Implications
Ronse: ...Much has been said above about the a of différance. What does it signify?
Derrida: I do not know if it signifies at all--perhaps something like the production of what metaphysics calls the sign (signified/signifier). You have noticed that this a is written or read, but cannot be heard. And first off I insist upon the fact that any discourse--for example ours, at this moment--on this alteration, this graphic and grammatical aggression, implies an irreducible reference to the mute intervention of a written sign. The present participle of the verb différer, on which this noun is modeled, ties together a configuration of concepts I hold to be systematic and irreducible, each one of which intervenes, or rather is accentuated, at a decisive moment of the work. First, différance refers to the (active and passive) movement that consists in deferring by means of delay, delegation, reprieve, referral, detour, postponement, reserving. In this sense, différance is not preceded by the originary and indivisible unity of a present possibility that I could reserve, like an expenditure that I would put off calculatedly or for reasons of economy. What defers presence on the contrary, is the very basis on which presence is announced or desired in what represents it, its sign, its trace...
Ronse: From this point of view différance is an economical question?
Derrida: I would even say that it is the economical concept, and since there is no economy without différance, it is the most general structure of economy, given that one understands by economy something other than the classical