From Derrida to Taoism

From Derrida to Taoism: Literary Theory’s Insistence on Structure

One thing that has been made clear in the development of literary theory is that it is interdisciplinary in nature. This cross discipline study of theory, has found it acceptable to draw on sources as diverse as social science, linguistics, biology and history. It will come as no surprise, therefore, that the quest to understand a text or a meaning has expanded to the Far East, into the study of Taoist philosophy. Indeed it seems somewhat puzzling that it has not lead there sooner, since the similarities between Taoist tenets and many literary theories are striking. Some theorists insist that any commonalities between Taoism and Western philosophy in general, are curious coincidences (Gu 87), but Ming Dong Gu suggests that it is because different cultures “have been wrestling since antiquity with the same philosophical and existential questions” (87). Contemporary literary theory is replete with references to an abstract something, often referred to as the primum signatum, or transcendental signified. It is not so much a ‘thing,’ per se, and its elusiveness has hindered any formal theory from resting firmly upon it. Jacques Derrida inadvertently comes very close to bridging the chasm of Western and Eastern metaphysics in his two essays “Structure, sign and play in the discourse of the human sciences” and “Différance.” In these essays Derrida posits that play and a constantly differing and deferring meaning are always at work, disabling any fixed structure to language; which, like Taoism, asserts that any attempt to define, in concrete terms, anything, will ultimately prove problematic.

In Derrida’s view, through the process of deconstruction, anything that is read closely enough will ultimately obscure its meaning and this “extends the act of signification indefinitely” (213). Leading to the philosophical notion that language should not be able to function at all. However, language does function, and signification does not spiral wildly out of control. So the theory seems to be in want of something else. Even though language may differ and defer itself; as evinced by our daily lives, it somehow functions. There is a relational quality that does manifest itself enough to make understanding possible – yet no one can name quite what this quality is. While Derrida’s exploration and development of his idea is multifaceted, for the purpose of this inquiry, and for the sake of concision, we are most specifically concerned with his concepts of structure, play and différance and how they function in the search for this elusive quality.

Différance in particular, requires specific exploration. No other term in literary theory comes so close to expressing the very essence of Taoism (as far as words may). The pun on differing and deferring, that Derrida presents, is itself an example of the relational relativism of language. Though I interpret moderately, Derrida seems to be suggesting that différance prevents language from functioning absolutely; but I suggest that language operates ‘somewhere between’ where is defers and differs. In this way, deferment and differing act as the two tensions that manifest the third, what we may call meaning. The fact that it postpones meaning, which may lead to other meanings or that by differing, suggests an illustrative, contradictory relationship, represents one method of how différance may in fact aid meaning. The tensional opposition of Derrida’s différance is where it bridges Western literary theory and Taoism. Interestingly, Derrida and Taoists are both epistemological skeptics and, strikingly, are also both language critics – equally concerned with languages inability to rigidly identify an original truth or logos. This may go a long way in explaining the commonalities between Derrida’s ideas and the current academic interest in their corresponding theories.

A major contention of post structuralism, and Derrida in particular, is the insistence that a text shifts in meaning as a result of constantly changing variables. In this view there never is any ‘fixed’ meaning, for Derrida this means no center, only a constant play in which no absolute truth is present. However, numerous problems develop out of this insistence. What is the function of this absolute truth, if it does exist? And, what causes us to seek out this absolute truth in the first place? Since, if the insistence to seek a logos is one of mere historicity, should we not question this implicit need first? These are large philosophical questions to be sure, but in the discourse of Derrida they are essential to his exploration of language. By saying we cannot achieve absolute meaning; there is a contrasting implication that we require it.

This is where Taoism comes to the fore. For far too long, literary theorist and critics have limited themselves to the Occidental world of philosophy and science, and have overlooked the rich potential of Eastern thought – Chinese Taoism in particular. It will suffice for the sake of this inquiry to limit the use of Taoism to one of its most fundamental tenets. For our purpose, the Taoist perspective on duality and tension as expressed in the ubiquitous yin-yang symbol, from here on properly called the Taiji diagram.

