Agamben The Signature of All Things

The Signature of All Things On Metbod Giorgio

Translated

by Luca D'isanto

Agamben

with Kevin Attell

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From the Publisher.

What Is a Paradigm? Originally

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as Signatura

published

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Boringhieri

in the United

Sui metodo

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editore.

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of America.

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and London,

Theory

if

Philosophical

of Congress

Cataloging-in-Puhlication

Giorgio,

[Signatura

Agamben

; translated

p. Includes

'942-

rerum.

The Signature

English]

of all things:

on method

by Luca D'Isanto

/ Giorgio

with Kevin

Attcll.

em, bibliographical

references

and index.

ISBN 978-1-890951-98-6 I.

Methodology.

3· Foucault,

Michel,

2.

Paradigm

'926-'984.

113

Data

Index Agamben,

(Theory

of knowledge)

I. Title.

BD241.A3S '3 2009 19S-dc22 2009001976

if

33

ArchaeoloBY

England

Notes Library

Signatures

9

Names

123

81

Preface

Anyone familiar with research in the human sciences knows that, contrary

to common opinion, a reflection

lows practical application,

on method usually fol-

rather than preceding

then, of ultimate or penultimate

thoughts,

friends and colleagues, which can legitimately after extensive research. The three essays published three specific questions paradigm,

here contain

regarding

the theory of signatures,

be articulated

only

my observations

method:

the concept

on

of the

and the relation between his-

tory and archaeology. If these observations tions on the method

it. It is a matter,

to be discussed among

appear to be investiga-

of Michel Foucault, a scholar from whom I

have learned a great deal in recent years, this is because one of the methodological

principles

not discussed in the book-and

I owe to Walter Benjamin-is

that doctrine

exposed only in the form of interpretation. be able to determine

which

may legitimately

be

The astute reader will

what in the three essays can be attributed

to

Foucault, to the author, or to both. Contrary to. common opinion, method shares with logic its inability to separate itself completely from its context. There is no method that would be valid for every domain, just as there is no logic that can set aside its objects. According

to another methodological

cussed in this book-which philosophical

principle-

also not dis-

I often make use of, the genuine

element in every work, whether

it be a work of art,

THE

of science,

SIGNATURE

or of thought,

OF

ALL

THINGS

is its capacity for elaboration,

Ludwig Feuerbach defined as EntwicklungifCihigkeit. when one follows such a principle

which

becomes

as essential

the reverse risk of appropriating

What

between

as it is difficult

have therefore preferred to take the risk of attributing of others what began its elaboration

ONE

It is precisely

that the difference

what belongs to the author of a work and what is attributable the interpreter

CHAPTER

Is a Paradigm?

to

to grasp. I to the texts

with them, rather than run

thoughts

or research

paths that

do not belong to me. Moreover, every inquiry in the human sciences-including present

reflection

vigilance.

on method-

should entail an archaeological

In other words, it must retrace its own trajectory

to the point where something Only a thought

the back

remains obscure and unthematized.

that does not conceal its own unsaid-

but con-

it- may eventually lay claim to

santly takes it up and elaborates originality.

I

In the course of my research,

I have written

such as Homo sacer, the Muselmann, the concentration phenomena,

camp. While

I nonetheless

on certain

figures

the state of exception,

and

these are all actual historical

treated them as paradigms

was to constitute

and make intelligible

lematic context.

Because this approach has generated

understandings,

especially for those who thought,

whose role

a broader historical-proba few mis-

in more or less

good faith, that my intention

was to offer merely historiographi-

cal theses or reconstructions,

I must pause here and reflect on the

meaning

and function

of the use of paradigms

in philosophy

and

the human sciences. Foucault frequently

used the term "paradigm"

it precisely. Nonetheless,

even though he never defined

Archaeology

if Knowledge

and subsequent

tinguish the objects of his investigations cal disciplines,

he designated

"problematization,"

Francaise de Philosophie,

in The

works, in order to disfrom those of the his tori -

them with terms like "positivity,"

"discursive

more generally, "knowledge."

in his writings,

formation,"

'~apparatus,"

and,

In a May 1978 lecture at the Societe

he defines "knowledge"

thus: "The use

(savoir) ... refers to all procedures and all effects of knowledge (connaissance) which are acceptable at a given of the word knowledge

point in time and in a specific domain." necessary

H

In order to clarify the

relation of the concept of knowledge

I)

to that of power,

THE

SIGNATURE

OF

Foucault added these comments:

ALL

THINGS

WHAT

"For nothing can exist as an ele-

ment of knowledge if, on one hand, it does not conform to a set of rules and constraints

characteristic,

a homonym

IS

A

PARADIGM?

for that which, according

to Kuhn, marks the emer-

gence of scientific revolutions.

for example, of a given type

of scientific discourse in a given period, and if, on the other hand, it does not possess the effects of coercion or simply the incentives peculiar

to what is scientifically

validated

or simply rational

or

simply generally accepted." of "scientific

if Scientific

book, The Structure

Paul Rabinow, for example, thematized

the function

Kuhn recognized two different

As others have noted, these concepts are analogous to Thomas S. Kuhn's notion

2

paradigms,"

introduced

in his

Revolutions. Hubert Dreyfus and

argue that although

of paradigms,

Foucault never

"his current

work clearly

that he had used the concept of "paradigm"

senses." The first meaning

he proposes to replace with the term "disciplinary ignates

the common

possessions

scientific community, adhere.

members

The second meaning

selves. He is now proceeding

that serves as a common

as the historical

articulation

lytics in a manner description

of a paradigm,

of discourse

and approaching

that is heavily dependent

ana-

on the isolation and

of social paradigms and their practical applications."?

Yet Foucault,

who declared

rable and definitive"

if Things,

a description

that he had read Kuhn's "admi-

book only after he had completed

The Order

almost never refers to it, and even seems to distance

himself from Kuhn." In his 1978 introduction

to the American

The Normal and the Patholoqical,

edition of Georges Canguilhem's Foucault writes:

"This norm cannot be identified

retical structure

or an actual paradigm because today's scientific

truth is itself only an episode of it-let It is not by depending that one can return rediscovering

with a theo-

us say provisional

at most.

on a 'normal science' in T. S. Kuhn's sense to the past and validly trace its history: it is

the 'norm' process, the actual knowledge

of which

is only one moment of it.?' It is therefore

necessary

the analogy between

these two different

respond

to different

whether

the "paradigm"

problems,

methods

strategies,

of Foucault's

10

on whether does not cor-

and inquiries

archaeology

and

is not merely

models, and

more or less consciously within

Principia or Ptolemy's Almagest,

example and thus replaces explicit rules

and permits the formulation

of a specific and coherent

tradition

of inquiry. When Kuhn elaborated on Ludwik Fleck's concept of "thought style" (Denkstil) is not pertinent sought, through

and the distinction within a "thought the concept

science capable of determining community

are scientific

mean one governed On the contrary, paradigms

between collective"

of the paradigm,

makes possible the constitution

of a normal which problems

or not. Normal

what is and what

(Denkkollektiv), to examine science,

what

within a specific

science does not then

by a precise and coherent

can "determine

he

that is, a

system of rules.

if the rules are derived from paradigms,

then

normal science" even in the absence

of rules." This is the second meaning

of the concept

of para-

digm, which Kuhn considers "most novel:"? a paradigm

is simply

an example, first of all to reflect

des-

of a certain

refers to a single element

the set, such as Isaac Newton's

in

which

matrix,"

of the members

namely, the set of techniques,

values to which the group

follows a course that uses these insights, if not the words themthrough

of "paradigm,"

a single case that by its repeatability

acquires

capacity to model tacitly the behavior and research scientists. scientificity,

The empire

of the rule, understood

practices

the un iver-

by the specific and singular

I I

of

as the canon of

is thus replaced by that of the paradigm;

sal lozic of the law is replaced

the

IO!1i

THE

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

of the example. And when an old paradigm paradigm

that is no longer compatible

what Kuhn calls a scientific revolution

WHAT

THINGS

is replaced by a new

with the previous

one,

occurs.

This statement

IS

is surprising,

A

PARADIGM?

to say the least, since Kuhn, who did

in the preface to The Structure tions his debt to two French epistemologists,

if Scientific

Revolu-

Alexandre

Koyre

and Emile Meyerson,

Canguilhem

in the

acknowledge

does not once mention

book. Since Foucault must have meant what he said, perhaps his

3

close relationship

Foucault

constantly

sought to abandon

power that were grounded as well as on universal of sovereignty).

on juridical

categories

traditional

and institutional

of

models

(of law, the state, the theory

He focused instead on the concrete

through which power penetrates

analyses

thereby governs their forms of life. Here the analogy with Kuhn's set aside the identification

corroboration.

and examination

Just as Kuhn

of the rules consti-

tuting a normal science in order to focus on the paradigms determine

scientists' behavior, Foucault questioned

primacy of the juridical

that

the traditional

models of the theory of power in order

to bring to the fore multiple disciplines through which the state integrates

and political techniques

the care of the life of individu-

als within its confines. And just as Kuhn separated normal science from the system of rules that define it, Foucault frequently

distin-

guished "normalization,"

power,

which characterizes

disciplinary

from the juridical system oflegal procedures. If the proximity of these two methods seems clear, then it is all the more enigmatic

why Foucault remained

to Kuhn's work and seems to have carefully

silent when it came avoided using the

very term "paradigm" in the The Archaeology if Knowledge. To be sure, the reasons for Foucault's silence may have been personal. In his reply to George Steiner, who had reproached mentioning

Kuhn by name, Foucault

him for not

explains that he had read

Kuhn's book only after he had completed The Order if Things and adds: "I therefore did not cite Kuhn, but the historian of science who molded

and inspired

his thought:

Georges

holding

personal

concerning

However,

grudges,

prompted

him to repay Kuhn

even if Foucault

this alone cannot

was not above

explain his silence

Kuhn.

mechanisms

the very bodies of subjects and

paradigms seems to find an important

to Canguilhem

for this discourtesy.

Canguilhem."B

4 A closer reading of Foucault's naming

the American

writings

epistemologist,

shows that even without he did on more than one

occasion grapple with Kuhn's notion of paradigm. Power," Foucault's Pasquale notion

Pasquino,

1976 interview

regime"

with Alessandro

when answering

of discontinuity,

"discursive

In "Truth and

he explicitly

a question opposed

Fontana and

concerning

the

his notion of the

to that of the paradigm:

Thus, it is not a change of content (refutation of old errors, recovery of old truths), nor is it a change of theoretical form (renewal of a paradigm, modification of systematic ensembles). lt is a question of what governs statements, and the way in which they govern each other so as to constitute a set of propositions that are Scientifically acceptable and, hence, capable of being verified or falsified by scientific procedures. In short, there is a problem of the regime, the politics of the scientific statement. At this level, it's not so much a matter of knowing what external power imposes itself on science as of what effects of power circulate among scientific statements, what constitutes, as it were, their internal regime of power, and how and why at certain moments that regime undergoes a global modification."

1

\

THE

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

WHAT

to The Order

A few lines later, when referring insists on the distance

between

political

and a paradigm

phenomenon)

THINGS

a discursive

regime

(a criterion

truth): "What was lacking here was this problem sive regime,'

if Thinas,

he

(a genuine of scientific

of the 'discur-

of the effects of power peculiar to the play of state-

ments. I confused

this too much with systematicity,

form, or something

like a paradigm.":"

Foucault did indeed recognize but this proximity

the proximity

then,

to Kuhn's paradigm;

was not the effect of an actual affinity but the

result of a certain confusion. the movement

theoretical

At some point,

What was decisive for Foucault was

of the paradigm

from epistemology

to politics,

call "epistemological

(even unsuccessfully)

norms of verification

or a verification)

over knowledge,

epistemological

the way in which the statements

another to constitute

From this perspective, explicitly

govern one

The change in terminology

it is clear that even though he does not

name them in The Archaeoloay

already wished to distinguish Kuhn's paradigms.

if Knowledae,

Foucault

the theme of his own research from

For Foucault,

discursive

formations

do not

the state of knowledge

at a given moment

up a list of what, from that moment,

in time: they do not draw

had been demonstrated

true and had assumed the status of definitively and a list of what,

on the other

out either proof or adequate accepted

as a common

the imagination.

enunciations,

To analyze

concepts,

further

seems to correspond

acquired

demonstration,

positivities practice

or theoretical

down,

Foucault

with-

or of what had been by the power of

is to show in accordance may form groups of objects,

choices."

describes

to Kuhn's paradigm

1'1

to be

knowledge,

hand, had been accepted

belief or a belief demanded

with which rules a discursive

A little

members

of a normal of a scientific

epistemological

When the

obeys a number

of formal

is not merely formal: in a manner

if Knowl-

from the criteria that permit the

science with respect

to subjects

(the

to the pure occurrence

and "figures,"

independently

("a group of statements

figure thus outlined").

of

of any ref-

is articulated,"

"the

And when, a propos of

the different types of history of science, Foucault defines his own concept of the episteme, ing something the episteme period,

it is once again not a matter of identify-

like a worldview postulates

is the "total

the discursive

or a structure

Kuhn's paradigm,

of thought

that

and norms on the subject. Rather, set of relations

practices

that unite,

at a given

that give rise to epistemologi-

cal figures, sciences, and possibly formalized

svstems.I'"

Unlike

the episteme does not define what is knowable

in a given period, but what is implicit in the fact that a given discourse or epistemological

figure exists at all: "In the enigma of

scientific discourse, what the analysis of the episteme questions is not its right to be a science, but the fact that it exists."!"

