Phenomenology and Deconstruction, Volume Three: Breakdown in Communication

Philosophers are committed to objective understanding, but the
history of philosophy demonstrates how frequently one philosopher
misunderstands another. The most notorious such breakdown in
communication in twentieth-century philosophy was between Husserl and
Heidegger. In the third volume of his history of the phenomenological
movement, Robert Denoon Cumming argues that their differences involve
differences in method; whereas Husserl follows a "method of
clarification," with which he eliminates ambiguities by relying on an
intentional analysis that isolates its objects, Heidegger rejects the
criterion of "clarity" and embraces ambiguities as exhibiting
overlapping relations.

Cumming also explores the differences between how
deconstruction—Heidegger's procedure for dealing with other
philosophers—is carried out when Heidegger interprets Husserl versus
when Derrida interprets Husserl. The comparison enables Cumming to
show how deconstruction is associated with Heidegger's arrival at the
end of philosophy, paving the way for the deconstructionist movement.