A review of

The deconstructionist movement has been widely perceived as a threat to the individualistic tradition, forming a "second front" alongside the ideas which challenge liberal individualism in philosophy and politics which were described in an earlier issue of this journal by Dennis Auerbach. Indeed the intellectual ancestry of both movements can be traced back to writers such as Marx and Nietzsche. Auerbach's views have aroused strong reaction from liberals, (as have those of the deconstructionists), and the nature of the resulting debate shows that it is important to decide which parts of the liberal tradition need to be defended or indeed can be defended. Without claiming that these exhaust the liberal program, two principles seem to be essential.

First, the political program of protecting the freedoms of individuals from various forms of power, including the naked physical force which the strong and the armed can wield against the weak and unarmed, and from the political power and influence of rulers at all levels of government. Second, the methodological principle of individualism, which maintains that it is individuals and not collectives who think, feel, live, love, suffer, deliberate and make decisions. (This does not deny the fact that we find ourselves in situations that are not of our own making, that we act under the influence of many traditions of which we are unaware, and that our actions usually produce unintended consequences.) These essential liberal positions can be maintained without making the claim that individuals have some kind of priority over societies or groups or any privileged status in making judgements on matters of fact or value, and there is no need to make exaggerated claims for the powers of reason or rationality.

To evaluate the above claim it is necessary to examine some of the main schools of thought in literary theory and the problems that they address. Three "perennial problems" can be located in the theory of criticism.

First, with regard to describing a literary work, can a text be described as the intentional product of a creative individual, or is it better seen as a product of social, historical, linguistic or some other non-individual determinants?

Second, regarding critical evaluation: can a text be evaluated as an object in its own right, with a set of distinctly literary qualities, or should its value be based on the quality of "expression" of the writer, the nature of the response aroused in the reader, or the moral or ideological principles that it embodies?

Third, in the matter of reconciling rival points of view: can we ever hope to approach some consensus in our descriptions and evaluations? Or does the richness and complexity of literary texts generate an infinity of interpretations which defy any claim that some descriptions and evaluations are better than others?

Among literary theorists, the New Critics, the Practical Critics, the structuralists and the deconstructionists present a wide spectrum of answers to these questions. Their movements share a determination to be rigorous and hard-nosed about criticism, in contrast with the slackness that was supposed to prevail early in the century. Of course brief sketches cannot do justice to differences within the schools or to some of the most interesting and readable commentators who have no clear affiliation, such as Edmund Wilson, George Watson, Rene Wellek, Graham Hough and Frank Kermode(note 1). To indicate the problem of labels, Wellek is widely regarded as a New Critic due to his concern with "the work of art in its integrity." Yet he has taken the New Critics to task for their "ahistorical" approach to literature. Watson described the New Criticism, led by John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate and Robert Penn Warren, as a Southern, agrarian and reactionary movement, but Terry Comito considers them to be unified not by a philosophy or a literary theory, but by their situation as practicing poets located in universities.

The first two of these four schools are usually attributed to the inspiration of T. S. Eliot, I. A. Richards and F. R. Leavis. Some North American critics inspired by Richards became part of a movement that attracted the unfortunate "New Criticism" tag, a label that is affixed to many people who are not sure what they have done to deserve it. Insofar as witting or unwitting New Critics had a common purpose, it was to lift the standards of literary criticism, also to put the emphasis on distinctively literary aspects of the works. This would emancipate criticism from the casual, the biographical, the historical, the morally censorious and from attempts to reduce literature to something else, whether a product of the battle between the id, ego and super-ego, or to an epiphenomenon of the class struggle.

