WHO COMES AFTER THE SUBJECT? E D I T E D B Y EDUARDO CADAVA CONNOR JEAN-LUC NANCY RO U TLED GE NEW YORK AND LONDON

Published in 1991 by An im print of Routledge, C h a p man and Hall, Inc. 29 West 35 Street New York, NY 10001 Published in Great Britain by Rou t ledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE Co pyrig h t Routledge 1991 by R outled ge , Chapman, and Hall, Inc. Printed in the United States of America All righ t s reserved. No part of th i s book elec t ro n ic , mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, inc lu din g may be repri nt ed , reproduced or utilized in any form or by any photocopying a nd record ing, or in any information stor age or ret ri e val system, without permi ssion in writing from the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging in em. Publication Data Who comes after the subject? p. I [e dite d by] Eduardo Cadava . Es s a ys translated from the French. ISBN 0-415-90360-2 (pbk.) 0-415-90359-9. 1 . Subject (Philosophy) I. Cadava, Eduardo. B0223. W49 1991 90-20555 126-de20 IS BN British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Who comes after the subject? 1. Man. Consciousness-Philosophical perspectives I. Ca dava , Luc Eduardo II. Connor, Peter III. Nancy, Jean 126

ISBN 0-415-90359-9 ISBN 0-415-90360-2 pbk

Contents Preface Introduction Vll 1 Jean-Luc Nancy 1 Another Experience of the Q u estion, or Experiencing the Question Other-Wise 9 Sylviane Agacinski 2 On a Finally Objectless Subject Alain Badiou Citizen Subject Etienne Balibar 24 3 33 4 Who? Maurice Blanchot 58 5 The Freudian Subject, from Politics to Ethics Mikkel Barch-Jacobsen 61 6 Voice of Conscience and Call of Being Jean-Franr,;ois Courtine 79 7 A Philosophical Concept. Gilles Deleuze 94 8 "Eating Well," or the Calculation of the Subject: An Interview with Jacques Derr ida Jacques Derrida 96

vi I Coments 9 Apropos of the " Critiqu e of the S u bject " and of the Critique of this Critique Vincent Descombes 1 20 135 1 48 157 167 178 198 206 217 236 246 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Being and the Living Didier Franck Who Comes after the Subject? Gerard Granel Th e Critique o f the Subject Michel Henry Love between Us Luce Irigaray Descartes Entrapped Sarah Ko/man The Response of Ulysses Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe Philosop hy and Awakening Emmanuel Levinas Sensus communis: The Subject in statu nascendi lean-Franr;ois Lyotard L'Interloque 1ean-Luc Marion After What 1acques Ranciere Name Index About the Editors and Contributors 253 256

Preface The essays collected in this volume present the current research of nineteen con temporary French philosophers on one of the great motifs of modem philosophy: th e critique or the deconstruction of subjectivity. The project was initiated by E rmanno Bencivenga, joint editor (with Enrico M . Forni ) o f the intematio al rev iew of philosophy Topoi . Bencivenga wished to devote a special issue of Topoi t o an important aspect of contemporary philosophical activity in France. The orga nization of the project was entrusted to Jean-Luc Nancy , who served a s guest e ditor o f t h e September 1988 issue o f Topoi, in which a number of these essay s first appeared, and who proposed to organize the issue around the question "Wh o Comes after the Subject?" The following year a French edition of this issue of Topoi was published as the final number of Cahiers Confrontations (no. 20, Wint er 1989) , under the direction of Rene Major. The French version included new co ntributions by Etienne Balibar and Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, plus the entirety of N ancy's interview with Jacques Derrida, only partially published in Topoi. I n th e summer o f 1989, w e approached Nancy about the possibility o f bringing out a n American edition o f these and other essays addressing this topic. The presen t collection therefore i ncludes all texts from the earlier English and French v ersions, together with previously unpublished essays by Sylvi ane Agacinski and Luce Iri garay, and previously untranslated essays by Sarah Kofman and Emmanuel L evinas. We have sought to bring to each of the translations a single notion of c onsistency, even while respecting as much as possible the individual contributio ns of each translator. We want to thank each of the translators for their patien ce and help with this work . We would also like to thank Rene Major, Michel Delo rme, and the D. Reidel Publishing Company for their cooperation. Finally, we wou ld like to express our gratitude to William P. Germano for his enthusiasm and su pport. E. C . and P . C .

Introduction .Jean-Lue Naney Philosophy, today, world wide: what m igh t this mean? It would not mean a diversi ty of fields , schools , streams, or tendencies with in philosophy . At le as t, it would not mean only this, or perhaps it would not mean this at all. This has been the traditional way .of looking at such a topic . Nowadays, it would rathe r mean: different w ays of thinking about philosophy itself. Different ways of u nderstanding the word itself, and even ways of understanding that the thing it n ames is gone, or finished. Or different ways of inquiring about philosophy as so mething essentially linked to Western civilization, something with which o th e r civilizations or a general shifting of cultures, also wi thi n the Western are a-now have to deal (and what does "to deal with" mean here? What between or beyo nd "praxis" a nd "theory" would this imply? Do we have a philosophical language for this t as k? ) It is very likely that no one "philosophy"-if something like this still exists, and is not merely something shelved in our libraries-is able to grasp this situation , nor to think it through. It is very likely that there is no "Weltanschauung" for it. "Welt ansc ha u unge n belo ng to the epoch when th e world had not become the world, world-wide. The becoming-world of the world does not mean w h a t is usually called the "uniformization" of everything and everyone-even through technology, w hi ch one assumes to be essentially identica l to i t sel f. In many respects, world also differentiates itself, if it does n ot indeed shatter itself. The becomi ng-world of world means that "world" is no longer an object, nor an idea, but the p l ace existence is given to and exposed to. This first happened in philosophy, and to philosophy , with the Kantian rev olution and the "condition of possible experience": world as possibly of (or for ) an existent being, possibility as world for such a be i n g Or: B ei ng no lon ger to be thought of as an essence , but to be given, offered to a w o rld as to i ts own po ssib ili ty Such a program (if we can use this word) is not to be c ompleted i n a day. It do es not take "a long time , " but the totality of a his tory: our history. The history o f philosophy since Kant (i f not ind ee d since the remote condition of possibility of Kant himself at the beginning of the "We stern" as such, of the Western "Weltan. " . .

2 I Jean Lue Nancy schauung") is the history of the various breaks out of which emerges, out of the "possible worlds" (the "Anschauungen"), as well as out of a simple necessity of the world (another kind of "Anschauung"), the world as possibility, or the worl d as chance for existence (opening/closing of possibility, unlimitationldisaster of possibility). Each of these breaks is a break of philosophy, and not within philosophy. Therefore they are incommensurable with and incommunicable to one an other. They represent a disarticulation of the common space and of the common di scourse of "philosophy" (of what one assumes to have been such a commonplace). T heir names (I mean their emblematic names up to the first half of this century) are well known: Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger, Wittgenstein. We are the second half of the century. A "we" without "we , " a "we" without phi losophical community (apart from the fake one of conferences, congresses, etc.). Many lines of rupture traverse us-which does not necessarily imply any "hostili ty, " but which means this: philosophy separated from itself, outside of itself, crossing its own limits-which means, perhaps, discQYering that it never did hav e proper limits, that it never was, in a sense, a "property. " One of the most v isible lines of rupture runs between two ensembles (each of which is itself hete rogeneous). These ensembles are most often designated, espe cially in Anglo-Saxon countries, in an ethnogeographic manner: "Anglo-Saxon philosophy, " "continenta l philosophy, " and, more particularly, "French philoso phy" (a kind of partition ing, therefore, of the Westen! itself). These appellations are, of course, extre mely fragile. There is "Anglo-Saxon" philosophy in Europe, as there is "continen tal" and "French" philosophy in the Anglo-Saxon world (to say nothing of the one and the other in the rest of the world, nor of this rest itself, of this immens e "rest" as the space of unimaginable possibilities for these philoso phies, beyo nd each of them . . ). These names have no simple, absolute reference, nor perti nence, but their meaning is nonetheless not void. The ethnonational partitioning of "philosophy" (languages, cultures, institutions, etc . ) would require a ver y long and complex analysis. This collection of essays proposes nothing of the k ind. In this regard, it simply proposes, at once under the name and on the name "French," a kind of practical exercise. These ensembles are also identified by " theoretical" names, the pertinence of which is no less problematic. One says "an alytic philosophy," for example, which leads to a misconception about both the d iversity of kinds of "analysis" with which it deals, and the variety of logical, linguistic, ethical, aesthetic, and political preoccupations within the "AngloSaxon" domain. One says, on the other hand, "post-structuralism"-which, in this case, is a baroque designation, because there has neyer been one structuralism, and because what it deals with did not come "after, " nor as a "posterity." More over, what this word claims to cover is similarly .

