The Problem of Genesis in Husserl's Philosophy by Jacques Derrida; Marian HobsonReview by: Pamela ProiettiThe Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 58, No. 2 (Dec., 2004), pp. 433-434Published by: Philosophy Education Society Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20130462 .

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SUMMARIES AND COMMENTS 433

bridging the gap between concepts of the material and the mental. His

dualism, therefore, "is not a theory of human beings but a provisional acknowledgement of failure, an index of the work that remains to be done before a viable theory of the human mind becomes available" (p. 258).?Andrew Pessin, Kenyon College.

Derrida, Jacques. The Problem of Genesis in Husserl's Philosophy. Trans lated by Marian Hobson. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003. xliii + 228 pp. Cloth, $27.50?This early work by Derrida, his 1953/ 54 dissertation, introduced the philosophy of Husserl to French intellec tuals. Derrida's professed goal in this work is to "arrange for access to and complete intelligibility of a historical movement: that of Husserlian

phenomenology" (p. xxxv). According to Derrida, Husserl began with the intention of undertaking a philosophical revolution, but in the end remained "the prisoner of a great classical tradition: the one that re duces human finitude to an accident of history, to an 'essence of man' that understands temporality against a background of possible or actual

eternity in which it has or could have participated" (p. 5). Derrida an nounces with these opening comments that he does not share in this

"great classical tradition," which so clearly served as the inspiration for Husserl's turn toward philosophy and his lifelong search, which was a search for philosophic certitude and a search for meaning.

Husserl begins his philosophy with an assault on prevalent contempo rary theories of knowledge, called "psychologism." Husserl has "three

motives" for his critique of psychologism. Firstly, Husserl seeks to dem onstrate that rules of logic are genuine laws and not merely empirical laws. He also seeks to distinguish logical laws from empirical laws of

nature; the latter laws must be discovered "by induction from the singu lar facts of experience" (p. 40). Yet one can only reach probabilities and

empirical generalities in sciences of facts. Logic and mathematics, by contrast, are not grounded in this empirical realm. A central dilemma in

Husserl's philosophy is how to reconcile these two separate spheres. No mediation between essences and facts, between real and idea, is pos sible in the early stages of Husserl's thought. The problem of mediation

appears insurmountable (pp. 41-2). In this early stage of his phenome nology, "constituted essences have not yet allowed Husserl to throw a suitable light on their originary relations" (pp. 41-2). Later in his philo sophical development, Husserl will eventually turn to a "very strange" intuition of essences, whose existence is simply assumed: "Such sys tems as theoretical mechanics . . . theoretical astronomy and so on, re

ally hold as ideal possibilities with afundamentum in re" (p. 43). Derrida locates the crucial moment of Husserl's emerging phenome

nology in his refusal to embrace Kantian idealism. For Husserl, "it is natural experience that must sanction or found the 'value' of logical laws" (p. 38). Husserl seeks his a priori synthesis in the realm of con crete experience, rather than in a transcendental realm of purely formal

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434 ARAN CANES AND STAFF

concepts. In a useful footnote, Derrida explains the uses of "synthesis" and "genesis" in the book?these being the terms that name the central

problem that Derrida finds in Husserlian phenomenology. Kant's a pri ori synthesis excludes any genesis, because it is not empirical and re

quires no sensible intuition. Husserl, on the contrary, seeks an a priori synthesis "founded on a concrete intuition where being comes 'to give itself in person.' It is thus temporal and enriching. It becomes one with a genesis." Thus, Husserl poses a "veritable transcendental problem" that is not posed in the Kantian version of transcendentalism, that is, the

"problem of genesis" (p. 195, n. 49). Husserl "constantly fails to give an account of the actual genesis" of

both the transcendental ego's supposed intuition of objective essences

and the astonishing "breakthrough of philosophy" into European history

(p. 160). Derrida rightly concludes the book with an account of how his own view of philosophy differs from the understanding of Husserl (pp. 153-160). Derrida shares Heidegger's critique of Husserlian philosophy: genuine knowledge of man as a historical being (Dasein) is lost in the Husserlian turn to transcendental reason. Husserl does not start from this "human reality" (p. 156). Derrida gives a description of philosophy that is quite at odds with Husserl's original goal and vision: "every sys tem of history of philosophy is an 'interpretation,' a hypothesis that is al

ways premature. . . . Without abandoning the project of an infinite the

ory, philosophy, reflecting on itself, in this way completes an existential act and comes to an awareness of its finitude" (p. 178). According to

Derrida, while remaining merged with a "most dubious history of philos ophy," Husserl could not continue his original phenomenological project. Derrida believes that "a radical explicitation, a new beginning, is necessary" (p. 178). Yet Derrida is not pursuing the same project that

Husserl had described as "the philosophic vocation." Derrida is not

seeking truth in the way that Husserl was seeking truth. The Platonic and Husserlian vision of philosophy as an unending search for knowl

edge of eternal truth and eternal Being is not present in Derrida's more

historicist and skeptical version of the task of the modern philosopher who stands at the "end of philosophy."?Pamela Proietti, University of

Memphis.

Garrett, Aaron. Meaning in Spinoza's Method. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. xii + 240 pp. Cloth, $60.00?Spinoza's philoso phy has bequeathed longstanding query and dispute regarding the mean

ing of several doctrines and elements of his system as well as the influ ences of his innovative, controversial project. Prominent among those

debated aspects of Spinoza's Ethics are its presentation in more geo m?trico and the goal toward which it purportedly directs us, a scientia

intuitiva that will make us blessed, free, and eternal in some sense. In his book Meaning in Spinoza's Method, Aaron Garrett maintains that

the method and the goal of Spinoza's Ethics are mutually informative: we can only properly understand Spinoza's method by viewing it in light

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