Abstract

This dissertation explores the main texts of Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida on the relation of the so-called "straight-line" theory of time to the so-called "metaphysical tradition." In Being and Time Heidegger states that a determination of Being as presence characterizes metaphysics and that such a determination of Being can be found in Aristotle's theory of time. Derrida examines how such a characterization of metaphysics affects Heidegger's project. ;Chapter I explores in detail how Derrida's essay "Ousia and Gramme" posits a "formal rule" that implies the "haunting" of time by space in any discourse that attempts to ground spatiality in temporality. Chapter II shows how the disseminative economy of Sinn in the Seinsfrage in Being and Time installs an irreducible spatiality in Heidegger's description of temporality, precisely as Derrida's "formal rule" had predicted. Chapter III concludes the dissertation by showing how Heidegger's extended treatment of Aristotle in the The Basic Problems of Phenomenology also conforms to Derrida's "formal rule."