Leonard Lawlor

The end of phenomenology: Expressionism in Deleuze and Merleau-Ponty

In this paper I examine how well Merleau-Pontys philosophy can respond to Deleuzes challenge to phenomenology. The Deleuzian challenge is double, that of immanence and that of difference; in other words, the double challenge is what Deleuze calls the paradox of expression. I bring together, in particular, Deleuzes 1969 The Logic of Sense and Merleau-Pontys 1945 the Phenomenology of Perception, and am able to discover a lot of similarities mainly centered around the notion of a past that has never been present. However, this comparison is not decisive; what alone can decide is an interpretation of expression in Merleau-Pontys final, unfinished The Visible and the Invisible.

The Legacy of Husserl’s “Ursprung der Geometrie”: The Limits of Phenomenology in Merleau-Ponty and Derrida

In this essay, I attempt to clarify an obvious confusion, the confusion between the late philosophy of Merleau-Ponty and the early philosophy ofDerrida. This confusion has become particularly obvious recently with the publication in 1998 of Merleau-Ponty course notes from 1959–60 on Husserl v “Ursprung der Geometrie.” I argue that the confusion between Merleau-Ponty and Derrida is justified, since Merleau-Ponty stresses the role of writing in the institution of ideal objects. More precisely, I think that both see a concept of necessity at work in Husserl, a necessity that leads beyond phenomenology to ontology, and even beyond ontology to ethics.

The relation as the Fundamental Issue in Derrida

Of all the aspects of Derrida’s thought, his interpretation of Husserl has occasioned the most debate.1 Although all of Derrida’s critics start out wanting to understand him—none, for instance, claim to do anything as extraordinary as “deconstruction”—none adhere to one of the most basic hermeneutical rules: reconstruct the context. Because critics neglect the context, some charge Derrida with interpreting Husserlian phenomenology merely as ontologism and intuitionism, in a word, as Platonism.2 They do this despite the fact that Derrida has repeatedly stated his allegiance to transcendental philosophy.3 Others charge him with failing “to recognize the subtleties of Husserl’s account of the interplay of presence and absence, of immanence and transcendence, of filled and empty intention,”4 even though Derrida appropriates precisely these subtleties to criticize the so-called “metaphysics of presence” he nevertheless finds in Husserl. The one-sidedness of such charges is startling. Perhaps however the critics’ negligence can be excused; to assemble all the parts of the Derridean context is an immense task. Roughly the context can be divided into two parts, and even these two do not exhaust it.