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Logocentrism
"Logocentrism" is a term coined by the German philosopher Ludwig Klages in the
early 1900s.[1] It refers to the tradition of Western science and philosophy that
regards words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality. It
holds the logos as epistemologically superior and that there is an original,
irreducible object which the logos represent. According to logocentrism, the logos is
the ideal representation of the Platonic ideal.

In linguistics
With the logos as the site of a representational unity, linguistics dissects the
structure of the logos further and establishes the sound of the word, coupled with
the sense of the word, as the original and ideal location of metaphysical significance.
Logocentric linguistics proposes that "the immediate and privileged unity which
founds significance and the acts of language is the articulated unity of sound and
sense within the phonic."[2] As the science of language, linguistics is a science by
way of this semiotic phonology. It follows, therefore, that speech is the primary form
of language and that writing is secondary, representative, and, importantly, outside
of speech. Writing is a "sign of a sign"[3] and, therefore, is basically phonetic.

Jonathan Culler in his book Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction says:

Traditionally, Western philosophy has distinguished "reality" from

"appearance," things themselves from representations of them, and thought
from signs that express it. Signs or representations, in this view, are but a way
to get at reality, truth, or ideas, and they should be as transparent as possible;
they should not get in the way, should not affect or infect the thought or truth
they represent. In this framework, speech has seemed the immediate
manifestation or presence of thought, while writing, which operates in the
absence of the speaker, has been treated as an artificial and derivative
representation of speech, a potentially misleading sign of a sign (p. 11).

This notion that the written word is a sign of a sign has a long history in Western
thought. According to Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), "Spoken words are the symbols
of mental experience and written words are the symbols of spoken words."[4] Jean-
:
 Jacques Rousseau similarly states, "Writing is nothing but the representation of
speech; it is bizarre that one gives more care to the determining of the image than to
the object."[5]

Saussure
Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913), it is claimed by Derrida, follows this logocentric
line of thought in the development of his linguistic sign and its terminology. Where
the word remains known as the whole sign, the unification of concept and sound-
image becomes the unification of the signified and the signifier respectively.[6] The
signifier is then composed of an indivisible sound and image whereby the graphic
form of the sign is exterior.

According to Saussure in his Course in General Linguistics, "The linguistic object is

not defined by the combination of the written word and the spoken word: the
spoken form alone constitutes the object."[7] Language has, he writes, "an oral
tradition that is independent of writing."[8]

Derrida
French philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) in his book Of Grammatology
responds in depth to what he believes is Saussure's logocentric argument. Derrida
deconstructs the apparent inner, phonological system of language, stating in
Chapter 2, Linguistics and Grammatology, that in fact and for reasons of essence
Saussure's representative determination is "...an ideal explicitly directing a
functioning which...is never completely phonetic".[9] The idea that writing might
function other than phonetically and also as more than merely a representative
delineation of speech allows an absolute concept of logos to end in what Derrida
describes as infinitist metaphysics.[10] The difference in presence can never actually
be reduced, as was the logocentric project; instead, the chain of signification
becomes the trace of presence-absence.[11]

That the signified is originarily and essentially (and not only for a finite
and created spirit) trace, that it is always already in the position of the
signifier, is the apparently innocent proposition within which the
metaphysics of the logos, of presence and consciousness, must reflect
upon writing as its death and its resource.[12]

In literary theory
:
 Inherent in Saussure's reasoning, a structuralist approach to literature began in the
1950s [13] to assess the literary text, or utterance, in terms of its adherence to
certain organising conventions which might establish its objective meaning. Again,
as for Saussure, structuralism in literary theory is condemned to fail on account of
its own foundation: '...language constitutes our world, it doesn't just record it or
label it. Meaning is always attributed to the object or idea by the human mind, and
constructed by and expressed through language: it is not already contained within
the thing'.[14]

There is no absolute truth outside of construction no matter how scientific or prolific

that construction might be. Enter Derrida and post-structuralism. Other like-
minded philosophers and psychoanalysts who have notably opposed logocentrism
are Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Freud, as well as those who have been
influenced by them in this vein.[15] Literary critic Roland Barthes (1915–1980), with
his essay The Death of the Author (1968), converted from structuralism to post-
structuralism.

