Jacques Derrida published Voice and Phenomenon at the Presses Universitaires de France in 1967, after having published with the same publisher a translation of The Origin of Husserl's Geometry , accompanied by a long introduction (and at the same year Of Grammatology). In The Voice and the Phenomenon , Derrida continues his critical reading of Edmund Husserl and, extending it to a general reflection on phenomenology , he introduces the principles and method of deconstruction.
The subtitle of the work is: "Introduction to the problem of the sign in Husserl's phenomenology".
The sign and the signs
Derrida criticizes in Voice and Phenomenon what Husserl proposed, a radical dissociation between two heterogeneous types of signs, between index and expression. According to Derrida, Husserl does not ask himself what the sign is in general. Derrida gives the example of the distinction between "to be for" and "to be-in-place-of", which is linked to the heterogeneity between indicative reference and expressive reference.
The reduction of the index
In the order of signification , in general, the whole psychic experience , under the face of its acts, even when they aim at objective idealities and necessities, knows only indicative sequences. According to Derrida, the clue falls outside the content of absolutely ideal objectivity, that is, of truth .