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[...] one of the main features of deconstruction seems to be the impossibility of a message, text, or philosophy having a clear unequivocal meaning. This means that Derrida's philosophy of deconstruction, as Eddo Evink formulates it, 'cannot be discussed as "Derrida's philosophy" without opposing the leading idea of that philosophy--and this assertion, too struggles with the same problem'. [...]
Like postmodernist metafiction, Derrida's philosophy of deconstruction has an idealistic, liberating motivation: it wants to expose illusory notions and thereby transform our way of thinking. [...] a general characteristic of deconstruction is that it implies both construction and undermining (deconstruction does not destroy the illusions at which it is aimed; it both 'constructs' and 'undermines' them). The second aspect, or second double movement, is actually a specification of the process of undermining, naming that it is executed through the, as Derrida writes, 'double gesture' of 'overturning' and 'displacement'.
he's comparing it to Barth's literature of exhaustion
According to Derrida, the most fundamental notions of Western thought--that is, the notions of metaphysics, the branch of philosophy that tries to contemplate the deepest ground, the first causes of existence--are based on illusions. The illusion that dominates Western thought, and that therefore is deconstruction's target, is the ideal of presence. All Western philosophy, according to Derrida, strives to reach a fundamental level where truth and meaning are fully present. All philosophical attempts at definition, at indicating the determining grounds for something, the principle on which something is based--all these attempts imply the ideal of presence. They all imply that, if one could only go (back) deep or far enough, one could clearly determine the essence, the 'pure meaning of something. This ideal of metaphysical essences expressed in perfect, pure definitions is an illusion, an impossible dream, according to Derrida.
However, at the same time, it is an impossible dream from which we cannot free ourselves, without which our language would not be able to function, argues Derrida. Seen by themselves, words seem nothing more than a series of marks or sounds, 'without life,' one could say; a word seems to require something that accompanies it, that is 'present' to it and, as such, gives meaning to that word. Derrida says that we necessarily regard a word as a supplement for something else, as referring to something-to a thing in the world, or a thought in my head. Without that connection, a word would appear to be dead, meaningless.
By presupposing that a word functions as a supplement to something, as referring to something outside itself, a gap opens up between language and what it seeks to express in the world (for example, an object, or a thought in my head). If that gap is to be bridged, if language is to express the world, a clear and unequivocal connection between language and world is required, that infuses words with accurate meaning, and thereby, their capacity to describe the world. However, such an accurate reflection of language and world requires a shared metaphysical 'origin', a system of essences, of transcendental signifieds that underlies both the being of the world and the possibility for its accurate expression in language.
[...] Derrida and Barth's goals are not to destroy what they regard as both illusory and indispensable notions, but to maintain their unresolvability, endlessly revoking, postponing the determination of meaning.
Here, in this endless cycle of affirmation and undermining, we can readily see that deconstruction and metafiction turn into forms of hyperreflexive irony. Barth's postmodernist metafiction is solely occupied with the ironic exposure of its own fictional structures. It cannot breach its obsession with itself, for it perceives its task as endless, and it cannot put anything--no positivity, no 'positive freedom' to use a Kierkegaardian term--in the place of that which it exposes. This results in what Wallace describes as scepticism and solipsism. Postmodernist metafiction constantly 'crosses out its own descriptions of reality, because they inevitably contain fictional elements,' Barth's fiction cannot express anything truthful about reality; it can only express its own _un_reality, its own fictionality. Wallace writes: 'It gets empty and solipsistic real fast. It spirals in on itself.' As a result, postmodernist metafiction can be seen as withering away into non-committal introversion.
Wallace reproaches Ellis for failing to offer any alternative, or any insight in addition to what he mocks and ridicules as the 'darkness of the time'. This critique is directly in line with Kierkegaard's view of irony, and the need for realizing a positivity in its wake.
Thus American Psycho falls prey to the same attitude of which it shows us the extreme escalation, namely the total negative irony of the aesthetic life-view. This is not to say that the novel or Ellis somehow 'condone'--if it even makes sense to say such a thing--the violence that it portrays, but it is to say that the novel cannot truly criticize the attitude that lies at the root of these escalations, since its only way to do so, is to desire from its readers the same thing it portrays in its main character: endless irony.
The fact that Ellis's novels only ridicule and ironize, and are unable to formulate any meaning or value, shows us the underlying aggravation of the postmodernist view of language and fiction (and the formulation of meaning therein). Ellis regards the meaningful description of the world, whether it is seen as 'reality' or as 'fiction,' as a simple impossibility. His works do not display a search for a way around this problem; they merely ridicule all attempts to find a way out, as well as the excesses that inevitably follow from the lack of a way out. There is, indeed, no exit.
see note 199
Wittgenstein writes that there seem to be two ways of explaining the meaning of a word: through 'verbal' and through 'ostensive' definitions. A verbal definition explains a statement with the help of another statement. An ostensive definition is, in the words of McGinn, 'an act of giving the meaning of a wordby pointing to an exemplar'. Wittgenstein adds: 'The verbal definition, as it takes us from one verbal expression to another, in a sense gets us no further. In the ostensive definition however we seem to make a much more real step towards learning the meaning.' Obviously, verbal definitions only make connections within language, and do not bring us from language to reality. Therefore, ostensive definitions appear to be the only way of connecting words with something outside language. Baker and Hacker offer the following summary of the enormous importance of ostensive definitions, at least for the view of language criticized by Wittgenstein:
ostensive definitions provide the only possible means for correlating words with things. Only an utterance of the form 'That is ...', together with the gesture of pointing at something, can be used to correlate a word with a thing. There must be ostensive definitions in every language. They are necessary for language to represent reality. [...] Every ostensive definition forges a link between language and the world.
