De Gruyter

Chapter Title: Being as Presence: Systemic Considerations

Book Title: Derrida on Being as Presence

Book Subtitle: Questions and Quests
Book Author(s): David A. White
Book Editor(s): Anna Michalska
Published by: De Gruyter

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Part I: Presence and the History of Metaphysics

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1 Being as Presence: Systemic Considerations
Toward the conclusion of the brief preface Derrida included for his early work Of
Grammatology, we read: “...my interpretation of Rousseau’s text [which appears in
Part III of OG] follows implicitly the propositions ventured in Part I, propositions
that demand that reading should free itself, at least in its axis, from the classical
categories of history–not only from the categories of the history of ideas and the
history of literature, but also, and perhaps above all, from the categories of the history
of philosophy.”1 Then, several pages later at the end of the equally brief “Exergue,”
the following passage appears: “The future can only be anticipated in the form of an
absolute danger. It is that which breaks absolutely with constituted normality and can
only be proclaimed, presented, as a sort of monstrosity” (OG, 5–italics in text).
Strong, dire, even apocalyptic claims. Of Grammatology is intended to show that
we need to jettison “the categories of the history of philosophy” when reading that
selfsame history (as well as, presumably, anything else of comparable weight and
import), with such categorical withdrawal thrusting us into a future which can be
described as “a sort of monstrosity.”
A reader approaching Of Grammatology must do so with sympathy toward its
project–interpretive politeness requires such neutral receptivity. But questions
immediately arise in the face of its announced goal. Broadly stated: (a) why is it
necessary to practice the art of reading apart from the traditional categories of the
history of philosophy? And (b) why would the results of philosophical activity pursued
after embracing this radically revamped procedure be monstrous in content, form or
perhaps both? The answers to these question revolve around the notion of being as
presence and a set of diverse implications which Derrida drew from that notion.

1.1 Principles of Interpretation: Procedures and Scope

Derrida deploys presence (présence) primarily in two distinct but related contexts:
the history of metaphysics and the philosophical analysis of language. This essay
is organized to reflect these allied concerns. Chapter 1 of Part I develops passages
from Derrida which detail the relation between being as presence and the history
of metaphysics; this chapter and all of Part I are devoted to abstract considerations
befitting the tenor of metaphysical thinking regarding such matters. Chapter 4 of Part
II focuses on passages concerning the relation between being as presence and its
function as one of the foundational elements in Derrida’s thoughts on language; this

1  OG, lxxxix; cf. OG, 163, where Derrida asserts that the “classical categories” proper to reading are
also “the founding categories of metaphysics.” Subsequent passages from Of Grammatology will be
cited in the body of the text. See note 5 for the system employed in citing passages for commentary.

© 2017 David A. White, published by De Gruyter.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.

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 Principles of Interpretation: Procedures and Scope    3

account initiates a four-chapter analysis of a set of fundamental concepts in Derrida’s

approach to understanding linguistic elements from a deconstructive perspective.
This separation of themes will clarify the identification of systemic elements
pertaining to being as presence (Part I) and application of those elements to language
(Part II). I have named these results “systemic” rather than “structural” to underline
the fact that their overall organization is relatively loose, reflective of Derrida’s
discursive style, but that in the present context they are also as tight as is feasible
given the apparent content of the texts analyzed. The basic assumption is that Derrida
remained a product of his place in the history of metaphysics to such an extent that it
is necessary to read him from that perspective, if only provisionally, in order to be in
a position to appreciate and to evaluate what he might have foreseen as the future of
philosophical activity.2
The passages on being as presence discussed in Chapter 1 have been selected from
Derrida’s earlier works. They represent the core and central ramifications of Derrida’s
position concerning this crucial component of his teaching. Since Derrida often wrote
in modes distant from the lines of thought developed and narrated in traditionally
systematic protocols, I have coordinated the passages so that their sequence in this
chapter forms a linear progression of topics and illustrates, in Derrida’s distinctive
style of presentation, justifications for conclusions he maintained. Discussion of these
passages is linked so that the reader can appreciate the continuity and progression
in Derrida’s thinking; in addition, the arrangement and examination of individual
passages allow more concentrated individual critiques of claims and arguments
maintained in each of these passages.
Finally, a point worth repeating (and a theme developed in the essay proper): the
questions applying to the strictly metaphysical considerations pertaining to being as
presence (Part I) also apply to Derrida’s systemic approach to language (Part II). If
problems arise and, perhaps, proliferate during the process of Derrida’s thinking on
matters of high generality, then the cumulative weight of those difficulties should have,
or at least may have, a bearing on the final legitimacy attributed to Derrida’s project.
For if Derrida cannot adequately establish a context of inquiry as philosophically
problematic because of ineffective parameters intended to localize, define and justify
that problem, then it is not obvious why that context remains problematic merely
because Derrida’s texts proclaim it to be so.

2  Derrida insists that any substantive position emerging from the application of deconstructive anal-
ysis must to some degree remain within the bounds of metaphysical discourse: OG, 19; WD, 36, 281-2,
284; MP, 177, 219, 237, 263; Jacques Derrida 1992, 50; Richard Kearney 2004, 143. Commentators have
noted this insistence: Irene Harvey 1986, 44, 96, 100, 124; Michael Naas 2003, 100; Barry Stocker 2006,
184; Russell Daylight 2011, 9. Salmi Haddad 2013 says, 141: “...in his own inheritance of past thinking,
Derrida can only ever destabilize certain notions by stabilizing others.” See also Ch8n95. Chapter 10
of this essay develops implications from Haddad’s perceptive observation.

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4   Being as Presence: Systemic Considerations

1.2 Derrida’s Narrational Strategy

Jacques Derrida published three separate works in the same year (1967), but upon
investigation it seems obvious that the intention was to advance a concerted and
integrated position laid out separately, in tripartite configuration.3 Thus most of
his technical terms, or at least terms which have solidified themselves as staples
in the ranks of commentaries on Derrida, appear in Of Grammatology. It may be
assumed then that the more critical attention paid to the content displaying the
highest degree of abstraction as developed in these works–all three yielding
passages analyzed in this essay–the more informed will be the educible connections
between these technical terms and the foundational elements in Derrida’s approach
to the underlying characteristics of deconstruction taken as a method or, expressed
in a mode which the advocate of Derrida might find more congenial, a chain of
gestures involved in the reading of texts.
The other pertinent ramification concerns the doctrinal links between positions
Derrida worked out on being as presence in the earlier texts and the themes and
topics which occupied him in his middle and late periods–e.g., hospitality, the
concept of gift, death, various political themes and issues, etc. Whether Derrida
derived the substance of his accounts of these topics from direct consideration
of factors pertaining to being as presence or whether these accounts originated
primarily or even solely from Derrida’s own creativity is a question of provenance
which can be addressed and, perhaps, resolved only if Derrida’s early thought on
being as presence is fully explored. The present essay concentrates on analyzing
Derrida on this abstract theme with the hope that its results may, by extension, be
useful to readers of Derrida who might wish to pursue the structure, cogency and
implications of his later thinking.4

3  See Daylight, 6-7 for comments on the publication history of Derrida’s first three books.
4  Two recent sources explore a wide range of Derrida’s later work: Michael Naas’ Miracle and Ma-
chine Jacques Derrida and the Two Sources of Religion, Science and the Media and Samir Haddad’s
Derrida and the Inheritance of Democracy (see Bibliography). See also Jacques Derrida 2001, 101, for
Derrida’s own list of topics pursued in his later writings. Whether the theoretical positions embodied
in Derrida’s early works can be consistently developed in such substantive directions is a question
which may be posed based on the argument of this essay. Existing commentary on being as presence
does not attempt to develop systematically its structure and implications. See, for example, Thomas
Baldwin 2008, 108-9, 110-11; Jonathan Culler 1983, 93-4; Richard Rorty 1985, 135.

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 The Deployment of Presence   5

1.3 The Deployment of Presence

1.3.1 Truth and Language

Early in Of Grammatology, Derrida makes the following axiomatic claim:

Passage 1A The history of (the only) metaphysics, which has, in spite of all differences, not only from
Plato to Hegel (even including Leibniz) but also, beyond these apparent limits, from the pre-Socratics
to Heidegger, always assigned the origin of truth in general to the logos: the history of truth, of the
truth of truth, has always been–except for a metaphysical diversion that we shall have to explain–the
debasement of writing, and its repression outside “full” speech (OG, 3–italics in text).5

This passage emphasizes that metaphysics is characterized throughout its history

as originating its stance toward truth in terms of logos–or “logocentrism,” that is,
the location of truth within the “privilege of an interior, self-present voice.”6 The
immediate confines of “logos” in this voiced sense. i.e., word, account, argument, etc.,

5  Passages analyzed in this essay are sequentially identified by chapter (in which the passage first
appears) and number. This is Passage 1A; all references to Passage 1A refer to this passage. Subse-
quent passages in Chapter 1 are identified Passage 1B, 1C etc. In addition to Passage 1A, Derrida also
emphasizes the unity of the history of metaphysics at WD, 193. The passages quoted from Derrida vary
in length from a single sentence to entire paragraphs. This approach maximizes the factor of context
as much as possible (against the strictures Derrida imposed on assigning limits to given contexts, a
theoretical position discussed in detail in Chapter 6 below); it also addresses and presumably avoids
what Christopher Norris 2012, 185n102, labels “highly selective or snippety reading,” a practice which
Norris claims is used by commentators (such as Richard Rorty) “who seek to recruit Derrida...to the
cause of their own wholesale anti-foundationalist, anti-realist or neo-pragmatist crusade.”
6  Daylight, 6, has offered this definitional sketch of “logocentrism.” Derrida uses “logocentrism”
on the first page of OG’s Exergue but leaves the term undefined at that point (see Passage 1B). Day-
light adds later, 20, that logocentrism is the: “self-presence of mental impressions prior to or without
recourse to language”; for Stocker, 51, logocentrism is “...an approach at the heart of metaphysics
according to which truth, knowledge or being are present at some particular moment”; for Culler,
92, logocentrism represents “...the orientation of philosophy toward an order of meaning–thought,
truth, reason, logic, the Word–conceived as existing in itself, as foundation.” These three accounts
display considerable variance in emphasis, content, and the extent to which logocentrism may in-
clude, as part of its structure, experience of a philosophically-inclined investigator. Derrida invites
this diffuseness of interpretation when in Positions he says: “In Of Grammatology I simultaneously
proposed everything that can be reassembled under the rubric of logocentrism–and I cannot pursue
this any further here–along with the project of deconstruction” (P, 51–italics in text). Cf. MP, 64-5: LI,
20, 104; Kearney, 143, 146, 148-9, 154. Derrida is surely justified in refusing to repeat himself but the
“simultaneously” in this claim is perhaps the reason why his commentators diverge as widely as they
do regarding the import of the term in question. Derrida’s inclusive approach to logocentrism also un-
derlines the importance of the current study, i.e., analyzing and evaluating as clearly as possible how
the groupings of philosophers in Passage 1A exhibit the singular term “logocentrism” in the context
of being as presence. For additional comment on logocentrism, see Art Berman 1988, 279; Hans-Georg
Gadamer 1989, 95; Rorty 1989; Stocker, 52; Norris 2012, 134; Daylight, 22.

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6   Being as Presence: Systemic Considerations

all presuppose the determinate existence of fixed elements of significance which

Derrida calls the “transcendental signified.” We will clarify both “logocentrism” and
“transcendental signified” as technical terms as the essay unfolds. For now, we observe
that this passage underscores Derrida’s insistence that the emphasis under scrutiny
has debased writing and repressed its function relative to what is typically held as
“full” speech, i.e., the spoken word. Derrida contends that one and only one history
of metaphysics exists, implying that whatever can be construed as metaphysical in
tone or structure (or both) must be located within the sweep of this single historical,
panoramic phenomenon. The one exception Derrida mentions does not affect the
emphatic sense of unity conferred on this history.7 It will be observed that Derrida
marks the differences which punctuate the history of metaphysics–an element in
this context which we will examine closely–but these differences do not affect the
possibility of generalizing about the entire history of metaphysics.
The immediate scope of this generalization concerns language, in particular the
relation between written and spoken discourse. Thus “logos” refers to discourse taken
in a very broad sense. For Derrida, logos pertains to “the origin of” truth, which leaves
open whether truth–granting for now its feasibility in a public or justified sense–
should be understood just as the event of language, whether spoken or written, or
whether it includes a relation between spoken or written language and something
other than language. If the latter, language arises necessarily from human origin but
its full character when viewed philosophically is not limited to that factor taken by
itself. This possibility becomes increasingly significant once we elicit the implications
of Derrida’s position on being as presence, especially when these implications enter
the sphere of language.

1.3.2 Presence and the History of Metaphysics

A few pages later, Derrida again correlates in greater detail the history of metaphysics
with being as presence:

Passage 1B We already have a foreboding that phonocentrism merges with the historical deter-
mination of the meaning of being in general as presence [présence], with all the subdetermina-

7  The notion of unity is crucial for Derrida’s various agendas–e.g., MP, 259 on the unity of metaphysics
as a branch of western thought; see also WD, 167, 281-2; MP, 121; OG, 3, 13; P, 51; PS, 301. Commentators
differ concerning the status of unity in Derrida–e.g., John Caputo 1997, 31, denies that unity applies
to the history of metaphysics while Harvey supports the relevance of unity in several contexts, 96-
102, 106; see also in this regard, Christopher Fynsk 2001, 156; Daylight, 58; Richard Shusterman 1992,
75-6; Robert Bernasconi 1989, 247; and Leslie Hill 2007, 97, on the unity of a given text. Additional
commentary on the status of unity appears in David A. White 2011 (hereafter cited DFL), 59-62. See also
below, Ch3n40. Unity will be analyzed in a series of fundamental contexts in Chapters 4, 5 and 6 below.

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 The Deployment of Presence   7

tions which depend on this general form and which organize within it their system and their
historical sequence (presence of the thing to the sight as eidos, presence as substance/essence/
existence [ousia], temporal presence as point [stigmè] of the now or of the moment [nun], the self-
presence of the cogito, consciousness, subjectivity, the co-presence of the other and of the self,
intersubjectivity as the intentional phenomenon of the ego, and so forth). Logocentrism would
thus support the determination of the being of the entity as presence (OG, 12–italics in text).

This passage from Of Grammatology may be read with the following passage from
“Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences,” a lecture given
in 1966 and published as the concluding essay in Writing and Difference in 1967, the
same year as Of Grammatology.

Passage 1C The history of metaphysics, like the history of the West, is the history of these meta-
phors and metonymies. Its matrix–if you will pardon me for demonstrating so little and for being
so elliptical in order to come more quickly to my principal theme–is the determination of Being
[de l’être] as presence [présence] in all senses [les sens] of this word. It could be shown that all the
names related to fundamentals, to principles, or to the center have always designated an inva-
riable [l’invariant] presence–eidos, archē, telos, energeia, ousia (essence, existence, substance,
subject) alētheia, transcendentality, consciousness, God, man, and so forth (WD, 279-80).

For Derrida, phonocentrism names an attitude toward language which privileges

spoken over written discourse given that the former necessarily occurs in the present,
thereby reinforcing presence as the most important medium of expression. The
specification of this privilege represents a crucial theme since Derrida infers that this
preference, the product of millenia of philosophical thought, has made it essential to
revitalize our attitude toward the writing of philosophy and writing in general. But
the dominant concern of this passage is the identification “of the meaning of being in
general as presence,” along with “all the subdeterminations” which derive from the
traditional approach to being as understood in this way.
In Passages 1B and 1C, Derrida generalizes by collecting pivotal moments
occurring throughout the history of metaphysics without individuating these moments
by the name of the originating philosopher but rather by the principal element in that
philosopher’s thinking. These elements, listed in historical order, indicate that the
philosophers in question include Plato, Aristotle, Descartes and Husserl. Derrida does
not mention (although he does write “and so forth”), either by doctrine or name, the
metaphysical positions developed by, for example, Jean-Paul Sartre or Alfred North
Whitehead, or by the large number of metaphysicians in the Anglo-American tradition,
from F. H. Bradley through Paul Weiss. And if we postdate the authorship referred to
in the passages cited above, additional instances of metaphysics may be cited: Nelson
Goodman, David Lewis, and even more recently in the sector of analytic philosophy a
group of thinkers pursuing what they have named “metametaphysics.”8

8  For example, the 2009 anthology Metametaphysics New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology.
See David Chalmers, et. al. in the Bibliography.

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8   Being as Presence: Systemic Considerations

The fact that such modes of metaphysical thinking are not identified–whether they
exist before, during or after the time of Derrida’s pronouncements–cannot imply that
some or all of them fall outside the effective scope of the “being as presence” designation.
Such putative exclusion, if it were permissible within Derrida’s generalizations, would
allow significant areas and individual figures throughout the history of philosophy, up
to the present (and, presumably, into the future), to remain apart from and impervious
to whatever limitations Derrida will institute into the structure of being as presence.
In this hypothetical eventuality, the “other” metaphysical systems, those promulgated
and enduring beyond the boundaries of being as presence, would have at least the
possibility of open access to, for example, whatever may have been (and, for Derrida,
definitely has been) concealed by the collective agency of philosophical thought insofar
as that thought was and continues to be marked by subservience to the factor named
“being as presence.” We conclude therefore that for Derrida (save for the exception he
cites at OG, 2), each and every one of these moments, whether named or unnamed,
constitute instances of being as presence.
Passage 1B refers to what Derrida calls “the meaning of being in general as
presence.” This phrase may be considered as a unity, a whole of parts. As it stands,
the phrase as a whole is ambivalent between the following readings. If (a) the phrase
is divided into “the meaning of” and “being as presence,” then “being as presence”
exhausts the meaning of being; the key point then is to recognize that “the meaning
of” being is nothing but presence. However, if (b) the phrase is taken as an indivisible
unity, then “the meaning of being as presence” can be restated as: “the meaning of
being as presence when being is in fact presence.” And this reading leaves open the
possibility that being could be something other than presence; if so, then being may
have a very different meaning.
Since Derrida writes “being in general,” context suggests that the first of these two
possibilities is the intended sense, that being as presence is all and only what being can
be, that is, from the perspective Derrida has assumed on the history of metaphysics.
The fact that “presence” is italicized also supports this reading so we shall take it in
this sense. However, when he writes “the meaning of being in general as presence,”
it appears as if Derrida thinks that he has, in fact, clearly and unambiguously stated
the meaning of being when being is qualified “as presence.” In other words, at this
point in his analysis of the history of metaphysics, nothing more need be said about
being as such other than that it is “presence.” Thus when Aristotle famously asserts
(Metaphysics VII 1028a10) that “being can be said in many ways,”9 Derrida’s position
implies that whatever metaphysical diversifications Aristotle discerned in being, all
such manifestations may, indeed must, be reduced to “being as presence.”

