Front. Philos.

China 2020, 15(3): 451–471

DOI 10.3868/s030-009-020-0026-6

SPECIAL ISSUE

Saulius Geniusas

Husserlian Phenomenology and Derridean Deconstruction:

Their Fundamental Methodological Commitments
Abstract This paper reinterprets the relation between Derridian
deconstruction and Husserlian phenomenology on the basis of their
respective methodological commitments. According to the proposed view,
epoché, reduction, and eidetic variation are the fundamental methodological
principles of Husserlian phenomenology. This paper interprets Derrida’s
reading of Husserl as presenting a type of semiological reductionism, which
is marked by the absorption of the fundamental phenomenological principles
within a semiological framework. Conceiving of meaning as a sign that refers
to other signs, Derrida contends that neither epoché, nor reduction, nor
eidetic variation can be carried through successfully; their validity is thereby
indefinitely deferred. This paper also addresses the relationship between
indication and expression, the Principle of all Principles, the living present,
and their alleged deconstruction in Derrida’s writings. I conclude with some
suggestions concerning how, apart from deconstructing phenomenology, one
could also phenomenologize deconstruction. According to my suggestion,
this would require problematizing evidence that underlies the central claims
and commitments of deconstruction.

Keywords Husserl, Derrida, phenomenology, deconstruction, (post-)structuralism,

methodology

In what sense is (post-)structuralism an alternative to phenomenology?

Should we think of (post-)structuralism as being in direct opposition to
phenomenology, or is it instead a transformative development of some of the
premises of phenomenology such that the former is prepared by the latter?

Saulius Geniusas ( )
Department of Philosophy, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories,
Hong Kong, China
E-mail: geniusas@cuhk.edu.hk
452 Saulius Geniusas

With these questions in mind, in my following remarks, I wish to offer some

comments on the relationship between Derridean deconstruction and
Husserlian phenomenology. As is well known, for Derrida, deconstruction
does not stand in direct opposition to phenomenology, but is a transformative
development of some of its premises. As seen from a Derridian standpoint,
careful reflection on the central premises of Husserlian phenomenology must
lead to the realization that phenomenology must transform itself into
deconstruction. Is Derrida justified in presenting the relationship between
deconstruction and phenomenology in such a way? Moreover, can such a
view be corroborated in light of Husserl’s own writings?
How are we to address these questions? One approach to take would be to
zero in on Derrida’s writings on Husserl. It is undeniable that phenomenology
in general, and Husserlian phenomenology in particular, played a highly
important role in the development of Derrida’s own thought. Derrida visited
the Husserl Archive in Leuven between 1953 and 1954 while he was studying
at the École normale supérieure. In 1954, he completed his master’s thesis on
Husserl, The Problem of Genesis in Phenomenology (published in 1990). A
few years later, in 1957, he started his translation of Husserl’s The Origin of
Geometry, which appeared in print in 1962 along with Derrida’s famous
introduction. In 1964 he presented “‘Genesis and Structure’ and
Phenomenology” in Cersy-la-Salle. Derrida’s “Violence and Metaphysics,”
which addresses Levinas’ critique of Husserl appeared in print the same year.
Three years later, in 1967, Derrida published his Speech and Phenomena,
which can be regarded as the investigation in which Derrida’s critique of
Husserl reached its culmination. A year later, he published “Form and Meaning:
A Note on the Phenomenology of Language,” which can be regarded an
appendix to Speech and Phenomena, with a focus on Husserl’s Ideas I. In the
later work, The Touch (1985), Derrida focused on Husserl’s phenomenology of
the body as developed in Ideas II. Derrida’s writings on Husserl, however, are
notoriously problematic, as J. Claude Evans (1991) and Kevin Mulligan
(1991) have been especially forceful in showing.1 In light of this, I believe it

1
Evans (1991) and Mulligan (1991) have brought to light in impressive detail just how
problematic Derrida’s reading of Husserl is. Although the studies I am referring to are more than
a quarter century old, in terms of detail they remain unsurpassed. Such being the case, it is not
quite clear what novelty a careful evaluation of Derrida’s reading of Husserl would deliver. At
any rate, as Rudolf Bernet once remarked, it is an “unfruitful business” to try to “nail Derrida by
means of supposed errors of interpretation in his reading of Husserl” (Bernet 1986, 52). Indeed,
it is by no means clear just what kind of philosophical significance the project of “deconstructing
deconstruction” entails.
Husserlian Phenomenology and Derridean Deconstruction 453

is imperative to allow not only Derrida, but also Husserl a chance to speak in
his own voice. 2 Only if we identify the central tenets of Husserlian
phenomenology, can we hope to obtain meaningful answers to the questions
posed above. Thus, in what follows, my goal is to identify those
methodological commitments that make up the core of Husserlian
phenomenology and in light of these commitments, to ask: How does
Derridean deconstruction relate to Husserlian phenomenology?

