Structures of Representation: Metaphor and Mimesis in Jacques Derrida's Glas Hubble, Rebecca Louise The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author For additional information about this publication click this link. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/jspui/handle/123456789/1836 Information about this research object was correct at the time of download; we occasionally make corrections to records, please therefore check the published record when citing. For more information contact [email protected] Structures of Representation: Metaphor and Mimesis in Jacques Derrida's Glas Rebecca Louise Hubble June, 2003 Queen Mary College, University of London Research Degree Abstract This thesis is an explication of Glas, a text which reflects Derrida's profound respect for the Hegelian dialectic, a structure in which each part has and knows its place. But Glas also works to expose a fundamental contamination between Hegelian conceptuality and those elements of textuality which the dialectic seeks to subordinate to, or expel from, itself. One such area of contamination is that of representation. For while Hegel determines representation as (the) outside of truth, Derrida demonstrates that this very determination is in fact structured and instituted by those `outsides.' One such `outside' is that of family relations, which Hegel utilises as a metaphor for the relations of the dialectic in general. The question Derrida raises is whether this recourse to the family metaphor is a matter of pedagogy and exemplarity, or whether it conforms to a more fundamental necessity? This question forms the focus of Chapters One and Two of this thesis, which explore Derrida's reading of the Hegelian family as both a moment on the path to absolute knowledge and as a metaphor whose capacities disrupt and re-write the concept of metaphoricity. However Derrida's question also points to a more fundamental problematic which Chapter Three will address. For what is it that determines and sanctions this opposition of inside and outside, that underpins these relations of production, of metaphoricity and representation? The answer to this is, I believe, mimesis. By transporting Derrida's understanding of mimesis into the context of the Hegelian family and Glas, it becomes possible to see the crucial role that this concept plays in the Hegelian dialectic, a role which also points the way to a philosophy that is not bound always to repeat the same, but which is open to chance and necessity, and to the possibility of writing philosophy differently. 2 Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations of Texts Cited 6 Introduction and Literature Review: Derrida and Deconstruction 7 Jurgen Habermas 14 Is D järance God? 25 The Law: A Legitimate Fiction? 31 The Law of Genre 37 The Law-non-Law of Didrance 42 D färance as Transcendental: Peter Dews 43 The Trouble with Arguing: Richard Rorty 48 Philosophy and Literature: The Levelling of Genre Distinctions? 53 The Quasi-Transcendental: Rodolphe Gasche 59 Legitimation 63 Deconstruction and Negative Theology 67 Negative Theology and Mimesis 74 Fiction and Mimesis: Glas 77 Chapter One: Hegel and Presentation 82 1.1 The Time of the Encyclopedic Circle 82 Hegel's Time 83 The Circle of Unity 84 The Preface 87 1.2 The Necessity of Opposition 90 The Aufhebung 90 The Mediation of Identity 91 Spirit Versus Matter 93 The Chain of Temporality 95 1.3 The Restricted Economy of the Hegelian Family 99 Hegelian Life 100 The Family 102 Family Ties: Love Versus Law 105 Marriage: Sexual Difference and Desire 107 The Child 110 Hegelian Death 112 1.4 The Economy of Salvation 116 The Place of Representation 118 The Necessity of Representation 122 Chapter Two: Hegel and Metaphor 126 2.1 The Function(s) of the Family 126 The Metaphor of Life 129 The Sign 132 Metaphor 135 The Familiarity of the Family 139 'Plus de Metaphore' 141 2.2 The Last Supper 144 The Last Supper Scene: The Origin of Exemplarity 145 The Infinite Family as the Exemplary Example 147 The Father is the Son 152 Ontology and the Relief of Understanding 155 A Scene Between 158 The 'More' of Relations 159 The Possibility and Impossibility of Comparison 164 Life is Metaphoricity 167 23 The Aletheia of Aletheia 171 Chanter Three: Hesel and Mimesis 181 3.1 Mimesis: The Structure of Speculative Dialectics 181 Introducing Mimesis 187 Kantian Mimesis 189 Hegel and Mimesis 194 Hegelian Paternity 196 Attachment and Detachment: Filiation 201 Plato, Hegel and Mimesis 203 Speech and Writing 206 Hegel, Metaphor and Mimesis 210 Mimesis 214 3.2 The Immaculate Conception 217 The IC 218 Diffdrance as/at the Origin 223 Mimesis: The Opening of Economy 226 The Transcendental: The Concept-Non-Concept of Mimesis 231 3.3 Mimesis (as) Remains 236 The Failure of the Immaculate Commerce (ic) 240 Conclusion: The Duplicity of Mimesis 245 The Origin(al) and (its) Repetition 246 Repetition as Inauguration 249 Hymen, Fold, Between 254 Between Philosophy and