R

I P 1 A

Pl i tiosoph)

Completing the translation of Derrida's monumental work Right to Philosophy

the first pan of which has appeared under the title Who's Afiwirl olPhilosop17?).
Eyes of the University brings together many of the philosopher's most important
tons on the university and, more broadly, on the language and institutions of
philosophy.
H
In its most immediate context, Eyes of the University is invaluable for the
light it throws on an underappreciared aspect of Derrida's engagement. both
philosophical and political. in struggles against the stifling of philosophical JACQUES DERRIDA
research and teaching, in the France of the late 19703 in particular. As a found-
ing member of the Research Group on the 'reaching of Philosophy and as one
of the conveners of the Estates General of Philosophy, Derrida was at the fore-
front of the struggle to preserve and extend the teaching of philosophy as a dis-
m
tinct discipline, in secondary education and beyond. in the Face of reforms of
the educational system. As one of the founders of the Colkge International Jr
Philosophic, he worked to provide a space for research in and around philoso-
phy that was not accepted in other institutions.
Documenting and reflecting upon these and other engagements, Eyes of the
University collects some of the most important and incisive of Derridds inter-
EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY
ventions. At the same time, Derrida's essays always have broad philosophical R 1(;11 1 I 0 I'll I LOS)PII l 2
-

and political concerns. Thus, iu addition to considerations of the implications

for literature and philosophy of French becoming a state language, of Des-
cartes" writing of the Direnurse on Method in French, and of philosophies of the
university from Kant and Schelling to Heidegger, the volume reflects on the
current political and institutional conditions of philosophy, questioning the
growing tendency to orient research and teaching toward programmable and
profitable ends. In his fOrmulation of these issues and questions, in his
responses to them, Derrida elaborates what he calls a 'university responsibility. -
!Jr

54.
Jacques Derrida is Director ofStudies at the &ale de. ihrunn Enda Cr) fences
Sociaies and Professor of Humanities at the tiniversity ofCrthfi)rnia.
Among his many works publisher! in Englids are Who's Afraid of Philosophy?
Right to Philosophy 1 (Suer furl. 2002) . Negotiations (Stanfimi :o0.7), and
Without Alibi (Stamford 2004.

2430
D33
STANFORD UNJVERSITY PRESS ISBN 0-8047-4297-9

9 7808104 il 1 uhil
 MERIDIAN

Crossing Aesthetics

Werner Hamacher
& David E. Wellbery
Editors
 EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY

Right to Philosophy 2

Translated by
Jan Plug and Others

Jacques Derrida

Stanford
University
Press

Stanford
California
2004
 Contents

Stanford University
Stanford. California
Press I Translator's Foreword ix

2004 by the Board of Trustees of the TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA: LANGUAGE AND

Leland Stanford Junior University INSTITUTIONS OF PHILOSOPHY
Printed in the United States of America
If There Is Cause to Translate I: Philosophy in its
Assistance for the translation was provided by the French Ministry of Culture. National Language (Toward a licterature en Francois")
Eyes of the University: Right to Philosophy 2 was originally published in French in 1990 as If There Is Cause to Translate II: Descartes' Romances,
pp. z81-663 of a hook entitled Do droit a la philosophic, © 1990, Editions Galilée. or The Economy of Words 20
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Vacant Chair: Censorship, Mastery, Magisterialiry 43
Derrida, Jacques.
[Du dm -it h la philosophic. 2. English] Theology of Translation 64
Eyes of the university : Right to philosophy a Jacques Derrida ; translated by Jan Plug
and others. MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY
p. cm. — (Meridian, crossing aesthetics)
Includes bibliographical references. Mochlos, or The Conflict of the Faculties 83
iSliN 0-8047-4296-0 (cloth alk. paper)
ISBN 0-8 047 - 4297 - 9 (pbk. : alk. paper) Punctuations: The Time of a Thesis 113

i. Philosophy. I. Title. II. Meridian (Stanford. Calif.)

The Principle of Reason: The University in the Eyes
B2430.0483D8213 2004
lot—DC.12
of its Pupils 129

20040107S9 "In Praise of Philosophy" 156

Original Printing 2004
The Antinomies of the Philosophical Discipline:
Last figure below indicates year of this printing: Letter Preface 165
13 12 tl 10 09 01 07 o6 05 04
Popularities: On the Right to the Philosophy of Right 175
Typeset by Tim Roberts in 10.9/13 Adobe Garamond

5 LIE :!
P 3
viii Contents

APPENDICES
Translator's Foreword
"Who's Afraid of Philosophy?" (1980) 185
Letter from Francois Mitterrand to Greph (x981) 194
Titles (fOr the College International de Philosophic) (198z) 195
Sendoffs (For the College International de Philosophic) (1981) 216
Report of the Committee on Philosophy and
Epistemology (1990) z5o

Notes 283

Eyes of the University translates the second and third parts of a massive
work entitled Du droit a la philosophic (Right to Philosophy), which con-
sists of essays, interviews, and talks given by Derrida between 1975 and
1990 on philosophical research. the teaching of philosophy, and the rela-
tion between philosophy and institutions, in particular the university. The
first part of the hook has already appeared under the title Whos Afraid of
Philosophy?
Part one of Eyes of the University, "Transfer Ex Cathedra: Language and
Institutions of Philosophy," brings together Four lectures delivered at the
University of Thronto. In the first two lectures Derrida explores the im-
plications of French becoming a State language and of Descartes's writing
of the Discourse on Method in French for an understanding of the relation
between national or natural languages and philosophical discourse. The fi-
nal two essays examine the conception of the university in Germany at the
end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries. Kant
and Schelling are read here as the philosophical forebears of the German
model of the university, that model of which current universities are still
the heirs.
Part two, "Mochlos: Eyes of the University," brings together texts writ-
ten and delivered on various occasions, each in its own way returning to
questions of the university and its impact upon research and teaching in
philosophy: Derrida's talk at the anniversary of founding of Columbia
University's graduate school, his oral defense for the doctorat d'etat, his in-
augural lecture as Andrew I). White Professor-at-Large at Cornell Uni-
versity, an interview with the French newspaper Lk:ration, and contribu-

ix
x Translator's Foreword Translator's Foreword xi

tions to conferences and collective works. While these texts often take up log of philosophy would he preserved and extended. The promised exten-
philosophical considerations of the university from Kant to Heidegger, sion never became a reality; however, and today philosophy continues to
they also reflect on the current state of research and teaching in philoso- be taught in the final year of French lyaes.
phy, on the tendency to orient these toward a programmable and prof- Nonetheless, as part of a committee established by Mitterrand's minis-
itable end, and on Derrida's own role, in particular as a member of the ter of research, Jean-Pierre Chevenement, to investigate the possibility of
Groupe de Recherches sur l'Enseignemenr Philosophique (Research an international college of philosophy, Derrida participated in an initia-
Group on the Teaching of Philosophy—Greph), in struggles to preserve tive that he saw as crucial for the reelaboration of philosophical research
the teaching of philosophy as a distinct discipline. It should be noted that and teaching. Founded on October so, 1983, with Dcrrida as its first di-
the political and theoretical struggle for philosophy and its extension, rector, the College International de Philosophie is funded by the State yet
while it took a specific form in France, is not limited to that nation but is remains autonomous in its operation. Its mission is to provide a place for
being fought in other places as well, in other forms and under different research, particularly in philosophy, that existing institutions either forbid
conditions. Indeed, the demand for philosophy, Derrida notes more than or marginalize. To this end, the College does not require the kind of
once, is felt elsewhere, in North America, for instance, but also in other teaching or research accreditation demanded by other institutions.
European countries, in numerous African countries, and so forth. The appendices to this volume include Derrida's contribution to a
Greph had its beginnings in a meeting of a small group of teachers and round table held shortly after the Estates General of Philosophy ("Who's
students in 1974 in response to the 1973 CAPES report (published in Afraid of Philosophy?"); Mitterrand's letter to Greph, in which he
March 1974), which they judged "scandalous."' The group saw this report promises to maintain and extend the teaching of philosophy; two parts of
as part of a larger politics that they felt to be an attack on the teaching of the report made to Chevenement preparatory to the Founding of the Col-
philosophy: a continual decrease in the number of reaching positions lege International de Philosophic ("Titles" and "Sendoffs"); and the report
available through the CAPES and the agretation and the devalorization of the Committee on Philosophy and Epistemology, which, as part of a
and even the "de facto destruction of the teaching of philosophy" in an larger committee formed in 1988 to revise the contents of education, pro-
educational system that privileged the sciences! In April 1974, the mem- posed a restructuring of the teaching of philosophy in the lycác and in the
bers of Greph approved the group's "Avant-Projet" (published in Who's university.
Afraid of Philosophy?): the group was officially founded on January 15, Two volumes by Greph, Qui a peur de la philosophic? and Etats
1975. With the announcement of the Reforme Haby—named after then Generaier de la philosophic, brought together the texts by Derrida trans-
minister of national education, Ren6 Haby—which set out to curtail the lated here and in Who's Afraid of Philosophy? along with the contributions
teaching of philosophy in French secondary schools, the group's work of the other members of the group to these struggles and debates.
took on new urgency. Greph fought not only to maintain philosophy in
the lyre but to extend it, to have it begin before the final year, or Termi- It is perhaps appropriate that a book collecting texts written over a fif-
riale, in which it had traditionally been taught. As part of this on-going teen-year period and intended for different audiences and occasions
struggle, Derrida and the other members of Greph were among those who should he translated by many hands. I have had the great pleasure and
called for the Estates General of Philosophy. Held on June 16 and 17, good fortune to work with and learn from the existing translations, which
1979, the Estates General brought together more than i ,aoo people from I have sometimes modified slightly For this volume, recognizing that ab-
diverse backgrounds. including teachers (of philosophy and other disci- Nolute consistency is no doubt impossible and perhaps not entirely to he
plines), scholars, and nonacademics, all concerned about the fate of phi- wished for.
losophy. In 1981 Francois Mitterrand was elected president, and his So- I would also like to thank Yael Bratzlaysky, whose patience and good
cialist government won a parliamentary majority on a platform that humor in face of the endless task of translation were unfailing.
included proposals by Greph and the Estates General. in particular the J.P-
promise that not only would the attack on philosophy end but the teach-
 Transfer Ex Cathedra:
Language and Institutions of Philosophy
 If There Is Cause to Translate I: Philosophy
in its National Language (Toward a
"licterature en Francois")

Et si recris en francais, qui est Is langue de mon pays, plutOt qu'en

latin, qui est celle de mcs précepteurs. c'est a cause tine respe're quc
ceux qui ne se servent quc de leur raison naturelle tome pure jugeront
mieux de mcs opinions gut: ceux qui nc croicnt qu'aux livres anciens;
et pour ceux qui joignent le bon stns avec raude. lesquels scuts je
souhaire pour mes juges, its ne scront point, je m'assure, si partiaux
pour lc latin, refusent d'entendre mes raisons pour ce quc je les
explique en langue vulgaire.

And if I write in French, which is the language of my country, rather

than in Latin, which is that of my teachers, it is because I hope that
those who use only their pure natural reason will better judge my
opinions than those who believe only in old books. and because I am
sure that those who combine good sense with scholarship, whom alone
I wish to have as my judges, will not he so partial to Latin as to refuse
to hear my reasons because I express them in a vulgar tongue.'

This, as you know, is the penultimate paragraph of Discours de la meth-

ode (Discourse on Method). That it is written in French goes without say-
ing but not without problems. For its present tense ("I write in French") is
at once that of a constative (you see what 1 am doing, I am describing it)
and of a performative (I am doing what I say; the constative description is
itself written in French; I have committed myself to it; I promise it and am
keeping my promise, right now). Now, this simultaneity, this density of the
present tenses, points to problems of translation that we will, no doubt,
soon encounter. In fact, as I was preparing this seminar in my language,
French, knowing that I would have to give it, once translated, in English,
I already ran into these problems. But they are not met as accidents or ex-
ternal limits; they reveal the structure and the implications of an event like
the one that concerns us now. What happens when, to justify himself, to
plead to specific addressees who are also judges, Descartes writes, "And if I
write in French, which is the language of my country, rather than in Latin,
which is that of my teachers, it is because ... " and so forth
2. TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA IlThere Is Cause to Translate

The argumentation underlying this defense is more complicated than it dition, the synchronic system of langue, the "treasury of language," would
may seem at first reading. I even find it cunning. In fact, it is only a be opposed to the events of parole or discourse, which presumably consti-
weapon, a passage, a passage of arms in the deployment of a rhetorical tute the only actuality of langage. This opposition, which would also cover
panoply to justify the recourse to French in other texts, especially—and that of the socio-institutional and the individual (discourse would always
this is not insignificant—in letters. he individual), raises numerous problems that we will not take up directly
French, we would say in the current code, is one natural language here; but you can see already that it is difficult to express the opposition
among others. What Descartes has to do is justify the recourse to a natural in certain languages. It already resists translation. In German„Cprache
language to talk about philosophy, a philosophy that up to this time had means at once langue, langage, parole, and discourse, although Rede is
been expressed in Greek and, above all, in Latin. As you know, it was more strictly reserved for this discursive value. Faced with this difficulty,
Latin that occupied the position of dominant language at the time, par- which he treats rather like an insignificant terminological accident, Saus-
ticularly in philosophical discourse. sure says, precisely on the subject of Rede, that it is preferable in this case
We must not let the word "natural" in the expression "natural language" to be concerned with "things" rather than "words."' In English, as you
mislead us. We call "natural" a particular language, a historicallanguage as know better than anyone, "language" can also mean langue and &scours,
opposed to the artificial, formal language constructed from the ground up even if "tongue" and "discourse" can be used in certain contexts.
to become the universal language. Descartes' argument, as we have just If, nonetheless, simply for reasons of temporary convenience, we were
seen in passing, consists in justifying the use of a "natural" language ad- to rely on this Saussurean opposition, this model that is more "structural"
dressed to "those who use only their pure natural reason." But the mean- than it is "generative." we would have to define our problematic as fol-
ing of the word "natural" in the expression "natural language" is clearly lows: to deal with that which, in a philosophical event as a discursive or
opposed to its meaning in "natural reason." Though it is quite clear, this textual event, is always caught in language, and happens through language
first paradox must be emphasized: a natural language is native or national, ;Ind to language. What happens when such a speech act draws from the
but also particular and historical; it is the least common thing in the treasury of the linguistic system and, perhaps, affects or transforms it?
world. The natural reason Descartes speaks of is in principle universal, The Discourse on Method comes to French through French, a language
ahistorical, pre- or metalinguistic. We are dealing here with two determi- that was not so widely used in the world of philosophical discourse. It was
nations of naturalness. Between the two, there is a whole history, the his- not self-evident enough in this type of discourse for the author to dispense
torical dimension of a language, the juridical and political, as well as ped- with justifying his use of it, rather laboriously and on several occasions,
agogical, implications that arise the moment a philosophical discourse both in the work itself and outside it. This work then also becomes a dis-
claiming to be "rational" (by appealing to natural reason as the most com- course on its own language no less than in its own language, indeed a "trea-
mon thing in the world) passes from one dominant language to another. tise" on discourse, since the word "discourse" in the title Discourse on
What philosophy, what language politics, what psycho-pedagogy, what Method preserves, among other meanings, that of "treatise." The same goes
rhetorical strategy does such an event entail? In what does it consist from for "method," which, in a title, sometimes had the value of "treatise" or "re-
the moment it merges with what is called a work, in this instance the Dis- search" at the time. You will notice already the complexity of this structure,
course on Method, a work in the French language? the complexity of the title and the complexity pointed to by the title.
We are reading the Discourse on Method here in one language or an- What kind of relations are there, then, between the French language
other. I have read it in French; we are reading it in English; I have written and this discourse? How can one, starting from this example, deal with
about it in French; I am talking to you about it in English. We are distin- the general relations between a language and a philosophical discourse,
guishing, then, between the language and the discourse of method. Ap- the multiplicity of languages and the universalist claim of the discourse
parently, we find ourselves here in the distinction, indeed the opposition, called philosophical? Since it is a question of the language and discourse
between language and discourse, langue and parole. In the Saussurean tra- of method, one could, through an immediate transposition, examine the
4 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA If There Is Cause to Translate I 5

hypothesis of a language of method or of language as method. This hy- should be impossible to write what I am doing in preparing this lecture in
pothesis would lead to the formation of a universal language. a project we anything but French, and it should defy translation. This grammatical
will recall from both Descartes and Leibniz, as well as to a mathematical present is even broader and thus goes beyond the performative present: in
language, a fatigue des cal•ds, such as that of Condillac. Before becoming fact, it comes at the end of the discourse and signifies: I have written, I
a methodieallanguage, this language could constitute a corpus, a treasury, have just written in French throughout the hook, 1 am forever writing in
a structural and synchronic system of coded elements; this system, this "the language of my country, rather than in Latin, which is that of my
(programmed-programming) program, would constrain in advance all teachers."
possible discourse on method. According to this schema, which is still Such a present tense, however, marks the clear event of a rupture, but
Saussurian, each individual subject, each philosopher talking and think- also the continuity of an interminable, and interminably conHictual, his-
ing about method, must draw from this source. He would have to ma- torical process. As you know, the imperative of national language, as
nipulate this system governed by rules, over which he would have no medium of philosophical and scientific communication, has not ceased to
power and with which his possibilities would he limited to variations of recall itself [se rappeled, to call us back [nous rappeled to order, especially
combination. And it is often tempting to think that all the specific in France. Even before the memorandum addressed to all French re-
philosophies of method, all the systematic discourses on the concept of searchers and academics, even before announcing that the State would not
method, from Plato to Bergson, from Spinoza to Husserl, by way of Kant, give grants to symposia held in France that did not guarantee the French
Hegel, or Marx, could only have been written by combining the types, the language its place, at least by means of simultaneous translation, the min-
characters coded in a permanent language; they could only have exploited ister of industry and research specified, in a directive [Note d'Orientation[
philosophemes already constituted and caught in a language of philoso- for the great Conference on Research and Technology (1982), that the
phy, of method in philosophy, content to make permutations and substi- French language "should remain or become again a privileged medium for
tutions in it: an essentially rhetorical implementation of a kind of philo- scientific and technical thought and information."' The language politics
sophical grammar over which individual philosophical acts would have no defined in this manner justifies itself by threats and responds to necessities
control. Such a grammar, in the broad sense of the word, would form a that are not without analogy or, indeed, without continuity with certain
system of concepts, virtual judgments, segments of argumentation, tropo- facts or certain contradictions already felt in Descartes' time. The prob-
logical schemas, and so forth. No invention, then, only a powerful com- lematic has remained relatively stable since the sixteenth century. On the
binatory of discourse drawing from language and constrained by a kind of one hand, it is still a question of opposing a national language, which at a
pre-established social contract committing individuals in advance. I re- given moment has become the language of the State and which preserves
ill in its State legitimacy the traces of a recent and specific formation, to na-
peat, it is not for me, at this moment, to give substance to this schema,
Saussurian in its inspiration, and to use this axiomatics as an excuse for a tional idioms that are subject to the same State authority and that consti-
kind of structural linguistics of philosophy. I am simply naming the op- tute dissipating or centrifugal forces, risks of dissociation or even subver-
position languel discours and defining it as the title of a problem, indeed as sion, even if and this is the first contradiction, they are simultaneously
an object of inquiry: neither a truth nor a certainty. encouraged. On the other band, this same dominant national language, the
sole language of the State, will he opposed to other natural languages
("dead" or "living") that, for technical and historical reasons that should
It is thus in French, in the language of his country, that Descartes he analyzed carefully, have become privileged media of philosophical or
writes, and he writes that he writes in French. He writes about the lan- techno-scientific communication: Latin before Descartes, American Eng-
guage in which he writes, and he does so in the present tense, in that first lish today. We will not be able to deal with the broad implications of these
person of the present indicative whose privileged status in performative problems. Let us only establish that they are multiple and at the same
utterances is stressed by Austin.' "Right now I am writing in French"; it time socio-political, historical, religious, techno-scientific, pedagogical,
 6 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA If There Is cause to Translate I 7

and so forth. I need not emphasize this here, in Toronto, at a time when I 1535, a few years before the decree of Villers-Cotter&s. In 1541, Calvin, the-
have to translate into English, in the anglophone part of a bilingual coun- orist of the French Protestants, republished his Institution de la religion
try, a discourse first written in the language of my country, French. chretienne (Institution of the Christian Religion) in French. We do not
The French history of a problem found in all countries scans to the need to be reminded of the role played by translations of the Bible in
rhythm of three great historical eras, all closely linked to the violent and other countries during the Reformation: both in the constitution or de-
interminable constitution of the French State. finitive formation of a language of reference' and in the history of a prob-
lematics of translation.
i) In the first place, it was the great moment of establishing the monarchy The church never stopped, at least in the sixteenth century, resisting
as State: a massive if not terminal or decisive progress of a French language this extension of French that can be followed in literature as well, in the
imposed on the provinces as administrative and juridical medium. What Pleiade, Montaigne, Rabelais, and so forth. Du Bellay's book-manifesto
we arc trying to follow in this seminar is the constitution of the legal sub- La defense et illustration de la langue francaise (Defense and Illustration of
ject and of the philosophical subject tout court, starting from the imposi- the French Language) dates from 1549, that is, ten years after the royal de-
tion of a language. As you know, under Francois I, in 1539, the royal decree cree of Villers-Cotterets. We cannot follow this fascinating, rich, and com-
of Viilers-Cotterets ordered that legal judgments and other proceedings he plex history of the French language in depth here without overlooking the
pronounced, recorded, and delivered in the French mother tongue."' In other themes that I would like to privilege in this seminar. For a prelimi-
1539: almost a centur■, before the Discourse on Method. One century from
, nary inquiry, I refer you first to Ferdinand Brunot's Lhistoire de la langue
law to philosophy [ du droit a la philosophic], one might say. One century franfaise, des origines a ma.' Published in 1906, it is already old, but it
for the "French mother tongue" to mark a great philosophical event. For nevertheless remains an inevitable monument in this area. In Marcel Co-
Descartes, who lost his mother when he was one year old, French is a hen's hook, Histoire d'une langue: Le franfais (1947), content and informa-
grandmother tongue (he had been raised by his grandmother) that he op- tion are mobilized in a way that is always interesting and usually necessary,
poses to that of his teachers, who imposed upon him the law of learning through a Marxist inquiry that at any rate makes it possible to show the
and the law pure and simple in Latin. It is the language [langage] of the effects of class struggle, the politico-economic implications, and the link
law [loi] because Latin, the language of the father if you wish, the language with the history of technologies in these struggles for the appropriation or
of science and of school, a nondomestic language, is above all a language imposition of a language. For a more modern period in the history of lan-
[ &ague] of right or law [droit]. And the greatest resistance to the (natural, guage, particularly in its relationship to the politics of education systems,
maternal, etc.) living language came from the juridical world. I refer you to Le franfais national by Renee Balibar and Dominique La-
Of course, the decree of Villers-Cotterets itself represents only the legal porte, and to Renee Balihar's Les Francais fictifi.' In this short, preliminary,
form, the scansion, and the juridico-administrative sanction of a broader and necessarily incomplete bibliography, I would also like to point out
movement that prepared and followed it, both in the progression of Marcel Bataillon's article "Quelques idees linguistiques du XVIIerne sie-
French and in the resistance to Frenchification. The factors of progression cle, Nicolas Le Gras." This study was published in a collection of texts un-
and resistance were numerous and diverse. The Reformation, for example, der the title Langue, discours, societe' in honor of Emile Benveniste, who,
helped the progression of French by fighting against the Catholic Church like Bataillon, was professor in that very College de France created by
system: an economic struggle, a struggle for the reappropriation of texts Francois I (from 1529 to 1534) and called the College des trois longues (for
against an international church dominated and dominating by Latin. the study of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew). Some innovators taught French
There was a whole "nationalist" dimension of Protestantism that was in this College as early as the sixteenth century. If we wanted to immerse
taken up, after the defeat of the Reformation in France, by a more "Gal- ourselves in this enormous history, which we cannot, we would have to
lic" church in the seventeenth century. The Protestants wanted their New problematize simultaneously and methodically all the practices of histori-
Testament in French: that of Lefevre d'Etaples in 1523, that of Olivetan in ans of language. Their system of interpretation, as you can easily imagine,
 8 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA If There Is Cause to Translate 9

is never neutral: philosophically and politically. It conveys an at least im- Adressed to Francois I, Henri II, Charles IX, Henri III, the praise be-
plicit philosophy of language, and itself practices a certain language (rhet- stowed upon them by Du Bellay, Amyot, Henri Estienne, and many oth-
oric, writing, etc.), and takes sides, at a specific moment, in a language ers (Brunot 2.27). This sometimes becomes ridiculous; today, at our pre-
war. This war continues today, over and within a language in transforma- sent moment of the defense and illustration of the French language, we
tion. And this war traverses institutions; the weapons bear its marks (rhet- smile at the idea that it was from the "first Francois" that our language got
oric, procedures of demonstration, relationships between the disciplines, the name langue francoise. It is true that the royalty protected French belles-
techniques of legitimation). In this respect, the differences between lettres. We would understand nothing of the history of French literature if
Brunot's (1906) and Cohen's (1947) histories are spectacular; and they are we did not pay attention to this language politics. Though Francois I
not limited to political ideology. never appointed any teachers of French, he appointed a royal printer of
Unable to do this work here, let us content ourselves with indicating its French in 1543, a few years after the decree of Villers-Cotteréts. He re-
necessity and with tracing a few "arrows" to mark directions, supposing warded translators or writers who published in French. And above all, and
that it is possible to trace or to direct arrows in such a labyrinth. These few here is that delicate and so very current problem (which is also that of a
arrows must in any case retain a certain relationship with the discourse on politics of culture and of publishing): he commissioned, programmed,
method, I mean with the question concerning method (method following and subsidized the work of certain writers. Among those commissions
the road; odos, the methodical becoming-road of a path; odos, that which were works whose purpose seems only too evident: for example, those of
is not necessarily methodical),"' but also with questions of method. One Du Hainan, the history of the kings of France. But there was also some
of these directions, at our very point of passage, leads onto the road along less immediately profitable programming and planning. These writers
which a politics of language also passes, in this instance the State exten- were invited, for example (and this is the example I am choosing from this
sion of French by a monarchy that had just ensured its power over the enormous corpus, for obvious reasons), to write philosophy in French.
provinces and the dialects, gains or confirms control over a territory by It is here, precisely, that you will see a road pass, a French road and
imposing linguistic unification upon it. I will not return to the "clearing" French marches, in the French language, in the invitation sent out by
ffrayageb the presumed "metaphor" of method as a figure for the path or Henri Irs chancellery. On August 30, 1556, Henri II sent an invitation—
road (via rupta) as language, and not necessarily human language, but also or an order—to Guy de Brues for his Dialogues contre les nouveaux
as language, trace, text, mark of what is called animality: tracks, wars for Academicians (Dialogues against the New Academicians, 1557). He did so
sexual and economic territories. in a letter signed by the chancellor. I quote from it the following passage:
The imposition of a State language implies an obvious purpose of con-
In particular, we wish the path opened by Brues (doing the great duty of do-
quest and administrative domination of the territory, exactly like the mesticating and familiarizing philosophy to our subjects in their own lan-
opening of a road (for the mares of Parmenides' Poem, the horseman guage) to be followed by the other good and excellent minds of our kingdom
Descartes "who took off at such a good pace," the trains of the pioneers of and to be led out by them, little by little, from Greece and the country of the
the Far West, for the aerial, maritime, or strangely named "spatial" routes Latins towards these border regions [marches]. (Cited in Brunot 2.28)
of our century—with their considerable politico-juridical problems). But
there is a still more urgent necessity for us, right here: that by which the It is toward these French marches (marks, margins, and so forth, in the
aforementioned figure of the path to be cleared imposes itself, in a way, sense of border, here national or military borders, Marken;1 have insisted
from within, in order to tell the progress of a language. enough elsewhere on this chain of marcbe, mange, marque to go more
I will give only one example. From Louis XII to Henri III, the com- quickly here)" that Greek or Latin philosophy must be "led out" [aeon-
plicity becomes very visible between the king and numerous writers, sto- duirej, that is, be made to come, diverted, by language, a language that
rytellers, grammarians, physicians, philosophers, to promote the expan- clears a path toward French. That is what Henri ll's chancellor says. We
sion of the French idiom. Brunot evokes the letters of thanks they will not he able to understand Descartes' gesture, less than a century later,
10 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA If lhere Is Cause to Ii-anslate I

without keeping in mind this political genealogy, even if there is more to as Greek, and he encourages the king to imitate these "illustrious con-
it than that. querors" and to "enrich" and "glorify" the French language.
This political and territorial concern also presupposed that the repre- You will have noticed in passing the insistence on right and law: it is in
sentatives of the royalty, as well as the people of the court, received the re- the interest of the central power to "couch" [coacher] laws in the dominant
quired education. Yet outside the priesthood, people generally were not national language. This concern comes up against, in fact it merges with,
educated, in particular because they had not learned Latin; hooks in the properly philosophical or scientific project: to reduce the ambiguity of
French therefore had to he made for the benefit of administrators and language. The value of clarity and distinctness in the understanding of
courtiers; what Claude de Seyssel called for the first time a Licterature en words, in grasping significations, will at the same time be a juridical, ad-
fran•ois (literature in French) had to be created. This is the first occurrence ministrative, police (and therefore political), and philosophical value. This
of the word in this form and with this meaning. In the Middle Ages it was concern is found again in Descartes. If good sense is the most common
called "lettreilre." The word and the advice go back to this Claude de thing in the world, and since ignorance of the law is no excuse, the legal
Seyssel, extraordinary counsel to Louis XII. He translated Pompei for text would still have to be read or comprehended through a linguistic
him. Saddened by the absence of useful works in French, he also trans- medium purified of all ambiguity, through a language that is not divisible
lated a good deal (from Latin and Greek, which he did not know and for or does not dissipate into misunderstanding. The decree of Villers-Cot-
which he had help); he did so for the nobility and for others who, as he wets specifies this in articles Ito and Itt, which stipulate that the acts and
said, "are often more dedicated to the sciences than the nobility." In 1509, proceedings of justice would henceforth be carried out in French:
in a preface full of morality and politics, he proposed in principle that
those who did not know Latin should still learn "many good and lofty And so that there is no cause to doubt the meaning of these decrees lin
other words, so that the subjects of (the) French language May not use their ig-
things, whether in the Holy Scriptures, moral Philosophy, Medicine, or
norance of the law, of the language of the law, namely Latin. as an excuse, and
History," and that therefore there was a need for a "literature in French"
therefore so that French-speaking subjects in fact may be or become subjects of
(see Brunot 2.29).
the law and subjects of the king, subjects subjugated to monarchial law with-
Moreover, this same Seyssel directly expressed the political advantage he out any possibility of being elsewhere in language, without the possibility of an
saw for the royalty, both within and outside of France, in extending the alibi that could make them non-subjects excused by their ignorance of the
territory of the French language. The extension of the language is a good law], we wish and command that they be made and written so clearly [my ital-
way, a good method, to be precise, to establish or confirm its power over ics], that there can be no ambiguity or uncertainly [I emphasize again these pre-
French and foreign territories. Seyssel had visited Italy, and in the course Cartesian watchwords], nor any cause to ask for interpretation.
of his travels he had understood at once a Roman model of linguistic- And because such things often take place according to the understanding
military-political conquest and the chance for France to ensure a certain of the Latin words contained in these decrees, henceforth we wish all decrees,
conquest of Italy in the same way. In a prologue to Justin that he had along with all other proceedings, whether of our sovereign and lower courts,
or of registers, investigations, contracts, commissions, judgments, testaments,
translated and offered to Louis XII. he gives a piece of advice:
and whatever other acts and deeds of justice, or deriving from them. to be
What did the Roman people and princes do when they held the monarchy of pronounced, recorded, and delivered in the French mother tongue and not
the world and sought to perpetuate it and make it eternal? They could find no otherwise. (Brunot 2.30)
more certain means than glorifying. enriching, and making more sublime
their Latin language, which, From the beginning of their empire. was indeed One cannot stress enough the significance of this event, especially its
meager and rude, and then communicating it to the countries and provinces complicated structure, even though we are still dealing with it in its ap-
and peoples they had conquered, together with their Roman laws couched in parently external and juridical form. One of the complications or overde-
this language. (Brunot 2.3o) terminations sterns from the liberating aspect of this act. It appears to be
the release from a violent constraint, that of the Latin language, and to
Seyssel then explains how the Romans were able to make Latin as perfect
12 'TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA If There Is Cause to Translate I 13

put into question the privilege of those whose linguistic competence (in meat in French, under the pretext that judgment must be passed clearly
Latin) guaranteed them great power. According to this appearance, in a and distinctly. These representatives went up, as they say, to Paris. And
strategy of assuming power, the decree would nevertheless make the con- here is what happened: I quote Ramus in his Grammaire ( 1 572):
;
cession of moving toward the language that it itself calls the "mother"
But this gentle king, putting them off from month to month, and having his
tongue of the nation's subjects; it seems in fact to move them gently, one
chancellor tell them he did not like to hear any language other than his own,
might say, into the trap of their own language, as if the king were saying to
g ave them the opportunity to learn French carefully: then some time later
them: in order to he subjects of the law—and of the king—you will fi- they made their case known in French harangue. This was the ridiculous po-
nally be able to speak your "French mother tongue" (langaige maternal sition of these orators who came to fight the French language, and nonethe-
fianrois); as if they were being given back to the mother in order better to less through this fight learned it, and thus showed that, since it was so easy for
be subjugated to the father. older people like them, it would he still easier for the young, and that it would
But not at all. The essential subjugation to the law of the monarchical only be fit, although the language stayed with the people, for the most notable
State that was being constituted went hand in hand with another vio- men, having a public office, to have in their speech, as in their robes, some
lence: at the same time as Latin, the provincial dialects were also being preeminence over their inferiors. (Brunot 2.31)
abolished. A number of the subjects in question did not understand
In such a dissymmetry is then established what cannot even he called a
French any better than Latin. French was so far from being their mother
language contract, but rather the sharing of a language in which the sub-
tongue that many did not understand a word of it. That language re-
ject (the subject subjugated by a force that is not primarily and simply lin-
mained, if you will, paternal and scholarly; after Latin, it became the lan-
guistic, a force that consists first of all in the capacity to clear, to trace, to
guage of the law [la langue drr droit], the language by law [la fatigue de
open and to control the road, the territory, the passage, the routes, the
droit]—because of the king. A new trap, in a way, put the dialects before
the law: to plead in favor of a dialect, as to plead in a court rout court, borders and border regions [marches], to inscribe and preserve its own
traces there) must speak the language of the more powerful party to
translation was necessary; one had to learn French. Once one had learned
protest his rights and therefore to lose or alienate a priori and de facto the
French, the claim of dialects, the "maternal" reference, was ruined. Try to
right that he claims. And that from then on is meaningless.
explain to somebody who holds both force and the force of law that you
What I am suggesting here does not amount to subordinating language
want to preserve your language. You will have to learn his to convince
or the force of language, or indeed the war of languages as such, in rela-
him. Once you have appropriated the language of power, for reasons of
tion to a pre- or nonlinguistic force, to a struggle or more generally to a
rhetorical and political persuasion, once you master it well enough to try
relationship that is not one of language (a relationship that would not
to convince or to defeat someone, you are in turn defeated in advance and
necessarily be one of war but also of love or desire). No, I am only em-
convinced of being wrong. The other, the king, has demonstrated through
phasizing that this relationship of language must already, as such, be the
the fact of translation that he was right to speak his language and to im-
power relationship of spacing, a body of writing to clear a path, in the
pose it on you. By speaking to him in his language, you acknowledge his
most general and fullest sense of these words. It is on this condition that
law and authority; you prove him right; you countersign the act that
we have some chance of understanding what happens, for instance when
proves him right over you. A king is someone who is able to make you
sa tlaartelg per
uoaw
ge b. ecomes dominant, when an idiom takes power, and possibly
wait or take the time to learn his language in order to claim your rights,
that is, to confirm his. I am not sketching the abstract schema of some
Of course, a decree is never enough. Resistances to the juridical act have
structural necessity here, a kind of master-slave dialectic as a dialectic of
never ceased. Much more time should he devoted to analyzing them in all
languages rather than of consciousnesses. 1 am talking about a paradig-
their complexity and duration, in all areas, including the university, where
matic event. It happened when the representatives from Provence wanted
law continued to he taught and treatises (particularly philosophical ones)
to complain to the king about the obligation forced on them to pass judg-
1 4 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA If There Is Cause to Translate I ts

published in Latin. But already at the beginning of the following century, [Is it good that a Prince not consent
in 1624, it became possible to defend theses in French. It was not until To the deeds of Christ being told to all
1680, however, that Colbert instituted the teaching of law in French. A And translated into common language?]
very significant sign is related to this: no doubt in order to convert to
To measure the complexity of the forces and motivations at stake, one
Catholicism the children or Protestants who had remained in France,
would have to quote Montaigne: although one of the greatest inventors or
Louis XIV decided in 1698 to create free and compulsory public schools
initiators of French literary language, he nevertheless took a stand against
where reaching was essentially religious and where French—or, if that was
popular language in worship and prayer:
not possible, patois—would he the only language of instruction. But this
decision had no effect. It is not a story to be told, but a story to be revered, feared and adored. Ab-
Not only was there resistance in the face of the act of law, then, a slow- surd people they are who, because they have put it into the language of the
ing of its effective application, but even the state of the law itself was not people, think they have made it easy to he understood by the people! ...
simple. It had to come to terms with a historico-linguistic structure that I believe moreover that the liberty given to anyone to disperse so sacred
was also a highly differentiated territorial structure. The opposition of and important a word in so many kinds of idioms is much more dangerous
than it is profitable. The Jews, the Mohammedans, and almost all others are
Paris or of Ile-de-France to the provinces was already marked, and a good
wedded to and revere the language in which their mysteries were originally
many legacies of this situation remain today. Thus, French was not im-
conceived, and any alteration and change in them is forbidden; and not with-
posed on the recently incorporated provinces (Bretagne in 1532, part of
out reason. Can we he sure that in the country of the Basques and in Brittany
Lorraine in 159, later, in the seventeenth century, Alsace, Roussillon, Ar- there are enough men of judgment to establish this translation into their own
tois, Flanders). Apart from administrative texts, the State had to accept language?"
the multiplicity of languages. And still in 1681, when it recognized the au-
thority of the king, the city of Strasbourg was exempted from enforcing I suggested a moment ago that this history of the French language, as
the decree of Villers-Cotterets. State institution, went through three great dramatic phases. Such a peri-
This history cuts across that of the relationships between vulgar and odization can only be summary, and I take it as such. Moreover, each of
church language, that of the Bible and that of worship, all the debates that these phases is original enough in itself to render more than problematic
developed around these questions (in France and everywhere else in Eu- the assumption that all these events belong to one and the same history: a
rope) and whose treasury of arguments is still used today, particularly in homogeneous history of France or of the only "French language." This
regard to the language of worship, to prayer and to song. The Sorbonne schema helps us provisionally to pick out a first series of indications and
declared unanimously in 1513 purely and simply that translations must be thus to prepare another elaboration. The preliminary investigation of the
prohibited In 1525 it held that it is "first phase," the recognition of a first configuration starting from some
unquestionable symptoms, allows us perhaps to begin to read this appar-
neither expedient nor useful, indeed, given the circumstances, it would rather ently philosophical event: Descartes writes that he is writing the Discourse
he incurious, for the Christian republic to authorize the appearance of to- on Method in French. The philosophical, political, juridical, linguistic, and
tal or partial translations of the Bible; those that exist already should he sup-
other implications of this gesture appear perhaps more clearly on the
pressed rather than tolerated. (Bruno( z.zz)
scene that we have just situated, even if this "situation" is still inadequate
The Protestants complained: and only sketched out. And, conversely, by pursuing the "internal" and
"philosophical" reading of Descartes' text, we will have a further opportu-
Est-ce hien faict qu'un Prince ne consente nity to interpret the implications of the historical events that we have just
Lea Faicts du Christ estre a tout relatez
evoked briefly. Nor that Descartes talks about them or tells us the truth
Et en common langage translatez? (see E3runot 1.23)
about them: let's say that they are "talked" about through his text, and it
16 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA If There Is Cause to Translate I 17

is left to us to translate or decipher it. Not in a conventional relation of o n the other hand on the outside, by a struggle against the attempts at mo-
text to context, of "internal" reading to "external" reading, but by prepar- no polization of techno-scientific language, through the techno-linguistic
ing a redistribution or a recontextualization, that of a single text, which powers that dominate the world (commerce, the telecommunications in-
does not mean a continuous and homogeneous text. dustry, computerization, software, data banks, etc.). This is well known
This is why l have insisted somewhat on these premises and on this and I will not insist on it. I will content myself with saying that with re-
"first" phase of the process of French becoming the State language. The gard to this modern problematic, whether it is a question of the complex
other two, of which I will say nothing here, would culminate in the and measured recourse to a national language, whether it is a question of
"French Revolution" and in a certain current techno-scientific transfor- its linguistics, its discourse on language, or even of a certain project for a
mation. In the course of the French Revolution, the movement toward u niversal language of which we will speak later, the Cartesian event of "I
State control once again came up against the juridico-political problem of write in French, which is the language of my country" is not a past, a sim-
translation and the intelligibility of decrees. I will refer you here to (Inc ple past, for us. For a reason other than the one I talked about in the be-
politique de la &tripe by Michel de Certeau, Dominique Julia, and Jacques ginning, its present is not simply grammatical.
Revel." Resistance to the Revolution was often interpreted by the revolu- In order to try to think this event since the writing in French of the
tionaries as the result of a linguistic force and form. When linguistic pol- Discourse on Method, what precautions should be taken in its reading and
itics are hardened, Barre wrote to the convention in a Report of the interpretation? One would first have to remember that there are at least
Committee for Public Safety, "Federalism and superstition speak low Bre- three orders and three ranges of texts to consider.
ton; immigration and hatred of the Republic speak German; the counter- There is the complex and heterogeneous whole, unevenly developed, one
Revolution speaks Italian; and fanaticism speaks Basque." A French might say, of the socio-juridical or politico-religious history of language. We
teacher was appointed in each commune where "the inhabitants speak a have just made some allusions to this. Others would be tempted to say that
foreign idiom" (they were more careful with patois) in order to "enable the they constitute the outside of the Cartesian text. But this outside is inscribed
people to read and translate orally the laws of the Republic," to teach the within the text, and it would be difficult, without taking this inscription
language and the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Thus, they move to into account, to understand what happens when Descartes, justifying with
voice, against writing, which is suspected of "maintaining barbaric jar- his rhetoric his strategy and choice, decides to write one of his texts in
gons: 11 The decree of the second Thermidor prohibited all idioms other French. What little I have said about this history is enough to hint at this:
than French in any act, even in private agreements. On the XVIth Prair- his act is not simply revolutionary, even if it seems relatively singular in the
ial, Year II, Grëgoire presented to the Convention his "Report on the Ne- order of philosophy and if it looks something like a rupture. Though he in
cessity and Means of Abolishing the Patois and Universalizing the Use of fact departs from a certain practice and renounces a dominant usage, and
French."' No coercive conclusions were drawn from this report; and af- though he complicates his relationship with the Sorbonne, he nevertheless
ter Thermidor there was a return to a more tolerant practice. But we follows the tendency of the monarchist State; one might say that he goes in
would understand nothing of the relation of the French to their language the direction of power and reinforces the establishing of French law. He
and to their spelling, or of the role of the Republican school in the nine- translates the cogito as "je pense" ("I think"), another way of giving speech,
teenth and twentieth centuries, if we did not keep such signals in mind. Ina also the law, to the French legal subject. Moreover, and this is a benefit
Of the "third" great convulsion (and we are in it) I will say nothing. that is perhaps not secondary, he secures a certain clientele in the foreign
While retaining something of the two legacies we have just talked about, courts where the use of French was fashionable. This complex strategy was
it is characterized in a newer and more specific way, on the one hand on not necessarily commensurate with the consciousness that the subject, be-
the inside, by a legally recognized reawakening of linguistic minorities ginning with the subject Descartes, could have of it, or with the declara-
(recognized all the more easily as it remains in the order of cultural mem- tions that this subject could make on this subject.
ory and in no way threatens the linguistic unity of the nation-state), and, Yet the second corpus to be considered (the internal reading, one might
7
IX TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA Iflhere Is Cause to Translate I

say this time) is precisely all the utterances through which Descartes ex- he so partial to Latin as co refuse (0 hear my reasons because I express them in

plains and justifies his choice. This corpus is divided in two. First, there is, a vulgar tongue.
inside the Discourse itself, the explicit declaration, the argued justification,
the one I read at the beginning. It is rather cunning in itself and we must As you may suspect, this passage disappears pure and simple in Etienne
return to it, at least in our discussions. Then, in this corpus of explicit de- d e Courcelles's Latin translation, published in 1644, seven years after the
original. The great Adam and Tannery edition indicates the omission of
clarations on the choice of language, there are statements that are not in
this passage. The sentence is sublime: "There was in fact no cause to trans-
the Discourse itself, particularly in the letters. They concern at the same
l ate lit)" (il n'y avail pas lieu de lid traduire en effet [Oeuvres 6.583j).
time a certain pedagogy, a certain pedagogical facilitation, aimed at feeble
Thus, in agreement with Descartes and according to good sense itself,
minds and at women (let's not forget that the necessity of, a certain de-
good sense being more common than a language, a translation erases a se-
mand for, "facility" is a watchword of Cartesian philosophy): it is a ques-
ries of statements that not only incontestably belong to the original, but
tion of a book, he says, which he "wished to he intelligible even to women
speak and practice performatively the language in which this original is
while providing matter for thought for the finest minds" (Oeuvres 1.56o).
produced. They speak this language and speak about this language. Yet
This passage does not directly link the question of vulgar language to the
this is where they founder, in their form and their content, body and soul,
question of women hut, as we shall see, its argumentative logic links the
one might say, at the instant of translation. It is good sense itself: what
two motifs.
sense would it make to say in Latin "I am speaking French," as you can
The third order or third stratum of the text is the whole of the Carte-
see? Or to say and do it, right here, in English?
sian corpus in what at least presents itself as its proper order, its "order of
Thus, when an "original" speaks about its language by speaking its lan-
reasons [ordre des raisons]," its projected system, the presumed coherence
guage, it prepares a kind of suicide by translation, as one says suicide by gas
between the linguistic event and the organised whole of its philoso-
or suicide by fire. Suicide by fire, rather, for it lets itself be destroyed al-
phemes. The linguistic event in this case is not limited to the choice of a
most without remainder, without apparent remainder inside the corpus.
natural language; it consists in that which links philosophical statements
This tells us a great deal about the status and function of what one
to some language (it is the question of the structure of statements such as
could call the self-referential signs of an idiom in general, of a discourse or
cogito ergo sum, for example) and to a philosophy of language and signs.
a writing in its relationship to the linguistic idiom, for instance, but also
Naturally, the treatment we could attempt of these three orders of cor-
in its relationship to all idiomaticity. The (metalinguistic and linguistic)
pus would he neither equal, equally divided, nor even dissociated or suc-
event is then doomed to be erased in the translating structure. Now, this
cessive. I wanted to mark qualitative or structural boundaries between
translating structure does not begin, as you know, with what is commonly
these orders of texts, even if they are nor related to one another as a tex-
called translation. It begins as soon as a certain type of reading of the
tual inside to a contextual outside; and even if each of them remains
"original" text is instituted. It erases but also exposes that which it resists
strongly differentiated. We will talk again in particular about the logic of
and which resists it. It offers up language to be read in its very erasure: the
Descartes' explicit declarations, in his letters and in the Discourse on
erased traces of a path (odos), of a track, the path of erasure. Thetmnsla-
Method beginning with the end that I quoted at the beginning today and
tio, the translation, die Ubersetzung is a path that passes over or beyond
that I quote again to conclude:
the path of language, passing its path. 16
And if I write in French, which is the language of my country, rather than in Translation is passing its path. right here.
Latin, which is that of my teachers, it is because I hope that those who use —Translated by Sylvia Siiderlind
only their pure natural reason will better judge my opinions than those who
believe only in old books, and because I am sure that those who combine
good sense with scholarship, whom alone I wish to have as my judges, will not
 If There Is Cause to Translate II 21

If There Is Cause to Translate II: Descartes' mantic overdeterminations. It has an affinity with the poem only insofar
as the latter, one might say, always implies—even if it does not actually
Romances, or The Economy of Words declare this—an affirmation that it belongs to a natural language, indeed
to the "proper" language of the writer.
But if Descartes' sentence has a dear and distinct meaning, the present
tense of its utterance is irreducibly bound to a language that forms not
only—as goes without saying—the signifying fabric of this presentation,
but also the signified theme: to change language is, in this case, to oblit-
erate the very heart of the "signified." It is no longer—as is often the risk
with translations—simply a case of altering the signifier, the signified, or
the structure of their relation in such and such a ratio: it is rather a ques-
tion of destroying, pure and simple, the essential import of the sen-
tence—and of the whole paragraph, of the whole text itself, which,
Last time, we interpreted a historical sequence in the course of which a whether directly or not, depends on it.
certain politics of language asserted itself. We analyzed its logic, its cun- Thus, this sentence is not simply untranslatable. What happens with it
ning, its dissymmetry. It was one of the three great sequences of a history is both more serious and more singular. Others might say that it is less se-
of French as a State language. In it was inscribed the event entitled Dis- rious and more banal, and with good reasons—the first of which being
course on Method, at least insofar as this latter was written "in French . that at this very moment I am speaking to you in English, having written
the language of my country." We then distinguished the three types of this in French. and apparently no catastrophe has resulted. Also, when I
texts that we should discuss, whether successively or simultaneously. We said that the sentence "And if I write in French (note this syntax,
were constantly interested (at the beginning and end of the last session) in and the subtle play of the "if") resisted translation, I was pushing to its
the mode of that declaration that is so committed to its own language that limits a situation that made Adam and Tannery say, more reasonably,
it has no chance of lending itself to translation: someone declares, in the "There was no cause to translate" n'y avait pas lieu de traduire). The
first person present indicative, that he is declaring what he declares in such French expression "il n'y a pas lieu," "there is no cause," crosses several
and such a language; this language turns out to be his own language, that codes, among others the juridical code of obligation ("one must not," "it
of his country or his natural, native, or national language. but this is not is forbidden"), the code of technical utility (it is not useful or expedient),
essential either to the structure of this utterance or to what in it defies and the code of social propriety or decorum (it is not done, it is out of
translation. If Descartes had written in Latin, "I am writing in Latin," the place). Now, in fact, what would he the counter-indication for a transla-
problem would have been the same. tion that would present itself as such and whose reader would know full
Now, we paused for a moment on the fact that this passage ("And if I well that it refers back to an absent original? We can easily imagine a
write in French, which is the language of my country . ") was omitted Latin translation saying, "Here is why I am writing in a vulgar tongue, in
from the Latin translation that Descartes himself revised, as if a sentence the language of my country. which happens to be French." And indeed
given to remarking, in a certain language, that it was written in that lan- this is what happened in the translations into living languages (English,
guage has no meaning that a translation as such could preserve, at least in- German, etc.). It is enough for these translations to present themselves as
sofar as one relies on a certain concept of translation. translations from French—which is in any case readable and made clear
However, this sentence does have a meaning, a meaning that is rather by this very sentence—for any ambiguity to he lifted. That is why, in-
simple and easy, in the end, to translate. Its resistance to translation is not deed, this would not he serious: the text then says to you. "I am a trans-
of the same order as that of a poem, ar least in its formal effects or its se- lation, you are in the midst of reading a translation that presents itself as

20
 Z2

TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA If There Is Cause to Translate 11 23

the translation of an original that presents itself as originally written in and in the language of right or law [droit] the origin. This movement trans-
the language of the writer." ports that which already appeared to be at work in translation, and this
Now, I am claiming that this is precisely what already occurs in the path that does not follow a straight line circulates between language, in the
French, in what we are here calling the original. And only this can explain common sense of a spoken language, and the text, in the strict sense of a
an omission, in the only Latin version there is, of a paragraph that the written language. To translate the Discourse into Latin was to convey it in
translations into living languages have never erased. This is because the writing, or to make it readable under certain conditions and for certain
Latin version of this text, assuming that we should still call it a translation, readers—for all subjects who were competent in certain areas, even if they
has an altogether different status. This has to do with the historical and were not competent, linguistically speaking, in French. English. Italian,
political situation that we discussed last time. Latin is not one foreign lan- and German scholars could read, in this language of writing that Latin was,
guage among others. And this translation into Latin is not a translation, the Dissertatio de Methodo (0644) even if they could not understand the
at least insofar as a translation presents itself as such by referring back, by Disctnos of i637. Discours sounds closer, moreover, to the spoken, Disserta-
contract, to an original. In this case it is less a question of deriving or tio to the written. Even if the Latin version is a restoration to writing and
"leading out" from an original language toward a second language (as the to law (droit], ler us not conclude too hastily that the vocalization of the
text says, speaking of leading out [aconduire] from Greek or Latin into Discourse had the value of transgression or emancipation. We have con-
these border regions [marches])—it is less a question of aconduire than of firmed that it gives the dignity of writing and of the law to other forces that
reconduire, leading back toward what should have been, by rights, the are in the course of becoming forces of law, namely those of a monarchic
language. There was cause [il y avait lieu], in a situation judged to be State. Likewise, during the Revolution, it was in the name of the law that
normal and normative, for books of science, law, and philosophy to be teachers came into the communes in order to declare the laws in French.
written in Latin. Why did Descartes consent to a Latin translation, to a We might have been tempted to think these translating itineraries as pas-
translation into a "dead" language? Where has it ever been understood sages between two poles (law/nonlaw, writing/speech, death/life, dead lan-
that there was cause to translate a living language into a dead language— guage / living language, paternal language / maternal language, etc.). But
a language that no one speaks anymore? The translation here is that of not at all—and this is perhaps the essential point of what is thus shown:
writing, from a possible speech into writing. If Descartes yielded, it was the violence comes from both sides; each term of the opposition is marked
first of all before a law, a norm, a social contract that was still dominant in by the other side. There are always two forces of breakthrough [frayage] and
certain circles: one had first to write in Latin those texts for which French of resistance, each one bearing life and death at once.
could only be a vulgarizing language—and that means philosophy. And if
by chance, by a deviation or even a transgression, one made the pretence of 2. In speaking of restitution, I was not referring to a virtual and hidden
beginning with the vulgar language, if one began in short with the trans- structure. In fact, to a large extent. what discourse of method there is in
lation, there was still cause
[it y avait lieu] to return quickly to the sup- the work that bears this ride can he read also as the French translation of
posedly normal language of origin, which should have remained Latin. the Repine ad Directionem Ingenii (Rules for the Direction of the Mind),
The Latin version is thus nothing more than a restitution, a call to order Discourse: a hidden
a text that was written in Latin, eight years before the
or a return to order. Only this can explain the embarrassed explanations, original as it were, since it was not published during its author's lifetime,
indeed the anxious justifications. of Descartes in the French version. but circulated outside of France. We know that Leihniz read it. The Reg--
Two remarks here of a very different order. ulae, then, would be, in Lain and precisely before its literal writing, a Dis-
sertatio de Methodo. The word "method" and the "viatic" vocabulary are
1. We are speaking of a logic and a topology, also of a phoronomy of plentiful here, and there is also the issue of rules: technical and ethical pre-
translation. A translate° goes from one linguistic place to another, from an cepts, a dcontology of knowledge or of research, in "the search for truth
origin to a nonorigin that will have had to be or should have been, by rights, [la recherche tie la Write]' (as the title of Rule IV also puts it). Rules: the
24 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA If There Is Cause to Translate II 25

word expresses well what is to be done [ce qu it y a lieu de faire], in a reg- cu l t " (esoteric or formalized) language [langue] can he even greater within
ular, recurrent, repetitive, and thus formalizable manner, in order to be o ne and the "same" language than between two separate idioms. We don't
conducted and to conduct oneself well on the path of knowledge when ev en have to transpose it to perceive the present relevance of the problem:
one wants precisely to direct one's mind, to direct oneself, to lead it pe d a gogical, academic, editorial, economic, political, and so forth.
straight (recte), on the right path, in the right direction, to the right address. By writing in the vulgar tongue, Descartes wanted to facilitate the ac-
Thus a Latin treatise will have preceded, almost secretly, the French dis- cess to facility (a motif we will speak of during the seminar), to avoid the
course that henceforth resembles, to an extent that is yet to be deter- detour through the knowledge archived away in ancient books. So he
mined, a vulgarizing translation, a translating itinerary. As For the method took into account the philosophical fragility of "weak minds," explaining
and the cartography of the path, as for the motif of the "path" (I prefer this with some discomfort in a letter to Silhon (a philosopher and
"motif" to "figure" or "metaphor" for reasons that I explained or will ex- Mazarin's secretary). His letter (of May 1637) begins by saying that he
plain elsewhere, and also because "motif" at least retains the sense of wanted to give reasons that were "easy for everyone":
movement; as does "metaphor," you will say—hut without any other rhe-
I agree, as you observe, that there is a great defect in the work you have seen,
torical presuppositions)—as for this motif, I will only say a word about it
and that I have not expounded, in a manner that everyone can easily grasp (my
here, saving the longer developments for the discussions and seminar ses-
emphasis], the arguments by which I think I can prove that there is nothing
sions. The motif of the path, of chemin, of via, as you know, is already de- at all so evident and certain [thus easiest] in itself as the existence of God and
terminative in the Repine. This unfinished text also had, in its own ad- of the human soul. But I did not dare to try to do so, since 1 would have had
ventures, a "viatic" destiny: it returned from its voyage with other papers, to explain at length the strongest arguments of the skeptics.'
in a trunk found at the bottom of the Seine. The boat that brought them
from Rouen to Paris sank. The Regulae had to be spread out to dry, which, The "weak minds" he addresses in French are not sufficiently equipped by
the biographer Baillet says, "could not be done without much confusion the School, nor experienced in philosophical discipline. Descartes is
in the hands of some servants who did not possess the intelligence of their afraid: they will yield to the arguments of the skeptics, which I will be us-
master for maintaining their order and arrangement."' The order of rea- ing in a merely rhetorical, methodical, and provisory way. Because they
sons presupposes the intelligence of the master. Clerselier, the French am- are weak, they won't know how to make their way or return to what is eas-

bassador to Stockholm, Descartes' friend and heir—at least the heir to iest, to the evidence of clear and distinct ideas, to the cogito, to the natural
these papers—had classified the Repine among the texts whose publica- light of "pure reason" by which the existence of God can be proven, and
tion was not urgent: no doubt because it was not only unfinished but also so forth. They will let themselves be impressed by skeptical doubt, by the
written in Latin and thus had little chance of interesting that 'general" newly learned argument of the school. The road toward what is easiest—
[grand] public to whom Clerselier wanted to introduce Descartes. In his this nonroad, this point of departure, so close to oneself that is intuitive
Preface to Volume 2 of the Letters, in fact, he notes, evidence—will be barred to them. A strategic paradox, which stems from
the historical and linguistic situation: by writing in French to facilitate
The booksellers informed me that the large number of letters in Latin in the matters for the weak minds (insufficiently schooled or scholasticized),
first volume led several people, who are not conversant with that language,
Descartes can no longer move with such assurance toward what is easiest
not to buy it and even to tell others that the most beautiful part of the hook
and most certain, the absolute value of this philosophical methodology.
was hidden from them.=
Later on he says,
Just like today, then too it was the bookseller who indicated, when ques- Rut l was afraid that this introduction [which he has just reconstructed]
tioned, that philosophical books written in a certain language are not in would look at first as if it was designed to bring in skepticism, and would dis-
great demand. In order to sell, one must change languages, order one's dis- turb weaker minds, especially as I was writing in the vulgar tongue.' (Letters
course in relation to the reading capacity of the greatest number of buyers 35; Oeuvres t.353-354).
possible. And this gap between ordinary language [Iongage I and a "diffi-
26 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA If7here Is Cause to Translate t1 27

Choosing to write in a vulgar language in order to appeal more easily to CallSe ldid not decide to include it until I had nearly completed it and the
"natural reason," which the School and ancient books have not vet man- pu blisher was becoming impatient [note the modernity of the strategy, the
aged to dim and obscure, which dogmatism, intolerant of doubt, has not p r oblematic of philosophical vulgarization, of the media, of editorial pres-

vet impressed, Descartes finds himself forced to take on a certain facility, s ures, etc.]. But the principal reason for its obscurity is that 1 did nor dare
in the pejorative sense of the word. This hinders access to "good" facility. [same argument, same wording as in the other lecterl go into detail about the
arguments of skeptics, nor to say everything which is necessary ad abdueen-
This is the Fault neither of the vulgar language nor of the weakness of
da m mentem a sensibus [the Latin for coded argument?]: for the certainty and
minds, of their natural "imbecility," that of untrained minds. It is institu-
evidence of my kind of argument for the existence of God cannot really be
tional, attributable to the School and to the tradition. Weak and not fore- known without a distinct memory of the arguments which display the uncer-
warned, these virgin minds that understand only French will let them- tainty of all our knowledge of material things: and these thoughts did not
selves be intimidated by skeptical doubt: the argument of the School, seem to me suitable for inclusion in a book which I wished 10 be intelligible
archived, typed, ritualized. And yet order must free the mind from sensu- cern to women l my emphasis] while providing matter for thought for the
alism, from the spontaneous dogmatism that prevents one from doubting finest minds. (Letters 46; Oeuvres t.56o)
sense certainties. This order requires the passage through skeptical
Always the same strategy: two publics, two destinations, two discourses,
doubt—ar least through the schema of its argument, through its language
indeed two languages, so as to reach as many readers as possible and to
and rhetoric—in order to transform skeptical doubt into methodical
train as many philosophers in the "right" facility. Not everyone can tinder-
doubt. Now, this language and this rhetoric of skeptical doubt are hound,
historically, to the language of the School and to Latin. So Descartes stand everything, especially not women; but let us do something so that
they can at least "understand something." We would have to undertake a
dreads the paradoxical and pernicious effects of this order on the "weak
long and difficult analysis in order fully to understand, in turn, this allu-
minds" that receive it, out of context, in their own mother tongue. Thus
sion to the philosopher-women and to the unscholarly women of the era,
he must renounce this bad facility. The recipient of this letter, Silhon, is
to those who would like to understand something of the philosophy re-
not part of the society of "weak minds" but rather of that of the scholars
served, like the School, for men: we would have to analyze the situation of
whom Descartes "wishes to be [his] judges." He will not let himself be led
astray by the vulgar tongue: women in that period, according to social classes, their relation to educa-
tion, the premises of "feminist" movements, and so forth. Unable to un-
But as for intelligent people like yourself, Sir, if they take the trouble not only dertake such an analysis here, I must note, however, that such an inquiry
to read but also to meditate in order the same things I say I meditated, spend- would be essentially insufficient if it did not integrate—letting itself he af-
ing a lon g time on each point, to see whether 1 have gone wrong, I trust that
fected by it as well—the Cartesian problematic of natural (that is, univer-
they will come to the same conclusions as I did. (Letters 35; OelaireS 1.354; my sal) reason and of its relations with language, whether learned or vulgar.
emphasis)
This inquiry would thus be inadequate if it did not integrate this im-

Language, especially that of the written text, thus remains secondary in mense problem of translation that cannot be separated from it, any more
than the event of the Discourse on Method can be. The complexity of a
Descartes' eyes. He demands that one not he content with merely reading;
one must also meditate in order. This order is not that of reading or writ- "feminist" strategy would be proportionate to the crafty and convoluted

ing; it is that of reasons—and this is the essential order. complexity of the Cartesian strategy: must women learn Latin and train

We find the same argument again in the famous letter to Pere Varier themselves scholastically in order to claim for themselves philosophical

(February 22, 1638). But instead of "weak minds," here we read "women." authority and masculine power, with the paradoxical risks that accompany
such a claim? Or must they on the contrary demand that one "speak"
It is true that I have been too obscure in what I wrote about the existence of knowledge, philosophy law, and in particular, medicine, in one's own
God in this treatise on Method, and I admit that although it is the most im- mother tongue? You know the record: it is far From being limited to what
portant, it is the least worked out section in the whole hook. That is partly be-
28 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA If There Is Cause to Translate II 29

our schools would have us read by way of Moliere's Les femmes savantes or As for m c. interrupted M. le Chevalier, I don't believe it is French; ar most, it
is a foreigner dressed a la franfaise,
Les precieuses ridicules. he added, laughing. Since I don't under-
Descartes wanted to speak to women, and to say to them in effect: there sta nd i t a t all, said Mme la Marquise, I assure you that would have no diffi-
is a natural reason; good sense is the most common thing in the world; we c u lry going without it."
must speak a language that is accessible to everyone. This movement, of
ul e for the French language and against Latin or the School,
a rt thisbattl
course, goes against any exclusion of women. It can even lead one to think
that by having escaped teachers, Latin and the School, women might he the place of women is essential, at least in certain social spheres, first and
foremost at court. Because they have never been taught Latin and the dis-
more "virginal" and thus more apt to surrender to what is easiest, most in-
tuitive, most philosophical. The "price to pay" for this "progress" or c ipline of the School, women are supposed to have a better rapport with
t he mother tongue, a better feel for language. They are. in short. the true
"process" or "trial" [procesi would always be the same: the erasure of sexual
difference in and by philosophy. Order, the straight and essential path, that g uardians of the vulgar language. Look at Vaugelas and his famous Re-
marques sur la langue francoise (1647). He wrote that good usage is "the
path that goes from what is least easy to what is easiest, would be an intel-
manner of speaking of the soundest part of the court in conformity with
ligible order, thus "desexed," without a body. The necessary passages, in the
the manner of writing of the soundest of the authors of the day." Now, -

order of demonstrations (the doubt of sensible things, the I think, I am,

this great chastiser of language also insisted on the fact that "women, like
God exists, etc.), arc sexually neutral or indifferent. The cogito is related, in
men" were a part of this normative elite. He even added, "In regards to
its thinking as in its utterance, in the grammar of its sentence, to a subject
doubts about language, it is ordinarily better to consult women than men
that bears no sexual mark, since it is a res cogitans and not a body. As al-
and those who have not studied than those who are learned in Greek and
ways, this neutralization produces ambiguous effects. It opens up for
Latin."
women access to a universal community and to philosophy (which one
Yet in his concern to put language at the service of natural reason or
might consider progress), but at the cost of a neutralization of dif-
natural light, Descartes could not plead, pure and simple, however, for
ference, now relegated to the side of the body, inessential to the act of the
one mother tongue, even if it were his own. He also had to invoke his
cogito, to intuition, to reason, to natural knowledge, and so forth. The sub-
vows for a universal language. He did so. But if we are to take an interest
jectivity of the subject that is thus founded in the Cartesian gesture would
in this related dimension of his thinking on language, we must backtrack,
remain—whether it is a question of the body or of language—sexually un-
as if returning toward the premises, and at the same time accept a kind of
differentiated. Perhaps it is not even enough, as I have attempted to suggest
discontinuity in the path we are taking. This is inevitable in so short a
elsewhere, to deconstruct the Cartesian subject and to propose instead an
time (two talks on such rich problems and such entangled texts). We are
analytic of Dasein in order not to reproduce this "neutralization."'
only situating preliminary points of reference, and we will attempt, dur-
Descartes was nothing less than revolutionary in speaking in such a way
ing the lectures and working sessions, to reconstruct some continuity.
as "to be intelligible even to women." He is following a profound move-
I also need a guiding thread for this new stage in the reading of
ment of the era, a movement born in a certain milieu before him and that als a;res. Perhaps in order to honor the contract of this lecture, which
D escartes.
developed mainly around him. The reaction against Latin was intense: it
was supposed to deal also with "literary and poetic language as linked to
was felt to he a pedantic, indeed a barbaric language; it became indecent,
the problem of their translation," I will choose the romance, the word "ro-
indeed impolite, to resort to it in certain situations, and one had to excuse
as my guiding thread.'
oneself in these cases. The movement did not fade. Several decades later, in Desctheartes used it several ti mes . 1 will isolate two occurrences of it. The
his Doutes sur Ira langue fi-anfoise (1674), Pere Bouhours stages society peo- first tor. He is of his famous letter to Mersenne, from Amsterdam, on
ple who wonder whether one should use the word inamissibilite, which "is
r zo, t 29 (the period of the Regulae, almost ten years before the
a little Latin," and which "still smacks a hit of the barbarism of the School."
e is responding to the proposal of an admirable "new lan-
r trir - 3 , TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA IfThere Is Cause to Translate II 31

guage." An ambivalent response and the counterproposal of a univers here to the chapter
ulous but cannot be reduced to this. Let me refer you
language: ndus est fabuia" in Jean-Luc Nancy's admirable book Ego sum.'° For
-m u
my
own purposes, I will insist on what in the romance is not simply fable.
maintain that this language is possible and that it is possible to discover the
The fable no doubt has several features in common with the romance.
science on which it depends: it would make peasants better judges of the truth
Recall the beginning of the Discourse:
about the world than philosophers are now. But do not hope ever to see it in
use. That would require great changes in the order of things—the whole But regarding this Treatise simply as a history, or, if you prefer it, a fable in
world would need to become nothing but an earthly paradise, which is worth
w hich, along with the example which may be imitated, there are possibly oth-
proposing only in the land of romance[le pays des romans], (Letters 6; Oeuvres
ers also which it would not be right to follow. (Discourses; Oeuvres 6.4)
1.81-8z; my emphasis)

The fable is a narrative, or rick, whose factual truth need not be verified.
This is the end of the letter. Everything takes place as if—one can fan-
But it can have the exemplary signification of a truth:
tasize—Descartes were giving up here on the idea of a universal language
for the peasants and was resigning himself to writing, a few years later, in Many other things would remain for me to explain and I would even he
a natural language For women. happy to add a few arguments to make my opinions more realistic. But to
The second occurrence is ten years later, in the "Letter from the author make the lengthy discourse less tedious, I want to veil part of it in the inven-
tion of a fable through which I hope the truth will appear sufficiently and will
to the translator of this book (which can serve here as Preface)." The pref-
he no less pleasing to see than if I showed it unadorned,"
ace in question is to Principes de la Philosophie (Principles of Philosophy),
a real preface in the guise of a fictive preface. Descartes says what he would A fiction that allows the essence to appear, the fable bears truth, exhibits
have said if he had written a preface, which in fact he is in the midst of it or displays it in an attractive fashion. It makes the truth desirable. The
doing in denying it, that is, in confessing it: romance avoids tedium, but the similarity stops there. For in his other
I would also have added a word of advice concerning the way to read thi uses of the word "roman" Descartes does not seem to acknowledge this

a ro-
book, which is that I would like it first read rapidly in irs entirety, like value of truth:
mance [roman], without the reader forcing his attention too much or stopping
But I considered that I had already given sufficient time to languages and like-
at the difficulties which he may encounter in it, simply to have a broad view
wise to the reading of ancient books, both their histories and their fables. For
of the matters which 1 have treated in it. (my emphasis)"
conversing with those of other centuries is almost the same thing as travel-
ing.... But when one employs too much time in traveling, one becomes a
After which he recommends, as you know, reading the hook three times.
stranger in one's own country, and when one is too curious about things
The word "roman" does not have the same meaning in the two con-
which were practiced in past centuries, one is usually very ignorant about
texts. In the letter, it is a work of the imagination, the fabulous description those which are practiced in our own time. Besides, fables make one imagine
of an unreal country, a fictitious paradise. The preface, on the other hand, many events possible which in reality are not so, and even the most accurate
insists on a certain mode of reading: to read a romance is to be taken up of histories, if they do not exactly misrepresent or exaggerate the value of
in a story, to run through a narration without meditating, without re- things in order to render them more worthy of being read, at least omit in
flecting, and without backtracking. Despite these differences of inflection them all the circumstances which are basest and least notable; it follows from
or accent, the allusion to the romance in both cases touches on the notion this fact that what is retained is not portrayed as it really is, and that those
of order: the order of exposition or of reading in the Principles: and the or- who regulate their conduct by examples which they derive from such exam-
ples are liable to fall into the extravagances of the knights-errant of romance,
der of things that should he—hut cannot he—changed in the letter ("The
and form projects beyond their power.
whole world would need to become nothing bur an earthly paradise,
I esteemed eloquence most highly and I was enamoured of Poesy, but I
which is worth proposing only in the land of romance").
T hought that both were gifts of the mind rather than Fruits of study. (Discourse
Now. the romance is not to he confused with the fable. It implies the lab-
6 : Oeuvres 6.6)
 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA If There Is Cause to Translate Ii 33

We are thus coming close to the philosophy of language, of o itv,

of technical power, of the "faculty" that we will he following elsewhere
langage, that was announced in the letter of 1629 to Mersenne. Descartes in the course of these lectures. Rule IV:
finishes by proposing what I will call a possible impossible language, the
As I reflected carefully, it finally became cleat to me that only, and all. those
possibility of an impossible language: "I maintain that this language i s
possible. . . . But do not hope ever to see it in use. That would require m atters in which order and measure are investigated are related to mathemat-
i cs , and that it makes no difference whether we are to seek out this measure in
great changes in the order of things—the whole world would need to be- the domain of numbers, figures, stars, sounds, or elsewhere. Consequently I
come nothing but an earthly paradise, which is worth proposing only in realized that there must he a general science which explains everything it is
the land of romance." possible to study which touches on order arid measurement without being re-
The land of romance" [pays des romans] would have an essential rela- str i c ted to any particular subject matter. And I realized that this science was to
tion with the possible-impossible of language, rather than with a univer- he called universal mathematics—not an artificial name, but one of long
sal philosophical language, something like a completed tower of Babel.: standing which has passed into common use [he had recalled earlier that "it is
Think of Kafka's short story "The City Coat of Arms."'' This fiction on not enough to consider the etymology of the word; for the word 'mathemat-
the theme of the tower of Babel harmonizes ironically with a Cartesia ics' means nothing more than science' .....etc.[, because this science con-
thematic, topic, and rhetoric: the recourse to the figure of a city that is to. tains everything by virtue of which the other sciences are called branches of
mathematics. We can easily see now how much it surpasses the other sciences
be constructed from the ground up and raised to the roof (see Discourse,
in utility and simplicity, by the fact that it applies to the very same objects as
Second Part and passim), this ascending movement, these stairways, all of
these, and many others besides. (Oeuvres 10.377 78) -

this cells of the philosophical enterprise as a systematic edification that is v

however, indefinitely deferred, from generation to generation: "At first all The project of nzatbesis unimrsalis—or, as Husserl will say, of formal
the arrangements for building the Tower of Babel were characterized by ontology—presupposes that the investigation not he stopped by the
fairly good order.... To this must be added that the second or third gen- equivocations of language. In order to formalize and mathematize, all the
eration had already recognized the senselessness of building a heaven- obscurities, ambiguities, and equivocations of natural language must be
reaching tower; but by that time everybody was too deeply involved to overcome. Even before proposing a simple and univocal system of nota-
leave the city" (36-39). (The city, it would seem, is Prague: "The city has tion, Rule XIII prescribes going from words to things. It would he enough
a closed fist on its coat of arms": I believe Descartes went there.) We can- to cross the equivocal thickness of words toward things to dispel philo-
not separate this architectonics from a linguistics. sophical controversies among the learned. This optimism, which later will
When he replies to Mersenne, who has just informed him of a certain orient the return to the vulgar language, implies a linguistic instrumental-
Hardy's proposed project of a new language, Descartes had already writ- ism, the effects of which we will soon examine. Words. the lexicon, and
ten the Regulae. He had already conceived the project of a kind of univer- syntax remain to appoint techniques external to intuitive and deductive
sal characteristic granted to the mathesis universalis of Rule IV. In this con- thought. It is enough simply to he vigilant as to their condition (univo-
text, mathematics is the general science explaining everything that can be cality, facility, transparency), in order for philosophical communication to
researched on the subject of order and measure. This is a Platonic and im- erase any misunderstanding. How can we reconcile this optimism—
mediately post-Platonic (Speusippus) tradition as well, and is presented in whose logic sustains the project of a universal characteristic—with re-
Aristotle's Metaphysics (E. 1026a, 2.6 - 2.7 and K to61b, 19, for example): nouncing the adoption of this universal language, worthwhile only for the
mathematics as the common and universal science, without any particu- "land
ndtfro lma cnec?e"? What relation is there between this writing and this
lar object. For Descartes, it is both the most necessary and the easiest sci- of) romance?
ence. The motif of facility is linked essentially with this science. And the Rule XIII recalls that the investigation goes from words to things, from
project of a universal characteristic, which is outlined in the Regulae and effects to causes, from causes to effects, from parrs to whole. or indeed to
announced in the letter to Mersenne, covers the entire axiomatics of facii- . other parts, or, finally. all these things at once—which opens the philoso-

34 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA If There Is Cause to Translate II 35

phy of the simple to its own labyrinth (we will talk, outside this session, our difficulty in such a pure and unencumbered way that even though noth-
about method and the labyrinth in Descartes, about his Ariadne's thread). i ng useful will have been omitted, nonetheless nothing superfluous will he
found herein, nor anything which might risk preoccupying our mental pow-
We say that the investigation goes From words to things whenever the diffi- ers to no avail, since the mind must grasp a number of things at once. (Oeu-
culty lies in the obscurity of the expression used: not only do all riddles belong
vres to.455)
to this group—like that of the Sphinx, about the animal which at first has
four feet, then two feet and finally three feet ... but in the majority of issues Perhaps now we can better understand Descartes' response (both recep-
which provoke controversy among scholars, it is almost always a question of tive and reserved, both attentive and slightly jealous) to the "Hardy" pro-
words. . . These verbal questions arise so frequently that if only philosophers ject for a new language, in 1629, after the completion of the Regular. He
could always come to some kind of understanding as to the meaning of their calls the project "admirable," but multiplies his objections to the claims
terms, we would see almost all controversy disappear. (Oeuvres io. 433 434)
-
that this Hardy—about whom we know nothing—would have made in

Note Descartes' prudence: he says "almost always" and "the majority of order to "advertise his drug" (yet another person who proposes a new
issues. technique of language or writing, getting himself accused of introducing
drugs into a culture)," or furthermore, says Descartes, "to praise his
From the Repine on, an economy, a principle of economy, guides the fa-
cility of the mathesis as well as the facility of an unequivocal language; in- wa res" or "overcome such a drawback" (Letters 3 4; Oeuvres 1.77, 78, 79).
-

Reproaching Hardy for not having understood that the language to be

deed, beyond language, it guides the facility of a system of notation that
would economize on words—since these themselves can be obscure.
sought must depend on "true Philosophy" (Letters 6; Oeuvres i.8t), Des-
cartes reveals his own project of a universal language, the very one he ends
"Faire l'économie des mots": this is an expression in Rule XIV. How can
up saying would he worth proposing only in the land of romance.
one designate something that, while necessary to reach a conclusion,
Here, then, is a letter on the romance of language or on the language of
nonetheless does not demand the mind's immediate attention? How can
one come to the aid of memory while avoiding the risks that its weakness
romance, if not on romance languages [langur rorna pre]. it introduces us to
the philosophy of language that will he proposed later, in the Discourse.
makes us run? One must use "concise signs" (per brevissirnas notas), always
(By analyzing it during another of these lectures, we will try to specify the
by memory is "labile" (/ahllis), we must economize or
economy. Since
spare its efforts: "art" (ars) has invented, "most aptly" (aptissime), the use
import of the cogito as an act of thinking and as a speech act.)
Right in the first paragraph, Descartes announces plainly that even
of writing (scribendi usum). By committing these economical notations to
though he finds the proposal "admirable," he is disappointed when he
paper, to the charta (in charta), we can free thought for its own move-
looks at it more closely. The basis of his criticism falls immediately into
ment. One precaution should he taken: in each case we must set aside a
place. There are two things to learn in every language, syntax and seman-
single and arbitrary sign for each single unity, for each one, atomic ele-
tics; or, in the terms Descartes borrows here from the most solid (hut also
ment by atomic element. We will designate by a single sign everything
the most problematic) tradition, "the meaning of words and grammar"
that must be regarded as one for the purposes of resolving a difficulty. This
sign itself will be forged, feigned, invented, arbitrary—whence the re-
(Letters 3; Oeuvres t.76). On neither of these levels has Hardy proposed
anything new or satisfactory. As for "the meaning of words," Descartes has
course to a certain fabulating. if not romanesque or novelistic, fiction, in
an easy time ironizing on Hardy's fourth proposal, which prescribes "lin-
the invention of this artificial writing: "Per unicam notam designabimus,
guam illani interpretari dictionario," which, says Descartes, "a man some-
quae fingi potest ad libitum" (we shall designate it by a single sign, which
what versed in languages can do without him in all the common lan-
can be constructed as we please; Oeuvres 10.455). After giving some exam-
guages" (Letters 3; Oeuvres 1.76). If it is a question of forging a language
ples (letters and numbers), Descartes proceeds:
that is learned simply by looking up the meanings of words in a dictio-
By means of this system. not only will we economize on many words bur nary, one can do this For any language, including even "Chinese." If not
moreover—aII this is the main point—we shall manage to exhibit the terms of everyone can do this, it is on account of the difficulty of grammar: "And I

36 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA If There Is Cause to Translate 37

believe that is our man's entire secret" (Letters 3; Oeuvres 1.77). Yet that, ac- philosophically mediocre product, in order to "advertise his drug" or
cording to Descartes, should be very easy, once one forges or configures an "praise his wares." These digs tell us more about Descartes' resentment
absolutely simplified language: just one conjugation, one declension, one than about what he claims to be discussing. A classic situation.
construction, without defective or irregular sounds, which "arise from the "'ro advertise his drug," Hardy proposes—and it is the principle of the
corruption of use (Letters 3; Oeuvres 1.77). This implies an interpretation,
" second proposal that I find most interesting—considering that, once the
on Descartes' part, of the structure and history of language, of its process new language is known, all languages would end up, would figure, as its
of degeneration; this process would be linked accidentally to historical us- dialects. One would feign considering natural languages as historical sub-
age and nor to the original essence of the idiom; degeneration would thus languages, languages that are genealogically derived from this feigned uni-
take the form of a useless complication, an irregularity measured against versal Language, which has been invented or reinvented. This latter would
an original regularity or simplicity that is to be restored. Likewise, in become, fictively, a reconstructed primitive language. There would thus be
Hardy's new language (just one conjugation, one declension, one con- a romance of lan g uage. It resembles what Descartes would like to substi-
struction, without defects or irregularities), nouns and verbs will be in- tute for it, with a small difference—a difference that Descartes jealously
flected only by affixes, before or after "primitive words" (les mots primi- insists on. This small difference is not slight; he will later call it "true phi-
tives) (Letters 3; Oeuvres 1.77). It is impossible to tell whether this losophy," but it is not certain that by this name it has all the consistency
expression, "primitive words" (which is Pascal's as well, and indeed com- and all the originality that Descartes once more claims for it—as he will
mon enough), is in Hardy's text or only in Descartes' letter, It is a question do later for his "1 think therefore I am" (against the Augustinian filiation,
of words whose unity of meaning can be neither broken down nor de- on the day of his father's death), or for the ontological argument (against
rived. These are simple and originary elements, so many stopping points Anselm's proof of the existence of God). Here he proves himself to be jeal-
for analysis. Descartes seems to put forward as his own the hypothesis that ous of the very invention of primitiveness itself, of this putative primitive,
such words exist in all languages. Since his project of a universal (possible- archi-paternal or archi-maternal, language. To accuse the inventor of "ad-
impossible), true. and romanesque language presupposes simple ideas, it vertising his drug"—what a burst of venom, surprising enough in a philo-
seems to go without saying that the "primitive words" must correspond to sophical discussion that should remain serene, and all the more so since
these. Descartes' universal language, which we will come to later, will be the accused is not even there, but only the mediator, in the person of Pere
constructed on the basis of something like these primitive words. For the Mersenne. The stakes must he serious: this is what we must tell ourselves
moment, the point is (0 denigrate Hardy, less for the sake of exposing him whenever a philosophical objection rakes the violent form of a denuncia-
to difficulties or objections than for the banality—indeed the facility—of tion or defamation; let us never forger this. Where has Descartes been hit?
his proposal. if one has a new dictionary and such a simplified grammar Let us read.
at one's disposal, "it is no wonder if ordinary people learn to write the lan- As if by chance, the only example he can find to sustain his sarcasm, at
guage with a dictionary in less than six hours, which is the subject of his the point of his nastiest insinuation, is the word "love," " aimer, amare,
first proposition" (Letters 3; Oeuvres 1.77). philein, and so Forth":
Up to this point, Descartes has been reproaching Hardy only for the ex-
The second ]proposition]. that is, cognita hoc lingua, caeteras onznes, rrt emus
treme banality of his invention: he has reinvented the wheel! It is difficult dialectos. rognowere [once this language has been learned, the others can be
not to have the impression of bad faith mingled with jealousy or resent- learned as dialects of it] is only to advertise his drugs [flare valoir at drogue].
ment. For after having facilely ironized on the facility of the invention, He does not say how long it would take to learn them. but only that they
Descartes paradoxically emphasizes the difficulties there would be in get- could he regarded as dialects of his language. which he takes as primitive he-
ting the new language accepted and used. Before elaborating on the prac- cause it does not have the grammatical irregularities oldie others. Notice that
tical difficulty of this theoretical facility, Descartes drops a few spiteful re- in his dictionary. for the primitive words. he could use the words of al] lan-
marks on the sort of promotional discourse in which Hardy packages a guages as synonyms of each other. For instance, to signily lone, he could use

38 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA If There Is Cause to Translate II 39

aimer, amore, philein, and so on; a Frenchman, adding to aimer the affix for a with resistance because and insofar as it aspires to being philosophical.
noun will form the noun corresponding to amour, a Greek will add the same And his "romance" will he a philosophical romance.
affix to philein, and so on.
On the other hand—and this is the second practical drawback—there
Consequently, his sixth proposition, seri pturam invenire [inventing a would he the difficulty of learning the words of this new language. This
script], is very easy to understand. For if put in his dictionary a single sym-
e xplanation will be of interest to us to the extent that it touches on the
bol corresponding to aimer, a7M117", philein, and each of the synonyms, a hook
o nly aspect of the project that is seductive for Descartes: a system of
written in such symbols could he translated by all who possessed the dictio-
graphic notation, a writing more than a universal language. Descartes uses
nary. (Letters 4; Oeuvres l.77-78)
this as a pretext to advance his own project For a universal language and
Descartes also distrusts the word "arcanum" (secret), which is used by w riting—his own "great method," one might venture to say.
Hardy to "praise his wares." Descartes is in favor of a philosophy without There would be no problem of apprenticeship for the primitive words
secrets, and as soon as he sees this word appear "in any proposition," and in everyone's own language. Everyone knows them, or can learn them
especially in Latin, he "begins to think poorly of it." But his bad faith without effort. But one will be understood only by one's compatriots, un-
again resorts to the so-called argument of the kettle ("The kettle I am re- less the other person looks in the dictionary. which is not convenient; and
turning to you is good as new; anyway, the holes were already there when no one will want to learn the primitive words of all languages. Unless, of
you loaned it to me; furthermore, you never loaned me a kettle"). For he course, the recourse to writing is the solution, and it is in the course of
accuses the so-called inventor of labeling with the name arcanum a mere this argumentation that Descartes acknowledges the only utility of this in-
,

pseudo-secret, a recipe that is too easy to teach. And here facility becomes vention: the possibility of a universal characteristic, the printing of a huge
a sin. dictionary in all languages, with common characters for each primitive
In the second part of the indictment, Descartes tries to demonstrate word. We would generally and confusedly call these characters "ideo-
that this overly facile invention is too difficult to implement, although graphic," but Descartes does not use this word. They would denote not
Hardy claims to he able to teach it in six hours. This invention would be sounds or syllables, but rather concepts, semantic units. The example of
useful for the public, Descartes pretends to admit, "if everyone agreed to this ideographic writing is, once more, love:
adopt it. Bur I see two drawbacks which stand in the way" (Letters 4; Oeu-
So the only possible benefit that I see from his invention would be in the case
vres 1.78).
of the written word. Suppose he had a big dictionary printed in all the lan-
These two "drawbacks" are not of a strictly linguistic order, but are guages in which he wanted to make himself understood, and put for each
rather historical and social. But does one have the right to make this primitive word characters corresponding to the meaning and not to the sylla-
distinction? bles, a single character, for instance, for aimer, aware, and philein: then those
On the one hand, people are used to the sounds of their own language who had the dictionary and knew their gram mar could translate what was
and will tolerate no other. What is easy and pleasant to us becomes harsh written into their own language by looking up all these characters in turn.
and unbearable to Germans. Even if we can avoid this annoyance for one (Letten 5; Oeuvres I.79-8o; my emphasis)
-

or two languages at the very most, the so-called universal language would
Descartes remains cautious. Not excluding the hypothesis of an inade-
be good for only one country: "We do not have to have a new language to
quate deciphering on his own part (the invention is itself a text to be de-
speak only with the French" (Letters 4; Oeuvres 1.79). Another paradox?
ciphered, and Descartes' only access to it is through the intermediary of a
Another denial? Descartes denounces one utopia, and yet it is another
letter, an interpretation itself to be interpreted), he is still afraid that this
utopia that he will present himself a little later, without making any secret
new technique might he useful only for reading "mysteries and revela-
of it. This will not he inconsistent, if the resistance to using the new lan-
tions" (Letters 5; Oeuvres LSO, remaining too cumbersome for other uses.
guage must hinge, in Hardy's case, on the fact that the "new language" is
Phis allusion to mysteries and revelations points to a whole enthusiastic
not philosophical enough. Descartes' own language, by contrast, will meet
40 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA If There Is Cause to Translate

activity during that period concerning new secret writings. Since I cannot planation were generally admitted, I would dare to hope for a universal lan-
elaborate on this here, let me refer you to the references I make to it in Of gua ge that is very easy to learn, to speak, and to write. The greatest advantage
Grammato Iogy.L 4 ( f such a language would be the assistance it would give to men's judgment,
Over and above this critique, what is Descartes' counter-proposal? It re presenting matters so clearly that it would be almost impossible to go
would be a question of devising a method for instituting primitive words w rong. As it is, almost all our words have confused meanings, and men's
m i n ds are so accustomed to them that there is hardly anything which they can
and their corresponding characters. It is indeed a question of institution r ht,afi d
ts
pe rfce alyintrt an idn en
here, in the strictest sense of the word. This method—artificial intelli- i maintain is language is possible and that it is possible to discover
this
gence, a translating machine—being at once both language and writing, the science on which it depends: it would make peasants better judges of the
can be caught in very little time. Its essential mainspring, its novelty, its truth about the world than philosophers are now. But do not hope ever to see
universality, as much as its economic facility, is the principle of order, the it in use. That would require great changes in the order of things—the whole
"means of order: Yet another determination of the odos, of the path and world would need to hecome nothing but an earthly paradise, which is worth
the passage. It is a question of "the order between all the thoughts that can proposing only in the land of romance (romans]. (Lasers 6; Oeuvres 1.81-82)
come into the human mind" (Letters 5; Oeuvres 1.8o). The order and struc-
Here. then, is how the land of romance suddenly becomes the land of
ture of these (linguistic and graphic) marks would be founded on the or-
der of meaning and thought. It is a universal and simple order, which is the "true science." Philosophy would have undivided dominion there: the
arbitrariness of the sign, techno-scientific rationality, and above all the law
guaranteed here, once more, by the analogy with mathematics, and in
of language or of writing—for these would be the same thing—would be
particular with arithmetic. For "just as" "there is an [order)"
the law. The map of this land of romance would have some analogy, even
naturally established between numbers. in a single day one can learn to name if they cannot be confused, with the map of methodological rationality,
every one of the infinite series of numbers, and thus to write infinitely many that of order and of the path become method. 1 want to insist upon the
different words in the unknown language. The same could be done for all the arbitrariness of the sign. Even if this theme is not explicitly named, it sus-
other words necessary to express all the other things that fall within the tains the entire logic of this letter. And especially of the following letter
purview of the human mind. If this secret were discovered I am sure that the (again to Mersenne, on December IS, 1629), which distinguishes between
language would soon spread throughout the world. Many people would will-
two kinds of semiotic universalities: on the one hand, that of an absolutely
ingly spend five or six days learning how to make themselves understood by
natural language; on the other, that of a totally artificial code that is con-
all men. (Letters 5 6; Oeuvres 1.80-81)
-

structed in an arbitrary fashion. Both are universally intelligible, whether

Hardy has not thought of this. He has nor, as a philosopher, begun by immediately or not. The opposition of nature and arc, of physis and techne,
thinking order, according to order, the real relation of dependence be- again governs this semiotic: "Voices, crying or laughing, are comparable
tween this new language and "true" philosophy, which alone permits one in all languages. But when I see the heavens or the earth I do not have to
to 'number all the thoughts of man" (Letters 6; Oeuvres 1.81), to distin- name them in one way rather than another; and I believe that would he
guish them in their clarity and simplicity. Such would be the only ar- the case even if there was an original justness" (Oeuvres 1.103). The struc-
canum, the secret as secret both of method and of language, the secret for tural difference between the absolutely natural language [langagei (which
acquiring "the true science" (Letters 6; Oeuvres 1.81). must be distinguished from a merely "natural language" [longue]) and the
Now, after boasting not only of the possibility of this language but also absolutely artificial language remains insurmountable. And since the lan-
of its necessity and, above all, its facility, Descartes, in a sudden and cata- id to he "natural," composed of words and names, is founded on
r said
strophic turnabout, concludes the impracticability of the thing. Thus, the the arbitrariness of the sign, it would never be natural, of the naturalness
conclusion: of the try or laugh that transcends, according to Descartes, all national
gbut td
ar g ee
IF someone were to explain correctly what are the simple ideas in the human "Natural language" is situated between the two universalities. Peasants,
imagination out of which all human thoughts arc compounded, and if his ex-
4 2 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA

as well as real philosophers (as distinct from the philosopher of the true
Vacant Chair: Censorship, Mastery,
philosophy), speak this natural language. They are thus at least as recep-
tive to this new rational language. which "would make [them] better Magisteriality
judges of the truth than philosophers are now." They are not biased or
outwitted by false knowledge and a false idea of science. However, peas-
ants and philosophers today—and one could add here weak minds and
women—have in common with this natural language a kind of conserva-
tive habit. '['hey will always refuse to change the order of things to call
upon the order of thoughts. They will refuse the earthly paradise or the
land of romance. One gets the sense that this bad order of things corre-
sponds to the fatality of a fan. An original sin would have expelled us from
paradise and imposed this natural language that is no longer purely natural
and will never be purely artificial. The roman. the land of romance, would
be the language of paradise befOre the fall: the myth of a pure language in At this point we begin a second journey. No more so than the first will
illy tempore, purely natural or purely artificial. And these would amount this one lead us toward an overhanging edge from which we could domi-
to the same thing. The language of paradise and the language of method nate the totality of an epoch or a historical territory. It will be a question
would share a universal transparency. There would he no more need even ofsituaring some significant points of reference in order to measure a dis-
to desire method. placement or the transformation of a problematic. This presupposes stra-
Between the two, there is the method to he constructed and there is tegic choices and risks on our part.
history. History [histoire] cannot he written as a romance [roman]: the ro- I am thus taking the risks of a leap without a clear transition between
mance does not tell a true story Ihistoird. The philosophical imagination two great moments in the institutional structures of philosophy in Eu-
has more affinity with pure rationality; it dreams of a pure language: the rope. During the last lectures, Descartes was, for us, the example of a
true philosophy. philosopher who, while explaining himself and struggling with all sorts of
We should now go further and specify the history of romance, of the institutional authorities, never did so as a teaching philosopher, as a pro-
word "roman," and of the literary genre named thus, of the relations be- fessor and civil servant in a State university. He no doubt posed pedagogi-
tween rhetoric and the roman before and after the period of Cartesian dis- cal questions and analyzed the rhetoric and language of "exposition," but
course.' he did so without having to deal with a reaching of philosophy organized
—Translated by Rebecca Coma by the State and entrusted to teachers who are also servants of the State.
ftl Now, at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth cen-
turies the situation was transformed everywhere in Europe in this respect.
We will now focus our attention on the constitution of this new space,
that of philosophy in the State university and of the figure of the civil ser-
vant–philosopher. Naturally, such a transformation could not remain ex-
terior to philosophical discourse itself, to its procedures and its content.
Limiting ourselves here to some exemplary indications, beginning with
the liamian figure of this new situation, we will attempt not to isolate the
so-caIled external considerations from analyses of content.
Without further ado, therefore. I will state that the point of departure,

4.
44 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA *cant Chair 45

the guiding thread I have taken the risk of choosing for this second jour- of -Reaso u Alone (1793), Kant explains the necessity and legitimacy of cen-
ney: the question of censorship, as it might he posed between Reason and ; The rational sanctity of moral law should he the object of the
sorsh, P•
the university. We will speak, then, of censorship as institution, of censor- respect (der groften Acbtung), of an adoration addressed to the
ship outside the institution, in the university, or at the limits of the uni- Supreme Cause ( Ursache) that fulfills these laws. Now, what is most sub-
versity, and of how censorship can operate as academic or State power. lin
gr e.,ites hrinks
t (z'erkleinert sich) in human hands, that is, in the hands of fi-
lime
Deployed in its fullest dimension, the question could take a paradoxi- nite beings. Laws of constraint (Zwangsgesetze) must therefore he added to
cal form: Can reason be censored? Should it be? Can it in turn censor? Or t he free respect of moral law, the only authentic respect. One must make
censor itself? Can it find good or bad reasons for censorship? In short, do with a critique that has force at its disposal, that is to say, with censor-
what is censorship as a question of reason? dup. The theologian who censors books (der Bucher richtende Theology
In The Conflict of the Faculties' for example, Kant seeks to justify (be- may have been named, placed, charged (angestellt), posted, appointed by
griinden), to found in reason, in a critical and discriminating fashion, an t he State, in agreement with the church, to perform two functions, with
apparently factual situation that must be recalled, at least briefly. In short, two purposes. The same individual can belong to two authorities. He can
in question is the death of a king, as if to confirm by that event that the he appointed as a censor, as an ecclesiastic, to see to the well-being of souls
force or the re-enforcement of the law always passes by way of a dead (Heil der Seelen), or, furthermore, as a scholar (Gelehrter), for the well-
king. In August 1786. , the liberal king, Friedrich II, was replaced, upon his being of the sciences (Heil der Wissenschaften). One must presuppose that
death, by Friedrich Wilhelm II. The offensive that then developed against these two kinds of well-being do not go hand in hand, at least not imme-
the supporters of the Aufklarung has been attributed to the influence of diately. 4 As a scholar responsible for the well-being of the sciences, this
Woellner, Friedrich Wilhelm II's minister. Censorship was established in theologian in fact belonged (at that time) to a public institution, an insti-
Berlin a few years after the Edict of Religion (July 1788), which prohibited tution tinder the name of a university (Gliede einer Offentlichen Anstalt, der
everything that appeared to oppose the official religion. In December unter dem Namen einer Universitet] • . ), to which all the sciences are
1788, the law against the freedom of the press was declared. In 1792, after entrusted. If it is practiced in this institution, censorship should not cause
the French Revolution, a censorship commission was established. In June any harm to the sciences and to truth as they are freely cultivated by the
1792, this commission prohibited the publication of hook two of Religion university. And I remind you that the guarantor, the guardian of truth for
within the Limits of Reason Alone! Kant protested, addressing himself to all the faculties (higher and lower) of the university is the philosopher,
the Faculty of Theology at Konigsberg, then to the Faculty of Arts at Jena, who also has the right to censor (or should have it, according to Kant)
whose dean finally granted the imprimatur. In 1793, the publication within the entire interior field of the university institution. The theolo-
earned Kant the king's famous reprimand. Kant responds to this repri- gian responsible for the well-being of souls will therefore be quite distinct,
mand and explains himself in the preface to The Conflict of the Faculties.; even if within one and the same person, from the university theologian re-
It was experts in theology, official theologians authorized by the State, onsible for the well-being of the sciences. Neglecting this rule of bipar-
who, in this situation, had the right and the power to determine what tition, crossing this boundary, would amount to returning to a pre-
should or should not he censored. They were the legitimate and recog- Galilean situation; one would reproduce what takes place with Galileo: a
nized trustees of a knowledge; they are supposed to know what does or biblical theologian who intervened in the domain of the sciences (astron-
does not go against the official religion. Now, in order to obtain a first im- omy,ancient history, history of the earth, etc.), "in order to humble the
pride of the sciences and to spare himself the study of them" (Religion 8).
age of the lines of division, of the critical divisions, of the conflictual
is Such would he the internal division of the biblical theologian. But there
boundaries, and of the interior separations that furrow the territory we are
engaged upon, let us situate, like an emblem, the division a theologian can also the internal division of the theologian in general; he can he a bibli-
undergo, according to Kant, when he must assume two functions as a sin- cal theologian (an expert in a positive and revealed religion) but also a

gle person. In the preface to the first edition of Religion within the Limits P h ilosophica/ theologian, a "rational" theologian.
46 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA Vacant (..'hair 47

Before returning to this point, once the motif of censorship has been es- Let us take an example. When an institution (I am thinking here of the
tablished. 1 would like further to justify my choice of and insistence up on recently created Collëge International de Philosophic) proposes to give
this theme. This theme might seem anachronistic to those who would prio ty to research projects not presently legitimated or insufficiently de-
• ri ,

wish to initiate a reflection on modern university reason. Today, especiall y cc iope d in other institutions (whether French or foreign), what does that
in the regions we inhabit, it seems as though censorship no longer exists cio iry• if not a challenge to censorship or the plan (clearly Formulated in
in the strict sense we have just evoked: academics are no longer prohibited th e Re port of the Committee established with the aim of creating this
from publishing a paper, either spoken or written, by a governmental de_ o llge) to remove certain forms of censorship? It is a question of privi-
cree (in Kant's case, a royal decree), based on the opinion formulated by a i e cring the access to those "things" that are not allowed to he uttered or
censorship commission composed of other academics appointed by done in current institutions. One should understand the term "current in-
the Stare. It would nonetheless he naive to conclude From this that ce st itutions" to mean the totality of the organized field of which I was just
sorship disappeared from that time on, even if one refers to Kant's defin s peaking: the university and para-university. publishing, the press, the me-
tion of censorship, that is, "a critique that has power" (Religion 7) and con, dia, the new systems of archiving, and so forth. Not to legitimize' some-
sequently prohibits, reduces to silence, or limits the manifestation o thing, according to this or that criterion, not to give it the means to man-
thought, the written or spoken word. What might have changed is the ifest itself, is already to censor. Of course, since the field of "things" that
form the use of this force takes, the place and machinery of its applica= can be studied, said, or done, is by rights without set limits, the censoring
lion, of its distribution, the complexity, the diversification. and the over delimitation remains unavoidable in a finite and necessarily agonistic
determination of its pathways. But how can one deny this? There are field. At every moment, forces are suppressed, limited, repressed, margin-
things that cannot be uttered within the university—or outside of the alized, made minor, according to the most diverse ruses. A book of which
university. There are certain ways of saying certain things that are neither two thousand copies are published, an untranslated hook, remains, today,
legitimate nor authorized. There are, quite simply, "objects" that one can- almost a confidential and private document. By proposing an apparently
not study, analyze, work on in certain university departments. Moreover, paradoxical institution that would remove the censorship imposed within
censorship does not consist in reducing something to absolute silence. It the system of other institutions, one must realize that censorship is
is enough for it to limit the range of the addressees, or of the exchanges in thereby assigned a regulating idea that in its essence is inaccessible: an idea
general. Censorship exists as soon as certain forces (linked to powers of precisely in the Kantian sense. Such an institution will only see the light
evaluation and to symbolic structures) simply limit the extent of a field of of day, become effective, in a given (and thus finite) situation, where it will
study, the resonance or the propagation of a discourse. Today, this does be involved in transactions with the state of the system in place; hence
not necessarily originate from a central and specialized organism. from a with a certain censoring apparatus, a certain relationship of power be-
person (the king or his minister), from a commission officially established tween the censored and the censoring, that is, sometimes, a certain rela-
For this purpose. Through a highly differentiated, indeed contradictory, tionship of self-censorship. There is never any pure censorship or pure lift-
network, censorship weighs on the university or proceeds from it (for the ing of censorship, which makes one doubt the rational purity of this
university is always censured and censoring). We find this prohibiting Concept that, however, never exists without reason and without judgment,
withou t recourse to the law. One must also know that a new institution
power associated with other instances or agencies, other national or inter-
national research and teaching institutions, publishing power, the media, that would propose to lift some forms of censorship should not only per-
and so forth. The moment a discourse, even if it is not forbidden, cannot 'nit new "things" to be said and done, but should also devote itself con-
randy to a theoretico-institutional analysis (an auto- and hetero-analysis),
find the conditions for an exposition or for an unlimited public discus
,
-

sion, one can speak of an effect of censorship, no matter how excessive in order to detect within itself the effects of censorship or of nonlegitirna-
nor'
this may seem. The analysis of this is more necessary and more difficult of all kinds. 'Phis institution should analyze its own instruments of
than ever. analysis; For example, this concept of censorship (a bit obsolete today) or
48 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA Vacant Chair 49

that concept of legitimation (of non- or delegitimation) that has taken con flicts surrounding religion, censorship in the service of the Catholic
its displaced relay and that, having very precise origins in the history of Church, or in the famous case of Calvinist censorship in Geneva), cen-
ciological and political thought (for example, in the writings of Max sors hip was, above all, a matter of the church. This fact always presup-
ber), should include, in its very conceptual structure, some limits and th poses a theologico-political power, an organic solidarity between the
its own censoring effects (what is the "legitimacy" of the concept of 1 Church and the State. It is thus still a question of censorship as a State in-
imation?). These concepts of censorship or of legitimation involve th stitu t oon n. public force at its disposal and working through public
retical and practical obstacles precisely because of the field into which ss' ions are named, known, centralized. University experts, es-
it,‘-ii i ti
acts. Commissions
have been imported. One can say this a priori and without thereby coat: peel' ally from theology faculties, have always played an essential role in
,

pletely disqualifying them. The field is simply no longer our own. It is i n this. Directly or indirectly, the university has always been involved in the
order to begin such a task, very modestly and in a completely preliminar y d e finition and formation of qualifications for the professions, in evalua-
fashion, that I believe it is necessary to return to the constitution of thi s tions, the granting or refusal of imprimatur, in the seizure or prohibition
philosophical concept of censorship in Kant. of hooks as they are imported, and so forth.
I will remind you, then, of the essential features of this concept. The One could interpret all of Kantian politics, that politics implicitly or ex-
possibility of censorship—its necessity also and its legitimacy—appears plicitly implemented by the critical enterprise, through the three great
in that place where an institution simultaneously intervenes and assures Critiques, as a political enterprise whose aim is to take note and delimit: to
the mediation between pure reason (here in its highest form, pure prac- take note of a censoring power—and of a legitimacy of State reason as a
tical reason) and the disposal of force, force at the disposal of the State. censoring reason. the power of censorship—but also to delimit this
One should not even say that the institution uses censorship or is sub- power; not by opposing it with a counterpower, but a sort of nonpower,
jected to censorship: in truth, one cannot construct the concept of the of reason heterogeneous to power. This would be that of pure reason, or,
institution without inscribing in it the censoring function. The pure laws from the point of view of its institutional translation, that of the Faculty
of practical reason should only constrain insofar as they are honored of Philosophy. No doubt, Kant wants this faculty to have, under certain
through a respect given freely. Since the sublimity of moral law "shrinks" conditions, the right to censor at its disposal (and he uses the word "cen-
in the hands of man, respect must be imposed from the outside, by "co- sorship" in The Conflict of the Faculties); but, since he always insists that
ercive laws" (Religion 7). These laws thus depend on the finitude and the the Faculty of Philosophy should not have any executive power at its dis-
fallibility of man. And it is precisely concerning the subject of evil, the posal and should never be able to give orders, this amounts to refusing it
possibility of a "radical evil," that the question of the university will reap- the right to censor that is inseparable, in its very concept, from the power
pear along with that of censorship, in an acute, indeed aporetic, form. If to censor, from force ( Gewalt
we had the right to give in to the facility of such shortcuts, we could say This is what we will attempt to analyze from this point on. But we will
that without the principle of evil in man, there would be no university. have to narrow our focus to sharpen the analysis. We will not deal directly
Such a statement would not he false, but it is not a good idea to g o so with all of the problems enveloped in this matter, whether it he a question
quickly. of reasond faith,
:nth, or of practical reason and religion, of politics and his-
The Kantian definition of censorship is simple: a critique that has force tory, and above all of judgment in general; for the entire politics of cen-
(Gewalt) at its disposal. Pure force in itself does not censor and, moreover , sorship, every critique of censorship, is a critique of judgment. Censorship
would not apply to discourses or texts in general. Nor does a critique is a judgment. It presupposes a tribunal, laws, a code. Since we are speak-
without power censor. Evoking force, Kant is obviously thinking of a po -
ing of reason and censorship, we could easily evoke the chain that links
ratio to accounting, calculation, censorship: censere
litical force linked to the power of the State. Gewalt is legal force. In th e means to evaluate [re-
majority' of cases where censorship was practiced as an official institution ,
puted, to Count, to compute. The "census," the "cens" is the enumeration
at least since the seventeenth century (with the development of print, the of citizens (reeenseMela, Census) and the evaluation of their wealth by the
50 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA Vacant Chair 51

censors (census takers). But let us leave this chain, even though it is ne c tion as 0 State power or in cooperation with a Stare apparatus. When
-esaryndigfct. resorts to what one would be a little hasty in terming the "meta-
;1 .
Kant intends to legitimize State reason as a censoring reason, supposed kh of c ensorship in order to describe the process of repression, this fig-
to have the right to censor in certain conditions and within certain limits. a figure insofar as psychological "censorship" does not proceed,
But he also wants to withdraw pure reason itself from all censoring power. p7 niv
:censorship
: : in the strict and literal sense, along the public thorough-
Pure reason should, by rights, exercise no censorship and should he exempt foe of institutions and the State, even if the State can play a fantasmatic
from all censorship. Now, this limit between reason that censors and rea- r ole in the scene. But this figure is "felicitous" only insofar as it appeals to
son foreign to censorship does not circumvent the university, but passes a principle of order, the rationality of a central organization with its dis-
right through it, right between the two classes of faculties: the higher fac- courses. its guardians/experts, and above all its representatives.
ulties (theology, law, medicine), linked to the State power they represent, C o nsequently, if censorship is indeed the business of reason, if there is
and the lower faculty (philosophy). No power should have a right of in- no censorship without reason, one cannot limit the question of repressive
spection klroit de regard] over the Faculty of Philosophy, as long as it is sat- or prohibitive krce to that of censorship. This would mean being satisfied
isfied with saying, not doing, with saving the truth without giving orders, with anal zing the web of State connections and ignoring all the proce-
with speaking within the university and not outside of it. dures, techniques, strategies, and ruses that prohibit or marginalize dis-
This strange limit gives rise to antagonisms that Kant wants to resolve course without necessarily being subjected to a process of State reason, or
into conflict, into solvable conflicts. He distinguishes precisely between without declaring itself publicly. As a public institution of the State, the
conflict and war: war is savage and natural; it implies no recourse to the university was in Kant's time and remains to a certain extent today a very
law, no institutional access to arbitration. Conflict, however, is a regu- sensitive place for tracing this limit between censoring and censored rea-
lated, foreseeable, and codifiable antagonism. It should regulate itself; the son. This is still a very sensitive area in "totalitarian" countries, where the
adversarial parties should he able to appear before an arbitrating body. most massive form of repression passes by way of State censorship. But in
Two remarks before proceeding further. Both concern this fact or this industrial societies with supposedly liberal and democratic regimes, even
principle, this principial fact: no censorship without reason. What does if State censorship is very reduced (I'm not saying nonexistent) for the sys-
that mean? tem in general, there are, on the other hand, mechanisms of prohibition,
suppression, repression, without censorship (strict° sewn): an increasing
First remark: There is no censorship without reason (and without giv multiplicity, refinement, and over-determination of marginalization or
reason) since censorship never presents itself as a brutal and mute repres- disqualification, delegitimation of certain discourses, certain practices,
sion, reducing to silence what a dominant force has no interest in allow- and certain "poems."
ing to be said, proffered, or propagated. In the strict sense Kant wants to They already existed, and were already very complex, in Kant's time,
delimit, censorship certainly makes use of force, and against a discourse, and Kant's silence about this would merit analysis. But today this overpo-
but always in the name of another discourse, according to the legal proce- tentialization defies all our instruments of analysis. It should mobilize nu-
dures that presuppose a right and institutions, experts, authorities, public merous systems of deciphering directed toward places as diverse and di-
acts, a State government, and reason. There is no private censorship, even versely structured as the laws of capital, the system of language, the
if censorship reduces speech to its condition of "private" manifestation. oticaech
etdin. ttional machine, its norms and procedures of control or reproduc-
One does not speak of censorship in the case of repressive acts or of sup- those f."noiw
technologies, particularly information technologies, all types of pal-
pression directed toward a private discourse (even less in the case of 'tics, particularly cultural and media politics (in the private and public do-
thoughts without discourse) and thus restricting instances of contraband , nains), publishing structures, and, finally, all the institutions, including
translation, substitution, or disguise. Censorship only exists where there is "physical and psychological" health, without neglecting to cross
all
a public domain, with state-like centralization. The church can also func- of the systems and subjects that are inscribed or produced in them,
5z TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA Vacant Chair 53

with the over-determined complexity of their bin-psychic, idiosyncrati c, censorship is only accessible to the philosopher, to the Faculty of Philos°-
etc., functioning. Now, even supposing that one mastered the system of ,!. Thi s "lower" faculty represents the place of pure reason, and in ess-
pn
these systems and that one made the general diagram of this appear on a coo: as well as by contract, it has no power. In a moment, we will ask
giant computer, it would still be necessary to be able to ask it the follow_ (no-se lves quite simply if it takes place, if it has a place, and if the philoso-
ing question: why for example does such and such a sentence, whatever it p her himself takes place. The three higher faculties all have a specific in-
he, remain forbidden? Why can't it he uttered? That such a question c an radical evil. But all three fail to understand it, because they
be asked, that this forbidden sentence can he said or felt as forbidden, pre-; tdiXciciaetelZi::fby conceiving of this evil as simply "hereditary": hereditary
supposes a lapse, however slight or furtive, in some area of the system, 0 disease for the Faculty of Medicine, inherited debt for the Faculty of Law,
the organigram of prohibition. The latter includes within it the principl e and inherited sin for the Faculty of Theology.i
of disturbance, the force or deconstructive counterforce that permits th e V.Pc must take up this demonstration again, as it is presented a little ear-
utterance and even the deciphering of the forbidden sentence. Otherwise li er, at the beginning of book one of Religion within the Limits of Reason
it could not even "censor." The censors know, in one way or another, what • Alone ('Concerning the Indwelling of the Evil Principle with the Good, or,
they are talking about when they say one must not talk about it. on r he Radical Evil [das radiaile Bike] in Human Nature"). The problem
Second Remark. No censorship without reason, we said. This is true in had already been formulated, in terms of authority and competence, in the
another sense. Within or beyond that which can link the possibility of preface to the second edition, just before this chapter. Kant reiterates what
reason to that of censorship (technical calculation and enforced examina- he had said in the first preface, that is, that what he was undertaking was
tion, by force, of that which must and must not be uttered), Kant wants by right (o it modem Recht) the task of the scholar, of the researcher in reli-
to give the reason for censorship in a discourse on the University. He wants gious theory, the task of one who studies religion from a philosophical
to speak the truth about censorship from the stance of reason. In doing point of view. By devoting himself to this research, this scholar in no way
and saying this, he would like to protect reason itself from censorship. encroaches upon "the exclusive rights" (in die ausschlief7ichen Racine) of the
How so? biblical theologian. who is competent in positive religion, historically re-
We have seen that Kant legitimizes censorship. He rationalizes the ne- vealed by the Scriptures: "Since then I found this assertion made in the
cessity for it. He constructs, as he does elsewhere, a schema of pure a pri- Moral (Part 1, pp. 5—ii) of the late Michaelis, a man well versed in both de-
ori rationality in order to justify a state of fact. in this case the fact of the partments. and applied throughout his entire work, and the higher faculty
State. He had made the same gesture to justify the division of the univer- did not find therein anything prejudicial to their rights" (Religion tz). This
sity into higher and lower "classes." Kant therefore justifies censorship in juridical vocabulary gives an indication of the fact that these philosophical
reason, censorship as an armed critique, as it were, the critique supported questions concerning the tribunal of reason should be settled according to
by police. Now, what is the essential argument of this justification? ThO a code and before legitimate authorities.
fallibility of man. And who can understand the evil in man, who can give This division of rights and authorities presupposes the establishment of
the reason for it? Who can speak the meaning and truth of it? Who can a border, of a line, or of a pure and decidable limit. Kant had just pro-
therefore speak of the meaning, the truth, the possibility and the necessity, posed a topological figure to represent this limit. It deserves our consider-
the very foundation of censorship? The question "who?" very quickly be- ation for a moment. It proposes a definition of the philosopher as the
teacher of pure reason" ( refiner Vernunfilehrer), and it prefigures or con-
comes "what fatuity?": what expert, which corporation of experts, which
competent authority in the university? This cannot come down to the figures the singular place of the department of philosophy in the Kantian
universit y.
members of the higher faculties, dependents of the State, subjected to Its
authority and thus to the power of censorship. Neither the theologian ,
While explaining the title of his hook, Religion within the Limits ofRea-
qw Alone. Kant remarks that revelation (Offenbarung) in general can in-
nor the jurist, nor the doctor can think evil and have access to the very
k It'd, within it a pure religion of reason (refine Verminfinligion), a religion
meaning of the censorship that, nevertheless, they represent. The truth of

54 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA Vacant Chair 55

according to reason alone. This rational religion does not include the hi s .. c i rc l e of biblical theology, For example, and, by the same token, is able
TbC
torical element of revelation; there is nothing historical about it. However, to 01 141R:11(1d in his vision and his critical inspection the entire field of
compatibility, indeed harmony. between the two religions, the ration a l know ledge. He has two places: a circumscribed place and a non-place that
and the historical, remains thinkable. This is the whole intent and the en- is a l so a panopcical ubiquity. This topology defines the jurisdictional pow-
tire enigmatic difficulty of the book. These two revelations or two space s , as . The higher faculties "must put up with the objections and doubts it
the natural and the historical, form two "spheres" or "circles" (Kant mak es [the Faculty of Philosophy] brings forward in public:" ( Conflict 45).
use of both words a few sentences apart) that are not exterior to each 3. This philosopher is called "the teacher of pure reason." This is not an
other, but one inscribed within the other, concentric. Around the sam e insignificant detail. The philosopher is not simply situated as an individ-
center, the inside circle is that of revealed or historical religion. while ubject (one speaks of the place °Plc philosopher and not only of the
ual s
outside circle is that of rational religion. At that moment, instead of situ- p l ace of philosophy and pure reason), but also as a teaching subject in an
ating philosophy, it is the philosopher whom Kant inscribes in the wider institution. a competent subject and civil servant spreading a doctrine: he
circle. He calls the philosopher "the reacher of pure reason." i s a "Dozent," someone who reaches disciples and whose qualifications arc
This signifies at least three things: recognized by the State. He has a status, which is no longer the status that
T. The teacher of philosophy is outside of the religious domain, at least dominated in philosophy before Kant. Neither Descartes, nor Spinoza,
outside of the historical domain of positive religion. Positive religion seems nor Lcihniz, nor Hume, nor any of the philosophers of the eighteenth
in certain respects not to be within his official competence. 1 say "in certain century had such a status. Between the formulation of the Principle of
respects," since it seems to he this way. Sufficient Reason by Leihniz and the Kantian Critiques, there is a sort of
a. But. from another point of view. the philosopher, like the Faculty of becoming-institution, more exactly, a becoming-state-institution of rea-
Philosophy, can be acquainted with the entire field of the other faculties, son, a becoming-facultv of reason.
including the Faculty of Theology in its historical knowledge; for the Fac- - The topological structure of this teaching institution in the Kantian
ult• of Philosophy simultaneously covers the field of knowledge as histor- discourse has an essential relation with the architectonics of pure reason.
ical knowledge in its entirety (history is part of the Faculty of Philosophy) Pure reason, we know, is set out at the end of the Critique of Purr Reason.
and all fields concerned with truth. Kant says this explicitly in The Con- This is a famous but seldom examined chapter, at least from the point of
flict of the Faculties: view of the teaching institution. In this respect, the chapter is crucial and
original. It is singular in that it describes the architectonics of pure reason
Now the Faculty of Philosophy consists of two departments: a department of
in its essential relation to the discipline. This is a new development in his-
historical knou4edge (including history, geography, philology and humanities,
tory. This chapter is undoubtedly well known in French Iycées, since parrs
along with all the empirical knowledge contained in the natural sciences). and
of it are often extracted to he used as subjects on the French baccalaureat,
a department ofpure national knowledge (pun: mat h ematics and pure philoso-
ph y, the metaphysics of nature and of morals). And it also studies the relation such as the famous, "one does not learn philosophy, one can only learn to
Philosophize" (nurphi/osophieren irriren). The very familiarity of this sen-
of these two divisions of learning to each other. It therefore extends to all parts
reenc
u i e often conceals the dense and difficult context that determines it and
of human knowledge (including, from a historical viewpoint, the teachings of
d
gives it meaning.
the higher faculties), though there are sonic parts (namely the distinctive
teachings and precepts of the higher Faculties) which it does not treat as its It is a question of a reachin,, of the teaching of pure reason. Kant
own content. but as objects it will examine and criticize for the benefit of the nustrates that pure reason can he taught, which is not self-evident.
sciences. The Faculty of Philosophy can. therefore, lay claim to any teaching• Arid he teaches us this teaching or this original discipline. What is unique
in order to test its truth. The government cannot forbid it to do this without i
thou discipline
r tms is that in a certain way one reaches it without learn-
acting against its own proper and essential purposes. (Conflict 45) ing it, This reaching is a non teaching. Reason is not learned in the man-
-

lier in whi c h one learns something, in which one learns historical content.
The teacher of pure reason is simultaneously located in a department. in
Let us not forget that this famous and often quoted sentence occurs twice
the exterior space of the larger circle, of the circle that remains exterior to
¶6 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA Wicant Chair 57

in the same chapter. And the emphasis shifts From one occurrence to the
siic , In fact. it plays a fundamental role in Kant. but also in the later tra-
other. One of them tells us:
dition of this p hil oso phi ca l di scourse on th e university, in particular that
Mathematics, therefore, alone of all the sciences (a priori) arising from reaso n surrounding the Founding of the University of Berlin. particularly in
[those that will he taught in the Faculty of Philosophy next to the historical More than a theme, it is a figural schema.
disciplines that are learned because they are historical], can he learned; phi_ We see it crossed with, added to, or supplemented by the organic, in-
losophy can never be learned, save only in historical fashion; as regards what d ee d biological. figure of the living organism as the totality of
concerns reason, we can at most learn to philosophize' o f the (natural) seed from which an academic institution develops. We
also see t he properly architectonic or architectural figure of the institution
One can certainly learn philosophy, but not philosophically, only his-
as founded and structured edifice, constructed as an artifact. Here, then,
torically. Take a look at the short final chapter, which follows this one,
a re the three themes: I) The philosopher, teacher of reason, legislator and
"The History of Pure Reason"; it is a small manual on the history of phi- not artist; 2) this legislator as subject nowhere to he found and as non-
losophy or on human reason in a matter that has, up until now, needlessly
place of the constructed institution or of the organism developed around
occupied our "curiosity" and has left edifices in ruins. It is a sort of pre- him, the non-place ruling the topology; 3) the double figure of a bio-
history of the childhood of philosophy about which Kant claims only to
a rchitectural totality, nature and artifact, a rationality that can be called,
be casting a glance from a transcendental point of view, that is, from the in a manner that is hardly anachronistic, bio-technological.
point of view of pure reason. Kant tells us that architectonics is the art of systems (die Kunst der Sys-
2. The philosopher, who teaches without learning, who teaches without
teme). A system is that which converts vulgar knowledge into science. This
teaching anything at all, teaches an action, not a content. Nevertheless, he also defines the essential function of reason: to go beyond the aggregate,
is a teacher (Lehrer, maitre) and not an artist (Iiiinstler), contrary to what beyond rhapsody, to form the organized whole, and to give it a form
one might have thought; for one might consider someone who teaches (Bild). One thus understands the necessity of the organicist "metaphor, "
how to practice the philosophical act, rather than Philosophy' itself, to be at least if it is a metaphor. Reason adds no content; it organizes a system,
an artist. But: coordinates and provides the organic form; it totalizes according to an in-
(a) This Lehrer, this magister, is a legislator of reason. His mastery or his ternal principle. Architectonics, the art of the system, is nothing other
magisteriality has an essential relation to right and to the law. than the theory of the "scientificity" of our knowledge, since this scien-
(b) This teacher of truth does not, in truth, exist. He is nowhere to be tificiry depends on systemic organicity. All of this takes place—and this
found; he does not take place; he is not present, there (da); there is no Da- figure is no less significant than the others—"under the government of
sein of this teacher-philosopher. As a result: the university, and within it ogireason,"
r.leeeflats
arihsi:o
ieh).ii
I e the regime and the legislation of reason (timer der
the Faculty of Philosophy that gives it its meaning and its truth, consti- Regierung derVernunfi). The philosophy teacher will he a legislator of hu-
tutes an institutional place for a teacher of pure reason who in truth re- man reason (Gesetzgeber der menschlichen Vernunfi) and not an artist of
mains an ideal and never takes place anywhere. Which amounts to saying :::fisiteiinrstri/er).
ai To speak of the regime, government, or regency
that the university itself does not take place: presently. to:l ure:7 is important when considering all of the following concepts to-
How does one arrive at this proposition? How do the university, teach- the ir relation to one another: the university, the Faculty
ing, and the Faculty of Philosophy constitute institutional places allowing Ph ilos ophy., and State power. This is also a system of regulated rela -

a teaching without teaching for a teacher of pure reason who in fist does ips Royal power will (should) he inspired by reason, by the gov -

not exist and is nowhere to be found (after da er selbst doch nitgend)? How ernment of reason, in order to rule the university. It would he in its inter -

can one think this corporate body without a body proper? eSt e git
political government to the government of reason. This
We will reconstruct the path that leads to this singular proposition. But iltetirvs eini.d. ea, as idea of reason, inspires all of the Kantian
on the way we will encounter a third theme that I would like to empha- t
Politics th
58 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA Vacant Chair 59

The system unifies the organization of various fields of knowledge un- icheimis , with a concern for empirical profitability, without referring to an
der one Idea (in the Kantian sense). The fact that the whole does not al- d, a and without rational architectonics. But what we call science, says
low itself to be thought as Idea (in the Kantian sense, that is, in the sen se Kant , cannot he founded technically, that is, by depending on resem-
of a certain inaccessibility), as a rational concept of the farm of the whol e, bl an ces or analogies of diverse elements, or indeed because of the contin-
explains indirectly but surely that the teacher of pure reason, the subjec- gent a pplications that can be made of science. What today is termed, par-
tive correlate of this idea, is in fact just as inaccessible as it, and theref ore r i et darh• in France, the end-orientation [finalisation] of research gives rise
as indispensable as he is nowhere to be found. Moreover, the fact that this to institutional constructions regulated by profitable applications, and
idea is also that of an organic whole explains that this organic whole, i n t h e refore. Kant would say, by technical, not architectonic, schemas. This
this case knowledge itself, grows like an animal, from the inside and not distinction between the technical [le technique] and architectonics thus
by the mechanical addition of parts: see ms to cover, to a large extent, the distinction between end-oriented Lti-
naliseel research and "basic" Vondamentald research. This does not mean
The whole is thus an organised unity (articulatio), and not an aggregate [ csac-
t h a t such a distinction does nor reach its limit at a certain point." If we
crvatio). It may grow from within [innerlichl (per intussusteptionen), but nor
can distinguish between an idea of knowledge and a project of technical
by external addition (per appositionem). It is thus like an animal body [tele ein•
utilization, we should continue to plan institutions that conform to an
rierischer Kiirperj, the growth of which is not by the addition of a new mem;
idea of reason. The Heideggerian interpretation of the Principle ()Reason
bet, bur by the rendering of each member, without change of proportion'
stronger and more effective for its purposes. (Critique of Pure Ream 653 - 65 puts this principle on the same side as modern technics [ la technique]: it
amounts, then, to limiting, if not contesting, the pertinence of Kant's dis-
With this remark, the discourse of the third Critique on organic purpo- tinction between the technical and architectonics. It is true that, as inter-
siveness [fina/it'] and on the category of the totality of the living being is preted by Heidegger, a certain Beyond-the-Reason-Principle can always
already implied in this rhetoric (and it is more than a rhetoric) of the Cri- find itself reoriented toward an end. This would require recasting the en-
tique of Pure Reason, particularly in its architectonics. tire problematic, including the "idea" of problem, of science, of research,
Architectonics plays a specific, acute, and irreplaceable role in rheilll of episreme, and of idea. I will not undertake this here.
process of this development, in the fulfillment of the idea. One cannot The architectonic schema contains the outline of the whole and of its
think the university institution, as an institution of reason and place of division into parts. This outline, the only one given, Kant calls a mono-
the growth of rational science, without this role of architectonics. No uni- gram: an elliptic, enveloped signature, a kind of initial one needs in order
versity architecture without architectonics. to begin to establish a science and thus its institution. An initial outline,
The fulfillment of the idea in fact presupposes what Kant calls a schema an initial outlined, for the idea of science dwells within reason like a seed
(Schema), a figure, a diversity, and a disposition of parts which is essential (Keim). All of the parts of a kind of embryo are surrounded and hidden,
to the whole and can be determined a priori, according to the "principle inaccessible, and barely recognizable when studied under a microscope.
of purpose" (ores dem Prinzip des Zwecks). One sets our from a purpose, as There is no radiography, no echography, for the entrails of reason. Further
in every organic totality. When this schema does not proceed from the on, Kant compares systems to worms (Gewiirme) that seem to have a gen-
purpose as the main purpose (Hauptzu'eck) of reason, when this schema eratio equivoca and proceed from a simple collection of united concepts.
remains empirical and open to unforeseeable accidents, it only provides a At first they seem to he truncated, but with time they complete them-

"technical," and riot an architectonic, unity. The choice of words here is selvves
es
n i according to their predestined form, which the schema has in-
significant. "Technical," here, signifies the order of knowledge as "know- scribed in the monogram of reason. Once the organism has developed, all
th e
how"; this "know-how" arranges, without referring to principles, a multi-. embers of the system appear. The general architectonics of human
plicity of contents in the contingent order in which they present them- r eason, the system of knowledge of which it is the monogram, can he out-
, ant says,
selves. One can always construct institutions according to technical and this outline today completes the work of the critique
6o TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA Vacant Chair 61

of pure reason. Such an outline proceeds from collected materials or Fr cou rse to pure sensibility). As we have just seen, raking its mode of acqui-
the ruin of ancient, fallen edifices. The outline is a reconstruction: i n to consideration, an objectively philosophical knowledge can he
i h storical. Such is the case with schoolchildren when they
We shall content ourselves here with the completion of our task, nam e '
merely to outline the architectonic of all knowledge arising from pure retest
ivenmorize contents, which can be philosophical systems; and
5e0iatbirinenc:)r
s°
I
and in doing so we shall begin from the point at which the common root Id,
schoolchildren can be schoolchildren at any age. According to Kant at
allgemeine Wierzell of our Faculty of knowledge divides and throws out two throughout one's life one can retain a historical, that is, a scholastic
stems, one of which is reason. By reason here I understand the whole hi gh er rlect rt ;o n w ith philosophy, which is therefore no more than a history of
faculty of knowledge and am therefore contrasting the rational with the p hilosophy or a philosophical doxography.
pirical. (Critique of Pure Reason 6) This distinction between the scholastic-historical and the rational is
valid for philosophy, but not for mathematics. Mathematics can be
At this very moment, the question of learning, the question of didactics known rationally and learned at the same time. The teacher of mathe-
and of the discipline as a question of architectonics, is posed. If one disre., matics cannot draw his knowledge from anything but pure (sensible) in-
gards the very content of knowledge and its object, knowledge a parte sub. tuition, from the pure receptivity of the given. Moreover, it is for this rea-
jecti is either rational or historical. And it is precisely from this subjective . son that the teacher of mathematics can neither make an error nor remain
side of knowledge that the question of the acquisition of knowledge and essentially in a state of illusion. Among all the rational sciences only math-
thus of the teaching institution is posed. In this subjective process, know', ematics can be learned, learned rationally. Philosophy can only be learned
edge will he called historical when it proceeds from the given (cognitio e:c In the historical mode: "As regards what concerns reason, we can at most
datis). It will be called rational when it begins where it must begin, i.e., learn to philosophize" (Critique of Pure Reason 657).
with principles, ex principiis. A given knowledge is always historical, The system of all philosophical knowledge: this is what is called Philos-
whether one learns it by immediate experience or thanks to a narrative, ophy.'" It is the mere idea of a possible science; nowhere is this idea given
the account of a discourse. The same object can be known rationally or in concrero. One can thus only find oneself on the path toward it. One is
historically (in the mode of doxographical narrative, for example). Even a never in possession of Philosophy, the teacher of pure reason no more so
philosophical system, that of Wolff, for example, can be learned histori- than anyone else. He is the teacher of philosophizing, not of philosophy.
cally. One can know everything about it, up to the details of its articula- Here we can understand the second occurrence of the phrase "man kann
tions, but, since the subjective relation with the system is of a historical nut philosophieren lernen" ("one can only learn to philosophize" [Cri-
mode, forgetting an element of it or disputing a simple definition of it is tique °Mere Reason 657]). This time, the emphasis is on learning (lernen),
enough to make one incapable of reproducing that definition or of find- while in the first occurrence it was on philosophizing (philosophieren): i.)
ing another one. There is, then, a simple historical imitation of reason as One cannot learn philosophy, one can learn only to philosophize. a.) One
memory or as mnemotechnics. One rediscovers here a rigorously Leibniv can only learn to philosophize (only learn: for philosophy itself is inacces-
ian motif:" Historical knowledge proceeds from a foreign reason (nab sible). This is what the progression from one statement to the other would
fremder Vernu0)."1'he power of imitation
(das nachbildende Vernidgen) he. The statements remain the same, with the exception of the underlin-
not the power of production or invention (das erzeugende VermOgen). ing, which emphasizes the verb philosophieren in the first. 1.) One can only
Here, a supplementary distinction arises, the only one from which learn to philosophize (nur philosophieren), and not philosophy. 2..) One can
can rigorously understand the sentence "one cannot learn philosophy, 0 0 ' only learn to philosophize, approach philosophy
without ever possessing
can only learn to philosophize." This distinction runs between two gigs it; thus without really philosophizing with it. It is a question of transla-
of rational knowledge: the philosophical, which operates by pure concepts , '•ion: in French, the syntactic displacement of the "ne . . . que" (one can
mathematical, which presupposes the construction of concepts learn
and the orr l p : one can only learn ... Ion ne pent apprendre Tie, on ne
(and therefore, in the Kantian sense of the word "construction," the re•. Peut quapprendre]) allows one to mark the difference clearly. Since in
62 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA Vacant Chair 63

German [he sentence retains the same syntax, philosophieren had to be if it was necessary to recall that the ideal philosopher is a legislator and
derlined ("to philosophize") in the first statement—and the ambiguity nut artist, it is because not everyone who deals with reason is a legisla-
mains. It is not out of the question that these two occurrences retained tor. Th e m athematician, the physicist, and even the logician are only
most the same meaning for Kant. art i s ts of reason. They have instruments and are themselves instruments
This same statement, which is repeated, indeed displaced, and, in any the hands of he who is their teacher because he knows the essential ends
in
philosophy eludes teachin
case, accented differently, clearly shows that o f human reason: and this is the philosopher, who is nowhere to he found.
while philosophizing requires it, requires endlessly and only reaching. T B ut the idea of his legislation is found everywhere in man's reason.
essence of philosophy excludes teaching; the essence of philosophizing d Nowhere. everywhere: how to order this topology? How to translate it
mands it. into an institution? We will see how this paradox unfolds when, in the
It would be enough, if one might say so, to draw the institutional co nal-11c of this very logic. Schelling criticizes The Conflict of the Faculties.
sequences from this. They result from this double bind that knots it Kant is wrong to wish there were something like a specialized institutional
around the sublime body of the teacher of philosophizing, of his evident plaa department for philosophy. Since philosophy is everywhere, one
and unavoidable absence. For in his very withdrawal, he remains un- trusttnot reserve a place for it. Above all, one must not assign it a place.
avoidable. He haunts the scene more than he dominates it; he dominates s'e' is the teacher (maitre]—and he is absent. But he has a mistress—
it, indeed, as would a phantom. One could say that he fascinates and se- m etaphysics. Kant presents metaphysics as a cherished lover (Geliebte) to
duces, if these connotations were not too closely tied to sensibility whom one always returns after quarrelling. This teacher's mistress
imagination: For reason should break the charm. [maitresse du maitre] is also a censor: in the department or in the (lower)
Kant says, in short, that there is no philosophy; there is no philosoph Faculty of Philosophy. She is, therefore, a censor without public force.
There is the idea of philosophy, there is philosophizing; there arc subj Perhaps this censor exercises her censorship against the censorship of the
who can learn to philosophize, to learn it from others, and to teach it to State. Censorship against censorship, censorship of reason, serving and
others: there are teachers, disciples, institutions, rights, duties, and pow- not opposing reason.
ers for this; but there is no philosopher, nor philosophy. Nothing of the But, by defining this rational metaphysics as Censoramt, one acknowl-
present, there, here. Saying "Here I am, me the philosopher, I
sort is ever edges a censoring structure of reason.
am a philosopher" [ je philosophe, je suis philosophe] is not merely the arro- The debate thus remains that of the best censorship. For a teacher, or
gant manifestation of a "braggart" (ruhmredig); it is to understand noth- for a finite being, there is never any lifting of censorship, only a strategic
ing of the difference between an ideal type (Urbild) and an individual ex- calculation: censorship against censorship. Is this strategy an art?
ample. The ideal type of the philosopher as person corresponds to the —Translated by Barbara Havercrof
cosmic concept, or, put better, the world concept (Weltbegrijf) of philoso-
phy (conceptus cosmicus). This concept is opposed to the concepttu scolasti-
cus, which is that of a system of knowledge as science, considered uniquely
in its systematic unity and logical perfection. The world concept is used as
a foundation of the naming of the philosopher, especially when he is per -
sonified and represented as a model ( Urbild) in the ideal of the philoso-
pher. We must recall at this point that this ideal philosopher is not an
artist of reason ( Vernunfikiinstler), but the legislator (Gesetzgeber) of hu-
man reason. His object of study is philosophy as teleologia rationis hie
manae, the knowledge of the essential ends of human reason. Here, reason
is characterized in its essence as being proper to man, animal rationale.
 Theology of Translation 65

Theology of Translation iwerlinear version and greatly facilitates the comprehension of the original: by
thi , we find ourselves in a way involuntarily led hack to the primitive text, and
th us the circle is finally completed according to which the translation from the
fore ign to the native, from the known to the unknown, is carried out. 3

will not speak directly about this theological dimension. This title,
I
...Theology of Translation," refers to another historical grouping, to a pre-
m „d c rn c onfiguration that, even as it presupposes and contains within it-
se lf the "Lutheran moment, so to speak (as does
" every concept of transla-
t i on ), no less conserves a certain originality, that of a family of events that
arc irreducible in the history of translation, of its problematics and its
p racti ce .
What external and conventional indicators are used to designate this
fa mily of events? Roughly speaking, what we call German Romanticism,
Theology of translation: such a title should start me on a necessary and,
which was at once a moment of intense, restless, tortured, fascinated re-
on the whole, fairly welt-known path. 'I - he history and problematics o
flection on translation, its possibility, its necessity, its meaning for German
translation, in Europe, were very early on established on the ground, in
language and literatureanda moment when a certain thinking about Bil-
fact on the very body or corpus, of holy Scripture. Natural languages were
dung, Einbildung. and all the modifications of bilden are inseparable from
fixed, if it can be put this way, rooted or re-rooted, in the very event of the
what one could call precisely the imperative of translation, the task of the
Bible's translation. For the sake of economy, I will mention only the
translator, the duty-to-translate [devoir-traduire]. I have left the words
proper name of Luther; this emblem will suffice. Starting with this event
bilden. Bildung and their entire family in their language of origin be-
or typical series of events, one could follow what has become in Europe o
cause they arc themselves challenges to translation. Image, form, formation,
translation, the discourse on translation, the practice of translation. Other
culture are so many inadequate approximations, first of all because they
events, other transformations have no doubt affected the structure. Bu
belong to different semantic roots.
something of this essential relation to sacred writing seems to remain in-
Concerning this configuration of Bi/dung and Ubersetzung (a word that
effaceable in it—and there is nothing accidental in that. I have tried to
can hardly be translated by translation without immediately losing the en-
show this elsewhere in an essay on Benjamin's "The Task of the Transla-
tire positional dimension of setzen [in iibersetzen]), I will begin by referring
tor."' I will not dwell on this here but will simply bring together the con- totio
but hen to fine hook by Antoine Berman, L'epreuve tie fetranger: culture
clusion of "The Task of the Translator" and a certain passage from n traduetion dans l'Allemagne romantique. 1 In a kind of homage to this
et
Goethe's West-Eastern Divan. In the last sentence of his text, Benjamin
ry contri-
book, what I will do here is provide perhaps a little supplementary
speaks of the interlinear version (of the Bible) as the Urhild, the prototyp-
it, on the subject, moreover, of the structure of supp/ementarity
ical ideal, the originary image or form of translation. (I prefer to retain the i translation. This modest contribution will concern, first, a certain onto-
German word Urbild here, for throughout the lecture I will be speaking dimension, a problematics of onto theology that is located at
-

of Bild, bilden. Bildung.) Now here is what Goethe says, after having dis - the founding of a certain concept of translation. Berman does not speak of
tinguished, like jakohson,' though in a completely different sense, three
this. I will also try to make visible the link between this onto-theological
kinds, in fact three epochs, of translation:
dimension and speculation in that period on the university institution. Fi-
But the reason for which we have called the third period the last, this is what 'laity, to restrict my analysis and so as not to remain in generalities or meta-
textual ill usions, I will approach a text and author Berman barely names
we are going to demonstrate in just a few words. A translation that aims at be-
ing identified with the original tends to come close in the final account to the a nd ahour whom, in any case, he says almost nothing: Schelling.

64
66 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA Theology of Translation 67

In effect, the movement of leaving and returning to itself of Spirit, as it i s quite simply, thinking. For all the dissociations of Kantian
th e re is also ,
tined by Schelling and Hegel, but also by F. Schlegel, as we have seen, crit i que must evidently allow themselves to he thought. They can do so
the speculative nliffmuktion of the law of classical Bildung What is one's lv from the standpoint of that which makes dissociation itself thinkable
ooh,
gains access to itself only by experience, namely the experience of the fo re n poss ible, namely an originary unity. For Schelling and according to a
z58-59)
move ment shared by everything that will he referred to as post-Kantian
German Idealism, one must start from that from which we will have had to
To this "law of classical Bildungr that would dominate the thinking
start in order to think di ssociation: originary unity. And if we start from this,
translation, roughly from Goethe to Hegel, passing by way of Schellin g,
t hen a ll differences will only be translations (not necessarily in a linguistic
Berman opposes the thinking of Hiilderlin, who would "explode the sin,.
plicity of the schema of Bildung." sense) of the same, which is projected or reflected in different categories.
That is what thinking philosophy is: knowing how to start from that from
If I have decided to speak to you about Schelling, it is also for anoth er
reason that I will not venture to call contingent. This paper on "liter ary w hich knowledge will have started, to rake note of this originary knowl-
edge presupposed by all critical delimitation. This move is no longer pre-
translation" that will speak less about translation and literature "properly
critical: it claims to be post-critical, critique of critique. Schelling's Fourth
speaking - than about a certain Schellingian philosophy of literary transla-
Le cture clarifies it in a theory of "reflexive" or "reflecting" translation. It
tion, a certain onto-theological claim to found poetic translation, this pa-
concerns the study of the pure rational sciences, mathematics and philos-
per is also the concluding session of the course that I gave right here on
ophy. Kant separates these in The conflict of the Faculties. He explains that
"Languages and Institutions of Philosophy" You will therefore recognize
pure mathematics, unlike pure philosophy (the metaphysics of morals and
all the traces of the compromise that I am passing along between that
the metaphysics of nature), constructs its pure sensible object. This con-
seminar and this colloquium. The last session concerned a certain Kant-
struction has no meaning in pure philosophy. Schelling calls this dissoci-
ian apparatus of the philosophy of the university, of philosophy in the
ation into question again, from the standpoint of the unity of originary
university, and it anticipated Schelling's critique of the Kantian proposi-
knowledge, which precedes the opposition of the sensible and the intelli-
tion. This proposition is indeed called into question again by Schelling in
gible. He starts from intellectual intuition. Not that he identifies mathe-
his 1803 Lectures On the Method of University Studies.' What Schelling re-
matics and philosophy, but he speaks of their "resemblance." This resem-
proaches in the Kantian construction and deduction of the university
blance makes possible the translation of the one into the other, for they
structure (in particular the two classes of faculties, the higher—theology,
are both founded upon the identity of the general and the particular. The
law, medicine—tied to the power of the State they represent, and the
universal
all triangles, is one with the particular triangle that is in turn taken
lower, that of philosophy, over which the ruling power has no right of
For being at once a unity and a totality, unitotality (Fin- and
censorship, so long as philosophy speaks about truth within the university)
Allheit) presented to intuition ( University 47 ). For philosophy, intuition is
is the one-sidedness of Kant's topological perspective, his "Einseitigkeit
reason: it is an intellectual intuition (intellektuelleAnschauung) that is one
(University 79).
with its object in originary knowledge (Urwissen) (University 49 }. Math-
From the standpoint of institutional architecture, this one-sidedness
ematics resembles philosophy. Its intuition is not immediate but rather
translates the one-sidedness of Kantian "critique" in its very principle. Ac-
only reflected (reflektierte). It belongs to the world of the reflected image
cording to Schelling, all the dissociations, the entire grid of critical linurs (
abgebildete Welt) and only manifests originary knowledge in its absolute
that chart the Kantian university institution (as it is described in The Cott -
iIdentity
d dnint
w iad in the firm of reflection (Reflex) (University 48 ). The analogical
flirt of the Faculties) only transpose the opposition of sensibility and un - translatio n between the two worlds that in fact are only one is assured by
derstanding, of understanding and reason, of sensible intuition and intel- the
sYmboi Mid) and this symholicity is developed in the play of Abbil-
lectual intuition, of intuitus derivatives and intuitus originarius. &IW O
Einbildung, of imaginative reproduction. Hence the complexity
the two there is of course the scheme of the imagination (Einbildungs -

of the relation to Kant, for this privilege extended to Einbildungskrafi

krafft). a sensitive place for the question of poetry and translation. Bu t
68 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA Theology of Translation 69

(imagination) also has a Kantian filiation. Hence also the essential role I only wanted to underline a paradox: the concept of fundamental
poetry and of poetic discourse in these lectures. Poetry is at the heart cchoice' is linked poetically to a natural language and resists translation.
philosophy; the poem is a philosopheme. The opposition to Kant testifi :n fact confirms Schelling's thesis, while at the same time ap-
treillilsurtihttiii
to the filiation of the Critique of Judgment, which Schelling read as a stu • „ to put it in question. In-Eins-Bildung, formation, putting into
peartne.
dent at Tiibingen, only a short time before Fichte (the object of his gr form and image, gathers together, to be sure, but this gathering together
admiration) and Goethe helped him get an appointment at Jena in 17 roduees unity. It is a poetic production, since it uni-forms without uni-
the very year Kant gathered the texts of the Conflict of the Faculties. V kin i-fin.me sans uniformiserj; it preserves the universal and the
Form iaing
shortly thereafter, as a young professor at Jena (where he stayed for o nly in the imprint that it produces. Whence, by virtue of this very
[num
five years), Schelling produced his Lectures on the Method of University cularity; its essential tie to a poetics and to a natural language. The in-
part i
pa
Studies. The argumentative strategy he uses to criticize Kant resembl es ternal essence of the absolute is an eternal In-Eins-Bildung that dissemi-

E
that of the third Critique (Hegel will not conceal that he makes an analo- profusion; its emanation (Ausihrg) traverses the world of phe-
gous move); he has recourse to the unity of the moments dissociated by through reason and the imagination (University 60. Philosophy
the two other Critiques. This unity is that of the imagination (Einbild- i e thrcoaun
el nl
ne:poetry be separated, therefore, an affirmation that Schelling
ungskraft) and of the work of art, which is its product. As Einbild- incessantly repeats; they should only be translated into one another, even
zingskrafi, which Schelling distinguishes from the Imagination (false fan- if the poetic (rooted in the particularity of a language) is the very site of
tasy),' the imagination always resolves a contradiction by proposing a the limit of the translatability that it nevertheless demands.
mediating, that is to say translating, scheme. This translation by Einbild- We find ourselves here in opposition to Kant on a path that he never-
ung is also the contract that links philosophy and art, specifically philo- theless opened. Kant opposes the teacher of pure reason, the legislating
sophical language and poetic language. Reason and imagination are one philosopher, to the artist and even to the rational artist. For Schelling,
and the same thing (cf. The Sixth Lecture), but the one "in the ideal" (irn there is an analogy between the two; the poetic is immanent in the philo-
Idealen) and the other in the real (im Realen) (University 61). Only if we sophical, and this is fraught with consequences: for philosophical "for-
remain at the one-sided point of view of understanding do we have any mation," for Bildung as the teaching, cultivation, and apprenticeship of
reason to be amazed at this identity or this analogy, this intertranslatabil- philosophy. This "formation" (Bildung) must be thought from the stand-
ity of the rational and the fantastic. If the imagination (Einbildungskrafi) point of In-Fins-Bildung, of the internal essence of the absolute, of the
is reason, it is because the internal essence of the absolute, and therefore of uni-formation of the uni-versal and the particular. The university must
originary knowledge, is In-Eins-Bildung. Therein lies the fundamental also be thought in the logic of uni-formation, which is also a poetics of
concept of these Lectures, and if it ensures the fundamental possibility of translation.
translation between the different categories (between the real and the Philosophy is the soul and life of knowledge inasmuch as knowledge
ideal, and therefore between sensible and intelligible contents, and there- has its end in itself: Schelling cannot find words harsh enough for those
fore, in languages, between the ideal semantic differences and the for- who wish to utilize knowledge, to "end-orient" [finalised it by making it
mal—signifying—so-called sensible differences), it itself resists transla - servp eu :s)t ,her ends than itself, or subject it to the demands of an "alimen-
tion. The fact that it belongs to the German language and to exploiting tary" professionalization. Nietzsche and Heidegger will do the same. As a
"livi ng science"
the multiple resources of the Bildung in In-Fins-Bildung remains a chal- (lebendige Wissenschafi), philosophy requires an "artistic
lenge. The French translation, uni-formation, apart from the fact that It (58). There is (es gibt), the Fifth Lecture tells us (in fine),"einen
deforms the French language, since the word is nonexistent, erases the re - Phil e,
osophischen Kunsttrieb, wie es einen poetischen gibs" (an artistic im-
course to the value of image that is precisely what marks the unity of the Pulse for philosophy, just as there is a poetical one). The "as" (wie) articu-
imagination (Einbildungskraft) and of reason, their corranslatabiliry. I am lates the analogy, the symbolic affinity, the passageway for a translation.
not taking the translators to task. Doubtless theirs is the best possible l 'his is why Schelling never makes a distinction between the philosophi-
70 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA Theology of Translation 71

cal content, the philosopheme, and the form of its presentation. E v hr i s a gift does not mean that each person possesses it without prac-
/ *sop
"new" philosophy, he says, has had to make a new "step" in form (u , properly artistic aspect of this philosophical science (Schelling
o ce•
ven ity58)• Corresponding to a new philosophy there has to be a form a l i n,
- "dial"tical art") no doubt cannot he learned, but one can practice
callS iC
ventiveness, a poetic originality, and therefore a provocation as much as a it (university 61). Lecture
4 (on mathematics and philosophy) specifies
challenge to translation. In this case there is a problem of philosophi cal ; hat if t he pure intuition of space and time is only "reflected" in the di-
translation, an internal and essential problem that could not have b een f the sensible to which mathematics refers, in philosophy inni-
mension o
posed for traditional philosophers, at least insofar as they did not li n k irior, i s purely and directly in reason. The person who does not possess
philosophical rationality, or philosophical semantics in general. to the p c,. hi s intuition cannot even understand what is said about it: it cannot even
t
eric body, to the "reality" of a Form and a language. This is Schelling's ori g. be translated for him (University 49). He may appear to understand the
inality: it is original (novel) to say that a philosophy can and must posse ss words but he is not thinking what the words say. He is prohibited from
originality, that formal originality is essential to it. that it is also a work finding a passageway between these two modes of understanding. Philo-
art. sophical intuition can therefore only be given (in the sense of a gift, a pre-
This originality distinguishes the philosopher from the mathematicia s ent), and that means that it is incapable of being given (this time in the
(and this explains why there is no problem of translation in mathemat- sense of being translated or given out by reaching). But this infinite philo-
ics; mathematics is by its very essence the immediate annulling or solu- sophical intuition has a negative condition: the consciousness of the
tion of translation). Like mathematicians, philosophers have a relation to inanity of all finite knowledge ( University v). This consciousness or this
the universal, to be sure, and are united in their science, but they have negative condition can let itself he deepened, clarified, cultivated, Formed,
the originality of being able to be original because they are capable of this elaborated in a Bildung. In the philosopher who knows how to form it, to
"transformation of forms" ( Weehsel der Formen) that also calls For a trans- cultivate it in himself (in sick 6ilder), to form himself in relation to it, this
duction or a trans-lation [une trans- ou zinc tra-duction], an Uber-setzung consciousness must be transformed in character, even to the point of be-
(one might say: this is nor Schelling's word), which posits a novelty, im- coming an unalterable organ, an untransformable habitus: the aptitude
poses and superimposes it inasmuch as it ensures the passage beyond dif- for seeing each thing insofar as it is presented (dargestellt) in the idea. This
ferential particularity ( University 59). presentation may be precisely the translation or retransiation of the real
If there is (es gibt) an artistic impulse for philosophy, what conclusion is into the ideal. The character or type of the translator, of the philosopher
to he drawn for Bildung in the sense of teaching? Can philosophy be formed in relation to this translation, to this mode or form of presenta-
learned? This is a question all the thinkers of the period since Kant are ob- tion (Darstellung), can be acquired.
sessed with, as we have seen; they have all became civil servants in public That originary knowledge that constitutes the last instance of this dis-
education: they are not sure that this is really the destination, the oppor- course
a:lthe Urwissen of God; it is "absolute knowledge"—the expression
tunity, indeed the possibility of philosophy. Can philosophy ever he ac- is Schelling's. We can therefore speak of a theology of translation. But we
quired through practice and study? Is it on the contrary a free gift (on also have the institutional translation of this theology of translation: For
firies Geschenk), an innate (angeboren) ability granted by destiny (Gesell' Schelling, in the university he plans, "theology, as the science in which the
i•k)? In a certain way the answer is "yes," there is (es gibt) a gift or a pre - innermost core of philosophy is objectified, must have the first and high-
e
sent (Geschenk) bestowed, sent, bequeathed by destiny (Geschick); one - ( University 79). This is the objection aimed at The Conflict of the
Faculties in the Seventh Lecture ("On Some Conditions Externally Op-
thus destined to philosophy insofar as it is an art, an art requiring genius

