To be precise -- on origins (and a PS for Daniel)

While I'm still here:

Although I cited *Speech and Phenomena,* Derrida's extended essay on Husserl,
as "his first extended philosophical work," Derrida actually wrote a book
length text entitled *Edmund Husserl's "Origin of Geometry": An Introduction*
before he wrote *Speech and Phenomena* (which was first published in 1967).
Derrida's *Introduction* to Husserl's work was written early in his
professional academic career, published in France in 1962, and only later
translated by John Leavey and published with Husserl's essay included, in
1978 by Nicolas Hays, Ltd. And it, too, spoke explicitly about the question
of origins.

He had written an essay entitled "'Genesis and Structure' and Phenomenology,"
also on beginnings and Husserl, even earlier and delivered it at a conference
in 1959. However, by the time this appeared in print, years after his
"Introduction" to Husserl's "Origin of Geometry," in Derrida's collection
*Writing and Difference* in 1967, it had undergone significant rewriting. It
should be mentioned that the essay itself appeared in print even before
"Writing and Difference" came out. It was included in a collection of essays
edited by Maurice de Gandillac published in Paris by Mouton in 1965.

Just to be accurate about beginnings and origins,

--John

PS:

Daniel,

Show me one place, anywhere, where Derrida ever says (or even "opens the door
to") "it means what ever you want it to mean." If you cannot, then perhaps
your criticism is unfair and unwarranted.  In fact, if you read his
exchanges with the American philosopher John Searle, collected as *Limited
Inc.* and published in 1988 by Northwestern University Press, you'll see him
insist over and over that this cannot be the case and that his own words
cannot be read that way and that Searle is in fact continually *misreading*
them.

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Received on Wed Dec 11 18:42:30 2002