THE EDUCATIONAL POTENTIAL OF DERRIDA’S PHILOSOPHY

Abstract

The study contributes to the development of the philosophy of education, which is a relatively young field of philosophical knowledge. The author aims to articulate more explicitly the educational potential of Derrida’s philosophy, considering the research done in Russia and abroad. The author’s teaching practice provided the empirical material for the study. In the analysis following the author shows that mass foreign language teaching practice is based on logocentrism, and the teacher acts as if he possesses the true knowledge of the accurate representation. The disadvantage of such practices is the lack of attention to language as a means of personal growth. Basing on such key concepts of Derrida’s philosophy as deconstruction, supplement and differance, the author comes to the conclusion that there exists a need for more active implementation of such a model of foreign language teaching within which the student acts as a subject of interpretations. This educational model based on the principle of interculturalism aims to disclose and create meanings, meeting the essential personal needs of self-understanding and self-expression in the process of learning.

Keywords

• deconstruction
• supplement
• interpretation
• education
• foreign language
• meaning
• personality