How did Jacques Derrida develop deconstruction in the 1960s?

In the 1960s, Jacques Derrida developed deconstruction as a rigorous method of philosophical and literary analysis aimed at questioning the fundamental conceptual "oppositions" inherent in Western philosophy since the time of the ancient Greeks.1

Derrida’s approach was characterized by several key developments:

• Critique of Binary Oppositions: He identified that Western metaphysics relies on hierarchical "binary" pairs—such as speech/writing, nature/culture, or mind/body—where one term is privileged over the other. Deconstruction seeks to "displace" these hierarchies by showing that the primary term is often dependent on the secondary one, revealing that these oppositions are not natural but are constructions of the text itself.12
• The Concept of Différance: Building on the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, Derrida coined the term différance to describe how linguistic meaning is never fully "present" but is instead endlessly "deferred" through an infinite chain of differences between words.12
• Foundational Publications: His influence grew significantly in 1967 with the publication of three seminal works: Writing and Difference, Of Grammatology, and Speech and Phenomena.12
• Post-Structuralist Context: While his work was initially engaged with structuralism, Derrida’s critique of the possibility of a scientific "metalanguage" helped define the post-structuralist movement, which remained skeptical of attempts to reach finality or closure in meaning.312