In recent years, two trends have coincided in French thought. First, a number of authors have taken it upon themselves to assess the relation of deconstruction and phenomenology, and secondly in the same period a renewed and growing interest has been shown in the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The two tendencies are by no means independent, for Merleau-Ponty's work is often cited in relation to deconstructive concerns, either as a precursor or as an antagonist. It appears that the moment has come to assess, if not settle, the ontological accounts between Merleau-Ponty and deconstruction.

A text which by any reckoning constitutes one of the most decisive interventions in this debate is Jacques Derrida's Le Toucher: Jean-Luc Nancy. In Le Toucher, Derrida stages the most significant of his engagements with Merleau-Ponty's thought, both in terms of its length – he devotes an entire chapter, ‘Tangente III’, to a discussion of Merleau- Ponty, in addition to a number of references elsewhere in the text – and its subject matter – he sets out in an extended series of readings his main concerns with Merleau-Ponty's thought. This makes Le Toucher a privileged text for considering the relation of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology to deconstruction.