ISSN: 2581-8651

Journal of Humanities and

Vol-7, Issue-2, Mar-Apr 2025
Education Development
[Link]
Peer-Reviewed Journal
(JHED)

A critical analysis of Jacques Derrida’s notion of ‘There is

nothing outside the text’
Peyman Salehi

Faculty, Foreign Languages, Isfahan University, Isfahan, Iran.

ORCID: 0009-0007-2216-6852

Received: 25 Feb 2025; Received in revised form: 21 Mar 2025; Accepted: 29 Mar 2025
©2025 The Author(s). Published by TheShillonga. This is an open-access article under the CC BY license
([Link]

Abstract— The following paper presents a critical examination of Jacques Derrida’s intriguing assertion,
"There is nothing outside the text," set against the wider backdrop of the schools of Poststructuralism and
Deconstruction. Taking into account Derrida’s significant works of criticism, alongside critiques from
notable figures like Frank Kermode and Stanley Fish, this study explores the profound implications of
Derrida’s assertions with regards to language, meaning, and reality. Additionally, the study places
Derrida’s ideas alongside those of significant earlier thinkers, such as Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology
and Ferdinand de Saussure’s structural linguistics, emphasizing how Derrida questions the conventional
boundaries between language and the reality it aims to depict. Through an exploration of key ideas like
différance, trace, and textuality, the paper illustrates how Derrida deconstructs conventional
epistemological structures, uncovering their underlying political aspects. In the end, the research suggests
that Derrida’s transformative view of text and context reveals the fabricated essence of truth and reality,
shedding light on the political motivations inherent in every act of interpretation.
Keywords— Derrida, Deconstruction, Poststructuralism, Textuality, Différance, Anti-realism

‘Be alert to these invisible quotation entirety” and “theory in its entirety” as
marks, even within a word’ well’.2
(Derrida, 1979)1 In the beginning of his essay entitled ‘Endings,
‘Derrida’s work, as we will see, is about continued’,3 the contemporary critic Frank Kermode
“[putting] into practice a vigilant but . . . acknowledges the ‘astonishing intellectual feat’ of
general use of quotation marks.” Derrida’s Of Grammatology.4 He then moves on to claim
Exploring the sense that “it is no longer that Derrida’s ‘virtuosity is such that one sometimes feels
possible to use seriously the words of genuinely embarrassed at claiming membership not only of
tradition”, his work is concerned with the same profession but even of the same species’.5
“destabiliz[ing] . . . the opposition Speaking with regards to Derrida’s deconstructionist
between discourse with and discourse arguments, Kermode later admits that ‘a continual
without quotation marks”, in other words attention to the operations of différance may not be
with destabilizing “philosophy in its humanly supportable, and even if this is the way things

1 4
Bloom, Prof Harold, Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida, Geoffrey Derrida, Jacques. 2016. Of Grammatology, trans. by Gayatri
H. Hartman, and J. Hillis Miller. 2004. Deconstruction and Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University
Criticism (Continuum International Publishing Group) Press)
2 Royle, Nicholas. 2009. In Memory of Jacques Derrida 5 Kermode, Frank. 1989. ‘Endings, Continued’, in Languages of

(Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press) the Unsayable: The Play of Negativity in Literature and Literary
3 Kermode, Frank. 1989. ‘Endings, Continued’, in Languages of Theory, eds Sanford Budick and Wolfgang Iser (New York:
the Unsayable: The Play of Negativity in Literature and Literary Columbia University Press)
Theory, eds Sanford Budick and Wolfgang Iser (New York:
Columbia University Press)

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Salehi Journal of Humanities and Education Development (JHED)
J. Humanities Educ. Dev.- 7(2)-2025

