Since I am reading so much about Jacques Derrida it is only fitting to post on his philosophy. I am doing this for two reasons: (1) so that if I am wrong someone out there can correct my understanding and (2) if someone comes along later doing research on the subject this may help.
The first area of Derrida’s thought upon which I’d like to comment is his statement “there is no outside-text” (il n’y a pas de hors-texte). This last week a classmate of mine mentioned this statement (see here). He applied it to the study of biblical text by saying that essentially, if we follow Derrida, there is no reason to try to understand things like (a) authorial intent, (b) intended audience, (c) historical context, and so forth. There have been some biblical scholars–namely folk like John Sailhamer and Ray Lubeck–who have said “read the text”. Their argument is that we have the text, but we do not have the author, or the audience, or the historical events surrounding the composition of the text. We have the text so study the text.
If we interpret Derrida to say “there is no outside-text” as if it is applicable to only to how we approach things like studying biblical literature or other literature we will miss the point. Derrida is not saying that (a) there is no way of understanding things outside of written text, as if having a live one-on-one conversation is meaningless or (b) that if we are seeking to reconstruct meaning in a written text that all we have is “text” and therefore author, audience, and context are meaningless. This is missing the point of Derrida’s statement as I understand most scholars of his work to understand him.
Rather, Derrida is correcting what he perceived to be a mistaken notion since at least the time of Plato to the present, namely that verbal communication is more direct than written communication. Most scholars of language have understood audio-communication to have a shorter distance between signifier and signified. In other words, we can move from the speaker’s intent to the words used with less resistance. All the words that come from a speaker’s mouth have to point toward is back to the thought of the speaker.
This has led many to degrade written communication as even further away from the intent of the communicator. If written communication is marks-and-dashes that function as signifiers for audio words then the process is as such:
[THOUGHT –> AUDIO SYMBOL –> WRITING]
As we see from this model writing is at least an additional step away from verbal communication. Derrida rejects this. He does not see verbal communication as being as more direct than written communication. Both verbal and written communication have an infinite distance of possible means of interpretation between the thought and that which is communicated. Even psychoanalysis cannot retrieve the pure signified.
If verbal communication, or hand signals, or facial expressions must be interpreted these are no better than written text. Therefore, “there is no outside-text”. Derrida does not mean there is nothing outside of writing; he means that everything, like text, can be interpreted multiple ways and is never a pure signifier of the signified.
As an example, let us consider a lie. Is a lie spoken any easier to understand than a lie written? There are so many factors that go into uncovering the truthfulness of a statement and whether or not a statement matches the thought that was in the speaker’s mind. OR have you misspoken? Did you say something that you did not mean? If so, then we can see the distance between your “thought” (the signified) and your statement (the signifier) still has a great gulf fixed between the two.
This is not to say all communication is meaningless. Nor does Derrida say that we should not attempt to understand a speaker or writer because miscommunication happens. What he does want to avoid is the idea that language somehow purely encapsulates thought and that verbal communication is in need of less interpretation than the written form.
the archives near Emmaus 
Hey, I served as Ray’s TA for awhile 😉 .
These kinds of questions, at Multnomah undergrad, were the big hub-ub on campus in my day; it’s nice to see this kind of stuff still lives on 🙂 .
I cannot recall Sailhamer ever associating his approach with Derrida in any way. Did Lubeck? I don’t imagine that he did.
Brian,
No, I never heard him attribute his views to Derrida; instead Hans Frei was/is very significant for Ray, as is of course his relationship with Sailhammer. Of course, there were plenty who would attribute Derrida to Ray’s approach; but Ray would repudiate this. This whole “debate” between “Ray” vs. the rest of Multnomah faculty (esp. Rex Koivisto) always made my undergrad experience that much more exciting. As much as I appreciate Ray, and his approach (I also taught a Lab in Bible Study Methods for him); and have to demur from it as well. Yet, I think the basic skills and “text-centrism” that he encourages upon students can be beneficial; with of course critical reflection on the student’s part 😉 ). There, was that diplomatic enough 🙂 ?
Have you had Ray for anything, Brian? I know he used to adjunct over at Western all the time, not sure if he still does.
He has only taught one class since I’ve been here. It was last summer, but it didn’t really fit what I am doing. It may have been the Psalms, which would have been great, but I have limited options.
If you ever can, you should try to get a class with Ray; I would love to hear your feedback afterward.
My friend is doing a PhD in philosophy from Cambridge university. He knows some about Derrida. I will point him to this article.
@Scott: That would be great. Derrida is complex and anyone willing to provide insight it welcome!
I believe Derrida wrote somewhere that if he had said ‘there is nothing outside of (con)text he made have caused less confusion.
Like many of Derrida’s thoughts, this statement can be connected to his vast writings in a number of ways. In this respect he was against the idea of an ‘idea’, i.e. that something could be neatly be summed-up as a unified and stable truth in something called an idea, as if it were singular and separate. Unlike the structuralists he claims that language operates under the operation of difference, so that we only know something is ‘present’ through our mutual understanding of the term ‘absence’ too. Is it possible to be presently absent? What is summed up by the punctuation ‘…’? We could acknowledge that ‘…’ reflects both a sense of absence (there is lack of words) and physical presence (three dots). The absence is signified by a presence.
To say there is no outside text implies that we live in a world where boundaries are not static. Our world is textual (not just literally writing of course) – in that it is all interpreted, conceptualized and in constant flux.
What frustrates many students introduced to Derrida is the fact that they can’t seem to pin down the neat ‘truth’ of his writings in his unorthodox style. He insists that as much creative effort belongs to ‘a reading’ of a text as a writing.
Thanks a lot for the article. Derrida has come up in some of my reading and I’ve been trying to get an idea of what he was talking about. This was helpful.