Introduction / 3 of a very great diversity. But the more than insufficient nature of these denomi nati ons is itself a testimony to the line of rupture-whose traces are complex, sinuous, sometimes difficult to grasp, multiple, or effaced. It must surely seem unfair to have restricted this c ollection to French thinker s: there is outside of France more than one thinking, more than one kind of work , that would answer to what "French" denotes here. But not only would the projec t have become excessive from a practical point of view, it would moreover have b een no less unfair to have blurred the contours of a French specificity recogniz able in certain characteristic traits-although neither systematic nor even simpl y conver gent-over the last thirty years (let us say, very broadly, since the clo sure , on the one hand, of a certain type of French "rationalism" and/or "spirit ualism"-in this respect, "French" thought today proceeds in part from a "German" rupture with a certain philosophical "France" (which is also a rupture within a certain "Ger manity"}-and on the other hand, since the close of the Sartrean ent erprise). However, one will find no unity here. The differences are extreme, and opposing views are not lacking. The invitation to participate in this issue lef t entirely open the potential range of philosophical approaches. With one except ion, brought about by the choice of the theme (for which 1 am responsible and th e reasons for which 1 will give later) , 1 did not send my question ("Who comes after the subject?") to those who would find no validity in it, to those for who m it is on the contrary more important to denounce its presuppositions and to re turn, as though nothing had happened, to a style of thinking that we might simpl y call humanist, even where it tries to complicate the traditional way of thinki ng about the human subj ect. If 1 state that such a return stems in fact from th e forgetting of philosophy, 1 am no doubt speaking only for myself. But it is no less true that I am also encouraged to say this by virtue of all the contempora ry work witnessed in the authors brought together here. Those among them who cha llenge the terms of my question-and some do, as shall be seen-at least do not do so in the name of a return backward , something that has never had any meaning or sense , in philosophy or elsewhere. The reader of these essays will no doubt perceive their diversity, and , should he or she perceive also something that is neither a unity nor a homogeneity but something that partakes of a certain "ton ality," this will be a kind of "French accent" in many different philosophical t ongues. 1 sent out my invitations keeping in mind at once the work of each contr ibutor in regard to the question asked (I accept responsibility for its arbitrar iness-but it is a reasoned arbitrariness, as we shall see in a moment)-and the d istribution of current research in France. One will recognize some of the princi pal axes at the source of this distribution: for example, the Husserlian, the Ma rxian, the Heideggerian, and the Nietzschean traditions. But one will not find a nything like a "tradition" in the ordinary sense. Nobody here stands within a cu stom or a school. Each entertains a complex rapport to many of these traditions (and in such a way that it would be perfectly impossible,

4 / lcan Luc Nancy present them one by on e : it is incumbent been reco gn i z ed as what I would r isk c a ll in g the inventors of a th i n king All are concerned i n one w ay or another with an unreserved q u e s t i o n in g of "ph i los ophy " and it s "t raditions," with a determined reevaluation of the "philosophical" as such and no t with vari ations of "Weltanschau ungen " All are the thinkers of an age i n rup ture . Which means also: they t a k e responsibility for this age, bec aus e the q u e st ions the y ar e d i s c ussi n g , an d e s pec i ally here , ob v iou sly engage all t h e ethical and pol itic a l challenges of our tim e (as well as the deb a te s about w h a t "ethics" and "politics" mean to da y) . short of a length y s tudy , to endeavor to on the texts to do this). Several ha ve already . . I asked the question: "Who comes after the s ubj ec t ? " to settle on one of th e p ri n c i pl e rupture lines. The crit i q ue or the deconstruction of subjec tivity is to be co n s i d er e d one of t he great motifs of contemporary ph i loso phi c al work i n Francc, t a k in g off from, here again and p e rha ps es pecially, the te a chi n g s of Marx, Nietz sche, Freud, Husserl, Heide gg e r, B ataille , Wittge nst e i n , from the tea c hin g s of lingui stic s , the socia l s c i ence s , and so forth . (But one should not forge t the pra c ti ca l , ethical, and politic al experience of Europe since the 1930s: th e fascisms , St alinism, the war, the camps , decoloni zation, and the birth of new nations, t h e d ifficulty i n orienting oneself between a "sp ir itual" identity that has b een devastated and an " A meric an" economis m , be tw een a loss of meaning and an ac cumu l a t ion of s i gns : so many instances for the i n v e s t igation of the diverse figures of the "subj ec t . ") The qu estion therefore bears upo n the critique or deconstruction of in ter i ori ty , of self pre sen c e , of c onsciousness, of mastery, of the individual or col lecti ve property of an essen ce. Cri tique or d econstr uc t i on of the firmness of a seat (hypokeimenon, s ubstantia, subjectum) and the certitude of an authority and a value ( the indivi dual, a peop le , the state, h i story , work ) . My q ue sti on aimed i n the f irst place t o tre a t this motif as an event that had indeed emerged from our h istory-hence the "after" and not as some capricious v ariat ion of fashionable th i nk in g . But at the same t i m e I wanted to suggest a whole ra nge-n o doub t vast-in which such a cri t ique or deconstruction has not simply obliterated i ts obj ect (as those who groan or ap plaud before a supposed "liquidation" of th e subject would l i k e to be l ie ve ) That which obliterates is nihilism-itsel f an implicit form of the m e t aphy s i cs of t h e s u bj e c t (self-presence of that which knows itself as the dissolution of i ts own d i ffere n c e ) . T here is nothi n g nihilistic in re c ognizi ng that the subject-the pro perty of th e se f is the thought that reabsorbs or ex ha us ts all p ossib i l ity of bei ng in the world (all possibi l i ty of existence, all existence as being deliver ed to the po s si bl e ) , and th a t this same thought, never s imple , never c losed upon itself withou t re m a in d er d esi g nates and delivers an e nti re ly different thought: that of the one and tha t of the s ome one, of the singul ar ex i ste n t that the su bjec t announces, promises, and at the same time con ceals . Moreover, one will see in the texts that fo l low at least two very diff erent u ses of the word "subject. " Sometimes it has the value of the metaphysic al concept I have just recalled. sometimes (for example, for Granel or R a n c i ere ) it has the value of . ,

J nlroduclion I 5 a si n gul a r unum quid, less present to itself than present to a history, an e v en t, a community, an oeuvre, or an other "subject." Not only are we not relie v e d of thinking this some one-this some one that the subject has perhaps always p ointed towards or looked for, and that brings us back to the same figures: the indiv idual , a people, the state, history, production, style, man, woman, as w ell as "myself' an d "ourselves" . . . -but it is pre cisely s ometh in g like t his thought that henceforth comes toward us and calls us forth. Such at least wa s the hypothe sis I was following, th ink ing not to be too disloyal to a certai n singularity of the era, common to all and particular to no one, circulating an onymously ami dst our thou ght s . This is wha t I tri e d to indicate with the verb "comes," and with the pronoun "who?": With whi ch "one" have we hence fort h to deal? I reproduce here the passage from my pres ents the q u estion : letter of inv itation (February 1986) that Who co mes after the subject? This question can be explained as follows: one of the m ajor characteristics of contemporary thought is the putting into question of the instance of the "subject," according to the structure, the meaning, and t he value subsumed under this term in modern thought, from Descartes to Hegel , i f not to Husserl. The inaugurati ng decisions of contemporary thought whether th ey took place under the sign of a break with metaphysics and its poorly pitched questions, u nder the s ign of a "deconstruction" of this m etaphysics, under th at of a transference of the thinking of Being to the thinking of life, or of the Other, or of language, etc . -have all involved putting subjectivi ty on trial. A wide spread discourse of recent date proclaimed the subject's simple liquidat ion. Everything seems, however, to point to the necessi ty, not of a "return to the subject" (proclaimed by those who would like to think that nothing has happe ned, and that there is nothing new to be thought, except maybe variations or mod ifica tions of the subject), but on the contrary, of a move forward toward someo ne .lOme one else in its place (this last expression is obviously a mere convenie nce: the "place" could not be the same). Who would it be? How would slhe present him/herself? Can we name her/hi m? Is the question "who" suitable? (My formula tions seem to presuppose that none of the existing designations for example, Das ein or "the individual" would be suitable. But my i ntention of course i s to le ave open all possibi l i ties . ) I n other words: If i t i s appropriate to ass ign something like a punc tual ity, a singularity, or a hereness (haecceitas) as the place of emission, reception, or transition (of affec t , of action, of l a nguage, etc.), how would one designate its spec ificity? Or would the question n eed to be transformed or is it in fact out of place to ask it? At let the this point I have fulfilled-at leas t I hope I have-my role as editor, and I wi! ' texts speak. They are the "subjects" of this issue.

6 I J ean Luc Nancy The role of editor, I mu st admit, has made me forget that I cou l d and pro b a bl y should, having asked the q ues ti o n , have written a response my self. It 's too late to do this now, and perhaps this is not such a bad thing. In the int erview with Derrida, I make some observations that will perhaps serve t o clarif y my position. B u t I will add a few words here to indicate the p re cise direc tion my answer m ight have taken. The dominan t definition of the ph il os ophic a l (or "metaph y si cal") subject i s to m y way of thinking the one proposed b y Hegel: "that which is ca pa b le of m a i ntain ing within itself its own con tradiction. " That the contradiction would be its own (one rec ogni ze s here th e dialectical law), that alienation or extraneousness would be ownmost, and that subj e c tit y (following Heidegger here, and di s ti n gu i s hi n g the subje ct structure from anthropological subjectivity) consists in re a pprop ri at ing this proper bei ng outside-of itself: this is what the definition w ou ld mean. The logic of the s ubjectum is a grammar (cf. Nietzsche-but also Le i b niz: pm edicatum inest subjecto) of the subje ct that re a ppro pri ates to itself, in a dvance and ab s olute l y , the e xterior it y and the strange n e ss of its pre dicate. (A can on ic H egelian example , at least according to the way it is usu ally read: "The rational is actuaL") This appropriation i s made by the verb "to be. " "To be" thu s has the fu n c tion here of an operator of appropriation: i n fact it means "to have" or " p r oduc e" or "understand" or "support , " etc. In a rather hast y manner, I could endeavor to sa y i t i s th e techn ologi cal i nterpretation of Being. Still, for this to be the case, it would be necessary that the s ubjec t be, a b s olutel y and without predicate. It is at this poi n t that the institution of the su bj e ct of modem philosophy begi ns: ego sum. "To be" means then t hat which the Cartesian redundanc y states: ego s um, ego existo . Being is the actualit y of existence (or again, this "notion which belo ngs in an absolute way to all the individuals of nature" Spinoza) . Existence as a ctualit y "is not a predicate b u t the s i mple position of the thing" (Kant) ; existence is the essence of the subject to the extent that it is, pri or to a ny p redication. (And this is wh y -again Spinoza-the e s sen ce of an infinite substance-or God-necessarily envelops existence . ) Descartes, Spinoza, Kant-one could continue : me t aph y s i cs itself indicates that what is posed here as the question of an "after" (in history) is ju s t as much a question of the "bef ore" ( in the l ogi c of being-but this would invite a different kind of retraci ng of history : that which comes to us has preceded us). Before the subj e ct of a predication (let us say: before the s ubject-of) th e re is (il y a-this i s Levinas's "word"-Heidegger's word is: es gibt, it is given, it gives) the Being of the subject, or the subje ct without "of," the subject-being, existence. M e ta phy s i cs , de - c onst ru cting i tself (th i s i s its logic and its histo ry) , ind ica tes this "before" a s "after": existence. Not the s u bject of ex i st en ce but existence subject: t h at to which one can no longer allot the gr ammar of the subject nor, therefore , to be clear, allot the word "subject. " Bu t what existence? It i s n ot an essence, it i s the essence whose essence i t i s to e x is t , actually and in fa ct, in ex pe ri en c e , "hie et nunc . " It is the existent (and n ot t h e e x i s t e n ce a/ the existent). Wi th thi s in mind , the q uesti on asks " wh o? " Wh i ch

J ntroduction I 7 means that the question of essence-"What, existence? "-calls forth a "who" in re sponse. The question was therefore a response to the question of existence, of i ts "being" or its "meanin g , " nothing more and nothing less. (But whenever one responds to a question with another question, what one does is defy the first q uestion from ever coming to be asked . . . . ) Every "what" that exists is a "wh o, " if "who" means: that actual , existent "what , " a s i t exists, a factual (even material) punctuation o f Being, the unum quid (and i t is not by chance t hat this is Descartes's formula for the quasi-third substance that is the union of soul and body, the reality of human existence, as evident as the reality of t he ego) . "Before/after the subject": who . This is first of all an affirmation: the being is who. I n a sense, it is Heidegger: Being is simply existing withdr awn from every essence of Being and from every being of essence. (But this still does not tell me if it is proper to determine this existent in the way Heidegge r describes the D asein supposing that this description is sufficiently clear to us now. "After the subject" : men, gods , living beings , and what else? I woul d not go further than thi s . ) But this is also a question: who i s who? I t i s not "What i s who?"-it i s not a question of essenc e, but one of identity (as when one asks before a photograph of . a group of people whose names you know b ut not the faces: "Who is who?"-is this one Kant, is that one Heidegger, and thi s other one beside him? . . . ). That is to say, a question of presence: Who is there? Who i s present there? But what, presence? I t is the presence of the exi stent: it is not an essence. Present is that which occupies a place. The place i s place-site , situation, dis position-in the coming i nto space of a time, in a spacing that allows that something come into presence, i n a unique time that en genders itself i n this point i n space, as its spacing. (Divine places, where p resence withdraws, places of birt h , where presence presents itself, c ommon-pl aces, where places are shared, places of love, where presence comes-and-goes, hi storic places, geography of presences , etc . ) . There where there w a s nothin g (and n o t even a "there"-as in the "there i s no there there" of Gertrude Ste in), something, some one comes ("one" because it "comes , " not because of its s ubstantial unity: the she, he, or it that comes can be one and unique i n its co ming but multiple and repeated "in itself. " Presence takes place, that is to sa y it comes into presence. It is that which comes indefinitely to itself, never s tops coming, arriving: the "subject" that is never the subject of itself. The "i pseity" of presence lies in the fact that it engenders itself into presence: pre sence to itself, i n a sense, but where this "self' itself is only the to (the t aking place , the spacing) of presence. "I engender time" is the phrasing of Kan t's first schema (schema: tracing, spaci ng). Strictly speaking it means: I enge nder "I, " I engender myself as the "a priori form of internal meaning" that is time. The "internal" engenders i tself as exteriority-in order to be the "intern al" that it i s , in order t o exist. It is m o s t intimately in this coming in to presence. Presence to: To what? To whom? To the world, but the world is the s hared taking place of all places. Presence thus comes to presence, without being to its-self (this i s why "to

8 / Jean Lac Nancy engender oneself' is a poor metaphor for "to exist," which is thc metaphor for t he carrying over of the self outside of the self before the self . . . ). Presen ce to the worl d : and the so called "technological" world should not be exclude d from this, from the moment the technological interpretation of Being will have allowed some places to come about as the places of a presence to technology. Th is presence to that is not to itself is not a "contradiction ," and does not imp ly a dialectic al power that "would rctai n it within itself. " 1 can find no ot her name for this than the name of "freedom. " Not freedom as the property of a subj ect ("the subj ect is free" ) , but freedom as the very experience of comin g into presence, of being given up to, necessarily/freely given up to, the to (t he to of the "toward , " of the "for, " of the "in view of, " of the "in the dir ection of, " of the "alongsid e , " the to of abandoning to, of the offering to of "to one's core , " of the "with regard to, " o f t h e " t o the limit," and also o f the "to the detriment of, " "to the bitter end": freedom is wherever it is necessary to make up one's mind to . . . ) . "I engender time" as the schema , the spacing of the place where I (who) takes place, where I comes into presenc e. (Who? I am coming-here I am). The "I" does not preexist this schematization. It does not come after it either; it "is" it, or it "exists" it, if one can (if "I" can) use the verb like this. If existence, as Heidegger insists, exists acco rding to the lemeinigkeit, the "in each case mine ," it is not in the manner of an appropriation by "me , " at each moment, of every taki ng-place. Freedom is n ot a quality, nor an operation of the existent: it is her/his/its coming into th e presence of existence. If presence is presence to presence and not to self (no r of self) , this is because it is, in each case, presence in common. The coming into presence is plural , "in each case ours" as much as "mine. " This communit y without the essence of a community, without .a common being, is the ontologica l condition of existence as presence-to. The plural coming is a si ngular coming and this is not a prediction. But how could one say what it "is"? One (Who?) mig ht try by sayi ng: the plural liberates (or shares) the singular, the singular l iberates (or shares) the plural, in a community without subject. This is what we have to think about. Who thinks , if not the community?

1 Another Experience of the Question, or Experiencing the Question Other-Wise Sylviane Agacinski What I hear in the question that has been put to me by someone is, first of all, an i nqu iry as to t he responsibility for, and of, the question: Who is asking it? Who is being asked? In order for ther e to be a que s t ion "on the subject of' a who, should there perhaps first of all be someone who q uesti ons and s o meon e who is ques tioned ? Should perhaps so meon e address himse lf (or hersel f) to someone else ? Following this hypotheflifl, one could emphasize the questi oning a genc y (who is it?), while the gesture with which the q ues tion turns t o someone, with which it addre, ses itse lf, remain secondary. Another poss ibilit y, however, would be to stress , w ith in the structure of the que stion , the v ery gesture of address. In this case I will not ask myself what agency is even c apable of questioning, and espec i ally of questioning itse lf (for it would no longer be a subj ec t), but instead "I" would feel surprised t ha t a question s hould get through (to me) at all. Is not the possibility of calling on, or of be ing called on, to answer-or more s imply, of calling or being called-a more cruc ial matter than questions conc ern ing who or what? The different p h il os oph ies of the subject (s ince it is clearly impossible to speak of the philosophy o f the subject) always attribute to the su bject the faculty of q uesti oning its elf, or as kin g itse lf questions, in such a way as to appropriate the a lterit y or obs curity t hat troubles it, either from "without" o r from "within." In a sense, the status of the subject is inseparable from the status of the question , as well as of the orig in of the question. The subject puts the question to it se lf. The claim of sub jec t iv c consciousness consists in believing that, ess en tially it can question it self and answer for i ts elf For this reason, and t o an ticipa te slightly, I would argue that if it is possible to speak in terms of a "someone" who can "come" after the subjec t this "someone" would be one who would have another experience of the question. That is to say, it would have an ex perience of the question that would not be an expe rience of , . , Translated by Michael Syrotinski and Christine Laennec.

