Fall 1999 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies:
"The Continental Origins of Postmodernism"

Week 9: November 8-14

William Thomas's Review of Jacques Derrida's "Cogito and the History of Madness" and "Structure, Sign and Discourse in the Human Sciences"

Sent: Thursday, November 11, 1999 3:43 PM

Subject: Cyberseminar: WT Derrida Review

A Modern Scholasticism: Reflections on Derrida's "Cogito and the History of
Madness."

By William Thomas

- Introduction

My primary assignment in this post is to comment on Jacques Derrida's
lecture "Cogito and the History of Madness." So, I will begin with an
overview of the substance of that essay. I will then reflect on Derrida's
method more generally in light of "Structure, Sign and Discourse in the
Human Sciences" and a lecture "The Unconditional University" which I had the
opportunity to hear recently when Derrida visited Albany, NY.

- Summary of "Cogito and the History of Madness"

Sorting through the murky, elliptical terms in which it is expressed,
"Cogito and the History of Madness" has two basic purposes, both of which
relate to Michel Foucault's Folie et déraison: Histoire de la folie à l'âge
classique. First, Derrida wants to criticize a passage in that work which
interprets Descartes' treatment of madness in the cogito argument, as
addressed in the doubts of the first Meditation. Second, and more
generally, Derrida wishes to "interrogate certain presuppositions of this
history of madness," (33) that is, he will comment on foundational
questions as they relate to Foucault's book.

Recall from our recent discussions of Foucault that he has a conception of
the period from the Age of Reason to the 20th Century as the "classical
age." Thus Descartes stands at the threshold of this "classical age" and I
think it plain that for both Foucault and Derrida, Descartes' rationalism is
the model for the modern era. By contrast, Francis Bacon's empiricism is
not the model. Foucault's thesis is that during the age of reason, madness
was defined and separated from reason by an "act of force" (54) in which
madness was "crushed beneath psychiatry, dominated, beaten into the ground,
interned, that is to say, madness (was) made into an object and exiled as
the other of a language and a historical meaning which have been confused
with logos itself." (34) Rationality by its very nature, Derrida
sympathetically affirms is "restrained and restraining."

The "act of force" or "great internment" (43) is, more or less, the creation
of the madhouse, "in the middle of the seventeenth century," which initiated
a cultural and political trend to medicalize and legalize insanity, making
it commonplace for a person to be denied his rights and subjected to
treatment against his will due to his mental state. Stephen Hicks in his
"Postmodernism" lectures at the 1998 IOS Summer Seminar argued that
postmodernism owes its popularity largely to its inherent leftism, rather
than any purported methodological advances. Certainly, we can see that what
makes Foucault's history exciting to Derrida is its demonization of modern,
capitalist, Enlightenment culture. In a sense, what we have here in the
final analysis are grand, overblown condemnations of the more obviously
condemnable aspects of modern medicine and politics. But part of the method
here is to render the critic heroic by moralizing everything and by
exaggerating the significance of the offense in question.

Descartes fits into this story as the one early modern philosopher upon whom
Foucault concentrates attention. The issue on which Derrida focuses is the
impact on the cogito of the possibility that the subject is mad. In Foucault
's reading (as Derrida interprets it), "Descartes is not interested in
madness, he does not welcome it, he does not consider it." (47) This means
that Descartes does not, in the course of finding certainty of his existence
in the fact that he thinks, refute the doubt that he might be mad. At some
length, Derrida offers an alternative reading of Descartes, one that is
"banal," by his own admission. (33) Derrida argues that "the cogito escapes
madness only because at its own moment. it is valid even if I am mad." (55)
That is to say, even if one were mad, one would still indubitably be aware
of one's own thoughts. This is the sum of Derrida's "re-reading" of
Descartes. The only trouble is, this still gives one no confidence in one's
reason. Derrida notes that Descartes appears aware of this problem, since
he appeals to God to ensure his sanity.

Derrida is actually interested in a larger project, the idea that there is a
kind of "wellspring of reason more profound than the reason of the classical
age." (36) Apparently he agrees with Foucault's characterization of madness
as "silence." He writes: "Madness is what by existence cannot be said" (43)
and adds: ".through his own language (the philosopher) reassures himself
against any actual madness -- which may sometimes appear quite talkative,
another problem." (54). This "other problem" gets no more attention, so the
fact that punctures the entire metaphor, the fact that mad people talk, too,
casts a heavy shadow over the entire discussion.

