Derrida's Reading of the Concept of Now in Husserl’s Phenomenology

Derrida's reading of Husserl’s concept of "now" reveals in the context of his critiques: the critiques which accompany with presupposing of the denial of metaphysics of presence. By putting phenomenology under the metaphysics of presence, he assigns phenomenology a part of the same ordinary tradition of western philosophy and considering the solution to free his philosophy of this current framework to attend to its opposition, that is, otherness. Accordingly, Derrida also considers the concept of now as the indicator of presence in opposite of the absence and criticizes it. He introduces his most important critique about now on the base of two apparently irreconcilable possibilities of this concept. These possibilities consist: expanding now, now in continuity with retention and protention and the other is now as origin point with its primordial character. In this article, first we express Derrida’s critiques of the concept of now and then by evaluating them and referring to being limit of primal impression and threefold structure now, we indicate that these critiques are not accepted on Husserl’s attitude to the concept of now. Because with regard to being limit of primal impression and as a result of its dependence to the parties of the limit, its perception excluded as origin point and perception of an object will be the enduring perception. Threefold structure now, provides a mutable continuity from primal impressions and retention and protention that on the base of it, no primal impression solely and without considering this continuity is understandable.