ABSTRACT
In Speech and Phenomena, Jacques Derrida undertakes a deeply sympathetic examination of a fundamental text of Husserlian phenomenology, the set of lectures entitled The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness. For Derrida, originary temporalization is understood as the admission of 'the other' into the 'self-identity' of the present, and is the reason for the Derridean claim that self-presence is only revealed through the agency of signs. As originary temporalization is the very condition for any being-present, Derrida then claims that 'the other' is 'irreducible'. Therefore, it is wrong of Derrida to impute Husserl's refusal to 'assimilate the necessity of retention and the necessity of signs' to a metaphysical presupposition. Husserl would not be able to understand the legitimacy of Derrida's rendering of the phenomenon of originary temporalization in terms of 'signs', 'traces' or 'repetitions'. Certainly, Derrida is correct in claiming that the Husserlian discoveries regarding the event of originary temporalization show that there is here no 'possibility of a simple self-identity'.
