Meaning never fully arrives, every word just defers to more words

Jacques Derrida coined 'differance' to show a word's meaning depends on other words it differs from, and is endlessly deferred rather than ever fully present. Look up any definition and you just get more words, never the meaning itself. Deconstruction is his method for exposing the hidden hierarchies, like speech over writing, that this instability lets philosophy hide.

— Jacques Derrida, Margins of Philosophy — 'Differance' essay, 1972 (English translation 1982)
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