Grammatology (Derrida)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The made-up word grammatology describes the science of written script . In a narrower sense, grammatology describes an approach by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida , in which he opposes western logocentrism or phonocentrism with his theory of writing. He expands this post-structuralist approach most extensively in his main work De la grammatologie from 1967. In the epoch-making work, Derrida does not strive to describe the historical genesis of the cultural technique “writing”, but rather wants to overcome “all technical and epistemological obstacles” and strip away “all” through a new understanding of the phenomenon “writing”, which he comprehends [r] theological and metaphysical fetters ”, which he believes have shaped Western philosophy since its inception. In doing so, he applies the reading and analysis method of deconstruction that he has made known .

Delineate these is the places also as Grammatology designated font linguistics that deals with the history of writing , the history of writing media , the scriptures of the world , the culture of writing is concerned, or the like.

Semiotic Basics

This section is only intended as a brief introduction that is necessary for further understanding. For further information, see the articles Semiotics , Signs and the section on Saussure's theory, which is particularly interesting with regard to Derrida .

Grammatology primarily uses the vocabulary of structuralism in order to reject or radicalize it as a result. Derrida refers specifically to the structuralist masterminds Ferdinand de Saussure , Charles Sanders Peirce and Louis Hjelmslev , but also to representatives of Russian formalism such as Roman Jakobson and the Opojaz. For the majority of these authors, the (linguistic) sign was the focus of theoretical considerations.

The sign

According to the semiotic Umberto Eco, a sign is “a physical form that refers to something that denotes, designates, names, and shows what this physical form is, and what is not the physical form itself” or, more simply, a sign is something that stands for something else . The sign is indispensable for communication, because due to the inalienable mental state, the exchange of thoughts, ideas or sensations can only take place with the help of a medium, a mediating sign: “One uses the sign to convey information, to convey something to someone say".

Linguistic signs such as B. Morphemes are distinguished from one another by smaller paradigmatic units, in this case by phonemes. These smallest possible distinctive features emerge from a system of oppositions. Signs are therefore "the resultant of successive and simultaneous connections of sub-elements" the correlation of expression and content level is guaranteed by a code .

Significant and Significant

In linguistics , the semiotic triangle model is primarily used to illustrate the relationships between signs and the extra- linguistic world. The following elements are usually represented in this triadic model:

  • A physical sign , such as a word or symbol
  • A term that mediates between a thing in the world and the sign
  • A thing in the world to which the sign and the concept refer

The following figure shows two possible versions of the semiotic triangle. In model 1, the corners are labeled with common language terms, model 2 uses the classic semiotic nomenclature: 

          Modell 1:                           Modell 2:

           Begriff                            Signifikat
              /\                                 /\
             /  \                               /  \
            /    \                             /    \
           /      \                           /      \
          /        \                         /        \
    Zeichen ...... Gegenstand      Signifikant ...... Referent
    (Wort)           (Ding)

Every physical condition, such as a spoken or written word, a gesture or an acoustic signal, can be interpreted as a sign and then and precisely when it refers to a term (in the sense of an “idea in the human mind”). The chain of letters ⟨birne⟩ (or the sound chain / ˈbɪʁnə /) triggers the mental image of a pear in a German-speaking recipient. In order to activate this mental image, there does not have to be a “real” pear, as a sign in the narrower sense can be used to refer to it (to a specific one, to the entirety of the pears). The physical givenness that has become a sign is called the signifier ("the signifying "), the representation is called the signified ("the signified"). However, the signifier has no or an extremely weak relationship to the referent (the “thing in the world”), which the dashed line in the diagrams seeks to depict. In contrast, the connection between referent and signified according to the diagram is a direct one. This is often interpreted in such a way that the referent is the point of reference who first forms the mental image and fills it with content, so that it becomes a mediator between sign and thing in that it gives both meaning .

However, as the solid line in the above scheme suggests, the signifier and the signified are also directly related to one another. This bilateral structure between the expression and meaning side is understood in the structuralism of Saussure as a unit, a complete sign therefore always consists of phonetic image (or written image) and imagination, of signifier and signified. For Saussure, only this complete symbol refers to a referent.

