Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 09:17:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jeffery DeShell <jdeshell-AT-alleg.edu>
Subject: RE: MB: MB and Ontology


I agree with Stawla up to a point, but I think the neutralization 
"occurs" on more than two levels.  I don't think Blanchot lets us rest on 
the primacy of the word, either, as that negation of objects language 
performs also must include the negation of language, of word as object.  
And so, what remains?  Not the primacy of the word, and not even the 
primacy of negation.
(As an aside, I'm in the middle o Leslie Hill's _Extreme Contemporary_, 
which I'm finding extremely lucid and interesting).

Best, Jeffrey DeShell

 

On Wed, 15 Jul 1998, Large.W wrote:

> 
> It is true, I think, to say that language is a neutralisation in   
> Blanchot.  And it is equally true that referential language also contains   
> a neutralising moment (and I supposed this is what is meant by   
> neutralisation in Husserl - though I would need to look at these passages   
> again to be sure of this) otherwise there would be no difference between   
> the sense of a word and what it refers to in that sense.  But I believe,   
> and this is what is most difficult in Blanchot, there is a double   
> neutralisation in  literature, both a neutralisation of sense and the   
> object, and in this double neutralisation, if one might use such an   
> expression in relation to Blanchot, the essence of language is revealed.   
>  The essence of language is the primacy of the word over sense or meaning   
>  - this is equally a displacement of the subject, or better consciousness,   
> if consciousness is interpreted as that which constitutes meaning.  If we   
> were to look at the relation between Blanchot and Heidegger, what about   
> the essay, 'La question la plus profonde' in L'entretien infini?
> 
> Stawla
> 
>  ----------