From Voice to Supplement: Derrida, Nietzsche, and the Critique of Logocentrism

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Introduction

From Plato to Rousseau, including Hegel and Husserl, Western philosophical tradition has long upheld a hierarchy that privileges speech over writing. This preference is not merely technical or historical—it reflects a metaphysics of presence, where speech is associated with truth, origin, and being. In Of Grammatology, Jacques Derrida names this structure phonocentrism and subjects it to radical critique. However, as this article will argue, Friedrich Nietzsche had already begun to subvert these values, not through a theory of signs, but through a genealogy of culture and thought. His reading of tragic art, the rise of rationalism, and the figure of Socrates anticipates crucial insights of Derrida’s deconstruction. This article outlines a philosophical trajectory that connects both thinkers in their critique of the structural violence inherent in logocentric reason.

Derrida and Phonocentrism: A Metaphysical Structure

Derrida observes that Western metaphysics constructs its concept of truth around the logos—a full speech that guarantees meaning through its supposed immediacy. Speech, in its capacity to hear itself speak, creates the illusion of self-presence. Writing, by contrast, has been historically devalued as an external, deferred, and derivative form. The core gesture of Of Grammatology is to question this hierarchical opposition:

“The system of ‘hearing oneself speak’ through the phonic substance... is the very condition of the possibility of the concept of truth” (Derrida, 1976/1997, p. 7).¹

Writing is not a mere supplement or a secondary function; it structurally reveals that presence is always already marked by absence. The privilege of speech is, therefore, a metaphysical construction that conceals its reliance on a supposedly external "supplement."

Rousseau as a Paradigm of Logocentrism

Derrida selects Rousseau as a key figure in this metaphysical economy. In his Essay on the Origin of Languages, Rousseau seeks to trace the birth of language to an originary emotional state. Yet when he turns to writing, he paradoxically relies on it to explain the corruption of speech, while still labeling it an external accident. Derrida shows that the very notion of the “supplement” Rousseau employs is structurally inconsistent:

“The supplement is exterior, outside of the positivity to which it is super-added, alien to that which, in itself, is enough” (Derrida, 1976/1997, p. 144).²

Writing appears dangerous not because it disrupts a pure origin, but because it exposes that speech itself is not self-sufficient. This oscillation between need and exclusion captures the paradox at the heart of logocentrism.

Nietzsche as a Forerunner of Deconstruction

While Nietzsche does not articulate a theory of writing or signs, his critique of reason anticipates a genealogical deconstruction of logocentrism. In The Birth of Tragedy, he argues that the rise of Socratic rationalism marked the suppression of instinct, art, and the tragic. The balance between the Dionysian and the Apollonian is disrupted, giving way to a culture of discursivity and judgment. Socrates, in this schema, represents the rupture:

“Socrates is the adversary of Dionysus” (Nietzsche, 1999, §14).³

Just as Derrida exposes the illusion of pure presence in speech, Nietzsche reveals that Socratic reason masks a deeper decay. The triumph of logic comes not from strength, but from a waning of life’s vital forces.

Socrates, the Daimon, and Repressed Instinct

Yet Nietzsche also identifies a fracture within Socratic rationalism. In his preparatory writings, such as Socrates and Tragedy, he notes that Socrates did not always act on reason alone. When argument failed him, he appealed to an irrational inner voice, his daimonion, which he obeyed without justification:

“Socrates discovered within himself a power higher than reason: his daimonion. In critical moments, he obeyed it blindly” (Nietzsche, 1980, KSA 1).⁴

This daimon behaves like Derrida’s “supplement”: external and excluded, yet indispensable. Socrates requires instinct to make decisions, just as Rousseau requires writing to narrate the origins of speech. The system relies on what it denies.

Conclusion: Nietzsche as a Genealogist of Logocentrism

Both Derrida and Nietzsche uncover a hierarchical structure that masks its own conditions. Derrida dismantles the opposition between speech and writing, showing that what appears original is already inscribed by difference. Nietzsche, in a different register, deconstructs the sovereignty of reason, exposing its roots in fear, repression, and decline. If Derrida’s writing challenges the metaphysics of presence, Nietzsche’s tragic art resists the tyranny of conceptual judgment. One may thus read Nietzsche as a proto-genealogist of logocentrism, whose critique prepares the way for Derrida’s deconstruction. Both thinkers demonstrate that what is excluded—instinct, art, the body, the supplement—is not marginal, but foundational to thought itself.

Notes

1. Derrida, J. (1997). Of Grammatology (G. C. Spivak, Trans.). Johns Hopkins University Press. (Original work published 1967), p. 7.
2. Ibid., p. 144.
3. Nietzsche, F. (1999). The Birth of Tragedy (R. Geuss & R. Speirs, Trans.). Cambridge University Press, §14.
4. Nietzsche, F. (1980). Kritische Studienausgabe, Vol. 1 (G. Colli & M. Montinari, Eds.). Berlin: de Gruyter.

References

• Derrida, J. (1997). Of Grammatology (G. C. Spivak, Trans.). Johns Hopkins University Press. (Original work published 1967)
• Nietzsche, F. (1999). The Birth of Tragedy (R. Geuss & R. Speirs, Trans.). Cambridge University Press.
• Nietzsche, F. (1980). Kritische Studienausgabe, Vol. 1 (G. Colli & M. Montinari, Eds.). Berlin: de Gruyter.
• Rousseau, J.-J. (1998). Essay on the Origin of Languages (J. H. Moran & A. Gode, Trans.). University of Chicago Press.