The Parergon
Author(s): Jacques Derrida and Craig Owens
Source: October, Vol. 9 (Summer, 1979), pp. 3-41
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/778319
Accessed: 01/07/2010 20:01
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mitpress.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
The MIT Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to October.
http://www.jstor.org
The Parergon *
JACQUES DERRIDA
translated by CRAIG OWENS
I,,? ,and the position which The Origin of
the Work of Art grants to the Lectures on Aesthetics ("the most comprehensive
reflection on the nature of art that the West possesses"') can be determined only
within a certain historical topography beginning with the Critique of Judgment.
Heidegger does not mention it by name in The Origin, but elsewhere he defends it
against Nietzsche's reading. The Lectures rigorously specify what is valid in
speculative dialectics in general: an essential affinity with the Critique, the only
book-book three-that it can almost immediately reflect and appropriate. The
firsttwo critiques of pure reason (speculative and practical) opened an apparently
infinite gulf. The third could, would, would have to, would have to be able to
bridge it: that is, to fill, to fulfill, in infinite reconciliation. "Kantian philosophy
not only felt the necessity of this point of juncture (Vereinigungspunkt) but
recognized it in a precise way, by supplying its representation."2 The third
Critique was able to identify in art (in general) one of the middle terms (Mitten) to
resolve (auflosen) the "opposition" between mind and nature, internal and
external phenomena, the inside and the outside, etc. Still it sufferedfrom a lacuna,
a "lack" (Mangel), it remained a theory of subjectivity and of judgment (an
analogous reservation is expressed in the Origin). Confined and unilateral, the
reconciliation is still not effective. The Lectures must supplement this lack,
structured, as always, as a recurrent anticipation. Reconciliation was promised,
represented in the Critique only as a kind of duty, a Sollen projected to infinity.
And so it appears.
On the one hand, Kant declares himself "neither willing nor in a position"
to examine whether "common sense" (here reinterpreted as an indeterminate
* This text is a translation of section II of the four-part essay entitled "Parergon" published in La
verite en peinture (Paris, Flammarion, 1978), to be issued in English translation by The University of
Chicago Press;parts of this text originally appeared in Digraphe 2 and 3 (Paris, Galil&ee,1974). Unless
otherwise indicated, all footnotes are by the translator.
1. Martin Heidegger, "The Origin of the Work of Art," Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert
Hofstadter, New York, Harper & Row, 1971, p. 79.
2. This citation has been translated directly from Derrida's French translation of Hegel.
OCTOBER
norm, neither conceptual nor intellectual) exists as a constitutive principle of the
possibility of aesthetic experience, or whether reason, as a regulative principle,
commands us to produce (hervorbringen) it for loftier ends.3This common sense
is constantly presupposed by the Critique, which nevertheless withholds analysis
of it. We could demonstrate that this suspense assures the complicity of moral
discourse and empirical culturalism. A permanent necessity.
On the other hand, recalling the division of philosophy and all the irreducible
oppositions determined in the firsttwo Critiques, Kant projects the plan of a
work that will reduce the enigma of aesthetic judgment and fill a crack, a cleavage,
an abyss (Kluft): "Albeit, then, between the realm of the natural concept, as the
sensible, and the realm of the concept of freedom, as the supersensible, there is a
great gulf fixed, so that it is not possible to pass from the former to the latter (by
means of the theoretical employment of reason), just as if they were so many
separate worlds, the firstof which is powerless to exercise influence on the second:
still the latter is meant to influence the former .... There must, therefore, be a
ground of the unity.... "4 Further on, related metaphors or analogies: we are
dealing again with the immense "abyss" that separates the two worlds and the
apparent impossibility of throwing a bridge (Briicke) from one bank to the other.
To call this analogy is still to have said nothing. The bridge is not an analogy.
The recourse to analogy, the concept and the effect of analogy areor construct the
bridge itself-both in the Critique and in the powerful tradition to which it still
belongs. The analogy of the abyss and of the bridge over the abyss is an analogy
which says that we require an analogy between two absolutely heterogenous
worlds, a "third" for crossing the abyss, cauterizing the gaping wound, and
binding the separation. In brief, a symbol. The bridge is a symbol, it moves from
one bank to the other, and the symbol is a bridge.
The abyss elicits analogy-the active recourse of the entire Critique-but
analogy succumbs to the abyss as soon as a certain artfulness is required for the
analogical description of the play of analogy
.......- to do without the abyss: not only to spare ourselves
a fall into its bottomless depths by weaving and folding back the fabric to
infinity, textual art of the reprise, multiplication of parts within parts; but also to
establish laws of reappropriation, to formalize rules that constrain the logic of the
3. Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgement, trans. J. C. Meredith, Oxford, Oxford University
Press, 1952, p. 85.
4. Ibid., p. 14.
4
The Parergon
abyss and shuttle between economy and extravagance, resolution and fall, the
abyssal process that necessarily strives for resolution and within which collapse is
repeatedly produced
what then is the object
of the third Critique? The critique of pure theoretical reason presupposes the
exclusion (Ausschliessung) of everything that is not theoretical cognition: the
affect (Gefiihl) in its two principal aspects (pleasure/displeasure) and the power of
desire (Begehrungsvermigen). It carves out its field by cutting itself off from the
interests of desire, by becoming disinterested in desire. Since understanding alone
is capable of affording constitutive principles of knowledge, the exclusion bears
simultaneously upon reason, which transgresses the limits of our possible
knowledge of nature. The a priori principles of reason, if regulative with respect
to the faculty of knowledge, are constitutive with respect to the faculty of desire.
Thus the critique of pure theoretical reason excludes both reason and desire,
desire's reason and reason's desire.
What is basically in question? The base.
Understanding and reason are not two disjunct faculties; they are articulated
in a specific task and a specific number of processes, precisely those which set
articulation, that is, discourse, in motion. Between the two faculties, in effect, an
articulate member, a third faculty comes into play. This intermediary, which Kant
rightfully calls Mittelglied, middle articulation, is judgment (Urteil). But what is
the nature of the a priori principles of the middle articulation? Are they constitutive
or regulative? Do they give a priori rules for pleasure and displeasure?
Remember that regulative principles do not allow us to distinguish a special
realm (eigenes Gebiet).
Since the Mittelglied also constitutes the articulation of the theoretical and
the practical (in the Kantian sense), we are plunged into a space which is neither
theoretical nor practical, or rather both practical and theoretical. Art (in general)
or rather the beautiful, if it takes place, is inscribed here. But this here, this place,
declares itself as a place deprived of place. If it had a place, it might not have a
special realm. This is not however to deprive it of jurisdiction or foundation: that
which has no special realm (Gebiet) or field (Feld), a "field of objects" which
5
OCTOBER
defines its "realm," may have a "territory" and a "ground" (Boden) with its own
"jurisdiction." 5
The Mittelglied, intermediary member, must be treated as a detachable part,
a separate part (als ein besonderer Theil). But also as a nondetachable part, a
nonseparate part, since it constitutes the articulation between two others-we
might even say, anticipating Hegel, an originary part (Ur-teil). It is in effect a
question of judgment. The same paragraph recalls that a critique of pure reason,
that is, of our faculty of judging according to a priori principles, would be
"incomplete" (unvollstdndig) if a theory of judgment, of the Mittelglied, "were
not dealt with separately." But immediately afterwards, in the next sentence, that
in a pure philosophy the principles of judgment would not constitute a separate
part between the theoretical and practical parts, but might be connected, annexed
(angeschlossen) to either. Kant thus seems to contradict himself: it is necessary to
disengage the middle member as a detachable part, but it is also necessary to remember
the whole by reconstituting the nexus, the connection, the reannexation
of the part to the two major columns of the corpus. We must not forget that we are
dealing with judgment (Urteil), the function of the copula. Does it play a
detachable role, its own part, or does it work to orchestrate reason, in concert with
the practical and the theoretical?
Let us examine this paragraph in the preface to the third Critique more
closely. It involves no contradiction. The separation of the part is not prescribed
and forbidden from the same point of view. Within a critique of pure reason, of
our faculty of judging according to a priori principles, the part must be detached
and examined separately. But in a pure philosophy, in a "system of pure
philosophy," everything will be reconciled. The critique detaches because it is but
one moment and one part of the system. Critical suspension-the krinein, the
between-two, the question of whether the theory of judgment is theoretical or
practical, regulative or constitutive-is the procedure of the critique. But a system
of pure philosophy will have to subsume the critique and construct a general
discourse which will rationalize the detachment. This system of pure philosophy
is what Kant calls metaphysics. It is not yet possible. There is as yet no possible
program outside the critique.
The question of desire, of pleasure and displeasure, is therefore also that of a
detachment (neither the word nor the concept appears as such in the Critique)
which will determine, dismember, or re-member itself: detachment-separation of
a member-; detachment-delegation of a representative; sign or symbol charged
with a mission (beauty as the symbol of morality, problems of hypotyposis, of the
trace [Spur], of "coded writing" [Chiffreschrift], of the intermittent sign [Wink];
cf. for example paragraphs 42 and 59)-; detachment-disinterest as the essence of
aesthetic experience.
To speak of the relationship between two possibilities (the present possibil-
5. Ibid., p. 15.
6
The Parergon
ity of the critique and that to come of metaphysics), Kant proposes a metaphor
borrowed from art, which has not yet been discussed, from the technique of
architecture, from the architectonic: the pure philosopher, the metaphysician, will
have to proceed like a good architect, like a good technites of edification. He will
be a kind of artist. He must firstsecure the ground, the foundation, the fundamentals.
"A Critique of pure reason, i.e., of our faculty of judging on a priori
principles, would be incomplete if the critical examination of judgement, which
is a faculty of knowledge, and, as such, lays claim to independent principles, were
not dealt with separately. Still, however, its principles cannot, in a system of pure
philosophy, form a separate constituent part between the theoretical and practical
divisions, but may when needful be annexed to one or other as occasion requires.
For if such a system is some day worked out ... the critical examination of the
ground for this edifice must have been previously carried down to the very depths
of the foundations of the faculty of principles independent of experience, lest in
some quarter it might give way, and, sinking, inevitably bring with it the ruin of
all."6
The proper level of the critique: the architect of reason excavates, sounds,
prepares the terrain, in search of a solid foundation, the ultimate Grund on which
all of metaphysics may be erected, but also of roots, of the common root which
branches into the light of day, yet never submits to experience. In this, the critique
attempts to descend to buthos, to the bottom of the abyss, not knowing whether it
exists.
It is still too early to examine the general function of metaphor and analogy
in the third Critique. This function may not be simply reflected by the theory
which, in the book, subsumes it and is embedded there.
We have been dealing with the first "metaphor": beginning of the Preface
(Vorrede). However, at the end of the Introduction (Einleitung) which follows, as
if to frame the entire prolegomenon, we encounter the metaphor of the bridge
(Briicke) projected over the enormous abyss (grosse Kluft), the artificial work
which assures passage over the natural chasm. Here philosophy, which in this
book must conceive art-art in general and fine art-as part of its field or its
edifice, represents itself as a part of its part, as an art of architecture. It re-presents
itself, detaches itself, dispatches an emissary, one part of itself outside itself to bind
the whole, to fill up or to heal the whole which has suffered detachment. The
philosophy of art presupposes an art of philosophizing-major art-but also, in
its preliminary critique, a minor one, that of the architect's edifying erection
(erection edificatrice). And if, as will be stated later, fine artwill always be an artof
spirit, then Anthropology from the Pragmatic Point of View will be likely to
delegate a German to the critic's post: the German spirit is manifested most often
in the root, the Italian in the crown of leaves, the French in the flower, and the
English in the fruit. Thus, if this pure philosophy or fundamental metaphysics
6. Ibid., pp. 4-5.
7
OCTOBER
proposes to account for, among other things, desire, pleasure, and displeasure, it
exposes itself at the outset, represents its own desire. Reason's desire is a fundamental
desire, the desire for the fundamental, for buthos. Not an empirical desire,
since it leads toward the unspecified, and what is given under the auspices of a
determinate metaphor, the metaphor of reason, will have to make sense of all
other metaphors. It would represent the being-desire of desire, the desire of reason
as desire for a grounded structure. Edifying desire would be produced as the artof
philosophizing, commanding all others and rationalizing all rhetoric.
"Considerable difficulties" arise. A theory of judgment as Mittelglied must be
constructed. But there will be "considerable difficulties" (grosse Schwierigkeiten)
finding a priori principles peculiar to judgment which at the same time maintain
the theory of empiricism. We can only find a priori concepts in understanding.
The faculty of judgment employs these, applies them, but there are no concepts
proper to or specifically reserved for it. The only concept that it can produce is
empty, as it were, and contributes nothing to knowledge. "Properly speaking," it
"knows nothing." It provides a subjective "rule" of thumb which has no
objectivity, no relation with the object, no cognition. The faculty of judgment
regulates itself; otherwise it would have to call upon yet another faculty of
arbitration, to infinity. Nevertheless, this subjective rule applies to judgments, to
statements which claim to have a universally objective structure.
This is the difficulty, the constraint, the confusion, the Verlegenheit. It seems
to confirm a certain Hegelian verdict, later confirmed by Heidegger: that this
discourse on the beautiful and on art, by remaining a theory of judgment, is
encumbered with the-secondary-opposition of subject and object.
The beautiful and art have not yet been questioned. Nothing up to this point
in the Preface indicates that they ought to be. Here, however, Kant declares that
the "considerable difficulties" of principle (subjective or objective) are "encountered"
(findet sich) "chiefly" (hauptsdchlich) in judgments "that are called
aesthetic." They offer one example, a major occurrence of the "difficulties." They
are actually the principal example, the unique specimen which confers meaning
and orients multiplicity. The examination of this example, the aesthetic domain,
constitutes the choice part, the "most important item" (die wichstigste Stuck) of
the critique of the faculty of judgment. Even if aesthetic judgments, as judgments,
contribute nothing to knowledge, they arise from the unique faculty of knowledge,
which is connected by them according to an a priori principle to pleasure or
displeasure. The relationship between knowledge and pleasure is thus revealed in
its purity: there is nothing to know. But such is precisely the enigma, the
enigmatic (das Rdtselhafte) at the heart of judgment. This is why a "separate
division" (besondere Abteilung), a special cut, a detached part, a section constitutes
the object of the third Critique.
We must not expect from the Critique what in principle, in its declared
intention, it does not promise. This critique of taste is not concerned with
production. Neither the "formation" nor "culture" of taste are relevant and they
8
The Parergon
are easily dispensed with. And since the Critique will demonstrate that we cannot
assign conceptual rules to the beautiful, it will not be concerned with constituting
an aesthetic, no matter how general, but with analyzing the formal conditions of
possibility of aesthetic judgment in general, thus, of aesthetic objectivity in
general.
In this transcendental ambition, Kant asks that we read him without
indulgence. But, for the record, he recognizes the gaps, the shortcomings (Mangelhaftigkeit)
of his work. Hegel uses the same word.
Where is the gap? What gap are we talking about?
And if it were the frame. If the gap constituted the frame of the theory. Not its
accident, but its frame. More or less restated:if the gap were not only the lack of a
theory of the frame, but also the place of the gap in the theory of the frame.
Edge/gap
According to Kant at least, the "shortcomings" of his work aredue to the fact
that nature has entangled, complicated, confused (verwickelt) the problems. The
author's excuses apply only to the firstpart of the work, to the critique of aesthetic
judgment, and not to the critique of teleological judgment. Only the firstpart of
the argument will lack the clarity and the distinction (Deutlichkeit) we have the
right to expect of knowledge from concepts. Having lamented the fact that nature
has tangled the threads, acknowledging the gaps and projecting a bridge over the
abyss of the two other critiques, at the moment at which he brings his critical
undertaking to completion (Hiermit endige ich also mein ganzes kritisches
Geschift), Kant mentions his age. He must gain time, not prolong the delay, press
forwards toward doctrine r
-~~I ; ~~~~~~weareconcernedwith pleasure,
pure pleasure, the being-pleasure of pleasure. The third Critique was written
for pleasure's sake, and so must it be read. A pleasure which is somewhat aridwithout
concept and without enjoyment (jouissance)-and somewhat strict, but it
teaches us once more that there is no pleasure without restriction. In taking
pleasure as my guide, in one movement I acknowledge even as I lead astray an
injunction. I pursue it: the enigma of pleasure sets the entire book in motion. I
lead it astray:by treating the third Critique as a work of artor as a beautiful object,
which it was not simply meant to be, I act as if the existence of the book did not
9
111
The Parergon
matter to me (which, Kant explains, is a prerequisite of all aesthetic experience); I
view it with an imperturbable detachment.
But what is the existence of a book?
1. I pursue it. The possibility of pleasure is the question. Demonstration: the
first two paragraphs of the "First Moment of the Judgement of Taste: Moment of
Quality," First Book ("Analytic of the Beautiful") of the First Section ("Analytic
of Aesthetic Judgement") of Part I ("Critique of Aesthetic Judgement"). Why call
a judgment of taste aesthetic? Because in order to determine whether something
may be said to be beautiful, I do not consult the relation of the representation to
the object, with cognition in mind (the judgment of taste offers none), but to the
subject and its affect (pleasure or displeasure). The judgment of taste is not a
judgment of knowledge, it is not "logical," but subjective and therefore aesthetic:
relation to affect (aisthesis). Every relation of a representation, even a sensible one,
can eventually be objective, but never pleasure or displeasure. Certainly aesthetic
representations may give rise to logical judgments when they are related by
judgment to the object; but when judgment itself is related to the subject, to the
subjective affect-which is the case here-it is and can only be aesthetic.
The Wohlgefallen, usually translated as subjective satisfaction, the pleasure
which defines aesthetic judgment, must, we know, be disinterested. Interest
(Interesse) is always related to the existence of an object. I am interested in an
object when its existence (Existenz) matters to me in one way or another. But
knowing whether I may say that something is beautiful has nothing intrinsically
to do with the interest I may or may not demonstrate in its existence. And the
pleasure (Lust), that kind of pleasing known as pleasure, which I experience
before that which I judge to be beautiful requires an indifference or, more strictly,
an absolute lack of interest in the thing's existence.
This pure and disinterested pleasure (not indifferent: Heidegger reproaches
Nietzsche on this point for having misunderstood the nonindifferent structure of
this laissez-etre), this pleasure which directs me towards a nonexistence or at least
towards a thing (but what is a thing? the need to graft the Heideggerian question
arises) the existence of which does not matter to me, a pleasure of this sort defines
the judgment of taste and the enigmatic relation of mourning-the work of
mourning begun beforehand-with beauty. As in a kind of transcendental
reduction, the epoche of a thesis of existence whose suspense liberates, under
certain formal conditions, the pure feeling of pleasure.
We are familiar with the example: I stand before a palace. Someone asks me
whether I think it is beautiful, or ratherwhether I can say "this is beautiful." It is a
question of judgment, of a judgment of universal validity, and everything must
therefore be in the form of statements, questions, and answers. Even though the
aesthetic affect is irreducible, judgment demands that I say "this is beautiful" or
"this is not beautiful."
Is the palace of which I am speaking beautiful? A variety of answers would
miss the point of the question. If I say: "I do not care for things made for
11
OCTOBER
rubbernecks," or rather, with the Iroquois sachem, "Iprefer the pubs," or rather, a
la Rousseau, "There stands a sign for the vanity of the rich who exploit the people
in order to produce frivolities," or rather, "If I were on a desertisland and had the
means, I still would not take the trouble to have it imported," etc.-none of these
answers constitutes an intrinsically aesthetic judgment. I have evaluated the
palace as a function of extrinsic motives, in terms of empirical psychology,
relations with economic production, political structures, technical causality, etc.
We must know of what we speak, what concerns the value of beauty
intrinsically and what remains external to our immanent sense of it. This
permanent demand-to distinguish between the internal or proper meaning and
the circumstances of the object in question-organizes every philosophic discourse
on art, the meaning of art and meaning itself, from Plato to Hegel, Husserl,
and Heidegger. It presupposes a discourse on the limit between the inside and the
outside of the art object, in this case a discourse on the frame. Where do we findit?
According to Kant, what I want to know when I ask myself whether I think
this palace is beautiful or not is whether I find it to be beautiful, alternatively,
whether it is the representation of the object-in and of itself-which pleases me,
however indifferent (gleichgiiltig) I remain towards the object's existence. "It is
quite plain that in order to say that the object is beautiful, and to show that I have
taste, everything turns on the meaning which I can give to this representation, and
not on any factor which makes me dependent on the real existence of the object.
Everyone must allow that a judgement on the beautiful which is tinged with the
slightest interest, is very partial and not a pure judgement of taste. One must not
be in the least prepossessed in favour of the real existence of the thing but must
preserve complete indifference in this respect, in order to play the part of judge in
matters of taste. This proposition, which is of the utmost importance, cannot be
better explained than by contrasting the pure disinterested delight [uninteresserten
Wohlgefallen] which appears in the judgement of taste with that allied [verbunden]
to an interest:-especially if we can also assure ourselves that there areno
other kinds of interest beyond those presently mentioned."7 When the existence of
the agreeable and the existence of the good are concerned, it is a question of
interest
" disinterested
pleasure: the phrase is too familiar, too common, like the dismissal it
7. Ibid., pp. 43-4.
12
The Parergon
continues to provoke. The anger of Nietzsche and Artaud: disinterest or disinterestingness
goes overboard. Heidegger's meditative murmur at the end of The
Origin: pleasure is superfluous or insufficient.
But conclusions should never be hasty when pleasure is at issue. In this case,
a pleasure which is pure and disinterested, which delivers itself up in the purity of
its essence, without any contamination by externals. It no longer depends upon
any empirical phenomenon, any specified existence of subject or object; my
empiricity refers precisely to the existence of the beautiful object, or to the
existence of my sensible motivation. To this degree, and considered intrinsically
(but how to delimit the intrinsic, that which borders, secus, the internal limit),
pleasure does not presuppose the pure and simple disappearance, but the
neutralization, not simply the death but the entombment, of everything which
exists insofar as it exists. This pleasure is purely subjective: in aesthetic judgment,
it designates (bezeichnet) nothing objective. But its subjectivity is not an existence,
it does not even refer to existence. It is an in- or anexistent subjectivity rising over
the tomb of the empirical subject and its entire world.
And which nevertheless enjoys. No, does not enjoy: Kant distinguishes
pleasure (Wohlgefallen, Lust) from enjoyment (Genuss). Takes pleasure, then.
No, because it also receives it. If the translation of Wohlgefallen with pleasure is
not entirely rigorous, then with satisfaction it is even less; the pleasing risks
identification with the agreeable and suggests that everything comes from the
pleasing object. In Wohlgefallen, in fact, I enjoy myself, but without complaisance,
I am not interested in myself, especially in so far as I exist, I enjoy
something. Not something which exists, whatever it may be. I enjoy my enjoyment
of-that which is beautiful. Insofar as it does not exist.
Since this affect of enjoying something remains thoroughly subjective, we
may speak here of an autoaffection. The role of the imagination and thus of time
in the entire discourse confirms this. Nothing which exists, as such, nothing in
time and in space can produce this affect which affects itself with itself. And
nevertheless, enjoying something, the something of enjoyment also indicates that
this autoaffection extends beyond itself: it is a pure heteroaffection. The purely
subjective affect is provoked by that which we call the beautiful, that which is said
to be beautiful: outside, in the object and independent of its existence. From
which, the indispensable, critical character of the recourse to judgment: the
structure of autoaffection is such that it is affected by a pure objectivity about
which we must say, "This is beautiful," and "This statement has universal
validity." Otherwise there would be no problem-and no discourse on art. The
wholly other affects me with pure pleasure while depriving me of both concept
and enjoyment. Without this wholly other, no universality, no demand for
universality, but for the same reason, no enjoyment (singular, empirical, existent,
interested) of either the determinant concept or of knowledge. Of either the
practical or the theoretical. Utterly irreducible heteroaffection inhabitsintrinsically-the
most hermetic autoaffection: this is the "grosse Schwierigkeit":
13
OCTOBER
it does not install itself in the comfortable arrangement of the overworked
subject/object couple, within an arbitrarily determined space. Nor in some
machine oiled with mimesis, homoiosis, adequatio. We know that, at least at first,
Kant rejects the value of imitation. As to homoiosis and adequatio, the issue is
complicated, to say the least, since it is no longer a question of determinant
judgment, but of reflectivejudgment, and since the res in question does not exist,
or at least its existence as thing is not taken into account. It is at the end of a totally
different itinerary that we will confirm the efficacy of these values (mimesis,
homoiosis, adequatio) in Kantian discourse8
almost nothing is left (me): neither the
thing, nor its existence, nor my own, nor the pure object, nor the pure subject-no
interest whatsoever in anything that exists. All the same, I like; no that is still
excessive, that still probably implies interest in existence. I do not like, but I take
pleasure in that which does not interest me, at least insofar as it does not matter
whether I like it or not. I do not take this pleasure which I take. Rather, I give it. I
give what I take, I receive what I give, I do not take what I receive. And all the same
I give it to myself. Can I say that I give it to myself? It is so universally objectivein
the claim of my own judgment and in common sense-that it can come only
from a pure outside. Inassimilable. At the limit, this pleasure which I give to
myself or to which I give myself, by which I give myself, I do not even feel, if to feel
means to experience: phenomenally, empirically, in the space and time of my
interested and interesting existence. A pleasure impossible to experience. I never
take it, receive it, give it, or give it to myself, since I (existing subject) never have
access to the beautiful as such. I never have pure pleasure insofar as I exist.
And all the same it is there, pleasure, something remains; it is there, es gibt,
fa donne, pleasure is what is given; for no one, but it remains and it is the best, the
purest. And it is this remainder that gives rise to speech, since it is discourse on the
beautiful that is primarily under consideration once again, discursivity within the
structure of the beautiful and not only a discourse arising out of the beautiful.
8. "Economimesis," in Mimesis (in collaboration with S. Agacinski, S. Kofman, Ph. LacoueLabarthe,
J.-L. Nancy, B. Pautrat). In the collection "La philosophie en effet," Aubier-Flammarion,
1975. (Author's note.)
14
The Parergon
2. 1 lead it astray:by treating the third Critique as a work of art, I neutralize
or entomb its existence. But I cannot know whether, in order to do so, I must act
on the authority of the Critique, since I do not know what the existence of a thing
is, and thus what interest in the existence of a thing is. What is it to exist, for Kant?
According to the conditions of a transcendental aesthetic, to be present, in space
and time as an individual thing. Nothing is less aesthetic in this sense than the
beautiful object which must not interest us as aistheton. But this aesthetic
inexistence must affectme and this is why the word aesthetic is from the beginning
justified.
When the (beautiful) object is a book, what exists and what no longer exists?
The book is not to be confused with the sensible multiplicity of its existing copies.
Thus the object book offers itself as such, in its intrinsic structure, as independent
from its copies. But then what we call its ideality is not pure; an extremely fine
analysis must distinguish it from ideality in general, from that of other types of
object, and, in the case of art, from the ideality of other classes of book (novel,
poetry, etc.) or from nondiscursive or nonbookish artobjects (painting, sculpture,
music, theater, etc.). In each case the structure of exemplarity (single or multiple)
is unique, thereby prescribing a different affect. And in each example it remains to
be decided what example is to be made of the example: is it to be dropped as
extrinsic excrement or retained as intrinsic ideality?
Here is one example, but en abzme: the third Critique. How to treat this
book. Is it a book. What makes it a book. What is it to read this book. How to take
it. Have I the right to say that it is beautiful, and firstof all even to ask
L-- for example, the question of order. The spatial, so-called plastic, work
of art does not necessarily prescribe an orderof reading. I can place myself in front
of it, begin with the top or bottom, at times move around. Undoubtedly this
possibility has an ideal limit. Let us say for the moment that the structure of this
limit permits greater play than in the case of the temporal arts (discursive or not),
unless a certain pulverization, a precise spatial staging (either effective or virtual)
allows us to begin from several different places, so that the speed and the direction
vary.
But a book. And a book of philosophy. If it is a work of metaphysics in the
Kantian sense, thus of pure philosophy, we can rightfully open it anywhere: it is a
kind of architecture. In the third Critique there is pure philosophy, and its plan is
15
OCTOBER
drawn. Following the analogy (but how do we follow it), we must be able to begin
everywhere and to follow no particular order, even if the quantity and quality, the
strength of reading may depend, as with architecture, on point of view and a
certain relation to the ideal limit-which constitutes the frame. But there never is
anything but point of view: the solidity, the existence, the structure of the edifice
do not depend upon it. Can we say the same of a book by analogy? We do not
inevitably gain access to architecture by following the order of its production,
from its foundations to its pinnacle. And here perception, analysis, penetration,
utilization, even destruction, must be distinguished. But do we read a book of pure
philosophy if we do not begin with the fundamentals and follow the prescribed
order in which it was written. What is it then to read philosophy, and must we
only read it. Certainly the prescribed ordersustained by the fundamentals does not
coincide with the order of its writing: for example, Kant wrote his Introduction
after finishing the book, in an effort to reassemble the entire system of his
philosophy, to legitimize his discourse, to articulate his critique with philosophy.
The Introduction follows its preparation. But even if it were granted that, in
Kantian metaphysics, it is necessary to begin with the foundation, the critique is
not metaphysics: it is, from the beginning, a search for the foundation (thereforeit
in fact comes after), suspended like a crane or a dredger above a pit, scraping,
excavating, clearing, in an effort to redeem some solid ground. In what order
should a critique be read. The order in which it was written, or the rightful one.
The ordo inveniendi or the ordo exponendi. All these different questions,
subordinate to one another, no matter how densely interwoven, are generally valid
for all critical texts
....---~~~~~- ~a supplementary
complication forces us to reconsider the order of all these questions. The third
Critique is not just one critique among others. Its specific object is a particular
type of judgment-reflective judgment-which treats the example in a very
singular way. The distinction, both familiar and obscure, between reflective and
determinant judgment controls all of the book's internal divisions. I restate it in
its most impoverished generality. The faculty of judging in general allows us to
think of the particular as contained under the general (rule, principle, law). When
the general is given first,the operation of judgment subsumes and determines the
particular. It is determinant (bestimmend), it defines, narrows, comprehends,
16
The Parergon
compresses. In the opposite assumption, reflective (reflectirend)judgment begins
with the particular and must return, retrace the way to the general: the example
(what matters to us here) is given prior to the law, and may thus be revealed in its
exemplary unity. Current scientific or logical discourse proceeds according to
determinant judgments, the examples follow in order to determine or, in a
didactic drawing, to illustrate. But in art and in life, any place where we must,
according to Kant, proceed by means of reflective judgments and assume (by
analogy with art: we will return to this rule later) an end whose concept is not
given, the example precedes. The result is a singular historicity and (taking into
account the simulacrum) a certain ficture (regulated, relative) of the theoretical
I
on the authority of this reflective break, I begin my reading of the third Critique
with some examples.
Nothing as yet allows us to determine whether this obedience is perverse or
not.
I begin therefore with some examples: not with the Introduction, which
gives the laws, nor with the beginning of the book (the Analytic of the Beautiful).
Nor with the middle, nor the end, but somewhere near the conclusion of the
Analytic of the Beautiful, with paragraph 14, entitled "Exemplification" (Eclaircissement
par des exemples; Erlaiiterung durch Beispiele).
