Binary opposition is the opposition of two things. Also, the state or process in which two things are opposed to each other. Often the binary opposition is understood as a pair of terms in which one is privileged.
Opposition is (as the Latin op- prefix meaning “against” suggests) something in which two things stand against each other.
But even this simple definition can be misleading because it can be assumed that it characterizes two self-sufficient and self-defining units that are in conflict or stress each other.
In structuralism and even in some other approaches, the formation of identity takes place only through opposition. This is what Ferdinand de Saussure understands when he says that “In language, there are only differences (or oppositions).”
Even more important than this is that although the difference presupposes positive terms between which it occurs (or opposition is created), there are only differences in language and “no positive terms.”
In linguistic and other types of signs, opposition in general, as well as binary opposition in particular, are very important.
Such opposition helps articulation and thus signification (the process of generating signs and meanings). Only thanks to the opposition of one thing to something else does the thing exist at all, and again, thanks to this opposition, something is distinguished.
In short, opposition makes the difference possible, and in turn, the difference facilitates articulation. Let’s take the words from this page. At the most basic level, they have their own status, as opposed to the page itself.
If the letters were the same color as the background behind them, the whole page would be useless, because then they would not contrast and, respectively, be readable.
The signs in relation to the contrasting background (according to the language of Gestalt psychology) are figures on the base. Above this level is the distinction of the signs from each other. The latter distinction depends primarily, if not solely, on complex sequences of binary opposition. This would be most easily clarified in terms of aural signs.
The phoneme / pin / differs from / tin / only due to the sound of the first consonant (the difference or opposition between / n / and / t).
Often binary oppositions are perceived hierarchically, with one member of the opposition constructed or considered to have a higher value than the other. In Western thought, there are some important binary oppositions:
matter / spirit; body / soul; feeling / mind; external / internal; surface / depth; periphery / center; appearance / reality; representation / presence (availability); artificial / natural.
Also, traditionally, the second term in each pair is privileged, and the first term is lowered (matter is lower than spirit; the body is lower than soul; feelings are lower than reason, etc.).
Deconstructivism, an important trend in contemporary critical literature (also in philosophy), puts many, if not all, of these traditional hierarchies to the test. One of the emphases of deconstructivist critique is the assertion that there is no neutral basis on which to build a critique capable of effectively testing the strictly fixed hierarchies of such traditional discourses as philosophy, theology, literature, and so on.
Such a critique could only be initiated and endured in the very discourses and languages defined by these very hierarchies.
In other words, deconstructivist critics constantly claim that they themselves have already been put to the test. For example, the attempt to shift the focus from what has traditionally been central to what has been marginal or peripheral (for example, from literature as a process holding a mirror to humanity, to literature as a rich textual fabric, in an ongoing process of weaving ), somehow reinforces the traditional center/periphery hierarchy.
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