Talk:Trace (deconstruction)

There seem to be two related issues at play in this page right now: (1) The content is far too technical for a Wikipedia article and (2) you've got one or two authors really pushing a particular interpretation of what Derrida is doing with the term "trace." As a result, there's really unnecessary portions like the section on the relationship of "trace" to Dasein. I'm willing to buy that there's a relationship, but Wikipedia is hardly the place to lay out your thesis on the topic and you've done nothing to help clarify the issue for people not already well-versed in the field. Unfortunately, because the page is really a treatise on the topic and not an attempt to succinctly describe the rhetorical or performative "work" that the term does in Derrida's thought, it's almost impossible for additional simple edits to correct the page. I'd opt for going back to square one. Relauncher (talk) 21:07, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Can somebody who is actually competent in the use of the English language take a stab at this, please? Or, if the word doesn't actually mean anything, just say that: cool either way, really. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.79.156.39 (talk) 01:16, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I should immediately say that this article is written perfectly. Neurosys (talk) 23:11, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Ha! Calm down, guys. Derrida is slippery (and explanations of him are usually kinda circular). He makes more sense if you view him as a performance artist instead of a philosopher. He intentionally refuses to fix definitive meanings to words like "trace" because, according to his project, the act of searching for a definitive meaning is doomed at the outset. So, to answer your question, no, the word doesn't mean anything, although, you haven't yet grasped Derrida if you think it's supposed to. Consider him as a link in a chain of commentary on the history of philosophy (i.e., the genre of writing beginning with Plato), which is adjacent to de Saussure and Heidegger. It's not that he wants people to stop writing with purpose and meaning; it's just that he wants people to stop arguing that meaning is a worthwhile pursuit. Jag149 (talk) 01:00, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

For a horribly complex writer, who insists on convoluted language and on inventing new terms to describe his thought, the attempt in this article to explain 'trace,' is very successful. If this were an equally incomprehensible-for-some text on mathematics or on relativity, these Wiki referees might be more cagey in exposing their own incomprehension. Derrida is not less complex in his expression of language than Maxwell or Einstein are in their expression of mathematics. So pease, kindly, leave such valuable texts alone.92.20.167.227 (talk) 14:09, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

This article is barmey. I get theres a rhyme and reason to why Derrida wrote the way he did. Its clear enough when engaging the primary texts. But is it necessary to write a wikipedia article that way? Get to the point. Start with the elevator pitch, and work down from there. It might not feel very continental to do it that way, but hey, its wikipedia. Derrida made some very important contributions to the field (I disagree *vehemently* with the articles classification as "low importance") but how about bringing it down to earth a little bit. 59.167.111.154 (talk) 22:46, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

This article has a lot of problems, but in particular the section on Derridean "trace" and Heidegger's "Dasein" is from top to bottom either flatly wrong or incoherent. Heidegger does not equate Being with Dasein. His word for Being is Sein, not Dasein. Dasein, in Heidegger's usage, is his term for the distinctive kind of entity that human beings as such are. In other words, it is a way of referring to human beings, considered in a certain aspect. This simply has nothing to do with Derrida's "trace." Nor does 'trace' bear any similarity to "the Structuralist concept of the signified." The trace is supposed to (somehow) evade all direct signification. In the "Letter on Humanism," Heidegger rejected any identification of his philosophy with existentialism. Heidegger also rejected the translation of Dasein as "being-there." Etc. In any case, as pointed out above, a Wikipedia article is not the place for an essay, whatever its merits may be, arguing for a thesis of this sort. The section should probably just be removed. JohnMason (talk) 15:24, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

The Concept of Trace is completely missing from the main entry on Deconstruction
The entry for trace claims, "Trace (French: trace) is one of the most important concepts in Derridian deconstruction," yet it is nowhere to be found in the entry for Deconstruction, not even in the see also section. Either a brief discussion of trace should be added to the main entry or the opening sentence should be changed to no longer claim that it is a central concept. Nick (talk) 17:50, 16 July 2021 (UTC)