Of Grammatology — LLMpedia

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Of Grammatology

Jacques Derrida's 1967 book is a foundational work in contemporary Philosophy and Literary criticism that intervenes in debates involving Ferdinand de Saussure, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant. It advanced the method of Deconstruction and engaged with institutions and figures such as École normale supérieure, Collège de France, Université de Paris, Simon de Beauvoir, and Maurice Blanchot. The work prompted responses from scholars linked to Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Louis Althusser, Gilles Deleuze, and Paul Ricoeur.

Background and Context

Derrida wrote the book against a backdrop of mid-20th-century intellectual currents centered on figures like Ferdinand de Saussure, Noam Chomsky, Roman Jakobson, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Émile Benveniste. It converses with the projects of Structuralism associated with Roland Barthes and Pierre Bourdieu, while addressing phenomenological and hermeneutic traditions represented by Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Hans-Georg Gadamer. The political and institutional milieu included debates at Sorbonne University, École Polytechnique, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, and intellectual networks around Jean-Paul Sartre, François Mauriac, and André Breton. Key historical references that inform the book’s preoccupations include the intellectual aftermath of World War II, the influence of May 1968 protests, and cultural institutions such as Bibliothèque nationale de France and Académie française.

Derrida reexamines texts by Ferdinand de Saussure, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, and Claude Lévi-Strauss to argue that writing is not secondary to speech, challenging hierarchies endorsed by thinkers like Plato and Aristotle. He introduces the concept of ""différance"" in dialogue with Georges Bataille, André Gide, Simone Weil, and Søren Kierkegaard while engaging methodological rivals such as Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, and Jacques Lacan. The book contests assumptions found in Structuralism and in theories promoted by Noam Chomsky, Roman Jakobson, and Émile Benveniste, invoking texts by G. W. F. Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Blaise Pascal, and David Hume to trace philosophical genealogy. Derrida reads Rousseau’s work alongside correspondence involving Albert Schweitzer, Alexis de Tocqueville, Victor Hugo, and Honoré de Balzac to expose underlying logocentric biases.

Derrida situates his critique with direct reference to proponents of Structural linguistics such as Ferdinand de Saussure, Roman Jakobson, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and André Martinet, while contrasting with analytic traditions represented by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell, Gottlob Frege, and W. V. O. Quine. He reinterprets Saussurean sign, signifier, and signified in conversation with scholars like Émile Benveniste, Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, and Julia Kristeva. Deconstruction, as presented, engages literary figures and theorists including William Shakespeare, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Charles Baudelaire, Marcel Proust, and T. S. Eliot, while intersecting with philosophical critiques from Heidegger, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Jean-Paul Sartre. The methodological tensions involve institutions and movements such as École des hautes études en sciences sociales, New Criticism, Harvard University, and Columbia University.

The book influenced continental and Anglo-American debates, shaping scholarship at University of California, Berkeley, Yale University, University of Toronto, King's College London, and Université de Montréal. It affected fields and figures across disciplines, including Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Paul de Man, Homi K. Bhabha, J. Hillis Miller, Derek Attridge, Barbara Johnson, and Jonathan Culler. Derrida’s interventions reached debates at The New School, Harvard University Press, Oxford University Press, and journals like Tel Quel, Diacritics, Critical Inquiry, and SubStance. International responses involved scholars linked to Geneva, Heidelberg, Rome, Buenos Aires, and Tokyo academic networks, and institutions such as UNESCO and European University Institute.

Critics ranged from analytic philosophers like John Searle, W.V.O. Quine, Simon Blackburn, and Hilary Putnam to continental thinkers such as Emmanuel Levinas, Hannah Arendt, Paul Ricœur, and Alain Finkielkraut. Debates intensified in venues including The Guardian, The New York Times, The Times Literary Supplement, and academic forums at Oxford University, Cambridge University, and Princeton University. Controversies touched on accusations of obscurity leveled by Anthony Kenny and Roger Scruton, political critiques associated with Noam Chomsky and Camille Paglia, and institutional disputes involving Centre Georges Pompidou and Institut Français cultural policies.

Originally published in French by Les Éditions de Minuit, the book saw translations and editions through publishers such as Johns Hopkins University Press, University of Chicago Press, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Seuil, and Gallimard. Notable translators and commentators include Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Richard Howard, Geoffrey Bennington, Barbara Johnson, and Peggy Kamuf. The work circulated in bibliographic collections at Bibliothèque nationale de France, Library of Congress, British Library, Biblioteca Nacional de España, and university presses at Princeton University Press and Cambridge University Press. Subsequent annotated editions, critical introductions, and conference symposia took place at Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, Modern Languages Association, Société française de Philosophie, and American Comparative Literature Association.

Category:Philosophy books Category:Critical theory