Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Author(s): Hongchu Fu
Source: Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 29, No. 3 (1992), pp. 296-321
Published by: Penn State University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40246839
Accessed: 17-05-2016 20:21 UTC
REFERENCES
Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/40246839?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents
You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Penn State University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Comparative Literature Studies
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
nese thought, especially Taoism. l Scholars and students from China and
elsewhere have tried in one way or another to establish some correspond
dence between the two. Ye Xiushan and Donald Wesling, for instance,
have connected Derrida's deconstruction with Lao Tzu's thought, the
former assuming that "Derrida's 'trace* seems closer than Heidegger's
'Dasein' to Lao Tzu's thought" and the latter asserting that Derrida's
philosophy is "an incomplete Taoism."2 Zhang Longxi, on the other
hand, has done fairly thorough research in the Chinese language system
in connection with the deconstructive view of a hierarchy between
speech and writing. After illustrating the affinity between Tao and logos,
Zhang also claims that "[Tao] hardly needed to wait till the twentieth
century for the dismantling of phonetic writing, for the Derridean sleight
treatment of the relationship between Derrida and Chuang Tzu (c. 369286 B.C.), one of the founding fathers of Taoism, analyzing what she
calls their similar purposes, styles and themes.4
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
That deconstruction and Daoism would run across each other's trajectory and be relegated to the same critical category comes not by coincidence. Derrida's often deliberately playful style in his deconstruction of
Western metaphysics naturally reminds one of the Taoist attitude of relativity to worldly affairs, especially Chuang Tzu's proposal of "going rambling without a destination (xiao yao you)." As A. C. Graham remarks of
Lao Tzu and Derrida, "the parallel is indeed so striking that there is
danger of missing the difference."5 But are there really essential similarities
between deconstruction and Taoism, as Michelle Yeh holds in her demon-
cally those of Yeh. Since one must be aware of the immensely diverse
scope of uses to which both the terms "deconstruction" and "Taosim"
could apply, I will confine myself mainly to the kind of deconstruction
practiced by Derrida and the Taoism of Chuang Tzu and Lao Tzu in my
Since many issues arise out of misunderstanding or misinterpreting deconstruction, let us start with Derrida's deconstructive strategy. In the intro-
ductory part of her essay, Michelle Yeh states that deconstruction and
Taoism are comparable because "ideologically, both thinkers take the
stand of anti-tradition and anti-convention, underlying which is a force-
on to say, "can be termed dualistic conceptualization"(96). This is certainly true of Derrida's deconstruction as he tells Houdebine: "what has
seemed necessary and urgent to me, in the historical situation which is
our own, is a general determination of the conditions for the emergence
and the limits of philosophy, of metaphysics, of everything that carries it
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
tions, the former term has always been prioritized over the latter simply
on the basis of the former's supposedly full "presence" or its plenitude of
meaning. It is Derrida's intention, then, to reverse or to deconstruct such
artificial hierarchies either by pointing out the contradiction in Saussure's
theory of linguistics concerning the nature of language (language operates
by differentiation) and the relationship between speech and writing, or by
analyzing closely the impasse involved, say, in Rousseau's narrative of the
definition for and function of such concepts as "nature" and "education,"
"speech" and "writing."7 Under Derrida's scrutiny, then, these hierarchies
Post Card, and Limited Inc. As he explains the term, "undecidables" are
analogically
. . . unities of simulacrum, "false" verbal properties (nominal or
semantic) that can no longer be included within philosophical
(binary) opposition, but which, however, inhabit philosophical
opposition, resisting and disorganizing it, without ever constituting
a third term, without ever leaving room for a solution in the form
of speculative dialectics. (Positions 43, original emphasis)
Thus, the "pharmakon" becomes neither remedy nor poison; the "supple-
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
lems leading to GdePs proof and his proof per se are closely connected
with self-referentiality. To put it roughly, GdePs theorem indicates that
as a part of a formalized system, any attempt from within to determine or
fully account for the entire system by formalistic means cannot be guaran-
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
logic: the figure of Thoth is opposed to the other (father, son, life,
speech, origin or orient, etc.), but as that which at once supplements and
supplants it. Thoth extends or opposes by repeating and replacing. By the
same token, the figure of Thoth takes shape and takes its shape from the
very thing it resists and substitutes for" (Dissemination 93). In a sense, the
very absence of Thoth's identity, the secondariness of his position, becomes exactly the precondition for the potential identity he at once
opposes and replaces. All this is possible only because, as one can see
now, of the way (or "the structural laws") in which Thoth is inscribed.
