« ... le "structuralisme" nous paraît même le seul moyen par lequel une méthode génétique peut réaliser ses ambitions. »
Gilles Deleuze, Différence et répétition, p. 237
« Je ne suis absolument pas structuraliste. (...) Je ne fais que recourir à la méthode structuraliste pour analyser tout cela. »
Michel Foucault, conference at Kyoto, 29 Sept. 1970, |in Dits et écrits, II, n. 83.
11 Both Foucault and Deleuze have explicitly distanced themselves, on one hand, from the structuralism directly influenced by Saussure's linguistics relying mainly in the search for analogies, homologies or constant correspondences (regardless of being morphological, phonological, syntactical or semantical),2 and, on other hand, from a dyad made in U.S.A., constituted by: firstly, post-modernism, invented in the late sixties and immediately followed by its related cousin, post-structuralism, in the early seventies. The aim of this article is to show that, in spite of those distances, their positions do not dispense with a structural-genetic method, but lay claim of other lineages.
1 | Deleuze
2 Saussureanism was often criticized by Deleuze who considered it one of the three heads of a repressive Cerberus that intimidates thought.3 The three-headed monster was formed by: Saussure's structuralism based on homologies and analogies,4 Marx's dichotomies of class5 and Freud's oedipal triangulations.6 Deleuze develops his strategy against this negative tricephaly, which can be represented by other enemies, simply put, 1-2-3: one, the Platonic One; two, the Cartesian dualisms; three, the Hegelian triads.7 In sum: neither transcendent monisms, nor dialectics of contradiction, nor totalitarian syntheses.
3 Saussure preferred the word 'system' and rarely used the term 'structure' (cf. Dosse 1991) in Cours de linguistique générale, published posthumously by his students in 1916. The first use of the term 'structuralism' by a linguist is attributed to Roman Jakobson, who, in an article published in October of 1929, defined it as the key idea of a science whose task is to reveal the inner laws of a structural whole, whether static or developmental, as opposed to a study of phenomena as a mechanical agglomeration subject to external stimuli.8 Under the influence of Futurism and Constructivism, Jakobson strived for structuralism to enter a « post-Saussurian » phase, so that the « old, atomizing, neo-grammarian »9 dichotomies that threatened the wholeness of linguistics were resolved by spatio-temporal operative forces compatible with innovation. The founding member of the Prague Linguistic Circle classified Saussure as a critic of the neo-grammarian school that, nevertheless, remained neo-grammarian in many theses,10 namely, in the fact that parole is still seen as individual11 and synchrony as static12 (under influence of Comte's positivism and Newton's mechanicism).13 Jakobson discovered14 and adopted many of Bakhtin/Voloshinov's views, specifically, concerning the critique of Saussure.15 Bakhtin's circle presented an alternative to both the constructivist/historicist « idealist subjectivism » (Humboldt) and the formalist « abstract objectivism » (Neo-grammarians, Saussure) in approaching discourse, looking instead for a « dialectical synthesis » that equally rejected the two poles (thesis and antithesis), so, not a Hegelian synthesis (cf. Vološinov 1977, 74, 118). In a certain way, it is the linguistic analogous of James' pragmatism in its equanimous distance from both the tender-minded (idealists) and the tough-minded (objectivists). It is precisely the pragmatic component of Bakhtin's theory that attracts Deleuze and Guattari.16 They privileged, on one side, a machinic functionalism in detriment of an abstract and inert system of atomized forms, and, on the other side, the collective enunciation, the concrete and living social praxis. Thus, they spoke of a « machinic assemblage of bodies » AND a « collective assemblage of enunciation » (both go beyond the merely textual and beyond the Saussurian opposition langue/parole).
4 Deleuze was mainly interested in the productive or genetic side of structuralism.17 With regard to it, he collected various influences in different texts: Gueroult, founder of the "truly scientific study of Spinozism"; (Deleuze 2002, 216) Lautman and Vuillemin,18 philosophers of mathematics; Jakobson, for his virtual diagram; (Deleuze & Guattari 1980, 177) Voloshinov/Bakhtin, for the critique of linguistic constants and for giving importance to the « indirect discourse » and to the social and pragmatic character of enonciation; (ibid., 101, 104-105) Hjelmslev, for his « Spinozist theory of language » (ibid. 58).19
5 When speaking about structuralism, Deleuze attributed to Jakobson's phoneme the status of a virtual structure: « real without being actual, ideal without being abstract » (Deleuze 2002, 250). Both authors dissociated the sign from the referent, for the sake of conceptual dynamism without which there is no poiesis.20 Moreover, it was in dialogue with the three processes of the communicative act according to Jakobson, coding-decoding-recoding,21 that Deleuze and Guattari have constructed those other movements of the geo-philoso|phical act, territorialization-deterritorialization-reterritorialization22. The French philosophers de-textualized or extracted those operations from the strict domain of linguistics and expanded them to a planetary, social and physical level: deterritorialization is connected with Earth's intensive dynamics of fluxes, territorialization with substances or formed matters and reterritorialization with the appropriation by the established power (sedentary strata). No longer a morphology of language, but a « geo-morphism » (Deleuze & Guattari 1980, 392). Even the order is not the same as in Jakobson's: the movements of deterritorialization (decoding) precede the effectuation through territorialization (coding). It is right to say that « Deleuze and Guattari’s reflections on language are for the most part consistent with some of the major trends in contemporary linguistic research », (Aurora 2017, 423) keeping in mind that they are aiming at « extra-textual machines »,23 within which linguistic or textual practice is just a component among others and without privilege.
