(\,

J l"r

72

%
?

40 gaf zle ffii'*,

a structurc permis thc play
organizing lhc coherence of lhc system, lhe ccnler of
or-ts cle.ents inside the toral form. And even tray ttrc notion of a stncturc
lacking any cenler rePrescnls t unthinkable tsElf' :

Nevirthcless, the center also closes off the play which it opens up and makes
clerncms,
possible. As centcr, ir is thc point al which tlrc subslituton of conlcnts,
pcrmurtion or thc trnsforma-
r terms is n. l.nger possible. At the ccnrer, th
a shctufe)
tion of elcrrcnts (which may o[ cour:ie bc $ructurcs encloscd wirhin
At teasr this has always rcmaincd nlediacd (d I m
is f<rrbidtlcn. rmutati0n
rhat thc ccnlcf'
using this word delibertely). Thus it has always been thought
thal very thing within a stnclue which
wni is by ttenirion unue, conslitutcd
govrning tlre structurc, escapes structurality. Thir is why classicd thought
while
conceming slruclurc coukl say that the cenler is, paredoxically'
wifldn.thc
of thc totality, ard yct, since
structufe ind outside it. Thc centcr is ll rlre center
(is nol part of thc totality), tlrc totAlity
the center rks not belong to the totatily
\lre ncod o icprct iucrpc- Perlraps sorncthng hac occurd in the history of thc The center is nol the centcr- Thc cotccPt ofCenfcred
has its center clsewhcre.
ttors .t lhn lo inlcrprlt
lhings. (Modri:nc)
concept of stncturr lhr could bc clled an "event," srructurc-alrhough it rcpresents cohefence irself, thc cordition or trc, cpistm
if this loaled word did no ental a meaning which as philosophy or srie*-e-is contradictrrily cotrent. And as always,
cohcrerce
it is prcciselylhe function of slructural--<r slruc- in contralicrion expfcsscs tl force of a rlesire.r Thc corrccpt of ccntcred
-\ lufalist-thought to rcduce or to suspecl. [t us srak structufe is in fact thc coficepl of a play bascrt on a fundamental ground, a play
of an "cvenl," neverlheless, and let us usc quolal(n on thc basis of aluntamental immobility ard a rcassuring ccrltudc'
constitutel
certitude urxiety
marts lo srye as a precaution. rrVhat would lhis cvent which itself is bcyond tlre reach of play. And on tlre basis of this
bc then? lls exlcrior form would be that of a ruptutc canbemastercrl'ftlranrielyisinvariabtythcresultofcertainmodeofbcing
and a retloubling. ng as it werc at stake
It would be easy ercugh to show that the coricefr of at wc call thc ccnler
slnctur and even the wod "stnrclurc" itself arc also indiffcrentlY be
olJ as thc episrm-4h is to say, as old as Western callerl the origin or eu!, orch or tek iluions' transforma-
scierce and Western philosophy-ond that lhcir rrxrls tions, axl permuutions arc always ra*n fronr a hlstory of meaning lseruHhat
whosc end
thrust decp into the soil of ordinary ldnguage, inlo is, in word. a history-whosr origin may always be rcawakened or
wlxrsc dcepesl reccs!t$ tlrc epistn plungcs in onlcr m"yal*aysbeantictedinthefonnofprcserrce.Thisiswhyotpefi|aps
is an
to g,ather them up and to make them pr of itself in a coutd say that rhe movernl of any archaeology, likc that of any cschalology,
structurality of struclure and always atlempts
nrctaphoricat displacement. Neverthcless, up l(t the u".o.pi.. of this eductirn of rhe
play'
event which I wish to mark oul and dcfine' to conceive of structur on thc bass of a full Presencc which is bcyond
slfictufe---<)f rathcr thc stnctumlty of slrucurc- lfthisisso'ttrcentirehistoryofthcconceptofstfuctuf'beforethcruPtuof
although it has always bcen al work, has always bt'cn whichwcaresaking,mustbethoug,httrfasascriesofsubstiluionsofcentf
and in
ncutratizctl or'reducerl. aml his by a pnrcss ol'giving for ccnter, u, u ink",l chan of dcternrinali.ns of th centcr. Succcssivcly,
forms or names' Thc history of
il a c'cnter or of refcrring it to a point of prcscnec, a a rcgulated fashion. the center recetvcs differcnt
west. of tlrcsc metaplrors and

