Bulk francium has never been seen. Because of the general
appearance of the other elements in its periodic table column, it is
presumed that francium would appear as a highly reactive metal, if
enough could be collected together to be viewed as a bulk solid or
liquid. Obtaining such a sample is highly improbable, since the extreme
heat of decay resulting from its short half-life would immediately
vaporize any viewable quantity of the element.
Francium was discovered by Marguerite Perey in France (from which the element takes its name) in 1939. Prior to its discovery, it was referred to as eka-caesium or ekacaesium
because of its conjectured existence below caesium in the periodic
table. It was the last element first discovered in nature, rather than
by synthesis. Outside the laboratory, francium is extremely rare, with trace amounts found in uranium and thorium ores, where the isotope francium-223 continually forms and decays. As little as 20–30 g (one ounce) exists at any given time throughout the Earth's crust;
aside from francium-221, its other isotopes are entirely synthetic. The
largest amount produced in the laboratory was a cluster of more than
300,000 atoms.
Characteristics
Francium is one of the most unstable of the naturally occurring elements: its longest-lived isotope, francium-223, has a half-life of only 22 minutes. The only comparable element is astatine,
whose most stable natural isotope, astatine-219 (the alpha daughter of
francium-223), has a half-life of 56 seconds, although synthetic
astatine-210 is much longer-lived with a half-life of 8.1 hours. All isotopes of francium decay into astatine, radium, or radon.
Francium-223 also has a shorter half-life than the longest-lived
isotope of each synthetic element up to and including element 105, dubnium.
Francium is an alkali metal whose chemical properties mostly resemble those of caesium. A heavy element with a single valence electron, it has the highest equivalent weight of any element. Liquid francium—if created—should have a surface tension of 0.05092 N/m at its melting point. Francium's melting point was estimated to be around 8.0 °C (46.4 °F); a value of 27 °C (81 °F) is also often encountered. The melting point is uncertain because of the element's extreme rarity and radioactivity; a different extrapolation based on Dmitri Mendeleev's
method gave 20 ± 1.5 °C (68.0 ± 2.7 °F). The estimated boiling point of
620 °C (1,148 °F) is also uncertain; the estimates 598 °C (1,108 °F)
and 677 °C (1,251 °F), as well as the extrapolation from Mendeleev's
method of 640 °C (1,184 °F), have also been suggested. The density of francium is expected to be around 2.48 g/cm3 (Mendeleev's method extrapolates 2.4 g/cm3).
Linus Pauling estimated the electronegativity of francium at 0.7 on the Pauling scale, the same as caesium;
the value for caesium has since been refined to 0.79, but there are no
experimental data to allow a refinement of the value for francium. Francium has a slightly higher ionization energy than caesium, 392.811(4) kJ/mol as opposed to 375.7041(2) kJ/mol for caesium, as would be expected from relativistic effects, and this would imply that caesium is the less electronegative of the two. Francium should also have a higher electron affinity than caesium and the Fr− ion should be more polarizable than the Cs− ion.
Compounds
Due to francium being very unstable, its salts are only known to a small extent. Francium coprecipitates with several caesium salts, such as caesium perchlorate,
which results in small amounts of francium perchlorate. This
coprecipitation can be used to isolate francium, by adapting the
radiocaesium coprecipitation method of Lawrence E. Glendenin and C. M. Nelson. It will additionally coprecipitate with many other caesium salts, including the iodate, the picrate, the tartrate (also rubidium tartrate), the chloroplatinate, and the silicotungstate. It also coprecipitates with silicotungstic acid, and with perchloric acid, without another alkali metal as a carrier, which leads to other methods of separation.
Francium perchlorate
Francium perchlorate is produced by the reaction of francium chloride and sodium perchlorate. The francium perchlorate coprecipitates with caesium perchlorate. This coprecipitation can be used to isolate francium, by adapting the radiocaesium coprecipitation method of Lawrence E. Glendenin and C. M. Nelson. However, this method is unreliable in separating thallium, which also coprecipitates with caesium. Francium perchlorate's entropy is expected to be 42.7 e.u.
Francium halides
Francium
halides are all soluble in water and are expected to be white solids.
They are expected to be produced by the reaction of the corresponding
halides. For example, francium chloride would be produced by the
reaction of francium and chlorine. Francium chloride has been studied as a pathway to separate francium from other elements, by using the high vapour pressure of the compound, although francium fluoride would have a higher vapour pressure.
Other compounds
Francium nitrate, sulfate, hydroxide, carbonate, acetate, and oxalate, are all soluble in water, while the iodate, picrate, tartrate, chloroplatinate, and silicotungstate are insoluble. The insolubility of these compounds are used to extract francium from other radioactive products, such as zirconium, niobium, molybdenum, tin, antimony, the method mentioned in the section above.
The CsFr molecule is predicted to have francium at the negative end of
the dipole, unlike all known heterodiatomic alkali metal molecules.
Francium superoxide (FrO2) is expected to have a more covalent character than its lighter congeners; this is attributed to the 6p electrons in francium being more involved in the francium–oxygen bonding.
The only double salt known of francium has the formula Fr9Bi2I9.
There are 34 known isotopes of francium ranging in atomic mass from 199 to 232. Francium has seven metastablenuclear isomers. Francium-223 and francium-221 are the only isotopes that occur in nature, with the former being far more common.
Francium-223 is the most stable isotope, with a half-life of 21.8 minutes, and it is highly unlikely that an isotope of francium with a longer half-life will ever be discovered or synthesized. Francium-223 is a fifth product of the uranium-235 decay series as a daughter isotope of actinium-227; thorium-227 is the more common daughter. Francium-223 then decays into radium-223 by beta decay (1.149 MeV decay energy), with a minor (0.006%) alpha decay path to astatine-219 (5.4 MeV decay energy).
Francium-221 has a half-life of 4.8 minutes. It is the ninth product of the neptunium decay series as a daughter isotope of actinium-225. Francium-221 then decays into astatine-217 by alpha decay (6.457 MeV decay energy).
The least stable ground state isotope is francium-215, with a half-life of 0.12 μs: it undergoes a 9.54 MeV alpha decay to astatine-211. Its metastable isomer, francium-215m, is less stable still, with a half-life of only 3.5 ns.
Applications
Due to its instability and rarity, there are no commercial applications for francium. It has been used for research purposes in the fields of chemistry
and of atomic structure. Its use as a potential diagnostic aid for various cancers has also been explored, but this application has been deemed impractical.
Francium's ability to be synthesized, trapped, and cooled, along with its relatively simple atomic structure, has made it the subject of specialized spectroscopy experiments. These experiments have led to more specific information regarding energy levels and the coupling constants between subatomic particles.
Studies on the light emitted by laser-trapped francium-210 ions have
provided accurate data on transitions between atomic energy levels which
are fairly similar to those predicted by quantum theory.
History
As early as 1870, chemists thought that there should be an alkali metal beyond caesium, with an atomic number of 87. It was then referred to by the provisional name eka-caesium.
Research teams attempted to locate and isolate this missing element,
and at least four false claims were made that the element had been found
before an authentic discovery was made.
Erroneous and incomplete discoveries
Soviet chemist Dmitry Dobroserdov
was the first scientist to claim to have found eka-caesium, or
francium. In 1925, he observed weak radioactivity in a sample of potassium,
another alkali metal, and incorrectly concluded that eka-caesium was
contaminating the sample (the radioactivity from the sample was from the
naturally occurring potassium radioisotope, potassium-40). He then published a thesis on his predictions of the properties of eka-caesium, in which he named the element russium after his home country. Shortly thereafter, Dobroserdov began to focus on his teaching career at the Polytechnic Institute of Odessa, and he did not pursue the element further.
