Alisaca, Ryan Vincent F.

1. In Of Grammatology, what does Derrida mean by de-sedimentation and

deconstruction? (300min-800max) (10%)

De-sedimentation, in the sense as it is used in the Earth Sciences, means the erosion or
wearing away of layers and layers of soil which has accumulated through time.
Now Derrida, in trying to establish the privilege and, later on, the neutralization, of
writing, sees that the traditional understanding of reason and rationality, i.e. as understood in the
light of the ‘logos’, can no longer be applied to a radical and expanded understanding of writing. 1
Understanding rationality as logos seem, at first glance, tautologous. In fact, a direct translation
of the greek word λόγος would be reason. Derrida, however, seems to point something out when
he speaks of logos. Throughout his works, he continually speaks of logos as something which
cannot really be understood as reason or rationality.
In Grammatology, we are told that what we know as truth is dependent on some standard
particular to a certain epoch or age. Thus, in the Pre-socratic period, we the standard of
Philosophy, i.e. as being reasonable by way of speculation and reasoning out. Later on, God
would be the standard of everything. This happens in the Medieval Ages. Later on, when the
world turns to understand better the human person without the notion of God, truth is then
subjected to anthropological standards. Derrida carries this up to the pre-Hegelian and post-
Hegelian senses of truth (and perhaps even beyond). 2 Derrida therefore speaks of a tradition.
This tradition is nothing but the standardization of truths among epoch.
Apparently however, this tradition seems to have different senses in different epochs. The
truth in the Pre-socratic period is not the same truth as can be found in the Medieval Ages. Upon
closer inspection, however, we realize that what happened was not really a standardization for
truth but a privileging of certain concepts. Thus, there are different ultimate concepts in each
epoch, all of which change throughout time. This, then are the layers and layers of tradition upon
which philosophy has always operated. And yet, the fact is that they maintain a certain standard,
a privileged concept, a concept foundational to idea of that age. These epochs are looking out for
a foundation of some sort on which to hinge their philosophies.
When Derrida speaks of de-sedimentation and deconstruction, he means the erosion of
these traditions as founded on a certain logos. He does not wish to destroy the whole of
Philosophy as he would still be using some terms which are part of the traditions of Philosophy.
By de-sedimentation, he wishes to tell us that when we analyze the concept of writing, we are
shown of things and concepts which make any master word for any time a contradiction, that
there can really be any ultimate idea for our understanding in any time.
Word count: 463

1
Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore: The John Hopkins
University Press, 1997), 10.
2
Ibid., 10-11.
Alisaca, Ryan Vincent F.

2. What are the convergences and divergences of Derrida’s position vis-a-vis

Levinas’ thought in the work “Violence and Metaphysics”? (400min-800max)
(15%)

The entire tradition of Western Philosophy has always been Greek. This is an irrefutable
fact. And whether we like it or not, Philosophy as we know it will always have the traces of its
Greek sources. This is not some sort of historicism or Occidentalism, and that whenever we try
to think in terms of Philosophy, we will always be thinking according to Greek-founded ideas.
This is simply because Philosophy developed as Greek and its founding fathers are Greek.3
Thus, whenever we speak of Metaphysics or, more specifically, of Being, we are
inevitably led back to our Greek roots. We are led back to the Greek elements. This Greek Being
is not just some sort of incidental ideas in the ancient days. This Greek Being is itself the Being
“whose irruption or call produced Greece.” 4 All the Greek elements which have influenced our
Philosophy and thinking up to this date can be said to be the very source of the possibility of our
civilization.
Now, in the language of the Greeks, we are given an idea of Being. This idea of being,
however, has been distorted and corrupted. And this idea of being has been used as an alibi for a
violent oppression in the western world. Nevertheless, Emmanuel Levinas sought to raise up and
liberate metaphysics from its corrupted position. He wished to raise Metaphysics in opposition to
that tradition of Metaphysics derived from Aristotle (that is, at least I think so, Scholasticism).5
Here, I think, is a convergence with Derrida’s thought with Levinas. However unclear
Derrida might be in his works or in fact as to his primary thesis, I would like to say that he was
primarily concerned with emancipation. This, I think, is seen in his deconstruction of the
tradition of Philosophy to treat concepts as binary opposites and to give a privileging to one of
the two binary opposites. Hence, if Levinas wishes to straighten up Philosophy and treat
Metaphysics as something that calls upon an ethical relationship, 6 then both Derrida’s and
Levinas’ thoughts might have some congruency.
Now, Levinas wishes to break free from these understandings of being. First, he breaks
free from Plato who thought that everything can be understood in the light of the ideal world.
That the world of sense is nothing but a copy of that ideal and perfect world. But this idea,
however, can be traced back to Parmenides who shapes non-being according to being, who
understands non-being in relation to being, i.e. non-being is merely the negation of being.7