T
st ed
cartroy l i' El slilnoIsc odn
and ruled according to an intellectual intuition that can only he given and . pehyl, and in P ar ti cu l ar the Opposition of the Positive Sci-
give itself its object, while at the same time being linked to the genius p f en 'es")• As the French translators properly note, "positive sciences" does
a natural language ( University 6o). That said, if what is essential to ph! • in • •
meaning here, but that of those sciences enjoying an
losophv cannot he learned, its particular forms must he learned. That phi - --5ttrut Iona' existence, a body of knowledge and public legitimacy. These
 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA Theology of Translation 73

are the sciences that are the object of a discipline, such as the theologi cai aF
tir:citiirri iiteriS
s w the third Critique, remains more controlled by the
juridical, and medical sciences Kant opposes to the philosophical first n vo): but the Kant of the Critique offudgment, the one who aroused
One. The lecture's ride indicates clearly that this opposition betwee n phi: the young Schelling, rakes himself beyond oppositions
losophy and these "positive" sciences is external, therefore philosophicall y isi to think ) the living and art. (And let us not fOrget that for Kant,
'i nk
(f
unjustified, insufficiently thought. It is indeed the system of opposition al as we have ,Ie i)
: li
nphasized,
sh the "teacher of pure reason" is at once everywhere
limits upon which The Conflict ofthe Faculties is constructed that rem a i n owhere. His unavoidable and obvious absence commands the entire
and n
external and unjustified. field but also empties out the space of the philosophy department.)'
The criticism directed at Kant has two imports, the one literal or N ow , it is precisely from the point of view of life and art that Schelling
pointed, that is, strictly institutional, the other more fundamental a nd hi ms elf proposes (0 reorganize the university, to think its organicity, and
serving as the foundation for the preceding one. But the one can be trans- t o resituate philosophy within it. if philosophy is objectified in the three
lated into the other. The organizational and intraFaculty critique has for it s pos i t i ve sciences that are theology, law, and medicine, it is not objectified
target the onesidedness of the Kantian point of view: this is the point of i n totality in any one of the three (University 79). Each of the three de-
view of the finitude that opposes philosophy and theology. It therefor e partments is a determinate, partial objectification of philosophy, theology
makes of philosophy the field of finite thought. By virtue of this it gives the being the highest of them. "Objectification" can be translated as "transla-
philosophical discipline at once too little and too much. Too little: it lim- t i o n." The same meaning is transposed or transported into another idiom.
its it to being only one discipline among others. Too much: it gives it a Fac- But what is the total translation, the translation itself that ensures the ver-
ulty. Schelling does not beat around the bush and proposes quire simply itable objectivity of philosophy in its totality? Art. "Philosophy in its to-
that there no longer he any department of philosophy. Not so as to erase tality becomes truly objective only in art" (University 79). And this art is
philosophy from the university map, but on the contrary in order to rec- therefore, like this university itself; an art ofgeneralized translation. Through
ognize its true place, which is the entire place: "That which is all things a rather surprising logic, Schelling concedes t h at strictly speaking, "for this
cannot for that very reason he anything in particular" ( University79). reason, there can be no Faculty of Philosophy, but only a Faculty of the
Schelling not only says that there should no longer be any department Arts" (University 79-8o). This is only a passing concession, for the logic
of philosophy. He says that there never is any. When we think we discern would demand that there no more be a department for this total transla-
one, we are fooling ourselves: that which by usurpation is called by that tion than for omnipresent philosophy.
name is not authentically philosophical. Schelling's "affirmation" (Be- It is once again the Bild that ensures the translating analogy between
hauptung) appears pointedly anti-Kantian. In fact, it remains faithful to a art, hspreeqciufiicreal lay sepoetry,
plf-p and philosophy: "Poetry and philosophy, which
certain Kantian thesis. Apparently confined in its place, assigned its spe- another variety of dilettantism imagines to be opposites, are alike in that
cific competence, the Faculty of Philosophy is in fact everywhere, accord - roduced, r-iginal image [Bild] of the world" (Uni-
ing to Kant, and its opposition to the other faculties remains secondary versity 74).
and external. There are in short two Kants, and two times two Kants in This affirmation is political as well. In the Kantian system, the Faculty
this entire scene—which is also a scene of interpretative translation. There of Philosophy remains determined and limited by the power of the State,
is the Kant of The Conflict, who wants to bring a department of philoso- which is still external. Now, art—about which Kant does not speak in The
phy into existence and to protect it (in particular from the State). In order C"ilict —can never be limited by an external power (Macht). It is there-
to protect it, one must delimit it. And then there is the Kant who gran 5 fore independent of the State; it has no (external) relation to it it does not
the Faculty of Philosophy the right of critical and panoptical supervision 1 " itself he oppressed, privileged, or programmed by the State (University
over all the other departments, in order to intervene in them in the nanle, 80 ). There is no State culture, Schelling seems to he saying. But we will
of truth. And as for critique, there are still two more Kants: the Kant o f see in a moment that it is not that simple. The positive sciences can be de-
the two Critiques dearly marks out oppositions (and The Conflict of the t crrnined in relation to this external (when it is external) State power.
74 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA Theology of Translation 75

Philosophy alone has the right to demand from the State an uncon 'ion o f ethics to a point beyond determination makes us similar to God,
rional freedom (Nur der Philosophie ist der Staat unbedingte Freih eit hilosophy translates a similar elevation (gleiche Erhebung); it is at
a nd p
schuldig) (University 8o). A Kantian affirmation, at least as concerns phi_ one with the ethical (this is again at once Kanrian and anti-Kantian). There
is - but otw world" (University 71), Schelling says; there is no hinter-
losophy inasmuch as it is the judge of truth. Since the State could seek to
suppress philosophy only to the detriment of all the sciences, philosoph y va,0,..1,t" no world in itself. Each of us gives a translation of this absolute
should have its place, strictly speaking. in a Faculty of Arts. And for th e world, an image (Bild) in his own way (jedes in seiner Art and Weise abzu-
arts there are only free associations (firie Verbindungen), as opposed t o barn strebt), knowledge as such or action as such (Univenity72). But the
public State institutions ( University So). Such a proposition (philosoph y one translates the other. There is only a reflecting transfer, Bildung, Abbil-
in the space of the arts) is not revolutionary. Schelling recalls the traditio n dung (reflected image, reflection). Einbildungskrafi. Between knowledge
of the Collegium artiurn, ancestor of the Faculty of Philosophy to which and action, the only difference is between two reflected images or two re-
Kant refers: a college independent of the State. a liberal institution th at flea ions of one and the same world, a difference in short in translation
would not appoint doctores, professors furnished with privileges in ex- (übersetzung and Obertragung). The world of action is also the world of
change for which they take an oath before the State. but magistri, teachers knowledge; ethics is as speculative as theoretical philosophy (University7z).
of liberal arts ( University 8o). Schelling attributes the decadence of philos- in order to think the separation, Kant will indeed have had to think the
ophy, which has become an object of mockery and ceases to he considered originary unity of the two worlds as a single and identical text to he deci-
in the loftiness of its true mission, to the bureaucratic organization of a phered, in short, according to the two significations, according ro the two
corporation (University So). This organization has ceased being a free as- versions or two translations of the original text. The unity , of the originary
sociation in view of the arts—and therefore of poetic translation. Schleier- world causes us to call into question once again the opposition of philoso-
macher will also say that in relation to the State the Faculty of Philosophy phy and the positive sciences in their institutional translation (theology,
should keep the status of a private enterprise.' law, medicine), since this opposition was founded on the separation of
We are now going to draw out the most general foundations of this spe- knowledge and action. At the same rime, it is the duality of the languages
cific critique of the Kantian university, the grounds of this institutional that proves not to be annulled but derived as the result of reflection, of Re-
translation. The Seventh Lecture challenges the axiomatic principle of flex, of the reflected image, which is also to say, of translating transposition
The Conflict of the Faculties, namely the distinction between Wissen and (übertragung, Obersetzung), of transfer. The entire Conflict of the Faculties
Hande/n, knowledge and action. Pure knowledge was part of the Faculty is constructed, we could show, upon the untranslatable multiplicity of lan-
of Philosophy, which was not to "give orders" or act, while the other guages or, to put it more rigorously, upon dissociations of a discursive type:
higher Faculties were tied to State power, that is, to action. A historically language of truth (constative) / language of action (performative), public
marked opposition, Schelling says, a late arrival, constructed and in need language / private language, scientific (intra-university) language / popular
of deconstruction. It is not even modern in a broad sense, but immedi- ( extra-university) language, spirit / letter, and so forth.
ately contemporary, "a recent product, a direct offspring of pseudo-en- According to a movement typical of all post-Kantiansms, it all takes
lightenment [Arrfkliirerei]" (University 71). Schelling reacts violently Place as thoughSch
mg from e ll ithe
ng, standpoint of this idea of reason or of
against this Enlightenment that, for example in Kant, creates artificial op- this intellectual intuition, were giving expression to that which is suppos-
p ositions, separates knowledge from action. politics from ethics (there is edlY inaccessible: by deeming this intuition inaccessible, you show that
an analogous movement in Fleidegger, nor would this he his only alfinitY YOU have already acceded to it, you think it, it has already reached you,
with Schelling). This unhappy separation is transposed into the university Y" 11 have already reached it. You think the inaccessible. and so you accede
institution of the Enlightenment. Kant, in his theoretical philosophy, was t" it. And in order to think finitude, you have already thought the infi-
nite .•
wrong to have reduced the idea of God or of the immortality of the 50 111 s is. moreover. the definition of thinking. It would he more con-
to "mere ideas" and to have then tried to validate these ideas "in the moral si stent, more responsible, to arrange everything, in reiation ro this thought
disposition" (in der sittlichen Gesinnung) (University 71). Now, the eleYa -
th at You think, rather than to found your "criticism" in denegation. In the
76 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA Theology of Translation 77

most different ways, all the post-Kantians, from Schelling (0 Hegel to Thi s g rouping (the State and its objectification transposed into the
Nietzsche, will accuse Kant of such a denegation. It remains to be s een (bre , positive sciences) is a whole, the whole of the objectification of
what a denegation is when it concerns nothing less than the thinking of originary knowledge. Originary knowledge forms with philosophy an
thinking and gives rise to something like the transcendental dialectic s of :interna l organism" (Innen, Organismus) (University 76) that is projected
the Critique of Pure Reason. or t ransported outward in the external totality of the sciences. It is con-
The logic of this accusation, this negation of denegation or this critiq ue ctrucred through divisions and connections so as to form a body (KOrper)
of critique, has paradoxical political implications. In every case. Let u s th at itself expresses outwardly the internal organism of knowledge and
consider that of Schelling. He insinuates that Kant subjects the depart- p hilosophy ( University 78). The word organism is frequent and decisive in
ment of philosophy, in a public establishment, to the external powe r of t his context. It does not translate a biologism, since apparently, at least,
the State; and that therefore he does nor understand the practice and place we a re dealing with a metaphor. The ideal and the real are nor yet sepa-
of philosophy in society in a liberal enough way. Kant's liberalism wo u ld rable in the unity of originary knowledge. This unity permits one to
nor be unconditional. Schelling seems to he calling Kant back to liberal. speak, without trope, of the one as of the other, of the one in the lan-
ism, for example according to the model of the College of Arts. Inversely, guage of the other. There is no metaphor but there is also nothing but
Schelling's thinking of uni-totality or of uni-formation as generalized metaphor. image in the broad sense (Bild). The originary unity of lan-
translation, onto-theological translation without a rupture, without opac- guage in originary knowledge allows For rhetoric and at the same time
ity, a universally reflecting translation, can lead to a totalizing absolutiza. prevents one from considering it only as a restricted rhetoric. It is a gen-
tion of the State that Kant in turn would have deemed dangerous and not eralized rhetoric or translatology. This justifies the fact that, since the be-
very liberal. Liberalism perhaps presupposes separation, the heterogeneity ginning of this paper, I have often spoken of translation when it was a
of codes, and the multiplicity of languages, not crossing certain limits, question only of transposition, of transfer, of transport in a sense that is
nontransparence. not strictly linguistic. One might think I was going too far and was
There is, then, a certain Schellingian statism. What is the State? The be- speaking metaphorically of translation (understood in the strictly semi-
coming-objective of originary knowledge in the mode of action. It is even otic or linguistic sense) when there was actually nothing properly lin-
the most universal of the ideal productions that objectify and therefore guistic about the transposition of which 1 was speaking. But the point is
translate knowledge. The State is a form of knowledge, translated accord- precisely that for Schelling, whose onto-theology I wished to present,
ing to the arche-type of the world of ideas. But since it is only the becom- language is a living phenomenon; life or the living spirit speaks in lan-
ing-objective of knowledge, the State itself is in turn transported or trans- guage; and in the same way nature is an author, the author of a hook that
posed into an external organism with a view to knowledge as such, into a smcuheii he translated with the skill of a philologist. A motif found at the
must
sort of spiritual and ideal State, and these are the positive sciences, in other same period in Novalis in particular, but already in Goethe. Whence

words the university, which is in short a piece of the State, a figure of the Schelling's pedagogy of language, of dead or living languages:
State, its Obertragung, the Oberserzungen that transpose the State inw the Nothin g forms the intellect so effectively as learning to recognize the living
positive sciences. The State-as-knowledge is here a transposition of the
spirit ola language dead to us. To he able to do this is no whir different from
State-as-action. The higher faculties can therefore no longer be separated what the natural philosopher does when he addresses himself to nature. Na-
from the lower faculty. The differentiation of the positive sciences is made ture is like some very ancient author whose message is written in hieroglyph-
on the basis of originary knowledge, in the image of the internal type of its on c as the Artist says in Goethe's poem." Even those who in-
philosophy. The three positive sciences arc nothing other than the differ -
:he :tit:art:nature'
rr only empirically need to know her langzuzge, so ro speak [so to
p
seak 1: 11 emphasized] in order to understand utterances which have be-
entiation, the differentiated translation of originary knowledge, and there -

fore of philosophy. There is a profound and essential identity between phi - c.ome unintelligible to us. e same is true of philology in the higher sense of
term. le eart h is a hook made up of miscellaneous fragments dating
losophy and the State. It is the same text, the same original text, if one
Ur-Wissen. from very different ages. Each mineral is a real philological problem. In geol-
knows how to read its identity from the standpoint of
78 TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA Theology of 7i-anslation 79

ogy we still await the genius who will analyze the earth and show its comp,. die Einheit as general translatability. But that does not mean homo-
sition as Wolf analyzed Homer. ( University 40) sen i ry and indifferentiation. There are forms and therefore specific struc-
There are differences between philosophy and religion, philosophy
We have been led to this pan-rhetoric of translation by apparently p o
Ri ll r ci p• o etry. '['hat is why one must translate and this translation stems from
:,
-litcaonsder.Aigtoaprdxcl,heyira_
t h e finitude of individuals. Philosophy is indeed the immediate presenta-
ism set over against Kant always carries the risk of turning into the total_
t i on (Darstellung), the science of originary knowledge ( Urwissen), but it is
izing—I am not saying necessarily totalitarian—temptation whose
this only in the realm of the ideal and not "really." If the mind could, in a
consequences can reverse the liberal demand. Whence the impossibl e
s i ng l e act of knowledge, really grasp (begreifen) absolute totality as a sys-
strategy of relations between philosophy and politics, specifically betwe en
tem completed in all of its parts, it would overcome its finitude (Univer-
philosophy and the State. It would be a mistake to see in this proposition,
10 , 75 ). It would not need to translate. It would conceive the whole as be-
according to which the State is the objectifying translation of knowledge
yond all determination. As soon as there is determination, there is
into action, one of those speculative statements of a German Idealism that
differentiation , separation, abstraction. Schelling does not say "opposi-
we would today study through the mists like some great philosophical
tion," Entgegensetzung. The real presentation of knowledge presupposes
archive. The proposition is no doubt speculative (in a sense that is linked this separation, this division and this translation, one could say, of philo-
rigorously to a thinking of the reflecting and properly "symbolic" specu- sophical work. "Originary knowledge" can become "real," be realized in
lum), but it is also as "realist" as it is "idealist." It is modern. A politology its unity in a single individual, only in der Gaming, in the genus or
today cannot construct the concept of the State without including in that species, which is also to say in historical institutions (University 75). His-
concept the objectification of knowledge and its objectification in the pos-
tory progresses as this becoming-real of the idea.
itive sciences. A political discourse that would not speak of science would This schema constructed the First Lecture on the basis of the absolute
he lost in chatter and abstraction. Today more than ever the determina- concept of science. The lecture starts from the idea of living totality. From
tion of the State includes the state of science, of all the sciences, of the this it deduces the concept of the university, as Kant also deduces it from
whole of science. The way in which State structures (let's not speak of gov- an idea of reason. We have another indication that Schelling revives the
ernment) function depends essentially and concretely upon the state of all Kantian tradition to which he is opposed as one might he opposed to a
the sciences and techno-sciences. The so-called "basic" [fbnciamentaied sci- philosophy of opposition. The thinking development of the idea of reason
ences can no longer be distinguished from the so-called "end-oriented" leads Schelling to reject the limiting consequences that Kant draws from it.
[finalist:es) sciences.'' And what has rightly been called the military-indus- The specialized training or formation (Bildung) of the student must be
trial complex of the modern State presupposes this unity of the basic and preceded by the knowledge of this living totality, of this "living unity" (des
the end-oriented. We would also have to connect this "logic" with that of tle iiii th dig ,eiaZusammenhangs) (University 7). 'Me student must first have ac-
the "performativity" of scientific discourse. cess to th e organic 9): of the university, to the "great tree" of knowl-
Schelling would no doubt say that the State is not the objectifying, edge (University one can apprehend it only by starting (genetically)
translation of knowledge as knowledge but of originary knowledge as ac- fro m Its o riginary root, Urwissen. On the threshold of his studies, more-
tion. It would be all the easier today to show to what extent a modern l- young man" (and not the young girl, of course) has the sense of,
State is the implementation of a knowledge. Not only because it has a pol- and the desire for, this totality (Sinn unieb d Ti fiir dens Ganze) (University
itics of science that it wants to pilot by itself, but because it is itself formed 8 ). But he is quickly disappointed. Schelling describes these disappoint-
and transformed, in its concept, its discourse, its rhetoric, its methods , r'nents, all the damage done by professional training or by the specializa-
and so forth, according to the rhythm of techno-science.
It was necessary to insist, to be sure, on the unity of originary knowl- 4 "m that liars access to the very organization, to the organicity of this to-
of knowledge, in other words, to philosophy, to the philosophy of
edge, on the totalizing gathering-together of the Ein-Bildung der Vielbett the univ ers i
ty that constitutes the organic and living principle of this to-
8o TRANSFER EX CATHEDRA

talky. Schelling then makes a proposal from which we have yet to reap tile ,
full benefit. "It is imperative," he says, "that universities give general i n _
struction in the aims and methods of academic study, both as a whole a n d
in respect to its particular subjects" (University 6). Which is what
Schelling does in saying so. His lectures tell us what the orientation, t h e
method, and the totality of the particular objects of a university worth y o f Mochlos:
the name should he. He defines the final destination (Bestimmung) that
determines and regulates all the organically interdisciplinary translation s
Eyes of the University
of this institution.
This final destination. that of knowledge as well as that of the unive r
-sity,nohgleacmuniowthedvsnc.Alkow-
edge tends to enter into this community with the divine being. The philo-
sophical community, as university community, is this Streben
Gemeinschafi mit dem gintlichen Wesen (University is); it tends to partici-
pate in this originary knowledge that is one and in which each type of
knowledge participates as the member of a living totality. Those whose
thought is not regulated and ordered by this living and buzzing commu-
nity are like sexless bees (geschlechtslose Bienen): since they are denied the
power to create, to produce (produzieren). they multiply inorganic excre-
ments outside of the hives as proof of their own platitude; they attest in
this way to their spiritlessness (Geistlosigkeit) (University 55). This defi-
ciency is also an inaptitude for the great translation that causes the mean-
ing of originary knowledge ro circulate throughout the entire body of
knowledge.
Man is nor a bee. As rational being ( Vernunftwesen), he is destined
(hingestellt), placed with a view to, appointed to the task of supplement-
ing or complementing the world's manifestation (eine Erganzung der Wel-
terscheinung) (University 52). He completes the phenomenalization of the
whole. He is there so that the world might appear as such and in order to
help it to appear as such in knowledge. But if it is necessary to complete
or supplement (ergiinzen), it is because there is a lack. Without man,
God's very revelation would not be accomplished. By his very activity,
man is to develop (entwickeln) that which is lacking in God's total revela-
tion (was nur der Offenbarung Gottes fehlt) (University 12).
That is what is called translation: it is also what is called the destination
of the university.
—Thanslated by Joseph Adamson
 Mochlos, or The Conflict
o f the Faculties

If we could say we (but have I not already said it?), we might perhaps
ask ourselves: where are we? And who are we in the university where ap-
parentl• we arc? What do we represent? Whom do we represent? Arc we re-
sponsible? For what and to whom? If there is a university responsibility, it
at least begins the moment when a need to hear these questions, to take
them upon oneself and respond to them, imposes itself. This imperative
of the response is the initial form and minimal requirement of responsi-
bility. One can always not respond and refuse the summons, the call to re-
sponsibility. One can even do so without necessarily keeping silent. But
the structure of this call to responsibility is such—so anterior to any pos-
sible response, so independent, so dissymetrical in its coming from the
other within us—that even a nonresponse a priori assumes responsibility.
And so 1 proceed: what does university responsibility represent? This
question presumes that one understands the meaning of "responsibility,"
"university"—at least if these two concepts are still separable.
The university, what an idea!
It is a relatively recent idea. We have yet to put it aside, and it is already
being reduced to its own archive, to the archive of its archives, without
our havin g quite understood what had happened with it.
Almost two centuries ago Kant was responding, and was responding in
term s of responsibility. The university, what an idea. I was just asking.

his is not a bad idea, says Kant, opening The Conflict of' the Faculties
(Der .Streit der •akuluiten, t798). And, with his well-known humor,
abridgin g a more laborious and tortuous story, he pretends to treat this
idea
as a hod, a happy solution that a very imaginative person would have

83
 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY Mochlos 85
84

come up with, as the invention, in sum, of a fairly rational device th at an imaginative, origin to the university. Certain artificial institutions,
some ingenious operator might have sent to the State for a patent. And •in ,
5 he go es on to say. have as their foundation an idea of reason. And the uni -

the West, the State would have adopted the concept of this very ingeni ous is an "artificial" (kiinstlirbe) institution of this kind. Kant begins by
versitY
'

machine. And the machine would have worked. Not without conflict, not reca lli n g this fact for those who would like to forget it, believing in the
without contradiction, but perhaps, precisely, due to the conflict and th e natu ralness of the place and the habitat. The very idea of government is
rhythm of its contradictions. Foom.ieil on reason, and nothing in this respect is a matter of chance.
Here is the opening of this short work that I wanted to invite to o ur
For this reason it must he said that the organizing of a university, with respect
commemoration, with that sense of vague disquiet that arises when, re-
i ts classes and faculties, was not just a matter of chance, but that the gov-
sponding to the honor of an invitation from friends, one brings along, as ernment , without showing any special wisdom or precocious knowledge for
an afterthought, some parasite with poor table manners. But for this sym.. doi ng so , was, from a particular need that it felt (for influencing the people
posium, it is not Socrates, it is Kant, and he says: th rough various teachings), able to arrive a priori at a principle of division that
h appily lglikklich] coincides with the principle currently adopted.
It was not a had idea [kein iibekr Einfall], whoever first conceived and pro
-posedaublicmnfrtghesuoknwld(raytheiks terms of
And Kant is well aware that he is in the process of justifying in
who devote themselves to it [eigentlich die derselben gervidmeten Kola in a
reaso n what was a de facto organization determined by the government of
quasi industrial manner [gleichsam fabrikenntafig], with a division of labor
his day, as if by accident its king were a philosopher. Of this he is evi-
[lurch Vertheilung der Arbeiten] where, for as many fields as there may be of
dently aware, since he promptly excuses himself in something of a tone of
knowledge, so many public teachers [Offentliche Lehrer] would be allotted, pro-
fissors being like trustees [air Depositeure], forming together a kind of common denial: "But I will not, for all that, speak in its favor as if it had no fault"
scientific entity [tine Art von gelehrtem gemeinen Wesen] called a university (or Win' 31).
high school [holm Schield), and having autonomy (for only scholars [ Gelehrte] Within the introductory fiction, Kant had multiplied his rhetorical pre-
can pass judgment on scholars as such); and, thanks to its fiirratics (various cautions, or rather he had somehow guaranteed the analogical statements
small societies into which university teachers are divided, in keeping with the with, so to speak, a real analogy: the university is analogous to society, to
variety of the main branches of knowledge), the university would he autho- the social system it represents as one of its parts; and the teaching body
rized [berechtigt: Kant is being precise, the university receives its legitimate represents, in one form or another, the goal and function of the social
authorization from a power that is not its own] to admit, on the one hand, body—for example, of the industrial society that will give itself, in less
student-apprentices from the lower schools aspiring to its level, and to grant, than ten years' time, the great model of the University of Berlin; this lat-
on the other hand—after prior examination, and on its own authority [aus
ter, even now, remains the most imposing reference for what has been
eigner Macho. from its own power]—to teachers who arc "free" (not drawn hande d down to us of the concept of the university. Here, then, is the se-
from the members themselves) and called "doctors," a universally recognized
ries of analogies: within the university, one would treat knowledge a little
rank (conferring upon them a degree)—in short, creating lereiren] them) rikuesteinesindustry
izs i ep05lteure
i :dus r y ( .gle l Arrn fahrikennuifig); professors would he like
Kant underlines the word "creating": the university is thus authorized to trustees together they would form a kind of essence or
e:til.l
have the autonomous power of creating tit les. icerctive scholarly entity that would have its own autonomy (eine Art von
The style of this declaration is not merely one of a certain fiction of the glehrtem gemeinen Wesen, die ihre Autonornie hiitte). As for this autonomy,
origin: the happy idea of the university, that someone comes up with. one he fiction and hypothesis arc more prudent still. In itself, this autonomy
is nip
fine day, at some date, with something like the fictive possibility of an an -
doubt justified by the axiom stating that scholars alone can judge
niversary—this is what Kant seems to he evoking here. Indeed, further on of ko t i
scholars, a tautology that may be thought of as linked to the essence
in his text, after dropping the rhetoric of an introduction, his first m ove IS Av cage as to the knowledge of knowledge. When, however, the is-
to set aside the hypothesis of a somewhat random find, of an empirical' Skit is one of creating public titles of competence, or of legitimating
86 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY Moch/os 87

knowledge, or of producing the public effects of this ideal autonomY, t h at in the future you will not FaIl into such error, but rather will, as befits
then, at that point, the university is no longer authorized by itself. It is au- your reputation and talent to the better use of better realizing

by t h e d 7 g'u(
r7t rsc:e npurpose; falling this, you can expect unpleasant measures for
thorized (berechtigt) by a nonuniversity instance or agency—here, n
con tinuing obstinancy. (Conflittn)
State—and according to criteria no longer necessarily and in the Final your
analysis those of scientific competence, but those of a certain perform s _
K an t c ites this letter and justifies himself at length, in the preface and
rivity. The autonomy of scientific evaluation may he absolute and un coil _
lly beyond the preface to The Conflict of the Faculties. Whatever one
ditioned, but the political effects of its legitimation. even supposing th at fina
t hi n k s ref Iris system of justification, the nostalgia that some of us may feel
one could in .ill rigor distinguish them, are no less controlled, measured, face of this situation perhaps derives from this value of responsibil-
arid overseen by a power outside the universiry. Regarding this power, uni- in t h e
n v , a t least one could believe, at that time, that responsibility was to he
versity autonomy is in a situation of heteronomy; it is an autonom y con.
,,k en ---for something, and before sonic determinable someone. One
ferred and limited, a representation of autonomy—in the double sense of
could at least pretend to know whom one was addressing, and where to
a representation by delegation and a theatrical representation. In fact, th e
s i tua te power; a debate on the topics of teaching, knowledge, and philos-
university as a whole is responsible to a nonuniversiry agency. ophy could at least be posed in terms of responsibility. The instances in-
Kant knew something of this. And if he did not know it a priori, expe-
voked—the State, the sovereign, the people, knowledge, action. truth. the
rience recently taught him a lesson. The king of Prussia had just called
u niversity—held a place in discourse that was guaranteed, decidable, and,
him hack to order. A letter from Friedrich Wilhelm reproached him for
in every sense of this word, "representable"; and a common code could
abusing his philosophy by deforming and debasing certain dogmas in Re-
guarantee, at least on faith, a minimum of translatability for any possible
ligion within the Limits of Reason Alone. Among us, perhaps, in 1980, there discourse in such a context.
may he some who dream of receiving such a letter, a letter from a prince
Could we say as much today? Could we agree to debate together about
or sovereign at least letting us locate the law in a body and assign censor- the responsibility proper to the university? I am not asking myself whether
ship to a simple mechanism within a determined, unique, punctual,
we could produce or simply spell out a consensus on this subject. I am
monarchical place. For those who dream, for various reasons, of so reas- asking myself first of all if we could say "we" and debate together, in a
suring a localization, I will therefore do the pleasure of citing a sentence common language, about the general forms of responsibility in this area.
unimaginable today from the pen of Carter, Brezhnev, Giscard, or Of this I am not sure, and herein lies a being-ill [ mal-titre] no doubt more
Pinochet, barely, perhaps, from that of an ayatollah. The king of Prussia serious than a malaise or a crisis. We perhaps all experience this to a more
reproaches the philosopher for having behaved unpardonably, literally "ir-
or less vivid degree, and through a pathos that can vary on the surface.
responsibly" (unverantwortlich). This irresponsibility Friedrich Wilhelm But we lack the categories for analyzing this being-ill. Historical codes
analyzes and divides in two. The accused appears before two juridical in- (and, a fortiori, historical datings, references to technical events or to spec-
stances. He bears, in the first place, his inner responsibility and personal tacular politics, for example, to the great unrest of '68), philosophical,
duty as a teacher of the young. But he is also responsible to the father of h ae rirm
d e:ielitiitic, and political codes, and so on, and perhaps even codes in
the land, to the sovereign (Landesvater), whose intentions are known to general, as productive [perfOrmant] instruments of decidibility. all seem
him and ought to define the law. These two responsibilities are not juxta - Powerless here. It is an im-pertinence of the code, which can go hand in
posed, but are instead subordinated within the same system: the greatest power, which lies, perhaps, at the source of this be-
in g - ill, For if a code guaranteed a problematic, whatever the discord of
You must recognize how irresponsibly [tide unverantwordichl you thus 5d the
t P r'icinns taken or the contradictions of the forces present, then we would
against your duty as a teacher of the young ids Lehrer der Jugend] and agains
our sovereign purposes which you know well.
ilandaviiterliehe Absiehtenb 141 better in the university. But we feel bad, who would dare to say oth-
you we require a most scrupulous account (literally, an assum in g of your re* crw iw And those who feel good are perhaps hiding something, from oth-
II'', or fr(1111 themselves.
sponsibility, Verantwortungl and expect, so as to avoid our highest displeases
88 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY Mochlos 89

Celebrating the anniversary of a university's founding, if one ig no one no longer knows for sure with what concept one can still rule it. One
the secondary gains that attend such commemorations, should supp o , c between at least three hypotheses.
liesing" -
confirmation, the renewing of a commitment, and more profoundl y, One can treat responsibility as a precisely academic theme. One
self-legitimation, the self-affirmation of the university. wou ld exhume this archived topos, whose code would no longer be our
I just uttered the word "self-affirmation." Regarding the university, w e own . along the lines of a celebration, an anniversary. In the course of a
hear it at once as a translation and a reference. It is the title of Heideggees exercise, one might, as a historian or philologist, embroider the
cchool
sadly famous speech upon taking charge of the Rectorate of the Unive rsity w i t h flowers of rhetoric, paying tribute to a secular institution that,
topic
of Freiburg-im-Breisgau on May 27,1933, The Self:Affirmation of the Ger. i n s hort, though not entirely of its own time, would, for all that, not have
man University (Die Selbstbehauptung der deutschen Universitiit). If I dare Age d altogether badly. Within this hypothesis, that of commemorative
to summon here this great ghost and sinister event, it is not merely h e_ aestheticism with all it presupposes of luxury, pleasure, and despair, one
cause, in doing so, I can avail myself of a pretext here for paying homag e would still presuppose that events of the past century, and especially of the
to Columbia University, for the welcome it managed to extend to intel- mo st recent postwar era, would have ruined the very axiomatics of a dis-
lectuals and professors emigrating from Nazi Germany. It is also beca use, course on responsibility—or, rather, of the discourse of responsibility.
however one judges it in terms of political circumstances (necessarily a Given a certain techno-political structure of knowledge, the status, func-
very complex evaluation, one that I will not attempt at this time), He.i- tion, and destination of the university would no longer stem from the ju-
degger's speech on the self-affirmation of the German university un- ridical or ethico-political language of responsibility. No longer would a
doubtedly represents, in the tradition of The Conflict of the Faculties and subject, individual or corporate, be summoned in its responsibility.
the great philosophical texts concerning the University of Berlin z. A second hypothesis, that of a tradition to be reaffirmed: one would
(Schelling, Fichte, Schleiermacher, Humboldt, Hegel), the last great dis- then recall that more than a century ago, when Columbia's graduate
course in which the Western university tries to think its essence and its school was founded, the question of knowing for what, and to whom, a
destination in (ems of responsibility, with a stable reference to the same professor, a faculty, and so Forth, is responsible, was posed within a philo-
idea of knowledge, technics, the State, and the nation, very close to a limit sophical, ethical, juridical, and political problematic, within a system of
at which the memorial gathering of a thinking makes a sudden sign CO- implicit evaluations, within an axiomarics, in short, that survives essen-
ward the entirely-other of a terrifying future. Unable though I am to jus- tially intact. One could posit secondary adaptations as a way to account
tify this hypothesis here, it seems to me that Heidegger, after this speech. for transformations occurring in the interval.
eventually goes beyond the limits of this still very classical concept of the 3. Keeping its value and meaning, the notion of responsibility would

university, one that already guided him in What Is Metaphysics? (1929); of have to be re-elaborated within an entirely novel problematic. In the rela-
at least that the enclosure of the university—as a commonplace and pow- I tions of the university to society, in the production, structure, archiving,
erful contract with the State, with the public, with knowledge, with meta- and transmission of knowledges and technologies (of forms of knowledge
physics and technics—will seem to him less and less capable of measuring as technologies), in the political stakes of knowledge, in the very idea of
up to a more essential responsibility, that responsibility that, before hav- knowledge and truth, lies the advent of something entirely other. To an-
ing to answer for a knowledge, power, or something or other determinat
e, swer• what to answer for, and to whom?: the question is perhaps more
before having to answer for a being or determinate object before a deter - alive and legitimate than ever. But the "what" and the "who" would have
minate subject, must first answer to being, for the call of being, and must to by thought entirely otherwise. And (a more interesting corollary) they
think this coresponsibility. But, once again, essential as it may seem to could, starting from this al terity, lead us to wonder what they might once
11 '11: hcen. this ''‘vh(C' and this "what."
I cannot explore this path today. 1 will try, let's say, to keep a constant. P.
oblique and indirect, link with its necessity. Would these three hypotheses exhaust, in principle, all possibilities of a
(
When one pronounces the word "responsibility" today in the u niversi* YPical llltestioning about university responsibility? I am not certain of
 Machias
90 MOCI-11.05: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY 91

this nothing in this domain seems certain to me. Everything seem s sciousness or an intention that has to answer, in decidable terms,
o f a con
Con
scure, enigmatic, at once threatened and threatening, in a place where j before the law. I insist on this: it is thus for us, most often and
greatest danger today is concentrated. The Western university is a ver y for a" , v aiIingly, though this bond is not indissoluble for all eternity. It
„lost P
cent construction or artifact. and we already sense that it is finis is of na tural; it has a history. One can no doubt imagine dissolving the
marked by finitude, just as, as its current model was established, betty owe o rrespOnSIbllity by relativizing, secondarizing, or deriving the effect
The Conflict of the Faculties (1798) and the founding of the Universit y o f ois„bjectivity, consciousness, or intentionality; one can no doubt decen-
Berlin (October to, 1810, at the close of the mission entrusted to H um . ubject. as it is easily put, without putting into question the bond
ter t h e s
holdt), it was thought to be ruled by an idea of reason, by a certain rela- between r esponsibility, on the one hand. and freedom of subjective con-
tion, in other words, with infinity. Following this model, at least in its e s . c i ousn ess and purity of intentionality, on the other. This happens all the
sential features, every great Western university was, between 1800 a n d time and is not that interesting, since nothing in the prior axiomatics is
about 185o, in some sense reinstituted. Between that moment and th e changed: one denies the axiomatics en bloc and keeps it going as a sur-
founding of Columbia's graduate school, less rime passed than betwee n v ivor, with minor adjustments de rigueur or daily compromises lacking in
the last war and the present day. It is as if, with a minor delay, we were ce l- rigor. In so doing, in operating at top speed, one accounts and becomes
ebrating tonight the birthday of the modern university in general. a ccountable for nothing: neither for what happens, nor for the reasons to
Whether it is a question of an anniversary or a university, all this turns, a s continue assuming responsibilities without a concept.
we say in French, very Fast. Conversely, would it not be more interesting, even if difficult, and per-
I was thinking of reopening with you The Conflict of the Faculties, be- haps impossible, to think a responsibility—that is, a summons requiring
cause the Tatum of responsibility seems inscribed there at the origin and a response—as no longer passing, in the last instance, through an ego, the
on the very eve of the modern university, in its pre-inaugural discourse. It 1 think," intention, the subject, the ideal of decidabilitv? Would it not be
is inscribed there in language receiving from Kant its first great illustra- more "responsible' to try to think the ground, in the history of the West,
tion, its first conceptual formalization of great rigor and consequence. on which the juridico-egological values of responsibility were determined,
There, at our disposal, we find a kind of dictionary and grammar (struc- attained, imposed? There is perhaps a fund here of responsibility that is at
tural, generative, and dialectical) for the most contradictory discourses we once "older" and—to the extent it is conceived anew, through what some
might develop about—and, up to a point, within—the university. I will would call the crisis of responsibility in its juridico-egological form and its
not call this a Code, precisely because The Conflict of the Faculties situates ideal of decidability—is still to come, and, if you prefer, "younger." Here,
the Code and the written Code (Gesetzbuch) (Conflict 36ff.) within a very perhaps, would be a chance for the task of thinking what will have been,
up to this point, the representation of university responsibility, what it is
circumscribed and determined part of the university, within the faculties
called "higher"—essential instruments of the government (the Faculties of Porton:lit, become, a
ecome. in the wake of upheavals that we can no longer conceal
Theology, Law, and Medicine). if The Conflict of the Faculties is not a from ourselves, even if we still have trouble analyzing them. Is a new type
0 i- university responsibility possible? Under what conditions? I don't know.
Code, it is a powerful effort at formalization and discursive economy' in
terms, precisely, of formal law. Here again, Kantian thought tries to attain but I know that the very form of my question still constitutes a classical
to pure legitimation, to purity of law, and to reason as the court of final precisely Kantian type: by posing my question in this way I
co nt i n .._ t
appeal. The equivalence between reason and justice as "law" or "right ue act as a guardian and trustee responsible for traditional re-
sP "sihility- Kant in effect tells us the conditions under which a rational
[droid finds its most impressive presentation here.
univetorsdi:iyv• , iii t sgeit.. 1) 1e. ral
For us, however. most often and in a manner still dominant, the dis - hint according to him, have been possible. Reading
course of responsibility appeals, in a mode we find tautological, to a put t, , assuranLe and his necessity, much as one might admire
rd. rigor
ethico-juridical instance, to pure practical reason, to a pure thinking ° I cdifi ,
d plan or structure through the breaches of an uninhabitable

Ce about which one cannot decide whether it is in ruins or simply

right [droll]. and correlatively to the derision of a pure egological subject'
9z MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY Mochlos 93

never existed, having only ever been able to accommodate the discou rse of k ra bility we experience will perhaps signal the university's inabil-
, n t ran
its incompletion. This is the uncertainty with which I read Kant, b u t in the purity of its inside, to translate and trans-
will spare you further considerations of the pathos of this uncertainty, t he i tr
til i c its pr eit i(lani it n
segi.f .Since its origin, perhaps.
intermittent despair. the laborious or ironic distress, the daily contr a d Will it suffice today to speak of contradiction in the university? Is the
ic
tions, the desire to challenge and militate on several fronts at once, so 3.1 First inwrest of Kant's text not to recognize the conflict at the university's
to maintain and to risk, and so forth. From the depths of this uncertai nty very interior? Kant foresees the inevitable recurrence of this, a necessity
I still believe in the task of another discourse on university resPonsibili ty. somehow t ranscendental and constitutive. He classes the different types
Not in the renewal of the contract in irs old or barely renewed form s; b ut Ind places of contradiction, the rules of their return, the forms of their le-
since. concerning entirely other forms. I know nothing clear, coher ent, alitY or illegality. For he wishes at all costs to pronounce the law. and to
g
and decidable, nor whether such forms will ever be, or whether the uni• discern, decide between legal and illegal conflicts that set into opposi-
versiry as such has a Future, I continue to believe in the interest of ligh t i n t'i i os tcl c tr Ile
n' faculties of the university. Kant's principal concern is legitimate
this domain—and of a discourse measuring up to the novelty, tomo rrow, for someone intending to make the right decisions: it is to trace the rigor-
of this problem. This problem is a task; it remains for us given-to, to wh at o us limits of the system called university. No discourse would be rigorous
1 do not know, to doing or thinking, one might have once said. I say so here if did nor begin by defining the unity of the university system, in
not just as a member of the university. It is not certain that the universit y other words the b o rd e r between its inside and its outside. Kant wishes to
itself, from within, from its idea, is equal to this task or this debt; and this an alyze conflicts proper to the university, those arising between the differ-
is the problem, that of the breach in the university's system, in the inter- ent parts of the university's body and its power, that is, here, the faculties.
nal coherence of its concept. For there may be no inside possible for the He wants to describe the process of these internal contradictions, but also
university, and no internal coherence for its concept. And so I mention to class, to hierarchize, to arbitrate. But even before proposing a general
this task both as a member of the university taking care not to deny his division of the teaching body and recognizing the nvo major classes of fac-
membership (since the only coherent attitude, for someone refusing all ulties, higher and lower, that can confront each other, Kant encounters a
commitment on this point, would amount, in the first place, to resigning) prior, if not a pre-prior, difficulty, one that we today would sense even
and as a non-academic sensitive to the very fact that, nowadays, the uni- more keenly than he. As one might expect, this difficulty derives from the
versity as such cannot reflect, represent itself, or change into one of its definition of a certain outside that maintains with its inside a relation of
own representations, as one of its possible objects. With a view to this resemblance, participation, and parasitism that can give rise to an abuse of
other responsibility, I will hazard a contribution that is modest, prelimi - power, an excess that is strictly political. An exteriority, therefore, within
nary, and above all in keeping with the time at our disposal here, which the resemblance. It can take three forms. Only one of these seems danger-
no one in decency should exceed. With this economy and these rhetorical ous to Kant. The first is the organization of specialized academies or
constraints taken into account, I set myself the following rule: to try co scholarly societies. These "workshops" do not belong to the university;
translate The Conflict of the Faculties in part, and under the heading of Kant is content simply to mention them. He does not envisage any col-
introductory or paradigmatic essay, so as to recognize its points of on' laboration, any competition, any conflict between the university and these
translatability, by which I mean anything that no longer reaches us and re" scientific societies. And yet these do not, as do the private amateurs he
mains outside the usage of our era. I will try to analyze those u ntranslat
- m entions in
the same passage, represent a state of nature of science. These
able nodes; and the benefits that 1 anticipate—if not in the course of tilts mstitutio ns
which are also among the effects of reason, play an essential
brief effort, then at least in the systematic pursuit of this kind at Na d°i. 1-01 e in society. Today, however—and this is a first limit to the translation
ing—will be an inventory not merely of what was and no longer is or o r the Kantian text in our politico-episremological space—there can he
certain contradictions. laws of conflicts, or antinomies of university rcl" r
sea Y Serious competition and border conflicts between nom' niversity re-
son, but of what perhaps exceeds this dialectical rationality itself; and the rc h cr aters
and university faculties claiming at once to be doing re-
94 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY Machias 95

search and transmitting knowledge, to be producing and reprodu c i n the cicv`1opment of the sciences, or, a fortiori, by the questions of science
knowledge. These problems are no longer isolated or circumscribed ,, v h g sc i e nce; threatened by what it sees as an invasive margin. A singular
or
they involve the politics of scientific research, including all socio-te c h ni. ' l ist threat. it being the constitutive faith of the university that the
eiti
cal strategies (military, medical, or other, such limits and categorie s lo s i ng
all pertinence today) and all computerization at the intra- or in terstate
id ea science is at the very basis of the university. How, then, could that
hreaten the university in its technical development, when one can
idea t
level, and so forth. A whole field is largely open to the analysis of this uni- 110 longer separate knowledge from power, reason from performativity,
versity "outside" that Kant calls "academic." In Kant's day, this "outside meta physics from technical mastery? The university is a (finished) prod-
could be confined to a margin of the university. This is no longer so cm, uct , I would almost call it the child of the inseparable couple metaphysics
taro or simple. Today, in any case, the university is what has becom e i ts and technics. At the least, the university furnished a space or topological
margin. Certain departments of the university at least have been red uced guration fiir such an offspring. The paradox is that at the moment
conk
to that condition. The State no longer entrusts certain research to the uni- this offspring exceeds the places assigned it and the university becomes
versity, which cannot accept its structures or control its techno-politic a l sm all and old, its "idea" reigns everywhere, mare and better than ever,
stakes. When regions of knowledge can no longer give rise to the trai n i ng Threatened , as I said a moment ago, by an invasive margin, since non-
and evaluation properly belonging to a university, the whole architecton- u niversity research societies, public, official, or otherwise, can also form
ics of The conflict of the Faculties finds itself threatened, and with it th e pockets within the university campus. Certain members of the university
model regulated by the happy concord between royal power and pure rea- can play a part there, irritating the insides of the teaching body like para-
son. The representation of this model remains almost identical throughout sites. In tracing the system of the pure limits of the university, Kant wants
the West, but the relation to power and to the research it programs in re- to track any possible parasiting. He wants to he able to exclude it—legit-
search academics and institutes differs widely between States, regimes, and imately, legally. Now, the possibility of such parasiting appears wherever
national traditions. These differences are marked in the interventions on there is language, which is also to say a public domain, publication, pub-
the part of the State and of public or private capital. They cannot fail to licity. To wish to control parasiting, if not to exclude it, is to misunder-
reverberate in researchers' practice and style. Certain objects and types of stand, at a certain point, the structure of speech acts. (If. therefore, as I
research elude the university. Sometimes, as in certain Eastern countries. note in passing, analyses of a deconstructive type have so often had the
the university is totally confined to the pursuit of a reproducible teaching. style of theories of "parasitism," it is because they too, directly or indi-
The State deprives it of the right to do research, which it reserves for acad- rectly, involve university leg i t )2
emies where no reaching takes place. This arises most often from calcula- We are still on the threshold of /he conflict of the Faculties. Kant has
tions of techno-political profitability as figured by the State, or by national more trouble keeping a second category on the outside. But in naming it,
or international, State or trans-Stare capitalist powers, as one might imag- he seems very conscious this time of political stakes. It has to do with the
ine happening with the storage of information and with establishing dam class of the "lettered": die Litteraten (Sutcliffe). They are not scholars in die
banks, where the academic has to surrender any representation as a Proper sense(eigmtliche Gelehrte); hut, trained in the universities, they be-
"guardian" or "trustee" of knowledge. However, this representation once came government agents, diplomatic aides, instruments of power (Instru-
constituted the mission of the university itself. But once the library is " "'ewe der Regierung). To a large extent, they have often forgotten what
longer the ideal type of the archive, the university no longer remains the they. are supposed to have learned. The State gives them a function and

center of knowledge and can no longer provide its subjects with a [-ere. Power to its own ends, not to the ends of science: "Not," says Kant. "for
sentation of that center. And since the university, either for reasons m the great good of the sciences." To these former students he gives the
structure or from its attachment to old representations, can no longer name of businessmen or technicians of learning" ( Geschaftsleure oder
open itself to certain kinds of research, participate in them, or transmi t Werkkruatl e
der Gelehrsamkeit).'lleir influence on the public is official
and /,
them, it feels threatened in certain places of its own body; threatened bY l e gal (imp ubbnem gesetzlichen Einfitrff hahen). They represent the
96 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY Machias 97

State and hold formidable power. In the examples cited by Kant, it seer ns
nce. by philosophical competence) over every declaration coming
that these businessmen of knowledge have been taught by the three fa last insta
bureaucrats, subjects representing power directly or indirectly, the
cut_
ties called "higher" (theology, law, medicine). They are ecclesiastics, irk ag_ ir ing forces of the country as well as the forces dominated insofar
d o°1,
m .
istrates, and doctors, who are not educated by the Faculty of Philosoph y as they' to power and participate in the political or ideological &-
Today, to be sure, within the class so defined of businessmen or reel- 1,1 i_ No thing would escape it—not a single position adopted in a news-
cians of knowledge, we would have to inscribe a massively larger va riety
pap e r o r book. on radio or television, in the public practice of a career, in
and number of agents—outside, on the border of, and inside universit y technical a dministration of knowledge, in every stage between the re-
t he
places. They are all representatives of the public or private administrati on as "basic" [fimdamentaid and its civil, police, medical, mil-
search known
of the university, all "decision-makers" in matters of budgets and the alio-. iery, etc ., 'applications," in the world of students and nonuniversity ped-
cation and distribution of resources (bureaucrats in a ministry, "trustee s," ogy (elementary or high school teachers, of whom Kant, strangely, has
ag
etc.), all administrators of publications and archivization, publishers, jour- nothing to say in this very place), among all "decision-makers" in matters
nalists, and so forth. Is it not, today, for reasons involving the structure of reaucracy and university accounting, and so forth. In short, no one
of bu
learning, especially impossible to distinguish rigorously between scholars I,Yud
being have
would u .,h authority to use his or her "knowledge" publicly without
and technicians of learning, just as it is to trace, between knowledge and ect. b law, to the control of the faculties, "to the censorship of
power, the limit within whose shelter Kant sought to preserve the univer- the faculties, as Kant literally says. This system has the appearance and
"

sity edifice? We will return to this question. It is always, in fact, in terms would have the reality of a most odious tyranny if (i) the power that
of "influence over the general public" that Kant elaborates his problem. judges and decides here were no defined by a respectful and responsible
Businessmen of learning are formidable because they have an immediate service to truth, and if (a) it had not been stripped, from the beginning
tie to the general public, which is composed, not of the ignorant, as the and by its structure, of all executive power, all means of coercion. Its
term is often rendered in translation, but, as Kant crudely says, of "idiots" power of decision is theoretical and discursive, and is limited to the theo-
(Idioten). But since the university is thought to lack any power of its own, retical part of the discursive. The university is there to tell the truth, to
it is to the government that Kant appeals to keep this class of businessmen judge, to criticize in the most rigorous sense of the term, namely to dis-
in order (in Ordnung), since they can at any time usurp the right to judge, cern and decide between the true and the false; and if it is also entitled to
a right belonging to the faculties. Kant asks of governmental power that it decide between the just and the unjust, the moral and the immoral, this is
itself create the conditions for a counterpower, that it ensure its own lim- so insofar as reason and freedom of judgment are implicated in it as well.
itation and guarantee the university, which is without power, the exercise Kant, in fact, presents this requirement as the condition for struggles
of its free judgment to decide on the true and the false. The government against all "despotisms," beginning with the one those direct representa-
and the forces it represents, or that represent it (civil society), should cre- tives of the government that are the members of the higher faculties (the-
ate a law limiting their own influence and submitting all its statements of ology, law, medicine) could make reign inside the university. One could
a constative type (those claiming to tell the truth) and even of a "practi - Play endlessly at translating this matrix, this model, combining its ele-
cal" type (insofar as they imply a free judgment) to the jurisdiction of uni- ments into different types of modern society. One could also therefore le-
versity competence and, finally, we will see, to that within it which is most g it imately entertain the most contradictory of evaluations. Kant defines a
universit y that
at s as much a safeguard for the most totalitarian of social
free and responsible in respect to the truth: the Faculty of Philosophy. The
moils as a
principle of this demand may seem exorbitant or elementary—one or the place for the most intransigently liberal resistance to any abuse
other, one as well as the other—and it already had, under Friedrich Qf Power a resistance that can he judged in turns as most rigorous or most
irn r,
helm, no chance of being applied, but not for reasons of empirical orga - )' ‘v
r ' terli. In effect, its power is limited to a power-w-rhink-and-judge, a
er- y in
nization alone, which thereafter would only worsen. One would have to to-say, though not necess a rily
to sa public since this would in-
,

imagine today a control exercised by university competence (and, in die volv e an action, an executive power denied the university. How is the corn-
98 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY Mochlos 99

bination of such contradictory evaluations possible for a model that i s 0 would tiltimarely he necessary not to publish. popularize, or divulge it to
and the same? What must such a model he to lend itself to this •ofrie that would necessarily corrupt it. In his response to the
gen eral public
manner? I can only sketch our an indirect answer here to this en orrr, of Prussia, Kant defends himself thus:
31,10
question. Presuppositions in the Kantian delimitation could he glimpsed
from the start, but today they have become massively appare nt . Kant A, a teacher of the people I have, in my writings, and particularly in the book
RArion urirhin the Limits, etc., contravened none of the supreme and SOIVreign
needs, and he says so, to trace, between a responsibility concernin g trut h
purpOSCS known to me; in other words I have done no harm to the public re-
and a responsibility concerning action. a linear border, an indivisible and
qf the land this is already clear from the fact that the book is not suit-
rigorously uncrossable line. To do so he must submit language to a p anic. a bl e for the public in any way, being. for the public, an unintelligible and
ular treatment. Language is the element common to both spheres (i re_ losed hook. a mere debate between faculty scholars. of which the public takes
C
sponsibility, and it deprives us of any rigorous distinction between the t wo no „m ice; the faculties themselves. to be sure. remain. to the best of their
spaces that Kant would like to dissociate at all costs. It is language that k on wledgc and conscience, free to judge it publicly; it is only the appointed
opens the passage to all parasiting and simulacra. In a certain way, Kam p ublic teachers (in schools and from the pulpit) who are bound to any out-
speaks only of language in The Co nflict of the Faculties, and it is between come of such debates as the country's authority may sanction for public ut-

two languages, that of truth and that of action, that of theoretical stat e. terance. (conflict 15)
ments and that or performatives (especially of commands)that he wish es
It is, then, the publication of knowledge, rather than knowledge itself, that
to trace the line of demarcation. Kant speaks only of language when h e
is submitted to authority. Reducing this publication so as to save a dis-
speaks about the "manifestation of truth," of 'influence over the people,'
course that is rigorous in science and in conscience, that is a rational, uni-
of the interpretation of sacred texts in theological terms, or, conversely, in
versal, and unequivocal discourse—this is a double hind, a postulation in
philosophical terms, and so forth. And yet he continually erases that in
contradiction with itself. intrinsically in conflict with itself, as if, within
language which breaks open the limits that a criticist critique claims to as-
the Kantian text, it were already not translatable from itself into itself.
sign to the faculties, to the interior of the faculties, as we will see, and be-
This contradictory demand was not satisfied in the time of Kant. How
tween the university's inside and its outside. Kant's effort—such is the
could it be today, when the fields of publication, archiving, and mediati-
scope of the properly philosophical project and the demand for a judg-
zation expand as strikingly as have, at the other end of the spectrum, the
ment capable of deciding—tends to limit the effects of confusion, simu-
overcoding and hyperformalization of languages? Where does a publica-
lacrum, parasiting, equivocality, and undecidahility produced by lan- tion begin?
guage. In this sense, this philosophical demand is best represented by an
There is something still more serious and essential. l'he pure concept of
information technology that, while appearing today to escape the control
the university is constructed by Kant on the possibility and necessity of a
of the university—in Kantian terms, of philosophy—is its product and us
Purely theoretical language, inspired solely by an interest in truth, with a
most faithful representative. This is only apparently paradoxical, and it is structur e that one today would call purely cnnstative. This ideal is no
before the law of this apparent paradox that the ultimate responsibilu►
doubt guaranteed, in the Kantian argument itself, by pure practical rea-
should he taken today, if it were possible. This force of parasiting inbt
son. by prescriptive utterances, by the postulate of freedom on the one
its, first of all, so-called natural language. and is common to both the tin!'
and and, on the other. by virtue of a de facto political authority sup-
versify and its outside. l'he element of publicity, the necessarily publi c 1""sed by right to let itself be guided by reason. Btu this in no way keeps
character of discourse, in particular in the form of the archive, designate the performative structure from being excluded by right from the Ian -

the unavoidable locus of equivocation that Kant would like to reduce , ".1-11 agt-' whereby Kant regulates both the concept of the university and thus
Whence the temptation: to transform, into a reserved. intra-univer or, e 'a( is purel y autonomous in it, namely, as we will see, the "lower" fac-
and quasi-private language, the discourse, precisely, of universal value th at,: rI i-Y, the Faculty of Philosophy. I let myself be guided by this notion of
is that of philosophy. If a universal language is not to risk equivocatio n, '
100 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY Mochlos 101

performativity, not because it strikes me as being sufficiently clear and —the interpretation of a theorem, poem, philosopheme, or the-
elaborated, but because it signals an essential topic in the debate in whi ch 6nitelY is ()il l y produced by simultaneously proposing an institutional
we are involved here. In speaking of performativity, I think as much o f „loge"'
ither lw consolidating an existing one that enables the interpreta-
performativity as the output of a technical system, in that place w h et,
mow t: •j e onstituting a new one in accordance with this interpretation.
by c
r ion. or •
knowledge and power are no longer distinguished, as of Austin's notion on e of or clandestine, this proposal calls for the politics ofa community
a speech act not confined to staring, describing, saying that which is, but of interpreters gathered around this text, and at the same time ofa global
err.preters
producing or transforming, by itself, under certain conditions, th e s i tua. a civil society with or without a State, a veritable regime enabling
ocietY,
Lion of which it speaks: the founding, for example, of a graduate scho o l the inscription of that community. I will go further: every text, every ele-
not today, where we can observe it, but a century ago, in a very deter- me nt ofa corpus reproduces or bcqueathes, in a prescriptive or normative
mined context. Interesting and interested debates that are developi ng nt j e , one or several injunctions: come together according to this or that
more and more around an interpretation of the performative power o f rule, this or that scenography, this or that topography of minds and bod-
language seem linked, in at least a subterranean way, to urgent politico- i es , form this or that type of institution so as to read me and write about
institutional stakes. These debates are developing equally in departments m e, organize this or that type of exchange and hierarchy to interpret me,
of literature, linguistics, and philosophy; and in themselves, in the form of evaluate me, preserve me, translate me, inherit from me, make me live on
their interpretative statements, they are neither simply theoretico-const a . (iiberleben or lb rtleben, in the sense that Benjamin gives these words in
rive nor simply performative. This is so because the performative does not "Die Aufgabe des Oberserzers" (The Task of the Translator] ). Or inversely:
exist: there are various performatives, and there are antagonistic or para- if you interpret me (in the sense of deciphering or of performative trans-
sitical attempts to interpret the performative power of language, to police formation), you will have to assume one or another institutional form.
it and use it, to invest it performatively. And a philosophy and a politics— But it holds for every text that such an injunction gives rise to undecid-
not only a general politics but a politics of teaching and of knowledge, a ability and the double hind, both opens and closes, that is, upon an
political concept of the university community—are involved there every overdetermination that cannot be mastered. This is the law of the text in
time, whether or not one is conscious of this. A very symptomatic form general—which is not confined to what one calls written works in li-
today of a political implication that has, however, been at work, from time braries or computer programs—a law that I cannot demonstrate here but
immemorial, in every university gesture and utterance. I am speaking not must presuppose. Consequently, the interpreter is never subjected pas-
just of those for which we have to take politico-administrative responsi- sivel y to this injunction, and his own performance will in its turn con-
bility: requests for funding and their allocation, the organization of teach- struct one or several models of community. And sometimes different ones
ing and research, the granting of degrees, and especially, the enormous for the same interpreter—from one moment to the next, from one text to
mass of evaluations, implicit or declared, that we engage in, each bearing the next, from one situation or strategic evaluation to the next. These are
its own axiomatics and political effects (the dream, here, of a formidable his responsibilities. It is hard to speak generally on the subject of what
study, not only sociological, of the archive of these evaluations, including, they are taken for, or before whom. They always involve the content and
for example, the publication of every dossier, jury report, and letter of rec . form of a new contract. When, for . example, I - read a given sentence in a
o f all
ommendation, and the spectrum analysis, dia- and synchronic, given context in a seminar (a reply by Socrates, a fragment from Capital
Finnegan s Wake, a paragraph from The Conflict of the Faculties),
codes in conflict there, intersecting, contradicting, and overdetermini ng I am
one another in the cunning and mobile strategy of interests great and fu lfilling a prior contract: I can also write and prepare for the signa-
ture o f a
small). No, I am not thinking only about this, but more precisely bat; th -Lew contract with the institution, between the institution and
ti :_ u,t3prilrel lnant forces of society. And this operation, as with
the concept of the scientific community and the university that ought any negotia-
riting' th _n ( contractual, that is, continually transforming an old contract), is
be legible in every sentence of a course or seminar, in every act of w
rn `nllent for every imaginable ruse and strategic ploy. I 'do not know if
reading, or interpretation. For example—hut one could vary examples I
102. MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE. UNIVERSITY Mochlos lo3

there exists today a pure concept of the university responsibili ty ti f irrespnsible or irrespons ibilizing destruction, whose surest el-
would I know, in any case, how to express, in this place and withi n th r
oer p leave everythingasis, consolidating the most immobile
fecto de id he too

it
limits of this lecture, all the doubts I harbor on this subject. I do n ot Ito
ofthe university. It is from these premises that I interpret The Con-
if an ethico-political code bequeathed by one or more tradition s is v i a ble forcesC the Faculties. I return to it now, though in truth 1 do not believe I
for such a definition. But today the minimal responsibility and in any case
evet left it.
the most interesting one. the most novel and strongest responsibilit y for ,
Kant, t h en , wanted to draw a line between scholars in the university
someone belonging to a research or teaching institution, is perhaps to
an d b u sinessmen of learning or instruments of government power, be-
make such a political implication, its system and its aporias, as clear and tween the inside and the outside closest to the university enclosure. Rut
thematic as possible. In speaking of clarity and thematization, alth ough line, Kant certainly has to recognize, does not only pass along the bor-
t hi s
these thematizations can take the most unexpected and convoluted p ath_ d er an d around the institution. It traverses the faculties, and this is the
ways, 1 still appeal to the most classical of norms; but I doubt that any one place conflict, of an unavoidable conflict. This border is a front. In ef-
could renounce doing so without, yet again, putting into question even• referring himself to a de facto organization that he seeks, in keep-
thought of responsibility, as one may naturally always wish to do. By 6', ng -lair his usual line of argument, not to transform but rather to analyze
clearest possible rhematizarion I mean the following: that with student s in itssbr vconditions
ife on of pure juridical possibility, Kant distinguishes between
and the research community, in every operation we pursue together ( a nvo classes of faculty: three higher faculties and a lower faculty. And with-
reading, an interpretation, the construction of a theoretical model, th e out treating this enormous problem, Kant hastens to specify that this di-
rhetoric of an argumentation. the treatment of historical material, and vision and its designations (three higher faculties, one lower faculty) are
even a mathematical formalization), we posit or acknowledge that an in- the work of the government and not of the scientific corporation.
stitutional concept is at play, a type of contract signed, an image of the Nonetheless he accepts it; he seeks to justify it in his own philosophy and
ideal seminar constructed, a socius implied, repeated, or displaced, in- to endow this factum with juridical guarantees and rational ideals. The
vented, transformed, threatened, or destroyed. An institution is not Faculties of Theology, Law, and Medicine are called "higher" because they
merely a few walls or some outer structures surrounding, protecting, guar- are closer to government power; and a traditional hierarchy holds that
anteeing, or restricting the freedom of our work; it is also and already the power should be higher than non-power. It is true that later on Kant does
structure of our interpretation. If, then, it lays claim to any consequence• hn ioetrahricdheythat his own political ideal tends toward a certain reversal of this
what is hastily called Deconstruction' is never a technical set of discursive
procedures, still less a new hermeneutic method working on archives or
i(Thus may indeed one day see the last becoming first (the lower faculty be-
utterances in the shelter of a given and stable institution; it is also. and am
coming the higher faculty), riot iu the exercise of power (my emphasis, and
the least, the taking of a position. in the work itself, toward the politica'
Kant, even with this reversal, remains true to the absolute distinction between
institutional structures that constitute and regulate our practice, our cm' knowledge
t. and power] hut in giving counsel land counsel, as he sees it, is not
petences, and our performances. Precisely because deconstruction has powe r ] to the authority (the government) holding it, which would thereby
never been concerned with the contents alone of meaning, it must note find, in the freedom of the Faculty of Philosophy and the insight it yields, a
separable from this politico-institutional problematic, and has to requ'r c bette ry.
W ay.0tnollawc th5i 9ev) e its ends than the mere exercise of its own absolute au
-

thont c
a new questioning about responsibility, a questioning that no longer nd
-

essarily relies on codes inherited from politics or ethics. Which is . . Kant's

though too political in the eyes of some, deconstruction can seem demr model here is less Plato's philosopher-king than a certain practical
dwrni sidjsoi rri
ng oliFliun
t)he oBritish
Bt er ittio the
parliamentary monarchy he mentions in a lengthy.
bilizing in the eyes of those who recognize the political only with the IA'
"General Division of the Faculties" (Conflict
of prewar road signs. Deconstruction is limited neither to a method° 14 '
27).
As lon g
ical reform that would reassure the given organization nor, inversely , t°) as this ideal reversal has not occurred, that is, in the current
10 4

MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY Mochlos to5

state of things, the higher faculties are those that train the instrument s of disposa l today a truth about performative language, or any legitimate and
the government and anyone else with whose help the government 6 •ri ngs [ta ble doctrine on the subject. What follows from this? Every discus-
toe
off its "strongest and most lasting influence" over the general publi c, And the subject of speech acts (relations between speech acts and truth,
sion "
so the government controls and oversees those higher faculties th at r acts and intention, "serious" and "nonserious," "fictive" and "non-
ePre, speerh
sent it directly, even if it does not itself teach. It sanctions doctrin es and " "normal" and "parasitic" language, philosophy and literature, lin-
fictive.'
can require that some of them be advanced and others withdrawn, What_ guistics and psychoanalysis, etc.) has politico-institutional stakes that we
ever their truth may he. This makes up a part of the signed contr act bc_ should no longer hide from ourselves. These concern the power or non-
tween the higher faculties and the government. If, he it said in p assi ng, power o f academic discourse, or of the discourse of research in general.
this sole Kantian criterion were kept (representing the interests of St arr The division between the two classes of faculties must he pure, princip-
power and of the forces sustaining it), would one he assured today by a iai, and rigorous. Instituted by the government, it must nonetheless pro-
boundary between the higher Faculties and the others? And could one c eed from pure reason. It does not permit, in principle, any confusion of
limit the higher faculties, as before, to theology, law, and medicin e? boundary, any parasitism. Whence the untiring, desperate, not to say
Would one not find some trace of that interest and that representatio n of "heroic" effort by Kant to mark off the juridical borders: not only between
power within the lower faculty, of which Kant says that it must be ab- the respective responsibilities of the two classes of faculties, but even be-
solutely independent of governmental commands? The lower (or phil o_ twe en the types of conflict that cannot fail to arise between them in a kind
sophical) faculty must be able, according to Kant, to teach freely whatev er of antinomy of university reason. Faculty class struggle will he inevitable,
it wishes without conferring with anyone, letting itself be guided by its but juridicism will proceed to judge, discern, and evaluate, in a decisive,
sole interest in the truth. And the government must arrest its own power, decidable, and critical manner, between legal and illegal conflicts.
as Montesquieu would say, in the face of this freedom, must even guaran- A first border between the classes of faculties reproduces the limit be-
tee it. And it should have an interest in doing so, since, says Kant with the tween action and truth (a statement or proposition with truth value). The
fundamental optimism characterizing this discourse, without freedom lower Faculty is totally free where questions of truth are concerned. No
truth cannot he manifested, and every government should take an inter- power should limit its freedom of judgment in this respect. It can no
est in the truth manifesting itself. The freedom of the lower Faculty is ab- doubt conform to practical doctrines as ordained by the government, but
solute, but it is a freedom of judgment and intra-university speech. the should never hold them as true because they were dictated by power. This
freedom ro speak out on that which is, through essentially theoretical freedom of judgment Kant takes to he the unconditioned condition of
judgments. Only intra-university speech (theoretical, judicative, predica: universit y autonomy, and this unconditioned condition is nothing other

rive, constative) is granted this absolute freedom. Members of the "lower than philosophy. Autonomy is philosophical reason insofar as it grants it-
faculty, as such, cannot and should not give orders (Befthle geben). In the selfirsown law, namely the truth. Which is why the lower faculty is called
final analysis, the government keeps by contract the right to control and the Faculty of Philosophy; and without a philosophy department in a uni-
versit y-r, there is no university. The concept of universitas is more than the
censure anything that would not, in its statements, be constative, and in a
certain sense of this word, representational. Think of the subtleties in our Philosophical concept of a research and reaching institution; it is the con-
current interpretations of nonconstative utterances, of the effects these Cept of philosophy itself. and is Reason, or rather the principle of reason
4trhiinstitution.
.v,v ich Kant speaks here not just of a faculty but of a "department":
would have on such a concept of the university and its relations to civil se" -
ciety and State power! Imagine the training that would have to he unde r' if there is to he a university, "some such department" of philosophy has to
the 'founded" (gestrfi et). Though inferior in power, philosophy ought "to
taken by censors and government experts charged with verifying
those Control" (controlliren) all other faculties in matters arising from truth,
purely consrative structure of university discourses. Where would
experts be trained? By what faculty? By the higher or the lower? And wil e is of "the first order," while utility in the service of government is of
would decide? In any case, and for essential reasons, we do not have at of th e second order."' That the essence of the university, namely philosophy,
106 MOCHLOS: EYES oF THE UNIVERSITY Mochlos 107

should at the same time occupy a particular place and he one facul ty aicts. A 1illegal conflict merely sets into opposition, publicly, various
among others within the university topology, that philosophy should re p_ feelings, and particular inclinations. Though always involving
t7Fifti{) ns
resent a special competence in the university—this poses a serious p ro b . o ver the public, such a conflict cannot give rise to juridical and

r
lem. This problem did not escape Schelling. for example, who objected to gon ..,I arbitration. It primarily concerns a demand from the public,
Kant about it in one of his Vorlesungen fiber die Methode des akademi sr mn 1.. . h i c h, considering philosophy to he nonsense, prefers to approach the
Studiurns (Lectures on the Method of University Studies; 1802). Acco rd_ /k iwi- faculties or businessmen of learning to ask them for pleasures,
ing to him, there cannot he a particular faculty (or. therefore, power, , horc urs, or answers in the form of fortune-telling, magic, or that.--
Mach° for philosophy: "Something which is everything cannot, for th at 'rwiturgy. The people seek artful leaders (kunstreiche Ffibrer), "dcma-
very reason, he anything in particular."' Arid members of the higher faculties, such as theologians, can,
ogucc:
The paradox of this university topology is that the faculty bearin g as well as the businessmen educated by those faculties, answer that de-
within itself the theoretical concept of the totality of the university sp ace m and. In the case of these illegal conflicts, the Faculty of Philosophy as
should he assigned to a particular residence and should be subject, in the suc h is, according to Kant, absolutely impotent and without recourse. The
same space, to the political authority of other faculties and of the govern- so l u tion can only come from beyond—once again, From the government.
ment they represent. By rights, this is conceivable and rational only to the And if the government does not intervene, in other words, if it takes the
degree that the government should he inspired by reason. And in this ideal side of particular interests, then it condemns the Faculty' of Philosophy,
case, there should be no conflicts. But there are, and not just contingent t hat is, the very soul of the university, to death. This is what Kant calls the
or factual oppositions. There are inevitable conflicts and even conflicts "heroic" way—in the ironic sense of heroic medicine—that ends a crisis
that Kant calls "legal." How can this he? by means of death. Some might be tempted into a headlong recognition
This stems, 1 believe, from the paradoxical structure of those limits. of the death of philosophy that others among us oppose in several West-
Though destined to separate power from knowledge and action from ern countries, notably in France.' But things do not let themselves he
truth, they distinguish sets that are each time somehow in excess of them- taken so simply in this Kantian schema. The "illegal" conflict is only of
selves, covering each time the whole of which they should figure only as a secondary to Kant: putting individual inclinations and particular
part or a subset. And so the whole forms an invaginated pocket inside every interests into play, it is prerational, quasi-natural, and extra-institutional.
part or subset. We recognized the difficulty of distinguishing the inside It is not properly speaking a university conflict, whatever its gravity may
From the outside of the university, and then, on the inside, of distinguish- be. Kant devotes longer analyses to the legal conflicts that properly speak-
ing between the two classes of faculties. We arc not done, however, with rgai tnise from university reason. These conflicts surge inevitably from
this intestine division and its folding partition inside each space. The Fac- w in, putting rights and duties into play. The first examples
that Kant
ulty of Philosophy is further divided into two "departments": the histort- g i ves — the ones that obviously preoccupy him the most—pertain to the
ea/sciences (history, geography, linguistics. humanities, etc.) and the purr
rational sciences (pure mathematics, pure philosophy, the metaphysics of
nature and of morals); within the so-called Faculty of Philosophy, Pure
philosophy is therefore still just a part of the whole whose idea it non ethe-
c:ith
sacred, faith, and revelation: it is the duty of the Faculty of Philosophy "to
examine and judge publicly, with cool reason, the origin and content of a
. ,supposed basis of the doctrine, unintimidated by the sanctity of
) l.bch) eie ft, ch:
rje nwhich one presumably feels something, having clearly de-
less safeguards. And as historical, it also covers the domain of the higher `ided (entschlossen) to relate this supposed feeling to a concept" (Conflict
faculties. "The Faculty of Philosophy," writes Kant, "can therefore requite trod s conflict (with. for example, the higher Faculty , of Theology) rein-
all disciplines to submit their truth to an examination" Woriflicr 45)• B e " g or history where reason alone should be; it still harbors
withi • -
cause of this double overflowing, conflicts are inevitable. And they rou st .
still n Itself something natural, since it opposes reason to its outside. It is
also reappear inside each faculty, since the Faculty of Philosophy is its elf, Parasiting of the legal by the illegal. But Kant does not wish to rec-
divisible. But Kant also wishes to draw a limit between legal and illega l Qgniz e this, or in any case to declare it. He imagines instances of interior
IOH MOCHLOS: EYES OP THE UNIVERSITY Mochlos 109

arbitration, with sentence and judgment pronounced by a judge of reaso n

! ar c for this Kantian discourse is perhaps what I meant to say. But know

ti :e
in view of a "public presentation of the truth" (affentliche Darstellu ltg der which I have not discussed, is most interesting and least for-
t h )1 the rest,
Wahrheit). This trial and this arbitration should remain interior to t h e most
1 the re st informal.
or v ery It deals with the ve content of conflicts among
university and should never be brought before an incompetent public th at ans, jurists, d octors , an d th e technicians or businessmen they train.
'::
would change it back into an illegal conflict and feed it to factions, to you h ave wondered all along, I am sure, where, as we say nowadays, 1
popular tribunes, in particular to those Kant calls "neologists" (Neo/orn) wa , com ing from, which side I was on in all these conflicts, (t) to the right
"whose name, rightly detested, is nonetheless ill understood, when applied o f t he boundary or (2) to its left, or (3) more probably, as some might
indiscriminately to all who propose innovations for doctrines and formu- (r i g h t l y or wrongly) suppose, a tireless parasite moving in random agita-
lae (for why should the old ways always be taken as better?)" (conflict 57) t ion, passing over the boundary and back again, either seeking (no one
It is because they should by right remain interior that these conflicts would know for sure) to play the mediator in view of a treaty of perpetual
should never disturb the government, and they have to remain internal for peace, or seeking to reignite the conflicts and wars in a university that
that reason: never to disturb the government. from its birth has been wanting [en mal de] apocalypse and eschatology.'
And yet Kant is obliged to recognize that this conflict is interminabl e These three hypotheses, whose responsibility I leave in your hands, all ap-
and therefore insoluble. It is a struggle that eventually destabilizes depart- peal to the system of limits proposed by The Conflict of the Faculties and
mental regimes, constantly putting into question the borders within again let themselves be constrained by it.
which Kant would constantly contain antagonism. Kant further specifies Here it will have been my responsibility, whatever the consequences, to
this antagonism of the conflict of the faculties "is not a war" (kein Krieg), pose the question of the law of law [droit du droid 8 what is the legitimacy
:

proposing for it a solution that is properly parliamentary: the higher fac- of this juridico-rational and politico-juridical system of the university, and
ulties would occupy, he says, the right bench of the parliament of learning so forth? The question of the law of law, of the founding or foundation of
and would defend the statutes of the government. "But in as free a system law, is not a juridical question. And the response cannot be either simply
of government as must exist where truth is at issue, there must also bean legal or simply illegal, simply theoretical or constative, simply practical or
opposition party (the left side), and that bench belongs to the Faculty of performative. It cannot take place either inside or outside the university
Philosophy, for without its rigorous examinations and objections, the gov- bequeathed us by the tradition. This response and responsibility in regard
ernment would not be adequately informed about things that might be to to such a founding can only take place in terms of foundation. Now the
its own advantage or detriment." Thus, in conflicts concerning pure prac- foundation of a law [droll.] is no more juridical or legitimate than is the
tical reason, the report and the formal investigation of the trial would be foundation ofa university is a university or intra-university event. If there
entrusted to the Faculty of Philosophy. But in matters of content, which ca n
he no pure concept of the university, if, within the university, there
touch on the most important questions for mankind, the preliminary ccaatnedbein nth,
op .
pure and purely rational concept of the university, this—to
hearing falls to the higher faculty, and particularly to the Faculty of The' speak somewhat elliptically, given the hour, and before the doors are shut
ology (see "The Conclusion of Peace and Resolution of the Conflict Of or the meeting dismissed—is very simply because the university is
the Faculties") (Conflict 57-58; on matters of content, see p. It). And yet. :Id: An event of foundation can never he comprehended merely
despite this parliamentary juridicism, Kant has to admit that the conflict withi n
the logic that it founds. The foundation ofa law [droit] is not a ju-
"can never end," and that the "Faculty of Philosophy is the one whic h ri dical event. The origin of the principle of reason, which is also impli-
ought to be permanently armed for this purpose." The truth under origin of the university, is not rational. The foundation of a
protection will always be threatened because "the higher faculties wit! university institution is not a university event. The anniversary of a foun-
never renounce the desire to govern" or dominate (Begierde zu herrschil" may be, but not the foundation itself. Though such a foundation
is
(Conflict 55). not merely illegal, it also does nor arise from the internal legality it in-
I break off brusquely. The university is about to close. It is very late-- 4 stitutes• And while nothing seems more philosophical than the founda-
II0 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY Mochlos

lion of a philosophical institution, whether a university, a school or a d e _

,
ry mor ality. or politics, the most serious discords and decisions have to
partment of philosophy, the foundation of the philosophical instituti on as `Jo ü •p
lesswith IL ends, it seems to me, than with levers. For example, the

such cannot be already strictly philosophical. We are here in that pl ace oc i t i on of right and left, in this originally parliamentary sense, is per-
oPP •
where the founding responsibility occurs by means of acts or p e rfor. largely if not entirely, a conflict between several strategies of politi-
1)415
mances—which arc not just speech acts in the strict or narrow se nse , and ca l MOCNOS. Kant serenely explains to us that, in a university as in parlia-
which, though obviously no longer constative utterances regulated by a ment , there must he a left (the Faculty of Philosophy, or the lower faculty:
certain determination of the truth, are also perhaps no longer simply lin- the l e ft i s below for the moment) and a right (the class of higher faculties
guistic performatives; this last opposition (constative /performativ e ) st ill the government). When 1 asked a moment ago how we
remains too closely programmed by the very philosophico-unive rs i ty sr cbP„ r,ei lsiel
representing ourselves toward the foundation ofa new law, I was citing,
law—in other words by reason—that is being interrogated here. Such an as you no doubt recognized, the title of another short work by Kant (How
interrogation would no longer simply belong to a philosophical setting, to Be Oriented in Thinking?: Was heisst: Sich im Denken Orientieren?
and would no longer he a theoretical question in the style of Socrate s , 117861). This essay speaks, among other things, of the paradox of sym-
Kant, Husserl, or others. It would be inseparable from novel acts of fou n _ metrical objects as presented in yet another essay of 1768, Von dem ersten
dation. We live in a world where the foundation of a new law [droid—i n Grande des Unterschiedes der Gegenden im Raume (Foundation for the Dis-
particular a new university law—is necessary. To call it necessary, is to say tinction of Positions in Space), namely, that the opposition of right and
in this case at one and the same time that one has to take responsibility f or left does not arise from a conceptual or logical determination, but only
it, a new kind of responsibility, and that this foundation is already well on from a sensory topology that can only be referred to the subjective posi-
the way, and irresistibly so, beyond any representation, any consciousness, tion of the human body This was obviously related to the definition and
any acts of individual subjects or corporate bodies, beyond any interfac- perception, perhaps specular, of the left and right sides. But if I quickly
ulty or interdepartmental limits, beyond the limits between the institu- displace myself at this point from speculation to walking, well, as Kant
tion and the political places of its inscription. Such a foundation cannot will have told us, the university will have to walk on two feet, left and
simply break with the tradition of inherited law [droll]. or submit to the right, each foot having to support the other as it rises and with each step
legality that it authorizes, including those conflicts and forms of violence makes the leap. It is a question of walking on two feet, two feet with shoes,
that always prepare for the establishing of a new law [lol. ], or a new epoch since the institution is at issue, a society and a culture, not just nature.
of the law [droid. Only within an epoch of the law is it possible to distin- This was already clear in what I recalled about the faculty parliament. But
guish legal from illegal conflicts, and above all, as Kant would wish, con- I find its confirmation in an entirely different context, and I ask you to
flicts from war. forgive me this rather rapid and brutal leap; I allow myself to take it by
How do we orient ourselves toward the foundation ofa new law? This the memory of a discussion I had in this very place more than two years
new foundation will negotiate a compromise with traditional law. Tradi- ago with our eminent colleague, Professor Meyer Schapiro, on the subject
tional law should therefore provide, on its own foundational soil, a sup- of certain shoes by Van Gogh. It was a matter, in the first place, of the
port for a leap toward another foundational place, or, if you prefer another Heideggerian interpretation of that 1935 painting, and of knowing
metaphor to that of the jumper planting a foot before leaping—of El' w hether those two shoes made a pair, or two left shoes, or two right shoes,
ing the call on one foot" [prenant appel sur un pied], as we say i n F ren ch-- the elaboration of this question having always seemed to me of greatest
then we might say that the difficulty will consist, as always, in determin - qut nee. -Treating the conflict between the Faculty of Philosophy and
ing the best lever, what the Greeks would call the best mochlos. Th e. th e Faculty of Medicine, after speaking about the power of the h uman

mochlos could be a wooden beam, a lever for displacing a boat, a s ort of

'411 to master its morbid feelings, after involving us in dietetics, his
h YPochondria, sleep. and insomnia, Kant proceeds to offer the following
wedge for opening or closing a door, something, in short, to lean an f°. r
forcing and displacing. Now, when one asks how to orient oneself in hl
112 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY

confidence, to which l shall add, out of respect for your own sleep, not Punctuations: The Time of a Thesis
one word. I will only emphasize the moeblos or hypornorNium:

