logocentrism

Logocentrism is a term in philosophy and literary theory describing the privileging of logos—reason, language, and especially speech—as the primary source and guarantor of meaning, truth, and authority in Western thought. The term is closely associated with Jacques Derrida, who popularized the critique in the context of the metaphysics of presence, arguing that Western philosophy tends to treat speech as the authentic, immediate expression of thought and tends to rank writing as secondary or derivative.

In logocentric thought, the audible voice of speech is often presumed to reveal a stable, self-present meaning, while writing is seen as a trace or supplement that cannot capture that presence fully. Derrida’s critique challenges this hierarchy, suggesting that meaning is not fixed or transparently present but is always deferred through differences within language. He also argues that signification relies on context, difference, and trace rather than a direct link between signifier and signified. This leads to a broader project in deconstruction: to interrogate how supposedly primary sources of authority—speech, origin, truth—are themselves constructed and destabilized.

Logocentrism has influenced fields such as literary theory, philosophy, linguistics, theology, and cultural studies by encouraging analyses of how language and discourse shape power, ideology, and knowledge. Critics vary in their reception, with some contesting Derrida’s conclusions or methods, while others have extended the concept to examine biases in institutions, education, and media that privilege certain voices or forms of knowledge.