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Heidegger/Derrida--PresenceAuthor(s): John SallisReviewed work(s):Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 81, No. 10, Eighty-First Annual Meeting AmericanPhilosophical Association, Eastern Division (Oct., 1984), pp. 594-601Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2026261 .

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594 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

HEIDEGGER/DERRIDA-PRESENCE*

tT\ WO authors renamed.Neitherwillbe present-though

one could be at the event for which the titleHeidegger/Derrida serves as an announcement,the event for which

this text-which I, a third uthor,have signed in advance-is toprovide a certainpreparation. The concern of course will be notwith those two authors themselves, ut with the textsthatbeartheir signatures,with what is usually called-quite carelesslynodoubt-their texts.And so, in the title the names represent, .e.,substitute or nd hence announce, certaintexts.Or, alternatively,

they epresent, itherdirectly r through hesigned texts, certaintheoreticalmatter Sache), what is usually called-quite carelesslyno doubt-the meaning of the texts.Recall theopening sentence fHeidegger'sNietzsche:

"Nietzsche"-the ame f the hinkertandss the itle or hematter[die Sache]ofhisthinking.-

The substitutional representational) unction hus traces he rela-tion of author to text nd, perhaps less obtrusively, herelation to

whatis meantby the authorin the text: uthor/text/meaning.Let mefocusfornow on thefirst ftheserelations, n theway n

which theunderstanding f it has been prepared, mostdecisivelythough not exclusively,beginning with Aristotle'sOn Interpreta-tion (16a). What is written r& Typeou6evua) s taken to refer o (tobe a symbol of: vuil3oXa)what is spoken (r& i'-p ri4wvi); andspeech is to be understoodby reference o thesubject who speaks,as an activity f thespeaking subject.An author would perhapsre-

duce this schema byrepressing r merely nacting speechsilently;but the relationwould remainfundamental-lyhesame, theauthorproducingthetext hroughhis activity, xpressing n itwhat is al-ready ntactwithin himself r& Evr7 i#vux1raftar7a), riginatingit so as to be entitled to authorityover it. Such is, in the merestsketch,the ordinary, .e., traditional, onception which the texts"of" Heideggerand Derrida serve to bring thoroughly nto ques-tion,bothin whatthey ay and often lso in theirvery orm fsay-ing, bothin word and in deed. Most directly, hesetexts isruptthe

traditional onceptionby showinghow it is inseparablefrom hatmetaphysics f subjectivitywhose transgressionhesetextswould

*To be presented n an APA symposium on Heidegger/Derrida,December 30,1984.Edward S. Casey will be co-symposiast; ee thisJOURNAL, this ssue, 601-610.Robert Bernasconi will comment;his paper is not available at this time.

'Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche (Pfullingen: Gunther Neske, 1961), vol. I, p. 9.Trans. byD. F. Krell New York:Harper& Row, 1979),vol. I, p. xv.

0022-362X/84/810/0594$00.80 1984The Journalof Philosophy, nc.



HEIDEGGER/DERRIDA 595

broach. Thus, in theHeideggeriantext, anguage proves rreduci-ble to the activity f a speaker,requiringrather to put it in the

verybriefest ormula)a listening to something aid in advance ofits sounding in human speech.2To this extent anguage is with-drawn fromthesubject,the authordispossessedof whathe wouldotherwisehave taken simplyas his text. Much the same displace-ment s released,thoughfrom uite a differentirection, y certainDerridean texts,for example, by the critique that Speech andPhenomena bringstobear upon theHusserlianpropensity ocon-ceive expression,meaning,signification,n reference o the riXosofintuitivefulfillmentnd thereby o compromisethatvery rigi-

nalityor idealityof meaningwhich the Logical Investigationswasset upon establishing.The conclusion is that ignifications essen-tially capable of functioning independentlyof all intuition,whether t be thatof thesensiblypresent bjector of theself-pres-entsubject.The operationof signification, he functioning f lan-guage, does not require thepresence, ven the mediatedpresence,of thesubject;thetext s unaffectedythe deathof the author.3 nthis sense-though only and precisely n thissense-nothing is to

be gained bythepresenceofthe author,not evenif he wereto readhis texts loud, feigning ven an originary ictation.What is put at issue mostimmediatelyby the title s not,how-