9 All quotations from Aristotle are from translations in the Basic Works of Aristotle (see Bibliogra-
phy).

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 The Deployment of Presence   9

In Chapter 2, we will demonstrate that Derrida’s uniform designation of being

“as presence” becomes seriously problematic and in fact runs counter to at least
one of the texts in early classical western metaphysics. It will then follow that
“being as presence,” if taken as an epithet duly summarizing the entirety of western
metaphysics, conceals–and arguably distorts–more than it may reveal about being.
Furthermore, in Part III of the essay we argue that the second reading, (b) above, is
in fact more congruent with implications derivable from Derrida’s texts on being as
presence. If so, then Aristotle’s metaphysical sensibilities were correct after all. Thus
Derrida’s reformulation of being insofar as it is allowed to function within the entire
history of metaphysics is best construed “in many ways” rather than according to the
single strict and rigid rubric of “being as presence.” But this line of interpretation
remains only conjectural until it has been justified in what follows.
In Passage 1B, phonocentrism and logocentrism, both of which include references
to language, “merge” and “support” respectively the uniformity of presence. It may
safely be inferred then, first, that at least some of the considerations derived from the
development of the position on being as presence will pertain to Derrida’s position on
language. As we noted earlier in this chapter, these considerations will be examined
in Part II of this essay.
For now, second, consider the important word “merge” (se confond) especially
when used in close proximity to Derrida’s phrase “the meaning of being as presence.”
Is the merger simple conjunction–(a) the fact of spoken language coexisting with
(b) the fact of being construed as presence with each element in this conjunction
maintaining its own distinct identity, or more organic and penetrating such that
“being as presence” is defined, at least in part, by the fact of discourse itself? If the
latter, then a necessary but not sufficient condition for being as presence is that it
includes the fact of language articulating the character of being. It would then follow
that clarifying the structure of being as presence would include analyzing how
language contributes to determining this structure. It would also follow, apparently,
that the burden is on the advocate of being as presence to explain why, as an opening
and obvious question, it should not be construed as a species of idealism. The point is
not to demean idealism as a grounding metaphysical vision; only that it now becomes
urgent to determine, if possible, whether idealism does indeed belong to being as
presence on condition that “being as presence,” as a single and seemingly unified
referring phrase endowed with a fixed, referential object, is characterized at least
potentially by a uniform structure.10

10 Stocker, 29-30, denies that Derrida is an idealist. For Derrida’s impression of such a descriptor
applied to his thought, see P, 50; cf. LI, 93.

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10   Being as Presence: Systemic Considerations

1.3.3 Presence and Difference

In Passage 1A, truth was located in logos throughout the history of metaphysics
“in spite of all differences” marking that history. In Passage 1B, Derrida refers to
“the subdeterminations” which “depend on this general form,” i.e. being as presence.
Derrida’s “subdeterminations” has a more positive connotation than the word
“differences,” which tends to evoke a more passive reliance on an underlying wholeness.
But terminological nuances aside, these differences and subdeterminations do not
affect and therefore do not diminish the force of the generalization Derrida wants
to make, i.e., that the system and sequence of the history of metaphysics are strictly
determined as variations on being as presence.
Although the differences between the spare extant texts of Heraclitus and
Parmenides are stark, the far more articulated and subtle differences between Plato
and Aristotle are, in their own way, even more dramatic. However, it must be presumed
that Derrida’s factor of being as presence construed as “invariable” (invariant) can
and will encompass all these positions, at least insofar as they exhibit allegiance
to at least some of the basic elements of metaphysics as exhibited throughout its
history. If this invariability does not obtain, then “being as presence” becomes, in
John Dewey’s evocative phrase, a eulogistic predicate,11 applicable only to a certain
strain of thinking as that strain has emerged from the history of thought but without
its having been established, as Derrida so maintains, as the controlling factor in
all western metaphysical deliberations. It may then be assumed that the specific
doctrinal content of all the epochal entries cited in Passages 1B and 1C as well as
all other moments in the history of metaphysics not explicitly mentioned must share
something in common in order to justify ascribing the term “presence” as the single
predicate proper to the one and only history of metaphysics.

1.4 Presence: Linearity and Process

Being as presence spans the history of metaphysics but to construe the character of
the historical factor itself as an element in this ultimate philosophical datum requires
careful consideration:

Passage 1D This pluri-dimensionality does not paralyze history within simultaneity, it corres-
ponds to another level of historical experience, and one may just as well consider, conversely,
linear thought as a reduction of history. It is true that another word ought perhaps to be used;
the word history has no doubt always been associated with a linear scheme of the unfolding of
presence, where the line relates the final presence to the originary presence according to the

11  See John Dewey 1958, 28, for a concise explanation of “eulogistic predicate.” For discussion con-
centrating on affinities between deconstruction and pragmatism, see Chantal Mouffe 1996.

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 Presence: Linearity and Process    11

straight line or the circle. For the same reason, the pluri-dimensional symbolic structure is not
given within the category of the simultaneous. Simultaneity coordinates two absolute presents,
two points or instances of presence, and it remains a linear concept (OG, 85).

If we think of the history of metaphysics represented as a straight line joining, e.g.,

certain pre-Socratics at one end and Heidegger at the other, then Derrida objects that
this configuration is reductive and that history so conceived amounts to an omnipresent
simultaneity. His explanation appeals to what he calls “the originary presence” and
its relation to “the final presence.” However, it is possible that this distinction between
originary and final is not canonic Derrida but rather an interpretive result tied to the
hypothetically linear approach to history. If this approach to the conceptualization
of history errs by dint of reductiveness, then one may reason that any designation
falling along an inappropriately envisioned historical line would also be equivalently
suspect.
The following conjectures may nonetheless be considered as possibilities worth
introducing here, with a final sense of plausibility dependent upon examination and
interpretation of additional texts. Presence can be a process, i.e., between an “originary
presence” and a “final presence” although it would be premature to conclude that
presence as such is always and necessarily a process between a starting point and
some sort of conclusion. A subsidiary question would be whether or not this process,
if indeed such a concept is pertinent, has any characteristic typically predicated of
processes (as in Aristotle–e.g., the continuousness of division12). A more expansive
surmise will hold that presence can be (a) both a process while the process itself is in
motion as well as (b) the “end points” of such a process. What would Derrida’s use of
“unfolding” then refer to in this context? Is it limited to sheer temporality, as in the
time that passes between an event’s origin and its conclusion? Or is it both the time
component as well as the elements of the event itself insofar as these elements are
in motion from a certain point of origin to a certain point of cessation or fulfillment?
The texts introduced at this juncture do not answer these questions, but a thoughtful
quest for the content of being as presence will find such issues useful to consider.
More directly relevant given future lines of argument in this essay is the concluding
analysis of simultaneity. Derrida refers to “two absolute presents,” then adds “two
points or instances of presence,” concluding that simultaneity linking two “presents”
in this way remains a “linear concept” and therefore presumably inadequate to the
proper understanding of being as presence.
This description is suggestive in a number of respects: first, if simultaneity
“coordinates” two “instances of presence” then it is implied that presence as such is
not reducible to simultaneity since if it were, simultaneity would constitute presence,
not merely coordinate it.13 Thus presence presumably includes temporality–note

12  For the consequences of division applied to a continuum, see Aristotle, Physics, 207a8; 231b15.
13  Derrida registers concern about the apparent cogency of the notion of simultaneity–see WD, 14,

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12   Being as Presence: Systemic Considerations

Derrida’s appeal to the relation between “two absolute presents”–insofar as

temporality occupies but is not equivalent to the present. The question then becomes:
what constitutes presence over and above the temporality which conditions presence
to emerge in the present? The implication is that presence must include a reference
to what is present and not simply isolate the temporal factor of an already, pre-
established existent “present” entity in order to posit that factor as being as presence.
This inference, if sound, is crucial since it entails investigation into the organizational
makeup of entities or events as a prerequisite to identifying more precisely the content
of being as presence.
In that vein, second, what are the referents of “two absolute presents”? The
immediate contexts suggest events and entities, since simultaneity is often applied to
both types of reality and in a variety of contexts (although event and entity are clearly
quite different from one another). But other possible referents include (a) two distinct
metaphysical systems or (b) two distinct elements within one given metaphysical
system. In both cases, “absolute present” could readily apply to either (a) a complete
metaphysical system taken as a unity and thus as an absolute present or (b) to two
(or more) elements of a single given metaphysical system. The texts from Derrida
examined so far are not decisive in these areas of inquiry but, again, the topics
broached are well worth additional consideration.

1.5 Presence and the Metaphysics of Form

The series of conjectures offered in the previous section addresses a fundamental

issue–what is being as presence? The following passage appears in Derrida’s article
“Form and Meaning: a Note on the Phenomenology of Language,” which was originally
published in Speech and Phenomena in 1967, the same year as Of Grammatology. This
passage opens a new dimension for achieving a more precise determination of how
being as presence should be understood:

Passage 1E All the concepts by which eidos or morphē could be translated and determined refer
back to the theme of presence in general. Form is presence itself. Formality is what is presented,
visible, and conceivable of the thing in general (SP, 108).

When Derrida asserts with dramatically discursive force that “form [forme] is presence
itself,” does he intend “is” to be identity or predication? Although this distinction,
marked with such clean-cut opposition, is itself perhaps a candidate for deconstructive
analysis, we preserve it here in order to explore alternative readings of the claim.

24; MP, 55, 56, 58. For discussion, see DFL, 173-6.

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 Presence and the Metaphysics of Form    13

If the “is” in this context is of identity, then it follows that form must be functional
and operative in each and every determination of being in all the lists Derrida provides.
Derrida’s following claim, that formality, the character of being formal, is “what is
presented, visible, and conceivable of the thing in general,” then becomes seminal.
We are told that what is presented is “visible and conceivable.” But should the “and”
linking visible and conceivable be taken literally, as a logical conjunction? If so, then
something existing as presence is both visible to the sense of sight and capable of
being understood and conceptualized by the mind–i.e., both properties apply to all
instances of being as presence. However, another reading is possible. In this case, each
entry in the list of three properties applies to one, perhaps some, instances of being
but not to all instances. Thus some instances of presence are visible, other instances
of presence are capable of being conceived, but no single instance of presence is both
visible and conceivable. The pair of properties, visible and conceivable, is therefore
intended as a summary description applicable to the entire sequence of instances but
aligned with the interpretive restrictions just introduced.
In the latter case, the conjunction “and” is misleading since its effective logical sense
is disjunctive, i.e., Derrida is claiming that being as presence is in some cases visible
and in other cases conceivable, but he is not claiming that any one instance of being
as presence is both visible and conceivable. However, note what follows immediately
for both alternative readings: if being as presence is in some respect (or respects) the
same and “invariable” throughout the history of metaphysics, then being as presence
when it is visible is and must be the same as being as presence when it is conceivable.14
The question then becomes: can we identify characteristics common to both visible and
conceivable instances of being as presence? If the answer is no, then there is reason
to suspect that either Derrida has not accurately characterized being as presence with
respect to this conjunction of properties and has done so at an especially crucial point
since the context purports to articulate a generalized, comprehensive description of
being as presence or that being as presence is fundamentally and intractably ineffable.
Either disjunct of this conclusion has important implications, as we shall see.
Assume now that the intended sense of “is” should be read not as an identity
indicator but as predicational. In this case, presence becomes broader in import than
form, implying that presence, if its nature is amenable to description, could not be
reduced by identity to the nature of form. If so, presence includes elements other
than and in addition to form–however form is construed. It may then be assumed that
these elements can be articulated according to designations similar to “form” and all

14  Derrida often refers to sameness; also, what could be taken as an apparent synonym of sameness–
invariability–is equally important to the structural characteristics assigned to being as presence.
Sameness will be introduced and discussed below (in the section “Presence and Différance”). Also,
the factor of invariability and its role in the structure of being as presence will become increasingly
important to the argument of this essay.

