Abstract
This paper argues that Derrida’s intervention in phenomenology is not an interruption but a thinking of the conditions of possibility for phenomenology and its production through his concepts of iterability and differance. Contrary to scholars such as Moran, Glendinning, and Mohanty who characterise Derrida as destroying or disrupting phenomenology, this paper contends that Derrida’s concepts of differance and iterability are actually a continuation of phenomenology’s legacy by extrapolating the logical consequences of intentionality. The paper further argues that at the heart of phenomenology lies an inescapable death — the non-presence or absence which gives rise to both the transcendental and empirical through a movement of differentiating traces.
Keywords: Derrida, phenomenology, differance, iterability, Husserl, intentionality, transcendental, death, deconstruction
Introduction
Phenomenology has not seen its death, despite being now consigned to its place as a historical movement in philosophy, encompassing Husserl, Sartre, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. Phenomenology took the form of transcendental idealism with Husserl and arguably took a more existentialist turn with Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. Contemporary staple textbooks on phenomenology by Dermot Moran (Introduction to Phenomenology) and Simon Glendinning (In the Name of Phenomenology) describe Derrida’s intervention with Husserl’s phenomenology as a form of destruction or disruption.
This paper will however argue that Derrida’s intervention is not an interruption but a thinking of the conditions of possibility for phenomenology and its production through his concepts of iterability and differance and indeed these concepts are a continuation of phenomenology through a logical extension of the notion of intentionality.
Derrida’s Continuation of Phenomenology
The prevailing reception of Derrida from the phenomenological field is, as mentioned earlier, that he has disrupted or destroyed phenomenology in critiquing the metaphysics of presence, which leads him to privilege the empirical in place of absence and differance. The critics of Derrida from phenomenology such as Mohanty, Moran and Sokolowski regard themselves as phenomenological purists. Their criticisms however, are based essentially on a misreading of Derrida by classifying him as a nominalist and empiricist.
Derrida examines the conditions of possibility for the Absolute; he does not overthrow or abdicate the absolute. A close reading of Introduction to Origin of Geometry for instance, will demonstrate that Derrida does not dispute the transcendental but examines the conditions for its transmission through history, which he calls Ruckfrage or re-activation. The transcendental is brought to life through differance and iterability; it is the iteration of the noema that ensures its transmission through history.
Death at the Heart of Phenomenology
At the heart of phenomenology lies an aporia. This aporia is the isolation of the transcendental from the empirical which are equally conditions of possibility for phenomenology. This results in the suppression of the transcendental-empirical difference or differance which is really the condition of possibility for metaphysics as the movement of differance sustains metaphysics in an economy through iterability and repetition with a difference.
Derrida writes of death that lies at the heart of phenomenology in Speech and Phenomena. He argues, for instance, that phenomenology is tormented, if not contested from within, by its own descriptions of the movement of temporalization and of the constitution of intersubjectivity. At the heart of life is death. Death and non-presence is the condition of possibility for life. Death constitutes life; it is the impossible possibility that enables life.
Conclusion
Hence this paper will argue, contrary to Glendinning, Rockmore, Mohanty and Moran, that phenomenology does not meet a violent death in Derrida. Derrida’s intervention saves phenomenology by addressing the aporias that are intrinsic to it. Derrida wishes to address, not Husserl’s transcendental leanings, but the closure of metaphysics it produces by suppressing differance in privileging presence. Derrida continues phenomenology’s legacy through his notions of iterability and differance which are derived from Husserl’s concept of intentionality. Derrida’s post-phenomenology thus saves phenomenology by acknowledging its very condition of possibility — differance, death and non-presence.