A Touch of Doubt Studies and Texts in Scepticism

Edited on behalf of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies by Giuseppe Veltri

Managing Editor: Yoav Meyrav

Editorial Board Heidrun Eichner, Talya Fishman, Racheli Haliva, Henrik Lagerlund, Reimund Leicht, Stephan Schmid, Carsten Wilke, Irene Zwiep Volume 9 A Touch of Doubt

On Haptic Scepticism

Edited by Rachel Aumiller The series Studies and Texts in Scepticism is published on behalf of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies

Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies JEWISH SCEPTICISM

ISBN 978-3-11-062395-6 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-062717-6 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-062433-5 ISSN 2568-9614 DOI https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110627176

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Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.

© 2021 Rachel Aumiller, published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: Mark Tansey, Doubting Thomas, 1986, oil on canvas, 65 x 54 inches (165.1 x 137.2 cm.) © Mark Tansey. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery, New York Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com Contents

Acknowledgements 1

Rachel Aumiller Sensation &Hesitation: Haptic Scepticism as an Ethics of Touching 2

Jacob Levi “Es wirdLeib, es empfindet”:Auto-Affection, Doubt, and the Philosopher’s Hands 30

Robert Pfaller When to Touch and What to Doubt: Zeroing In on the Tactile Surplus 58

BaraKolenc The (Un)Touchable Touch of Pyramus and Thisbe: Doubtand Desire 78

Bill Rebiger AMagic Touch: PerformativeHaptic Acts in Biblical and Medieval Jewish Magic 104

Libera Pisano Noli me tangere: The Profaning Touch That Challenges Authority 122

MirtKomel TouchingDoubt: Haptolinguistic Scepticism 138

Goran Vranešević An Atom of Touch: Scepticism from Hegel to Lacan 156

Adi Louria Hayon The Weak Relations of Touch and Sight through the PassageofLapsed Time 178

List of Contributors 207

List of Figures 211

Index 213

Acknowledgements

Iamgrateful to the directors of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies for sup- porting my research vision as amember of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft project on Jewish scepticism. Ithank the authors of this volume for their willingness to bridge traditionalscholarship, experimentalmethods, and interdisciplinary col- laboration. Iespeciallythank my colleagues from the UniversityofLjubljana—Mirt Komel and the members of TOUCHLAN—for our ongoing collaboration on the topics of language, touch, and doubt. Our communal research was made possible through the support of the Slovenian National Agencyfor Research. The collaborative thinking represented in this volume was developedoverthe course of two years through aseries of workshops and events hosted by the Univer- sity of Hamburg, the University of Ljubljana, Villanova University,and The New Schoolfor Social Research. Ithank the communities at each of these institutes for their insight and enthusiasm. Ourresearch was further enrichedbyartistic projects led by Zack Sievers and Bara Kolenc (Haptic Cinematography,see pp. 4–5) and Bara Kolenc, Mirt Komel, and Atej Tutta (Hegel’sBegriff,see p. 20). Mark Tansey has granted us permission to use the imageof“DoubtingThomas” on multiple occasions,includingfor this cover.This imagehas been asourceofcon- ceptual inspiration. Each chapter of this volume was developedthrough the support of anonymous peer reviewers, who provided us with the opportunity to refine and deepen our thinking.Iwould liketorecognise the careful attentionofthe editorial team at the MaimonidesCentre,especiallythat of Yoav Meyrav,Katharine Handel, and Mikheil Kakabadze.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110627176-001 Fig. 1: Mark Tansey, DoubtingThomas, 1986, oil on canvas, 65x54inches (165.1x137.2 cm.) ©Mark Tansey.CourtesyGagosian Gallery, New York. Rachel Aumiller Sensation &Hesitation: Haptic Scepticismas an EthicsofTouching

It is said that seeing is believing. Typically, this adageistaken to mean that sight is the strongest empirical affirmation of what we believetobetrue. And yet, as the adagealsoimplies, although sight maystrengthen one’sbelief, it does not guarantee certain knowledge.Inopposition to sight,touch presents itself as proof for what is real. Touchcan serveasareality check that awakens an individual from her slumber. We pinch ourselvestoconfirm we are not dreaming. We slap acomrade across the cheek to bring him to his senses.¹ This volume traces an alliance drawnthroughout the history of Western philos- ophyand religion between belief and sight on one side and doubt/certainty and touch on the other.Ineverydayspeech, the sceptic is often associated with the figure of “Doubting Thomas”:the disbeliever with the compulsion to touch what others ac- cept on appearance alone. Whereas the dogmatist maybesatisfied with believing what she sees, the sceptic is not satisfieduntil she has thrust her finger into the very site of her uncertainty. Although the sceptic has been framed as the doubter with the compulsion to touch and thus overcomedoubt,the history of philosophical scepticism questions the reliability of the senses, giving particular attention to touch. We find sceptical ac- counts of touch in Pyrrho’smodes, which describethe inconsistencies and idiosyn- crasies of our tactile sensations (our pleasure and pain, our sense of coolness and warmth).² We mayalso consider René Descartes’ssuspicion of the parchment that he holds in his own hands (not to mention the existenceofhis ownhands), which he performs as an exerciseinscepticism.³ Other classicalsceptical arguments about touch abound: Perhaps Iamdreaming(dreamingevenofthe sensation of pinching myself awake). Perhaps Iamnot the active knower—the one who touch- es—perhaps Iaminstead the one who is touched—by spirits, by an evil genius, by illness, by madness.⁴

 Throughout this chapterIalternatebetween different pronouns:she, he, they.Mypronoun choice reflects both acritical and playfulperspective on gender.  Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Scepticism,trans. Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes (Cambridge:Cam- bridge University Press,1994): haptic sensation as subjective and situational (I.56,80–87,109,210–11; II.52); haptic sensation as contradictory or paradoxical (I.91–94;III.194–97).  René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy,trans. Donald A. Cress (Indianapolis:Hackett, 1993).  Plato’s Theaetetus addresses debates surroundingthe reliability of sensation in connection to the characterization of knowledge itself as adream (Plato, Theaetetus,inTheaetetusand Sophist,trans. Christopher Rowe[Cambridge:Cambridge University Press,2015], 201d8–6c2). The sceptical trope of questioningsensation as aproduct of dreams,illness, or madness stretches fromPlatonism to mod- https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110627176-002 4 Rachel Aumiller

Sometimes, the sceptic openlyconfesses to her compulsion to touch or to be touched; at other times, this accusation is made against the insatiable sceptic who is not content with faith alone. This leads me to the questions that inspired the topic of this volume: How did the sceptic gain the reputation not onlyasthe doubter, but also as the toucher?Has she been falselyframed?Oristhere some truth to the characterisation of the sceptic as one who pokes holes in every dogma with which she comes into contact?Why does the sceptic getoff on sticking her hands into the sticky cracks of reason itself?Does the sceptic gether hands dirty in order to overcome her doubt, or does touchingonlycomplicatethe matter at hand further? In order to pursue these questions, the Maimonides Centre’sresearch team on JewishScepticism at the University of Hamburg joined powers with aresearch team oriented in the Ljubljana School of Psychoanalysis called “The Languageof Touch: Linguistic PerspectivesinHaptic Studies.” This most unusual collaboration gave rise to aseries of workshops and lectures held in Germany,Slovenia,and the United States.Italso inspired several unconventional research initiatives, such as an international project in philosophyand film called Haptic Cinematography and an interactive installation called Hegel’sBegriff. Our investigations led us to identify the prominent theme of touch throughout the history of philosophical scepticism and its intersections with religion, politics, art,and culture. We go so far as to claim that the theme of touch—shaped by shifting culturalattitudes towardstouching—drivesmajor shifts in the questions posed by philosophy. Andyet,despite the persistent question of touch at each philosophical stage, this key aspect of scepticism had not yetbeen named or acknowledgedin mainstream philosophical scholarship or in haptic studies. Icoin the term “haptic scepticism” to mark touchasasiteofepistemic and eth- ical questioning and crisis. Haptic scepticism denotes experiences of touch that call touch itself into question and apossible response this experience.The studyofhap- tic scepticism thus pursues two questions: What kinds of personal or shared haptic experiencesthrow us into crisis? What kinds of responses to the crisis of touchallow for transformation: the transformation of those who experience crisis, of thosewe touch, and of touch itself as amediator between self and others? In addition to “haptic scepticism,” Iintroduce “haptic dogmatism” to identify unquestionedbeliefs and practices involving touch. Haptic dogmatism is embedded in personal and culturalvalues, rituals, and habit.Itisalso expressed by those who cling to their “right” to touchorthe rightness of their touch. Haptic scepticism dis- rupts haptic dogmatism, creatingthe opportunityfor transformed ways of coming

ern psychoanalysis. Freud, notably,claims that our inability to drawaclear line between wakefulness and dream-states can yield excessive doubt akin to neurosis,while dogmatic certainty in what one senses to be true is akind of psychosis.Aclassic case of doubt as obsessional neurosis is found in Freud’sanalysisofRat Man: see The StandardEdition of the Complete PsychologicalWorks of Sig- mund Freud. Volume X(1909): TwoCaseHistories(Little Hansand the Rat Man),trans. James Strachey and Anna Freud(London: Hogarth Press, 1962). Sensation &Hesitation: Haptic Scepticism as an Ethics of Touching 5

Fig. 2: Zack Sievers,film strip from Haptic Cinematography,2018. Haptic Cinematography explored the themes of “touching concepts” and “conceptualizing touch.” Philosophers, students, and artists experimented with different stages of haptic experienceand representation, translating hapticexperiences into philosophical concepts, concepts intoperfor- manceart, and haptic performance into film. into touch with others and the world. But such transformation depends on our re- sponse to crisis. Whereas the dogmatic response to the question of touch closes the possibility for transformed relations, the sceptical practice of dwelling with the experience of uncertainty is whereanethics of touch begins. The identificationof“haptic scepticism” demanded that we go into experimental territory.Inthe context of this collection, my collaborators reflectthe novelty of the content of our investigation in theirformal approach. Somechapters take the form of poetic vignettes, while others draw heavilyonthe arts (literature, film, performance art,painting) to animate touch within the two-dimensionalform of aphilosophical text.Thisvolume is packed with haptic puns and metaphors to unsettle philosophy’s dependency on sight-oriented figures of speech, adependency that tends to conceal the role of othersenses and sensations within our thinking and being. We initiallyapproached haptic scepticism as an area of inquiry at the intersec- tion of epistemologyand psychoanalysis,exploring the desire to know what lies be- yond one’sreach. Drawing on aesthetics to illustrate our topic, haptic scepticism yielded an ethics of touching. When we weren’tlooking,orwhen we werelooking else- where, this ethics of touching snuck up behind us and tapped us on the shoulder. This is not the first time that scepticism has surprised me with this move. Ifind this behav- iour to be the delight and terror of scepticism. Despite scepticism’sinsistenceonhav- ing nothing to offer ethics (Sextus Empiricus), the activity of probingthe shortcom- ingsofepistemology places us squarely within the difficult and delicate work of 6 Rachel Aumiller

ethics, which demands that we respond to the other without knowing how.Sextus had it backwards.⁵ Our inability to know with certainty the best course of action does not prevent scepticism from having an ethical response to our social and polit- ical landscapes. Our uncertainty with regardtoknowing how to act—and the mo- ment of crisisthat this uncertainty inspires—is whereethics begins. The object of our epistemic desire withdraws from the horizon of our vision and tapsusfrom be- hind to requestadifferent sortofengagement.Inresponsetothis ethical call, haptic scepticism does not seek to overcome the ambiguities of touch relations by stepping assuredlytowards what is certain and shrinking away from risk. This ethics of touch- ing instead identifiesthe combination of erotic curiosity and erotic doubt—promiscu- ity and hesitation—as twosides of sensation that allow for the mutualtransformation of desiring subjects thatcome into touch, sometimes unexpectedly,sometimes with- out touchingatall.

Framing the Sceptic as the CompulsiveToucher: The OriginsofHaptic Scepticism

This collection engages the manynuanced varietiesofhaptic scepticism belongingto Platonism, German idealism, phenomenology, psychoanalysis,structural linguistics, and postmodernism. Forthe purpose of introductions, however,Ioffer twoprovi- sional caricatures of the sceptic. The first model of the sceptic maybeseen as one who takes astep back from the familiar or new to gain acritical stance; the second model is found in one who immediatelytakes an eager step forward, walking direct- edlyinto anew encounter.The first model can be located in earlymodern thought. This is the variety of scepticism that Descartesperforms in the first books of his Med- itations,when he employs amethod drivenbyahyperbolic doubt thatcasts every- thing under suspicion. When most people think of the sceptic, they mayimagine someone with crossed arms and afurrowed brow,someone who approaches all sub- ject matter with ahesitant reluctanceevenbefore anew proposal has been intro- duced. The second model, which we can find in ancient scepticism, however,argu- ablyhas little to do with doubt.The sceptic provisionallywelcomes every new encounter,thoroughlyfollowing each new suggestion or experience to its own logical end: adead end (epochē or suspension) that was implicit in the beginning. These dead ends, however,are not fruitless, but rather lead to the possibilityofaffective transformation. The experience of impasse (aporia)transforms the crisis of indiscern- ibility into tranquillity(ataraxia)inthe face of the unknown.

 Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Scepticism,III.168–279: without the capacity to know what is good or bad by nature(or if these categories exist in nature), we cannot arrive at an ethics.Inthe absenceof ethical judgement,itisadvisable to adheretothe customs and laws of one’sland. See also Sextus Empiricus, Against the Ethicists,trans. RichardBett (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press,1997). Sensation &Hesitation: Haptic Scepticism as an Ethics of Touching 7

It is possible to identify this second kind of scepticism with colourful figures like Socrates,Pyrrho, Apuleius, and the youngAugustine: philosopherswho wandered outside of the city walls, moving from town to town, enthusiasticallyentertaining the views of each new companion whom they encountered along the waytonowhere in particular.⁶ From this perspective,the sceptic is someone who is willing to occupy an interlocutor’snarrative for the length of their shared journey.Iadopt this imageof the sceptic as atemporary travelling companion from John Winkler’sreadingofApu- leius’sprotagonist Lucius.⁷ Winkler reads the opening scene of TheGolden Ass as a dialogue between acynic and asceptic. Continuing with my characterisation of two kinds of sceptics (the one who takes astep backand the one who takes astep for- ward), we mayalsoread this scene as the tale of twosceptics who meet along the road: the incredulous sceptic and the curious sceptic. The second model of scepti- cism is found in our protagonist Lucius, whom Apuleius arguablymodels after him- self. Lucius is travelling alone on the road to Thessaly when he comesupon two trav- ellers. He quickens his pace in order to eavesdrop on their conversation. In Lucius’s words: “Iwas just adding myself as athird party to two travellers who werealittle ahead of me on the road. Just as Iturned my ears to the subject of their discussion, one of them, with ajolt of loud laughter said, Stop! This is all impossible, outrageous lies!”⁸ The incredulous traveller,reflecting the first model of scepticism, begs his companion to bring his narrative to an end. But the incredulous traveller’sprotest makes Luciusall the more interested. He continues, “When Iheard this, Ibecame thirstier.[…]Isaid, ‘On the contrary,share your talk with me—not that I’mone to pry,but Iamone who would like to know alittle something about everything,or

Although Socrates preferred to engage his interlocutors in Athens, Plato offers one account of Soc- rates seducinghis walkingcompanion beyond the city walls (Plato, Phaedrus,trans. Alexander Ne- hamas and Paul Woodruff [Indianapolis:Hackett,1995]); some saythat Pyrrho entertained every per- son whocrossed his path for hours on hours (Diogenes Laertius, LivesofEminent Philosophers, Volume II:Books 6–10,trans.R.D.Hicks [Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversityPress, 1925]). Iread Apu- leius,astudentofPlutarch, as asceptic, although he is too much of asceptic to commit to anydoc- trine, even one that denies havingadoctrine.Apuleius,much likehis protagonist Lucius from The Golden Ass,was happy to adapt to the customsofthe places that he passed through on his travels. He was accused of pickingupsome bad habits along the way(Apuleius, Apologia; Florida;Dedeo Socratis,trans. Christopher P. Jones [Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 2017]). Augustine re- counts his participation in the foreign ideas and customsofthe groups of which he was atemporary member (Augustine, Confessions,trans.Garry Wills [New York: Penguin, 2006]).  John J. Winkler, Auctor &Actor:ANarratologicalReading of Apuleius’s Golden Ass(Berkeley:Uni- versity of California Press, 1985).  Apuleius, TheTransformation of Lucius,Otherwise Known as the Golden Ass,trans.Robert Graves (New York: Farrar,Straus and Giroux, 1979),1.2:Itakeupthis same passageinseveral articles through which Idevelop these two sides of scepticism: see Rachel Aumiller, “Epoché as the Erotic Conversion of One into Two,” Yearbook of the Maimonides Centrefor Advanced Studies 2017,ed. Bill Rebiger(Berlin: De Gruyter: 2017), 3–13,and “The Virtue of Erotic Curiosity,” The Journal for Phi- losophy and Literature,forthcoming. 8 Rachel Aumiller

at least alittle something about most things.”⁹ The increduloussceptic’scommand to stop is heard by the curious sceptic as an invitation to trespass. As Winkler argues, when this sceptic approaches astop sign, she is compelled to take at least one step further. Scepticism maybeviewedasthe process of keepingthe other at an arm’slength. However,scepticism can alsobeseen as the practice of provisionallygiving oneself over to the other. The practice of yea-saying,without committingoneself to anyone thing completely. Ironically, this second sceptic, who is marked by arefusal to assent to anything absolutely, is the most likelytosay “yes” to the invitation of another (at least for the sake of experimentation). Her refusal to commit to anything in particular allows her to be open to the equal consideration of everything thathappens to come her way. Attending to the role of touch teases out akind of promiscuity at the heart of scepticism. Robert Pfaller takes the accusation of the sceptic as atoucher one step further,claiming that there is something obscene about the relationship between touch and scepticism (“When to Touch and What to Doubt: ZeroingInonthe Tactile Surplus,” pp. 58–77). This obscenity,however,isnot aresultofthe sceptic’simpru- dent judgement in touching. Rather,the obscenity is due to an excess inherent to touch itself. The excess of touch givesrise to doubt. The excess of touch is quite dif- ferent from the excess of sight,heargues. With sight,wetend to add more than what meets the eye. We completeanimageonour horizon by imaginingthe other side, what is more, by imaginingwhat lies past the horizon. Sight,with the help of the imagination, offers the illusion of unity and wholeness to knowledge that is partial. Thesceptical takeaway is that we can only eversee one sideofaposition at atime. Our imagination, which fills in the gaps, is the culprit of visual excess. Agreedytouch, however,allows us to grasp abodyfrom all sides at once.¹⁰ In this sense, touch would seem to be more certain, or at least more thorough,than sight.Incontrasttosight,touch can leave very little to the imagination. And yet, touch givesusmore than what we had bargained for.Every touch is abit likepoking abear.Touch at your own risk. Thesceptical takeaway is that there is alwaysmore at hand than what meets the eye. The excess is aresult of how the touch of the other disruptsour fantasy of the other.Whether this disruption takes the form of apleasant surprise or adisappointment,itnevertheless disruptsour projected image. As Pfaller writes, “Touching’ssurplus […]does not contributetocompletingsuch an image. In- stead, it adds itself as an obscene supplementtowhat could otherwise have passed

 Apuleius, Transformation,1.2.  Foramythical referencetoanomni-haptic being, we mayconsider the Hecatoncheires(Hundred- Handed Giants) fromHesiod’s Theogony (in Hesiod, Theogony and Worksand Days,trans. M.L. West, repr.ed. [Oxford:OxfordUniversity Press,2008]). Foraphilosophical referencetoour own omni-hap- tic being, see ImmanuelKant, Anthropology fromaPragmatic Point of View,trans.VictorLyle Dow- den, rev. and ed. Hans H. Rudwick with introductionbyFrederick P. VanDePitte, new ed. (Carbon- dale: Southern Illinois University Press,1996), 41. Sensation &Hesitation: Haptic Scepticism as an EthicsofTouching 9

as aconsistent image. Such asurplus causes us to question whether thingswerereal- ly as they previouslyseemed to be” (pp. 61–62). Whether we are in the role of the pro- miscuous toucher or in the position of the one who is touched, touch disrupts what we envision to be true. An imageallows us to imagine what we desire to be true, for example, what we might desire to touchand how we might imagine it to feel. But touchingdisrupts our desire by offering us something moreorless or otherwise than what we envisioned. We are caught daydreamingwhile standing in line. As the line begins to move,a stranger nudgesusfrom behind and without thinking,wetakeastep forward: “A funnylittle push sets thingsinmotion. […]Alittle touchthus again bringsabout an obscene surplus over acceptable knowledge;asurplus that puts this knowledge into question. […]asceptical triumph” (p.62).The sceptic maybeframed as the one who initiatestouch. What is more,touch maybeframed as an agent that nudgesthe processofperpetual inquiry into motion. Our two models of the sceptic point to twogeneral methodologies:scepticism as modes of suspension (reached by overstepping and encountering an impasse) and scepticism as modes of doubt(abacking away thatopensupaspace in between one- self and another). Although the latterisusually connected with formsofmodern scepticism, we can find much earlier characterisations of the sceptic as the doubter. In the City of God,for example, Augustine addresses himself to the sceptics as doubt- ers. In other texts, he equates the sceptics with the academics, who had no doubts about the limits of their knowledge,which is to say, theywerequite certain of these limits.¹¹ But here, he uses scepticism more generallytorefer to all disbelievers, especiallythosewho doubtwhat cannot be tested: miracles and aworld beyond. He challenges the sceptic to contemplate the earthlywonders,not onlybefore her very eyes, but underneath her fingertips. He listsahandful of haptic marvels thattravel- lers speak of. Take, for instance, he says,

the saltofAgrigentum in Sicily, [which] when thrown intothe fire,becomes fluid as if it werein water,but in water it crackles as if it were in fire. The Garamantaehaveafountain so cold by day that no one can drink it,sohot by night no one can touch it.[…]Then there arethe apples of Sodom which grow indeed to an appearanceofripeness,but,when youtouch them with hand or tooth, the peel cracks,and they crumble intodust and ashes.The Persian stonepyrites burns the hand when it is held tightlyand so is named after fire.¹²

Augustine attempts to challengewhat he identifies as the sceptic’sdoubtinthe be- yond by shaking her certainty in her ownexperience of the here and now.And yet, this characterisation is strangesince the ancientsceptics,asAugustine knew,did not

 See, for example,Augustine, Against the Academics,trans.Michael P. Foley (New Haven: Yale Uni- versity Press, 2019) and Augustine, TheRetractions,trans. Sr.Mary Inez Bogan R.S.M., reprinted. (Washington,DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1999).  Augustine, Concerning the City of God against the Pagans,ed. Gill Evans,trans. Henry Bettenson, new.ed. (London: Penguin, 2003), 21.9. 10 Rachel Aumiller

need to look to aworld beyond to highlight the unexplainable.Paradox,for them, was something that could literallybefound within one’sgrasp. If these “doubters” took astepback from the beyond, it was out of an eagerness to attend to the curi- osities with which they came into immediate touch. The haptic experience of contra- diction itself was the one thing of which the sceptics could be certain. Scepticism not onlyquestions the reliability of the sense of touch as atool to test what we can know.Itequallyinvestigates how haptic encounters—experiences of cominginto touchwith other people, things, or ourselves—can cause us to radically question what we believetobetrue (doxa). Pyrrhonian scepticism in particular de- scribes the deeplypersonal crisisthat can result when our sense experience comes into conflict with our culturalvalues. The experience of touch can lead us into the crisis of being split between twoequallycompellingbut contradictory positions. The Pyrrhonian sceptics called this crisis “equipollence” (isostheneia), often referring to the experience of undecidability between two epistemological or metaphysical propositions. However,equipollence mayalsobebodily:the experience of twocon- trary sensations that are equallypowerful. In his writing on Pyrrho,Sextus attends to the paradoxofpleasure and pain.¹³ In Phaedo,Socrates observesthatpleasure and pain are likeatwo-headed monster,one always at the heels of the other.¹⁴ However Sextus takes this line of thought further. Touch can be bothpainful and pleasurable in the same moment.¹⁵ Socrates finds re- lief from the removal of his chains while others find haptic pleasure in the discomfort of being bound; in the first case, pain chronologicallyengenders pleasure; in the sec- ond, pain engenders pleasure simultaneouslywithoutceasing to be painful. Touch can split subjective experience into two equallypowerful and contradictory sensa- tions. The sceptics wereindeed preoccupied with touchmuch more thanwith matters of the beyond. But this is not because that which can be touched is more believable than the intangible. Instead, touch shows us that we do not need to travel very far to experience aporia. Touchmay be employed as an epistemological tool to test our in- itial suspicions by verifyingthe properties of an object at hand. The kind of scepti- cism we chaseinthis collection instead seeks to affirm the materiality of paradox and contradiction (even in the form of negation). In Augustine’sattempt to challenge the doubterwith curious experiencesoftouch, we find astunning thesis for haptic scepticism: Paradox is ahaptic marvel. We can cup paradox in our palms, press para- dox against our lips, dip our toes into its coolness,and, if we are not careful, we may even burn ourselves on its surface. At this point,one might protest that the sceptic has been falselyframed as the toucher.Itisinfact the anti-sceptic, Augustine, who attemptstoseducethe sceptic

 Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Scepticism.  Plato, Phaedo,trans. G.M.A.Grube, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis:Hackett,1977), 57a–61c  Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Scepticism,III.194–97:itisnot onlythe case that pain produces pleasureand pleasureproduces pain. “Every pleasureisaffixed with pain.” Apleasurable experience (for example,overeating) can be painful and gratifyingatthe same time. Sensation &Hesitation: Haptic Scepticism as an Ethics of Touching 11

into touching, just as Christ attemptstoseduce Thomas into touchinghis wound. Then again, perhaps Augustine’shaptic lust is asymptom of his lingering attachment to scepticism, harking back to the days when he participatedinhis fair share of touching. Perhaps Augustine employs asceptical method in order to shake scepti- cism to its haptic core, acommon moveemployed long before Descartes. Perhaps Au- gustine employs atouch of doubtfor the sake of invigorating faith with passion, an- other common move during his time.¹⁶ Is touch on the side of dogma or doubt? Bill Rebiger questions the relationship between doubt,dogma, and haptic mar- vels in the context of Jewishritual and custom (“AMagic Touch: Performative Haptic Acts in Biblical and Medieval JewishMagic,” pp. 104–21). As he notes,prohibitions against touchingaswellasimperativestotouch give definition to acommunal body. The Hebrew scriptures and Halakhah offer clear instructionsregarding who may touch and who maynot touch, what to touch and what not to touch, when to touch and when not to touch, and how to touchand how not to touch. To touch ac- cording to the lawisanexpression of fidelity to one’stradition and community,and to one’sGod. The lawarguablyleaveslittle room for doubt in touching. Rebiger con- siders biblical stories about acts of touch that offend the clear boundaries laid down by lawand custom. Uzzah accidentallycrosses this boundary when he impulsively reaches out to catch the Ark of the Covenant when the oxen stumble. He is struck dead the moment his common touchcomes into contact with the holyobject.Elisha boldlyoversteps when he defies the prohibition against touchingacorpse. As scrip- ture reads,layinghimself over the child’sdead body, he “put his mouth on its mouth, his eyes on its eyes, and his hands on its hands, as he bentoverit. And the bodyofthe child became warm.”¹⁷ Risky touching with uncertain outcomes can have the consequence of life or death. In taking arisk, the sceptical gesture of over- stepping/overreaching/overtouching has the potential to yield haptic marvels be- yond our imagination. When we defy culturalnorms surroundingtouch, we enter arisky zone. The con- sequence can be devastating when one’scommunity—religious or secular—exercises its power to shamethrough tactics rangingfrom gossip to excommunication. Yetthe consequencemay be immenselyrewarding when touch yields sensations so pro- found that they cause our deepest commitments to quiver. These twoconsequences often coincide, throwinganindividual’srelationship to her owntouching—to the wayshe comes into touch with the world—into the crisisofequipollence,splitting her sense of self in two. When acommunity decides thatone of its members has touched out of turn, the toucher becomes the untouchable: the pervert,the player, the cheater,the slut.The

 Nineteenth-century scholars retrospectively identify the appropriation of sceptical arguments by Christian theologians and leaders as “sceptical fideism.” By challengingreason’sgrasp of our phe- nomenal experience, they defend divine revelation as asource of knowledge. Sceptical fideism has been attributed to figuresranging from Tertullian to Kant.  2Kings4:34(New JPS Translation). 12 Rachel Aumiller

punishment of being marked untouchable, specificallyfor the wayone has touched, places the untouchable out of reach of experiences of transformative touch, while often making her vulnerable to acts of violence. As we have noted, the excess of touch is inherentlydisruptiveand even threatening.AsLiberaPisano argues, this disruption is not onlyapersonal experience, but apolitical disturbance (“Noli me tangere: The ProfaningTouch That Challenges Authority,” pp. 122–37). Touch might seem to be the sensation that we explorebehind closed doors. It belongstothe most privateand intimate crevassesofour life. But if touchingisapersonal matter, then whyisitofinterest to the law? Pisano situates touch as amedium of power re- lationsthat take place on the body, “aplace of exchangebetween the Iand the world” (p.125). Following Edmund Husserl, Pisano argues that unlike the other senses that are one-directional, touch demands reciprocity: “It is possible to see without being seen and to hearwithout being heard, but not to touchwithout being touched” (p.125). Touch is thus the siteofintimacy and struggle. Society reg- ulates touchinorder to protect its vulnerablemembers from the abuse of power. However,society also regulates touchinorder to protect its own abuse of power:

It can be said that authority exercises its power throughthis injunction and that noli me tangere has nowadays become the prohibition par excellence. It deals with abuse, impurity,consump- tion, damage,offence, or simplywith usage,pleasure, and enjoyment. Thereisaneveryday use of this prohibition in which power, consumption, and usage areinterwoven. This conjunc- tion raises manyquestions:What does this untouchable represent?What does this register of warningmean?Why is it forbidden to touch?What is the grammar of this gesture? Could we interpret the act of touching as aradical callingintoquestion of authority in general?Does touch involvearadical (a)political form of resistance? Is touch atemporary suspension of the apparatus of power?(p. 134)

The culturalrevolutions of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries reveal the transformative power of defiant touching. Insofar as these movements shook the deepestsocial dogmas surrounding sexualityand gender,they maybeunderstood as sceptical crises of national and globalproportions.Iftouch is the medium through which power secures itself by inscribing the authority of society and lawinto our skin, it is alsothe sitefor resistanceand revolution. Untouchables maychoose to demonstrate the revolutionary power of profane touchingthrough parades and protests. But sometimes, the most disruptive act of the untouchable is simply to exist—to revel in the reciprocity of beingintouch with aworld that experiences your very being as an excess. To exist is to forcethe world to touch youbackand to struggle with the insistence of your being. Pisano adopts Jean-Luc Nancy’sreadingofthe story of Doubting Thomas through acommon medieval framework that marked Mary Magdalene, rather than Thomas, as the compulsive toucher.While Thomas’smasculine desire to touch is connected to the epistemological pursuit of spiritual truth, Mary Magdalene’spres- ence before Christ,whom she addresses as “teacher,” is marked as contaminated by carnal desire. Sensation &Hesitation: Haptic Scepticism as an Ethics of Touching 13

Mary Magdalene was without adoubt one who worshipped through sensuous touching, anointing Christ’sfeet with oil and wiping them dry with her hair.But in her encounter with the resurrected Christ,inJohn’saccount,she stands at adis- tance. Mary Magdalene’s “being-there”—without so much as agesture towards touching—is in itself an excess of touch. Whyisthe potential touchofMary Magda- lene so threatening? It is as if her touchthreatens to come out of the pages of scrip- tures and contaminate the religious desire for disembodied truth (ironicallyrepre- sented in the form of the resurrected body). What would have happened if Mary Magdalene had touched Christ?Hewho overcame death defeated by awoman’s touch. Without lifting afinger,she causesthe son of God to quiverinhis flesh: don’ttouch me! Thetouchofthe untouchable is powerful indeed. Audre Lorde notes the culturalreduction of femalesensuality under capitalism to acommercialised form of eroticism to be viewed and consumed.¹⁸ To unleash eros in its richest sense would not onlybeempowering, but dangerous to the powers that be. Lorde writes, “In touchwith the erotic,Ibecome less willing to accept powerless- ness, or thoseother supplied states of being which are not nativetome, such as res- ignation, despair,self-effacement,depression, and self-denial.”¹⁹ Touch as an act of political rebellion begins with an autoerotic gesture. One comes into touch with her own heightened sense of pleasure and joy by embracing the disruptive power of her sensuous being. Feel yourself. Autoeroticism becomes revolutionary when embold- ened sensuousbeingscome into touch. Lorde calls us

to risk sharingthe electrical charge without havingtolook away,and without distortingthe enormouslypowerful and creative nature of that exchange.Recognizingthe power of the erotic within our livescan give us the energy to pursue genuine change within our world, rather than merely settlingfor ashift in characters in the same weary drama.²⁰

Following Lorde and Pisano, we can identify touch as asceptical gesture that chal- lenges the hierarchies that structure philosophy, religion, and politics (and all expe- rience). An inner transformation of one’ssubjectivity occurs with the realisation that just being-there is an act of (a)politicaldisturbance. Apolitical transformation of so- ciety occurs with the communal realisation of the potential of this disturbance when untouchables come into erotic touch. Promiscuity is revolutionary. There are great risks and rewards for challengingthe social and political boun- daries of touch. But does uncertainty and risk persist in the experience of individuals who touchaccordingtothe rules?Wemay return to Rebiger,who explores this ques- tion by highlightingthe role of touch in medievalJewish magic. Amagic touchmay involvehandling enchanted objects, laying one’shands on another’sbody, or mak-

 AudreLorde. “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power,” in Sister Outsider:Essaysand Speeches, rev.ed. (Berkeley:CrossingPress, 2007), 55–59.  Lorde, 58.  Lorde, 59. 14 Rachel Aumiller

ing an inscription on the skin. In order to achieve the desired effect of alovespellor acurse, apractitionerofmagic must not deviate from aspell’sspecific instructions, no matter how demanding or baffling. Theaid of written or oral instruction would seem to clarify touch. But,asRebiger points out,atouchofdoubtnevertheless creeps in even when languageprovides clear direction. Did my touch achievethe ef- fect Idesired?Was my performance underwhelming? When apractitioner doubts the efficacy of his spell, he must repeat the haptic performance again and again until he gets it just right.But in manycases, it is difficult to know whether the transformative power of amagic touch has taken place. Is doubt ahindrance to the transformative potencyoftouching, or does doubt motivatetouch? Adding anew dimension to J.L. Austin’sspeech act,Rebiger coins the term “performative haptic act” to discuss the transformative power of touch through repetition and singularity.Henotes thatrep- etition serves the function of overcomingdoubt.For this reason, manyrituals require regular repetition to strengthen our fidelity.However,wemight alsoargue that the persistenceofuncertainty drivesthe repetition of touch. Doubt drives the toucher to repeat his touch, to adjust his touch, to perfect his touch, to reflect on his touch and tryagain. Let us repeat the question: Does touch belong to the sceptic or to the dogmatist? As with anyrigorous and thorough sceptical investigation, the resultsare inconclu- sive.Apuleius would go to trial for touchingtoo much (everything from forbidden magical objectstoawealthywidow,the mother of his best mate).²¹ And yet, Socrates was accused of not touchingenough. Of course, the accusation of touchingtoo much or too little has alot to do with the preferences of the other (one’scommunity,reli- gion, or lover). The accusations against the sceptics with regard to their inappropriate touching—whether too much or too little—reflect two different understandings of the relationship between fidelity and touch: one position demands faithfulness in the abstention of sensation; another position demands the other’stouch all to himself. When Alcibiades walks in on Socrates cosyingupwith Agathon on acoach, we are offered an impassioned account of how erotic/epistemic promiscuity leadsto the frustrated desire of the belovedwho wants the lover all to himself in bodyand soul.²² Platodevotes an entire dialogue to the frustration of touching. The Symposi- um’squestion, “What is eros?”,islayered with the question, “What is it that Iwant to touch when touchingthe other?” Apuleius, in response to being chargedwith com- pulsive touching, makes it clear that he would liketograsp abit of everything. But Plato suggests thatthereisjust one thing we want from touch: Onenessitself. Aris- tophanes’simageofthe flayedcircle people desperately bumping “bellybuttons” to reunitethemselvespoints to the impossibility of achieving this one thing.Aswehave

 Apuleius, Apologia.  Plato, Symposium,trans. Alexander Nehamasand Paul Woodruff (Indianapolis:Hackett,1989), 213b–22b. Sensation &Hesitation: Haptic Scepticism as an EthicsofTouching 15

suggested above, onlysight and imagination can achieve the unity that touch longs for. The fantasy of Diotima’sladder is to transcend the whole ordeal of touching: the messiness of otherbodies and the complications of asymmetrical desire which pla- gue eros.²³ In Diotima’svision, by climbing past touch, we achieve oneness and unity through sight as we gaze into the form of the Beautiful. Hence, we move from procre- ation between bodies to the creation of beautiful ideas. Asceptical interpretationof Diotima’sladder and Plato’sforms, however,identifiesthe unity broughtabout by the gaze as wishful thinking. We are unable to transcend touch, either because the top of the ladder is impossiblyout of reach or because no matter how highwe climb we are always on our way. Instead of gazinginto the pure form of Beauty in itself, we are left in the dark, clumsilygroping each other’sflesh. The Symposium explores how the frustration of touch is astructural component of eros: akind of fundamental drive,which cannot be satisfied, propellingusto- wards other bodies, activities, and ideas. Bara Kolenc attributes this frustration to the paradoxofdesire, which she names “the (un)touchable” (“The (Un)Touchable Touch of Pyramus and Thisbe: Doubt and Desire,” pp. 78–103). If the desire of knowl- edge is to close the gapbetween subjectand object,the desire of touch is to close the gapbetween bodies. In both cases, doubt and uncertainty are the result of agap be- tween two. The fulfilment of desire would be achieved by closing this gap. If two could become one, doubtcould be overcome. But,asKolenc argues, when doubt is extinguished, so is desire: the desire for knowledge,desire for the other. Eros de- sires unity,but the fulfilment of this desire is death. If the flayedcircle people could have their way, they would suffocate each other in their embrace. Like afight to the death, one side would eventuallyswallow up the other,snuffing out the animating forceofdesire—the differencebetween two, even in the case of two of the same—that had so attracted each to the other in the first place. In order to sustain itself, desire must desire too much and thus fend off its own fulfilment,maintaining the excruci- ating distance between two, maintaining the space for doubt and uncertainty. As a function of desire, touch likewise must hold openagapeven as it seeks to draw another near. In Kolenc’sframework, the (un)touchable—the condition of touch—is found in the equipollence of these two contrary impulses: to cling to the other for all eternity (an eternity equivalent to death, the death of desire) and to holdthe object of lust/ knowledge at adistance,topreservedesire by sacrificing its fulfilment. Kolenc demonstratesthat the spatial paradoxoftouchisalso temporal. Her analysis echoes Anne Carson’sillustration of the temporalparadoxofdesirous touch through afragment of Sophocles’spoetry about ice.²⁴ Aglisteningicicle catch- es my eye. My impulse is to break off the icicle to cling to its beauty.But the warmth of my hands would cause it to melt away and slip through my fingers.The ice,in

 Plato, Symposium,210a–12a.  Anne Carson, Eros the Bittersweet: An Essay (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 111–16. 16 Rachel Aumiller

turn, would surelysting my hands to exact its revenge. In ancient scepticism, the ex- perience of crisisatthe encounter of paradoxsometimes results in atransformation that is one-sided: the transformation of the sceptic. Alternatively,the student of the sceptical master undergoes transformation by engaginginpedagogicaldialectic. However,haptic scepticism shows us thatthe transformation that occurs when two (or more)come into touch, although asymmetrical, is mutual. Mutual transfor- mationisnot without risks. In order to be transformed, we must come into contact with and be fundamentallyaltered by the other. But how do we give ourselvesoverto the other’stouchingwithout losing ourselves? Canwebetransformed by touch while holding open aspace for the integrity of our own desire—even withoutfully understand- ing the nature of our own desire which is itself conflicted? Augustine’simageofthe apple that turnstoash when pressed against one’slips is mirrored by Kolenc,who locates haptic scepticism in Ovid’simageoflovers who press their lips against the stone wall thatseparates them. As Kolenc clarifies, the lovers press theirlips not merelyupon the cold stone, but against adeepcrack in the wall. The crack rather than the wall bothfrustrates and mediates the impossible touch. The sceptic’sinterest in touch is alsoabout grasping nothing:the crack be- tween two, or the crack within one that is alreadydivided.The ancient sceptics werecontent to describe the sensuous and affectiveexperience of touchingparadox, revealing that contradiction seems to lie in every touch. They did not go so far as to speculate whyparadoxappears to be directlybeneath our fingertips.

Fig. 3: Zack Sievers,film strip from Haptic Cinematography,2018. Sensation &Hesitation: Haptic Scepticism as an Ethics of Touching 17

The Haptic Marvels of Touching Oneself: Nineteenth- and Twentieth-CenturyHaptic Scepticism

As Inoted earlier,manyofthe contributors to this volume, myself included, have our philosophical home in the Ljubljana SchoolofPsychoanalysis,which is most strong- ly associated with Mladen Dolar,Alenka Zupančič,and Slavoj Žižek. Thus, the num- ber of references to G.W.F. Hegel per page(HPP) should not be surprising.Asnext generation scholars within this tradition, we stress the central role of scepticism in the connection between ancientphilosophy, German idealism, and twentieth-century continental philosophyand psychoanalysis. We extend the scope of the Ljubljana Schoolbybuilding upon the philosophyoftouch and languagedeveloped in late twentieth-century continental philosophyand psychoanalysis in the dialogues be- tween figures such as Jacques Lacan,Didier Anzieu, Maurice Merleau-Ponty,Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy,and Emmanuel Levinas (seeour collected volume devoted to this topic: TheLanguage of Touch:Philosophical Examinations in Linguistics and Haptic Studies [New York: Bloomsbury,2019]). Through haptic scepticism, we further elaborate the relationship between touch and languagebytracing the indebtedness of continental philosophyoflanguageand touch to methods and themesbelonging to ancientscepticism. In my view,the trajectory of the Next Generation Ljubljana Schoolinto haptic scepticism has its stakes in an ethics that is aligned with aesthet- ics rather than epistemology:sensation rather thancertainty.Wereach for an ethics that reinvigorates desire and sensation with atouch of doubt. Ancient scepticism finds new life in nineteenth- and twentieth-century European philosophyintwo movements: 1) Germanidealismand 2) twentieth-century conti- nental philosophy: phenomenology, psychoanalysis, structural linguistics, and post- modernism. In dialogue with ancientscepticism, the new expressions of scepticism within Germanidealism and continental philosophyexplore the phenomenological experience of contradiction or paradox. German idealism offers scepticism two new thrilling elements: an introspective subject and ametaphysical framework, each deeplyinforming the other.Asaresult, the Platonic theme of eros in ancient scepticism becomes autoerotic in German idealism. Continental philosophyand psy- choanalysis adopt the sceptical subject of German idealism, endowing this subject with arich philosophyoftouchand language. Scepticism takes adetour into the in- teriority of the self in order to reachbackout into the world through these two vital modes of being in the world with others. It might seem that aself-actualised modernsubject—with the ability to reflect on and articulate her complex desires and preferences—would be able to clear up some of the troubles with touching(so long as the other respectsher wonderous autonomy as she does his).However,the new wavesofhaptic scepticism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries reveal that contradiction runs deep into the very substance of the 18 Rachel Aumiller

subject(so much so that some twentieth-century philosopherschallengethe catego- ry of the subject altogether).Rather thanmending the crack that constitutes the self, continental philosophyand psychoanalysis show that languageonlymagnifies the frustrated desire for unity in both the experience of touchingothers and of touching oneself. In the context of German idealism,scepticism does not shyawayfrom making metaphysical claims as it once did. The sceptical description of contradiction and cri- sis instead serves as the foundation of metaphysics,whether this foundational crack is found within the world, between the subjectand the world, or within the subject. As we witness in Hegel’s Science of Logic,Being herself steps into the role of the sceptic in crisis.²⁵ Being attemptstograsp herself as such—as pure indeterminate Being—onlytograsp ahandful of nothing.Wefind that Being can onlygrasp herself by the crack between Being and Nothing,which mirror each other in their indetermi- nacy.Nothingcan likewise onlygrasp himself by this same crack. This metaphysical impasse—the indecipherability of Being and Nothing—is not the impossibility of met- aphysics,but the starting point.Iread the opening of Hegel’s Science of Logic as an origin story that grounds his ontology.²⁶ Existenceisset in motion in this cosmic in- stance of self-touch/self-doubt. Being,pure Being,touches herself and doubts her own being.The repetition of Being’sown sceptical crisis—the suspended equipol- lence between Being and Nothing—is the ongoing animatingforceofBecoming. From this speculative origin story,Iclaim that metaphysical (self‐)doubtpre- cedes ontological existence. The world is not created through the wordthat asserts itself, but through aquestion: Lettherebelight?Itisgood. Is it though?(which at times seems to be acloser characterisation of God to his creation.)Moving from an objective register to asubjective register,wemight further claim that self-doubt precedes the self. Idoubt thereforeIam. Am I? In the crisis of equipollence between “Iam”and “am I?”,wefind the subject (for several formations of the subject in doubt,see Kolenc,Vranešević,and Louria Hayon). Ancient haptic scepticism leans into an almost psychological analysis of the ex- perience of epochē,describing the emotional stages of individuals when processing a sensational encounter that disruptstheirbasic assumptions. Ancient scepticism zeros in on subjective experience even while lacking the category of the subject. Hegel claims that scepticism concludes ancient Greek life, giving birth to the shad- owyoutline of the modernsubject at the sitewherethe oldgods wereburned to the ground.²⁷ German idealism adds to scepticism’sanalysis of the subjective expe-

 GeorgWilhelm Friedrich Hegel, TheScience of Logic,trans. George Di Giovanni (Cambridge:Cam- bridge University Press, 2010), §§21.68–21.69, 59–60.  Forthis account,see Rachel Aumiller, “Twice-Two:Hegel’sComic Redoubling of Beingand Noth- ing,” Problemi International 2, no. 2(2018): 253–78.  GeorgWilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit,trans. Terry Pinkard(Cambridge:Cam- bridge University Press,2018), §§745–47.Ioffer adetailed accountofthis moment in Hegelaswell as in ancient Greek philosophyand art in “The AbortedObject of Comedy: Platoand Aristophanes’ Sensation &Hesitation: Haptic Scepticism as an EthicsofTouching 19

rience of crisis, ametaphysics of the subject of crisis. Goran Vranešević demonstrates how the figure of the sceptic in crisis serves as the prototype for subjectivity as such as painted by modern philosophy, especiallybyHegel (“An Atom of Touch: Scepti- cism from Hegel to Lacan,” pp. 156–76): “Since Hegel, it has been practicallyself-ex- planatory that natural consciousness has asceptical character.While this is an es- sentialposition of modernthought,italso illustrates are-evaluated perspective on scepticism itself” (p.166).Ancient haptic scepticism reveals the trouble with coming into touch with the phenomenal world. German idealismshows us the trouble of cominginto touch with the self. It further shows that this trouble is at once the con- dition not onlyofself-knowledge,but alsoofany claim to knowledge.Vranešević continues, “[Hegel] pairedthe question, ‘What can Iknow?’ with the labour of con- ceptual unveiling and thereby grasped knowledge as the process of self-comprehen- sion (Selbsterfassen), or,more directlyexpressed, the task of touching(Fassen)one- self (Selbst)” (p.159). Scepticism challenges epistemologybydemonstrating that anything we cling to as truth slips through our clenched fist.Hegel, however,iden- tifies this fistful of nothing as the very structure of knowledge,since every appear- ance must realise its identity bothin“what it is” and “what it is not” (the internal othernessofdeterminatenegation). The subject likewise must grasp herself by the crack between bothwhat she is and what she is not (which is alsowhat she is): the haptic world. Hegel is anaturalcompanion for this studybecause of the haptic overtones of one of his driving concepts, which takes the form of both anoun and verb: Be- griff/begreifen. As with the English “to grasp,” begreifen also contains the double sense of aliteral grasp (to grasp ahandful of clay/bread/flesh) and ametaphorical grasp (to grasp aconcept/idea/ideal). However,asMirt Komel argues, Hegel’slan- guageofgrasping when applied to aconcept (Begriff)ismorethan mere metaphor (“Touching Doubt: Haptolinguistic Scepticism,” pp. 138–55). Or,toput it differently, the structure of the metaphor is itself more than amere metaphor.Metaphor is the sceptical engine driving spirit.Concepts have ahaptic character justastouchhas aconceptual character.Wemust grasp an idea by its material body. What is more, aconcept must grasp itself by its material body, even if onlybyits crack. What ap- pears from one perspective as the grasp of the concept appears from another perspec- tive as the conceptofthegrasp. Andyet,asdialectics would have it,these two sides cannot be collapsed, but remain in suspension. Komel illustrates how the metaphor that connects conceptual grasping with physical grasping reveals the sceptical struc- ture of the concept itself: the speculative unity which both holds together and sep- arates the touchable (our haptic experience of our ownbody, other bodies, and ma- terial world) and the untouchable (logos/language).

Alliance,” in TheObject of Comedy,ed. Gregor Moder and Jamila M.H. Mascat (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,2020): 75–92. 20 Rachel Aumiller

Fig. 4: BaraKolenc, MirtKomel and Atej Tutta, Hegel’sBegriff,2018, installation, mixed media. Hegel’sBegriff is an interactive installation thatexplores the roleoftouchingrasping the negative and positive aspects of aconcept. The black sideofthe walldisplays convex objects thatare hidden from view.The white sidedisplaysthe corresponding concave sideofeach object. Through the use of touch-responsivetechnology,the wall recordsand projects the nature of each strokeorprodonto the ceiling.

In previous investigations, Komel and his team laid the foundation for haptolin- guistics, the studyoftouch as afundamental component of language.²⁸ In the frame- work of structural linguistics, “phoneme” denotes asingle unit of sound, while “gra- pheme” denotes asingle unit of writing.Komel and his team coin the term “hapteme” to denote asingle unit of touch within language. Astraightforward exam- ple of the hapteme is asingle strokeofanindex finger over abump within Braille. In our present collection on haptic scepticism, Komel makes acritical move by identi- fying the place of doubtwithin haptolinguistics. In response to his contribution, I question whether amore elementaryunit of touch is not found in atouch of doubt. Ancient scepticism shows us how anyline of philosophical reflection eventually leads us to adead end (epochē). Andyet,the repeated failureofphilosophytohold onto anysingle truth, from asceptical perspective,iswhat propels philosophyfor- ward as adynamic and ongoing process of perpetual inquiry.Hegel applies the para- doxofmovement generated by impasse not onlytothe work of the philosopher,but

 Mirt Komel, ed. TheLanguage of Touch: Philosophical ExaminationsinLinguistics and Haptic Stud- ies. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019. Sensation &Hesitation: Haptic Scepticism as an EthicsofTouching 21

to everything,exchangingthe Greek epochē for the German Aufhebung (which can be translated as “suspension” as much as “sublation”). Spirit’sactivity of repetitive grasping is playedout on ametaphysical stageinthe Logic,onahistoricalstage in the Phenomenology of Spirit,inwhich history repeatedlyattemptstograsp itself by its own cracks, on alinguistic stageinthe Aesthetics,and on asubjective stage when the substance of the subjectisrevealed to be negative.Being,history,lan- guage, and the subject are constituted by the same crack. All four registers are driven by what Hegel boldlyidentifies as the self-consumingscepticism belongingtospirit itself (sich vollbringende Skeptizismus). Our philosophicalexamination of grasping oneself (as self)does little to defend continental philosophyand psychoanalysis against the accusation of its masturbato- ry character.Bytracing the inheritance of ancient and modern skepticism in twenti- eth-century philosophy, our studyprobes touch as the contested sight of certainty and doubtfor both epistemologyand ethics. We analyse the manifestations of haptic autoeroticism within twentieth-century European thought,while also marking auto- erotic doubt within this tradition as an ethical force. Jacob Levi investigates the au- toeroticism of haptic scepticism by taking on the great masturbator himself (this is to say, Martin Heidegger; see Levi’scommentary on Derrida’swell-placed jab at Heideg- ger’smonstrous hand, “‘Es wird Leib, es empfindet’:Auto-Affection, Doubt,and the Philosopher’sHands,” pp. 30–57). Levi claims thatthe motif of the philosopher’s hand within the history of Western philosophyisatthe centre of sceptical and anti-sceptical debates,embodied by LudwigWittgenstein’ssceptical refutation of G.E. Moore’sproof of the external world basedonthe self-evidence of his (other) hand. Levi argues that the reduction of the hands to their epistemic value—with re- gardtoboth doubtand certainty—evades the ethical dimensions of cominginto touch with another (an argument also made by Pfallerand Kolenc). We have discussed different kinds of relationships to touch:the compulsive toucher who wants to grasp abit of everythingfrom all sides, the one who overtouch- es without lifting afinger,the defiant toucher,and the one who touches by the book. We explored how each example of touch can produce adisruption that shakes dog- mas rangingfrom our ownexpectations to the deep-seated values of society.Byhigh- lightingthe relationship between touch and doubt,haptic scepticism limits the reach of the epistemologist who attempts to master the world through an all-knowing con- ceptual/haptic grasp. In this spirit,the phenomenological tradition initiallybrackets the epistemological debate about what we can provewith our hands, to offer ade- scription of the existential experience of touching. However,asLevi notes,haptic scepticism within the phenomenological tradition mayhide its own dogmatic as- sumptions. Even while abandoning the epistemological project of defining the world through touch,the phenomenological method nevertheless privileges ahand- sy approach to encounteringother beings. Take, for instance,Heidegger’svocabulary to describe the world as “presence-at-hand” (vor-handenheit)and “readiness-to- hand” (zu-handenheit). Derrida identifiesthis philosophical treatment of “the hand” as anthropocentric in his critique of Heidegger’sclaim thatthe ape does 22 Rachel Aumiller

not have hands.²⁹ Levi writes, “[D]oubtingthe hands of others enables aform of hap- tic scepticism wherethe handsbecome aproxy for the value of otherbeings. […]Ac- cording to this view,the hand is more thanaprehensile appendage: it is the embod- ied form of thinking,reasoning,and ultimatelywriting” (p.39). The motif of the philosopher’shand reflects the ancient alliance between touch and languagein Western philosophy. Those who “have hands” also “have language,” and thus claim the power to dictate what violence can be done to thosedeemed without the power of human touch and language. Those who “have hands” have the power to draw aline between thosethey iden- tify as having arich relationship to existenceand those who lack the ability to grap- ple with their ownbeing.Asopposed to beasts, according to this view,onlythose who “have hands” are able to doubt,toquestion, to struggle with their existence: the sceptical activity which Heideggeridentifies as the metaphysical vocation of the German people in his 1935 lectures Introduction to Metaphysics.³⁰ Levi makes a powerful connection between Heidegger’shaptic scepticism/dogmatism and his pol- itics. When Karl Jaspers questions, “How can such an uneducated (ungebildet)man like Hitler govern Germany?”,Heideggerreplies, “It is not aquestion of education, just lookathis marvellous hands!”.InLevi’sanalysis, “The exclusionary logic gov- erning Heidegger’smonstrous hand, its unarticulatedmode of fleshiness, and its ap- parent disinterest in the desiring touch or caress are emblematic of the solipsistic thinking that failed to grapple with the monstrosity of Nazism” (p.42).The autoerotic thinking of dogmatic haptic scepticism, which cannot see past its own hand, justifies very real violence. Levi traces the consequences of haptic scepticism/dogmatism from its epistemo- logical determinations through its political symptoms.However,healso identifiesa deeper sense of haptic scepticism that runs parallel to and disruptsthe strand of dog- matic haptic scepticism at the service of anti-Semitism and fascism. Although we have connected fascistthinking with the masturbatory touch, the subversive counter position is also born from aphilosophical discourse about the haptic marvels of touchingoneself. Husserlnotes the unique quality of auto-affective touch, in which one experiencesthe double sensation of touchingthe “other” and of being

 Jacques Derrida, “Geschlecht II: Heidegger’sHand,” trans.John P. Leavey Jr., in Deconstruction and Philosophy:The Texts of Jacques Derrida,ed. John Sallis,paperback ed. (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1989), 174.  Martin Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics,trans.Gregory Fried and RichardPolt(New Haven: Yale University Press,2014). In his lectures on metaphysics, Heideggeridentifies the German people as havingametaphysical vocation (42–43), goingontocharacterise metaphysicsasthe process of perpetually questioningBeing to the end of disruptingour unreflective modes of production. Howev- er,asweexploreinthis volume, those whoare marked with the privileged “ability to question” are giventhe power to dominate. Scepticism presented as aprivileged standpointhas adogmatic under- belly. Foraninsightfulcommentary on the double natureofquestioning in these lectures, see Jan Voelker, “Heidegger’sMovies:National Socialism and the End of Philosophy,” ProblemiInternational 1, no. 1(2017): 181–215. Sensation &Hesitation: Haptic Scepticism as an EthicsofTouching 23

touched by “another” in the same stroke.³¹ He frames self-touch as the strongest in- stance of the grasp-ability of paradox. When an individual touches herself, she occu- pies the position of both subjectand object,without collapsing the distinction be- tween the two. To put it differently, she grasps herself by the slit between her subjective and objective sides. In Husserl’sanalysis,auto-affective touch contains ahetero-affective sensation, since when Itouch myself, Igrasp an alterity thatisinherent to the self. Merleau- Ponty reads the reverse formulation in Husserl.³² When Itouch the flesh of another, Iempatheticallysense what my touch must feel like against the other’sskin. Flesh senses flesh. Hetero-affective (we might add heteroerotic to denote both sensation and desire) touch contains an auto-affective/erotic sensation. However,Levidraws on bothDerrida and Levinas to recognisethe danger of imagininganother’sbody as an extension of one’sown flesh. The imagination slips back into an epistemolog- ical framework when an individual basesher touch on the imagined knowledge of the other’ssensation and desire. Levinas turns to the model of the caress as a kind of touch that is guided by perpetual questioning rather than certainty. As Levi explains,

Whereas touch seeks to master knowledge in the hand’sgrasp, the caress is an encounter with the unknown otherness of the other’stouch. […]The caress is atouch beyond touch: it reveals the transcendencethat arises out of the immanence of tactile impressions.Itispreciselythis unknown incalculable quality of the other’stouch that is responsible for its allure, as the locus of desireorethics.The caress is marked by its incalculability.(p. 51)

Haptic scepticism within late twentieth-centuryphilosophy, represented by Levinas’s caress,places sensation and hesitation at the heart of ethics by frustrating the dom- inance of epistemology over questions of touch (and what is more, the question be- longingtotouch). The fascist’stouch is not sensualenough.We stumble across asur- prising claim thaterotic curiosity and sensuality towards the unknown lies at the heart of ethics. Theexperience of caressing in the darkisnot only amodel for an ethics of touching,but for all ethics. AdiLouria Hayonexplores the impact of haptic scepticism within the American art world (“The Weak Relations of Touch and Sight through the PassageofLapsed Time,” pp. 178–206), focusing on artistic practices through which the concept of touch seeks to grasp itself by its material body. She givesparticularattentiontoRob- ert Morris’sperformative series Blind Time Drawings. Morris made hundreds of draw- ingsbyfollowing adisciplined procedureinwhich he blindfolded himself and set a timer to apredetermined increment.Hewould dip his fingers in black ink and press

 Edmund Husserl, IdeasPertaining to aPure Phenomenology and to aPhenomenological Philoso- phy. Second Book:Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution,trans. RichardRojcewiczand AndréSchuwer (Dordrecht: Kluwer,1989), §36, 144–45.  MauriceMerleau-Ponty, Signs,trans. RichardC.McCleary (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1964), 168. 24 Rachel Aumiller

them against the canvasfollowing aset of instructions (a score), which he composed ahead of time. In opposition to the heavy hand of the philosopher that we find in the work of Heidegger, Louria Hayonoffers ameditation on the delicate fingertips of the artist’sblind touch:

The artist activates the bodyinwithdrawal. He suggests abase materialism that adheres to noth- ing but the proximities of skins and surfacesand blindlytouchingtheir exposed externality.His finger movements,their weight,pressure,velocity,and cadence, perpetually desireanimage that can onlybeachieved in discreteness,indelay, posed in externality.This excessive move- ment requires some consideration. (p.185)

By blindfolding himself, Morris distanceshimself from what we earlier discussed as the excess of sight,which projects an imagined unity.Morris frustrates the epistemo- logical dominance of sight and foresight over atraditionallyvisual medium and in- stead searches for something unknownunder his fingertips. Playing the canvas like a piano,Morris muddies the surface with his fingerprints, the deepestrepresentation of an individual’ssingularity.And yet, as Louria Hayondescribes it,the artist’s touch is aprocess of allowing himself to be undone:

With his eyes closed, Morris begins his withdrawal. The first withdrawal is from mimesis;from forms that were not projected in advance. The second withdrawal is fromself-imitation. The scoreand materials servetoset the conditions for the activity.Amodel is suspended in thought at the time of performing the act of drawing,inthe moment of its coming-into-form. (p.182)

Louria Hayonhighlights the haptic paradoxofthe artist’ssceptical practice. By ob- scuring sight,Morris sets himself up for failure. In the suspension of his score—the vision he had planned in advance—the artist’stouch is guided by two contrary im- pulsesfound in the excess of touch: he backs away,holding open aspace for some- thing unforeseen to take place, even as he presses the weight of his fingers against the canvas. Louria Hayonquestions what comes into presenceastouchingcreates a disjunction between two kinds of time that belong to touch:the calculatedminutes of the timer and the organic haptic intervals that emerge through the rhythm of touching. We have claimed that touch givesusmore thanwecould have imagined. Louria Hayonconcludes our volume by answering thatthe unforeseen presence that takes form in the temporalfriction of touchingisthe mutuallytransformative experience of aporia.

Restoring Doubt within an Ethics of Touching: Haptic Scepticismfor Today’sWorld

Iopenedthis introduction with adiscussion of two kindsofscepticism. The first model is represented by the figure who immediatelytakes astep back, who resists the temptation of giving herself over fullytoanother,who holds the object in ques- Sensation &Hesitation: Haptic Scepticism as an EthicsofTouching 25

tion at an arm’slength. The second model is represented by the figure who oversteps, who crosses the line, who offends the law, who takes her line of questioning toofar, who insistsongetting her handsdirty.What Iinitiallydescribed as two models of the sceptic, Inow reconsider as asingle moment of suspension in haptic scepticism. When scepticism becomes one-sided—embodied by onlyone of these two kinds—it falls back into dogmatism. In the true equipollence of sensuousdesire, Iamequally compelled to step forward and to step back: to leap towardsanother in eager desire and to pause to question my own impulsetotouch. Haptic scepticism marks this crisis of indecision between erotic sensation andhesitationasthat which fuels both desire and ethics. This research collaboration took place against the backdrop of the social crisisof #MeToo. My own engagement with haptic scepticism offered me alens to process this crisis, through anew ethical framework. Thecrisis of course is not new but has re- centlypushed its waytothe surface of our social existence, making itself felt as a global crisistobegrappled with by all. The figure of “the second sceptic,” who hears the demand to stop as an invitation to take astep further,seems to be the ob- vious sourceofthis crisis. But what is at stake when aculture instils certain popu- lationswith dogmatic certaintyintheir right to overstep?And what kinds of experi- ence or action are required to shake the certainty of atouchthat does not question itself? Acommon response to this crisis has been to call for greater clarity by calling on languagetorescue touchingfrom ambiguity.Onone side, there has been arenewed dialogue that emphasises the importance of clear consent.Onthe other,thosewho are violated by touch are cast under suspicion under this same logic: Did they make their desire or lack of desire known beyond ashadow of adoubt?Our accounts of our own desire and bodymustcount,both in privaterelations and before the law. And yet, even when desire is able to be clearlyarticulatedand respected, does per- petual questioning continue to servearole in touching? Shoulddoubt persist even in the presenceofconsent?Inwhat waycan we see autoerotic doubt as fuelling,rather than inhibiting,relationships of touch? When individuals adopt the one-sided role of “the sceptic” who crosses bounda- ries set by another,thosewho are affected by this actionare forced into the one-sided role of “the sceptic” who must hold others (strangers, friends, colleagues) at an arm’s length. The suggestion of the other’stouchmust be cast into suspicion even before there is agesture towards touching. From the perspective of the self-certain toucher, the other who immediatelytakes astepback without consideration of his advances seems to oppose touch, sensuality,and sex. What he fails to see is that the activity of pushing the other away is alast attempt to holdopen aspace for her owndesire and sensuality thathas been deniedtoher.Sexual harassment and assault are not only acts against another’sbodyoranother’sability to feelateaseinher embodiment. The dogmatic touch destroysthe spaceofanother’sautoerotic questioning.Anindi- vidual is forced to preservethe integrity of her desire by denying herself touch, fall- 26 Rachel Aumiller

ing out of touchwith the world itself (since her experience shows her that touching tends to be on another’sterms). Desirecan onlypreserveitself in anegative form. Acultureofsexual harassment and assault deprivesall of us of genuinemo- ments of sceptical crisis in touch relations.Onone hand,thosewho unreflectively act on their impulsewill not experience the excess of touch, which is found in what cannot be known or mastered in the touch and desire of another.This one- sided touchonlyserves to reinforce their assumptions about what they holdtobe true. On the other hand, those who are violatedare denied their own moment of au- toerotic questioning,the experience of oscillating between considerations of how they desire to be in touch with others and the world. Pfallersuggests that we live in “apostmodern culture thatisobsessed with harassment of all kinds” and that haptic scepticism can teach us that “not every touch must necessarilybeexperienced as anuisance” (pp. 67–68). Isee my generation’sobsession with identifying harass- ment of all kinds as such as being motivated by adetermination to recover rich re- lationships of transformative touch. Thisgoal can onlybeachieved through the transformation of aworld-historical stagethat is constituted by asymmetrical power relations that alienate us from sensuous relations with our selves, others, and our environment.The globalprotest against harassment and assault of all kinds is the uprising of arevolutionary eros that crushes the self-certain touch of the dogmatist in the name of an ethics that acts for the sake of sensuality.Haptic scepticism as aphilosophical and political movement exposes the dogmatist’sself- certain touch, out of adesire for touchrelationships that are capable of achieving mind-blowinghaptic marvels. The authorsinthis volume do not always speak in one voice,but we come to- gether on critical points that are found in the relationship between sensation and hesitation. Haptic scepticism framesethics as the ongoing activityofdeveloping a heightened sensitivity to sensation and desire. This practice simultaneouslydevelops aheightened sensation of the unknown. The unknown side of the needs and desires of both oneself and other makestouchingrisky and thrilling.Becomingresponsive and responsible to the sensation of the unknown is whereepistemologyends and the real work and pleasure of ethical relationships begin. The act of overpowering another is often attributed to an excess of desire. However,werecover erotic desire as an ethical forcethatisfuelled by autoerotic doubt and that holds open aspace for the other’sown sceptical transformation. Haptic scepticism is the practice of moving with and for the sake of another in the form of atouch that perpetuallyques- tions. Sensation &Hesitation: Haptic Scepticism as an EthicsofTouching 27

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Komel, Mirt, ed. The Language of Touch: PhilosophicalExaminations in Linguistics and Haptic Studies. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019. Lorde,Audre. “Uses of the Erotic:The Erotic as Power.” In SisterOutsider: Essays and Speeches, 55–59. Rev. ed. Berkeley: Crossing Press,2007. Merleau-Ponty,Maurice. Signs. Translated by Richard C. McCleary. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UniversityPress, 1964. Plato. Phaedo. Translated by G.M.A. Grube. 2nd ed. Indianapolis:Hackett, 1977. Plato. Phaedrus. Translated by Alexander Nehamasand Paul Woodruff.Indianapolis: Hackett, 1995. Plato. Symposium. TranslatedbyAlexander Nehamasand Paul Woodruff.Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989. Plato. Theaetetus and Sophist. Translated by Christopher Rowe. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2015. Sextus Empiricus. Againstthe Ethicists. TranslatedbyRichardBett. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Sextus Empiricus. Outlines of Scepticism. Translated by Julia Annasand Jonathan Barnes. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1994. Voelker, Jan. “Heidegger’sMovies: National Socialism and the End of Philosophy.” Problemi International 1, no. 1(2017): 181–215. Winkler,John J. Auctor &Actor: ANarratological Reading of Apuleius’s Golden Ass. Berkeley: UniversityofCalifornia Press, 1985.