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14   Being as Presence: Systemic Considerations

that resonates with the term “form” throughout its variegated appearances during the
history of metaphysics. Without such articulation, the import of presence, other than
its animation of form as specified by Derrida, will remain ineffable and presumably
inaccessible to any mode of investigation, deconstructive or otherwise.

1.6 Being as Presence–the “Subjective” Turn

Derrida connected being as presence with the notion of form and did so with a high
degree of intimacy. We have sketched some preliminary reflection on the relevance of
this connection with respect to clarifying the content of being as presence. However,
in an essay on Hegel based on a lecture delivered in 1968, one year after the three
works already explored, we read a general claim which considerably broadens the
context of inquiry:

Passage 1F In determining being as presence (presence in the form of the object, or self-presence
under the rubric of consciousness), metaphysics could treat the sign only as a transition. Meta-
physics is even indistinguishable from such a treatment of the sign. And neither has such a treat-
ment somehow overtaken the concept of the sign: it has constituted it (MP, 71–italics in text).

This passage–the first words in the essay (excluding a series of quotations from
Hegel)–is important for detailing the connection between metaphysics and the way in
which Derrida confronts the concept of “sign.” We will devote considerable attention
to the concept of “sign” and its relevance to metaphysics in Chapter 4. For present
purposes, however, the parenthesis in the opening sentence commands our attention
since it reveals a new approach to determining the character of being as presence. I
suggest that we may interpret as complementary parts of one theoretical whole the
texts appearing early in Of Grammatology (and the other, contemporary sources cited
above), which emphasize the content of a number of systems throughout the history
of metaphysics, and the passage from the essay on Hegel just introduced.

1.6.1 Presence, Form, Consciousness

We begin with yet another decision on an ostensibly small logical factor but one
with crucial interpretive implications. If the “or” in this passage indicates strict
disjunction, then being as presence can be either “presence in the form of the object”
or “self-presence under the rubric of consciousness;” also, neither disjunct can be
either reduced to or co-exist with the other. We may then interpret the distinction as
contrasting being as presence when it arises from “the form of the object” and being
as presence when it emerges as “self-presence” within, as Derrida puts it, “the rubric
of consciousness.”

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 Being as Presence–the “Subjective” Turn    15

These characterizations of being as presence are in some respect (or respects) dissimilar.
Being as presence applies to identifications of basic metaphysical components (via
the concept of form) drawn from key figures in the history of metaphysics as well
as to consciousness itself insofar as it functions as a foundational reality for one of
those figures (Hegel–and others, e.g., in the phenomenological tradition). The use of
“rubric” in this context suggests that for Derrida, consciousness is a name standing
as a traditional place marker encompassing a welter of possible sub-determinations
rather than as a clearly established concept worth employing as a point of departure for
additional and putatively firm analysis. It may be inferred then that “consciousness”
appearing in contexts such as those considered at this point conceals more than it
reveals with respect to ulterior reaches of metaphysical insight.15
If the two designations of being as presence are indeed intended to differ
significantly from one another and if the second designation indicates that the defining
characteristic that justifies the ascription of “being as presence” is necessarily limited
to the sphere of consciousness, then it seems necessary to construe the parallel
defining characteristic of “presence in the form of the object” to be something other
than consciousness. If this otherness were not the case, then both evocations of being
as presence would include some dimension of consciousness; but if that were so, then
at least from this perspective no difference would mark the two designations of being
as presence, apparently nullifying the text’s parenthetical point.
Derrida’s position on the invariable character of being as presence nonetheless
requires that the presence emergent from the systems referred to in the first set must be
the same at least in some respects as the presence that emerges from the exemplar of
being as presence in the second identification; if not, then the single phrase “being as
presence” does not apply uniformly to the history of metaphysics. We have suggested
that systems in the first set do not include, as an essential factor in instantiating
being as presence, consciousness or some specific function or element derivable
from consciousness. But if so, then the sameness underlying the uniformity of being
as presence must be based on a feature of presence generated from characteristics
pertaining to being as such, i.e., being construed apart from consciousness as the
locus of any experience of being. In sum, Derrida’s strategy in the opening assertion
of the Hegel essay points toward the necessity to derive some meaning for “presence
in” which simultaneously (a) does not include whatever aspect of presence could
be pointed to as a feature of consciousness–e.g., functioning in the present and (b)
instantiates the intended sense of form.
Here is a passage from the Introduction to Speech and Phenomena which may
initially appear to pursue this allied goal:

15 See Derrida’s observation on the relation between consciousness and the “I,” MP, 283. For addi-
tional approaches to the phenomenon of consciousness, see SP, 147; Derrida 1981, 254.

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16   Being as Presence: Systemic Considerations

Passage 1G The factor of presence...is itself modified, without being lost, each time there is
a question of the presence (in the two related senses, of the proximity of what is set forth as
an object of an intuition, and the proximity of the temporal present which gives the clear and
present intuition of the object its form) of any object whatever to consciousness, in the clear
evidence of a fulfilled intuition (SP, 9–italics in text).

Derrida refers to the “factor of presence” and then prefaces his parenthesis with “the
two related senses,” suggesting that these are the only two senses that characterize
presence and that they are related to one another. The first sense emphasizes that
something is “set forth as an object of intuition.” Apparently anything existing in any
sense whatsoever could instantiate this kind of intuition as long as the setting forth
of that existence was in “proximity.” But proximity to what or whom? Presumably to
an agent equipped to experience the intuition Derrida identifies as an element in the
first sense of presence. The second sense of presence given in this passage appeals
to the “proximity of the temporal present” in which the object of intuition receives
its “form.” This sense stresses that presence is a concentrated experience that,
apparently, occurs in the temporal present. But if there is a temporal present, does
it follow that the temporality proper to presence also exists in more encompassing
temporal dimensions, e.g., the past and the future? Is presence therefore a kind of
omnipresence pervading all standard dimensions of temporality? Or is presence
necessarily restricted to experience occurring only in the present, thus to the exclusion
of past and future? And how should the introduction of “form” in this extremely
abstract statement be understood? As Derrida has himself noted, “form” exists in
many guises throughout the history of metaphysics.
Although this passage may appear initially to be a straightforward statement
clarifying the meaning of “being as presence,” I suggest that if this was indeed
Derrida’s intention, the statement is arguably incomplete. If we take the passage and
its dual related senses to function in this capacity, then being as presence becomes
essentially relational, and the relation in question is constituted by a subject-object
connection. But much has been left unspecified: is the “proximity” that produces
formality defined solely by temporality (whether in the present or, as noted above, in
other dimensions of time) or does this proximity include other factors of a traditional
metaphysical cast (with space the obvious instance)? Is the temporality generated by
necessity from the cognitive agent–in, e.g., a quasi-Kantian fashion–or is it purely
“objective” temporality in the manner of Newton? And even more crucial is the
indeterminate status of “object” in “object of intuition.” Will any elementary object as
identified conceptually in any systematic metaphysics satisfy this sense of “object”? If
so, then if the objects are characterized within two (or, of course, more) metaphysical
systems, which is clearly Derrida’s intent when he so often surveys the climactic points
in western metaphysical thought, the resulting depictions of “object” will differ vastly
from one another.
The question again arises: even if the “two related senses” in this passage give
the student of Derrida a direction for determining the “presence” factor of being as

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 Being as Presence–the “Subjective” Turn    17

presence (i.e., the subject-pole), no guidance whatsoever appears as far as identifying

what remains the same, what is “invariable,” given that being as presence penetrates
and defines the entire history of western metaphysics. In other words, the “being”
factor (the object-pole) receives only the most cursory treatment in this passage,
although what Derrida wrote at this point clearly exhibits the realist dimension of
being as presence. The object-pole of being as presence as well as its relational aspect
(which factor will become more and more pervasive as our quest to clarify the import
of being as presence continues) remain areas which require additional analysis.

1.6.2 Modulated Possibilities

The following is a series of provisional inferences based on this reading of the opening
of Derrida’s Hegel essay; it will become evident that this complex Hegelian context
necessitates a number of important interpretive decisions if the strategy is to confront
Derrida on Hegel for purposes of seeing more clearly the nature of being as presence.
A. Derrida refers to “self-presence” in the second section of the parenthesis.
Derrida also used the locution “self-presence” in Passage 1B, but at that point he
wrote “self-presence of the cogito,” suggesting strongly that he had Descartes in mind.
If so, then the question concerns whether Cartesian “self-presence” is equivalent to
Hegelian “self-presence.” If we deny this equivalence given the vast differences in
notional content between the final positions in the respective systems of Descartes
and Hegel, then how do the instances of self-presence differ from one another and
yet both constitute proper exemplifications of being as presence? Presumably some
facet of consciousness “as such” will distinguish the two modes of self-presence;
otherwise, “self-presence” would depend on something other than its “selfhood” in
order to complete the sense in which self-presence instantiates being as presence.16
B. The appeal to “self-presence” suggests that consciousness carries its own source
of verification with respect to being as presence. Thus the mere presence, so to speak,
of consciousness, especially in a Hegelian context, establishes that being as presence
is indeed present at hand. A passage from the Introduction to Derrida’s commentary
on Husserl supports this possibility; here Derrida characterizes (Passage 1H) “self-
presence in consciousness” as “nothing other than the possibility of the self-presence
of the present in the living present” (SP, 9). I suggest that what Derrida contends
regarding consciousness in Husserl also applies, perhaps even more broadly, to the
self-presence of consciousness in Hegel and ultimately to the distinctive character of
this mode of being as presence.

