Ghostlier Demarcations on the Posthumous Edition of Althusser’S Writings
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Ghostlier demarcations On the posthumous edition of Althusser’s writings Gregory Elliott ʻWe do not publish our own drafts, that is, our Corpet, Yann Moulier Boutang and François Math- own mistakes, but we do sometimes publish other eron, they may be classified as follows: peopleʼs.ʼ (1) Two volumes of autobiographical writings issued Louis Althusser, 1963 in 1992 – the two memoirs (1985/1976) presented in ʻWhat use is Althusser?ʼ The question rhetorically LʼAvenir dure longtemps, suivi de Les Faits, and the posed on the Left Bank in 1968, as structures took to prison-camp notebooks and correspondence (1940–45) the streets, invites reactions other than the blunt rien assembled in the Journal de captivité. An expanded of (some of) those who recently marked the thirtieth version of LʼAvenir, including other autobiographical anniversary of their Maydays. When a selection from texts as well as three chapters omitted from the ʻconfes- his correspondence is published this autumn, a post- sionsʼ, appeared in 1994. A slack English translation of humous edition of Althusserʼs oeuvre will be nearing the first edition had been marketed in the UK the year completion that provides copious matter for sustained before by a mid-Atlantic conglomerate. Unfathomably, reflection and informed reaction. Yet if, as David the US version renders the Gaullist obiter dictum of Macey observed here three years ago, ʻ[t]he death Althusserʼs title The Future Lasts Forever. of the philosopher has led to a resurrection of his (2) Two volumes of psychoanalytical writings writingsʼ, then it is a cause for regret that the main – Ecrits sur la psychanalyse, from correspondence effect of one of them – the ʻwild analysisʼ of LʼAvenir with Jacques Lacan commenced in 1963 to Althusserʼs dure longtemps – has been more or less to eclipse the interventions in the controversy over the dissolution others. For it has furnished false warrant for aversion of the Ecole freudienne de Paris (1980), published from, or recrimination against, the philosophico- in 1993; and Psychanalyse et sciences humaines, political history in which Althusser was a subject, as the text of two seminar presentations from 1963–64, a deranged process with a murderous telos.1 Redressing released in 1996. An abridged English edition of the the balance of the reception in the English-speaking Ecrits from Columbia came out the same year as the world to date is a task for future work, by many hands. seminars. For now, at the risk of the bland trailing the blind, (3) Four volumes of philosophical and political no more than a rudimentary inventory and overview, writings. The first, Ecrits philosophiques et politiques: with some side glances at the gathering secondary Tome I (1994), retrieved the bulk of the ʻearly writingsʼ literature, will be atttempted. (1946–50), translated by Verso last year; an unfinished manuscript on the ʻcrisis of Marxismʼ (1978); and The philosopher in his laboratory extracts from the late Althusserʼs speculations as to What does the posthumous edition comprise? In sum, a ʻSubterranean Current of the Materialism of the eight volumes, totalling approximately three thousand Encounterʼ (1982). The second, entitled Sur la philoso- pages (or half as much again as Althusser authorized phie (1994), collects interviews and correspondence during his lifetime), about one-third of which has with Fernanda Navarro (1984–87) ruminating on the been translated into English to date. Drawn from the ʻaleatory materialismʼ mooted in 1982. A third volume archives deposited at the Institut mémoires de lʼédition – Sur la reproduction (1995) – is composed of the contemporaine (IMEC) in Paris, and individually or 1969 book on ʻThe Reproduction of the Relations jointly edited with admirable diligence by Olivier of Productionʼ from which ʻIdeology and Ideological 20 Radical Philosophy 90 (July/August 1998) State Apparatusesʼ was extracted the following year, an imaginary tribunalʼ6 – it would not have exempted together with that article and a retrospective ʻNoteʼ another book, likewise carefully prepared for publica- of 1976. Finally, a second offering of Ecrits philos- tion – that gem of a draft, no mistake: ʻMachiavelli ophiques et politiques (1995), arranged thematically, and Usʼ. Accordingly, if we would do well to heed selects diverse material from 1962–77: in particular, Gramsciʼs cautions about the status of ʻposthumous unfinished works on Feuerbach and ʻThe Humanist worksʼ,7 handle Althusserʼs with a care conspicuous by Controversyʼ (1967); texts related to the ʻPhilosophy its absence in the prevalent shanghaiing of LʼAvenir, Course for Scientistsʼ (1967–68); and an opuscule on and bear in mind that these materials discover the