The following year, English chemists Gerald J. F. Druce and Frederick H. Loring analyzed X-ray photographs of manganese(II) sulfate.
They observed spectral lines which they presumed to be of eka-caesium.
They announced their discovery of element 87 and proposed the name alkalinium, as it would be the heaviest alkali metal.
In 1930, Fred Allison of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute claimed to have discovered element 87 (in addition to 85) when analyzing pollucite and lepidolite using his magneto-optical machine. Allison requested that it be named virginium after his home state of Virginia, along with the symbols Vi and Vm. In 1934, H.G. MacPherson of UC Berkeley disproved the effectiveness of Allison's device and the validity of his discovery.
In 1936, Romanian physicist Horia Hulubei and his French colleague Yvette Cauchois also analyzed pollucite, this time using their high-resolution X-ray apparatus.
They observed several weak emission lines, which they presumed to be
those of element 87. Hulubei and Cauchois reported their discovery and
proposed the name moldavium, along with the symbol Ml, after Moldavia, the Romanian province where Hulubei was born. In 1937, Hulubei's work was criticized by American physicist F. H. Hirsh Jr.,
who rejected Hulubei's research methods. Hirsh was certain that
eka-caesium would not be found in nature, and that Hulubei had instead
observed mercury or bismuth X-ray lines. Hulubei insisted that his X-ray apparatus and methods were too accurate to make such a mistake. Because of this, Jean Baptiste Perrin, Nobel Prize winner and Hulubei's mentor, endorsed moldavium as the true eka-caesium over Marguerite Perey's
recently discovered francium. Perey took pains to be accurate and
detailed in her criticism of Hulubei's work, and finally she was
credited as the sole discoverer of element 87. All other previous purported discoveries of element 87 were ruled out due to francium's very limited half-life.
Perey's analysis
Eka-caesium was discovered on January 7, 1939, by Marguerite Perey of the Curie Institute in Paris, when she purified a sample of actinium-227
which had been reported to have a decay energy of 220 keV. Perey
noticed decay particles with an energy level below 80 keV. Perey thought
this decay activity might have been caused by a previously unidentified
decay product, one which was separated during purification, but emerged
again out of the pure actinium-227. Various tests eliminated the
possibility of the unknown element being thorium, radium, lead, bismuth, or thallium.
The new product exhibited chemical properties of an alkali metal (such
as coprecipitating with caesium salts), which led Perey to believe that
it was element 87, produced by the alpha decay of actinium-227. Perey then attempted to determine the proportion of beta decay to alpha decay in actinium-227. Her first test put the alpha branching at 0.6%, a figure which she later revised to 1%.
Perey named the new isotope actinium-K (it is now referred to as francium-223) and in 1946, she proposed the name catium (Cm) for her newly discovered element, as she believed it to be the most electropositivecation of the elements. Irène Joliot-Curie, one of Perey's supervisors, opposed the name due to its connotation of cat rather than cation; furthermore, the symbol coincided with that which had since been assigned to curium. Perey then suggested francium, after France. This name was officially adopted by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) in 1949, becoming the second element after gallium
to be named after France. It was assigned the symbol Fa, but this
abbreviation was revised to the current Fr shortly thereafter. Francium was the last element discovered in nature, rather than synthesized, following hafnium and rhenium. Further research into francium's structure was carried out by, among others, Sylvain Lieberman and his team at CERN in the 1970s and 1980s.
Occurrence
This sample of uraninite contains about 100,000 atoms (3.3×10−20 g) of francium-223 at any given time.
223Fr is the result of the alpha decay of 227Ac and can be found in trace amounts in uraniumminerals. In a given sample of uranium, there is estimated to be only one francium atom for every 1 × 1018 uranium atoms. It is also calculated that there is a total mass of at most 30 g of francium in the Earth's crust at any given time.
Production
Francium can be synthesized by a fusion reaction when a gold-197 target is bombarded with a beam of oxygen-18 atoms from a linear accelerator in a process originally developed at the physics department of the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1995. Depending on the energy of the oxygen beam, the reaction can yield francium isotopes with masses of 209, 210, and 211.
197Au + 18O → 209Fr + 6 n
197Au + 18O → 210Fr + 5 n
197Au + 18O → 211Fr + 4 n
A magneto-optical trap, which can hold neutral francium atoms for short periods of time.
The francium atoms leave the gold target as ions, which are neutralized by collision with yttrium and then isolated in a magneto-optical trap (MOT) in a gaseous unconsolidated state.
Although the atoms only remain in the trap for about 30 seconds before
escaping or undergoing nuclear decay, the process supplies a continual
stream of fresh atoms. The result is a steady state containing a fairly constant number of atoms for a much longer time. The original apparatus could trap up to a few thousand atoms, while a later improved design could trap over 300,000 at a time.
Sensitive measurements of the light emitted and absorbed by the trapped
atoms provided the first experimental results on various transitions
between atomic energy levels in francium. Initial measurements show very
good agreement between experimental values and calculations based on
quantum theory. The research project using this production method
relocated to TRIUMF in 2012, where over 106 francium atoms have been held at a time, including large amounts of 209Fr in addition to 207Fr and 221Fr.
Other synthesis methods include bombarding radium with neutrons, and bombarding thorium with protons, deuterons, or heliumions.
223Fr can also be isolated from samples of its parent 227Ac, the francium being milked via elution with NH4Cl–CrO3 from an actinium-containing cation exchanger and purified by passing the solution through a silicon dioxide compound loaded with barium sulfate.
Image of light emitted by a sample of 200,000 francium atoms in a magneto-optical trap
Heat image of 300,000 francium atoms in a magneto-optical trap, around 13 nanograms
In 1996, the Stony Brook group trapped 3000 atoms in their MOT, which
was enough for a video camera to capture the light given off by the
atoms as they fluoresce. Francium has not been synthesized in amounts large enough to weigh.
Implicate order and explicate order are ontological concepts for quantum theory coined by theoretical physicistDavid Bohm
during the early 1980s. They are used to describe two different
frameworks for understanding the same phenomenon or aspect of reality.
In particular, the concepts were developed in order to explain the
bizarre behaviors of subatomic particles which quantum physics describes and predicts with elegant precision but struggles to explain.
In Bohm's Wholeness and the Implicate Order,
he used these notions to describe how the appearance of such phenomena
might appear differently, or might be characterized by, varying
principal factors, depending on contexts such as scales.
The implicate (also referred to as the "enfolded") order is seen as a
deeper and more fundamental order of reality. In contrast, the explicate
or "unfolded" order includes the abstractions that humans normally
perceive. As he wrote:
In the enfolded [or implicate] order, space and time
are no longer the dominant factors determining the relationships of
dependence or independence of different elements. Rather, an entirely
different sort of basic connection of elements is possible, from which
our ordinary notions of space and time, along with those of separately
existent material particles, are abstracted as forms derived from the
deeper order. These ordinary notions in fact appear in what is called
the "explicate" or "unfolded" order, which is a special and
distinguished form contained within the general totality of all the
implicate orders (Bohm 1980, p. xv).
