Art and Madness
by Beth Metcalf
When Blanchot (1)
comments on Foucault’s (2) commentary on Roussel (3), he is
reminded of Flaubert’s complaint about a fault in language
--- “too many things and not enough forms”.
According to Flaubert, the writer must try to compensate for this
lack of forms in language. But Blanchot asks if
Flaubert’s formulation is justified. Isn’t there
really too much of this lack? Isn’t there “always
too much of what we never have enough of”? There is a
lack in what there is to be signified, and there is lack in
meaning. The “lack” of forms in language is the
result of these two incommensurable lacks. To speak is to
deepen this lack in the signifying “pure absence of
signs”. Its silence is an excess of
signification. To speak is to deepen this lack into a
signifying absence.
Blanchot says that Flaubert’s
formulation, “too many things and not enough forms”,
would mean that language consists of forms that are finite in
number, and things would be a kind of infinite or indefinite.
Therefore, if language does not have enough forms, it must be
because the form of language, itself, is already seen as a
material thing. Form could only be a generalizing structure
of particular corporeal things. However, if a form could
contain an infinity of things (i.e. an infinity of different
kinds of relations), then the formulation could be turned around.
Then there would never be enough material things, and there would
be no lack of forms. Roussel is credited with turning
Flaubert’s formulation around. A form of language can
contain the infinite only by containing nothing corporeal (i.e.
no already formed matter).
Blanchot tells us
that Flaubert’s problem is the question of the
‘Other’. The Other of a language is always posed
in that language itself. So, Flaubert’s problem is the
same as Wittgenstein’s problem. How does a language
reach outside itself if its Other is merely part of that
language? The other is always part of the same language
that speaks of its other, and therefore it is not Other. Wittgenstein’s
problem is addressed by Russell’s Theory of Types. The
structure of any language cannot be expressed in that language,
but is expressed in another language. This second language
has a new structure that must be expressed in a third
language….and so on. The other of speech is other of a
given speech. “Too many things” expresses what
seems to be the excess of real things. “Not enough
forms” expresses what seems to be the lack of words. But
this is merely comparing one language with its own other. The
former is a fixed content. The latter is its own formal
value. But this opposition is not Other. Every
language has its Other at another level that changes or destroys
it. So, when Flaubert says “too many things and not
enough forms” he doesn’t know he is speaking from a
higher type. But does Blanchot believe Russell’s types
really solve the problem? Does this really reverse the
problem of a deficiency in language? Blanchot and Foucault
see Roussel’s work as reaching a void that opens all forms
in the “infinite navigation from one kind of language to
another”. Madness and art are no longer separate in
the folding and unfolding movement of this void. The void
is not a lack of forms. It is the incorporeal excess.
Art reveals things never seen before because it navigates this
infinite void of madness.
Deleuze (4), like
Blanchot, says that Foucault describes a time when language was
thought to be limited by a deficiency. It was thought that
there are more things than words. Each word must then have
several meanings. That is, language was thought to be
equivocal. However, if the same word means several
corporeal things, the form itself would merely be a conceptual
image of material things. The form itself would be merely a
generalized structure of material things. Equivocal
language says one form of conceptual identity that
totalizes many corporeal things. Metaphor, like all
tropes, tries to multiply forms. But Deleuze tells us (Two
Regimes of Madness 202) “In my view, metaphors do not
exist”. Metaphors are not ontological propositions.
They are equivocal because they are still too material. They
merely maintain a same conceptual structure of things and their
material properties said in several senses.
Therefore, as long
as language is thought to be equivocal, there are too many
corporeal things and not enough forms. But Foucault says
that Roussel finds a neutral voice that reverses this deficiency.
Roussel tries to say incorporeal things (i.e. pre-individual
unformed matter) with the same word. And, isn’t this
just what Deleuze calls the only ontological proposition? Being
is the saying of language, and it is univocal. Real
difference is ontological singularity. Univocal language
says all incorporeal forms of real distinction in one sense
because all are ontologically singular. Therefore Deleuze,
like Blanchot and Foucault, sees in Roussel a new direction in
explaining the “essential distance ….. displacement,
dislocation, or breach”. Now, it is not a same form
said differently. Really different forms of incorporeal
things are said as same. It is not a lack of meaning that
opens a vacuum in language. It is not repetition of a word
that opens a gap or a lack of meaning between different things.