1 Husserlian Phenomenology: Its Fundamental

Methodological Principles

Husserlian phenomenology is marked by its ambition to be a science of

phenomena purified of all unwarranted assumptions, constructions, and
interpretations.3 It strives to be a descriptive science, which would present
phenomena the way they appear, without distortions or misrepresentations. It
is, however, not enough to describe phenomena in order to grasp them in the
manner that they appear, since descriptions all too often succumb to bias and
manipulation. Precisely because it strives to describe phenomena exactly as
they appear, without any contaminations, the possibility of phenomenology
hinges upon its capacity to design a suitable methodology that would enable
it to secure the reliability of its own descriptions.
This means: not just any kind of reflection on experience from the
first-person point of view is phenomenological. Otherwise, any kind of
psychologism and introspectionism would have to be qualified as
phenomenology. An investigation can be identified as phenomenological in
the Husserlian sense of the term if, and only if, it subscribes to the
fundamental principles of phenomenological methodology. What exactly are
those principles? I would suggest that we single out the methods of epoché,

2
Consider in this regard James Edie’s telling observations: “all too often what one first begins
to read hopefully as a critical philosophical argument with Derrida ends with the simple
conclusion that what other philosophers, or ‘the tradition,’ or some text—taken for the purpose
of illustration—just lacks is the notion of la Différance, and that both ends the argument and the
paper. In short, the number of ‘continental’ philosophers who have written philosophically on
Derrida is extremely small” (Edie 1990, 103).
3
The three methodological principles which I will address in the present context are presented
in greater detail in Chapter I of my recent study, Phenomenology of Pain (see Geniusas 2020).
454 Saulius Geniusas

reduction, and eidetic variation as such principles.4

The Greek word “epoché” means suspension, or bracketing. To bracket, or
suspend, means to place certain beliefs outside of consideration and action.
Husserl uses a number of expressions to characterize the epoché, e.g.
abstention, dislocation, unplugging, exclusion, withholding, disregarding,
abandoning, bracketing, putting out of action, and putting out of play. As all
of these qualifications suggest, the epoché is a unique operation and one
which should not be confused either with doubt or negation.5
Phenomenological epoché is the suspension of judgment about the
objective sciences. It is the abstention from all participation in the cognitions
of the objective sciences (the putting out of play of any critical
position-taking with regard to their truth or falsity). Yet such a suspension of
belief in scientific validity does not exhaust the full meaning of
phenomenological epoché. This is so because, “in concealment, the world’s
validities are always founded on other validities, above the whole manifold
but synthetically unified flow in which the world has and forever attains
anew its content of meaning and its ontic validity” (Husserl 1970, 150). The
method of the epoché is designed to place all of these functioning validities
out of play.
Taken by itself, it is unclear where epoché leaves us. This method gains its
positive sense when it is coupled with phenomenological reduction. The
concepts of epoché and reduction are so closely linked to each other that one
could say, without exaggeration, that they form a single functional unity.
Nonetheless, it is important to distinguish between these terms. Dan Zahavi
presents both the difference and the inseparability of these two methods in a
clear and convincing way when he writes: “the epoché is the term for our
abrupt suspension of a naïve metaphysical attitude, and it can consequently
be likened to a philosophical gate of entry. In contrast, the reduction is the
term for our thematization of the correlation between subjectivity and world”

4
Here I only aim to identify the essential features of these methodological procedures, while
at the same time conceding that they not only can be, but that they also have been, articulated
in a number of complementary ways.
5
“I am not negating this ‘world’ as though I were a sophist; I am not doubting its factual
being as though I were a skeptic; rather I am exercising the ‘phenomenological’ epoché which
also completely shuts me off from any judgment about spatiotemporal factual being” (Husserl
1983, 61).
Husserlian Phenomenology and Derridean Deconstruction 455

(Zahavi 2003, 46). With reference to phenomenological reduction, Husserl

remarks that “the understanding of all of phenomenology depends upon the
understanding of this method” (Husserl 1977, 144). In the natural course of
life, I stand on the ground of the world’s pre-givenness, that is, I accept the
world’s being as a matter of course, without inquiring into those acts of
consciousness through which it obtains its meaning. My interests are
exclusively absorbed in the objective world, and not in the flow of experience
through which it obtains the status of the objective world. Phenomenological
reduction marks a fundamental change of attitude, which enables the
phenomenologist to redirect his or her interests from objects in the world to
his or her own experience. While in the natural attitude, I am exclusively
absorbed in the objects of my experience, in the phenomenological attitude,
my new interests are redirected towards those very experiences, through
which objects in the world and the world itself gain their meaning. It thereby
becomes understandable why Husserl would contend that “subjectivity, and
this universally and exclusively, is my theme” (Husserl 1973, 200). The crude
mistake to avoid here is that of conceptualizing subjectivity as something
mysteriously cut off from the world and different types of objectivity. Even
though Husserl’s phenomenology is often subjected to such a critique, it is
hard to come across any analyses of such subjectivity in his writings.
Phenomenology is interested in subjectivity’s hidden transcendental
accomplishments, through which objects in the world, and even the world
itself, come to be what they are. This subjectivity should be conceived as a
field of pure experience, or as a field of the world’s self-manifestation.
Besides providing access to the field of immanence, phenomenological
reduction is also meant to enable the phenomenologist to keep this field pure
of all mundane apperceptions. The field of immanence that remains untouched
by epoché is not a region within the natural world, but a field of pure
experience within which nature and the world come to self-givenness. One
can further qualify this region as fundamentally unnatural, comprised not of
things (natural or cultural), but of pure phenomena. Phenomenology thematizes
the field of pure experience as the region within which things come to their
self-manifestation. In this way, phenomenology opens up a new science,
namely “the science of pure subjectivity, in which thematic discourse concerns
exclusively the lived experiences, the modes of consciousness and what is
456 Saulius Geniusas

meant in their objectivity, but exclusively as meant” (Husserl 1977, 146).

