voice that hears itself speak may be the wished-for model, but
in fact our talk is full of mistakes, wrong directions, and half-
hearted indications. The person who listens to me probably
has a better grasp of my meaning than I myself do, just as the
reader of a book may be able to summarize its significance
more accurately than its author could.
Derrida makes a valid if familiar point when, following
Freud’s lead, he declares that we are not privileged knowers of
our own meaning. His bigger charge, that metaphysics is in-
habited by an assumption that one can know exactly what one
is saying and doing at every moment, remains profoundly
dubious. If the philosophical tradition really assumed this,
it would be trumpeting an indefensible, and rather simple-
minded, credo.
There is a further problem with the way Derrida sees the
contrast between voice and writing in Western culture. Der-
rida’s Grammatologydepends on the hypothesis of a wide-
spread, age-old prejudice against writing and in favor of speech.
Writing is repressed, he claims; we prefer the living voice. But
if we look beyond the pathos of Derrida’s poor orphan writ-
ing, crushed by speech, a persuasive counterargument—an
answer to the Grammatology—emerges. Intellectuals like Der-
rida have been champions of the book, and profoundly op-
posed to the ephemeral and conversational, for centuries. Au-
thority resides on the shelves of libraries, and in the pages of
journals: so the institutions of science, law, theology, and, yes,
philosophy have always told us. Laws are written down, not re-
layed through conversation. Even professors of sociology and
anthropology, who find their material in the lively chatter of
social life, have usually resisted incorporating everyday con-
versation in their books. There is something about the quick
give and take of talking, the way its rhythms evade the aca-
76 Writing and DifferenceandOf Grammatology