10 I Sylviane Agacin.ski thought or of consciousness turning back on itself, but that would be a more rad ical experience of that which comes (to me) or happens (to me) or calls (me). Ho w can the experience of the question be described? The philosophical question is not generally thought to imply a process of address; the question is not addres sed to me by another, it is not a foreign question from abroad , it is not conve yed by a call from another or an elsewhere. It cannot take me completely unaware s or tear me away from myself (as one could say , for example, abou t being call ed by God , or about a cry of distress, or about a chance event). In its very ne cessity, the philosophical question is a product of my fr e ed om : indeed, the question is posed as if it poses itself, it imposes itself on one's reflecti ons , but it originates in the questioning thought that intends to answerfor its ow n question. This questioning thought is free, in regard to the question i t give s, or addresses , or sends to itself. It would thus exclude the process of addre ss , in that this implies something that has come from afar. Questioning thought takes no responsibility for this coming-it takes no responsi bility for, say, t he question o the other, the f question from the other. In this respect, philoso phy's subj ect (meaning both the subject who questions philosophically, as well as the concept with which philosophy determines man in general) is a subject wit h a limited responsibility, if I may say so. It makes great demands on itself, i t obliges itself to answerfor its question, and this in turn obliges it to answe r for itself. This is what Descartes sets out to do in the Meditations . But the thinker of questioning thought is also liable to remain deaf to the call of the other or to the question of the other, is liable to substitute "the other's que stion"-that is, the philosophical question that the philosopher puts to himself or herself about the other, about the question of the other, the question asked by another, that comes from the other, or rather from several others. Likewise, questioning thought runs the risk of substituting the "question of responsibilit y" for the "receptiveness" through which the timbre of another's voice could get through to it, has always already gotten through to it. What I am challenging h ere is not simply the "logical egoism" about which Kant writes about i n his Ant hropology (2): "The logical egoist considers it unnecessary to test his judgment by the understanding of others, as if he had no need at all for ,, this touchsto ne (criterium veritatis externus). ) Indeed , it is not only a question of confi rming our own judgment on the basis of this receptivity, and of testing its exac tness . All the more so since rightfully {and as Kant stresses later on in the t ext I h ave just quoted from} in philosophy we do not have to "appeal to the j u dgment of others to corro borate our own . ,,2 For me, it is more a matter of kn owing whether subjective consciou sness's gesture of self questioning, such as i t functions in the cogito or such as i t unfolds in Hegel's Phenomenology as the "experience of consciousness"-whether this gesture does not, from the outset, r eject any possibil ity of address or of receptivity-that is, does not rej ect an openness to the "question" of the other, of another. 3 Which I would not a prio ri presume to be n e cess ar ily the same as me (another me, another subject, an other "man , " another consciousness , even another Dasein).

Another Experience of the Question I 11 For what seems remarkable in the questioning of the philosophical subject is tha t the "experience of the question, " as an experience that consciousness would c arry out on itself, remains an "inner experience"-thought's relationship to itse lf. (This of course has nothing to do with the paradoxical sense that Georges Ba taille ,, gives to the "inner experience, 4 and that we will have to come back t o later .... ) Heidegger, for example, writes about this experience of conscious ness turning upon ,,5 itself: "Knowledge in this experience retreats further and further behind itself. One could likewise say that consciousness as a questioni ng agency endeavors to no longer have anything "behind" or "in front of' it. For philosophies of the subject, if one understands by "philosophies of the subject " thinking that posits consciousness as the foundation of all beings, the questi on can only come from consciousness itself. It is its own need. But in this case it would be impossible to speak of an "experience" of the question, since in an experience the alterity of a given always emerges (even if this given is elabor ated by the subject), whereas consciousness "questions" even "before" it can be "questioned." Moreover, the question can appear as something that takes the plac e of the gift or of a certain experience of the gift. In reading Descartes's add ress to the Deans of the Faculty of Theology, we could consider philosophical qu estioning, or the activity of the human mind "reflecting back on itself," as a s ubstitute for the gift: it fills in for the lack of faith, which is "a gift of G od. ,,6 One can, through reflection, show to those who have not received the gif t of faith, that "everything that can be known about God can be made manifest by reasons drawn from a source none other ,7 than in ourselves, and which our mind alone is able to provide. , With philosophy, God becomes a question, the questi on the mind puts to itself and to which it can alone reply. Descartes announces that the object of his Meditations will be the question of God and that of the s oul. This, then, is the difference between the question that comes from the othe r and that presupposes an experience [epreuveJ of the gift, and the question of the other, a question that comes from me and is about the other. However, this d oes not mean that the other is necessarily God. (A parenthetical remark: the phi losophical tradition would lead us to think that the question is bound up with t he essence of thought, but this essence only appears historically with Socratic eironia, with the questioning that Socrates directed at others. At .that time, t he question, in the course of a dialogue, presupposed a meeting with the other, and a partitioning of thinking: into several voices.) If I referred earlier to G od's call as an example of a call from the other, it is by no means intended as an invitation to look back nostalgically to men of faith, or as a call for a ret urn to religious thought. Religious thinkers can make us aware of the finite nat ure of experience, but this existence is at the same time condemned 0 even sacri ficed: finitude is only conceived of with a view to going beyond it. In particul ar, the religious bond, the common relationship of all mortals to the eternal (i nsofar as they all leave themselves in the hands of this great Other) always cre ate a kind of united community, a community of those who are likeminded-the

12 I Sylviane Agacillski c omm un ity of the faithful-and always cre ates an exclusion of o the rs , an e xcommu nication. I thi nk t h at t he q u e s tion of the other is only possibl e if the other is i rredu c ib ly pl u ral , if it is others, and if th ey are n ot though t of in the pers pec ti ve of an us (a collective su bj ec t) If re l igio us though t has always interested me , . partic u larl y while I was readi ng Kierkegaard,8 it is es pecial l y because of t h e resistance it o ffers to a kind of ph i lo so phical thinking t h at only ever y ie lds to itself: to its own reason, its own law... . Job and Abraham are sublime in the h u mil ity and sacri fice of their i n tellec t , wh e reas the moral subject only makes sa c r ifi ces to its own pri n c i p les . In his R elig io n Within the Limits of Rea son Alone, K ant manages, with the concept of a pu rel y rational faith, to conf late the relig ious and the moral. 9 I t may be, h owe ve r, t hat neither divin e law nor moral law l e av es any room for a tme experience of the other: that i s, an experience of the bond by which I am a l read y "tied" to the other, a l r e a dy dependent on it prior to any question of coexistence or au t ono m y . Th e "s u bj e c t" only encounters t h e " proble m" of th e other and of coexis t e n c e because it has begu n by de t achi n g itself (from the world and from oth er s ) , and by for get ti n g that it is, before an y t h in g else , in-th e-world and with others. No t hing is more remarkable than t h i s o perat io n by which t h o ught wi t h draws i n to its e l f a n d d i s en ga ges i t self fro m exi st e n ce . This withdrawal h as reached the li mits of its po ss i b ili t i es with t he trans c en dent al su bject or even with the Absolute Su bj ec t . "Afterward , " for Kierkegaard or He i deg ger, the diffi cu l t y will h ave been to "come back" to ex is ten ce . It is tme that K ie rk e ga ard speaks of the living b eing as a "su bj ec tivi ty , " but it is never a matter of a c o nscio u s n e s s that bel i eves it can begi n with itself, with i ts demands and quest io ns, its freedom, or its autonomy. On t h e contrary, it is a quest ion of an e x ist e n t that underg o e s t h e experi en ce of its birth , of i ts de ri v a t i on (the e x p erie n ce of its filiation) a n d of the o rigi n ary lag of co nsciou s ness behind existence. Existence, it se e ms to me, names e v ery thing that I must e x perience (the b od y , matter, lan guages, others , r e spo n s ibility , lo ve . .. ) , the thing behind which my c on scio u s n e ss cannot go or situate itself in o rd e r to assure its re t u rn. Thus it is also gr ound s for a resistance to the subj ect's pur e ly theoretical gaze. Ho wever, the same cannot be said of "subj ecti vist i c " t h ough t, where the ph i lo so ph ica l qu e sti on of th e other rig h tfu lly prec ede s the experie nce of the other. In t his case one thinks of others on the basis of what consci ousness d i s c ove rs for itself (by itself a nd about i t s e lf) . Subj ectiv ist morality implies respect for the other (for the other su bj ec t ) by g ro u nd i ng itself first of all in the freedom of the s u bj e c t and t h e autocr acy of p ra c t ical re aso n ( this autocracy is al so attributed to the ot h e r). Thus it is on the bas i s of a ratio nal being's subjective fre edo m that its relation to the oth er can be regulated, and not on the basis of its "e m pi rica l " encounter wi th others. The other can thus be my equal in terms of d i gnit y and earn my respect be c ause i t is my equal. The s ubj ect essentially resolves th e q ue st i on of th e other within i tself, not with the other-for then it would have to begin with th e e xpe r i e n ce of c oexist ence or co mm u n i t y. Aristotle said that "the experience of the t h ing s of life" was "t he poi n t o f d e par tu re and th e object of the reasoni ngs of pol it i c a l