Fig. 5: AHand, fragment of the colossalstatue of Emperor Constantine the Great from his basilica, Ca.315–330 CE., Marble ©Musei Capitolini, Rome /Art Resource, New York. Jacob Levi “Es wird Leib,esempfindet”:Auto-Affection, Doubt, and the Philosopher’sHands

“Ta main sur ma main, tiède épaisseur de l’ombre” Edmond Jabès¹

Doubt and belief are all too often an affair of the hands. The hand’stouch can con- firm what we believetobetrue, just as it can rattle what we had taken as certain. Two scenes in the book of John offer alucid illustration of the dual possibility of the hand’stouch either instilling belief or raising doubt.When the resurrected Christ re- buffs Mary Magdalene’sextended hand with the famous remark noli me tangere,² he suggests that faith is borne preciselyinthe absence of touch; in this case, based on sight alone. By contrast,the figure of “doubting Thomas,” iconicallydepicted in Car- avaggio’sbaroque masterpiece TheIncredulity of SaintThomas,insistsontouching Christ’swounds to confirm what his eyes cannot; in this case, it is onlytouching the bodyofthe risen Christ that validatesSaint Thomas’sfaith, at which point he exclaims, “My Lordand my God.”³ These scenes present manifestlydifferent empiri- cal standards for faith in the resurrection,hingingonthe certainty proffered by touch. Mary Magdalene is asked to have faith despite Christ’srefusal of her touch, clearing ahigher bar than Saint Thomas, whose incredulity is seemingly validated when Christ allows him to touch the wound. To touch or not to touch—these diver- gent standardsfor belief in the resurrection are never completelyreconciled in the Gospel, in contrast to the strict interdiction of sensible representations of the divine in the Hebrew Bible. Whether sight,touch, or another modality of sensibility can ad- equatelysatisfy belief is adecisive question pertaining to God’smodes of revelation in the Abrahamic religions.⁴

 Edmond Jabès, “Main douce àlablessuremême …,” in Le seuil, le sable: poésies complètes 1943– 1988 (Paris:Gallimard, 1990), 379.  Jn.20:17.  Jn.20:28.  In contrast to these Christian notions of faith validatedbytouch or sight,and followingthe second commandment’sinterdiction of graven imagesorrepresentationsofGod, in the Jewish tradition, the modes of God’srevelation do not include sight or touch and onlyinclude sound in exceptional cases. When God reveals himself to the Hebrew prophets,itisalwaysmediated by either an angel, amirac- ulous event,orasymbol. It is forbidden to speak the name of the God of the HebrewBible, just as it is forbidden to represent his sensible appearance. In the book of Exodus, the Israelites trembled in awe at the foot of Mount Sinai as they miraculously “sawthe sounds” (Ex. 20:18) of the commandments, a sort of synesthetic experienceofseeing the words of the commandments that God pronounces to Moses.However,incontrast to the disciples of the risen Christ,inthe Jewish tradition, seeingGod is out of the question. As Kant famouslydescribesthe interdiction of sensible representations of God in the Critique of Judgment: “Perhapsthereisnomoresublime passageinthe Jewish Book of https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110627176-003 32 JacobLevi

The questions of touch and belief that emerge from these biblical narratives di- rectlyrelatetophilosophical debates concerning the veracity of sensibleimpres- sions. Modern philosophy’sobsession with external world scepticism is oftenex- pressed as achallengetothe hands, the appendages which effectively mediate between the subjective experience of the mind and the body’sinteractions with ob- jects in the world. To what extent can we put our faith in the certainty of the hand’s touch?What can and cannot be known from touch, and what are its epistemological limitations?Touch mayconfirm what is merelyapparent in sight,but it is alsosub- ject to illusion and deception, which threaten to undercut its epistemological author- ity.That the hand’stouchmay inspire belief or doubthas made it acritical battle- ground in philosophical debates regarding the reliability of the senses regarding knowledge claims, which we might call the question of haptic scepticism. Haptic scepticism refers to both the existential questions concerning the facultyoftouch —whether to touch or not, can one touch, how the sense of touch relates to other senses such as sight or hearing—and the experience of touch, its qualia, which per- tains to what touchingsomething is like. Even when the existenceofobjects is brack- eted, notablyinthe phenomenological tradition, the qualitativeexperience of touch is nonetheless evaluated through the lens of haptic scepticism. Touch identifiesthe boundaries separatingthe subject from external objects, tracing the limits of the body; touchisthe frontier of alterity that mediates between one’sown flesh and that of others. The hand has the potential to distinguish self from other,subject from object,living being from mere thing.The ability to make these qualitative dis- tinctions calls upon both the existential and the epistemological modes of haptic scepticism, questioning the existenceofthe hands as well as their qualitative expe- rience of touch. Before the qualitative determinations of touch are subject to sceptical challenges concerning the possibility of deception, they are implicated in apre-theoretical an- alytic notion of what,infact,itmeans to have hands. Despite its apparent self-evi- dence, the criterion for “having” hands is not primarilybiological; rather,itisessen- tiallyasocio-cultural determination. The hands are the site of tactile impressions, but they are also an embodied metaphor for the human capacity for reason, lan- guage, or ethics. The requirementsfor “having” handsdemand more than the motor faculties enabled by the prehensile organ; having handsalso involves interac- tions with our surroundings,and specificallyour treatment of the other living beings we encounter.Inthis chapter,Iwill discuss the hand’sability to distinguish between

the Lawthan the commandment: Thou shaltnot make unto thyself anygravenimage, nor anylike- ness either of that which is in heaven, or on the earth, or yetunder the earth, etc.” (Immanuel Kant, Critique of the PowerofJudgment,trans. Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews [Cambridge:Cambridge Uni- versity Press,2000], 5:274). The lawgiver can onlybepresentednegatively, as a “pure, elevating, merely negativepresentation of morality,” because the sublime origin of the lawisnot derived from asensible object of this world, but can onlybeunderstood via the higher faculty of intellectual imagination. “Es wirdLeib,esempfindet”:Auto-Affection, Doubt, and the Philosopher’sHands 33

different classes of tactile impressions,against the backdrop of doubt.Myargument is that the hand’stouch is not onlythe siteofepistemological contestation, it further calls upon aseries of metaphorsthat describe what it means to be human, and how humans should treat otherbeingsthey encounter.When philosophersconsider the hand’stouchexclusively in terms of sensibleperception, hiding behindsceptical challenges to sense-certainty, they obscure or sidestep the ethical dimension of the hands. The reduction of touch to aquestion of sense-certaintyfails to acknowl- edge the generative role of the handsinour ethical livesashuman beings.The hands are the siteofwhat Emmanuel Levinas calls the “excendence” of sensibility by the infinite, “the overflowing of thoughtbyits content,”⁵ which Jacques Derrida de- scribes as epekeina tēsousias,that which is “beyond being.”⁶ As we will see, the eth- ical dimensionofthe hands emergesfrom the ongoinghaptic sceptical challenges to the certaintyoftouch. Iwill introduce the topic by brieflysurveying how the hands are renderedthe essentialsiteofdoubt in modern philosophy. From Descartes’sdoubt and Kant’s “scandal of philosophy” to Moore’s “here is one hand” proof of the external world, the handsare the philosopher’svital instrument for dispelling doubt.In the second part of the chapter,Iwill discuss the existential conditions for “having” hands and whether the hands are an essentiallyhuman characteristic; namely, Iwill analyse Martin Heidegger’s “monstrous” hand and Derrida’scritical readingofthe philosophical anthropomorphisms born of the hand.Wewill see thatthis existential notion of “having” hands occludes the ethical demands encountered in the other’s touch. The third part of the chapter willhighlight the experienceoftouchingdifferent classes of objects, beginning with EdmundHusserl’sdescription of auto-affection and the experience of the “double sensation” of one hand touchingthe other. Here, it is aquestion of what it is like to touch one’sown flesh, and in what sense the touch of flesh sets itself off as adistinct category from mere objects. This leads to the purported analogybetween the auto-affective touch of one’sown hands and the hetero-affective touch of another.Does auto-affection informthe touch of au- trui, or does it reinforce the othernessofthe other?Inthe following section, Iwill analyse Maurice Merleau-Ponty’sand EmmanuelLevinas’sdivergent readings of Husserl, relating the hand’stouch to the notion of intersubjectivity.Whereas Mer- leau-Ponty sketches ahaptic ontological framework that he calls the “flesh of the world,” Levinas describes ahaptic relation between self and other thatexceeds epis- temological questions of sense-certainty and introduces the possibility of transcen- dence in immanence. Iwill highlight Levinas’snotion of the “caress,” which seeks neither domination nor mastery,asamodality of touchthat remains open to the ex- cendenceofhaptic doubt by the ethical.

 Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity:AnEssay on Infinity,trans. AlphonsoLingis (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979), 197. Translationmodified.  Jacques Derrida, “Violenceand Metaphysics,” in Writing and Difference,trans. Alan Bass (London: Routledge,2001), 105. 34 JacobLevi

The Hands of Doubt

Modern philosophyishaunted by the possibilitythatsensibleperception maybe subjecttodeception. Whereas the visiblefield mayproduce certain illusions, touch purportedlyaffirms athing’sconcrete reality,asifholding something in one’shand offers certainty. But even touch cannot dispel the possibility of deception. The example of the ball of wax in Descartes’ssecond Meditation questions Aristote- lean hylomorphism, which identifiesthe being of all objectsinthe unity of their sub- stance and form. The solid ball of wax “is hard, cold, easilyhandled,” but whenitis heated, “it becomes liquid, it heats, scarcelycan one handle it.”⁷ Descartes’sball of wax is paradigmatic of the endless fluctuations in the appearance of substances,and it suggeststhat touch can also deceive us regardingtheir true nature. Even whenwe believethat we grasp its true nature, like the ball of wax, an object mayslip right through our fingers. This variety of doubt is asubspecies of the sceptical challenge to the existence of external objects. In the prefacetothe Critique of Pure Reason, Kant lamentsthe “scandal of philosophy” that “the existenceofthingsoutside us […] should have to be assumedmerelyonfaith,” rather than with “asatisfactory proof.”⁸ Such aproof cannot be based on evidence thatwecould hold in the palm of our hand. Sensible impressions of objects are insufficient to deducetheir ra- tional character because “intuitions without concepts are blind.”⁹ Touch is no less prone to deception than the other senses. Kant highlights the correspondence be- tween sensible intuition and conceptual reasoning thatisrequired to make episte- mological claims: the hand’stactile impressions are onlyreliable to the extent that they can be conceptuallyunderstood. Some philosophers have reasoned that if the true nature of external objects is subjecttodoubt, then perhaps certainty lies in the existenceofthe hands them- selves. Thisphilosophical deduction-by-the-hands reaches its apex in G.E. Moore’s 1939 “here is one hand” proof of the externalworld. Responding to Kant’s “scandal” of philosophy, Moore contends that the affirmation of the existenceofaperson’stwo hands is necessary and sufficientproof of the external world: “By holding up my two hands, and saying,asImake acertain gesture with the right hand, ‘Hereisone hand,’ and adding,asImake acertain gesture with the left, ‘and here is another’ […]Ihave proved ipso facto the existenceofexternal things.”¹⁰ ForMoore,recognis- ing the mere existenceofthe hands in extended space obviatesthe scandal that so concerned Kant.Whether we find Moore’santi-sceptical proof convincing or com-

 René Descartes, Discourse on Method and MeditationsonFirst Philosophy,trans. Donald Cress,3rd ed. (Indianapolis:Hackett,1993), 21–23.  ImmanuelKant, Critique of Pure Reason,ed. and trans. Paul Guyerand Allen Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1998), Bxxxix.  Kant,A51/B76.  G.E.Moore, “Proof of an External World,” in G.E. Moore: Selected Writings,ed. Thomas Baldwin (New York: Routledge,1993), 166. “Es wird Leib,esempfindet”:Auto-Affection, Doubt, and the Philosopher’sHands 35

pletelyabsurd, it acknowledgesthat the sceptical challenges regardingexternal ob- jects can also be applied to the handsthemselves. Surely his proof is unsatisfying or unconvincing for many, but its elegancelies in its forthrightness. Moore strips the trimmingsfrom external world scepticism and reduces it to the essentialquestion: Can the existenceofour hands alone overcome doubt? Of course, Moore’sanswer to this question is resoundinglyaffirmative,and he excludes himself from the haptic sceptical tradition. Nonetheless, his proof identifiesthe crux of external world scep- ticism as achallengeissued to the hands. What conditions allow Moore to be certain that his hands exist?LudwigWittgen- stein, an allyinMoore’squest against scepticism, offers aprobingcommentary on the “here is one hand” proof in On Certainty,aposthumously compiled text based on adraft written shortlybefore his death in 1951. Wittgenstein identifies Moore’s first premise as decisive: “If youdoknow that here is one hand, we’ll grant youall the rest.”¹¹ Giventhe first premise, Moore’sconclusion follows rather easily. Howev- er,Wittgenstein emphasises, we must actually know that the first premise is true, rather than simplybelieving it to be the case—this is the pivotalepistemological question. “From its seeming to me—or to everyone—to be so, it doesn’tfollow that it is so,” Wittgenstein cautions, “What we can ask is whether it can make sense to doubt it.” To understand what makes the hands’ existenceappear certain, we must identify the necessary conditions which would make it possible to doubtthis premise. It surely seems that my hands are present in extended space, this perception is easilyconfirmed by others, and typicallyIhavenoreason to think otherwise. Per- haps it is possibletoimagine acontext in which someone has no hands but falsely believes that he or she does, but in ordinary experience,the conditions for doubting the existenceofone’shandsare not meaningfullypresent.Inshort, the validation of Moore’sassertion of “here is one hand” is built into the context of the claim, and it is asserted preciselybecause ordinarilyitseems self-evident.AsWittgenstein writes, “This possibility of satisfying oneself is part of the languagegame. Is one of its es- sentialfeatures.”¹² Because the conditionsfor doubting the existenceofthe hands are not present,Moore’santi-sceptical conclusion is programmedinto his framing of the problem. Wittgenstein highlights the codependence of knowledge and doubtincontext- drivenlanguagegames.The conditions for doubt do not arise absolutely; rather, they must be occasioned by asurroundingset of facts taken as certain. Doubt func- tions like adoor that turns on aset of fixed hinges: the door can onlyswingopen if the hinges stayinplace. The grounds for doubt can onlyarise in the specific ways permittedbythe context of the situation. Wittgenstein writes, “(My) doubts form a system.”¹³ This system of doubt is the negative imageofthe world of certainty.Con-

 Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty,ed. G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. vonWright,trans. Denis Paul and G.E.M. Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell, 1969), 2.  Wittgenstein, 2.  Wittgenstein, 19. 36 JacobLevi

sequently, justasone proves aclaim by demonstratingits necessary conditions in a specific context,inversely, “one doubts on specific grounds.”¹⁴ Indeed, ahost of cir- cumstances could arise thatwould createacontext in which to doubtthe existence of one’shands, such as blindness, paralysis,phantom limbsyndrome,orperhaps the influenceofapsychotropicdrug. Moore’sproof is performative to the extent that the speakermusttrulybelievethe assertion thatthe hands exist,and in a sense, it is onlyrecitingthe proof that speaks them into existenceasanepistemolog- ical fact.However,under ordinary circumstances,the speaker has little reason to doubt the existenceofthe hands, and the conclusion of Moore’sproof essentiallyfol- lows from the languagegame built into its first premise. The certainty of the premise “here is one hand” depends on its context,but the near-constant use of the hands in ordinary life shields them from manyforms of doubt.For Wittgenstein, the existence of the hand is no more the ultimatesite of doubt than context allows: if Moore’sargu- ment is sound, it is onlybecause it is precisely when we are looking for certainty that we look to our own hands. The “here is one hand” proof does not eliminate doubt: it simplydisplaces the “scandal” of philosophytothe hands. We might ask whyphilosophershaveprivileged the handsoverthe rest of the body’scapacity to touch. Of course, human beingsare oriented towards the hands by forceofevolutionary biology, and the handsare central to most fundamental human practices. The acute sensitivity,opposable thumbs, and nimble prehensility of human handsoffer evolutionary advantagesthatallow us to fashion toolsand harness the power of nature.Akin to the elephant’strunk, the snake’stongue, or the bat’secholocation, ahuman being’shandsare the predominant mediators of his or her interactions with the external world. Nonetheless, we maywonder with Derrida in On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy whythe philosophicalanalysis of touch al- ways reverts to an affair of the hands, as if they werethe onlylocus of touch:

Whyonlythe hand and the finger?Why not my foot and toes?Can they not touch another part of my bodyand touch one another?What about the lips,especially? All of the lips on the lips?And the tongue on the lips?And the tongueonthe palateand manyother parts of “my body”?How could one speak without this?[…]And the eyelids in the blink of an eye? And, if we takesexual differences into account,the sides of the anal or genital opening?¹⁵

If the entire bodyiscapable of touch, and in amultitude of different ways,why do philosophers almostexclusively refer to the hand in order to evaluatewhether touch can overcomedoubt?Why not evaluatedoubt with our elbows?The privileging of the hands is aproduct of both human evolution and contingent culturalpractices, but wherewould we even begin to delineate which of the hands’ activities arise from “nature” and which are the artifices of “culture”?The impossibility of fixing the

 Wittgenstein, 60.  Jacques Derrida, On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy,trans. ChristineIrizarry (Stanford: StanfordUni- versity Press, 2005), 164. “Es wird Leib,esempfindet”:Auto-Affection, Doubt, and the Philosopher’sHands 37

limit between the hand’snaturaland socio-culturalactivities illustrates its central place in human formsoflife, which is irreducible to that of amere corporeal append- age.

Heidegger’s “Monstrous” Hand

Giventheir centrality in ordinary human activities, aculturallyspecific definition of the hands can be used as awedge to exclude or invalidateothers. Thisisreadilyap- parent in Martin Heidegger’sreflections on the hand as the essence of the human being.Inhis 1927 opus Being and Time,the hands primarilyservetomediate be- tween Dasein and its surrounding world of equipment. Heideggermakes generous use of metaphors of the handsinhis descriptions of Dasein interacting with things in the world through the basic “attitudes” of vor-handenheit (presence-at-hand)and zu-handenheit (readiness-to-hand).¹⁶ When ahammer is usedaccording to its equi- pmental being in the activity of hammering something,itisseized in its pre-theoret- ical mode as ready-to-hand, and the hand of Dasein and the hammerseamlesslyin- teract in the act of hammering.Bycontrast, Dasein apprehendsthosethingsthat are perceivedaspresent-at-hand as defective,and they stand out as objectsrather than as equipment.Abroken or defunct hammerisnolonger equipment,itisreduced to a mere object.The samecan be said of the hands themselves: when the hands interact with thingsinthe world in the mode of ready-to-hand, they are seized as equipment workingintandem with the tool, but if the hands are broken or otherwise ineffectual, then for Heidegger, they would be reducedtoobjects that are present-at-hand, quite literally, on the body. Heideggersketches arobust role for the handsinmediating Dasein’sinteractions with the world: the hands are essentiallyequipment,likethe hammer. Beyond the metaphors involving the hands in Being and Time,Heideggersug- gests that “das Werk der Hand” goes well beyond grasping and touching, and even beyond related forms of technē. “The hand is apeculiarthing,” Heideggerre- marks in his 1951–52 lecture course What Is Called Thinking? “The hand’sessence can never be determined, or explained, by its being an organ which can grasp.”¹⁷ In addition to its ordinary activities includingtouching, grasping,orholding,the es- sence of the hand also involves that which “reaches and extends,receivesand wel- comes—and not justthings: the hand extends itself, and receivesits own welcome in the hand of the other.”¹⁸ ForHeidegger, the hand is more than simply aprehensile

 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time,trans. John Macquarrie and EdwardRobinson, repr.ed. (New York: Harper Perennial, 2008). Forthe discussion of the world of equipment and the distinction be- tween vor- and zu-handenheit,see §16inchapter3of Division One.  Martin Heidegger, What Is Called Thinking?,trans. Fred D. Wieck and J. Glenn Gray (New York: Harper &Row,1968), 16.  Heidegger, 16. 38 JacobLevi

organ, it is also an essential opening to alterity and the gift.The hand can grip and take, but it can also carry,rescue, or give: “The hand holds (hält). The hand carries (trägt).”¹⁹ The hand is the very nexus of intersubjectivity whereindividuals encounter the flesh of others: one mayextend the so-called helping hand,orthe handscan be used to possess and dominate the other.Inhis 1942–43 Parmenides lectures,Heideg- gersuggests that the dual possibilityofthe hand can be deployed for “both prayer and murder,greetingand thanks, oath and signal, and also the ‘work’ of the hand, the ‘hand-work’ and the tool.” Beyond its use as equipment,the extended hand can help or harm the other: “The handshake seals the covenant.The hand bringsabout the ‘work’ of destruction.”²⁰ This definition of the hands identifiesthem with distinctly human practices.Hei- deggerrather brazenlydeclares in the Parmenides course, “No animal has ahand, and ahand never originates from apaw or aclaworatalon.”²¹ He makes asimilar claim in What Is Called Thinking? wherehequips, “Apes, for example, have organs that can grasp, but they have no hand.”²² If the hand is the primary organ for all of these advanced human activities—giving,taking,sharing,building,embracing—then while human and animal alike are equipped with the prehensile organs to holdand grasp, Heideggerconsiders thatthe essence of the hand lies in these higher-order functionsthat are limited to humans. This definition would exclude non-human an- imals who onlypossess prehensile organs for touchingand grasping,aswell as those humans whose hands cannot carry out what Heideggerconsiders their critical func- tions. Heideggerisnot bothered by external worldscepticism, identified in Kant’s “scandal” of philosophyand refuted by Moore’s “here is one hand” proof. Dasein is not cut off from the worldorevenindependent of it; rather,itischaracterised in Division One of Being and Time by its “existentiales”: “being-in-the-world”²³ and “being-with-others.”²⁴ Dasein is irrevocably “thrown” into the world,²⁵ and there is no question of whether the external world exists—thereisno“external” of which to speak.²⁶ Nonetheless, there is adifferent sort of scepticism at work in Hei- degger’snotion of the hands. He doubts that the ape has handsnot because of alack of visual or biological evidence that such is the case, but because he changes the

 Heidegger, 16.  Martin Heidegger, Parmenides,trans. AndréSchuwer and RichardRojcewicz(Bloomington: Indi- ana University Press,1992),80.  Heidegger, 80.  Heidegger, What Is Called Thinking?,16.  Heidegger’spreliminary discussion of Dasein’sBeing-in-the-world is found in chapter 2ofDivi- sion One of Being and Time.  The description of Dasein’sexistentiales,Being-in-the-world and Being-with-others,isfound in chapter4of Division One of Being and Time,where Heideggerintroduces “certain structures of Da- sein which areequiprimordial with Being-in-the-world: Being-with and Dasein-with” (114).  Forthe explanationofbeing-thrown, Geworfenheit,see Being and Time,§38.  ForHeidegger’srefutation of the external world problem, see Being and Time,§43. “Es wirdLeib,esempfindet”:Auto-Affection, Doubt, and the Philosopher’sHands 39

conventional meaningofthe word. Indeed, his definitionof“handiwork” retraces the ontological differencedividing human and animal,echoing his characterisation of animals as “poor in world” in his 1929–30 course TheFundamental Concepts of Metaphysics.²⁷ Heidegger’scomment about the ape’shands is indicative of atrou- bling pattern: doubting the handsofothers enables aform of haptic scepticism wherethe hands become aproxy for the value of other beings. In his 1987text “Geschlecht II: Heidegger’sHand,” Derrida forcefullyelucidates the consequences of this delineationofthe handed and the handless. First,hestates that Heidegger’scomment concerning the ape’shandsillustrates thatheknows nothing about these animals, and Derrida chides him for having “no doubt studied neither the zoologists (even wereittocriticize them) nor the apes in the Black For- est.”²⁸ Indeed, Heidegger’scharacterisation of animalsisnot correct even on his own terms.From primates that use their hands to fashion tools to others that have learnt sign language, there are numerous ways thatnon-human animals undermine the re- strictive standards that Heideggersets forth for “having” hands. Nonetheless, his comment about apes takes on an outsized significancebecause,asDerrida explains, the exclusionary logic governing this definitionextends to “trace asystem of limits within which everything he says of man’shand takes on sense and value.” Thisisa defining feature of Heidegger’sphilosophicalanthropocentrism. His characterisation equates “having” ahand with the Geschlecht of the human being,which, Derrida writes, “nameswhat has the hand, and so thinking,speech or language, and open- ness to the gift.”²⁹ According to this view,the hand is more than aprehensile ap- pendage: it is the embodied form of thinking,reasoning,and ultimatelywriting.Hei- degger’sdefinition of the handsaccordingtohigher faculties of thought and languagedelineates this distinctlyhuman feature from the activities reserved for the prehensile limbs with which animals are endowed. The difference between human handsand animal limbs is unbridgeable because,asDerrida remarks, “this abyss is speech and thought.”³⁰ Heidegger’snotion of the hand stands in for the capacity for rational thought and languageitself. When he identifiesthe essential functions of the handsasuniquelyhuman ca- pacities, Heideggerextends the tradition of philosophical anthropocentrism, follow- ing Descartes,Kant,and even Moore. In the Discourse on Method,Descartesconsid- ers animalsmere automata who are incapable of genuine thought or reason, renderingthe question of animal consciousness superfluous;abeing thatcannot

 Martin Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics,trans. William McNeill and Nicholas Walker(Bloomington:University of Indiana Press, 1995).  Jacques Derrida, “Geschlecht II: Heidegger’sHand,” in Deconstruction and Philosophy:The Texts of Jacques Derrida,trans. John P. LeaveyJr. (Chicago:University of Chicago,1989), 174. The famously untranslatable German term Geschlecht most closelyresembles the English notions of gender or sex, even if these terms fall short of capturingthe manifold senses of this complex term.  Derrida, 174.  Derrida, 174. 40 Jacob Levi

think cannot doubt. If animalsare thoughtless automata, they are certainlynot ca- pable of having hands in Heidegger’sstrong sense. Kant makes asimilar argument in the Anthropology when he writes: “Nature seems to have endowed man alone with this organ [the hand], so that he is enabled to form aconcept of abodyby touchingitonall sides. The antennae of insects seem merelytoshow the presence of an object; they are not designed to explore its form.”³¹ Kant delineates between the prehensile tactile organs of insects and the human hand’sunique ability to form con- cepts from its tactile exploration of objects. Maine de Biran is onlyslightlymore gen- erous when he writes, “The elephant’strunk fulfills approximatelythe same func- tions as the hand of man.”³² The notion that human handsare endowed with the uniquequalities of higher reason which are lacking in other animals is acommon feature of philosophicalanthropology, from Descartes’shands of doubttoHeideg- ger’sdenial of the ape’shands. Heideggerconsiders the ability to write as the ultimateexpression of the hand, entrenchingthe gulf separatinghuman from animal. If, as he famouslyproclaimed, “languageisthe house of being”³³ and the essence of the human beingisthe capaci- ty for language, then the hand’smostimportant function is the ability to write. In his Parmenides course, Heideggeridentifies the codeterminationofthe hand and the ac- tivity of writing:

The hand sprang forth onlyout of the wordand together with the word. Man does not “have” hands,but the hand holds the essenceofman (Der Mensch “hat” nicht Hände, sondern die Hand hat des Wesen das Menschen inne), because the word as the essential realm of the hand is the ground of the essenceofman. The word as what is inscribed and whatappears to the regardis the written word, i.e., script.And the wordasscript is handwriting.³⁴

Heideggerconnects the very existenceofthe handswith the specificallyhuman abil- ity to write. Yet, as Derrida observes, Heidegger’scurious phrasing is symptomatic of his discussion of the hand: it is almostalways “the hand” in the singular, “as if man did not have two hands but,this monster,one single hand,” as if human beingshad a “single organinthe middle of the body, just as the Cyclopshas one single eyeinthe middle of the forehead.”³⁵ There is something awkward, unnatural, or even mon- strous about Heidegger’sdiscussion of the hand. “The man of the typewriter and of technics in general uses two hands,” Derrida remarks, “but the man that speaks and the man that writes with the hand, as one says;isn’thethe monster with asingle

 ImmanuelKant, Anthropology from aPragmatic Point of View,trans.Victor Lyle Dowden, rev.and ed. Hans H. Rudnik with introduction by Frederick P. VanDePitte,new ed. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996), 41.  Maine de Biran, citedinDerrida, On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy,153.  Martin Heidegger, “Letter Concerning Humanism,” in Basic Writings,ed. David Farrell Krell (Lon- don: Routledge &Kegan Paul, 1978), 217.  Heidegger, Parmenides,80.  Derrida, “Geschlecht II: Heidegger’sHand,” 182. “ Es wirdLeib,esempfindet”:Auto-Affection, Doubt, and the Philosopher’sHands 41

hand?” The singular hand of thoughtand languageisdetached from the manifold ways thathumans use their hands, effectively reducing the qualityofhaving hands to the singular ability to write. The onlytime Heideggerspeaksofthe two hands in What Is Called Thinking? is in areference to hands clasped in prayer: “The hand designs and signs (zeichnet), presumably because man is a(monstrous) sign (ein Zeichen). Twohandsfold into one, agesture meant to carry maninto the great simplicity.”³⁶ Playing off the German Zeichen and the Latin monstrare,Derrida reveals the monstrous element of the being that points, zeichnet.³⁷ Heidegger’sde- scription of “the hand [that] holds the essence of man” is divorced from the ordinary experience of having hands. Ironically, where Heidegger’sconcept of the hand draws aline to exclude animals, it ultimatelydescribes a monstrous human hand. Beyond the existential question of who “has” hands, Heideggerhas little to say about the experience of touching. Specifically, he ignores the hand’sdesiring touch, as if affectiveand erotic modes of touch werephilosophicallyirrelevant. “Nothing is ever said of the caress or of desire,” Derrida provocatively writes, “Does one make love, does man make love, with the hand or with the hands? And what about sexual differences in this regard?”³⁸ This omission echoes the criticism thatHeidegger’scon- cept of Mit-sein failstooffer arobust,fleshed-out structure of inter-subjectivity.Ques- tions of flesh, desire, and nourishment are absent from the existential analytic in Being and Time,leadingLevinas to write in Totality andInfinity, “Dasein in Heidegger is never hungry.”³⁹ Indeed, Heidegger’smonstrous hand is troublinglydisincarnated. Didier Franck explores this perspective by suggesting that flesh is the unarticulated mode of Dasein’sgivenness in Being andTime. Franck explains, “If flesh is absent from the existential analytic, is this not because flesh poses athreat to the privilege of temporality,and everything that derivesfrom it?”⁴⁰ Whereas Heideggerconsiders Dasein’stemporal ek-stasis to constitutethe horizon of its fundamental ontological structure, Franck argues that the unarticulated mode of Dasein’sembodiment as flesh reveals alacuna in Heidegger’sexistential analytic. Indeed, rather than tempo- rality orienting the transcendental horizonofDasein’sek-staticBeing,Franck argues that it is in fact Dasein’s flesh which makes its temporalconstitution possible. This novel inversion turns the existential analytic on its headand suggests that Heideg- ger’smonstrous hand is asymptom of Dasein’sunarticulated modes of embodiment.

 Heidegger, What Is Called Thinking?,16–17.  Derrida applauds the decision in Gérard Granel’sFrench translation of Washeisst denken? (Qu’ap- pelle-t-on penser? [Paris: PUF,2014]) to maintain the resonanceofthe Latin and Germanic registers between the German zeigen and the French monstre. While the translationmay initiallyappear strange—Derrida confesses that it “first seemed to me abit mannered and gallicizing”—it reveals a deeper sense of monstrosity in Heidegger’swork, which offers “occasion for thought” (“Geschlecht II: Heidegger’sHand,” 166).  Derrida, “Geschlecht II: Heidegger’sHand,” 182.  Levinas, Totality and Infinity,134.  Didier Franck, Fleshand Body:Onthe Phenomenology of Husserl,trans.Joseph Rivera and Scott Davidson (London: Bloomsbury,2014), 147. 42 Jacob Levi

YetHeidegger’smosttroublinginvocation of the handshighlights the philoso- pher at his most inglorious.Inhis Philosophical Autobiography,Karl Jaspers recounts that in May1933, he invited his longtime friend Martin Heideggertohis home in Hei- delbergfor dinnerwith him and his wife Gertrud. Days before, Heideggerhad been named the rector of the UniversityofFreiburg, and he had travelled to Heidelbergto give apublic lecture about the “renewal” of the university under National Socialism. Gertrudand Karl Jasperswereunderstandably distraught. In the intimacy of adinner between old friends, Jaspers confronted Heideggerabout his baffling public support for the ascendant Nazi regime. He asked, “How can such an uneducated (ungebildet) man likeHitler govern Germany?” Heideggerreplied, “It is not aquestion of educa- tion, just look at his marvelous hands!”⁴¹ His comment precipitated the end of both the dinner and their friendship. Heidegger’sbafflingcomment suggests something far more nefarious thanblind naiveté; it reflects akind of political tribalism that en- dorses the sort of unthinking,spectacular brutishness that seems so foreign to his poetic mode of philosophy. Considering the importance that Heideggerassigns to human hands, his comments about Hitler’s “marvelous hands” are even more trou- bling.One cannot help but speculate about the connection between Heidegger’sex- clusionary notion of the handsand his disastrous political affiliations,made all too explicit at the dinner in the Jaspers’ home in Heidelberg. The exclusionary logic gov- erning Heidegger’smonstrous hand, its unarticulatedmode of fleshiness, and its ap- parent disinterest in the desiring touch or caress are emblematic of the solipsistic thinking that failed to grapple with the monstrosity of Nazism.

Auto-Affection and DoubleSensation

Edmund Husserl’s Ideas Pertaining to aPure Phenomenology and to aPhenomenolog- ical PhilosophyIIinvestigates the embodied projection of the self through the hand’s tactile impressions of the world. Unlike Descartes’sorKant’sengagementwith haptic scepticism, Husserlisnot interested in using touch to provethe existence of external objects, nor is he invested in Heidegger’sexistential qualifiers for what it means to “have” hands. Rather,Husserl brackets these questions and instead analyses the dif- ferent forms of embodiment that account for the structure of experience.The hand’s touch offers hyletic data, Husserl’sterm for the sensible content of intentional expe- riences,and highlights the constitutive role of the bodyinthe structure of psychic reality.Husserldescribes what it is like to touchdifferent kinds of thingsand how touch can qualitatively distinguish between inanimate objects, one’sown body, and the bodies of others. Thisnew valenceofhaptic scepticism asks what touch can determine about our own bodies and thoseofothers. Does touch affirm our in-

 Karl Jaspers, Philosophische Autobiographie: Erweiterte Neuausgabe (Munich:Piper,1984), 101: “Bildung ist ganz gleichgültig,sehen Sie nur seine wunderbaren Hände an!” “Es wirdLeib,esempfindet”:Auto-Affection, Doubt, and the Philosopher’sHands 43

tersubjective relation to others—theirproximityand likeness,our ethical obligation to others—or does it extend the sceptical disposition towards others?These doubts concerning the qualitativeexperience of touch emerge from Husserl’stext,and they form asalient point of disagreement between Emmanuel Levinas and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In Ideas II,Husserl describes touchingdifferent classes of things. When one touches an inanimate object,a“mere thing,” the sensation is felt as interior to the person who is doing the touching, and the object is sensed as external to the body, which is confirmed when that object is seen. When my hand touches a table, for example, Ican evaluate how it feels—smooth, rough, cold, etc.—as asen- sation which is felt by my body, but provoked by my contact with an external object. In these ordinary encounters with mere things, touch traces the phenomenological limits of the bodyrelative to the external world of sensed objects. ForHusserl, there is an intuitive understanding when we touchaninanimate object that it is merelyathing,whereassomething distinct occurs when touchingone’sown body. Husserl famouslyidentifies the auto-affective experience of the left hand touching the right as aqualitatively unique kind of touch, set off from the touch of mere ob- jects:

Touchingmyleft hand, Ihavetouch-appearances,that is to say, Idonot just sense, but Iper- ceiveand have appearances of asoft,smooth hand, with such aform. The indicational sensa- tions of movement and the representational sensations of touch,which areObjectified as fea- turesofthe thing, “left hand,” belonginfact to my right hand. But when Itouch the left hand Ialso find in it,too,series of touch-sensations,which are “localized” in it,though these arenot constitutive of properties (such as roughness or smoothness of the hand, of this physical thing). If Ispeak of the physical thing, “left hand,” then Iamabstractingfromthese sensations (a ball of lead has nothinglike them and likewise for every “merely” physical thing,every thing that is not my Body). If Idoinclude them, then it is not that the physical thingisnow richer,but instead it becomes Body,itsenses (es wirdLeib,esempfindet).⁴²

Distinguishing the experiencesoftouching Leib,the living Body, from bloße Sache,a mere thing,Husserlexplains that in the caseofone hand touchingthe other,the bodyhas adouble sensation which unfold on two levels of experience.While the left hand is touchingthe right,itreceiveshyletic data on the feel (and appearance) of the right hand as an object—its texture, what it feels like, etc.—but the sensation is double because the left hand simultaneouslyfeels itself being touched by the right hand, and it is thereby also the subject of the sensation. As Dan Zahavi explains, “Husserlisanxious to emphasize the peculiar two-sidedness of the body,” as both the interiority of sensing and the exteriority of something which is also visually and tacticallyexternal. The reversibility of the double sensation—that Ican intention-

 Edmund Husserl, IdeasPertaining to aPure Phenomenology and to aPhenomenological Philoso- phy. Second Book:Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989), §36, 144–45. 44 Jacob Levi

allyalternate between the left hand sensing the right hand and the right hand sens- ing the left hand—“demonstrates thatthe interiority and the exteriority are different manifestations of the same.”⁴³ Touch is the onlysense that allows for double sensa- tion: Ican no more taste myself taste,orhear myself hear,than Ican see myself see.⁴⁴ The double sensation of one’sown flesh is akind of bodilyreflection which uniquely allows the bodytosense its own exteriority and its peculiarstatus as both subject and object.This experience is qualitatively different from touchingmere things. In the critical moment when one hand touches the other,the sensed object transforms into the bodyand gains sensation; as Husserl writes, “es wird Leib, es empfindet.” This transformation of mere objects viatouch suggests that the bodycan intuitively recognise the uniqueness of its own flesh and thatself-touchingisaqualitatively dif- ferent experiencefrom touchingmere things. Auto-affective touchcomes close to the certainty thatDescartes discovers in the cogito, but even this singular kind of touch cannot foreclose the possibility of illusion, highlighted by the haptic sceptical tradi- tion. Is it possible for auto-affective touchtodeceive?Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s1945 Phenomenology of Perception investigates certain limit cases of embodied phenomen- ologywherethe psychic projection of embodiment does not correspond to the actual body. The most famous of these phenomena are phantom limb syndrome, when a subjecthas aconscious representation of anon-existent limb, and anosognosia, in which aperson has no conscious representation of an existing but paralysed limb. These symptoms follow from traumatic injuries oftenexperiencedduring war,and they present as afalse visual projection of the bodythat can be accompa- nied by intense pain in the afflicted limb, whether real or imaginary.Evenwhen the patient is conscious of the projection, the symptoms can continue. These phenomena exhibit aperplexing etiologythat originates neither exclusively in the bodynor in the mind. Merleau-Ponty rejects the physiological explanation for phantom limb syn- drome and anosognosia, which takesthe false projection of a(non‐)existent limb to be the product of afunctional absence in the body’smechanics; he also rejects the psychological explanation, which explains the phantom limb or anosognosia as the product of arepressed memoryoftrauma. While these limit phenomena exhib- it both physiological and psychological effects, Merleau-Ponty suggeststhere is an underlying existential explanation for these lagsbetween the bodyand its phenom- enological projection. He describes akind of traumatic alteration to our embodied

 Dan Zahavi, Husserl’sPhenomenology (Stanford: StanfordUniversity Press, 2003), 104.  Of course, we can see ourselvesseeinginamirror and we can hear our own voicespeakinginan echo, but these phenomena do not allow for whatHusserl calls double sensation. Even if Ilook at myself in the mirror,Icannot alternate my perspective from my bodytothe mirrored imageasI can with the left and right hand. If Ihear the echo of my own voice, Icannot then reverse the sen- sation, takethe perspective of the echo, and hear my actual voice as the echo. Touch is unique amongst the senses in this regard. “Es wirdLeib,esempfindet”:Auto-Affection, Doubt, and the Philosopher’sHands 45

reality, “understood in the perspective of being-in-the-world.” The existential root of these phenomena givesrise to their physiological and psychological effects:

What it is in us which refusesmutilation and disablement is an I committed to acertain physical and inter-human world, whocontinues to tend towards his world despitehandicaps and ampu- tations and who, to this extent,does not recognize them de jure. The refusal of the deficiencyis onlythe obverse of our inherenceinaworld, the implicit negation of what runs counter to the natural momentum which throwsusinto our tasks,our cares, our situation, our familiar hori- zons.Tohaveaphantom arm is to remain open to all the actions of which the arm alone is ca- pable; it is to retain the practical field which one enjoyed beforemutilation. The bodyisthe ve- hicle of beinginthe world, and havingabodyis, for alivingcreature,tobeintervolvedina definiteenvironment,toidentify oneself with certain projects and be continuallycommitted to them.⁴⁵

Merleau-Ponty’sanalysis is couched in the distinctly Heideggerian rhetoric of being- in-the-world, and he analyses phantom limb syndrome in terms of the loss of the body’sordinary ways of inhabitingits world. Phantom limb syndrome and anosog- nosia stem from the dislodgment of the bodyfrom its ordinary commitments to prac- tical activities involving the lost or paralysed limb, changingthe human “vehicle of being in the world,” like driving acar without knowing it is onlyequipped with three wheels.These limit cases reveal consciousness’sstubborn refusal to confront loss and its incredible ability to compensatefor loss through the projection of aphantom limb, or,inthe case of anosognosia, the projection of absencewherethere is in fact a limb. Nonetheless, phantom limbs present mainlyasobjectsofsight and pain,and it is unlikelythataphantom hand could produce the double sensation thatHusserl de- scribes in his experience of touchinghis own hands. Merleau-Ponty does not address the modalities of touch experienced by patientsafflicted with aphantom limb, but the presenceofpainsuggeststhat even the hand’sghostly presenceposes questions for the haptic sceptic: the subject of the phantom limb could reciteMoore’s “here is one hand” proof and believeittobetrue and yet, in this exceptional case, the hand’s auto-affective perception would be illusory,and the first premise of the proof would be demonstrablyfalse. Inversely, apatient sufferingfrom anosognosia might disbe- lieveMoore’sproof, even if his or her hands are visible to everyone else. The possi- bility for self-deception in auto-affection indicatesthat even when the existential question of “having” hands is bracketed, the haptic sceptic can always challenge the purported certainty of tactile impressions.

 MauriceMerleau-Ponty, PhenomenologyofPerception,trans. Colin Smith, repr.ed. (London: Rout- ledge,2002),94. 46 JacobLevi

Touchand the Fleshofthe World

Husserl’sdistinction between the touch of the living body, Leib,and that of mere things, bloße Sache,serves as an instructiveanalytical framework for thinking about the touch of others. Whereas the “double sensation” revealed in auto-affective touch offers some semblance of certaintyregardingthe limits of the embodied self, the hetero-affective touch of another’sflesh reveals aset of intractable questions for the haptic sceptic. If we readilyidentify the double sensation of our own flesh and we are relatively adept at identifying the touch of inert objects, then what can the touch of another’sflesh reveal about intersubjectivity?Can flesh intuitivelyidentify flesh, or does the possibility of deception endure? Surelythereisnodouble sensation when one touches someone else’sflesh, but touchinganother’sflesh is nonetheless intuitivelydistinct from touchingatable. The critical question is whether there is an aura of flesh which distinguishes it as aliving bodyasopposed to amere object,and how the hand’stouch navigates this qualitative difference. The passageonthe auto- affective hands in Ideas II has become atouchstone for theories of embodied phe- nomenology, and Husserl’sreaders have debated the peculiartouchofLeib and its implications for an intersubjective ethics of touch beyond sense-certainty.Specifical- ly,Levinas and Merleau-Ponty highlightHusserl’sdiscussion of the auto-affective hands as the generative sourcefor an intersubjective ethics, but they draw opposing conclusions from the analogybetween auto-affective and hetero-affective touch. In the essay “The Philosopher and His Shadow,” published in Signs in 1960,Mer- leau-Ponty argues that auto-affective touch is in fact analogous to the hetero-affec- tive touch of another’sflesh, suggesting an intuitive recognition of the distinctionbe- tween Leib and inanimate matter.Inother words, he asserts aparallelism between one’sown flesh and the flesh of others encountered in touch. Despite the manifold possibilities for deception involved in the touch of another,Merleau-Ponty stakes the claim thatthe embodied flesh of the self is in fact contingent on the flesh of others in an interconnected matrix which he calls “intercorporeality”:

In learningthat my bodyisa“perceivingthing,” that it is able to be stimulated (reizbar)—it,and not just my “consciousness”—Ipreparedmyself for understandingthat thereare other animalia and possiblyother men. It is imperative to recognize that we have hereneither comparison, nor analogy,nor projection or “introjection.” The reason whyIhaveevidenceofthe other man’s being-therewhen Ishakehis hand is that his hand is substituted for my left hand, and my bodyannexes the bodyofanother person in that “sort of reflection” it is paradoxicallythe seat of. My two hands “coexist” or are “compresent” because they are one single body’s hands.The other person appears through an extension of that compresence; he and Iare like organs of one single intercorporeality.⁴⁶

 MauriceMerleau-Ponty, “The Philosopher and His Shadow,” in Signs,trans. RichardC.McCleary (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1964), 168. “Es wirdLeib,esempfindet”:Auto-Affection, Doubt, and the Philosopher’sHands 47

ForMerleau-Ponty,when Iunderstand the potential for my flesh to be stimulated, I recognise thatsame potential in others. The assertionthat flesh intuitivelyrecognises the touch of another’sflesh overcomes the sceptical challengetothe existenceof other minds, and it givesrise to an intersubjective ethics based on ashared network of flesh. He insists that intercorporeality does not function by projection or analogy, but rather that the other’sflesh offers the same sort of “reflection of the body” that occurs when the left hand touches the right.Merleau-Ponty asserts thatthere exists an intuitiverecognition of flesh even in hetero-affective touch, which precedesthe divisionofflesh into solipsistic individual minds and bodies. In “The Intertwining—The Chiasm,” published posthumouslyin1964 in TheVisi- ble andthe Invisible, Merleau-Ponty radicalises these reflections on intercorporeality. He extends the notion of shared flesh beyond self and other to the very composition of the world itself, which he calls “the flesh of the world.” Beyond asimple parallel- ism of auto-affective and hetero-affective touch, this concept asserts the fully-fledged contingency of one’sown body, others’ bodies, and the surrounding world itself.This raises the stakes of the analogybetween one’sown flesh and that of others and ob- literates the category of inanimate matter through the chiasm connectingthe flesh of Leib to the material and phenomenal world. Merleau-Ponty describes how “the flesh (of the worldormyown)isnot contingency,chaos, but atexturethat returns to itself and conforms to itself.”⁴⁷ The self and the other’sflesh are connected through the chiasm of the corporality of the self and the materiality of the world, atouch which extends beyond one’sown hand and into the other’sflesh. He carries Hus- serl’sanalysis of auto-affective handsbeyond the limits of the solipsistic individual bodybydisconnectingdouble sensation from its origin in asingular consciousness. Merleau-Ponty writes, “If my left hand can touch my right hand while it palpates the tangibles,can touchittouching, can turn its palpation back upon it,why,when touchingthe hand of another,would Inot touch in it the same power to espouse the thingsthat Ihavetouched in my own?”⁴⁸ Rather than determiningthe limits of Leib against the backdrop of mere objects, touch reveals the contingency of the subjectand its surrounding world, in what he calls the chiasm.The ontological char- acter of this connection of flesh precedes the dualist separation of bodyand mind. Merleau-Ponty urgesustothink about the original unity of bodies and the world they inhabit: “We must not think the flesh starting from substances,from body and spirit—for then it would be the union of contradictories—but we must think it,aswesaid, as an element,asthe concrete emblem of ageneral mannerof being.”⁴⁹ Thisdoes not mean thatall distinctions between self and other disappear in the touchofanother’sflesh; rather,the flesh of the self and that of the world are

 MauriceMerleau-Ponty, “The Intertwining—The Chiasm,” in TheVisible and the Invisible; Working Notes,ed. Claude Lefort,trans. AlphonsoLingis (Evanston, IL: NorthwesternUniversity Press,1968), 146.  Merleau-Ponty,141.  Merleau-Ponty,147. 48 Jacob Levi

intertwined. ForMerleau-Ponty reveals “anew type of being,abeing by porosity, pregnancy, or generality” whose body, this is connected to its worldlyhorizon: “His bodyand the distancesparticipate in one samecorporeity or visibilityingener- al, which reigns between them and it,and even beyond the horizon, beneath his skin, unto the depths of being.”⁵⁰ The chiasm of the visibleand the tactile binds the ontologicaltissue of the self, others, and world. The flesh of the world is bound togetherasatotality whose being precedes the dualist separation of minds and bodies. Merleau-Ponty writes that the other’stouch offers “evidence of the other man’s being-there,” its Dasein: his notion of intercorpor- eality resembles Heidegger’s Mit-sein to the extent that it sketches an ontological framework for understandingthe presenceofother human beingsinterms of a shared world, Mit-Welt,oftouching. However,Heideggerhas little to sayabout the experience of touch, so Dasein’srecognition of others is merelyimplied or suggested. By contrast,Merleau-Ponty adds alayer of flesh to Dasein’sotherwise ghostlyform of embodiment.According to Merleau-Ponty,Irecognisethe other’sflesh as Leib be- cause it is like my own flesh: together, they are co-constitutive of the flesh of the world. Touch connects us to others, it expands our sensitivity beyond our ownatom- istic bodies to the shared world of flesh, and it ultimatelyreveals the chiasm between the visual and tactile fields that tie an individual’sflesh to the world. This reworking of Husserl’snotions of touch extends the analogybetween auto-affection and hetero- affection to an all-encompassing notion of flesh which treats the world as an organic totality with the living beingsthatinhabit it. There are important objections to raise against Merleau-Ponty’sextension of Husserl’sanalysis of auto-affection to the hetero-affective touchofanother’sbody. Merleau-Ponty’sintersubjective flesh of the world asserts aparallelism between touchingone’sown flesh and touchingthe flesh of others, which is aradical depar- ture from Husserl’sdescription of the limits of the living bodydemarcated by touch- ing external objects. Merleau-Ponty’semphasis on the body’sinterconnectedness with its surroundingsasthe flesh of the world is in acertain sense analogous to Hei- degger’sdescription of the formal existential character of Dasein as being-with-oth- ers and being-in-the-world. Just as Dasein is aconstitutive elementofthe shared world it inhabits along with others (rather than aCartesian subjectcut off from the world of otherminds and external objects), Merleau-Ponty extends the Leib of the self to the intersubjective flesh of the world. Yetbarring the invention of some sort of collective nervous system thatwould break through the hard problem of con- sciousnessand allow us to literallyfeelwhat other people feel, even the most inti- mate touch of another could not replicateHusserl’sdouble sensation of one’sown bodyassubject and object.InOn Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy, Derrida sharply rebukes Merleau-Ponty for misreadingHusserlonthis point:Merleau-Ponty “puts the shoe on the wrongfoot,literally, turning upside down, shortofcompletelymisreading, the

 Merleau-Ponty,148. “Es wirdLeib,esempfindet”:Auto-Affection, Doubt,and the Philosopher’sHands 49

sense of Husserl’stext”⁵¹ regarding the distinction between hetero- and auto-affec- tive touch. Merleau-Ponty asserts an intersubjective connection between the flesh of the self and that of others, but,asDerrida observes, “the pageinquestion clearly says that Ican never have access to the body(Leib)ofthe otherexcept in an indirect fashion, through appresentation, comparison, analogy, projection, and introjection.” The flesh of the world exceeds the strict limits of phenomenological observation that Husserl establishes in IdeasII. In fidelity to Husserl’smethod,which strictlycon- scribes the sensible limits of Leib,Emmanuel Levinas also objects to Merleau-Ponty’s parallelism between auto-affection and hetero-affection. Rather than revealingthe flesh of the world, according to Levinas,the other’stouch discloses preciselythe oth- erness of the other’sflesh. In a1984 text entitled “In Memory of Alphonse de Wael- hens,” Levinas offers the counter-example of ahandshake between two people, which neatlyjuxtaposes with Husserl’sauto-affective hands: “Is the handshake a ‘taking cognizance,’ and asort of coincidingoftwo thoughts in the mutual knowl- edge of one by the other?Isitnot in the difference, proximity to one’sneighbor?”⁵² Farfrom being amelding of minds, shaking another’shand reveals the unbridgeable gapbetween the impressions of my bodyand others. The hetero-affective touch of the otherdoes not present the samephenomenon as the double sensation specific to auto-affective touch. Rather,itisthe difference between the other’stouch and the touch of my ownflesh that is constitutive of the embodied self.

The Caress and the ExcendenceofSensibility

The touch of the other’sflesh introduces further questions for the haptic sceptic. How does the hand’stouch distinguish between the auto-affective touch of the self and the hetero-affective touch of another?Can flesh intuitively identify the flesh of others?Ordoes the possibility of deception continue to loom over anydis- tinctionofthis sort?Incontrast to Merleau-Ponty,Levinas outlinesacrucial distinc- tion between anotion of touchthat seeks mastery over objects as an epistemological mode of knowing and his concept of the “caress,” which illuminates amode of con- tact between flesh which respects the alterity of the other.Beginninginhis 1947 Time and the Other and further developedinhis seminal 1961text Totality and Infinity,Lev- inas articulates this distinction in the modes of tactile interactions with the other.In contradistinction to touch, the caress is an opening to othernessbecause,Levinas explains, “if one could possess, grasp, and know the other,itwould not be other.”⁵³The question that arisesfor the haptic sceptic is whether the touchofthe

 Derrida, On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy,190.  Emmanuel Levinas, “In Memory of Alphonse de Waelhens,” in Outside the Subject,trans.Michael B. Smith (Stanford: StanfordUniversity Press, 1993), 111–12.  Emmanuel Levinas, Time and the Other,trans. RichardA.Cohen (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1987), 89. 50 JacobLevi

other’sflesh can respect her alterity without trying to masterorobjectify her as a possession. The caress,asatouchbeyond touch, reveals the “excendence” of imma- nence in the other’stouch, giving rise to the possibility of both ethics and Eros. In Totality and Infinity,Levinas describes touchasameans of appropriation and mastery.Highlightingthe linguistic connection between grasping and understand- ing,heexplains, “La main prend et comprend,”“The hand takesand compre- hends.”⁵⁴ Thisconnection between touchand understandingismade explicit in Ger- man, between grasping, begreifen,and the concept, Begriff. Grasping is aform of taking possession that transforms the subject’smode of interacting with the world from existing to possessing, renderingobjectsknowable. When the hand extends to touch something,tograsp and “comprehend” it,the hand “is no longer a sense-organ, pure enjoyment,pure sensibility,but is mastery,domination, disposi- tion—which do not belong to the order of sensibility.”⁵⁵ The qualitative feel of an ob- ject is set aside when the hand seizes it in its grasp. Drawing aparallel between the senses of vision and touchand the activities of representation and labour,Levinas states that “vision moves into grasp”:

Vision opens upon aperspective,upon ahorizon, and describes atraversable distance, invites the hand to movement and to contact,and ensures them. Socrates made fun of Glaucon who wished to take the vision of the starlit sky for an experienceofheight.The forms of objects call for the hand and the grasp. By the hand the object is in the end comprehended, touched, taken, borne and referred to other objects, clothed with asignification, by reference to other ob- jects.⁵⁶

The hand’stouch is its attempt to master the object,toneutralise its alterity and ap- propriateitfor itself.Merleau-Ponty’snotion of intercorporeality is in fact evidence for Levinas’sclaim thattouch overwhelms alterity,insofar as the former describes flesh as extending the zone of familiarity and sameness beyond the self to the flesh of others. In his guide to Levinas’s Totality andInfinity entitled Levinas and the NightofBeing,Raoul Moati explains that touchinganobject renders it aposses- sion, domesticating its otherness and incorporating it into the realm of sameness or ipseity. “Thingsdelimit being insofar as they are possessed,” he writes, “in posses- sion, being is no longer something that escapes me, but rather something that Icom- prehend—that is, something whose alterity has been neutralized.” Possession changes an object’sexistential modality:itis“abeing (être)transformed into ahav- ing (avoir).”⁵⁷ If touch is used to appropriate and dominate, it cannot be the sourceof ethics; for Levinas, ethics springsfrom the encounter with the infinite othernessof the other.

 Levinas, Totality and Infinity,161.  Levinas,161.  Levinas,191.  Raoul Moati, Levinas and the Night of Being:AGuide to Totality and Infinity,trans.Daniel Wyche (New York: Fordham University Press, 2016), 96. “Es wird Leib,esempfindet”:Auto-Affection, Doubt, and the Philosopher’sHands 51

In contrasttothe touch which obliterates differencebyco-opting objectsaspos- sessions, Levinas’snotion of the caress is adistinct modality of tactile impression geared towardsrespectingthe alterity of the other.Whereas touch seeks to master knowledge in the hand’sgrasp, the caress is an encounter with the unknown other- ness of the other’stouch. ContraMerleau-Ponty’s “flesh of the world,” which is a predicatethat emergesfrom the domain of the sameness or ipseity of all beings, the caress is an expression of the infinite relation to the other,preciselyinher irre- ducible otherness. The caress is atouch beyond touch: it reveals the transcendence that arisesout of the immanence of tactile impressions.Itispreciselythis unknown and unknowable quality of the other’stouch that is responsible for its allure, as the locus of desire or ethics. The caress is marked by its incalculability.Levinas explains in Time and the Other:

The caress is amode of the subject’sbeing, wherethe subject whoisincontact with another goes beyond this contact.Contact as sensation is part of the world of light.But what is caressed is not touched, properlyspeaking. It is not the softness or warmth of the hand givenincontact that the caress seeks.The seekingofthe caress constitutes its essencebythe fact that the caress does not know what it seeks.This “not knowing,” this fundamental disorder,isthe essential. It is likeagame with somethingslippingaway, agameabsolutelywithout project or plan, not with what can become ours or us,but with somethingother,alwaysother,alwaysinaccessible, and always still to come [àvenir]. The caress is the anticipation of this purefuture[avenir], without content.Itismadeupofthis increase of hunger,ofeverricher promises,openingnew perspec- tivesonto the ungraspable. It feeds on countless hungers.⁵⁸

Touch arises from the domain of sameness or ipseity:one’sown flesh is comparable with the flesh of others, and together it forms aunified totality which Merleau-Ponty calls the “flesh of the world.” ForLevinas,this is indicative of the tendency in phi- losophytoseek totality rather thaninfinity:itsuggests aligningeverything in the do- main of sameness. Levinas “contest[s] the idea thatthe relationship with the other is fusion,” and instead he insists, “the relationship with the Other is the absence of the other,” which is “an absencethat is time.”⁵⁹ The horizon of the caress opens to afu- ture, avenir,tobefulfilled in atime “to come,” à-venir. The caress exceeds the plen- itude of being and opens possibilities that derive from the infinite order of alterity.As Raoul Moatiexplains, “The caress discovers that which remains essentiallyresistant to anyinscription within being:the pure future that is not available in anycase in the mode of abeing towardthe future, which is to sayofapossibility.The caress leads to an adventure.”⁶⁰ The meaningofthe caress goes beyond the immediacy of sense per- ception, beyond being,and calls out to the future. Levinas explains in Totality and Infinity, “anticipation grasps possibles,” and the deferral of the caress into the future maintains aconstant reflection on the othernessofthe other, who is never fullymas-

 Levinas, Time and the Other,89.  Levinas,90.  Moati, Levinas and the Night of Being,168. 52 JacobLevi

tered: “What the caress seeks is not situated in aperspective and in the light of the graspable.”⁶¹ Levinas’scaress does not involveamethod for testingthe veracity of epistemic claims; rather,itembraces the mystery of the other’sflesh which reveals the excendenceoftotality.The caress goes beyond being,itexceeds the limits of sen- sibility,and it reveals the always-alreadydeferred fulfilment of the ethical responsi- bility to the other.⁶² The caress’ engagement with alterity extends beyond the thinking of totality and stems from the domain of what Levinas describes as infinity.Inhis 1964 essay “Vio- lence and Metaphysics,” Derrida describes Levinas’sthinkingofthe ethical as tran- scendingthe immanent limits of being.Hewrites: “ForLevinas the sun of the epe- keina tēsousias (beyond being)will always illuminatethe pure awakeningand inexhaustible sourceofthought,” which is the overcoming of totality by athinking of infinity;itis“the instrument of destruction for the phenomenologyand ontology subjectedtothe neutral totality of the Same as Being or as Ego.”⁶³ The immanenttac- tile impressions exceed the epistemologicalregister of sense perception and instead derive from something beyond the totality of being,from the infinity of alterity.This transcendenceofthe caress at the heart of the immanent field of touch reveals what lies beyond being.For Levinas, this is the origin of the erotic touch as well as apo- tential sourcefor an intersubjective ethics. Derrida continues: “In Totality and Infinity the ‘PhenomenologyofEros’ describes the movement of the epekeina tēsousias in the very experience of the caress.”⁶⁴ The caress always has “afoothold in being,” but Levinas describes its movement as “the exceeding of being,”⁶⁵ adeparture

 Levinas, Totality and Infinity,258.  It certainlybears mentioningthat Levinas would later revise his views on the caress,and in later texts, including his landmark 1974 text Otherwise Than Being,hewould revise manyofthe views that he presents in Time and the Other and Totality and Infinity. In his later work, Levinas suggests that the other’stouch reveals the otherness contained within oneself, likeawound which reveals the nudity of the self beforethe other,and leads to ahyperbolic, sacrificial ethics.Alonger discussion of Lev- inas’sevolution regarding these views is beyond the purview of this paper,but Jacob Rogozinski of- fers an insightful critical reading of Levinas’sevolution regarding the caress and the touch of the other.Heexplains: “In the view of Otherwise Than Being,the caress always proves to avulnerability, but it is no longer that of the Other,ofthe Beloved: it is that of the Iinits devotion, its ‘immolation’ of the Other.While caressing the bodyofthe Other,Ihurt myself, Icut myself on his contact; Ilet myself be laceratedbythis bodythat Icaress, be torn apart by it up to the point where I ‘sacrificemyskin.’ In reality,this beingskinned precedes all caressing,all external contact with the Other,since Ihavehim in my skin, he has always perforated me, torn me away from myself. We arefacedherewith an ‘ex- aggeration of tangency,’ where the motifs slip from hyperbole to hyperbole […]Ifone is to accept this postulate, one has to conclude that contact is necessarilyaltered, disconnected from the self by the alterity of the foreign flesh.” Jacob Rogozinski, “From the Caress to the Wound: Levinas’s Outrageous- ness,” trans.Sofie Verraest, Sophia Philosophical Review 3, no. 2(2009): 47–48.  Derrida, “Violenceand Metaphysics,” 105.  Derrida, 106.  Levinas, Totality and Infinity,113. “Es wird Leib,esempfindet”:Auto-Affection, Doubt, and the Philosopher’sHands 53

from the totality of being that givesrise to “ethical excendence”:⁶⁶ the caress calls upon the ethical, but nonetheless steps beyond its limits in the transgressive activity of Eros. The caress is atouchwhich transcends touch, aform of sensibilitythat,byits essence, exceeds the limits of the sensible. Hence, the caress is unperturbed by scep- tical challenges to epistemological claims basedonsensible impressions.The ex- cendenceofbeing discloses the possibility of an infinite responsibility to the other,aswell as what Levinas calls the “phenomenologyofEros”:

The caress, likecontact,issensibility.But the caress transcends the sensible. It is not that it would feel beyond the felt,further than the senses,that it would seize upon asublime food while maintaining,within its relation with this ultimatefelt, an intention of hunger that goes unto the food promised, and givento, and deepeningthis hunger, as though the caress would be fed by its own hunger. The caress consists in seizingupon nothing, in soliciting what ceaselesslyescapes its form towardafuturenever future enough,insolicitingwhat slips away as though it were not yet. It searches,itforages. It is not an intentionalityofdisclosure but of search:amovement untothe invisible.⁶⁷

The caress ventures into the unknown; it is hands grasping in the dark, an encounter with alterity.For Levinas,the hand’scaress implies curiosity,uncertainty,and inti- macy:they are both the hands of doubtand the handsofdesire. Whereas touch grasps and manipulates,the caress maintains atimidity and gentleness indicative of an encounter with the unknown.⁶⁸ Yetthe phenomenologyofEros explored in

 Derrida, “Violenceand Metaphysics,” 106.  Levinas, Totality and Infinity,257–58.  It is importanttonote that Levinas’sphenomenologyofErosisexplicitlyframed in the gendered, heteronormative terms of an encounter between aman and awoman, and he has been criticised for his depiction of the feminine as the source of alterity.InTheSecond Sex,Simone de Beauvoir fiercely attacks Levinas’snotion of the feminine for its objectification of women: “Isuppose Mr.Levinas is not forgettingthat woman also is consciousness for herself. But it is strikingthat he deliberately adopts aman’spoint of view,disregarding the reciprocity of the subject and the object.When he writes that womanisamystery,heassumes that she is mystery for man. So this apparentlyobjective description is in fact an affirmation of masculine privilege” (Simone de Beauvoir, TheSecond Sex, trans. ConstanceBorde and Sheila Malovany-Chevalier,new ed. [New York: Vintage Books, 2011], xxii n. 3). Levinas certainlydescribes his phenomenologyofErosfromthe perspective of the mascu- line philosopher’sencounter with the female beloved, but it is questionable whether this perspective allows for reciprocity between male and female subjects.DeBeauvoir’sclaim that Levinas exclusively describes women as an object of mystery for man runs contrary to his assiduous delineationofthe touch from the caress. The caress refuses to master or objectify the feminine; it rejects the modality of possession for the erotic or ethical excendenceofthe unknown other.Levinas explains that the caress refuses domination or mastery over an object and that the feminine is the very source of alterity, which refuses objectification: “Erotic alterityisnot restricted either to that which, between compara- ble beings,isdue to different attributes which distinguish them. The feminine is other for amasculine beingnot onlybecause of adifferent naturebut also inasmuch as alterity is in some wayits nature. In the erotic relationisitnot amatter of another attributeinthe Other,but of an attributeofalterity in the Other.[…]The feminine is described as the of itself other, as the origin of the very concept of al- 54 JacobLevi

the caress is alsoaprofanation of the ethical insofar as it does not proceed from the infinite responsibility glimpsed in the face of the other.AsMoati explains, the erotic caress “consists in the transgression of alimit”;it“profanes that which it carries be- yond the ethical presenceofthe Other and the face” and thus “transgresses the frankness of the face that deploys itself in the ethical injunction, in the prohibition against murder,and in signification.”⁶⁹ The caress exhibits the sublime ambivalence of sensibility thatexceeds the bounds of sensibility.Itisconnected to being but nonetheless destined to exceed it; it holds the potential for ethical activity,and yet it constantlytransgresses the ethical responsibility to the other derived from the face. In the ambivalenceofthe caress,the hand is irreducible to an instrument for evaluatingepistemological claims. The ethical and erotic excendenceofthe hand holds the possibilityoftranscendenceaswell as transgression.

