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Strategies of Deconstruction: Derrida and the Myth of the

Voice
J. Claude Evans

Copyright Date: 1991

Edition: NED - New edition
Published by: University of Minnesota Press
Pages: 232

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctttvb35

Table of Contents

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Front Matter (pp. i-vi)

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Table of Contents (pp. vii-viii)

Acknowledgments (pp. ix-ix)

Abbreviations (pp. x-x)

Introduction (pp. xi-xxiv)

It is often said that Jacques Derridas early critiques of Husserl and Saussure provide the most
carefully argued introductions to his deconstructive approach to the tradition of Western
philosophy. Indeed, it has been said that one virtue of his early texts of the late 1960s is that in
them Derrida stillargued. Many writers on Derrida have found that his texts generally measure up
to the highest standards of scholarly rigor. Thus in the preface to the English translation ofLa voix
et le phnomne, Newton Garver writes that Derridas critique of Husserl is a first-class piece of
analytical work...

Part I. Husserl and the Philosophy of Presence:: Speech and Phenomena

Chapter 1 Speech and Phenomena: The Introduction (pp. 3-26)

The Introduction toSpeech and Phenomenasketches out the general framework within
which the argument of the book will unfold, and it must be read carefully with an eye both to
the general direction Derrida will take and to the specific strategies he will use. Here he has
two main concerns. First, he briefly emphasizes thecontinuityone finds in Husserls work, in
spite of its extensive development and transformation over the years. This emphasis is
crucial, as Derrida will concentrate much of his energy on the first paragraphs of the first of
theLogical Investigations, which appeared in 1901...

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Chapter 2 Sign and Signs (pp. 27-42)

Chapter 1 ofSpeech and Phenomenacontains an initial probing of some of the essential

distinctions with which Husserl begins the first of theLogical Investigations. Husserl
distinguishes between two fundamental kinds of signs: expressions (Ausdrcke), which
mean (bedeuten) something or express a meaning (Bedeutung); and indications or
indicative signs (Anzeichen), which do not express a meaning. An indicative sign indicates
the presence or existence of some object, but it does not express anything: the track of an
animal indicates the past presence of the animal, but it does not express the proposition
that the animal passed this place. In...

Chapter 3 The Reduction of Indication (pp. 43-55)

Derridas short second chapter follows Husserl as he attempts to demonstrate that

indication is not essential to expression. Indication must be set aside, abstracted, and
reduced (SP, 28/29). Indication involves a unity of motivation, which Husserl defines as
including logical demonstration as well as indication in the strict sense. This general
account employs concepts (Sein, Bestand) broader than those appropriate to indication in
the strict sense (Existenz, Dasein, Realitt). The latter is distinguished from logical
demonstration, which concerns not reality or real existence but idealities and ideal
necessities.

Only ideal contents can be linked together in logically necessary ways....

Chapter 4 Wanting-to-Say as Soliloquy (pp. 56-72)

In chapter 3 ofSpeech and Phenomena, Derrida grants Husserl the claimed separation of
expression and indication in order to follow what Husserl is able to do on this basis. What
does it mean to call expressions meaningful signs,bedeutsame Zeichen, signs that want to
say (veulent-dire) something? Derrida spells this out in two major steps. The first (A) is
dominated by the claim that meaning (Bedeutung) is a function of oral discourse. The
second (B) develops the further claim that it is not in oral discourse in general, but in the
interior monologue of soliloquy, that purity of expression...

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Chapter 5 Wanting-to-Say and Representation (pp. 73-96)

Chapter 4 ofSpeech and Phenomenafollows Husserls attempt to isolate pure expression,

free from all indicative functions, in the monologue of solitary discourse. According to
Husserl, even when I talk to myself there is no genuine communication and thus no
indication: I merely imagine or represent myself as speaking and communicating. This is
Derridas opportunity to investigate the role of representation in language. Representation
has a variety of senses, and Derrida argues that through all the registers of its meaning, the
fundamental distinction between reality and representation cannot be drawn, since in
language it is impossible to distinguish them....

