Talk:Deconstruction/Archive 2

message: Very good article.  I think it is a good balance, and has criticism right where it is needed.--ShaunMacPherson 02:01, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Very Good 

message: As of 2004-04-14, the deconstruction article reads as if it is aimed at an audience of philosophers who already understand the subject.  But the purpose of Wikipedia is to write a general encyclopedia for a general audience, who may not know anything about post-modern philosophy.  The article needs to be worked on so that it is clear to a general audience.  I've made a start by putting a succinct definition in the opening paragraph, but the rest of the text still needs a lot of work before it can be understood. Gdr 11:28, 2004 Apr 14 (UTC)
::Except that would be impossible because, as we all know, contemporary philosophy in general and deconstruction in particular is inherently about stringing together obscuratinist jargon to form long winded sentences that either say something utterly trivial once painstakingly decoded, or in fact, nothing meaningful at all. :^) Kuratowski's Ghost 00:11, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. It's a challenging task to be both accurate and user-friendly on this topic. It might end up being a rather long article. COGDEN 17:59, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

text: I've never personally seen a version of deconstruction relating to anything other than Western metaphysics. I suppose it would be possible to have, for example, a form of deconstruction based solely on Buddhist metaphysics or Animism. Has anybody seen an article attempting to describe a deconstruction-like event in a text outside the influence of Western metaphysics? COGDEN 23:32, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Audience

message: The example definitely helps explain "metaphysical" a lot.
Could you clarify "multi-vocal" and "other voice"?
Beland 01:12, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Ugh. I'll see what I can do in a minute. Right now I'm actually working on research for a "Popular discussion of deconstruction" section. Snowspinner 01:13, Jun 5, 2004 (UTC)
I like your improvements.  The introductory paragraph in particular is much clearer now and probably captures the essence of deconstructionalism better than my very concrete discussion; not to mention reducing redundancy.
I added a reference to the Sokal Affair in the "Lack of concreteness" section at the same time you added one, I think.  I don't know if mine is still appropriate.
The only possibly substantive thing which has gone missing is the link to social construction.  Do you think that insistance/emphasis on the socially constructed nature of things is a hallmark of deconstructive analysis, or that it's an important related concept? -- Beland 01:59, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hard vocabulary words 

message: why do people continue to perpetuate such things? it's just far too easy a criticism to make. Be more creative, people.
:Perhaps it is a ubiquitous criticism for a reason. Certainly nothing in the article here serves to dissuade. Banno 01:57, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)
::You've got nothing on that last point, given the ready acceptance of so much meaningless jargon. For one, there's no point in pursuing a discussion if we're content to start with a questionable premise about equating deconstruction with postmodernism and drag all the polemical baggage that comes with that rather shaky association. Although I've not yet attempted to clarify this in this article, I have in the Derrida article pointed out some simple facts pointing to the insufficiency of that line of characterisation. In any case, there's an article to re-write, as no one's arguing for the cogency of the current revision, so there's not a lot to discuss for the time being. Buffyg 02:25, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Your reading and understanding of Sokal is as poorly researched (e.g. basic factual errors like "peer reviewed," which Social Text certainly was not) and developed as your attempted use of deconstruction as an object of polemical scorn. Let's just settle for saying that the ubiquity of an argument on any side cannot be equated with intellectual validity. Buffyg 20:28, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I apologize for saying getting it wrong about the "peer-reviewed" statement, but everything else stands. I also understand that an ad populum argument is proof of nothing (and afterall, it would only help your side in this case as I'm clearly outnumbered), but it is nonetheless a truism that, as Banno said, "Perhaps it is a ubiquitous criticism for a reason." You were good to point out my error, but you would do well to answer my other, more serious criticisms.Maprovonsha172 20:44, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The only criticisms I'm willing to entertain as serious are those related to the article. I am in no position to argue here for purposes unrelated to the evident need to overhauling the entry, the validity of content that does not appear in it or is not proposed here. If you'd like to make informed remarks on a subsequent thorough revision, please come back when that work is done. As you have no remarks to offer about how to improve the edit, I have no reason to believe that we have anything further to discuss at this time. Buffyg 17:44, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  the eternal cliché of post-modernism being meaningless jargon