Lévi-Strauss’s empiricism is declared naïve, as is Husserl’s sup-
posed attachment to the voice in Speech and Phenomena.In
Writing and Difference,by contrast, the empirical stances of
Freud and Lévinas point to a challenging truth, not an illusory
trap.^8
The reader senses an affinity between Derrida and Jabès,
who meditates on the Jews as the people of the book, the
people of writing. (Writing is Derrida’s “God term,” as Ken-
neth Burke would put it.) And Lévinas presents a challenge to
philosophy, including Derrida’s way of doing philosophy, that
Derrida finds himself forced to recognize: Lévinas insists on
the real presence of other people. Bataille and Artaud, not to
mention Foucault and Lévi-Strauss, receive far harsher treat-
ment at Derrida’s hands than the admired Jabès and Lévinas.
Derrida placed first in Writing and Differencean essay re-
printed from a 1963 issue ofCritique,one of the earliest writ-
ten of the pieces in the book. In this essay, “Force and Sig-
nification,” Derrida sets himself apart from structuralism, the
dogma of the previous generation. “Force and Signification”
sets the tone for Writing and Differencewith its headlong en-
ergy and its stream of almost ecstatic prose. The essay stands
halfway between philosophical reflection and the flamboyant
polemic of a poet-prophet.
The opening paragraphs of “Force and Signification” are
giddy with triumph over structuralism. Derrida lauds the
structuralists’ achievement as “an adventure of vision” (Writ-
ing 3 ), but at the same time he accuses them of weakness. In
their attention to form, Derrida charges, the structuralists
neglect the force that stands behind sign making, the enor-
mous strength of meaning itself. This neglect demonstrates, as
it turns out, the structuralists’ own lack of force—and their
status as mere critics rather than creators. “Formfascinates,”
116 Writing and DifferenceandOf Grammatology