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Re: NPOV Dispute. Although I find myself agreeing with critics of D, I must also agree that this article, as written, is quite anti-D. Would the user who added the NPOV dispute like to add some text about D, or alert someone who can to do so? --- Williamv1138
I saw the article (this version), and it looked not only POV but also rather unorganized. Here are some of the thoughts I had, and what I did:
I haven't even read the later sections seriously. But I would possibly have some opinions how it could be improved once I read them.
In any case, I am not an expert on this, so help from cooperative people would be greatly appreciated. Tomos 14:33, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Upon reading the Deconstructionism & Deconstruction in literary criticism sections of the current version, here are the my questions & opinions.
Re: NPOV edit: Sorry, I didn't mean it; at least I don't think I did. Do you think I meant it? Take my edits back out if you think I meant it and you are sure you have understood me correctly --- Williamv1138 A moment of clarity: The NPOV statement is a uniquely appropriate place to address what D means --- Williamv1138
Re: Relation to philosophy section
Just some tentative notes on my tentative findings.
Tomos 02:12, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I just remembered that Walter Ong's Orality and literacy contained a critique of Derrida in the last chapter or so. Just a reminder to myself, and/or an invitation for other to check it out. Tomos 02:20, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)
So, I am a knowledgeable person in the field, and I am eager to contribute to the Wikipedia philosophy space, but I find it difficult to know where to begin, other than creating new articles and fleshing out stubs. Many existing pages seem quite slanted, and appear to be written from a passing familiarity at best with the field -- this Deconstruction page in particular is quite explicitly anti-deconstructive (and what's worse, factually incorrect in numerous places). Should I be bold and simply make the change, which might involve deleting long passages of this text? I fear this would invite flamewars in which I have no interest. What is the polite way to proceed? Rbellin 02:40, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Politeness is a worthy goal, but not so worthy as getting things right. If you think you understand the topic better than the article, then it's probably best to make your changes, and participate in the ensuing discussion. Some people around here are flamers, but a number of people at least attempt to be reasonable at least some of the time. =) See. Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages. -- Ryguasu 05:38, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Rbellin --- I wrote some parts of this article, I acknowledge it is far from neutral. I want it to be neutral. I welcome your changes. You won't get flamed by me. Don't swing the other way, of course. The landscape of the pro/anti rhetoric about D is as much a part of describing it as describing its tenets, so keep or write some text about that controversy, and about what critics think of D. Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages. Williamv1138 15:12, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I've undertaken a major rewrite of this article, and removed the NPOV dispute (though I expect someone belligerent may replace it until more "criticism of deconstruction" is added). I had to scrap a lot of text: the article contained very little information specific to deconstruction, and used a lot of hostile sources and "criticism" that were really about post-modernism. Some of that text might belong in another article (maybe Sokal affair, post-modernism, or some other page devoted to the "science wars"?), but none of it belonged here, since none of it discussed deconstruction specifically.
As I've explained in the article, many critics (who I assume haven't read much, or any, Derrida) conflate deconstruction with varying stripes of post-modernism, which is incorrect. I've tried to point the "criticism" paragraphs away from the usual poorly informed diatribes and toward real, substantial philosophical disagreements with deconstruction, of which there are many. (For some reason, most of the criticisms were basically about literary interpretation rather than other philosophical questions.) Other informed users will probably be able to augment these if they see a need, hopefully by beginning with actual claims made by Derrida or other deconstructive writers (quote! cite!) rather than straw men.
And before anyone leaps in to start an argument by calling me a "deconstructionist," I should note that I disagree with Derrida and deconstruction about lots of things. I'm by no means entirely pro-deconstruction. But I have read a lot of Derrida's work and I understand it. And an article about philosophy that cited newspaper articles for sources was patently subpar.
A few sentences of other text which dealt with the broadening of literary criticism into cultural studies was removed as well. This would make a good subject for articles on the history of literary criticism, literary theory, or cultural studies. Again, it didn't belong here. There wasn't much more than a stub there anyway.
Rbellin 04:04, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I thought about simply including some of the criticisms from the earlier article along with correct responses, but decided it didn't direct the article toward a better understanding of the subject. Just for fun, here are my replies. Rbellin 04:04, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Deconstruction in architecture is an unrelated topic (and one well worth writing about!) Deconstructionist methods of reading a book are not really related to how an architect builds and designs apartment buildings, homes and monuments. This topic is already discussed in the article entitled Deconstructivism. That entry discusses both Deconstructivism and Deconstruction. I am thinking that perhaps the name of that architecture article is not enough for some people to find it in their Web search engines; maybe we should create Deconstruction (architecture) as an article, and turn it into a redirect to the deconstructivism article? Or maybe we should do this the other way around, and turn the Deconstructivism article into a redirect to Deconstruction (architecture). Thoughts?
I've tried to deal with the problems regarding the "Criticisms of Deconstruction" section of the article in a new way. After several of the criticisms in this section, I've inserted short replies of the sort that a deconstructor might give. To emphasize this attempt to replace mutual recrimination with respectful dialogue, and also to give the article a more "deconstrution-friendly" feel by whimsically pointing out the unresolved tensions within the article itself, I've labeled each criticism "PROSECUTION" and each reply "DEFENSE." Hopefully the readers will be the jury. I hope this doesn't constitute a violation of NPOV, but I thought it was better to approximate NPOV by having multiple points of view explicitly present than to use NPOV as an excuse to curtail discussion. I hope nobody on either side of this debate is offended by the role in which I have cast her or him. Any thoughts?
Because I think this issue is interesting for Wikipedia as a whole, not just a personal complaint, I want to state my opinion of the return of the "Criticisms" text that I deleted. I want to be clear: I'm not trying to start an argument (which I correctly predicted was likely before I edited the page), it's not my intention to flame, and I don't intend to re-edit the page again. I just want to air an opinion and solicit comment on it from the user community.
The text reintroduced to this page (from the fourth paragraph to the end of the Criticism section) was a major motivation for my rewrite. In my opinion, this text is factually inaccurate as well as philosophically naive. (Inaccurate because the philosophical beliefs which it attributes to "deconstructionists" are not, in fact, important ideas specific to deconstruction; naive because of the question-begging arguments it presents as "obvious" refutations.) Either of these alone would be enough to justify its removal from a philosophy encyclopedia article, to my mind. The Chomsky quotation is not a "criticism" of anything, but a famous scholar saying that he doesn't understand. (And not that he doesn't understand deconstruction, by the way. The word appears nowhere in the quotation: Chomsky is really talking about "poststructuralism and postmodernism", as he explicitly says, not deconstruction. Again, this quotation doesn't belong in this article, because it's (a) not a real criticism and (b) not about deconstruction.)
