Consciousness, Time and Presentation – A Derridean Response to Husserl

Husserl begins his Logical Investigations with a discussion on the nature of the sign, which will become a general foray into the meaning and communication. In The Logical Investigations Husserl attempts to establish that it is possible for universal logical premises to exist as truths, and that these premises are transempirical. Husserl himself defines as: an objective syllogism or proof, or an objective relationship between ground and consequent, which correspond to our subjective acts of inferring and proving. (271). Only armed with these unshakeable premises can we arrive at sure knowledge, which we can call scientific. However, finding the grounds for a possibility of such knowledge is not an easy task. According to Husserl, this epistemological endeavour has been obscured and vitiated by far too many metaphysical presumptions. At this juncture, we can observe Husserl’s phenomenology in the making. It is a protest against traditional metaphysics that has presumed too much. If true knowledge is indeed attainable, then an insight into the possibility of this knowledge can only be acquired by putting aside these presumptions. The first task is to arrive at the source from where this possibility of knowledge emerges. For this knowledge to have any validity, its source must be secure and stable. The phenomenological reduction that Husserl slowly introduces is a process during which nothing is presumed. Through this reduction Husserl discovered that the subjective act in consciousness, effected by the nature of intentionality, constructs the objective world through various relational positions in a certain logical arrangement. Hence consciousness or more precisely, consciousness of  becomes the very ground for the possibility of all logical knowledge and certainty. As we shall see, it is this very possibility of knowledge, which is at stake in Derrida’s critique. But why begin with a theory of the sign? Through his theory of the sign, Husserl attempts to uncover the nature of pure consciousness, and subsequently, the sure source of logical and transempirical premises. As consciousness begins to embark on a description of the external world, it is compelled, given the system of signification in which it finds itself, to employ language and signs in general as a means of communication within the parameters of intersubjective activity. Consciousness of or intentionality can only operate in the world through some kind of mediation. The meaning of this intentionality is always enfolded within its medium, and the difficulty of extricating meaning from medium, contaminates the message of the former. The unfolding of meaning from medium is in fact Husserl’s project. Husserl calls this medium, an indicative sign, and the meaning or content of the medium, an expressive sign. Hence there are two sorts of signs: indicative signs point and motivate us toward something other, such as a flag which stands in place of or represents a certain country, or fossil vertebrae which indicate the existence of pre-diluvian animals. In Husserl’s own words: certain objects or states of affairs of whose reality someone has knowledge indicate to him the reality of certain other objects or states of affairs, in the sense that his belief in the reality of the one is experienced as motivating a belief or surmise in the reality of the other. (270). However, in expressive or meaningful signs nothing is indicated, there is no pointing toward something other, and there is no motivation; but there is direct and pure insight without mediation. The ideal contents of expressiveness such as syllogistic propositions, which are universally valid, do not require indicative signs. For example, we experience 1+1 = 2, and we judge it to be true. Yes, we do use signs to indicate such a premise, but the actual content and meaning of such a premise in its ideality does not require mediation or indication, because it is logically necessary. As Derrida puts it: the ‘because’ of deductive demonstration, links together the evident and ideal necessities which are permanent and which persist beyond every empirical hic et nunc. (29)

The difficulty arises when we come to the question of intersubjective communication: the expression of meaning from one person to another. Husserl says: if one surveys these interconnections, one sees at once that all expressions in communicative speech function as indications. (277) Once the word, that is the physical entity of the sign, is given breath and uttered, the expressive becomes entangled with the indicative. Only ideally, can the two be separated by a phenomenological process. The word cat, as part of a linguistic system, is an indicative sign, because it directs us toward a referent, but in a phrase such as cats are animals, there is a content and a meaning of logical integrity, independent of its indicative function. Husserl regards this content as expressive, and experienced by the speaker as expressive. It is difficult for us to think of expression as a sign, but Husserl insists on it. In order to free expression from indication, Husserl again resorts to the phenomenological reduction: expressions play a great part in uncommunicated, interior mental life. (275) In intersubjective communication, when a speaker employs indicative signs, the listener can intimate the meaning of those signs, but the listener cannot experience the content directly as does the speaker. At this point we notice that Husserl is interested in the experienced content, which cannot be communicated to another in an uncontaminated form. However, in the activity of thinking to oneself, which is in fact a kind of talking to oneself (the inner voice), experiences can be experienced to and by oneself without need of any intimation, indication or mediation. With this kind of experiencing, consciousness is present to itself with the communicative content of expression as imagined objects: the imagined verbal sound, or the imagined printed word, does not exist, only its imaginative presentation does so. (279) Consciousness as direct experience of itself is the sure and stable foundation of scientific knowledge, and it is an identity in which transempirical truths reside. Consciousness present to itself is sheer expression: the relation of expression to object is now unrealised as being confined to a mere meaning-content. (279)