16  For additional sources on the notion of self-presence, see MP, 52, 125-6; Kearney, 148-9; Derrida
1992, 46. In the early essays contained in Writing and Difference, Derrida occasionally uses “full pres-
ence.” As the discussion in Section B indicates, whether “full presence” and “self-presence” are syn-
onyms is not clear. See also WD, 194, 279, 292, 296, 333n20.

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18   Being as Presence: Systemic Considerations

If this reading is accurate, the implications are crucial. Derrida is not claiming
that consciousness must be intentional, i.e., related to something “outside”
consciousness, in order to justify the conclusion that consciousness illustrates “self-
presence.” Rather, consciousness itself, the activity of consciousness, generates
its own constitutive instantiation of being as presence. Consciousness itself is self-
presence. Consciousness does not require something other than itself (e.g., an object
insofar as it is experienced in any respect by consciousness) to establish a relation so
that it generates what Derrida has in mind by being as presence for a metaphysician
such as Hegel, with his concerted and systematic integration of consciousness in
relation to a myriad of objects. Therefore, the term “subjective” as used in the title of
this section emphasizes the fact that for Derrida, the content of being as presence in
Hegel is located exclusively within the field of consciousness itself rather than in an
extra-subjective range of being.
Of course, prudence suggests that this reading of “self-presence” is tentative
especially given that in the first three sentences of the Hegel essay’s second paragraph,
Derrida uses these locutions: “two moments of full presence,” “one presence to
another,” “original presence,” “final presence,” and “self-presence;” then, a few
lines later, we read a reference to “the movement of lost presence.” It is fair to say
that clarification of these locutions as employed within the Hegel essay is textually
spare; thus the reader concerned to have the most adequate awareness of how Derrida
is developing these contexts of presence must either search for assistance in other
Derrida texts or attempt to glean some measure of understanding from reflection
defined by a narrowly circumscribed immediacy of context.
However, even if all the distinctions introduced in this very abbreviated section
of the prefatory remarks (MP, 71-2) are unique to this essay because of its subject
matter, i.e., Hegelian dialectic and metaphysics, it is still incumbent on an interpreter
advancing a comprehensive reading of Derrida’s overall position to determine a sense
for all the distinctions so introduced given that the opening of the essay suggests that
being as presence is no less prevalent in Hegel as it is in every other figure in the
history of metaphysics. Even if all the distinctions and configurations of presence
itemized at this juncture in the essay cannot be transposed to other thinkers in the
history of metaphysics, they are as important to the stature of Derrida’s notion of
being as presence as Hegel is to the history of metaphysics, since it may be assumed
that as a cardinal figure in that history, he is very important indeed.
Self-presence appears to have a global function in Derrida’s reading of Hegel but
Derrida introduces additional dimensions to the ways in which presence functions,
at least with respect to the inner workings of Hegel’s systematic concerns. Here is one
such function, although as we shall see, its interpretation can be only conjectured.
Thus (Passage 1I):

As the site of the transition, the bridge between two moments of full presence, the sign can func-
tion only as a provisional reference of one presence to another (MP, 71–italics in text).

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 The “Transcendental Signified”    19

The usage of “sign” in this passage will be analyzed in the following section of this
chapter. For now, consider the elaborations of presence in terms of “moments.”
The expression “two moments of full presence” appears ambivalent, at least as
it stands. When sign functions provisionally by referring “one presence to another,”
the usage of “one presence” could refer to a given entity in relation to another given
entity, i.e., two distinct “presences” linked by the functioning of a sign. However,
the phrase could also refer to a single instance of “full presence” defined as a type
of unity which is “full” with respect to instantiation of presence precisely by virtue
of a link or connection between two moments. In this reading, Derrida is not saying
that each moment by itself has full presence and that the conjunction of the two
moments yields (a) a first instance of full presence followed by (b) a second and
completely different instance of full presence. Rather, only the linkage provided by
the sign of one present to the other present generates full presence. An example: if
a word can function as a sign, then when a word refers to an object in one context
and the same word refers to the same object in a different context, then the sign
so used has generated “two moments of full presence.” The ambivalence rests
on specifying what “one present” means, especially with respect to its becoming
involved in relations to a sign, and also what “full presence” means given that
it can be discriminated according to “moments.” If precision in these regions
of inquiry is available, it is fair to say that considerably more analysis is required
in order to achieve it.

1.7 The “Transcendental Signified”

Being as presence becomes manifest in various modes, as the essay on Hegel has
shown. One of these modes is consciousness itself. Precisely how consciousness is or
becomes “self-presence” is complex and, as argued in the previous section, not readily
amenable to discursive analysis. Apparently consciousness has its own justification,
a unique type of self-characterization. If, however, we take consciousness as a given
and also as a foundation for being as presence, we are prepared for the following
additional considerations pertaining to the structure of presence.

Passage 1J [C. S.] Peirce goes very far in the direction that I have called the de-construction of
the transcendental signified, which, at one time or another, would place a reassuring end to the
reference from sign to sign. I have identified logocentrism and the metaphysics of presence as
the exigent, powerful, systematic, and irrepressible desire for such a signified (OG, 49).

A preliminary point: There is no textual warrant for assuming that “being as presence”
and “the metaphysics of presence” do not refer to the same conceptual state of affairs.
If so, Derrida has approached its structure by dividing his account into distinct
phases. The context within which being as presence is now analyzed focuses on the

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20   Being as Presence: Systemic Considerations

“transcendental signified.” The following discussion offers introductory exegesis of

this important notion.17
First, the characterization of “the metaphysics of presence” in Passage 1J
certainly appears to be sharply, even radically, distinct from the descriptions of being
as presence which appear earlier in Of Grammatology. Derrida now emphasizes, with
four qualifications, the “desire” for a “transcendental signified.” Thus an affective
response or interest arising from the subject is a necessary but presumably not
sufficient condition for establishing “the metaphysics of presence” in relation to
being as presence. But the more detailed phase of the subjective turn taken at this
point in Of Grammatology does not end there. The object of the stipulated desire–the
“transcendental signified”–exists as a “reference from sign to sign,” that is, insofar
as this phenomenon occurs within the internal constitution of the cognitive agent
and speaker of language. The key interpretive questions are: (a) what does Derrida
mean by “signified” and (b) how is this item signified in a way which justifies being
described as “transcendental”?
Passage 1F introduced the notion of sign and its relation to metaphysics. As
noted, we shall attempt to clarify the structure of sign later in this essay. However,
as a preamble I submit that an adequate explanation will include attention to three
distinct elements: word, concept, referent. Here is one straightforward account
which is germane to Derrida’s usage of “sign.” Consider a glass of water and the
phrase “glass of water.” In this state of affairs, “glass of water” is a set of words, the
concept glass of water exists in the mind of a speaker of those words (and, in some
contexts, in the mind of a listener), and the object referred to is the actually existing
container of liquid, a complex entity the contents of which are suitable for quenching
thirst (as well as a variety of other purposes if this entity is viewed imaginatively).
What “sign” means for Derrida will be constituted by a configuration of one or more
of these three elements. For present purposes, I will take Derrida’s use of sign to refer
to the supposed mental correlate of a word; thus a word is a necessary condition for a
sign but a sign, as such, cannot be reduced to the word which initiates the existence
of the sign in the mind of a cognitive agent.18
Derrida generalizes in Passage 1F that “metaphysics” treats the sign only as a
transition, with the question of identifying the elements of a transition–between what
and what–not addressed at this juncture. However, this reference to “metaphysics”
presupposes that it is not germane to the point concerning a sign’s transitional
character which system in the history of metaphysics one chooses to consider. The
entire history of metaphysics can be taken as uniformly consistent with respect to
Derrida’s interpretation of a sign. Presumably then all metaphysical systems employ

17  Derrida’s use of “transcendental signified” is analyzed in Chapter 4.

18  For Derrida’s assertion of an apparently necessary link between word and notion, see WD, 236.
Daylight’s comments on complexities in Derrida’s employment of sign are useful–see 54, 57, 82, 110,
133. The structure of the components of signification is explored in Chapter 4.

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 The “Transcendental Signified”    21

signs in the same way. The connection any one moment within that history might have
assumed toward the interpretation of a sign is indistinguishable qua metaphysics from
the position toward the interpretation of a sign taken by any other moment within
that history–a generalization of considerable theoretical amplitude.
The emphasis at hand is on language in all its guises and functions since the
claim about the desire for a transcendental signified holds whenever a sign event,
as it might be called, occurs within language in any of its settings, not only in
the rarified instances of discourse when metaphysicians are plying their art and
assigning language to encompass and articulate the nature and structure of reality.
This comprehensive environment should be noted but our concern in the essay is with
strictly philosophical matters (although the relevance of what David Hume called
“common life” in this regard will emerge in both Parts II and III of the essay).
The correlation between being as presence and the “transcendental signified” is
multi-dimensional. The tone of Passage 1J suggests that although strong reasons
and justifications exist for seeking to command the existence and relevance of
the “transcendental signified,” for Derrida no such element can be secured, at
least not in the “pure” sense in which the protagonists of traditional approaches
to both the analysis of language as well as to epistemology have believed. We will
continue to reconsider and critically evaluate Derrida’s approach to this element, the
transcendental signified, in Parts II and III below, where the context of scrutiny is
more immediately concerned with language. For now, consider why the introduction
of the notion of the transcendental signified coupled with the statement just
provisionally offered concerning its nature is so crucial for determining as rigorously
as possible the sense in which being as presence characterizes the entire history of
western metaphysics, especially the appeal to the commonality of being as presence
throughout that history.
The key nexus is the (putative) transcendental signified pointing to System A (e.g., a
Platonic Form as an element in that system) in relation to the (putative) transcendental
signified pointing to system B (e.g., an Aristotelian form in that system). Given the
commonality established by being as presence, the relation between the sign and
entity-as-referent-in-system A must be the same as the relation between the sign and
entity-as-referent-in-system B in order to justify the uniformity of being evoked by
“being as presence.” What is present within the mode of existence of the sign in the two
instances of relation must be rendered and justified as the same in order to maintain
that the single notion, being as presence, accurately evokes being as represented by the
two relations. But here a fundamental difficulty emerges. If some attribute or property
is in fact educed from the conjunction of systems A and B (omitting for the moment
that this attribute or property must be constant throughout the history of metaphysics)
and shown to be the same, then a pivotal distortion must have been wrought on the
content of the respective systems given that the texts of those systems, i.e., Plato and
Aristotle, describe fundamentally distinct types of being.

