Psyche: Inventions of the Other, Volume I (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics)

225 Pages·2007·19.03 MB·English

by  Jacques Derrida

PSYCH E
Inventions of the Other, Volume I
laird by Peggy Kama and Elizabeth Rottenberg Jacques Derrida
Stanford
University
Press
Stanford
California
2007
Contents
Stanford University Press

Stanford, California Editors' Foreword ix
English translation and Editors' Foreword © 2007 by the
Author's Preface xii
Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.
All rights reserved.
§ I Psyche: Invention of the Other
Pgehe originally appeared in French as Psyche: Inventions de
l'autre, tomes I et II, by Jacques Derrida. § 2 The Retrait of Metaphor 48
Copyright © Editions Galilee 1987/2003.
§ 3 What Remains by Force of Music 8i
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
Iiirm or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including § 4 To Illustrate, He Said . . . 90
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system without the prior written permission of § 5 Envoi 94
Stanford University Press.
§ 6 Me—Psychoanalysis 129
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free, archival-quality paper § 7 At This Very Moment in This Work
Here I Am 143
I Rita' y of ( :ongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
§ 8 Des tours de Babel 191
Derrida, Jacques.
[Psyche. English] § 9 Telepathy 226
INyt he : inventions of the other / Jacques Derrida.
p. c tn. (Meridian: crossing aesthetics) § io Ex abrupto
262
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978 1) 8047-4798-1 (cloth : v. 1 : alk. paper) § II The Deaths of Roland Barthes 264
ISBN 978 0 8047-4799-8 (pbk. : v. 1 : alk. paper)
§ 12 An Idea of Flaubert: "Plato's Letter" 299
ISBN 978-0-8047-5766-9 (cloth : v. 2 : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-8047-5767-6 (pbk. : v. 2 : alk. paper) § t3 Geopsychoanalysis "and the rest of the world" 318
i. Soul. z. Narcissism. 3. Other minds.
(•heory of knowledge) I. Title. § 4 My Chances I Mes chances: A Rendezvous
1

B243o.D483P7813 2007 with Some Epicurean Stereophonies 344
194—dc22
2006037117
Contents
v ill

■iS Racism's Last Word 377 Editors' Foreword
Nu Apocalypse, Not Now: Full Speed Ahead,
i6
Seven Missiles, Seven Missives 387
411
SfIllree3 432
Index of Proper Names 435
The English edition of this work by Derrida is long overdue. Initially
published in one large (652-page) volume in 1987, Psyche: Inventions de
l'autre grew to two volumes in its second edition (1998, 2003) when two
essays were added to the original twenty-six ("My Chances / Mes chances"
in volume 1 and "Interpretations at War" in volume 2). With few excep-
tions, all of the essays eventually gathered here have long been available in
English translation; indeed, several of them appeared in English versions
before Derrida collected them in Psyche in their original French. And yet
to say that these translations were available is misleading in several ways.
First, because over time they have scattered to the four winds prevailing
over the fortunes of scholarly publishing, and several of the places of pub-
lication for these translations have since disappeared, or were so out of the
way from the start that few libraries ever entered them in their catalogues.
Second, because Derrida set the essays in this work and meant them to
be accessed within the contiguity it provides, within what he calls in his
preface "a mobile multiplicity." "These texts," he writes, "follow one an-
other, link up or correspond to one another, despite the evident difference
of their motifs and themes, the distance that separates the places, mo-
ments, circumstances" (xii). What has been available in English until now,
therefore, leaves out these connections and this correspondence, which
only the work called Psyche can provide. Finally, it is misleading to say the
translations have long been available, because, without exception, Der-
rida revised each essay for inclusion in Psyche, thereby rendering obsolete
translations based on unrevised versions or even sometimes on the text of
ix
x Editors' Foreword Editors' Foreword xi
unpublished lectures. Although the extent of the author's revisions varies selves, alas, when we must no longer be concerned with the other in ourselves,
considerably from one text to another, not one of the essays included here we can no longer be concerned with anyone except the other in ourselves. The
will be found to correspond exactly to the previously published English narcissistic wound enlarges infinitely for want of being able to be narcissistic
version. any longer, for no longer even finding appeasement in that Erinnerung we call
These essays, then, have appeared in myriad journals and collections in the work of mourning. Beyond internalizing memory, it is then necessary to
think, which is another way of remembering. (9)
English, and many translators have had a hand in them. Given this disper-
sion and diversity, it is hardly surprising that the sort of correspondence
"It is then necessary to think . . . "; yes, and to think how thinking is an
and links Derrida signaled among the essays got lost from one transla-
invention of the other. This is Psyche's injunction, which we now pass on
t b► to the next, since they were rarely done with any of the others in in another language.
