Derrida, Writing, and Evolvementalism

Plato initiated a long tradition which has held that Speech is a copy of Thought, and Writing is a copy of Speech. This hierarchy has been provocatively challenged in recent decades by Derrida, who not merely demonstrates that Thought and Speech are inconceivable without Writing, but also suggests that they are both modes of Writing. Despite his being better received in the areas of Literary Criticism and Cultural Studies, his studies offer important contributions to topics in traditional Philosophy. His analysis of the Grammatological nature of Thought reinforces Wittgenstein's rejection of the possibility of a Private Language, and undermines atomistic theories of Consciousness and Self, thus continuing Heidegger's critique of the subjectivistic 'History of Western Metaphysics'. His notion 'Differance' complements Deleuze's challenge to the traditional priority of Identity over Difference. Formaterialism is a further attempt at the latter, and, so, it also appreciates the subversion of the traditional priority of Mind/Soul/Spirit over Body, implied by the Thought-Speech-Writing hierarchy. However, it conceives of the latter as a progression in the process of Communication--a Thought is externalized as Speech, and then further externalized as Writing. In other words, with respect to Communication, they are Evolvementally related, with Writing potentially the most highly Evolved Action of the three. Also, despite the multi-facetedness of Derrida's innovative analyses of Writing, he seems to have missed its most obvious characteristic--that it functions as retention, i. e. Writing is a committing to Memory. So, his thesis that Consciousness is fundamentally Writing is hardly a divergence from a tradition that begins with Plato's theory that Thought is Recollection.