Two possible models for a complete Saussure character: 

   ___________       ___________
⎛ Vorstellung⎞   ⎛ Signifikat ⎞
┃____________┃   ┃____________┃
┃  Lautbild  ┃   ┃ Signifikant┃
⎝____________⎠   ⎝____________⎠

The misunderstanding from the speaker

The semiotic triangle gives the impression that the meaning of a signifier also has something to do with the “thing in the world” (the referent). However, it is not necessary to resort to a non-semiotic world of things to explain how signs work. Saussure already excludes the speaker from the linguistic sign for good reason, although his argumentation did not go far enough: According to Saussure, a "whole" sign, consisting of the signifier and the signified, refers to an object in the world. In semiotics, however, sticking to the referent creates the problem that the signifier remains dependent on the object, whereby its truth value as a sign is determined by the object; in addition, the concrete reference object of the signifier (deictic or metalinguistic) would have to be identified anew with each speech act, which leads to an indissoluble aporia. The meaning (or the signified) of a signifier, however, does not depend, or at least not primarily, on real circumstances: The statement "Your shoelaces are open" induces the recipient to look at his shoes - regardless of whether the statement is made is true or false, for the "problem of lie (or falsehood) that matters to logicians is pre- or post-semiotic". The content of the statement is still understandable even if the listener wears sandals or no shoes at all.

Rather, the referent is semiotized , in which the “thing in the world” itself becomes a signifier referring to the same (or a very similar) signified as the signifier consisting of linguistic symbols. The object is not perceived as an individual, but subsumed under an already known system. To make it clear again with an example: The chain of letters pear⟩ makes the listener think of a pear, but the sight of a “real” pear does the same. The actually existing fruit, as a representative of the cultural unit “pear”, becomes a signifier for the associated signified, which by virtue of its specific semantic extension has an individual connotation.

Grammatology according to Derrida

According to Derrida, the distinction between the signifier and the signified, which are thought of as two sides of a sheet, is untenable: The origin of the signified remains hidden, and the mere reference function of the signifier leads to a hierarchization in the metaphysical through which the signified without the Significant could be thought. This infinite or transcendental signified, which should be able to exist independently of a sign carrier, becomes the decisive point of criticism in Derrida's grammatology.

Logocentrism / Phonocentrism

The criticism of the logos (agr. Λόγος), a core term of Western philosophy that has been used since the time of the pre-Socratics , is both the starting point and the goal of Derrida's consideration of language and writing.

“The sign must represent the unity of a heterogeneity, because the signified (sense or thing, noëma or reality) is not in itself a signifier, a trace ; its meaning is in any case not constituted by its relation to the possible trace. The formal essence of the signified is the presence , and the privilege of its proximity to the logos as a phone is the privilege of presence. "

Closely connected with this is the primacy of the phone , which Derrida already sees realized in Plato , Aristotle , Rousseau , Hegel and Husserl and which has also determined semiotic and linguistic research since Ferdinand de Saussure. A spoken utterance has always been linked to the representation of inner (or also: mental) states. The signified is expressed most directly in the voice; its function is that of "the immediate, natural and direct designation of the meaning (of the signified, the representation, the ideal object or however one wants)". This privilege of spoken language leads to the suppression of writing, because the spoken word is closer to the meaning of the logos. The two-sided symbol model itself is still stuck to the logocentrism of western philosophy, which has been dismissed as metaphysical , it merges with phonocentrism to an “absolute proximity of the voice to being, the voice to the meaning of being” and thus to a metaphysics of presence in which every linguistic sign can be isolated and passed on communicatively without being changed in its substance (or also: in the οὐσία ). As an argument against phonocentrism, Derrida cites, among other things, the mathematical writing, which is not tied to a phonetic production, and thus also not to the presence-based thinking. This phonocentrism and the binary concept of signs, which are essentially based on the transcendental signified, are the cause of presence metaphysics and thus also of logocentrism, in which writing is excluded from the internal language system.

Derrida's concept of writing

"We will try to show that there is no linguistic sign that preceded Scripture."

In the history of thought, according to Derrida, writing experienced an unjustified devaluation as the representative of the spoken word. It was only assigned a secondary function, since the main purpose (agr. Τέλος ) of writing has always been reduced to the conservation of phonetic language. In contrast, writing is not only an aid to science, but a necessary condition of the possibility of scientific objectivity. By reversing the relationship between the signified and the signified, the latter is assigned a more decisive role in the formation of theories; As a representative of the signifiers, writing becomes the ultimate hyperonym for all forms of language (including spoken language), as well as for all other systems of signs. Grammatology (science of writing) thus replaces semiology (science of signs).

