In his key work, Writing and Difference, Derrida constructs a neologism that, when written in French, looks like Differance , but does not sound at all different from the word difference . Differance is a more complex concept. It was obtained by combining the meanings of two Latin words - differer (to distinguish) and defaire (to disassemble).
The term "difference" goes back to Heidegger's ontological difference and Saussure's semiotic difference. Difference is the antithesis to the identity of presence. Difference in the ontological sense is primary over presence. The originality of the difference is associated with the lack of identity between the finite and the infinite, the meaning and the thing, the past and the future, with the finiteness of human nature and its intermediate place in the global structure of being.
"Differentiation" means remoteness, non-givenness of everything (in time and space). This is the world of human existence, which is constantly on the verge of extinction, "erasing" any traces of a person. Distinction constitutes the basis of being and the opposition of presence / absence, being a constant displacement, delay, delay, interval. Differentiation is outside the categories of thought. It is an unclear and ambiguous transition (shift) from one thing to another, from one pole of opposition to another . Derrida insisted that Différance is neither a word nor a concept and cannot be understood within the framework of a system of signs.
Arche-writing, arche-trace and distinction as some quasi-origins are connected with each other, in a certain sense they are one and the same. From the position of arche-writing, one can observe writing - speech, from the position of arche-trace - presence - absence, and distinction allows one to see identity - difference
