Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to show, that for both G. W. F. Hegel and Jacques Derrida, texts are necessarily and irreducibly equivocal, and that Hegel presents a more promising account of the possibility of communication than does Derrida. ;The term "differance," I argue, suggests the irreducibility of textual equivocity; to affirm the necessity of differance is to imply that texts are necessarily and irreducibly equivocal. Although "differance" is a Derridean neologism, Hegel, too, implicitly affirms the necessity of differance. This affirmation can be seen in Hegel's Logic, whose dialectic exhibits what I consider to be a methodological differance. Because Hegel and Derrida both affirm the necessity of differance, they agree that texts are necessarily and irreducibly equivocal. ;The difference between Hegel's and Derrida's versions of differance is that for Derrida, differance is disseminative, while for Hegel, it is dialectical. "Disseminative" differance entails what I call "indeterminable" textual equivocity, while "dialectical" differance entails what I call "determinable" textual equivocity. To say that a text is determinably equivocal is to claim that it can be interpreted in a variety of equally legitimate ways; to say that a text is indeterminably equivocal is to claim that it is impossible to show any interpretation of it to be legitimate. For Hegel, texts are capable of fulfilling a communicative function because for him, it is possible to justify a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate interpretations. But for Derrida, whose version of differance precludes the determinability of any legitimate interpretation, texts are incapable of fulfilling a communicative function