really are, most of us may still have to behave as if they Generally speaking, the claim ‘There is nothing
were otherwise’.6 The concept of différance, central to outside the text’, originally ‘il n’y a pas de hors-texte’,
Derrida’s philosophy, refers to the dual process of brings into question respected semiotic conventions that
differentiation and deferral of meaning, emphasizing that are established in civic institutions.10 It is crucial to
meanings are always unstable, never fully present, and emphasize that while he never subscribed to linguistic
perpetually delayed in language. Note that in idealism,11 in Derrida’s arguments, ‘text’, ‘context’, and
symptomizing the psychoanalytic notion of Disavowal,7 ‘textuality’ are not referrals to the traditional syntactic
Kermode demonstrates how most scholars reacted to process; rather, they constitute a wide and comprehensive
Derrida’s philosophy at the beginning, inwardly notion covering the structures and procedures responsible
whispering that ‘I know that what Derrida is describing is for devising and interpreting semiotic and semantic signs
true, but I am going to carry on trying to live my life as if and manifestations. A formidable text, Derrida believes, is
it is not’.8 one that manages to portray the ‘incomprehensibly
As the result of the complexity of his interests, elliptical’, and is capable of ‘inducing meaning without
and the allusive, controversial, and paradoxical intellectual being exhausted by meaning’.12
style he had developed, Derrida has always refused to be Derrida asserts that nothing is extra-textual, and
limited within a systematic, coherent account. In fact, in that ‘The text is not the book; it is not confined in a volume
honoring the poststructuralist tradition, he employs a to the library. It does not suspend reference – to history, to
plethora of strategies to nullify the traditional western the world, to reality, to being, and especially not to the
philosophical habit of attaining a secure grasp on meaning, other’.13 He then proceeds to point out that ‘To say of
knowledge, and truth. Therefore, despite the fame and history, of the world, or reality, that they always appear in
ubiquity of the phrase ‘nothing outside the text’,9 one an experience, hence in a movement of interpretation’,14
should do well to bear in mind that it is not Derrida’s style effectively urging the populace to wake up to the
to enunciate his arguments in clear, consistent language or realization that all the stated accounts of the world and its
to provide a coherently structured strategy to substantiate history, the essence of reality, and everything else there is,
his iconoclastic reconceptualizations. This paper argues are at the very best, mere interpretations. However, it is
that Derrida’s dictum ‘there is nothing outside the text’ is important to clarify that Derrida does not deny the
often misunderstood, and that a proper understanding existence of reality itself. Rather, he asserts that our access
reveals not only a linguistic and interpretive claim but a to reality is always mediated through textual interpretation
profoundly ontological and political one; specifically, and context; meaning that it is influenced by interpretive
many critics interpret ‘il n’y a pas de hors-texte’ as mediation.
implying radical solipsism or linguistic idealism. This Having clarified Derrida’s intended meaning,
article dispels that myth by clarifying Derrida’s true intent it’s important to address critics who downplay how radical
and linking it explicitly to his deconstruction of Western this notion really is. Such a declamation wouldn’t be the
metaphysics. The analysis positions Derrida against cause of much controversy, since even scientific and
thinkers like Fish and Sokal to show how Derrida’s stance metaphysical realists acknowledge the schism and the
is unequivocally more radical—essentially anti-realist— incompatibility present between a subject matter, and the
than even many postmodernists acknowledge. socially constructed activities of theorizing and
Nothing outside the text interpreting it. However, whereas Stanley Fish attempts to
reconcile poststructuralism with a form of realism, this

6 Kermode, Frank. 1989. ‘Endings, Continued’, in Languages of 10 Derrida, Jacques. 2016. Of Grammatology, trans. by Gayatri
the Unsayable: The Play of Negativity in Literature and Literary Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University
Theory, eds Sanford Budick and Wolfgang Iser (New York: Press)
11 Dilman, Ilham. 2016. Wittgenstein’s Copernican Revolution:
Columbia University Press)
7 Freud, Sigmund. 1991. Introductory Lectures on The Question of Linguistic Idealism, 2002nd edn (Basingstoke,
Psychoanalysis (Harlow, England: Penguin Books) England: Palgrave Macmillan)
8 Royle, Nicholas. 2009. In Memory of Jacques Derrida <[Link]
12 Wood, David (ed.). 1992. Derrida: A Critical Reader
(Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press)
9 Derrida, Jacques. 2016. Of Grammatology, trans. by Gayatri (London, England: Blackwell)
13 Derrida. 1988. Limited Inc (Evanston, IL: Northwestern
Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University
Press) University Press)
14 Derrida. 1988. Limited Inc (Evanston, IL: Northwestern

University Press)