Through ostensive definition 'we seem to pass beyond the limits of language and to establish a connection with reality itself', writes Wittgenstein. But, to that end, the connection established by the ostensive definition must be unequivocal, infallible and definitive. 'Otherwise, ostensive definition could not provide the foundations of language. If every ostensive definition were ambiguous or left open questions about the application of the defined word, it would require supplementation', conclude Baker and Hacker, '[a]ny attempt to supplement an ostensive definition [...] must be either redundant or inconsistent with the meaning already assigned to it'.
quoting Baker and Hacker's Understanding and Meaning, p36
den Dulk later goes into the problem of ostensive definitions, using a desk as an example: when you point to a desk and say that desk is "rectangular", "furniture", "brown" etc you don't know which of the labels means which aspect of the desk. in fact, this act of definition actually takes place within language, with my pointing finger and the desk itself being part of the grammatical structures of language, despite not being words (though they can be replaced with words, which is indicative). in other words, "an ostensive definition supplies a linguistic rule, not a justification of that rule", which means that you can't justify grammar by referring to reality!
Wallace's story illustrates the solipsistic problems caused by the (hyper)reflexive attitude. For this attitude causes us to regard our so-called internal processes--thoughts, feelings, et cetera--as objects, 'as things that we have', and ourselves as the exclusive 'owners' of those objects. Although this might seem like an innocent line of thought, the effects are irrevocably far-reaching. Hacker writes: 'If we think of "pain" as the name of a sensation we have on the model of names of objects (in a generalized sense of 'object'), then solipsism is unavoidable. A public language cannot be construed as the confluence of private languages that happen to coincide.' If I think that for me the meaning of the word 'pain' lies anchored in an essentially private experience, then I will never be able to speak meaningfully about my pain with others. It is impossible to connect myself to the outside world if I, from a reflexive attitude, regard the meaning of myself and the world to be derived from processes that take place inside me.
However, Wittgenstein has shown, through his private language arguments, that my understanding of myself and the world cannot and does not depend on such looking-inside. A word has a certain meaning because it has a certain use in language. That use is not invented by me at the moment that I pronounce a word while I point inside. Rather, it is the other way around, Wittgenstein writes: 'Grammar tells what kind of object anything is.' It is grammar--the use a certain word has in language--that determines what I mean when I say 'I am in pain.' Or, as Wallace summarizes Wittgenstein's position: 'a word like pain means what it does for me because of the way the community I'm part of has tacitly agreed to use pain'.
[...] according to Wittgenstein, meaning is not determined by reference to the world or to the thoughts of the speaker but results from the communal structures of language users. In light of this view, the non-referentiality of literary texts does not pose a problem: fiction is not an atypical form of language use or a form of linguistic pretence intrinsically cut off from expressing anything about the world. As a result, the late-Wittgensteinian view enables us to see literature as most of us experience it: as directly concerned with our form of life, with the world we live in. [...]
[...] our use of these concepts cannot take place without their being 'founded' by what we could call 'paradigmatic cases': examples that are common knowledge within a certain life-form, that function as a sort of standard, and thereby form part of the foundation of our meaningful use of certain concepts. Literary fiction and other cultural products could be seen as important suppliers of these paradigmatic examples.
I have little difficuty explaining to somebody what I mean by the world 'brown' or 'meter'. But how do I explain other, more complex relationships, like 'love' [...]? I could contend that my relationship with my wife is a perfect example of 'love', but most people do not know me or my wife, and will therefore not find my example very illuminating. If, on the other hand, I suggest the story of Romeo & Juliet as an example of 'love', then almost everybody will know what I mean. The concept of 'love' cannot be explained (or defined) in one sentence; it requires stories to acquire meaning.
The most influential of these stories we can regard as 'paradigmatic cases' that form the foundation of the meaning that we ascribe to certain concepts, that 'traverse' our talk of them. We can imagine that such complex concepts are not based on just one but many of these paradigmatic cases, and that they do not signify rigid standards, but change, together with the stories that, as time passes, we come to find either more or less meaninful. People make different selections from the available paradigmatic cases and emphasize different aspects. Concepts change as the paradigmatic cases, on which we base our understanding of them, change. Such transformations are changes of our life-form, of our socio-cultural identity. [...]
[...] This Wittgensteinian approach to the functioning of language entails a view of literature that does not regard fictional texts as expressing something unreal, but as a fundamental activity within a community of language users: literary fictions offer detailed depictions of concepts that are essential to our collective understanding of reality.
[...] Wallace is not calling for a return to old truths and values. In other interviews, he says: 'we're going to have to make up a lot of our own morality, and a lot of our own values'. And: 'there's probably no absolute right in all situatons handed down from God on the stone tablets. [...] it is our job as responsible decent spiritual human beings to arrive at sets of principles to guide our conduct in order to keep us from hurting ourselves and other people.'
Now, most theorists of authenticity prefer to speak of authenticity as the product of continuous self-creation and development and not of an inherent, fixed self-essence. But if there is nothing 'inherent' about the authentic self, then the question arises as to whether we can even speak meaningfully about something--a self--that is at risk of being corrupted from the outside, in the first place. If authenticity requires the self to be fully autonomous--that is, not subject to any external influences, being completely self-determining--then that self-determination--if it is even possible--has to consist, by definition, of influences that are inherently present 'in' that self. In other words, the whole idea of an authentic self (over against the outer-directed ideal of sincerity) seems to depend on the implicit assumption of a profound, internal purity of the self that differs fundamentally from the impurity that lies outside it.