From Generative to Algorithmic Grammar: Derrida, Barthes, and the Crisis of Cartesian Linguistics
Introduction The advent of language models has profoundly transformed our understanding of language. These systems generate coherent texts, respond to context, reformulate meanings, and simulate creativity—all without consciousness or biology. This technological shift raises a pressing question: if language does not require an organic substrate to function, what remains of the faculty of language as an innate attribute of the human species? This question acquires a philosophical dimension when considered alongside the insights of Jacques Derrida and Roland Barthes, who anticipated a conception of language as a network of signs and writing independent of a subject. In this sense, algorithmic models produce meaning without intentionality, enacting operations that function beyond the bounds of human awareness. This essay argues that algorithmic systems exemplify the transition from language conceived as the expression of a mind to writing as a differential network, thereby enactin...