The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics: Making Sense of Things (126 page)

How then does Derrida use his new word?

Multifariously. Here are some of the uses to which he puts it. First, he exploits the fact that it evokes both the temporal and the spatial (deferral being primarily understood in temporal terms, difference being naturally understood in spatial terms
⁵⁶
) to characterize the most basic kind of representation: representation of that which is
pro tempore
absent; representation, in other words, of that which is presently elsewhere, evoking the possibility of its being present elsewhen (‘
Différance
’, pp. 8–9). Second, he applies the word to the forgotten difference between Being and beings, to convey that we are destined never fully to grasp that difference (‘
Différance
’, pp. 23–24 and 26).
⁵⁷
Third, he uses it in connection with the very deconstruction of presence, whose temporality is part of what is deconstructed, which makes ‘
différance
’, with its particular play of associations, a peculiarly apt term for referring back, after the deconstruction, to the difference between it (presence) and its erstwhile subordinate absence (
Grammatology
, p. 143, and ‘Semiology’, pp. 22–26). Fourth, he uses it to indicate the joint significance of both difference and deferral to his account of the meanings of signs: difference, in the way in which a sign’s meaning is determined in contradistinction to that of other signs; deferral, in the way in which a sign’s meaning is given by its connection with other signs whose meanings are given by their connection with other signs whose meanings are given by their connection with other signs and so on indefinitely (‘Semiology’, pp. 22–26; and see §3).

This is all very well, you may say, but these are just examples of rhetorical effects that Derrida achieves with his new word and/or of contexts in which he applies it. What does the word actually
mean
?

A natural enough question, but a question that should ring almost every Derridean alarm bell. Even if the very form of the question does not betray a kind of logocentrism (cf.
Grammatology
, pp. 74–75), there are special reasons why we should be wary of asking such a thing of ‘
différance
’. For
there is a sense in which the word is used
just
for its rhetorical effects, not to designate anything. There is no such ‘thing’ as
différance
. The point of the word is not to draw attention to some super-being of relevance to each and every context in which the word is applied; precisely not. The point of the word is rather, by signalling a range of concerns, problems, and aporiae, to assist the deconstructive project of challenging, disrupting, and questioning that which makes the postulation of such super-beings so enticing: the metaphysics of presence. (See ‘
Différance
’, pp. 21–22.)
⁵⁸

So should we say that, rhetorical effects aside, the word does not strictly mean anything?

No. Let us not say that. The word does mean something. But it does not mean some thing. We might put it this way: what the word means can never be the subject of any proposition.
⁵⁹

So is the point that its superficial grammar is misleading? That it does not really function as a singular noun phrase? Is what the word means incapable of being the subject of a proposition in the same way in which what the word ‘unless’ means is incapable of being the subject of a proposition?

No; not that either. The word ‘
différance
’ does function as a singular noun phrase.
⁶⁰
The point is rather that
différance
itself is a non-thing. Like Being, it is not itself a being. It is never present; not because it is somehow transcendent and resists any of the finite categories in terms of which we might make it present, nor yet because it is always absent, but because it acts as a kind of precondition of any presence, and, for that matter, of any absence. It is what ‘makes the opposition of presence and absence possible’ (
Grammatology
, p. 143). ‘It exceeds the order of truth at a certain precise point,’ Derrida writes, ‘but without dissimulating itself as something, as a mysterious being, in the occult of a nonknowledge or in a hole with indeterminate borders (for example, in a topology of castration)’ (‘
Différance
’, p. 6). It is not so much that ‘
différance
’ cannot be a name of anything, then, as that
différance
cannot have anything as a name. Here again is Derrida:

Such a
différance
has no name in our language. But we ‘already know’ that if it is unnameable, it is not provisionally so, not because our language has not yet found or received this
name
, or because we would have to seek it in another language, outside the finite system of our own. It is rather because there is no
name
for it at all, … not even [the name] of ‘
différance
’, which is not a name. (‘
Différance
’, p. 26, emphasis in original; cf. ‘
Ousia
and
Gramm
’, pp. 66–67)
⁶¹

But, you may protest, is this not all horribly self-stultifying? If we are to accede to all of this talk about what
différance
is or is not, can or cannot be, does or does not do, then had there better not be such a
thing
as
différance
? Had
différance
better not be
the thing
that we are talking about? Indeed, is there not already self-stultification in the very claim that what the word ‘
différance
’ means cannot be the subject of any proposition? For is that not
itself
a proposition whose subject is what the word ‘
différance
’ means?
⁶²

This protest is well taken. But of course, we have been here before. Can the Fregean
Bedeutung
of the predicate ‘… is a horse’ be the subject of any proposition (
Ch. 8
, §7(b))? Can Wittgensteinian logical form (
Ch. 9
, §5)? Can Heideggerian Being (
Ch. 18
, §6)?

Derrida is every bit as self-conscious about the self-stultification as his predecessors were. In one respect it is less of a threat to him than it was to them. For part of the aim of the exercise is to upset the very models of meaning that underpin the protest – models that are arguably imbued with the metaphysics of presence – and to do so, moreover, as much by illustrating their shortcomings as by stating them. If he has created something which, on the one hand, exhibits a kind of meaning and which, on the other hand, resists being understood in accord with those models, all well and good. (Let us not forget that a lot of the time Derrida is
teasing
his readers. He is defying them to make the kind of sense of what he is saying that their preconceptions lead them to think is the only kind of sense there is, while at the same time achieving a sufficiently integrated effect through what he is saying to prevent them from dismissing it as so much empty verbiage.) Still, there is a certain amount of self-stultification here that is independent of the models, and, in another respect, Derrida is in just the same predicament as his predecessors. He too is under pressure to express his understanding of things in ways which that very understanding exposes as unfit for purpose.

