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is a French term coined by
Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida;Peeters (2013), pp. 12–13. See also 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was a French Algerian philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in a number of his texts, ...
. Roughly speaking, the method of ''différance'' is a way to analyze how signs (words, symbols, metaphors, etc) come to have meanings. It suggests that meaning is not inherent in a sign but arises from its relationships with other signs, a continual process of contrasting with what comes before and later. That is, a sign acquires meaning by being different from other signs. The meaning of a sign changes over time, as new signs keep appearing and old signs keep disappearing. It is central to Derrida's concept of
deconstruction In philosophy, deconstruction is a loosely-defined set of approaches to understand the relationship between text and meaning. The concept of deconstruction was introduced by the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who described it as a turn away from ...
, a
critical Critical or Critically may refer to: *Critical, or critical but stable, medical states **Critical, or intensive care medicine * Critical juncture, a discontinuous change studied in the social sciences. *Critical Software, a company specializing i ...
outlook concerned with the relationship between text and meaning. However, the meaning of a sign is not just determined by the system of signs present currently. Past meanings leave "traces", and possible future meanings "haunt". The meaning of a sign is determined by the interaction between past traces, future haunts, and the system of signs present right now.


Overview

Derrida first uses the term in his 1963 paper "". The term then played a key role in Derrida's engagement with the philosophy of
Edmund Husserl Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (; 8 April 1859 – 27 April 1938) was an Austrian-German philosopher and mathematician who established the school of Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology. In his early work, he elaborated critiques of histori ...
in '' Speech and Phenomena''. It was further elaborated in various other works, notably in his essay "" and in the interviews collected in ''Positions''. The of is a deliberate misspelling of , though the two are pronounced identically, ( plays on the fact that the French verb means both "to defer" and "to differ"). This misspelling highlights the fact that its written form is not heard, and serves to further subvert the traditional privileging of speech over writing (see
arche-writing In the philosophy of language, "Arche-writing" ( "arche-" meaning "origin, principle, or telos") is a concept introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida which refers to an abstract kind of writing that precedes both speech and actual writing. ...
and logocentrism), as well as the distinction between the sensible and the intelligible. The difference articulated by the in is not apparent to the senses via sound, "but neither can it belong to intelligibility, to the ideality which is not fortuitously associated with the objectivity of ''theorein'' or understanding." This is because the language of understanding is already caught up in sensible metaphors—for example, () means "to see" in
Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
. In the essay "" Derrida indicates that gestures at a number of heterogeneous features that govern the production of textual meaning. Words and signs are not identical with what they signify, and only acquire meaning through their differences from other words and signs; meaning arises from the differentiation of words from one another, and the consequential engendering of binary oppositions and hierarchies. Thus, meaning is forever "deferred" or postponed through an endless chain of signifiers. Derrida refers to this process as ''espacement'' or "spacing" and ''temporisation'' or "temporising". Derrida developed the concept of deeper in the course of an argument against the
phenomenology Phenomenology may refer to: Art * Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties Philosophy * Phenomenology (Peirce), a branch of philosophy according to Charles Sanders Peirce (1839� ...
of Husserl, who sought a rigorous analysis of the role of
memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembe ...
and
perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous syste ...
in our understanding of sequential items such as
music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...
or
language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
. Derrida's approach argues that because the perceiver's mental state is constantly in
flux Flux describes any effect that appears to pass or travel (whether it actually moves or not) through a surface or substance. Flux is a concept in applied mathematics and vector calculus which has many applications in physics. For transport phe ...
and differs from one re-reading to the next, a general theory describing this phenomenon is unachievable. A term related to the idea of in Derrida's thought is the ''supplement'', "itself bound up in a supplementary play of meaning which defies semantic reduction."


Between structure and genesis

Derrida approaches texts as constructed around oppositions which all speech has to articulate if it intends to make any sense whatsoever. This is so because identity is viewed in non-essentialist terms as a construct, and because constructs only produce meaning through the interplay of differences inside a "system of distinct signs". This approach to text, in a broad sense, Royle, Nicholas (2004
''Jacques Derrida''
pp. 62–63
Derrida and Ferraris (1997) p.76 emerges from
semiology Semiotics ( ) is the systematic study of sign processes and the communication of meaning. In semiotics, a sign is defined as anything that communicates intentional and unintentional meaning or feelings to the sign's interpreter. Semiosis is a ...
advanced by
Ferdinand de Saussure Ferdinand Mongin de Saussure (; ; 26 November 185722 February 1913) was a Swiss linguist, semiotician and philosopher. His ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in both linguistics and semiotics in the 20th century. He is wi ...
. Derrida's position might broadly be stated as being that language is fluid rather than ideally static. His notorious comment that ''"il n'y a pas de hors-texte"'' ("there is no outside-the-text", sometimes incorrectly translated as "there is nothing outside the text") has given rise to the allegation that he believes that nothing exists but words. Derrida is concerned to distinguish his procedure from Hegel's, because Hegelianism's notion of binary oppositions whose continual supersession (''relève'') by new higher-level binary oppositions rests on a system of elemental differences, whereas in language there are no fundamental self-sufficient units of meaning. Saussure, considered one of the fathers of
structuralism Structuralism is an intellectual current and methodological approach, primarily in the social sciences, that interprets elements of human culture by way of their relationship to a broader system. It works to uncover the structural patterns t ...
, explained that terms get their meaning in reciprocal determination with other terms inside language: Saussure explicitly suggests that linguistics is a branch of a more general semiology, of a science of signs in general, human codes being only one among others. Nevertheless, in the end, as Derrida points out, he makes of linguistics "the regulatory model", and "for essential, and essentially metaphysical, reasons had to privilege speech, and everything that links the sign to ''phoné''": Derrida prefers to follow the more "fruitful paths (formalization)" of a general semiotics without falling into what he considers to be "a hierarchizing teleology" privileging linguistics, and to speak of 'mark' rather than of language, not as something restricted to mankind, but as prelinguistic, as the pure possibility of language, working everywhere there is a relation to something else. Derrida sees these differences as working in all languages, systems of distinct signs, and codes, where terms do not have absolute meanings but instead draw meaning from reciprocal determination with other terms. Derrida will take this structural differentiation into account when articulating the meaning of , a mark he felt the need to create and will become a fundamental tool in his lifelong work:
deconstruction In philosophy, deconstruction is a loosely-defined set of approaches to understand the relationship between text and meaning. The concept of deconstruction was introduced by the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who described it as a turn away from ...
: But structural difference cannot be taken as absolutely basic; it must also be deconstructed, by destabilizing its static,
synchronic Synchronic may refer to: * ''Synchronic'' (film), a 2019 American science fiction film starring Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan *Synchronic analysis, the analysis of a language at a specific point of time *Synchronicity, the experience of two or m ...
, taxonomic, hierarchical, ahistoric elements, bearing in mind that all
structure A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such as ...
already refers to the generative movement in the play of differences. also involves deferring, the recognition that meaning is not only synchronous differentiation from other terms inside a structure of marks or traces, but also
diachronous In geology, a diachronism ( Greek ''dia'', "through" + ''chronos'', "time" + ''-ism''), or diachronous deposit, is a sedimentary rock formation in which the material, although of a similar nature, varies in age with the place where it was deposite ...
referral back to the origins and development of the mark or trace and its meanings - difference as structure and deferring as genesis:Cf. Jacques Derrida, "Interview with Julia Kristeva" in "Positions" (The University of Chicago Press, 1981), pp. 28–30 One consequence of this approach is that the subject is not present to itself, but is constituted in the spacing and temporising process of : Questioning the myth of the presence of meaning in itself ("objective") and/or for itself ("subjective"), Derrida's approach is to deconstruct texts in order to show where conceptual oppositions are put to work in the construction of meaning and values: These relations with other terms express not only meaning but also values. Such oppositions are put to work in texts in both theoretical and practical ways. The first task of deconstruction is to reveal their operation in philosophical, literary, juridical etc. texts: It is not that the final task of deconstruction is to surpass all oppositions, for they are structurally necessary to produce sense; they cannot simply be suspended once and for all. But this does not obviate their need to be analyzed and criticized in all their manifestations, by showing the way logical and axiological oppositions are at work in all discourse in order for it to be able to produce meaning and values.


