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Abstract
This article offers a reconstruction of Derrida’s critique of Leibniz. It suggests that in attempting to fit Leibniz into his conception of the history of metaphysics and the all-embracing notion of logocentrism that underwrites it, Derrida presupposes two regimes of logocentrism: one subjective, the other theological. Subsumed into this second mode, Derrida casts Leibniz as a progenitor of structuralism and the new sciences and technologies of information in order to expose their logocentric foundations. However, in doing so, he ends up sidelining the aspect of Leibniz’s ideas that anticipates the specificity of the new epoch of writing he claims to historicise. The article goes on to argue that to grasp this specificity one must look beyond the “expressivist” schema of exterior representation, which Derrida draws from Husserl’s theory of meaning, and instead look to Leibniz’s own formal-combinatorial concept of expression, which exceeds Derrida’s critical framework.
Research towards this article was undertaken as part of a British Academy Research Fellowship at King’s College London. I am grateful to David Bates, Patrick ffrench, Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan, and Tzu Chien Tho for their guidance on several drafts of the article as well as the anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments.
disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
Research towards this article was undertaken as part of a British Academy Research Fellowship at King's College London. I am grateful to David Bates, Patrick ffrench, Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan, and Tzu Chien Tho for their guidance on several drafts of the article as well as the anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments.
1 Derrida, Of Grammatology 8, 79.
2 Ibid. 78.
3 Ibid. 78–79.
4 Davies 86. This volume also includes a brief sketch by Sean Gaston of Hegel’s opposition to Leibniz’s universal characteristic discussed at the start of Of Grammatology (10–11).
5 Heidegger 33.
6 Wiener 12. On Wiener’s Leibnizianism, see Hui, Recursivity and Contingency 115–24.
7 Johnson, System and Writing 2–7. The first chapter of this work (12–43) presents an analysis of Derrida’s critique of structuralism in “Force and Signification” that accords with the question of geometric simultaneity discussed in the second section of this article (“Logocentrism Without a Subject”). However, Johnson’s reading limits itself to a reconstruction of Derrida’s own agenda and does not question Derrida’s problematic casting of Leibniz as a proto-structuralist. There is a growing literature on the impact of discourses like cybernetics and information theory on the development of structuralist and post-structuralist thought in France. See, for example, Johnson, “‘French’ Cybernetics”; Geoghegan; Liu; Lafontaine.
8 Serres, Hermes IV 275 (my trans.); Deleuze, Fold 137.
9 Davies 84.
10 In his doctoral thesis Le Système de Leibniz et ses modèles mathématiques (Paris: Epiméthée, 1968), Serres highlights Leibniz’s thinking as the prototype of a pluralist structuralism, based not on the Saussurean paradigm of the linguistic sign but on mathematical and cybernetic notions of model, multiplicity, and network. For an analysis of Serres’s structuralism as a “general epistemology of networks” drawing on Leibniz, see Mercier. Two decades before his work on Leibniz, The Fold (1988), in Difference and Repetition (1968) and Logic of Sense (1969), Deleuze tries to transform the Leibnizian notion of expression into a principle of differential genesis grounding his own metaphysics of singularity. See Difference and Repetition 42–51 and Logic of Sense 109–17, 171–77. On Deleuze’s transformation of Leibniz, see Smith. In his doctoral thesis on Spinoza (1968), Deleuze foregrounds the concept of expression as the basis of a common anti-Cartesian reaction in both Spinoza and Leibniz. See Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy 17, 78, 132–34, 321–35. According to Deleuze, it is through expression that “a specifically philosophical concept of immanence […] insinuates itself among the transcendent concepts of emanative and creationist theology” (322). This, in turn, “makes man commensurate with God, and puts him in possession of a new logic: makes him a spiritual automaton equal to a combinatorial world” (322). However, as he also points out, while Leibniz develops “a ‘symbolic’ philosophy of expression, in which expression is inseparable from signs and its transformations,” Spinoza wishes to “separate the domain of signs, which are always equivocal, from that of expressions, where univocity must be an absolute rule” (329–30). In this work, Deleuze does not develop this symbolic dimension in Leibniz but only its (implicit) operation in Spinoza. Later in The Fold, expression continues to feature in connection to differential genesis in analogy with the differential calculus, while the question of a universal system of signs remains in the background. For an account of the significance of Deleuze’s appropriation of the concept of expression in Spinoza for his formulation of a “science of the singular,” see Peden 211–17. For a broader overview, see also Hallward. My argument here will be that what Deleuze identifies as the irruption of immanence into a regime of theological transcendence is, within Leibniz, related precisely to this symbolic aspect of expression. A comparison between Deleuze’s and Derrida’s treatment of Leibnizian expression is beyond the scope of this article. For an attempt at comparison centred on mathematics, see Plotnitsky. Plotnitsky’s suggestion that Derrida extends, via Gödel, a kind of algebraic thinking rooted in Leibniz stands in direct opposition to the argument I pursue here.
