Readings in Infancy by Jean-Francois Lyotard;Robert Harvey;Kiff Bamford;

Author:Jean-Francois Lyotard;Robert Harvey;Kiff Bamford;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781350167377
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK
Published: 2022-11-17T00:00:00+00:00

Under this supposition, “this” (under its name) is posited as a thing (a positional operator called “modality”)—that is, as a material object, a “physical” object in the sense discussed earlier, a “sensible” object if one prefers—to be classified in a set.

That artworks may thus be taken as things to be recognized and placed in known and defined sets, there is no doubt. A major portion of literary and art criticism is engaged in this project. This is also the main concern of museum curators and librarians.

Let’s listen to what Valéry has to say about this procedure in his course in poetics:

There remains the work itself as a perceptible thing. Here we have a third consideration very different from the other two.

In this case we regard a work as an object, as pure object, that is to say, we put into it no more of ourselves than may be applied indis­criminately to any object—an attitude that is adequately characterized by the absence of any production of value.

What power have we over this object which, regarded in this way, has no power over us? But we do have power over it. We can measure it in space and time; we can count the words of a text or the syllables in a line of poetry; we can note that a certain book appeared at a certain time; that a certain element in a painting is copied from some other painting; that there is a hemistich in Lamartine that can be found in Thomas, and that a certain page in Victor Hugo was written as early as 1645 by some obscure Père François. We can point out that a certain piece of reasoning is a paralogism; that this sonnet is incorrect in form; that the drawing of that arm defies anatomy, and that a certain use of words is not customary. All these conclusions result from a kind of mechanical operation which amounts to superimposing the work, or parts of it, on a particular model.

This way of dealing with works of the mind makes no distinction between them and all the other possible kinds of works. By giving them a definable existence, it ranks them with things. This is the point to remember:

Everything that can be defined is ipso facto dissociated from the producing mind and set off against it. By defining it the mind turns it into raw material on which it can operate, or an instrument with which it can work.

Thus the mind puts what it has defined out of its own reach, thereby showing that it knows itself and trusts only what is other than itself.6

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