Deconstructive Impact on Postmodern Hermeneutics: An Epistemological Exploration

Abstract

Hermeneutics is considered as the art and science that attempts to interpret philosophical texts or any act of communication. The emergence of postmodernism has reinterpreted all things under the sun, including the interpretation of texts. As a result, this historical foundation of decoding the textual meaning from the author is challenged, his role of bringing a document is degraded and the historical context which caused the composition is dismantled. In the wake of postmodernism, Deconstruction, one of the outcomes of poststructuralism, was brought into the limelight by the great philosopher Jacques Derrida, whose intellectual skill directed him to deconstruct the texts. Deconstruction as a literary theory has plenty of potential benefits in the process of interpretation. As deconstruction enthroned the reader as the sole authority to dictate the meaning, the entire postmodern fragmentary ideology is encapsulated in the deconstructive system of interpretation. Postmodernism to Deconstruction and vice versa are inseparably intertwined in their intrinsic worth when it comes to the process of interpretation.