Review: Limited Think: How Not to Read Derrida

Author(s): Christopher Norris

Review by: Christopher Norris
Source: Diacritics, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Spring, 1990), pp. 16-36
Published by: Johns Hopkins University Press
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LIMITED

HOW
READ

THINK:

NOT

TO

DERRIDA

CHRISTOPHERNORRIS
Jacques Derrida. LIMITEDINC. 2nded. Incorporating"SignatureEvent
Context,"with an afterword("Towardan Ethicsof Discussion"), intro.
and ed. Gerald Graff. Evanston: NorthwesternUP, 1989.
John M. Ellis. AGAINST DECONSTRUCTION. Princeton: Princeton
UP, 1989.

I am in sympathywith JohnEllis's book on severalcounts, not least his

insistence that deconstruction-or those who speak in its name-be held
accountableto the standardsof logical rigor,argumentativeconsistency, and
truth. He is also perfectly right to maintain that such ideas need testing
through a process of genuine and open intellectual debate; that
deconstructionistsare failing this test if they resortto a notion of open-ended
textual"freeplay"orall-purposerhetorical"undecidability";
andfurthermore,
that one simply cannot make sense of argumentsthatclaim allegiance to a
different,alternative,or uniquely"Derridean"kindof logic whose termsthey
are then unable to specify with any degree of exactitude. Of course it is
absurd-and Ellis has a keen eye for such moments in the secondary
literature-for critics to raise obscurityto a high point of principle, so that
anyone who writes about deconstructionwith a measure of lucidity and
intellectualgraspwill most likely be attackedfor "tamingradicalnew ideas,"
or for deploying "theconceptualtools of conservatism."It is equally absurd
(a palpable hit for Ellis) when one comes across the argument that
deconstructionistlogic has to be distinguishedfrom the "old"(binary)logic,
a distinctionthatcould only be maintained-as he remarks-by falling back
into that same old habit of thought.
Nor would I rejectout of handhis complaintaboutthe tendencyof some
deconstructionists,when answering hostile criticism, to protest that their
opponentshavenotreadall thetextsin question-a fairlymassiveundertaking
in Derrida'scase-or thatthey have readthem in a wrong, thatis, hostile or
antideconstructionistspirit,thusforgoinganyclaim to havereallyunderstood
what those texts areall about. Ellis makes this pointby way of a comparison
with Wittgenstein's much-discussed"privatelanguage"argument. As he
remarks:"inthe unlikelyevent thatanyonewere to insist thatonly those who
were sympatheticto Wittgenstein,or who set theiranalysis of this one issue
in the context of a comprehensive treatmentof the entire corpus of his
thought,could be regardedas a serious contributorto the debate, the result
would be derisive laughter"[viii-ix]. And thereasonfor this, in Ellis's view,
is thatany theory,philosophicalposition,or argumentworththe namewill be

diacritics / spring 1990

diacritics 20.1 (1990): 17-17-36

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ra

AI

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capable of accuratestatementin a form thatcan then be judged on its meritsby anyone

who has taken the trouble to understandit, and not just by those-the born-again
converts-who have read absolutely everything and done so, moreover, in a spirit of
unquestioning acceptance. For otherwise, he protests, there is simply no room for
informedrationaldebateon mattersthatshouldnotbe confinedto a circle of like-minded
adepts and initiates.
Least of all should we accept their claim that any critique of deconstruction
presumingto summarizeDerrida'sarguments-to explainwhat they amountto in words
otherthanhis own-is necessarilyto this extent"reductive"anddistorting,and therefore
(once again) scarcelyworththe attentionof those alreadyin theknow. As Ellis says, "[i]t
is one thing to make the general point thattwo differentsets of termscannot always be
assumedto be functionallyequivalentin a given context;it is quite anotherthing to face
the issue in the specific way demandedby a particularsituation"[145]. Most often, he
finds, the deconstructioniststakerefuge in a wholesale appealto the incommensurability
thesis while failing to provide any materialevidence that this or that passage has been
misconstrued,takenout of context,or subjectedto some otherformof willful hermeneutic
violence. Forthis latterchargeto stick,"itwouldbe necessaryto argueagainstthe change
of termsby showing thatin this particularcase the substitutetermsare functionallyquite
different,and thus thatthe substanceof the argumenthad been changedby the substitution" [Ellis 145]. And in the absence of such cases we should not be too impressedby
attemptsto shift the burdenof proof by denying thattexts have any "substance"(thatis,
any content of determinablemeanings, truthclaims, propositionalentailments,and so
forth) as apartfrom the endless "freeplay"of unanchoredsignification. In fact, as Ellis
notes, there is anotherfairlyobvious logical problemhere, since if these critics are right
(whateverthatcould mean)-if texts are indeed open to any numberof readingswith no
possible appeal to standardsof validity or truth-then they can hardly complain that
opponentshavegot themwrong,or thatattackson deconstructionamountto nothingmore
than a species of reductivetravesty.
Up to this point I can still muster some sympathy with Ellis's style of brisk nononsenseriposte. Thatis to say, I would agreethatany worthwhiledebateon such issues
must involve some appeal to substantiveideas of what counts as an adequate,rational,
good-faith,or competentaddressto the topic in hand. Thereis absolutelyno reasonwhy
deconstructionshould be exempted from respecting these standardsof argumentative
validity, even if-as its exponents often remind us-the appeal to such standardscan
become a pretext for adhering to the straightforward,canonical sense of things and
ignoringany textualcomplicationsthatget in its way. But again, these argumentsmust
lose all theirforce if appliedata level of blanketgeneralitywhereall texts supposedlyselfdeconstructonce readwithaneye to theirrhetoricalblindspots,orwhereeverysuchreading
leads up to the point of an utterlypredictablemise en abime. "In theoreticaldiscourse,"
Ellis writes, "argumentis met by argument;one carefulattemptto analyze and elucidate
the basis of a critical concept or position is met by an equally exacting and penetrating
scrutinyof its own innerlogic" [159]. And this appliesjust as much to literarycriticism
(wheretraditionallymattersof rhetoricandstyle haveplayed a prominentrole) as to other
disciplines, like philosophy and intellectualhistory,where they have not-up to nowbeen thoughtof as deservingsuch detailedor meticulousattention. WhatEllis hopes to
show-and it is a point worthmaking-is thatall these effortswill be thrownaway if they
amountto nothing more thana routineinsistence on the infinite "deferral"of meaning,
the arbitrarycharacterof interpretiveconstraints,or the absence of a "transcendental
signified" that would limit the otherwise boundless "freeplay"of textual signification.
This is where Ellis locates the main weakness of deconstructionistcriticism: in its
tendencyto jump clean over "fromone extreme(meaningis a matterof fixed, immutable
concepts) to the other (meaningis a matterof the indeterminate,infinite play of signs)"
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[66]. In the process, he argues, it abandonsevery last claim to discriminatevalid from

invalidarguments,or to offer any principledcase in supportof its own declaredposition.
So the real question here-the main point at issue between Ellis and the Derridean
camp-followers-has to do with the statusof theoryitself as a constructiveand properly
accountablediscipline of thought. More specifically, it concerns the extent to which
ideas, arguments,and truthclaims may be judged as achieving (or as failing to achieve)
a degree of conceptualautonomy,such thatthey would not be subjectto the vagaries of
"freeplay,""dissemination,""iterability,"and the various cognate terms of Derrideantextualistthought. Ellis sees no reason to equivocate here: clarity and conceptualrigor
are the prime virtues in every field of intellectualendeavor,and if deconstructionturns
out to lack those virtues-or makes a point of flouting them at every opportunity-then
so much the worse for deconstruction. Theoreticalargumentmust therefore"proceed
with greatcare... it mustbe above all a careful,patient,analyticalprocess: its strengths
must lie in precision of formulation,in well-drawndistinctions, in carefully delineated
concepts" [158-59]. Hence Ellis's principledobjectionto what he takes as the standard
deconstructionistresponsewhen confrontedwith any such argument.This is the idea that
"textuality"goes all the way down, thatlanguage (includingthe languageof philosophy
or theory)is metaphoricalthroughand through,and-following Nietzsche-that "concept"is merely an honorificusage, a name we attachto those privileged philosophemes
whose figural origin has now been forgotten througha process of erasureor selective
oblivion. On this accounttheorywould have to yield up all its time-honoredpowers and
prerogatives. It would henceforthexist (in RichardRorty's phrase)as just another"kind
of writing," a genre devoid of all truthclaims, validatinggrounds, or epistemological
guarantees,and one moreoverwhose sole distinguishingmarkwas its attachmentto that
old, self-deluding orderof "logocentric"concepts and categories.1
Such is at anyratethe versionof Derridathathasgainedwide currencyamongliterary
critics, as well as neopragmatistslike Rortywho see it as a handytacticalresourceagainst
foundationalistargumentsof whateverkind. This is why Ellis regardsdeconstructionas
a thoroughlyperverse and mischievous doctrine, an affront to all decent standardsof
scholarlyandcriticaldebate. Before its advent,he writes,literarytheory"workedagainst
the laissez-faire tendenciesof criticism;but now deconstruction,an intensified expression of those tendencies,has attemptedto seize the mantleof theoryin orderto pursue[an]
anti-theoreticalprogram"[159]. That is to say, deconstructionencourages the idea of
criticismas a kindof free-for-allhermeneuticromp,anactivitywhereno constraintsapply
save those broughtto bearby some arbitraryset of interpretivecodes andconventions. In
a previousbook [TheTheoryof LiteraryCriticism,1974] Ellis had argueda similarcase
with regard to the various competing schools that jostled for attentionin the decades
before deconstructionmade its markon the US academicscene. His point, then as now,
was that theory should be seen as essentially a normativeand clarifying enterprise,one
whose only use was to sort out the "logic" (the implicit ordersof truthclaim, evaluative
judgment, ontological presupposition,etc.) thatcharacterizedthe discourses of literary
criticism. All too often interpretersran into troublethroughsimply not perceiving the
logical entailmentsof theirown practice,or by adoptinga languagethatfailed to respect
the elementaryrequirementsof consistency andtruth.Ellis's approachwas clearly much
influenced by modern analytical philosophy, in particularthose forms of conceptual
exegesis (or logico-semantic investigation)espoused by thinkersin the postwarAnglo1. See RichardRorty, "PhilosophyAs a Kindof Writing";also ChristopherNorris,
"PhilosophyAs Not Just a 'Kind of Writing'," Redrawing The Lines: Analytic Philosophy,
Deconstructionand LiteraryTheory, ed. Reed WayDasenbrock,[Minneapolis: U of Minnesota

AReplytoNorris,"Dasenbrock
P, 1989]189-203;andRorty,"TwoMeaningsof 'Logocentrism':
204-16.
diacritics / spring 1990

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19

American camp. Like them, he took a firmly no-nonsense line as against the more
adventurous,"metaphysical,"or speculativeschools of literarytheory. On this point he
agreed with Wittgenstein: that the only result of such misguided endeavorswas to cut
criticism off from its source in the sharedenterpriseof humanunderstanding,one that
should involve the widest possible communityof readers,and not have recourseto all
mannerof specializedjargon or professionalshoptalk.
It is the same line of argumentthat Ellis takes up in his present crusade against
deconstruction.The objectof literarytheory,as he sees it, is to analyzethe logic of critical
discourse, as revealed in various representativesamples, good and bad; to clarify the
beliefs thatunderliesuch discourse,most often at a level of tacitpresupposition;and thus
to arriveat a betterunderstandingof the errorsor the cross-purposeargumentsthatresult
from hithertounperceivedconflicts of aim and principle. From which it follows that
theory should not be concerned with a whole range of other (currentlyfashionable)
activities, among them the invention of ever more subtle and elaboratetechniques for
discoveringoccult meaningsat work,orlevels of significancebeyondthegraspof readers
unequippedwith such specialized hermeneuticskills. In this respect,accordingto Ellis,
there is little to choose between deconstructionand those other forms of pseudoliberationistrhetoric(like reader-responsetheory)whichrejectall notionsof determinate
meaning in favor of an open-ended"textualist"approach,a willingness to let the work
mean what it will in this or that phase of its reception history or from each individual
readingto the next. Forif one pushesthisargumentto its logical conclusion-a procedure
thatEllis very rightlyrecommends-then one is led to the point of denying all standards
of interpretiveconsistency, relevance, or truth. In which case these currentmodes of
thoughtare"antitheoretical"in the sense thatthey promotea kind of easy-going pluralist
tolerance that leaves no room for significant disagreementon issues of principle and
practice.
It is worthquotingEllis at some lengthon thispoint,since it is herethathis book most
clearly reveals its limitationsof scope and intellectualgrasp. In fact, as I shall argue, it
mounts a strong case against "literary"deconstruction(that is, the US-domesticated
variant) while failing to engage with Derrida's work beyond the most superficial or
secondhandlevel of acquaintance. "Typically,"he writes,
theorists, by their very nature, do not grant this kind of licence to people or
situations to do or be whatevertheywish; theoryalways moves in the opposite
direction. Nor do theoristsgenerally reach such an easy peace with the strong
undercurrentsof the status quo of afield as deconstruction'saccommodation
with theprevalentlaissez-faireof criticalpractice. Typically,theoristsanalyze
situations to investigate the relations between aspects of current beliefs and
practices and reach conclusionsabout the relativecoherenceor incoherenceof
ideas. Thatkindof analysis will always exertpressure on particularaspects of
the status quo, a pressure that will introducenew restraintsmore than it will
abolish them. By contrast,the kindof thinkingthattendstowardremovingsuch
restraintsrepresentsa resistance to makingdistinctionsand so a resistance to
any real scope for theoreticalanalysis. [158]
There are threemain points to be made aboutthis passage, as indeed aboutEllis's book
as a whole. First,it mistakesits targetby assumingthat"deconstruction"is synonymous
with a handfulof overworkedcatchwords("textuality,""freeplay,""dissemination,"and
the rest) whose promiscuoususage at the handsof literarycritics bearsno relationto the
role they play in Derrida'swork. Second, everythingthatEllis says a propos "theory"in
his strong,approvingsense of the termwould apply point for point to deconstructionas
practicednot only by Derridabut also by those others(like Paul de Man) whose writings
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maintaina principledresistanceto the dictatesof literary-criticalfashion. It is precisely

on accountof this resistance-this concernwith the "relativecoherenceor incoherence
of ideas," along with its refusal to accommodate"currentbeliefs and practices"-that
deconstructiondiffers so markedlyfrom the work of neopragmatistadepts like Richard
Rortyor StanleyFish. And third,througha similareffect of ironicreversal,Ellis ends up
by undermininghis own case when he states (with good reason) that theory is more
concerned to criticize erroneous,incoherent,or unwarrantedbeliefs than to offer new
pretextsfor self-displayon the partof ingeniousinterpreters.For it requiresno very deep
or extensive acquaintancewith the writingsof Derridaandde Man to see thatthey arenot
involved in any way with the "laissez-faire"attitudethatEllis condemnsamong literary
critics, or the seeking-out of multiple meanings, verbal nuances, alternativereaderresponses,and so forth,in orderto stakesome claim to interpretivenovelty or-in Harold
Bloom's terms-"strong revisionist"power. On the contrary:theirwritingsdo exactly
what all good "theory"should do, as Ellis conceives it. That is to say, they engage in a
close and criticalreadingof texts, drawingout the variousordersof coimplicatedsense
(logical, grammatical,and rhetorical)thatorganizethose texts, and only then-with the
strictest regard for such protocols-locating their blind spots of naive or precritical
presupposition. For Ellis to equate this proceduretout courtwith the wilder excesses of
reader-responsecriticismis a suresign thathe, like so manyothers,has setaboutattacking
deconstructionwithout having read enough of Derrida'swork or read it with sufficient
attentivenessto detail. Had he done so-and this is by far the most charitableassumption-then Ellis would have been in no position to make such a series of ungrounded
charges,mistakenattributions,andwholesale misconstrualsof thedeconstructionistcase.
Of course this response falls plumpinto Ellis's sights as just anotherinstance of the
"textualist"idea: thatone cannotengage Derridaon substantiveissues of theorywithout
first scanningevery word of his voluminousoutput. But one could just as well turnthis
argumentaroundandask how farwe shouldtrustanycommentatorwho erectsnonreading
into a positive virtue, thus allowing himself to ignore not only those texts thatdo not fit
in with his argumentbutalmostthe entiretyof Derrida'sproduction,aside fromsome few
choice passages which-suitably construed-may appearto support the oppositional
case. Forit hasto be saidthatEllis' s accountof deconstructionfalls woefully shortof what
the subject demandsby way of serious intellectualengagementand willingness to treat
Derrida'swritingsat theirown high level of sustainedargumentativeforce. WhereEllis
goes wrong is in taking it more or less for grantedthatdeconstructioncomes down to a
species of all-out hermeneuticlicense, a pretextfor indulging super-subtlegames at the
expense of some typecastnaiveposition(like thesingle-right-readingintentionalistcase),
which servesto screenout alternative,moresensible,orlogically sophisticatedviews. On
Ellis's absurdlyreductionistaccount,this tendencyis best explainedin termsof the wellknown French predilectionpour epater le bourgeois, a desire that is perhaps understandable (he grants) on account of the dominant positivist traditionin francophone
literary studies that runs all the way from Taine to Lanson and that treats works of
literatureas so much materialfor factual-documentaryresearchor routineexplicationde
texte. But in North America,accordingto Ellis, the reversesituationobtains: not a rigid
traditionalismimposed from above by some outworn scholastic paradigmbut, on the
contrary,a pluralist ethos where everything goes and where new ideas are taken up
without the least concern for theirgenuine intellectualmerits. What is requiredby way
of countering this free-for-all attitude is "a greater degree of inhibition against the
acceptanceinto this chaos of yet anotherideology, . . . more agreementon standardsof
argument,coherence, and usefulness so that new movements such as deconstruction
might be given closer scrutinybefore they are imported"[86]. And for Ellis this means,
roughly speaking, a sizable injection of healthy anti-Galliccommonsense rationalism,
plus a fortifyingdose of elementarylogic anda strictavoidanceof exotic stimulantsin the
textualistvein.
diacritics / spring 1990

