ABSTRACT
I In his late essay “The Resistance to Theory,” de Man sets out to specify the relationship between deconstruction and philosophy of language in its other, more commonly practiced forms and varieties.1 He does so in terms of the classical trivium, the discipline that insisted on separating logic, grammar, and rhetoric in order to prevent any confusion between their distinct areas of applicability. For de Man, this attempt to draw boundary lines is beset with all manner of difficulties, though it is also a necessary attempt if thinking-especially philosophical thinking-is to proceed with any confidence in its own powers. There are two main assumptions that underpin the discourse of philosophic reason, at least in so far as that tradition has been grounded-from Plato to Descartes, Kant and their successors-in the quest for epistemological certainty and truth. These assumptions are 1) that language can be put to the service of logical arguments, concepts, and categories, since these in some way precede and articulate language itself; and 2) that any swerve from this desirable condition can always be detected and brought into line by an effort of conceptual clarification. This is why rhetoric needs to be cordoned off as a realm of merely persuasive figures or tropes whose presence is a threat to the interests of logic and truth, but a threat which can nonetheless be safely contained so long as its effects are clearly recognized.
