This work subjects the fundamental ideas of Derrida, Lacan, Barthes and their followers to an examination and demonstrates the baselessness of post-Saussurean claims about the relations between language, reality and self.

Inhalt
Part 1: literature, language and reality - an introduction; literature as textual intercourse; the illusion of reference; reference restored. Part 2: the mirror stage - a critical reflection; walking and difference - towards a reinstatement of Legocentrism; statements, facts and the correspondence theory of truth.