Teadvuse dekonstruktsioon: Husserli fenomenoloogia Nietzsche ja Derrida vahel / Deconstruction of Consciousness: Husserl’s Phenomenology between Nietzsche and Derrida

Teesid: Käesolev artikkel uurib, kuidas Friedrich Nietzsche ning Jacques Derrida dekonstrueerivad husserliku teadvuse kui vahetu (enese)teadmise asupaiga. Derrida, kes on tuntud kui poststrukturalismi üks klassikuid, alustas fenomenoloogia rajaja Edmund Husserli tõlgendaja ja uurijana. Oma teoses „Hääl ja fenomen“ dekonstrueerib ta üksikasjalikult Husserli märgi- ja teadvusekäsituse. Huvitaval kombel kattub see dekonstruktsioon teatud olulistes osades Nietzsche teadvusekriitikaga ta teoses „Rõõmus teadus“. Artiklis tõlgendan ning analüüsin nende kolme autori asjassepuutuvaid tekstikohti ning avan selle kaudu nii Nietzsche, Husserli kui ka Derrida filosoofiat tervikuna ning ühtlasi fenomenoloogia suhet poststrukturalismi. In this article, I investigate the main arguments by means of which Friedrich Nietzsche and Jacques Derrida deconstruct Husserlian consciousness as the site of immediate (self)knowledge. Jacques Derrida is known as one of the founders of poststructuralism, but it is by no means uninteresting that he started as a Husserl scholar and interpreter, translating his text ‘Origins of Geometry’ into French and writing a long and detailed introduction to it. In his early book Speech and Phenomena (1967), Derrida deconstructs Husserl’s conceptions of signs and consciousness. Interestingly, this deconstruction, in quite essential and crucial ways, reminds us of Nietzsche’s criticism of the self-presence of consciousness in his book The Gay Science. By close reading of some of the texts of these three authors the intricate relationship between phenomenology and poststructuralism will be explained and historically situated. The article first analyses Husserl’s conception of signs and what it means for the constitution of meaning in human consciousness. Husserl distinguishes between meaningful signs, expressions, and indicative signs, indications which do not have meaning by themselves, but which intimate, point towards meaning. Husserl then shows that in communication, expression as a meaningful sign always has to function also as an indication because it indicates to the hearer that the speaker has such and such sense-giving inner experiences and intentions. He then poses the question about the real and pure sphere of meaning where all kinds of indications are excluded. This sphere according to him is ‘solitary mental life’ (das einsame Seelenleben). It is important for Husserl that in solitary mental life we do not use real speech, real signifiers