Textual Analysis of Derrida's ~Of Grammatology~ will follow a brief sketch of deconstruction ...
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Jacques Derrida (b. 1930 in French Algeria; d. 2004 in Paris), the controversial, contemporary French philosopher in the school(s) of thought we call Post-Structuralism, Deconstruction, and Postmodernism, and who has broached the status of cultural icon, helps us to better understand the far-reaching implications of this liberation from one-to-one correspondence, its radicalism, and its immense importance for understanding contemporary Continental philosophy. |
Brief Sketch of Deconstruction:
Is a method and name for a loosely designed type or school of contemporary Continental philosophy. The German phenomenological-existentialist Martin Heidegger is credited with the major development of the method; he coined the German term Destruktion for it, which, despite its misleading suggestion of “destruction” in English (in German destruction is Zerstörung), its meaning is closer to “dismantling” (in German, Abbau). Its purpose was to lead us to the most primordial experiences that spawned our thinking of Being, and thereafter have always led our ways of theorizing its nature. These experiences can be had by genuinely encountering these thoughts in the canon, in texts and their ways of thinking. Hence, he identified it as a way of taking apart in order to hear the earliest, most open, least interpreted ideas: to de-construct texts to encounter ideas, from inside of the ideas, so as to best understand their inherent sayings. This method is an always ongoing activity; it is not like Descartes’ ‘doubt everything and rebuilt on truth,’ but a constant striving to hear originary truth. Two complementary and rich developments—structuralism and postmodernism—greatly furthered the development of deconstruction:
- Structuralism essentially argues that meaning is structured and given to us by our involvement in language / society (not just reality itself). In order to understand many facets of culture, one must understand them in regards to their relationships to and in an overarching system or structure of meaning. This meaning structure is also a structure of power. Hence, this study seeks to lay bare these structures and understand their effects on the deepest levels of human thought, feeling, and action.
- Working from phenomenology and structuralism, Jean-François Lyotard developed postmodernism as a method of re-reading and re-thinking philosophical ideas. It is primarily methodological, anti-historicism, and actively seeks to uncover biases of grand narratives. “Grand narratives” are the powerful stories, the overarching organizational categories, that we call upon to create and structure meaning and, often, to rally people (e.g.: ‘power to the people,’ ‘as American as apple pie,’ ‘live free or die,’ ‘we are all God’s creatures,’ ‘class struggle,’ etc.). For postmodernism, all knowledge has become narrative; knowledge is a structuring force or power, not a mere label, but affective creation and direction of meaning/reality. Within this excess of narratives, narrativity itself, the rules and operation of this knowledge-cum-narrative system, and specific, especially strong grand narratives are what postmodernism targets to lay bare. Postmodernism, then, is critique that constantly turns back to the canon (widely conceived) and takes it up and works through it to see many alternate narratives therein. It does not draw rigid boundaries between disciplines or schools of thought. It is therapeutic. It seeks to lay bare what remains unsaid.
The contemporary French postmodern Jacques Derrida is most known for his use and furtherance of the method and transition of it into a school of philosophy. For Derrida, it primarily involves the rereading texts so as to identify and unravel dichotomies (X & Y or X vs. Y, e.g., good and evil or knowledge vs. belief) so as to reveal their biases, rethink them otherwise, but then one almost ‘re-constructs’ the text with the original pairings, that will nevertheless now carry the shadows or halos of the work done to think them otherwise. There are two basic steps of the process: undoing and reinscribing. There are two levels at which the method works: the metaphysical and the political; these two levels are the two planes that are unsettled (in a productive way) by the method of re-reading:
Every deconstruction of X, then, shows X to be an impossibility and X’s sole possibility.
Deconstruction, then, is a work that re-reads so as to open up context and reveal the ambiguity and multiplicity (infinity?) of meanings—this is ‘dissemination’ (cf. p. 26), the opening-spreading of meanings (a play with language) so as to prohibit a singularity of meaning.
- The Metaphysical Aspect:
- 1st step: Unworking the oppositions of (“Platonic”) metaphysics (critique of metaphysics: logo-centricism, i.e., problematic philosophical focus/obsession/bias on logos (reason, word)) …
- e.g. idea vs. appearance knowledge vs. belief
- … undoing the hierarchy’s value, thereby suggesting a flip of the privileging …
- e.g. idea vs. appearance knowledge vs. belief
- 2nd step: Re-inscribing the originally given (now with a halo or residue of it thought otherwise) back into the structure …
- … hence the next (re-) reading feels the tension (from the trace of the undoing redone).
- 1st step: Unworking the oppositions of (“Platonic”) metaphysics (critique of metaphysics: logo-centricism, i.e., problematic philosophical focus/obsession/bias on logos (reason, word)) …
- The Political Aspect:
- The unworking-reinscribing activity of deconstruction politically yields a trace suggesting two key aporias (perplexities):
- 1) Epoché of rule/law:
- e.g. In the just vs. unjust, the necessity and yield of freedom
- Challenge the dichotomy and problematize (defer) freedom …
- Rules followed to judge, reinscribed in the new case, hence perpetuates them
- Reinscription enacts a violence against freedom
- 2) Undecidable:
- An undecidable must preface and cause every deliberation and decision,
- Hence, must encounter X as foreign to a rule, but obligated to it,
- Decision submits X to the rule, reinscribes the rule in this new case,
- Reinscription does a violence to justice, deferring it
- 1) Epoché of rule/law:
Every deconstruction of X, then, shows X to be an impossibility and X’s sole possibility.
Deconstruction, then, is a work that re-reads so as to open up context and reveal the ambiguity and multiplicity (infinity?) of meanings—this is ‘dissemination’ (cf. p. 26), the opening-spreading of meanings (a play with language) so as to prohibit a singularity of meaning.
This dissemination can happen because of ‘différance’ (cf. p. 26) * ...
- * This is not the same as the French word différence, which we would translate as “difference,” although they are pronounced the same. Instead, it is his term coined to hearken the two meanings of “differ” and “defer” in the French root verb, différer and to point to the fertile, ambiguous space in between a word and thing/meaning, that difference between them and deference between them.
- ... Thus, let us think this term in two key ways:
- -- différance is a “hinge” between writing and speech, permits the one and other, but is also a “space” between them to indicate the deferral of meaning that must take place between the signified and signifier;
- -- différance is the movement of a passage through imprint that produces difference wherein the pure trace is différance, the non-sensible, non-intelligible possibility of the plenitude of sensible abundance, that which grants permission to the sensible and intelligible.
- -- différance is a “hinge” between writing and speech, permits the one and other, but is also a “space” between them to indicate the deferral of meaning that must take place between the signified and signifier;
- ... Thus, let us think this term in two key ways:
Ferdinand de Saussure, the father of structuralism, taught Derrida and us that between every sign and its signifier and its signified and both, there is inherent ‘arbitrariness’ … no one-to-one correspondence (the word “cat” is not essentially linked or inherently glued to the fluffy creature, for that thing could have been called “gludes” or “litif,” and “cat” can refer to and mean many, many different things, and these of these is essentially different from the utterance or word “cat.”). This idea was developed further by Derrida into his version of différance (meaning to differ and to defer) as a force spacing the proliferation of differences and deferences between them that is necessary for meaning (as much as it unsettles meaning). Hence, signs are always ‘under erasure’ [sous rapture]; they are necessary, and yet, they are inadequate. Signs summon other signs in chains of possibilities and always defer certainty of meaning. Différance is the movement of passage through these traces or imprints, and is also a consequence of these traces. It indicates the non-sensible and non-intelligible possibility of plenitude of sensible abundance which grants the possibility of sensibility and intelligibility. Hence, différence is a “hinge,” the between that spaces and makes possible the connection between signs and meanings/things; it is a hinge, too, between writing and speech in that is lets each give permission for the other as it spaces them apart as it indicates the necessary deferral of identity between and meaning itself.
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Derrida's
Of Grammatology ~CONTENTS~ Part I --Writing Before the Letter
Exergue1) The End of the Book and the Beginning of Writing
Jacques Derrida
(1930-2004) b. El-Biar, Algeria (then French-Algeria), d. Paris
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Part II --Nature, Culture, Writing Introduction to the “Age of Rousseau” 1) The Violence of the Letter: From Lévi-Strauss to Rousseau
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Summary:
In Of Grammatology (1967), on the relation between speech and writing and as their development as forms of language, Derrida analyzes and criticizes Western Philosophy beginning with the pre-Socratics to Heidegger and beyond. His fundamental criticism of Western Philosophy is that it privileges or favors logos, or speech; logos claims to exhibit a direct form of language and therefore, a tight closeness to Parousia, a specific “presence” or center of identity/subjectivity. Western Philosophy, while praising logos, debases “writing.” Ironically, these philosophers try to imprint writing with logos patterns. Thus, writing/“texts” claim and pretend to exhibit a presence of identity/subjectivity, a presence of authority, and a presence of power. “Grammatology,” as the science of writing, may “liberate” writing from its subordination to and by speech, and hence is more a method he uses to ‘debunk’ such ideas, by identifying these patterns: i.e., “deconstruction,” which identifies logocentric paradigms, such as dichotomies, and shows that the possibility of presence within any contextual language is in constant “play” and “differs” continuously in relation to something else, and because of this, only a “trace” of the subject/object exists. This play of difference is between interiority and exteriority, for writing is both inside and outside speech just as speech is both inside and outside writing, and the play thereby erases the difference between interiority and exteriority (for the outside is, and is not, the insider), for both are inadequate to capture and describe speech and writing. “Differance” is the origin of presence and absence—playing off différer as both to defer and to differ—as its state of being deferred and of being different; it is also the “hinge” between speech (as inner meaning) and writing (as outer representation) (wherein “hinge,” in de Saussure, refers to the linkage of ideas to sound-images and written words to spoken words that forge a process in the articulation of speech and language—and, per Derrida, evidences de Saussure’s inheritance of the metaphysics of presence). “Arche-writing” is a metaphysics of presence’s inconceptualizable form of language; an originary form underived from speech; a form unperturbed by the difference between speech and writing; and, as a condition for the possibility and being of the play of difference between expression that is written and unwritten, it is that which allows us to deconstruct ordinary (vulgar) writing.
FURTHER OVERVIEW:
Critique of Western metaphysics and linguistics:
LOGOCENTRIC and PHONOCENTRIC—always gave priority to logos, to reason; always opposed speech as ‘inner’ to language and writing as ‘outer’, a ‘dangerous’ supplement to language; always nostalgic for origins; a metaphysics of presence. His charge against this logocentricism is that it seeks to maintain the sign as bound to the voice and the voice bound to “presence”—an immediacy considered to be more truthful than the derivative, latter act of inscribed signs. He examines diverse thinkers of this tradition, even those who reject any association with metaphysics, to work out how one may potentially move (even if an impossible move) beyond this prejudice of linguistics and seek a new field of grammatology where writing can reveal itself as the very possibility of speech. The classic view it has to language (as said by Aristotle): the spoken word is a symbol of mental experience and the written word is a symbol of the spoken word. This describes the preference given to voice as being immediately present (to soul, mind, etc.) and the written word as technical and representative, thus, containing no constitutive meaning. The classic works preceded by a truth/meaning that was constituted by and in the logos. Linguistics determines language as the unity of the phonè (sound), the glossa (tongue, language), and the logos (word, reason, idea), and this determination of language is before all latter differentiations. This privileges sound and sense, thus, leaving writing to be derivative (a “sign of a sign” as Derrida quotes from Aristotle, Rousseau, and Hegel), which is the classic formulation that posits speech as superior to writing, writing enslaved as an instrument of speech.
Grammatology:
Derrida is seeking the possibility and limits of a science of writing; asking if there can be such a science outside of the historical and metaphysical boundaries reviewed in chapter one. [A critique of a] positive science of writing, one against previous linguistics that rein writing in by metaphysics and theology. A science that runs the risk of never being established as such or by that name. His investigation begins in the spirit of the philosophers he previously reviewed (notably Husserl and Heidegger) in that he suggests the science of writing to retrace its roots or origins in scientificity and historicity themselves--rendering the science of science and history of history not as logic but as grammar. Then Derrida will proceed to ease us into a study of Saussure.
Writing:
[in its ideal program] not a secondary, derivative form of language (spoken). In ideal, no longer based on a negative definition of being the signifier of a signifier; that definition would become positive in that it would mean the movement of language that conceals and erases itself in its own production. Writing is NOT a sign of a sign unless we call all signs signs of signs. The advent of this writing is the advent of play (as play of signifying references that constitute language). This type of writing destroys the concept of the ‘sign’ and its logic. Writing overwhelms and effaces its limits (the overwhelming and effacing as two moments of one movement). Writing was thought to be a supplement to speech—Derrida responds that either it was never a simple supplement or that we need a new definition/logic of the supplement. Derrida includes in ‘writing’ all that gives rise to inscription in general (i.e. including art, technology, athletics, etc.). Writing’s ‘rationality’ is no longer from the logos, rather, it inaugurates the de-construction of all significations that have their source in the logos, especially ‘truth’.
Derrida will show that there is no linguistic sign before writing. If we banish the exteriority of the signifier, which is the exteriority of writing, the very idea of the sign falls into decay. However, the project is NOT to reverse the priority of the signified/signifier relation or the literal/metaphorical relation, but, rather, to determine the literal meaning of writing as metaphoric itself, to explode the opposition between the metaphor and the literal.
Derrida – Heidegger Critique:
There are two points (perhaps more) where Derrida seems to praise Heidegger for beginning the backing away from logocentricism, but, Derrida still considers Heidegger as guilty of such (mainly for his continual seeking of origins of being).
Derrida – Saussure:
Saussure sees the oral history of language as independent of writing. Believes writing to be unrelated to the inner system of language, that writing veils language (obscenely at that). The violence of writing befalls an innocent language. To give in to writing is to give in to the passions, i.e., it is a sin. Writing is a tyranny, the mastery of body over soul. Although Derrida would like aspects of the arbitrariness of the sign, this very theory of Saussure’s undermines his vehemence against the ‘dangers’ of writing: working from Saussure’s theory of the arbitrariness of the sign, albeit reconceived, Derrida reveals how this thesis necessitates that writing, as inscription of the sign, must include all linguistic signs—we cannot have a distinction or hierarchy of linguistic and graphic signs now. Signs, as writing, can no longer be exiled from language as speech, described as images of speech. Using Saussure’s own theory, writing cannot be the image of language; the property of a sign cannot be an image. Instead, playing with concepts of interior and exterior, Derrida says that “we must think that writing is at the same time more exterior to speech, not being its ‘image’ or its ‘symbol,’ and more interior to speech, which is already in itself a writing” (p.46).
Derrida believes we must obliterate the conceptions of an inside and outside to language.
Arche-writing versus Vulgar writing:
He calls them both language so acknowledging their basic communication with one another, although the two are deemed to be very different. Arche-writing can never be an object of science, it cannot be reduced to presence. Vulgar writing is a type included under Arche-writing and could not be historically without the dissemination of arche-writing.
Even before writing’s linkage with inscription, there is the conception of its possibility already in the system of signification. Thus, more exterior to its symbol, more interior to language itself, writing rests already there while also not yet written. Derrida talks about this in terms of the graphie, the unit of a possible graphic system, which implies the structure of the instituted trace, which will be the possibility for any system of signification.
The Trace:
Difference = writing = neither can be thought without the trace. Likewise, the trace cannot be thought without holding on to a conception of difference within a structure of reference because it is this very difference that allows variability within the structure. Trace is the formation of the form; the being-imprinted of the imprint. The trace announces the other within itself, thus allowing for the entity, yet, the trace must be thought before the entity. This renders the concept of entity fluid; there will now be neither symbol nor sign, but rather, a becoming-sign of the symbol. Thus, this trace is the starting point from which possibilities of differentiations arise. The unheard difference between appearing (world) and the appearance (lived experience), it is the condition of all other differences and of all other traces and it is already a trace. Trace is the absolute origin of sense in general, which means that there is no absolute origin of sense in general. Trace is the difference that opens appearances and signification. Can be compared to Levinas’ use of ‘trace’, signifying the absolute alterity of the other
“If language were not already, in that sense, a writing, no derived ‘notation’ would be possible…”
The Hinge [La Brisure]: designating difference and articulation: hinge.
The hinge, as the intersection of articulation and difference, is language as writing; it designates the impossibility of a sign being born out of a plenitude of abundance of present and presence, it prohibits the possibility of “full speech” (p.69). This hinge is the space of the “problematic of trace” (p.70). What is articulation? Derrida parallels the origin of the experience of space and time with the writing of difference and the fabric of the trace. These all are what allow us to articulate the difference of space and time, which is to allow them to appear as such in the unity of our experience experienced by our one body (Kant’s Schematism??). This articulation allows a graphic chain to be converted to a spoken chain. He says that this is where we must begin, with this primary possibility of articulation because difference is articulation (p.65-6).
He locates this starting point in Saussure, again against himself, as defining articulation as subordinating speech to the faculty of constructing a language. Thus, Derrida links the “imprint” * to articulation. He then “temporalizes,” so to speak, this relation by revealing the passivity of speech as being the relationship to a past that cannot fully be reactualized to a present—an absolute past. This justifies the trace as not being a simple present and protects its self-identity as something not injured by either protention or that which is beyond recollection. Essentially, the conclusion he draws from a long review of Husserl’s theory of internal time consciousness is that the trace eludes any capture by description in terms of a metaphysical conception of past, present, and future (p.66-7).
Supplement:
an aide brought in when presence begins to reveal itself as impossible, never a true presence, but only representation. Seen as inessential, dangerous, for example, writing is seen as an inessential addition to the self-presence of speech (and masturbation to sex, culture to nature, evil to innocence, etc.). Rousseau fails to see the paradox of his use of supplements—that speech and writing are both inherent in language—he comes close to realization in the discussion of the prohibition of incest, he sees that all view it as wring, but it does not fit any of his categories that divide nature and culture.
The end of Of Grammatology shows Rousseau’s linking together his views from the Essay on the Origin of Language and how they unravel themselves. He discusses language’s relation to painting (and other arts) and finds language is originally figurative and direct painting is already allegorical. The possibility of the image is the supplement—the supplementary writing constitutes society—the origin is the alienation from presence.
Differentiation of Book and Text:
“Book” is fundamentally theological (nature is the book of God) or a totalizing project (Hegel, Leibniz). Book is alien to meaning of writing, it is a protectionism of logocentricism against the disruption of writing and difference. “Text” is fragmentary, partial, productive of its own meaning, which is always deferred.
LOGOCENTRIC and PHONOCENTRIC—always gave priority to logos, to reason; always opposed speech as ‘inner’ to language and writing as ‘outer’, a ‘dangerous’ supplement to language; always nostalgic for origins; a metaphysics of presence. His charge against this logocentricism is that it seeks to maintain the sign as bound to the voice and the voice bound to “presence”—an immediacy considered to be more truthful than the derivative, latter act of inscribed signs. He examines diverse thinkers of this tradition, even those who reject any association with metaphysics, to work out how one may potentially move (even if an impossible move) beyond this prejudice of linguistics and seek a new field of grammatology where writing can reveal itself as the very possibility of speech. The classic view it has to language (as said by Aristotle): the spoken word is a symbol of mental experience and the written word is a symbol of the spoken word. This describes the preference given to voice as being immediately present (to soul, mind, etc.) and the written word as technical and representative, thus, containing no constitutive meaning. The classic works preceded by a truth/meaning that was constituted by and in the logos. Linguistics determines language as the unity of the phonè (sound), the glossa (tongue, language), and the logos (word, reason, idea), and this determination of language is before all latter differentiations. This privileges sound and sense, thus, leaving writing to be derivative (a “sign of a sign” as Derrida quotes from Aristotle, Rousseau, and Hegel), which is the classic formulation that posits speech as superior to writing, writing enslaved as an instrument of speech.
Grammatology:
Derrida is seeking the possibility and limits of a science of writing; asking if there can be such a science outside of the historical and metaphysical boundaries reviewed in chapter one. [A critique of a] positive science of writing, one against previous linguistics that rein writing in by metaphysics and theology. A science that runs the risk of never being established as such or by that name. His investigation begins in the spirit of the philosophers he previously reviewed (notably Husserl and Heidegger) in that he suggests the science of writing to retrace its roots or origins in scientificity and historicity themselves--rendering the science of science and history of history not as logic but as grammar. Then Derrida will proceed to ease us into a study of Saussure.
Writing:
[in its ideal program] not a secondary, derivative form of language (spoken). In ideal, no longer based on a negative definition of being the signifier of a signifier; that definition would become positive in that it would mean the movement of language that conceals and erases itself in its own production. Writing is NOT a sign of a sign unless we call all signs signs of signs. The advent of this writing is the advent of play (as play of signifying references that constitute language). This type of writing destroys the concept of the ‘sign’ and its logic. Writing overwhelms and effaces its limits (the overwhelming and effacing as two moments of one movement). Writing was thought to be a supplement to speech—Derrida responds that either it was never a simple supplement or that we need a new definition/logic of the supplement. Derrida includes in ‘writing’ all that gives rise to inscription in general (i.e. including art, technology, athletics, etc.). Writing’s ‘rationality’ is no longer from the logos, rather, it inaugurates the de-construction of all significations that have their source in the logos, especially ‘truth’.
