Derrida

[Paul Mackin]

On Sun, 18 Jun 2000, Terrance wrote: (quoting St Augustine)
> 
> For do teachers profess that it is their thoughts which are
> perceived and grasped by the students, and not the sciences
> themselves which they convey through speaking? For who is so
> stupidly curious as to send his son to school in order that
> he may learn what the teacher thinks? But all these sciences
> which they profess to teach, and the science of virtue iself
> and wisdom, teachers explain through words. Then those that
> are called pupils consider within themselves wheather what
> has been explained has been said truly; looking of course to
> that interior truth, according to the measure of which each
> is able. Thus they learn, and when the interior truth makes
> known to them that true things have been said, they applaud,
> but without knowing that instead of applauding teachers they
> are applauding learners, if indeed their teachers know what
> they are saying. 

If Augustine did not quite pinpoint the instability of language (that
deconstruction is about) he well understood that natural man is in a
fallen state, a state even more serious than logocentrism.  Deconstruction
would only have been icing on his cake.
			P.