mind. Rut the same conditions also explain why there was a great variance
among translating "styles," which will remain palpable to some degree Peggy Kamuf
for the reader of these two volumes, because we have not sought system- Elizabeth Rottenberg
atically to overcome it with our editing. We have, however, endeavored
to revise existing translations, and sometimes extensively, according to a
principle of allegiance or alliance to the idiom of Derrida's writing, to the
grain, rhythm, and tone of his thought as it puts itself to work and into
the work. This allegiance to the written work and the work of writing
means that throughout we have sought less to comfort eventual English
readers than to give them access, through English, to Derrida's thought in
its practice of reflecting on the language condition in general, but always
necessarily in a particular language.
Translator's and editor's notes have been kept to a minimum. In the
text of the essays square brackets or, on very rare occasions, curly brackets
enclose insertions by the translators or editors, usually to clarify a transla-
tion, When brackets enclose an insertion within a quotation, these indi-
cate a comment or clarification made by the author.
Work on this project began in earnest in 2003, when we could still look
liirward to collaborating with the author whenever the need might arise.
We knew from earlier experiences translating and editing Jacques Derrida's
work that wr could count on his always generous counsel and support.
I (is disappearance leaves this work, in its survivance, bereft and inconsol-
able. Rut the inconsolable condition of thought is also what is called here,
in the first essay that gives its title to the whole work, "Psyche," the mir-
ror, and the mirror that must, sooner or later, be broken:
So we Pier why the breaking of the mirror is still more necessary, because at
the inpoant of death, the limit of narcissistic reappropriation becomes terribly
%hap, it increases and neutralizes suffering: let us weep no longer over our-
Author's Preface xiii
or the preface, thanks to the play of some metonymy. I made another
Author's Preface
choice. By disrupting the chronological order only once, I thought that
"Psyche: Invention of the Other" might better play this role. At the
halfway point (1983), a certain psyche [which is also what the French
call a "cheval glass," that is, a full-length, free-standing mirror] seems to
pivot on its axis so as to reflect in its way the texts that preceded it and
those that followed. By the same token, a mobile mirror feigns to gather
the book together: in any case in what resembles it, its image or phan-
tasm. This remains, after all—technique of the simulacrum—always the
proper function of a preface.
Simulacrum and specularity. It is a matter here of speculating on a
mirror and on the disconcerting logic of what is blithely called narcis-
sism. There is some complacent self-satisfaction, already, in the gesture
These texts have accompanied, in some fashion, the works I have pub- that consists in publishing. Simply in publishing. This first complacency
lished over the last ten years.' But they have also been dissociated from is elementary; no denial could erase it. What then should be said of
those works, separated, distracted. This is marked in their formation, the gesture that gathers up previous writings, whether or not they are
whether one understands with this word the movement that engenders by unpublished?' Without denying this additional exhibition, let us say
giving form or the figure that gathers up a mobile multiplicity: configura- that it also makes up the object of this book. But the mirror named
tion in displacement. A formation must move forward but also advance psyche does not figure an object like any other. Nor is the gesture that
in a group. According to some explicit or tacit law, it is required to space gets caught wanting to show the mirror just one gesture among others.
itself out without getting too dispersed. If one were to make of this law Whether or not it is granted this right, whether or not it makes of the
a theory, the formation of these writings would proceed like a distracted right a duty, it has no choice but to watch itself showing while listening
theory. to itself speak. Is that possible?