The Archaeoloay historiographical

something

we will say that the discur-

community)

"groups of statements"

imposes common

define

and

a critique,

with- the premises of The Archaeoloay

wholly consistent

erence to subjects

an ensemble.

and coherence,

(as a model,

if epistemoloqization.

figure thus outlined

edae, Foucault diverts attention

which determines

of a discursive claims to validate

criteria .... "'2

constitution

of power,"

function

crosses a threshold

of theoretical

regime

is articulated,

a dominant

sive formation

of epistemologiza-

in the operation

when it exercises

and discursive

as the "internal

or "thresholds

"When

regimes,

form" that was in question

PARADIGM?

a group of statements

its shift onto the plane of a politics of statements where it was not so much the "change

A

figures"

tion." Thus he writes: formation,

IS

if Knowledae

discontinuity.

has been read as a manifesto Whether

that

correct

or not (Foucault

but that he prefers to

certain

that in this book Foucault

contested

1

"

this characterization

it a number appears

of times),

most interested

of is it is in

THE

that which permits

SIGNATURE

the constitution

the positive existence contexts mological

OF

of "figures"

emerge in accordance

ALL

WHAT

THINGS

of contexts

and groups, in

and series. Only that these

with an entirely peculiar

model which coincides neither

episte-

with those commonly

accepted in historical research nor with Kuhnian paradigms, which we must therefore

undertake

and

of an "ensemble,"

IS

A

and the "panoptic

modality

such, it is a "figure of political technology detached

of power."

As

that may and must be

from any specific use"; it is not merely a "dream build-

ing," but "the diagram

of a mechanism

of power reduced

ideal forrn.?" In short, the panoptic on functions the strict sense: it is a singular

to identify.

PARADIGM?

to its

as a paradigm in

object that, standing

..all others of the same class, defines the intelligibility

equally for of the group

of which it is a part and which, at the same time, it constitutes.

5

Anyone who has read Discipline

Consider the notion of panopticism,

in

the panopticon,

situated as it is at the end of the section on disci-

is a par-

pline, performs

a decisive strategic function

the third part of Discipline ticular historical

which Foucault presents

and Punish. The panopticon

phenomenon,

an architectural

model published

by Jeremy Bentham in Dublin in 1791 under the title Patiopticon; or, The Inspection-House:

Cotitainino

the Idea

cj' a

New Principle

cj' Construction, Applicable to Any Sort cj' Establishment, cj' A~ Description Are to Be Kept Under Inspection.

Persons

in Which

for the understand-

modality of power, but also how it becomes

something

like the epistemological

disciplinary

universe of modernity,

figure that, in defining also marks the threshold

This is not an isolated case in Foucault's

work. On the con-

trary, one could say that in this sense paradigms

We know the principle on which it was based: at the periphery, an annular building; at the centre, a tower; this tower is pierced with wide windows that open onto the inner side of the ring; the peripheric building is divided into cells, each of which extends the whole width of the building; they have two windows, one on the inside, corresponding to the windows of the tower; the other, on the outside, allows the light to cross the cell from one end to the other. All that is needed, then, is to place a supervisor in a central tower and to shut up in each cell a madman, a patient, a condemned man, a worker or a schoolboy. By the effect of backlighting, one can observe from the tower, standing out precisely against the light, the small captive shadows in the cells of the periphery. They are like so many cages, so many small theatres.

15

namely "panopticism,"

l

6

characteristic

gesture

model of

that is to say, the principle

of Foucault's

method.

ment, the confession, the investigation, cault treats as paradigms, intervention

phenomena

the care that Fou-

and this is what constitutes

into the field of historiography.

a broader problematic

define the most

The great confine-

the examination,

of the self: these are all singular historical

his specific

Paradigms

context that they both constitute

establish and make

intelligible. Daniel S. Milo has remarked

that Foucault demonstrates

relevance of contexts produced

by metaphorical

to those created only through

chronological

the

fields in contrast caesurae.

17

Follow-

ing the orientations

of such works as Marc Bloch's Royal Touch,

Ernst Kantorowicz's

King's Two Bodies, and Lucien Febvre's Prob-

lem

cj'

Unbeliif

in the Sixteenth

freed historiography

Yet for Foucault, the panoptic on is both a "generalizable

the over

which it passes into the societies of control.

Foucault

recalls its basic features:

functioning,"

ing of the disciplinary

and Punish knows not only how

contexts-for France-in

Century,

Foucault

is said to have

from the exclusive domain

example,

the eighteenth-century

order to return

metaphorical

I "

contexts

of metonymic or southern to primacy.

THE

This observation Foucault,

SIGNATURE

is correct

it is a question

OF

ALL

only if one keeps in mind that for not of metaphors

in the sense noted above. Paradigms metaphorical

transfer

WHAT

THINGS

but of paradigms

obey not the logic of the

of meaning but the analogical logic of the

he writes, respect

IS

"that the paradigm

A

PARADIGM?

does not function

as a part with

to the whole rhos meros pros holon], nor as a whole with

respect to the part rhos holon pros meros], but as a part with respect to the part rhos meros pros meros], ifboth

are under the same but

example. Here we are not dealing with a signifier that is extended

one is better known than the other.':" That is to say, while induc-

to designate

tion proceeds from the particular

heterogeneous

semantic structure; paradigm

phenomena

by virtue

of the same

more akin to allegory than to metaphor,

the

is a singular case that is isolated from its context only

insofar as, by exhibiting

its own singularity,

a new ensemble, whose homogeneity

it makes intelligible

it itself constitutes.

That is

from the universal

to the particular,

a third and paradoxical particular

The example constitutes

the universal and the particular,

the term functioning

of the latter. Aristotle's

use, not in order to be moved into another

context

contrary,

that use, which can

to present the canon-the

rule-of

but, on the

Sextus Pompeius

Festus informs us that the Romans distin-

guished exemplar from exemplum. The exemplar can be observed by the senses (oeulis eonspieitur) must imitate

is not merely sensible:

animo aestimatur);

all moral and intellectual.

The Foucauldian

these things: not only an exemplar the constitution

of a normal

(which

its meaning

is above

paradigm

is both of

and model, which imposes

science, but also and above all an

exemplum, which allows statements gathered

The exemplum,

a more complex evaluation

into a new intelligible

and discursive practices to be

ensemble and in a new problem-

particular

Aristotle's

irreducible

type exists before

of which was reconstructed

opposition

between

that the

which we are used to seeing as of knowing,

and presents

instead

two terms.

is not logic but analogy, the theory by Enzo Melandri in a book that has

by now become a classic. And the analoqoti it generates understanding

know-

thesis more radical-

to any of the dichotomy's

The domain of his discourse

nor general.

Not only

the status of "greater

the dichotomous

from procedures

a singularity

any further.

status of the paradigm becomes clear only

and the universal

inseparable

does not move

that belongs to the example.

if we understand-making it calls into question

together

and the status of knowledge rest-

is not examined

seem to hold that the common

The epistemological

particular

atic context.

of the paradigm

but he leaves undefined

ability" (anorimoteron)

and refers to that which one

(exemplar est quod simile faeiamus).

on the other hand, demands

ing within the particular particulars,

a peculiar

but seems to dwell on the plane

treatment

beyond these brief observations, does Aristotle

not be shown in any other way.

is defined by

which goes from the

that does not proceed by articulating

to say, to give an example is a complex act which supposes that as a paradigm is deactivated from its normal

the paradigm

type of movement,

to the particular.

form of knowledge

to the universal and deduction

is neither

Hence its special value,. and our task of

it.

6 The locus classicus of the epistemology

of the example is in Aristo-

tle's Prior Analyties. There, Aristotle

distinguishes

by way of paradigms

and deduction.

from induction

I

H

the procedure "It is clear,"

7 In La linea e i] circolo, Melandri the dichotomous

shows that analogy is opposed to

principle dominating

I I)

Western logic. Against the

THE

drastic alternative

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

WHAT

THINGS

"A or B," which excludes

imposes its tertium datur, its stubborn words, analogy intervenes universal; form/content;

A nor B." In other

a force field traversed

identities

evaporate.

But in what not as a

with the first two, the identity of which could

in turn be defined by a binary logic. Only from the point of view can analogy (or paradigm)

appear as tertium compa-

rationis. The analogical third is attested here above all through the disidentification

and neutralization

become indiscernible.

of the first two, which now

The third is this indiscernibility,

tries to grasp it by means of bivalent caesurae, runs up against an undecidable. separate

an example's

and if one

one necessarily

It is thus impossible

paradigmatic

character-its

to clearly

standing

for

all cases- from the fact that it is one case among others. As in a magnetic

field, we are dealing not with extensive

magnitudes

and scalable

but with vectorial intensities.

i.e., a necessity of the

assent of all to a judgment that is regarded as an example [Beispiel]

them into

sense and in what way is the third given here? Certainly

of dichotomy

it can only be called exemplary [exempJarisch],

of a universal rule that one cannot produce [angeben].

by polar tensions, where (as in an electro-

magnetic field) their substantial term homogeneous

that one absolutely (without a further aim) ought to act in a certain

and so on) not

to take them up into a higher synthesis but to transform

PARADIGM?

way. Rather, as a necessity that is thought in an aesthetic judgment,

of logic (particular/

lawfulness/exemplarity;

A

consequence of an objective law and signifies nothing other than

the third, analogy

"neither

in the dichotomies

IS

As with the aesthetic presupposes

judgment

the impossibility

or cannot be formulated, probative

19

for Kant, a paradigm

actually

of the rule; but if the rule is missing

from where will the example draw its

value? And how is it possible to supply the examples of

an unassignable

rule?

The aporia may be resolved only if we understand digm implies

the total abandonment

that a para-

of the particular-general

couple as the model of logical inference.

The rule (if it is still

possible to speak of rules here) is not a generality

preexisting

singular cases and applicable to them, nor is it something ing from the exhaustive is the exhibition

enumeration

the

result-

of specific cases. Instead, it

alone of the paradigmatic

case that constitutes

a

rule, which as such cannot be applied or stated.

9

8 Nowhere, perhaps, is the paradoxical relation between paradigms and generality ment, where judgment

as forcefully formulated Kant conceives

as in The Critique

of the necessity

cifjudg-

of the aesthetic

in the form of an example for which it is impossible to

state the rule:

Anyone familiar with the history that, at least in regard understand

of the monastic

to the first centuries,

the status of what the documents

most ancient testimonies,

orders knows

it is difficult

to

call regula. In the

regula simply means conversatioJratrum,

the monks' way of life in a given monastery.

It is often identified

with the founder's

as Jorma vitae- that

way of living envisaged

Now this necessity is of a special kind: not a theoretical objective

is, as an example

necessity, where it can be cognized a priori that everyone will feel

turn the sequel to the life of Jesus as narrated

in the Gospels.

this satisfaction in the object called beautiful by me, nor a practi-

With the gradual development

orders, and the

cal necessity, where by means of concepts of a pure will, serving

Roman Curia's growing

need to exercise control

as rules for freely acting beings, this satisfaction is a necessary

term regula increasingly

assumed the meaning

2

to be followed.

And the founder's

of the monastic

life is in

over them, the

of a written

text,

THE

preserved

SIGNATURE

in the monastery,

who, having embraced

OF

ALL

WHAT

THINGS

which had to be read by the person

the monastic

himself to the prescriptions

life, consented

and prohibitions

to subject

contained

therein.

for the paradigm":

a general norm but the living community

reconnected

tends at the limit to become paradigmaticitself asjorma

correctly

cerning

generates

We can therefore

say, joining

Aristotle's

observations

those of Kant, that a paradigm entails a movement and, without

with

that goes from

singularity

to singularity

transforms

every singular case into an exemplar of a general rule

ever leaving singularity,

mental,

[diespasmenoi;

"1acerate d"J In . anot her entity, ..

as the same, and having been

Goldschmidt

structure,

at once sensible and

which he calls the "element-form.'?'

even though it is a singular

shows that here In other words,

sensible phenomenon,

the paradigm

somehow contains the eidos, the very form that is to be defined. It is not a simple sensible element that is present in two different like a relation between the sensible and the

mental, the element and the form ("the paradigmatic itself a relationship").

22

Plato often uses as a paradigm

In 1947, Victor Goldschmidt,

phenomenon

diolectique

platonicienne.

of this brilliant apparently

historian

marginal

dialogues-throws

an author whom Foucault appears

and admired,

published

Le patadiqme

As is often the case with the writings. of philosophy,

problem-

the examination

the use of examples

new light on the entirety

especially the relation between Rodier had already observed the dialogues as paradigms

expression.

that sometimes

ideas function

as the paradigms

corresponding

in

of ideas. If

for knowledge-where

is placed into a nonsensible

thus re-cognized

a certain

ing it by means of an operation.

sensible likeness

"conjoining ing"

together,"

(paraballontas

and produced

... aianomena)

...

paratithemena

The paradigmatic

by "placing alongside,"

...

and "expos-

endeiknynai ... deicb-

relation does not merely

sensible objects or between

these objects and a

general rule; it occurs instead between

a singularity

becomes a paradigm)

(its intelligibility).

and its exposition

is

(paradeiqma-

and above all by "showing"

tliei ... deicbtbentai," occur between

it is a matter but of produc-

For this reason, the paradigm

never already given, but is generated tos ... aenesis; paradeiamata

a sensible

relation with itself, and

in the other, so in the paradigm

not of corroborating

- which

(which thus

sensible objects, in

the Statesman a sensible paradigm-weaving-instead

children

Georges

the idea of piety is that which is used as a para-

digm in order to understand

knowledge,

in Plato's

of Plato's thought,

for sensible objects, whereas at other

times sensible objects are presented

understanding

of an

ideas and the sensible, of which

the paradigm is revealed to be the technical

in the Euthypbro

dans la

element is

Just as in the case of recollection

10

to have known

IS

a true and unique opinion con-

on this definition,

places, but something

that can never be stated a priori.

when an entity,

each and both.'?"

there seems to be a paradoxical

vitae.

is generated

and recognized

together

Commenting

that is, to constitute

PARADIGM?

other and separated

t he Gree k term means ""torn, judged

(koinos bios, cenobio)

A

"A paradigm

which is found in something

However, at least until Saint Benedict, the rule does not indicate that results from an example and in which the life of each monk

IS

leads to the

1I

of ideas. To explain how an example may produce Plato introduces

are able to recognize

of the syllables

Consider

the relatively

simple case of a grammatical

words as a "paradigm

Grammar

is constituted

and may state its rules only through

here the example in different

example. the

THE

SIGNATURE

practice of paradigmatics,

paradigms

THINGS

WHAT

linguistic

examples. But

that defines grammatical

example produced?

that in Latin grammars

nouns. Through

ALL

by exhibiting

what is the use of language How is a grammatical

OF

its paradigmatic

practice?

