Abstract
Of all the aspects of Derrida’s thought, his interpretation of Husserl has occasioned the most debate.1 Although all of Derrida’s critics start out wanting to understand him—none, for instance, claim to do anything as extraordinary as “deconstruction”—none adhere to one of the most basic hermeneutical rules: reconstruct the context. Because critics neglect the context, some charge Derrida with interpreting Husserlian phenomenology merely as ontologism and intuitionism, in a word, as Platonism.2 They do this despite the fact that Derrida has repeatedly stated his allegiance to transcendental philosophy.3 Others charge him with failing “to recognize the subtleties of Husserl’s account of the interplay of presence and absence, of immanence and transcendence, of filled and empty intention,”4 even though Derrida appropriates precisely these subtleties to criticize the so-called “metaphysics of presence” he nevertheless finds in Husserl. The one-sidedness of such charges is startling. Perhaps however the critics’ negligence can be excused; to assemble all the parts of the Derridean context is an immense task. Roughly the context can be divided into two parts, and even these two do not exhaust it.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
The latest addition to these debates is of course J. Claude Evans’ Strategies of Deconstruction: Derrida and the Myth of the Voice (Minneapolis, MN; University of Minessota Press, 1991). Rudolf Bernet has also participated in this debate; see his “Husserl’s Theory of Signs Revisited” in Edmund Husserl and the Phenomenological Tradition: Essays in Phenomenology,edited by Robert Sokolowski (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1988), 1–24; also his “On Derrida’sTntroduction’ to Husserl’s Origin of Geometry” in Derrida and Deconstruction (Continental Philosophy, II), edited by Hugh J. Silverman (New York: Routledge, 1989), 139–153; also his “Is the Present ever Present? Phenomenology and the Metaphysics of Presence,” in Research in Phenomenology,12 (Husserl and Contemporary Thought), 85–112. See also Jean-Luc Marion’s Réduction and Donation (Paris: PUF, 1990). Additional essays are cited in the next two notes. The best review of this literature is John Protevi’s unpublished ” ‘A Certain Outside’: The Establishment of Exteriority in General in Derrida’s Speech and Phenomena“
See for example Burt Hopkins, “Derrida’s Reading of Husserl in Speech and Phenomena: Ontologism and the Metaphysics of Presence,” in Husserl Studies, 2 (1985): 193–214. Hopkins says, “The first [feature of ontologism] may be characterized as the insensitivity to the reflective nuance which differentiates the ontic modality of Being and the thematic reflective awareness of the subjective experience of Being.” “The second feature of ontologism,” he goes on to say, “may be characterized as the understanding of the phenomenologically disclosed Sinn to be predicable of, correlative to, or otherwise homogeneous with, the naive (uncritical) data of lower level reflections” (201–202). Both of these characteristics are captured by the word “Platonism” (or objectivism): the belief that an absolute object, an idea, may be merely given without subjective constitution.
Cf. Affranchissement du transfert et de la lettre, edited by René Major (Paris: Édtion Confrontation, 198f), in which Derrida again repeats that the transcendental question is a necessity (76).
Alan White “Reconstructing Husserl: A Critical Response to Derrida’s Speech and Phenomena,” in Husserl Studies 4 (1987), 46. Indeed White intensely reconstructs Husserl’s Logical Investigations context but of course fails to do the same for Derrida; he only discusses and cites Speech and Phenomena,as if Derrida had never written anything else on Husserl. In particular, if White had read Derrida’s Introduction to HusserVs The Origin of Geometry he would have realized that Derrida discovered “a teleological concern” (cf. White, 57) in Husserl’s philosophy of history. This could have been seen even in “’Genesis and Structure’ and Phenomenology,” but White never apparently read this essay either.
Jacques Derrida, La voix et le phénomène (Paris: PUF, 1967); translated by David B. Allison as Speech and Phenomena (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1973). Hereafter abbreviated as ”SP,” with reference to the English translation first, then to the original French.
L‘origine de la géométrie, traduction et introduction par Jacques Derrida (Paris: PUF, 1974 [1962]); translated by John Leavey as Edmund Husserl’s The Origin of Geometry: An Introduction (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1989). Hereafter abbreviated as “INF” with page reference to the English translation first, then to the original French.