As to the perennial questions, neither Practical nor New Critics doubt that individuals create texts. Historical influences and traditions also exist. Literature should be evaluated by distinctly literary criteria, but good literature also tends to be morally uplifting. There is no general position on the question of rival points of view; perhaps the most helpful formulation is offered by Wellek and Warren under the heading of "perspectivism." The aim is to avoid the equally unsound theses of absolutism and relativism in "a new synthesis that makes the scale of values itself dynamic." There is to be no anarchy of values but "a process of getting to know the object from different points of view that may be defined and criticized in their turn."(2) Structuralism, unfortunately, covers such a multitude of views that it is quite useless as a descriptive term unless it is heavily qualified, as in the following passage from Wellek:

Despite their diversity, it can be said that the various forms of structuralisrn share a tendency to diminish the individual, impatience with any suggestion that literary works are autonomous, and a suspicion of attempts to evaluate works in distinctly literary terms. In sum, there is a relentless tendency to reduce individuality and complexity to basic determinants in history and society.

The deconstructionists' revolt against any forms of determinism or reductionism, then, may appear to give them some common ground with the New Critics, but their rejoinder to structuralist reductionism has taken on an extremely radical form. Felperin suggests that their structuralist predecessor had "barely scratched the surface of the rhetorical multiplicity it had set out to explore." A more robustly critical attitude to liberal/humanist traditions is deployed by deconstructionists and "a much closer, more strenuous and dangerous encounter with the literary text" is on the agenda (108). Individuals have disappeared - "the death of the author" is a much-used phrase - and it is not clear what positive qualities of texts are admired. As for consensus, the main thrust of the movement seems to be that there is no hope for convergence on true evaluations, certainly not along the lines offered by any other methods.

The Challenge of Deconstruction

Stephen Cox recently suggested that the signs of distress among literary intellectuals have become more urgent than usual, even allowing for their tendency to imitate sociologists and economists in dramatising their own "crises." To illustrate this point he quoted various writers who urged their readers to resist the literary "turn towards nihilism," to battle current literary theory "head on."(4) These sentiments bring to mind the literary revolution early this century, when a group of reformers led by Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot put to flight the genteel Edwardian tradition of poetry and letters. Graham Hough referred to this period as "a short reign of terror" which was deemed necessary to discredit once and for all the "watery dregs" of late nineteenth-century aesthetics. He quoted Pound on T. E. Hulme: "the bleak and smeary twenties wretchedly needed his guidance, and the pity is that he was not there in person to keep down vermin." (5)

Some of the responses to the new wave of deconstructionist literary criticism are not far removed from the spirit of "keeping down vermin." Cox is more circumspect, although he shares the widespread concern that the tradition of liberal humanism has met yet another subversive influence. He writes, "critical ideologies of many types are engaged in defoliating the great tree of liberal thought." In particular they challenge "liberalism's positive view of the individual's powers of choice, intention and rational understanding." A typical example is furnished by Terence Hawkes:

If man merely complies with the structure of his language to an extent that justifies Heidegger's assertion "language speaks, not man," the same principle forces a similar conclusion in respect of literature: writing writes, not authors. (6)

It appears that the deconstructionists are committed to the task of demystifying the very notion that a text can have any clear-cut meaning, or be a vehicle for meaningful communication. This appears to be a thoroughly willful and ultimately self-destructive position to adopt. One explanation for its current vogue is the pressure for theoretical progress in academic circles, which creates institutional and psychological incentives for people to come up with something "now." Thus novelty and strangeness become valued for their own sake. The distinguished art historian E. H. Gombrich has proposed a framework to analyze behavior under these conditions, with examples drawn from architecture, fashion and art. (7) This sociological approach is likely to prove fruitful but it is not pursued here; instead the focus will be the logical problem which provides the platform for the assault by the deconstructionists.

It seems that Jacques Derrida and his allies teach that the inescapably linguistic element of discourse has severed our concepts from any objective, non-linguistic "foundation." (I write, "it seems" because one of the rejoinders that the deconstructionists are likely to offer is that the critic has not really understood what the deconstructionists are saying. To which one might reply that they should try to write with the aim of being understood, also it would help to provide quotes and text references to lines of thought that are supposed to be refuted This line of thought is strongly skeptical about the reality of the world outside language and in its extreme form it appears to be equally skeptical about the reality or coherence of any world inside language. This is a challenge indeed to liberalism's view of the individual's powers of choice, intention and rational understanding.

