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The Problem of “Pure Difference”: A Critical Examination of Weber’s Reading of Saussure

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Books. AI image Introduction In Closure and Exclusion , Samuel Weber proposes a reconstruction of Ferdinand de Saussure’s theory of language centered on the notion of “pure difference.” According to his account, Saussure defines linguistic value as differential and thereby risks unleashing an unbounded dissemination of distinctions. The stability of the system, Weber argues, can only be secured by bracketing diachrony and invoking the “institution of language.” The resulting structure is said to depend upon a suppression of history. This interpretation is problematic at its foundation. It rests on a decisive conceptual shift: the rendering of la langue as the generic term “language.” Once this shift occurs, difference can appear as a quasi-ontological principle prior to the system rather than as a structural feature internal to it. Weber’s question—“what limits difference?”—thus arises from a displacement already embedded in the terminology. A return to Saussure’s distinctions sug...
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Diachrony Misplaced: On Weber’s Assimilation of Saussure to Peirce

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le Jet d’Eau . AI image Introduction: A Conceptual Transplant Samuel Weber’s claim that Charles Sanders Peirce situates “diachrony” at the heart of semiosis performs a striking conceptual maneuver. By translating Peirce’s account of interpretive succession into Saussurean vocabulary, Weber appears to construct a philosophical progression from structural closure to temporal openness. Yet this move is not merely bold, it is structurally unstable. It imports a technical term from Ferdinand de Saussure’s linguistics into a semiotic framework that neither requires nor sustains it. The result is less a productive synthesis than a distortion of two distinct theoretical architectures. The difficulty lies not in comparison as such, but in conceptual substitution. “Diachrony” in Saussure names a rigorously delimited analytical category. To redeploy it within Peirce’s system without preserving its methodological function is to evacuate its specificity. Diachrony in Saussure: Historical Subs...
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Difference, Institution, and the Question of Closure: Reconsidering Weber’s Reading of Saussure

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“dans la langue il n’y a que des différences.” AI image Introduction Samuel Weber’s reading of Ferdinand de Saussure follows a clear and compelling line of reasoning. If language consists solely of differences, then those differences might appear capable of indefinite expansion. Determination would therefore require limits, and such limits, on this account, are secured by invoking linguistic institution, privileging synchrony, and bracketing diachrony. The resulting system seems closed only because historical movement has been set aside. This reconstruction raises serious philosophical questions. Yet it risks isolating one of Saussure’s most cited formulations ( “dans la langue il n’y a que des différences” ) from the broader conceptual structure of the Course in General Linguistics . A closer examination suggests that difference in Saussure never operates independently of an already instituted system. The problem, then, is not whether Weber’s questions are legitimate, but whet...
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What Is a Linguistic Institution? Rereading Saussure Against Weber

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An institution unlike any other. AI image Two Interpretations of Institution At the outset of Closure and Exclusion , Samuel Weber recalls Jacques Derrida’s distinction between “two interpretations of interpretation.” The gesture signals that what follows will not be a neutral exposition but a critical engagement with the very act of reading. When Weber turns to Ferdinand de Saussure, he does so in this spirit. He revisits what has become canonical in the reception of the Cours de linguistique générale —the theory of the sign, differential value, synchronic linguistics—and seeks to expose the tensions that such familiarity conceals. One of the most decisive points in this encounter concerns Saussure’s notion of “linguistic institution.” For Weber, this term marks the moment at which a system threatened by the dispersion of pure difference secures its coherence. Yet a closer reading of the Cours suggests a different picture. What Weber interprets as a stabilizing principle of closu...
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"The Familiar" Revisited: Saussure, Weber, and the Status of Synchrony

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Synchronic and Diachronic Linguistics. AI image Questioning "the Familiar" “ If I take the liberty of recalling a distinction that has doubtless become familiar, indeed all too familiar, it is precisely in order to question that familiarity. For what has become familiar is only part of the story .” With this remark, Samuel Weber opens his discussion of Ferdinand de Saussure in Closure and Exclusion . The gesture is  hermeneutic : return to what seems settled and reopen it. Yet Weber’s own interpretation of Saussure arguably relies on a “too familiar” image of the Cours de linguistique générale : Saussure as the architect of rigid oppositions—signifier versus signified, synchrony versus diachrony—and as the theorist of pure system, and structural closure. A closer reading of the Cours complicates this picture. Saussure does not present synchrony and diachrony as substantial domains, nor does he treat the bracketing of history as metaphysical exclusion. Rather, he frames t...
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