Background
''Speech and Phenomena'' is the culmination of a long period of study on the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl that Derrida began with his 1953/54 masters thesis ''The Problem of Genesis in Husserl's Phenomenology''. This early thesis then formed the basis for his 1959 paper "'Genesis and Structure' and Phenomenology." Derrida also translated Husserl's "Origin of Geometry" from German into French and published his translation of this article with a book length introduction in 1962.Structure
''Speech and Phenomena'' consists of an introduction and seven chapters: (1) Sign and Signs, (2) The Reduction of Indication, (3) Meaning as Soliloquy, (4) Meaning and Representation, (5) Signs and the Blink of an Eye, (6) The Voice that Keeps Silence, (7) The Supplement of Origin.1. Sign and Signs
Derrida identifies his theme in the first chapter as the twofold sense of the word sign for Husserl. Derrida notes that Husserl makes a conceptual distinction in the use of the word sign between expression and indication. For Husserl, Derrida argues, the expression and the indication are both signs but the latter is a sign without meaning or sense. Expression intends towards an ideal meaning and is "tied to the possibility of spoken language."(Derrida, ''Speech and Phenomena'' 18) also, "One would thus be assured that the meaning (''Beudeutung'') is always ''what'' a discourse or somebody ''wants to say'' ': what is conveyed, then, is always a linguistic sense, a discursive content" (Derrida, ''Speech and Phenomena'' 18)Translations
Originally translated into English by David B. Allison and published as ''Speech and Phenomena: And Other Essays on Husserl's Theory of Signs'' in 1973, a new translation by Leonard Lawlor under the title ''Voice and Phenomenon: Introduction to the Problem of the Sign in Husserl's Phenomenology'' was published in 2010.Commentary
For commentary on ''Speech and Phenomena'' see Leonard Lawlor's book ''Derrida and Husserl'' (2002) and Joshua Kates's book ''Essential History'' (2005).See also
* '' Positions''Notes and references
{{Edmund Husserl 1967 non-fiction books French non-fiction books Phenomenology literature Philosophy books Presses Universitaires de France books Works about Edmund Husserl Works by Jacques Derrida