Derrida will show that there is no linguistic sign before writing. If we banish the exteriority of the signifier, which is the exteriority of writing, the very idea of the sign falls into decay. However, the project is NOT to reverse the priority of the signified/signifier relation or the literal/metaphorical relation, but, rather, to determine the literal meaning of writing as metaphoric itself, to explode the opposition between the metaphor and the literal.
Derrida – Heidegger Critique:
There are two points (perhaps more) where Derrida seems to praise Heidegger for beginning the backing away from logocentricism, but, Derrida still considers Heidegger as guilty of such (mainly for his continual seeking of origins of being).
- 1) The call of being is mute—shows the ambiguity of Heidegger’s position in the tradition of logocentricism and the metaphysics of presence.
- 2) In the Zur Seinsfrage he writes ‘Being’ as crossed out—shows the mark of deletion not as a negative symbol, but as the final writing of an epoché, the transcendental signifier is effaced yet legible.
Derrida – Saussure:
Saussure sees the oral history of language as independent of writing. Believes writing to be unrelated to the inner system of language, that writing veils language (obscenely at that). The violence of writing befalls an innocent language. To give in to writing is to give in to the passions, i.e., it is a sin. Writing is a tyranny, the mastery of body over soul. Although Derrida would like aspects of the arbitrariness of the sign, this very theory of Saussure’s undermines his vehemence against the ‘dangers’ of writing: working from Saussure’s theory of the arbitrariness of the sign, albeit reconceived, Derrida reveals how this thesis necessitates that writing, as inscription of the sign, must include all linguistic signs—we cannot have a distinction or hierarchy of linguistic and graphic signs now. Signs, as writing, can no longer be exiled from language as speech, described as images of speech. Using Saussure’s own theory, writing cannot be the image of language; the property of a sign cannot be an image. Instead, playing with concepts of interior and exterior, Derrida says that “we must think that writing is at the same time more exterior to speech, not being its ‘image’ or its ‘symbol,’ and more interior to speech, which is already in itself a writing” (p.46).
Derrida believes we must obliterate the conceptions of an inside and outside to language.
Arche-writing versus Vulgar writing:
He calls them both language so acknowledging their basic communication with one another, although the two are deemed to be very different. Arche-writing can never be an object of science, it cannot be reduced to presence. Vulgar writing is a type included under Arche-writing and could not be historically without the dissemination of arche-writing.
Even before writing’s linkage with inscription, there is the conception of its possibility already in the system of signification. Thus, more exterior to its symbol, more interior to language itself, writing rests already there while also not yet written. Derrida talks about this in terms of the graphie, the unit of a possible graphic system, which implies the structure of the instituted trace, which will be the possibility for any system of signification.
The Trace:
Difference = writing = neither can be thought without the trace. Likewise, the trace cannot be thought without holding on to a conception of difference within a structure of reference because it is this very difference that allows variability within the structure. Trace is the formation of the form; the being-imprinted of the imprint. The trace announces the other within itself, thus allowing for the entity, yet, the trace must be thought before the entity. This renders the concept of entity fluid; there will now be neither symbol nor sign, but rather, a becoming-sign of the symbol. Thus, this trace is the starting point from which possibilities of differentiations arise. The unheard difference between appearing (world) and the appearance (lived experience), it is the condition of all other differences and of all other traces and it is already a trace. Trace is the absolute origin of sense in general, which means that there is no absolute origin of sense in general. Trace is the difference that opens appearances and signification. Can be compared to Levinas’ use of ‘trace’, signifying the absolute alterity of the other
- Writing is:
- --a ‘mark’ that remains
- --involves the possibility of a break with its context
- --constituted by ‘spacing’
“If language were not already, in that sense, a writing, no derived ‘notation’ would be possible…”
The Hinge [La Brisure]: designating difference and articulation: hinge.
The hinge, as the intersection of articulation and difference, is language as writing; it designates the impossibility of a sign being born out of a plenitude of abundance of present and presence, it prohibits the possibility of “full speech” (p.69). This hinge is the space of the “problematic of trace” (p.70). What is articulation? Derrida parallels the origin of the experience of space and time with the writing of difference and the fabric of the trace. These all are what allow us to articulate the difference of space and time, which is to allow them to appear as such in the unity of our experience experienced by our one body (Kant’s Schematism??). This articulation allows a graphic chain to be converted to a spoken chain. He says that this is where we must begin, with this primary possibility of articulation because difference is articulation (p.65-6).
He locates this starting point in Saussure, again against himself, as defining articulation as subordinating speech to the faculty of constructing a language. Thus, Derrida links the “imprint” * to articulation. He then “temporalizes,” so to speak, this relation by revealing the passivity of speech as being the relationship to a past that cannot fully be reactualized to a present—an absolute past. This justifies the trace as not being a simple present and protects its self-identity as something not injured by either protention or that which is beyond recollection. Essentially, the conclusion he draws from a long review of Husserl’s theory of internal time consciousness is that the trace eludes any capture by description in terms of a metaphysical conception of past, present, and future (p.66-7).
- * : IMPRINT: Derrida introduces the necessity of a pathway (Heidegger) that leaves a “track in the text” (p.61). This track will keep the new distinguishable from the old. The arche, this track, must both let itself be felt and be erased—its necessity and erasure—“the trace is not only the disappearance of origin—within the discourse that we sustain and according to the path that we follow it means that the origin did not even disappear, that it was never constituted except reciprocally by a nonorigin, the trace, which thus becomes the origin of the origin” (p.61).
Supplement:
an aide brought in when presence begins to reveal itself as impossible, never a true presence, but only representation. Seen as inessential, dangerous, for example, writing is seen as an inessential addition to the self-presence of speech (and masturbation to sex, culture to nature, evil to innocence, etc.). Rousseau fails to see the paradox of his use of supplements—that speech and writing are both inherent in language—he comes close to realization in the discussion of the prohibition of incest, he sees that all view it as wring, but it does not fit any of his categories that divide nature and culture.
The end of Of Grammatology shows Rousseau’s linking together his views from the Essay on the Origin of Language and how they unravel themselves. He discusses language’s relation to painting (and other arts) and finds language is originally figurative and direct painting is already allegorical. The possibility of the image is the supplement—the supplementary writing constitutes society—the origin is the alienation from presence.
Differentiation of Book and Text:
“Book” is fundamentally theological (nature is the book of God) or a totalizing project (Hegel, Leibniz). Book is alien to meaning of writing, it is a protectionism of logocentricism against the disruption of writing and difference. “Text” is fragmentary, partial, productive of its own meaning, which is always deferred.
Derrida’s Of Grammatology ...
... chapter two : “Linguistics and Grammatology”
This chapter will broadly trail the following structure:
- An investigation of science of writing.
- An examination of linguistics (via Saussure) to examine interior/exterior problems with the question of the exile of writing from the science of language.
- An exploration of the development of grammatology as a science of language that resolves (however oddly) the interior/exterior question.
- And, finally, a further explication of the interplays of difference and articulation that reveals most clearly the blending of the tradition and his own theory.
Outline:
~~~~~~~~~~ (p.27-30) Linguistics and Grammatology ~~~~~~~~~~
(An investigation of science of writing)
(An investigation of science of writing)
Searching for a Science of Writing: Derrida is seeking the possibility and limits of a science of writing; asking if there can be such a science outside of the historical and metaphysical boundaries.
The Preliminary Exposition of Linguistics: Linguistics determines language as the unity of phonè (sound), glossa (tongue, language), and logos (word, reason, idea)—this privileges sound and sense, leaving writing to be derivative (a “sign of a sign”).
The Preliminary Exposition of Linguistics: Linguistics determines language as the unity of phonè (sound), glossa (tongue, language), and logos (word, reason, idea)—this privileges sound and sense, leaving writing to be derivative (a “sign of a sign”).
~~~~~~~~~~ (p.30-44) The Outside and the Inside~~~~~~~~~~
(An examination of linguistics via Saussure
to examine interior/exterior problems with the question of the exile of writing from the science of language)
(An examination of linguistics via Saussure
to examine interior/exterior problems with the question of the exile of writing from the science of language)
Saussure’s two systems of writing: (1) represents words “in a synthetic and global manner,” (for example, Chinese). (2) a phonetic representation of “the elements of sounds constituting words (p.32).
Saussure’s “arbitrariness” of the sign: relies on a basic difference/arbitrariness between the signifier and the signified; this demolishes a one to one correspondence a theory of language, thus liberating language from being chained to reality and entirely static (i.e. no ultimate rule or set of structures for a relationship between a word and a thing).
Why must we pay attention to writing? Saussure sees writing as more than just a harmless tool to speech, but, rather, it may have the capability to affect this system, i.e. language itself, from without.
Further stereotypes/prejudices left unreflected upon in linguistics: (1) dichotomy of speech v. writing posits writing as a fake exterior. (2) linguistics is trapped in a metaphysical search for origins. (3) writing makes us forget the originary source of language. (4) writing is a “trap,” to fall prey to it is to fall prey to passions, be enslaved by a tyrannical force (p.38). (5) writing as tyranny is mastery of body over soul; a pathology or deviation from nature. These presuppositions are not based on self-evident grounds, but on weak, metaphysical, psychological, moral, and mythic constructs.
There are several primary questions to be raised, criticism to pose at this point:
(1) why a science of the internal system of language in general needs to be established by excluding writing, even while acknowledging its importance? (2) why does Saussure fear that writing would usurp the power of speech? (3) why does Saussure focus on alphabetic writing? (4) is this focus not a privileging of the intentional powers of the mind? (5) if so, how could the opposite term, writing, have an empty intuition?
So what are Derrida’s conclusions in this section? Linguistics is not a general science so long as it keeps its designations of interior and exterior elements (p.43).
Saussure’s “arbitrariness” of the sign: relies on a basic difference/arbitrariness between the signifier and the signified; this demolishes a one to one correspondence a theory of language, thus liberating language from being chained to reality and entirely static (i.e. no ultimate rule or set of structures for a relationship between a word and a thing).
Why must we pay attention to writing? Saussure sees writing as more than just a harmless tool to speech, but, rather, it may have the capability to affect this system, i.e. language itself, from without.
Further stereotypes/prejudices left unreflected upon in linguistics: (1) dichotomy of speech v. writing posits writing as a fake exterior. (2) linguistics is trapped in a metaphysical search for origins. (3) writing makes us forget the originary source of language. (4) writing is a “trap,” to fall prey to it is to fall prey to passions, be enslaved by a tyrannical force (p.38). (5) writing as tyranny is mastery of body over soul; a pathology or deviation from nature. These presuppositions are not based on self-evident grounds, but on weak, metaphysical, psychological, moral, and mythic constructs.
There are several primary questions to be raised, criticism to pose at this point:
(1) why a science of the internal system of language in general needs to be established by excluding writing, even while acknowledging its importance? (2) why does Saussure fear that writing would usurp the power of speech? (3) why does Saussure focus on alphabetic writing? (4) is this focus not a privileging of the intentional powers of the mind? (5) if so, how could the opposite term, writing, have an empty intuition?
