The theme of difference appears in many forms throughout Derrida’s extensive critique of Husserl. He argues that Husserl was too inattentive to the constitutive value of difference, i.e., of spatial, temporal, personal, and logical nonidentity. Most pointedly, Derrida focuses on the problems raised by difference with regard to Husserl’s distinction between inner and outer – transcendental and empirical – as well as the role of repetition and representation in the constitution of linguistic and ideal objectivities, and perhaps most tellingly, the problems raised by difference in Husserl’s under- standing of temporality. Derrida goes on to discuss the concept of difference as it relates to the ar- eas of semiotics, epistemology, and ontology, among others. Each of these uses finds its origin in the more primordial movement of what Derrida terms “differance” (with an a). Derrida derives this neologism from the French “différence.” As in the Latin “differre,” the French “différer” bears two quite distinct significations. One has a reference to spatiality, as the English “to differ” – to be at variance, to be unlike, apart, dissimilar, distinct in nature or quality from something. This is even more evident in its cognate form, “to differentiate.” The other signification has a reference to tem- porality, as in the English “to defer” – to put off action to a future time, to delay or postpone. While Derrida briefly explains this term in the first paragraph of Chapter 7 of Speech and Phenomena, he devotes an article of considerable length and importance to it somewhat later on, which is included as an appendix to the English translation of Speech and Phenomena, pp. 129-60


https://goo.gl/T7Y21m - page 7, 8