Study Questions for Jacques Derrida,

"Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences"

 

  1. What is episteme?

  2. What has been central to the development of Western metaphysics?
    What has been the foundation of the ‘structuration of structure’?

  3. What are some of the principles that have functioned as ‘centers’?

  4. What has led to the rupture of this type of discourse?
    What replaces it?

  5. Which thinkers have inaugurated ‘deconstructive’ discourse?

  6. What problem faces deconstructionists in articulating their critiques?

  7. Who is Claude Levi-Strauss and why is his work so important for Derrida?

  8. What is bricolage? What is its ‘mythopoetical virtue’?

  9. What does Derrida mean by ‘supplementarity’?

  10. What are the two possible reactions to or interpretations of this new understanding of ‘structure, sign, and play’? Whom does Derrida cite as examples?

  11. Define the following: presence, absence, trace, différance, freeplay, signification.

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