6 If phonology and morphology are about oral and written form, syntax about function (grammar being a morpho-syntax), and semantics about the relation to a referent outside discourse, the enterprise of Deleuze and Guattari is about liberating form, function and relation to a referent from a "constantology",24 so that an immanent pragmatics could exert its continual variation without being blocked or aborted.25 So, neither constants of phonology (as Jakobson's phonological universals) or of morphology (as in Propp's Morphology of the folktale), nor of syntax (as in Saussure's syntagmatic and associative relations), nor a semantics caught by signification and reference, nor other structuralist homologies (as Lévi-Strauss' mythemes). Without a liberation from constants and universals, invention of new signs and languages26 would be impossible. Similarly to Bakhtin, the preponderant part becomes stylistics, as a non-individual and non-psychological creation, as a collective assemblage of enunciation.27
7 Some historical notes will be helpful to put the structural-genetic method in perspective. Since the early decades of the twentieth century, reconciling structure and genesis was a pursuit in several domains, from philosophy to mathematics, biology, psychology, sociology, linguistics and theology, occupying several authors of the French intellectual milieu, although not all did understand the same by 'structure' and 'genesis': namely, Martial Gueroult's L’évolution et la structure de la doctrine de la science chez Fichte (1929); Albert Lautman's Essai sur les notions de structure et d'existence en mathématiques (1938), in two parts, "Les schémas de structure" (I) e "Les schémas de genèse" (II); Jean Hyppolite's Genèse et structure de la 'Phéno|ménologie de l'esprit' de Hegel (1946); Jules Vuillemin's28 L'être et le travail (1949); Émile Bréhier's “Genèse et structure”, a chapter of Transformation de la philosophie française (1950); Gilbert Simondon, who addresses both the process of genesis and the evolution of structures and functions, in Du mode d'existence des objets techniques (1958); in 1959, in a colloquium on the subject, appear, among others (Goldman et al. 1965), the communications "Genèse et structure en psychologie" by Jean Piaget, "Processus et structure" by Ernst Bloch, and "'Genèse et structure' et la phénoménologie" (on Husserl)29 by Jacques Derrida; shortly thereafter, Michel Foucault's Genèse et structure de l’anthropologie de Kant (1961); Gilles Deleuze's “Spinoza et la méthode générale [structurale-génétique] de Martial Gueroult” (1969); Félix Guattari's "Machine et structure" (1969)30. Under the influence of Guattari, Deleuze will give to the principle31 of an engendered structure a posteriori32 the name 'machine' that occurs abundantly in their works together. On his turn, Guattari, in Les trois écologies, calls for the renunciation of a « pre-structuralist » model of subjectivity and the reorientation towards « constructivist »33 virtual fields.
8 Jakobson might have coined "structuralism" in Linguistics, but he did not invented the method. As acknowledged by Deleuze, the structural-genetic method was devised by Martial Gueroult.34 « before structuralism was imposed on other domains »35 Lévi-Strauss, Barthes and Lacan analyses appeared much later. Gueroult derived his method mainly from the study of the philosophical systems of Fichte, Maimon, Leibniz, Malebranche, Descartes, Spinoza. He sought to separate the philosophical method from the historicist one. Preliminary care with the bio-bibliographic sources in order to situate an author in history is legitimate, but should only be the « entry » of the meal, while the construction of a conceptual whole from consistent reasons is the « main course ».36
9 However, Deleuze and Foucault did not share the same position regarding the structural-genetic method developed by Martial Gueroult. Following the publication of Gueroult's work on Spinoza, Deleuze writes a review (Deleuze 1969), which also appears to be a reaction to Michel Foucault's article37 published a few months earlier in the same magazine, where he had oversimplified Martial Gueroult's undertaking. Deleuze demonstrates a deeper understanding of the work and methodological "rigor" (Deleuze 2001[1981]). of his former teacher.38
10In the article on Gueroult's method, Deleuze stated that a structure was defined by an « order of reasons ». There are two types of reasons. The reasons of knowing are organized in an order of knowledge, while the reasons of being consist of an order of production. Thus, two types of structure are distinguished: the formalist type structure whose relations are between terms, and the genetic39 or machinic structure of relations outside terms.
11Deleuze adverts that « we must guard against opposing both types of systems too briefly » because they distinguish themselves « structurally, that is, more deeply than by simple opposition ». In the order of production, the analytical process is neither ignored nor rejected, but must pursue its own suppression as an end, so that maximum effectiveness can be achieved in the inventive process. An analogous problem arises when Spinoza opposes his method to Descartes. Spinoza is not part of a synthetic process already done, but progressive genesis somehow replaces preliminary analysis, but does not dispense with it. The order of reasons is by no means hidden, it does not refer to any latent content or to an unsaid that should be discovered under what is said. For this reason, it is not about interpreting, but following the explicit order of the author. However, the structure as pure philosophical factum goes unnoticed and is constantly deflected by what historians of ideas say. Structure is the space of coexistence of reasons, but its internal evolution can only be deduced from the structural state of the system. The structural-genetic method combines, on the one hand, a characteristic formalism, on the other, a study of the internal evolution of the system; and all three, method, evolution, and forms, radiate from the determination of the structure. Genetic or constructive philosophy determines the reasons of being, according to a method that requires a regressive analytical process to give way to the progressive synthetic process in order for the genetic elements to be perceived as such. What is provisional is only the understanding of structural elements as separate existences from the conditions under which they compose a structure functioning as a whole.
12At the outset of his thesis on Fichte, Gueroult claimed to be less interested in the summation of views integrated into a syncretic totality than in the inner and real unity of the genetic movement that creates all the infinite multiplicity of Nature.40 According to Gueroult, philosophy has two moments (Gueroult 1957): first, the emendation of the intellect (as in Spinoza's title), in which the way of thinking is revolutionized to access the fundamental connections; and a second, in which they are set in motion and engender the whole of philosophy. Do these two moments not correspond to the two stages, that of common notions (relations) and that of pure intensities (actions), as Deleuze described them in the texts on Spinoza's method? In fact, he explicitly establishes the bridge between Gueroult's method and Spinoza's, in the aforementioned article, as well as in another, where he speaks of the passage from the expository synthesis of common notions (second genre of knowledge or reasons of knowing) to the inventive synthesis of pure intensities (third kind of knowledge or reasons of being).41
13 'Structure' and 'system' are interchangeable terms. When speaking about the type of system he endorsed, Deleuze claimed to be « very classic » (referring to the 17th century of Leibniz and Spinoza). He repudiated the modern notion of system based on reference to homogeneous identities and privileged the classic notion of system as a perpetual heterogeneity to which he added a new development: the « heterogenesis » of heterogeneity (Deleuze 2003, 338). He has put classical concepts in relation with contemporary problems,42 aiming at the new that has never been tried.
14 Gilles Deleuze is frequently categorized as a post-modern philosopher. Although so called by vulgar opinion, he repelled the cliché. In 1985, when that theoretical label was in full bloom in Europe, Charles Stivale questioned Deleuze about it.43
15 Deleuze took it for an entertainment product of Chicago School and his American interviewer found it somewhat inexplicable. In fact, post-modernism, as an epithet to designate the counterculture of the 1960s, was an American construction which made its first US appearance in a text published inPlayboy, written by a literary critic and academic close to the Chicago School, then, spreading to literary and cultural studies university departments (Susan Sontag and Ihab Hassan, among others, welcomed the trend). It entered Europe via Germany, by the hand of the same man, Leslie Fiedler.44 Deleuze would have been aware of it, since he was attentive to Anglo-American literature in general and to Leslie Fiedler's writings in particular. Despite abhorring to travel (so he declares in Abécédaire), America was the one and only long trip he ever made, being there for a conference (cf. Cusset 2003, 77) in 1975, a fact that shows the appeal that the country and its culture exerted on him. In Dialogues (1977), he dedicated an entire chapter to Anglo-American literature. He refers to the 1971 French edition of Fiedler's The return of the vanishing American in his books Dialogues and Mille plateaux. Nevertheless, his interest falls on Fiedler's writings other than those on post-modernism.