f A nother Experience o the Q uestion / 13 science" (which the Ethics encompass). 1 0 Indeed, it i s cruci al for pol i tic al though t to know whether it begins with the q u estions consciousness puts to itself, or whether it begins instead with the experience of communication-which is also the experience of my inadequacy . Furthermore , we have to clarify whic h communication we are talking about. If H abermas ' s theory of the communicati ve act, for example , asserts the irreduc ibility of communication, it does not, for all that, break with a theory of the subject, that is, of an i n dividual or communal thinking that coincides with itself. Thus H abermas writes in his "Pre liminary Observations" to the Theory o/Communicative Action that the discourse o f argumentation allows interlocutors to "ove rcome their merely subjective views " and to come together in a "mutuality of ration a ll y motivated convictions. " l 1 However, this approach to communication still presu mes "initial subjective conceptions" (my emphasis), and thus presu mes an original atomization of subje cts that are still isolated or capable of being isolated ( t his would mean ever y subject for itself, unshared and undivided: this wou l d mean individua l s) . One would, then, have to attribute these presumed initial " subjective con cept io n s " t o subjects that would not yet have communicated , and, even , that wo uld not yet have spoken ; for if this subj ectivi ty speaks, it is divided, diff erent from itself, and its initial plenitude or adequacy is already shared . Mor eover: Would the discourse of argumentation be the only one to allow for an " un c o nditional union" and "consen sus"? It is remarkable, to say the least, that i n the aftermath of various manifesta tions of fascism one can calmly claim to dis tinguish the "consensus bri n ging force of argumentative speech" from the "m an ipul ation" of others. And it is difficult to see how the "yes" of acceptance ut tered by actual interlocutors (however many of them there may be) , and its "ill ocutionary success, " could guarantee the "rational 12 ity" of arguments withi n a given discourse. Communicational rationality thus maintains a certain subjecti vism (or initial atomism) , and , what is more , it cann o t "go beyond" this su bjectivism without recourse to the myth of a comm u nity of consensus-which is a nother form of subjectivity that is close to itself and that speaks with a si ng le voice . Aristotelian empiricism, i n the final analysis, allows us to ge t cl oser to the kind of thinking that might begin with the experience of communicati on and the acknowledgment of the question of others , w ith the irreducible plur ality of v oices that such thought presu pposes-with the impossibili ty of reduc ing coexis tence to a self-sufficient or undifferent i ated unit y (of the indiv idual or of the community) . In this respect, the way in which Aristotle broache s the idea of justice, if one compares it to the Kantian doctrines of morality a nd Right, is a go od illustration of the difference between a form of empiricism (which is what we have to rethink: the ex p erie n ce of the other as the poi n t of de p artme) and a form o f s ubj ect ivi s m (autono m y as the point of d eparture). On the one hand, we are dealing with a reflection on ques t ions of s haring, distribution, the complex mix of powers and obligations , etc. Exchanges , links , and others are already i n place: it may entail carefully mediating th ese relationships ,

14 I Syiviane Agacinski rather than creating or founding them in an absolute sense. On the other hand, t he philosophical subject questions itself about the conditions of its freedom an d of the compatibility of this freedom with that of other subjects which are jus t as abstract as it i s . It endeavors to define, a priori , the conditions of t he coexistence of free subjects. Whence this powerlessness of the metaphysics of morals to free itself from legalism in order to concern itself with the singula rity of actual cases , and the difficulty of conceiving of jurisprudence other t han as an application of the law. 1 3 M oreover, i t is difficult to see what co uld prevent legislative reason from subordinat ing si ngularity to the u n ivers ality of the law, since legislative reason has already decided who the other isit has decided that it is another rational subject that must necessarily have a passion for autonomy-and since it can determine i n advance what others c a n ri ghtfully lay claim to. Even if legislative reason tells me what it is due, the law mediates a priori my relationship to the other. It is because the subject be lieves it can begin with itself, with its own unity and freedom, that it must al so lay the foundations for any possible instances of sharing. The subject, this foundation, and the law are j ust so many figures of that which transcends the e xperience of communication and the experience of any form of "bond. " If, on the contrary, the experience of coexistence entails an "encroachment" of existences and si ngularities on each other, then what articulates them, what binds, assoc iates , or exposes them to each other, does not need to be founded, and, indeed, cannot be founded . (And "what binds them" should not here be conceived of as a bond between two sufficient beings who were originally separated. This bond cou ld be "what tears them together," to borrow the expression Georges Bataille uses in talking about Tristan and Yseu!t's love. t Thinking that concerns itself wit h justice, if it begins with coexistence and the experience of division, could b e founded not on the law that a reasonable subject is able to make (for itself), but, I would say, on complaints . The question would be one of knowing who is c omplain.in.g, and where these complaints come from. Meting out justicc would amo unt to finding acceptable compromises, to arbitrating, rectifying, settling, rep airing (and not simply constraining or sanctioning). Even then , if one wants to make room for questions from others, one would have to be careful not to prejud ge who has "the right" to complain (even if, in the judicial domain , c omplaint s are necessarily a determined procedure) . Accounting for com plaints must ther efore precede the law. If the possibility of determining the law a priori (as an ethical or juridical imperative) precedes the complaint, then there will always be those who do not have the right to complain, because the law has not yet ant ici pated their case, because they were children, or women, or foreigners , or l unatics , or animals. As we know, the "Rights of Man" themselves cannot remain m erely formal concepts: they must be applied to a humanity that is supposedly uni versal and in fact is always determi ned . After all , the actual evolution of t he Law has n e ver been determined on the basis of the philosophical question of duty or of right, but on the basis of actual complaints, revolts , and struggle s. Philosophy has always intervened to rationalize the legitimacy of these compl aints, revolts, and struggles after the fact.

f A nother Experience o the Q uestion I 1 5 Indeed, sometimes one form of legitimacy (political, for example) i s tolerable, acceptable , and agreed upon, while at other times this is no longer the case. The very same reality becomes unjust-just think of the condition of wome n , whe ther from an economic, legal, or political perspective. . . . But can we state h ere that there is a rational foundation to legitimacy, without stemming or arres ting the free play of political life i n the wider sense of the tenn , without l imiting it to an ideological program, whose principles the more enlightened amon g us would be familiar with, and whose implementation we would then be able to e nsure? If a political philosophy were possible, if thinking alone could determin e what it is that founds a community, it would destroy political experience and political life (or what we understand by democracy). And yet the experience of t he questi on (coming) from the other is the experience of community : it takes p lace every time several singularities happen to be traversed by the same "event. " Those who share are also divided among themselves. (I would like to speak mor e at length and more rigorously about sharing, but Jean Luc Nancy, in response t o the question for which I am answering i n this essay , has done it better than anyone else in La communaute desoeuvree, 15 in which he shows in particular how singular existences are constituted by sharing, expos,ed as they are to one ano ther . . . ) It is also this theme of sharing and of en gagement that could allo w u s to account for the experience of what we call "love , " an experience that cannot be thought of in terms of a "bond" between two adequate subjects. If one of the features of the philosophical subject is to constitute itself as a consc iousness which is originally free, it seems that it can only conceive of commitm ent as its own act, i ts decision, the act by which it agrees to enter into a co ntract, into a relationshi p , to associate itself with others , etc. If one acc epts that subjective consciousness is that thought capable of resting upon itsel f, of always coming back to itself, of always appropriat ing what is outside it f or itself (a thought that thereby reveals its passion for autonomy or adequacy) , one can see how the subject is able to desire (the desire of the other as an o bject, or the desire for the desire of the other subj ect), bu t one can hardly , without laughing, imagine it loving, or worse yet , ''falling in love. " The E nglish and the French expressions both say the same thing: a fall is i nvolved , or rather, the experience of a weakness, through which existence would discover , or rediscover itself, in the mode of absence, the fact of its non-presence to itself. I t is a s i f it found that, despite itself, it was entrusted t o the o ther, under t h e keep of the other, pledged to the other. This experience is ne ither that of havin g a hold over another, nor that of the gift, at least not of the gift of the self, of a self keeping its pride , and free either to "give it self' or not to do so. Furthennore, at the same time as he (or she) would recogn ize his (or her) inadequacy , the person who loves also feels electively respons ible for the other (even before any demands are made of him or her) and concerne d about the other as only a finite, mortal, being can b e concerned about anothe r mortal. But the love relationship, if it is thought of within the horizon of s ubj ectivity , jhebung) of sexual difference in marriage and the implies either a sublation (A u family (Hegel) , 16 or else demands that the lovers recover the ir "personality" through

1 6 I Sylviane Agacinski marriage. Let us consider the strange way in which Kant demonstrates the necessi ty of marriage: "If the man and woman want to enjoy one another reciprocally , t hey must necessarily marry . . . . Indeed , sexual enjoyment [Iajouissance} is t he natural ,, use that one sex makes of the sexual organs of the other. 1 7 Kant continues: "This is therefore o nly possible under one condition: that is, that one person is acquired by the other as a th i ng The first person acquires the other reciprocally in his or her turn; in effect he or she thus reconquers his o r herself and reestablishes his or her personality" (my emphasis). 18 I admit th at I am not able to understand very well exactly how the reciprocity of possessi on, the fact that the two spouses are things in each other's eyes according to a rigorous reci procity guaranteed by a contract, can restore their personality. This would rather resemble a sort of mutual disrespect and a possible unleashing of a reciprocal and legal hold over one another. The experience of the commitme nt of those who are in love [l'engagement amoureux) could suggest something else : rather than a double mastery or hold over each other, it could be a shared wea kness. Now, either weakness is a sickness of the subj ect, a provisional crisis from which it can recover (alone) , or else it is a structure of existence, one that certain experiences or c e rt ain "events"-bi rth , love, death , procreati on . . . -bring to light. Weakness (and I should here refer to a certain number of texts that are literary, philosophical , or both, from Kierkegaard to Lacoue Labarthe) is, in fact, the existent's experience that the mbjectum hides itself and that the existent is not therefore i ts own subject, it does not rest upon i tself, it is not its own foundation (if it were, it would have to duplicate itse lf, like the philosophical subject that redoubles i tself into an empirical and a transcendental subject). "To be" weak also means not beginning with oneself, i t means being born, experiencing the lag of consci ousness behind c arnal existe nce, knowing that a child is something that can happen to us and that death will necessarily surprise us. It is to hold (to remain , t o rem a i n "standing," t o b e , t o b e stable . . . ) only t o fi n d suppo11s o r props "outside of th e self ": the earth, the mother, but also any form of support one can think of, including all the prostheses usually classed as technical objects or instruments . (Only God is supposed to rest upon himself absolutely. ) For example , to say that when one loves, one holds the other dear, is not a metaphor any more than w hat one calls collapse, which accompanies death or the loss of those whom one "h olds" dear. It may seem paradoxical that weak beings could also support one anot her, but i t is precisely because all are insufficient (all mortals, all l iving beings, all animals and vegetables) that they are like supports and supplements for one another. What is more, the fact ofjinding oneselfby chance someone else 's s uport (as for so many of V i ctor Hugo's heros; for example, the you ng Gwy npla i ne in The Man Who Laughs, who , in the depths of despair and deprivation , takes into h i s care another child l9) gives a semblance o f necessity t o ex istence, o r a t least commits i t to a certain resistance. This inadequacy of s exual and mortal existences i s already the inadequacy of bodies , which a r e l ess separate than it might seem and which are , before anything .

