentrism within Derrida's deconstruction and, as far as these words seem to contextualize themselves within Derrida's texts, they also offer an explanation of how meaning becomes possible. Derrida's deconstruction is a form of writing in which the "I-ness" of the self is given emphasis as both the limitation and possibility of appropriation in so far as context is concerned. Reading for him is already considered as an act of writing, the text, being polysemic in its inscription, already implies that the repetition of the syntax of words will always be rendered by the consciousness with a relative amount of impurity. Every instance of reading then is a form of writing, each time an Other tries to read the singularity of the construction of the text, it is already altered as another occurrence within another consciousness.