Derrida's critique of phallogocentrism is meaningless when it is itself deconstructed

Abstract 

In this paper I am going to argue that Derrida's critique of phallogocentrism is meaningless when logic and reason are accepted. I will argue this because Derrida is one of the foremost strategists of the postmodern movement which is ultimately sceptical about meanings, meta-narratives, hierarchical oppositions, and most fundamentally, the logos, because they can be deconstructed. If Derrida’s argument is accepted, any logical arguments, reasoning, or text is nothing but a play for power. However, if logic and reason are accepted as valid and constructive methods of dialectic, then based on Derrida's own logic and reasoning, all of his own works should be deconstructed and this will render them meaningless. 

First, I will show that the logos (read logic or reason) is the divine generative principle of truthful speech. Second, I will show how Platonism and logocentrism are similar philosophies and how the Western tradition is based on them. Third, I will show that Derrida has been one of the main tricksters of the postmodern movement in order to finally conclude that Derrida's argument of phallogocentrism is meaningless when logic and reason are accepted as valid methods of dialectic. 

This discussion is of fundamental importance because postmodernism philosophy is waging an attack on the fundamental metaphysics of Western civilisation. In other words, the fundamental axioms on which Western civilisation is based are being besieged by the sceptical and resentful philosophy that is postmodernism. This essay is an attempt to clarify what exactly is being besieged and why rejecting it would be catastrophic for meaning, logic, reason, and dialogue. 

The Logos 

I will start by laying out the importance of the idea of the Logos and explain what it means. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."1 The first sentence in the Bible shows how the Heavens and the Earth are created by the Word. In Christianity, a synonym for this Word at the beginning of time is the Logos. It is, in other words, the Logos that is the generative principle of the universe.2 Another instance of the Logos in the Bible is in Revelations 19:13. It also shows the importance of the idea of the Logos. It states "And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God."3 This sentence means that Jesus is the Word of God, or, the Logos. Similarly, John 1:14 states that Jesus does not only give the Word or the Logos to us humans; he is the Word.4 Not to mention John 14:6 which writes that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.5 All of these statements are instances of the idea that Jesus is the Logos and the Logos is—amongst others meanings—the divine generative principle of truthful speech that was present with God at the beginning of time. 

The idea of the Logos is at the very foundation of Western civilisation. It is one of the core principle in Christianity. It is the Logos—or the divine generative principle of truthful speech—which is at the foundation for human motivation within the Western world. Another way to describe this is that the Western tradition is logocentric. Logocentrism means that the Logos does indeed represents an original, irreducible object in the universe which is epistemologically fundamental in reality.7 Modern people do not consciously recognise this idea but I will show what it means. In principle, a person who believes that, reason and logic can be used in meaningful discussions in order for two people to learn and constructively interact assumes necessarily that the logos is epistemically fundamental. That person assumes logocentrism even though he might not know it. For most modern people the idea that people can be reasoned with meaningfully and logically is so self evident that we do not recognise how fragile the idea is. It is not without reason that the people who are anti-western deconstructionists are the people who cannot be reasoned with. They literally do not believe in reason. 

The Logos, Truth and the Good

In Plato's Phaedrus, Socrates could be said to resemble the Logos in part. Socrates only ever uses speech. Moreover, through his speech he aims at the truth. This is what a philosopher does: aiming at the truth. Therefore, Socrates in part resembles the Logos because he aims to use the generative principle of truthful speech in order to get to the idea of the highest Good (or Truth). This is the socratic method. Through this method of honest speech, the character of Socrates aims at a perfect, eternal, unchanging form which is "the Good" within Plato's philosophy.8 Therefore, the Logos is not simply translated to 'to speak' as Derrida might argue. It is way more than that: a divine generative principle of speech that aims at Truth and Reason. 

The Truth—or the Good—is a fundamental concept in Plato's philosophy. Being able to aim at the Truth implies that there is a Truth. Moreover, if there is a Truth, this implies that there is a False. This is what is represented in the myth of the chariot in Plato's Phaedrus: an individual's soul aims at the Good and by virtue of conduct, can get to this Good.9 Thus, according to Plato, there is a hierarchy of opposites and conducting a good life means to aim at this highest Good through the principle of the Logos. 