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analysis argues that Derrida’s position is significantly external, stable reality.19 Fish’s interpretation thus neglects
more radical, explicitly challenging the possibility of a the depth of Derrida’s challenge to traditional realism, as
single definitive reality free from interpretative contexts. Deconstruction argues that truth, as humans perceive it, is
Furthermore, Derrida’s claims aren’t challenging the inherently mediated and shaped by interpretive structures
credibility of traditional hermeneutic principles alone, and contexts, rather than existing as a single transcendent
since his arguments, in effect, have political implications reality.
as well, as he notes that ‘There is always something Structuralism introduced the comforting notion
political in the very project of attempting to fix the contexts of objective all-encompassing structures, supposedly
of utterances’.15 The question can be raised, not whether a independent from any consciousness or arbitrary will.20
politics is implied (it always is), but which politics ‘is Poststructuralism on the other hand, is a way of
implied in such a practice of contextualization’.16 This reconceptualizing truth and reality, asserting that
means that Derrida is in effect, attempting to unveil various knowledge and truth are mostly fabricated notions
unscrupulous political interest groups at work, that have designed to be collectively accepted in a society, in order
been so strategically shaping the interpretive procedures to enhance the power and prominence of a certain class
undertaken in any socio-institutional framework within that society known as the ‘elites’.21 Furthermore,
throughout the ages. according to Foucault’s assertion that ‘we must not
The Postmodernist, the Deconstructionist imagine the world turns towards us a legible face which we
Over time, some have come to maintain that would only have to decipher’,22 which is a distinctly
provided a chance to be properly scrutinized, Foucauldian stance emphasizing how power shapes
poststructuralists wouldn’t emerge as blatantly radical, but knowledge, not only does human mind subconsciously
reasonably limited to the two aforementioned alter and reinterpret any given truth, but it arbitrarily
hermeneutical and political claims. For example, when proceeds to fill in the gaps to make it more convincing as
Alan Sokal protested that ‘There is a real world; its well. Unlike Derrida’s specific linguistic critique, Foucault
properties are not merely social constructions; facts and emphasizes power’s role in shaping truth narratives. This
evidence do matter. What sane person would contend leads to the notion that truth is mostly produced, and not
otherwise?’,17 he attempted to imply that poststructuralists discovered. Compare these notions with that of social
have no outrageously radical ontology; to which Stanley constructivism, which as tangible proof of its
Fish retorted, ‘It is not the world or its properties, but the incontrovertible incompatibility with poststructuralism,
vocabularies in whose terms we know them that are highlights intersubjectivity, social construction of norms
socially constructed’.18 This response by Fish reflects an and perceptions, and the reliability of social structures and
attempt to moderate Derrida’s more radical insights into institutions.23
something more palatable for traditional realism. It can Therefore, much to the chagrin of Fish and his
therefore be argued that Fish, with all the eloquence he sympathizers, it is crystal clear that Derrida, or any
could muster, has opted to argue for a propitious poststructuralist for that matter, wouldn’t be content by
compatibility, or at the very least a lack of direct conflict, mere hermeneutical and political claims, rather, they were
between Poststructuralism and Deconstruction on one simply laying the groundwork for their ultimate argument.
hand, and social constructivism and Realism on the other. This ultimate argument, ontological in nature, questions
However, Jonathan Culler’s influential commentary not the existence of reality itself, but the possibility of
clarifies Derrida’s genuine radicalism, emphasizing that accessing a single, definitive reality free from
Derrida’s work explicitly destabilizes the idea of an interpretative mediation. Poststructuralists are known for

15 20
Derrida. 1988. Limited Inc (Evanston, IL: Northwestern Culler, Jonathan. 1983. On Deconstruction: Theory and
University Press) Criticism after Structuralism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
16
Derrida. 1988. Limited Inc (Evanston, IL: Northwestern Press)
21 Belsey, Catherine. 2002. Poststructuralism: A Very Short
University Press)
17 Sokal, Alan. 1996. “A Physicist Experiments with Cultural Introduction: A Very Short Introduction (London, England:
Studies,” In Lingua Franca: The Review of Academic Life, pp. Oxford University Press)
22 Connolly, William E. 1985. “Taylor, Foucault, and
62–64
18 Fish, Stanley. 1996. “Professor Sokal’s Bad Joke,” The New Otherness,” Political Theory, 13.3: 365–76
York Times <[Link]
19 Culler, Jonathan. 1983. On Deconstruction: Theory and 23 Pfadenhauer, Michaela, and Hubert Knoblauch (eds.). 2018.