Illustration

For example, the word "house" derives its meaning more from the way it differs from "shed", "mansion", "hotel", "building", etc. than from the way it is tied to a certain image of a traditional house. The relationship between signifier and signified depends on each term being established in reciprocal determination with the other terms rather than on an ostensive description or definition. When can we talk about a "house" or a "mansion" or a "shed"? The same can be said about verbs, in all the world languages: when should we stop saying "walk" and start saying "run"? The same happens, of course, with adjectives: when must we stop saying "yellow" and start saying "orange", or stop defining as "black" and start saying "white", or "rich" and "poor", "entrepreneur" and "worker", "civilized" and "primitive", "man" and "animal", "beast" and "sovereign", "christian" and "pagan", or "beautiful" and start saying "ugly", or "bad" and start saying "good", or "truth" and start saying "false", "determined" and "free"? Or "in" and "out", "here" and "there", "now" and "then", "past" and "present" and "future" and "eternal"? Not only are the topological differences between the words relevant here, but the differentials between what is signified is also covered by différance. Deferral also comes into play, as the words that occur following "house" or "white" in any expression will revise the meaning of that word, sometimes dramatically so. This is true not only with syntagmatic succession in relation with paradigmatic simultaneity, but also, in a broader sense, between diachronic succession in History related with synchronic simultaneity inside a "system of distinct signs". Thus, complete meaning is always "differential" and postponed in language; there is never a moment when meaning is complete and total. A simple example would consist of looking up a given word in a dictionary, then proceeding to look up the words found in that word's definition, etc., also comparing with older dictionaries from different periods in time, and such a process would never end. This is also true with all ontological oppositions and its many
declension In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence by way of an inflection. Declension may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and det ...
s, not only in philosophy as in human sciences in general, cultural studies, theory of Law, et cetera. For example: the intelligible and the sensible, the spontaneous and the receptive, autonomy and heteronomy, the empirical and the transcendental, immanent and transcendent, as the interior and exterior, or the founded and the founder, normal and abnormal, phonetic and writing, analysis and synthesis, the literal sense and figurative meaning in language, reason and madness in psychiatry, the masculine and feminine in gender theory, man and animal in ecology, the beast and the sovereign in the political field, theory and practice as distinct dominions of thought itself. In all discourses in fact (and by right) we can make clear how they were dramatized, how the cleavages were made during the centuries, each author giving it different centers and establishing different hierarchies between the terms in the opposition.


Paradox

It may seem paradoxical to suggest that , a word invented by Derrida, is not a concept (i.e. does not have a definition), but this is indicative of his broad general approach. Derrida introduces a number of new words and reinterprets others ("deconstruction" itself being the best-known example), but he vigorously resists attempts to pin them down to precise conceptual definitions. He does not seek simply to replace existing conceptual vocabularies with a new "deconstructive" one, whose terms would themselves silently embody precisely the same kinds of systems and structures of meaning, belief and value that he was questioning. Derrida's focus is on the process by which language secretly embodies, replicates and enforces certain ways of thinking, certain beliefs and values - a process which on occasion he describes as "violence" - and his method, using the tools and techniques of his invented vocabulary, is to shake it up so that their silences and secrets are brought out into the open. (It is not irrelevant that for
Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; 26 September 1889 – 26 May 1976) was a German philosopher known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. His work covers a range of topics including metaphysics, art, and language. In April ...
the Ancient Greek word for "truth" - ''aletheia'' - means "unconcealing", i.e. bringing out of concealment into the light.) In later years, when "deconstruction" had come to be used as a kind of quasi-technical term in fields as diverse as literary criticism and cookery, Derrida regretted choosing that word rather than "de-sedimentation" as the name of his approach to critical thinking.


The web of language

We reside, according to this philosophy, in a web of language, or at least one of interpretation, that has been laid down by tradition and which shifts each time we hear or read an utterance—even if it is the same utterance. and deconstruction are attempts to understand this web of language, to search, in Derrida's words, for the "other of language". This "other of language" is close to what Anglophone Philosophy calls the
Reference A reference is a relationship between objects in which one object designates, or acts as a means by which to connect to or link to, another object. The first object in this relation is said to ''refer to'' the second object. It is called a ''nam ...
of a word. There is a ''deferment'' of meaning with each act of re-reading. There is a ''difference'' of readings with each re-reading. In Derrida's words, "there is nothing outside the onext" of a word's use and its place in the lexicon. Text, in Derrida's parlance, refers to context and includes all about the "real-life" situation of the speech/text (cf.
speech act In the philosophy of language and linguistics, a speech act is something expressed by an individual that not only presents information but performs an action as well. For example, the phrase "I would like the mashed potatoes; could you please pas ...
theory).


