Abstract

The sign is often defined as a thing standing for another, the first one being sensible, and the second, intelligible. Authors like Derrida and Kristeva link this definition to a "métaphysique de la présence". This paper shows that they are quite mistaken, and all the more so when one distinguishes the constitutive and factorial definitions of the sign: "rather than the sign being an index of 'the' Occidental metaphysics, it is the so-called Occidental metaphysics that is an index of a rather poor conception of the sign".