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2
As againstall this thereare certainbasic truthsaboutDerrida'swork thatapparently
need restating,since so many of his critics (Ellis included)prefer to rest their case on
minimal exposure to that work. One can best begin with the simple point that deconstructionhasrelativelylittleto do with thepastorpresentstateof Frenchliterarycriticism.
Ellis's excursion into the comparativesociology of culture merely shows that he is
workingon the same false premisethathe attacksin the US deconstructionindustry,that
is, the idea thatphilosophicalargumentscan migrateacross disciplines (in this case from
philosophy to literary criticism) without suffering a consequent loss of theoretical
cogency and rigor. This explains quite a numberof Ellis's misunderstandings,among
them his persistent(and tactically useful) habitof equatingdeconstructionwith readerresponsetheory,subjectivecriticism,and the variousformsof free-wheeling"textualist"
approachthatin fact owe nothingto Derrida'sinfluencebeyond theadoptionof a vaguely
libertarianethos. On the one handEllis argues thatdeconstructionis bad philosophyand a baneful influence on literarytheory-on accountof its illogicality, its evasion of
crucial argumentativeissues, and its habit of collapsing conceptual distinctions in the
name of an all-purposeNietzscheanrhetoricthatleaves no room for substantivedebate.
On the other he endorses that view by virtually ignoring the entire philosophical dimensionof Derrida'sworkandtreatingit asjust anotherfashionablecrazeamongliterary
critics, one whose main effect has been to license all manner of wild and willful
interpretivegames. But this is to attributeto Derridaa position that Ellis has himself
created througha resolutely partialreadingof Derrida'stexts and a heavy reliance on
secondarysources thatmistake the force and pertinenceof deconstructionistthought. It
is only by creatingthis imaginaryscenario-one in which the "movement"takesrise, for
Derridaand his US disciples alike, by way of a revolt against the crampingorthodoxies
of academic literarystudy-that Ellis can give his argumentany semblanceof historical
or diagnostic truth.
In so doing he is obliged to ignore the following essentialpoints: (1) thatDerrida's
writingsareonly marginallyconcernedwith thebusinessof interpretingliterarytexts;(2)
thatwhere he does engage in somethingthatresemblesthis activity (for example, in the
Blanchot,and Sollers), the resultantreadingsare generically quite
essays on Mallarm6e,
distinct from literarycriticism or commentaryin any of its familiarforms; and (3) that
these essays have much more to do with distinctivelyphilosophical topoi like the status
of mimetic representation,the natureandmodalitiesof aestheticjudgment,the problematic characterof speech act conventions (fictive or otherwise), and the way in which
"literature"itself has been constructed-along with related categories like metaphor,
fiction, rhetoric,form, and style-in the course of a long and complex prehistory(from
Plato to Kant, Husserl,and J. L. Austin) whose workingscan be graspedonly througha
process of rigorousgenealogical critique. In short,Derrida'stexts standsquarelywithin
the traditionof Western philosophical thought,and none the less so for his seeking to
contestor"deconstruct"thattraditionatpointswhereits foundationalconceptsandvalues
areopen to a noncanonicalreading. This is whatmakes it so absurdfor Ellis to claim that
Derridais just one morearchdebunkerof typecast"bourgeois"complacencies,or thathis
"method"has managedto createsuch a stironly by settingupa rangeof simplifiedtargetpositions and then proceedingto shoot them down in the usual triumphalistfashion.
There is only one instance in Derrida'swork where he resorts to anythinglike the
"typical"procedurethat Ellis describes. It is-notoriously-his article "Limited Inc
abc,"writtenin response to the philosopherJohnSearle, who had takenDerridaroundly
to task on the topic of Austinian speech act theory. This essay has been widely
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canvassed-by admirers and detractors alike-as setting out to demolish Searle's

argumentsthrougha rangeof ultratextualistgambits("brilliant"or "perverse"according
to taste), or as attemptingto play "philosophy"rightoff the field by showing how all such
debates come down to an endless "dissemination"of meanings, speech acts, codes, and
conventions whose importcan never be determinedeither by appealingto the utterer's
intentions (since these are inherently unknowable and subject to various kinds of
circumstantialqualification)or as a matterof straightforwardcontextualgrasp(since the
possible "contexts"of any given utterancecan be multiplied beyond the explanatory
powers of a theory-like Searle's-that seeks to maintain the normative distinction
between authenticandinauthentic,seriousandnonserious,or"real"and"fictive"speech
act genres. Now it is certainlythe case thatDerridaallows himself considerablefun and
games at Searle's expense. Thus he makes the central point about "iterability"(the
capacityof speech acts to functionacrossa vast-potentially infinite-range of contexts,
situations,or discourses) by citing the entiretyof Searle's original response but citing it
piecemeal to his own strategicends, with the object of activatinglatentor unlooked-for
possibilities of sense which thusbecome thebasis for a scrupulouslyliteralreadingwhich
nonetheless goes clean against the intentionalor manifest drift of Searle's argument.
There is also a good deal of knockaboutplay with signatures,propernames, copyright
conventions, Searle's claim to speak as the "authorized"exponentof genuine speech act
philosophy, and othersuch pointersto what Derridasees as a strongproprietorydrive, a
desire that Austin's texts should not be exposed to any reading that questions their
"obvious,"self-validating import. So one can well understandwhy "LimitedInc" has
acquiredits reputationas the ne plus ultraof Derrideansophistical"freeplay,"as opposed
to the plain good sense and sobriety of Searle's correctiveintervention.
Such is at any rateEllis's view of the Searle/Derridaexchange, serving as it doesat severalpoints in his book-as a flagrantexampleof Derrida'sunwillingnessto engage
in reasoned, responsible debate and his lack of regardfor the elementaryprotocols of
sharedunderstanding.It is precisely these failings, in Ellis's view, thatshouldpreventus
from taking such performancesseriously as a genuine contributionto philosophy or
literarytheory. "By contrast,"he writes, "the beginning of other attemptsto advance
thoughtis normallytaken to requirea focus on the highest and most advancedlevel of
thinkingthat has been achieved on a given question;we startwith the latest state of the
artand go on fromthere."Fordeconstructionists,conversely,criticismbeats a defensive
retreat"away from the most sophisticatedthoughtachieved to date, back to unsophisticated, simple notions"[137-38]. But it is hardto conceive how anyone who had studied
theexchangebetweenDerridaandSearlecouldpossiblyjudge Searleto havearguedmore
effectively or put up a strongerphilosophical case. For the truthis-and I make no
apology for puttingit like this-that Derridanot only runsrings aroundSearleat the level
of "sophisticated"wordplay but also draws attention to antinomies, blind spots, non
sequiturs, aporias, and moments of unwitting self-contradictionwhich are manifestly
there in Searle's essay and which renderhis argumentsvulnerableto a deconstructive
reading.
There is one case in point that has particularrelevance here since it concerns an
objection brought against Derrida by Searle, Ellis, and others who adopt a likewise
dismissive attitude. Theirargument,in short,is thatDerridagoes wrong-or succeeds in
creatingall kindsof unnecessarytrouble-through his insistenceon a rigidlybinarylogic,
an "all-or-nothing"stance whereby it is made to appearthat dogmatic certaintyor outand-outskepticismaretheonly availablealternatives.ThusDerridamaintains(orso these
critics would have us believe) that meaning is either fully determinateor subject to a
limitless "undecidability";thatunless thereexist some clearly specifiable rules for interpreting speech act conventions, then those conventions are necessarily just ad hoc,
makeshiftproductsof this or that uniquely occurringsituationand can thus possess no
diacritics / spring 1990

