In the course of this paper, I will try to present Jacques Derrida’s philosophy with the help of some parts from his “ Of Grammatology”. In order to explain his notions of metaphysics and of postmetaphysical philosophizing, firstly I will mention some philosophers’ opinions as a background, then I will connect this background to Derrida’s philosophy as a critique of sign theory and linearization. In addition to these main parts of the paper, while I am conveying one philosopher’s opinions I will present Derrida’s views about the subject matter and compare them.
Derrida interrogates ingrained metaphysics and he searches for the ways to deconstruct this sort of metaphysics which he calls as “the metaphysics of presence and logocentrism”.[1] I will try to present the general structure of some figures’ metaphysics from the history of Western philosophy. In order to discuss Derrida’s extensive study, it would be better to start with explaining other philosophers’ thoughts about the signs and to see how these signs take place in their way of philosophizing.
If I start with Plato and his realism, it would be a proper beginning for the topic. In Plato’s famous cave example, there are people in the cave who can only see the shadows on the wall. The shadows are the reflections of the things outside of the cave, but people do not see them as they do not see the real forms which are in the world of “ideas”. The things outside of the cave are also reflections/shadows/copies of the real ideas, so people who are in the cave can only see the shadows of the shadows of the real ideas. In general, here we have universals as ideas, the things outside of the cave are the particulars which are in our world, and the shadows on the cave’s wall are just some images of things. Shadows on the wall are the signs of the things, the things which are outside of the cave are also signs of the ideas, and the ideas in another separate world are the primary reality. Therefore, ideas are not signs of something rather they are the reference point for other signs. As we can see, one needs to return the first point in this series of signs to find the first real one. In Plato’s philosophy, you can lead back to that ideas through thinking, then these first privileged ideas are immediately present for you. We will see in Aristotle, Derrida mentions that Plato’s philosophy has the same structure with spoken and written words. We can think that written words are signs of spoken words, and spoken words are signs of the things in the world. Here again, we have a series of signs and the privileged ones refer to others as a starting point.
For Aristotle, we have primary substances as particular things and secondary substances as universals. When I point at something, this is a primary substance, but if I want to point at a universal it is not possible to find it by itself. Since the universals are essential characteristics of the things, they do not move around by itself. For example when I want to point at red, it is always a property of something. We also have impressions in our minds and our spoken words are signs of these impressions. Written words are the signs of spoken words. The first one which is not a sign of something is wholly present. Until now, we have seen that there is a difference between signified and signifier and the one who is signified has a privileged position compared to the signifiers of it. Because of its position in this sign system, signified is usually seen as it has an independent existence like a universal or a substance.
Hegel reconstructs all these basic notions and categories that have occurred in the history of Western philosophy. Hegel claims that the basic foundational of the all levels such as substance in Aristotle is not something which can exist by itself. He says that there is no substance rather there are relations and activities. The basic level is the set of relations. For Hegel, the basic relation is the immediacy relation between things. Even God negates its immediacy by producing matter and informing the forms in his mind. At this point, I would like to state Derrida’s opinions about Hegel’s reconstruction of all basic categories. Derrida claims that this is an illusion and there is no immediacy relation between the signifier and the thing. Derrida would agree with Hegel’s opposition to the independent substance or universal, because Derrida thinks that there isn’t any independent signified. Derrida believes in that we cannot step out of our practices and refer to something outside of these practices. This idea contradicts with Aristotle and Plato’s opinions, because Derrida claims that it is not possible to step out of our framework in order to find the truth or the origin of everything. We cannot privilege a specific framework over the others. He also says that signification creates an infinitude, thus signs always refer to the other signs and it is not possible to refer a sign which is not a sign. He is opposed to the idea of series of signs. For Derrida, there is no sign which makes us able to step out of this system of signs, so the signified is not out of this sign system and it is not transcendental. However, if it is not possible to refer something outside of our framework and to point out a signified, how can we explain the position of universals?
One possible answer can be given from Kant, and he thinks that universals are operative in the mind of humans and they are basic aspects in which we relate to things. Some forms of representations are already at work in our everyday act of seeing. Whatever we experience, we experience properties or we can say that we experience a universal. And for Heidegger, ontology is concerned with the conditions of the possibility of experiences and with the existentials to be in a world. However, Derrida claims that these theories can no longer work. We can deconstruct the theories we see in history of Western philosophy, because conceptual frameworks have some cracks. For example, there is an important problem in the sign theory forDerrida. As I have mentioned above, Derrida says that this system always refers to one and another and there is no sign outside of this system, hence the so called signified one is also a sign. For Derrida, even if this question is posed by philosophers, the interrogation will be in the limits of their understanding of linguistic and semantics.
Derrida claims that metaphysical theories do not work as well. Covering up the meaning is a matter of differance, it is not a matter of theories. We shall liberate individual from the domination of universals, because without universals justice would be impossible. This liberation of individual from universals is called as justice to come. Derrida also claims that the idea of universals is also the part of desire of Western philosophy which is about to find universal truth. It can be said that it is just a further form of illusion of Western metaphysics. And after the end of this metaphysics, there is a state of human beings which there are no universals.
As I have mentioned above, while Derrida is arguing about metaphysical theories and their uselessness, he claims that they cover up the meaning and this is a matter of differance. Derrida defines his term differance with these words: “…differance, an economic concept designating the production of differing/deferring.”[2] Since it is the concept which designates the production of differing, it can be said that differance is related to difference. However, the main distinction between them can only appear in the new writing, because now even we try to explain differance we use the words of Western metaphysics. As Derrida says that the limits of history of philosophy opened the possibility of what it covers up, the old writing will be the end of this history of philosophy and it will be the first writing of the new writing. Derrida defines new writing as without having lines, since he associates old dominated writing to the linearization of writing. He terribly criticizes every way of linearization of history, but in particular the linearization of time and consequently the linearization of writing. In order to present his opinions about linearization of time, he uses Heidegger’s notion of vulgar time. According to Heidegger, in our daily life we live in a realm of possibilities and we engage in activities. While doing that, we draw a line from present to point in the future and we forward along the time. However, Heidegger claims that here we operate vulgar temporality not primordial temporality. We are thinking in the framework of vulgar time which present takes the priority, and vulgar time covers up primordial temporality. In that case, Derrida claims that vulgar time is also the determining time concept in our history of Western philosophy and it operates classical ontology. Thus, we encounter the linearization of time which affects the understanding of the sign theory as we discussed above. Also, linearization of time creates the linear writing. With these words of Derrida, it can be seen how vulgar time and the history of philosophy intertwine each other: “ If one allows that the linearity of language entails this vulgar and mundane concept of temporality (homogeneous, dominated by the form of the now and the ideal of continuous movement, straight or circular) which Heidegger shows to be intrinsic determining concept of all ontology from Aristotle and Hegel, the mediation upon writing and the deconstruction of the history of philosophy become inseparable.”[3]
In order to decenter the dominant way of philosophizing, Derrida advocates that we need to deconstruct the dominant understanding of metaphysics which is the metaphysics of presence walking together with linearization of time and writing. Derrida shows that the deconstruction is only possible with the writing. Since, the new writing is opening from the last writing’s limits, then it has to contemplate about the metaphysics of presence and logocentrism as the limits of it and also the fountain head of it.
[1] Derrida (1991, p. 39).
[2] Ibid, p. 40.
[3] Ibid, p. 50.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Derrida, J. (1991). From Of Grammatology. In Peggy Kamuf ( Eds.), A Derrida Reader: Between The Blinds. New York: Columbia University Press.
kuşlar uçuyor 