RE: The real problem...

You keep thinking that when I speak of your position I am referring to it
only in the context of Derrida, what about our lesson with Franz and the
discussion on authors and meaning we had several months ago. I am glad that
you consider Derrida's writing texts and that they should be considered
together but this consideration appears not to apply so democratically to
all texts. Does not Derrida limit his play in differences to the specific
text at hand yet he argues in later texts what he meant in older texts which
mean something other than the differences he points out in those examples of
his. That is the point John, we read his older texts first and they seem
to mean one thing and in later texts he says that what many have understood
the texts to mean was not what it meant but does not the meaning reside in
the text? So when Derrida later clarifies the meaning he is not changing
the meaning in that older text since it already exists apart from him but
rather what we get from him is his intended meaning which is not relevant to
those readers extracting meaning from the older text yet it is relevant for
those who want to know what the author means. This is the problem, you
give the text a freedom concerning the latitude of meaning, this is the
nature of language and then in order to free the text of any self
contradictions that many readers are finding in the text or just meanings
not acceptable to Derrida, he then must write more texts with more inherent
meanings to 'correct' the false meanings people are drawing from his texts
and these new texts suffer from the same issues until he has narrowed down
what the text actually means, so what we are seeing here with Derrida is a
series of writings that started out with wild meanings and these meanings
were culled down with more texts to reach an ideal meaning namely what the
man, the author, Derrida means and the meanings inherent in the text take
secondary importance to what the man Derrida actually means. This is good,
he has, with the body of his writings, marginalized texts and privileged the
person, namely the writer of those texts which is the way it is in the real
(non Omlor world) so we have moved from a body of texts to a body of
thought of a person through his words, namely the author.

I thank you my sparing partner for sharpening my sword. If you would have
lessened any of your rhetoric I would never have learned this Truth.
Daniel

More silliness this afternoon:

"John actually does not see texts as texts with a field of meaning but
rather a body of thought of an author."

It's nice that you feel no need, Daniel, to even try and accurately state my
position. And it indicates something interesting about your own ethics of
reading.

I said I base my view of Derrida "on all he has written."

Those, and I really didn't know I had to go this slowly, would be called
"texts."

I base my view of his work on the texts he has signed. I don't know what a
phrase like "the body of thought of an author" actually means. And I don't
really care, either. It is not a phrase which interests me.

Thanks,

--John
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Received on Thu Aug 14 13:24:15 2003