Through the method of epoché, the phenomenologist loses things as
natural phenomena. Through the method of phenomenological reduction, he
or she regains them as pure experiences. We thereby gain insight into
phenomenology’s fundamental goal: its fundamental ambition is to account
for the sense of phenomena and to demonstrate how this sense arises out of
pure experience in such a way that might purify phenomena from their
naturalistic apprehensions.
Here we stumble into difficulties. Should one not liken the field of pure
experience to a ceaseless Heracleitean flux, to an incomprehensibly
streaming life, in which being-thus indefinitely replaces being-so? If pure
consciousness indeed is such a stream of experience, then how can one
possibly obtain any knowledge of this field? The phenomenologically
reduced field of experience appears to be inaccessible to intersubjectively
verifiable knowledge. It thereby becomes clear that the possibility of
phenomenology is not yet secured by means of epoché and reduction. The
third methodological procedure, the method of eidetic variation, is designed
to provide a solution to this dilemma.6
Phenomenology does not strive to be a factual science of conscious
experiences. Rather, it is meant to be an exploration of the essences of
conscious life—a descriptive eidetics of reduced consciousness. It does not
only strive to account for phenomena the way they are intended in pure
experience; its fundamental goal is to clarify the essence of experiences.
The method of eidetic variation is designed to clarify how one is supposed
to move from reflecting on individual instances to grasping essences.
According to this method, it is irrelevant what kind of example one begins
with, just as it is irrelevant if it derives from actual perception, memory, or
fantasy. It is crucial, however, to consider the example as free from all

6
Admittedly, the question concerning how many reductions there are in Husserl’s
phenomenology and how exactly they relate to each other is a deeply puzzling issue. In the
present context, a careful analysis of this highly important issue would take us too far afield.
Nonetheless, within the present context, the following remarks that we come across in Paul
Ricoeur’s analysis of Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations deserve mention: “It is not easy to
situate the transcendental reduction, which suspends believing in the independence or in-itself
of the world, in relation to the eidetic reduction, which goes from fact to essence. The
transcendental reduction entails the eidetic reduction, beginning from the point where
consciousness is treated as the field for a seeing, for an intuitive experiencing. If this
entailment is not followed up, phenomenology, in effect, becomes only a transcendental
empiricism” (Ricoeur 1967, 91).
Husserlian Phenomenology and Derridean Deconstruction 457

naturalistic explanations: the method of eidetic variation rests on the

shoulders of epoché. Starting with an arbitrary example, one must vary the
phenomenon “with a completely free optionalness” (Husserl 1960, §34)
while simultaneously retaining the sense of its identity, no matter what kind
of phenomenon it might be. One must abstain from the acceptance of the
phenomenon’s being and change the object into a pure possibility—one
possibility among other possibilities. One must vary different aspects of the
phenomenon until one reaches the invariant—conceived as a determination,
or a set of determinations, in the absence of which the phenomenon would no
longer be the kind of phenomenon it is. This means that there is no need for
an endless modification of different variants. At a certain point of reflection,
the identity of the essence comes into view: one recognizes that no matter
what other variations to which one will subject the phenomenon, it will
continue to show the same essential features. Following such a method, one
comes to the realization that, for instance, extension is an invariant feature of
a material object, or that temporality is an invariant feature of lived
experience. With the discovery of such invariants, the essence of the
phenomenon in question comes into view.
The method of eidetic variation culminates in the seeing of essences.
Phenomenology is in need of the method of eidetic variation because only
with its help can it become a science of essences. Here we come across the
reason why Husserlian phenomenology has often been conceived of as a
revival of Platonism (cf. also Derrida 1973, 53). This general qualification, so
often employed as a tacit critique of phenomenology, is misleading: in
phenomenology, essences are not interpreted in metaphysical terms as eidai
that belong to an independent realm of true being. They are not paradigmatic
things or atoms of true being. By essence, or eidos, we are to understand
what the phenomenon is in terms of its necessary predicates. Essential
predicates refer to those aspects of the phenomenon that belong to it
invariantly.7

7
Husserl draws a distinction between exact essences, which can be exhaustively defined, and
morphological essences, whose boundaries are imprecise and which are fundamentally inexact
(see Husserl 1977/1983, §74). For Husserl, the kind of exactness possible in mathematics
derives from its “ideal concepts” and is unattainable in the descriptive eidetics of reduced
consciousness (see Husserl 1977/1983, §§71–75 and Bernet et al. 1993, 86). As Husserl puts it
in Ideas I, “an essence, and thus a purely apprehensible eidos, belongs to the sense of every
accidental matter…An individual object is not merely as such an individual, a ‘this, here!’ a
unique instance…It has its own distinctive character, its stock of essential predicables”
(Husserl 1977/1983, §2).
458 Saulius Geniusas