In my opinion, a scholar reading this portion of the article would not consider Wikipedia a reliable or intelligent source. The article's point-of-view balance is improved since the new text was added, but I still consider this section subpar.
I think all the content of the deleted text is summarized more coherently, more literately, and more correctly by the first paragraph of the Criticism section that I posted (which simply calls the positions attributed to deconstruction by the deleted texts by their proper philosophical names, and then correctly points out that none of them is really a meaningful tenet of deconstruction, and that the criticisms are really about some form of postmodernism). At least one user evidently disagrees, though without providing any citations or evidence why.
The interesting thing here, as a broader topic for discussion, is that Wikipedia claims that expert and scholarly contributions are solicited. Yet in certain cases (like that of this page) I perceive an active will to ignorace among a segment of the user community: here a relatively well-informed rewrite (with citations and documentation of sources), from a newbie author who's knowledgeable about the subject, was immediately (though just partially) reverted to its previous state of ignorance. The problem, in my opinion, is that the Wikipedian motto "Write about what you know about" fails in the not-so-uncommon case that a contributor doesn't know what he or she knows and, more importantly, doesn't know about. And, as Hegel said, not everyone assumes they can be a shoemaker given leather and a last, but everyone thinks they can be a philosopher.
Furthermore, most experts and scholars, even if they decide to contribute to the Wikipedia, are not going to have the energy or inclination to engage in long discussions with non-experts defending the changes they make. Does Wikipedia have a way to deal with this problem, given that for some topics not all Wikipedians will recognize the difference between a well-informed page and an amateurish one? I know that I won't be participating in any more back-and-forth in Talk pages here, because I have other work to do.
My personal response to this is to become very wary of re-editing existing articles, even those that I know -- from my own scholarly work in the field -- to be inaccurate (or just bad). My contribution to Wikipedia in the future will probably be restricted to creating new articles, so I don't have to worry about stepping on anyone's toes.
Rbellin 01:59, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I removed a very biased "disclaimer" from a deconstructionist apologist. He wrote in this article "This article's discussion of deconstructive thought should be considered a gross oversimplification. Deconstruction is vulnerable to misunderstanding even when carefully and sympathetically summarized, perhaps more than other philosophy, because of its emphasis on irreducible complexity and its texts' often difficult style."
One hardly knows where to begin criticising such a claim. Is deconstructionist so much harder to understand than nuclear physics and quantum mechanics, or any other complicated topic? I highly doubt it. No other Wikipedia article has such grandiose personal disclaimers, and there is good reason for it. Secondly, most historians, literature professors and scientists are critical of deconstructionism precisely because of such disclaimers. Deconstructinist authors often make incredible statements, then publicly attack their critics as too stupid or naive to understand their real meaning. Over and over deconstructionist literature contains numerous examples of special pleading, in which deconstructionists demand the right to comment on any subject, but reject the right of anyone to examine or reject their own views. This is not NPOV. It isn't even rational. RK 00:30, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)
I removed the following NPOV violations. It is not acceptable on Wikipedia to promote one's personal views as fact. Critics of deconstruction often believe it to advocate irrationalism, absolute relativism, radical social constructivism, opposition to science or history, anti-realism, subjectivism, and/or solipsism. None of these claims is supported by a careful reading of Derrida's work (or any other eminent texts of deconstruction).... I think that most long-time Wikipedia contributors will understand why such grandiose claims are unacceptable and a violation of our NPOV policy.
This renoval is especially appropriate, since the vast majority of philosophers, literary scholars, historians and scientists reject deconstructionism. These people do make the above criticisms of deconstructionism, and they explain why in great detail. The above deleted statement is clearly calling all of these people too stupid to understand what they are reading. I propose that instead this article simply follow standard policy: Explain who holds point of view "A", and why; then explain who holds point of view "B", and why. RK
I see that any view other than outright attack on deconstruction has little hope of remaining on this page for long. Since I do not have the tenacity or the desire to engage in an argument, much less an edit war, with RK, I surrender, and will likely never re-edit the page, or any other page he seems interested in. You win, pal -- enjoy. But you're actively driving away a contributor who wants to help the Wikipedia, with a strong background in fields underrepresented here. And, for the record, I don't think this page should serve as a debate forum about mistaken claims based on cursory/poor readings of complex and lengthy texts.
I will limit myself to a few remarks en passant. First: I have read and understood several thousand pages, from at least three dozen books, on deconstruction. I have been in graduate seminars with many experts who publish books on the topic. I have what I, and a prestigious university, think is a decent background in the topic. I hate to speculate on the background of other contributors, but RK's edits certainly don't display any familiarity with the material that I can see. (I know, I'm just asserting this without documentation, and I'm honestly not trying to pull rank or justify my previous edits on this basis alone, but it puts what I'm saying about the changes in some perspective.)
Second: As I wrote above (right near where I predicted I'd be assumed to be an "apologist," though being assumed to be "he" I couldn't have predicted!), I think (personal opinion) this page is an example of a very general failing in Wikipedia's community process (or lack of it), in which a single aggressive user is forcing ill-informed changes that worsen an article.
Third: A fairly large proportion of RK's assertions on the topic are factually incorrect (most egregiously "the vast majority of..." assertions above), not that I'd waste my time trying, since RK will evidently not be convinced by documentation or citation of sources.
I will observe that no documentation for any of RK's text is apparently forthcoming (and as I noted above, the Chomsky citation is completely off-topic; it says nothing about deconstruction). Wikipedia ought have a real process to deal with this kind of problem.
Fourth, because I think the "disclaimer" is an interesting issue: Presumably it's obvious, at least to the non-simple-minded, that there are topics too complex to cover in adequate depth in a Wikipedia article. Presumably it's also obvious that there are ideas and arguments too subtle to summarize effectively in a short article. So what's the problem with the disclaimer (which is of a sort that's common in pedagogical introductions to all kinds of topics)? Is it that Wikipedia articles on complex or subtle subjects should all implicitly be treated as oversimplifications? That might be a bitter pill for some Wikipedia boosters to swallow. Rbellin 04:37, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)
It seems like this article needs to be deeply cut to even approach NPOV. Like about 1-2 paragraphs each side. I don't want to swing the machete though. Williamv1138 14:22, Nov 4, 2003 (UTC)
I just came back and have just read the article. It looks a lot better than before - when I first read it and decided to do something with it.
Here are some other, more specific comments.
Hope it helps. Tomos 05:10, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Tomos writes "In the section for differance, there is a paragraph starting with "In simple terms.." I don't think the part is in as simple as it could be. So I might try to come up with something better, if no one else does."