3
Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1978), 82.
4
Ibid.
5
Ibid.
6
Ibid. 89
7
Ibid.
Alisaca, Ryan Vincent F.

But this idea of non-being gives the impression that what is other than being is certainly
of lesser importance. There is then an oppression of light. In the guise of a master idea, being is
likened to that of a light under which things are to be understood.8
The whole thing about being likened to a light, likened to some source of authority,
however, is merely a metaphor. In a language which gives priority to light over darkness, we
cannot but understand being, since it is likened to light, as some sort of authority under which all
others must submit themselves. All these happen in and because of language. 9 Here, I think
Derrida wishes to show the irrationality of the privileging of being. This in turn results in the
many oppressions of institutions. Levinas’ other, precisely because in the mind of the Eleatics
what is other than being is non-being, cannot be reached with the current metaphysics which
treats being merely as existence. This liberation of metaphysics from this illusion by Levinas’
and Derrida’s critique of Philosophy as something which does not recognize the equity of
concepts is a convergence in their philosophies.

Word count: 620 (Excluding quotations)

3. What is, for you, aporetic in Derrida’s consideration of deconstruction? What do

8
Ibid., 92
9
Ibid.
Alisaca, Ryan Vincent F.

you propose in order to surpass or to disentangle this? ? (600min-1000max)

(30%)

I think what is aporetic in Derrida’s deconstruction is its treatment of privileged concepts.

While it must be admitted that some concepts may have been privileged by a choice, I would to
argue that the privileging of being is not at all a choice. It is, rather, a fundamental notion of our
understanding, without which, not even deconstruction can begin.
The differance is a demonstration of Derrida’s deconstruction. Allow me, therefore, to
start there. Derrida takes Saussure’s understanding of how signs function, i.e. through a
difference among themselves. This is because the signified concept is never presented by the
sign. Signs, after all, are merely arbitrary. The trace which Derrida tries to term by his usage of
the misspelled word differance is that something which allows for the distinctions among signs. 10
Because of this, this trace which allows for the distinction among signs ultimately becomes that
which even makes any idea of being possible. Thus this trace, this differance, is older than
being.11
When Derrida speaks of the differance as older than being, he means to say that it is what
allows being to be even understood. Here, I think Derrida is wrong. I therefore propose my view
as to how we might be able to surpass Derrida’s aporia.
Our understanding of being is, I think, fundamental to our understanding of the world.
The first data of our minds as gained in the infancy of our experiences is the idea of being. The
idea of being then brings with it the principles which are what allows for understanding. I would
like to especially mention the principle of non-contradiction. Hence, when we first know being,
we know that when a thing is, it cannot be not-be at the same time and under the same respect.
Now, when we know being, we do not know it through language. We know it as we
observe the world and perform abstractions. The child then, even when he or she is still at the
stage of being unable to speak a language, is amazed at magic tricks because he/she knows that
events like a rabbit suddenly appearing from nowhere in a hat is something unnatural. Therefore,
when we know being and the principles which follow from it, we know it not from language. We
know it simply by abstraction.
If we know that signs are different, it is because we know that different things cannot
collapse with each other in a way that it would violate the first metaphysical principle. Now,
since we wish to express the things in our mind which are, in the first place, understood
according to the principles that follow being, we must use our resources so that we can come to
an understanding. Therefore, we create signs. Language then, is a necessary consequence of our
being a rational community.

