Derrida’s Theory of Propositional Truth-Valued Meaning

We explore Derrida's theory of writing in connection with issues in the philosophy of logic and mathematics. In the first part of this essay, we show how Derrida's notion of ‘context’, understood as a differential system of marks that enable the inscription, identification and differentiation of meaning, accounts for the construction and verification of truth-valued propositions. Propositional truth-valued meaning always refers to some normative given context specifying its appearing, construction, functioning, and verification rules. Intentional consciousness does not produce these contextual rules; quite the opposite, consciousness must first follow them to constitute propositional truth-valued meaning as an intentional object. In the second part of this essay, we apply the notion of context to an analysis of the intuitionist theory of evident judgements and the intuitionist attempt to rehabilitate the ‘knowing subject’ as verifying power. Our analysis of the intuitionist theory of propositional meaning will confirm the central tenet of Derrida's theory of writing. The ‘originary act’ of the ‘knowing subject’ is secondary to the contextual construction and verification of propositional truth-valued meaning.