1," of a discontinuous theory or discreet appearance of the series, these And why expose oneself to this risk? To the other each time addressed,
texts, then, follow one another, link up or correspond to one another, de- the question also becomes a demand. In its most general and most im-
spite the evident difference of their motifs and themes, the distance that plicit form, it could be translated in several words, thus: What is an in-
separates the places, moments, circumstances. vention? And what does invention signify when it must be of the other?
And the names, especially the names, proper names. Each of the es- The invention of the other would imply that the other remains still me,
says appears in fact to he devoted, destined, or even singularly dedicated in me, of me, at best, for me (projection, assimilation, interiorization,
to sontronc, very often to the friend, man or woman, close or distant, introjection, analogic appresentation, at best, phenomenality)? Or else
living or not, known or unknown. It is sometimes but not always a that my invention of the other remains the invention of me by the other
poet Or a thinker, the philosopher or the writer. It is sometimes but who finds me, discovers me, institutes or constitutes me? By coming
not always the one who puts things on stage in the worlds that are called from her (or him), the invention of the other would then return to him
politics, the theater, psychoanalysis, architecture. Certain texts seem to (or her).
hear witness better than others to this quasi-epistolary situation. "Let- Is there a choice between these modalities? The other without me, be-
ter to a Japanese Friend," "Envoi," "Telepathy," "'Plato's Letter'" or yond nic, in me, in the impossible experience of the gift and of mourning,
"Seven Missives," for example, might have stood in the place of the title in the impossible condition of experience, is that not still something else?
sll
xiv Author's Preface
The gift, mourning, the psyche, are they thinkable beyond all psycholo-
gism? And what, then, does thinking mean?
the question corresponds, if it corresponds always to some demand
PSYCHE
come from the other, then it lets itself already be preceded by a strange
affirmation. To watch over this affirmation, perhaps it is necessary first of
all to transport oneself/ surrender oneself to what comes before the question
!Pour veiller sur elle, peut-etre faut-il se rendre a la veille de la question].
—Translated by Peggy Kamuf
§ i Psyche: Invention of the Other
What else am I going to be able to invent?
Here perhaps we have an inventive incipit for a lecture. Imagine, if
you will, a speaker daring to address his hosts in these terms. He thus
seems to appear before them without knowing what he is going to say;
he declares rather insolently that he is setting out to improvise. Obliged
as he is to invent on the spot, he wonders again: "Just what am I going to
have to invent?" But simultaneously he seems to be implying, not without
presumptuousness, that the improvised speech will remain unpredictable,
that is to say, as usual, "still" new, original, unique—in a word, inven-
tive. And in fact, by having at least invented something with his very first
sentence, such an orator would be breaking the rules, would be breaking
with convention, etiquette, the rhetoric of modesty, in short, with all the
conditions of social interaction. An invention always presupposes some
illegality, the breaking of an implicit contract; it inserts a disorder into the
peaceful ordering of things, it disregards the proprieties. Showing appar-
ently none of the patience of a preface—it is itself a new preface—it goes
And frustrates expectations.
"Psyche: Invention of the Other" is the text of two lectures given at Cornell
University in April 1984 and again at Harvard University (the Renato Poggioli
Lectures) in April 1986.
Psyche: Invention of the Other Psyche: Invention of the Other
2 3
trying once more to borrow from him—from among all the things we
The Question of the Son
have received from him—a bit of that serene discretion that marked the
Cicero would certainly not have advised his son to begin this way. For, force and radiance of his thought. I was determined to do this at Cornell
as you know, it was in responding one day to his son's request and de- because he taught here and has many friends here among his former col-
sire that Cicero defined, on one occasion among others, oratorical inven- leagues and students. Last year, on the occasion of a similar lecture and
tion.' not long after he was last among you,' I likewise recalled that in 1967,
The reference to Cicero is indispensable here. If we are to speak of in- he directed the first Cornell University program in Paris. It is then that
vention, we must always keep in mind the word's Latin roots, which mark I first came to know him, to read him, to listen to him, and there began
the construction of the concept and the history of its problematics. More- between us—I owe him so much—an unfailing friendship that was to be
over, the first request of Cicero's son bears on language, and on transla- utterly cloudless and that will remain in my life, in me, one of the rarest
tion from Greek to Latin: "Studeo, mi pater, Latine ex to audire ea quae and most precious rays of light.