Overview
The
notion of implicate and explicate orders emphasizes the primacy of
structure and process over individual objects. The latter are seen as
mere approximations of an underlying process. In this approach, quantum
particles and other objects are understood to have only a limited degree
of stability and autonomy.
Bohm believed that the weirdness of the behavior of quantum
particles is caused by unobserved forces, maintaining that space and
time might actually be derived from an even deeper level of objective
reality. In the words of F. David Peat,
Bohm considered that what we take for reality are "surface phenomena,
explicate forms that have temporarily unfolded out of an underlying
implicate order." That is, the implicate order is the ground from which
reality emerges.
The implicate order as an algebra
Bohm, his co-worker Basil Hiley, and other physicists of Birkbeck College worked toward a model of quantum physics in which the implicate order is represented in the form of an appropriate algebra or other pregeometry. They considered spacetime itself as part of an explicate order that is connected to an implicate order that they called pre-space. The spacetime manifold and the properties of locality and nonlocality
all arise from an order in such pre-space. A. M. Frescura and Hiley
suggested that an implicate order could be carried by an algebra, with
the explicate order being contained in the various representations of this algebra.
In analogy to Alfred North Whitehead's notion of "actual occasion," Bohm considered the notion of moment – a moment being a not entirely localizable event, with events being allowed to overlap and being connected in an overall implicate order:
I propose that each moment of time is a projection from the total implicate order. The term projection
is a particularly happy choice here, not only because its common
meaning is suitable for what is needed, but also because its
mathematical meaning as a projection operation, P, is just what is required for working out these notions in terms of the quantum theory.
Bohm emphasized the primary role of the implicate order's structure:
My attitude is that the mathematics of the quantum theory deals primarily
with the structure of the implicate pre-space and with how an explicate
order of space and time emerges from it, rather than with movements of
physical entities, such as particles and fields. (This is a kind of
extension of what is done in general relativity, which deals primarily
with geometry and only secondarily with the entities that are described
within this geometry.)
The explicate order and quantum entanglement
Central to Bohm's schema are correlations between observables of entities which seem separated by great distances in the explicate order (such as a particular electron here on earth and an alpha particle in one of the stars in the Abell 1835 galaxy,
then a possible candidate for farthest galaxy from Earth known to
humans), manifestations of the implicate order. Within quantum theory,
there is entanglement of such objects.
This view of order necessarily departs from any notion which
entails signalling, and therefore causality. The correlation of
observables does not imply a causal influence, and in Bohm's schema, the
latter represents 'relatively' independent events in spacetime; and
therefore explicate order.
A common grounding for consciousness and matter
Karl H. Pribram's research suggests that memories may not be localized in specific regions of brains
The implicate order represents the proposal of a general metaphysical concept in terms of which it is claimed that matter and consciousness
might both be understood, in the sense that it is proposed that both
matter and consciousness: (i) enfold the structure of the whole within
each region, and (ii) involve continuous processes of enfoldment and
unfoldment. For example, in the case of matter, entities such as atoms
may represent continuous enfoldment and unfoldment which manifests as a
relatively stable and autonomous entity that can be observed to follow a
relatively well-defined path in spacetime. In the case of
consciousness, Bohm pointed toward evidence presented by Karl Pribram that memories may be enfolded within every region of the brain rather than being localized (for example, in particular regions of the brain, cells, or atoms).
Bohm went on to say:
As in our discussion of matter
in general, it is now necessary to go into the question of how in
consciousness the explicate order is what is manifest ... the manifest
content of consciousness is based essentially on memory, which is what
allows such content to be held in a fairly constant form. Of course, to
make possible such constancy it is also necessary that this content be
organized, not only through relatively fixed association but also with
the aid of the rules of logic, and of our basic categories of space,
time, causality, universality, etc. ... there will be a strong
background of recurrent, stable, and separable features, against which
the transitory and changing aspects of the unbroken flow of experience
will be seen as fleeting impressions that tend to be arranged and
ordered mainly in terms of the vast totality of the relatively static
and fragmented content of [memories].
Bohm also claimed that "as with consciousness, each moment has a
certain explicate order, and in addition it enfolds all the others,
though in its own way. So the relationship of each moment in the whole
to all the others is implied by its total content: the way in which it
'holds' all the others enfolded within it." Bohm characterises
consciousness as a process in which at each moment, content that was
previously implicate is presently explicate, and content which was
previously explicate has become implicate.
One may indeed say that our memory is a special case of
the process described above, for all that is recorded is held enfolded
within the brain cells and these are part of matter in general. The
recurrence and stability of our own memory as a relatively independent
sub-totality is thus brought about as part of the very same process that
sustains the recurrence and stability in the manifest order of matter
in general. It follows, then, that the explicate and manifest order of
consciousness is not ultimately distinct from that of matter in general.
Analogies
Ink droplet analogy
Bohm also used the term unfoldment
to characterise processes in which the explicate order becomes relevant
(or "relevated"). Bohm likens unfoldment also to the decoding of a
television signal to produce a sensible image on a screen.
The signal, screen, and television electronics in this analogy
represent the implicate order, while the image produced represents the
explicate order. He also uses an example in which an ink droplet can be
introduced into a highly viscoussubstance (such as glycerine), and the substance rotated very slowly, such that there is negligible diffusion
of the substance. In this example, the droplet becomes a thread, which
in turn eventually becomes invisible. However, by rotating the
substance in the reverse direction, the droplet can essentially reform.
When it is invisible, according to Bohm, the order of the ink droplet
as a pattern can be said to be implicate within the substance.
In another analogy, Bohm asks us to consider a pattern produced
by making small cuts in a folded piece of paper and then, literally,
unfolding it. Widely separated elements of the pattern are, in
actuality, produced by the same original cut in the folded piece of
paper. Here, the cuts in the folded paper represent the implicate
order, and the unfolded pattern represents the explicate order.
In a holographic reconstruction, each region of a photographic plate contains the whole image
Bohm employed the hologram as a means of characterising implicate order, noting that each region of a photographic
plate in which a hologram is observable contains within it the whole
three-dimensional image, which can be viewed from a range of
perspectives. That is, each region contains a whole and undivided image.
In Bohm's words:
There is the germ of a new notion of order here. This
order is not to be understood solely in terms of a regular arrangement
of objects (e.g., in rows) or as a regular arrangement of events (e.g.,
in a series). Rather, a total order is contained, in some implicit
sense, in each region of space and time. Now, the word 'implicit' is
based on the verb 'to implicate'. This means 'to fold inward' ... so we
may be led to explore the notion that in some sense each region contains
a total structure 'enfolded' within it".
Bohm noted that, although the hologram conveys undivided wholeness, it is nevertheless static.
In this view of order, laws represent invariant relationships
between explicate entities and structures, and thus Bohm maintained
that, in physics, the explicate order generally reveals itself within
well-constructed experimental contexts as, for example, in the sensibly
observable results of instruments. With respect to implicate order,
however, Bohm asked us to consider the possibility instead "that
physical law should refer primarily to an order of undivided wholeness
of the content of description similar to that indicated by the hologram
rather than to an order of analysis of such content into separate
parts...".
Implicate order in art
In the work Science, Order, and Creativity
(Bohm and Peat, 1987), examples of implicate orders in science are laid
out, as well as implicate orders which relate to painting, poetry and
music.
Bohm and Peat emphasize the role of orders of varying complexity,
which influence the perception of a work of art as a whole. They note
that implicate orders are accessible to human experience.
