The Chomsky Hash

[1. All Western philosophy has, from a distance, approached the very center of this sentence; it is in this space that it unfolds its speech - cont'd]

e. Distance which [contrary to a schema of fall/salvation]

neither designates a boundary

nor requires the surveying of a critique

but is born from the movement of knowing

and finds in it, in its space and its place, the possibility of opening and indefinitely extending

i. because

nothing is more foreign to knowledge than profanation

but nothing is more essential to it than a slight, imperceptible detour which has already changed its steps before it has even begun to walk

ii. Knowledge has,

from its awakening

from this troubled point where it knows nothing, but where in the absolute it knows,

already taken its eyes off the panicky community of being

where blood flows

where circulates, without limits, through all limits, horror

iii. In this swirl, the detour has slipped into a white space through which it is stated that a “representation” can be given.

[1. All Western philosophy has, from a distance, approached the very center of this sentence; it is in this space that it unfolds its speech - cont'd]

d. Perishing through absolute knowledge could be part of the foundation of Being. This text first says, on the surface of words,

i. the distance of knowledge and being

ii. the void that opens up when they approach each other

iii. this Orphic vanishing when, one serving from one blind guide to another, they walk towards

the impossibility of their common light

the very one from which they come - beyond death and the triple river which surrounds the place of their current and yet forbidden meeting

[1. All Western philosophy has, from a distance, approached the very center of this sentence; it is in this space that it unfolds its speech - cont'd]

c. This sentence can only ever remain at the end of philosophical language,

revolving at its confines

or rather showing that it is it [philosophy] that revolves around its [the sentence's] stubborn fixity

i. To tell the truth, this sentence can serve as

a law for critical thinking

or for a mystical experience

or for a dialectical language

ii. Everything that philosophizes, and the very possibility of philosophizing, is subject to the fatality that it designates:

—the very approach that we can take towards it does not escape it

—it highlights the importance, of this knowledge which is not knowledge of itself,

in philosophy of knowledge

in the movement of its disappearance

—[specifically,]

that there is no basis for criticism

that there is no dialectical discourse without laughter that interrupts it

that philosophy is no longer a discourse, but experiences that are both illuminating and dead

[1. All Western philosophy has, from a distance, approached the very center of this sentence; it is in this space that it unfolds its speech - cont'd]

b. A phrase that means many things:

i. that

there cannot be absolute knowledge

there is something in absolute knowledge that strikes death

ii. that this death linked to absolute knowledge comes

—from very far away,

not from knowledge

not from the one who knows

not from what is known,

—but paradoxically from

what is not open to knowledge

the fundamental - and of that which is not subject to death - the ground of being

iii. So that to know what this sentence means, it would be necessary through knowledge

—to reach this foundation which precisely establishes its death,

—to be there at this point where it illuminates its own disappearance, where, accessing that which founds it, it dies,

by the blow

by the law

of this foundation which is its own.

1. Perishing through absolute knowledge could be part of the foundation of Being. All Western philosophy has approached - more or less - the very center of this sentence;

a. [By what logic?]

i. as if

it had its heart there, its center of gravity

yet that which always keeps it at a distance

ii. since it is in space,

that it spares in relation to this sentence

that it unfolds its speech according to all its magnitude

a. at the cost of some effort for both

the author

the reader

b. with the potential reward of

a certain pleasure

that is, access to a different understanding of truth

a. A strict effort at economy is required from

the authors

the publisher

the readers

b. They will therefore be asked to accept

writing

publishing

reading

works in which all production elements have been determined as effectively as possible.

b. While

[on one hand,] it is desirable for reading to become more widespread,

[on the other hand,] it is important that different publishing models [e.g., academic versus commercial] are not conflated.

—[thus,] three types of texts will be published here:

lengthy works, which publishers often hesitate to undertake

shorter works that, in a few dozen pages, encapsulate a research project and allow it to develop into a series

translations of foreign works that we need to broaden the scope of research in France

a. It is

not to compete with these types of publications [vis., opinion-based works]

not to force scholarly books into the mainstream market

but rather, to establish connections between like-minded individuals

—between

those who are engaged in research

others who are also engaged in research

the work being done in universities and various research institutions

what is being undertaken abroad in the same fields

a. There are economic reasons for this

production costs

translation costs

consequently, the selling price of books

b. There is also

the prominence given to opinion-based works

the attention they receive in the media

[MF  : I have a reputation for being cold, dry - cont'd]

3. No, no, I don't believe that this vocabulary you're pointing out, which admittedly isn't very intellectual, I don't believe that this vocabulary [about Iran

from horror

to Greek tragedy

] is a new contribution.

a. I'm not saying this because I refuse to change; I have changed.

b. But there's such a compelling trend of conversion right now; you have to have converted.

Perhaps I will convert;

I've already changed a lot, but in any case, what you're pointing out doesn't seem to me to be an entirely new trait.

FS  : No, I'm not talking about its novelty.

MF  : Ah, okay, okay, okay!

FS  : But these facts as such

MF  : Okay, yes, yes.

FS : An aesthetic way of approaching things.

MF  : Yes, that's it, yes.

FS  : There is an existential aspect to it , that's nothing new, that's nothing new.

Okay, thank you.

MF  : Thank you.

[MF  : I have a reputation for being cold, dry - cont'd]

2. If I dismantle,

if I try to dismantle, as carefully as possible, the mechanisms of power

if I try to show how power relations actually have a kind of subtle logic and sequence, which gives them their strength without taking away their fragility,

then that doesn't mean I'm emotionally attached, in a positive way, to that sort of thing

—after all, what I did on madness could just as easily be considered a very lyrical book. Right?

FS  : Yes, in your style, in your style, isn't it?

MF  : If I wrote this book about madness, trying to show all these mechanisms, it was not in a climate of indifference to mad subjectivity.

FS  : Yes.

MF  : The same goes for crime and delinquency, etc.

1. I note the following terms in your positions on Iran:

horror

intoxication

beauty

gravity

dramaturgy

scene

theatre

Greek tragedy

2. You speak of the fascination of events, so,

beyond theology and genealogy,

beyond political stances,

wouldn't the rigorous Foucault be an artist of the era of

Francis Bacon?

Rebeyrolle?

Stanley Kubrick?

MF  : Listen, you flatter me by saying that. I'll just add a little something you already know. Indeed, people always talk—I don't know why—I have a reputation for being cold, dry, rigid, someone who only talks about… But:

1. You mustn't confuse the speaker with what they're talking about. You mustn't confuse what you say about something with the meaning you give to talking about that thing.

[MF  : So, if you want to distinguish between the universal intellectual and the specific intellectual - cont'd]

5. Well, what I meant was that the universal intellectual—

a. if that's someone who wants to function

as if they were the representative of a universal consciousness,

or as if they were, if you will, a bit like a writer, an intellectual, in their work,

or like those political parties that claim to possess both the truth of history and the dynamics of revolution

—I say: no, these intellectuals of the universal who are nothing more than, in a way, doublets of political parties, I don't want them.

b. On the other hand, the intellectual who, through the very intellectual work they do, can play this role of destabilizing

social stability

social, historical, political, and economic immobility…

[MF  : So, if you want to distinguish between the universal intellectual and the specific intellectual - cont'd]

4. It's a bit specious...

FS  : Voltaire could call himself a specific intellectual.

MF  : Yes, but I believe, well, I readily believe that, look at the people of the 18th century, that's always how they did it, starting from something quite specific. In other words, it wasn't—I don't think they…—when I

talk about the universal intellectual...

try to distance myself from them...

FS  : For example, Sartre, for you, is he the universal intellectual?

MF : …

FS  : Actually, you're mainly talking about the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But when I said that, I was mainly thinking about the period in France that preceded the 1960s. You mentioned Hungary and Poland.

MF  : Yes, yes, I think we need to talk about it. No, but I meant, ah, I'm starting to get completely tired.

FS  : Hmm, I'm bothering you with my questions.

MF  : No, no, no, no, that's a very interesting question you're asking me.