No Final Word: Derrida and the Myth of the Transcendental Signified

 Introduction

Derrida’s Of Grammatology opens not with a definition, but with a disruption. In the section “The Written Being / The Being Written,” Derrida begins to dismantle one of the foundational assumptions of Western metaphysics: that signs derive their meaning from a stable, pre-existing presence. Central to this metaphysical architecture is what he later terms the “transcendental signified”—the imagined, ultimate referent that anchors all signification. Why take aim at this concept so early? Because, as Derrida reveals, it haunts every structure of thought that presumes finality, closure, or origin. To understand how grammatology proceeds, one must first understand what it undoes. Rather than beginning with an abstraction, Derrida interrogates the written mark and its relation to absence, suggesting that what has traditionally been regarded as derivative—writing—is in fact the key to exposing the illusions of immediacy. In this article, we trace the genesis of the “transcendental signified” in this crucial early passage, examining how Derrida unearths it from the ground of metaphysical language and then undermines its stability through a new logic of différance and trace.

The Metaphysical Schema of Signification

Western philosophy, Derrida argues, has always operated on a metaphysical assumption: that meaning precedes expression. “The order of the signified is never contemporary, is at best the subtly discrepant inverse… from the order of the signifier” (OG, p. 13). This hierarchy posits that the signified—the concept or essence—is prior and foundational, while the signifier—the word, sound, or mark—is merely its vehicle. This structuralist schema privileges speech over writing, reason over representation, and presence over absence. In privileging the logos—speech, rationality, divine order—philosophy secures the illusion of immediate access to meaning. The voice, in this system, is thought to be closer to self-presence; one hears oneself speak, collapsing distance between thought and expression. Writing, by contrast, is deferred, disembodied, and alienated. This bias, Derrida calls phonocentrism, and he shows how it saturates even the most radical philosophies, including that of Heidegger. Underneath it all lies the belief that meaning must originate from a center—a presence not dependent on difference. This is the transcendental signified: the term that grounds all others, while evading the logic of signification itself.

The Transcendental Signified as Anchor

Derrida’s analysis culminates in a provocative insight: if signs refer to other signs in an endless chain, then the only way to stop that chain is to posit a final, non-signified sign. “There has to be a transcendental signified for the difference between signifier and signified to be somewhere absolute and irreducible” (OG, p. 20). The transcendental signified is this imagined endpoint—a God-term that arrests infinite deferral and guarantees the presence of meaning. It is not part of the play of signs; rather, it is that which supposedly secures the system from outside. In different philosophical systems, this anchor may take different forms: the Good, Being, Reason, or even Consciousness. But in every case, its role is to guarantee that language is not entirely circular or self-referential. Derrida exposes this maneuver as a metaphysical sleight-of-hand. The transcendental signified is a fiction sustained by the desire for certainty, an attempt to stabilize what is inherently unstable. Its function is not semantic, but ideological—it reassures us that meaning has a ground. But what if this ground is a mirage?

Writing and the Trace

The section “The Written Being / The Being Written” offers a counterpoint to this metaphysical desire. Writing, Derrida insists, reveals what speech tries to hide: the spacing and temporality of meaning. Unlike speech, which masquerades as presence, writing exposes the structure of deferral and repetition that underlies signification. It is in writing that the trace emerges—not a presence, but “the simulacrum of a presence that dislocates, displaces, and refers beyond itself” (OG, p. 66). The trace is not what is left behind after something disappears; it is what makes presence possible in the first place. Every sign carries with it the trace of others; every meaning is haunted by what it excludes. This is the radical force of différance—a term Derrida coins to indicate both “to differ” and “to defer.” Meaning is never immediate, never pure. It arises only in the spacing between signs, and is always already postponed. Thus, the transcendental signified is not only untenable; it is structurally impossible. There is no final term that escapes the chain of differences, no pure signified untouched by signification. There is only the movement of the trace.

Conclusion

To trace the genesis of the transcendental signified in Of Grammatology is to watch Derrida set his sights on the deepest illusion of Western metaphysics: that meaning can be secured, that language can be grounded, that presence precedes difference. In the section “The Written Being / The Being Written,” Derrida shows that writing—far from being secondary—is the very site where the metaphysical assumptions of philosophy unravel. The transcendental signified, once exposed, no longer appears as a truth, but as a necessary fiction, a phantasm invented to avoid the vertigo of infinite reference. In its place, Derrida gives us the trace: an openness, a deferral, a structure that resists closure. Rather than a root system, with meaning branching from a single center, Derrida’s model resembles a web—dynamic, shifting, and centerless. “There is no transcendental or privileged signified that could escape the play of signifying references,” he writes (OG, p. 20). And it is precisely this insight that sets grammatology apart. The genesis of the transcendental signified is also its undoing.

Postscript: Toward a Systemic Critique

This article has traced Derrida’s critique of the transcendental signified as it emerges in Of Grammatology, particularly through his concepts of différance and the trace. But the implications of this critique extend beyond the dismantling of metaphysical presence—they raise pressing questions about the structural dependencies of meaning itself. Can the critique of the transcendental signified escape the very system it deconstructs? Or does it, paradoxically, require a Saussurean framework of differences to remain intelligible? These questions will be explored in a forthcoming follow-up article, where we examine the system-dependence of différance and the risks of turning deconstruction into a new metaphysical dogma. Rather than abolishing foundational concepts, philosophy may be called to recognize their contingency—and to practice a systemic reflexivity that includes its own tools of critique.

Related Post

Halting the Infinite Regress: Why Every System Needs Its Own Transcendental Signified

https://derridaforlinguists.blogspot.com/2025/04/blog-post_05.html

Writing as Origin: Derrida, Nietzsche, and the Systemic Genesis of Meaning

https://nietzscheanlinguistics.blogspot.com/2025/04/blog-post.html

Bibliography

Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.