Jacques Derrida, “The Time of the Thesis,” in Philosophy in France Today,edited by Alan Montefiore(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 39. See also Jacques Derrida’s recent “Some Statements and Truisms about Neologisms, Newisms, Postisms, Parasitisms, and other Small Seismisms,” in The States of “Theory” edited by David Carroll (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 91–92. Also Jacques Derrida, Of Spirit,translated by Geoffrey Bennington and Rachel Bowlby (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989 [1987]), 60 n.l.
Jacques Derrida, Le problème de la genèse dans la philosophie de Husserl (Paris: PUF, 1990). Hereafter abbreviated a “PG.”
Jacques Derrida, review of “Phänomenologische Psychologie. Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1925” par Edmund Husserl, in Les études philosophiques 18 (1963): 203–206;
Jacques Derrida, review of Edmund Husserl, The Idea of Phenomenology,traduction anglaise par William P. Alston et George Nakhnikian, review of Edmund Husserl, The Paris Lectures,traduction anglaise et introduction par Peter Kosenbaum, both in Les études philosophiques,20 (1965): 538–539;
Jacques Derrida, review of Robert Sokolowski, The Formation of Husserl’s Concept of Constitution,in Les études philosophiques,18 (1965): 557–558;
Jacques Derrida, “Violence and Metaphysics: an Essay on the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas,” “‘Genesis and Structure’ and Phenomenology,” both in Writing and Difference,translated by Alan Bass(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978 [1967]) 79–168; “Différance,” “Ousia and Gramme,” “The Ends of Man,” “Form and Meaning in Husserl’s Phenomenology,” “Signature Event Context,” all in Margins of Philosophy,translated by Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980 [1972]), respectively, 1–27, 29–67, 109–135, 155–173, 307–330; Jacques Derrida, “Phénoménologie et la clôture de la metaphysics,” in Epoches (Févr 1966), 181–200.
Compare the footnotes to “Violence and Metaphysics” in Writing and Difference,in which Derrida cites such late texts as Identity and Difference,to the Introduction,in which Derrida mentions Heidegger (and only Being and Time) in passing, INF,101 n. 109/103 n. 1.
Jacques Derrida, “The Time of a Thesis: Punctuations,” in Philosophy in France Today,38. Tran-duc-Thao, Phenomenology and Dialectical Materialism, translated by Daniel J. Herman and Donald V. Morano (Boston: Reidel, 1986 [1951]).
This was published in la Revue internationale de Philosophie in 1936. See Derrida’s Avertissement to his Introduction’,this is where he calls Fink the “author” of The Origin of Geometry.
In the Introduction Fink is cited on the following pages: 25 n. 1/Avertissement, 27 n. 4/6 n. 1, 42 n. 31/25 n. 1, 55 n. 50/42 n. 1, 69 n. 66/60 n. 1, 77 n. 76/71 n. 1, 141 n. 168/155 n. 1. He is explicitly mentioned in the Introduction on 89/86, 90/89. In Le problème de la genèse Fink is cited on: 2 n. 2, 3 n. 4, 19 n. 31, 19 n. 32, 88 n. 31. Derrida also mentions Fink in his critical review of Robert Sokolowski’s Husserl’s Theory of Constitution in Les études philosophiques. The Fink essays cited are: “Les concepts opératoires dans la phénoménologie de Husserl,” in Husserl: Cahiers de Royaumont,III (Paris: Minuit, 1959), 214–241, English translation “Operative Concepts in Husserl’s Phenomenology,” in Apriori and World,edited by W. McKenna, R. M. Harlan and L. E. Winters (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981); “Die Phänomenologische Philosophie E. Husserl in der Gegenwärtigen Kritik,” in Kantstudien,Band XXXVIII, 3/4 (Berlin, 1933), 319–383, English translation “The Phenomenological Philosophy of Edmund Husserl and Contemporary Criticism,” in The Phenomenology of Husserl,edited by R. O. Elveton (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970), 73–147; “Das Problem der Phänomenologie E. Husserl,” in Revue internationale de Philosophie, 2 (1939): 226–270, English translation “The Problem of the Phenomenology of Edmund Husserl,” in Apriori and World. Fink’s essays on Husserl written in the 30’s are collected in Studien zur Phänomenologie 1930-J939 (Hague: Nijhoff, 1966).
Cf. Emmanuel Levinas’ 1930 Husserl’s Theory of Intuition (translated by André Orianne [Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1973]) which also demonstrates the inadequacy of these readings. In fact, Levinas’ book is devoted to showing that Husserl’s thought is the thought of the ontological difference; see page 4, for example. The fact that both Fink and Levinas oppose these reductionistic readings of Husserl and that Derrida studied both these texts makes Hopkins’ criticisms of Derrida all the more remarkable.
Fink, “The Phenomenological Philosophy,” 75, 142, 145.
Fink, “The Phenomenological Philosophy,” 117–119.
Fink, “The Phenomenological Philosophy,” 144.
Fink, “Les concepts opératoires,” III, 222.
Fink, “Les concepts opératoires,” III, 229.
Fink, “Les concepts opératoires,” III, 229. It is of course interesting to read this Fink essay in connection with Rudolf Bernet’s “Husserl’s Theory of Signs Revisited,” in Edmund Husserl: Essays in the Phenomenological Tradition, in particular, 14–20.1 shall return to Bernet’s essay below in note 52.
When we read Derrida’s more recent “political” writings, we should not forget that politics is fundamentally concerned with the relation between egos.
As far as I know, Rudolf Bernet’s “On Derrida’s ‘Introduction’ to Husserl’s The Origin of Geometry“ in Derrida and Deconstruction,139–153 is the only other extensive reading of the Introduction. While this is a fine essay, it does not analyze the Introduction systematically, only impressionistically.
Jacques Derrida, “La mythologie blanche: La métaphore dans le texte philosophique,” in Marges de la philosophie (Paris: Minuit, 1972), 247–324; English translation as “White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy,” in Margins of Philosophy,translated by Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 207–272. Hereafter abbreviated as “JfM,” with references to the English translation first, then to the original French.
Jacques Derrida, “Psyché, Invention de l’autre” (1983–84), in Psyché, Inventions de l’autre (Paris: Galilée, 1987), 11–62; English translation as “Psyche: Invention of the Other,” in Reading de Man Reading,edited by Lindsay Waters and Wlad Godzick (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), 25–65. Hereafter abbreviated a “PI” with references to the English translation first, then to the French.
Rodolphe Gasché’s “Du trait non-adequat: le notion de rapport chez Heidegger” (in Les fins de l’homme—Colloque de Cérisy,edited by Jean-Luc Nancy and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe [Paris: Galilée, 1981], 131–161) was instrumental in achieving my interpretation of Derrida.
Edmund Husserl, Introduction to Fink’s “The Phenomenological Philospohy of Edmund Husserl and Contemporary Criticism,” 74.
Section 1 is based on a chapter from my forthcoming book, Imagination and Chance: The Difference between the Thought ofRicoeur and Derrida. I would like to thank the SUNY Press for allowing me to borrow it for this paper.
Derrida apparently inhereited this phrase, “mouvement en vrille,” from Paul Ricoeur, who used it in his introduction to his French translation of Ideas I (Ideas I, Idées directices pour une phénoménologie,[Paris: Gallimard, 1950]), xxi.
I am following Derrida’s translation of “Leistung” as “production;” the standard English translation however is “accomplishment.” Cf. Derrida’s footnote explaining his translation, INF, 40 n. 21122 n. 3.
See sections 11, 14, 15.
The primary example of such an essence is the essence of an artwork. An artwork, by definition, is unique, singular; and yet, copies can be made, which refer back to the singularity of the original.
Derrida also notes that Husserl describes tradition as a postal service; this is implied by the word “Rückfrage” which Derrida translates as “question en retour” (INF,50/36). Geometry’s essence, delivered to us by this postal service, makes a reference back (renvoi),Derrida says, to its first sending (it premier envoi) (INF,50/36). Derrida’s use of the word “envoi” here in 1962 of course refers ahead to the “Envois” section of the 1980 Post Card.
Edmund Husserl, Experience and Judgment,translated by James S. Churchill and Karl Ameriks (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973 [1938]), 267.
Cf. Derrida, Speech and Phenomenon,10, 54, 77–82.
