Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!ginosko!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!adt
From: adt@castle.ed.ac.uk (A.Turland)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: AI & Derrida (was: Re: Speech Act Interpretation:... (Unisys AI Seminar))
Message-ID: <697@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 11 Oct 89 15:18:00 GMT
References: <11627@burdvax.PRC.Unisys.COM> <10714@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <10744@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <11577@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> <10780@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <11597@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
Reply-To: adt@castle.ed.ac.uk (A.Turland)
Organization: Edinburgh University Computing Service
Lines: 49

In article <11597@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> lammens@sybil.cs.Buffalo.EDU.UUCP (Joe Lammens) writes:
>In article <10780@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) writes:
>>In article <11577@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> lammens@sybil.cs.Buffalo.EDU.UUCP (Joe Lammens) writes:
>>
>>;Even the people who are going on and on about not being able to
>>;deduce the writer's intentions from a text, how a text is a world in
>>;itself with a million meanings and how it is full of contradictions,
>>;do not apply their own `theories' to their own writings on the
>>;subject, since that would imply that their writings are meaningless or
>>;at least not usable as vehicles for talking about their beloved
>>;subject.

Deconstruction is a method which is parasitic upon texts (no texts no
deconstruction) and as such is applicable to texts of a deconstructionist
nature. Some authors indicate/utilise this parasitising at the same time
as applying it to other texts producing so-called self-deconstructing texts.
Applying deconstructive methods does not *require* an author to generate
a self-deconstructing text.
Simply because a text has "margins" and multiple interpretations does
not render it meaningless (in fact meanings are multiplied).
As texts are viewed classically there is a standard interpretation (over
which there can be dispute); all that deconstruction demonstrates (for
me) is that no standard interpretation can be independent of the use to
which the interpretation is to be put.

>>
>>As a matter of fact you're wrong, which is why deconstruction offers no
>>reading method, at least one that can be couched in propositional terms. 
>>
>            I think deconstructionism should be confined to the area
>of literary theory/criticism; it has no value outside of that, as its
>proponents continually demonstrate, perhaps unwittingly. It's
>certainly not going to provide a basis for NL understanding work in
>AI. Please explain yourself if you think it does, I really would like
>to know. And forgive me if I sounded a bit unrespectful.
If you are using texts, then literary theory/criticism is implicitly
relevant to them. I suspect that even formal mathematics texts could be shown
to have "margins" which allow the generation of contradictory interpretations
if the analysis is taken to a deep enough level. The standard interpretation
in this instance is of use in a well-defined domain and the dependence on
the use of the interpretation welcomed instead of disparaged! If you are
not worried that the standard interpretation is dependent on the use to
which you want to put it, then i don't think there is any problem for you
in ignoring deconstruction (although you will miss out on all that free
play :-)).
>
>Joe Lammens

alan