ABSTRACT
Jacques Derrida’s treatment of Rousseau’s theory of language had a profound influence on Rousseau scholarship. It proposed to take the Essay on the Origin of Languages as a leading clue to reread Rousseau’s system, which was put in an ambiguous position of embracing as well as subverting the modern metaphysics of presence. Based on an exploration of Rousseau’s conception of imitative novelty in the context of his overall project, this essay seeks to reveal how Rousseau’s theory of language cannot be truly included within Derrida’s classic interpretation of supplementarity and phonocentrism.