In Derrida's version of history, there is a "logos" or form of higher
reason that precedes "classical reason." This logos incorporates madness as
a mode alongside reason. Thus he remarks that Middle Ages was an era of
"free trade" between reason and madness. (39) Before that, ".the Greeks
were in greatest proximity to the unitary, primordial.Logos" 39-40. Derrida
seems to think this necessary to reason, as he takes a quasi-Existentialist
position that reason requires non-reason or madness in order to exist.
Where Heidegger has us in fear over the possibility of our own non-being,
Derrida has us in fear of madness.
"to-attempt-to-say-the-demonic-hyperbole from whose heights thought is
announced to itself, frightens itself, and reassures itself against being
annihilated or wrecked in madness or in death." "(61) "The relationship
between reason, madness, and death is an economy, a structure of
deferral..." (62)

What Derrida does not criticize in Foucault's thesis, and how he does not
criticize it, is as interesting as what and how he does criticize. He
partakes enthusiastically in the loaded, metaphorical language of Foucault.
One might suppose a history would deserve reflection on empirical grounds,
but Derrida is not much interested in the facts of the matter. He has no
objection to seeing rationality as a rigid, tyrannical cultural structure
that must be overthrown. Similarly, the importance of the cogito argument
as a foundation for rational inquiry is not in doubt.

Derrida celebrates Foucault, for example by holding it to be his "greatest
merit" that he claims to attempt the absurd: "to write a history of madness
itself. Itself." (33) He sees Foucault as a daring adventurer of the
intellect, when in fact his project amounts to seeking to speak
incoherently. Like Foucault, Derrida seems blind to the ability of reason
to describe things in an open-ended fashion. Just as one can conceive of the
non-conceptual (rocks, for example), one can identify the irrational. When
one reads accounts of madness, one is not imposing rationality on the mad,
but using objectivity to convey as much as one can of their inner
experience. But because Derrida has a blinkered grasp of what rationality
is, he rejects this possibility from the outset.


--The Method of Deconstruction

I would like to remark on several aspects of Derrida's method as they jump
out at me from this lecture, and from "Structure, Sign and Play."

1. The importance of sounding interesting.
Derrida is at pains to use metaphoric language, to speak categorically or
elliptically, or to parenthetically identify an ambiguity, so as to spice up
his writing. The effect is that one often, as with Heidegger, can have no
clear idea what Derrida means. Madness is, for example, "the obstinate
murmur of a language that speaks by itself, without speaker or interlocutor"
(34). An idea must be "interrogated." (33) Reason is "nocturnal."

One extended example of this occurs on pages 32 and 33 as Derrida indicates
his plan for the lecture. With much unclear, complex language, with
parenthetical remarks, and even with an aside about hermeneutics, he
obscures the fact that his first item amounts to little more than an
alternative interpretation of a passage in Descartes. But this apparatus is
necessary, in part to give the impression of profundity, and in part to
square this traditional type of analysis with his analytical doctrines as
they elsewhere appear. Hence the queer sentence: "When one attempts, in a
general way, to pass from an obvious to a latent language, one must first be
rigorously sure of the obvious meaning." (32) An "obvious meaning" should
be obvious, one would think, and therefore require no rigor to be grasped.

2. Contradiction as insight.
Derrida promotes a view that reason is limited, that logic must be
transcended. For example, he writes "whether he wants to or not... the
ethnologist accepts into his discourse the premises of ethnocentrism at the
very moment he denounces them. This necessity is irreducible." ("Structure,
Sign and Play" 282) This is part of a broader policy, repeated often in his
recent lecture in Albany, that knowledge proceeds at once by preserving
"traditional" categories and at the same time "deconstructing" or
"denouncing" them.

3. Language as self-sufficient
I was struck, listening to Derrida speak, that over the course of a long
lecture on the purpose of the Humanities in society, never once did he make
the direct assertion of a non-linguistic fact. For example, people were not
said to have human rights, rather he refered us to the U.N. declaration of
human rights or the 1789 French Declaration of the Rights of Man (typical of
his own French ethnocentrism, he did not refer to John Locke or the American
Bill of Rights). He did not describe the effects of new technologies on
literary studies, rather he meditated on an epigram: "The End of Work is the
Origin of the World," which was to lead us to envision a connection, never
clarified, between information technology (pace Jeremy Rifkin "The End of
Work") and globalization (which is said to bring about the beginning of a
world culture).

Derrida seems indifferent to the distinction between a word's denotation and
its etymological connotation. In his lecture, Derrida insisted on
referring to work and the world in French, as travail and le monde. This
was crucial to his method, as he wanted an etymological connection between
mondalisation and monde. With the English words "globalization" and
"world," he would have ended up musing about globes, spheres, circles,
rather than the world. This would apparently have destroyed his project.
We see a similar move in "Cogito and the History and Madness" as Derrida
asserts that "there is no praise (éloge), by essence, except of reason"
because reason, after all is logos. Etymology is "essence," to Derrida, it
appears.