So what are Derrida’s conclusions in this section? Linguistics is not a general science so long as it keeps its designations of interior and exterior elements (p.43).
~~~~~~~~~~ (p.44-65) The Outside Is the Inside ~~~~~~~~~~
(An exploration of the development of grammatology
as a science of language that tries to resolve the interior/exterior question)
(An exploration of the development of grammatology
as a science of language that tries to resolve the interior/exterior question)
Writing, as inscription of the sign, must include all linguistic signs; signs/writing can no longer be exiled from language as speech. (Graphie: the unit of a possible graphic system, which implies the structure of the Instituted trace: which will be the possibility for any system of signification (p.46)).
The instituted trace: “unmotivated,” but not mere whim; a speaker does not choose the signifier, yet the trace has no “natural attachment” to reality; the trace announces the other within itself, allowing for the entity, yet, it must be thought before the entity. There will no longer be symbol or sign, instead, a becoming-sign of the symbol. The trace is the starting point from which possibilities of differentiations (namely physis and nomos) arise (p.46-8).
The Path: These developments begin us on a path away from a metaphysics of presence; but, as soon as there is meaning “there are nothing but signs. We think only in signs” (p.50); this is the ruining of the sign.
Play: an absence of the transcendental signified; play’s absence is its limitlessness; it undermines metaphysics; is not a play in the world that seeks to contain the world, it is the very game of the world.
Saussure’s notion of difference: positing of a basic difference between signifier and signified that demolishes a one to one correspondence theory, thus freeing language from being chained to reality and left as static; Saussure’s source of linguistic value.
So, what diseases does grammatology diagnose in this theory of difference? Difference is never a sensible abundance; it excludes the possibility alleged of a natural phonetic essence of language and denies the natural dependence on a graphic signifier.
“Arche-writing:” makes possible vulgar writing through its dissimulation; arche-writing cannot be an object of science; it is irreducible to presence, the demander of objectification (p.56-7—also p.60).
“Writing” and “Experience:” we must effect a “contortion,” pushing these words beyond their metaphysical meanings without falling into that metaphysics—thus he introduces the necessity of a…
Pathway: leaves a “track in the text” (p.61); the arche/track must be felt and erased (necessity and erasure.
Imprint: a double passage, unified, will aid understanding meaning of difference in general. Both movements begin from a possibility of neutralizing the “phonic substance.” The “term” (the sensible plenitude of the phonic element) doesn’t appear unless it has the difference that gives it form; the movement produces difference, the pure trace here is difference (has no dependence on sensible abundance, rather, it is the possibility of such). It neither exists nor is ever a being-present, yet is prior to all signs, concepts, etc. Essentially, it grants permission to these and to articulation of speech and writing, yet can neither itself be sensible or intelligible (p.62-3).
The spaces of imprint and trace where differences appear among the elements produce these elements, they arise as texts—chains, systems of traces. Trace is the origin of all sense in general and reveals there is no absolute origin of sense in general; trace is just the difference that allows for appearance and signification.
The instituted trace: “unmotivated,” but not mere whim; a speaker does not choose the signifier, yet the trace has no “natural attachment” to reality; the trace announces the other within itself, allowing for the entity, yet, it must be thought before the entity. There will no longer be symbol or sign, instead, a becoming-sign of the symbol. The trace is the starting point from which possibilities of differentiations (namely physis and nomos) arise (p.46-8).
The Path: These developments begin us on a path away from a metaphysics of presence; but, as soon as there is meaning “there are nothing but signs. We think only in signs” (p.50); this is the ruining of the sign.
Play: an absence of the transcendental signified; play’s absence is its limitlessness; it undermines metaphysics; is not a play in the world that seeks to contain the world, it is the very game of the world.
Saussure’s notion of difference: positing of a basic difference between signifier and signified that demolishes a one to one correspondence theory, thus freeing language from being chained to reality and left as static; Saussure’s source of linguistic value.
So, what diseases does grammatology diagnose in this theory of difference? Difference is never a sensible abundance; it excludes the possibility alleged of a natural phonetic essence of language and denies the natural dependence on a graphic signifier.
“Arche-writing:” makes possible vulgar writing through its dissimulation; arche-writing cannot be an object of science; it is irreducible to presence, the demander of objectification (p.56-7—also p.60).
“Writing” and “Experience:” we must effect a “contortion,” pushing these words beyond their metaphysical meanings without falling into that metaphysics—thus he introduces the necessity of a…
Pathway: leaves a “track in the text” (p.61); the arche/track must be felt and erased (necessity and erasure.
Imprint: a double passage, unified, will aid understanding meaning of difference in general. Both movements begin from a possibility of neutralizing the “phonic substance.” The “term” (the sensible plenitude of the phonic element) doesn’t appear unless it has the difference that gives it form; the movement produces difference, the pure trace here is difference (has no dependence on sensible abundance, rather, it is the possibility of such). It neither exists nor is ever a being-present, yet is prior to all signs, concepts, etc. Essentially, it grants permission to these and to articulation of speech and writing, yet can neither itself be sensible or intelligible (p.62-3).
The spaces of imprint and trace where differences appear among the elements produce these elements, they arise as texts—chains, systems of traces. Trace is the origin of all sense in general and reveals there is no absolute origin of sense in general; trace is just the difference that allows for appearance and signification.
~~~~~~~~~~ (p.65-73) The Hinge [La Brisure] ~~~~~~~~~~
(further explication of the interplays of difference and articulation
that reveals most clearly the blending of the tradition and his own theory)
(further explication of the interplays of difference and articulation
that reveals most clearly the blending of the tradition and his own theory)
What is articulation? The origin of the experience of space and time parallel the writing of difference and the fabric of the trace—which allows an articulation of the difference of space and time, which is to allow them to appear as such in the unity of our experience experienced by our one body. It allows a graphic chain to be converted to a spoken chain. Difference is articulation (p.65-6).
“Imprint” connected to “articulation:” then “temporalized” revealing the passivity of speech as being the relationship to a past that cannot fully be reactualized to a present—an absolute past. This justifies the trace as not being a simple present and protects its self-identity as something not injured by either protention or that which is beyond recollection (p.66-7).
How is speech in the world (if not through space and time)? “It is in a certain ‘unheard’ sense, then, that speech is in the world, rooted in that passivity which metaphysics calls sensibility in general” (p.67). In other words, logos is first imprinted, the imprint designated language, thus results in logos not being a creative activity.
Spacing: speaking the articulation of space/time, becoming-space/becoming-time, is the unperceived, the non-presence—arche-writing as spacing marks the “dead time” within the general form of all presence (p.68).
Writing: not a tool of the subject; rather, it points towards the non-originary-origin of the imprint/trace, the movement through and beyond a metaphysics: “spacing as writing is the becoming-absent and the becoming-unconscious of the subject” (p.69)—writing forges a relationship with the subject that serves to constitute his/her very own subjectivity.
The hinge: the term for articulation and difference, is language as writing; designates the impossibility of a sign being born out of a plenitude of abundance of present and presence; prohibits the possibility of “full speech” (p.69); is the space of the “problematic of trace” (p.70).
“Imprint” connected to “articulation:” then “temporalized” revealing the passivity of speech as being the relationship to a past that cannot fully be reactualized to a present—an absolute past. This justifies the trace as not being a simple present and protects its self-identity as something not injured by either protention or that which is beyond recollection (p.66-7).
How is speech in the world (if not through space and time)? “It is in a certain ‘unheard’ sense, then, that speech is in the world, rooted in that passivity which metaphysics calls sensibility in general” (p.67). In other words, logos is first imprinted, the imprint designated language, thus results in logos not being a creative activity.
Spacing: speaking the articulation of space/time, becoming-space/becoming-time, is the unperceived, the non-presence—arche-writing as spacing marks the “dead time” within the general form of all presence (p.68).
Writing: not a tool of the subject; rather, it points towards the non-originary-origin of the imprint/trace, the movement through and beyond a metaphysics: “spacing as writing is the becoming-absent and the becoming-unconscious of the subject” (p.69)—writing forges a relationship with the subject that serves to constitute his/her very own subjectivity.
The hinge: the term for articulation and difference, is language as writing; designates the impossibility of a sign being born out of a plenitude of abundance of present and presence; prohibits the possibility of “full speech” (p.69); is the space of the “problematic of trace” (p.70).
Linguistics and Grammatology (p.27-30):
Searching for a Science of Writing: Derrida is seeking the possibility and limits of a science of writing; asking if there can be such a science outside of the historical and metaphysical boundaries reviewed in chapter one. He points to six problematics that construct certain obstacles to what a science of writing can signify:
These problematics essentially reveal a sort of genealogy of the existent science of language, linguistics, and the new developments he will eventually clarify. Thus, the problematics reveal the originary relation between speech and writing where writing is of utmost importance, yet denied such by linguistics.
Writing’s essential importance rests in that before the possibility of objects of history and objects of scientific diagnosis, it clears the ground for the possibility of the fields of history, science, etc. Thus, in the spirit of the philosophers Derrida reviewed in the last chapter (notably Husserl and Heidegger), he suggests the science of writing to retrace its roots or origins in scientificity and historicity themselves--rendering the science of science and history of history not as logic but as grammar.
We will see Derrida proceed to ease us into a study of Saussure, which strikes me as a natural progression for Derrida’s questions seem akin to those of Saussure. Saussure’s linguistics (namely in his Course in General Linguistics) performed a synthesis/critique of competing schools before him: one side that pressed language as a mimesis of thought grounded in universal logic, and the other side that pressed the historical context as the ground of the birth and evolution of language. In a way, I see Derrida’s choice of science and history as mimicking Saussure’s starting points.
To return to Derrida’s text, the remainder of this brief first section guides us through more questions and points that a science of language (a grammatology) will signify. Namely, he identifies the inescapable questions of origins: what is writing, where does it come from, when does it begin, etc. In a move much like Husserl’s methodology in his Crisis or Heidegger’s start to Being and Time, Derrida points out that answers to these questions of origins are often left unscrutinized due to their seeming self-evidence.
Thus, to scrutinize these questions, Derrida examines, with the help of Saussure, the overlaps and differences between linguistics (which desires itself to be the science of language, p.29) and grammatology.
The Preliminary Exposition of Linguistics: A genealogical chain is developed as phonology justifies the scientificity of linguistics, which in turn, justifies the epistemological model of the human sciences. Linguistics determines language as the unity of the phonè (sound), the glossa (tongue, language), and the logos (word, reason, idea), and this determination of language is before all latter differentiations. This privileges sound and sense, thus, leaving writing to be derivative (a “sign of a sign” as Derrida quotes from Aristotle, Rousseau, and Hegel), the classic formulation that Derrida has already criticized that posits speech as superior to writing, writing enslaved as an instrument of speech. Yet … Derrida alludes to another “gesture” implicit here, one that may liberate writing, grammatology, which he will turn more forcefully to Saussure to elucidate.
