Derrida's Speaking Subject.

“Every sign is a sign for something, but not every sign has ‘meaning’ a ‘sense’ that the sign ‘expresses.’ In many cases it is not even true that a sign ‘stands for’ that of which we may say it is a sign. And even where this can be said, one has to observe that ‘standing for’ will not count as the ‘meaning’ which characterizes the expression. For signs in the sense of indications (notes, marks, etc.) do not express anything, unless they happen to fulfill a significant as well as an indicative function.”[1]

Let us begin with the “essential distinctions,” perhaps the site of a violent transgression of metaphysical importance. Before venturing into the Derridean treatment of the speaking subject, we should point to, or perhaps indicate, the distinction in the quote above, between ‘expression’ and ‘indication,’ the seemingly dualistic nature of the sign. This distinction, between ‘expression’ and ‘indication’ rests upon the certainty of self-presence within the ‘now’ of the living present. In the present engagement, we find ourselves in the midst of an indictment, an accusation, the denunciation of a trajectory, a project, which Husserl might have considered his own. Husserl’s transgression, which seems to bring with it the entire tradition of western philosophy, is metaphysical and it presupposes a certain transparency, a giveness of self to self, such that the sign is absent, or useless, in solitary mental life. Offered as the clarification of an ambiguity within the sign, the distinction made by Husserl, between ‘expression’ and ‘indication,’ is maintained by this violence, by this indicted transgression, by this presence of metaphysics. Derrida’s indictment resides in the status of the sign, in the diacritics of Saussurean linguistics, as the detour through which consciousness necessarily passes. The movement of the sign, the detour, is such that it defers the encounter with the ‘thing itself,’ which might be given to an intuition or a perceptual gaze. Derrida’s speaking subject, therefore, is caught in the mediation of the sign, which is not a true mediation, but rather a deferral, which will never be given to consciousness, but rather to another sign. The current examination will attempt to point to the non-concept of differance,[2] which seems to make possible Derrida’s critique of Husserl.
“A sign[3] is never an event,” the sign is not a particular, nor a singularity. The sign must allow for repetition, it must remain the “same” throughout its usage; in a word the sign must be ideal. It therefore seems to be the case that the sign necessitates a kind of absence, namely of the thing it seeks to signify, which it would in turn supplement. If we accept the Saussurean argument, that there can be neither ‘ideas,’ nor ‘sounds,’ outside of the linguistic system, does it not follow that if we are given to, or engaging with the sign, we are, as it were, necessarily in a kind of inside without an outside.[4] In itself, this conclusion seems to undermine Husserl’s “essential distinctions,” which necessitate a kind of difference between the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’ such that indicative function of signs would be something foreign to consciousness, or rather, a certain outside of consciousness. As Husserl states:
“…all expressions in communicative speech function as indications. They serve the hearer as signs of the ‘thoughts’ of the speaker,. i.e. of his sense-giving inner experience, as well as of the other inner experiences which are part of his communicative intention.”[5]
For Husserl, this distinction is imperative in order to distinguish between the ‘fictitious’ inner representation of speech, from the outward, or exterior, indication of signs. Indication, for Husserl, is useless, or unnecessary, in ‘solitary mental life’ as the thoughts, which the signs would serve to indicate, are already present for the subject within the lived moment.[6] The indicative function of the sign would only be present in external, outward speech, when such speech is animated by a communicative intention. For Husserl the expression:
“…means something, and in so far as it means something, it relates to what is objective. This objective somewhat can either be actually present through accompanying intuitions, or may at least appear in representation, e.g. in a mental image, and where this happens the relation to the object is realized.”[7]
It is therefore the case that what is indicated, in order to mean or have sense must allow for the possibility of its being given to intuition, or perception. The charge Derrida levels against Husserl resides in this distinction, between the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside,’ between the ‘real’ and ‘ideal.’ If, as stated above, the sign is always already a representation, a repetitious possibility, in signifying we are, therefore, always already “involved in unlimited representation.”[8]
What of Derrida’s speaking subject? The speaking subject is such, only insofar as his speech conforms to “the system of linguistic prescriptions taken as a system of differences.”[9] The spoken word, as such, must conform to the system of language in order for it “to be intelligible.” The differance, between speech and language, is the difference between signs, and that which necessitates the detour of the sign.[10] Husserl’s distinctions require that “expression and not signification in general belong to the order of representation.” However, if the sign is in itself a representational medium then the distinctions seem to fall apart. In a footnote, Derrida states, in the Origins of Geometry: an introduction:
“However, there is no doubt that this non-reality of the noema (a very difficult and decisive notion) may be what, in the last analysis, permits the repetition of sense as the “same” and makes the idealization of identity in general possible.”[11]
The absence of the noema is, precisely, that which affords, or provides for the possibility of signification. Contrary, and counter to Husserl, signification is not afforded by presence, but rather, by differance. A Derrida argues:
“The absence of intuition-and therefore of the subject of the intuition-is not only tolerated by speech; it is required by the general structure of signification, when considered in itself. It is radically requisite” the total absence of the subject and object of a statement- the death of the writer and/or the disappearance of the objects he was able to describe-does not prevent a text from “meaning” something.”[12]
Differance cannot be a named as such, because a name, in Husserl’s wording, “…becomes an actual, conscious relation between name and object named.”[13] Differance, not presence, is that which allows for signification, that which affords the going out of speech, it is furthermore why the “subject cannot speak without giving himself a representation of his speaking.”[14] The repetition, as it were, the ideality of the sign, is first and foremost, such that the presence of the present is derived from it. However, Derrida maintains that these signs, these idealities, are themselves forms empty of content. As Derrida maintains in the Introduction:
“It is evidence only insofar as it is finite, i.e., here, formal, since the content of the infinite Idea is absent and is denied to every intuition. The idea of an infinity essentially motivated is not itself an infinity…”[15]
The content of the sign is markedly absent, or rather, perhaps not absent but deferred, or delayed in its giveness to consciousness. These forms without content seem to impose themselves upon speech as intentions to mean, or to convey a sense, but the form “is but the emptiness and pure intention of intentionality.[16] This intentionality, which seeks the sense, as a relation to the object, is continually given over to another contentless form, another sign, in the play of the system of linguistic differences.
The voices of Derrida and Husserl are prominent within this offering; their presence seemed necessary in the current examination. Derrida’s speaking subject, seems to be a non-subject, or rather a deferred subject, animated by differance. The sign, is a deferred presence, a presence deferred by difference, a detour which the subject must conform to in order to signify, or communicate. The sign invades the Husserlian self-presence, such that the subject must represent himself in the act of speaking. The “I” stands in for the deferred presence as a sign of what is absent in the act of speaking. The speaking subject is surrounded by forms without content which signify, or aim at, or intend, that which is no longer present. Differance, introduces the trace of the other, the alterity, which gets effaced in its presence, or is never present as such except as effaced. It is therefore the case that intuition and perception are markedly absent in the Derridean account, they have been replaced (if they were ever truly present) by the play difference in the order of the sign.


