11–20 of 53 posts
Derrida takes a really simple concept and then dresses it up in so much complicated irrelevant nonsense that you have to take 30 minutes to deconstruct and understand an essay, that could be sufficiently restated in perhaps a paragraph of clear English.
Why is this here? What's the relevance? For those who don't know, Derrida was a French postmodern intellectual charlatan with absolutely no redeeming qualities. A good example of what one should strive not to become.
"For those who don't know, Derrida was a French postmodern intellectual charlatan with absolutely no redeeming qualities." This is a ridiculously inaccurate way to explain Derrida to "those who don't know" him. Derrida is one of the most important continental philosophers of the 20th century.
I never stated otherwise. What we both wrote is in no way contradictory.
Derrida is one of those guys, that if you find a fan of his, you have almost certainly found someone who has a love of complicated verbiage over simple straightforward explanations. Derrida takes a really simple concept and then dresses it up in so much complicated irrelevant nonsense that you have to take 30 minutes to deconstruct and understand an essay, that could be sufficiently restated in perhaps a paragraph of…
Derrida is one of those guys, that if you find a fan of his, you have almost certainly found someone who has a love of complicated verbiage over simple straightforward explanations. Derrida takes a really simple concept and then dresses it up in so much complicated irrelevant nonsense that you have to take 30 minutes to deconstruct and understand an essay, that could be sufficiently restated in perhaps a paragraph of…
Is this a generic comment, or based on reading the linked interview? He doesn't seem particularly verbose to me in the interview.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"For those who don't know, Derrida was a French postmodern intellectual charlatan with absolutely no redeeming qualities." This is a ridiculously inaccurate way to explain Derrida to "those who don't know" him. Derrida is one of the most important continental philosophers of the 20th century.
> Derrida is one of the most important continental philosophers of the 20th century. I never stated otherwise. What we both wrote is in no way contradictory.
Why is this here? What's the relevance? For those who don't know, Derrida was a French postmodern intellectual charlatan with absolutely no redeeming qualities. A good example of what one should strive not to become.
I happen to enjoy free jazz, but I can't claim to understand it well enough to defend it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Derrida is one of the most important continental philosophers of the 20th century. I never stated otherwise. What we both wrote is in no way contradictory.
That's not fair. Daniel Dennett and Thomas Metzinger have said interesting things.
Here, a short review that gives a very brief introduction/defense (in a sort of backhanded way, though): http://www.lrb.co.uk/v06/n03/richard-rorty/signposts-along-t...
"Derrida’s principal theme in these essays is the attempt of the tradition to make language look less sprawling by trimming off unwanted growth. This is done by making invidious distinctions between true (e.g. ‘literal’ or ‘cognitively meaningful’) language and false (e.g. ‘metaphorical’ or ‘meaningless’) language. He is arguing that this attempt cannot succeed, because it is just the latest version of the onto-theological attempt to contrast the Great Good Resting-Place with the sprawling world of time and chance. He wants to convince us that there is no natural hierarchy of discourses or jargons, no structure topped off by the super-language which gives us a grip on all the others, the words which classify all the other words. There is no privileged language in which to state invidious distinctions between true and false language. There is no linguistic material out of which we can forge clippers with which to snip off unfruitful linguistic suckers. He thinks Heidegger betrayed his own project by trying to separate ‘real’ language (the Call of Being, the kind of language which ‘is what it says’) from ‘inauthentic’ language (words used as means to technocratic ends, chatter, the jargon of this or that disciplinary matrix)."
And here, a full essay on Derrida titled "Philosophy as a Kind of Writing": http://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Rorty-Philosoph...
I don't have time to write more in depth about this. It's at least heartening that the most cynical and flippant comments have been downvoted.