Terence Blake’s ‘EXPLAINING A SENTENCE BY GUATTARI’ and ‘OBSTACLES TO UNDERSTANDING RECENT FRENCH PHILOSOPHY’

 

by Corry Shores

 

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Terence Blake

 

EXPLAINING A SENTENCE BY GUATTARI

 

This post by Blake is a particularly interesting one, and it is tied to another very interesting one [mentioned below]. Here he explains a difficult passage by Guattari, and not only does he explain its meaning, he also gives an account of why non-French people would have trouble with it, given certain differences in the French education system and styles of academic writing.

Let’s begin with Dawkin’s first quote, taken from Guattari’s late work CHAOSMOSIS:

We can clearly see that there is no bi-univocal correspondence between linear signifying links or archi-writing, depending on the author, and this multireferential, multi-dimensional machinic catalysis.

[...]

This quote seems rather obscure. First, as I discussed in the previous post, there is the erroneous translation of the expression one-to-one correspondence as “bi-univocal correspondence”, at the beginning. Then he goes on to talk about “linear signifying links” [implicitly referring to Lacan] or “archi-writing” [referring to Derrida]. Thus, here Guattari is criticising both Lacan and Derrida, so Dawkins should be happy about their agreement rather than treating Guattari’s prose as nonsense.

Guattari says that there is no mapping of Lacan’s and Derrida’s ideas of language onto his own idea of the “machine”. This is a key concept in all of Guattari’s work, alone and in collaboration with Deleuze. We must note that the use of the word machine as a metaphor is far more common in French than it is in English. People compare the State, or a company, or school to a machine quite readily, in ordinary conversation. Guattari took up this popular metaphor and gave it a new sense in his attempt to free himself from the linguistic metaphors favoured by structuralism, and also by Lacan and by Derrida.

“Machinic” used as an adjective seems quite abstract and ugly in English, but not as much in French, which quite likes Latinate words ending in the suffix “-ique”(“-ic” in English). On a historical note, we should keep in mind that Lacan dominated the intellectual scene in France for a long time, and Guattari began to break free of that influence in 1969 in a little text called “Machine and Structure”, that Deleuze found quite important. Dawkins’ quote (1992) contains a late reaffirmation by Guattari of the same point, in a far more mature intellectual framework.

We may note also that French favours the use of abstract adjectives, where English would use a noun phrase (“machinic” instead of “of machines”).

Guattari’s conception of language is different from the Anglophone, not aiming so much at semantic transparency as at a pragmatic freeing from clichés. Hence the expression “machinic catalysis”, which is awkward in English, but not incomprehensible in context. It’s machinic because the language is interpreted and evaluated in terms of its function in a particular context, and it’s a “catalysis” because it makes ideas and interventions possible that would not otherwisehave been possible without great effort and special preparation.

“Machinic catalysis” alludes to Austin’s “How to do things with words”, in opposition to Lacan’s “linear signifying links” and to Derrida’s “archi-writing”. This sentence is the declaration of Guattari’s  (and of Deleuze’s) pluralist theory of desire, and of their siding against Lacan’s and Derrida’s one-dimensional linguistic paradigms. This is something that Dawkins should should favour, even if he feels uncomfortable about the style.

This is a very compact sentence, condensing a number of theoretical allusions: signifying chain- Lacan, archi-writing – Derrida, machinic – Guattari and Deleuze, catalysis – Austin. My argument against Dawkins is that one needs a lot of background to understand and to unpack the allusive density and to see its beauty. Dawkins sees none of this, he just blindly trusts Sokal’s opinion that it is nonsense, strings together unrelated quotes, and laughs. Dawkins’ argument is “I don’t know anything about the subject, but I can easily see this is nonsense”.

Far from being needlessly obfuscating, allusive density is one of the principles of good style in French, and it is not easy to carry off well. However, if you can follow the allusions it makes for great clarity. Guattari’s allusions are not at all obscure here. He alludes to the work of Lacan, of Derrida, and of Austin, and to his own work with Deleuze, whch everyone reading Guattari in French would have read. Even the mathematical allusion to bi-univocal mapping or “one-to-one correspondence” is high school maths, nothing abstruse.

(Terence Blake, boldface mine)

 

A related post, also highly recommended:

OBSTACLES TO UNDERSTANDING RECENT FRENCH PHILOSOPHY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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