Re: what's the difference
Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu)
Tue, 26 Oct 1999 17:00:50 -0500
Me:
> >> Suppose we did use a ternary system. Why wouldn't the defining
> >> principle still be presence vs. absence?"
Sean:
> No, it wouldn't because there are 3 fundamental states in a tertiary
> system, not 2. Your principle is short one state.
I don't see how it's possible. Recognizing any fundamental state
requires acknowledging a difference from other fundamental states.
Without difference, you could have nor 2 nor 3 fundamental states.
Difference allows the construction of distinguished states.
> What is this obsession literary theorists have with the word
> 'difference'?
Saussure popularized the idea that words have meaning only because
they are different from other words. He noted that meaning doesn't
reside in the positive association a word has with a concept, but
rather in the difference that word has from another word. Words can
"signify" only because they are different from each other. Meaning as
a product of difference, rather than of positive association between
words and
concepts: a word means something only because it simultanesouly does
not mean something/everythign else. The example used earlier was
"dog," which means the animal with four legs that barks, etc., only
because it doesn't mean "log,"...or "cat," or "parakeet," or
"Scottie Bowman," or anything else. This sounds a little silly,
admittedly. So perhaps the wording needs a little adjusting: The
word "dog," *is able* mean what it means only by virtue of the fact
that the word itself differs from all other words. Saussure uses the
example of synonyms to illustrate this point. He notes that the
French words for "to dread," "to fear," and "to be afraid" each have a
slightly different meaning *only because they stand in contrast with
each other*. "If 'to dread' did not exist," he says, "its content
would be shared out among its competitors" (114 in the Open Court
edition of _Course_).
> As I recall, after some 8 years, 'difference' is at
> the heart of Derrida's smash hit essay. (The actual word was French,
> something like 'differance', which, I was assured by a footnote,
> didn't translate easily into English, providing the reader a
> convenient explanation as to why the essay doesn't seem to make any
> sense.)
It does translate into English quite handily. Just a little
patience. Derrida invented
a nifty little neologism based on the French verb "differer," which
includes the two English concepts, "to differ," and "to defer." The
result is the word "differance" (a new-mexico-to-maine accent over the
"e"), which Derrida calls *the possibility of
conceptuality*, instead of just a concept. The difference between a
concept and the possibility of conceptuality is a clever bit of
sophistry on Derrida's part with one main objective: he's trying to
express what it is that allows writing to have meaning. It's based,
he says, partly on difference, since the meaning in words is
technically in their difference from each other--their
uniqueness--rather than in their native charge of independent
meaning. Words can't mean anything except in the context of other
words (which doesn't mean they have to be surrounded my other
words...words can have meaning all by themselves, regardless of
whether there are other words around at the moment, but a word
couldn't have meaning if it was the only word, period). That's
difference. But words also work by deferring, says Derrida. They
defer the presence of the thing they "represent." Instead of
producing a ferris wheel from my suitcase in the middle of a
discussion, I use the term "ferris wheel" in its place. In French,
the invented word "differance" includes both the sense of differing
and deferring. It is the concept that Derrida says is behind meaning
in language. But--here's the clever part--because the word
"differance" is subject to the very rules it attempts itself to
propose for language--because "differance" is a concept, like the
concepts it is supposed to facilitate--there is a problem. It can't
be a concept itself, if its aim is to allow concepts. Techinically,
it's impossible to describe *with language* the kinds of things that
make language work. You can't walk across a bridge on your way to a
meeting at which you intend to challenge the existence of bridges.
You can't have your cake and eat it if you're not sure about flour and
water. So Derrida changes "differance" from a concept to the
possibility of concpetuality (yes, that is itself a concept, but we're
to understand the good-faith gesture as a way of trying to get outside
of conceptuality).
Derrida's word has second bit of cleverness about it in that the
difference between "difference" and "differance" cannot be heard in
spoken French. It only shows up in writing. Derrida uses this to
make a point about the relative value of speech and writing.
To get back to an earlier point, the essay does make sense. It's very
clever, and it plays with words on all sorts of levels, which
playfulness makes it difficult (and entertaining, some would say).
But it does make sense.
> Help me out. Are you and the gange saying that the purpose of
> language is to convey differences?
I don't wish to reduce the purpose of language to any one thing in
particular. I am saying that language works by differences. That's
all.
> That a
> concept derives meaning only by the fact that it differs from
> another? Am I close?
Exactly. The length and scope of this discussion has by now suggested
that it's much more complicated than it really is. You've got it, I
say, intending no offense whatsoever.
--
Matt Kozusko mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu