Husserl's Introduction to the Origin of Geometry

Author: Derrida
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2004-05-01
Features: This book is the long introduction written by Derrida for the French translation of Husserl's short essay "The Origin of Geometry." While translating the essay, Derrida extensively discusses a series of major phenomenological issues in the introduction, based on Husserl's late works and guided by his early and middle-period writings. These include the "possibility of reactivating original meaning," the "method of historical reduction," the relationship between "objectivity, history, and intentionality," "how to bridge the gap between the transcendental 'I' and the transcendental 'we'," and the "intersections between language, ideas, and perspectives." From a dialectical perspective, Derrida offers his unique answers to these issues. As a result of his responses, Derrida not only proposes novel expressions such as "telecommunication," "the phenomenology of writing," "the intermediate zone," "geography," "substructures," "the infinite deferral of ultimate creation," and the concept of "listening" (rather than "seeing"). More importantly, Derrida discovers and argues for the crucial theoretical pillar of deconstruction—the principle of "deferral."