10
Jacques Derrida, “Differance,” Bullettin de la Societe francaise de Philosophie 62 (1968): 263,
http://eclass.uth.gr/eclass/modules/document/file.php/MHXD236/Derrida-Differance.pdf
11
Ibid., 276.
Alisaca, Ryan Vincent F.

The problem of language now confronts us. Since signs are arbitrary in nature, how are
we able to know the thing in themselves by it? I’d like to argue that although indeed signs are
arbitrary, they do not, in anyway impede our understanding of things. Imagine, then, a man who,
in his adventures in the dessert, becomes very thirsty. He therefore looks for a well of water. The
man certainly understands what ‘well’ he is talking about, And certainly he knows this even
when well may also mean being healthy. He does not speak, nor does he make a judgment about
what a well is. He simply knows, at the back of his head, that he is looking for a well. This is
because, I think, apprehension is a simple act of the mind. We only hear ourselves speak when
we make judgments about our apprehension, i.e. when we know that we already know. Thus,
when we define things according to signs, we are not left with more signs. We are led to the
correct apprehension through those signs.
Deconstruction can only be possible if the binary opposites were, in the first place,
already different from each other, one of which is privileged, the other subsumed. Signs, though
arbitrary, can still lead us things although not entirely and not always correctly. What allows us
to distinguish between signs is precisely the fact that differences cannot be collapsed into one
and hence understood as something ‘at the same time and under the same respect.’

Word Count: 727

Alisaca, Ryan Vincent F.

4. Why is differance “neither a word nor a concept” ?

A word is sign which is understood as a something which represents the presence of a

certain thing which it is supposed to signify. Furthermore, a word is a sign which functions more
specifically in a determined manner as something which represents presence in language. 12 This
signified thing is the concept. This concept, however, is nothing but a representation of a thing in
the mind which still basically a linguistic representation. This representation is therefore called
an “acoustical image”.13
Now, Saussure tells us that in order that we make language intelligible to us, its words
must be understood in a system of play of differences. After all, there has been no word or sign
that has preceded language. With the establishment of language arose signs which can only be
differentiated through the network of differences among these signs.14 Hence, we know that a
sign is bat (and is supposed to bring us the presence of what a bat is) because it is not ‘cat’, ‘rat’,
‘mat’, or ‘hat’. It is precisely this network which allows us to conceive of the differences present
among signs. Consequentially, these differences also allows us to understand what kind of
presence is supposed to be represented by these signs, that is, the sign ‘bat’ is supposed to have
the power to tell us what a bat is on account of the distinctions which allows bat to be read as
‘bat’ and not ‘cat’ or ‘mat’.
This however is not the case as the signified concept is never actually present in the
representation of the signified. Since words are understood according to a play of differences in
am entangled network, then what we actually know are merely differences in signs and not the
things themselves.15 This is still the case when we think of bats. After all, what is in our minds
are still a manifestation of language. In all actuality, we think of words. And without words, we
cannot think at all. If this difference among signs in a network allows us to understand the signs
themselves, then we are presented with a problem when two signs do not have a difference at all.
A ‘bat’ might be the animal bat, or it might be the baseball bat. We therefore set out to define the
kind of bat that we are purportedly referring to, i.e. the bat used in a baseball game. But all we
have here once again are more signs which are, once again, understood according to the play of
differences of signs in a network. The sign of a ‘bat’, therefore, does not really bring to us a
representation of the presence of a bat, a signified bat if you will. Instead, what we are given in
our understanding of the word ‘bat’ are more words which can only be understood by, yet again,
a play of differences in network.
But what allows for these differences in play? Differance is precisely that. Difference is,
in Derrida’s own words, “no longer simply a concept, but the possibility of conceptuality, the

12
Derrida, “Differance,” 262.
13
Ibid., 263
14
Ferdinand de Saussure, Cours de linguistique generale, ed. C. Bally and A. Sechehaye (Paris: Payot,
1916); English translation by Wade Baskin, Course in General Linguistics (New York: Philosophical Library, 1959),
120, quoted in Jacques Derrida, “Difference,” 263.
15
Ibid.
Alisaca, Ryan Vincent F.

conceptual system and process in general.”16 Differance, however, does not have a definition. It
is simply the designated term, devoid of any content whatsoever, for that movement by which
becomes understood according to differences.17 We cannot point it out and define it because
doing so would lead us the regress of the signified and signifiers and the difference at play,
something which is not differance but is made possible by whatever it is makes them possible
(call it differance).