For the post-structuralist the writer must be present in a kind of absence, or 'dead',
according to Barthes; just as the reader is absent in a kind of presence at the
'moment' of the literary utterance. Post-structuralism is therefore against the moral
formalism of the Western literary tradition which maintains only The Greats should
be looked to for literary inspiration and indeed for a means of political control and
social equilibrium.

Modernism, with its desire to regain some kind of lost presence, also resists post-
structuralist thought; whereas Post-modernism accepts the loss (the loss of being as
'presence') and steps beyond the limitations of logocentrism.

In non-Western cultures
Some researchers consider that logocentrism may not be something which exists
across all cultures, but instead has a particular bias in Western culture. Dennis
Tedlock's study of stories in the Quiché Maya culture[16] leads him to suggest that
the development of alphabetic writing systems may have led to a logocentric
perspective, but this is not the case in all writing systems, and particularly less
prevalent in cultures where writing has not been established. Tedlock writes, "The
voice is linear, in [Derrida's] view; there is only one thing happening at a time, a
sequence of phonemes,"[17] and this is reflected in writing and even the study of
language in the field of linguistics and what Tedlock calls "mythologics (or larger-
scale structuralism)",[18] "are founded not upon a multidimensional apprehension
of the multidimensional voice, but upon unilinear writing of the smallest-scale
articulations within the voice."[19] This one-dimensionality of writing means that
only words can be represented through alphabetic writing, and, more often than not,
tone, voice, accent and style are difficult if not impossible to represent. Geaney,[20]
:
 in writing about ming (names) in early Chinese reveals that ideographic writing
systems present some difficulty for the idea of logocentrism, and that even Derrida
wrote of Chinese writing in an ambivalent way, assuming firstly that "writing has a
historical telos in which phonetic writing is the normal 'outcome'",[21] but also
"speculat[ing] without irony about Chinese writing as a 'movement of civilization
outside all logocentrism'".[22]

See also
Metaphysics of presence
Deconstruction
Différance
Phallogocentrism
Phonocentrism
Apollonian and Dionysian

Notes
1. Josephson-Storm, Jason. The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and
the Birth of the Human Sciences. University of Chicago Press. p. 221.
ISBN 9780226403533.
2. Derrida, p. 29
3. Derrida, p. 29
4. (Derrida, p. 30)
5. (Derrida, p. 27)
6. (Derrida, p. 31)
7. (Derrida, p. 31)
8. (Derrida, p. 30)
9. (Derrida, p. 30)
10. (Derrida, p. 71)
11. (Derrida, p. 71)
12. (Derrida, p. 73)
13. (Barry, p. 38)
14. (Barry, p. 42)
15. (Barry, p. 64)
16. (Tedlock)
17. (Tedlock, p. 322)
18. (Tedlock, p. 323)
19. (Tedlock, p. 323)
:
19. (Tedlock, p. 323)
20. (Geaney)
21. (Geaney, p. 251)
22. (Geaney, p. 251)

References
Barry, P (2009), Beginning theory: an introduction to literary and cultural theory,
3rd edn, Manchester University Press, New York.
Derrida, J (1976), 'Linguistics and Grammatology', Of Grammatology, Johns
Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, pp. 27–73, (CRO— CQU Library,
HUMT20012 Code).
Geaney, J (2010), 'Grounding “Language” in the senses : what the eyes and
ears reveal about MING (names) in early Chinese texts (http://www.jstor.org/stab
le/40666560)', Philosophy East & West, vol. 60, no. 2, pp. 251–293.
Josephson-Storm, Jason, The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and
the Birth of the Human Sciences, University of Chicago Press, 2017.
Tedlock, D 1979, ‘Beyond logocentrism: trace and voice among the Quiché
Maya’, Boundary 2, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 321–333.

External links
Daniel Chandler, Biases of the Ear and Eye - Logocentrism (http://visual-memor
y.co.uk/daniel/Documents/litoral/litoral4.html)
Dely, Carole, "Jacques Derrida: The Perchance of a Coming of the Otherwoman.
The Deconstruction of Phallogocentrism from Duel to Duo" (https://web.archive.
org/web/20120208071831/http://www.sens-public.org/article.php3?id_article=31
2), Sens Public, archived from the original (http://www.sens-public.org/article.php
3?id_article=312) on 2012-02-08

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