Epistemology of the web

This article on collective, web-based intelligence, is jarring to read just after Barthes. Still, more interesting than most of what I've read on this sort of thing. What would a contemporary antimoderne have to say about these developments?

Barthes at the College de France

Earlier today, wandering about in a bookstore, I found an attractively slim Points Essais edition of Roland Barthes’s inaugural lesson at the Collège de France. It is titled, boldly, Leçon.

Leçon is interesting, for instance, in light of Micheal Behrent’s article on Foucault. In as much as it is admissible to read the text as argument, and I’m not sure such a reading would be the most nuanced or productive, it must be admitted that Barthes’s argument rests on a certain conception of insidious and all-pervading power. Barthes is in this text, and at this moment, linked especially closely to Foucault. Foucault brought Barthes to the Collège de France, and in a sense it is Foucault’s space. So given this, we can say that Barthes is inscribing a whole project of literary inquiry in a Foucauldian space.

The most painful thing about reading the Leçon, for me, is Barthes’s suggestion that an ever-renewed investigation, a continual assault on foundational assumptions, could be an effective counter to this kind of power (which is not capital, but is also not not-capital). Perhaps the least ‘modern’ sounding of Barthes’ opinions is that desire is somehow to be opposed to power. The opposition of elemental and natural desire (albeit conceived as multiplicity) to power (albeit also conceived as multiple), seems simply naïve. Perhaps I have not understood. Yet I can only cringe when I read, near the end, “Ce qui peut être oppressif dans un enseignement, ce n’est pas finalement le savoir ou la culture qu’il véhicule, ce sont les formes discursives à travers lesquelles on les propose” (pg 42). Although I understand that, at one time, Barthes was something of an adversary for certain professional historians, he was also deeply concerned with History. Perhaps this is the issue: History, not history. Surely both can be oppressive?

What I ask myself is, does the above quote suggest that Barthes thinks something like what Behrent says Foucault thinks about the new configuration of power—biopower as opposed to discipline? This, or something like this, seems plausible to me partly because Barthes engages in a certain amount of self-historicisation of the sort I always find fascinating. For him, there was a coupure with the Liberation, but again with or around Mai ’68. I wonder if it would be possible to track his opinions of the changing shape of French society over these decades in the something of the same way that Behrent does with Foucault. In the end, I think it is a mistake to take Barthes seriously as a thinker of political or social issues. As a writer, yes; as a literary critic, yes; but not as a thinker of the social. And I think he would agree with this. The Leçon suggests as much. It is too bad that he is read as ‘political’ by so many Anglophone critics.

As far as this particular text is concerned, it seems to me that it is best to heed the warnings Barthes gives at the beginning, that he only ever writes essays, “genre ambigu où l’écriture le dispute à l’analyse” (7). More plainly, I think we should take everything Barthes says here (I would go so far as to say, ever) as essentially a first person statement. It is about pleasure, about his own pleasure—we are invited to participate, and to get what we can from it, but the basic principle is always, as he says, “cette disposition qui me porte souvent à sortir d’un embarras intellectuel par une interrogation portée à mon plaisir” (8). He is a writer, and he is engaged in “un combat assez solitaire contre le pouvoir de la langue” (25). The thing of it is, I always enjoy reading him. I find that, while I often disagree with what he says, I agree profoundly with what I understand his project to be. I think next, perhaps when I run across it in a bookstore, since I have no professional excuse at the moment, I will take up La chambre claire.

pessimism

« Le monde est arrivé à une impasse, et nous nous consumons probablement en vain à chercher une issue par de profondes combinaisons théoriques. »

These are Edgar Quinet's words, written in the early 1850s. I found them quoted on page 161 of Christophe Charle's Les intellectuels en Europe au XIXe siecle. Charle himself is quoting them from another secondary source. Since a precise day is given (December 22nd, 1853), I assume that they are from a letter or a journal. The strong assumption is that they refer somehow to the aftermath of Louis Napoleon's coup, and the likely course of his government. Perhaps I will hunt it down.

Le choc Bergson

Henri Bergson is not a philosopher who, like Agamben, I have consciously avoided. None the less, it is the case that I have often heard his name come from the mouth of someone who was, I am certain, interested in this philosopher only because Deleuze wrote about him. Yet for a variety of reasons, I have started to read Bergson. I began at what is more or less the beginning, Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience. I can say with honesty that I experienced what I imagine the publishers must have had in mind when they printed, on the front of the otherwise quietly ugly standard PUF design, “LE CHOC BERGSON.” Bergson is a remarkable writer, but also one that I am concerned I may have trapped in my person web of reference.

What do I mean by this? I mean that reading the Essai, I thought of Proust and Sartre. I thought a little of William James (who, since he is cited, cannot be avoided). And then, in what is probably the most historically useful association, springing less from conscious thought than what might be called aesthetic association, I thought of George Santayana’s The Sense of Beauty. This last seems to me somehow similar in its tone and its construction. There are, I think, reasons for this on several levels. First, the two books were written only about a decade apart (1886-96, give or take some months), and were both ‘first’ books. That is, both were written for presentation to a jury of senior academics, and in what was essentially the same intellectual field. After all, Santayan was writing for James, and James and Bergson were already, by this point, in communication. On a higher level of abstraction, but books are attempts to maintain what I would, quite un-technically, call transcendental reasoning in the face of a respected, powerful, and aggressive materialist science. James is in something of the same boat. The next generation of philosophers, Sartre and Heidegger, say, seem to have felt no need at all to engage with ‘psychophysique’ and the like.

The Essai is rich and complex—though I would not say, exactly, that it is ‘difficult.’ Part way through the book I began to think about memory, and how a philosopher of durée would deal with this. Of course the next book is Matière et mémoire, so I image I’ll find out. It was hard to read the example of the musical phrase, which turns up several times, without thinking of Proust and Vinteuil. Yet it seems to me that Vinteuil means something quite different for Swann, and even for Proust, than the musical phrase does in the Essai. I want to know a great deal more, for instance, about what Bergson does with language in his later work. No doubt much has been written here, and I will soon know. Suffice it to say for the moment that after reading the Essai with Proust and Sartre in my head, both as ‘readers’ of Bergson, Proust seems, oddly enough, more (philosophically???) interesting than Sartre. Perhaps this is because I know more about him than I do about Sartre.

I am going to continue to avoid saying anything substantive about Bergson’s ideas. I have never been able to be interested in the philosophical ‘problem’ of human freedom—perhaps Bergson more or less tabled the issue, except for the odd twist of the postwar existentialists? Rather than discuss the issues, I’ll finish by saying only that I am sorry it is not yet possible to buy Frédéric Worms’ critical edition of Matière et mémoire (it apparently comes out in 2009)—the notes in the Essai are helpful and, despite the somewhat didactic tone, not obtrusive.

Last of all, I admit that I bought Deleuze's little 1966 manual on Bergson. It was only 5 Euros from the box outside of the librarie Vrin. Maybe after MandM I will read it.

Bourgeois solidarity

Léon Bourgeois’ pamphlet, Solidarité, first published in 1896, belongs to a genre of political pseudo-philosophy with which, for whatever reason, I feel well acquainted. I am reading the 1906 edition from gallica. Bourgeois and the political position that he embodies are enjoying something of a renaissance. See for instance the treatment on La vie des idées. Although I know some things about Bourgeois’ context and the intellectual/cultural resources on which he drew, this is the first time I’ve read him specifically. Here, mostly for my own benefit, I want to outline not so much the argument, as some of the assumptions and the formal structure of the text.