Out of these three methods, the last one is most problematic and in the
history of phenomenology, it has been subjected to diverse criticisms. For
instance, consider my earlier claim concerning the irrelevance of one’s initial
example. No matter how arbitrary the starting point might be, does the
phenomenologist not have to rely on a certain preconceptual understanding of
the example’s essence? How otherwise is the phenomenologist supposed to
know what properties of the object can be subjected to imaginative variation?
Taking a cup of tea as a starting example, does the method of eidetic variation
not rely upon my more basic understanding of the object’s perceptual
properties and practical functions, and thus on my prior capacity to
distinguish the cup from the saucer and the teaspoon before I start varying its
different properties, such as its color, shape, texture, size, weight, etc.?
Consider also Husserl’s own example in Phenomenological Psychology: it
concerns the tone. Does one not already need to know what a tone is so as to
be able to identify it as the starting point of one’s analysis as well as to be
able to distinguish those properties that belong to it from those that do not? It
seems that the method of eidetic variation already presupposes a
preconceptual insight into the essence of the phenomenon under scrutiny.
Yet even if one concedes that the method of eidetic variation presupposes a
more original exposure to the essence of phenomena,8 one nonetheless has to
agree that with the help of this method, one obtains a much more solid grasp
of the essences in question. The method of eidetic variation solidifies our
grasp of essences by transforming our vague and merely preconceptual
understanding of phenomena into genuine, reliable, and intersubjectively
verifiable knowledge of their essential predicates.
Despite its difficulties, the method of eidetic variation is vital for
phenomenology, since in its absence, phenomenology would not be in a
position to make any reliable and intersubjectively verifiable claims. What
exactly would a phenomenologist be left with, if, as regards methodology, he
or she relied only on epoché and phenomenological reduction? Following the
methodological guidance of these two methods, one would reach the stream
of experience and pure phenomena. Yet what would a phenomenological
description of such a stream and such phenomena amount to in the end? One

8
Let us note in passing that this realization provides one of the central reasons for
supplementing static phenomenology with genetic methodology.
Husserlian Phenomenology and Derridean Deconstruction 459

would be left with a pure description of factual experiences and phenomena,

yet without any right to claim that the description offered is of any relevance
for other experiences or other phenomena. Insofar as one relies only upon the
methods of epoché and reduction, one can already grasp phenomena in their
phenomenological purity, yet one remains restricted to their singularity. The
method of eidetic variation is designed to take us beyond the Heracleitean
flux of experience and it enables phenomenology to transcend what is
singular and factual. The possibility of phenomenology, as a philosophy, rests
on the shoulders of insights into essences of phenomena.
My defense of the method of eidetic variation should not be understood as
a view that considers this method as non-problematic. I believe that the most
severe of all difficulties concerns method’s dependence upon the
phenomenologist’s factual cognitive abilities. I am committed to the view
that, in light of this difficulty, the method of eidetic variation must be
supplemented with the method of factual variation. As Shaun Gallagher has
convincingly shown, results obtained from empirical research compel
phenomenology to abandon and revise eidetic claims (see Gallagher 2012,
51). This does not mean, however, that due to its inherent unreliability, one
should discard the method of eidetic variation. The recognition that the
method of eidetic variation does not warrant the reliability of
phenomenological insights into the essences of the phenomena requires that
we supplement the method of eidetic variation with a method of factual
variation. Such factual variation can derive from highly diverse sources, such
as natural, social, and human sciences, as well as from literature and poetry,
fine arts and cinema, or even (auto)biographies. Insofar as phenomenology is
open to such supplementation, it merits being called dialogical
phenomenology. However, in the present context I cannot address this issue
in any further detail.

2 Derrida’s Deconstruction and Husserlian Phenomenology

How are we, then, to understand the relationship between Derrida’s

deconstruction and Husserlian phenomenology? The foregoing reflections
have prepared the way to formulate the question in a more pointed way: What
role do these three fundamental methodological commitments (the method of
460 Saulius Geniusas

the epoché, the method of phenomenological reduction, and the method of

eidetic variation) play in the framework of Derridean deconstruction?
With regard to all three, Derrida’s strategy is consistent: he always aims to
defer their validity. This is the reason why the metaphors of contamination,
infection, and torment so often crop up in Derrida’s writings on Husserl.
Admittedly, Derrida expresses his debt to Husserl, when in the interview,
subsequently entitled “Hospitality, Justice and Responsibility,” he discusses
the method of the epoché in the following way:

It is true that for me Husserl’s work, and precisely the notion of the epoché,
has been and still is a major indispensable gesture. In everything I try to
say and write the epoché is implied. I would say that I constantly try to
practice that whenever I am speaking or writing. I think it is the condition
for thinking and speaking. (Derrida 1999, 80)

Yet let us not overlook how Derrida continues: “This does not mean that I
think the epoché is the last word. I do have questions about it …” (ibid).
According to Derrida, the method of epoché cannot be carried through
successfully: a phenomenologist cannot help, and in fact must, presuppose a
chain of traces, due to which a suspended meaning would still retain
non-suspended references to the irreducible totality of signs. Derrida takes
this to mean that the method of the epoché must be absorbed within a
semiological framework, where each and every meaning is conceived of as a
sign that stands in relation to other signs. We face here a semiological
transformation, where epoché, conceived of as a suspension of judgment
about natural validities and their transformation into pure meanings is further
absorbed within the totality of signs.
The same holds for the reduction. As we saw, in phenomenology, reduction
supplements epoché with the realization that all things and objects of which
we can speak are to be conceived of as pure meanings that pure
consciousness intends. Ultimately, in Husserl’s analysis, this leads to the
further realization that consciousness, conceived of as the living-streaming
present, is the source of all meaning-configurations. This is very much the
point Derrida contests in his writings. To clarify what is at stake in this
critique, we need to turn briefly to the distinction between expressions and
Husserlian Phenomenology and Derridean Deconstruction 461