11 Couturat, La Logique de Leibniz; Russell; Cassirer.
12 Couturat, “Sur la métaphysique de Leibniz” 9. In fact, within Leibniz’s later metaphysics, this predicate-in-subject containment does not relate to simple substances but to their concepts. Couturat’s interpretation conflates these two dimensions by assimilating his earlier logical conception of individual substance to monads. On this conflation, see Fichant, “Introduction” 17–18.
13 Derrida, “The Principle of Reason” in Eyes of the University 139.
14 Ibid. 146.
15 Derrida, Of Grammatology 78–79.
16 Derrida, Voice and Phenomenon 65.
17 Ibid. 29.
18 Heidegger 23: “For Leibniz and all modern thinking, the manner in which beings ‘are’ is based on the objectness of objects.”
19 Derrida, Voice and Phenomenon 69; cf. also Edmund Husserl’s Origin of Geometry 100–01n108.
20 Husserl, Logical Investigations, Volume 1 29 [P.II.§13]. See also Crisis 92 [§25]. On the reception and subsequent conflations of Leibniz’s notion of mathesis universalis with other aspects of his project, see Rabouin 367–74.
21 Husserl, Crisis 48 [§9.g].
22 Derrida, Of Grammatology 4.
23 Derrida, Voice and Phenomenon 27 (trans. adapted).
24 Derrida, “Semiology and Grammatology: Interview with Julia Kristeva” in Positions 34–35.
25 Ibid. 32.
26 Derrida, Of Grammatology 13.
27 Derrida, “Semiology and Grammatology” in Positions 34–35.
28 Derrida, Voice and Phenomenon 16.
29 There is a problem with Derrida’s position in that Husserl’s early views on signs and signification in the first of the Logical Investigations, the focus of Derrida’s commentary, do not correspond to his later views around and after the time of his transcendental turn, the other core target of Derrida’s critique. See Bernet. The literature on Derrida’s reading of Husserl is vast. For a sympathetic reconstruction, see Lawlor. For a range of perspectives, see McKenna and Evans. A detailed historical account of the development of Derrida’s thought in relation to post-war French phenomenology can be found in Baring.
30 Derrida, Voice and Phenomenon 95. Conceived as an interstitial notion situated between the domains of the transcendental and the empirical, the Derridean trace can be seen to affirm the problematic but irreducible character of the thing-in-itself in Kant. This would be true of any philosophy operating within a transcendental framework, which for Derrida seems to include the entirety of Western philosophy going back to Plato. On this Kantian connection, see Hägglund 13–49.
31 Derrida, Voice and Phenomenon 44.
32 Derrida, “Semiology and Grammatology” in Positions 33.
33 Ibid.
34 Leibniz, Philosophical Essays 23.
35 Ibid. 24.
36 While Leibniz usually ranks these forms of mediated reasoning as epistemically secondary to more direct forms of perception and insight, there are times where he seems to treat signs as constitutive of reasoning as such. See Dascal, Sémiologie de Leibniz 205.
37 Verley 118.
38 Across his commentaries of the 1950s and 1960s, Derrida draws on Husserl’s analyses of so-called “inauthentic” or “objectless” representations of incommensurable concepts like zero and infinity to challenge the evidentiary value of presence (cf. Problem of Genesis 24–25; Edmund Husserl’s Origin of Geometry 139–40; Voice and Phenomenon 83–84). However, he does not mention that Husserl himself recognised the necessity of symbolic mediation within modern science. In the early text “On the Logic of Signs” (1890–01), for example, he insists that “without the possibility of symbolic representations […] there would simply be no higher mental life – much less, then, science” (Husserl, “On the Logic of Signs (Semiotic)” in Early Writings in the Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics 29). On these affinities, see also Centrone and Da Silva.
39 Massimo Mugnai et al., “Introduction” in Leibniz, Dissertation on Combinatorial Art 3.
40 Dascal, Sémiologie de Leibniz 213.
41 Arthur 29–53.
42 Zahavi 61. On this key contrast, see also Hacking.
43 Derrida, “Force and Signification” in Writing and Difference 6; Rousset.
44 Derrida, “Force and Signification” in Writing and Difference 28.
45 Derrida, Of Grammatology 9–10, 84.
46 Rousset xiii, xxii (my trans.).
47 Ibid.
48 Derrida, “Force and Signification” in Writing and Difference 9.
49 Ibid. 32.
50 Rousset ii–iii.
51 Derrida, “Form and Meaning: A Note on the Phenomenology of Language” in Margins of Philosophy 158.
52 Derrida, “Force and Signification” in Writing and Difference 5.
53 Derrida, “Form and Meaning” in Margins of Philosophy 172n16.
54 Derrida, “Force and Signification” in Writing and Difference 22.
55 Derrida, “‘Genesis and Structure’ and Phenomenology” in Writing and Difference.
56 Ibid. 197 (my emphasis).
57 Ibid. 204–05.
58 See Garber and Tho.
59 Antognazza 250–51; Garber 118; Fichant, “Mécanisme et métaphysique” in Science et métaphysique dans Descartes et Leibniz.
