Deconstruction
Deconstruction is a mode of critical thinking and textual engagement that questions the foundational oppositions and assumptions within Western metaphysics. It works by exposing how systems of meaning—whether philosophical, literary, legal, or otherwise—are structured by tensions and contradictions that they cannot contain or resolve. Rather than destroying texts, deconstruction intervenes in their structures, revealing how they undo themselves from within. It is not a method in the strict sense, but a strategy of reading that resists closure, seeks complexity, and opens up the possibility of other meanings.
Différance
Différance is Derrida’s neologism that gestures toward both the act of differing and the movement of deferral that underlies all meaning. It names the condition by which signs acquire meaning only through their distinction from others and through a temporal delay—meaning is never fully present but always arriving. Because it cannot be heard (sounding identical to différence in French), différance disrupts the privileging of speech over writing and challenges the metaphysics of presence. It is not a stable concept but a disruptive force that operates within all signification.
Trace
The trace is the lingering effect of what is absent within what appears to be present. Every sign or idea carries within it the marks of what it is not, allowing meaning to emerge only through this interplay of presences and absences. The trace is not something we can point to, but a structural necessity that renders full presence impossible. It reveals that each element in a system of meaning is haunted by others, creating a condition of perpetual deferral and difference.
Logocentrism
Logocentrism refers to the philosophical tendency to ground truth, meaning, or authority in a foundational presence—often identified with reason, speech, or an originary logos. Derrida critiques this orientation as privileging immediacy and self-presence, while marginalizing writing, difference, and mediation. By challenging logocentrism, deconstruction displaces the assumed centrality of unmediated meaning and reveals its dependency on what it excludes.
Phonocentrism
Phonocentrism is the bias that values speech over writing on the grounds that spoken language is closer to thought, presence, or truth. This hierarchy—rooted in the Western philosophical tradition from Plato onward—assumes that the speaker is present to their own words. Derrida overturns this assumption by showing that the so-called immediacy of speech already depends on structures of repetition and difference, placing speech and writing on the same unstable ground.
Binary Oppositions
Western thought is structured by binary oppositions—pairs like presence/absence, male/female, mind/body—where one term is privileged and the other devalued. Deconstruction reveals that these oppositions are not stable, but rely on the subordinate term for their very identity. The supposedly dominant side depends on and is haunted by what it seeks to exclude. By destabilizing these hierarchies, deconstruction shows how meaning is always contingent and relational.
Aporia
An aporia is a point of impassable contradiction or conceptual deadlock within a text, where meaning seems both necessary and impossible. Rather than being a flaw to be fixed, an aporia reveals a structural tension that underpins the work. It marks the moment where a text folds in on itself, unable to resolve the very distinctions or principles it relies on. Deconstruction lingers in these moments, showing that such uncertainties are not accidental but constitutive.
Supplement
The supplement appears to be a mere addition to something complete, but in fact reveals that what it "supplements" was never whole to begin with. It simultaneously completes and destabilizes, indicating a lack that was already present. For example, writing is traditionally seen as a supplement to speech, but this framing masks the dependence of speech on writing-like structures. The supplement thus disrupts notions of origin, essence, and sufficiency.
Iterability
Iterability is the capacity of a sign to be repeated across different contexts, allowing it to function independently of any original intention. A sign’s meaning is not fixed by a single usage or authorial intent, but rather shaped by its ability to be cited, altered, and recontextualized. This repeatability undermines the idea of pure expression and opens language to ambiguity, transformation, and excess.
Undecidability
Undecidability refers to moments where multiple interpretations or outcomes are equally compelling, with no clear way to choose among them. Yet this is not an invitation to paralysis or relativism—it is the condition under which responsible decisions must be made. Deconstruction emphasizes that meaning, ethics, and action occur not in certainty but in this space of risk, where no choice is guaranteed by a foundational rule.
Presence / Metaphysics of Presence
The metaphysics of presence is the philosophical tendency to value what is immediate, self-identical, and fully accessible—what is “present” in the moment. Derrida critiques this privileging of presence, showing that all meaning is mediated by difference and deferral. What appears fully present is in fact structured by absences and relational forces that undermine its self-sufficiency.
Writing (Écriture)
For Derrida, writing is not just literal inscription but the broader system of spacing, difference, and deferral that underlies all language. It challenges the idea that speech is more natural or authentic. By redefining writing as a general condition of signification, Derrida reveals that all meaning arises through structures that prevent full immediacy or presence. Writing thus becomes the name for the irreducible alterity at the heart of language.
Margins / Parergon
The margin, or parergon, is what appears external or supplemental to a work—the frame, commentary, or limit—but turns out to be essential to the work’s structure and meaning. By examining these peripheral elements, deconstruction shows how the boundary between inside and outside, essential and supplemental, is never stable. The margin is not simply added to the text; it shapes and conditions it from the edges.
Autoimmunity
Autoimmunity describes a paradox wherein a system turns against itself in an effort to protect itself. Derrida uses this concept, particularly in political and ethical contexts, to show how institutions, like democracies, can undermine their own principles in the name of self-preservation. Autoimmunity illustrates how every structure contains the seeds of its own undoing, not through external threats, but through internal logic.
Hauntology
Hauntology is a spectral mode of thinking that replaces the metaphysics of presence with a philosophy attuned to ghosts, absences, and deferred futures. Developed in Specters of Marx, this concept suggests that the past never fully disappears, and the future never fully arrives—they haunt the present. Hauntology disrupts linear temporality, revealing how what is absent continues to shape what is.
The Other / Alterity
The Other designates that which cannot be reduced to the Same—the irreducible difference of another person, text, or concept. In ethics, Derrida emphasizes that true responsibility involves welcoming the Other without assimilating or controlling them. Deconstruction insists on respecting this alterity, resisting the totalizing tendencies of systems that seek to make all things legible, knowable, or familiar.
Double Reading
Double reading is a deconstructive strategy that first reconstructs a dominant or traditional interpretation of a text, and then reads again to uncover its instabilities, contradictions, and suppressed meanings. This layered reading reveals how texts both assert and undermine their own authority. It avoids simply overturning meaning and instead shows how the structure itself invites and resists interpretation.
Dissemination
Dissemination refers to the scattering of meaning across a field of differences, where no single interpretation can gather all the fragments. Like seeds dispersed in the wind, meaning escapes control and proliferates in unpredictable ways. Derrida embraces this multiplicity, emphasizing that texts are generative, not closed—that they always say more than they mean to.
Context
Context, while essential to meaning, is never fully saturable or closed. Derrida shows that meaning is shaped by context, but that context is itself open to reinterpretation and drift. No statement is ever completely enclosed by its situation; instead, it carries the possibility of differing and deferring across time and space. This openness is what makes communication possible—and unpredictable.
Ethics of Deconstruction
Far from being nihilistic, deconstruction entails a rigorous ethical demand: to remain open to otherness, to act in the face of undecidability, and to resist imposing closure or mastery. Ethics here is not grounded in fixed rules, but in attentiveness to singularity, difference, and the impossibility of certainty. Deconstruction asks us to respond—to decide—even when the grounds for decision are unstable.
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