The Future-To-Come

Abstract

As something fateful, Being itself is inherently eschatological. Martin Heidegger, Early Greek Thinking, p. 18. In historiam, it is fall of thought into philosophy which gets under way. Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference, p. 27. . . there where a certain determined concept of comes to an end, precisely there historicity of begins. Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx, p. 74. In a footnote to his introduction to Edmund Husserl's Origin of Geometry Derrida asks a question about character of history: is history, what is origin, about which we can say that we must understand them sometimes in one sense, sometimes in another? (p. 69). This division of into two quite different senses is, as Derrida's reading of Husserl makes clear, integral to Husserl's denunciation of historicism and question of truth. Later in his introduction Derrida demonstrates that these two senses of are revealed, in phenomenological project, to be unified in a radical sense. For both rely upon a prior delimitation of what Derrida will investigate under name of Husserl's division between a factical/empirical (which would be a vehicle for some ahistorical reason) and an ideal (which would be nothing other than Reason's own movement) is already effect of a certain decision or determination of character of historicity. What Husserl's inquiry into sense of uncovers is a historicity which would be radically anterior to these two senses-and would indeed be their prior condition. According to this reading, phenomenology would be an up of philosophy and all its other divisions (history/History; Being/sense; facticity/ideality). The phenomenological project is then, for Derrida, both a culmination and a radicalization of a Western metaphysics of presence. Phenomenology has as its task question of philosophy: how is it that philosophy as an inquiry into pure truth is possible? Insofar as Husserl is able to offer an answer, he works toward a historicity which is prior both to any factical historical event or any ideal teleology of meaning. But if idea of a more primordial origin, which would not be a merely factical or empirical origin, animates Husserl's inquiry, how does Derrida's work itself operate in relation to of truth? In this essay I want to argue that thought in two senses is not only a theme that Derrida finds in Husserlian phenomenology but is central to project of a deconstruction of Western Not only in his early work on Husserl, but throughout Derridean project, thought in a double sense is sustained-not just as one motif amongst others but as very possibility of deconstruction. Furthermore, I will argue, Derrida's understanding of philosophy as precludes, at same time that it enables, opening of philosophy which Derrida finds in Husserlian phenomenology. In fact, entire Derridean project of a deconstruction of Western metaphysics depends upon quite rigorously defined notions of philosophy, presence, truth, meaning and sense. By working through Derrida's reading of Husserl I hope to demonstrate positive limits of Derridean understanding of philosophy as an investigation into pure, or ideal, truth. What are two senses of which Derrida sees entailed by Husserlian radicalization of meaning? And why does this double sense tell us something about in general? I will begin with first sense: with a capital H or as in the History of Western metaphysics. This sense of can include both factical of world events as well as ideal philosophical of unfolding of truth; for both these senses depend upon, and must be set against historicity-a second sense of history that cannot be understood as either an empirical event or as an ideal teleology. …