Conclusion

In this chapter,Ihave highlighted the crucial role of the hands in the philosopher’s interactions with the world and other living beings, and the ubiquity of sceptical challenges to tactile impressions.From the external world scepticism thatgives rise to Kant’s “scandal of philosophy” to Levinas’sinsistenceonthe absoluteother- ness of the Other’sflesh, the question of haptic scepticism proves indelible and even inescapable. Even Moore’santi-sceptical “here is one hand” proof of the existenceof the external world onlydisplaces the site of doubt from the existenceofthe external world to the existenceofthe hands. Haptic sceptical doubt can challengethe exis- tential question of “having” hands, as well as the qualitativeexperience of what it is like to touch different classes of things. We have seen thatHeidegger’sobsession with the existential delineation of the handed from the handless comes at the ex- pense of arigorous analysis of embodiment and the peculiarexperience of touching the flesh of another.Thisform of haptic scepticism occludes the ethical dimension of the handsinfavour of its existential qualifiers,and it leads to Heidegger’ssolipsistic, disembodied notion of Dasein. When we turn to the qualitative experience of touchingdifferent classesofob- jects, new iterations of haptic scepticism emerge.Husserl’sanalysis of auto-affection

terity” (Emmanuel Levinas and Philippe Nemo, Ethics and Infinity,trans. RichardA.Cohen [Pitts- burgh: Duquesne University Press,1985], 65–66). There areclearlyproblems that arise from the ex- plicitlygendered, heteronormative perspective fromwhich Levinas analyses the phenomenology of Eros, but he assures us that thereisnothingintrinsicallyirreversible in his analysisofthe caress. What is ultimatelyimportantfor Levinas in the erotic caress is not that it is aman’sencounter with the feminine, but that it is an encounterwith the radical alterity of the other: “The pathos of the erotic relationship is the fact of beingtwo,and that the other is absolutelyother” (Levinas and Nemo, 66).  Moati, Levinas and the Night of Being,164. “Es wird Leib,esempfindet”:Auto-Affection, Doubt, and the Philosopher’sHands 55

suggests that the experience of touchingone’sown hands is unique because of the “double sensation” in which the bodyperceivesitself as both subject and object.Lev- inas and Merleau-Ponty’sdispute over the analogybetween auto-affective and het- ero-affective touchimpliesthat the handscan offer certainty,just as they can plunge the veracity of tactile impressions into doubt.Whereas Merleau-Ponty’snotionofthe “flesh of the world” articulates aparallelism between the flesh of the self and the flesh of others, Levinas convincingly argues that this effort to relegateall flesh to sameness ostensiblyneutralises the other’salterity,and thatthis kind of touchis used to assert mastery and domination over the other. The caress is not immune to doubt, but instead is committed to the otherness of the other’sflesh. Even as the haptic sceptic continues to question the veracity of tactile impressions, the caress admits and embraces the mystery of the other. Sceptical challenges to the hands’ tactile impressions will inevitably continue to raise doubts regardingthe epistemological certaintyoftouch, but such challenges are onlypart of the question. Reducingthe hands to the preeminent appendage for epistemological squabbles occludes their significant role in ethical life. The hands are not merelythe siteofdoubtand certainty;further,they mediate our inter- actionswith others, and form acrucial locus for action in our ethical lives. Unpertur- bed and even nourished by the challengeofhaptic scepticism, the ethical dimension of the hands exceeds the epistemological limits of sensibility.The “ethical excend- ence” of the handsconstantlyoverflows the limits imposed by epistemological doubt.

Bibliography

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Heidegger,Martin. Parmenides. Translated by AndréSchuwer and RichardRojcewicz. Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press,1992. Heidegger,Martin. Qu’appelle-t-on penser? Translated by Gérard Granel. Paris:PUF,2014. Heidegger,Martin. What Is Called Thinking? TranslatedbyFredD.Wieck and J. Glenn Gray. New York: Harper &Row,1968. Husserl, Edmund. Ideas Pertaining to aPure Phenomenology and to aPhenomenological Philosophy. SecondBook: Studiesinthe PhenomenologyofConstitution. Translatedby Richard Rojcewiczand André Schuwer.Dordrecht: Kluwer,1989. Jabès, Edmond. Le seuil, le sable: poésies complètes 1943–1988. Paris:Gallimard, 1990. Jaspers,Karl. PhilosophischeAutobiographie: Erweiterte Neuausgabe. Munich: Piper,1984. Kant, Immanuel. Anthropology from aPragmatic Point of View. Translated by Victor Lyle Dowden. Revised and edited by Hans H. Rudnik with an introduction by Frederick P. VanDePitte.New ed. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UniversityPress, 1996. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Edited and translated by Paul Guyerand Allen Wood. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1998. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of the Power of Judgment. Translated by Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2000. Levinas, Emmanuel. Outside the Subject. TranslatedbyMichael B. Smith. Stanford: Stanford UniversityPress, 1993. Levinas, Emmanuel. Time and the Other and Other Essays. TranslatedbyRichardA.Cohen. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press,1987. Levinas, Emmanuel. Totality and Infinity: An EssayonInteriority. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,1969. Levinas, Emmanuel, and Philippe Nemo. Ethics and Infinity. Translated by Richard A. Cohen. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press,1985. Merleau-Ponty,Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by Colin Smith. Reprint ed. London: Routledge, 2002. Merleau-Ponty,Maurice. Signs. Translated by Richard C. McCleary. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UniversityPress, 1964. Merleau-Ponty,Maurice. The Visible and the Invisible; Working Notes. Edited by Claude Lefort. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press,1968. Moati, Raoul. Levinas and the NightofBeing: AGuide to Totality and Infinity.TranslatedbyDaniel Wyche. New York: Fordham UniversityPress, 2016. Moore, G.E. “Proof of an External World.” In G.E. Moore:Selected Writings,edited by Thomas Baldwin,147–70. New York: Routledge, 1993. Rogozinski, Jacob. “From the Caress to the Wound:Levinas’s Outrageousness.” Translatedby Sofie Verraest. Sophia Philosophical Review 3, no. 2(2009): 31–49. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. On Certainty. Edited by G.E.M Anscombe and G.H. vonWright. Translatedby DenisPaul and G.E.M Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell, 1969. Zahavi, Dan. Husserl’sPhenomenology. Stanford: StanfordUniversityPress, 2003.

Fig. 6: Valie Export, Tapp und Tastkino (TAPand TOUCHCinema),1968/1989,video ©Valie Export / MuseumofModern Art, New York. RobertPfaller When to Touch and What to Doubt: Zeroing In on the Tactile Surplus

Touching as Doubting: Against the Visual Surplus

Touching as an act of doubt begins when one ceases to believeone’seyes. Yetthis does not implythat the tactile organs will be anymoreaccurate than the eyes were. ForEpicurusand Lucretius,the senses are always right,and no sense is enti- tled to criticise another.¹ If, for them, touchingpossesses anysuperiority over vision at all,² this is due to vision’stendencytowards totalisation and teleology—as, for ex- ample,expressed in the ancientRoman formula “videant consules (ne quid detri- menti res publica capiat).”³ Seeing seems to triggerthe imagination, dragging it to- wards meaning,towards foreseeing and providence—that is, towards the Stoic gods. Touching,onthe contrary, appears to perceive one’sbeing pushed from behind by the meaningless collisions of atoms.⁴ If there is asceptical power specific to touching, this power is not so much di- rected against the visual image,but against the mind’scontribution to it—against one’s imagination. Therefore, Lucretius emphasises that one should not blame the eyes for the mistakes of the mind.⁵ It is the mind thatintervenes in seeing and makes it deceptive,while touchingproves to be more robust and less susceptible to such interventions.⁶ Thus, touchingaffirms being against,for example, wishing,

 See Lucretius, De rerum natura 4.490–500.  Forthis problem, see Jakob Moser, “Manifest gegendie Evidenz. Tastsinn und Gewissheit bei Luk- rez,” in Aufdie Wirklichkeit zeigen. Zum Problem der Evidenz in den Kulturwissenschaften. Ein Reader, ed. Helmuth Lethen, Ludwig Jäger, and Albrecht Koschorke(Frankfurt: Campus,2015), 98–99.  Literallytranslated, this means “the consuls shall see that the republic does not take anyharm.”  See, for example, Marcus Aurelius’sconcise formula “the atoms,orthe Gods” (Selbstbetrachtun- gen,trans. Wilhelm Capelle [Stuttgart: Kröner,1948], 107), which refers to the fact that the Stoic tech- nique of consolation consisted in consideringcurrent inconveniencetohavesome higher meaning, whereas Epicurean consolation consisted in reducingittomeaningless atomic collisions (see Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.15,accessed 19/09/2018, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2680/2680-h/2680- h.htm#link2H_4_0243).  Lucretius, De rerum natura 4.380–90.  However,this should not lead to the assumption that touching would onlyprovide reliable “pri- mary qualities,” whereas seeingwould, beyond questionable “secondary qualities,” also implyno- tions of an external object.Also, touching allows for morethan just sensations. Forthis, see the per- spicuous remarks in Ernst H. Weber, Tastsinn und Gemeingefühl,ed. Ewald Hering (Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1905) 6f., which analyses GustavFechner’sexamples of how one can feel the solidity of an external object like atable by pressing apen against it.One then does not onlyfeel aslight pain in one’sfinger, but also the quality of the table, even through anon-sensitive medium. We can feel ex- https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110627176-004 60 RobertPfaller

or hoping;itrecalls what things are instead of what we wanttosee in them, or what we hope them to be or to become, or what we make out of them. It is significant that it is possible to speak of “what one wants to see in something,” yetnot of “whatone wants to touch in something.” To put this in Aristotelian terms, one could saythat seeing is the methodofthe “dialectician,” who sees in the house the purpose of protection from wind, rain, and heat,whereastouchingisthe method of the “physicist,” who describes ahouse as something composed of stones,bricks, and wood.⁷ Whereas the dialectician heads for the meaning of athing,the physicist returns to its matter.Seeing concerns final causes; touchingconcerns material causes. The problem with the visual sense is that images are always mixed with imagination. This is the reason why blind- ness,alreadyinLucretius and laterinDiderot,isaformula for adisillusioned atti- tude.⁸ Sight often finds it difficult to abstain from imputing an interpretation or a supposition of finality into what it sees. Seeing thus regularlyproduces asurplus. This was wittilyobserved by Friedrich Nietzsche when he stated:

People aremuch moreartistic than they think.—In the middle of alivelyconversation Iwill often see the other person’sface expressing his thoughts (or the thoughts Iattributetohim) with a degree of clarity and detail that far exceeds the power of my visual ability:—such subtlety of muscle movement and ocular expression must have comefrommyown imagination. In all like- lihood the person had an entirelydifferent expression, or none at all.⁹

If seeing regularlyproducessuch asurplus beyond available facts, touchingmay help to shed this baggage.Thisfollows the principle of philosophical materialism, as Louis Althusser formulated it, “Not to tell oneself anystories.”¹⁰ The idea of our freedom, for example, can be such astory.What we regard as our freedom mayjustbeafabrication, a “screen idea” thatprevents us from acknowledging the coincidences and meaningless collisions of atoms that actuallycaused our ac- tions. By removingthe visual surplus, touchinglaysbare the meaninglessness that seeing falselyturned into meaning.Now,discerningmeaninglessness behind appa- rent meaning is comedy’skey move. This mayexplain whyonlyawriter and director of comedycould be attributed with the notion of the “Lubitsch touch.”¹¹

ternal objects even throughextensions of our tactile organs, just as we can feel (phantom) pain through absent organs.  See Aristotle, De anima,trans. R.D. Hicks (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1907), 8f.  Forthis, see Moser, “Manifest gegendie Evidenz.” Alate echo of this idea mayreverberate in Mar- celDuchamp’schoiceof“The Blind Man” for the title of his journal.  Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to aPhilosophy of the Future,ed. Rolf-Peter Horstmann andJudithNorman,trans. Judith Norman (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2002), 82.  “Ne pas se raconter d’histoire”:Louis Althusser, L’avenir durelongtemps,suivi de Les faits,ed. Oliv- ier Cooper and Yann Mulier Boutang,2nd augmented ed. (Paris:STOCK/IMEC, 1994), 247.  Forthis term, see BillyWilder’slovelyexplanation in “The Lubitsch Touch,” presented at the AFI Harold LloydMaster Seminar in 1976,accessed 20/08/2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch? When to Touch and What to Doubt: Zeroing In on the Tactile Surplus 61

The Touch and ItsSurplus: Comic Success

Comedyoften starts when thingsreceive alittle “push”;when, due to some unintend- ed impulse, thingscease to go their planned or predicted way. Comedystarts with an Epicurean “clinamen.”¹² This is the case, for example, when amechanical doll thatis supposedtorepresent the bride at the staged marriageofastubborn young bachelor is accidentlyknocked over and broken (in Lubitsch’s1919 DiePuppe)and when, therefore, areal young woman must represent the doll that was previouslysupposed to represent areal youngwoman. Comedy’stypical pushthus producestwo out- comes:first,something different happens from what had been foreseen, and second, this different event ultimatelyproves to be much better than the foreseen one. Com- edy’spush creates undeserved success and unexpected happiness—surplus happi- ness, as it were. Thus, also, touch, as it is proper to comedy, producesasurplus, yetanentirely different surplus from that pertaining to the visual sense.Whereas seeing’ssurplus rests in the foreseen,touching’ssurplus resides in the unforeseen. Significantly, and especiallyinLubitsch,this deviation (and its surplus), caused by the “push,” concerns plannedmarriages and would-be couples:areal woman maythus replace adoll, or a ménage àtrois acouple (as in Design for Living,or, amounting even to a ménage àquatre,inTo Be or Not to Be). There is always something that comically exceeds the heterosexual monogamous matrix. Lubitsch’stouch seems to regularly createakind of funnysurplus love.¹³ Whereas aforeseen surplus of the sort produced by seeing attempts to pass un- acknowledged, the unforeseen surplus of touchingreliablysticks out.¹⁴ What seeing adds to visual facts always appears to alreadybelong to the imageand does not ap- pear to alter it.Inthis way, as Walter Benjamin remarked, history as seen (i.e., made up) by its current ruling powers always appears to be “how thingsonce were.”¹⁵ Touching’ssurplus, on the contrary,does not contributetocompletingsuch an image. Instead, it adds itself as an obscene supplement to what could otherwise have

v=7jOVRKzwURY. Forthe comedy of materialism, see Robert Pfaller, “Materialism’sComedy,” Bedeu- tung 1(2008): 20–28,and Robert Pfaller, ThePleasurePrincipleinCulture: Illusions without Owners, trans. Lisa Rosenblatt with CharlotteEckler and Camilla Nielsen (London: Verso, 2014), 166–69.  Forthis notion, see Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus 43,inEpicurus, Briefe, Sprüche, Werkfragmente: Griechisch/Deutsch,ed. and trans. Hans-Wolfgang Krautz (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2005), 10.See also Lu- cretius, De rerumnatura 2.219; see Ernst A. Schmidt, Clinamen: Eine Studie zumdynamischenAtom- ismus der Antike (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2007); Mladen Dolar, “Tyche, Clinamen, Den,” Continental Philosophy Review 46,no. 2(2013): 223–39.  Forthis, see Pfaller, ThePleasurePrincipleinCulture.  Forthis, see AlenkaZupančič’sbeautiful considerations on what she calls “the odd one in” as the basic structuring element of comedy(TheOdd OneIn: On Comedy [Cambridge,MA: MIT Press, 2008]).  See WalterBenjamin, “Über den Begriff der Geschichte,” in Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. 1/2: Ab- handlungen,ed. Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhaüser (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1980), 691–704. 62 RobertPfaller

passed as aconsistent image.¹⁶ Such asurplus causes us to question whether things werereallyasthey previouslyseemed to be. Forexample, the emergenceofsurplus value mayquestion the apparent fairness of acontract between aworker and an em- ployer.Similarly, in Heinrich Heine’swittyformula, “love, truth, freedom, and shrimpsoup,”¹⁷ the lastelement,asastrange, slightlyobscene surplus, questions the whole meaningand seriousness of the sequence formedbythe three previous elements. As can be seen again here, this sceptical power of the touch surplus—es- pecially with regard to what was plannedorforeseen—is oftennot without humour.

ITouch, and YouKnow

If touchingleadstoknowledge,however,the knowing person still need not be the touchingone. They can also be the touched one.When, in Sigmund Freud’searlypsy- choanalytic treatments, patientsfound themselvesunable to remember agiven thing,alittle “pressure” from the analyst’shand helpedthem to regain their mem- ories. Touching apparentlyfunctioned here as atriggerfor transference: apparently, it allows the object—namely, the analyst—to replaceone’sego-ideal and thus relieves the censorship exerted by it. Again, afunnylittle push sets thingsinmotion. Yetitisanything but easy to tell who is supposed to believeinthe efficacy of this astonishinglyefficient touch from the analyst: can we seriously saythat it is the analysand who believes that it works? Rather,here, the touch seems to escape anybelief and anypossible vision: “Idonot see how this shallwork” seems to be the formula that describes the efficiency at work here. It is probable thatthe touch onlyworks here insofar as nobodybelieves in it.Both sides maysecretlythink the samething,namely: “Perhaps youbelievein this sillytrick,but Idon’t.” However,the scepticism at work in this situation is not limited to this mutual non-belief. By doing something in which neither agent believes, the analyst permits the analysand to think, “Iamnolonger responsible for what happens now.” And this is preciselywhat permits something to happen. Theanalysand is then able to recall and relatehis memories. Yetwhat he tells us, if this succeeds, is more than what he knows. As Freud remarks: “What we want to hear from ourpatient is not only what he

 To put this in Jacques Lacan’sterminology, one can saythat seeingproduces master-signifiers, whereas touching produces objets a.  Heinrich Heine, Ideen. Das Buch Le Grand,ed. Dierk Möller (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1972), 19.For a brilliant analysisofthese kinds of paradoxical classifications,see Mladen Dolar, “Officers, Maids, and Chimneysweepers,” in Sex and Nothing:Bridges from Psychoanalysis to Philosophy,ed. Alejandro Cerda-Rueda (London: Karnac, 2016), 19–36. When to Touch and What to Doubt: Zeroing In on the Tactile Surplus 63

knowsand conceals from other people; he is to tell us toowhathedoes not know.”¹⁸ A little touch thus again bringsabout an obscene surplus over acceptable knowledge;a surplus that puts this knowledge into question. We could call this asceptical tri- umph, since aperson now becomes able to tell us what he does not know.

Touching What Is Not There

Mark Tansey’spainting “Doubting Thomas”—well chosen by Rachel Aumiller for the invitation to the conference that led to this anthology—as well as the Doubting Tho- mas episode in St.John’sGospel could be read in away that leadstoasurprising point: we touchnot when our knowledge is doubtful or inconsistent,but rather when an object itself is inconsistent.What we touch is preciselythe inconsistency of the object.Weare mostlyputting our finger into ahole. If touchingassures us of anything at all, it thus assures us of alack in the Other.(One could say, according to Jean Laplanche’sgeneral theory of seduction, thatthis is what we hope to find, since we try to “seduce” the other by creating alittle dimple as an erogenous zone.¹⁹) It is difficult to tell, therefore, preciselywhat illusion St.Thomas wanted to dis- sipate by touching: That it was onlyanimageofJesus in front of him, and not areal person?Aghost?OraJesuslookalike, but lacking wounds?How did Thomas know that this was not justanother,less seriously wounded man?And what truth did he find instead?Awounded God?

Brought to Touch

Valie Export’sfamous 1968 performance “Tapp-und Tastkino” is an almostuncanny reminder of Caravaggio’sdepiction of “The Incredulity of Saint Thomas” (1601–1602) —not onlydue to the striking similarity between the compositions of the famous pho- tograph and the famous painting,but also in one specific aspect.Sceptics are here not onlytouching, but actuallyinvited (Export) or even forced (Jesus) to touch some of the other’smost delicate parts. This reverses the usual pattern of curiosity and de- sire accordingtowhich we (sometimes) dare to touch what interests us. In both of these cases, touchingtherefore appears to be aquite dubious privi- lege. Entertainingly, Jesusexplains to Thomas, “Because youhave seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yethavebelieved” (John 20:29; emphasis mine). Export places agreater comparative emphasis on the tactile

 Sigmund Freud, “An Outline of Psychoanalysis,” in TheStandardEdition of the Complete Psycho- logical WorksofSigmund Freud, Volume 23 (1937–1939): Moses and Monotheism,AnOutline of Psycho- analysis and Other Works,ed. James Strachey et al. (London: The Hogarth Press, 1964), 174.  See Jean Laplanche, Le primat de l’autreenpsychanalyse: Travaux 1967–1992 (Paris:Flammarion, 1997). 64 RobertPfaller

character of the event by not permitting the spectator to see at all, but onlytotouch. Whereas in the arts, as well as in practices such as bellydance or striptease, spec- tators are usuallyallowed to see, but not to touch,here, the oppositerule applies. Such atouch mayappear quite uncanny, obscene, or almosttraumatic to the touch- ing person: not because some “naked truth” has entered, but because of the surplus of touch over (non-)seeing. Onlydue to this help from its visual accomplice does touchingappear to gain the dignityof“touchingthe Real.” The crucial point here is the fact that the touchers are prompted to touch more than they want to touch, and/or more than they can see. Seeing here takes on the meaning of wanting to see, and perhaps also of wanting to touch. It thus opens up alogic of desire. Due to seeing,thingsacquireaplace that is proper to them, and they maythus induceacuriosity to alsotouch them. We mayhapticallywant to checkwhether they are reallythere, whether they reallyfeelthe waythey look, and so on. Here, seeing seems to work like alibrary catalogue, whereas touchingcor- responds to the attempt to find out whether the book promised by the catalogue is reallythere. In its role as desire, seeing thus creates akind of assurance: we can be sure that everything we maytouch has its proper place; there is nothing unfore- seen upon which we could stumble. Even if some thingsshould turn out not to feel the waythey looked, or if they should not be wherewehad thought we would see them, this is onlyaminor disappointment—they are then justlacking in their proper place, like amissing book in alibrary.Ifdesire works as adefence, as Jacques Lacan pointed out,²⁰ the samegoes here for seeing.Seeing provides akind of screen that is located between us and our experiences—an “apriori,” or,inotherwords, apreju- dice—preparingusfor anypossibleexperience by giving it the character of an expect- ed experience.Evenifit maynot appear likelyorprobable that thingsactually are there, or that they actuallyare how they appear to be (or that one is reallyallowed to touch them),they are still expected in the sense that their visual place, their pos- sibility,precedes their haptic actuality. On the otherhand, being forced to touch, or seduced to touch what one cannot see, thus takes on the character of an experience outside of its screen, just likea book in alibrary that is not listed in the catalogue.²¹ What one encounters, then, is something which is not foreseen as apossibleexperience, something for which one cannot be prepared. This matches Sigmund Freud’sexplanation of what renders

 “Desireisadefence(défense), aprohibition (défense)against goingbeyond acertain limit in jouissance”:Jaques Lacan, Écrits:ASelection,trans.Alan Sheridan (London: Tavistock, 1977), 322; see Dylan Evans, An IntroductoryDictionaryofLacanianPsychoanalysis,repr.ed. (New York: Rout- ledge,1997), 34.  Uncanniness regularlyarises as akind of surplus. To illustrate this with an example from my per- sonal experience: Ioncewanted to open adoor for which IthoughtIhad akey.However,the key turned out not to work in that the door.Idid not have the keyfor that door:this was aminor dis- appointment. Yetthe next moment brought an awareness of the fact that Inow had akey without knowingwhatdoor it could open. This was rather uncanny. When to Touch and What to Doubt: Zeroing In on the Tactile Surplus 65

an experience traumatic.²² Atraumatic experience always arises as asurplus beyond agiven screen or pattern (or catalogue) of possible experiences;assomething that has no proper place within agiven system of possibleplaces;something that was not just unexpected, but that was impossibletoexpect.Onlyunder these conditions does the haptic experience take on the unpleasant dignity of unlimited enjoyment (jouissance)inthe Lacanian sense. Touching what one could not see, or what one did not want to touch before one gottotouchit, means encountering something without being protected by one’sdefensive screen of desire. Yetthe unpleasant,traumaticcharacter of the unprepared touchonlyemerges when such aprotective visual screen exists at all. In order to be struck (or touched, as it were) by an unprotected haptic impression, one has to have such aprotective screen. Forsomething to be outside of ascreen, there must be ascreen in the first place.²³ As Denis Diderot concluded, for ablind person, the haptic experience of Saint Thomas, just like thatofthe unknownman with his hands in Valie Export’s box, would not have been traumatic, obscene, or uncanny. Blind people cannot be struck by something outside aprotective visual screen, because they do not have such ascreen. This—questionable—assumption is the reason whyDiderot could par- adoxicallypresent the blind man as ahero of enlightenment,because he appeared to be aperson free from cultural prejudices and thereforefree from anysense of obscen- ity.²⁴ Children are other candidatesfor this structural position in philosophical rea- soning.Inthis sense, Sigmund Freud pointed out thatchildren are not susceptible to

 See Sigmund Freud, “Beyond the PleasurePrinciple,” in TheStandardEdition of the Complete Psychological WorksofSigmund Freud,Volume18(1920–1922): Beyond the PleasurePrinciple, Group Psychology and Other Works,ed. James Strachey et al. (London: The Hogarth Press, 1955), 12.  The same goes,ofcourse, for the fetishist in Freud’sexplanation: in order to experiencethe view of the female genitals as “traumatic,” one has to be “prepared” by an infantile sexual theory that assumes the omnipresenceofthe penis.Onlyunder such an apriori would the absenceofapenis be classified as “castration.” The “realist” attitude(which, in the fetishist splitting, separates itself from the “wishful” attitude) is one whose “reality” is outlined by an infantile sexual theory.See Sig- mund Freud, “Fetishism,” in The StandardEdition of the Complete PsychologicalWorks of Sigmund Freud, Volume21(1927–1931): TheFutureofanIllusion, Civilization and Its Discontents and Other Works,ed. James Strachey et al. (London: The Hogarth Press,1961).  See Denis Diderot, “The Letter on the Blind,” in Diderot’sEarly Philosophical Works,ed. and trans. Margaret Jourdain (Chicago and London: The OpenCourt PublishingCompany, 1916), 81: “Though liv- ing in an agewhenphilosophyhas rid us of agreat number of prejudices, Idonot think we shall ever arrive at such completeinsensibility to the prerogativesofmodesty as this blind man. Diogenes would not have been aphilosopher in his account.” Obviously, Diderot is not interested in the actual reality of blind people’sperception here.Instead, he tries to conceive the blind man as an embodi- ment of the aspirations of enlightenment: freedom from moral and aesthetic prejudices. Diderot re- flects on and concedes to the contemporary criticism of his “utopian” concept of blindness made by the blind ladyMélanie de Salginac, especiallyconcerninghis idea of blind people’salleged lack of pity,inhis “Addition to the Letter on the Blind,” in Diderot’sEarly Philosophical Works,142–57.Iam indebted heretoJosé María Sánchez de León Serrano for his most inspiringcomments on these pas- sagesinDiderotpresented at the “ATouch of Doubt: On Haptic Scepticism” conference held in Ham- burgon27March2018. 66 Robert Pfaller

the experience of the uncanny.²⁵ If one lacks aprotective culturalshield of desire, then nothing appears as an unprotected intrusion of jouissance. In order to be struck defenceless,one has to have some defences.The obscene, the uncanny, and the un- desired enjoyment thus reveal their dependency on aculturalapriori. These experi- ences do not come under the mere absenceofaprotective screen, but under its de- terminatelack.²⁶ The prefixes “ob-” and “un-” in the notions of “obscene” and “uncanny” designatea“determinatenegation”:itisculture—or perhaps onlycertain cultures—thatconstructs certain screens or “scenes” and, by the same move, posits something as being outside this screen, as uncannyorobscene. These excluded en- tities are cultural “constructs”—yetinthe precise sense thatthey are “constructed” as the determinate outside of culturalconstruction, as “non-objects” or Undinge of a specific culture. This is the reason whymaterialist philosopherssuch as Ludwig Marcuse have insisted on the idea that there is actuallynosuch thing as the obscene.²⁷ By similar reasoning, ancient philosophers, especiallythose from the Cynic school, such as Di- ogenes of Sinope,Crates,and Hipparchia, attempted to demonstrate the disadvan- tages of culturaleducation, of aprioris and prejudices,such as (accordingto them), for example, the feelingofshame. Attemptingto“learn from the dogs” from whom they took their name,²⁸ the Cynics staged shameless “obscene” perform- ances in public spaces by living,eating,and even making loveinthe streetsofAth- ens. Thus, they wanted to convince people that their culturalformation was asuper- fluous defence that unnecessarilydesignated some human experiences as obscene; something without which these thingscould be experienced as entirelyordinary and livedmore happily. TheCynics’ scepticism consisted in methodical doubtregarding the necessity of culturalpatterns that designatecertain experiencesasuncannyor obscene. The late heirs of these ancient sceptics are, in the twentieth century,perfor- mance artists like Valie Export—areferencethat is even more explicit in her perfor- mance with Peter Weibel, “Ausder Mappe der Hundigkeit” (“From the Portfolio of Doggedness,” 1968),inwhich she draggedhim through Vienna’smost elegant shop- ping street on adog lead, than in “Tapp und Tastkino.”²⁹ The appearances of the Rus-

 See Sigmund Freud, “The Uncanny,” in TheStandardEdition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume 17 (1917–1919): An Infantile Neurosis and Other Works,ed. James Strachey et al. (London: The Hogarth Press,1955), 250.  This is preciselywhy Lacan describedanxiety as what occurs when the lack (i.e., the protective screen) is lacking (Le Séminaire, livre X: L’angoisse, 1962–63, ed. Jacques-Alain Miller [Paris: Seuil, 2004], 53).  See Ludwig Marcuse, Obszön: Geschichte einer Entrüstung (Zürich: Diogenes,1984).  Kuōn is the Greek word for “dog”; kunikos thus literallymeans “doggish.” Abeautiful accountof this philosophical tradition is to be found in GeorgLuck, ed. and trans., Die Weisheit der Hunde: Texte der antikenKyniker in deutscher Übersetzung mit Erläuterungen (Stuttgart,Kröner: 1997).  See Valie Export and Peter Weibel, “Ausder Mappe der Hundigkeit”,accessed 31/08/2018, http:// peter-weibel.at/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=27%3Aaus-der-mappe-der-hundig- When to Touch and What to Doubt: Zeroing In on the Tactile Surplus 67

sian performance artist Oleg Kulik as an (often quiteangry) dog also belong to this philosophical tradition.³⁰ The aggressive monkey-artist whose performance com- prised an impressive part of the recent film TheSquare (directed by Ruben Östlund, 2017)can probablybecounted as afellow-traveller of this “animalistic” criticism of human culturebythe ancient Cynics. While the philosophical Cynics and theirlate followers in performance art raised doubts regarding cultural conventionsand pointed towards the idea of aculturefree of prejudices and constructions—aculturethat would produce no feeling of shame, no uncannyorobscene outsides—Sigmund Freud did the opposite. Freud pessimis- ticallydoubted the possibility of such a “liberated” culture. It maybetrue thatsome cultures have found amore placable wayofdealing with difficult matters such as sex than, for example, modern bourgeois Western culture.³¹ Yetthis does not stem from the fact that these cultures have avoided excludingcertain matters from their cultural “screen.” Repression,asFreud suspects, is “organic”;³² it comes as aconsequence of the development and hierarchisation of partial drivesduringsexual development, and cultureonly “superstructures” this condition, thereby,asitwere, innocentlytak- ing the guiltupon itself. Yetwhat some cultures achieve, as opposed to others, is a wayofcelebrating the “accursed shares”—apractice that allows for the ambivalent, sacred issues to be transformed into sublime ones. Other cultures, likeours, that— perhaps following alate 1968 spirit which naively declares such issues to be mere culturalconstructs; that is, actuallynon-existent—avoid celebrating these things and see their most noble task to be subjecting them to “negative cults” of abstinence, inevitablytransformingthem into something appalling. Our formergods that we have ceased to celebrate thus turn into our most horrible demons, as Freud (referring to Heinrich Heine’snovella “Gods in Exile”)remarks.³³ At this point,doubt could become ameans for re-evaluatingtouch:Freud’sscep- ticism could help apostmodern culture that is obsessed with harassment of all kinds to find its wayback to practices by which not every touch must necessarilybeexpe-

keit-1968&catid=2%3Amixed-media&lang=de&Itemid=11 and http://foundation.generali.at/samm- lung/artist/export-valiepeter-weibel/artwork/aus-der-mappe-der-hundigkeit-5.html#.W4qV8i35zNM.  Forthis, see Anselm Wagner, “Der Künstler als Hund. Kynische Strategien der Körperkunst,” Noema art journal 43 (1996): 52–60.  “Themoststrikingdistinctionbetween the erotic lifeofantiquityand ourown no doubtliesinthe fact thatthe ancients laid the stress upon the instinct itself, whereasweemphasize its object. Thean- cients glorifiedthe instinctand were preparedonits accounttohonourevenaninferiorobject; while we despise the instinctualactivityinitself,and find excuses foritonlyinthe meritsofthe object”: SigmundFreud, “ThreeEssaysonthe Theory of Sexuality,” in TheStandardEdition of the Complete Psychological WorksofSigmund Freud, Volume 7(1901–1905): ACaseofHysteria, ThreeEssaysonSex- uality and Other Works,ed. James Strachey et al. (London: The Hogarth Press, 1953), 149(footnote added in 1910).  Sigmund Freud, “Civilization and ItsDiscontents,” in TheStandardEdition of the Complete Psy- chological WorksofSigmundFreud, Volume 21,100.  Freud, “The Uncanny,” 235f. 68 RobertPfaller

rienced as anuisance. The practices of celebration turn excluded and forbidden thingsinto obligatory,sublime ones. Whereas one mayshamefullyavoid touching anybodyelse in ordinary,profane life, in sacredsituations,such as,for example, in ritual dances,itbecomes an obligatory, joyful exercise.What contemporary culture sadlylacks is not more prohibitions, rules,and regulations for avoiding bodily or psychic contact,but the opposite, the art of temporarilysuspendingprofane life in such away that people know when to touch and how their contact can be experi- enced as sublime.

Being Touched by What One Sees

The opposition between seeing and touchinginthe sense of ascreen and its off- screen transgression, as we just have encountered it,can also occur within the visual field itself.There can be elements within apicture that form akind of surface, a plain, coherent meaningful order of visual signs,while some other elements stick out from—or rather pierce through—this surface, thus taking on arighteous tactile quality.Inhis book CameraLucida,Roland Barthes coined the notions of studium and punctum for these two different sources of visual experience. The first element, the studium,can be described as asurface of expectable meanings:

The first,obviously, is an extent,ithas the extension of afield, which Iperceive quitefamiliarly as aconsequenceofmyknowledge,myculture; this field […]always refers to aclassical bodyof information.³⁴

The punctum,onthe contrary,opposes itself to this predictable field:

The secondelement will break (or punctuate) the studium. This time it is not Iwho seek it out (as Iinvest the field of the studium with my sovereignconsciousness),itisthis element which rises from the scene, shoots out of it likeanarrow,and pierces me.³⁵

Even if Barthes, in his role as the observer,isnow pierced by this element as though by akind of arrow,asopposed to Doubting Thomas, who (forcedly) pierces his Lord’s lance-wound, the shattering quality of the experience appears to be quite the same. Just like Saint Thomas, who ventures for the hole in the other,Barthes experiences the punctum in the picture as “alittle hole.”³⁶ And the punctum is, for Barthes, just as for Thomas, a “wound”:

 Roland Barthes, CameraLucida:Reflections on Photography,trans. RichardHoward (New York: The NoondayPress,1988), 25f.  Barthes,26.  Barthes,27. When to Touch and What to Doubt:Zeroing In on the Tactile Surplus 69

And because the photographs Iamspeakingofare in effect punctuated, sometimes even speck- led with these sensitive points;precisely, these marks,these wounds aresomanypoints.³⁷

In this constellation between studium and punctum,despite the fact that both belong to the visual field,the punctum takesonatactile quality,with all the implications and consequences explained above: the punctum comes from outside the field of the visually expectable, as a “supplement,”³⁸ as something slightlyuncannyorob- scene, something “disturbing”³⁹;itis, just like the more or less “forced” touches dis- cussed above, an “involuntary feature”;⁴⁰ it comes unexpectedlyand shakes and shatters agiven certainty of “knowledge” or “culture,” thus assuming asceptical power. What Lucretius attributed to visual images in general—thatthey are material and are emitted from the objectsjust like smells—is, in Barthes’saccount,onlytrue for a certain type of visual element: the punctum. The studium appears to remain calm, yet the punctum emergesfrom the picture.While one looks for what the studium contains with “sovereign consciousness,” the punctum is not “soughtout” by the observer, but rather strikes him. The punctum,asitwere, actively attacks the observer; it “pricks” and “bruises” him⁴¹ and jumps into his eye,⁴² whereas the studium remains “inert”:

Manyphotographsare,alas,inert under my gaze.But even amongthose which have some ex- istenceinmyeyes, most provoke onlyageneral and, so to speak, politeinterest: they have no punctum in them: they please or displease me without prickingme: they are investedwith no morethan studium. The studium is the very wide field of unconcerned desire,ofvarious interest, of inconsequentialtaste: Ilike/I don’tlike. The studium is of the order of liking,not of loving; it mobilizes ahalf desire,ademi-volition; it is the same sort of vague, slippery,irresponsible in- terest one takesinthe people,the entertainments,the books,the clothes one finds “all right.”⁴³

The fact that the punctum appears to actively engageand strike the observerimplies that the latter is unable to reach the picture through the moderatingfilters of his moral and political culture, as is the case with the studium:

Thousands of photographs consist of this field, and in these photographs Ican, of course,take a kind of general interest, one that is even stirred sometimes, but in regardtothem my emotion requires the rational intermediary of an ethical and political culture. What Ifeel about these photographs derivesfromanaverage affect,almost from acertain training.⁴⁴

 Barthes,26.  “Le punctum: c’est un supplement”:Roland Barthes, La chambreclaire: Note sur la photographie (Paris:Cahiers du cinéma/Galimard/Seuil, 1996), 89.  Barthes, Camera Lucida,27.  Barthes,47.  Barthes,27.  See Barthes,43.  Barthes,27.  Barthes,26. 70 RobertPfaller

The filtered experience of what the studium permits us to expect onlycreates apre- dictable medium amountofaffect thatiswillfullyexpended.⁴⁵ The unprotected en- counter with the punctum,onthe contrary, “touches” and “moves” the observer.⁴⁶ He is brought not just to “like,” but to “love.”⁴⁷ The punctum creates an unpredictable amount of affect,anunwillingexpenditure. To sum this up, it can be said that through the punctum,the observer is brought beyond what he knows (the filter of his “moral and political education”), beyond what he intentionallyand willfullyseeks and accepts, and beyond his usual econo- my of affect.The sceptical power of the punctum’stouchthus does not onlyquestion what aperson knows about an object; rather,itquestions the very position of the subject. It is at this point that scepticism acquires anew direction; anew goal or object. Doubting now does not onlymean questioning some presumed knowledge about an object.Instead, it tackles the subject position; thatis, the unacknowledgedassump- tions, education, and opinions of the person in question. The touchingdoubt is not about an aposteriori; it is about the aprioris.Itdoes not check questionable knowl- edge in order to gain certainty; it questions certainty itself —the unquestioned as- sumptions that form the general coordinates within which every particularitem of knowledge is located. Such a “touching” doubt concerns the “livedworld” of the subject; that is, the set of unacknowledgedand taken for granted presuppositions that invisiblyfunction for us, just like water for the fish that swim in it,asnicelyex- plained by David FosterWallace.⁴⁸ Being touched by a punctum means to be struck in one’spre-conscious world-view,inthe wayone wishfullyplaces oneself within the world as it is experienced—that is, in the terms of Louis Althusser,one’sideology,⁴⁹ or,inthe terms of the ancient philosophers, one’s “opinion” or doxa. The fact that not onlyknowledge,but also the livedcertaintythatsurrounds one’sknowledge (as well as one’serror and ignorance) is attacked by the touchingdoubtofthe punc- tum explains whythis arouses such ahighamount of affect:for it is, as ancient phi- losophers such as the Stoic philosopher Epictetus taught,not facts, but people’s “opinions” thatarouse theirpassions.⁵⁰

 Barthes,28: “According to my will as spectator.”  Barthes,43.  Barthes,27; see Barthes,43: “This particular punctum arouses great sympathyinme,almost a kind of tenderness.”  David Foster Wallace, “This Is Water,” commencement speech deliveredatPomonaCollege, Cal- ifornia, accessed 18/09/2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI.  See Louis Althusser, On Ideology,trans.Ben Brewster,new ed. (New York: Verso, 2008).  Epictetus, Handbüchlein der Moral: Griechisch/Deutsch,ed. and trans.Kurt Steinmann (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2004) 10f. (§ 5); see also Epictetus, TheEnchiridion,trans. Elizabeth Carter,accessed19/09/ 2018, http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html. When to Touch and What to Doubt: Zeroing In on the Tactile Surplus 71

Affirmative and Transformative Doubting

The history of philosophyfeatures two prominent sceptical positions of relevance to this question that must be distinguishedhere. On the one hand,thereisthe modern, Cartesian doubt. This is a “cognitive” or “epistemological” doubt,whose aim is to es- tablish certainty in the sense of reliable knowledge.Thisdoubtonlyconcerns objects of knowledge (the subject, on the contrary,iswhat is seen as beyond anydoubt). On the other,wefind the ancientPyrrhonean scepticism (named after its founder, Pyrrho of Elis). This is an “ethical” scepticism. The aim of doubting here is not knowledge or certainty,but,onthe contrary, “untroubledness” (ataraxia)byfixed ideas. Pyrrho- nean doubtconcerns the subject position. This scepticism does notcarewhether cer- tain ideas aretrueornot,but only whethertreatingthem as true maylead the subject into unpleasant excitement. Therefore, Michel de Montaigne, alateheirofthisancient tradition, wouldask himselfthe question “What do Iknow?” wheneverhefound him- selfinacritical situation, an exercisebywhich he managed to abstain from anydog- matism or fanatic partisanship andtoremain in asubjectposition of benevolent,serene curiosity. Valie Export’stouchingperformance obviouslybelongstothe Pyrrhonean tradi- tion of “ethical” doubt. Touching here does not aim at a “reality check” or knowledge at all; it entirelyconcerns the position of the subject,his (or her) “moraland political education,” the limits of good manners, taste, obscenity,and so on. This performance maytherefore shedlight even on the act performed by Jesus accordingtoSt. John’s Gospel. Is the aim of touchinginDoubtingThomas’scase not also far more ethical than epistemological? WasThomas’serror not preciselyhis assumption that reli- gious faith was amatter of knowledge?Did Jesus not shatter this assumption in a similarlyshockingway,just as Valie Export called into question all assumptions about good manners, respect between genders, and respect between individual per- sons? Can the whole “conversion” of St.Thomas not simplybedescribed preciselyby saying that Jesusprompted his transformation from aCartesian sceptic into aPyrrho- nean one? Is the whole point of the biblical story not preciselythat eventhe most certain knowledge does not help at all in mattersoffaith,since religion is not acog- nitive,but an ethical issue? Thomas wantstoreplace doxa with reliable knowledge. YetJesus then provides him with reliable knowledge,but also with the insight that this knowledge is not of decisive help. He demonstrates to Thomas that even after having obtained reliable knowledge,the problem of doxa,inthe sense of faith, per- sists. Jesus’saction actuallyallows Thomas to replace one doxa (the opinion that knowledge helps)with another—asubjective commitment that,asitwere, plays in adifferent register from objective knowledge.Just as Jesus is, in Caravaggio’singen- ious depiction, actuallythe one who exerts the touch (byforcingThomas to touch), he can alsobeseen as the actual sceptic in the scene, for it is Jesuswho questions Thomas’sassumption about the helpfulness of knowledge in religious matters.The 72 RobertPfaller

“conversion” of St.Thomas thattakes place in this scene can thus alsobeformulated as “Dear Thomas, Iwillshow youwhich of us is the real sceptic.” Jesus’sactionthus provided “sceptical” Thomas not with knowledge,but actual- ly with the most profound challengetohis ethical position. On the epistemological, Cartesian level of doubt, on the contrary,nothing has been clarified at all: since touching, as Descartes pointed out,does not escape the potential for illusion. If the apostles actuallyonlydreamed of meetingJesus, as St.Thomas mayhavesus- pected, whycouldn’tthe impression of touchinghis wound also be merelya dream?Ifthere was anyefficiency to this action, it clearlydid not consist in an epis- temological gain of either knowledge or certainty.Toframe it in Roland Barthes’s terms,Jesusdid not allow Thomas to verify an element of his studium,but rather confronted him with a punctum. He did not communicatewith the sceptic on the level of expectations and willfullysought knowledge,but on the level of both the un- expectedand the unwilling encounter.Instead of providing Thomas with evidence or proof, Jesusgavehim something to think and to doubt.Just like awise teacher of a FarEastern religion, Jesus confronted the other with asmall, enigmatic action that forced him to question his own assumptions; as Barthes would have called it, Jesusenacted alittle “satori,the passageofavoid.”⁵¹

The ScepticalTouch of Art

This is what aligns the action ascribed to Jesuswith those of performance artists like Valie Export.Itwas probablyCaravaggio’sgenius to single out this artistic dimension of Jesus’sintervention—of Jesus the performance artist,asitwere, the punctum in Caravaggio’sdepiction being preciselythe strong hand of Jesusthat forces Thomas’s finger to do what one mayexpect,accordingtomoral education and biblical studi- um: to getinto the wound. If there is aproper concise description of what performance does, as opposed to theatre, one can saythat it does not represent matters, but presents them; or,inLud- wig Wittgenstein’sterms,itdoes not say things, but shows them.⁵² Here, the terms used by J.L. Austin allow akind of etymologyornominal explanation: performance is not “constative,” but “performative.”⁵³ By lettingThomas touchthe truth, Jesus showed him at the same time that the question of truth is completelyirrelevant to what is at stake here—the issue of religious commitment.Thomas’s “treatment” can thus easilybecomparedtocertain actions in psychodrama wherecrucial situa-

 Barthes, Camera Lucida,49.  Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus. Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung,14th ed. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1979), sentences4.022, 4.121, 5.62,and 6.522. CompareBarthes, Cam- eraLucida,51: “What Ican name cannot reallyprick me.”  See J.L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words:The William James Lectures Delivered at Harvard University in 1955,ed. J.O. Urmson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962). When to Touch and What to Doubt: Zeroing In on the Tactile Surplus 73

tions are not merelydiscussed, but enacted “live.” Forexample, apatient who has always wanted to beat her stepfather is givenastick made of rubber foam (the so- called “Battuta”)and is allowed to hit aperson playing her stepfather’srole.⁵⁴ The key issue in this “wish-fulfilment” seems to be the fact thatthe person with the irre- sistible wish is thus brought to the point wherethe wish no longer protects her from encountering the question: “And what now?” In other words, the person has to face and live the situation after the resolution of her presumed life problem. In many cases, it turns out that this new situation is the real problem and that the formula “If onlyIhad had the chance to…” onlyserves as ascreen that permits one to avoid confronting life with all its small concerns. The “life problem” can thus be ex- perienced as aclever solution to afailuretoface the actual difficulties of life. In the same way, Thomas’swish, “If onlyIhad the chance to touch Jesus’swounds in order to gain certain knowledge,” is revealed in its function as ascreen for the still-remain- ing problem of religious faith. Thomas’s “epistemological” doubt serves as acomfort- able screen against facing the ethical problem of religious life. The touch from the dramatic punctum provided by Jesus allows Thomas to question his defensive;that is, to doubthis defence made up of “epistemological” doubt. Onlythe “lived” or “shown” experience of the performance, the satori or psycho- dramatic enactment,allows us to tackle the livedcertainty of the other.Onlyinthis waycan asubject’scomfort zone be touched. Against acommunication on the “vis- ual” level of the studium,wherethe subjectwillfullyand wishfullysees itself, acom- munication on adifferent,haptic level takes place. If one felt entitled,due to Barth- es’sown various references to psychoanalytic theory,⁵⁵ to render his account in Lacanian terms,one would have to state that the shift from studium to punctum is ashift from the “imaginary” to the “symbolic” axis of communication. It is precisely along this axis that acommunication can take place in which aperson reveals more than he or she knows. Whereas from the imaginary position, aperson tells us what he knows, as well as what he wants to know and how he wantstosee himself, from the symbolic position, the unconscious can speak and the actual condition of the subjectcan be revealed. Barthes touches this point when he notes that on the level of the studium,he onlyencounters what the photographer wants to say.⁵⁶ On the level of the punctum, however,the photograph says something else, something different or more than what they originallyintended—and this allows the spectator to be “touched.” Onlyalong

 Forthe methods of psychodramatic role-playing, see Lewis Yablonsky, Psychodrama: Resolving Emotional Problems through Role-Playing (New York: Basic Books,1976).  Forexample,Barthes calls the punctum a “partial object” (CameraLucida,43).  “To recognize the studium is inevitablytoencounter the photographer’sintentions,toenterin harmonywith them, to approve or disapproveofthem, but always to understand them” (Camera Lu- cida,27f.). Foramost precise account of the relation between Barthes’sconcept of the punctum and Lacan’snotions of the “Real,”“tyche,” the “gaze,” etc., see Jennifer Friedlander, Feminine Look: Sex- uation, Spectatorship,Subversion (Albany, NY:SUNY Press,2008), 11ff. 74 Robert Pfaller

this axis of communication can ashift of opinion, or doxa,actuallybeeffected —just as in the case of St.Thomas.This is of particularimportance when it comes to the issue of the political efficiency of art. Barthes is perfectlyclear on this point:on the level of the studium,aphotograph cannot make its spectators critical or scepti- cal, for it can onlyconvince thosewho are alreadyconvinced: “No critique except among those who are alreadycapable of criticism.”⁵⁷ On the level of the studium,art always functions onlyasanaffirmative,assuring force. It confirms what asubject alreadywants to see in herself and reinforces the opinions asubject alreadyfinds suitable to himself. On the level of the studium, art cannot do anything else, to put it in biblical terms, than to preach to the already converted (like the non-doubting apostles). Onlyonthe level of the punctum can someone actuallybetouched in such away that asceptical, “pensive” stance can be taken; that some flexibilityofthe subject position is induced so that adifferent opinion can be adopted. Barthes’sfindingisofparticularrelevancetoday, at amoment when art is hop- ing to become more “political” by increasinglypromotingsocial and political issues at the level of the studium,thus investing most of its effort in its content while ne- glectingissues of form; namely, when it concerns itself onlywith what to communi- cate instead of how to communicatewith the spectator. This tendency is recently often reinforcedbyart’sbecomingacademic and by the predominant contemporary understanding of the notion of “artistic research.” In manycases, artistic research is understood as scientific research undertaken by artists thatmay help their work to become more scholarlyand richer in well-founded scientific content.⁵⁸ Yetagain, such an understanding onlycontributes to the studium. It contributes, as Barthes would put it,towhat one can name, but not to by what one can be pricked.⁵⁹ Acleverer—and more epistemologicallyaccurate—understandingwould instead describeartistic research as what leadstothe result’sbeing art and not science, or investigative journalism, or anything else that belongs to the field of knowledge,in- formation, or content.Such an understandingthatconnects artistic research to the specificityofartistic practice would shift the focus onto the specific ways in which art can speak: its form. With astrongerfocus on this aspect,aresearching art could refine its methods of how to reach other people than the alreadyconvinced; of how to make spectators pensive and sceptical,and how to touch and tackle them in theirmost treasured opinions. Foronlybytelling whatitdoes not know

 Barthes, Camera Lucida,36.  The misunderstandinghere is obvious:the character of researchisjudgedbywho undertakes it, not by what its method is. Yetwhenartists conduct scientific research, this is just as “artistic” as music can be said to be “dental” duetothe fact that dentists playthe cello. The artistic research is not the scientific part,i.e., the rawmaterial that is used for artistic production, but the very me- thodical process by which this (or anyother)raw material is transformed into an art product.  Barthes, Camera Lucida,51. When to Touch and What to Doubt: Zeroing In on the Tactile Surplus 75

can artput the observers’ fingers into awound: by producinga“passageofthe void,” it ceases to completetheirknowledge,but starts to supplement their beliefs.

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Yablonsky,Lewis. Psychodrama: Resolving Emotional Problems through Role-Playing. New York: Basic Books, 1976. Zupančič,Alenka. The Odd One In: On Comedy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,2008. Fig. 7: John William Waterhouse, Thisbeorthe Listener,1909, oil on canvas, 97x59cm. Image Source: Fine Art Photographic Library, London. Bara Kolenc The (Un)Touchable Touch of Pyramus and Thisbe: Doubt and Desire

“Therewas afissure, athin split,inthe shared wall between their houses,which traced back to when it was built. No one had discoveredthe flawinall those years—but what can lovenot de- tect?—Youlovers sawitfirst,and made it apath for your voices. Your endearments passed that way, in safety,inthe gentlest of murmurs.”¹

In the ancientGreek story of Pyramus and Thisbe, masterfullyrewritten by Ovid in his Metamorphoses,² the two lovers in the city of Babylon occupy connected houses, but are forbidden to marry because of their parents’ rivalry.Every day, they whisper their lovefor each other through acrack in one of the walls, planting on each side of the wall the kisses they are prevented from giving each other. One night,they arrangeahidden meetingoutside the city walls near Ninus’s tomb, under the shade of amulberry tree. Thisbe arrivesfirst,with her face well veiled,but as she is waitingfor Pyramus, she hears alionessroaringand escapes to anearby cavern, leaving her veil behind. The lionessquenches her thirst in the nearby spring and comes upon the veil, tearing it with her jaws, which are bloodied from arecent kill. When Pyramus arrivesjust amoment later,heishorrifiedbythe sight of the lioness and Thisbe’sveil, assuming that the wildbeasthas killed her.In terrible anguish,heplunges his swordinto his side, then immediatelydraws it out of the wound and falls onto the ground. When Thisbe comes out from her hiding place, she finds Pyramus lying under the tree, dying.Pyramus sees her in his last moments and then passes away.Then, Thisbe cries out aplea to the gods for themtobelaid together in one tomb and for the mulberry tree to retain the emblems of theirdeath in the colour of its fruit.Having said this, she takes the sword from Pyramus’sgrip and stabs herself in the chest,falling dead onto Pyramus’sbody. Astillimageofthe two lovers lying under the mulberry tree, finallyjoined in an embrace that they had never

 Ovid, Metamorphoses,trans. A.S. Kline (Luxembourg: PiT,2000), 109.Inthis article, Iamusing A.S. Kline’sEnglish prose translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses because it uses contemporary lan- guagethat corresponds welltothe question of modern subjectivity,which Iwould like to bring forth in my analysis.  Ovid’saccount,published in 8CE, is the oldest survivingversion of the story, although he was adaptinganexistingetiological myth. While Pyramus and Thisbe livedinBabylon in Ovid’stale and Ctesias had also placed the tomb of his imagined kingNinus near that city,the myth probably origi- natedinCilicia (part of Ninus’sBabylonian empire), as Pyramos is the historical Greek name of the local Ceyhan River. The metamorphosis in the primary story involves Pyramus changingintothis river and Thisbe changinginto anearby spring. Shakespeareadaptedthis story for AMidsummer Night’s Dream’splay-within-a-play, which is performed by agroupofcraftsmen in the final act.Ovid’s Pyr- amus and Thisbe was also one of the templates for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. See the transla- tion by A.S.Kline referenced aboveand also Ovid, Metamorphoses,trans.David Raeburn (London: Penguin Books, 2004). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110627176-005 80 Bara Kolenc

managed while alive,draws the lovestory of Pyramus and Thisbetoaclose. All is silent and inert; the onlymoving thing is the stream of blood pouring from the lov- ers’ wounds, sinking into the soil and irrigating the roots of the tree. The myth says that the gods hear Thisbe’slament and permanentlychangethe colour of mulberries in order to honour their forbidden love. In this article, Iwill analyse the story of Pyramus and Thisbethrough the frame- work of haptic scepticism. Haptic scepticism is an emergent areaofphilosophicalin- quiry which explores the specific relation between touch and doubt that is, as Iwill argue, fundamentallyperforated by desire. In the following pages, Iwould like to put forth two main things: first,Iwould like to demonstrate how touch as astructural (rather thanempirical) phenomenon is intrinsicallyconnected to both doubtand de- sire, and thereby show how it underlies the configuration of subjectivity,and second, Iwould like to indicate that beyond doubt as arational procedure, which is the basic principle of the line of modern scepticism stemmingfrom the Cartesian tradition, there is amore fundamental mechanism of doubt at work which is intertwined with the function of desire in the unconscious. The line of my first argument makes use of the concept of the (un)touchable that Ideveloped in my previous work, especiallyinrelation to languageand to the ques- tion of the materiality of touch.³ In the present article, Iwill focus on the correlation of the category of the (un)touchable and the mechanisms of doubtand desire. Iwill

 In my article “The Category of the (Un)Touchable in HapticMaterialism: Touch, Repetition and Language,” in TheLanguage of Touch: Philosophical ExaminationsinLinguistics and Haptic Studies, ed. Mirt Komel (London: Bloomsbury,2019): 91–106,Iestablish the category of the (un)touchable as the coreconcept of haptic materialism,which addresses the question of touch within the structures of language. On the one hand, the article shows how the idea of haptic materialism refers to acertain twist in the notion of materiality brought about by the institutionofmodern science, pointingout the consequent shift in the conception of touch that givesway to the category of the (un)touchable; on the other,itdemonstrates how the structural analogy between the category of the (un)touchable and the process of repetition can help us to understand the mechanismoftouch within the structures of language. Through areference to Roman Jakobson’s1956 essay “TwoAspects of Languageand Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances,” in Language in Literature,ed. Krystyna Pomorska and Stephen Rudy (Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversity Press,1987): 95–114, Iargue that from the perspective of lan- guage, the idea of touch could be understood on twodifferent levels:the metonymical and the meta- phorical. On the metonymical level, touch is perceivedasadirect connection, as proximity without mediation,while on the metaphorical level, it is considered to be always alreadymediated. The met- onymical touch touches so much that it becomes one with the touched, whilethe metaphorical touch does not touch at all—there is always avast distancebetween the touching and the touched that pre- vents the touch proper fromeverhappening. Idemonstratehow both dimensionsoftouch, the met- onymical and the metaphorical, comeacross acertain impasse at some point—therefore, the main argument of this paperlies in the proposition that touch as such can onlyexist in view of its impos- sibility.This argument is further elaborated through the analysis of the relation between touch and repetition within Saussure’sconcept of the linguistic sign,comparing it to the relation between touch and repetition within Marx’stheory of value. The category of the (un)touchable was further ela- borated within the “LanguageofTouch” research project conducted by Mirt Komel at the University of Ljubljana from 2016 to 2018. See Kolenc, “The Category of the (Un)Touchable in Haptic Materialism.” The (Un)Touchable Touch of Pyramus and Thisbe:Doubt and Desire 81

demonstrate,onthe one hand,how the category of the (un)touchable can help us to understand the intrinsic connection between touch and desire, and, on the other hand, how the category of the (un)touchable is at work in the very procedureof doubt. The overall line of my second argument leans on Lacan’sdevelopment of the Cartesian concept of subjectivity,based upon the suspension of the conscious “I” and the relocation of cogito to the realm of the unconscious. By bringingtogether La- can’sstatement thatCartesian subjectivity arisesinthe moment when doubt recog- nises itself as certainty,Freud’selaboration of doubt as an unconscious procedurein his analysis of obsessive neurosis,and the concept of the undecidability of equipol- lence (isostheneia)thatwas central to Pyrrhonian scepticism, Iwill demonstrate how doubt as arational operation or atool of thoughtinevitablystems from uncertainty and hesitation, which accompanythe mechanism of desire. Further on, Iwillargue that it is preciselythis hesitation, aparalysis not onlywithin the realmofthought, but within the realm of desire in the first place, that echoes in the spatio-temporal paradoxoftouch, which inhabits the category of the (un)touchable. Iwill also claim that the real opposite of certainty is not uncertainty and doubt,but rather be- lief; aplain, undoubtful conviction. Uncertainty and doubt are, on the contrary,the very flip sideofcertainty,which empowers decision-making and action. Iwill come to the conclusion thatuncertainty and doubtare the necessary and productive forces —not onlyofevery rational procedure—but alsoofthe very constitution of subjectiv- ity. The two lines of my argument lead to the elaboration of haptic scepticism, where touch is not engaged as an experiential examiner of truth or reality—that is, as atool of methodical doubt—but rather proves to be astructural operator of amore funda- mental skepsis thatprecedesand conditions anyrational operation. In dealing with the abovementioned questions, this article undertakes astructural rather than phe- nomenological or experiential approach.

The Category of the (Un)Touchable

Iconsider touch to be aparadoxical entity that lingers between the two walls of im- possibility: the impossibilityofdistance on the one hand and the impossibilityof proximity on the other.Inbothcases, touch itself is, so to say, condemnedtofailure. In order to give aname to this inner tension thatdraws the inconceivable line be- tween the two, Icoined the term (un)touchable in my abovementioned previous work. However,itisthrough its very failurethat it somehow nevertheless works:it succeeds exactlyinits non-success, in its falling through, in its comingtonothing. To picture the paradoxical coreoftouch, we can imagine the category of the (un) touchable as aspatio-temporal paradox. In aspatial sense, we can imagine touch as atangent to acircle,following Derrida: “Atangent touches aline or asurface but without crossingit, without atrueintersection, thus in akind of impertinent perti- 82 Bara Kolenc

nence. It touches onlyone point,but apoint is nothing,that is, alimit without depth or surface, untouchable even by wayofafigure.”⁴ Further on, we can imagine dis- tance as apassant in relation to acircle and proximity as asecant to acircle. The basic idea of the category of the (un)touchable is thatone can define neither the point wherethe passant turnsinto atangent nor the point where the tangent turns into asecant. If we think in terms of two units touchingeach other,the paradoxoftouch lies in the fact that in order to establish touch, we need to have two separate units, which are shrinking the distance that separates them and proceeding towardseach other until they reach the point of close proximity. However,once touch is established, we no longer have two units, but rather asingle unit.Ifwehavetwo units, touch has not yettaken place, because the units are still separated, but as soon as they connect,then touch has alreadyexpired, because the two units have now merged into one. It is impossible to sayexactlywheretouch has occurred in the transition from the two to the one. It is impossible to mark the point of touch within this tran- sition. There is no space for touch. Hence, touchoccurs on the very borderline be- tween the twoand the one, within agap or aleap between these two stages. This means thatthe event of touch demands an impossible state of being connected and separatedatthe same time, of being at once the two and the one. Touch is whereitisnot.Interms of the classical ontology of being,this state is paradoxical, because it declares that something is while it is not. However,itispreciselyparadoxasalogical tool thatopens up the ontology of differenceasacounterpart to the ontology of being:while for the ontology of being, something either is or is not,for the ontology of difference, something both is and is not. Something can occur as its very absence. Therein lies the coreideaofNancy’s concept of “touchingthe limit” (toucher la limite):⁵ the presenceoftouchhas to be understood in view of its absence.The ontology of differenceinstalls the idea of pos- sible impossibility, of impossibility as possibility,that forms the conceptual coreof the category of the (un)touchable. Temporality enters the spatial aspect of the paradoxoftouch through the idea of the time that is needed to proceed from distance to close proximity (or in the oppo- site direction), from separation to connection, from the two to the one. Transition is a movement that demands both aspatial and atemporaldimension of comingfrom a point A(distance,two units) to apoint B(proximity, one unit) or from apoint Btoa point A. Touchhappens sometime duringthe temporaltransition between the two points. Therefore, in the sense of time, the paradoxical coreoftouch displays itself through the fact that the event of touch never reallyoccurs:just before the two units connect,weare still expecting it,but once they are connected, it has already

 See Jacques Derrida, On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy,trans. Christine Irizarry (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005).  Jean-Luc Nancy, L’expérience de la liberté (Paris:Galilée, 1988), 47. The (Un)Touchable Touch of Pyramus and Thisbe: Doubt and Desire 83

gone, leaving us in astate of onlyremembering it.Weare always onlyasymptotically getting closertothe moment of touch, whether we are moving in the direction of overcoming the distance or in the opposite direction of unlocking the too-close prox- imity.Asatemporalevent,touch stretches between the temporalprovisions of the not yet and the alwaysalready: touch has never yethappened, but at the same time, it has always alreadyexpired. One can discern two elementary agents of touch, the active and the passive, the subjectand the object, the touching and the touched.⁶ If the two agents of touch are separated, then touch is perceivedassomething that has not yethappened, relent- lesslysticking to the point whereitisjust about to occur,while if they are perceived as inseparable, the touch is never reallythere because it has always alreadyhap- pened. Either the touchingtouches so much that it becomes one with the touched, or it does not touch at all: there is either avast distance between the touchingand the touched that prevents the touch proper from ever happening or atoo-close prox- imity between them that cannot prevent the touchingfrom spreadinginto the touched and from becomingtoo much of atouch, so much so thattouchassuch im- mediatelydisappears.Inboth senses, aspatial as well as atemporalsense, the ob- ject of touch, the touched, is something thatisatthe same time touchable and un- touchable. Moreover,itistouchable onlyunder the condition of its untouchability, and vice versa. The category of the (un)touchable therefore means: what can be touched is always alreadyuntouchable, but it is onlythrough its untouchability that something can be touched at all. The inherent impossibilityoftouchisits very condition of possibility. Another important thing to add here is that the category of the (un)touchable functionsontwo levels: what is (un)touchable within this mechanism is not only the elusive object of touch, the touched,but also touch itself as astructural phenom- enon, marking an impossible borderline between distance and proximity. Pyramus and Thisbe are caught in both the spatial and the temporalaspectsof the paradoxoftouch. Their touch has been endlesslypostponed, one obstacle fol- lowed by another (the wall, the lioness, the bloodied veil, Pyramus’sdeath),and they are relentlesslypushed into the temporality of the not yet,until the moment

 It has often been argued that the two arereversible, that the touching has always alreadyturned into the touched and vice versa: as soon as we touch it,itinevitablytouches us in return.The rever- sibility of touch was most notablyexplained by MauriceMerleau-Ponty (see PhenomenologyofPer- ception,trans.Donald A. Landes [New York: Routledge,2012]). Even if the dividingline between the touching and the touched seems vaguebecause of the unavoidable reversibility of touch, it can never be entirelyobliterated:itisimpossible that the touching could simultaneouslyalso be the touched. The positions never collide—rather,they areinaconstantprocess of exchange.This is preciselywhat Merleau-Ponty wants to stresswith his famous example of self-touching. Merleau-Pon- ty’sargument was further elaboratedbyJean-Luc NancyinCorpus (Paris:Métailié, 1992) and Noli me tangere: essai sur la levée du corps (Paris:Bayard, 2003), Jacques Derrida, Le toucher:Jean-Luc Nancy (see Derrida, On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy), and Jacques Lacan, TheFour Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis,trans. Alan Sheridan, repr.ed. (New York: W.W. Norton &Company, 1998). 84 Bara Kolenc

when they both drop dead, at once finding themselvesinastate of being alwaysal- ready: what has never been there is suddenlylostforever. The distance between the two lovers is maintained until the point where it is directlytransformed into atoo- close proximity,somehowmeticulously (using the elusive inter-space between life and death) jumpingoverthe point of their touch. There they are, the two of them still alive,but amoment before they finallymanagetotouch each other,Pyramus passes away.What follows immediatelyafter this is one single unit of an undefined clump of human flesh.

