The self and the impossible pursuit of justice in J.M. Coetzee’s "Waiting for the barbarians, disgrace and foe”
- Authors: Swanepoel, Elbie
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Coetzee, J M, 1940- Criticism and interpretation , Coetzee, J M, 1940- Waiting for the barbarians , Coetzee, J M, 1940- Disgrace , Coetzee, J M, 1940- Foe , Ethics in literature , Deconstruction , Postmodernism (Literature) , Justice in literature
- Language: English
- Type: Master's thesis , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/232294 , vital:49979
- Description: In its engagement with J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians, Disgrace and Foe, this thesis explores how the philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida can be used as a framework for understanding the self’s relationship with the other. In contrast to postcolonial readings of these texts, this thesis does not consider the separation between the self and the other in terms of social or cultural differences but rather the radical alterity of the other that is perceived in the face-to-face encounter. This study aims to illustrate how the engagement with alterity exposes the instability of the self’s structures of knowledge that, in these instances, are grounded in the Western metaphysical tradition. The effects of the self’s encounter with the other are seen in the personal transformation of Coetzee’s protagonists whose initial flaws and problematic worldviews are revealed in the context of the injustices done to the other. Furthermore, the study examines the extent to which the self is complicit in the suffering of the other and how this ultimately complicates their pursuit of justice for them. While the focus of this thesis is primarily on the characters, it also shows how the writer’s careful treatment of otherness functions to confront and engage the reader with the alterity of the other and the ethical dilemmas inherent in attempting to conceptualise it. The study concludes that the protagonists’ engagement with others and their subsequent confrontation with themselves lead them to consider what an ethical response to the other might be. This ethical turn results in positive change, however ambiguously, in their thoughts about and behaviours toward other beings. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, English Language and Linguistics, 2022
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- Date Issued: 2022-04-07
A logos of difference: the Kantian roots of Derrida's deconstructive thinking
- Authors: Hurst, Andrea Margaret
- Date: 1999
- Subjects: Derrida, Jacques -- Philosophy , Deconstruction , Philosophy
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:11003 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1015554
- Description: This study concerns a contemporary articulation of the age-old limit/possibility (truth/scepticism) contest in Western metaphysics. Traditional `either/or' logic advises that scepticism is a necessary consequence of the assailability of truth; hence the concerted effort in the history of philosophy to preserve the possibility of truth against any flicker of uncertainty. Here, it is argued that contemporary thinking sees the possibility of `absolute' truth lose its ground. However, a concomitant shift to a `logos of difference' averts the consequence of scepticism. Thus, the justification for this study could be articulated in terms of the imperative, if a cardinal moment in contemporary thought is to be sustained, to understand this shift in logos, work through its implications and learn to live with its effects. In this respect, an attempt is made throughout to situate and interpret Derrida's `deconstructive thinking' as exemplar. Derrida's thinking finds roots (not without signs of insurrection) in Kant's `Copernican revolution,' construed as the first shift towards the contemporary logos in question. Here, Kant refuted the postulate of an independent `world' by demonstrating that `reality' was the result of a cognitive order imposed on what `exists' by the rational subject. Knowledge, therefore, depended not on matching statements with pre-existing `things,' but on knowing the `rules' that determined how an object had to be if it was to be known at all. Kant maintained that certain, objective knowledge was possible, due to the completeness and universality of the forms of intuition and the categories of the understanding. Kant's `Copernican revolution' provided the opening for a second shift inaugurated by the so- called `linguistic turn.' Here, thinkers contested what Kant took for granted; namely that `constitutive interpretations' (cognitions/concepts) formed a `reality' independently of language. The basic premise underpinning the `linguistic turn,' therefore, is that language (signification) and `reality' are inseparable. Henceforth, the possibility of final, enduring `constitutive interpretations' whose `truth,' in principle, is discoverable, depends on whether or not the language which mediates human rationality can form a complete and universal system. This question resurrects the very limit/possibility debate (in the form of a structuralism/postmodernism stand-off) that Kant thought he had resolved in mediating between rationalist and empiricist extremes. In contemporary terms, philosophers who, bound by either/or logic, wish to avoid the sceptical trap of `anything goes' postmodernism, must assume that language (signification) can form a complete and universal system. However, in his deconstructive readings of Husserl, Saussure and `structuralism,' Derrida demonstrates the untenability of this assumption. At the same time, he shows that the sceptical `alternative' may be avoided by recognising the limitations of `either/or' logic. Again, Derrida's thinking may be traced to Kant's; this time to his analysis of the `first antinomy.' In accordance with Kant's analysis here of what is ultimately the logic of `complex systems' (Cilliers), Derrida offers a `logos of difference,' which skirts the strictures of structuralism while avoiding the trap of postmodern scepticism by accommodating both moments of limit and possibility in an indissoluble interplay.
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- Date Issued: 1999