Kant's obvious intention is to clarify the structure of "the proper object of
the pure judgement of taste" (den eigentlichen Gegenstand des reinen Geschmacksurtheils).
I am not even going to cite every example, only a few, and I provisionally
set aside his extremely convoluted theory of color and sound, of drawing and
composition, which comes between the two fragments which I translate here.
Unless in the process it is broached. In any case, I will assume it has been read.
"Aesthetic, just like theoretical (logical) judgements, are divisible into
empirical and pure. The firstare those by which agreeableness or disagreeableness,
the second those by which beauty, is predicated of an object or its mode of
representation. The former are judgements of sense (material aesthetic judgements),
the latter (as formal) alone judgements of taste proper.
"A judgement of taste, therefore, is only pure so far as its determining
ground is tainted with no merely empirical delight [Wohlgefallen]. But such a
taint is always present where charm [Reiz] or emotion have a share in the
judgement by which something is to be described as beautiful.
17
OCTOBER
"All form of objects of sense (both of external and also, mediately, of internal
sense) is either figure or play. In the latter case it is either play of figures (in space:
mimic and dance), or mere play of sensations (in time). The charm of colours, or
of the agreeable tones of instruments, may be added: but the design in the former
and the composition in the latter constitute the proper object of the pure
judgement of taste. To say that the purity alike of colours and of tones, of their
variety and contrast seem to contribute to beauty, is by no means to imply that,
because in themselves agreeable, they therefore yield an addition [supplement] to
the delight in the form [Wohlgefallen an der Form] and one on a par with it. The
real meaning rather is that they make this form more clearly, definitely, and
completely intuitable, and besides stimulate the representation by their charm, as
they excite and sustain the attention directed to the object itself.
"Even what is called ornamentation [Zierathen:decoration, ornamentation,
adornment] (parerga), i.e. what is only an adjunct, and not an intrinsic constituent
in the complete representation of an object, in augmenting the delight of taste
does so solely by means of its form. Thus it is with the frames [Einfassungen] of
pictures or the drapery on statues, or the colonnades of palaces. But if the
ornamentation does not itself enter into the composition of a beautiful form-if it
is introduced [simplement applique] like a gold frame [goldene Rahmen] merely
to win approval for the picture by means of its charm-it is then called finery
[parure; Schmuck] and takes away from the genuine beauty." 9
the theorymovesalong smoothly
1
- Ithus the draperyon statues-for example-would
be ornamentation: parerga.
Elsewhere Kant explains the necessity of his recourse to archaic, scholarly
languages. Here Greek confers something approximating conceptual dignity on
the notion of the hors d'oeuvre which does not remain simply outside of the work,
acting from the sidelines, next to the work (ergon). Dictionaries most often give
9. Kant, Critique, pp. 65-8.
18
:?i:::-:::i:_--::::::-::
':::::::::-:_::__::::_??::::::::-:il:::
OCTOBER
"hors d'oeuvre," which is the most literal translation, but also "accessory, foreign,
or secondary object," "supplement," "aside," "remainder." It is that which
should not become, by distinguishing itself, the principal subject: the legal
education of children (Laws, 766a), or the definition of science (Theatetus, 184a)
should not be treatedas parerga. In the investigation of causes or the knowledge of
principles, parerga should not be allowed to take precedence over the essential
(Nicomachean Ethics, 1098-30). Philosophical discourse is always against the
parergon. But what is it against.
A parergon is against, beside, and above and beyond the ergon, the work
accomplished, the accomplishment of the work. But it is not incidental; it is
connected to and cooperates in its operation from the outside.
[...]
If the parergon, this supplementary hors d'oeuvre, has something like the
status of a philosophical concept, then it must designate a general formal
predicative structure which may be carried over, either intact or consistently
deformed, reformed, to other fields, where new contents may be submitted to it.
Kant uses the word parergon elsewhere: the context is very different, but the
structure is analogous and equally problematic. We find it in a lengthy note
appended to the second and subsequent editions of Religion within the Limits of
Reason Alone. The form in which it occurs is extremely important.
To what is the Note appended? To a "General Observation" which concludes
Part Two.
What is the parergon? It is the concept of the observation, of this "General
Observation," insofar as it defines what augments Religion within the Limits of
Reason Alone while being neither part of it nor absolutely extrinsic to it. Each
Part includes a "General Observation" (Allgemeine Anmerkung), parergon on a
parergon. Since there are four Parts, these four Observations on parerga, hors
d'oeuvres, "adjuncts" which areneither internal nor external, effectively frame the
work, but also square it.
At the beginning of the Note appended in the second edition to the first
"General Observation," the status of the Observation is definedas parergon: "This
General Observation is the firstof four which are appended, one to each Book of
this work, and which might bear the titles, (1) Works of Grace, (2) Miracles,
(3) Mysteries, and (4) Means of Grace. These matters are, as it were, parerga to
religion within the limits of pure reason; they do not belong within it, but border
upon it [aber stossen doch an sie an: they touch upon it, put pressure on it, press
against it, seek contact, exert pressure at the boundary]. Reason, conscious of her
inability to satisfy her moral need, extends herself to high-flown ideas capable of
supplying this lack [Mangel], without, however, appropriating these ideas as an
extension of her domain [Besitz: possession]. Reason does not dispute the
possibility or the reality of the objects of these ideas; she simply cannot adopt them
into her maxims of thought and action. She even holds that, if in the inscrutable
realm of the supernatural there is something more than she can explain to herself,
20
The Parergon
which may yet be necessary as a complement to her moral insufficiency, this will
be, even though unknown, available to her good will. Reason believes this with a
faith which (with respect to the possibility of this supernatural complement)
might be called reflective; for dogmatic faith which proclaims itself as a form of
knowledge appears to her dishonest or presumptuous. To remove the difficulties,
then, in the way of that which (for moral practice) stands firmin and for itself, is
merely a by-work (parergon), when those difficulties have referenceto transcendent
questions." 10
"By-work" is the translation of Nebengeschdfte: secondary business or
busyness, activity or operation from the sidelines or nearby. The parergon
inscribes something extra, exterior to the specific field (here, of pure reason and
Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone), but whose transcendent exteriority
touches, plays with, brushes, rubs, or presses against the limit and intervenes
internally only insofar as the inside is missing. Missing something and is itself
missing. Since reason is "conscious of her inability to satisfy her moral need," she
has recourse to the parergon, to grace, mysteries, miracles. She requires a
supplementary "by-work." Certainly the adjunct is a threat. Its function is critical.
It entails a risk and enjoys itself at the expense of transforming the theory. A
damage, an injury [prejudice; Nachteil] corresponds to each parergon in Religion,
and the four classes of prejudice correspond to the four kinds of parerga: 1. to
supposed internal experience (effects of grace), fanaticism, 2. to supposed external
experience (miracles), superstition, 3. to supposed light of understanding of the
supernatural order, illuminism, 4. to supposed supernatural actions (through
grace), thaumaturgy. Nevertheless, these four deviations or seductions of reason
are also aimed at a particular pleasure: pleasure-unto-God [gottgefdlliger Ab-
sicht].
Thus,
the drapery on statues, a privileged example, would function as parergon, as
ornamentation. This means (das heisst) precisely what is not interior or intrinsic
(innerlich), in the sense of an integral component (als Bestandstiick), to the
complete representation of the object (in die ganze Vorstellung des Gegenstandes),
but which belongs to it only in an extrinsic fashion (nur iusserlich), as a surplus,
an addition, an adjunct (als Zuthat).
10. Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. T. M. Greene and H. H.
Hudson, New York, Harper & Row, 1960, pp. 47-9.
21
OCTOBER
The drapery on statues, which simultaneously adorns and veils their nudity,
is hors d'oeuvre clinging to the work's edges as to the body represented, but-so
the argument goes-not a part of the representative whole. What is represented by
the representation is the nude body, au naturel; the representational essence of the
statue tallies with it; and only in it may the representation be beautifulessentially,
purely, and intrinsically beautiful, "the proper object of a pure
judgement of taste."
This definition of the center and of the integrity of the representation, of its
inside and outside, may already appear peculiar. We may ask as well where the
drapery begins. Where a parergon begins, and where it ends. Whether all drapery
is parergon-G-strings and the like. What to do with absolutely transparent veils.
And how to transpose the statement to painting. For example, Cranach's Lucretia
holds nothing but a flimsy transparent veil over her sex: where is the parergon?
Must we also consider a parergon-not part of her nude body, au naturel-the
dagger which she points at herself and which touches her skin (only the point of
the parergon touches her body, in the middle of a triangle formed by her two
breasts and her navel)? Is her necklace also a parergon? It concerns the objectifying,
representational essence, its inside and outside, the criteria used in this
definition, the value attributed to the natural, and, either secondarily or principally,
the privileged position of the human body. If every parergon is added, as
proved in Religion, only because of a lack within the system it augments, then
what deficiency in the representation of the body does drapery supplement? And
what has art to do with it?
Our surprise at this paragraph has only begun. (Parergon also signifies the
exceptional, the peculiar, the extraordinary.) I have somewhat too hastily torn
"drapery" from the context of three examples, three parerga which are no less
strange-first in themselves, and in relation to one another. The example which
follows immediately is that of the colonnades of palaces (Siulenginge um
Prachtbdude). These columns are also supplementary parerga. After drapery, the
column. Why should the column be external to the edifice? According to what
criterion, what critical organ, what organon of discernment? It is no less obscure
than in the preceding case and presents yet another difficulty: in this case the
parergon augments a work which represents nothing and which itself augments
nature. We believe we know what is part and what is not part of the human body,
what may be detached from it and what may not-even if the parergon is precisely
a detachment which is not easily detached. But in an architectural work, the
Vorstellung, the representation, is not structurally representational-or it is, but
according to a detour so complicated that it would undoubtedly disconcert anyone
who wanted to distinguish, in a critical manner, the inside from the outside, the
integral from the detachable. So as not to complicate this even further, I set aside,
provisionally, columns in the form of the human body supporting or representing
the support of a window (and the window itself-is it part of the edifice?And a
window in a painting of a building?), and which may be nude or draped and may
represent either a man or a woman-a distinction to which Kant does not allude.
22
iiiibi::::i::iiiii
i--:I S;i:is
a?I -??I
Ciil"
Li,P. ' li4 dPi 1.
L:
7f
:: ::: ?-?::
4
fl
ii
Lii
S
::':
iii
- I:
b,
3? B
W
Liii:-L-C
Q/1RliBgfBI l
?: g
:: F:ps:a
c ii:
-?--I:I.
:::, D:'i
ia
iL%""
- l"a""B%Ess'l:;.:
j:::1:
I;; J?;:i:-
.::::
i
?iiild 9il
i
:i 13::I? ' i -cis
i:--
Qli
;3AC
,i ?.s -'i9?"
