ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that American phenomenology has “sometimes been challenged” by movements such as “deconstruction,” but it recoups such criticism for the history of phenomenology with the remark that this is “not unlike the way some existentialists and hermeneuticists, also under the influence of literary theory.” It argues that the European philosophical movement, phenomenology, has been superseded in the United States by other movements and is the province of specialized societies dedicated to individual philosophers; and that a home-grown version of phenomenology has emerged that draws upon the European tradition but understands itself primarily as a way of dealing with philosophical problems. Throughout the 1970s Derrida held visiting appointments at leading American universities such as Yale and Johns Hopkins, but these appointments were in departments of literature. The fact that Derrida’s thought had roots in phenomenology could not be denied, but what he did with it seemed to entail the collapse of any distinction between philosophy and literature.
