In Praise of Presence: Rethinking Presence With Derrida and Husserl

Abstract

This paper examines Derrida's critique of Husserl's notion of pure presence. Husserl's theory of temporality in The Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness supports a philosophy of pure presence, but Husserl's notion of presence is not, as Derrida would have it, one which "reject(s) the 'after-event' of the becoming conscious of an 'unconscious content' which is the structure of temporality implied through-out Freud's texts". Husserl's notion of presence is, rather, transcendental, hyletic and unconscious. Dissemination, characterized by a lack of stable meaning, nonorigin, and departure from the rules of logic, is constituted by the relation of transcendental presence to the mundane.