Abstract

This early work by Derrida, his 1953/ 54 dissertation, introduced the philosophy of Husserl to French intellectuals. Derrida’s professed goal in this work is to “arrange for access to and complete intelligibility of a historical movement: that of Husserlian phenomenology”. According to Derrida, Husserl began with the intention of undertaking a philosophical revolution, but in the end remained “the prisoner of a great classical tradition: the one that reduces human finitude to an accident of history, to an ‘essence of man’ that understands temporality against a background of possible or actual eternity in which it has or could have participated”. Derrida announces with these opening comments that he does not share in this “great classical tradition,” which so clearly served as the inspiration for Husserl’s turn toward philosophy and his lifelong search, which was a search for philosophic certitude and a search for meaning.