Bourgeois is, as I have read, absolutely positioning himself as the genuinely republican third way not so much between, but above the alternative of socialist collectivism and liberal individualism. Solidarité as an idea is a synthesis, an overcoming, of the dichotomy of socialism and liberalism. It is also a scientific description of the nature of reality, empirically tested and found correct. Republicanism itself does not come up very often in the text, but it is mentioned, I think significantly, at the very beginning and very end—the parts that a busy Parisian was most likely to read.

Solidarité can be said to mean the moral and legal consequences of the scientific fact that all progress and survival is the result of collective, rather than individual, effort. Individuals rely on other individuals, and therefore are indebted to them. Not only to other people in the present, but also to the past.

One of the most rhetorically striking things about this little pamphlet, for me, is that there are basically two metaphors—and they are barely that—at work in it, which I find odd next to one another. The first is organic. All organisms function only as a result of the cooperation of their individual parts. It is true that Bourgeois, caught up in the moment, goes so far as to say that gravity is essentially the solidarity of all objects with all other objects—but the central point of reference is the organism. And of course, it is obvious to him that species work in the same way as individuals. The currency of this belief (that a group of people may be treated psychologically or behaviorally as one large person) amazes me. I wonder if Vico’s suggestion (no doubt not only his) may have some value: that people in general, when faced with something they don’t understand, tend to assume that it acts like they themselves do. Although there is much that is reprehensible about the organic metaphor (though—what exactly is the organism? The nation? The race? Oddly, ‘race’ is used more often than ‘nation’ or ‘patrie’), it is unsurprising for this period. But more or less at the midpoint of the pamphlet, I think when Bourgeois is beginning to move on to law, the metaphor changes. Now, rather than an organism, society (to which, by the by, Bourgeois denies any existence other than as the sum of its parts) becomes like a business firm. We, however, are not so much laborers in the employ of the firm as stockholders. Debts are owed in all directions. All we have to do is decide by what rules we will work.

For Bourgeois, the only difference between society in general and a business is that the stockholders of a business are able to decide in advance, before they invest, the terms of their investment. We are all already here. Solidarité, however, helps us to think about how, if we were all freely able to make such a judgment, we would rationally agree to arrange things. There is a surprising similarity to the Rawlsian ‘veil of ignorance’ here, but I think that for Bourgeois science can tell us more or less what we should agree to.

It would be interesting to map out the triads and binaries that are always at the bottom of Bourgeois’ thinking. For instance, solidarité shows us that there is no contradiction between science and morality—but they remain a binary, and one that maps onto liberalism (science) and socialism (morality). As in so much other political thinking, we have the assertion that beyond human difference, there is an essential human equality. The point here is that juridical equality is absolute, even a law of nature, while physical equality (or equality of outcome) is a dangerous delusion. But what is the human? « c’est...d’être à la fois vivant, pensant et conscient. » (110) He even admits that there might, on other planets, be other beings that meet these criteria. But then we do have sharp internal differentiation—which, interestingly, is measured both chronologically and in terms of social space. So that a humble laborer today is as much advanced (thanks to his accumulated cultural capital) over the cave-man as the genius is over the laborer: “Le plus modeste travailleur de notre temps l’emporte sur le sauvage de l’âge de pierre d’une distance égale à celle qui le sépare lui-même de l’homme de génie » 117-118. I want, at any rate, to know more about the 'republican anthropology' behind all this.

There is much more to say about this little text—for instance, Leibniz, was he being taught aggressively in this period?—but the above are my sharpest impressions.

from Vico

"Wars are generally fought by nations who speak distinct languages and are therefore 'mute' in relation to each other." [para 487]
Giambattista Vico, The New Science, trans. David Marsh.

He meant this more or less literally, but it should perhaps be taken, not metaphorically, but at least with the words 'language' and 'mute' in their broad meanings; same with 'nation,' i suppose.

