Trace (deconstruction) - Heideggerian Dasein and Derridian Trace

Heideggerian Dasein and Derridian Trace

Derrida’s concept of Trace is quite similar to Heidegger’s concept of Dasein, although from different perspectives. Here, we see the relationship between Heideggerian existentialism and Derridian concept of “trace”, which, in turn, will also work as an indicator of a very close relationship between existentialism and deconstruction.

Derrida’s first indebtedness to Heidegger lies in his use of the notion of sous rature (‘under erasure’). To write 'Under erasure' is to write a word, cross it out, and then print both word and deletion. The word is inaccurate (which itself is an inaccurate word), hence the cross, yet the word is necessary, hence the printing of the word. This is one of the principal strategies of Derrida: “(possibility) of a discourse which borrows from a heritage the resources necessary for the deconstruction of that heritage itself”. This is similar to the concept of bricolage coined by anthropologist Lèvi-Strauss. Derrida himself explains:

Lèvi-Strauss will always remain faithful to this double-intention: to preserve as an instrument that whose truth-value he criticizes, conserving…..all these old concepts, while exposing….their limits, treating them as tools which can still be of use. No longer is any truth-value attributed to them; there is a readiness to abandon them if necessary if other instruments should appear more useful. In the meantime, their relative efficacy is exploited, and they are employed to destroy this old machinery to which they belong and of which they themselves are pieces.

However, now that we are done discussing this Derridian strategy, let us get back to the concept of sous rature. To understand it properly, we need to learn about Heidegger’s existentialist theories. In doing so, we will also explore the link between existentialism and structuralism. Heidegger said that the possibility of ‘being’, or what he called “Dasein” (meaning being-there), is the presupposition behind any definition, any defined entity. He comes to this decision through the general problem of definition: if anything is to be defined as an entity, then the question of Being, in general, have to be answered affirmatively at first. Before we can think and decide that something exists, we must acknowledge the fact that anything can be. This Being is not an answer to a question, as it predates any thought, or possibility of thought: if the subject of your thought “exists”, then the Being is always-already there. Yet, Heidegger refuses the metaphysicality of the word “Being”, and tries to keep it to the human realm by crossing it out. When Heidegger puts “Being” before all concepts, he is trying to put an end to a certain trend of Western philosophy that is obsessed about the origin, and by the same token, the end. Putting “Being” under erasure is an attempt by Heidegger to save his concept of “Being” from becoming the metaphysical origin and the eschatological end of all entities. Yet, by making “Dasein” or “Being” his master-word, his function-word, Heidegger, nonetheless, fails to do so. Heidegger’s concept of “Dasein” is similar to the Structuralist concept of the ‘signified’. To put it simply, in Structuralism, all signifiers are directly connected to an extra-linguistic signified, the invariable ones. To ‘mean’ anything, a signifier must presuppose a signified already-always outside it. This is what Derrida terms as the “transcendental signified”: as a signified, it belongs to the realm of language, but by being invariable, and by refusing any movement, it remains outside it . Dasein, by being under the erasure, claims to remain in the realm of physicality, but by being prior and anterior to any entity, and any thought, it remains outside them. In short, Heidegger’s idea of “Dasein” fails to overcome the metaphysical trap. Derrida takes almost a similar strategy. But in his case, he puts the concept of “trace” under erasure. Trace, unlike “Dasein”, is the absence of the presence, never itself the Master-word; it is the radically “other”, it plays within a certain structure of difference. To Derrida, sign is the play of identity and difference; half of the sign is always “not there”, and another half “not that” . The sign never leads to the extra-linguistic thing, it leads to another sign, one substituting the other playfully inside the structure of language. We do not feel the presence of a thing through a sign, but through the absence of other presences, we guess what it is. To Derrida, trace and not “being-there”, difference and not identity which creates meaning inside language. This is the main difference between Heideggerian Dasein and Derridian Trace.