milli to de ratione dicendi Graece tradidisti, si modo tibi est otium et si In "Pascal's Allegory of Persuasion," de Man pursues his unceasing
vis"; "I am burning with a desire, father, to hear you say to me in Latin meditation on the theme of allegory. And it is also, more or less directly,
those things concerning the doctrine of speaking that you have given [dis- invention as allegory (invention of the other), as myth or fable, that I
pensed, reported, delivered or translated, bequeathed] to me in Greek, at want to talk about today. Is the invention of the other an allegory, a myth,
least if you have the time and want to do it." a fable? After pointing out that allegory is "sequential and narrative," al-
Cicero the father answers his son. He first tells him, as if to echo his though "the topic of its narration" is "not necessarily temporal at all," de
request or to restate it narcissistically, that as a father, his first desire is Man insists on the paradoxes in what we could call the task of allegory or
for his son to be as knowing as possible, doctissimum. The son has then, the allegorical imperative: "Allegory is the purveyor of demanding truths,
with his burning desire, anticipated the father's wish. Since his desire is and thus its burden is to articulate an epistemological order of truth and
burning with that of his father, the latter easily takes satisfaction in it and deceit with a narrative or compositional order of persuasion." And in the
reappropriates it for himself in satisfying it. Then the father offers the son same development, he comes across the classical distinction of rhetoric as
this lesson: given that the orator's special power, his vis, consists in the invention and rhetoric as disposition: "A large number of such texts on the
things he deals with (ideas, themes, objects), as well as in the words he relationship between truth and persuasion exist in the canon of philoso-
met+, invention has to be distinguished from disposition; invention finds phy and rhetoric, often crystallized around such traditional philosophi-
or discovers things, while disposition places or localizes them, positions cal topoi as the relationship between analytic and synthetic judgments,
them while arranging them: "res et verba invenienda sunt et collocanda." between propositional and modal logic, between logic and mathematics,
Yet invention is "properly" applied to ideas, to the things one is talking between logic and rhetoric, between rhetoric as inventio and rhetoric as
about, and not to elocution or verbal forms. As for disposition or collo- dispositio, and so forth" (2).
cation (eollootre), which situates words as well as things, form as well as Had we had the time for it here, we would have wondered why and
substance, it is often linked to invention, father Cicero then explains. So how, in the positive notion of rights that is established between the sev-
disposition, furnishing places with their contents, concerns both words enteenth and the nineteenth centuries, the view of an author's rights, or
and things. We would then have, on the one hand, the "invention-dispo- of an inventor's proprietary rights in the realm of arts and letters, takes
sition" pairing for ideas or things, and, on the other hand, the "elocution- into account only form and composition. This law thus excludes all con-
disposition' pairing words or forms. sideration of "things," content, thematics, or meaning. All the legal texts,
We now have in place one of the most traditional philosophical topoi. often at the price of considerable difficulty and confusion, stress this
Paul tie Man recalls that topos in a beautifully wrought text entitled "Pas- point: invention can display its originality only in the values of form and
cal's Allegory of Persuasion."• I should like to dedicate this lecture to the composition. As for "ideas," they belong to everyone; universal in their
memory of Paul de Man. Allow me to do so in a very simple way, by essence, they could not ground a property right. Is that a betrayal, a bad
4 Psyche: Invention of the Other Psyche: Invention of the Other 5
translation, or a displacement of the Ciceronian heritage? Let us leave this and the allegory begin—it will also need the signature or the countersig-
question hanging. I simply wanted to begin here with some praise for fa- nature of the other, let's say here that of a son who would no longer be the
ther Cicero. Even if he never invented anything else, I find a great deal of father's invention. A son will have to recognize the invention as such, as
vis, of inventive power, in someone who opens a discourse on discourse, if the heir were the sole judge (remember the word "judgment"), as if the
a treatise on oratory art, and a text on invention, with what I shall call son's countersignature held the legitimating authority.
