Jacques Derrida and the Question of Interpretation: The Phenomenological Reduction, the Intention of the Author, and Kafka's Law

Jacques Derrida emphasized the importance of Husserl and especially his concept of phenomenological reduction for his own philosophical work. A central thesis in this book is that Derrida’s deconstruction can in fact be understood as a kind of radicalization of the phenomenological reduction. To show this, the author reconstructs Derrida’s criticism of Husserl, which even as it is inspired by and partly based on Heidegger’s criticism of phenomenology, can be conceived as applying the «method» of phenomenological reduction to Husserl’s phenomenological reduction itself. That the problems of truth, interpretation and reading are crucial not only in his philosophy but also in Derrida’s concept of literature is elucidated by his Kafka reading and an extended «Derridean» reading of Kafka’s short story In the Penal Colony.

The Author: Tomi Kaarto, 1972-2006, was an Assistant of Comparative Literature at the University of Turku (Finland).