Typography: Mimesis, Philosophy, Politics

318 Pages·1998·26.72 MB·English

by  Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe

Typography
MIMESIS, PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS
PHILIPPE LACQUE-LABARTHE
With an lntroduaion by Jacques Derrida
EDITED BY CHRISTOPHER FYNSK
LINDA M. BROOKS, EDITORIAL CONSULTANT
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE~ MASSACHUSETTS
LONDON, ENGLAND
1989
9004030
Copyright ~ 1989 by the: Presldc:nt and Fe:llows of Harvard (".allege
All raghts reserved
Pranted m the Unated Stares of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 + l Z I
Publication of thIS book has been aided by a grant from the: Andrew W. Mellon Foundanon
BlbhographlC infonnation on the essays appc:ant III dlC "Note: on SOUrce-II,"
ThIS book IS printed on acid-free paper, and Its btndmg matt.Tlals
have: becn chosc:n for srrength and durability,
l..I",."" ofC onpess Clltnlqging-;II-Pllblialtrtm DatB
Lacouc-Labarthe, Phihppe.
(Essays. Englil.h Selections I
Typography: mimcslS, philosophy, pohnc!!/ Philippe Lacouc
Labarrhe; with an introduction by Jacques Dc:rrida; edited by
Christopher fynsk
p. em.
Bibliography. p.
Includes indc)..
Contents: T~'pography-The cc:ho of the '1ubJcct-The caesura of
the sJXCulativc-H61dcrlin and the Gn.'C!c.s-Dideror
TraJ1S(cndencc ends In politics.
ISBN 0-67+-91700-6 (alk. pa~'f)
I. Philosophy. l. Literature-Philosophy. 3. Deconstruction.
+ HoJderlin, Friedrich, 171O-18+~. ~. Didcror, DeniS, 1713-178+
6. PLol*it ical SClCnl'C. I. Fyn~k, Christopher, 19SZ- II. Title.
B73. 1989 88-36989
19+-dCI9 CIP
lnmemoryo[
U.
EUGENIO DONATO
J937-1983

