Human Destinies: Philosophical Essays in Memory of Gerald Hanratty

Chapter Twenty-four: On Losing Uniqueness

t w e n t y - f o u r On losing uniqueness singularity and its effacement in Derrida Timothy Mooney it is my hope in the following essay that something of the spirit of Gerry Hanratty’s view of philosophical explication will be discernible. i recall his remarking that, in its operation, the ideal of economy can result in theses that are inadequate to lived experience. Ockham’s razor is sometimes employed, as it were, in shaping Procrustean beds. Gerry would also say that in much contemporary philosophy other and better ideas are current that, while not quite ever ancient, possess a long and hidden lineage. these are views shared by Jacques Derrida, for all his reputation as a postmodern gadfly dismissive of the philosophical tradition . misinterpretation looms large in Derrida’s view of things. it is a permanent possibility of communication, he contends, that what one actually delivers to others may not be quite what one intended, and there are some infelicitous cases where the intended message breaks down from the outset. Where written communications are open to deconstructive readings, such readings should merely report what has al588 On losing uniqueness 589 ready happened in the workings of these texts to subvert the intentions of their authors. Following in the tradition of phenomenology, Derrida posits a mode of reading that will find rather than make. One could say that the attempt to isolate “forces of rupture that are localizable in the discourse to be deconstructed” constitutes his version of returning to the things themselves.1 One of Derrida’s earliest targets was the view that a speaker enjoys a comprehensive control of the meanings that he or she expresses, a form of control that in fact and in principle is not possessed by the writer over the text. Phonocentrism is his preferred term for this privileging of speaking over writing. in many of his readings from the 1960s onwards, Derrida seeks to show that the meanings expressed in speech acts can readily transcend the self-present subject’s intentions. Comprehensive loss of control does not have to wait on graphic writing, his phrase for meaningful inscription on a material surface. my main concern in this study is with something whose loss is held to wait on writing . this is the singularity or irreplaceable uniqueness of each person, which can be conveyed, on Derrida’s account, only in acts of speaking, gesturing, and moving. Graphic writing leaves at best a trace of singularity that is estranged from the awareness and agency of its author. my other concern is with whether Derrida unduly privileges the singularity that is conveyed in the perception of the other’s living body, given that he seems to accord a quality of certainty to the experience of someone present in person. i begin with Derrida’s most familiar treatment of singularity, showing its place in his critique of phonocentrism , and also the way in which he gives a significant role to bodily presence in the indication of uniqueness, being close in this regard to the early Husserl and merleau-Ponty. i proceed to show that the beginnings of Derrida’s position can be found in one of his early commentaries on the later Husserl. turning then to his interpretation of rousseau, i ask whether his worked-out account is insensitive to exceptions in failing to admit the possibility that certain voluntary written productions can communicate singularity. i contend that his stance is defensible in this regard but note that the difficulties pertaining to graphic writing can be extended to bodily presence. Derrida is aware 590 Timothy Mooney of this, and i conclude by arguing that the putative certainty he attributes to the experience of the other does not in fact pertain to his or her singularity. the singularity of the Present speaker Derrida’s most extensive and best-known critique of the phonocentric privileging of speaking over writing is to be found in Speech and Phenomena (1967). Phonocentrism is founded on the thesis that spoken words are the primary symbols of consciously lived experiences. they are the tools we use to make the thoughts to which we have privileged access available to others. this thesis is an extrapolation from the experience that people with communicative competence and fully functional hearing have of themselves in their speech acts. Part of the phenomenon of deliberate acts of communication is that i hear myself as i...