Roussel tries to widen the gap and fill it with new incorporeal
machinery that binds and integrates difference and repetition, so
that there can be real singular difference. Now, repetition
integrates difference without deficiency or lack. Repetition
is no longer things repeated, but a “radical
repetition” that goes beyond corporeal things in order to
integrate a singular difference within the gap. It is a
radical repetition of incorporeal singular difference
(‘intensity’) that changes the nature of the forms with
each repetition.
Now, the vacuum is filled. But as
Deleuze tells us, it can’t be filled with corporeal things
(i.e. already formed substances) that can never integrate
difference. The vacuum must be filled without being filled.
Roussel fills it with incorporeal machinery. And these
“liberating repetitions are poetic precisely because they do
not suppress difference”. They internalize singular
difference. Art must not remain at the level of corporeal
matter. Art opens the forms so they can become liberated
from material correspondences of representation, analogy, or
metaphor. Metaphors (like all tropes) are not ontological
propositions. Metaphor may be fragile and temporary effect,
a modal use, but it is not substantial. Deleuze
tells us that we must reach a sub-representative field where this
signifying absence in signs is in excess in relation to the lack
in speech. That is, in order to turn around the formulation
“too many things and not enough words”, we must reach
that which Deleuze calls ‘univocal being’.
(The Logic of Sense 64)
“This is the secret of the event: it exists on the line of
the Aion, and yet it does not fill it. How could an
incorporeal fill up the incorporeal or the impenetrable fill up
the impenetrable? Only bodies penetrate each other, only
Chronos is filled up with state of affairs and the movements of
the objects that it measures. But being an empty and
unfolded form of time, the Aion subdivides ad infinitum that
which haunts it without ever inhabiting it --- the Event for all
events.”
The form of language must contain something
without containing it --- to be filled without being filled.
So, if there are “not enough forms” it could only mean
that form itself has been turned into a thing --- a form that
totalizes corporeal things. That is, form is often thought
to be filled by numerically distinct corporeal substances. But
as Deleuze-Spinoza points out, numerically distinct substances
are never real. Therefore, when forms are filled with
relations among corporeal things of numerical distinction, there
can only really be one form of conceptual identity. Form is
merely the identity of a conceptual image of corporeal things.
Form itself has been turned into a material thing. But if a
form could contain an infinity of things (because they are
incorporeal things of real distinction), then the formulation can
be reversed. Now, there are not enough things (corporeal
things), nor is there merely a finite form of corporeal
correspondences. Rather, now there are multiplicities of
forms arising from the empty form (Aion). We can see that
the formulation of “too many things” was too material
and “not enough forms” merely turned the form itself
into an image of relations among corporeal things. However,
with incorporeal intensity, the forms become open. Any
incorporeal intensive thing may be paired with anything or any
sign regardless of distance. As Deleuze and Guattari say:
(A Thousand Plateaus 69) “….if
we consider the plane of consistency we note that the most
disparate of things and signs move upon it: a semiotic fragment
rubs shoulders with a chemical interaction, an electron crashes
into a language, a black hole captures a genetic message, a
crystallization produces a passion, the wasp and the orchid cross
a letter…There is no “like” here, we are not
saying “like an electron,” “like an
interaction,” etc. The plane of consistency is
the abolition of all metaphor; all that consists is Real.”
Deleuze (5) writes about two figures of
nonsense. The first figure functions to coordinate the two
series and make them converge in a regressive synthesis. The
word denotes its own expression and expresses what it denotes.
It expresses what it designates and designates its own sense.
Because it says its own sense, it is an abnormal set that is a
member of itself. The word denotes the thing it expresses
and expresses the thing it denotes. It says its own sense.