phil- Machiavelli derived from a lecture course in 1972, osopher-general mostly in his laboratory (sometimes scheduled for translation by Verso. in his labyrinth), extrusion of them as unauthorized is So much for the essential details. Before proceed- neither feasible, nor desirable. ing, it is worth mentioning that, under the stimulus of this ambitious programme, in 1996 Presses Universi- Archimedean points taires de France issued a variorum edition of Lire le Althusserʼs own tendentious account of his road to Capital, regrouping the four instalments of the second Marx in LʼAvenir has been amply aired, then queried; edition (1968–73) in the order of the two-volume and a previous article in this journal has skimmed original (1965); while later the same year, Editions the early writings, haunted by the spectres of Hegel la Découverte (formerly François Maspero) reprinted and Stalin.8 The ʻterrible education of deedsʼ9 under- Pour Marx with a remarkable preface and helpful gone by the pre-war royalist Roman Catholic finds its biographical note by Etienne Balibar.2 muffled echo in his Journal de captivité, a testament of Following the premature burial of 1980, then, a lost youth or to the pitiless demarcation of generation. resurrection of sorts has come to pass. The inter- The intrusion of ʻhistorical problemsʼ in ʻa life without est reawakened, albeit often rudely, by the ʻtrauma- historyʼ itself (JC, pp. 70, 245); the vacillation of faith, biographyʼ in 1992 was fuelled by the simultaneous rescued by resort to the wager of Althusserʼs constant appearance of the first part of Moulier Boutangʼs companion, Pascal (pp. 159–60); the volatilization of indispensable biography, covering 1918–56, the com- his politics, reorientated towards Communism by the pletion of which is eagerly awaited. The aspects of counter-example of Vichy (pp. 349–52), that ʻparade of Althusser disclosed by them, and corrected, corrobor- counter-revolutionary France in which Nazi Germany ated or complemented by subsequent volumes in the took the saluteʼ10 – these helped induce the postwar posthumous edition, have generated a lively literature ʻintellectual in armsʼ, ʻslicing up the world with a of which the colloquia proceedings edited by Matheron single blade, arts, literatures, philosophies, sciences and by Pierre Raymond (both 1997) are the most with the pitiless demarcation of classʼ.11 And thus it substantial items.3 was that Althusser, who up to the early 1950s might As to ʻdirections for useʼ, it is only proper to point have maintained that he was a Communist because out that although, on occasion, Althusser appears to he was a Catholic,12 had not done with his instruc- have envisaged a ʻposthumous works and correspond- tion – now courtesy of the PCF, a party of ʻFrench enceʼ,4 on others he expressed misgivings over the chauvinists and Russian patriotsʼ (as Léon Blum had phenomenon. Thus, at two points separated by an it) ranged against the Coca-colonisation of the Fourth interval of fifteen years, he regretted that Marxʼs Republic. Amid the crisis in the international Com- consignment of such drafts as the Paris Manuscripts munist movement after the demise of Stalin, and the and The German Ideology to his bottom drawer (plus unwitting desacralization of the CPSU by Khrushchev, resident mice) had not been accorded due respect by Althusser was obliged ʻto retreat, and, in semi-disar- editors and commentators.5 Since by far the greater ray, return to first principlesʼ.13 part of Marxʼs writings remained unpublished at his ʻI haveʼ, Althusser wrote to Lacan on 26 November death, the paradoxical effect of any consistent applica- 1963, ʻbeen pursuing obscure works on Marx for tion of the implied etiquette would, to look no further, some fifteen years. I have finally, slowly, laboriously have been to deprive posterity of precisely those works emerged from the night. Things are clear to me now. of Marxian maturity – Capital Volumes II and III, That austere inquiry, that long and harsh gestation, was for example – which Althusserianism counterposed to neededʼ (WP, 148). By now, the inquiry ranged beyond Marxʼs youth. In Althusserʼs own case, whilst it would Marx and had assumed a collective shape.14 Prior to have veiled the ʻautobiographical deliriumʼ of LʼAvenir the ʻReading Capitalʼ seminar of 1964–65, which – that ʻplea-indictment-confession … composed for consolidated and deployed their results, a sequence Radical Philosophy 90 (July/August 1998) 21 of seminars had been held at the Ecole normale definition of psychoanalysis: this is what Lacan supérieure.15 In the wake of Althusserʼs opening salvo gives us. (pp. 71–2) on the subject, that of 1961–62 was devoted to ʻThe Althusserʼs second paper, peppered with references Young Marxʼ. The next academic year, coinciding to Anna Freud and Melanie Klein, evinced antipa-