the question of the son as a question de ratione dicendi. This question hap- But presenting an invention, presenting itself as an invention, the dis-
pens also to be a scene of traditio as tradition, transfer, and translation; we course I am talking about will have to have its invention evaluated, recog-
could also say it is an allegory of metaphor. The child who speaks, ques- nized, and legitimized by someone else, by an other who is not one of the
tions, zealously (studeo) seeks knowledge—is he the fruit of an invention? family: the other as member of a social community and of an institution.
I )ocs one invent a child? If the child invents himself, is it as the specular For an invention can never be private once its status as invention, let us
invention of parental narcissism or is it as the other who, in speaking, say its patent or warrant, its manifest, open, public identification, has
in responding, becomes the absolute invention, the irreducible transcen- to be certified and conferred. Let us translate: as we speak of invention,
dence of what is nearest, all the more heterogeneous and inventive in that that old, grandfatherly subject we are seeking to reinvent here today, we
it seems to respond to parental desire? The truth of the child, therefore, ought to see this very speech granted a patent, the title of invention—and
would invent itself in a sense that would be neither that of unveiling nor that presupposes a contract, consensus, promise, commitment, institu-
that of discovery, neither that of creation nor that of production. It would tion, law, legality, legitimation. There is no natural invention and yet
—
be found where truth is thought beyond any inheritance. The concept of invention also presupposes originality, originarity, generation, engender-
this truth would itself remain without any possible inheritance. Is that ing, genealogy, that is to say, a set of values often associated with genius
possible? This question will resurface later on. Does it first of all concern or geniality, thus with naturality. Hence the question of the son, of the
the son, the legitimate offspring and bearer of the name? signature, and of the name.
What else am I going to be able to invent? We can already see the singular structure of such an event taking shape.
It is certainly expected of a discourse on invention that it should fulfill Who sees it taking shape? The father, the son? Who finds himself ex-
its own promise or honor its contract: it will deal with invention. But it cluded from this scene of invention? Which other of invention? Father,
is also hoped (the letter of the contract implies this) that it will put forth son, daughter, wife, brother, or sister? If invention is never private, what
something brand-new—in its words or its contents, in its utterance or its then is its relation to all the family dramas?
enunciation—on the subject of invention. To however limited an extent, So, then, the singular structure of an event, for the speech act I am
in order not to disappoint its audience, it ought to invent. One expects of 'peaking of must be an event. It will be so, on the one hand, insofar
it that it will say the unexpected. No preface announces it; no horizon of as it is singular, and, on the other hand, inasmuch as its very singular-
expectation prefaces its reception. ity will produce the coming or the coming about of something new.
