Abstract

The implications of deconstruction theory go disastrously beyond its usefulness in practice as a method of challenging privileged concepts. I consider three objections to deconstruction theory: (1) The theory is unintelligible because it presupposes semantic resources that it makes unavailable. (2) The displacement of opposites in deconstruction commits it to an impossible diversity of undecidable concepts; moreover, despite assertions that deconstruction is a rigorous dialectical method, it provides no determinate procedure for discovering undecidables. (3) When taken to its logical extreme, deconstruction undermines the objectivity of any distinction among any concepts, thus compromising the meaningfulness of all thought and language. However, the practice of deconstruction as textual analysis can be preserved without theoretical absurdities if conventional analysis is used to overturn entrenched conceptual preferences on a case-by-case basis without accepting theoretical claims about the displaceability of any distinction.