Differance

What puzzled me in the presentation of the deconstruction was the often improper use of terms. The text defines the Post-Structuralism as a theory that “ departed so radically from the core assumptions of Structuralism.” That is true but if fails to tell us in which way. Things became more complicated for me when I realized I hardly can translate all these invented terms in Derrida’s theory and then in Heidegger’s philosophy. So what I had to do a lot of dictionary reading. So here are a few thoughts on what I understand is deconstruction. If the Structuralism works with binary oppositions, the Post- Structuralism operates with differences. At a first glance this does not seem such a radically different point of view. We have to keep in mind though that Structuralism exists inside the language only. Any opposition is something that always traces back to language. The Saussurian a non a approach is arguable only through its rapport to other language binaries. What makes the enormous step forward in the Post- Structuralist theory is the heideggerian late assumptions on language in Time and Being and also in Identity and Difference. This rapport a non a seems to be inexistent in Heidegger’s late thinking. For him what is different is what derives from a vertical actualization. Derrida’s differance would be, I think, in heideggerian terms the Being or precisely that concept that remains alway un- actualised or in other words the non-textual source of a text. Or this is exactly that something that can never be deconstructed. This non-textual source is what produces text. So the critique deconstruction brings upon Structuralism is the very origin of originality. How can we produce new texts, new ideas? Originality can not be produce still within language. It needs to originate in something different than itself, or in Humboldt terminology, this would be what generates difference. For Heidegger that is the Being, for Wittgenstein is Silence and for Derrida seems to be that something that can not be exposed. In that respect I really liked his graphic argumentation on the opposition difference/differance. So I assume the equivalent of Being or Silence, would be here differance : “ Already we have note tat differance is not, does not exist, and is not any sort of being-present (on) [...] It belongs to no category of being present or absent.” ( p. 282) But Derrida states very clearly that his differance is not onto- theological, it only somehow follows the same pattern of reasoning.