Speech and Phenomena

Introduction

This short book appeared in Paris in 1967, alongside Of Grammatology and Writing and Difference. It reads the first of Husserl’s Logical Investigations, where Husserl distinguishes expressive signs, which carry meaning, from merely indicative ones, and claims that in solitary mental life we need no signs because meaning is present to us immediately. Derrida tries to show that this presence of the “living present” already depends on retention and repetition, and therefore on signs. In this context he develops the notion of différance. In an interview of 1967 Derrida said that this was perhaps the essay he valued most; it is regarded as a key to his early work.

Connections

Criticizes

• Logical Investigations1900 · Edmund Husserl

More works by Jacques Derrida

• 1963Cogito and the History of Madness
• 1967Of Grammatology
• 1968Plato's Pharmacy
• 1971Signature Event Context
• 1977Limited Inc a b c …