Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

["James Piat" <piat1 AT bellsouth.net>]

Ken Armstrong wrote:

>    OK by me to make the argument against naive realists, I don't know who
> they are ( Bloom?) and how they get into this mix. But let's do call out
> anyone who tries to subdue the whole truth to a partial truth. Only let's
> not excuse the deconstructionists because the naive realists are doing it,
> too (and, of course, vice versa).

The deferance is that Derrida does not endorse the position you ascribe to
him.  He is not denying the possibility of meaning or communication  -- he
is challenging the view that a text or communication has an absolute meaning
tied in some certain way to a reality it is presumed to denote.  And beyond
that I think he is reminding us that the search for truth and a moral path
is guided not by certainty but by self doubt.

>
> >Such egocentrism reminds me of the joke that professor Bloom appears to
> >have mistaken his own bowel sounds for the rumblings of the universe.
>
>    On the other hand, if Blake could see the universe in a grain of sand,
> why shouldn't Bloom hear it....

That Bloom  imagines he can is part of the case the deonstructionist are
making.  Who's to say he can't?  Though God only knows for sure what either
he or Blake is talking about.  Well maybe Bill Bennet knows  -- I forgot
about him. He seems to be able to clarify every meaning and judge every
disagreement with a swift and simple application of school boy logic.

Here's a Derrida quote I dug up from one of the interviews in the book
POINTS...

"Deconstruction as such is reducible to neither a method nor an analysis
(the reduction to simple elements); it goes beyond critical decision itself.
That is why it is not negative, even though it has often been interpreted as
such despite all sorts of warnings.  For me, it always accompanies an
affirmative exigency, I would even say that it never proceeds without
love..."

Cheers,
Jim Piat