SYSTEM AND STRUCTURE
Essays in Communication and Exchange
Second Edition
ANTHONY WILDEN Contents
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION page xiii
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION XVI
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xvii Introduction (1980): The Scientific Discourse: Knowledge as a Commodity XVIII
I The Symbolic, the Imaginary, and the Real: Lacan, Levi-Strauss, and Freud 1
II Metaphor and Metonymy: Freud's Semiotic Model of Condensation and Displacement 31 1 The Two Theories 0/Symbolism in Psychoanalysis 31 2 Overdetermination and Equifinality: Relations betueen Relations 34 3 The Freudian Points 0/ View 40 4 Cathexis and Intentionality 41 5 The Semiotic-Grammatic Metaphor 43 6 Condensation and Displacement 46 7 Metaphor and Met01lymy 47 8 The Repression 0/the Signifier 50 9 Manzanita Wood 56 10 Postscript 60 III Death, Desire, and Repetition: Commentary on Svevo's Confessions 0/Zeno 63 IV Montaigne on the Paradoxes of Individualism: A Communication about Communication 88 1 The Ideology 0/the Self 88 2 Levels and Mirtors 93 viii : CONTENTS 3 The Communicational Model page 95 4 Bildung and Entäusserung 100 5 The Paradoxes of Existence 103 6 Know Thyself 105 7 Pathological Communication 107
V The Double Bind: Schizophrenia and Gödel 110 1 Closure and Context 110 2 Logical Conditionsfor the Double Bind 117 3 Real Conditions 119 4 The Paradox of Paradox 122
VI Beyond the Entropy Principle in Freud 125 1 Introduction: The Biomechanistic View 125 2 Cybernetic Explanation 131 3 Critique of the Energy Model 132 4 Homeostasis and Repetition 138 5 Energy and Information 141 6 Secondary Process and Signijication 146 7 The Fort! Da! of Beyond the Pleasure Principle 147 8 Verneinung and Verleugnung 152
VII Analog and Digital Communication: On Negation, Signification, and Meaning 155 1 The Analog Computer 155 2 The Digital Computer 156 3 The Computer and the Brain: Boundaries and ~~ 1~ 4 Distinctions in Logical Form 161 5 Distinctions in Function 164 6 Difference, Distinction, and Opposition 168 7 Logical Typing 170 8 Play 172 9 Digitalization and Decision: The Nerve Axon 174 10 Zero and Not 178 11 Some Guiding Principles 188 Appendix I: A Table of Relations 191 Appendix 11: Analog and Digital, by Vincent Hollier 196 CONTENTS • 1X VIII Epistemology and Ecology: The Difference that Makes the Difference page 202 1 Some Tentative Axioms 202 2 The Counter-adaptive Results of Adaptive Change 205 3 Positive Feedback 207 4 The Paranoia of Symmetry 210 5 Cogito ergo sum 212 6 The Biasodal Unit ofSurvival 217 7 Dialectics and Schismogeneris 225 8 Better Dead than Red 227
IX Nature and Culture: The Emergence of Symbolic and Imaginary Exchange 230 1 Grammar and Gödel 230 2 Information, Meaning, and Redundancy 233 3 Structure and Infrastructure: The Questicmof the Unconscious 236 4 Leoi-Strauss and Systems Theory 239 5 The Symbolic Function 241 6 Nature and Culture: Anthropology 245 7 Nature and Culture: Zoology 250 8 Nature and Culture: Economic Exchange Theory 251 9 Recapitulation: Symbolic Exchange 255 10 The Imaginary other in Relation to the Other 260 11 The Problem ofInterorganismic Authority 261 12 The Symbolic and the Veil of Maia 264 13 C. S. Peirce on Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness 265 14 Nature and Culture: The Phallus in Exchange 268 15 Nature and Culture: Primary Process and Secondary Process 269 16 Summary: Use Value and Exchange Value 272 Appendix: The Logical Typing of the Symbolic, the lmaginary, and the Real, by Gerald Hall 274
