Derrida and Husserl: The Basic Problem of Phenomenology

Rating:
Summary: Remarkably Bad
Review: This book comes with the highes recommendations from the likes of Gasche, so it was something of a surprise to discover that this book fails to grasp its subject matter. The book's rhetorical strategy, which continually discusses Derrida's phenomenology, or critique of phenomenology, as one part of his career that was then displaced by a second elaboration based on his encounter with Levinas.... No doubt, this is very strenuous philosophical territory, but the author elaborates nothing of Derrrida's critique of Husserl, based as it is on a pervasive notion of repetition/substitution, and also Derrida's appropriation of Heidegger's critique of presence, presencing and the "present." Again, this is complex territory, and Derrida's innovations take place within intricate argumentation, but this author's rhetorical strategy is a guise, a bluff to cover over that finally this material is beyond his reach.