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23

binding or intelligible force fromone such context to the next; thatif"logocentrism"(or

the Western"metaphysicsof presence")turnsout to entail a deeply problematicalset of
assumptions,then thereis no possibility of meaningwhat one says or effectively saying
what one means; that if language does not work in quite the way envisaged by naive
referentialisttheories-on accountof the "arbitrary"
natureof the sign, or complicating
factors pointed out (less dramatically)by philosophersin the modem analytical tradition-then we must be deluded in the commonsense belief that words can get a good
enough grip on the world to serve for most practicalpurposes. Accordingto Searle and
Ellis thesearejust some of theabsurdconclusionsto which Derridais drivenby following
out thelogic of his equallyabsurdpremises. Andthebest way to avoid suchmuddles,they
argue, is to give up the habitof thinkingexclusively in binary,"either-or"terms,a habit
thatcan only lead to all mannerof sterileantinomiesandconceptualdeadends. Once rid
of these distractingpseudoproblemsphilosophycan then get on with its properbusiness
of describingthe variousspeechact conventions,nuancesof meaning,contextualcriteria,
and so forththathelp to explain how we do in fact succeed-at least most of the timein achieving a decent measureof sharedlinguistic grasp.
Derridahas two main points to make in response to Searle's confidently orthodox
rejoinder.One is thathe (Searle)is hardlyin a strongposition to advancesuch arguments,
since his whole case restson the chargethatDerridahas ignoredcertainbasic distinctions
in speech act theory (for example, those between real-life and fictive, genuine and
pretended,"felicitous"and "infelicitous"examples of the kind), thus willfully ignoring
the plain sense of Austin's text, as well as the obvious practical need to keep these
categories in place. So there is an unwittingirony about Searle's attackon Derridafor
adopting a rigidly exclusivist logic, an "all or nothing"attitudethat holds (in Searle's
words) "that unless a distinction can be made rigorous and precise, it isn't really a
distinctionat all" [LimitedInc 123]. But then Derridatums this argumentaroundby not
takingthe line-as mightbe expected-that suchcategoriesneed deconstructingin order
to reveal their"metaphysical"or "logocentric"nature,but declaringon the contrarythat
they remain indispensable to any project of thought (his own included) that seeks to
achieve philosophicalcogency andrigor. Whatmakes Searlea bad, inattentivereaderof
Austin and Derridaalike is his failureto perceive the rigorousnecessity of maintaining
these distinctions,even-and especially-at the point where they encountera deep-laid
resistance to straightforward"commonsense"application. "Infact," Derridawrites,
not only do Ifind this logic strong, and, in conceptual language and analysis,
an absolute must (il la faut), it must (this "it must" translates... my lovefor
philosophy) be sustainedagainst all empiricalconfusion,to thepoint where the
same demandof rigor requiresthe structureof thatlogic to be transformedand
complicated.... Whatphilosopher ever since there were philosophers, what
logician since there were logicians, what theoretician ever renounced this
axiom: in the order of concepts (for we are speakingof conceptsand not of the
colors of cloudsor the tasteof certainchewinggums),whena distinctioncannot
be rigorous or precise, it is not a distinctionat all. [LimitedInc 122-23]
I have cited this passage at length because it states very firmly what should have been
obvious to Searle,Ellis, andothercommentatorswho routinelychide Derridaforhis wellknown aversion to "serious" argument. Their mistake is to suppose that first-rate

philosophy-analyticalworkof thehighestorder-cannotbe conductedin a stylethat

partakesof certain"literary"figuresanddevices or thatmakesits point througha skillful
interweavingof constativeand performativespeech act genres. For if thereis one thing
that Austin should have taughtthem-so Derridaimplies-it is the need to press these
cardinaldistinctionsas faras they will go butalso to keepan open mindwhendealingwith
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instances,anecdotes,offbeat usages, anomalouscases, and so forthwhich might seem to

"playold Harry"(Austin's own phrase)with all such tidy categoricalschemes. Thereis
a nice example at the turningpoint in How to Do Things with Wordswhen Austin decides-on accountof variousproblemswith theevidence so far-that the straightforward
constative/performativedistinctionjust won't hold up, and thereforeswitches to a threeterm descriptive model based on the notions of "locutionary,""illocutionary,"and
"perlocutionary"force. But in thus shifting ground,he is not giving up on the quest for
conceptualclarityandrigorany more thanDerridadoes when he plays certain(shrewdly
Austinian) games with Searle's unquestioning,"serious"attachmentto the canons of
orthodox speech act theory.
So Derridais perfectlyentitledto offer whatamountsto a classic tu quoqueresponse
in counteringSearle's arguments.Let me quote furtherfrom the above-citedpassage by
way of returningto Ellis's book and its confused understandingof deconstructionas a
species of last-ditchrelativist abandon.
If Searle declares explicitly,seriously,literallythatthisaxiom[i.e. the truelfalse
distinctionand its various speech act correlatives] mustbe renounced... then,
short of practicing deconstructionwith some consistencyand of submittingthe
very rules and regulations of his project to an explicit reworking, his entire
philosophical discourseon speech acts will collapse.... To each wordwill have
to be added "a little," "moreor less," "upto a certainpoint," "rather,"and
despite all this, the literal will not cease being somewhat metaphorical,
"mention"will notstop being taintedby "use,"the "intentional"no less slightly
"unintentional,"etc. Searle knowswell thathe neithercan nor shouldgo in this
direction. He has never afforded himself the theoretical means of escaping
conceptual opposition withoutempiricistconfusion. [LimitedInc 123-24]
One could hardly wish for a cleareraffirmationof Derrida'scommitmentnot only to
"philosophy"in some vague and all-encompassingsense of the word but precisely to
those standardsof logical rigor,consistency,and truthwhich deconstructionis reputedto
reject out of hand. Of course Searle and Ellis could still maintainthat in fact Derrida's
writingsdisplaynothinglike this highregardfor thecommonplaceintellectualdecencies;
that if one goes back to his original essay on Austin-not to mention his "outrageous,"
"nonsensical"riposte to Searle-then one finds him indulging all the usual deconstructionisttricksof the tradeandblithelydiscountingall the"serious"objectionsthatrise
up againsthim. But then it can only be a matter(pace Ellis) of readingall threetexts over
again-Derrida on Austin, Searle on Derrida, Derrida's book-length commentaryon
Austin and Searle-and judging those texts strictlyon theirargumentativemerits,in the
first place according to generalizedcriteriaof validity and truth(standardsthat Derrida
by no means abandons),and then, more specifically, as readings of Austin alive to the
peculiar problems, subtleties, and potential aberrationsof speech act theory. On both
counts Derridawins handsdown, not merely as a skillful rhetorician,one who contrives
to tie Searle up in philosophical knots of his own creation,but also as by far the more
rigorous thinkerand perceptiveexponent of Austin's ideas.
So it hardlycomes as a surprisethattheone crucialdocumentmissing fromthis latest
edition of LimitedInc is Searle's essay "Reiteratingthe Differences,"writtenin response
to Derrida. Gerald Graff provides a brief but accurate summary, while judiciously
advising readersto consult the full text as it appearedin Glyph [vol. 1, 1977]. For Searle
the debateis now closed and the exchangenothingmore thana lamentableinstance-on
Derrida'sside-of the muddles thatresult when literarytheoristspresume to encroach
upon the specialized preserveof "serious"philosophicalthought. Ellis draws the same
lesson from this episode, taking it as read-or at least with very little in the way of
diacritics / spring 1990

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25

supportingargument-that Searle's essay was an adequate(indeeddefinitive) response

andDerrida'sfollow-upjust anotherpiece of deconstructionistword-spinningnonsense.
Furthermore,he finds evidence of sophistry (not to say blatant double-dealing) in
Derrida'sclaim on the one hand that textual meaning is indeterminate,authorialintentions unknowable etc., and on the other that Searle has misstated his position andwhether willfully or not-offered a reading that fails to respect the requirementsof
interpretivefidelity andtruth.This latter"is indeeda farcry fromthe claim thatDerrida's
position cannotbe statedas otherscan (or thata readershouldnot tryto graspan author's
intent)... Derridathus abandonsthis position,just as othersdo, when he feels the need
to replace a misstatementof his view with an adequatestatementof it" [Ellis 13-14].
Once again there are so many confusions at work in this passage that one scarcely
knows where to begin in sortingthemout. Fourmainpoints must suffice for now. (1) If
meaningturnsout to be strictlyundecidablein certaininstances, this cannotbe takenas
synonymous with the claim that meaningis always and everywhere"indeterminate,"a
claim (like the widespreadmisunderstandingof "freeplay")thatDerridahas often been
at pains to disavow. (2) There is simply no questionof Derrida's"rejecting"the idea of
authorialintention,an idea thatprovidesthe "indispensableguardrail"for any readingof
a text, deconstructiveor otherwise, even if-as he argues-the de facto evidence of
unlooked-for textual complications counts against the prescriptivede jure appeal to
"intentions,"pureand simple. (3) Ellis cannothave it both ways, attackingwhat he sees
(mistakenly) as Derrida'sresort to a "textualist"strategy of open-ended hermeneutic
license, then complainingwhen Derridatums out to offer strongargumentsand specific
evidentialgrounds,as in the responseto Searle. (4) Deconstructionis indeed susceptible
to reasoned argumentand counterargument,a point that Derridais far from wishing to
deny, not only (as Ellis would have it) whenpresumingto correctmisreadingsof his work
butat every stageof his productionto date. In short,the whole charge-sheetfalls to shreds
if one only takes the trouble to read what Derridahas written, instead of relying on a
handfulof simplified slogans ("all reading is misreading,""thereis nothing outside the
text," "meaningis always indeterminate,"and so forth)thatare no doubt well suited to
the purpose of knockaboutpolemics but that do not begin to engage deconstructionat
anythinglike an adequatelevel. Thus when Ellis deploreswhathe sees in Derrida-and
"French intellectuals" at large-as highbrow "contempt for a stationary target of
simplemindedness,"his phrasenot only misses the markbut comes back like a boomerang.