Editors Preface
Eugenio Donato left no projected table of contents for the collection
or collections of essays by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe that he hoped to
publish in translation. In Lacoue-Labarthe's own recollection, it is
clear that Donato originally planned to make "Typography" the center
piece of a first volume, and considered joining to it "The Echo of the
Subject" and Lacoue-Labarthe's essays on Holderlin and Diderot.
Since Donato also commissioned a number of other translations of es
says by Lacouc-Labarthe, it is possible that his final project would have
taken a difterent form altogether. But I have followed the initial plans
I
in establishing the present volume (adding only "Transcendence Ends
in Politics") because they have struck me as following most appropri
ately from the guiding principle that "Typography" should provide the
basis for an initial presentation in English of Lacoue-Labarthe's work.
"Typography" was by no means Lacoue-Labarthe's first significant
philosophical publication. It was preceded by "La Fable," "Lc De
tour," "Nietzsche apocryphe," and "L'Obliteration" (essays collected in
Le sujet de La philosophie), 2 as well as by the book on Lacan written with
Jean-Luc Nancy, Le titre de La lettre.3 But as Lacoue-Labarthe explains
in his "Avertissement" to Le sujet de la philosophie (subtided Typographies
I and anticipating in this way T..'YP18raphies 11, which was published in
I The remalmng tran~lanon~ will appcar an a volume to be: published bv the Umvcr
'ilty of Mmnesota Prc!ltS
~. Le slijet de III plJi/QsoplJie (Pari~: Aublcr-Flammarioll. 1979).
3 l~e tim de Is Itttre (Paris' Galilee, 19i~).
Editor's Preface
ViII
1986 with the principal title LJimitatWn des modcrnes) .. 4 "Typography"
gathers and refornlulato the questions broached in the previous es
says-questions ttlnling essentially upon the problem of the rclation
between philosophy and literature as it appears in and between the
texts of Nietz5<;he and Heidcgger; By recasting this topic in terms of
the question of mimesis, and by tracing through the texts of Plato and
Hcidegger a properly philosophical effort to contain its destabilizing
effects, "Typography" defines a problematic that has organized and
guided virtually all of Lacouc-Labarthe's work since the time of its
publication. Or more precisely, it opens the site that Lacoue-Labarthe's
writing continually retraverses in an ever-widening trajectory that
moves not only through the philosophical tradition whose "mi
metology" Lacoue-Labarthe seeks to delimit, but also through the
domains of politics, literature, theater, music, and painting.
It would not be inappropriate, I believe, to say that Lacoue
Labarthe has been elaborating since "Typography" a thought of mi
mesis; for his questioning moves at the level of, and from out of,
Heidegger's effort to delimit the metaphysics of representation (which
has programmed the translation of mimesis as "imitation") and
Heidegger's meditation on such guiding words for Western thought as
physis, techne, and aletheia. It would also not be inappropriate (though
one would have to take the measure of Lacoue-Labarthe's own wari
ness in relation to this tenn) to speak of a "thesis" (or theses) on
mimesis: in the pages that follow, Lacoue-Labarthe attempts to elabo
rate its abyssal "logic" and to define how this logic is at work in any
structure of (self-) representation or identification-be it in philoso
phy, literature, art, or politics. And as the question of minlcsis leads
Lacoue-Labarthe to the limits of each of these domains as they have
been circumscribed in the Western tradition, and thus to their point of
articulation (again abyssal), it lends his thought an astonishing scope
and force-a genera/. critical power.
But it is also a thought that "knows" itself to be at grips with some
thing exceeding any conceptual grasp, and dlat constantly gives itself
up, in writing, to the experience or trial of its own finirude. It is a
S
thought that is preoccupied witll its own "desistance" and that draws
4. l/","tlltiOlI des nzOM'1ICS (Pans: Galilee:, 1986).
~ 1 draw hcrc= up()n the nrlc of Lac:ouc-Laharth~'s book on Celan, La point comme
cxpm""e (Pans· Chnsnan Bourgols, 1986).
Editor's Preface IX
from this passion, or this obsession, the energy of its extraordinary
rigor and persistence. I defer here to Jacques Derrida's introduc
tion, and will not try to develop further the dimensions of Lacoue
Labarthe's properly tragic gesture of thought. But I would emphasize
with Derrida that the coherence of Lacoue-Labarthe's work is not that
of a "system" in the traditional sense of the term, and that if Lacoue
Labarthe elaborates a thesis concerning an irreducible instability in any
positing of identity, he is also constantly aware that this thesis must
fold uPOl1 itself at some point in its exposition. Lacoue-Labarthe is
seeking the limits of the philosophical as such, and this leads him to a
practice of reading and writing that is powerfully coherent, but that
does not have as its end the production of an oeuvre that is archi
tectonic in nature. His work is thus characterized by an irreducible
multiplicity to which the essays that follow bear witness, even while
they suggest something of the coherence that derives from Lacoue
Labarthe's persistent effort to follow the fil conduaeur of the question
of mimesis.
As the reader will observe-and most immediately in comparing the
two essays on Holderlin contained in this volume-the "multiplicity"
to which I refer inheres in the very style of Lacoue-Labarthe's writing.
In order to respect this dimension of Lacoue-Labarthe's work, and to
bring forth the extreme attention he gives to the problem of philo
sophical exposition (his own first of all)., I have sought to bring to each
of the translations a single notion of fidelity and to assure a continuity
in their 1tUJnner of translation, even while respecting as much as pos
sible the individual contributions of each translator. I want to thank
each of the translators for their patience with my efforts in this prop
erly impossible task. Particular thanks go to Peter Caws for permission
to use his translation of "Transcendence Ends in Politics" and for his
approval of n1y additions and minor changes. I also want to thank Jan
McVicker for her invaluable assistance in tracking down a large quan
tity of bibliographic information, Kimball Lockhart for his very gener
ous critical reading of my translation of Jacques Derrida"s introduc
tion, and Maria Ascher tor her unusually deft editing. Finally, I want to
express my gratitude to Linda Brooks for inviting me to Wldcrtake this
project.
The English language is not always receptive to the kind of work
Lacoue-Labarthe undertakes in relation to his own language. He is a
x Editor's Preface
syntRXier in the tradition inaugurated by MaJlarme, and French syntax
allows movements that are simply not reproducible in English. But my
hope is that the occasional forcing in lexical choice and in some of the
sentence constructions proposed in the fullowing pages will point in
the direction of what these translations have inevitably failed to capture
of the rhythms and the wtfailing precision that characterize Lacoue
Labarthe's writing. I would even hope that it will serve as an echo of
the singuJar strangeness that inhabits his texts and constitutes their
signature.
Contents
Introduction: Desistance, by Jacques Derrida
I
I Typography +3
2. The Echo of the Subject 139
3 The Caesura of the Speculative 208
+
H olderlin and the Greeks 2.36
5 Diderot: Paradox and Mimesis 248
6 Transccndence Ends in Politics 2.67
Memorial Note 301
A Note on Sources 304-
Index 305