Felperin is clearly not intimidated by the deconstructionist turn. He acts as a genial host at the deconstructionists' party. This does not mean that he presents himself as an advocate of deconstruction or any other school. He explains in his preface that he is in sympathy with the ongoing critique of institutional practice, the polemic against purist or imperialist tendencies wherever they are found, and as the radical theories themselves become institutionalized he is obliged to turn against them.

Felperin welcomes the ferment over literary theory in the last two decades as a sign that the discipline has reached maturity, achieving a much-needed philosophical sophistication, which it previously lacked. This is hardly fair to Wellek and many others who have written on these matters in the past and Felperin's contact with the philosophical literature appears to be rather limited: Wittgenstein, Rorty, and Heidegger are mentioned and Kuhn's paradigm theory is swallowed whole, with no indication that there might be serious counter-arguments against this account of intellectual history. He correctly assigns a certain degree of sophistication to the deconstructionists because they have found how to exploit a profound structural weakness in the Western tradition of rationality and belief. The nature of this weakness is described below; here it is necessary to grasp the nature of the revolt by the radical critics against the idea that statements or theories can be justified by an appeal to the authority of the author, the reader or the world outside the text. As Felperin explains,

It seems that "rejection of authority" is the keynote of the deconstructionist challenge to the various literary establishments. Felperin acknowledges that there are a number of rival armies in the field (among them aged New Critics, residual followers of Leavis, feminists and Marxists), but he claims that the deconstructionists hold the initiative in any serious encounter because they have the capacity to undermine any criticism that is directed against them. They have "ad] the advantages of wit, style, elegance, and the rhetorical agility that derive from their unrepentant literariness"; this enables them to deny (deconstruct) the suggestion that there is any ground where they can be confronted and defeated. "If deconstruction can be historicized or contextualized, so can any historical context be deconstructed" (220).

This "deconstruction of grounds" is a particularly galling blow to the structuralists, who pioneered the notion that language provides the true ground of literary being. What Felperin calls "its technological optimism" soon evolved its own "shadow-side" in the form of deconstruction, which shared the same language-oriented starting point and so engaged structuralism directly on its own territory.

Amidst howls of outrage, especially from the new Marxists of structuralism and the old New Critics, deconstruction has made itself at home in the academy, so now the question for other people is how to live with it. Felperin sketches three possible responses: first, to ignore it as a destructive and alien influence that is not even worthy of serious study. Second, to take it sufficiently seriously to argue with it while asserting the claims of some other method with redoubled vigor. Third, to find some creative way to make use of its insights and move forward without attempting to create another dogmatic and imperialistic school of thought.

He is prepared to look on the bright side and hope that good will come from the loss of foundations of belief. Commenting on the disappearance of privileged vantagepoints for authoritative statements, he suggests that this may be a very sad situation if literature and criticism are viewed "by analogy with science, as a body of knowledge." But he goes on to suggest that literature does not have to be approached like this. Perhaps we might become liberated from the obsession with positive knowledge, and so "if literary activity is conceived not as issuing in a body of knowledge but in a mode of being, the absence of certainty or consensus in the study of texts is no longer a disability" (41).

This, then, is the challenge of deconstruction as interpreted by Felperin - to find some way to move forward without foundations of belief, to achieve progress in knowledge and understanding of literature without expecting to produce a body of positive knowledge that is immune to change and revision. But what is the "mode of being" that makes this possible? Here we may obtain some help from Bartley's theory of positions, contexts and metacontexts. (10)

Bartley's work responds to the deconstructionist challenge at a deeper philosophical level than is usually offered by literary scholars and critics, certainly a deeper level than Felperin has ventured in his ignorance of post-Popperian philosophy of science. Bartley follows Popper in exploring implications of the breakdown of traditional theories of knowledge and rationality, which depend on various authorities for belief. This appears to give them some common ground with the deconstructionists; their work contributes to the current literary debate in two ways. First, it clarifies the logical core of the position that the deconstructionists have occupied to conduct their reign of terror against opponents. (Though I am not aware of any really clear articulation of this position, it appears to operate as a powerful and pervasive but unstated subtext of debate). Second, it suggests a way to move forward to create a kind of philosophical space (a metacontext) where the absence of certainty or consensus in the study of texts is no longer a source of anxiety.