They refer, for instance, to earlier notes which reverberate when
listening to music, or various resonances of words and images which are
perceived when reading or hearing poetry.
Christopher Alexander discussed his work in person with Bohm, and pointed out connections among his work and Bohm's notion of an implicate order in The Nature of Order.
Bohm features as a fictional character in the novel The Wave by British author Lochlan Bloom. The novel includes multiple narratives and explores many of the concepts of Bohm's work on implicate and explicate orders.
Challenges to some generally prevailing views
In
proposing this new notion of order, Bohm explicitly challenged a number
of tenets that he believed are fundamental to much scientific work:
that phenomena are reducible to fundamental particles and laws describing the behaviour of particles, or more generally to any static (i.e., unchanging) entities, whether separate events in spacetime, quantum states, or static entities of some other nature;
related to (1), that human knowledge is most fundamentally concerned with mathematical prediction of statistical aggregates of particles;
that an analysis or description of any aspect of reality (e.g., quantum theory, the speed of light) can be unlimited in its domain of relevance;
that the Cartesian coordinate system, or its extension to a curvilinear system, is the deepest conception of underlying order as a basis for analysis and description of the world;
that there is ultimately a sustainable distinction between reality and thought, and that there is a corresponding distinction between the observer and observed in an experiment
or any other situation (other than a distinction between relatively
separate entities valid in the sense of explicate order); and
that it is, in principle, possible to formulate a final notion concerning the nature of reality, i.e., a Theory of Everything.
A
hydrogen atom and its constituent particles: an example of an
over-simplified way of looking at a small collection of posited building
blocks of the universe
Bohm's proposals have at times been dismissed largely on the basis of such tenets.
His paradigm is generally opposed to reductionism, and some view it as a form of ontologicalholism.
On this, Bohm noted of prevailing views among physicists that "the
world is assumed to be constituted of a set of separately existent,
indivisible, and unchangeable 'elementary particles', which are the
fundamental 'building blocks' of the entire universe ... there seems to
be an unshakable faith among physicists that either such particles, or
some other kind yet to be discovered, will eventually make possible a
complete and coherent explanation of everything" (Bohm 1980, p. 173).
In Bohm's conception of order, primacy is given to the undivided
whole, and the implicate order inherent within the whole, rather than to
parts of the whole, such as particles, quantum states, and continua.
This whole encompasses all things, structures,
abstractions, and processes, including processes that result in
(relatively) stable structures as well as those that involve a
metamorphosis of structures or things. In this view, parts may be
entities normally regarded as physical, such as atoms or subatomic particles, but they may also be abstract
entities, such as quantum states. Whatever their nature and character,
according to Bohm, these parts are considered in terms of the whole,
and in such terms, they constitute relatively separate and independent
"sub-totalities." The implication of the view is, therefore, that
nothing is fundamentally separate or independent.
Bohm 1980,
p. 11, said: "The new form of insight can perhaps best be called
Undivided Wholeness in Flowing Movement. This view implies that flow is
in some sense prior to that of the ‘things’ that can be seen to form
and dissolve in this flow." According to Bohm, a vivid image of this
sense of analysis of the whole is afforded by vortex structures in a flowing stream. Such vortices can be relatively stable patterns
within a continuous flow, but such an analysis does not imply that the
flow patterns have any sharp division, or that they are literally
separate and independently existent entities; rather, they are most
fundamentally undivided. Thus, according to Bohm’s view, the whole is
in continuous flux, and hence is referred to as the holomovement (movement of the whole).
...in relativity, movement is continuous, causally
determinate and well defined, while in quantum mechanics it is
discontinuous, not causally determinate and not well-defined. Each
theory is committed to its own notions of essentially static and
fragmentary modes of existence (relativity to that of separate events
connectible by signals,
and quantum mechanics to a well-defined quantum state). One thus sees
that a new kind of theory is needed which drops these basic commitments
and at most recovers some essential features of the older theories as
abstract forms derived from a deeper reality in which what prevails is
unbroken wholeness.
Bohm maintained that relativity and quantum theories are in basic contradiction
in these essential respects, and that a new concept of order should
begin with that toward which both theories point: undivided wholeness.
This should not be taken to mean that he advocated such powerful
theories be discarded. He argued that each was relevant in a certain
context—i.e., a set of interrelated conditions within the explicate
order—rather than having unlimited scope, and that apparent
contradictions stem from attempts to overgeneralize by superposing the
theories on one another, implying greater generality or broader
relevance than is ultimately warranted. Thus, Bohm 1980,
pp. 156–167 argued: "... in sufficiently broad contexts such analytic
descriptions cease to be adequate ... 'the law of the whole' will
generally include the possibility of describing the 'loosening' of
aspects from each other, so that they will be relatively autonomous in
limited contexts ... however, any form of relative autonomy (and heteronomy) is ultimately limited by holonomy,
so that in a broad enough context such forms are seen to be merely
aspects, relevated in the holomovement, rather than disjoint and
separately existent things in interaction."
Hidden variable theory
Before developing his implicit order approach, Bohm had proposed a hidden variable theory of quantum physics (see Bohm interpretation). According to Bohm, a key motivation for doing so had been purely to show the possibility of such theories. On this, Bohm 1980,
p. 81 said, "... it should be kept in mind that before this proposal
was made there had existed the widespread impression that no conception
of any hidden variable at all, not even if it were abstract and
hypothetical, could possibly be consistent with the quantum theory." Bohm 1980,
p. 110 also claimed that "the demonstration of the possibility of
theories of hidden variables may serve in a more general philosophical
sense to remind us of the unreliability of conclusions based on the
assumption of the complete universality of certain features of a given
theory, however general their domain of validity seems to be." Another
aspect of Bohm's motivation had been to point out a confusion he
perceived to exist in quantum theory. On the dominant approaches in
quantum theory, he said: "...we wish merely to point out that this whole
line of approach re-establishes at the abstract level of statistical
potentialities the same kind of analysis into separate and autonomous
components in interaction that is denied at the more concrete level of
individual objects" (Bohm 1980, p. 174).
The term deconstruction refers to approaches to understanding the relationship between text and meaning. It was originated by the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who defined it as a turn away from Platonism's
ideas of "true" forms and essences which take precedence over
appearances, instead considering the constantly changing complex
function of language, making static and idealist ideas of it inadequate.
Deconstruction instead places emphasis on the mere appearance of
language in both speech and writing, or suggests at least that essence
as it is called is to be found in its appearance, while it itself is
"undecidable", and everyday experiences cannot be empirically evaluated
to find the actuality of language.
Deconstruction argues that language, especially in idealist
concepts such as truth and justice, is irreducibly complex, unstable and
difficult to determine, making fluid and comprehensive ideas of
language more adequate in deconstructive criticism. Since the 1980s,
these proposals of language's fluidity instead of being ideally static
and discernible have inspired a range of studies in the humanities, including the disciplines of law, anthropology, historiography, linguistics, sociolinguistics, psychoanalysis, LGBT studies, and feminism. Deconstruction also inspired deconstructivism in architecture and remains important within art, music, and literary criticism.
According to Derrida, and taking inspiration from the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, language as a system of signs and words only has meaning because of the contrast between these signs. As Richard Rorty
contends, "words have meaning only because of contrast-effects with
other words...no word can acquire meaning in the way in which
philosophers from Aristotle to Bertrand Russell
have hoped it might—by being the unmediated expression of something
non-linguistic (e.g., an emotion, a sensed observation, a physical
object, an idea, a Platonic Form)".
