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''Différance'' is a French term coined by Jacques Derrida, deliberately homophonous with the word "différence". ''Différance'' plays on the fact that the French word ''différer'' means both "to defer" and "to differ." Derrida first uses the term ''différance'' in his 1963 paper "Cogito et histoire de la folie".〔"The economy of this writing is a regulated relationship between that which exceeds and the exceeded totality: the différance of the absolute excess." (Derrida, J., 1978. Cogito and the History of Madness. From ''Writing and Difference''. Trans. A. Bass. London & New York: Routledge. p. 75.) Schultz and Fried in their vast bibliography of Derrida's work cite this sentence as where “JD introduces différance” for the first time. (Schultz, W.R. & Fried, L.B., 1992. ''Jacques Derrida Bibliography''. London & New York: Garland. p. 12.)〕 The term ''différance'' then played a key role in Derrida's engagement with the philosophy of Edmund Husserl in ''Speech and Phenomena''. The term was then elaborated in various other works, notably in his essay "Différance" and in various interviews collected in ''Positions''.〔See ''Speech and Phenomena and other essays on Husserl’s Theory of Signs'', trans. David B. Allison (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), "Différance." ''Margins of Philosophy'', trans. Alan Bass (Chicago & London: Chicago University Press, 1982) and ''Positions'', trans. Alan Bass (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1971).〕 The of ''différance'' is a deliberate misspelling of ''différence'', though the two are pronounced identically (). This highlights the fact that its written form is not heard, and serves to further subvert the traditional privileging of speech over writing (see archi-writing), as well as the distinction between the sensible and the intelligible. The difference articulated by the in ''différance'' is not apparent to the senses via sound, "but neither cannot it belong to intelligibility, to the ideality which is not fortuitously associated with the objectivity of ''theorein'' or understanding."〔"Différance," ''Margins of Philosophy'', p. 5.〕 This is because the language of understanding is already caught up in sensible metaphors ("theory," for instance, in Greek, means "to see"). In the essay "Différance" Derrida indicates that ''différance'' gestures at a number of heterogeneous features that govern the production of textual meaning. The first (relating to deferral) is the notion that words and signs can never fully summon forth what they mean, but can only be defined through appeal to additional words, from which they differ. Thus, meaning is forever "deferred" or postponed through an endless chain of signifiers. The second (relating to difference, sometimes referred to as ''espacement'' or "spacing") concerns the force that differentiates elements from one another and, in so doing, engenders binary oppositions and hierarchies that underpin meaning itself. Derrida developed the concept of ''différance'' deeper in the course of an argument against the phenomenology of Husserl, who sought a rigorous analysis of the role of memory and perception in our understanding of sequential items such as music or language. Derrida's approach argues that because the perceiver's mental state is constantly in a state of flux and differs from one re-reading to the next, a general theory describing this phenomenon is unachievable. A term related to the idea of ''différance'' in Derrida's thought is that of the ''supplement'', "itself bound up in a supplementary play of meaning which defies semantic reduction." == Différance – between structure and genesis == Derrida approaches texts as constructed around elemental oppositions which all speech has to articulate if it intends to make any sense whatsoever. This is so because identity is viewed in non-essentialist terms as a construct, and because constructs only produce meaning through the interplay of differences inside a "system of distinct signs". This approach to text, in a broad sense,〔Royle, Nicholas (2004) (''Jacques Derrida'' ), pp. 62–63〕〔Derrida and Ferraris (1997) p.76 〕 emerges from semiology advanced by Ferdinand de Saussure. Saussure is considered one of the fathers of structuralism when he explained that terms get their meaning in reciprocal determination with other terms inside language: In language there are only differences. Even more important: a difference generally implies positive terms between which the difference is set up; but in language there are only differences without positive terms. Whether we take the signified or the signifier, language has neither ideas nor sounds that existed before the linguistic system, but only conceptual and phonic differences that have issued from the system. The idea or phonic substance that a sign contains is of less importance than the other signs that surround it. () A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas; but the pairing of a certain number of acoustical signs with as many cuts made from the mass thought engenders a system of values. Saussure explicitly suggested linguistics was only a branch of a more general semiology, of a science of signs in general, being human codes only one among others. Nevertheless, in the end, as Derrida pointed out, he made of linguistics "the regulatory model", and "for essential, and essentially metaphysical, reasons had to privilege speech, and everything that links the sign to phone":〔Cf. Jacques Derrida, "Interview with Julia Kristeva" in “Positions” (The University of Chicago Press, 1981), pp. 21 〕 Derrida will prefer to follow the more "fruitful paths (formalization)" of a general semiotics without falling in what he considered "a hierarchizing teleology" privileging linguistics, and speak of 'mark' rather than of language, not as something restricted to mankind, but as prelinguistic, as the pure possibility of language, working every where there is a relation to something else. Derrida sees these differences as elemental oppositions working in all languages, systems of distinct signs, and codes, where terms don't have absolute meanings but instead draw meaning from reciprocal determination with other terms. This structural difference is the first component that Derrida will take into account when articulating the meaning of ''différance'', a mark he felt the need to create and will become a fundamental tool in his lifelong work: deconstruction:〔Cf. Jacques Derrida, "Interview with Julia Kristeva" in “Positions” (The University of Chicago Press, 1981), pp. 21〕 But structural difference will not be considered without him already destabilizing from the start its static, synchronic, taxonomic, ahistoric motifs, remembering that all structure already refers to the generative movement in the play of differences:〔Cf. Jacques Derrida, "Interview with Julia Kristeva" in “Positions” (The University of Chicago Press, 1981), pp. 28–30 〕 The other main component of ''différance'' is deferring, that takes into account the fact that meaning is a question not only of synchrony with all the other terms inside a structure, but also of diachrony, with everything that was said and will be said, in History, difference as structure and deferring as genesis:〔Cf. Jacques Derrida, "Interview with Julia Kristeva" in “Positions” (The University of Chicago Press, 1981), pp. 28–30〕 This confirms the subject as not present to itself and constituted on becoming space, in temporizing and also, as Saussure said, that "language (consists only of differences ) is not a function of the speaking subject.":〔 Questioned this myth of the presence of meaning in itself ("objective") and/or for itself ("subjective") Derrida will start a long deconstruction of all texts where conceptual oppositions are put to work in the actual construction of meaning and values based on the subordination of the movement of "différance":〔 But, as Derrida also points out, these relations with other terms don’t express only meaning but also values. The way elemental oppositions are put to work in all texts it is not only a theoretical operation but also a practical option. The first task of deconstruction, starting with philosophy and afterwards revealing it operating in literary texts, juridical texts, etc., would be to overturn these oppositions:〔Cf. Jacques Derrida, "Interview with Jean-Louis Houdebine and Guy Scarpetta," in “Positions” (The University of Chicago Press, 1981), pp. 42–44〕 It’s not that the final task of deconstruction is to surpass all oppositions, because they are structurally necessary to produce sense. They simply cannot be suspended once and for all. But this doesn’t mean that they don’t need to be analyzed and criticized in all its manifestations, showing the way these oppositions, logical and axiological, are at work in all discourse for it to be able to produce meaning and values.〔Cf. Jacques Derrida, "Interview with Jean-Louis Houdebine and Guy Scarpetta," in “Positions” (The University of Chicago Press, 1981), p. 42 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Différance」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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