The relevant work by Popper and Bartley begins with the recognition of the authoritarian strand, which permeates Western thought. This creates demands for "true" or "justified" beliefs, along the lines indicated by the formula:

However, this requirement can never be adequately met due to the problem of validation or "the limits of criticism" (as Bartley calls it) or the dilemma of "infinite regress versus dogmatism". Sextus Empiricus (circa 200 AD) was one of the first to draw attention to this problem. More recently David Hume made it a central issue for modern science and rationality with his devastating critique of induction, the process whereby scientific knowledge was supposed to grow on the foundation of empirical evidence.

The dilemma arises like this: if a belief claims validation by a supporting argument, what justifies that argument? If a critic persists in asking for further supporting statements, when and how does the chain of justification stop? An infinite regress (that is, an endless sequence of questions, without hope of a final answer) can be forced by anyone who keeps on asking, "Why do you believe that? How do you justify that claim?" This is the opening that is always available for the deconstructionists in their demolition of the "grounds" of rival schools. It appears that it can only be avoided by a dogmatic or arbitrary decision to break the chain at some stage and settle on a belief at that point. Throughout this inquisition the skeptic (here read "the deconstructionist") can avoid making any strong positive claims on his own behalf, provided that the pressure is maintained on the opponent to justify a position.

Bartley's theory of positions, contexts and metacontexts is an attempt to transcend the limitations that are imposed on criticism by the authoritarian structure of Western thought, a structure that generates the apparently crippling dilemma of infinite regress versus dogmatism. A position indicates a theory or a belief about something; i.e., "there is no cheese in the cupboard." Positions are adopted or proposed in contexts, such as the context of lunchtime. Different positions are possible in any context; this raises the issue of choice, and, at another level, the decision procedure for making choices. Possibly at another level again (at the level which Bartley describes as the metacontext) is the question of the way that choices are reviewed and revised, of the attitude that prevails toward the way positions are held, modified or relinquished. Bartley considers this attitude as a higher-order theory or tradition about the way lower-order theories or beliefs may be justified (or criticized). Bartley has located three of these higher-order traditions, which create climates of thought that he calls metacontexts. One is the Western tradition of justificationisrn. The second is the Eastern tradition of non-attachment. The third is a tradition of non-dogmatic critical preference, which Bartley calls "pancritical rationalism" or "comprehensively critical rationalism."

The justificationist tradition, or metacontext, is exemplified by the authoritarian structure of Western thought which generates attachment, entrenchment and the rigid adherence to positions and party lines. This metacontext generates two very different responses to the problem of rationality and belief. One is the relativist stance, adopted by disappointed justificationists who realize that positive justification cannot be achieved. From this (correct) premise they proceed to the conclusion that there is no paint in trying to find if any positions or beliefs are better than any others. There is no such thing as truth, no way to get nearer the truth and no such thing as a rational position.

The other response is the that of the "true believers," sometimes called "fideists", who insist that some positions must be better than others even if there is no logical way to justify a choice. They accept that we make our decision regardless of reason: "Here I stand!" Most forms of rationalism up to date have at rock bottom adopted this attitude, and have suffered severely whenever critics bothered to force this realization upon them. The Eastern way of non-attachment offers an alternative stance which does not sponsor dogmatic commitments, but it tends to result in apathy about the affairs of the world and the growth of scientific knowledge. It does not produce a dynamic of growth and progress.