This interior mental life is a fixed identity, but as a source of the possibility of knowledge must exist in a temporal world. Time as a process of change and development always threatens this identity. I won’t dwell too much on Husserl’s concept of time, suffice to say that he was not interested in objective time, which can be measured scientifically, but with our internal sensation and experience of succession and duration. In the Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness, Husserl admits that we experience time as a flow, though in the latter half of the treatise he comments that flow is only a metaphor for something that is basically ineffable.  He accepts Aristotle’s idea of linear time, which sees the now as a point in time. However, Husserl does not think of time as a series of self-contained and infinitely divisible points, but he conceives of the now-points as enlarged and as being constitutive of time. These now-points give rise to the experience of succession. What do I mean when I say that he enlarges these now-points? Consciousness constitutes an horizon, so to speak, for itself. The present now-point is in fact consciousness as constituting act from which issue other points kept in its close proximity. These points in close proximity are past now-points, which Husserl calls retention. They immediately present to us what has just past, including the experience of ourselves. In this manner consciousness retains the presentation of its immediate objects, including the self as one of those objects, and hence creating the sensation of succession and of integral identity. In its vicinity consciousness also creates a series of future now-points, through which it stabilises the object in its anticipated scope, including its own expected continued presence. Husserl calls this phenomenon protention. Paradoxically, these past and future now-points are in the present moment; they are an enlargement so to speak, of the now. This concept of Husserl allows him to posit consciousness as a constituting act of temporal sensation, which when venturing forth into the external world, is enmeshed in a chain of signification.

It is remarkable that in his theory of signs, Husserl does not discuss the general nature of the sign. If both expression and indication are signs, then what grounds are there to call them signs? Derrida suggests that Husserl failed to see that in his theory there already existed a presupposition of signification as a complex of relationships and references. From here arises Derrida’s objection to Husserl’s theory – that he failed to take into account the sign as the place where the root and necessity of all interweaving of indication and expression is manifested. (24) By not giving heed to the general nature of the sign, Husserl struggles to reveal the true relationship between indication and expression. Husserl did not go far enough with his phenomenological reduction. He stops at consciousness as a foundational cause, hence employing a metaphysical presupposition, and adding to a tradition, which he was attempting to reject. Remember that Husserl had spoken of a degenerate metaphysics that was full of presuppositions, and that had to be done away with, before the true source of knowledge could be discovered. This Derrida claims is contradictory, and exposes phenomenology as a quest controlled by metaphysics itself. Consciousness has become the original self-giving evidence, the present or presence of sense to a full and primordial intuition. Derrida believes that the whole of the phenomenological project is a concealed attempt to validate traditional metaphysics as a philosophy of presence. 

It was Heidegger who claimed that Western philosophy from Plato onward was a philosophy of presence, a philosophy of truth, which had to be uncovered and brought into our presence through an epistemological process. Ironically enough, this discovery was a rediscovery of truths as first principles, which were found only at the end of the philosophical quest. In our tradition, knowledge was given a privileged status, developing more and more into a grasping of ontic truths, while demoting the idea and our sense of Being in its entirety. The mastery of particular things, which according to Heidegger is the purpose of technology, has pushed our relationship with Being out of sight. Derrida rejects Heidegger idea of Being for being no different than the first principles he was trying to dispel, but he inherits and accepts that the history of Western philosophy is a philosophy of presence. And the philosophy of presence is metaphysics at work, under the guise of such foundational concepts as god, essence, nature, truth, causality, form, consciousness etc. Another thing that Derrida inherited from Heidegger was what the latter called the linguistic turn. Heidegger was greatly contributing, philosophy’s progressive interest in and examination of the nature of language, and its role in the way we conceive and construct our world. Being operates through language, and can only be expressed through language or through a system of signification. Language for its part is expressed and exists in time; it is temporal. Heidegger speaks of Being invading language, and language as the temporalisation of Being. With his theory of the sign, Husserl had indeed anticipated such a turn, but understandably remained unaffected by its implications. Language seems to exist simply to be used. Consciousness can express its immediate presence through it, but its constituting power is ignored. It is the meaning contained in language that Husserl saw as expressive, and as directly present to us in our internal mental acts. Language as signs could be done away with in mental soliloquy. So we have presence being realised eidetically without the aid of any indication such as language. Let us keep in mind these two points about presence and language as we proceed.

An object can remain present to consciousness by the consciousness’ ability to re-present it ideally. The continual presence of a material object is impossible. For example, a grain of sand cannot be always there for us, but it can be re-presented in consciousness as an ideal object. It can thus be repeated in the ideality of its presence. The productive mental acts operating in consciousness by re-presenting eidetically to consciousness the grain of sand, without the mediation of indicative signs, assures us the eternal presence of the gain of sand through the possibility of infinite repetition. This idea of presence takes on a powerful aspect when consciousness re-presents itself to itself. The fact that I can re-present myself to myself through the infinite repetition of myself as ideal object in retention, establishes in time my continued identity. Here is the primordial stratum of expression that exists before it is entangled in any chain of signification. As Derrida states: The force of this demonstration presupposes the instant as a point, the identity of experience instantaneously present to itself. Self-presence must be produced in the undivided unity of a temporal present so as to have nothing to reveal to itself by the agency of signs. Such a perception or intuition of self by self in presence would not only be the case where ‘signification’ in general would not occur, but also would assure the general possibility of a primordial perception or intuition i.e. of non signification as the ‘principle of principles’. (60) Husserl’s phenomenology places intuitive presentation anterior to symbolic representation, and this presentation can only occur internally.