This "original kind of logic" takes place only because of the interweaving
of a two-level operation of the character: an assertive (nonidentity) and a
performative act. Hence, the "double bind" or the self-referentiality discussed above. Understood in this way, "the god of writing is thus at once
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
says more about itself than does the deciphering (a debt acknowl-
text in this case. The crux lies in the fact that "their co-implication is
more contorted than one might believe" (The Post Card 418).
If these are only peculiar cases of the issue involving self-referentiality,
their potential significances or repercussions lead inevitably to the more
general and hence more disturbing issue concerning the status of any text
or even the whole enterprise of literature considered as an institution. If
literature is to be understood to mean a description or a putting on stage,
as Derrida phrases it, of a "fact" or a "truth" that literary theory or any
theories consider their duty to interpret or unravel by means - the only
which literature in a way already contains within itself? To put the issue
in more explicit terms, since the means of "literature" is language and that
of analysis is also language, how can the analysis disentangle itself from
what it is analyzing? In this regard, since "[literature] is more powerful
than the truth of which it is capable," asks Derrida, "Does such a literature' permit itself to be read, to be questioned, or even deciphered according to the psychoanalytic schmas that have emerged from what this
literature itself produces?" (The Post Card 419).
One can recognize that when these issues are high-lighted under theoretical scrutiny as is done by Derrida, the erroneous ideas or inconsistent
presuppositions are as obvious to see as the reason accounting for the
proverbial egg stood on its end by Christopher Columbus. The issue at
stake, however, is that in practice interpreters are liable to forget the yoke
(Dissemination 111 or The Post Card 482). That is why there is so much
resistance to deconstruct ion, even among highly academic institutions,
and this resistance is precisely what interests Derrida. Accordingly, his
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
II
of "wild language."11 Fung Yu-lan also mentions that "The Taoists were
opposed to the Confucianists's treatment of jen [benevolence] and yi [righ-
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
In another paragraph, Chuang Tzu talks about "the use of the useless" in a
slightly altered manner:
this we were to dig away the ground round his feet all the way
down to the Underworld, would it still be useful to the man?"
"It would be useless."
"Then it is plain that the useless does serve a use."14
Everything has its "that," everything has its "this." From the
point of view of "that" you cannot see it, but through understanding you can know it. So I say, "that" comes out of "this" and "this"
thing else (qi <wu - seeing things as equal). Here is Chuang Tzu's own
conclusion:
Therefore the sage does not proceed in such a way, but illuminates
both a right and wrong in it; his "this" too has both a right and
wrong in it. So, in fact, does he still have a "this" and "that"? Or
does he in fact no longer have a "this" and "that"? A state in which
"this" and "that" no longer find their opposites is called the hinge
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
of the Way. When the hinge is fitted into the socket, it can
respond endlessly. Its right then is a single endlessness and its
wrong too is a single endlessness. (Watson 40)
At first sight, it is indeed quite tempting to affirm the similarity be-
tween Derrida and Chuang Tzu, if one merely compares the syntactic
phrasing here with that found in some Derridean passages. The important
thing, however, is to make clear what is really meant by Chuang Tzu and
what is the basic pattern of his world outlook underlying the passages
here.
