Post-Human Semiotics: The Priority of Writing

  Introduction Machine translation (MT) has evolved dramatically from its early rule-based methods to today’s AI-driven models. Initially, translation systems relied on word-for-word substitution, an approach that often led to nonsensical or misleading results due to the complexity of linguistic structures. In his article "The Word," André Martinet criticized this method, arguing that treating words as discrete, self-contained units of meaning created an artificial "screen" that obscured the structural and relational nature of language. This article argues that while contemporary AI translation has moved beyond simple lexical substitution, it still struggles to fully account for linguistic interdependence. Despite advancements in deep learning, modern algorithmic models continue to approximate rather than truly understand syntactic and morphological dependencies, making his critique as relevant as ever. By examining Martinet’s structuralist insights, the histori...

Introduction Does artificial intelligence truly break with metaphysics, or does it simply relocate the metaphysics of presence into computational form? This question finds resonance in Jacques Derrida’s Of Grammatology , particularly in two key passages. In The Program , Derrida remarks: “If the theory of cybernetics is by itself to oust metaphysical concepts—including the concepts of soul, of life, of value, of choice, of memory—which until recently served to separate the machine from man, it must conserve the notion of writing, trace, gramme [written mark], or grapheme, until its own historico-metaphysical character is also exposed.” Meanwhile, in The Signifier and Truth , he warns: “This would perhaps mean that one does not leave the epoch whose closure one can outline. The movements of belonging or not belonging to the epoch are too subtle, the illusions in that regard are too easy, for us to make a definite judgment.” These observations remain highly relevant today as cont...

Introduction For centuries, writing has been relegated to a secondary position in the hierarchy of signification, often viewed as a mere supplement to speech. Western metaphysics, particularly in its logocentric tradition, privileged the voice as the medium of presence and self-identity, while writing was deemed a derivative, exteriorized, and even corrupted form of communication. Jacques Derrida, however, disrupts this assumption in the section “The Program” of Chapter 1 of Of Grammatology , where he introduces the concept of arche-writing , asserting that writing is not simply a representation of speech but the condition of possibility for all signification. Writing as the Origin, Not the Supplement Derrida argues that writing does not merely signify a secondary inscription of speech but instead comprehends and exceeds language. He states: “By a slow movement whose necessity is hardly perceptible, everything that for at least some twenty centuries tended toward and finall...