Although Derrida's talk of differance is tinged with his own peculiar coyness and taste for paradox, the general theme of difference is fundamental for all poststructuralists, who are in principle wary of thought that reduces diverse elements to the sameness of unifying concepts or theories. Moreover, even though Derrida is most strongly associated with the notion, he offers a focused discussion of it in only one essay (“La différance”). By contrast, Lyotard, Deleuze, and Irigaray provide extensive developments of what they call, respectively, the differend, difference, and sexual difference.

LYOTARD

Even before his book-length treatment of difference in Le differend, Jean-François Lyotard (1924–98) insistently and powerfully developed the theme of a reality somehow beyond and different from intelligible structure. He did this in a variety of keys, speaking of desire in the context of psychoanalysis, of line in the context of art, and, in a wide range of contexts, of figure, event, and singularity.