When a Concept Can No Longer Stay the Same

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“I would describe deconstruction as a modern rationalism which tries to incorporate new disciplines, new forms of rationality”.

— Jacques Derrida, Interview with Alan Montefiore in 1992.

1. The Direction of the Accusation

What if the accusation reverses the direction of the argument?

In a 1992 interview with Alan Montefiore, Derrida is asked whether deconstruction undermines “the rationality of the subject” and the possibility that a subject might consciously commit itself to a rational project. The accusation seems straightforward: deconstruction questions rationality; therefore, it threatens the very possibility of reason.

But Derrida’s response points elsewhere. He does not begin by proposing that rationality should be abandoned. Instead, he asks us to consider what happens to our concepts as knowledge changes. Psychoanalysis, physics, biogenetics, and bioethics, among other fields, have introduced problems that inherited conceptual frameworks cannot simply absorb without modification.

The direction of the argument therefore matters. It is not:

rationality → Derrida questions it → deconstruction destroys it

but rather:

new knowledge → pressure on inherited concepts → conceptual reconfiguration → a different demand on rationality

Derrida’s intervention comes in response to this pressure. He is not simply attacking rationality from outside. He is asking what happens to a concept when the relations that have given it its familiar status can no longer remain unchanged.

The question we should consider, then, is not why Derrida wants to destroy rationality. It is what happens to rationality when the conceptual arrangement in which it has operated comes under pressure.

2. When a Concept Is No Longer Enough

A concept does not operate alone. Its significance depends partly on the relations it maintains with other concepts.

Consider this schematic constellation:

subject ↔ consciousness ↔ intention ↔ agency ↔ responsibility ↔ rationality

The lines are not causal connections. They indicate a network of relations through which a particular understanding of each term becomes possible. If the subject is conceived as a unified, conscious self, then intention, agency, and responsibility can be understood in ways that presuppose a substantial degree of self-presence. Rationality belongs to the same arrangement.

Psychoanalysis puts pressure on this configuration. Repression, the unconscious, and the possibility of a divided subject complicate the identification of the subject with conscious awareness. What is unsettled, therefore, is not simply the meaning of one term. A change in one position affects the terms around it.

If consciousness no longer provides a complete account of the subject, intention cannot be treated as fully transparent to the subject who intends. Agency and responsibility are affected as well. Rationality is implicated because its familiar status has been tied to a particular conception of the subject as conscious, self-present, and capable of deliberate intention.

The problem is therefore not one concept in isolation, it is the constellation in which that concept has acquired its particular value.

3. From Displacement to Reorganization

Once one element of a conceptual constellation is displaced, the relations surrounding it may have to be reconsidered.

We might begin with a simplified arrangement:

subject ↔ conscious self ↔ intention ↔ responsibility ↔ rationality

The psychoanalytic challenge complicates it:

subject ↔ repression / unconscious ↔ divided subjectivity ↔ intention ↔ responsibility ↔ rationality

The second configuration does not simply replace the first with a new fixed model. It shows that some of the earlier relations can no longer be taken for granted. Rationality now occupies a different position because the subject to whom rationality was attributed can no longer be understood in quite the same way.

This is where the idea of double valuation becomes useful. The same concept can acquire a different status depending on the relations in which it appears. Rationality that appears as the expression of a unified, self-present subject in one configuration may be understood differently once that model of subjectivity is placed under pressure.

This does not mean that rationality simply acquires two meanings, or that both valuations are equally acceptable. The point is that its value is not determined in isolation. It depends on the conceptual arrangement within which it operates.

This is the point at which Derrida’s statement that “you have to transform the very concept of reason” becomes significant. The transformation is not the arbitrary invention of a philosopher dissatisfied with reason. It follows from a shift in the relations through which reason itself has been understood.

The revaluation of one concept can become a reorganization of an entire constellation.

4. A New Rationalism

This brings us back to the accusation with which we began. If deconstruction questions inherited concepts of reason, does it undermine rationality itself? Derrida’s answer points in another direction: “it’s in the name of [...] a new rationalism that deconstruction is necessary.”

The phrase becomes less paradoxical once rationality is understood as capable of responding to changes in what can be known. The issue is no longer simply whether a particular conception of reason is rational, it is whether that conception can respond when the relations supporting it have themselves become problematic.

The irrational response would be to protect a concept from what our knowledge has made impossible to ignore. For Derrida, rationality may require precisely the opposite: exposing inherited concepts to what they can no longer adequately accommodate.

Deconstruction, on this reading, is not an external attack on reason. It follows the pressure exerted on inherited concepts by developments in the sciences and other fields of knowledge that those concepts can no longer contain without difficulty.

A “new rationalism” therefore does not mean abandoning rational standards. It means refusing to treat a particular conception of rationality as beyond revision.

5. The Concept to Come

But revision does not necessarily mean replacement.

The simplest model would be:

old concept → criticism → new concept

Derrida points toward a different sequence:

inherited concept → displacement → questioning → concept to come

The difference matters. If the task were simply to produce a better definition, the process would end once the replacement had been established. The old closure would return in another form. The concept to come names something different: a concept that remains open to further changes in the configuration in which it operates.

This does not mean that concepts become meaningless or that every definition is equally valid. A concept can remain operative without being treated as finally settled. What remains open is its future position within a constellation that may itself change.

This also clarifies what is at stake in the question of rationality. The point is not to abandon it, but to prevent a particular historical form of rationality from becoming the measure of everything that can count as rational.

To reopen a concept is not to abandon it. It is to leave it capable of answering to what has not yet been thought.

References:

Derrida, J., & Montefiore, A. (2001). Talking liberties: Jacques Derrida’s interview with Alan Montefiore. In G. J. Biesta & D. Egéa-Kuehne (Eds.), Derrida & education (pp. 176–185). Routledge.

Derrida, J. (1976). Of grammatology (G. C. Spivak, Trans.). Johns Hopkins University Press.

Foucault, M. (1971). L'ordre du discours: Leçon inaugurale au Collège de France prononcée le 2 décembre 1970. Gallimard.

Montefiore, A. (1992). Interview with Jacques Derrida [Video]. YouTube. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B-gzOQLzJk&t=296s

Saussure, F. de, Bally, C., Sechehaye, A., & Riedlinger, A. (1983). Course in general linguistics (R. Harris, Trans.). Duckworth.