A nother Experience o the Q uestion I 1 7 f else, excrescences of other bodies. This i n turn brings u p the question o f bo rders , of the borderlines of property, of limits, of what is inside and what is outside organic existence (that existence which is repugnant to consciousness; "to be repugnant to" meaning, in the fourteenth century, "to resist"). All mamma ls' infants graft themselves to, or "plug themselves into , " the body of their mothers while they breastfeed , such that each one is momentarily the organ of t he other (and the infant is no less necessary to the breast than the breast to t he infant) . This troubling connection (one that troubles the opposition of the self and the other in the same way that sexual relations also trouble it) cannot be described as a subject/obj ect relationshi p , any more than it allows one t o say who or what is active or passi ve. On the contrary, to relate to the body of the other as an obj ect that can be used , that one can instrumen talize or t hink of as a means, is a way for subjective consciousness to reappropriate this outside, to prevent the oth er's flesh from infring ' ing on its own , to preven t its "own" body from spilling over onto another's . The concern with not allowi ng oneself to be overtaken by one's own body is a central concern of the philoso phical subj ect: making the first move , getti ng ahead of the body, programming it oneself, being in command, and , in order to do that, representing to onesel f if possible all the processes, foreseeing them, calculating them , setting the m off or holding them i n check . . . This is what constitutes the effort of con sciousness, even that of the philosopher in his life, in his existence. There is something moving and comical , even pathetic (but here we all recognize ourselv es) i n the efforts Kant makes, in his everyday existence, not to let himself be bothered or surprised by his body (I refer here especially to the account given by his last secretary, Wasianski) : a permanent vigilance , very strict rules f or living-not to sweat, not to cough, not to sneeze, so to "breathe exclusively through the nose"-to d i gest well , to be comfortable in his clothes (whence th e i nvention of a suitable suspenders-belt), etc. 20 So many examples of techniq ues capable of making this celibate philosophical machine function neatly (celib ate or almost: his faithful and punctual servant was in a sense the i ndispensab le su pplement of this existence). One should ask , as a very serious question, why Kant tolerated neither cough i n g nor sneezing (and no doubt, in all likeli hood any sort of spasm). Indeed , it seems clear that the autonomy of a subject that coughs is, if not gravely , at least distinctly weakened. A free subject mu st know how to prevent i tself from coughing. Here it would be necessary-and I w ill only touch upon this point-to pursue a reflection on the status of the organ and the status of technique in their relationship to consc iousness . One could say , roughly speaking, that the subject's thoughts conceive of t echni q u e a s a calculation and an implementation of means toward an end that consciousness represents. The representation of thi s end thus appears as the criterion of fre e action, that is to say, of human action . And because I earlier spoke of the m other and the child, I will quote what Spengler says about parental conduct in M an and Technics : "It is not true that the female animal 'cares' for h e r young . C are i s a feeli ng that implies the projection of a mental vision i nto the

18 I Sylviane Agacinski future, concern for what is to be . . . . An animal can neither hate nor despair . Its parental activity is, like everything else above mentioned {Spengler here refers to generic techniques specific to certain species o animals] an obscure u nconscious f response to an impulse of the same order as that which underlies a great many ,,21 forms of life. I do not wish to dwell on the question of despair , even though an animal, as we know, can allow itself to die: but it can no doub t be argued that the animal does not know that i t is despairing (any more than it knows it is going to die), whereas man knows it. And this situation, for the very reason it is desperate, sometimes saves him from dying of it. What I want t o emphasize here above all is the opposition between the projection o a mental v ision and the obscure unconscious response, f which distingui shes men from anim als, and which allows Spengler, good humanist that he is, to s ay that the femal e does not care about her offspring. I t i s remarkable that Heidegger, who give s a completely different meaning to care , should neverthe less make it a structu re specific to human existence, and absent from animal life. As far as Spengler' s theory is concerned, it implies or presupposes a clear opposition between inst inctive animal technique and human technique (human technique being "technique, " in the proper sense of the term), the latter imp lying the pri macy and author ity of consciousness. The implications of Marcel Mauss's approach to the body's techniques (in Sociology and A nthropology) are another matter altogether. 22 As Mauss describes them, i n the course of a highly original argument, these tradi tional techniques of the body, examples of which he takes from human societies, call i nto question the primacy of consciousness and bri ng to light a technici ty that precedes the traditional division between, on the one hand , the biologi cal (a pure animality) and , on the ' other hand, the psychic, social , and tech nical "in the proper sense of the terms. " Organs or gestures are one of a numbe r of technical apparatuses . They are, one might say, natural prostheses, natura l tools , just as parts of an animal's body can be (in the case of an animal tha t swims, flies , hunts, etc . ). This would allow for a rapprochement of generic (animal) techniques and traditional (human) techniques. What is more, Mauss spe aks of the body's tech niques as "syntaxes of gestures that are traditionally ef fective," such as the techniques of sleeping, erotic techniques, walking, swimmi ng, grooming, eating techniques, etc. (Thus we come back to the i nfant and its mother. ) Now, these syntaxes of gesture are "physio-psycho sociological constru cts in which psychologi cal phenomena are simple 'cogwheels , ' " writes Mauss, who makes thought into a technical element, and not a consciousness that transce nds and grounds the techni cal process. 23 In the case of these bodily techniques , and at least in thi s case, subj ective consciousness is not the cause of the construct. Thi s is why, for example, Mauss, as a swimmer who early on picked u p this habit, continues to swi m while swallowing and then spitting out the wate r again : "It's stupid, yet I still have this ,, habit: I can't rid myself of my technique. 24 As for reflective thought, not only is it not the source or the c ause of the gestural mechanism, but it i s rather these mechanisms themselves , these techniques, that make it possible. "Nerves , " resis-

Another Experience o the Question I 1 9 f tance, seriousness, presence of mind, classically attributed t o the control o f subjec tive consciousness, would in fact be possible, for Mauss , only as a func tion of delaying mechanisms, of the inhibition of uncoordinated movements that s tem from culture and from physical techniques, and that allow for a "resistance to the i nvasion of emotion. ,, 25 In any case, I would like to know what "menta l vision" the mother, the true mother, the human mother, "projects" when she wor ries about her childre n . What does a mother think about, exactly? Does she, in dividually, set herself free from this "generic constraint" by which an animal i s supposedly entirely dominated? Poets sometimes have another way of talking abo ut it; for example, in Ninety-Three, Hugo wri tes : "M aternity is inexplicable ; YOIl cannot argue with it. What makes a mother sublime is that she is a type o f animal. , ,26 Humanist thought can, moreover, accommodate itself to a discours e such as this; it suffices merely to reinscribe the difference between man and animal within humanity itself, so that the dividing line runs between man and wo man . Because the question that has been put to us cannot avoid making reference to the deconstruction of metaphysics, that is to say, in its modem form , of th e metaphysics of the subject, I would like to say a few words about this questio !l ing, about this experience of the question, that are specific to Dasein . Da sein is certainly a new name for one who questions, and who is no longer a subje ct, for it is no longer this "fiction" of a consciousness without a world and wi thout others. Dasein is not this consciousness that represents the world and oth ers to itself, but rather the one that refers to the world and others in the mod e of concern (8esQrge) , assistance or solicitude (Filrsorge). It is with-others [avec autruiJ and in view of others, even if this coexistence may actually chan ge i nto i ndifference. The way in which we mutually worry about one another (Fi lrsorge) thus belongs to an existential and ontological determination. But Dasei n, at the outset , insofar as it is originary and quotidian, is neither someone nor somebody: "not this one, not that one," but a neutral They, from which it wi ll have to find itself, this They that had released it in advance from any decis ion and from all responsibility. "In Dasein's everydayness the agency through wh ich most things c ome about is one of which we must say that 'it was no one . ' ,,27 Dasein's access to its own being is therefore contemporaneous with its acce ss to responsibility. What interests me here, as far as our question is concerne d, i s that the who is dissociable neither from responsibility nor from the ques tion: for responsibility is conceived of from the perspective of a new experienc e of the question , which is also a new determination of freedom, insofar as the question is the decision that most properly belongs to spirit and its freedom ( I refer here to Jacques Derrida's book , O Spirit28). What I myself would like t o emphasize, in Heidegger, is at f the same time a questioning that breaks with the self-questioning of subj ective consciousness , that is also a questioning t hat does not essentially bring into play a process of address between questioner s. Questions are not events that happen between us or that pass from one to anot her through singular experiences (this is what interests me, and is what my thin king has been revolving around . . . ) . The

