the human voice and is more exterior and stable than speech. He believed that this makes it a more effective carrier of meaning. Randal Holme has argued that Derrida preferred writing because he associated it with "the construction of meaning and the creation of category." Derrida identified the often perceived difference between the value of speaking versus writing as one of the key binary oppositions of logocentrism. He attempted to deconstruct this opposition by arguing that speech can be seen as derived from writing as easily as writing is seen as derived from speech. He wrote that societies often make determinations that unfairly casts writing as an inferior method of communication and self-expression. Derrida insisted that the written word has its own value, and is likely not "the simple 'supplement to the spoken word.'" In Of Grammatology he uses this method of analysis to critique the views that Rousseau expressed in Essay on the Origin of Languages. Derrida argued that Rousseau's views were contradictory and often undermined his arguments. Criticism Searle has criticized Derrida's claims of historical opposition to phonocentrism. Searle believes that many philosophers, including Aristotle, Gottfried Leibniz, Gottlob Frege, and Bertrand Russell, have "tended to emphasize written language as the more perspicuous vehicle of logical relations." He argues that support for ordinary speech over written language only emerged in the 1950s with the advent of Ordinary language philosophy. He also contends that Derrida makes sweeping misinformed claims about the history of writing. Geoffrey Hartman has also criticized Derrida's accounts of phonocentrism. He has argued that Derrida failed to provide an account of the historical forces that have influenced phonocentric and non-phonocentric cultures. Ong has expressed some agreement with Hartman's critique. Though he describes Derrida's view as "brilliant and to a degree serviceable," he believes that it "plays with the paradoxes of textuality alone and in historical isolation." Though Ong believes that it is impossible to separate writing from its pretext, he contends that "this does not mean that text can be reduced to orality." See also Graphocentrism Phallogocentrism Notes Bibliography Philosophy of language