This summer, we will be studying Derrida’s Speech and Phenomena. Many of Derrida’s writings are very challenging for readers. Speech and Phenomena is not one of the most challenging, however. It is an early work of Derrida’s. It is a deconstruction of Edmund Husserl’s theory of signs. You don’t have to have studied Husserl’s philosophy to benefit from a study of Speech and Phenomena. You can jump right into Speech and Phenomena and benefit greatly.

Even though this book is not among Derrida’s most difficult publications, it is the sort of work that one can read many times, learning more each time. When reading it, we do not need to think we must understand everything we encounter on its pages. There will be sentences, paragraphs, and even sections that will be puzzling. But when this happens, just keep reading, marking the obscure passage as something you can come back to in the future. Understanding part of a great work of philosophy is better than understanding all of a secondary work.