Because of the reciprocal dependence between the imperative of univocity and that of equivocity, Derrida indicates a mutual dependence between the projects of Joyce and Husserl (INF,102–03/104–06). In Ulysses,Joyce according to Derrida attempts to recollect all empirical and cultural meanings, all equivocacies, in one book; he focuses on the passive associative resonances and ignores the translatable cores. Husserl in contrast attempts to impoverish factual or empirical language down to its translatable cores in order to remember the pure structure of history. Joyce’s project depends upon that of Husserl because there could be no recollection of empiricity without a structure supporting transmission; Husserl’s depends upon that of Joyce because he would not be remembering the structure of history if no genesis had taken place. This entire discussion of course anticipates the 1987 Ulysse Gramophone.
Derrida summarizes these preconditions on 127/136.
Within this word “passage,” we should hear a number of resonances: the passage of time, the past, transition, passing something along, passage or strait, even the French negative adverb, “pas” which itself of course also means step. In reference to the phrase “passage to the limit,” it is also instructive to look at Derrida’s discussion of Husserl’s final reduction in The Origin, INF,119–120/127.
Derrida makes this transition to the discussion of the Husserlian Idea in the Kantian sense by recalling Husserl’s brief analyses in Ideas I of inner-time consciousness (INF,135–136/147–149).
Cf. Derrida, “‘Genesis and Structure’ and Phenomenology,” in Writing and Difference,162.
We must note that it is not an accident that Derrida cites Levinas’ The Theory of Intuition in Husserl’s Phenomenology (translated by André Orianne [Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1973]) at this point in the Introduction,136 n. 162/149 n. 1.
Because of this absolute, irreducible, linguistic mediation, Derrida in a footnote can speak of phenomenology being “‘overcome’ or completed in an interpretative philosophy” (INF,86 n. 89/82 n. 1). And it is not by accident that during this very discussion of the infinite Idea’s finitude Derrida cites Heidegger (INF,138 n. 164/151 n. 1). In fact, at the very end of the Introduction Derrida establishes a mutual dependence between ontology (in the non-Husserlian sense) and phenomenology, between in other words Heidegger’s philosophy of finitude and Husserl’s philosophy of infinite tasks (cf. INF,150–152/167–170). This relation, however, for Derrida is not symmetrical; he lets phenomenology outstrip ontology. This of course indicates how transcendental and not ontological his reading Husserl can be.
Derrida uses the verb “to announce itself (s’annoncer) frequently throughout the Introduction (cf. for example INF,86/82, 130–31/140–41). Cf. also Derrida, “‘Genesis and Structure’,” 165. See also the French translation of Heidegger’s Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (Kant et le problème de la métaphysique [Paris: Gallimard, 1953]), in which de Waehlens and Biemel translate Heidegger’s “Sich-melden” as “s’annoncer” on 244.
In this passage (and in others over the Introduction’s last four pages) Derrida uses “History” and “Being” somewhat synonymously. He capitalizes these words in order to indicate the inseparable unity of fact and essence within it. Historicity of course strictly designates the essence of history. Although capitalization of key terms is almost a fad in late Fifties, early Sixties French thought, Derrida uses this practice in the Introduction,as far as I can tell, rigorously. Whenever a term refers to what is absolute, Derrida capitalizes it. Cf. Jacques Derrida, “The Deaths of Roland Barthes,” translated by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Nass, in Philosophy and Non-Philosophy Since Merleau-Ponty, edited by Hugh J. Silverman (New York: Routledge, 1988), 262.
Cf. Derrida, “‘Genesis and Structure’and Phenomenology,” in Writing and Difference. Derrida first delivered ”‘Genesis and Structure”’ at Cerisy-la-Salle in 1959. The essay was then published in 1965 in Entretiens sur les notions de genèse et de structur, edited by Maurice de Gandillac (Paris: Mouton, 1965), 242–268. An editor’s footnote states that (242): “M. Derrida, who has revised and completed his text, has added a certain number of explicative notes and references.” Then the essay was republished in Writing and Difference. A comparison of the 1965 and ’67 versions reveals that Derrida revised this essay again for the publication of Writing and Difference. Thus because “‘Genesis and Structure’ and Phenomenology” predates and postdates Derrida’s 1962 Introduction to HusserVs The Origin of Geometry,it can instruct our reading of the Introduction. This essay outlines a tension between genesis and structure within Husserl’s entire thought.
