Deconstruction refuted

Vincent J. Curtis

28 Aug 22

To an Aristotelian, Deconstruction is self-contradictory and asks questions that were answered long ago.  Those who have read Mortimer J. Adler’s book Some Questions about Language will be especially unimpressed with Deconstruction, and they are well equipped to understand what I’m about to say.

Let’s start with Wikipedia’s description of it.  “Deconstruction is an approach to understanding the relationship between text and meaning.”  Okay, here’s the relationship: the text conveys the meaning.  Text contains the meaning.  From the writer’s perspective, the text is how the author conveys his meaning to the reader, and from the reader’s perspective, the text contains the meaning in the author’s mind.  Text is the means by which meaning is conveyed.  It’s hard to get a wedge between text and meaning.  Without text, there is no meaning to be conveyed, and without meaning, the text is simply gibberish.

Is it possible for the author to confuse the reader, or for the reader to misunderstand the text?  Yes, but that changes nothing in the relationship between text and meaning.  It is also possible for the author to use the wrong words to convey his thought.

Clearly also, the reader and writer have to have a common language of communication.  If the reader doesn’t understand Russian, text in the Russian language is gibberish to him.

So the deconstructionist gets into trouble immediately by questioning the relationship between text and meaning.  In math, division by zero is not permitted because you can end up with an equation that says 1 equals 2.  An error similar to this seems to be happening when deconstruction claims there to be a wedge between text and meaning.

The self-contradiction of deconstruction occurs when, in exploring the alleged wedge, “Deconstruction argues that language… is irreducibly complex, unstable, and difficult to determine.”  These are three different things, but let’s start with “irreducibly complex.”  What is meant here is that there are infinitely many possible interpretations of text.  Well, actually, there can’t be infinitely many interpretations because there are only a finite number of people.  But regardless, the argument is that language is irreducibly complex.

Here is the contradiction: if language is irreducibly complex, why are you trying to communicate after you just said communication is impossible?  If language is irreducibly complex with meaning unstable and difficult, why are you insisting that your interpretation is correct?  Didn’t you just say that no interpretation can be judged “correct?”

Walking past these self-contradictions and false problems leads to trouble.  I’ve ready used a math metaphor, let me try one from quantum mechanics.  There are expectation values and variances in matrix mechanics.  An energy level is an expectation value, and the variance associated with that expectation value is the standard deviation one observes when conducting an experiment.  A line in a spectrum isn’t of zero width, which it would be if the variance were zero.  A line of zero width would be invisible.  Even in quantum mechanics there is some tolerance, some variance, in expectation values, which doesn’t change what the expectation value is.

In language, we frequently use universals.  With each species there is associated a universal.  To illustration, consider the sentence, “The cat ran under the fence.”  The reader of this will have called to his mind his universal “cat” and his universal “fence.”  The mental image of a person’s universal for cat can be black or white, Persian or mixed, a house cat or a big tom cat.    Regardless, the reader understands what a cat is, for purposes of the sentence.  The variance of the expectation value isn’t so great that a cat would be mistaken for a dog.  Deconstruction theory would hold that variance must either be zero, or else be so large that cat could be misunderstood to be a dog.

Likewise with “fence.”  It could be wire mesh or wood that is called to mind.  It could be two feet tall or ten feet.  It could be painted blue or brown.  Whatever the universal in your mind for fence is, it suffices to convey the meaning the author intended by saying the cat ran under the fence.  Deconstruction theory finds understanding this sentence either impossible or at least mysterious.

Consider the language of Shakespeare.  Doesn’t that show that the English language is “unstable” and “difficult to determine?”  Yes, to modern English speakers, Shakespeare can be a challenge, but not an impossible one.  It just takes a bit more work.  It can be a joy to learn something new about the thinking and style of the 16^th century.

Another less obvious fallacy is found in deconstruction. “Deconstruction instead places emphasis on the mere appearance of language in both speech and writing, or suggests at least that essence as it is called is to be found in its appearance, while it itself is "undecidable", and everyday experiences cannot be empirically evaluated to find the actuality of language,” to quote Wikipedia.  The problem here is that of infinite regress.  If language is mere appearance, then writing about a passage is itself a mere appearance; and trying to interpret that mere appearance of a mere appearance is itself mere appearance.  And so on ad infinitum.

