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International Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law

Derrida and Semiotics

The relation of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) to semiotics, which can be broadly defined as the theory, study or science of signs, is complex. This is because, even though he acknowledges the importance of the advance made in the study of signs by for example, Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) and Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), as well as the need for the notion of the sign, Derrida finds this notion problematic. Before enquiring into the reasons for this, let us first investigate the important advance which according to Derrida in Of Grammatology was made through the study of signs by Saussure as well as by Peirce. For Derrida, metaphysics, which covers the whole of Western philosophy as well as its derivatives such as science, is characterised by its insistence on the existence of the intelligible (the truth, meaning, or the signified) without the need for exterior representation. The advance made by Saussure was to posit a sign (signe) consisting of an auditory or acoustic image (signifier, signifiant) and a corresponding concept, ideal object or meaning (signified, signifié). Saussure, through the notion of the sign, thus posits against the metaphysical tradition a signified which is inseparable from a signifier, a two-sided unity in other words. Peirce similarly challenges the presuppositions of metaphysics as for him, as Derrida points out, the phenomenological ‘thing itself’ is always already a sign or representamen. The interpretant (somewhat similar to Saussure’s signified) cannot therefore ever appear on its own, but itself becomes a representamen and so on ad infinitum. Another important step that Saussure takes, in tension with his construction of the phonic character of the linguistic sign, is to state that ‘[l]inguistic signals are not in essence phonetic. They are not physical in any way. They are constituted solely by differences which distinguish one sound pattern from another’ (Course in General Linguistics 164). Saussure furthermore proceeds by stating that the value of a sign within language is not an inherent characteristic of such sign, but a consequence of the differences between signifiers and between signifieds. It is in other words not substance that makes the functioning of signs possible (as one might think based on Saussure’s construction of the sign), but difference. That this is indeed the case, Saussure (revealingly) illustrates with reference to writing which shows (better than speech) the process of differentiation at work. Saussure explains the importance of difference in this respect as follows:

In the language itself, there are only differences. Even more important than that is the fact that although in general a difference presupposes positive terms between which the difference holds, in language there are only differences, and no positive terms. Whether we take the signification or the signal, the language includes neither ideas nor sounds existing prior to the linguistic system, but only conceptual and phonetic differences arising out of that system. In a sign, what matters more than any idea or sound associated with it is what other sounds surround it (Course in General Linguistics 166).

By positing in this way the formal characteristics or the principle of semiological functioning, Saussure, as Derrida points out, suspends substance, of both the sound-image (signifier) and of meaning (signified). Something similar happens to meaning in the case of Peirce where the signified (interpretant) becomes in turn a signifier (representamen). Saussure (and Peirce) according to Derrida could be read as laying down the formal play of differences or of traces as the condition of the process of signification or of the conceptual process in general. As we will see below, Derrida refers to this ‘play’ with his non-concepts of general writing, arche-writing and différance which could be said to ‘produce’ the differences within the system of language. By focusing on the heterogeneity of the texts of Saussure and Peirce, Derrida therefore enquires into the condition of possibility of the sign as well as of metaphysics.

The notion of the sign is problematic for Derrida because its roots according to him lie in metaphysics and theology. Western philosophy or the metaphysics of presence has since Plato privileged speech (logos) as the preferred medium for the conveyance of truth and meaning. This is because speech seems to enable unmediated access to the signified or to the thing itself, involving, as Derrida puts it, ‘a relationship of essential and immediate proximity with the mind’ (Of Grammatology 11). The written signifier would be secondary to the voice, a mere supplement to speech, purely technical, and having no constitutive meaning. The notion of the sign continues in this tradition. Saussure as we saw above, constructs the sign as a link between a signifier (sound-image) and a signified (meaning, concept). It thereby retains the privilege of speech. Writing is then also regarded by Saussure as secondary, exterior, a mere representation of full and present speech, and as unrelated to the inner system of language. Saussure in this respect views language as a living organism which should be allowed to evolve naturally and not be corrupted by writing, as this would amount to a deviation from nature. With the structure of the sign as a distinction between the signifier and the signified, Derrida furthermore contends, Saussure resurrects the Stoic and later medieval opposition between signans and signatum. Because of this structure, the notion of the sign retains not only the metaphysical distinction between the sensible and the intelligible, but metaphysics as a whole with all its oppositions between inter alia external/internal, image/reality, representation/presence, appearance/essence, and writing/speech. It also retains the metaphysical notion of the subject which as Derrida puts it in Positions (29), ‘is present for all his operations, present beneath every accident or event, self-present in its “living speech”’. In addition, it implicitly retains the possibility of a signified, concept or truth that can exist in its intelligibility, simply present to thought without and before its ‘fall’ into an exterior, sensible signifier. The sign thereby participates in theology, the idea of pure auto-affection, of a pure inside being uncorrupted by an outside, a characteristic traditionally attributed in metaphysics to God and more recently occupied by the subject. Semiotics according to Derrida thus implicitly shares with metaphysics the attempt to think away the inscription of meaning and truth. This metaphysics of self-possession or of the proper has, as Derrida furthermore points out, given rise to a certain politics dominating the world where identity and essence stand central and which in turn determines the concepts employed in legal discourse such as the family, nationality, democracy, sovereignty, freedom, equality, dignity and fraternity.