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22   Being as Presence: Systemic Considerations

In sum, the presence-element in the relation of sign to what the sign is of when
this relation occurs within system A must be the same as the presence-element in
the relation of sign to what the sign is of when this relation occurs within system B.
But the referents of system A and system B differ from one another in, apparently,
irreducible ways. Thus Form for Plato is very different from Aristotle’s use of form.
How then can being as presence establish and preserve the same elements from
such diverse positions? This question will grow in importance as this essay proceeds.
But we may observe that the denial of a stable “transcendental signified” appears
to jeopardize the cogency of Derrida’s position regarding the comprehensiveness of
sameness resident in the notion of being as presence (we will devote more attention
to this implication in Parts II and III).

1.8 Particularity

Derrida has referred to “two points or instances of presence” (Passage 1D) and
discussion of that passage introduced aspects of particularity relative to the implied
plurality regarding the reference to “two” presents. And in the Hegel essay discussed
above, Derrida refers to “one presence and another,” implying a multiplicity of
instances exemplifying presence. These ways of detailing being as presence suggest a
significant contrast relevant to this phase of our investigation. For if being as presence
refers to what in traditional terminology would be called a principle and “two points
or instances of presence” refer to particulars defined by that principle, how should
the contrast between the two usages of presence be understood?
The contrast appears to indicate at least a pair of ways to look at being as
presence. If so, the next question becomes how to deploy that distinction given
what Derrida assures us is the fundamental character of being as presence. However,
any demarcation attempting to clarify the distinction by way of amplification risks
distorting it if the language used is borrowed from the schemas of western metaphysics.
We recall Derrida’s alert early in Of Grammatology regarding the necessity to revamp
the traditional vocabularies employed in reading philosophical texts. With that
cautionary note in view, I suggest that the contrast in the phrase evokes a part-whole
distinction. Thus “presence” represents the whole or a principle with (as we have
assumed) at least one determinable property whereas “presents” represents instances
of that whole.
This reading once reintroduced into the history of western metaphysics raises a
series of basic questions: first, how to isolate and describe presence as such if it can
be separated, if only logically, from its instances. Does it have a unity which differs
from the unity of any single instance of presence? And regarding the latter, does
“presents” refer to entities understood without any qualification? Thus does each and
every individual entity also exist as an instance of being as presence? Another area
of concern: if each entity is an instance of presence, does it follow that entities must

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 Presence and the Principle of Identity   23

be subject to human experience in order to exist as a “present”? This seems to be a

yes/no question. If no, then a given present exists on its own, autonomously, as an
instance of being as presence, without the active or even passive agency of human
experience. But if yes, then the significance of any given entity defined with respect
to being as presence as necessarily existing in relation to human experience can be
determined only by taking into account the indwelling of that entity within a sphere
or arena of human experience.
The nature of an entity as a particular instance of presence–the texts assure us
that this ascription is appropriate to a full articulation of being as presence–stands as
a question of considerable importance and complexity.

1.9 Presence and the Principle of Identity

One could make the case that as the contexts in which Derrida pursues being as
presence increase in number and also in diversity of content, so does the inherent
difficulty of identifying the shared elements proper to being as presence. We now see
that this complexity become even more intricate.
In Speech and Phenomena, Derrida opens his analysis of Husserl with a broad and
blunt challenge:

Passage 1K ...being interested in language only within the compass of rationality, determining
the logos from logic, Husserl had, in a most traditional manner, determined the essence of langu-
age by taking the logical as its telos or norm. That this telos is that of being as presence is what
we here wish to suggest (SP, 8).

The relevant context does not involve whether this reading of Husserl is accurate or
even defensible. The point is what Derrida took from Husserl as a conclusion, and
also as a challenge–in this case, showing that the “telos or norm” of “the logical”
is “being as presence.” Derrida renders the connection between logic and presence
more precise in the following passage (part of a parenthesis), taken from his 1966
essay on Freud:

Passage 1L Logic obeys consciousness, or preconsciousness, the site of verbal images, as well as
the principle of identity, the founding expression of a philosophy of presence...) (WD, 207).

This passage is noteworthy in at least two respects: first, in rendering logic

subservient or obedient to something other than itself. Thus “verbal images” appear
in consciousness (or preconsciousness) and these images command the apparently
apodictic character of logic. It is tempting to reply that a verbal image is itself possible
only on condition that the principles of logic obtain, in effect reversing the priority
Derrida maintains. Consider the principle of contradiction. The explanation for the
impossibility of producing a verbal image of a contradiction is based on the character

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24   Being as Presence: Systemic Considerations

of contradiction itself, not on the supposition that verbal images take a certain
shape and, as a direct result of this shape, contradiction emerges as a fundamental
principle of logic. The second point is the elevation of the principle of identity
as the most basic principle of logic on which, apparently, all other logical principles
rest and a principle which, according to Derrida, is “the founding expression
of a philosophy of presence.”
The principle of identity, stated formally, is A = A. Derrida’s “the founding
expression of a philosophy of presence” is intended to obviate taking A = A as a logical
axiom which somehow contributes to the formal conceptualizing and articulation of
“being as presence” as a phenomenon characterizing the history of metaphysics.
Thus to construe A = A as “purely formal” is to denature it, that is, to locate identity
in a privileged realm which, given its apparently necessary function, allows identity
to remain apart from substantive considerations. But if so, then the principle can
be restated in order to indicate this foundational status relative to the history of
metaphysics. Therefore, we will write the principle: A is present to A. What then does
the relation “is present to” convey?
This interpretive gambit suggests that the relation “is present to” must add
something to the pure formality of the identity sign. A = A, the standard expression of
the principle of identity, indicates nothing about A over and above its identity to itself.
Therefore, unless “is present to” adds something to the identity sign, “is present to”
and “=” become indistinguishable from one another. However, if what is added to the
equality sign by virtue of “is present to” imports any substantive content to A, then
this importation must be justified. But how?
Justification is possible if it could be shown that “A is present to A” can exist
only on condition that its status as a–or, if Derrida is correct, the–principle of
logic presupposes at least some characteristics accruing to being as presence. This
stipulation is warranted on condition that the principle of identity is indeed “the
founding expression of a philosophy of presence.” If this analysis is sound, then it
becomes all the more crucial to investigate what Derrida means by being as presence,
since he claims that the most intimate connection possible obtains between this
principle, A = A, and the history of metaphysics understood as being as presence.
For Derrida, the standard interpretation of the principle of identity as a purely
formal axiom is metaphysically naive if not presumptuous. For in fact, adoption of
this principle motivated from an exigent desire deep within the site of verbal images
resident in consciousness has contoured and controlled the subsequent history of
logic and, by extension, the history of metaphysics.
Here is an attempt at such justification: “A is present to A” can stand as a
fundamental principle of logic only if properly stated–thus “A is present to A” if
and only if this principle connects consciousness, the seat of its conception, with
whatever emerges “in” consciousness. For this appearance in consciousness allows
consciousness to depict this A, whatever it may be, to exist so that it becomes present
to itself through the relation of equality. Again, this justification is only a sample

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 Presence and Différance   25

analysis; if this formulation and development are sound, then it follows that A = A is
dependent on something other than itself, i.e., consciousness. For only if such a thing
as consciousness existed would it be possible to engender this kind of purely “formal”
approach to existence proper. (This alternative approach to the supposedly “formal”
character of a principle as abstract as self-identity is intriguing and bears additional
scrutiny, quite apart from its relevance to the question of determining the nature of
being as presence.)19

1.10 Presence and Différance

As we have seen, for Derrida the entire history of western metaphysics can be
meaningfully encompassed as a unity constituted by a multitude of metaphysical
differences. Furthermore, a structural feature of that history is open to thoughtful
scrutiny, i.e., through the notion of différance. Différance appears in various early
texts of Derrida, sometimes with accompanying comments, sometimes as a “given”
in Derrida’s technical vocabulary with the understanding that the interested reader
will secure an appropriate grasp of its definition and description. The account and
application of différance for Derrida’s overall project occupies a level of significance
even more fundamental than that of his revisionist approach to the foundational
status of the principle of identity. We offer here an introductory survey of this notion,
emphasizing its relevance for determining being as presence. More concentrated
expository and critical analysis of différance appear later in the essay.

1.10.1 Sameness and Invariance

Derrida goes to great lengths to emphasize what différance is not, so it is a decided

challenge in interpretation to isolate what différance in fact is; the following passages
contextualize its development:

Passage 1M Indeed one must understand the incompetence of science which is also the incom-
petence of philosophy, the closure of the epistémè. Above all it does not invoke a return to a pres-
cientific or infra-philosophic form of discourse. Quite the contrary. This common root, which

19  At WD, 260, Derrida asserts axiomatically that logic is itself only “an interpretation.” At MP, xx,
Derrida describes logic as a “hierarchy of regional beings.” See also SP, 148; MP, 39; LI, 92-3, 104; and
cf. Passage 1L. For discussion of Derrida’s position on the principle of identity, see DFL, 154-61. The
notion of self-identity is also analyzed from the perspective of its importance to being as presence in
Chapters 3, 5 and 7 below. The concept of “consciousness” used here must be distinguished from the
consciousness Derrida cites in Passage 1B as one of many instances of being as presence found in the
history of metaphysics.