60 Derrida, “Force and Signification” in Writing and Difference 18. Cf. Rousset xiv.
61 Derrida, “Force and Signification” in Writing and Difference 21.
62 Leibniz, Philosophical Essays 39. I am citing from a different translation of the Discourse than the one by George R. Montgomery used in the English translation of Writing and Difference. The version I use here corresponds to the one cited in French by Derrida. The version chosen for the English translation of Writing and Difference differs slightly: the example of the contours of a “face” in the last sentence appears there as those of a “fact.” Cf. Derrida, “Force and Signification” in Writing and Difference 22, 382.
63 Garber 158–59.
64 At least according to the logical conception of substance that Leibniz held in the period of the Discourse on Metaphysics.
65 Derrida, “Force and Signification” in Writing and Difference 28.
66 Verley 139.
67 Leibniz, New Essays Book IV, ch. 17 [§4].
68 Derrida, Of Grammatology 76–78.
69 Leibniz, “Letter to Joachim Bouvet” (18 May 1703) in Leibniz korrespondiert mit China 188 (my trans.). Cf. Derrida, Of Grammatology 79.
70 An exception to this may be certain typographic effects used in poetry.
71 Derrida, Of Grammatology 76. Notwithstanding Leibniz, a number of scholars have challenged Derrida’s treatment of Chinese writing. I do not take up this question here. See, for example, Zhang.
72 Derrida, Of Grammatology 76.
73 Ibid. 79.
74 Ibid. 78.
75 Leibniz’s correspondence with Bouvet coincides with the period in which he had begun to move away from the goal of a complete analysis of simple ideas and towards a logical calculus. Cf. Rutherford 227. Another notable aspect of this exchange, not mentioned in Of Grammatology, is the discussion of the divinatory symbols of the I Ching, which, interpreted as a kind of primordial binary code, echoes this later emphasis. Cf. Leibniz, Leibniz korrespondiert mit China 134–45, 179–96.
76 Leibniz, Philosophical Essays 213, 219, 235–40.
77 Ibid. 213. In this later monadological version, a simple substance is without parts in the sense that it contains no further substances, whereas the individual substances of Leibniz’s “middle period,” though mathematically indivisible, contain more parts, namely, an infinity of substances. See Garber 361–62.
78 Leibniz, Philosophical Essays 219.
79 Ibid. 220.
80 Ibid. 240.
81 Ibid.
82 Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters 167.
83 Leibniz, Philosophical Essays 237.
84 Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters 168.
85 Ibid. 208.
86 Leibniz, Dissertation on Combinatorial Art 133, 177.
87 Leibniz, Philosophical Essays 218–19.
88 Kulstad; Swoyer; Debuiche.
89 de Saussure 67–68.
90 Husserl, Logical Investigations, Volume 1 233 [Investigation I, §35].
91 Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters 184 (my emphasis).
92 Leibniz, “A Geometric Characteristic” (10 Aug. 1679) in Dascal, Leibniz 167.
93 Ibid.
94 Derrida, Voice and Phenomenon 64.
95 Piccinini and Scarantino 25. Cf. Chaitin 6, 11; Davis 39–40; Aspray 105–06.
96 Derrida, Of Grammatology 78.
97 Belaval 50 (my trans.). Scans of Derrida’s personal copy of Belaval’s book are available at: https://derridas-margins.princeton.edu/library/belaval-leibniz-critique-de-descartes-1960/gallery.
98 Cited in Derrida, Of Grammatology 78.
99 Ibid.
100 Ibid.
101 Ibid.
102 Ibid.
103 Derrida, “Psyche: Invention of the Other” in Psyche 13.
104 Ibid. 36.
105 Ibid.
106 Ibid. 30.
107 Derrida talks about acquiring his first personal computer (a Macintosh) around 1986–87: “I resisted for a long time. I thought I would never manage to submit to the rules of a machine that basically I understand nothing about” (Paper Machine 22–23).
108 Belaval 532.
109 Derrida, Of Grammatology 80.
110 Heidegger 118–19.
111 Derrida, Psyche 36.
112 Derrida, Of Grammatology 66–67, 72, 85–87.
113 Ibid. 331n16.
114 Hayles 24.
115 Derrida, Of Grammatology 8; “Nietzsche and the Machine” (interview with Richard Beardsworth, 1993) in Negotiations 237. On the relation between writing and technics in Derrida, see Bennington; Beardsworth; and Bradley.
116 In the 1980s, Gregory Ulmer already proposed that “Derrida’s texts […] reflect an internalization of the electronic media” (303). See also Bennington and Derrida 311–16, and Krapp. This connection came to the fore in the 1990s partly in response to Bernard Stiegler’s work on technology. However, Stiegler diverges from Derrida by defining the trace as a material prosthesis rather than as an originary feature of finite experience. See their exchanges in Derrida and Stiegler, Echographies of Television. For Stiegler, Derrida’s expanded conception of “writing” is too general to capture the specificity of contemporary, especially digital, technology. See, for instance, Stiegler.
117 Rickels 68.
118 Hui, “Writing and Cosmotechnics” 25.
119 See, for example, Robert Brandom’s categorisation of Leibniz in terms of a current of rationalism that seeks to explain the relationship between conceptual contents via inferential relations prior to representation (28–30, 156–77).