Derrida's Differance and Plato's DifferentAuthor

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Derrida's Differance and Plato's DifferentAuthor(s): Samuel C. Wheeler IIISource: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 59, No. 4 (Dec., 1999), pp. 999-1013Published by: International Phenomenological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2653566 .

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Philosophy and Phenomenological ResearchVol. LIX, No. 4, December 1999

Derrida'sDifferance and Plato'sDifferentSAMUEL C. WHEELERmUniversity of Connecticut

This essay shows that Derrida's discussion of "Differance,"is remarkably parallel toPlato's discussion of Difference in the Parmenides. Plato's presentation of "Par-menides"' discussion of generationfrom a One which Is is a version of Derrida's pre-conceptual spacing. Derrida's implicit reference to Plato both interprets Plato andexplains the obscure features of "Differance." Derrida's paradoxical remarks aboutDifferance are very like what Plato implies about Difference.

Derrida's Differance addresses the puzzle that concepts are requiredto constructthe beings in a plurality of objects, but concepts cannot differentiate unless there isalreadya pluralityof objects. Plato's version of the same problemis a notational variantof Derrida'sHusserliandilemma.

Derrida, following Davidson, is not only skeptical about the project of foundingmetaphysics on simple entities, but also holds that necessity has no foundation in the"world."Plato,on the otherhand,retainsthe idea thatnecessity has an objectivebasis inthe self-evident truthsof mereology.

This essay examines the ways in which Derrida'sdiscussionof "Differance,"Iis remarkablyparallelto Plato's discussion of Difference in the Sophist andthe Parmenides. As I argue below, the metaphysicalproblemsthat motivatethese accounts are also similar. Very roughly, Derrida's Differance is aphenomenologicalversion of Plato's DifferentItself. Plato's presentationof"Parmenides"' iscussion of the generationof the physicalworld from a Onewhich Is is an early version of the pre-conceptualspacingthatDerridafindsimplicit in Husserl's Phenomena.Derridahas never madethese parallelsandcommon groundsexplicit, so this essay takes that connection as its first task.I arguefor and discuss theparallelsbetween DifferenceandDifferance,assum-ing with only the slightest argumentssome somewhatcontroversial nterpre-tations of Plato.2I will show how Derrida's obvious reference to Plato both

For primary instance "Differance,"reprinted in Margins of Philosophy, University ofChicago Press, 1982.2 An examination and discussion of the secondary literaturewhich partially agrees or dis-agreeswith the varioustheses advancedabout"whatPlatothought"would turn this essayinto a large book of footnotes. My view is that Plato writes dialogues instead of treatisesbecause he is usually examining arguments rather than advancing their conclusions astheses.

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implicitly interprets Plato and explains many of the prima facie obscurefeatures of Derrida's "Differance."I then argue that Derrida's paradoxicalremarksaboutDifferancearealmost exactly what Platoimplies about Differ-ence, in his discussionsin theParmenides.

Roughly and briefly, the idea brought into question by Plato in theParmenides and scoutedby Derrida s that we cannotcoherentlydescribetheconstructionof the world as we know it by, for instance, startingwith thescientific theories as we now have them and describe how we as organismsderive the world as we know it, because such scientific theoriespresupposethe very concepts which arebeing explained.So Derrida's notion of Differ-ance addresses the puzzle of how, if all Sameness of Kind presupposesFalling underthe Same Concept,andall conceptsareconstructed,not given,how Sameness and Difference get a purchaseon the world, as it were. Themodel of concepts dividing up the worldseems to presupposea contradictoryset of priorities:Conceptsarerequired o construct he beings in a pluralityofobjects,butconceptscannot differentiateunless there is alreadya pluralityofobjects. Plato's version of the same problem is a notational variant ofDerrida'sHusserliandilemma.

Throughout, suggestthat Plato andDerridacanbe construedas question-ing the very idea thatthereareisolable simple entities which can be the basisof meaning and being. Plato and Derridaquestion this by showing that thebest such foundationalsystem they know does not quite work. Plato differsfromDerrida n continuing o supposethatthere is a foundation or necessity,namely mereology, whose transparencyguaranteesits truth. Davidson, asopposed to both Plato and Derrida,tries to show directly that the projectisincoherent.3

I. Why does Plato need Difference Itself?The following is a not unusual nterpretation f Plato's thoughtin the middleand late dialogues.It owes muchto Findlayand other thinkerswho take Aris-totle's comments about Plato seriously. The exegetical point aboutDerrida,in any case, holds if Derrida understandsPlato in this way, whetheror notPlato himself thoughtthis way.

On my understanding f Plato,the Different comes to have a centralplacein Plato's accountof the world. We firstneed to see why Plato is committedto the existence of such an entity. Here, as is often the case with Plato, ithelps to look for Parmenidean heses which Plato accommodates. There arethree evels of Parmenidean onsiderations:

1) The first considerationshowing that DifferenceItself is an entity is theParmenideanprinciple"Is or Is Not." I interpret his as the plausible thesis

Davidson, Donald, "Onthe Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme," in Inquiries into Truthand Interpretation,OxfordUniversity Press, 1984, pp. 183-98.

1000 SAMUEL C. WHEELER II

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thatanythingrequired o give an accountof what is the case must be a being,something real. That is, there are no "components" of reality which arehalfway between being things and being nothing.4That is, being an entity isan all-or-nothingmatter.

So, if difference is required n order o account for what is the case, differ-ence is something,and we can speak of DifferenceItself, that Being which isthis factorin what is the case. If there is plurality,theremust be DifferenceItself, since a plurality requires that each of the items in it be differentfromthe others.

2) The second consideration will establish the antecedentof the condi-tional: Given that Difference Itself must be an entity if Difference Itself isrequiredin order to account for what is the case, there is still the questionwhetherDifferenceItself is in factrequired or such an account.

Someone could claim thatbeing different is a mere verbalproperty,thatthere is nothing really in commonbetweencases of Difference. So, no entitywould be requiredto be posited as common element the states of affairs Abeing distinct from B andC being distinct from D. Perhapsall such facts ofdifference reduce to facts about what other propertiesthings have, so thatthere is no furtherpropertyof being distinctwhichneeds to be postulated.

However, there are powerful reasons to explain difference by an entity,DifferenceItself, which will turn out to be logically andmetaphysicallypriorto Forms. The considerations emerge from an argument attributable toParmenides:Supposethat Plato understoodParmenides o arguethatthereisexactly one Being as follows: Suppose there were two Beings, A and B.Then, by the principle "is or is not," something would have to make themdistinct, that is, some being would have to be to accountfor this partof theway things are. A candidateentity might be a propertyA had but B lacked.But such a propertywould itself be a Being, and,to do its job of distinguish-ing A from B, would have to be alreadydistinct from the two things it dis-tinguishes. Thus we cannot explain distinctness by appealing to propertiesthatdistinguish,since suchpropertiespresuppose he veryfact of distinctnessthat is being explained.

An argument hatthis consideration s behindDifference Itself comes fromAristotle's version of Parmenides'argument. n Metaphysics B, lOOla30ff,Aristotlesays:...if Unity itself and Being itself are beings, there is a difficulty how there can be somethingelse beside these, that is how things can be more than one. For what is different from beingdoes not exist, so the word of Parmenides mustfollow, thatall thingsare one andthis is Being.

4 So, for instance, the configurations by which Wittgenstein hoped to avoid things otherthan nameableobjects either are or are not. If they are not, then they can do little to tieobjects togetherin facts. If they are,then they arebeings and so nameable.




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This argumentcan be understoodas resting on the following set of considera-tions: Supposethatthere are two entities A andB andthatBeing a Being is aproperty.Then consider the possibility of some otherproperty,say C, whichentity A has and entity B lacks. Insofar as C is real, it is an entity, and inthat respect like the thingsA and B it is supposedto distinguish.The differ-entiating partof the differentiatingfeature C must be something other thanthe propertyBeing a Being. But then, what could there be to it other thanBeing? Anythingwe could arriveat would also be a Being. If we subtract heBeing component from C, we once again have something which must Be,and so must have Being. If we subtractthat Being-component, we are leftwith a residue which must still have Being. And so on. If we try to isolatesomethinga thinghas other thanbeing, thatcomponent tself must be and somust have being. So, as it were, Being drives out every otherproperty.Butthen Being is the only property, f it is a propertyat all.

Aristotlepresentsthis as a familiarconsequence,so we can suppose thatthis argumentwas familiar to Plato as well, whether or not it was whatParmenides had in mind. Plato may or may not wish to have "Being" be aproperty.My view is that these and otherproblems(whichwe see explored inthe Sophist)lead Platoaway fromthe idea thatBeing is a propertyat all. Butthe underlyingdifficultyof would remainif "One"replaces Being. Isolatingindividualcomponentsas themselves is a generaldifficultywhich is indepen-dentof whetherBeing is a feature.

So, if we formulateParmenides'challengeas "Whatcan make two beingsdistinct beings?,"answerswhich appealto such beings as propertiesor dis-tinct spatiallocations fail to answer the challenge.Such entities alreadymustbe distinctbeings in order to separatebeing from being. So, it would appearthat nothing can separateBeing from Being, but Being always cleaves tobeing, as Parmenides ays.