indications that we come across in the first of Husserl’s Logical

Investigations and which forms the central target of Derrida’s critique in
Speech and Phenomena.
Derrida belongs to the group of those readers of Husserl who are committed
to the idea that Husserlian phenomenology is marked by overarching
continuity (see Derrida 1973, 3). Despite all of the changes, modifications, and
transformations, there is no Kehre in Husserl. Building on such a basis, Derrida
can claim that a radical critique of the distinction between expression and
indication affects the germinal structure of the whole of Husserl’s thought.
Not surprisingly, therefore, in the distinction between expressions and
indications Derrida sees an early prefiguring of all reductions, both
transcendental and eidetic (see Derrida 1973, 30–31). This, claims Derrida, is
the “‘truth’ of phenomenology” (Derrida 1973, 31): the “reduction to pure
expressions” is supposed to open the possibility of establishing intuitively
grounded claims that intend meanings given in pure presence. In short, the
radical separation of expressions from indications is supposed to guarantee
the legitimacy of phenomenological claims. Yet according to Derrida, such a
radical separation cannot be established successfully, for there are no criteria
to distinguish an outward language from an inward language. This means that
even when it comes to inward monologue, the phenomenologist cannot help,
but must in fact, rely on the resources of outward language, which must be
conceived as a totality of signs, each of which is of an originally repetitive
structure and each of which gains its meaning from references to other signs
(see Derrida 1973, 56–57). We are thereby invited to concede that
phenomenology rests on semiology.
How justified is Derrida’s conception of the reduction as presented here?
Does it not conflate reduction with abstraction, which separates indications
from expressions?9 It certainly seems to be so. Yet as we already saw,
reduction is not abstraction, but instead a matter of bringing meanings back
to their intuitive givenness and interpreting them only in terms of their
givenness. This means that only with the performance of reduction can one
address both expressions and indications phenomenologically, i.e. as peculiar
meaning configurations.

9
For Husserl’s own critique of such a confusion, see Cartesian Meditations (Fifth Meditation,
125/93).
462 Saulius Geniusas

Why is it important for Derrida to demonstrate that the separation between

expressions and indications is not as clear-cut as Husserl appears to maintain?
Presumably, if there are no pure expressions (that is, if expressions are
always contaminated with indications), then the phenomenologist can no
longer build his or her edifice on the basis of the Principle of all Principles, as
it is spelled out in Ideas I, and which suggests that:

every originary presentive intuition is a legitimizing source of cognition,

that everything originally (so to speak, in its “personal” actuality) offered to
us in “intuition” is to be accepted simply as what it is presented as being, but
also only within the limits in which it is presented there. (Husserl 1977/1983,
§24)

Derrida’s claim that there are no pure expressions, that expressions can never
be purified of their indicative function, is meant to bring to light the finding
that phenomenological intuition cannot perform the foundational role Husserl
had assigned it. If expressions are always intermingled with indications, and if
presentations can be incorporated into phenomenology only when they are
expressed, then we can never have any assurance that we are accepting any
presentation “only within the limits in which it is presented there” (ibid).
Rather, we obtain reasons to claim that all expressions are contaminated
semiologically, i.e. that they rely upon the irreducible totality of signs. It seems
that the Principle of all Principles is no principle at all. It seems that the
phenomenological reliance on intuition is semiologically pre-critical and
therefore, unreliable.
According to Derrida, the realization that there are no pure expressions
dislocates the centrality of presence in Husserl’s phenomenology. Presumably,
if, and only if, phenomenological expressions are liberated from indications,
can one claim that the intentional acts that they express intend a meaning in
pure presence. Once expressions are purified of all indicative functions,
meaning can be given as “immediately present to the subject in the present
moment” (Derrida 1973, 48).10 By contrast, whatever is intended in the form

10
Indeed, “the notion of presence is the core of this demonstration … The meaning is therefore
present to the self in the life of a present that has not yet gone forth from itself into the world,
space, or nature” (Derrida 1973, 40).
Husserlian Phenomenology and Derridean Deconstruction 463

of indication is marked by the radical absence of presence. Thus, when the

canals on Mars or footsteps in the desert are interpreted as indications of the
existence of other intelligent life, this life is given to us in a way that lacks
intuitive fullness. Or as Derrida puts it, “Here we find the core of indication:
indication takes place whenever the sense-giving act, the animating intention,
the living spirituality of the meaning-intention, is not fully present” (Derrida
1973, 38). But if so, then, presumably, by demonstrating that expressions are
always entangled with indications, one further demonstrates that there is no
pure presence, i.e. that presence is also always already entangled with
non-presence. On this basis, Derrida can qualify Husserlian phenomenology as
a form of metaphysics of presence11 and maintain that behind presence, we
discover différance.
How compelling is this critique? To be sure, for Husserl reduction
ultimately leads to the living present, which is conceived as the origin of all
meaning-configurations. Yet is Husserl’s concept of the living present truly
unsustainable? It is not possible to answer this question without first
understanding what the concept of the living present means. In his critique,
Derrida relies on the view that the living present is a punctual now:

If the punctuality of the instant is a myth, a spatial or mechanical metaphor,

or inherited metaphysical concept, or all that at once, and if the present of
self-presence is not simple, if it is constituted in a primordial and
irreducible synthesis, then the whole of Husserl’s argumentation is
threatened in its very principle. (Derrida 1973, 61)12

11
“The present alone is and ever will be. Being is presence or the modification of presence”
(Derrida 1973, 53). A commitment to such a view forms the basis that underlies what Derrida
identifies as metaphysics of presence. It is a widespread fundamental commitment, which
suggests that “the presence of the present is the ultimate form of being” (Derrida 1973, 53).
Behind and beyond everything else, the present is.
12
We must note in passing that Derrida admits that, for Husserl, “no now can be isolated as a
pure instant, a pure punctuality” (Derrida 1973, 61). Nonetheless, Derrida insists that, in
Husserl’s reflections, the temporal spread is thought through “on the basis of the self-identity
of the now as point, as a ‘source-point’” (Derrida 1973, 61). His critique of Husserl’s
phenomenology of time is first and foremost focused on this concept of the source-point. Yet
one cannot overlook Husserl’s own straightforward admission that the source-point about
which we here speak is in truth an abstraction, which is employed in phenomenological
reflections with no other purpose than that of clarifying the structure of time-consciousness. I
would thus contend that Derrida’s critique of Husserl’s phenomenology of time is based on a
confusion of the explanans and the explanandum.
464 Saulius Geniusas

This is a highly contestable claim, and I do not see how one could justify it. It
ultimately rests on a misunderstanding of what the concept of the living
present means for Husserl.13 Husserl explicitly argues against the view that
Derrida subscribes to him. He repeatedly maintains that the now is given in
the living present as continuous with living retentional and protentional
horizons and that it is the inseparable unity of impressions, retentions, and
protentions which allows him to identify the present as the living-streaming
present. In contrast to Derrida, for Husserl retention is not a representation of
perception, but is instead its constituent moment (cf. Evans 1991, 102–03 and
Crowell 1996, 63). One must therefore stress that, according to Husserl, the
living present should not be misconceived of as a punctual now that it already
includes an inner differentiation, which Derrida insists Husserl cannot
account for. Moreover, as James Mensch rightly observes, Husserl’s account
of self-presence does not require language: “It is actually inherent in the
instinctive striving we share with other animals” (Mensch 2001, 51).
Derrida’s critique of Husserl’s concept of the living present is an instance of a
misplaced criticism, which becomes especially conspicuous when Derrida
writes: “the fact nonpresence and otherness are internal to presence strikes at
the very root of the argument for the uselessness of signs in the self-relation”
(Derrida 1973, 66). What exactly is the basis of this claim? Why should
anyone think it self-evident that the relation between impressions, retentions,
and protentions is somehow contaminated with consciousness of signs? It is
not easy to identify the reasons behind this claim in Derrida’s own works.
What we said about epoché and reduction, we can repeat with regard to
eidetic variation. In the present context, we will need to keep our comments
brief. As seen from Derrida’s standpoint, this is also a method that cannot be

13
Here I concur with Nicolas de Warren’s view, as voiced in his Husserl and the Promise of
Time: “Derrida wrongly takes Husserl to mean that the actual now is punctual in character and,
as the source-point of presence, that it is this punctual now that is originary, or, in other words,
that the origin must have the presence of a punctual now as the ‘form’ forever renewing
‘matter’” (de Warren 2009, 261–26). Indeed, Derrida’s mistake here relies on a strange
misunderstanding of the nature of retention. In contrast to memory, retention is not restitution.
However, precisely because he conceives of retention as restitution, “Derrida is blind to the
possibility that retention is an intentionality and a transcendence within immanence” (de
Warrern 2009, 264). In short, contra Derrida, there is no simple identity of the now. We can see
this as soon as we realize that retention, for Husserl, does not follow impressions, but
accompanies them, and for this very reason, retention cannot be conceived of as an additional
moment added from the outside.
Husserlian Phenomenology and Derridean Deconstruction 465

successfully carried through. I have already alluded to the reasons earlier. If

the methods of the epoché and reduction leave open gaps that can only be
filled semiologically, then the alleged essences intended by means of eidetic
variation will also be unreliable insofar as they will not rely upon the
consideration of all imaginable possibilities. That is, the mere fact that a
phenomenologist cannot imagine a certain possibility does not mean, and can
never mean, that one has reached the limits of the possible. Thus, the field of
phenomenological evidence must be amplified semiologically. As seen from
such a standpoint, phenomenological claims are, at best, empirical
generalities. Since this critique of eidetic variation relies on the alleged
unreliability of the methods of the epoché and the reduction, I will not engage
in it any further in the present context. The phenomenological response to
this critique presented in the earlier paragraphs of this section will have to
suffice.