Temporal delay

For Derrida, the relationship between the signifier and the signified is not understood exactly as Saussure described it. For Derrida there is a deferral, a continual and indefinite postponement, which means that the signified can never be reached. The formation of the linguistic sign is not static, but is marked by movement in time. The easiest way to understand this is to imagine Saussure's model as a two-dimensional plane, where each signified is separated from others by the differences in its sound image. (If two sound-images are exactly alike, one would not be able to distinguish between them - cf. ''différence'' and ''différance''.) Each signifier is then a particular point on that plane. Derrida, however, adds a third dimension - time - to account for the temporal act of forming the sign. This is not to say that there is no relationship between the two. However, Derrida felt that the old model focused too heavily on the signifier, rather than on utterance and occurrence. From the point of view of the temporal formation of the sign, the signifier and the signified are severed completely and irrevocably.


Example of word introduction

An example of this effect occurred in England during the Renaissance, when oranges began to be imported from the Mediterranean. Yellow and red came to be differentiated from a new colour term, "orange". What was the meaning of these words before 1600? – What is their meaning afterwards? Such effects often occur in language and frequently this effect forms the basis of language/meaning. Such changes of meaning are also often centres of political violence, as is apparent in the differences invested in male/female, master/slave, citizen/foreigner etc. Derrida seeks to modulate and question these "violent hierarchies" through deconstruction. Perhaps it is a misconception that seeks contradictory meanings. It does not necessarily do so. It can, but what it usually describes is the re-experience, the re-arrival of the moment of reading.
Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 25 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popu ...
remarked that "those who fail to reread are obliged to read the same story everywhere". This wry comment summarizes the phenomenon of different experience for each iteration. In discussing just one text we are discussing every text. No distinction is necessarily made between texts in this "basic" level. The difference/deferral can be between one text and itself, or between two texts; this is the crucial distinction between traditional perspectives and deconstruction.


Deconstruction and the history of philosophy

Derrida's neographism (rather than
neologism In linguistics, a neologism (; also known as a coinage) is any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is becoming accepted into mainstream language. Most definitively, a word can be considered ...
because "neologism" would propose a ''logos'', a metaphysical category; and (more simply) because, when uttered in French, "" is indistinguishable from "difference"—it is thus only a graphical modification, having nothing to do with a spoken ''logos'') is, of course, not just an attempt at linguistics or to discuss written texts and how they are read. It is, most importantly, an attempt to escape the history of
metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of ...
; a history that has always prioritised certain concepts, e.g., those of substance, essence, soul, spirit (idealism), matter (realism), becoming, freedom, sense-experience, language, science etc. All such ideas imply self-presence and totality. Différance, instead, focuses on the play of presence and absence, and, in effecting a concentration of certain thinking, Derrida takes on board the thought of Freud's unconscious (the trace),
Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; 26 September 1889 – 26 May 1976) was a German philosopher known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. His work covers a range of topics including metaphysics, art, and language. In April ...
's destruction of
ontotheology Ontotheology () is the ontology of God and/or the theology of being. While the term was first used by Immanuel Kant, it has only come into broader philosophical parlance with the significance it took for Martin Heidegger's Late Heidegger, later thou ...
,
Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche became the youngest pro ...
's play of forces, and Bataille's notion of
sacrifice Sacrifice is an act or offering made to a deity. A sacrifice can serve as propitiation, or a sacrifice can be an offering of praise and thanksgiving. Evidence of ritual animal sacrifice has been seen at least since ancient Hebrews and Gree ...
in contrast to Hegel's . Yet he does not approach this absence and loss with the nostalgia that marks Heidegger's attempt to uncover some original truths beneath the accretions of a false metaphysics that have accumulated since Socrates. Rather it is with the moods of play and affirmation that Derrida approaches the issue. However, Derrida himself never claimed to have escaped from the metaphysics with what he has done. To the contrary, he criticises others for claiming to have demolished metaphysics thoroughly.