The beginningof an answer to Parmenidesmustbe a regress-ender:Platoneeds an entity thatwill distinguishitself, withoutrequiringa furtherobjectto make it distinct from the things it distinguishes. The only possible suchobject would be Difference Itself. If there were an entity, Difference Itself,which explainedall difference,then thatentity would explain its own differ-ence from all others. Since DifferenceItself is that in virtue of which thingsaredifferent,DifferenceItself can be differentfromBeing while still being abeing. It is different fromthe thingsit distinguishes n virtueof itself. (Manywill be reminded of some famous argumentsfor the existence of God.)5Sameness is another such entity, which makes things be the same, and like-wise makes itself the same as cases of sameness. So the participation egressdisappears.5 If there is a God of Being which explains all beings, then that God is the sole entity which

requiresno explanation,butexists in virtueof its own nature.

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3) The thirdconsideration s Parmenidean n the sense that the characterParmenides in the Parmenides develops it: If natures were self-sufficient,independent entities, then Difference would take its place among them,perhapshavingespecially wide and interesting cope.

The "thirdman"argument6hows that we cannotthinkof Forms as beinganything other than the natures hey explain. If the FormManwere anythingother than the nature t explained, i.e. if it were the natureManhood in a kindof ideal substratum,hen the nature tself would be something otherthan (i.e.in addition to) the Form. So Forms must be nothing other than the naturesthey are. As soon as a Form has more than one component, those compo-nents become objects of enquiry. In particular, he componentwhich is thenature itself becomes yet anotherForm. So, Forms must be simple objects,entities which ARE the Naturesthey explain. This seems to be the import ofthe firstsectionof the Parmenides.

This result,however, turns out to be impossible. There can be no simpleobjects.The arguments n the second partof the Parmenides show thatsuchsingle items are not possible: Suppose that there is a single being. Itssingleness is distinct from its being. So, given the Parmenideanprincipleabove, a single being is immediatelytwo. Furthermore, iven thatthere is adifference between the singleness andthe being of the entity, there is a thirdthing,the differencebetween them.

But now these three entities are each single beings different from eachother. And each of them is thusplural,andso on. Thereare no cases of enti-ties which arejust one thing. Even the very natures which Forms are sup-posed to be must be indefinitely complex, as soon as we try to isolate thecharacterust by itself. Difference makesimpossibleany characterbeing justitself. Theplay of differencedivideseverynature rom itself. Accordingto theargumentof the Parmenides, we cannot have a nature ust by itself presentbefore the mind. As soon as we put such a naturebefore ourminds, we seethat the naturealso has othercomponents,at least Being and Difference fromothers.But the effort to paresuch accretionsaway andget to the purenatureitself is always frustrated, ince any such core must itself exist and be differ-ent from otherthings.

By the argumentsof theParmenides,everyentityis both the same anddif-ferent from itself: Each nature or Form is different from itself in the sensethat there is something to it besides the nature itself. Each of these entitieswhich is supposed to be F Itself turnsout to be F plus something else.7 On6 Parmenides 132al-b3. I omit any discussion of this vast literature. am willing to defendthe interpretation hat follows by showing that it solves the immediate difficulty of theThird Man, and that it makessense of subsequentparts of the Parmenides.7 Note that the solution to the famous Third Man regress in the first section of theParmenides requires that Formsjust be the characters they explain ratherthan havingthem as attached characters. The attached characterspicture of Form and the feature it

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my interpretation,he Parmenides is a demonstrationhat therecannot be anentity which is in no way plural.So even a nature s somethingdistinctfromthat nature.

One could say, readingPlato as a sourcefor Derrida, hatanyNature Itselfis always deferred: t is differentfromany grasp we can have of it, and differ-ent fromany being which could "express"or have it. We mighteven speakofthe "materialityof the Form,"the fact thatany Being which might be sup-posed to be a Nature Itself is always something besides that nature.TheParmenides, then, seems to have implicit exactly Derrida's deas of deferral.We can never get at "ManItself,"because it is always (at least) also the dis-tinct naturesOneandBeing.

Each physical thing is the same and differentfrom itself in the sense thathaving distinct features is being different things, while it is the same asitself. Furthermore,anything lasting throughtime is, as Plato notes, boththe same and different, since it is the same thing being at different times.Sameness and difference of a single thing is temporality.Furthermore,dis-tinct instancesat differentplaces or times of the same naturemakethe thingssame and differentandmay be interpretedo make the naturesameanddiffer-ent as well.

Derrida'scharacterizations f Differanceas spacing (spatial)anddeferral(temporal)have almost exact parallelsin Plato:Difference Itself is both thesame as itself, anddifferentfromitself, since Difference Itself is andBeing isdifferent fromDifference Itself. If Difference Itself accounts for distinctness,Difference Itself is manifest n theReceptacleandTime, since each of these isa way of making things both the same and distinct. That is, if we think ofthe Receptacleas something ike Space,and treat heReceptacleas a manifes-tation of the Different,thenthis aspectof DifferenceItself permits natures ohave more multiple cases. As Aristotle describes Plato's theory,8 he Formsare generatedby the One being appliedto the Great and Small (= DifferenceItself; the principleof Differentiation)and thenthe Forms are appliedto theGreat and Small again to generatethe spatio-temporalparticulars.Roughly,the Forms or natures are the various differentways of being one thing;andspatio-temporalparticularsarespatio-temporallydifferent cases of those dif-ferent ways of being one thing. The Different is manifest in spatiality andtemporalityandin any differentiation.So it is the great nstancizerandsubdi-vider. Thus, following Aristotle's remarks,the One or Being becomes themany Kinds, i.e. ways of being one being, each of which are thendifferenti-

explains leads to the thing in common which both the instances andthe Formhave. How-ever, the suppositionthatJustice Itself be just the characterand not somethingbesides thecharacter requiresthat Justice not have other things about it such and Being and BeingDifferent from Triangularity.If it had such characters, he question of what the charac-ter itself is, apart rom such additionalentities, would once again arise.8 Aristotle, Metaphysics A; 998a.




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atedinto the many spatially andtemporallydistinct cases of being each of themanykinds of Being.

For purposes of illumination of Derrida's notion of Differance, there areseveralotherimportantpropertiesof Difference Itself to be emphasized:Dif-ference Itself is not an ordinarynature,according to Plato, and according tothe exigencies of the case. Difference Itself is prior to the Forms, the entitieswhich are naturesof Beings. (Partsof the Different Itself seem in the Sophistto be the natures of non-beings, as noted above.) Each of the Forms mustalready be differentfromeverythingelse in orderto be an independentbeingwhich can be a nature.By the regressargumentascribedabove to Parmenides,Forms must be distinct entities not in virtue of the natures they are, butrather n virtueof Difference Itself. So Difference Itselfdistinguishes objectsprior to there being Forms. That is, the various properties things have aredistinguished by raw difference,thatis, by Difference Itself, not in virtue ofanythingpresent n one and lackingin the other.Derrida says similar things aboutDifferance: Differance is not exactly athing and not exactly a concept,9for reasonsthat are analogousto Plato's.1"'Differance distinguishes priorto any imposition of concepts, and generatesthe manifold for concepts to organize. Conceptual systems, according toDerrida'sSaussurianaccount,aresystems of differences,and so Differance ispriorto concepts.Thatis, things arenot differentbecause differentconceptsapply,butratherdifferentconcepts applyin virtueof Differance.

The consideration hatDifferenceItself is not a quitea nature s more thanmerely that Difference Itself is a meta-nature.Being and Sameness are simi-larly meta-natures.Difference Itself is especially problematicbecause it isthat being in virtue of which instancescan exist. It is, as it were, half of themeta-Nature, nstancehood tself. Instancesof naturesare differentfrom eachother and from the naturesthey are instances of. If we believe Aristotle andidentify the Great and Small with the Different Itself, then Natures them-selves, the Forms, are different instances of Oneness, that is, differentwaysof being one thing.

This characteristicof Difference Itself infects all entities whatsoever.Earlierdialoguessuchas thePhaedotakethe featurebeingboth the same anddifferentfromitself as a characteristic f physical sensory objects which dis-tinguished them from Forms. The Parmenides, as is widely recognized,shows that every entity whatsoever, including Forms and the One, has thischaracteristic.So Plato removes one of the distinctionsbetween"reality"andthe sensible world.In effect, his argumentn the Parmenides s a deconstruc-

9 See "Differance,"p. 3.10 "...Differance is not, does not exist, is not a present being (on) in any Form..."("Differance," in Margins of Philosophy, University of Chicago Press, 1982. P. 6;"...Differance is neither a word nor a concept..." ibid., p. 7.

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tion of his earlier position that the world is to be understoodon the basis ofsimple entities.

II. Why does Derrida need Differance?Supposethat Derridahas shown that there is no presence-before-the-mindnthe way required o have Husserlianmeanings.Derrida'sargument n Speechand Phenomena,"1oughly,is: Any meaningful object, i.e. any spoken,writ-ten, or thought-token,must be repeatable.Any essentially repeatableobjectpresents itself as having other possibilities of occurrence. But such"possibilityof recurrence" s not a presentableproperty,not somethingthatan entity can wear on its face. Thus a meaningfulitem, as such, necessarilyis something that cannot be there at once. Its essence, as it were, involvesabsence. 12

The obvious question at this point is what is meant by "presence"andwhy a modal featurecannotbe "present."Derrida'smajor explorationof thisquestion occurs in "White Mythology"13where he makes it clear that hethinks thereis no basis for this prejudicebeyonda persistent, ndeedconstitu-tive-of-philosophy obsession with light and vision metaphorsfor the intel-lect. Thatis, only a certainpictureof whatthinking s, namelyhaving some-thing before the mind in the way that we have a visual sense-impressionbefore the mind, leads us to think thatonly what is visualizable is clear andavailableas a starting-pointorunderstanding given topic.