"Cogito and the History of Madness" is typical of Derrida's pattern of not
writing distinct philosophical treatises, but inserting philosophical
comments in the course of analyzing literature, often literature that is
inappropriate to the broader issues he is thought to have raised. In
Against Deconstruction, his lucid critique of Derrida, John Ellis remarks of
Derrida's On Grammatology that "Derrida's choosing to develop his own ideas
on language through an extensive critique of those of Rousseau must remain
something of a puzzle; among linguistic theorists, Rousseau's ideas scarcely
count as a serious contribution to the field, and much of what Rousseau has
to say would have to count as dismissably crack pot taken in the context of
modern linguistic theory." Yet On Grammatalogy is widely regarded by
postmodernists as a seminal work of literary theory and epistemology.
(Ellis, 25)

4. Unreflective analysis

Derrida's positive theory is meant to be implied by his denunciation of
false theories. As Ellis points out "What we need is...thought about the
possible positive steps and the choice between them. To pronounce something
'problematical' is not a conclusion nor is it an intellectual achievement;
when we do so, all we have done is point the way to a need for much more
thought and analysis of the issues involved." (Ellis, 41) In other words, a
mere denunciation does not clearly entail a positive program.

For example, in "Structure, Sign and Play" Derrida celebrates Lévi-Strauss
for identifying the (intellectual) "scandal" of incest prohibition, which
"is universal, and in this sense one could call it natural. But it is also
a prohibition, a system of norms and interdicts; in this sense once could
call it cultural." (283) As an economist by training, I was especially
struck by this issue. Universality and naturalness are not synonyms, but
rather have been thought by some to be necessarily correlated. Obviously,
if incest prohibition is in fact universal (a question Derrida does not
think to ask, as he has no interest in the facts of the matter), then this
points up a need to come up with a richer set of criteria for identifying
what is "natural" as opposed to "cultural." One might begin, as Rand does,
at the root, with the distinction between the metaphysical and the man-made.
But Derrida is content to relish the contradiction, problematizing "the
nature/culture opposition." Such an analysis is insidious, in that it not
only stands in the place of a positive contribution, but it casts a shadow
of mistrust over a traditional method, and suggests that one embrace that
mistrust as the cure for the problem in question, rather than looking for a
clear solution.

Ellis argues that this pattern applies to what is purported to be Derrida's
greatest achievement, the transcendence of "logocentrism." "Logocentrism" is
Derrida neologism that Ellis convincingly defines as "the illusion that the
meaning of a word has its origin in the structure of reality itself and
hence makes truth about that structure seem directly present to the mind."
"Logocentrism" is thus the doctrine of diaphanous consciousness.

Ellis notes that Derrida is far from alone, and far from the first, to
attack the idea that "takes the concepts expressed in a language to be real
essences existing independently of language." (Ellis, 37) Indeed, as Ayn
Rand noted, it is not that moderate realist view of concepts that dominates
philosophy today. Writing in the 1960s, even Rand saw that a critic of the
current situation needed to offer an alternative, positive account.
Derrida, writing at the same time, never sees this, and his critique is
ultimately sterile, precisely because it amounts to only the slightest first
step toward an improved epistemology (and indeed, that step turns retrograde
as Derrida elaborates his view, embracing illogic and subjectivism).

5. Lack of contact with the scholarly literature
Finally, I will remark that Derrida seems to write in a peculiar isolation.
For instance, Ellis notes that in "Structure, Sign and Play" Derrida lists
"Heidegger, Freud, Nietzche, and Lévi-Strauss" as influential contributors
to the epistemological issues he wishes to address, despite the fact that
these "are nowhere near being central figures in the debate." (40)
Similarly, we see in "Cogito and the History of Madness" Derrida take up
Foucault's isolation of Descartes without the least reflection on Descartes'
impact on the theory of madness, nor on other interpreters of Descartes, nor
indeed in contact with any literature that might enrich our understanding of
the issues.

- Conclusion

Deconstruction appears to be a strangely closed system of opaque references
to opaque texts, where the appearance of intellectual daring obscures a
profound lack of insight, and where an imaginative use of etymology and
metaphor stands in for learning. In this sense, I feel in hearing or
reading Derrida that I am encountering a modern scholasticism, one in which
a closed set of texts and categories endlessly circulates, and where truth is
determined by what is academically acceptable or appealing according to the
rhetorical or moral standards of the day, and not by any correspondence to
reality.

I will remark that seeing him in person helped me to better understand his
popularity. I will write another posts about his canonization at this
event, but it was clear that he had a witty manner, a pleasant voice, a
stylish look, and overall a certain charm.

