Situation de la déconstruction

De la « promesse d’or » à l’inconvertibilité

Abstract

Derrida’s philosophy is first of all about sign, writing, text, but it also leads to economy through the notion of « différance » and through the structural homologies between language and money. Homologies which are inherent to Saussure’s analysis of value in linguistic. More generally, the relationship between the discourse and reality could be metaphorized by the operation of convertibility of conventional monetary signs to an available gold treasure. Nevertheless, this « promise of gold » (Bergson) belongs to an era which is no longer ours, in the present regime of inconvertibility. The main thesis of this article is that Derrida’s deconstruction situates itself in a precise historical moment, between the promise of convertibility (where gold is the typical value, available somewhere) and the venue of inconvertibility, a regime in which the sign, either monetary or linguistic, refers to other signs, in an indefinite play, without garanted and stable value or « transcendantal signified ». Then, the era of deconstruction could be linked to an era of economy which can be itself enlightened in return by the various concepts related to deconstruction.