The name saying its own sense is nonsense. The
second figure is the disjunctive synthesis that ramifies series.
A portmanteau word has two alternate terms, each denoting the
other’s sense or expressing what the other denotes. The
portmanteau word says its own sense and is therefore nonsense.
The two figures of nonsense result in absurd paradox. There
are too many corporeal things homogenized into one form that
itself is too material. There can be no form that is
‘Other’. This is Wittgenstein’s Problem.
It is also the problem of the literature of the absurd where
everything is nonsense. There are always too many things
and not enough forms.
However, the two figures of nonsense do not
necessarily fall into abnormal sets. The two figures of
nonsense may take on normal terms endowed with sense under laws
that do not apply to them. To Wittgenstein’s Problem,
Russell offered a solution with his Theory of Types. Any
normal name (i.e. any name which does not say its own sense) has
a sense denoted by another name in the regressive synthesis ---
or must determine alternative terms filled by other names in the
disjunctive synthesis. As long as names do not say their
own sense, they receive determinations of signification. Therefore,
Deleuze and Blanchot each write about Wittgenstein’s
Problem. One form of language is fixed at the level of
corporeal things, and a reduced form totalizes those things at
the same level. This results in absurd nonsense and
paradox. Russell’s Theory of Types was offered as a
response to this problem. Paradox can be avoided to enact a
determination of signification when this opposition of
things and words is spoken in a language at a higher level.
However, Deleuze denies that the Theory of Types is adequate in
turning the formulation (too many things and not enough forms)
around.
(The Logic of Sense 67-8) “We
have already seen that it is futile to go from the conditioned to
the condition in order to think of the condition in the image of
the conditioned as a simple form of possibility. The
condition cannot have with its negative the same kind of relation
that the conditioned has with its negative.”
The relation between sense and nonsense
cannot have the same exclusive relation the true has with the
false. This means that sense and nonsense must not be
thought to have the same relation a true signification has with a
false one. It is usually thought that nonsense is neither
true nor false because it is simply meaningless, or lacking in
sense. However, Deleuze says that this “play on
words” is not his hypothesis at all. Rather, the logic
of sense (the donation of sense) has a new mode of co-presence of
sense and nonsense. I believe this mode of co-presence is
what Deleuze elsewhere calls ‘vice-diction’. Deleuze
tells us (LOS 74-5) “The force of paradoxes is that they are
not contradictory; they rather allow us to be present at the
genesis of the contradiction…..” But
Russel’s Theory of Types confuses sense with signification.
The conditioned signification is still in the image of its
condition of material possibility. Its form of possibility
is still too material. The signifying form totalizes
concepts of material things and itself becomes a material thing.
It never reaches an incorporeal intensive difference that can
change nature by opening the forms. It never reaches the
paradoxes of sense. It never reaches the nomadic
distribution in an open space that subdivides past and future
into infinite subdivisions. It never reaches univocal
being.
There has been the assumption that the
relation between sense and nonsense must be an exclusive
relation. It has been assumed that a class must either
possess a property or lack that property. But this
assumption leads to paradoxical problems like the class of
classes that are not members of themselves. However,
Deleuze does not make this assumption. Rather, Deleuze sees
the co-presence of sense and nonsense. Now, with the
donation of sense, paradox is not a relation of contradiction or
exclusion between true sense and untrue-meaningless nonsense.
Sense is not to be confused with signification. A term
without signification still has sense. This sense of the
event is neutral with regard to modes of class or property.
There is co-presence of sense and nonsense. It is
vice-diction without exclusion or lack. The logic of sense
produces sense in excess. All sense becomes
possible without exclusion. Sense and nonsense are in a new
mode of co-presence which vice-dicts all donation of sense
--- even sense which has no prior form of possible signification.
Any donation of sense may have fragile and temporary use of
signification at the surface.
Wittgenstein reveals a problem at the level of corporeal signification. Determinations of signification give new insight into the problem of “too many things and not enough forms”, but it does not solve it. Deleuze’s donation of sense is the logic of univocal being that reaches a sub-representative incorporeal and asignifying empty form that is filled without any corporeal filling. Now, the apparent deficiency in language is reversed. The empty form creates an infinity of forms with never enough material things. The emptiness of Aion’s form is not a lack. It is not a lacuna to be filled with corporeal things. There is no totalizing form that unifies corporeal things. In contrast to a determination of signification, nonsense now enacts donation of sense. There are no longer significations determined at the material level of class or property. Rather, there is nomadic distribution of singular, incorporeal events into heterogeneous series. This distribution is not determined by any prior signification. There are only events that are neutral in relation to class or property. The paradoxical element is the nonsense within sense rather than nonsense within a prior possibility of signification according to common sense and good sense. Univocity is the intersection of two types of multiplicites --- sense and signification.
Deleuze says (LOS 71) that in the philosophy of the absurd (like that of Camus) the absurd is defined by nonsense as a lack of sense. And Russell’s determinations of signification still do not reverse the formulation “too many things and not enough forms”. The form of possibility is still too material. Its singularities are general or individual, personal or universal. They are still determined by classes and properties. However, when the determinations of signification intersect with donations of sense we reach an asignifying semiotics as two types of multiplicities.
(Difference &
Repetition 154-5) “Indeed, we must distinguish sense and
signification in the following manner: signification refers only
to concepts and the manner in which they relate to the objects
conditioned by a given field of representation; whereas sense is
like the Idea which is developed in the sub-representative
determinations.”
Deleuze says that those referred to as
“structuralists” see sense as a surface effect of an
empty square circulating in structural series. Structure is
a machine for the production of incorporeal sense. Sense is
produced by the displacement of nonsense in structural series.
And although those called “structuralists” see
structure as machinery for producing sense, this old structure
(see my article, ‘The Old and the New Structure’) still
cannot escape a prior form of possible signification. The
old structure still cannot reach asignifying incorporeal sense,
because the signified concepts of things are overcoded into one
form of signification. There are still “too many
things and not enough forms”. Traditional
structuralism is still a determination of signification. These
determinations relate signifiers (names, words, and propositions)
to signifieds (concepts, properties, or classes). The
paradoxical element is both word = x and thing = x. It does
not reach univocal action = x of Aion. Deleuze says that
today’s task, toward a new structure, is to produce sense by
a more free circulation of the empty square in order to liberate
pre-individual and non-personal singularities. The empty
form of Aion distributes singularities into past and future
directions without present. We must reach Deleuze’s
paradoxical element that fills the two heterogeneous series
without corporeal filling. We must reach the occupant
without place and the place without occupant that moves through
heterogeneous series. Aion opens forms and integrates
difference with each repetition. It doubles intensive
content with intensive expression. Action = x is the
paradoxical element circulating through series of infinite
subdivisions. Sense is co-present with its own immanent
cause and inseparable from its temporary and fragile use at the
surface. The sense of the event is the dice game of
univocal being.
With Deleuze’s univocal being,
structure is sense in excess. Nonsense enacts a donation of
sense. It nomadically distributes singular neutral events
into heterogeneous series without any prior relation of
signification. The paradoxical element is an empty square
distributing singularities that are neutral with regard to all
classes and properties. Even a term that has no
signification has sense independent of any modes of class or
property. The co-presence of sense and nonsense vice-dicts
all fragile and temporary uses of signification at the surface.
Sense is produced as surface effect by the new machinery of
univocal being. Paradoxes of sense are infinitely
subdivided singular distributions. Any intensive content
may be coupled with any intensive expression to rise to the
surface in fragile and temporary uses of signification
that never were seen before. That is what univocal being
does. It liberates singularities in creation of sense
without any prior conditions of possible signification that would
still be too material. Difference & repetition is about
the vacuum inside things and words that are incorporeal signs of
death and madness that fill (without a corporeal filling). Nonsense
within sense is the madness within art that reveals things never
seen at the surface.
Foucault (2) writes about this apparent
deficiency in language. The fact of language is that there
are fewer designating words than things to designate. Eighteenth-century
grammarians had a merely material or empirical concept of signs.
