Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 22:39:02 -0800 (PST)
From: Paul Bryant <levi_bryant-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: The Empty Square


Hi Steve--

I'm not sure how familiar you are with structuralism, or Levi-Strauss
and Lacan in particular, but the "empty square" or the
"differentiator" are elements of a structure that allow two distinct
series to reverberate or interact with each other.  In D&R and again
in LOS, Deleuze talks about two series, one infantile, the other
adult.  These two series compose two different time lines of unfolding
that, in a sense, run parallel to one another.  The question is, how
do the two series interact with each other?  How do they weave
themselves into one another to give rise to something different from
both series in isolation?  The empty square or differentiator, as a
signifier that appears in both series, allows this to occur.  In
itself, this signifier means nothing, but it is like the organizing
principle around which all the other elements of both series are
organized.  In one series it appears as a lack, while in the other it
appears as an excess.  Thus, for example, the adult series might be
understood to contain a certain lack characterizing something that is
perpetually lost, while the infantile might be seen to contain an
excess to which were always trying to return.  Through this signifier
that appears in both series without itself signifying anything (it's
foreclosed) the two series are able to interweave themselves. 
Hopefully that helps to answer your question.  Admittedly it's a very
difficult thing to grasp.  I'd recommend reading Lacan's essay on "The
Purloined Letter" and Levi-Strauss' "Myth and Meaning" for a more
detailed account of how this duality of series organized around the
empty square unfolds.

Paul



---Stephen Arnott <sarnott-AT-metz.une.edu.au> wrote:
>
> Sorry to burden the list with a question of detail, but am in need
of some
> assistance, for the sake of my own sanity more than anything.
> 
> Can anyone shed some light on the 'paradoxical instance', the 'Unique
> Event', the 'aleatory point', the 'empty square', the
'differentiator', the
> 'question'- how many more names are there?
> 
> Deleuze, it appears, characterizes it as the element by means of
which the
> virtual and actual communicate - it is the very basis, the necessary
> criterion, for their interaction. Why do we need it? How does it
work? Why
> introduce this totalizing entity into a system without unity, viz.
> "the paradoxical instance is the Event in which all events
communicate and
> are distributed. It is the Unique event, and all other events are
its bits
> and pieces" (LS 56).
> Are we in the arena here of the 'Single Abstract Animal' of Plateau 3?
> 
> If it wasn't for this differentiator either the two heterogeneous
series of
> the structure would collapse into each other and become indistinct, or
> their heterogeneity would remain absolute and there could be no
relations
> between them.
> 
> "the empty square, which makes evrything function"
> 
> Anyone?
> 
> 
> Steve
> 
> 

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