Chapter 6 Signs and the Blink of an Eye (pp. 97-110)

The title of chapter 5 means, in the first instance, Signs and the Moment, the moment in
which the self is present to itself in absolute proximity. But Derrida will try to show that this
moment is theblinkof an eye, not its glance, as the German termAugenblickwould suggest.
It is the instantaneous moment of the blink, which closes the eye, not the glance, which
opens up a field of vision. This moment of the blink, of absence, will turn out to be the
condition of possibility of presence itself, the very origin of presence. Everything
depends...

Chapter 7 The Voice that Keeps Silence (pp. 111-128)

In chapter 6 ofSpeech and Phenomenamost of the threads that have been prepared in the
previous chapters flow together in a dense tapestry in which each thread is intricately
intertwined with all the others. Keeping the various strands clear is a difficult but crucial job.

As we have seen, Husserl attempts to delimit expression in two directions. In the first place,
he distinguishes expression from indication, arguing that while the two functions are
interwoven in communication, we find the expressive function without the indicative function
in soliloquy. In the second place, he distinguishes logical meaning as expression from...

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Chapter 8 The Supplement of Origin (pp. 129-144)

The final chapter ofSpeech and Phenomenacontains a complex argument. In the first place,
Derrida argues that expression not only (as Husserl sees) does not require fulfillment in
order to exercise its meaning function, but essentially involves a lack of fulfillment. The
very structure of Husserls pure grammar shows that meaning excludes intuition, the
presence of the object meant. This would be true even for words such as I, which means
that the meaningfulness of my own utterances requires my own absence or death. Since
writing is defined as those signs that function even in the absence of the...

Part II. The Myth of Phonocentrism:: Of Grammatology

Chapter 9 Aristotle (pp. 147-151)

In the Exergue toOf Grammatology, Derrida begins by calling the readers attention
tologocentrism, which he defines as the metaphysics of phonetic writing (OG, 11/3). The
term logocentrism clearly bears a great burden inOf Grammatology. Derrida gives three
dimensions of this burden: (1) The phonetization of writing, which has often enough been
hailed as a great advance of civilization, must dissimulate its own history as it is produced
(OG, 11/3), thus bearing the dark side of dissimulation as the condition of its own apparent
worth. (2) Metaphysics finds the origin of truth in thelogos, that is, in...

Chapter 10 Saussure (pp. 152-166)

The deconstructive reading of Ferdinand de SaussuresCours de la linguistique

gnraleplays a crucial role inOf Grammatology, for in Saussure Derrida thinks that he can
attack the entire uncritical tradition which [Saussure] inherits (OG, 67/46). If it can be
shown that Saussures work is governed by a coherence of desire producing itself in a
near-oneiric way . . . through a contradictory logic, this will already give us the assured
means of broaching the deconstruction of thegreatest totalitythe concept of
theepistmand logocentric metaphysicswithin which are produced, without ever posing
the radical question of...

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Conclusion: The Rigor and Ethics of Reading (pp. 167-180)

We have seen in the Introduction that Derridas deconstructive approach to philosophical texts
presents the critical reader with what appears to be a dilemma: a critical reading might seem to
be committed to the very ideals of truth, rigor, and epistemic accountability deconstructed by the
texts that are to be subjected to a critical reading. But this dilemma is simply a reflection of the
task that deconstruction sets for itself, namely, that of subjecting itself to what Derrida calls the
classical norms (OG, 8/lxxxix) even as it deconstructs the metaphysical underpinning of those
very norms. Derrida thus insists that within...

Signature (pp. 181-184)

Derrida has an undeniable talent for puttingor at least seeming to puthis pen on important
and difficult issues, and for doing so in ways that, at least on first reading, seem to be both
enlightening and troubling. In addition, there can be no doubt that Derrida can be a penetrating
reader: his work on the poetry of Paul Celan in "Shibboleth" (Derrida 1986a) and on Francis
Ponge inSignponge(Derrida 1984c) are ample proof of this. While both of these, and especially
the latter, are quite clearly performances in their own right, one rarely has the sense that...

Notes (pp. 185-192)

Bibliography (pp. 193-200)

Index (pp. 201-206)

Back Matter (pp. 207-207)

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