This considerationis quite powerful: In particular,by this argumentnoparticular s properlynameablein virtueof a meaning.No meaningfulstatecan occur only when a particularevent is happening,for instance. This hasconsequencesfor thedesireto designatethepresent,the self, and the momentby some kinds of thought-tokenswhich are also meanings.In particular, on-siderpresence:

For the present to present itself as present is for it to present itself asdirectlyafter the immediatepast anddirectlybefore the immediatefuture,asHusserl himself has shown. But the present'spresence thus involves neces-sary reference to the non-present.Husserl takes the "now"to be a point, sothat there will be no distance between the sequence of interior words of asilent monologue and the meanings they expressin thought. 411 Derrida, Jacques,Speech and Phenomena,NorthwesternUniversity Press, 1973.12 Derrida s making a point relatedto Sellars' in "TheMyth of the Given"and "Empiricism

and the Philosophyof Mind."13 Derrida, Jacques, "White Mythology," in Margins of Philosophy, University of ChicagoPress, 1982, pp. 207-71.14 This lack of distance, Derridaargues in the first chaptersof Speech and Phenomena, isnecessary because in orderto have a genuine distinctionbetween indication and expres-sion, there must be possible a pure case of expression. The "point"characterof the nowin which the self talks to the self allows thereto be no "real"signs going on when a per-son has an interior monologue. So the "now"must be a self-presentingpoint at its core,




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The generalpoint of the argument,apart rom the details aboutHusserl'stheory, is thatsuch terms as "I"and "now"are meaningful, and so repeatableapart rom the specific application hey have at a moment. What can "interiormeanings,"the tokens of the languageof thought,then name?Only repeat-able, generalterms. But that means that no meaningscan convey a particular.So, in particular,no term can be trueonly of this very moment or this veryperson.'"By theirvery nature,meaningful tems haveapplicationelsewhere'6So, my term "I"is, to the extent that it means something,a term which canbe used without me. Similarly, my term"now"can be so used. So, we hearon a deadman's answeringmachine, "Iam not herenow."So whatdoes thisimply aboutpresence, the place where thesemeanings are displayed?That the"now" and the "I" areboth Forms, rather hanpure particulars, o that thereare no 'cases"with which to start.At the very bottom of experience and theworld, there s always alreadyrepetitionandbringingunderconcepts.

Derridaexaminesthe idea of giving an account of how a language/world/conceptual system gets underwayon the basis of the environment,and thebiological underpinningscommon to humans as organisms. After all, hesays, "Differences do not fall out of the sky."'7To call what we start withThe World or Experiencewould be alreadyto apply some predicateswhichwould imply a given. But there is no experienceand no world as an arrayofobjects with properties prior to conceptualization. So, "Differance" and"instituted races"could be imaginedto sort of start the process. On the onehand, we cannot really talk about a "conceptualscheme" "uncategorizedworld" or "unconceptualized xperience," or preciselythe reasons Davidsonhas outlined n "OntheVery Idea of a ConceptualScheme."'8

But accordingto Derrida,we have to recognize that something goes onbefore a person begins to talk and think. While "the world" does not come

even though Husserl has himself shown that "now"-ness is a compound of protentionsand retentions.15 The pros and cons and precise definitions of haecceities would take us very far afield.Both Plato and Derrida take it to be obvious that there can be no haecceities, idealitieswhich by their very nature can be true of only a given particular.They accept withoutquestion Aristotle's argument/observationhat there can be no definitionof a particular.Plato does hold that there are some natureswhich can have only one instance, such as theOne Itself, but a consideration such as "mightsome other particularhave been the OneItself" makes as little sense as the question to David Lewis whether there might havebeen other possible worlds. Since both Lewis and Platoreduce necessity to brute fact andmereology, the answer is in some sense "no."

16 Some such consideration is at work in Husserl's insistence that meanings are idealities,irreal. They can be the same in many locations.17 Derrida, Jacques, Positions, translatedby Alan Bass, University of Chicago Press, 1981,

p. 80.18 In Inquiriesinto Truthand Interpretation,Oxford University Press, 1984, pp. 183-98. As

soon as we imagine a field to be divided up, we have posited objects with identitycondi-tions. Roughly, to be formed into objects, a manifold must already be an entity and soformed.

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divided up into entities and categories, it is not homogeneous either. Both"divided up" and "homogeneous"presupposea World as an entity alreadythere divided up into One or more objects. Something about what happensmust allow conceptsto get started,by providingsome "texture"o make dis-tinctions.Or so it seems. DerridaandDavidsonwould agreethatif we cannotsay how this happens,we cannot whistle it either.

Of course, Derridahere uses modal notions which have not been con-structedout of clear and distinctideas. "Allow"would not be allowed at thispoint in a foundational, systematic construction of the world. If we heldDerridato a Husserlianprojector took his enterpriseto be something likeDavid Lewis' in A Plurality of Worlds,'9 hen of course such use would beillegitimate. But, apartfrom such projects,we have something like Quine's"EpistemologyNaturalized,"20n accountwhich describesthe world butdoesnot construct t.

This "texture"cannot be distinctions between spatio-temporalregionssuch that one region has a feature which another region lacks, becausefeaturesrequiredifferentiationandthe constructionof subjectsto have them,and differentiation equires eatures.Thepre-property, re-conceptual, re-dif-ferentiationexture s "Differance."

Why can't we just notice the way thingsaredifferent?Derrida,along withDavidson, Quine,andGoodman,holds that there is no Sameness"given"2'nnature.So, how does Differancework?ForDerridaas for Plato,the possibil-ity of repetitionrequiresa mix of Sameness andDifference. Two occurrencesof "Frog"or frogs, for instance, are the Same and Different. They are twooccurrencesof the Same mark andthey are distinctoccurrencesof that mark.Derridatakes this to be true both of thing and of a Sign, since both must beidentifiedundersome Kindin orderto be the same thingor sign repeated(asthe Same) on distinct occasions in distinctspots. We aremakingthe thing orsign be the same thing or sign by takingdistinctevents to be occurrences ofthe Same. Such takingsarenot random,butthey are not dictatedby anythingeither. In the sense of "arbitrary"s "arbitrated,udged,thoughtfullydecided"they couldbe said to be arbitrary. udgmentsof Sameness are not determined,but that doesn't mean thatjust anythinggoes. How does this accommodate19 Lewis, David, On ThePlurality of Worlds,OxfordUniversityPress, 1986.20 Quine,W. V. O., in OntologicalRelativity,ColumbiaUniversityPress, 1969, pp. 69-90.21 The core idea of Davidson's position on the Given could be put as follows: Of course

there is sameness in nature. Pigs are all the same in being pigs. However, if we ask"Whatis it in virtue of which pigs are the same?"we have two kinds of replies: 1) Wecan cite the various biological facts and theories in virtue of which pigs are the kind ofanimals they are. 2) We can say the trivialitythatpigs are the same in being pigs. WhatDavidson denies is that there is somethingdeeper thanthe triviality but distinct from thescientific. "MetaphysicalRealism"is precisely the view that there is this deeper helpfulexplanationof an objective sameness which helpfully supplements"is a pig" being trueof all of the pigs.




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the fact that, even if Sameness is not entirely there in nature, here clearly areinnate dispositions to respond in the same way, by some construction of"sameway?"We discussthisbelow.

The sign-relationhas theplace in Derrida'sthoughtthatinstantiationdoesfor Plato. And the differences between the sign relation andthe relation of aForm to its instances bring aboutthe importantdifferencesbetween Plato andDerrida.The basic issue is thatof presence. Plato's Formswere supposed tobe before the mind as entities which mean themselves. His paradigm of thegrasp of a mathematicalproof from a diagramcompels him to take the mindto be something which just graspsForms as they are, until the logical andParmenidean considerations occurred to him. Plato does not conceive ofknowing as grasping interior tokens which mean their referents. Rather,thought grasps the Form Itself, in a dialogue such as the Phaedo. Thedifficulty, which leads to the self-deconstructionsof the Parmenides, is thatsuch natures cannot be graspedas just what they are, since they cannot beisolated from theirnecessaryaccompaniments.Plato thus addresses his ver-sion of the "materialityof the signifier,"but does not questionthe necessitywhich is graspedin the Form.22Plato comes to realize in the Parmenides isthat the mereology does not startwith atomic elements, but ratherhas partsand wholes all the way down. ThusPlato does not question the apprehensionof necessity, as Derridadoes, butrather he apprehensionof fundamental le-ments.

For Derrida, following Sellars23 he difficulty with Forms is that theywould be presentas essentiallyrepeatable,as being the sortof thingthat nec-essarily could have instances. Derridaargues that such features cannot bepresent.So, the naturalForm-instancerelationis replacedwith the arbitrarysign-referent elation.

For a sign, there is no distinctionbetweenthe representation f a sign andits reality.A photographof an "A"is itself also an "A,"as are the names of"A"in quotation-marks.A sign is not quite an "instance"which fits a Form,since its being an entity cannot be specified apartfrom the Form it is aninstance of. Thus, the occurrenceof another case of a sign does not fit the"type-token"distinction,because thatwould suppose that we could identify22 Although this would take us farafield, I would argue that Plato takes mereologyto be the

one kind of necessity which needs no more fundamentalexplanation,but is completelytransparent.In this, he agrees with such modal metaphysicians as D. M. Armstrong (innumerous works, most recentlyA Worldof States of Affairs, CambridgeUniversity Press1997) and David Lewis (for instancein his On the Plurality of Worlds,Basil Blackwell,Oxford, 1986.) That is, the necessities of the part-whole relation are taken as utterlyobvious, not subject to deeper explanation,and an appropriate oundationfor the rest ofthe metaphysicsof modality.

23 Sellars' demonstration that sense-data cannot both be given and meaningful is in"Empiricismand the Philosophyof Mind," reprinted n Science, Perception and Reality,(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963).




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cases of the sign and then grouptheminto types. But the type is essential tothe sign. It is part of the essence of being a sign at all thatit be repeatableasa case of this Form. The sign is a sign at all by virtue of being able to berepeated. So the meaningful-ness of a sign, what makes it be a sign, isiterability,having distinctre-currencespossibly. Therefore,the sign cannotbe present as what it is, since it must present itself as necessarily iterable,necessarilysomethingwhich can have otheroccurrences.Thus it is not quitea token, since what it presents itself as, having other occurrences, is notpresent. It is also not quite a type, since it is located in space andtime.

Anotherway of puttingthis:Since we are, by denyingthe given anddeny-ing that there is a magic language,makingconcepts into signs, the conceptsunder which signs fall in order to be the signs they are involve us in aregress. Signs become as it were the foundation of Forms,and so their con-straintby the Forms underwhichtheyfall cannot be a genuineconstraint.

To deny "presence"s to denythat there is a "given."To deny thatthere isa given is to say thatsamenessalwayspartlydependson contingenciesaboutwhat we take to be the same. And that makes un-determined,arbitraryudg-ments of sameness,of falling underthe same sign, primary.

III. Derrida and Plato, Differance and DifferenceSo what aboutPlato'sDifferentandDerrida'sDifferance?Plato'sconstructionof nature is like Derrida's construction of the world-and-experience,withsome importantdifference, that between Difference Itself and Differance.Plato's Different divides thingsup accordingto what is best, anddoes so foreternity. So, themajorsignificantdifference between Plato andDerrida s thatPlato's generation s necessitatedandthereforepermanent,whereasDerrida'sgenerationis contingent and fluid. Plato still invokes a transcendental, heGood. As I have arguedelsewhere,24he Good is a modal notion.Thus Plato,unlikeDerrida,seeks a constructionof what must be fromwhat is.

In almosteveryotherway, Plato andDerridaagree:First: Remember how, for Plato, Triangle is different from Square invirtueof Difference,not in virtue of the naturesTriangleandSquare.So it isDifference which makes those naturesdistinct, not anything "given"aboutthe natures hemselves.Otherwise,a regress would result. If we appeal to thenatures' own natures o explainhow the two naturesaredifferent,then thosetwo naturesof natureswould alreadyhave to be different n order o maketheentitiesthey arenaturesof different rom eachother.

Second:Plato's Difference divides things in space andtime, if we under-standthe Tirnaeus nd the logic of the situation,andacceptAristotle'scharac-terization of the Great and Small as a function of Difference. So, Plato's

24 Wheeler,Samuel,"Plato'sEnlightenment,"Historyof PhilosophyQuarterly,April 1997.




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Different is and is the source of both distinctness in space and deferral intime, just as Differanceis.

Third:An apparentdifference between Difference and Differance is onlyapparent. One might think of Plato's account as ontology and Derrida'saccount as conceptual. But for both thinkers, this distinction is suspect.Without presence,thereis no worldopposedto the conceptualscheme whichorganizes it. So Derrida's accountis an accountof the world as much as anaccountof "conceptualization." or Plato, the soul's affinityto the structureof realitylikewise makesthedistinctionbetweena conceptualaccountandanontological accountsuspect.Plato's generationof the world is logical, fromthe logos andits requirements.So the conceptualand the ontological are notreallydistinct for Plato.