3
It would be tedious to go right throughEllis's book picking out every instance of
routinemisunderstanding.Let me offer one furthercase in point, a case with particular
relevance here since it has to do with Derrida'sreadingof Husserl,the one majorportion
of his work thatphilosophersin the "other"(analytical)traditionhave shown some sign
of acknowledgingat its trueworth. This is not the place for a detailedexposition of the
two early books (Husserl's "Originof Geometry"and Speech and Phenomena),where
Derridaconductsa sustainedclose readingand a rigorouslyarguedanalyticalcritiqueof
Husserl's groundingsuppositions. After all, the texts are there-along with a growing
volume of informed commentary-for anyone willing to suspend their preconceived
notionsof whatDerridahas to say andto readthose texts at theirown (albeitdemanding)
level of philosophicargument.Ellis, on the contrary,offers one brief passageon Husserl
which at least has the meritof laying all his errorsopen to view in a usefully condensed
form.

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Extraordinaryverbal complexityis not excludedby this concernwithprimitive

ideas; no one could deny thatDerrida's texts are extraordinarilydifficultand
obscure. But though,for example, his makingHusserl the startingpointfor a
discussion of meaningin La voix et le phenomeneinvolves him immediatelyin
highly convoluted and difficult writing, it is Husserl's simple and logically
vulnerable assumptions about intentions, reference, and essences (i.e., that
speech is the vehiclefor conveyingmeaningand intentionthatis separatefrom
itself) that draw him to begin there. Simple ideas are not incompatiblewith
tortuousprose-on the contrary, it is when the clouds of tortuousprose are
dispelled thatprimitiveideas are oftenfound hidingfrom a light that theycould
not survive. [142]
One can see (just about) how Ellis arrivedat this contortedunderstandingof Derrida's
text. Since deconstruction-on his view-can only maintain its appearanceof high
sophisticationby picking out naive or "simple-minded"targets,thereforeit must follow
thatHusserl'sideas fall into this category,displayingall the featuresthatDerridarequires
in orderto practicehis usualrhetoricalgames. But this does nothingto explain or excuse
the sheer wrongheadednessof Ellis's account, offered as it is with the kind of breezy,
commonsensicalassurancethatcomes of a downrightrefusalto readwhat is therein the
texts underdiscussion.
His argumentmisfires for the following reasons, all of which are rehearsedwith
demonstrableforce andprecisionin Derrida'stwo early books on Husserl. First, thereis
no question of Derrida'shaving upstagedthe whole projectof Husserlianphenomenology-picked it out as a naive, simple-minded,or "logically vulnerable"target-merely
in order to display his own more subtle or sophisticatedstrategies of reading. On the
contrary: Derridainsists over and again thatHusserl's meditationsare a paradigmcase
of philosophyat its finest, most rigorous,andintenselyself-criticalstretch;thatany effort
to think"beyond"suchinquirieswill haveto go by way of a close anddetailedengagement
with Husserl's texts; and thatdeconstructionhas nothingin common with those fashionable forms of postmodemist thoughtthatrejectthe heritageof Western"metaphysical"
concepts and categories only to fall back unwittinglyinto various postures of naive or
precritical awareness. And this error is compounded by Ellis's simply taking it for
granted-no doubt on the authorityof Ryle, Searle, and other thinkersin the AngloAmericantradition-that thereis no need for such strenuousdealing with the projectof
transcendentalphenomenology since Husserl's talk of "intentions,reference, and essences" is "logically vulnerable"(for which read "just a bad case of bother-headed
Continentaltheory")and thereforenot worth the effort. Here again there is a curious
structuralironyaboutEllis's argumentwhich leads him to adoptexactly the stanceof selfdeluding superiorknowledge thathe claims to detect in Derrida'sreadingsof Saussure,
Husserl, and others. For it should be apparentto anyone who has read these texts that
deconstructionis not just a species of destructiveor all-purposenihilist rhetoric;that it
resumes the project of Husserlianthought at a point where that project may indeed be
questionedas to its presupposedvalues, metaphysicalcommitments,hiddenaxiomatics,
structuringoppositions, and so forth but only as the upshot of immanentcritique that
respectsHusserl's argumentseven while refusingon principleto accept them as a matter
of intuitive self-evidence or a priori truth. So it is quite simply wrong-a manifestcase
of very stubbornpreconceptionsat work-to treatDerrida'sreadingof Husserlas a piece
of mere "textualist"gamesmanshipor as setting out to score easy points against a
"stationarytarget"of typecastphilosophicalnaivete.
Of courseI could not hope to convince Ellis by offeringthejudgmentthatSpeechand
Phenomena stands as one of the finest achievementsof modem analytical philosophy,
takingthatdescriptionto extendwell beyondits current,strangelynarrowedprofessional
diacritics / spring 1990

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27

scope. In orderto debatethe issue to any purpose,one would have to take for grantedat
least some measureof sharedintellectualground,as for instanceby assuming thatEllis
had made some attempt to overcome his deep hostility to everything in the other
("Continental")tradition,oranyphilosophicalwritingthatdidnot fall squarewith his own
ideas of a decent, perspicuous,commonsensestyle. But this dialoguewould scarcelyget
off theground,since it is one of his chief complaintsagainstdeconstructionthatit exploits
what Ellis calls "the equation of obscurity and profunditythat has been available in
Europeanthoughtsince Hegel and Kant,"thusgiving rise to the perniciousidea that"an
obscuretext is difficult, anddifficultypresentsa challenge to readers"[147]. Again one
is hardput to decide just how such passages ask to be read: whetherevery text that is
"difficult" should therefore be consigned to the category of willful obscurantismor
whetherEllis sees any importantdifferencesamong(forexample)thekinds of intellectual
"challenge"that arise in the reading of Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Austin, or
Derrida. What mostly comes across in his writing is a settled antipathyto any form of
discoursethatquestionstheorthodox(Anglo-American)thinkingon suchmatters,thatis,
the notion of philosophic style as a transparentmeans of access to a priori concepts,
argumentativegrounds,clear and distinct ideas, or whatever. And of course there is a
sense-a well-publicizedsense-in whichdeconstructiondoes indeedmounta challenge
to any such self-assured policing of the bounds between philosophy and other, less
rigorous or disciplined kinds of language. But if one then turnsback to Derrida'stexts
on each of the above figures, it will not be found-as Ellis would have us believe-that
these are wayward, exhibitionist performancesdevoid of any genuine argumentative
force. On the contrary,they are conducted at the highest level of sustainedanalytical
grasp,with respectnot only to the letterof the text (which may often give rise to a reading
at odds with the orthodox, consensual wisdom) but also in the matter of authorial
intentions, since there is-and on this point Derrida insists-no question of simply
discountingor ignoring the intentionalistgroundof appeal, even where such meanings
appearcaughtup in signifying structuresbeyondtheirpower fully to determineor control.
His statements to this effect are found at numerouspoints in Of Grammatologyand
elsewhere,2although these passages are always passed over in silence by those-like
Ellis-who choose to regard deconstructionas a species of all-licensing sophistical
"freeplay."
2. Thepoint is alreadymade withnotableprecision andforce in Derrida, Of Grammatology,
trans. Gayatri C. Spivak[Baltimore: Johns HopkinsUP, 1976]. See especially "TheExorbitant:
Question of Method" [157-641. Let me cite one passage from this text-a passage that Ellis
ignores, along with various others to similar effect-lest it be thought that Derrida has indeed
changed tack in response to hostile or uncomprehendingcriticism.
To produce this signifying structure[i.e. a deconstructivereading] obviously cannot
consist of reproducing,by the effaced and respectful doubling of commentary, the
conscious, voluntary,intentionalrelationshipthatthe writerinstitutesin his exchanges
with the historyto which he belongs thanksto the element of language. This momentof
doublingcommentaryshouldno doubthave its place in a criticalreading. To recognize
and respect all its classical exigencies is not easy and requires all the instrumentsof
traditionalcriticism. Withoutthisrecognitionandthisrespect,criticalproductionwould
risk developing in anydirectionat all andauthorizeitself to say almostanything.But this
indispensableguardrailhas alwaysonly protected,it has never opened,areading. [158]
One could work throughthis passage sentence by sentence and show how it specifically disowns
the attitudeoffree-for-all hermeneuticlicense-or the downrightanti-intentionaliststance-that
Ellis so persistently attributesto Derrida. And of course it must also create problemsfor those
amongthe deconstructionistadeptswho takehimto have brokenaltogetherwithvalues of truthand
falsehood, right reading, intentionality,authorial "presence,"and so forth.