Bibliography:

Derrida, Jacques "Cogito and the History of Madness" in Writing and
Difference, Alan Bass Trans. (University of Chicago Press, 1978) 31-63.

Derrida, Jacques "Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human
Sciences" in Writing and Difference, Alan Bass Trans. (University of Chicago
Press, 1978) 278-293

Descartes, Renée Meditations (everwhere)

Ellis, John M. Against Deconstruction (Princeton Princeton: University
Press, 1989)

Hicks, Stephen "Postmodernism" taped lecture (Poughkeepsie: Principal
Source, 1999)

William Thomas
Manager of Research & Training,
The Objectivist Center


*************************************************
Fall 1999 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies

All Cyberseminar posts are working papers with copyright
reserved to the author. They may not be published or adapted
without permission, but may be circulated for purposes of
scholarly discussion.

*************************************************

To: TOC Cyberseminar <cybersem@objectivistcenter.org>

Sent: Friday, November 12, 1999 2:30 PM

Subject: Cyberseminar: Saint Jacques

Saint Jacques
From: Will Thomas

I mentioned in concluding my review essay that I would write a bit more on
Derrida's canonization. What follows is a personal reflection.

Derrida's speech at SUNY Albany last month was presented with great fanfare.
Heralded as "the world's most famous living philosopher" he spoke to a
packed theater seating about 1,000. He was there to kick off a round of
talks leading to conference called "Book/Ends" on the impact of information
technology on the Humanities. As an overture to the introduction, the new
chairman of the English department dilated on the prominence of "Derrida"
(unlike mere mortals, no other name is required) and detailed the progress
of the English department's new hiring program, meant to shore up a
department that has collapsed in theory vs. writing infighting, and whose
loudest voice is a resident "Red Theory Collective" of graduate students.

Then the chairman of the "Languages, Literatures and Cultures" department
stood up to revere the saint. This department is an amalgam of French,
Spanish, German, Russian etc. languages, but is not known as the "European
Languages Department" because, let us never forget, French is a World
Language!

Derrida, we were told, is a Philosopher. A man who meets his students,
without fail, every Wednesday for his seminar, during which he imparts
Knowledge to them. As this was said on a Monday, far from Paris, one worried
for Derrida's record of consistency in the coming days, but the audience was
reassured to be reminded that Derrida was a revered teacher and respected
colleague.

But he is more than a mere ivory-tower academician, he is a Rebel. As a
young man, he was expelled from school in World War II Algeria for being a
Jew. As a young scholar, he was leading figure in the " greatest time of
intellectual ferment in living memory" the student rebellion of 1968. His
novel "Glas" (sp?) has been declared "subversive." When he was named to a
chair in philosophy, a professor from Yale University wrote recommending
Derrida not be given the post, even though He Had Been Elected By His
Colleagues! (The fact that even Hitler was elected, must not be relevant
here, one imagines.)

But all-in-all, Derrida is a Saint. He is the moral teacher who has shaken
us out of complacency, reminding us that: 1. A gift is not a gift unless it
is unexpected, and 2. Forgiveness is not forgiveness if it does not forgive
the unforgivable.

And out on the stage comes a dapper man, stylish but not stuffy in an argyle
sweater vest, cheerful looking with color in his cheeks and a halo of styled
white hair about his head, and when he speaks, a gentle, friendly voice with
a hint of French accent reaches out to us as he says:

"I want to begin... with a profession of faith, faith in the University as
Unconditional." (We learned over the course of the lecture that perhaps
this meant free from the mercenary marketplace, free to find (?) or to be
the Truth or source of Truth about What is Proper to Man, free from the
state, free from material being, free from necessity, no particular place, a
place of professions... professions of faith in professing).

It seemed to me that if one met Ellsworth Toohey, one would see such a mix
of quiet charm, learning, wit, and hidden exploitation of the audience's
altruist, mystical premises. Only hatred for capitalism, love of
egalitarianism and "democracy" were NOT "deconstructed," never
"problematized." When he looked for a philosophical authority on art and
meaning, and found (who else?) Immanuel Kant, I smiled. By the time he was
looking for an emblematic text on the world economy and quoted Jeremy
Rifkin, I laughed out loud.

He concluded by wondering aloud: Had we just heard an argument, making
claims? Had we just observed a performance? He could not say. We would
judge. Questions?

How does one ask a question, when no claim has been made?

--Will Thomas

William Thomas
Manager of Research & Training,
The Objectivist Center


*************************************************
Fall 1999 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies

All Cyberseminar posts are working papers with copyright
reserved to the author. They may not be published or adapted
without permission, but may be circulated for purposes of
scholarly discussion.

*************************************************