- 1 - science was born in writing
- 2 - there already exists an implicit relation between speech and writing
- 3 - its originary relation was to the concept and project of phonetic writing (the end of all writing) despite mathematics (the exemplar of science) continually drifting from this origin
- 4 - a “general science of writing” was born situated in a historical period and within an already delineated relation between “living” speech and inscription
- 5 - writing exists simultaneously as a tool or means from science and as the very condition of the possibility of scientific objectivity (as explicated by Husserl)—thus, writing as object and necessary precondition for science
- 6 - the possibility of history is intimately knotted with the possibility of writing.
These problematics essentially reveal a sort of genealogy of the existent science of language, linguistics, and the new developments he will eventually clarify. Thus, the problematics reveal the originary relation between speech and writing where writing is of utmost importance, yet denied such by linguistics.
Writing’s essential importance rests in that before the possibility of objects of history and objects of scientific diagnosis, it clears the ground for the possibility of the fields of history, science, etc. Thus, in the spirit of the philosophers Derrida reviewed in the last chapter (notably Husserl and Heidegger), he suggests the science of writing to retrace its roots or origins in scientificity and historicity themselves--rendering the science of science and history of history not as logic but as grammar.
We will see Derrida proceed to ease us into a study of Saussure, which strikes me as a natural progression for Derrida’s questions seem akin to those of Saussure. Saussure’s linguistics (namely in his Course in General Linguistics) performed a synthesis/critique of competing schools before him: one side that pressed language as a mimesis of thought grounded in universal logic, and the other side that pressed the historical context as the ground of the birth and evolution of language. In a way, I see Derrida’s choice of science and history as mimicking Saussure’s starting points.
To return to Derrida’s text, the remainder of this brief first section guides us through more questions and points that a science of language (a grammatology) will signify. Namely, he identifies the inescapable questions of origins: what is writing, where does it come from, when does it begin, etc. In a move much like Husserl’s methodology in his Crisis or Heidegger’s start to Being and Time, Derrida points out that answers to these questions of origins are often left unscrutinized due to their seeming self-evidence.
Thus, to scrutinize these questions, Derrida examines, with the help of Saussure, the overlaps and differences between linguistics (which desires itself to be the science of language, p.29) and grammatology.
The Preliminary Exposition of Linguistics: A genealogical chain is developed as phonology justifies the scientificity of linguistics, which in turn, justifies the epistemological model of the human sciences. Linguistics determines language as the unity of the phonè (sound), the glossa (tongue, language), and the logos (word, reason, idea), and this determination of language is before all latter differentiations. This privileges sound and sense, thus, leaving writing to be derivative (a “sign of a sign” as Derrida quotes from Aristotle, Rousseau, and Hegel), the classic formulation that Derrida has already criticized that posits speech as superior to writing, writing enslaved as an instrument of speech. Yet … Derrida alludes to another “gesture” implicit here, one that may liberate writing, grammatology, which he will turn more forcefully to Saussure to elucidate.
The Outside and the Inside (p.30-44):
(Working through Saussure’s theory)
Saussure will aid us in seeing the possibility of the privilege of writing, yet, Derrida begins this section by explicitly stating that Saussure follows the tradition of seeing writing as a “narrow and derivative” function of speech (narrow because it is one of many possible elements of speech and derivative because it is representative, p.30). Thus, Saussure’s project begins by denying a co-definition of the linguistic object by spoken and written word, and saves the identification of the object solely by the spoken word.
For Saussure, this (spoken) word is a unity of sense and sound, of signified and signifier. Derrida sees this unity as the predeterminant of his privileging of speech—this unity is more primordial, thus any written sign is a sign of this unified “thought-sound” sign (p.31). This prejudice of seeing speech as the primordial ground of language must be reevaluated.
The written word, for Saussure, the sign of the sign or representation of the spoken word, can be of one of two systems of writing. The first system of writing represents words “in a synthetic and global manner,” i.e., it is an ideographic system where one written word represents one spoken word, thus, indirectly representing one idea (for example, Chinese). The second possible system of writing is a phonetic representation of “the elements of sounds constituting words,” i.e., syllabic or alphabetic arrangements that mimic the spoken sound of the word (p.32).
Derrida points out the weakness of Saussure’s allowance of only two systems of writing by reference to the fragility of the boundaries between pictographic, ideographic, and phonetic scripts explaining that this theory renders something like a pictographic writing [--> or :) or :( or ¶] as a contradiction of terms. Finally, he also uses this limitation as another notification of the necessity of a reevaluation.
Saussure, however, justifies his two systems of writing by his interesting concept of the “arbitrariness” of the sign, which is (at this point) a little obscure in Derrida’s recounting. So, to hopefully clarify this, I will briefly veer from the text. Saussure’s theory of the arbitrariness of the sign essentially relies on the idea of difference; there is a basic difference or arbitrariness between the word and the thing, the signifier and the signified. This demolishes a theory of language that says that there is a one to one correspondence (a sort of unbreakable bond) between, for example, “desk” and a desk. Thus, Saussure liberates language from being chained to reality and entirely static—there is no ultimate rule or set of structures for a relationship between a word and a thing.
The second key drawback Derrida deduces in Saussure’s limitation of two writing systems is how he privileges only the phonetic system as grown out of the Greek alphabet. He sees Saussure’s move as just legitimating the necessity of linguistics as a field with definite borders. If writing is mere “figuration,” then it need not be dwelt upon, and, in fact, can be excluded from the inner system of language. Inside these established boundaries or borders linguistics is the space of the spoken, exiling writing to the exterior of the “science of language.” Here we see the refrain of the dichotomy of metaphysics: presence versus representation.
However, This is not an entire condemnation of Saussure, for Derrida acknowledges that Saussure seems anxious about this exile, spending a great deal of time and attention on this exile that is writing (it is still impossible “to simply disregard” it, p.34). It may be external to the inner system of linguistics, but we still, continually, use writing. Thus, Saussure says in his Course, “We cannot simply disregard it. We must be acquainted with its usefulness, shortcomings, and dangers” (Saussure p. 44/23, Derrida p.34).
Why must we pay attention to writing? Derrida suggests that Saussure sees it as more than just a harmless tool to speech, but, rather, that in the process of making boundaries around the science of linguistics, he is erecting walls or moats to protect the science from something, writing, which may have the capability to affect this system, really, language itself, from without.
Further stereotypes left unreflected upon in linguistics, in this dichotomy of speech and writing, posit writing as an artificiality--a fake exterior, “clothing” wrapped over the natural. Derrida claims that Saussure went so far as to see writing as “a garment of perversion and debauchery, a dress of corruption and disguise, a festival mask that must be exorcised, that is to say, by the good word…” (p.35). Linguistics, then, wished to peek behind the clothing of writing to get to the naturalness of speech. Derrida, on the other hand, will desire something more like Nietzsche, who wanted to tear down the idea of a veil covering over the reality of the world; Derrida wants to rip away the false conception of writing draping over and disfiguring speech.
Linguistics, the “objective” “science” of language is thus trapped in the same metaphysical search for origins. It is seeking to go behind all appearances to get to the thing-itself (i.e., Husserl’s essence, Heidegger’s Being). Once the basic substance is found, a hierarchical order can be determined, i.e. first speech then writing… If the field of your study comes first, it must be very important, the most important study, no?
Derrida, in impressive thoroughness, then walks us through how deep this prejudicial movement runs by citing and quoting from Malebranche’s conception of sin in relation to this prejudice of linguistics, Rousseau’s reassurance of this parallel, Saussure’s mimic of Rousseau’s assurance, the discussion of how insidious and evil writing can usurp the power of the primacy of speech. Writing makes us forget the originary source of language, forget that we speak before we can write, essentially, that we end up forgetting that the “truth” rests in the spoken word.
Pointing out this moralizing and mythology of writing and speech will not render our new grammatology pure, however, Derrida informs us (37). We cannot just declare that writing does not do violence or sin to a pure language because there is an originary violence of writing—it does violence to language because language is first writing. (Derrida promises to return to this, to reveal this origin--to engage in metaphysics?).
Writing is a trap, we discover, a trickery, which is why, Derrida explains, that Saussure exerts such energy to explicating all the useful and dangerous aspects of writing. To fall prey to writing is to fall prey to the passions, to give in to temptation, to be enslaved under a tyrannical force (p.38). Writing is a tyranny, the mastery of body over soul; thus, it is not too risky to say that the privileging of writing is pathology, the deviation from nature. Saussure must, then, save speech from this sickness. Derrida admits that on the level Saussure is working, his plan is valid, his remarks necessary. But Derrida’s own plan is very different. His own phenomenological investigation into the presuppositions of linguistics reveals those presuppositions as erected not on self-evident grounds, but on weak metaphysical, psychological, moral, and mythic constructs.
There are several primary questions to be raised, criticism to pose at this point:
But, Saussure’s linkage of linguistics and psychology suffers a blow; psychology cannot account for an empty intuition. It cannot handle the absence of the signatory or the referent. Thus, “Writing is the name of the two absences” (p.41). The tradition has established speech’s foundations as solid, thus, the unstable, the absences, will be attributed to the other, to writing. However, these divisions, between the stable and the unstable, speech and writing, are rendered further absurd—if Saussure has already declared the natural independence of language (as spoken), why simultaneously warn about the dangers of an exterior that will come usurp the position of this stable, independent thing? If it were stable and independent, what harm can an inferior exile do? If it could do harm (like changing the spelling of words), then why maintain it in an exterior, yet still talked about position (a “intralinguistic leper colony” in Derrida’s words, p.42)?
So what are Derrida’s conclusions in this section? Linguistics is not a general science so long as it keeps its designations of interior and exterior elements. Writing in general cannot be held as exterior to language in general unless there is designed a complex labyrinth of interior interiors and exterior exteriors that contain this differentiation of exterior and interior (p.43).
Writing is NOT a sign of a sign unless we call all signs signs of signs. Derrida suggests that Saussure saw (without seeing) the implications of this idea, but, because of his metaphysical entanglement, he could not account for it. A certain type of writing is always necessarily yet provisionally imposed as an instrument and representational technique of a system of language. This is needed because of the reflexive activity we do when, in language, we investigate language.
Thus, in a few whispers of this idea, Saussure opens the door for the birth of grammatology, that which will dominate and fully envelope linguistics. The exiled ghost of writing will then be seen not as a ghost, but as the origin of language itself that writes itself.
For Saussure, this (spoken) word is a unity of sense and sound, of signified and signifier. Derrida sees this unity as the predeterminant of his privileging of speech—this unity is more primordial, thus any written sign is a sign of this unified “thought-sound” sign (p.31). This prejudice of seeing speech as the primordial ground of language must be reevaluated.
