Psyche: Inventions of the Other, Volume I (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics) PDF
Preview Psyche: Inventions of the Other, Volume I (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics)
IUHipiI hy PrKKY K;mmf and Elizabeth Rottenberg Stanford University Press Stanford California 2007 PSYCH E Inventions ofthe Other, Volume I Jacques Derrida Stanford University Press Stanford, California English translation and Editors' Foreword © 2007 by the Hoard of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. IHychr originally appeared in French as Psyche: Inventions de I'autre, tomes I et II, by Jacques Derrida. Copyright © Editions Galilee 1987/2003. Nu Jiilri of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or hy any means, electronic or mechanical, including |>luiliK n|>yinl\ and recording, or in any information storage or rririrval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper I .ilii'jiy of ( .ongrr-ss Cataloging-in-Publication Data Derrida, Jacques. [Psyche. English] INyi hr : inventions of the other I Jacques Derrida. p. mi. (Meridian: crossing aesthetics) Includes bibliographical references. ISUN •17H o K047-479K-1 (doth : v. I : alk. paper) ISHN 97H o K047-4799-H (pbk. : v. 1 : alk. paper) ISHN 97H0-H047-5766-9 (cloth : v. 2: alk. paper) ISHN 97K-0 H047-5767-6 (pbk. : v. 2 : alk. paper) 1. Soul. 1.. Narcissism. 3. Other minds. (Theory of knowledge) I. Tide. B2430.D483P7813 2007 194—dc22 20060(7117 Contents Editors Foreword ix Author’s Preface xii § I Psyche: Invention of the Other i § 2 The Retrait of Metaphor 48 § 3 What Remains by Force of Music Si § 4 To Illustrate, He Said ... 90 § 5 Envoi 94 § 6 Me—Psychoanalysis 129 § 7 At This Very Moment in This Work Here I Am 143 § 8 Des tours de Babel 191 § 9 Telepathy 226 § 10 Exabrupto 262 § ii The Deaths of Roland Barthes 264 § 12 An Idea of Flaubert: “Plato’s Letter” 299 § 13 Geopsychoanalysis “and the rest of the world” 318 §14 My Chances I Mes chances: A Rendezvous with Some Epicurean Stereophonies 344 viii Contents \ 1 \ Km ism's Last Word 377 \ iti No Apocalypse, Not Now: Full Speed Ahead, Srvrii Missiles, Seven Missives 387 NtHfi 4// Sonnr> 4J2 ufPmprr Mtmes 435 Editors’ Foreword The English edition of this work by Derrida is long overdue. Initially published in one large (652-page) volume in 1987, Psyche: Inventions de I’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 I 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). ^^at 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 hased on unrevised versions or even sometimes on the text of IX x Editors’ Foreword unpublished lectures. Although the extent of the author's revi sions varies considerably from one text to another, not one of the essays included here will be found to correspond exactly to the previously published English Version. These essays, then, have appeared in myriad journals and collections in English, and many translators have had a hand in them. G iven this disper sion ;md diversity, it is hardly surprising that the sort of correspondence and links Derrida signaled among the essays got lost from one transla tion to the next, since they were rarely done with any of the others in mind. But the same conditions also explain why there was a great variance among translating “styles,” which will remain palpable to some degree for ihc reader of these two volumes, because we have not sought system atically to overcome it with our editing. We have, however, endeavored to revise existing translations, and sometimes extensively, according to a princ iple 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 mcuns that throughout we have sought less to comfort eventual English ft'adcrs than to give them access, through English, to Derrida's thought in it* practice of reflecting on the language condition in general, but always ncccssarily in a particular language. Translator's and editor’s notes have been kept to a minimum. In the text of ihr essays square brackets or, on very rare occasions, curly brackets enclose insertions by the translators or editors, usually to clarify a transla- lion. When brackets enclose an insertion within a quotation, these indi cate 11 comment or clari fication made by the author. Work on this project began in earnest in 2003, when we could still look forward to collaborating with the author whenever the need might arise. We knew from earlier experi ences translating and editingJacques Derrida's work that we could count on his always generous counsel and support. I Iu disappearance leaves this work, in its survivance, bereft and inconsol able. Hut the inconsolable condition of thought is also what is called here, In the lir1l essay that gives its title to the whole work, “Psyche," the mir ror, 11ml the mirror lhat must, sooner or later, be broken: Su w<' *rr why ihc breaking of the mirror is still more necessary, because at tlir imum ol tlrudi, the limil of narcissistic reappropriation becomes terribly itholp, it im rcases .mil neutralizes suffering: let us weep no longer over our- Editors Foreword Xl selves, alas, when we must no longer be concerned with the other in ourselves, we can no longer be concerned with anyone except the other in ourselves. The narcissistic wound enlarges infinitely for want of being able to be narcissistic any longer, for no longer even finding appeasement in that Erinnerungwe call the work of mourning. Beyond internalizing memory, it is then necessary to think, which is another way of remembering. (9) “It is then necessary to think ... ”; yes, and to think how thinking is an invention of the other. This is Psyche’s injunction, which we now pass on in another language. Peggy Kamuf ElElfabeth Rottenberg Author’s Preface These texts have accompanied, in some fashion, the works I have pub lished over the last ten years.1 But they have also been dissociated from those works, separated, distracted. This is marked in their formation, whether one understands with this word the movement that engenders by giving form or the figure that gathers up a mobile multiplicity: configura tion in displacement. A formation must move forward but also advance in a group. According to some explicit or tacit law, it is required to space itself out without getting too dispersed. If one were to make of this law 11 theory, the formation of these writings would proceed like a distracted tht't1ry. I ,itw of a discontinuous theory or discreet appearance of the series, these texts, iht'n, follow one another, link up or correspond to one another, de spite ihe evident d ifference of their motifs and themes, the distance that sepuratcs the places, moments, circumstances. And the names, especially the names, proper names. Each of the es says appears in (act to be1 devoted, destined, or even singularly dedicated lo someone, very often to the friend, man or woman, close or distant, living or noi, known or unknown. It is sometimes but not always a pod or a ihinkcr. the philosopher or the writer. It is sometimes but lint always lht' one who puts things on stage in the worlds that are called politics, the theater, psychoanalysis, architecture. Certain texts seem to hear wimess better than others to this quasi-epistolary situation. “Let ter lo a Japanese Friend," “Envoi,” “Telepathy,” ‘“ Plato's Letter’” or "Seven Missives,” for example, might have stood in the place of the title xii
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