Problems

One interesting thing that I find deconstructionists do is reduce differance to an epistemological problem. This is so in both de Man and Spivak, though they both well know that this epistemological problem is also an ontological problem. Or rather, they know it isn't even that, since it is a pre- or post-ontological problem. In each case, we're trying to say that we've hit a sort of epistemological problem that is deeper than any epistemological problem, but actually can best be characterized or envisioned epistemologically, in an manner analogous to how we can deconstruct metaphysics by looking at philosophical texts--which at first sight looks absurd. Thus, it is the question of "epistemology," in quotes, or doubled, different. And in the case of texts, it is the question of how much, in each case, we are to provisionally generalize textuality. The latter question is the real one being interrogated, I think, in these issues regarding "epistemology," and insofar as it still remains interrogated, is not exactly a mistake or misinterpretation of Derrida. The real issue is whether transferring the problem of generalizing textuality--which I'll repeat, is the fundamental problem deconstruction faces--encourages us to dissolve the problem and presume it solved. (I'll mention that in my view de Man does indeed do this, to the extent that he almost does misinterpret Derrida by virtue of this alone, while Spivak doesn't.) Derrida often sticks to texts precisely for this reason. Whether his resulting insistence on the problems of textuality really does encounter that problem, well, that's a another (and indeed pressing) question. But unless one understands that this is what Derrida is up to, his reading of texts of philosophy will seem very odd, not unlike how Heidegger's reading of texts from the tradition (the most amazing of which is, of course, the book on Kant) will also seem odd. I think, however, a legitimate objection would be to why this process of reading went on so continually and so consistently, almost as if expanding the amount of reading in philosophy and its nearest neighbors would indeed insist on the problem of textuality (even though his claim is always that these texts are singular). In this case that other question I spoke of just now (the "pressing question" of how far an insistence on the problem of textuality encounters the problem, which is not unrelated to the problem of transferring the problem of textuality, as one can see in Spivak, who than rather going de Man's route does this), indeed arises.