Word count: 587 (excluding direct quotations)

16
Ibid.
17
ibid, 264.
Alisaca, Ryan Vincent F.

5. Demonstrate how Derrida deconstructs a concept. Choose only one concept.

Perhaps a clear demonstration of deconstruction can be found in Derrida’s deliberate

misspelling of the French word Difference to Differance as can be read in his essay bearing that
same title: “Differance”. This deliberate misspelling, this deliberate transgression, deconstructs
more than just the meaning of the word difference. As we shall see later on, Derrida’s
deconstruction in this work is a deconstruction of the privilege of speech over writing. At the
bigger picture, this deconstruction is not just a breaking of privileges inherent among binary
opposites. This deconstruction is a breaking of traditions that have, for centuries, been the “light”
under which we understand all of our philosophical endeavors, and under which also our culture
and way of life has been understood and done. This light, after all, is complicit with power and
technico-political possession.18
What can be noticed between difference and differance is the difference in their spelling.
The former is spelled with an /e/, the latter an /a/. This, however, is not merely an elementary
error which may shock the grammarians. By way of this graphic intervention, Derrida shows us
that the distinction between difference and differance can only be known via the written word.
The difference is purely a graphic difference, one which cannot be heard. It is, therefore, silent
and can only be understood in reference to a written text.19
It has always been understood by many that speech and language, at least in its Western
conception, is tied more closely to sound, hearing, and voice.20 There is, therefore, a privilege of
speech over writing. Now, in trying to recognize the meanings of words in speech, Saussure
reminds us that it is the difference among signs that allows us to recognize and understand the
meaning of the sign i.e. the word. This difference allows for the possibility of signs. 21 Hence, we
the word bat is known by us precisely because it is not gnat, cat, or rat. In the mentioned
examples, the difference are audible. Even without the written word, we are still able to
distinguish bat, from rat or cat. This is all fine and good until Derrida forcibly misspells the /e/ of
difference into an /a/ (thus differance). It is, therefore, made clear to us that the difference
between spoken words are not always that clear. Instead of difference, we must now understand
that the differance (same meaning and same pronunciation in French) between signs can only be
fully understood not so much is the spoken word but instead in the written text. It can only be
understood, not with speech, but with writing.
As mentioned earlier, speech has always been more closely tied with language. Perhaps
this is because speech is more closely linked to the person speaking, more closely associated
with reasoning of a person speaking, and is therefore more closely associated with reason.
Speech, then, is not only sensible but also intelligible. The whole of backdrop Western
Philosophy has always had this bias for the intelligible as superior to mere the mere sensible. But
speech as already demonstrated above cannot be a real source of comprehension as it cannot
18
Derrida, Writing and Differance, 80.
19
Derrida, “Differance,” 255.
20
Derrida, Of Grammatology, 7.
21
Derrida, “Differance,” 258.
Alisaca, Ryan Vincent F.

