MARGUERITE DURAS AS A PHILOSOPHER LECTURE: CUBITT, LONDON SUNDAY 15 JUNE 2008
This lecture is about the PHILOSOPHICAL IMPLICATIONS of the WORK of MARGUERITE DURAS.
As you know MARGUERITE DURAS is a FRENCH WRITER that was born in 1914 and died in 1996.
She is a WRITER and FILMMAKER.
So why do I address her as a PHILOSOPHER? Is there any RIGHT to do so?
1. WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?
2. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A PHILOSOPHER?
And
3. WHY DOES IT MAKE SENSE TO ADRESS DURAS AS A PHILOSOPHER?
These are the QUESTIONS I want to answer tonight.
THE first DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY I want to propose you is this: PHILOSOPHY is the COURAGE to ANSWER QUESTIONS that NOBODY has posed.
Often you can heare the OPPOSITE. Things like:
- PHILOSOPHY is about QUESTIONING.
- PHILOSOPHERS have QUESTIONS while otherss stop questioning.
- PHILOSOPHY is a CRITICAL INTERROGATION of its TIME,
and so on...
I think THIS DEFINITION of PHILOSOPHY is WEAK. It REDUCES PHILOSOPHY to a CRITICAL PROCEDURE of INTERROGATION. It ASSIMILATES PHILOSOPHY to JOURNALISM.
My CLAIM is to AFFIRM PHILOSOPHY not as a CRITICAL REFLECTION but as a BLIND SELLFACCELERATION towards the LIMIT or the INCONCISTENCY of the ESTABLISHED KNOWLEDGE SYSTEM.
I call this KNOWLEDGE SYSTEM the UNIVERSE OF THE FACTS. It`s simply REALITY as we KNOW and UNDERSTAND it. It`s our COMMON SPACE.
It`s the SPHERE OF SHARED OPINIONS, EVIDENCES and VALUES. In LACANIAN TERMES: THE SYMBOLIC ORDER. The ORDER OF LANGUAGE, the LOGICAL SPACE that nontheless is structured by a MULTIPLICITY of CONTRADICTIONS. These CONTRADICTIONS, these INTERRUPTIONS of LOGIC ITSELF – far away to DISRUPT THE LOGICAL SPACE – make very part of it.
THE REALITY SPHERE is this CONTRADICTORY SPACE that could be called the UNIVERSE OF FUNCTION.
Although this SPACE is CHARACTERISED by a MULTIPLICITY of OVERLAPPING CONTEXTS – like the POLITICAL, the SOCIAL, the BIOLOGICAL, the CULTURAL CONTEXT – it is HOMOGENOUS in the way it WORKS as a SPHERE OF CONSISTENCIES, the so called FACTS.
PHILOSOPHY is in TOUCH with the INCONCISTENCY of these CONCISTENCIES, that means PHILOSOPHY experiences the WEAK POINT of REALITY as such.
THIS is PRECISELY what DURAS calls WRITING.
As you know DURAS wrote a BOOK with this TITLE ‘ECRIRE” / ‘WRITING’.
It has been published in 1993. It is her LAST BOOK.
Like GILLES DELEUZE, who published his last book ‘CRITIQUE ET CLINIQUE’ the same year, DURAS opens up the DIMENSION of the OUTSIDE or EXTERIOR that is another name for the SPHERE of the INCOMMENSURABLE.
WRITING is this: the OPENING and SELFOPENING of the SUBJECT OF WRITING toward the DIMENSION of CLOSURE, of SENSE- and SELFCLOSURE, of EMPTINESS or NOTHINGNESS in the MID of REALITY.
WRITING does not only mean to COMBINE WORDS to SENTENCES, to BUILT up by doing this any SENSE.
WRITING – like DURAS understand it – is a MODE OF EXISTENCE. While WRITING the SUBJECT is in TOUCH with INCOMMENSURABILITY / with the UNLIVEABLE as such.
This is the DIFFERENCE Duras evokes between LITERATURE and WRITING: LITERATURE is ABOUT something. WRITING is on NOTHING.
LITERATURE is about a PLOT, a CONSISTENT STORY, the LOGIC of CHARACTERS, etc. WRITING means to EXPERIENCE the BREAKDOWN of this LOGIC. To WRITE means to get in TOUCH WITH THE UNTOUCHABLE that is INCONCISTENCY itself.
I call – in PHILOSOPHICAL TERMS – this INCONCISTENCY the INCOMMENSURABLE. I think the DIFFERENCE between LITERATURE and WRITING evoked by DURAS is the DIFFERENCE between the EXPERIENCE (in the case of LITERATURE) of COMMENSURABILITIES or (in WRITING) of the INCOMMENSURABLE.
