The Missing Pieces of Derrida’s Voice and Phenomenon

Abstract

: Jacques Derrida’s critique of Edmund Husserl in Voice and Phenomenon targets several ways in which Husserl’s theory of signs is said to remain dependent on a model of presence, and therefore to be a form of onto-theology. In a sense this simply extends Martin Heidegger’s own critique of Husserl as failing to account for what remains obscure behind any presentation to the mind. Yet Derrida’s critique is ultimately more radical than Heidegger’s, though the radicality is in this case unjustified. Namely, Derrida goes beyond Heidegger’s critique of presence to mount an additional critique of “self-presence,” which is more often known as “identity.” Derrida’s insufficiently motivated critique of identity leads to additional problems for his philosophy.