French philosopher Jacques Derrida identifies as his forerunners Nietzsche, Freud, and Martin Heidegger.
--> Nietzsche did away with such concepts as being and truth, showing them to be arbitrary and in constant play.
--> Freud did away with the faith that the subjective self (or
consciousness) can function as a logocentric presence or a transcendental self.
--> Heidegger did away with the metaphysical concept of being as presence, of an eternal, pre-existent I AM.
Like Sartre, he argued that “existence precedes essence.”
Derrida, in deconstructing a higher meaning and a transcendental truth is simultaneously breaking with the two main traditions of Western philosophy: Plato and Christianity.
For Derrida, a state of deconstruction is not a negative state that should call for a nostalgic longing for meaning or presence.
It is, rather, positive; it marks (as in Nietzsche) “the joyous
affirmation of the play of the world and of the innocence of becoming.”
It frees us from being bound by any fixed truths or origins; it frees us too from any guilt we might feel over the absence of meaning.
In this affirmation, Derrida is much like existentialist Jean-
Paul Sartre who felt that the absence of a higher plan or
purpose in our lives did not render life meaningless but made our choices even more vital.
Source credit: Louis Markos, PhD
--> Nietzsche did away with such concepts as being and truth, showing them to be arbitrary and in constant play.
--> Freud did away with the faith that the subjective self (or
consciousness) can function as a logocentric presence or a transcendental self.
--> Heidegger did away with the metaphysical concept of being as presence, of an eternal, pre-existent I AM.
Like Sartre, he argued that “existence precedes essence.”
Derrida, in deconstructing a higher meaning and a transcendental truth is simultaneously breaking with the two main traditions of Western philosophy: Plato and Christianity.
For Derrida, a state of deconstruction is not a negative state that should call for a nostalgic longing for meaning or presence.
It is, rather, positive; it marks (as in Nietzsche) “the joyous
affirmation of the play of the world and of the innocence of becoming.”
It frees us from being bound by any fixed truths or origins; it frees us too from any guilt we might feel over the absence of meaning.
In this affirmation, Derrida is much like existentialist Jean-
Paul Sartre who felt that the absence of a higher plan or
purpose in our lives did not render life meaningless but made our choices even more vital.
Source credit: Louis Markos, PhD