From the very BEGINNING of her WORK – with novels like LES IMPUDENTS (1943), LA VIE TRANQUILLE (1944), UN BARRAGE CONTRE LE PACIFIQUE (1950) – DURAS confronts us with the HUMAN SUBJECT as an INCONSISTENT – a GHOSTLY – SUBJECT.
It is a SUBJECT that EXPERIENCES itself BEYOND ITSELF. It`s IRREDUCIBLE to the CONSISTENCY of its SITUATION, its HISTORICAL TIME, izs SITUATION, its CULTURAL IMACT, its REALITY.
It is, what I call a SUBJECT WITHOUT SUBJECTIVITY. A SUBJECT that is NOT GUARANTEED by any SUBSTANTIAL or TRANSCENDENTAL or TRANSCENDENT STRUCTURE like for example the TRANCENDENTAL SUBJECTIVITY (in KANT and HUSSERL) is.
In TRANCENDENTAL PHENOMENOLOGY each SINGULAR SUBJECT – each EMPIRIC or ONTIC SUBJECT – is A SUBJECT in cause of its PARTICIPATION to this UNIVERSAL STRUCTURE that is TRANSCENTENTAL SUBJECTIVITY.
Beyond all APPARENTLY DIFFERENCES between the DIFFERENT SINGULAR SUBJECTS they have in common this PARTICIPATION on the WE-SUBJECTIVITY: the ESSENCE or NATURE of the HUMAN SUBJECT.
In CONTRADICTION or OPPOSED to this TRADITION of HUMANISM the FOCUS of DURAS’ WORK concerning the QUESTION OF THE HUMAN BEING is on the ORDER OF THE INHUMAN.
HUMANITY seems to be nothing but this CAPACITY of the HUMAN SUBJECT to TRANSGRESS itself towards this DIMENSION OF THE INHUMAN. This was one of the important LESSONS of the HOLOCAUST and HIROSHIMA for DURAS: that THIS is possible not AGAINST HUMAN NATURE but BECAUSE OF THE INHUMAN as HUMAN NATURE.
The SUBJECT evoked by DURAS is a SUBJECT of ESSENTIAL SOLITUDE. Close to MAURICE BLANCHOT DURAS developed an IDEA of THE HUMAN SUBJECT as ORIGINALLY LOST, ORIGINALLY DESORIENTATED, ORIGINALLY BEYOND ITSELF, BEYOND ANY IDENTITY PRINCIPLE.
To put it as CLEAR as possible: The WHOLE WORK of DURAS is a FIGHT against the IDENTITY PHANTASM that is the MAIN PHANTASM of the WHOLE HISTORY of OCCIDENTIAL PHILOSOPHY.
The PHILOSOPHICAL INTERVENTION OF DURAS is an ANTI-PHILOSOPHICAL INTERVENTION in this sense. Her WORK opens the DEFINITION of the HUMAN SUBJECT towards the INHUMAN that is it’s PROPER INCONCISTENCY, it’s PROPER INCOMMENSURABILITY.
WHAT IS WRITING (in the sense of DURAS), WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? (Philosophy of course that detaches itself from the IDENTITY PHANTASM)
WRITING and PHILOSOPHY have in COMMON this AFFIRMATION of INCOMMENSURABILITY in the VERY CENTRE of the HUMAN SUBJECT and it’s so called REALITY.
In at least 2 BOOKS DURAS wrote on this VOID or INCONCISTENCY in the HEART of the HUMAN UNIVERSE:
1. In LE RAVISSEMENT DE LOL V. STEIN (from 1964), where this INCONCISTENCY is associated to what she calls there LE MOT-TROU, the HOLE-WORD. There is a HOLE or a VOID in each word we normally ingnore because of the SUPPOSED CONSISTENCY – the MEANING – OF WORDS AND LANGUAGE AS SUCH. WRITING means to get in TOUCH with that EMPTINESS in the HEART OF LANGUAGE, with these ABYSS above all SENSE ARCHITECTURES, like f.e. LITERATURE, are built or constructed.
2. In EMILY L. (a novel published in 1987) you can find another EXPRESSION close to the MOT-TROU. Emily is WRITING a POEM, more then ONE, but THIS ONE POEM is THE POEM. It is in TOUCH with the ABYSSAL STRUCTURE OF REALITY itself.
In the POEM EMILY speaks about the "DIFFÉRENCE INTERNE AU COEUR DES SIGNIFICATIONS"/ “THE INTERNAL DIFFERENCE IN THE HEART OF MEANINGS”. I think: this DIFFERENCE is simply NOTHINGNESS itself. The NOTHINGNESS that I call the INCOMMENSURABLE that indicates the LIMIT of the SOCIAL-SYMBOLIC PARADIGM, the LIMIT of the UNIVERSE OF FACTS, the LIMIT of the ONTOLOGICAL ORDER.