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Speech, writing and phenomenology : Derrida's reading of Husserl
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Stamos, Yannis (2008) Speech, writing and phenomenology : Derrida's reading of Husserl. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
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Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b2339927~S15
Abstract
This thesis is a study of the two major texts of Derrida on Husserl's phenomenology.
Engaging in a close reading of Introduction to the Origin of Geometry (1962) and Speech and
Phenomena (1967), this thesis tries to bring together, and reconstruct, under the title of speech
and writing, those Husserlian questions which never stop occuping, motivating and intriguing
Derrida's thought, from his student studies and the Introduction to Rogues (2003) These were the
questions or themes of origin and of historicity, of scientific objectivity and truth, of reason and
responsibility, as well as of the living present, of living speech, of egological subjectivity and the
alter ego. The question that this thesis raises is the following: why are these Husserlian themes of
historicity, of the idea of the infinite task, of the living speech, etc., not simply the first objects or
targets, subsequently to be abandoned, of Derridean deconstruction? Why is deconstruction, the
event, the advent or invention of deconstruction, irreducible to some methodical or theoretical
procedure, or to an operation of problematization or delegitimation of transcendental questioning?
As we show in the first part of the thesis, these questions were investigated and
developed by Husserl as a "responsible" response to the Crisis of the European sciences and
humanity. Our investigation into Husserl's teleological discourse of history and responsibility
shows that this crisis, which is anything but an empirical accident, threatens the very thing that
Husserl wants to keep safe and sound (or to immunize, as Derrida writes in Rogues): the
transcendental freedom of an egological subjectivity. For Husserl the possibility of crisis (of the
subject) remains linked with the moment of truth, i.e., with the production and tradition of
scientific objectitivities, and in fact has an essential link to writing. Husserl's teleological
determination of writing as phonetic writing is an attempt to limit, tame and economize the
essential ambiguity of writing: it threatens with passivity, forgetfulness and irresponsibility the
very thing that makes possible, i.e., the transcendental and ideal community of a we-human-subjects-
investigators-responsible-for-the-history-of-truth/reason.
In the second part of the thesis, following Derrida's reading of Husserl in Speech and
Phenomena, in Form and Meaning, Signature Event Context, and Eating Well, we show that
Husserl's phenomenology of language and of phone is also a great philosophy of the
transcendental subject. The essential and phenomenological distinctions between nonlinguistic
and linguistic signs, sense and meaning, expression and indication, which are at the centre of
Husserl's doctrine of signification, have also a teleological character: they are destined to define
the limit, the arche and telos of language, as human language or human (i.e., phonetic) writing. In
our reading we give great emphasis to Derrida's phenomenological analysis and deconstruction of
this unique experience of auto-affection, the experience of hearing oneself speak. This is the
experience of the human subject, the experience of a free, voluntary, auto-affecting egological
subjectivity conscious of its voice, its speech and its humanity.
Denying the possibility of phonic auto-affection of the human subject, in favour of the
hetero-affection of writing was never the point of Derridean deconstruction. Deconstruction, the
concept of writing or arche-writing, the graphics of differance, of iterability, are not imposed
from the outside on Husserl's discourse on the human subject, the zoon logon echon. Rather,
phenomenology itself interrupts or deconstructs itself, according to Derrida, as soon as it
addresses the question of time and of the other, of the alter ego. Deconstruction was never only a
thcoretico-philosophical, or academic affair. In our conclusion, we argue for the right of
deconstruction, i.e., the right or demand to deconstruction. This right or demand to
deconstruction, to ask questions about truth, consciousness, language, responsibility and so forth -
so many powers, capacities or possibilities of which the animal is said to be deprived and poor -
and the right or demand to do so performatively, by writing, by transforming and producing new
analyses, new events and texts, new events of thought in the history of the concepts of man, of
truth, of the subject and of human rights, is according to Derrida, an ethical and political demand.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | ||||
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Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) | ||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Derrida, Jacques. Introduction à "L'origine de la géométrie" de Husserl -- Criticism and interpretation, Derrida, Jacques. Voix et le phénomène -- Criticism and interpretation, Husserl, Edmund, 1859-1938 -- Criticism and interpretation, Phenomenology, Language and languages -- Philosophy | ||||
Official Date: | June 2008 | ||||
Dates: |
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Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
Theses Department: | Department of Sociology | ||||
Thesis Type: | PhD | ||||
Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Wagner, Peter | ||||
Extent: | 256 leaves | ||||
Language: | eng |
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