Since insomnia is a failing of weak old age, and since the left side is gen „ aity
weaker than the right, I Felt, perhaps a year ago, one of those cramp-like
seizures and some very sensitive stimuli.... I had to „ . consult a doctor....
I soon had recourse to my Stoic remedy of fixing my thought forcibly on s p ine
neutral object.... (For example, the name of Cicero, which contains m any u _
sociated ideas ... ). (Conflict 193-94)

And the allusion to a weakness of the left side called for the following
note:
It is sometimes said that exercise and early training are the only factors th at
determine which side of a man's body will he stronger or weaker, where the
use of his external members is concerned—whether in combat he will handl e Should one speak of an epoch of the thesis? Of a thesis that would re-
the sabre with his right arm or with his left, whether the rider standing i n his quire rime, a great deal of time? Or of a thesis whose time would belong
stirrup will vault onto his horse from right to left or vice-versa, and so Firth. to the past? In short, is there a time of the thesis? And even, should one
But this assertion is quire incorrect. Experience teaches that if we have our speak of an age of the thesis, of an age for the thesis?
shoe measurements taken From our left foot, and if the left shoe fits perfectly, Allow me to begin by whispering a confidence that I will not abuse:
then the right one will be too right; and we can hardly lay the blame for this never have I felt so young and at the same time so old. At the same time,
on our parents, for not having taught us better when we were children. The in the same instant, and it is one and the same feeling, as if two stories and
advantage of the right foot over the left can also be seen from the Fact that, if two times, two rhythms were engaged in a sort of altercation in one and
we want to cross a deep ditch, we put our weight on the left foot and step over
the same feeling of oneself, in a sort of anachrony of oneself, anachrony in
with the right: otherwise we run the risk of failing into the ditch. The fact that
oneself: It is in this way that I can, to an extent, make sense to myself of a
Prussian infantrymen are trained to start out with the left Foot confirms, rather
rhan refutes, this assertion; for they put this foot in Front, as on a hypo-
certain confusion of identity. This confusion is, certainly, not completely
wochtium, in order to use the right side for the impetus of the attack, which foreign to me and I do not always complain about it; but just now it has
they execute with the right foot against the left.`' suddenly got much worse and this bout is not far from leaving me speech-
less,
—Translated by Richard Rand and Amy wygans
Between youth and old age, one and the other, neither one nor the
Other, an indecisiveness of age. It is like a discomfiture at the moment of
installation, an instability, I will not go so far as to say a disturbance of sta-
b litY, of posture, of station, of the thesis or of the pose, but rather of a
Paus e
In the more or less well-regulated life of a university teacher, an end
di d afahmegiiiitamr ifielei, i
gthat do not coincide and in which there is involved once
gain and
acure fecunda:ye:tam gap of an alternative between the delight of plea-
no doubt

This anachrony (I am, obviously, speaking of my own) has For me a

as if a rendezvous had forever been set for me with what

"3
11 4 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY Thenetteatiom 115

should above all and with the utmost punctuality never come at its ag
h a ve the means here and now, and in any case, this is not the place, to
pointed hour, but always, rather, too early or too late. Clot
riahle rhis sequence. But as, For reasons that are due not only to the lim-
As to this stage on which I here appear For the defense of a thesis, h avc ir,,datuount of rime available to me, there can equally he no question of
been preparing myself for it for too long. I have no doubt premeditated it
rort •m g together the works that have been submitted to you in something
then adjourned ir, and finally excluded it, excluded it for too long so th at
like a presentation in the form of conclusions or of theses; and as, on the
when, thanks to you, it is finally taking place, it is impossible for it not other hand, I do not want to limit the discussion that is to follow by mak-
have for me a slight character of phantasy or irrealiry, an air of improb,
i ng an overly long introduction, I thought that 1 might perhaps hazard a
biliry, of unpredictability, even an air of improvisation. agmentary and preliminary propositions, indicating a few among the
few fr
It was almost twenty-five years ago now that I committed mys elf to
most obvious points concerning the intersections between this historical
working on a thesis. Oh, it was scarcely a decision; I was at that time sin1. se quence and some of the movements or themes that have attracted me,
ply following the course that was taken to he more or less natural and th at have or displaced my attention within the limits of my work.
that
was at the very least classical, classifiable, typical of those who found rotii' l d [957, then, I had registered, as the saying goes, my first thesis
Around
themselves in a certain hi ghl y determined social situation upon leaving topic. I had entitled it The Ideality of the Literary Object. Today this title
the Ecole Normale and after the agr6gation.E seems strange. To a lesser degree it seemed so even then, and 1 will discuss
But these twenty-five years have been fairly peculiar. Here I am not re- this in a moment. It received the approval of Jean Hyppolite, who was to
ferring to my modest personal history or to all those routes that, after direct this thesis, which he did, which he did without doing so, that is, as
starring by leading me away From this initial decision, then brought me he knew how to do, as in my opinion he was one of the very few to know
deliberately to question it. deliberately and, I honestly thought, defini- how to do, in a free and liberal spirit, always open, always attentive to
tively. only to end up, just a very short while ago, by deciding in a context what was not, or not yet, intelligible, always careful to exert no pressure,
that, rightly or wrongly, I believed to be quite new to take the risk of an- if not no influence, by generously letting me go wherever my path led rne.
other evaluation, of another analysis. I want to pay tribute to his memory here and to recall all that I owe to the
By saving that these twenty-five years have been peculiar, I am not first trust and encouragement he gave me, even when, as he one day told me,
thinking, then, of this personal history or even of the paths my own work he did not see at all where I was going. That was in 1966 during a collo-
has taken, even supposing that it could, improbably, be isolated from the quium in the United States in which we were both raking part. After a Few
environment in which it has moved through a play of exchanges, cite- Friendly remarks on the paper I had just given, Jean Hyppolite added,
semblances, of affinities, of influences, as the saying goes, but also and es- "Thar said, l really do not see where you are going." I think I replied to
pecially, more and more indeed, through a play of divergences and of mar- him more or less as follows: "IFI clearly saw ahead of time where I was go-
ginalization, in an increasing and at times abrupt isolation, whether as ing, I really don't believe that I would take another step to get there." Per-
regards contents, positions, let us just say "theses," or whether more espe- hap s
I then thought that knowing where one is going may no doubt help
cially as regards ways of proceeding, socio-institutional practices, a certain in orienting
one's thinking, but that it has never made anyone rake a sin-
style of writing as well as—regardless of the cost, and today this a mounts gle step, quite the opposite in fact. What is the good of going where one
to a great deal—of relations with the university milieu. with cultural, po- knows oneself to he going and where one knows that one is destined w ar-
litical, editorial, journalistic representations, there where, today, it seem s rive? Recallin g this reply today, 1 am nor sure that I really understand it
to me, are located song of the most serious, the most pressing, and the rel. ,' well, hut it surely did not mean that I never see or never know where
most obscure responsibilities facing an intellectual. I am goin g and that to this extent, to the extent that I do know, it is not
No, it is not of myself that I am thinking when I allude to the trajectory certain that I have ever taken any step or said anything at all. This also
n the means, r)cr l Lips,
.
of these twenty-five years. Inn rather of a most remarkable sequence i that, concerning this place where I am going, l in Fact
history of philosophy and of French philosophical institutions. I NYOu ki k now enough about it no think, with a certain terror, that things there are
116 N.10CHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY Punctuations II7

nor going very well and that, all things considered, it would be better not i iTi e were not as well marked out as they seem to be today. In the 1950s.
to go there at all. But there's always Necessity, the fi g ure I recently wanted (o was still not well received, was little known or too indirectly un-
wh en it
to call Necessity with the initial capital of a proper noun, and Necessit y odin
) French universities, Husserlian phenomenology seemed in-
derun -dersto
says that one must always yield, always go [se rendre] where it calls. Even escapable to some young philosophers. I still see it today, in a different
if it means never arriving. Even if it means, it says, to never arrive. Even so vav, as a discipline of incomparable rigor. Not—especially not—in the
that you don't arrive. [Quitte a ne pas arrive): Quitte, ne p as vers i ons proposed by Sartre or Merleau-Ponty, which were then domi-
river. Quitte pour ce que ter narrives pas.] nant , b u t rather in opposition to them, or without them, in particular in
The ideality of the literary object: this title was somewhat more com- t hose areas that a certain type of French phenomenology appeared at
prehensible in 1957 in a context that was more marked by the thought of l imes to avoid, whether in history, in science, in the historicity of science,
Husserl than is the case today. It was then for me a matter of bending, t he history of ideal objects and of truth, and hence in politics as well, and
more or less violently, the techniques of transcendental phenomenology even in ethics. I would like to recall here, as one indication among others,
to the needs of elaborating a new theory of literature, of that very peculiar a book that is no longer discussed today, a book whose merits can be very
type of ideal object that is the literary object, a "bound" ideality Husserl diversely evaluated, but which for a certain number of us pointed to a
would have said, hound in so-called natural language, a nonmathematical task, a difficulty, and an impasse as well no doubt. This is Tran Due Tao's
or nonmathematizable object, and yet one that differs from objects of Phernomenologie et materialisme dialectique. After a commentary that re-
plastic or musical art, that is to say, from all of the examples privileged by traced the movement of transcendental phenomenology and in particular
Husserl in his analyses of ideal objectivity. For I have to remind you, the transition from static constitution to genetic constitution, this book
somewhat bluntly and simply, that my most constant interest, coming attempted, with less obvious success, to open the way for a dialectical ma-
even before my philosophical interest, I would say, if this is possible, was terialism that would admit some of the rigorous demands of transcenden-
directed toward literature, toward that writing that is called literary. tal phenomenology. One can imagine what the stakes of such an attempt
What is literature? And first of all, what is it to write? How is it that might have been, and its success was of less importance than the stakes in-
writing can disturb the very question "what is?" and even "what does it volved. Moreover, some of Cavaillês's dialectical, dialecticist conclusions
mean?"? To say this in other words—and here is the saying otherwise that proved of interest to us for the same reasons. It was in an area marked out
was of importance to me—when and how does an inscription become and magnetized by these stakes, at once philosophical and political, that I
literature and what takes place when it does? To what and to whom is had first begun to read Husserl, starting with a memoir( [master's thesis]
this due? What takes place between philosophy and literature, science on the problem of genesis in Husserl's phenomenology! At this early date
and literature, politics and literature, theology and literature, psycho- Maurice de Gandillac was kind enough to watch over this work; twenty-
analysis and literature? It was here, in all the abstractness of its title, that six years ago he alone served as my entire examination committee, and if
lay the most pressing question. This question was no doubt inspired in I recall that he was reduced to one-third of the committee for a thesis for
me by a desire that was related also to a certain uneasiness: why finally the third cycle (De la grammatologie [Of Grammatologyl in [967) 3 and to
does the inscription so fascinate me, preoccupy me, precede me? Why oneh-ism with ittlf committee today, I do so not only to express my gratitude
am I so fascinated by the literary ruse of inscription and the whole un- .:t that feeling of fidelity that is comparable to no other, but to
wP riolEitn
zisi.1:: i.7.hs
1ti hathenceforth this parceling out, this proliferating division
graspable paradox of a trace that manages only to carry itself away, to
erase itself in re-marking itself, itself and its own idiom, which in order will be my last thesis defense.
to take actual form [arriver a son evenement] must erase itself and produce named this first work, my introduction to The Origin of Geometry'
itself at the price of this self-erasure. to approach something like the un-thought axiomatics of
Curious as it may seem, transcendental phenomenology helped me , in Husserlian phenomenology, its principle of principles," that is to say, in-
tu itionis
the first stages of my work, sharpen some of these questions, which a
t the m , the absolute privilege of the living present, the lack of atten-
I I 8 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY Punctuations 119

lion paid to the problem of its own phenomenological enunci at i on, t f denials, of dogmatic decrees; they were no: to be localized within
t i nny
transcendental discourse itself, as Fink used to say, to the necessity, o ° topos of culture, of the encyclopedia, or of ontology. I proposed
course, in eidetic or transcendental description, to a language that co u ld banil iatil iz e the nonclosed and fissured system of these constraints, under
to
not itself he submitted to the epoch(' (to the epoch)—without itself Ise•n • g of lo gocentrism in the form that it takes in Western philosophy
simply "in the world"—thus to a language that remained naive, even that of phonocentrism as it appears in the widest scope of its
an d t inder
though it made possible all the phenomenological bracketings and pare n dominion. Of course, I was able to develop this device and this interpre-
o f a-thes.Tiunogtaxmicsedtolimhescp rat i on only by according a privileged role to the guideline or analyser
consistent problematic of writing and of the trace, even though the ne- named writing, text, trace, and only by proposing a reconstruction and
cessity of such a problematic had been marked out by The Origin of C OW ralization of these concepts (writing, text, trace) as the play and work

Geometry with a rigor no doubt unprecedented in the history of philos o_ o' r difierance, whose role is at one and the same time both of constitution
phy. Husserl indeed located the recourse to writing within the very con- and d e constitution. This strategy may have appeared to he an abusive de-
stitution of those ideal objects par excellence, mathematical objects, for mation—or, as some have cursorily said, a metaphorical usage—of the
though without considering—and for good reason—the threat that th e current notions of writing, text, or trace, and have seemed to those who
logic of this inscription represented for the phenomenological project it- continued to cling to these old self-interested representations to give rise
self. Naturally, all of the problems worked on in the introduction to The to all sorts of misunderstandings. But I have untiringly striven to justify
Origin of G-ometry have continued to organize the work I have subse- this unbounded generalization, and I believe that every conceptual break-
quently attempted in connection with philosophical, literary, and even through (fi-ayage) amounts to transforming, that is to deforming, an ac-
nondiscursive corpora, most notably that of graphic or pictorial works: I credited, authorized relationship between a word and a concept, between
am thinking, for example, of the historicity of ideal objects, of tradition, a trope and what one had every interest to consider to be an unshiftable
of inheritance, of filiation or of wills and testaments, of archives, libraries, primary, proper, literal, or current meaning. Moreover, the strategic and
hooks, of writing and living speech, of the relationships between semiotic rhetorical scope of these gestures has never ceased to engage me in nu-
and linguistics, of the question of truth and of undecidability, of the irre- merous subsequent texts. All of this was grouped together under the title
ducible alterity that divides the self-identity of the living present, of the of deconstruction, the graphics of difference, of the trace, the supplement.
necessity for new analyses concerning nonmathematical idealities, and so and so forth, and here I can only indicate them in an algebraic manner.
forth. What I proposed at that time retained an oblique, deviant, sometimes di-
During the years that followed, from about 1963 to 1968, I tried to work rectly critical, relationship with respect to everything that seemed then to
out—in particular in the three works published in 196f –what was in no dominate the main, most visible, the most spectacular, and sometimes the
way meant to be a system but rather a sort of strategic device, opening most fertile outcrop of French theoretical production, a phenomenon
onto its own abyss, an unclosed, unenclosable, not wholly formalizable that, in its various different forms, was known, no doubt abusively, as
ensemble of rules for reading, interpretation, and writing. This type (id' "structuralism." These forms were of course very diverse and very remark-
ie , \s
vice perhaps enabled me to detect not only in the history of philosophy vhether in the domains of anthropology, history, literary criticism,
l
and in the related socio-historical totality, but also in what are alleged to inguistics, or psychoanalysis, in rereadings, as one says, of Freud or of
Marx.
be sciences and in so-called post-philosophical discourses that fig° :as alsoBut regardless of their indisputable interest, during this period that
among the most modern (in linguistics, anthropology, and psychoana l Y" in appearance the most static period of the Gaullist republic of
1958 68,
what I was attempting or what was tempting me was of an es-
-

sis), to detect in these, then, an evaluation of writing, or, to tell the truth•
oh sentially different nature. And so, aware of the cost of these advances in
rather a devaluation of the writing whose insistent, repetitive, even
ing
scurely compulsive character was the sign of a whole set of long-stand terms of their metaphysical presuppositions, to say nothing of what was,
constraints. These constraints were practiced at the price of co ntra less evidently, their political price, I buried myself from this time on in a
120 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY PU nervations 121

sort of retreat, a solitude that I mention here without pathos, as si mpl lull
of the thesis, of the presentation of university work in
self-evident, and merely as a reminder that increasingly in regard t o ate_ order to have it legitimized, or of the authorization of competence by ac-
emit tradition as well as to established modernity—and in this case credi te d r epresentatives of the university. If, from this moment on, I was
two are but one—this solitude was and often still is considered to be t h e in d ee d convinced of the necessity for a profound transformation,
well-deserved consequence of a hermetic and unjustified reclusiven ess , amounting even to a complete upheaval of university institutions, this was
it necessary to say that I do not think this is so and that I interpret i n ail not. 0 i:course, in order to substitute for what existed some type of non-
entirely different manner the reasons for this verdict? It is also true that e sis, n onlegirimacy, or incompetence. In this area I believe in transitions
th
the living thinkers who gave me the most to think about or wh o —ost , an d in negotiation—even if it may at times he brutal and accelerated—I
provoked me to reflection, and who continue to do so, are not am ong be /i cy ,: in the necessity of a certain tradition, in particular for political rea-
those who break through a solitude, not among those to whom one c an sons t h a t are nothing less than traditionalist, and I believe, moreover, in
simply feel close, not among those who form groups or schools, to m en _ t he indestructibility of the ordered procedures of legitimation, of the pro-
Lion only Heidegger, Levinas, Blanchot, among others whom I will n ot duction of tides and diplomas, and of the authorization of competence. I
name. It is thinkers such as these to whom, strangely enough, one may speak here in general and not necessarily of the universitas, which is a
consider oneself closest; and yet they are, more than others, other. And powerftil but very particular, very specific, and indeed very recent, model
they too are alone. for this procedure of legitimation. The structure of the universitas has an
It was already clear to me that the general turn that my research w as essential tie with the ontological and logocentric onto-encyclopedic sys-
taking could no longer conform to the classical norms of the thesis. This tem; and for the past several years it has seemed to me that the indissocia-
"research" called not only for a different mode of writing but also for a ble link between the modern concept of the university and a certain meta-
work of transformation on the rhetoric, the staging, and the particular physics calls for the work I pursued in my reaching or in essays that have
discursive procedures, which, highly determined historically, dominate been published or are in the course of being published on Kant's The Con-
university discourse, in particular the type of text that is called the "the- flict of the Faculties, and on Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger in their po-
sis"; and we know how all these scholarly and university models likewise litical philosophy of the university. If I insist on this theme, it is because,
provide the laws regulating so many prestigious discourses, even those of given the circumstances and the impossibility in which I find myself of
literary works or of eloquent political speeches that shine outside the uni- summing up or presenting thetic conclusions, I feel that I should attend
versity. And then, too, the directions I had taken, the nature and the di- first and foremost to what is happening here and now, and I wish to as-
versity of the corpora, the labyrinthine geography of the itineraries draw- sume responsibility for that as clearly and as honestly as possible: from my
ing me toward relatively unacademic areas, all of this persuaded me that very limited place and in my own way.
the time was now past, that it was, in truth, no longer possible, even if I In [90 I was so little bent on questioning the necessity of such an in-
wanted to, to make what I was writing conform to the size and form then stitution, of its general principle in any case, if not its particular university
required for a thesis. The very idea of a thetic presentation, of positional structure and organization, that I thought I could make a sort of compro-
or oppositional logic, the idea of position, of Setzung or Stellung, what I mise and division of labor and time, according its share to the thesis, to
the tim e of the thesis. On the
called at the beginning the epoch of the thesis, was one of the essential one hand, I would have let the work in
parts of the system that was under deconstructive questioning. What ‘ya s, which I was engaged develop freely, and outside the usual forms and
norm s , a work that decidedly did not conform to such university require-
then put forth under the title without any particular claim [titre sans NM
nent s
of dissemination explicitly dealt, in ways that were in the end neither the and that was even to analyze, contest, displace, deform them in ,111
matic nor thetic, with the value of the thesis, of positional logic and its, their rhetorical or political bearing; but at the same time, and on the other
Th h and• the transaction or the epoch of the thesis would have amounted to
history, and of the limits of its rights, its authority, and its legitimacy. is
.

did not imply on my part, at least at that particular time, any radical ln" setting apart one piece or this work, a theoretical sequence playing the role
122. MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY Punctuations 12.3

of an organizing element, and treating it in an acceptable, if not s o teas, rtllc au tumn of 1968, and it was indeed the autumn—the end of a
curing, form within the university. This would have involved an inr eror darz ty pe of membership in the university. Certainly, from the first day
ccertain
ration of the Hegelian theory of the sign, of speech and writing in H ese% •"itr ival in France, in 1949, this membership had nor been simple,
inY •
semiology. ,p; during these years no doubt that I came to understand better to
but It "' •
It seemed indispensable to me, for reasons I have discussed, esp ec i al' the necessity of deconstruction (I use this word for the sake of
what " MU
in Marges—de la philosophic [Margins of Philosophy ], 6 to propose a may/, broi r •, though it is a word l have never liked and one whose fortune has
tematic interpretation of this semiology. Jean Hyppolite gave me his con_ di sag reeably surprised me) was not primarily a matter of philosophical
sent once again, and this second thesis topic was in its turn—registered, contents. themes or theses, philosophemes, poems, thcologemes or ide -
This, then, was in 1967. 'filings were so intertwined and overdeter, coogemes, but especially and inseparably meaningful frames, institutional
mined that I cannot even begin to say what the impact was on m e , on my
s frbiry thce, ts o. r i
p.dzgogical or rhetorical norms, the possibilities of law, of au-
es tructures
work and my teaching, on my relationship to the university institutio n tio evaluation,
of . and of representation in its very market. My inter-
and to the space of cultural representation of that event that one still does these more or less visible framework structures, for these limits,
nor know how to name other than by its date, 1968, without having a very t h ese e ff ects the margin, or these paradoxes of borders continued to re-
clear idea of just what it is one is naming in this way. The least that I can s pond to the same question: how is it that philosophy finds itself in-
say about it is this: something I had been anticipating found its confirma- scribed, rather than itself inscribing itself, within a space that it seeks but
tion at that rime, and this confirmation accelerated my own movement is unable to order, a space that opens out onto another that is no longer
away. I was then moving away more quickly and more resolutely, on the even its other, as 1 have tried to make apparent in a tympanum' as little
one hand, from the places where, as early as the autumn of 1968, the old Hegelian as possible. How is one to name the structure of this space? I do
armatures were being hastily recentred, reconstituted, reconcentrated, not know; nor do I know whether it can give rise to what is called knowl-
and, on the other hand, From a style of writing guided by the model of the edge. To call it socio-political is a triviality that does not satisfy me, and
classical thesis, and even directed by a concern for recognition by acade- even the most necessary of what are called socio-analyses often enough
mic authorities who, at least in those bodies in which were to be found have very little to say on the matter, remaining blind to their own in-
gathered together, officially and predominantly, their most effective pow- scription, to the law of their reproductive performances, to the stage of
ers of evaluation and decision, seemed to me, after '68, to be both overly- theiriroer wi nwheritage
hit
rering and of their self-authorization, in short to what will
active and too effective in their resistance to everything that did not con- call their
form to the most tranquilizing criteria of acceptability. I had numerous I have chosen, as you can see, to confide to you without detour, if not
indications of this; certain concerned me personally, and if I say that pol- without a certain simplification, all the uncertainties, the hesitations, the
itics was also involved it is because, in this case, the political does not take oscillations by way of which I sought the most fitting relationship with
only the conventional distribution along a Iefdright axis. The reproduc - the university institution, on a level that was not simply political and that
tive force of authority can get along more comfortably with declarations Concerned not only the thesis. I will thus distinguish between roughly
three i
or theses whose encoded content presents itself as revolutionary, provided thing in the time that separates me today From the time I began to
that they respect the rites of legitimation, the rhetoric and the institu - ab andon the project of a thesis. It was at first a somewhat passive reaction:
tional symbolism that defuses and neutralizes everything that comes from the g no longer interested me very much. I would have had to come
outside the system. What is unacceptable is what, underlying positions °. u p w ith a new formulation, come to an understanding with a new super-
theses, upsets this deeply entrenched contract, the order of these norms, Yis nr, and so forth. And as doctorates based on published works, theoret-
and that does so in the very form of the work, of reaching or of w riting. ically Possible, were obviously not encouraged, to say the very least, I
The death of Jean I lyppolite in 1968 was not only for me, as for otir; turn ed away, at first somewhat passively, I repeat, from those places that
erred
a moment of great sadness. By a strange coincidence, it marked at th to Inc less and less open to what really mattered to me. But I have
124 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY l'unctuations t 2.5

to admit that in certain situations, most notably those in which I a m made hem just about indefensible, in particular as a thesis, was less the
ing and in which I am writing about writing, my obstinacy is great, co
n, li c i t y of their contents, conclusions, and demonstrative positions
straining for me, indeed compulsive, even when it is forced to t a k e the riot, it s eems to me, the acts of writing and the performative stage to
most roundabout paths. And so beyond the three works published e y had to give rise and from which they remained inseparable
in which h not easily capable of being represented, transported, and
1972, 8 I kept worrying away at the same problematic, the same open ma-
ari d hence
trix (opening onto the linked series formed by the trace, differance —R ue A _ tto kned into another form; they were inscribed in a space that one
cidables, dissemination, the supplement. the graft, the hymen,the:;_
cou ld no longer, that I myself could no longer, identify or classify under
ergo', and so on), pushing it toward textual configurations that hal ne] philosophy or literature, fiction or nonfiction, and so
and less linear, logical, and topical forms, even typographical form s th at klil icr hh, cee specially
adng at a time when what others would call the autobiograph-
were more daring, the intersection of corpora, mixtures of genres or ka h n volvement of these texts was undermining the very notion of auto-
modes, Wechsel der Trine [changes in tone], satire, rerouting, grafting, bi o graphy, giving it over to what the necessity of writing, the trace, the
so on, to the extent that even today, although these texts have been pub- could offer of all that was most baffling, undecidable, cun-
remainder,
lished for years, I do not believe them to be simply presentable or accept- n i ng , or despairing. And since 1 have just alluded to the performative
able to the university and I have not dared, have not judged it opportune, structure , let me note in passing that, for the same reasons, I have held
to include them here among the works to be defended. These texts in- back from the thesis corpus, along with a good many other essays, a de-
clude Glas," despite the continued pursuit there of the project of gram- bate that I had in the United States with a speech act theorist, John
matology, the encounter with the arbitrary character of the sign and the Searle, in a short work that I entitled Limited Inc."
theory of onomatopoeia in Saussure, as well as with the Hegelian Aufim- During an initial period, then, from 1968 to 1974, I simply neglected
bung, the relation between the undecidable, the dialectic, and the double the thesis. But during the years that followed I deliberately decided—and
bind, the concept of generalized fetishism, the pull of the discourse of cas- 1 sincerely believed that this decision was final—not to submit a thesis at
tration toward an affirmative dissemination and toward another rhetoric all. For, besides the reasons I have just mentioned and that seemed to me
of the whole and the part, the re-elaboration of a problematic of the to be more and more solid, I have been engaged since 1974 with friends,
proper noun and the signature, of the testament and the monument, and colleagues, and university and high school students in a work which 1
many other themes besides. All of this indeed was an expansion of earlier should dare to call a long-term struggle that directly concerns the institu-
attempts. I will say the same thing about other works that I have deliber- nl°st: philosophy, especially in France, and first and foremost in a situa-
ately left out of this defense, works such as Eperons: Les styles de Nietzsche non whose nature has been determined by a long history, but that was
(Spurs: Nietzsches Styles) or La carte postale ( The Post Card), 1 ° which, each worsened in 1975 by a policy that could—or, one may fear, will—lead to
in its own way, nevertheless extend a reading (of Freud, Nietzsche, and the destruction of philosophical teaching and research, with ail that this
some others) begun at an earlier stage, the deconstruction of a certain supposes or implies in the country. For all the women and men who, like
hermeneutics as well as of a theorization of the signifier and the letter with to organize the Groupe de Recherches sur l'Enseignement
its authority and institutional power (I am referring here to the whole M' ;h' io op i Iique (Greph) and who participated in its Avant-Projet, its re-
choanalytic system as well as to the university), the analysis of logocen - search, and its actions, from 1974 until the meeting of the Estates General
trism as phallogocentrism, a concept by means of which I tried to hid'', of Philosophy in this very place just one year ago, for all of us the task was
cate, in my analysis, the essential indissociability of phallocentrism and 'idle utmost urgency, and the responsibility ineluctable.'' I specify: this
t as k
logocentrism, and to locate their effects wherever I could spot them—bu r was urgent and ineluctable in the places we occupy—teaching or re-
'!arc
these effects are everywhere, even where they remain unnoticed. h in philosophy—the places to which we cannot deny that we belong
The expansion of these texts dealing with textuality might seer' and in Itich we find ourselves inscribed. But of course, other things are
anamorphic or labyrinthine, or both at once, but what in particui' l Urgent too; this philosophical space is not the only one available to think-
I2.6 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY Punctuations I27

ing, nor the first one in the world, nor is it the one with the great en ds. • . on the mac hin ery of publishing and on the media. Whether in
discours es
termining influence on, for example, politics. We dwell elsewhere as ,v ana l yses of the logic of the parregon or the interlacing stricture of the
and this 1 have tried never to forget; nor indeed is it something that al# dot,Ibind, whether in the paintings of Van Gogh, Adami, or Titus
.trws
itself to be forgotten. What we in Greph were questioning with respe ct -
to car ,„ /.1, or the meditations on art by Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, or Ben-
the teaching of philosophy could nor be separated, and we have a l ways ( i n La Verite en peinture [The Truth in Painting])," or again in my
join
been attentive to this point, from all of the other cultural, political pts ter explore new questions with psychoanalysis (for example, in
and
,
actou
other relations of forces in this country and in the world.
h an ge with the works, so alive today, of Nicolas Abraham and Maria
In any case, as far as I was concerned, my participation in Greph's w ork exc
all of these cases I was increasingly preoccupied with the ne-
Torok)
and struggles had to he as consistent as possible with what I was tryi ng to
oss ity of re-elaborating, with new stakes, questions said to he classically
write elsewhere, even if the middle terms between the two necessitie s w ere institutional. And 1 would have liked in this respect to have been able to
not always easy and obvious. insist upon saying this here: alth ough harmonize both a discourse an d a pract i ce , as t h e saying goes, to fir The
among the works presented to you I have included neither the texts I h ave
prentises of my earlier project. In fact, if not in principle, this was not al-
signed or those that I have prepared as a militant of Greph nor, a forti ori,
ways easy, not always possible. At times indeed it remained very burden-
the collective actions in which I have participated or which I have en-
so me in a number of ways.
dorsed in that capacity, 1 consider them to be inseparable, let us say in Of the third and final period, the one in which I find myself here and
spirit, from my other public acts—most notably from my other publica- now. 1 can say very little. Only a few months ago, taking account of a very
tions. And the gesture I make today, far from signifying that I have aban- wide number of different factors that I cannot analyze here, I came to the
doned anything in this respect, will on the contrary ] hope, make possi- conclusion, putting an abrupt end to a process of deliberation that was
ble other involvements or other responsibilities in the same struKle. threatening to become interminable, that everything that had justified my
It remains the case that during this second period, beginning around earlier resolution (concerning the thesis, of course) was no longer likely to
1974, I thought, rightly or wrongly, that it was neither consistent nor de- he valid for the years to come. In particular, for the very reasons of insti-
sirable to be a candidate for any new academic title or responsibility. Nei- tutional politics that had until now held me back. I concluded that it was
ther consistent given the work of political criticism in which I was partic- perhaps better, and I must emphasize the "perhaps," to prepare myself for
ipating, nor desirable with regard to a little forum that was more internal, some new type of mobility. And as is often, as is always the case, it is the
more private, and where, through a whole endless scenography of sym- friendly advice of this or that person among those present here, before or
bols, representations, phantasics, traps, and strategies, a self-image re- behind me, it is others, always others, who effected in me a decision I
counts all sorts of interminable and incredible stories to itself. So I could not have come to alone. For not only am I not sure, as I never am,
thought I had decided that, without further changing anything in nlY of being right in taking this step, I am not sure that I see in all clarity what
university situation, I would continue for better or for worse doing what led me to do so. Perhaps because I was beginning to know only too well
I had done up to then, from the place where I had been immobilized , and Rot where I was going but where I was, not where I had arrived but where
without knowing anything more about where I was going, indeed know" I stopped.
ing less no doubt about it than ever. It is not insignificant, 1 believe, tha t 'ergoanni,by saying that it was as if I was speechless. You recognized, of
4liai elh
t
during this period most of the texts I published placed the greatest, if net course, that this was just another manner of speaking; nevertheless it was
the most novel, emphasis on the question of rights and of the proper II nor False. For the captatio in which I have just indulged was not only ex-
propreb on the rights of property, on copyright, on the signature and the cfs sivdY coded, excessively narrative—the chronicle of so many
market, on the market for painting or, more generally, for culture and 211 is—it was also as impoverished as a punctuation mark, rather. I
its representations, on speculation on the proper, on the name, on (kstii should say, an apostrophe in an unfinished text. And above all, above all.
it
nation and restitution. on all the institutional borders and structures o inded too much like the rotting up of a calculation, a self-justifi-
 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY
12.8

cation, a self-defense (in the United States one speaks of a thesis d e ft kse The Principle of Reason: The University
for a soutenance de these). You have heard too much talk of strategits
"Strategy" is a word that I have perhaps abused in the past, especiall y in the Eyes of Its Pupils
as it
was always to specify in the end, in an apparently self-contradicto ry man.
ner and at the risk of cutting the ground from under my own feet— some.
thing I almost never fail to do—a strategy without any goal [.finalite]. Th e
strategy without any goal—for this is what I hold to and what in turn
holds me—the aleatory strategy of someone who admits that he do es not
know where he is going. This, then, is not after all an undertaking of war
or a discourse of belligerence. I would like it also to be like a headlong
flight straight toward the end, a joyous self-contradiction, a disarmed de-
sire, that is to say, something very old and very cunning, but that also h as
just been born and that delights in being without defense.
—Thanskzted by Kathleen McLaughlin How not to speak, today, of the university?

I put my question in the negative (how not to), for two reasons. On the
one hand, as we all know, it is impossible, now more than ever, to dissoci-
ate the work we do, within one discipline or several, from a reflection on
the political and institutional conditions of that work. Such a reflection is
unavoidable. It is no longer an external complement to teaching and re-
search; it must make its way through the very objects we work with, shap-
ing them as it goes, along with our norms, procedures, and aims. We can-
not not speak of such things. On the other hand, the question "how not
to" gives notice of the negative, or perhaps we should say preventive, char-
acter of the preliminary reflections I would like to put to you. Indeed,
since I am seeking to initiate discussion, I will content myself with saying
how one should not speak of the university. Some of the typical risks to be
avoided, it seems to me, take the form of a bottomless pit, while others
tak e the form of a protectionist barrier.
Does the university, today, have what is called a raison d'etre? I have de-
liberately chosen to put my question in a phrase [raison d'étre, literally,
reason to be"J that is quite idiomatically French. In two or three words,
that phrase names everything I will be talking about: reason and being, of
course, and the essence of the university in its relations to reason and be-
in.. :
6 out also the cause, purpose [finalite], necessity, justification, mean-
i ng , ind mission of the university; in a word, its destination. To have a rai-
son d'etre, a reason for being, is to have a justification for existence, to
hav e
a meaning, a purpose [finalite], a destination. It is also to have a

129
130 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY The Principle of Reason 131

cause, to be explainable according to the "principle of reason" or the "l aw But is sight enough? To learn and teach, does it suffice to know how to
of sufficient reason," as it is sometimes called—in terms of a reason that 4 day ,ii differences? In certain animals, sensation engenders memory, and
also a cause (a ground, ein Grund), that is to say also a footing and a Fnun _ that makes them more intelligent (phronimbtera) and more capable of
dation, ground to stand on. In the phrase raison d'etre, this causality r a k es (mathetikOtera). But to know how to learn, and learn how to know,
tedou ng
on above all the sense of final cause, in the wake of Leibniz, the autho r o f si k t , intelligence, and memory are not enough. We must also know how
the formulation—and it was much more than a formulation—"th e P r i n_ and to listen (tin psopbbn akouein). I might suggest somewhat play-
ciple of Reason." To ask whether the university has a reason for being is t o that we have to know how to shut our eyes in order to he better [is-
ic-u°'['ll'vL. 'ar
wonder "why the university?," but the question "why" verges on "with a te
ait Bees know many things, since they can see; but they cannot learn,
view to what?" The university with a view to what? What is the university' s ns-
sinceaithey
ton are among the animals that lack the faculty of hearing (me
view? What are its views? Or again: what do we see from the universit y, psophOn akouein). Thus, despite appearances to the contrary, the
whether, for instance, we are simply in it, on hoard: or whether, puzzlin g un iversity, that place where people know how to learn and learn how to
over destinations, we look out from it while in port or, as French has it, know, will never be a kind of hive. Aristotle, let us note in passing, has ush-
"au large," on the open sea, "at large"? As you may have noticed, in askin g ered in a long tradition of frivolous remarks on the philosophical topos of
"what is the view From the university?" I was echoing the title of the im- the bee, the sense and senses of the bee, and the bee's reason for being.
peccable parable James Siegel published in Diacritics two years ago: "Aca- Marx was doubtless not the last to have overworked that topos, when he in-
demic Work: The View from Cornell."' Tbday, indeed, I shall do no more sisted on distinguishing human industry from animal industry, as exempli-
than decipher that parable in my own way. More precisely, I shall be tran- fied in bee society. Seeking such nectar as may be gathered from the vast an-
scribing in a different code what I read in that article—the dramatic, ex- thology of philosophical bees, I find a remark of Schelling's, in his 1803
emplary nature of the topology and politics of this university, in terms of Lessons on the Method of University Studies,' more to my taste.
its views and its site: the topolitics of the Cornellian point of view. An allusion to the sex of bees often comes to the aid of the rhetoric of
naturalism, organicism, or vitalism as it plays upon the theme of the com-
From its first words on, metaphysics associates sight with knowledge, plete and interdisciplinary unity of knowledge, the theme of the univer-
and knowledge with knowing how to learn and knowing how to teach. To sity as an organic social system. This is in the most classic tradition of in-
he more specific, Aristotle's Metaphysics does so, and from its opening terdisciplinary studies. I quote Schelling:
lines. 1 will return later to the political import of its opening lines. For the
The aptitude for doing thoughtful work in the specialized sciences, the ca-
moment, let us look at the very first sentence: "Pantos anthropoi tou ei-
pacity to work in conFormiry with that higher inspiration which is called sci-
denai oregontai phusei" (All men, by nature, have the desire to know).
entific genius, depends upon the ability to see each thing, including special-
Aristotle thinks he sees a sign (semeion) of this in the fact that sensations 'led knowledge, in its cohesion with what is nriginary and unified. Any
give pleasure, "even apart from their usefulness" (kboris tes khreias). [he thought which has nor been formed in this spirit of unity and totality [der
pleasure of useless sensations explains the desire to know for the sake of Eatie rindd, 1t
p i /,ing
/i /heit] is empty in itself, and must be challenged; whatever is inca-
knowing, the desire for knowledge with no practical purpose. And this is harmoniously within that budding, living totality is a dead
more true of sight than of the other senses. We give preference to sensing shoot which sooner or later will he eliminated by organic laws; doubtless there
also exist, within the realm of science, numerous sexless bees [geschlechtslose
"Through the eyes" not only for taking action (prattein), but even when we
:iel
.i eion]sig
have no praxis in view. This one sense, naturally theoretical and c ontem - wkeit
ho, ] s. i:ice they have not been granted the capacity to create, multiply
plative, goes beyond practical usefulness and provides us with more to in inorganic shoots the outward signs of their own witlessness [ihre eigne

know than any other; indeed, it unveils countless differences (polka delo
d thpboras). We give preference to sight just as we give preference to th e don't know what bees, not only deaf but sexless, Schelling had in
uncovering of differences. m ind at the time. But I am sure that even today such rhetorical weapons
 132 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY The Principle of Reason 133

would find many an eager buyer. One professor has recentlyy m n th at

writte n it ha d to he something like an inaugural address. Of course, Cornell Uni-
a certain theoretical movement rdeconstructionise] w mostly verciri h a s welcomed me generously many times since I first came to
ported, within the university, by homosexuals and feminists-_a fa
Speak here in 1975.
I have many friends here, and Cornell is in fact the first
which seemed very significant to him, and doubtless a sign of asexuality &ncr i ca n university I ever taught for. That was in Paris, in 1967 68, as
-

Opening the eyes to know, closing them—or at least listening—i n or 'Davi d G ro ssvogel will undoubtedly remember: he was in charge of a pro-
der to know how to learn and to learn how to know: here we have a fi rst t hat had also been directed by Paul de Man. But today, for the first
sketch of the rational animal. If the university is an institution for sci ence gran,, I am taking the floor to speak as an Andrew Dickson White Proles-
t i me
and teaching. does it have to go beyond memory and sight? In w h at so •ar-Large• ln French, "au large!" is the expression a great ship uses to
rhythm? To hear better and learn better, must it close its eyes or n arrow i ts hail a small craft about to cross her course: "Wear off. Give way." In this
outlook? In cadence? What cadence? Shutting off sight in order to learn i s cas e, the title with which your university has honored me at once brings
of course only a figurative manner of speaking. No one will take it lite r me closer to you and adds to the anguish of the cornered animal. Was this
e l y-aly,ndImotprsigculvaenrtofbikg.Imeslu i na ugural lecture a well-chosen moment to ask whether the university has
in Ewor of a new university Enlightenment [Aufkliirung]. Still, I shall ru n a reason for being? Wasn't I about to act with all the unseemliness of a
the risk of extending my figuration a little farther, in Aristotle's compa ny. stranger who in return for noble hospitality plays prophet of doom with
In his De anima (4zih) he distinguishes between man and those animals his hosts. or at best eschatological harbinger, like Elijah denouncing the
that have hard, dry eyes (ton sklerophtalmôn), the animals lacking eyelids power of kings or announcing the end of the kingdom?
(ta blephara), that sort of sheath or tegurnental membrane (phrag?nal that A second cause for worry is that I find myself involved already, quite im-
serves to protect the eye and permits it, at regular intervals, to close itself prudently, that is, blindly and without foresight, in an act of dramaturgy,
off in the darkness of inward thought or sleep. What is terrifying about an writing out the play of that view in which Cornell, from its beginnings, has
animal with hard eyes and a dry glance is that it always sees. Man can felt so much to be at stake. The question of the view has informed the in-
lower the sheath, adjust the diaphragm, narrow his sight, the better to stitutional scenography, the landscape of your university, the alternatives of
hear, remember, and learn. What might the university's diaphragm be? expansion and enclosure, life and death. From the first it was considered vi-
The university must not be a sclerophthalmic animal, a hard-eyed animal; ral not to dose off the view. This is what Andrew Dickson White, Cornell's
when I asked, a moment ago, how it should set its sights and adjust its first president, recognized, and I wanted to pay him this homage. At a mo-
views, that was another way of asking about its reasons for being and its ment when the trustees wanted to locate the university closer to town, Ezra
essence.'' What can the university's body see or not see of its own destina- Cornell took them to the top of East Hill to show them the sights, and the
tion, of that in view of which it stands its ground? Is the university the site, he had in mind. "We viewed the landscape," writes Andrew Dickson
master of its own diaphragm? White. "It was a beautiful day and the panorama was magnificent. Mr.
Now that I have opened up this perspective, allow me to c l o se it off for Cornell urged reasons on behalf of the upper site, the main one being that
the twinkling of an eye, to allow me to confide in you, to make what in was
as so much more room for expansion."' Ezra Cornell gave good rea-
French I could call a confidence but in English must call a confession. sons, and since the Board of Trustees, reasonably enough, concurred with
Before preparing the text of a lecture, I find I must prepare myself for 'hen), reason won out. But in this case was reason quite simply on the side
the scene I will encounter as I speak. That is always a painful experienc e; ❑ f life? Drawing on K. C. Parsons's account of the planning of the Cornell
an occasion for silent, paralytic deliberation. I feel like a hunted anim al,.• campus, James Siegel observes (and I quote) that
looking in darkness for a way our where none is to be found. Every exit;
For Ezra Cornell the association of the view with the university had some-
blocked. ln the present case, the conditions of impossibility, if you WI
thing to do with death. Indeed Cornell's plan seems to have been shaped by
were made worse, for three reasons. the thernatics of the Romantic sublime, which practically guaranteed that a
In the first place, this was not to be just a lecture like any other; rat her "Ilrivated roan in he presence of certain landscapes would find his thoughts
1 34 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THF. UNIVERSITY The Principle of Reason 135

drifting metonymical!) , through a series of topics—solitude, ambition, rn dari soug ht to encourage myself, daydreaming a hit, it occurred to me that I
choly, death, spirituality, "classical inspiration"—which could lead, by an easy did n t know how many meanings were conveyed by the phrase "at large."
extension, to questions of culture and pedagogy. ("View" 69) as i n -professor at large." 1 wondered whether a professor at large, not be-
A matter of life and death. The question arose again in 1977, wh en the ion .ing to any department, nor even to the university, wasn't rather like
the person who in the old days was called un ubiquiste, a "uhiquitist," if
university administration proposed to erect protective railings on th e coi_
‘,0 ,, w ill, in the university of Paris. A uhiquitist was a doctor of theology
legetown bridge and the Fall Creek suspension bridge to check though t,
not a ttached to any particular college. Outside that context, in French, an
of suicide inspired by the view of the gorge. "Barriers" was the term used;
Bbiquiste is someone who travels a lot and travels fast, giving the illusion
we could say "diaphragm," borrowing a word that in Greek literally means
o f being everywhere at once. Perhaps a professor at large, while nor exactly
"partitioning fence." Beneath the bridges linking the university to its sur-
roundings, connecting its inside to its outside, lies the abyss. In testimon y a u hiquitist. is also someone who, having spent a long time "au large" (in
F re nch, more than English, the phrase is most often used as a nautical
before the Campus Council, one member of the faculty did not hesitate
ter m meaning on the high seas) occasionally comes ashore, after an ab-
to express his opposition to the barriers, those diaphragmatic eyelids, on
sence that has cut him off from everything. He is unaware of the context,
the grounds that blocking the view would mean, to use his words, 'de-
the proper rituals, and the changed environment. He is given leave to con-
stroying the essence of the university" ("View" 77).
sider matters loftily, from afar. People indulgently close their eyes to the
What did he mean? What is the essence of the university?
schematic, drastically selective views he has to express in the rhetoric
Perhaps now you can better imagine with what shudders of awe I pre-
proper to an academic lecture about the academy. But they may be sorry
pared myself to speak to you on the subject—quite properly sublime—of
that he spends so much time in a prolonged and awkward attempt to cap-
the essence of the university. Sublime in the Kantian sense of the term. In
ture the benevolence of his listeners (captatio benevolentiae).
The Conflict of the Faculties, Kant averred that the university should be
governed by "an idea of reason," the idea of the whole field of what is
As far as I know, nobody has ever founded a university against reason.
presently teachable (das ganze gegenwiirtige Feld der Gelehrsamkeit). As it
So we may reasonably suppose that the university's reason for being has al-
happens, no experience in the present allows for an adequate grasp of that
ways been reason itself, and some essential connection of reason to being.
present, presentable totality of doctrine, of teachable theory. But the But what is called the principle of reason is not simply reason. We cannot
crushing sense of that inadequacy is precisely the exalting, desperate sense
plunge into the history of reason here, its words and concepts, into the
of the sublime, suspended between life and death.
puzzling scene of translation that has shifted logos to ratio to raison, reason,
Kant also says that the approach of the sublime is first heralded by an Grunt!, ground, Vernunfi, and so on. What for three centuries now has
inhibition. There was a third reason for the inhibition I myself Felt as
been called the principle of reason was thought out and formulated, sev-
thought about speaking to you today. 1 was resolved of course to limit my-
eral times, by Leibniz. His most often quoted statement holds that "noth-
self to preliminary, preventive remarks,' to speak only of the risks to be
ing is without reason, no effect is without cause" (Nihil est sine ratione seu
avoided, the abyss, and bridges, and even boundaries as one struggles rrullus effrctus sine causer). According to Heidegger, the only formulation
with such fearful questions. But that would still be too much, because I
Leibniz himself considered authentic, authoritative, and rigorous is found
wouldn't know how to pick and choose. In my teaching in Paris I have de- m a late essay, Specimen inventorum: "There are two first principles in all
voted a year long seminar to the question of the university. Furthermore'
-
reasonin g , the principle of noncontradicrion, of course ... and the prin-
I was recenth' asked by the French government to write a proposal For ciple of rendering reason" (Duo cunt prima principia omnium ratiocina-
establishment of a College International de Philosophic, a proposal that tionum, principium nempe contradictionis ... et principium reddendae ra-
for literally hundreds of pages considers all of the difficulties involved-T° 4 °" 1,0. The second principle says that for any truth—for any true
speak of such things in an hour would be more than just a challenge. As I P r oposition, that is—a reasoned account is possible. "Omnis veritatis
136 mocinos: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY The Principle of Reason t37

reddi ratio purest." Or, to translate more literally, for any true prop o,i • question of responsibility, to he sure. But is answering to the prin ci-
A
reason can be rendered.' l f reason the same act as answering .* the principle of reason? Is the
o
Beyond all those big philosophical words—reason, truth, principl e__ e`o-c t h e s ame? Is the landscape the same? And where is the university lo-
wale
that generally command attention, the principle of reason also holds t h at
reason must be rendered. [In French the expression corresponding to L e ib. coed his the call of the principle of reason is to render reason, to
nix's reddere rationem is rendre raison de quelque chose; it means to exp l ain effects through their causes, rationally; it is also to ground, to jus-
or account for something.—Trans.] But what does "render" mean wi t h (e.. account for on the basis of principles (awhe) or roots (riza). Keep-
rili that Leibnizian moment whose originality should not be un-
spec( to reason? Could reason be something that gives rise to exchange, • mind
i ng ID
circulation, borrowing, debt, donation. restitution? But in that case, wh o derestimated. the response to the call of the principle of reason is thus a
would he responsible for that debt or duty, and to whom? In the ph rase Il se to the Aristotelian requirements, those of metaphysics, of first
respo •
reddere rationem, ratio is not the name of a faculty or power (Logos, Ratio, p hil o sophy, of the search for "roots," "principles," and "causes." At this
Reason, Vernunfi) that is generally attributed by metaphysics to man, zoom oim, scientific and technoscientific requirements lead back to a common
p
Logan ekhon, the rational animal. If we had more time, we could follow or igin. And one of the most insistent questions in Heidegger's meditation
Leibniz's interpretation of the semantic shift that leads from the ratio o f is indeed that of the long "incubation" rime that separated this origin
the principium reddendae rationis, the principle of rendering reason, to fro m the emergence of the principle of reason in the seventeenth century.
reason as the rational faculty—and in the end, to Kant's definition of rea- Nor only does that principle constitute the verbal formulation of a re-
son as the faculty of principles. In any case, if the ratio in the principle of quirement present since the dawn of Western science and philosophy, it
reason is not the rational faculty or power, that does not mean it is 3 provides the impetus for a new era of purportedly "modern" reason, meta-
thing, encountered somewhere among the beings and the objects in the physics, and technoscience. And one cannot think the possibility of the
world, which must be rendered up, given hack. The question of this rea- modern university, the one that is restructured in the nineteenth century
son cannot he separated from a question about the modal verb "must" and in all the Western countries, without inquiring into that event, that insti-
the phrase "must be rendered" The "must" seems to cover the essence of tution of the principle of reason.
our relationship to principle. It seems to mark out for us requirement, But to answer for the principle of reason (and thus for the university),
debt, duty, request, command, obligation, law, the imperative. Whenever to answer for this call, to raise questions about the origin or ground of the
reason can be rendered (reddi potest), it must. Can we, without further principle of foundation (Der Satz vom Grund), is not simply to obey it or
precautions, cal! this a moral imperative, in the Kantian sense of pure to respond in the face ofthis principle. We do not listen in the same way
practical reason? It is not clear that the sense of "practical," as it is deter- when we are responding to a summons as when we are questioning its
mined by a critique of pure practical reason, exhausts the meaning. or re - meaning, its origin, its possibility its goal, its limits. Are we obeying the
veals the origin, of this "must" that, however, it has to presuppose. It could principle of reason when we ask what grounds this principle that is itself
he shown that the critique of practical reason continually calls on the a Principle of grounding? We are not—which does not mean that we are
principle of reason, on its "must." which, although it is certainly not °fa disobe y i ng it, either. Are we dealing here with a circle or with an abyss?

theoretical order, is nonetheless not simply "practical" or "ethical" in the Tile circle would consist in seeking to account for reason by reason, to
Kantian sense. render reason to the principle of reason, in appealing to the principle in
❑ rd er to make it speak of itself at the very point where, according to Hei-
A responsibility is involved here, however. We have to respond to the
d eg ,,er
call of the principle of reason. In Der Satz yam Grund (The Principle cf , the principle of reason says nothing about reason itself. The abyss,
Reason), Heidegger names that call Anspruch: requirement, claim, recluesc',. 111` . hole, the Abgrund, the empty "gorge" would be the impossibility for a
demand, command, convocation; it always entails a certain addressing 0' of grounding to ground itself. This very grounding, then, like
speech. The word is not seen: it has to he heard and listened to, this aP s" the university, would have to hold itself suspended above a most peculiar
void. A
trophe that enjoins us to respond to the principle of reason. re we to use reason to account for the principle of reason? Is the
138 MOCH LOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY The Principle of Reason 139

reason for reason rational? Is it rational to worry about reason and its •
Prtn- JeggL.1 reels the most to be at stake, especially in Der Satz vom Grund. Un-
-

ciple? Not simply; but it would be over-hasty to seek to disqualify able to follow this path myself here in the way I have attempted to follow
thi s
concern and to refer those who experience it back to their own irrati onal_ it elsewhere, I will merely draw from it two assertions, at the risk of over-
ism, their obscurantism, their nihilism. Who is more faithful to rea sons
call, who hears it with a keener ear, who better sees the difference, th e one "Me modern dominance of the principle of reason had to go hand in
who offers questions in return and tries to think through the possibility of hand with the interpretation of the essence of beings as objects, an object
that summons, or the one who does not want to hear any question abo ut prese nt as representation ( Vorstethrug), an object placed and positioned
the reason of reason? This is all played out, along the path of the Heideg- b etbre a subject. This latter, a man who says "I," an ego certain of itself,
gerian question, in a subtle difference of tone or stress, according to th e thus ensures his own technical mastery over the totality of what is. The
particular words emphasized in the formula MNl est sine ratione. This -re? of repraesentatio also expresses the movement that accounts for—ren-
statement has two different implications according to whether "nihil" and ders reason to—a thing whose presence is encountered by rendering it pre-
"sine" or "est" and "ratione" are stressed. I shall not attempt here, given sent, by bringing it to the subject of representation, to the knowing self.
the limits of this talk, to pursue all of the decisions involved in this shift This would be the place, if we only had the rime, to reconstruct the way
of emphasis. Nor shall I attempt—among other things, and for the sam e Heidegger makes language do its work (the interaction between begegnen,
reasons—to reconstruct a dialogue between Heidegger and, for example, entgegen, Gegenstand, Gegenwart on the one hand, Stellen, Vorstellen,
Charles Sanders Peirce. A strange and necessary dialogue on the com- Zustellen on the other hand)." This relation of representation—which in
pound theme, precisely, of the university and the principle of reason. In a its whole extension is not merely a relation of knowing—has to be
remarkable essay on "The Limits of Professionalism," Samuel Weber grounded, ensured, protected: that is what we are told by the principle of
quotes Peirce, who, in 1900, "in the context of a discussion on the role of reason, the Satz vom Grund. A dominance is thus assured for representa-
higher education" in the United Stares, concludes as follows: tion, for Vorstellen, for the relation to the ob-ject, that is, to the being that
is located before a subject that says "I" and assures itself of its own present
Only recently have we seen an American man of science and of weight discuss
existence. But this dominance of the being-before does not reduce to that
the purpose of education, without once alluding to the only motive that ani-
of sight or of theoria, nor even to that of a metaphor of the optical (or in-
mates the genuine scientific investigator. I am nor guiltless in this matter my-
self, for in my youth I wrote some articles to uphold a doctrine called prag- deed sklerophthalmic) dimension. It is in Der Satz yam Grund that Hei-
matism, namely, that the meaning and essence of every conception lies in the degger states all his reservations on the very presuppositions of such
application that is to he made of it. That is all very well, when properly un- rhetoricizing interpretations. It is not a matter of distinguishing here be-
derstood. I do not intend ro recant it. But the question arises, what is the ul- tween sight and nonsight, but rather between two ways of thinking sight
timate application; and at that time I seem to have been inclined to subordi- and light, as well as between two conceptions of listening and voice. But
nate the conception to the act, knowing to doing. Subsequent experience of it is true that a caricature of representational man, in the Heideggerian
life has taught me that the only thing that is really desirable without a reason sense, would readily endow him with hard eyes permanently open to a na-
for being so, is to render ideas and things reasonable. One cannot well de- ture that he is to dominate, to rape if necessary, by fixing it in Front of
mand a reason for reasonableness itself." h imself, or by swooping down on it like a bird of prey. The principle of
reason installs its empire only to the extent that the abyssal question of the
To bring about such a dialogue between Peirce and Heidegger.
b eing that is hiding within it remains hidden, and with it the very ques-
would have to go beyond the conceptual opposition between "conception tion
of the ground, of grounding as griinden (to ground, to give or take
and "act," between "conception" and "application," theoretical view and ground: Roden-nebmen), as begrienden (to motivate, justify; authorize), or
praxis, theory and technique. This passage beyond is sketched out brieflY s peciall y as stiffen (to erect or institute, a meaning to
by Peirce in the very movement of his dissatisfaction: what might the ul- which Heidegger
acc ords a certain pre-eminence)."
timate application be? What Peirce only outlines is the path where Het"
1 40 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY The Principle of Reason 141

a. Now this institution of modern techno-science that is the u n i verso,.

. c , rc h institutions sometimes considered better suited to certain pur-
Stiftung is built both on the principle of reason and on what rem ai ns hid_ f ',;, Villa/it es]. The terms of this debate tend to be analogous-1 am not
-

den in that principle. As if in passing, but in two passages that are im vi n g the
11,y are identical—in all the highly industrialized countries, what-
por-
tant to us, Heidegger asserts that the modern university is "grou n ded, t heir political regime, whatever role the State traditionally plays in this
ewer
(gegriindet),"built" (gebaut) on the principle of reason; it "rests" (ruin)_ o n A na (and , as we all know, even Western democracies vary considerably in
this principle." But if today's university, locus of modern science, "this re spect). In the so-called developing countries, the problem takes shape
grounded on the principle of grounding" (grundet aut dem Satz v om 0
. accordi n g to models that are certainly different but in all events insepara-
Grund), nowhere do we encounter within it the principle of reaso n nseir
• lc ble K0111 the preceding ones. Such a problematic cannot always—cannot
nowhere is this principle thought, scrutinized, interrogated as to its orI g • any lo nger—be reduced to a political problematic centered on the State,
Nowhere, within the university as such, is anyone wondering from wher e but on m ultinational military-industrial complexes or techno-economic
that call (Anspruch) of reason is voiced, nowhere is anyone inquirin g into networks, indeed international techno-military networks that are appar-
the origin of that demand for grounds, for reason that is to be provided, ent ly multi- or trans-national in form. In France, for some rime, this de-
rendered, delivered: "Woher spricht dieser Anspruch des Grundes aus bate has been organized around what is called the "end-orientation" [final-
seine Zustellting?" (57). And this dissimulation of its origin within what isation] of research. "End-oriented" research is research that is
remains unthought is not harmful, quite the contrary, to the developm ent programmed, focused, organized in an authoritarian fashion in view of its
of the modern university: indeed, Heidegger in passing makes certain utilization (in view of "ta khreia," Aristotle would say), whether we arc
laudatory remarks about that university: progress in the sciences, its mili- talking about technology, economics, medicine, psycho-sociology, or mil-
tant interdisciplinarity, its discursive zeal, and so on. But all this is elabo- itary power—and in fact we are talking about all of these at once. There is
rated above an abyss, suspended over a "gorge"—by which we mean on no doubt greater sensitivity to this problem in countries where the politics
grounds whose own grounding remains invisible and unthought. of research depend closely upon state-managed or "nationalized" struc-
Having reached this point in my reading, instead of involving you in a tures, but I believe that conditions are becoming more and more homoge-
micrological study of Heidegger's Der Satz von" Grund or of his earlier neous among all the technologically advanced, industrialized societies. We
texts on the university (in particular his inaugural lecture of 1929, Was ist speak of "end-oriented" [finalise] research where, not so long ago, we
Metaphysik?, or the Rector's Speech of t933, Die Selbstbehauptung der spoke—as Peirce did—of "application." For it is growing more and more
deutschen Universitiit)—a study which I am attempting elsewhere, in Paris, obvious that, without being immediately applied or applicable, research
and to which we will no doubt refer in the discussions that will come af- may pay off, be usable, end-oriented [nalisable], in more or less deferred
ter this talk—instead of meditating at the edge of the abyss—even if on a Hays. And what is at stake is not merely what sometimes used to be called
bridge protected by "barriers"-1 prefer to return to a certain concrete ac- the techno-economic, medical, or military "by-products" of pure research.
tuality in the problems that assail us in the university. The detours, delays, and relays of "end-orientation," its random aspects as
The framework of grounding, or foundation, and the dimension of-the well, arc more disconcerting than ever. Hence the attempt, by every possi-
fundamental impose themselves on several counts in the space of the uni- ble means, to take them into account, to integrate them in the rational cal-
versity, whether we are considering the question of its reason for being in culation of programmed research. A term like "end-orient" is preferred to

general, its specific missions, or the politics of teaching and research. Each aPPIY, " in addition, because the word is less "utilitarian"; it leaves open the
lime, what is ar stake is the principle of reason as principle of grounding' Pc'ssi bility that noble aims may be written into the program.
-
rk , Yo u [i lay
foundation, or institution. A major debate is under way today on the soh: wonder what is being advocated, in France, in opposition to
"Is co -
ject of the politics of research and teaching, and on the role that the tin• nsepr of end-oriented research. The answer is basic, "fundamental"
versity may play in this arena: whether this role is central or marginal. P ro- research, disinterested research with aims that would not he pledged in
adv ance to some utilitarian purpose. It was
gressive or decadent, collaborative with or independent of that of other once possible to believe that


1 4 2 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY The Principle of Reason 143

pure mathematics, theoretical physics, philosophy (and, within philo )0 ,h a t give rise to a basic systematized science, and the inciden-
sa
phy, especially metaphysics and ontology) were basic discipline s
oln%
(al an
m pirical ends that can be systematized]only in terms of technical
from power, inaccessible to programming by the agencies or instancte‘l
a nd necessities. .
the State or, under cover of the State, by civil society or capital interes ;chem as,, in the end-orientation (finalisation]
- ts. Today of research—forgive me for

r
The sole concern of such basic research would he knowledge, t ruth
Presu ming to recall such obvious points—it is already impossible to dis-
disinterested exercise of reason, under the sole authority of theeptrecl i ciPlc nes t-i i sh between these two ends Ifinafitê4. It is impossible, for example,
of reason. dist i n guish programs that one would like to consider "worthy," or even
And yet we know better than ever before what must have been tru e for ' ° _hru ca lly profitable for humanity, from other programs that would be
all time, that this opposition between the basic and the end-orientedn is of destructive. This is not new: but never before has so-called basic scientific
real but limited relevance. It is difficult to maintain this oppositio n with
rese arch been so deeply committed to ends that are at the same time mil-
thoroughgoing conceptual as well as practical rigor, especially in the m od_ itary ends. The very essence of the military, the limits of military technol-
em fields of the Formal sciences, theoretical physics, astrophysics {consider ogy and even the limits of the accountability of its programs are no longer
the remarkable example of the science of astronomy, which is becomi ng definable. When we hear that two million dollars a minute are being spent
useful after having been for so long the paradigm of disinterested con- in the world today for armaments, we may assume that this figure repre-
templation), chemistry, molecular biology, and so forth. Within each of sents simply the cost of weapons manufacture. But military investments
these fields—and they are more interrelated than ever—the so-called ba- do not stop at that. For military power, even police power, and more gen-
sic philosophical questions no longer simply take the form of abstract, erally speaking the entire defensive and offensive security establishment
sometimes epistemological questions raised after the fact; they arise at the benefits from more than just the "byproducts" of basic research. In the ad-
very heart of scientific research in the widest variety of ways. One can no vanced technological societies, this establishment programs, orients, or-
longer distinguish between the technological on the one hand and the ders, and finances, directly or indirectly, through the State or otherwise,
theoretical, the scientific, and the rational on the other. The term techno- the front-line research that is apparently the least "end-oriented" of all.
science has to be accepted, and its acceptance confirms the fact that an es- This is all too obvious in such areas as physics, biology, medicine, biotech-
sential affinity ties together objective knowledge, the principle of reason. nology. bio-programming, data processing, and telecommunications. We
and a certain metaphysical determination of the relation to truth. We can have only to mention telecommunications and data processing to assess
no longer—and this is finally what Heidegger recalls and calls on us to the extent of the phenomenon: the end-orientation of research is limitless;
think through—we can no longer dissociate the principle of reason from everythin g in these areas proceeds "in view" of technical and instrumental
the very idea of technology in the realm of their modernity. One can no security. At the service of war, of national and international security, re-
longer maintain the boundary that Kant, for example, sought to establish search programs have to encompass the entire field of information, the
between the schema that he called "technical" and the one he called "ar- stockpiling of knowledge, the workings and thus also the essence of Ian-
also uangereaatie
chitectonic" in the systematic organization of knowledge—which was and of all semiotic systems, translation, coding and decoding, the
play
to ground a systematic organization of the university. The architectonic! of presence and absence, hermeneutics, semantics, structural and
:e
the art of systems: "Under the government of reason, our knowledge in linguistics,
nguistics, pragmatics, rhetoric. I am accumulating all these
general," Kant says, "should not form a rhapsody, but must forma sys tem discipli nes
10. in a haphazard way, on purpose, but I will end with literature.
in which alone it can support and favor the essential aims of reason. P'ctry, th e
arts, and fiction in general: the theory that has these disciplines
s its
this pure rational unity of the architectonic, Kant opposes the schem e °I object can be just as useful in ideological warfare as it is in experi-
ccording !: 'n e. •
the merely technical unity that is empirically end-oriented. a fntic ta:(t) 1:.n: with variables in all-too-familiar perversions of the referential
ncas '
views and ends that are incidental, not essential. It is thus a limit bets e
traten v Such a theory may always be put to work in communications
two ends [finalites] that Kant seeks to define, the essential and noble c the theory of commands, the most refined military pragmatics of

4
1 44 MOCHI.OS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY The Principle of Reason 145

jussive utterances. (By what token, for example, will it be clear that an ions •Is.it seems to me, one of the tasks most indispensable to the exercise
terance is to be taken as a command in the new technology of telecom eeorrt E facj demic responsibility, most urgent for the maintenance of its dignity.
munications? How are the new resources of simulation and simulactt-- th, '
within t he university itself, forces that are apparently external to it
to he controlled? And so on.) One can just as easily seek to use th e r ii,„ (press : •
,
s d
founations, m media) are intervening in an ever more de-
the ass
rerical formulations of sociology, psychology, even psychoanalysi s in ardor c i s i ve way. Uni versity press es, particularly in the United Stares, play a me-
to refine what was called in France during the Indochinese orAigeriam diar i ng role that entails the most serious responsibilities, since scientific
wars the powers of "psychological action"—alternating with torture. Con_ criteria, in principle represented by the members of the university corpo-
sequemly, so long as it has the means, a military budget can invest in any_ :on have to come to terms with many other aims. When the margin of
ran ,
thing at all, in view of deferred profits: "basic" scientific theory, the h ran do mness has to be narrowed, restrictions on support affect the disci-
rnanities, literary theory. and philosophy. The Department of Philosoph y p lines that are the least profitable in the short run. And that provokes,
which covered all this, and which Kant thought ought to be kept unavail. ‘,.i thi n the professions, all kinds of effects, certain of which seem to have
able to any utilitarian purpose and to the orders of any power whatsoever l os t any direct relation to that causality—which is itself still largely
in its search for truth, can no longer lay claim to such autonomy. Wh at is overdetermined. The shifting determination of the margin of randomness
produced in this field can always be used. And even if should remai n ap always depends upon the techno-economic situation of a society in its re-
-parentlyusi ,ntproducisalwyervtokp lation to the entire world arena. In the United States, for example (and it
the masters of discourse busy: the experts, professionals of rhetoric, logic, is nor just one example among others), without even mentioning the eco-
or philosophy who might otherwise he applying their energy elsewhere, nomic regulation that allows certain surplus values—through the channel
Or again, it may in certain situations secure an ideological bonus of lux- of private foundations, among others—to sustain research or creative pro-
ury and gratuitousness for a society that can afford it as welh within cer- jects that are not immediately or apparently profitable, we also know that
tain limits. Furthermore, when certain random consequences of research military programs. especially those of the Navy, can very rationally subsi-
are taken into account, it is always possible to have in view some eventual dize linguistic, semiotic, or anthropological investigations. These in turn
benefit that may ensue from an apparently useless research (philosophy or are related to history, literature, hermeneutics, law, political science, psy-
the humanities, for example). The history of the sciences encourages re- choanalysis, and so forth.
searchers to integrate that margin of randomness into their centralized cal- The concept of information or informatization is the most general op-
culation. They then proceed to adjust the means at their disposal, the erator here. It integrates the basic into the end-oriented [finalise], the
available financial support, and the distribution of funding. A State power purely rational into the technical, thus hearing witness to that original in-
or the forces that it represents no longer need to prohibit research or to termingling of metaphysics and technics. The value of "form"—and that
censor discourse, especially in the West. It is enough that they can limit which in forms maintains to he seen and done, having to see with seeing
the means, can regulate support for production, transmission, and diffu - and to do with doing—is not foreign to it: but let us drop this difficult
sion. The machinery for this new "censorship" in the broad sense is much point for now In Der Satz vorn Grund, Hcidegger locates this concept of
more complex and omnipresent than in Kant's day, for example, Whe n "information" (understood and pronounced as in English. he says at the
problematics and the entire topology of the university were organized r ime when he is putting America and Russia side by side Pike two sym-
around the exercise of royal censorship. Tbday, in the Western democr a metrical and homogeneous continents of metaphysics as technics) in a de-
cies, this form of censorship has almost entirely disappeared. The po - Pendence upon the principle of reason, as a principle of integral calcula-
hilir. Even
it' Y [Wen the principle of uncertainty (and he would have said the same
hibiting limitations Function through multiple channels that are dece ,_
tralized, difficult to bring together into a system. The unacceptability or,: ' hi ng of a certain interpretation of undecidahility) continues to operate
discourse, the noncertification of a research project, the illegitimacy' °f1 wi thin the problematics of representation and of the subject-object rela-
ti on. .