Tomos writes "Criticism regarding "author's intention." I think it is fair to say that many literary critics rely on their own way of reading the text, and that can be different from the auther's. Psychoanalysis, structuralism, marxism, feminism and perhaps some other ways to read a text would lead one to conclude that author is not fully aware of what s/he has written. There are "hidden" "alternative" and/or sometimes "true" meaning of the text revealed through these special methods. So, I think it is not good to say that vast majority of literary critics believe that author's words clarify or fix the meaning of the text."
Tmos writes "Regarding the same point, I think a better characterization would be something like this: deconstructionists general claim (explicit or otherwise) that text is open to many different readings, would not be applicable to all texts equally - some are not as open to revealing alternative readings as deconstructionists may claim."
Tomos writes "Criticism regarding "reality" I think this is weak. It ends with "this view is rejected by vast majority of..." But it seems that quite many (influential) philosophers, including Kant, Quine, reject that we can have a direct knowledge of the reality. And think about science ... one of the most popular definition of a scientific theory is that it is something falsifiable (Popper). According to that, scientists do not "prove" that reality is as described in a theory; they merely "reject" the possibility that data does not match the theory. when the mismatch does not happen, it means the theory survived the test of falsification. It does not mean the theory is "proven." So, I doubt if it is fair to say that vast majority of philosophers and scientists reject the idea that reality is unreachable."
RK, thanks for your detailed responce! I am slow, and I have just two things to write.
First, the clarification you asked regarding author's intention. What I wanted to say is that not every text is eaually easy to deconstruct. Some texts clearly seem to have a rather straightforward meaning. Other texts have apparent ambiguity and are open to many readings - some readings may be found through the act of deconstruction. So, for some texts, deconstruction may be effective to overturn the "dominant" or "privileged" reading and find alternative reading of the text. But many would think that not all texts could be effectively dealt with in that way.
Second, regarding reality issue. Now I think of it, I was confusing two things - like you suggested, many do not doubt that reality exists out there, while some deconstructionists do. Many, at least, take that idea of external, objective reality as a workable assumption, something they want to prove, etc. That's one thing. To the extent that deconstructionists refute that idea and says things like "there is nothing outside texts", many historians, scientists, and even some philosophers would disagree. Another thing is the idea of social construction versus "knowledge about reality." Deconstructionsts are often social constructivists, but I guess they are hardly alone. Not that social constructivists of that type is not criticized. Those who reject social construction would not be the majority. In short, "while many would agree that our knowledge of reality is shaped by social factors, few would join deconstructionists in regarding external objective reality as non-existent." Would that sound better than what currently is there? Tomos 07:26, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Like "differance," somebody should add information concerning such words as "ecriture", "trace", "supplement", "hymen", "pharmakon", "marge", "entame", and "parergon", etc. COGDEN 07:48, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Someone left a note at meta about this article. I have no idea whether it's a valid concern: [1] Dori | Talk 19:01, Feb 3, 2004 (UTC)
---
This is an old talk page. For the current version, please go:
talk:Deconstruction
I'm going to change the title to "Deconstruction," on the grounds that (in my experience) "deconstructionism" is a description used solely by journalists or hostile critics. "Deconstruction," I believe, is the neutral term. (JRB) The Derrida/Lévi-Strauss example is interesting, but is there nothing more straightforward? I, for one, have a lot of trouble swollowing a definition of writing as communication with the intent to enslave. Are there no examples of deconstruction based on more everyday definitions, that would make more sense to the uninitiated? As for
By "interpersonal communication" do we mean speech? Also, I doubt that "interpersonal communication" is Plato's preferred form of speech. It seems he would be more excited by, say, the sound, logical proposition. He might not gave been quite as obsessed by the proposition as Aristotle, or as modern semanticists, but I still bet expressing and conveying propositions was his favorite use of language.
We currently have this article, "Deconstruction", in addition to Deconstruction. Although there may be some disagreement about which is the best name for this area of inquiry, can we agree that we don't need to have two separate articles? If nobody objects, I'm going to merge the two. I think it will be most natural to merge "Deconstruction" into "Deconstructionism", since the latter article is longer. If there are lingering disagreements about which should be the "true" name, we can settle them after the merge. Ok? -- Ryguasu 03:44 Dec 31, 2002 (UTC)
Tomos 22:25 Jan 31, 2003 (UTC)
As I remember, Heidegger is the one who coined the term. Derrida adopted and popularized. Could someone verify that point? How about this account, for example? http://www.louisville.edu/a-s/english/babo/raia/deconstruction.html Tomos 22:25 Jan 31, 2003 (UTC)
Hilary Putnam's "Irrealism and Deconstruction" is a good, quick comment on how Derrida's work relates to what I am tempted to call real philosophy. He does a sort of compare-and-contrast with Nelson Goodman.--amt
there are lots of unfortunate code-isms in the text (August 10, 2001). I don't care enough FOR deconstruction to do the work to make them legible.
Is there a link between desconstructionism and critical theory? I was under the impression that critical theorists use some of the methods of deconstructionism to expose that what is claimed to be objectivity contains implicit power relationships,
Please don't use "deconstructionISM". It's a method, an activity . . . NOT a school of thought or a doctrine. The term "deconstructionism" makes no more sense than, say, "philosophISM" or "sciencISM".
Removed. This is not NPOV; it's unnecessarily hostile towards common usage, not only regarding "deconstruction", but also regarding the other examples mentioned. -- Ryguasu
What about deconstructionism and relativism? Particularly in history. -- Ed Poor
We currently have this article, "Deconstructionism", in addition to Deconstruction. Although there may be some disagreement about which is the best name for this area of inquiry, can we agree that we don't need to have two separate articles? If nobody objects, I'm going to merge the two. I think it will be most natural to merge "Deconstruction" into "Deconstructionism", since the latter article is longer. If there are lingering disagreements about which should be the "true" name, we can settle them after the merge. Ok? -- Ryguasu 03:44 Dec 31, 2002 (UTC)
This sentence:
Makes no sense to me. What is the "process of thinking?" And when did it need to be revived? Or, as it was before, "revivified?" I can't tell if the statement could be something like "process of criticism," but unless Derrida himself said this, could we change it? Atorpen 04:48 Jan 25, 2003 (UTC)
There should be a section on deconstructionists and science. In recent years a number of prominent literary deconstructionist, French philosophers, and some radical feminists have written essays attacking the scientific method, science in general, as well as the entire field of mathematics and logic. These essays claim that any form of logical thinking is "colonianlist" or "masculinist", and prevents people from gaining knowledge through "other ways of knowing", including feminine intuition and mysticism. (These views are generally rejected by the majority of philosophers, and have little support in the mainstream feminist community.) Scientists hold that these claims are baseless. They point out that it is science alone that has provided information on the mysteries of the atom, the cell, the solar system, and the observable universe. It is science alone that has provided knowledge to develop thousands of technological advances in medicine, engineering, communications, computers, synthetic fabrics and beyond.