16 When Jean-François Lyotard imported the term into the domain of philosophy through the publication of La condition postmoderne (1979),45 both Deleuze and Guattari46 distanced themselves from that conniving attitude towards a buzzword in vogue. Lyotard himself later classified it as his « worst book »,47 a « parody »48 that was taken too seriously. Others followed his steps and joined the debate fuelled by the hype: Habermas, Baudrillard, Rorty...
17 Post-modernism began being used by critics without truly constituting a movement.49 The label perfectly suited to convey all kinds of cults and prejudices: « porno-pop culture » (thinking of Leslie Fiedler's manifesto), literary indeterminism (Ihab Hassan), sensibility to double senses (Susan Sontag),50 disbelief in meta-narratives (Jean-François Lyotard), emotional irrationalism (Jürgen Habermas), postindustrial consumerism and mass mediatism (Jean Baudrillard), a jumbling of styles against all definitions of genre51 (Daniel Bell), etc. If the dubious term 'postmodern' has ever designated anything constant and transverse to all domains, it was only its bankruptcy as a category, which could therefore serve as an index of the post-mortem that awaits all categories in general. As an insult, it was quite effective: the most diverse authors have inadvertently been pushed into the cauldron. At a time, it served to include any new development in French theory. It is rather comical that some of those who are regarded outside France as the leading representatives of post-modernism, did not recognize its consistency.
18 What about that other misnomer used inconsistently as synonym for the previous one: "post-structuralist"? Post-structuralism, as a homogeneous category applied in general to a class of French thinkers (by themselves, not especially driven by a sense of communion), was also made in U.S.A.52 Some years after post-modernism appeared,53 its cousin term saw the light in the aftermath54 of a certain conference held at Johns Hopkins university in 1966,55 an event where the invited speakers Jacques Derrida and Roland Barthes, previously seen as integrating structuralism, delivered remarkable critiques to it, thus, seeming to justify for the Americans the creation of a post-structuralist branch. However, in France, as late as 1973, those same authors were still seen as belonging to structuralism.56
19 Deleuze explicitly separed his method from Derrida's deconstruction (Deleuze 1972) and avoided to reduce the whole of an assemblage to a linguistical machine (machine langagière) (Deleuze & Guattari 1980, 155, 176, 180, 182). Neither Deleuze nor Foucault could accept formulations such as « l'inconscient est structuré comme un langage » (Lacan) or « Il n'y a pas de hors-texte » (Derrida).
2 | Foucault
20 Foucault's complementary doctoral thesis was entitled Genèse et structure de l''Anthropologie' de Kant (1961), written after a major conference in France under the theme Genèse et structure (1955). In this early text, he clearly states the inseparability of those two perspectives.57
21 According to Foucault, the structuralist method was not new,58 it was not invented by structuralism as a relatively recent historical trend - which is true, if we take in account that some of Saussure's main methodological principles go back, not only to Comte's distinction between "static" and "dynamic" in positive philosophy, but even to Newton's laws of motion (synchrony and diachrony, respectively, stand for the state of equilibrium and its alteration, the first and second laws).
22 What Foucault valued in structuralism, additionally to the method, was the constitution of a new domain which he called « deixology », composed by a interrelated mass of documents whose linguistic meaning is determined by deixis, the extra-linguistic context (what is "with-the-text" is not text).59
23 The philosopher distinguished « two forms of structuralism » (Foucault 1994, I n. 47): the first was a « method »60 responsible for the foundation, renewal and development of certain sciences (linguistics, history of religions, ethnology, sociology), characterized by an analysis of the relations which govern an actual whole, such as today's world, privileging its state of equilibrium over its historical process; the second was a general « activity », not limited to any scientific domain, exerted by non-specialized theoreticians who strive for defining the actual relations between elements or domains. In other words, the first structuralism would be interested in the virtual relations that engender an actual whole, while the second structuralism would be occupied with the definition of actual relations between elements. In sum, the two different structuralisms addressed two distinct natures of relations and, consequently, also different wholes. It was definitely not the same form of structuralism. For the sake of distinction, we could call one the evenemential type, and the other, the formalist type. Even though Lévi-Strauss tried to distinguish structuralism from formalism,61 for Foucault, his overall attitude remained one of a formalist.62 Foucault was not interested in the formalist type of structuralism,63 but admitted the philosophical value of evenemential structuralism.64
24 When the author explained what made him a « non-structuralist » (as much as a « non-linguist »), he pointed out that his work went in the inverse direction: structuralism posed the problem of the formal conditions in which meaning appears, on the contrary, he was interested in the conditions in which signification disappears to make something else appear, namely, « sign's mode of being » (Foucault 1994, I n. 50). That is why he dispensed with the formalizing type of structuralism in order to give full force to the structuralist method which made possible the invention of new epistemic objects. The genesis of the new was at stake.
25 Foucault was peremptory in rejecting the label « structuralist » on several occasions.65 Lucien Goldmann (Piaget's assistant), as a representative of the genetic structuralism of the 50s, categorized Foucault's philosophy as « non-genetic structuralism »66 and pushed him to the other side supposedly formed by Lévi-Strauss, Barthes, Althusser and Derrida - an affiliation that Foucault repeatedly rejected. Although he recognized the power of transformation of this branch, he was less interested in the analysis of structures than in « the questioning of the anthropological status, of the status of the subject, of the privilege of the man » - for this reason, in relation to structuralism, he inscribed himself « beside it, not in it ».67
26 He regretted to have used the word « structure » in some pages, without specifying which ones (Foucault 1994, I n. 70). He is probably referring to Histoire de la folie - the book which arose a polemics with Derrida around the problem of origin - but the work where he most patently uses it is perhaps Genèse et structure de l''Anthropologie' de Kant, only posthumously published.
27 In 1970, he admitted using the « structuralist method » at Kyoto's conference (Foucault 1994[1970], II, n. 83) and, in that exact same year, in apparent contradiction with himself, he completely denies to have used any of the characteristic methods of structural analysis in the preface to the English translation of Les mots et les choses (Foucault 1994, II n. 72). His contradictory statements are understandable, if we think of Foucault's method as a modification of the structuralist method in order to comprise a dimension that was unusual to find in it: the historical genesis, genealogy. That practice would not be strict structuralism anymore. Those who classify him as a structuralist, he said, would suffer from « imbecility » (bêtise) or « simple-mindedness » (naïveté) (Foucault 1994, II n. 105), like Piaget. This passage shows that Foucault moved away from Piaget's genetic structuralism (probably, a too linear genesis). Piaget and Goldmann were the organizers of the aforementioned 1955 conference. They did not consider Foucault as one of the group. He adopted a genetic-structural method not recognizable for them, coming from somewhere else: Nietzsche.68
28 Who were those with whom Foucault shared a sense of pertaining to the same group? He named a few: Deleuze, Guattari, Lyotard (this was prior to 1979 publication of La condition postmoderne, which would damage his reputation within this circle, due to his alignment with post-modernism); not Barthes (seen as a structuralist alongside with Lévi-Strauss, Althusser, Lacan) or Derrida (for a theoretical and a personal reason: his early texts were still too much grammatological, too much occupied with textual structures, and, at the time, he and Foucault cut off any contact due to a dissension concerning Histoire de la Folie). Foucault, rather than the « analysis of structures », emphasized instead what was till then the most concealed: the « relations of power ».69
29 Foucault felt closer to the method of the « first structuralism » (using Foucault's 1967 classification), which would include Glotz, Gernet, Dumézil and Vernant. According to him, the fundamental difference that divided Dumézil and Lévi-Strauss, or the first and the second type of structuralism, was the privilege given to text: the latter structuralists projected all social structures and practices in the homogeneity of discourse, while the former saw discourse as one practice among others within a geographical and political isotopy (Foucault 1994, II n. 139).
