The period directly following the second world war was dominated by Existentialism.

sometimes also called the philosophy of experience was popularised by writer-philosopher Sartre, The latter anti-foundational thinkers pay special attention to the problem of objectivity. objectivity is not to be found in the individual self's intuition, but rather in considerations that convince all rational minds, thus not in the cogito (I think) but rather in the cogitamus (we think). It is this philosophy of the concept which offers an alternative to the phenomenology of Sartre and his Existentialism. It lies at the basis of the structuralist revolution of the 1960s. Lvi-Strauss was the first to take this idea from the realm of linguistics into the realm of the human sciences, in his specific case into anthropology.

Individual experience is according to Althusser and other non-humanist Marxists a form of ideological distortion that cannot function as the basis of an objective theory of society. Marx understood any society (or social formation) as made up of a base of economic forces (forces of production) and a superstructure of political, cultural, and intellectual objects and institutions. Despite this relative autonomy, however, the superstructures are ultimately determined by economic factors. Thus the underlying structure of society is economic.

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), Saussure developed a theory of synchronic language, how language works in the present. He argued that the relationship between the spoken word (signifier) and object (signified) is arbitrary and that meaning comes through the relationship between signs, which are for Saussure the union of signified and signifier. Meaning, then, comes from understanding what a thing IS NOT rather than from knowing in any kind of ontological sense what a thing IS.

Meaning is constructed through difference, particularly through binary pairs (man/woman, good/evil). There is no absolute Platonic ideal "out there" to anchor meaning. There is no truth that is not constructed. There is nothing outside language.

Roland Barthes introduces the term 'mythology' for a use of language or other signs to express a second-level meaning, one beyond the meaning primarily expressed by the sign. His analysis of mythologies aims to reveal the interest of a particular social class behind an expression of second-level meaning, thus what we would call agency. Barthes follows Saussure in that he regards a sign a composed of a signifier and a signified and stretches this concept out of pure linguistic boundaries as to include also nonlinguistic signs. Passion Rose sentimentality Signified signifier signifier

Barthes distinguishes between two levels, level of the linguistic system and the level of the mythological system. On this first level Barthes calls the sign a 'meaning', on the second, mythological, level, he calls it a 'form'. Thus what is on a linguistic level a sign, a unit of meaning, is on the mythological level reduced to the empty form, the signifier, which needs completion by a signified to have meaning.

An effective myth, says Barthes, makes the reader unaware of the fact that a mythological meaning is just a meaning, just an interpretation out of myriad possible meanings/interpretations, but rather as part of nature, a fact. Thus the mythological meaning becomes reality. Something is no longer taken as a sign, but rather as a fact. Myth is particularly effective in capitalist societies because capitalism itself has taken on the mask of the natural: it is successfully presented as the way human beings are naturally rather than just as a contingent historical development.

Barthes coined the term 'code'. A code is a sign system. These codes in the end lead to Barthes' famous dictum the death of the author. In fact, he concludes, a text is written by the codes that underlie its production, than by an author. The author is unconsciously immersed in the codes embedded in the text. But here Barthes is forced to introduce the reader, because the reader, with his or her knowledge of the codes, has to construct the meaning of the text

Furthermore, he claims that behind a text, more than one code can be at work. An these different codes can also lead to conflicts. Thus rather than unifying a text, or finding an objective scientific structure that controls the text, the text comes to have multiple meanings. Thus as a result of using the structuralist method for textual interpretation, he discovers that there is no ultimate truth behind a text, but rather there is an endless succession of meanings. Thus there is no longer one meaning that is more true than another. But we'll come to that.

Poststructuralism rejected the theory that one could map the structure of a language or culture. Rather, meaning is constantly slipping from one sign to the next. Signifiers do not produce signifieds; they merely produce an endless chain of signifiers--hence my need to find a signifier from another semiotic system to represent the tree above.

Language works like a dictionary where, when you look up a word, you get other words that provide meaning. If you keep looking up those words, you'll ultimately come back to the word you started with. Sit pose posture sit

As a result of the popularity of these techniques and theories, the verb "deconstruct" is now often used more broadly as a synonym for criticizing or demonstrating the incoherence of a position. Social theories that attempt to reduce human thought and action to cultural structures are sometimes called "antihumanist." Ironically, then, deconstruction suffered the curious fate of being an antihumanist theory that nevertheless was often understood in the United States as making the radically subjectivist claim that texts mean whatever a person wants them to mean.