As a consequence, meaning is never present, but rather is deferred to
other signs. Derrida refers to this—in his view, mistaken—belief there
is a self-sufficient, non-deferred meaning as metaphysics of presence.
A concept, then, must be understood in the context of its opposite: for
example, the word "being" does not have meaning without contrast with
the word "nothing".
Further, Derrida contends that "in a classical philosophical opposition we are not dealing with the peaceful coexistence of a vis-a-vis, but rather with a violent hierarchy. One of the two terms governs the other (axiologically, logically, etc.), or has the upper hand": signified over signifier; intelligible over sensible; speech over writing; activity over passivity, etc.
The first task of deconstruction is, according to Derrida, to find and
overturn these oppositions inside text(s); but the final objective of
deconstruction is not to surpass all oppositions, because it is assumed
they are structurally necessary to produce sense- the oppositions simply
cannot be suspended once and for all, as the hierarchy of dual
oppositions always reestablishes itself (because it is necessary to
meaning). Deconstruction, Derrida says, only points to the necessity of
an unending analysis that can make explicit the decisions and
hierarchies intrinsic to all texts.
Derrida further argues that it is not enough to expose and
deconstruct the way oppositions work and then stop there in a nihilistic
or cynical position, "thereby preventing any means of intervening in
the field effectively".
To be effective, deconstruction needs to create new terms, not to
synthesize the concepts in opposition, but to mark their difference and
eternal interplay. This explains why Derrida always proposes new terms
in his deconstruction, not as a free play but from the necessity of
analysis. Derrida called these undecidables—that is, unities of
simulacrum—"false" verbal properties (nominal or semantic) that can no
longer be included within philosophical (binary) opposition. Instead,
they inhabit philosophical oppositions—resisting and organizing them—without ever constituting a third term or leaving room for a solution in the form of a Hegelian dialectic (e.g., différance, archi-writing, pharmakon, supplement, hymen, gram, spacing).
Influences
Derrida's
theories on deconstruction were themselves influenced by the work of
linguists such as Ferdinand de Saussure (whose writings on semiotics also became a cornerstone of structuralism in the mid-20th century) and literary theorists such as Roland Barthes
(whose works were an investigation of the logical ends of structuralist
thought). Derrida's views on deconstruction stood in opposition to the
theories of structuralists such as psychoanalytic theoristJacques Lacan, and anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. However, Derrida resisted attempts to label his work as "post-structuralist".
Influence of Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Derrida's motivation for developing deconstructive criticism,
suggesting the fluidity of language over static forms, was largely
inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy, beginning with his interpretation of Orpheus. In Daybreak,
Nietzsche announces that "All things that live long are gradually so
saturated with reason that their origin in unreason thereby becomes
improbable. Does not almost every precise history of an origination
impress our feelings as paradoxical and wantonly offensive? Does the
good historian not, at bottom, constantly contradict?".
Nietzsche's point in Daybreak is that standing at the end
of modern history, modern thinkers know too much to continue to be
deceived by an illusory grasp of satisfactorily complete reason. Mere
proposals of heightened reasoning, logic, philosophizing and science are
no longer solely sufficient as the royal roads to truth. Nietzsche
disregards Platonism to revisualize the history of the West as the
self-perpetuating history of a series of political moves, that is, a
manifestation of the will to power,
that at bottom have no greater or lesser claim to truth in any noumenal
(absolute) sense. By calling our attention to the fact that he has
assumed the role of Orpheus, the man underground, in dialectical
opposition to Plato, Nietzsche hopes to sensitize us to the political
and cultural context, and the political influences that impact
authorship.
Where Nietzsche did not achieve deconstruction, as Derrida sees
it, is that he missed the opportunity to further explore the will to
power as more than a manifestation of the sociopolitically effective
operation of writing that Plato characterized, stepping beyond
Nietzsche's penultimate revaluation of all Western values, to the
ultimate, which is the emphasis on "the role of writing in the
production of knowledge".
Influence of Saussure
Derrida approaches all texts as constructed around elemental oppositions which all discourse has to articulate if it intends to make any sense whatsoever. This is so because identity is viewed in non-essentialist terms as a construct, and because constructs only produce meaning through the interplay of difference inside a "system of distinct signs". This approach to text is influenced by the semiology of Ferdinand de Saussure.
Saussure is considered one of the fathers of structuralism when he explained that terms get their meaning in reciprocal determination with other terms inside language:
In language there are only differences. Even more
important: a difference generally implies positive terms between which
the difference is set up; but in language there are only differences
without positive terms. Whether we take the signified or the signifier,
language has neither ideas nor sounds that existed before the linguistic
system, but only conceptual and phonic differences that have issued
from the system. The idea or phonic substance that a sign contains is of
less importance than the other signs that surround it. [...] A
linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a
series of differences of ideas; but the pairing of a certain number of
acoustical signs with as many cuts made from the mass thought engenders a
system of values.
Saussure explicitly suggested that linguistics was only a branch of a
more general semiology, a science of signs in general, human codes
being only one part. Nevertheless, in the end, as Derrida pointed out,
Saussure made linguistics "the regulatory model", and "for essential,
and essentially metaphysical, reasons had to privilege speech, and
everything that links the sign to phone". Derrida will prefer to follow the more "fruitful paths (formalization)"
of a general semiotics without falling into what he considered "a
hierarchizing teleology" privileging linguistics, and to speak of "mark"
rather than of language, not as something restricted to mankind, but as
prelinguistic, as the pure possibility of language, working everywhere
there is a relation to something else.
Deconstruction according to Derrida
Etymology
Derrida's original use of the word "deconstruction" was a translation of Destruktion, a concept from the work of Martin Heidegger
that Derrida sought to apply to textual reading. Heidegger's term
referred to a process of exploring the categories and concepts that
tradition has imposed on a word, and the history behind them.
Basic philosophical concerns
Derrida's concerns flow from a consideration of several issues:
A desire to contribute to the re-evaluation of all Western values, a re-evaluation built on the 18th-century Kantiancritique of pure reason, and carried forward to the 19th century, in its more radical implications, by Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.
An assertion that texts outlive their authors, and become part of a
set of cultural habits equal to, if not surpassing, the importance of
authorial intent.
A re-valuation of certain classic western dialectics: poetry vs. philosophy, reason vs. revelation, structure vs. creativity, episteme vs. techne, etc.
To this end, Derrida follows a long line of modern philosophers, who
look backwards to Plato and his influence on the Western metaphysical
tradition.
Like Nietzsche, Derrida suspects Plato of dissimulation in the service
of a political project, namely the education, through critical
reflections, of a class of citizens more strategically positioned to
influence the polis. However, like Nietzsche, Derrida is not satisfied
merely with such a political interpretation of Plato, because of the
particular dilemma modern humans find themselves in. His Platonic
reflections are inseparably part of his critique of modernity,
hence the attempt to be something beyond the modern, because of this
Nietzschean sense that the modern has lost its way and become mired in nihilism.
Différance is the observation that the meanings of words come from their synchrony with other words within the language and their diachrony
between contemporary and historical definitions of a word.
Understanding language, according to Derrida, requires an understanding
of both viewpoints of linguistic analysis. The focus on diachrony has
led to accusations against Derrida of engaging in the etymological fallacy.