Derrida does not understand writing, like the structuralist school, as a sign that depends on the human will to represent, but as a trace that has been left behind , which within a system of references (such as language) refers ad infinitum to positions within this system. Accordingly, the linguistic independent signified of structuralism should be questioned, which by virtue of its roots in theology and metaphysics assumes the role of the “primum signatum” as a transcendental, conscious, real entity. Instead of the bilateral signified-signifier connection, let each signifier be the signifier of another signifier. The transcendental signified has thus become obsolete, because it has always been inscribed in the process of eternal references: “The signified has always functioned as a signifier, [...] from the beginning, from the beginning of the game . There is no signified that escapes the game of referring signifiers that constitute language, even if it is only to fall into it in the end ”.

From grammatology to deconstruction: the différance

The abolition of the transcendental signified the two-sided character replaces the model of infinite reference the upgraded signifiers, each signified will because of différance (as in German translations * difference or differance reproduced) turn into a signifier.

The différance , understood not as a theoretical concept, but rather as a force that has always acted, is the cause as a real process, whereas as a neologism created by Derrida it is the preliminary result of reflections on the sign and the writing. Derrida refers to the two different meanings that the verbs différer in French and differre in Latin have, but not the Greek verb διαφέρειν . While the latter only has the meaning of the "conventional" difference, i.e. the non-identity and the difference in content, the verb in French and Latin also denotes the activity of temporal displacement, the so-called temporization . The neologism différance created by Derrida should include both the process of spatialization as transferred (agr .: δια-φέρειν) meaning, as well as the process of temporalization of the sign.

The linguistic sign would not only have a referring substitute function vis-à-vis the signified (or the referent), but postpone the moment of encounter with “the thing itself” (in the sense of ontological presence). The temporal and spatial movement of différance is not a targeted process, but on the contrary can only be understood in terms of the result. The process of the emergence of meaning remains in the dark, the introduction of the category of temporal dilation leads to the fact that the intra-, inter- and paratextual play of references never comes to an end. From this, however, it must also be concluded that any attempt to create a metalanguage is doomed to failure, and even the history of philosophy must be rewritten due to its incorrect handling of writing and text:

"Since being has always only had" meaning ", has always only been thought or said as something hidden in being, différance (is) in a certain and extremely peculiar way" older "than ontological difference or the truth of being."

Related concepts

Closely related to différance is the concept of infinite semiosis , which was developed by Charles Sanders Peirce and taken up, criticized and further developed by Umberto Eco. According to Eco and Peirce, each signified becomes a renewed signifier of another signified, which in turn becomes a signifier without which this process could ever be ended (Hjelmslev and Barthes argue similarly). They call these newly created characters interpretants of the 1st degree, 2nd degree etc., the sum of the interpretants is the connotations of the original character: 

   _____________________________________________________
  |                                                     | + weiteres Signi-
  |                    Signifikant                      | fikat, so weiter
  |_____________________________________________________| ad infinitum
   _________________________   _________________________
  |                         | |                         | Interpretant
  |       Signifikant       | |       Signifikat        | 1. Ordnung
  |_________________________| |_________________________|
   ___________   ___________
  |           | |           |
  |Signifikant| |Signifikat | „ursprüngliches“ Zeichen
  |___________| |___________|
       (Eco: ''Zeichen.'' 1977, S. 100)

In the rhizome model by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, the classic tradition of single-lane “tree thinking” is contrasted with decentralized, asignificant and antigenealogical thinking, whose reference structure, which can be increasingly networked through nodes, resembles a wildly growing and proliferating network of roots. Furthermore, the model of the semantic networks by M. Ross Quillian, which is based on different assumptions but comes to a similar result, is again related to the rhizome.

Grammatology, Literature and Deconstruction

"When we lift the text from the book, we mean to say that the downfall of the book, as it is being announced today in all areas, exposes the surface of the text."

Grammatology creates the basis for Derrida's literary theoretical considerations, which are understandably closely linked to his concept of writing and text.

