constructs which make up the ‘discourse structure’ of
particular theoretical models, world-views or philosophies –
which themselves constitute or construct the very realities
(including historical realities) that they claim to reveal or
represent. The work of post-modern thinking then, is
reduced to one of identifying and ‘de-constructing’ the
binary constructs of any theoretical model or praxis –
showing how they construct the very ‘objects’ whose true
nature they claim to explain. Derrida in particular is
responsible for this trend in thinking, one in which he
particularly emphasised the way in which the language of
any given world-view or theory tended to privilege one
term or pole of a binary pair over its other – either by not
naming its ‘other’ at all, or by treating it as less
fundamental, real or essential. An example from Marxist
theory would be its base/superstructure distinction – and
the supposedly more fundamental and determining role
allotted by Marx to the economic ‘base’ of society as
against its cultural and political ‘superstructure’.
Dialectics, Advaita and Deconstructionism
Applied to undialectical modes of religious,
philosophical and scientific discourse however, the
deconstructionist approach characteristic of post-
modernism seems clearly vindicated. For it is only too clear