If something is “undecidable” is that mere appearance too?  Is it in fact really decidable in fact, or not?  And to say something is undecidable is itself a decision, so if language itself produces nothing decidable, it is contradictory to claim that decision to be true.  To deconstruction, everyday communication between people is a complete mystery, and yet its proponents try to communicate that decision.

The mystery is why deconstruction was ever taken seriously.  It is said to be based on a rejection of Platonism, and yet it walks right past Aristotle as if he never existed.  This is certainly an indictment of the philosophical profession that Derrida wasn’t machine-gunned with ridicule into oblivion.  But the answer could lie in its utility to Marxism, a wider political reason, and in particular to the utility of what Aristotle called Irrelevant Conclusions, a vicious tactic of the Sophists.

Consider George Washington.  He was the Commanding General that defeated the British in the American Revolution.  He was chairman of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia.  He was America’s first president.  His importance to America’s founding is unquestionable.  But he was a slave owner.  Nowadays, that makes him bad.  That makes him an unmentionable non-person whose statues around the country must be torn down, schools named after him renamed after some minor, historical Black figure, and America’s founding becomes a mystery not to be plumbed.

Same thing with Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, in which he said that “all men are created equal.”  He too was a slave owner, and therefore must be stuffed into the memory hole so far as possible.  Besides, what’s this crack about all men being equal?  What about women?  (That is, if you can define what a woman is!)  The fact that America has come to fulfill its founding promises after two centuries is of no moment.  The taint of slavery (or whatever else is your issue) makes America forever and irredeemably evil.  (That’s some conclusion!)

That Washington and Jefferson were slave owners is irrelevant to their importance in American’s founding and her first decades of existence.  But if the sophist yells his irrelevant conclusion loud enough and often enough, no further debate is possible.  Which is why Aristotle was merciless to sophists because of the viciousness of their method.

Another example is that because America had slavery 160 years ago, the white people of today owe the Black people of today reparations.  The conclusion doesn’t follow from the premise, and never mind how absurd it is ethically.  But it’s so outrageous that it holds a certain fascination.   Like the Big Lie: it stuns the listener.

For the Marxist, undermining confidence in western civilization is an end in itself, and forcing attention upon the allegedly clay feet of western heroes is a means of using politeness and decency against that confidence.

Irrelevant conclusions are now before forced into medicine, math, and sciences.  Math is racist!  Science is racist!  Why?  Because it was all created by Europeans!  We can’t say “women” because it might upset the transgendered, and, poor delicate darlings that they are, we can’t upset them!  So, “people” get pregnant.  And we have “birthing people,” etc.

European is not a monolith, but regardless, truth has no race.  Whoever discovered a truth is an accident of that truth.  (Study Aristotle to grasp what an ‘accident’s is.  Accidents are distinct from essentials, BTW.)  As for the latest fashion on transgenderism, I’m not a psychotherapist, and neither are most people calling sex a social construct.  This is deconstruction trying impose unreality on clear language, without a shred of decency or politeness.  They’re right and you’re wrong, despite there being no “right” or “wrong!”  (In The Categories, Aristotle explains what substance is, and transgenderism is an attempt at the miracle of transubstantiation.  This is why it is so reality-bending.)

Why would intellectuals even take deconstruction seriously given its obvious flaws?  I think it’s because a certain type of intellectual likes those shocking conclusions: that 1 equals 2; that there is no absolute truth (except the one I just uttered), and that communication is impossible and never mind that I’m trying to communicate my thoughts to you.  So, shock value I think explains part of it.

Another part is the opportunity for mischief, and even downright viciousness, by the use of the Irrelevant Conclusion to destroy.  It makes them important.

Deconstruction ought never to have been taken seriously, and it’s an indictment of the honesty, integrity, and even competence of today’s intellectuals that it did, and that its techniques persist.  Aristotle answered all its alleged problems.  It is self-contradictory, and has insuperable problems with infinite regress.  It is a glorified method of the sophistical technique of the irrelevant conclusion.  Deconstruction builds nothing; it leads straight to nihilism.

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