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26   Being as Presence: Systemic Considerations

is not a root but the concealment of the origin and which is not common because it does not
amount to the same thing except with the unmonotonous insistence of difference, this unna-
meable movement of difference-itself, that I have strategically nicknamed trace, reserve, or dif-
ferance, could be called writing only within the historical-closure, that is to say within the limits
of science and philosophy (OG, 93–italics in text).

The common root which underlies both science and philosophy has a concealed
origin. But Derrida indicates that what is common to science and philosophy “does not
amount to the same thing,” from which one may infer that whatever makes philosophy
philosophical and science scientific is not the same, even though Derrida appears
to assert some type of commonality at this level of supreme generality. Although
Derrida’s initial reference to a “common root” orients the dimensions of différance
towards an apparently accessible uniformity, his development of this descriptor takes
an unexpected turn. Derrida insists that this “common root” is neither a root nor
common. Thus the commonality does “not amount to the same thing” except as a signal
to the “unmonotonous insistence of difference.” Derrida’s use of “unmonotonous”
(si peu monotone) suggests that difference is essential to the sweep of the history of
metaphysics and thus is not at all “monotonous” with respect to the unity of that
history; however, the negative prefix alerts the reader that difference as such is not the
most fundamental feature of metaphysics taken as a unity. This approach to difference
within the totality of metaphysics is an “unnameable movement” which Derrida has
variously categorized, including by means of the neologism–“différance.”20
The “incompetence” regarding the “common root” to which Derrida refers toward
the beginning of Passage 1K is not a condition which could be remedied by greater
measures of genius on the part of the most perceptive and penetrating protagonists
of philosophy or, less dramatically, on the possibility of increasing the work ethic
of philosophers generally. The incompetence in question results from the gamut
of being as presence and its overriding dominance throughout the entire epoch of
western metaphysics.
What then is “unnameable”? It is apparently a feature or features of the
“movement” of “difference itself,” or différance. Derrida emphasizes in various ways,
e.g., “unmonotonous” as a qualifier of difference, the dimensions of negativity which
surround what he is attempting to convey to the reader with regard to différance.
The following passage introduces a more substantive approach to the “unnameable
movement” embodied in différance.

20  Passage 1M apparently suggests that “trace” is a synonym for différance but discussion in Chap-
ter 9 contends that such an equivalence does not seem possible. See the critical assessments of dif-
férance in Chapters 8 and 9 below. For additional analysis and critical evaluation of différance , see
DFL, Chapter 4 (“Différance and Difference”). See also Harvey 203-5, 212; Shusterman, 79-80; Fynsk,
153; David Wood 1988, 64; Vincent Descombes 2002, 30-43.

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 Presence and Différance   27

Passage 1N Reflection on this last determination [i.e., Heidegger’s Being/beings] will lead us
to consider differance as the strategic note or connection–relatively or provisionally privileged–
which indicates the closure of presence, together with the closure of the conceptual order and
denomination, a closure that is effected in the functioning of traces (SP, 130-1–italics in text).

Derrida cautiously refers to différance as “provisionally privileged,” although how

“provisionally privileged” should be understood is not obvious. Thus “provisionally”
with respect to what other possibilities or alternatives? Is the provisional character
intended with respect to (a) whether being as presence can admit “closure” at all or
(b) whether the appropriate vehicle of closure is something other than différance as
described in the present essay? These qualifications indicate that Derrida is fully aware
that he has elevated a single term to a status which, given the leveling tendencies of
deconstructive analysis, invites close critical scrutiny in its own right. The appeals
to qualifications of the privileged status of différance as “relative” or “provisional”
are apparently intended to remove différance from traditionally deployed philosophical
evaluation. However, it is difficult to see how Derrida can be so reserved given
all the work that différance does for his overall position. Does the fact that différance
is only “provisionally” privileged hold open the possibility that différance may
either not exist at all or exist but in a sense even more qualified than that asserted
by Derrrida in this passage? Surely this possibility is untenable, at least in Derrida’s
comprehensive frame of theoretical and speculative reference. These explicit
qualifications will become important later, when we pay more concentrated critical
attention to différance (Chapters 7 and 8).
For Derrida, Heidegger constituted the effective termination of western thought,
i.e., the advent of the “closure of presence.” The fact that Derrida announces this
closure is, of course, not accidental to the advanced position. In this regard, the
notion of différance becomes crucial since différance names the most appropriate way
to conceive and articulate the history of western metaphysics from its inception with
the pre-Socrates to its apparent completion in Heidegger.21
It now becomes all the more pressing to determine the meaning of “being as
presence” as precisely as possible since the inevitable conclusion of différance is the
“closure of presence.” Thus the import of Derrida’s notion of “closure” can be fully
appreciated if and only if we can determine what has been subjected to closure–i.e.,
being as presence. The following passage indicates, or at least implies, that this quest
is not completely quixotic:

21 Derrida’s use of “closure” is highlighted in the central argument of Chapter 9; Heidegger is of signal
importance as the “last metaphysician,” i.e., the “closing figure” in Derrida’s reading of the history of
metaphysics. Thus, MP, 63: “The extraordinary trembling to which classical ontology is subjected in
Sein und Zeit still remains within the grammar and lexicon of metaphysics.” See “Ousia and Grammē:
Note on a Note from Being and Time,” esp. MP, 33-4n6; see also MP, 127-8, 131; Kearney, 141.

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28   Being as Presence: Systemic Considerations

Passage 1O We provisionally give the name differance to this sameness which is not identical...
(SP, 129–italics in text).

In this passage, Derrida provides, albeit “provisionally,” a positive element of

différance–it functions as a sameness. In Passage 1M, Derrida writes of a “common
root, which is not a root but the concealment of the origin and which is not common
because it does not amount to the same thing except with the unmonotonous
insistence of difference.” But Passage 1O stipulates that precisely such a sameness
is at hand when différance is viewed synoptically, as the organizing notion of western
metaphysics. It is also important to appreciate Derrida’s insistence that sameness
understood at this uniquely fundamental level is distinct from identity. The denial of
that which is “not common” and the assertion of a primordial “sameness” may appear
initially to be at odds logically. But the fact that being as presence is “invariable”
(Passage 1C) must be interpreted and I submit that this invariability is in fact apposite
with the sameness Derrida recognizes in Passage 1O. This sameness, if it were in
any sense accessible to inquiry, would reveal at least presentiments of the currently
concealed “origin” referred to in Passage 1M, presumably the ultimate “monstrous”
goal of all deconstructive inquiry.22
Even a cursory glance at Derrida’s lists of instances of being as presence readily
shows that these instances differ among themselves. To claim that sameness–but
not identity–obtains among members of a class is to appeal to at least one (or more)
characteristics simultaneously shared by all members of that class. This simultaneity
holds even if in all other respects no member of this class has a property identical to
properties of all other members (taken distributively) of that class. Also, some properties
may be identical to all members of the class but not all properties, for in this case no
distinction would obtain between sameness and identity. In sum, A and B will be the
same in (at least) one respect but will not be identical in all other respects. Furthermore,
whatever core belongs to sameness as sameness can be, indeed must be, stated as itself
a self-identity, thus formally allowing the differences marking the history of philosophy
to be gathered under the single notion of sameness. This necessity presupposes in
turn the reliability of the principle of identity, a point worth mentioning since Derrida
has denied any special privilege to this principle–indeed, as we saw above, Derrida
contends that identity is the paramount principle of being as presence.

22 At one point in the essay on différance, Derrida asserts: “there is no essence of différance...” (SP,
158). The conjoint (a) affirmation of sameness as invariability and (b) denial of essence to différance
may appear logically incompatible. However, if “essence” is taken in a sense (or senses) defined
exclusively by existent metaphysical accounts employing this concept (e.g., Aristotle–see Ch2n30),
then no incompatibility arises on condition that the invariability in question is not determinable
according to “essentialist” parameters. This implication reinforces the urgency of determining the
content of this invariable commonality as clearly and rigorously as Derrida’s texts permit.

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 Presence and Différance   29

In these respects, I suggest that as already noted, the sameness in question

should be connected to the appeal to an “invariable” presence (Passage 1C), that is,
to the definition of being “in all senses of this word,” for it is precisely at this point in
Passage 1C that Derrida provides one of his extended lists of fundamental concepts
drawn from the history of metaphysics.
To what extent this invariability is–or can be–defined by determinable properties
remains to be seen. However, although the perspective Derrida emphasizes
consistently when he refers to différance is its promulgation of differences as
they define the gamut of metaphysical systems, it is crucial to the intelligibility of
différance that it incorporate, even if only in the most minimal sense, some measure
of positive content. The reasoning: if presence is invariable, then when Derrida asserts
that différance produces an ineluctable and apparently unique kind of sameness,
whatever properties open to articulation from presence which are indeed invariable
will constitute the sameness providing the core of Derrida’s notion of différance.
In fact, this appeal to invariability justifies recalling that Derrida offered a clue
concerning the content of this commonality. Since in Passage 1B, Derrida writes
“temporal presence” referring to “the now” (probably Aristotle, in his Physics), it may
be inferred that presence as such is broader than temporality in its typical divisions
(e.g., “now” as present where past and future are coordinate specifications). But
it cannot be determined from this passage alone whether this breadth of reference
includes (i) both a past and future component, (ii) one of these two temporal divisions
and not the other, or (iii) additional characteristics which may not be usually
associated with temporality. Textual evidence from the passages cited in this chapter
thus suggests that (a) presence is not limited to temporality in the sense of the now,
or the present as the mid-segment between past and future; also that (b) presence is
discernible as a process, or at least that being as presence has process-elements as a
component feature of its structure. It would be premature to put too much weight on
these inferences, drawn as they are from isolated passages. However, such assertions
suggest that being as presence is at least not entirely ineffable. As a result, we may
ask whether it is possible to characterize being as presence in more specific terms
even if these terms are themselves drawn, necessarily at this point but nonetheless
provisionally, from the vocabulary of western metaphysics.
Two concluding points. First, can we clarify what Derrida offers as evidence for
his position regarding the fundamental character of being as presence? As stated, the
claim about being as presence is an assertion, not the conclusion of an argument. It
may of course be a true assertion but it is legitimate to ask whether, if true, it is the
sort of claim which can be justified by discursive means. Is it possible to establish
criteria for evaluating this position, especially given the fact that for Derrida, being as
presence spans the entire history of western metaphysics?
And second, as a phase in evaluating the ultimate justification of being as presence
as epochally definitive for the history of metaphysics, is it possible to identify concepts
or principles (or both) which Derrida must assume as formal prerequisites in order to

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30   Being as Presence: Systemic Considerations

introduce and develop positions vis-à-vis the history of philosophy, positions inspired
by deconstructive ideals? These formal prerequisites would presumably be public and
thus accessible to readers of Derrida’s texts. Again, more will be said below on this
important question.