30 A method for « making events emerge » instead of analyzing static structures (Foucault 1994, III, n.234); a way, not a thing or word;70 how, not what. His strategy moved towards « evenementalization »,71 which was a different type of analysis, one able to trigger a rupture with common knowledge - that is, with evidence, understood as the reference to an historical constant or an anthropological structure pretending to be universal - in order to find the connections for the emergence of a singularity, a process, an event.
31 Should Foucault be included in the ranks of post-structuralism? His answer was negative. At the invitation to speak on the subject at an American conference, together with Habermas, he claimed not to be aware of the common problems that were subsumed under that term.72
32 The post-structuralist trend might be linked with the rise of Derridean methods in U.S.A. after 1966 John Hopkins' conference (with the presence of Derrida) (cf. Bertens 1995). Foucault had made his points towards events in the famous answer to Derrida ("Mon corps..."). However, even after being again on relatively good terms with his French colleague, Foucault adverted against confusing his method of analysis with deconstruction which failed somewhat in attaining a non-textual heterogenesis.73
Conclusion
33 Deleuze and Foucault were attuned concerning post-structuralism: both dismissed it without interest. Also, they shared a similar attitude about mainstream structuralism: both criticized the strictly formalist, linguistical or textual approach and underlined the importance of considering a different type of relations, those related to events, pragmatics, politics, actual world as a dynamic whole. They merged structure with genesis in arriving to a method.
34 The structuralism admired by Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari could be called "evenemential", and it is closer to the first type of structuralism than it is to those of the later period (whether like Goldmann's or like Lévi-Strauss's) or even to post-structuralism. Perhaps, what Foucault and Deleuze took as a « common cause »74 was the structuralizing and overall movement of a problem that dynamically becomes a structured and partial solution.
35 What about their differences? Can we conclude that Deleuze and Foucault were using the structural-genetic method in the same way? It does not seem so. They have expressed their differences.75 As shown in the aforementioned excerpts that serve as epigraphs to this article, Foucault put the emphasis in a genesis reached by the analytical use of a structural method, while Deleuze was more interested in using a genetic method to achieve or produce structures. Both used the structural-genetic method, but they stressed different directions: Foucault (or, at least, the early Foucault) goes from structures to genesis through analysis; Deleuze comes from genesis to structures through constructivism. It is in this respect that Foucault is the « historian of power » departing from « outside » and Deleuze the « theoretician of desire » operating from « inside » (Foucault 1994[1975], II, n. 163). It is not that one is more right than the other. Their complementary ways give full expression to the method with its structural-genetic and genetic-structural components: a two-way passage. We can hardly say which one came first: the structured chicken or the genetic egg.
- 1 This research was developed within a PhD studentship (SFRH/BD/129181/2017) supported by FCT and CFCUL (UIDB/00678/2020)
- 2 On the critique of structuralism: « Il y a des gens qui disent tout de suite qu'il y a, par exemple, un système d'analogies ou un système d' homologies et que, peut-être, tous ces énoncés renvoient à une structure commune. On les appellera des structuralistes. Il y en a d'autres qui diront que ces productions d'énoncés dépendent d'un certain domaine déterminant par rapport aux autres, et ceux là, par exemple, on les appellera des marxistes. (...) Je me dis voilà: comment sortir, à la fois, d'une vision structuraliste qui cherche des correspondances, des analogies, des homologies, et d'une vision marxiste qui cherche des déterminants? » (Deleuze 2001[1973]).
- 3 « Ce sont les nouveaux appareils de pouvoir dans la pensée même, et Marx, Freud, Saussure composent un curieux Répresseur à trois têtes, une langue dominante majeure » (Deleuze & Parnet 1977, 21).
- 4 « C’est l’école néogrammairienne qui a pour la première fois assigné à l’analogie sa vraie place en montrant qu’elle est, avec les changements phonétiques, le grand facteur de l’évolution des langues, le procédé par lequel elles passent d’un état d’organisation à un autre » (Saussure 1922, ch. 4). See also: « Dans tout acte synchronique, on se meut dans des rapports analogues. (...) Dans les différentes sphères à distinguer on constate qu'il y a des faits homologues qui se répondent de l'une à l'autre » (Saussure 1993, 112, 119).
- 5 « The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes » (Marx & Engels 1969, I).
- 6 « Œdipe restreint est la figure du triangle papa-maman-moi, la constellation familiale en personne » (Deleuze & Guattari 1972, 60).
- 7 « Je fus formé par deux professeurs, que j'aimais et admirais beaucoup, Alquié et Hyppolite. Tout a mal tourné. L'un avait de longues mains blanches et un bégaiement dont on ne savait pas s'il venait de l'enfance, ou s'il était là pour cacher, au contraire, un accent natal, et qui se mettait au service des dualismes cartésiens. L'autre avait un visage puissant, aux traits incomplets, et rythmait de son poing les triades hégéliennes en accrochant les mots. (...) Je ne supportais ni Descartes, les dualismes et le Cogito, ni Hegel, les triades et le travail du négatif » (Deleuze & Parnet 1977, 18, 21).
- 8 « Were we to comprise the leading idea of present-day science in its most various manifestations, we could hardly find a more appropriate designation than structuralism. Any set of phenomena examined by contemporary science is treated not as a mechanical agglomeration but as a structural whole, and the basic task is to reveal the inner, whether static or developmental, laws of this system. What appears to be the focus of scientific preoccupations is no longer the outer stimulus, but the internal premises of the development; now the mechanical conception of processes yields to the question of their functions » (Jakobson 1962a, 711).
