philosophers cited in the text and makes one of contemporary criticism’s most indispensable
works even more accessible and usable.
“Of Grammatologg is the tool-kit for anyone who wants to empty the ‘presence’ out of any
text he has taken a dislike to. A handy arsenal of deconstructive tools are to be found in its
pages, and the technique, once learnt, is as simple, and as destructive, as leaving a bomb in a
brown paper bag outside (or inside) a pub.”—Roger Poole, Notes and Queries
“There is cause for rejoicing in the translation of De la grammatologie . . . Just as Derrida
discloses in Rousseau a writer who distrusts writing and longs for the proximity of the self to
its voice, so Spivak approaches Derrida through the structure of his diction; no ideas but in the
words themselves.”—Denis Donoghue, New Republic
Jacques Derrida teaches at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris.
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Columbia
University.
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore and London
Cover design: Omega Clay
Cover illustration: Thoth, the advocate of Osiris, writing on his palette. From the Papyrus of
Hunefer.
ISBN 0-8018-5830-5
Boken starter
((i))
Of Grammatology
((ii))
((iii))
Of
Grammatology
BY
Jacques
Derrida
Corrected Edition
Translated by
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
The johns
Hopkins University Press
Baltimore and London
((iv))
Copyright © 1974, 1976, 1997 by The Johns Hopkins University Press All rights
reserved
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
First American edition, 1976
Originally published in France
under the title De la Grammatologie
Copyright © 1967 by Les Editions de Minuit
Johns Hopkins Paperbacks edition, 1976 Corrected edition, 1997 9 8 7
The Johns Hopkins University Press 2715 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363
www.press.jhu.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Derrida, Jacques.
Of grammatology.
Translation of De la grammatologie. Includes bibliographical references. i. Languages—
Philosophy. I. Title
Pio5.D53i3-i976- 410 76-17226 ISBN o-8oi8-1841-9 (hardcover) ISBN o-8o18-1879-6
(paperback)
ISBN o-8oî8-5830-5 (corrected edition)
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
((v))
Contents
Acknowledgments Translator’s Preface Preface
Part I
Writing before the Letter
Exergue
i. The End of the Book and the Beginning of Writing The Program
The Signifier and Truth
The Written Being/The Being Written
2.Linguistics and Grammatology The Outside and the Inside The OutsideX the Inside
The Hinge [La Brisure]
3.Of Grammatology as a Positive Science Algebra: Arcanum and Transparence Science and
the Name of Man
The Rebus
and the Complicity of Origins
Part II
Nature, Culture, Writing
Introduction to the “Age of Rousseau”
1.The Violence of the Letter: From Lévi-Strauss to Rousseau The Battle of Proper Names
Writing and Man’s Exploitation by Man
2.”. . . That Dangerous Supplement ...” From/Of Blindness to the Supplement The Chain of
Supplements
The Exorbitant. Question of Method
3. Genesis and Structure of the Essay on the Origin of Languages I. The Place of the
“Essay”
Writing, Political Evil, and Linguistic Evil
The Present Debate: The Economy of Pity
The Initial Debate and the Composition of the Essay
((vi))
II.Imitation 195
The Interval and the Supplement 195
The Engraving and the Ambiguities of Formalism zoo
The Turn of Writing 216
III.Articulation 229
“That Movement of the Wand . . .” 229
The Inscription of the Origin 242
The Neume 247 That “Simple Movement of the Finger.” Writing and the
Prohibition of Incest 255
4. From/Of the Supplement to the Source: The Theory of Writing 269
The Originary Metaphor 270
The History and System of Scripts 280
The Alphabet and Absolute Representation 295
The Theorem and the Theater 302
The Supplement of (at) the Origin 313
Notes 317
Index 355
((vii))
Acknowledgments
I thank Angelo Bertocci for having given me the idea for this translation. I thank Paul de Man
for his patient and penetrating criticism of the Translator’s Preface and the text, at a time
when his own schedule was so thoroughly besieged. I thank J. Hillis Miller for his advice, his
active encouragement, and his acute comments on the Translator’s Preface. I owe him
particular thanks for having introduced me to Derrida himself after I had been working on this
book for a year. I am grateful to John Brenkmen, Leone Stein, and Paul M. Wright for their
support during the early stages of the work. In the preparation of the translation, I have been
particularly helped by four painstaking and indefatigable bilingual readers: Jessie L. Hornsby,
Dori Katz, Richard Laden, Talbot Spivak. Pierre de Saint-Victor, the late Alexander Aspel,
Jacques Bourgeacq and Donald Jackson untied occasional knots. To all of them, a
considerable debt of gratitude is due. (The whole book is a gift for Talbot Spivak.) I thank
also the Carver Foundation at the University of Iowa for making it possible for me to go to
France in the summer of 1973 to discuss this book with Jacques Derrida. To Robert Scholes I
am grateful for having made it possible for me to teach a seminar on Derrida at Brown
University in the fall of 1974-75. At that seminar, especially through active exchange with
Bella Brodzky and Tom Claire, I staked out the ground for my Preface.
I am grateful to Peter Bacon for typing the first half of the manuscript and the Preface from
sometimes indecipherable copy. Pauline Crimson not only typed the rest, but always delivered
material at very short notice with-out complaint, and conscientiously copy-edited my pages. I
believe she came to feel a personal responsibility for the making of this book, and for that I
am most grateful. I thank Timothy Shipe for his able assistance.