Behrent on Foucault

I have just finished reading a very interesting, and unpublished, article by Michael Behrent on Foucault and economic liberalism entitled, “Liberalism without Humanism: Michel Foucault and the Free-Market Creed, 1976-1979”. The article and its references will be very useful for me in thinking about Sorel’s context of reception in post-1968 France; in particular, the question of the meaning(s) of liberalism. Behrent does a wonderful job of situating Foucault and, it seems to me, of explaining what economic liberalism ‘did’ and meant for him. The highest praise: it made me want to run out and buy (perhaps I will tomorrow), the 1978 and 1979 Collège de France lectures on which the argument is based.

As much as I liked the piece, though, I find myself disagreeing with it on a fundamental level. I get the impression that Behrent more or less agrees with what he convincingly argues Foucault thought about economic liberalism. One reason I want to read these lectures is to see if Foucault does indeed seem to be endorsing the idea that the absence of explicit disciplinary practices in an ideal neoliberal regime necessarily means the absence of implicit, or hidden, disciplinary practices. Probably he is agnostic on the question, and is interested in possibility only.

But then again, to translate things into contemporary US politics, Foucault is not neoliberal in the sense in which I understand this word. It seems that the Foucault was in favor of various forms of social protection (the negative tax, for instance) that are, in the US context, liberal rather than neoliberal (if, and I think we can, we take the last two of Roosevelt’s four freedoms as much of what neoliberals have wanted, in the last decade, to roll back).

So, finally, what I want more of is Behrent’s own evaluation of how much of the ‘neoliberalism’ that interested Foucault was reflected less in the governing practices of various parties than it was present only in his own mind. Ordoliberals may have provided an example in Germany, and certainly Behrent is clear about the negative examples in France—perhaps the Second Left may also be cited as an example, but although certain French liberals may have seen allies there, it is a stretch, I think, to compare autogestation with the Chicago School.

At any rate, a very interesting piece. I am sorry to have missed the seminar at which it was presented, and I hope it is published soon so that I can cite from it.

Spinoza's Ethics

I read Spinoza’s Ethics largely because I had heard so much about how a certain kind of Theory was deeply indebted to him, or claimed to be. My suspicion was (and is) that it is really Deleuze’s version of Spinoza that interests people, in the same way that people have now heard of Bergson largely because of Deleuze. There isn’t anything wrong with this, and I should admit strait off that I haven’t read very much of the relevant material on the French Spinozan revival of the 1970s. This, anyway, is how I came to Spinoza. Several months ago, I read the Theological-Political Treatise. Parts of it were very interesting, but since my interest in biblical hermeneutics and the debunking of miracles is, at best, abstract, I was not greatly moved. Since then, I have been traveling and focusing n other things, which is a shame. But I finally managed to sit down and work through the Ethics.

This was a first reading, and no doubt a superficial one. There are a few things I would like to highlight and remember. Most generally, and perhaps most superficially, I remember from long ago that much pop (or near pop) neuroscience takes its philosophical inspiration from Descartes. The way in which Spinoza thinks about the relationship between mind and body seems to me obviously far better tuned to contemporary understanding. I am generally fascinated by this aspect of the work, and would, on a second reading, pay close attention to it.

Perhaps most elusive and unexpected, for me, was Spinoza’s treatment of time (and much of this in the last pages of the book). This is bound up with the relation between mind and body. There is eternity and there is duration. The mind is able to conceive of nothing except through the body, which has duration, and is in time. However, the mind may conceive of the body under the species of eternity, but this is, I think, essentially to conceive of God. This is the preserve of reason, which always is concerned with the eternal. There is a great deal more here, and no doubt the duration/eternity dichotomy is crucial not just for Spinoza, but for the whole tradition of philosophy—perhaps it is even universal. The question is, and I might tend in this direction, is Spinoza attempting to get around this dichotomy, to present us with a way of thinking that downgrades the distinction to relative unimportance?