Derrida’s critique reverses this order of priority, and makes symbolic representation an irreducible operation: if the punctuality of the instant is a spatial or mechanical metaphor, an inherited metaphysical concept, and if the present of self-presence is not simple, if it is constituted in a primordial and irreducible synthesis, then the whole of Husserl’s argumentation is threatened in its very principle. (61) Derrida seizes on the fact that consciousness is always consciousness of (intentionality). This intentionality presupposes objectivity. Though pure expressiveness can only occur in productive mental acts, nevertheless an ideal exteriority paradoxically within consciousness itself must be assumed. This is a logical exteriority that has nothing to do with the external world. Husserl’s concept of consciousness therefore, always posits an outside, even though we can think of this outside as an internal exteriority. When a non-mediated expression in solitary mental life occurs even if it is in the blink of an eye, Derrida claims that it is a going-forth-beyond-itself of an act, then of a sense, which can remain in itself. (33) 

An internal voice becomes juxtaposed to an exterior ideal world. Derrida argues that Husserl’s attempt to exclude exteriority is a self-presence of the will, which sees spatiality and visibility as foreign to it, reconfirming the traditional metaphysical prejudice of soul over body, spirit over matter. Here again is Derrida’s simple reversal – that the will is a product of signification and not an agent; that it is the elements of non-consciousness that produce the effect of consciousness. Consciousness is a trace of something more primordial. Further, if consciousness presents itself to itself, then a relational condition must exist right from the start. And if the self is to re-present itself to itself in this relational condition, it can never do so through presentation or even re-presentation. It must have available to itself a whole system of an irreducible signification, and this must imply representation through a series of indicative signs. Only thus can repetition occur, because repeatability can never exactly reproduce what is being repeated, but always alters it in its repetition. Such repetition gives rise to the activity of consciousness through indication. Hence consciousness exists not as a living present of the same, but as the effective interplay of difference. This difference is a semiotic interplay. I don’t want to dwell on difference here, suffice to say that identity can only be constituted through its operation. The implication for our purposes being that presence can only appear through the operation of difference as non-presence. If something represents, it stands for something other, hence this other must be absent. Husserl’s presence can never be achieved, but it is forever delayed, if we are entangled in a net of representation. All representation brings to the fore what is non-present. This non-presence undermines the metaphysics of presence by being anterior to it and by constituting it. Repeating presence does not simply present the self to the self, but necessarily modifies it. If the nature of repetition modifies what is repeated, the original presence of self will always be absent. Husserl’s living presence is in fact an absence, or perhaps a dead presence. Modification in turn, presupposes mediation. Otherwise, nothing would alter. This mediation is language itself as the operation of difference and time. And since in representation what is represented can never be brought to the fore in its original presence, language and reality cannot be divorced, and the entanglement of indication and expression as Husserl speaks of them can never be disentangled. Consciousness can only be awakened through the irreducible operation of language whose signs are indicative and fictive. 

All this has been a Derridean response as my title suggests. But I must emphasise that it is only a response, since we could extract many responses from Derrida’s critique. So a response is certainly not the response, and through my attempted repetition of Derrida’s critique it will inevitably become my response, and certainly my responsibility. So in my response I will set out what I believe are a few of the consequences the reverberations of such a critique.

First consequence: 

Philosophical activity dispenses with the quest for truths, as in logical truths or true descriptive statements of actions. In fact, these truths become impossible, since the operation of the irreducible difference within the chain of signification allows only for rhetorical positionings. Logic becomes a rhetorical trope. Speculative discourse is assimilated to, or is the same as poetic discourse. Metaphoricity alone exists, and it constantly  reconfigures reality. What we call knowledge is rhetorical positioning and not objective facts. Thus is the case at least at a conceptual level. 

Second consequence:

The self as an effect of a symbolic order is no longer a free and willing agent that is outside controlling that order. The self itself is inscribed in a chain of signification. Given that language constitutes the self, and that language is the movement of temporalisation, the self can never fully be realised as present to itself. Well may we ask ourselves the questions ‘Who are we then?’ and ‘What is the voice that we hear within us?’

Third consequence:

There is no perception. If by perception we mean a direct observation of the external world. It is a synthesis, a composite of pre-existing signs, determined by certain social perspectives.

I will briefly comment on each of these consequences. But greater elaboration will have to wait for another talk. 

				      Francesco Amati (Sydney, Sunday 11th February, 2001)