The Deconstruction of a Pedagogical Institution: Derrida and ‘The Principle of Reason’

Abstract

While generally overlooked by American literary critics during the mid-1970s and early 1980s, Derrida’s work with GREPH and the International College of Philosophy has increasingly led a number of critics to consider what he describes as the ‘deconstruction of a pedagogical institution and all that it implies’ (LOB, 94). Margaret Rose, for instance, argues that, ‘Deconstruction attacks not only the internal edifice … but also its extrinsic conditions of practice: the historical forms of its pedagogy, the social, economic or political structures of this pedagogical institution’ (1991, 41). Robert Young places a similar emphasis, arguing that deconstruction can be explained by its duty to question everything including the function of the university: ‘There is. a strategy for deconstruction and that strategy occurs within the institutions and institutional practices’ (1981, 19). The views of these critics contrast sharply with Thomas McCarthy’s (1989) argument that Derrida’s work has not been supported by a significant critical engagement with historical or institutional questions.