It may be that Bartley's third metacontext provides the necessary mix of non-attachment and dynamism that is required to promote inquiry and error-elimination without the hope of certainty. This would appear to satisfy some of the requirements of the "mode of being" that Felperin desires in order that we may live without the hope of locating foundations of belief. In this metacontext no position can be positively justified, but it is quite likely that one will turn out to be better than others in the light of criticism and tests. The quest for justified beliefs is given up; instead the purpose of inquiry is to form tentative critical preferences for one option rather than another, or perhaps simply to specify what criteria would need to be met for a new theory to provide a better solution to the problem at hand. This is a "poised" position, not a flatfooted final resting place, because it is ready to shift in a measured and considered way in response to new evidence and new arguments. It also appears to be highly compatible with the "perspectivism" of Wellek and Warren noted above, that is, a process of getting to know the object from different points of view which may be defined and criticized in their turn.

Rival Schools United in Creative Self-Criticism

This analysis suggests the conclusion that deconstruction is not so much a radical novelty as a revival of skepticism in fancy dress. It draws its plausibility from the breakdown of virtually all theories of rationality and criticism in the face of the "dogmatism versus infinite regress" dilemma. This in turn arises from the authoritarian tradition (the justificationist metacontext) of Western thought. However, it seems that Popper and Bartley have shown that this authoritarian tradition is not required to sustain viable theories of knowledge and rationality.

Can these ideas of Popper and Bartley solve the problem sketched by Felperin, where rival schools either ignore the challenge of the deconstructionists or attempt to entrench their own position so as to resist the invaders? Can non-deconsructionists liberate themselves from what Northrop Frye called "the Archimedes fallacy, the notion that if we plant our feet firmly enough in Christian or democratic or Marxist values we shall be able to lift the whole of criticism at once with a dialectic crowbar"?" (10) Is there any way that the warring factions can learn from each other, even if they continue to disagree on fundamental issues?

One of the possibilities (which Felperin considers to be most unlikely) is that one or other faction will manage to win out in a Kuhnian. "revolution" and establish itself as the new ruling "paradigm" for studies of literature. M. A. Notturno has addressed a similar situation in psychology where he reports that the representatives of different schools proceed from opposing perspectives and employ different methods, so they scarcely communicate with each other at all (11). Notturno points out that training in psychology usually starts with an "indoctrination" into one or another of the competing theories. Later, career prospects depend upon approval from the leaders of the same school. This of course discourages students from exploring alternative views. The resulting lack of communication between schools could reflect the basic incommensurability of the rival frameworks (or paradigms, in the language of Khun), but Notturno instead blames the unwillingness of scholars to investigate the conceptual foundations of other theories. He detects a tendency to use Kuhn's theories to legitimate this situation, as though Kuhn's historiography is a normative statement about the way things should be rather than a contested historical theory. Notturno deplores the dream that one school might emerge as the "unchallenged and universally accepted paradigm of psychology" because this would probably owe more to the political affiliations or expertise of the dominant party than the capacity of the new framework to stand up to criticism.

As an alternative to a " takeover' by one party or an another, he advocates the "sort of unification that results from the critical examination of foundational principles. This is precisely the kind of criticism that is facilitated by the metacontext of "pancritical nationalism" or "critical preference" described above. This metacontext does not impose any limit on the criticism of fundamental principles and it provides no pressure for premature closure of options or for entrenching in fixed positions. It promotes creative self-criticism, a process that could enable people in different research traditions to find that they have more in common than they ever realised.

In such a climate of open-ended debate the deconstructionists will need to have more to offer than their capacity to destroy "foundations" of their opponents - because nobody will attempt to base their arguments on foundations. This may be a difficult situation to imagine at present (like a world without war) in view of the institutional pressures towards ritualistic confrontation, shadowboxing and defense of academic turf. But still, the challenge to operate without foundations of belief has been offered - by Popper and Bartley, and, in their very different way, by the deconstructionists. It remains to be seen whether the challenge will be accepted, and if so, what soft of dialogue will result.

NOTES