The Relation of Merleau-Ponty and Blanchot to Derrida

In this paper I examine the negative phenomenologies of Merleau-Ponty andBlanchot. Negative phenomenologies repress difference as the transcendentaland the empirical are repetitions of the same through iterability. I argue thata negative phenomenology or a reversal of phenomenology repeats it ratherthan managing to escape from it. This is because it still proceeds within itsmetaphysical vocabulary and ontological structure. Thus, Merleau-Ponty andBlanchot, in inverting and reversing phenomenology, only repeat it byborrowing entirely from its metaphysical vocabulary and structure. Derrida'sphenomenology in place, is a meta-phenomenology in discovering the originof phenomenology as difference, or the difference between philosophy andnon-philosophy, transcendental and empirical. Derrida discovers thecondition of possibility for phenomenology as quasi-transcendental, or theinterval between the transcendental and empirical which conditionsphenomenology in its entirety. The transcendental and empirical areparadoxically identical and non-identical because the difference translatesinto sameness.