Derrida VS Locke

“In his essay, ‘Differance,’ Derrida describes the process of spatial and temporal movement that he claims makes all thought and all reality possible” (278). Derrida believes that all language consists of differences and that words are really what they are because of difference. In Locke’s essay, An Essay on Human Understanding, he “searches for truth in the physical world and attempts to understand knowledge as a psychological phenomenon” (814). Both of these essays look in to the complexity of words and both also try to analyze the origin of said words and what different words can essentially mean for different people. Locke believes that direct knowledge is available through perception. While Locke searches for truth, Derrida does as well. Derrida “uses two axes to talk about the work of difference that produces presence as an effect that the mind then  mistakenly assumes is a substance that guarantees truthfulness” (278).

In Derrida’s essay, he mentions the word ‘difference’ quite a bit. Derrida’s essay is called ‘Differance.’ This is the French word for difference which means to ‘differ’ or to ‘defer.’ Derrida believes that language does both. Derrida says that signs reflect upon a person’s ideas. This relates to Locke in way because, Locke believes that “our worlds reflecting upon language are the signs of our ideas” (815). Derrida and Locke both believe that words encompass an idea. They succumb to the idea that words are more than just a definition. They argue that words are attached to ideas which work to signify or convey an experience or belief. Both believe that our ideas have significance rather than language itself. Derrida, like Locke, argues that “all things are signs, and that all reality is “textual,” in that all parts refer to or signify other parts, which are themselves signifiers of other parts. If we bear in mind the traditional definition of writing as the sign of a sign (the written sign of mental speech), then all reality is in a sense, a form of writing” (279).

           

Derrida and Locke both believe that words also derive from essence. Without essence, words would lose their identities according to Derrida and Locke. Derrida states that “Words, like signs, in language, he argues, they too are given identity by their differences from one another” (279). Essence is essentially contrasted with accident; meaning that the entity or substance has contingency. Derrida says that presence is an effect that can make the mid mistakenly assume it is a substance that can guarantee truth. Derrida also states that there is “no substance in language” (278). This goes along with him and Locke’s ideas that first of all, all languages consist of differences and also that all language is imperfect. “In language there are only forms, not substances, and by that he meant that all apparently substantive units of language are generated by other things that lie outside them” (278). Locke agrees with this notion by saying that our words are generated through ideas and our ideas are generated through experience. These represent other things that generate outside of language.

            

While both men think that the origin of words come from the existence of ideas, Derrida digs deeper in to the subject and believes that words not only come from the existence of ideas, but the differences between these ideas. He famously notes that “philosophical oppositions such as the intelligible and the sensible, nature and culture the ideal and physical, etc. can be shown to be produced by differance” (279). Not everyone’s ideas are the same; therefore, different words come about due to different ideas that come from different people. Essentially, both Derrida and Locke think that a person must define a word through his or her own experiences. Language is imperfect, it is easy to perceive different signs and imperfection in language, therefore making it unavoidable for many words to be doubtful or uncertain in their significations. Different people experience different things; therefore making it hard to communicate our thoughts to others and ultimately find actual truth.

           

           

             -Dina Kratzer