X Critique of Phallocentrism: Daniel Pau1 Sehreber on Women's Liberation 278 1 Therapy and Ithology 278 2 Lacan's Theory of the Name-of-the-Father 281 x . CONTENTS 3 The Phallus as the Instrument ofExploitation page 283 4 Repressed Homosexuality and Paranoia 289 5 Schreber's Desire to be Unmanned 291 6 Sehreber as a Social Philosopher 295
XI The Structure as Law and Order: Piaget's Genetic Structuralism 302 1 The Representatioe Metaphor 302 2 Piaget' s Review of Structural Theories 306 3 Piaget's Conceptum of Structure 311 4 A Note on Multifinality 322 5 Piaget's Atomistic Rationalism 324 6 The Confusion Between Development and Evolution 330 7 Natura non facit saltum 331 8 Structuralism and Economics 334 9 Bioenergetics and Marxism 336 10 Games, Probahility, Diachronie Linguistics 338 11 Leoi-Strauss: One-dimensionality, Autonomy, Closure 342 12 Piaget and Gödel 344 13 The Structure as Law and Order 348
XII Ecosystem and Metasystem:A Morphogenie Model of Emergenee in Open Systems 351 1 Selection and Combination 351 2 System and Metasystem 353 3 Homeostasis, Homeorhesis, Homeogenesis, Morphegenesis 354 4 The System as an Ecosystem Subject to Non- Holonomic Constraints 355 5 The Closed and the Open System 356 6 Complexity and Teleonomy 361 7 Entropy and Injlexibility 364 8 Osciliation, Tension, Contradiction 367 9 The Morphostatic Model 368 10 The Survival of the Fittest 370 11 The Morphogenie Model 373 12 Evolution in the Arehaie System 377 13 Capital and Entropy 390 CONTENTS • xi XIII Order from Disorder: Noise, Trace, and Event in Evolution and in History page 395 1 The Writing Metaphor in Freud 395 2 Logocentrism and the Trace 396 3 Noise in Evolution 400 4 Noise in History 402 5 Hegel on Erinnerung 403 6 Redundant Synchrony and Permanent Evolution 406
XIV The Scientific Discourse as Propaganda: The Binary Opposition 413 1 Epistemological Considerations 413 2 The International Unity of the Scientific Discourse 414 3 The Scientific Discourse as Propaganda 417 4 The Enemy Brothers 418 5 Philosophies of Opposition 420 6 A Note on GeneticDifference 424 7 Postscript 428
XV Language and Communication 430 1 The Goalseeking System and the Law of Absence 431 2 Communication and the Impossible Dialogue 432 3 Bioenergetic Thinking and Rationalism 433 4 Communication and Biology 437 5 Extension of the Critique 440 XVI Linguistics and Semiotics: The Unconscious Structured like a Language 445 1 Preliminary Critique 445 2 The Unconscious and the Primary Process: The Urverdrängung 450 3 Freud's Two Languages 457 4 Linguists, Semiotics, Ideology 458 5 The Splitting of the Subject 460
XVII The Ideology of Opposition and Identity: Critique of Lacan's Theory of the Mirror-stage in Childhood 462 1 Introduction 462 2 The Mirror-stage 463 3 Sartre's Transcendence of the Ego 465 xii • CONTENTS 4 Being and Madness page 467 5 Death and Narcissism: The Solipsist and the Salauds 468 6 The Confusion of the Symbolic with the Real: Science and Theology 471 7 One Way Out 475 8 Master and Slave in Context 477 9 The Violence of the Reduetion of the Cultural to the Ontological 479 10 Summary ofLacan's Position 483 11 The Ego's Attempts to Square the Circle 484 12 Phallocentrism in the Body-Image 485 13 Concluding Unscientijk Postscript 487
APPENDIX: ADDITIONAL NOTES (1980) 490
BIBLIOGRAPHY 523
ADDITIONAL REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING (1980) 545
NAME INDEX 559
SUBJECT INDEX 565
NAME INDEX (ADDITIONS) 587
SUBJECT INDEX (ADDITIONS) 589