The Machinery of Talk: Charles Peirce and the Sign Hypothesis Book

It is certainly not intuitive to identify Wittgenstein as engaged in the project of deconstruction. Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations precedes Derrida's first philosophical works by many years. And perhaps it would be more fair to Wittgenstein to write of Derrida's project of deconstruction as an iteration of the Philosophical Investigations. Nonetheless, Henry Staten makes a convincing argument that the two philosophers share an elective affinity in the strategies they use to test philosophical ideas, language and methodologies to gain new and different insights into how language works. Wittgenstein and Derrida offers a comprehensive analysis of Derrida's strategy of deconstruction which compares favorably to Wittgenstein's own strategic philosophical approach of testing ideas. The result is an interesting text that explains each philosopher in light of the other which, in turn, illuminates both.