Publication Details

Abstract

The paper focuses on the methodological problem of interpretation in Jacques Derridaʼs work. In order to build up a new philosophical strategy against the violence of western metaphysics and its indications of full presence or full absence of textʼs meaning, Derrida opens the text to semantic inconsistence. From the point of view of deconstruction, every text reaches other texts by means of its suplements: the text becomes workable, telescopic and spongy. All its meanings are contained in the context, which is unlimited; intertextual meanings are drifting in it. Nevertheless, if Derrida rejects metaphysical certitudes of the meaningʼs presence, why does he criticize certain interpretation of text as “wrong”? What exactly is Derrida doing when he reads a text “critically” and “precisely”? In order to answer these questions, the paper shows the differences between interpretation and dissemination from the point of view of their problematic relation to the text's meaning. By comparing Derrida’s and Eco’s pragmatical ways od reading, the paper focuses on their opposing stands questioning at the same time the conceptual limits of the specific drift of meaning in deconstruction.