They hold that no other system which claims to compete with science has ever actually succeeded in actually producing useful information about the physical world in which we live, or has produced actual technologies. Left-wing deconstructionism has led to some very bizarre claims, that have only gained in popularity in recent years. (e.g. the works of Sandra Harding, Helen Longino, and Stanley Aronowitz, among others.) They write that science is only a set of male, Western cultural conventions, and not a body of knowledge about the real world. they claim that science teaches us nothing about the world, but only exposes the belief systems of male capitalists. Obviously, these positions false, and harmful...but they exist, and they are popular in certain populations. RK 02:05 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)
People who wish to write on this topic should read Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels with Science by Gross, P. R. and N. Levitt. 1994, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press. To make myself clear, I am not claiming that these radical deconstructionist views are representative of all social studies professors; note that they are usually only held by certain English majors, radical feminist, and Derrida-influences philosophy students. Some web resources follow: RK 02:05 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)
A Review of Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science
Another Review of Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science
Why I wrote it - about the Sokol hoax which debunked the deconstructionists
A Plea for Reason, Evidence and Logic
Science, Scientism, and Anti-Science in the Age of Preposterism
The academic left makes many gross errors when it attempts to apply deconstructionism to science. A review of their papers reveals that many in the academic left often confuse and/or conflates all of the following issues, described by physicist Alan Sokol.
RK 16:19 21 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Dr. Sokol writes:
Stanley Aronowitz, post-modern critic of science, irrationally claims "The point is that neither logic nor mathematics escapes the contamination." (Source: Aronowitz, Science as Power, p.326, Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1988)
Totally misunderstanding Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and the development of Quantum Mechanics, sociologist Harvie Ferguson writes the frighteningly serious claim that "The inner collapse of the bourgeois ego signalled an end to fixity and systematic structure of the bourgeois cosmos. One privileged point of observation was replaced by a complex interaction of viewpoints. The new relativistic viewpoint was not itself a product of scientific 'advances' but was part, rather, of a general cultural and social transformation which expressed itself in a variety of 'modern' movements. It was no longer conceivable that nature could be reconstructed as a logical whole. The incompleteness, indeterminacy, and arbitrariness of the subject now reappeared in the natural world. Nature, that is, like personal existence, makes itself known only in fragmented images." (Source: Ferguson, The Science of Pleasure, Routledge, 1990) In a quasi-Marxist rant, Ferguson goes onto to claim throughout his book that developments in physics are not actual knowledge gained about the real world, but rather are only ideas generated by "bourgeois consciousness".
French post-modernist Bruno Latour claims "Reality is the consequence rather than the cause of the social construction of facts."
I have temporarily removed this paragraph, only because it needs some clarification:
Could the person who wrote this please explain it? What does mean? It sounds interesting. RK
Removed line about strong social constructivism being rejected by virtually all scientists and historians. Change virtual all to most, there are quite a few scientists (particularly social scientists) I know that wouldn't be that averese to strong social constructivism. User:Roadrunner
Removed "emotional". Most physicists are extremely passionate people and are very emotional about their work. There is a popular belief that emotion and passion are incompatible with objectivity and rationality, which is *not* the case with most of the physicists I know. Most of them do believe the theories that they do for emotional reasons, but those emotions are based on facts and objectivity, and the strong emotions involved actually tends to make people more open minded not less. Now that I think about it, I'm curious where this stereotype of a physicist as an objective unfeeling machine comes from. -- User:Roadrunner
I'm temporarily removing this paragraph:
There are several problems here: First, the word "all" is dangerous. There are many people who are arguably philosophers and yet who are not dead-set on the veracity and/or importance of the law of the excluded middle. This includes followers of Derrida as well as the "duality is bad" philosophical traditions of Asia.
(I assume there are better examples, but these are enough to show that "all" is inadequate. The phrase "Western philosophers" would be better, although still problematic. Perhaps "analytic philosophers" would be best of all?)
Second, aside from philosophers, hard-nosed mathematicians have thought it worthwhile to explore logics that reject the law of the excluded middle. Law of excluded middle seems to be a starting point for further information.
Third, the paragraph as I just found it in the article gave more time to a refutation of Derrida's take on the law than to his original presentation. This hardly seems fair, given that the refutation is basically "trust your common sense", whereas Derrida's take, supposing it to be coherent, is more difficult to understand. Ryguasu 00:31 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Just for reference, the *very first line* of the Dao De Jing is "The dao is dao, but it is not dao. A name is a name, but it is not a name."
The whole philosophical school is based on rejecting the law of the excluded middle. Unless you want to exclude Daoism and Zen Buddhism from the term philosophy, then you *can't* make the statement that all philosophers accept the law of the excluded middle. This is incidental why people who are interested in deconstructionism tend also to be interested in Eastern religion. Roadrunner
This statement is an incorrect summary of the law of the excluded middle and confuses it with the law of non-contradiction. The law of the excluded middle says that a statement *must* be either true or false. This is different from the law of non-contradiction which says that a statement cannot *both* be true or false. In particular, the law of the excluded middle excludes the possiblity that a statement is *neither* true nor false, and its perfectly possible to create a system of logic which is allows for statements that are neither true or false.
References:
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ExcludedMiddleLaw.html
http://www.austinlinks.com/Fuzzy/tutorial.html
http://www.cs.panam.edu/fox/CSCI6175/fuzzy.ppt
http://www.math.fau.edu/Richman/html/construc.htm
http://www.columbia.edu/~av72/non_classical_logics/LectureNotes/Lecture_11.pdf
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~petera/Padua_Lectures/lect2.html
http://www.supschool-logic.com/files/file4.pdf
My point here is that Derrida might be nutty, but he isn't nutty because he denies the law of the excluded middle. I've just given seven references to mathematicians and mathematical philosophers who also deny the universiality of the law of the excluded middle. My point is also that the summary of the law of the excluded middle in the paragraph is just wrong. Also to take up your challenge. Michael Dummett denies the law of the excluded middle.
