ABSTRACT
Some of the proponents of deconstructive theory, especially those who write in an ugly and self-important bratspeak, give the impression that it thumbs its nose at all its predecessors and makes fools of us all. Neither Derrida nor De Man would take this view; their attitude is not the humanistic obeisance to individual intuition disavowed in Chapter 1, but a declaration of the non-final and non-originary character of every analysis. It would be a fatal mistake to think that they release the musicologist from the requirement of scientific precision. The dogs of ‘intuitive’ analysis will always bark at the doors and must be repulsed with the same energy.