20 I Sylviane Agacinski "we" in Heidegger, is not a "we that each of us questions, " for example. It is we who determine ourselves as those who experience the fundamental question, who experience the question of being. See for example what Heidegger says , in 2 of ,, Being and Time, about "the formal structure of the question of being. 29 In e xamin ing the formal structure of any question , he writes that all questions ar e determined as a search that inquires about what is being asked : to ask is alw ays in some way to address a question "to something. " This "something," which f irst of all orients the question, however indeterminate it may be, is that towar ds which the question is directed. This something is not someone: I mean that th e question may well be asked about a who, the question, "Who?" may well be asked , of course, but the "who" (who orients the question in this case) is not the wh o to whom or to which a question can be put in the sense of being addressed . Th e thing about which the questioner is inquiring, insofar as he is himself the qu estioner, no longer seems to come from someone who might ask him. In this sense, the questioning beings that "we" are, are less responsible for one another than we are for what, fundamentally, calls us: that is to say, Being. And nothing de termines us essentially "before" this possibility ofletting ourselves be called , that is to say, of answering, already by asking it, the question of being. As for myself, I will re in the following: that the experience of the question prece des the determination of the who . Who am I, who are you, could be articulated t hus as: For what or whom, to what or whom, do you answer? But is it possible to ask , for example, Who are we? Is it possible , in other words, to presuppose a common experience of the question? Can one say it is that which authorizes us to say "We who experience this"? In general, what authorizes the philosopher to sa y "we"? After all, Descartes does not say we, he says / in his Meditations . The event that he recounts is a certain experience of the philosophical question, a singular experience of thought. An experience of doubt and of certainty that is readable as a story. This seems to contradict what I was saying above: namely, that there cannot really be an experience of the question for a consciousness th at begins with itself, or at least that draws from within itself i ts questions, that is its own resource, that locates itself as the foundation of all knowledg e and claims to be the determination of man in general. One can nonetheless spea k of experience in the case of the Meditations to the extent that the subject's certainty of self is not a beginning, but the consequence of an effort to overco me a singular experience: the experience of error and of doubt-"/ perceived that I had taken a number of false "-"I /elt that these senses deceived me"-"Yesterd ay's opinions to be true . meditation filled my mind with so many doubts that to day it is no longer in my ,, power to forget about them 30 (my emphasis) . The c ertainty of the self is consequently an event that happens to "Descartes the dou bter, " as Heidegger will come to call him , that is to say, to s omeone who lau nches himself recklessly into a "sudden ,, abolition of all the privileges of au thority. 31 But as always , to abolish authority is also to set oneself up as an authority. In philosophy, Descartes in a sense started a Revolution and created an Empire. . . .

A nother Experience o the Question I 21 f Heidegger summarizes his story in the following way: "As the doubter, Descartes forced men into doubt in this way: he led them to think of themselves, of their 'I. Thus the 'I,' human subjectivity, came to be declared the center of thought. It is here that the point of view of the 'I,' and the subjectivity of the moder n age, had ,, its source. 32 But this proclamation, and the "becoming source" of the event of the cogito can only mask its sudden appearance, for the source can not be its own resource, any more than it can go upstream from itself, j ust as the subjective consciousness cannot go behind itself. Whence the question, asked by Valery and, also, to some extent by myself, that one might call the question of an underground of the subject, of a nonsubjective , unconscious, opaque supp ort of the subject. For Valery, this support of the cogito, which subjectivity a s a philosophical concept in fact betrays, is a singularity, a someone-"he means to say that it is Descartes who ,, is thinking, and not just anybody 33 -it is the timbre of a voice, a style, the bid for power (le coup de force) of a "Self' that appeals to all of its egotistical strength . . . . Might there be bids for power in philosophy just as there are in politics (and is this not the expressi on that Heidegger uses in referring to Plato's gesture of determining being as i dea) ? In order to rediscover the event in philosophy, one must read it as one r eads literature, admitting that someone exposed himself or herself and took a ri sk in writing it (in entering into this experience of writing) ; one must read i t while asking to what or for what, to whom. or for whom, is it answering (witho ut perhaps knowing it); one must read it without succumbing to a kind of philoso phical authority (the tone adopted by philosophers always has something authorit arian about it, and their style something "virile") , in such a way as to recove r within it very singular experiences or events . One must perhaps also read it as the letter written to you by someone who would write you a letter. After the subject, there would also be another experience of reading. But, above all , ano ther experience of the question-or, if you like, of the other-that is to say, an other experience of the question of the other. Post-scriptum: After the subject, who signs? A "me" who would say, again with Valery, "My fate is more me than my self. A person is only made up of answers to a number of impersonal incidents. " ' Notes 1. Kant, A nthropology From a Pragmatic Point 0 View, trans. Mary Gregor (The Ha gue: M artinus / N ijhoff, 1974), 2, p. 10. 2. Ibid. , p. 1 1 . 3 . See Hegel , Pherwmenology o /Spirit, trans. A . V . M il ler (Oxford: Oxford University Press , 1977), PI. A, pp. 58-103. 4. See Bataille, Inner Experience, trans . Leslie Anne Boldt (Albany: State Univ ersity of New York, 1988).

22 I Sylviane Agacimki 5. H e i d egge r , /Iegel's Phenomeno logy o Sp iril , trans. Parvis Emad and K enneth Maly (Bloomi ngton : J I n d i a n a U n ive rs i t y Pre ss , 1 988) , 2 . 6. See Descartes's e p i s tl e to the Sorbonne wri tten for t h e purpose of o b t a in i n g the approval of the Doctors for t h e publication of us Midilal ioll 3 : "A m es sie u rs les doyens et docteurs de la sac re e faculte de t h eolo g i e d e Pa ris , " in O"ullres philosophiques, ed. Fe rd i n an d Alquie ( P a r i s : Garn i er, 1967), vol. 2, pp. 383 89. [TN: All t ranslations of D e sc a rt es are o u r own . ] See my Aparli: Conceplions and Death., o JSllren Kierkeg aard, trans. Kevin Newmark (Tallahassee : Florida S t a t e U n i v e rs i t y P ress, 1988) . 7 . Ihid . , p . 3 84 . 8. 9. Kant, Religion Within Ihe Limils o Reason Alone, tran s . Theodore M . Greene an d Hoyt H. f (New York : Harper and Row, Publish ers, 1 960). H u d son 10. Arist o t l e , Nichomachean Elhics , trans. Da v i d Ross (O x fo rd: Oxford Un iversity Press, 1 987) , book I, 2 and 3. trans. Th om a s McCarthy (Boston: B e acon Press, 1 984), vol . 1, p. 10. 1 1 . Jii rgen Habennas , Theory o Com munico tive Action, J 12. Ibid. 13. I h ere refer to Ka n t ' s Die Melaphysik der Sillen, ( Fra nk fu rt : S u h rk a m p , 1 956) , vol. 8 . i n Werkawgabe, 1 2 vo l . , ed. W i l h el m We i s c he d e l 14. B at a ill e , Inner Experience, p . 22. 15. Nancy, La communaute tksoevrie (Pa ris: C h ri s t i an Bou rgoi s Editeur, 1 98 6) . S o on to a p p e a r in E n gl i sh as The Inoperat ive Communily, t ra n s . Peter Connor (Mi nneapol i s : University of M i n n sota Press , 1 990) . S ee Hege\ , Philosophy o JRighl, tran s . T. M. Knox (Oxford: Oxford Uni versity P res s , 1975), 1 58 69 , pp. 1 1 0- 1 6. 16.

1 7 . K a n t , Die Melaphysik der S ilten, p. 483. 18. I b i d . 19. Hugo, The Man Who Laughs, 2 vols. ( Boston: Little Brow n 20. and Co. , 1 888) . See Thomas De Quincey's s ummary of Wasiansk i's account in h i s "The Las t Day s of Kan t , " in The vols. (Edinburgh : Adam a nd Charles Black, 1 890) , vol. 4 , p. 337. See also Kam imime: I. E. Borowski, R. B. Jachmann, E . A . Was ia l l3 ki , ed . and trans . Jean M i s tl e r ( Pa ris : Grasset, 1 985). Collecled Writings o Thomas De Q u incey, ed. D avi d Masson, 14 f (New York : A lfred A. Knopf, 1 93 2) , p . 30. [TN: we have modi fied t h i s t ra ns l a t i o n 2 1 . Spengl er, Man and Technics : A Comribu1ion to a Philosophy o Lif , trans. Charles Francis A t k i nson f e sl i ghtl y . ] 22. See Mauss, "Les Tec h n iques du C o rp s, 365-86. Ibid. , p. 3 7 1 . " in S ociologie eI a m hrop ologie (Pari s : PUF, 1 966) , pp. 23. 24. 25. 26. Ibi d . , p. 367. I b i d . , p. 385. Hugo, Ninety-Three, ( Boston : Colonial Pr ess, Co. , 1910) , p. 274. [TN : t ra n s la t i o n modi fied s l i ghtly . ] M acq u arri e and Edw ard Robinson (New York : Harper and and Rachel Bowlby (Chi cago: Row , Publishers, 1 962) , 27, pp. 1 64-65. 2 7 . H e i d e gge r , Being and Time , t ran s . J o h n 28. See O Spi ri t : He idegger and lhe Queslion, trans. Geoffrey Ben n i n gto n J U n i v e rs i t y of C h ic a go Press, 1 989) .

A nother Experience o the Question I 23 f 29. Being and Time, 2 , p . 24. 30. Descartes , Les Miditations, in 3 1 . Cf. Paul Valery, Oeuvres philosophiques, 2 :404, 405 , and 4 1 4. "A View of Descartes, " in Masters and Friends, trans. M artin Tumell (Princeton : Princeton Uni versity Press , 1968), p. 40. See also, i n the same volume, "Sk etch for a Portrait of Descartes," "Descartes," and "A Second View of Descartes. " 32. See What is a Thing? trans. W. B. Barton Jr. and Vera Deutsch (South Bend , IN: Regnery, 1 967), p. 99. [TN : Translation mod ified slightly . ] 33 . Valery , "Descartes, " in M a. ter. and Friends, p. 31.

