From Linguistic Value to Simulation: Saussure and Baudrillard on the Disappearance of Substance

Gespräch am See im Sonnenlicht. Impressionismus. AI image

Introduction

Inquiry rarely proceeds by direct apprehension. What presents itself is already mediated, displaced, deferred. Astronomy offers a familiar case: what is seen in the night sky is not the star as such, but the delayed arrival of its light. The object is given only through a temporal disjunction. Something similar holds in linguistics. As Ferdinand de Saussure observes, the fundamental units of language are not immediately accessible; they must be approached through substitutes that stand in for them.

What appears, at first, as a methodological constraint—an epistemological detour—will, in Jean Baudrillard, assume a far more radical status. Saussure’s displacement of substance in favor of relational value remains circumscribed within a system. Baudrillard extends this displacement beyond the linguistic domain, dissolving not only substance but also the guarantee of any underlying structure. The movement is subtle: mediation shifts from instrument to condition.

Saussure: Value Without Substance

Saussure’s gesture is both modest and decisive. Since one cannot “grasp directly the concrete entities or units of language” (“Ne pouvant saisir directement les entités concrètes ou unités de la langue”), one must instead operate on words as approximations (Saussure, 1916/2011).¹ Words do not coincide with linguistic units in a strict sense; they function as provisional anchors, allowing inquiry to proceed in the absence of direct access.

From this methodological substitution emerges a more radical thesis. Linguistic identity does not depend on material continuity, nor on invariant meaning. The repeated utterance of Messieurs is apprehended as identical, despite variations in sound and inflection. Identity is thus neither physical nor semantic in any simple sense.

What, then, sustains it? Saussure’s answer is well known: value. A linguistic unit is defined negatively, through its differences from other units. It possesses no positive substance. The analogy with chess is instructive: the knight has no intrinsic identity outside its place within a system governed by rules. Its material form is secondary; what matters is its relational function.

The consequence is precise: language is a system without substance, yet not without structure. Relations are not arbitrary; they are ordered, constrained, and mutually defining. Mediation, here, remains internal to a system that stabilizes difference.

Mediation and Scientific Indirection

This structure of indirection is not confined to linguistics. Scientific practice, too, operates through proxies. In astronomy, light functions as the trace of an object that may no longer exist. Observation is inseparable from delay; presence is never immediate.

Ordinarily, this is taken to indicate a limit. The proxy stands in for a reality presumed to exist independently of it. Mediation is thus conceived as a passage toward something beyond itself. The object, though inaccessible, remains the horizon of inquiry.

Yet this assumption is less secure than it appears. If every access is mediated, the distinction between the proxy and what it is meant to reveal begins to waver. At what point does mediation cease to be a bridge and become the only available ground?

Baudrillard: The Disappearance of the Referent

It is precisely this point that Baudrillard radicalizes. In The Perfect Crime, he writes: “the objects that appear to us have already disappeared” (“les objets qui nous apparaissent ont toujours déjà disparu”) (Baudrillard, 1995/1996).² The example of starlight no longer illustrates a limitation of knowledge; it reveals a condition of being.

Nothing appears in real time—“rien ne nous apparaît en temps réel.” Presence is constitutively deferred. The world does not withdraw behind appearances; it vanishes within them. What persists are traces without origin, signals without guarantee.

The shift from Saussure is decisive. Saussure displaces substance but preserves a system that organizes differences. Baudrillard removes even this residual stability. Signs no longer refer within a structured whole; they circulate without anchoring. The distinction between representation and reality collapses, not because representation becomes more accurate, but because there is nothing left to represent.

This is the logic of simulation. Appearances no longer conceal or reveal; they produce effects. The system remains, but only as a network of self-referential operations. It no longer secures meaning; it proliferates it.

From Value to Simulation

The divergence can now be formulated more sharply. In Saussure, difference generates value within a structured system. The absence of substance is compensated by the presence of form. In Baudrillard, difference persists, but without resolution. Relations no longer converge toward a stable configuration; they disperse.

The star provides a privileged figure for this transformation. For Saussure, mediation would correspond to a structured relation within a system. For Baudrillard, the star’s light testifies to a more radical condition: not mediated presence, but absence as such. The object has already vanished; what remains is its trace.

Thus, what begins as a methodological detour becomes an ontological claim. The proxy no longer leads beyond itself. It constitutes the only available reality.

Conclusion

Saussure’s theory of value dislodges substance from the heart of linguistic analysis, relocating identity within a network of differences. This move, however, remains bounded by the idea of a system capable of organizing those differences. Baudrillard extends the same logic beyond these limits, dissolving not only substance but also the structural guarantees that sustain it.

What follows is not simply a more radical semiotics, but a transformation in the very conception of reality. Mediation is no longer secondary; it is originary. The distinction between sign and referent does not fade because it is overcome, but because it loses its meaning.

Reality does not withdraw behind appearances. It disappears within them.

Footnotes

1. “Ne pouvant saisir directement les entités concrètes ou unités de la langue, nous opérerons sur les mots. Ceux-ci, sans recouvrir exactement la définition de l'unité linguistique, en donnent du moins une idée approximative qui a l'avantage d’être concrète ; nous les prendrons donc comme spécimens équivalents des termes réels d’un système synchronique, et les principes dégagés à propos des mots seront valables pour les entités en général.”
2. “Heureusement que les objets qui nous apparaissent ont toujours déjà disparu. Heureusement que rien ne nous apparaît en temps réel, pas plus que les étoiles dans le ciel nocturne. Si la vitesse de la lumière était infinie, toutes les étoiles seraient là simultanément, et la voûte du ciel serait d’une incandescence insupportable. Heureusement que rien n’a lieu en temps réel, sinon nous serions soumis, dans l’information, à la lumière de tous les événements, et le présent serait d’une incandescence insupportable. Heureusement que nous vivons sur le mode d’une illusion vitale, sur le mode d’une absence, d’une irréalité, d’une non-immédiateté des choses. Heureusement que rien n’est instantané, ni simultané, ni contemporain. Heureusement que rien n’est présent ni identique à soi-même. Heureusement que la réalité n’a pas lieu. Heureusement que le crime n’est jamais parfait.”

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References (APA)

Baudrillard, J. (1996). The perfect crime (C. Turner, Trans.). Verso. (Original work published 1995)

Saussure, F. de. (2011). Course in general linguistics (W. Baskin, Trans.). Columbia University Press. (Original work published 1916)