Infinite and Indefinite: The Quasi-Transcendental
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
In “Signature Event Context,” Derrida writes, “All writing, therefore, in order to be what it is, must be able to function in the radical absence of every empirically determined addressee in general” (Margins of Philosophy, pg. 315). The weight here seems to fall on “empirically determined addressee” — for writing to be writing, its readability cannot depend in principle on the existence of such and such a reader. It has to be readable by n’importe qui, no matter who — whoever comes along.
It might be instructive here to compare the n’importe qui with the Whiteheadian God who never forgets. Thinking in terms of the Whiteheadian God as the “reader of last resort,” we could think of a kind of transcendental or eternal readability of every text — God has an infinite capacity to read, he is privy to every code, he will remember forever. The n’importe qui, on the other hand, may not actually end up stumbling across the text, or if she does, she may not be able to decode it in practice. One can think about it as if every writing has an eternal form representing its pure potentiality to be read, but what makes the Derridean quasi-transcendental quasi- is that there isn’t a “real” transcendental level. Something like transcendentality seems to be a necessary structure of thought (”for didactic reasons”), but it can’t be pushed to its logical extreme — by hyperbolizing the finite, Derrida brings his quasi-transcendental back down to human scale.
It seems to me that the Derridean indefinite in fact “secularizes the infinite” in a much more meaningful sense than Cantorian set theory does — and that Derrida’s reading of Levinas is a more devestating and productive critique than anything Badiou offers. The indefinite is the structure of human existence, not the mathematical infinite, “secular” or otherwise.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Hmmm, not sure. It isn’t so much that every writing has an eternal form representing its pure potentiality to be read, as that every writing “must be able to function” (in this context, to be iterable) even if all such potentiality is extinguished (or bracketed off). Iterability is not a function of readability, even quasi-ideal readability. Readability depends on iterability, but iterability is a kind of power of death carrying the written mark beyond every possible readerly horizon.
It seems to me that where Derrida and Badiou actually come closest is in their respective deployments of a subtractive ontology: Derrida’s mark really is the bare minimum, scarcely there at all. For Derrida, what secures a structure (like a signature) is iterability, which also exposes it to decomposition and reinscription in alien contexts. Badiou’s set-theoretic multiple is composed purely through the operation of the count, but in terms of its appearing-in-relation (its being-there) it is similarly dependent on a context which is itself made up of other multiples. Derrida says that this context is non-delimitable, that it cannot be totally determined or saturated. Badiou says that a situation may well be infinite, but is none the less determinate for that; however, the excess of the state of the situation, the representation of its parts, is not determinable in this case…
Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 4:31 pm
I think I’m using “reading” when I should be using “iteration.” You seem to be understanding my use of “reading” as referring to somehow having the correct readers who will understand the correct meaning — like that famous “fellow-sufferer who understands,” in the last resort. That’s not what I meant — I meant iteration or functioning (”reading” as just “what you do with a piece of writing,” with no additional baggage intended).
Thursday, January 18, 2007 at 5:44 am
A piece of writing is iterable regardless of whether or not there is anyone around to do that with it (anyone or any thing - mechanical archives and computer viruses also iterate). Iterability is part of the structure of the mark. But I don’t think this structure is given by an indefinite future possibility (the fact that humans or iterating-machines might one day come along to do some iterating) - wouldn’t an absolutely forlorn mark, utterly remote from any possibility of some day encountering and being iterated by some iterator, nevertheless still be iterable?
Thursday, January 18, 2007 at 8:56 am
Iterability and iteration have to be two different things. A completely forlorn piece of writing would be structurally iterable, but it would not function in the sense of having effects. But I can’t think of any possible way for a piece of writing to come into existence without having some effect, if only on the addressor — a “completely” forlorn piece of writing is impossible; a piece of writing that was abandoned is a machine that eventually stopped running.