Now, given that I came to this text with Theory in my head, I was especially interested in desire as a concept. Desire is defined at one point as, “appetite together with consciousness of the appetite” (76 – I am using the Penguin Classics edition of the Curley translation). I should say in passing that, in Lukacs, consciousness appeared as the highest good, and there seemed to be no need to explain why it was good. Spinoza does a somewhat better job explaining why it is good. Later, as the first point in the definitions of the affects we find, “desire is man’s very essence, insofar as it is conceived to be determined, from any given affection of it, to do something” (104). The middle clauses, Spinoza explains, are important. Desire is man’s essence only insofar as man, and everything else, strives for self-preservation. Desire is then the conscious (as opposed to appetite) striving for something that, given an existing condition (Spinoza’s affection), tends toward the preservation of the individual. Of course, Spinoza quickly points out, desires “are not infrequently so opposed to one another than the man is pulled in different directions and knows not where to turn” (104).

Spinoza believes that if all individuals acted according to their own best interests, or what, with a clear mind, they perceived these interests to be, we would have peace, freedom, and prosperity. This is because there is nothing more useful to one individual than another individual in full possession of his own capacities. The state, however, and its power to coerce and/or legislate on matters of morality and action, is necessary because people are generally ruled by their affects rather than their reason.

I wonder how similar this is to a Smithian hand-of-God argument? Indeed, since I have been trained to pay attention to the way people talk about affect, it seems to me that a single problematic does indeed somehow unite Spinoza and, who is perhaps most interesting in this regard, the Marquis de Sade. Indeed, as an aside, I am very sorry that I could not bring myself to write about La philosophie dans le boudoir immediately after finishing it. The thing is horrible and fascinating; especially in the light of certain arguments about emotion-talk and radical forms of republicanism at the time of the French Revolution. Sade really does represent this logic pushed in a radical way to a certain limit.

A final confusion of which I want to remind myself: Spinoza several times uses the phrase “more reality,” at one point in what must be one of his famous sives, it is “more reality, or perfection” (33). What does this mean, exactly? I think this must be a significant philosophical point, in the same way that “Deus sive natura” is not just any conjunction, but a basic Spinozan contention. More perfection, I understand. The more of God’s nature one is able to understand, the more perfection one contains, or, is. But I am confused by the equation of this to reality. As opposed to confused ideas of reality? Spinoza, I would have thought, allows the reality of confusion, just not its correctness, or perfection. We can only ever have an imperfect, or mutilated (such language!) idea of evil, since it is itself a negation. It is impossible to hate God, since to know God excludes the negation necessary for hate. But does Spinoza consider such gaps, failures, and negations to be absences of reality? I am a bit confused about this.

At any rate, I rashly moved on from Spinoza some days ago, and have started reading another old and difficult book—though one I have a better excuse for tackling: the New Science of Giamattista Vico. I will need to spend some time with this text, which is more exciting than I had thought it would be, and will write more about it soon. But for now I want only to point out that there are some interesting echoes with Spinoza. For instance, here is Vico’s axiom 35, “Wonder is the daughter of ignorance. The greater the cause inspiring it, the greater the wonder.” Then here is axiom 36, “The weaker its powers of reasoning, the more vigorous the human imagination grows.” One of the more elegant moments in the Ethics is the definition of wonder as what one experiences before a singular thing. This seems to me remarkably powerful. A thing appears singular when one is ignorant of how it is connected to other things, when one has no conceptual grasp of it. (I would argue that psychologically, when a thing is really singular, it inspires not wonder so much as uncomprehending boredom—something is interesting when it speaks in a powerful and unexpected way to what one already knows. Too familiar, or too foreign, and it is impossible to think about). Perhaps having just read Spinoza, I am going too far and assimilating to him what are really pieces of Enlightenment common sense by Vico’s time. Still, the categories of wonder and imagination are clearly important—if I were more energetic, I would keep careful track of how Spinoza defines them, and then how Vico defines and uses them.

It also occurs to me, though only here, that Badiou, who certainly ought to know his Spinoza, may be doing interesting things in his Ethics, discussed a bit below, around the idea of evil as essentially a negation, a failure.