Questioning the Essence of Literature: A Deconstructive Reading of Ortega Y Gasset’s and Mikel Dufrenne’s Phenomenological Investigations of the Ideal Literary Object

Phenomenology offers a presuppositionless methodology for investigating phenomena which does not determine their nature from a metaphysical, sociological or psychological standpoint but lets them stand on their own. It, therefore, functions as the eidetic science which determines the essences of phenomena and provides the ground on which theories which agree with their nature can be established. Through tracing José Ortega Y Gasset’s and Mikel Dufrenne’s static and genetic phenomenological investigations of literature, this article offers a deconstructive reading of their accounts. Although Jacques Derrida has also worked on a phenomenological investigation of literature, he has not been able to reach similar conclusions. The reason is that his investigation of the ideal literary object has led him to examine the metaphysical presupposition of the presumably presuppositionless method and how it controls Husserlian phenomenology. The present study extends Derrida’s findings to other phenomenological investigations and shows how their metaphysical presupposition determines the results they reach in advance.