Reacting to Derrida

Posted on November 2, 2009
Filed Under Sideblog | 5 Comments

Reacting to Derrida. I have pretty similar responses. I also think coming to grips with the early Derrida by way of a close reading of Husserl is essential. The way literature departments abuse him is…problematic. It’s also important to read him as doing phenomenology of a sort. A lot of analytic contempt for Derrida, Heidegger and company comes because they don’t understand how phenomenology is different from analytic philosophy and thus can’t understand the critique of phenomenology from within the phenomenological project.

Related posts:

  1. Best Introduction to Derrida?
  2. Turn to Phenomenology in Anglo Philosophy?
  3. Thoughts on Derrida and Realism
  4. Derrida and Universals
  5. Defending Phenomenology
  6. Countermemory on Derrida, Nietzsche and Heidegger

Comments

5 Responses to “Reacting to Derrida”
1 Michael Dorfman on November 2nd, 2009 1:58 am

The Chasm:So my reactions to Derrida probably constitute the impression I get from him, or the trace of him in his writings. In his early work, he is detailed and knowledgeable of Husserl’s project, but at the same time that knowledge is synthesized with what appears to be an abuse of the text. Or is the the text that abuses me, convincing me of its life independent of the philosopher? As if taking a life of its own, the text takes on a seductive allure, and comes into its interpretation only through me, or I it? One cannot be sure in Derrida’s world.

This is where he loses me. Derrida is indeed “detailed and knowledgeable” of Husserl’s project (and not just in his early work– he dealt with Husserl explicitly even in his final years), but I don’t think there’s any evidence that Derrida’s work represents “an abuse” of Husserl’s text, and cute parody (regarding seduction, etc.) isn’t an argument.

If “The Chasm” really thinks that Derrida’s mis-reads Husserl, well, there’s his research topic.

There are quite a few people who think Derrida in a few crucial places gets Husserl wrong. (Interestingly Lawlor doesn’t really address this issue in his book) Dermot Moran, for instance, asserts this in his seminal overview of phenomenology but oddly only in the Husserl chapters and not his Derrida chapter.

I honestly don’t have a strong opinion on the subject. Indeed that was going to be one of my topics of study last year to investigate this in more depth. After all to me when I’d read the two closely I sided with Derrida but I was open to being wrong. Sadly I just have been ridiculously busy the past year. Too busy to be able to dedicate that level of study. Hopefully in January.

3 Michael Dorfman on November 4th, 2009 2:47 am

Clark:There are quite a few people who think Derrida in a few crucial places gets Husserl wrong.

Yeah, I know. I’m not one of them. At least, not yet. I haven’t (yet) found a convincing demonstration that wasn’t a misreading of Derrida.

My point, though, is that this is a ripe area for research– which is why I am puzzled by The Chasm’s complaint that he “can’t find a research project for the seminar paper.”

Yeah, that’s definitely true. Given those readings I could think of dozens of research papers. And that’s without even doing a superficial article search to think of other ideas.

You’re also right that given there are so many who think Derrida got Husserl wrong you’d think there’d be more written about it. Yet most who attack Derrida do so on amazingly superficial grounds instead.

One finds in Derrida a multitude of themes, anticipations and content. There is such a thing as being overwhelmed by this plenitude, and having no background in Derrida, one can also want to know what would be the best type of paper to write. Thanks for reading me though.

Leave a Reply