I nos he call+ this the atomic era and quotes a popularizing hook en-
course offering are declared by evaluative actions: studying such evalor
1 46 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY The Principle of Reason 14 7

titled "We shall live thanks to atoms" with prefaces both by Otto Nn, ah t h e principle of reason. On that basis, they may attempt to define
Nobel Prize winner and "fundamentalist" physicist, and Franz Jose irlOo. resoponsibilities in the face of the university's total subjection to the
Strauss, then minister of national defense. Information ensures th e i nsur.
ree h n o k w i es of informatization." It is obviously not a question of refusing
once of calculation and the calculation of insurance. In this we re cognize Ebese te chnologies. Nor, moreover, of accrediting too quickly and too sim-
the period of the principle of reason. Leihniz, as Heidegger recalls, ,' con _
p h, an op position between the instrumental and some pre-instrumental
sidered to have been the inventor of life insurance. In the form of info r- and properly "poetic") origin of language. I have often tried to
(autni ,
mation (in der Gestalt der Information), Heidegger says, the prin cip, • e of show elsewhere, long ago, that this opposition remains of limited relevance
herc
,
reason dominates our entire representation ( Vorstellen) and delineates a and that, as such, it perhaps remains within Heidegger interrogation. nterrogation.
period for which everything depends upon the delivery of atomic energy Not in in; precedes technical instrumentalization absolutely. It is thus not a
Delivery in German is Zustellung, a word that also applies, as Hede ma tter of opposing some obscurantist irrationalism to this instrumental-
points out, to the delivery of mail. It belongs to the chain of Gestealfrom izat i on . like nihilism, irrationalism is a posture that is symmetrical to, thus
the Stellen (Vorstellen, Nachstellen, Zustellen, Sicherstellen) that character- depen d en t upon. the principle of reason. The theme of extravagance as ir-
izes technological modernity. "Information" in this sense is the most eco- rationalism—there is very clear evidence for this—dates from the period
nomic, the most rapid, and the clearest (univocal, eindeutig) stockpiling, when the principle of reason was being formulated. Leibniz denounced it
archiving, and communication of news. It must instruct men about the in his Neu Essays on Human Understanding. Raising these new questions
,

safeguarding (Sicherstellung) of what will meet their needs, to khreia, Aris- may sometimes protect an aspect of philosophy and the humanities that
totle said. Computer technology, data banks, artificial intelligences, tra ns- has always resisted technologization: it may also preserve the memory of
lacing machines, and so forth, all these are constructed on the basis of this what is much more deeply buried and ancient than the principle of reason.
instrumental determination of a calculable language. Information does But the approach 1 am advocating here is often felt by certain guardians of
not inform merely by delivering an information content, it gives form, the "humanities" or of the positive sciences as a threat. It is interpreted as
"in-formiert," "formiert zugleich." It installs man in a form that allows such by those who most often have never sought to understand the history
him to ensure his mastery on earth and beyond. All this has to be pon- and the system of norms specific to their own institution, the deontology
dered as the effect of the principle of reason or, more rigorously, of a dom- of their own profession. 'they do not wish to know how their discipline has
inant interpretation of this principle, of a certain emphasis in the way we been constituted, particularly in its modern professional form, since the
heed its summons.° But I have said that I cannot deal with the question beginning of the nineteenth century and under the watchful vigilance of
of such stress here; it lies outside the scope of my topic. the principle of reason. For the principle of reason can have obscurantist
and nihilist effects. They can be seen more or less everywhere, in Europe
What, then, is my topic? What do I have in view that has led me to pre- and in America among those who believe they arc defending philosophy,
sent things as I have done so far? 1 have been thinking especially of the ne- literatur e , and the humanities against these new modes of questioning that
cessity of awakening or of resituating a responsibility, in the university or are also a new relation to language and tradition, a new affirmation, and
in face of the university, whether one belongs to it or not. r ilv ways of taking responsibility. We can easily see on which side obscu-
Those analysts who study the informative and instrumental value olio - 'n rism and nihilism are lurking when on occasion great professors or the
re presentativ es
guage today are necessarily led to the very limits of the principle of reason of prestigious institutions lose all sense of proportion and
thus interpreted. This can happen in any number of disciplines. But if the c""trol: on such occasions they forget the principles that they claim to de-
analysts end up for example working on the structures of the s imulacrum fe nd in their work and suddenly begin to heap insults, to say whatever
co •
or of literary fiction, on a poetic rather than an informative value olio"' 41 " i nn( their heads on the subject of texts that they obviously have
"ever.
guage, on the effects of undecidability, and so on, by that very token they ()puled or that they have encountered through a mediocre journal-
are interested in possibilities that arise at the limits of the authority and the ` s "' that in other circumstances they would pretend to scorn. h
148 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY The Principle of Reason 149

It is possible to speak of this new responsibility that I have invoked o T h ese new responsibilities cannot be purely academic. If they remain ex-
nly
by sounding a call to practice it. It would be the responsibility o f , corn _ Iv difficult to assume, extremely precarious and threatened, it is be-
tter°
munity of thinking for which the border between basic and end-o r i ent .4 cause t hey must at once keep alive the memory of a tradition and make an
research would no longer be secured, or in any event not under the: • n g beyond any program, that is, toward what is called the future.
e (Tell! •
conditions as before. I call it a community of thinking in the br o a d And the discourse, the works, or the position-taking that these responsibil-
sense—"at large"—rather than a community of research, of science, or ities inspire, as to the institution of science and research, no longer stem
philosophy, since these values are most often subjected to the unquestioned w i e lv from the sociology of knowledge, From sociology or politology.
authority of the principle of reason. Now, reason is only one specie s o f T h ese disciplines are no doubt more necessary than ever; I would be the
thinking—which does not mean that thinking is "irrational." Such a com _ l ast t o want to disqualify them. But whatever conceptual apparatus they
munity would interrogate the essence of reason and of the principle of re a . may have. whatever axiomatics, whatever methodology (Marxist or neo-
son, the values of the basic, of the principial, of radicaliry, of the arch t, in M arx i s t, Weberian or neo-Weberian, Mannheimian, some combination of
general, and it would attempt to draw out all the possible consequence s o f these or something else entirely), they never touch upon that which, in
this questioning. It is not certain that such thinking can bring together a t h e mselves, continues to be based on the principle of reason and thus on
community or found an institution in the traditional sense of these words , the essential foundation or the modern university. They never question sci-
It must rethink what is meant by community and institution. This think- entific norinativity, beginning with the value of objectivity or of objectifi-
ing must also unmask—an infinite task—all the ruses of end-orienting rea- cation, which governs and authorizes their discourse. Whatever their sci-
son, the paths by which apparently disinterested research can find itself in- entific value—and it can be considerable—these sociologies of the
directly reappropriated, reinvested by programs of all sorts. That does not institution remain in this sense internal to the university, intra-institu-
mean that "end-orientation" is bad in itself and that it must be combated, tional, controlled by the deepseated norms, even the programs, of the space
far from it. Rather, I am defining the necessity For a new training that will that they claim to analyze. This can be observed, among other things, in
prepare students to undertake new analyses in order w evaluate these ends the rhetoric, the rites, the modes of presentation and demonstration that
and to choose, when possible, among them all. they continue to respect. Thus I will go so far as to say that the discourse of
As I mentioned earlier, along with some colleagues I was asked last year Marxism and psychoanalysis, including those of Marx and Freud, inas-
by the French government to prepare a report in view of the creation of an much as they are standardized by a project of scientific practice and by the
International College of Philosophy. I insisted, in that report, on stressing principle of reason, are intra-institutional, in any event homogeneous with
the dimension that in this context I am calling "thinking"—a dimension the discourse that dominates the university in the last analysis. And the fact
that is not reducible to technique, nor to science, nor to philosophy. This that this discourse is occasionally proffered by people who are not profes-
International College would not only be a College of Philosophy but also sional academics changes nothing essential. It simply explains, to a certain
a place where philosophy itself would be questioned. It would not only be extent, the fact that even when it claims to be revolutionary, this discourse
open to types of research that are not perceived as legitimate today, or that does not always trouble the most conservative forces of the university.
are insufficiently developed in French or foreign institutions, includi n g Wh ether it is understood or not, it is enough that it does not threaten the
some research that could be called "basic." We would go one step further , Fundamental axiomatics and deontology of the institution, its rhetoric, its
providing a place to work on the value and meaning of the basic, the fun - rites• and its procedures. The academic landscape accommodates such
damental, on its opposition to end-orientation, on the ruses of end.ori- tYpes of discourse more easily within its economy and its ecology; however,
enration in all its domains. As in the seminar that I mentioned earlier, the 'fit does not simply exclude those who raise questions at the level of the
report confronts the political, ethical, and juridical consequences of such FNIndati on or nonfoundation of the university, it reacts much more fear-
an undertaking. I cannot go into more detail here without keeping Y ou to those who address sometimes the same questions to Marxism, to
much too lung. psychoanalysis, to the sciences, to philosophy, and to the humanities. It is
IV) MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY The Principle of Reason 151

nor a matter simply of questions that one formulateswhile submitting one_ outside of certain historical, techno-economic, politico-in-
self, as I am doing here, to the principle of reason, but also ofp repari is .
istalun'11
,nd linguistic conditions. A strategic analysis that is to he as
a
oneself thereby to transform the modes of writing, the pedagogic se en , th d an t as possible must thus, with its eyes wide open, attempt to ward off
procedures of academic exchange, the relation to languages, to other er ch sci such reapProPriations. (I would have liked to situate at this point certain
Alines, to the institution in general, to its inside and its outside. Those who questions i s about the "politics" of Heideggerian thought, especially as elab-
venture forth along this path, it seems to me, need not set themselve s up in ' rate d prior to Der Satz vom Grisne:4 for example in the two inaugural dis-
opposition to the principle of reason, nor need they give way t o .i rra. cou rses of 19/9 and 1933.)
tionalism." 'I'hey may continue to assume within the university, alon g w i th I will limit myself, however, to the double question of "professions."
its memory and tradition, the imperative of professional rigor and comp oes the university have as its essential mission that of producing
First: d
tence. There is a double gesture here, a double postulation: to ens ure p ro, p rofessional competencies, which may sometimes be external to the uni-
fessional competence and the most serious tradition of the university even ver sity? Second: is the task of the university to ensure within itself—and
while going as far as possible, theoretically and practically, in the most un d er what conditions—the reproduction of professional competence by
abyssal thinking of the university, to think at one and the same time th e preparing for pedagogy and for research professors who have respect for a
entire "Cornellian" landscape—the campus on the heights, the bridges, certain code? One can answer the second question in the affirmative with-
and ii necessary the barriers above the abyss—and the abyss itself. It is this out having done so for the first, and seek to keep professional forms and
double gesture that appears unsituatable and thus unbearable to certain values internal to the university outside the marketplace and the ends of
university professionals in every country who join ranks to foreclose or to social work outside of the university. The new responsibility of the "think-
censure it by all available means, simultaneously denouncing the "profes- ing" of which we are speaking cannot fail to be accompanied, at least, by
sionalism" and the "antiprofessionalism" of those who are calling others to a movement of suspicion, even of rejection with respect to the profession-
these new responsibilities. alizarion of the university in these two senses, and especially in the first,
I will not venture here to deal with the debate on "professionalism" that which regulates university life according to the supply and demand of the
is developing in your country. Its features are, to a certain extent at least, marketplace and according to a purely technical ideal of competence. To
specific to the history of the American university. But I will conclude on this extent at least, such "thinking" can, at a minimum, result in repro-
this general theme of "professions." At the risk of contradicting what 1 ducing a highly traditional politics of knowledge. And the effects can be
have been urging here, I would like to caution against another kind of those that belong to a social hierarchy in the exercise of techno-political
precipitous reaction. For the responsibility that I am trying to situate can- power. I am not saying that this "thinking" is identical with that politics,
not be simple. It implies multiple sites, a stratified terrain, postulations and that it is therefore necessary to abstain from it. I am saying that un-
that are undergoing continual displacement, a sort of strategic rhythm. I der certain conditions it can serve that politics, and everything then
said earlier that I would he speaking only of a certain rhythm, for exam - comes down to the analysis of those conditions. In modern times, Kant,
ple that of the blinking of an eye, and that 1 would only be playing one Sthel I ing, Nietzsche, Heidegger and numerous others have all said as
risk off against another, the barrier against the abyss, the abyss against tier much. unequivocally: the essential feature of academic responsibility must
harrier, the one with the other and the one under the other.
not be professional education (and the pure core of academic autonomy,
ti)e ess ence of the university, is located in the Faculty of Philosophy, ac-
Beyond technical ends, even beyond the opposition between technid
ends and the principle of sufficient reason, beyond the affinity , bet-wee° elm-ding to Kant). Does this affirmation not repeat the profound and hi-
technology and metaphysics, what I have here called "thinking" risks in t era rchizing political evaluation of metaphysics, I mean of Aristotle's Meta-
turn (hut I believe this risk is unavoidable—it is the risk of the future tt. I;h-, 1:-` 6 ? Shortly after the passage that I read at the beginning (98th and
in Foll
self) being reappropriated by socio-political forces that could find it owing], one sees a theoretico-political hierarchy being put into place.
their own interest in certain situations. Such a "thinking" indeed cannot he top, there is theoretical knowledge. It is not sought after in view of


152 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY The Principle of Reason 153

its utility; and the holder of this knowledge, which is always a know lecture, entitled "What is Metaphysics?,"" he deplores the hence-
of causes and of principles, is the leader or
arkhitekton of a society at wl:rgk, Avir a d-mica organization of the university and its compartmentalizing
re
forth
is positioned above the manual laborer (kbeiroteknes) who acts wi th° his Rector's Speech, at the very point where he
tion. And even in0f
spccia
knowing, just as a fire burns. Now this theoretician leader, this kn ower kiti, makes an a ppeal on behalf the three services (Arbeitsdienst, Wehrdienst,
causes who has no need of "practical" skill, is in essence a
teacher Beyond heast, the service of work, the military, and knowledge), at the very
loos'
the fact of knowing causes and of possessing reason or logos (to log,„ m int w h ere he is recalling that these services are of equal rank and equally
ekhein), he hears another mark (semeion) of recognition: the "capacity to arigtna1 (l i e had recalled earlier that for the Greeks theoria was only the
reach" (to dunasthai dichiskein). To teach, then, and at the same tim e to di. hoot fOrin of praxis and the mode, par excellence, of energeia), Heideg-
rect. steer, organize the empirical work of the laborers. The theoretician_ Qtr n evertheless violently condemns disciplinary compartmentalization
teacher or "architect" is a leader because he is on the side of the
beginning and commanding. He commands—he is the premier or the
arche and -
exterior training in view of a profession," as "an idle and inauthentic
citing" (Das Mussige and Unechte ausserlicher Beruflabrichtung)."
prince—because he knows causes and principles, the "why" and thus also ]Des iring to remove the university f'rom "useful" programs and from
the "in view of" of things. Before the fact, and before anyone else, h e an,. professional ends, one may always, willingly or not, find oneself serving t ''

swers to the principle of reason, which is the first principle, the pri nci ple u nrecognized ends, reconstituting powers of caste, class, or corporation.
of principles. And that is why he takes orders from no one; it is he, on the We are in an implacable political topography: one step further in view of
contrary, who orders, prescribes, lays down the law (982a [8). And it is greater profundity or radicalization, even going beyond the "profound"
normal that this superior science, with the power that it confers by virtue and the "radical," the principial, the arehe, one step further toward a sort
of its very lack of utility, is developed in places (topoi), in regions where of original an-archy risks producing or reproducing the hierarchy.
leisure is possible. Thus, Aristotle points out, the mathematical arts were "Thinking" requires both the principle of reason and what is beyond the
developed in Egypt owing to the leisure time enjoyed by the priestly caste principle of reason, the arche and an-archy. Between the two, the differ-
(to ton iereon ethnos), the priestly folk, ence of a breath or an accent, only the enactment of this "thinking" can de-
Kant, Schelling, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, speaking of the university, ride. That decision is always risky; it always risks the worst. To claim to
premodern or modern, do not say exactly what Aristotle said, nor do all eliminate this risk through an institutional program is quite simply to
three of them say exactly the same thing. They also do say the same thing. erect a barricade against a future. The decision of thinking cannot he an
Even though he admits the industrial model of the division of labor into intra-institutional event, an academic moment.
the university, Kant places the so-called "lower" faculty, the Faculty of Phi- All this does not define a politics, nor even a responsibility. Only, at
losophy—a place of pure rational knowledge, a place where truth has co be best, some negative conditions, a "negative wisdom," as the Kant of The
spoken without controls and without concern for "utility," a place where conflict of the Faculties would say: preliminary cautions, protocols of vig-
the very meaning and the autonomy of the university meet—Kant places ilanc e for a new Aufkiiirting, what must he seen and kept in sight in a

this faculty above and outside professional education: the architectonic modern re-elaboration of this old problematics. Beware of the abysses and
schema of pure reason is above and outside the technical schema. In his the gorges , but also of the bridges and the barriers. Beware of what opens
Lectures on the Future of our Educational Establishments,us Nietzsche con- the university to the outside and the bottomless, but also of what, closing
demns the division of labor in the sciences, condemns utilitarian and join:" It in On itself, would create only an illusion of closure, would make the
u
nalistic culture in the service of the State, condemns the professional ends niversity available to any sort of interest, or else render it perfectly use-
of the university. 'I'he more one does (tut) in the area of training, the rro, f 's . Beware of ends; bur what would a university be without ends?
e Nei ther • In •its medieval nor in its modern form has the university dis-
one has to think (denken). And, still in the first lecture: "Man mug nich
nur Standpunkte, sondern auch Gedanken haben!" (One must not have P°'ed of its own absolute autonomy and of the rigorous conditions of its
his to n unity. For more than eight centuries, "university" has been the name
viewpoints alone, but also thoughts!) As for Heidegger, in 1929, in
1 54 mocHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY The Principle of Reason 155

given by our society to a sort of supplementary body that at one d of w hat is not yet. Neither in his keeping nor in his purview. Keeping
and t
same time it wanted to project outside itself and to keep jealousl y memory and keeping the chance—is this possible? How is one to feel
to . a"
. ,

to emancipate and to control. On this double basis, the university dionaita bk. for what one does not have, and is not yet? But what else is one
supposed to represent society. And in a certain way it has done s o: i t haswas d responsibie for, if not for what does not belong to us? For what, like
produced society's scenography, its views, conflicts, contradiction s t future, belongs and comes down ro the other? And chance—can it be
, its pit, o
and its differences, and also its desire for organic union in a total 1 1or: kept , i s it not, as its name indicates, the risk or the event of the fall, even
Organicist language is always associated with "techno-industrial" langua; of deca dence, the falling-due that befalls you at the bottom of the "gorge"?
in "modern" discourse on the university. But with the relative auto uuniv (loot know. I don't know if it is possible to keep both memory and
of a technical device, indeed that of a machine and of a prostheti c bud . chan ce. l am tempted to think, rather, that the one cannot be kept without
this university artifact has reflected society only in giving it the chance fo, th e other, without keeping the other and being kept from the other. Dif-
reflection, that is, also, for dissociation. The time for reflection, here, sig- ferently. This double keeping or guarding would be assigned, as its respon-
nifies not only that the internal rhythm of the university system ls rela- s ibilirv, w the strange destiny of the university. To its law, to its reason for
tively independent of social time and relaxes the urgency of command, be i n g, and to its truth. Let us risk one more etymological wink: truth is
ensures for it a great and precious freedom of play. An empty pl ace for what keeps, that is, both preserves and is preserved. I am thinking here of
chance: the invaginarion of an inside pocket. The time for reflection i s irahrheit, of the Wahren of Wahrheit and of veritas—whose name figures
also the chance for turning hack on the very conditions of reflection, in all o n the coat of arms of so many American universities. it institutes
senses of that word, as if with the help of a new optical device one could guardians and calls upon them to watch faithfully—truthfully—over itself
finally see sight, could not only view the natural landscape, the city, the Let me recall my incl pit and the single question that I raised at the out-
.

bridge, and the abyss, but could "view" viewing. As if through an acousti- set: how not to speak, today, of the university? Will I have said it, or done
cal device one could "hear" hearing, in other words, seize the inaudible in it? Will I have said how one should not speak, today, of the university? Or
a sort of poetic telephony. Then the time of reflection is also an other will I have rather spoken as one should not do today, within the university?
time; it is heterogeneous to what it reflects and perhaps gives time for Only others can answer. Beginning with you.
what calls for and is called thinking. It is the chance for an event about —Translated by Catherine Porter and Edward P Morris
which one does not know whether or not, presenting itself within the uni-
versity, it belongs to the history of the university. It may also be brief and
paradoxical: it may tear up time, like the instant invoked by Kierkegaard.
one of those thinkers who are foreign, even hostile ro the university, who
give us more to think about, with respect to the essence of the u niversity
than academic reflections themselves. The chance for this event is clic
chance of an instant, an Augenhlick, a "wink" or a "blink"; it takes plat`
"in the blink of an eye." I would say, rather, "in the Twilight of an eye,„ kr
it is in the most crepuscular, the most westerly situations of the Weste rn
university that the chances of this "twinkling" of thinking are multiPh°1
In a period of "crisis," as we say, a period of decadence and renewal, when
the institution is "on the blink," provocation to think brings together;
the same instant the desire for memory and exposure to the future, ch t
dein), of a guardian faithful enough to want to keep even the chance ° ta.c
future, in other words the singular responsibility of what he does not l' a ‘r
 In Praise ofPhilosophy" t57

"In Praise of Philosophy" Th e Proposals of Greph

Grer i i proposes that a decision in principle confirm and enact the
nrornise.s of the president of the republic: at the soonest possible date, the
'teac hi ng of philosophy, preserved in all sections of the Terminale, should
he i nt roduced beginning in the Seconde.-1 Once this date and this decision
have been determined, different kinds of work should bring together all
terested parties; and most of all, experimentation should be multi-
the i n
p iie d• not only in a few pilot lyc6es specializing in experimentation, but
whereve r possible and desired, it being understood that the ministry
should encourage and officially favor the conditions for such experimen-
tation, Greph proposes, moreover—hut these are points to he discussed
wi t h all the instances and agencies concerned—that, on the one hand,
Introduction Proposed by Liberation philosophy be introduced in the Seconde in the form of a recognized dis-
cipline. with its demands and its classical norms. For example, at a rate of
The initiatives taken by the minister of research, Jean-Pierre Chevene-
two hours per week, and with the rights accorded every other basic [fon-
ment, are today shaking up the world that has generally been insulated
damentale] discipline. The philosophy teacher would teach what we agree
from the exact and the social or human sciences. We do not yet know
to call, in the strict sense, institutional philosophy. But on the other hand,
what, good or bad, will come of this "construction site": debates, projects,
together with the representatives of other disciplines, something like
counrerprojects, polemics, discussions are in progress. Yet one thing is ob-
thinking at the limits of philosophy would be practiced as well as taught,
vious: philosophy has been quite forgotten. We remember, however, the
in novel forms, on contents that are new and still little or poorly repre-
"quarrel over philosophy" and the debates about philosophy that gave rise
sented in the current distribution of the fields of teaching, if possible out-
to the (bad) intentions of the previous governments. Mobilized, philoso-
side any program and with the greatest possible sense of innovation, of in-
phers met, in June 1979, at the Estates General of Philosophy, during
n in common.
common. In this space still to be cleared, philosophers and
which they accepted the idea not only of course, of a defense of philoso- . philosophy
ven tki (in the broadest and most novel sense possible) would have
phy and of what it represents, but also of an extension of the teaching of their part, athat
part that would nor be predominant, in an ensemble
philosophy.' At the time, the Socialists, who a priori are not to be classi-
would to all teachers and all students. This assumes a pro-
el
fied among those who are "afraid of philosophy," listened favorably to the
found overhaul of the system and of normal practice, in education and
proposals born of the Estates General, Francois Mitterrand himself, before
the elections, assured us that, with the Socialists in power, the teaching of
J. Derrick'
philosophy would he "preserved and developed."' The Socialists are now
in power. What about the promises, then? Contrary to his colleague in re - On all these questions, one can read Qui at peur de la philosoplyie?and Les
search, the minister of national education, Alain Savary, is quite silent.* Mats Generaux de la philosophic:'
asked Jacques Derrida, who as leader of Greph has always been on the
front line of the fight "for philosophy," to make his contribution- 41 'cl' I nterview with Jacques Derrida
could sound the note of a necessary questioning.
1: +beration:1Wice,
Francois Mitterrand took up the question of. the exten-
F n of t h e teaching of philosophy. Yet this theme has been on the agenda
slo
°I You since the Estates General of Philosophy.
-

156
[58 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY "hi Praise of Philosophy" 159

Jacques Derrida: In fact, since the beginning 011975, it has h een for road's promises. Nor even the hypothesis of a discussion, of a prelimi-
much more than and different from a particular (technical, peda gog i c re ry pro i cc t for study or exploration, has been put forward. Nothing. The
even corporative) demand. Such a transformation would affect eve roppress ion (by Saunier-Seite)'' of certain habilitations' vital for philoso-
thing, before and after secondary school, within and outside of edu catioT by i n c ertain universities is even being maintained. We can attest to the
Since it is above all not a matter of propagating a discipline, even less the Par i se or outrage of many teachers and students faced with this. Re-
same discipline (the same contents, the same methods, and so f orth) in o ok.. this summer and autumn. Greph proposed participating at least
identical conditions, and since we are calling for a profound transforms. in this i n dispensable preparatory work. All the interested parries should be
tion of the entire system of education in its relations to society, w e knew broug ht together: the ministry and the Inspection Generale students'
that we were talking about a true political mutation. And we did not Ik e parents; and the representatives of the other disciplines, unions, and cor-
the fact that with a left-wing government the space of the debate or Figh t porat ive associations, such as the Association of Teachers of Philosophy
would of course be more open, more favorable, but the resistanc e would (w hich is not the only representative association" any more than it "has
remain lively, and work and struggles would still he necessary. Wh at we
been devoted for more than thirty years to the extension of the teaching
ran into is in fact older, more deeply rooted, and thus more tenacious than o f philosophy," as it has just claimed: certain of its members even admit
the political themes, programs, and codes the electoral majorities clash to fearing the extension of the teaching of philosophy to technical sec-
over—or agree upon—in this country. tin) case no action that would merely adjust the timetable in the
TerminalsIn any
nalewould be adequate for the problems we are debating, with
Liberation: But we have nonetheless seen a certain political change. A re which we are struggling.
these changes such that they will get rid of certain obstacles?
Liberation: This question of the technical sections is very important in
J.D.: Apparently the systematic political obstacle has been removed; it your eves?
seems to have disappeared formally. I am not speaking only of the feeling
of deliverance, of the immense hope to which the Left's coming to power J.D.: Yes, and revealing. With it, we are getting, too quickly, at the
has given rise. I am not speaking only of what could, let's hope, bring an properly historical difficulty that we skimmed over a moment ago. Why,
end to the most sinister historical sequences since the war, particularly, it in this area precisely, does the new majority risk pursuing, with a barely
must be stressed, in the university. No, I am referring very precisely, since different language, a politics it seems ro have fought against for decades?
it is the sole theme of our interview, to Francois Mitterrand's formal When the forces that supported past governments, within and outside of
promises during his presidential campaign. Like all his promises during education, tended to limit the teaching of philosophy, their concern was
this time, they ought to form the charter of the government's action. not only to forbid or suppress a certain barely controllable politicization,
There were, in the first place, ten proposals in the Ivry speech, then the throu g h certain immediately political (in the immediately coded sense of
letter to Greph (since published in Le Monde, May z8 [1981]: "the reach- the term) discourses, texts, or themes. One could recall the numerous and
ing of philosophy should he preserved and developed"; it "could be ex: serious proofs of the role that this immediately political anxiety has no
tended within secondary education" and "should obligatorily figure in all d Quhr played, especially after 1968. But there was above all the powerful
sections of the long second cycle."' These promises respond precisely to constrai nt of a market, techno-economic imperatives, a certain concept-
the demands of the Estates General. We will not allow them to be forgo (' ° 1 hers would say an ideology or simply a philosophy—of immediate
ten or neglected. It is urgent that we remember them today. For the probe=
a
daptation to the apparent urgencies of productivity in nation-al and in-
Isms remain. ternational competition.
There is still no sign from the Ministry [of Education] of the sligh test trhI here is nothing more "natural," in short, than this technologism,
initiative in this area. No official reference has been made to Francois Mi t" ich is also a productivism and a positivism. For the philosophy that
160 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY "In Praise of Philosophy" I 6i

supports them (it is also a philosophy, a great tradition of Philos op h y modes of training" "to the new needs of the economic and socia l
•
'rlin o)
philosophy of philosophy), the training of philosophers was not t o he e; a agriculture, etc .)." No thing could be more legitimate, of
tended to the point of a certain democratization, beyond a social cla ss t h at esec:a°,re(
co ,i:liodruhsitnrYg' more necessary. but where is the innovation concerning
had a de facto monopoly over it and marked philosophical discou rse with the i d ea o f science, culture, technology, research, and teaching?
its own features. The extension of such training was not profitabl e , was Although there is, fortunately, consideration of increasing certain bud-
not sufficiently "productive" [poformanr].`' By the training of phil osta_ f further realizing a social and humanist democracy that previously
gets, o
phers, I mean that of citizens (first of all pupils and students, som et i mes 'rerna m c d formal and insufficient, the system of evaluation, the aims [ fz-
teachers or researchers) trained in the rigor of a discipline (as they must he ows ], remain the same, as do the discourse and the idea of culture.
in that of other disciplines or fields of knowledge) but also opened by i t wi t hin this continuity, of course, enormous progress can he made, and I
and beyond it to ways of questioning or putting into question that ar e dif- am am ong those who hope for this. But must one not question oneself
ficult to program. o nce again about this continuity and realize, in all domains, the possibil-
i ty o f this questioning? Was it not in the name of this same discourse, of
Libiration: What is happening today? Are we, in this respect at least, in the same "passages," of the same "adaptation," that some not long ago
a truly new situation? wanted to evacuate philosophy and everything that did not respond to the
criteria of productive "performance," to the so-called "social needs"? This
J.D.: I'm not certain of that. The project, the socialist "idea," has to final notion is indeed ambiguous, and it is being made the supreme au-
work its way through numerous and essential contradictions. For exam- thority. What is a social need? Who defines it? What does it mean to adapt
ple, it must at once respond to and avoid the techno-economic program- to a supposedly prior social need, especially for research, science, culture,
ming of the market, of production: must respond to and avoid the very and, a fortiori, philosophy, which is something altogether different again?
strict urgencies of national and global competition in its current state. It
must respond and not respond to the laws of this machinery, satisfy them Liberation: Yes. But it is not enough to say that it is "altogether differ-
and attempt to displace them. A no doubt inevitable contradiction whose ent." It is perhaps this artistic vagueness that fuels the diatribes against
effects can be followed in the details of Socialist management and dis- philosophy.
course. In itself this is not an absolute evil, a vice, an accident, or a weak-
ness. But there is cause to think this contradiction, to analyze it, without J.D.: You're right, but I am not going to improvise a definition of "phi-
ignoring or denying it. losophy" here. Limiting myself to the immediate preoccupations we share,
I will say that "philosophy" today names at least two things.
Liberation: Do you think the National Conference on Research and On the one hand, obviously, a very rich tradition, texts, a wealth of dis-
Technology, organized by Jean-Pierre Chevênement, is indicative in this course, of argumentation, of (precritical, critical, and more than critical,
regard? other than simply critical) questions, metaphysics, regional ontologies,
ePistemology in the broadest sense. politics, and so forth. These elements
J.1).: In principle, it is a very favorable initiative. How not to approved of a discipline, these powerful instruments, are not only instruments and
we h ave t echniques, although they are also that, and although their indispensable
it? But since its official protocols and its first preparatory work,
been called upon to facilitate the "passage" between, on the one hand , the tradition roust he ensured. As such, already, philosophy does not derive
imperatives of technology or production (very obscure notions, no natter il rotn either the exact sciences or the social or human sciences, whose "un-
what is said about them) and, on the other hand, teaching, science, or Neal' t i7development" (an enormous question that I merely evoke in passing)
ture (no less problematic notions that, today, as yesterday, are often treg t . minister of research believes he can observe or regret. Scientificity and
as though they were self-evident). We are called upon to "adapt" "inter dIs ' "he object of these sciences are also questions for philosophy. Formerly, it
I62 MOCIILOS: EYES OF - 111F. UNIVERSITY "In Praise of Philosophy" 163

was also in order to make room for the "human sciences" that so Liberation: But is there not, in the texts preparatory to the Chevene-
wished to reduce or dilute the teaching of philosophy. Nor is phii o so ph
"le nienr co nference itself, a protest against technocratism, even if it is very
simply a productive activity, and I would even say that its belo li g i ng
Y
to r i o id?
what is called "culture" is not sell-evident. Without opposing the m , ph
losophy is different from science, technology, culture. And one ca n b ei ; J D, : Certainly. And that is why l neither criticize nor denounce that
that in these domains no transformation can arise that does not take sh a „ conference. On the contrary, as you can see, I am making my modest con-
on the borders of philosophy. I prefer to say "on the borders." on e i t h - tribut i on to it, even if that contribution appears a hit dissonant. The
et
side °la limit that looks at once toward the inside and toward a bey on d Mem is that in those preparatory texts the protest against tech-
pro
of philosophy. rocratism is nearly lost in the midst of a hymn to that techno-democratic
On the other hand, the name of philosophy finds itself rightly associ- humanism that is most certain of its legitimacy, its necessity, its optimism,
ated with every "thinking' that no longer lets itself he determined, by an d i ts progressism. Well, the stronger this discourse grows, the more it
rights, by techno-scientific or cultural programs, that troubles them so m e. a ppears irrefutable, the more we will need (now there is a "need"!) to ques-
times, interrogates and affirms them, yes, affirms, beyond them, withou t tion its ultimate foundations, its limits, its presuppositions, its old and its
necessarily opposing or limiting them in the "critical" mode. The value of ne w history. We will be able to do so only from isolated places or non-
"critique" is only one of the philosophical possibilities; it has its history p l ac es, with minority, out-of-the-ordinary discourses and gestures, uncer-
and its own genealogy. What is called "deconstruction," for example, is tain of their immediate admissibility, and according to forms of question-
not limited to one of those so-called critical operations whose virtue and ing that will nor let themselves he dominated or intimidated by this
incontestable necessity have inspired all those who defend philosophy, powerful program.
"critical" reflection before the powers that be. What interests me in this For me, philosophy, or rather "thinking," would be this mobile non-
"deconstruction" is in particular the affirmative thinking that, while nei- place from which one continues or begins again, always differently, to ask
ther techno-scientific nor cultural, nor even philosophical through and oneself what is at stake in technology, the positivity of the sciences (exact
through, maintains an essential affinity with the philosophical, which it or not), production, yes, and above all, productivity. This "philosophy,'
works—in every sense of the word—in its discourse as well as in its insti- we must recognize, has no site that could be assigned it in a Conference
tutional, pedagogical, political. etc., structures. This "thinking" can find on Research and Technology. It might be named in passing among "mul-
itself at work in all the disciplines, in the sciences and in philosophy, in tiple forms of research that are philosophical, historical, sociological, eco-
history, literature, the arts, a certain manner of writing, of practicing or nomic, or political in nature," but it does not belong to the series of such
studying languages, without the obsession of techno-economic performa - research.
tivity. If there is any, this thinking is incalculable and marks the very limit
of technocratism. Libenztion: It is thus the entire structure of the university and of higher
These strange and apparently fragile questions, these unusual break- education that is to he questioned?
throughs Ifrayages] that must he given their chance, are not necessarily
sterile speculations. What is more, why not let them run this risk of being J•D.: Institutions that leave space, and breathing room, for what does
unproductive? Those worried about calculable profitability should know not yet have an identifiable face would have to be created: a paradoxical,
s
that through these marginal and random wanderings transformation 'PParently contradictory, and yet vital task. I am not referring only to phi-
sometimes take shape, the encoded future of a discovery that in advanc
e losophy in its recognized form as the theory of science or epistemology, as
in g t he disciplin e dealing with the foundations of science or technology, pol-
cracks [lizarder] with its signature the heaviest and surest programm
fl ?ics or ethics. Philosophy is that, of course; but a certain "thinking." dif-
machines. We know it well: unheard-of thoughts. groundbreaking WI
tific discoveries have sometimes resembled unpredictable blows (roues] ' er entlY philosophical. can also question the genealogy and presupposi-
throws [coups] of the dice or Mows (coups] of force. t/ons of this very fundamentalism. this appeal to foundations. and even an
164 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY

otuologico-encyclopedic hierarchy (general or fundamental ontol ogy, re_

The Antinomies of the Philosophical
gional ontologies, forms of knowledge and posiriviries, and so fo rt h) .
Let us not forget that this hierarchy has constructed the model o f the Discipline: Letter Preface
university we have been living by since the beginning of the nineteenth
century. This model is itself very weakened today, and irreversibly, I be
lieve. All states, in the East and in the West. are letting or making i t d ic
preferring more "productive" Ipcifbrmand (from the point of vi ew o f sci '
entific, industrial, and, always, military technology) research institu t i otts,
ones that are more closely dependent and that are cur off from a ll teach.
ing. One would have to pause for a long time over this evolution. We can _
nor do so here. In a word, the paradox would be the following: accordi ng
to the model that could he called "modern," and first of all Germ an , s i nce
the nineteenth century in Europe this university has indirectly represented
an old, condemned State rationality, but it could become, curiously, in its My friends, I am afraid that the letter I promised will be too long. But
very old age, a kind of refuge of liberalism, in the sense that one can also I prefer to restrict myself to a letter. It will tell you first of all that I am far
speak of the "liberal arts." It could become, perhaps, a solution of with- away, and I regret that: you know how much I would have wished to take
drawal and urgency for a thinking that would still like to avoid the con- part in your work and your discussions—and to show my solidarity. With
straining planning we spoke of a moment ago and that is spreading to all whom? With what? That is a question I would like not to elude, in a mo-
the places of research (which in Kant's time and that of The Conflict of the ment. Yet if I prefer to entrust what I have to say to the genre of the letter,
Faculties were few and marginal and were called "academies" and "learned it is especially because one can allow oneself to manifest there, with less
societies"). embarrassment, something like a "mood." I don't know exactly what a
I do not believe that we have to choose between these two possibilities. mood is; I don't believe in it very much; I don't believe it is opaque, in-
As antithetical as they appear, they join up in the same system. No, one significant, indecipherable. It speaks, and there is always room to analyze
would have to reconstruct From top to bottom all the relations (and some- it. But the language ofmoodlike the code of the letter, allows one to act as
times even interrupt all relation) benveen the State and knowledge, tech- if for lack of rime and space. the affected language of the affect could
nology, culture, philosophy, thinking, whether in their institutional farm gather everything up economically in an "it cannot be explained," "it goes
or not. Perhaps this is in the process of happening, even if it is not very without saying"—everything, the premises, the mediations, and even the
obvious. But seriously speaking, one should at least recall the entire his- conclusions of an interminable analysis.
tory of this problematic, reread among other things The Conflict oft e And a letter, even a philosophical letter, dates the "as if" of the mood,
Faculties, rewrite it completely differently today, rewrite completely dit °fa fabled mood: once upon a rime, one day, I had the feeling that...
ferently the best and the worst of what Kant, Schleiermacher, Hegel ,
So what is my mood, today, with regard to something—already a myth
Humboldt, Fichte, Schelling, but also Cousin, Heidegger, and a f ew oth- I n itself—called "School and Philosophy"? Let's not even talk about a

ers have handed down to us on these subjects. We still have to be left th' b ad mood" against this word "school," the place of so many confusions
time and the means to do so. and abuses. It remains a little mythic because overly marked and too little
—Translated by Jan Plug m arked, historically too determined and too undetermined, too French in
i ts univer sa l guises. Like any word, you'll say. Yes, bur I find that the pos-

',ib ilities of this equivocation are exploited a little too much today, in
rr ulce, especially when one is talking about philosophy.

4
165•
I66 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY The Antinomies of the Philosophical Discipline 167

But as I see it, that is not the essential thing. My mood might b b ad Greril and I said—and published—that although the essential transfor-
e
but it is not a had mood. My mood would translate, rather, a certai s we were calling for presupposed a profound political mutation, a
n d e _'
pair. It is not new, and no doubt I have found there the strength or t h e 1 • o fatmos-
1.0oge g overnment would not be enough. It might lighten the
reason for a certain philosophical affirmation (which has nothing do • it would allow an opening for debate, put an end to threats that
na:cre,
with a philosophical position or assurance; quite the contrary) an d
eve n , were to o openly declared, make room for symbolic experiments, perhaps
along with others, along with some of you, the reason and the streng t h to ain change in the tone of official discourse or the presentation of
a cert
demonstrate, testify, "militate," as one says,lb
for the teaching of philonsoopthg: measur es undertaken. But, as we were already saying then, the constraints
One would need a lot of philosophical ingenuousness to read nothing t h a t urge the reproduction of the type and the reduction of thefie/dof the
'ng
an incoherence in this relation of affirmation to despair. But let's philosophical discipline would remain the same. People would continue
into that. It is true that the thing remains enigmatic for me, still t o day to b e lieve that the training of technical competencies, a submission of
(hence philosophy!), no doubt more than ever, and the questions rem a i n k no wledge to a certain kind of profit-making. the "end-orientation" (fi-
wide open, whether one is talking about the link between philosophizin g , n alisation] of research, economic competition, the race for production, a
philosophy, and their discipline or the link between the necessity ofa cer- certain concept of the relations between industrial or military techno-
tain writing, which to go quickly we'll call deconstructive writing, an d a science and philosophy, between the social sciences and philosophy, all of
reaffirmation of philosophy. It is something more and something other this required that a discipline as untouchable as it is useless be maintained
than a link, a logical connection or a coherency in a system; it is an essen- within its limits (thought to be natural). That discipline should remain
tial alliance. That is why I prefer to speak of affirmation rather than of po- (and this is the best scenario!) confined to one year in the lycêes or little
sition, in other words of what demands commitment, yes, beginning from cells in the university where life is becoming increasingly difficult. There
its provenance and for the future. And this is what is still not understood, is no point in elaborating upon these things we are all very well aware of.
what remains inaccessible first of all to those who do not know how or do Besides a few symbolic and precarious initiatives—which, however, I do
not want to read, who are in a rush either to caricature or to falsify; and not want to minimize (such as experimental attempts to teach philosophy
since we are talking about the school and philosophy, I think of the stu- other than in the Terminale, the extension of philosophy to the last year
pefying dogmatism that, for a while now, has authorized some to distort of technical lyeees, a certain support, however insufficient it may be, for
the proposals of Greph or of the Estates General of Philosophy: imper- the College International de Philosophic and for everything it may repre-
turbably, without reference, without analysis, without quotation, without sent today in France and outside of France)—things have not changed
demonstration. I will come back to this below. very much. Here or there, they will instead have gotten worse: I am think-
No, the despair could not even look like what it is; it could not assume ing in particular of what is taking shape in the university. This growing
its figure of despair if there were not this basic fund of philosophical reaf- confinement reinforces the power of certain institutions of the press and
firmation. And I feel this despair today in the face ofa certain obviousness publishing, sometimes in the direction of credulity or cynicism, even of
of repetition, a distressing obviousness. incompetence and of i mmediate self-interest.
What repetition? But let's not pursue this debate any further. This tireless repetition may
There is first of all the stofitee repetition, if you want to call it that for the be discouraging, but we will not find the strength or the desire to analyze
sake of convenience. Below, I will spell out my reservations concerning much less to try to interrupt it, unless, as philosophers, we ask ourselves
such a distinction between two sorts of repetition, in which one would he questions about another order, another place, another dimension of the
the surface of the other. This apparently superficial repetition w ould. be re petition, the one I hesitated to call "profound." Which one? The one
that of political action and discourse, the compulsive trotting out of th e that encloses the discourse, logic, rhetoric of all those who, speaking "for
same thing as concerns the philosophical discipline. Oh. I am very 'well Philosophy"— as we are doing—reproduce types whose matrix is well
k nown and whose combinatory grid is more or less exhausted. The most
aware that still in 1979, at the time of the Estates General, my friends I
 68 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY The Antinomies of the Philosophical Discipline 169

serious thing is certainly not the finitude. always irreducible, of th e reserve If among all the differences and disagreements that may separate those
of arguments or figures, or the necessity ro draw endlessly from t h at re, "ho ‘•ill have taken part in these meetings, there is still the chance for an
serve with sometimes the illusion of inventing something, No, th e „, and a community, l would not know where to situate it outside of
serious thing is, in the first place, the structure of this matrix: it hold,-vast
to this responsibility. I would not know; however, it is not certain that this
an apparently insurmountable contradiction, one might say a "noridialee, com munitY still has to he a community of knowledge, a community of the
ticizable" contradiction. One can also see in it a divided law, a double law coo-iousness of knowledge. Within such a community, polemos is possible,
or a double bind, an antinomy. It imposes itself not only on us but also so on som etimes necessary, but it excludes petty battles and mediocre polemics,
our partners or adversaries. outside of education, if not outside of phil us, he nlere displacement of pawns in an interminable game.
ophy (since there is no simple exteriority here, no outside-philosoph y or H OW is one to define the poles of this contradiction without dialectic?
nonphilosophy; as was said for whoever could or wanted to hear it at th e wh a t would be the two essential but contradictory requirements we do
Estates General of Philosophy, there is no nonphilosophical barbarity, and no t want ro renounce? If the double law of an antinomy reproduces, di-
we never fight against nonphilosophical barbarity; the fights or the de- meth' or indirectly, all the types of our arguments, defenses, or accusa-
bates we arc talking about always oppose different philosophies, forces tion s, what is its axiomatics?
represented by different philosophies). Thar is why I would not maintain Since this letter is already too long, I will restrict myself to the barest
for too long the merely convenient distinction 1 proposed a moment ago outline. For the convenience of the demonstration, I will distinguish seven
between two repetitions. But it would be even more serious if in the sec- contradictory commandments.
ond place, we did not try to think this antinomy as such, to analyze it, in-
terrogate it, situate it, and so forth, in the structure of its authority, in the
aporias it endlessly reproduces, in its provenance or its future.
First Commandment
To think it: will this still be a philosophical act? Philosophical through On the one hand, we must protest the submission or the philosophical (its
and through. simply philosophical? Can it give rise to institutions and dis- questions, programs, discipline, etc.) to any external purpose: the useful,
cipline? I am not sure. This question already belongs, as we will see in a the profitable, the productive, the efficient, "high performance" Ipeifin.-
moment, to the program of antinomies. mand, but also whatever belongs in general to the techno-scientific, the
Yet, while it may not he certain that this thinking is philosophical techno-economic, the end-orientation [finalisation] of research, even eth-
through and through, it certainly implies philosophy and philosophical ical, civic, or political education.
knowledge. It perhaps is not limited to philosophical knowledge, but it is But, on the other hand, we should on no account give up the critical,
impossible without that knowledge. and therefore evaluative and hierarchizing, mission of philosophy, philos-
The only thing that seems to me clear and desirable today (you see. 1 ophy as the final instance of judgment, as constitution or intuition of fi-
am still talking about my "mood") is a community that would take charge nal meaning, last reason, thinking of ultimate ends. It is always in the
of such thinking, the community of a responsibility that no longer has name of a "principle of finality," as Kant would say, that we mean to save
simply the figure given it by Husserl (responsibility in the face of the infi- Philosoph y and its discipline from any techno-economic or sociopolitical
nite task of philosophy. transcendental community of a rational "we," and end - orientation (finalisationj. This antinomy is indeed philosophical
so forth, in the face of the "crisis") or Heidegger (responsibility for the re- ithrough
r7gahria:ridnt,h.rou gh s i nce "end-orientation" always appeals to some phi-
sponse to the call of Being). These two figures belong to the space of rep' losophy, at least implicitly. Once again: there is never any "nonphilosoph-
etition that comprises us and pre-comprehends us, to which we are al-
ready destined and that it would be a matter of thinking: not again ° I lo w is one to reconcile these two orders of finality [finalite]?
Husserl or Heidegger. of course, which would he a bit foolish, but rather
beginning with them, and no doubt otherwise.
170 MOCEILOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY The Antinomies °Pile Philosophical Discipline 171

Second Commandment onc o n the other hand, we postulate that the philosophical norm is not
limite d to its institutional appearances. Philosophy exceeds its instini-
On the one hand, we must protest the enclosure of philosophy. w e l egit. 605; 1T even has to analyze the history and the effects of its own institu-
imately refuse house arrest, the circumscription that would confine tions , It finally has to remain free at every moment, obeying only truth,
phi-
losophy to a class or a curriculum, a type of object or logic, a fixed content die for ce of the question or of thinking. It is legitimate for it to break
or form. We stand opposed to whatever would prohibit philosoph y from Institutional tie. The extra-institutional has to have its institutions
etera
being present and insistent outside its class, in other disciplines or o t h er w i t hout , however, belonging to them.
departments, from opening itself up to new objects in a way that k nows vi ,' is one to reconcile the respect and the transgression of the institu-
no limit of principle, from recalling that it was already present there where tional limit?
no one wanted to acknowledge it, and so forth.
But, on the other hand and just as legitimately, we should claim th e
Filth Corn mandment
proper and specific unity of the discipline. We should be very vigilant on
this score, be ready to denounce, as Greph has been doing incessantly, on the one hand. in the name of philosophy, we require a teacher or mas-
anything that might come along to threaten this integrity, dissolve, th s. . ter [ ma itre], the presence of a teacher. There must be a teacher for this dis-
sect, or disperse the identity of the philosophical as such. cipline that cannot be disciplined, for this teaching that cannot be taught,
How is one to reconcile this localizable identity and this ubiquity that For this knowledge that is also nonknowledge and more than knowledge,
exceeds all bounds? for this institution of the an-institutional. The concepts of this mastery or
this magisterialiry can vary. Its figures may be as diverse as those of the All
High Tres Haut] or the inaccessible Altogether Other. of Socrates, of the
Third Commandment
Preceptor, the civil-servant Professor, the instructor in the university or
On the one hand, we feel we have the right to demand that philosophical the Terminal& (the first and the last of all), a little bit of all of the above
research and questioning never be dissociated from teaching. Is that not at once: in every case, there must be a teacher or master [maitre] and some
the theme of our colloquium, confronted as we are with the return of the magisterial alterity. Consequence: they must be trained; there must be stu-
same threat? dents, teaching positions; there will never be enough; and all of this is
But, on the other hand, we also feel we are authorized to recall that controlled from outside the philosophic community.
some aspect of philosophy, perhaps the essential part of it, is not limited But, on the other hand. although the teacher or master [maitre] must
to, has not always been limited to, teaching acts, to educational events, to be another, trained and then appointed by others, this heteronomic asym-
its institutional structures, indeed to the philosophical discipline itself. metry ought not infringe on the necessary autonomy, indeed the essen-
That discipline can always be overrun, sometimes provoked, by the un- tially democratic structure of the philosophic community.
reachable. Perhaps it has to accept teaching the uoteachable, to produce How can that community bring about an agreement within itself be-
itself by renouncing itself, by exceeding its own identity. tween this hcterononw and this autonomy?
How is one to maintain, within the same now [maintenant] of the dis -
cipline, the limit and the excess? How to maintain that one must teach Sixth Commandment
this very thing? That it cannot be taught?
°tithe one hand, the philosophical discipline, the transmission of knowl-
`idge, the extreme wealth contained there normally require time, a certain
Fourth Commandment r
hythmic duration, indeed as much time as possible: more than a flash. a
On the one hand, we consider it normal to demand institutions adequate to nie nth• ay ear, more than the time of a course, always more time. Noth-
4 g can justify the extraordinary artifice that would consist in fixing this
this impossible and necessary, useless and indispensable discipline. We cc"'
d uratio n at nine months (here I refer you to the analyses of Greph).
sider it normal to demand new institutions. In our view, this is essentia•
172 MOCH LOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY The Antinomies ofthe Philosophical Discipline 173

But, on the other hand, the unity, even the architecture of the cli sc ipiin ,av for or against, and not just philosophers by profession. It is our of the
requires a certain organized gathering up of this duration. o n , has 'I ' on , especially in a letter, to draw out all the consequences of these
avoid spreading things out in a disordered way, one has to avoid di ssol: 90:oradictio ns. But regarding this fatal axiomatics and this double con-
rim and make room for the experience of the "ar a single blow," of the „ail 5trai nt . I will say three sorts of things, still very schematically.
at once" (here too I refer to what was said above and once again re, the 1.1 ,• hypothesis (it is only my hypothesis), this matrix provides the
analyses of Greph). „.p of all the utterances producible today on the subject of "School and
es
How is one to reconcile this duration and this quasi-instantane ous con- philos„ p h y, - It gives them also to be read; it prescribes them: it inscribes
traction, this nonlimitation and this limit? the m under this terrible law of duplicity.
L Th e only livable community (for me—and I say livable so as to speak
Seventh Commandment at t he same time of a faithfulness to the spirit of philosophy and °Fa liv-
i ng Faithfulness, without dogma, without murder, without idiotic
On the one hand, pupils, students. like teachers, have to see themselve s as po lemic, without hateful distortion) would be a community that, far from
having been granted the possibility—in other words the conditions— of sh u nning or denying this double law, tries to measure itself against it, to
philosophy, just as in any other discipline. These include what we'll call, think what it is that comes with it, where it comes from and what its fu-
to save time, the external conditions (time, place, positions, etc.) as well is, what to come [venir] means or does not mean, what ro
as the essential and "internal" condition, the access to the philosophical as i l
cmorme e[ irnvill for philosophy (see above).
involves
such. A teacher has to initiate, introduce, train the disciple in the philo- 3. One of the questions (just one, and I will restrict myself to it for the
sophical. The teacher, who will have to have been first of all trained, in- space of this letter) that could lead into such thinking would concern the
troduced, initiated himself, remains an other For the disciple. Guardian, history of this axiomarics, of this program with seven entryways. Does it
guarantor, intercessor, predecessor, elder, he has to represent the speech, have a history, or rather does it order the history of its figures on the basis
thought, or knowledge of the other: beteroditiactics. of an ahistorical deal of the cards or permanency? And if there is a history
But, on the other hand, on no account do we want to give up the au- or a distribution of these figures, what is its law, its progressive articulation
tonomist and autodidartic tradition of philosophy. The teacher is only a {period, epoch, moment, paradigm, episteme, continuity, discontinuity)?
mediator who must efface himself. The intercessor has to neutralize him- This question is made all the more difficult by the fact that the opposition
self in the face of the freedom of philosophizing. This freedom trains it- history/ahistory is part of the matrix! Thus it overdetermines each of the
self however grateful may he its relation to the necessity of the teacher, the seven commandments.
necessity for the magisterial act to take place. To conclude, I will take an example and open here a long parenthesis.
How is one to reconcile the taking-place and the no-place of the teacher this will be my little scholarly and philosophical contribution to your
[maitre]? What incredible topology do we require in order to reconcile the colloquium. It concerns a situation, more precisely a topical structure, and
heterodidactic and the autodidactic? the more than paradoxical place assigned by Kant to the "teacher of pure
reason." Is this our situation? To what extent does the configuration in
These antinomies sometimes configure aporias. The number 7 is a lit-
which we today experience these double commandments still suppose the
tle arbitrary. One could shorten or extend the list, given the coimplicati ng K..antia n topical structure? Or at least that which, within philosophical
ccu- d iscursivity, one might call the Kantian topical structure of the teaching
or overdetermining structure of these commandments. I have not a
4 philosoph y; for what I am going to recall in a moment about the Kant-
mulated them in order to accuse anyone of incoherence, still less ict ordti
sst ian text is only o n e determination, whatever importance or status it may
to derive from them some argument to be exploited here and there agaul
those who speak for philosophy, in the name of philosophy and its disci' be granted. of a device or a general text that does not wholly belong to the
Aline. These contradictions place a constraint not only on philosoph ers side of philosophical discursivity or to any kind of discursivity: all of
and advocates of philosophy but also on whoever treats of philosophy rir history, the history of Europe in particular, the relations between the State
1 74 MOCHLOS: EYES Of THE UNIVERSITY

and the university, between church and State, and so forth. If our c onfi
uration supposes something of the Kantian topical structure, wh at g
po pularities: On the Right to
at e t h
modes of this supposition? An enormous problem that I must s et
aside
e
t he Philosophy of Right
here. That which, coming from Kant, marks our situation and o ur dis_
courses passes through trajectories that are so complex 1 do not ev en h ave
the will to outline them in a letter. It is the whole history of French c post.
Kantianism, the modes of appropriation, translation, exploitation of Kan-
tianism, of this Kant or that Kant, in philosophy and literature, i n
"French ideology." in the "French school." This history is under way,
more restless than ever; our interpretations of it would come to be in-
scribed in that history and perhaps inflect it. Why is it to Kant that on e
looks so easily in France whenever the subject is the teaching of philoso-
phy? Why this obligatory reference, here as well? What services does it
render? What limitations does it impose? Etc. I would like to take a moment first of all to express gratitude, mine as
Who is Kant? What if he occupied that unlocalizable place that he him- a s that of all the members of the College International de Philoso-
self assigns to the "teacher of pure reason"? phic, to the organizers of the meeting from which the following work is
I am getting to the point: the teacher of pure reason and the singular extracted and to all those who participated in it.
topology prescribed by this idea. For it is an Idea. The College International dc Philosophic owed it to itself to take part
Among other premises, and to take a shortcut, I must recall this: Kant in these reflections devoted to the "Auto-Emancipation of the People and
justifies a certain rational necessity of censorship. Now, what justifies cen- the Teaching of Proletarians in the Nineteenth Century" and to con-
sorship in the final analysis? The fallibility of man, his finitude, the exis- tribute. as best it could, to their planning. I am not going to improvise
tence of evil. Here I refer to Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone to here a presentation of the Coll*. Still young and precarious, this new in-
economize a long commentary. The question then becomes: if there is stitution nevertheless has a history and structures too complex for inc to
evil, and radical evil, who can understand this evil in man? Who can ac- venture saying anything about them except this: it is a place that we
count for it to reason? Who can say what its meaning and truth are? That would like first of all to open up to forms of knowledge, research, and
is, the meaning and truth of censorship, namely, of a critique that relies on Philosophical practice that seem to us insufficiently legitimized, even dele-
force, an armed judgment, an evaluation shored up by the police? Who gitimized, by present institutions in France and elsewhere. Because this
then can say the possibility and the necessity, the very foundation of delegitimation or this disqualification passes by way of frequently invisi-
censorship, of this institution legislating what can be said or is prohibited ble paths, indirect or overdeterrnined trajectories, our attention to it
to be said about the truth, of the truth? Ought to be active, anxious, vigilant—whether it is a matter of relations
/ will not reproduce here the rest of this long parenthesis, which corm -poi:4 with the State as such or with some threes of what is called civil society, to
in fact very closely to the argument developed in "Vacant Chair: Censorsiolh take up that convenient distinction. Our first priority should be to inter-
Mastery, Magisteriality" (see above). est ourselves in all the ruses of rnarginalization, occultation, repression. At
) stake is the access to philosophy and to learning, the right to philosophy
I close the parenthesis and this overly long letter. and to learning. It is particularly from this point of view—which is nor,
To all of you, in friendship. il "r'ever, the only one by a long shot—that we felt this work to be some-
t hing like a chance and a necessity.
err droit a la philasophie, of the right to philosophy: that was the title of
—Translated by Pegg Ka' nuf

175
 176 m0C1-11.05: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY Popularities 177

a college seminar last year.' There is nothing fortuitous about that since
," we are talking here about "popular" knowledge, the right to
[1 * ikod '
Mg fortuitous in the fact that the question of the popular (popul ar h . d iv s
phi lo
ophical p
teaching and ractic, e we cou ld also takea look
( .
of
P ll os ,
ophy, popular knowledge) held our attention for a long time. Wh at d Phil° antl er in which the questions of right, of the right to philos ophy
, t he t"
popular mean? Allow me, as an epigraph, to place here, in a modes t \,13:s ol d t o its
- teaching, and finally of the "popular" in all the ambiguity of its
and at the edge of what will be constructed in the following pages, feet ot knotted together at a moment that is perhaps not altogether
-, a rico" got
pebbles, a few souvenirs I have of last year's seminar. On a certain day ,1st for us.
flat
,
p ut.p
considerations took off from a story told by Diogenes Laertius, the on
e
I sill limit myself to a few indications about this "Kantian" moment,
about Theophrastus, whom Agonides, I believe, dared to accuse of ir np i, y w ay of epigraph. In the preface to the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant
still b
erv, just as Meletus had accused Socrates. Now, Theophrastus was so "p op_ the question of a "popular" philosophy.' He has just proclaimed that
poses
ular" among the Athenians that the accusation almost caused the dowre a fter the critique of practical reason must come the system. The system is
fall of the accuser. What, we wondered, did the "popularity" o f t h e metaphysics of morals, which is itself divided into metaphysical first
philosopher mean? right and metaphysical first principles of the
pr inciples of the doctrine of
What is a "popular" philosopher? The word is very equivocal, It s doctrine of virtue. Now (and here is where the question of the "popular"
overdetermination exposes it to all sorts of uses, misuses, and hijackings, gets posed), the concept of right has to be a pure concept. But it has to rely
I suppose that in the course of your work, approaching it in multiple on practice and apply to cases that occur in experience. The metaphysical
ways, some instruments of critical vigilance (I mean that in both the sys tem should, then, take into consideration the empirical multiplicity of
philosophical and the political sense) will refine its meaning but also the all cases, until it has exhausted all possibilities. Such a culmination is an
uses of this concept, if it is one, and will determine the different context essential requirement for the elaboration of a system of reason, but one
in which it has served as well as what causes it will have served. When knows that it is empirically impossible. One will therefore have to he con-
one speaks, for example, of a "popular" philosopher, one may understand tent (hence the title) with the first metaphysical principles of a doctrine of
by that today at least two things. On the one hand, a "popular philoso- right, just as one was for the first principles of a metaphysics of nature
pher," who hails from the people or is a militant for the people, may very (freedom/nature). What is here called right refers to a system outlined a
well not be popular. He may be deprived of any legitimacy as recognized priori, and it will he the text: it will be inscribed in the text (in den Texr),
by the legitimating agencies that dominate the scene (in the seminar w by which is meant the principal text. On the other hand, rights, adjusted
which I am referring, we also proceeded to examine this concept of toetxperience and to particular cases, will be found in detailed remarks so
legit-
imization, its genealogy, the uses and misuses to which it can be put. its as to distinguish clearly the metaphysics of right from empirical practice.
critical or dogmatic value, etc.). (J the other hand, a "popular philoso- Her e , then, is posed the question of the obscurity of philosophical Ian-

pher" may also not belong to the people, may he totally unknown to guage and of what risks making it hardly popular. It is highly significant
that this question is posed on the subject of right (and, in the seminar to
them or even opposed to them. But does anyone know today what one
saying when one says "people." "popular," "popularity"? From "people which 1 am referring in this improvisation, we worked a long time on this
to "popular" to "popularity," the kernel of meaning can change far be - c onjunction). Everything conspires to suggest that the question of the
yond what is determined by the passage from an adjective to a noun or a People's access w philosophical language, the right of the people to phi-
noun to an adjective. was first of all most manifestly put in play as regards the theme
of
What is more, a philosopher can befOrwhat he thinks he can call "pop" right, the philosophy of right, the right to the philosophy of right.
ular philosophy' without being himself either of the people or otherwise Kant then answers the reproach of obscurity ( Vorwurf der Dunkelheit)
that had
popular. One may also say (and naturally I am thinking of Kant, ari d been put to him. He says that he agrees with Garve, a philoso-
will come back to this) that one is for a "certain- popular philosophy an ph er in the authentic sense ("authentic" is his word, I believe) who tells
be oneself popular in a "certain' way, even as one remains. in another va' th e writer-philosopher to he popular, to attain "Popularitat" without oh-

totally inaccessible to a certain "people." 'cki ritv- Agreed, says Kant, except where it is a matter of the system and,
178 MOLIII.OS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY Popularities 179

in philosophy, the system of the critique of the power of reason itself Th .

icon , learn to know, to know knowledge, even if given only its con-
system supposes the distinction of the sensible from the intelligibl e ` 11'uuns
` without the principle. All of pedagogy has its place, its proper
in our
knowledge. The supersensible belongs to reason. Now, the system th ,ite. outs ide the thinking of pure principles, those that are reserved for the
is
reason, the system capable. of thinking the supersensible, can never ben, ' fierdp h ys icians as such, who know what they are doing and what they
popular. Kant does not explain what seems here to go without sayin g hink. The place of pedagogy is thus only a place of passage: access to the
'[
it were understood within the very concepts of the supersensibl e , on t h e roo k s of a thought elaborated elsewhere by metaphysicians who know
one hand, and of the "popular," on the other. The supersensible,
ic h . [ h at is what they are, but access also as a possible coming to consciousness.
to say reason as such, cannot he accessible to the people as such. This eon _ nwitting metaphysicians can become conscious and organized
The u
ventional and dogmatic conception situates the popular on the side of t h e metap hysicians. Although the people do not spontaneously and from the
sensible, the empirical. and the sentimental—the nonrational and t h e
fi rst h av e access to reason, although they cannot, by themselves, approach
nonmetaphysical, or at least, and this is a central nuance on which K ant
t he distinction between sensible and intelligible, a scholarly and rigorous
is immediately going to play, the metaphysical that does not pose itself o r exhibition of the results can awaken their sleeping reason. Easily recog-
think itself
as such, the unwittingly metaphysical. And in fact, althou g h nizable (still today in all of its consequences), this pedagogical outline
one cannot exhibit to the people, in a popular way, the metaphysi cs of weals to fit with everything on which the Kantian architectonic de-
pure rightitselfin its first principles and its formal structures, one ought pends—that is, the art of systems, of reason determined on the basis of
to he able to exhibit clearly the results of this pure systematics, These the distinction between sensible and intelligible, between pure and im-
ought to be accessible to "healthy reason" ( gesunde Vernunfi) of which the pure. Along with everything it presupposes (and which it is not a question
people have not been deprived. Healthy reason is the reason of "an un- of reviewing here), the relation between critique and metaphysics in the
witting metaphysician" (eines Metaphysikers, ohne es zu wissen). Neverthe- Kantian sense is also a sorio pedagogic scenography through and through. It
-

less, in this exhibition of the results themselves, without the principles. is also a determined thinking of the right to philosophy as philosophy of
one must not try to use the language of the people (Volksprache), one must the right to the philosophy of right.
not seek Popularitat. One must impose "scholastic precision" even if its If just to stay with this epigraph on a preface, one added that Kant re-
tedious character is regrettable. That is normal, says Kant: it is a language sponds no to the question of "whether there could really he more than one
of the schools (Schulsprache), and he seems to think that a school language philosophy," then one would fix a coherent image of the principles of a
has to be, cannot but he, tedious—even, if not especially, for the people. pure pedagogy of philosophy—and of the right to philosophy as right to
In this way, a certain device of philosophical schooling or the philo- access by way of discipline. At stake is a certain concept of popularity: of
sophical discipline is outlined. It is also a relation between philosophical the people, of popular philosophy, of popular knowledge—which is also
discourse and popular language. Once again, it is symptomatic that this is to say of knowledge regarding the "people" and what one thinks one can
put first of all in terms of right. The popular is on the side of the sensible. call by that name by thus calling it to learning and philosophy.
And having just said that a philosopher ought to be able to be popular' Kant recognizes that there are different ways of philosophizing. But
ized, Kant adds in parentheses: it should be sensible enough, with, so u 3 the se arc nor different philosophies: they are different styles of going back

speak, a sufficient sensibilization to achieve communication (einer zur to the first principles of philosophy. The difference remains pedagogical.
gemeinen Mitteilung hinreichenden Versinnlichung1. 3 Now, the metaphYw r here are only different paths for leading toward principles, for leading
clan of right. the man of system, cannot "sensibilize," teach hack 1 0 the principles of unwitting metaphysicians. Yet this multiplicity of
d philosoph ers is not a multiplicity intrinsic to philosophy; it merely divides
the very principles that are themselves not sensible. But he can an d
ought to exhibit the concrete results of this system in a clear, scholarl•• zrhl 'eerePe. d. ago g i ca l analytic, the regression toward the principle. As soon as
and not necessarily imagistic language once the people have healthY is only one human reason, there can he only one true rational sys-
reason" at their disposal. The people. "unwitting metaphysicians , ' .can possible.
r8o MOCULOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY l'opularities 181

All of this was concerned with first principles and the „ w ith the metaphysics of morals as such, in its principles, nor espe-
m eta mere
physics in general, that of morals and nature, even if, in this the c ol,. claim to found that metaphysics. Even before being divided into the
"pedagogical" pretext and the question of the "popular" found themselv . - ic o f right and the doctrine of virtue, the metaphysics of morals in
es doctnt
hound up with the problem of right. The schema I have just sketch c ed founded (gegriindet, justified by right: the vocabulary of
gen eral
specified even as it generalizes itself when one considers the metaph ys i c , ays, already, a juridical vocabulary) on anthropology,
t always,
mis
foundatio n
of morals in general, of which the doctrine of right is only one of th e two t hough it can and in fact must apply to anthropology. The Zeigen
parts. As you know, the metaphysics of morals is an a priori system 4 concerns anthropological consequences, but its discourse (which will
thus
knowledge by simple concepts. Such is the definition of metaphysics for he pedagogical discourse), as anthropological discourse, cannot found
he t
Kant. The object of the metaphysics of morals is everything having to do moral and juridical discourse, the metaphysics of morals itself.
with freedom, not nature. Speaking to us of rights and duties, such a K a nt has then to define what he calls moral antbropaloo, that is, the
metaphysics is itself a duty. To possess it is a duty (Eine solche fAletaphysiltj di sc ipline (in the strong sense of the word) containing the subjective con-
zu baben ist selbst Pflicht). But Kant has to add to this prescription, or he ditions that either hinder or favor the fulfillment (Ausflibrung) of the laws
has to provide as the elementary medium within which to describe thi s of practical philosophy in human nature. Practical philosophy would thus
prescription, a kind of statement within the same sentence: "Every human include a metaphysics of morals and a moral anthropology. Moral an-
being also has it within himself, though in general only in an obscure thropology could not found a metaphysics of morals. As defined by moral
way."' How can one make it a duty to have in oneself something that one anthropology, the conditions of the "fulfillment" of the moral laws sup-
already has anyway and a priori? Here once again, a sort of prescription, pose the production, propagation, and strengthening of moral principles
an order having a performative structure, would get mixed up in a con- through education in schools and popular instruction (in der Erziehung,
fused way with descriptive constatition if there were not precisely this diF- der Schuh- and Volksbelebrung). If 1 understand this last distinction cor-
ference between the consciousness called obscure and the consciousness rectly, Kant would take into account a popular instruction that does not
called clear. Such a difference is the very medium of this pedagogy and of necessarily go on in schools. One would have to read this text more closely
the obscure relation to the people that it has to suppose. It is not separated than we are able to do here in improvising. It seems that there are finally
from this obscure concept of "popularity" as obscure consciousness that three places for pedagogy, three disciplinary instances shaped by the same
must he made to come into the light. concept of pedagogy and consequently by the same concept of the "pop-
Everyone, whether of the people or not, has this metaphysics and thus ular" that is inscribed in it: t. the return to principles for unwitting meta-
this duty. This is a Faktum. The duty that is here implied is to render this physicians: pedagogy as a corning to consciousness of metaphysics; a. peda-
duty itselfclear as such, in its metaphysical purity. This is still the place of gstrogucYtiaosn;mo
3 . nstration (Zeigen) or indication of the relation between moral
pedagogic mediation. Kant gets around to it a little further on, and what Principles and their anthropological consequences: a sort of theoretical in-
he says might interest us from the point of view of the topical structure , anthropologpyr. opaedeutic pedagogy, introduction to the conditions of ap-
in a certain way, of the pedagogical scene. Plication or fulfillment of principles: moral education in the field of moral
Just as the metaphysics of nature has to apply its supreme and universal
principles to nature, so too the metaphysics of morals has to take as its ob- u These three pedagogical instances are distinct, to be sure, but as an ed-
ject the particular nature of man, such as it can be known from exPer!: cationa! system, they are, one could say, all situated between the pure and
the impure, principle and consequence (or result). the intelligible and the
ence, in order to indicate (zeigen, Kant underlines this important wc 4. 1.
there the consequences of moral principles. This it must do without al., snsiblc. They go from one to the other, sometimes in one sense, some-
lowing the purity of the principles to suffer, without rendering their a p11 tim es in the other. But as to the sense of this sense, as to what by right
on origin doubtful. Now, this indicative monstration has an a tirhroP°' comes first, and the order of foundation and legitimization, no confusion
logical dimension, which concerns consequences and which can neith er °tight to be possible. That is what the people have to learn. Moral anthro-
182 MOCHLOS: EYES OF THE UNIVERSITY

pology is certainly indispensable, it ought not be set aside, but it ca nnot

by right and on the level of principles, precede the metaphysics of roorais''
that is, the principles (by definition one does not precede principl es) '
, and
it cannot even be mixed up with that metaphysics. (But can one say that
the concept of the "popular" thus constructed or implied does not d o lust s
that, and do so surreptitiously?) Appendices
What does this mean? Not only that anthropology (like the so ci al sci.
ences that presuppose it) implies some philosophy, but that this phd oso.
phy is not itself pure philosophy. It does not attain its own philosophi cal
principles. It also means that culture is not philosophy (a system of port
principles). It means finally that pedagogy, the discipline of philosoph y
not a purely philosophical act or moment. Here one would have to situ-
ate what Kant says, in a frequently cited but finally little-read text, about
the "teacher of pure reason" and about what it means to learn to philoso-
phize. I am trying to do that elsewhere,' and I do not want to prolon g any
more this foreword whose only function is to introduce.
—Translated by Peggy Kan of

■
 ''Who's Afraid of Philosophy?" (198o)

The Estates General of Philosophy

I.To begin to explain an event like the Estates General, one would have to
deploy and prudently link together several types of analyses. One would
have to deal with all the roots of the situation of philosophy in France to-
day, the "sociology" (let's call it, to be quick) of intellectuals, French in-
structors and students, the structures of French teaching in the university,
in the lyaes, before the lycees, and so forth. We will not be able to tackle
these problems in the course of a discussion. The nearest and most obvi-
ous, also the shortest, sequence takes us hack to the implementation of the
liahy Reform, beginning with the approval of the Reform plan (lithe ed-
ucation system that elicited such great opposition in the country, in par-
ticular among those interested in philosophy, who believe in the necessity
01 philosophical research and debate in our society.... Since the struggle
was undertaken against this Reform. certain threats have not ceased to be-
come more serious and specific. Tampering with the baccalaureat is being
Prudently avoided for the moment: the problem is too delicate to be
taken up before the 1981 election. But the effects of a politics aiming to re-
strict the field of philosophical research and reaching have been accentu-
ated at any rate. Conditions are more and more difficult and are getting
"'ars e b y the year. The massive reduction of the number of teaching posi-
.t `°ris available through the competitive examinations is only one sign of
but was even more spectacular last year, when, moreover, a large
ncr of philosophy teachers in the &ales normales lost their positions.'
La st' year the Hahy Reform had not yet reached the phase of its applica-

185
186 APPENDICES "Who's Afi-aid of Philosophy?" 187

Lion that concerns the Terminates. -' We are waiting for the decr ees th , i reness increased, groups formed and continue to work, in Paris
.a,
should make clear the consequences of the Reform fOr this le ve l of :t ,bc provinces. Without this limiting us to ta r corporatist point of
3n d
curriculum. We have not been waiting for them in order system a e many nonprofessional questions were posed and discussed
call y
titi viess, (ant- many
oppose the principles that must inform them throughout the scho o l sv II, ( luring these rwo days), resolutions were passed that concern , for
', roc .
rem, but we do not yet know precisely what the decrees as to philo sonh tension offh
L e t he exten hi of philosop by outside the Termi -
the teacng
will be. The rumors around this subject—as was said and as has nowbren e0 1 P Such resolutions were then taken up and confirmed by other in-
e Ali -
published in the proceedings of the Estates General—wer e dist ur bi n this is the case of the motion on extension, passed a few days later
even beyond what we had first feared. We thought this would ala rm the assembly of the graders of philosophy for the baccalaurthat in the
sb v -
only teachers and students but all those concerned about the fu ture oft aca d e my of Paris-Versailles.) The meeting of other Estates General was
something like philosophy in this country. A certain number of teach ers contemplated and will take place immediately if the governmental threats
(whether philosophers or not) came together to issue the Appeal yo u are reappea r, The evening of the first day of the Estates General, a televised
familiar with.' They did so in a language in which they could acknom_ d ec laration by the minister [of education] made itself out to be reassuring
edge the concern they share beyond philosophical, political, or other dif - this subject. but we are waiting for the decrees to be able to judge.
ferences, which it was never a question of ignoring. Thus. more than t,zoo 3-tEsWhat shows in an objective and verifiable fashion that these were not
people participated in those Estates General on June 16 and 17 [197 9 ), i n the h
the big amphitheater at the Sorbonne. This massive and exceptional iry on the Planning Committee and even more so during the Estates Gen-
crowd was in itself already an event, a sign, and a warning. All the more eral themselves. This quantitative point of view, which is not always con-
so since, it must he insisted, the participants were not only philosophers vincing, is convincing, in any case, every time there is a vote, and all the
by profession, teachers or students, and were not only academics. One can resolutions were voted on democratically. It is true that the idea of the Es-
get a first impression of what happened there by reading the transcript of tates General was first evoked by certain members of Greph (first of all by
the debates. [Roland] Brunet, as I reminded everyone at the opening of the Estates
a. The great diversity of those who took the responsibility to call for the General), but we thought that the broadest possible gathering was neces-
Estates General must he insisted upon, In France, this is a very rare and sary for everything that set this event under way as well as for its agendas,
therefore all the more significant phenomenon. The twenty-one member resolutions, and so forth. Everything that has now been published bears
committee was formed, in part, of philosophers who, in other contexts, witness to this: Greph no doubt brought the event about but has not
are not so close.... We had no prior agenda. We wanted to favor a broad wished to appropriate or dominate it—and has not done so. We no doubt
debate (without excluding anyone, without hierarchical references, with defended the positions of Greph in the discussions, but what could he
no imposed code, without phenomena of authority or competence). 2 more legitimate? The members of other associations did the same. and
t
broad open debate. And it was undertaken in a place and even an atmos- hat is as it should be. That Greph is more mobilized and has been so for
phere that, many observed, recalled certain moments of 1968, when peo - longer on positions of struggle that sometimes, and more and more, carry
ple spoke as freely as possible, to discuss, question, make proposals, work conviction is also true. The best example was the resolution adopted on
inform. In large part, what we hoped for in this regard took place. Ho" the subject of the extension of philosophy beginning in the Seconde, but
, one must not
the event will be interpreted in the long term, I do not know. At any rat! cttlitvisesr.esolution still does not go far enough in re-
lotion
it was a question, it seems to me. of not investing it in advance with this Gnu' owng p
cte ar sipa
or that historical meaning. The immediate assessment [bilan] ( s ince ru 4 t.ct us clarify again that Greph is neither a union nor a corporative
pose the question of the "assessment") would he at least double: on rh: 'cociatio n . Since 1975 it has brought together a large number of teachers
and
one hand, the gathering took place (and it could he duplicated; everr n ., s tudents, whether philosophers or not, determined to question them-
should take this into account and he infOrmed of it), information circo 4e hres about the philosophical institution, its history and current func-
188 APPENDICES "Who's Afraid of Philosophy?" [89

riming, but also to intervene in it by posing new questions and . g to a fallback. But of course
Estate s General i s far from correspondinthere.
differently within it. Concerning Greph's research program and persi ayLnt .'1' ,0„, o ly a matter of a preliminary phase
Lives for action, its founding "Avant-Projet" and the first stand s i t tow-
can only refer you here to the texts published in Qui a peur de la philosü l
phie?' Currently, everywhere in France, without any centraliza t i o hij o sophY and Its Teaching
p
n
avoiding every orthodoxy and hierarchy, numerous groups are workingand sec1115 desirable to us to extend philosophy (according to modes to be
transform philosophical teaching and research. They are doing i n c[° 8 It
on. . vented and forms that of course would not amount to "dispensing" else-
ditions that vary greatly from one group to another. All the wh ere a teaching that is already known and established) not only up-
taken up in the Estates General are obviously questions p from the Terminale but also downstream, in the universities, out-
stream
Greph, whether they concern the media or the situation of philosophy in s ide philosophy departments. Moreover, this corresponds to a very lively
France today, programs or evaluative sanctions, publishing or th e pc da _ dem and from scientists, jurists, literary scholars, doctors, technicians, and
gogical scene in all its elements, the problem of women in philosophy so forth. In comparison with European systems that do not include the
,
but
also many other questions that were not brought up in the Estates Gen _ t eaching of philosophy before university, our demand might in fact ini-
era' as well. Although we take militant stands on the immediate problems iaiappear unusual or exorbitant. But we are fighting in a French con-
(for example, in order to counter the Hahy Reform with a new and of- text thathas its own history. Moreover, it is worth noting that the ques-
fensive watchword that was no longer that of the traditional defense of th c tions raised by Greph interest many people (and for essential reasons,
Terminale, or when a large number of philosophers were excluded from which stem from traits common to all industrial societies in their current
the écoles normales, and so forth), we view our work as long-term, work- phase) outside of France, in Europe and the United States. It is at a time
ing toward what certain people consider dangerous utopias (this was al- when certain people outside of France are demanding more philosophy,
ready the case for the extension of the reaching of philosophy outside the and beginning before university, that we in France are considering taking
Terminales: things have changed in a few years in the minds of many). the opposite path. We have numerous signs of this interest and this con-
5. The commitment was made, in the Estates General, to broaden and cern wherever sociopolitical forces attempt to limit certain types of re-
renew this experience. Within every academy, offices should be set up that search (philosophy is not the only one, and we are very mindful here of
would in no way compete with union and corporative organizations but what exceeds the unity of a "discipline"). These questions are relevant in
that would set things in motion, that would propose new problematics numerous European or American countries, in North Africa and in more
and new modes of action. than one sub-Saharan African country. Groups analogous to Greph and in
6. Slowing the growing rate of decrease in positions available through_ relation with it are being formed there and are working with us. One of
the competitive examinations is not simply corporatism. The effects 0 1 the principles of Greph is that it not enclose itself within the limits of one
this measure are widespread, and well beyond problems of recruitment- disciplin e but instead attempt to rethink the relations between philo-
Once all professional future is blocked, the number of students of phil09' sophical and other practices. We never propose anything that does not im-
°pity decreases continually and the students become more and more Ply a fundamental rcelaboration this regard, and this reelaboration can
couraged, demobilized. This deteriorates the conditions of research. to b eundertaken ing together with researchers, teachers, and
iti orheorn dlsi bby working
nothing of the conditions fist philosophical debate outside of the places. students .scipl
teaching. In this regard, the supposedly appeasing ministerial d e claratior" 9. Any answer to this questions already deploys a philosophy. There are
the day after the Estates General are far from satisfying us. philosophical differences and fundamental disagreements [dif
7. Extending the teaching of philosophy would have such co nsequen ce
rp,,
' "as ] among those who fight today to extend the teaching of philoso-
on the whole educational system that it absolutely cannot be considr_ re.
4. :• ( ;uy Coq's question: What 'night teaching be in a secondary school today, that
-

fallback position. It is difficult to elaborate upon these consequences or sdlool proposin g to adolescents a minimal relation to the cultural traditions of
but the work of Greph (see Qui a peur de la philosophic?. for examPlc )c111.,, it hi s
torical collectivity? This is the essential question that no one has taken up
give an idea of them. Everything that was said in a programmatic forill" lccpi Eireph).-
19 0 APPENDICES "Who's Afraid of Philosophy?" 191

phy. The common conviction, For the moment, is that the q uest i„ ti th we have m ounted such a defense, but we did not limit ourselves to this,
type of question, you are posing can he elaborated seriously only once as t h e p roceedings of the Estates General, which I can only refer to here,
th e
material and technical conditions of teaching and research are imp roved As vou know. the proportion of nonphilosophers and even of non-
rov e d tes ti
and are more open. But to struggle for that is already to rake a stand chers 1 the participants in the Estates General was quite consid-
to do so philosophically. We all agree that this broad philosophical d"and rea
e b ate etahle• ahemg posed were very broad; they concerned the place
should develop; today, despite certain appearances, it is hindered From an d m odes of philosophical practice in society and outside the institution,
sides. The more active and lively philosophical work is within the insti tn. the m eaning of philosophical thinking today, and the general purpose of
tion, the more active and lively it will he outside ir. tea ching• All of that carried well beyond the professional horizon. And at
to. There has never been a pure unity of philosophical discour se , no no t i me . nor to anyone, did it appear desirable ro fall hack toward the old
doubt For essential reasons. It is difficult to enter into this problem h ere. con ditions of philosophical practice. The proposed transformations and
Nonetheless, ar certain periods (of history and of this or that society) ex tension concerned research and teaching in general, beyond philosophy,
representation of this relative unity of the philosophical code and debat e as we ll as philosophy outside the institution.
was able to impose itself. At the price of powerful exclusions, natu rall y. Let us come to the supposedly "hasty" character of the discourse on the
Today, what is called philosophy is the site of the greatest disparity in di s me dia. The question of the media (their function and current function-
-course.Onidatfhs—nicotauldbe i ng , their role in culture, their effects on teaching, and so forth) held an
lamented and that must be taken into account: 1 believe I am barely exag- important place, and this was not a "false debate." If by "hasty" one
gerating in saying that one teacher of philosophy resembles another wanted to emphasize that this debate was in parr improvised, that would
teacher of philosophy less than he does any other teacher. If one could not be entirely wrong, although the necessity of the problematic of the
hear simultaneously all the discourses and all the teachings that are being media was recognized from the beginning of the first day (in terms that I
produced today under the title of philosophy, one would, I believe, be believe were prudent. differentiated, and programmatic) and although
stunned not only by the difference in content, which can legitimately be those who took part most actively in the work group on the media (I
expected, but by the difference in elementary codes, by the untranslata- think in particular of Debrayr brought the results of significant research
biliry of the languages, of the most decisive evaluations (for example, in to the debate. We can he pleased that for the first rime, even if relatively
determining the "questions" and "texts" that preliminary work should not improvised, questions of a type that believe is Fundamental and to this
skirt, in determining what would formerly have been called a "fundamen- point insufficiently acknowledged in scholarly and university circles were
tal training": this very expression poses problems and is yet another indi- taken up. That is why 1 thought it necessary to call attention to them
cation). Thinking this profound disturbance, 6 which does not come to us from the first meeting on.
by chance or from the outside, is no doubt one of our tasks. That said, were the talks "hasty"? An honest evaluation must not content
itself with the scandalous simplifications some indulged in during the fol-
liming days (I think in particular of a certain review, if it can be called that,
Of Some Criticisms and Misunderstandings
full of hate---which is indeed the right word—in L'Express and of a certain
it. We can move on to the criticisms, if you wish. First, it could never b 4 note in Le Nourel Observateur). One must rather return to what was actu-
a question of wanting to shelter the Estates General from criticism; on th e ally sa id !which has now been published]," which was prudent, compli-
contrary, we wanted to open the broadest and most contradictory discus- cated, and. believe, for such a brief debate, quite well elaborated. The
sions, and two days of improvised debates neither could nor should have g roup on reaching and the media worked long hours; it brought together
given rise to an unattackable corpus of absolutely coherent and satisfac - a Considerable number of participants; there was a long discussion preced-
tory proposals, of a doctrinal or dogmatic form. That said, not every ag.: iing the approval of the report. Reading the transcript of the debates at the
cs • •
icism is just. For example, the criticism that points to a gesture of se lf- tam general, one will see (if one were determined ro doubt this) that
defense. There would be nothing illegitimate about a defense of their ova' th e',' contain no criticism of the media as such :Ind in general, only certain
working conditions by teachers who are conscious of their responsibfW te chnical or political conditions of their current functioning, and of the
I92 APPENDICES "Who's Afraid of Philosophy?" 193

general effects this inevitably has on discourse, teaching, research, and d ari d a ccredited by public instruments (television, periodicals), this
forth. All kinds of precautions were taken so that this would in no c so 5Prea Istitutes too serious and massive an attack to go unanswered, no
ase re_ sin'
semhle a summary trial of the media general. Let us reread; let us rid
in r . r how much
one dislikes such exchanges. If the cause of human rights
Since the stakes are serious, the investments numerous and divers e ni'lc "de fail e d only by people this quick to insult and falsify, we should he
on e ore
cannot question the press and the media without giving rise to a great de
al anN ious than ever. I close this parenthesis.
of nervousness. The reactions are powerful and come by definition f more Thi s is where a patient and multiple analysis, moving in numerous
- ro rr,
places armed massively in this domain. Certain people would like to forbid directions, s hould explain that a given critique of totalitarianism—of a
posing these questions freely and in the open, as we have done. For e xam _ turn tot
alitarianism—had access to television, in a given form, only at a
plc, that is no doubt why, Sunday afternoon, a very determined small tro op spec ific moment in the history of this country, although elsewhere it had
tried to make it impossible for us to work and tried to interrupt ow d e _ for a l o ng time been clearly formulated, well informed, made more
bates: continually making a racket, whistling, yelling aggressively to d rown po inted, and had long justified certain people in taking unequivocal
out or muffle every speech, in short, the well-tried technique of the small stan d s .b I believe that what is at issue is not the difficulty of the discourse
terrorist commando. The troop was led by B. H. Levy and D. Grisoni, alone but rather a whole group of lateral evaluations that go along with a
They were given the opportunity to take the floor at the microphone lik e g i v en content (for example, what you call the critique of totalitarianism,
every other participant. When they began to do so, certain people in the w hich is far from summing everything up). But one should not indulge in
room, no doubt exasperated by the sabotage under way and by the fanati- i m p rovisation in this area, which already suffers from too many stereo-
cal obstruction, protested. Near the platform where the microphone was npes and manipulations when we need subtle, differentiated work that
located, two or three unknown people even started a brief and minor mu]: does not give in to any intimidation. And I wonder whether the form of
fle (I am weighing my words). But the organizers, who moreover invited B, a discussion, which is so useful and illuminating from another point of
H. Levy, saw to it that he could take the floor freely. Which is what hap- view, does not risk hurrying us toward simplifications. In place of an
pened, and this speech has now been published. I would not linger over analysis that is difficult to reconstruct in these conditions, I will merely in-
this incident, which, by the way, is very illuminating, if I had not just dicate a very clear stand, while referring to the published texts: no one, I
learned that, if we are to believe an interview between P Sollers and B. H. believe, at the Estates General, no one at Greph attacked something like
Levy, the latter claims to have been "beat up" at the Estates General. "Beat the media as such and in general, but rather, as I said a moment ago, they
up"! One can hope that such an eloquent defender of human rights knows criticized a certain state and a certain use today, in France, of this or that
the meaning of and weighs this expression, which he had already used, in instrument of the "media" type. As for me, I stated perfectly clearly my
reference to the same incident, during one of his appearances on television mistrust of any reactionism against the media, and I will add, in a word,
t hat I simply believe that there are not enough media. The media suffer
(an interview, this time, with J.-L. Servan-Schreiber). This is an instance of
the most appalling slander on the parr of B. H. Levy. During this britiand rather from monolithism, concentration, monopolization, violent and
minor scuffle (I stress) no punches were thrown by anyone; there were peo - controlled uniformization. In short, the mast glaring symptom is of an
ple shouting in the confusion, pushing around a microphone, or pulling oligar c hi c type. Why, then, so few players, and why these specific ones?
one another by the jacket: these are the facts; more than a thousand people 111 t , perhaps, is a question we can begin with.
can testify to them. Knowing like everyone that B. H. Levy is hardly con" —Translated by Jan Plug
cerned with distinguishing between falsity and truth (although he weal
h ' -r hi% paragraph responds to a comment by Olivier Mongin: One must go flu-
the Truth, the Law, and the Ethical on his sleeve), I would have abo.ndoll L"' anti Ask whether TV necessarily denaturalizes philosophical work. One would

r
these symptoms to their context, at once sinister and derisory; I would° u.k to ask what the role of the ne w
philosophy in relation to the criticism of torah-
have brought up a contemptible slander if the falsity, this rime, were not an anistn was. One would have to ask if it appeared on TV because its discursive
r
affront to all those who were present at the Estates General, to everyone and rIrrri lent itself to it, while Lefores or Castoriadis's discourse was less likely ro come
Phis isn't
not merely to the auxiliary teachers [ maitres-auxiliaires] whom B. H. 1-111' in.Ai t nany rate, one goes into exile and exiles cultural work if
with the same outburst, so comfortably sends back to their little probleni s.
is oat communicable
icable outside those who already know how to read."
 Letter from Francois Mitterrand Titles (for the College International
to Greph (1981) d e Phil osophie) (1982)

■1•
Le Mande, May 28, 1981

The Groupe de Recherches pour l'Enseignement de la Philosophic sid oo :jpuhstyifying the titles of this new institution, beginning with the
PB hv inlo
(Greph) has just made public the response addressed to it by Mr. Francois name we propose to give it, we want to emphasize its titles to exist.
Mitterrand this past May S. The new president of the republic, at the time Why philosophy? Why philosophy today? And why would this new
a candidate, made two promises in relation to the place of philosophy in college he first of all a college of philosophy?
secondary education. Of course, we are not proposing to invent or restore philosophy in
"1. The teaching of philosophy should be preserved and developed. At is- France. It has its modes of existence and its institutional conditions there,
sue, in Fact, is a critical discipline that should better allow everyone to un- For example, in the university, in the Terrninale classes in the lycees, at the
derstand the world and their place in it in order to live and act in that world." College de France and the CN RS.' There are also philosophy societies in
"a. The teaching of philosophy could be extended in secondary educa- Paris and the provinces.
tion, as the teachers of philosophy wish. The precise modalities of this ex- We will define the necessity of adding another institution to these, an
tension will be the object of discussion during the definition of the pro- institution that will be structured completely differently and that will in
grams. At least, the reaching of philosophy should obligatorily figure in all no way compete with or threaten the existing systems. On the contrary, we
sections of the long second cycle." have in mind, rather, a new resource, and a force for proposals and incen-
tives, a place very open and Favorable to experimentation, on the order of
[To be sure, the "ten proposals for education" formulated by the candi - Philosophical exchanges, research, and teaching, as well as to debates in
date Francois Mitterrand already included the development of the reach' which the representatives of all current institutions could join. According
ing of philosophy. But the promise made here to Greph is more pree" c to modalities that we will specify lacer, all the philosophical institutions in
and more radical: in the end, philosophy, the learning of the critical vic► the country could he represented, take responsibility, and discuss their
point, should therefore be brought out of the ghetto of the Teronna l` work and projects in this College. As a matter of principle, we exclude
classes and he taught in the Seconde. This was an old demand of lb' `very hypothesis that would tend to duplicate possibilities already present
philosophers. It implies an effort at recruitment, a greater number of r; el sewhere in the country. Moreover, we abstain from judging previous
sitions on the competitive examinations, and the creation of [teacht* Policies here, whatever their effects, and even if certain of them remain
positions in the classes at issue.] Ov
erwhelmingly negative as we see it. We are not implicating those who
— Moaned by Jan Pill

1 94 f9C
196 APPENDICES Titles 197

represented these policies. Our intention here is above all essentiall y ach
p uilhy
osoP
does not rule the encyclopedic field of knowledge From a
[native; moreover, such a critical evaluation, which is out of place h ere, ha:
rs atonic position any more than it is "dead" or doomed to disappear
already been initiated; it would call for extensive, complex analyses p urtin. hege
an d simple. Let's not forget that everything that has been said or
into play the essence and destination of philosophy as well as a consider-b. P u re A t about philosophy over the last two centuries is also explained by
ho
able number of sociopolitical determinations and overdetermin at i ons ' 41.4t b a c Forms a paradoxically indissociable couple: the hegemony/
That ought to constitute one of the fields of study intended for the aca d., ut philosophy.
College ("for example, what about philosophy and institutions in F ranc; It is no doubt the system of this alternative that is displaced and made
in the twentieth century, and especially since the Second World Warn . obso let e today, and with it a concept of the universitas that always assumes
Such a study is too big to be undertaken here and is not what we int end. ir: the model of the university that has dominated, in the West, since the
Pleading For a certain future, we will limit ourselves to a few axiom, univers ity of Berlin and the beginnings of industrial society is constructed
One sees taking shape today, on all sides, what could be called an alt o. on State-philosophical foundations conferring upon philosophy a kind of
ening of the philosophical or a return to philosophy. These expressions i n_ a bsolute juridical authority (fundamental ontology or the tribunal of pure
volve no simplifying evaluation. They indicate roughly a new, pow erful, reason legislating on the totality of the theoretico-practical field) while re-
and singular phenomenon that greatly exceeds academic limits and all th e fusing it, in principle, the least bit of effective power or the slightest
traditional places reserved for philosophical exchange and research (that is chance of intervening outside the university enclosure. (In this regard, see
to say, in France, the field, increasingly reduced over the last decades, of Kant's exemplary The Conflict of the Faculties and many other philosoph-
the university, the CNRS, its specialized publications, or the very threat- ical discourses on the destiny of the university.)
ened space of the Terminale classes in the lycees). Such a return to philos- Therefore, if we propose the creation of a college of philosophy, it is not
ophy is in no way a recession, even if it must, in certain of its forms, run first of all to signal that this institution belongs integrally to what we
this risk here or there. The constraints that could explain these regressive might believe we can determine in advance as its philosophical destination
forms, as well as the value of regression itself, would in this case merit a or essence. It is, on the one hand, to designate a place of thinking in which
complex and prudent analysis. There again, we must limit ourselves to the question of philosophy would be deployed: the question about the
making a Few indications: so many problematics, among others, to be en- meaning or destination of the philosophical, its origins, its Future, its con-
trusted to the new College. dition. In this regard, "thinking" for the moment designates only an in-
This return of the philosophical is not a "return of the repressed" either, terest for philosophy, in philosophy, but an interest that is not philosophi-
or not simply so, at any rate, even if philosophy today must perhaps avoid cal first of all, completely and necessarily. It is, on the other hand, to affirm
a kind of repression whose sequences and different modes are explained in Philosophy and define what it can be and must do today in our society as
part by a certain techno-political concept of education: it was believed regards new forms of knowledge in general. of technics, culture, the arts,
that the extent of philosophical training (and of training in the "humani - l anguages, politics, law, religion, medicine, military power and strategy,
ties" in general), thought to he at once too critical, too negative, and too police information, and so forth. The experience of thinking on the sub-
unproductive, had to he limited. This, in its more abstract form, is the Ject of the philosophical, no less than philosophical research, is what might
theme that has been analyzed widely by those who, over the last years , the task of the College. A task at once classical (what philosophy has
have struggled against the stifling of philosophy. oar begun by seeking to determine the essence and destination of philos-
The "return" of which we are speaking does not necessarily imply th e ° PhY?) and to he deployed today in singular conditions. Later, we will say
the
erasure or omission of what. in diverse perspectives, has been said or arm: for the values of research, science, interscience, or art.
thought about the end of metaphysics. In its most original and rigorou s Practicing new research, engaging in interferential movements and in-
ter
Forms, this "return" announces on the contrary a new relation to philos- scientific spaces, does not mean (on the contrary) that one is settled in
ophy as such, to a philosophy whose limits are understood differently' secure concept of "scientificiry" and of scientific research." What are the
-
 198 APPE ND ICES Titles 199

historical meaning and die future of these concepts? In its most cliff- ye —organ transplants, genetic manipulation, etc.). from the ques-
dated forms, this question would be on the Collêge's program, eren,
'orent mg , by philosophy and psychoanalysis, of the traditional axioms of
This "philosophical awakening" today takes diverse and rertiarkabi., 1:i ohs, and of the law (rhe value of the subject, of consciousness, of the
forms in all the Western societies and in all the regions of the w or l d 19( ible 1, of freedom. etc.). In short, in the three areas that, with ref-

r
are open to scientific and technological development. Certain francoph that ree l ' to a certain model of the university (still with us although we in-
one African countries provide a particularly spectacular example in this re i ncc
ecital i t from the nineteenth century in Germany), were situated outside
gard: the demand from the new generations and a certain historical s i tua.
the tra ditional Faculty of Philosophy in the broad sense of the word,' that
don have already led this or that country to extend the teachin g of
i s , the° l o
gy. law, and medicine, disturbances' are calling, once again and
philosophy in lycees before the Ifrininale, with explicit reference to de- pletely differently, for philosophy. A new problematic of right (for ex-
com
mands formulated in France itself (notably by Greph), where these d e amp l e , of what are called the "rights of man"), of the experience of illness
-mandshveotybuficnlheard.WtoisFrmhe or health, of the relations between the political and the religious, and so
essential unity of an epoch, it is no doubt more than a fortuitou s con _
fort h, is taking shape and everywhere calls for a different encounter with
juncture. That the motifs that determine this urgency and this conv ey the philosophical as such. Consequently, the philosophical can neither
genre remain heterogeneous, even contradictory, only makes this com- disappear nor play the role of an arbitrating instance that it was previously
mon recourse to philosophy as such more enigmatic and significant. accorded or refused without leaving room for any other possibility.
Let us recall briefly a few of these motifs as exemplary indications. R e . 3. A certain massive and recent withdrawal of Marxist orthodoxies has
fusing to engage this project in a preinterpretation of this phenomenon, given rise in Western democracies to two apparently contradictory move-
we will content ourselves with accumulating incontestable symptoms, ments, both of which, however, take the form of a sort of philosophical
those that allow for a definition, at least, of a demand and an expectation. upsurge:
r. The formerly dominant discourses on the "end of philosophy" or the a. Simply returning to philosophical axiomatics that such Marxist or-
"overcoming of metaphysics" have everywhere called, in response or in re- thodoxy seemed to have rendered obsolete, discredited, or at least reduced
action, for a new relation to the entire Western philosophical tradition. to an intimidated silence.
This tradition is neither rejected, like an outdated heritage, nor seen as b. Considering this withdrawal of Marxism and of its political condi-
natural or indestructible. The discourses on the limit of the philosophical atizon es as a significant phenomenon, to be sure, but one that, Far from be-
have established models of reading that are barely comparable, despite cer - ing recorded as a death certificate or a page that has been turned in a mag-
tain appearances, to those that were the norm fir philosophical discourse in of philosophical fashions, should bring about a rigorous
and research even twenty-five years ago. In France more than elsewhere reelaboration of Marx's heritage and a larger opening to the modern prob-
(we will stress this below), this transformation has been profound, even if imarks against which it often protected itself. These reexaminations and
philosophical institutions as such have not adapted to it. This failure to this new debate, with Marxism or within it, can and must take original
adapt makes the demand for philosophy outside the institution still more form France today.
impatient, and the diversity of its forms alone constitutes a phenomeno n n 4. Another paradox: the powerful and obvious resurgence of religious
of the greatest interest. menu:ins all over the world and the political force they represent. Two
2. The return of the philosophical often takes the form of a new co,' apparentl y contradictory and concurrent motifs come together in the
figuration of abieo-juridica/problems. This stems in particular from r noc Same philosophical effect.
memory and the anticipation of global cataclysm, from the forerunner' f. (.c)::iic one d, this resurgence goes together with a renewed interest
ir . hind,
izr
humanity's self-destruction, from phenomena of totalitarianism. of P 111,',.'s . o-metaphysical or theological themes that were previously indis-
icai and psychological torture. from the withdrawal of certain philosorr. ' `)ciah l , in the West, from the history of religions.
r.
ico-ideological securities, from tech no-scientific powers (in p a rticula () II the other hand, and elsewhere, it dictates, by way of response or re-
 200 APPENDICES Titles 201

action, a recourse to the "Enlightenment" and to modern form s o f ratio exploration of languages, writings, grammars, discourse. the
nalism that are held also to he congenital to philosophy inasmuch as it boriormarion e of "artistic" media and thus forms—and therefore of artis-
tort
supposed to resist mysticism, rnystagogy, and obscuranrisms• Thr ough institurions and classifications, of the concept of the "fine arts," verbal
extreme simplifications the genre and speed of the present considera the tic
or On onnt,h-e,r. b'ca, tlh, earn hand, asnodf,oaritildi.
impose upon us, one can see that it is the question ofreason that h ere fin
ti t'e
n$
it5 reciprocally, these new incursions compel the
a new form and a new urgency. But in the two "situations" we h ave just ph 0 so p h r, who sometimes accepted a relative exteriority (and thus a
recalled, as contradictory as they are, a new interest for philosoph y i s th us atta in incompetence) in regard to this or that field of particular knowl-
mobilized. l
i'cdalluestion once again a certain type of authori ty (fundamentalist,
5. Finally and most of all, techno-scientific research is in the process of ental, or ontological); they compel the philosopher to change
irsrinasgntin:eip.s.lcieltetin
ed
toe a
entering into a new relation with the philosophical, which would not be
srys le nd rhythms in any case, sometimes languages, without, however,
reduced merely to its classic forms: u ncing philosophy and without believing that it is invalid pure and
a. Coextensivity and immediate communication between the enc yci o_ Without ceasing to question the meaning and destination of phi-
pedia, the totality of knowledge, and philosophy. and of what continues to affirm itself under this name, philoso-
b. Subordination (in principle) of the regions of knowledge to a gener phers seem today to have to transform their modes of questioning to re-
al
ontology or to a transcendental instance. spond to provocations and expectations from still-unknown places. most
c. The (later) demand for the autonomy of each scientific field seekin g often from philosophical institutions, excluded by the probiematics they
to found and formalize itself by excluding every philosophical instance. recognize and legitimate.
d. Recourse to the philosophical in the properly epistemological mo- Freedom, mobility, resourcefulness, diversity, even dispersion: such
ment of research. would he the characteristics of these new philosophical "formations." By
c. The always-philosophical form of experiences of so-called "crisis": the "formations" we mean the new philosophical "objects' and the process of
crisis of "foundations," concern regarding the ethico-political goals ofsci- their constitution, as well as the "social formations" (groups of philoso-
ence and technics (military or police use of techno-scientific power, ge- phers, institutional communities, research and teaching structures) that
netic manipulation, the role of information technology and telematics: would correspond to them. By definition difficult to situate in what pre-
once again, the new problems of "law, medicine, and religion"). 4 viously would have been a "system" or a model of the universitas, they in
These typical forms, moreover, are neither necessarily nor equally out- any case require institutions that are as light, permeable, and mobile as
dated. But a different philosophical practice and a different relation w the Possible. We will draw the conclusions from this below.
philosophical are being sought, within and at the limits of all these types of What we have just outlined schematically might give the feeling of a
knowledge. As an alternative to the philosophical all-or-nothing, to Phdc" simple "global" conjuncture, in other words, ofa contingency or an acci-
sophical hegemony versus nonphilosophy or independence regarding all dental unity. What might be the essential destination shared by these mo-
philosophemes, one sees, today, a tendential succession ofa multiplictry 0 1 tifs that all seem to lead back to philosophy or at least to intersect at a site
transversal exchanges, original at once in their local character and in the re - said to he philosophical, even though they appear to be contradictory?
nunciation of a classical recourse to philosophy (a "radical." fundamental - We do not want to determine this presumed lenity here. We do not
ist, ontological, or transcendental recourse, an always-totalizing recourse)' want to propose a philosophical or metaphilosophical preinterpretation of
On the one hand, questions of a philosophical type traverse spaces th a
t
it At least we are doing everything possible to abstain from that. Hence
'

were previously unknown, excluded, or marginalized. Let us cite them.° we deliberately accept the risk of a prephilosophical, empiricist, rhapsodic
no particular order: psychoanalytic practice and theory, the psyclwa - discourse. We do so for several reasons, all of which stem from the type of
lyric movement, the new facts of military strategy, of international lawn t ext we are proposing here and from the mission entrusted to us. We
dealing with space and information, urbanism, the media, the new te n think it would he useful to state these reasons briefly.
nological conditions of the relation to disease, to death, to torture, the I. We believe that reaching a consensus on the approximate location of
 202. APPENDICES Titles 203

all these signs and symptoms would be rather easy, but the sam e i s in fact t his indetermination and this very opening that we designate, in
re "tst
necessarily true for their interpretation as a whole. Each sign ppresen it. irext, by the word "thinking." This word is not nothing, but it is
this c"t
self as a discourse and a philosophical preinterpretation of the totality try of , t hi nE7, else: not philosophy but what questions it.
the global field. In a given situation (for the sake of brevity let s 1 1(
,
This - thinking" will be precisely the horizon, the task, and the desti-
call it
'

France's chance today), we think it is possible to found an instituti on on o f this College, its adventure as well. Its adventure because it is a
this first consensus, but we insist upon not linking the project itse lf na tion -
Matter of the future, as we have said, but also because it will be a question
a
preinterpretation or to being put in a philosophical perspective, ours or
of taking risks: in the way of ambitious speculations on the most wide-
that of any one of us. That is our responsibility. We insist upon as sum i ng ' g subjects as well as in the form of experimental incursions in un-
it as rigorously as possible, knowing that the absolute neutralizatio n
preinterpretation would ultimately be unattainable and absurd: it would
make this very discourse irresponsible.
of all "pion
rangln,
— areas. The speculative attitude and traditional tartisanall exper-
imentation will here find the most welcoming place for their cohabitation.
This College would not he an establishment, an immobilized institution
What will finally have helped us in this difficulty is a hypothesi s or i n which we would seek to cover areas recognized by programs certain of
question. Suspending, in effect, as long as possible, all philosophic al their efficiency, their performance, and their productivity. It will be,
preinterpretation, we not only conform to the neutrality and reserve re- rather. a place of provocation, of incentives For research, of speculative or
quired for the mission entrusted to us, but perhaps also put forward the experimental exploration, of proposals and stimulation in new directions.
hypothesis (one or the other among us will gladly claim it as his own) that The themes we have just evoked to situate the awakening of the philo-
no discourse that can he delimited today according to the academico- sophical today are known and treated (directly or indirectly, but always
institutional models or criteria of the tradition is, as such, capable of such separately) by this or that specialized group in this or that institution. The
an interpretation: neither a (regional) scientific discourse nor a philo- College must not, of course, replace or compete with this activity, still less
sophical discourse (Fundamental ontology or transcendental philosophy, contest these specialists. Moreover, it could not do so. On the other hand,
and so forth). This is barely more than a question, a hypothesis. if one it will be able to make converge or cross, in the style we defined a moment
could still claim to recognize it as having an identity and a unity, the ques- ago (incisive incentive, speculative or experimental exploration, establish-
tion or the type of question for this College would thus concern precisely ing intercommunication, etc.), problematics that are too often separated
the theoretico-institutional limits within which it has been possible up to or isolated. In the strongest and most spectacular moments of its existence
this point to attempt to appropriate this interpretation. This interpreta- (and one can reasonably anticipate them), the College will bring about es-
tion traverses and exceeds, perhaps, without disqualifying them, however, sential debates between the most diverse and significant thinkers from all
all the discourses and all the rhematics that claim to dominate it. For ex- countries, on the decisive stakes we evoked above.
ample, philosophy (in all its forms, in particular the philosophy of lan- In this regard, one can say in all neutrality, this unique opportunity can
guage, the philosophy of history, hermeneutics, the philosophy of reli- he given in France, to France, and by France. Our country's situation is
gion), the human sciences (for example, sociology in all its forms, up to singular today. Let's limit ourselves to what is best known and briefest.
and including the sociology of knowledge; history, up to and including Over the last twenty-five years, many French researchers (philosophers,
the history of the sciences and of technologies, politology or politic al scholars, artists), without ever having been given the means, have no doubt
economy, psychoanalysis, and so forth), and the so-called natural sciences ,
Own the greatest originality, that originality, at any rate, that is most eas-
supposing this final distinction still withstands analysis. In other words, ily recognized as theirs abroad in ways and according to a style that prefig-
the charter of such a College should not exclude the possibility that the ures precisely what would he an international college of philosophy. For it
thinking that would measure up to this unity of the epoch, if there are an abroad that the consciousness of this is no doubt the most acute: it is in
"epoch," a unity, and a measure, is perhaps no longer scientific or philo - P rance that a good number of intellectuals with different training have
tr
sophical, in the sense in which these words can be determined today. It is ansgressed established theoretico-institutional limits or academic territo-
20 4 APPENDICES Titles zo5

ries better than elsewhere. We will refrain from naming the indi v id Th e mission confided in us is therefore situated expressly in the per-
here; but it is well known that, for example, the French philosopher s who e of a development of this teaching: in secondary and higher edu-
i speL_ r i v
arc most renowned and who are sometimes the only ones known k cat ion, in specialized sections and classes, but elsewhere as well. If, as we
a-road
are those who have done their work in the margins of university pro grams hope , the teaching of philosophy is extended to reach the proportions of
and norms, opening philosophy to the sciences, literature, psychoanal ysis' , ever; other basic ifondamentatel discipline, if in order to be extended it
the visual arts, and so forth. And they have done so in difficult con d i- transform and enrich itself, the College will be able to play an in-
mtv3
tions—conditions made more difficult by the French institutional s,,„ va luable role in this perspective. That does not mean that it will centralize
',At m
and by its traditional politics, which foreign countries, always ready to wel- or bring together all the research undertaken to this effect. But, on the
come them, have a good deal of difficulty understanding. one h an d, very spontaneously and naturally, all the activities of the Col-
A strange situation, an opportunity nor to he missed. There is today i n lege will he so many openings, hypotheses, and proposals for a new teach-
a kind of marginal or inter-institutional territory, a space that no other na- i n g of philosophy that is as rigorous as possible, in its traditional demands
tional culture has been able to create. And, stricto sense;, accordin g to es- as well as in its innovations. And, on the other hand (a decisive task that
tablished criteria, this space is neither purely philosophical, nor purely sci_ we will clarify below), from the moment of its creation the College will
entific, nor purely aesthetic. organize systematic research and experimentation in this direction. It will
It happens that the wealth and singularity of this quarter of a century thus prepare a set of new and coherent proposals (pedagogical procedures,
have often given rise to conflicts, to doctrinal or dogmatic exclusions, to programs, methods, contents, but also freeing up space for other break-
establishing cliques and clienteles, and to exploiting small differences that throughs [frayagesi and for more innovative practices, and so forth) in
foreigners more attentive to the general unity of the French scene find view of the extension of the teaching of philosophy before the Terminale
laughable. The history and sociology of these phenomena would also and outside philosophy departments in the university.
merit systematic study that could be undertaken or pursued by the Col- Of course, all those, in secondary and higher education, at the CNRS
lege. But it is just as important to observe today a kind of break in this and elsewhere, who would like to participate in it will join in this work,
war that was no doubt made worse, sometimes created, by the structures which will consist only of proposals and incentives. The wish that was
of institutional power, as much in the university as in the media and pull- widely expressed during the Estates General of Philosophy will finally be
lishing. Certain signs lead one to think that this type of conflictualiry implemented; and to do so we will be able to consult the work published
without any meeting or debate could to a certain extent leave room for by those Estates General, as well as those of Greph. But this is only a pos-
discussions that are at once more direct and more tolerant. Without this sibility and an example.
amounting to Ecileness, eclecticism, or ecumenism, the College could of-
fer in these conditions one of the principal sites of meeting, research, and
Interscience and Limitrophe
debate. One can reasonably anticipate the interest it could therefore stir as
such. The quality and number of thinkers it would attract would make Why link, along with "sciences" and "arts," the subtitle "interscience"
this College a site of high attendance and heavy traffic, a possibility for with the title "philosophy"?
highly intense creation. Its creation alone would he an event, and not only Certain of the preceding considerations have no doubt prepared for our
a spectacle: we are already certain that it would he greeted, in France and response. We should now clarify the contours of a concept that, while
havin g no theoretical legitimacy within, precisely, an already determined
abroad, in the spirit of the great hopes it has already occasioned. Everyday
new signs confirm this. field of obiectivity, appears no less necessary once one takes into account
One could also expect a great wealth of proposals and incentives for the :fi• certain theoretico-institutional topology of knowledge. There again, it is
future of the reaching of philosophy in France "at a time when the ei 9v: a matter of what happens, can and must happen, between the domains of
ernment is preparing ro extend the study of philosophy in secondarY already legitimated fields when borders allow themselves to he exceeded or
ucation" (Jean-Pierre Chevenenient, Lam de mission).
, displaced. 'Faking up Einstein's word, we will name "interscientific" any
 191
206 APPENDICES Titles 207

thematic, any field, any research activity (later we will say any peror f ma , Italy, i ts own conditions of possibility. And this questioning will not only
tivity) that the map of institutions, at a given moment, does not yet he 3 reflexive sociology of knowledge, although it could be that as well.
grant A u t his confirms the necessity of uniting philosophy, in the sense we
stable, accredited, habitable departments. These zones of instability tni
ght
appear wild and uninhabitable in the eyes of a certain social repres etita_ have attempted to define, with multiple and active intersections, for sey-
tion of organized research. They are in fact sites of great traffic, privile ge
d ora l r easons.
sites for the formation of new objects or rather of new thematic networks
These paths, which are in the course of being cleared, establish con necl
tions between institutional roads already open for traffic, with their cod e
of signals and signs and their programmed (productive and reproductive) Once iil tY
the context we are defining here, the fields of"knowledge"
How. The clearing of these new paths can have begun already or h e totall y which paths are to he recognized are not limited to what are
to come. One can prepare for it or let oneself be surprised by it, since it com m
cb oer ei only r i
)n1;ccah lle
ndthe
ew "sciences" (mathematics, logic, natural science, the
depends not on the initiative of a subject (who is either "free" or human or social sciences). They extend to all fields of activity or compe-
^farrne] in terms of education programs) but rather on the much more tences. whatever the area. Therefore, by virtue of the same trans- or inter-
complex relation to the new information and communications technol- k rona' necessities, the College will have to open itself to artistic experi-
ogy, and so forth. In both instances, we will speak of the interference of ments and to all their languages (the "theory and practice" of literature,
knowledge or of "interscience," since what is at issue are new objects aris- t he visual arts, music, theater, cinema, all audiovisual techniques, and so

ing on oblique or transversal paths establishing communication between on).

previously separate areas. These possibilities are accepted as self-evident and are empirically orga-
It is the privilege accorded these interferences that will give the life of nized in many universities; this is common in the United States, for exam-
the College a character all its own: exploration, experimentation, innova- ple. It is a matter of making official, of enriching, and of systematizing this
tion, invention, proposal, a throw of the dice and a bet in spaces that are research, of making room. under certain conditions, not only for theoreti-
still quite unknown or unacknowledged; and especially transference, in cal work on arts and techniques of all kinds, but for so-called "creative" re-
every sense of the word. We will draw the conclusions of this for the sta- search.. .. The fields of activity or competences we are calling for would
tus, organization, form, and rhythm of the College later. For a consider- not only he theoretical; they would also define a know-how [savoir-faire] or
able portion of the research to he undertaken it will be a question of for- a knowing-how-to-produce [savoir-produire] and, therefore, as is self-evi-
mulating new problematics and new fields that, once they are recognized dent when speaking of a competence, the capacity for performance. We
in their necessity and stabilized in their unity, will have to emigrate, be must stress this point, for it no doubt defines one of the most original stakes
transferred and taken in elsewhere, in another existing institution or in an for the College, the high risk and the difficulty of calculation. Stressing per-
tfoharn;caann
cehedoes not, of course, amount to valorizing the "high-performance"
institution still to be created. It will therefore he a matter of inventing the
best conditions and the best rhythm fc-n- these interferences and transfer - [peiformantr—as the saying goes—character of techniques or operations
ences. We know how difficult it is for a research establishment, certain of programmed and made profitable. We have insisted upon indi-
eating, F, on the contrary, that the College should avoid the dominant modes
its field and competence, of its legitimacy and its productivity, to he hos-
pitable to themes and questions that at first appear to disorganize or ex- of calculation in this regard, which does not destine it to being unproduc-
ttunt: craatihc:irlarte:tu ry
requires that other rhythms, very heterogeneous qualitative
ceed its general program. -**
These difficulties are very diverse in origin and manifestation. They obey structures, and probabilistic or aleato phenomena avoiding classical insti-
an ordered inertia that, in the great theoretico-institutional mobility that he taken into account. Let us note in passing that this
must he accepted today, calls for systematic study. This study will be pries could also b e one of the research themes to be privileged in the College,
ileged in a College that will once again have to question, directly or inal" wnh all the effects of the technological transformations under way on
208 A1' P E Nh10 ES Titles 2.09

knowledge (competence and performance), in particular those conc erning [hi i„so phical" meaning. It will first of all necessitate a reconsideration of
archiving, the stocking and communication of information, co m Pute riza ,i.; t he hierarchical theorems and principles upon which the systems of re-
lion, relematics, databases, the problematics of so-called "artificial ' ;oral and teaching are constructed, whether the structure of speech acts,
gence."' One of the missions of the College will be "research training' lotion to the technology of communication and to techne in gen-
lhocr relation
.
we
will therefore have to see develop at once technical competence in the access e between theory and practice, knowledge and power, philos-
to this new instrumentalization of knowledge and a new reflection of _ an op h y. s cience, and arts. In addition to the wide-ranging and long-term
original "philosophical" kind on this new technological conditio n of such an inauguration will immediately allow for the open
knowledge and communication, on the role of the "media," on the p o litics adnlissinn char the College is giving itself, among other missions, that of
of science, on the new responsibilities involved in this, and so forth. fa, or ing certain performances, in particular in the fields of the so-called
We therefore propose that the "performative" possibility and exigency arcs ( verbal or not), once they have the status of an experimental explo-
be recognized by rights as one of the essential marks of the College. They ration and the effect of "intersection' we evoked above. Each of these ex-
have never been recognized, as such, in any research and teaching institu- periments would have "philosophical" import capable of giving rise to a
tion, for structural, philosophical, and political reasons. No doubt, every new thematic.
philosophical or, more generally, theoretical language implements, under
its apparently "consrative" or descriptive appearance and norms, "perfor- Beyond I nterdisciplinarity
mative" forces that have in general been ignored, or rather denied, in an y
case, deprived of all legitimacy in the institutions of "knowledge." This It should he clarified here that this transversal intersection of fields of
therefore excluded any legitimate possibility of seeing a speech act as an knowledge could not be reduced to what is conventionally called "inter-
event provoking an event, which does not amount, in accordance with the disciplinarity": a programmed cooperation between the representatives of
trivial and long-recognized possibility, to inducing events or actions with the established sciences that would study a common object, itself already
words. Ler us recall briefly that it is a matter of speech acts whose very defined in its contours, with the help of different methods and comple-
structure, in certain given contexts, is the immediate cause of certain mentary approaches. As necessary as it remains within its very limits, in-
events. This is not the place to enter into the current problematic of per- terdisciplinarity thus understood does not institute a novel problematic
formative statements and of "pragmatics" in general. Its field is being ex- and does not invent new objects. As such it does not claim to modify the
tended and complicated with increasing speed. The performative dimen- structure and recognized borders of the fields of research, and of the pro-
sion of language covers, in differentiated fashion, an enormous mass of tocols and approaches that are proper to them. On the other hand, the in-
typical statements. Let's consider, for the moment, only the institutional tersections that we believe need to be made and multiplied should rend to
effect of this fact, which concerns philosophy, linguistics, logic, literature' free up problematics and speech acts that the established disciplines, as
the arts, political discourse, and so on: by itself it should at once consti- such, must in general inhibit or marginalize—sometimes even because of
tute a very broad and differentiated field of research For the College and a their strength, their legitimacy, their efficiency.
structural transformation in the history of the systems of knowledge and It is thus less a matter, for the College, of mobilizing several fields of ac-
their legitimation. For the first rime, an institution will expressly takeuP !ivity, or competences around an already discovered theme than of bring-

a dimension of language that had been excluded or denied to this point. ' n g forth new themes and new modes of research and teaching. To he
The effects of this transformation can he wide-ranging, if one wants to sure r would remain more necessary than ever to call upon established
field s
follow this principle in all its consequences, and the very creation of such of knowledge at the intersection of existing "disciplines." But this
ill
an institutional space will already be an unprecedented inaugural "perf°'; he done here in order to create research groups and then to propose
t heft stabilized theoretico-institutional system arid form to other agencies,
mative," with (we will never hide this) all the risks that a "blow" [comp] of
in Franc e and th roughout the world.
this type can entail. But whatever the risks, this event will by itself haVe 3
210 APPENDICES I isles 211

This motif of intersection or crossing would be a kind of charte r for th cardw, it. For the moment. we can only identify its abstract form and
College. It would inform its criteriology, particularly in the orientation of ;lost open criteriology,
research, the definition of responsibilities, the selection of proje cts, and Thi s first type of limitrophe would by itself lead to an analysis of a philo-
the evaluation of results. ,op hic aI type. Putting several orders of 'knowledge" into communication
The transversal breakthroughs (frayages] will be, to put it very scher riat. , mode that is not simply interdisciplinary always poses general ques-
in
ically, of two types, which could naturally intersect in turn. rio ,„, in this case, the recourse to philosophy no longer takes its classical
and hierarchizing form: the arbitrating clan ontological or transcendental
"EXTERNAL" LIMITROPHE
mohority or instance legislating on questions of possibility, and so forth.
Such an advance will first of all be able to bring to the fore a place o r , What is being sought now is perhaps a different philosophical style and
theme that no specific discipline, as such, will to this point have recog nized , different relation of philosophical language to other discourses (a more
and treated. Of course, this does not mean that this new topic has in prin- horizontal relation, without hierarchy, without radical or fundamental re-

ciple been inaccessible to already established and legitimized research; arid centering , without an architectonics, and without an imperative totaliza-
it will be objected precisely that the normal progress of a discipline consi sts don). Will this still be a philosophical style? Will philosophy survive the
in discovering and analyzing new objects or new properties within a n al- re st of these new fields of knowledge, of this new topology of limits? This
ready identified field of objectivity. Every scientific contribution, from the will be the test and the very question of the College.
most modest thesis to the most ambitious elaborations, conforms in prin-
"INTERNAL" LIMITROPHE
ciple to this norm, and this is what we call "research."
We therefore have to specify what kind of transversal breakthroughs Another kind of limitrophic work could define the mission of the College.
[frayages] are to he privileged systematically. First of all, a quantitative cri- This time it is within a single discipline, within an already organized theo-
terion that we believe is pertinent: certain breakthroughs can be accepted retico-institutional system, that the question of limits could arise. This
in principle by this or that institution and immediately deprived, in fact, happens the moment a given positive knowledge encounters in its au-
of any future; without sufficient support, original work is immediately tonomous field difficulties or limits that its own axiomatics and process
marginalized, contained in a narrow space, held hack in a kind of under- do not allow to he raised. A science or a techne in general then questions
development. Insufficient support is never insignificant or purely aleatory. its own presuppositions. displaces, deforms the framework of its prob-
It reflects politico-institutional motivations, interests, and structures that lematic, submits it to other configurations. This moment—which is typ-
are always worth questioning the moment one attempts to compensate for ical and normal for all research—is not necessarily that of an "epistemo-
it, and in this very movement. Each time, one must ask oneself: why has logical crisis" or of a "questioning of foundations," and so forth. These
this or that research not been able to develop? What is getting in the way models of the so-called "critical - moment can be transformed, and al-
And who? And how? Why? With what aim? Up to a certain point. the though they are first of all philosophical in appearance, they can also
College could play a telling theoretico-institutional role. Sometimes, turn - trouble
the philosophical certainty upon which they are still constructed.
ing this question back toward its own limits, it would multiply questions Phis philosophical certainty has a history; it has taken many forms, and
of this type and develop them in the most consistent fashion. "the philosopher" cannot avoid questioning it in all its forms, from the
lr is by definition impossible to give a priori a well-thought-out list of classical questioning of the essence of metaphysics, the limits and destina-
these exclusions, foreclosures, interdictions, or marginalizations t ion of philosophy, or philosophical research and teaching, to perhaps

discreet or violent). By definition, the examples we could give al then' novel questions, born at the limits of new fields of knowledge, powers,
would be partly outdated. Over the course of work that we do not wan dnd technical systems with which philosophy had never before associated.
to predetermine here, this "unlocking" will appear and we will propos' It is not for us to propose models for the elaboration of these questions
I rene,
different models of general interpretation or of particular intervention re" till less typical responses to them. We are only indicating the urgent
212 APPENDICES lftles 213

necessity of giving them a place and an opportunity worthy them All It i s this concept of the unirersitas that, directly or not, leads to these
the problematics and all the proposals that depend upon them (they aree still-current paradoxes: a certain hegemony of the philosophical goes hand
innumerable) will find a privileged greeting in the new College. Not . 1 han d with civil society or the State system confining, even repressing,
all approaches of this kind must constitute the program of the College. 0„ so phical teaching and research. To limit ourselves to this very signif-
that would he excessive and out of proportion with the dimensions of F.ant exa mple, what happened in France stems from this logic: the phi-
such an institution, and no doubt of every institution in general, Th e id ea ioso
ph• class ("queen of disciplines," "crowning moment of studies") is
of saturation has no pertinence here, and a program cannot be co n enclosure in which philosophy is penned up, deprived of the treat-
n_ also a
strutted according to what by definition problematizes every program- men t and dignity given other disciplines (see the works of Greph).' 2
matic contract. Let us merely say that the rule of the College will be to The transformation and extension of the teaching of philosophy (be-
give priority to these limitrophic problematics and above all to those that fore the Terminale classes in lycees and outside university departments
concern the limits as such of the philosophical. Priority will also be gi ven Unites d'enseignement et de recherche, UER] of philosophy) will again
to certain styles of approach: exploration at the limits [of philosoph y],a put into question the space that is hierarchized in this way and all the
singular or out-of-the-ordinary incursions. To be sure, the out-of-the-or- the
oretico-institutional limits that structure it. If, in accordance with
dinary, the limitrophic or aleatory, would not be valorized by themselves t h e promises of the president of the republic, the extension of the teach-
and as such. But alongside other elements of assessment, they should be i n g of philosophy is to become a political reality in the immediate fu-
to the credit of the research projects submitted to the College. tur e, the creation of the College International de Philosophic must
The schema we are proposing leads one to question—and perhaps to move in the same direction. 13 The economy of our project supposes this
displace—the relation between philosophy and the fields of knowledge as in any case. It outlines an entirely different topology: a multiplicity of
this relation has been established in the model of the university institution transversal, horizontal, heterogeneous relations will tend to he substi-
that has dominated in the West since the beginning of the industrial age: a tuted for what we will call, for the sake of convenience, univerticahty
vertical ontologico-encyclopedic structure that tends to immobilize all rec- (radical unity of the foundation, onto-encyclopedic hegemony, central-
ognized borders of knowledge. In the university, philosophy is supposed to ism, maximal identification, and hierarchy). But this will be only a ten-
organize and order the entire space of knowledge and all the regions of the dency—and an experiment to be attempted. Numerous signs suggest
encyclopedia. But in terms of power this hierarchical principle is immedi- that it is time for this.
ately inverted: the department of philosophy (the "Faculty of Philosophy"
that Kant speaks of in The Conflict of the Faculties)'' is subjected to the dis- The Collegiate and International Dimension
ciplines representing the power of the State.'" All-powerful and powerless:
this was the destiny assigned philosophy in a system subordinating all the Why a college? Whyan international college? if we have recourse to the
university languages to statements of (theoretical) truth within the univer - historical name "college," it is first of all to take into account premises that
sity, and the whole of this university to representatives of State p ower for we have attempted to justify: this new institution must he neither a school
everything that was not a "constative" judgment. Philosophy was every- nor a university. Nor will it merely be a research center in the traditional
thing and nothing (using the same logic, Schelling objected to the idea of sense of the expression. Second, it is to propose its autonomous and liberal
a "department" of philosophy, since philosophy had to be everywhere, and Veration : in its mode of recruiting and of administration, in its relation
thus nowhere, in no determinate place)." Since then, all speculationsoo to the State, the nation, and the regions.
the death or survival of philosophy have maintained an essential relation In the Following chapters, we will multiply the proposals intended to
°, uaran rec this collegiality. Sticking to generalities here, let us say that the
with this institutional projection. Throughout many variations, this Kant'
re gulatclry authority should not impede but on the contrary favor this au-
ian paradigm has illustrated powerfully the logic of the relations between
the State, philosophy, and nonphilosophical fields of knowledge. "only, the possibility of initiatives that would lead to decentralization,
2 T4 APPENDICES Titles 235

of turning (in certain conditions) to private resources, of contra cts with f+ is important for French students and researchers to maintain last-
regional and international agencies.
ing relations with foreigners who would stay in France long enough to ex-
Other collegiate characteristics: the free and pluralistic style of th e the state of their research here but also to pursue the most creative
re i a , ltihit
tions between members of the institution, the necessity of excluding activities.
stabilized hierarchization, every phenomenon of the "school," of auth- ot- : c It Would be desirable for the College to become a place of interna-
ity and doctrinal intolerance, rapidly renewing the active members o tiona l exchange (linguistic, cultural, scientific, artistic) in keeping with its
f th e
College, the ease of movement [passages] between the College and () t h e ; speL'ficit• and not limited to bilateral communication. The problematic
institutions of research and teaching (lycees, universities, CNRS, College 0 f national
languages in scientific communication (and taking new infor-
de France, EHESS [E,cole des Haines Etudes en Sciences Sociales], fore i gn ma tion technologies into account) must become an important and per-
institutions, and so on), and a broad and lively community among the ac-
m anent theme for all those who participate in the life of the College.i . '
tive members of the Colk.ge and all others. d. Most of all, this international openness must allow, in a more tradi-
This collegiate structure will no doubt facilitate welcoming foreign stu- tionally philosophical field, for the multiplication of original initiatives
dents, researchers, and artists. For the international dimension of the Col- whose historical necessity is more obvious than ever today. We know that
lege must appear as one of its essential characteristics. The statutes of th e the "philosophical world," assuming it still has a unity, is not only divided
College will he very explicit in this regard: it is a matter of the originality , into "schools" and "doctrines" but also, beyond and independently of
strength, and influence of this institution, the only one of this kind in philosophical contents and positions, divided according to linguistico-
France and perhaps the world. national borders that arc more difficult to cross than political borders.
It must he recognized that up to this point France has not given itself the These traditional differences in "style," "rhetoric," "method," and so on
means for large-scale international cooperation, in particular in the spaces are sometimes more serious than differences in doctrine. Although they
we have outlined. This is a well-known fact for foreign researchers and for cannot be reduced to national languages and traditions, they nonetheless
the French researchers who are often welcomed in other countries, espe- remain part of these. These philosophical areas between which passages
cially the United States. University structures make the steps in preparation are rare, whether in the form of critique or polemics, are a historical—and
for welcoming a foreign researcher or artist in good conditions cumber- philosophical—challenge to philosophy. Whether one sees it as an enigma
some, difficult. often discouraging. We are not speaking here of the values or a scandal, this is a phenomenon that we should give ourselves the
of intellectual hospitality that France respects in principle concerning this meanssof of, studying; otherwise we reduce it systematically, with new costs.
or that great writer (though the history of the emigrants we have not been would uld be one of the most difficult and necessary tasks of the Col-
able to keep is sometimes rather sad). Beyond individual hospitality. it lege, which can play an irreplaceable role here. For the reasons evoked
seems to us urgent and vital to open new, rich, and very clear, even spec- above, numerous French and Foreign philosophers expect a great deal
tacular, possibilities for international exchanges and organic cooperation fromte i, •! s immense project and think that France can today give it its best
chanL
with foreign institutions. This should be done in all directions but giving
certain priority to exchanges with African, Asian, and Latin American —translated by Jan Plug
countries, and more generally with developing countries. Experimentatio n
in new forms of cooperation, particularly concerning research training'
would he desirable. Without neglecting relations with the United States
and with Eastern and Western European countries (on the contrary) , "
should avoid making the College a new Eurocentric institution.
a. French intellectuals who are known For their work and who are genc r
ously received abroad will have to be allowed to take reciprocal initiative s,
 Sendoffi 217

Sendoffs (for the College International oini c riaken there in the form of a prescription, with its "objectives" and
its en d-oriented [finalises] production. Furthermore because, without be-
de Philosophie) (1982) necessarily kept there, several research groups—called "programs' in
rhe first part [called "The Regulating Idea"] of this report—will eventually
be a ble to cooperate. communicate, try to cross with, confront, and trans-
late e ach other there, but above all without ever renouncing their most pre-
cise specificity, their autonomy, and their internal necessity.

tt

Th ese propositions claim a demonstrative value, a demonstrativity both

i n traphilosophical and with regard to certain singular borders of the
p hilosophical, But this demonstrativity cannot be constantly exhibited as
such here. This is in keeping with the limits of such a report, whether it is
Foreword
a m atter of the material limits of this chapter or, especially, of those that
co me with the genre, with the aim [finalite] or with the destination of
such a text, with the very nature of the mission assigned to it. There is
The propositions advanced in this chapter claim, certainly, a certain co- no thing fortuitous in this, For the values of aim, of destination, like the en-
herence. But it will be neither the coherence of a system—even less that of tire semantics of the mission (placing, emitting, missive, missile, sendoff
a philosophical doctrine—nor even that of a program, in the technical and [envoi], etc.), will form one of the essential foci of my propositions or
institutional sense we give this word in our report. "projections." Referring implicitly but without dissimulation to other
What is called a philosophical system constitutes in fact a certain type of work (my own included), drawing directly or indirectly on the lessons of
coherence or continuous cohesion, a form of ontological ordering that has all the discussions in which the mission has engaged over the course of the
appeared historically, and, we can even say, as linked to the essence of the last months, I will try to limit myself to practical or technical conclusions
history of philosophy. In the form of doctrine the system has always linked concerning the research to be instituted in the College, to what in any
philosophy to its discourses and its pedagogical institutions. But every case seems to me as though it should be given priority. But the necessity of
consistent discourse, organized or simply gathered together with itself, these conclusions should be capable of imposing itself on the basis of other
does not necessarily have the form of a system (perhaps it is even destined premises. My rule here will be: project the necessity of certain research, but
to break with this form from the moment it addresses itself to the other)• always in such a way that one could he convinced of it on the basis of
Since the College will be directed toward making the systemic idea or pro- other perspectives or other premises about which nothing will he said, and
ject (in general) one of its themes, one of the problems to be considered . even without any general "perspective or "premise" other than the in-
and since, correlatively, the College should never neglect the questions 0 1- trinsic merit of such research. The nonsystematic unity of this "projec-
teaching. pedagogy, education, doctrinal effects, and all their sociopoliti - ri°n or "setting into perspective." the possibility of coordination which it
cal aims [finalitesh and so on, it could not be a question of imposing the flight present, should thus he considered here only as a supplementary in-
ems!, a premium to which one might attribute all the values one wishes
form of a "system" on this research, this history, this "thinking." F or this
very reason, however, the nonsystemic coordination we are going to pro' ( philosophica
iica,l , aesthetic, economic, reason, poem, painting, history, etc.).
pose will have nothing of the rhapsodic or the empirical about it Cubed' Contenting myself often with naming or titling, with situating some
Nor will it sketch out a program. First, because everything will nc' t be '"Poi," I will naturally have to leave implicit both the reference to a great

216
218 APPENDICES Sendoff 219

deal of work, French and foreign, and the essentials of an analysis o f t he iroftion, the production of titles and of legitimate frolems, these are also
philosophical, technoscientific, poietic, etc., "fields." We will retain o n l y r a ct sht[1:: College will study, analyse, transform all Che time, notably in its

some indices of these macro- or micro-analyses, which we practice c on_ The concept of legitimation itself, which has become so useful
so " leg itimate" in so many sociological discourses (sociology of re-
scantly and which orient our approach here: those which have guided Ut
the definition of the College, its project, its regulating idea, its consti nt .. teaching institutions, sociology of the arts and culture, etc.),
Lion; those which have been spectacularly confirmed in the course of th e should nor remain out of range of this questioning. How has it been con-
mission; those which have helped us discover or better situate new mi en , What are its presuppositions and its limits? What is sociology
cations; and filially all those which have taken the form of commitm ents :a:el:1 1 . e aim and strategy of its "usage"?, etc. We will return to these
or of research projects (we attach them to this report and we will refer t o questions. Vhat we have provisionally and within quotation marks called
them at the right moment). But we neither could nor should have g one in the first part, should mark the style and the site of such an
beyond this in the course of this mission. It was not a question for us o f a pproach. proceeds to the limits "on the subject" of all these current val-
drawing a map of French or world philosophy, for example, nor of propo s. h los op hy, " "science," "art," "research," "technique," "the-
• "
ing a general interpretation of it, even if complete abstention or reserve on "practice," "problem," "law," "legitimacy," "title," and so forth.
this matter was impossible. We strove for this, however, for obvious rea- precautions are not purely formal. Evidently they do not concern
sons, which are recalled in the first parr of the report. Without proposing only the vocabulary in which one generally speaks of research and teach-
, the
any sectioning or cartography of the philosophical terrain, we have made ing institutions. We will not be able to avoid this lexicon, but we will give
use of many works which could have helped us do so, whether we cite it, for anyone who wants to hear, a certain interrogative inflection: what
them or not. That is the case, notably, with the recent report by Maurice are these things we're talking about—"philosophy," "science," "inter-
Godelier and his collaborators on Les sciences de aomme et de la societe science," "art," "technique," "culture," "production," "theory," "research,"
We were only able to take account of it at the end of our mission, but the and so forth? What is an "object," a "theme," a "problem," a "problem-
"upshot" and the recommendations we encountered there were already atic"? How to think the question "what is" concerning them?
known to us, at least partially (concerning philosophy, for example). Al- These forms of interrogation will assign to the College its greatest and
though the objects of these two reports are very different, certain conver- most permanent opening, which it must never suture with the assurance
gences appeared to me remarkable and encouraging. We should neverthe- of a body of knowledge, a doctrine or a dogma. Whatever the abstract
less, for obvious reasons, limit ourselves to this general reference, and generality of this axiom, we believe it is necessary to inscribe it in the very
presume that our reader will he aware of the "Godelier Report." charter of the institution, as a sort of founding contract. That will not pre-
da t--;:ini theco
‘entio i nistttirtu
ofcontrary—further
artom analysis of the values of contract, of limn-
and
Let us recall once and for all: for reasons already stated in the first part of
the report, we will too often be making use of words that we would like to
see received without assurance and without tranquility. For it is without r) espite the measureless unfolding and the infinite reflection in which
assurance and without tranquility that I will speak, for example, of pro- t hese preliminaries might seem to engage, the concrete propositions 1 will
h Presen t in this chapter are strictly &limitable:
posals for research, properly philosophical, scientific, theoretico-practicet a four sendoff During
the firs, four years
poietic, etc., research, or research on a theme, or problematics, or field.N 04 of the College, a large number of activities—we are not
it is understood: all these words remain for the moment inevitable , but . Pig all the activities—can he coordinated in a stipple and mobile lash-
sa
they are for the College titles of problems and problematic titles, indu ct" without ever being constrained by some general and authoritarian
ing the values of title and of problem: the laws and the procedures of it" "mg. Without being kept there and without renouncing its most precise
220 APPENDICES Sentio_ffi Z2I

specificity, each of the research groups I am going to define will h e abk n' to the question "what is?" when it is measured against that of &sti-
refer to a general and common theme. We could call it a "titl e,. .cait') r.— And what happens to it with the multiplicity of idioms?
gory," "regulating idea," "problematic." or "working hypothesis." I ts hi`'' Let's not unfold this problematic in its most easily identifiable dimen-
would he only presumed, according to different modes, and it wili assort: • (destination and destiny, all the problems of the end and thus of
sions ►
at least during this initial period. a common reference, a principl e ofgen.: l im i t or ()I:confines, ethical or political aim, teleology—natural or nor-
s
earl transktion or of possible transference) for the exchanges, deb ates, co_ th,: destination of life, of man, of history, the problem of eschatology
operations, transversal or oblique communications. ,i q n religious, revolutionary, etc.), that of the constitution and the
0( •
aucrure of the sender) receiver system, and thus of the dispatch or send-
V
a ffand the message (in all its forms and in all its substances—linguistic or
Despite these limits, the propositions that follow will traverse an im mense not. s emiotic or not), emission. the mission, the missile, transmission in
all its forms, telecommunication and all its techniques, economic distrib-
and differentiated terrain. But it goes without saying that this territ ory
ution and all its conditions (producing, giving, receiving, exchanging),
does not have to be covered or saturated by the College's research. Con-
forming to the style proper to this institution. that of t he dispensation of knowledge and what we now call the "end-orienta--
pathbreaking
[fayage] or trailblazing [flecbage], it will be a matter only of bringing d on" [finalisation] of research or of tech no-science, etc.
Let's content ourselves for the moment with situating the strategic force
about new research and of selecting inaugural incursions. I will not return
of this question schematically, with situating what constitutes, it seems to
to what was laid out in the first part, namely the necessity of interrogating
me, its most unavoidable philosophical necessity as well as its performing
and displacing in this respect the ontological encyclopedic model by
and performative value as a "lever." The word "strategy" does not neces-
which the philosophical concept of the universitas has been guided for thc
last two centuries.
sarily imply calculation or warlike stratagem, but the question of calcula-
tion. including its modern polemological aspect (the new concepts of war,
strategy and game theory, weapons production, military techno-science,
Destinations the economy of military-industrial complexes, relations between the
armed forces and research in all domains, etc.), should he included in this
Without all this amounting either to giving the word or to saying every-
problematic network and accordingly be fully welcomed in the College.
thing in a word, from now on I will make all of these proposals converge
We will return to this.
toward their most simple, most economical, and most formalizable state-
The "lever," then: having been gathered and identified in these still
ment, namely the category or the theme of DESTINATION.
"classical" forms (destination and end of philosophy, of metaphysics or of
What does this mean?
unto-theology, eschatological or teleological closure), the problematic of
the limits of the philosophical as such seems to have arrived at a very sin-
For the reasons announced in the Foreword, I will dispense with the e% -
gular point.
ercise (which would otherwise be necessary) destined to show that it isnot
On the one hand, the modern sciences ("human or social sciences,"
a matter here either of a theme or a category. The philosophical or "think:
life sciences," and "natural sciences") are continuing or beginning again
ing" history of the theme, the thesis or the kategorruein, would make
ubordi: ' 0 adjust themselves to the problems we have just redirected toward that
clear that the meaning of "destination" won't allow itself to be s
of destination (aim. limits, teleology of systems). And their irreducibly
natal to diem. Rut this is not the place fin - that development. Let's sflea i!
Philom y l
uka -
dimension
I. o ten f there, at the moment when ph ilosophv
in a more indeterminate fashion of a scheme of destination, and conten t
Taurns, whether or not we want it, whether or not we hold on to the rep-
ourselves with a single question, in its elementary unfolding: What of de' re, •
'illation of a post- or extra-philosophical scientificity.
tination? that does "to destine" mean? What is "to destine?" What h 3 r-
0 11 the other hand—and above all—the recourse to a thought of the
221 APPENDICES Sendoffs 123

sendoff of dispensation or the gill of being, signals today one of t h e 1, destination and undecidability, and so forth. These indices should
rn ost 11.3
singular and, it seems to me, most powerful—in any case one of the ast ,•iLita ihr, be multiplied. For obvious reasons, 1 limit myself to the most
attempts to "think" the history and structure of onto-theology, even th schematic ones and, openly, to what is closest to me. if I hold to declaring
history of being in general. However we interpret them, and what e rho ,: limits and this proximity, it is, contrary to what one might be
ever
ever
credit we grant this thought or this discourse, we should pause before this tempted to think, in order to lift the limits, to distance them and to dis-
marker: the "destinal" significations (sending or sendoff, disPensation a}, } ro pri.lre them. It is in order to call for critical debate about them, for
destiny of being, Schickung, Schicksal, Gabe, "es gibs Sein," "es gibs ZeiA': open disagreements and explications, for other approaches, and in order
etc.) do not seem to belong to the within of onto-theological phiioso. to avoid the disguised recentering or the hegemony of a problematic, a
phemes any longer, without being "metaphors" or empirical or deriv ed di scourse or a history. These risks should be avoided with thoroughgoing
concepts either. There is a sense here that is thus not reducible to what th e v i g il an ce. The translating, transversal, and transferring coordinations we
sciences can and should determine of ir, whether it is a matter of the em- arc pro posing will operate without a pyramidal effect, in a lateral, hori-
pirical sciences, the natural or life sciences, so-called animal or hum an so- zontal, and nonhierarchial way. The scheme I have just designated, at the
cieties, techniques of communication, linguistics, semiotics, and so forth. limits of the "destinal." seems to me capable of putting into question and
Another thought of the "sendoff" thus seems necessary to the unfoldin g displacing precisely the topological principles that have dominated all of
of the "great questions" of philosophy and of science, of truth, of mean- o nto-theology, invested its space and commanded its traditional forms of
ing, of reference, of objectivity, of history. un iverticality, in philosophical discourse as much as in research and reach-
Let us emphasize the very visible reference that has just been made to ing institutions. It is already clear that one should not accord this general
the Heideggerian path, and not simply to one or another of its scholastic "schematic" and its entirely presumed unity the status of a new general
effects. It seems clear enough that the meditation on the history of being, ontology, and even less that of a transcendental phenomenology, an ab-
after the existential analytic, opens the question of the ontological differ- solute logic, a theory of theories, dominating once again the encyclopedia
ence onto what it always seems to have "presupposed"—in a sense not and all its theoretico-practical regions. But let's go further: this
purely logical—implicated, enveloped, namely a thinking of the sendoff of "schematic" should not even be admitted as a new organon. By one of the
dispensation, and of the gift (note, by the way, that it is a matter here of an- singular contracts without which no opening of thought and no research
other great text on the gift, which should he read in—very complex— would he possible, the College should consider this "schematic" as itself
connection with Mauss's "Essai sur le don."' that is to say, with an enor- problematic, as debatable: through and through, in a fundamental debate
mous corpus of French ethnology and sociology over the last six or seven that would certainly assume its deliberately "fundamentalist" dimension,
decades, in its scientific but also in its politico-historical dimensions; no as one sometime says, but would also go so far as to question the motifs of
doubt we would have to encounter and analyze, in the course of that tra- depth," "foundation," of "reason" [Grunt/] in all of its possible transla-
jectory, the College de Sociologie,'' whose title was often recalled during this rilit
tions—and in particular in relation to the... distinction between so-called
mission). The thought of the gift and the sendoff, the thought of "clestin - "basic" ("jO ndamentalel and so-called applied or even "end-oriented" [fi-
ing" before the constitution of the sentence or of the logical structure X nalised research. It is useless to insist on this here: it is a matter of an es-
gives or sends Y to Z," Y being an object (thing, sign, message) between sential stake touching on the axiomatic and the very future of the College,
two "subjects," the sender or the emitter and the receiver or receptor (eV: and its relations to the State (to States), nationalities, "civil societies." A
conscious or unconscious, unconscious), before this subject/object conso - singular and paradoxical contract, we were saying, as well might be a com-
onion and in order to take account of it, and so forth. The same neces, mem never to leave the very terms of the instituting contract out of
appears, even if in another manner, mutatis mutandis, for what I have toe° ' h e question, analysis, even transformation, resting in some dogmatic
to demonstrate under the heading of dijfirance as sendoff, differentiati on. 'lumber. Doesn't this transform such a conrract into a fiction and the reg-
delay, relay, delegation, tele- and trans-fercnce, trace and writing in gen u lating idea of the Colli!ge into an "as if" (let us act as if.such a commu-
 224 APPENDICES Sendoifi 225

nity were possible, as ifthe priority granted to "still not legitimated Path _ of questioning the fundamentalist scheme, such as it has so
to [he point
breakings" could have been the object of a consensus in fine, as ilea ,, gen. b een able to regulate philosophy's relation to itself and to other re-
eral translation" could at least have been attempted, beyond the clas s i cal do' f the encyclopedia. Even if we had not been convinced of it in ad-
„ ion s 0
systems and the onto-encyclopedic uni-versity whose totalizin g model
was imposed—even if in its "liberal" variant, that of Schlciermach er and
Wi nce, our consultations have provided us with an eloquent proof: the de-
triod for this type of research is very marked today, and it is capable of
Humboldt—at the moment of the creation of that Western paradigm. bilizing great forces and taking original forms. For reasons and follow-
mo
the University of Berlin)? And doesn't this as if give such an enga gement utes that must be analyzed, this "fundamentalist" thought has given
ing El)
and all the legalized contracts it calls for, a touch of the simulacrum? a s ort of intimidation before the sciences, all the sciences but espe-
i n to
which we will respond, at least elliptically, this way: on the one hand, f at c i all y the human and social sciences. It can and should find a new legiti-
from being absolutely new, this type of singular contract will have ch ar. macy a nd cease being somewhat ashamed of itself, as has sometimes been
acterized every philosophical or scientific institution worthy of the name , the case over the last two decades. This can happen without regression and
that is to say, which has decided never to leave anything our of the ques- without inevitable return to the hegemonic structure we alluded to in the
tion, not even its own institutional axiomatic. On the other hand, the r e first part of this report. Furthermore, this movement is underway. The
-flectionwhaudkfictonlsre,xampsuchr- college should permit it to affirm itself in all of its force: to affirm philos-
formative utterances, promises, contracts, engagements, founding or o phy and the thinking of philosophy. It is not only philosophers by pro-
instituting acts, will be one of the tasks of the College, and the richness fession who ask this but also a great number of researchers engaged in
of these implications is inexhaustible. I will say the same for the reflec- their scientific or artistic practices.
tion on the history and the stakes of the concept of the university since In the perspective which is thus opening up here, the first "themes" of
the eighteenth century. this "basic" or "fundamental" research will be organized around this series:
In what Follows, my only ambition will be to project some hypotheses. destination (destiny, destining, sender/receiver, emitter/transmittor/recep-
Without being hound by them, those responsible for the College in the tor) and gift (giving/receiving, expenditure and debt, production and dis-
future might, if they agree with them, also refer to them as points ofordrr tribution).
for a first movement: a broad discussion, a broad introduction which The necessary development of semantic, philological, historical, etc.,
would also be a four-year "translation." Points of order or of pause, rather inquiries will apply itself to the "great questions" of which the following
than of a planned and uni-totalizing organization. Points of pause, fer- list constitutes only an indication.
mata, if' we want to name precisely those signs destined less to mark the How can a thinking of "destination" concern philosophy, more pre-
measure than to suspend it on a note whose duration may vary. Rhythm's , cisely its own contour, its relation to a thinking which would not yet or
pauses, accents, phases, insistences—it is with these words and these val- no longer be "philosophy" or "metaphysics," nor for that matter "science"
ues that I propose to describe, in their diversity, the possibilities and corn- or "technics"? What of the limits or the "ends" of philosophy, of meta-
possibilities of the College, certain of them at least, during the four years physics, of onto-theology? What of their relation to science and technics?
of its instauration. This enormous network of questions can, we will say (and this goes for
everythin g we advance here), be unfolded for itself, independently of any
I. THINKING DESTINATION: ENDS AND CONFINES FOR ref
erence to the scheme of destination. So why not do without the pro-
PHILOSOPHY, THE SCIENCES, AND THE ARTS Posed guiding thread? Response: Why not, in Fact, if possible? We ought
Under this title, whose slight determination is deliberate, it is a question to. be able to try that in the College, which is why 1 proposed that this
schem e " never become a "program" or an obligatory "theme," even if I
of designating that research called, in a code that no longer fits here, ha"
441 convinced that it is more and something other than one "guiding
sic" Ifondamentale]. It is indispensable that it he developed broadly. and
thread" among others.
226 APPENDICES Sendoffs 227

In all cases, Foci of reflection should he instituted wherever th e iniorr„w, to avoid exempting the College as an institution from its own
of the end and ends of the philosophical as such can take place, w quest -ion
h am i c work. In order to track without complacency the ruses of legiti-
the limit, the borders, or the destination of philosophy is at stak e L j or i" reason, its silences and its narratives, it would be better to begin in
ever there is cause or space to ask: Philosophy in view of what? Sin
Since and 44 rill,: k no wledge that we do so from an authorized, that is to say accredited,
til when? In what and bow? By whom and for whom? Is it site; and From one that is accredited to confer accreditations, even if in a
decidab /e and-
within what limits? In fact and by rights, these topoi wiollnailtssodhe • ' t form or according to procedures and criteria completely different from—
eSicso f
the College's vigilant reflection on itself: on its own aim, desst inati
:War inde ed incompatible with—current practices. Not telling (itself) too
on
(today and tomorrow) as a philosophical site, on what legitimates i t and oanv stories about its own independence from this or that power of le-
then confers on it its own power of legitimation• on what decides es its pol- git i rn ttion (dominant forces of society, institutions, university, State, etc.)
itics and its economy, on the forces it serves and the forces it makes used i s pe rhaps the first condition of the greatest possible independence,
on its national and international relations with other institutions. Dew. t hou v,11 that does not preclude looking for others. What we propose is not
nation and legitimation, thus, of the College itself these are not probl t h e utopia of a wild non-institution apart From any social, scientific,
em,
to he treated secondarily or to be dissociated (in the space of a sociologi. p h lo g) p h i cal , etc., legitimation. It is a new apparatus, the only one capa-
cal analysis, for example) from the major interrogations on the es sence ble of freeing, in a given situation, what the current set of apparatuses still
and the destination of the philosophical. Furthermore, as we noted above, inhibits. Not that the College is today the only or even the best form of
the concept of "legitimation," so common today, calls for a reelaboration institution possible in this respect. But to us it appears indispensable to
in its construction and its usage. Starting with the "open letter" [of May the given set. And it is, moreover, for that reason that the necessity has
IS, 19821 through which we made public the object of our mission and been able to make itself felt, even as a symptom.
opened a discussion, we have emphasized ways of research whose legiti- What I have just said about legitimation is easily transposed in terms of
macy has not yet been recognized. It remained to he specified, which a sim- orientation. The ruses of the orientation of research must give rise to a new
ple letter of this type could not do, that the College would not keep itself strategy of analysis. The opposition between end-oriented research and
simply outside any process of legitimation, that is, within the illegit- basic or fundamental research has no doubt always been naive and sum-
imable. Even were we to want it, this seems absolutely impossible. The mary. It is today, in all domains, startlingly obvious. We must yet again
most ruthless critique, the implacable analysis of a power of legitimation reelaborate this problematic From the fundamentals up, and that is finally
is always produced in the name of a system of legitimation. It can he de- what I propose here, at the same time as I insist on the topoi of a "funda-
clared or implicit, established or in formation, stable or mobile, si m ple or mentalist" research-style. Which ones?
overdetermined—one cannot not know ir, one can at most deny it. This
A
denegation is today the most common thing in the world. Making it
theme, the College will try to avoid this denegation, insofar as this is pos- rh• questions ofmetaphysies and of onto-theology everywhere they can be re-
sible. We already know that the interest in research not currently legiri" cast' new approaches or connections. The interpretations of the "entire"
mated will only find its way if following trajectories ignored by or or history of philosophy (teleology, periodization, "epochalization," histori-
known to any established institutional power. this new research is alreel cal and systematic configurations).
underway and promises a new legitimacy until one day, once again "°._
so on. We also know—and who wouldn't want it?—that if the
h
created with the resources it requires and, above all. if its vitality and ric ,
ri 'c Problematic of the completion or of the limit of philosophy (teleological
ness are one day what we foresee, then it will become in its turn a legal'
"r genealogical interpretations, critique, deconstruction, etc.). With the
mating instance that will have obligated many other instances to reckl
P r °Pr names appearing here only as indices, we can thus recommend co-
with it. It is this situation that must be continuously analyzed, today a °

•
228 APPENDICES Sendoffs 229

ordinated and intertwined work on Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach, Kierk e Th e i n terpretation of the history of Being. Meaning and truth of Being.
Marx, Comte, Nietzsche, Husserl, the Vienna Circle, Wittgenstei n gaard ,R Thinking, philosophy, science.
sell, Heidegger. and so forth. There is a great deal of room for o r i g i nal u5-
re .rhi n king, philosophy, poetry.
search in these directions, especially if it practices grafting, confrontation-
or interference. This is almost never done rigorously and deliberat --Technics and metaphysics.
ely in
France; it would break with homogeneous traditions and with instituri, _The work of art.
ns
closed in on themselves.
Lang uage, languages, translation (beginning with the theoretical and prac-
This research would put "major," that is to say already recognized and tical problems of translating the corpus being considered). Technics and
well-known, sites into "configuration." We will recommend later ini t i a ,.
t ranslation (formal and natural languages, problems of metalanguage and
lives of another style; they will have in common a concern to anal yze __ c hhiante,
cam, ayi
Tt ranslation
h pp
even sometimes to put in question—the processes by which philosophi cal
ol itical: ). r example, of Heidegger's political thought, its rela-
sfi
problemarics and traditions become dominant. How and under What
t i ons with his thought in general and with his political engagements on
conditions are discourses, objects, and philosophical institutions form e d?
the other hand? (The same questions impose themselves, naturally, for
How do they become "philosophical" and how are they recognized as
other thinkers.) As for Heidegger, what of his "reception" in France? What
such? Under what conditions do they impose themselves (and on whom?)
will have been its singular destiny? We would thus follow the history and
in order to minoritize or to marginalize other ones?
the course of his "legacy" over the last fifty years, during which it will have,
Each time one of these questions finds an original. interesting, and
in one way or another, traversed all of French philosophy in an alternation
necessary determination, a research group might be created, of greater or
of eclipses and reappearances, different each time and always highly sig-
lesser dimensions, for a longer or shorter duration. The example I am
nificant, even today. Such research should naturally he coordinated with
going ro specify was imposed on me primarily by the scheme of destina-
research that takes a fresh look at this century's history. at the constitution
tion, but it should he able to be translated, transposed, and multiplied.
of a thematic of modernity or postmodernity in Germany and elsewhere,
Research organized into one or many seminars, one or many programs,
and at the analysis of the phenomena of totalitarianism, Nazism, fascism,
short-lived or long-term, should be able to correspond to each of the
Stalinism, without limiting itself to these enormities of the twentieth cen-
"proper names" just listed and to the movements of thought they repre-
wry. There again. we might see the originality of the paths to be broken,
sent.
the specific necessity that will impose them on the College. especially in
Ait.tli h,ngi
actlive, and
w d intense crossings between all these different research efforts.
haveve proposed the example of Heidegger, such crossings
Take the example of Heieleffer. Around his work and its "problematic' should traverse other problematics, past or contemporary. around the des-
(like those of the other thinkers listed), a program could he organized by tinal limit of philosophy (Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, Kierkegaard, Comte,
the College, then transformed into a relatively independent research cen- Nietzsche, Husserl, the Vienna Circle, Wittgenstein. Heidegger, the
ter, linked by contract to the College under conditions to be studied , in Frankfurt School, etc.). as well as work on the genealogy of these domi-
this case as in others, the College would have the role of provocation and nant prohlematics, of their domination itself. In all these efforts, the rig-
initial organization. In the process. which would make the program int° orous distinction between internal and external reading should not be dis -

a research center, the work would first off he magnetized by these quo; rlregard
iek,, t e d,bu tc onneti ether, sadriho u id it be treated as a dogma. This problematic,
xt,should
Lions about the limits, ends, and destinations of onto-theology. It WOW d, of "context" of contextualization in general. requires a new
treat, among others, each of the following "themes," which are all strongll elaboration.
marked in the Heidegerrian text: "The reason of the university. All these "philosophies" carry with them,
230 APPENDICES
Sendoffs 231

whether thematically (Hegel. Nietzsche, Heidegger, at least) or i mplicit,

a discourse on reason which is also a discourse on the university, an
eval
anon of or a prescription for the destiny of the modern univ ers i ty its 4 -
Sumerous indications permit us to affirm that such programs and centers
irks (notably in its relations with the State and with the nation), and th , .
votdd he active and efficacious, that they would attract many researchers
organization of relations between philosophical and technoscientific
would bring together many specialties—those of philosophers, but
search. The constant reflection of the Co&ge on its own mission, i ts aims
also o
f philologists, historians, pocticians, linguists, logicians, political sci-
or its eventual "orientation, should pass by way of, among other thi
ngs,
-

an encounter with these thoughts which are all thoughts of the univ ersi ty. enl i st and theorists, sociologists, translators, writers, and so forth. They
s
AP thus to he structured in their own identity and at the same time tra-
verse d by all the other axes of research. But this should be able to be said
Such research communities exist nowhere, as far as I know, neither i
n ° fall the research groups we will be led to determine. Another indicator,
France nor anywhere else. Outside of informal groups and dispersed i n i- particularly exemplary in this respect, would he that of "women's stud-
tiatives, the only organized research depends on narrowly specialized cen-
i es "—even though, at least at first glance, it does not have a direct relation
ters, most often incapable of the opening, the mobility, and the inter- with the preceding example. I consider this relation essential. but without
twined or diagonal approaches we are proposing here. The difficult y for
them (and this stems more often from institutional mechanism s than
a ttempting to demonstrate it here I will recall only a few obvious things.
The institutional underdevelopment of these studies in our country is
from people) is to mobilize this research, which sometimes becomes pure scandalous (in comparison, for example, with the United States, as regards
philology, without philosophical ambition, even if it is armed here or the university, and with the richness and force of these "studies" in France
there with modern technology; the difficulty is to measure this research outside of public institutions).
against the most serious stakes, today's and tomorrow's. No one should As the "Godclier Report" recalls, in France there is only one "women's
read in these last remarks a will to discredit historicizing attitudes or in- studies" research group accredited by the former government (directed by
terest in the past as such, rather the contrary. The paradox is that, in Helene Cixous, at the University of Paris VIII). On the other hand, it is
France at least, historical, philological, even "archival" work—despite the too evident that if women's studies should, for this very reason, be devel-
premium of positivity which it receives in many institutions—remains oped extensively in the College, they should also expand, without dissolv-
very deficient in the domain we have just invoked. In any case, for reasons ing, into all the other sites of research.
that the College should analyze. there are enormous and inadmissable de-
lays here—beginning with that of the publication and translation of the II. DESTINATION AND ORIENTATION

fundamental corpus of the twentieth century. Its translation remains

The "themes" we will situate under this title should by right not be disso-
largely incomplete, dispersed, heterogeneous. This deficiency is not only
ciated from the preceding ones, with which they can cross at many points.
serious in itself, but also in what it signifies or entails for philosophical or
But an original inflection will mark their treatment. It will be a matter of
scientific research. To cite only these examples, we know that this is the
reactivating or reactualizing categories said to be classical by adjusting
situation of the works of Freud, Wittgenstein, and, precisely, Heidegger'
them, if possible, to new objects, putting them to the (transforming or de-
which need a complete and, insofar as possible, homogeneous translation , :
f(mning) test of situations which may seem unprecedented or specific. All
based on the scientific and complete edition of his writings (now under the them es and problems which organize the great philosophical tradi-
way). In all these tasks, the College could associate its initiatives with
tion, from Aristotle to Kant, from Leibniz to Hegel and to Marx, from
those of other research institutions (CNRS' and universities). N let zsch e to Bergson, and so forth, around teleology and eschatology, ends
4nd aiMS, will have to he mobilized in directions as numerous and differ-
I
1 nt as modern biology and genetics, biotechnology, biolinguistics, and

"'tics." A new reflection on law in relation to the techno-scientific mu-

232 APPENDICES Sefridof 233

rations of medicine will open as well onto the ethical and political di men
_
eac h time the philosophical stake is obvious. It is not posed simply in
sions of a thinking of destination. As examples, we suggest en t ams of knowledge or of mastery but, demanding in this regard the high-
very precise research at the intersections of the following paths: gagi ng in
o r co mpetence, it calls as well for ethical interpretation, for raking sides
A
an d decisions. It also supposes putting back into play the whole funda-
m ental axiology concerning the values of the body, the integrity oldie
The philosophical implication of the life sciences. In this "domain" o f u "subject," "ego," "conscience" or "consciousness," individual and
ncer.
min frontiers, the richness and the acceleration of "discoveries" engager co mmunity "responsibility." Linked with these are all the questions of a
philosophy more than ever in its most essential and most critical ques- politics of "health" (society's rights and duties with regard to what we call
tionings. We say "implication" and "engagement" in order to mark th -health," but also the reelahoration of its very concept) and those of a pol-
e i t i c s of research in this domain (priorities, orientations, articulations with
fact rhat it is no doubt a matter of something other than an epister no i og_
ical reflection which _Plows on scientific production. Without disputing m ilitary-industrial research).
the necessity of such an epistemology, in this domain and in all other s ,
must we not also take into account the possibility of "philosophical deci-
sions" opening and orienting new scientific spaces? Here it would not nec- Psychiatry and psychoanalysis. Certainly we will be attentive here to link
essarily be a matter of spontaneous or dogmatic philosophy, of residues of them to the research we have just situated, to link them to each other,
precritical philosophy in the activity of scientists, but of inaugural philo- but also to dissociate them in their most jealous and irreducible original-
sophico-scientific approaches productive, as such, of new bodies of knowl- ity. This said, in both cases. whether it is a matter of knowledge. "theo-
edge. While this possibility can claim a noble history in all domains of sci- retical" discourse, technique, or institution, the necessity of a philosoph-
entific theory, it seems particularly rich and promising today in all the ical discussion is widely recognized and called for by the "practitioners"
spaces which put the life sciences in communication with other sciences with whom we have been in contact during our consultations, most
and emerging technical mutations (sciences of language, physics, com- widely by those—and they are very numerous in every domain of re-
puting, etc.). The dissociation between all these investigations and all search—who "deal" today with psychoanalysis in one way or another.
these resources, like that between philosophy and these techno-sciences. Whether we interrogate literature or linguistics, history, ethnology or so-
has to do more often with socio-institutional effects of the scientific or ciology, pedagogy or law, the very axiomatic of research finds itself trans-
technical community than with the intrinsic nature of the objects. The formed in every way by it. Let's not insist here on something so obvious.
College could play a vital role in this regard. I will only emphasize a point on which the future directors of the College
should remain particularly vigilant. This has recently been verified on the
Is
occasion of the discussion organized by Maurice Godelier and Gerard
The philosophical, ethico-political, and juridical problems posed by new wed- Mendel: many psychoanalysts are very concerned to preserve what is in
ical technologies. The foundations of a new general deontology. Whether their eyes the irreducible singularity of their discourse and their practice.
is a matter of demography (in all its dimensions, from the distribution a I he majority of psychoanalysts want to maintain the greatest indepen-
nutritional resources to birth control worldwide), gerontology (the s cl: dence with regard to social public health organizations or public research
ence of aging in general and not only of "old age"—of which theoretical institutions. Whatever one thinks of these very complex problems, with
and institutional developments have a worldwide breadth often diste: which I prefer not to engage here. it seems to me desirable in any case
garded in France), generic manipulation, the enormous problematic 11 that the College never consider them "resolved" in any way; in other
prostheses and of organ transplants and grafting, biotics (biocomptic ers Words, that it maintain a policy of reserve and abstention with regard to
with synthetic genes, constitution of "artificial senses"), or euthanasia' t hem. which does not mean that it not pose them in a theoretical mode,
rather rli• contrary. But it should not seek to determine some social in-
2 34 APPENDICES Sendoff 235

scription of psychoanalysis, For example by means of some kind o f l ink tivc ex amples, here are some "modern" provocations to this new philo-
between the College and a group of analysts or an analytic instituti on as sop hi co -juridical reflection, accumulated in their apparent diversity: the
such. All research contracts will be made with individuals or with groups f ic noena of the totalitarian society, new techniques of physical and
interested in the psychoanalytic problematic, but not with psychoanalysts rcm hic torture, new conditions of the investment and occupation of
as such (even if they are that in fact and if their work in the Colle ge eon _ sY (urbanism. naval and air space, "space research"). the progress of
Pcpaec
cerns the institution or history of the analytic movement). There is not i., orn puterization or informatization, the ownership and transfers of tech-
ing paradoxical in this. The recommendation which I am formulating it l o gy, the ownership, reproduction, and distribution of works of art un-
here, in the interest of everyone and first of all the College, addresses a re- der new technical conditions and given new materials used in production
quest often formulated by psychoanalysts. A good number among the m o d a rchiving. All these transformations in progress call for a thorough
have told us that they prefer to work in these conditions rather than in a reelahoration of the conceptuality and axiomatics of law, international
space which would be reserved for them by statute, in the CNRS, for e x l aw, public law, and private law. A new problematic of human rights is also
-ample,orinthscuon.Whetrwglyi,he under way, progressing slowly and laboriously within the major interna-
fear being too (theoretically) hemmed in and too (sociopolitically) en- tional organizations. It seems that French philosophy has not been terri-
gaged there, and they prefer more open and more multiple exchanges bly interested in this so far. This deficiency is often dissimulated behind
with philosophers, researchers in the social sciences and also—it must he the classical eloquence of declarations in favor of human rights. However
strongly emphasized—in the life or "natural" sciences as well in France necessary they are, such declarations no longer take the place of philo-
and abroad. This international dimension takes on certain particular as- sophical thought. Such thinking has to measure itself today against a sit-
pects here to which some of our correspondents have repeatedly drawn uation without precedent.
our attention.
E
D
The police and the army, warfare. Here too, technological mutations in
Law and philosophy of law. There is a spectacular deficiency in the French progress are profoundly' transforming the structures, modes of action,
field here, something of which we were convinced at the start of our mis- stakes, and aims. Philosophical reflection seems to be keeping too great a
sion and which has received the most emphatic confirmation. Many distance from research already under way on this subject in numerous
philosophers and jurists regret it and propose that a special effort be French and Foreign institutes.
launched in this domain. This effort might first be undertaken in the di- The College should make possible confrontations between experts (on
rections we have just indicated by taking account of the legal problems the police, different police forces, prison institutions, armies, modern
posed by certain modern (technical, economic, political, artistic) muta- strategy, and polemology) and other researchers, especially philosophers.
tions. The themes of destination, the gift, and thus exchange and debt .I'he directions of research are numerous and diverse, as important pro-
lend themselves to this in a particularly privileged way. We should not tects which have come from France and abroad remind us. There is prac-
speak only of the "comparative," crhnosociological, and historical ap- tically no theme evoked by this "projection" that should not, in one way
proaches this requires, but also of certain less classical ones, for example , or another, cross with the problematics of the police, the army, and war-
those based on "pragmatic" analyses of the structure of juridical utter - f are• Warfare in all its figures, which are not metaphors (ideological war-
ances. Inversely, we will also study the juridical conditions of the consta - 'are, economic vvarlare, broadcast warfare). Biocybernerics, so-called
tution of works of arr or of the production and reception (or destination) Smart weapons, and self-guided missiles would here he onl y the most con-
of works. Not to mention all the possible connections with a political• '‘,111 icuous and determined paradigms ()Fa problematic of the "sendoff" or
even theologico-political, problematic. To limit ourselves to a few indica - autich" and of the "destination - in this domain. In fact the field extends

mik it
236 APPENDICES Sendoffs 237

to the regions of game theory, the politics of (military-industrial) research not will we teach all of linguistics, even supposing that this could be done
psychoanalysis, semiotics, rhetoric, law, literature, and the "status an ywhere. We will try, rather, while providing an "introduction" to lin-
women." gu istic research in its newest directions, to interrogate linguists, during de-
h a tes with other researchers, philosophers or not, on the subject of phi-
W. LANGUAGES OF DESTINATION, DESTINATIONS los„ rh y in linguistics and linguistics in philosophy. Not only in terms of
OF LANGUAGE
the dogmatic presuppositions on each side. Other modes of implication

"Language"—the word is understood here in its most open sense, b eyon are at least as interesting, as much from the historical as From the system-
d ati c point of view. We can interrogate anew, for example, the inscription
the limits of the linguistic and the discursive proper, in their oral or
graphic Form. The values of "information," "communication," "emi r_ n iphilosophical discourse in a natural language and in the "philosophy of

sion," and "transmission" will be included here, certainly, in all th e i r language." it tends to entail; we can interrogate the philosophical deci-

forms, yet they will not exhaust it. That is to say directly that, under th e sions, assumed or not, of every linguistics. These decisions are not in-

title of "language," the study of all "dentinal" significations or operations evitably negative ("epistemological obstacles"), and not necessarily to be
confused with the philosophical discourse or reference exhibited by lin-
(destining, sending, emitting, transmitting, addressing, giving, receiving,
etc.) can and should in turn traverse the College's fields of activity. A nd guistics ("Cartesian linguistics," "Rousseauist linguistics," "Herderian,"
"Humboldtian"). In medieval thought, so neglected by French academic
we have laid down the principle, in the first part of this report, that this
philosophy, these explorations would doubtless be among the most fruit-
activity would not only be theoretical study but also, connected to it,
ful. But these are only examples.
"creation" and performance. Referring for convenience to classical cate-
gories, let us indicate the titles and the principal paths of these inter-
C
twined research efforts.
Semiotics. We can transpose here what has just been said about the philo-
A
sophical stakes of linguistics. The field will he larger since it covers not
only linguistic systems but also nonlinguistic sign systems. We will he par-
Philosophy of language. What can its specificity be, if it is neither simply an
ticularly interested in intersemiotic functionings (speech and gesture, for-
epistemology of linguistics nor a linguistics? How is this "specificity" con-
mal graphs and natural or ordinary language, works of art with multiple
stituted? History and analysis of its problematic and its categories in rela-
inscriptions: text, painting, music, etc.). The reflection will thus extend—
tion to all the forms of teleology. What is a sender, a receiver, an emitter, a
in a nonencyclopedic but incursive mode, let's not forget—to all systems
receptor, a message, and so forth? How are their "pragmatic" unity and
of signals and all codes, beginning with those of genetic information. As
their conceptual identity constituted? Across all the dimensions of this
for the necessary problematic of "artificial intelligence," we will not con-
analysis (metaphysical. psycho-sociological, psychoanalytic, techno-eco -
nomic), we will encounter the problems of decidability and u ndecidabil
- sider as secured or guaranteed any of the philosophical axiomatics with
which all the research in progress is engaged, beginning with the opposi-
ity. We will recognize them in their logical or semantic forms, in Prag -
tion between the "artificial" and the whole series of its others.
matic paradoxes, or again in the interpretation of "works of art."
Likewise, we will not he content to sift and orient, at the start, the im-
B pressive range of this "field" by reference to questions of "destination." We
will leave open, and constantly reopen. the question of knowing whether
here:
Liuguistics. As with all the "immense domains" which 1 am naming the thought oh - language depends on "philosophy," semiotic theory, Or lin-
it is a question of signaling what the College's precise angle of approa ch guistic: theory, and whether it is limited by their horizon.
should be. We will not cover all the territory of linguistic research there.
238 APPENDICES Sendoffs 239

c ar d no new techniques (microfilm, data banks, telematics, video), I pre-

D
i-er insist on the book (history of writing and history of the book: the
-
to
Pragmatics. Despite everything it can share with a linguistics, a se m iotics 0„,(IcI of the book and its effects on the structure of works and discourses,
a general semantics, or a philosophy of language, pragmatics is devel opi ng • philosophical discourses; the technical and political problems of
today, especially outside France, as a relatively original discipline. Wh ether the culture of the book: the crisis and the future of publishing in general,
it concerns enunciation ("speech acts") or a more complex semiotic ca n. an d of scientific, philosophical, or literary publishing in particular; na-
text (including, for example. gestural behavior), it seems to me that it i s t i ona l and international dimensions of the problem—dominant lan-
effecting a general redistribution of great consequence today. Beside s i ts gua ges and minority cultures, etc.). Of course, these questions can no
own rich results, it entails an essential coimplication of "disciplines" th at 'l o nger be considered today as annexes in a research institution such as the
formerly compartmentalized or protected themselves in the name of their co Rge..[ - hey will thus be treated in all their breadth and acuity, with [he
own scientificity. That is why pragmatics seems to me to require a partic- spe cial help of experts (experts in the new techniques of archiving and dis-
ularly sensitive place in the College, that of a "crossroads" of heavy traff ic tribution. printers, publishers, librarians, etc.). These initiatives will he co-
(philosophy, semantics, linguistics, semiotics, artistic theory and Practice, ordinated with those which can he undertaken elsewhere (for example in
interpretation of juridical performatives). Given the importance of the CESTA, CREA, the Ministry of Culture, and the Direction du Livre).'
stakes, given the place that the College should grant to the "performative" 2.The mass media. Philosophical and scientific reflection, theoretical,
dimension (cf. the first part of this report), and given as well that dis- e mpirical, and experimental "mediology." Among the countless tasks re-
persed work is proliferating today without specific institutional resources quired in this domain, the College could First of all privilege the "cul-
(based on Austin's theory of speech acts and its tradition, but sometimes tural," artistic, scientific, and philosophical aspects. This will lead it to a
deviating from them to the breaking point), the College should create a much closer analysis of the relations between "media" culture, research,
site of coordination and, later, a real research center which, though out- and teaching. Without a "reactive attitude, without "rejection" (which is
side the College, would remain associated with it. Numerous proposals in in any case doomed to powerlessness), faced with the extension of the
this direction, sometimes highly elaborate ones, have come to us; we fore- mass media, the College will pose the "deontological," "ethico-juridical,"
saw that, and we sought out and called for them. or "ethico-political" problems associated with such an extension. It will
• attempt to propose new uses for these technical possibilities (public or
E private) and will seek to arrange access to them. What goes for the mass
media goes as well for other more diverse and less widespread modes of
Technology of telecommunications. "Fundamental" reflection on the con-
communication, for example the private or "Free radio" stations, or for all
cepts of "communication" and "long-distance communication," on the no
the techniques telecommunication. A great deal of work is underof way
doubt structural and thus irreducible links between recline in general and
in foreign universities and in other French institutions: the College
" telecommunications," from its "simple" and "elementary" forms. In other
should associate itself with it while maintaining the originality of its own
words, the technology of telecommunications is not one technology
approach.
among others; whence the link between this problematic and that of dis-
3. Computer science, telematics, robotics, biotechnologies. In liaison with
tance, of oriented spacing and thus of destination. Among all the possible
other research centers, particularly with the whole CESTA network, the
foci of this reflection, let us signal these, which arc among the most nec -
College should participate, in its style and with its resources in the ongo-
essary today (and tomorrow).
ing scientific and philosophical reflection on "orientation," the modes of
r. Aims, structures, and putting into practice of all modes ofarchivi?1t
Production and appropriation of new techniques, whose spectacular ac-
and thus of communication (philosophical, scientific, artistic, etc.). Sin e°
celeration is transforming the whole of culture and knowledge. This work
the necessity of this work and these experiments is too obvious with r e "
24 ❑ APPENDICES Sendoff; 141

should, as much as possible, connect technical initiation—th e p rov ision __Mutation of the arts (of Forms and materials) following scientific
of basic proficiency—with philosophical analysis (ethical, juridical, poli t_ a nd technical advances.
ical) of the stakes. _Critique and transformation of the customary classification of the

%/bil e the necessity of a different philosophical questioning is perceptible

Poietics. In what may be a somewhat conventional manner, we choose thi s
term to regroup everything that concerns, in classical terms, theories of an in all the arts, and while it is primarily the "creators" who have insisted on
[
his, the urgency is no doubt most marked in literature or poetry and mu-
and artistic practices. The title "poietics" at least has the merit of recallin g
a double dimension: theoretical and necessaril y discursive research on th e si c . During the last two decades, proliferating work has mobilized great re-
one hand, and experimental, "creative," and performative research on th e so urces (philosophy, human sciences—linguistics, psychoanalysis, etc.—
or
other. log ico-mathematical sciences), generally outside academic institutions
their customary divisions. An entity which we could call "literature and
The College's projects (at least such as they have been interpreted and
phil o sophy," for example, while it is practically recognized in foreign uni-
represented by our mission) have elicited spectacular interest in these do-
versities (especially in the United States), remains contraband in our
mains. The research proposals in this domain have been more numerous
country. We have received important projects leading in this direction;
and more eager than in any other, above all, we must note, on the part of
others, just as new and as necessary, bring together music and philosophy,
French researchers or artists. We could have expected this. It confirms,
musicians, music theorists, and philosophers in an original way. But with-
among other things, the difficulty these initiatives have in finding a site—
out a doubt, analogous attempts might be made with the visual arts, the
and support—in this country's theoretico-institutional topology.
so-called spatial arts, the theater, the cinema, and television.
We insist that, whenever possible, the College seek in these domains to
associate itself with the numerous initiatives under way in Paris and above IV. TRANSLATION, TRANSFER(ENCE), TRANSVERSALITY
all, regionally and abroad, whether public (for example, those sponsored
or supported by the Ministry of Culture) or private. Privileged attention Under this title we will indicate and recommend all the transferential pro-
will be accorded to those which bring "theorists" together with "cre- ceedings that, as such, define the precise specificity of an international Col-
ators"—who are sometimes one and the same. lege open first of all to diagonal or transversal interscientific research.
Besides all the "great questions" to be reactivated (origin of the work of Translations, then, in the triple sense, whose division we borrow for con-
art, meaning, reference, art and truth, arc and national culture, etc.), what venience from Jakobson: intralinguistic (phenomena of translation—com-
all this research will have in common will concern primarily: mentary, reformulation, transposition—within the same language), inter -

linguistic (in the common or "proper" sense of the word, says Jakobson:
— The structures of destination and orientation ("aim of the beauti- from one language to another), intersemiotic (from one semiotic medium
ful," with or "without a concept"): Who produces what? Destined to another, for example speech/painting), but translations also in the
for whom? Theories of reception, "taste," the art market, phenom - larger sense of the transfer of a model or paradigm (rhetoric, art, sciences).
ena of evaluation, legitimation, distribution, and so forth. Here are some exemplary directions. It is understood that they should
— The thematic of destination (destiny, law, chance and necessity) cross with other paths situated under other titles and orient themselves ac-
within works and on the "production" side. cordin g to the general scheme of "destination."

— The interpretation of works and the philosophy or hermeneutics in -

volved there. Transformation of "art criticism" in the new audiovi - A. "Basic" or "fundamental" research on language. the multiplicity of
l anguages, and the general problematic of translation. History and theo-
sual spaces of the press and publishing.
nes of translation, in its linguistic, philosophical, religious, and political,
24Z APPENDICES Sendoff; 243

poetic dimensions. Contemporary problems of Stare languages an d rn . h at . from a philosophical standpoint, we name with categories like
nority languages (extinction and reawakening, participation in the 1- co w
culture," "worldviel,v," ethico-religious "system of representations," in the
iin ter-
national scientific and philosophical community, domination and app ro.
Ne st and elsewhere. Often the attempts to think beyond the philosophi-
priation of techno-science by language).
c d o r beyond what links metaphysics to Western techno-science bring to
B. Setting up specialized centers fb r linguistic training. for French or for- affinities with non-European (African or Far Eastern) thought. Sys-
eign researchers, inside the College or in association with it. tj ,L, 'ohr
iat ie work and exchanges at these frontiers should cross with others,
C. The modern technology of translation: theoretical problems.
Translation which we might entitle:
machines, "artificial intelligences," programming—in a determin e d I an _
h. Philosophical systems and religious systems, within and outside the
guage—of data banks and other modes of archiving or communication. USE. Renewal of theological research (to link up with the renaissance of
D. Languages and philosophical discount'. The role of natural (natio na l) theo log ico-political movements all over the world).
languages in the constitution of the philosophical as such; history o f d hrt I;grems and mythological systems.
c. Philosophical
p
"philosophical" languages; the political, theologico-political, and peda-
d. Philosophy and ethnocentrism. Problematic of ethnophilosophy (a wide
gogical dimensions: how does a philosophical language become domi- an d exemplary debate which has developed in Africa starting from the cri-
nant? This work will be coordinated closely with work in the so-called t i qu e, by Paulin Hountondji. of Tempels's Bantu Philosophy.'
comparatist problematic and on the philosophical institution (see below). This could he developed in relation to the questions posed by a (se-
Each time, the question already posed will be recast: that of the processes mantic, linguistic, erhno-culturological) study of the significations at-
by which "philosophical objects" are formed and legitimated. tached to gestures and discourses of destination (giving/receiving, emit-
E. "Companztism" in philosophy: an empirical and uncertain title, but re- ting. transmitting, sending, addressing, orienting).
search whose necessity admits of no doubt. The urgency, especially in our e. Philosophical "transcontinentality. "On the difference (intraphilosophi-
country, makes itself felt massively, and the testimonies here are numerous cal and intra-European in its manifestations, even if it affects philosophical
and eloquent. Everywhere it has imposed itself, for better or worse, the institutions that arc non-European yet constructed on a European model)
word "comparatism" has certainly covered approaches that are difficult to between philosophical traditions. What does this difference consist in,
delimit, not quite sure of the existence of their object, and even less of once it is no longer determined on the basis of objects or "contents" alone,
their method. nor simply of national languages, nor finally of doctrinal conflicts? Over
the centuries what I propose to call philosophical continents have been con-
Nevertheless, as is sometimes the case, this fragility or this empiricism stituted. This movement has accelerated and its traits have made them-
has not prevented some work from imposing itself in strange institutional selves apparent in the last two centuries. "Continent": the metaphor, if it
conditions which would justify an entire study. It is doubtful that "corn- were simply geographical, would not be rigorous; it is justified to the extent
paratism" as such has much meaning in philosophy, but the very critique that geographical or geographico-national limits have often surrounded
of this vague notion should itself he produced in the course of analyses traditional entities and institutional territories (French, German, Anglo-
which are today too underdeveloped in the West, and particularly so In Saxon philosophy, etc.). Today it is just as difficult to get through the "cus-
France (we are speaking of philosophical analyses and not only of "cultur - toms" and the "police" of these philosophical traditions as it is to situate
ological" ones). Let us situate this schematically. their borderline, their essential trait. An analysis (which we cannot under-
take here) would show, it seems to me, that these frontiers do nut depend
a. On the difference between thought (in general) and philosophy. On sYs: strictly on language, nationality, the types of objects privileged as philo-
tems of thought which are not necessarily limited to the "philosophica l , mphical, rhetoric, the socio-institutional modalities of the production and
form as it was born and has developed under this name in the West. All or rcproduction of philosophical discourse (in the educational system and
these "thoughts," if not strictly philosophical, are nut necessarily reducibl e ' 1 st:where), or general historico-political conditions. And yet the accumu-
244 APPENDICES Sendoffi 245

lation and intrication of all these conditions have engendered these " conti. A program of large international colloquia will he organized as soon as
nental" formations so closed in on themselves. Their effects are m ul ti ple the College is created, as its inaugural act. It will not be a matter of col-
and already interesting in themselves. This original quasi - incommuni cab lotio ia in the traditional form (formal juxtaposition of large lectures and
il-
ity does not take the form of a simple opacity, of a radical absenc e of ex_ pane ls ). Those organized by the College will be the culmination of two
change; it is rather the delay and disorder of all the phenomena of transla- years of intense work, in France and abroad, with their active
tion, the general aggravation of all the misunderstandings. These do not ion entrusted to specialized philosophers. Periods of study in res-
obtain only or essentially between countries or national philosophical com_ toward
oward this end should be the object of agreements and support
munities. To the extent that each of the great traditions is also represent ed °Fulr ee pr;:ci:
ftni and abroad: study in residence at the College for several foreign
within each national community, the borders arc reconstituted inside each hilosophers, abroad for as many French philosophers. It seems to me
pphilosophers,
country, in diverse configurations. t hat the first large meetings of this type should concern first of all French
a nd German thought, French and Anglo-Saxon thought. We will make
Inversely, following a process that is also interesting, this situation i s s ure that the most diverse currents of thought arc represented there. But
slowly beginning to evolve. Certain philosophers are more and more sen- particular attention will naturally be given to what is most alive and what
sitive to it here and there. Movements are beginning to reflect on and is most specific, whether it is dominant in academic institutions or not.
transform this "hahelization." An urgent, difficult, original task, without And starting with the preparation of these two large colloquia, setting up
a doubt that of philosophy itself today, if some such thing exists and has other groups should give rise to future meetings (Italy, Spain, Latin
to affirm itself. It is in any case the first task for an International College America, India, the Arab countries, Africa, and the countries of the Far

I
of Philosophy, and the most irreplaceable. Even if the College had been East, etc.).
created only to this end, its existence would be completely justified.
V. THE INSTITUTIONAL ORIENTATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY (RE-
SEARCH AND TEACHING)
Starting with its first four years, the College should prepare the follow-
ing initiatives: These too are oriented, to begin with, by the problematic of destination
(constitution of senders and receivers—individual or collective "sub-
Setting up international working groups, including each time French and iects"—units and legitimation of messages, structures of transmission and
foreign researchers. They will work in France (in Paris and as much as pos- reception, etc.). Research of great breadth will be brought to bear on the
sible outside of Paris) and abroad. Their competencies will be not only historyand system of philosophical institutions, whether of teaching or
philosophical, but also, for example, linguistic. They will seek the cooper- research, French or foreign. On the one hand "theoretical" (much, if not
ation of other experts, in France and abroad. All of them will work to an- everything, remains to be done in this domain), they will also be largely
alyze and transform the situation we have just been describing. They Will practical and experimental. They will aim to develop and enrich philo-
take initiatives and multiply proposals concerning exchanges, coopera- sophical research and teaching. The president of the republic invited this
tion, meetings, contracts of association, translations, and joint publica -
tions, in all the domains of interest to the College. As the College's con :
4 and expressly committed himself to it in his letter of May 8, 1981 to
Greph. This necessity was recalled by the minister of research and indus-
stant perspective, this thematic and problematic of "intercontinenta l try, in his letter to the mission of May 18, 1982: "At a time when the gov-
difference will be a high-priority program during the first years. Every- ernment is preparing to extend the study of philosophy in secondary ed-
where such groups can be constituted, each time according to original ucatio n
, it is important that research devoted to this discipline he assured
utside
modalities, they will he—in (Eastern and Western) Europe and o of the conditions and instruments best suited to its scope." And the min-
Europe, whether it is a matter of philosophy in the strictly o ccidental ister specified further on that the College should he "inclined to favor in-
sense or (see above) of nonphilosophical "thought."
246 APPEND/CES Sendoffi 247

novative initiatives, open to the reception of unprecedented res earc h and

lit o pening up these questions it should he possible—let us say only for
pedagogical experiments." tom ple and in a very vaguely indicative way—to study:
The reference I make here to the projects and early work of the cit.°
operations legible, with their rhetoric, logic, psycha-
de Recherches sur anseignement Philosophique (Greph) and to The tat
p, (a) m odels of didactic
gogy, etc., within written discourses (from Plato's dialogues, for example,
Ck.neraux de la Philosophic (1979) has only an indicative value' o t h e' through Descartes' Meditations, Spi noza's Ethics, Hegers Encyclopedia or
paths are possible, and the College should vigilantly maintain an opening Lectures, etc., up to all the so-called philosophical works of modernity), as
For them. well as
Everyone who wants to participate in this research should be p rov id ed (b) pedagogical practices administered according to rules in Fixed places, in pri -

with the means to do so, particularly secondary school teachers, university, vate or public establishments since the Sophists: for example, the quaestio
and lycee students. and dispuratio of the Scholastics, etc., up to the courses and other peda-
In order to give a schematic idea of such research, I will cite the op en _ gogical activities instituted today in the colleges, lyc&s, grade schools, uni-
ing of Greph's "Avant-Projet" in the hope that this group be associated versities, etc. What are the forms and norms of these practices? What ef-
with the College, under conditions that guarantee at once maximum co- fects are sought and obtained from them? Things to he studied here would
operation and strict independence on the part of both. be, for example: the "dialogue," maieutics, the master/disciple relationship,
the question, the quiz, the test, the examination, the competitive exami-
nation, the inspection, publication, the frames and programs of discourse,
Avan t-Proj et : the dissertation, the presentation, the 'eon, the thesis, the procedures of
For the Constitution of a Research Group verification and of control, repetition, etc.

on the Teaching of Philosophy These different types of problematics should be articulated together, as
Preliminary work has made it clear that it is today both possible and nec- rigorously as possible.
essary to organize a set of research investigations into what relates philos- 2. How is the didactico-philosophical inscribed in the so-called in-
ophy to its teaching. This research, which should have both a critical and stinctual, historical, political, social, and economic fields?
a practical bearing, would attempt initially to respond to certain ques-
tions. We will define these questions here, under the rubric of a rough an- How does it inscribe itself there, that is, how does it operate and repre-
ticipation, with reference to common notions, which are to be discussed. sent--(to) itself—its inscription, and how is it inscribed in its very repre-
Greph would he, first of all and at least, a place that would make possible sentation? What are the "general logic" and specific modes of this inscrip-
the coherent, lasting, and relevant organization of such a discussion. tion? Of its normalizing normativiry and of its normalized normativity?
For example, at the same time as they prescribe a pedagogy indissociable
t. What is the connection between philosophy and teaching in general?
from a philosophy, the academy, the lycee, the Sorbonne, preceptorships
What is teaching in general? What is teaching for philosophy? What is of every kind, the universities or royal, imperial, or republican schools of
it to teach philosophy? In what way would teaching (a category to he an - modern times also prescribe, in specific and differentiated ways, a moral
alyzed in the context of the pedagogical, the didactic, the doctrinal. the and political system that forms at once both the object and the actualized
disciplinary, etc.) be essential to philosophical practice? How has this es: limit of pedagogy. What about this pedagogical effect? How to de-
sential indissociability of the didaeto-philosophical been constituted and It it, theoretically and practically?
differentiated? Is it possible, and under what conditions, to p ropose a get" Once again, these indicative questions remain too general. They are
oral, critical, and transformative history of this indissociability? "oveall formulated, by design, according to current representations and
These questions are of great theoretical generality. They obviouslY . t.pereforc must be specified, differentiated, criticized, and transformed.

viand elaboration. Such would he, precisely, the first work of Greph• hey could in Fact lead one to believe that essentially, indeed uniquely, it
248 APPENDICES Sendoffs 249

is a matter of constructing a sort of "critical theory of philosophical dot_ (b) the juries, the inspection generale. advisory committees, etc.;
trinality or disciplinarity," of reproducing the traditional debate tha t phi_ (c) the forms and norms for assessment or sanction (grading, ranking, com-
losophy has regularly opened about its "crisis." This "reproductio n " will it- ments, reports on competitions, examinations, and theses, etc.);
self be one of the objects of our work. In fact, Greph shouldIs (d) so-called research organisms (CNRS, liondation 'Ehlers," etc.);
a- °ve all ( c ) research tools (libraries, selected texts, manuals of the history of philoso-
participate in the transformative analytics of a "present" situation, ques_
ph y or on philosophy in general. their relations with the field of com-
tioning and analyzing itself in this analytics and displacing itself fr om t h e
mercial publishing, on the one hand, and with the authorities responsible
position of what, in this "situation," makes it possible and necessary. Th e
for public instruction or national education, on the other);
preceding questions should thus be constantly reworked by these practi- (1) the places of work (the topological structure of the class, the seminar, the
cal motivations. Also, without ever excluding the importance of these lecture hall. etc.);
problems outside of France, we would first of all insist strongly on th e (g) the recruiting of teachers and their professional hierarchy (the social
conditions of the teaching of philosophy "here-and-now," in today's background and political stances of pupils, students, teachers, etc.).
France. And in its concrete urgency, in the more or less dissimulated vi o
-lencofitsradn,he"-dowulngerbsim- B. What are the stakes of the struggles within and around philosophical
ply a philosophical object. This is not a restriction of the program, but the education, today, in France?
condition of Greph's work on its own field of practice and in relation to
the following questions: The analysis of this conflictual field implies an interpretation of philoso-
phy in general and, consequently, taking stands. It thereto' re calls for action.
A. What are the past and present historical conditions of this teaching
system? As far as France is concerned, it will be necessary to connect all this
work with a reflection on French philosophy, on its own traditions and in-
What about its power? What forces give it its power? What forces limit stitutions, especially on the different currents that have traversed it over
it? What about its legislation, its juridical code and traditional code? Its the course of this century. A new history of French thought in all its com-
external and internal norms? Its social and political field? Its relation to ponents (those which have dominated it and those which have been mar-
other (historical, literary, aesthetic, religious, scientific, for example) kinds ginalized or repressed) ought to orient an analysis of the present situation.
of teaching? To other institutionalized discursive practices (psychoanalysis We will trace these premises as far hack as possible, while insisting on the
in general and so-called training analysis in particular—for example, etc.)? most recent modernity, on its complex relation to the problematics of phi-
From these different points of view, what is the specificity of the didac- losophy and its limits, to the arts and sciences but also to French sociopo-
tico-philosophical operation? Can laws he produced, analyzed, and tested litical history and to the country's ideological movements, as much those
on objects such as, for example (these are only empirically accumulated of the French right, for example, as those of French socialisms.
indications): the role of the Ideologues or of a Victor Cousin? Of their —Mandated by Thomas Pepper;
philosophy or of their political interventions in the French u niversity? edited by Deborah Etch and Thomas Keenan
The constitution of the philosophy class, the evolution of the figure of the
philosophy professor since the nineteenth century, in the lycees, in th e
khdgne,'" in the ecoles normales. in the university, the College de France01.
the place of the disciple, the student, the candidate; the history and func"
tioning of

(a) the examinations and competition programs, the form of their tests (th e
authors present and those excluded, the organization of subjects , them es"
and problems, etc.);
 Report of the Committee on Philosophy and Epistemology 2.51

Report of the Committee on Philosophy an d s tructured program of intellectual training with a critical dimen-
sion , starting from a certain level of knowledge and culture.
and Epistemology (1990)
i;ioce nothing in the current organization of knowledge and culture
mo ld justify philosophy's having a position overhanging the other disci-
iii ,„. s• philosophy must be understood not as occupying a position supe-
r;„ r to those of the other disciplines taught, but as following their ap-

ts
by formulating its own questions. Such a conception implies:
teaching of philosophy, like that of the other disciplines,
should be progressive and yet respect the specificity of its own approach,
which would obviously in no case he reduced to a simple cumulative
process of the acquisition of philosophical knowledge.
B. That the connections between the teaching of philosophy and that
Preamble o the other disciplines should be systematically reinforced, developed,
f
and considered as constitutive of every practice of philosophy.
The Committee on Philosophy and Epistemology, cochaired by Jacques C. That philosophy should consider it one of its obligations and one of
Bouveresse and Jacques Derrida, and composed of Jacques Brunschwig, its opportunities to facilitate the transition, interaction, and communica-
Jean Dhomhres, Catherine Malabou, and Jean-Jacques Rosat, met over a tion not only between literary culture and scientific culture but equally,
period of six months, from January to June 1989. Its work was carried out more generally, among the different sectors of knowledge and culture,
in two phases: First was a phase of preparatory reflection and of discussion whose dispersal poses so many problems for students today.
and consultation with representatives from diverse bodies and associations,
such as the Inspection G6nerale de Philosophic, the Inspection G6nerale de 2. Like every basic discipline, philosophy must give rise to teach-
la Formation des Maitres, unions (SGEN, SNES, SNESUP), 1 the Associ- ing that respects its identity, articulates it with other disciplines, and
ation des Proiesseurs de Philosophic (Association of Professors of Philoso- extends over several years the cycle of introduction, training, and
phy), Greph, the Association des Bibliothécaires (Association of Librari- specialization.
ans—FADBEN). The second phase involved the elaboration and
composition of the present report, which includes four general principles A. The period of introduction will begin at least in the Premiere, with
and seven detailed proposals. These are preceded by five summary points two mandatory hours of philosophy per week distributed according to
intended to synthesize the basic orientations of the committee's considera- different models during the year. The philosophy teacher will organize the
tion of the situation and future of the reaching of philosophy in France— Introduction to philosophy as such in collaboration with teachers repre-
in secondary education, in the first cycle of the universities, and in the fu- sentin g three groups of disciplines: philosophy/sciences (mathematics,
ture Instituts Universitaires de Formation des Maitres.' Physics, and biology), philosophy / social sciences (sociology, history,
geography, economics), philosophy/languages / arts and literatures.
Five Fundamental Points Among the benefits to be expected from this innovation and from the in-
tersectio ns that, in any case, should never dissolve the unity of the disci-
(REPORT SUMMARY) 1: 1 'nes, this new practice would allow for a balanced philosophical train-
I ng that to this point has too often, indeed exclusively, been dominated by
i. Philosophy should constitute an indispensable part of every coherent

250
252 APPENDICES Report of the Committee on Philosophy and Epistemology 253

literary models or opposed to the models of the social sciences or t h e sci. 1,le. s i x questis would be proosed
p in the framework of the general pro-
ences in general. choosing t hree; one hour in length);
,rant..
B. The period of training, or the "high point," will remain that o f the essay test (or the choice of a commentaire de texte) exclusively on
Terminate. Now taught in all sections of the classical and technical Iv ces, t h e n otions, problems, and texts determined by the special program (three
philosophy must retain a timetable sufficient for effective training, W hi ch hours in length).
excludes dilution, fragmentation, or reduction. This timetable should i n For the technical baccalaureat, we propose that the test be made oral
no case be inferior to the present one. and that it consist in questions based on a dossier established by the stu-
C. The period of specialization will belong to the cycle of the univ ersi.. dent during the year.
ties, not only in literary but also scientific, legal, medical, and Other stud-
ies. In each case, it will he possible to link this in-depth general philo- 4. •Ihe Programs
sophical culture to a critical reflection more specifically adapted to
professionalization (for example, for future doctors, the study of questions The precise definition of the programs would of course come from the
of medical ethics, of the history and epistemology of biology). Conseil National des Programmes d'Enseignement (National Council on
Education Programs). However, the principles stated and the reforms pro-
3. Given the organizing role the stage of the baccalaureat plays, the posed above imply a profound transformation of their conception, struc-
system of our proposals assumes a prudent, but determined, innovation tures. and content.
on this level. The credibility of the philosophy part of the baccalaureat The most salient consequence is no doubt the distinction that will have
implies a clear contract with the candidates as regards the skills de- to be made (with the necessary differentiations for each type ofTerminale
manded of them, and a diversification of the exercises that relativize the class) benveen:
role of the essay; a set of measures will have to guarantee that students 4.1. a general program, defined long-term at the national level, and
will he faced only with questions with which they have previously been em4.z. special program, defined annually at the level of each of the acad-
able to acquire real familiarity.
The general program should include:
In the current conditions, most of the baccalaureat exams do not meet 4.1.1. A group of notions chosen from the most fundamental in the tra-
the minimal demands of a philosophy essay, and the test is not a reliable dition and practice of philosophy. This group of "contents" should be sig-
instrument for the evaluation of the skills actually acquired by students. nificantly more restricted than that of the current programs.
For many reasons—the limitless diversity of subjects; their extreme gen- 4-1.z. A group of methodological notions corresponding to the basic
erality and the lack of direct connections between them and what was (fivulamentauxf tools of theoretical reflection; it would be more a question
studied during the year; the call for rhetorical capacities beyond those of of learning to use these correctly than of defining them without any con-
the majority of current students, particularly those in technical education: te xt .
and so on—it seems mysterious and random to the candidates: not being 4-2.. The special program would be made up of two or three basic philo-
masterable, it elicits anxiety, cramming, or giving up, and little by hale_ sophical problems, formulated on the basis of the group defined in 4.1.1.
puts the teaching of philosophy itself into question. I he teachers in each academy will have to be present or represented at the
In the general baccalaureat, we propose that the lour-hour written test agencies responsible for choosing these.
combine two exercises: 4-3. As Int• the texts to be studied, a list of (two or three) philosophical
—a series of questions to evaluate the assimilation of basic philosoph i- works will also be put on the program annually, according to the same
cal vocabulary and elementary conceptual distinctions, as well as the rn'dalities, in every academy. The group from which these works will be
knowledge of points of reference in the history of philosophy (for exam" chosen could be expanded considerably in relation to the current programs,
254 APPENDICES Report of the committee on Philosophy and Epistemology 255

in particular the contemporary works. The philosophical significanc e o f the e ven good students) begin to understand what is expected of them,
works should nonetheless remain beyond question in every case. o that they stop practicing philosophy at the very moment they become
il
capa ble of doing so. The teaching of philosophy has too often been con-
5. Teacher training: All teachers in primary and secondary education, ceived according to the model of the conversion, which would have the
no matter what discipline they are preparing to teach, should hav e th pass from common opinion to the philosophical spirit all at once
e
benefit, during their training, of instruction in philosophy. a nd c,ill
at of a sudden. The teaching of philosophy should rather be envis-
age d as an apprenticeship that takes place through a methodical acquisi-
Teacher training should have as its objective, in addition to acquiri ng tion that is progressive and adapted to the rhythm of students and the
the professional qualities required to fulfill the task of education succes s _ knowledge and skills required to conduct true philosophical reflection.
fully, that of a constructive and critical reflection on teaching itself. All
teachers should be able to question themselves about the necessarily prob- B. Despite everything in the history of philosophy that might have
lematic aspect of their practice, which of course cannot be limited to th e claimed to justify putting philosophy in a position overhanging the other
application of pedagogic recipes. disciplines, this relation of hegemonic exteriority is essentially a relic; it is
Moreover, a pluridisciplinary conception of teaching, like that devel- less fruitful and less tenable than ever. Philosophy is not above the sciences
oped here, implies that all teachers be able to have the means of con- and the humanities: it follows their approaches by posing its own ques-
structing a reflection on the historical and logical connections between di- tions. That equally supposes that it goes along with them at different lev-
verse fields of knowledge taught in schools and the lyaes. That is to say els at which they are learned. The teaching of philosophy must he con-
that, on the basis of the demand for such a transversality, in all the ceived no longer as a final crowning but as a series of constitutive moments
branches of teacher training, instruction in philosophy is necessary. indispensable for all intellectual development starting from a certain level of
Future teachers of philosophy, in addition to their basic training, knowledge and culture.
should be prepared: (I) to keep up with the significant evolutions in con-
temporary knowledge; (z) to master the new pedagogical practices called That is why we propose to reorganize philosophical training by struc-
for by the preceding proposals. turing it in three stages:
I. A period of introduction, beginning in the Premiere, within the
framework of interdisciplinary teaching.
Principles
z. A period of training: the Terminale should remain the high point of
FIRST PRINCIPLE: To extend the teaching of philosophy by structuring itlIP the teaching of philosophy. Now taught in all sections of classical and
in three stages, with a high point in the Terminale. technical Ivcees, philosophy must retain a timetable sufficient for effective
0 training, which excludes dilution, fragmentation, or reduction. This
A. Learning philosophy takes rime, more than the current eight m onths timetable should in no case he int? rior to the present one.
of reaching in the Terminale. More time is needed CO familiarize o neself 3. A period of specialization in the first cycle of the universities, not only
with an approach, problems, a vocabulary, and authors. Philosophy is the in literary but also scientific, legal, medical, and other studies, allowing
only discipline students are expected to learn in a single year. From the students at once to broaden their philosophical culture and to consider
con-
point of view of students: this status as exception is an anomaly; they more specifically what they are studying and their future professions (for
sider the brevity of the teaching of philosophy a handicap in assimilating "ample, for future doctors, questions of medical and biological ethics
this new discipline; they overwhelmingly wish to begin earlier. From the and of th e epistemology of biology).
n
point of view of teachers: experience leads to the conclusion that it is ofre
only after several months (in February or at Easter) that students (and
of Refore venturing a few proposals on the forms and contents of the
256 APPENDICES Report of the Committee on Philosophy and Epistemology 257

teaching of philosophy outside the Terminale, we should recall the sp iti t Te rminale we are certain that the access to philosophy is not and should
,

in which such an innovation is conceived, in other words, say w h y it no t he conditioned by an "age" (which, moreover, would vary from one
seems necessary and what the principal and minimal conditions are, out- cai dent to another as they pass from the Premiere to the Terminate), nor
side of which it not only would become meaningless but could even hav e b y. the borderline between two classes." The roots of this old bias have
negative effects. n ow been widely and publicly acknowledged, analyzed, called into ques-
In our opinion it is obviously a matter of enhancing and devel°m • g t i on . This bias is today more harmful than ever.
philosophical reflection and knowledge by ensuring the teaching of p h i- I t is important that the basic (fimdamentansi teachings, whether scien-
losophy an extension, a space, a time, and a consistency, that is to say, a tific or not, and especially when they contribute to the education of re-
coherence. For a long time, these rights have been recognized for all thes o _ spo nsible citizens, trained to be vigilant in reading, language, interpreta-
called basic ifindamentales] disciplines. No basic discipline is confined to a tion and evaluation, be linked with a critical and philosophical culture.
,

single academic year We therefore radically disapprove of every interpreta- We are speaking here of the French as well as the European citizen. What
tion or implementation of our project that would not move in the direc- is more, "some philosophy" is taught or inculcated, without a "philosophy
tion of this development and this increased coherence. That would be a reacher," before the Terminate and outside of France, in an undeclared
serious misappropriation. Nothing ought to compromise, and everythi ng form, through other disciplines, and it would be better to be aware of this
must, on the contrary, reinforce, indissociably, the unity of the discipline fact and of these problems. We propose to treat them explicitly, in theory
of philosophy, the originality of the modes of questioning, research, and and practice, instead of avoiding them.
discussion that have constituted it throughout history, and thus the pro- On the other hand, we must stress once again that, whether it is a mat-
fessional identity of those who teach it. The proposals that follow should ter of aptitude, desire, or demand, many students are ready to tackle phi-
in no case, under the pretext of interdisciplinarity or of the necessity of losophy before the Terminate and are surprised that this access is not given
opening philosophy to other disciplines and vice versa, give rise to a them officially. All the more so (a very serious argument for a democratic
process of division, dispersion, or dissolution. teaching), since the numerous students who do not reach the Terminate
For the same reason, the concrete and intolerable conditions suffered by are thus refused allaccess to philosophy.
so many teachers of philosophy (too many classes with a limited It indeed seems that many problems encountered by philosophy teach-
timetable, too many students in each class, and so forth) should be trans- ers and by their students in the Terminate stem from this lack of prepara-
formed profoundly. The proposals we are making would be meaningless, tion and from the necessity, which is also the impossibility, of concentrat-
and would have no interest, no chance, they would meet legitimate op- ing the wealth of programs in too short a period of time.
position from all teachers, were they not implemented in a new context. To have any chance of becoming effective, the introduction to philoso-
Among all the elements of this innovation, an absolute priority thus phy in the Premiere should he undertaken with the utmost determina-
falls to these two conditions: a reduction of the course load or the num- tion. It should be the object of a profound structural decision, and there-
ber of students in each class and of the maximum number of classes for fore should in no case have the status of a precarious and optional
which each teacher is responsible. What is more, it would he desirable for experiment. This experimental status should he reserved for the extension
a teacher's work to he defined not only in terms of the number of hours of of the same project, according to the same model, in the years to come,
class, as is currently the case, but also in terms of the number of students before the Premiere and outside of France. Whatever its premises and ac-
and classes for which they are responsible. tual state, the presence of philosophy in French secondary education is, let
us never forget, a historical opportunity whose survival, but also whose
Although we cannot recall here all the research and experiences that conditions of development and success, it is our duty to ensure.
seem to us to justify the presence of the teaching of philosophy before the
Let us recall another indispensable condition: it concerns the inscrip-
258 APPENDICES Report of the Committee on Philosophy and Epistemology 259

tion of this new teaching in an organic cycle over at least three years, from it is also, if not only, a critical reflection. Since philosophy has always fed
the Premiere in the lye& to the first year of university or preparatory on problems, concepts, debates born in diverse places of knowledge and
classes for the grandes Loles.' It is in particular necessary to link closely culture, it has traditionally been the privileged space in which the cate-
the programs of the Premiere and the Terminale and to orient the training „„ries of knowledge or culture can be constructed, assimilated, ques-
of the teachers in all the disciplines concerned in this direction. tioned. and discussed.
The consequences of this innovation will have to be drawn ambitiously
and systematically in regard to everything concerning the theoretical and We propose:
pedagogical training of teachers, whether in the competitive entrance ex_ A. On the one hand, that at the different levels of education, philoso-
ams for the ecoles normalesl' or in the Instituts Universitaires de Forma- phy be more closely associated with the other disciplines. This makes
tion des Maitres or, more generally, in competitive examinations for re- sense only if philosophy affirms and brings to light the specificity of its ap-
cruiting teachers.' proach. and this presupposes that at all levels, those who teach philosophy
It is important to bring together, first, teachers of philosophy in s",. would indeed be philosophers themselves (see proposal 1 below).
ondary and higher education, then these latter and representatives of the B. On the other hand, that philosophy he integrated more closely into
other disciplines concerned to reflect together on establishing and renew- the training of teachers of all disciplines and of all levels, as has already
ing programs. This would take place, on the national scale, in regards to been the case for the training of elementary school teachers since 1986 (see
the generality of norms and programs, and on the regional scale, of the proposal 6 below).
academies and lvcees, in regards to more specific choices and determina-
tions. This would be one of the tasks confided to the standing committee IHIRI) PRINCIPLE: To specify more rigorously what is required of students.
on the revision of programs.
National norms and prescriptions will also no doubt be indispensable, The philosophy course is in particular, or should be at any rate, the
whether they concern the content or the form of these new teachings. But place where the practice of free thinking is learned. That is why the in-
they will have to leave a lot of room for initiative on the part of teachers. structions that govern the reaching of philosophy today give teachers
in the university and the lycees, then within each establishment, where complete freedom in how they conduct their teaching, as long as it is au-
contractual practice should bring together, in flexible and renewable fash- thentically philosophical; accordingly, these teachers define a program
ion, teachers of several disciplines. This would be a privileged, indeed ex- based on notions,' conceived not as successive chapter titles but as "direc-
emplary, space in which to inaugurate or develop rransdisciplinary teach- tions in which research and reflection are invited to engage." the study of
ings and to train students as well as teachers. notions always being "determined by philosophical problems whose
choice and formulation arc left to the initiative of the teacher." Philoso-
SECOND PRINCIPLE: To link philosophy more closely to the other disci- PhY teachers all very legitimately cling to this freedom, the guarantee of
plines so that it contributes to the unity and coherence of education, the really philosophical character of their teaching, which. while it must
without losing any of its specificity. obviously provide solid knowledge in the history of philosophy and of the
human sciences or the history of science, cannot be reduced to them.
The need is making itself felt to give coherence and unity ro programs, Phis conception, which was expressed most clearly and firmly in the
to show that, while areas of study and approaches differ, each student's ed- I97 program reform, should not, in our eyes, be put into question.
ucation is a global process that one must endeavor to make as coherent as Rut all the evidence we have gathered shows that applying this concep-
possible (see the Bourdieu-Gros report).' nun. particularly at the moment of the baccalaureat, leads to a series of
Philosophy has an essential role to play in unifying education, not be- abuses whose negative effects have already made themselves felt in the Ter-
cause it would dominate and totalize all fields of knowledge, but because
260 APPENDICES

minales. In the end, these abuses risk discrediting philosophy and p utt i ng
Report of the committee on Philosophy and Epistemology

—the compromising of instructors

z6 t

as teachers, torn as they are between

1"
in question the teaching of philosophy in the lycee. trying to train students in reflection and the constraints of cramming;
The legitimate concern, in other words the good intention, to av o id —the compromising of instructors as examiners, since most exams sat-
simple questions drawn From courses leads to the following: i s fy neither the minimum demands of the essay nor those of philosophy
— extremely diverse questions are posed without students having h a d h o mework; the average is too low (abnormal for an examination), and the
the possibility to prepare effectively for them; g rading becomes rather unpredictable. It is not right for students who are
— the connection between these questions and the program i s so s imply average and who have studied seriously not to be assured of getting
oblique that students are forced to completely invent the very framework c lose to a passing grade.
for their reflection, which cannot reasonably be expected of an average
Terminale student: Official instructions need to determine with sufficient precision the
— the formulation of the questions themselves is often so enigmatic s kills that one has the right to demand of students finishing the Termi-
that most of the students are incapable of even identifying the problem nate. Even if it is true that every teaching of philosophy must contribute
posed; [ 0 the training of students to practice personal reflection, we still cannot
— the philosophical meaning of the texts submitted for commentary, put them in the situation of having to construct a problematic on ques-
independently of any context, reference, or questions (and often in a lan- tions with which they have not previously been familiarized directly or to
guage that in fact, whether intentionally or not, is difficult for current stu- which the course they took during the year was only obliquely related.
dents to penetrate) is rigorously impenetrable to most of the candidates. Nor can we put them in the situation of having to propose an answer to a
philosophical problem without being certain that they have been able,
In short, the current conditions of the philosophy part of the baccalau- during the year, to study seriously doctrines and theories that constitute
rear assume a rhetorical ability and a general culture that arc well beyond appropriate solutions to this problem. Nor can we put them in the situa-
what can reasonably he demanded of Terminale students. This is closer to ▪ 1 tion of having to undertake the hypothetical reconstruction of the
the kind of aptitude traditionally demanded of those in the khagne.'° thought of a philosopher with whom they are not supposed to he familiar
Operating in such a fashion is disastrous when forty percent of the stu- with from twenty lines cut off from all context.
dents in an age group take the "bac." Were this practice to be perpetuated A student does not have to be original, nor able to draw from his own
when sixty or eighty percent have access to the bac, it would be simply resources what he has never been taught; he is not a budding philosopher
suicidal for the teaching of philosophy in secondary education. or a thinker in embryo.
Knowing how to recognize in a text a philosophical problem that has
The consequences of this situation are well known to teachers: already been encountered, being able to reproduce ideas and arguments
—confusion among students; a feeling of powerlessness and the im- studied previously in a relevant manner, being capable of establishing a
pression that the philosophy part of the bac is a "lottery" (see "La lotene connection between a known philosophical idea and an example drawn
philosophique," in Le Monde de l'Education, April 1989): from one's culture or personal experience: these are eminently philosoph-
—discouragement and a strong devalorization of philosophy, particu -
ical abilities, constitutive of an aptitude for reflection, and which, more-
larly in the scientific sections (not to mention the technical ones); over, can he acquired methodically and evaluated seriously.
—cramming by the most serious students, who need to reassure them In this regard, the expression "to learn to think on one's own," which
-

selves and who, in order to prepare for the unpreparable, see in the no- Often sums up the ambition of our teaching, is ambiguous to say the least:
a —its indetermination seems to allow one to pose all kinds of questions
tions on the program, contrary to its spirit, the chapter headings of
course to be covered, then launch into all kinds of manuals or handbooks for which the students have not been prepared directly and that presup-

11
varying in quality, all of which treat the program chapter by chapter;
262. APPENDICES Report of the committee on Philosophy and Epistemology 263

pose something quite different from an intelligent application of acquired t he day of the exam. Scholastic learning is what renders one capable of re-
knowledge; p roducing and using discriminatingly concepts and distinctions that one
—its radicaliry places students before an impossible task and produ ces h a s not necessarily invented, of recognizing problems and ideas that one
confusion that is expressed by students both looking for recipes and gi v has already encountered. If certain students are original, creative, culti-
-ingup; v ated, or brilliant on top of that, all the better. But the teaching of phi-
—its generality, although justified in many regards, makes the task s o f l o sophy need not be ashamed of being and admitting that it is scholastic.
grading and evaluation quite hazardous and makes teachers who wan t to That is why, while conserving the framework and spirit of the current
prepare their students seriously for the exam very uncomfortable. program, we feel it is urgent to modify profoundly the modalities of the
philosophy part of the baccalaur6at, at once for it to run better and for the
Whatever one thinks of the Kantian sentence according to which one positive effects that will result in the teaching itself.
does not learn philosophy but to philosophize, and however one inter-
prets this sentence, this expression cannot serve to justify the current sit- FOURTH PRINCIPLE: To think through, finally, the specific problems of
uation, in which, treating students like little philosophers, one ends up no the teaching of philosophy in technical sections, where the situation is
longer finding any philosophy in their work." Whether one speaks of frankly unacceptable for teachers as well as for students.
learning to philosophize or of learning philosophy, it is always a matter of
learning, and one must therefore be able to determine with sufficient pre- The teaching of philosophy in technical sections constitutes a decisive
cision, as in every other discipline, the knowledge and skills that can be stake. Nevertheless, the problems it raises have been systematically under-
demanded. estimated or ignored for the last twenty years; it is in a situation of crisis
In this regard, it is strange that the epithet "scholastic" [scolaire], in sec- today that calls for urgent and profound reforms.
ondary reaching in general and in that of philosophy in particular, has be- With the multiplication of the number of classes in section G, and the
come systematically pejorative. Doesn't the shame of the scholastic too of- extension of its teaching in section F, philosophy has reached an audience
ten lead to subjects that are inordinately ambitious and CO unreasonable it has never previously had either in number or in terms of its social ori-
demands? gin. cultural heritage, and scholastic training." This is a historic opportu-
That part of an exam or the work handed in by a student is "scholastic" nity for it that until now was completely lost. The teaching of philosophy
in nature should not lead one to discredit them. What is to be demanded in technical sections has in fact never been conceived other than as the
of an exam if not that it allow one to verify that a certain amount of mechanical transposition, with a reduced timetable, of the program, exer-
knowledge and skill has been acquired thanks to school, that is to say, cises (essays), and methods (essentially lectures) of the philosophy class.
scholastically [scolairement]? What is to be demanded of students if not The inadequacy of this model is manifest: the poor quality of the bac-
that they be able to reconstruct correctly and to use intelligently a certain calauráat exams makes it impossible to evaluate them; most students oscil-
amount of knowledge and of modes of reasoning assimilated scholasti- late between discouragement and contempt, between believing they are in-
cally? The contempt generally shown in regard to questions from the capable of doing philosophy and finding that it isn't worth an hour's bother;
course is in no way justified if by "questions from the course" we mean, teachers have the feeling they are being assigned a mission impossible and of
not encouraging students to recite what was said in class, but simply ques- simply being unable to practice their profession. Certain of them come to
tions with which they have been familiarized and which they have already doubt that teaching philosophy makes sense in these sections.
considered. The experience of the extension of the teaching of philosophy to sec-
It seems to us that the "scholastic." which cannot be confused with tion F is significant: founded on a legitimate principle (the right to phi-
cramming. should he brought back to favor. Cramming is the s uperficial losophy for all), this measure today ends in failure: it is rejected by a large
and hurried accumulation of knowledge intended to delude [graders] on majority of students; philosophy is discredited; teachers become bitter.
'I'he divorce between these students and the current forms of the teach-
2,64 APPENDICES Report of' the Committee on Philosophy and Epistemology 265

ing of philosophy is so profound that it would be perfectly illusory to e To contribute to the acquisition of the fundamental categories of
think of facing it merely by adjusting the timetable (even if this is in fact t hinking, to the assimilation of the basic logical tools necessary to elabo-
indispensable). rate discourses, reasoning, and argumentation in all disciplines: the care-
e o ries of cause, consequence, purpose or end [finalite], schemas of
Along with a majority of the teachers of these classes, we are convinced d em onstration, refutation, concession, and so forth.
that the students in these sections are perfectly capable of philosophi z i ng To give students the elementary and indispensable knowledge about
on the condition that one has the desire and the means to elaborate for an d a few decisive and constitutive moments in the history of our culture by
with them a different model of teaching that on the one hand would rel y s howing the connections between the religious, social, scientific, political,
more upon their questions, preoccupations, and motivations, and on the and philosophical dimensions of these events: merely as examples, the
other hand would appeal to a diversified range of better-adapted exercis es fifth century in Greece, the advent of Christianity, the Galilean revolu-
and work, both written and oral. Faced with the difficulties they encounter, tion. Danvinian theory, and so forth.
many teachers have sought, individually, to invent different pedagogical 3. To familiarize students with the philosophical approach by showing
practices. It is urgent that these experiments be brought together, circulated, at once its specificity and its connection with approaches with which they
and that collective reflection on the reforms to be undertaken be organized. are more accustomed.
Below we propose some measures that might, for the time being, help
free up the situation. This reaching would he organized by the philosophy teacher, but he
But we must be well aware that if we do not decide to think through se- would share the responsibility for it with teachers of the other disciplines.
riously and rapidly what the reaching of philosophy in technical sections They would define together the amount and modalities of their contribu-
might he, it will he discredited and sooner or later will disappear; many tion (alternating teaching, team teaching in groups of two or three, half or
people will conclude from this that "those students" were not made for it. full days organized together, and so forth).
This is therefore an absolutely urgent task, both from the democratic and The number of hours on the timetable would be set on an annual ba-
the philosophical points of view. sis. At least to begin with, it would not be less than seventy-five hours (or
Let us add that, if certain difficulties are altogether specific to the tech- the equivalent of two hours per week). Below this level, such teaching
nical classes, many others are only the accentuated and magnified version would risk losing its coherence and effectiveness. (From the administrative
of what teachers of philosophy already encounter to different degrees in all point of view, and so as not to weigh down students' schedules, we can
the other sections. On many points—notably everything concerning "tu- imagine each discipline making a few hours in the year available for this
torials," individual attention for students, organizing group work, in short, shared reaching. '!'his "common pool" could represent half the timetable;
a pedagogy less exclusively centered around lectures—what would be un - the other half would represent the equivalent of the introduction of one
dertaken in technical teaching could be useful in improving the teaching of hour per week of philosophy.)
philosophy in the classical sections: after all, the new classes [couches] of rhe organization of this timetable should he flexible and mobile; it
students who, in the coming years, are going to enter the classical sections would he established at the beginning of each year through consultation
are likely, in their behavior and their culture, to resemble current students between the teachers of the different disciplines and the philosophy
in sections F and G more than they do future students in the khagne. teacher.
One distribution could he proposed in three quarterly modules of
twenty-five hours each, entitled respectively:
Proposals
I. Philosophy/ Science (logic, mathematics, physics, and biology).
MST PROPOSAL: To create an "interdisciplinary introduction to philos - a. Ph ilosophy/ Social Sciences (history, geography, sociology, law, eco-
ophy" in the Premiere. mimics, politics).
3. Philosophy/ Language (rhetoric, translation, languages, arts, and lit-
This reaching would have a triple objective: erature s ).

4
266 APPENDICES Report of the Committee on Philosophy and Epistemology 267

In each of these three groups the philosophy teacher would be resp on o d so forth); the number of these notions would be markedly reduced com-
y as-sibleandhvtmsforaniductpefohils pa red to the current program: by one third or one half
such (the experience of philosophy as such, its typical attitudes and de- A group of methodological notions, corresponding to fundamental tools
mands, its modes of questioning and argumentation, its ontological, of theoretical reflection; learning to use these correctly would be more impor-
metaphysical, or ethical dimensions, the history of its canonical texts, ;an t than being able to define them without any context (for example: deduc-
learning how to read them, and so forth). tion , dialectics, analysis, and so fo' rth).
It will no doubt he difficult, but all the more necessary, to take into ac
n-countaehisplocafityndhercpoalvti Respect for the unity of philosophy and its globalizing aim forbids a
between philosophy and the other disciplines. fra gmentary presentation that would limit it to certain of its - parts"; af-
Generally, in the choice of subjects, as well as in their treatment, one firming its specificity as scholastic discipline demands that a national,
should stress in particular, over the course of this first year: l o ng-term program framework be maintained. A general program of no-
I. questions of ethico-political responsibility (in their most modern and tions must therefore be maintained.
urgent form, in particular in terms of examples, but also in fundamental But the number of notions on the current program (more than forty in
and historical perspectives); A, about twenty in C),u all of which could be the point of departure for the
2. learning logic, the rules of critical argumentation, and the modes of most diverse questions on the baccalaureat, generally leads students to read
appropriating language (speech, writing, translation, instruments of them like chapter headings that should he studied successively, as one does
archiving, information, the media). in mathematics or history. The teachers, not wanting to leave any blanks in
The content that might he taught in the framework of this joint con- preparing their students for the exam, are often led to adopt the same atti-
tribution would be defined in a national program established in an inter- tude. with all the risks of cramming or skimming that result from it.
disciplinary fashion. This program would propose a relatively broad range It should be noted that nearly all the handbooks and collections of texts
of possibilities from which teachers would choose according to what published for the Thrminale—which, whether we like it or not, are not
seems to them to meet the needs and interests of their students, as well as without their influence on the idea that students and teachers form about
their own competences. what a philosophy course should he—are put together according to the
same model. Thus the scholastic routine and the weight of the baccalau-
SECOND PROPOSAL: To focus the main portion of the philosophy part of rCat tend to transform the list of notions to choose from and to divert the
the general baccalaureat on a special program defined annually in each program from the spirit in which it was conceived: providing an authen-
academy, while conserving a general program, established nationally, as tically philosophical framework within and on the basis of which prob-
a long-term frame of reference for the teaching of philosophy in the lems should be defined and taken up.
Terminale. It is therefore important that the description of the program, as well as
its content, encourage, more than they do today, teachers and students to
It seems indispensable to maintain a general program, defined long-term he less concerned with the number, scope, and diversity of chapters to be
nationally, that could at once constitute the frame of reference for the teaching treated successively than with the quality of both in-depth reflection and
of Philosophy in the 7erminale and provide the materialfo r questions on the
. of knowledge about a few essential philosophical questions.
baccalaureat. That is why we propose, on the one hand, to reduce markedly (by one
As is now the case, this would be a program of notions. But it would dis- third or one half) the current program by reorganizing it around the most
tinguish: Fundamental concepts in the philosophical tradition; and, on the other
—A group of notions selected from among the most fundamental in the tra- h and, to establish a list of conceptual tools that we should he able to de-
dition and in philosophical practice (for example. consciousness, truth, justice ,
mand that students have learned to use; finally, to define this program
268 APPENDICES Report of the Committee on Philosophy and Epistemology 269

clearly as a general, long-term framework for the reaching of philosophy r herefore that they would he able to put together an exam that, while per-
in the Terminale, and thus to distinguish it carefully from the special aca_ haps scholastic, is respectable, that is to say, represents a certain intellec-
demic program. A small portion of the philosophy part of the baccalau_ t ual work.
reat should consist in questions about this general program (see prop osa l One could therefore hope, in these conditions, that reading the exams
3 below). would allow one to distinguish without too much risk of:error those who
have done the work and assimilated it from those who have done or
But the main part of the philosophy exam (essay or textual commentary) learned nothing; the not totally unjustified reputation of the philosophy
would focus on a special program, established annually in each academy. part of the baccalaureat as a "lottery" would essentially be removed.
would include:
— 7ivo or three fundamental philosophical problems, formulated very ex_ While they do not form a system, the notions constitutive of a phi-
plicitly, and closely linked to one or several notions on the general progr am , losophy program are nonetheless interdependent: one does not study
lhese problems could he classical philosophical problems (for example, those of c onsciousness without also reflecting upon truth or freedom; one does
the relation between the State and freedom or between soul and body), or not study art without also reflecting upon the imagination or language.
philosophical problems linked to certain contemporary investigations (the As long as the problems on the annual program are chosen appropriately,
evaluation of the idea of progress, for example, or philosophical questions no serious candidate will be able to dispense with knowledge of the en-
linked to bioethics). tire general program (and all the more so since the "short-answer ques-
— Between one and three great philosophical texts, or texts of incontestable tions" part of the exam will focus on the general program). But in prepar-
philosophical significance, classics or works from the twentieth century; whose ing, candidates will be able to emphasize problems that are clearly
study would give food for reflection on the problems in question. circumscribed.
One can thus hope to avoid two pitfalls: on the one hand, preparation
Implementing a program of this type should make possible: that is all over the place," as in the current system, which leads to cram-
A. an improvement in the functioning of the philosophy part of the ming and to glossing everything superficially; and on the other hand,
baccalaurOat and of its grading; preparation that is narrowly limited to too precise an area, which would
B. a positive change in the way students prepare; create a different form of cramming and a rechnicity that should be ab-
C. teachers organizing the school year more intelligently and more solutely forbidden at the level of the baccalaureat. One can hope, on the
freely. contrary, that, while they prepare effectively for an exam with a clearly de-
limited content, students will he able progressively to discover the scope
A. lithee large majority of hac exams today do not satisfy the minimal of the field of philosophical reflection.
demands of philosophy, it is mainly because students, having had to an-
ticipate everything, were not able to prepare anything, and, generally lack- C. Relieved of the worry of having to "deal with everything in depth,"
ing basic knowledge on the questions posed them and the most elemen- teachers will he able to conceive of their teaching as a training in philoso-
tary familiarity with the problems given, do not understand what is phy in general, focusing each year on different problems.
demanded of them, and at any rate do not have the theoretical tools to re- They will have all the more freedom to determine the progression of
spond to these questions. the class according to their students' potential. to choose to tackle prob-
If students could focus their learning of philosophy on two or three op lems from the point of view that seems most appropriate to them, to al-
problems, one could then hope that they would acquire the necessary low their students to discover and practice philosophy on the basis of pre-
knowledge during the year, that they would learn to situate certain prob -
viousl• determined notions, problems, and texts.
lems, that they themselves would construct their own reflection, and The role of short-answer questions among which students choose,
270 APPENDICES Report of dye Committee on Philosophy and Epistemology 271

which is currently too limited ("because-we-already-don't-have-ti me _for _ would reassure the students who have difficulties with the rhetoric of the
the-whole-program"), could, in such a context, he reevaluated seriously e ssay and would guarantee those who have studied that they have not
,

which would contribute usefully to broadening students' culture and to % corked for nothing. It would contribute to relativizing the role of the es-
diversifying pedagogical approaches. o v in our teaching and would encourage turning to different and com-
plementary exercises.
These special programs would be established annually in each acade my
by a committee of a few teachers of philosophy. The members of thi s The second and main part of the exam would consist in an essay or
committee would change regularly, in such a way that, over a few years, all co mmentary in which candidates would show their ability to reflect, to
teachers in the academy would have the possibility of participating in it. a nalyze, to elaborate an argument, and to understand philosophical prob-
Thus elaborated in close connection with teachers' experience, these spe- lems. It would focus exclusively on the philosophical problems and works
cial programs would be better adapted to the preoccupations and poten- in the special program.
tial of the students. Structured around the general program—the guaran- There again, the forms of this work should be diversified: the essay
tee of their philosophical tenor and insurance against arbitrariness—th ey topic can he given alone (as it is now) or accompanied by a text (or two,
could show the wealth, diversity, and relevance of philosophical reflection, potentially contradictory, texts) on the problem in question; the text to be
and would favor renewal and innovation in classes. commented upon can be accompanied by no instructions (as it is now) or
followed by a series of questions, some comprehension questions, others
I HIRD PROPOSAL: To reorganize the written part of the general bac- more open, asking students to reflect upon the text.
calaureat by adding short-answer questions to the essay question (or In any case, it is imperative that the statement of the subject meet two
commentaire de texte). conditions: on the one hand, its relation to the questions on the program
should he obvious for all students; on the other hand, it must he worded
The new exam (four hours in length, as at present) would therefore in- in the most explicit manner without trying to be original or brilliant and
clude two parts: without any taste for paradox or allusion.