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On this question, as on so many others, the issue has been obscuredby a failure to
graspDerrida'spoint when he identifiesthose problematicfactorsin language(catachreses, slippages between "literal"and "figural"sense, sublimatedmetaphorsmistakenfor
determinateconcepts) whose effect-as in Husserli-is to complicate the passage from
what the text manifestly means to say to what it actually says when read with an eye to
its latent or covert signifying structures.Thus "freeplay"has nothingwhatsoeverto do
with that notion of out-and-outhermeneuticlicense which would finally come down to
a series of slogans like "all reading is misreading,""all interpretationis misinterpretation," and the like. If Derrida's texts have been read that way-most often by literary
critics in quest of more adventuroushermeneuticmodels-this is just one sign of the
widespreaddeformationprofessionelle thathas attendedthe adventof deconstructionas
a new arrivalon the US academic scene. Of course there are passages in his worknotably the closing sentences of "Structure,Sign, and Play"-that opponentslike Ellis
can cite out of contextin supportof this "anythinggoes" interpretation.Thus: "onecould
callplay the absenceof the transcendentalsignifiedas limitlessnessof play, thatis to say,
as the deconstruction of onto-theology and the metaphysics of presence" and "the
meaningof meaning(in the generalsense of meaningandnot in the sense of signalization)
is infinite implication,the infinitereferralof signifierto signified"["Structure,Sign, and
Play" 291]. But one should at least recall-a point strategicallyignored by Ellis-that
thesepassages occurat the close of anessay (a deconstructivereadingof L6vi-Straussand
the discourseof structuralanthropology)thathas arguedits case up to this point through
a rigorous critique of certain classic binary oppositions, notably the nature/culture
antinomy, and which goes clean against the idea of "freeplay"as a pretext for endless
interpretivegames withoutthe least regardfor standardsof logic, consistency, and truth.
Whatthe statementsin questionshouldbe takento signify is the fact thatat the limitthere
is no compelling reason-no formof dejure or a priori principle-that could restrictthe
"play"of oppositionsin a text to the termslaid down by our received (logocentric)order
of concepts and priorities.
It is the same basic point thatDerridamakes when he interrogatesthe axiomaticsof
Austinianspeech act theoryand denies thatany appeal to intentionsor to context could
ever provide sufficient groundsin theory for distinguishingauthenticfrom feigned (or
"felicitous"from "infelicitous")examples of the kind. But he is no more denying that
successful speech acts do in fact occur, as a matterof everyday experience, than he is
suggesting that interpretationis always faced with an infinitized "freeplay"of textual
meaningwhich can only be kept within tolerableboundsby some arbitraryact of will on
thepartof this or thatself-authorizedtribunal.His purposeis ratherto directourattention
to those various forms of de facto interpretivegrasp which operateeverywherein philosophy, criticism, everyday conversation,and especially-as Austin makes clear-in
theethicaldimensionof theseandotheractivities. Butit is also to insist, as againstSearle's
confidentlyorthodoxreadingof Austin, thatsuch facts aboutthe way we standardly"do
things with words" cannot be erected into a de jure theory (or generalized speech act
philosophy) thatwould henceforthdeterminewhat shall count as an instanceof serious,
authentic, good-faith, or "felicitous" utterance. What is so difficult to grasp about
Derrida'swork-and what causes such confusion in critics like Ellis-is the fact thathe
arrivesat these (seemingly) antiphilosophicaltheses througha highly disciplinedprocess
of argumentbutdoes so in orderto pointupthe limits of systematicthoughtwhen exposed
to the kinds of displacementbroughtaboutby a deconstructivecritique.
Hence the very differentresponsesto thatworkmanifestedby the variousschools of
commentarythat have alreadygrown up aroundit. On the one hand there are thoseSearle and Ellis among them-who just can't see how any "serious"philosophercould
raise the sorts of question that Derridaraises or write in such a "playful,"performative
style thatthe questionsareposed in and throughthe very act of writing. On the other,one
diacritics / spring 1990

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29

finds an assortmentof largelysympatheticcommentators(literarycritics,neopragmatists

like RichardRorty,postmodernistthinkersof variouspersuasions)who praiseDerridafor
exactly the samereason. Thatis to say, theyadmirehim forhavingknocked"philosophy"
off its pedestalby treatingit as one more culture-specific"kindof writing,"a discourse
whose truthclaims can henceforthbe discountedsince in the end they amountto nothing
more thana choice among different"finalvocabularies,"a self-interestedpreferencefor
talkingin termsof concepts, transcendentaldeductions,a priori knowledge, "conditions
of possibility," and so forth. On this view-argued most consistently by Rorty in his
recentessays-what is bestaboutDerridais his usefulnessin debunkingall thoseoutworn
epistemological pretensions that have left philosophy, or its mainstreamexponents,
lagging so far behind the times, as signaled by the postmodernturn in recent cultural
debate. Fromwhich it follows, conversely, thatthe least valuablepartsof Derrida'swork
are those-like the early texts on Husserl-that still seem engaged with the tedious, oldfashionedbusinessof offeringarguments,criticizingtruthclaims, or coming up with new
terms ("diff6rance,""supplementarity,"etc.) which then become just anothertechnical
jargon, despite theiravowedly radicalbreakwith the discourseof Westernmetaphysics.
One can see how nicely this approachdovetails with the readingof Derridathatenjoys
wide currencyamong literarycritics-and othersof a broadlyhermeneuticalbent-who
likewise have an interestin promotingthe view thatinterpretation,so to speak, goes all
the way down; thatthereis nothingdistinctiveaboutphilosophicaltexts thatwould give
philosophersan intellectualedge over people in departmentsof English or Comparative
Literature. For them, as for Rorty, the texts of Derridathatexert most appeal are those
(like Glas and The Postcard: From Socrates to Freud) that seemingly enact this disciplinary stand-off with the maximumdegree of stylistic brio and the smallest regardfor
whatconventionallycounts as "serious"philosophicalargument.To this extent one can
see why critics like Ellis should regarddeconstructionas indeed nothing more thanold
relativistdoctrinewrit large, or dressedup in extravagantNietzscheanrhetoricalcolors.
But this all has more to do with the reception history of Derrida'swork than with
anythinglike an adequateassessmentof thatwork in its properintellectualcontext. For
the latter,one must look to those qualifiedcommentators-among them notablyRodolphe Gasche andJohnLlewelyn-who possess both a detailedknowledge of the relevant
philosophicalbackgroundand a capacityfor closely workedtextualexegesis which does
debate[see
not end up simplyaddinga twist to the age-old "literature-versus-philosophy"
Gasche's TheTainof theMirrorandLlewelyn'sDerridaon theThresholdofSense]. What
then becomes apparentis that Derrida is not merely collapsing the genre distinction
between those categories-a charge broughtagainst him by Habermas[in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity]-but showing it to rest on a series of unstableoppositions (concept/metaphor,literal/figural,constative/performative,reason/rhetoric,etc.)
whose structuraleconomy is nonethelessprerequisiteto any discourse,his own included,
that attempts to think beyond their more traditionalor typecast formulations. This
argumentis best representedby the essays broughttogetherin Margins of Philosophy,a
text that-symptomatically-tends to be ignoredby Ellis, Habermas,and other hostile
commentators.For here Derridaarguesvery pointedlyagainst whatmight be called the
vulgar-deconstructionist
position: the idea thatphilosophyis just a "kindof writing,"that
all concepts come down to metaphorsin the end, thatthe truthvalues governingWestern
"logocentrism"are merely the resultof our having forgottentheircontingentorigin, the
fact thatthey derive-as Benveniste had suggested-from certainfeatures(like subjectpredicategrammar)specific to ancient Greek language and thought. In each case, he
argues,one hasto go furtherandask whataretheconditionsofpossibility thatenablethese
issues to be raised in the first place or to assume the kind of salience they have long
possessed for thinkersin the Westernphilosophicaltradition. And to pose this question
is also to graspthatcriticismcannotstop shortat the pointof simply invertingthose deep30

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laid categoricaldistinctions;that (for instance) all our operativeconcepts of metaphor,

literature,style, rhetoric,figurallanguage,and so forthhave been producedand refined
within a history of thought whose terms are inescapably marked or inflected by the
discourse of philosophic reason.
So it is unthinkable-in the strictestsense of thatword-that we should now follow
the lead of postmodernpragmatistslike Rorty and learn to treatphilosophy as just one
morevoice in the cultural"conversationof mankind,"on a level with literature,criticism,
and othersuch styles of "edifying"discourse. Forthis is nothingmore thana line of least
resistance,a refusalto acknowlege the very real problemsthatarise as soon as one posits
an alternative "final vocabulary"-in Rorty's case, an idiom of strong misreading,
creativerenewal,poetic redescription,andso forth-conceived as a preferablesubstitute
for all those dead-endphilosophicaldebates. Whatsuch thinkingcannotacknowledgeis
the fact that any suggested alternativewill always involve a covert appeal to distinctions-like thatbetween "concept"and "metaphor"-that are so far frombreakingwith
the language and resourcesof Westernphilosophy thatthey reproduceits characteristic
featuresat every turn.

4
So it is simply a mistake-a determinatemisreadingof Derrida's work-to argue,
like Ellis, that it all comes down to a species of rhetorical"freeplay,"or a Nietzschean
desire to turn the tables on philosophy by subvertingevery last protocol of reason and
truth. In fact one could take each chapterof Margins and demonstratenot only that its
argumentspossess a rigorously consequentiallogic but also the regularpack-of-cards
effect wherebyit bringsdown a whole body of received ideas aboutdeconstruction.Let
me takejust one example: "WhiteMythology: Metaphorin the Text of Philosophy,"an
essay that for sheer critical acumen and intellectual grasp-not to mention stylistic
brilliance-far surpasses anything writtenon this topic by philosophersin the AngloAmericantradition. Now it is certainlythe case thatDerridahere continues the critique
of philosophicalconcepts and truthclaims thatNietzsche pursuedthroughthe analysisof
languagein its rhetorical(orperformative)aspect. Thus"thereis no properlyphilosophical category to qualify a certain numberof tropes that have conditioned the so-called
'fundamental,' 'structuring,' 'original' philosophical oppositions: they are so many
'metaphors'that would constitute the rubricsof such a tropology, the words 'turn' or
'trope' or 'metaphor'being no exception to this rule" [Margins229]. In which case it
might seem that his critics are right when they treatdeconstructionas merely the most
recent-and rhetoricallysophisticated-version of a wholesale Nietzschean skepticism
with regardto truth,logic, and the protocolsof reasonedargument.
But this is to ignore some crucial points about Derrida'sprocedurein "The White
Mythology." One is the qualityof extremeanalyticalprecisionthateverywheremarkshis
discourse, even at the stage when thatdiscoursebroachesthe sheer impossibilityof ever
adequatelythinkingthroughthis relationshipbetween "concept"and "metaphor."What
Derridais strivingto articulatehere is an orderof insight into the workingsof language
thatnecessarilyeludes thekindof clear-cutconceptualizationthat"mainstream"philosophers-from Aristotle to Max Black or Donald Davidson-have traditionallysought in
their dealing with such topics. But this is not to say (as Rorty would have it, or as Ellis
takes Derridato be arguing)that deconstructioncan henceforthblithely disregardthat
whole legacy of analytic thought, including the concept/metaphordistinction and its
various correlativeterms. For it is still the case-unavoidably so-that "theconcept of
metaphor,along with all the predicatesthatpermitits orderedextension andcomprehension, is a philosopheme"[228]. From which it follows necessarily thatany proposition
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on the topic of metaphor-even one that adopts a Nietzschean stance of extreme

epistemological skepticism-will always take rise from a history of thought whose
structuraleconomy is determinedin advanceby the discourse of philosophic reason.
What this thesis amountsto in its weak, negative form is thatno claim on behalf of
metaphor(or literature)as against the rule of concepts (or philosophy) can possibly do
more thanrehearsethe old quarrelwhile preservingthe selfsame termsof debate. In its
strongerversion the argumentholds (1) thatall definitionsof metaphorarephilosophical
definitions, elaboratedby thinkersfrom Plato and Aristotleto the present;(2) thatthese
thinkershave always been subjectto a certainblindnesswith regardto the "fundamental"
figures or tropes that constitutetheir own discourse;but also (3) that any adequateor
theoretically accountabletreatmentof the topic will have to go by way of a complex
prehistorywhose logic is inscribed-whether knowingly or not-in each new attemptto
make sense of this tangled relationship. "To permit oneself to overlook this vigil of
philosophy,"Derridawrites,
one would have to posit that the sense aimed at is an essence rigorously
independentof thatwhichtransportsit, whichis an alreadyphilosophicalthesis,
one mighteven say philosophy's uniquethesis, the thesis which constitutesthe
conceptof metaphor,theoppositionof theproperand the nonproper,of essence
and accident, of intuition and discourse, of thought and language, of the
intelligible and the sensible. [229]
In which case the philosopherwho writeson metaphorwill be subjectto a twofold-and,
it might seem, a contradictory-order of imperatives. First, there is the necessity of
thinking these distinctions throughwith the maximumdegree of analyticalclarity and
rigor. Second, thereis the obligationto remarkthosepointsin thediscourseof philosophic
reasonwhere metaphorturnsout to elude or exceed the compassof any such self-assured
project. But in fact what is involved is not so much a contradictionas a double gesture
of fidelity, on the one handto standardsof argumentativeconsistency and truth,and on
the otherto the need for textualclose reading(or rhetoricalanalysis) as a formof critical
symptomatology,an attemptto explain more clearly where philosophershave erredin
taking those standardstoo much for grantedor in failing to perceive where they invoke
certain metaphors(like the idiom of "clearand distinct ideas") whose figural origin is
forgottenin the drive for conceptual masteryand truth. At which point "the appeal to
criteriaof clarityandobscuritywould suffice to confirm... [that]thisentirephilosophical
delimitation of metaphor already lends itself to being constructed and worked by
'metaphors"'[252]. But it is nonethelesstrue-necessarily so-that any such assertion
will be couched in terms that presupposethe possibility of distinguishingliteral from
figural language, or conceptual definitions (the province of philosophic reason) from
metaphorsor tropes (the province of art,literature,rhetoric,sophistics, etc.). And once
again, those terms are philosophical through and through, not merely as a local or
contingentfact aboutWesternintellectualhistorybutby virtueof theirplace among that
handfulof constitutivetopics and concernsby which philosophyhas been characterized
as a discipline of thoughtfrom Plato to the present.
Hence Derrida's(no doubtrhetorical)question: "can these defining tropesthatare
prior to all philosophical rhetoric and that produce philosophemes still be called
metaphors?"[210]. His answeris not to be found in the formof any summarystatement
thatwould settle the questionone way or the other. It can only be approachedthroughthe
kind of meticulousanalyticalclose readingthat"WhiteMythology"bringsto bearon the
texts of philosophicaltradition.(Paul de Man's essay "TheEpistemologyof Metaphor"
is anotherwork thatachieves somethinglike the same level of combined argumentative
rigor and rhetoricalself-awareness.) This is what makes it so absurdfor opponentslike
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Ellis to claim thatdeconstructionis philosophicallynaive or thatit tradeson the age-old