Touchand Desire

Through the category of the (un)touchable, touchengages the function of desire. What empowers one’sdesire is preciselythe structural impossibility of grasping its object: what we eventuallytouch is never what we have desired. The object of touch, the object of our desire, is always transposed. It is never in its place. It slips between our fingers just before we touchit. The fact that we cannot touch the object,the impossibilityoftouch, structures the subject, the object,and the en- tire mechanism of desire. However,what we do touch, in away,isthe very impossi- bility of touch, its very absence. Hence, the object of our desire is untouchable, yet touchable. Moreover,itistouchable onlyunder the condition of its untouchability: it is accessiblepreciselythrough the prism of its inaccessibility.Hence, we can touch the object of our desire onlybecause we cannot touch it. Pyramus and Thisbe cravecloseness, but are onlyabletotouch each other with their whisperingwords through atinycrack in the wall. Their lips encounter the wall once again and they imprint their kisses upon it instead, “touchingthe wall with kisses thatcould not reachthe other side.”⁷ “Let our whole bodies meet,” they beg the wall, “or if that is toomuch perhaps, to open to the kisses”?⁸ What they ask of the wall is indeedtoo much, because this is the very structure of desire: to desire is to desire too much, to always desire more. In contrast to aneed, desire is insatiable: “Thus desire is neither the appetitefor satisfaction, nor the demandfor love, but the differencethatresults from the subtraction of the first from the second, the very phenomenon of theirsplitting (Spaltung).”⁹

 Ovid, Metamorphoses,109.  “Often, when they wereinplace, Thisbe here,and Pyramus there, and they had each caught the sound of the other’sbreath, they said ‘Unfriendlywall, whydoyou hinder lovers?How hard would it be for youtolet our whole bodies meet,orifthat is toomuch perhaps, to open to the kisses we give each other?Not that we arenot grateful. We confess that we owe it to youthat words areallowed to pass to lovingears.’ So they talked, hopelessly, sitting opposite, saying, as night fell, ‘Farewell’,each touching the wall with kisses that could not reach the other side” (Ovid, 111).  Jacques Lacan, Écrits:ASelection,trans. Alan Sheridan (London: Tavistock Publications, 1977), 275. The (Un)Touchable Touch of Pyramus and Thisbe: Doubt and Desire 85

Once they finally managetoarrangeanassignation outside the city walls, the unexpected course of events prevents them from finally fulfilling their longing with atouch, ahug,akiss, aconjugation. Their meeting onlyhappens when it is al- readytoo late. When Thisbe comes out of the cavern, Pyramus is dying. She takes him in her arms, “cradlingthe beloved body” and bathing his wounds with tears, “minglingtheir drops with blood.”¹⁰ Planting kisses on his cold face, she cries out: “Pyramus, what misfortunehas robbed me of you? Pyramus, answer me! Your dearest Thisbe calls to you: obey me, lift your fallen head!”¹¹ At Thisbe’sname,Pyr- amus raises his eyes, darkeningwith death, and “having lookedather,[buries]them again in darkness.”¹² In astrangeinterplayoffacts and assumptions, presenceand absence, life and death, the so-much-desired touch is fatallymissed and thereforeit tragicallyturns into adouble suicide. The two loving creatures never manageto enjoy the pleasure of the trembling event of touch: just as the moment of touch is wishfullyexpected, it has alreadypassed away (without ever reallyoccurring), and the twocorpses lying one on topofthe other are suddenlytouchingtoo much, as asingle indistinct pile of flesh. However,what the lovers demand from the wall is indeed too much to ask: they are asking for the impossibleevent of touch. Forthey are not aware of the fact that the moment theirwhole bodies met would never be the desired event of touch, but would, on the contrary,always turn out to be the deadlyevent of the too much of a touch that would kill it all, instantlyputting an end to bothtouchand desire.

How to Touch the Concept of Touch?

In numerous paintingsthroughout the history of art,Pyramus and Thisbe are depict- ed either while whispering through acrack in the wall or in the moment when Pyr- amus is lying on the floor and Thisbe is leaning over him, stabbingherself with the same sword that Pyramus used afew minutes earlier.The sharp end of the sword is touchingher chest amere moment before it penetrates her skin, while the handle of the sword is touchingPyramus’sbody, from which life is quicklydraining and will soon fade away. In both depictions, an object is set in-between the two lovers: first awall, then a sword. It has often been argued thatthe object positioned between them is ameta- phor for forbidden love. Instead, Iwill claim that the composition with adisturbing object is not ametaphor,but rather a(beautiful) visual representation of the category of the (un)touchable. According to my argument,boththe wall and the sword be- tween Pyramus and Thisbe function as mediatorsoftouch: they both connect and

 Ovid, Metamorphoses,111.  Ovid, 111.  Ovid, 111. 86 BaraKolenc

separate the subject and the object of touch. They maintain the distance, but at the same time,they also establish proximitybetween the twoagents of touch, the touch- ing and the touched. In doing so, they render touchpossible, but they do so precisely through its very impossibility. In thatsense, anyother mediating object could be used as avisual representation of the concept of the (un)touchable: astick, an um- brella, arope, apiece of furniture. We are not touching, yetweare touching: this is the elusive structure of touch. Afissure in awall, however,introduces acertain conceptual twist that intervenes in the idea of awall as asimple visual representation of the category of the (un) touchable and brings it to another level: alevel where the very representationof the (un)touchable posits itself as (un)touchable. We can conceptuallygrasp the idea of awall as amediator between distance and proximity,but—and here is the key —there is afissure within this very idea. Anditispreciselythrough this fissure that our conceptual grasp of the idea of touch becomes present: the very concept of the category of the (un)touchable is something that is touchable, yetuntouchable. In asimilar way, asword,too, contains an additional turn of the simple visual representation of the category of the (un)touchable. Why? Because in this case, the mediator is not just anyobject (a wall, astick, arope), but asword, an object posing athreat. Here, the threat is first and foremost astructural and temporal category. What is inscribed in the threateningobject is the inevitable future of the course of events: soonerorlater, asword will piercethe body. It will not stayin-between, sep- arating yetconnectingthe two bodies; sooner or later,itwill abandon its benevolent mediating function (wetouchitinawaythat we do not touch it) and violentlypro- ceed towards the too much of atouch. It will sooner or later destroy the fragile con- stellation of the (un)touchable and inevitablyturn the impossible possibilityof touch, maintainedbydesire, into araw impossibility, into apoint zero. It will turn Thisbe, who is now holding it as amediator of touchand is thereby touchingPyra- mus through her desire to touch him, into acorpse falling onto another corpse, ulti- matelychangingthem into one indistinct pile of flesh. Therefore, asword is certainly asuggestive visual representation of the concept of the (un)touchable, but at the same time, it is also akind of areminder of the irreparable and deadlydiscrepancy between our desire to grasp the object (in representation) and our inability to fulfill this desire. The functionofthe mediator of touch could, at first glance, be related to the idea of a connecting distance,which echoes in Plato’sconcept of metaxy (metaxu)present- ed in the Symposium via the character of the priestess Diotima.¹³ TutoringSocrates, Diotima uses the termtoshow how oral tradition can be perceivedbydifferent peo- ple in different ways,depicting Eros not as an extreme or purity,but rather as a dae- mon,achild of Penia (Poverty) and Poros (Possession), setbetween the divine gods

 Plato, Symposium,tr. Alexander Nehamasand Paul Woodruff, in Plato:Complete Works,ed. John S. Cooper (Indianapolis:Hackett,1997), 457–505 (198a–212c). The (Un)Touchable Touch of Pyramus and Thisbe: Doubt and Desire 87

and mankind. The notion of metaxy as the “in-between” or “middle ground” was later usedbyPlotinus to expressthe ontological placement of humans between God and animals, and it was brought to modern thought by several thinkers, most notablybySimone Weil. “Every separation is alink,”¹⁴ Weil claims, using the exam- ple of awall: “Twoprisonerswhose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing which separates them but it is also their means of communication.”¹⁵ The concept of metaxy could well be related to the idea of awall or asword as a visual representation of the concept of the (un)touchable,¹⁶ but if we take acloser look at the two concepts, we can trace an important difference between them. While the idea of aconnectingdistance is an idea of something that is set in-between two agents, realms,orevents, and is there to connect them through theirseparation, the idea of the (un)touchable is actuallyexactlythe opposite: there is nothing set in- between the two agents of touch, no third agent to help them solve the impossible situation of always being either separated or connected, but never experiencing the impossiblemoment of touchingeach other. The real problem here is not that they cannot touch, that they cannot become connected and that they therefore use the third element to help them, as in the idea of aconnectingdistance; on the con- trary,what is at stake here is that they can touch; thereisnoouter obstacle to prevent their connection, yetthe moment of touch is always missed,because in itself, it is structurallyimpossible. Within the idea of the mediator of touch as asimple visual representation of the concept of the (un)touchable, the mediating object does not represent the presenceofthe third agent,installing the positive aspect of connecting distance and thereby establishingthe (mediated) touch, but it rather represents the very gapbetween distance and proximity,the missing link between the one and the two,wheretouch is present onlyinits absence. In case of metaxy,weare talking about touchthatontologicallyexists, that pos- sesses acertain reality,acertain being in the world, even if the twoagents are using amediator to help them to bring it into existence, while (un)touchable touch as such has no existence in itself, because it is ontologicallyset in-between being and non- being and is thereforesomething thatcan onlyhappen in its absence. But at the same time, and this is the coreidea of the concept of the (un)touchable, it is the

 Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace (New York: Routledge,2003), 145.  Weil, 145.  An inverse illustration can be found in Teresa of Avila’svision in which an angel pierced agolden spear so deeplythrough her heart that it grabbed hold of her entrails, which he forcefullypulled out. While the blow should have been fatal, she did not describe the episode in the manner of athreat, but as an encounter with an object of desire.The onlything she felt was the great loveofGod. A “re- mainder that God is able to touch by beinguntouchable,” or,moreprecisely, (un)touchable. His pres- enceisthus felt onlyasan“absent existence, inscribed into the community through tireless decla- rations and testimonials.” Goran Vranešević, “Anatomical Aporia,” in TheLanguage of Touch: Philosophical Examinations in Linguistics and Haptic Studies,Ed. Mirt Komel (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), 85. 88 Bara Kolenc

very impossibility of touchthat is the condition of its possibility:the touch is precise- ly whereitisnot; it happens in the time-lapse between the moment whenitisjust about to occur and the moment when it has alreadygone. In this disposition, dis- tance and connection are not,asisthe case with the concept of metaxy,set in abe- nevolent and all-resolving cooperation; they are,onthe contrary,set in aparadoxical scheme of an always impossible encounter between them—either there is distance and no proximity,orthere is atoo-close proximityand no distance. However,to maintain desire is not to decide for either of the two options, but rather to linger in-between, to nurturethe gapbetween distance and proximityand thereby maintain the impossiblepossibilityoftouch. What is of crucial importance here is that the choice set by the category of the (un)touchable is not functioning on the level of deciding for either distance or prox- imity (this situation is resolved by the idea of metaxy), but on the level of choosing either the constant lingering between distance or proximityorthe decision for either distance or proximity. If we takethe first choice, we choose touch, but atouch that is always alreadylost. If we takethe second choice,weinitiallyresign from the possi- bility of touch. Thereby,the category of the (un)touchable sets the mechanism of forced choice: either we touchitinsuch away that we cannot touch it or we do not touch it at all. Lacan calls this mechanism the vel of alienation, which is “defined by achoice whose properties depend on this, that there is, in the joining,one ele- ment that,whatever the choice operating maybe, has as its consequenceaneither one, nor the other.”¹⁷ The choice is, then, “amatter of knowing whether one wishes to preserveone of the parts, the other disappearinginany case.”¹⁸ None of these options is optimal, but we have no other choice:ofcourse, we will go for the first option, which is still better than the second one. Better something than nothing;better asparrow in the hand thanapigeon on aroof. However,is this reallythe case? The mechanism of forced choice defines the Hegelian relation- ship between amaster and aslave.Aperson who is attacked is confronted with the following choice: your money or your life! If youchoose your money,you will instant- ly lose both. If youchoose your life, youhavesaved yourself, but what is left for you is alife without money.Amaster would go for all or nothing,while aslave would choose to adapttohis or her circumstances in order to stayalive.Amaster would choose unconditional freedom or sacrifice everything,while aslave would choose life under anyconditions,evenatthe price of losing his freedom. The forced choice trapping Pyramus and Thisbe (although they do not realise it) is the following:either they choose the deficiency of touch in infinite overcomingthe distance, but maintain desire, or they go for the fantasmatic meltingofthe two entities into one, wherethey will lose both—not onlytouch, but also desire.

 Lacan, TheFour Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis,211.  Lacan, 211. The (Un)TouchableTouch of Pyramus and Thisbe: Doubt and Desire 89

The two levels of the representation of the concept of the (un)touchable dis- cussed in this section match the abovementioned two levels of untouchability within the mechanism of touch: on the one hand,itisthe object of touch, the touched, that is un-touchable for the subject of touch, the touching, while on another level, it is touch itself, the very idea of touch, thatis(un)touchable, inasmuchasitisconcep- tuallygraspable onlythrough its ungraspability.The idea of the mediator of touch (a wall, arope, astick)asasimple visual representationofthe concept of the (un) touchable matches the first level of the representation of the concept of the (un) touchable: it represents the (un)touchability of the object of touch, the touched. I then analysed two examples that represent the concept of the (un)touchable even more precisely, not letting them be confused with the idea of aconnectingdistance: afissure in awall and athreateningobject.Through these two examples, Ihavesub- jected the very mechanism of representation to the category of the (un)touchable, at- temptingtopoint out that on the second level, touchasaconcept can onlybecon- ceptuallygraspable through its ungraspability. In bothcases (the fissure in awall and the sword), the representation not only has its metaphorical dimension—it is not onlya(beautiful) visual representation of the category of the (un)touchable (i.e., representing the category of the (un)toucha- ble as the duality of distance and proximity of touch)—but it also bringsinthe met- onymical dimension wherethe mechanism of representation is itself subjected to the category of the (un)touchable. This means that through the very act of reception, we as spectators are caught in the paradoxoftouch: we can grasp what is represented onlyinsuch away that we cannot grasp it.Incontrast to the metaphor of forbidden love, which keeps the recipient at asafe distance from the object (i.e., this picture represents forbidden love), the representation of the (un)touchable sets him directly into the kernel of the paradox: it offers him ametaphorical distance (i.e., this picture represents the paradoxoftouch), but at the sametime binds him with metonymical proximity (when watchingit, Iamdirectlyinvolvedinthe paradoxoftouch: Ican grasp the idea of the (un)touchable in this picture onlyinsuch away thatIcannot reallygrasp it). Therefore, in bothcompositions with adisturbing object,the category of the (un)touchable is not onlyrepresented, but embraces the entire mechanism of representation through the impossibleencounter between metaphorical distance and metonymical proximity. In the next section, Iwill attempt to demonstrate how the materialist turn of Ar- istophanes’svision of lovesuspendsthe fantasy and thereby removesthe veil that covers the brute materiality of the mechanism of forced choice, elaboratingalso on the master’schoice versus that of the slave.Iwill connect the master’schoice to Aristophanes’sfantasmalvision of love, in which the myth of Pyramus and Thisbe is trapped, and connect the slave’schoice to the emergence of modern subjectivity: the Cartesian subject of the unconscious. 90 Bara Kolenc

The Suspension of Fantasyand the Slave’sChoice

Once the sword between Pyramus and Thisbe strikes ablow,once Thisbecollapses onto Pyramus, the touch is gone, the desire is gone, and the two lovers fall into a warped embrace: the embraceofdeath. Through the category of the (un)touchable, the story of Pyramus and Thisbe embodies the ultimatematerialist turn of Aristopha- nes’s¹⁹ fantasy of loveasdescribed in the Symposium,²⁰ the fantasy of two lost halves finallyfinding each other and becomingone. This becomingone is not astructure of love; rather,itisastructure of death. In away,Thisbe is well aware of this, or at least this is the corepart of her fan- tasy: “He, who could onlyberemoved from me by death, death cannot remove.”²¹ However,this fantasy has, so to say, twocomponents:amaterialist one and an ideal- ist one. The materialist component bringsinthe idea of an ultimate touch through the imageofthe two lovers lying together in the samegrave.Thisbe speaks about the impossible event of touch thatwill finally be realised once they are both dead: “Do not denyusthe right to be laid in one tomb.”²² However,she does not know that in the very moment that the touch she is wishfullyexpecting is executed, it will have alreadypassed away—along with the desiring subject. The idealist component,onthe otherhand, further develops the corporeal image of the two bodies in one tomb into the idea of an emblem. Pyramus and Thisbeare joined in “the strangest hour,” in the moment when time ceases to exist and streams into eternity and bringslovetoits fulfilment in the eternal memory: “And you, the tree, that now covers the one poor bodywith your branches, and soon will cover two, retain the emblems of our death,and always carry your fruit darkened in mourning,aremembrance of the blood of us both.”²³ First we have death, and then we have the emblemsofthis death. First we have blood, and then we have the remembrance of the blood:the mulberries, darkened in mourning.The material- ist idea of an ultimatetouchisfurther developed into the idealistvision of the em- blem of an ultimate love. However,weshould not forgetthat here, boththe materialist idea and the ideal- ist vision are components of afantasy.Both the imageofthe two lovers lying togeth- er in one tomb and the development of this corporeal imageinto the idea of an em- blem are equallyfantasmatic. In fact,wecan see that the entire plot of the story of Pyramus and Thisbeisset between two fantasies: the lovers’ initial fantasy of remov- ing all earthlyobstacles(both physical and social)inorder to finallyfulfill their long-

 The fantasy of loveastwo people becomingone is commonlyreferenced as Plato’sideal of love, which is not quiteaccurate. In the Symposium,this fantasy represents Aristophanes’spoint of view and his understanding of Eros.  See Plato, Symposium, 189c–93e  Ovid, Metamorphoses,111.  Ovid, 111.  Ovid, 111. The (Un)Touchable Touch of Pyramus and Thisbe:Doubt and Desire 91

ing in corporeal love, and, after the tragic course of events which prevents the real- isation of the so much desired touch of the other,the final fantasy of love, which, splitting itself into acorporeal and an emblematic component,transposes its realisa- tion into the perspective of death.²⁴ In Ovid, Thisbe’sfantasy is heard by the gods and is thereby transformed into a myth. However,the fantasy nevertheless remains what it is: afantasy.Itismain- tained in the not-yet-not-anymore temporality of desire and as such, it is structurally non-realisable. ForLacan, the fantasy is boththat which enables the subject to sus- tain his desire and that by which the subjectsustains himself at the level of his van- ishing desire.²⁵ By offering aresolution or asort of reconciliation of afantasy,amyth often functions in the direction of wish-fulfilment,which is, accordingtoFreud, one of the main tasks of dream-work, and thereby institutes afantasy on aculturallevel: it institutes the plot of acollective dream, which, inscribed in the symbolic order,per- petuallyengages desire.²⁶ What Thisbe desires when stabbingherself is not what she ultimatelygets. She desires touch, but gets the too much of atouch,wheretouchisnomore. She desires unification, but gets death, whereloveisnomore. The fulfilment of desire is impos- sible, but it is preciselythis impossibility that establishes modern subjectivity.²⁷ For desire, Lacan claims, is nothing but arelation of being to lack²⁸ and thereforeitisa constitutive forceofsubjectivity. In the constitution of the human psychic apparatus, Lacan claims, thereare two overlapping lacks: the symbolic lack,which emergesinthe dialectics of asubject’s access to its own being in relation to the Other,and the real lack,which refers to something real: to the fact thatwithin the realm of sexual reproduction, aliving crea- ture will be struck down by individual death. The overlappingofthe two lacks forms acomplex mechanism of alienation, which, for Lacan, is afundamental mode of human “being in the world.” Through the idea of the two lacks, Lacanputs forward

 The fantasy of becomingone within the horizon of death echoes throughout the Westerntradition of l’amour-passion,which was meticulouslyanalysedbyDenis de Rougement in his book L’amour et l’occident (Paris:Éditions 10/18, 2001).  Lacan, TheFour Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis,185.  This was the brilliant insight of EdwardBernays,the father of creating modern mythology by means of advertising.  Aaron Schuster proposes asketch of a “speculativehistory of pleasure” where he elaborates on the relation between desireand its fulfilment through threehistorical stages: ancient Greek hedon- ism, Christian eroticculture, and modernity through psychoanalysis. Modernity creates asubject of aneurotic symptom—adisjunctive relation between the structurallyunfulfilleddesireand afulfil- ment that does not bring pleasure. See AaronSchuster, “Being and EnjoymentinPlato’s Philebus: A Lacanian Perspective,” CollegeLiterature 45, no. 2(2018): 246–77.  “Desireisarelation of beingtolack. This lack is the lack of beingproperlyspeaking. It isn’tthe lack of this or that,but lack of beingwhereby the beingexists.” Jacques Lacan, TheSeminar of Jac- ques Lacan. Book II.The EgoinFreud’sTheoryand in the Technique of Psychoanalysis 1954–1955, trans. Sylvana Tomaselli, ed. Jacques-Alain Miller (New York: W.W. Norton&Company, Cambridge University Press, 1988), 223. 92 Bara Kolenc

acriticism of idealism(accompanied by his argument as to whypsychoanalysis is not idealism) which suspendsany aspect of the foundation of human subjectivity in the entirety of self-awareness on the one hand and relates this suspension to are- jection of anyharmonic vision of loveonthe other. From this perspective,Lacan criticises the common idealist interpretation of Ar- istophanes’smyth:

Aristophanes’ myth picturesthe pursuit of the complement for us in amoving, and misleading, way, by articulating that it is the other,one’ssexual other half, that the livingbeingseeks in love. To this mythical representation of the mystery of love, analytic experience substitutes the research by the subject,not of the sexual complement,but of the part of himself, lost for- ever,that is constituted by the fact that he is onlyasexed livingbeing, and that he is no longer immortal.²⁹

The becomingone is not astructure of love: it is astructure of death.This is asus- pension of fantasy.For Lacan, the role of fantasy is defensive:itistoveil the lack of the Other,toveil castration. To suspend afantasy is thereforetotear the veil, to face the fact that the subjectivity does not rest upon anysort of identity or unity,but rather emergesfrom alack. However,weshould not confuse the materialist turn of Aristophanes’sfantasy of lovewith the materialist aspect of Thisbe’sdesire: the point here is that the materialist turn simultaneouslysuspends boththe materialist and the idealistaspects of Thisbe’sfantasy of loveasaneternal unity.The materialist turn sets death not within the horizon of eternity,asThisbe’sfantasy does (both in its material and in its idealist aspect),but reveals it to be abrutal fact of an individual’s finality.However—and this is the key point here—it is preciselythis brutal reality that empowers the dynamics of desire and sustains the structure of subjectivity. Pyramus and Thisbeare caught in the mechanism of forced choice set by the cat- egory of the (un)touchable, but they do not managetorealise it because of the fan- tasmatic constitution of amyth. They do not managetosustain the deficiencyof touch thatwould maintain desire and keep loveinits status of not-all. Rather, they follow the fantasy of the meltingofthe two entities into one, the nebulous idea of atotality,asLacan would put it,for which they lose everything:touch, desire, and life. The fantasy that leads Pyramus and Thisbe to choose the too much of a touch bringsthem not love, but death. The materialist turn of Aristophanes’svision of lovesuspends the fantasy and thereby removes the veil that covers the brutality (or brute materiality) of the mech- anism of forced choice: we are not choosing between the unfulfilment of love in life and its fulfilment after death, we are choosing between the unfulfilment of love in life and death. We are not choosing between not-all and all, we are choosing between not-all (whichisunbearable) and nothing.From this angle, the master’schoice —all

 Lacan, TheFour Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis,205.See Alenka Zupančič, The Odd One In: On Comedy (Cambridge,MA: MITPress,2008). The (Un)Touchable Touch of Pyramus and Thisbe: Doubt and Desire 93

or nothing!—turns out to be naive and vain; just as it is, for Lacan, the idea of an ab- solute, driving the history of philosophyfrom PlatotoHegel. Foritisnot about all or nothing:itisabout not-all. Therefore, from the perspective of desire driving the cat- egory of the (un)touchable, the onlychoice is the slave’schoice: to choose to touch it in such away that we cannot touch it.Pyramus and Thisbe’schoice is, on the con- trary,the naive choice of the master:all or nothing,led by the fantasmatic idea of totality (the twounited into one) and absolutelove. It is onlythe emergence of the Cartesian subject that penetrates the self-sufficientdiscourse of the master brought about by the history of philosophyand opens aspace for not-all. It opens aspacefor the choice of the barredsubject: the choice of the slave.

The Cartesian Subject and the Unconscious Doubt

The subject of the unconscious is neither aliving person nor asubstance nor acog- nising being,but,accordingtoLacan, “the Cartesian subject, who appears at the mo- ment when doubt is recognized as certainty,”³⁰ with one difference:that in psycho- analysis,the base of this subject turns out to be “wider,but,atthe sametime much more amenable to the certainty that eludes it.”³¹ The wider base of the Cartesian sub- ject of psychoanalysis is the unconscious, which is defined by Lacan as “the sum of the effects of speech on asubject.”³² “Desidero is the Freudian cogito,”³³ Lacan claims: anything that seems to issue from aconscious reason is always in function of an unconscious desire. The keyissue here is the idea of the moment when doubtrecognises itself as cer- tainty—this is the moment of the emergenceofthe subject within the signifying chain. Of course, this supposition is paradoxical: how can doubteverrecogniseitself as certainty?For in the moment in which it recognises itself as certainty,thereisno more doubt.However,albeit impossible, this constellation is not aclosure, but rather an opening.Paradoxasamental tool turnsthe impasse into the stem cell of thought. In both Repetition and Philosophical Crumbs,Kierkegaard does not consider paradox to be ahindrance to thought, but rather arevelation of the onlylegitimate field of thought: aparadoxisnothing but the very liveliness of thought; it is onlyinapara- doxthatthoughtactuallycomes across itself (but preciselyincomingapart):

One should not think ill though of paradoxes, because the paradoxisthe passion of thought and athinker without aparadoxislikealover without passion:apoor model. But the highest power of every passion is to will its own annihilation. Thus it is also the highest passion of the under-

 Lacan, TheFour Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis,126.  Lacan, 126.  Lacan, 126.  Lacan, 154. 94 Bara Kolenc

standingtodesire an obstacle, despitethe fact that the obstacle in one wayoranother maybeits downfall. This is the highest paradoxofthought, to want to discover somethingitcannot think.³⁴

“What truth then is left?Perhaps this alone,that nothing is certain.”³⁵ In his Medi- tations,Descartes’smethodical doubt, which begins by attackingsense-perception, radicallyquestioning it through the argument from dreaming, and undermining knowledge and all rationaloperations through the introduction of the deceptive evil demon, ends up at the point when doubt recognises itself as certainty: “Beyond doubt then,Ialso exist,ifheisdeceiving me; and he can deceive me all he likes, but he will never bring it about that Ishould be nothing as long as Ithink Iamsome- thing.”³⁶ As this recognition is arational and conscious operation, it serves as a firm starting point for building an argument for the existenceofthought,knowledge, the physical world, and God. It is preciselythrough the self-recognition of doubtasa rational operation that doubtcan be setascertainty: Idoubt,therefore Ithink (and thereforeIam)—Ican be certain of that.³⁷ Lacan goes astep further in setting up the point of emergence of the Cartesian subject. Emerging in the unconscious,the subjectofpsychoanalysis cannot establish itself through the self-recognition of doubt as arational operation and thereby turn doubt into the self-certaintyofthe conscious “I.” Forthe conscious “I” is no point of referencefor the Cartesian subjectofpsychoanalysis (thereisno“Ithink,” it is al- ways “it thinks instead of us”). The emergence of the psychoanalytical subject is de- fined by Lacanasamissed encounter: by definition, the subject cannot meet itself, it can never recognise itself as it is. It onlyexists in aslip of signification, in afailureof every assertion and enthronementonafixed place. ForLacan, the moment when doubt recognises itself as certaintymust be taken as it is: as aparadoxical, impos- sible constellation. In the moment of the self-recognitionascertainty, doubtisno more. This is exactlythe moment of the missed encounter of the subject: in the mo- ment of its self-recognition,the subject is no more.Certainty is basedonthe function of the impossible. The constitution of the psychoanalytic subject is essentiallydetermined by acer- tain leap of causality.Itispreciselythis inherent impossibility,which does not allow thingstocombine in acausal chain, but also does not allow them to surrender to coincidence, that determines the function of the limping cause operating in the un- conscious. The limping cause is alost cause, but not acause that waslost—as aloss, it is essentiallyatwork. It grounds the subject, but it grounds it by wayofundermin-

 SørenKierkegaard, Repetition and Philosophical Crumbs,trans. M.G. Piety (Oxford: OxfordUniver- sity Press, 2009), 111.  René Descartes, Meditations on FirstPhilosophy:With Selections from Objections and Replies, trans. Michael Moriarty (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2008), 18.  Descartes, 18.  Descartes’sfamous phrase cogito ergo sum originallyappeared in French in his Discourse on the Method and later in Latin in his Principles of Philosophy. The (Un)Touchable Touch of Pyramus and Thisbe: Doubt and Desire 95

ing the ground itself.Itgrounds it in the gapthat always establishes acertain delay between cause and effect and thereby prevents the subjectfrom arising as an effect of acausal series structuring its history.³⁸ The function of the impossible, this is the unconscious cause:

At this point,Ishould define unconscious cause, neither as an existent,nor as a ouk on, anon- existent—as,IbelieveHenri Ey does,anon-existent of possibility. It is a mē on of the prohibition that brings to beinganexistent in spite of its non-advent,itisafunctionofthe impossible on which acertainty is based.³⁹

In psychoanalysis, the moment whendoubtrecognises itself as certainty is the birth- place of desire. Doubt as arationaloperation is onlyaconsequenceofadoubt that concerns aslip in the institution of asubject in the locus of desidero. In his analysis of obsessive neurosis in Rat Man,Freud describes doubt as the patient’s “internal perception of his ownindecision, which, in consequenceofthe inhibition of his lovebyhis hatred, takes possession of him in the face of every intended action.”⁴⁰ This doubt, Freud claims, is actuallyadoubt in one’sown (capability of)love: love, “which ought to be the most certain thing in his whole mind.”⁴¹ Something that should be intimatelymost certain becomes the targetofdoubt—Freud’sformula exactlymatches Descartes’sformula, with one importantdifference: thereisashift from cogito to desidero. From the certainty of the conscious “I,” the Cartesian subject of psychoanalysis moves to the certainty of unconscious desire. And onlyhere, in the non-localisable locus of desire, does the Cartesian subject trulymeet itself, in ameet- ing that is always missed. And preciselyhere, in this misrecognition, doubtrecognis- es itself as acertainty:the onlycertaintyisuncertainty.Weare whereweare no more. In the moment of aphanisis,ofits own disappearance, asubject emerges. Onlybyfinding itself in this unenviable situation can the Cartesian subject of the unconscious become the doubtful subjectivity of the conscious “I”: “Aman who doubts in his own lovemay,orrather must,doubt every lesser thing.”⁴² And, Freud continues,when aneurotic patient reveals “the weak spotinthe security of our mental life,” the untrustworthiness of memory,can, with its help, “extend his doubt over everything, even over actions which have alreadybeen performed”.⁴³

 See BaraKolenc, “Paradoxesofthe LimpingCause in Kierkegaard, Hegeland Lacan,” S: Journal of the Circle for Lacanian Ideology Critique 11 (2018): 90–108.  Lacan, TheFour Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis,128.  Sigmund Freud, TheStandardEdition of the Complete PsychologicalWorks of Sigmund Freud,Vol- ume X, TwoCaseHistories: “Little Hans” and the “Rat Man”,trans. James Strachey (London: The Ho- garth Press, 1955), 241.  Freud, 241.  Freud, 241  Freud, 243. 96 BaraKolenc

The Installment of Haptic Scepticism

From the aspect of the foundation of the Cartesian subject in the locus of desidero, we can consider doubtasarationalprocedureoratool of thought that (inevitably) stems from uncertainty and hesitation, which accompanythe mechanism of desire. In this sense,the “if” does not reallystand for the good of knowledge,but for the good of maintaining the desire. Lacan’scriticism of Aristophanes’smyth somehow retroactively echoes in the classicalsceptical readingofthe Symposium. Aristophanes asks: “If we could be re- united with our other half, wouldn’tthis be the happiest moment?”⁴⁴ Diotima later echoes his question: “If someone could gaze directlyinto the form of Beauty, wouldn’tthis be the most amazing experience?⁴⁵ Dogmatic readingsofPlato are grounded in these passages, which are used to reinforcePlato’stheory of the forms. However,asceptical readingofthe Symposium would stress the “if” in Aris- tophanes’sand Diotima’squestions. The “if” introducesuncertaintytothe goal of wholeness. Pyrrhonian scepticism emphasised the undecidability of equipollence (isosthe- neia)that calls for the suspension of judgement (epochē). Isostheneia is the experi- ence of paralysis between two equallyappealingbut contradictory experiences. Out of this paralysis comes the suspension of judgement.Pyrrhonian sceptics refused to take the dogmatic position of Academic scepticism (the position thatknowledge was not possible) on anyissue, includingscepticism itself. If the dogmatic position that knowledge is not possibleissuspended, this means thatexactlyinthe suspen- sion of this judgement,knowledge as such is possible: not in the form of ajudge- ment,but in the form of skepsis as investigation. The paralysis should therefore not be seen as destructive,but rather as the constitutive moment of thought.Itpa- ralyses the subject,but preciselyindoing so, it also pushes him forward. Following the Cartesian subject of psychoanalysis,wecan deploy isostheneia to- wards the function of desire as such: in this case, we can claim thatthe undecida- bility of equipollence is not onlyatool of arational thought, but that it is also pre- sent in asubject’sunconscious structure. In the sceptical reading of the Symposium, stressingthe moment of uncertainty in Aristophanes’sand Diotima’squestions, we can therefore trace the moment of doubt which is not onlyinscribed in the realm of knowledge,but rather stems from the function of desire in the unconscious. From this perspective,asceptical readingofthe Symposium would not onlyconcern the rationalobjection to Aristophanes’smyth—Whatif, in case we could be reunited with our other half,this wouldn’tbethe happiest moment?—but it would lead to a more radical proposition: thatthe becomingone is not the structure of love, but it is rather the structure of death.

 Plato, Symposium,56.  Plato, 56. The (Un)Touchable Touch of Pyramus and Thisbe: Doubt and Desire 97

The suspension of judgement would thereby be extended to the suspension of anyform of cognition that tends to establish itself as something fixed and self-iden- tical; that is, to the suspension of anyform of closed oneness into which no other- ness can penetrate. Hence, the moment of paralysis would not onlybeconsidered atool of skepsis as investigation, but rather anecessary consequence of amore fun- damental skepsis that drivesthe constitution of subjectivity on the level that is prior to the self-recognition of this subjectivity within aconscious thought.Inthis sense, the paralysis marks exactlythe moment when doubtrecognises itself as certainty. Following that, skepsis can be comparedtowhat Freud called a predilection for uncertainty: the phenomenon thatheparticularlyaddressed in his investigation of obsessional neurosis. In hesitation as an unconscious procedure, Freud claims, the obsessive is paralysed by ambivalence, immobilised by twoinstinctual impulses di- rected at the same object.⁴⁶ Followingthe proposition of amorefundamental skepsis that drivesthe constitution of subjectivity in the unconscious,wecan not onlydeploy the predilection for uncertaintyinthe particularcaseofobsessive neurosis,but we can rather takeitasthe structure of desire as such. It is preciselythis hesitation, aparalysis not onlywithin the realm of thought, but within the realm of desire in the first place, that echoes in the spatio-temporal paradoxoftouch, which inhabits the category of the (un)touchable. As we have seen in the second section of this chapter,the function of desire always alreadyen- gagestouch: adesire is adesire for the object.Itisadesire to touch the object,to possess the object,tobecome (one with) the object.Itisadesire to shrink the dis- tance and turn it into oneness.But at the same time, desire can onlysustain itself through the impossibilityofgrasping the object,the impossibilityofeverovercoming the distance between the desiring subject and its object:inthe function of sustaining desire (and thereby sustaining the Cartesian subjectivity as desidero), the object al- ways turnsout to be the elusive object a,always lacking in its place. Paralysis freezes the desiring subject,who is fatallycaughtinthe equipollence between the urge to touch and fulfill desire (and thus put desire itself to death) on the one hand and the urge to withhold touch and perpetuate desire in its unfulfilment on the other. Moreover,wecan arguethatthe category of the (un)touchable is inscribed in the very procedureofdoubt.Let us take the moment when doubt recognises itself as cer- tainty as acertain kind of aconceptual grasping,asakind of touchthat is between doubt and certainty. As we have seen in the previous section, this moment marks a missed encounter: as long as thereisdoubt, thereisnocertainty,but as soon as doubt recognises itself as certainty, doubtisnomore. In the terms of classical logic, doubt and certainty are considered to be in direct opposition, which means that touch between them would nullify one of them: either theyare separated as the two,orone of them will disappearwithin the other.However,eveniftheir con- nection requires the nullification of one of them, it nevertheless bringsastate of one-

 See Freud, “Rat Man.” 98 Bara Kolenc

ness: even if one is eaten by the other, they technicallystill become one. This means that structurally(from the perspective of the category of the (un)touchable), it makes no difference whether the two agents of touch are logicallyconsidered to be in op- position or not.The spatio-temporal paradox of touch stays the same, stuck within the temporalityofthe not yet and the alwaysalready and the spatiality of the in-be- tween distance and proximity, separation and connection. However,exactlywithin this paradox, thereisacertain trace of possibility inscri- bed in this very impossibility:the impossible touch between doubt and certaintyis preciselythe condition of possibilityoftheir encounter.For paradoxis, to paraphrase Kierkegaard again, asituation where thoughtcomesacross itself in going apart and realises the moment when doubt recognises itself as certainty. Doubt and certainty can touch each otherpreciselythrough their untouchability—and it is therein, within their (un)touchability,that the birthplace of both subjectivity and desire, and the point of emergenceofboth cogito and desidero,or, to be more precise, of cogito as desidero,may be found. ForDescartes, touch is the first of the senses to be subjected to the rationalop- eration of methodical doubt.After reachingthe point when doubt recognises itself as certainty,the realm of the senses is built up again as belongingtothe res extensa, wheretouch(again) engages the function of the experiential guarantor (or examiner) of truth and of human existence(and, hence, the existenceofthe world). Taking into account desidero as Lacanian cogito,which raises the supposition that certaintyis based on the function of the impossible, we should suppose that the category of the (un)touchable, wheretouch engages the function of desire, itself operates within the constitution of certainty as impossible—not being (rationally) certain of thatim- possibility, but being onlypossibleinits own impossibility. This bringsustothe coreidea of haptic scepticism, wheretouch does not func- tion as an experientialexaminer of truth (pinch me so that Iknow Iamnot dream- ing)—that is, as atool of methodical doubt (senses are deceptive)—but rather as a structural operator of amorefundamental doubt that is at work in the unconscious. Being intrinsicallyconnected to the function of desire (desire is adesire to grasp the object), touch stems from uncertainty not as astate of weakness—which needs to be repaired and overcome by certainties such as evidence, proofs, justifications, general truths, beliefs, or habits—but from uncertainty as anecessary openness and non- wholeness of mind processes, as afundamental skepsis,which is apre-condition of anyrational thought and decision-making,includingdoubt as arational proce- dure, and is as such the very constitutive process of subjectivity.Inthe approach of haptic scepticism, touch will therefore not help to constitutethe world of certainty and experiential reality,but will, quite the opposite, help to deconstruct anycertain- ty in order to proceed towards uncertainties and hesitations which drive our thoughts and desires in the unconscious. The (Un)TouchableTouch of Pyramus and Thisbe: Doubt and Desire 99

Beyond Fantasy: Uncertainty andHesitation as the Condition of Love

The final dramatic twist in the story of Pyramus and Thisberevolvesaround afatal mistake: Pyramus kills himself because he wronglysupposes Thisbetobedead. This mistake is certainlyfatal, but it is also stupid. The dramatic highlight of the entire plot is basedupon the very naive assumption that the bloodied veil is firm proof of Thisbe’sdeath. Pyramus is certain of this. But,aswehaveseen before, if there is no moment of doubt,then there is no space for certainty,for doubtisthe very locus wherecertainty recognises itself as certainty;doubtisthe necessary condition of certainty, of its self-recognition. Moreover,asaninevitable counterpart of certain- ty,doubt is anecessary condition of cognitionassuch: exactlytherein lies the core idea of Cartesian subjectivity. Pyramus’sconviction of Thisbe’sdeath should thereforenot be called certainty, but rather aplain unquestioned belief. Pyramus is not certain of Thisbe’sdeath; rather,hesimplybelieves thatshe has been torn apart by the beast.Abelief is a state without doubt,which is not an apparent totality of certainty,but rather its di- rect opposite, an absoluteabsenceofcertainty.Hence, the true oppositeofcertainty is not uncertainty,but belief, aplain,undoubtful conviction. On the contrary,how- ever,uncertainty,inscribed in the operation of doubt,isthe inner gapwithin the con- stitution of certainty,which is its positive condition of possibility. Moreover,ifwetake into account the Cartesian subjectofpsychoanalysis,the ap- parent totality of certainty (i.e., aplain belief)can onlybepossiblenot just as an absenceofrecognition, but also as an absenceofdesire. Andwhat,inthis constel- lation,isthe absence of desire? It is an absolute, unquestioned belief in one’sown love. Pyramus is too convincedofhis love(and thereby also Thisbe’slove, as the na- ture of desire is the desire of the other), and this is what is trulyfatal. It is not a course of events or afatal mistake that kills Thisbe: it is Pyramus’sunquestioned conviction of theirlove. Because he does not doubt their love, he does not allow him- self to doubtthe evidence of Thisbe’sdeath. There is no single moment of doubt— Wait aminute, what if Thisbe is just being unfaithful to me? What if this is atrap? What if she wants me to see her bloodied veil to make me think she is dead?Why would she do that?For Iknow she loves me unconditionally. But … What if,never- theless …?Or, what if the veil is not hers, what if therewas another woman here, who unluckilybecame an unexpected victim of the lioness? What if another woman was waiting here for me? What if Iactuallywanted another woman to be waiting here for me? What if Idonot want Thisbe at all?Orperhaps the scenario is completelydiffer- ent: What if somebodyprevented Thisbe from cominghere, took her veil, and col- oured it red to make me think that she is dead and eventuallycause me to kill my- self?What if—uncertainty has no end. This endless doubt is acted out,performed as hesitation,which, as Freud would put it,serves to delayaction indefinitely. Perhaps a single moment of hesitation would be justenough to save the lovers’ lives, one brief 100 BaraKolenc

moment of paralysis that would stall Pyramus’shand and allow Thisbetoappear be- fore him just before he stabshimself. Amoment of their encounter,atlast.Amoment of their temptation that would finallybeloaded upon their shoulders, without any physical obstacle to serveasanexcuse not to face doubt,inscribed in their desire. Pyramus and Thisbe’sloveiscertainlyfatal, but it is not so because of the hin- drances to it,asitiscommonlyinterpreted. On the contrary,itisfatal exactlybe- cause of the absence of an inner hindrance, an impossibility intrinsic to love. The outer hindrances—the families’ ban, the wall, the beast,the unhappy course of events—are therenot to prevent love, but to veil the fact that that there is no love, that there is no inner hindrance, no uncertaintythatwould empower the two young people’sdesire. Instead of the two lovers facing the moment of doubt once they leave the wall, the wall is replaced by anew obstacle, the lioness, and this again is replaced by anew one, the death of Pyramus. It is fatal because it is totally unquestioned. In the entirety of Ovid’ssequence,thereisnot asingle “if” clause. If we remove the wall, will we still loveeach other? If we avoid the outer obstacle, will we still want to touch? The loveofPyramus and Thisbe is not impossible because they do not manageto touch each other. It is impossible because they do not doubt.Their loveisimpossible because it is just toopossible. There is no hesitation and uncertainty that would maintain desire and keep their relationship within the dialectics of the (un)toucha- ble. Aseries of physical obstacles is not theretorepresent an absolutelovewhich could not be realised because of their unhappy circumstances; it is there to veil the very fact that there is no absolutelove, that loveisalways on the side of a non-whole, that it is always traversed by agap.Itisthere to veil the fact that the ab- solute is not on the side of love, but on the sideofdeath: death not as afantasy of an eternal unity of the twosouls, but as aradical objectification of the two corpses,fall- ing one on top of the other and turning into asingle indistinct pile of flesh.

Conclusion

In this chapter,Iaimedtoground haptic scepticism on two conceptual pillars. The first pillar is the idea that touch as astructural (rather than empirical) phenomenon underlies the configuration of subjectivity.This ideawas supported by the install- ment of doubt as afunction of desire that drivesmodern subjectivity (i.e., the Carte- sian subjectofthe unconscious) on the one hand and ademonstration of the intrin- sic relation between touch and desire on the other.Asastructural phenomenon, touch is therefore always related to doubt. The second pillar is the argument about the fundamental mechanism of doubt(as skepsis)which, intertwined with the func- tion of desire and the mechanism of touch in the unconscious, precedes doubt as a rational procedure, which is the basic principle of the line of modern scepticism stemmingfrom the Cartesian tradition. From this perspective,Iconclude that uncer- The (Un)TouchableTouch of Pyramus and Thisbe: Doubt and Desire 101

tainty and hesitation should not be seen as destructive to thought,but rather as con- stitutive of it. Bringingthese two pillars together, Iaimed to demonstrate how,through the as- pect of haptic scepticism, touch is not engaged as atool of methodical doubt, but is rather employed as astructuraloperator of amorefundamental doubt that is at work in the unconscious.Through this approach, touch proves not to be afunction of a constitution of the world of certainties, but rather afunction of an insistenceonun- certainties and hesitations, which drive our thoughts and desires in the unconscious and are essential for the constitution of subjectivity.

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Fig. 8: Frederick Leighton, Elisha Raising the Son of the Shunammite,1881, oil on canvas, 127x 174cm.,LeightonHouse Museum, RoyalBorrow of Kensington and Chelsea, London. Image Source: Bridgeman Images. BillRebiger AMagic Touch: Performative Haptic Acts in Biblical and Medieval JewishMagic

“The sense of touch […]isadisgrace to us.” Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed,2.36

Shaking hands, the laying on of hands, embracing with the arms, and kissing with the lips are some modes of touchingwhich do not onlyestablish physical contact between different persons, but can also have symbolic significance in the fields of human communication and ritual, or,moregenerally, in cultureand religion.¹ Thus, it is not surprising that bodily contact and touchingpersons, objects, and pla- ces is also an extremelyimportant issue in Judaism. At first in anegative way, de- tailed instructions found in biblical and also halakhic literature concern restrictions or even prohibitions on direct bodilycontact with persons, objects, and places.These instructions aim to define and cover crucial concepts such as sanctity/profanity and purity/impurity.Yet there are manycustoms or practicesinvolving touch that are un- deniablyevident in the Jewish religion; for example, the Jewishworshiper kissesthe Torahscroll before reciting it in the synagogue or kisses or touches the mezuzah on the doorposts before enteringorleaving aroom or house. In fact,from aphenomeno- logical perspective these practicescan be interpreted as magical. In the following,I would like to focus on acouple of Hebrew textsrelated to magical acts and rituals with an emphasis on the meaning of touching. In general, when we define Judaism as an orthopractical religion, this means that doing the right thing is more critical than merelyplacing one’sbelief in certain dog- mas. ConcerningJewishmagic, J.L. Austin’sdefinition of performative speech acts— “how to do thingswith words”—is an excellent description of the essential character- istic.² According to Austin, aperformative utterance refers to aperformative doing; that is, it can make something happen justbythe right words and formulas being spoken by the right person in the right setting.Ifweadapt this concept to the field of magic, for instance, saying the self-referential phrase “Iadjureyou…” is a performativespeech act implying an adjuration of supernaturalpowers in order to

 See, e.g.,Geoffrey Parrinder, “Touching,” in Encyclopedia of Religion, Second Edition,ed. Lindsay Jones (Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005), 13:9255–60;Frederick Mathewson Denny, “Hands,” in Encyclo- pedia of Religion, Second Edition,6:3769–71.  See J.L. Austin, HowtoDoThings with Words: TheWilliam James Lectures Delivered at Harvard Uni- versity,ed. J.O. Urmson (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1962);see also the important contribution by John R. Searle, Speech Acts:AnEssay in the Philosophy of Language (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1969). Forthe vast scholarlydiscussion of rituals and performance, see, e.g., the well-selected anthologies in AndréaBelligerand David J. Krieger,eds., Ritualtheorien: Ein einführendes Handbuch (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1998) and UweWirth, ed., Performanz:Zwischen Sprachphilosophie und Kulturwissenschaften (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2002). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110627176-006 106 Bill Rebiger

coerce them to be subservient.Thus, accordingtoYuval Harari,adjurations seem to be an essential and decisive part of ancient Jewishmagic.³ However,these powers are not onlyevoked by utteringwords, but also by writing adjurations, magical names, and signs.Accordingly, writing these magical words, names, or signs induces the intended result—such as,for example, bindingdemons—in the very moment of the writing act itself. In addition to the performative speech or writingact,Iwould like to introduce another concept: the performative haptic act. The broader background of this perfor- mance is the assumed efficacy of touchingsomeone, for instance, with the hands, as can be seen in different performative haptic acts such as blessing,ordaining, protect- ing,healing,orcursing.Inmost cases, the performative haptic act is combined with aperformativespeech or writing act.For instance, apriest blesses someoneby touchingher head with his handsand simultaneouslysaying, “Ibless you.” Accord- ingly,inspecific cases, the efficacy of ritual and magical power also demands per- formative haptic acts. By touchingaperson or an object,the magicalpractitioner in- tends to make something happen, such as, for example, healing or harm. In the insider’sview,the physical contact enables the flow of supernatural power from one entity to the other.Inthe very moment in which someone touches someone or something in aritual act,anessential changeisbelieved to be taking place. In this regard, James G. Frazer’sconcept of contagious magic as publishedinhis famousbook TheGolden Bough can still help us to understand what is happening here.⁴ According to Frazer, two main principles of magic can be distinguished: the LawofSimilarity and the LawofContagion. The main idea behind the LawofSim- ilarity is “that like produceslike, or that an effect resembles its cause.”⁵ In contrast, the LawofContagion follows the idea “thatthingswhich have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at adistance after the physical contact has been severed.”⁶ However,both principles can be subordinatedunder the Lawof Sympathy, because they presuppose “that thingsact on each other at adistance through asecret sympathy.”⁷ The deeper meaning of the concept of contagious magic is the idea that touchingorother forms of direct contact enables the transfer of effective agencies includinghealing or aggressive powers between the toucher and the touched. Thus, touchingwith the hands, lips, or other bodyparts is one specific

 See YuvalHarari, “What Is aMagical Text?MethodologicalReflections Aimed at RedefiningEarly Jewish Magic,” in Officina Magica:Essaysonthe Practice of Magic in Antiquity,ed. Shaul Shaked (Lei- den and Boston: Brill, 2005), 91–124.  See James George Frazer, TheGolden Bough: AStudy in Magic and Religion. ANew Abridgement from the Second and ThirdEditions,ed. Robert Fraser (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press,1998), 37– 45.OnFrazer’sdefinition of magic, see, e.g.,Bernd–Christian Otto, Magie: Rezeptions-und diskurs- geschichtliche Analysen von der Antikebis zurNeuzeit (Berlin: De Gruyter,2011), 45–60.  Frazer, TheGolden Bough,11.  Frazer,ibidem.  Frazer,12. AMagic Touch: PerformativeHaptic Acts in Biblicaland Medieval Jewish Magic 107

possibilityfor establishing this kind of contact.Other forms of direct contact with su- pernatural powers might includeother senses as well, such as sight,hearing,taste, and smell. On the other hand, the prohibition or caveat concerning touchingcan define the boundary between different religious, cultic, or even ontological spheres.Thus, one of the usual preconditionsfor the performance of magical or ritual acts is the prohib- ition of sexual intercourse;that is, being forbidden to touch another body. Additional preparatory instructions concern dietetic limitations; thatis, being forbidden to touch specific food or alcohol.Concepts of purity regarding the regulation of touch are obviouslyintertwined in religion, ritual, and magic.⁸ In order for magical acts to be effective,apractitioner of magic must not ques- tion or deviate from the giveninstructions. Of course, the same general precondition for aritual is also true for performative haptic acts. Yetininstanceswhenmagic does not work—that is, when the intended purpose is not achieved—it is onlynaturalfor the practitioner or the client to begin to doubt the efficacyofthe act.Another result would be that failureproduces doubts concerning whether the magical act has been properlyperformed or whether the practitioneriscapable of performing it.Atypical explanation for failurefrom inside the system of magical concepts would be that there was something wrongwith the preparation and/or performance of the magical act and thus it has to be repeated in the correct way.⁹ Thepragmatic response to those challenges would be to reattempt the performative act until it achievesthe de- sired result. So, repetition is one strategyfor overcoming failure and doubt. Another pragmatic approach would be to try an alternative set of instructions or recipe prom- ising the sameeffect.Whathas to be touched and what must not be touched can be crucial in this respect.Insome cases, touchingcan be interpreted as another attempt to ensurethatthe transfer of magical power between one thing or person and the other does indeed takeplace. Thus, touchingcould be another strategy for overcom- ing doubts concerning the efficacy of amagical act. Throughout the Jewish tradition, thereisample evidence of magic.¹⁰ Unlike an- thropologists of contemporary cultures, the scholarofancientJewishmagic is usu- allynot in the comfortable situation of being able to do fieldwork; that is, to study the performance of magicalacts in real time and place.¹¹ Most of the material to

 See Rebecca MacyLesses, Ritual Practices to Gain Power:Angels, Incantations,and Revelation in Early JewishMysticism (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1998), 117–60.  See the numerous examples collectedinUte Hüsken, ed., When Rituals Go Wrong: Mistakes, Fail- ure,and the Dynamics of Ritual (Leiden: Brill, 2007).  See the surveysinGideon Bohak, Ancient JewishMagic:AHistory (Cambridge:Cambridge Univer- sity Press, 2008); YuvalHarari, JewishMagic beforethe Rise of Kabbalah,trans. BatyaStein (Detroit: Wayne StateUniversity Press,2017); Joshua Trachtenberg, JewishMagic and Superstition: AStudy in Folk Religion (New York: Atheneum, 1970).  On pragmatic interpretations of magical texts, see Bill Rebiger, “Unterweisung,Überlieferung und Aktualisierung vonmagischem Wissen im Judentum: Ansätzezueiner Textpragmatik,” Frankfurter Judaistische Beiträge 36 (2010): 31–55. 108 Bill Rebiger

be studied in Jewish magic is onlytextual.¹² However,one of the greatest peculiari- ties of Jewishmagic is this textual character and its references to other works such as biblical and liturgical texts.Quotations, adaptations,and allusions are common methodsinthe use of these canonicaltexts.¹³ Another essential characteristic of Jew- ish magic is the obsession with divine, angelic, demonic, or other magical namesand signs and the supposed efficacy of theiruse in magical acts.¹⁴ Besides the textual character of Jewish magic, Ialso want to emphasise another aspect of it,which is the material and haptic character of its magical objectsand acts. Therefore, it is useful to distinguish between two categories: 1) finished products or applied texts and 2) instructionsorrecipes.¹⁵ Finished products or applied texts include, for example, amulets, magic bowls,rings, gems, seals, and even skulls.¹⁶ One essential feature of finished products defining theirhaptic dimension is that

 See Gershom Scholem, “Havdala De-Rabbi ‘Aqiva: ASource for the Tradition of Jewish Magic dur- ing the Geonic Period” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 50 (1980/81): 243–81 (reprinted in Gershom Scholem, Devils, Demons and Souls:EssaysonDemonology,ed. Esther Liebes [Jerusalem:Ben-Zvi Institutefor the StudyofJewish Communities in the East,2004], 145–82); Joseph Navehand Shaul Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls:Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1985); Joseph Naveh and Shaul Shaked, Magic Spells and Formulae: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1993); LawrenceH.Schiffman and Michael D. Swartz, Hebrew and Aramaic Incantation Texts from the Cairo Geniza:SelectedTexts from Taylor-Schechter BoxK1(Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992);Peter Schäfer and Shaul Shaked, Magische Texte aus der Kairoer Geniza,3vols. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994–99); YuvalHarari, Ḥarba de–Moshe: New Edition and Study [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Academon Press,1997); Judah B. Segal, Catalogue of the Aramaic and Mandaic Incantation Bowls in the BritishMuseum (London: British Museum,2000); Dan Levene, ACorpus of Magic Bowls:Incanta- tion Texts in JewishAramaic from Late Antiquity (London: KeganPaul, 2003); Irina Wandrey, “Das Buch des Gewandes” und “Das Buch des Aufrechten”:Dokumente eines magischen spätantiken Rituals (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004); Christa Müller-Kessler, Die Zauberschalentexte in der Hilprecht- Sammlung, Jena, und weitere Nippur-Texte anderer Sammlungen (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005); Bill Rebigerand Peter Schäfer, Sefer ha-Razim Iund II:Das Buch der Geheimnisse Iund II,2vols. (Tü- bingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009); Bill Rebiger, Sefer ShimmushTehillim: Buch vom magischen Gebrauch der Psalmen (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010); Shaul Shaked, James Nathan Ford,and Siam Bhayro, Aramaic Bowl Spells:JewishBabylonian Aramaic Bowls,Volume One (Leiden: Brill, 2013); Dan Levene, JewishAramaic Curse Texts fromLate-Antique Mesopotamia: MayThese Curses Go Out and Flee (Lei- den: Brill, 2013); Gideon Bohak, ed., AFifteenth-CenturyManuscript of JewishMagic:MSNew York Public Library, Heb. 190 (Formerly Sassoon 56). Introduction, Annotated Edition and Facsimile [He- brew], 2vols.(LosAngeles: Cherub Press, 2014); Emma Abate, Sigillareilmondo.Amuleti ericette dalla Genizah:Manoscritti magici ebraici della biblioteca della Alliance Israelite Universelle di Parigi (Palermo:Officina di Studi Medievali, 2015); Oded Porat,ed., Sefer Brit ha-Menuḥah: Book of Cove- nant of Serenity [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2016).  See Dorothea Salzer, Die Magie der Anspielung:Form und Funktion der biblischen Anspielungen in den magischen Texten der Kairoer Geniza (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010).  See Trachtenberg, JewishMagic and Superstition,78–103;Bohak, AncientJewishMagic,305–7.  See Bohak, Ancient JewishMagic,144–48.  On the use of writingmaterials in Jewish magic, see Bill Rebiger, “‘Write on Three Ribs of a Sheep’:WritingMaterials in Ancient and Mediaeval Jewish Magic,” in JewishManuscript Cultures: New Perspectives,ed. Irina Wandrey (Berlin: De Gruyter,2017), 339–59. AMagic Touch: Performative Haptic Acts in Biblical and Medieval Jewish Magic 109

they can be grasped, worn, or touched. On the other hand, instructionsorrecipes describingthe production of finished products and/or the performance of amagical act or ritual are usually found in manuscripts such as the fragments from the Cairo Genizah (see below) or printed manuals. The goals of these instructions are familiar ones, such as, for instance,healing,protection, love charms, dream questions, “opening the heart” (i.e., improvinglearning and memory), and aggressive magic. Concerningthis second category of instructional texts,the imperative to touch or to avoid touchingdefines the haptic character of the magical acts. In order to understand the haptic dimension of ancient and medieval Jewish magic, it maybeuseful to present and discuss some sample texts in what follows. It must be emphasised that onlyavery limited selection of texts can be given here. First,Iwould liketobegin with two significant narrativesfrom the Hebrew Bible and one from the New Testament.Inthese biblical texts, touchingdefines the boundary between the sacred and the profane or between charismatic wonder- workers and the common people. Following the biblical examples, Iwould liketo focus on medieval instructional texts of Jewish magic and the meaningofhuman touchingand other forms of direct contact for the performance of magical acts. As we will see, asignificant differenceconcerning human touchingcan be observed from comparing biblical stories of wonder-workers with textsgiving instructions for how to perform magical acts.

Sample Texts

1) 2Samuel 6:2–7

The first text is about the lethal boundary between the sacred and the profane realms,orbetween the initiatedpeople—that is, the priests—on the one side and the laymen on the other.Here, the numinous and frighteningcharacter of the inci- dent is telling:not onlyfor the present reader,but also for the people in the story itself. Thetext dealswith asacred object,the Ark of the Covenant, and the danger of touchingit:

2Then David and all the troops that were with him set out fromBaalim of Judah to bringupfrom therethe Ark of God to which the Name was attached, the name LORD of Hosts Enthroned on the Cherubim.

3They loaded the Ark of God onto anew cart and conveyeditfrom the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill; and Abinadab’ssons,Uzzah and Ahio, guided the new cart.

4They conveyed it from Abinadab’shouse on the hill, [Uzzah walking] alongside the Ark of God and Ahio walkinginfront of the Ark.

5Meanwhile, David and all the House of Israel dancedbeforethe LORD to [the sound of]all kinds of cypress wood[instruments], with lyres, harps,timbrels, sistrums,and cymbals. 110 Bill Rebiger

6But when they came to the threshingfloor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out for the Ark of God and grasped it,for the oxen had stumbled.

7The LORD was incensed at Uzzah. And God struck him down on the spot for his indiscretion, and he died there beside the Ark of God.¹⁷

The bitter ironyofthis story is that Uzzah, whose onlygoal in touchingthe ark is to prevent it from falling,isfatallypunished by God for doing so.¹⁸ Touchingthe sacred object is lethal to him simplybecause he does not belong to the priestly caste, whose members are the onlypeople who are allowed to approach it.Thus, this story,like others in the Hebrew Bible,¹⁹ emphasises that for anyone who does not belong to the initiated people, there is acaveat and aprohibition against touchingsacredob- jects which are supposedtobechargedwith supernatural and, more specifically, ag- gressive power.So, it is no wonder that these allegedlypowerful objects were not onlyvenerated, but also usedfor magical purposes. Throughout the history of Juda- ism—as in that of other religions as well—we find agreat deal of evidence for the magical use of HolyScriptures²⁰ and cultic doorposts or mezuzot²¹ with regard to their materiality.Incontrast to the biblical account,touchingthe objects is one of the commonest and most well-established practices.

2) 2Kings 4:29–35

In the Hebrew Bible—as in the HolyScripturesofother religions—there are manysto- ries of holyorcharismatic men performing wondrous deeds and miracles. In general, these miracles bend or abrogate natural laws with the help of divinepower.Among the wonder-workingmen of God mentioned in the Hebrew Bible are the prophet Eli- jah and his disciple and successor Elisha.²² On the simple narrative level, the events are dated to the ninth centuryBCE, although the literary account was certainlycom- posed much later.The following story of one of the miracles performedbyElisha is

 2Sam 6:2–7(New JPS Translation).  See Bohak, Ancient JewishMagic,28.  See, e.g., Exod 19:12, where the Israelites areexhorted not to touch Mount Sinai, or Lev10:1–2, where Aaron’ssons die after enteringthe sanctuary.See also the well-known Latin phrase nolime tangere (“touch me not”)translatedfromthe Greek in John 20:17, which Jesus says to Mary Magda- lene.  See, e.g., Peter Ganz, ed., Das Buch als magisches und als Repräsentationsobjekt (Wiesbaden: Har- rassowitz, 1992);Shalom Sabar, “Torahand Magic: The TorahScroll and ItsAccessories in Jewish Cul- ture in Europe and in Muslim Countries” [Hebrew], Pe‘amim 85 (2000): 149–79.  See YuvalHarari, “Leadership, Authority,and the ‘Other’ in the DebateoverMagic from the Kar- aitestoMaimonides,” The Journal for the Study of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry 1, no. 2(2007): 97.  On the biblical prophet as achannel for God’spowerwhenperformingmiracles,see Ann Jeffers, Magic and Divination in Ancient Palestine and Syria (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 81–95.OnElijah and Elisha as wonder-workers, see Bohak, Ancient JewishMagic,20–27. AMagic Touch: Performative Haptic Acts in Biblical and Medieval Jewish Magic 111

divided into twoparts. The first is about the delegation of magical power involving the use of amagic wand and the failureofthe magical act.The second,incontrast, describes the success of adifferent magical act performed by the prophet himself. Prior to this event,Elisha prophesied to achildless woman that she would give birth to ason. However,when the child dies at an earlyage,Elisha takes action:

29 He [i.e., Elisha] said to [his servant] Gehazi, “Tieupyour skirts,take my staff in your hand, and go.Ifyou meet anyone, do not greet him; and if anyone greets you, do not answerhim. And placemystaff on the face of the boy.” […]

31 Gehazi had gone on beforethem and had placed the staff on the boy’sface;but therewas no sound or response. He turned back to meet him [i.e., Elisha] and told him, “The boy has not awakened.”