Michael Dummet on the law of the excluded middle
More on Dummet's views on this law
That's one. I can come up with about five more easily. Satisfied? Also, do a google search on the term paraconsistent. There is a very active area of research in creating logical systems that don't collapse if you have an inconsistency. Its actually useful in artificial intelligence. - Roadrunner
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Re: NPOV Dispute. Although I find myself agreeing with critics of D, I must also agree that this article, as written, is quite anti-D. Would the user who added the NPOV dispute like to add some text about D, or alert someone who can to do so? --- Williamv1138
I saw the article (this version), and it looked not only POV but also rather unorganized. Here are some of the thoughts I had, and what I did:
I haven't even read the later sections seriously. But I would possibly have some opinions how it could be improved once I read them.
In any case, I am not an expert on this, so help from cooperative people would be greatly appreciated. Tomos 14:33, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Upon reading the Deconstructionism & Deconstruction in literary criticism sections of the current version, here are the my questions & opinions.
Re: NPOV edit: Sorry, I didn't mean it; at least I don't think I did. Do you think I meant it? Take my edits back out if you think I meant it and you are sure you have understood me correctly --- Williamv1138 A moment of clarity: The NPOV statement is a uniquely appropriate place to address what D means --- Williamv1138
Re: Relation to philosophy section
Just some tentative notes on my tentative findings.
Tomos 02:12, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I just remembered that Walter Ong's Orality and literacy contained a critique of Derrida in the last chapter or so. Just a reminder to myself, and/or an invitation for other to check it out. Tomos 02:20, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)
So, I am a knowledgeable person in the field, and I am eager to contribute to the Wikipedia philosophy space, but I find it difficult to know where to begin, other than creating new articles and fleshing out stubs. Many existing pages seem quite slanted, and appear to be written from a passing familiarity at best with the field -- this Deconstruction page in particular is quite explicitly anti-deconstructive (and what's worse, factually incorrect in numerous places). Should I be bold and simply make the change, which might involve deleting long passages of this text? I fear this would invite flamewars in which I have no interest. What is the polite way to proceed? Rbellin 02:40, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Politeness is a worthy goal, but not so worthy as getting things right. If you think you understand the topic better than the article, then it's probably best to make your changes, and participate in the ensuing discussion. Some people around here are flamers, but a number of people at least attempt to be reasonable at least some of the time. =) See. Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages. -- Ryguasu 05:38, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Rbellin --- I wrote some parts of this article, I acknowledge it is far from neutral. I want it to be neutral. I welcome your changes. You won't get flamed by me. Don't swing the other way, of course. The landscape of the pro/anti rhetoric about D is as much a part of describing it as describing its tenets, so keep or write some text about that controversy, and about what critics think of D. Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages. Williamv1138 15:12, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I've undertaken a major rewrite of this article, and removed the NPOV dispute (though I expect someone belligerent may replace it until more "criticism of deconstruction" is added). I had to scrap a lot of text: the article contained very little information specific to deconstruction, and used a lot of hostile sources and "criticism" that were really about post-modernism. Some of that text might belong in another article (maybe Sokal affair, post-modernism, or some other page devoted to the "science wars"?), but none of it belonged here, since none of it discussed deconstruction specifically.
As I've explained in the article, many critics (who I assume haven't read much, or any, Derrida) conflate deconstruction with varying stripes of post-modernism, which is incorrect. I've tried to point the "criticism" paragraphs away from the usual poorly informed diatribes and toward real, substantial philosophical disagreements with deconstruction, of which there are many. (For some reason, most of the criticisms were basically about literary interpretation rather than other philosophical questions.) Other informed users will probably be able to augment these if they see a need, hopefully by beginning with actual claims made by Derrida or other deconstructive writers (quote! cite!) rather than straw men.
And before anyone leaps in to start an argument by calling me a "deconstructionist," I should note that I disagree with Derrida and deconstruction about lots of things. I'm by no means entirely pro-deconstruction. But I have read a lot of Derrida's work and I understand it. And an article about philosophy that cited newspaper articles for sources was patently subpar.
A few sentences of other text which dealt with the broadening of literary criticism into cultural studies was removed as well. This would make a good subject for articles on the history of literary criticism, literary theory, or cultural studies. Again, it didn't belong here. There wasn't much more than a stub there anyway.
Rbellin 04:04, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I thought about simply including some of the criticisms from the earlier article along with correct responses, but decided it didn't direct the article toward a better understanding of the subject. Just for fun, here are my replies. Rbellin 04:04, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Deconstruction in architecture is an unrelated topic (and one well worth writing about!) Deconstructionist methods of reading a book are not really related to how an architect builds and designs apartment buildings, homes and monuments. This topic is already discussed in the article entitled Deconstructivism. That entry discusses both Deconstructivism and Deconstruction. I am thinking that perhaps the name of that architecture article is not enough for some people to find it in their Web search engines; maybe we should create Deconstruction (architecture) as an article, and turn it into a redirect to the deconstructivism article? Or maybe we should do this the other way around, and turn the Deconstructivism article into a redirect to Deconstruction (architecture). Thoughts?
I've tried to deal with the problems regarding the "Criticisms of Deconstruction" section of the article in a new way. After several of the criticisms in this section, I've inserted short replies of the sort that a deconstructor might give. To emphasize this attempt to replace mutual recrimination with respectful dialogue, and also to give the article a more "deconstrution-friendly" feel by whimsically pointing out the unresolved tensions within the article itself, I've labeled each criticism "PROSECUTION" and each reply "DEFENSE." Hopefully the readers will be the jury. I hope this doesn't constitute a violation of NPOV, but I thought it was better to approximate NPOV by having multiple points of view explicitly present than to use NPOV as an excuse to curtail discussion. I hope nobody on either side of this debate is offended by the role in which I have cast her or him. Any thoughts?
Because I think this issue is interesting for Wikipedia as a whole, not just a personal complaint, I want to state my opinion of the return of the "Criticisms" text that I deleted. I want to be clear: I'm not trying to start an argument (which I correctly predicted was likely before I edited the page), it's not my intention to flame, and I don't intend to re-edit the page again. I just want to air an opinion and solicit comment on it from the user community.
The text reintroduced to this page (from the fourth paragraph to the end of the Criticism section) was a major motivation for my rewrite. In my opinion, this text is factually inaccurate as well as philosophically naive. (Inaccurate because the philosophical beliefs which it attributes to "deconstructionists" are not, in fact, important ideas specific to deconstruction; naive because of the question-begging arguments it presents as "obvious" refutations.) Either of these alone would be enough to justify its removal from a philosophy encyclopedia article, to my mind. The Chomsky quotation is not a "criticism" of anything, but a famous scholar saying that he doesn't understand. (And not that he doesn't understand deconstruction, by the way. The word appears nowhere in the quotation: Chomsky is really talking about "poststructuralism and postmodernism", as he explicitly says, not deconstruction. Again, this quotation doesn't belong in this article, because it's (a) not a real criticism and (b) not about deconstruction.)