There is one statement by Derrida—in an essay on Rousseau in Of Grammatology—which has been of great interest to his opponents. It is the assertion that "there is no outside-text" (il n'y a pas de hors-texte),
which is often mistranslated as "there is nothing outside of the text".
The mistranslation is often used to suggest Derrida believes that
nothing exists but words. Michel Foucault, for instance, famously misattributed to Derrida the very different phrase "Il n'y a rien en dehors du texte" for this purpose.[25] According to Derrida, his statement simply refers to the unavoidability of context that is at the heart of différance.
For example, the word "house" derives its meaning more as a
function of how it differs from "shed", "mansion", "hotel", "building",
etc. (Form of Content, that Louis Hjelmslev
distinguished from Form of Expression) than how the word "house" may be
tied to a certain image of a traditional house (i.e., the relationship
between signified and signifier),
with each term being established in reciprocal determination with the
other terms than by an ostensive description or definition: when can we
talk about a "house" or a "mansion" or a "shed"? The same can be said
about verbs, in all the languages in the world: when should we stop
saying "walk" and start saying "run"? The same happens, of course, with
adjectives: when must we stop saying "yellow" and start saying "orange",
or exchange "past" for "present"? Not only are the topological
differences between the words relevant here, but the differentials
between what is signified is also covered by différance.
Thus, complete meaning is always "differential" and postponed
in language; there is never a moment when meaning is complete and
total. A simple example would consist of looking up a given word in a
dictionary, then proceeding to look up the words found in that word's
definition, etc., also comparing with older dictionaries. Such a process
would never end.
Derrida describes the task of deconstruction as the identification of metaphysics of presence, or logocentrism
in western philosophy. Metaphysics of presence is the desire for
immediate access to meaning, the privileging of presence over absence.
This means that there is an assumed bias in certain binary oppositions
where one side is placed in a position over another, such as good over
bad, speech over the written word, male over female. Derrida writes,
Without a doubt, Aristotle thinks of time on the basis of ousia as parousia,
on the basis of the now, the point, etc. And yet an entire reading
could be organized that would repeat in Aristotle's text both this
limitation and its opposite.
To Derrida, the central bias of logocentrism was the now being placed
as more important than the future or past. This argument is largely
based on the earlier work of Heidegger, who, in Being and Time, claimed that the theoretical attitude of pure presence is parasitical upon a more originary involvement with the world in concepts such as ready-to-hand and being-with.
Deconstruction and dialectics
In
the deconstruction procedure, one of the main concerns of Derrida is to
not collapse into Hegel's dialectic, where these oppositions would be
reduced to contradictions in a dialectic that has the purpose of
resolving it into a synthesis.
The presence of Hegelian dialectics was enormous in the intellectual
life of France during the second half of the 20th century, with the
influence of Kojève and Hyppolite, but also with the impact of dialectics based on contradiction developed by Marxists, and including the existentialism of Sartre, etc. This explains Derrida's concern to always distinguish his procedure from Hegel's,
since Hegelianism believes binary oppositions would produce a
synthesis, while Derrida saw binary oppositions as incapable of
collapsing into a synthesis free from the original contradiction.
Difficulty of definition
There
have been problems defining deconstruction. Derrida claimed that all of
his essays were attempts to define what deconstruction is,
and that deconstruction is necessarily complicated and difficult to
explain since it actively criticises the very language needed to explain
it.
Derrida's "negative" descriptions
Derrida has been more forthcoming with negative (apophatic) than with positive descriptions of deconstruction. When asked by Toshihiko Izutsu
some preliminary considerations on how to translate "deconstruction" in
Japanese, in order to at least prevent using a Japanese term contrary
to deconstruction's actual meaning, Derrida began his response by saying
that such a question amounts to "what deconstruction is not, or rather ought not to be".
Derrida states that deconstruction is not an analysis, a critique, or a method
in the traditional sense that philosophy understands these terms. In
these negative descriptions of deconstruction, Derrida is seeking to
"multiply the cautionary indicators and put aside all the traditional
philosophical concepts".
This does not mean that deconstruction has absolutely nothing in common
with an analysis, a critique, or a method, because while Derrida
distances deconstruction from these terms, he reaffirms "the necessity
of returning to them, at least under erasure". Derrida's necessity of returning to a term under erasure
means that even though these terms are problematic we must use them
until they can be effectively reformulated or replaced. The relevance of
the tradition of negative theology to Derrida's preference for negative
descriptions of deconstruction is the notion that a positive
description of deconstruction would over-determine the idea of
deconstruction and would close off the openness that Derrida wishes to
preserve for deconstruction. If Derrida were to positively define
deconstruction—as, for example, a critique—then this would make the
concept of critique immune to itself being deconstructed. Some new philosophy beyond deconstruction would then be required in order to encompass the notion of critique.
Not a method
Derrida states that "Deconstruction is not a method, and cannot be transformed into one".
This is because deconstruction is not a mechanical operation. Derrida
warns against considering deconstruction as a mechanical operation, when
he states that "It is true that in certain circles (university or
cultural, especially in the United States) the technical and
methodological "metaphor" that seems necessarily attached to the very
word 'deconstruction' has been able to seduce or lead astray".[ Commentator Richard Beardsworth explains that:
Derrida is careful to avoid this term [method] because it
carries connotations of a procedural form of judgement. A thinker with a
method has already decided how to proceed, is unable to give him
or herself up to the matter of thought in hand, is a functionary of the
criteria which structure his or her conceptual gestures. For Derrida
[...] this is irresponsibility itself. Thus, to talk of a method in
relation to deconstruction, especially regarding its ethico-political
implications, would appear to go directly against the current of
Derrida's philosophical adventure.
Beardsworth here explains that it would be irresponsible to undertake
a deconstruction with a complete set of rules that need only be applied
as a method to the object of deconstruction, because this understanding
would reduce deconstruction to a thesis of the reader that the text is
then made to fit. This would be an irresponsible act of reading, because
it becomes a prejudicial procedure that only finds what it sets out to
find.
Not a critique
Derrida states that deconstruction is not a critique in the Kantian sense. This is because Kant defines the term critique as the opposite of dogmatism.
For Derrida, it is not possible to escape the dogmatic baggage of the
language we use in order to perform a pure critique in the Kantian
sense. Language is dogmatic because it is inescapably metaphysical. Derrida argues that language is inescapably metaphysical because it is made up of signifiers that only refer to that which transcends them—the signified.
In addition, Derrida asks rhetorically "Is not the idea of knowledge
and of the acquisition of knowledge in itself metaphysical?"
By this, Derrida means that all claims to know something necessarily
involve an assertion of the metaphysical type that something is
the case somewhere. For Derrida the concept of neutrality is suspect and
dogmatism is therefore involved in everything to a certain degree.
Deconstruction can challenge a particular dogmatism and hence
de-sediment dogmatism in general, but it cannot escape all dogmatism all
at once.
Not an analysis
Derrida states that deconstruction is not an analysis in the traditional sense.
This is because the possibility of analysis is predicated on the
possibility of breaking up the text being analysed into elemental
component parts. Derrida argues that there are no self-sufficient units
of meaning in a text, because individual words or sentences in a text
can only be properly understood in terms of how they fit into the larger
structure of the text and language itself. For more on Derrida's theory
of meaning see the article on différance.
Not post-structuralist
Derrida states that his use of the word deconstruction first took place in a context in which "structuralism
was dominant" and deconstruction's meaning is within this context.
