ABSTRACT
Derrida concerned to argue something like this: the self-identifying tradition of Western philosophy is, as Heidegger argued, dominated by the value of presence. Whatever its perception of the complexities involved, and whatever its doctrinal inclination, metaphysics seeks out some supreme value which is inseparable from this value of presence, whatever particular content it may otherwise be supposed to exhibit. Even in cases where such oppositions presented as neutral and descriptive, Derrida argues, they are in fact violently hierarchical, the result of an 'ethico-theoretical decision'. This description still suggests too clear a separation between writing and reading. Derrida's work consists essentially in bringing out the textual resources that question the 'official' version. The general form of this argument is that any attempt to claim an escape from metaphysics necessarily involves the blind appeal to at least one metaphysical concept which compromises the escape the moment it claimed.