- 9 « It was important to realize these dichotomies, but as long as they remained unresolved, the wholeness and unity of linguistics was imperiled. (...) ... gradual efforts to bridge and synthesize these "inner dualities" actually mark the post-Saussurian stage of linguistics. » (Jakobson 1962a, 717); « In other words, Saussure anticipated and announced a new, structural approach to linguistic synchrony but followed the old, atomizing, neogrammarian dogma in historical linguistics. His fallacious identification of two oppositions - synchrony versus diachrony, and statics versus dynamics - was refuted by post-Saussurian linguistics. (...) Saussure's "absolute prohibition to study simultaneously relations in time and relations within the system" is losing its validity. Changes appear to pertain to a dynamic synchrony » (ibid., 721); « The tendency of the Cours to isolate each of these two aspects has been abandoned in the further development of linguistics (...), since any innovation arises necessarily and solely through its multiplication in time and space. (...) ... linguistics is about to fulfil the crucial task wisely anticipated by Ferdinand de Saussure, namely, "to search for those forces which are permanently and universally at work in all languages". » (ibid., 722).
- 10 For instance, Saussure: « Mais pour mieux marquer cette opposition et ce croisement de deux ordres de phénomènes relatifs au même objet, nous préférons parler de linguistique synchronique et de linguistique diachronique. Est synchronique tout ce qui se rapporte à l’aspect statique de notre science, diachronique tout ce qui a trait aux évolutions. De même synchronie et diachronie désigneront respectivement un état de langue et une phase d’évolution » (Saussure 1922, 117).
- 11 « Tout en combattant la prédominance de l'historisme dans la linguistique orthodoxe du XIXème siècle [l'école neogrammairienne], Saussure succombe dans ce cas (comme dans certains autres) à la tradition combattue. (...) Tout en ayant surmonté l'atomisme traditionnel à l'égard de la collectivité, la pensée saussurienne reste en ce qui concerne l'individu dans l'ornière de l'atomisme extrême. » (Jakobson 1988).
- 12 « Saussure's identification of the contrast between synchrony and diachrony with the contrast between statistics and dynamics turned out to be misleading. In actual reality, synchrony is not at all static; changes are always emerging and are a part of synchrony. Actual synchrony is dynamic. Static synchrony is an abstraction (...) » (Jakobson 1962b).
- 13 Coseriu, in Sincronía, diacronía y historia (Coseriu 1958), points out that the distinction between synchrony and diachrony goes back to August Comte's division between 'static' sociology and 'dynamic' sociology, which Comte himself related to Newton's first and second principles of motion (inertia and dynamics) in Cours de philosophie positive, I. Bakhtine/Volochinov also remarked the relation between Newton's laws and synchrony-diachrony, in Le marxisme et la philosophie du langage (Vološinov 1977, 84).
- 14 « It was Roman Jakobson, scouring the Russian book stores in Prague, who discovered [Bakhtin/Voloshinov's] Marxism and the Philosophy of Language (1929), practically upon publication. In a letter to Trubetzkoy of 1 May 1929, he listed it (...) as a valuable contribution to Kulturkreisstheorie » (Galan 1987).
- 15 « Mais, contrairement à la linguistique unifiante de Saussure et de ses héritiers, qui fait de la langue un objet abstrait idéal, se consacre à elle comme système synchronique homogène et rejette ses manifestations (la parole) comme individuelles, Bakhtine, lui, met justement tout l'accent sur la parole, sur l'énonciation, et en affirme la nature sociale, non individuelle, la parole étant liée indissolublement aux conditions de la communication, qui sont toujours liées aux structures sociales. (...) Bakhtine met également en évidence l'inadéquation de toutes les procédures d'analyse linguistique (phonétiques, morphologiques et syntaxiques) pour rendre compte de l'énonciation complète (...). Bakhtine dénonce le danger de toute systématisation ou formalisation outrancière des théories nouvelles: un système qui se fige perd sa vitalité, sa dynamique dialectique » (Yaguello in Vološinov 1977, 12-16).
- 16 « Tant que la linguistique en reste à des constantes, phonologiques, morphologiques ou syntaxiques, elle rapporte l'énoncé à un signifiant et l'énonciation à un sujet, elle rate ainsi l'agencement, elle renvoie les circonstances à l'extérieur, ferme la langue sur soi et fait de la pragmatique un résidu. (...) Comme dit Bakhtine, tant que la linguistique extrait des constantes, elle reste incapable de nous faire comprendre comment un mot forme une énonciation complète; il faut un "élément supplémentaire qui reste inaccessible à toutes les catégories ou déterminations linguistiques", bien qu'il soit tout à fait intérieure à la théorie de l'énonciation ou de la langue. » (Deleuze & Guattari 1980, 104-105).
- 17 « Les livres contre le structuralisme (...) n'ont strictement aucune importance; ils ne peuvent empêcher que le structuralisme ait une productivité qui est celle de notre époque. » (Deleuze 2002, 269).
- 18 « Nous ne voyons en ce sens aucune difficulté à concilier genèse et structure. Conformément aux travaux de Lautman et de Vuillemin concernant les mathématiques, le "structuralisme" nous paraît même le seul moyen par lequel une méthode génétique peut réaliser ses ambitions. » (Deleuze 1968, 237).
- 19 See also Guattari (1990, 35): « C’est pour cette raison que nous nous sommes tournés du côté de Hjelmslev : il y a longtemps déjà qu’il a fait une sorte de théorie spinoziste du langage, où les flux, de contenu et d’expression, se passent de signifiant. (...) Nous sommes purement fonctionnalistes : ce qui nous intéresse, c'est comment quelque chose marche, fonctionne, quelle machine. »
- 20 « The function of poetry is to point out that the sign is not identical with its referent. Why do we need this reminder? Because along with the awareness of the identity of the sign and the referent (...), we need the consciousness of the inadequacy of this identity; this antinomy is essential, since without it the connection between the sign and the object becomes automatized and the perception of reality withers away. » (Jakobson in Erlich 1965, 181).
- 21 « Besides encoding and decoding, also the procedure of recoding, code switching, briefly, the various facets of translation, is becoming one of the focal concerns of linguistics and of communication theory (...) » (Jakobson 1962a).
- 22 « ... décodage-déterritorialisation d'une part, et d'autre part surcodage-reterritorialisation. » (Deleuze & Guattari 1980, 69).
- 23 « Quant à la méthode de déconstruction des textes [Derrida], je vois bien ce qu'elle est, je l'admire, mais elle n'a rien à voir avec la mienne. Je ne me présente en rien comme un commentateur de textes. Un texte, pour moi, n'est qu'un petit rouage dans une machine extra-textuelle. Il ne s'agit pas de commenter le texte par une méthode de déconstruction, ou par une méthode de pratique textuelle, ou par d'autres méthodes, il s'agit de savoir à quoi cela sert dans une pratique extra-textuelle qui prolongue le texte. » (Deleuze 1972, 186)
- 24 The term was coined by the physicist Wolfgang Yourgrau and applied to Einstein's constants, even though the implied criticism was used by several authors concerning different domains, namely, by Bakhtin about linguistic constants, by Ian Hacking about statistical constants, by Deleuze and Guattari about scientific constants in general, etc.