In my opinion, a scholar reading this portion of the article would not consider Wikipedia a reliable or intelligent source. The article's point-of-view balance is improved since the new text was added, but I still consider this section subpar.
I think all the content of the deleted text is summarized more coherently, more literately, and more correctly by the first paragraph of the Criticism section that I posted (which simply calls the positions attributed to deconstruction by the deleted texts by their proper philosophical names, and then correctly points out that none of them is really a meaningful tenet of deconstruction, and that the criticisms are really about some form of postmodernism). At least one user evidently disagrees, though without providing any citations or evidence why.
The interesting thing here, as a broader topic for discussion, is that Wikipedia claims that expert and scholarly contributions are solicited. Yet in certain cases (like that of this page) I perceive an active will to ignorace among a segment of the user community: here a relatively well-informed rewrite (with citations and documentation of sources), from a newbie author who's knowledgeable about the subject, was immediately (though just partially) reverted to its previous state of ignorance. The problem, in my opinion, is that the Wikipedian motto "Write about what you know about" fails in the not-so-uncommon case that a contributor doesn't know what he or she knows and, more importantly, doesn't know about. And, as Hegel said, not everyone assumes they can be a shoemaker given leather and a last, but everyone thinks they can be a philosopher.
Furthermore, most experts and scholars, even if they decide to contribute to the Wikipedia, are not going to have the energy or inclination to engage in long discussions with non-experts defending the changes they make. Does Wikipedia have a way to deal with this problem, given that for some topics not all Wikipedians will recognize the difference between a well-informed page and an amateurish one? I know that I won't be participating in any more back-and-forth in Talk pages here, because I have other work to do.
My personal response to this is to become very wary of re-editing existing articles, even those that I know -- from my own scholarly work in the field -- to be inaccurate (or just bad). My contribution to Wikipedia in the future will probably be restricted to creating new articles, so I don't have to worry about stepping on anyone's toes.
Rbellin 01:59, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I removed a very biased "disclaimer" from a deconstructionist apologist. He wrote in this article "This article's discussion of deconstructive thought should be considered a gross oversimplification. Deconstruction is vulnerable to misunderstanding even when carefully and sympathetically summarized, perhaps more than other philosophy, because of its emphasis on irreducible complexity and its texts' often difficult style."
One hardly knows where to begin criticising such a claim. Is deconstructionist so much harder to understand than nuclear physics and quantum mechanics, or any other complicated topic? I highly doubt it. No other Wikipedia article has such grandiose personal disclaimers, and there is good reason for it. Secondly, most historians, literature professors and scientists are critical of deconstructionism precisely because of such disclaimers. Deconstructinist authors often make incredible statements, then publicly attack their critics as too stupid or naive to understand their real meaning. Over and over deconstructionist literature contains numerous examples of special pleading, in which deconstructionists demand the right to comment on any subject, but reject the right of anyone to examine or reject their own views. This is not NPOV. It isn't even rational. RK 00:30, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)
I removed the following NPOV violations. It is not acceptable on Wikipedia to promote one's personal views as fact. Critics of deconstruction often believe it to advocate irrationalism, absolute relativism, radical social constructivism, opposition to science or history, anti-realism, subjectivism, and/or solipsism. None of these claims is supported by a careful reading of Derrida's work (or any other eminent texts of deconstruction).... I think that most long-time Wikipedia contributors will understand why such grandiose claims are unacceptable and a violation of our NPOV policy.
This renoval is especially appropriate, since the vast majority of philosophers, literary scholars, historians and scientists reject deconstructionism. These people do make the above criticisms of deconstructionism, and they explain why in great detail. The above deleted statement is clearly calling all of these people too stupid to understand what they are reading. I propose that instead this article simply follow standard policy: Explain who holds point of view "A", and why; then explain who holds point of view "B", and why. RK
I see that any view other than outright attack on deconstruction has little hope of remaining on this page for long. Since I do not have the tenacity or the desire to engage in an argument, much less an edit war, with RK, I surrender, and will likely never re-edit the page, or any other page he seems interested in. You win, pal -- enjoy. But you're actively driving away a contributor who wants to help the Wikipedia, with a strong background in fields underrepresented here. And, for the record, I don't think this page should serve as a debate forum about mistaken claims based on cursory/poor readings of complex and lengthy texts.
I will limit myself to a few remarks en passant. First: I have read and understood several thousand pages, from at least three dozen books, on deconstruction. I have been in graduate seminars with many experts who publish books on the topic. I have what I, and a prestigious university, think is a decent background in the topic. I hate to speculate on the background of other contributors, but RK's edits certainly don't display any familiarity with the material that I can see. (I know, I'm just asserting this without documentation, and I'm honestly not trying to pull rank or justify my previous edits on this basis alone, but it puts what I'm saying about the changes in some perspective.)
Second: As I wrote above (right near where I predicted I'd be assumed to be an "apologist," though being assumed to be "he" I couldn't have predicted!), I think (personal opinion) this page is an example of a very general failing in Wikipedia's community process (or lack of it), in which a single aggressive user is forcing ill-informed changes that worsen an article.
Third: A fairly large proportion of RK's assertions on the topic are factually incorrect (most egregiously "the vast majority of..." assertions above), not that I'd waste my time trying, since RK will evidently not be convinced by documentation or citation of sources.
I will observe that no documentation for any of RK's text is apparently forthcoming (and as I noted above, the Chomsky citation is completely off-topic; it says nothing about deconstruction). Wikipedia ought have a real process to deal with this kind of problem.
Fourth, because I think the "disclaimer" is an interesting issue: Presumably it's obvious, at least to the non-simple-minded, that there are topics too complex to cover in adequate depth in a Wikipedia article. Presumably it's also obvious that there are ideas and arguments too subtle to summarize effectively in a short article. So what's the problem with the disclaimer (which is of a sort that's common in pedagogical introductions to all kinds of topics)? Is it that Wikipedia articles on complex or subtle subjects should all implicitly be treated as oversimplifications? That might be a bitter pill for some Wikipedia boosters to swallow. Rbellin 04:37, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)
It seems like this article needs to be deeply cut to even approach NPOV. Like about 1-2 paragraphs each side. I don't want to swing the machete though. Williamv1138 14:22, Nov 4, 2003 (UTC)
I just came back and have just read the article. It looks a lot better than before - when I first read it and decided to do something with it.
Here are some other, more specific comments.
Hope it helps. Tomos 05:10, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Tomos writes "In the section for differance, there is a paragraph starting with "In simple terms.." I don't think the part is in as simple as it could be. So I might try to come up with something better, if no one else does."