Fourth:Both Differance and Difference arequite peculiarnaturesor enti-ties, since they both are prior to any "conceptual scheme," or universe ofentities with features.In the Sophist,Plato says thatpartsof the Different arenaturesof "what s not F."25But suchnegative Beings areverydifferent fromentities which instantiatepositive natures.Differance likewise has to be con-strued,if construedas real at all, as some kind of phenomenon priorto thebeings of the world.Onmy readingof Derrida,Differance is a sort of mythi-cal phenomenon,a fiction which is described as what would be requiredifthere were to be a construction of the world from a foundation. That is,Derrida need not be taken as thinking thatthere is indeed a phenomenon inthe world, Differance, butratheras showing thatthe projectof constructionof the world from foundational entities requiresthis very weird quasi-phe-nomenon,Differance. This I construeas anargument,not for the existence ofsuch a strange pseudo-phenomenon,but as an argumentagainst the projectitself. Thus Derridaagrees with Davidson that the very idea of a conceptualscheme is impossible.

Thus,Derrida'sconceptof Differanceconceals an attack on Metaphysics.He shows that seeking an understandingboth different from naturalscienceand non-trivial leads to mysterious quasi-entities which should lead us toquestion the motives for the entireproject.The principlewhich reflects thedemand or sucha science is theprincipleof non-circular onceptualconstruc-tion:No explanationof B by A is possible if the understanding f A requiresthat B exist. Briefly, this is the requirement hat a kind of understandingsavailable which orders the world intellectually, accordingto the demands ofreason.

To state this Davidsonian nterpretationn more detail:Davidson, in "TheVery Idea of a ConceptualScheme"arguesthat there s no sense to supposingeitherthat"theworld" s homogeneousor textured ndependentlyof whatwe25 See E. N. Lee's "Plato on Negation andNot-Being in the Sophist,"Philosophical Review,1972, pp. 267-304.




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say about it. This does not mean that Davidson thinks that the world wedescribe pops up out of nowhere, or that we make everything up. Rather,Davidson's position is anti-constructionist,anti-foundationalist,and deeplyanti-metaphysical.On Davidson's simple exposition of what is the case andwhat we say, there is no room for the science of Metaphysicsto exist besidereal Science.

Davidson says that whetherthe world is alreadydividedup (metaphysicalrealists view) or whether we divide it up (idealism, some construals ofDeconstruction26)s a badquestion,andneeds to be deconstructed,by show-ing thatit presupposespreciselywhat it is tryingto explain away. Accordingto Davidson, we say how the world is with ourterms,in ourlanguage.Whatit takes for "therearefrogs"to be true is that there arefrogs. No explanationof thatphenomenon s anybetterexcept the (metaphysicallyunhelpful)expo-sition of the conditionsrequiredon a given planet for frogs to come into exis-tence andcontinue. No "analysis"n termsof propertiesandthe subjects theyinhabit gets anywhere.Englishsentencesareas good an exposition of what isthe case as any otherlanguage.The end of metaphysicsis actuallyas simpleas that.27Now, there are contingencies about what we say-features of theway we talkaboutthe world which could have been otherwise.These contin-gencies providethe basis for changein whatwe say when and "howwe con-ceptualizethe world." If things could have been otherwise,then they can beotherwise,andsuchcontingenciesneed to be statedsomehow. The appealstoDifferance,traces, etc., and the speculationsaboutthe originof consciousnessare Derrida'sversionof thephenomenologicalattempt o do so.

Davidson and Derridacanperfectlywell say how thingscould be different,but withoutsupposingthat the world need to be described n some "pre-con-ceptual" terms. His suggestion would be just to use our regular terms todescribethe way organisms respondto the environmentandhow conscious-ness arises, even though the terms in explanation could only have beenarrivedatby thevery processes they explain.Here is thephenomenologicaland,moregenerally,philosophicalprinciplewhichDerrida hows to leadto weirdconceptslike "Differance": n the under-standingof a phenomenon,we may not use any concepts which already pre-supposethephenomenonbeing understood.Thisprinciple, which I take to be26 Derrida's deconstructions are not demonstrationsof the unusability of concepts but are

ratherakin to Wittgenstein's work in their practicalimport. Only on the foundationalistpresuppositionswhich he rejectswould a failure of foundationalism how the unusabilityof a concept which has been deconstructed. See my "Wittgenstein as ConservativeDeconstructor," n New Literary History, Volume 19, Number 2, Winter 1988, pp. 239-58. In the case at hand,the fact thatsomething like Differance would be requiredfor anaccount of the origins of concepts only argues for the reality of Differance if we arecommittedto the foundationalproject.

27 I belabor this point in "TrueFigures,"in The InterpretiveTurn, Edited by Hiley, et al.,CornellUniversity Press, 1991, pp. 197-217.

1012 SAMUEL C. WHEELERIII



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the operativeprincipleof phenomenologicalanalysisandof metaphysicsuni-versally, presupposes a foundationalproject which makes no sense unlessthere are meanings which magically connect to their referents.Apart fromsuch meanings, it is perfectlylegitimateto describesituations, including thesituation n which we acquire anguageandunderstanding f the world,in thetermsof our current anguage.Whatelse can we use, as Davidsonsays.


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