Différance, the Trace, and the Theory of Parallel Identities: Where I Am, You Are Not
Vladimir Nemet
Abstract:
This paper explores the intersection between Jacques Derrida’s concept of différance, the phenomenology of the trace, and my theory of parallel identities. Rejecting Martin Buber’s ideal of a symmetrical I–Thou encounter, it argues that relational identity is constituted through asymmetrical alternation, absence, and deferred presence. The Other is never encountered as a full subject alongside the Self but always arrives as a trace — fractured, delayed, and already marked by loss.
Introduction
Since the publication of I and Thou (1923), Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogical existence has shaped much of modern thinking about intersubjectivity. His I–Thou relation assumes a symmetrical presence between two sovereign subjects who encounter each other in authenticity and mutuality (Buber, 1970). However, poststructuralist thought — especially the philosophy of Jacques Derrida — problematizes this foundational assumption. Derrida’s notion of différance fundamentally destabilizes the metaphysics of presence on which Buber’s relational ethics depends.
In dialogue with Derrida, this essay introduces the theory of parallel identities, a model of subjectivity based not on simultaneity, but on the perpetual alternation of subject and object. The Other is not a co-present “you,” but a trace, a resonance, something already partially lost by the time the self comes into being.
Différance: Difference and Deferral
The term différance, coined by Derrida (1982), fuses two meanings from the French verb différer:
- to differ — indicating spatial distinction (of You and I), and
- to defer — pointing to temporal postponement (of You and I).
By merging these senses, Derrida challenges the belief that meaning is rooted in full presence. Instead, meaning emerges through difference and is perpetually deferred — never fully realized, never self-contained.
“The signified concept is never present in and of itself… it is always already inhabited by the trace of another sign” (Derrida, 1982, p. 11).
This logic extends beyond language into the very structure of subjectivity and relationality: the Other, like meaning, never arrives fully formed or directly. What appears present is always already fractured by absence, mediated by what is no longer.
The Trace of the Other
The trace in Derrida’s philosophy is not merely what remains after something has gone, but a structural necessity — the mark of something that was never fully there. The Other can only appear to the self after the fact — not as presence, but as echo, displacement, and loss.
This leads to a key ontological consequence:
When the I is present, the Other is already absent. When the I is subject, the Other is reduced to object. This is not a relational failure, but a condition of being.
Thus, relationality is shaped not by presence, but by asymmetry. The encounter with the Other always occurs through the trace, because the full presence of the Other is ontologically foreclosed.
What we call a “relationship” is, in truth, an oscillation between identities — never symmetrical, never simultaneous.
Parallel Identities and the Logic of Substitution
From this framework emerges the theory of parallel identities, which posits that identity is not a stable essence, but a position in a relational sequence. I and You do not appear side by side in equilibrium; instead, they alternate — one is subject while the other becomes object, and then vice versa. But they never coexist in mutual subjectivity.
This logic echoes in psychoanalytic theory, particularly in the work of Heinz Kohut, who describes the self as a bipolar structure composed of ambitions on one side and ideals on the other — each anchored in internalized relationships with selfobjects. In narcissistic transferences, Kohut (1971) identifies two key configurations:
- “I am the perfect self, and you are part of me”, and
- “You are the perfect self, and I am part of you.”
These modes illustrate not a stable meeting of equal subjects, but a relational dynamic where subject and object are continually exchanged. Kohut thus anticipates a structural truth that Derrida radicalizes: that subjectivity is never solitary, but always relationally constituted, and yet never co-present with the Other in equality.
This theory of identity as positional and relational rather than autonomous reframes the possibility of encounter: not as harmony, but as oscillation, rotation, and structural delay.
Against the Symmetry of I–Thou
Martin Buber’s model of I–Thou assumes that full presence between two subjects is possible — even foundational to ethics and meaning. “When I confront a human being as my Thou,” writes Buber, “and speak the basic word I–Thou to him, he is no thing among things” (Buber, 1970, p. 8).
Yet such a vision rests on metaphysical assumptions that Derrida’s work — and the theory of parallel identities — fundamentally deconstruct. If meaning, subjectivity, and relation are always delayed, then the Other cannot appear in symmetrical presence. There is no pure face-to-face; only rotation, alternation, and the persistence of the trace.
Conclusion
The intertwining of différance, the trace, and the theory of parallel identities compels a radical rethinking of relation. There is no mutual presence, no symmetrical dialogue — only an asymmetric structure of substitution, in which identities emerge through absence and dislocation.
Where I am, you are not. And yet it is precisely through that absence — through the trace the Other leaves behind — that relation becomes possible.
The ethical and ontological space of the Other does not emerge through harmony or simultaneity, but through rupture. In that rupture — in the echo of what was never fully there — the Other arrives.
References
- Buber, M. (1970). I and Thou (W. Kaufmann, Trans.). New York: Scribner’s. (Original work published 1923)
- Derrida, J. (1976). Of Grammatology (G. C. Spivak, Trans.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Derrida, J. (1982). Margins of Philosophy (A. Bass, Trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Kohut, H. (1971). The Analysis of the Self: A Systematic Approach to the Psychoanalytic Treatment of Narcissistic Personality Disorders. New York: International Universities Press.