The written word, for Saussure, the sign of the sign or representation of the spoken word, can be of one of two systems of writing. The first system of writing represents words “in a synthetic and global manner,” i.e., it is an ideographic system where one written word represents one spoken word, thus, indirectly representing one idea (for example, Chinese). The second possible system of writing is a phonetic representation of “the elements of sounds constituting words,” i.e., syllabic or alphabetic arrangements that mimic the spoken sound of the word (p.32).
Derrida points out the weakness of Saussure’s allowance of only two systems of writing by reference to the fragility of the boundaries between pictographic, ideographic, and phonetic scripts explaining that this theory renders something like a pictographic writing [--> or :) or :( or ¶] as a contradiction of terms. Finally, he also uses this limitation as another notification of the necessity of a reevaluation.
Saussure, however, justifies his two systems of writing by his interesting concept of the “arbitrariness” of the sign, which is (at this point) a little obscure in Derrida’s recounting. So, to hopefully clarify this, I will briefly veer from the text. Saussure’s theory of the arbitrariness of the sign essentially relies on the idea of difference; there is a basic difference or arbitrariness between the word and the thing, the signifier and the signified. This demolishes a theory of language that says that there is a one to one correspondence (a sort of unbreakable bond) between, for example, “desk” and a desk. Thus, Saussure liberates language from being chained to reality and entirely static—there is no ultimate rule or set of structures for a relationship between a word and a thing.
The second key drawback Derrida deduces in Saussure’s limitation of two writing systems is how he privileges only the phonetic system as grown out of the Greek alphabet. He sees Saussure’s move as just legitimating the necessity of linguistics as a field with definite borders. If writing is mere “figuration,” then it need not be dwelt upon, and, in fact, can be excluded from the inner system of language. Inside these established boundaries or borders linguistics is the space of the spoken, exiling writing to the exterior of the “science of language.” Here we see the refrain of the dichotomy of metaphysics: presence versus representation.
However, This is not an entire condemnation of Saussure, for Derrida acknowledges that Saussure seems anxious about this exile, spending a great deal of time and attention on this exile that is writing (it is still impossible “to simply disregard” it, p.34). It may be external to the inner system of linguistics, but we still, continually, use writing. Thus, Saussure says in his Course, “We cannot simply disregard it. We must be acquainted with its usefulness, shortcomings, and dangers” (Saussure p. 44/23, Derrida p.34).
Why must we pay attention to writing? Derrida suggests that Saussure sees it as more than just a harmless tool to speech, but, rather, that in the process of making boundaries around the science of linguistics, he is erecting walls or moats to protect the science from something, writing, which may have the capability to affect this system, really, language itself, from without.
Further stereotypes left unreflected upon in linguistics, in this dichotomy of speech and writing, posit writing as an artificiality--a fake exterior, “clothing” wrapped over the natural. Derrida claims that Saussure went so far as to see writing as “a garment of perversion and debauchery, a dress of corruption and disguise, a festival mask that must be exorcised, that is to say, by the good word…” (p.35). Linguistics, then, wished to peek behind the clothing of writing to get to the naturalness of speech. Derrida, on the other hand, will desire something more like Nietzsche, who wanted to tear down the idea of a veil covering over the reality of the world; Derrida wants to rip away the false conception of writing draping over and disfiguring speech.
Linguistics, the “objective” “science” of language is thus trapped in the same metaphysical search for origins. It is seeking to go behind all appearances to get to the thing-itself (i.e., Husserl’s essence, Heidegger’s Being). Once the basic substance is found, a hierarchical order can be determined, i.e. first speech then writing… If the field of your study comes first, it must be very important, the most important study, no?
Derrida, in impressive thoroughness, then walks us through how deep this prejudicial movement runs by citing and quoting from Malebranche’s conception of sin in relation to this prejudice of linguistics, Rousseau’s reassurance of this parallel, Saussure’s mimic of Rousseau’s assurance, the discussion of how insidious and evil writing can usurp the power of the primacy of speech. Writing makes us forget the originary source of language, forget that we speak before we can write, essentially, that we end up forgetting that the “truth” rests in the spoken word.
Pointing out this moralizing and mythology of writing and speech will not render our new grammatology pure, however, Derrida informs us (37). We cannot just declare that writing does not do violence or sin to a pure language because there is an originary violence of writing—it does violence to language because language is first writing. (Derrida promises to return to this, to reveal this origin--to engage in metaphysics?).
Writing is a trap, we discover, a trickery, which is why, Derrida explains, that Saussure exerts such energy to explicating all the useful and dangerous aspects of writing. To fall prey to writing is to fall prey to the passions, to give in to temptation, to be enslaved under a tyrannical force (p.38). Writing is a tyranny, the mastery of body over soul; thus, it is not too risky to say that the privileging of writing is pathology, the deviation from nature. Saussure must, then, save speech from this sickness. Derrida admits that on the level Saussure is working, his plan is valid, his remarks necessary. But Derrida’s own plan is very different. His own phenomenological investigation into the presuppositions of linguistics reveals those presuppositions as erected not on self-evident grounds, but on weak metaphysical, psychological, moral, and mythic constructs.
There are several primary questions to be raised, criticism to pose at this point:
- The first is why a science of the internal system of language in general needs to be established by excluding writing, even while acknowledging its importance? This imagines speech as the father of itself, alive and capable of defending itself by the expulsion of the other (writing).
- Second, is why Saussure feared that writing would usurp the power of speech, because, if it had this power to usurp, then would he not be granting writing an essence in speech?
- And again, a question about Saussure’s primary focus on alphabetic writing suggests a teleology born out of a Western ethnocentrism; with this privilege of the West, is this not a privileging of the intentional powers of the mind? An establishment of a dichotomy between speech under the authority of psychology (i.e., a linking of speech and intuition) and the opposite term having to be writing paired with the impossible empty intuition?
But, Saussure’s linkage of linguistics and psychology suffers a blow; psychology cannot account for an empty intuition. It cannot handle the absence of the signatory or the referent. Thus, “Writing is the name of the two absences” (p.41). The tradition has established speech’s foundations as solid, thus, the unstable, the absences, will be attributed to the other, to writing. However, these divisions, between the stable and the unstable, speech and writing, are rendered further absurd—if Saussure has already declared the natural independence of language (as spoken), why simultaneously warn about the dangers of an exterior that will come usurp the position of this stable, independent thing? If it were stable and independent, what harm can an inferior exile do? If it could do harm (like changing the spelling of words), then why maintain it in an exterior, yet still talked about position (a “intralinguistic leper colony” in Derrida’s words, p.42)?
So what are Derrida’s conclusions in this section? Linguistics is not a general science so long as it keeps its designations of interior and exterior elements. Writing in general cannot be held as exterior to language in general unless there is designed a complex labyrinth of interior interiors and exterior exteriors that contain this differentiation of exterior and interior (p.43).
Writing is NOT a sign of a sign unless we call all signs signs of signs. Derrida suggests that Saussure saw (without seeing) the implications of this idea, but, because of his metaphysical entanglement, he could not account for it. A certain type of writing is always necessarily yet provisionally imposed as an instrument and representational technique of a system of language. This is needed because of the reflexive activity we do when, in language, we investigate language.
Thus, in a few whispers of this idea, Saussure opens the door for the birth of grammatology, that which will dominate and fully envelope linguistics. The exiled ghost of writing will then be seen not as a ghost, but as the origin of language itself that writes itself.
The Outside -I-s- the Inside:
(the "is" is to be crossed through)
An exploration of the development of grammatology as a science of language that resolves (however oddly) the interior/exterior question.
Working from Saussure’s theory of the arbitrariness of the sign, reconceived to work in Derrida’s grammatology more than in its first home in linguistics, Derrida reveals how this thesis necessitates that writing, as inscription of the sign, must include all linguistic signs—we cannot have a distinction or hierarchy of linguistic and graphic signs now.
Signs, as writing, can no longer be exiled from language as speech, described as images of speech. Using Saussure’s own theory, writing cannot be the image of language. Instead, playing with concepts of interior and exterior, Derrida says that “we must think that writing is at the same time more exterior to speech, not being its ‘image’ or its ‘symbol,’ and more interior to speech, which is already in itself a writing” (p.46). Even before writing’s linkage with inscription, there is the conception of its possibility already in the system of signification. Thus, more exterior to its symbol, more interior to language itself, writing rests already there while also not yet written. Derrida talks about this in terms of the graphie, the unit of a possible graphic system, which implies the structure of the instituted trace, which will be the possibility for any system of signification (p.46).
The instituted trace is further described by Derrida as “unmotivated,” but not mere whim or chance; it is not the speaker who decides upon which signifier to use; yet the trace has no “natural attachment” to reality. It is a trace that cannot be thought without holding on to a conception of difference within a structure of reference because it is this very difference that allows variability within the structure. Derrida’s concept here is both reminiscent of Saussure’s designations for “arbitrary,” the structure implied by the arbitrariness of the sign, and a questioning of metaphysics itself. The trace announces the other within itself, thus allowing for the entity, yet, the trace must be thought before the entity. This renders the concept of entity fluid; there will now be neither symbol nor sign, but rather, a becoming-sign of the symbol. Thus, this trace is the starting point from which possibilities of differentiations (namely nature and law, physis and nomos) arise (p.46-8).
These developments begin us on a path away from a metaphysics of presence. The first great marker on the path is the recognition that as soon as there is meaning “there are nothing but signs. We think only in signs” (p.50). This birth, however, is also a death, for Derrida calls this the ruining of the sign “at the very moment…its exigency is recognized in the absoluteness of its right” (p.50). We have an absence here of the transcendental signified—Derrida suggests we call this play, play’s absence is its limitlessness. The realization and simultaneous ruin of the notion of sign, this play, undermines metaphysics, but is paradoxically the same notion the tradition uses to support or explain its divisions—language games, Saussure’s and Wittgenstein’s references to chess, the Phaedrus’ condemnation of writing as childish play. Play is not a play in the world that seeks to contain the world; rather, it is the very game of the world that must be examined.
When this game of the world opens we are within this fluid symbol already, within this becoming-unmotivated of the symbol. The trace here is an active movement, not a given structure; here is also writing before speech and yet in speech. Thus, the grammatology that has to be developed is not to be the science of just one of these elements, but must stretch over this vast range.
Thus, Derrida asks, how is language a possibility founded on the general possibility of writing (p.52)? Saussure, working against himself, is employed here by Derrida to help answer this question. Derrida borrows Saussure’s notion of difference—explained above as the positing of a basic difference between a word and a thing (signifier and signified) that demolishes a one to one correspondence theory, thus freeing language from being chained to reality and left as static. Derrida designates this theory of difference as Saussure’s very source of linguistic value.