Criticism after Structuralism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Social Constructivism as Paradigm?: The Legacy of the Social
Press) Construction of Reality (London, England: Routledge)

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philosophical blasphemy and disregarding the notion of an taken place outside of language, that
objective higher truth; and according to William Alston, is to say, in the sense that we give
realists hold that ‘much of reality is what it is here to that word, outside of writing
independently of our cognitive relations thereto’.24 Alston in general. That is why the
then proceeds to state that anti-realism can be defined as a methodological considerations that
commitment to ‘the view that whatever there is, is we risk applying here to an example
constituted, at least in part, by our cognitive relations are closely dependent on general
thereto, by the ways we conceptualize it or construe it, by propositions that we have elaborated
the language we use to talk about it or the conceptual above; as regards the absence of the
scheme(s) we use to think of it’.25 Thus, Derrida can be referent or the transcendental
positioned within an anti-realist tradition, yet one that signified. There is nothing outside of
explicitly rejects naïve linguistic idealism (the notion that the text [there is no outside-text; il
language alone directly creates physical reality). Instead, n’y a pas de hors-texte]. And that is
Derrida emphasizes how our interpretations inevitably neither because Jean-Jacques’ life, or
shape our perception of reality, rather than reality itself the existence of Mamma or Therese
being wholly linguistic. themselves, is not of prime interest to
Here, it can be argued that what Fish missed, or us, nor because we have access to
at the very least refused to face, was his subtle belief in their so-called “real” existence only
structuralism, cemented at his very core. He couldn’t really in the text and we have neither any
imagine how afar Derrida, or Poststructuralism as a whole, means of altering this, nor any right
would opt to proceed simply because he envisioned every to neglect this limitation. ... In what
philosophical movement that breaks away from the one calls the real life of these
monolithic structures of the past as finite, and somehow existences of “flesh and bone,”
placed and contained within some kind of a superstructure beyond and behind what one believes
that can never be violated. In a sense, the likes of Fish, and can be circumscribed as Rousseau’s
even many Postmodernists and Poststructuralists, still had text, there has never been anything
some traces of structuralism within, and were unable to but writing; there have never been
truly move beyond, and to correctly understand Derrida. anything but supplements,
substitutive significations which
A prominent member of the said anti-realist
could only come forth in a chain of
camp would be Derrida, as he claims that ‘there has never
differential references, the “real”
been anything but writing’. Here, Derrida’s notion of
supervening, and being added only
“writing” must be understood broadly; it refers not merely
while taking on meaning from a trace
to textual inscriptions but to all forms of symbolic
and from an invocation of the
representation and interpretation through which meaning
supplement, etc. And thus to infinity,
emerges. The full quote is worth mentioning as well, as he
for we have read, in the text, that the
asserts:
absolute present, Nature, that which
‘Yet if reading must not be content words like “real mother” name, have
with doubling the text, it cannot always escaped, have never
legitimately transgress the text existed’.26
toward something other than it,
Note that for Derrida, writing refers to general
toward a referent (a reality that is
human communicative practices and not just words on a
metaphysical, historical, psycho-
paper, and so this phrase is crucial in illuminating
biographical, etc.) or toward a
Derrida’s perspective on the relationship between language
signified outside the text whose
and the world, as it makes us realize that his arguments
content could take place, could have
regarding this relationship are premised upon a

24 Alston, William P. 2019. “6. What Metaphysical Realism Is 26Derrida, Jacques. 2016. Of Grammatology, trans. by Gayatri
Not,” in Realism and Antirealism, ed. by William P. Alston Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), pp. 97–116 Press)
25 Alston, William P. 2019. “6. What Metaphysical Realism Is