6\ fired origin. The func'ion of lhis ccnter was nol only
to orient, balance. anl organize th .l-clutc---.tne
cannol in fact conceive of an unorganiz.cd
\, slructur--but above all lo make surc lhat the organt-
zing principle of lhc stnrurc would limi what wc
might call tlrc ptay of thc structurc. By orienting and
mctiphysics, like the history of rhc is thc hisrory
mcr..yi[i"r. ltsnratrix-if youwilt panlonme fordernonstrtin8,solhlcandfor
being s. cllipical in onler i.r.o.. nxrre quickly to nry
principal temc-is the
dercnnrron of Being its presettce tn all senscs of this wor<J. lt could bc shown
fhat all thc names retaled ro funrtamentals, to principles' or lo the cenlcr havc
a|waysrlesignaterlaninvariab|eyestrce---<ix,arch,rclos,cnergcia,ousia
 SErc{urt,
Ten S, rnd Pby

alelrgiq' transcendentality' -co-!'{199s-

I ll-eT-sfTled a rupture' the disruption Ir to ot

-rr..r^l +a
alluded at rha
the tpoinnin
beginning
re. pnv
of this PaPer, PresumablY
- --- L^i r^ hacin t
I

ference between signifier and signified

,t acly cePt. r#hen lvi-Strauss says in the
p tle has "sought to transcend the opposi-
le by operating from the outset atlhe

^f,
cjf

sigr and the signied: one, the classic way, consists in reducing or deriving
the signifier, that is to say, ultimately insubmtting the sign to thought; the other,

; ;u'rf r:;-.-"s,r;-as metaphysical redugtion of

ors in whose discourse this occurrcnce
oppos_i!9!_i!__/s!e_qt4ic Et
the sign can be extended to all the
inp@
{.- --_
caugtr;it@ore or tess nave, morc or less empirical,
ty more or less systematic, more or less close to the formulation--that is, to the
^{ formalization----of this circle. It is these differcnces which explain the multiplic-
ity of destnrctive discourses and the disagreement between those who elaborate
them. Nietzsche, Freud, and Heidegger, for example, worked within the inher-

Nietzsche, with as much lucidity and rigor as bad faith and misconstruction, as
the last metaphysician, the last "Platonist." One could do lhe same for Heideg-

2t2 Tco
ger himself, for Frcud, or for a number of others. And today np exercise is morc
widespread.
What is the rcleyanc of this formal schema when we turn to what are called the
"human sciences"? One of them perhaps occupics a privilcgcd place-
ethnolory. In fact one can assumc that ethnology could have been born as a
scicnce only at the moment when a decentering had come about: at the moment
when European culture-and, in conscquence, the hislory of metaphysics and of
its concepts-had been dslocated, driven from its locus, and forced to stop
considering itsclf as thc culturc of reference. Ihis moment is not first and
foremost a moment of philosophical or scientific discourse. It is also a moment
which is political, economic, technical, and so forth. One can sy with total
sccurity that there is nothing fortuitous about the fact thar the critique of
ethnocentrism-the very condition for ethnology-should be systematicalty and
historically contemporaneous with the destructon of the history of metaphysics.
Both belong to one and the same era. Now, ethnology-like any sciere-<omes
about within the elenent of discourse. And it is primarily a European science
employing traditional concepts, however much it may struggle against them.
^f
ril consequently, whether he wants to or not-and this docs not depend on a
decision on his pan--rhe ethnologist accepts into his discourse the prcmises of
ethnocentrism at tlrc very moment when necessity is
irrcdrcible; it is not a historical contingenc
I its implica-
tions very carefully. But if no one can e if no one is
lhereforc rcsponsible for giving in to it, however little he may do so, this does nor
mcan that all thc ways of giving in ro it are of equal petinence. The quality and
fecundity of a discourse are perhaps measurel by the criticar rigor with which
his rclation to the history of meraphysics and to inherited concepts is thoughr.
Here it is a question both of a critical relation to rhe language of the social
sciences and a critical responsibility of the discourse itself. lt is a question of
explicitly and systematically posing the problem of the status of a discourse
the deconstruction of
Strauss, it is not only
accorded he social sciences, nor
t of[vi- y on the contemg)rry
above all ce has been declared in
the work of Lvi-strauss arrd because a cenain doctrine has been
elaborated
therc, and precis:ely, in a more or less explicit manner, as
concerns both this
critique of language and this critical language in the social sciences.
- significations. The incest prohibition is no longer a scandal one meets with or
l\ ln onter to follow this movemen in th text of Lvi-Strauss, let us choose as
one guiding thread among otheni the opposition between nature and culrure.
Despite all its rejuvenations and <tisguises, this opposition is congenirat
ro phi-
t '
lr
l
'"t
283 !ilnrclure,
Sign, end Ptry
1i
T
I
losophy. lt is even older than Plato. It is at least as old as the Sophists. Since the ,l
statement of the opnsit)on physislnomos, physisltecn-, it has been relayed to
us by means of a whole historical chain which opposes "nalure" to law, to
it
education, to art, lo technicv-but also to liberty, to the arbitrary, to history, to
society, to the mind, and vr on. Now, from lhe outsel of his researches, and from
his first book (Ilr Elementary Stru<'Iures ol Kinship\ on, Lvi-Strauss simul-
taneously has experienced the necessity of utilizing this opposition and the im-
possibility of acccpting it. ln the Elementary Structures, he begins from this
axiom or definition: that which isuniversul anrJ spontaneous, and not dePendent
on any partcular culture or on any delemtinate norm, bclongs to nature. ln-
venely, that which dernds uPon a system of rutrms regulating society and
thercfore is capable of varying from one social structure to anolher, belongs to
cultue. These two definitions are of the traditional type. But in the very rst
pages of the Elententary Stu<'tures Lvi-Strauss, who has begun by giving
credence k) these concepts, encountcrs whal he calls a s<'arulal, that is to say,
something which no tonger tolerales the nature/cullure opposilion he has ac-
cepted, rcmelhing which-rillrllzeously sems to require the predicates of nature
and of culture. This scandal is the in<'es prohibition. The incest prohibition is
universal; in this sense one could call il natural. But it is also e prohibition, a
system ol norms and interdicts; in this sense one could call it cultural:
[t us suppose then lhat everything univenal in man relates to the natural
order, and is characterized by spontaneity, and that everything subject to a
norm is cultural and is both rclative and particular. rrVe are then confronted
with a fact, or rather, a group of facts, which, in the light of Previous
definitions, re not far rcmoved from a scandal: we refer to that comPlex
scribcd succinctly as
ghtest ambiguity,
ich we recognize the
constitutes a rule ,
but a rule which, aklne among all the social rules, possesses at the same
time a universal characler.3
Obviously there is no scandal except within a system of concepts which accrcdits
the difference belween nature and culture. By comnlencing his work with the
actum of the incest prohibition, Lvi-Strauss thus places himself at the Point at
which this difference, which has always bcen assumed to be self-cvident, Rnds
itself erased orguestioned. For from the moment when the incest prohibition can
no longer be conceived within the nature/culture opp<rsition, it can no longer be
Said to be a scandalous fact, a nucleus of opacity within a network of transparent
i
comes up.against in ttrc domain of traditional concepts; it is something which
escapes these concepts and cenainly precedes thenr-probably as the condition I
of their possibility. lt could perhaps be said that the whole of philosophical
I

conceptualization, which is systematic with the nature/culture opposilion, i5
designed to leave in the domain of the unthinkable the very thing that makes rhis
conceptualization possible: the origin of the prohibition of incest.
(-'l
O age to Lvi-Struss in a special issue ofl,','lr'(no. 2, l95), where it is stated
\ conirived here.
I lvi-Strauss describes riulage not only as an intellectual actvity but also as
2E5
Slnrc{un'
S[n, rnd Pby.
one time . . . now seems to be of primarily methodological importance-" And
this methodological value is nol affected by its "ontological" nonvalue (as might
bc said, if this notion were not suspect here): "However, it would not be enough
to reabsorb particular humanities into a general one. This first entcrprisc opens
re way for others which . . . are incumbent on the exact natural scences: the
rintegration of culture in natur and nally of life within the whole of its
physico<hemical cond itions. " 5
On the other hand, still in Tle Savoge Mind, lrc presents as what he calls
bricolage what might be clled the discourse of this method. The zcoleur, says
lvi-Strauss, is someone who usres "the means at hand," that is, thc instruinents
he nds at his disposition around him, those which are already therc, which had
rot been especially conceived with an eye to lhe operation for which tlrey are to
be used and to which one tries by trial and eor 1o adaPt them, not hesitating to
change them whenever it appears necessary, or to try several of them af once,
even if their form and their origin are heterogenous-and so forrh- Therc is
therefore a critique of language in the form ol bricolage, and it has even been
said that brit'olage is critical language itself. I am thinking in particular of the
article of G. Genette, "structuralisme et critique littrairc," published in hom-
that the analysis ot bricolage coult "be applied almost word for word" to
criticism, anrJ especially to "literary criticism."
I
If one calls bricoluge the necessity of bonowing one's concePts from the text
of a heritage which is more or less coherent or ruined, it must be said that every
discourse is brit'oleur. The engineer, whom Lvi-Strauss opPoses to the
bricoleur, should be the one to construct the totality ofhis language, syntax, and
lcxicon. ln this se nse the engineer is a myth. A subct who supposedly would be
Itte absolute origin of his own discourse and supposedly would construct it "out
of nothing," "out of whole cloth," would be the creator of the verb, the verb
itself. The notiori of the enginecr who supposedly breaks with all forms of
bricolage is therefore a theological idea; and since Lvi-Strauss tells us else-
whe that bricolage is mythopoetic, the odds are that the cnginccr is a myth
produced by tlrc, bricoleur. As soon as we cease to believe in such an cngineer
and in a discourse which brcaks with the received historical discourse, and as
soon as we admit lhat cvery nite discourse is bound by a certain bricolage and
that the engineer and the scientist ae also species of bricoleurs, then the very
idea of bricolage is menaced and the difference in which it tcuk on its meaning
breaks down.
This brings us to the second thread which might guide us in what is being
a mythopoetical activity. One reads inThe Savage Mind, "Like bricologe on rbe
 2E7
Slrudrr,
Sign, rnd Pby

technical plane, mythical reflection can reach brilliant unforeseen rcsults on tlrc The study of nryths raises a meth<xJologicat pnrblcnr, in that it cannot be
intellectual plane. convenely, attention has often been drawn to lhe mytho_ carried out acconling to the Cartesian principle ol'brcaking down the
poetical naturc of bricolage."6 ' difficulty into as nrany Parts as may bc neccssary lrr finding thc solution'
But livi-Strauss's remarkable endeavor dres n<rt simply consist in proposing, There is no real end to ntettxldologicat analysis, no hiddcn unity to be
nolably in his most rccent invesligarions, a structural science of myths and
of
myrlmlogical activity. His endeavor also appears-l woutd say almst from
rhe
outsel-to have the status which he accords to his own discourse oo myths, ro
what lp calls his "mythologicals." It is herc that his discoursc on the myth
reflects on itself and criticizes tself. And this momcnt, this critical period,
is
evidently of concern to all the languages which share the field of the human
sciences. what does Lvi-Struss say of his '.mythologicals"? lt is
here that we
rcdiscover the mythopoeticar virtue of bricolage. ln effect, what
appean most
fascinating in this critical seach for a new status of discourse is the stated
abandonmentofallreferenceaoacenrer,roasubject, toaprivileged reference, study of both rclcctcd rays and bnrkcn rays. But unl
to an origin, or to an absorute archia. The theme of this ecentering tion, which ainrs lt go back tt ils own source, lhe re
courd ue
followed throughout the "oveurc" to his rasr book, The Raw
and thlc**r. l with hcrc conccrn rays whosc only sourcc is hytth
sball simply remark on a few key points. ing to inritatc lle sfxntane(us novctllcnl l'ntythological thought, this eS-
l. From the very start, Lvi-strauss recognizes thar the Bororo myrh which h. say, which is also txlth t<xr brief and ttxr long, has had lo conform to the
cmploys in the book as rhc "rcfercnce myth" docs not rc[uirenrents of that thought anl t. rcsJcr its rhythm. lt f<rllows that this
merit this name and this
trealment. The name is specious and the use of the book on myths s itself a kind of myth-E
myth improper. This myrh
deserves no more than any other its refercnriar privirege: ..li rct, the Bororo This statenlcnt is rcrcafcrJ a litlle farther on: "As thc nryths themlves arc based
l- -r
mh, which I shall refer to from now on as rtre tey myrh, is, as i shail try ro on secondary cotlcs (fhe primary ctxlcs being those that provide the substance of
reater or lesser extent, of other myths language), the prescnt work is rut forward as a tentativc drali of a tertiary cu-le'
r in neighboring or rcmole societies. I which is inrended 1o ensurc the recipnrcal translatability o[ several myths' This is
as my startingpoint any one rcpresnta_ why it woukl not bc wrong to considc.r lhis book itscll'as a myth: it is, as il wcrc, lhe
of view, the kcy myth is intcresting nor myth of mylhology."s The absence of a cenler is here thc absence of a subject
se of its irrcgular position wirhin the and the absercc ol'an aulhor: "Thus thc rrlylh and thc nlusical work are like
grouP. "r perfonncn' lf it is
conductgrs of an orcheslra, whose autliencc bccomes the silcnt
2-
. Thee is no unity or absorute source of thc myth. The focus or the source of now asked wherc thc real center o[ lhe work is to be firunrj, the answer is that this
tle.myth are always shadows and virrualities whih to lce with
arc elusive, unactualizable,
and nonexistent in the first prace. Everything . Myths
begins with strucrurc, configura- are
tion, or.rclationship. The discoune on the acenril
structure that myth itsetf is,
cannot itself have an absolute subject or an absolute
center. lt must avod the -:i1i'i:;;
violencc that consists in centering a tanguage
which describes an acentric the mythical or lytlx)logicl tliscourse -
struclure if it is not to shortchange the
form in movement of myth. Therefore it Thus ir is at this point that ethnographic bri<ttlug,c rlcliberately assumes ils
o to rcnounce the mythotr)cric function. But by thc sanrc token, this lunction nlakcs the
s, rement that we go philorcphical or cristcnxrlrtgical requirerncnl oI a centcr aPpcar as nrytholgical,
to principle, and so thal is to say, as a hisrrical illusion'
on. ln opposi
\) mYths- Neverthcicss, cvcn il one yields lo lhc nccessity ol' what lvi-Slrauss has
o
mythorogicar
form of done, one cann()t ignorc its risks. lf the nrythological is rrylhonorPhic, are all
\ that of which
cooked, ftom
and the discourses on nryths equivalent? Shall wc havc to abandon any epistenrokrgical
PassaSc: iequirement which pcrnrits us ttl rlistinguish bctwccn scvcral qualities of dis-
 2gt 2E9 Strrclra,
Sn, end Pby

cqrsc on tlE myth? A classic, but inevitable question. It cannot bc answercd_ ning their production. What I have trled to give is an outlne of the synx of
and I believe rhat lvi-strauss docs not answer it-for as long as the pmblem of South American mythology. Should fresh data come to hand, they will be
thc rclations between the philosopheme or the thcorcm, on the one hand, and the used to check or modify the formulation of certain grammatical laws, so that
mytheme or the myrhopoem, on the other, has not been poscd explicitly, which is some are abandoned and rcplaced by new ones. But in no instance would I
no small problem- For lack of explicitly posing this problem, we condcmn feel constrained to acce the arbitrary demand for a total mythological pat-
tern, since, as has been shown, such a requirement has no meaning.rt
Totalization, thereforc, is sometimes dened as lselss, and sometimes as irn-
possible. This is no doubt due to the fact that there are two ways of conceiving
the limit of totalization. And I assert once more that these two determinations
coexist implicitly in Lvi-Strauss's discourse. Totalization can tle judged im-
possible in the classical style: one then refers to the empirical endeavor of either a
subject or a finite richness which it can never naster. There is tor: much, more
than one can say. But nontotalization can also be delermined in nother way: no
longer from the standg)int of a concept of finitude as relegalion to the empirical,
but from the slandpoint of the concept of play. If totalization no longer has any
mcaning, it is not because the infiniteness of a feld cannol be covered by a finite
glance or a finite discourse, but because the nature of the field---+hat is, language
and a finite language-+xcludes totalization. This eld is in effect that of play,
l
.) that is to say, a field of innite subslitutions only because it is finite, that is to
say, bccause instead of being an inehaustible field, as in the classical
hypothesis, insteatl of being too large, there is something missing from it: a
center which arrests and grounds the play of substitutions. One could say-
rigorously using that word whose scandalous signification is always obliterated in
Frerrch-that this movement of play, permitted by the lack or absence of a center
or origin, is the movement of supplementarity. One cannot determine the center
de "overture" of and exhaust totalization because the sign which replaces the center, which sup
Th :^_:_i -L it
ion is double, plements it, taking the center's place in its absence-this sign is added, occurs as
is a surplus, as a supplemenr. It Thc movement of signification adds something,
which results in the fact that thre is always more, but this addition is a floating
one because it comes to perform a vicarious function, to supplemcnt a lack on the
part of the signified. Although Lvi-Strauss in his use of the word "supplemen-
tary" never emphasizes, as I do here, the two directions of meaning which are so
strangely compounded within it, it is nor by chance that he uses this word twice
in his "lntoduction to the Work of Marcel Mauss," at one point where he is
speaking of the "overabundance of signifier, in relation to the signifieds o which
this overabundance can refer":

