supposed god is there
meaning in general. The trace is the différance [deferral] which opens up
the apparaître and the signification.^3Différance is Derrida’s concept for the ultimate condition which is
indefinable, which is neither mental nor physical, neither presence nor
absence, neither voice nor writing, neither signifier nor signified, and
hence “antecedent” to all these theoretical opposites. Absolutely and
de jure antecedent, that is prior to judgement and according to judge-
ment. Only by pointing out this scission as prior to any original
presupposition will Derrida avoid the most obvious continuation of
the history of metaphysics. The interior scission of the logic of meta-
physics, redoubled, reiterated, and deferred throughout the history of
metaphysics, is captured by his emphatic concept of différance, which
he insists is not even a concept, nor a rhetorical figure, since it evades
the order of conceptually regulated discourse.
According to this logic, Derrida would not even be a nominalist,
since he would deny such a position. Différance is no less antecedent to
the difference between realist and nominalist than to any other
differences. And still, there remains a nominalism which is more
comprehensive than the classical or medieval position under that
name, and that is signified by the questioning of any being as “Being”
by altogether avoiding the question of existence. This avoidance
inserts a void where the “Thing” used to be, suspending the definition
of something as Being. Theory boils down to analyses of texts, of traces,
of writing — which is a methodological choice of priority, not of
exclusion. Hence, writing is of interest as a trace of presence, and of
language, which is out of control. Thereby, the notion of consciousness
is put into question, and, again, the meaning is altered by the deferral,
transference, and translation in time. The question of limits, concepts,
and differences is thereby opened up for reconsideration, often by way
of a rigorously formalized discourse. That is what I call radical
nominalism, and it applies to Derrida’s metaphysics of absence.
Departing from a difference between nominalism and realism,
Derrida defers the distinction by focusing on the noumena. He would
- Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press
1976, 65. Translation modified.