Invention: in spite of all the ambiguity of this word and concept, you It should make come about or allow the coming of what is new in a
already have some sense of what I want to say. "first time ever." The full weight of the enigma is borne in every word
l'his discourse must then be presented as an invention. Without claim- used here—"new," "event," "coming," "singularity," "first time" (here the
ing to he inventive through and through, and continually, it has to exploit English phrase "first time" marks the tem;poral aspect that the French pre-
a largely common stock of rule-governed resources and possibilities in miere /bis elides). Never does an invention appear, never does an invention
order to sign, as it were, an inventive proposition, at least one, and that take place, without an inaugural event. Nor is there any invention with-
signed innovation will alone determine the extent to which it will be able out an advent, if we take this latter word to mean the inauguration for
to engage the listener's desire. But—and here is where the dramatization the future of a possibility or of a power that will remain at the disposal of
6 Psyche: Invention of the Other Psyche: Invention of the Other 7
everyone. Advent there must be, because the event of an invention, its act it has begun to invent on the subject of invention, paving the way for it,
of inaugural production, once recognized, legitimized, countersigned by a inaugurating or signing its singularity, bringing it about, as it were; and
social consensus according to a system of conventions, must be valid for all the while it is also naming and describing the generality of its genre
the future [l'avenir]. It will only receive its status of invention, furthermore, and the genealogy of its topos: de inventione, sustaining our memory of
to the extent that this socialization of the invented thing is protected by a the tradition of a genre and its practitioners. In its claim to be invent-
system of conventions that will at the same time ensure its inscription in ing again, such a discourse would be stating the inventive beginning by
a common history, its belonging to a culture: to a heritage, a patrimony, a speaking of itself in a reflexive structure that not only does not produce
pedagogical tradition, a discipline, a chain of generations. Invention begins coincidence with or presence to itself but instead projects forward the ad-
by being susceptible to repetition, exploitation, reinscription. vent of the self, of "speaking" or "writing" of itself as other, that is to say,
While limiting ourselves to a network that is not solely lexical and can- following a trace. I shall content myself here with mentioning that value
not he reduced to the games of a simple verbal invention, we have already of "self-reflexivity" so often at the core of Paul de Man's analyses. Doubt-
encountered the convergence of several modes of coming or of venue, less more resistant than it seems, it has occasioned some very interesting
the enigmatic collusion of invenire and inventio, of event and advent, of debates, notably in essays by Rodolphe Gasche and Suzanne Gearhart.4 I
fitture-to-come [l'avenir], of adventure, and of convention. How could one shall try to return to these matters some other time.
translate this lexical cluster outside the Romance languages while preserv- In speaking of itself, then, such a discourse would be trying to gain
ing its unity, the unity linking the first time of invention to the coming, recognition by a public community not only for the general truth value
to the arrival of the future [avenir], of the event, of the advent, of the of what it is advancing on the subject of invention (the truth of invention
convention or of the adventure? Of course, for the most part, these words and the invention of truth), but at the same time for the operative value
of Latin origin are welcomed, for example, into English (even the term of a technical apparatus henceforth available to all.
"venue," in its narrow, highly coded judicial sense, and the special sense of
"advent" designating the coming of Christ); they are welcome with, how- Fables: Beyond the Speech Act
ever, a notable exception at the center of this home and hearth: the venir
hull. 'lb he sure, an invention amounts, says the Oxford English Diction- Without yet having cited it, I have for a while now been describing a
my, to the action of coming upon or finding." But I can already imagine text by Francis Ponge, with one finger pointed toward the margin of my
the inventiveness required of the translator of this lecture in those places discourse. This text is quite short: six lines in italics, seven counting the
where it exploits the institution of the Latin-based languages. Even if this title line—I will come back in a moment to this figure 7--plus a two-line
verbal collusion appears adventurous or conventional, it makes us think. parenthesis in roman type. The roman and italic characters, although their
What does it make us think? What else? Whom else? What do we still positions are reversed from one edition to the next, may serve to highlight
have to invent in regard to the coming, the venire? What does it mean, to the Latin linguistic heritage that I have mentioned and that Ponge never
come? '16 come a first time? Every invention supposes that something or ceased to claim for himself and for his poetics.
comes a first time, something or someone comes to someone, to 'lb what genre does this text belong? Perhaps we are dealing with one of
h0111C011e
someone else. But for an invention to be an invention, in other words, those pieces Bach called his Inventions, contrapuntal pieces in two or three
unique (even if the uniqueness has to be repeatable), it is also necessary voices that are developed on the basis of a brief initial cell whose rhythm
for this first time to be a last time: archaeology and eschatology acknowl- and melodic contour are very clear and sometimes lend themselves to an
edge each other here in the irony of the one and only instant. eittentially didactic writing.' Ponge's text puts in place one such initial
So we are considering the singular structure of an event that seems to cell, which is the following syntagm: "Par le mot par . . . ," that is, "With
produce itself by speaking about itself, by the act of speaking of itself once the word with. . . . " I shall designate this invention not by its genre but by
its title, namely, by its proper name, "Fable."