Not,” in Realism and Antirealism, ed. by William P. Alston

(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), pp. 97–116

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combination of a deconstructed structuralism and a at ‘no outside text’, we should next consider how he
deconstructed phenomenology.27 In other words, Derrida positions himself against earlier thinkers like Husserl,
asserts that the so-called “real” is always mediated by Saussure, and Lévi-Strauss.
symbolic structures, traces, and contexts, not that reality Paving the way
itself is nonexistent. This passage confirms that Derrida
As mentioned at the start of this paper, Derrida’s
rejects the idea of direct, unmediated reference to reality,
philosophy does not adhere to the traditional systematic
reinforcing the anti-realist interpretation of his work. When
and structured principles of argumentation. Therefore, the
Derrida uses that phrase, in order to further illuminate his
most reasonable solution would be to situate his views in
notion of fabricated truth, he demonstrates that the social
relation to his precursors, especially phenomenologists like
practice of debating the identity of specific individuals
Edmund Husserl and structuralists like Ferdinand de
such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Therese, has a direct
Saussure and Claude Lévi-Strauss, and then distinguish his
influence on how their identities are shaped and defined.
views from them.
Thus, as he further delineates this point by stating that ‘The
thing itself is a sign’,28 he means to convey that language With regards to the phenomenological
itself, at least in part, constitutes and defines entities, and arguments that make Derrida’s work come to light, long
has a direct role in shaping reality. A reality, that according before Derrida, Edmund Husserl attempted to separate and
to realists and structuralists, was supposed to be subjective, disengage the discursive element of human experience
and absolute.29 Yet this reality, contrary to realist form the systematic and coherent ‘stratum’ which
assumptions of an absolute external existence, remains stabilizes constant discourse and meaning.31 Similarly,
always contextually determined and interpretively Ferdinand de Saussure’s influential structuralist model
mediated. defined language through arbitrary relations of signs
independent from material reference.32 According to
Bear in mind that Derrida’s radical ideas did not
Derrida, however, these endeavors were misguided, since
emerge in a vacuum; he could never argue for such
they invalidated the vital connection between one’s
concepts had he not been inspired by Freud in the first
experience, and one’s perception of what is to be
place. Freud’s revelations about the fabric of reality were
recognized as credible truth.33 Additionally, Derrida
first manifested in a letter to Wilhelm Fliess in 1897, when
challenges Husserl’s distinction between symbols and
stated that ‘there are no indications of reality in the
objects, and argues for a powerful connection between the
unconscious, so that one cannot distinguish between truth
mental image of an entity and how it is referred to, and the
and fiction that has been cathected with affect’.30 Having
external physical existence of it.34 He does that, by
in mind the inability of the unconscious in distinguishing
introducing the notion of ‘trace’, as something influential
the truth, Derrida would later on employ this Freudian
even when not present, and as the representation of the
hypothesis to formulate his own philosophy. One might
distinction between the tangible object and the
object here that Derrida overstates the primacy of
linguistic/symbolic representation of that object.35
interpretation; however, by drawing on Freud and
Therefore ‘trace’, in Derridean terms, refers to the presence
Nietzsche, Derrida would counter that the unconscious
of an absence—meaning that any sign or symbol carries
structures of interpretation underpinning human cognition
within it echoes of meanings it excludes or defers, always
confirm the inescapable presence of interpretive
dependent on other traces for meaning. Accordingly, by
mediation. Besides, to fully appreciate how Derrida arrived
employing the notion of ‘trace’, he moves to present as

27 Derrida, Jacques. 2016. Of Grammatology, trans. by Gayatri

Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University 33 Derrida, Jacques. 1982. Margins of Philosophy (Chicago, IL:
Press) University of Chicago Press)
28 Derrida. 1988. Limited Inc (Evanston, IL: Northwestern 34 Derrida asserts that ‘The unheard difference between the

University Press) appearing and the appearance [l’apparaissant et l’apparaître]

29 Culler, Jonathan. 1983. On Deconstruction: Theory and
(between the “world” and “lived experience”) is the condition of
Criticism after Structuralism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University all other differences, of all other traces, and it is already a trace.
Press) ... The trace is the différance which opens appearance
30 Royle, Nicholas. 2009. In Memory of Jacques Derrida
[l’apparaître] and signification’.
(Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press) 35 Derrida, Jacques. 2016. Of Grammatology, trans. by Gayatri
31 Husserl, Edmund. 2015. Ideas: General Introduction to Pure
Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University
Phenomenology (London, England: Routledge) Press)
32 Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1990. General Course in Linguistics,

2nd edn, trans. by W. Baskin (London, England: Peter Owen)

