Indiana University Press Transactions of The Charles S. Peirce Society

John Dewey, Jacques Derrida, and the Metaphysics of Presence
Author(s): Jim Garrison

Source: Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Spring, 1999), pp. 346-
372
Published by: Indiana University Press
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Jim Garrison
John Dewey, Jacques Derrida,

and the Metaphysics of Presence1
So far there has been little direct conversation about the relationship be-
tween John Dewey's philosophy of reconstruction and Jacques Derrida's de-
construction.2 My paper seeks to initiate such a conversation upon an impor-
tant topic about which they are in surprising agreement. Both reject what Der-
rida calls, borrowing from Martin Heidegger, the metaphysics of presence.
Recognizing that Dewey rejects traditional Western metaphysics helps to clarify
the metaphysics he does develop. I will discuss that metaphysics very little in
this paper.
Deconstruction, for Derrida, departs from and further develops Heideg-
ger's "destruction" in Being and Time. In this paper I begin with Heidegger's
"destruction" before turning to Derrida's detailed "deconstruction" of the
metaphysics of presence. I will then examine Dewey's 1909, "The Influence of
Darwinism on Philosophy" and his 1915, "The Subject-Matter of Metaphysical
Inquiry." That is enough to make my case, although I will make some refer-
ences to later works.
Heidegger's Destruction of the Metaphysics of Presence

Virtually all forms of Western metaphysics are variants of the metaphysics
of presence; it is metaphysics of this sort that Heidegger seeks to overcome.
Among philosophical progenitors, Derrida concedes, "Heidegger is probably
the most constant influence, and particularly his project of 'overcoming' Greek
metaphysics."3 Derrida expands on themes first introduced by Heidegger in
Sections 5, 6, and 7 of Being and Time.
Traditional metaphysics places ultimate ontology somewhere beyond time,
contingency, and change. In Section 5, Heidegger resolves that his "treatment
of the question of the meaning of Being must enable us to show that the cen-
tral problematic of all ontology is rooted in the phenomena of time, if rightly seen
and rightly explained, and we must show how this is the case."4 "Temporal
quality" is a trait of all existences in Dewey's later metaphysics, but it will not
be investigated in this paper.5
Section 6 of Being and Time announces the "destruction of the history of
Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society

Spring, 1999, Vol. XXXV, No. 2
347 Jim Garrison
ontology."6 One may read Derrida as continuing this destruction by relying on

his special technique of deconstruction. Temporality makes history possible;
the history of Western metaphysics eliminates temporality thereby hiding its
own history. "Tradition," Heidegger states, "takes what has come down to us
and delivers it over to self-evidence."7 In Western ontology, "Entities are
grasped in their Being as 'presence'; this means that they are understood with
regard to a definite mode of time - the 'Present'."8 This is the metaphysics of
presence, the doctrine of eternal, immutable presence that conceals and denies
temporality, contingency, and change supposedly yielding objects of indubita-
ble knowledge.
Heidegger continues Section 6 by proclaiming:
The problematic of Greek ontology, like that of any other,

must take its clues from ... man's Being ... as that living
thing whose Being is essentially determined by the potenti-
ality for discourse ... This is why the ancient ontology ...
turns into 'dialectic'. As the ontologica! clue gets progres-
sively worked out - namely, in the hermeneutic of the
.YOC - it becomes increasingly possible to grasp the prob-
lem of Being in a more radical fashion.9
Here Heidegger introduces the hermeneutic method of investigation so influ-

ential on many others, especially Hans-Georg Gadamer. I mention it because it
leads quickly to Derrida's notions of logocentrism and phonocentrism dis-
cussed below.
Heidegger develops the concept of logos further in Section 7. He explains,

"The Ax>yo lets something be seen ... namely, what the discourse is about."10
This passage identifies the close association between logic and discourse typical
of, say, the Socratic dialogues of Plato. This sense of logos appears in John 1:1
in the Christian Bible as the spoken word of God. This "letting be seen" intro-
duces the notion of true or false where truth means allowing something to be
seen and being false "amounts to deceiving in the sense of covering up."11
Here Heidegger introduces the ancient Greek term altheia or truth as uncon-
cealment. Understood in this way, "the sheer sensory perception of something
is 'true' in the Greek sense, and indeed more primordally than the logos which
we have been discussing."12 The Deweyan pragmatist may read this critique of
the metaphysics of presence as an in depth exposure of the spectator theory of
meaning and truth and the faulty metaphysics that sustains it. Dewey and Hei-
degger are in considerable agreement on this point.
Dewey, Derrida, and the Metaphysics of Presence 348
Language, the Transcendental Signified, and the Quest for Certainty

Derrida deconstructs anything, transcendental consciousness, transcendent
object, or Deity that presents itself as some kind of cosmic fixed point, eternal
truth, or unalterable meaning. Dewey insists, "The eternal and immutable is
the consummation of mortal man's quest for certainty."13 Derrida in effect de-
constructs the quest for certainty by deconstructing the quest for what he calls
"the transcendental signified," the belief that there is some eternal, immutable,
and final reference for discourse, writing, or inquiry. I will concentrate on two
early works. The first is Speech and Phenomena, which is a deconstruction of
Edmund Husserl's transcendental phenomenology. The second is OfGramma-
tology which deconstructs the quest for certainty in a number of other guises.14
In Cartesian Meditations Husserl announces that "one might almost call
transcendental phenomenology a neo-Cartesianism."15 He seeks to put phi-
losophy "on an absolute foundation."16 In many ways Derrida does for
Husserl's neo-Cartesian quest for certainty what Peirce did for Cartesianism in
such works as "Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man."17
Like Peirce, Derrida thinks that there is no unmediated, immediate access to
consciousness or its objects; Derrida also denies that we can think without
signs. The following passage may surprise the reader:
Peirce goes very far in the direction that I have called the
de-construction of the transcendental signified, which, at
one time or another, would place a reassuring end to the
reference from sign to sign. I have identified logocentrism
and the metaphysics of presence as the exigent, powerful,
systematic, and irrepressible desire for a signified.18
This passage is an allusion to such passages in Peirce as we find at the conclu-

sion of "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities," titled "Man, A Sign,"
where we read:
[M]an can think only by means of words or other external

symbols .... [M]en and words reciprocally educate each
other .... [T]here is no element whatever of man's con-
sciousness which has not something corresponding to it in
the word; and the reason is obvious. It is that the word or
sign which man uses is the man himself ... Thus my lan-
guage is the sum total of myself; for the man is the
thought.19
It is impossible to eliminate the role of signs, words, and language from the
search for our selves and the objects of our thought. Consciousness has no im-
mediate unmediated presence either to itself or its objects. How absurd this
349 Jim Garrison
statement must have sounded to Peirce's readers in 1868. Ironically, when

Derrida says very similar things almost exactly one hundred years later some
pragmatists dismiss them. Such a semiotics devastates the metaphysics of pres-
ence involved in the Cartesian philosophy of consciousness. This philosophy,
like all other forms of modern epistemology, assumes a dualism between some
psychic subject (and its ideas) and the material object or phenomena that cor-
responds with, fulfills, or otherwise satisfies those ideas. In traditional episte-
mology representations (ideas), signs, and language mediate between subject
and object, but are eliminated when the subject corresponds to, is in the pres-
ence of, its object (the transcendental signified). Derrida effectively undermines
the possibility of eliminating signs and signification by deconstructing the tran-
scendental signified, the ultimate referent of our ideas and thoughts.
Dewey, borrowing from Peirce as well, also emphasizes the importance of
signs, signification, and language for thought:
[T]he very word logic comes from logos (A.oyo), meaning

indifferently both word or speech, and thought or rea-
son .... Gestures, pictures, monuments, visual images, fin-
ger movements - anything consciously employed as a sign
is, logically, language. To say that language is necessary for
thinking is to say that signs are necessary.20
Dewey resembles Derrida in remarking on the way many seem to hold that
signs and symbols distort pure thought. Dewey writes, "The conviction that
language is necessary to thinking ... is met by the contention that language
perverts and conceals thought."21 It is against the background of the prominent
role played by signs, symbols, logos, and language in Dewey's philosophy, as
well as his rejection of the quest for certainty, that I urge the reader to consider
what Derrida has to say.
Husserl seeks to provide philosophy with "an absolutely rational ground-
ing" by striving to follow Descartes in turning toward "the subject himself."22
For convenience, I call this philosophical egocentrism. Husserl develops a pro-
gram for investigating consciousness and its objects. The goal is to find the
purely rational, fixed, and final foundations of philosophy in the indubitable
ideas generated by consciousness, ideas that constitute the ideal objects of
knowledge. Regarding Husserl, Derrida remarks:
There is no ideality without there being an Idea in the