Tropes were used in the attempt to multiply forms. They
showed the different relations words could have with the same
representational content. However, tropes still spatialize
language. Tropes still could not avoid a deficiency of signs.
Foucault finds in Roussel a new kind of “tropological
space” that is not the material or empirical space of the
old tropes.
Foucault says (DL Chapter 2), “Style
is…..the possibility, masked and identified at the same
time, of saying the same thing but in other ways. All of
Roussel’s language, in its reversal of style,
surreptitiously tries to say two things with the same
words”. The old tropes of style, then, say the same
conceptual form in several senses. With this style,
language is equivocal. However, Roussel’s new
“tropological space” opens a void. Words and
things are duplicated without regard to prior concepts of what is
possible. It brings being (visible content) and saying
(expression) into ever new singular realities never seen before.
Being is univocal.
Foucault says that Roussel uses one word
(homonym) or a word with difference in an asignifying element
(billiard/pilliard) to say different things in two isomorphic
sentences without any prior correspondence of word (signifier)
and thing (signified). This shows that a word (thought to
have an identity) is already a duplicate that can be re-coupled
transversally across the void of differences. It connects
the same word with different meanings. And, isn’t this
chance game of homonyms just what Deleuze calls the dice game of
univocal being? It opens the forms so that now there are
more forms than corporeal things. Roussel’s language
machine rejoins incompatible distances and re-duplicates the same
language that is divided from itself in ever new repetitions of
difference. Language reaches that empty form of change that
does not change but from which comes all real difference. (See
Deleuze’s explanation, Difference & Repetition
121.)
So in conclusion, we see that language which
has too many things and not enough forms is the equivocal
formulation of Representation. It is one form of
generality that totalizes many material things. At
the level of signifying correspondences between words and things,
not even metaphor (or any kind of trope) can turn this
formulation around. But that which Blanchot and Foucault
see as a reversal of that formulation is what Deleuze calls
‘univocal being’. Foucault says that Roussel
stretches the gap within language into a neutral void, not in
order to merely morph signifying reality (maintaining the
conceptual identity of an image of things), but to create forms
never seen or said before. Roussel’s experiment
reverses the elements of the old tropes. Instead of saying
the same things in different words with equivocal tropes, Roussel
tries to say two things with the same word using univocal
homonyms. Being is saying. It is univocal being in a
new “tropological space” that is not to be confused
with the equivocity of the old tropes. It doubles being
with saying. Singular difference is repeated. It is
transversal linkages across the void. Language is birth and
death of meanings as it crosses this void to speak of things
never seen before. Incompatible elements may be conjoined
across distances without any prior resemblance or signification.
Impossible forms are created from this empty void that is the
being of all differentiation in ontologically singular saying.
Language unites being and saying. It duplicates the
incorporeal intensive content with expression. It reaches
real singular difference each time it is repeated. It
duplicates differences repeated as ontologically singular and
said as same. Roussel’s art opens new forms that arise
out of this void of death and madness as language folds and
unfolds its repetitions while integrating difference. The
labyrinthine void between things and words is filled with
incorporeal forms of madness to return as signs of life and death
in the work of art as things never seen.
(1)
In The Infinite Conversation, Maurice Blanchot writes a
text on ‘Wittgenstein’s Problem’. The final
section comments on Foucault’s commentary of Roussel, in Death
and the Labyrinth.
(2)
Death and the Labyrinth, The World of Raymond Roussel, by
Michel Foucault.
(3)
How I Wrote Certain of My Books, by Raymond Roussel.
(4)
In Deleuze’s Desert Islands is a brief text entitled
‘Raymond Roussel, or the Abhorrent Vacuum’ in which
Deleuze, like Blanchot, comments on Foucault’s commentary on
Roussel in Death and the Labyrinth.
(5)
In The Logic of Sense, Eleventh Series of Nonsense,
Deleuze writes about Wittgenstein’s Problem and
Russell’s Theory of Types. He contrasts this Determination
of Signification with the Donation of Sense.