THE DENIGRATION OF VISION iN TWENTIETH-CENTURY FRENCH THOUGHT Martin Jay UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY LOS ANGELES LONDON a a3 149 aun 263 329 381 435 493 543 587 595, Contents Acknowledgments Introduction ‘CHAPTER ONE: The Noblest of the Senses: Vision from Plato to Descartes CHAPTER TWO; Dialectic of EnLIGHTenment (CHAPTER THREE: The Crisis of the Ancien Scopic Régime: From the Impressionists to Bergson (CHAPTER FOUR: The Disenchantment of the Bye: Bataille and the Surrealists (CHAPTER FIVE: Sartre, MeeleauePonty, and the Search for a New Ontology of Sight CHAPTER St: Lacan, Althusser, and the Specular Subject of Ideology CHAYTER SEVEN; From che Empire of the Gaze to the Society of the Spectacle: Foucault and Debord (CHAPTER EIGHT: The Camera as Memento Mori: Barthes, Metz, and the Cahiers du Cinéma CCHANTER NINE: “Phallogocularcentrism": Dertida and Irigaray (CHAPTER TEN: The Ethics of Blindness and the Postmodern Sublime: Levinas and Lyotard Conclusion IndexIntroduction Even a rapid glance at the language we commonly use will demonstrate the ubiquity of visual metaphors. If we actively focus our attention on them, vigilandly keeping an eye out for those deeply embedded as well as those on the surface, we can gain an illuminating insight into the complex. mirroring of perception and language. Depending, of course, on one's ‘oudook o point of view, the prevalence of such metaphors will be ac- ‘counted an obstacle or an aid ro aur knowledge of reality. fc is, however, no idle speculation or figment of imagination to claim that ifblinded to their importance, we will damage our ability to inspect the world outside and introspect the world within. And our prospects for escaping their thrall, if indeed thac is even a foreseeable goal, will be greatly dimmed, In lieu of an exhaustive survey of such metaphors, whose scope is far t00 broad to allow an easy synopsis, this opening paragraph should sug- {gest how ineluctable the modality of the wisual actualy is, at least in our linguistic practice. I hope by now that you, optique lecteur, can see what I mean.! 1. There are some rwenry-one visual metaphors in this paragraph, many of them ‘embedded in words thacno longer seem directly dependent on them. Thus, forex ample, vigilant is derived from the Latin vigilere, 10 watch, which in its French form weilleris the root of surveillance. Demonstrate comes from the Latin monstrare, 0 show. lnspers, prospec, intraspec (and other words like aspect or circumspect all detive from the Latin specere tolook ator observe, Specelate has the sire root, Sepe comes from the Latin sopium, 9 translation of a Greck word for to look at o¢ examine, ‘Synopsis from che Greee word for general view. These arc larenc or dead metaphors, 1‘sing: For example, the psychologists Michacl Argyle and Mark Cook have tecently concluded that “the use of che gaze in human social beh. ior docs not vary much berween cultutes: eis a cultural universal” Boe fhe implications of the work of another paychologis, James Gibson, sug Best otherwise. Gibson contrasts cwo basic visual pricties, which pro. dluce what he calls “the visual world” and the “visual field” In rhe formes sight is ecologically interewined withthe other senses to generate ths experience of “depth shapes.” wheres inthe later sight ie devacted by faating the eyes to produce “projected shapes” instead. A plate for Sraple willbe experineed as round in the visual wotld, but at anclipee tures might be differentiated acording co how radically they distinguish between the visual field and the visual world, But whether we identify che lter wich “aatura” vision is no seleyi- stent. Ina series of essays, the philosopher Marx Wastofsky has argued for ‘radically cultucalist reading ofall visual experience, inching Gibson fre dondiant modes." Alternately talking about “visual posture” “vis sual scenarios,” “syes of sexing,” or “culsral optics,” he concludes ther 10 ames. Gtbson, The Peeption ofthe Vial World (Boston, 1950); Senses Conde Tae spel ers Boston, 1968); The Eloi Appmach o Vinal oven ree Fo ascset defense of Gibon se Jn Hel, Perpion and Coons, tion (Betkeey, 1983), dada Wet “Picts, Representations and the Understanding” Logi cae rt Ese in Hor of Nelo Goodman, eR. Raulner and Scheffer fade Tapes 1972) “Pecsption, Representation and che Forme of Action, Tawar og ‘isovcalEpsemoogy” in is Medes Repraeuon and ihe Sonic Usa ‘ne Beston, 1972); "Pieucing and Representing in Pipeion nnd Pag a lation od. Calvin E Nodine and Dennis F ister (New York, 1979), Vere pace The Role of Recension in Vinal Reception,” in The Penis af Pinar cl M, Hagen, vl. 2 (New York, 1980); Cameras Cal Ser: Repro 4° nteopuction “human vision is itself an artifact, produced by other artifacts, namely pictures." All perexption, he contends, is the result of historical changes jn representation. Wareofsky thus presents an intentionalist account of visuality, which verges on making it a product of collective human will. Judging from the current state of scientific research on sight, which helps in concepeualizing the “natural” capacities and limitations of the «ee, Wartofsky’s hostility to any physiological explanation of human vi- sual experience may, however, be excessive. Certain fairly fundamental characteristics seem ro exist, which no amount of cultural mediation can radically alter. As a diurnal animal sanding on its hind legs, the early hhuman being developed its sensorium in such a way as to give sight an ability to differentiate and assimilate most external stimuli in a way supe- rior to the other four senses.“ Smell, which is so important for animals on, tion, Photography and Human Vislon.” Aferimage, 7, 9 (1980), pp. 8-9; “Sight, Symlon STs aurea pins vote es (1981), pp. 23-385 “The Paradox of Painting: Pictorial Representation and the Di- mensional of Visual Space” Soil Rear, 51, # (Winter, 198). p. 865-83, For sin pls for curl poston se Robes D. Romany The Dex potic Eye: An Ilustration of Merabletic Phenomenology and ts Implications,” in The Changing Reality of Madern Mans ed Dreyer Keuges (Cape Town, 1984), and “Techmalogy as Symptom and Dream (Landon, 1989). 12, Warcofiky, “Pieuring and Representing” p. 314 helpful recent suenmaries ofthe status of scientific knowicdge abour vision, Se MH ican, Poon ane anion oh nae lea Gravel Deciphering the Sense The Expanding Wold of Human Perio (New York, 1980); Anthony Smith, The Body (London, 1985; John ry Seng: sion. Bais and Mind (Ono, 1980); Seven Pikes, e., Vinal Coitn (Can bridge, Mass, 1985); Wate J. Freeman, “The Physiology of Perception,” Siemfic American 264, 2 (Febuary, 1991). Cowie ly pcholgncdty Ne Chomsky has also attempted to establish a modula concept of the mind in wl Stelpeapon send eunivataan Secon tn nee Medilarny of Mind: An Essay on Faculty rchology (Cambridge, Mass, 1983). 14, The anthropologist Edvard T, Hall has conjectused char even before hominids sod on their hid les won was important: “Orginal a gound-dveling ani mal ms ancecor wa aed byitenpeit competion and changes ia she evi ronment to deser the ground and take tthe tees. Arboral life calls for keen vision and decreases dependence on smell, which is crucial for cerrestial organisms. Thus INTRODUCTION 5,