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J. Humanities Educ. Dev.- 7(2)-2025

interactive what Husserl wanted to keep distinct, and that regardless of Saussure’s efforts to separate language
proceeds to assert that the referent of the symbol does not and sign from physical entities, his conception of language
occur independently from the symbol itself, and that the as a sociopsychological structure remains influential,
object and the signal cannot have an independent existence. hindering the works of structuralists and even
This paper maintains that instead of Husserl, Derrida’s poststructuralists in resolving and deciphering language’s
ideology would be much more compatible and definable relation to that which is beyond the sociopsychological
when interpreted in the light of the arguments proposed by realm.
Heidegger, and the intimate relationship between language Moving back to Derrida, we now realize why he
and being that he introduced in his works.36 warned us about structuralism as a monolithic system
As poststructuralism was beginning to emerge designed to ensure the enslavement of the mind, and the
from structuralism, anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss isolation of anyone who ‘dreams of deciphering a truth or
declared the culture/nature dichotomy to be ultimately an origin which escapes the order of the sign’.41 Derrida
indefensible.37 He then proceeded to contribute to the believes in absolute limitless freedom, and as Peggy
entanglement of sign and object, stating that his idea was, Kamuf notes, he always ‘works to abolish the distance
as Derrida quotes, ‘to transcend the opposition between the between what he is writing about . . . and what his writing
sensible and the intelligible by operating from the outset at is doing’.42 Thus, as a countermeasure to what he saw as
the level of signs’.38 the authoritarian structuralism, Derrida employs two of
In addition to Lévi-Strauss, Ferdinand de Saussure’s principles in his poststructuralist semantics, the
Saussure delivered an analytical framework that would arbitrariness of the signifier/signified relationship, and the
motivate some of the most important intellectual differential nature of the sign, and then proceeds to alter
movements in the twentieth century. Saussure refused to them.
define language as a simple labeling design, and rejected Regarding the signified entity, he rejects the
the perfunctory notion of language being ‘a list of terms statement that there can be a distinction maintained
corresponding to a list of things’.39 His argument is between the concept that represents an entity, and the entity
premised upon three concepts, including the sign as it represents. He applies the same argument concerning the
signifier and also the signified, the arbitrariness of the signifier as well, as he denies the existent of a constant
relation between signifier and signified, and the role that distinction between the psychological impression of an
differentiation from other signs plays in defining each sign. entity (a sound, word or a mark), and its written or
He presents and defines each of these concepts in such a pronounced form. 43
manner that would meticulously disengage the linguistic Furthermore, he refutes Saussure’s assertion
system form the world of objects and entities. He explains that the signifier and the signified, being a mental
that the signifier, being a mental impression of how a word impression and a conceptual object respectively, are
sounds like, and signified, a rough universal concept, are nonlinguistic and disengaged from the physical realm. In
both mental entities, and aren’t really engaged with the doing so, he introduces a perpetual cycle of linguistic
material world, or the myriad linguistic systems used functions, stretching indefinitely. What Derrida wants to
within it. Claiming that ‘The initial assignment of names convey is that an entity, whether physical or abstract, can
to things, establish[ed] a contract between concepts and only be intelligible and specifiable in linguistic terms. Yet,
sound patterns’,40 Saussure speculates the association importantly, Derrida does not imply that entities have no
between signifier and signified to have been established by existence beyond language; instead, he stresses our
some sort of primordial assignment based on concepts and unavoidable reliance on interpretive contexts to perceive
sound patterns, effectively denying the role of language in and communicate these entities. These linguistic terms
the creation of what language refers to. Nevertheless, note

36 40
Rorty, Richard. 1991. Richard Rorty: Philosophical Papers Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1990. General Course in Linguistics,
Set 4 Paperbacks Essays on Heidegger and Others: Volume 2 2nd edn, trans. by W. Baskin (London, England: Peter Owen)
41 Derrida, Jacques. 1978. Writing and Difference, trans. by
(Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press)
37 Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1992. The Raw and the Cooked: Alan Bass (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press)
42 Kamuf, Peggy. 1991. The Derrida Reader: Between the
Introduction to a Science of Mythology (Harlow, England:
Penguin Books) Blinds, ed. by Peggy Kamuf (New York, NY: Columbia
38 Derrida, Jacques. 1978. Writing and Difference, trans. by University Press)
Alan Bass (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press) 43 Derrida, Jacques. 1978. Writing and Difference, trans. by
39 Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1990. General Course in Linguistics, Alan Bass (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press)
2nd edn, trans. by W. Baskin (London, England: Peter Owen)

