| Comments and Questions to: John Protevi |
Intended as an study aid only. Do not cite in any sort of publication. |
I. Introduction: the letter "a" [3-5]
A. reassemble in a sheaf
1.different directions of sense and force in our epoch
a.
different senses and forces of difference
b. not gathered under identity
1)
Aristotle: specific difference under genus
2)
Hegel: identity of identity and difference
2. Also different writings of JD:
a. phenomenology/ontology:
1) on Husserl:
a) " 'Genesis and Structure' and Phenomenology"
b) Intro to Origin of Geometry
c) Speech and Phenomena
2) on Hegel: "Restricted and General Economy"
3) on Heidegger:
a) "Différance"
b) "Ends of Man"
c) "Ousia and Gramme"
b.linguistic/semiological:
1) Saussure: Of Grammatology
2) Rousseau: Of Grammatology
c.energetics:
1) Freud: "Freud and the Scene of Writing"
2) Nietzsche: picks up on Deleuze
3) Structuralism:
a) "Force and Signification"
b) "Structure, Sign and Play in the Writing of the Human Sciences"
B.remains purely graphic
1.silent, like tomb: between speech and writing
a. NB: all the
"betweens" of JD:
1) speech/writing
2) presence/absence
3) langue/parole
4) structure/genesis
5) essence/fact
6) intelligible/sensible
7) interior/exterior
8) time/space
9) life/death
b. JD not just inverting, but reinscribing to account for opposition
skewed into hierarchy privileging presence: this skewing is "metaphysics"
c.
the "between" (= time/ecstasis/economy of same) as the great topic of ontology
1) Parmenides: to gar auto noein estin te kai einai
2) Plato: participation
3) Aristotle:
a) De Anima: nous is somehow all things
b) mimetic generation: our share in eternity
4) Plotinus: spreading out [diastasis] of life involves time
5) Augustine: time = distentio animi
6) Kant: transcendental imagination as schematic third between sensibility and
understanding
7) Hegel: spirit as gathering back to self through painful loss
8) Husserl: intentionality
9) Heidegger: Lichtung
2. economy of death: life/speech/interiority
from death, etc.
3. death of the tyrant: displacement of value of presence
C. prejudice of "phonetic" writing
1. needs spacing to
have meaning
2. but spacing disrupts pure meaning, total presence
D. inaudible difference
1. neither sensible nor
intelligible
2. nor simply transcendental, but quasi-transcendental
II. Phenomenology/ontology preview: [5-7]
A. différance as refractory to presence
1. not a being,
but
2. makes possible presentation of the present
B. not a negative theology ("How to Avoid Speaking:
Denials" plus Gasché)
C. questioning of arche results in reliance on
strategy
1. no anchor: no out-text
2. play: unity of chance and
necessity
III.semantic analysis of "différance" [7-9]
A. two concepts:
1. deferral: temporization
2.
differing: spacing
a. both
dissimilarity
b. and polemic allergy
B. necessity of the "a"
1. accounts for deferral and
polemic allergy
2. immediate and irreducible "polysemy"
3. middle voice
to neutralize activity
a. to avoid
presupposing subject, intention, etc.
b. Nietzschean
influence here
IV. Linguistics/semiology: problematic of the sign and
writing [9-12]
A. Sign as deferred presence
1. of sense/concept or
reference/thing
2. secondary and provisional substitution
B. "originary" differance: two consequences
1. NB: no longer include differance under semiology
2. questions
authority of
a.
presence (which directs semiology) and
b. its
symmetrical opposite, absence
1) NB: no simple inversion, but inversion and
2) reinscription in new economy accounting for play of p/a
C. Saussure allows us to see deferral and differing
conjoined
1. brief recap of Saussure:
a. reduction of
speech to language as sign system
b. sign system
as arbitrary and differential
c. this
differential play is condition of meaning
d. affects both
signifier (sound-image) and signified (concept)
2. consequences
a. différance is
condition
1) of conceptuality, not a concept
2) of
significance, not a word
a) interdependence of langue/parole:
i) systematic/structural
ii) historical/genetic
b) but not subjective or substantive
b. differance
extended beyond language to sign in general
1)
any code or system of referral in general (Heidegger's Welt)
2) again,
both structure and genesis
D.chain of substitutions for "différance":
infrastructures
V. Back to phenomenology/ontology: reduction of the present: [13]
1. elements retain mark of future and past contexts of iteration
2. thus interval separating the present from "itself"
3. equation of
spacing and temporization
a. spacing:
becoming space of time
b.
temporization: becoming time of space
4. constitution of the present as
synthesis of marks:
a.
archi-writing
b. trace
c.
différance
VI. Note on Hegel [13-14]
A. Avoiding the active differentiation of prior simple
B. Now as infinitely simple negativity, excluding all else,
1. but therefore determined by what it excludes in negating
itself
2. now as point, self-differentiating itself from primordial unity
C. JD wants to displace Hegel,
1. to think
differance as constitution of now
2. w/o prior unity or horizon of
recuperating presence
VII. What is differance? [14-17]
A. form of the question must be rethought
B. back to Saussure
1 .language not a
function of the subject
2. structural dependence of parole on langue
3.
differance as between structure and genesis
4. thus transformation of
semiology into grammatology
C. self-present consciousness prior to différance?
1. topic of Speech and Phenomena
2. can thematize closure of
metaphysics via Heidegger's work
3. presence as effect
VIII. Predecessors in the thought of differance [17-21]
A. Marx might have been cited here:
1. critique of
fetishized commodities
2. labor power as excess over reproduction of
labor-power
a.
living individuality
b. but mortal
and needing replacement]
B. Nietzsche:
1. différance of forces
a. JD's early
essay: "Force and Signification"
b. again, shows
irreducibility to semiology
c. point of
connection to Foucault/Deleuze
2. the "same" is not the "identical", but
economy, différance
3. economy of same in metaphysical conceptuality
C. Freud: ("Freud and the Scene of Writing")
1.
breaching: differance of forces allowing cness/unc interplay
2. putting into
reserve: deferring dangerous investment
a.
pleasure/reality principle
b.The Post
Card: "Freud's Legacy"
3. point of greatest obscurity: (Bataille essay):
différance as both
a. economic
deferral (restricted economy) and
b. expenditure
w/o reserve (general economy)
1) [Levinas]: relation w/ wholly other interrupting economy
2) confrontation w/ Hegel again
c. economic
différance does not imply finding deferred presence, or that present is there
somewhere, but merely hidden
1) rather différance maintains our relation w/ what is necessarily misconstrued
a) (consciousness as effect gives itself as primary)
2) a certain alterity (F names it "unconscious") differs and defers itself,
sending forth proxies (dreams, slips, etc.)
3) the radical alterity of the unconscious is marked by delay
d. structure of
delay we see here in cness as effect of différance of unconscious forces
disrupts any simple recuperation of Husserlian temporality as synthesis of
retention/ protention, which is covered under rubric of internal
time-consciousness
1) trace
not = retention
2) but
trace = past that was never present
D. Levinas: trace and absolute Other (Autrui)
IX. Differance and the closure of metaphysics of presence
[21-27]
A. Differance sollicits, shakes, determination of being as
presence
1.thematizing closure relies on broaching of ontological
difference
a.
différance "is" not
b. politics:
différance instigates the subversion of every kingdom
2.can différance
"settle down" into ontological difference?
a. différance as
movement of unfolding of ontol diff (late Heidegger)
1) that
is, as being itself, as presencing process,
a) not as being of beings:
b) but "being itself" w/o truth or sense
c) as Ereignis/Enteignis
2)
sending/withdrawal: ontic metaphoricity (Retrait)
3)
compare w/ cness proxies in Freud above
b. but, not so
w/ early Heid who thinks sense/truth/history of being
3. we must think
history of Being as epoch of diapherein/differance
a. being only
gets a sens through its ontic proxy (theological determinant of being as
presence for any epoch)
b. thus
différance, as being itself, is "older" than ontol diff
c. it puts
being (of beings) into play
d. Heraclitus
lost as trace when difference becomes ontol diff
4.but we can't just step
outside (cf. "Ends of Man")
a. but must
think through truth of being
b. cf.
necessity to think through transcendental reduction
c. must let
appear/disappear trace of excess of truth of being
1) trace never appears as such
2) in metaphysical texts
a) not just "history of philosophy"
b) but all "normalized" Western discourse
c) [and practices]:
i) restricted economy of capital
ii) of bodies
a) labor power
b) patriarchy
c) discipline
d) "sexuality"
e) Oedipus
3) in texts delimiting closure of metaphysics: Nietzsche, Freud, Levinas,
Heidegger
B.What is presence of present in Heidegger's reading
of Anaximander?
1. cf. end of "Ousia and Gramme"
2. difference of
presencing and present (a trace) is forgotten
3. presencing becomes
something present
a. present
being thus = trace of (erasure of) trace (forgotten diff)
b. present
being:
1) no longer out-text referent
2) as function in structure of generalized reference
c. present
being as effect of writing
1) margin of metaphysics: traverses, does not enclose
2) trace readable in its erasure
4. Trace of Sache (=being itself,
=différance) vanishes in metaphysics: dissimulated in master names (="being of
beings")
5. Consequences:
a. JD doesn't
like Heidegger's language of "essence of being"
1) can the "dis" of differance be caught in Wesen des Seins?
2) there is no essence of différance
b. need an
"entirely other language"
1) to think the out-text, the other of text of W metaphysics
2) trace appears as dissimulated
c. "differance"
remains a metaphysical name
1) it is "older" than Heidegger's ontological difference
2) in fact it is not even a name, or a word, but a sheaf
3) play making possible nominal effects like "differance" no master-word, no
unique name (iteration)
4) this is to be affirmed in Nietzschean laughter/dance
5) vs. Heideggerian "hope" to find the unique word of Being
a)but this is close to a "superficial reading"
b)i.e., attempt to catch H at his own game, confusing his analysis with advocacy