So, what diseases does grammatology diagnose in this theory of difference? Essentially, difference is never a sensible abundance, thus it excludes the possibility alleged of a natural phonetic essence of language and denies the natural dependence on a graphic signifier. How does this injure Saussure? Well, he now has to exclude that which permitted him to exclude writing from language, namely, sound’s natural tie to meaning--recall that this was discussed in the beginning of the last section as the unity of sense and sound, of signified and signifier, in the spoken word which left us with “word” as being a unified “thought-sound” sign.
Derrida pursues this further with the aid of other “phonologists,” eventually concluding (p.55) that these moves set up the opposition of a “scientific” concept of the spoken word to a very crude understanding of writing. Instead of this, Derrida wants to show the impossibility of exiling writing from the structural relations of language, which will eventually require a new, more rich conception of writing.
Thus, in contrast to this “vulgar writing” Derrida begins to elucidate what he calls an “arche-writing,” which is that which makes possible vulgar writing through its dissimulation. He calls them both language so acknowledging their basic communication with one another, although the two are deemed to be very different. Arche-writing cannot be an object of science, despite how Saussure’s notions of the arbitrariness of the sign and difference hint towards its existence; arche-writing is irreducible to presence, the demander of objectification (p.56-7—further explained on p.60, 1st full ¶).
After reviews of the pre-cursor of arche-writing in the Copenhagen School, Derrida moves (p.60-1) through further methodological explanations of how to retain the words used by metaphysics that are now recast, he reexamines “writing” and looks at “experience.” His criticism uses these words with the recognition that there must be a “contortion” of pushing these words beyond their metaphysical meanings without falling into that metaphysics—thus he introduces the necessity of a pathway (Heidegger) that leaves a “track in the text” (p.61). This track will keep the new distinguishable from the old. The arche, this track, must both let itself be felt and be erased—its necessity and erasure Derrida calls it—“the trace is not only the disappearance of origin—within the discourse that we sustain and according to the path that we follow it means that the origin did not even disappear, that it was never constituted except reciprocally by a nonorigin, the trace, which thus becomes the origin of the origin” (p.61). We of course recognize, now, that we have another birth-death sort of situation, where the concept here destroys its name, because if it begins with the trace, there cannot be an originary trace before our beginning trace. Thus, these problematic words like “experience” (i.e. Husserl) are situated as a moment of the discourse, these metaphysical theories oddly participate in this fluid activity of the reduction, erasure, of the trace. We cannot scrap the tradition, nor can we reduce our movements here to that tradition (p.61-2).
Let us redirect our attention to the path; the passage through form, Derrida tells us, is the passage through imprint. This is a double passage, it is unified, and it will aid us in understanding the meaning of difference in general. Both movements begin from the possibility of neutralizing the “phonic substance.” The “term,” the already-discussed problematic sensible plenitude of the phonic element does not appear unless it has the difference or opposition that gives it form. Meaning will not appear here if we conceive of one and then the other appearing—this must be thought as a unity without a preceding simplicity (which would be the impossible originary trace). The movement produces difference, the pure trace here is differance, which has no dependence on the sensible abundance (audible or visible, phonetic or graphic) but is, instead, the possibility of such plenitude. It does not exist, is never a being-present, yet is prior to everything we call sign, concept, etc. Essentially, it grants permission to these, and to articulation of speech and writing, yet can neither itself be sensible or intelligible (p.62-3).
“If language were not already, in that sense, a writing, no derived ‘notation’ would be possible …” (p.63). So, this leaves us with the issue that science can describe the results and fact of difference, but not differance itself; differance, thus, is the formation of form and also the “being-imprinted of the imprint” (p.63). (This “being-imprinted” is justified by referring to Saussure’s ideality of the sound-image and Husserl’s hylè/morphé structures as ideal, reell, not real).
Keeping the differentiation of “ideality” and “reality” in mind, Derrida tells us that it is in these spaces of imprint and trace where differences appear among the elements, really, produce these elements making them arise as texts—chains, systems of traces. These texts cannot be investigated without the idea of the trace/imprint because this unheard difference is the possibility for all other differences, all other traces, and is itself a trace. Trace, then, is the origin of all sense in general, which says that there is no absolute origin of sense in general. Trace is just the difference that allows for appearance and signification. In this way, we escape (perhaps) metaphysics’ dichotomies.
Working from Saussure’s theory of the arbitrariness of the sign, reconceived to work in Derrida’s grammatology more than in its first home in linguistics, Derrida reveals how this thesis necessitates that writing, as inscription of the sign, must include all linguistic signs—we cannot have a distinction or hierarchy of linguistic and graphic signs now.
Signs, as writing, can no longer be exiled from language as speech, described as images of speech. Using Saussure’s own theory, writing cannot be the image of language. Instead, playing with concepts of interior and exterior, Derrida says that “we must think that writing is at the same time more exterior to speech, not being its ‘image’ or its ‘symbol,’ and more interior to speech, which is already in itself a writing” (p.46). Even before writing’s linkage with inscription, there is the conception of its possibility already in the system of signification. Thus, more exterior to its symbol, more interior to language itself, writing rests already there while also not yet written. Derrida talks about this in terms of the graphie, the unit of a possible graphic system, which implies the structure of the instituted trace, which will be the possibility for any system of signification (p.46).
The instituted trace is further described by Derrida as “unmotivated,” but not mere whim or chance; it is not the speaker who decides upon which signifier to use; yet the trace has no “natural attachment” to reality. It is a trace that cannot be thought without holding on to a conception of difference within a structure of reference because it is this very difference that allows variability within the structure. Derrida’s concept here is both reminiscent of Saussure’s designations for “arbitrary,” the structure implied by the arbitrariness of the sign, and a questioning of metaphysics itself. The trace announces the other within itself, thus allowing for the entity, yet, the trace must be thought before the entity. This renders the concept of entity fluid; there will now be neither symbol nor sign, but rather, a becoming-sign of the symbol. Thus, this trace is the starting point from which possibilities of differentiations (namely nature and law, physis and nomos) arise (p.46-8).
- Derrida sees hints of this fluidity of the sign and symbol partnering in Pierce and its consequences in Husserl, yet not to the degree he wishes to reveal. To summarize as briefly as possible, Pierce sees symbols as growing, yet still has their origins in sign to sign reference and both Husserl and Pierce recognize (although do not pursue) the consequence as logic no longer being the basis of language, but rather, it is replaced by grammar (p.48-9). —Bettina add more on Pierce??--
These developments begin us on a path away from a metaphysics of presence. The first great marker on the path is the recognition that as soon as there is meaning “there are nothing but signs. We think only in signs” (p.50). This birth, however, is also a death, for Derrida calls this the ruining of the sign “at the very moment…its exigency is recognized in the absoluteness of its right” (p.50). We have an absence here of the transcendental signified—Derrida suggests we call this play, play’s absence is its limitlessness. The realization and simultaneous ruin of the notion of sign, this play, undermines metaphysics, but is paradoxically the same notion the tradition uses to support or explain its divisions—language games, Saussure’s and Wittgenstein’s references to chess, the Phaedrus’ condemnation of writing as childish play. Play is not a play in the world that seeks to contain the world; rather, it is the very game of the world that must be examined.
When this game of the world opens we are within this fluid symbol already, within this becoming-unmotivated of the symbol. The trace here is an active movement, not a given structure; here is also writing before speech and yet in speech. Thus, the grammatology that has to be developed is not to be the science of just one of these elements, but must stretch over this vast range.
Thus, Derrida asks, how is language a possibility founded on the general possibility of writing (p.52)? Saussure, working against himself, is employed here by Derrida to help answer this question. Derrida borrows Saussure’s notion of difference—explained above as the positing of a basic difference between a word and a thing (signifier and signified) that demolishes a one to one correspondence theory, thus freeing language from being chained to reality and left as static. Derrida designates this theory of difference as Saussure’s very source of linguistic value.
So, what diseases does grammatology diagnose in this theory of difference? Essentially, difference is never a sensible abundance, thus it excludes the possibility alleged of a natural phonetic essence of language and denies the natural dependence on a graphic signifier. How does this injure Saussure? Well, he now has to exclude that which permitted him to exclude writing from language, namely, sound’s natural tie to meaning--recall that this was discussed in the beginning of the last section as the unity of sense and sound, of signified and signifier, in the spoken word which left us with “word” as being a unified “thought-sound” sign.
Derrida pursues this further with the aid of other “phonologists,” eventually concluding (p.55) that these moves set up the opposition of a “scientific” concept of the spoken word to a very crude understanding of writing. Instead of this, Derrida wants to show the impossibility of exiling writing from the structural relations of language, which will eventually require a new, more rich conception of writing.
Thus, in contrast to this “vulgar writing” Derrida begins to elucidate what he calls an “arche-writing,” which is that which makes possible vulgar writing through its dissimulation. He calls them both language so acknowledging their basic communication with one another, although the two are deemed to be very different. Arche-writing cannot be an object of science, despite how Saussure’s notions of the arbitrariness of the sign and difference hint towards its existence; arche-writing is irreducible to presence, the demander of objectification (p.56-7—further explained on p.60, 1st full ¶).
After reviews of the pre-cursor of arche-writing in the Copenhagen School, Derrida moves (p.60-1) through further methodological explanations of how to retain the words used by metaphysics that are now recast, he reexamines “writing” and looks at “experience.” His criticism uses these words with the recognition that there must be a “contortion” of pushing these words beyond their metaphysical meanings without falling into that metaphysics—thus he introduces the necessity of a pathway (Heidegger) that leaves a “track in the text” (p.61). This track will keep the new distinguishable from the old. The arche, this track, must both let itself be felt and be erased—its necessity and erasure Derrida calls it—“the trace is not only the disappearance of origin—within the discourse that we sustain and according to the path that we follow it means that the origin did not even disappear, that it was never constituted except reciprocally by a nonorigin, the trace, which thus becomes the origin of the origin” (p.61). We of course recognize, now, that we have another birth-death sort of situation, where the concept here destroys its name, because if it begins with the trace, there cannot be an originary trace before our beginning trace. Thus, these problematic words like “experience” (i.e. Husserl) are situated as a moment of the discourse, these metaphysical theories oddly participate in this fluid activity of the reduction, erasure, of the trace. We cannot scrap the tradition, nor can we reduce our movements here to that tradition (p.61-2).
Let us redirect our attention to the path; the passage through form, Derrida tells us, is the passage through imprint. This is a double passage, it is unified, and it will aid us in understanding the meaning of difference in general. Both movements begin from the possibility of neutralizing the “phonic substance.” The “term,” the already-discussed problematic sensible plenitude of the phonic element does not appear unless it has the difference or opposition that gives it form. Meaning will not appear here if we conceive of one and then the other appearing—this must be thought as a unity without a preceding simplicity (which would be the impossible originary trace). The movement produces difference, the pure trace here is differance, which has no dependence on the sensible abundance (audible or visible, phonetic or graphic) but is, instead, the possibility of such plenitude. It does not exist, is never a being-present, yet is prior to everything we call sign, concept, etc. Essentially, it grants permission to these, and to articulation of speech and writing, yet can neither itself be sensible or intelligible (p.62-3).
