Speech and Phenomena
Derrida's 1967 reading of Husserl's Logical Investigations — the deconstructive critique of phenomenology
Tradition: Deconstruction / post-structuralism / phenomenology critique
Derrida's 1967 deconstructive reading of Husserl — voice, expression, and the metaphysics of presence
Published in 1967 as 'La voix et le phénomène: Introduction au problème du signe dans la phénoménologie de Husserl' (PUF, Paris), 'Speech and Phenomena' is Derrida's deconstructive reading of Husserl's 'Logical Investigations' (especially the First Investigation on expression and meaning) and 'Ideas I'. The book is one of three Derrida books published in 1967 (along with 'De la grammatologie' and 'L'écriture et la différence'), the year that established Derrida as a major philosophical voice. The central thesis is that Husserl's phenomenology — by privileging the voice (la voix) as the medium of self-presence (the voice supposedly being heard at the same moment one speaks, without mediation), and by trying to keep 'expression' free of 'indication' (the distinction by which Husserl tried to isolate meaning-bearing speech from external-causal sign relations) — depends on a 'metaphysics of presence' that the structure of the sign (différance, supplementarity, iterability) already disrupts. Derrida shows in close textual reading that Husserl's own analysis cannot sustain the expression/indication distinction: every 'expressive' act of meaning already involves the iterability and citationality that Husserl tries to confine to 'indication'. The book is the most concentrated of Derrida's three 1967 works in its sustained engagement with a single major philosopher; together with 'Of Grammatology' (the broader theoretical statement) and 'Writing and Difference' (the essay collection), it constitutes the founding triad of deconstruction.
Author
Editions cited
- La voix et le phénomène: Introduction au problème du signe dans la phénoménologie de Husserl (Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1967)
- First English translation: David B. Allison, Speech and Phenomena and Other Essays on Husserl's Theory of Signs (Northwestern University Press, 1973)
- Modern English translation: Leonard Lawlor, Voice and Phenomenon: Introduction to the Problem of the Sign in Husserl's Phenomenology (Northwestern University Press, 2011)
- Critical commentary: Joshua Kates, Essential History: Jacques Derrida and the Development of Deconstruction (Northwestern, 2005); Leonard Lawlor, Derrida and Husserl: The Basic Problem of Phenomenology (Indiana, 2002)
School Embodiments
Founding deconstructive work — Husserl as the test case.
"The metaphysics of presence is the metaphysics of the voice." (Speech and Phenomena, ch. 5)
Defining late-1960s post-structuralist critique of phenomenology.
"Différance is older than presence." (Speech and Phenomena, ch. 7)
Sustained internal engagement with Husserl.
"Husserl's phenomenology is more rigorous than its critics — and more compromised than its defenders." (Speech and Phenomena, introduction)
Major work on the structure of the sign.
"There is no sign without iterability." (Speech and Phenomena, ch. 4)
Post-structuralist development out of Saussurean linguistics.
"The Saussurean sign already disrupts the phenomenological voice." (Speech and Phenomena, ch. 3)
Critical-theoretical register of the post-1968 French scene.
"Phenomenology cannot keep the empirical and the transcendental apart." (Speech and Phenomena, conclusion)
Continental-philosophical tradition.
Post-structuralist tradition.
Internal Tensions
Among Derrida's three founding 1967 books — the most concentrated treatment of phenomenology. Continuously read in continental philosophy and in Husserl-scholarship; the book's central argument about the metaphysics of presence and its critique of the voice/writing privilege has been continuously productive in subsequent deconstructive work.
I. Time
1967 — the founding year of deconstruction, with three Derrida books appearing within months (Speech and Phenomena, Of Grammatology, Writing and Difference).
Attributes
II. Space
Paris — ENS (Derrida had been a faculty member since 1965). The intellectual space is the late-1960s French philosophical scene at the height of structuralism (Lévi-Strauss, Lacan, Althusser, the early Foucault) and the moment when post-structuralism was emerging from within it.
Attributes
III. Matter
Single philosophical monograph (~120 pages). Form is sustained close-reading of two Husserlian texts (Logical Investigations and Ideas I) across seven chapters.
Attributes
IV. Observer
Early Derrida. The observer-philosopher is in his mid-30s, working out the deconstructive method through close engagement with Husserlian phenomenology — the philosophical tradition in which Derrida had received his early formation (his 1953-54 doctoral thesis under Maurice de Gandillac was on Husserl, and his first published book in 1962 was the introduction to and translation of Husserl's 'Origin of Geometry').
Attributes
V. Energy
Deconstructive-critical energies of post-structuralist Paris. The book demonstrates the deconstructive method at work on a major philosopher with whom Derrida had spent a decade in close engagement.
Attributes
VI. Information
Short, densely argued book. Each chapter takes a specific Husserlian text and shows the deconstructive movement at work within it.
Attributes
Personas that cite this work
Personas with the nearest attribute fingerprint
Historical figures whose own classification on the same six-dimensional grid lands closest to this work's. Computed by attribute-agreement on coordinates both address.
Computed school proximity
The work's attribute fingerprint scored against all schools using the same quiz scorer. Useful as a sanity check on the hand-curated embodiments above.
How Speech and Phenomena resolves each dilemma
48 resolved positions across 4 dimensions, including 16 distinctive where the majority of schools go the other way · 9 unaligned.
Each dimension is sorted so minority positions come first. Mainstream positions are folded into an expandable list.
Time · 9 dilemmas, all mainstream
Matter · 7 dilemmas · 5 distinctive
What stuff is — fundamental, relational, or appearance.
Observer · 37 dilemmas · 5 distinctive
Mind, agency, and the knower's relation to the known.