fully account for the play of difference which makes signs altogether possible. Speech loses its
privilege.
This, however, does not warrant us to believe that writing is now privileged over speech
as the same problem actually arises in writing: we cannot tell the difference between a well
(water source) and being well (being healthy) with the use of the word well alone. Derrida thus
explicates the objection, “…the graphic difference itself sinks into darkness, that it never
constitutes the fullness of a sensible term,”22 Signs, therefore, be it a written or spoken word,
cannot really give us the intelligibility that we have always thought we have known. Thus, “This
differance belongs neither to the voice nor to the writing in the ordinary sense,” We must now
longer refer to intelligibility, or to speech, or even to Being.
Philosophy has always held these things as privileged. Under these concepts, we
seemingly make sense of the world. Western Philosophy has always followed this sort of
reasoning and privileging as though these were the ‘light’ which should govern all our
endeavors. Derrida, however, through the difference, has demonstrated to us that there is
something more fundamental than intelligibility or sensibility, something which even makes
intelligibility intelligible, something that creates the spacing and distinction between
intelligibility and sensibility, and among all other concepts in general. As to what that something
is, we cannot point it out because the moment we point it out is the moment that it becomes a
specific concept whose intelligibility will then rely on that very same spacing. We cannot
explicate it. Its trace is merely known in the differance.
Derrida thus deconstructs, not only the privilege of speech over writing, intelligible of
sensible, but in fact the whole history of Western Philosophy.

Word count: 796 (excluding quotations)

6. How does Derrida’s critique of consciousness in “Genesis and Structure..” leads

22
Ibid.
Alisaca, Ryan Vincent F.

to the question of language? (15%) (400min-800max)

Husserl, in his efforts to look for the foundation and origin of objectivity, has condemned
a psychologism and historicism which are, in one way or another, empirical. If it is empirical,
then it must be a science based on inferences derived from particular instances. And yet, if this is
so, then it can only become a relativism of some sort. A relativism based on the particular
instances or controls with which the said sciences are being done. In this case, psychologism and
historicism cannot really hold universal data and thus objective truths. Then can only lead to
skepticism.23
Husserl therefore objects to Dilthey’s Weltarchauungsphilosophie as it is still, at least for
Husserl, a species of historicism. If truths are accounted merely from a total historical
perspective, then it can still be relative to the cultural exigencies of men throughout history.24
But Husserl’s question of objectivity presents to us a problem. To ask of a basis,
foundation, or more accurately an origin denotes some sort of movement. And yet, since
objectivity requires a certain static structure where one can frame truths so that they can become
universal.25
Husserl, therefore, insists on objectivity of things and experience, in the things
themselves. Now, Husserl has always thought that Arithmetic has always yielded universal
truths. How should we then establish a science which is as rigorous as arithmetic? Husserl thinks
that the phenomenological attitude should guide us in this regard.26
Derrida, however, thinks that unlike mathematical essences, our experience of different
phenomena cannot be exact. Mathematics, after all, is in the realm of pure abstracts. There is,
therefore, no geometry of experience. Hence, if we are to reduce phenomena to pure abstractions,
then they stop becoming phenomena. Thus, we cannot really put into a certain uniform structure
all phenomena and describe them completely as objective.27
The thing as a content of our thought cannot really be a real part of our consciousness
because if we do that, we are stripping it of its materiality, its hyle, that which makes it real. But
this is not something which Husserl deliberately leaves out. Materiality implies change and
temporality. Thus, abstracting from this materiality is necessary if we must attain objectivity. But
at the same time, it is the rejection of this materiality that disallows the things themselves to be
present on our consciousness.28
Thus, when reason resorts to these abstractions, there actually is nothing in the mind but
speech. When we think of things, we are actually simply hearing ourselves speak about the thing.

23
Derrida, Writing and Differance, 159.
24
Ibid., 161.
25
Ibid.
26
Ibid.
27
Ibid., 163
28
Ibid.
Alisaca, Ryan Vincent F.

When we think of being, or any other metaphysical entities of some sort, we are merely using
language in our minds to think and define concepts.29 Since consciousness, if it desires
objectivity, cannot take in materiality, how then are we able to understand it except through
hearing ourselves speak about it? If we must insist on a pure objectivity, we must do a reduction
which must also exclude any sort of determination, then that reduction can only give us
something inexplicable. If it is in explicable, how, then should we all know about it?
Nevertheless, if a reduction merely allows us to hear ourselves speak, then language must
be that determinant which must structure objectivity. Here, we are presented a problem.
Language carries with it traditions and biases of a certain epoch and culture. But this defeats the
whole purpose of the reduction whose goal is objectivity. If language dictates our understanding,
and if language is itself something historical, then the reduction is simply a distorted but covert
form of historicism.
Word count: 603

