In
his essay, “Structure, Sign, and Play in
the Discourse of the Human Sciences” Jacques Derrida applies to the
Structuralist case the familiar philosophical trick of measuring it by its own
measuring scale. He states that it is impossible to think of a structure except
as governed by centre within it or outside it. What Jacques Derrida observes in
modern times is a particular intellectual event and this constitutes a radical
break from past ways of thought.
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| Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences-Summary |
Derrida
says that the concept of structure and the word structure are as old as western
science and philosophy. The function of the centre was not only to balance and organized
the structure, but also to limit the play of structure: limit the play -
different meanings and different interpretations are not possible. It has
always been thought that the centre constitutes that very thing within a
structure, which while governing structure escapes structurality. The centre is
paradoxically within the structure and outside it.
Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences
The
concept of central structure is contradictorily coherent. The centre, according
to Derrida, is the creation of the force of desire Derrida asserts that there
was no centre, and the centre had no natural site. It was not a fixed and
stable locus but a function, a sort of non-locus in which an infinite number of
sign substitutions came into play when the event has occurred, the center
disappeared, and everything became discourse.
The
transcendental signified is not
present outside a system of differences. Transcendental signified is an idea of
a fixed, ultimate centre of meaning. It gives human beings fixed, stable, and unchanging
meaning which provides a platform for various beliefs and actions. It can be
identified by names such as God, truth, essence etc.
Derrida
denies all these ideas. The absence of the ‘transcendental signified’ extends
the domain; and the play of signification infinitely. Prior to this event, the
existence of centre in all things was taken for granted. Derrida associates
this break or the event within the philosophy of Nietzsche and Heidegger and
the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud.
Sigmund
Freud has decentred the individual and Nietzsche the centre the truth or fact.
Heidegger has decentred the onto theology. But all these decentering process
are trapped in a kind of circle. It describes the form of the relation between
the history of metaphysics and the destruction of the history of metaphysics.
Derrida's aim is that the
metaphysics of presence should be taken with the help of the concept of sign.
He believes that there is no transcendental or privileged signified; and the
domain or play of signification has no limit. The metaphysics of presence is a
belief including binary oppositions, phonocentrism and logocentrism. The Western
philosophy is based on these beliefs since Plato. It assumes that the conscious
and integrated selves are at the centre of human activity. Derrida objects to
this kind of belief.
Phonocentrism and Logocentrism:
Phonocentrism is a belief that speech is
privileged over writing. Derrida detested the notion and states that it is only
the acoustic differences between phonemes which impart language meaning. Logocentrism is a belief in an absolute
which is the very essence of existence. It signifies credence in a rational and
structured world, revealing human beings their origin, nature and explanation.
Logocentrism denotes the belief that linguistic system is capable of producing
a spoken or written utterance that has a fixed and stable meaning. Derrida goes
against this notion in his theory of deconstruction.
One
must reject the concept and the word sign itself. Radical difference between
signifier and signified it is the word signifier itself which must be abundant
as the metaphorical concept. What Nietzsche,
Heidegger and Freud did was somewhat different. It is true that they attempted to
decentre the centre.
Next
Derrida attempts to connect this intellectual with the human sciences. He
associates ethnology with decentering process. He declares that ‘there is
nothing fortuitous about the fact that the critique of ethnocentrism....should be systematically and historically
contemporaneous with the destruction of the history of metaphysics’.
Ethnology
is primarily science employing traditional concepts however much it may
struggle against them. The ethnologist accepts into his discourse the premises
of ethnocentrism at the very moment when he denounces them. He admires Levi Strauss, not because of the privilege;
he accords to ethnology, not because of the anthropological works, but because
of a certain doctrine elaborated in his works.
Levi Strauss discusses in detail the
opposition between nature and culture. His simultaneously has experienced the
necessity of utilizing the opposition and the impossibility of accepting it:
what is universal and spontaneous and not dependent of any particular culture
belongs to nature. Inversely that which depends upon a system of norms
regulating society and therefore he is capable of wearing from one social
structure to another belongs to culture.
These
two definitions are of the traditional types. Levi Strauss who gives credence to
these concepts encounters what he calls scandal, that is to say ‘something
which no longer tolerates the nature and culture opposition he has accepted’.
This scandal is incest prohibition. The incest prohibition is universal; in
this sense one could call it natural but it is also provision a system of
norms: in the sense one could call it cultural.
Obviously
there is no scandal except within a system of concepts which a credits the
difference between nature and culture. When the incest provision can no longer
be considered within the natural culture opposition it can no longer be said to
be a scandalous fact. From this example we learn that what we call incest in
one sense is not incest in another sense. Similarly ethnologists accept in to
their discourse the premises of ethnocentrism, but they didn't hesitate to
denounce this subject.
Once
the limit of nature/culture opposition makes itself felt one may question the
history of these concepts. A new era has begun scholars started questioning the
very idea of concepts. The other choice consists in conserving all these old
concepts within the domain of empirical discovery, treating them as tools which
can still be used. Levi-Strauss thinks that he can separate method from truth.
He always remains faithful to this double intention to preserve as an
instrument something whose truth value he criticizes.
In
"The Savage Mind", Levi
Strauss presents his bricolage which might be called the discourse of this
method. He makes a distinction between ‘brecoleur’ and engineer.
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Levi-Strauss’ Distinction between Engineer and Bricolage
As
a part of a larger effort to distinguish magic and modern science as two modes
of scientific thought and with the intention of
rescuing magic from its usual relegation to the crude and unsophisticated.
He insists that bricolage is not primitive but prior. The engineer defends his
means clearly and does things according to his plan full stop, on the other
hand the bricoleur's universe is closed; and he has to do with whatever is at
hand and the set of tools and materials he uses has no relation to the current
project.
The engineer can go beyond the
constraints imposed by particular state of civilization, but the brecoleur by
necessity always remains within them. The engineer whom Levi Strauss opposes to
the bricoleur should be the one to construct the totality of the language
syntax and lexicon. In the sense engineer is a myth. But bricolage is
mythopoetic.
The
engineer is a myth, produced by the bricoleur. Claude Levi-Strauss describes
bricolage not only as an intellectual activity but also as a mytho-poetical
activity. Levi-Strauss' endeavour appears to have status which accounts to his
own this course on myths, to what he calls mythologicals. It is here that his
discourse on the myth reflects on itself and criticizes itself full stop and
this moment is evidently of concerns to all the language we share the field of
human sciences.
What
does Levi Strauss say office mythological? It is here according to Derrida, the
mytho-poetical virtue of bricolage: what appears most fascinating in this
critical search for a new status of discourse is the stated abundant of all
reference to a centre to a subject to a privileged reference or to an origin.
In almost all books written by Levi Strauss, he discusses the theme of
decentering.
While
examining the Bororo myth, Derrida says, 'the Bororo myth’ is simply a
transformation to a greater or lesser extent of others originating either from
the same society or in neighbouring or remote societies. Levi Strauss thanks no
unity or absolute source of the myth. He felt that myths have structure too. In
"The Raw and the Cooked",
the anthropologists set out to write out grammar of all Bororo myth- but was
forced to admit that he could find no central rules, not even a central myth.
The
origin of myths does not have absolute centre and it is elusive and non-existent.
Derrida finds tension between play and presence. The play is always a game of
presence and absence. Play must be conceived of before the alternative of
presence and absence.
Conclusion:
Derrida
rejects the idea of presence and states that there should be an affirmation of a
world of signs without fault, without truth, and without origin which is
offered to an active interpretation. Derrida further says that there are two
interpretations of interpretation of structure of sign, and of play, the one
tries to find out the truth or source which escapes play and the order of sign.
The other tries to pass beyond man and humanity. It does not try to find out
the origin and affirms play.
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