GRE Reading Comprehension: Princeton-GRE阅读Princeton - 8AAN66V166Z9ZC38D$

The anti-foundationalist belief that there is no secure basis for knowledge was worked out philosophically in the somewhat wearisome tracts of Jacques Derrida. Différance, Derrida tells us, is the idea that any attempts to discuss universal features of human nature are merely products of local standards, often serving the vested interests of the status quo, and should rightly be dismantled and critiqued. Derrida was considered the originator of a profound challenge to the history of human thought. However, a century before Derrida, Darwin's theory of natural selection had made anti-foundationalism almost an inevitable consequence. From an evolutionary point of view, our understanding of the world depends on earlier and less-developed forms of understanding: meaning is continuously referred or deferred to other terms or experiences.