3 Concluding Observations

Who is Derrida’s Husserl? Stephen Boos has suggested that there are two
Husserls in Derrida’s overall interpretation. There is “the radical Husserl who
transgresses traditional metaphysics and epistemology.” There is also Husserl
the metaphysician, who “reaffirms and embodies the telos of traditional
metaphysics” (Boos 2008, 5). The goal of Derrida’s interpretation appears to
be that of liberating phenomenology from its metaphysical presuppositions,
thereby purifying the first Husserl from the second version. According to
Derrida, once this is done, phenomenology becomes deconstruction.
Yet how exactly does phenomenology flow into deconstruction? In light of
the above, one could qualify Derridean deconstruction of Husserlian
phenomenology as Hegelianism in reverse. It does not strive to absorb
phenomenology the way Hegelianism seeks to absorb all previous
philosophies; rather it strives to disturb and interrupt phenomenology. The
fundamental semiological principles of deconstruction do not rest on the truth
of phenomenology, but rely on the suspension of phenomenological
principles, on the alleged need to admit that the phenomenological project is
unsustainable. To return to Derrida’s beloved metaphor of contamination, I
believe that one can say that deconstruction is phenomenology’s
466 Saulius Geniusas

contamination.14
Husserl was convinced that the legitimacy of phenomenology rests on a
repeated subjection of phenomenological principles to a radical critique. He
was always willing to subject his own reflections to criticism. Therefore,
most of his writings are revisions and revisions of revisions. Indeed, contrary
to Derrida’s claims, neither the first of Husserl’s Logical Investigations,
which is the focus of Derrida’s critique in Speech and Phenomena, nor any
other of Husserl’s works, was ever written with final authority, as a finished
study to be uncritically relied upon by future generations. For Derrida,
however, phenomenology’s critique is not meant to be understood as an
impetus for further revisions of the principles of phenomenology, but as a
motive to go beyond phenomenology because, presumably, the
phenomenological project is unsustainable. Apparently, central
phenomenological themes, such as temporality and intersubjectivity, can only
be accounted for semiologically, not phenomenologically. However, as we
reflect on Husserl’s and Derrida’s writings, we cannot ignore the
circumstance that Husserl had much more to say about both temporality and
intersubjectivity than did Derrida and that most of what he said about both
themes remains unaccounted for in Derrida’s criticism.
What, then, could it possibly mean to qualify Derridean deconstruction not

14
Admittedly, there are some exceptions. Consider, for instance, how Derrida conceptualizes
the relation between self-presence and auto-affection. Conceiving of auto-affection as the
exercise of the voice, Derrida maintains that auto-affection introduces a pure difference at the
heart of self-presence. Presumably, this means that even when it comes to the transcendental
ego’s self-relation, the difference between the “speaking” and the “listening” ego is irreducible.
Thus, Derrida writes: “As soon as it is admitted that auto-affection is the condition for
self-presence, no pure transcendental reduction is possible. But it was necessary to pass
through the transcendental reduction in order to grasp this difference in what is closest to
it—which cannot mean grasping it in its identity, its purity, or its origin, for it has none. We
come closest to it in the movement of différance” (Derrida 1973, 82). Yet this attempt to
absorb phenomenology as both an abstract and a necessary moment of deconstruction remains
unconvincing since it relies upon an unjustified conception of the living present. For Husserl,
due to the temporal structure of transcendental experience, the transcendental ego’s
self-relation cannot be qualified in terms of abstract identity. For Husserl, impressions as such
are only abstract moments of temporality. Precisely because impressions always walk
hand-in-hand with retentions and protentions, pure self-identity is always but a moment of a
more complex self-relation which is equally stamped by self-difference (which is introduced
by retentions and protentions). Therefore, it remains unclear why Derrida (or any of his
followers) would be committed to the view that only by turning to différance can one
overcome the shortcomings of the phenomenological project.
Husserlian Phenomenology and Derridean Deconstruction 467

only as a transformation, but also as a radicalization of phenomenology? The

proponents of such a standpoint would have to be committed to some version
of the view that the history of phenomenology is the history of highly
intriguing misunderstandings of the Husserlian project. This is especially true
of the French phenomenological tradition, which has always been marked by
the effort to reinterpret Husserl’s phenomenology by means of identifying
and rethinking its fundamental commitments (cf. Seron and Giovannangeli
2002, 13). In this regard, Derridean deconstruction appears to fit in the
phenomenological tradition remarkably well. Indeed, paradoxically,
Derridean deconstruction appears to be a transformative development of
Husserlian phenomenology precisely because it is grounded in a highly
intriguing misreading of phenomenology.
However, the mere fact that an author engages in the phenomenological
tradition does not yet mean that he or she is further developing this tradition.
We can only identify Derridean deconstruction as a peculiar version of
phenomenology if we rely upon a certain conception of phenomenology,
which is more embracive, widely reaching, and more fundamental than what
has come under attack in Derrida’s own writings. It is not quite clear to me
what such a conception of phenomenology would amount to in the end.15 On
the other hand, insofar as the possibility of phenomenology rests on its
adherence to a metaphysical presupposition (as Derrida maintains), and
insofar as phenomenology as such is the culmination of the metaphysics of
presence (which is the view that Derrida never abandoned), Derridean
deconstruction is decisively anti-phenomenological.
The foregoing analysis suggests that Derridean deconstruction is an

