Differance in Terms of Author-Function

Before I considered differance in terms of Foucault’s “What Is an Author?” I could not comprehend what Derrida meant by the term. 

Differance, as described by Jacques Derrida, does not have a simple definition. Differance encompasses the “’sumploke’ or ‘confluence of being’” and it also “refers to … the origin or production of differences and the differences between differences” (Derrida, 279). Furthermore, differance also “belongs to no category of being, present or absent” (Derrida, 282) because it is “undecided between active and passive” (Derrida, 284). Differance occurs when “language … becomes ‘historically’ constituted as a fabric of differences” (Derrida, 286), and signs are important in differance because of the arbitrariness they are characterized by that creates those differences between differences.

It is difficult to relate this variety of explanation for what differance is. In fact, just that statement may be incorrect because Derrida even says that “difference is not, does not exist” (Derrida, 282) and that differance is not a “concept, but the possibility of conceptuality” (Derrida, 285). Fortunately, after attempting to synthesize this text with another text, I gained some clarity in what Derrida means by differance.

Like Derrida, Foucault discusses signification in his essay. When Foucault says “a proper name does not have just one signification” because “a name permits one to group together a certain number of texts, define them, differentiate them from and contrast them to others” (Foucault, 906-7) he is speaking in terms of differance. There are differences in the differences in the diverse ways that individual people and cultures define names, specifically the names of the author as the author-function.

One explanation in Derrida's essay that helped me get to know differance more was the simplistic statement that “since language has not fallen from the sky, it is clear that the differences have been produced” (Derrida, 286). In other words, implied differences have occurred historically and culturally over time. Foucault clearly relates differance and author-function when he states that “author-function … does not develop spontaneously … it is, rather, the result of a complex operation” (Foucault, 909).

Unfortunately, Foucault makes one major claim that drastically contrasts with Derrida’s stance in “Differance.” Derrida discusses the interconnectedness of language, as Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan point out in “Introduction: Introductory Deconstruction.” They explain Derrida’s controversial idea of the supplement of the origin, which means that each word is not “an original presence” but “a supplementary relationship between terms” (Rivkin and Ryan, 259). James Herrick can also help us understand this distinction with his discussion of Derrida. Since Derrida argues that “concepts are invested with meaning by contrast with their opposites” (Herrick, 255) every “second term takes its place immediately because the ‘first’ depends on its difference from the second to ‘be’ anything” (Rivkin and Ryan, 259). On the other hand, Foucault insists that “the initiation of a discursive practice does not participate in its later transformations” (Foucault, 912) instead of words being “defined only in relation to one another, and by that to which they are opposed” (Herrick, 255).

In conclusion, differance can be understood in terms of Foucault’s view of author-function, but not in terms of Foucault’s views as a whole.

Sarah Davis