1.10.2 Form and Opposition

For Derrida, différance has articulated and diversified being as presence by means of a
specific metaphysical generality–distinctive and commonly employed–in conjunction
with a dominant type of relation. The following passage clarifies both elements:

Passage 1P As soon as we use the concept of form–even to criticize another concept of form–we
must appeal to the evidence of a certain source of sense. And the medium of this evidence can
only be the language of metaphysics. For that language we know what “form” means, how the
possibility of its variations is ordered, what its limits are, and the field of all conceivable disputes
concerning it. The system of oppositions in which something like form can be considered, the
formality of form, is a finite system (SP, 108).

Derrida confidently states how crucial the “concept of form” is to envisioning

the structure and limitations of the history of metaphysics. Since the language of
metaphysics has been determined–both for individual systems as well as for the
sequence of the history in its entirety–by the revelatory possibilities inherent in
différance, it follows that form will be the most dominant single notion contouring
that history. Thus the “language of metaphysics,” properly shaped per deconstructive
protocols, will provide the evidence to critique the notion of form while concurrently
funding that very history through the history of its texts. In effect then, metaphysics
is self-referential but sufficiently supple in its possibilities to be critically incisive in
its self-referentiality.
Examination of the details of metaphysical systems reveals that form has played
itself out according to a certain set conceptual deployment. Note then the intimacy
between form in this global and determinative sense and the “system of oppositions,”
a duadic structure permeating much of the history of metaphysics and typically
marked by a rigidity of contrast which Derrida’s deconstructive practices are capable
of dismantling as fully and as completely as possible. We will investigate and assess
Derrida’s appeals to form (in Chapters 2 and 3) and opposition (in Chapters 4 and 8)
as perhaps the primary notional target of deconstruction.

1.11 Presence, the History of Metaphysics, Closure

Passage 1L illustrated the close connection between being as presence and closure;
and, as we saw earlier, Passage 1K generalized concerning the closure of the

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 Presence, the History of Metaphysics, Closure   31

epistemological phase of western metaphysical inquiry. Thus closure encompasses

two distinct phenomena–knowledge (epistémè) and presence–in turn engendering
two principal themes: the limits of being as presence and the suggestion that
something beyond those limits may be available to some type of inquiry as well as
some modes of discourse.
If “closure” refers to a point or axis of termination or completion as Derrida views
the history of metaphysics (indeed, history in general–cf. the opening of Passage1C
with its undeveloped appeal to “the history of the West”), then the obvious question
becomes: what will happen to knowledge and reality, or to the knowledge of reality, on
the other side of this closure? I employ the blunt locator “on the other side of” by intent
in order to emphasize that if the history of metaphysics has exhausted its possibilities
and if philosophers or thinkers of any stripe will continue their work in interrogating
the world around them, is there any way to determine what will happen next?
Derrida explicitly referred to the “limits” of philosophy (as well as science)
and also, again, to the “incompetence” of philosophy, as if something worthy of
thoughtful consideration existed “outside” the limits of the entire history of western
metaphysics. The inside/outside configuration is a favorite target of deconstructive
treatment but the contrast so stated seems appropriate to introduce at this juncture.
Think of “closure” as a door that has been closed; on one side of the door lies what
has happened in the history of the west, on the other side of the door we may find...
what? If these comments and the resultant questions strike the reader as too empirical
and rough-edged, they at least have the virtue of sharpening the point of inquiry so
that a more sophisticated, layered response might be forthcoming. One additional
thought: if presence has reached a point of saturation within the gamut of western
thought so that it can be said to have reached “closure,” does this event sanction the
possibility that philosophizing can be articulated in ways which are in some sense
“outside” the domain of concepts and language affected by being as presence? Of
Grammatology opens with Derrida alerting his readers to the real possibility that
following his thinking will culminate in a sort of “monstrous” philosophizing. If so,
then such monstrosity may be only the articulation of what currently lies “outside”
the realm of traditional metaphysical discourse.
Derrida used three terms in Passage 1M as apparent synonyms for the
“unnamable movement of difference-itself.” This terminological generosity suggests
that it is possible to reduce the ineffability pertaining to différance by tracing through,
so to speak, those places in Derrida’s texts where these synonyms are discussed
with more confidence and at least a modicum of development. However, even
if “difference-itself” is ineffable, at least at this level of abstraction, its functions
can be described. And most importantly for present purposes, difference itself when
it has been codified under “différance” establishes the power of closure for the entire
history of western metaphysics.
Derrida concludes this passage by asserting that closure in his intended sense “is
effected in the functioning of traces.” The notion of “trace” is clearly pivotal in this

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32   Being as Presence: Systemic Considerations

context and will be the subject of extended discussion in Chapter 9. For now, we note
that if Derrida’s use of “trace” includes even a minimal sense of its typical meaning,
then “trace” presupposes (a) something leaving a trace and (b) that the evidence of
its passage can be somehow discerned. Thus if a given trace emerges from the history
of metaphysics, indicates in some way the closure of that history, and also traverses
the totality of western metaphysics, then due attention devoted to such phenomena–
assume for the moment that “trace” admits of plurality–will provide an avenue toward
insight into what has been concealed “under,” so to speak, the effective quality
of a given trace. We shall see then that trace refers to elements in Derrida’s reading
of the history of metaphysics which occur both within that history and also beyond
that history. If so, then following traces read in this sense will allow us to anticipate,
perhaps to articulate, what the limited and “incompetent” history of metaphysics has
systematically overlooked. We return to this line of thought in Chapters 9 and 10.
A final word on writing. At the end of Passage 1M, “writing” becomes a technical
term of restricted import relative to Derrida’s systematic approach to the history of
metaphysics. For Derrida, “writing” names everything that conditions the possibility
of reference in language and also how everything was, has been and could be
referred to throughout the history of metaphysics. Thus “writing” becomes a virtual
synonym of totality insofar as any existing thing can enter the sphere of discourse,
whether philosophical or non-philosophical (e.g., what is traditionally referred to
as “literature”). Derrida’s oft-quoted motto, “There is nothing outside the text,”
becomes more intuitively accessible once “writing” is seen in the sense just outlined.
The intimate thematic links between writing (in Derrida’s technical usage) and extra-
linguistic reality will be examined in detail in Part II, especially Chapter 4.

1.12 Summary: In Quest of Being as Presence

Being. Being as presence. The account in Chapter 1 of variously diverse settings in

which Derrida describes being as presence should make it clear that this notion is
both crucial to Derrida’s general approach to traditional philosophical issues as well
as decidedly complex in its formulation. The context for determining the effective
scope and content of being as presence may be stated thus: Being as presence (i)
encompasses all explicitly asserted systematic accounts of metaphysics; (ii) straddles
the differences which define each of those systems relative to all the other systems
constituting the history of metaphysics; (iii) occupies a level of abstraction which
controls the formal breadth of logical concepts and principles, such as identity;
(iv) is represented as an “invariable” determinant emerging from the commonality
encompassing the totality of all these different systems; (v) has reached a limit or
closure of sorts, suggesting–and the following formulation is avowedly metaphysical–
that at least in one respect, being as presence has realized whatever potential it may
have had during its history.

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 Summary: In Quest of Being as Presence   33

But a context, even one as broadly characterized as that just described, evokes
only a set of underlying circumstances. What does Derrida mean by being as presence?
A review of the five conditions enumerated in the previous paragraph might accurately
surround the content of being as presence but this enumeration does not, by itself
alone, disclose the meaning of being as presence. The extensive variety of positions
characterizing the history of metaphysics coupled with the stipulated condition that
being as presence is invariable and, as the product of différance, describes a common
sameness in the midst of all the differences animating that history severely complicates
specifying how exactly being as presence should be understood. Is presence in
Derrida’s intended technical sense something that belongs to being as such, to being
in relation to beings, or to the relation between human beings and being insofar as
this relation establishes the ultimate ground of “the meaning” of being?
A related but distinct question: Does being as presence have a determinable
structure or, more loosely stated, an assemblage of constituent elements? This is
a different question since the meaning of being as presence might be advanced in
synonyms, or in phraseology which remains to a certain degree apposite but yet
is also undeveloped and unarticulated. If, however, a structural account of being
as presence exists and is accessible to some form of language, then the more this
structure is brought into the open, the greater will be the opportunity to subject what
is arguably the most fundamental term in Derrida’s technical vocabulary to informed
and rigorous critical scrutiny.
Finally, in view of the privileged function Derrida assigns to being as presence
within the history of metaphysics in tandem with what appears to be the inherent
opacity of being as presence, is it possible (a) to establish criteria for specifying the
content of being as presence as well as pursuing its critical evaluation? Or should
Derrida’s position in this context be taken as (b) an attempt executed by fiat or through
some direct intuitive vision, standing or falling on the basis of how much apparent
insight can be derived from its narration and application to the history of metaphysics?
The former possibility should be pursued as a matter of sustained inquiry before the
latter–i.e., a laissez-faire philosophizing without any obvious dimensions of evaluative
control–is adopted. Chapter 2 develops an instance of such pursuit.

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