Another Introduction / Entamer: In Medias Res or, Is There Some Thing Called Deconstruction?

Abstract

In discussing the self-generating and self-perpetuating discursive structures, forms and functions of English institutions such as the Law, Parliament and, specifically, parliamentary committees, along with the philosophical concepts which underpin such structures, Charles Dickens stages a hypothetical series of minutes, in the form of question-and-answer:

‘Question (number five hundred and seventeen thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine). If I understand you, these forms of practice indisputably occasion delay? Answer. Yes, some delay. Question. And great expense? Answer. Most assuredly they cannot be gone through for nothing. Question. And unspeakable vexation? Answer. I am not prepared to say that. They have never given me any vexation; quite the contrary. Question. But you think that their abolition would damage a class of practitioners? Answer. I have no doubt of it. Question. Can you instance any type of that class? Answer. Yes. I would unhesitatingly mention Mr Vholes. He would be ruined. Question. Mr Vholes is considered, in the profession, a respectable man? Answer’. — which proved fatal to the inquiry for ten years — ‘Mr Vholes is considered, in the profession, a most respectable man’. (Dickens 1996, 622)

I have nothing left to begin with… But we can begin without a beginning, can’t we?…

[…]

I am commissioned with something to say, and I dare say I shall say it wrong, but I won’t if I can help it …

[…]

This is what it is

Bella Wilfer, Our Mutual Friend

We know that the name ‘deconstruction,’ which quickly took off both in the United States and in France — but without Derrida’s ever assuming it as the name of a method or even of a theory … — to name ‘what Derrida does,’ is in part a translation of Heidegger’s Destruktion.

Geoffrey Bennington (Db)