-ii-;- :-iiii:--
"iS:,i
1:i
-i?- :::::
Ii-c
OCTOBER
With the example of the colonnade, we encounter the entire problematic of
inscription in a milieu, of distinguishing the work from a ground. It is always
difficult to determine whether the ground is natural or artificial and, in the latter
case, whether it is parergon or ergon. The ground, even if it is contiguous with the
work, does not constitute a parergon in the Kantian sense. The natural site chosen
for the erection of a temple is obviously not a parergon. Nor is an artificial site:
neither the square, nor the church, nor the museum, nor the other surrounding
works. But drapery or the column, yes. Why?Not because they are easily detached;
on the contrary, they are very difficult to detach. Without them, without their
quasidetachment, the lack within the work would appear or, what amounts to the
same, would not appear. It is not simply their exteriority that constitutes them as
parerga, but the internal structural link by which they are inseparable from a lack
within the ergon. And this lack makes for the very unity of the ergon. Without it,
the ergon would have no need of a parergon. The lack of the ergon is the lack of a
parergon, of drapery or columns which nevertheless remain exterior to it. How do
we determine the role of energeia?
May we attach the third example to this series of examples, to the question
which they raise?The third is in fact the first-I have proceeded in reverse.It is, at
least apparently, difficult to associate with the other two. It is the frames of
paintings (Einfassungen der Gemilde). The frame:parergon like the others. This
series may be surprising. How do we assimilate the function of the frame to that of
drapery on (in, around, or against) sculpture, and to that of columns surrounding
an edifice? And what about a frame which frames a painting representing a
building surrounded by columns in the form of draped human figures? The
incomprehensibility of the border, at the border, appears not only at the inner
limit, between the frame and the painting, the drapery and the body, the column
and the building, but also at its outer limit. Parerga have a thickness, a surface
which separates them not only, as Kant would have it, from the body of the ergon
itself, but also from the outside, from the wall on which the painting is hung, the
space in which the statue or column stands, as well as from the entire historic,
economic, and political field of inscription in which the drive of the signature
arises (an analogous problem, as we will see later). No "theory," no "practice," no
"theoretical practice" can be effective here if it does not rest on the frame, the
invisible limit of (between) the interiority of meaning (protected by the entire
hermeneutic, semiotic, phenomenological, and formalist tradition) and (of) all the
extrinsic empiricals which, blind and illiterate, dodge the question.
The parergon is distinguished from both the ergon (the work) and the
milieu; it is distinguished as a figure against a ground. But it is not distinguished
in the same way as the work, which is also distinguished from a ground. The
parergonal frame is distinguished from two grounds, but in relation to each of
these, it disappears into the other. In relation to the work, which may function as
its ground, it disappears into the wall and then, by degrees, into the general
context. In relation to the general context, it disappears into the work. Always a
24
4r---
I I I
i
.
I 1.
7
I j
I ::
: :
I
: , t
- -?..;?---?--?---?-;--II
Z
OCTOBER
form on a ground, the parergon is nevertheless a form which has traditionally
been determined not by distinguishing itself, but by disappearing, sinking in,
obliterating itself, dissolving just as it expends its greatest energy. The frame is
never a ground in the way the context or the work may be, but neither does its
marginal thickness form a figure. At least, it is a figure which arises of its own
accord.
What would Kant have said about a frame which frames a painting
representing a building surrounded by columns (there are many examples) in the
form of the draped human figure (the frescoes in the vault of the Sistine Chapelwhat
is their frame?-are paintings in which the represented, painted object is
sculpture which itself represents, at Jonah's right for example, putti which form a
column supporting a ceiling, etc. The same applies to the Persian sibyl, to
Zachariah, who holds a book in his hand, to Jeremiah, and to the Libyan sibyl; it
is hard to say whether these putti-columns are draped or not; they support
drapery), and which is set on an easel-the whole thing represented in another
painting.
I may appear to be taking unfair advantage by persisting with two or three
possibly fortuitous examples from a secondary subchapter; it might be better to
deal with parts less marginal to the work, closer to its center and its depth. Of
course. But the objection presupposes that we already know what the center and
the depth of the third Critique are, that we have already located its frame and
delimited its field. Yet nothing is more difficult to determine. The Critique is a
work (ergon) in several ways; as such, it must center and frame itself, delimit its
ground by distinguishing itself, by means of a frame, from a general background.
However this frame is problematic. I do not know what is essential and what is
secondary to a work. Above all I do not know what this thing is which is neither
essential nor secondary, neither proper nor improper, which Kant calls parergon,
for example, the frame. What is the place of the frame. Does it have a place. Where
does it begin. Where does it end. What is its inner limit. Outer. And the surface
between the two limits. I do not know if the passage in the Critique which defines
parergon is itself a parergon. Before deciding what is parergonal in a text which
poses the question of the parergon, we must know what a parergon is, at least if
one occurs in the text.
For my impatient critics, if they insist on seeing the thing itself: every
analytic of aesthetic judgment presupposes that we can rigorously distinguish
between the intrinsic and the extrinsic. Aesthetic judgment must concern intrinsic
beauty, and not the around and about. It is therefore necessary to know-this is
the fundamental presupposition, the foundation-how to define the intrinsic, the
framed, and what to exclude as frame and beyond the frame. We are thus alreadyat
the unlocatable center of the problem. And since, when we ask, "What is a
frame?", Kant responds, "It is a parergon, a composite of inside and outside, but a
composite which is not an amalgam or half-and-half, an outside which is called
inside the inside to constitute it as inside." And when he gives as examples of the
26
The Parergon
parergon, besides the frame, drapery and columns, we say to ourselves that there
are indeed "considerable difficulties," and that the choice of examples, as well as
their association, is not self-evident.
All the more because the parergon, following the logic of the supplement,
divides into two. At the limit between the work and the absence of the work, it
divides into two. And this division gives rise to a sort of pathology of the parergon,
whose forms must be named and classified, just as Religion specified four types of
parergonal injuries or "prejudices." Kant is in effectin the process of defining "the
proper object of the pure judgement of taste." But he does not simply exclude the
parergon as such and in general. Only under certain conditions. Here the criterion
for exclusion is a formality.
What is meant by formality?
The parergon (frame, drapery, column) may augment the pleasure of taste
(Wohlgefallen des Geschmacks), may contribute to the intrinsically aesthetic
representation itself, if it intervenes by means of its form (durch seine Form), and
only by means of its form. If it has a "beautiful form," it enters into the judgment
of taste properly speaking, or in any case its intervention is essential. It is, if you
will, the normal parergon. But if, on the contrary, it is not beautiful, purely
beautiful, that is, formally beautiful, then it is mere finery (parure; Schmuck) and
tarnishes the beauty of the work, detracts from it and is unfair to it. It is the
analogue of the damage or "prejudice" (Nachteil) in Religion.
The example of the degradation into seductive fineryof the simple parergon
is again the frame, this time the gilded frame (goldene Rahmen), the gilding on
the frame which calls our attention to the painting by means of its charm (Reiz).
What is bad, therefore, and external to the pure object of taste is that which
seduces by charm; and the example of that which diverts by means of its charm is a
color, gilding, as nonform, sensible content, or matter. The deterioration of the
parergon-the perversion, the allure-is the charm of sensible content. As
drawing, the arrangement of lines and formation of angles, the frame is not
alluring at all and is indispensable. But to retain its purity, it must remain
without color, free from all sensible, empirical materiality.
This opposition form/matter dominates, as we know, the Critique as a
whole, inscribing it within a powerful tradition. According to The Origin of the
Work of Art, it is one of three determinations (hypokeimenon/sumbe bekos,
aistheton/noeton, eidos-morphe/hyle) which encroach violently upon the thing.
It provides a "conceptual schema" (Begriffschema) for every theory of art. We need
only associate the rational within the formal, the irrational with matter, the latter
with illogic, the former with logic, to connect the ensemble to the subject/object
pair, to set up a Begriffsmechanic which nothing can withstand. But what is the
region of origin of this determination of the thing as informed matter? Its
wholesale usage by aesthetics allows us to conceive of an origin far beyond the
realm of art. And the Christian creation myth contributes an "additional impulse,"
a supplementary motivation to consider the form/matter complex as the
27
OCTOBER
structure of every entity, l'ens creatum as the unity of forma and materia. Faith
having disappeared, the schemata of Christian philosophy remain forceful. "Thus
the interpretation of 'thing' by means of matter and form, whether it remains
medieval or becomes Kantian-transcendental, has become current and self-evident.
But for that reason, no less than the other interpretations mentioned of the
thingness of the thing, it is an encroachment [Ueberfall] upon the thing-being of
the thing. This situation stands revealed as soon as we speak of things in the strict
sense as mere things [blosse Dinge, naked things]. The 'mere' [bloss], after all,
means the removal [Entblossung] of the characterof usefulness and of being made.
The mere thing is a sort of equipment, albeit equipment denuded of its equipmental
being. Thing-being consists in what is then left over. But this remnant is not
actually defined in its ontological character ..." I
I_ and if the Ueberfall had the structure of the parergon?
This violent superimposition which falls aggressively upon the thing,
"insults" it, as the French translator strangely, but pertinently has it, enslaves it
and, literally, conjugates it under matter/form-is this a contingency, an accident,
or a necessity that remains to be examined? And what if, like the parergon, it
is neither one nor the other? And what if the remnant, in its structure as remnant,
might never be determined in itself, if it were no longer even necessary to scan this
horizon
I-- _the word
parergon occurs precisely (paragraphs 13 and 24) at the moment at which Kant
arrives at the distinction between material and formal judgments; only the latter
are constitutive of judgments of taste in the proper sense. It is self-evidently not a
11. Heidegger, "Origin," p. 30.
28
The Parergon
question of a formalist aesthetic (it could, from another point of view, be
demonstrated that the opposite is the case), but of formality as the space of
aesthetics in general, of a "formalism" which, rather than representing a specific
system, is confounded with the history of art and aesthetics itself. And formality
always implies the possibility of a system of framing which is simultaneously
imposed and effaced.
The question of the frame is already framed when it appears at this turn in
the Critique.
Why framed?
"Exemplification" (paragraph 14)belongs to the "Analytic of the Beautiful,"
Book I of the "Analytic of Aesthetic Judgement." This analytic of the beautiful
has four divisions, four sides, four moments. The judgment of taste is examined
from four sides: 1. according to quality, 2. according to quantity, 3. according to
relation to ends (here the parergon finds its accommodation), 4. according to
modality. According to quality, the beautiful is the object of a disinterested
Wohlgefallen; according to quantity, that which, without a concept, pleases
universally; according to the relation to ends, the form of finality without the
representation of an end (finality without end); according to modality, that which,
without a concept, is recognized as the object of a necessary Wohlgefallen.
Such is the categorical frame of this analytic of the beautiful. Where does it
come from? Who supplies it? Who constructs it? Where is it introduced from?
From the analytic of concepts in the Critique of Pure Reason. A brief
reminder: this analytic of concepts is one of two parts of the transcendental
analytic (transcendental analytic and dialectic, a division reproduced in the third
Critique: analytic and dialectic of aesthetic judgment). The transcendental
analytic comprises an analytic of concepts and an analytic of principles. The first
decomposes the power of understanding in order to encounter the possibility of a
priori concepts in their "country of birth," that is, understanding, where concepts
lie dormant and are held in reserve. Since (receptive) intuition alone is related
immediately to the object, understanding is related to objects by the intermediary
of judgments. Judgment is the mediated knowledge of an object. And we can
"refer all acts of understanding to judgements, in such a way that understanding
in general may be represented as a faculty of judging (Urteilskraft)." 12The power
to think as the power to judge. Thus we will find the functions of understanding
by determining the functions of unity in judgment. The concepts are related, as
predicates of possible judgments, to the representation of an object. Consequently,
by considering the simple form of understanding, abstracting from it the content
of judgments, we can establish the list of the forms of judgment under four
headings and twelve moments (four times three: the four-times-three also constructs
the table [Tafel] of the superior faculties at the end of the Introduction to
12. This citation from The Critique of Pure Reason is translated directly from Derrida's French
translation of Kant.
29
OCTOBER
the third Critique. In a note Kant answers those who object to his "threefold"
[dreiteilig] divisions and his taste for "trichotomy"; and three + one informs the
relation of the faculties required by the fine arts-imagination, understanding,
soul-with taste: "the firstthree faculties are firstbrought into union by means of
the fourth," as the note to paragraph 50 specifies): quantity (universal, particular,
singular), quality (affirmative, negative, indefinite), relation (categorical, hypothetical,
disjunctive), modality (problematic, assertive, apodictic). Table of twelve.
There are as many pure concepts of the understanding, originary and underivable
concepts, as there are logical functions in judgment. From which one deduces the
table of categories (as opposed to Aristotle's supposed grammatical empiricism)
beginning with the table of judgments.
Kant thus introduces this table, this tableau (Tafel), this board,'3this border
into the analytic of aesthetic judgment. The procedure is legitimate, since
judgments are concerned, but the transfer is not exempt from difficulties and an
artful sort of violence: a logical frame has been transposed and forced upon a
nonlogical structure, a structure which does not essentially concern a relation to
the object as an object of cognition. Aesthetic judgment, Kant insists, is not
cognitive judgment.
The frame doesn't fit. The difficulty is perceptible from the firstparagraph of
the book, from the "First moment of the judgement of taste considered from the
point of view of quality." "The judgement of taste is aesthetic": in which case,
unique, not provided for by the analytic of concepts and of judgments in the other
Critique; the judgment is not a "cognitive judgement." Thus it does not belong to
the transcendental logic from which the board was borrowed.
The violence of framing proliferates. It confines the theory of aesthetics
within a theory of the beautiful, the theory of the beautiful within a theory of
taste, and the theory of taste within a theory of judgment. These decisions might
be called external: the delimitation has far-reaching consequences, but even at this
cost a certain internal coherence may be retained. Another act of framing which,
by the introduction of the border, violated the interior of the system and distorted
its proper articulations, would not have the same effect. In looking for a
rigorously effective grip, we must therefore firstconcern ourselves with this frame.
Thus in the course of the final delimitation (the theory of taste as the theory
of judgment) Kant applies an analytic of logical judgments to an analytic of
aesthetic judgments while at the same time insisting on their mutual irreducibility.
He never justifies this framing, nor the restraint it artificially imposes upon a
discourse which continuously threatens to exceed its boundaries. In the firstnote
on the first page, Kant states that the logical functions of judgment have served
him as a guide (Anleitung). This note alludes to a difficulty so decisive that it is
unclear why it did not constitute the principal text for which it forms the
fundamental bass, that is, the unwritten or underwritten space, the alleged scope
13. In English in the original.
30
The Parergon
of the harmonics: "The definition of taste here relied upon is that it is the faculty
of estimating the beautiful. But the discovery [entdecken] of what is required for
calling an object beautiful must be reservedfor the analysis of judgements of taste.
In my [intervention of the first person in a footnote] search for the moments to
which attention is paid by this judgement in its reflection, I have followed the
guidance of the logical functions of judging (for a judgement of taste always
involves a reference to understanding). I have brought the moment of quality first
under review, because this is what aesthetic judgement of the beautiful looks to in
the first instance."14
The reference to this note is in the title "First moment of the judgement of
taste considered from the point of view of quality." Thus the note in a certain way
precedes the text of the argument, it is relatively detached from it. It is the same
with the parenthesis which it includes: "(for a judgement of taste always involves
a reference to understanding)." This parenthesis (inserted within a note which is
neither inside nor outside the argument, neither inside nor outside its content)
attempts to justify-and it is the only such attempt-the frame of the argument,
that is, the analytic of judgment whose border was hastily introduced at the
beginning of the argument.
Before the note and its parenthesis (before, if we scan the page from bottom
to top, but after if we stick to that order which places the note at the top of the
page, in the place of its reference), another, briefer parenthesis creates a pocket in
the so-called principal text, invaginates it in some way: "If we wish to discern
whether anything is beautiful or not, we do not referthe representation of it to the
Object by means of understanding with a view to cognition, but by means of the
imagination (acting perhaps in conjunction with understanding). We refer the
representation to the subject and its feeling of pleasure or displeasure." 15
The two parentheses, parerga inside and outside the argument, have the
same object, the same end: the (quite visibly embarrassed)justification of the frame
introduced, the analytic imposed in order to transfer the table and to adjust the
border, the unsupported claim of a hypothetical "liaison" with understanding, to
which the judgment of taste, even if there is nothing logical about it, is "always"
related.
Like a long-standing relationship which is difficult to break, or a secondhand
frame which may be difficult to sell but which must at all costs be placed.
The frame of this analytic of the beautiful with its four moments was thus
provided by the transcendental analytic for the single, unhappy reason that
imagination, the essential resource in relation to beauty, may perhaps be linked
with understanding, that some understanding may perhaps still reside within it.
The relation with understanding, which is neither certain nor essential, provides
the frame for the entire discourse and, within it, for the discourse on the frame.
14. Kant, Critique, p. 41.
15. Ibid.
31
ff /
A1.
The Parergon
Not to force the point, but to describe a certain forcing on Kant's part, we will say
that the entire frame of the analytic of the beautiful functions, with respect to that
which determines content or internal structure, like a parergon; it has all the right
characteristics: neither simply interior not simply exterior; not falling to one side
of the work, as we might say of an exergue; indispensable to energeia to liberate
surplus value because it confines the work (all contracts and firstof all the contract
of painting presuppose a process of framing; and to be effective here the work of
deconstruction cannot dispense with a theory of the frame); summoned and
assembled like a supplement because of the lack-a certain "internal"
indetermination-in the very thing it enframes. This lack, which cannot be
determined, localized, situated, halted inside or outside before the framing is, to
borrow concepts belonging precisely to the classical logic of the frame, and to
Kantian discourse, both produced by and production of the frame. If we apply to it
the rule defined in "Exemplification," and if it becomes in its turn an example of
what it allows us to consider as an example (framedescribed in the frame), we can
take the content of the analytic of judgment as a work of art, a tableau whose
frame, imported from the other Critique, plays the role of a parergon because of its
formal beauty. If it were only a charming, seductive, amusing exergue which did
not cooperate with the work itself, a pure depreciation of value and squandering
of surplus value, then it would be mere finery. But it happens that this very
analytic of judgment, in its frame, is what allows us to define the procedure of
formality, the opposition of the formal and the material, the pure and the impure,
the proper and the improper, the inside and the outside. The analytic determines
the frame as parergon, that which simultaneously constitutes and destroys it,
makes it hold (as in hold together, it constitutes, mounts, enshrines, sets, borders,
assembles, protects-so many operations assembled by the Einfassung) and fall at
the same time. A frame is in essence constructed and therefore fragile, this is the
essence or the truth of the frame. If such a thing exists. But this "truth" can no
longer be a "truth," it defines neither the transcendent nor the contingent
character of the frame, only its character as parergon.
Philosophy wants to examine this "truth," but never succeeds. That which
produces and manipulates the frame sets everything in motion to efface its effect,
most often by naturalizing it to infinity, in God's keeping (to be confirmed in
Kant). Deconstruction must neither reframe nor fantasize the pure and simple
absence of the frame. These two apparently contradictory actions areprecisely the
systematically indissociable ones of that which is presently deconstructed.
If the procedures initiated, if the criteria proposed by the analytic of the
beautiful depend upon this parergonality; if all the oppositions which dominate
the philosophy of art (before and after Kant) depend upon it for their pertinence,
their rigor, their purity, their propriety, then they will be affected by this logic of
the parergon which is more powerful than the logic of the analytic. We could
pursue the consequences of this infectious affection in detail. They cannot be
local. The reflective procedure written on the frame (this is-written about the
33
OCTOBER
frame): a general law which is no longer a mechanical or teleological law of
nature, of the accord or harmony of the faculties (etc.), but a certain repeated
dislocation, an irrepressible, regulated deterioration, which splits the frame in
general, embeds it in the corners of its angles and articulations, rendersits internal
limit external, takes its thickness into account, makes us see the painting from the
side of the canvas or the wood, etc.
To cite only the firstconsequence of this initial forcing, look at the end of the
first note (another parergon which frames both the text and the parenthesis). Just
as Kant cannot strictly justify the introduction from the analytic of judgment, he
is unable to justify the order he follows in applying the frame, the four categories
from the analytic of concepts. Like the transposition of the table (Tafel), that is,
the frame, the order of the argument does not successfully rationalize Kant's
interest in philosophic terms. His motivation is dissimulated behind arbitrary
philosophic decree. Indeed, the argument begins with the two mathematical
categories (quantity and quality). Why not begin with the two dynamic categories
(relation and modality)? And why reverse the orderof the mathematical categories
in the original argument (quantity before quality)? This last reversal is surely
explained by the fact that cognition is neither the end nor the effect of the
judgment of taste:quantity (here, universality) is not the first aspect of a judgment
of taste. At the end of the note: "I have brought the moment of quality firstunder
review, because this is what the aesthetic judgement on the beautiful looks to in
the firstinstance." 16 Why first?Priority is not prescribed by the table, by the order
of judgment, by the logic proper to the frame. Nothing in the (logical) analytic
can account for this priority. But if a reversal of the logical orderis produced here
for reasons which are not logical, why not pursue this? What is the rule here, or
the critical limit?
Quality (disinterest) is the very thing that determines the formality of the
beautiful object: it must be free of all charm, all power to seduce, it must not
provoke any emotion, allow any enjoyment. Thus the opposition between the
formal and the material, between line and color (as nonform), between composition
and sound (as nonform), the formal parergon and the material parergon, the
opposition between the good and the bad parergon (which in itself is neither good
nor bad) depends upon the framing of this quality, this framing-effect which we
call quality, aspect of aspects, according to which, violently, everything appears to
begin. Position: opposition: frame.
In "Exemplification" the discourse on sound and color develops, in similar
fashion, within the angle of the two mathematical categories (quality and
quantity), while the entire analytic of the beautiful undoes-incessantly and as if
unwittingly-the work of the frame.
Actually, the frame warps as it works. As a locus of work, an origin
structurally bordered with surplus value, that is, exceeded on both sides by that
16. Ibid.
34
The Parergon
which it exceeds, in effectit warps. Like wood. It splits, breaksdown, breaksup, at
the same time that it cooperates in the production of the product, it exceeds it and
deducts itself. It never simply exposes itself.
The analytic of the beautiful warps, constantly undoing the work of the
frame insofar as, while allowing itself to be cross-ruled by the analytic of concepts
and the doctrine of judgment, it describes the absence of the concept in the activity
of taste. "The beautiful is that which apart from concepts [sans concept] is
represented as the object of a Universal delight [Wohlgefallen]." This definition
(second moment, category of quantity) derives from the qualitative definition
(disinterest). The object of a disinterested pleasure does not depend on an
empirical inclination, but appeals to freedom and touches everyone in the place
where everyone-anyone-may be touched. It is therefore universal. However in
explaining why this universality must exist apart from concepts, Kant exhibits, as
it were, the forcing-the imposition of an analytic of concepts upon a process
without concepts-but justifies his operation with an argument which we may
consider as the constitution, that by which the entire edifice of the third Critique
stands and holds together between its two great wings (the critique of aesthetic
judgment and the critique of teleological judgment). This is analogy. It operates
everywhere in the book; its effect can be steadily checked. At this particular point
in the argument-this crossing-it assembles the conceptless and the concept,
universality without a concept and universality with a concept, the without and
the with; in this way it legitimizes the violence, the occupation of a nonconceptual
field by a conceptual force. Without and with at the same time (ama). As a result of
its qualitative universality the judgment of taste resembles logical judgment,
which in all strictness it can never be. The nonconceptual resembles the conceptual.
This rather strange resemblance, a singular proximity or affinity (Aehnlichkeit)
which, at some point17 to be determined later, extracts from mimesis an
interpretation of the beautiful which firmly rejects imitation. It involves no
contradiction that is not reappropriated by the economy of physis as mimesis.
Those who take a disinterested pleasure (without enjoyment and without
concept) in the beautiful "will speak of the beautiful as if beauty were a quality of
the object and the judgement logical (forming a cognition of the Object by
concepts of it); although it is only aesthetic, and contains merely a referenceof the
representation of the object to the subject;-because it still bears this resemblance
[Aehnlichkeit: affinity,proximity, paternity] to the logical judgement, that it may
be presupposed to be valid for all men. But this universality cannot spring from
concepts. For from concepts there is no transition to the feeling of pleasure or
displeasure (save in the case of pure practical laws, which, however, carry an
interest with them; and such an interest does not attach to the pure judgement of
taste)."18
17. cf. "Economimesis." (Author's note.)
18. Kant, Critique, p. 51.
35
OCTOBER
The discourse on color and on sound belongs to "Exemplification," which
comes during the exposition of the third category: the dynamic category of
finality. The judgment of taste is related to a purely formal finality, without any
concept and without any end, without any conceptual, determinant representation
of an end. Nevertheless the two mathematical categories are indispensable:
sound and color are excluded as alluring only in their nonformality, their
materiality. As pure form, sound and color may yield to universal appreciation, in
conformity with the quantity of a judgment of taste; they can give rise to
disinterested pleasure, in conformity with the quality of a judgment of taste.
Sensations of color and of sound can "with good reason" be held to be beautiful
insofar as they are "pure": this determination of purity concerns only the form,
which alone can "with certainty" be "universally communicated." 19We have two
means of access to formal purity: by a nonsensible, nonsensual reflection, by the
regular play of reflections, "assuming with Euler" that colors arevibrations of the
aether (pulsus) at regular intervals and assuming (formal analogy between sound
and color) that sound consists in a regular rhythm of vibrating aether. Kant had
the greatest difficulty deciding this point. However in this hypothesis we are not
dealing with the material contents of received sensations, but with formal
determinations. This is why the simple color is a pure color and thus belongs
within the beautiful, giving rise to universally communicable appreciation.
Composite colors cannot. The empiricist motif (that simple color does not give
rise to a transmissible perception) seems to have been reversed, but here it is not a
question of determinant perception, only of pleasure and of displeasure.
This ambivalence of color (valorized as formal purity or as relation, devalorized
as sensible matter; beautiful on the one hand, alluring on the other, pure
presence in both cases) is taken to the second power, squared when the color of the
frame (goldene Rahmen, for example) is concerned, when the equivocal parergon
of color is added to the equivocal parergon of the frame. What would be the
musical equivalent of this square
I it may be objectedthatframesare
not always, have not always been, and will not always be square, rectangular,
quadrangular-or even angular-figures. Tables and paintings (Tafel) as well.
19. Ibid., p. 66.
36
The Parergon
That is true: a systematic, critical, and typological history of framing appears
possible and necessary.20But the angular in general, the quadrangular in particular
do not simply form one object among others. Everything written here is valid
for the logic of the parergonal border in general, but the privilege of the "cadre,"
which seems more coincidential in Latin than the Germanic languages, is not
fortuitous
a Kantian
question: relation of the concept to the nonconcept (top/bottom, left/right), to the
body, to the signature which is placed "on" the frame: actually at times;
structurally always. The prosthesis
_I the third Critique no longer moves
smoothly as soon as we concern ourselves with the example, with this example of
the example which forms and is formed by the frame. If this does move smoothly
perhaps it is because things are not going verywell, because of an infirmity within
the thesis which requires compensation by a prosthesis. The progress of the
argument is assured only with the assistance of a wheelchair or baby carriage.
Thus, that which cannot stand alone, which cannot be established in its process, is
moved forward. Framing always sustains and contains that which, by itself,
collapses forthwith, cont
20. When "The Parergon" was first published, I had not yet read Meyer Schapiro's "On Some
Problems in the Semiotics of Visual Art: Field and Vehicle in Image-Signs," Semiotica, I, no. 3 (1969).
More than one indication will be found there concerning the "history" of framing, its "late
invention," the "cultural" character of the "rectangular frame," as well as "the frame that bends and
turns inward into the field of the picture to compress or entangle the figures (the trumeau of Souillac,
the Imago Hominis in the Echternach Gospels .. .)." I also refer-this is self-evident-to all of JeanClaude
Lebensztejn's publications. [Lebensztejn was the French translator of Schapiro's articletrans.]
(Author's note.)
37
OCTOBER
this is demonstrated by example,
by the problem of the example and of reflectivejudgment. What does the
Critique of Pure Reason say? That examples are the wheels (roulettes) of
judgment. French translators often say the "crutches" of judgment: but they are
actually wheels (Gdngelwagen), not skateboards but the little wheeled carriages
for children, the aged, or the infirm, those who do not have enough judgment,
good sense, that faculty of natural judgment that is most common (not the sensus
communis of the third Critique) which Kant calls Mutterwitz. Those who do not
have enough of this mother wit, the infirm, imbeciles, need wheels, examples.
"Examples are thus the wheels of the faculty of judging, and are indispensible to
those who lack this natural talent." Nevertheless wheels do not replace judgment:
nothing can replace mother wit, the lack of which cannot be supplied by any
school (dessen Mangel keine Schule ersetzen kann). These exemplary wheels are
thus prostheses which replace nothing. But like all examples (Beispielen), as
Hegel will remark, they play, give rise to play. With the essence, beside (beiher) the
essence, specifies Hegel. But in that case they can also reverse,become unbalanced,
turn natural movement into parergonal movement, deflectthe energy of the ergon,
introduce chance and the abyss into the necessity of Mutterwitz: not a contrary
order, but an aleatory separation which can with a single blow cause us to lose our
heads, a Russian roulette if we introduce pleasure without enjoyment, the death
instinct, and the work of mourning into the experience of the beautiful the
parergon-give it up for lost (faire son deuil). Like the wholly other of
heteroaffection, in pleasure without jouissance and without concept, it elicits and
delimits the work of mourning, work in general as the work of mourning .
Self-protection/self-adornment
I
I
reserve,economy,parsimony,preserve-self-protectionof thework(ergon),
contained restrained energy (the "binding" [Verbindung] of energy, condition of
I
38
The Parergon
the "mastery"[Herrschaft] of the pleasure principle: the result "is not simple"--to
be continued)
I the self-protection
of the work, of the energeia which only becomes ergon (because of) the
parergon: not opposed to free, full, pure, unchained energy (the pure act and total
presence of energeia, the Aristotelian prime mover), but opposed to what it lacks;
not opposed to the lack as a posable or opposable negativity, substantial void, or
determinable and contained absence (still verifiable essence and presence), but
against the impossibility of fixing diffrance in its contour, of halting heterogeneity
(differance) in place, of localizing, even in a metaempirical way, what
metaphysics calls (we have just seen it) lack, to make it return, equal or similar to
itself (adaequatio-homoiosis), to its proper place, following its own trajectory,
preferably a circular one (castration as truth). Apparently opposed-or because
opposed-these two bordering determinations of that against which the parergon
works (the operation of free energy and pure productivity or the operation of the
essential lack) are the same (metaphysics).
L-I beyond the frame(the lethargyof the
frame, its absolute value): naturalization of the frame. There is no natural frame.
There is framing, but the frame does not exist.
The parergon-apotrope (allure, display) of the primary processes, of free
energy, that is, of the "theoretical fiction." (Ein psychicher Apparat, der nur den
Primarvorgang besasse, existiert zwar unseres Wissens nicht und ist insoferne eine
theoretische Fiktion.) Thus only a particular application of the theoretical fiction
can warp and work (against) the frame, (make or allow) it to play (against) itself.
But we must not forget that the content, the object of this theoretical fiction (free
energy of the originary process, pure productivity) is metaphysics, onto-theology
itself. The application of the fiction always runs the risk of believing it, or in
39
OCTOBER
creating belief in it. The application of the fiction must therefore be careful not to
palm off metaphysical truth once again under the label of fiction. There is fiction
and fiction. Here, where there is play and work, we need an angle-diagonalityand
to disclose the angularity of round frames (some do exist). Hegel: mind is
linked to the apparition of the round form -
I
I41^--~~~~everything will blossom beside a deconsecrated
tomb: the free or vague (pulchritudo vaga) and nondependent (pulchritudo
adhearens) beauty of the flower. This will be, an arbitrary example, a colorless,
odorless tulip (even more securely than color, scent is lost for art and for the
beautiful [paragraph 53]-try to frame a scent) which Kant undoubtedly did not
pick in Holland but from a book by one Saussure, which he readfrequently at that
time. "A flower, on the other hand, zum Beispiel eine Tulpe, is regarded as
beautiful, because we meet with a certain finality in its perception, which, in our
estimate of it, is not referred to any end whatever" 21
indeed
21. Kant, Critique, p. 80.
40
::,,:::::::::::
i:_:----
:-::--:::---:iiiii-i-i-ii-iiiii-ii -:--.:'--:-?::'--'''-----:-':-ii:--- i-ii-::ii?B.,.',6'D-"?:?i 1
...-.-....--:.-.
i_??:;-?!-i-s:-: -?1-'?-.- i--i;i .-'.-- ,a ls?i--i::: ::.iiii:,:i:?;-:-:iiiiiii_.:..i:,ii:iiiiiiiijiiiii.jii:ii--i-iiii:i.i-i--iiiiiiiiiiiiii-iii.l-:-:::-::: ; 1:':'-;--:-i::-i:-:iliil_i:i?-,-----:-i--l-i
--:i-ici:i- -_-::_------:-:--:::-:-::.::1:::: i: :::::::::-:-ii :: ':?-:--i?..iiiiiii--i-.:.::-------:-:-iji-ili-i:._:::ii- s: -i-ili i:::::-_l:_l .- - ''? - i:- i- i- i:-__i,--::::_:::_::__-_:?__ii:ii:---i-iiiiis
Biz-i
:.a,::-::-:::::-i:-:-;-_-_:::--i :::i:i-iii:--
..
-:::i-ITi :,i?aii:_:i:iiiiiii
iiiii::c--l,:::: ii
:-_r--i:_..:.:-::-i-- iia-iiliiiii_i_i:i-i:_ii::lil:-iIl::fi-:i 'ii-?-8ii3-ii-i:i-:i:i
::-::-::
.: :...:..:-. i:_ ::is-ii?-iiiiii:_:-:-:::-:_: " ----- i--ii:::.iiiii--iii
;:x,,l.-i:a.-?i-I-:-----:ili4i!:_:::--ii-i:-; iiii.i:i--::ii---iil-li-ii:i:-ii_:- :::::i:i-i-::-'::::::i-::-:-::i-:l
:i-i-i_iiii-i-i_:i -iii:-:i--i-:i:s,_-iiiiiiii-i:-:i i'-:iiiii-i iiii--?:iiiii-:i'i-ii
'''''"'''":' i:ii.i--i--i-- -:-i--i?ii:i:ii-i:: :
ig g$-i?a_ii- :--ii---:i-i:-:-._.:-? ii:--i:i-ii:ii ::::--
::: ?:-i:--i:-_:::-,..::::_:::-:: iir
,iiiijiiiiiiiiiii-:i:i::::::iiiii-i-_i-_--iiii:::-i-:--i:_ii:_-ii_iiiii?iiii:iii.iiii-iii-i:.:i-:-::::::::::-i:--::iii.;..--ii;i-----:iliiii-:-::.:ir:--li--i-i iii,iiiii.-_-:;---:::?::: :-:. -:::::::-:_i:_i:,,--i,:i::':iiii--:ii:-:-i
-jij_j7j-:i_:jl:i?ili:i-.-ii:-i:-_:--li::iliiiii-iiiiili:--_:i:i:ii?-i--i:-::-:-:::-::: :_-:-:.. :i----iii::----;'---i--;-l::::-:-:--l-:;i-:::::: : :
-::::_.:I::: ,.. .. , :, ::: . ::i?::_i:i-:-i.::_:::-i-:-:-:il:::--:l--i. ..:-::-::---:::::::-:- _j:__:--i-:__
: ..
ii,liiiiiiiii:iiii,- :::-:-:::::: :::---::-:::::-:-::-:i:-:-i:i:::::::--ji-::-:::::--::.:..-:i:-:'d-i(iii?i::i:.:::.--:. -iii-i:i_iii:i ii:--:-:-i:i,..:i:--i.iiiii,::ii-iiiiii? ii-:-:ii:.,..- ::::.-::. ii?i
iiiiii:iii 'f:?iiiiiii:i:iii:-;-i-i------------
iiiii-'8iiiji-ij-ii i--i:-::-.:-:::-::--:-i--:i-i.?--.:..::--:---i::i::-:l-;;l:-!i:-l.--i::i:
iB *:iiiii-iii::ii_::iii__ij____:iiI--6-iiiiii_iii-:-i-:ii-i: : :: ::i:i::-i:i:':-: ::: :::-:_-:-:i-:-iiiii---i:.:: ::i:?---i:------
---:i:-_-:--:-:-..,::...-.. . ....i::::;:: asiiii'i ??:?:::1::::::-:::::_-::-_a:.-::-:::::-,::-:.--:::::::---i:Bii:ii--::::iij::_::iii_:ii__i:i_i:_:i_::_i:_ii_::I::_;
:-i.-.:.:..::-i_l-i:-:
:--:::ii----i:::i:-ii::.--:i:-:li-:::::-:::-r--" ::-::::-:_::_-:: --.-"' i-ii '::'-:-:-:::::':--:i--;::--:-::..-.-i:_i:ii:.-:ii--_:--:--:::::::: : --:-::i
::----:-?::::::--:-:-:-::g:::-:::::- -:i:iiiiI:.-?ifiii,iii,':i: .:.. iiii
i8"?i?:i?-r .-,.- ::-:li;L?8?::::::-:
iii:.ii-iiiiiii
-:s::::--i--i:-::_::..,..-,...,. i-i-i:i,iii-iiiiiiiii iii_iii-::iili::i-i
-- :: ii--:i-:-:::::::ii::iiiii-:-i..??.:
?-8.6'""* Ai::?- 1_:::ii:-:i::i-:i-li-iiiiiiii\_'-...-.._::-i::-:i:--
?;::: 'I:.-::I:ai::li,ii_-*h:i::----i-i--i-:i-i::ill-iiii:-::--i?:ii:i:-:::--i:-:i:i-iii::-iiiiii-i:i-:-:i-:i-i:i:::---::---::--:::::::--:i
iia-i-i:i-:i : :-::.--:-i-i-i-ii-ii--:-:i_:ii_-:ii_iii-li?
::::::-:-:::-i:-ii"i::i-iiii
::--i-i:j---.:::-::-_-i::'i-_:, ::-:IC -:i--i-iiiiiiiiiii:iiiisiiii:i:::"-'::'i':::-?':::::-::::::i_iiiii:--i
'":''"''"'' _ -'''--'"'-'-'''.--:-:--:--?:::::':::::-_:::.--
s-:s :iiii:i-liiiY-iiiiiiiiiii
::-: :i-i-i-i 1::;:_::::_:::?
.:_r_::::-::::1: i-i:::::-:..i
1.:.,..j,, ::
?i-:ii-i--ii
- -i-:i:i--:ii i ;iiiiii:i:i: -:::::-:-:-:-::
--iiiii:iii:-ii:- ,i:.,?i-i_-i:i
j -iin .-::-; .: _
___
:-:-:-::i-----:
-::-:- :-,--:,iiii:i
i:- ?
--:_.:i
6: i_
---:_ i--:::::-:i:i?i
:i?;::--i:i'i-i-i-i:iiii-i-i--i-::-i-s-i-i?i:i::-.- ::::,a-j -i.-:.?:_-:----_.--_---:::,,,--,__::::::-_?-_--:_-. . :-:_:
-::-i:ii?iiil-:ii:ii'"-:: ,:--:,::--,-:,---:::-::-:::il:::'l-:::::::---:-:-i--:i;::I: .:: -iaZi:i--i:i-i- --:-::----
.......,_ ii-
-:-:-i-i:i.:
.i-::::: :-?:. b:-_ii---:i-i
:::i:::1III-III;I: `iiiiii
..:: _:i:,-,--i:i----:,... :--:-:::::-:
i -:1::::
a 1 - ? -?-t a:::: :: :ii-iii-iiiiiiisi::.:::::-::-:-:-:,:?::-:::--
------::-:l-iiii-iii:i..__I-::l-::i::l:il:-j:I?O-:-:lli'-ii- ....::. :::sji---- -::iiiiiiLii ---'-':-:--:--::'-:iDi;i::iiiii:i:R:ii-liii:iiiiiiii-:iii--i..::..ii-iiii'-::::::--:----:::::-::-.::-- :
:::-:::-::iii:::l::l-:--i---;-:::li:_:i:--::_i:----:---'---::-----:-:--::'i-:::--i::i-:i-:i:-:i.:i-iiiii:::? O:-r-li:-_:-ii:--tiii::i::::?::-:: ,:."::: :,:-Y.:.- . ::. :::. i-i--:i-i:i:i--i?::i:i--:-::::-:::::i:::::::::::::-::::I::::::::1--::::-:-i-i-_:i-i-:-i-_:i-:_-,--i-i?-i-_:-:i:::-i:_---:-:--i--:i:ii-i--::::i-::-i:--':-i-iiii
-:-:::::_:_:-::?- ai.-;--:i- ,-i--i:_-ii---i:i-i-i:i -:-::-::::ii-i-i:-i-e--i-i-i:aiiiiiiii'z.:i:iiiiiiiiiiiiii--ii:liii_--:ii--ii;ii-i:i-i-iii--ii:li:;i:iii:-:iiii-ii:i:: --:::::i?ii::4
:_::::::::_,:-:- i?...,...,.-:iii_?:i::
8 :: ,,,i-I-.':- :.13:5.-.-?. :?_ ".Zi. :_-li ::::::::-i-i-i:i:i-i?i-i:ii.-i-i:i--i'i-i?i:i:-----:_
-_:::::i-:-i , : ::
: : : ::i::
,
:-::