The Dispute between Jacques Derrida and John Searle, or
Deconstruction versus Structuralism
Searle claimed that Derrida's style was obscure and dismissed. But, in doing this he used the fallacy of authority instead of dealing with the argument on the basis of its merits.
The issue was over John L. Austin's 1962 "How to do Things with Words" which basically claimed that every utterance, or message, consisted of both a proposition - a true or false judgment, called constatives, and a performative or an implication to do something. Performatives do not have any truth value but imply an action ought to be taken.
Austin was criticizing the view of language from logical positivism ala Wittgenstein that a statement either had a truth value or was meaningless. Austin described his view of language as Speech Act Theory which consisted of 3 levels of the performative: the Locutionary Act: a description of the meaning of the sign at issue, the Illocutionary Act: the influence the locution brings on those in certain social settings, and the Perlocutionary Act: how actions are taken, how people actually respond to the locution.
Austin also emphasized felicity conditions: how an act fits with social conventions, whether the situation is appropriate and how the speech act is expressed. A felicity condition is one that fits social conventions and acts towards societal norms.
Derrida addressed Austin's theory in 1988 "Signature, Event, Context" firstly by emphasizing the distinction between speech and writing, between talk and reading! Then, he pointed out that communication is limited by context - that communication is imperfect - there is an absence of absolute communication in both speech and writing. Derrida opposes Saussure's notion that wriitng merely represents speech, that speech is by far the most fundamental form of communication, albeit imperfect. Instead, Derrida describes good communication as a process of iteration, of repeating the comprehensibility so that correct and legible communicative gestures occur. The necessity of repeating is found in writing, and not much in speech.
Iterability occurs through writing and less in speech in that spoken communication is always attached to a speaker while in written communication there is a detachment from the author. The iterability of any form of communication extends to the separation of the iteration into another context, called citationality. Citations are independent of context but necessary for communication because they allow for the possibility of communication in another context.
Derrida claims that intentionality is not the foundation for meaning but has a place - intention does not ground meaning! For communication to work, meaning must work in different contexts and transcend any single intention. Hence, the relation of the intended meaning and the received or interpreted meaning. Language has a life of its own independent of individuals and intentionality!
Derrida now addresses Austin's Speech Act Theory over the issue of 'infelicitous utterances.' Austin admits they occur but he does not examine them. Infelicitous speech acts, for Austin, are pretend performatives, as in a play or writing a story. He labelled these parasitic speech acts and did not build his linguistic framework on them. For Derrida, citationality is more important than intentionality. By narrowing down language and excluding parasitic speech acts, Austin does not have an all encompassing view on language. Derrida claims that felicitous utterances need parasitic speech acts to fulfill itself - both use citationality to apply meaning into another context. The citationality of parasitic speech acts are just as valid as the citationality of felicitous utterances.
Searle 1977 "Reiterating the Differences: A Reply to Derrida," asserts that Derrida misunderstood Austin and that he, Searle, may have misunderstood Derrida. Searle's first criticism is that there is no difference between speech and writing, both are iterable which denies that written communication is more permanent than spoken. Searle claims that Derrida confuses iterability with permanence but obviously a spoken utterance loses its existence, it is in the air, whereas written communication does not lose its existence as long as a copy remains.
The absence that Derrida attributes to communication, its imperfection, does not regard the physical absence, as with the speech after it is spoken, but with the inability to express one's thoughts. Searle critiques Derrida's speech/writing difference, and the idea of iterabiity, as a foundational error that undermines the practice of deconstruction.
Searle 1983 "The World Turned Upside Down" asserts that for the meaning of a writing to be considered permanent, it must have intention attached to it. This breaks from Derrida's intersubjective conceptionn of language. For Searle, meaning is tied to the subject. For Derrida, meaning in written text is found outside of any individual's intention and never perfectly expressed, thus the absence.
Searle defends Austin's difference between felicitous speech acts and parasitic speech acts. Derrida blurred the lines, he said; felicitous acts do not depend on parasitic discourse. Searle continues that Derrida blurs the distinction between citation and parasitic discourse. Citation, says Searle, is the mentioning of the cited source without using it whereas a parasitic speech act does not mention the cited source but the speech act uses it. Derrida claims however that parasitic discourse cites as it utters - they cannot be separated. Although, parasitic discourse does not make it explicit that the utterance is referring from somewhere, the utterance exists because it is referring to something; the utterance is a citation even though it is not a self-aware citation, the referral is the citation. Searle argues that even if the intention of the utterance were lost, the intentionality of the receiver creates the meaning. Searle says that in the absence of intention, meaning cannot be found.
The context for their disagreement is the difference between linguistic structuralism and deconstruction. Structuralism entails an all encompassing structure of the properties of language; these properties interrelate through binary oppositions that produce hierarchies and principles within language. Derrida's deconstruction critiques these binary oppositions. The absence, or imperfection of communication, is the metaphysics of presence. Derrida employs differance to demonstrate why writing does not depend on speech - the double meaning of a word cannot be differentiated in speech but it can be differentiated in writing. Deconstructive action is differance (to differ and to defer or postpone), it removes the rigidity of meaning and the structure: what plays against you.
Derrida sees the meaning in language as separate from the communicator and separate from intention, thus meaning is subject to context.