Polysemy and Dissemination

The hermeneutic postulate approach the ambiguity of a literary text and, building permit a variety of approaches and results interpretation, Derrida does not go far enough. He opposes this polysemic understanding of interpretation with his concept of disseminal reading: the text is semantically indeterminable, a meaning (even if it is only one of a finite number) cannot be reconstructed in the sense of an understanding (or meaningful) interpretation. Since the dissemination makes an absolute break with the given text, it is the preferred reading approach compared to the polysemy of hermeneutics, since this "absolute break" in turn enables an "absolutely disseminated polyphony" of the possible readings.

This is justified with the semantic underdetermination of the text and its units (words, sentences, etc.), since the text itself must necessarily postulate its entirety and its autarky. From this it follows that literary texts are ambiguous per se , which is why all interpretative efforts and attempts at comprehensible reading must fail. In order to uncover its own contradictions and to weaken its meaningful structure, the text must be read precisely and precisely and then duplicated by another problematic text production .

The supplement

"Since every term is inscribed in a chain or in a system in which it refers to other terms" through the systematic game of differences ", it is" never present in itself. "

The concept of supplement is elementary for understanding grammatology and had a decisive influence on literary studies. The supplement is crucially related to the endless play of references and Derrida's understanding of the text already mentioned above , which is expressed in the now much-quoted saying "There is no text outside." (Orig. French: "Il n'y a pas de hors -texts "). The point of origin of a signifier is by no means to be sought outside of scripture, since the thinking of a transcendental signified or a real referent must always go hand in hand with it; rather, a supplement appears at the missing origin that belongs to an endless chain or series of substitutions. This chain of always referring supplements, the endless and originless reference practice of every text delayed a final meaning to infinity, because the moment of arrival at a beginning or end point of meaning, of being or of an ontologically absolute present is never reached.

When reading a text, a double tactic should therefore be used: on the one hand, it should only move within the text and, above all, never refer to an external signified in order to avoid any interpretation or a shift into transcendence. On the other hand, the language schemes that the author is not aware of and that he has not mastered, i.e. the implicit supplementarity character of his text, should be shown in the text itself , since every text is always immanent with its own infinite reflection and thus it always acts as a representation, a representation of a representation, etc.

metaphor

Based on his supplement theory, Derrida also dealt with the literary metaphor. A metaphor creates a linguistic connection between two facts that actually do not belong to one another, which is intended to serve to illustrate the actual object. It has a double function as an analyzable object and an instrument of analysis, since the idiosyncratic movement of explanation and substitution reflects the core assumption of différance . The metaphor has a transforming effect and is necessary in philosophy to build a system, but it is also semantically notoriously unreliable and undermines the very system that it claims to build.

In the literature there is an excess of metaphors in which the sought-after meaning withdraws and thus withdraws, but also returns as a supplement to the previous one. This double property is constitutive for the metaphor and marks the supplementary surplus ratio of the text process by being a metaphor for the text itself. By illustrating the text operation, everything becomes metaphorical and there is no longer any fathomable meaning or metaphor behind the text. Derrida sees this undecidability of meaning as the cause of the hermeneutics' mania for interpretation.

Deconstruction as a literary paradigm

From the distinctions made in grammatology and the associated consequences for the understanding of language, text and writing, a literary-analytical method emerged that became known as deconstruction . In contemporary literary studies, deconstruction is received as an extremely precise reading process, with which the text-internal constitution of meaning can be exposed to a previously unimagined degree. Deconstruction, however, is not understood as a unified theory; rather, it understands itself as a practice that aims to break up metaphysically ossified opposition systems by means of a three-step process . In the three-step process, a hierarchical axis of meaning is identified in the texts to be examined, in which the devalued term stands in opposition to the primarily used term. Next follows the proof that features of the devalued term are also found in the other, the difference in content between them is thereby eliminated and the previously devalued term is used in the last step for the further description of the inadmissible metaphysical hierarchy. In grammatology, these terms are voice and writing .

The method of deconstruction was e.g. B. applied by Roland Barthes as a progressive form of literature analysis, in which the text should be kept away from any visualization by means of productive structuring of the reading. Other important figures in deconstruction are Paul de Man and his environment at the Yale School.

