Abstract
The texts of Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) are known for their meticulously measured language, a quality that leads many readers to pass over his work. it is often relegated to the margins of thought as ‘nonsense’ or elusive in meaning. this short piece attempts to offer a partial elucidation on some key themes of Jacques Derrida’s 1968 essay, “Différance.” This essay first contrasts différance, a French neo-graphism referring to the simultaneous processes of deferral and differentiation , with the prevalent motif of “presence” that has dominated large tracts of Western philosophical discourses. It then moves to discuss the possible structural and methodological ways in which one may read différance, ultimately working to place it into conversation with philosophies of consciousness, understood as a self-presence or a presence-to-oneself (présence à soi), mainly in conversation with the work of Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995).
Highlights
The texts of Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) are known for their meticulously measured language, a quality that leads many readers to pass over his work. it is often relegated to the margins of thought as ‘nonsense’ or elusive in meaning. this short piece attempts to offer a partial elucidation on some key themes of Jacques Derrida’s 1968 essay, “Différance.” This essay first contrasts différance, a French neo-graphism referring to the simultaneous processes of deferral and differentiation, with the prevalent motif of “presence” that has dominated large tracts of Western philosophical discourses
This paper shall seek to present Jacques Derrida’s (1930-2004) solicitation of the authority that presence has been afforded throughout this tradition in his 1968 work, “Différance.” Further, I will present the strategies of deferral and differentiation, which Derrida posits as an inherent structure of language enabling the very functionality of language, working toward the usurpation of such authoritative presence in language, generally, but in discourses regarding consciousness
The presence of consciousness, as language that Derrida sought to explicate différance. In his address before the French Society of Philosophy, he explicated it as neither a concept nor a word, but as a neographism—a “discreet graphic intervention” which occurs at the level the orthographic structuring of language
Summary
The texts of Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) are known for their meticulously measured language, a quality that leads many readers to pass over his work. it is often relegated to the margins of thought as ‘nonsense’ or elusive in meaning. this short piece attempts to offer a partial elucidation on some key themes of Jacques Derrida’s 1968 essay, “Différance.” This essay first contrasts différance, a French neo-graphism referring to the simultaneous processes of deferral and differentiation , with the prevalent motif of “presence” that has dominated large tracts of Western philosophical discourses. It moves to discuss the possible structural and methodological ways in which one may read différance, working to place it into conversation with philosophies of consciousness, understood as a selfpresence or a presence-to-oneself (présence à soi), mainly in conversation with the work of Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995).
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