ever,thechain of substitutionsinkingauthorto text nd tomean-ing but rather he oppositionbetweenthetwo chainsdesignatedbythenames of the twoauthors.Let me focus,then,on theslash. Itfunctions s a kind ofpunctuationmark, s one of thosenonpho-netic elementswhich appear to distinguishwriting, o mark t offfrom speech. If I were to pronounce the titleHeidegger/Derrida

aloud-for example,at the eventforwhich thistext s toprovideacertain preparation-if I were to use this text as a pretextforspeech, forpurposes of that feigningof speech which occurs inreading,then t would be necessary o insert hemark n speech bysome kind of artifice, orexample, bya gesture hat would trace torbythesubstitution f a word suchas "slash," whichwould thenbe functioning n a way quite different rom ts straightforwardsemanticfunction. n living speech, presentto its self-presentu-

2"Speaking is of itself von sich aus] a listening. t is a listening o the anguagethat we speak. Thus speaking is, not at the same timebut beforehand, listening.In an inconspicuous way thislisteningto language precedes ll otherkinds of lis-tening.Not only do we speak the anguage, we speak fromout of it [Wirsprechennichtnur die Sprache,wir sprechen us ihr]." Unterwegs ur Sprache (Pfullingen:GuntherNeske, 1959),p. 254.

'Jacques Derrida, La Voix et le phenomene (Paris: Presses Universitaires eFrance, 1967), ch. vii. Trans.: Speech and Phenomena, by David B. Allison (Evan-ston, ll.: Northwesternp, 1973).




thor, hismark, histraceof writing, annotbe simplypresented;tremainsoutside thatspeech,thusrequiringtherein tsrepresenta-tive, ts substitutive esture r word.And so, theverywayin which

thismark functionsmirrorswhat will prove tobe at issue betweenthose twoauthorial chains betweenwhich themark s drawn; theissue is presenceor, more precisely,withdrawalof, withdrawalfrom, resence.

Ordinarilythis mark-which I have already begun calling bysubstitution "slash," translating hisartifice ack intothewrittentext-ordinarilyit is takenas markingsome kind of opposition.And yet,a primarystrategy f the Heideggerian and Derridean

texts is precisely to deconstructbinary opposition. Thus Hei-degger'sNietzscheproposes, n viewofsuch foundingoppositionsas intelligible/sensible,n inversion f "Platonism" in whichphil-osophical thinkingwould also twistfree f t4 whattheDerrideantext will designateas the two operationsof reversal nd displace-ment. It is a matterof opposites thatcan be neitherreduced tounitynor stabilizedhierarchically ordialecticallysublatedinto athird erm.UnderthetitleDissemination tis a matter speciallyofdisplacing the threeof ontotheology, f destroying he trinitarian

horizon,of adding a fourth, elf-effacingermwhich, like differ-ance, displaces synthesis, pening the triangleon a fourth ide,reinscribingt as an open square.'

And so, it is herea matter fpreparing uchan openingfrom heopposition of the two authorial chains, in this way preparingforthateventto which this text-which I, a third uthor,have signedin advance-is directed.Or rather, t is a matterof relinquishingthispoint,thisapex, and ofbeginningto write fourth ext, eign-

ing a preface ibid. 33; tr.:27). It goes withoutsayingthathere tcan be a matter nlyofbeginning,ofmerely ocatingthe sitefordeconstructiveeometry.

"Everything tartswith the dyad" (ibid. 31; tr.: 24), and so inorder obeginit is necessary o return o the oppositionHeidegger/Derrida.And yet-remaining fornow withintheclassical concep-tuality, .g., ofGerman dealism-opposition is never imply uch,neveropposition as such; even ifabsolute in form, pposition isnever bsolute in contentbutpresupposesa conditioningposition.

The opposition ofopposites presupposesa common position, theslash conjoining beforetcan separate. t is from hatpositionthatone mustbegin.

Let us begin,then,from hepositingofmetaphysicss at itsend,its limit, the delimitationofmetaphysicsn its closure,a positing

4Heidegger, Nietzsche, , 233 (Tr.: 201).5 Derrida,La Dissemination Paris: Seuil, 1972), p. 31 f.Trans: Dissemination,by

Barbara Johnson Chicago: University ress, 1981), pp. 24 f.




of it for destruction Destruktion)or-reproducing orthographi-cally the necessarybond of the operation with metaphysics-thedeconstruction fmetaphysics. his positingis governedby a cer-tain exposure of metaphysics, n exposure of a positingcommonto metaphysicsthroughout ts history nd warranting o thisde-gree the phrase 'metaphysics s such'. What is common to meta-physics s thepositingof Being (Sein) as presence, tsself-positingas metaphysics f presence.

