> Derrida speaks of the 'historico-transcendental
> scene of writing', he continues -- like Husserl and
> Heidegger before him -- to erase the contingency of
> the historical process, a contingency which can only
> be approached through empirical investigation...".
> So, if Derrida does regard "constructions of
> meaning" as "conventional," for him "conventions"
> must be at once purely contingent (= with no
> necessary relation to social relations) _and_
> eternal (which is the meaning of "always already").
> In other words, eternalized, abstract contingency
> (which can only exist in transcendental speculation)
> negates _both_ historical necessity and
> contingency. In this sense, _differance_ is a
> Platonic idea.
Just to toss in my $0.02US: in _French Phil. of the Sixties_ (a book I didn't like, but...) Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut claim that _differance_ is just Heidegger's ontological difference, i.e., the distinction between beings and Being, warmed over. If this is so, then Adorno's criticism of the ontological difference applies to _differance_ as well -- it's an arrested, de-historicized moment of dialectics.
On the other hand (and to resist from giving myself over to what Doug Henwood called the favorite indoor sport of Marxists -- that is, pomo-bashing), maybe all this indicates is the scope of the term, and therefore its potential use. To put it differently (sorry), while _differance_ as a doctrine covers up the historical and contingent constitution of language, it was proposed and gained currency at a particular point in history, and is referred to people whose analyses and aims coincide w/Marxian of various stripes, so it seems unfair (and undialectical?) to regard it as just ideological bunk. So perhaps there's some use value/"truth content" to be gleaned there...and I'm just wondering out loud what it might be. -- Curtiss __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com