Deconstruction

In philosophy, deconstruction is a loosely defined set of approaches to understanding the relationship between text and meaning. The concept of deconstruction was introduced by the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who described it as a turn away from Platonism's ideas of "true" forms and essences which are valued above appearances. American literary critic and major proponent of deconstruction Barbara Johnson describes the approach in this way: The deconstruction of a text does not proceed by random doubt or generalized skepticism, but by the careful teasing out of warring forces of signification within the text itself. Since the 1980s, these proposals of language's fluidity instead of being ideally static and discernible have inspired a range of studies in the humanities, including the disciplines of law, anthropology, historiography, linguistics (including sociolinguistics), psychoanalysis, queer studies, and feminism. Deconstruction also inspired deconstructivism in architecture and remains important within art, music, and literary criticism.