On What Makes the Link between Deconstruction and Education Strong: Derivation and Destinerrance

Many of the most common critiques of deconstruction stem from a failure to understand its “affirmative action”. Indeed, several positions acknowledge deconstruction’s considerable effectiveness in the pars destruens, while regarding it as weak in the pars construens. However, such assessments overlook the way in which Derrida’s work destabilises this very opposition. It operates through a movement that is neither purely destructive nor purely constructive, but rather articulated as an intensification of the 'yes' already at work. This contribution seeks to show that this movement, at once dismantling and inventive, plays a crucial role in explaining the direct entanglement between deconstruction and education. Although Derrida did not dedicate a specific work to education, his engagement with the subject is evident, even explicitly so, as can be seen in his involvement with the GREPH and in the reflection condensed in the formula Je voudrais apprendre à vivre enfin (Derrida, 1993, 2004). Contemporary debates testify to the fruitfulness of this engagement. On the one hand, within pedagogical discourse, as a resource for rethinking specific educational issues (E. Bojesen, S. Haddad, S. Williams); on the other, as a trace for rethinking the very notion of education (G. Biesta); and further, as a source of inspiration for philosophers whose work is acquiring an increasingly significant impact on the educational field (J. Butler, K. Barad, C. Malabou, and B. Stiegler). Despite these studies, there is still a lack of research explaining why deconstruction and education are so closely intertwined. Such an inquiry is crucial in order to resist the temptation to conceive deconstruction as an educational method or as a form of indoctrination. On this basis, the present contribution moves from the acknowledged link between education and deconstruction to an examination of what makes this link strong, thereby illuminating the affirmative force of deconstruction from a different perspective. More specifically, the paper employs the categories of derivation and destinerrance to show that, in light of the uncertainty surrounding the effects of actions, education - no less than deconstruction - can be thought of as an affirmative response of survival (survivance).