yet are united and become one."15 This Taoist viewpoint, as Benjamin
Schwartz remarks, involves "a rejection of the absolute categories of predication which we bring to our perceptions."16 As a result of this thorough
jeu that occurred in his early writings. 18 This is such a widespread misunderstanding of deconstruction at large that a clarification ought to come
in the first place for any proper discussion on Derrida. For the "double
reading" or "doubling commenting" that Derrida proposes is nothing
other than a close reading that will at the same time "paraphrase, unveil,
reflect, reproduce a text, Commenting' on it" so as to lay bare whatever is
at work within the text itself (Limited Inc. 146). Cautioning his readers
against the "inadequate translation" of the French word jeu into "freeplay," Derrida emphasizes in particular that he has never proposed "a kind
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
standing of the notion "Tao," which has been variously interpreted over
the centuries. Some link it to the mysterious all-almighty Creator, some
think of it as the basic element in the cosmos, others speak of it as more or
brought all things into existence and governs their every action, not so
much by force as by a kind of natural curvature in space and time, . . .
controlling the orderly process of change."20 Thus understood, Tao appears similar to diffrance, which is "neither a word nor a concept" but
only a "movement."21 In a sense, diffrance may also be understood as a
kind of the order of Nature, operating independently of man's will.
conclusion reached at the end of his essay, where he asserts that Tao is
different in a way from Western logos because "In the Chinese tradi-
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
tion . . . the power of writing as such avenged itself the very moment it
lished." The Chinese philosophical tradition and its language system are
so different from their Western counterparts that they deserve more care-
ful investigations and require further thought before any conclusion can
be convincingly drawn.
There are two reasons I would like to advance here. First, the Western
metaphysics of presence is not merely a matter concerning the hierarchy
of speech over writing and Derrida is far from denying the fact that writing
derives from speech. The empirical or de facto truth that speech comes
before writing Derrida considers universal, which can be demonstrated by
simply juxtaposing an Aristotelian definition of language: "Spoken words
are the symbols of mental experience and written words are the symbols of
spoken words" (qtd. in Of Grammatobgy 30) with the passage from the
Appendixes to the I Ching [Book of Changes] cited above. However, this de
facto truth should not be confused with a de jure argument that takes the
empirical truth as a base for further claims on essence and metaphysics,
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
his presence, "in order to make [himself] known in the ideality of truth
and value" (Of Grammatology 142). One should note, further, it is not
that Rousseau is ignorant enough to confuse the difference between
speech and writing that he himself has stipulated but that in trying to
retain or attain a "presence," Rousseau has to postulate a distinction
between what he calls "a good writing" and "a bad writing," the false
foundation of which Derrida has laid bare here. Because of this simulta-
neous access to both writing and speech and because of the degradation of
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Related to Zhang Longxi's argument about Chinese writing is his explanation of what he deems the difference between "a deconstructive intertexte" and "a Chinese intertext," which I find problematic as well. As
communication, the Chinese language including Chinese writing is certainly susceptible to the category of "a deconstructive intertext," which
should be understood not so much as merely "a trace without origin" as an
open text that is subjected to various infiltrations, juxtapositions, or even
violence in the Derridean sense. On the other hand, if by origin is meant
Contemporary discussions of intertextuality can be distinguished from "source" studies in that the latter speak in terms of a
transfer of property ("borrowing") while the former tend to speak
Riffaterre's hypograms), "intertextuality" designates the multitude of ways a text has of not being self-contained, of being
traversed by otherness.25
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
and Tao" (108). What is really meant by Derrida and Chuang Tzu? Are
there really any significant parallels in the use of the image here? Let us
follow Yeh's argument more closely.
In reference to a passage on the relativity of things in the Chuang Tzu,
Yeh speculates, "Like the hinge which, neither opens, nor closes, but
makes possible the opening and closing of the door, Tao exists in and as
the function by which unitary differences occur" (108). This is perhaps a
far-fetched interpretation of Chuang Tzu, given his original passage that
Yeh selects for analysis. For first of all, the Chinese character shu often
connotes figurative meanings of "key position" or "pivotal point," just as
even one with one another (qi wu). This is the theme and purpose of the
chapter from which the passage is taken. It is in this sense that, as Chuang
Tzu writes, "[the sage] recognizes a 'this,' but a 'this' which is also a 'that,'
a 'that' which is also a 'this.' His 'that' has both a right and wrong in it; his
'this' too has both a right and wrong in it" (Watson 40). It follows for
Chuang Tzu that to erase the opposition of things is indeed a true way to
Tao, the key to Tao, or in the Master's own explicit explanation, "A state
in which 'this' and 'that' no longer find their opposites is called the hinge
of the Way [Tao]" (Watson 40). Yeh's argument about opening and
closing the door in regard to the image of hinge seems not well suited to
the text because she neglects the inherent meaning connections in the
whole passage in an effort to search merely for some surface parallels in
image.
If Yeh's explanation here does not quite fit Chuang Tzu's passage, what
about its connection with or application to deconstruction? To see "some
significant similarities between diffrance and Tao," as Yeh claims, it is
necessary to discuss Derrida's use of "hinge" in his text. His original word
la brisure is employed actually in its two opposing senses: break and joint
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
(Of Grammatology 65). In the section under the heading "La Brisure,"
Derrida undertakes to discuss his notion of trace in the light of Saussure's
explanation of the differential nature of language. Starting from the princi-
for the same reality, denoting the One" (Creel 31). Critical opinions may
differ on this score. Graham holds, for instance, that "Taoists are trying to
convey a knack, an aptitude, a way of living. . . . Taoists are not thinking of the Way [Tao] as ultimate Truth or Reality" (Disputers of the Tao
199). While I entirely agree with Graham that Taoists mainly offer "a way
of living" and I tend to think it possible that Taoist masters such as Lao
Tzu and Chuang Tzu might not have quite realized the ontological and
epistemological nature of their writings, Taoism as a discourse or philosophy can certainly be studied for its ontological concerns or the presupposi-
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
tions to be traced in the Tao Te Ching and the Chuang Tzu. As I see it, it
is their presupposition of a transcendental realm that becomes a fit subject
for deconstructive scrutiny. Graham himself comes closer to deconstruct
real world. For to follow Derrida's opinion and argument for his deconstruction of the "transcendental signified" and metaphysics at large, one
might say that the behavior of a person living in reality is always already
governed or structured by various factors or forces. There can never and
the Tao 191). On the other hand, one might argue that, taken properly,
spontaneity is spontaneity and there cannot be any kinds of spontaneity
ing Husserl's propositions of the iterability of truth on the one hand and
the necessary contamination in communication on the other, Derrida has
actually confronted Husserl with his own terms: no repetition is the same
as the thing to be repeated. If the repetition is, as Husserl regards it, the
ing for Husserl. In Derridean terms, then, Tao to Lao Tzu and Chuang
Tzu can be called perhaps none other than a "transcendental signified" or
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
"ten thousand things" (wan wu) as Taoist sages do. Seen in this light, is
this Tao in its essential aspect comparable to Derrida's diffrance, despite
Michelle Yeh discusses at great length the equivocation with which the
notion Tao plays on such Chinese terms as you (presence) and wu (absence). "Neither being nor nonbeing, neither presence nor absence, neither self-sameness nor difference," argues Yeh, "Tao is the originating
nonbeing always already preceding and underlying the polarities of being
however, does not prevent Tao from being conceived of, in the Lao Tzu
and the Chuang Tzu, as an ultimate "presence," a transcendental noumenon, unnameable though it is as we illustrated above.
Because of this confusion, Yeh's argument sounds more puzzling when
she asserts - all too arbitrarily - "Also like diffrance, Tao as origin must
(109). Frankly, I do not quite see the connection between Lao Tzu's
quotation here and Yeh's explanation. Is it because Tao is unnameable
and seems to be outside of the binary distinction that it is free of the
metaphysical yoke? Or is it because Tao is, as Chuang Tzu puts it, the all-
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
discover Being (das Sein) instead of beings (die Seiende) that, as Heidegger
search for Being because "Language speaks."31 Yet paradoxically one has
to avail oneself of language to understand the world. So he proposes to
take up a dialectic relation between "human speech" and the "speaking of
language," which contains what he calls a sort of "dif-ference," whereby
could be intuited. This all too brief account here may not render
Heidegger full justice, a proper study of whom well deserves a separate
treatment; but one connection between Heidegger and Taoism is at least
made clear in that both still cherish a myth of a transcendental Being despite the fact that Heideger has disclaimed it - or an absolute Tao,
which is beyond doubt and which can be attained only through a mysterious contemplation or a sort of Joycean epiphany.
