SOKRATIŠKASIS ELENCHAS – DERRIDA DEKONSTRUKCIJOS PROVAIZDIS?
IS THE SOCRATIC ELENCHUS A PROTOTYPE OF THE DERRIDEAN DECONSTRUCTION?

Summary/Abstract: The author of the article focuses on the typological – formal and functional – similarities between the Socratic elenchus and the Derridean deconstruction. The possibility of Plato’s influence on Derrida regarding the similarities between these two procedures is left behind as irrelevant and ultimately unanswerable. It is argued that, despite the fact that both the Socratic elenchus and the Derridean deconstruction possess some features that are characteristic of a method, neither of them can be called a method in a strict sense, for the employment of each of them requires a creative approach and spontaneous insight. Both the Socratic elenchus and the Derridean deconstruction are employed in order to undermine the supposed unity of its respective target – be it a person under elenctic interrogation or a text undergoing the procedure of deconstruction – and to expose the lack of its inner coherence.

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