Though described in numerous ways throughout the Taodejing (the chief Taoist text), it conveys many of the essential questions that literary theory has struggled with since the beginning of the twentieth century. If a simple explanation may suffice: it is the nature of two opposing forces, both unique and oppositional, that interact such as to create a third force, that is itself, intangible; yet from which, other things emerge. The third ‘thing’ (echoing Derrida) is neither a concept nor a word and accordingly, defies adequate conceptualization. What might seem hopelessly metaphysical is actually a common theme in literary theory. Hillis Miller’s heterogeneity and homogeneity (408) for example, or his suggestion that there is always a third object involved to which the two chief ideas are related and across which they meet (406), are all variations on the same Taoist belief. Paul DeMan, another post structuralist, gives another bridge to this interrelational nature of language as “a cognitive process in which self and other are only tangentially and contiguously involved” (433). I stray from Derrida only to illustrate that the commonality I draw is identifiable among many literary theorists. Derrida, in his seminal essay at Hopkins University expresses this very concept; suggesting that people, including himself, “turn their eyes away when faced by the as yet unnameable which is proclaiming itself” (224). This statement could equally apply to the refusal, for whatever reasons, to consider Oriental philosophy in the earlier explorations of literary theory. This may as well come from the Taodejing directly where Lao Tzu states in the opening line “Tao can be talked about, but not the Eternal Tao. Names can be named, but not the Eternal Name” (3). Derrida in this sense is merely echoing twenty-five hundred year old wisdom and this recent event of which he speaks of in “Différance” is actually ancient history. This is not to belittle Derrida’s connection with this event as it relates to language, but instead to suggest the futility of the endeavor of trying to name the unnamable. Clearly, Derrida feels language is incapable of the task. The difference between Derrida and ardent Taoists is they do not, after understanding its impossibility, still try to explain why it cannot be done. The concept, once self-evident, need not be expressed in words. Taoists cease to analyze what Derrida clings to “by the as yet unnamable” (Structure 224), oddly suggested by the use of as yet, that one day theorists will penetrate the veil and the nature of language will be understood – like the engineer, they may create the verb, the verb itself (Structure 217).

In “Structure, sign and play in the discourse of the human sciences” and “Différance,” Derrida uses the term play and différance to illustrate the duality and tension in discourse. We need not delve into his numerous examples, but may confine ourselves to accepting two dominant themes of those essays: first, that a word has meaning only in contrast to other words, and secondly, that these contrasts are always in a state of play, which perpetually changes based on fluctuating variables. This too echoes Taoism, the tensions which are distinct yet mutually dependent; the tensions which create the very objects of our inquiries. Pragmatically speaking one need only look to literary theory itself to gain evidence of this fact. The history of literary theory since the Russian Formalists (Eagleton 2) is one tension after another. Consider the argumentative rhetoric of the New Critics, or the fact that post structuralism is the very antithesis of structuralism and that each discourses chief thesis resides in a transitory state between what it presumably is and is not. This tensional opposition is pervasive in philosophy and literary theory. Whereas the post structuralist would choose to go on illustrating how often the text is unreadable, the Taoist perspective would be one more in accord with William Blake than any philosopher or critic:

He who binds to himself a joy

Does the winged life destroy;

But he who kisses the joy [text] as it flies

Lives in eternity’s sunrise. (William Blake, Eternity)

The use of this example is meant to suggest that instead of all of the seemingly aporic commentary on the ineffability of language, perhaps a lesson to literary critics may be taken from Blake and the Taoist sages respectively – that within each particular instance of the play, in between the differing and the deferring, where briefly the experience of the moment, the thought, the idea actually lives, we may focus on this instance instead of seeking (or rejecting) a single unifying concept which so clearly has eluded literary theorist for so long. In this, I do not suggest a nihilistic perspective such that we can never know, or understand a text, a reading, or a poem. Instead, that it seems to have been clearly illustrated already, by Derrida and others; that variables change too quickly and any attempt to nail down at one moment those necessary and sufficient conditions to ‘explain’ language or literature, may actually conceal the essence of what we are trying to uncover. To agree with Derrida’s statement that nothing exists outside of context, is to admit this tensional and interactive nature of language; while at the same time admit that it is the contextual tension between the situation and the means used to describe it, where the actual meaning exists.

In terms of literary theory this may seem somewhat romantic but it is not a new idea and it illustrates a dichotomy to the rigid structures necessitated by Derrida. Derrida does not just suggest structure – he requires it (even while he might say that we can never truly have it), “the notion of structure lacking any center represents the unthinkable itself” (Structure 212). Derrida will go on to tell us, that regarding the structures and the center they are “paradoxically, within the structure and outside it” (Structure 212). Even in defining his most fundamental point – the need for structure; the first word in the title of his essay, he must resort to paradox and metaphysics – the very essence of Taoist philosophy. I fear the problem is much larger than Derrida and Taoism however (heaven forbid!), and it lies within the fundamental disparity between Oriental and Occidental thought; those predispositions to the scientific, Occidental mindset that literary theorists, thus far, have been enamored with. The Western philosophical quest for structure and absolutes, for example, that ought to underlie any valid theory.

Western philosophy since Plato has simply been in a process of renaming this presence and shifting this center without ever straying from its centering impulse. If we are willing to momentarily suspend these ingrained Western traditions, then, the sense of center and structure to which Derrida refers is not an absolute or required set of referential features to aid our understanding of literary theory. Instead, the center, play and the presumed structure are collectively only ‘events’ that reside in brief instances. When any slight variable changes, the whole system is altered. This does not negate what came before, nor preclude what is to come, and it also allows for those prima facia requirements that Derrida seems to require. To further develop this idea we will explore Derrida’s own words: “By orienting and organizing the coherence of the system, the center of a structure permits the play of its elements inside the total form” (Structure 212). This insistence on structure and center is wonderfully Occidental. Pythagoras, Aristotle and Plato would not doubt commend Derrida for his concision. However, the concept of structure is not one held as rigidly by Oriental philosophy. Taoism suggests this view of structure:

Thirty spokes converge upon a single hub;

It is on the hole in the center that the use of the cart hinges.