It is this belief in Being, this Heideggerian belief in the transcendence
over Western metaphysics, that Derrida takes issue with and deconstructs
with relentless rigor. "It remains that," argues Derrida, "the thinking of
Being, the thinking of the truth of Being, in the name of which Heidegger
edge and anthropology," "God and man," "onto-theo- teleology and humanism" can never be separated in a subject (Margins of Philosophy 121).
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
That is why she poses the question herself (113). Curiously enough, her
reply comes out negative because, as she explains, "in the complicity
between binary oppositions as a result of deconstruction the idea of one'
they are all the same - this strategy turns out to be equivalent to the
Taoist suggestion of "equalizing everything." She argues that "the dissemination or doubling movement [Derrida] refers to is the oneness shared by
all texts, the way Tao is the oneness shared by all differences in nature or
which runs athwart it - for Lao-tzu the Way, for Derrida the
Trace. Both use a language which already escapes the opposition
logic/poetry', a language in which contradictory statements do not
cancel out, because if made in the appropriate sequence or combination they set you in the true direction. (Disputers of the Tao 227)
While the comparison is cogent and adequate in itself, it could be misleading if the real purposes of Lao Tzu's Taoism and Derrida's deconstruction
are not made explicit. For, after all, their reversals are of a different
nature. Lao Tzu is principally interested in the dialectic relations of, say,
weak and strong, which he derives from his empirical experiences of the
vicissitudes of things in nature. He offers a strategy especially well suited
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
in the French word "signifiant" and yet not paid sufficient attention to by
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
That [sentence] does not mean that all referents are suspended,
denied, or enclosed in a book, as people have claimed, or have
been naive enough to believe and to have accused me of believing.
But it does mean that every referent, all reality has the structure of
a differential trace, and that one cannot refer to this "real" except in
looked. For in a sense, both Derrida and Chuang Tzu are engaged in the
same ontological and epistemological studies. Interestingly enough, facing the same problem of the linguistic barrier to human understanding,
Derrida displays rigorous reasoning - although often resorting to a deliberate playfulness to achieve his rigorous purpose - to analyze closely various
mallet and chisel, stepped up into the hall, and said to Duke
Huan, "This book Your Grace is reading - may I venture to ask
whose words are in it?" "The words of the sages," said the duke.
"Are the sages still alive?" "Dead long ago," said the duke. "In that
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
case, what you are reading there is nothing but the chaff and dregs
of the men of old!"
me. So I've gone along for seventy years and at my age I'm still
chiseling wheels. When the men of old died, they took with them
the things that couldn't be handed down. So what you are reading
there must be nothing but the chaff and dregs of the men of old."
(Watson 152-53)
Obviously, the moral of the story for Chuang Tzu is that, since the
essence of things can never be taught nor communicated, it is wise not
even to try to pursue it in a rigorous manner. Wheelwright P'ien advises
Duke Huan not to believe in the book, which, in his opinion, contains
nothing but "the chaff and dregs."
It is of course not the intention of this paper to pass a simple judgment
the sphere of knowledge and then analyze what one can do within one's
capability - "There is nothing outside of the text" - Taoists like Chuang
Tzu deem it impossible, as the above story may help to illustrate, for
human reason to apprehend fully the ultimate truths, hence their transcendence over all human affairs including human knowledge.
the Derridean point of view? From the Taoist view-point, on the other
hand, how can Derrida justify the validity, even if relative, of his
"theory," since deconstruction is anchored on the discursive level, the
"text," which is not, as he himself is fully aware, the physical or phenome-
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
nal world per se? In other words, since the "interpretive experience" is
arbitrarily established by men without empirical anchorage or validity,
how and on what grounds can deconstruction critique the others for their
metaphysical problematics or inconsistency by basing itself nevertheless
on the very same metaphysics? We are here back to GdePs theorem and
this seems an irresolvable paradox for deconstruction itself. 33
And last but not least, the studies analyzed above perhaps also show the
complexity of a comparative study that engages diverse cultural traditions.
