Caputo - Deconstruction In A Nutshell

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Caputo (who)

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Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion Emeritus at Syracuse University and the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Villanova University.

Caputo is a major figure associated with Postmodern Christianity as well as the founder of the theological movement known as weak theology. Much of Caputo's work focuses on hermeneutics, phenomenology, deconstruction and theology.

Developed a deconstructive hermeneutics that he calls "radical hermeneutics," which is highly influenced by the thought of the French philosopher, Jacques Derrida.

Additionally, Caputo has developed a distinctive approach to religion that he calls "weak theology." Recently, his most important work has been to rebut the charges of relativism made against deconstruction by showing that deconstruction is organized around the affirmation of certain unconditional ethical and political claims.

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Caputo (agenda)

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Defend Derrida and deconstruction against the claim of of relativism (37-38).

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Caputo (deconstruction)

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D. expands, complexifies, disturbs, opens the structures of institutions and texts.

Ironically, deconstruction opposes summarization in nuce.

The bottom line, the degree zero, of deconstruction, lies in this: ‘deconstruction is the active antithesis of everything that criticism ought to be if one accepts its traditional values and concepts’ (Norris, 1991, p. xi). Criticism traditionally seeks to establish the authorized meaning of the text, the original meaning placed in the text by the author. Deconstruction consists in putting this authority ‘out of joint’ (Derrida, 1995, p. 25). Deconstruction is the enemy of the authorized/authoritarian text, the text that tries to tell it like it is, including this one. (Rolfe, review of deconstruction)

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Caputo (deconstruction and Bible)

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Deconstruction is iconoclasm of the idolatries of the modern world. This makes possible the in-breaking of the eternal.

"When totalizing systems crumble, space is created for hospitality to the stranger and the building of genuine community. The central impulse driving deconstruction is that of relentless justice until, in Christian terms, the kingdom comes. Truth arrives as an event occurring in language (cf. the parables of Jesus) in the mean time.

While this is not explicitly theological discourse, in Caputo's interpretation deconstruction resonates with themes which belong to the Christian core: community, hospitality, justice, gift, the messianic, faith, and even prayer. Deconstruction prepares the way of the Lord."

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Caputo (deconstruction and texts)

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Deconstruction exists within every texts and institution. It isn't something that a reader does to the text. It is something the text does to itself, b/c of the nature of language. Deconstruction occurs through writing new texts and opening tradition up to interpretations that challenge the structures of the past.

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Caputo (6 nutshells of deconstruction)

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1. Right to philosophy: the responsibility and right of all to challenge the deep structures that close in possibilities of the future (55).

2. Love of the Greeks: read texts (like the Greeks) open to new possibilities, never being constrained by previous interpretations or paradigms (including your own).

3. A community without community: heterogeneous, porous, open, equivocal collection of people who dissolve the insider/outsider distinction. Hospitality describes this tension between the distinction between the native and the stranger, and yet being open the stranger. Or, identity of not having identity (i.e., unified qualities that closes in and builds structures).

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Caputo (6 nutshells of deconstruction, continued)

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4. Justice: Justice is deconstruction (131). The ultimately unattainable indestructible "other" of deconstruction, which is set against "law" or structures.

5. The Messianic (a certain religion): It "has to do with the absolute structure of the promise, of an absolutely indeterminate, let us say, a structural future, a future always to-come, avenir. The messianic fu- ture is not a future-present and is not sparked by a determinate Mes- siah; it is not futural simply in the sense that it has not as a matter of fact shown up yet, but futural in the sense of the very structure of the future" (161-62). Deconstruction allows religion to reinvent itself.

6. Yes, affirmation, Yes: The repetitive "yeses" captures the openness (the first "yes") and the commitment to remember openness (the second "yes") to the other (198-99). This reaffirmation to being open , avoiding structures, keeps deconstruction as deconstruction (200).

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Caputo (Derrida and truth)

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"I said above, referring to Derrida's theory of meaning and truth, that he is neither an essentialist nor a conventionalist, that he subscribes neither to preexisting meanings and truths to which linguistic practices must conform, nor to deeply but inchoately understood practices that exert a more gentle but no less sure rule" (108).