Hence, it is imperative o understandwhat"presence"means,tounderstandhow themeaningof presence s such thatmetaphysicsofpresence s posed fordelimitation, econstruction.t is withthe

question of the meaning of presence that one can begin to con-struct he deconstructivequare.In Being and Time presencemeans predominantly,houghnot

exclusively,Vorhandenheitpresence-at-hand,n theusual transla-tion). This is to be understood n its correlationwith pure seeing,with vOE2v,6with intuition Anschauung): When somethinggivesitself o one's sheergaze, when it is simply thereforone's looking,displaying tselfbefore nd for pprehension,then t has the char-acterofbeing present-at-hand.uch a character s to be contrastedwith thatof thingswith which one deals concernfully,when onemanipulates thingsand puts them to use. The contrastbetweenVorhandenheit nd Zuhandenheit readiness-to-hand,n the usualtranslation) s well known, and the relevantanalyses offered yBeing and Time need not be repeatedor even summarizedhere.What does, however,need to be stressed s therigorousorderthatthephenomenologicalanalysesofBeing and Time (I, 3) establisheswith respectto thesetwo modes: Presence-at-hands foundedon

readiness-to-hand,nd thingscome to show themselves s present-at-hand onlywhen certain structures f readiness-to-hand etcov-ered overor repressed.One could say,then,that n thestrict enseeverythings ready-to-hand;r, alternatively,hatthere s nothingpurelypresent-at-hand.n whatone might akeas present-at-hand-e.g., thehammer merely taredat-there is always something lseoperativeyetrepressed, concealed operationofreadiness-to-hand,a disregardednstrumentality. hat is decisive s thedisplacementof presence that this analysis produces. There are no simply,

sheerly resent hings;for verythings openlyorconcealedlyready-to-hand,and what is ready-to-hand-thehammerwhen one takeshold of t and uses it-is notsheerly resent s a self-containedos-itivity.Rather, t is extendedbeyond tselfntothe referentialotal-ity bywhich it is determined,ts presence imited and yetrendered

6Cf. Sein und Zeit (Tiibingen: Max Niemeyer,1960,9th ed.), pp. 25 ff.Trans.:Being and Time (New York:Harper & Row, 1962).




possible by its insertion n thattotality.But the totalitys one ofsignifying eferences;t is Bedeutsamkeit, heoperationofsignifi-

cation.7There is no pure presence; for n whateverpresents tselfthere s alreadyin play theoperation of signification.Presence sdelimited-limited and yetrendered ossible-by theoperation ofsignification.

The Derridean text oo is addressed o a delimitation fpresence,of thatsheerperceptualpresence that would be correlative o thestratumof pre-expressive xperiencewhich Husserlian phenome-nology would rigorously eparate from heoperation of significa-tion. It is on the mostelementaryevel thatSpeech and Phenomenais focused: simple sensorypresence e.g., of a tone) in the livingpresent.That is, it is a matter f deconstructing hephenomenol-ogy of internal time-consciousness, ringing fullyinto play theHusserlian analyses ofretentionnd protention n precisely uchaway as to show how thatphenomenological textworks against it-self,withdrawing hatvery elf-identicalresent, he ivingpresent,which,on theotherhand,it would preserve s thenondisplaceablecenter, heliving core,of time. Both theHusserlianand the Derri-

dean analyses are well knownand need not be repeated here. t isin a senseonly a matter f stress, fstressing hattheconnectionofthepresentto the immediatepast and future s an essential, .e.,constitutive, onnection. t is not as though there s first present"now" whichthencomes to be connected o pastand future; atherthese connections belong to its veryconstitution as a present"now" -which is to say thatthere an be no simple self-identicalpresent. The peculiar complexity of the "now" is elaborated inSpeech and Phenomena by meansoftheconceptofrepetition. hepoint is thatthe "now" essentially nvolves a possibility, tructure,or movementofrepetition n twosenses. First,thepresent now"includesrepetition f theprevious "now," namely n retention.notherwords,thepresent now" mustbe constitutedn such a waythat t is possible forthepast "now" to be repeated n it; its consti-tutionmustbe such as toinclude suchpossibility frepetition. ec-ondly,thepresent"now," theformofpresence, s itself deal andhence nfinitely epeatable, tsreturn d infinitum eing "inscribed