Excessive stress on certain similarities in imagery or hasty generalizations
NOTES
1. Except for such terms or names as Tao, Taoism, Lao Tzu, and Chuang Tzu, which
have already been known in the West, I will follow the pinyin system for romanizing
2. Ye Xiushan, "Yiyi shijie de maizang: ping yinhui zhexuejia delida" [Burial of the
World of Meaning: On Derrida, a Philosopher of Obscurity] Zhongguo shehui kexue [Chinese
Social Sciences] 3 (1989): 104 (my translation); and Donald Wesling, "Methodological
Implications of the Philosophy of Jacques Derrida for Comparative Literature: The Opposi'
tion East- West and Several Other Observations," Chinese-Western Comparative Literature:
Theory and Strategy, ed. John J. Deeney (Hong Kong: Chinese UP, 1980) 79 and 104.
3. Zhang Longxi, "The Tao and the Logos," Critical Inquiry 11 (1985): 397.
4. Michelle Yeh, "Deconstructive Way: A Comparative Study of Derrida and Chuang
Tzu "Journal of Chinese Philosophy 10 (1983): 95-126.
5. A. C. Graham, Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China (La
Salle, IL: Open Court, 1989) 227.
6. Jacques Derrida, Positions, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1981) 51
(original emphasis).
7. Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. G. C. Spivak (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
UP, 1976). See generally, OfGrammatobgy, Part II.
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
17. Fang Dong-mei, Yuanshi rujia daojia zhexue [Original Confucian and Taoist Philosophies] (Taipei: Dawn Culture, 1983) 244 (my translation).
18. Jacques Derrida, Limited Inc., trans. Samuel Weber and Jeffrey Mehlman (Evanston,
1982) 3 and 5.
22. Ren Jiyu, trans. , Laozi xinyi [A New Translation of Lao Tzu] (Shanghai: Guji, 1985)
ch. 21.
23. Zhang 394; this is Zhang Longxi's quotation from the Appendixes to I Ching [The
Book of Changes], Recently different interpretations have appeared for the passage. Wang
Zhongling, for instance, explains that 'The meaning of shubujin y an is no more than that
books cannot put all words into writing (because of limits of space). Then, the meaning of
yan bujin yi is no more than that words cannot speak of all meanings in one's mind (because
of the limits of time and purpose)"; qtd. in James Liu, Language-Paradox-Poetics: A Chinese
Perspective (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1988) 27. If Wang's interpretation is plausible, it
may indeed effectively explain the absence of phonocentrism in ancient China; on the
other hand, it may also indicate a more profound logocentrism, a "presence" that can be
reached by language in the form of speech or writing.
24. See Michel Foucault, "What Is an Author?" and "The Discourse on Language,"
Critical Theory Since 1965, ed. Hazard Adams and Leroy Searle (Tallahassee: Florida State
25. Barbara Johnson, "Les Fleurs du mal arm: Some Reflections on Intertextuality,"
Lyric Poetry Beyond New Criticism, ed. Chaviva Hosek and Patricia Parker (Ithaca, NY:
26. Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (Springfield, MA: G. & C. Merriam, 1974).
27. OfGrammatology 66; there is a case of mistranslation or more probably a typographical error here, for the word "protection" should read "protention." "Protention" had the
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
same form in French and English, and indicates the philosophical notion of the expansion
28. See Jacques Derrida, Speech and Phenomena and Other Essays on Husserl's Theory of
Signs, trans. David B. Allison (Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 1973), chs. 3, 5, and 6.
29. Yeh 110; here the notions of "presence" and "absence" represented by the Chinese
characters you and um should not be confused with the rigorous deconstructive terms
"presence" and "absence." In the context of the Too Te Ching and the Chuang Tzu, you and
wu are, in my view, more akin to "being" and "nonbeing."
30. See Graham Parkes, d., Heidegger and Asian Thought (Honolulu: U of Hawaii P,
1987) 93-103.
3 1 . Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York:
ment and suggestions, and I am especially grateful to Professor Jacques Derrida for his
reading of an early version of this paper and for his clarification of some concepts and issues
concerning deconstruction.
This content downloaded from 160.39.205.147 on Tue, 17 May 2016 20:21:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms