A Deconstructive Strategy in Jacques Derrida

Abstract

This essay explores the procedure followed by Jacques Derrida in the deconstruction of texts, with the aim to find out some regularities in his works. Our method is comparative. We selected some of his works and contrast them with other authors’ ideas on the deconstruction he makes about those discourses, to observe the irruption moment of new terms. We found that, although this philosopher rejects closed concepts, as well as a defined methodology, he applies a regular strategy in those works. We highlight two phases in this strategy: in the first one, oppositions made by metaphysics are reversed; and in the second one, the context is changed in an abrupt way. Deconstructing texts by Saussure, Freud and Levinas, among others, gives to Derrida as a result, the invention of the term différance, and the reconstruction of the concept “trace”.