This Routledge Revival, first published in 1985, gives detailed attention to the bearing of literary theory on questions of truth, meaning and reference. On the one hand, deconstruction brings a vigilant awareness of the figural and narrative tropes that make up the discourse of philosophic reason. On the other it insists that argumentative rigour cannot be divorced from the kind of close reading that has come to characterize literary theory in its more advanced or speculative forms. This present-day ‘contest of faculties’ has large implications for philosophers and critics, many of whom will welcome the reissue of such a clear-headed statement of the impact of deconstruction.

Contents

1. Narrative Theory or Theory-As-Narrative: The Politics of ‘Post-Modern’ Reason 2. Sense, Reference and Logic: A Critique of Post-Structuralist Theory 3. Some Versions of Rhetoric: Empson and De Man 4. Transcendent Fictions: Imaginary Discourse in Descartes and Husserl 5. Aesthetics and Politics: Reading Roger Scruton 6. Philosophy as a Kind of Narrative: Rorty on Post-Modern Liberal Culture 7. Suspended Sentences: Textual Theory and the Law 8. On Not Going Relativist (Where it Counts): Deconstruction and ‘Convention T’ 9. Conclusion.