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J. Humanities Educ. Dev.- 7(2)-2025

would then shape reality when used within the context of against the ‘linguistic turn’, which,
the physical world. Moreover, the linguistic terms are in under the name of structuralism, was
turn specified and described by other linguistic terms, already well on its way . . .
continuing this trend perpetually. In asserting his logic in Deconstruction was inscribed in the
direct contrast with structuralists, and Saussure ‘linguistic turn’, when it was in fact
specifically, Derrida argued that any sign’s signified is a a protest against linguistics!47
signifier in its own right, standing in relation to another The point of deconstruction is to clarify the
signified, and so on indefinitely.44 Note that when Derrida manner in which a specific term is prioritized and
reevaluates Saussure’s principles of arbitrariness and empathized in a text, while the binary conceptual opposite
meaning, what was considered semantic for Saussure, is of the said term is excluded as a result. Subsequently, the
now considered an argument that is both semantic and Deconstructionist methodology proceeds to demonstrate
ontological, and as a consequence of his disruptive the necessity of the excluded term for the intelligibility and
arguments against Saussure, Derrida came to reject and operability of the prioritized one, practically asserting that
nullify his signifier/signified relation, and his idea of the excluded term will always be present in the prioritized
passive signifiers. one, even in its absence. This process, symptomatic of the
Derrida’s announcement of ‘there is nothing notion of ‘trace’ that was mentioned earlier, reaches the
outside the text’ and his arguments supporting and conclusion that a given sign can never be identical with
clarifying it, are all predicated upon his departure from the itself, since it is simultaneously defined by what it is and
western philosophical traditions of the past. Among these what it is not.48 Derrida explains about this notion of
norms and traditions, Derrida held a singular contempt for differentiation, and the lack of self-identity it entails,
the propensity of western philosophers to continuously saying that ‘Identity is not the self-identity of a thing, this
appeal to metaphysical notions, in order to achieve some glass, for instance, this microphone, but implies a
sort of dependability and determinacy in language. These difference within identity. That is, the identity of a culture
notions, including God, divine revelations, human nature, is a way of being different from itself; a culture is different
history and every other metaphysical notion of that ilk, from itself; language is different from itself; the person is
have far less significance in Derrida’s philosophical different from itself. ... Identity is a self-differentiating
arguments, as in his model of linguistic structure, there is identity, an identity different from itself, having an opening
no established center, or a transcendental signified.45 The or gap within itself’.49
lack of a center, as it came to be the case when ‘There is nothing outside the text’, as Derrida
Poststructuralism evolved from the Structuralist model, noted, had ‘for some become a slogan, in general so badly
effectively means that the meaning of any sign is to be misunderstood, of deconstruction’.50 Therefore, the
considered elusive, as what every sign indicates, is only recurrent theme of misinterpretation returns prominently
determined by its differentiation from other signs. 46 And here; and in order to illuminate his claim a bit more, he
here lies the heart of the Deconstruction process that later suggested alternative formulations, such as ‘there is
Derrida tried so hard to implement. nothing outside context’, or even ‘there is nothing but
The first step for me, in the approach context’.51 Nevertheless, the phrase, along with the
to what I proposed to call breathtakingly revolutionary notion it represents, has been
deconstruction, was a putting into subject to constant misinterpretation and misconception,
question of the authority of leading Derrida to chafe at the suggestions that he does not
linguistics, of logocentrism. And believe in the world beyond words. Derrida stipulated that
this, accordingly, was a protest the phrase suggests ‘that one cannot refer to 'real' except in

44 48
Derrida, Jacques. 1978. Writing and Difference, trans. by Derrida, Jacques. 1978. Writing and Difference, trans. by
Alan Bass (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press) Alan Bass (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press)
45 Derrida, Jacques. 2016. Of Grammatology, trans. by Gayatri 49 Caputo, John D. (ed.). 1996. Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A

Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Conversation with Jacques Derrida (Fordham University Press)
50 Derrida. 1988. Limited Inc (Evanston, IL: Northwestern
Press)
46 For example, the concept of hotness is only conceivable to University Press)
51 Derrida. 1988. Limited Inc (Evanston, IL: Northwestern
someone who has a concept of coldness. Otherwise, the
individual would be unable to distinguish between hot and cold. University Press)
47 Derrida. in conversation with Maurizio Ferraris and Giorgio

Vattimo, in Derrida and Ferraris, A Taste for the Secret, trans.

Giacomo Donis (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2001). Pp. 3–92.

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