Effect and criticism

The first criticism of the term Grammatology exercises Derrida already at the end of the first main part of the work of the same himself: "Grammato logy , thinking that would remain still immured in the presence". The influence of the logo is still present on all sides in his theory . but if it is not banished by the tireless deconstruction, it is continuously kept in check (see also metaphor ).

The apparently ostentatious obscurity of the project is reinforced by Derrida's artificial, sometimes associative style, which, however, is very close to the core point of the thesis: a final meaning cannot be found anyway, the visualization of the appearance of meaning must be disturbed. The mixing of linguistic, ontological and epistemological terms and concepts can be seen from the same point of view: Although they may initially give the impression of a methodological eclecticism, they are inseparably linked within Derrida's hermeticism through their logocentrism and fall due to their roots in the language of presence metaphysics all under the same criticism paradigm. However, Derrida's floating level of meaning could be countered by the feature or component analysis common in linguistics, which does not show any ontologically or metaphysically rooted distinction between spoken and written language. He is far more attached to the ontology, which he himself tries so hard to smash, than the language-analytical philosophies of Frege , Russell , Wittgenstein or Austin , which introduced the linguistic turnaround even before the appearance of grammatology .

The American philosopher of language John Searle attested in a highly regarded article in the magazine The New York Review of Books Derrida and his epigones a “breathtaking implausibility” in their claims, a blatant misunderstanding of cause and effect, and compared them with the emperor without clothes. Derrida's theses are still caught in the pre-Wittgensteinian view and are far inferior to the philosophical works of Austin, Chomsky , Quine and many others in terms of comprehensibility and intellectual content. The latter argument in particular is very valid. Derrida does not seem to have any knowledge of the theories of his non-French contemporaries, and one looks in vain for any reference to Wittgenstein in the texts that have become classic.

How topical the criticism and how far-reaching the lack of understanding for Derrida's thinking in professional circles still is today is illustrated by a small marginal remark by the German linguist Anatol Stefanowitsch . Stefanowitsch agrees with Noam Chomsky, who polemically comments in an interview that ten percent of the works by Derrida, Althusser and Lacan consist of truisms and that he doesn't understand a word of the rest.

literature

swell

  • Jacques Derrida: Grammatology. Translated by Hans Jörg Rheinberger and Hanns Zischler. Frankfurt am Main 1983.
  • Jacques Derrida: The différance. In: Peter Engelmann (Ed.): Postmodernism and deconstruction. Texts by contemporary philosophical authors. Stuttgart 1990, pp. 76-111.
  • Jacques Derrida: Semiology and Grammatology. Conversation with Julia Kristeva. In: Peter Engelmann (Ed.): Postmodernism and deconstruction. Texts by contemporary philosophical authors. Stuttgart 1990, pp. 140-164.

Introductions

  • Johanna Bossinade: Post- structuralist literary theory. Stuttgart 2000.
  • Umberto Eco: Introduction to Semiotics. Munich 1972.
  • Umberto Eco: Sign. Introduction to a term and its history. Munich 1977.
  • Jörg Lagemann, Klaus Gloy: On the trail of signs. Derrida - an introduction. Aachen 1998.
  • Heinz Kimmerle: Derrida. An introduction. Hamburg 2000.
  • Caroline Pross , Gerald Wildgruber: Deconstruction. In: Heinz Ludwig Arnold, Heinrich Detering (Hrsg.): Fundamentals of literary studies. Munich 1996, pp. 409-429.

Web sources

further reading

  • Jonathan Culler: Deconstruction. Derrida and the post-structuralist literary theory. Reinbek near Hamburg 1999.
  • Jacques Derrida: The writing and the difference. Translated by Rodolphe Gasché, Frankfurt am Main 1976.
  • Jacques Derrida: The Voice and the Phenomenon. An essay on the problem of the sign in Husserl's philosophy. Translated by Jochen Hörisch. Frankfurt am Main 1979.
  • Jacques Derrida: The margins of philosophy. Translated by Peter Engelmann u. a. Vienna 1988.
  • Peter Engelmann: Deconstruction. Jacques Derrida's semiotic turn in philosophy. Vienna 2013.
  • Klaus Englert: Jacques Derrida. Paderborn 2009.
  • Sarah Kofman: Reading Derrida. Vienna 1987.
  • Tore Langholz: The problem of the "always" in Derrida's script philosophy. Vienna 2016.

Further web links

  • Poison to the mind. In: Der Spiegel. 16/1992, April 13, 1992. (to protest against being awarded an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Derrida: Grammatology. 1983, p. 14.
  2. ↑ Derrida: Grammatology. 1983, p. 14.
  3. ↑ Eco: Semiotics. 1972, p. 30.
  4. ↑ Eco: sign. 1977, p. 25.
  5. ↑ See Eco: characters. 1977, p. 80.
  6. ↑ Eco: sign. 1977, pp. 84f.
  7. ↑ Eco: sign. 1977, pp. 85f.
  8. ↑ cf. Eco: semiotics. 1972, p. 71.
  9. ↑ Eco: Semiotics. 1972, p. 73.
  10. ↑ See Eco: Semiotics. 1972, p. 81ff.
  11. ↑ See Lagemann, Gloy: characters. 1998, pp. 93f.
  12. ↑ Derrida: Grammatology. 1983, p. 35.
  13. ↑ Derrida: Grammatology. 1983, p. 54.
  14. ↑ See Derrida: Grammatology. 1983, p. 24.
  15. ↑ Derrida: Grammatology. 1983, p. 25.
  16. ↑ See Lagemann, Gloy: characters. 1998, p. 121.
  17. ↑ Derrida: Grammatology. 1983, p. 29.
  18. ↑ See Derrida: Grammatology. 1983, p. 50.
  19. ↑ See Lagemann, Gloy: characters. 1998, p. 121.
  20. ↑ See also: Derrida: Conversation. 1990, 148ff.
  21. ↑ See Kimmerle: Introduction. 2000, p. 43f.
  22. ↑ cf. Derrida: grammatology. 1983, p. 27, p. 38.
  23. ↑ Derrida: Grammatology. 1983, p. 17.
  24. ↑ Derrida: Différance. 1990, p. 83.
  25. ↑ Derrida: Différance. 1990, p. 104.
  26. ↑ Cf. u. a. Eco: sign. 1977, p. 99f.
  27. ↑ Derrida: Grammatology. 1983, p. 35.
  28. ↑ Cf. Bossinade: Poststructuralist literary theory. 2000, p. 158f.
  29. ↑ Cf. Bossinade: Poststructuralist literary theory. 2000, p. 158f.
  30. ↑ Cf. u. a. Derrida: grammatology. 1983, p. 275.
  31. ↑ Cf. Bossinade: Poststructuralist literary theory. 2000, p. 161.
  32. ↑ :: Derrida: Différance. 1990, p. 83.
  33. ↑ Derrida: Grammatology. 1983, p. 274.
  34. ↑ See Derrida: Grammatology. 1983, pp. 274f.
  35. ↑ See Derrida: Grammatology. 1983, pp. 274f.
  36. ↑ See Derrida: Grammatology. 1983, pp. 276f.
  37. ↑ See Derrida: Grammatology. 1983, p. 281.
  38. ↑ Cf. Bossinade: Poststructuralist literary theory. 2000, p. 107.
  39. ↑ Cf. Bossinade: Poststructuralist literary theory. 2000, p. 108.
  40. ↑ Cf. Bossinade: Poststructuralist literary theory. 2000, p. 109.
  41. ↑ Cf. Bossinade: Poststructuralist literary theory. 2000, p. 110.
  42. ↑ Cf. Bossinade: Poststructuralist literary theory. 2000, p. 110.
  43. ↑ Cf. Bossinade: Poststructuralist literary theory. 2000, p. 110.
  44. ↑ See Pross, Wildgruber: Dekonstruktion. 1996, p. 407.
  45. ↑ See Pross, Wildgruber: Dekonstruktion. 1996, p. 421f.
  46. ↑ See Pross, Wildgruber: Dekonstruktion. 1996, p. 421f.
  47. ↑ See Pross, Wildgruber: Dekonstruktion. 1996, p. 421f.
  48. ↑ cf. Pross, Wildgruber: Deconstruction. 1996, p. 423.
  49. ↑ Derrida: Grammatology. 1983, p. 169.
  50. ↑ See Searle: Upside Down. 1983.
  51. ↑ See Searle: Upside Down. 1983.
  52. ↑ See Stefanowitsch: Press review. 2007.