“If language were not already, in that sense, a writing, no derived ‘notation’ would be possible …” (p.63). So, this leaves us with the issue that science can describe the results and fact of difference, but not differance itself; differance, thus, is the formation of form and also the “being-imprinted of the imprint” (p.63). (This “being-imprinted” is justified by referring to Saussure’s ideality of the sound-image and Husserl’s hylè/morphé structures as ideal, reell, not real).
Keeping the differentiation of “ideality” and “reality” in mind, Derrida tells us that it is in these spaces of imprint and trace where differences appear among the elements, really, produce these elements making them arise as texts—chains, systems of traces. These texts cannot be investigated without the idea of the trace/imprint because this unheard difference is the possibility for all other differences, all other traces, and is itself a trace. Trace, then, is the origin of all sense in general, which says that there is no absolute origin of sense in general. Trace is just the difference that allows for appearance and signification. In this way, we escape (perhaps) metaphysics’ dichotomies.
The Hinge [La Brisure] (p.65-73):
Derrida begins this final section with an epigram that identifies a word for designating difference and articulation: hinge.
What is articulation? Derrida parallels the origin of the experience of space and time with the writing of difference and the fabric of the trace. These all are what allow us to articulate the difference of space and time, which is to allow them to appear as such in the unity of our experience experienced by our one body (Kant’s Schematism??). This articulation allows a graphic chain to be converted to a spoken chain. He says that this is where we must begin, with this primary possibility of articulation because difference is articulation (p.65-6).
He locates this starting point in Saussure, again against himself, as defining articulation as subordinating speech to the faculty of constructing a language. Thus, Derrida links the “imprint” from the last section to this conception of articulation. He then “temporalizes,” so to speak, this relation by revealing the passivity of speech as being the relationship to a past that cannot fully be reactualized to a present—an absolute past. This justifies the trace as not being a simple present and protects its self-identity as something not injured by either protention or that which is beyond recollection. Essentially, the conclusion he draws from a long review of Husserl’s theory of internal time consciousness is that the trace eludes any capture by description in terms of a metaphysical conception of past, present, and future (p.66-7).
How then is speech in the world, if not through our common conceptions of space and time? “It is in a certain ‘unheard’ sense, then, that speech is in the world, rooted in that passivity which metaphysics calls sensibility in general” (p.67). Doing a little violence to language, Derrida recounts how Bergson and de Biran spoke of this as “wish-sensibilized” and the “vocalic word.” Essentially, what it is getting at is that logos is first imprinted, the imprint designated language, thus results in logos not being a creative activity. We cannot, however, speak of this as God’s death, or a return to finitude, for these signify a regression to metaphysics itself (an onto-theo-logy--i.e. Heidegger), and differance cannot be finitude.
Passivity and difference are indistinguishable from the unconsciousness of language and the spacing that is the origin of signification. Since we have already designated language as a form rather than matter, it must actively draw from the passivity of difference. Thus, we begin to see how this is not a regression to metaphysics; spacing, the term he uses for speaking the articulation of space/time, becoming-space/becoming-time, is the unperceived, the non-presence. Thus, arche-writing as spacing marks the “dead time” within the general form of all presence. We have, then, passed through and beyond phenomenology and all other metaphysics of presence (p.68).
Writing is not the tool of the subject; rather, it is that which points towards the non-originary-origin of the imprint/trace, the movement through and beyond a metaphysics. Derrida says, “spacing as writing is the becoming-absent and the becoming-unconscious of the subject” (p.69). While never just using, choosing it, the subject engages this writing and this writing as becoming forges a relationship with the subject that serves to constitute his/her very own subjectivity. (Notice the Heideggerian structure, with the replacement of death by writing).
The hinge, referred to above as the term for articulation and difference, is language as writing; it designates the impossibility of a sign being born out of a plenitude of abundance of present and presence, it prohibits the possibility of “full speech” (p.69). This hinge is the space of the “problematic of trace” (p.70).
Before moving to a summation, explanation, and conclusion of this chapter, Derrida again furthers the concept of trace by acknowledging his sources. He explains his choice of “trace” as indebted to Levinas in his critique of Heidegger’s ontology—which clarifies the movements of Derrida’s last section and chapter. The demand of a reevaluation of all the supposed “self-evident” propositions of a science, the movement into an investigation of the world, of space and especially time, the constitution of subjectivity by language paralleling the constitution of subjectivity by the fact of our being-towards-death (that which we cannot experience), the critique of the metaphysics of presence, the “fault” of recourse to an ontotheology, and the privileging of speech as defining our being hinge around a discourse with the tradition, but, particularly with Husserl and Heidegger. While Derrida cites other sources that inspired his choice of “trace,” this reference to Levinas is a late clarification as to the audience of many of his analyses and critiques.
Derrida paints an abysmal landscape of investigation and philosophy if it were not to pay heed to his conception of trace. He is not destroying the metaphysics, because his conception flows through it, but, then moves beyond it erasing many of the clear-cut divisions and differentiated realms. He has rescued writing, yet is not finished with the project, for he says that “…for modern linguistics, if the signifier is a trace, the signified is a meaning thinkable in principle within the full presence of an intuitive consciousness. The signified face, is not considered a trace; by rights, it has no need of the signifier to be what it is. It is at the depth of this affirmation [of his theory] that the problem of relationships between linguistics and semantics must be posed” (p.73).
Even if the trace is understood, this still must be a rigorous science; thus, “this reference to the meaning of a signified thinkable and possible outside of all signifiers remains dependent upon the onto-theo-teleology that I have just evoked. It is thus the idea of the sign that must be deconstructed through a mediation upon writing which would merge, as it must, with the undoing of onto-theology …” (p.73). To re-insert metaphysics in language requires metaphysics to reflect upon writing as “its death and its resource” (p.73).
What is articulation? Derrida parallels the origin of the experience of space and time with the writing of difference and the fabric of the trace. These all are what allow us to articulate the difference of space and time, which is to allow them to appear as such in the unity of our experience experienced by our one body (Kant’s Schematism??). This articulation allows a graphic chain to be converted to a spoken chain. He says that this is where we must begin, with this primary possibility of articulation because difference is articulation (p.65-6).
He locates this starting point in Saussure, again against himself, as defining articulation as subordinating speech to the faculty of constructing a language. Thus, Derrida links the “imprint” from the last section to this conception of articulation. He then “temporalizes,” so to speak, this relation by revealing the passivity of speech as being the relationship to a past that cannot fully be reactualized to a present—an absolute past. This justifies the trace as not being a simple present and protects its self-identity as something not injured by either protention or that which is beyond recollection. Essentially, the conclusion he draws from a long review of Husserl’s theory of internal time consciousness is that the trace eludes any capture by description in terms of a metaphysical conception of past, present, and future (p.66-7).
How then is speech in the world, if not through our common conceptions of space and time? “It is in a certain ‘unheard’ sense, then, that speech is in the world, rooted in that passivity which metaphysics calls sensibility in general” (p.67). Doing a little violence to language, Derrida recounts how Bergson and de Biran spoke of this as “wish-sensibilized” and the “vocalic word.” Essentially, what it is getting at is that logos is first imprinted, the imprint designated language, thus results in logos not being a creative activity. We cannot, however, speak of this as God’s death, or a return to finitude, for these signify a regression to metaphysics itself (an onto-theo-logy--i.e. Heidegger), and differance cannot be finitude.
Passivity and difference are indistinguishable from the unconsciousness of language and the spacing that is the origin of signification. Since we have already designated language as a form rather than matter, it must actively draw from the passivity of difference. Thus, we begin to see how this is not a regression to metaphysics; spacing, the term he uses for speaking the articulation of space/time, becoming-space/becoming-time, is the unperceived, the non-presence. Thus, arche-writing as spacing marks the “dead time” within the general form of all presence. We have, then, passed through and beyond phenomenology and all other metaphysics of presence (p.68).
Writing is not the tool of the subject; rather, it is that which points towards the non-originary-origin of the imprint/trace, the movement through and beyond a metaphysics. Derrida says, “spacing as writing is the becoming-absent and the becoming-unconscious of the subject” (p.69). While never just using, choosing it, the subject engages this writing and this writing as becoming forges a relationship with the subject that serves to constitute his/her very own subjectivity. (Notice the Heideggerian structure, with the replacement of death by writing).
The hinge, referred to above as the term for articulation and difference, is language as writing; it designates the impossibility of a sign being born out of a plenitude of abundance of present and presence, it prohibits the possibility of “full speech” (p.69). This hinge is the space of the “problematic of trace” (p.70).
Before moving to a summation, explanation, and conclusion of this chapter, Derrida again furthers the concept of trace by acknowledging his sources. He explains his choice of “trace” as indebted to Levinas in his critique of Heidegger’s ontology—which clarifies the movements of Derrida’s last section and chapter. The demand of a reevaluation of all the supposed “self-evident” propositions of a science, the movement into an investigation of the world, of space and especially time, the constitution of subjectivity by language paralleling the constitution of subjectivity by the fact of our being-towards-death (that which we cannot experience), the critique of the metaphysics of presence, the “fault” of recourse to an ontotheology, and the privileging of speech as defining our being hinge around a discourse with the tradition, but, particularly with Husserl and Heidegger. While Derrida cites other sources that inspired his choice of “trace,” this reference to Levinas is a late clarification as to the audience of many of his analyses and critiques.
Derrida paints an abysmal landscape of investigation and philosophy if it were not to pay heed to his conception of trace. He is not destroying the metaphysics, because his conception flows through it, but, then moves beyond it erasing many of the clear-cut divisions and differentiated realms. He has rescued writing, yet is not finished with the project, for he says that “…for modern linguistics, if the signifier is a trace, the signified is a meaning thinkable in principle within the full presence of an intuitive consciousness. The signified face, is not considered a trace; by rights, it has no need of the signifier to be what it is. It is at the depth of this affirmation [of his theory] that the problem of relationships between linguistics and semantics must be posed” (p.73).
Even if the trace is understood, this still must be a rigorous science; thus, “this reference to the meaning of a signified thinkable and possible outside of all signifiers remains dependent upon the onto-theo-teleology that I have just evoked. It is thus the idea of the sign that must be deconstructed through a mediation upon writing which would merge, as it must, with the undoing of onto-theology …” (p.73). To re-insert metaphysics in language requires metaphysics to reflect upon writing as “its death and its resource” (p.73).
... To Be Continued ... one day ...