Grammatology

From Metapedia

Jacques Derrida published Of Grammatology in 1967, in which he described a science of writing that questioned and problematized the inherent value of the linguistic sign. Derrida used the term "grammatology" as part of his critique of Western philosophy, which has given precedence to speech over writing, and which takes for granted that writing attempts to fully represent speech. Derrida introduces "grammatology" in order to take issue with the notion that signifier and signified form an organic unity which can ideally be fixed by a transcendental signifier. Thus, to the grammatologist following Derrida, language is open to many interpretations that continually defer meaning. Thus, the aim of grammatology is not the study of absolute meaning, or "truth," fixed in the linguistic sign; rather, the grammatologist is concerned with the actions that create language. Ecriture, or grammatological writing, characterizes those actions and refers to deconstruction's notion that textuality is always a network of unfinished, indeterminate meanings.

- Megan