ABSTRACT
The divergence between descriptive phenomenology and hermeneutic phenomenology is a difference which arises within the entire enterprise of phenomenology. Semiology is another route altogether. Deconstruction makes all the difference. My thesis is that only by looking outside phenomenology to a parallel, yet dissimilar, theoretical practice will it be possible to establish the place (or at least a place) in which deconstruction operates. This place is the place of difference where Heideggerian ontological difference and Gadamerian aesthetic non-differentiation confronts the Saussurian system of differences. I shall consider in turn: (1) the distinction between descriptive phenomenology and hermeneutic phenomenology; (2) the divergence between hermeneutics (as opposed to the descriptive approach) and semiology; and (3) the difference that deconstruction makes, namely, the strategic choice of operating in terms of the divergence.