In this "open-ended play of signification," social ideologies privilege certain meanings, making them the centers around which all other meanings turn (e.g., "freedom" and "democracy" in the U.S.). Sausurrean difference becomes Derridean diffrance (a coinage suggesting in French both "to be different" and "to defer"); linguistic difference creates the effect of decidable, definite meaning, but in language meaning is actually deferred from one interpretation to another in an endless play or movement.

The structures of binary opposition that are essential to logocentric language are actually hierarchies, defined not simply by differences but by the privileging of one term at the expense of the other (beautiful/ugly, divine/human, man/woman). Deconstruction demonstrates not only that such hierarchies can be inverted, but also that the whole opposition can be undermined or collapsed. Since the first term is defined by excluding the second, it requires the second for its meaning; one cannot be thought without the other ("what is outside is also inside").

 Since

language and meaning are inherently unstable, words and texts constantly undermine and deconstruct themselves; typically by finding "double binds" of contradictory or incompatible meanings or by focusing on apparently minor or peripheral details which serve as threads to unravel the fabric of the text.

Deconstructive critics distinguish between the text that tries to close off the endless play of signification and push toward a specific interpretation (the "readerly" text that tries to keep one in the reader/consumer position) and the text that opens itself up to many different meanings (the "writerly" text that puts one in the writer/producer position, encouraging the creation of one's own play of meanings).

where structuralism sought to establish a science or poetics of literature (or cultural signifying practices as a whole), poststructuralist thought, following Derrida's critique of the metaphysics of presence, has taken an antiscientific stance and, pursuing the infinite play of signifiers, has resisted the imposition of any organising system.

In addition, a range of post-structuralist approaches are a synthesis of deconstruction and other theories derived from Marxism, feminism or psychoanalysis which produce a more historically and socially orientated critique of the text than was the case with the more ahistorical forms of structuralism. These latter developments contrast with the ostensibly apolitical brand of poststructuralism called `deconstruction', largely practised in the USA, which does not relate literary criticism to wider social concerns any more than did New Criticism.

Derrida attacks all western metaphysics for the logo centrism and hierarchy like in speech/ writing, nature/ culture etc. Logo centrism is the tendency for seeking centre and presence. Derrida says that centre-seeking tendency began to be questioned from Nietzsche who declared the 'Death of God' and replaced god with superman.

Another figure to challenge the logocentrism is Freud, who questions the authority of consciousness and claims that we are guided by unconscious. Heidegger also challanges the notion of metaphysics of presence. Derrida, therefore, primarily attacks structuralism. He views that the concept of centre does work but it is not essential; hence center is under eraser. Center is needed to form a structure but immediately it escapes from the so- called centrality.

Derrida, in fact, is not suggesting on the abandonment of the idea of center, but rather he acknowledges that it is illusory and constructed. He talks about the binaries of structuralism which are in hierarchical order, in which the first term is priviledge over the other. These binaries are not true representations of external reality, rather are simply constructions. Any signified is not fixed.

Signified also seeks meaning. When it seeks meaning it becomes signifier. So, there is chain of signifiers, there is no constant existance of signified. It means, there is no centre, no margin, and no totality. As a result, meaning is not determined in the text.

Structuralists believe that from much binary opposition, single meaning comes but Derrida says each pair of binary oppositions produces separate meanings. So, in a text, there are multi- meanings. Since the center lacks locus, center is not the center. Therefore, the idea of decentering for Derrida is erasing the voice and, therefore, avoiding the possibility of logocentrism. 'Differance'. Derrida himself coins this very word. It comes from the French verb' differer'- meaning both to ' differ' and 'defer'.

 But

the word ' differance' itself is meaningless for it does not give any concept. Meaning is a matter of difference. It is a continuous postponement. It is moving from one signifier to another and it endlessly continues.

Since meaning is infinite, we never get absolute meaning of any word. As we can't be satisfied with meaning, we have to go further and further to search the meaning. As a result, we don't have final knowledge. We don't get fixed meaning rather we undergo chain of signifiers and as soon as we get signified it slides.

In short, Derrida means to say that meaning is just like peeling the onion and never getting a kernel. Likewise, the binary opposition between literary and non-literary language is an illusion. But the prime objective of deconstruction is not to destroy the meaning of text but is to show how the text deconstructs itself.

Derrida's idea of no-center, under erasure, indeterminacy, no final meaning, no binary opposition, no truth heavily influenced subsequent thinkers and their theories. These theories are: psychoanalysis, new historicism, cultural studies, post colonialism, feminism