Différance functions as an unknowable absolute akin to Schelling’s

Evidence

Not surprisingly, various authors have detected in Derrida’s argu­ ment strong filiations with the German idealist tradition. Dews argues that ‘Derrida … is offering us a philosophy of différance as the absolute’ — an absolute which, like Schelling’s, is unknowable by the procedures characteristic of modern scientific rationality. Schelling, however, believed that the absolute could be grasped intuitively; Derrida, by contrast, relies on the endless play of signifiers to provide us with an intimation of différance, though no more than that, because of the necessarily metaphysical nature of language. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 312

Categorization

• XREF: Feeds the reader’s strategic-essentialism research: if différance is itself an unattainable ‘absolute’ presence, ironic essentialism (strategic use without belief) is structurally parallel to Derrida’s own irony toward metaphysics. — connects to: Difference simultaneously constitutes and limits any unity or totality — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 145