Writing and Différance

The theme of pedagogy and more generally education as supplementarity has been all but ignored in critical discussions engaging Jacques Derrida’s of grammatology. By and large, the sustained emphasis of inquiry has instead been on evaluating the epistemological and methodological parameters of deconstruction as a theory of reading and writing and not as a treatise on the ethics of pedagogical praxis. The essay rereads “... That Dangerous Supplement...,” the chapter on Rousseau on writing, while keeping the theme of pedagogy at the forefront of the analysis of supplementarity. Derrida presents for the “science of a new writing” in the “gram” that flourishes within the codic play of differences. But it is as différance that the grammatological conversion of semiology takes place via deconstruction. Such a focus provides new insights into deconstruction that could allow us to effectively gauge the edusemiotic potential of its influence on educational theory, not only as a theoretical departure from classical modes of reading and writing, but as the inaugural steps toward and beyond a theory of education that could ground an ethical praxis.