sophistical trick of targetingnaive assumptionsin others (for example, Husserl), while
strategicallyignoringany alternative(more sensible or logically compelling) viewpoint
thatwould resolve the questiononce andfor all, thoughof course withoutprovidingsuch
welcome opportunitiesfor ingenious self-display. It is temptingto respond-as Derrida
does at one point in his latest rejoinderto Searle-that "if things were that simple, word
would have gotten around." Where Ellis goes wrong is in his fixed belief that to
"deconstruct"a text is to take it apartmerely for the pleasure of showing up its local
inconsistencies,blind spots, non sequiturs,momentsof unwittingaporiaand other such
well-known Derrideanmotifs. And of course one can hardlydeny thatthis strategydoes
play a prominentrole at variousstages in his writingson Plato, Kant,Husserl,Austin,and
others. But it is missing the point in quite spectacularfashion to conclude, like Ellis, that
Derrida's"tortuousprose"is merely a sign thathe has hit on certain"primitiveideas"in
Husserl-intentionality, reference,essence, and so forth-which would not standup for
a moment if subjectedto a different,more orderlyand logical approach. What Derrida
brings out in his readingof Husserl (as likewise in "WhiteMythology")is the absolute
and principled necessity of thinkingboth with and againstthese ideas, since on the one
handthey provide the only possible startingpoint for any philosophicalreflection,while
on the otherthey lead to a stage where such thinkingrunsup againstsignificantproblems
orobstacles, factorswhich considerablycomplicateHusserl's argumentbutwhichcannot
be brushedaside in the name of straightforwardcommonsenselogic. In short,Derrida's
relationto Husserlbears absolutely no resemblanceto Ellis's knock-downcaricature,a
reading that raises serious doubts as to the extent of his acquaintancewith the work of
either philosopher.
One mainplankof Ellis' s argumentthatcollapses underthe least pressureof detailed
examination is his idea that deconstructionis just anothervariantof reader-response
criticism. For both schools of thought,as he interpretsthem,"[c]riticsaregiven freedom
to readtexts withoutconstraints,texts can mean an infinityof meanings,andreadersuse
unrestrainedcreativityto discover meaning"[ 158]. I can thinkof no advocatesof readerresponsetheory-let alone deconstruction-to whom this statementcould applywith any
semblanceof fairor accuratedescription.Moreover,thereis a massiveconfusion at work
in the idea that "textuality,"as Derridaconceives it, amounts to nothing more than a
license for interpretersto make what they will of philosophicalor literaryworks. Once
again, this error results from the habit of reducing deconstruction to a handful of
misconceived slogans ("all interpretationis misinterpretation,"etc.) that enjoy wide
currencyonly amongthose who evince smallknowledgeof theprimarytexts. (Thatthere
is no such thing as a "primarytext," since all texts-whether novels, poems, critical
commentaries, works of philosophy, undergraduate-level"theory" primers, and so
forth-partake of a generalized "intertextuality,"is another grossly reductive slogan
presentlymakingthe rounds.) In the face of such manifestrefusalsto readwhat Derrida
has written,one can only turnEllis's argumentaroundandprotestthatit is he, not Derrida,
who makesa habitof settingup imaginarysimple-mindedtargetsthe moreeasily to shoot
them down.
These tacticsgo along with whatI have notedalready:a tendency,on thepartof Ellis
andothers,to restricttheirunderstandingof Derrida'sworkto its role as one morenovelty
import on the US academic scene, a product of the rapid turnoverin literary-critical
fashions. Hence Ellis's myopic view of deconstructionas first and foremost a trend
among literary theorists with no philosophical credentials to speak of despite all the
heavyweight allusions to Plato, Kant, Hegel, or Husserl. Perhaps this movement had
some point-he concedes-in its original French context, since here the traditionof
positivist scholarshipstill reignedsupreme,so that"therereallywas a single authoritative
opinion on literarytexts, administeredto all." But it is a very different matterwhen
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deconstructiongains a following amongAmericancriticsandtheorists.Forherethe main

problem-as Ellis sees it-is not the persistenceof a rigidly orthodox line but, on the
contrary,the dismal lack of any rational(truth-seeking)standardsof debate that would
serve to adjudicatethe various competing creeds and ideologies. In short, "there is
something logically very odd about this mismatchbetween a critical theory that in its
obsession with conformity could only have arisen in France and its acceptance in
America, the pluralisticallycheerfulaccepterof diversity"[86]. And if the metaphors
here sound a cautionarynote-a suggestion that maybe the country needs somewhat
tighter immigrationcontrols, at least where intellectual fashions and their bearersare
concerned-it is a note thatEllis's next sentencedoes little or nothingto dispel. "Inone
sense," he writes, "thisacceptanceis very much in the spiritof America's acceptanceof
Europeanrefugees; in anothersense, it might seem contraryto that spirit,since thereis
here no adequatesoil to nourishdeconstruction'sbasic thrust"[86].
One could spend a lot of time unpackingthe implicationsof this passage, not least
the idea of intellectualvalues as rooted in the "soil" of a native traditionthatpreserves
itself only by maintaininga degree of healthyresistanceto exotic importedideas. There
is a certain(presumably)unlooked-forirony in Ellis's remarks,since deconstructionists
like Hartmanand de Man were indeedEuropeanrefugees, and they have both-de Man
especially-had muchto say on thetopicof "aestheticideology"andits resortto mystified
organicist notions of national culture and temperament[see de Man, The Rhetoric of
Romanticismand TheResistance to Theory]. But my point is not so much to draw out
sinistersuggestionsfromthisfairlyharmlesssentenceas to remarkjust how inconsequent
the argumentlooks if one treatsit to the kind of logical critiquethatEllis so insistently
demands. If North Americanculture lacks "adequatesoil to nourish deconstruction's
thrust,"then surely it is wrong-a manifest non sequitur-to conclude from this that
deconstructionis nothing more than an exercise of shallow ingenuity,a productof that
tastepour epater le bourgeois thatEllis thinksindigenousto Frenchintellectuallife. At
this stage the national stereotypescome thick and fast, though the single most blatant
instance is culled fromLeo Bersani,as if to make the point while not entirelyendorsing
its cruder implications. Bersani writes of the "arrogantfrivolity" of the French,
"arrogant"-as Ellis obligingly explains-"because the French intellectual defines
himself [sic] throughhis feeling of superiorityto the common herdin his more sophisticated values and perceptions,"while "frivolity"comes in on accountof the fact thatthis
same superiorintellectual"never tires of startlingand chic new postures to shock and
affrontthebourgeoisin his deadlyseriouscommitmentto his old routine"[84]. But again
one has to ask what kind of logical force this passage could possibly claim, resting as it
does on a well-triedmixtureof folk psychology, unarguedimputations,andmanipulative
rhetoricdesigned to head off any questionas to what those "Frenchintellectuals"might
actually have to say.
Ellis makesa bid forthe moralhigh groundby openinghis book with a call to serious,
responsible debate on these matters, followed up by a complaint that deconstructors
(unspecified) too often fall back on obscurantistargumentsor an attitudeof sovereign
disdaintowardtheirtypecastnaive opponents. "Thetest of whetherthey [theopponents]
have sufficient intellectualsophisticationto discuss deconstructionwill be thatthey are
able to appreciateso sophisticateda position. Those who question thatevaluationipso
facto fail thetest anddeserveto be regardedwithscorn"[ix]. Thereis-one has to admitsome truth in what he says, at least with regard to those high-toned apostles of the
deconstructionistcult who rejectas mere impertinenceany attemptto criticize Derrida's
or de Man's workfroma less thanideally sympatheticstandpoint.But the chargeapplies
moreaptlyto Ellis's techniquesof knock-downpolemicalassaultandhis habitof treating
deconstructionas merely a short-livedfashionablecraze amongjaded literarytheorists.
The three greatest virtues of Derrida's writing are also-and noncoincidentally-the
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threequalitiesmost strikinglyabsentfromEllis's treatmentof the subject. Thatis to say,

he combines a quite extraordinaryrange and depth of philosophic thoughtwith a keen
analytical intelligence and (by no means incompatiblewith these) a degree of stylistic
virtuositythatallows his writingto reflect at every point on its own performativeaspect,
or on issues raised in and throughthe practiceof an answerable"literary"style.
Ellis is of course not the only commentatorto have problems in seeing how these
attributesmight go together, or how Derridacould be both a "serious"philosophical
thinkerand a writerof uncommonstylistic resource. Habermasfor one builds his entire
case against deconstruction on the argument that these functions have increasingly
separatedout in the "philosophicaldiscourse of modernity"to the point where such an
enterpriseas Derrida'scan only appeara species of latter-dayNietzscheanunreason,one
that effectively abandonsor repudiatesthe "unfinishedproject"of enlightenment[see
Habermas]. That these readings are mistaken-that they derive from a deep-laid
structuralprejudicewhich Derridahas done much to expose and contest-is a case that
I have arguedat lengthelsewhere [in "Deconstruction,PostmodernismandPhilosophy"]
and thatEllis is perfectly entitled to disputeon the evidence of Derrida'stexts. But any
convincing challenge will have to do more thanjust rehearsewhat amountsto a litany of
antideconstructionistidees reQues. It will need to show precisely where Derrida's
argumentsgo wrong;where he misreadsor misconstrueshis philosophicalsource texts;
or where the claims of deconstructionthemselves fall prey to a better, more adequate,
historically informed, or cogent theoreticalcritique. One can readily endorse Ellis's
statement[153] that"'theoryof criticism' is surelybest thoughtof, not as a set of dogmas
butratheras an activity-the activityof analyzing,reflectingon, andthinkingthroughthe
currentpracticesof criticism to uncoverits possible inconsistencies and insufficiencies
and to improve on those partsof it thatcannot standup to carefulanalysis." But all the
signs so far arethatdeconstructionhas a muchbetterclaim to representthose values than
the argumentsroutinely musteredagainst it by the partisansof a self-assuredcommonsense orthodoxy.

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Austin, J. L. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1963.
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The Resistance to Theory. Minneapolis: U of MinnesotaP, 1986.
The Rhetoric of Romanticism. New York: ColumbiaUP, 1984.
Derrida,Jacques Dissemination. Trans.BarbaraJohnson. Chicago: U of Chicago P,
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. EdmundHusserl's"Originof Geometry":AnIntroduction.Trans.JohnP.Leavey.
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Gasche, Rodolphe. The Tain of the Mirror: Derrida and the Philosophy of Reflection.
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