Downcast eyes: the denigration of vision in twentieth-century French thought

644 Pages·1994·28.29 MB·English

by  Martin Jay

Downcast
THE
Eyes
DENIGRATION
OF VISION IN
TWENTIETH-cENTURY
FRENCH THOUGHT
,· ·,· ' 'i:.
A CENTENNIAL K
One hundred books
published between 19?Q:~nd 1995
bear this special iJilp~iritof
the University of C;lifqt~nia Press.
We have chosen each Centennial Book
as an example of the Press's finest
publishing and booki::rlaking traditions
as we celebrate the beginning of
our second century.
UNIVERSITYOF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Fotmded in 1893
Downcast
THE
Eyes
DENIGRATION
OF VISION IN
TWENTIETH{E NTU RY
FRENCH THOUGHT
Martin jay
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BERKELEY LOS ANGELES LONDON
)
v
((85
h/
:2,
; \ 1-.)
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University ofCaliforni~ Press, Ltd.
London, England
First Paperback Printing 1994
Copyright © 1993 by The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Camloging-in-Publicarion Data
Jay, Marrin, 1944-
Downcast eyes : the denigration of vision in twentieth-century
French thought I Martin Jay.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-520-08885-9 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Vision. 2. Cognition and culrure. 3. Philosophy, French-20th
cemury. 4. France-Civilization-20th century. 5. France-inrellectual
life-20th century. I. Tide.
B2424.P45J39 1993
194---dc20 93-347
CIP
Printed in the United States of America
10 09 08 07 06 05 04
14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requiremenrs of
ANSIINISO 239.48-1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper). (§)
For Beth

Contents
IX Acknowledgments
l Introduction
21 CHAPTER ONE: The Noblest of the Senses: Vision from
Plato to Descartes
83 CHAPTER TWO: Dialectic of EnLIGHTenment
149 CHAPTER THREE: The Crisis of the Ancien Scopic Regime:
From the Impressionists to Bergson
211 CHAPTER FOUR: The Disenchantment of the Eye: Bataille
and the Surrealists
263 CHAPTER FfVE: Sartre, Mcrleau-Ponty, and the Search for
a New Ontology of Sight
329 CHAPTER SIX: Lacan, Althusser, and the Specular Subject
of Ideology
381 CHAPTER SEVEN: From the Empire of the Gaze to the Society
of the Spectacle: Foucault and Debord
435 CHAPTER EIGHT: The Camera as Memento Mori: Barthes,
Metz, and the Cahiers du Cinema
493 CHAPTER NINE: "Phallogocularcentrism": Derrida and Irigaray
543 CHAPTER TEN: The Ethics of Blindness and the Postmodern
Sublime: Levinas and Lyotard
587 Conclusion
595 Index
Vll

Acknowledgments
Registering the many acts of generosity that made this book possible is
both a pleasant and melancholy activity. Its pleasure follows from the fond
· recollection of the people and institutions who were so supportive of the
project from the beginning. It is difficult to imagine a warmer or more
constructive response to a scholarly enterprise than was forthcoming in
this instance. Because the scope of the book is so wide, I have had to rely
on the expert knowledge of many people in a multitude of disciplines, all
of whom were remarkably willing to share with me the fruits of their own
research and learning. The melancholy flows no less inexorably from the
fact that several of their number are no longer alive and able to know how
deeply I benefited from and appreciated their help.
I would not have been in a position to s~licit such aid without the sup
port of the more anonymous benefactors who made the institutional de
cisions that allowed this project to prosper. Let me thank them first. I was
given financial sustenance by the Rockefeller Foundation, the American
Council of Learned Societies, the University of California Center for
Germanic and European Studies, and the University of California Com
mittee on Research. Clare Hall, Cambridge University kindly provided
me a visiting membership while I was engaged in writing the manuscript.
And three institutions allowed me to teach courses on its theme: the
College international de philosophic of Paris in 1985, the School of
LX
Criticism and Theory at Dartmouth College in 1986, and Tulane Uni-
versity, where I was Mellon Professor in summer of 1990. There can
be no better preparation for writing a book of this kind than testing its
ideas out in seminars comprising both faculty and advanced graduate
student participants, who taught me far more than I t;mght them. Only
they will know how much this book is a collaborative effort. Special
thanks are due to Bernard Pulman,
Galt Harpham for their respective invitations to conduct those seminars.
During the year I spent in Paris, I also was abetted by the kind-
nesses of many French scholars, whose names will be found in the
pages that follow. Let me acknowledge them with gratitude:
Christine Buci-Glucksmann, Cornelius Castoriadis, the late Michel de
Certeau, Daniel Defert, Luce Giard, Jean-Joseph Goux, Luce Irigaray,
Sarah Kofman, Claude Lefort, Michel LOwy, Lyotard,
Gerard Raulet, Jacob Rogozinski, and Philippe Soulez. I have aiso deeply
benefited from conversations with Jacques Derrida, Philippe Lacoue
Labarthe, Jean-Luc Nancy, and the late Michel Foucaulr during their vis
its to America.
I also owe an enormous debt to the following and colleagues,
who in a variety of ways left their mark on this book: Svetlana Alpers,
Mitchell Ash, Ann Banfield, Susanna Barrows, William Bouwsma,
Teresa Brennan, Carolyn Burke, Drucilla Cornell, Carolyn Dean, John
Forrester, Hal Foster, Michael Fried, Amos Funkenstein, Claude
Gandelman, Alexander Gelly, John Glenn, Joseph Graham, Richard
Gringeri, Sabine Gross, Robert Harvey, Joan Hart, Frederike Hassauer,
Eloise Knapp Hay, Denis Hollier, Michael Ann Holly, Axel Honneth,
Karen Jacobs, Michael Janover, Dalia Judovitz, Anton Kaes, Kent Kraft,
Rosalind Krauss, Dominick LaCapra, Thomas Laqueur, David Michael
Levin, the late Eugene Lunn, Jane Malmo, Greil Marcus, Irving Massey,
]ann Matlock, Frans;oise Meltzer, Stephen Melville, Juliet Mitchell, John
Durham Peters, Mark Poster, Christopher Prendergast, Anson Rabin
bach, Paul Rabinow, John Rajchman, Bill Readings, Eric Rentschler, Irit
Rogoff, Michael Rosen, Michael Roth, Michael Schudsen, Joel Snyder,
Kristine Stiles, Sidra Stich, Marx Wartofsky, John Welchman, J. M.
x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS