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

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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 suggests that difference does not threaten the system from outside; it operates only within the socially instituted structure of la langue. The alleged crisis of closure emerges only once this structural delimitation is loosened.

The Translation Problem: La langue Is Not “Language”

Saussure explicitly warns against assuming equivalence between linguistic terms across languages. In the Cours de linguistique générale, he writes:

« Les distinctions établies n’ont donc rien à redouter de certains termes ambigus qui ne se recouvrent pas d’une langue à l’autre. Ainsi en allemand, Sprache veut dire “langue” et “langage” ; Rede correspond à peu près à “parole”, mais y ajoute le sens spécial de “discours”. En latin, sermo signifie plutôt “langage” et “parole”, tandis que lingua désigne la langue, et ainsi de suite. Aucun mot ne correspond exactement à l’une des notions précisées plus haut ; c’est pourquoi toute définition faite à propos d’un mot est vaine ; c’est une mauvaise méthode que de partir des mots pour définir les choses. » (Cours, p. 18)

This warning is not incidental. Saussure insists that theoretical distinctions cannot be reduced to approximate lexical correspondences. La langue is neither langage nor parole, and it is certainly not equivalent to the diffuse abstraction conveyed by the English word “language.” It names a specific object: a socially instituted system shared by a community of speakers.

When la langue is rendered simply as “language,” its structural and institutional specificity recedes. What remains is a more general and potentially indeterminate domain. Weber’s argument depends on precisely this widening. Once detached from its technical definition, difference can be treated as something prior to and potentially disruptive of the system. Yet Saussure’s theory presupposes the reverse: difference is intelligible only within the system.

Difference and the Illusion of Infinite Dissemination

Weber formulates his central difficulty as follows:

“What limits the movement of difference? What prevents it from fanning out on all sides?” (Closure and Exclusion, p. 14)

The question is compelling only if difference is construed as an independent force. Saussure, however, never attributes such autonomy to it. When he writes:

« Dans la langue, il n’y a que des différences. » (Cours, p. 120)

the formulation is explicitly delimited: dans la langue. Differentiation characterizes the internal organization of the system. It neither precedes the system nor exceeds it.

Weber’s question presupposes that difference exists prior to limitation and therefore requires a principle of containment. In Saussure’s framework, by contrast, difference is already structured. It is the mode of organization of la langue itself. There is no “movement of difference” outside the network of oppositions that constitutes the synchronic state. The specter of infinite dispersion arises only if the statement is detached from its theoretical anchoring.

In this sense, Weber’s reading transforms a structural claim into something closer to an ontological one. That transformation introduces a problem—runaway dissemination—that the Saussurean text does not itself formulate.

Linguistic Institution and Systemic Positivity

Saussure’s notion of “linguistic institution” further clarifies this internal delimitation. He writes:

“Although signified and signifier are, considered separately, purely differential and negative, their combination is a positive fact; indeed it is the only sort of fact that the language-system [la langue] comprises, since the property of linguistic institution is precisely to maintain the parallelism between these two orders of differences.” (Cours, pp. 166–167)

The crucial point here is not containment but constitution. The “institution” does not intervene to halt an uncontrolled proliferation of difference; it names the social condition under which differential relations are stabilized as signs. The positivity of the sign emerges from the structured coordination of two differential series within a socially instituted framework.

Weber presents “institution” as if it were introduced to secure closure against a latent instability. Yet the passages in question describe institution as intrinsic to the very existence of la langue. It is not a secondary safeguard but the condition of possibility for the system as such.

Synchrony, Diachrony, and Methodological Suspension

Weber further contends that Saussure preserves systematic coherence by excluding diachrony. He cites the injunction that the linguist must “ignore” the past in order to grasp the synchronic state. However, this methodological suspension should not be conflated with theoretical repression.

Saussure writes:

« Pour le sujet parlant, la succession dans le temps est inexistante : il est en présence d’un état. […] Le linguiste qui veut comprendre cet état doit faire abstraction de tout ce qui l’a produit et ignorer la diachronie. » (Cours, p. 81)

The suspension concerns perspective, not ontology. Synchrony and diachrony are distinct analytical viewpoints on the same object. To bracket historical development in synchronic description is not to deny its existence, nor to shield the system from disintegration. It is to isolate relational structure for descriptive purposes.

The claim that systematic coherence depends upon suppressing historical proliferation once again presupposes that difference is inherently unstable. But if differential relations are already structured within the synchronic state, no such drama of containment is required.

Conclusion

The assertion that Saussure’s system depends upon repressing an unbounded play of difference becomes far less persuasive once la langue is understood in its technical sense. Difference is not prior to the system; it is the structural principle internal to a socially instituted network. The system does not close itself against dissemination; it is the condition under which differentiation acquires determinate value.

Weber’s critique does not so much expose a latent contradiction in Saussure as it reframes the theory by abstracting “difference” from the circumscribed domain in which Saussure situates it. Once that abstraction is introduced, the question of closure appears inevitable. Yet the difficulty lies less in Saussure’s text than in the conceptual displacement that precedes its interpretation. Saussure’s own warning—« c’est une mauvaise méthode que de partir des mots pour définir les choses »—retains its force here. The problem emerges not from the structure of la langue, but from the terms in which it is redescribed.

Bibliography

Saussure, Ferdinand de. Cours de linguistique générale. Paris: Payot, 1960.

Weber, Samuel. “Closure and Exclusion.” In Institution and Interpretation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987.