What the study of signs nevertheless makes possible as we saw above is the thought that the concept, signified or truth cannot exist without a signifier. The signifier makes possible the signified. In comparison with metaphysics, the image becomes the precondition for ‘reality’ to appear. Access to the truth and to meaning is in other words always mediated. Mediation is as we saw not however derived from full presence (of consciousness to the signified), but is instead made possible by that which produces difference. Based on this insight, the sign can be said to show that there is a lack in what was believed to be the origin (the self-presence of the subject). The origin, we could also say, is always already in need of supplementation for it to appear as origin. Edmund Husserl’s reflections on signs in this respect show that a certain kind of dislocation from self-present experience always takes place. Mediation through signs is in other words a necessary condition for auto-affection, for a relation to the self. A study of signs and their necessity can be said to point to a certain kind of ‘drift’ that is a feature of all experience. To understand this better we have to enquire into the reason for the privilege accorded to speech in metaphysics and the aspersions cast on writing. Derrida traces the reason for this in metaphysics to a fear for death with which writing has always been closely associated. Philosophy since Plato has for this reason found it necessary to construct, based on the model of a living organism, a pure inside which had to be guarded from an external outside. Writing as we saw has been viewed as external, as a fallen kind of speech, as a mere aid, dangerous and secondary to living memory, as corrupting originary meaning, as dead or empty repetition, as compared to living speech. Why specifically writing, something that seems so innocuous? This is because writing in metaphysics points to death, which is always already lodged inside of life, as Heidegger and Nietzsche had also contended. Death is not however only something we fear, but also what we ultimately desire, as Freud and Schopenhauer realised. It is because of this dislocation of the self, the drift referred to above, of death lodged inside of life, that the self can relate to itself as well as to others in the first place, and not because of self-presence as metaphysics has always believed. Derrida refers to this ‘pre-origin’ inter alia as arche-writing or the trace: the condition of possibility of both writing in the common sense and of speech, which itself is a certain kind of writing. It can also be referred to as différance, that which produces differences (through which as we saw in Saussure, meaning is constituted as a secondary effect), and also defers or postpones death (or full presence, which would amount to death). This has important implications for the sign. The signified must in light of the above be understood as ‘originarily and essentially…trace, [and]…always already in the position of the signifier’ (Of Grammatology 73). This thinking of a pre-origin can translate into a different kind of politics, law and ethics, to what Derrida refers to in Rogues: Two Essays on Reason 152 as a hyper-politics or a hyper-ethics or in Force of Law: The ‘Mystical Foundation of Authority’ as ‘justice’ which as he contends, is characterised by disproportion, a responsibility without limits, and a suspension of law and meaning. Such a ‘politics’, ‘law’ and ‘ethics’ would in other words no longer start off from the self-identity of the subject, but from that which makes the latter possible, requiring therefore necessarily a negotiation between the unconditional and the conditional.

Select Bibliography:

Jacques Derrida, ‘Différance’ in Jacques Derrida, Speech and Phenomena and Other Essays on Husserl’s Theory of Signs, David B Allison trans. (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973)

Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, trans. (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1974)

Jacques Derrida, Positions, Alan Bass, trans. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981)

Jacques Derrida, Dissemination, Barbara Johnson, trans. (London: Continuum, 1981, 2004)

Jacques Derrida, Limited Inc, Samuel Weber et al trans. (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1988)

Jacques Derrida ‘Force of Law: The “Mystical Foundation of Authority”’ in Jacques Derrida Acts of Religion, Gil Anidjar, ed. (New York: Routledge, 2002)

Jacques Derrida, Rogues: Two Essays on Reason, Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas trans. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005)

Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, Roy Harris, trans. (Chicago:: Open Court, 1972)

Sigmund Freud ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle’ in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud vol XVIII (London: Vintage, 2001)

Jacques de Ville

4 January 2009

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