- 25 « ... la ligne de variation est virtuelle, c'est-à-dire réelle sans être actuelle, continue par là même (...). Mettre en variation continue, ce sera faire passer l'énoncé par toutes les variables, phonologiques, syntaxiques, sémantiques, prosodiques, qui peuvent l'affecter dans le plus court moment de temps (le plus petit intervalle). (...) C'est le point de vue de la pragmatique; mais la pragmatique est devenue intérieure à la langue, immanente, et comprend la variation des éléments linguistiques quelconques » (Deleuze & Guattari 1980, 119).
- 26 For an interesting case of a recently emerged sign language, see the PhD dissertation of Ann Senghas, Children's contribution to the birth of Nicaraguan sign language (1995). According to the study, it was the younger kids that drove the language’s development, since the creative linguistic impulse tends to diminish with age.
- 27 « La linguistique en général n'a pas encore quitté (...) un étrange goût pour les dominantes, les constantes et les universaux. Pendant ce temps-là, toutes les langues sont en variation continue immanente: ni synchronie ni diachronie, mais asynchronie, chromatisme comme état variable et continu de la langue. Pour une linguistique chromatique, qui donne au pragmatisme ses intensités et valeurs. Ce qu'on appelle un style, qui peut être la chose la plus naturelle du monde, c'est précisément le procédé d'une variation continue. Or, parmi tous les dualismes instaurés par la linguistique, il y en a peu de moins fondés que celui qui sépare la linguistique de la stylistique: un style n'étant pas une création psychologique individuelle, mais un agencement d'énonciation, on ne pourra pas l'empêcher de faire une langue dans une langue » (Deleuze & Guattari 1980, 123).
- 28 Vuillemin, in the eulogy of 1977 (Brunner & Muller 1977), described himself as a disciple of Gueroult.
- 29 « Husserl tente donc sans cesse de concilier l'exigence structuraliste (...) avec l'exigence génétiste » (Derrida in Goldman et al. 1965, 233); « Il reste que l'intentionnalité présupposée par le mouvement de la genèse est encore pensée par Husserl comme (...) une structure psychologique de la conscience, comme le caractère et l'état d'une factualité. » (ibid., 234); « Le passage à l'attitude phénoménologique est donc rendu nécessaire par l'impuissance ou la fragilité philosophique du génétisme quand celui-ci, par un positivisme qui ne se comprend pas lui-même, croit pouvoir s'enfermer dans une "science-des-faits" (Tatsachenwissenschaft), qu'elle soit science naturelle ou science de l'esprit. (...) Tant que l'espace phénoménologique n'est pas découvert, tant que la description transcendantale n'est pas entreprise, le problème "structure-genèse" semble donc n'avoir aucun sens. » (ibid., 236).
- 30 Text written before Guattari met Gilles Deleuze for the first time (cf. Dosse 2007).
- 31 « ... le principe même d'une machine se dégage de l'hypothèse de la structure et se détache des liens structuraux ("Machine et Structure") » (Deleuze 2002, 284).
- 32 « ... le sens n'est pas du tout un réservoir, ni un principe ou une origine, ni même une fin: c'est un "effet", un effet produit, et dont il faut découvrir les lois de production. (...) ... ces deux conceptions du sens, (...) entre elles deux une véritable frontière du point de vue de la philosophie. C'est une idée essentielle du structuralisme, et qui unit des auteurs aussi différents que Lévi-Strauss, Lacan, Foucault, Althusser, l'idée du sens comme effet produit par une certaine machinerie (...). Mais nous devons être les machinistes, les "opérateurs" de quelque chose. » (Deleuze 2002, 189-190).
- 33 « Il n'est donc pas envisagé présentement de 'dépasser' ou de tirer un trait définitif sur le fait freudien, mais de ré-orienter ses concepts et ses pratiques pour en faire un autre usage, pour les déraciner de leurs attaches pré-structuralistes à une subjectivité totalement ancrée sur le passé individuel et collectif. Ce qui sera désormais à l'ordre du jour, c'est le dégagement de champs de virtualité 'futuristes' et 'constructivistes' » (Guattari 1989).
- 34 Gueroult (1930). In the Avant-propos, the author mentioned that the thesis was delivered to the university in 1929.
- 35 « M. Gueroult a renouvelé l'histoire de la philosophie par une méthode structurale-génétique, qu'il avait élaborée bien avant que le structuralisme s'imposât dans d'autres domaines. » (Deleuze 2002, 202). He is recognised as such by other academics: « ... Gueroult était un précurseur du structuralisme contemporain et il a été reconnu comme tel par des auteurs inattendus comme Althusser. » (Brunner & Muller 1977, 182).
- 36 Gueroult, "La méthode en histoire de la philosophie".
- 37 « ... M. Gueroult, analyse axiomatique des cohérences et des structures philosophiques » (Foucault 1994, I § 67).
- 38 Revaut d'Allonnes recalled that Deleuze was a « grand élève » of Gueroult (cf. Dosse 2007, 123).
- 39 « Il suffit de comprendre que la genèse ne va pas d'un terme actuel, si petit soit-il, à un autre terme actuel dans le temps, mais du virtuel à son actualisation, c'est-à-dire de la structure à son incarnation, des conditions de problèmes aux cas de solution (...) » (Deleuze 1968, 237-238). See also the article "Bergson 1859-1941" (1956): « L'élan vital est la différence en tant qu'elle passe à l'acte. (...) Et ce que Bergson reproche au mécanisme et au finalisme en biologie, comme à la dialectique en philosophie, c'est toujours à des points de vue différents de composer le mouvement comme une relation entre des termes actuels, au lieu d' y voir la réalisation [actualisation] d' un virtuel. » (Deleuze 2002, 37)
- 40 « L’intérêt des doctrines de Fichte, de Schelling, de Hegel, Doctrine de la Science, Philosophie de la Nature, Encyclopédie du Savoir, vient moins des sommes qu’elles constituent et qui vont en s’élargissant pour s’efforcer d’intégrer l’ensemble des points de vue de la connaissance humaine, que de l’unité organique qu’elles tentent partout de découvrir ou de construire. L’effort vers la totalité n’a d’égal que l’effort vers l’unité interne et réelle qui s’oppose, – même chez un Schelling, – à l’éclectisme ou syncrétisme arbitraire. Cet élan vers la possession de l’unité interne et génétique de tout le divers de la nature et de l’humanité, se traduit avant tout par la recherche de techniques et de principes nouveaux, grâce auxquels pourraient se concilier, sans perdre leur spécificité, les multiples réalités qui constituent la richesse infinie de l’univers et que révèlent non seulement la pure intelligence, mais les sentiments esthétique, moral et religieux » (Gueroult 1930, 3).
