Letter to Lawlor

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June 14, 1995 Dear Len, I appreciate your attempt, your letter of March 21, 1995, to shift emphasis to positive philosophical contribution of Derrida's texts. And I appreciate fact that your approach is not simply to turn away from Husserl's text and Derrida's reading of it, since you find positive contribution arising out of reading. This is what Strategies of Deconstruction, whatever its flaws, was about-the way Derrida tries to reach certain conclusions on basis of his reading of Husserl. So I am happy to follow your suggestion that we try once again to approach Derrida's contribution via discussion of Husserl's account of retention, and that order to avoid getting bogged down a dispute about whether Husserl contradicts himself, we look at what you call Husserl's definition of retention. I have some difficulty with your line of thought here, so let me approach things step by step. As we all recognize, Husserl explicitly makes use of two different senses of According to one, retention is not perception; according to other, retention is perception. In Strategies I suggested that we can keep things clear by use of subscripts. Thus: 1. Retention is not perception,. 2. Retention is perception2. If we left out subscripts, these sentences would at least appear to contradict one another, and when he shifts from one to other Husserl is careful to write, Here, therefore, an entirely different concept of perception is question (Hue X, 41/43). Retention is perception one while it is not perception another sense. Thus, if there is something perplexing or confusing here, we have to find it qualified version, which its formulation, at least, no longer even borders on being contradictory, as you put it, since retention is not being characterized both as perception and non-perception, not, that is, same of perception, as your formulation suggests. The version without subscripts appears to be contradictory (as you insist), but may not be, while version with subscripts appears not to be contradictory (as I insist), but may turn out to be. In each case, further inquiry is required. Neither of us can rest his case at this point. The same issue appears later your letter, when after quoting my SPEP paper you write the wording (secondary memory `is not opposed, but is opposed' to retention) at least suggests something like a (203). But contradiction is not even suggested once one returns in one of `perception' and in another sense to what I wrote. It is only when qualification is left aside that things sound perplexing way you suggest. But perhaps I am missing crucial issue here, getting stuck on reading Husserl. There seems to be something like a philosophical principle about distinctions behind your approach: why does Husserl use same word? Since he uses same word, then, it seems, he himself sees some sort of relation between two uses (even though he distinguishes two senses). It seems to me that, general, different contexts of same word are not and cannot be irrelevant to one another; they cannot be completely separated from one another. (20243) There might be reason to be a bit skeptical here, since there can be a variety of reasons why same word might be used to express distinct senses. One might be historical background: earlier thought may have seen a relation we no longer feel required to acknowledge. Historical accident can play a role. On other hand, distinguished senses might indeed be intimately related to one another, perhaps intertwined some respects (and therefore entangled, contaminating one another?). While I am not sure about your principle stated with this universality, I suspect that it is generally true of important and subtle distinctions. …