In his endeavor to understand the world, man lherefore always has at his
{ disposal a surplus ofsignification (which he shares oul amongst things ac-
cording to the laws of symbolic thought-whch is the task of ethnologists
and linguists to study). This distribution of a supplementary allowance [ra-
tion supplmentairel-if it is permissible to put it that way-is abrclutely
 lcn itrucr---,
Slen, d Plty

which ae now well wom. I shall simply indicate what seems to me the formality

presences. But if it is legitimate to suspect this concept of history,there is a risk,

it it i. ,"dr."d withrut an explicit statencnt of the problelrr I am indicating here,

Cr)

Lvi-Strauss adds the note:

"Linguisls have already been red lo formurare hypotheses
of this type. For
examPle: 'A zero phoneme is opposed
ro a[ the other phonemes in'Frcnch in that
it entails no differentiat characiers
and no constant phonetic varue. on the con-
trary' the proper function of the zero phoneme
is to be opposed tophoneme
absence'' (R. Jakobson and
J. Lutz, "ot., on the French phonemic pattern,,'
lford 5' no' 2 lAugust l9r9r: r55).
Simitarry, if we schematize rhe conceprion I
am proposing herc, it courd swoop":
armost be said ttrat rtre function of notions rike mano
is to be opposed ro the bsence
of signification, without entairing by itserf any
Particular significatie. " r r
The ouerabundance of the signifier,
irs supprementary characfer, is thus trre
result of a finitude, rhat is t ,uV, tt" ,J*lt of a lack which must be
supplemented

ept of play is important in tvi-Strauss.

notably to roulette, are vry frcquent, 7
everything Posscssed it.
ace and History,r6 and in.Tle Savage
slowness' the
always caught up in tension.
atways This standrint ltrs not prcvenl lvi-Slrauss fiont rccognizing the
'vrr,vrr wrur nrsrorJ, nrst o[ all. This is a classical process of nraturing, lhe continuous toil of factual transfrnlrations,
history (for
problem, objections fo
 " Igt'-" -.6,-, rnd f .-

gcstuf which was also

s" at the momeil when
ike Rousscau, he muq
y structur on the model of
catastrophe_
overturning of nature in nalurc, a natural intemrption of the natural
seqrcnce, a
setting aside of nature.
Besidcs thc tension between pray and history, there is arso the
nsion beNeen
play and Prcsencc. Play is the disruption of prcsence. The presence
of an elemenr
is always a signifying ad substitutive refrence inscrbe
in a systcm of dif-
ferences and thc movenenr of a chain. pray is
arways pray of absence ad
pr.serce' but if it is to be thought radica[y, pray
must u" co"e"e of bcforc thc
ad absence. Being must be conceived as prescnoe
or
the possibility of play and nor the other way around.
lf
rhe reperition or pray,,"3 *:'J?::ifjj i: "f1, l;j,? gil:T
pfesefr, an cthic of nostalgia for origins, an
ethic of archaic and natural inno-
glhic, nostalgia,
tlrc ethnological
are exemplary

"'r
:.
s,lT,*h",,$i:
of play whose.other side
at is rheyous affirmation of the play of
ming, thc affirmation of a world of signs

absolu chance, affirmation

arso surrenders irserf ro genetic indetermination, to
llrc, semitwl advcnture
of the trace.
interpretation, of structure, of sign, of
of deciphering a truth or an origin which
d which lives the necessity of interpreta-
longer tumed toward thc origin, affirms
humanism, the namc of man being re
t the history of metaphysics or of
ut his entire history-has dreamcd of
, the origirr and the end of play. The
which Nietzsche pointed trc way, does
uss does, the ..inspiration of a new
I

ion to the rilork of Marcel Mauss',).

