Study Questions for Jacques Derrida,
"Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences"
- What is episteme?
- What has been central to the development of Western metaphysics?
What has been the foundation of the structuration of structure?
- What are some of the principles that have functioned as centers?
- What has led to the rupture of this type of discourse?
What replaces it?
- Which thinkers have inaugurated deconstructive discourse?
- What problem faces deconstructionists in articulating their critiques?
- Who is Claude Levi-Strauss and why is his work so important for Derrida?
- What is bricolage? What is its mythopoetical virtue?
- What does Derrida mean by supplementarity?
- What are the two possible reactions to or interpretations of this new understanding of structure, sign, and play? Whom does Derrida cite as examples?
- Define the following: presence, absence, trace, différance, freeplay, signification.