in presence tself."8Thus, the present"now" essentially nvolves"The relationalcharacterwhich theserelationships fassigningpossess, we take

as one of signifying be-deuten] .... The relational totality f this signifyingwecall significance Bedeutsamkeit]"ibid., 87). The morephenomenological formula-tion of the results n ?18 has usually been emphasized: Things can presentthem-selvesonly fromwithin worldwhose structureworldhood) s a referentialotality.This formulationhas the disadvantage of not underlining o forcefully he decon-structiveharacter f the analysis.

8La Voix et le phenomene, 75 f. Tr.: 67).




the possibility, tructure,movement frepetitionbothofprevious

"fnows"n itself nd of itself s theideal form fpresence.

This figure frepetitionmaybe called thetrace. t is, as itwere,the figure nto which the phenomenological figureof closed-offpresencegetsdeconstructed:

Sucha trace s-if we canemploy his anguagewithoutmmediatelycontradictingt orcrossingt outas weproceed-more primordial"thanwhat sphenomenologicallyrimordialibid.).

Or again:

In all these irections,hepresencefthepresents thoughtf s aris-ingfrom hebending ackofa returndupli du retour],rom hemovementfrepetition,ndnot thereverseibid.).

This operationofthetrace, hisbendingbackofa return ywhichthe presenceof the present s constituted-to employ still, undererasure, he anguage ofphenomenology-this also is called differ-ance. Or itmaybe called theoperationofsignification, akingthelatter n themostdeconstructivelynot phenomenologically)pri-

mordial way.As in theHeideggeriantext,presence s delimited-limited and yetrenderedpossible-by the operation of significa-tion. The latter s not a matter fpresence,not evennecessarily fpresenceto or ofan origin,a speaker;like writing, tsfunction sindependentof the absence, even the death, of the author. Orrather,this operation of signification s writing n thatform nwhich it emergesfromtheapplication of thedouble operationofreversal nd displacementto themetaphysicalopposition speech/

writing.As archi-ecrituret is "at work at theoriginof sense,"de-

limitingpresence.9In conclusion, three ssues:(1) Though in Being and Time "presence" means predomi-

nantlyVorhandenheit,his s not theonly meaningof "presence"in play. In fact, n entirechain of meanings is introduced t theoutset (? 6) only to be provisionallyabandoned in thepublishedportionof the text. But, beginningwith the 1927 lecturecourse,The Basic Problemsof Phenomenology, nd stillmoreopenly in

latertexts, systemfmeaningsofpresence s developedalong vari-ous, not easilyreconcilabledirections.A note in the Derrideantext

9"This arche-writings at workat theorigin of sense. Sense, being temporal nnature, s Husserl recognized, s never implypresent; t is alwaysalreadyengagedin the movement'of thetrace, hat s, in the orderof signification.' t has alwaysalready issued forth rom tself nto the 'expressive tratum'of lived experience."Ibid., 96 (Tr.: 85 f.).



600 THE JOUTRNALOF PHILOSOPHY

which is itselfcharacterized s a note on a note fromBeing andTime calls attention o this ssue, thisproblemof translation:

The following pages maybe read as timidprolegomena to a problemof translation.But who better han Heideggerhas taughtus to thinkwhat is involved n such a problem?Here, thequestion would be thefollowing: how to transfernto, or ratherwhat transpireswhen wetransfernto the single Latin wordpresence theentiredifferentiatedsystem f Greekand German words,theentire ystem f translationnwhich Heideggerian language (ousia, parousia, Gegenwirtigkeit,Anwesen,Anwesenheit,Vorhandenheit, tc.) is produced?.. .Aboveall, how to transfernto the single wordpresence,both too rich and

too poor, the history f theHeideggerian textwhich associatesor dis-joins theseconcepts n subtle and regularfashionthroughout n itin-erary hatcoversmorethan forty ears?'0

(2) On theotherhand, thequestion is whether heHeideggeriantext,moving in thesystem f translations fpresence, ucceedsindelimitingpresence s such:

The Heideggeriande-limitation onsistssometimes n appealing toaless narrowdetermination fpresencefrom morenarrowdetermina-

tionofit,thereby oing back from hepresent oward more originalthoughtof Being as presence Anwesenheit), nd sometimes n ques-tioningthisoriginal determinationtself, nd givingus to think t asa closure, as the Greco-Western-philosophical closure.... In the first

case thedisplacementswould remain withinthemetaphysics fpres-ence in general ibid. 75; Tr.: 65).

