Edmund Husserl's Origin of Geometry: An Introduction

By Jacques Derrida

Book Overview

Edmund Husserl's Origin of Geometry" An Introduction (1962) is Jacques Derrida's earliest published work. In this commentary-interpretation of the famous appendix to Husserl's The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Derrida relates writing to such key concepts as differing, consciousness, presence, and historicity. Starting from Husserl's method of historical investigation, Derrida gradually unravels a deconstructive critique of phenomenology itself, which forms the foundation for his later criticism of Western metaphysics as a metaphysics of presence. The complete text of Husserl's Origin of Geometry is included. This Bison Book edition carries an afterword by the translator, John P. Leavey Jr., who has also translated (with Richard Rand) Derrida's Glas and supplied a Glassary, books published by the University of Nebraska Press in 1986.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803265808
• ISBN13: 9780803265806
• Release Date: May 1989
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Length: 214 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Derrida's first book.

What this unusual book has to offer include the following. 1. A detailed, occasionally critical, close reading of Husserl's essay. 2. A look at the logic, in its nascent state, that Derrida will continue to develop and deploy throughout his career. 3. A view of Derrida's Husserlian roots, and at his disagreement with certain aspects of these roots. The book also contains (as it should) an English translation of Husserl's essay. It should be of interest to those who take an interest in Derrida's work, in Husserl's work (especially his late work), and perhaps to other folks as well, for example those interested in the philosophy or phenomenology of mathematical objects and their history, in the relations between ideality and materiality, or in history or historicity.