ABSTRACT
Like those of Foucault, Jacques Derrida’s arguments are also primarily about language. Derrida not only rejects representationalism, but also comprehensively abandons any notion of meaning as systematic and of language as providing a handle upon the world. Meaning is imposed, thereby committing an act of closure, which is a form of violence against language. Meaning always appears coherent and systematic, but this appearance is chimerical. Once set free from the violence of closure, language will show itself to be wild and unpredictable, magnificent in its disorderliness. Derrida’s project, therefore, is to rescue language from the violence of ordering, to oppose closure by deconstructing meaning and thereby restoring openness to language.