- 41 « C'est que la méthode géométrique au niveau des concepts est une méthode d'exposition qui exige complétude et saturation: c'est pourquoi les notions communes sont exposées pour elles-mêmes, à partir des plus universelles (...), sans qu'on ait à se demander comment l'on arrive effectivement à une notion commune. Mais la méthode géométrique du livre V est une méthode d'invention qui va procéder par intervalles et par bonds, hiatus et contractions (...). Peut-être dépasse-t-elle tout démonstration, pour autant qu’elle opère dans l'”indécidable” » (Deleuze 1993, 185).
- 42 « ... qu’est-ce que ça veut dire aujourd’hui être spinoziste? Il n'a pas de réponse universelle. Mais je me sens, je me sens vraiment spinoziste, en 1980. » (Deleuze 2001[1980], §3). See also, Abécédaire, "H comme Histoire de la philosophie": « Or, les problèmes évoluent. (...) Bien sûr, on peut être platonicien, on peut être leibnizien, aujourd’hui encore en 1989, on peut tout ça, on peut être kantien, ça veut dire quoi? (...) Si on pose des problèmes d’une tout autre nature – à mon avis, il n’y a pas de cas où il n’y a pas parmi les grands philosophes, un ou plusieurs grands philosophes, qui n'ont quelque chose à nous dire à propos des problèmes transformés d’aujourd’hui. Mais, faire de la philosophie c'est créer de nouveaux concepts en fonction des problèmes qui se pose aujourd'hui. (...) ... je crois très à une espèce de devenir de la pensée, d'évolution de la pensée, qui fait qu'on ne seulement pose pas les mêmes problèmes, mais on ne les pose pas de la même façon. (...) ... on ne pense pas aujourd'hui de la même manière qu'à cent ans. (...) Faire comme un grand philosophe, qu'est-ce ça veut dire? Faire comme lui c'est pas forcement être un disciple de lui. Faire comme lui c'est prolonger sa tâche, c'est créer des concepts en rapport avec ces qu'il a crée et poser des problèmes en rapport et en évolution avec ces qu'il a pris. »
- 43 « Then, regarding a question about “postmodernism” (“What is the relationship between your theoretical projects and practices and those of other so-called post-modern works, for example, by Baudrillard, Lyotard, or Serres? Does the term ‘postmodern’ have a meaning, and if so what? If not, how might he conceive of the contemporary intellectual conjuncture?”), he laughed at the idea of “postmodernism”: he referred (somewhat inexplicably) to philosophers of the Chicago School, that this was just a way for them to amuse themselves by creating a “postmodernism,” nothing of real interest » "Comments on a meeting with Gilles Deleuze (18 March 1985)" in Stivale (1998, 232).
- 44 (cf Fiedler in Bertens 1995, 28-29) The inclusion in Playboy was justifiable by the fact that the article addresses pornography as a « form of pop art ». The text was initially given as a lecture under the title "The case for post-modernism", at a literary symposium organized by the University of Freiburg in the summer of 1968. It was then translated as "Das Zeitalter der neuen Literatur" and published in the German weekly newspaper Christ und Welt, in two parts ("Die Wiedergeburt der Kritik", "Indianer, Science Fiction und Pornographie: die Zukunft des Romans hat schon begonnen", 13 and 20/09/1968).
- 45 It sprang from a report requested by Conseil des universités du Québec.
- 46 « Avec la publication de La condition postmoderne, la rupture est pourtant consommée: Deleuze ne supportera pas de voir son ami [Lyotard] défendre des positions radicalement relativistes et Guattari se gaussera de ce rejet de tout métarécit: "Plus de vagues, des vogues" » (Dosse 2007, 419).
- 47 « ... here in the United States I was received as the theoretician of postmodernity and as the postmodernist - oh, my God! For me, The Postmodern Condition is the worst book l ever wrote, but it was the only one having a certain reception. I don’t know why, I can’t explain why. My wish is that those people who have the generosity to give some attention to my work would please read other things than this horrible book, because it was just a passage for me » (Lyotard 1995).
- 48 « I made up stories, I referred to a quantity of books I had never read, apparently it impressed people, it is all a bit of a parody (...). It is simply the worst of my books, they are almost all bad, but that one is the worst » (Lyotard 1987, 17).
- 49 « Postmodernism has in some ways become a critics’ term without ever quite becoming an artistic movement » (Bradbury 1983, 325).
- 50 cf Sontag (1964, 513-530). She later dismissed her inclusion in a movement she has never explicitly referred to: « In my view, what is called postmodernism - that is the making everything equivalent - is the perfect ideology for consumerist capitalism. It is an idea of accumulation, of preparing people for their shopping expeditions. These are not critical ideas... (...) And what are intellectuals doing with postmodernism? How people move these terms around instead of looking at the concrete reality! I'm for complexity and the respect for reality. (...) I'm actually against reductive interpretation, and I'm against facile transposition and the making of cheap equivalences. » (Sontag 2001).
- 51 « ... the trendy term "postmodernism", which, given its contradictory meanings in architecture, literature, painting, and the arts - the jumbling of styles from past and present in architecture, the mixing of figurative and abstract in painting, the self-conscious use of pastiche and parody in the arts, and the exuberant use of all modes to explode any and all definitions of genre - allows all of these meanings to be presented as equally relevant » (Daniel Bell in Bertens 1995, 33).
- 52 « The term 'poststructuralist', local to certain intellectual circles in the United States, draws a line of affinity around several French theorists who are rarely so grouped in France and who in many cases would reject the designation. I am referring to thinkers such as Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze, and Jean-François Lyotard. (...) These thinkers were influenced and reacted against the formalism of structuralist linguistics and against the figure of the epistemological subject implied or explicitly defended by its theorists. (...) In their sometimes hysterical criticism of French theory, traditionalist American academics forget that "poststructuralist theory" is a uniquely American practice. Americans have assimilated Foucault, Derrida, and the rest by turning their positions into "poststructuralist theory". » (Poster 1989, 4-6). See also Angermüller (2007, 18): « ... l’étiquette du "poststructuralisme" n’a jamais été adoptée par les théoriciens français concernés (...). ... ce qu’on appelle habituellement poststructuralisme (...) a commencé dans des départements américains de la critique littéraire pour être ensuite repris par des théoriciens en Europe, notamment en sciences sociales et culturelles allemandes ».
- 53 « In the course of the 1970s, postmodernism was gradually drawn into a poststructuralist orbit » (Bertens 1995, 5).
- 54 « In North America, because of the 1966 Baltimore conference and the subsequent publication in 1970 of Macksey and Donato’s The Structuralist Controversy (containing, quite out of sequence, Derrida’s work in progress, the essay ‘Structure, sign, and play in the discourse of the human sciences’), poststructuralism there went to Derrida first (...) » (Easthope 1988, XIII).
- 55 « Le mot ["post-structuralisme"] ne fera son apparition qu'au début des années 1970, mais tous les Américains présents à Johns Hopkins en 1966 ont estimé qu'ils venaient d'assister, en direct, à sa naissance publique. Ainsi, le colloque qui devait présenter le structuralisme aux Américains servit plutôt à lui inventer, à quelques années d'intervalle, un successeur (...) » (Cusset 2003, 41).
- 56 « En premier lieu, qui est structuraliste? (...) La coutume désigne, elle échantillonne à tort ou à raison: un linguiste comme R. Jakobson; un sociologue comme C. Lévi-Strauss; un psychanalyste comme J. Lacan; un philosophe qui renouvelle l'épistémologie, comme M. Foucault, un philosophe marxiste qui reprend le problème de l'interprétation du marxisme, comme L. Althusser; un critique littéraire comme R. Barthes; des écrivains comme ceux du groupe Tel Quel [Derrida, Kristeva, etc.]... » (Deleuze 2002, 238).
- 57 « Il n'est pas possible pour cette raison même de dissocier tout-à-fait, dans l'analyse de l'ouvrage, la perspective génétique et la méthode structurale: nous avons affaire à un texte qui, dans son épaisseur même, dans sa présence définitive et l'équilibre de ses éléments, est contemporain de tout le mouvement qu'il clôture. Seule une genèse de toute l'entreprise critique, ou du moins la restitution de son mouvement d'ensemble pourrait rendre compte de cette figure terminale en laquelle elle s'achève et s'efface » (Foucault 2008, 14).
- 58 « Le structuralisme n'est pas une méthode nouvelle, il est la conscience éveillée et inquiète du savoir moderne » (Foucault 1966, 221).
- 59 « ... l'analyse du discours ne peut plus être faite seulement en termes linguistiques; (...) le discours c'est quelque chose que déborde nécessairement la langue. (...) Le choix de la forme d'un énoncé n'est possible qu'en fonction des contextes » (Foucault 1989).
- 60 « ... le structuralisme est une méthode dont le champ d'application n'est pas défini a priori. Ce qui est défini au départ, ce sont les règles de la méthode et le niveau où on se place pour l'appliquer » (Foucault 1994, I n. 66).
- 61 According to Lévi-Strauss, formalism privileged abstract form over concrete content while structuralism accommodated the complementarity between both instead of opposing them (while content is structure, form accounts for the structuration of structures) - cf. Lévi-Strauss (1960, 3-36).
- 62 « On fait remarquer que, quelles qu'aient été ses bonnes intentions, le structuralisme (...) aurait donné en effet un privilège absolu à l'étude des relations simultanées ou synchroniques sur l'étude des relations évolutives. (...) Comment pourrait-on dire que l'analyse structurale est historique, puisqu'elle privilégie non seulement le simultané sur le successif, mais en outre le logique sur le causal? Par exemple, lorsque Lévi-Strauss analyse un mythe, ce qu'il cherche, ce n'est pas à savoir d'où vient ce mythe (...). Il se contente, au moins dans un premier temps, d'établir des relations logiques entre les différents éléments de ce mythe (...). » (Foucault 1994, II n. 103).
- 63 « À la différence de ceux qu'on appelle les structuralistes, je ne suis pas tellement intéressé par les possibilités formelles offertes par un système comme la langue » (Foucault 1994, I n. 48).
- 64 « C'est en cela que le structuralisme peut valoir comme une activité philosophique, si l'on admet que le rôle de la philosophie est de diagnostiquer. Le philosophe a en effet cessé de vouloir dire ce qui existe éternellement. Il a la tâche bien plus ardue et bien plus fuyante de dire ce qui se passe. Dans cette mesure, on peut bien parler d'une sorte de philosophie structuraliste qui pourrait se définir comme l'activité qui permet de diagnostiquer ce qu'est aujourd'hui » (Foucault 1994, I n. 47).
- 65 For instance, this rejection was vehemently expressed in Foucault (1994, I n. 58, II n. 96, II n. 109, II n. 160).
- 66 Cf. "Qu'est -ce qu'un auteur?" (conférence, Société française de philosophie, 22 février 1969, débat avec M. de Gandillac, L. Goldmann, J. Lacan, J. d'Ormesson, J. Ullmo, J. Wahl). At the event, Goldmann said: « Foucault (...), il faut néanmoins l'intégrer à ce qu'on pourrait appeler l'école française du structuralisme non génétique et qui comprend notamment les noms de Lévi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, Althusser, Derrida, etc. » (Goldmann in Foucault 1994, I n. 69).
- 67 « Je pense que le structuralisme s'inscrit actuellement à l'intérieur d'une grande transformation du savoir des sciences humaines, que cette transformation a pour cime moins l'analyse des structures que la mise en question du statut anthropologique, du statut du sujet, du privilège de l'homme. Et ma méthode s'inscrit dans le cadre de cette transformation au même titre que le structuralisme, à côté de lui, pas en lui » (Foucault 1994, I, n. 66)
- 68 Foucault opposed Rée's linear genesis to Nietzsche's heterogeneous genealogy (cf. Foucault 1994, II n. 84). On Nietzsche and genealogy, see also Foucault, "Considérations sur le marxisme, la phénoménologie et le pouvoir".
- 69 « Ni Deleuze, ni Lyotard, ni Guattari, ni moi, ne faisons jamais des analyses de structure, nous ne sommes absolument pas "structuralistes". Si on me demandait ce que je fais et ce que d'autres font mieux que moi, je dirais que nous ne faisons pas une recherche de structure. (...) Je dirais, en jouant avec les mots grecs dunamis dunasteia, que nous cherchons à faire apparaître ce qui, dans l'histoire de notre culture, est resté jusqu'à maintenant le plus caché, le plus occulté, le plus profondément investi: les relations de pouvoir » (Foucault 1994, II n. 139).
- 70 In the book on Foucault, Deleuze called our attention to the fact that Les mots et les choses was not about words and things.
- 71 « ... plutôt que de se demander ce qui, à une époque donnée, est (...), se demander comment on opère le partage » (Foucault 1994, IV, n. 278).
- 72 « Qu'est-ce qu'on appelle la postmodernité? Je ne suis pas au courant. (...) ... je ne vois pas, chez ceux qu'on appelle les postmodernes ou poststructuralistes, quel est le type de problèmes qui leur serait commun » (Foucault 1994, IV, n. 330).
- 73 « It is clear how far one is from an analysis in terms of deconstruction (any confusion between these two methods would be unwise). Rather, it is a question of a movement of critical analysis in which one tries to see how the different solutions to a problem have been constructed; but also how these different solutions result from a specific form of problematization » (Foucault in Rabinow 1984).
- 74 « ... je n’ai pas travaillé avec Foucault. (...) ... mieux qu’un but, il y avait une cause commune » (Deleuze 1990, 117).
- 75 For instance, « ... ce que fait Foucault : nous n’avons pas la même méthode, mais nous avons l’impression que nous le rejoignons sur toutes sortes de points, qui nous semblent essentiels, des chemins qu’il a d’abord tracés » (Deleuze 1990, 36).