Kantian sense at work, opening up the possibility of some-
thing indefinite, the infinity of a stipulated progression or
the infinity of permissible repetitions. This ideality is the
very form in which the presence of an object in general
may be indefinitely repeated as the same.23
Formal ideas, mental structures, what Husserl calls "noesis," provided the im-
mutable structure that assures perfect self-same identity. Noetic analysis de-
scribes the subjective intentions of consciousness. The "noema" is the object of
subjective intention described and analyzed phenomenologically.
Husserl inscribes a dualism between the purely formal subjective intention,
or noesis, and its objective fulfilling intuition, or noema.24 In this system ideas,
representations, or "noesis" mediate between transcendental consciousness and
its object. When the representation, or "noema" corresponds exactly with its
fulfilling intuition, consciousness is in the direct unmediated presence of its
content. The meaning is given by the empty intention as constituted by con-
sciousness whether it is filled in by experience or not. Through a process he
calls "eidetic analysis" of subjective intentionality, Husserl believed it possible
to arrive at apodectic, necessary truths and the essence, or eidos, of things.
The fulfilling intuition may be either imaginary or actually existing objects.
The necessary truth and essential self-identity of phenomenal objects (noema)
are given when we see that they correspond exactly with the objects previously
given in the empty intention (noesis). Self-consciousness emerges only in rela-
tion to its fulfilling intuition and essential self-identity depends on intuitions
"whose presence," according to Derrida, "it can keep and repeat."25 Inquiry,
including inquiry into one's own essence, is determined, in the end, by arriving
at an object immediately present to our subjectivity. In such a dualistic system,
"The eidos is determined in depth by the telos"26 At the end of philosophic in-
quiry lie the eternal, immutable essences. The very idea of epistemology, in-
cluding self-knowledge, assumes the metaphysics of presence.
Psychic thoughts, ideal meanings, purely formal empty intentions, or no-
esis become symbolic intentions when materially instantiated as signs and lan-
guage. For Husserl, all mediating signs are eliminated when the noesis is in the
immediate and unmediated presence of its fulfilling noematic intuition. Derrida
writes, "Husserl had, in a most traditional manner, determined the essence of
language by taking the logical as its telos or norm. That this telos is that of be-
ing as presence is what we here wish to suggest."27 Signs, for Husserl, mediate
between and serve as substitutes for the actual experience of immediately pres-
ent truth; they are, therefore, eliminable.
The supposedly pure a priori laws of logic, what Dewey often disparaged
as "apart thought," establish the general grammar, the grammatology, of
HusserPs theory of language.28 Grammatology concerns itself with investigat-
ing the play of signs; it is a general theory of writing in its most abstract and
general sense. This theory is constructed beyond the conventional rules of logic
or grammar alone; indeed, part of the theory's task is to interrogate the tradi-
tional canon of correct writing. His concern is with exposing hidden logical
and epistemological prejudices such as foundationalism, fixed centers, the quest
for the final elimination of signification (the transcendental signified), the quest
for certainty, etc., that all rely on the metaphysics of presence.
351 Jim Garrison
The recovery of rejected possibilities for the creation of meaning is another

concern. Husserl's approach, for instance, rejects the possibility of linguistic
contradiction, among other things. Derrida, though, wonders, "Speech, to be
sure, must make sense; but do falsity and the absurdity of contradiction . . . nec-
essarily make it unintelligible?"29 Molly Bloom's unpunctuated soliloquy at the
end of James Joyce's Ulysses seems to make sense however illogical. It is on
such occasions as this that writers and literary critics rightly find philosophy
lacking in its portrayal of life as we live it. Derrida thinks it is a criticism of phi-
losophy, and especially metaphysics and modern epistemology, that they con-
cern themselves primarily with completing the quest for the transcendental sig-
nified. Dewey too would never accept a philosophy inadequate to the arts of
life.
The problem is that the quest cannot be completed in a living, empirical,
world, it requires some eternal and immutable transcendental signified; some-
thing that escapes the play of signs in language. Derrida describes what is re-
quired:
Self-presence must be produced in the undivided unity of a

temporal present so as to have nothing to reveal to itself by
the agency of signs. Such a perception or intuition of self
by self in presence would not only be the case where
"signification" in general could not occur, but also would
assure the general possibility of a primordial perception or
intuition .... Later, whenever Husserl wants to stress the
sense of primordial intuition, he will recall that it is the ex-
perience of the absence and uselessness of signs.30
Husserl wants what Descartes wants, and what Peirce shows is impossible. In
1868 Peirce asks:
Question 1. Whether by the simple contemplation of a cogni-

tion, independently of any previous knowledge and without
reasoning from signs, we are enabled rightly to judge whether
that cognition has been determined by a previous cognition or
whether it refers immediately to its object?1
Husserl, with Descartes and almost all of modern philosophy, thinks the an-
swer to this question is yes; Peirce, Dewey, and Derrida think the answer is no.
Deconstructing Husserl's egocentric dualism is the primary task of Speech and
Phenomena while Of Grammatology simply expands the scope of deconstruc-
tion to other philosophical systems. Together they provide a devastating cri-
tique of modern epistemology and the entire tradition of Western metaphysics.
They may also be read as providing a detailed account of Peirce's claim that it
is impossible to think without signs.

Derrida's deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence goes beyond Hei-
degger's by exploring in novel ways the ancient connection between the logos,
dialogue as speech, and the objects speech is about. Logocentrism, for Derrida,
just means the immediate presence of a perfectly self-identical meaning or ob-
ject; especially the immediately present object of pure knowledge. Logocen-
trism presumes that inquiry may arrive at an immediately present, self-identical
object of thought or reason. The quest for certainty assumes the perfect self-
identities of logocentrism. Phonocentrism, for Derrida, refers to the immediate
self-presence of the knower's voice in speaking the word that names the imme-
diately present self-identical object of knowledge. I will use logocentrism and
phonocentrism, as well as egocentrism, to explicate Derrida's technique of de-
construction
What follows is Derrida's description of Husserl's phenomenology; it could

as well describe any of the modern attempts to complete the quest for cer-
tainty:
We Have Experienced the systematic interdependence of

the concepts of sense, ideality, objectivity, truth, intuition,
perception and expression. Their common matrix is being
as presence-, the absolute proximity of self- identity, the be-
ing-in-front of the object available for repetition, the main-
tenance of the temporal present, whose ideal form is the
self-presence of transcendental lifey whose ideal identity
allows idealiter of infinite repetition ... [Everything that is
purely thought in this concept is thereby determined as ide-
ality .J1
Husserl is devoted to the spectator theory of meaning, dualism, and the corre-
spondence theory of truth. Logocentrism is the intimate union of perfect self-
identity; its premier epistemological instance is the identity of knower and
known (or subject and object) unmediated by any form of representation
wherein the knower is so intimately related to the known as to become indis-
tinguishable. It is the immediate, unmediated presence to consciousness
(thought, ideas, etc.) of eternal, immutable essences {eidos). Alternative episte-
mologies are distinguished by whether eternal essences are placed in Nature
(common to many forms of naturalism that Dewey rejects, e.g., Herbert
Spencer, or would have rejected, e.g. W.V.O. Quine), in the Transcendent
(Platonic Heaven, God, etc.), or in the Transcendental categories of conscious-
ness and thought (Kant and Husserl). Derrida, like Dewey, rejects the entire
metaphysical and epistemological project of traditional philosophy. The so-
called linguistic turn does not necessarily allay the problem as long as language
(propositions) are assumed representative of the world after the manner of
353 Jim Garrison
Frege and Russell. Logocentrism is the ecstasy of indubitable knowledge that

