"Differance"

TL;DR

Derrida introduced Differance (notice the a instead of e) as a concept of creating differences over time. It is temporal.

While TL;DRs are good in the short term and nice to know, and will get us some nerd points in society, to understand the importance of this concept, one has to not only read this 24-page essay, but also a substantial part of the materials mentioned there.

So, on one hand, we have our plain, old difference. We use it all the time. This means two entities are not the same. But, this newly introduced differance is the process that works in our world over time and creates the differences, often of the same thing.

It is important to understand that differance doesn't exist, we can only see differences made by it. We cannot even bring it into existence because that will actually dissolve it.

Now, how am I to speak of the a of differance? It is clear that it cannot be exposed. We can expose only what, at a certain moment, can become present, manifest; what can be shown, presented as a present, a being-present in its truth, the truth of a present or the presence of a present. However, if differance is (I also cross out the “is”) what makes the presentation of being-present possible, it never presents itself as such. It is never given in the present or to anyone. Holding back and not exposing itself, it goes beyond the order of truth on this specific point and in this determined way, yet is not itself concealed, as if it were something, a mysterious being, in the occult zone of the nonknowing. Any exposition would expose it to disappearing as a disappearance. It would risk appearing, thus disappearing.

This also means that it is not how God has been defined in the negative theology.

Now, let's think about why this concept is important or interesting. First, let's consider this passage:

It was Saussure who first of all set forth the arbitrariness of signs and the differential character of signs as principles of general semiology and particularly of linguistics. And, as we know, these two themes—the arbitrary and the differential—are in his view inseparable. Arbitrariness can occur only because the system of signs is constituted by the differences between the terms, and not by their fullness. The elements of signification function not by virtue of the compact force of their cores but by the network of oppositions that distinguish them and relate them to one another. “Arbitrary and differential” says Saussure “are two correlative qualities.”

It means our knowledge about this world, all the categorisations we have in our head, so that we can distinguish this or that, is not based on our comprehensive knowledge of things. Instead, we know too little, but we know the differences between things. So, you can imagine that our reality is a big block of marble and we see it being chiselled away bit by bit, acknowledging differences, we get to know the ontological categories. These differences are the defining factors of the world.

Differance is that process of chiselling, over time.

What we note as differance will thus be the movement of play that “produces” (and not by something that is simply an activity) these differences, these effects of difference. This does not mean that the differance which produces differences is before them in a simple and in itself unmodified and indifferent present. Differance is the nonfull, nonsimple "origin"; it is the structured and differing origin of differences.

Differance is also the driving force for Dasein— a temporal phenomenon. It doesn't exist at a point in time, but over a stretch of time, ever changing, ever interacting. It is the tapestry of ever-accumulating traces created by differance, which often has the illusion of being only at present.

I shall only note that between differance as temporalizing-temporalization (which we can no longer conceive within the horizon of the present) and what Heidegger says about temporalization in Sein und Zeit (namely, that as the transcendental horizon of the question of being it must be freed from the traditional and metaphysical domination by the present or the now)—between these two there is a close, if not exhaustive and irreducibly necessary, interconnection.

Coming back to the signs, the signs we use in our languages are placeholders for things that are not present. This act of signification itself depends on differance because with this sign, we are deferring the entity we are signifying. Maybe we haven't stumbled upon languages and found a nice tool to use. Languages, perhaps, have a deeper ontological root, which makes it necessary for sentient beings, which brings us to the closing thought of this essay:

Jacques Derrida

Being
speaks
through every language;
everywhere and always.

Notes and Highlights

Differance by Jacques Derrida