Tomos writes "Criticism regarding "author's intention." I think it is fair to say that many literary critics rely on their own way of reading the text, and that can be different from the auther's. Psychoanalysis, structuralism, marxism, feminism and perhaps some other ways to read a text would lead one to conclude that author is not fully aware of what s/he has written. There are "hidden" "alternative" and/or sometimes "true" meaning of the text revealed through these special methods. So, I think it is not good to say that vast majority of literary critics believe that author's words clarify or fix the meaning of the text."
Tmos writes "Regarding the same point, I think a better characterization would be something like this: deconstructionists general claim (explicit or otherwise) that text is open to many different readings, would not be applicable to all texts equally - some are not as open to revealing alternative readings as deconstructionists may claim."
Tomos writes "Criticism regarding "reality" I think this is weak. It ends with "this view is rejected by vast majority of..." But it seems that quite many (influential) philosophers, including Kant, Quine, reject that we can have a direct knowledge of the reality. And think about science ... one of the most popular definition of a scientific theory is that it is something falsifiable (Popper). According to that, scientists do not "prove" that reality is as described in a theory; they merely "reject" the possibility that data does not match the theory. when the mismatch does not happen, it means the theory survived the test of falsification. It does not mean the theory is "proven." So, I doubt if it is fair to say that vast majority of philosophers and scientists reject the idea that reality is unreachable."
RK, thanks for your detailed responce! I am slow, and I have just two things to write.
First, the clarification you asked regarding author's intention. What I wanted to say is that not every text is eaually easy to deconstruct. Some texts clearly seem to have a rather straightforward meaning. Other texts have apparent ambiguity and are open to many readings - some readings may be found through the act of deconstruction. So, for some texts, deconstruction may be effective to overturn the "dominant" or "privileged" reading and find alternative reading of the text. But many would think that not all texts could be effectively dealt with in that way.
Second, regarding reality issue. Now I think of it, I was confusing two things - like you suggested, many do not doubt that reality exists out there, while some deconstructionists do. Many, at least, take that idea of external, objective reality as a workable assumption, something they want to prove, etc. That's one thing. To the extent that deconstructionists refute that idea and says things like "there is nothing outside texts", many historians, scientists, and even some philosophers would disagree. Another thing is the idea of social construction versus "knowledge about reality." Deconstructionsts are often social constructivists, but I guess they are hardly alone. Not that social constructivists of that type is not criticized. Those who reject social construction would not be the majority. In short, "while many would agree that our knowledge of reality is shaped by social factors, few would join deconstructionists in regarding external objective reality as non-existent." Would that sound better than what currently is there? Tomos 07:26, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Like "differance," somebody should add information concerning such words as "ecriture", "trace", "supplement", "hymen", "pharmakon", "marge", "entame", and "parergon", etc. COGDEN 07:48, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Someone left a note at meta about this article. I have no idea whether it's a valid concern: [1] Dori | Talk 19:01, Feb 3, 2004 (UTC)
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This is an old talk page. For the current version, please go:
talk:Deconstruction
I'm going to change the title to "Deconstruction," on the grounds that (in my experience) "deconstructionism" is a description used solely by journalists or hostile critics. "Deconstruction," I believe, is the neutral term. (JRB) The Derrida/Lévi-Strauss example is interesting, but is there nothing more straightforward? I, for one, have a lot of trouble swollowing a definition of writing as communication with the intent to enslave. Are there no examples of deconstruction based on more everyday definitions, that would make more sense to the uninitiated? As for
By "interpersonal communication" do we mean speech? Also, I doubt that "interpersonal communication" is Plato's preferred form of speech. It seems he would be more excited by, say, the sound, logical proposition. He might not gave been quite as obsessed by the proposition as Aristotle, or as modern semanticists, but I still bet expressing and conveying propositions was his favorite use of language.
We currently have this article, "Deconstruction", in addition to Deconstruction. Although there may be some disagreement about which is the best name for this area of inquiry, can we agree that we don't need to have two separate articles? If nobody objects, I'm going to merge the two. I think it will be most natural to merge "Deconstruction" into "Deconstructionism", since the latter article is longer. If there are lingering disagreements about which should be the "true" name, we can settle them after the merge. Ok? -- Ryguasu 03:44 Dec 31, 2002 (UTC)
Tomos 22:25 Jan 31, 2003 (UTC)
As I remember, Heidegger is the one who coined the term. Derrida adopted and popularized. Could someone verify that point? How about this account, for example? http://www.louisville.edu/a-s/english/babo/raia/deconstruction.html Tomos 22:25 Jan 31, 2003 (UTC)
Hilary Putnam's "Irrealism and Deconstruction" is a good, quick comment on how Derrida's work relates to what I am tempted to call real philosophy. He does a sort of compare-and-contrast with Nelson Goodman.--amt
there are lots of unfortunate code-isms in the text (August 10, 2001). I don't care enough FOR deconstruction to do the work to make them legible.
Is there a link between desconstructionism and critical theory? I was under the impression that critical theorists use some of the methods of deconstructionism to expose that what is claimed to be objectivity contains implicit power relationships,
Please don't use "deconstructionISM". It's a method, an activity . . . NOT a school of thought or a doctrine. The term "deconstructionism" makes no more sense than, say, "philosophISM" or "sciencISM".
Removed. This is not NPOV; it's unnecessarily hostile towards common usage, not only regarding "deconstruction", but also regarding the other examples mentioned. -- Ryguasu
What about deconstructionism and relativism? Particularly in history. -- Ed Poor
We currently have this article, "Deconstructionism", in addition to Deconstruction. Although there may be some disagreement about which is the best name for this area of inquiry, can we agree that we don't need to have two separate articles? If nobody objects, I'm going to merge the two. I think it will be most natural to merge "Deconstruction" into "Deconstructionism", since the latter article is longer. If there are lingering disagreements about which should be the "true" name, we can settle them after the merge. Ok? -- Ryguasu 03:44 Dec 31, 2002 (UTC)
This sentence:
Makes no sense to me. What is the "process of thinking?" And when did it need to be revived? Or, as it was before, "revivified?" I can't tell if the statement could be something like "process of criticism," but unless Derrida himself said this, could we change it? Atorpen 04:48 Jan 25, 2003 (UTC)
There should be a section on deconstructionists and science. In recent years a number of prominent literary deconstructionist, French philosophers, and some radical feminists have written essays attacking the scientific method, science in general, as well as the entire field of mathematics and logic. These essays claim that any form of logical thinking is "colonianlist" or "masculinist", and prevents people from gaining knowledge through "other ways of knowing", including feminine intuition and mysticism. (These views are generally rejected by the majority of philosophers, and have little support in the mainstream feminist community.) Scientists hold that these claims are baseless. They point out that it is science alone that has provided information on the mysteries of the atom, the cell, the solar system, and the observable universe. It is science alone that has provided knowledge to develop thousands of technological advances in medicine, engineering, communications, computers, synthetic fabrics and beyond.