Take the case of the

account for the declensions

of

(rosa, ros-ae, ros-ae,

exhibition

makes knowledge

IS

possible.

orders may be conceived (between

PARADIGM?

between

these two

in two ways: as a relation

"The relation

of likeness

copy and model)

each of these conceptions

A

or as a relation

of proportion.':"

there corresponds,

schmidt, a specific dialectical

procedure:

according

To

to Gold-

to the first, recollection

ros-am ... ), the normal use as well as the denotative character of

(defined by Plato in the Meno and in the Theatetus); to the second,

the term "rose" is suspended.

the paradigm,

which is discussed

the Statesman.

Continuing

constitution

The term thus makes possible the

and intelligibility

the first declension,"

of the group "feminine

of which it is both a member

digm. What is essential here is the suspension

noun of

and a para-

of reference

and

attempt

to understand

paradigm

above all in the Sophist and in

Goldschmidt's

analyses we must now

the specific meaning

and function

in dialectics., The whole thorny discussion

of the

of the dia-

normal use. If, in order to explain the rule that defines the class

lectical method in book 6 of the Republic becomes clear when it is

of performatives,

understood

the linguist utters the example "I swear," it is

clear that this syntagma is not to be understood

as the uttering

of

as an exposition

distinguishes

method." Plato

of the paradigmatic

two stages or moments

within

the emergence

a real oath. To be capable of acting as an example, the syntagma

science, which are represented

must be suspended

straight line. The first, which defines the procedures

from its normal function,

it is precisely by virtue

and nevertheless

of this nonfunctioning

that it can show how the syntagma

and suspension

works and can allow the

rule to be stated. If we now ask ourselves whether be applied to the example,

the rule can

the answer is not easy. In fact, the

its investigations

on hypotheses.

the evidence

to it. The example,

site of the exception: its exclusion,

the example

of its inclusion. mological

However,

meaning

(para-deiknymi)

then, is the symmetrical

whereas the exception is excluded

through

the exhibition

in this way, according

to the ety-

of the Greek term, it shows "beside

both its own intelligibility

oppo-

is included through

itself"

and that of the class it

constitutes.

as

is, as step-

ping stones to take off from, enabling it to reach the unhypothetical [anypotheton] this principle,

first principle

of everything.

without

making use of anything

all, but only of ideas themselves, and ending with ideas.":"

knowability

lating the relation between the intelligible

the contrary

but exposed

of the paradigm its specific

sensible at

moving on from ideas to ideas,

rather than as principles?

is not presupposed

In Plato, the paradigm has its place in dialectics, which, by articu-

Having touched

and keeping hold of what follows from it, it comes

down to a conclusion

hypotheses

and the sensible order,

for. The

"it does not consider hypotheses

[archai] but truly as hypotheses-that

first principles

"I lay

as known principles,

of which does not need to be accounted

What does it mean to treat hypotheses 12

(this is

the meaning of the Greek term hypothesis, from hypotithemi,

second belongs to dialectics:

belonging

of "geom-

It presupposes

it below as a base") givens that are treated

to the normal

because it exhibits its

segments on a

etry and calculus and those who practice these kinds of sciences," grounds

example is excluded from the rule not because it does not belong case but, on the contrary,

as two continuous

of

(presuppositions)

What is a hypothesis

that

as such? If we recall that the

is never presupposed,

operation

as

consists

and that on

in suspending

and

THE

deactivating intelligibility,

SIGNATURE

its empirical

OF

ALL

givenness

then treating

in order to exhibit only an

hypotheses

treating them as paradigms. Here the aporia that both Aristotle tors have observed-that

as hypotheses

means

and modern of ideas-is

being that is presupposed

coincides with it: it is the sensible considered is, in the medium of its intelligibility.

the perspective Daniel

IS

A

PARADIGM?

of the paradigmatic

Ernst Schleiermacher,

method.

Georg Anton

already observed that in the philological commenta-

in Plato the idea is the paradigm

sensible and the sensible the paradigm idea is not another

WHAT

THINGS

of the

resolved. The

by the sensible or as a paradigm-

that

This is why Plato is able to

state that even dialectics, like the arts, starts from hypotheses

(ex

a single phenomenon

presupposes

Before Friedrich Friedrich

sciences, knowledge

knowledge

vice versa, knowledge

of the whole presupposes this hermeneutic

ture, Martin difficulty

Heidegger

helped the human

and indeed guaranteed

of their knowledge.

that of single

circle in Beina and Time

as Dasein's anticipatory

on pre-understanding

of

of the whole and,

phenomena.

Grounding

Ast had

existential sciences

struc-

out of this

the "more original"

character

Since then, the motto "What is decisive is not

hypothesei5s iousa),27 but unlike them it takes hypotheses as hypoth-

to get out of the circle but to come into it in the right way" has

eses rather than principles.

become a magic formula that allows the inquirer

hypotheses

as paradigms.

To put it differently,

The non-hypothetical,

dialectics

uses

to which dialec-

tics has access, is above all opened by the paradigmatic sensible. It is in this sense that we should understand

use of the the follow-

ing passage, where the dialectical

method

is defined

as "doing

away with hypothesis":

is the only method

that pro-

"Dialectic

[tas hypotheseis anairousa] and reaching to the first principle itself.'?" Anairei5, like its corresponding Latin term tollere (and the German a!ifheben,

ceeds in this manner, doing away with hypotheses

vicious circle into a virtuous

was less reassuring

appeared. If the activity of the interpreter pated by a pre-understanding

(l'oraeben) by "fancies"

be presented

but instead "working

use and, at the same time, exposed as such. The non-hypothetical is what discloses itself at the point where hypotheses away," that is, raised and eliminated

are "taken

at the same time. The intelli-

the signature

their own existential

of a pre-understanding

a paradigmatic

is the paradigmatic

was in Ast and Schleiermacher: circularity,

I3 The hermeneutic

exposition

as in Heidegger,

between pre-understanding circle, which defines the procedures

of knowl-

edge in the human sciences, acquires its true meaning only from

? l1

intelligibility

that depends on

that the hermeneutic

circle. There is no duality

"single phenomenon"

the paradigmatic

in

structure.

gibility in which dialectics moves in its" descent toward the end" of the sensible.

must be able to recognize

The aporia is resolved if we understand circle is in actuality

conceptions,"

the circle then seems to become even

here between

intelligibility

or "popular

to

[it] out in terms of the things themselves.'?"

take," "to raise," and "to take away," "to eliminate."

phenomena

suggested

of never allowing the pre-understanding

This can only mean-and

from its normal

is always already antici-

that is elusive, what does it mean

more "vicious" - that the inquirer

noted, what operates as a paradigm is withdrawn

than it at first

"to come into [the circle] in the right way?" Heidegger that it was a matter

the

one."

However, such a guarantee

which Hegel placed at the heart of his dialectic), signifies both "to As previously

to transform

and "the whole"

the whole

of individual between

only results

does not precede

from

cases. And there is no

a "before"

and interpretation. the phenomenon;

spca k, "beside" it (para). According

as there

to Aristotle's

and an "after," In the paradigm, it stands, so to definition,

the

THE

paradigmatic

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

WHAT

THINGS

gesture moves not from the particular

and from the whole to the particular singular. The phenomenon,

but from the singular to the

exposed in the medium

ability, shows the whole of which it is the paradigm. to phenomena,

this is not a presupposition

"non-presupposed

principle,"

to the whole

is the origin

A

PARADIGM?

and history

of the iconographic

of a woman in movement."

theme

This would be a matter

of

of its know-

arranging,

With regard

cal order by following the probable genetic relation that, binding

(a "hypothesis"):

as a

it stands neither in the past nor in

the present but in their exemplary

question "figure

IS

as far as possible, the individual images in chronologi-

one to the other, would eventually archetype,

allow us to go back to the

to the" formula of pathos" from which they all origi-

nate. A slightly more careful reading of the plate shows that none

constellation.

of the images is the original, just as none of the images is simply a copy or repetition.

14 Between

Just as it is impossible

creation and performance, 1924- and 1929, Aby Warburg

was working on his "atlas

which was to be called Mnemosyne. As is well-known,

ofimages,"

it is a collection erogeneous

of plates or boards to which are attached

series of images (reproductions

manuscripts,

photographs

a het-

of works of art or

cut out of newspapers

or taken

by

laic" composition of the Homeric

Pathoiformeln hybrids of archetype and (ptimal'oltito) and repetition. Every is the original; every image constitutes the arche first-timeness

photograph

and is, in this sense, "archaic."

Warburg defined as Pathoiformel. Consider

plate 4-6, in which we

archaic nor contemporary;

the figure of a woman in move-

Chapel, Warburg nellbring,

fresco in the Tornabuoni

gives her the familiar nickname

"Miss Quick-Bring").

Fraulein Sch-

The plate is made up of twenty-

at the basis

of any oral composi-

tions, so are Warburg's phenomenon,

to a single theme that

ment (when she appears in Ghirlandaio's

between

in the "fonnu-

that Milman Parry had recognized poems and more generally

Warburg himself, and so on) often referring find the PathoifoTmel "Nymph,"

to distinguish

original and execution,

chrony and synchrony,

she is undecidable

in regards

unicity and multiplicity.

the nymph is the paradigm exemplars.

But the nymph herself is neither to dia-

This means that

of which individual

nymphs are the

Or to be more precise, in accordance

with the consti-

tutive ambiguity

of Plato's dialectic,

the nymph is the paradigm

seven images, each of which is somehow related to the theme that

of the single images, and the single images are the paradigms

gives its name to the whole. In addition to Ghirlandaio's

the nymph.

fresco,

one can identify a Roman ivory relief, a sibyl from the cathedral of Sessa Aurunca, Florentine

a few miniatures

manuscript,

from a sixteenth-century

a detail from one of Botticelli's

frescos,

Fra Filippo Lippi's tondo of the Madonna and the birth of John the Baptist, a photo of a peasant woman from Settignano by Warburg

taken

himself, and so on. How should we read this plate?

What is the relation that holds together

the individual images? In

In other words, the nymph is an Urphi:inomen, an "originary phenomenon"

in Goethe's sense of the term. This technical

which is essential to Goethe's

if

when understood lowing

by Elizabeth

it something

and hypotheses.'?'

R

where what is in

which proceeds

if Plants, becomes

eyen though it is intelligible only sense, thereby fol-

Rotten,

who traced

often juxtaposes

his method

by "single cases and general

rubrics,

In the essay "The Experiment

II

term,

on nature from the

in a decidedly paradigmatic

a suggestion

gin back to Plato. Goethe

repertory,

investigations

Theory Colors to The Metamorphosis never clearly defined by the author,

other words, where is the nymph? A mistaken way of reading the plate would be to see in like an iconographic

of

its orito that opinions

as Mediator

WHAT THE

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

Between Object and Subject," he proposes a model of "experience of a higher type," where the unification does not occur "in hypothetical

A

PARADIGM?

15

of individual phenomena

and systematic

where instead each phenomenon

IS

THINGS

manner,"

but

"stands in relation with count-

At this point, let us try to put in the form of theses some of the features that, according

to our analysis, define a paradigm:

less others, in the way we say of a freely floating luminous point, that it emits its rays in every direction.T" relation among phenomena

How such a singular

ought to be understood

is a form of knowledge but analogical.

2.

By neutralizing

ence, which consists of many others, is clearly of a higher type.

particular,

It represents

logical model.

the formula in which countless single examples find

their expression.":" fragment,

"Every existent,"

"is the analopon

he reiterates

of every existent;

in another

for this reason,

existence always appears to us as separated and connected same time. If one follows the analogy

too closely, everything

becomes identical; if we avoid it, everything As a paradigm,

the Urphdtiotuen

ogy lives in perfect equilibrium generality

and particularity.

phenomenon"

scatters to infinity."!'

is thus the place where analbeyond the opposition

between

Hence, Goethe writes of the "pure

that it can "never be isolated, since it shows itself

in a continuous Riflexionen,

at the

series of appearances.'?'

he sums up its nature

be equally valid for the paradigm:

And in the Maximen

with a definition "the originary

ideal insofar as it is the last knowable/real,

that could

phenomenon: with all cases.'?"

Even though it never crosses into the generality

of a hypothesis

or law, the Urphiinomen

is nevertheless

the single phenomenon

the last knowable element, its capacity to

constitute

itself as a paradigm.

knowable;

it is indeed in

For this reason, a famous Gothean

the dichotomy

between

it replaces a dichotomous

3. The paradigmatic

its belonging

logic with a bipolar ana-

from its singularity.

group is never presupposed

digms; rather, it is immanent 5. In the paradigm,

by the para-

in them.

there is no origin or archei every phenom-

enon is the origin, every image archaic. 6. The historicity

of the paradigm

lies neither

in diachrony

nor

in synchrony but in a crossing of the two. At this point, I think it is clear what it means to work by way of paradigms centration

for both me and Foucault. Homo sacer and the con-

camp, the Muselmann

more recently,

the Trinitarian

not hypotheses

through

On the contrary,

and the state of exception, oikonomia

which I intended

by tracing it back to something

and acclamations

insofar as they are paradigms,

of paradigms

series of phenomena

are

origin.

might have signaled,

whose aim was to make

whose kinship

had eluded or

gaze. To be sure, my investigations,

like those of Foucault, have an archaeological phenomena

and,

to explain modernity

like a cause or historical

as their very multiplicity

each time it was a matter could elude the historian's

(1

and, at the

to the group, so that it is

never possible to separate its exemplarity 4. The paradigmatic

intelligible

!

to

the general and the

case becomes such by suspending

same time, exposing

dictum states that one should never look beyond the phenomena: "they are theory."

inductive

und

insofar as it is known/

symbolic because it embraces all cases:/identical

that is neither

It moves from singularity

singularity.

nature

is stated beyond any doubt: "Such an experi-

A paradigm

nor deductive

is discussed

a few lines below in a passage where the paradigmatic of the procedure

1.

character,

and the

with which they deal unfold across time and therefore

\ I

THE

require an attention

SIGNATURE

to documents

follow the laws of historical they reach-and

OF

ALL

THINGS

and diachrony that cannot but

philology.

Nevertheless,

this perhaps holds for all historical

not an origin presupposed

Theory

inquiry-is

TWO

of Signatures

in time. Rather, locating itself at the

crossing of diachrony and synchrony, it makes the inquirer's ent intelligible

CHAPTER

the arche

pres-

as much as the past of his or her object. Archaeol-

ogy, then, is always a paradigmatology, ognize and articulate

paradigms

and the capacity to rec-

defines the rank of the inquirer

no less than does his or her ability to examine

the documents

of an archive. In the final analysis, the paradigm

determines

very possibility

of producing

archive-which

in itself is inert-the

the

in the midst of the chronological plans de clivaoe (as French

Book 9 of Paracelsus's

treatise De natura rerum (Of the Nature of

Things) is titled "De signatura

rerum naturalium"

epistemologists call them) that alone make it legible. If one asks whether the paradigmatic character lies in things

the Signature

themselves

fests and reveals their invisible qualities.

or in the mind of the inquirer,

my response

must be

that the question itself makes no sense. The intelligibility

in ques-

tion in the paradigm has an ontological the cognitive

relation between

There is, then, a paradigmatic ter definition

character.

Things).

1

(Concerning

The original core of the Para-

celsian episteme is the idea that all things bear a sign that manisign" (Nichts ist ohn ein Zeichen),

"Nothing

is without

a

he writes in Von den natuilicheti

It refers not to

Dingen, "since nature does not release anything in which it has not

subject and object but to being.

marked what is to be found within that thing."2 "There is noth-

ontology.

of it than the one contained

Stevens titled "Description

of Natural

Without

And I know of no betin a poem by Wallace

Place":

ing exterior

that is not an announcement

the Libei de podapricis,

of the interior,"

reads

and by means of signs man can know what

has been marked in each thing.3 And if, in this sense, "all things,

It is possible that to seem - it is to be,

herbs, seeds, stones, and roots reveal in their qualities, forms, and

As the sun is something seeming and it is.

figures [Gestalt] that which is in them," if "they all become known through

The sun is an example. What it seems It is and in such seeming all things are.

their signatum,"

everything

of any profundity knowledge,

then "siptiatuta is the science by which

that is hidden is found, and without

this art nothing

can be done." This science, however,

is a consequence

absolutely unmarked

like all

of sin, insofar as Adam, in Eden, was

(unbezeichnet),

had he not "fallen into nature,"

and would have remained

so

which leaves nothing unmarked.

Based on these presuppositions,

"De signatura

rerum natu-

ralium" is able to go right to the heart of the matter and inquire into the nature

and the number

of "signers."

Here signatura

is

no longer the name of a science but the very act and effect of

II

THE

marking:

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

THINGS

THEORY

"In this book, our first business, as being about to phi-

losophise,

is with the signature

of things, as, for instance,

forth how they are signed, what signator signs are reckoned.?' According

to set

exists, and how many

to Paracelsus,

there are three

In other words, Paracelsus

OF

SIGNATURES

argues that the relation

expressed

the signature is not a causal relation. Rather, it is something complex, something

which has a retroactive

by

more

effect on the sianator

and which needs to be understood.

sianators: man, the Archeus, and the stars (Astra). The signs of the stars, which make prophecies and presages possible, manifest "the force and virtue" (iibernatiirliche Krcift und Tuaend) of

supernatural

things. The divinatory

sciences-for

example, geomancy,

maney, physiognomy,

hydromancy,

astronomy-examine

these signs. The monsters treated by divina-

tion, such as hermaphrodites ing but a sign imprinted Paracelsus

pyromancy,

necromancy,

chiro-

and androgynous

by the ascendant

and

beings, are noth-

celestial bodies. And

argues that not only the stars in the sky but also the

"stars of the human mind" -which with the Phantasy, Estimations, as in the firmament

above"6-can

happens with pregnant

or Imagination,

at all moments, rise and set just

leave their mark on the body, as

women whose Fantasey draws on the flesh signs" (Monstrosische Zeichen).7

of the fetus its "monstrous Similarly,

"perpetually

physiognomy

and chiromancy

teach one how to

decipher the secret of the "inner man" in the signs that the stars have imprinted hands. However,

on men's faces and limbs or on the lines of their the relation between

merely one of unilateral

subjection.

the stars and men is not

Paracelsus writes:

The wise man can dominate the stars, and is not subject to them. Nay, the stars are subject to the wise man, and are forced to obey him, not he the stars. The stars compel and coerce the animal man, so that where they lead he must follow, just as a thief does the gallows, a robber the wheel, a fisher the fishes, a fowler the birds, and a hunter the wild beasts. What other reason is there for this, save that man does not know or estimate himself or his own powers, or reflect that he is a lesser universe, and has the firmament with its powers hidden within himself?"

2

Before moving to the analysis of the signatures imprints

on natural things, Paracelsus refers to the existence of a

Signatory art (Kunst Sianata) that constitutes, adigm of every signature.

so to speak, the par-

This originary signature

is language, by

means of which "the first sianator," Adam, imposed on all things their "true and genuine names" (die tecate Nomen) in Hebrew." The signatory art teaches how to give true and genuine names to all things. All of these Adam the Protoplast truly and entirely understood. So it was that after the Creation he gave its own proper name to everything, to animals, trees, roots, stones, minerals, metals, waters, and the like, as well as to other fruits of the earth, of the water, of the air, and of the fire. Whatever names he imposed upon these were ratified and confirmed by God. Now these names were based upon a true and intimate foundation, not on mere opinion, and were derived from a predestinated knowledge, that is to say, the signatorial art. Adam is the first signator.'o Every name in Hebrew that left Adam's mouth had a correspondence in the specific nature and virtue of the named animal. "So when we say, 'This is a pig, a horse, a cow, a bear, a dog, a fox, a sheep, etc.,' the name of a pig indicates a foul a~d impure animal. A horse indicates a strong and patient animal; a cow, a voracious and insatiable one; a bear, a strong, victorious, mal; a fox, a crafty and cunning

and untamed

ani-

animal; a dog, one faithless in its

nature; a sheep, one that is placid and useful, hurting The relation between the signature

4·

that the Archeus

I

I,

no one.""

and the signed is generally

THE

understood

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

THEORY

THINGS

in terms of similarity, as in the case (to which we will

turn in a moment) of the similarity between the spots in the shape of an ocellus on the Euphrasia's corolla and the eyes that it has the power to heal. Since language is the archetype the signatory art par excellence, this similarity analogical

we are obligated to understand

not as something

and immaterial

physical,

model.

serves the archive of immaterial of signatures.

of the signature,

but according

Language,

similarities,

to an

then, which preis also the reliquary

have markings

OF

SIGNATURES

that look like snakes, is an antidote

of poisoning. Consider the specific structure case: the signature between,

relation,

that defines signatures

in the Euphrasia,

as it might seem, the hidden

the marking

to every type in this

is established

therapeutic

virtue

not and

in the shape of an eye on the corolla but directly

between the Euphrasia and the eyes. Paracelsus writes: "Why does the Euphrasia cure the eyes? Because it has in itself the anatomiam oculorum; it has in itself the shape and image of the eyes, and hence it becomes

entirely

eye."" The signature

puts the plant in rela-

tionship with the eye, displacing it into the eye, and only in this

3

way does it reveal its hidden virtue. The relation is not between a

The systematic medicine

core that determined

during the Renaissance

cerned signatures Signatures

are, as Henry death, "natural

more surprising

and the Baroque period con-

as ciphers of the therapeutic

Paracelsus'

reveals medicinal

the success of Paracelsian

virtues

More wrote

almost

hieroglyphics,"

which Paracelsus

after

virtue; and the disease-

to which one has to add the signato!" as

which God

a fifth term. Signatures,

which according

hidden in the vegetal world. All the rerum.

Their

is taken by deer and age or the number

or the knots in the umbilical how many children

the figure in the plant,

a century

through

cow horns, whose shape reveals the animal's which indicate

Instead, it entails

often calls signatum; the part of the human body; the therapeutic

is their absence in De signatura

of calves it has delivered,

at least four terms;

(signans and signatum).

power of plants.

place, as examples of the Archeus's signature,

newborns,

signifier and a signified

cords of

the mother

can

should appear as signifiers, of the signified,

to the theory of signs

always already slide into the position

so that signum and signatum

seem to enter into a zone of undecidability.

in a passage from the Paraotatium,

Paracelsus

the identity between

establishes

"What then is ferrum? Nothing

other thanferrum.

Mars ....

He who knows Mars knows ferrum

and this signature

shows that it can "restore

a man's virility and

which has a marking in the shape of an

ferrum

Nothing

where

a metal-iron-

a planet (Mars), which should be its signator. Paracelsus

of examples. The satyrion is "formed passion.?" The Eupbtasia,

This sliding move-

ment can be observed

still have. Paracelsus's medical works, however, offer a wide array like the male privy parts,"

exchange roles and

and writes,

other than Mars. What is Mars?

This means that both areferrum

and

and he who knows

knows what Mars is.?"

eye, thus reveals its capacity to heal the diseases of the eye." If the plant called Specula pennarum

cures women's breasts, this is

because its shape recalls that of breasts. Pomegranate

seeds and

4

pine nuts, having the shape of teeth, alleviate their pain. In other

We have left for last the discussion

cases, the similarity

lege in the De signatura

is metaphorical:

the thistle,

fraught

with

thorns, will alleviate sharp and acute pains; Syderica, whose leaves

that holds the place of privi-

rerum, namely, that of signatures

signator is the human being. The example Paracelsus

I"

whose

provides of

THE

such signatures

SIGNATURE

OF

sionally resurrected

in the history

of

even though for centuries it remained a

sort of dead end in the Paracelsian

Paracelsus,

THEORY

THINGS

is perhaps the most surprising

the concept of signatures,

understand

ALL

episteme,

before being provi-

in the thought of Foucault and Melandri.

natural and supernatural

signatures

one needs to understand

To

correctly, writes

above all else those signa-

the confirmation

of the letter which gives it authority among men

The letters

of the alphabet

on their jackets or coats: "What is this but a sign by which any-

ointments

body who meets him may understand

numbers

or a bailiff (Scherg ader Biittel) recognizable. insignia on their garments

a private soldier

outside with only

on labels that in pharmacies ... spirits,

"liquors,

or alchemists'

syrups,

oils, phlegmata,

on rooms and dwellings,

laboratories

oils, powders,

crocuses,

alkalis;"

seeds, or the

which mark the year in which

they were built."

Just as couriers wear

that identify them as messengers-and

also show where they come from, who sent them, and how they should be treated-

made by man as

one word, in that way signify their contents.V" Or the letters

is the "small yellow patch" (ein Gelbs Flecklin) that the Jews wear that he is a Jew?"16 A similar

are also signatures

ignated, just as books which, though lettered

allow one to recognize

here is not ironic-makes

a seal is dead, useless, empty."!"

signatar: "By a few letters, names, or words, many things are des-

inscribed

comparison

SIGNATURES

and in trials. A receipt without

tures whose signatar is the human being. The first example of this

sign-the

OF

so does the soldier on the battlefield

colored signs or bands making him recognizable

wear

by friends and

5 Let us try to develop and analyze the unique structure signatures.

Consider

the signature

(or monogram)

of human

the artisan or

enemies ("Hence it is known that one is on the side of Caesar, or

artist uses to mark his own work. What happens when we observe

of the kings; that one is an Italian, another a Gaul, etc."). 17

a painting

Still more interesting paradigm

of signatures

is another is further

set of examples

complicated.

where the

This group has to

in a museum

fecit is written

in a cartouche

do not pay attention

artisan marks his own works "so that everyone may understand

operation

it." Here the signature

mological connection is clear in languages, "signature"

shows its likely ety-

with the act of signing a document,

(in canon law signaturae were the rescripts

by the pope by virtue of a signature

on a document).

in Latin signare also means "to coin," and another cussed by Paracelsus

which

like French and English, that use the word

pertains

example dis-

to signs that indicate

of coins: "It should be remembered

granted However, the value

that every coin carries its

proof and sign by which it may be known how much that coin is worth."!" Like the seal impressed

on a letter, these serve not to

identify the sender but to signify its "force" (Krcift): "The seal is

I R

on the lower edge? We are now so

used to looking for and receiving this type of information

do with the "marks and signs" (Markt uncI Zeichen) with which the who has produced

and we realize that the phrase Titiatius

to the operation

that is anything

that we

implicit in the signature,

an

but trivial.

Let us assume that the painting represents

the Annunciation,

which may itself be seen both as sign and as image, harking back to a religious are familiar

tradition (though

or iconographic we needn't

theme with which we

be). What does the signature

Titian usfecit add to the sign "Annunciation" our eyes? It tells us nothing

about its theological

way in which the iconographic ing about the properties The signature

that we have before meaning

or the

theme has been treated,

noth-

of the thing in its objective materiality.

merely puts the painting

in relation

to the name

of a man, whom we know to be a famous painter

who lived in

Venice in the sixteenth

century

(but it could also be a name that

\ I)

THE

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

THINGS THEORY

we know nothing

or almost nothing

about). If this information

were missing, the painting would remain completely in its materiality signature

is so important

in our culture

be the case, and the painting the reading

of the cartouche

at the painting

in question.

radically

of the bailiff or of the courier

by the

(in others, this may not

could live in total anonymity) modifies

Furthermore,

that

how we look

if the artwork

SIGNATURES

this sense, the yellow patch on a Jew's coat and the colored mark

unchanged

and quality. Yet the relation introduced

OF

is one

referring

are not merely neutral

to the signified "J ew," "bailiff," or "courier." By shifting

this relation into the pragmatic

and political sphere, they express

instead how one must comport couriers

signifiers

oneself before Jews, bailiffs, or

(as well as the behavior

Similarly, a signature

that is expected

from them).

in the shape of an eye on a Euphrasia petal

which falls within the era of authorial copyright, the signature has

is not a sign that signifies "eye." Rather, in the eye-shaped

legal effects.

(which in itself is a sign that refers back to the eye), the signature

Now consider

the example of a signature

which determines substantial

stamped on a coin

its value. In this case, too, the signature has no

shows that the plant is an effective remedy

against illnesses

of

the eye.

relation with the small circular metal object that we

hold in our hands. It adds no real properties again, the signature

to it at all. Yet once

decisively changes our relation to the object

as well as its function

in society. Just as the signature,

altering in any way the materiality in the complex network

without

of relations of "authority,"

6 From the moment

of Titian's painting inscribes it

forms a piece of metal into a coin, producing

here it trans-

refers

motifs-above

it as money.

signatures,

And what about the letters of the alphabet which, according

of its title, Jakob Bohrne's De signatura rerum

to Paracelsus,

taking

up a number

books? Here it is probably not a matter

occult virtue of things by establishing

expressions

of the "signatory

as

art" that allowed Adam to assign

simply as what manifests a relation between

ent domains. Instead, it is the decisive operator

Instead, it must refer to a use of a lan-

that which makes the world, mute and without

guage that is constituted

not by sentences but by paradigms,

intelligible.

statements,

that A, Z, E, R, T is, in a typing handbook,

the statement

alphabetical

ini-

titles, similar to those Foucault must have

had in mind when, to define his enunciative

he wrote

relation

is what-insisting

between

a

on this relation

of the

in a new network

of pragmatic

40

an historical

Conjecture,

the

differ-

of all knowledge, reason in itself,

is spoken, written,

[Signatur]

of the signature for it proceeds

or

only from

from the Mouth of. another,

wherein

is dumb; but if the Spirit opens to

express

a

him the Signature,

and a sigDatum; rather,

it

and further

it

revealed itself (out of the Essence through the Principle) in the Sound with the Voice.?" For Bohrne, the process of revelation,

In

whose parad igm is language,

without

displaces and moves it into another

taught of God, without the Knowledge

the Spirit without Knowledge

does not merely

»e=»

Bohrne writes: "All whatever

is dumb and void of Understanding;

order adopted by French keyboards.

In all these cases, a signature

The theory of

here, and shows the inad-

names to the creatures. tials, and conventional

and

equacy of the concept of the sign to address the issue. A signature, first of all, is no longer understood

of words understood

of his themes

all, the theme of Adam's language. however, is taken further

to Paracelsus, by being arranged into words allow us to designate

semiotic

spot

domain,

coinciding

with it-

thus positioning

and hermeneutic

relations.

then he understands

he understands

the Speech of another;

how the spirit has manifested

entails from the beginning

I

I

and

a more

THE

SIGNATURE

complex development

OF

ALL

THEORY

THINGS

of the semiotic model. The sign (which he

itself is inert and mute, and must, in order to

however its Operation

effect knowledge,

be animated

character

and qualified in a signature

fundamental

technical

terms

of his thought).

in what the

either in Good or Evil; and with this sign

[Bezeichnung] he enters into another Man's Form [Gestaltnis], and awakens also in the other such a form in the Signature; both Forms mutually

assimulate

together

[miteinander

so that

inquali-

ren] in one Form, and then there is one Comprehension, Will, one Spirit, and also one Understanding.":" is the following that remains signature

one

passage, where Bohrne compares

signs to a lute

stands in the Essence, and is as a Lute that lies still,

and is indeed

a dumb

Thing

that is neither

heard

or under-

stood; but if it be played upon, then its form is understood Thus likewise

the sign [Bezeichnung]

dumb Essence .... artificially

according

nothing

....

that can strike

his instrument.I'" Despite

clearly does not coincide sign intelligible. moment

hesitations,

the signature

was prepared

but produces

knowledge

and marked at the only in a subse-

quent moment when it reveals itself in the signature,

where "the

itself in the Sound of the Word, for that is the

Mind's natural Knowledge

of itself.'?' Using a term that refers to

a tradition

that is both theological

"character"

this active moment

into "revelation"

here

with the sign, but is what makes the

The instrument

of creation,

inward manifests

ogy. For him, "the Word of God is the Ground of aJl Substances, and the Beginning of all Properties,

(Olfenbarung).

Qualities,

or Conditions.

The

[das Sprechen], and remains in God; but or Expression [Aussprechen], viz. the Exit of the

Word is God's speaking the Outspeaking

Word wherein the abyssal Will introduces through

the Outspeaking,

itself into Separability,

[is] Nature and Property.?"

The aporias in the theory of the signature Trinity:

just as God was able to conceive

repeat those of the

and give shape to all

things by means of the Word alone, as both the model and the effective

instrument

of creation,

the mute signs of creation,

the signature

in which it dwells,

is what makes efficacious

and

expressive.

7 Before disappearing teenth century,

the terminological

(Natur-

lies most

to the Essence of all Essences,

but the wise Master

language"

in its Form is a

In the human Mind, the Signature

composed,

and Man wants

of Nature

of this "natural

sprache) of signatures is not Paracelsus's signatory art but Christel-

Even clearer

silent as long as the player does not play it: "The

externallv.?"

For Bohme, the paradigm

one of the

Bohrne goes on

to argue: "So that in the Word may be understood Spirit has conceived,

(and

SIGNATURES

[Fiaur] of the inward spriritual World; whatever is internally, and is [in der Wirkuna ist], so likewise it has its

calls Bezeichnung)

to describe this process, he uses the word inqualiren,

OF

and magical, Bohme defines as when signification

crosses over

He writes: "The whole outward

visible World with all its Being is a sign [Bezeichnuna],

or Figure

from Western

science at the end of the eigh-

the theory of signatures

exerted

a decisive influ-

ence on science and magic in the age of the Renaissance

and the

Baroque, even to the degree of influencing

aspects

of the work of Johannes theory of signatures

non-marginal

Kepler and G. W. Leibniz. However, the

did not have its locus in medical science and

magic alone. Its most significant

development

came in the theo-

logical realm, especially in the theory of the sacraments. The medieval hermeneutic the sacraments

within

tradition

the domain

traced the inscription

of signs back to Augustine,

insofar as his was the first effort to construct raments

as a "sacred semiology."

both the cursory

definition

of

the doctrine

of sac-

Although we find in Augustine

of the sacrament

~

.:

\

as a sacrum sianum

THE

SIGNATURE

("A sacrifice as commonly sacrament

OF

ALL

THINGS

understood,

THEORY

therefore,

is the visible

of an invisible sacrifice: that is, it is a sacred symbol.")

OF

SIGNATURES

the most decisive problem of the theory of the sign sacrament: the question

concerning

the efficacy of the sign. In Hugh of St. Vic-

and the elusively stated idea of an indelible character imprinted

by

tor's Sacraments

if the

the sacrament

of

its resemblance

to the Signified-grounds

on the person who receives it, the construction

a proper theory of the sacrament later with Berengarius 28

Summa theologiae. In

as sign began only six centuries

of Tours and culminated

in Saint Thomas's

the passage just mentioned

from The Ciry

God, the term sacramentum

refers not to the sacraments

if

in a tech-

nical sense but more generally to "every work done in order that we may draw near to God in holy fellowship," the sacrifice of immolation

to

celebrated by the Hebrews, according

to the biblical story." Before Augustine, the sacraments,

in opposition

the spiritual

in Ambrose's treatise on

term spiritale signacuJum

Christian Faith, such efficacy-

the excess of the sacrament "What is the difference

between

sign and sacrament? [ex institutione);

also by means of similarity

In the sacrament,

by means of similarity, The anonymous

of the Summa

rament to the sign:

for medieval theology

succession rament

described

of three doctrines: sacrament

of the sac-

and philosophy,

[The sacrament] is not only the sign of a sacred thing; it is also

he

of the Scholastic theory

sign to be, it is enough that it signify that of which it offers the sign,

as the convergence

without conferring it. The sacrament, however, not only signifies

the doctrine

or

but confers that of which it is sign or signification.

of the mystery sac-

In addition,

of the

there is a difference insofar as the sign exists only for signification,

(still present in Hugh of St. Victor as well as

even if it lacks similarity, as, for example, the circle, which in the

(which has its paradigm

medicine

the irreducibility

stresses

efficacy. This is the difference between sign and sacrament: for the

The process that led to the formation is usually

sententiarum

elaborates his theory of signs,

the sacraments.

of the sacraments

but also

represents

and confers by means of sanctification.Y"

author

once again and without reservations

never mentions

Further-

instead, there is not only signification

at this stage as an exorcism or initiation which is so important

[ex similitudine).

efficacy, such that it signifies by means of institutions,

ignated a moment within the process of baptism, which appears that in the texts where Augustine

The sign

the sacrament

more, the sign may signify the thing, but not confer it [coiferre).

only des-

rite. And it is Significant

the difference and even

with respect to the sign. He writes:

signifies by means of an institution represents

together with

in Isidore), the doctrine

in Aquinas's Summa contra gentiles),

and the doctrine

sacrament

(which supplied the definitive

Scholastic

doctrine

of the sacraments).

canonical

of the sign

taverns signifies wine (circulus vinum) whereas the sacrament not

form to the

only signifies by means of institution but also represents by means of similarity. 31

A more subtle analysis

shows that the three elements continue to be present throughout all stages of the theory's

development,

testifying

to a composite

origin that has not yet been elucidated by historical investigations and that the theory of the sign sacrament

is unable to get to the

bottom of. The inadequacy

8 In the treatise on the sacraments from the Summa theologiae which is usually seen as the moment where Aquinas fully adheres to the

of the semiotic model for explaining

the sac-

rament emerges when one tries to engage what is in every sense

4·

paradigm of the sign sacrament,

the inability of the theory of the

sign to fully account for the sacrament's

I "

efficacy emerges with

THE

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

respect to the effects of the sacrament,

THEORY

THINGS

namely, grace and charac-

OF

SIGNATURES

depends on the good or evil dispositions

that is produced

ex opere

operantis),

is forced to distinguish

operatum,

the sign here is always the place of an operation

actualizes

its efficacy.

a "principal

cause," which pro-

duces its effects in virtue of its form (like fire warming tue of its warmth),

and an "instrumental

up in vir-

reality

(ex opere

ter. To explain how a sign may also be the cause of grace, Thomas between

but is an objective

of the minister

that

In other words, the sacrament functions not as a sign that, once

cause," which acts not in

virtue of its form but only through a movement impressed on it by

instituted,

always signifies its meaning

but as a signature

whose

an acting principle (the hatchet being the cause of the bed only by

effect depends on a signator, or in any case on a principle-occult

means of the artisan's action). Whereas the principal cause cannot

virtue in Paracelsus, instrumental

be the sign of its effect, the instrumental

time animates it and makes it effective.

cause, writes Thomas,

virtue in Thomas-

which each

"can be called the sign of a hidden effect in virtue of the fact that it is not only a cause but in some sense an effect too, inasmuch as it receives its initial impetus from the principal is why the sacraments

agent. And this

of the New Law are causes and signs at the

9 The proximity

of the sign to the sphere of signatures

same time. Hence too it is that, as the usual formula puts it, they

ev ident in the specific sacramental

1fect what they.figuratively

"character"

express [~fficiunt quod .figurant)."32 How-

ever, this means that as the effect of a principal namely Christ's, the sacrament

understood

does not act simply ex institutione needs an active principle

as instrumental

cause

like a sign; rather, each time it

in order to animate it. This is why it is

necessary for the minister, who represents agent, to have the intention

agent's action,

Christ as the principal

(if not presently,

of carrying out the sacramental

at least customarily)

contrast

in baptism,

polemics

developed

against the Donatists,

baptism (and ordination) important

act. Thomas adds:

question

can be imparted especially

The Donatists

if the sacrament

or schismatic.

because he wanted

can be aimed at physical Cleanliness or physical health, or be done in play, and there are many other reasons of this kind why this action should be performed. And because of this it is necessary to isolate and define the one purpose for which the action of washing is performed in baptism, and this is done through the intention of the minister. This intention in turn is expressed in the words pro-

jects receiving or administering municated

since according to the patristic tradition, participating

had been administered this raised an

to affirm the validity of of the situation of the sub-

that imprints

spiritual grace,

they were excluded from

in the Holy Spirit. Against this thesis,

affirms the possibility

of a baptisma sine spiritu-

Augustine

that is, a baptism

on the soul a character or nota, without

Even if such intention

I, ()

in the short treatise denied the validity of

the sacraments of heretics could not communicate

the identity of both the Christian

which

of his

it but also outside the grace com-

its corresponding

subjective,

only once).

by the sacrament through the Spirit. For the Donatists,

nounced in the sacraments, as when the minister says, "I baptise you in the name of the Father etc.,,33 is not something

(which, in

in the context

For Augustine,

the sacrament not only independently Thus the act of washing with water, which takes place in baptism,

and ordination

a theory of character

Contra epistolam Parmeniani. by or to a heretic

effect that takes the name of

confirmation,

to the other sacraments,

Augustine

is even more

conferring

grace. The reasons for such a radical thesis are

probably ecclesial, and to be found in Augustine's

desire to ensure

person and the priest beyond

THE

any personal

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

merit or unworthiness.

such a "character"

THEORY

THINGS

In any case, the status of

OF

10

is so paradoxical that Augustine has to multiply

the paradigms that make it intelligible.

The Scholastics,

He first cites the example

who centuries

of someone who has stamped a gold or silver coin with a signum

"sacramental

regale, though illicitly, without

origin. They thus attempted

caught, he will certainly and is incorporated conpeteuuv."

SIGNATURES

the sovereign's

be punished,

authorization:

if

but the coin remains valid

into the public treasury

(thesallris

in the Roman army, has been marked on his

body by the character militiae and out of cowardice battle. If he appeals to the emperor's it is not necessary

clemency

has fled from

"that the sacramenta

christiana

could not have overlooked to give content

that it communicates

its aporetic

to the Augustinian to the soul a habitus

latter is the position of Thomas, even if it does not communicate upon the soul "a certain

are less

lasting than this bodily mark [corporalis nota ]7"35 On the basis of

grace, nevertheless

does bestow

spiritual power ordered to those things

This, however, too, has recourse in antiquity

does not resolve all the difficulties. to Augustine's

military paradigm,

Thomas,

writing

"it was usual for soldiers on enlistment

service to be marked with some form of physical 'character'

draws by means of a doubtful argument

recognition

Spirit, then heretics

the inevitable conclusion

spirit": "If baptism cannot be without the have the Spirit-

but to destruction

not to

in

of the fact that they were deputed for some function

in the physical sphere. In the same way, therefore, sacraments

that

for military

this example and aware of the aporias implicit in this notion, he of a "baptism without

The

who argues that the character,

which pertain to divine worship.'?"

and is forgiven,

to mark him again with a new character. "Is it

possible," asks Augustine,

by affirming

the theory of the

(this is the thesis of Alexander of Hales) or a power (potenza).

regalibus

The second example has to do with a soldier who,

as was customary

signature

character,"

later developed

men are deputed

for some function

when in the

in the spiritual

salvation, just as was the case with Saul. ... [But if] the covetous

sphere pertaining

have not the Spirit of God, and yet have baptism, it is possible for

believers they are marked off by some form of spiritual character.?"

baptism to exist without the Spirit of God."36 The idea of an indelible "sacramental character"

by the sensible sign of the sacrament:

from the need to explain how the sacrament

Character, he argues, is an indelible sign imprinted arises, then,

survives in condi-

tions that should have made it void or inefficacious.

If the com-

munication

will express

of the Spirit is impossible,

the excess of the sacrament supplement

the character

over its effect,

of efficacy without

any content

to the worship of God, it naturally follows that as

something

like a

other than the pure

upon the soul has the force of a sign [habet rationem the character

of baptism

be erased. Consider

produces not only the effect of

sign that is spiritual

the paradoxical

nature

in nature and cannot

of this special

signature

is a zero degree

(qllaedam si8natio)

that defines character." A sign produced

which expresses the event of a sign without meaning

sign, the character

exceeds the relational nature that is proper to

priestly character. To put it differently: signature,

signi] ... for

is that he has been washed by water

the sensible sign of the sacrament

the qualities that defined him, if he has committed

or

imprinted

which is apparent to the senses.":" That is, in the case of baptism,

fact of being marked. If the Christian person or priest has lost all ful act or even denied his faith, he still retains his Christian

on the soul

the way in which an individual is known to have been sealed with

grace but also another

some disgrace-

"The character

and grounds-

in this event-

character

a pure identity without content.

the sign:

III)

"8

by a

THE

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

THINGS

THEORY

OF

SIGNATURES

With regard to the relation implied by the term "sign," there has

participation

to be some basis for this. Now the immediate basis for the relation-

is usually seen as the first philosophical

ship involved in this kind of sign, namely character, cannot be the

theurgy: Iamblichus's

essence of the soul. Otherwise

it would belong connaturally

to

every soul. Hence we have to postulate some property in the soul which constitutes the basis for a relation of this kind, and this is the essence of character. Hence we shall not have to assign it to the genus of relation, as some have asserted." Character,

of the sacrament,

every relation.

character

In the efficacious

of signatures

theory, which makes it akin to the derives from it, even

to it, a character

In both cases, the meaning

magical

that is inseparable or signature that by

of character

is purely pragmatic.

with a character

[charactere ... insigni-

tur] ordaining it for use in commerce,

and soldiers are sealed with

a character inasmuch as they are deputed to military service" (both examples also appear in Paracelsus), so are the faithful marked by recipiendum

in order to be able to perform

vel tradendum

properly arouse the divine will are the actual divine symbols [theia

in the theurgic rites depends on us, or suppose that their genuine

by which it is

insisting on a sign makes it efficacious and capable of action.

the character

relate, itself recognises the proper images [oikeias eikonas] of itself,

has the

us with something

Just as a coin is "imprinted

work, and the ineffable power of the gods, to whom these symbols

For this reason, "character

to suppose for both a common

from the sign yet irreducible

aliis ea quae pertinent

acts of worship (ad ad cultum Dei).43

performance

[alethes ... er8on] is assured by the true condition of

our acts of thinking, or that they are made false by our deception.Y Marsilio

Ficino was so convinced

these texts and the Christian tradition mysteriis into Latin, together and the Corpus hermeticum, sacraments.

the idea that the efficacy of sacred

,; o

of the condition

and type of

of the efficacy of the

"De virtute

theta synthemata,

signs," as "sacramenta

the expression

the

sacramento"divine

divina." And at the end of the passage, he

adds a few lines that unequivocally ment: "When

De

he slightly altered the passage in ques-

Thus not only does he place before the paragraph

refer to the Christian

in the course of sacrifice

that is, signs and sacraments

the priest uses material

there

sacra-

are symbols and

[signacl!la et sacramenta],

things in virtue

decorum;

of whose ordination

but it is God who imprints

he

on the

its efficacious force.?"

Both the theological

signs and practices was independent

that when he translated

title (which is missing in the original)

synthemata,

between

with other Greek magical treatises

rum," he also translates

sacrament I I

of the relation

tion to make it accord with the doctrine

realizes the external

A century before Augustine,

the symbols

themselves, by themselves, perform their appropriate

son: that you not believe that all authority over activity [ener8eias]

in itself it has the force of a principle.':"

origin), is that it presents

[synthemata]

synthemata] .... I have labored this point at some length for this rea-

(and which probably

though it is legitimate

For even when we are not engaged in intellection,

sign

The paradox of sacramental theory

He writes:

excess

force of a sign in relation to the sensible sacrament but considered

of magic and

is what marks the irreducible

of efficacy over signification. imprinted,

De mysteriis.

foundation

not through being aroused by our thought. ... The things which

then, is a sign that exceeds the sign, and a relation

that exceeds and grounds

of the subjects involved had emerged in a work that

and the medical doctrine

doctrine

of the sacramental

of signatures

origin to this kind of magical-theurgic

I; I

in all likelihood tradition.

character owe their

Among the texts

THEORY THE

translated

=e«

OF

ALL

to Proclus, in which the basic concepts we have

so far are clearly present.

the familiar idea regarding

OF

SIGNATURES

THINGS

by Ficino, there is a short treatise titled De sacr!ficio et

attributed

examined

SIGNATURE

Here we find, once again,

the visible signatures

of things ("the

that the juridical fundamental

problem

element

posed by such a practice

of doctrine,

nature of the sacrament.

putting

Since sacramental

touched

in question

a

the very

efficacy immediately

depends on the signum and the character rather than on the aims

stone called 'the eye of the sky' or 'eye of the sun' contains a figure

and the conditions

resembling

the baptism of images calls into question the essence of the sacra-

the pupil of the eye from which emanates a ray") as

of the subjects, the person who administers

well as the idea of efficacious likeness as the foundation of magical

ment and therefore

influences:

crime of sorcery. In other words, the close proximity

("The ancients, having recognized

these things ... by

means of likeness transfer divine virtues onto the inferior world;

sacramental

in fact, likeness is the sufficient cause that allows individual things

theologian

commits a crime of heresy, and not a simple

and magical efficacy makes the intervention

of the

and the canonist necessary.

This is clear in the longer and more elaborate

to be bound to one another")."

between

by the Franciscan

Enrico del Carretto,

answer given

bishop of Lucca. Against

those who argued that it could not be a matter of afactum 12

cale, since magical purpose

was accidental

with respect

heretito faith

and magic is evident enough

in the sacrament,

he argued that baptism was a consecration

in the practice of the baptism of images and charms as reported

added something

to the consecrated

The proximity in a

1320

between

consultation

sacraments

of Pope John XXII. The ritual baptism of

magical images, which serves to increase their efficacy, must have been a widespread

enough practice

in those years to worry the

or sign. The baptism of images performed therefore

did not merely introduce

to the sacrament

that

thing by way of either form for magical purposes

an external

aim with respect

but was "a form of consecration

pontiff to the point of inducing him to submit the following question to ten theologians

is affected by the act or is believed to be affected by such conse-

and canon law experts:

to witchcraft,

through

[quedam con-

secTOtiol and deputation

which the thing

cration.?" In other words, Enrico believes in the reality of the Do those who baptize with water, in accordance with church ritu-

spell performed

als, images, or any other object devoid of reason for the purpose

operation

through

the baptism

were performed

of images. If the magical

on an unconsecrated

image, even if

of witchcraft commit the crime of heresy and should therefore be

the performer

considered heretics, or should they be judged only as having com-

image for this reason (ad hoc pungit Jmaginem,

mitted sorcery? And how should they be punished in either case?

malificiatum),

And what is to be done with respect to those who have received such

ever, if the image has been baptized in accordan~e

believed

in the demon's

power and pierced

the

ut dJabolus pungat

there would be sorcery rather than heresy." Howwith the ritual

images even tough they knew that they had been baptized? And what

(modo divino), "the consecration

to do with respect to those who did not know that the images had

cal image" where the devil effectively insinuates

been baptized, but, knowing the power of these sorts of images, had

parallelism

received them for this purpose?"

of the sacrament

The pope, himself

means of a sign. Indeed, the devil is present in the image not as

a scholar of canon law, had understood

between

of the image produces a diaboli-

the efficacy of the baptized

consists

precisely

I,' '\

his power. so The image and that

in the fact that both act by

THE

a "principle

SIGNATURE

of movement"

OF

ALL

(sicut motor in mobili) but as "some-

thing marked in the sign" (ut signatum in the sacrament, institutes,"

in signo). Just as it occurs

in the magical image the devil "efficaciously

through the priest, "a sign relation with respect to the

spell." And, as in the sacrament,

whatever

may be, "the simple fact of consecration therefore

THEORY

THINGS

the performer's

contains the belief, and

makes it a case of heresy IJactum

cal and sacramental

operations

for term, and the classification

belief

correspond

Saturni,

according

OF

SIGNATURES

to Picatiix, is that of "a man who has a black

face and camel feet, who sits at the desk holding in his right hand a pole and in his left hand an arrow or javelin.?" What is the meaning recorded

of these enigmatic

in the manuscripts'

illustrations?

draw in the sky, nor do they describe any properties

to each other term

cal signs to which they refer. Their function

of the crime as a type of heresy

when we place them in the technical of charms or talismans reproductions

of anything:

context

and medical tradition

site of signatures.

examined

Indeed, the magical

so far has its roots in astrology.

of the production

a point in order to influence

terrestrial

role, the form or figure of the planet is defined or signator, or even "root"

maius, which so fascinated Aby War-

burg when he saw them sumptuously

reproduced

in the frescos at

Schifanoia that he did not rest until he had traced their genealogy. "In this decan," we read in the Introductorium

maius in regard to

selves operations

Both the figure in the ymago de can find their meaning both signatures

his midriff

ized (iste linee Significant

a voluminous

white

cord; he is wrathful,

garment,

tied around

stands erect, guards, and observes.':"

with a In the

through

Knowledge

in the median strip of the month of March in the hall of Palazzo

sense that producing

Schifanoia, Warburg

and reproducing

ultimately saw a kind of "secret companion"

both the decansand

like a cipher of his destiny. In Picatiix,

the planets have a "figure"

(jonna)

kind. Thus, while the first decan of Aries is described "man with red eyes and a large beard, wrapped cloth, making

impressive

gestures

~ 4

of this

there as a

in a white linen

while he walks,"

the Jorma

and the form of the planet or

in this efficacious which the influence

operation:

of celestial signatures

in mundo ut in

et hoc modo operantur). 56

is the magician's science, in the

an ymago means sympathetically

in a signature

formula) the signature

they are

of the stars is real-

radios quos stelle proiciunt

centro; et ex hoc est opus et virtus ymaginum,

gloomy figure of this vir niger, as depicted by Francesco del Cossa

of his life and something

as a significator that gathers and

radices erunt opus celi pro iffectibus ymaginum).55

of mind; he wears

and greatness

(radix), of the yma80

In this

put in the service of the efficacy of images (iste

of powerful

courage,

into

directs the virtues of the stars. In this sense, the roots are them-

the first decan of Aries, "a black man arises with red eyes, a man stature,

which

bodies (ymago nihil aliud

est quam vis corporum celestium in cotpotibus irifluencium).54

Consider the images and figures of the decans in the Arabic treaAbu Ma'shar's /ntroductorium

the

signs nor

through

and concentrated

tise that was translated

into Latin under the title Picatrix or in

Whatever

r=e= are neither

they are operations

the forces of celestial bodies are gathered is a privileged

of the zodia-

becomes clear only

that Picatrix calls ymagines.

. matter of which they are made, the

13

the constel-

lations, they in no way refer to the figures that the stars seem to

hereticale]."51 Magi-

records this proximity.

Astrology

figures so precisely Unlike

imagining

(which can also be a gesture

or a

of the planet in question.

This is all the more true for the so-called "signs" of the zodiac as well as for the constellations

themselves.

It is not properly

a

matter of signs (what would they be signs of?) but a matter of signatures

expressing

a relation of efficacious likeness between

the

THE

constellation

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

THEORY

THINGS

and those who are born under its sign, or more gen-

erally, between the macrocosm

and the microcosm.

And not only

OF

SIGNATURES

produce his charms, so Mnemosyne is the atlas of signatures the artist-or

the scholar-must

is it not a matter of signs, but it is not even a matter of anything

or she wishes to understand

that has ever been written

is at issue in the tradition

of the historical

For this reason, Warburg,

with para-scientific

the profound

down. Rather, in the sky, according to

image proposed

by Hugo von Hofmannsthal,

men

that

learn to know and handle if he

and perform the risky operation memory

that

of the West.

terminology

that

learned perhaps for the first time "to read what was never writ-

is, in truth,

ten." However, this means that the signature

the Pathoiformeln as "disconnected dynamograms" (abgeschniirte Dynamogramme) that reacquire their efficacy every time they

is the place where

the gesture of reading and that of writing invert their relation and enter into a zone of undecidability. ing, and writing

Here reading becomes writ-

is wholly resolved into reading:

"The image is

called image because the forces of the spirits are conjoined here:

[cogitacio1 is included in the thing

the operation of the imagination

encounter

closer to that of magic than of science, can refer to

the artist (or the scholar). Despite the terminological

uncertainties

that are undoubtedly

the "nameless

science"

instruments,

These observations

may supply the key to understanding

burg devoted the last years of his life- as well as to grasping more appropriately

of Pathoiformel. The images (in fact,

the concept

photographs,

which were specially developed

photo lab of the Warburg

and printed in the

Haus) making up each of the seventy-

nine plates of the atlas should not be seen (as with ordinary books) as photographic

reproductions

which we would ultimately

be referring.

of works or objects On the contrary,

have value in themselves, since they themselves

an archaeology

art to they

are ymaaines in

In The Order

if

when he situates episteme.

the theory

man and the universe. correspondences

and planets

'i

11

that will enable him to

the exegesis and

a world that is supported and sympathies,

stands in need of signatures,

Signs," and knowledge

of the decans

However,

the thick weave of resemblances

the historian:

its pages the catalog of the Jormae and

century

not only of texts but also of the relation between

are not found in works of art or in the mind of the artist or of in the atlas. Just as the Introductorium maius or Picatrix offers to

in the Renaissance

plays a decisive role, domi-

nating until the end of the sixteenth interpretation

out signatures.

they coincide with the images precisely recorded

of signatures

In the latter, resemblance

us how to recognize

signatures

of signatures.

Things, Michel Foucault cites Paracelsus's treatise

Picatrix's sense, in which the signature of the objects they appear has been affixed. In other words, the Pathoiformeln

perusing

and

to found is something

15

to reproduce

the magician

signs nor symbols but signatures; he was unable

what is

Bildetotlas Mnemosyne- to which War-

at issue in the enigmatic

and the Bilde: Warburg

an Atifhebung of magic by means of its own

like an overcoming,

I4

by the psychology

of the time, from Friedrich Theodor Vischer to Richard Wolfgang Semon, the Pathoiformeln, the "engrams" seeks to grasp are neither

that contains the virtue of the planet.'?"

influenced

them.

"There

of resemblances

ing and deciphering

signatures.

incessant doubling resemblances:

that signatures

58

~arks

that teach

are no resemblances

The world of similarity

by

analogies and with-

can only be a world of is based on identify-

Foucault realizes the curious, introduce

into the system of

THE

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

THEORY

THINGS

But what are these signs? How, amid all the aspects and so many interlacing

forms,

faced at any given moment pause because

it indicates

form constitutes

does one recognize

with a character

that should give one

a secret and essential

does. It signifies

bles what it is indicating

resemblance?

for its distinct

would then be indistinguishable it is another resemblance,

this signature

an adjacent

existence

as a signature

the first, and which is revealed

is no more than an intermediate

a signature;

but

form of the same

As a result, the totality of these marks, sliding over the

exact duplication

forms a second circle which would be an

of the first, point by point, were it not for that tiny

degree of displacement

which causes the sign of sympathy

in an analogy, that of an analogy in emulation, which in turn requires

the mark of sympathy

The signature

same nature;

it is merely that they obey a different

tion; the pattern

and what it denotes

in

for its

are of exactly

the

and communicate

Everything

the world

celsus to Crollius,

is a motif in his definition needs to be elaborated signatures.

At a certain

_ the set of knowledges and what is notof knowledges

from Para-

Foucault does not define the concept

nature, which for him resolves into resemblance; of the Renaissance

of sig-

however, there

episterne that only

to identify the proper site and function point Foucault distinguishes that allow us to recognize

from hermeneutics,

to "make the signs speak." The sixteenth

8

of

semiology

what is a sign

which consists of the set

that allow us to discover

the meaning century,

coin-

between them there remains a gap,

would

be manifest

and immediately

hermeneutics

of resemblance

cided without

the slightest parallax.

form the graphics

knowable

and the semiology

if the

of signatures

coin-

But because the similitudes

of the world are one "cog" out of alignment

those that form its discourse,

knowledge

and the infinite

involves find here the space that is proper to weave their way across this distance, course from resemblance

that with

labour it

to them: it is their task

pursuing

to what resembles

an endless zigzag

it."'

Although the site and nature of signatures in the passage just quoted, signatures gap and disconnection signatures

59

just like the authors he examines,

from one end to the do not perfectly

is produced:

between

provided

of signs,

he suggests,

remain problematic

find their own locus in the

semiology

and hermeneutics.

an early definition

of the concept

of

in this context in a 1970 article on The Order ?!Thinas.

Starting from the noncoincidence Nevertheless,

other than

is visible only in the

and hermeneutics

cide by means of resemblance;

the way in which

is nothing

And that resemblance

of signs that crosses

Enzo Melandri

law of distribu-

from which they are cut is the same.

and semiology in the form of simili-

to reside

that of emulation

recognition.

network

where knowledge

one of another

receives

they are linked together

other.l"? Yet semiology

But what it indi-

similitude,

Every resemblance

great circle of similitudes,

convenience,

What

value as a

from the face of which it is the sign;

type which enables us to recognize in its turn by a third.

....

hermeneutics

SIGNATURES

tude .... The nature of things, their coexistence, their resemblance.

exactly in so far as it resem-

(that is, a similitude)

cates is not the homology;

resemblance.

that one is

a sign and endows it with its particular

sign?-Resemblance

"superimposed

of the world

OF

in Foucault,

of semiology and hermeneutics

he went on to define the signature

the transition

as what enables

from the one to the other: "A sianature is a sort of

sign within the sign; it is the index that in the context of a given serniology univocally A signature

makes reference

to a give!} interpretation.

adheres to the sign in the sense that it indicates,

by

means of the sign's making, the code with which it has to be deci-

phered.l'" If for the Renaissance to the resemblance in modern

between

episteme

a signature

the sign and its designated

science it is no longer a character

sign but of its relation

thus refers thing,

of the individual

with other signs. In any case, "the type

I,' \)

THE

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

THEORY

THINGS

of episteme depends on the type of signature,"

language

and this is "that

character of the sign, or of the system of signs, that announces

by

SIGNATURES

solely as a system of signs is insufficient

and does not

allow one to explain the passage from sign to speech. The semiology of language,

means of its making its own relation to the deSignated thing."63

OF

the interpretation

signs, was thus "paradoxically

of language

as a system of

blocked by the very instrument

that allowed for its creation: the sign."65 As Saussure had intuited 16

in notes published after his death, iflanguage

One of the final conclusions idea that the transition

of Emile Benveniste's

between

is not to be taken for granted, unbridgeable

gap. Consider

langue." There Benveniste significance"

semiology

that between

work was the

the two there is an

the 1969 essay "Semiologie identifies

within

(une double signifiance) that corresponds

crete and juxtaposed

de la

language "a double to two dis-

planes: on the one hand, the plane of semi-

otics; and on the other, that of semantics.

into discourse:

"Various concepts

what operation,

what interplay

between

form discourse? The sequence

however

it might be by the ideas it evokes, will never

enriched

pronouncing

tion raised by the sign relates to its existence, and this question is decided with a yes or no .... It exists when it is recognized as a Signifier by all the members of the linguistic community .... With the semantic, we enter into a specific mode of significance that is generated by discourse. The problems posed here are a function of language as a producer of messages. The message is not reduced to a succession of unities to be identified separately; it is not the sum of signs that produces sense. On the contrary, it is the sense, globally conceived, that is realized and divided in particular "signs," namely, words .... The semantic order is identical with the world of enunciation and the universe of discourse. It is possible to show that we

them, what conditions,

do these concepts

The semiotic denotes the mode of significance that belongs to the linguistic sign and constitutes it as a unity .... The only ques-

are present in

language (that is, clothed in linguistic form) such as beif, lake, sky, red, sad,five, to split, to see. At what moment, and by virtue of

make any human being understand

He writes:

as a

system of signs, then nothing allows us to explain how these signs are transformed

and hermeneutics

is presupposed

that another human being, by

it, wishes to convey something

Thus Benveniste

specific to him.'?"

can conclude with the forceful affirmation:

"The world of the sign is, in truth, sentence

of these words,

there is no transition,

closed. From the sign to the

neither

by syntagmation

nor by

them.?" In Foucault's

any other

means.

Melandri's

terms, this amounts to saying that there is no passage

from semiology

A gap separates

in the "gap" that separates

speak unless signatures theory oflinguistic of signatures.

and that we must situate sig-

to hermeneutics

natures precisely

and

them. Signs do not

make them speak. But this means that the

signification

must be completed

The theory of enunciation

in this same period can be considered

with a theory

that Benveniste develops as an attempt

a bridge over that gap, to render thinkable

to construct

the passage between

the semiotic and the semantic.

are dealing with two distinct orders of concepts and two conceptual universes by pointing to the different criteria of validity that are required for the one and for the other. The semiotic (the sign) must be recognized; the semantic (discourse) must be understood.T" According

to Benveniste,

Saussure's

i)

o

attempt

to conceive

17 In the same year that Benveniste published the essay "Semiologie

of

de la langue,"

Foucault published

1'1

The Archaeology

if Knowledge.

THE

SIGNATURE

Even though Benveniste's

OF

ALL

THEORY

THINGS

name does not appear in the book, and

The statement

OF

SIGNATURES

cannot be identified as a sign or structure

Foucault might not have known his most recent articles, a secret

ring to a series of logical, grammatical,

thread unifies the manifesto

Instead,

Benveniste's

of Foucauldian

theses. The incomparable

epistemology

and

novelty of The Archaeol-

it operates

in signs, phrases,

of their simple existence,

allows us to decide whether

calls "statements."

the sentence is correct,

tinguish

Now, statements

(the semantic),

them as much from the sentence

tion (the statement, sitional

structure

residual

element

of "irrelevant

thereby reducing the statement

takes care to dis-

as from the proposi-

he writes, is "what is left when the propohas been extracted

sible to situate the statement

neither

are not merely reducible

since Foucault

and defined,"

raw material?").

Nor is it pos-

entirely within the semiotic sphere,

it to signs: "It is useless therefore

among unitary

a syntagma,

form of succession

a kind of

to look for

groups of signs. The statement

nor a rule of construction, and permutation;

is

nor a canonic

it is that which enables

such groups of signs to exist, and enables these rules or forms to Hence the difficulty

Foucault faces in his effort to define the

function,"

as well as the stubbornness

always insists on the heterogeneous

character

with which he

of statements

with

exists therefore

neither in the same way as a language

(Jan8ue) (although it is made of signs that are definable in their individuality

only within

a natural

or artificial

in the same way as the objects it is always endowed situated statement

presented

with a certain

in accordance

linguistic to perception

materiality,

with spatio-temporal

but neither

(although

coordinates)

therefore

(I

....

The

the proposito the same

is it the same kind of unit as a material

with its limits and independence."

nor

and can always be

is not the same kind of unit as the sentence,

tion, or the speech act; it cannot be referred criteria;

system),

object,

belongs

a structure

... it is a function

of exis-

analysis or intuition,

whether

or not they

to what rule they follow one another

or are

of what they are the sign, and what sort of act is car-

a unit, but a function possible

if

an aim is realized:

to signs and on the basis of which one

ried out by their formulation

unities,

(oral or written)

... [I]t is not in itself

that cuts across a domain

and which reveals them,

of structures

with concrete

and

contents,

in time and space."

To be sure, Foucault realized that it was not possible to define as one level among others of linguistic

that the archaeology

analysis and

he sought after did not at all delimit in lan-

guage a sphere comparable

to that of a disciplinary

The whole book, with its hesitations tions and resumptions,

respect to signs and to the objects they signify: The statement

is not therefore

"make sense," .according juxtaposed,

the act of language is efficacious,

or whether

may then decide, through

the statement

become manifest.?" "enunciative

The statement

tence that properly

relations. at the level

as a bearer of efficacy, which each time

0ay if Knowledce is to explicitly take as its object what Foucault to discourse

or syntactical and sentences

refer-

and repetitions,

knowledge. its interrup-

and finally its explicit admission that it did

not aim at the constitution

of a science in the proper sense, bears

witness to such difficulty.

