Return to Saussure

  Introduction In Of Grammatology , Jacques Derrida offers a radical critique of the Western metaphysical tradition that privileges speech over writing, treating the former as the origin and essence of meaning. He challenges the notion of a pure beginning, a singular point from which truth flows directly and unproblematically. Instead, Derrida posits a vision of language as a system of signs defined not by their connection to an origin, but by an endless play of differences. The passage from the section The Outside is the Inside beginning with “In this play of representation, the point of origin becomes ungraspable...” encapsulates this shift. He writes: “There are things like reflecting pools, and images, an infinite reference from one to the other, but no longer a source, a spring.”¹ The origin, in this model, is not a source but a function within a chain of representations—a product of repetition, displacement, and différance . This reconceptualization finds a surprising reson...