Jacques Derrida’s “Structure, Sign, and Play”

Instagram: @theory_and_philosophy

In this episode, I turn my attention to Derrida's groundbreaking essay, "Structure, Sign, and Play." It is here that he lays the foundation of what would become deconstruction, the destabilization of the assumed univocality of either term in a binary. He does this by undoing the oft-assumed belief that structures do not move, and that they are fundamentally opposed to "play."

[ruchikadubey]

Just came across this video while trying to find relevant videos for Derrida's essay. Super engaging and absolutely well-structured. Glad to find Benjamin's essay "The Work of Art in the age of Mechanical Reproduction" in the playlist. This is some good study material for me. Thank you! Kudos!

[brockx]

Thanks, was so helpful and intriguing overview of the essay, needed that badly to be well prepared for tomorrows seminar :)

[FWHSimulator]

Great video, I found it very useful to hear your thoughts and musings on this text! As to your last question, I am perhaps a bit more of a Heideggerian at this point than a Derridean, but I think what makes our age distinct is that advent and supremacy of technology, in the Heideggerian sense. That is, by a way of thinking which proposes absolute mastery of an absolutely sovereign subject, before whom the truth of the world is unveiled and to whose designs the whole world bends. I don't presume to be a master of philosophy or anything, so feel free to just take this as a personal view that may or not make sense to you. But for me, it has had explanatory power to see the whole line of as, in the face of the technological thinking which assumes for itself absolute power, the movement which reveals the abyss of absolute powerlessness that lies beneath all pretensions of mastery, or, to put it more Derridean, of presence and the mastery of presence. Though, it could be this is privileging modern science too much as a special way of thinking, as I said, I don't pretend to be well-read enough to do a history of philosophy and thinking or anything like that!

I don't know if that makes any sense to you, but if so I'd be curious to hear your thoughts/counterpoints.

[teporeliot]

Your 'era's' (from the text), distinguished by their dominant transcendental signified are : "eidos, arche, telos, energeia ousia, aletheia [Greece], God [Christianty], man [Enlightenment], transcendentality [Idealism], consciousness [Phenomenology]". Our era is marked by the absence of any trascendental signified.

[Celestial-Pickle]

Thank you. This is thoughtful and accessible explanation of a notoriously obtuse subject

[jacobchateau]

We see this theme growing more important in mathematics (Yoneda's lemma!!) and computer science (monads, functional programming). The dissolution of the center is captured by the adjunction between vector spaces (modules) and affine spaces (infinitesimal spaces). The duality of algebra and geometry (function and form?) emerges from that. This is a descriptive apparatus for finding (very limited degrees of) certainty about statements concerning the measurement and comparison of spacetime within spacetime. This is how the foundations of quantum gravity will ultimately influence the way we model the human psyche and human interactions, behavior, et cetera.

Category theory is the culmination of the obsession with structural abstraction, and manages to articulate (so move outside) the structure of destruction. Still working on fully dissolving this atomic irony.

[GoodOldDaysAreOver]

Thank you for for this presentation, using the elements of structure in uncommon ways, which undermines the structure while using it. I understand that in structuralism the elements are used in specific assigned ways, is this correct? That's the bit I remember. I am also familiar with work of Propp on Russian fairy tale structure.

[mardinhosseini]

what are metaphysics actually? i think in his essay he said that metaphysics deconstructed by metaphysics ? could you explain it pls

[kevinqwen]

It'd been a week and I still couldn't understand Derrida. Thanks.

[zdillz]

This was really great, helped me a lot. I have a question however, I want to understand Ferdinand de Saussures influence on 'post-structuralism'. what I mean is, is hear a lot about how important Saussures idea of the sign, the signifier, and the signified are, and I get confused with these concepts. I hear some people reference the idea of 'sign' and others talk about the importance of 'the signifier' what part are we working with here when we do a discursive study? In addition I hear about the importance of Saussures typology (le langue, le langage, and le parole) - le langage (e.g. english or spanish) being the important site of discursive study. Am I right in thinking this has no synonmous relationship to the distinction between sign, signifier and signified.... ?

[VishwarupaRath]

It's explained very beautifully. The calm voice and delivery of words makes it even more easy to grasp

[shantanu]

Thank you for your explanation! This was helpful.

[sonaitiwary]

At 1:54: It will be known as post-structuralism, not structuralism. Derrida is the poster child of post-structuralism.

[savannahb]

i have a crush on your depth of knowledge

[literaturewithahmad]

PlZ leave the document or source of the video for readers

[Charrrlut]

thank you SO much!! watched this video three times and it has helped so much in understanding Derrida's essay for my philosphy class!

[Max-xzkj]

4:43 do you have a Philosophy degree or lit major degree?

[marieliant.abreusantana]

Yo necesito esta información, pero en español 🥲

[安迪杨]

Thank you much! Such a lucid and excellent explanation of Derrida’s essay!

[christiantodorov]

Hearing the sand box example, i cant help but wonder, cant we make a summary of derrida's ideas by saying that we historically make decisions about what is Essential about a concept and what isnt, and that by doing so we are ignoring the things we take to be at first contingent? How would derrida like structuralistic studies into folklore, myths, culture procede? Without categorising hastily, without expecting the same issues, without romanticising the natives etc? Is this whole essay basically calling for aaaa bias-check among structuralists or is he saying that we are UNABLE ( even if we try very hard) to find some basic, common and universal tendencies which can go on to inform our concepts of human nature?
Also, is the transcendental signified something along the lines of: if you press somebody on the meaning of truth or logos or justice etc, after a bit of talk, the answer will be "because God" (to put it simply)?