ABSTRACT
In this essay I explore the divide that separates Heidegger and Sartre from Husserl. At issue is what Derrida calls the “metaphysics of presence.” From Heidegger onward this has been characterized as an interpretation of both being and knowing in terms of presence. To exist is to be now, and to know is to make present the evidence for something's existence. Husserl's account of constitution assumes this interpretation. By contrast, Heidegger and Sartre see constitution in terms of our pragmatic engagements with the world, engagements that they trace to the essential nothingness at our core. Who is correct: Husserl or those who give his phenomenology a negative basis? At issue is the nature of transcendence. Do we transcend ourselves toward the world by constituting both our own and the world's presence or do we do so by virtue of an inner nothingness that allows us to assume various identities as a consequence of our pragmatic engagements? Husserl claims that to argue against presence is to argue against evidence. It is to enter into a performative contradiction, one where you undercut the evidence you present for your position. His theory of constitution can, in fact, be seen as an attempt to avoid this contradiction. Implicit here is a claim that Heidegger and Sartre, in their appeal to nothingness, must fall into this contradiction. The contradiction thus becomes a way of deciding between their positions. I do so by exploring their accounts of constitution and the rationality they see implicit in it.
