poolosophy - but it's useful

some quick thoughts on my thoughts as of late. I've been really pleased to have been learning about a major post-modern writer jacques derrida. one of the things he argues is that text (like what i'm writing right now) does not carry inherent meaning. when people read it, they take out their own interpretions, and thus the author can never be sure what her readers will come away with. this has been called the "death of authorship" by some, and it's pretty huge.

why you ask? author's write to communicate something. Karl Marx had a pretty clear vision of what he wanted to see happen in the world, and he wrote it down, assuming those who later read his work would understand his ideas. But looking at "A Communist Manifesto" through a post-modern perspective, people are given leeway towards what the "right" interpretation is. Whatever the author intended to communicate cannot be known.
This effects Christianity too, and not just through movements like the emergent church. it effects bible studies, when people come up with different interpretations, and assert the "truth" of both.

Ok, so now there's an even deeper problem i'll take the trouble to try and explain. derrida also
argues humans are separated from truth because... ok put you're thinking caps on... humans think in language, which is an external object which is internalized so you can what? so you can think, express yourself, be angry, fall in love.

ok, what's wrong with that?

Language is not human, yet your use it to define all your human thoughts. so really, you can only define yourself via something that is not of yourself. in fact, you (at least in this stage of life) cannot concieve of yourself without using language. because of this, derrida and many others claim humans are disconnected from themselves, and thus disconnected from knowledge that truly represents the world, and thus truth. post-modernists don't necessarily think there is no such thing as truth, just that we can never access it. exit absolute truth, enter pluralism.


well, school's out for now, but if you got questions, or want to change or add an idea, I warmly welcome it