Literature, Plato and Mallarme 260 The Tain of the Mirror 264 Opening the Enclosure 269 Quasi-Transcendental Fiction: Writing as Dissemination 271 The Encyclopedia: Truth is Presentation 276 Conclusion 280 Bibliography 283 Acknowled! ements I would like to thank The British Academy Humanities Research Board for the studentship which allowed me to carry out this study. I am indebted to Marian Hobson for her guidance, generous support and steadfast patience. And for generally cheering me along (and often cheering me up), I would also like to thank my family and friends. Abbreviations of Texts Cited Works by Jacques Derrida: A Acts of Literature ed. Derek Attridge (1992, Routledge, New York) D Dissemination trans. Barbara Johnson (1982, University of Chicago Press, Chicago) EC `Economimesis' trans. Richard Klein (1981, Diacritics, Vol. 11, John Hopkins University Press, Cornell University) G Glas trans. John P. Leavey Jr. & Richard Rand (1986, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln & London) LI Limited Inc, `Signature, Event, Context' trans. Samuel Weber & Jeffrey Mehlman, `Limited Inc. a bc... ' trans. Samuel Weber, `Afterword: Toward an Ethic of Discussion' trans. Samuel Weber (1988, Northwestern University Press, Evanston) M Margins of Philosophy trans. Alan Bass (1982, University of Chicago Press, Chicago) OG Of Grammatology trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1976, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore) SP Speech and Phenomena trans. David Allison (1973, Northwestern University Press, Evanston) TP The Truth in Painting trans. Geoff Bennington & Ian McLeod (1987, University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London) WD Writing and Difference trans. Alan Bass (1978, Routledge, London) 6 Introduction and Literature Review: Derrida and Deconstruction I want to open this thesis by risking an abbreviation. Derrida's work is often, though by no means always, a response to a philosophical ideal, an ideal that has in turn determined the identity of philosophy. This ideal is that somewhere, behind or beyond, there is a guaranteed, self-identical and unique absolute: what is. This ideal has been given many different names throughout the history of metaphysics, but the important point for Derrida is that its "matrix" is the determination of "Being as presence in all sensesof this word. "' So that whatever this "centre, " this "point of presence" or this "fixed origin" may be called in a particular philosophy, Derrida argues that all the names which relate to fundamentals, to principles, or to the origin - eidos, arche, telos, energefa, ousia (essence, existence, substance, subject), aletheia, transcendentality, consciousness, God - have always designated an invariable presence (WD, 279-80). This or that particular philosopher might, for example, question the form that the origin takes; but that things have origins, that the origin takes precedence over the double, the repetition or the copy, and that this relation goes back to an original presence, is rarely put to rigorous interrogation. The concept of the origin has often been exempt from examination in any truly critical sense then because the order that it inspires is the very order of sense, of reason, of logic and of the logos. The origin or the centre must always be the origin or the centre of something, and conversely, whatever has an origin or a centre must always operate as a totality, as a structure, even if it is infinite. As Derrida says, the origin or centre serves to "orient, balance, and organize the structure - one cannot conceive of an unorganized structure" and at the same time, it limits the "play of the structure [... ] inside the total form" (WD, 278). So that while the contents, the elements or the terms of the system may be substituted for one another, transformed, or transferred within the structure, the structure as a totality always remains ' Jacques Derrida, `Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences,' in Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (1978, Routledge, London), 279. Henceforth, the title Writing and Difference is abbreviated as WD. 7 closed. Movement takes place within its borders, but the borders themselves are immutable. What's more Derrida says, the centre itself is exempt from these substitutions and transferrals. It governs movement but represents the immovable. This means that at both the core of the structure, at its bedrock or foundations, and at its outer reaches, its telos, there is projected the security of a limit, of an arrest. This ideal of philosophy represents, for Derrida, nothing less than a desire of the philosopher: that the centre of structure should be without structure, that it should not be subject to that to which it gives rise. This allows both for the ideal of a terra firma upon which philosophy can tread, and for a check-point at the limits of its terrain for what could otherwise be the endless dissemination of meaning.