Platonism and logocentrism  (Athens and Judeo-christian logos)

Platonism and logocentrism are closely related philosophies. Both are based on the fundamental assumption that there is an ultimate Truth—or Good—to which human beings can aim. More specifically, human beings can get to the Truth through the divine generative principle of truthful speech—or the Logos. This is what the word logocentrism means. It is the principle of speech that is able to come closer to the Platonic ideal.10 

Like in Platonism and Christianity, any tradition is defined by its fundamental philosophical assumptions. Assumptions about what is real, what is value, how knowledge is acquired, and what it means to be human. Therefore, any tradition has a metaphysics, a metaethics, an epistemology and a conception of human nature and value. As I have argued, one of the core principles of the Western tradition is the Logos. Without this core idea that each individual has a divine generative quality of truthful speech, the Western world would not exist as we know it today. Modern cynics argue that Western metaphysics is the soul reason for evil in the world, but I see that the opposite is true. The foremost devastating fact that the critic has to explain is that people from all over the world aim to emigrate to the West. Almost never the other way around. The obvious answer is that this is because the West has produces the most truthful, peaceful, wealthy, open, and equal societies in history.11 

Derrida's postmodernism 

Derrida is one of the leading strategists of the postmodern movement.12 Ironic enough, postmodernism is a philosophy which is anti-philosophical. The movement rejects all fundamental philosophical assumptions. This means that it is sceptical of all grand narratives. This means that core postmodernism is sceptical of any metaphysics, metaethics, a fundamental epistemology and a true conception of human nature and value.13 There is no abstract, no universal, no fixed, and no precise. 

For example, in Plato's Pharmacy, Derrida writes: 

"A text is not a text unless it hides from the first comer, from the first glance, the law of its composition and the rules of its game. A text remains, moreover, forever imperceptible. Its law and its rules are not, however, harbored in the inaccessibility of a secret; it is simply that they can never be booked, in the present, into anything that could rigorously be called a perception."14 

Here, Derrida argues that writing and interpreting a text can only ever be a game. A reader could never come to a true or false interpretation—there is no fixed, no universal and no precise meaning in it. All the reader can ever do is project his or her own position of power into the text and thereby use the text for his or her own powergame. That, in a nutshell, is the postmodern worldview. 

However, by reading Derrida's texts, his own game-like intention in his writing is clearly for all to see. He blatantly tells us that what he is doing is plays a game of social-linguistic constructs in which subjectivity, conventionality, and incommensurability are central.15 He rejects the notion that any literary text has any objective meanings or true interpretations. All claims of objectivity and truth can be deconstructed. Deconstruction is Derrida's critical method that pretends to show that meanings, metaphysics, and hierarchical oppositions are meaningless. Instead, all literary endeavor becomes a form of subjective play in which the reader pours subjective associations into the texts.16 Historically, structuralism searched for 'facts' and ‘true’ interpretations about texts. Instead, for poststructuralism (read postmodernism) there are no facts, only subjective interpretation.17 

Phallogocentrism 

According to the postmodernist, binary oppositions are a Western construct for power. More specifically, Reason, Truth, and reality have to be deconstructed because the postmodernists believe that in the name of Reason, Truth, and reality, Western civilization has wrought dominance, oppression, and destruction on the world.18 In Plato's Pharmacy, Derrida argues that oppressive binary opposition is also deeply structured in the Logos and that understanding or using this principle "is an act of both domination and decision."19 This is made especially clear by Derrida's term phallogocentrism. The term is a critique against the fundamental and Christian idea that the Logos is, or should be, at the center. In extension it is a critique of the core roots of Western civilisation. From this critique stems the idea that Western civilisation is at its core a male dominated patriarchy which has used the creation of binary oppositions, reason, logic, and the Logos, for (world) domination and power.21 

Derrida's arguments are meaningless 

Thus, postmodernism is an anti-philosophical movement in which there is no truth, no universal, no fixed, and no precise. There is no meaningful interpretation, no meaningful argument because reason and logic itself are Western constructions for power. Therefore, there are two options: either a person accepts the Logos, reason, meaning and logic. This person believes that people are capable of reasonable argument. That human beings are capable of constructive dialogue (the root word of dialogue is dia-logos which means that dialogue is based on the assumption that two people are in fact capable of constructive speech and argumentation). Or a person, like Derrida, refutes the ideas of the Logos, reason, meaning, and logic because all of them are Western constructions for power. However, that person cannot at the same time believe in constructive dialogue. Or make a true or false argument. All arguments are simply meaningless. The only truth that exists in this worldview is that some people—especially white Western hetrosexual males— have more power than others. Note that power is everything that is left over in this worldview. 

Therefore, if a person accepts reason, meaning, logic and their core assumption, the Logos, then we can see how Derrida projects his own meaningless, nonsensical and literally unreasonable thinking in his own writing. What he himself writes is not based on reason and logic and therefore meaningless. Or, a person accepts, according to the argument of Derrida, that meaning does not exist, and that reason and logic are Western constructions for power. If that is true, than this text is meaningless, any interpretation of it is also meaningless, but also any text is meaningless. Therefore, there are only two options, either Derrida projects his own anti-logos mind onto the world and his argument is unreasonable and non-logical. Or, Derrida his argument is correct and all text and interpretation is meaningless. However, also in that case is his argument pointless and meaningless. This means that Derrida his argument is always meaningless. By his own standards, it literally does not matter what he wrote: it is always literally pointless and meaningless. The only question is, first, does the logos exist? Does reason and logic exist? If they do, then Derrida is just a trickster at the fringes who’s philosophy should be seen for what it is: literally pointless and meaningless. If they do not, then Derrida might be right, but then writing and reading this text is pointless and meaningless. Moreover, communication and understanding itself would be impossible. We have to accept one of the two. Choose one. 

Conclusion 

The Western tradition is logocentric. One of its most fundamental ideas is the divine generative principle of truthful speech: the Logos. Postmodernism, a sceptical movement with Derrida as one of its main tricksters, is an anti-philosophical movement. It argues that there is no abstract, no truth, no precise, and no universal. Instead, everything that exists is subjective interpretation and a play for power. Phallogocentrism is Derrida's critique on the Western tradition which is build on the ideas of reason, logic, the Good and the Truth in its fundamental philosophy. In other words, we have to choose: either Derrida is correct and this text is meaningless and a play for Western male domination. Communication between human beings is meaningless all-together and philosophy is a corrupt enterprise. Or, reason, logic, meaning, and truth prevail. Derrida’s texts are seen for what they are: a projection from his own anti-logos mind onto the Western world. This means that he projected the rejection of his own principle for divine, generative and truthful speech onto Western civilisation. What Derrida therefore really deconstructed is himself. 

Bibliography 

Derrida, Jacques. Plato’s pharmacy. University of Chicago Press, 2014. 

Fox, Nick J. Poststructuralism and postmodernism. The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Health, Illness, Behavior, and Society. 2014. 1855-1860. 

Hicks, Stephen Ronald Craig. Explaining postmodernism: Skepticism and socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. Scholargy Publishing, Inc. 2004. 

Jeffrey, David Lyle. A dictionary of biblical tradition in English literature. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1992. 

Josephson-Storm, Jason A., and Jason Ananda Josephson Storm. The myth of disenchantment. University of Chicago Press, 2017.

1 John, 1:1

2 Jeffrey, David Lyle. A dictionary of biblical tradition in English literature. (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1992), 459 - 456. 

3 Revelations 19:13. 

4 John 1:14. 

5 John 14:6. 

7 Josephson-Storm, Jason A., and Jason Ananda Josephson Storm. The myth of disenchantment. (University of Chicago Press, 2017), 221. 

8 Republic 508e.

9 Phaedrus 246a-254e. 

10 Josephson-Storm, The Myth of Disenchantment, 221. 

11 For arguments on this claim see: 10 Global trends every smart person should know, Factfulness, Mere Christianity, Progress, What's so great about Christianity, Equality: the impossible quest. 12 Hicks, Stephen Ronald Craig. Explaining postmodernism: Skepticism and socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. (Scholargy Publishing, 2004), 1. 

13 Ibid, 5.

14 Derrida, Jacques. Plato’s pharmacy. (University of Chicago Press, 1981), 63. 15 Hicks, Explaining postmodernism, 6. 

16 Ibid, 15. 

17 Fox, Nick J. "Poststructuralism and postmodernism." The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Health, Illness, Behavior, and Society (2014), 2. 

18 Hicks, Explaining postmodernism, 3. 

19 Derrida, Plato's Pharmacy, 117.

21 Ibid, 2:00-12:00