I have to admit, that for the entirety of Derrida's article, I was constantly fishing for a grasp on what Derrida meant with his concept of "differance." Multiple times, Derrida says that differance does not exist or is not a word or a concept (such as on pages 282 and 283) so this made it somewhat difficult to decipher what I should be looking for in the article. Nonetheless, I feel that I have somewhat of a grasp on what Derrida is trying to accomplish in the article and with the term. He derives differance obviously from the word "difference," and I believe it is because of its double meaning. Difference can either refer to "temporolizing" or signifying "spacing" between different elements (p.283). Derrida though sees a problem in this fact, noting that the word difference cannot refer to both of these meanings, and thus the word "differance" is necessary. He writes, "Differance can refer to the whole complex of its meanings at once, for it is immediately and irreducibly multivalent (p.283)." From my understanding, differance does not specifically refer to the word "difference" alone. It refers to the fact that language is filled with double meanings that can be confusing at face value, but through the process of differance, the intended meaning can be found. It is all quite confusing, but I think that Derrida is trying to say that words at face value cannot show exactly what they mean, but by using other words, to which they differ from, the true meaning of that word is revealed. This is slightly better described when Derrida notes, "Every concept is necessarily and essentially inscribed in a chain or a system, within which it refers to another and to other concepts, by the systematic play of differences (p.285)."
This somewhat refers back to Locke's concept of mixed modes, and the notion that they are too complex for one word to encapsulate or describe in certainty. Multiple words are needed to differentiate the idea or feeling from what someone else could see as all possibilities of a single word's meaning.Again, I might be way off base with Derrida. His repetition of words is a little hard to keep up with.
While reading through Derrida’s piece, I also noted the similarities between his argument and Locke’s concept of mixed modes. As Derrida mentions, "Differance can no longer be understood according to the concept of "sign," which has always been taken to mean the representation of a presence and has been constituted in a system (of thought and language) determined on the basis of and in view of presence"(Derrida 171). I took this statement as meaning that meaning, or association of meaning with words or ideas, is determined throughout language, and that knowledge is passed on; however, in regards to concepts, this is a more challenging task because the “sign” that is being spoken about may have a different meaning or element of importance to different people. Similarly, in Locke’s discussion of mixed modes, he argues that, “to know what [these] complex ideas stand for, they are either beholden to the explication of others, or…left to their own observation” (Locke 819). By looking into this idea, it is possible to similarities between the two theorists. It seems that, essentially, they both believe that it is impossible for any person to understand a given idea the exact same way as another person, for people have different interpretations, understandings and relations to words and ideas.
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