We make a vessel from a lump of clay;

It is the empty space within the vessel that makes it useful.

We make doors and windows for a room;

But it is these empty spaces that make the room livable.

Thus while the tangible has advantages,

It is the intangible that makes it useful. (Tzu 23)

Here, the structure is dependent upon what is not there at all. This seems too obscure for literary theorists to rest upon, even though Western science concurs that all matter exists due to the relatively massive, empty spaces (albeit tiny) between protons and electrons. The final line of the preceding quote regarding intangibility is one that tends to elicit claims of obscurity and metaphysics. However, my point is that many theories of literature invoke this same ‘invisible’ component; they just try to label it ‘insert theory here.’ The problem, of course, is when you label it, you have created a rigid structure and this precludes its intangibility. It is important to bear in mind that Derrida’s own conception of structure is only a theory that he has elevated to a necessity.

Clearly, Derrida intentionally or otherwise, echoes strong Taoist themes in his essays. Robert Shepherd goes so far as to suggest that, “While named otherwise, Derridian notions such as the metaphysics of presence, the duality of language and logocentrism are relatively familiar aspects of Taoist views on the relationship between reality, speech, writing and knowledge” (227). There has been criticism on Derrida for not doing ‘real’ philosophy, since so many of the concepts he mentions are firmly established elsewhere (Shepherd 239).

But what does all this have to do with literary theory at large? Though we have used Derrida and a few other specific theorists as examples, the implications of exploring Taoist philosophy within literary theory extends well beyond Derrida’s essays. Reader response theories, semiotics and structuralism, all depend on tensions between two, variable elements. Phenomenology requires the reader and the text. Semiotics requires langue and parole, signifier and signified. Other structuralist theories, for their seemingly scientific approaches, require a context of other conventions and texts – against which they may be delineated. The interdependence on two (or more) factors is always at play, and it is in the brief span of time, when the objects explored are frozen in synchronic space, that these theories may come to fruition. The problem is that nothing quite freezes in time, and variables are just that – variable. A reader can read another text; a text may have another reader. The significance and use of the signification happens somewhere above and between signifier and signified and depends upon them both. This tensional opposition is pervasive in literary theory not only in the theories themselves, but in the pragmatic relationship between theories as well. That is why so many theories can be propounded, argued effectively and then debunked with equal vigor. With each area of comparison there are always moments when they are relatively true – but when they are suggested as rules or as structures they, as Derrida might say, enter the universal problematic.

This may seem to point to a type of literary theory nihilism, but that is not my goal. Rather, I hoped to have achieved, to some degree, a comparison across culture, philosophies and theories, not only to see where they agree, but to understand why and where they diverge. Derrida’s notion that there is no door out of logocentrism is founded on presupposition of needing one, if you remove the requirement, the problem’s relevancy dissolves. What we are then left with is a larger intellectual space to explore, and one less restrictive consideration. Historically, it may have been a requirement to find the logos, to hunt for an ultimate reason. Clearly, there are new concepts that are open to exploration that are not hindered by our Western historical limitations. Perhaps this is why there is such a strong current of academic debate recently over the correlations and potential of these two convergent modes of thought. As an interdisciplinary study, literary theory cannot confine itself simply to what theorists have on hand, Western philosophy and science. If we do not expand our borders, as it were, where does this leave any theory that would espouse accuracy and thoroughness?

Works Cited

de Man, Paul. “The resistance to theory.” Modern Criticism and Theory. Eds. David Lodge and Nigel Wood. England: Pearson, 2008. 432-446.

Derrida, Jacques. “Difference.” Margins of Philosophy. Trans. Alan Bass. Chicago: U of Chicago. 1982.

Derrida, Jacques. “Structure, sign and play in the discourse of the human sciences.” Modern Criticism and Theory. Eds. David Lodge and Nigel Wood. England: Pearson, 2008. 211-224.

Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Britain: Blackwell, 2008.

Literary Terms and Literary Theory. Eds. J.A. Cuddon and C.E. Preston. London: Penguin Books, 1999.

Miller, J. Hillis. “The critic as host.” Modern Criticism and Theory. Eds. David Lodge and Nigel Wood. England: Pearson, 2008. 402-409.

Knapp, James A. and Pence, Jeffrey. “Between Thing and Theory.” Poetics Today. Vol. 24. No. 4. (2003): 641-671.

Gu, Ming Dong. “The Univeral ‘One’ Toward a Common Conceptual Basis for Chinese and Western Studies.” Diacritics. Vol. 32. No. 2. (2002): 86-105.

Shepherd, Robert. J. “Perpetual Unease or Being at Ease? – Derrida, Daosim, and the ‘Metaphysics of Presence.’” Philosophy East & West. Vol. 57 No. 2. (2007): 227-243.

Tanaka, Koji. “The Limit of Language in Daoism.” Asian Philosophy. Vol. 14. No. 2. (2004): 191-205.