15
We cannot forget that Derrida sees in Husserl’s thought the very paradigm of the
philosophical tradition from which deconstruction must take its departure. Let us ask why
Derrida commits to the view that we come across “the germinal structure of the whole of
Husserl’s thought” (Derrida 1973, 3) in the Logical Investigations? The reason cannot be that
in the later works Husserl does not introduce any new themes or new methodologies. Rather,
Derrida holds the view that the systematic development of Husserl’s phenomenology rests
upon certain prejudices that Husserl has never questioned and never abandoned (cf. Allison
2005, 90). What is at stake here is, presumably, Husserl’s uncritical commitment to what
Derrida calls “the metaphysics of presence,” which was briefly discussed above. While
according to Derrida, phenomenology is the culmination of this paradigm that has marked
Western philosophy from its very inception, Derridean deconstruction has always striven to
escape this paradigm. In short, insofar as phenomenology is the culmination of the
metaphysics of presence, Derridean deconstruction is decisively anti-phenomenological.
468 Saulius Geniusas

instance of semiological reductionism, conceived of as a philosophical

strategy that reduces meaning to the play of signifiers. I am not the first to
classify Derrida’s thinking in such terms. In Semiological Reductionism and
many other shorter studies, M. C. Dillon has qualified the semiological
reduction as the operative strategy that reveals the coherence of Derrida’s
thinking, even an implicit thesis that locates Derrida within the tradition.
According to Dillon’s radical claim, Derrida’s thought remains incoherent as
long as one does not recognize the semiological reduction at its very basis.
According to Dillon,

Semiology is the science of signs. Semiological reductionism is the attempt

to reduce all science to semiology…The premise that transforms
semiology into semiological reductionism is the premise that signs refer
exclusively to other signs, that signs cannot refer to extralinguistic realities;
for example, phenomena to which we have cognitive access in non- or
prelinguistic modes, preeminently in the mode of perception. (Dillon 1991,
181)16

Understood in such terms, deconstruction is an inversion of

phenomenological methods. Thus, instead of a reduction to meaning, what
we face here is a reduction of meaning. Instead of a reduction to the subject,
we face here a reduction of the subject. Instead of a reduction to presence, we
face here a reduction of presence. Instead of a reduction to intuition, we face
here a reduction of intuition. Instead of reducing representations to
presentations, we have here a reduction of presentations to representations,
and so forth. It is thus understandable why James Edie would write:

16
In his study, which heavily relies on the resources of Merleau-Ponty’s thought, Dillon has
argued that Derrida’s re-readings of the history of philosophy, that is, the history of figures
such as Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Husserl, and Heidegger, is structured
around the strategy of semiological reduction. While the position that I have defended here
converges with Dillon’s account, there is one crucial point, however, on which my own
position differs significantly from Dillon’s. Just as Dillon is critical of semiological reduction,
so too is he critical of all of the phenomenological reductions that we come across in Husserl’s
thought. As my account of the fundamental principles of Husserlian phenomenology must
have made clear, my view of Husserlian phenomenology differs significantly from the one
offered by Dillon.
Husserlian Phenomenology and Derridean Deconstruction 469

Derrida himself is always, at least in his early works, very careful to

emphasize his great respect for and indebtedness to Husserl and to
acknowledge the greatness and originality of his thought, but there is no
doubt that his intention was to seriously undermine certain key doctrines of
Husserl’s phenomenology and to erect in their place a method of
deconstruction based on the notion of Différance. (Edie 1990, 104)

Such a radical inversion of the fundamental claims of phenomenology should

not be taken to mean that no meaningful dialogue between deconstruction
and phenomenology is possible. It would be especially meaningful to inquire
into how, separate from deconstructing phenomenology, one could also
phenomenologize deconstruction. To do so, we would need to raise a
specifically phenomenological question: What is the evidence17 underlying
all of the fundamental claims that we come across in deconstruction? It is
simply not possible to raise such a question from within the perspective of
Derridean deconstruction. As Derrida notes in the context of his critique of
Husserl’s concept of primordial presence, “within philosophy there is no
possible objection concerning this privilege of the present-now; it defines the
very element of philosophical thought, it is evidence itself, conscious thought
itself, it governs every possible concept of truth and sense” (Derrida 1973,
62). Yet consider in this regard James Mensch’s telling remarks:

Why should we accept this concept [of différance]? Is there any evidence
for it? The very notion of evidence here is highly problematic. We cannot
ask that the concept be manifested in some self-giving intuition. The
request would return us to a “metaphysics of presence,” the very thing
Derrida wants to avoid. From a Husserlian standpoint, however, such
evidence is required. Without it, the assertion of différance is
“metaphysical.” (Mensch 2001, 41)

17
According to Husserl, evidence is “an experiencing of something that is and is thus; it is
precisely a mental seeing of something itself” (Husserl 1960, §5). For Husserl, to claim that
knowledge requires evidence is to maintain that cognitions need to be given with insight,
which would carry its own certainty and which would be distinguished from blind belief or
psychological feeling. As Husserl describes further in the Logical Investigations, all genuine
knowledge rests on “the most perfect ‘mark’ of correctness,” which is nothing other than
evidence itself. Thus, we know something when we can trace the phenomenon back to some
evident experience that grounds it.
470 Saulius Geniusas

It is thus precisely by focusing on evidence that we might be able to

transform deconstructive insights into phenomenologically analyzable
themes. 18 Following such a route, we would be invited to ask: Does
deconstruction not have to presuppose phenomenology and to do so not
merely as a preamble to its further development, but more importantly, as the
basis that enables it to sustain the integrity of its claims? An inquiry of this
nature will have to occur on a different occasion.

Acknowledgements A shorter version of this paper was presented at the international

symposium Phenomenology and (Post-)Structuralism that was held at The Chinese University
of Hong Kong on 13–14 April 2018. The two questions with which I here begin were the
guiding questions of the symposium. I would like to express my gratitude to all of the
participants for their questions and comments.

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