Abstract

Concluding his reading of Saussure in Of Grammatology, Derrida seems to take a breathtaking leap. Asserting the absolute generality of the "written trace," he writes: "Articulating the living upon the nonliving, origin of all repetition, origin of ideality, the trace is not more ideal than real, not more intelligible than sensible, not more a transparent signification than an opaque energy and no concept of metaphysics can describe it."1 Appearing in the context of his reading of Saussure, the trace seemed to be about the nature of the linguistic sign, or semiology broadly construed. However, by the chapter's conclusion, the trace and writing are not relative to any context. They function everywhere, articulating...