Was Derrida a Nihilist?

 

The work of Jacques Derrida has received relatively little attention on nihilism. Derrida is known best for deconstructing philosophy and Derrida's philosophical elucidations are halting, opaque, punning, and elliptical leading to the rhetoric of ambiguity.  His deconstruction makes language unintelligible to make a point. His " Logocentrism" stipulates assumed truths and the exclusion of alternative perspectives. Derrida's work has been associated with nihilism which holds that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. 

Nihilism is the logic of nothing as something. Nihilism rejects the fundamental aspects of human existence associated with meaning.  In nihilism, there is no inherent value, meaning, or order to life. Nihilistic experiences perceive the world from a vantage point.  Derrida' once stated:  "In a certain way, thought means nothing". The central claim of Derrida’s philosophy, namely that there is nothing outside the text.  Furthermore, Derrida claimed that he “rightly passes for an atheist. His theory deconstruction can be viewed as nihilistic and it leads to a corrosive nihilism. The obscurity of his writing designates nihilism. 

Professor John Milbank denounces Derrida as a 'nihilist'. Catherine Pickstock characterizes Derrida's 'nihilism' as a form of 'necrophilia'.Derrida was accused of nihilism by many scholars.  According to Derrida, there is no ultimate ground for language. Derrida denied the existence of transcendental signifiers, he implied that there was no foundation for language.  Language creates a linguistic illusion. Moreover, the language does not provide meaning.  A world without meaningful language is therefore a world without meaning.

On the contrary, Derrida did not intend for deconstruction to lead to nihilism, but rather to open up new possibilities of thinking and writing. He said that "deconstruction is not a destruction, a dismantling, a negation... it is a displacement, a decentering. Deconstruction is not an enclosure in nothingness, but an openness to the other'."

Ruwan M Jayatunge  ( Medical Doctor, Author, and an Associate Professor)