Good? You have to take it one guy at a time.

For instance, I think Derrida is passable as a phenomenologist in some of his writing, but he has the old parisian rhetorical problem of having to write decent things in a highly pretentious way.

Foucault does interesting philosophical history; it's just that his conclusions are dubious, though you have to dwell with it.

Deleuze is just doing weirdo metaphysics because the european context hasn't had good systematic metaphysics in wide acceptance for a century. Read it and apply your own metaphysical understanding.

Lyotard seems to be a crazy person who says crazy crank leftist things in philosophical jargon.

etc.

What were you interested in?

Last edited by iwpoe (9/26/2016 12:13 pm)

Thanks for the recommendation, Mysterious Brony.

 ​Iwpoe,

 I have read a few works of literary criticism lately where the influence of deconstructionism and postmodernism was clear.

I guess both would be good, but especially literally criticism and in the humanities/social sciences.

I think that, within literary criticism, etc., the post-moderns and deconstructionists makes some valid points. It is correct that literature can represent different voices, and some of these representations reflect different power relations. To use an example from history, it is true, for example, that Greek and Roman accounts of barbarians cannot necessarily be taken at face value - they reflect cultural biases and traditions of interpretation, though I'm not sure it required the post-moderns to tell us this. But I think the post-moderns and deconstructionists make far too much of these insights, turning literature or history or culture into simply a matter of power relations - with no room for other motives beyond social and political power nor room for genuine wisdom or artistic merit - and proliferating disunity and differing voices to the complete exclusion of any unity or universal themes or meaning.

Do you have anyone you're reading in particular?

I mean, which deconstructiony type people are you dealing with?