2 On a Finally O bj ectless Subj ect A lain Badiou What does our era enjoin liS to do? Are we equal to the task ? It seems to me to o easy to claim that the imperative of the times is one of com p le t i o n , an d that, as m o dern Narratives linking subject, science and History are foreclos ed , we mllst either explore the formless dis covered this foreclosure bequeaths us or sustain turning back towards the Greek origin of thinking-a pure question . I propose instead the following hypothesis: what is demanded of us is an addit ional step in the modern , and not a veering towards the limit, whether it be te rmed "post modern" or whatever. We know, thanks i n particular to mathemati cs, that making an additional step represents a singularly complex task as the local status of problems is often more difficult and muddled than their global status . The predica tion of an "end" is an enj ambment that prohibits resolution when o ne is unaware of how to proceed on to the next step. Rat h er than ask "what is there beyond ?" because of methodical distrust of th e beyond , I wil l formulat e the question as follow s , on the basis of the hypothesis that modern thinki g requires its continua tion: what concept of the subject succeeds the one whose t rajectory can be traced out from Descartes to Husserl, and which wore thi n and fell into ruin between N ietzsche and Heidegger, as well as throughout the whole of wha,t should be called "the age of the poets" (Holderlin , Hopkins, Mallarme , Rimbaud , Trakl, Pessoa, M andelstam, Celan) ? Which amounts t o asking: can w e think a n objectless subject? In the twofold sense in which, concerning such a subject, one can nei ther designate its correlate in presentation , nor suppos e that it answers to any of thought's objectives. I would argue that the process of the destitution of the subject has, over the course of a complex history goi ng back at least as far as Kant, been confused with t he inelucta ble process of the destitution of the object. From within the modern imperative to which the pr edication of an "end" opposes but a dissipated to rm en t -w e must base what su cceeds on the fact that thc form of the object cannot in any way sustain Transl ated by Bruce Fink

On a Finally Objectless Subject I 25 the enterprise of truth. This imperative thus raises the following q ue stion : I s it possible to de-objectify the space of the subject? If it is possible: Wha t is thus beyond the subject if not the very same subject dissociated or subtrac ted from reflexive jurisdiction, un-constituting, untied from all supports unrel ated to the process of a truth-of which the subject would be but a finite fragme nt? I call subj ect the local or finite status of a truth. A subject is what is locally born out . The "subject" thus ceases to be the inaugural or conditioning point of legitimate stat ements . It i"s no longer-and here we see the cancella tion of the object, as objective this time-that /or which there is truth, nor ev en the d esirous eclipse of its suncction. A truth always precedes it. Not t hat a t ru t h exists "before" it, for a truth is forever suspended upon an indiscer nible future. Th e subject is woven out of a truth , it is what exists of truth in limited fragm e nts . A subj ect is that which a truth passes through, or thi s finite point through which , in its infini te being, truth itself passes. This transit excludes every interior moment. This is what allows me to deny that it is necessary-"truth" henceforth being disjoined or diss ? ciated from "knowledge "-to suppress the c ategory "subject. " While it is i mpossible in our era to id entify "truth" with a s tatus of cognitive statements , it cannot be i nferred t hat we c an thereby go beyond what modern thought (post-Gali lean or post-Cartes ian) has designated as its own locus using the term "subject. " Granted : the me aning of the word "truth" may h a n g on the question of being; still it seems m ore apposite to make this meaning depend on the supple mentation or exceeding-ofbeing that I term "event. " Does it follow that the "sub je ct " is obsolete? Tha t would be to confuse the classical/unction of the subject (as transparent punct uality on the b asis of which the true or its limit is established) and being, w hich props up this function ( i . e . , the finite that, s ince Galileo, must en dure tru th ' s infinite nature). Let us d issociate this being from its heredit ary function. Axiomatic Provision An irrevocable step forward has been made through the cntIque of earlier co ncep ts of the subject, a critique thoroughly based on the notion that truth is not a quali fication of knowledge nor an intuition of the i ntelligible . l One must come to conceive of truth as making a hole in knowledge. Lacan is paradigmatic o n thi s point. The subject is thus convoked as a border-effect or a deli miting fragment of such " a hole piercing. To conceptualize the subject outside of any object position makes no sense except from the point of view of a do c trine of truth that has been so c ompletely recast as to go well beyond the critique of c orrespondence theories of truth , a nd to out radicalize hermeneutics of unveilin g. Such a doctrin e cannot be laid out here in its ontological co m plexity. I w ill si mply summarize it in four theses , fully aware though

26 I A lain Badiou I am that in philosophy summary is impracticable; one would better co n ceive of it as an axiomatic shortcut. The four theses that follow must thus be solidly f ounded as everything else depends upon them. (a) A tru th i s always post-eventual. 2 Its process begins when a supernumerary nam e h as been put into circulation extrac ted from the very void that s u tu res e very si tuation to being-by which it has been decided that an event has suppleme nted the situation. (b) The process of a truth i s fidelity (to the event) , i . e. , the evaluation, by means of a s pecific operator (that of fidelity) , of the degree of connection between the terms of the situation ami rhe supernumerary name of the event. The terms of the si tuation that are declared positively connected to the su pernume rary name form an infinite part of the situation , which is sus pended on a fu t ure, as this i nfinity only comes into being through a succes sion of finite eval uations, and is thus never presented . If this i nfini te part will have avoided (we have here the future anterior as tru th's own temporal regi me or register) coinciding with what knowledge determines as known , consistent, or discerned s ets in the situation-if, thus, the part in question is indiscernible for knowled ge, i. e. , absolutely indistinguishable or generic then we will say the post ev entual procedure produces a tru t h . A tru th is therefore, in substance, a pro cedure of post eventual fidelity that will have been generic. In this sense, a tr uth (indiscern ible within knowledge), is the metonymy of the situation's very be ing i . e. , of the pure or u nnamed multi ple into which this being is resolved . (c ) (d) Let us call "subject" every finite state of a generic procedure. Negative D elimitation of the Conc ept of the Subject From the precedi ng definition, we can infer a whole series of negative conse qu ences that make it clear that we are proceeding ( th rough discontinuous continu ity) forward from the classical concept of the subject. (a) A subject is not a substance. If the word substance has a meaning, it designates a multiple that is counted as one in a situation. The intrinsic indiscernibilit y into which a generic procedure resolves excludes a subject's bei n g su bstant i al. (b) Nor i s a subject an empty point. The void, which is a proper name of being, is inhuman and a subj ective. It is an ontological concept. In addi tion, it is cle ar that a truth i s realized as multiplicity and not as punctuality . A subject is in no sense the organizing of a meaning of experience . It is not a transcendental function . If the word "experience" means anything, it designate s presentation as such. Now a generic procedure, hi nged as i t is on the event that a supernumerary name qualifies , in no way coincides with (c)

On a Finally Objectless Subject I 27 presentation . W e should also differentiate meaning and tru th. A generi c proc edu re reali zes the po s t - e v en t ual tru t h of a s i tua t i on , but thi s indiscern i ble multiple in which a truth consists y i eld s up no meani ng. (d) A subject is not an invariant of presentation. The subj ect is rare in that t h e generi c procedure runs diagonally to the situation. One could add that each s ubject is r i g o ro us ly singular, being the generic p rocedure of a s i tuat i o n that is i tself si ngular. The statement "There is subj ect" { i l y a d u sujet} i s uncertai n or haphazard : it is not transitive with re s p ec t to b eing. A subject is neither a result (e) nor an origin. It is the local s ta t u s of t h e procedure, a configuration th at exceeds t h e situation. Let us now exam i ne the twists and turns of the subj ect. Subj ec tivization: Intervention a n d the Faithful Connection Operator The subject is at the core of a problem of twofold o rigi n concerning fidelity procedures . We have the name of the event, which I say results from an interven tion, as well as a faithful connection operator that regulates the procedure and institutes tru th. To what extent does this operato r depend upon the name ? An d doesn't the eme rgenc e of this operator constitute a second event? Let us ta k e an example. In Ch rist ia nity , the Church is that through which connection s to and disconnections from the Christ event, originally called the "death of G od ," are evalu ate d . As Pascal says, the Church is thus verily "truth's h i s tory , " as it is the faithful con n ecti on operator sustai ning "religious" ge neri c procedures. But what is the link between the Church and Christ? or betwee n the Church and the de at h of God ? Th i s point is conti n u al ly under deba te and (like the debate concerning the link between the Party and the Revolution ) has given rise to all kinds of schisms and heresy. One suspects the faithful c onnection operator itself of being originally unfaithfu l to the event in which it takes pride. I will call subjectivization the emergence of an operator that i s consecutive to the i nterventional nami n g that decides the event. Subjectivi zation takes the form of the Two. It is oriented towards the intervention in the vicinity of the eventual site. But is also oriented towards the sit u ati o n b y its coincidence with the rule of evaluation and proximity that grounds the gen eric procedure. Subjectivization is the interventional na m i ng from the point of view of the situation, i . e. , the rule governing the intrasituational effec ts of putt ing a supernumerary name i nto circulation. Subjectivization, i . e. , the singular configuration of a rule, subsumes the Two of which it cons