Comments and Questions to: John Protevi
LSU French Studies
Protevi
Home Page
Classroom use only. Do not cite w/o permission.
March 30, 1999
RS = regime of signs
AM = abstract
machine
MA = machinic assemblage [=social
machine]
CAE = collective assemblage of enunciation
[=form of expression]
MAB = machinic assemblage of
bodies [=form of content]
PC = plane of
consistency
DT = deterritorialization
RT = reterritorialization
I. Necessity of pragmatics
(111a)
A. Assemblages as primary
1. Regime of signs (RS) = a specific formalization of
expression
2. Always accompanied by a form of content
B. No privilege to semiology = signifier RS
C. Necessity of pragmatics
II. Signifier regime (112a-117a)
A. Signifiance:
1. redundancy of sign w/ sign
2. Network of signs forms an “amorphous continuum”
a. sets up the signified as relay of signifiers
b. functions as wall on which specific forms of content are
dissolved
i. that is, no longer any distinction between MABs
ii. thus the imperialism of the signifier: any "word" can apply to any "thing"
(cf. ATP 3, p. 66)
3. Tragic regime of infinite debt (113a)
B. Multiplicity of circles and chains of signs (113b)
1. Everything is connected (Hopi example)
2. Distinction between circles due to
a. different speeds of deterritorialization attesting to an origin
(temple, palace ....)
b. differential relations (private/public ...)
3. Fundamentality of deception
a. Hysteric operation of deceiver as subject
b. Paranoid operation of despot at center
C. Interpretation (114a): expansion of circles; production of more
signifier
1. Interpretive priest
2. Ultimate signified = the signifier itself
a. Interpretation subordinated to signifiance
b. E.g. psychoanalytic silence
D. Center of signifiance (114c): faciality as its substance of
expression
1. Crystallizes all redundancies
2. Body of the center of signifiance
3. Icon: reterritorialization of the signifier, the
deterritorialized sign
4. Fuels interpretation
5. Publicity of the face of the despot
E. Counter body of the tortured or excluded (115a):
1. becoming-molecular
2. Incarnates intolerable line of flight: absolute
deterritorialization
3. Must be blocked or rendered negative (scapegoat)
F. Recap of eight principles of signifier regimes (117a):
1. Signifiance
2. Circularity
3. Metaphor/hysteria
4. Interpretation
5. Despotic signifier
6. Faciality
7. Scapegoat
8. Universal deception
III. Introduction of other regimes
(117b-121a)
A. Presignifying (primitive tribes) (117b)
B. Countersignifying (nomad war-machine) (118a)
C. Postsignifying (details later) (119a)
IV. Insistence on studying mixtures of RS
(119a)
V.
Characteristics of postsignifying regimes (119b-127)
A. 19th C psychiatry first to isolate this regime (119a-120a)
B. Characteristics of postsignifying regime (121a-127)
1. Detached packet of signs (121a)
a. Jewish history: destruction of the Temple (122a)
b. Ark as mobile temple: packet of signs
c. Jewish specificity
(1) Relations to countersignifying nomads
(2) And to imperial signifying regime (nostalgia)
2. Transformation of faciality (123a):
a. mutual turning away
b. existence under reprieve
c. betrayal, not deception
(1) Active delusion of the prophet (124a)
(2) Question of Oedipus (124b)
(3) Christianity as mixed semiotic (imperial signifying and Jewish
postsignifying) (125a-126d)
(a) Heresies: Deterritorialization
(b) Richard III
(c) Betrayal and discovery (126a)
(d) Reformation (126b)
(e) Return to Old Testament (126c)
3. The book: body of passion (126d) vs. face as body of
signifier
C. Recap of characteristics of postsignifying regime (127a)
1. Point of subjectification (vs. center of signifiance)
2. Doubled subjects (vs signifier / signified)
a. of enunciation (from point of subjectification)
b. of the statement (related to first subject)
3. Linear proceeding (vs circularity)
VI. Detailed examination of
post-signifying regimes (128-133)
A. Examples (128)
1. Jews vs. empires
2. Modern/Christian philosophy (Descartes)
3. 19th C psychiatry
B. Process: (129a)
1. Point of subjectification
a. Can be anything
(1) anoxeric: food
(2) fetishist: clothing
(3) lover: faciality trait (the “gleam in the eye”)
b. Must display characteristics of double turning away; betrayal;
existence under reprieve (cf 123a)
2. Subjects (doubling and recoil: collective or particulary
individuation)
a. of enunciation
(1) (function of mental reality determined by starting point of the
passion)
(2) [=one who does the speaking and shapes the reality as perceived in the
passion]
b. of the statement
(1) (bound to statements conforming to a dominant reality [of which a) is
part)
(2) [=one who is subjected to the reality formed by subject of
enunciation]
3. Series of finite linear proceedings (from interaction of two
subjects)
4. Results in immanence of power; operates through
normalization
C. Examples/Critiques (130a)
1. Althusser
2. Benveniste
3. Psychoanalytic cogito (130b)
D. Two axes of post-signifying regime (131a)
1. Pure cases
a. Consciousness as passion (syntagmatic): doubling/recoiling of
subjects: celibate
b. Love as passion (paradigmatic): doubling/recoiling of subjects:
no use for cness/reason
2. As found in mixed semiotics (132a)
a. Passional love couple falls into domestic squabble (conjugality
of couple)
b. Passional consciousness falls into persecution (bureaucratization
of cogito)
c. Contained in each other: amorous bureaucracy and bureaucratic
couple
E. Difference of signifying and postsignifying regimes
(132a-134)
1. Redundancy
a. Signifier redundancy is frequency of signifiance
b. Passional redundancy is resonance of subjectivity
2. Movement of deterritorialization
a. Relative DT in signifying regime
b. Absolute DT in postsignifying
(1) RT specific to post-signifying regime (133a)
(a) finite linear proceedings: falling into black hole of cness or
love-death
(b) imposition of segmentarity
(2) because forms of expression are strata (subjectification as much so as
signifiance)
VII.
Stratification (134)
A. Strata binding the human: organism, signifiance/interpretation,
subjectification/subjection
B. Slogans for dealing with stratification (134a): “make the BwO of
consciousness and love”
C. Three types of DT
1. Relative: strata: signifiance
2. Negative absolute: subjectification (ratio and passio: black
holes of consciousness or love)
3. Positive absolute: PC or BwO
VIII. Recap: RS as isolated from forms of content
(135)
A. Pure types:
1. Presignifying
2. Signifying
3. Countersignifying
4. Postsignifying
B. Two further aspects of study of RS (136a-139)
1. [Generative]: Existing mixtures: no privilege of signifying
regime: no general semiology (136a)
2. Transformations (136c-139)
a. Types (136c)
(1) Analogical: into pre-signifying regimes
(2) Symbolic: into signifying regimes
(3) Polemical or strategic: into counter-signifying
(4) Consciousness-related or mimetic: into post-signifying
(5) Diagrammatic: exploding regimes onto PC
b. Examples (137a)
c. Difficulties (138a) (semiotic transformation regulates
linguistic/lexical/syntatic, not vice versa)
C. Recap of pragmatics as generative, transformational (139)
IX. Semiotics and assemblages:
(140a-145)
A. [Machinic] relation of expression and content (140a-b):
1. RS is only one aspect of a social machine, viz, the CAE
(140a)
2. There is also content, that is, the MAB (140b)
B. [Diagrammatic] Abstract machine (141)
1. Conjugates DT of CAE/MAB relation
2. Matter and function rather than substance and form (141a)
a. Absolute DT
b. No longer expression/content distinction on PC (142a)
(1) Action of stratification is separation of content/expression
(2) Culminates in language system and illusion of general semiology
3. Diagrammatics vs. axiomatics (143)
a. Axiomatics as “politics of science”; restoration of order; will
to halt or stabilize the diagram
b. Examples in physics (de Broglie) and math (Hilbert)
4. AM on both strata and PC (144)
a. Illusion of independent form of expression
b. Two complementary movements
(1) AM working strata to set things loose
(2) AM capturing things into strata
c. Two points of contrast
(1) AM lets strata organize by tapping into self-organizing processes
(diagrammatic effect)
(a) harness matters and functions
(b) formalize them re: content and expression
(2) AM lets things escape strata (passage to absolute)
(a) Consistency is not totalizing or structuring
(b) but DT: thus strata always at risk via their lines of flight
d. AM has 2 vectors in MA [=social machine of CAE and MAB, not just
MAB as form of content]
(1) stratifying: oriented to territories; form of expression (CAE)
vs form of content (MAB)
(2) destratifying: oriented to PC; absolute DT; retains only traits of
expression / content
X. Recap: four components of pragmatics as study of RS (145)
A. Generative (mixtures)
B. Transformational (relative DT)
C. Diagrammatic (absolute DT onto PC)
D. Machinic (effectuation in CAE and MAB)
XI. Pragmatics as a whole (146-8):
A. Four operations: tracing, map, diagram, program (146c)
B. Examples (147a-8)
C. Conclusion (148):
1. language based on RS;
2. RS on AM and MA beyond semiology, linguistics or logic