7. For Derrida, can there be a writing before writing? Explain. (10%)

(300min-800max)

29
Ibid., 166
Alisaca, Ryan Vincent F.

In the essay entitled “Difference,” Derrida introduces us to a letter. “I will speak then of
the letter a, this first letter which it seemed necessary to introduce now, and then in the writing of
the word ‘difference’.”30 Apparently, Derrida is signaling us his usage of the letter a to substitute
for the letter e in the word ‘difference’. Thus comes about differance. But a sentence before that
introduction of the letter a, Derrida tells us that he would “speak, then, of a letter –the first one, if
we are to believe the alphabet and the most of the speculations that have concerned themselves
with it.”31 By these two sentence, was Derrida merely being repetitious when he speaks of the
first letter and then proceeds to say that he will speak of the letter a? I hardly think so. When
Derrida says in the first sentence that he would speak of some sort of a first letter, he does not
mean the letter a. He is speaking of something more ancient than the letter a. Now, letters are
graphic signs which are amalgamated to form graphic words, which in turn become writing when
these words are finally organized. Hence when Derrida tells us of a first letter, he is actually
telling us of a letter even before the letter a. Derrida is introducing to us some sort of arche-
writing, a writing before writing.
After Derrida introduces us to that first letter, he proceeds to tell us of the letter a. It is at
this moment that Derrida tells us that the letter a will soon be used in the word ‘difference’
thereby doing a deliberate misspelling giving us the term ‘differance’. In here, Derrida wishes to
lead us on to this writing before writing by mean of the deliberate misspelling, by means of the
differance.
Now, Derrida tells us that this arche-writing is already seen implicitly in the ideas about
the arbitrariness of signs.32 Since signs are arbitrary, we cannot really trust them to refer to the
things themselves. Let us consider for the moment the word ‘hotdog’. We know immediately
what food we are pertaining to here. Nevertheless, among languages, there are different ways to
signify that food. We however become more confused when someone out of nowhere invents a
device for communication and calls it a ‘hotdog’. Thus, signs cannot lead us to the things
themselves. In order to make sense of signs, we must understand them as a part of a whole
network of signs understood only according to their differences. Now, we cannot tell what
‘hotdog’ we are referring to now. Thus we resort to more signs, and proceed to defining the sign
with more signs.
Along those line, arche-writing is implied. In fact, this arche-writing is the condition for
all understanding in language.33 Arche-writing, as we have already mentioned is shown to us by
the differance. Not that the term difference means arche-writing, but that the deliberate
misspelling of the differance reveals to us that property (or whatever it is) of language which
ultimately relies on the distinction of signs. Let us remember that since signs cannot really point
us the things themselves, then our grounds for objectivity, precisely because we can only operate
in language, cannot be in the things themselves, but in the differences among signs. Now if

30
Derrida, “Differance,” 256.
31
Ibid.
32
Derrida, Of Grammatology, 57.
33
Ibid., 60.
Alisaca, Ryan Vincent F.

arche-writing is precisely what makes these differences possible, then this arche-writing should
“order(s) all objectivity of the object and all relation of knowledge.”34
I must admit, however, that all efforts to thoroughly describe this arche-writing are
doomed to become exercises in futility. In fact, it cannot even become an object of any science, 35
nor can we even consider it part of any linguistic system and studied as an object in that system.
It is, after all, the condition for all linguistic systems.36 We stop, therefore, at this point.
Word count: 592 (excluding quotations)

Bibliography

34
Ibid., 57.
35
Ibid.
36
Ibid 60.
Alisaca, Ryan Vincent F.

Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Translated by: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore: The
John Hopkins University Press, 1997.

______. Writing and Difference. Translated by: Alan Bass. Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1978.

______. “Differance,” Bullettin de la Societe francaise de Philosophie 62 (1968): 73-101

reproduced with permission by the Northwestern University Press
http://eclass.uth.gr/eclass/modules/document/file.php/MHXD236/Derrida-Differance.pdf