Derrida states that deconstruction is an "antistructuralist gesture"
because "[s]tructures were to be undone, decomposed, desedimented". At
the same time, deconstruction is also a "structuralist gesture" because
it is concerned with the structure of texts. So, deconstruction involves
"a certain attention to structures" and tries to "understand how an 'ensemble' was constituted".
As both a structuralist and an antistructuralist gesture,
deconstruction is tied up with what Derrida calls the "structural
problematic".
The structural problematic for Derrida is the tension between genesis,
that which is "in the essential mode of creation or movement", and
structure: "systems, or complexes, or static configurations". An example of genesis would be the sensoryideas from which knowledge is then derived in the empiricalepistemology. An example of structure would be a binary opposition such as good and evil where the meaning of each element is established, at least partly, through its relationship to the other element.
It is for this reason that Derrida distances his use of the term deconstruction from post-structuralism,
a term that would suggest that philosophy could simply go beyond
structuralism. Derrida states that "the motif of deconstruction has been
associated with 'post-structuralism'", but that this term was "a word unknown in France until its 'return' from the United States".In his deconstruction of Edmund Husserl, Derrida actually argues for the contamination of pure origins by the structures of language and temporality. Manfred Frank
has even referred to Derrida's work as "neostructuralism", identifying a
"distaste for the metaphysical concepts of domination and system".
Alternative definitions
The
popularity of the term deconstruction, combined with the technical
difficulty of Derrida's primary material on deconstruction and his
reluctance to elaborate his understanding of the term, has meant that
many secondary sources have attempted to give a more straightforward
explanation than Derrida himself ever attempted. Secondary definitions
are therefore an interpretation of deconstruction by the person offering
them rather than a summary of Derrida's actual position.
Paul de Man was a member of the Yale School
and a prominent practitioner of deconstruction as he understood it. His
definition of deconstruction is that, "[i]t's possible, within text, to
frame a question or undo assertions made in the text, by means of
elements which are in the text, which frequently would be precisely
structures that play off the rhetorical against grammatical elements."
Richard Rorty
was a prominent interpreter of Derrida's philosophy. His definition of
deconstruction is that, "the term 'deconstruction' refers in the first
instance to the way in which the 'accidental' features of a text can be
seen as betraying, subverting, its purportedly 'essential' message."
According to John D. Caputo, the very meaning and mission of deconstruction is:
"to
show that things-texts, institutions, traditions, societies, beliefs,
and practices of whatever size and sort you need - do not have definable
meanings and determinable missions, that they are always more than any
mission would impose, that they exceed the boundaries they currently
occupy"
Niall Lucy points to the impossibility of defining the term at all, stating:
"While in a sense it is
impossibly difficult to define, the impossibility has less to do with
the adoption of a position or the assertion of a choice on
deconstruction's part than with the impossibility of every 'is' as such.
Deconstruction begins, as it were, from a refusal of the authority or
determining power of every 'is', or simply from a refusal of authority
in general. While such refusal may indeed count as a position, it is not
the case that deconstruction holds this as a sort of 'preference' ".
David B. Allison, an early translator of Derrida, states in the introduction to his translation of Speech and Phenomena:
[Deconstruction]
signifies a project of critical thought whose task is to locate and
'take apart' those concepts which serve as the axioms or rules for a
period of thought, those concepts which command the unfolding of an
entire epoch of metaphysics. 'Deconstruction' is somewhat less negative
than the Heideggerian or Nietzschean terms 'destruction' or 'reversal';
it suggests that certain foundational concepts of metaphysics will never
be entirely eliminated...There is no simple 'overcoming' of metaphysics
or the language of metaphysics.
Paul Ricœur defines deconstruction as a way of uncovering the questions behind the answers of a text or tradition.
A survey of the secondary literature
reveals a wide range of heterogeneous arguments. Particularly
problematic are the attempts to give neat introductions to
deconstruction by people trained in literary criticism who sometimes
have little or no expertise in the relevant areas of philosophy in which
Derrida is working. These secondary works (e.g. Deconstruction for Beginners and Deconstructions: A User's Guide)[37][page needed]
have attempted to explain deconstruction while being academically
criticized for being too far removed from the original texts and
Derrida's actual position.
Application
Derrida's observations have greatly influenced literary criticism and post-structuralism.
Literary criticism
Derrida's method consisted of demonstrating all the forms and varieties of the originary complexity of semiotics,
and their multiple consequences in many fields. His way of achieving
this was by conducting thorough, careful, sensitive, and yet
transformational readings of philosophical and literary texts, with an
ear to what in those texts runs counter to their apparent systematicity
(structural unity) or intended sense (authorial genesis). By
demonstrating the aporias
and ellipses of thought, Derrida hoped to show the infinitely subtle
ways that this originary complexity, which by definition cannot ever be
completely known, works its structuring and destructuring effects.
Deconstruction denotes the pursuing of the meaning
of a text to the point of exposing the supposed contradictions and
internal oppositions upon which it is founded—supposedly showing that
those foundations are irreducibly complex, unstable, or impossible. It
is an approach that may be deployed in philosophy, in literary analysis, and even in the analysis of scientific writings.
Deconstruction generally tries to demonstrate that any text is not a
discrete whole but contains several irreconcilable and contradictory
meanings; that any text therefore has more than one interpretation; that
the text itself links these interpretations inextricably; that the
incompatibility of these interpretations is irreducible; and thus that
an interpretative reading cannot go beyond a certain point. Derrida
refers to this point as an "aporia" in the text; thus, deconstructive
reading is termed "aporetic".
He insists that meaning is made possible by the relations of a word to
other words within the network of structures that language is.
Derrida initially resisted granting to his approach the
overarching name "deconstruction", on the grounds that it was a precise
technical term that could not be used to characterize his work
generally. Nevertheless, he eventually accepted that the term had come
into common use to refer to his textual approach, and Derrida himself
increasingly began to use the term in this more general way.
Derrida's deconstruction strategy is also used by postmodernists
to locate meaning in a text rather than discover meaning due to the
position that it has multiple readings. There is a focus on the
deconstruction that denotes the tearing apart of a text to find
arbitrary hierarchies and presuppositions for the purpose of tracing
contradictions that shadow a text's coherence.
Here, the meaning of a text does not reside with the author or the
author's intentions because it is dependent on the interaction between
reader and text. Even the process of translation is also seen as transformative since it "modifies the original even as it modifies the translating language".
Critique of structuralism
Derrida's lecture at Johns Hopkins University, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Human Sciences",
often appears in collections as a manifesto against structuralism.
Derrida's essay was one of the earliest to propose some theoretical
limitations to structuralism, and to attempt to theorize on terms that
were clearly no longer structuralist. Structuralism viewed language as a
number of signs, composed of a signified (the meaning) and a signifier
(the word itself). Derrida proposed that signs always referred to other
signs, existing only in relation to each other, and there was therefore
no ultimate foundation or centre. This is the basis of différance.
Miller has described deconstruction this way: "Deconstruction is
not a dismantling of the structure of a text, but a demonstration that
it has already dismantled itself. Its apparently solid ground is no
rock, but thin air."
Arguing that law and politics cannot be separated, the founders of
the "Critical Legal Studies Movement" found it necessary to criticize
the absence of the recognition of this inseparability at the level of
theory. To demonstrate the indeterminacy of legal doctrine, these scholars often adopt a method, such as structuralism in linguistics, or deconstruction in Continental philosophy,
to make explicit the deep structure of categories and tensions at work
in legal texts and talk. The aim was to deconstruct the tensions and
procedures by which they are constructed, expressed, and deployed.