32 Elisha came into the house, and therewas the boy,laid out dead on his couch.

33 He went in, shut the door behind the twoofthem, and prayed to the LORD.

34 Then he mounted [the bed] and placed himself over the child. He put his mouth on its mouth, his eyes on its eyes, and his hands on its hands,ashebent over it.And the bodyofthe child became warm.

35 He stepped down, walked onceupand down the room, then mounted and bent over him. Thereupon, the boy sneezed seven times,and the boy opened his eyes.²³

In the first part of the story quoted above, Elisha’sservant Gehazi fails despite having done exactlywhat his masterinstructed him to do. As Elisha’sservant,heisvery close to his master and is thus somewhat elevated. Therefore, he is even allowed to use Elisha’sown staff for the performance of the ritual act.However,his attempt to resurrect the dead boy fails. Despitethe general idea of an almost mechanicalcau- sality in magic, there is in fact no certainty or guarantee of success in the perfor- mance of ritual or magical acts. Failureisalways possible and each failed attempt evokes further doubts concerning the correctness of the instructions and their execu- tion. In this story,two ways of overcoming this scepticism are presented. First,only the prophet Elisha himself, who has been chosenbyGod, can succeed in performing miracles. Elisha’sprayerdoes not merelyemphasise this close relationship between God and his prophet; rather,itisalreadypart of the ritual performance. Second, it is onlyElisha’sdouble execution of the performative haptic act of bodilytouchingthat enables his magical power to flow directlyinto the boy’sbody.²⁴ In doing so, Elisha

 2Kgs 4:29–35 (New JPS Translation). Foradiscussionofthis passage, see, e.g., Rüdiger Schmitt, Magie im Alten Testament (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2004), 237–50;Michael Pietsch, “Der Prophet als Magier:Magie und Ritual in den Elischaerzählungen,” in Zauber und Magie im antiken Palästina und in seiner Umwelt: Kolloquium des Deutschen Vereins zur Erforschung Palästinas vom 14. bis 16. No- vember 2014inMainz,ed. Jens Kamlah, Rolf Schäfer,and Markus Witte (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2017), 359–67.Elisha’saction is very similar to that of his master Elijah in 1Kings 17:19–23.  Comparealso Naaman’splea to Elisha to heal his leprosy by layinghis hands over the afflicted area in 2Kgs 5:11. 112 Bill Rebiger

transgresses the biblical prohibition on touchingdead bodies.²⁵ Instead, he intercon- nects those sensory organs or limbs which are immediatelyindicative of aliving being;namely,the boy’smouth, eyes, and hands. The boy’ssneezing involves the other two sensoryorgans;that is, the nose and the ears. The sevenfold occurrence of sneezing is acommon motif from magical tales that emphasises the exceptional character of the events. Finally, the opening of the boy’seyesand the increase in his bodytemperature indicate the success of the resurrection. Similar to the New Testament story of the DoubtingThomas in John 20:24-29, onlyamagical touch can dispel scepticism in the end. In otherwords, the use of amagical technique or item is important,but not sufficient.Inline with this, the story of Elisha and Gehazi can be interpreted as apolemic against the layman or non-professional practitionerwho believes that it is sufficient to simply execute an instruction in order to achieveagoal. In contrast,onlyGod’sholymen are able to perform wonderful deeds with the help of the supernatural power they weregiven by God.

3) Matthew 8:1–3

The third example is from the New Testament and presents Jesusasawonder-work- ing man of God in line, at least to acertain degree, with Elijah and Elisha. This is not the right place to discuss the interpretation thatJesus was merelyamagician like manyothers of his time found in late antique anti-Christian polemics²⁶ as well as in modernscholarship.²⁷ Matthew 8:1-3tells the story of Jesus cleansing aleper:

1When he [i.e., Jesus] came down from the mountain,great crowds followed him.

2And behold, aleper came to him and kneltbefore him, saying, “Lord, if youwill, youcan make me clean.”

 See Num19:10–22 and, concerning priests,Lev 21:1–3.  See Peter Schäfer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 2007), 52–62.  See MortonSmith, Jesus the Magician (San Francisco: Harper &Row,1978). Forcriticism of Smith, see, e.g., JanA.Bühner, “Jesus und die antikeMagie: BemerkungenzuM.Smith, Jesus der Magier,” Evangelische Theologie 43 (1983): 156–75;Graham H. Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist: AContributiontothe Study of the Historical Jesus (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993), 190–207; Bernd Kollmann, Jesus und die Christen als Wundertäter:Studien zu Magie, Medizin und Schamanismus in Antikeund Christentum (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht,1996), 130–32; Michael Becker, Wunder und Wundertäter im frührabbinischen Judentum: Studien zum Phänomen und seiner Überlieferung im Horizont von Magie und Dämonismus (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 421–42;Marco Frenschkowski, Mysterien des Ur- christentums: Eine kritische Sichtung spekulativer Theorien zumfrühen Christentum (Wiesbaden: Marix Verlag,2007), 211–27. AMagic Touch: PerformativeHaptic Acts in Biblicaland Medieval JewishMagic 113

3And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “Iwill; be clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.²⁸

The practice of palm healing is well attested in ancientliterature.²⁹ The broader back- ground of this practice is the assumed symbolic power of the hand, as can be seen in its different functions such as blessing, ordaining, protecting,healing,orcursing. Similar to the story here, Jesus also heals with the touch of his hand in Mark 5:21– 43³⁰ and Luke 4:40.Until moderntimes, leprosy was interpreted as acontagious dis- ease that involved cultic impurity and thereforerequired strict separation between the leper and otherpeople. Touching the leper had to be strictlyavoided, and any accidental touch was suspicious. Thus, Jesustouchingthe sick person with his hand is an abnormal or subversive behaviour with regard to the social and cultic standards of his culture. This kind of inversion is one of the general characteristics of magic. As explicitlymentioned in the story,the healing is dependent on the inten- tion of the healer.The combination of touchingand speakinginJesus’shealing of the leper bringsthe haptic act and the speech act together.The importance of Jesus’s miracles for Christianity mayhavecaused acertain aloofness towards the superna- tural powers of wonder-workers and the importance of direct bodilycontact in me- dieval Judaism. However,biblical charismatic wonder-workers like Elijah and Elisha eventuallybecame akind of role model for latermagicians, who werecalled “Master of the Name” or ba‘al shem by their followers and admirers in the Jewishtradition.³¹ Besides the stories about of these exceptional men, there is additional evidence of awidespread magical praxisinJudaism which can be found in thousands of in- structional textsinmanuscripts and printed editions from the Middle Ages onwards. In these texts, the personality of the practitionerismuch less important than the cor- rect performance of amagical act.Here, it is moreimportant to follow the instruc- tions for amagical ritual or the recipe for the preparation of amagical ingredient. The rituals involved in descriptions of (biblical) miracles and in medieval magical instructions are indeed very similar in many cases. Nevertheless,one difference is that the medieval Jewish practitionersaddressed by these instructions usuallydo not claim thatthey are on amission from God. Another difference is that in contrast to manymedieval instructions, the holymen of the Bible do not perform erotic charms. In general, unlike the biblical wonder-workers,the medievalinstructions are not concerned with the resuscitation of the dead or rain-making.However,the most important differenceisthat the medieval Jewish practitionersrelyonanac-

 Matt 8:1–3(English StandardVersion); comparethe synoptic parallels in Mark 1:40–44 and Luke 5:12–14.  See, e.g., the Genesis Apocryphon from Qumran, 1QapGen 20:28–29,where Abraham heals the Pharaoh by layinghis hands on his head.  Comparethe synoptic parallels in Matt 9:18–26 and Luke 8:40–56.  See Karl E. Grözinger, Tausend Jahre Ba‘ale Schem.Jüdische Heiler,Helfer,Magier:Ein Spiegeleuro- päischer Geistesgeschichte (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2017). 114 BillRebiger

quired bodyoftechnical knowledge and the use of magical material objectsand spo- ken or written words. Therefore, knowledge of the techniques and practices is more importantthansimply belongingtoanelite of God’schosen men. Holymen are de- fined by election or vocation. In contrast,practitioners of magic attempt to follow instructions. At the sametime, magic becomes aknowledge,skill, or technique rather than agift elevatingcharismatic individuals.

4) Sefer ShimmushTehillim (“Book of the MagicalUse of Psalms”)

The Sefer Shimmush Tehillim or “Book of the MagicalUse of Psalms” is the most pop- ular manual of Jewish magic.³² In this book,each biblical psalm is combined with instructions for amagical act intended for aspecific purpose. The origins of this book can be dated back to the ninth or tenth century CE. The earliest manuscript evi- dence can be found in medieval fragments from the Cairo Genizah (seebelow). After along and complicated history of compilation and redactions,the first printed edi- tion was published in the small town of Sabbioneta in Northern Italyin1551.³³ Since then and to this day, it has been reprinted manytimes. One very typicalinstruction in this manualisdesigned to heal an unhealthyspleen:

Write [the verses of Psalm 119:49–56] on the side of the spleen.³⁴

In fact,writing the relevant text of the eight verses from Psalm119 on the unhealthy person’sbodyisakind of magical tattooing.³⁵ In analogytothe alleged divine origin of the Torah, the five books of Moses, the supposedDavidic authorship of the psalms guarantees theirmagical power.The direct contact between the magical writing and the bodilylocation of the disease is awonderful example of Frazer’sconcept of con- tagious magic. This contact enables the transmission of the magical power and thus replaces the magical touch of acharismatic healer or wonder-worker.The haptic act of human touchingismediated by another haptic act: the physical contact between the effective Bible verses and the specific part of the body. Here, the combination of a performativewriting act and ahaptic act guarantees the efficacy of the healingspell. The key elementisthe idea that the spleen will inevitablybeaffected by the magical writing.Other very common techniquesfor establishing direct contact between mag-

 See Rebiger, Sefer ShimmushTehillim;Rebiger, “Die magische Verwendungvon Psalmen im Ju- dentum,” in Ritual und Poesie: Formen und Orte religiöser Dichtung im Alten Orient, im Judentum und im Christentum,ed. Erich Zenger(FreiburgimBreisgau: Herder,2003), 265–81.  See Bill Rebiger, “The editio princeps of Sefer Šimmuš Tehillim,Sabbioneta 1551,” in L’Eredità di Salomone. La magia ebraica in Italia enel Mediterraneo,ed. Emma Abate(Florence: Giuntina, 2019), 169–84.  Rebiger, Sefer Shimmush Tehillim,88*–89*: section 135.  See Bohak, Ancient JewishMagic,118–19. AMagic Touch: PerformativeHaptic Acts in Biblicaland Medieval JewishMagic 115

ical writing and the transmission of magical agency include eating inscribed food such as cakes or eggs or dissolving the writing in aliquidand drinking it.³⁶

5) AGenizahfragment

The fragments from the so-called CairoGenizah have provided the scholarlyworld with ahugeamount of material. AGenizah is akind of synagogue storehouse in which unused manuscripts containingthe name of God are collected. The most fa- mous of these is the Cairo Genizah, which was discovered in the late nineteenth cen- tury by the Cambridge scholar Solomon Schechter and which contained more than 400,000 fragments spanning from the ninth to the nineteenth century,most of which are medieval. These fragments are now held in collections in Cambridge,Ox- ford, New York, and elsewhere.³⁷ The following Genizah fragment contains,among manyothers, avery typical set of instructions for healingmagic:

Forthe sting of ascorpion, write[the following magical names] over the pain[ful spot]: ʼqrws Qrws Rws Ws s.³⁸

Hereagain, as in the sample text from the Sefer Shimmush Tehillim quoted above, the ideas of magical tattooingand of direct contact between the effective writing and the location of the pain are essential for understanding the magical act.However,one differencebetween these two examples is that in the second case, the problem has acause that is external to the body. In both cases, it is not the touch of awon- der-worker thatguarantees the healing,but rather amagical act thatcan be per- formedbyanyone. Or,inother words: it is not the charisma of an elite man chosen by God thatprovides the magical agency,but rather magical names. In addition,the magical name used does not originateinthe Bible, but belongs to aseparate and genuine magical tradition. Thisname, consistingofthe five Hebrew letters ʼqrws -and probablyofGreek origin (ἄκρος),³⁹ has no semantic meaning in the He( קא סור )

 See Bill Rebiger, “Wein in der jüdischen Magie des Mittelalters,” in Wein und Judentum,ed. An- dreas Lehnardt (Berlin: Neofelis Verlag, 2014), 103–7.  See Stefan C. Reif, AJewishArchive from Old Cairo:The HistoryofCambridge University’sGenizah Collection (Richmond: Curzon Press, 2000); Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole, Sacred Trash: TheLost and Found Worldofthe Cairo Geniza (New York: Schocken, 2011).  CUL T.-S.K1.117, page5,lines 12–17,editedinNaveh and Shaked, Magic Spells and Formulae,178– 79 (Geniza 16).  The Greek word ἄκρος (akros)means “outermost” or “extreme,” which is somewhat fittinggiven the sting of the scorpion. 116 Bill Rebiger

brew language, but becomes apowerful name in these magical instructions. The graphic vanishingofthe magical name, made up of five letters which disappear one by one in each successive line, symbolises the vanishingofthe pain.

6) Another Genizahfragment

In another Genizah fragment,wefind instructions for atreasurehunt:

To makeacandle in order to look for treasurewith it,take new wax, anew vessel, sulphur,and the fingerbones of acorpse. Pounditwelland mix all together.Take ahangedman’sropeand makeawick [for the candle] with it.[…]When youreach the placewhere youshould dig, the candle will extinguish.⁴⁰

In the context of the instructions, the corpse’sindex finger is an indication that “points” the treasureseeker in the right direction. Both the corpse and the hanged man symbolise the underworld, which is also the location of the presumed treasure. Here, afinger symbolicallytouches the correct place. This magical act promises that atreasure will be found despite the practitionerhaving no prior knowledge of its lo- cation. In the rabbinical magico-medical manualimbeddedinthe Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Gittin (bGit 68b–70b), we find arecipe for healing the spleen in which the hand of acorpse is used. This recipe explicitlymentions the sympathetic concept be- hind the practice:justasthe corpse’shand is dry,sothe spleen will also dry out.⁴¹

7) Ḥarba de-Moshe (“SwordofMoses”)

Alastsample text can be found in Ḥarba de-Moshe or “SwordofMoses.” This mag- ical text was written in Hebrew in the second half of the first millennium CE. In the main part of this book,numerous instructionsusing the so-called sword are com- piled. The “Sword” contains long series of magical names, most of which are ineffa- ble, and instructions involving these names. Many nomina barbara—that is, strange names—and technical terms found in this book appeartohaveaGreek origin. One of the instructions dealswith catchingthieves:

For[catching] thieves, say: Maythieves and robbers be bound and surrender in the name of MRGWHMHW’Luntil ’ṬṬHSHW’L, and while reciting [it] put your little fingerinyour ear

 CUL T.-S.K1.3, fol. 2b/15–3a/4, edited in Schäfer and Shaked, Magische Texte aus der Kairoer Geniza,vol. 3, 93: no.62(my translation).  See Giuseppe Veltri, Magie und Halakha:Ansätze zu einem empirischen Wissenschaftsbegriff im spätantiken und frühmittelalterlichen Judentum (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), 247. AMagic Touch: Performative Haptic Acts in Biblical and Medieval Jewish Magic 117

[while recitingit]. And when youwish to release them, sayfromY’WYHW and remove your hand from your ear.⁴²

In these instructions for aperformative speech act,thereisanimpressive demonstra- tion of the efficacy of the magical spell. In order to be protected from the magical power,one has to avoid hearing the spellduring the performance. Here, the touching of the ears serves as aprevention of sense perception; that is, the sense of hearing. Thus, in this case, touchinginterruptsthe transmission of magical agency, which is completelydifferent to the above-mentioned sample texts. The simultaneous perfor- mance of the haptic act of touchingand the speech act of the adjuration channels the magical agency to the right addressees; thatis, the thieves.

Conclusion

The knowledge of the meaning of touchingand the acceptance of related instructions is in manycases vital for the performance of magical acts. The introduction of the concept of performative haptic acts emphasises the function of touchinginthese acts. The first sample text,the story of Uzzah in 2Samuel6:2-7 presents the lethal consequences for unauthorised persons when they transgress the prohibitions on touchingsacred objects. Here, touchingdefines the border between sanctity/profan- ity and purity/impurity. In cases wherethe intended purpose of amagical act did not appear to have been achieved, there was doubtastowhether the person who had performed it had done so correctly. In the story of Elisha’sresurrection of the dead child in 2 Kings4:29–35,the failureofthe magicalact performed by the servant Gehazi is re- paired: firstlybythe healing act being performedbythe wonder-worker himself and secondlybyintroducing aperformative haptic act in order to ensure the trans- mission of the effectivepower between the holyman of God and the dead person. Similar to Elisha’saccount,the third sample text from the New Testament in which Jesus heals the leper again emphasises the function of the performative haptic act of bodilytouching. Both Elisha and Jesus transgress the biblical prohibition by touchingeither adead bodyoraleper. Acloser look at the biblical texts presented aboveraises the question of the sub- ject of amagical act,or, to focus moreonour topic, whether it is who is doing the touchingthat is important.The wonder-worker is interpreted as akind of vessel for the supernatural power which comesfrom God. Thus, the flow of this power from God to the client or object can be guaranteed by touchingduring aperformative haptic act.

 See YuvalHarari, “The Sword of Moses (Ḥarba de-Moshe): ANew Translation and Introduction,” Magic,Ritual, and Witchcraft 7(2012): 96,no. 132–33. 118 Bill Rebiger

In contrast, Jewishmagical instructions from the Middle Ages and earlymodern times suggest,atleast at first sight,that anyone who knows the appropriate instruc- tions and recipes is able to be effective and successful as long as he or she follows them correctly. Thus, in manycases, the mediated contact between magicallyeffec- tive verses or names and the addressee of the magical ritual replacesahuman touch from acharismatic man. In these cases, the efficacy of contagious magic is in fact less dependent on the magical power transmitted by aholyman thanondeperson- alised forms of contact.Accordingly, in the (medieval) instructional texts intended for anypractitioner,the performative haptic act is much less important thanitis in the miracles performedbywonder-workers as described in the biblical stories. However,the two phenomena, the magic of the wonder-worker and thatofthe com- mon practitioner,donot exclude each other.Thus, there were numerous charismatic wonder-workers in Judaism—such as,for example, in Lurianic Kabbalah and Hasid- ism—who werevery familiar with the knowledge of how to perform amagical act as presented in instructional texts.⁴³

Bibliography

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 See LawrenceFine, Physician of the Soul, Healer of the Cosmos: Isaac Luria and His Kabbalistic Fellowship (Stanford: StanfordUniversity Press, 2003); Moshe Idel, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic (Albany, NY:SUNY Press, 1995). AMagic Touch: PerformativeHaptic Acts in Biblicaland Medieval Jewish Magic 119

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Wirth, Uwe, ed. Performanz: Zwischen Sprachphilosophie und Kulturwissenschaften. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2002. Fig. 9: Giovanni BattistaCaracciolo (il Battistello), Noli me tangere,c.1620, oil on canvas, 209x 131 cm., Museo Civico, PalazzoPretorio, Prato, Italy.Image Source: Heritage Images. LiberaPisano Noli me tangere: The Profaning Touch That Challenges Authority

If scepticism can be broadlydefined as amethod as well as an attitude that criticises dogmatic assumptions and leads to asuspension of judgement,then asceptical ges- ture can be conceivedasanon-verbalway of expressingdoubts or challengingau- thorities. The shift from asceptical argument to asceptical praxis is the passage from alinguistic definition to abodilydimension in an anarchic shape. As is well known, anarchyetymologicallymeans “the absence of arche,” which has adouble meaning:onthe one hand, it means “origin,”“beginning,” and “principle of action,” while on the other,itmeans “power,”“command,” and “authorities.” Anarchycan be interpreted as more than amere overthrowingofthe arche;rather,itstarts with aprocess of doubting and calling into question the political and social order.Shifting from an epistemological to acorporeal-political perspective,the sense of touch can be interpreted as asceptical gesture towards authorities, since it deals with the body interpreted as asite of power.¹ In this chapter,Iwill sketch some provisional notes on the provocativeand “an- archic” aspects of the sense of touch, which, in its indeterminacy and reversibility, exceeds the borders of aunivocal definition and thereforeneeds to be more meas- ured and disciplined than the other senses. Touch allows the first immediate contact with othernessand represents an escape routefrom the integrity of the self, but at the same time, it shows the vulnerability of the bodyand the danger of contamina-

 The bodyasasite of powerisone of the most discussed issues in contemporary philosophical de- bate. This is not the placetooffer an overview of this huge issue, but Iwould like to quotethe incipit of Judith Butler’sfamous article in which she criticisesFoucault’sidea of the body. In my opinion, Butler’sarguments mayshed light on the complicated intrigueofthis philosophical issue. See Judith Butler, “Foucaultand the ParadoxofBodilyInscriptions,” TheJournal of Philosophy 86 (1989): 601: “The position that the bodyisconstructed is one that is surely, if not immediately, associated with Michel Foucault. The bodyisasitewhere regimes of discourse and powerinscribe themselves, a nodal point or nexusfor relations of juridical and productive power.And, yet, to speak in this way invariablysuggests that thereisabodythat is in some sense there,pregiven, existentiallyavailable to become the siteofits own ostensible construction. What is it that circumscribesthis site called ‘the body’?How is this delimitation made, and whomakes it?Which bodyqualifies as ‘the’ body? What establishes the ‘the,’ the existential status of this body? Does the existential bodyinits anonymous universality have agender,anunspoken one? […]Toclaim that ‘the bodyisculturallyconstructed’ is, on the one hand, to assert that whatever meanings or attributes the bodyacquires areinfact cultur- allyconstituted and variable. But not that the very construction of the sentence confounds the mean- ing of ‘construction’ itself. Is ‘the body’ ontologicallydistinct fromthe process of construction it un- dergoes?[…]Inother words, ‘the body’ would not be constructed, strictlyconsidered, but would be the occasion, the site, or the condition of aprocess of construction onlyexternallyrelated to the body that is its object.” https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110627176-007 124 Libera Pisano

tion. In its uncannyand erotic proximity, the sense of touch has aprivileged relation- ship with the symbolic representations of power in its political,religious, or social articulations. However,this bodilycontact with authority is at the same time arisk and achallengetothe authority itself, which can be questioned by aprofanatory touch. This chapter will be structured in threesections. In the first,Iwillconsider the reciprocity and the uncanniness of touch from aphilosophicalperspective.Far from being something that can be relegated to mere perception, the sense of touch is not a neutral process, but rather amedium of power relationships.Inthis regard, the skin also becomes ametaphorical deconstruction of borders between the Iand the Other, as well as an epiphenomenonofsocial status. In the second section, starting from the episodeofthe Gospel of John and the famous injunction nolimetangere,I will consider the differencebetween two(gendered) desires to touch, that of St.Tho- mas and that of Mary Magdalene. In the third section, Iwill shed light on the gesture of touch as achallengetoauthority and akind of profanation of established rules.In order to do this, following Giorgio Agamben, Iwill consider the so-called museifica- tion of our society in which the prohibition of touch—and, therefore, of use—can be interpreted as aconsequence of the extreme phase of capitalism.

Sight and Touch/Pure and Impure

As is commonlyassumed, the Western tradition privileges sight as the sole mode of access to both beingsand philosophical truth.² Sight is the theoretical sense,³ while touch is the practical one; if the first is connected to thought and requires distance in order to detach the observer from the observed, the second, by contrast,needs prox- imity to unite the toucher and the touched. If seeing is believing,touchingstarts when seeing is not enough. It can be said thattouchisdrivenbyaprimordial scep- tical impulse. Recently, manyattempts have also been made to propose aphilosophical history of touch in order to movefrom ametaphysicsofsight to amaterialism of touch.⁴ In particular, Iamthinking here of Jean-Luc Nancy⁵ and Daniel Heller-Roazen,who, in

 See Suzannah Biernoff, Sightand Embodimentinthe Middle Ages (Basingstoke: PalgraveMacmil- lan, 2002), 66: “Most Indo-European terms for mental activity apparentlyderive from words for vision or the visible.”  As is wellknown, theory is etymologicallyconnected to sight: from AncientGreek theōria (“con- templation, speculation, alookingat, things looked at”), theōreō (“Ilook at,view,consider,exam- ine”), theōros (“spectator”), and thea (“aview”)+horaō (“Isee, look”).  At the beginning of her brilliant work on touch, Classen asks: “If ahistory could be written of touch, what would it embrace?” See ConstanceClassen, TheDeepest Sense: ACultural Historyof Touch (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012), xi.  See Jean-Luc Nancy, Noli me tangere: essai sur la levée du corps (Paris:Bayard, 2003). Noli me tangere: The ProfaningTouch ThatChallenges Authority 125

the lastchapter of his work TheInner Touch,leaveshis readers with the question: “What would it mean for touchtobethe root of thinking and for thinking, in turn, to be the most elevated form of akind of touch?”⁶ How can we define touch? Accordingtothe Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philoso- phy,

the sense of touch is one of the central forms of perceptual experience. Thoughttobethe first sense to develop, touch occurs across the whole bodyusingavariety of receptors in the skin. It often combines these signals with rich information made available by stretch receptors in the muscles and tendons as we actively moveand explorethe world.⁷

This scientificdefinition is partial, since it does not take into account the ambiguity of touch seen not onlyasaform of perception, but rather as acontroversial philo- sophical and political threshold.

The Reciprocity of Touch: The Open Skin

Even if touch does not have aproper organ, since it is spread throughout the body, it can be said that the hand—the symbolofthe homo faber—can be seen as the focus of touch, which is also the link between activities and thoughts, bodyand mind. As a peculiarproperty of human beings, the hand has been seen as asign of human su- periority. In the act of touching, activity and passivity are connected in the same process: it is possibletosee without being seen and to hearwithout beingheard, but not to touch without being touched.⁸ The hand, the body, and the skinare bor- ders in aconstant dialogue with exteriority and otherness. It can be said that this reciprocity of touch mayplayapivotal role from both aphilosophical and apolitical perspective.For instance, in his essayentitled “Haut” (Skin), the philosopher Vilém Flusser described adynamic representation of the skin as afictive limit in which the external and internal worlds communicatewith each other.Much morethanasur- face thatconstitutes the body, the skin is aplace of exchangebetween the Iand the world: “The skin lies between the future and the past,between freedom and work (Werk), whereby these skin horizons overlapone another.”⁹

 Daniel Heller-Roazen, TheInner Touch: Archaeology of aSensation (New York: Zone Books,2007), 285.  Matthew Fulkerson, “Touch,” in TheStanfordEncyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2016 Edition), ed. EdwardN.Zalta, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/touch/.  See Edmund Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to aPure Phenomenology and to aPhenomenologicalPhilos- ophy. Second Book:Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution,trans. RichardRojcewiczand André Schuwer (Dordrecht: KluwerAcademic Publishers, 1989), 152–59; MauriceMerleau-Ponty, Signes (Paris:Gallimard, 1960).  Vilém Flusser, “Haut,” Flusser Studies 2(2006): 2, accessed 01/07/2020,http://www.flusserstudies.- net/sites/www.flusserstudies.net/files/media/attachments/flusser-haut02.pdf. 126 LiberaPisano

This exchangewith the external is aprocess of subjectivity.The reciprocity of the skin and the sense of touch allow this openness to the world and to the Other.There- fore, thereisanintrigue of subject and object,asthe contemporary philosopher Mi- chel Serres underlines: “Icaress your skin, Ikiss your mouth. Who, I? Who, you? When Itouch my hand with my lips, Ifeel the soul like aball passing from one side to the other of the point of contact,the soul quickens when faced with such un- predictability.”¹⁰ Following his argumentation, we can saythat touch works as akind of medium or,tobemore specific, as amixture, since it has no specific object and tends towards fluidity:

The skin is avariety of contingency: in it,through it,with it,the world and my bodytouch each other,the feelingand the felt,itdefines their common edge.Contingencymeans commontan- gency: in it,the world and the bodyintersect and caress each other.Ido not wish to call the placeinwhich Iliveamedium, Iprefer to saythat things mingle with each other and that I am no exception to that,Imix with the world which mixes with me. Skin intervenes between several things in the world and makes them mingle.¹¹

The map that touch provides is amobile one in which the contours are smoothand flexible. It creates aform of commonality,which is akind of mixture whereeach sur- face touches another in an unavoidable proximity.

The UncanninessofTouch: AMatter of Lifeor Death

However,this proximity is related to adangerous uncanniness.Inhis brilliant work On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy,Derrida stated that the sense of touch is unclear,since it is unapparent,obscure,secret,and nocturnal.Infact,ithas manyaporetic ele- ments: though the other senses have their proper sensibleobjects (colour for vision, sound for the sense of hearing,and flavour for taste), touch comprises severaldiffer- ent qualities. While accordingtothe common understandingofthis sense, Ican only touch some extended things(res extensa), it does not follow that every extension is touchable. The act of touchingisalwaysathreshold, in which alimit,asurface, a border is touched:

It is touching that touches on the limit,its own “proper-improper” limit,that is to sayonthe untouchable whose border it touches.Totouch on the limit is not,for contact,just anyexperi-

 Michel Serres, TheFiveSenses:APhilosophy of Mingled Bodies (I),trans. Margaret Sankey and Peter Cowley (New York: Continuum, 2008), 26.  Serres, 80. Noli me tangere: The ProfaningTouch ThatChallenges Authority 127

enceamongothers or aparticular figure:one never touches except by touching alimit at the limit.¹²

Aristotle—accordingtoDerrida, the greatest thinker to ever discuss touch—stated in his De anima thatwithout touch, therewould be no other senses and animalscould not exist.Touch has aunique place in his discourse on living beings, since the sense of touch alone is necessary for the survival of animalsand men:

It is evident,then, that of necessity animals deprivedofthis sense alone will die. Fornothing havingthis can fail to be an animal, nor does whatisananimal need anysense other than this.¹³

One can saythat anthropopoiesis—the self-building process of human beings—is deeplyconnected to touch. However,since it deals with survival, it needs to be meas- ured: animals would die without touch, but they would alsodie with asurplus of it. Touch should implyboth contact and distance. Aristotle insisted that both the tan- gible and the intangible are the objectsoftouch.¹⁴ There is an apriori untouchability since touching, as aquestion of life and death, concerns our Da-sein,our relations with the world. This ambiguity is the haunting of touch, which has something that exceeds itself, asurplus of touch that is untouchable. Since touchingdealswith its ownlimits, it is deeplyrelated to transgression, sacrilege, and profanation. This “untouchability”¹⁵ can be defined as alimit or aprohibition, which constitutes ady- namic of power in itself and its manifestations through religion and social relation- ships.

 Jacques Derrida, On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy,trans. ChristineIrizarry (Stanford: StanfordUni- versity Press, 2005), 297.  Aristotle, De anima,translated with and introductionand commentary by C. Shields,(Oxford: Clarendon, 2016), 435b4–7.  Aristotle, 424a.  Concerningthe notion of the “untouchable,” see Derrida, On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy,330 n. 17: “Sincethe untouchable hereisneither mind nor consciousness but,verily, bodyproperand in the flesh, one has indeed to think the logic of an untouchable remainingright at,right on the touchable, if one maysay so still. This touchable-untouchable […]isnot someone, nor is it what certain cultures term an ‘untouchable.’ But this ‘untouchable’ with its prohibition against beingtouched could not be announced, named, and identified in this wayexcept inasmuch as—let me stress again—thereis some touchable-untouchable in general, beforeany religion, cult,orprohibition. Anyvow of absti- nence—hence avowingboth the touchable and the untouchable—experiments with the touchable as untouchable, in abetrayal that is originary and thereforeunforgivable, or imprescriptible,asis said of crimes against humanity in Francetoday: outside the statuteoflimitations.” 128 Libera Pisano

TouchasMediumofthe Divine

Touch can be interpreted from another perspective as ametaphor for the transmis- sion of spiritual and religious power.¹⁶ The touch of God is an all-powerful manifes- tation of his omnipotence and his supreme power over nature. Since touch is not possiblewithout direct contact,itcan be interpreted as the medium par excellence in which the divine passes through the human condition.Touch can bringdirect con- tact with holinessand the bodyofChrist is touchable, but—despite this carnal rep- resentation—it cannot be possessed, even in the Eucharistic displayofhis body(hoc est corpus meum). The aesthetic dimension of soteriology involves severaltheological issues. In the Old Testament,through his divine touch, God purifies people from sin and manifests his divine truth. Furthermore, touchingisalsoconnected to the regulation of laws and to the ceremonial cleanness,which prohibits contact with unclean things, such as certain foods and corpses.¹⁷ The New Testament reformulates the theme of touch through the sensiblefigure of Jesus. All of the Gospels—which can be taken as a “general haptics,”¹⁸ to quote Derrida—present the bodyofChrist not as a bodyofrevelation, but as asufferingbody: “as abodytouchingasmuch as touched, as flesh that is touched-touching.”¹⁹ In the Bible, there is always aphysical proximitytothe bodyofJesus, who lets himself be touched and heals with touch; through his hands, Jesus performs miracles and givestangible signs of his supernatural power.Hemultiplies food with his hands, curespeople of sickness, and restores them to life. His healing powers are shown through direct contact and his omnipotencepasses through aphysical man- ifestation. The bodilyaspect is alsopreserved in everydaypractices:crossingoneself, giv- ing the kiss of peace, placing one’shands together in prayer.Onthe one hand,the performance of these ritual gestures is adevotional touch; on the other,itisawayof disciplining bodies. In this context,itisworth mentioning the role of touch in the particularuse of the bodymade by mystics.For instance, Bernard of Clairvaux con- sidered touch as the perfect metaphor for faith—“Christ urgesus: ‘touch me with the

 See David Morgan, “The Senses in Religion,” in ACultural Historyofthe Senses.Volume 5: In the Age of Empire,ed. ConstanceClassen (London: Bloomsbury,2005), 95: “Seeingand tastingwerepow- erful ways of seekingout religious authenticity,but so weretouchingand smelling. Touch was under- stood to be the ancient medium for the transmission of spiritual authority in the catholic tradition, beginningwith the apostles’ bodilyembrace with Jesus, the apostolic practiceoflayingonhands by church elders,and descendingovertime throughthe consecrating blessingofabishop’shand on a new priest.”  See Lev11:15 and Deut 14.  Derrida, On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy,100.  Derrida, 100. Noli me tangere: The Profaning Touch That Challenges Authority 129

hand of faith, the finger of desire, the embrace of love’”²⁰—while in the visionary mystical experience, the sense of touch playedacrucial role: in the Ancrene Wisse (Guide for Anchoresses), amonastic rule written in the earlythirteenth century, there is an invitation to touch Jesusinavisionary trance: “Touch him with as much loveasyou would aman.”²¹ In this regard,this sublimated touch is assumed to be abridge to another (divine or sensual) sphere, through which the bodyispu- rified and transformed. However,onthe other hand, since mystics and ascetics prac- tise strict bodilydiscipline—includingsexual abstinence, deprivation, self-castiga- tion, and self-inflicted pain—the (carnal) surplus of the sense of touch has to be rigidlyregulated.

MaryMagdalene and Thomas: TwoMetaphors of Touch

Within this religious framework, Iwould like to discuss aparticularepisode from the Gospels, without dwellingonthe issue of the saving touch of divine grace. “Touch me not!” is Jesus’sadmonition to Mary Magdalene after his resurrection,because he becomes momentarilyuntouchable.²² This famous locution is a hapax legomenon

 Quoted in Classen, TheDeepestSense,30.  See Classen, 89.  See John 20:11–20,24–29: “Now Mary stoodoutside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look intothe tomb and sawtwo angels in white, seated whereJesus’ bodyhad been, one at the head and the other at the foot.They asked her, ‘Woman, whyare youcrying?’‘They have taken my Lord away,’ she said, ‘and Idon’tknow where they have put him.’ At this, she turned around and sawJesus standingthere, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. He askedher, ‘Woman, whyare youcry- ing?Who is it youare lookingfor?’ Thinkinghewas the gardener,she said, ‘Sir,ifyou have carried him away,tell me whereyou have put him, and Iwill gethim.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’ She turned towardhim and cried out in Aramaic, ‘Rabboni!’ (which means ‘Teacher’). Jesus said, ‘Noli me tan- gere [touch me not], for Ihavenot ascended to the Father.Goinstead to my brothers and tell them, “I am ascendingtomyFather and your Father,tomyGod and your God.”’ Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: ‘Ihaveseen the Lord!’ And she told them that he had said these things to her. Jesus Appears to His Disciples.Onthe evening of that first dayofthe week, when the disciples were together,with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders,Jesus came and stood amongthem and said, ‘Peacebewith you!’ Afterhesaid this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they sawthe Lord. […]Jesus Appears to Thomas.Now Thomas (also known as Didy- mus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So, the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord!’ But he said to them, ‘Unless Isee the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand intohis side, Iwill not believe.’ Aweek later his dis- ciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stoodamongthem and said, ‘Peace be with you!’Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; see my hands.Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubtingand believe.’Thomas said to him, ‘My Lordand my God!’ Then, Jesus told him, ‘Because youhaveseen me, youhavebe- lieved; blessed arethose whohavenot seen and yethavebelieved.’” 130 Libera Pisano

in the Gospels. “Noli me tangere [touch me not], for Ihavenot ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, Iamascending to my Father and your Fa- ther,tomyGod and your God.” On that evening,Jesus appears to his disciples, but Thomas Didymus is not among them and doubts their testimony: “Unless Isee the nail marks in his handsand put my finger wherethe nails were, and put my hand into his side, Iwill not believe.” Eight days later,JesussaystoThomas: “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubt- ing and believe.” Thomas then recognises his lordand God,but Jesussaystohim: “Because youhaveseen me, youhavebelieved; blessed are those who have not seen and yethavebelieved.” One might saythathere, there are two different desires to touchatstake: the woman touches because she recognises Jesus and believes in him, while the man wants to touch Jesus’sbodybecause he does not believe, or better,because he needs proof in order to believe. Mary Magdalene cannot touch; Thomas touches, but his touch aims at aconfirmation. The first act is due to an overabundanceofbe- lief, the second to alack of faith. Both gestures—that of Mary Magdaleneattempting to layher hands on Jesus and that of Thomas, who needs to put afinger in the wound —involvetouching, but the formerdeals with an acknowledgement,while the latter deals with doubt.²³ It can be said that these two paradigmatic cases show the ambi- guity of touchseen, on the one hand,asanact drivenbydesire and, on the other,as aproof of certainty.The flesh wantsaproof of existencethatexceeds mere faith, which is whyitisasin. However,believing without touchingisinline with the whole of the Western philosophical tradition. This thread links Plato to the Christian belief, wherethe truth maybetouched by giving up corporeal understanding. These two episodesfrom the Gospel of John related to touch exerted ahugein- fluenceinthe history of ideas. Intellectuals speculated on these twopassages, in par- ticular concerning the nature of the bodyofChrist and the reason whyMary Magda- lene could not touchChrist’sbodywhile Thomas was invited to do so.²⁴ Accordingto the medieval interpretation, Mary’stouch wastoo carnal, since she wanted to touch the bodyofChrist as amortal man.²⁵ The scandalous touch of the woman was a touch of desire, while Thomas’srequest—due to his masculine nature—was a “supe- rior” kind of desire connected to aneed for knowledge thatwas much more similar to

 See the brilliant work by Glenn W. Most, Doubting Thomas (Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 2005), ix: “The figure of DoubtingThomas givesusanexcellent opportunity to put our finger upon central questions of faith and doubt,scepticism and persuasion, alongtwo dimensionsthrough avariety of media.”  See Marjorie O’RourkeBoyle, Senses of Touch: Human Dignity and Deformity from Michelangelo to Calvin (Leiden: Brill, 1998); CarolineWalkerBynum, TheResurrection of the Body in Western Christi- anity:200–1336 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995); Classen, TheDeepest Sense,27–46; Most, Doubting Thomas.  See Most,39: “EvidentlyMary’sjoy at discoveringhis beloved bodyoncemoreinfront of her is so great that,with adeeplyhuman and immediatelyunderstandable gesture, her first instinct is to touch it lovingly.” Noli me tangere: The Profaning Touch ThatChallenges Authority 131

sight.²⁶ It can be said that there is akind of gendered connotation of senses, which is connected to aparticularhierarchy: the lowersenses—touch, taste, and smell—are usually linked to the lower(feminine) sex, while the higher senses of sight and hear- ing are associatedwith the higher (masculine) sex. If the femininestereotypes relate to an intimate sensualand bodily experience,the distance of sight and hearing is associated with a(supposedly) masculinerationality.The woman’stouch maybe seen as achallengetothe rational masculine discipline of society.²⁷ The sensuality of Mary Magdalene has always been connected with carnal desire, which remains un- satisfied, while Thomas—who touched the bodyofChrist—has been interpreted as a “scientific” enquirer.The prohibition that engenders desire opposes the rational sat- isfaction of objective evidence.

From Noli me tangere to Noli me credere

The desire to touch does not onlydeal with sacred bodies, but alsowith sacred ob- jects.²⁸ This is the case for saintlyrelics,the cults of which wereastonishinglypop- ular in the Middle Ages. Relics could usuallybetouched—or better kissed—either di-

 See Most,72: “The idea of touchingJesus’ wounded bodyseems to exert far toostrong afascina- tion upon most readers when they encounter it for them to be able later simplytoforgetit, or dismiss it,orexplain it away—especiallysincewhatisinvolvedistouchingitnot with alovingcaress,like Mary Magdalene, but with asceptical thrust (though translators often saythat Thomas wants to ‘place’ his hand in Jesus’ side, in fact the Greek verb used by John is much stronger and means ba- sicallyto‘throw’ or ‘hurl’).”  It is not by chancethat there aretwo paradigmatic examples:the prostituteand the witch. These female bodies wereexempt fromthe ordinary women’swork on which the social order was based. The seductive and dangerous touch of the woman was exemplified in the aberrant touch that could bewitch ordinary men and enter intocontact with demons.Inboth cases,the sense of touch plays an importantrole, sinceitisasymbol of what must be put on the edgesofsociety.  Thereisalso an interesting connection between touch and religious books;infact,since the writ- tentexts could be interpreted as an impersonal medium, the human body—through speech and other senses—was commonlyassumed to be atactile and “embodied” one. It was no accident that not ev- eryone was permittedtotouch books in the Middle Ages and earlymodernperiod. See Classen, The Deepest Sense,18–19: “One medieval scribe wrote of the toll writingtookonhis body: ‘Aman who knows not how to writemay think this is no great feat.But onlytry to do it yourself and youwill learn how arduous is the writer’stask. It dims your eyes, makesyour back ache, and knits your chest and bellytogether—it is aterrible ordeal for the whole body.’ Reading, whileperhaps not such an ordeal as writing, was no merematter of gliding one’seyesoverapage.Medieval readers had to deal with poor illumination,cramped script,uncomfortable seating, and temperature extremes.[…]Inthe semi-oral society of the Middle Ages, embodied memory might wellbethoughtsuperior to,orat least an important adjunct to,written records.” It is worth notingthat this episode of Mary Magdalene had ahugeinfluence on the imagination of thinkers and writers; for instance, the Victorian novelist Marie Corelli in her work “Electric Creed,” published in 1886,depicted Jesus as an electric bodywho could not touch Mary Magdalene because of his dangerouslyhighvoltage after his resurrection. 132 Libera Pisano

rectlyorthrough ashrine, but in anycase, there wererules to protect them from in- solent and inappropriate treatment:

To understand the particular appeal the remains of the saints had in the Middle Ages one has to think of the saint’sbodynot as alifeless corpse, but as asupernatural force (called virtus)man- ifested in apersonalized material form—asupernatural force that had the power to grant one good health, good fortune, and agood end—all throughthe medium of touch.²⁹

Touching the relics was seen as the onlyeffective waytotransfertheir holypower. However,manyattempts weremade to control this tactile access to the sacred and tactile proximity was substitutedwith visual distance. This was not onlydue to the Reformation; even duringthe Middle Ages, plagues and the fear of contagion led to akind of tactophobia that playedacrucial role in the substitution of touch with sight. It is worth noting thatthe issue of the reliability or authenticity of relics engen- dered asceptical attitude towards the power of touch to transfer the holypower con- tained in the bones, clothes, or hair of asaint.There was an interesting passagefrom noli me tangere to noli me credere,³⁰ aslipping from the prohibition to touch to the prohibition to believeinthe absenceofempirical evidence of the bodyofGod, from Mary MagdalenetoThomas. Religion became more and more intangible, while its sensibleand bodily aspectshad to be sublimated into an intangible holy sphere.

TouchasaScepticalChallengetoAuthority

This dichotomybetween touchable and untouchable can be interpreted as the heart of darkness of every community.The practices of touchingare always indicators of specific power relationships in which thereisanoscillation between the imperative and the prohibition to touch. Both commands have to do with the regulation of touch by political or religious authorities. Purity and impurity and cleanliness and un- cleanliness are philosophical, political, and religious concepts. The meaning of the Latin sacro was “set something aside” for the service of God or for the use of adi- vinity,while something profanus was something that could not be used in areligious sense, since it was dirty and contaminated. Starting from the ancient period, touch was an important means of differentiat- ing between social groups,since some sensory stereotypes also shaped the difference

 Classen, TheDeepest Sense,40.  See Classen, 151: “When the sixteenth-century Franciscan François du Moulin visited the shrine of Mary Magdalene and was shown her skull with the supposed imprint of Jesus’sfingers he noted that, while monks called the relic ‘Noli me tangere,’‘Do not touch me’ (in referencetoJesus’sinjunction to Mary Magdalene), he called it ‘Noli me credere’—‘Do not believeme.’” Noli me tangere: The ProfaningTouch ThatChallenges Authority 133

between the elite and the masses, the rich and the poor.The skin was akind of epi- phenomenon of social position; imperfections, scars, and tattoos were aphysical re- minder of alowlystatus. Therefore, the shape and use of the bodycorresponded to a specific idea of social order. Hearingavoice or smelling aperfume is completelydifferent from touching clothes or bodies, which is amuch more invasive action. Since the act of touching —as pleasure or pain—can violate the (holy) inviolability of the body, it has to be regulated and ordered by arigid discipline; in fact,itisnot by chance thatthe reg- ulationoftouch—since it represents achallengetothe social order—involves religion and politics; moreover,itisnot by chance thatcriminalbehaviours are very often connected to the unlawful touchingofproperty and persons. In the communal sharing thatwas the foundation of society duringthe Middle Ages, shared bodilypractices wereatthe heart of everydaylife. The dirty connota- tions of touch even assumed apivotal role in the modern and contemporary age; for instance,Canetti speaks of the “repugnance of being touched […]inabusy street.”³¹ The transformation of the city into conglomeratesofstrangers, an anonym- ity combined with the sense of privacyand privateproperty,has made the tactile ex- perience—especiallytouchinganother body—acontroversial wayofcommunicating between people thathas to be disciplined. Contemporary Western society is aresultofadeep “hygienic process” in which the common formsofsocial touching, as they existedbefore, have been banned. The root of this impulse of hygienisation maybetraced back to the fear and risk of con- tamination, which reminds us of the old plagues such as leprosy or the Black Death. Lepers werethe untouchable par excellence and they wereobliged to wear special clothing and to carry abell in order to warn others. The figure of the leperispara- digmatic because he is aperson who cannot touch or be touched; therefore, he is cut off from everydaysociality,such as communal eating using the hands, sitting around the fire, and sleeping.Due to this processofhygienisation,³² we are living in apermanentneutralisation of bodilyrelationships and the tactile impulse has to be controlled: “Look, but don’ttouch!”

Do Not Touch: The Museification of Society

As aclear example of this prohibition, we can examine the case of museums and then the so-called museification of our society.Itisworth noting that the prohibition of touchingobjectsisrather anew trend; in fact,inthe seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,itwas possible to touch artworks in order to have an intimate connection

 Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power,trans.CarolStewart (London: Victor Gollancz, 1962),15.  See Christopher E. Forth and Ivan Crozier, Body Parts: Critical Explorations in Corporeality (Lan- ham: LexingtonBooks, 2005). 134 Libera Pisano

with and specific knowledge of the museum objects. In earlymuseums—most of which wereprivatecollections—touchingthe collections was commonplace, since it was apopularand meaningful wayofinteracting with the artworks, which were supposedtobehandled. Tactile interaction wasnot onlyasign of hospitality,but also areal encounter and amedium of knowledge through which the form and con- tent of the artefacts could be trulydiscovered in order to correct mistakesormiscon- ceptions of the sight: “palpando experiri potest.”³³ When museums became more open to the public in the nineteenth century,they turned themselvesinto treasurehoards and—also due to the urgency of conservation —into spaces of prohibition. The public access to museums transformed them into places whose special features had to be justified through prohibitions.Among these prohibitions, the sense of touch had to be controlled and disciplined more often than the other senses. However,learning not to touch in modern museumswas agradual process due to various phenomena. The elimination of touchimpliedthat the collections had be- come inviolable through the specific techniquesofmuseum display, and this element completelychanged the visitors’ attitude. Tactile experience gave waytovisual con- templation, the bodilyand sensualpleasure of art was graduallyreplacedwith strict discipline,and the faculty of vision became predominant in the modern museum. The hands-off rule of museums is due to their transformation into public places whereitisnot possible to control the “vulgar” touch of the masses—and also the workingclass—who have accesstothem. In the new museum, artworks,artefacts, and sculpturebecame toolsofanew disciplinary regime. This untouchability is matched with the hygienisation of our contemporary soci- ety.Itcan be said that authority exercises its power through this injunction and that noli me tangere has nowadays become the prohibition par excellence. It deals with abuse, impurity,consumption, damage, offence, or simplywith usage, pleasure, and enjoyment.There is an everydayuse of this prohibition in which power,con- sumption, and usage are interwoven. This conjunction raises manyquestions: What does this untouchable represent?What does this register of warning mean? Whyisitforbidden to touch?What is the grammarofthis gesture?Could we interpret the act of touchingasaradical calling into question of authority in general?Does touch involvearadical (a)politicalform of resistance? Is touch atemporary suspen- sion of the apparatus of power? In order to interpret the grammar of this phenomenon, Iwill brieflyuse Giorgio Agamben’sidea of profanation as an act of resistance and aprocess whereby what has been givenupinthe sacred sphere is restored for another profane and human use.³⁴

 See ConstanceClassen, “Museum Manners: The Sensory Life of the EarlyMuseum,” Journal of So- cial History 40 (2007): 901.  Giorgio Agamben, “In Praise of Profanation,” in Agamben, Profanations,trans. Jeff Fort (New York: Zone Books, 2007), 73–92. Noli me tangere: The Profaning Touch ThatChallenges Authority 135

The Profanation of Touch

If we—along with Agamben—consider museification not as aphysical space or place, but rather as a “pure form of separation” and aphenomenon which “designates the exhibition of an impossibility of using,ofdwelling,ofexperiencing,”³⁵ then the con- nection between (the prohibition of)touch and (the prohibition of)profanation be- comes clear. In his famous essayentitled In Praise of Profanation,Agamben statedthat “if ‘to consecrate’ (sacrare)was the term that indicatedthe removal of thingsfrom the sphere of human law, ‘to profane’ meant,conversely, to return them to the free use of man.”³⁶ This meaning of profanation is deeplyconnected to the sphere of use and is antithetical to religion thatisnot understood as religare (to unify), but as relegere, “which indicates the stance of scrupulousness and attention that must be adopted in relations with the gods.”³⁷ Separatingbetween two different spheres is the essence of religion, while “to profane means to open the possibility of aspecial form of negligence, which ignore separation or,rather,puts it to aparticularuse.”³⁸ The apparatus which regulates the passagefrom the profane to the sacredisthe sac- rifice that works as aritual caesura. In this regard, Agamben mentions contagione as the simplest form of profanation:

Thus,one of the simplest forms of profanation occurs throughcontact (contagione)during the same sacrificethat effects and regulates the passage of the victim from the human to the divine sphere. One part of the victim (the entrails, or exta: the liver, heart,gallbladder,lungs) is re- served for the gods, whilethe rest can be consumed by men. The participants in the rite need onlytouch these organs for them to become profane and edible. There is aprofane contagion, atouch that disenchants and returnstouse what the sacred had separated and petrified.³⁹

The idea of aprofanation through contact is deeplyconnected to an ancestral idea of power.Itcan be said that contagione through the act of touchingisapolitical oper- ation, since it acts as adeactivation of religious or political power and arestitution to common use. To continue Walter Benjamin’sidea of capitalism as religion, Agamben stated that present-day capitalism has pushed the religious tendency of separating between the sacredand the profane to extremes: “In its extreme form, the capitalist religion realizes the pure form of separation, to the point thatthereisnothing left to separate.”⁴⁰ AccordingtoAgamben, the capitalistic sphere of consumption engen- ders an absoluteconsecration, which is the sameasatotalprofanation, meaning

 Agamben, 84.  Agamben, 73.  Agamben, 74–75.  Agamben, 75.  Agamben, 74.  Agamben, 81. 136 LiberaPisano

that nothing is profanable: “The capitalist religion in its extreme phase aims at cre- ating something absolutelyunprofanable.”⁴¹ This happens because in the objects of consumption, use coincides with abuse,with adestruction of the objects themselves: “Consumption, which necessarilydestroysthe thing,isnothing but the impossibility or the negation of use, which presupposes that the substance of the thing remains intact.”⁴² Since capitalism is the apotheosis of consumption, real use is not permitted. The prohibition of touchcan be interpreted as an injunction, which manifests this impos- sibility of use. The loss of use is nothing but the loss of profaning, and therefore, the act of touchisadangerous act of resistance, because it represents aprofanation, seen as arestoration of the real human use that is nowadays forbidden. The prohib- ition of touchingdisplays acapitalistic perspective accordingtowhich there is only the domain of exclusively (divine) use, whereeverythingissacred and hence off-lim- its for personal use.Since the omni-sacralisation of capitalism impedes use,touch has nowadays become adangerous and sceptical challengetoauthority.Itcan be said that at the coreofthis contrast,there is apure and sacralcapitalistic consump- tion opposing the dirty gesture of touch, the dogmatism of order facing the scepti- cism of the body. Beyond amere epistemological conception or scientific definition, touch can be interpreted as away of bridging the gapbetween man and the Other,but on the other hand, it provokes aradical and uncannyproximity.This Apollonian-Dionysian dual- ity emergesifone considers touch from another perspective;namely,asamedium of religious holiness, an epiphenomenon of social status as well as an act of profana- tion. In these frameworks,which Ihavetried to outline in this essay, touchfluctuates from an interdiction to adesire, from aprohibition to aresistance. If bodies are fields, in which power manifests itself and authorities exercise theircontrol, touch can be seen as apossible provisional interruption of this dynamic and asuspension of the rules through bodilypraxis. Due to this haptic epochē of authorities, the dirty, profane, and anarchic sense of touch becomes the sceptical gesture thatradically calls into question the established order and sacredpower.

Bibliography

Agamben, Giorgio. Profanations. TranslatedbyJeff Fort.New York: Zone Books, 2007. Aristotle. De anima. Translated with and introduction and commentarybyC.Shields. Oxford: Clarendon, 2016. Aristotle. De partibus animalium. Translated by William Ogle under the editorshipofJ.A.Smith and W.D. Ross. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911.

 Agamben, 82.  Agamben, 82. Noli me tangere: The Profaning Touch ThatChallenges Authority 137

Biernoff,Suzannah. Sightand Embodimentinthe Middle Ages. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Butler,Judith. “Foucault and the ParadoxofBodily Inscriptions.” The Journal of Philosophy 86 (1989): 601–7. Canetti, Elias. Crowdsand Power. Translated by CarolStewart. London: Victor Gollancz, 1962. Classen, Constance. The DeepestSense: ACultural History of Touch. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012. Classen, Constance. “MuseumManners: The SensoryLifeofthe Early Museum.” Journal of Social History 40 (2007): 895–914. Derrida, Jacques. On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy. Translated by Christine Irizarry. Stanford: Stanford UniversityPress, 2005. Flusser,Vilém. “Haut.” Flusser Studies 2(2006). Accessed 01/07/2020. http:// www.flusserstudies.net/sites/www.flusserstudies.net/files/media/attachments/flusser-- haut02.pdf. Forth, Christopher E., and Ivan Crozier. BodyParts:Critical Explorations in Corporeality. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2005. Fulkerson, Matthew. “Touch.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2016 Edition), edited by EdwardN.Zalta, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/touch/. Accessed 1.7. 2020. Heller-Roazen, Daniel. The Inner Touch: ArchaeologyofaSensation. New York: Zone Books, 2007. Husserl, Edmund. Ideas Pertaining to aPure Phenomenology and to aPhenomenological Philosophy. SecondBook: Studiesinthe PhenomenologyofConstitution. Translatedby Richard Rojcewiczand André Schuwer.Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers,1989. Merleau-Ponty,Maurice. Signes. Paris: Gallimard, 1960. Morgan, David. “The Senses in Religion: Migrations of Sacred and SensoryValues.” In ACultural History of the Senses. Volume 5: In the Age of Empire,edited by ConstanceClassen,89–111. London: Bloomsbury,2005. Most, Glenn W. Doubting Thomas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress, 2005. Nancy,Jean-Luc. Noli me tangere: essai sur la levée du corps. Paris: Bayard, 2003. O’Rourke Boyle, Marjorie. SensesofTouch: Human Dignity and Deformity from Michelangelo to Calvin. Leiden: Brill, 1998. Serres, Michel. The Five Senses: APhilosophyofMingled Bodies (I). Translated by Margaret Sankey and Peter Cowley.New York: Continuum, 2008. Walker Bynum, Caroline. The Resurrection of the BodyinWestern Christianity,200–1336. New York: Columbia University Press,1995. Fig. 10: Caravaggio, The Incredulity of Saint Thomas,1601–1603, oil on canvas, 107x146 cm., SanssouciPicture Gallery, Potsdam, Germany.Image Source: HeritageImages. MirtKomel Touching Doubt: Haptolinguistic Scepticism

The purpose of this contribution is to address the problem of touch and doubt through amuch broader question of the relation between touchand language. What Iwould like to do is to contrast touchwith doubtasaconceptual and linguistic activity. To illustrate this approach, let me first begin with twoofthe most intriguingly consecutive passages from the New Testament. In the first,the resurrected Jesus Christ stops his pupil Mary Magdalene from touchinghim with his famous command noli me tangere,while in the second, which is an almost perfect reversal of this scene, another of Christ’spupils, “Doubting” Thomas, places his finger inside the wounds of his resurrected body. Both scenes evoke contradictory tendencies with regard to touch that requirefurther discussion. In the first passage, the desire to dissolve doubt through touch is stopped by agesture that itself pertains to the domain of touch. The gesture is complementedbythe sentence “do not touch me,” which not onlyprovides certainty, but also demonstratesthe peculiarrelationship between touch and language. In the second passage, the discursivedoubtarticulated by Tho- mas’squestioning of the resurrected bodyofChrist is shattered through asilent, speechless, penetrating touch: certainty achieved at afingertip. Due to their dramatic nature, it is no coincidencethat bothscenes can be found in religious iconography, Renaissance paintings, and later even in popularculture(in the form of music, musicals,and films). They appear not onlyasparadigmatic rep- resentations of faith and doubtcollidingwith the realm of the senses, but alsoasal- legoricalrepresentations of acertain fragilityofsense-certainty. In both instances, we can seealinguistic implosion of the sense of touch, itself embodying,soto speak,achallengetothe traditionalphilosophical pairing of the more theoretical senses of sight and hearing.Inthis regard, it is telling that the first example has taken on aname of its own: contemporary usages of noli me tangere are similar to the LastSupper or the Crucifixion of Christ in the sense that it has acquired an al- most independent secular currency, addressingcertain tactile issues thatwerepre- sent long before—such as, for instance,and perhaps most famously, in Sophocles’s Oedipus in Colonus,whereOedipus, just before his apotheosis, addresses his daugh- ters Antigone and Ismene in the same vein in which Jesus addresses Mary Magda- lene; namely,with the words “Follow me, but do not touch me.”¹ Iwill return to the noli me tangere scene with Mary Magdalenesoon (contrasting it with the touchofDoubtingThomas), but for now,let me layout the most general theoretical layout of my contribution: that the exploration of the mutualrelation and interaction between the two triads of sight-hearing-touchingand doubt-certainty-

 Sophocles, TheThree Theban Plays (London: Penguin Classics,2008). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110627176-008 140 MirtKomel

faith in these two scenes—as theoretically advanced by Jean-Luc Nancy in his own Noli me tangere²—allows us to movefrom astrictlyphenomenological understanding of touch as asensorial activity of the body, and the related understanding of doubt as adiscursive activity of the mind, towardsalinguistic conception of touch that is epis- temologicallygrounded in Hegel’sphilosophyand further developedbyLacanian theoretical psychoanalysis. In adifferent context,Iproposed calling this approach “haptolinguistics,”³ which can presentlyhelp us to navigate through the Scylla of Touch and the Charyb- dis of Doubt as follows. In the first part of this contribution, Iwill address the ques- tion of doubtthrough the age-old mind-and-bodyproblem in Plato—by employing Saussurian linguisticsasdevelopedwithin the theoretical framework(s) of Lacan, Derrida, and Nancy—in order to tackle the metaphysical dimension of touch on the one hand and its metaphorical aspect on the other.Inpart 2, Iwill once more address the mind-and-bodyissue of doubt through linguistics, focusingonAristotle’s theory of the soul, through which Iintend to introduce the metonymyoftouch as op- posed to its metaphor.Inpart 3, Iwill lean heavilyonHegel in order to develop the linguistic perspective even further,from touch understood as abodilyactivity that can be the sourceofdoubt,via the metaphor of touch, towards touch as concept, or Begriff,that operates on the same level as doubt.Finally, in part 4, Iwill employ Lacan’stheory of knots in connection to his concept of lalangue in order to demon- strate how language, the site of doubt, possesses acertain tactile quality in itself. My thesis is, in short,that doubting touch and the touch of doubt are two sides of the same object and that doubt itself is alinguistic effect,which touches upon the sub- ject—literally, materialistically—due to acertain haptic quality of language.

ADoubt of Sense-Certainty

Now,let me re-begin at the very beginning of philosophy, with Plato, whose main philosophical concern was to dismiss the realm of the senses and point—as depicted in the famous fresco La ScuoladiAtene by Raphael—to the higher,transcendental, untouchable realm of ideas. Despite the fact thatPlato, among others, despised the senses as asourceofer- roneous falsehood,wecould, in contrast, also list an entire array of Platonic meta- phors thatdescribethe abilities of the soul using images taken from the realmof bodilyperception, from which one could discern thatmetaphors of the gaze and the voice are central in the metaphysical imagery that structured most post-Platonic

 Jean-Luc Nancy, Noli me tangere: Essai sur la levée du corps (Paris:Bayard, 2003).  See my chapterentitled “The Wave of the Sign: Pyramidal Sign, Haptic Hieroglyphs,and the Touch of Language,” in TheLanguage of Touch: Philosophical Examinations in Linguistics and Haptic Studies, ed. Mirt Komel (London: Bloomsbury,2019), 5–18. TouchingDoubt: Haptolinguistic Scepticism 141

philosophy.⁴ The predominant metaphors still in use in present-day philosophyare optical;that is, related to sight and visuals(“theory,”“gazing,”“insight,”“specula- tion,”“reflection”). Closelyfollowing in frequency are acoustic metaphors related to the voice, hearing,and obedience in the sense of “listeningto”(from the ethics of the Socratic daimon to the morality of the Christian conscience). Smell and taste have, curiously enough, for the most part been deemed unsuitable for expressing spiritu- ality.Finally, the sense of touch appears bothasaparadigmofthe most basic sen- sual bodyand as the supreme metaphor of one’sspiritual contact with metaphysical reality.⁵ If we focus on the sense of touch and its metaphorical equivalent on the level of the soul touchingthe realm of ideas, we can seethat in Plato’s Phaedo,thereisa strict mutual exclusion between the two:ifasoul wantstograsp ideas, it has to re- nounce the concept of bodilytouchasalink to reality.Togain one kind of touch, we have to rid ourselvesofthe other (hence the stereotypical depiction of philosophers as wisdom-seekers who are, however,completelylacking aworldly-wise “grasp” of reality). This radical Platonic gesture makes touch, as the guarantee of empirical sense-certainty,something that needstoberenounced in order for it to function as the privileged metaphor of metaphysical knowledge.Inthis, we can see the foun- dations of what Jacques Derrida calls the “haptocentrism of the Western metaphys- ical tradition” in his On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy,always alreadyprivileging the hands, palms, fingers—in short, touch—in order to affirm the presenceofthe subject: “Such ahierarchical arrangement is without anydoubtpart of the great tradition that accords an absoluteprivilegetotouchand does not let itself be encroached upon by the possibility […]ofany vicariousness of the senses.”⁶ As we can see, this thesis largely concords with his other,earlier thesis on “phonocentrism” in linguistics and philosophy, and therefore, both should be read together: the voice on the one hand and touch on the other create or allow an illusion of aself-conscious presence of the subject.

