Of Grammatology

Derrida turns his attention to Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his influence on perceptions about writing and logocentrism. Derrida outlines several important questions that will guide the second part of his work, the most important of which being whether Rousseau privileges writing or speech in the tradition of logocentrism. Derrida considers Plato, Hegel, and Rousseau as the three landmarks in the history of metaphysics. All three, Derrida concludes, privilege speech over writing. They view writing as something that is inauthentic, eroding the authentic voice, or speech. The written word lengthens the distance between logos and language and creates an endless chain of signifiers, so it is less exacting than the spoken word.

Derrida suggests that what unifies these three thinkers is the role of “presence” in metaphysics. Logocentrism is consumed with understanding meaning through presence rather than absence. Derrida emphasizes that absence, or negation, is just as important as presence to the understanding of language.

In this section, Derrida draws a line of connection between Lévi-Strauss and Rousseau. Lévi-Strauss saw Rousseau as an important figure to the development of modern philosophy: Lévi-Strauss “often presents himself as Rousseau’s modern disciple; he reads him as the founder, and not only the prophet, of modern anthropology” (114).