For example, Duncan Kennedy,
in explicit reference to semiotics and deconstruction procedures,
maintains that various legal doctrines are constructed around the binary
pairs of opposed concepts, each of which has a claim upon intuitive and
formal forms of reasoning that must be made explicit in their meaning
and relative value, and criticized. Self and other, private and public,
subjective and objective, freedom and control are examples of such pairs
demonstrating the influence of opposing concepts on the development of
legal doctrines throughout history.
Deconstructing History
Deconstructive readings of history and sources have changed the entire discipline of history. In Deconstructing History, Alun Munslow
examines history in what he argues is a postmodern age. He provides an
introduction to the debates and issues of postmodernist history. He also
surveys the latest research into the relationship between the past,
history, and historical practice, as well as articulating his own
theoretical challenges.
The Inoperative Community
Jean-Luc Nancy argues, in his 1982 book The Inoperative Community,
for an understanding of community and society that is undeconstructable
because it is prior to conceptualisation. Nancy's work is an important
development of deconstruction because it takes the challenge of
deconstruction seriously and attempts to develop an understanding of
political terms that is undeconstructable and therefore suitable for a
philosophy after Derrida.
The Ethics of Deconstruction
Simon Critchley argues, in his 1992 book The Ethics of Deconstruction,
that Derrida's deconstruction is an intrinsically ethical practice.
Critchley argues that deconstruction involves an openness to the Other that makes it ethical in the Levinasian understanding of the term.
Derrida and the Political
Judith Butler
Jacques Derrida has had a great influence on contemporary political theory and political philosophy. Derrida's thinking has inspired Slavoj Zizek, Richard Rorty, Ernesto Laclau, Judith Butler and many more contemporary theorists who have developed a deconstructive approach to politics.
Because deconstruction examines the internal logic of any given text or
discourse it has helped many authors to analyse the contradictions
inherent in all schools of thought; and, as such, it has proved
revolutionary in political analysis, particularly ideology critiques.
Richard Beardsworth, developing from Critchley's Ethics of Deconstruction, argues, in his 1996 Derrida and the Political,
that deconstruction is an intrinsically political practice. He further
argues that the future of deconstruction faces a perhaps undecidable
choice between a theological approach and a technological approach, represented first of all by the work of Bernard Stiegler.
In the early 1970s, Searle had a brief exchange with Jacques Derrida regarding speech-act theory.
The exchange was characterized by a degree of mutual hostility between
the philosophers, each of whom accused the other of having misunderstood
his basic points.
Searle was particularly hostile to Derrida's deconstructionist
framework and much later refused to let his response to Derrida be
printed along with Derrida's papers in the 1988 collection Limited Inc.
Searle did not consider Derrida's approach to be legitimate philosophy,
or even intelligible writing, and argued that he did not want to
legitimize the deconstructionist point of view by paying any attention
to it. Consequently, some critics have considered the exchange to be a series of elaborate misunderstandings rather than a debate, while others
have seen either Derrida or Searle gaining the upper hand. The level of
hostility can be seen from Searle's statement that "It would be a
mistake to regard Derrida's discussion of Austin
as a confrontation between two prominent philosophical traditions", to
which Derrida replied that that sentence was "the only sentence of the
'reply' to which I can subscribe". Commentators have frequently interpreted the exchange as a prominent example of a confrontation between analytic and continental philosophies.
The debate began in 1972, when, in his paper "Signature Event Context", Derrida analyzed J. L. Austin's theory of the illocutionary act.
While sympathetic to Austin's departure from a purely denotational
account of language to one that includes "force", Derrida was sceptical
of the framework of normativity employed by Austin. Derrida argued that
Austin had missed the fact that any speech event is framed by a
"structure of absence" (the words that are left unsaid due to contextual
constraints) and by "iterability" (the constraints on what can be said,
imposed by what has been said in the past). Derrida argued that the
focus on intentionality
in speech-act theory was misguided because intentionality is restricted
to that which is already established as a possible intention. He also
took issue with the way Austin had excluded the study of fiction,
non-serious, or "parasitic" speech, wondering whether this exclusion was
because Austin had considered these speech genres as governed by
different structures of meaning, or hadn't considered them due to a lack
of interest. In his brief reply to Derrida, "Reiterating the
Differences: A Reply to Derrida", Searle argued that Derrida's critique
was unwarranted because it assumed that Austin's theory attempted to
give a full account of language and meaning when its aim was much
narrower. Searle considered the omission of parasitic discourse forms to
be justified by the narrow scope of Austin's inquiry.
Searle agreed with Derrida's proposal that intentionality presupposes
iterability, but did not apply the same concept of intentionality used
by Derrida, being unable or unwilling to engage with the continental
conceptual apparatus. This, in turn, caused Derrida to criticize Searle for not being sufficiently familiar with phenomenological perspectives on intentionality. Some critics
have suggested that Searle, by being so grounded in the analytical
tradition that he was unable to engage with Derrida's continental
phenomenological tradition, was at fault for the unsuccessful nature of
the exchange, however Searle also argued that Derrida's disagreement
with Austin turned on Derrida's having misunderstood Austin's type–token distinction and having failed to understand Austin's concept of failure in relation to performativity.
Derrida, in his response to Searle ("a b c ..." in Limited Inc),
ridiculed Searle's positions. Claiming that a clear sender of Searle's
message could not be established, Derrida suggested that Searle had
formed with Austin a société à responsabilité limitée (a "limited liability company")
due to the ways in which the ambiguities of authorship within Searle's
reply circumvented the very speech act of his reply. Searle did not
reply. Later in 1988, Derrida tried to review his position and his
critiques of Austin and Searle, reiterating that he found the constant
appeal to "normality" in the analytical tradition to be problematic.
In 1995, Searle gave a brief reply to Derrida in The Construction of Social Reality.
He called Derrida's conclusion "preposterous" and stated that "Derrida,
as far as I can tell, does not have an argument. He simply declares
that there is nothing outside of texts..." Searle's reference here is not to anything forwarded in the debate, but to a mistranslation of the phrase "il n'y a pas dehors du texte," ("There is no outside-text") which appears in Derrida's Of Grammatology.
The American philosopher Walter A. Davis, in Inwardness and Existence: Subjectivity in/and Hegel, Heidegger, Marx and Freud,
argues that both deconstruction and structuralism are prematurely
arrested moments of a dialectical movement that issues from Hegelian
"unhappy consciousness".
In popular media
Popular criticism of deconstruction intensified following the Sokal affair,
which many people took as an indicator of the quality of deconstruction
as a whole, despite the absence of Derrida from Sokal's follow-up book Impostures Intellectuelles.
Chip Morningstar
holds a view critical of deconstruction, believing it to be
"epistemologically challenged". He claims the humanities are subject to
isolation and genetic drift due to their unaccountability to the world
outside academia. During the Second International Conference on
Cyberspace (Santa Cruz, California, 1991), he reportedly heckled deconstructionists off the stage.
He subsequently presented his views in the article "How to Deconstruct
Almost Anything", where he stated, "Contrary to the report given in the
'Hype List' column of issue #1 of Wired ('Po-Mo Gets Tek-No', page 87),
we did not shout down the postmodernists. We made fun of them."
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