ABSTRACT
When comparing Derrida's doctrine of deconstructing metaphysics from within metaphysics in the name of the play of signifiers with Kumārajīva's doctrine of the pleasure of speaking, which will be justified in saying that French deconstruction is anticipated by the Madhyamaka and/or Vijñānavāda discourses by more than a thousand years with respect to its critical concerns and theoretical arguments. Reading of Paramārtha suggests that the Vijñānavāda undoing of construction invokes the Madhyamaka interpretation of the 'three-step prajñāpāramitā approach to the un-arisen' and also anticipates the Derridean deconstruction of Austinean speech act theory. The debate between Foucault and Derrida concerns a reading of Descartes First Meditation. Both the structuralist in Foucault and the post-structuralist in Derrida use this debate as a site for the articulation of their separate critical methodologies. The Western metaphysics represented by classical reason is the 'determination of the meaning of Being as presence'.