 Numerous studies have dealtwith the roleofmetaphor in metaphysics (see Stephen C. Pepper, WorldHypotheses [Berkeley:California University Press, 1942];Charles Morris, Paths of Life: Preface to aWorld Religion [New York: Harper and Brothers,1942]), which, however,assign it onlyadidactic, explanatory function, and merely an aesthetic one in literature. This is questionable on several counts;for one, it would be easy to demonstratethe didactic value of poetry,and, at the same time, the aesthetic value of philosophy. Forperhaps the best examination of this issue, see Jacques Derrida, “WhiteMythology:Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy,” in Jacques Derrida, Margins of Phi- losophy,trans. Alan Bass (Chicago:University Press, 1982), 207–71.  The persistenceofsuch ahierarchyofthe senses can be followed as far as Hegel, who faithfully reproduces it on manyoccasions:for instance, in his Lectures on Aesthetics,where the division of art- forms into visual and acousticcategories is based on the distinction between sight and hearingas theoretical senses on the one hand and touch, smell, and taste as non-theoretical and non-artistic senses on the other (see GeorgWilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Aesthetics:Lectures on Fine Art, Volume One,trans. T.M. Knox, paperback ed. [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988], 622–23).  Jacques Derrida, Le toucher,Jean-Luc Nancy (Paris:Galilée, 2000), 41. 142 MirtKomel

Jean-Luc Nancy,towhom On Touching is dedicated, answered Derrida in apecu- liar waywith his own formulation of noli me tangere. It is here, Nancy argues, within the framework of his own project of a “deconstruction of Christianity,” thatsuch a tradition of haptocentrism is most illustratively expounded in the comparison be- tween the two scenes from the New Testament mentioned above: on the one hand, there is the scene of the proverbialDoubting Thomas touchingJesus’s wound in order to empiricallyverify the evidence provided by his eyes and ears, while on the other,there is the scene of the resurrection in which Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene and does not permither to touch him, but rather demands aleap of faith: “Faith consists in seeing and hearing where there is nothing exceptional for the ordinary eyeand ear.Itknows to see and to hear without tampering.”⁷ Faith demands belief without tactile corroboration, for it is preciselytouch—with its direct tactility—that expunges the truth, which is by definition something intan- gible. The opposition here runs between the untouchable and the touchable, the realm of the intangible and the realm of the tangible, with touch itself marking the dividing line. Thisiswhy Nancy can saythat noli me tangere expresses something that revolvesaround touch in general, something that “touches on the sensitive point of touching” (elle touche au pointsensible du toucher), “on this sensitive point that touchingconstitutes par excellence” and “formsthe sensitive point within it.”⁸ Sen- sibility from the realm of the touchable and sense from the regime of the untouch- able coincide in touch as the sense of sensibility:inshort,sensibility can make sense onlyifone presupposes the sense of tact,which is the condition sine qua non for asensorial being—without touch, no other sense is possible. And that is why, in contrast and converselyatthe same time, the sensibility of sense makes sense, or,inone French word, sens,which is Nancy’sfavorite playonwords in which “sense” is in linguistic accordance with sensibility (since sens does not mean either/or,but rather both at the same time: the bodilyactivity of sensing and the thinkingactivity of making sense). If we translate Nancy’slanguage-based playinto the modernlinguistic Saussur- ian formula of the sign, S/s (signifier/signified),⁹ then noli me tangere is preciselythe bar (/) that separates the level of the untouchable signifier (S)from the level of the tangible to which the signified (s) refers on the one hand,while on the other, the sig- nifier/signified compound enables the contact between the two levels insofar as it touches both.¹⁰ The negative imperative “do not touch me” is something that impos-

 Nancy, Noli me tangere,22.  Nancy, 13.  See Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics,ed. Charles Ballyand Albert Sechehaye in collaboration with Albert Riedlinger, trans. Wade Baskin, 3rd ed. (New York, Toronto, and London: McGraw-Hill, 1966).  Afurther elaboration of such ahaptolinguistic conception of the Saussurian signthrough the con- cept of (un)touchability can be found in BaraKolenc’s “The Category of the (Un)touchable in Haptic Materialism: Touch, Repetition, and Language” in the above-mentioned TheLanguage of Touch,91– TouchingDoubt: Haptolinguistic Scepticism 143

es touchassuch on both the signifier and signified (“touch” in this context meaning both the imperativephrase and the bodilyactivity), while, as adistinguishing bar (/) between signifier and signified, it touches both at the same time. If we translate the Saussurian formula into the Lacanian categorial apparatus, we can see how the untouchable level of the signifier correspondstothe symbolic register,the tangible level of the signified to the imaginary,and the role of the bar to the real inasmuchitresists and defies anysymbolic and/or imaginary appropria- tion.¹¹ Moreover,what enables the transition between the symbolicand the imagina- ry can be grasped via the Lacanian formula of the metaphor,accordingtowhich it is in the substitution of signifier for signifier—“one wordfor another,” be it “poetic or creative”—that a “signification effect is produced,” while the crossing of the bar has a “constitutive value […]for the emergence of signification.”¹² The “wordfor word” of the metaphor,the displacement of meaning thathappens whenweuse ametaphor instead of the “proper” word, is, in our case, the replacement of the physical touch by the metaphysical touch of the soul; through the metaphor of the “touch of the soul,” acertain crossing of the distinguishingbar (/) in the haptic division between the tangible and the intangible takesplace. Or,toput it more simply, translating the Lacanian idiom back into the Platonic terms with which we began this section: the metaphor of touch allows asmoothtransition between the republic of intangible ideas, identifiedwith the linguistic “upper house” of signifiers,and that of tangible bodies, broadlycoincidingwith the “lower house” of the signified.

ATouch of Heartand Soul

In order to take astep forward, we need to make astep back: speakinginterms of the bodilysenses and their metaphorical equivalents on the level of the soul presuppos- es an existing distinction between bodyand soul, the traditionalbread and butterof philosophyfrom PlatotoHegel. Seen from the ancient Greek perspective,the division between bodyand soul originates in the pre-Socratic Homeric imagery,inwhich psychē is used primarily as asynonym for zōē, “life” or “aliveness,” after whose removal there remains

106:the elegance of the concept of (un)touchability lies in its speculative unity of touchability and untouchability,thus allowingustothink the very concept of signasitself unmaterial, to be sure, but as capable of producingmaterial effects on the body.  In Lacanian theoretical psychoanalysis, the three registers of symbolic, imaginary,and real en- compass the whole of human existencethrough the experience of language(symbolic), the bodily senses and the empirical representationsthey provide (imaginary), and the real that defies both by beingirreducible to either languageorthe senses and thus beingexclusively graspable through science, understood as the scienceofthe sign, or rather,the letter(Jacques Lacan, Le séminaire, livre XXIII:Lesinthome, 1975–76,ed. Jacques-Alain Miller [Paris:ÉditionsdeSeuil, 2005]; Jean-Claude Milner, Le périple structural: Figures et paradigme [Paris:ÉditionsduSeuil, 2002]).  Jacques Lacan, Écrits (Paris:Éditions de Seuil, 1966), 429. 144 MirtKomel

only sōma,which in Ancient Greek does not mean “body,” but “corpse” (whence the Homeric formula that sōma is zōē minus psychē);¹³ onlyinthe context of metaphor does psychē appear as asoul that wanders around in dreams and, in the afterworld, livesmerelyareflection of its past life on earth (psychē as asoul living alife inde- pendentlyofthe body).¹⁴ The original incision separatingspiritual intangibility from bodilytangibility is thereforemetaphorical, which is also whyitshould come as no surprise that metaphors are omnipresent whenever and wherever thereistalk of met- aphysical entities as autonomous beings(soul, ideas, etc.). This is perhaps whythe resurrectionofChrist invokes—to put it bluntly—so manydoubts concerning his body. The bodyofChrist is simultaneouslyelevated and degraded in acurious paradoxoftouchand doubt, as best exemplified precisely in both scenes of interest to us here: in Mary Magdalene’s nolimetangere scene, the bodyisinadequate, since it cannot provide the certaintythat onlyfaith can supply; in the Doubting Thomas scene, the sameresurrected bodyfunctions as the ultimate confirmation of faith itself. However,asHegel argued at the very beginning of his philosophical career, “Contradictio est regula veri, non contradictio falsi” (“Contra- diction is the rule of truth, non-contradiction of error”).¹⁵ Theparadoxofthe bodyof the resurrected Christ is asign of truth, acertain truth of touch, since Christ’sbodyis at the sametime touchable and untouchable, as bothscenes from the New Testa- ment clearlyshow.And yet, the truth of the resurrected bodycannot be graspedwith- out the aid of its counterpart in the sphere of language: in the Mary Magdalene

 At the beginning of TheIliad,weread: “The rage of Achilles—sing it now,goddess,sing through me the deadlyragethat caused the Achaeanssuch grief and hurled down to Hades the souls of so manyfighters,leavingtheir naked flesh to be eatenbydogsand carrion birds, as the will of Zeus was accomplished” (Homer, TheIliad [Clayton,DE: Prestwick House, 2011], 1[verses 1–5]).  In TheOdyssey,inthe scene when Odysseus meets his mother during his journey to the realm of shades and back, we read: “Ah, my poor child, ill-fated aboveall mortals,this is no phantom Persé- phonē sent up to meet you; it is just what happens to mortals after they die. The sinews don’thold the flesh and the bones together.When fire consumes the bodyand burns it to ash, the spirit slips out and flutters away likeadream” (Homer, The Odyssey,trans. Stephen Mitchell [New York: Atria Books, 2013], 143[verses 216–22]).  See Hegel’sdoctoral thesis from 1801: “1. Contradictio est regula veri, non contradictio falsi. 2. Syllogismus est principium Idealismi. 3. Quadratum est lex naturae, triangulum mentis.4.InArith- metica vera nec additioninisi unitatis ad dyadem, nec subtractioni nisi dyadis atriade neque triadi ut summae, neque unitati ut differentiae est locus.5.Utmagnes est vectis naturalis, ita gravitas plan- etarum in solem pendulum naturale. 6. Ideaest synthesisinfiniti et finiti et philosophia omnis est in ideis.7.Philosophia critica caretideis et imperfecta est Scepticismi forma. 8. Materia postulati ra- tionis,quod philosophia critica exhibet,eam ipsam philosophiam destruit,etprincipium est Spino- zismi. 9. Status naturae non est iniustus et eam ob causam ex illo exeundum. 10.Principium scientiae moralis est reverentia fatohabenda. 11.Virtus innocentiam tum agendi tum patiendi excludit.12. Mor- alitas omnibus numerisabsolutavirtuti repugnant” (GeorgWilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Frühe Schriften, vol. 1ofWerke,ed. Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel, new ed. [Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1986], 533). TouchingDoubt: Haptolinguistic Scepticism 145

scene, it can be discerned from the very phrase “do not touch me”;inthe Doubting Thomas scene, from Jesus’sinvitation “touch me.” In this regard, Iwould like to advanceanother thesis that can now clarify the above-mentioned reference to Lacan’stheory of metaphors via Plato;namely, that the connection between the metaphysical and naturalworlds is metaphorical, which is whyitisinthe field of metaphorsthat one world unimpededlypasses into the other.The metaphysical and physical worlds come into contact—in both the literal and the metaphorical sense of touch—insofar as touchisthebar that sep- arates one level from the other and, at the sametime, enables contact between them on condition that it begins to functionasametaphor. Aristotle in De anima is the principal philosopher who, after Plato, attempted to reintegrate the soul into the bodysothat psychē would again become the principle expressingthe life of the body(in contrast to the Homeric formula, Aristotle’sgoes like this: zōē is sōma plus psychē). Instead of metaphorsoftouch, what we come across in Aristotle is its metonymic function: by localisingthe sense of touch, the me- dium of touchingextends from the heart to the flesh, from the bodytothe world. Every sense has its medium of perception: sight has light,sound and smell have air; onlytouch—includingthe haptic sense of taste—accordingtoAristotle, does not have its specific medium.The medium of touchremains “unnoticed, unclear, hidden.”¹⁶ More precisely, in the case of touch, the problem is thatthe sense and the medium are, on the one hand,joined in what he calls flesh, sarx. Sarx differs from the bodyassōma preciselybecause the latterisaliving body, something that relates to zōē through psychē as something thatisanimated.¹⁷ On the other hand, sarx or flesh is merelyamedium, while the real organ of touch, again, is lo- cated even further inward: “Flesh is ‘the medium’ of touch,the real organbeing sit- uated fartherinward.”¹⁸ The one element which is more internal to the bodythan flesh, and actuallymost internal and intimate in the final analysis,proves to be the heart: “This explains whythe sensory organofbothtouchand taste is closely related to the heart.For the heart as being the hottest of all the bodily parts,is the counterpoise of the brain.”¹⁹ Thus, we do not touch with our handsorfingers, but rather with our hearts. This Aristotelian “touchofthe heart” is just astep away from the Platonic “touch of the soul.” However,regarding bothPlato’sand Aristotle’smetaphorical usagesof“touch,” it can alsobeargued that the “touch of the soul” and the “touch of the heart” are not metaphors at all, but rather something thatwecan infer by subsumingall the other senses under the sense of touch, insofarasall the senses are merelyforms of touch- ing at adistance,which makes the sense of touch the haptocentric paradigm of sens- ing in general, metonymicallyextending—quite literally—from the heart and soul to

 Aristotle, Complete Works (Princeton: Princeton University Press,1984): 423b4.  Aristotle, 423b17.  Aristotle, 422b18.  Aristotle, 439a1–2. 146 Mirt Komel

the world. The best articulation in this regard can perhapsbefound in MauriceMer- leau-Ponty,who developed sarx into la chairdumonde, “the flesh of the world,” which is at the same time “my flesh.”²⁰ The expression indicates,inone stroke, the intertwinement of the internal and the external so that “nothing determines me from outside,” but “not because nothing acts upon me, but,onthe contrary, be- cause Iamfrom the start outside myself and open to the world.”²¹ The flesh of the world, which is at the same time my flesh, is presupposed by the apriori equation of the internal and the external, which is why, in Merleau-Ponty,the tangible–intangi- ble pair is equatedwith the visible–invisiblepair,yet the very concept of the “flesh” constantlyrefers to aspecific tactile transitivity of touch itself. On the one hand,wehavethe Aristotelian transitivity of touch extendingfrom the internal heart to the outer world, whereone could addthat this “inner touch” has its counterpart in the metonymical sliding under the bar from one signified (the heart) to the other(the world), from the realm of the soul towards asoul-less, or at least heart-less world. On the other hand, as we have seen, we have the Platonic imagery of touchfunctioning as an incision establishing the borderline between the tangible and the intangible. As Mladen Dolar writes: “The touch includes bothmeta- phor—basicallythe cut—and metonymy—basicallyendless transitivity.”²² Touchis thus an intersection of the metaphorical and the metonymical, bothametaphorical separating cut between the tangible and the intangible and,atthe same time, amet- onymic passing or sliding thatoperates on both levels.²³ Thus, the Aristotelianmetonymic touch slides along the axis of the signified as a referencetothe realm of the tangible, while the Platonic metaphorical touch slides along the signifyingaxisinto the regimeofthe intangible. We now need to consider both as two sides of the same “object–touch” thatfunctions as abinding and split- ting gapbetween the sensible order of the tangible and the transcendental order of the intangible world, since it is preciselyhere thatdoubtcollides with sense-certainty —“sense” in both meanings of the word, noumenal and phenomenal.

 MauriceMerleau-Ponty, TheVisible and the Invisible; Working Notes,ed. Claude Lefort,trans. Al- phonso Lingis (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press,1968), 250.  MauriceMerleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception,trans.Colin Smith, new ed. (New York and London: Routledge,2002),530.  Mladen Dolar, “TouchingGround,” Filozofski vestnik 29,no. 2(2008): 95.  Forabeautiful demonstration of one such operation in different terms—but in anot so different contextfromthis one—see Rachel Aumiller’s “The Lick of the Mother Tongue: Derrida’sFantasies of ‘the Touch of Language’ with Augustine and Marx,” in TheLanguage of Touch,107–20:the “lick of the mother tongue” can be understood as the metaphorical “cut” that producesaschism in the subject by installingthe intangible regime of the signifier as somethingdifferent and opposed to the tangible body, while at the same time it metonymicallyallows the transition from one level to the other pre- ciselybymeans of “touching” us—“lickingus,” in fact—thus producingreal, material, tangible ef- fects. TouchingDoubt: Haptolinguistic Scepticism 147

A Begriff of Touch and Language

Arguably, one of the best treatments of touchasacrossroads between the phenom- enal and the noumenal is givenbyHegel in his Lectures on Aesthetics,which presents the idea of beauty as aself-development of the spirit in the sphere of freedom that is pertinenttothe fine arts, or,inthe more tellingItalian version, belle arti.²⁴ If touch is taken as the criterion of Hegel’sself-developmentofthe spirit,we could saythat the idea in general is intangible, while its objectification and concre- tisation essentiallyconstituteits tactilisation, ameans of making an idea palpable. However,asHegel himself says alittle lateron, at the end of the introduction to the chapter on “The Idea of the Beauty of Art or the Ideal,” from the perspective of the finitude of the spirit,the absolutelooks like “an infinite object standing against it.” Yetwhen looked at “from the higher speculative way, [spirit] is the absolute spirit it- self” that “makes these distinctions within itself” and thus establishes the “finitude of spirit,within which it becomes the absoluteobject of the knowledge of itself,” which is why “the realm of fine art is the realm of the absolute spirit.”²⁵ What looks like adistinction between touchable works of art and an untouchable idea of beauty as such—with the ideal being correspondence between the two—is actually (this is to say, speculatively) adistinction made within the absolute spirit itself. The samelogic appliestoHegel’s “concept of concept,” elegantlyintroduced at the beginning of the next chapter entitled “The Concept of Beauty in General.” Hegel recapitulates his definition of “beauty as the idea of beauty,” meaning that “beauty must be conceivedasidea,” and even more precisely, “as idea in adetermined form, as ideal.” He goes on to define “the idea in general” as nothing less than the “con- cept,the reality of the concept,and the unity of both.”²⁶ Again, from the perspective of touch and doubt,the concept that is the means through which doubt drills into the certainty of the bodywould fall into the category of untouchable, while the reality to which it relates would fall into the category of the touchable and palpable: each finds its speculative unity in merelyabstract definitions of the idea, which should, however,not be understood as neutralising the peculiarities of each of these aspects, of the concept and its reality,ofthe intangibility of the concept as the sourceof doubt and the palpability of bodily reality respectively.Onthe contrary,this unity

 It is importanttonotethat here, the idea of the beauty of art does not correspond to the idea as such,sincethe latter is apprehended as the absolute truth, universal, yetnot yetobjectified, while the former is defined as the beautiful objectification of the idea, “both essentiallyindividual realityand also an individual configuration of realitydestined essentiallytoembodyand reveal the Idea”;im- plicitlypresent in such an understanding is a “demand that the Ideaand its configuration as acon- crete reality shall be made completelyadequatetoone another,” which is preciselythe definition of the ideal as the concordancebetween the very “concept of the idea” and its “reality” (Hegel, Aesthet- ics: Lectures on Fine Art,73–74).  Hegel, 93–94.  Hegel, 106. 148 MirtKomel

is itself conceptual in the sense that the distinction is made within the concept itself, and its realisation is actuallyself-realisation. The sameHegelian speculative turn can be applied to the concept of touch: the differencebetween the touchable and the untouchable is pertinenttothe concept of touch itself, since it is the instance of touch thatdifferentiates between the touchable and the untouchable (touch being the criterion accordingtowhich one can think in either/or touchable/untouchable terms). Although the consideration of the develop- ment of the idea of beauty from the perspective of touch is not pertinent to Hegel’s own accounts, if we fast-forward afew hundred pages into his Aesthetics,wecan see that touch eventually—and, Iwould like to add, both accidentallyand inevitably— pops up in relation to the “concept of concept” in avery peculiarway. In the section entitled “The Symbolic Form of Art,” more preciselyinthe third chapter dedicated to the symbolism of the comparative art-form in which the ques- tion of metaphorsisaddressed, Hegel starts his discussion with avery general re- mark, saying: “Every languagealreadycontains amass of metaphors.They arise from the fact that awordwhich originallysignifies onlysomething sensuous is car- ried over into the spiritual sphere.”²⁷ The emphasis is on the “sensuous” element that is “carried over” and not simplydiscarded, but rather retained and preserved in the “spiritual sphere,” which is of course Hegel’susual dialectical procedureof Aufhebung.²⁸ The examples giveninorder to demonstrate that metaphors contain acertain sensorial element that is preserved in their spiritual meaning are fassen and begrei- fen: words that “relatetoknowing,haveinrespect of their literal meaning apurely sensuous content,which is then lost and exchanged for aspiritual meaning,the orig- inal sense being sensuous, the second spiritual.”²⁹ Then, agenealogyofmetaphor- ical languageisgiven as if the metaphorical element in the use of such words has slowlydisappeared and the wordhas changed “from ametaphorical to aliteral ex- pression,” thus forming athree-step development: first,wehaveplain words denot- ing mere sensuous content,then metaphors arise from this sensuous content point- ing towardssomething other than their original meaning, and in the last instance, we have aliteral expression that articulates apurelyspiritual content without anysen- sorial meaning.³⁰

 Hegel, 403.  Nancypoints out in his TheSpeculativeRemark(OneofHegel’sBons Mots),trans.Céline Supren- ant (Stanford:StanfordUniversity Press,2001), that thereisnodistinctively Hegelian dialectics with- out the concept of Aufhebung,which means both “abolition” and “preservation,” thus enablingthe dialecticalprogression from contenttocontent; however,despitethe fact that in the last instance, anythingcan be aufgehoben,thereisatleast one concept that cannot be, and that is the concept of Aufhebung itself.  Hegel, Aesthetics:Lectures on Fine Art,404.  Hegel’sprocedurehereisthe same as at the very beginningofPhenomenology of Spirit,trans.Ar- nold V. Miller with an analysisofthe text by John N. Findlay(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 33–38 (“A. Consciousness.I.Certainty at the LevelofSense-Experience—The ‘This,’ and ‘Meaning’”), Touching Doubt: Haptolinguistic Scepticism 149

Our point of interest is the reason whythe wordchanges from ametaphorical to aliteral expression: because “owing to readiness to grasp in the imageonlythe meaning,imageand meaning are no longer distinguished and the imagedirectlyaf- fords onlythe abstract meaning itself instead of aconcrete picture.” It is no coinci- dence that the verb used in the “readiness to grasp in the imageonlythe meaning” is the same as in the example that follows; namely, begreifen: “If, for example, we are to take begreifen in aspiritual sense, then it does not occur to us at all to think of a perceptible grasping by the hand.” It is as if by grasping the meaning inside the image, it is alreadyemploying an implicitlymetaphorical use of the concept of Be- griff.³¹ Languageassuch,not just the languageofmetaphysics, therefore has an in- herentlydialecticaltendency towardspure meaning,understood as asourceofclari- ty and certainty.Inorder to purify itself from anyphysical residuumand the related doubtfulness of the senses, it needsmetaphors as an intermediatestep from the sen- sorial towards the spiritual. And this pertains not onlytoHegel’sown dialectical pro- cedure, but also to metaphysical philosophy, from which doubttakes its ammuni- tion, and, in the last instance,tolanguageitself. Thus, speakinginstrict Hegelianterms, one could saythat touch is aufgehoben, dismissed on aphysical level as asense among senses, and at the same time pre- served as ametaphor inside the very coreofthe metaphysical concept par excellence, Begriff.Begriff paradoxicallydesignatesnot onlytouch(“handling,”“grasping”), but concept itself (“conception,”“naming”). Hegel’sdialectics therefore implicitly pre- supposesaspecific and paradoxicalway of classifying touch:asasensory experi- ence, it must not onlybediscarded as asourceofdoubtand falsehood,but addition- allyenshrinedasthe truth inherent to the very concept of conception—including doubt—thus implying acertain sensorial, even tactile qualityoflanguagethat can, however,begrasped onlyspeculativelythrough the two contradictory meaningsof Begriff. Begriff thereforeallows us not onlytothink both the conceptual and bodilyac- tivity of touchingatthe same time, but also to speculatively elevatetouch—previous- ly understood onlyasamere object of doubt—to the samelevel as doubt,which itself can now quite literallytouchus.

AKnot of Touch and Doubt

After all these dialectical roundabouts,wecan now relax and conclude with Lacan’s seminar on the sinthome,whereone can find the very concept of Begriff employed

where the sensorial is retroactively turned intothe conceptual:the sensorial can be the basis for the metaphorical, and the metaphorical in turn for the conceptual,sincethe very origin is alreadycon- taminated with the conceptual.  Hegel, Aesthetics:Lectures on Fine Art,404–5. 150 MirtKomel

twice in two fairlysimilar contexts that are both,asweshallsee in amoment,con- nected to our topic of touch and doubt. One occasion when Lacan employed Begriff was duringalecture in which he raised aparticulardoubt: WasJoyce mad?While introducing the concept of objet petit a (“object little a”)—ahole in the symbolic order,aresiduum of the real that cannot be represented in the register of the imaginary (or the register of bodilyexpe- riences,for that matter)³²—Lacan explicitlystates that it “is ob,anobstacle to the ex- pansion of the concrete, namely, encompassingimaginary.Conceivable, namely, graspable by hand.This is the notion of Begriff,graspable in the wayaweapon is,” and this weapon is “far from being an extension of the arm,” but rather “from the start aweapon for throwing”—“we did not wait for cannonballs to throw aboo- merang.”³³ As we can see, Lacan is well aware of the double meaning of Begriff with which Hegel alsotoyed; namely, thatofsimultaneouslyconceiving and grasping. Moreover,heemploys Begriff as touch-concept in the context of discussingthe object a as the border of the phenomenological imaginary,itself the primary topic of doubt. And if we know that the “object a” is defined as the object-reason-of-desire, then one is compelled to ask: What is the specific desire crawlingbehind doubt, and what kind of object motivates it? Forthe answer,let us turn to Lacan’stheory of knots. If understood as avisual- isation of his famousRSI scheme (real-symbolic-imaginary), the theory of knots looks like aregression to the imaginary register that his earlier arithmetisations tried to undo preciselyinorder to provide scientific validity to the deceiving imagi- nary of the senses and their body, which is otherwise understood as the primal object of doubt.³⁴ On the other hand, as Milnerbrilliantlypointed out on more than one

 The object a has along conceptual history in psychoanalysis: its origins can be found in Freud’s conception of the “lost object,” which he discoveredwhile writinghis Three Essaysonthe Theoryof Sexuality and which was popularisedbyKarl Abraham under the title of “partial object”;the concept was then takenupbyMelanie Klein, whoput it at the very centre of her theory of sexuality,and through her by Donald Winnicott,who renamed it the “transitional object”;finally, Lacan rebaptised it as objetpetit a in his seminars deliveredasearlyasthe late1950s, and it underwent manyrede- velopments until the late1960s (see Jacques-Alain Miller, “Microscopia: An Introduction to the Read- ing of Television,” trans. Bruce Fink,inJacques Lacan, Television; AChallengetothe Psychoanalytic Establishment,ed. Joan Copjec,trans.Denis Hollier,Rosalind Krauss,Annette Michelson,and Jeffrey Mehlman [New York: W.W. Norton &Company, 1990]: xi–xxxi).  Lacan, Séminaire, livre XXIII:Lesinthome,86.  Lacan argued that it is the symbolic order that linguisticallystructures the imaginary as exempli- fied by the visual or scopic field in his TheFour Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis,where the “object a” is identified with the gaze:the logicofthe signifier,asdeveloped in this stage,means that languagenecessarilyhas certain imaginary connotations—uttering “body,” for instance, invokesthe imageofabody—while the imaginary itself is rooted in the subject’sown body, or rather,inthe image of the body, and that is whythe intervention of the signifier is neededinorder to displacethe imag- inary fixations of the subject to his or her own body, as well as the bodyofthe other (see Jacques Lacan, Le séminaire, livre XI: Les quatreconceptsfondamentaux de la psychoanalyse, 1964,ed. Jac- ques-Alain Miller [Paris:Éditions de Seuil, 1973]). Touching Doubt: Haptolinguistic Scepticism 151

occasion, Lacanian structural psychoanalysis is the scientificheir of the earlier mod- ern Galilean revolution and its replacement of physical space with Euclidean geomet- ric space, and therefore, the theory of knotsshould be regarded as the logical con- sequence of the development of Lacan’sthought.³⁵ Similarly, touch as abodilyand physical experience,ifitistobeconceivedinthe scientific milieu of structuralism, must be displaced into ageometric space and conceivedaccordingly—and one of the best ways to define touch geometricallyis, at least to my mind, through the topology of knots. And now,toanswer the question proposed above: the desire behind doubt is, at least in this case, the desire to shatter the bodilyimaginary through ascientific geometricisation of space. This could very well be understood as acontinuation of Plato’sproject,asdis- cussed above. In the very first lecture dedicated to the logical use of the sinthome, we find Lacan’ssecond usageofBegriff preciselyinthe context of our old and age-old mind-and-bodyproblem:

More geometrico,due to the form so dear to Plato,the individual presents himself as […]abody. And this bodyhas apower of captivation which is such that to acertain extent it is the blind one should envy.How could ablind man, if he can manage braille, read Euclid?The astonishing thingisthat form givesnothingbut the sack, or,ifyou like, the bubble.³⁶

To be sure, braille is asystem of writing for the blind and visuallyimpaired that itself alreadyimplies acertain haptolinguistic quality,since with braille, atactile language can be distinguishedthathas no conceptual equivalent inside the traditionallinguis- tic understanding of languageinits spoken and written form.³⁷ Moreover,braille pro- vides not onlytactile certainty to counteract doubt thatarisesfrom blindness or im- paired vision, but also the metaphysical certaintythat is provided by languageitself, thus, again, embodying Begriff to the letter (being at the same time linguisticallycon- ceptual, as language, and bodilytangible, as writing). Lacan presents the bodyasasackthat inflates and deflatesitself, moving in bi- nary successions from 0to1,from the absence of asignifier to the presenceofone. Accordingly, the signifierdoes not constituteone, but it indexesthe bodyasan

 See Milner, Le périple structural.  Lacan, Séminaire, livre XXIII:Lesinthome,86.  As Ihaveargued elsewhere where Iproposedthe coinageofhaptem (see Komel, “The Wave of the Sign”), languageisdefined by Saussurian linguistics as asystemofdifferenceswhere asign can have meaningonlyinrelation to other signs, and this relational understanding of the signiswhat is usu- allyunderstood as structure. From this perspective,phonemes and graphemes function as minimal material differentiatingunits without meaninginthemselves, but arenevertheless capable of produc- ing meaningintheir mutual interaction. The differenceofthe sign is, in short,analyticallyreducible to the differencebetween various phonemesand graphemes, and the haptem similarlyfunctionsasa minimal material differentiatingunit in languagethat is, however,grounded neither in anyacoustic nor in anyvisual representation, but rather in the tactility of language, which is best exemplified by braille. 152 MirtKomel

empty sack that is unable to contain anything: “An empty sack is nonetheless asack, albeit one which can onlybeimagined as askin in terms of the existenceand con- sistenceofthe body.” Both the existenceand the consistence of the bodyare “to be held as real,” since it is the real that “holds them—thus the word Begriff which means preciselythat.”³⁸ Although Lacan does not mention Hegel, we can clearly see how he employs asimilar logic by redoublingthe French tenir,used to translate Begriff:Cette existence et cette consistence, il faut les tenir pour réelles, puisque le réel, c’est de les tenir. Thus, the existence and consistence of the body—its imaginary qual- ity—should not be understood in the vulgar materialistic sense of anything substan- tial or carnal, but rather as alack or sack, imagined as skin in terms of existenceand consistence, both held to be real because it is the real that holds them. Thistautolog- ical definitionisalreadyimplied, if we recall, in Hegel’slogic of the idea as concept and its realisation, alogic that we can now develop astepfurther: the idea is real because the real holds up or touches (Begriff,tenir)the reality of its own realisation. However,inLacan’sdealingwith the bodyasanempty sack, we are still moving within the registerofthe imaginary (the object of doubt stricto senso), which “dem- onstrateshere its homogeneity with the real,” and he adds that “this homogeneity onlyholds because the number is binary,1or 0; thatis, it onlyfigures 2because 1 is not 0, because it exists at zero but does not consist in it,” thus introducing adiffer- ence between existence and consistence (the 1has existenceinthe 0, but is not con- sistent in it). Moreover,one can very well redouble the logic of 0and 1 ad infinitum, thus makingaset of such doubles, but in this case, the set makes athird, and this is why “the symbol falling back into the imaginary has the index 2,” denoting anygiven battery of signifiers. And now thatthe logic of the signifier has been introduced, Lacan redefines the symbol, understood in antiquity as abroken fragment,through Saussure’sconception of the sign that we dealt with earlier,implying “the unity and reciprocity of the signifier and the signified,” further developing the consequence that “the original signified is without meaning, that it is amere sign of the choice between two signifiers”:

There can be no umpire, as Joycewrites in English, without talkingabout empire,about the im- perium over the body, of which all bear amark fromthe beginning.Herethe 1confirms its de- tachment from the 2. 3can onlybereached by an imaginary compulsion, which imposes the idea that the one wishes to interfere with the other,without beinglinked to anything.³⁹

The Borromean knot represents preciselythe interrelation of the threeringsofthe RSI schemeintroducedabove, defining the threeregisters of the real, the symbolic, and the imaginary,whereabreak in anyone of them sets the other two free. How- ever,Lacan adds (again in avery Hegelian manner)that “it is not the break between symbolic, imaginary,and real which defines perversion, but the fact that they are al-

 Lacan, Séminaire, livre XXIII:Lesinthome,86–87.  Lacan, 19. TouchingDoubt: Haptolinguistic Scepticism 153

readydistinct,and thereforeafourth term must be supposed thathappens to be the sinthome.”⁴⁰ Perversion rests therefore not in the desire to break the Borromean knot,but rather in its very breakability,the fact of its beingdistinct in three separate ringsand therefore the very distinction between the three registers themselves. Per- version, which at first glance appears to be aspecificityofthe human sexual being,is alreadyinscribed in the theory of the RSI scheme itself; more precisely, in the very distinction between the three registers that impliesafourth, sinthome;sexuality and ontology go,speaking in terms of touch, hand in hand.⁴¹ In the context of our discussion of touch and doubt,adoubtful touch is perverse inasmuchasthe object it is touchingisitself asourceofdoubt,the perversity lying in the attribution of acertain truth to the object; namely, the truth of being false, or at least doubtful. Perversion as aBorromean knot in Lacan’saccount demonstrates a few more tactile qualities worth lingering on for just alittle longer before proceeding to our conclusions. First and foremost,aknot is aknot,defined in mathematicsasan embedding of acircle in three-dimensional Euclidean space (R3),abending of the circle in such away that it touches upon itself in every givencrossing, self-touch of the circle that is, in itself, anon-knot,anunknot,azero-degree touch. Second, the Borromean knot is, like anymathematical knot,closed,since there are no ends to tie or untie these kindsofknots and therefore they can onlybeuntiedif they are forcefulllybroken, meaning that their touchability,the touch of their cross- ing,can be un-touched onlythrough anot-touch. Third,ifthe Borromean knot em- bodies the RSI scheme wherethe perverse breakingofone of the ringsisidentified with the original distinction between them, implying the fourth elementofthe sin- thome to tie and untie an otherwise closed knot,then touch can be conceivedasa sinthome; namely, what ties and breaks the knot. In short: touch is the tie and the break of the knot,similar to the wayinwhich a line is bent into acircle in such amanner that it touches upon itself, and, at the same time, the break within the knot that sets it freefrom itself: thus touch, again, occu- pies both places at once,since it is the sourceofdoubt (the tie) as well as the liber- ation from it (the break).

Conclusion

The road has been long and not without its pearls and pitfalls, the formerprovided mostlybythe references employed, the latter by the author of this contribution him- self, who has attempted to tie the topic of haptic scepticism—or haptoscepticism—to haptolinguistics, thus redoublingthe applied conceptual apparatus in order to devel-

 Lacan, 10.  See AlenkaZupančič’sbrilliant development of the link between ontologyand sexuality as laid out in her book What Is Sex? (Cambridge,MA: MITPress,2018). 154 MirtKomel

op the main thesis that promised to provide alinguistic turn of the concepts of both touch and doubt. The initial juxtaposition of the two scenes from the New Testament provided us with twoapparentlycontradictiveconceptions of touch and doubt: in the Mary Mag- dalenescene, touchisdismissed as asourceofdoubt,while language, embodied in noli me tangere,provided its counterpart,the certainty of faith, whereas in the Doubt- ing Thomas scene, touch functions as asourceofempirical certainty that has to sup- plynot onlywhat the subjects sees and hears—that is, the resurrected bodyofChrist —but also, and more importantly, the meaning of his words, with touchthus func- tioning as asupplement to language. In order to answer the question of how is it possiblethattouch can playtwo such different roles,weturned first to Plato, who provided us—with conceptual help from Lacan, Derrida, Nancy,Saussure, and others—with afirst approximation of an an- swer: touch as ametaphor,orthe metaphor of touch, allows afreemetonymical tran- sitioning between the realm of intangible ideas, identifiedwith the linguistic level of signifiers,and that of tangible bodies, broadlycoincidingwith the level of the signi- fied. In the second stage, Hegeland his theory of metaphors and languageprovided us with the concept of Begriff,the concept of “concept” and “touch” in their specu- lative unity:asasensoryexperience, touch must not onlybediscarded as asourceof doubt,but also enthroned as the certain truth inherent in the very concept of concep- tion, thus implying acertain sensorial, even tactile qualityoflanguagewhich, fur- thermore, also pertainstodoubt,touchingupon us at the sametime that it relin- quishes touch as abodilyexperience. Lastbut not least,Lacan’stheory of knots provided us with the appropriate conceptual apparatusfor the task of further defin- ing this specific haptolinguistic quality of doubtthat was,infinal analysis,defined as asinthome, or the perverse moment inherent in anysimple scientific attempt at a symbolic dissolution of the imaginary,bodily, sensoryexperience of touching. Thus, following this thread that goes from Plato to Lacan, we can see that the real perversion lies not in anysimple sexual touchingthat arouses the subject and raises doubt,but rather in the very fundamental ontologicalconception that tries to (un)tie touchasthe real, doubtand languageasthe symbolic, and the bodyas the imaginary phenomenological experience.

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Aristotle. Complete Works. Edited by Jonathan Barnes. 2vols. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1984. Aumiller,Rachel. “The Lick of the Mother Tongue: Derrida’sFantasies of ‘the Touch of Language’ withAugustine and Marx.” In The Language of Touch: Philosophical Examinations in Linguistics and Haptic Studies,edited by MirtKomel, 107–20. London: Bloomsbury,2019. Derrida, Jacques. Le toucher—Jean-Luc Nancy. Paris:Galilée, 2000. Derrida, Jacques. “White Mythology:Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy.” In Margins of Philosophy,translated by Alan Bass, 207–71. Chicago: ChicagoUniversity Press, 1982. Touching Doubt: Haptolinguistic Scepticism 155

Dolar,Mladen. “Touching Ground.” Filozofski vestnik 29, no. 2(2008): 79–100. Hegel, GeorgWilhelm Friedrich. Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, Volume One. Translated by T.M. Knox. Paperback ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988. Hegel, GeorgWilhelm Friedrich. Frühe Schriften. Volume 1ofWerke. Edited by EvaMoldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel. New ed. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986. Hegel, GeorgWilhelm Friedrich. Phenomenology of Spirit. TranslatedbyArnold V. Miller withan analysis of the text by John N. Findlay.Oxford: OxfordUniversityPress, 1977. Homer. The Illiad. TranslatedbySamuel Butler.Clayton, DE: PrestwickHouse, 2011. Homer. The Odyssey. Translated by Stephen Mitchell. New York: Atria Books, 2013. Kolenc, Bara. “The Categoryofthe (Un)Touchable in Haptic Materialism: Touch, Repetition, and Language.” In The Language of Touch: PhilosophicalExaminations in Linguistics and Haptic Studies,edited by MirtKomel, 91–106. London: Bloomsbury,2019. Komel, Mirt. “The Wave of the Sign: Pyramidal Sign, Haptic Hieroglyphs, and the Touch of Language.” In The Language of Touch: PhilosophicalExaminations in Linguistics and Haptic Studies,edited by MirtKomel, 5–18. London: Bloomsbury, 2019. Lacan, Jacques. Écrits. Paris: Éditions de Seuil, 1966. Lacan, Jacques. Le séminaire, livre XI: Lesquatreconcepts fondamentaux de la psychoanalyse, 1964. Edited by Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Éditions de Seuil, 1973. Lacan, Jacques. Le séminaire, livre XXIII: Le sinthome, 1975–76. Edited by Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Éditions de Seuil, 2005. Merleau-Ponty,Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by Colin Smith. New ed. New York and London: Routledge, 2002. Merleau-Ponty,Maurice. The Visible and the Invisible; Working Notes. Edited by Claude Lefort. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press,1968. Miller, Jacques-Alain. “Microscopia:AnIntroduction to the Reading of Television.” Translatedby Bruce Fink. In Jacques Lacan, Television; AChallengetothe Psychoanalytic Establishment, edited by Joan Copjec, translated by DenisHollier,Rosalind Krauss, AnnetteMichelson, and Jeffrey Mehlman, xi–xxxi.New York: W.W. Norton &Company,1990. Milner,Jean-Claude. Le périple structural: Figures et paradigme. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2002. Morris, Charles. Paths of Life: Preface to aWorld Religion. New York: Harper and Brothers,1942. Nancy,Jean-Luc. Noli me tangere: Essai sur la levée du corps. Paris: Bayard, 2003. Nancy,Jean-Luc. The Speculative Remark(One of Hegel’sBon Mots). Translated by Céline Surprenant. Stanford: Stanford University Press,2001. Pepper,Stephen C. World Hypotheses: AStudy in Evidence. Berkeley: California University Press, 1942. Plato. Complete Works. Edited by John S. Cooper.Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett, 1997. Saussure, Ferdinandde. Course in General Linguistics. EditedbyCharles Bally and Albert Sechehaye in collaboration with AlbertRiedlinger.Translated by Wade Baskin. 3rded. New York, Toronto, and London: McGraw-Hill, 1966. Sophocles. The ThreeTheban Plays. Translated by Robert Fagles. London: Penguin Classics, 2008. Zupančič,Alenka. What Is Sex? Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,2008. Fig. 11: Veronika Pausova, MidnightJacuzzi, 2017,oil on Canvas, 15″ x18″(45.7x38.1 cm.) © Veronika Pausova/Subal Gallery, New York. Goran Vranešević An Atom of Touch: ScepticismfromHegel to Lacan

There is amyriad of topics that can illustrate the peculiarnature of scepticism, all worthyofathorough commentary.However,itisbynomeansclear whether ascep- tical endeavour is even suited to perform adelicate gesture needed to grasp afirm essence, consideringthat the sole positive assurance preservingsuch an endeavour is constant doubt.Inthe context of psychopathology, such adrive would undoubt- edlybeassessed as an addiction to doubt(Zweifelsüchtigkeit). This text willinstead propose adifferent route: aHegelian one, aquestioning of the use of languagewhen appropriatingelements of knowledge.Thismight be aworthyaim, as the role of lan- guageisoften disregarded when striving for certitude. Contrary to common usage, languageshould not be considered as amedium of adequation, precipitatinga bond between thingsand words, but as aplaceholder of contradiction (Wider- spruch); speaking against itself through the medium of the nonsensical sound of words. Or,toput it more plainly, the task of languageisnot to offer the right words for the right things, but to arrangeappropriate junctures between words them- selves. Accordingly, the object of analysis must primarilybeknowledge itself, while it is onlyonits heels that it is possibletodiscern the contours of language. Knowledge is not an explication of fundamental truths, as Aristotle argued, or an adequate ar- ticulation of athing that one ponders about,not even the notion of wise ignorance, but aproduct of workingononeself and grasping such an errand.Hegel acknowl- edgedthis when he claimed, “What is familiar and well known (Das Bekannte)as such is not really known for the very reason that it is familiar and wellknown”;¹ that is, there is anuanced argument to be made regardingknowledge that usually favours the idea accordingtowhich knowledge ensures the path to truth, or at least certitude. However,itisskepsis,aretraction of truth, thatenables knowledge to establish its footing through its otherness, through its negative facet,through its differenceinitself. Meeting the other of oneself in oneself, however,ismore appro- priatelyexpressed as aproposition that meetsitself in separation from itself. And this rather speculative portrait of skepsis—an interjection of negativity/failurethat causes aseparation within statements and produces positive knowledge—is exem- plarilypresented through asimple gesture of touch induced by homophony: apair of words that sound the same, but have adifferent spelling.Procuringacommon bond for “Kant,”“count,” and even “cunt” might seem unfathomable were it not for achance coincidenceintheir enunciation. By capturingdifferent morphemes in asingle sound, homophones literallyenable disparate words to toucheach

 GeorgWilhelm Friedrich Hegel, PhenomenologyofSpirit,ed. and trans. Terry Pinkard (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 20. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110627176-009 158 Goran Vranešević

other while maintaining adefinite separation between them.While the idea of touch is usuallylimited to the haptic interplayofbodily surfaces and sense reception, this article will argue, in contrast,that homophonic utterancesdonot onlyproduce knowledge,but all the more so that they exhibit the essentialform of touch, which comes about when the other of oneself is present in oneself. Although it was Jean-Claude Milner who recognised and explicated this specific characteristic in Lacan’slaterworks and mayhavehad explicated the significance of Lacan’slin- guistic turn towardshomophones, he nevertheless omitted an essential ingredient: the presenceofthe right touch. However,before we put the whole weightofour tonguebehind this argument,let us first unfold the sceptical framework that precon- ditionsit.

On Knowledge

It is easy to portray an inquiry relating to the meaning of knowledge as banal, since it seems self-evident what we are talking about when we use such anotion. Even when pressed to further elaborate on the meaning of knowledge,the ideas are mostlyre- duced to the ability to remember certain facts and, with their aid, create definite truths. From the viewpoint of perception, every assurance stems from the compari- son of ideas, but consequently, every judgement hangsononlyathin thread of cer- tainty.Against common sense, Hegel structures knowledge by wayofself-othering (Sichanderswerden)ofthe concept,not by finding ageneral logic,but by formally evacuatingthe content of knowledge.Any fixed sense becomesuseless.² One must realise thatafact can be apprehended onlywhenthere is aforced shift of focus from the idea of atotalisation of self-identity to apropositional logic that anticipates certainty.Ifsomething can be defined onlythrough its relation to the otherness, it fulfils its purpose by returning the concept to itself from aplace of otherness. This “rigorous exertion of the concept upon oneself”³ is acontradictory movement filled with coincidences (joyful wordplay), deficiencies (slipsofthe tongue), and disjunc- tions (jokes). To alleviate the weightofthe initial conceptual wager,let us take amore mun- dane, but fundamental conceptual approach to the subject at hand. While (positivis- tic) sciencesapproach the world with theireyeshalf shut,omitting the dynamic na- ture of knowledge, Wissenschaft,the German equivalent,isabletoencompass its structural capacity to change. Letusbeclear.Any phenomena can be knowable

 Although Marx had another form of discourse in mind, he incidentallyalso articulated an indica- tive quality of knowledge: “All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions,are sweptaway, all new-formed ones become antiquated beforethey can ossify”:Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, TheCommunist Manifesto,trans. Samuel Moore, introduction and notes by Gareth Stedman Jones (London: Penguin, 2002), 223.  Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit,36. An Atom of Touch: Scepticism from Hegel to Lacan 159

when it is givenasanobject of experience,which comes into being by wayofarous- ing sensation. However,reducing knowledge to sense perception is onlyenough to explicate abare positivity;evenifthis idea of knowledge enables one to become ac- quainted with the world of phenomena, it onlyposes aready-at-hand entity to be ap- propriated. Knowledge (Wissen)isnot merelyhanded down; it is additionally sup- plemented with the work of creation (schaft or schöpfen), adifferentiation of oneself (Selbstunderscheidung)inorder to establish the composition of science (Wis- senschaft). Both variants of science build upon their precursor,the ancient epistēmē, which is characterised by eternal necessities and the idea of objectsthat cannot be different from what they are, but only Wissenschaft encompasses the negative aspect of knowledge via scepticism. It is awell-worn assumption that scepticism is unable to keep an opinion firmlyinits hands, “onlypure nothing”;⁴ however,Hegel came closest to establishing aconvergencebetween these sceptical interventions and (eter- nal) truths. He paired the question “What can Iknow?” with the labour of conceptual unveiling and thereby grasped knowledge as the process of self-comprehension (Selbsterfassen), or,more directlyexpressed, the task of touching(Fassen)oneself (Selbst). In comparison to the common idea that scepticism should be equated with doubt,Hegel recognised amore accurate motive behind its activity: “to dissolve all certainty,toshow it in its nothingness.”⁵ Such is alsothe elementary sceptical de- mand that permeates Hegel’sthought.Inthis respect,the dissolution of determinate content is not merelyanidea for itself as it is intertwined with an elementarythesis regardingknowledge,accordingtowhich we cannot know whether our opinions are true. If scepticism were to retain onlythis negative aspect,then the onlyattainable certainty would be embedded in individual self-consciousness. Hegel was clearly aware of this when he comparedthe outcome of such sceptical affairs to atotal pa- ralysis of the limbs.⁶ Although this was alegitimate standpoint,heclearlydid not envision aparalysis of being,but rather an Elvis-likedance move. Even though this mayappear to be adebilitating motion, an ordinary dance posewhich suddenly turns into its opposite, this is the closest imageofthe idea of dialectics to have been presented in popular culture. While scepticism is merelyanegative determination of afinite will that can grasp subjective knowledge,Hegel’spositive speculative gesture

 Hegel, 53.  GeorgWilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Lectures on the HistoryofPhilosophy 1825–6. Volume 2: Greek Phi- losophy,ed. Robert F. Brown, trans.Robert F. Brown and J.M. Stuart with the assistanceofH.S.Harris (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2006), 302.  Thereisatendency to simplyyield to the radicalism of the sceptical negative stance;however,the respect thus gained is moreoften than not asolitary affair: “In fact,ifone utterlydesires to be ascep- tic, one cannot be affected, or be brought to apositive philosophy—anymorethan one who is par- alyzedinall his limbs can be made to stand. Such paralysis is indeed scepticism.” Asceptic is con- tent to “merely stand still in the negative, and in individual self-consciousness” (GeorgWilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie II.Werke, Band 19,ed. Eva Molden- hauer and Karl Markus Michel [Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986], 359). 160 Goran Vranešević

encompasses this negation in itself, but as an affirmative moment of truth. Thereby, knowledge is not sustained through the consciousness of objects, but is rather are- sult of areturn to oneself from the place of otherness. This othernessdoes not have to be defined, since it is not the content of the oth- erness that defines such amovement,but the act of intervention into something it- self which enables this something to stand on its own volition. Otherness shifts from an externalreference point to inhabitingthe mantle of the identity of this something. However,this is not an invitation to consider the something and its other as one and the sameentity;onthe contrary,some form of difference needstobepreserved. A case can be madethat apupilmust take on the practices that his teacher has pre- scribed to him as his own, while maintaining adistance from these practices and act- ing as if their presenceisredundant,adopting the teacher’sbehaviour without sim- plyimitating it and distinguishing himself by his effective adoption. There is no need for enchantment or passion, but merelyamechanicalrepetition of the subjectpre- sented for study. The otherness of the syllabus has to become the defining feature of the pupil. In asense, there is nothing else to education. The other elementarycharacteristic of scepticism is the act of declaring or assert- ing: to assert that thingsare changeable. The contemporary form of scepticism, which differs from the classical in that it fills the “negative movement” with certainty of thinking itself, referred to by Hegel as “the Calvary of the absolutespirit,”⁷ would have alegitimate reason to express the latter as adoctrine of doubt.However, doubt is onlycapable of producing uncertainty and restlessness that bring forth a general negativity;itisnot able to guarantee acriterion of validity. It is also possible to deducethat the above-mentioned assertion merelyclarifies thatthingsare estab- lished in theirbeing as well as in their non-being.For example, whenatacertain moment,wereasonablyclaim, “now is day-time” and afew moments later, “the now is the night,”⁸ we are justified in speakingofthe same thing—namely, this now—in its contradictory meaning,maintaining itself vis-à-visits opposite. In this manner,itispossibletoassign the moniker of asceptic even to Homer,who breathes into Odysseus the spirit of contradiction. Captured in the Cyclops’scave, Odysseus gets the latter drunk and tells him his name: “Nobody(Outis)—that’smyname.”⁹ During that same night,Odysseus and his companions blinds the Cyclops, which rouses his Cyclopean neighbourstocry out to him: “Is somebody(mētis)trying to kill younow by fraudorforce?” The Cyclops’sspontaneous reaction is to reply: “No- body friends, is killing me now,byfraud and not by force!”¹⁰ The truth of the scene is

 Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit,467 (translation modified).  Hegel, 65–66.  Homer, Odyssey,trans. Robert Fagles,introductionand notes by BernardKnox(New York: Penguin, 1996), 9.410(223).  Homer,9.454–55 (224). An Atom of Touch: Scepticism from Hegel to Lacan 161

structured as untruth. This cunning linguistic trick¹¹ chases the Cyclopes away,re- vealing the orientation of asceptic—aone-sided negative determination against the positive.But this sceptical insight should,first and foremost,act as aconfirma- tion that anegation determines all determinations.Since the main determination is not truth, but the certainty of untruth, the conclusion can be drawnthat in the stub- born certitude of doubt, there is no inclination to reach anytruth. Furthermore, prob- ablyevenmoreimportantly,the same should hold true for anyword. It would be convenient if Hegel could offer awell-rounded exposé of the scepti- cal assumption regarding the inscription of knowledge into the world. However,the extent of his understanding was still areflection of the ageinwhich he addressed this topic. After the ancient Greek period, when reasoning was moulded by aesthet- ics, and then the domination of the religious discourse that was prevalent in the greater part of the 19th century,the lastmatrix of reasoningwas framed by science (Wissenschaft). While this maynot be the consensus,itisnevertheless reasonable to arguethat Hegel propagated the most consistent form of the scientific approach (Wissenschaftliche Verfahrensweise), identifying knowledge in the experience of its failurefrom the position of knowledge itself. The failureisnot reflected in the inabil- ity to meet an intended objective,but is contained in the return to oneself from the place of othernessthat retrospectively expresses the truth as the road to the truth. Such asuccessfullack of success represents ageneral feature of the modernworld in which the ever-continuous pursuit of knowledge,whereconsciousness “can find no rest,”¹² is sacrificedinthe name of knowledge as such. This knowledge does not derive from ascepticism that is solelydirected towardsthe outside, but is aproduct of self-reflexive kind, a “self-consummating skepticism” (sich vollbrin- gende Skeptizismus).¹³ The knowledge thatHegel brought to the forefront was knowledge attached to the logic of signification. It does not produce meaning, understanding,orcompre- hension, but overcomes the separation of subjectand object,not by abolishing

 “Ou/mē tis,not somebody, anythingbut somebody, nobody”:Barbara Cassin, “Ab-sense, or Lacan from AtoD,”in Alain Badiou and Barbara Cassin, There’sNoSuch Thing as aSexual Relation- ship:Two Lessons on Lacan,trans.Susan Spitzer and Kenneth Reinhard, introduction by Kenneth Reinhard(New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), 33.  Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit,54.  Hegel, 52. Different thinkers have expounded the gist of the impact of scepticism on Hegel’s works. However,the sceptical imposition as such does not usuallyplayacentral roleinthe unfolding of his thought.For instance, DieterHenrich argues that Hegel’sspeculativelogic “seamlesslyincor- porates atheory of the construction (Aufbau)ofall historical forms of metaphysics” (Henrich, 1991, 90), which also entails dogmatism, scepticism, etc. On the other hand, Markus Gabriel highlights the other aspect of scepticism; namely, how Hegelsought in it “abasic featureofmetaphysical thinking” (Gabriel, 2011,32) which would disclose the path to absolute knowledge.Both, in their own way, im- plicitlyoroutright,object to scepticism’sfailuretoform ametaphysical basis for goingbeyond itself, while Hegelhimself was adamant that such abeyond is merelyanexpression of the impossibility embedded in aphenomenal world. 162 Goran Vranešević

their independence,but by understanding thatthe subject’sother is nothing more than the subjectinits opposite determination. Despite this incremental insight into knowledge,Hegel did not account for an aspect of modernity that seems funda- mentally anti-sceptical: the ability to encompass anycontingencyand transfer it fur- ther untouched in its minimal form. This is especiallyevident in modernscience,wherethe naturalphenomena be- come comprehensible onlywhen they are “translittérable,transcribable into letters,” as this makes knowledge universallyavailable. The suitability of the letter form for asserting the self-identity and universality of knowledge follows from the circum- stance that it embodies the smallest element of meaning,acting as an index of itself. This insight prompted Galileo to consider the great Book of Nature as an alphabet of nature and thus written using mathematical letters.Such an integraltransference is the most basic form of understanding,an“atom of knowledge,”¹⁴ knowledge thatis indivisible, self-referring, and universal. Modern science,bornwith Galileo, brought about a(fundamental) modification of the scientificframework, an effective wayof providingaccuracyand transferability of this self-referential structure. Thetransfer of knowledge is entrusted to the written word, or more precisely, to the letter.In- spired by Koyre’sreadingofmodern science as the practice of mathematisation and empiricism, Milner clarified that both of these functions can be reducedtoasin- gle letter,since “mathematics in science can letter everything empirical”¹⁵ and since the letter “captures the differenceinwhat is constantlydifferent”¹⁶ and should there- fore not be viewed as amere transcription of empirical facts. Aprecise description of this science would be “literalised science,” having the capacity to incorporate con- tingent propositions by sewing together the unchangeable and the fleeting or the negative. Although an essential account of this shift can alreadybediscerned in the logic of Hegel’s Wissenschaft,¹⁷ it was more thoroughlyoutlined by Lacan, who leaned on signifyinglogic to delineate scientific theory,astance that enables us to grasp how thingsdiffer from one another.That is, asignifier does not represent thingsorelicit meaning,asits function is, similar to Hegel’suse of otherness, simply to refer to an-

 Jean-Claude Milner, Jasno delo:Lacan, znanost, filozofija,trans. Peter Klepec and Ana Žerjav, in- troduction and notesbyJelica Šumič-Riha (Ljubljana: ZRC SAZU,Založba SAZU,2005), 126.  Milner,59.  Milner,60.  When elaboratingonthe relationship between languageand alphabetical writingsystem, Hegel, almost in passing, highlighted the vital function of lettering;namely, that it is in the alphabet that we can find the word, “the most dignified wayofexpressingthe ideas specific to intelligence, brought to consciousness,made to the object of reflection” (GeorgWilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse, 1830,Dritter Teil, Werke, Band 10 [Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986], 275). Moreover,onlyonthe basis of these constituent few lettering elements, which act as asort of “primal gestures of articulating,” is it possible to bringforth “the sensuousness of speech to universality,which at the same time attains completepositivity and purity in this ele- mentary mode” (Hegel, 275). An Atom of Touch: Scepticism from Hegel to Lacan 163

other signifier and thereby to allow us to comprehend things. Theoriginal character of anythoughtisnot onlytodifferentiateitself from some other thought,but alsoto mark how its object is different from all other objects. As Milner argues, “the theory of the signifier is the theory of thought as such.”¹⁸ Furthermore, in the framework of signification, knowledge offers insight into the mechanism of copulation, revealing the wayinwhich the link between matter and form, male and female, or active and passiveisstructured and persists. In this context,the structure of twoelements relies on adependency of one on the other.However,aLacanian reflection pushes this oppositionevenfurther.How can we grasp this minimal form of two?Regarding the relation of these pairs, there is only “the sole sense, one-sense, is un-sense”:¹⁹ there is no such thing as arelationship, onlyacontingencythat is held together as awritten formalisation. Confrontingsuch irreconcilable pairs alsoformalises them. Lacan recognised the inability of the signifier to encompass aspecific, contin- gent structure and therefore committed his attention to the theory of the letter,which enables the transferability of knowledge of contingency. To recapitulate the argumentation so far: if we regard scepticism as the royal road to knowledge,wealso have to take into account that the usual exposition of scepticism, premised on continuous doubting,does not offer asufficient framework. The sceptic is preoccupied with an ever-present undecidability that paralyses him. Hegel clearly understood this and made appropriate adjustments.Inhis hands, scep- ticism as general form of uncertainty is left without the onlyremaining certitude; namely, that of uncertaintyitself. To completethe final gesture of sceptical philoso- phytherefore means to insist on thinking the nothingness of certaintytothe very end until every particularity is dissolved. An individual who performs such an act of self- renunciation is thereby returning to himself as nothing and ensuring identity with himself. The truth of the matter is that the universality of knowledge is maintained preciselyinthis self-othering.Lacan embraced this radical nature of nothingness and deduced the consequences in the field of language. He borrowed the conceptual apparatus from modernscience, especiallythe principle of its necessity and empiri- cal exactness, but most importantly,heposited formal entities as the exclusive ma- terial of reasoning. In this manner,heredefined the question of knowledge.Knowl- edge is not atask of acquiringfacts and certainty, but rather something that we exercise and express.