I. A series of questiOns whose aim is to evaluate students' assimilation of FOURTH PROPOSAL: To conceive modalities of teaching philosophy that

the knowledge required to practice philosophy with a minimum of seri- are really appropriate to the students in technical education.
ousness. These questions would focus on basic philosophical vocabulary
(define "empiricism" or "abstraction"), elementary conceptual distinctions In order to confront the critical situation of philosophy in the technical
(distinguish juridical law" and "scientific law," or "essence" and "exis-
- sections, three types of proposal seem possible, concerning
tence"), and essential points of reference in the history of philosophy
A. its organization;
(Who was Socrates? What is Enlightenment?). They would cover the en-
B. th e program and the evaluation of students;
tire general program. Each question would call for a brief but precise re-
C. its concrete modalities.
sponse (of ten to twenty lines), supported by examples. The candidates
would be posed six questions and should choose three. This part of the
A. Even more than the others, students in technical education need
exam should be able to be completed in one hour at most.
forms of teaching other than lectures (work in small groups, individual at-
The existence of this exercise would lead teachers of philosophy to de -

tention, and so forth) that demand very small class sizes. Dividing the
fine progressively which knowledge constitutes the minimum that can he
class, for at least one hour (two hours for the student, three hours for the
demanded of Terminalc students—and which does not. It would help all
teacher), a demand that has already been put forward by several unions
students realize the necessity of acquiring a body of basic knowledge. It

272 APPENDICES Report of the Committee on Philosophy and Epistemology 273

and associations, seems to be necessary. At first, this division Could b e Organizing this would depend on a network of lycee philosophy teach-
made mandatory in all classes with more than twenty-four students, as i s ers (one per academy, for example) assigned part-time and for several years
already the case in other disciplines. ( t hree to five maximum), that is, teachers who maintain real contact with
In parallel fashion, to avoid splitting up teachers' work catastrophically t eaching, .on the one hand, and who intend to return to it full-time, on
and diluting philosophy here and there among the other subjects, w e pro- the other. They would work in close collaboration with certain Institute
pose that the teaching of philosophy in technical sections be organized ac- liniversitaires de Formation des Maitres, which could be specialized in re-
cording to semesters: four hours (or five hours with divided classes) over flection on philosophical didactics.
one semester, instead of two hours over the year, as is currently the case. The mission of this network of teachers would he:
Thus no philosophy teacher would have more than four (or five) clas ses —to organize, among the 2,500 philosophy teachers, reflection on the
simultaneously. problems and methods of the teaching of philosophy;
—to ensure the circulation of information, an exchange of ideas, and a
B. It does not seem realistic to want to evaluate students and organize dissemination of experiences among teachers, who are often isolated and
teaching according to a test—the philosophy essay—which we know per- who currently have few means of communication;
fectly well the vast majority of students are incapable of passing (let's say —to organize the publication of documents that might help teachers,
that, in the best case, the time necessary to prepare them properly for it and in particular new teachers, in their work (bibliographic information,
would amount to demanding for philosophy in sections G and F a reference texts and articles on a given subject, examples of how a certain
timetable comparable to that of the literary sections.... ). question is treated, and so forth);
We propose that at the beginning of every year, teachers define with —to encourage publishers to publish books and collections that could
their students, from a range of notions broader than the current program, be tools appropriate for students (handbooks and textbooks different
the precise questions they will take up together; that during the year they from the poorly adapted or mediocre instruments most often at their dis-
have them do a certain number of diverse exercises, both oral and written, posal today), but also for teachers (collections of articles that allow one to
assessing their knowledge and reflection; that students, near the end of the keep up with the current state of a question; hooks summarizing areas
year, devote several weeks to putting together a dossier on the question of teachers must he solidly informed about although they cannot in general
their choice. Based upon this, two scenarios can be envisaged: Either the have access to the specialized literature, in particular concerning the cur-
organization of the baccalaureat is modified and part of the test takes rent state of knowledge in the natural sciences, as well as in the human
place in continuous assessment; it would then he desirable that evaluation sciences);
in philosophy, in technical education at least, be done in continuous as- —to contribute to the continuous training of teachers of philosophy by
sessment. Or the organization of the baccalaureat remains more or less as helping them remain informed at once about the state of contemporary
it is, and we propose that in the technical baccalaureat philosophy be the philosophical reflection and about the state of the sciences;
object of a mandatory oral exam in which the candidates would present —to organize colloquia and fact-finding or documentation missions
and defend their dossier. abroad, to invite foreign colleagues, and so forth.

C. Collective reflection on the forms of teaching most appropriate for SIXTH PROPOSAL: To include instruction in philosophy in the training of
students in technical education is necessary, which implies meetings teachers of all disciplines.
among teachers with experience in these classes, preparing young teachers
for this type of teaching, and so forth. Teacher training should give all future teachers, without distinguishing
among them, the possibility of acquiring the professional qualities that
To organize systematically, within the body of teachers of
1:1F-TI I PROPOSAL: will allow them to complete the tasks expected at every level of school and
philosophy, reflection and exchanges on the didactics of their discipline.
274 APPENDICES
IMF Report of the Committee on Philosophy and Epistemology 275

the lycee. Moreover, it should offer the means for a constructive and cri t .. SEVENTH PROPOSAL: To reorganize the first cycle of the universities.
ical reflection on the practice of teaching itself.
Mastering a body of knowledge necessarily leads to envisaging the pos- 1. The current climate and the general principles guiding our work do
sibility and conditions of its transmission. All future teachers should b e n ot, of course, go in the direction of an authoritarian programming, de-
able to question and put into perspective the diverse points of view Lax I, cided upon at the national level and imposed upon the universities. The
exist on the didactics of the disciplines, on the diverse pedagogical prac- principle of the autonomy of universities will certainly he reaffirmed and
tices, and. finally, on the psychological dimension of the educative act. r einforced, and w e h a v e no reason to regret this. A university that would
Conscious, however, that learning to teach cannot consist in acquiring not feel the need to have a department of philosophy would not give it the
recipes or in blind faith in a current dogma, future teachers should work necessary attention and means if it were forced to keep or create one.
to consider the necessarily problematic aspect of the act of teachin g , What can be defined at the national level is a set of demands that are sim-
which, paradoxically, alone reveals positivity. ply hypothetical and very general in character: if a Department of Philos-
That is to say, whatever the disciplines they are preparing to teach, all ophy exists at the University of X, then it [the department] must respect
young teachers should he able to benefit, within their area of specific a minimum of conditions. Moreover, since these conditions cannot be
training, from instruction in philosophy. This instruction would inte- met if the State does not contribute at least partially to providing the
grate the fimdamental contributions of the human sciences into a ques- means for it (teaching, administrative, and technical personnel; equip-
tioning about education and into the very old tradition of thought ment; space, etc.), the method to be followed should normally take the
linked to it. form of a contract between the State and the universities, as is provided
To conceive such instruction, one would have to take as a model the for by the project of the decree of March 13, 1989 (summarized in Le
training of elementary school teachers, as redefined by the decree of Monde, March it, 1989). 15
May zo, 1986. In the ecoles normales, all elementary school teachers to-
day receive, in addition to training in their discipline, instruction in the a. With this procedure, the risks that an excessive regionalization of the
"philosophy. history. and sociology of education, general pedagogy, and universities would entail should be avoidable. The French university, as a
psychology," which, comprising three hours a week, is necessarily given whole, has often deplored its own "provincialism"; it would he regrettable
by a philosophy professor. The remarkable success of this encounter be- to see this provincialism pass from the singular to the plural, and each uni-
tween philosophy and professional training, attested to by the vast ma- versity concern itself only with responding to the local demands of stu-
jority of students and teachers in the ecoles normales, would encourage dents or of their potential future employers. State interventions are not the
extending its scope to all teacher training, that is, to the CPR. ENNA, only remedies imaginable to guard against this. One could also consider:
ENS, and obviously to future Instituts Universitaires de Formation des —In every possible way encouraging universities to exchange, in a con-
Maitres.' 4 tinuous and institutional fashion, information, experiences, and projects,
Training conceived in this way would have the advantage of revealing first among themselves, of course, but also with institutions and associa-
the community of problems shared by teachers in primary and secondary tions at the level of secondary education. (It would no doubt he interest-
education, teachers in classical and technical lycees, and those in profes- in g for us to obtain information on the activities of the "Promosciences"
sional Ivcees, and of bringing to light the diversified unity of their practices. association, "an association reflecting and offering proposals on the whole
In addition to their basic training, future teachers of philosophy should of post-baccalaureat scientific education," which was founded following
he prepared (1) to follow the most significant evolutions in contemporary two conferences on reforming the first cycle in the sciences at the univer-
knowledge, and (2) to master new pedagogical practices called for by th e sity, and which is currently directed by Michel Bornancin, president of
th e University of Nice.)
precedi ng proposals.
—Developing procedures of evaluation and "auditing," not only at the
level of the Cornice National d'Evaluation (National Evaluation Commit-

2.76 APPENDICES Report of the Committee on Philosophy and Epistemology 277

tee), which is forced by its multidisciplinary function to limit itself t o gen- by developing techniques for the analysis of concepts, arguments, reason-
eralities, but also by means of ad hoc committees specializing in philoso- i ngs, textual strategies, systematic structures, and so forth. What is more,
phy and including, if possible, foreign as well as French members. (I n gen- these new types of exercises could also make room for themselves in the
eral, it seems that we should recommend the institutionalizati on o f c ontinuous assessment of students and even in the exams. And a major
inviting experts from other universities, both French and foreign, for a t ransformation of the lecture course would be set under way if French
whole series of collective, and even individual, problems: the organization professors distributed to their students, in the form of a "syllabus," a list
of studies, the acquisition and management of equipment, career dev el- of the questions they would deal with, week by week, and of the texts that
opment, and so forth.) the students should read in advance in order to prepare to listen to the
course actively: this practice, frequent in foreign universities, changes the
3. Philosophy can benefit from the "renewal of the humanities" that is pedagogical relation considerably by allowing students to understand bet-
currently taking shape, after decades of domination by mathematics, tech- ter how the course has been constructed. on the basis of a group of texts
nologies, and rationalized management (see Le Monde, April 2.2, 1989), with which everyone has been able to familiarize themselves, and to pose
This "promising wave" nevertheless involves obvious dangers: by allowing relevant questions to the instructor.
itself to enroll in the camp of the "Letters," or of the "Humanities," in or-
der to thwart the "Sciences" and "professionalism," philosophy risks find- S. The current plans we know of, concerning the first cycle of the uni-
ing itself asked only for a vague "supplement of soul" and losing in the versities, seem to lead toward the disappearance of DEUGs specialized by
deal a good deal of its specificity. It is desirable finally to respond to the discipline and the creation (or resurrection) of a sort of propaedeutic, in
"demand" for philosophy that today issues from the most diverse circles the form of a single DEUG (of two years) for each large disciplinary sec-
(the exact sciences, the human sciences, technical disciplines, medicine, tor, for example Letters-Languages-Human Sciences. In the perspective of
law, management and administration, cultural activities, and so forth); such a project, which we have no reason to reject in principle (while, nat-
but this demand will be satisfied in the correct conditions only if the pro- urally, emphasizing our commitment to the existence of a licence and a
fessional character of philosophy itself remains vigorously affirmed in the maitrise in philosophy), it seems that we should demand, and obtain:
contacts it can make outside and, at the same time, in teaching in the uni- —On the one hand, that philosophy be present as a mandatory subject
versities. The specificity of philosophy, a watchword that everyone agrees in the whole of the first cycle, with a proportionately reasonable space (for
upon and that is no less ambiguous for this, will prove itself not through example, one quarter of all the courses) and an absolutely specific qualita-
self-affirmation but through the discipline's work upon itself, and through tive content (which does not exclude that, within this philosophical "hard
a dialectic of communication and cooperation with what it is not. core," students could still be offered, besides a certain number of manda-
tory teachings, partial choices corresponding to their interests and their
4. If it is desirable that, beginning in the first cycle of university, the own plans).
teaching of philosophy become more technical and professionalized than, —On the other hand, that the whole include a certain number of
it seems, it currently is, this result should not be obtained at the price of a "Open slots" that each student could fill as he sees fit; a student who from
dangerous division between the purely scholastic techniques that are good the outset is very motivated to study philosophy could, for example, fill
for students (learning to write an essay, to do a commentaire de texte, and these "open slots" with complementary disciplines at varying distances
so forth) and the prestigious practice of philosophical activity reserved for from the philosophical "core" (for example, epistemology and the history
teachers (lectures, open seminars,'`' and so forth). To break down this dis- of the sciences, aesthetics and sciences of art, psychology, sociology, lin-
tribution of tasks, it would no doubt be good to prompt the universities guistics, ancient languages, the history of religions, and so forth, but also
to encourage innovation in the exercises proposed to students, by invent- the exact sciences, law, economics, a second modern language, and so
ing other formulas than the traditional couple essay/ commentaire de texte, forth). It would be important for the instructors who take these students
278 APPENDICES Report of the Committee on Philosophy and Epistemology 27 9

in to "shape" their teaching, if possible, for an audience whose central i n_ which they have class, that is, in short, temporarily stop working. We
terest remains philosophy. should demand that what makes up the daily life of academics (preparing
It would no doubt be useful to indicate that the disappearance of a spe_ courses, research, documentation, directing dissertations and theses, more
cific DEUG in philosophy need not imply—quite to the contrary—. t h at o r less institutionalized "tutorials," participating on examination commit-
philosophy instructors (and especially professors) feel less concerned b y tees and in colloquia and conferences, intellectual exchanges of all kinds,
the new first cycle than by the old one. Philosophy departments, repre- and so forth) officially be taken into consideration, if only symbolically
sented by their chairs, should negotiate the necessary arrangements with and without any financial impact.
the other disciplines concerned; and one could no doubt envisage de- implementing the organic teaching of philosophy over three stages, as
manding that professors take part in this new first cycle, at once as ad- we propose (see principle 1), would mean that the barrier that today cuts
ministrators and as active instructors. off the lycees totally from the universities would be removed. Two de-
mands follow from this:
6. The university reforms that are most inspired, from the point of view t. Teachers should he given the opportunity to circulate between the ly-
of the organization of studies, programs, and the assessment of knowl- cee and the university. It would be desirable for professors to be able to
edge, will perhaps weigh less heavily in the destiny of the French univer- contribute statutorily, and not merely as lecturers [charges de tours], in
sity than a certain number of transformations that are apparently prosaic training students in the first cycle. This would mean that these teaching
and modest although they are sometimes expensive, and that could in the hours at the university would be an integral part of their position.
long term profoundly modify the work habits of teachers and students, z. Research (DEA, theses, and so forth) that lye& teachers are involved
pedagogical relations, and the social and scientific productivity of the uni- in should be recognized not as a luxury or a strictly personal matter, but
versity milieu. We are thinking, for example: as a contribution in its own right to the collective research in philosophy
and as part of continuous training that is directly beneficial to the quality
— of the precarious situation of university and departmental libraries, of teaching. This assumes, among other things, recognizing a status as
which are often underused because of insufficient acquisitions budgets, teacher-researcher that would give them the right, for a specific period of
lack of space for readers, and lack of a methodical introduction to their time, to release-time from teaching and to flexible hours.
use (see the alarming report by Andre Miguel);''
— of the general absence of proper offices assigned individually to in- P.S. This report—this goes without saying, but we emphasize this once
structors, which would allow them, with a hit of encouragement perhaps, again—constitutes only a group of proposals submitted for discussion.
to work at the university for at least part of their time and to see students
Moreover, it remains to be completed. It will be completed, no doubt, in
at set times that are posted; conditions to be determined during the weeks or months to come, and
—along the same lines, of the general absence of meeting rooms that taking into account discussions that are hound to take place during the
could be used by instructors and students; colloquia planned by the Ministry. These complements should concern,
— of the insufficiency or underutilization of office personnel and mate- in particular, certain points of articulation between secondary and higher
rial; education, broadening the list of authors and texts to be studied, the rela-
— of the impossibility, in practice, considering the insufficient budget tions between the history of philosophy and contemporary philosophy in
and the unwieldy procedures, of inviting French, and even more, foreign
the teaching of philosophy in general and in the training of teachers in
colleagues for short visits (seminars, lecture series, participation on thesis particular.
examination committees, and so forth); As an appendix to the considerations and proposals on the training of
.
— of the all too well known, and scandalous, GARACE norms, which teachers, see the attached text, which currently regulates the program of
in calculating the obligations of instructors in terms of the number of the teaching of philosophy in the ecoles normales.
hours they work, take into account only the number of hours during

PA
2.8 o APPENDICES Report of the Committee on Philosophy and Epistemology z 81

'Fife experience of the beautiful. Taste. Artistic creation.

Appendix Mathematical thinking.
I. General theoretical and practical pedagogical training. Experimental knowledge.
Historical knowledge and rational knowledge.
II. Philosophy, history, and sociology of education, general pedagogy, p sy_ The idea of technology.
chology (2.5° hours). The body.

[he objective of the teaching grouped under this rubric is to offer stu- z. History and Sociology of Education ( z5 hours).

dent teachers feleves-instituteurs] the means for a reflection that is at once

constructive and critical. It is a matter of helping them master and put The study of the education system and its history will be taken up in
into perspective the particular pedagogical activities and the actual pro- chapter 3.11 of the training program. Here, on the other hand, we will
fessional practices they will discover and construct in the framework of study the history of the ideas and conceptions that have accompanied,
the disciplinary teachings properly speaking. This group of fields of founded, or followed the evolution of the school.
knowledge and reflections must allow them. in a precise fashion, to find From the Ancien Regime to the Ecole de la Republique; the imple-
the foundation and to grasp teaching conditions that are social and insti- mentation of the primary institution (1800-188o).
tutional, as well as human and technical. In general, it is a matter of clar- School under the Third Republic (188o-194o).
ifying how every pedagogical problematic concerning the school makes Society and school: contemporary problems.
sense only in relation to fulfilling the fundamental mission of instruction
and education. t. General Pedagogy (55 hours)
That is why the contents this rubric defines derive essentially from a
philosophical approach and must he taught by a professor of this disci- By general pedagogy, we understand here not the statement of a forma[
pline. Sometimes this derivation is direct, as regards, of course, philoso- and universal approach, but all the questions and conceptions that relate
phy, and sometimes it is indirect, as regards the human sciences, the dif- to teaching and education. All dogmatism is excluded. Here, facts and
ferent pedagogical practices and techniques, but also the programs and concepts are considered in view of their application—for example, the no-

instructions in elementary school and all the texts governing nursery tion of elementary knowledge, the notion of discipline, the notion of in-
terest, the notion of activity, the notion of example, class, childhood, and
school.
so forth.
The principal pedagogical conceptions and methods, current research.
I. Philosophy (too hours)
The question of experimentation and innovation in pedagogy.

Freedom. Duty. Autonomy. Philosophy, pedagogy, and the sciences of man.

Human Rights. The Republican State. The study of two works, at least one of which will be chosen from the
School and the State. Public instruction. National education. following list:

- File ends of education. Plato: Meno, Phaedrus, Republic (Book VII).

Understanding and learning. Montaigne: "De (institution des enfants" (from Essais).
Knowledge and information. Descartes:Discourse on Method (first and second parts).
Explaining and demonstrating. Locke: Some Thoughts Concerning Education.
The idea of method. Analysis and synthesis. Rousseau: Emile, or Of Education.
The elements of knowledge: categories, concepts, principles. Kant: On Education.
Parole. Langur. Langage. What is reading? Hegel: pedagogical texts.
2 8 2 APPENDICES

Bergson: "Intellectual Effort" (in Spiritual Energy).

Alain: Propos stir !'education. Notes
1
4. Psychology (70 hours)

The methods of psychology. The great conceptions of psychology. The

idea of psychogenesis (unity and diversity in child development, psych o_
genetic causality).

Perception.
Attention.
Memory.
Imagination.
Play. A number of notes in the French publication of Du droit d la philosophic were
Intellectual activity. provided by Elisabeth Weber. They are indicated here by the designation "—
The notion of motivation. EW." Notes added by Jan Plug for this translation are indicated by "—J.P." Oth-
Imitation. Social learning. erwise, translators' notes have been supplied by the translator of the given text
and are indicated by "—Trans."
Nursery School (70 hours)

Mandator 's Foreword

The objective of this training is to give all student teachers a basic un-
derstanding of nursery school and the official texts that govern it. It is a i. The CAPES and the agregation are national competitive examinations that
matter of understanding its role in current society and in relation to the certify for a teaching position in a lycee (secondary school) or university.
family, its place in the school system, the nature of its educative activity. a. "Actes Premiers," in Greph, Qui a peter de la philosophie? (Paris: Flammar-
Knowledge of children from birth up to about six or seven years of age,
ion, 1977), p. 427. "Un Tableau Noir" (in Jacques Derrida, Whos Afraid of Phi- -

losophy?: Right to Philosophy 1, trans. Jan Plug [Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univer-
and from their first experiences to the end of the pre-elementary period,
sity Press, zoo2.1) details the reduction of positions.
allows one to understand the problem of educative continuity between
nursery school and the preparatory course and the necessity of giving chil-
dren the means to adapt rapidly to elementary school. IfThere Is Cause to Translate I
The four texts that comprise the second part of Du droit h la philosophic (Lan-
Understanding children from birth up to about six or seven years of age. guage and Institutions of Philosophy) were first given as lectures at the Fifth In-
This understanding must be founded on diverse human and biological ternational Summer Institute for Semiotic and Structural Studies, May 31–June
sciences and on spending time with and observing children. It concerns 25. 1984, held at Victoria College, University of Toronto. The fourth lecture in
the following points: the series was given as part of the colloquium Semiotics of Literary Translation.
Ile lectures were then published in revised form in Recherches Semiotiques /
The characteristics of growth. Coniotic Inquiry 4.2. (1984): 91 154. The translations for that publication were re-
-

The importance of physiological rhythms, hygiene, and physical well-being. vised by Gabriel Moyal and David Sayan under the general editorship of Joseph
The importance of effectivity and of the structuring of personality. Adamson. They have been further revised for this volume.—JP.
by fan Plug
283
284 Notes Notes 28 5

t. Descartes, Oeuvres, Librairie Ph i losoph ique (Paris: J. Vrin, 1964-69), vo l . 6, 2. Lewes tie M. Descartes. Oh sont expliquees plusieurs belles difficuhes touchant
pp. 77-78. Hereafter cited in the text by volume and page number. s es autres ourvrages, vol. 2 (Paris: Charles Angot, 1659).-EW.
2. See Cours de linguistique ,generale, chapter Ill. Course in General Linguistics, 3. Descartes: Philosophical Letters, ed. and trans. Anthony Kenny (Minneapo-
ed. Charles Bally et al., trans. Roy Harris (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1 9 8 3 ) . lis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), p. 34; Descartes, Oeuvres, Librairie
3. J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Cambridge, Mass.: H arvard Philosophique (Paris: J. Vrin, 1964 69), 1.353. All further references to these edi-
-

University Press, 1962.). tions are made in the text and are designated by Letters and Oeuvres respectively.
4. On the National Conference on Research and Technology, called for by The translations have often been modified.-JP
then minister of research Jean-Pierre Chevenement, see "In Praise of Philosoph y. 4. Descartes, Oeuvres, vol. t. pp. 353 54. English translations from the Dis-
-

in this volume. JP. course on Method are adapted from Discourse on Method and Meditations on First
5. Cited in Marcel Cohen, Histoire dune langue: Le jiancais (Paris: Edition s Philosophy, ed. David Weissman (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), and
Sociales, 1967), p. 159.-EW have often been modified.-JP.
6. Langue de reference: a benchmark, the language to which others are re- 5. See "Gesch/echt, Difference ontologique, difference sexuelle," Cahiers de
ferred.-J P l'Herne: Martin Heidegger, ed. M. Haar (Paris, 1983), reprinted in Psyche: Inven-
7. Brunot, Lhistoire de la languefranfaise, des origines n t000, vol. 2 (Paris: Li- tions de l'autre (Paris: Galilee, 1987); "Geschlecht: Sexual Difference, Ontologi-
brairie Armand Colin, 1906). Hereafter cited in the text by volume and page cal Difference," Research in Phenomenology E3 (1983): 65-83.
number. 6. Doutes sur la languefrancoise (Brighton: University of Sussex Library, 1971),
8. Renee Balibar and Dominique Laporte, Le inzitrais national (Paris: Ha- p. 27.-EW
chette, 1974); Renee Balibar, Les Francais fictifi (Paris: Hachette, 1974).-EW. 7. Quoted in Brunot, thistoire de la languefranfaise, des origines h two, vol. z
9. Marcel Bataillon, "Quelques idees linguistiques du XVII' siecle, Nicolas Le (Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1906). 3.46.-EW.
Gras," Languc, discours, societe (Paris: Seuil, 1975).-EW. 8. Roman translates as both "novel" and ''romance."-JP.
to. See Jacques Derrida, "La langue et lc discours de la methode," in 9. Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, trans. Valentine Rodger Miller and
Recherches sur ht philosophic du ',fume (Cahiers du Groupe de recherches sur la Reese P Miller (Dordrecht, Boston, and London: D. Reidel, 1983), p. xxiii.
51. E.W.
philosophic et le langage 3) (Grenoble and Paris: 1983), pp. 35 - - to. Jean-Luc Nang, Ego sum (Paris: Flammarion, 1979).
u. See Jacques Derrida, "Tympan," in Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass u. Oeuvres philosophiques, ed. Ferdinand Alquie (Paris: Gamier freres,
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982). 1963-73), pp. 342ff.-EW.
12. Montaigne, "Des prieres," in Essays, ed. Andre Tournon, 3 vols. (Paris: lm- Ia. Kafka, Parables and Paradoxes (New York: Schocken Books, 1966), pp.
primerie Nationale, 1998), t: 502-3. Cited in Brunot 2.2.4. The translation, 3 6-39.
slightly modified, is from The Essays of Montaigne, trans. E.J. Trechmann, ed. 13. See "Plato's Pharmacy," in Disseminations, trans. Barbara Johnson (Chicago:
J.M. Robertson (New York and London: Oxford University Press, ,946).-JP University of Chicago Press, 1981).
13. Michel de Certeau, Dominique Julia, and Jacques Revel, Une politique de 1 4- See Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Chicago: Uni-
e
la langue: La revolution fianotise et les patois: Lenqu' te de Gregoire (Paris: Galli- versity of Chicago Press, 1976), chapter 2.
mard, 1975). 15. See Roger Dragonetti, La vie de la lettre au Moyen Age (Paris: Scull, 198o),
14. Cited in Brunot 9.180-8I and de Certcau et al., line politique, p. 2.95. especially the chapter "Rhetorique et roman."
15. Cited in de Certcau et al., Une politique, pp. t6o, 30off.
16. A reference, no doubt, to Heidegger's Unterwegs zur Sprache (On the Way
Vacant Chair
to Language): the German Weg is translated in French as chemin, park.-JP
t. Immanuel Kant, The Conflict of the Faculties (New York: Arabis Books,
1 979). Hereafter references will he to this edition and will be made in the text
If There Is Cause to Translate 11
and designated by Conflict. "lianslations have sometimes been modified.-Trans.
1. Adrien Baillet, La vie tie Monsieur Descartes (Geneva: Slatkine, 197 0 ). P. 2. Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (New York: Harper and Row,
422.-EW

4
286 Notes Notes 287

1964), p. 8. References to this work will be to this edition and will he cited par-
Theology of Translation
enthetically by the designation Religion.—Trans.
3. See that text and "Mochlos, or The Conflict of the Faculties" in this volum e. This text was first given as a lecture at the University of Toronto during a con-
4. In addition to "well-being" and "safety," the French sa/ur, like the Germ an ference on The Semiotics of Litetaty Thanslation and was also the concluding lec-
Heil, has the religious sense of "salvation."—JP ture in the series entitled "Languages and Institutions of Philosophy" at the Fifth
5. See the "General Observation" in Book One of Religion within the Limits of International Summer Institute for Semiotic and Structural Studies. It appeared
Reason Alone. in lexte 4 (1985) and then in Quest-ce que Dieu? Philosophie/Theologie: Hommage
6. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (London: Macmillan. 1958), p. 657. labbê Coppieters de Gibson (Brussels: Publications des Facultes de Saint-Louis,
7. La philosophic, emphasizing its apparent unity and uniqueness.—jp 1985).—EW. The details of the first English publication are given on pg. 283.—JP
8. See "The Principle of Reason: The University in the Eyes of its Pupils" in
1. Sec "Des tours de Babel" in Joseph E Graham, ed., Difference in Mutilation
this volume. There, Derrida differentiates research that is "end-oriented" or fi-
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), pp. 209-84.
nalisee from applied research as follows:
2. Roman Jakobson, "On Linguistic Aspects of Translation," in Selected Writ-
In France, for some time, this debate has been organized around what is
ings, ed. S. Rudy (The Hauge: Mouton, 1970, pp. 26o-66.
called the "end-orientation" Lfinalisationl of research. "End-oriented" research
3. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Ubersetzungen," in Werke, vol. 2 (Munich:
is research that is programmed, focused, organized in an authoritarian fash-
Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 3981), pp. 255-58.
ion in view of its utilization (in view of "ta khreia," Aristotle would say),
4. Antoine Berman, L'epreuve de Petranger: Culture et traduction dam L'Alle-
whether we are talking about technology, economics, medicine, psycho-soci-
magne romantique (Paris: Flammarion, 1984): The Experience of the f=oreign: Cul-
ology, or military power—and in fact we arc talking about all of these at
ture and Mutilation in Romantic Germany, trans. S. Heyvaert (Albany: SUNY
once. There is no doubt greater sensitivity to this problem in countries where
Press, 3992). Hereafter references will be made parenthetically, the first page
the politics of research depend closely upon state-managed or "nationalized"
number corresponding to the English translation, the second to the French.—
structures, but I believe that conditions are becoming more and more homo-
"I'rans.
geneous among all the technologically advanced, industrialized societies. We
5. F.W.J. Schelling, On University Studies (Athens: Ohio University Press,
speak of "end-oriented" finalisel research where, not so long ago, we spoke—
1966). Further references will be made parenthetically and will be designated by
as Peirce did—of "application." For it is growing more and more obvious
University. Translations are sometimes modified.
that, without being immediately applied or applicable, research may pay off,
6. See the Sixth Lecture; with Schelling as well as with Kant, something
be usable, end-oriented ffina/isab/el, in more or less deferred ways. And what
would have to be said about the alternate recourse to Latin or German words.
is at stake is not merely what sometimes used to he called the techno-eco-
7. The French Former and se former are rendered literally as to form and to form
nomic, medical, or military "by-products" of pure research. The detours, de-
oneself here. Like the German hi/den, they also refer to "education," "cultiva-
lays, and relays of "end-orientation," its random aspects as well, are more dis-
tion," and "culture."—JP
concerting than ever. Hence the attempt, by every possible means, to take
8. See "Vacant Chair" in this volume.—JP.
them into account, to integrate them in the rational calculation of pro-
9. There is something more Schellingian than Kantian about the proposals
grammed research. A term like "orient" is preferred to "apply," in addition,
that have been made to the State and to the French government in view of the
because the word is less "utilitarian"; it leaves open the possibility that noble
creation of an College International de Philosophie: a fundamental place re-
aims may be written into the program. (p. t41).—JP.
served for the international difference of and the problematic of trans-
9. See New Essays Concerning Human Understanding, trans. and ed. Peter
lation. a place of poetics and of artistic performativity, of departitioned philoso-
Remnant and Jonathan Bennett (New York : Cambridge University Press, t997).
phy. and so forth. But there is something very anti-Schellingian about them as
to. La philosophic, literally the philosophy, emphasizing its apparent unity
well. For the principle of uni-formation or uni-totality can also be worrisome,
and un iqueness.—JP
Koch front Kant's point of view and from our own present perspective. As we will
ti re. the State can surreptitiously recover in such a principle all its power. the very

power of totality.
to. See Nietzsche and his critique of Kant.
288 Notes Notes 289

it. Goethe, "The Apotheosis of the Artist" (1789). over the medical. As for philosophy, I maintain that there is no such faculty, nor
12. On Derrida's use of the term findisi, see note 8 in "Vacant Chair" can there be, for that which is all things cannot for that very reason be anything
above.—J P. in particular." Friedrich Schelling, On University Studies, trans. E.S. Morgan
(Athens: Ohio University Press, 1966), p. 79. See "Theology of Translation" in
this volume.
Mochlos, or The Conflict of the Faculties 6. See, for example, the works and struggles of Greph in Qui a pear de la
This paper was delivered in English on April 17,1980 at Columbia University, philosophic? (Paris: Flammarion, 1977). See also Les Etats generaux de la philoso-
for the centenary of the founding of its graduate school and after Derrida had phic (16 et 17 juin 1979) (Paris: Flammarion, 1979). [Derrick's contributions to
been given an honorary doctorate. It first appeared in French in Philosophic [ these publications are reproduced in this volume and in Who Afraid of Philoso-
(April 2, 1984) (Paris: Minuit)1 and in English in Logornachia, ed Richard Rand ply?: Right to Philosophy I, trans. Jan Plug (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992), pp. 1-34. zooz).—J P.1
7. En mal de signifies both longing or yearning for and short of or lacking. It
r. Immanuel Kant, The Conflict of the Faculties/Der Streit der Fakultaten, should also be noted that ma/can also mean ill or evil.—JP
trans. Mary J. Gregor (New York: Abatis Books, 1979), p. 23. Translations mod- 8. Or, "right of right," or "right of law." Throughout the following pages, the
ified throughout. Hereafter cited parenthetically as Conflict. word droit, which means both "right" and "law," is translated as "law."—JP.
2. See, for example, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak 9. Conflict 193. Redundancy. Let us repeat here the name of Polyphemus.
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), notably p. 54; "Plato's Phar- Mochlos is also the name for the "wedge" or wooden lever that Ulysses—or the
macy" (in Dissemination, trans. Barbara Johnson [Chicago: University of ruse of No One, orals, Metis—puts into the fire before driving it into the pupil
Chicago Press, 19811, p. 128); Signature Event Context," in Margins of Philoso-
-
of the Cyclops (Odyssey 9.375 88).
-

phy, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982); and Glas,
trans. John P. Leavey, Jr., and Richard Rand (Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 1987). Punctuations
3. La deconstruction, literally the deconstruction, to emphasize its apparent Given during the thesis defense for the doctorat d'etat (based on published
unity and uniqueness.—JP. works), June 2, 1980 at the Sorbonne. The jury consisted of MM Aubenque, de
4. "Whereas the utility the higher faculties promise the government is of sec- Desanri (thesis supervisor), July, Lascaulr, Levinas. First appeared in
ondary importance. We can also grant the Faculty of Theology's claim that the
English as "The Time of a Thesis: Punctuations," in Philosophy in France Today,
Faculty of Philosophy is its handmaid (though a question remains, whether the
trans. Kathleen McLaughlin, ed. A. Montefiore (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
servant is the mistress's torchbearer or trainbearer [oh diese direr gniidigen Frau die versity Press, 1983) and in Spanish as "El tiempo de una tesis: Puntuaciunes,"
Fakel vortragt oder die Schleppe nachtrittp, provided it is not driven away or si- trans. P Peiialver, in Anthropos 93. "Jacques Derrida" (February 1989).—EW.
lenced. For her very modesty—merely being free, and leaving others free, to find
the truth for the benefit of all the sciences and to set it before the higher facul- 1. The agrëgation is one of the national competitive examinations to certify
ties to use as they will—must commend it to the government as above suspicion, for teaching positions in a lye& or university.—JP.
indeed, as indispensable." Second Section, "The Concept and Division of the z. See Le probleme de la genese dans la philosophic de Husserl (Paris: Presses Uni-
Lower Faculty," Conflict, p. 45. versitaires de France, 1990).
5. "Insofar as the sciences attain actual objective existence in and through the 3. De la grammatologie (Paris: Minuit, 1967); Of Grammatology, trans. Gaya-
state and become a power, they are organized into so-called faculties. A few re- tri Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974). [The
marks are necessary concerning their relative rank—especially since Kant in his thesis for the third cycle is the equivalent of a doctoral dissertation. JP.]
Conflict of the Faculties seems to have treated the question from a very one-sided 4. See L'origine de la geometrie (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1962).
point of view. Clearly, theology, as the science in which the innermost core of s. Of Grammatology, tecriture a la difference (Paris: Seuil, 1967) ( Writing and
philosophy is objectified, must have the first and highest place. Since the ideal is Difference. trans. Alan Bass [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, '9781); "La
a higher potency or level of the real, it follows that the law faculty has precedence voix a le phinomene"• Introduaion arc problerne du signe dans la phinominologie de
290 Notes Notes 291

Husserl (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1967) (Speech and Phenomen a all these suicides? Must harriers he built? For the same reason. l thought it prefer-
and Other Essay on Hussein Theory of Signs, trans. David B. Allison [Evanston ; able to leave certain passages in English. In certain cases, their translation poses
No r t 11 .vcsrcrll University Press, 1973]).
, no difficulty. In other cases, it would be quite simply impossible without very
6. 141alges—de la philosophic (Paris: Seuil. 1972); Margins of Philosophy, trans. lengthy commenraries on the meaning of this or that idiomaric expression.
Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 198z). Originally appeared, under this title, in Diacritics 13.3 (1983): 3-20; then in
7. In Margins of Philosophy. Spanish, "El principio de RazOn: La universidad en los Ojos dc sus pupilolas,"
8. La dissemination (Paris: Scull, 197z); Marges—de In philosophic (Paris: Seuil, trans. B. Mazzoldi and R.P. Diaz. Nomade 3 (June 1984), and in French in Le
1972); Positions (Paris: Minuit. 1972) (Positions, trans. Alan Bass [Chicago: Uni- cabier du College International de Philosophic Z (Paris: Osiris, 1986). A more lit-
versity of Chicago Press, 19811).—JP. eral translation of the tide would give "The Pupils of the University: The Princi-
9. Glas (Paris: Editi on s Galilee, 1974); GIas, trans. John P Leavey and Richard ple of Reason and die Idea of the University."—JP.
Rand (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986).
t. James Siegel, "Academic Work: The View From Cornell," Diacritics 11:r
to. Eporms: Les syles de Nietzsche (Paris: Flammarion, 1978); (Spurs: Nietzsche's
(Spring 1981): 68-83; the quotation, on page 69, is taken from Kermit Parsons,
Styles, trans. Barbara Harlow !Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 19791); La
Tim Cornell Campus: A History of Its Planning and Development (Ithaca: Cornell
carte postale: De Socrate a Freud et au-dela (Paris: Flammarion, 1980) ( The Post
University Press, :968). Hereafter cited in the text as "View."
Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond, trans. Alan Bass [Chicago: University
2. In regard to this "naturalism" (a frequent, but not general phenomenon
of Chicago Press, 19871).
that Kant, for example, eludes at the beginning of the Conflict of the Faculties),
it. First appeared in Glyph 2 (1977) and reprinted as Limited Inc (Evanston:
arid also to the classic motiFolinterdisciplinarity as an effect of the archetectonic
Northwestern University Press, 1988).
totality, see, for example. Sehleicrmachcr's 1808 essay "Gelegentliche Gedanken
The "Avant-Projet" is published in Who's Afraid of Philosophy?: Right to
lifer Universitaten in deutschem Sinn, nehst einem Anhang fiber ein ncu zu
Philosophy I, trans. Jan Plug (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), pp,
errichrende." A French translation of this text appears in a noreworthy collec-
92-98. On Greph and the historical context of its work, see the Translator's Fore-
don, Philosophies de Punivenite, ridealisme allemand et la question de l'Universite,
word to this volume.—JP
cd. Perry, Pesron. Renault (Paris: Payot, 1979).
13. La verite en peinture (Paris: Flammarion, 1978) (77)e Blab in Painting, 3. For an English translation of Schelling's text. see F.W.J. Schelling, On Uni-
trans. Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod [Chicago: University of Chicago
versity Studies (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1966). The passage quoted here (p.
Press, 19871). of the English translation) has been translated in view of Ehe translation used
- -

(4. See, For example, Fors, preface to Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok, by Derrida.—JP
Cryptoynanie: Le verbier de rhomme aux loops (Paris: Flammarion, 1976).—EW
4. What American English calls "the faculty," those who teach, is in French le
corps enseignant, the reaching corps (just as we say "the diplomatic corps") or
The Principle of Reason teaching body—Trans.
5. "View" 69. The quotation is taken from Parsons, The Cornell Campus.
The French publication of this talk, first given and published in English, is ac- 6. "Un discours propedeutique et prevent if": propedeutical remarks, to use
companied by the following note. the word German took over from Greek to designate the teaching that comes be-
This inaugural lecture fur the Andrew D. White Professor-at-large chair was fore teach i n —Tra n s.
given in English at Cornell University (Ithaca, New York) in April 1983. I did not
,
7. About national idioms and idioms which, like Latin, aspire ro greater
believe it either possible or desirable to erase everything that related to the cir- catholicity: Leibniz's rationem redden—a phrase by no means his exclusive prop-
cumstance, to the places, or to the history of this university. The taik's structure
erty, but common to philosophy at large—is easily carried over into ordinary
has an essential relation with the architecture and site of Cornell: the heights of French as reran' raison, wan. raison de quelque chose; but in English, today,
a hill, the bridge or harriers" above a certain abyss ("gorge," in English). the
-
"render reason" sounds outlandish. The Oxford Dictionary shows that English
common sire of so many uneasy discourses on the history and rare of suicides had the idiom ar one time; setting aside a willfully archaic and dialectical sen-
("gorging out," in the local idiom). among professors and students. What must tence From Waher Scott, the most recent example adduced is from An &position
one do to avoid throwing oneself to the bottom of the gorge? Is it responsible for
292 Notes Notes z93

of the Creed by John Pearson, bishop of Chester, published in London in 1649, wird dens erkennenden lch der Grund zu-gestellt. Dies verlangt das principium
and it is an example not without interest for our purposes. "Thus," says Pearson rationis. Der Satz vom Grund ist damns Fur Leibniz der Grundsatz des zuzustel-
as he expounds Article IX, "the Church of Christ in it's [sic] primary institution lenden Grundes." Der Satz vom Crrend(Pfullingen: G. Neske, 1957), p. 45. What
was made to be of a diffusive nature, to spread and extend itself from the City o f would resist this order of epochs and, consequently, the entire Heideggerian
Jerusalem, where it first began, to all the parts and corners of the earth. This rea- thinking of epoch-making? Perhaps, for example, an affirmation of reason (a ra-
son did the ancient fathers render why the Chruch was called Catholick" (An tionalism, if you will) that, at the same instant (but what, then, is such an in-
Exposition, [Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms, 19681, p. 697), H e stant?) t) would not submit to the principle of reason in its Leibnizian form, that
then goes on to say that for a second reason the church is called catholic because is, that would he inseperable from finalism or the absolute predominance of the
it reaches everything, or at least everything necessary to Christian faith. Appar- final cause; z) would nor determine substance as subject; 3) would propose a
ently, there was a whole teaching of diffusion and dissemination well before our nonrepresentative determination of the idea. I just named Spinoza. Fleidegger
own time. To judge from the quotations given by the OED, to render reason (to speaks very rarely and very briefly of him and never does so, as far as I know,
give it hack, as it were) worked in exchange and concert with to yield reason and from this point of view and in this context.
to give reason; any one of the three could mean to give grounds for one's thoughts to. In Nom Wesen des Grundes," Wegmarken (Frankfurt am Main: Kloster-
and assertions, but also, to give an account of one's acts or conduct, when sum- mann, 1976), pp. 6o-61.
moned to do so: to he held accountable and to speak accordingly. In 169o, writ- 11. "And yet, without this all-powerful principle there would be no modern
ing not of reason but only of understanding, Locke argued that we rank things science, and without such a science there would he no university today. The lat-
under distinct names "according to complex ideas in us," as he says, "and not ac- ter rests upon the principle of reason (Diese grfinder aufdem Satz vom Grund).
cording to precise, distinct, real essences in them." We cannot denominate Flow should we represent that to ourselves ( Wiesollen wir uns dies vorstellen), the
things by their real essences, as Locke puts the matter, for the good reason that university founded, gegrfindet, on a sentence (a primary proposition: aufeinen
"we know them not." Even the familiar objects of our everyday world are com- Satz)? Can we risk such an assertion (Dtirfen wir eine solche Behauptung wagen)?"
posed we know not how; they must have their reason, but we cannot give it back (Der Satz vom Grund Dritte Stunde, p. 49).
to them. Thus, for all his practical bent, Locke is drawn to say, and I quote him 12. See Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith
once again, "When we come to examine the stones we tread on, or the iron we (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965), p. 633.—JP.
daily handle, we presently find that we know not their make, and can give no t3. For this passage, see Der Satz vom Grund, pp. 198-2o3.—EW.
reason of the different qualities we find in them" [An Essay Concerning Human 14. Informatique has to do with computer programs and programming; thus
Understanding, III. vi, 8-91. In English, as in French or Latin, at one time peo- informatisation might also be translated as computerization.—JP.
ple could give reason, or render it, or not be able to render it.—E.P.M. 15. Among many possible examples, I will mention only two recent articles.
8. In this quotation from Peirce's Values in a Universe of Chance [(Stanford: They have at least one trait in common: their authors are highly placed repre-
Stanford University Press, 1958), p. 3311, in addition to the last sentence, I have sentatives of two institutions whose power and influence hardly need to be re-
italicized the allusion to desire in order to echo the opening words of Aristotle's called. I refer to "The Crisis in English Studies" by Walter Jackson Bate, Kings-
Metaphysics. Weber's article appeared in a double issue of The Oxford Literary Re- ley Porter University Professor at Harvard (Harvard Magazine, Sept./Oct. 1982),
view 5; 1-2 (1982), pp. 59 79•
- and to "The Shattered Humanities" by Willis J. Bennett, chairman of the Na-
9. Here is but one example: "Rationem reddere heigt: den Grund zuriick- tional Endowment for the Humanities ( WWI Street Journal, Dec. 31, 1981). The
geben. Weshalb zuriick und wohin zuriick? Weil es sich in den Beweisgingen, latter of these articles carries ignorance and irrationality so far as to write the fol-
allgemein gesprochen im Erkennen urn das Vorstellen der Gegenstiinde handelt, lowing: "A popular movement in literary criticism called 'Deconstruction' denies
kommt dieses "zuri.ick" ins Spiel. Die lateinische Sprache der Philosophic sagt es that there are any texts at all. If there are no texts, there are no great texts, and no
deutlicher: das Vorstellen ist re-praesentatio. Das Begegnende wird auf das argument for reading." The former makes remarks about deconstruction—and
vorstellende Ich zu, aides zuriack und ihm entgegen praesentiert, in eine Gegen- this is not by chance—that are, we might say, just as unnerved. As Paul de Man
wart gestellt. Gemag dem principium reddendae rationis muf3 das Vorstellen ,
notes in an admirable short essay ("The Return to Philology," Times Literary
wenn es tin erkennendes sein toll, den Grund des Begegnenden auf das Supplement, December to, 1981), Professor Bate "has this time confined his
Vorstellen zu und d.h. ihm zuruckgeben (reddere). Ins erkennenden Vorstellen sources of information to Newsweek magazine.... What is left is a matter of
294 Notes Notes 295

law-enforcement rather than a critical debate. One MUSE be feeling very threat-
The Antinomies of the Philosophical Discipline
ened indeed to become so aggressively defensive."
16. In his posthumous writings. This text reproduces the preface to La greve des philosophes: Èrolc et philosophic
17. Heidegger, What is Metaphysics? (Was ist Metaphysik? [Frankfurt am Main:
(Paris: Osiris, 1986). This hook collects the lectures and discussions from the
Klosterniann, 19601.)
conference "Ecole et philosophic" that was held at Universite de Paris-X, Nan-
18. "The Self-Affirmation of the German University." [Published in English
terre, October ao—at, 1984.
as "The Self-Assertion of the German University," in The Pleitlegger Controwrsy:
A Critical Reader, ed. Richard Wolin (Cambridge: M1T Press, i993).—JP1 1. The Terminale is the final year of the lycee in preparation for the baccalau-
reat.—J.P.

"In Praise of Philosophy"

Popularities
We publish under this title an interview between Jacques Derrida, Didier Eri-
hon, Robert Maggiori, and Jean-Pierre Salgas published in Liberation (Saturday Phis text was first published as the foreword to Les sauvages dare la cite: Auto-
and Sunday, November at and 12., 198t}. It is worthwhile reproducing here the emancipation du peuple et instruction des proletaires au XIA siecle, ed. J. Borreil
introduction then proposed by the newspaper for this interview as well as the (Seyssel: Editions du Champ Vallon, (985).
presentation given of the "project of Greph."—E.W. 1. See "Privilege," in Jacques Derrida, Who's Afraid of Philosophy?: Right to
For the context in which Greph was created and then fought for the teaching Philosophy I. trans. Jan Plug (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2002),
of philosophy, see the Translator's Foreword to this volume.—Trans. as well as note 1 to that text, pp. 193-94.—Trans.
z. Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary Gregor (Ca(n-
1. For further details on the situation of the teaching of philosophy referred to
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 3 4.
here, see the Translator's Foreword to this volume.—Trans. -

3. One English translation of this passage reads, "[It] should he capable of be-
a. See Mitterrand's letter to Crept, in the appendices of this volume.—Trans.
ing popularized (i.e., of being made sufficiently intelligible for general commu-
3. In France the lye& provides the final three years of studies—the Seconde,
nication)." This may be more intelligible, but it blurs the point being made here
the Premiere, and the Terminale—leading to the State examination, the bac-
about the intelligible/sensible distinction; see "Preface to Part 1," in Immanuel
calaurea E.—Trans.
Kant, The Metaphysical Principles of Virtue, trans. James Ellington (New York:
4. Qui a pear de la philosophic?and Les bars Generaux de la philosophic (16 a
Bobhs Merrill, 1964), p. 4. Trans.
17 juin 1979) both appeared in the series entitled Collection Champs, from Flam-
- —

4. Kant, Metaphysics ofMorals, p. to.

marion (Paris), in 1977 and 1979 respectively. Derrida's contributions are col-
5. In Derridds "Vacant Chair: Censorship, Mastery, Magisrerialiry," in this
lected in Jacques Derrida, Who Afraid of Philosophy?• Right to Philosophy 1, trans.
volume.
Jan Plug (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, zooz), and in this vol-
ume.—Trans.
5. "The long second cycle" refers to the final three years of lycee instruction "Who's Afraid of Philosophy?"
leading up to the baccalaureat. In some sections of lycee instruction—for in-
stance, the professional sections—students complete a short second cycle and do Shortly after the Estates General of Philosophy were held, the journal Esprit or-
not take the baccalaureat.—Trans. ganized a round table published in February 1980 under the title "Who's Afraid
6. Alice Satinier-Seite, former minister of universities.—Trans. of Philosophy?" I participated in that round table with Roland Brunet, Guy
7. A habilitation is the accreditation to supervise research.—Trans. Coq, Vladimir Jankelevitch, and Olivier Mongin. While reproducing only my
8. The Inspection Generale is the administration of central education in own contributions here, I nonetheless keep die titles given by the review to the
France. There is an inspecteur el;uwelentie for each departemoll, or region, in the different moments of the discussion.
nation.—'Frans.
I. The national competitive examinations referred to here are the CAPES
9. The adjective pelformant refers to economic performance, pnifitahility.--Trans.
296 Notes Notes 197

(Certificar d'Aptirtide Professionelle d'Enseignement Secondaire) and the agre- national examination, the baccalaureat. Members of the College de France are
gation, both of which certify candidates for teaching positions in lycees or uni- appointed by [he president of France and give lectures open to all. The Centre
versities. The ecoles normales are the "grandes ecoles” for the training of teach- National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) provides positions for researchers
ers,—Trans, who do not necessarily teach within the framework of the instirtuion.—Trans.
2. On the Haby Reform, see the Translator's Foreword to this volume.— 2. Immanuel Kant, The conflict of the Faculties I Der Streit der Fakultdten,
I rans. trans. Mary J. Gregor (New York: Abatis, [979).
3. The Appeal has been published in Jacques Derrida, Who's Afraid of Philos- 3. The word Shranleinent refers to a shaking, weakening, or destabilizing.—
ophy?: Right to Philosophy 1, trans. Jan Plug (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Trans.
Press, 2oo2). pp. 186-87.—Trans. 4. A reference, again, to the "nonphilosophical" departments of the university
4. In France the lycee provides the final three years of studies—the Seconde, in Kant's conflict of the Faculties.
the Premiere, and the Terrninale—leading to the State examination. the bac- 5. Cited by Fernand Braude!. I take the term our of context here, even turn-
calau rear.—Trans. ing it against its obvious presuppositions: God. die guarantor of interscience, as
-

5. Derrida's contributions to Qui a pear de la philosophie? (Paris: Flammarion, is Spinoza's God-Substance."

[977) are collected in Derrida, Who's Afraid of Philosophy?—Trans. 6. The adjective perfirniant refers to economic performance, productivity, or
6. The word ebranlemenr, translated here as "disturbance," signals a shaking, profitability and resonarcs with performative language in speech-act theory.—
weakening, or destabilizing.—Trans. 'I 'rails.
7. Regis Debray signed the report to the Estates General of Philosophy pro- 7. Here the problems and programs of the College will be able to intersect
duced by the work group on teaching and the media. See Greph, Etats Gineraux with those of the Centre d'Etudes des Systemes et des Technologies Avancees
de la philosophie (16 et 17 juin 197g) (Paris: Flammarion, [979). pp. [57-67.— (CESTA). From the moment of its creation, the College will have to follow up
'Frans. on discussions already under way in this direction and to plan organized ex-
8. Greph, Etats Generaux de la philosophic. changes with CESTA.
8. The French here is simply exploration aux limites, literally "exploration atito
the limits," which could, of course, be the limits not only of philosophy but of
Letter from Francois Mitterrand to Greph
other approaches as well.—Trans.
The May 28. 1981, letter from Mitterrand to Greph appeared, along with the 9. The Faculty of Philosophy comprises the group of disciplines that are
themselves subordinated to the discipline of pure rational science—pure mar he-
commentary following the letter, in Le Monde under the title "The Teaching of
marks, pure philosophy, the metaphysics of nature and of morals.
Philosophy Should Be Extended ro the Whole of the Second Cycle."—Trans.
to. In Kant's day, theology, medicine, and law, but this Iist could be modern-
ized.
Titles it. See Derrida's "Theology of Translation," in this volume.—Trans.
/2. See "Philosophy and Its Classes," in Jacques Derrida, Who's Afiaid of Phi-
To clarify my argument at this point. I believe it is useful to reproduce here a
losophy?: Right to Philosophy I, trans. Jan Plug (Stanford, Calif: Stanford Univer-
chapter of the report for the foundation of the College International de Philoso-
sity Press, aooz).—Trans.
phic, the chapter carrying precisely the tide "Tides." I want to recall that, as op- 13. See President Mitterrand's letter to Greph in the appendices of this vol-
posed to "Sendoffs" (helow), this chapter belongs to the part of the report chat ume.—Trans.
was accepted and signed by all the members of the committee that I was offi- 14. Ler us recall that at its creation, the College de France was named the Col-
cially in charge of coordinating. (Further details on the history of the College are lege des Trois Langues (College of Three Languages), fir the study of Latin,
given in the head note to "Sendoffs" and in the Translator's Foreword to this vol- Greek, and I iebrew.
unic.—Trans.1

t. The Tenni tale is the last year of lycee studies in preparation for the Stare
298 Notes Notes 299

choanalysis, philosophy/internationalities, and philosophy/philosophy. It is di-

Sendoffi rected by an Assemblee Collegiale. Its work, particularly the work of its seminars,
"Coups d'envoi" was published in College International de Philosophic: Sciences, is documented in a regular series of Cahiers. Requests for schedules and other in-
Interscience, Arts, as part of a 'Rapport presence a M. Jean-Pierre Chevenement, formation can be addressed ro the College at: u, rue Descartes, 75005 Paris.
Ministre d'Etat, Ministre de la Recherche et de !Industrie, par Francoise Helpful discussions of the College in English can be found in Steven Ungar,
Chitelet, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Pierre Faye, Dominique Lecourt," dated Sep- "Philosophy after Philosophy: Debate and Reform in France since 1968," Enclitic
tember 30, [982,105-55. Portions of the report, including "Coups d'envoi," were 8, nos. I-2 0984): 13-26, especially the appendix on the College; and in Vincent
also reprinted in a booklet titled Extraits dun rapport pour le College International Leitch, "Research and Education at the Cross-Roads: A Report on the College
de Philosophic, prepared by the College in the fall of [983, and parrs of "Coups International de Philosophic," Substance 50 (1986): 101-14.
d'envoi" were excerpted as "Legitimite de la philosophic," in TE.L. (Temps Along with the work included in this volume and in Whos Afraid of Philoso-
Economic Litterature) 8 (November 25, 1982): 1,7. pity? other work be Derrida on the College includes: "On Colleges and Philoso-
Chatelet, Derrida, Faye, and Lecourt made up a French government "mission" phy," Discussion with Geoff Bennington, ILA Documents 5 (1986): 66 71; and -

charged with investigating the possibilities and conditions of an International the interview with lmre SaIusinzky in Criticism in Society (New York and Lon-
College of Philosophy. The idea for such an institution had grown to some mea- don: Methuen, 1987), pp. 8-24, especially 4-18. In French, see 'Philosophic au
sure out of the militant struggles of the Groupe de Recherches sur l'Enseigne- college," interview with Jean Luc Th6haud, Liberation 692 (August it, 1983):
-

mem Philosophique (Greph) and the Estates General of Philosophy—in which 15-16; and "Cinquante-deux aphorisms pour un avant-propos," in Psyche (Paris:
Derrida played a major part—against the attempts made by conservative gov- Galilee, 1987), 5o9-18.—Eds.
ernments to eliminate or restrict the teaching of philosophy in French schools. A [This translation was published in Yale French Studies 77, Reading the Archive:
year after Francois Mitterrand's election as president and the victory of a Social- On T-scts and Institutions, ed. E.S. Burr and Janie Vanpe, 1J90.—JP.]
ist parliamentary majority in May 1981, the mission was formally created by
t. At the end of every chapter of this "projection," I will multiply the num-
Jean-Pierre Chevenemenr, the new minister of research and industry. On May
bered references to the contributions addressed to us during the course of the
18,1982, Derrida circulated on behalf of the mission an open letter to interested
mission. All of these documents will be collected as we have indicated, and at-
parties worldwide, citing Chevenement's instructions and inviting potential par-
tached to the final report. They have extremely diverse forms and functions (let-
ticipants in the College to identify themselves and to propose research and pro-
ters of support, advice, suggestions, offers of participation or association, very
jects (the letter was widely disseminated; see, for instance, La Quinzaine Lit-
elaborate projects). They have been addressed by individuals (teachers, re-
teraire 374 [July 1 15. 19821: 29, and Substance 35 119821: 8o 81). Four months
- -
searchers, students, artists, experts. or practitioners), by groups or institutions,
later, after extensive consultations and evaluation of more than 75o replies to the
from France and abroad. Without picking and choosing from among the differ-
open letter, the mission recommended the establishment of the College as an au-
ent types of correspondence j envoi) in my references, I have allowed myself to be
tonomous but State-funded teaching and research institution, aimed principally
guided simply by a classically thematic principle. Of course, it could not be rig-
at encouraging and organizing work on (quasi-)philosophical research themes or
orous, given the intersections to which we have appealed from the outset. Cer-
objects nor sufficiently studied in existing institutions. Their report, a somewhat
tain references will have to appear several times. Nonetheless, it seemed useful to
technical government document, outlined in its first hundred pages the mission's
constitute this kind of thematic index, however approximate. It might help the
collective recommendations for the definition, the regulating idea, and the con-
first readers of the report to form an image of the ensemble of con t r &dons and
-

stitut ion of the College. This was followed by four individual "projections," one
exchanges to which the mission has given space. Its interest and scope will he
by each of the four philosophers, "Coups d'envoi" being Derrida's contribution. more obvious, and the consultation of the adjoined dossier may he facilitated.
The College was officially founded in Paris on October to, t983 and began op-
Especially, beyond this first reading, and if the College is created, such an in-
erating that semester, with Derrida as its first director, followed by Jean-Francois
strument could be indispensable when the time comes to make our first initia-
Lyotard, Miguel Abensour, and others. Today it offers, free and open ro the pub-
tives and it is necessary to make contact again with all our correspondents. [In
lie, without prerequisites, a wide range of courses and research programs, as well the absence of the supporting documents, these notes have been deleted from
as frequent colloquia and lectures, by scholars in its six "intersections": philoso-
the translation.—E.ds.)
phy/science, philosophy/art and literature, philosophy/politics, philosophy/psy-
 '1111r

3013 Notes Notes 301

2- Maurice Godelier, Les sciences de l'homme et la societe (Paris: Documenta-

Report
tion francaise, r982), 2 vols.—Trans.
3. See Marcel Mauss, "Essai sur le don" (1925), in his Sociologic et anthropolo- We reproduce here the beginning of the "Preamble to the Principles fir a Reflec-
gic (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 198o); trans. lam Connison as The tion on the Contents of Education, published in March 1989: "A committee to
-

Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies (New York: Norton, consider the contents of reaching had been created, at the end of 1988, by the
1967).-11-ans. minister of national education. Chaired by Pierre Bourdieu and Francois Gros
4. See Denis Hollicr, ed., Le Collige de Sociologic 1937 1939 (Paris: Callimard,
-
and composed of Pierre Baque, Pierre Berge. Rene Blancher, Jacques Bouveresse,
1979); trans. Betsy Wing, as The College of Sociology (037-1939) (Minneapolis:
Jean-Claude Chevallier, Hubert Condamines, Didier DaCunha Castelle, Jacques
University of Minnesota Press, 1989).—Trans.
Derrida, Philippe Joutard, Edmond Malinvaud, and Francois Mathey, its mis-
5, The Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) provides positions
for researchers who do not necessarily teach within the framework of the ingi- sion was ro revise the fields of knowledge taught, while reinforcing the coherence
tution.—Trans. and unity of these fields of knowledge.
6. CESTA, the Center for the Study of Advanced Systems and Technologies, In the first phase of their work, the members of the committee gave themselves
and CREA, the Center for Research on Autonomous Epistemologies, are both the task of formulating the principles that would have ro govern their work. Con-
-

housed in the same buildings as the College. r-5 rue Descartes, the former Ecole scious of and concerned about the implications and practical applications. in par-
Polytechnique. The Direction du Livre is a subsection of the French Ministry of ticular the pedagogical applications, of these principles, in order to ground them
Culture that supervises, supports, and studies various aspects of book production they endeavored to obey only the properly intellectual discipline that follows from
and distribution. It is affiliated with the Centre National des Lettres, a semipri- the intrinsic logic of the fields of knowledge available and the anticipations or
vate organization run by both the Direction du Livre and publishers, which sup- questions that can be formulated. Since their mission was not to intervene di-
ports such activities as the publication of journals and the activity of small
rectly and in the short term in the definition of the programs, they wanted to out-
presses, etc.—Trans. line the large orientations of the progressive transformation of the contents of
7. See Placide Tempels, La philosophic bantoue, trans. A. Rubbens (Elisa-
reaching that is indispensable, even if it must take some time to follow, and even
berhville: Editions Lovania, 1945): Bantu Philosophy, trans. Colin King (Paris:
get ahead of as much as possible, the evolution of science and society.
Presence Africaine, I959). And see Paulin J. Honntondia, Stir la 'philosophic
africaine” (Paris: Francois Maspero, 1976); African Philosophy, trans. Henri Evans Having accepted these principles, specialized working committees will con-
with Jonathan Ree (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 3983), especially tinue or begin to reflect more deeply on each of the large regions of knowledge.
chapters 1-3.--Eds. They will try to propose, in preliminary notes that could be submitted in June
8. See the collective volume from Greph called Qui a part de la philosophic? 1989, not the ideal program of an ideal teaching, but a group of precise observa-
(Paris: Flammarion, 1977) and the proceedings of the June 1979 ,gtats Genenrux tions, bringing out the implications of the proposed principles."
de la Philosophie (Paris: Flammarion. 1979). Minister Chevenemenes letter is One of these committees (Philosophy and Epistemology)—cochaired by
quoted in Derrida's "lam circulaire" of May 18, 1982 (see headnote). Derrida's Jacques Bouveresse and Jacques Derrida, and composed of Jacques Brunschwig,
contributions to these volumes are collected here and in Who's Afraid of'Philoso- Jean Dhornbres, Catherine Malahou, and Jean-Jacques Rosat—submitted the
phy?: Right to Philosophy I (Stanford: Stanford University Press, zoo2).—Eds. "Report of the Committee of Philosophy and Epistemology" to the minister in
9. The complete French text can be found in Qui a part de la philosophic?; June 1989.—E.W.
English translation in Who's Afinid of Philosophy pp. 9a-97.—Eds.
to. Two years of post-baccalaureat preparation for the entrance examination T. SGEN: Syndicat Generale des Enseignarits: SNES: Syndicat National des
of the humanities section of the Ecoles normales superieures.—Trans. F:nseignements de Second Degre; SNESUP: Syndicat National de l'Enseigne-
rt. The Centre National de Recherche Scientifique and the Fondation mcnts Superieut —Trans.
independent though closely linked, provide permanent and part-time positions 2. University education in France is divided into cycles. The premier cycle, or
for researchers, who do not necessarily teach within the framework of these in- first cycle, is composed of a two-year DEUG (Diplome d'Etudes Universitaires
stitutions.—Trans. Génerales—Diploma of General University Studies). The second cycle includes

302 Notes Notes 303

the licence, obtained at the end oldie third year of study, and the malaise, at the !J. See Derrida's "Vacant Chair: Censorship, Mastery, Magisteriality" in this
end of the fourth year. The third cycle comprises higher degrees such as the DEA vol ume.—Trans.
(Diplome d'Etudes Approfondi) and the DESS (Diplome d'Etudes Superieures 12. Students in French lycees specialized in one ofa number of "sections": sec-
Specialisees), both of which precede the doctorat, and the doctorat itself. Insti- tions G and F were "technical" sections for technologie gestion (management) and
tuts Universitaires de Formation des Maitres are the university institutes for technologie electimtique (electronics) respectively. The system has since been
teacher training. The college covers the years from the sixieme to the troisieme changed, along with the designations. lbday, students complete a "bac L" (liter-
(students are approximately eleven to fifteen years of age), and the lye& the final ary), for example.—Trans.
three years of secondary education, from the Seconde to the Term inale, the final 13. The literary (A) and scientific (C) sections.—Trans.
year completed in preparation for the national examination, the baccalaureat. 14. CPR: Centre Pedagogique Regional; ENNA: Ecole Normale National
The Inspection Generale is the administration of central education in France. d'Apprentissage; ENS: Ecole Normale Superieure.—Trans.
There is an inspecteur dacademie for each departement, or region, in the na- 15. The Le Monde article summarizes the policy of a contract between the Min-
tion.—Trans. I istry of Education and the universities. The ministry encouraged universities to re-
3. The administration of education in France divides the country into areas new their programs in view of new teaching technologies and of the needs and de-
known as academies, each of which is administered by a rector —Trans. mands of current university students, and called for a DEUG that would be "more
4. On the relation of age and philosophy, see, for example, "The Age of open" in that it would be organized according to four broad disciplinary sectors:
Hegel" and "Philosophy and Its Classes," in Jacques Derrida, Who's Afraid of letters and languages; medical disciplines; economics, law, and sciences; and math,
Philosophy?: Right to Philosophy I, trans. Jan Plug (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Uni- physics, and chemistry. The ministry also called for a coherent plan to maintain
versity Press, zooz).—Trans. university campuses and to develop university libraries.—Trans.
5. The grandes ecoles are prestigious institutions of higher education. Admis- 16. What Derrida calls "open seminars" (seminaires fibre's) are seminars whose
sion to them is controlled by competitive examinations, a factor distinguishing content has not been determined by a program—national or otherwise—or by
them from the traditional universities.—Trans. the university.—Trans.
6. The ecoles normales also train future teachers, but as grandes ecoles have 17. Andre Miguel submitted a report on the condition of university libraries
entrance examinations.—Trans. to then minister of national education Lionel Jospin. Entitled Les bibliotheques
7. The CAPES (Certificat d'Apritude Professionelle d'Enseignement Second- universitaires.' Rapport an ministre d'Etat, ministre de !Education Nationale, de la
aire) and the agregation are competitive examinations that certify candidates for Jeunesse et des Sports (Paris: La Documentation Francaise, 1989), the report fa-
teaching positions. In principle, those who pass these examinations are guaran- mously states that university libraries in France "constitute one of the disaster
teed a teaching position for the rest of their careers.—Trans. zones" in the university. The report documents the general conditions of univer-
8. See above, the headnote to this report.—Trans. sity libraries: too few personnel; a poverty of materials, beginning with books;
9. In proposing a restructuring of the teaching of philosophy, Derrida relies too little space (for those materials, as well as readers); restrictive opening hours;
upon three terms: a programme de notions (program based on notions), questions and general underfunding. Because of these conditions, university libraries are
de (-ours (questions drawn from the course), and an exercice de questions (short- underused and discouraging to university students.—lians.
answer questions). The objective is to prepare students to grasp some of the fun-
damental notions in philosophy and its history and to evaluate their ability to
apply this knowledge. Thus, rather than presenting the students with material
they are unfamiliar with or asking them to construct an argument they are un-
prepared for, Derrida proposes to ask them questions that, while not identical to
what was covered in class, clearly draw upon what was learned there. He also
proposes to relarivize the role of the essay by devoting part of exam time to short-
answer questions.—Trans.
to. The kluigne is the second year of a two-year preparatory course for the arts
section of the Ecole Normale Superieure. (The hypokluigne is the first year.)—Trans.
MERIDIAN

Crossing Aesthetics

Jacques Derrida, Eyes of the University: Right to Philosophy 2

Maurice Blanchot, Lautreamont and Sade
Giorgio Agamben, The Open: Man and Animal
Jean Genet, The Declared Enemy
Shosana Felman, Writing and Madness: (Literature/ Philosophy / Psychoanalysis)
Jean Genet, Fragments of the Artwork
Shoshana Felman, The Scandal of the Speaking Body: Don Juan with J. L.
Austin, or Seduction in Two Languages
Peter Szondi, Celan Studies
Neil Hertz, George Eliot's Pulse
Maurice Blanchot, The Book to Come
Susannah Young-ah Gottlieb,Regions of Sorrow: Anxiety and Messianism in
Hannah Arendt and W H. Auden
Jacques Derrida, Without Alibi, edited by Peggy Kamuf
Cornelius Castoriadis, On Plato's 'Statesman'
Jacques Derrida, VAo's Afraid of Philosophy? Right to Philosophy I
Peter Szondi, An Essay on the Magic
Peter Fenves, Arresting Language: From Leibniz to Benjamin
Jill Robbins, ed., Is It Righteous to Be? Interviews with Emmanuel Levinas
Louis Marin. Of Representation Marc Froment-Meurice, That Is to Say: Heidegger's Poetics

Daniel Payot, The Architect and the Philosopher Francis Ponge, Soap

J. Hillis Miller, Speech Acts in Literature Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Tipography: Mimesis, Philosophy, Politics

Maurice Blanchot, Faux pas Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life

Jean-Luc Nancy, Being Singular Plural Emmanuel Levinas, Of God Who Comes to Mind

Maurice Blanchot / Jacques Derrida, The Instant °fit& Death I Demeure: Bernard Stigler, Technics and lime, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus
Fiction and Testimony
Werner Hamacher, pleroma—Reading in Hegel
Niklas Lehmann, Art as a Social System
Serge Leclaire, Psychoanalyzing: On the Order of the Unconscious and the
Emmanual Levinas, God, Death, and Time Practice of the Letter

Ernst Bloch, The Spirit of Utopia Serge Leclaire, A Child Is Being Killed: 0» Primary Narcissism and the Death
Drive
Giorgio Agamben, Potentialities: Collected Essays in Philosophy
Sigmund Freud, Writings on Art and Literature
Ellen S. Burr. Poetry's Appeal: French Nineteenth-Century Lyric and the Political
Space Cornelius Castoriadis, World in Fragments: Writings on Politics, Society,
Psychoanalysis, and the Imagination
Jacques Derrida, Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas
Thomas Keenan, Fables of Responsibility: Aberrations and Predicaments in Ethics
Werner Hamacher, Premises: Essays on Philosophy and Literature from Kant to
and Politics
Celan
Emmanuel Levinas, Proper Names
Aris Fioreros, The Gray Book
Alexander Garcia Dint mann, At Odds with AIDS: Thinking and 'Thlking About
Deborah Esch, In the Event: Reading Journalism, Reading Theory
a Virus
Winfried Menninghaus, In Praise of Nonsense: Kant and Bluebeard
Maurice Blanchot, Friendship
Giorgio Agamben, The Man Without Content
Jean-Luc Nancy, The Muses
Giorgio Agamben, The End of the Poem: Essays in Poetics
Massimo Cacciari, Posthumous People: Vienna at the lierning Point
Theodor W. Adorno„Cound Figures
David E. Wellhery, The Specular Moment: Goethes Early Lyric and the
Louis Marin, Sublime Poussin Begirmings of Romanticism

Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Poetry as Experience Edmond Jabes, The Little Book of Unsuspected Subversion

Ernst Bloch, literary Essays Hans-Jost Frey, Studies in Poetic Discourse: Mallarme, Baudelaire, Rimbaud,
Hiilderlirr
Jacques Derrida, Resistances of Psychoanalysis
Pierre Bnurdieu, The Rules ofArt: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field

Nicolas Abraham, Rhythms: On the Work, Translation, and Psychoanalysis

Jacques Derrida, On the Name

David Wills, Prosthesis

Maurice Blanchot, The Work of Fire

Jacques Derrida, Points . . : Interviews, 1974 1994

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J. Hillis Miller, Topographies

Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Musica Ficta (Figures ofWagner)

Jacques Derrida, Aporias

Emmanuel Levinas, Outside the Subject

Jean-Francois Lyotard, Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime

Peter Fenves, "Chatter": Language and History in Kierkegaard

Jean-Luc Nancy, The Experience of Freedom

Jean-Joseph Goux, Oedipus. Philosopher

Haun Saussy, The Problem ofa Chinese Aesthetic

Jean-Luc Nancy, The Birth to Presence