They hold that no other system which claims to compete with science has ever actually succeeded in actually producing useful information about the physical world in which we live, or has produced actual technologies. Left-wing deconstructionism has led to some very bizarre claims, that have only gained in popularity in recent years. (e.g. the works of Sandra Harding, Helen Longino, and Stanley Aronowitz, among others.) They write that science is only a set of male, Western cultural conventions, and not a body of knowledge about the real world. they claim that science teaches us nothing about the world, but only exposes the belief systems of male capitalists. Obviously, these positions false, and harmful...but they exist, and they are popular in certain populations. RK 02:05 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)
People who wish to write on this topic should read Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels with Science by Gross, P. R. and N. Levitt. 1994, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press. To make myself clear, I am not claiming that these radical deconstructionist views are representative of all social studies professors; note that they are usually only held by certain English majors, radical feminist, and Derrida-influences philosophy students. Some web resources follow: RK 02:05 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)
A Review of Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science
Another Review of Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science
Why I wrote it - about the Sokol hoax which debunked the deconstructionists
A Plea for Reason, Evidence and Logic
Science, Scientism, and Anti-Science in the Age of Preposterism
The academic left makes many gross errors when it attempts to apply deconstructionism to science. A review of their papers reveals that many in the academic left often confuse and/or conflates all of the following issues, described by physicist Alan Sokol.
RK 16:19 21 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Dr. Sokol writes:
Stanley Aronowitz, post-modern critic of science, irrationally claims "The point is that neither logic nor mathematics escapes the contamination." (Source: Aronowitz, Science as Power, p.326, Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1988)
Totally misunderstanding Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and the development of Quantum Mechanics, sociologist Harvie Ferguson writes the frighteningly serious claim that "The inner collapse of the bourgeois ego signalled an end to fixity and systematic structure of the bourgeois cosmos. One privileged point of observation was replaced by a complex interaction of viewpoints. The new relativistic viewpoint was not itself a product of scientific 'advances' but was part, rather, of a general cultural and social transformation which expressed itself in a variety of 'modern' movements. It was no longer conceivable that nature could be reconstructed as a logical whole. The incompleteness, indeterminacy, and arbitrariness of the subject now reappeared in the natural world. Nature, that is, like personal existence, makes itself known only in fragmented images." (Source: Ferguson, The Science of Pleasure, Routledge, 1990) In a quasi-Marxist rant, Ferguson goes onto to claim throughout his book that developments in physics are not actual knowledge gained about the real world, but rather are only ideas generated by "bourgeois consciousness".
French post-modernist Bruno Latour claims "Reality is the consequence rather than the cause of the social construction of facts."
I have temporarily removed this paragraph, only because it needs some clarification:
Could the person who wrote this please explain it? What does mean? It sounds interesting. RK
Removed line about strong social constructivism being rejected by virtually all scientists and historians. Change virtual all to most, there are quite a few scientists (particularly social scientists) I know that wouldn't be that averese to strong social constructivism. User:Roadrunner
Removed "emotional". Most physicists are extremely passionate people and are very emotional about their work. There is a popular belief that emotion and passion are incompatible with objectivity and rationality, which is *not* the case with most of the physicists I know. Most of them do believe the theories that they do for emotional reasons, but those emotions are based on facts and objectivity, and the strong emotions involved actually tends to make people more open minded not less. Now that I think about it, I'm curious where this stereotype of a physicist as an objective unfeeling machine comes from. -- User:Roadrunner
I'm temporarily removing this paragraph:
There are several problems here: First, the word "all" is dangerous. There are many people who are arguably philosophers and yet who are not dead-set on the veracity and/or importance of the law of the excluded middle. This includes followers of Derrida as well as the "duality is bad" philosophical traditions of Asia.
(I assume there are better examples, but these are enough to show that "all" is inadequate. The phrase "Western philosophers" would be better, although still problematic. Perhaps "analytic philosophers" would be best of all?)
Second, aside from philosophers, hard-nosed mathematicians have thought it worthwhile to explore logics that reject the law of the excluded middle. Law of excluded middle seems to be a starting point for further information.
Third, the paragraph as I just found it in the article gave more time to a refutation of Derrida's take on the law than to his original presentation. This hardly seems fair, given that the refutation is basically "trust your common sense", whereas Derrida's take, supposing it to be coherent, is more difficult to understand. Ryguasu 00:31 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Just for reference, the *very first line* of the Dao De Jing is "The dao is dao, but it is not dao. A name is a name, but it is not a name."
The whole philosophical school is based on rejecting the law of the excluded middle. Unless you want to exclude Daoism and Zen Buddhism from the term philosophy, then you *can't* make the statement that all philosophers accept the law of the excluded middle. This is incidental why people who are interested in deconstructionism tend also to be interested in Eastern religion. Roadrunner
This statement is an incorrect summary of the law of the excluded middle and confuses it with the law of non-contradiction. The law of the excluded middle says that a statement *must* be either true or false. This is different from the law of non-contradiction which says that a statement cannot *both* be true or false. In particular, the law of the excluded middle excludes the possiblity that a statement is *neither* true nor false, and its perfectly possible to create a system of logic which is allows for statements that are neither true or false.
References:
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ExcludedMiddleLaw.html
http://www.austinlinks.com/Fuzzy/tutorial.html
http://www.cs.panam.edu/fox/CSCI6175/fuzzy.ppt
http://www.math.fau.edu/Richman/html/construc.htm
http://www.columbia.edu/~av72/non_classical_logics/LectureNotes/Lecture_11.pdf
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~petera/Padua_Lectures/lect2.html
http://www.supschool-logic.com/files/file4.pdf
My point here is that Derrida might be nutty, but he isn't nutty because he denies the law of the excluded middle. I've just given seven references to mathematicians and mathematical philosophers who also deny the universiality of the law of the excluded middle. My point is also that the summary of the law of the excluded middle in the paragraph is just wrong. Also to take up your challenge. Michael Dummett denies the law of the excluded middle.
Michael Dummet on the law of the excluded middle
More on Dummet's views on this law
That's one. I can come up with about five more easily. Satisfied? Also, do a google search on the term paraconsistent. There is a very active area of research in creating logical systems that don't collapse if you have an inconsistency. Its actually useful in artificial intelligence. - Roadrunner