Jacques Derrida has been accused of writing in a deliberately obtuse and obfuscated manner, so the relationship between his work and that of Plato's might not be immediately discernible. Perhaps the clearest connection between the two can be derived from Derrida's of Grammatology, especially as it compares to Plato's aesthetics and view of reality. In this rather dense treatise, Derrida first outlines the phenomenon of what he calls logocentrism -- the attitude that speech (logos in Greek) is the most basic and essential form of language, while writing is secondary in development and its ability to reflect meaning. Derrida claims that logocentrism has long been a silent and foundational part of Western thought, even from the time of Plato.

Plato believed that truth and meaning existed in a pure state somewhere, with the shadows of meanings existing in our own world. Derrida sees this as a flawed worldview, though not...
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