Chapter 4 - Key Texts

Summary

Selecting key texts

Given Derrida's astonishing output, the selection of only ten key texts proves even more onerous than the selection of ten key terms. The texts we consider in this chapter are key ones, to be sure. But so are many others we have had to leave out. In some respects, certain texts we do not discuss are more fundamental to his work overall than the ones we include in this chapter. For example, Derrida's early work on Husserl is absolutely important. The Problem of Genesis in Husserl's Philosophy, Introduction to The Origin of Geometry, and Speech and Phenomena are key texts, perhaps the key texts to all of Derrida's work, if such a thing could be said. These are texts we touch on in earlier and later chapters but do not include here, in part for reason of the impossibility of condensing them to a summary entry, in part for reason of the difficulty they pose for readers who are, with this book, being introduced to Derrida's work (see, however, the Chapter 3 Key Terms entries on phonocentrism, the problem with which Derrida deals in the main part of Speech and Phenomena, and on differance, based on the essay by that title that is included in the book). We have already mentioned that Derrida published three major, key, books in 1967, one that was translated as Speech and Phenomena, the other two translated as Of Grammatology and Writing and Difference.