Why have some critics described deconstruction as nihilistic or overly skeptical?

Critics have described deconstruction as nihilistic or overly skeptical primarily because it challenges established intellectual categories and questions the possibility of achieving objective truth. By analyzing how language functions through an endless "play" of differences rather than through fixed, inherent meanings, deconstruction undermines traditional philosophical assumptions about reality and essence.12

This approach led to several specific criticisms:

• Epistemic Relativism: Some scholars viewed deconstruction as a nihilistic endorsement of radical epistemic relativism, arguing that it denies the existence of stable, objective foundations for knowledge.1
• Obscurantism: Critics, particularly within the Anglo-American tradition, dismissed the movement as "obscurantist wordplay," suggesting that its claims were either trivial or unintelligible.1
• Lack of Substance: Because deconstruction focuses on the internal tensions and contradictions within texts rather than asserting a singular "truth," it was sometimes accused of being ahistorical, apolitical, or merely a frivolous dismantling of tradition.13

Ultimately, these accusations often stem from the movement's rejection of "logocentrism"—the Western philosophical assumption that truth exists independently of language.2