from this Husserlian problem and toward a simplified sense
that metaphysical claims are always undermined by the con-
tingency of the occasions when they appear. Because ancient
Greece is not naturally, but only accidentally, the birthplace of
geometry, geometrical truth is not stable in the way Husserl
wants it to be; because mental life cannot verify itself continu-
ously, but instead loses track of its activities, our experiences of
distraction or forgetfulness damage the validity of conscious-
ness. For these reasons, Derrida argues, scientific truth or con-
scious thought cannot be certain in the way Husserl desires.
Derrida began his intellectual journey by following Hus-
serl in restricting metaphysics to abstract statements about
perception, action, and signification and excluding both Sar-
trean psychology and the ethical commands familiar from re-
ligious tradition. In the mid-sixties, with Derrida’s writings on
Emmanuel Lévinas and Edmond Jabès, religion entered his
work. An aspect of existence appeared that could not be easily
subsumed under the metaphysics-skepticism pairing that gov-
erned Derrida’s treatment of Husserl—the Lévinasian en-
counter with the other, a fellow human in need. (This interest
in Lévinas came to the fore during Derrida’s ethical turn in the
1990 s.)
Husserl, a German Jew who had converted to Christian-
ity, was fastidious and abstract in his manner and in his volumi-
nous writing. (In addition to Husserl’s published oeuvre, there
exist about twenty thousand pages of his phenomenological
“research,” recorded in his peculiar shorthand.) In his photo-
graphs, he stands stiffly intent, a proud sage with a massive
beard. As professor of philosophy for many years at the Uni-
versity of Freiburg, Husserl was the teacher of the celebrated
Martin Heidegger, along with Hannah Arendt, Herbert Mar-
cuse, and other important figures. Heidegger, crucially in-
From Algeria to the École Normale 37