According to the Memoire’s very first footnote, the “Avant-Propos” was never intended to be the introduction to this book, but, as Derrida suggests, it throws light on it (1 n. 1).
Derrida’s essay “‘Genesis and Structure’ and Phenomenology,” in Writing and Difference testifies to Derrida’s realization.
Speech and Phenomena’s critics find support in Husserl’s unparalleled ability to describe. Undoubtedly Husserl describes exactly what Derrida calls différance, but these descriptions are still animated by a will to presence.
Cf. Rudolf Bernet’s “Husserl’s Theory of Signs Revisited,” in Edmund Husserl: Essays in the Phenomenological Tradition. Examining Husserl’s “Texts of 1914” from the Nachlass,this essay shows that Husserl’s later theory of the sign differs dramatically from that of the Logical Investigations. In particular, opposing himself to Derrida’s Speech and Phenomena,which of course criticizes Husserl’s attempt in the Logical Investigations to separate expression (the spiritual signified) from indication (the sensuous signifier), Bernet finds in Husserl’s “Texts of 1914” a “parallelism” (13) and a “tension” (10) between the sensuous signifier and the spiritual signified. Bernet moreover shows that Husserl now recognizes the role of codes and gives a constitutive role to passivity (19). He even says that: “Passive signifying is as good as active signifying, and in lingual communication it even enjoys some priority... (20).” This is definitely an advance over the Logical Investigation theory of the sign, but the issue, for Derrida, would be how passivity and activity are being related in “the Texts of 1914.” Does Husserl here still preserve a priority, perhaps only teleological, for activity? It seems that Husserl must; why else would Husserl pay so much attention to the notion of the will?
The word “deconstruction” does not appear in Speech and Phenomena until 74/83.
See also “‘Genesis and Structure’ in Phenomenology,” in Writing and Difference,164; also Derrida’s review of Phänomenologische Psychologie,in Les études philosophiques,18 (1963).
Cf. Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative,III, translated by Kathleen McLaughlin and David Pellauer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988). After opposing Derrida’s interpretation of Husserlian retention (30–31), Ricoeur nevertheless confirms it when he turns to Husserl’s distinction between imagination and recollection (37). In order to distinguish recollection from imagination, Husserl, according to Ricoeur, must stress recollection’s thetic character of reproduction. And the thetic character “aligns,” as Ricoeur says, recollection with retention. Both retention and recollection can be called past because of this mode of reproduction, which imagination lacks. Retention’s and recollection’s “alignment,” however, implies that the difference between primary and secondary memory “is not the radical difference Husserl wanted between perception and nonperception” but, as Derrida says, “a difference between two modifications of nonperception” (SP,65/73).
This of course quotes from Aristotle’s Physics,book IV. See Jacques Derrida, “Ousia and Gramme,” in Margins of Philosophy, 29–67.
Moreover, the word “passage” occurs in all three texts. This word too is sedimented with dialectic; when Hyppolite translated Hegel’s The Phenomenology of Spirit in 1939–41, he used passage to render Übergang.
Because Derrida distances himself from dialectic after Speech and Phenomena,Jean-Luc Marion’s comment in his Réduction et donation (Paris: PUF, 1989), that “[Speech and Phenomena]... is exemplary and determinative for J. Derrida’s entire later itinerary” (13 n. 5, my translation), is perhaps not entirely correct.
For an analysis of this piece see my “A Little Daylight: A Reading of Derrida’s ‘White Mythology’,” in Man and World,24 (1991): 285–300.
See Jacques Derrida, “The Double Session,” in Dissemination,translated by Barbara Johnson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981). See also Rodolphe Gasché’s “Nontotalization without Spuriousness: Hegel and Derrida on the Infinite,” in Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 17.3 (October 1986), 289–307.
Cf. for example, Derrida, “Signature Event Context,” in Margins of Philosophy,326; also Jacques Derrida, Limited Inc.,translated by Samuel Weber (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1989).
Jacques Derrida, “Devant la loi,” translated by Avital Roneil, in Kafka andPerformc tive Criticism (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988), 145.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1995 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lawlor, L. (1995). The relation as the Fundamental Issue in Derrida. In: McKenna, W.R., Evans, J.C. (eds) Derrida and Phenomenology. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 20. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8498-2_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8498-2_8
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-4616-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-015-8498-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive