Abstract

The aim of this project is to analyse three essential aspects of the work of Jacques Derrida. These are: Deconstruction - as an approach to textuality; his concept of metaphysics - as the object of deconstruction; and 'Differance' - as the condition of the possibility of metaphysics and the telos of deconstruction. ;Our procedure, far from engaging in a 'deconstruction of Derrida' or being in any respect mimetic of the 'object of our analysis', has involved instead a tracing of the development of Derrida's thinking from lesser to greater levels of complexity. We have therefore investigated his explicit claims concerning the identity, function and structure of the three parameters announced above and in addition sought to synthesize aspects of these structures beyond his own claims. ;Our conclusions insist upon a relation of economy between these three dimensions which in turn implicates the deconstructive practice itself in its own findings. More specifically, Derrida's aim to 'deconstruct metaphysics' is shown, as with Heidegger's parallel intention, to be irreducible to yet another metaphysics but nonetheless inseparable from that same structure. Thus the limits of deconstruction according to its own telos--the revelation of differance--are claimed to be explicated here