N I
!

I
\ )
 339 naoa. o Ftc Zr!3O

Tcn Stur, Sln, rd Pby

h rhc lllos d
Humo Scnr
. TN. Thc refcrence, in a rcsrictcd scnsc, is lr the Frcrdian theory of urotic symorm en{of
drcam interprctation in which a givcn symbol is underslood contrulictorily rs both thc dcsirc to fulll
an impulsc ard thc desire lo supprtns thc impulse. ln a general scns lhc efercce is to Dcrid's
thcsis tlul logic and coheerce thcmselves can only bc uxlcrst<xd conrrdictorily, sincc ty
psuppose the suppressi<m of diflrance, "writing" in the scnse of thc gcrral ocofi)my. Cf. ':L
phamcie dc Plarn." inLo disseminttion, pg. 12126, whcrc Dcrridr ttscs thc Fctdit modcl of
dream interpctation in order to clarify thc conractions embedded in philosophical cohcrcncc.
2.The Raw und the Ctx*.ed, trans. John axl Dtrreen Wightman (New Yol: Hapcr nd Rov,
1969), p. 14. lTranslalion srmewhl nxxliul.l
3.The Elcmntary Structures of Kinship, lrans. James Bcll, John von Sturmer, ad Rodncy
Needham (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), p. E.
4. lbid-, p. 3.
5.The Suvage Mru| (Lnndon: George Weidenfell and Nicolson; Chicago: Thc Univcrsity of
Chicago Prcss, l9), p. 247.
. lbid., p. l?.
7. The Ro, und the Ca*ed, p. 2.
E. lbid., pp..
l'J 9. lbid., p. 12.
--il 10. lbid.. pp. l7-lE.
I l. lbd., pp. 7-8.
12. TN. This double scnsc of supplcmenl--{o supply s()ntelhing which is missing, or lo supply
somcfhing additional-is t the ccnle of Dcrrida's rleconstruclion of lraditional linguistics i Dc la
grommatoktgie. ln a chaptcr enaitled "Thc Virlere-e of tlc ltler: From Lvi-Strauss lo Rorsscau"
(pp. l49ff.). frrida cxparxls thc analysis of Lvi-Struss begun in this cssay in txder furthcr to
clarify the ways in which the conlrdiclis of rraditional krgic "program" the most modern concc
tal apparatuses of linguistics and the sxial scicnces.
13. "lntr<rduction I'tuvre de Marcel Mauss," in Marcel Mauss, Sociologic et anthropologic
(Paris: P.U.F., 1950), p. xlix.
14. lbid., pp. xlix-1.
15. George Charhtnnier, Entreticns uvtc Claudt l'vi-Strouss (Paris: Plon, 196t).
16. Roce uttd History (Pais: Usco Publicatirns, l95E).
17. "lntr<xluction I'ocuve de Marcel Mauss," p. rlvi.
lE. TN. T rcfcrcncc is to Tri.rs tropiques, trans. John Rurscll (London: Hutchinson md Co.,
t9r).

Elcvcn Elllpdr
I . This is thc titlc of the lhird volumc of thc lvre des questions ( I 965). Ttre sccond volurtc, ilr
Livrc de Yukcl, apretd in l94. Cf. chap. 3 ahrve, "tdmond Jats and tht Qucstion of thc
Book."
2. TN. 'l'he exit from the ilentical inlo the safie recalls thc "leap out of mcaaphysics" nto thc
qucsrion ol'rliference, which is also he questi(m of the same, as elaboracd by Hcidcgg inldcairy
aad Difierencc.
3. TN. Tttc ctemal rclum is ttrc Nietzschcn concePton of lhc samc.
\, 4. ten Ctcsson, "Joumal non-intinc ct points cardinux," Mcasurcs, no. 4, Octobc 193?.