Does this firstcase really "occupy almost the entirety f Hei-degger'stext"?Or, on thecontrary,s thereperhapsalwaysin play

in the Heideggeriantextthatdirectedness,nnouncedin the1927

lecture ourse", the directedness 7rEKEtva T77SoVaua;y,beyondtoanorder that is not a matterof Being, of presence,beyond to themeaning, the truth, he clearing of Being, beyond to thatwhichde-limitsBeing as presence?

(3) Finally, t is necessary o disrupt webof assumptionsthathave leftundisturbed itherto,most pointedly, he ssumptionthatin asking about themeaning of presenceone is asking simplyforone or severalpositivesenses. t is necessary odisruptthis ssump-

tionofstraightforwardnessecause meaning "has neverbeen con-'0Margesde la philosophie Paris: Minuit,1972),pp. 35 f. Trans.: Margins fPhilo-

sophy,by Alan Bass (Chicago: Universityress, 1982),p. 33. The issue s raised gainnearthe end of"Ousia and Gramme":"What about presencethen?Wecannoteasilythink n theLatin wordpresence hemovements f differentiationhat reproducedin theHeideggeriantext.The task here s immense nd difficult."bid., 75 (Tr.: 64).

11 ie Grundproblerne erPhanomenologie (Frankfurt.M.: Klostermann, 975),pp. 402-404. Trans.: The Basic Problemsof Phenomenology,by AlbertHofstadter(Bloomington: Indiana tJP,1982),pp. 283-285.




ceivable,withinthehistory fmetaphysics, therwise hanon thebasis of presenceand as presence" (Marges de la philosophie 58;

Tr.: 51)-as, to take the exceptionallyrevealingHusserlian case,presenceto eidetic intuition.To ask straightforwardlybout themeaning of presence s alreadyto assume whatpresencemeans,toassume it in the very uestion ofmeaning.

But then, s not theHeideggerianquestion itself aught in thisweb of assumptionsand as a resultheld firmlywithin theclosureof metaphysics? f thequestion of Being is determined s a ques-tion ofmeaning,as the question of themeaningof Being,then s itnot in its veryformulation question of presence, question di-

rected oward recoveryf presence? ndeed this would be so,wereit not thecase thattheHeideggeriantext, romBeingand Time on,engagesceaselessly n a deconstructiveeduction, delimitation, fmeaning, its reductionto the woraufhindes Entwurfs Sein undZeit, 151),itsreferral oworld, .e., signification,nd eventually oAX)Oc-ta. eaning as presencebecomes, s reducedto,the meaningofpresence, he atter akennotstraightforwardly,ut as thatwhichdelimitspresence.The Heideggeriantext, husreleasingthetorsion

inthe uestionof themeaningofpresence, wists t free fmetaphysi-cal closure.Is itnot in thisway, through uchdistortion,hatthe Heidegger-

ian textcould be twisted ogetherwiththeDerrideantext, heau-thorial chains intertwinedn a new contortionwhich,broachingthedelimitationof what one would like to call presenceas such,would form he site of theopposition Heidegger/Derrida?

JOHN SALLIS

Loyola UniversityfChicago

ORIGIN(S) IN (OF) HEIDEGGER/DERRIDA*

Everythingegins y eferringack, hats to ay,doesnotbegin.- Jacques erridaI woulddoubtless e farmore ashionablet this ime otake

up the issue of ends, above all the endof

philosophy,in the

workofHeideggerand Derrida.Yetalthough the two thinkersare in considerableaccordwhen it comes to final things-to mat-tersof finality nd especially to finalismsof all sorts-they are

*To be presented n an APA symposiumon Heidegger/DerridaDecember30,1984.JohnSallis will be co-symposiast; ee thisJOURNAL, this ssue, 594-601.RobertBernasconiwill comment;his paper is notavailable at thistime.

0022-362X/84/8110/0601$00.90 ? 1984 The Journalof Philosophy, nc.

sallis heidegger derrida

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