Furthermore, there are, in Derrida, echoes of each of his predecessors’ reactions to the predicament. Thus Frege admitted that ‘by a kind of necessity of language’ he had said something other than he intended, and asked his reader not to begrudge a pinch of salt. Likewise Derrida, considering the difference between Being and beings, writes:

In reality, there is not even a
distinction
in the usual sense of the word, between Being and being. For reasons of essence, and … because Being is nothing outside the being …, it is impossible to avoid the ontic metaphor in order to articulate Being in language [i.e. it is impossible to articulate
Being in language except as a being]. (‘Violence and Metaphysics’, p. 138, emphasis in original; cf. ‘
Différance
’, p. 25
⁶³
)
⁶⁴

Again, Heidegger used the technique of erasure, crossing out words that resisted being understood in accord with their normal function while nevertheless allowing them to remain visible. Derrida uses the same technique:

Différance
is … what makes possible the presentation of the being-present. (‘
Différance
’, p. 6)

Wittgenstein confessed at the end of the
Tractatus
that what he had written was nonsense. He likened it to a ladder that had to be thrown away after it had been climbed. Here is Derrida:

I try to
WRITE
(in) the space in which is posed the question of speech and meaning…. [It] is necessary in such a space, and guided by such a question, that
WRITING
literally means nothing.
⁶⁵
Not that it is absurd in the way that absurdity has always been in solidarity with metaphysical meaning. It simply tempts itself, tenders itself, attempts to keep itself at the point of the exhaustion of meaning…. [It means] nothing
that can simply be heard
. (‘Implications’, p. 11, first emphasis in original, second emphasis added; cf.
Grammatology
, p. 93)
⁶⁶

It seems to me that by far the most compelling story about what is going on here, a story whereby Derrida is able both to have his cake and to eat it, is the one that I adumbrated in §1: Derrida, like the early Wittgenstein, like Bergson,
and arguably like Heidegger, is making play with linguistic resources to convey non-propositional sense. I shall pursue this story in the next section.
⁶⁷

6. How to Do Things with Words

Part of what makes such a story especially compelling in Derrida’s case is that it fits well with his own reflections on what can be achieved with linguistic resources. He himself draws attention to the possibilities opened up by what might be thought of as abnormal uses of language, in particular by uses with a significant ludic dimension.
⁶⁸
(Rather as with his assault on certain models of meaning that we noted in the previous section, he does this as much by exemplifying these possibilities as by discussing them.) Just as significantly, he emphasizes the continuity between the supposedly abnormal and the supposedly normal. He forestalls any impression that, just because there are criteria by which the former lacks sense, it cannot possibly count as legitimate linguistic activity and it cannot possibly contribute to the broad project of making sense of things.

The key essay is ‘
Sec
’.
⁶⁹
One of Derrida’s main concerns in this essay is to discuss the ideas of J.L. Austin, who was himself preoccupied with how to do things with words (‘
Sec
’, pp. 32ff.).
⁷⁰
Austin famously wanted to account for various features of what Wittgenstein called ‘language-games’ (
Ch. 10
, §2). Derrida complains that Austin’s conception of a language-game is over-sanitized and thus unduly restrictive. Austin writes as if we can cleanly separate contexts in which it is possible to play any given language-game from those in which it is not. (One example that Austin gives of a context in which it is not possible to play a given language-game is that of a race which has been completed, where it is no longer possible to use the formula ‘I bet …’ to bet on the outcome of the race (Austin (
1975
), p. 14). But what if each of the parties concerned knows that each of the others is still ignorant of the outcome?) In any other than the ‘right’ contexts there can at most be, on Austin’s view, secondary or parasitic uses of the vocabulary associated with the language-game. This suggests, by extension and analogy, that we can cleanly separate the contexts in which it is possible to
use any given word – with its (standard) meaning – from those in which it is not. Derrida, by contrast, urges a much more fluid understanding of the relationship between how words are used and how they mean what they do. For a word to have meaning, it must be capable of being used in
any
context in a way that depends on, and at the same time extends, that meaning. Its meaning is, more or less, its infinite potential for iterability in new contexts, to new effects, for new purposes, in playing new games – or in playing old games in new ways (see §3 above). It would be an abrogation of a word’s meaning to try to circumscribe in advance the contexts that could or could not tolerate its application, the contributions that it could or could not make to the playing of different games. We might try to rule out a word’s use in certain
linguistic
contexts, as being in violation of its meaning. For example, we might try to rule out the use of the word ‘green’ in the context ‘green is or’, on the grounds that this combination of words was gibberish. But even in doing this, we would be belying our purpose. For precisely in saying that the combination of words in question was gibberish, we would be using the word ‘green’ in the supposedly forbidden context. True, we would be quoting it. But it would be begging the question against Derrida to insist that our use of the word therefore did not count; that it was somehow secondary. As Derrida himself puts it,