How did Jacques Derrida criticize the metaphysics of presence in Western philosophy?

Jacques Derrida criticized the "metaphysics of presence"—a foundational tendency in Western philosophy to prioritize concepts like truth, essence, and origin as immediately "present" or self-evident—by exposing its reliance on binary oppositions.12

He argued that Western thought is inherently logocentric, assuming that truth exists independently of language. This manifests in hierarchies where one term is privileged as "authentic" (e.g., speech) while the other is dismissed as "derivative" (e.g., writing). Derrida demonstrated that these hierarchies are unstable; for instance, speech functions only through the same "absence" and "difference" traditionally attributed to writing.12

To challenge this, Derrida introduced the concept of différance, which suggests that meaning is never fully present but is instead endlessly deferred through an infinite chain of linguistic contrasts. By deconstructing these texts, he showed that the "presence" philosophers seek is a construction rather than a given reality, urging a shift toward acknowledging the essential roles of absence and difference in all systems of representation.12