In this much-discussed book, Derrida seeks to establish grammatology, the science of writing, on new philosophical foundations. He observes that the prevailing perception of the relationship between speech and writing has been constrained by logocentric and Eurocentric metaphysics and links his new interpretation of the phenomenon of writing to the challenges posed by overcoming this metaphysics. At the same time, he presents his views by opening a lively dialogue with contemporary trends in linguistics and ethnology, particularly with Saussure and Lévi-Strauss, as well as with the philosophical tradition on the issue of language, as crystallized in Rousseau's work.