a familiar but nonetheless well-argued rant by Luke Slattery of The Oz, July 30th 2005

Some people object to the pretentious jargon used by exponents of Theory: a signifier is really just a word; a signified a thing; and a trope a turn of phrase or figure or speech.

Theorists love to explicate a text, when to explicate is simply the French infinitive to explain. Others are troubled by the way it sanctions a "mindless scepticism", in the words of one US academic, and a kind of toadying to an official line set by the Gallic pantheon: Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva and, of course, Michel Foucault. This says more about the disciples, I'm afraid, than their masters: the capacity for independent thought being a rare intellectual commodity in our universities.

Philosophers are by and large immune to Theory's siren call and it has ceased to be philosophically credible, if it ever was.