Download or read book Contest of Faculties (Routledge Revivals) written by Christopher Norris and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-12-15 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Routledge Revival, first published in 1985, gives detailed attention to the bearing of literary theory on questions of truth, meaning and reference. On the one hand, deconstruction brings a vigilant awareness of the figural and narrative tropes that make up the discourse of philosophic reason. On the other it insists that argumentative rigour cannot be divorced from the kind of close reading that has come to characterize literary theory in its more advanced or speculative forms. This present-day ‘contest of faculties’ has large implications for philosophers and critics, many of whom will welcome the reissue of such a clear-headed statement of the impact of deconstruction.