 Jean-Claude Milner, “Lacan and Modern Science,” European Journal of Psychoanalysis 3–4(1996– 97): 126, accessed 07/06/2019, http://www.psychomedia.it/jep/number3-4/milner.htm.  Cassin, “Ab-sense, or Lacan from AtoD,”9. 164 Goran Vranešević

On Scepticism

What is the smallest measure of knowledge?Any assessment of knowledge has to pass through acertain criterion. It is necessary to understand what the criterion that justifies knowledge is. In Ancient Greek thought, epistēmē of an object discloses the characteristics that make it necessary and eternal, while modern empiricist sci- ence constantlyrevises knowledge according to new understandings. In this respect, scepticism practised by individual thinkers duringthe period of German idealism, es- pecially Hegel, bypassed such afilter.They instead adapted to the aporia of the end- less relegation of accountability,whereby every representation, or more precisely concept,issupported by another: whether it has amoral (Kant), linguistic (Herder), ethical (Fichte), or even historicalstructure (Schelling), it consistentlyforms atran- scendental background, which affirmsunderstanding.Inorder to nonetheless pre- serveasortofcoherenceofthis idealistic movement,such asystem has to be struc- tured around afixing point,aletter,and not exclusively through the inter-subjective sphere of the spirit.While the final form of Spirit is expressed in the instant when the world comes to know itself in pure particularity (Napoleon as the World-Spiriton horseback), aletter constitutes apositivity that can be demonstrated (sensual sup- port,referent,etc.). Milner argues that “letters include the differenceinthat which is constantlydifferent.”²⁰ The minimal inscription of the letter guarantees that con- tingent propositions are as they are, without there being areason for it.Atthe same time, letters have no reason to be different from how they are and are thereby iden- tical with themselvesthrough theircontingentlygained qualities. Thisholds even truer for our contemporary times; just take into consideration the fact that modern biologyispreconditioned on three simple letters:DNA.²¹ Since asceptical outlook proves onlywhat it presupposes, comprehendingwhat is included in thought (mathematics or semantics), but never being able to depend on their application to the empirical sphere. There maybenoabsolutetruths, but a sceptic nevertheless strivestoestablish some traces of truth, or rather certainty.²²

 Milner, Jasno delo,60.  While Milnerwas perceptive enough to recognise this fundamental structure(Milner, Jasno delo, 96), thereisanevenmoreessential structurethat is shaping our world. This was Marx’sdeduction of the self-valorising valueofcapital with onlythree letters, M–C–M, the formula that perpetuates the activity between money,commodity,and surplus-money that not onlychangedeconomic theory and logic, but restructuredreality.  It is certainlyimpossible to determine adefinitive description of scepticism as such, sincethereis an unbridgeable gapbetween the ancient notion of skepsis and the modern logicofscepticism. While Aenesidemus refusesany notion of truth, be it sensible, intelligible, or in another form, Descartes maintains his doubt about our capacity to know alterityorotherness.Thereweremanyother thinkers whocould be or wereidentified as sceptics;however,the modern idea of asceptic is best embodied by Schulze.Against Kant’sinsistenceondisclosingthe conditions of possibility of knowledge, Schulze rejected the possibilityofaconsistent conception of knowledge: “If what the Critique claims to know of the foundations of experience is real knowledge,the affirmation of the same Critique,ac- An Atom of Touch: Scepticism from Hegel to Lacan 165

Scepticism’smost notable modernrepresentative,Gottlob E. Schulze, argued that all attempts to find ageneral and permanent endorsement of ascience as the “uncon- ditioned causesofeverything that is conditioned,” ultimatelyfail. Schulze clarified that the reason for this failurewas thatthe “bread of reason” had been viewed as unconditioned stone under our feet.Instead of this, he refurbishes the formalistic idea inherent to Kant—thatis, the distinction between the object and subject—into aconditioned system in which certainty is based on the facts of consciousness alone. This led to Hegel’sjustified criticism of Kant’s “spiritless letter of aspiritless spirit.”²³ While this criticism seems fatal to the sceptical method,itsimultaneouslycon- stituted the principle accordingtowhich Hegel himself argued thatconsciousness negates its own position and thereby elevates itself to another,higher state of con- sciousness. One after another,the series of appearancesfail,leaving behind onlya memento of their contingencyintheform of aletter,awritten remainder.²⁴ It is in this movement that natural consciousness passes the test of reality and affirms the necessity thatconstitutes the lawofknowledge,inwhich anybodyisable to search for aunivocal sense. As Hegel remarked, “the positive aspect of scepticism resides in that […]itdoes not go beyond consciousness […]and indeed, has the ex- istenceofthat which is giveninthe periphery of our consciousness as undeniable

cording to which all true knowledge of our mind is exclusively limitedtoobjects of experience, is ab- solutelyfalse. If, on the contrary,this latter affirmation must be true, all knowledge of the sourcesof experiencemust be takenasawhole to be an empty appearance” (Gottlob Ernst Schulze, Kritik der theoretischen Philosophie,Vol. 2. [Reprint edition. Brussels:Cultureetcivilisation, 1973], 2:578[17]).  GeorgWilhelm Friedrich Hegel, “Verhältnis des Skeptizismus zur Philosophie. Darstellungseiner verschiedenenModifikationen und Vergleichungdes neuesten mit dem alten,” in Jenaer Schriften, 1801–1807. Werke, Band 2,ed. Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel (Frankfurt am Main: Meiner Verlag, 1970), 269.  Thereisanargument to be made that lettersare interchangeable with signifiers.EvenLacan’s paradigmatic text on this topic, “The Instanceofthe Letter in the Unconscious,orReason since Freud,” was ambiguous regarding their relationship. However,ifweinterpretitasasimple synonymy between these expressions, it would be necessary to establish acommon definition. That was practi- callyimpossible until his lateseminars,especially Encore,where the main differentiatingelements became evident.Their functionwas preciselydelimited. While the signifier resonates onlywithin a relationship, “where it represents for and is what it represents” (Milner, Jasno delo,131), aletter has adistinctively affirmative essence. Beingapureform of differentiatingrelation signifiers are the embodiment of negativity,existingonlyinrelationtothe other.Not havingareason to be as they arefor themselves, someone else must speak for them. The oppositeistrue for the letter, which is attributed with positive features that enable it to be transferred, famouslyconstituting the framework of the four fundamental types of discourse, and to have aself-referential relationship. Both qualities result from the compulsion to be declared: “What is written […]itonlysubsists if Iuse it to present the language(langue)Iuse” (Jacques Lacan, TheSeminar of Jacques Lacan,Book20: On Feminine Sexuality,the Limits of Loveand Knowledge,ed. Jacques-Alain Miller,trans.BruceFink[New York and London: W.W. Norton &Company, 1999], 119). This is also the definingcharacteristic that makes it aperfect vessel for knowledge. 166 Goran Vranešević

certainty.”²⁵ However,these appearances,which could have been completelydiffer- ent up to the point of their sublation, become unchangeable. The usual waytounderstand letters is to consider them as an indication of apar- ticular meaning;²⁶ however,here, they stand as formal entities, which are open to in- terpretation. Thechain of refutations of natural consciousness is not merelyrelation- al, as it also produces these entities. By facilitating apositive existence, letters cause restlessness.Thus, insteadofdeterminingaprecise field pertaining to knowledge,it is paramount to firstlyidentify with the letter.Thisisunderstandablyacurious the- sis, but it is not groundless.Beforeknowing languageand before acquiring knowl- edge itself, there is the mark(the letter)ofthe impasse of formalisation. To put it dif- ferently, the letter enables acontingent characteristic to receive “an imaginary trait of that which cannot be different than it is,” which is more commonlyreferred to as “the necessityofthe laws of science.”²⁷ Understandingscepticism as an affair of doubt is consequentlyevenmore difficult to defend:

However,itdoes not have the meaningofscepticism, which has no other goal than doubting itself that one should stand still in this indecision of the spirit,which has its freedom therein. It has rather the sense that one must renounce anyprejudice.²⁸

Since Hegel, it has been practicallyself-explanatory that naturalconsciousness has a sceptical character.While this is an essentialposition of modern thought,italsoil- lustrates are-evaluatedperspective on scepticism itself. Although the classicaltradi- tion of scepticism originatesfrom apresupposed understanding that anyaspiration for real knowledge has to be renounced, scepticism of the modernage is not opposed to “final” knowledge,but claims that philosophyhas not provided asufficient justi- fication of knowledge.However,itisthereby not striving to undermine philosophy, but providingunconditional aid, workingasanaccomplice to philosophy, or avoice that martyrs for truth:

As soon as true and universallyconclusive principles arefound and instituted in philosophy, by which it will be possible to determine what we can know and what not […]scepticism will im- mediatelyreachits end.²⁹

 Hegel, “Verhältnis des Skeptizismus zur Philosophie,” 227.  The most obvious example is the Greek alphabet,sincethe word “alphabet” consists of the first two letters,alpha (α)and beta (β). Furthermore, the Greek alphabet borrowed its structurefromthe Phoenicians,who used aleph,which also meant “ox,” and bet,which also meant “house.”  Milner, Jasno delo,72.  GeorgWilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie III.Werke, Band 20,ed. Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986), 72.  Gottlob Ernst Schulze, Aenesidemusoder über die Fundamente der von Herrn Professor Reinholdin Jena gelieferten Elementar-Philosophie,ed. Manfred Frank (Frankfurt am Main: Meiner Verlag,1996). An Atom of Touch: Scepticism from Hegel to Lacan 167

In the same vein as foxhunters who understand themselvestobeconservators of rural culture, sceptical thinkers act against philosophyinthe name of philosophy. Despite scepticism’stendencytowards self-termination, it is also based on the prem- ise that human reason is directed towards perfection.Itisaconstant re-evaluation of this sameposition. The unappeasable drive of doubt, or rather skepsis,ishindered onlybyits own reliance on consciousness; namely, doubt itself persists onlythrough the facts of consciousness, astancethat is problematic in its simplicity.Any fleeting experience,beitanexchangeofglances on public transport,the depth of sunlit spring trails,orthe rhyme of amidnight poem, is permeated with an inevitable vol- atility,adiscrepancy between expectations and their manifestation, which can be reconciled, accordingtothe sceptic, onlybyarational principle. While certain apri- ori traces of truths are undeniable even for asceptic—for instance, the notion that all bodies are heavy—the realm of hyperphysical phenomenais, without exception, sus- pect to such sceptical concerns. The sceptical eyethus perceivesthe objective world in discord. The sceptic must thereforealways look over his own shoulder to catch a glimpse of an impending conceptual treason committed against the kingdom of ob- jective reality.Itisnot ill-fittingtodefine such ademeanour as paranoid, going so far as to put into question every relation that entails the identity of thinkingand being. Every single object with theoretical value becomes unjustified in the eyes of ascep- tic. Insofar as reason is made out of conceptual building blocks, asceptical critique is aimedatthis fundament itself, an apriori thatcan be reconciled onlyunder con- ditionsset forth by the sceptic. Even though the sceptical principle of functioning is generallybasedonnon- identity (of thinkingand being,object and subject), it alsoestablishes the conditions under which such an identity is possible. When scepticism is consistent with its own determination, it inevitably exposes the contradictions inherent in rational catego- ries and thereby transforms its own inner order into identity.However,asceptical identity cannot achievemore than to mechanicallyunify the discrepancy embedded into the world. It repeatedlyintroducesexternal rational terms in order to sew up the tear in the world, which produces, at best,apatched-togetherconception of reality.It is, on the contrary,onlypossible to install aworld that recognises the sameidentity, in its entirety and in its parts,byrejectingthe choice of either/or. The kernelofthis thought form is present in Hegel’sfigure of knowledge as “the identity of identity and non-identity”³⁰ that was actuallyintended to be an elucida- tion of Schelling’sidea of “identityofidentity” or “duplicatedidentity.”³¹ Both of them were in agreement thatidentity and non-identityhavethe markingsofthe same whole, but differed in the elaboration of the said whole. Whereas Schelling does not recogniseamethod by which adifferencebetween one and the other

 GeorgWilhelm Friedrich Hegel, TheDifference between Fichte’sand Schelling’sSystem of Philos- ophy,trans. H.S.Harris and Walter Cerf (Albany, NY:SUNY Press, 1977), 46.  Wilhelm Friedrich Schelling, Sämmtliche Werke: Band 6 (Munich:Beck, 1979), 117, 165. 168 Goran Vranešević

can be determined and comprehended from the standpoint of the all-encompassing identity,Hegel sees it the other wayaround. One has to go with the flow of the object, surrender to the differences that it expresses.Inthis manner,itbecomes clear that objects are not held togetherbyidentical provisions, but by differences. It is only when we see differences in thingsthat we can assign aspecific identity to them. If we follow the use of German idealistic vocabulary,identity is authentic when it is an identity of identity and non-identity,since the identity between the latter is real- ised through the fact that they are different. In Phenomenology of Spirit,Hegel signifies such astance as the alreadymen- tioned “self-consummatingskepticism.”³² Stone has to become bread and not the other wayaround. Such amoveshould decisively burythe last corpses of ancient scepticism, but,evenmore damningly, should alsodeal an openhanded slap to Schulze’sself-assurance. The position of self-consumingscepticism necessarilyen- compasses asign of chance; something that is present in acertain form, but could also exist otherwise.This tension never reaches asatisfactory resolution or under- standing.But as long as this condition is met,asserting uncertainty that concurrently discloses the contingencyofcertitude, the modernsceptic is workinginamanner as if knowledge can be produced. The notion of identity that comes from Hegel’smouth is very precise in these matters. This differenceisconstructed through identity,³³ or,asknown in linguistics and constitutingthe purest form, through homophones, which are not merelyidentical- soundingwords, but the formal conditions under which touch is enacted, and with it the need for interpretation. Homophones can touch youbecause they touch their other in themselves. Once heard, they cannot be left unattended. The indistin- guishable sound between sense and scents calls for an intervention. Or take, for ex- ample,the famous witticism illustrated in Shakespeare’s Romeoand Juliet:

SAMPSON: Gregory,onmyword, we’ll not carry coals. GREGORY: No, for then we should be colliers. SAMPSON: Imean, and we be in choler,we’ll draw. GREGORY: Ay,whileyou live,drawyour neck out of collar.³⁴

It mayseem that collier (“coal miner”)coincidentlycorresponds to choler (“irritabil- ity”), or even by chance; however,the third element in the chain, collar (“neck appa- rel”), makes it clear that thereismoreatplay. Thisparallelism of lexeme pronunci- ation is an expression of the waythat an individual community “addresses its own

 Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit,52.  Hegelpoints out that “differenceinitself is the differencethat refers itself to itself; thus it is the negativity of itself, the differencenot from another but of itself from itself; it is not itself but its other. What is different from difference, however,isidentity.” GeorgWilhelm Friedrich Hegel, TheScience of Logic, ed. George di Giovanni (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2010), 361.  William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet,ed. G. BlakemoreEvans, updated ed. (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 1.1.1–4(emphasesadded). An Atom of Touch: Scepticism from Hegel to Lacan 169

unconscious experience.”³⁵ There is an immanent positive quality to language. A similar structural principle is present in Marx’sclass antagonism, which does not simplydistinguishasimple differencebetween incompatible social positions, but provides afundament according to which it is possible to discern interests in the first place.

On Homophony

To comprehend such an incremental dimension³⁶ of knowledge,weneed to discern more specificallythe homophonic feature of language. Lacan’sinsights willguide us in clarifying this peculiarfacet.Whatprinciple in languageenables different words to be pronounced in the same mannerwhile simultaneouslyconditioning the dehis- cenceintheirmeaning?The usual suspect is homonymy. One word, one sound, dif- ferent meanings. However,the playofwords that characterises homophony is ex- pressed through asingle pronunciation.³⁷ Even if homophonyisusually regarded as asubstratum³⁸ of homonymy, it has an underminingrole. Their relationship has arather fortunate similarity to the abovementioned difference that delimitssignifica- tion from literalisation. The first introduces alogic whereevery signification always

 Jacques Lacan, “La troisième,” La cause freudienne 79 (2011): 11–33.  As is usual with Lacan, the use of words is asimple neutral endeavour,and in this case, the word “dimension” is not astylistic choice, but refers to the homophonic dimension that is proper to knowl- edge.Bywriting “dit-mension,” Lacan invokestwo French words: firstly, dit (“whatissaid,” but also “word”)and secondly mension,which is related to mensonge (“lie”): “Dit-mension is mension of the said. This wayofwritinghas an advantage,which is to allow mension to be extended into mensionge, which indicates that what is said is not at all necessarilytrue” (Jacques Lacan, TheSinthome: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XXII,trans. A.R.Price(Cambridge:Polity Press,2016), 124–25.  If there is aLacanian point to makehere, it has to be expanded on: “Si le style, c’est l’homme [ɔm], le tracé du stylet c’est l’(at)ome [(a.t)ɔm]” (Cassin, “Ab-sense, or Lacan fromAto D,” 90). Atoms arenot merely arepresentation of the smallest thing, but amaterialisation of language, which is whyDemocritus reads atoms as letters. They arewritten down on arollofpaperorpapyrus (tomos,[ˈtɔ.moːs]) and in this sense areanexpression of a(wo)man’sstyle. While the weight of the atoms is held upright by the physicality of letters, their actualisationisinscribed in the sound [ɔm].  “Homonym” is derivedfromthe Greek homōnymos, “bearingthe same name, and usingthe same denomination,” which is acombination of homos, “same” (from which we gethomo-) and onoma, “name.” The effectiveness of homonyms relies on the accidental coincidenceofwords; that is, aho- monymyispresent whenever one word has several meanings.Aristotle had alreadydistinguished the peculiar natureofhomonyms. He insisted on anon-contradictory link between the order of beingand the order of discourse, hence the roleofthe univocality of words and sentences: “Fornot to have one meaningistohavenomeaning” (Aristotle, Metaphysics 4.4, 1006b7–8, in Complete Works,ed. Jona- than Barnes,2vols., 6th ed. [Princeton: Princeton University Press,1995], 2:1589). Because homonyms violatethe principle of non-contradiction, they wereconsidered undesirable by Aristotle, whowent so far as to call them adeep-rooted linguistic disease in that there aremorethings than thereare words and we therefore have to use the same words for several things(Sophistical Refutations 1.164a4–19). 170 Goran Vranešević

refers to another signification and thereby establishes an interconnected system whereevenamissing object has its proper place. Similarly,homonyms need to be attachedtoaparticular context in order to produce an appropriate meaning.Take, for example, a fair lady, aladywho can be beautifuland equitable, but not neces- sarilybothatonce. Meanwhile, literalisation sidesteps the question of meaning by despiritualising the examined phenomena, making formal entities out of them. In this sense, they function as alocalised event that has universalproperties,just like homophones, which have their own unrelated existenceand onlyencounter each other by mere chance. Forinstance, in LewisCarroll’s Alice’sAdventures in Wonderland,Alice herself is seduced by the mouse’slongand sad tale,asshe has been imaginingall this time that he was referringtohis tail. Ever since the dawn of modern linguistics, inaugurated by Saussure, asign has become detachedfrom the corresponding thing.Take Saussure’sfamous example of atree(arbre). It is improbable that an idea of atree would simply connect with a wordorsound designatingatree. Saussure drew the radical conclusion that “alin- guistic sign is not alink between athing and aname,but between aconcept and a sound pattern,”³⁹ or,respectively,between asignifier and asignified:

ARBRE

Moving further in the evolution of structural linguistics, such an explanation was still unsatisfactory in Lacan’seyes. He addressed it by constructingasimplified ver- sion of the sign, which “shows how the signifier actuallyenters the signified”:⁴⁰ an imageoftwo doors, both unmistakablyleadingaperson to the expression of their natural needs, the onlydifference between them being asignifying inscription abovethem:

 Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics,trans. Roy Harris (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 76.  Jacques Lacan, Écrits,trans. Bruce Fink in collaboration with Héloïse Fink and Russell Grigg(New York and London: W.W. Norton&Company, 2006), 417. An Atom of Touch: Scepticism from Hegel to Lacan 171

HOMMES DAMES

There is no dialogue, no well-established meaning or copulation that distinguishes them. Allofthese are possible retroactively,since the “signifier alone guarantees the theoretical coherenceofthe whole as awhole.”⁴¹ In order to form acoherent es- sence, asignifier necessarilyattaches itself to another signifier,forming achain that is, in the last instance, the onlygraspable object.Itispossibletodiscern such a mechanism in the children’sgame Red Rover,wherethe goal is to break one of the two chains of hands or arms linked togetherbyone of the teams. If successful, the team acquires additional player-signifiers, thereby making it impossible to persist as alone player. Even the final futile act of the game is to try to secure anew chain one last time. The chain itself has anegative existence, since each team is onlyable to endurebylinking arms with another.Such an embodiment of negativity that relies on the absenceofcertainty can be viewed as the closest linguistic analogytoascep- tical work. We have alreadypointed out that in its purest form, scepticism opens and maintains aminimalgap,anegativity between asubject and an object.But because of its empty nature, it is unable to encompass the specificity of agiven structure. What the signifier is not able to achieveindividually, aletter is. We have already pointed out that it is identical with itself and always readyathand.Inthis view,a letter does not represent aquality or an attribute; it is instead aformal entity that lends itself to interpretation. Furthermore, the status of an entity enables it to be grasped, transformed, appropriated, and broughtinto contact or connection with an- other letter.Take, for instance, aline segment,which is bound by two distinct end- points marked with aletter.The line is made visible, thinkable, and coherent when it is lettered and forms arule. Conversely, take away aletter from DNAand the molec- ular double helix simply collapses. While asignifier can be missing,aletter has its own assuredplace and is thus present at hand and integrallytransmissible, making it not just asuitable means of expressingknowledge,but also giving access to its purest form. The structure of letteringisconsequentlysupposedtooffer an ideal form of knowledge accumulation and its further consumption. What holds this idea of knowledge togetherissupposed to be atwofold homonymicarrangement: univocity, giving it clear unified sense, and literalisation, which givesitcoherence and repeat-

 Lacan, 345. 172 Goran Vranešević

ability.The product of word-for-wordharmonicunion is thereforeclearlytransferable elements of knowledge that are of practical use in language. The paradigmatic exam- ple of “the persistent sameness of aname is […] Aufhebung,”⁴² which simultaneously means to transcend, to preserve, and to cease. Aufhebung exhibits self-identity, while being caught in its owndifferentiation. Although Aristotle was aware that thingscan gettangled up in the samename,but not the same definition of being,⁴³ Alice in Wonderland was clearlynot:

[Alice:] “Yousee the earth takes twenty-four hours to turn round on its axis—” “Talking of axes,” said the Duchess, “chop off her head!”⁴⁴

Who would encouragethe idea to sever ahead?Well, Alice. This readingofaletter, usually attributed to ahomonymous copula, establishes acontinuity of thought,an unconscious weaving of an idea. Alice is warned that “if everybodyminded their own business,” leaving the field of enunciation as it is, then “the world would go round a deal faster thanitdoes.”⁴⁵ Regardless, Alice intervenes with an elementalknowledge that should be self-evident.Letters are not just amediumofsameness, since they also need to “include difference in what is constantlyother.”⁴⁶ The possibility of being otheristhe measure of contingency.Whilst homonyms have afundamental characteristic of knowledge in that they encompass identity in difference, they lack the ability to encompass contingency. Moreover,the distinguishing function of writing makes it possibletodifferentiatebetween meanings and thereby ignore anyinstance of homonymy. Homonyms maybesubjecttothis objection, but it does not bind homophones. The letter simultaneouslyfunctions as an inscription of an impasse of formalisa- tion and as the instability of languageitself. Linguistic principles are unable to inter- pret the antagonismembeddedinthe homophonic structure. Usually, homonymyis simplymapped onto homophonyasone of its variants. Both are usuallyunderstood as something similar,but of adifferent nature. However,itisnot without significance if we give primacy to speech or script.Itispreciselyhere that homophonesenter the frame. The hard kernelofhomonyms is written in an identical form. To illustrate the nature of homonyms, we mayturn to OscarWilde’splay TheImportance of Being Ear- nest. The main character is introduced as neither earnest nor Ernest,but by the end of the play, he is both. Homophones,incontrast,are produced through an identical sound.The remarkable homophonic overlappingoforation and ratio allows us to hear the quality of logos in speech. The emphasis is on enunciation. There is an in-

 Mladen Dolar, Heglovafenomenologija duha (Ljubljana: Analecta, 2017), 408.  cf. Aristotle, Categories 1a1–2, in Complete Works,Vol.1, ed. Jonathan Barnes [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995], 1:3.  Lewis Carroll, Alice’sAdventures in Wonderland (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 2015), 51 (emphases added).  Carroll, 50.  Milner, Jasno delo,60. An Atom of Touch: Scepticism from Hegel to Lacan 173

coherencepresent in homophones, which can be seen as anti-linguistic, in the sense that something is resistingcompleteintegration into the letter.Hearingacoinciding sound conveys that nothing can be deduced but their mere (singular)existence. As Milnerputs it,the homophone has an “integrallypositive and affirmative,” yet “punctual”⁴⁷ quality.Itisthus impossibletointegrate ahomophone into alinguistic structure as awhole. If homonymic structure is based on regularities that are unable to encompass contingency,homophonesare themselvescontingent solitary phenom- ena that produce asurplus.Indeed, homonyms wave through each other and homo- phones wave to each other.Itisthereforeessentialtofollow Saussure to the logical end that is in away present in his analysis of anagrams.⁴⁸

ARBRE HOMMES DAMES KNOWNO

nəʊ

Atreecan harbour both aconcept and sound, doors fixated to aminimal signifying pair,but an enunciation’sencounter with itself offers adifferent perspective.For “know” and “no” to inhabit the samespace, we must reject anyaffinity to transcen- dental postulates, but alsotolinguistics, and instead relyonsingular craftsmanship whereby even words become something otherthan what they are. Homophones seem to induceuncertainty by circumventing anypretension to knowledge;however,we have seen that knowledge is premised on the identity of identity and non-identity. Accordingtothe lawofidentity,A=A,the pure identity inevitably undermines its own identity by presentingadifferencethat is in no wayexternal to identity.There- fore, homophones are not an instance where two words coincide, but asingularity,⁴⁹ aminimum of an object,which is purgedofall qualities, but stops shortlybefore abolishingthe object itself and making it unknowable. At the sametime, it is also

 Jean-Claude Milner, “Back and Forth fromLetter to Homophony,” Problemi International 1, no. 1 (2017): 88.  Saussure’swork in Cahiers d’anagrammes revolved around the widespread use of anagrams con- cealed in Latin poetry,specificallyhis preoccupation with Saturnian verse, but remained unresolved and unpublished. This researchpredated his famous Cours de linguistique générale. See Jean Staro- binski, Wordsupon Words: TheAnagrams of Ferdinand de Saussure,trans. Olivia Emmet (New Havenand London: Yale University Press,1979).  AlenkaZupančič interprets the figure of the double in an identical fashion: “The double is exactly not the figure of the two,itdoes not implyany duality,but is the privileged figure of singularity—we could say, it is singularity par excellence […]aone, which is singularised until it is unrecognisable.” AlenkaZupančič, Seksualno in ontologoja (Ljubljana: Analecta,2011), 157. 174 Goran Vranešević

not one, not even asimple negation, but areoccurring parasite attached to enunci- ation that inhibits asymbolic space, an irreducible coreofsameness that exists as an independent essence and haunts both words. Through repetition, the homophonic words introduce acontingency into knowledge,something that enables aparticular wordtobecompletelydifferent,animpasse, which does not represent an exception, but the point of aspecific articulation, afolding of knowledge onto itself.⁵⁰ An eman- cipation of words from the lexical foundation, but alsosemantic dependency. If scepticism is capable of producing knowledge,itisinthe form of such spec- ulative homophonic enunciations, whereby the (guaranteed) position of knowledge is sacrificedatthe behest of knowledge itself while withholding the answer of what this knowledge is. If the principal conundrum was how knowledge is con- ceived, it has been rearticulated as the problem of scepticism and further,the dilem- ma of establishing arelationship of two. In the end, it is the work of finding the min- imal fundament of their cohabitation. And since there is no sexual relationship predicated on the two, in the sense of asuccessful copulation or joining together, it is onlypossibletoknow them as singular instances,aminimal object or,perhaps most appropriately, an atom. Contrary to common sense, atoms are not atoms be- cause they are the smallest bodies, but because they are indivisible. While tomos is the cut, atomos is the uncuttable. Therefore, an atom can onlybethe undividable fundament.Naturally, Hegel takesaspeculative stepfurther and conceptualises the atom as acut between the one and the emptiness that inhabits the samevalue. The logic is simple; everythingcan be cut except the cut itself.The fundament is thus split in itself, or is asplit(Unterbrechung). If we make the final step, all these char- acteristics convergeinasingle gesture: atouch, not simplyatouch of the hands, but atouch embodied in homophony. Hence, touch is not present in the interaction of two distinct entities, nor in the contact of sameness, but in the identity with other- ness, an identity that meets the other of oneself in oneself. Andafter all, isn’t “know- ing the unity in the opposite and the opposition in unity”⁵¹ one of the definitions of absoluteknowledge?

 In her work on repetition, BaraKolenc developed the concept of constructive difference,driving on the idea of an exception beinginscribed into the persistenceofsameness: “As afunction, con- structive differenceisdefined through acertain ambiguity between integration and differentiation of the twoterms between which it arises:atonce, it both differentiates and connects the two terms of repetition. It is acut that yetestablishes the relation between the two. It launches the two terms of repetition as absolutelyidenticaland radicallydifferent at once.This means that some- how paradoxicallythe differencebetween the twoterms of repetition is established exactlybythe fact that thereisnodifference between them. It is the very indiscernibility between the twoterms of repetition that is the condition of possibility of their difference.” Bara Kolenc. “The Category of the (Un)Touchable in Haptolinguistics:Touch, Repetition and Language,” in TheLanguage of Touch: Philosophical ExaminationsinLinguistics and Haptic Studies,ed. Mirt Komel (London: Blooms- bury,2019), 96–97.  Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie III,460. An Atom of Touch: Scepticism from Hegel to Lacan 175

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Aristotle. Complete Works. Edited by Jonathan Barnes. 2vols. 6th ed. Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1995. Carroll, Lewis. Alice’sAdventures in Wonderland. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press,2015. Cassin, Barbara. “Ab-sense, or LacanfromAto D.” In Alain Badiou and BarbaraCassin, There’s No Such Thing as aSexual Relationship: TwoLessons on Lacan,translated by Susan Spitzer and Kenneth Reinhardwithanintroduction by Kenneth Reinhard, 3–44. New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 2017. Dolar,Mladen. Heglova fenomenologija duha. Ljubljana: Analecta, 2017. Gabriel, Marcus. Transcendental ontology: essays in German idealism. London: Continuum, 2011. Hegel, GeorgWilhelm Friedrich. The Difference between Fichte’sand Schelling’sSystem of Philosophy. Translated by H.S. Harrisand Walter Cerf.Albany,NY: SUNY Press,1977. Hegel, GeorgWilhelm Friedrich. Lectures on the History of Philosophy1825–6. Volume 2: Greek Philosophy. Edited by RobertF.Brown. Translated by Robert F. Brown and J.M. Stewart, with the assistanceofH.S. Harris.Oxford: Oxford University Press,2006. Hegel, GeorgWilhelm Friedrich. Phenomenology of Spirit. Edited and translated by TerryPinkard. Cambridgeand New York: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2018. Hegel, GeorgWilhelm Friedrich. The Science of Logic. Edited by George di Giovanni. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress, 2010. Hegel, GeorgWilhelm Friedrich. “Verhältnis des Skeptizismus zurPhilosophie. Darstellung seiner verschiedenen Modifikationen undVergleichung des neuesten mit dem alten.” In Jenaer Schriften, 1801–1807. Werke,Band 2. Edited by EvaMoldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel, 213–72. Frankfurt am Main: Meiner Verlag, 1970. Hegel, GeorgWilhelm Friedrich. Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse, 1830, Dritter Teil, Werke, Band 10. Edited by EvaMoldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986. Hegel, GeorgWilhelm Friedrich. Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie II. Werke, Band 19. Edited by EvaMoldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986. Hegel, GeorgWilhelm Friedrich. Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie III. Werke, Band 20. EditedbyEva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986. Henrich, Dieter. Konstellationen. Probleme und Debatten am Ursprung der idealistischen Philosophie (1789–1795). Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1991. Homer. Odyssey. Translated by RobertFagles with an introduction and notes by BernardKnox. New York: Penguin, 1996. Kolenc, Bara. “The Categoryofthe (Un)Touchable in Haptolinguistics: Touch, Repetition and Language.” In The Language of Touch: PhilosophicalExaminations in Linguistics and Haptic Studies,edited by MirtKomel, 91–107.London: Bloomsbury,2019. Lacan, Jacques. Écrits. Translated by BruceFink in collaboration withHéloïse Fink and Russell Grigg.New York and London: W.W. Norton&Company,2006. Lacan, Jacques. The SeminarofJacques Lacan,Book 20: On Feminine Sexuality,the LimitsofLove and Knowledge. Edited by Jacques-Alain Miller.TranslatedbyBruceFink. New York and London: W.W. Norton &Company,1999. Lacan, Jacques. The Sinthome: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XXII. Translated by A.R. Price. Cambridge: Polity Press,2016. Lacan, Jacques. “La troisième.” La cause freudienne 79 (2011): 11–33. 176 Goran Vranešević

Marx, Karl,and Friedrich Engels. The CommunistManifesto. Translated by Samuel Moore. Introductionand notes by Gareth StedmanJones. London: Penguin, 2002. Milner,Jean-Claude. “Back and Forth from Letter to Homophony.” Problemi International 1, no. 1 (2017): 81–98. Milner,Jean-Claude. Jasnodelo: Lacan, znanost, filozofija. Translated by Peter Klepec and Ana Žerjav. Introduction and notes by Jelica Šumič-Riha. Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, ZRC SAZU, 2005. Milner,Jean-Claude. “Lacanand Modern Science.” European Journal of Psychoanalysis 3–4(1996– 97). Accessed 07/06/2020. http://www.psychomedia.it/jep/number3–4/milner.htm. Saussure, Ferdinandde. Course in General Linguistics. Translated by Roy Harris.London: Bloomsbury,2013. Schelling, Wilhelm Friedrich. Sämmtliche Werke:Band 6. Munich: Beck, 1979. Schulze, Gottlob Ernst. Aenesidemus oder über die Fundamenteder von Herrn Professor Reinhold in Jena gelieferten Elementar-Philosophie. EditedbyManfred Frank.Frankfurt am Main: Meiner Verlag, 1996. Schulze, Gottlob Ernst. Kritik der theoretischen Philosophie,Vol. 2. Reprint ed. Brussels: Cultureet civilisation, 1973. Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. Edited by G. BlakemoreEvans. Updated ed. Cambridge and New York: CambridgeUniversityPress, 2003. Starobinski, Jean. Words upon Words: The Anagrams of Ferdinand de Saussure. Translated by Olivia Emmet. New Havenand London: Yale University Press,1979. Zupančič,Alenka. Seksualno in ontologija. Ljubljana: Analecta, 2011.

Fig. 12: Robert Morris, Blind Time I,1973, graphiteand paint oil on paper,89x117 cm. ©Robert Morris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York (CourtesyofCastelli Gallery). Adi Louria Hayon The Weak Relations of Touch and Sight through the PassageofLapsed Time

Can one be ephectic otherwise than unawares?[…]Idon’tknow.Ithink that’sall, for the mo- ment.Isee nothingelse (I see nothingwhatever), for the time being. Samuel Beckett, TheUnnamable

Forsome, reality is not enough. Others,perhaps those whose anxietieshavebeen deadened by lethargy and inactivity,find in the inert forms of reality arareintoxication. The shapes of the physical world, onceassimilated,become detached identities.The random dimensionsofreality lose their subjectivity.Duration becomes acoefficient of weight. Mel Bochner and Robert Smithson, TheDomain of the Great Bear

Since, then, we arelookingfor the principles of perceptible body; and sinceperceptible is equiv- alent to tangible, and tangible is that of which the perception is touch,itisclear that not all the contrarieties constituteforms and principles of body, but onlythose which correspond to touch. Foritisinaccordancewith acontrariety—acontrariety,moreover,oftangible qualities—that the primary bodies are differentiated. Aristotle, On Generation and Corruption 329b7–10

In the introduction to Continuous Project Altered Daily,Robert Morris reflected on the written compilation of his artistic practice,pondering the incredulousnature of his mind. “Perhaps,” he wrote,

askeptical and speculative turn of mind has always presided over the work and the writing. I never set out to proveordemonstratesomuch as to investigate. And Inever set out to affirm so much as to negate (findingthat the former flowed from the latter in anycase). Changeand not continuity has been the guide—Heraclitus not Anaximander lit the path. Paradoxand the fugitive were always moreattractive than assured styleand stable position. Ruptureand disrup- tion, not anyorganicdevelopment,provided the dynamic. [… ]One of the first things Iset out to shatter for myself, was the unity of asubject—both with itself and with amonolithic,coherent styleprescribed to flow from this ideological oppression.¹

Morris’ssceptical and speculative turn of mind rendered his artistic practice as a continuous investigation that employs the activity of sképtomai—that is, inquiry as

On 28 November 2018, RobertMorrisdied. If thispiece, written afew months prior to his passing, initially touched his work from adistance, it hasnow become akind of reminiscent trace. This re- searchwas conducted at the MaimonidesCentrefor Advances Studies – Jewish Scepticism (DGF- FOR 2311) in HamburgUniversity. Ithank Rachel Aumiller and the research fellows at the Centre fortheir illuminating responses to oral presentations of some of these ideas,especially to Prof.Giu- seppe Veltri, RacheliHaliva and Stephan Schmid.Mygratitude to the Castelli GalleryinNew York for their generosity in granting the releaserights for RobertMorris Drawings.

 Robert Morris, ContinuousProject AlteredDaily:The Writings of Robert Morris (Cambridge,MA: MIT Press, 1993), ix. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110627176-010 180 Adi Louria Hayon

an ongoing activity—as away of life that constantlyopposes dogmatism. He allieshis work with that of the sceptical philosopher forging sceptical tacticsofexamination and inquiry as modes posed in opposition to the rule of demonstration and affirma- tion in order to resist ideological oppression. However,unlike the sceptical philoso- pher’smodes of mental exercise, which challengeperception and reasoningassour- ces of knowledge,Morrisinvestigated the conceptsofchange, paradox, rupture, and disruption by engaginginembodied praxis. This kind of scepticism was risky.Itwas unsafe and uncertain; an example was his 1971 interactive installation at the Tate Gallery in London, which notoriouslyclosed after visitors wereinjured when engag- ing with the sculptural apparatus. Another was his series Blind Time Drawings,which commenced in 1973 and was producedoverseveral decades. This essaywill concen- trate on these drawings, in which the artistexamines the pictorial practice through the paradoxical relations between perception and intelligibility;inparticular,that of sight in proximity to touch. It will show that the drawings perform the pictorial man- ner by concentrating on the haptic movementsofthe artist’shands while workingin blindness, thus posing the question of how sense perception relates to the attaina- bility of knowledge.They also reveal Morris’sconcern with the process of creation and the measure of time. The drawings present twodifferent temporalprocesses which tie the activity of painting to the creation of self. The artist’sintention to shat- ter the unity of the subject is performed in his blind haptic activity as amode for cast- ing doubt on the fabrication of such unity.During an examination of several works in the series, two questions will be posed: If Blind Time Drawings traces the ongoing activity of touch, what temporalschemes does it engender?And what problematics does it reveal for the becomingofanimage, and of aself, contingent upon the con- tinuityoftime? The problem of the role of the senses and perception was prevalentamong Mor- ris’scontemporaries. Artists seeking to withdraw from the clear relation between art and representationexperimented with the displacement of the senses and the sus- pension of the gaze. While for artists, clear sight no longer denoted the validity of knowledge,the French deconstructive critique of logocentrism crossed the Atlantic and entered the Americandiscourse. Art and philosophycould no longer denote truth in terms of signification. In conjunction with this shift,North Americanartists from the East Coast to the West experimented with media, performance, the body, the sensualorgans,eyes, vision, gaze, hair,hands, fingertips, nails, cheeks, feet,gravity, brain, weight,ears, sound, nose,smells, mouth, voice, skin,and tactility—technē. These experimental artistic practices embraced contingency and indeterminacyas an unconventional telos bounded by materiality,the onlymeans for creation without end. Morris’s Blind Time Drawings,which casts doubt on the perceiving mind, cri- tiques its ability to produce true knowledge while returningtothe problem of the me- dium now placed within the performing bodyofthe painter.Inthis series, Morris practises haptic drawingasameans of unhingingsense perception from intelligibil- ity and the pictorial from visuality. The Weak Relations of Touch and Sight through the PassageofLapsed Time 181

Alongsidehis contemporaries Robert Smithson, MelBochner,and Michael Snow, Morris scrutinised sight and visuality as they werelaid bare and dissected, not for the sake of anchoring knowledge in certitude, but as ashearingoftheirstrongcon- nections to the sovereignty of forgedknowledge,technology,information, media cul- ture, and their dominant effect on the construction of clear perception. Akin to the sceptic’sintervention thatseeks to critique the mannerweattain knowledge,they returned to the problem of sense. They examined perception by impedingand inun- dating the perceiving sensualorgans,removingthem from theirhabitual operations. In Blind Time Drawings, Morris coupled sight with touch as amode of performing the weak relations of measured time. However,inorder to understand his trajectory,I will begin by setting the stageofhis generation.

The Quasitranscendental Blind Spot

In 1965, while workingonthe visual apparatus for Enantiomorphic Chambers,Robert Smithson suggested “Stoppingofsight,not by brutal opposition but by lowering the ‘head’—foam—top developed—hands in pockets.Imperfect flatness; one type of des- titution that has fallen into disuse.”² Thisaporetic statement exposed the incredulity of sight and its strongconnection to thought. It appeared in After Thought,aphoto- collage composed around aphotographbyartist Dan Graham.The collage depicted Smithson’storso from the back, bending with his head down and his handsinhis pockets.The figure is concealedbyanintersection of two diagonal lines drawn from two photographs of stereoscopic boxesclasping its sides. The overlaying mate- rial is acancellingchiasmic sketch of atwo-dimensional apparatus mimicking two eyes. The work comprises Smithson’sinvestigation of sight for Enantiomorphic Cham- bers,wheretwo metal constructions with mirrorsmounted on awall exposed ablind spot in the viewer’sfixed visual field.Inhis statement for the Art in Process exhibi- tion catalogue (1966) entitled “Interpolation of the Enantiomorphic Chambers,” he explainedthat the installation examined seeing one’sown sight,creatingasplit and reverse vanishingpoint thatmade blindness visible, in infinite myopia.³ “It is aknown fact,” he wroteinadraft, “thatwedonot see with our eyes but rather with our brain. Thinking about one’ssight enables one to build or invent astructure that sees nothing.”⁴ Myopic nothingness,ina“sense establishes acertain kind of

 Cited from Robert Smithson’s Afterthought: Enantiomorphic Chambers,1965, photocollage,staples, coloured pencils,graph paper,Museu Fundação de Serralves, Portugal.  Robert Smithson, “Interpolation of the Enantiomorphic Chambers” [Art in Process,1966], in Robert Smithson: Collected Writings,ed. Jack Flam (Berkeley:University of California Press,1996), 39–40.  Robert Smithson, draft of “Interpolation of the Enantiomorphic Chambers,” in Robert Smithson and NancyHolt Papers, 1905–1987, AAA, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC,reel3834, frame 994.See also Eugenie Tsai and CorneliaButler,eds., Robert Smithson (Berkeley:University of CaliforniaPress,2004), 138–39. 182 Adi Louria Hayon

point of departure not so much towardthe idealistic notion of perception, but all the different breakdowns within perception. So that’swhat I’minterested in. I’minterest- ed in zeroinginonthoseaspectsofmental experience thatsomehow coincide with the physical world.”⁵ Smithson’squasi-transcendental studyofperception, particu- larlythe operation of the senses and the interval between mental images and the world, was positioned as aself-cancellingsystem in which logic is suspended. One wayinwhich he could scrutinisesense perception, particularlysight,was to impede specific elements of the mechanics of sight while demonstratingthese very opera- tions through theirart-medium correlates. In 1967, Mel Bochner scrutinised the demonstrativecertainty produced by visual evidence. He investigated the contraptions of visual perception from perspective and performance to photography. “Perspective,” he wrote in TheSerial Attitude (1967), “almost universallydismissed as aconcern in recent art,isafascinating example of the application of fabricated systems. In the works of artists like Uccello, Dürer, Piero, Saenredam,and Eakins (especiallytheir drawings), it can be seen to exist en- tirelyasamethodology. It demonstratesnot how thingsappear but rather the work- ingsofits own strict postulates.”⁶ In Bochner’sreview of art critic and curator Law- renceAlloway’sexhibition Systemic Painting at the Guggenheim (Arts Magazine, 1966), he deemed pictorial seeing to be aconvention that the new artwas to expose as actuallybeing amode of fabricated vision: “Whatever else painting has been, it has been an artform which endured anumber of radical shifts of intent.What ori- ginated and existed for along period as ameans of representationhas in rapid suc- cession become ameans aware of itself, involved with itself and finallyathing-in-it- self.”⁷ This awareness of the means of artistic production was to rewirethe splitof self-reflection not as acircular mode, but achiasmic one. The rupture of self-reflec- tion decreed adivideand awithdrawal from areturn to an imageofrepresentation, for the coming-into-form of the imagewas now contingent on the exposition of the self-reflective medium. Hence, as Bochner implies, once painting was exposed as a medium, its self-reflective movement created achiasmic intersection that weakened the hold of its own image. The differencebetween the exposition of the medium and its own imagemarks aknot,oradisturbance in the chiasmic order.Rendering ap- parent the conditions of knowing and being and those of the interval between rep- resentation and presencewas ameans of generating self-referentiality and autonomy (self-rule)contingent on the separation and suspension of mind and body, sense (as logos,articulation, signification) and sense (as sensualperception), as well as the

 Reynolds, “Enantiomorphic Models,” in RobertSmithson,140,n.18: Robert Smithson, interview with Denis Wheeler, reel3833, frame 1124; Smithson, Robert Smithson: Collected Writings,208.  Mel Bochner, “The Serial Attitude,” in Solar Systems &Rest Rooms:Writings and Interviews,1965– 2007 (Cambridge,MA: The MIT Press,2008), 45 (originallypublished in Artforum 6, no. 4[1967]: 28– 33).  Mel Bochner, “Systemic Painting”,inSolar Systems &Rest Rooms,14(originallypublished in Arts Magazine 41,no. 1[1966]: 57–58). The Weak Relations of Touch and Sight through the Passage of Lapsed Time 183

discontinuity of the perceiving senses. The analysis of perception led to the fragmen- tation of its operative organs, thosesensory mediating gadgets and their technolog- ical extensions,toplace them in suspension, un-synthesised and at times obstructed and thus degenerated (that is, technē as degenerated; unfunctional, unproductive,in stasis).Drawingbecame aspeculative tool for experimentation with the conditions of visibility. In “Perverse Perspectives” (1967), artcritic Lucy R. Lippard showed how artists of this period were engagingwith the paradoxofthe visual via the exposition of its dis- tortingnature.⁸ What is interesting is thatthe problem posed by visuality was not restricted to painting,but was regarded as the crux of modes of knowing.What would happen if one were to knock, or to cut,anopening in the serial sequence of the proper order of perceiving gadgets or devices of production?Acase in point is Michael Snow who constructed vision-impedingobjects in sculpture, photographs, installations, and film. As Julia Kristevaobserves, Snow’sfilm Wavelength (1967) per- forms the violence of the camera’szoom,asaschizophrenic theatre: “the zoom be- comes an agent of decay, as objects ebb until they suffer alethal loss of identity, graduallytransmuting the visual field into afinal extinguishing darkness.”⁹ For his part,Snow stated: “Iwas thinkingof, planningfor,atime monument in which the beauty and sadness of equivalencewould be celebrated, thinkingof, trying to, make adefinite statement of pure film space and time, abalancing of ‘illusion’ and ‘fact,’ all about seeing.The space starts at the camera’s(spectator’s) eye, is in the air,then is on the screen, then is within the screen, (the mind). The film is acon- tinuous zoom […]asine wave.”¹⁰ Elizabeth Legge deemed the piece a “room zoom” that at times featured superimposed images in aslight double vision, as if the cam- eralens or projector weremalfunctioning,asifour eyes weremis-seeing.Snow fur- ther related Wavelength to acid, like adrugforming states of consciousness in the mind-space.¹¹ Strobingvisuals and aliasing whitewaves stressed misidentifications of signal frequencies, introducing distortions or errors that preformed arandom dis- tribution of frequency and amplitude.¹² Errors,interruptions, inconsistencies, and impediments to the senses by deprivation or excess led to blindness and mishearing. Gaps and intervals maintainedasetting-apart of the senses, of sense. Synthetic co- herencywas discarded in favour of synthetic autism entrenched in the separation of

 Lucy R. Lippard, “Perverse Perspectives,” Art International 11,no. 3(1967): 28–33.  Julia Kristeva, “Le Théâtremoderne n’apas lieu,” 34/44: Cahiers de recherche des sciencesdes textes et documents 3(1977): 13–16,quoted in Elizabeth M. Legge, MichaelSnow:Wavelength (London: Afterall Books,2009), 77.  Michael Snow,quoted in Legge, Michael Snow,1–2.  Legge, 7, 25.  Leggeassociates the film with the acid guru TimothyLeary’scrypto-visionsofthe “trip” described onlyayear earlier in Playboy,where Leary argued that they precede the sense of beingalone in adead impersonal world. TimothyLeary, “She Comes in Colors,” Playboy 153(September 1966), reprinted in TimothyLeary, ThePolitics of Ecstasy,repr.ed. (London: Paladin, 1972), 125. 184 Adi Louria Hayon

the performingheterogeneous senses. Andyet,asThierrydeDuvenoted, the expe- rience of ablind spot enhances reflexivity (a lapse to which we will return, for it might be the very syncopation upon which everything is contingent).¹³ Snow’s45-mi- nute room zoom preformed the systematic abstraction of aperspectival construction of psychophysiological space. The problem raised in the differencebetween the two had alreadybeen stressed in Erwin Panofsky’s Perspective as aSymbolic Form (1924– 25), wherehestrikingly notes: “Visual spaceand tactical space [Tastraum,i.e., touch room] are both anisotropic and unhomogeneous in contrasttothe metric space of Euclidean geometry.” He then turns to Ernst Cassirer,stating: “‘The main directions of organization—before-behind, above-below,right-left—are dissimilar in bothphys- iological spaces.’”¹⁴ ForPanofsky,the perception of spacewas contingent on sense perception. Tactile spaces were different from visual spaces since hapticity yields multi-directional aggregates that do not adhere to aunified oriented space. When the physiological sense—that is, the evidence of the eyes and ears, as seen in the cases above—was dislocated from its position of origin, or stressedunder misalign- ment or excessive incitements,orposed between organised geometry and the world, blind spots and mishearing postponedthe synthesisofthis dissimilar physiological evidence, thus dispersing perception in suspension. In what follows, Iwill focus on the weak relations between sight and touch dramatised in Robert Morris’sseries Blind Time Drawings. These works problematise our common understandingsofperception by employing an aestheticsynthesis that grants primacy to the sense of touchwhile frustratingthe clarity of vision as an or- ganisingmode of perception. They lurethe spectator into the practice of the blind spot,the gaps between the separated senses, the fissures amidst the faculties and the erection of aquasi-transcendental apprehension.Iwill return to this uncanny phrase “quasi-transcendental” as it derivesfrom sense perception and sensory pro- duction on the one hand, but is connected to the transcendence of the blind spot on the other.The drawingsenact agap between sightless touch, the pressingbody, and the imagetocome. Morrisbegins by blindfolding his eyes. He then makes repetitive marks on apiece of paper.Each drawing is accompanied by or paired with an event score. His instructions, furthermore,furnish atemporalestimation for each perform- ative drawing.Heoften calls this activity of timing—that is, the production of each work—“lapsed time” and “time error.” The scores frame Morris’sactivity in relation

 ForThierry de Duve, Snow markedthe postmodern shattered trust in aunified self. He asked: “Giventhat the unity of experience is shattered, whatcan be done that is epistemologicallyenlight- ening and aesthetically stimulating?” The answer,heargued, is to identify the fragments that were onceunified as the conditions of experiencethat must be freed. He suggests that Snow takesonthis Modernist strategyofunconcealment and autonomyofparts to produce pleasure. See Thierry de Duve, “Michael Snow:The Deictics of Experience and Beyond,” Parachute 78 (April–June, 1995): 28–29.  Erwin Panofsky, PerspectiveasSymbolic Form,trans. Christopher S. Wood, new ed. (New York: Zone Books, 1991), 30,77. The Weak Relations of Touch and Sight through the PassageofLapsed Time 185

to an estimated time (lineartime, clock time). The activities accordinglylapse out of chronos (chronological time) to disclose inapt discords.

Blindfolded

The artist activates the bodyinwithdrawal. He suggests abase materialism that ad- heres to nothing but the proximities of skins and surfaces blindly touchingtheir ex- posed externalities.His finger movements, their weight,pressure, velocity,and ca- dence, perpetuallydesire an imagethat can onlybeachievedindiscreteness, in delay, posed in externality.This excessive movement requires some consideration. How does the movement towards coming-into-form (sense) adhere to the separation of the senses, to the impediment of sight?When pressuretouches upon asurface, does its mark traceablind imageofits own exposition?Does it make sense through synthesis, or does the blind operation maintain adelay? How does suspension play out between gathering (synthesis) and aisthēsis? In asightless world, does art refer onlytoitself, to its sensiblesenses, to its own causation?Inaworld without images, does touch refer onlytotouch?Does it touchtouch?The technē of the world?InAnti Form,Morris writes: “The focus on matter and gravity as means, results in forms that werenot projected in advance” (Anti Form, Artforum,April 1968). The Blind Time Drawings maintain suspension, ablacked-out movement towards an uncertain ves- tige. They inquire about our relation to time performedasadiscontinuous passage of the ongoing creative nature of pressure. They render time as alapse, aproposition of syncopation in the heterogeneity of times. If this trajectory makes sense, how may we think about the imageifitisnothing but atrace; aweak, passive form drifting amidst the effects of the touchingsenses? Blind Time Drawings spans from 1973 to the present,amountingtoapproximately several hundred pieces,the series is divided into six sub-series and some additional works.¹⁵ The first drawing, Blind Time I (Fig. 12)comprises atitle, date, medium, paper size, collection, event score, and drawing.The drawing presents avestige of Morris’sgraphitetraces of finger marks springingfrom the bottom up. The movement of the fingers follows asingular framework of instructions that includes the suspen- sion of the gaze,anestimatedtime for the activity,ascorefor haptic movement,and finallyameasure of the activity of drawing in real time; thatis, in numeral/chrono- logical time. The first scoreinstructs:

With eyes closed, graphiteonthe hands and estimatingalapsed time of 3minutes, both hands attempt to descend the pagewith identicaltouching motions in an effort to keep to an even ver- tical column of touches.Time estimation error:+8seconds.

 Jean-PierreCriqui, “Drawingfrom the Heart of Darkness: Robert Morris’ Blind Time,” in Blind Time Drawings,1973–2000,ed. Jean-PierreCriqui (Prato: Centroper l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, 2005), 11. 186 Adi Louria Hayon

Fig. 13: Albrecht Dürer, Self-portrait,StudyofaHand and aPillow (recto), 1493, pen and brown ink, 27.8x20.2cm. RobertLehman Collection, 1975 (1975.1.862). Photographed by Schecter Lee, The Metropolitan MuseumofArt. Imagesource:Art Resource, New York.

With his eyes closed, Morris begins in withdrawal. The first withdrawal is from mimesis; from formsthat were not projected in advance. The second withdrawal is from self-imitation. The scoreand materialsservetoset the conditions for the activ- The Weak Relations of Touch and Sight through the PassageofLapsed Time 187

ity.Amodel is suspended in thought at the time of performing the act of drawing,in the moment of its coming-into-form.Ineach singular piece, Morris repeats the act of notation thrice: once in preforming his owninstructions, then in the double perfor- mance of the hands “with identical touchingmotions,” simultaneouslypressingthe surface, opening infinitesimal gaps in the cadence,weight, and vectors of each movement.Each time, each expression is different.The third is awithdrawal from painting.The drawing is not apainting. “Iquit painting,” Morris declared, “for apar- ticular reason—certain problems Icouldn’tsolve.There was akind of ontological character to painting Icould not accept.Because on the one hand youwereinvolved in some activity,onthe other hand youended up with an object.”¹⁶ By hindering a coherent,significant object,Morris offers the remainder as the vestigialform of a withdrawal from the sense of painting;apassageofhand-gestures passing through the limits of the cutting frame.Devoid of object,pictorial activity retreats from the pregivenground of painting,the skeleton support of symbolic order,toform inter-re- lationscontingent upon haptic weight. The fourth withdrawal is from the knowing,conscious hands of the painter.By painting with the palm of his hands, Morris makes aportrait of his hands. When painters painthands, they usually depict the dorsum, their upperside: Leonardo’s caressinghands, Michelangelo’ssignifyingorconcealing hands, Andrea del Sarto’s entangled hands, Watteau’sopen hands, the hands of the transfiguration, Dürer’s praying hands, the pointinghand, the handsofGod the Father,ofthe Emperor,hold- ing hands, fists. Dürer’s Self-portrait, Study of aHand and aPillow (1493) depicts the artist’spalm, his fingers at once touch themselvesand point up to his signaturemon- ogram. This self-referentiality presents the artistascreator.Creator of his own image. The painter as creator.Dürer’sself-portrait as the divine creator.Morris does not de- pict the hands in theirmediated likeness,but instead captures the finger-prints,his distinct self in intimate flesh. His gestures are singular each time. One after another, they are painterlydiscreteevents. ForMorris, these imprints mark away out of the pictorial object while maintaining temporalsuspension.

Knowing/Pressing

Morris shifts from the order of knowledge,languageand signification to the ontology of touch. Markingimprints contingent upon the event scoreisaperformative act which is atouch at the very foundation of painting.Byreplacingsight with touch, Morris considers the problem of how to make apictorial mark devoid of connection to agroundingreferent,and with no expressive overtones. If the pictorial mark is but

 Transcript of an interview conductedbetween Thomas Krensand Robert Morris dated13Decem- ber 1978.See Thomas Krens, “The Triumph of Entropy,” in Robert Morris: TheMind/Body Problem (New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1994), xix. See also Criqui, “Drawing from the Heart of Darkness,” 11–12. 188 Adi Louria Hayon

an imprint contingent upon eyeless pressingpalms, it differs from the diagrammatic face by inscribing an immediate surface-topographyofthe body. It is neither arep- resentation, nor an inscription of amodel or aface, but an ex-scription, thatis, abe- coming-other-than-itself in the event of an expressive gesture. The pressureofthe weight of the bodypreexists the know-how of the practiced painter.The blind paint- er’sgestures are expressive events thatrender their temporaltraces as distancing- from-self in its absolute strangeness.¹⁷ In TheVestige of Art,Nancy remindsus that “the word ‘face’ comes from the root that means “to pose, to set”:topose, pre- sent,expose without reference to anything.Here, withoutrelation to anything that is an apriori substratum or an intelligible subject projecting forms. With the sole or the bottom of the foot [la plante du pied], we are in the domainofthe flat,ofthe out-flat [l’ordreduplat et de l’à-plat], of horizontal extension without referencetovertical tension.”¹⁸ Nancy’sfootprint. Morris’ palm. These transient imprints are not images of their creator’sself-knowledge;they do not mark an identity but atransient event with an unnameable sense of the relations of physical organs. When tending to the problem of the haptic bodyinMorris’ work, Rosalind Krauss asks: “What is it like to be abody?”¹⁹ She argues thatthe experience of impact is that of resistancetoanexternal material and has adefinite telos as it “creates an awareness of the bodyassheathing,isolating it as akind of boundary that can be peeled away from the self and presented as pure corporeality.” Morris, influenced by Samuel Beckett,performs his transient self through pressure. Beckett’s Unnama- ble (1953) is ascore, apartitura, aplay, posingareflexive hapticity,afacticity,where touch touches upon the mind/bodysplit,pressingbodilyorgans into self-awareness. “Of whom Iknow nothing… Iknow Iamseated,” says the stationary protagonist of Unnamable:

My hands on my knees, because of the pressure against my rump, against the soles of my feet, against the palms of my hands,against my knees. (Against my palms,the pressureisofmy knees,against my knees of my palms, but whatisitthat presses against my rump, against the soles of my feet?Idon’tknow.) My spine is not supported.²⁰

The passageisdivided as amirror imageofitself. Beckett commenceswith question- ing thought and his ability to know.Hethen positions his hands, his knees, his rump, the solesofhis feet,the palms of his hands, and his knees. Now again, in ro- tation and inner-twists: palms, knees, knees palms, rump, feet.Note that Beckett

 Jean-Luc Nancy, “Paintinginthe Grotto,” TheMuses,trans. Peggy Kamuf (Stanford: StanfordUni- versity Press, 1996), 70.  Jean-Luc Nancy, “The VestigeofArt,” TheMuses,trans. Peggy Kamuf (Stanford: StanfordUniver- sity Press, 1996), 97.  Rosalind Krauss, “The Mind/BodyProblem: Robert Morris in Series,” Robert Morris: TheMind/ Body Problem (New York: SolomonR.Guggenheim Foundation, 1994), 10.  Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable (New York: GrovePress, 1958), 15. The Weak Relations of Touch and Sight through the Passage of Lapsed Time 189

opens with knowing while he ends with feet; from top to bottom,from mind to body, from avertical to ahorizontal disparity of heterogeneous organs:

[un]Knowing Knees Palms Rump Knees Feet Knees Palms Palms Knees Rump Feet

Beckett does not know his body; he feels the heterogeneity of the organs of abody. Knowingispositionedoverand on apar with adismembered body. The dispersed bodyisnot onlythe failureofexpression bent on the debility of languageand the production of meaning; it is also the atemporal zone conditioningthe text right from the start: “Where now?Who now?When now?Unquestioning.I,say I. Unbe- lieving.Questions,hypotheses […]. Keep going, going on.”²¹ Paul Davis related this decentred speaker to a “pre-Cartesian Unthinkable,” awonderer-self, an unnamable being who utters the Cartesian Cogito into self-annulment.²² “Iseem to speak (it is not I) about me (it is not me),” Beckett writes, “What am Itodo(WhatshallIdo, what should Ido?)inmysituation?How proceed?Byaporia pure and simple? Or by affirmations and negations invalidatedasuttered […]. (I should mention before going anyfurther—anyfurther on—that Isay ‘aporia’ without knowing what it means).”²³ The unhinged relations of the anthropomorphic organs do not,and can- not,constituteabody; they are unhinged twice. To recall Mladen Dolar’s “Kafka’s Voices,” thereisfirst the anastomotic voice performing the indeterminate intercon- nection between the corporeal and the symbolic.²⁴ Dolar returns to Jacques Lacan’s anastomosis in order to unhingethe voice from language. The chiasmic order of the separated organs now exists outside the known body. The undefinable relations posed by the dissected autonomous organs pose an aporia in the symbolic order. This aporia marks the paradoxical object of lack, the objet petit a,that manifests the drive of the incompletesymbolic order.²⁵ ForSlavoj Žižek this lack unhinges a

 Beckett, TheUnnamable,1.  Paul Davies, Beckett and Eros: Death and Humanism (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press;New York: St.Martin’sPress,2000), 48.  Beckett, TheUnnamable,1.  Mladen Dolar, “Kafka’sVoices,” in Lacan:Silent Partners,ed. Slavoj Žižek (London: Verso, 2003), 317.  Jacques Lacan, TheFour Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis,trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: W.W. Norton &Company, 1978), 67–90. 190 Adi Louria Hayon

subjectwithout subjectivity.²⁶ The second unhingingisamaterialisation of the Real, that is, of language, and the “literature of the unword” that creates aporous lan- guage. In Beckett’s “German Letter” to Axel Kaun (July1937), he suggests that the materiality of the wordshould be “dissolved[…], devoured by great black pauses […], linking unfathomable abysses.”²⁷ The porous bodyisalways plural;itperforms itself through aperpetual coming together and falling apart that maintains the heterogeneity of organs,zones, names. In Beckett,such zoning marks the split of abodyand amind, and afurther double split of the mind into zones and the bodyinto autonomous corporeal organs.Mur- phy, Beckett’sprotagonist in the 1938 novel, performs the mind/bodydichotomy as he “felt himself split in two, abodyand amind. They had intercourse apparently, otherwise he could not have known that they had anything in common. But he felt his mind to be bodytight and did not understand through what channel the inter- course wasaffected, nor how the experiencescame to overlap.”²⁸ Later on, Murphy’s mind splits into three zones: the first is the zone of “light,” the second is that of “half-light,” and the third is the dark zone of a “flux of forms” that constantlyma- terialise and dematerialise.²⁹ The sexual nature of Beckett’smind/bodysplit re-emergesinthe passageways between the zoned organs of the mind and the body. They characterise the mental activity of self-reflection as the sensual contact of erogenous zones, those internal tactilitiesaroused in and in-between the limits of Didier Anzieu’spsychoanalysis of the skin-ego. Although Anzieu is considered Lacan’sgreatest critic, his concepts of the skin-egoand the psychic envelope offer anon-dualisticand non-deterministic thinking of subjectivity as “completelypsychic, utterlysomatic, essentiallyintersub- jective and intercorporeal, constantlychanging.”³⁰ He critiquesLacan’slinguistic model of the unconscious, claiming that it produces an analysis of signifiers as an

 Žižek returns to Jonathan Boulter’sobservation of Beckett’s Texts splittingthe voiceand the body not onlytodismantle the physical body, but to stageits comeback unhingedfromsubjectivity.See Slavoj Žižek, Disparities (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), 468–69; Jonathan Boulter, “Does MourningRequireaSubject?” Modern Fiction Studies 50,no. 2(Summer 2004), 333–34.  Ruby Cohn, ABeckett Canon (Ann Arbor:University of MichiganPress, 2001), 88–89.  Samuel Beckett, Murphy,ed. J.C.C. Mays,new ed. (London: Faber and Faber,2009), 70.  Beckett,63–64.  MarcLafrance, “Skin and the Self: Cultural Theory and the Anglo-American Psychoanalysis,” Body and Society 15,no. 3(2009): 19.Naomi Segal demonstrates the connections and closeness of interpretation in Didier Anzieu and Beckett,inparticular through Anzieu’swritings regarding self- analysis and creativity, ASkin for Thought: Interviews with Gilbert Tarrab on Psychologyand Psycho- analysis (1990;see the translation by Daphne Nash Briggs [New York: Routledge,2018]) and TheSkin- Ego (1995; see the translation by Naomi Segal [London: Karnac, 2016]). See Naomi Segal, Consensual- ity:Didier Anzieu, Gender and the Sense of Touch (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2009). On An- zieu amidst his contemporary thinkers,see MarcLafrance, “From the Skin Egotothe Psychic Enve- lope: An Introductiontothe Work of Didier Anzieu,” in Skin, Cultureand Psychoanalysis,ed. Sheila L. Cavanagh, Angela Failler,and Rachel Alpha Johnston Hurst (New York: PalgraveMacmillan,2013), 16–17. The Weak Relations of Touch and Sight through the PassageofLapsed Time 191

exercise in linguistic virtuositydetermined by preconceivedknowledge.Anzieu chargesLacan with afanciful formal logic thatisnot onlyfar removed from psycho- analytic therapeutic purposiveness, but also adangerous practice that mayresultin the patient’scollapse.³¹ Seeing himself as profoundlyFreudian, Anzieu rejected the hypothesis thatthe unconscious is structured like alanguageand instead claimed that the unconscious forms through the sensual experience of the body.³² As early as 1911, Freud developedhis model of “primary processes” as the biological and psy- chological activity of the pleasure principle which precedes thought,advancinga pre-egophase thatdoes not intuit space and time or differentiate the dialectic dual- ism between inside/outside, subject/object.³³ In fact,Anzieu argued thatthe body- egoisaskin-egothatfunctions both as abinding forceand as aboundary touched by containment,protection, and inscription.³⁴ Here, the skin becomes the locus of a haptic intersensorial relation, which connects sensations and organises them such that they “stand out as figures against the original background formed by the tactile envelope: this is the Skin Ego’sfunction of intersensoriality,which leadstothe crea- tion of ‘common sense’… whose basic reference is always to the sense of touch.”³⁵ The tactile nature of intersensoriality preceding anyoriginal background is propelled by desire and pleasure. Anzieu follows Freud’spleasure of the skin in the tangible playoferogenous zones facilitating auto-eroticism and sexualisation.³⁶ By replacing the alreadystructured Lacanian linguistic model of self-reflection with apsychic-so- matic one, the experience of the senses and their dialogic relations bringsusback to Beckett’shaptic Unnamable and Morris’s Blind Time Drawings,delineated as abody/ mind, organ/sense, relation carving paths amidst the separated senses, to now con- sider the principle of plurality contingent upon the facticity of the tangible.

 Anzieu, ASkin for Thought,35–37.See also Anzieu, “ContreLacan” (1968), in Didier Anzieu, Psy- chanalyser,ed. René Kaës (Paris:Dunod, 2000), 179–85.  “Imyself would oppose the formula: ‘the unconscious is structured like alanguage’ with afor- mulation that is implicit in Freud: ‘the unconscious is the body.’ The unconscious seems to me to be structured likethe body[…]asasource of the first sensory-motor experiences,the first commu- nications,and the oppositionsthat relatetothe very basis of perception and thought.” See, Anzieu, ASkin for Thought,43.  Sigmund Freud, “Formulations on the TwoPrinciples of Mental Functioning,” in TheStandard Edition of the Complete Psychological WorksofSigmund Freud: Volume 12 (1911–1913): TheCaseof Schreber,PapersonTechniqueand Other Works,ed. James Strachey et al. (London: Hogarth Press, 1958),218–26.  Didier Anzieu, “Functions of the Skin-Ego,” in Reading French Psychoanalysis,ed. Dana Birksted- Breen, SaraFlanders,and Alain Gibeault(London and New York: Routledge,2010), 479.  Anzieu, “Functions of the Skin-Ego,” 484.  Sigmund Freud, “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality,” in TheStandardEdition of the Com- plete PsychologicalWorks of Sigmund Freud,Volume7(1901–1905): ACaseofHysteria, ThreeEssays on Sexuality and Other Works,ed. James Strachey (London: The Hogarth Press, 1953), 125–245. 192 Adi Louria Hayon

Somatic Actions

In 1991, Morris crystallised his inquiry of the haptic/cognitiverelations.For the sub- series Blind Time IV,headded excerpts from the writingsofDonald Davidson, an Americanphilosopher of the mind, language, and action, to his blind time event scores. Blind Time IV (Drawing with Davidson,1991) is composed of twoexcerpts, the first stagingthe artist’scognitive activity and the movement of the hands, the sec- ond is acitation from Davidson’sessay “Agency” (1971),³⁷ and agraphitedrawing.

Fig. 14: Robert Morris, Blind Time IV (Drawing with Davidson),1991, graphiteonpaper,96.5x127 cm. ©RobertMorris /ArtistsRights Society (ARS), New York (Courtesy of Castelli Gallery).

Working blindfoldedand estimatingthe lapsed time the hands begin at the bottom, just to the right of estimated center and work upwardtothe estimated horizontal median and then outward to the right margin. After several passes Iattempt amirror imageofthis on the left side. Time estimation error:—2’:08“

We must conclude, perhaps with ashock of surprise, that our primitive actions,the ones we do not do by doingsomethingelse, meremovements of the body—these areall the actions there are. We never do morethan moveour bodies:the rest is up to nature.

