ABSTRACT
Derrida presents his critical account of philosophy as a critique of the 'metaphysics of presence' that have dominated Western thought. The metaphysics of presence represents the historical determination of the meaning of being in general as presence, with all the sub determinations which depend on this generic form. Derrida introduces the notion of differance, a neologism in French aiming at indicating in one term the double meaning of 'differing' and 'deferring'. To the differential definition of structure — structure as a system of differences — a temporal difference is added. A more restricted interpretation of the relevance Derrida's work has for a theory of the social focuses on the 'deconstructive' method as a tool in the analysis of different ideologies. Moreover, Derrida establishes a connection between differance and the level of the unconscious, a positive level of operation of the psyche.
