Identity without Substance: Derrida and Saussure on Form and Structure

Introduction

What makes something, or someone, “the same”? This deceptively simple question lies at the heart of both structural linguistics and deconstruction. For Ferdinand de Saussure, identity in language depends entirely on difference: a sign possesses value not because of any intrinsic content but through its position within a system. For Jacques Derrida, this logic extends beyond language to the constitution of the subject itself. Identity, whether linguistic or personal, is a function of relational forms that precede and shape what they appear to represent. Two examples—Saussure’s street and Derrida’s wooden form—trace the continuity and transformation between structuralist and post-structuralist thought. Both reveal identity as a construct sustained by external relations rather than by internal essence.

Saussure: The Street as Relational Identity

In the Course in General Linguistics, Saussure famously declares that “in the language itself, there are only differences, and no positive terms.”¹ Meaning does not stem from ideas or sounds that exist prior to the linguistic system; it arises solely from contrasts within that system. Linguistic signs have no essence, they occupy positions in a network of distinctions.

To illustrate this, Saussure turns to a non-linguistic analogy: the example of a street rebuilt from the ground up.

“If a street is demolished and then rebuilt, we say it is the same street, although there may be physically little or nothing left of the old one. How is it that a street can be reconstructed entirely and still be the same? Because it is not a purely material structure. It has other characteristics which are independent of its bricks and mortar; for example, its situation in relation to other streets.”²

The “identity” of the street, then, is not grounded in material continuity but in positional relations, its coordinates within an urban grid. Its being depends on what surrounds and differentiates it. Linguistic units operate in precisely this way: a sign remains “the same” only through the persistence of relational conditions. Once those conditions change, meaning shifts, even if the sound or conceptual component remains constant.

This structural conception eliminates the notion of inner substance. There is no positive term that precedes the system; identity is a relational function, not an inherent property. The rebuilt street is “the same” because of its structural position, not because of any enduring material feature.

Derrida: The Wooden Form and the Absent Foot

Derrida radicalizes this structural insight by extending it to the metaphysical question of the self. In “Restitutions of the Truth in Pointing,” he reflects on the craft of shoemaking and the wooden block used to mold a shoe before it ever meets a human foot. This prosthetic object, the form, stands in for the absent body:

“The wooden ‘form’ comes to stand in for the absent foot. It provides a structure for the shoe before the foot comes to enter it.”³

For Derrida, this material substitution is more than an artisanal detail, it becomes a metaphor for the logic of representation and identity. Just as the wooden mold gives shape to a shoe in advance of any living foot, so too do symbolic, cultural, and linguistic frameworks prefigure the individual before experience or self-consciousness arises. The form precedes what it represents. Identity, in this reading, is not an autonomous origin but a structure of anticipation, a prosthesis that stands in for absence.

This metaphor materializes the dynamics of différance—the process by which meaning and identity emerge through deferral and displacement. The foot, like the self, never fully coincides with its form; it arrives belatedly, filling a space already outlined by structural conditions. Identity is therefore derivative, an effect of preexistent frameworks that both enable and constrain individuality.

Form, Position, and the Non-Substantial Self

Placed side by side, Saussure’s street and Derrida’s wooden form reveal two moments in the evolution from structuralism to deconstruction. In both cases, identity depends on relational configuration rather than material or metaphysical substance. Saussure restricts this insight to the linguistic system, whereas Derrida generalizes it to the formation of the subject itself.

Saussure’s example shows that a street remains “the same” only by virtue of its position within a network; Derrida’s shows that a person or object gains identity only through forms that pre-exist and exceed it. Both metaphors overturn the classical assumption that identity rests on self-presence or continuity of matter.

Yet Derrida’s move is more radical. Where Saussure still posits a relatively stable system—langue—within which relations acquire definition, Derrida insists that no structure can close itself off completely. Every form bears traces of what it excludes; every system is haunted by what it substitutes. The form that shapes identity is itself a trace, the remainder of other absences. The “street” persists only because of an urban grid that is itself contingent and shifting. Identity, whether linguistic or personal, is always provisional, dependent on what lies beyond it.

From Structure to Trace

If Saussure dismantles the myth of intrinsic meaning, Derrida dismantles the myth of stable form. For Saussure, the differential system guarantees value; for Derrida, even the system is open to deferral, contamination, and play. The wooden form stands not only for the absent foot but also for the impossibility of a final presence. It embodies the supplement: a structure that both replaces and produces what it represents.

By juxtaposing these two examples, we see how Derrida inherits Saussure’s insight while liberating it from the structuralist search for stability. Identity becomes a site of continual substitution, where every presence is already a repetition of an absence.

Conclusion

Through the metaphors of the street and the wooden form, Saussure and Derrida converge on a vision of identity devoid of essence. In both, form precedes content, and relation outweighs substance. Saussure’s linguistic model reveals how meaning arises from positional difference; Derrida’s deconstructive reading shows that even the subject is caught within such relational dynamics. What unites them is the recognition that identity is never given—it is produced, sustained by structures that are themselves shifting and incomplete. To grasp what it means to be “the same” is to look not for what remains within, but for what surrounds, supports, and replaces. As Saussure himself reminds us, “in a sign, what matters more than any idea or sound associated with it is what other signs surround it.”

References

1. Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, trans. Wade Baskin, ed. Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye (New York: Philosophical Library, 1959), 120.
2. Ibid., 106.
3. Jacques Derrida, “Restitutions of the Truth in Pointing,” in The Truth in Painting, trans. Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 255.
4. Jacques Derrida, La Vérité en peinture (Paris: Flammarion, 1978), “Restitutions de la vérité en pointant”.
5. Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976).