 Donald Davidson, “Agency,” in Donald Davidson: EssaysonActions and Events (Oxford: Claren- don Press,2001), 51. The Weak Relations of Touch and Sight through the Passage of Lapsed Time 193

By 1993, he had published atext in which he contemplated his engagement with the scripts entitled “Writing with Davidson: SomeAfterthoughts after Doing Blind Time IV:Drawing with Davidson.”³⁸ Morris opens his commentary by asking: “What were Donald Davidson’swritingsdoing in Morris’s Blind Time Drawings?”³⁹ In order to un- earth the reason for his engagement with Davidson, as Morris himself encourages us to do, we should consider his relationship to Davidson’sideas about intentions, ac- tions, reasons, causes, beliefs, and desires.Kenneth Surin carefullyilluminated these connections while adding aparticularconcern with proprioception and the haptic operation of Morris’snonrepresentational Blind Time Drawings. He follows Brian O’Shaughnessy’sclaim thatthe sense of touch depends on proprioception as acaus- al relation between the touched object and the sense perception of the touching body, hence integratinghaptic perception with bodilyawareness.⁴⁰ Surin sees Mor- ris’suse of his sense of touch as aproprioceptivemode contingent on bodilyaware- ness as akind of projective mappingthat constitutes nonvisual analogue relations “that make up the ordered and intelligible experience of (visual) appearance.”⁴¹ ForSurin, Morris’shaptic procedures lead to akind of visual understanding.While Iagree with Surin’sgeneral trajectory of bypassing the rationalagent,Morris’s blind hapticity seems to show disdain for understandable auto-articulation. His ex- perimentation with somatic knowledge abrogates visual and linguistic construal al- together. “Sightless repetitions echo akind of laughter not permitted in light.Not every dark itch can be scratched in daylight,” wroteMorris. “It would not be incon- sistent to ascribe acertain bravado to method […], not to mention acontempt for the ironclad primacy of the visual, that reification of the seen promoted to aself-serving ontology that the ‘visual arts’ never tires of asserting,” and later on, “We always as- sume (theorize) awholeness of the visual.”⁴² Hence, if Morris abrogated vision (as sensualsense and as knowledge), what was left was an agent of action stripped of reasoning, but one for whom thereisnodifference between action and cause. David- son’s “primitive actions” propose amode of activity that includes all bodilymove- ments. In Agency,Davidson proposes to interpret the idea of bodilymovements as primitive actions. These movements cannot be analysed accordingtocausal relations

 In summer 1993, Critical Inquiry published twoback-to-back articles concerned with Blind Time Drawings: DonaldDavidson, “The Third Man,” Critical Inquiry 19,no. 4(1993): 607–16,and Robert Morris, “Writingwith Davidson: Some Afterthoughts after Doing Blind Time IV:Drawing with David- son,” Critical Inquiry 19,no. 4(1993): 617–27.  Morris, “Writingwith Davidson,” 617.  To bridge the gapbetween haptic perception and intelligible awareness,Surin turns to Michael Martin’sassertion that touch utilises the body’ssense-field through proprioception in order to incor- porate the projective mapping of an object.See KennethSurin, “Gettingthe Picture: Donald Davidson on Robert Morris’s Blind Time Drawings IV (Drawing with Davidson),” The South Atlantic Quarterly 101,no. 1(2002): 152–64,168–69.  Surin, 155.  Morris, “Writingwith Davidson,” 620, 624. 194 Adi Louria Hayon

or the first attributionofagency, nor do they requireanintentional description.⁴³ If we do find such relations between agent and action, they willbeofadescriptive na- ture, describingthe consequences of the action. “Knowledge that an action a has a certain upshot allows us to describe the agent as the cause of that upshot,but this is merelyaconvenient wayofredescribing a,[…]. Causality allows us to redescribe ac- tions […], but yields no analysis of agency.”⁴⁴ Davidson concludes thatthe relation between aperson and an event takes place onlywhen it is his action thatisinde- pendent of how the terms of relations are described. In fact,the relation between agent and action can onlybedescribed after-act,after-thought.Inthe real-timeper- formative act,the relation between agent and action is ablind difference. Within the philosophical labyrinth encompassingMorris’sart,westumble into blind and dark turning pointsthat cannot be explained. Morris characterises the drawings as obsessive,sightless reiterations that reject vision in favour of somatic actionsdevoid of psychophysical law. In “Writing with Davidson,” Morrisasks: “Might it not be more profitable to regardthe act of ‘drawingblind’ (as well as that of affixing Davidson’stexts—perhaps as akind of librettothat Morris sangas he worked blind)asoperatinginthat economyofanexcess [of transgression] which is the very ground of the metaphorical?”⁴⁵ The latter is the onlymode we mayfind in Davidson thatcannot be decoded or explained.

The Haptic Interval

What does Morris mean when he suggests that it would be more profitable to regard the act of “drawingblind” as operating in the economyofexcess?Infootnote 8of “Writing with Davidson,” Morristurns to Lacan’s objet a as the unattainable image of desire. In fact,hespecificallyrefers to Lacan’slecture entitled “Anamorphosis” to stress how the impossibleimageofdrawing blind touches upon “asort of ultimate limit of identification” that stirs “aself-portrait in which the subjectwill seehimself as he cannot see himself […]inwhich his own nullity appears to him.”⁴⁶ Lacan’s “Anamorphosis” shows how the emergenceofthe subjectfrom the reflectingreflec- tion of the structure of the gaze is contingent upon an internal split in the subject induced by objet a. Placingthe unimaginable interval as the heart of the self-reflect- ing seeing subject,Lacan induces the framework of the fundamental drivesthrough the movementofdesire.⁴⁷ Stirring the function of lack, Morris’spainterlyactionsdis-

 Davidson, “Agency,” 49.  Davidson, 60.  Morris, “Writingwith Davidson,” 627.  Morris,622–23.  In 1964,Lacan gave aseries of lectures at the École Normale Supérieure (Lectures 8and 9, 26 Feb- ruary 1964) entitled “The SplitBetween the Eyeand the Gaze” and “Anamorphosis,” which ad- dressed the question of how we can situatethe conscious from the perspective of the unconscious. The Weak Relations of Touch and Sight through the PassageofLapsed Time 195

charge their operative identity via blindness, thus making blindness asyncopated impediment at the centre of the creative act.The exposition of these self-relations is at once contingent on the disorder and delayofthe sense of sight and on sense as meaning.Thereafter,aquestion is raised regarding the activity of the haptic paint- er.The order of the gaze now practised by hapticity mayseem to offer an immediate solution to the problematic relations Morris finds between the activity of painting and its purpose in creatinganobject: “There was akind of ontologicalcharacter to painting Icould not accept.Because on the one hand youwereinvolvedin some activity,onthe other hand youended up with an object.”⁴⁸ Here, “object” re- fers first and foremost to the production of coherent concepts, and the material body designated as the painting is of asecond order.How does haptic activity relatetothe creativity of painting?How does it differ from the production of clear images or con- cepts?And how maywethink of touch in relation to sightless activity? In the opening chapter of TheMuses, “WhyAre There Several Arts, Not Just One?”,Jean-Luc Nancy seeks to expose the manner of creation, or what he calls the sense of the world, through the suspended movement of touch. When attending to the question of the heterogeneity of the senses and the arts, Nancy presents the problem of sense, which on the one hand implies the somatic—that is, sensory—di- mension of aesthetic experience and on the otherrelates to the sense of the world which for him is creation’smanner of operation. The question of creation is the ques- tion exposing the manner,ormode, of the arts. Such exposition does not know its own becoming; therefore, Nancy stresses the characteristics of non-knowledge.He argues that “art disengages the senses from signification […], and that is what we call […]the sense of being external to signification […]what one might just as correct- ly call the ‘sense of the world’ […]assuspension of signification.”⁴⁹ The withdrawal from signification includes untying the sensory apparatus from the production of meaning while maintaining their unhinged relation in suspension. In such astate, the senses are separated from the mind and therefore cannot comprehensively grasp an enunciatedconcept.The sense of creation is removed from signification in order to expose its own manner of self-relation. Suspensionisagain introduced

Both his question and his argument utilised aperformanceofpictorial geometrical perspective,split- ting the eyefromthe gaze,playingwith the triangular form, doublingit, turningitaround, and over- lappingits scheme, to create the chiasmicstructure. Subdued to the function of desirewithin the op- eration of the gaze,the emergenceofthe subject was formed in the ungraspable, illusionary consciousness of seeing itself seeing itself; Isaw myself seeing myself;Isee myself seeing myself. This is abipolar reflexive relation that no longer allows the appropriation of self by reflection; in fact,itannihilates the subject geometrical constitution in favorofthe movement of lack and desire. See Lacan, TheFour Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis,67–90.  Krens, “The Triumph of Entropy,” xix; see n. 17 above.  Jean-Luc Nancy, “WhyAre There Several Arts, Not Just One?”,inTheMuses,trans. Peggy Kamuf (Stanford: StanfordUniversity Press, 1996), 22. On the problem of signification in Nancy, see Charles Shepherdson, “Aesthetic ‘Sense’ in Kant and Nancy,” New LiteraryHistory 48, no. 2(2017), 197–221. 196 Adi Louria Hayon

as an unbridgedinterval maintaining the separation of the senses, as well as the sep- aration of each sense from its ownself-awareness. Nancy then poses the exposition of self-relationasahaptic operation that ad- heres to the movement of ahyletic circle, which is an uncountable and rawhaptic movement.Nancy’shyletic circle follows the order of self-relation we find in Lacan, Anzieu, but also in Freud. He seems to weaveAnzieu’shaptic motive with La- can’sformal mechanism, that is, his chiasmic screwing hyletic circle. If Lacan offers the relation of consciousness and representation by tending to the reflective order of “Isee myself seeing myself,” Nancy offers touch as it “feels itself feeling itself.”⁵⁰ From Freud, Nancy imports the movement of the erotogenic zones as ahaptic movement of desire—the Verlust. He elaborates on how such tactilitytouches itself. Sensesenses itself by touchingastouchtouches touch. Touch touches on nothing but itself while it syncopates itself in material plurality.The suspended interval at the heart of the hyletic circle is the auto-heterology of touch. It is the spacing and the differenceof zones and arelation-to-self:

Touch itself—inasmuch as it is asense and consequentlyinasmuch as it feels itself feeling, or morethan that,inasmuch as it feels itself feeling itself,sinceitonlytouches by touching also itself, touched by what it touches and because it touches—touch presents the proper moment of sensuous exteriority;itpresents it as such and as sensuous. What makes for touch is “this in- terruption, which constitutesthe touch of the self-touching,touch as self-touching.” Touch is the interval and the heterogeneity of touch. Touch is proximatedistance. It makesone sense what makes one sense (what it is to sense): the proximity of the distant,the approximation of the in- timate.⁵¹

Granting primacy to touch, Nancy returns to Aristotle’sheterogeneity of the senses, and yetdiffers from him by offering touch not onlyasthe sense thatencompasses all the other senses (sensus communis/koinē aisthēsis), but as acondition for all sentient life. In Aristotle, touchoccurs at the liminal difference between interior and exterior. Pascal Massie dwells on the double movement of the sense of touch, exhibiting the duality of aproper and common functionbypointing simultaneouslytotheobject of sensation and the sensing of the object.⁵² Yetthis beguiling sensualsense and agath- ering synthetic sense appear simultaneouslyempirical and transcendental. Daniel Heller-Roazen argues that for Aristotle, “the significanceofthe primary sensation […]lies not in its proximity to the modern notion of consciousness but in its removal from it.”⁵³ What he offers as sense perception and self-awareness are not forms of

 Lacan, “Anamorphosis,” The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis,80; Nancy, “WhyAre There Several Arts, Not Just One?”,17.  Nancy, TheMuses,29.  Pascal Massie, “Touching, Thinking, Being: The Sense of Touch in Aristotle’s De anima and Its Implications,” Minerva:AnInternet Journal of Philosophy 17 (2013): 90.  Daniel Heller-Roazen, The Inner Touch: Archaeology of aSensation,paperback ed. (New York: Zone Books,2009), 40.Pavel Gregoric maintainsasimilar sensual route, claimingthat the common The Weak Relations of Touch and Sight through the PassageofLapsed Time 197

cognition or awareness, but rather forms of sensation. Mark Shiffman and T.K. Johan- sen arguethat the physical and the mental are an actualisation of sense perception and sensibility.⁵⁴ ForAristotle, the common faculty sensing one’svery feelingismost manifestin tactile sensations. Nancy carries out adouble movement: first,the empirical putting- to-work and then the logos of sense pronouncing itself.⁵⁵ This is the tactile reflexivity of sensation whereby the senses disclose not onlywhat theyare sensing,but also that they are sensing.⁵⁶ Here, Nancy pays attention to the haptic interval, which he poses at the chiasmic intersection of the blind spot.The blind haptic interval is an undecidable syncopation which comprises and energises the hyletic circle.Itisa cancellingout and awithdrawal on which everything is contingent because the movement of the chiasm requires an incommensurable desert, adeserted withdraw- al, thatmaintains aspiralmovement,anélan,which is perpetuallythe same, yetal- ways in difference. Nancy opens this impossibledialectic into amannerofwithdrawingfrom repre- sentation, from absolute knowledge,which constitutes asyncopatedsynthesis of the undecided self: “It undoesitself,” Nancy writes, “and it constitutes itself, fissures it- self in the very gesture and instantinwhich it overcomes, fixes, and effaces its fea- tures.”⁵⁷ As such, “it is the art.”⁵⁸ That is, it is the art of uncovering the reciprocal

sense, for example, is identified with the sense of touch as an empirical sense of perception; see PavelGregoric, Aristotle on the Common Sense (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press,2007).  Aristotle, De anima,ed. Mark Shiffman (Newburyport,MA: Focus Publishing, 2010), 22–23,and T.K. Johansen, Aristotle on the Sense-Organs (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1997), 288–90. Although Iwill not address the empirical and transcendental split,this trajectory maybechallenged, as seen in Aristotle: “While in respect of all the other senses we fall below manyspecies of animals, in respect of touch we far excelall other species in exactness of discrimination. That is whyman is the most intelligent (phronimōtaton)ofall animals.This is confirmed by the fact that it is to differencesin the organoftouch and to nothingelse that the differences between man and man in respect of nat- ural endowment are due;” see On the Soul,421a20–25,inTheComplete WorksofAristotle,ed. Jona- than Barnes (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1984), 1:670.  ForAristotle, touch is conceivedasthe utmost essential sense amongperceptive beings,since “without touch therecan be no other sense.” See On the Soul 435a4 (1:692). The senses arealso in- terdependent on touch, since they “no doubt,perceive by contact.” See 435a19(1:691); however, touch is an independent sense: “There is one sense function, and the controlling sensory organis one, though differingasafaculty of perception in relation to each genus,e.g., sounds or colour; and sincethis subsists with in association chieflywith the faculty of touch (for this can exist apart from all the other organsofsense, but none of them can exist apart from it—asubjectof which we have treated in our speculations concerningthe soul);” see Aristotle, On Sleep 455a20– 25 (in TheComplete WorksofAristotle,1:723).  And again, but on adifferent order, “And thoughtthinks itself because it shares the natureofthe object of thought; for it becomes an object of thoughtincoming intocontact with and thinkingits objects,sothat thoughtand object of thoughtare the same.” See Metaphysics 1072b20–21 (TheCom- plete WorksofAristotle,2:1695).  Jean-Luc Nancy, TheDiscourse of the Syncope: Logodaedalus,trans. Saul Anton (Stanford: Stan- fordUniversity Press,2008), 10. 198 Adi Louria Hayon

relations of understanding and imagination in agiven presentation. Thus art,for Nancy,isthe exposition of its accordand discordofappearance.

Lapsed Time

Morris’s Blind Time III (1985) performs the following event score in iron oxide on paper:

Fig. 15: Robert Morris, Blind Time III,1985, ironoxideonpaper,96.5x127 cm.©Robert Morris/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York (Courtesy of Castelli Gallery).

Working blindfoldedfor an estimated5minutes, the hands work from left to right with random motions.Then from the right random touches, which converge towardthe left,are put down (three spaces aretaped out to sample the discreetness of the marks in the different areas).

It is not possible to determine with accuracy both the position and momentumofaparticle. Ac- cording to the uncertainty principle the producerofthe uncertainty of acomponent of momen- tum as the Planck constant(h): (ΔpxΔx~h). Some saythat during this time alot can happen, the universe beingone example. Time estimation error: +1’–39“

 Nancy, 102. The Weak Relations of Touch and Sight through the Passage of Lapsed Time 199

The scoreand the drawingshow twodifferent schemes: random motions and three whitecubic frames. The whiteframes conceal the traces of the artist’sfingers in a horizontallyordered sequence. The overlayofthe geometric series upon the chaotic background corresponds to Morris’sconception of time introduced in what seem to be two different chronological sequences for the piece; that is, his estimated set of minutes for drawing and its prolongedactuality,which does not accord with the apt rule of time, but lapses out of the ordained chronology. The whitecubic forms are measuredsquares, articulating their geometrical overlayoffinite perfection. They stand in contrast to the unexpected momentum of black traces.Morris explains their undefined composition rendering Heisenberg’suncertainty principle in quan- tum mechanics (1927), accordingtowhich anyofavariety of mathematical inequal- ities asserts afundamental limit to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties of aparticle, known as complementary variables, position and momentum —as noted in the score—can be known. Heisenberg’sprinciple reveals adouble divi- sion. First,the separation of knowledge from the physical world. If knowledge of every quantum theoretical quantity is maintained and derived from acoordinate sys- tem, the latter fixes apartial observation. Therefore, “adefinite experiment can never give exact informationonall quantum-theoretical quantities. Rather,itdivides phys- ical quantities into ‘known’ and ‘unknown’ (or more or less accuratelyknown quan- tities) in away characteristic of the experiment in question.”⁵⁹ The second division, which is derivedfrom the first,isthe division of position and momentum.InNuclear Physics (1943), Heisenbergexplains the problem of the principle of uncertainty “in its simplest form as follows: one can never know with perfect accuracy both of those two importantfactors which determine the movement of one of the smallest parti- cles—its position and its velocity.Itisimpossibletodetermine accurately both the position and the direction and speed of aparticle at the same instant.”⁶⁰ In fact,ac- curate evaluation of one is contingent upon uncertain knowledge of the other, since “if we determine experimentallyits exact position at anygiven moment,its move- ment is disturbed to such adegreebythatvery experiment that we shall then be un- able to find it at all. Andconversely, if we are able to measure exactlythe velocity of aparticle, the picture of its position becomes totallyblurred.”⁶¹ In “The Physical Con- tent of Quantum Kinematics and Mechanics,” Heisenbergrepeats this uncertainty as “the more preciselythe position is determined, the less preciselythe momentum is known, and conversely.”⁶² He maintains that the measurement of time does not onlyprovide meaning to quantity,but also creates aparticular value for this quan-

 Werner Heisenberg, “The Physical Content of Quantum Kinematics and Mechanics,” in Quantum Theoryand Measurement,ed. John Archibald Wheelerand Wojciech Hubert Zurek(Princeton: Prince- tonUniversity Press, 1983), 70.  Werner Heisenberg, Nuclear Physics,trans. Frank Gaynor and Amethe vonZeppelin (London: Me- thuen, 1953), 30.  Heisenberg, 30.  Heisenberg, “The Physical Content of Quantum Kinematics and Mechanics,” 64. 200 Adi Louria Hayon

tity.Infact, “measurement” here means thatamomentum is physicallyreal via ob- servation alone. Nevertheless, this palpable reality is always partial, since measuring momentummeans that aposition will be measured with some inaccuracy.⁶³ Thus, we can onlyattribute discontinuous undecidability to the relations of position and mo- mentum. In Physics and Philosophy,Heisenbergclaims thereisnoabsolute universal time. In his thoughts about Kant,herefutes apriori forms of pure intuition and the lawof causality.⁶⁴ Theuncertainty principle cast doubtonthe reliability of anypartial ob- servation presented in adiagrammaticform which includes measurement,language, and knowledge. “Whathappens,” Heisenbergwrote, “depends on our wayofobserv- ing it or on the fact that we observeit.”⁶⁵ Morris’sblind passageisasetting apart of both confident intervals and unmeasured intervals. They allude to several orders of time which are strictlyconcernedwith the function of registeringdecisions. To return to Heisenberg, “the observerhas onlythe function of registering decisions, i.e., proc- esses in space and time, and it does not matter if the observer is an apparatus or a human being;but the registration, i.e., the transition from the ‘possible’ to the ‘ac- tual,’ is absolutelynecessary here.”⁶⁶ Time is bound to the register of the observer, who createsareality via observation. Morris’sblind-time actions determine the draw- ings’ reality as uncertain relations which limit the possibility of simultaneously measuring time and position in accuracy. “Present time” marks an interval between the observer and the event at the moment of observation:

In the theory of relativity […]future and past areseparated by afinite time interval the length of which dependsonthe distance from the observer.[…]Therefore, an observer can at agiven in- stant neither know of nor influence anyevent at adistant point which takesplacebetween two characteristictimes.The one time is the instant at which alight signal has to be givenfromthe

 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari allude to Heisenberg’sobserver position and the possibilityof the subjective interferenceofthe measurewith the measured. See Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, What Is Philosophy?,trans. Hugh Tomlinsonand Graham Burchell (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 129–30.  Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy:The Revolution in Modern Science,new ed. (New York: Harper,1962),49.  Heisenberg, 19.Heisenberg’suse of the term anschaulichen is significant to understandingthe roleofperception in formingknowledge.Hilgevoord and Uffnik commentated anschaulichen as one of those German words that defy an unambiguous translation into other languages. In his biog- raphyofHeisenbergDavid C. Cassidy, refers to anschaulichen as “perceptual” (David C. Cassidy, Un- certainty:The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg [New York: Freeman, 1992],226). Literally, the closest translation of the term anschaulich is “visualisable.” But,asinmost languages, words that makereferencetovision arenot always intended literally. Seeingiswidelyused as ametaphor for understanding,especiallyfor immediateunderstanding.Hence, anschaulich also means “intelligible” or “intuitive.” See JanHilgevoord and JosUffink, “The Mathematical Expression of the Uncertainty Principle,” in Microphysical Reality and Quantum Formalism:Proceedings of the Conference “Micro- physical Reality and Quantum Formalism,” Urbino,Italy,Sept. 25th–Oct. 3rd,1985,ed. A. van der Merwe, F. Selleri, and G. Tarozzi (Dordrecht: KluwerAcademic Publishers, 1987): 911–14.  Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy,89. The Weak Relations of Touch and Sight through the Passage of Lapsed Time 201

point of the event in order to reachthe observer at the instant of observation. The other time is the instant at which alight signal, givenbythe observer at the instant of the observation, reach- es the point of the event.The whole finite time interval between these two instants maybesaid to belongtothe “present time” for the observer at the instant of observation. Anyevent taking placebetween the two characteristictimes maybecalled “simultaneous” with the act of obser- vation.⁶⁷

The Interval of Time Does Not See

The intervals of time, senses, position and momentum, and text and actionall allude to cutting out irrational and blind time or syncopated rhythm while keepingpresup- posed time anumerical measure at the opening of each score. In contrast to presup- posed time, blind haptic time effects measure since the relations signified in Morris’s “time errors” are unstable. These finite time intervals mark and frame the limit of the interval in relation to the first estimation and yet, initiating the haptic drawing time, they touch upon lapsed time, thatcut-out irrational time. Morris’scut-out time and blind actionscompose an empirical quasi-transcendental proposition. First,itisem- pirical insomuch as it is amode of an auto-experience in time. Second, this auto-ex- perience is the work of art in its technique.Itshows its sense by touchingitself touchingits own sense. Time becomes the form of the actionofdifferentiation, atem- poral interval amid zones. Nancy’stouchisalso the place of non-seeing,lack, and deprivedsense. It is posited as the spacing of the chiasmic intersection whereall is withdrawn. In TheMuses,Nancy returns to Heidegger’s1969essay “Art and Space” to declare the origin and sense of spacing as an act of creation and the differ- ence between zones.⁶⁸ However,Iwill circumvent this move in order to concentrate on cut-out time. Morris’scut-out time is an instructiveinterval thatassuch touches upon itself, each time, again and again, in blind haptic spacing.Itreverberates in Nancy’shyletic spiral as atemporal series indebted to the long tradition from Des- cartes to Freud via LacantoDeleuze’ssplit “I.” In order to understand Morris’sinterval of time, we must turn to Deleuze’scri- tique of the temporal subject.Deleuze returns to Kant’scritique of Descartes’sthink-

 Heisenberg, 71.  The spatial natureofNancy’sheterogeneous haptic zones stemsfromhis interpretation of Heideg- ger’sconstrual of spaceasthe absolutedifferenceofappearance. In “WhyAre ThereSeveral Arts?”, NancycitesHeidegger: “This is whyHeideggercould write: ‘We should learn to recognize that things themselvesare places, and do not merelybelongtoplace’”;see “WhyAre There Several Arts?”,19. On the connection between placeand space, Heideggerwrites in “Art and Space” that a “clearing away (Räumen)isutteredtherein. […]Clearingawaybrings forth the free, the openness for man’ssettling and dwelling.” See Martin Heidegger, “Art and Space,” trans. Charles H. Seibert, Manand World 6 (1973): 5. See also Nancy’sreferral to Heidegger’s On Time and Being,trans. Joan Stambaugh(New York: Harper &Row,1972),23, and his “The Origin of the Work of Art,” Poetry, Language,Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper &Row,1975), 75. 202 Adi Louria Hayon

ing subject,claiming that it rests on asuccessionofanterior time, the progression of the time of the Idea, Platonic, divine time.⁶⁹ Plato and Aristotle thought of time as being cyclical and inseparable from the movement of physical bodies. Exposedto the externality of the outside, the cogito holds no innate ideas prior to the simulta- neity of the soul. Kant critiques Descartes’smove: if “Ithink” is adetermination, then “Iam/I exist” is an undeterminable determination; for we do not know how the indeterminate becomes determinateorthe mannerinwhich it will appear deter- minate. Hence, Kant rejects Descartes’sclaim that “Iamathinkingsubstance.” Kant adds acomponent to Descartes’s cogito: interior time. It is onlythrough time that the indeterminable self becomes determinate.⁷⁰ Pure and empty time cuts right through the consciousness of the subject.This fracture introducesafundamental split in the subject: on one extreme, the active spontaneity of “Ithink” (towards unity/synthe- sis); on the other,the experiencing empirical self, effected by thought.The issue at hand is no longer succession, but achiasm which is produced by apure and empty form of time. Iexperience myself. The “I” effects itself in the form of time. This auto-affection is the interiorised differencebetween beingand thought.Itsplits the subjectinto two:the empirico-transcendental doublet.The active synthesis of thoughtand the passive receptivity of effect; atouch, if youwill, withoutsynthesis. Deleuze develops this cut,this interruption, in his third synthesis of time. No longer an apriori subjective “pure” form, time is rendered as aproductive power con- stituted by aforceful, irrational cut.The cut drawstogetherboth before and after: thus, the totality of time. The cut thus determines the before and the after,which no longer rhyme:

We can then distinguish amoreorless extensive past and afutureininverse proportion, but the futureand the past hereare not empirical and dynamic determinations of time: they areformal and fixed characteristicswhich follow apriori from the order of time, as though they comprised astatic synthesis of time. The synthesis is necessarilystatic, sincetime is no longer subordinated to movement; time is the most radical form of change,but the form of change does not change.⁷¹

Exteriority is thus determined as the past before and the future after the cut.The pure present is the process of becomingequal to the event of experiencing internal differ- ence. In the fourth section of Difference and Repetition,entitled “Asymmetrical Syn- thesis of the Sensible,” Deleuze turns to Richard Dedekind’sconcept of the limit in the theory of real numbers:

 Daniela Voss shows how for both Plato and Aristotle, time was defined as a “number of move- ment” counted by the celestial revolution of planets passingthrough certain “cardinal points.” The uniform and circular motion of planets provided ameans to mark off regular periods of time. Consequently, time was thought of as beingcyclical and inseparable from the movement of physical bodies.See Daniela Voss, “Deleuze’sThirdSynthesis of Time,” Deleuze Studies 7, no. 2(2013):194–216.  Deleuze and Guattari, What Is Philosophy?,31–32.  Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition,trans. Paul Patton (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 89. The Weak Relations of Touch and Sight through the PassageofLapsed Time 203

In short,the limit must be conceived not as the limit of afunction but as agenuine cut [coupure], aborder between the changeable and the unchangeable within the function itself […]close to the modern interpretation of calculus:the limit no longer presupposes the ideas of acontinuous variable and infiniteapproximation. On the contrary,the notion of limit grounds anew,static and purelyideal [fictive,pure, passive]definition of continuity.⁷²

Continuity,accordingtoDedekind, is composed of both rational and irrational num- bers. The latter mark gaps that creatediscontinuity and incompleteness. He used a method of division,todayknown as the “Dedekind cuts,” to divide apoint in a line into two classessothat all the pointsinone class are always to the left of all the points in the other.Each cut determines one point,oralternatively,itcan desig- nate agap between arational number and an irrational quantity.Hence, cuts define irrational numbers. With these, he constructed an order of “real numbers” which in- cluded rational and irrational numbers. This order was devoid of the notionsorin- tuitions of space and time and specifies an infinite and discrete multiplicityofele- ments. In Dedekind’sorder,Deleuze sawanew,static, and purelyideal definitionof continuity.Heusedthis order to construct atime that is determined apriori and des- ignatesastatic state of affairs. Thisisthe Deleuzianapriori, a-subjective staticsyn- thesis of discrete elements (past and future moments) which are distributed by the cut.Itmay be characterised as afalse infinity that includes an infinity of gaps, which are designated by the irrational cut; that is, the interstice between aseries of rational numbers. They symbolise the irruption of the virtual event within the em- pirical continuum of space and the chronological succession of instants. These series of times bring together the past and future of becomingvia contact with the outside. Aseries of time is acut; thatis, difference-in-itself.Ininfiniterepetition yetnever the same, aseries of time changes duetoselections of desire or thought.Why desire? Morris’sdesire is dark, blind, and irrational. He returns to Lacan’sdrive as aforce and amovement that strivestowardscompletion and unity which, however,always remains incomplete. It moves and motivates the cyclic spiral.⁷³ Stemmingfrom Freud’s Vorlust and the energetic cycle of the erotogenic zones, desire is at once an internal and an external force. Whythought?The temporalcut constituting thoughtdemands adesire for self each time, eternallyfalling into the blind spot of incoherence and dissolution. Hence, Morris is performingapassageofthe divided self, passing towardsthe unity of the “I,” towards an imageyet to come. Morris’s proposition of the haptic cut,his passageoflapsed time, takes place in the blind haptic movement of pressured imprints.Again and again, thereare hundreds of drawings,unspoken, inarticulate fingerprints. They pose the fractured self as apas- sive blind spot which generates the pictorial act.They reveal the sense of painting not as auniversal concept,but as the singular self-portrait of Morris’splural touch-

 Deleuze,172.  Morris, “Writingwith Davidson,” 622, 624. 204 Adi Louria Hayon

ings, plural cuts. Formally, the cut-out time(s) are intervals in an “impersonal and pre-individual” transcendental field, in which the vestigeofthe acting artist—mark- ing his pressured weight towards an image—produces empirical formationsbyactive synthesis. Each drawing,each set,each series is moved at the heart by syncopation, adead heart thatpreforms and performsinpassivity.This is the weak, passive form drifting amidst the effects of the touchingsenses of sense.

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Rachel Aumiller is aresearch fellow at the ICI Berlin Institutefor Cultural Inquiryaspart of the Core Project Reduction 2020–2022. She received her PhD in philosophy from Villanova University and trained in the LjubljanaSchool of Psychoanalysis in Slovenia as aUSFulbright Scholar.She is the author of The Laughing Matter of Spirit (Northwestern UniversityPress, forthcoming) on Hegel, Marx, and the possibility of socialchange through the repetition of failed revolutions and revolts.

BaraKolenc is aresearch fellow at the Scientific Research Instituteofthe Faculty of Arts, UniversityofLjubljana, and alecturer at the Academy forTheatre, Radio, Film and Television. She is the author of Ponavljanje in uprizoritev: Kierkegaard, psihoanaliza, gledališče (Repetitionand Enactment: Kirkegaard, Psychoanalysis, Theatre [DTP,2014]). She haspublishedarticles in Problemi, Filozofski vestnik, Maska, SJournal,and elsewhereand hasfeaturedinmonographs (most recently in The Language of Touch [Bloomsbury, 2019]). She is also an artist in performing artsand in 2016 she received the Theatertreffen Commission of Work,one of the most prominent Europeantheatreawards.

MirtKomel obtained his PhD in philosophy from the Department of Philosophy in the Faculty of Artsatthe UniversityofLjubljana. He is chair of the DepartmentofCultural Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences,wherehelectures on courses on modern philosophy and modern literature, and also aresearcher at both the Institutefor Philosophy in the Faculty of Artsand the Peace InstituteofLjubljana. He is an author of monographs (An Attempt of aTouch, Socratic Touches, Discourse and Violence,Guillotine of the Spirit), an editor of international volumes (The Language of Touch), atranslator (Jean LucNancy: Corpus, Noli me tangere, The Birth of Breasts), and author (The Pianist’sTouch, Sontius Notes).

Adi Louria Hayon is an assistant professor in the ArtHistory DepartmentatTel AvivUniversity. She completed her PhD at the University of Toronto.Her research focuses on the connections between art and philosophy in the modern and contemporary eras, particularly the shared paths of minimalism, post-minimalism, conceptual art,and epistemology.She haspublished in Leonardo Music Journal, Religion and the Arts, Afterimage,and Zeitschrift für Ästhetik,and she is currently completing abook about BruceNauman. Since2018, she hasbeen leading aresearch grouponthe political natureofsound art in Israel,which is funded by the ISF. Her contribution to thisanthology wassupported by the Maimonides Institutefor Advanced Studies at Hamburg University, whereshe wasaresearch fellow in 2016–2017.

Jacob Levi is aPhD candidateinthe Departmentfor Comparative Thought and LiteratureatJohns Hopkins Universityand agraduateofthe École Normale Supérieure. He is currently completing his doctoraldissertation entitled “The Adventure of the Book: Jabès, Derrida, Levinas.” His work focuses on the history of phenomenology,philosophy of language, and modern Jewishthought.

RobertPfaller is aphilosopher who teaches at the UniversityofArt and Industrial Design in Linz, Austria. He is afounding member of the “stuzzicadenti” psychoanalytic research groupinVienna. He is the author of The Pleasure Principle in Culture: Illusions without Owners (Verso, 2014), which won the “Best Book Published in 2014” award from the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABAPsa)in2015; Interpassivity: The Aesthetics of Delegated Enjoyment (Edinburgh UniversityPress, 2017); and Erwachsenensprache: Über ihr Verschwindenaus Politik und Kultur (Fischer,2017). 208

LiberaPisano is currently aresearch associate at the Institutefor Jewish Philosophy and Religion at the UniversityofHamburg. She wasaresearch fellow in the Department of Political and Social Science at the UniversityofCalabria and ajuniorfellow (postdoc) at the Maimonides Centre for AdvancedStudies, and she hasbeen avisiting research fellow at the University of Haifa, the Humboldt UniversityBerlin, and the Instituto Italiano per gli Studi filosofici. She earned her PhD in theoretical philosophy at La Sapienza, UniversitàdiRomain2014, withadissertation entitled Lo spirito manifesto. Percorsi linguistici nella filosofia hegeliana (ETS,2016). Recently,she published L’ebraismo come scienza. CulturaePolitica in Leopold Zunz (Paideia, 2019) together withGiuseppe Veltri, an introduction and the first Italian translation of the work of Leopold Zunz, and she hasalso edited the first Italiantranslation of Gustav Landauer’swritings on Judaism (Gustav Landauer, Esilio eAnarchia,[Castelvecchi, 2019]). She is the author of severalessays concerning the roleoflanguageinHegel’swritings, Moses Mendelssohn, GustavLandauer,Jewish contemporary philosophy,the thoughtofG.B. Vico, linguistic scepticism among German-Jewish thinkers,and the concept of Diaspora.

Bill Rebiger is aresearch associate on “The Kabbalistic Treatise KeterShem Ṭov: Synoptic Edition, Commentary, Translation and the History of its Reception,” aproject supervised by Prof.Gerold Necker at the Seminaryfor Jewish Studies/Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. He received his PhD in Jewishstudies from the Free UniversityBerlin and hasheld research positions on various projects funded by the German Research Foundation.

Goran Vranešević is an assistantprofessor of philosophy at the Faculty of Arts, Universityof Ljubljana, whereheiscurrently the research coordinator of the “Verbumsat” project. He has written and presented on various topics ranging from aestheticsand culturaltheorytoclassical commentaries on ontological concepts. His main research interests include Germanidealism, psychoanalysis,speculativephilosophy,politicalphilosophy,and linguistics. He is afounding member of the Aufhebung—InternationalHegelian Association and the coordinator of the Seminar forPoliticalTheoryatthe PeaceInstituteinLjubljana.

List of Figures

: Mark Tansey, Doubting Thomas, ,oil on canvas, x inches (.x. cm.)©Mark Tansey.CourtesyGagosianGallery, New York. : Zack Sievers, film strip from Haptic Cinematography, . : Zack Sievers, film strip from Haptic Cinematography, . : Bara Kolenc, Mirt Komel and Atej Tutta, Hegel’sBegriff, ,installation, mixedmedia. : AHand, fragment of the colossalstatue of Emperor Constantine the Great from his basilica, Ca. – CE., Marble ©Musei Capitolini, Rome /ArtResource, New York. : Valie Export, Tapp und Tastkino (TAPand TOUCHCinema), /,video ©Valie Export / MuseumofModern Art, New York. : John William Waterhouse, Thisbeorthe Listener, ,oil on canvas, x cm. ImageSource: Fine Art Photographic Library, London. : Frederick Leighton, Elisha Raising the Son of the Shunammite, ,oil on canvas, x  cm.,Leighton House Museum, Royal BorrowofKensington and Chelsea, London. Image Source: Bridgeman Images. : Giovanni Battista Caracciolo (il Battistello), Noli me tangere,c.,oil on canvas, x  cm.,Museo Civico, PalazzoPretorio,Prato, Italy.ImageSource: Heritage Images. : Caravaggio, The Incredulity of SaintThomas, –,oil on canvas, x cm.,Sans- souciPictureGallery, Potsdam, Germany.Image Source: HeritageImages. : Veronika Pausova, Midnight Jacuzzi, ,oil on Canvas, x inches (.x. cm.) ©Veronika Pausova/Subal Gallery, New York. : Robert Morris, Blind Time I, ,graphiteand paint oil on paper, x cm. ©RobertMorris /Artists Rights Society(ARS), New York (Courtesy of Castelli Gallery). : Albrecht Dürer, Self-portrait, StudyofaHand and aPillow (recto), ,pen and brown ink, .x. cm. RobertLehman Collection,  (..). Photographed by Schecter Lee, ©The MetropolitanMuseumofArt.Imagesource: Art Resource, New York. : Robert Morris, Blind Time IV (Drawing with Davidson), ,graphiteonpaper, .x cm. ©RobertMorris/Artists Rights Society(ARS), New York (Courtesy of Castelli Gallery). : Robert Morris, Blind Time III, ,ironoxideonpaper, .x  cm. ©RobertMorris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York (Courtesy of Castelli Gallery).

Index

Abraham,Karl150 Begriff 19, 50, 140, 149–52, 154 Abrahamic religion 31 begreifen 19, 50, 148f. Academic scepticism 96 Benjamin, Walter61, 135 Aenesidemus 164 BernardofClairvaux 128 Affection Bernays,Edward 91 – Auto-affection 21, 33, 43–49, 54f.,202 Blessing 106, 113 – Hetero-affection 33, 46–49, 55 Bochner,Mel 181f. Agamben, Giorgio 124, 134f. – The Serial Attitude 182 – In Praise of Profanation 135 Body 8, 11–15, 19, 23–25, 31f.,36f., 40,42– Alloway,Lawrence 182 49, 52, 55, 84–86, 90,107,111f.,114f., Althusser,Louis 60, 70 117,123, 125f.,128–33, 136, 139–41, 143– Anarchy 123 45, 147,150–52, 154, 167,174,179f.,182, Anaximander 179 184f.,188–93, 195, 202 Ancrene Wisse 129 – Embodiment 25, 32, 39, 41f.,44, 46, 48f., Andrea del Sarto 187 54, 65 Animals 38–41, 87,127,197 – Leib 21, 43f.,46–49 Anthropocentrism 21, 39 Boulter,Jonathan 190 Anzieu, Didier 17,190f.,196 Butler,Judith 123 aphanisis 95 aporia 6, 10, 24, 164, 189 CairoGenizah109, 114f. Apuleius 7, 14 Caravaggio 31, 63, 71f. – Lucius 7 – The Incredulity of SaintThomas 31, 63 – The Golden Ass 7 Caress 22f.,33, 41f.,49–55, 126, 131, 187 Aristophanes 14, 89f.,92, 96 Carroll, Lewis 170 Aristotelianism34, 60, 145f. – Alice’sAdventures in Wonderland 170,172 Aristotle 127,140,145,157,169, 172, 196f., Carson, Anne 15 202 Cartesian scepticism 80 – De anima 127,145 Cartesian subject48, 89, 93–96, 99f. Ark of the Covenant 11, 109f. Cartesianism71f., 80f.,100,189 Art 4f., 18, 23, 60, 68, 72, 74 f.,85, 134, 147, Cassirer,Ernst 184 179–83, 185, 194f.,197f.,201 Certainty 3f., 6, 9, 17,21, 23, 25, 31–36, 44– – Artists 24, 66f.,72, 74,180–83, 185, 187, 46, 55, 69–73, 81, 93–95, 97–99, 111, 192, 199, 204 130,139, 141, 144, 146f.,149, 151, 154, ataraxia 6, 71 158–61, 163–66, 171, 182 Aufhebung 21, 148, 172 Change 13, 106, 179f.,202 Augustine of Hippo 7, 9–11, 16 Christianity 11, 31, 91, 113, 130,141f. – CityofGod 9 Comedy 60f. Aumiller,Rachel 63 Concept 19f.,23, 40f.,47, 49f.,53, 65, 73, Austin, J. L. 14, 72, 105 80–82, 86–89, 105f.,114, 116f.,140–43, Autoeroticism 13, 17,21–23, 25f.,191 146–50, 152, 154, 158, 164, 170,173f., 195, 203f. Babylonian Talmud 116 Continental philosophy 17f.,21 Barthes, Roland 68f.,72–74 Contradiction 10, 16–18, 144, 157,160 – CameraLucida 68 Contrary10, 15, 24, 53, 157,174,179 Beckett, Samuel 179, 188–91 Corelli, Marie 131 – Texts 190 – Electric Creed 131 – Unnamable 188, 191 Crack 16, 18f.,21, 79, 84f. 214 Index

Crisis 4–6, 10f.,16, 18f.,25f. Doubt 3f., 6, 8f., 11, 13–15, 17f.,20–22, Culture4,25f., 36, 66–69, 91, 105, 113, 139, 25f.,31–36, 39f.,53–55, 59, 66f.,70–73, 159, 167,181 80f.,93–101, 107,117,130,139–41, 144, Curiosity6–8, 10, 23, 40,53, 63f.,71, 144, 146f.,149–54, 157,159–61, 164, 166f., 166 180,200 Cut38, 48, 52, 133, 146, 174, 183, 187,201– Doubting Thomas 3, 12, 31, 63, 65, 68, 71– 4 74,112, 124, 130–32, 139, 142, 144f.,154 Cynicism 7, 66f. doxa 10, 70f.,74 – Crates 66 Dream 3f., 9, 72, 91, 94, 98, 109, 144 – Cynic 7 Drive4,14f., 21, 35, 67,97f., 100f.,124, – Diogenes of Sinope 66 130,157,167,189, 194, 203 – Hipparchia 66 Duchamp, Marcel 60 Dürer,Albrecht 182, 187 Davidson, Donald 192–94 Duve, Thierryde184 – Agency 192f. Davis, Paul 189 Eakins, Thomas 182 de Beauvoir,Simone53 Efficacy 14, 62, 106–8, 114, 117f. –The Second Sex 53 Ego52, 62, 190f. de Biran, Maine 40 –“I” 12, 52, 124, 202 Deception 32, 34, 45 f.,49 Elija 110–13 Dedekind, Richard203 Elisha 11, 110–13, 117 Deleuze, Gilles 200–203 Encounter 6, 13, 16, 18, 23, 50f.,53f., 70, – Difference and Repetition 202 72f.,87–89, 94, 97f.,100, 131, 134, 170, Democritus 169 173 Derrida, Jacques 17,21, 23, 33, 36, 39–41, epekeinatēsousias (beyond being) 33, 52 48f.,52, 81, 83, 126–28, 140–42, 154 Epictetus70 – GeschlechtII: Heidegger’sHand 39 Epicurean 59, 61 – On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy 48, 126, Epicurus 59 141f. Epistemology 5f., 10, 12, 14, 17,19, 21–24, – Violence and Metaphysics 52 26, 32–36, 49, 52–55, 71–74,123, 136, Descartes, René 3, 6, 11, 33f.,39f., 42, 44, 140,184 72, 94f.,98, 164, 201f. epochē 6, 18, 20f.,96, 136 – Discourse on Method 39, 94 Equipollence10f., 15, 18, 25, 81, 96f. – Evil demon 94 Eros 13–15, 17,26, 50, 53, 86, 90 – Meditations 6, 94 – PhenomenologyofEros 52–54 – Principles of Philosophy 94 – Eroticism6,13f., 23, 25f.,41, 52–54, 67, Desire 5f., 9, 12–18, 23–26, 41, 51,53, 63– 91, 113, 124 66, 69, 80f.,84–88, 90–101, 129–31, 136, – Erotic Touch 52 139, 150f.,153, 159, 185, 191, 193–96, 203 Ethics5f.,17, 21, 23, 25f.,32f., 43, 46f., Diderot, Denis60, 65 50–55, 69, 71–73, 141, 164 Difference39, 46, 49, 51,82, 84, 109, 132, Euclid 151 148, 152, 157,160, 162, 164, 167–70, 172– Euclidean geometry 151, 153, 184 74,182, 193f.,196f.,201–3 Excendence33, 50, 52f. Disruption 8, 12, 21, 179f. – EthicalExcendence53–55 Division16, 39, 47,83, 141–43, 182, 185, Excess8,12f., 24, 26, 183–85, 194 188, 199, 203 Export, Valie 63, 65f.,71f. Dogmatism 4f., 21f.,25, 71, 96, 123, 136, 161, 180 Face 54, 60, 79, 85, 111, 188 Dolar,Mladen 17,146, 189 Facticity 188, 191 Double Sensation 22, 33, 43–49, 55 Index 215

Failure20, 24, 73, 81, 94, 107,111, 117,157, 149f.,153, 159, 163, 171, 174, 180f.,184f., 161, 165, 189 187f.,192, 195, 198, 202 Faith 4, 11, 31f.,34, 71, 73, 128–30, 139f., Happiness7,61 142, 144, 154 Haptic dogmatism 4 Fascism 22f. Haptic scepticism 4–6, 10,16–26, 32f.,35, Fichte, Johann Gottlieb 164 39, 42, 44–46, 49, 54f.,80f., 98, 100f., Fideism 11 153 Fidelity 11, 14 Haptolinguistics20, 140, 142, 151, 153f. Finger3,13, 15, 19f.,23f., 36, 59, 63, 72, Harari, Yuval106 116, 129f.,139, 185 Harassment 25f.,67 – Fingertips9,16, 24, 139, 180 Ḥarba de-Moshe 116 Flesh 13, 15, 19, 23, 32f.,38, 41, 44, 46–52, Hasidism118 54f.,84–86, 100, 127f.,130,144–46, 187 Healing 106, 109, 111, 113–17,128 Flesh of the World 33, 47–49, 51, 55, 146 – Palm healing 113 Flusser,Vilém 125 Hebrew Bible 31, 109f. Foot 36, 48 129, 188 – Book of Kings 110, 117 Forced choice88f., 92 – Book of Samuel 109, 117 Foresight 24, 59, 61f.,64 – Exodus 31 Foucault, Michel 123 – Hebrew prophets 31 Franck, Didier 41 Hegel, GeorgWilhelm Friedrich 17–21, 88, François du Moulin 132 93, 140f.,143f.,147–50, 152, 154, 157– Frazer,James 106, 114 68, 174 – The Golden Bough 106 – LecturesonAesthetics 21, 141, 147f. Freud, Sigmund 4, 62, 64f.,67, 81, 91, 95, – PhenomenologyofSpirit 21, 168 97,99, 150,191, 196, 201, 203 – ScienceofLogic 18, 21 – Rat Man 4, 95 Heidegger,Martin 21f.,24, 33, 37–42, 45, – ThreeEssays on the Theory of Sexuality 48, 54, 201 150 – Art and Space 201 – Beingand Time 37f.,41 Gabriel, Markus 161 –Introduction to Metaphysics 22 Galilei, Galileo 151, 162 – Parmenides 38, 40 Gap 8, 15, 49, 82, 87f.,95, 99f.,136, 146, – The Fundamental ConceptsofMetaphysics 164, 171, 183f.,187,193, 203 39 Gaze15, 69, 140,150,180, 185, 194f. – What Is Called Thinking? 37f.,41 Gehazi 111f.,117 Heine, Heinrich 62, 67 German idealism6,17–19, 164 Heisenberg, Werner 199f. Gesture11–13, 25, 34, 41, 123f.,130,134, – Nuclear Physics 199 136, 139, 141, 157,159, 163, 174, 187f., – Physics and Philosophy 200 197 – Uncertainty principle 198–200 Graham,Dan 181 Heller-Roazen, Daniel 124, 196 – After Thought 181 – The Inner Touch 125 Grasp 8, 10f.,14, 16, 18f.,21, 23, 37f.,50f., Henrich, Dieter 161 53, 84, 86, 97,141, 149f.,157,195 Heraclitus 179 Gregoric, Pavel 196 Herder,Johann Gottfried 164 Guattari, Félix200 Hesitation 6, 23, 25f.,81, 96–101 Hitler,Adolf 22, 42 Halakhah 11, 105 Homer 143–45, 160 Hand 3f., 8–11, 13, 15f.,21–26, 31–47,49– – Iliad 144 51,53–55, 62, 65, 72, 88, 100,105f.,111– – Odyssey 144, 160 13, 116f.,125f..128–31, 133f.,141, 145, Homonymy 169–73 216 Index

Homophone157f.,168–70, 172–74 – Repetition 93 Horizon 6, 8, 41, 45,48, 50f.,91f., 125 Klein, Melanie 150 Husserl, Edmund12, 22f.,33, 42–49, 54 Knowledge3,5–11, 14f.,19, 21, 23, 25f.,32, – Ideas PertainingtoaPure Phenomenology 35, 39, 45,49–51, 62–64, 68–75, 88, 90, and to aPhenomenological Philosophy 94, 96, 98f.,114, 116–18, 129–31, 134, II 42–43, 46, 49 141f.,147f.,157–69, 171–74,179, 180–83, 187–91, 193, 195, 197,199f. Identity 19, 92, 97,158, 160, 162f.,164, Kolenc, Bara 15f.,18, 21, 174 167f.,171–74,179, 183, 185, 187f.,195 Komel, Mirt 19f. Illusion8,32, 34, 44, 63, 72, 141, 183 Koyre, Alexander 162 Image 7–9, 14, 16, 24, 31f.,35, 44, 59–63, Kristeva, Julia 183 69, 79, 90,140,143, 146, 149f.,159, 170, Kulik, Oleg 67 180,182–85, 187f.,192, 194f.,203f. Imagination 6, 8f., 11, 15, 23f.,32, 35, 44, Lacan, Jacques 17,62, 64, 66, 73, 81, 88, 59f.,73, 79, 81f.,131, 143, 150–52, 154, 91–94, 96, 98, 140,143, 145, 149–54, 166, 170,198 158, 162f.,165, 169f.,189–91, 194, 196, Impurity 12, 105, 113, 117,132, 134 201, 203 Inquiry5,9,20, 80,158, 179f.,185, 192 – Four Fundamental ConceptsofPsychoanalysis Inscription 12, 14, 40, 51,86f., 91, 96–100, 150 115, 123, 153, 161, 164, 169, 170,172, 174, – objet a 194 188, 191 – objet petit a 150, 189 Instruction 11, 14, 24, 46, 105, 107–9, 111– – The Real 64, 143, 150,152, 154, 190 18, 184f.,187,201 Language14, 17–22, 25, 32, 35f.,39–41, Intention 42–44, 53, 70,73, 113, 180,193f. 79f.,116, 139f.,142–44, 148–51,154, 157, Intercorporeality 46–48, 50, 190 162f.,165f.,169, 172, 187,189–92, 200 Intervals 24, 182f.,194, 196f.,200f.,204 Laplanche, Jean63 Intimacy 12, 42, 48, 53, 95, 131, 133, 145, Last Supper 139 187,196 Leary,Timothy 183 Inversion 41, 87,113, 202 Legge, Elizabeth 183 isostheneia 10,81, 96 Leonardo da Vinci187 Leprosy 111–13, 117,133 Jaspers,Karl22, 42 Letter115f.,143, 151, 162–66, 169, 171–73 – Philosophical Autobiography 42 Levi, Jacob21–23 Jesus 11–13, 31, 63, 71–73, 110,112f.,117,128– Levinas, Emmanuel 17,23, 33, 41, 43, 46, 32, 139, 142, 144f.,154 49–55 – Crucifixion139 –“In MemoryofAlphonse de Waelhens” 49 Johansen, T.K. 197 – Time and the Other 49, 51 f. Joyce, James 150,152 – Totality and Infinity 33, 41, 49–53 Judaism 11, 13, 31, 105f.,107–10, 113f.,118, Limping cause 94 129 Linguistic 21, 50, 80,123, 139f, 142f.,150f., 154, 158, 161, 164, 169–73, 190f.,193 Kabbalah Linguistics6,17, 20, 140f.,151, 154, 168, – Lurianic Kabbalah 118 170,173 Kant, Immanuel 11, 31–34, 38–40,42, 54, – Saussurean140,142 164f.,200–202 Lippard, Lucy R. 183 – Critique of Judgment 31 LjubljanaSchool of Psychoanalysis4,17 – Critique of Pure Reason 34 Lorde,Audre13 Kaun, Axel 190 Louria Hayon, Adi 18, 23f. Kierkegaard, Søren 93, 98 Love 14, 41, 61f.,70, 79f.,84f., 87,89–93, – Philosophical Crumbs 93 95f.,99f., 109, 129 Index 217

Lubitsch, Ernst 60f. – Blind Time Drawings 23, 180f.,184f.,191, Lucretius 59f.,69 193 – Blind Time IV (Drawing with Davidson, Magic 13f.,105–18 1991) 192f. Maimonides 105 – Continuous Project Altered Daily 179 Marcus Aurelius59 – Moses 31 Marcuse, Ludwig 66 Museification 124, 133, 135 Mark 4, 8, 12, 21–23, 25, 51,69, 82f.,97, 129f.,142, 152, 163, 166f.,171, 182, Nancy,Jean-Luc 12, 17,82f., 124, 140,142, 184f.,187f.,198, 202–4 154, 188, 195–98, 201 Martin, Michael 193 – The Muses 195, 201 Marvel 9–11, 22, 26 Napoleon Bonaparte 164 Marx, Karl 80, 158, 164, 169 National Socialism 42 MaryMagdalene 12f.,31, 110,124, 129–32, Negation 10,19, 45,66, 136, 160f.,174,179, 139, 142, 144, 154 189 Massie, Pascal 196 New Testament109, 112, 117,128, 139, 142, Materialism 24, 60f.,66, 80,89f., 92, 124, 144, 154 152, 185 – Gospel of John 13, 31, 63, 71, 110,112, 124, Materiality 10,47, 60,69, 80,89, 92, 108, 130f. 110,114, 132, 140, 143, 146, 169, 180f., – Gospel of Luke113 186, 188, 190,195f. – Gospel of Mark 113 Matter 46f.,60, 163, 185 – Gospel of Matthew 112 Mayer, Gertrud 42 Nietzsche, Friedrich 60 Medium59, 124, 126, 128, 131f.,134, 136, Nothing, Nothingness 5, 16, 18f.,24, 53, 145, 157,172, 180, 182, 185 81f.,87f., 92–94, 159, 163, 179, 181, 185 Merleau-Ponty,Maurice 17,23, 33, 43–51,55, 83, 146 Object 6, 10f.,13–15, 23f.,32–35, 37,40, – PhenomenologyofPerception 44 42–51,53–55, 59f.,62f., 67,69–71, 73, –“The Intertwining—The Chiasm” 47 83–87,89, 97f.,105f.,108–10,114, 117, –“The Philosopher and HisShadow” 46 123, 126f.,131, 133f.,136, 140, 147,149f., – The Visible and the Invisible 47 152f.,157,159–65, 167f.,170f.,173f.,183, Metaphor 5, 19, 32f.,37, 80,85, 89, 124, 187,189, 191, 193, 195–97 128, 140f.,143–46, 148f.,154, 194, 200 Obscenity8f.,61–67,69, 71 Metaphysics 10,17–19, 21f.,124, 140f.,143– Oedipus 139 45, 149, 151, 161 Ontology 18, 33, 39, 41, 47f.,52, 82, 87, metaxy 86–88 107,123, 153f.,187,193, 195 #MeToo 25 O’Shaughnessy,Brian 193 Michelangelo187 Östlund, Ruben 67 Milner,Jean-Claude 150,158, 162–64, 173 – The Square 67 Miracle 9, 31, 110f.,113, 118, 128 Otherness19, 23, 33, 49–53, 54f.,97, 123, Missed encounter 94, 97 125, 157f.,160–62, 164, 174 Moati, Raoul 50f.,54 Ovid 16, 79, 84, 91, 100 –Levinas and the NightofBeing 50 – Metamorphoses 79 Modes 3, 9, 17,22, 31f.,41, 49, 105, 180– – Pyramus and Thisbe 79f.,83–85, 88–90, 84, 193–95, 201 92f.,99f. Montaigne, Michel de 71 Moore, G. E. 21, 33–36, 38f.,45, 54 Pain 3, 10,44f., 59f.,115f.,129, 133 Morris, Robert 23f.,179–81, 184–87,191–95, Panofsky,Erwin 184 198–201, 203f. – Perspective as aSymbolic Form 184 – Anti Form 185 218 Index

Paradox3,10, 15–17,20, 23f.,46, 62, 65, Psalm 114 81–83, 88f.,93f., 97f.,144, 149, 174, Psychoanalysis 4–6, 17f.,21, 62, 73, 91–96, 179f.,183, 189 99, 140, 143, 150f.,190f. Perception 33–35, 37,43, 45f.,51f., 55, 59, – Lacanian 65, 140,143, 151 65, 68, 80,83, 86, 94f.,117,124f.,140, Purity 15, 18, 32, 50–52, 86, 105, 107,117, 145, 149, 158f.,167,179–84, 191, 193, 132, 135f.,149, 159, 162, 164f.,173, 183, 196f.,200 188f.,200, 202f. Performance3,5f.,14, 24, 63, 66f.,71–73, Pyrrho 3, 7, 10,71 79, 95, 99, 105–7, 109–13, 115, 117f.,128, Pyrrhonian Scepticism 10,81, 96 157,163, 180–85, 187–90, 194f.,198, Pyrrhonism10, 71 203f. – Performative haptic act 14, 106f.,111, 117f. Raphael (artist) 140 – Performative speech act 105f.,117 – The School of Athens 140 – Performative writing act 106, 114 Rebiger,Bill 11, 13f. Perpetual 9, 20, 22–26 185, 190,197 Referent 164, 187 Pfaller, Robert8,21, 26 Reflection 7, 14, 17,20, 22, 37,44, 46f.,51, Phenomenology 6, 11, 17,21, 32, 42–44, 46, 65, 141, 144, 161–63, 179, 194f. 49, 52–54, 81, 105, 140,146f.,150,154 – Self-reflection 182, 190f.,194 Pierodella Francesca182 Reformation 132 Pisano, Libera 12f. Religion 3f., 11, 13f.,31, 71–73, 105, 107, Plato3,7,14f., 86, 90, 93, 96, 130,140f., 110,124, 127–29, 131–33, 135f.,139, 161 143, 145, 151, 154, 202 Repetition 14, 18, 20f.,80, 107,160, 167, – Phaedo 10,141 171, 174, 184, 187,193, 203 – Symposium 14f.,86, 90, 96 resextensa 98, 126 – Agathon 14 Resurrection 13, 31, 111f.,117,129, 131, 139, – Alcibiades 14 142, 144, 154 – Diotima15, 86, 96 Revolution 12f.,26, 151 – Theoryofforms 96 Right to touch 4 Platonism 3, 6, 17,140f.,143, 145f., 202 Risk6,8,11, 13, 16, 26, 124, 133, 180 Pleasure3,10, 12f.,26, 85, 91, 133f.,184, Ritual 4, 11, 14, 68, 105–7, 109, 111, 113, 118, 191 128, 135 Plotinus 87 Rupture 179f.,182 Plutarch 7 Politics 4, 6, 12f.,22, 26, 42, 69, 70f.,74, Sacred objects 109f.,117,131 123f.,125, 132–35 Saenredam, Pieter 182 Possibility 5–7, 12, 31–35, 38, 41, 44–46, Sanctity 105, 117 49–51, 53f.,60, 62, 64f.,67, 82f.,86, Saussure, Ferdinandde80, 142f.,152, 154, 88, 95f.,98–100,107,111, 125, 133, 135f., 170,173 141f.,160,162, 164, 166f.,171f.,174,200 Scepticism 3–22, 24–26, 32–35, 38, 43, 47, Postmodernism 6, 17,26, 67,184 53f.,55, 59, 62f.,66f., 69–72, 74,80, 96, Predilection for uncertainty 97 100, 111f.,123f.,130–32, 136, 153, 157– Prehensility 22, 32, 36–40 61, 163–68, 171, 174, 179–81 Production 10,21f., 45, 60–62, 67,74f., – External World Scepticism 32, 35, 38, 54 106f.,109, 143, 146, 151, 157f.,160f., Schechter,Solomon 115 166–68, 170,172–74,180, 182–84, 189f., Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm 164, 167 195, 202, 204 Schulze, Gottlob Ernst 164f.,168 Profanation 12, 54, 68, 105, 109, 117,124, Schuster,Aaron91 127,134–36 Science 74,80, 125, 131, 136, 143, 150f., Promiscuity 6, 8f., 13f. 154, 158f.,161–66 Protest 7, 10,12, 26 Scorpion 115 Index 219

Sefer ShimmushTehillim 114f. Structure 13, 15, 19, 38, 41f.,61, 65, 80f., Segal, Naomi 190 83f.,86f., 90–92, 95–98, 100, 124, 140, Sensation 3, 5f., 10–14, 17f.,22f., 25f.,43– 150f.,158, 161–64, 166, 169–73, 181, 191, 45, 51,59, 159, 191, 196f. 194f. Sense 3–5, 8, 10–13, 19, 22f.,31–36, 39, Subject 6f., 15, 17–19, 21, 23, 32, 34, 43–45, 42–44, 48–53, 59–61, 64, 69, 83, 98, 107, 47f.,50f., 53, 55, 70f.,73f., 83f.,86, 89– 112, 117,123–29, 131–34, 136, 139–43, 97,99f., 117,126, 140f.,146, 150, 154, 145f.,148–50, 154, 158f.,163–66, 171, 158, 160–62, 165, 167,171f.,179f.,188, 180–85, 187f.,191, 193, 195–97,201, 190f.,194f.,197,201f. 203f. Subjectivity 3, 10,13, 18f.,21, 23, 32, 41, 71, Sensuality 13, 23, 25f.,129, 131, 134, 141, 164, 79–81, 89, 91f.,95, 97–101, 126, 159, 179, 180–82, 190f.,193, 196 190,200, 202 Sensuous 13, 16 25f.,148, 162, 196 Success61f., 81, 111f.,118, 161, 171, 174 Serres, Michel 126 Surin, Kenneth 193 Sextus Empiricus 5 Surplus 8f., 60–65, 127,129, 164, 173 Shakespeare79, 168 Suspension 6, 9, 12, 18f.,21, 24f.,68, 81, – AMidsummer Night’sDream 79 89, 92, 96f.,123, 134, 136, 180,182–85, – Romeo and Juliet 79, 168 187,195 Shiffman, Mark 197 Symbol 31, 73, 91, 105, 113, 116, 124f.,131, Sight 3, 5, 8, 15, 21, 24, 31f.,44f., 59–62, 143, 148, 150,152, 154, 174, 189, 203 64, 68, 79, 107,118, 124, 128, 131f.,134, Symbolic order 91, 150,187,189 139, 141f.,145,180–85, 187,194–96, 200 Symbolic touch 105, 113, 116 Signification 50, 54, 60, 94, 109, 143, 161, Symptom 11, 22, 40f.,44, 91 163, 169f.,180,182, 187,195 Synthesis183–85, 196f.,202–4 Signifier 62, 142f.,146, 148, 150–52, 154, 162f.,165, 170f.,190 Tangible 47,127f.,142f.,144, 146, 151, 154, skepsis 81, 96–98, 100, 157,164, 167 179, 191 Skin 12, 14, 23f.,48, 52, 85, 124–26, 133, – Intangible 10, 127,132, 142f.,144, 146f., 152, 180,185, 190f. 154 Smithson, Robert 181f. Tansey,Mark 63 – Enantiomorphic Chambers 181 – Doubting Thomas 63 Snow,Michael 181, 183f. Temporal 15, 24, 41, 81–83, 86, 91, 97f., – Wavelength 183 180,184, 187f.,201, 203 Society 12f.,21, 124, 131, 133f. TeresaofAvila 87 Socrates 7, 10,14, 50, 86, 141 Tertullian 11 Sophocles 15, 139 Thessaly 7 – Antigone 139 Thieves 116f. – Oedipus in Colonus 139 Time 8, 10f.,24, 51,82, 90,107,118, 128, Space9,15f., 24–26, 34f.,66, 81–84, 93, 142f.,160, 164, 170,180f.,183–85, 187, 97–99, 134f.,151, 153, 173f.,183f.,191, 191f.,194, 198–204 200f.,203 – Time lapse 88, 184f.,201, 203 Spectator 64, 70, 73f.,89, 124, 183f. Torah105, 114 Speculation 16, 18f.,42, 91, 124, 130,141, Touchable 19, 83f.,86, 126–28, 132, 142– 143, 147–49, 154, 157,159, 161, 174, 179, 44, 147f.,153 183, 197 Tranquillity 6 Spleen 114, 116 Transformation 4–6, 12–14, 16, 24, 26, 44, Split 10f.,65, 79, 84, 91, 146f.,181f.,188, 50, 67,71, 74,84, 91, 129, 133f.,167,171 190,194f.,197,201f. Trauma44, 64f. Stoicism 59, 70 Treasure hunt 116 220 Index

Truth 3f., 9f., 12f.,19f., 25f.,31, 34–36, 45, Voss,Daniela 202 62–64, 67,69, 71f.,81, 94f.,98f., 107, Vranešević,Goran 18f. 124, 128, 130,142, 144, 147,149, 153f., 157–61, 163–67,169, 180 Wallace, David Foster70 Watteau, Antoine 187 Uccello, Paolo 182 Weibel, Peter 66 Untouchable11–13, 19, 82–84, 86f.,126f., Weil, Simone 87 129, 132–34, 140, 142–44, 147f. Wilde, Oscar172 (Un)touchable15, 80–90,92f., 97f.,100 – The Importance of BeingEarnest 172 Uncertainty 3, 5f., 13–15, 53, 81, 95–101, Wilder,Billy 60 160, 163, 168, 173, 180,185, 198–200 Winkler,John 7f. Undecidability 10,81, 96, 163, 197,200 Winnicott,Donald 150 Unforeseen 24, 61, 64 Withdrawal 6, 24, 180, 182, 185–87,195, Unity 8, 15, 18–20, 24, 34, 47,82, 84, 92f., 197,201 100, 124, 143, 147,151f.,154, 174, 179f., Wittgenstein, Ludwig 21, 35f.,72 184, 202f. –On Certainty 35 Uzzah 11, 109f.,117 Wonder-workers 109f.,112–15, 117f. Wound 11, 31, 52, 63, 68f.,72f., 75, 79f., Violence12, 22, 86, 183 85, 130f.,139, 142 Vision6,15, 24 50, 59, 62, 87,89f., 92, 124, 126, 134, 151, 180,182–84, 193f.,200 Zahavi, Dan 43 Visual 8, 24, 38, 43f.,48, 59–61, 64f.,68f., Žižek, Slavoj17, 189f. 73, 85–87,89, 132, 134, 141, 150f.,180– Zupančič,Alenka17, 173 84, 193