[1] Edmund Husserl, Logical Investigations: Vol I. Trans. J.N. Findlay from the Second German edition of Logische Untersuchungen.New York: Routledge, 2005. p. 183.
[2] Differance is non a concept, which is both spacing and temporalization, combining the verb to differ, as in otherness, or alterity, and to defer as postponement or delay. “It goes without saying that it cannot be exposed. One can expose only that which at a certain moment can become present, manifest, that which can be shown, presented as something present, a being-present in its truth, in the truth of a present or the presence of the present. Now if différance is (and I also cross out the 'is') what makes possible the presentation of the being-present, it is never presented as such. It is never offered to the present.” Jacques Derrida. Speech and Phenomena: And Other Essays On Husserl’s Theory of Signs. Trans David B. Allison. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973. p. 134.
[3] Taken here, in its diacritical sense, the sign is a kind of structure which links a sound image, phoneme, or signifier, with a concept, or signified. “Whether we take the signification [signified] or the signal [signifier], the language includes neither ideas nor sounds existing prior to the linguistic system, but only conceptual and phonetic differences arising out of that system.” Ferdinand de Saussure. Course in General Linguistics. Trans Roy Harris. Chicago, Open Court, 1986. p. 118.
[4] The inside would be an inside of language a kind of textual existence.
[5] Husserl. Logical Investigations. P 189.
[6] Husserl, who claims to put out of play all presuppositions of knowledge, nonetheless privileges, or presupposes the present, or the self-presence of the present, which gives the subject transparent access to its thoughts.
[7] Husserl. Logical Investigations. P 192.
[8] Derrida. Speech and Phenomena. p 50.
[9]Ibid,. p. 146.
[10] It seems pertinent to note that for Derrida the sign is always already a kind of writing. Only the possibility of writing will assure the absolute traditionalization of the object, in its absolute ideal Objectivity” Writing ‘frees’ the ‘bound’ ideality from the synchronic exchange within the institutive community; thereby opening the ‘transcendental field’ wherein all factual subjectivities may be absent.
[11] Jacques Derrida. Edmund Husserl's Origin of Geometry: An Introduction. Trans. John P. Leavey. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1989. p. 66-67.
[12] Derrida Speech and Phenomena. p. 93.
[13] Husserl. Logical Investigations. P. 192.
[14] Derrida. Speech and Phenomena. p. 57.
[15] Derrida. Introduction: Origin of Geometry. P. 139.
[16] Derrida. Speech and Phenomena. p. 98.