Sunday, December 16, 2012

from "Of Grammatology" by Jacques Derrida


You have, I suppose, dreamt of finding a single word for designating difference and articulation. I have perhaps located it by chance in Robert['s Dictionary] if I play on the word, or rather indicate its double meaning. This word is brisure [joint, break] “ — broken, cracked part. Cf. breach, crack, fracture, fault, split, fragment, [bréche, cassure, fracture, faille, fente, fragment.] — Hinged articulation of two parts of wood- or metal-work. The hinge, the brisure [folding-joint] of a shutter. Cf. joint.” — Roger Laporte (letter)


Origin of the experience of space and time, this writing of difference, this fabric of the trace, permits the difference between space and time to be articulated, to appear as such, in the unity of an experience (of a “same” lived out of a “same” body proper [corps propre]). This articulation therefore permits a graphic (“visual” or “tactile,” “spatial”) chain to be adapted, on occasion in a linear fashion, to a spoken (“phonic,” “temporal”) chain. It is from the primary possibility of this articulation that one must begin. Difference is articulation.


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