Negative theology

Derrida's non-concept of différance, resembles, but is not,
negative theology Apophatic theology, also known as negative theology, is a form of theological thinking and religious practice which attempts to approach God, the Divine, by negation, to speak only in terms of what may not be said about the perfect goodness tha ...
, an attempt to present a tacit metaphysics without pointing to any existent essence as the
first cause The unmoved mover () or prime mover () is a concept advanced by Aristotle as a primary Causality (physics), cause (or first uncaused cause) or "Motion (physics), mover" of all the motion in the universe. As is implicit in the name, the moves oth ...
or transcendental signified. Following his presentation of his paper "" in 1968, Derrida was faced with an annoyed participant who said, "It ifféranceis the source of everything and one cannot know it: it is the God of negative theology." Derrida's answer was, "It is and it is not."Caputo, John. The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997, p. 2. In contrast to negative theology, which posits something supereminent and yet concealed and ineffable, is not quite transcendental, never quite "real", as it is always and already deferred from being made present. As John Caputo writes, " is but a quasi-transcendental anteriority, not a supereminent, transcendental ulteriority."Caputo, ''Prayers and Tears'', p. 3. The differences and deferrings of différance, Derrida points out, are not merely ideal, they are not inscribed in the contours of the brain nor do they fall from the sky, the closest approximation would be to consider them as historical, that is, if the word history itself did not mean what it does, the airbrushing speech of the victor/vanquished. Derrida has shown an interest in negative or apophatic theology, one of his most important works on the topic being his essay "Sauf le nom".Derrida, Jacques. "". On the Name. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995.


Life and technics

In ''
Of Grammatology ''Of Grammatology'' () is a 1967 book by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. The book, originating the idea of deconstruction, proposes that throughout continental philosophy, especially as philosophers engaged with linguistic and semiotic id ...
'', Derrida states that grammatology is not a "science of man" because it is concerned with the question of "the name of man." This leads Derrida into a consideration of the work of
André Leroi-Gourhan André Leroi-Gourhan (; ; 25 August 1911 – 19 February 1986) was a French archaeologist, paleontologist, paleoanthropologist, and anthropologist with an interest in technology and aesthetics and a penchant for philosophical reflection. ...
, and in particular his concepts of "program," "exteriorisation," and "liberation of memory." Derrida writes: "Leroi-Gourhan no longer describes the unity of man and the human adventure thus by the simple possibility of the in general; rather as a stage or an articulation in the history of life—of what I have called —as the history of the ."Derrida, Jacques. ''Of Grammatology'', Baltimore & London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998, p. 84. Derrida thus explicitly refers the term to life, and in particular to life as the history of inscription and retention, whether this is genetic or technological (from writing to "electronic card indexes"). And thus grammatology is not a science of man because it deconstructs any anthropocentrism, in the sense that the inscription in question falls on both sides of the divide human/non-human. Yet, in the article "", Derrida refers not to ''physis'', that is, ''life'', but to "all the others of ''physis''—''tekhnè'', ''nomos'', ''thesis'', society, freedom, history, mind, etc.—as ''physis'' differed and deferred, or as ''physis'' differing and deferring."Derrida, Jacques. "", ''Margins of Philosophy'', Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1982, p. 17.
Bernard Stiegler Bernard Stiegler (; 1 April 1952 – 5 August 2020) was a French philosopher. He was head of the Institut de recherche et d'innovation (IRI), which he founded in 2006 at the Centre Georges-Pompidou. He was also founder of the political and c ...
argues in his book, '' Technics and Time, 1'', that this represents a hesitation in Derrida: "Now phusis as life was already . There is an indecision, a passage remaining to be thought. At issue is the specificity of the temporality of life in which life is inscription in the nonliving, spacing, temporalisation, differentiation, and deferral by, of and in the nonliving, in the dead."Stiegler, Bernard. '' Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus'', Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 139–40. What this suggests to Stiegler is that grammatology—a logic of the —must be supplemented with a history of grammatisation, a history of all the forms and techniques of inscription, from genetics to technics, each stage of which will be found to possess its own logic. Only in this way can be thought as the differing and deferral ''of'' life (life as the emergence of a difference from non-life, specifically as the deferral of
entropy Entropy is a scientific concept, most commonly associated with states of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodynamics, where it was first recognized, to the micros ...
), ''and'' as the difference ''from'' ''physis'' through which the human must inevitably be defined (the human as the inauguration of ''another'' memory, neither the memory of genetics nor that of the individual, but rather a memory consisting in "inscription in the nonliving," that is, ''technical'' memory).


Notes


References

*''" Speech and Phenomena" and other essays on Husserl's Theory of Signs'', trans. David B. Allison (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973). *''
Of Grammatology ''Of Grammatology'' () is a 1967 book by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. The book, originating the idea of deconstruction, proposes that throughout continental philosophy, especially as philosophers engaged with linguistic and semiotic id ...
'' (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998, corrected edition).


External links


Full text of chapter
translated by Alan Bass, from ''Margins of Philosophy'' pp. 3–27 (Stanford University) {{DEFAULTSORT:Differance Deconstruction Concepts in the philosophy of language French words and phrases Literary concepts