Language Games, Writing Games - Wittgenstein and Derrida: A Comparative Study :: Philosophy Philosophical Papers

Language Games, Writing Games - Wittgenstein and Derrida: A Comparative Study ABSTRACT: The concept of deconstruction was first used by Derrida in transforming Heideggerian "destruction." The deconstruction of Derrida is a textintern, intertextual, in-textual activity. He plays a double game inside of philosophy, emphasizing that our thinking is embedded in metaphysics, while at the same moment he questions metaphysics. Wittgenstein's deconstruction, however, involves a new kind of reading, a Zerzettelung of the traditionally argumentative and linear thinking modes. The game plays an important role in both philosophers' texts. I would like to investigate this role and function under the two following viewpoints. First, I think that the game has a strategic role. Second, both philosophers stress that their game is not a founded game but is bounded to knowledge and forms of knowledge. Wittgenstein and Derrida are two spurs, Ã ©perons of philosophical thinking, who changed the milieu of philosophical discourses. They practice new arts of thinking and writing, which lead to a change of paradigm and of style in philosophy. In the case of late Wittgenstein the change manifests in a critical attitude toward modern logical discourses. The annonced silence (Stille) of the Tractatus transfigures itself through textual dispersions into the styles (Stile) of the late Wittgenstein. By Derrida we can discover this paradigm change in his critique of philosophical "logo-phono-ethnocentrism" and even more in his way of writing, wich through its disseminating force overpasses the bar between philosophy and literature. Alluding to the historical perspectives of these relationships Rorty remarked (Rorty 1984, 5) that as Derrida treats the philosophy of Heidegger, in the similar way treated Heidegger the philosophy of Nietzsche. Derrida is in the same position to Heidegger and Heidegger to Nietzsche as Wittgenstein is to Russell and Russell to Mill. It would be interesting to analyze paralelly the Mill-Russell-Wittgenstein line to the Nietzsche-Heidegger-Derrida line or to investigate the Mill-Nietzsche, Russell-Heidegger and Wittgenstein-Derrida couples. I would like to focus in my paper on three aspects of the Wittgenstein-Derrida relationship: the philosophical attitudes, the writing and reading activity and the language games and writing games. 1. Philosophy as deconstructive activity The concept of deconstruction would be used the first time by Derrida, transforming Heideggerian "destruction", but we can suppose, that the activity meant by deconstruction would be "practiced" also by others, by earlier philosophers. Derrida himself notes that there are at least three proto-deconstructors - Nietzsche, Freud and Heidegger, but the deconstructive activity is as old as the philosophy.