ends the epistemologist's quest.
Phonocentrism, for Derrida, refers to immediate self-presence of the
knower's voice in speaking the word that names the immediately present self-
identical thing that is known. It privileges logos as the spoken word over logos as
written sign. Derrida brings the metaphysics of presence, logocentrism, and
phonocentrism together in the following passage:
[LJogocentrism which is also a phonocentrism: absolute

proximity of voice and being, of voice and the meaning of
being, of voice and the ideality of meaning ....
[PJhonocentrism merges with the historical determination
of the meaning of being in general as presence ... presence
of the thing to sight as eidos presence as substance/
essence/existence (obis), temporal presence as point ... of
the now ... co-presence of the other and the self .... Logo-
centrism would thus support the determination of the be-
ing of the entity as presence.33
The metaphysics of presence, logocentrism, and phonocentrism are not esoteric

notions, although some of Derrida's followers seek to mystify us with them.
We now turn to the core of Derrida's deconstruction of the metaphysics of
presence and the tools used to accomplish it, "diffrance," "trace," and
"supplement."
Deconstructing the Metaphysics of Presence: Traces of Diffrance

Derrida distinguishes two senses of the verb "to differ." One sense indi-
cates the different; it "signifies nonidentity" or "distinction, inequality, or dis-
cernibili ty."34 The other sense indicates deferral; "it expresses the interposition
of delay, the interval of a spacing and temporalizing that puts off until 'later'
what is presently denied, the possible that is presently impossible."35 Derrida
uses the term "diffrance" to designate "this sameness which is not identical."*6
Ernest Nagel championed logocentrism as Derrida understands it. That
Dewey did not is very evident from an exchange he had with Nagel.37 Dewey
distinguishes carefully between existence and essence.38 Dewey's point is those
logical laws, such as the law of excluded middle, are purely formal. They, "are
applicable only to formal or non-existential subject matter" and confusion
arises "when they are directly applied as criteria or rules in a philosophy of
physical or existential affairs."39 He reminds us of the important distinction be-
tween universal and particular propositions and that "the latter alone are exis-
tential in import, the former being hypothetical or of the 'if-then' type."40
Dewey concludes, "The principle of excluded middle is assuredly, along with
those of identity and contradiction, the content of a universal proposition..."41

On this occasion what is most important to us is to note that purely formal
identity does not have direct existential import according to Dewey.
An important part of the debate turns on Nagel confronting Dewey with
the supposedly perfect existential self-identity provided by special kinds of
propositions called operational definitions. A door can, Nagel insists, be de-
fined operationally such that either it is or it is not shut. Dewey's response is
instructive: "This operational definition is precisely what constitutes the object
of thought, and its absence from prior existence is just why the properties of
excluded middle do not characterize, and may not be assigned to, the strictly
existential door."42 Identities are formal idealities; they are created not discov-
ered; therefore, they lack transcendental signification.43
The operations of inquiry, including operational definitions, establish
something as identical for all the functional purposes of the inquiry; change the
purposes and you may change the identity.44 Derrida probably learned this les-
son from Nietzsche.45 Dewey may have figured it out the same way Nietzsche
did, by critiquing Hegel's critique of Kant.46 To confuse the idealized product
of inquiry with an antecedent metaphysical state of affairs is a terrible mistake.
This is such a serious error that Dewey coined the term uthe philosophic fal-
lacy" to describe "the conversion of eventual functions into antecedent exis-
tence."47 A common instance of the fallacy is to convert the stabilized conse-
quences of inquiry (essences, necessity, etc.) into antecedent metaphysical exis-
tence. This is usually accompanied by hypostatization of the ideal form arrived
at by inquiry into some kind of metaphysical entity. The philosophic fallacy ac-
companied by hypostatization results in an idealized fixed form (essence or ei-
dos) that erases all trace of difference, of creative inquiry, and of making differ-
ent things function as "the same" for our practical purposes.
Before discussing the notion of "trace," let us first take up that of supple-
ment. Derrida describes the notion of supplement thus:
[W]hat is supplementary is in reality difference the opera-

tion of differing which at one and the same time both fis-
sures and retards presence, submitting it simultaneously to
primordial division and delay. Difference is to be conceived
prior to the separation between differing as delay and dif-
fering as the active work of difference .... The supplemen-
tary difference vicariously stands in for presence . . . .48
The supplement is a sign or representation of reality, of perfect, ideal, and self-

identical presence. Derrida states:
We ordinarily state that a sign is put in place of the thing

itself, the present thing - "thing" holding here for the
355 Jim Garrison
sense as well as the referent. Signs represent the present in

its absence; they take the place of the present in its ab-
sence ...49
The supplement is precisely what epistemology seeks to replace with the imme-
diate, eternal, and immutable essence and identity, the transcendental signified,
even if that reality only exists for an instant. The problem of epistemology is
solved when the sign or representation is eliminated and consciousness, or its
idea, is in immediate self-identical union with its transcendent objects.
Believing that we will be presented with timeless and unchangeable truth
at the end of inquiry (or history) is simply a variant of the metaphysics of pres-
ence. So, too, is the belief that we will be restored to some primordial pristine
state. Derrida notes:
Now this classical determination presupposes that the sign

(which defers presence) is conceivable only on the basis of
the presence that it defers and in view /the deferred pres-
ence one intends to reappropriate .... Yet we could no
longer even call it primordial or final, inasmuch as the
characteristics of origin, beginning, telos, eschaton^ etc.,
have always denoted presence - ousia, parousia, etc.50
The latter half of this passage lists a large array of familiar metaphysical ideas
comprising, in part, the metaphysics of presence. However long delayed, many
take comfort in their confidence that the quest for certainty becomes complete
in the presence of an eternal unchanging eidos either at the origin or the end of
the world. Below we will see that Dewey explicitly rejects every idea Derrida
identifies as making up the metaphysics of presence.
Many terribly misunderstand what Derrida means by the "transcendental
signified;" therefore, it is worth further clarifying his exact intent. Most com-
monly he is read as saying that there is nothing outside a text; such a facile
reading readily turns him into a linguistic idealist. Yet Derrida himself insists,
"I never cease to be surprised by critics who see my work as a declaration that
there is nothing beyond language, that we are imprisoned in language ..."51
Let us examine one of the most offensive sounding passages, but include parts
of the paragraph usually omitted:
Yet if reading ... cannot legitimately transgress the text to-

ward something other than it, toward a referent (a reality
that is metaphysical ... or) toward a signified outside the
text .... [W]e have ... the absence of the referent or the
transcendental signified. There is nothing outside of the
text .... [W]e have access to their so-called "real" existence
only in the text and we have neither any means of altering

this, nor any right to neglect this limitation.52
If we take text and writing here to mean a system of signs, symbols, and lan-
guage, things clarify themselves considerably for pragmatists influenced by
Peirce's semiotics. Derrida is simply trying to avoid egocentrism, logocentrism,
and phonocentrism as well as the quest for certainty and something closely re-
sembling "the philosophic fallacy." For Dewey, things, essences, or necessity do
not lie outside the texts and contexts of the inquiries that produce them.53 No
good comes from confusing metaphysical existence with linguistic meaning or
logical essence. That does not mean Derrida or Dewey reject reference; exactly
what they do mean, though, is beyond the scope of my paper. They do agree
that reference is what is signified, although there is no transcendental signified.
To fully understand Derrida's deconstruction of the transcendental signi-
fied we must dig a bit deeper; this leads to a discussion of the notion of trace.
Initially, what Derrida says is difficult to follow:
The trace is not a presence but is rather the simulacrum of

a presence that dislocates, displaces, and refers beyond it-
self. The trace has, properly speaking, no place, for efface-
ment belongs to the very structure of the trace .... The ef-
facing of this early trace ... of difference is therefore "the
same" as its tracing within the text of metaphysics. This
metaphysical text must have retained a mark of what it lost
or put in reserve, set aside.54
Fundamentally, "the trace" follows the series of substitutions that help make
up the play of difference (difference and deferral). That is why ultimately, "The
(pure) trace is differ ance"**
Egocentrism, logocentrism, and phonocentrism all fail to eliminate the
need for symbolic mediation. Peirce, Dewey, and Derrida agree that all
thought about everything requires linguistic mediation. There is no transcen-
dental signified, nor is there any fixed, immovable center to any system. Der-
rida describes the notion of center, "As center, it is the point at which the sub-
stitution of contents, elements, or terms is no longer possible. At the center,
the permutation or the transformation of elements ... is forbidden."56 The cen-
ter sets in motion an endless play of sign and signified, but the center itself
never appears, that is why it can, and must, always be deconstructed. In such a
system, "the original or transcendental signified, is never absolutely present
outside a system of differences. The absence of the transcendental signified ex-
tends the domain and the play of signification infinitely."57
Dewey and Derrida agree that we cannot complete the quest for certainty,
for ultimate foundations, for the eternal and immutable transcendental signi-
357 Jim Garrison
fled. The promise is false, though the need is real; Derrida expresses it this way:
The concept of centered structure is in fact the concept of

a play based on a fundamental ground, a play constituted
on the basis of a fundamental immobility and a reassuring
certitude, which itself is beyond the reach of play. And on
the basis of this certitude anxiety can be mastered ...58
Dewey understood the connection between the quest for ua reassuring certi-
tude" and the relief of anxiety well:
The quest for certainty is a quest for peace which is as-

sured, an object which is unqualified by risk and the
shadow of fear .... For it is not uncertainty per se which
men dislike, but the fact that uncertainty involves us in
peril of evils.59
The quest for metaphysical certainty, the transcendental signified, and cosmic
centeredness originate in mortal concern. Existential insecurity foments "the
philosophic fallacy," the search for the immovable centers, and hypostatization.
Derrida concludes his consideration of centerdness and certainty with this
comment:
[T]he entire history of the concept of structure ....

must be thought of as a series of substitutions of center for
center .... The history of metaphysics ... is the history of
these metaphors and metonymies. Its matrix ... is the deter-
mination of Being as presence in all senses of this word. It
could be shown that all names related to fundamentals, to
principles, or to the center have always designated an in-
variable presence - eidos, arche, energeia, ousia (essence,
existence, substance, subject) ...60
These are all very familiar philosophical concepts. Eidos designate

characteristic form, property, or essence. Arche refers to ultimate
dations, or first principles. Energeia is the functioning of a laten
potential to achieve its fulfillment and actualization. It conjoin
telecheia,, that is, the latent capacity or force to achieve p
actualization. For instance, a properly functioning acorn will, su
come a giant oak. Telos refers to completion; end, or purpose; it
with entelecheia. Ousia refers to ultimate entity, subject, or, (perhap
less accurately) substance. Using passages already very familiar
scholars, it is easy to show that Dewey rejected every fundamental p
sociated with the metaphysics of presence in the above cited passage.
Dewey' s Copernican Revolution: Decentering the Metaphysics of Presence

Dewey rejects the metaphysics of presence in the guise of a naturalism so
prosaic and plain spoken it is difficult to notice he effects a "Copernican revo-
lution."61 Dewey, unlike Derrida, assiduously avoided neologisms; perhaps he
should have invented words like diffrance to convey the remarkable ideas he
sought to convey, although I doubt it would have helped much.62 In any case,
Dewey intends to foment revolution, and that involves destruction, if not de-
construction; consider:
Neither self nor world, neither soul nor nature (in the
sense of something isolated and finished in its isolation) is
the centre [sic], any more than either earth or sun is the
absolute centre of a single universal and necessary frame of
reference. There is a moving whole of interacting parts; a
centre emerges wherever there is effort to change them in a
particular direction .... Mind is no longer a spectator ....
The mind is within the world as a part of the latter 's own
ongoing process.63
Dewey's emphasis is always on reconstruction rather than destruction or de-

construction; we should not, however, mistake his reserve for temerity.
Dewey never raises his voice even as he puts the metaphysical fictions con-
structed to satisfy the egocentric need for certainty (eidos, arche, telos, en-
telecheia, ousia) into endless, and often erratic, motion. In part, I think, this is
because he thought participants in the universe's existential adventure should
feel bold, though deliberate, as they embark. The existential task is to create a
cosmos from chaos by guiding indeterminate events in new directions that pro-
mote prosperity. Directing the course of events is the office of inquiry.
Ralph Sleeper remarks that Dewey clearly distinguished "the theory of in-
quiry and the theory of existence, as well as the theory of language that links
them."64 "The subject-matter of metaphysics," notes Sleeper, "is existence."65
The subject matter of logic is essences and identities. Dewey clearly stated that
"there is a natural bridge that joins the gap between existence and essence;
namely communication, language, discourse."66 Derrida shuns naturalism and
empiricism; he prefers to stay on the bridge. Still, he is right about the meta-
physics of presence. Here is how Dewey describes the relation between exis-
tence and essence:
Essence ... is but a pronounced instance of [linguistic]

meaning; to be partial, and to assign a meaning to a thing
as the meaning is but to evince human subjection to bias ....
359 Jim Garrison
Essence is never existence, and yet it is the essence, the dis-

tilled import of existence: the significant thing about it, its
intellectual voucher ...67
Jean Paul Sartre thought existence preceded essence only for human beings.
For Dewey, the existence versus essence distinction included all being, al-
though only beings capable of language and logic (inquiry into inquiry) could
bridge it, and know they have bridged it. I call attention to this distinction be-
cause Dewey transfers many of the functions normally associated with th
metaphysics of presence to language, inquiry, or logic.
Dewey's "Copernican revolution" is perhaps better described as the Dar-
winian revolution extended into the realm of philosophy. He invites this read
ing in passages from "The Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy" such as the
following:
The conception that had reigned in the philosophy of na-

ture and knowledge for two thousand years ... rested on
the assumption of the superiority of the fixed and final ....
In laying hands upon the sacred ark of absolute perma-
nency, in treating forms that had been regarded as types of
fixity and perfection as originating and passing away, the
Origin of Species introduced a mode of thinking that in the
end was bound to transform the logic of knowledge, and
hence the treatment of morals, politics and religion.68
Dewey might well have added metaphysics. Traditional metaphysics places ulti
mate ontology somewhere beyond time, contingency, and change. Dewey con
verts the primary subject matter of ontological metaphysics (eidos, forms, and
essences) into the subject matter of logic. Essence is a product of inquiry an
not an antecedent existence into whose immediate presence it is the task of in-
quiry to conduct us.
A species is the ultimate ontological subject of evolutionary theory. Dewey
did for essences what Darwin did for species. For classical philosophy, Dewey
declares, "The conception of eio, species, a fixed form and final cause, was
the central principle of knowledge as well as of nature. Upon it rested the logic
of science."69 After Darwin, Dewey insists elsewhere, "natural science is forced
by its own development to abandon the assumption of fixity and to recogniz
that what for it is actually 'universal' is process ...."70 A species is an eidos
Dewey, like Derrida, recognizes the determination of eidos by telos when he
states that "the classic notion of species carried with it the idea of purpose."71
Estimates are that 99% of all species that have ever existed are now ex-
tinct.72 Dewey's neo-Darwinian insight is to realize what holds for biological
forms or essences also hold for linguistic meanings and logical forms as well
Dewey insisted that "even the solid earth mountains, the emblems of con-
stancy, appear and disappear like the clouds .... A thing may endure secula
seculorum and yet not be everlasting; it will crumble before the gnawing tooth
of time, as it exceeds a certain measure. Every existence is an event."73 By the
time Dewey finishes reconstructing eidos it is not only a stridently temporal,
completely contingent, concept, it is also no longer even in the domain of
metaphysics.
Existence for Dewey is an event. An extended discussion of Dewey's no-
tion of existential events would take us farther into his positive metaphysics
than we have space for in this paper; still, it is worth discussing briefly. There is
nothing fixed and final in a Darwinian universe. In Dewey's philosophy, exis-
tence or "nature is viewed as consisting of events rather than substances, it is
characterized by histories .... Consequently, it is natural for genuine initiations
and consummations to occur in experience."74 For Dewey, existence, the sub-
ject matter of metaphysics, is events; it is about processes, not ultimate sub-
stances (ousia). Dewey's Darwinian intuition is that everything, existences, and
their distilled import, essences, is in flux, everything changes; whatever is con-
structed will someday be either intellectually deconstructed or physically de-
stroyed.
Dewey probably derived his thinking about essences from William James
who rejects any notion of permanent fixed essence or identity for inquiry to
discover; for him there is no perfect end of inquiry, only practical purposes.
James insists:
fTJhe only meaning of essence is teleoloicaU and that classi-

fication and conception are purely teleoloical weapons of the
mind. The essence of a thing is that one of its properties
which is so important for my interests that in comparison
with it I may neglect the rest.75
Questioning the purposes for which they were initially constructed can decon-
struct any scheme of essences, classifications, or conceptions. Reinterpret the
purpose, redefine the problem, question the value, and one may pragmatically
reconstruct an essence quickly.76 There is a telos to pragmatic essences, but it is
practical, temporal, and contingent, not metaphysical, atemporal, and neces-
sary.
Strangely, James continues to comprehend necessity and causation as
metaphysical. Dewey does for necessity and causation what James did for es-
sences. Sleeper observes: "The [scientific] explanation has not so much been
'discovered' as 'produced' by the process of inquiry. The character of
'necessity,' therefore, is 'purely teleologicaP and Contingent."77 Both contin-
gency and necessity are moments in the continuous movement of inquiry:
361 Jim Garrison
Contingent and necessary are thus the correlative aspects of

one and the same fact .... Contingency referring to the
separation of means from end ... necessity being the refer-
ence of means to an end which has still to be got. Neces-
sary means needed; contingency means no longer re-
quired - because already enjoyed.78
Dewey understands necessity "only with reference to the development of judg-

ment, not with reference to objective things or events."79 Following James'
treatment of essences, Dewey comprehends necessity as a logical and not an
ontological concept. Necessary laws are dependent on the inquirer's purposes
and, therefore, are endlessly subject to deconstruction. Dewey's view of neces-
sity helps undermine the sense of energeia and entelecheia found in the meta-
physics of presence.
Dewey includes the idea of causation in his analysis of necessity: "We call it
'means and ends' when we set up a result to be reached in the future ... we call
it 'cause and effect' when the 'result' is given and the search for means is a re-
gressive one."80 Again he affirms "the supreme importance of our practical in-
terests."81 As with formal essences (eidos) and necessity (part of the arche),
Dewey assimilates causation (energeia, entelecheia, or telos) to logic not meta-
physics. Dewey's strategy seems one of draining the swamp of Western meta-
physics into the basin of logic until it is fit for habitation.
The following passage drains off a great deal: "Philosophy forswears in-
quiry after absolute origins and absolute finalities in order to explore specific
values and the specific conditions that generate them."82 There is no ultimate
cosmic beginning (arche) or ending (telos) in Dewey's naturalistic Darwinian
world any more than there is in Derrida's deconstructive one. Origins and tele-
ology, including entelecheia, like eidos, are only comprehensible within the con-
text of purposeful logical inquiry, not metaphysics.
Dewey effectively rejects the quest for the transcendental signified:
Once admit that the sole verifiable or fruitful object of

knowledge is the particular set of changes that generate the
object of study, together with the consequences that then
flow from it, and no intelligible question can be asked
about what, by assumption, lies outside.83
Objects of knowledge, essences, necessity, causation, etc., do not exist outside

the confines of inquiry. This is the direction of the transformation in philoso-
phy to be wrought by the Darwinian genetic and experimental logic.84 Dewey
repudiated the claim of "absolutistic philosophies" that declaims "a type of
philosophic knowing distinct from that of the sciences, one which opens to us
another kind of reality from that to which the sciences give access."85 Dewey's
naturalism refuses to extend itself beyond the contingent products of disci-

plined inquiry conducted for finite human purposes. Small wonder Dewey's
theory of inquiry is largely ignored; ironically, it is degraded for some of the
same reasons many depreciate Derrida.
Reconstructing the Subject Matter of Metaphysical Inquiry:

Evolutionary Change, Diversity, and Interaction
We have established that Dewey entirely rejected the metaphysics of pres-
ence at least as early as 1909. All that remains is to indicate how this rejection
influences the reconstruction of metaphysics he begins to consider in 1915.
Early in his career Dewey adhered to neo-Hegelianism, but eventually
drifted away.86 As he did, Dewey ceased to write about metaphysics at all. Hav-
ing abandoned Hegelianism he also abandoned the idea of the Absolute, of ul-
timate cosmic purpose (telos or entelecheia)^ or any ultimate eschatology, fulfill-
ing itself in history. Dewey acknowledges the work of James "entered into my
thinking so as to give it a new direction and quality."87 That direction would
certainly have to be away from the philosophical idealism exemplified in his
psychological text of 1887.88 My conjecture is that "The Superstition of Ne-
cessity" in 1893 represents the first major product of Dewey's engagement
with James while the publication by Dewey and his collaborators of the 1903
Studies in Logical Theory represents the end of his drifting.89 By then an increas-
ingly naturalized Dewey is completely free of idealism. By the time Dewey
writes "The Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy" he is completely confident
in his naturalism and his naturalistic theory of inquiry, so he is very dismissive
of traditional metaphysical attitudes and ideas. During these years Dewey for-
mulates no positive metaphysical stance of his own. Having drained the meta-
physical swamp no later than 1909, Dewey does not survey the land for six
more years; even then it is another decade before he builds anything on it.
What he eventually constructs bears no resemblance to the metaphysics of pres-
ence. Those such as Richard Rorty who critique Dewey for holding such a
metaphysics are simply mistaken.90
Dewey's 1915 "The Subject-Matter of Metaphysical Inquiry" considers the
prospects for metaphysics after all of the constituents associated with the meta-
physics of presence have been reconstructed and turned over to science
(inquiry) and logic (inquiry into inquiry). Dewey announces the results of his
survey in his conclusion:
I am not concerned to develop a metaphysics; but simply

to indicate one way of conceiving the problem of meta-
physical inquiry as distinct from that of the special sciences,
a way which settles upon the more ultimate traits of the
world as defining its subject-matter, but which frees these
traits from confusion with ultimate origins and ultimate
363 Jim Garrison
ends - that is, from questions of creation and eschatol-

ogy.1
Here we have our first view of what a decade later Dewey calls the "generic
traits of existence." Dewey now thinks it possible to say something about exis-
tence at large beyond what the special sciences and logic have to say. Some-
thing else is happening here that is crucial for Dewey's subsequent reconstruc-
tion.
Dewey is drawing a careful distinction between the subject-matter of sci-

ence or logic and the subject-matter of metaphysics. Further, there is no sub-
ject-matter, scientific, logical, or metaphysical that deals with the eternal and
immutable because no such things, forms, or eidos exist, hence it is impossible
to secure their presence. Questions of arche, energeia, telos, entelecheia, ousia,
etc. are now understood in terms of their functioning in ordinary inquiry and
relinquish their metaphysical connotations entirely. Dewey notes:
Hence it may be said that a question about ultimate origin

or ultimate causation is either a meaningless question, or
else the words are used in a relative sense to designate the
point in the past at which a particular inquiry breaks off.92
All of the other familiar concepts found in the metaphysics of presence may ei-
ther be substituted for "origin" or "causation" in this paragraph, and thereby
given the same contextualized and logical meaning, or simply eliminated from
the philosophical lexicon.
What about the metaphysics Dewey does consider? Dewey writes:
I wish to suggest that while one may accept as a prelimi-

nary demarcation of metaphysics from science the more
"ultimate traits" with which the former deals, it is not nec-
essary to identify these ultimate traits with empirically
original traits - that, in fact, there are good reasons why
we should not do so. We may also mark off the metaphysi-
cal subject-matter by reference to certain irreducible traits
found in any and every subject of scientific inquiry. With
reference to the theme of evolution of living beings, the
distinctive trait of metaphysical reflection would not then
be its attempt to discover some temporally original feature
which caused the development, but the irreducible traits of
a world in which at least some changes take on an evolu-
tionary form.93
Dewey wants to consider a metaphysics capable of uniting diverse forms of in-

quiry in an evolutionary Darwinian universe.
The question is, are there any "irreducible traits" of all existence sure to
turn up in all domains of inquiry? Dewey thinks the answer is yes; so he states:
In all such investigations ... we find at least such traits as

the following: Specifically diverse existences, interaction,
change .... As such they may be made the object of a kind
of inquiry differing from that which deals with the genesis
of a particular group of existences, a kind of inquiry to
which the name metaphysical may be given.94
The task of my paper is not to investigate these characters of Dewey's recon-

structed metaphysics, so we will only discuss them enough to establish continu-
ity with his earlier 1909 paper.
I will carry out my brief discussion by situating the notion of potential
among the ultimate traits of diversity, interaction, and change. This approach is
motivated by the fact that I believe Dewey's metaphysics is best understood as
a reconstruction of Aristotle's metaphysics of the actual and the potential.
Dewey notes that we never appeal to the term potential "except where there is
change or a process of becoming."95 The trait of evolutionary change or be-
coming obviously permeates the 1909 paper. Dewey, though, bemoans the
tendency to appeal to a "latent" potentiality. He observes:
To say that an apple has the potentiality of decay does not

mean that it has latent or implicit within it a causal princi-
ple which will some time inevitably display itself in produc-
ing decay, but that its existing changes (in interaction with
its surroundings) will take the form of decay, //they are
exposed to certain conditions not now operating.96
Rejecting "latent potential" is the same as rejecting such traits of the metaphys-
ics of presence as archey telos^ energeia, and entelecheia. Causation and necessity
lie outside the metaphysical domain. The irreducible trait of interaction is cru-
cial; the apple only decays if it interacts with diverse events in its environment
in a certain way. Dewey concludes, "Potentiality thus implies not merely diver-
sity, but a progressively increasing diversification of a specific thing in a particu-
lar direction."97
While the 1909 paper does not explicitly develop the trait of potential, it
does implicitly reject latent potential. Reflecting on how earlier humankind
viewed the world, Dewey writes:
To every appearance, these perceived things were inert and

passive. Suddenly, under certain circumstances, these
things - henceforth known as seeds or eggs or germs -
365 Jim Garrison
begin to change, to change rapidly in size, form and quali-

ties .... In living beings, changes do not happen as they
seem to happen elsewhere, any which way; the earlier
changes are regulated in view of later results. This progres-
sive organization does not cease till there is achieved a true
final term, a teXo, a completed, perfected end .... This for-
mal activity which operates throughout a series of changes
and holds them to a single course .... To it Aristotle gave
the name, eio. This term the scholastics translated as spe-
cies.98
Let the seed here be an apple seed. Dewey rejects the classical understanding of
eidos in terms of telos wherein the essence is immediately present at the end of a
process. The influence of Darwin helps us overcome this view of latent poten-
tial in metaphysics as well as in biology.
Finally, in a passage that foreshadows his entire future metaphysics, Dewey
in 1909 insists:
There are, indeed, but two alternative courses. We must

either find the appropriate objects and organs of knowl-
edge in the mutual interaction of changing things; or else,
to escape the infection of change, we must seek them in
some transcendent and supernal region."
In 1915 Dewey began to work out the consequences of this notion of interac-
tion with the help of a reconstructed version of Aristotle's metaphysics of the
actual and the potential. By the time he writes Experience and Nature a decade
later, the reconstruction is complete and Dewey delivers his much misunder-
stood naturalistic metaphysics with its carefully counterbalanced theory of the
relatively stable (actual) and contingent (potential) along with many other
similarly paired generic traits. Eventually, this interactionism evolves into trans-
actionalism and what Sleeper rightly calls "transactional realism."100
The last sentence of Dewey's 1915 paper states:
The chief significance of evolution with reference to such

an inquiry seems to be to indicate that while metaphysics
takes the world irrespective of any particular time, yet time
itself, or genuine change in a specific direction, is itself one
of the ultimate traits of the world irrespective of date.101
Dewey clearly frames the possibility of a new metaphysics around biological

evolution. It is a completely temporized metaphysics, but the concern is not
with time itself, but with directional change. Evolutionary change gives
Dewey 's naturalistic metaphysics a temporal quality different from Heidegger's

that we are unable to explore here.
Conclusion
In this paper I have sought to identify some important similarities between
the work of Derrida and Dewey. These include a shared recognition of the im-
portance of signs, symbols, and language, a common rejection of the quest for
certainty and the transcendental signified, and, above all, a rejection of the
metaphysics of presence. I believe they also share similar insights about how to
carry on future metaphysical inquiry, although that topic was not explored. In
what ways, though, do they diverge? Let us begin with what they agree about.
Dewey never thematizes his deconstruction of traditional metaphysics; in-
stead, he goes on immediately to its reconstruction. Derrida provides no such
reconstruction, although he offers hints. Further, Derrida emphasizes the im-
portance of signs and signification much more than does Dewey. This allows
him to carry out a complete and convincing deconstruction of centeredness,
the transcendental signified, and the metaphysics of presence. Dewey distin-
guishes between symbolic operations and existential operations in inquiry; Der-
rida seems only concerned with symbolic operations. For Dewey, existential
operations involve concrete physical operations upon existential situations.
Symbolic operations "stand for possible final existential conditions, while the
conclusion, when it is stated in symbols, is a pre-condition of further operations
that deal with existences."102 Signs and symbols have existential reference
(semantic content) for Dewey, but this reference does not designate an antece-
dently existing, eternal, and immutable eidos, arche, telos, entelecheia, energeia,
or ousia. To think they do is to commit the philosophic fallacy that, along with
hypostatization, is the most common way to fall into the metaphysics of pres-
ence. As Sleeper notes, "In Dewey's account the 'interprtant' of a 'sign' is not
just another 'sign' but a known object."103 The known object, though, is a con-
struction of inquiry, continuously open to destruction, deconstruction, and re-
construction; it cannot be identified with some transcendental signified.
Dewey is an empirical naturalist while Derrida often denigrates empiricism;
whether Derrida would reject Dewey's radical empiricism is unclear.104 Perhaps
Derrida would reject Dewey's naturalism; one prominent commentator has
suggested that Derrida harbors nostalgia for neo-Kantian transcendental meta-
physics. Christopher Norris suggests that "Derrida's version of this Kantian
[transcendental] argument makes writing ... the precondition of all possible
knowledge .... His claim is a priori in the radically Kantian sense that we can-
not think the possibility of culture, history or knowledge in general without
also thinking the prior necessity of writing." 10S If Norris is correct, Derrida and
Dewey part company much sooner than I suspect.
I affirm Dewey's naturalism, as well as his meliorism. As stated earlier, we
live in a world where 99% of all biological essences that have ever existed have
367 Jim Garrison
been destructed. In such a world, reconstruction is more important than de-

construction in the cycle of construction, deconstruction (or destruction), and
reconstruction. Having arrived at the same destination beyond traditional
metaphysics, and traveling together for a way, Dewey and Derrida must even-
tually part company. If so, I believe the Deweyan pragmatist should be grateful
for their dialogue.
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
NOTES
Citations of the works of John Dewey refer to the critical edition publis
by Southern Illinois University Press. Volume and page numbers follow the init
the series. Abbreviations for the critical edition are:
EW The Early Works ( 1 882- 1 898 )

MW The Middle Works (1899-1924)
LW The Later Works (1925-1953)
1 . I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of this journal for

many helpful comments. Errors that remain are all mine.
2. The only direct conversation I know of between Derrida and Rich-
ard Rorty occurs in deconstruction and pragmatism Chantal Mouffe, (ed.). London:
Routledge. There Derrida writes, "I think that deconstruction ... shares much ... with
certain motifs of pragmatism .... I recall from the beginning the question concerning
the trace was connected with a certain notion of labour [sic], of doing, and that what I
called then pragrammatology tried to link grammatology and pragmatism" (p. 79). We
will see below that the likely source for this connection was the writings of Charles
Sanders Peirce.
3. Jacques Derrida, in Dialogues with Contemporary Continental
Thinkers: The Phenomenological Heritage, Richard Kearney (ed.). Manchester: Man-
chester University Press, 1984, p. 109.
4. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time. John Macquarrie and Edward
Robinson (trans.). New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1962, p. 40.
5. For a good discussion of Dewey 's philosophy of time see Bertrand
P. Helm, Time and Reality in American Philosophy. Amherst: The University of Massa-
chusetts Press, 1985, Chapter V.
6. Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 44.
7. Ibid., p. 43.
8. Ibid., p. 47.
9. Ibid. y p. 47. Here Heidegger is relying on the standard etymolog
Dew^y, Derrida, and the Metaphysics of Presence 368
of AxSyoc; as "to speak," "discourse," or "talk." See Dewey MW 2: 371 for a similar
usage; regrettably Heidegger never used the etymology to make such an important
point about communicative democracy.
10. Ibid., p. 56.
11. Ibid., p. 57.
12. Ibid.
13. John Dewey, Time and Individuality, LW
14. Jacques Derrida, Speech and Phenomena:
Husserl' s Theory of Signs., David B. Allison (trans.). Evan
Press, 1973, p. 99. Jacques Derrida, Of Gramatology,
(trans.). Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press
15. Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, Th
jhof, 1969, p. 1.
16. Ibid.
17 Charles Sanders Peirce, "Questions Conce

Claimed For Man." In Charles Hartshorne and Paul W
Charles Sanders Peirce, Volumes V and VI. Cambridg
Harvard University Press, 1965, paragraph 5.213-263
ultimately adheres to the metaphysics of presence in th
but I will not deal with that here.
18. Derrida, Of Grammatglogy, p. 49. What Derrida means by
"logocentric" is discussed below.
19. Charles Sanders Peirce, "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities."
In Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (eds.) Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce
Volumes V and VI. Cambridge: Mass: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
1965, paragraph 5.314, original, 1868.
20. John Dewey, How We Think, Chapter 13, "Language as the Train-
ine Of Thought." MW 6: 314.
21. Ibid.
22. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, pp. 2 and
23. Derrida, Speech and Phenomena, p. 9.
24. Husserl explicitly rejects Frege s sense versu
See Derrida, Speech and Phenomena, pp. 188 ff.
25. Ibid.,p. 15.
26. Ibid., p. 97.
27. Ibid., p. 8.
28. EW 3: p. 138. The target here is any kind of Kantian a priori or
forms of intuition. Ralph Sleeper explicates Dewey 's critique of "apart thought" pa
ticularly well. See Sleeper, The Necessity of Pragmatiem, pp. 19-20, 24, 36, and 155.
30. Ibid., p. 60.
31. Peirce, "Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed For
Man." paragraph. 5.213.
32. Derrida, Speech and Phenomena, p. 99. Although the word
"logocentrism" does not occur on this page, the passage is a good description of the
term; that is probably why page 99 is the only one listed under 'logocentrism' in the
index. Raymond D. Boisvert uses the phrase "The Galilean Purification" to express the
"willingness to substitute an idealized situation for the clumsy, muddled context pro-
369 Jim Garrison
vided by ordinary experience" in John Dewey: Rethinking Our Time. Albany: State Uni-
versity of New York Press 1998, p. 7. As Boisvert notes, Dewey entirely rejected this
process of purification and idealization for philosophical purposes; Husserl did not.
Indeed, Husserl models his own procedures of epoche and reduction on the processes
of idealization found in Galileo. See James W. Garrison, "Husserl, Galileo and the Pro-
cesses of Idealization," Synthese, 66 (2), 1986, pp. 329-338.
33. Jacques Dernda, Of Grammatoloy, Gayatri Chakravorty pivak
(trans.). Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976, pp. 11-12.
34. Derrida, Speech and Phenomena^ p. 129.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. See "The Sphere of Application of the Ex
pp. 197-202, Nagel's response, "Can Logic Be Divorced
460 and Dewey 's rebuttal, "The Applicability of Logic
38. I develop this distinction further below.
39. Ibid., p. 197.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid. p. 206.
43. In fairness to Ernest Nagel, it is important to note that he di
change his mind on this issue somewhat. See his "Logic Without Ontology." In
ralism and The Human Spirit, Yervant H. Krikorian (ed.). New York: Columbia
versity Press, 1959, pp. 210-241, original 1944.
44. I discuss the role of functional purposes further below.
45. See especially paragraphs 511, 512, and 513 of The Will To Po
Paragraph 511 reads, in part, that "the will to equality is the will to power." Para
512 reads, in part, "Logic is bound to the condition: assume there are identica
In fact to make possible logical thinking and inferences, this condition must f
treated fictitiously as fulfilled. That is: the will to logical truth can be carried th
only after a fundamental falsification of all events is assumed." Paragraph 513 re
part, "The inventive force that invented categories labored in the service of our
namely of our need for security for quick understanding on the basis of sign
sounds." See The Will To Power Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (trans
York: Vintage Books, 1967, original 1901, reissued in 1906 with nearly twice a
material. Paragraph 513 is saying that the vocabulary in which we write metaphy
misplaced; the terms all belong to the topic of logic and inquiry. Although
would surely agree with the ideas expressed by Nietzsche, he would never sta
point that way.
46. Many of the issues we are discussing, including identity, differen
and the laws of excluded middle and contradiction are taken up in Book Two, C
2 of Hegel's logic. See Hegel's Science ofLojjic, A. V. Miller (trans.). Atlantic
lands, NJ: Humanities Press International, Inc., 1969, pp. 408-443. Hegel seeks
minate negatiom, or identity in difference; something Dewey and Derrida both d
47. LW1:34.
49. Ibid. p. 138.
50. Ibid. The final judgment or the Hegelian Absolute are instances o
the former; the garden of Eden or the big bang theory are examples of the latter.
51. Derrida in Kearney (ed.), Dialogues with Contemporary Continental

Thinkers, p. 123.
52. Derrida, Of Gra m matology, p . 158.
53. See "Context and Thought," LW 6: pp. 3-21. Dewey remarks: "If
language is identified with speech, there is undoubtedly thought without speech. But if
'language' is used to signify all kinds of signs and symbols, then assuredly there is no
thought without language; while signs and symbols depend for the their meaning upon
the contextual situation in which they appear and are used" (p. 4). In this essay Dewey
also redesignates "the most pervasive fallacy" as "the neglect of context" (P. 5).
55. Derrida, Of Grammatology, p. 62.
S. Jacques Derrida, structure, bign and Hay in the Discourse or the
Human Sciences" in Writing and Difference. Alan Bass (trans.) Chicago: The Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1978, p. 279.
57. Ibid., p. 280.
58. Ibid., p. 279. Later Derrida notes that "the center has no natural
site, that it was not a fixed locus but a function ..." (p. 280). Compare to Dewey in
LW1: pp. 64-66.
59. LW4:d. 7.
60. Derrida, Writing and Difference, pp. 279-280. Emp
61. John Dewey, The Quest for Certainty, pp. 229,
245.
62. Ibid., p. 232. Under "Copernican revolution" in the index the
reader is urged to consult pages 229, 230, 235, 238, and 245 under the subheading
"revolution in philosophy compared to." Thomas M. Alexander observes, "For better
or worse, Dewey's rambling matter-of-fact tone, which tries to present rather extraor-
dinary ideas in ordinary American street-English, often gives the reader the impression
that he has grasped the thought when he has grasped the ordinary sense." Cited in
John Dewey's Theory of Art, Experience, and Nature. New York: State University of
New York Press, 1987, p. 12
63. Ibid.
64. Ralph Sleeper, The Necessity of Pragmatisi
versity Press, 1986, p. 6.
65. Ibid., p. Ill
66. LW 1: p. 133. The phrase "natural bridge" is not a casual metap
it invokes Dewey's naturalism. This naturalism is an important point of diverge
tween Dewey and Derrida.
67. Ibid., p. 144.
68. John Dewey, "The Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy," MW 4:
p. 3.
69. Ibid., p. 6.
70. John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy. MW 12: p. 260.
71. MW 4: p. 8.
72. McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science <& Technology, S. P. Parker,
(ed.), Vol. 6 (7th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992, pp. 57-58.
73. LWlrp. 63.
74. Ibid., pp. 5-6. See also, John Dewey, Art as Experience, Chap
"Substance and Form." The metaphysics Dewey develops in Experience and
371 Jim Garrison
heeds the Heideggerean warning; it does not hide temporality or eliminate history,
including its own.
75. William James, The Principles of Psychology, Volume 11. New York:
Dover Publications, Inc., 1950, p. 335, original 1890.
76. This is precisely why including voices different from the dominant
discourse of the West (women, African -Americans, Latinos, etc.) and their cultural
background in the conversation of "Western" science could eventually even change ou
fundamental understanding of nature.
77. Sleeper, The Necessity of Praginattsm, p. 37. Sleeper notes, "In 'The
Superstition of Necessity' he [Dewey] reached the conclusion that the concept of ne
cessity arises from the practice of inquiry, that it is, in a sense, the a posteriori product
of thought rather than its a priori principle. He got there by denying it the ontologica
status that it held in Hegel's system" (p. 35). Dewey does much the same for all of th
concepts associated with the metaphysics of presence.
78. John Dewey, "The Superstition of Necessity." EW 4: p. 29. In an
analogous passage Dewey does the same thing for essential and accidental. Dewey an-
nounces, "Anything is 'essential' which is indispensable in a given inquiry and anything
is 'accidental' which is superfluous," LW 12:141.
79. Ibid., p. 19.
80. Ibid., p. 36.
81. Ibid.
82. MW 4: p. 10.
83. Ibid., p. II.
84. Ibid., p. 13.
85. Ibid.
86. John Dewey, "From Absolutism t

154.
87. Ibid., 157.
88. For critiques of metaphysical idealism in Dewey's early psyc
by James and others see Robert B. Westbrook, John Dewey and American De
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991, pp. 23-29.
89. Alexander observes, "In 1903, Dewey officially broke with id
and joined the new pragmatic movement with this Studies in Logical Theory. n
Dewey's Theory of Art, Experience, and Nature, p. 42.
90. Rorty's claim that Dewey is caught in his metaphysics tryi
"serve both Locke and Hegel" is nonsensical. See "Dewey Metaphysics," in C
quences of Pragmatism, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982,
Dewey never served Lockean empiricism and had long abandoned Hegel by t
he came to write his metaphysics. A careful reading of Rorty's essay disclose
assumes Dewey must have written some version of the metaphysics of pres
guess is that is the only kind of metaphysics Rorty thinks anyone can write.
91. John Dewey, "The Subject-Matter of Metaphysical Inquiry."
13.
92. Ibid., p.,5.
93. Ibid., p. 4
94. Ibid., p. 6. In a footnote to this passage Dewey remarks: "The nam
at least has the sanction of the historical designation given Aristotle's consideratio
existence as existence. But it should be noted that we also find in Aristotle the seeds ...
of the conception of metaphysics rejected above. For he expressly gives the more gen-
eral traits of existence the eulogistic tide 'divine' and identifies first philosophy with
theology, and so makes this kind of inquiry 'superior' to all others, because it deals
with the 'highest of existing things.'" Dewey's reconstruction of Aristotle begins only
after abandoning all elements of the metaphysics of presence within it. Aristotle's deity,
thought thinking itself, a subject thinking its own objects, completes Husserl's meta-
physical and epistemological project at the most exalted level imaginable, but it is still
the same project.
95. Ibid., p. II.
96. Ibid.
97. Ibid.
98. MW4:p. 5.
99. Ibid., p. 6.
100. Sleeper, The Necessity of Pragmatism, pp. 3,21-23, and elsewhere.
101. MW8:p. 13.
102. John Dewey, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, LW 12: p. 22.
103. Sleeper, The Necessity of Pragmatism, pp. 138-139. Sleeper goes on
to note, "What Dewey is arguing is that we get our semiotic from our semantics,
our semantics from our semiotic" (p. 139). What Derrida's semantics is, or if he e
has one, is unclear.
104. Derrida wonders, "Has not the concept of experience always bee
determined by the metaphysics of presence?" See "Violence and Metaphysics," i
Writing and Difference, p. 152. Dewey would agree this is true for most forms of tr
ditional Western empiricism, but not for his radical empiricism.
105. Christopher Norris, Derrida, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1995, p. 95. I find Norris1 basis for this argument quite thin. It relies largely
one quote from Derrida's OfGrammatology(p. 27) that reads, "writing is not only
auxiliary means in the service of science - and possibly its object - but first, . . .
condition of the possibility of ideal objects and therefore of scientific objectivit
Dewey could perhaps have written this statement, regarding idea objects. The ellip
also contribute to what I believe is a false sense of this statement's meaning.

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John Dewey, Jacques Derrida, and the Metaphysics of Presence

Author(s): Jim Garrison

John Dewey, Jacques Derrida,

Heidegger's Destruction of the Metaphysics of Presence

Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society

ontology."6 One may read Derrida as continuing this destruction by relying on

The problematic of Greek ontology, like that of any other,

Here Heidegger introduces the hermeneutic method of investigation so influ-

Heidegger develops the concept of logos further in Section 7. He explains,

Language, the Transcendental Signified, and the Quest for Certainty

This passage is an allusion to such passages in Peirce as we find at the conclu-

[M]an can think only by means of words or other external

statement must have sounded to Peirce's readers in 1868. Ironically, when

[T]he very word logic comes from logos (A.oyo), meaning

There is no ideality without there being an Idea in the

The recovery of rejected possibilities for the creation of meaning is another

Self-presence must be produced in the undivided unity of a

Question 1. Whether by the simple contemplation of a cogni-

is impossible to think without signs.

What follows is Derrida's description of Husserl's phenomenology; it could

We Have Experienced the systematic interdependence of

Frege and Russell. Logocentrism is the ecstasy of indubitable knowledge that

[LJogocentrism which is also a phonocentrism: absolute

The metaphysics of presence, logocentrism, and phonocentrism are not esoteric

Deconstructing the Metaphysics of Presence: Traces of Diffrance

those of identity and contradiction, the content of a universal proposition..."41

[W]hat is supplementary is in reality difference the opera-

The supplement is a sign or representation of reality, of perfect, ideal, and self-

We ordinarily state that a sign is put in place of the thing

sense as well as the referent. Signs represent the present in

Now this classical determination presupposes that the sign

Yet if reading ... cannot legitimately transgress the text to-

only in the text and we have neither any means of altering

The trace is not a presence but is rather the simulacrum of

The concept of centered structure is in fact the concept of

The quest for certainty is a quest for peace which is as-

[T]he entire history of the concept of structure ....

These are all very familiar philosophical concepts. Eidos designate

sociated with the metaphysics of presence in the above cited passage.

Dewey' s Copernican Revolution: Decentering the Metaphysics of Presence

Dewey's emphasis is always on reconstruction rather than destruction or de-

Essence ... is but a pronounced instance of [linguistic]

Essence is never existence, and yet it is the essence, the dis-

The conception that had reigned in the philosophy of na-

fTJhe only meaning of essence is teleoloicaU and that classi-

Contingent and necessary are thus the correlative aspects of

Dewey understands necessity "only with reference to the development of judg-

Once admit that the sole verifiable or fruitful object of

Objects of knowledge, essences, necessity, causation, etc., do not exist outside

naturalism refuses to extend itself beyond the contingent products of disci-

Reconstructing the Subject Matter of Metaphysical Inquiry:

I am not concerned to develop a metaphysics; but simply

ends - that is, from questions of creation and eschatol-

Dewey is drawing a careful distinction between the subject-matter of sci-

Hence it may be said that a question about ultimate origin

I wish to suggest that while one may accept as a prelimi-

Dewey wants to consider a metaphysics capable of uniting diverse forms of in-

In all such investigations ... we find at least such traits as

The task of my paper is not to investigate these characters of Dewey's recon-

To say that an apple has the potentiality of decay does not

To every appearance, these perceived things were inert and

begin to change, to change rapidly in size, form and quali-

There are, indeed, but two alternative courses. We must