To the extent that it is always already

invested in sentences not coincide

and propositions,

with the signifiers

to the extent that it does

or with signifieds,

and that it

refers to "the very fact that they ate given, and the way in which they are given," the enunciative them and must be recognized ignation

of something

is almost invisible in

beyond or on this side of their des-

or their being deSignated by something."

In other words, it is necessary direction

function

to "question

language,

to which it refers, but in the dimension

To grasp this, it is less a matter

It

of capturing

i

not in the

that gives it."73 the whole set of

THE

SIGNATURE

logical or grammatical lish the competence

OF

ALL

rules that order communication

or estab-

that is, "a body of anony-

rules, always determined

in the time and space

purely existential

that have defined a given period, and for a given social, econorr;ic, geographical,

object endowed

The Order

in The Archaeology

if Things

situated on the threshold where signatures yet discourse

if Knowledge

belonged to signatures. between

that the

take the place that in Statements,

then, are

semiology and hermeneutics

take place. Neither

semiotic nor semantic,

and no longer mere sign, statements,

character

but "a function

Foucault

of statements. of existence,"

with real properties.

not

like signa-

ment is the signature existence

the

Insofar as it is not a the statement

is not an the

takes place. The state-

that marks language in the pure fact of its

(darsi).

An attempt

to link the doctrine

of signatures

was made by the English philosopher seventeenth

century.

It concerned

Edward

tures, do not institute semiotic relations or create new meanings; instead, they mark and "characterize"

pertain

to ontology

Herbert

the interpretation

predicates that Scholastics called "transcendents" trascendentalia)

signs at the level of their

often emphasizes

It is a pure existence,

sheer fact that a certain being-Ianguage-

enunciative function."74 The whole argument acquires clarity if we hypothesize statements

SIGNATURES

if Knowledge,

In The Archaeology "structure"

or linguistic area, the conditions of operation of the

OF

18

of the speaking subject than it is of pausing

to reflect on the" discursive practices," mous, historical

THEORY

THINGS

in the of those

(trascendentia

insofar as, being the most general predicates,

to every being through

the very fact of existing.

or they

These

existence, thus actualizing and displacing their efficacy. These are

are: res, verum, bonum, oliquid, unum. Every being, owing to the

the signatures that signs receive from the sheer fact of existing and

sheer fact of existing, is one, true, and good. For this reason, the

being used-namely,

Scholastics

the indelible character that, in marking them

as signifying something,

orients and determines

tion and efficacy in a certain context. like the figures of the constellations

their interpreta-

Like signatures

on coins,

and the decans in the sky of

astrology, like the eye-shaped spots on the corolla of the Eaphrasia or the character

that baptism imprints on the soul of the baptized,

they have always already pragmatically

decided the destiny and life

of signs that neither semiology nor hermeneutics The theory abstract unmarked

of signatures

is able to exhaust.

(or of statements)

rectifies

the

and fallacious idea that there are, as it were, pure and signs, that the signans neutrally signifies the signatum,

said that the meaning

with pure existence

of these predicates

(reciptocatur

coincides

cum ente), and they defined its

nature with the syntagma passiones entis; that is, the attributes

a

being "suffers" or receives from the very fact of being. Herbert's predicates

great achievement

(or at least one of them) as signatures.

ing, in De veritate scendental

(1633), the nature

While analyz-

and meaning

bonum, he defines it as the signature

a thing through signatura

was to read these transcendent of the tran-

that pertains

to

the very fact of being: "Bonitas ... in re est ejus

interior

[The goodness

of the thing lies in its internal

signature]."75 Bonum is a "passion of the being," which necessarily

univocally and once and for all. Instead, the sign signifies because

marks the thing and displays itself as much in its sensible appear-

it carries

a signature

ance (the "pleasant," the "beautiful")

pretation

and distributes

practices,

and precepts

sense, archaeology

that necessarily

predetermines

its use and efficacy according that it is our task to recognize.

is the science of signatures.

(1 ~

its interto rules, In this

(intellection

as perception

Let us attempt

as in intellectual

of the ultima bonitatis

to broaden

Herbert's

intuition,

signatura). which throws

new lioht on an essential chapter of first philosophy,

(.

I,

knowledge

namely, the

THE

doctrine

SIGNATURE

OF

of the transcendentals.

ALL

THINGS

THEORY

In itself, being is the most empty

and generic notion, which seems not to tolerate any determina-

relation between

OF

SIGNATURES

En-Sof (God as simple and infinite

Being) and

the Sephiroth (the ten "words" or attributes in which God is mani-

tions other than the "neither ... nor" of negative theology. Yet, if

fested). How can multiple attributes and determinations

we instead posit that being, through

ted if God is simple, one, and infinite? If the Sephiroth are in God,

the very fact of existing,

of

be admit-

giving itself in an entity, receives or suffers marks or signatures

God's unity and simplicity are lost; if they are outside of God, they

that orient its comprehension

cannot be divine at all. "You will never escape from this alterna-

tain hermeneutics,

toward, a given sphere and a cer-

then ontology is possible as the" discourse"

of being, that is, of "the passions of being." "Quodlibet unum,

verum,

bonum":

every being presents

unity (which directs it toward mathematics

ens est

the signature

of

or the theory of singu-

tive," states the philosopher in the dialogue The Philosopher and the Kabbalist, written by Padua's great Kabbalist Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto: "Either the Sephiroth can one think something

are in God or they are not

How

divine derived from the divine?

'God'

larity), of truth (which orients it toward the theory of knowledge),

signifies

and of the good (which makes it communicable

sary .... So we must conceive God as one, having absolute unique-

and desirable).

Here we touch on the special relevance for ontology of the theory of signatures. the objective

It is not only that in the syntagma passiones etitis

or subjective

being and its passions dissemination statements

meaning

coincide.

of the genitive is not clear;

Existence

is a transcendental

in passions, that is, in signatures.

Signatures

(like

with respect to language) are then that which marks

things at the level of their pure existence. is the archi-signator

that imprints

On haplos, "pure being,"

its transcendental

existent entities. The Kantian principle

marks on

according to which exis-

the one who is unique

ness. How can one think God in terms of multiplicity,

is necesgeneration,

and origin of the lights from one another? ... We know that the holy one, blessed be He, is absolutely simple and no accident can be attributed

to Him.H76 The same problem

appears in Christian

theology (as well as in Islamic and Jewish theology) in relation to the question concerning according

God's attributes.

It is well-known

that,

to Harry A. Wolfson and Leo Strauss, the history

of

Western philosophy and theology from Plato to Spinoza coincides with the history of the doctrine

tence is not a real predicate, reveals here its true meaning: being is

And, as philosophers

not "the concept of something

ing, this doctrine

that could be added to the concept

and whose existence

regarding

and theologians

is intrinsically

the divine attributes.

alike do not tire of repeat-

aporetic.

God is the absolutely

of a thing," because in truth being is not a concept but a signa-

simple being, in whom not only are essence and existence indistin-

ture. Hence, ontology

guishable, but not even essence and attributes,

is not a determinate

knowledge

but the

archaeology

of every knowledge,

that pertain

to beings by virtue of the very fact of existing, thus

predisposing

which explores the signatures

them to the interpretation

of specific knowledges.

cies, can be distinguished.

Nevertheless,

perfect being, He must somehow attributes

possess all perfections and all

insofar as they express perfections.

divided between

or genus and spe-

if God is the absolutely Thus the field is

those who argue that in actuality

the attributes

exist in God and those who maintain with equal firmness that the

19

attributes

exist only in the minds of human beings.

The theory of signatures allows us also to throw light on one of the

Signatures

problems that have engaged scholars of the Kabbala, namely, the

the Sephiroth

h

(l

interrupt

this false alternative.

for the Kabbalists)

(\

The attributes

(as

are neither the essence of God

'/

THE

nor something natures

SIGNATURE

OF

THEORY

THINGS

foreign to the essence of God: they are the sig-

that, by barely brushing

simplicity

ALL

against

the absoluteness

of the being that is solely its own existing,

toward revelation

and

dispose it

the Sleeping

Gemaldegalerie

of Dresden

original by Titian.") nation

as a "copy by Sassoferrato

The novelty of "Morelli's of Burckhardt

of some scholars

focusing attention, 20

SIGNATURES

Venus, which until then had been exhibited

earned the admiration

and know ability.

OF

disappears

the advent of the Enlightenment.

from Western

The two lines dedicated

term in the Encyclopedie amount to a mocking port ridicule

des plantes

systeme extravagant

science with

as art historians

entre leur figure

to the

obituary:

"Rap-

et leurs effets. Ce

under different

second half of the nineteenth

century.

names starting

in the

In an essay that does not

and Freud and the indig-

details like ear lobes, the shape of fingers and

execution

of secondary

details, the more individual

Following

in the footsteps

of Enrico Castelnuovo,

the Italian historian

Carlo Ginzburg

compares

of this reemergence,

Mesopotamian

divination

of identification

defines as "evidential"

Ginzburg's

to Freud,

to art history.

that Ginzburg reconstructs

essay spans from

from forensic

an epistemological

(indiziario)

cases, situations,

to recall

paradigm

that he

in order to distinguish

it from

"highly quali-

in which the object is the study of individual and documents,

precisely because tbey are indi-

Exemplary is the case of Giovanni Morelli, who between

revolutionize

or better

an actual "signature":

ers the perpetrator

the techniques

of attribution

in painting.

to Morelli, among other things, the restitution

,) R

to Giorgione

of

and the Historical

Holmes's

Metbod,

almost maniacal

he

resembles the detective who discov-

attention

the mud, the ashes of a cigarette

on

to most people.'?" And

to the imprint

of a shoe in

on the pavement,

or indeed the

curve of an ear lobe (in the story "The Adventure

of the Card-

board Box") undoubtedly

calls to mind that of Pseudolermolieff

details in the masters'

(the

(We owe

more

of a crime (or the artist behind a painting)

Wind has observed

or iffecit) a series of articles that would

Ginzburg

to the one invented

the basis of evidence that is imperceptible

attention

Morelli

method

In Clues, Mytbs,

1874

and 1876 published under the Russian pseudonym Lermolieff eff., that is to say, iffinxit

evidential

It is well known

margin."77

name was an anagram,

Sherlock Holmes.

for the marginal

vidual, and for this reason get results that have an unsuppressible speculative

Morelli's

an art his-

of attribution,

or less in the same years by Arthur Conan Doyle for his detective writes: "The art connoisseur

techniques

It should be sufficient

the model of Galilean science, and that concerns tative disciplines,

car-

which occurs in the most dispa-

and techniques.

and uncon-

without his being aware of it.'?"

in depth here since it is so well-known,

rate knowledges

Morelli exam-

toes, and "even, horribi]« dictu ... such an unpleasant subject as fingernails. »78 Precisely where stylistic control loosens up in the

have to be described tography

of

had until that point, on more characteristics,

torian who had worked on the question

has traced a precise

which

scious traits of the artist can abruptly emerge, traits that "escaped

n'a que trop H~gne." Even more significant

is its gradual reemergence

ined insignificant

of a lost

method,"

of art, lies in the fact that instead

visible stylistic and iconographic

The concept of signature

in the

that Morelli's

paintings.

writings

h~d drawn

Freud's

years before he began to develop psychoanalysis.

the personality less intense,

that Morelli's

principle

according

Edgar

to which

of the author must be found where the effort is recalls

that of modern

which it is our small unconscious of our character.

gestures

In the essay "The

(j I)

psychology,

according

to

that betray the secret

Moses of Michelangelo,"

THE

SIGNATURE

Freud himself states without

OF

THINGS

reservations

is "closely related to the technique accustomed

ALL

features,

that Morelli's method

of psycho-analysis.

to divine secret and concealed

or unnoticed

THEORY

It, too, is

things from despised

from the rubbish-heap,

as it were, of our

observations."?'

OF

SIGNATURES

21

An actual philosophy fragments

Walter

of the signature

Benjamin

is contained

dedicated

jamin calls the "mimetic

(das Mimetische)

element"

mes, Freud, Alphonse Bertillon, and Francis Galton are grounded

rial similarity"

undoubtedly

comes to light in a particular

The specifically

human faculty of perceiving

tive of the theory

way if we view it from the perspec-

of signatures.

The details Morelli gathers

the ways in which ear lobes or fingernails Holmes investigates

of

are drawn, the traces

phylogeny he seeks to reconstruct he documents,

precisely

signatures

are all signatures

Bohme, the sphere of the mimetic

dimension

in the strict sense,

that we have examined

so far. As with Paracelsus

astrology and the correspondence

between

rocosm

identification

all in language

(in his correspondence

the fragments

in question

or characterization des Estampes

of a certain individual or event. at Paris's Bibliotheque

holds a series of photographs

that reproduce

Nationale

the objects

and

by the police in the garden of the accused while the crimes of Henri Landru

(1919). It consists of a

(which Benjamin

language").

and

faculty consists not only in

allow us to put a series of details into efficacious relation with the The Cabinet

whose

and whose decline in our time

ashes, the denials

the semiotic

similarities,

coincides with the ability to recognize

in the mud or in cigarette

that, by exceeding

or "immate-

refers to the sphere of signatures.

or lapses on which Freud focuses his attention,

investigating

faculty.

Even though the term itself does not appear in them, what Ben-

The nature of the clues on which the methods of Morelli, Hol-

clues gathered

in the two

to the mimetic

examines

microcosm

and mac-

at some length),

but above

with Gershom

are presented

From this perspective,

Scholem,

as a "new theory

language-

of

as well as writ-

ing- appears as a sort of "archive of nonsensuous

similarities,

nonsensuous

and articulate

correspondences.l'"

which ground

of

series of small, sealed displays, similar to the frames of a painting,

"the ties not only between what is said and what is meant but also

where pins, buttons,

between

metal clips, bone fragments,

ing dust, and other minutiae order. What is the meaning irresistibly

remind

of these small collections,

traces, the fragments

the cases leave no doubts: like clues or

case of a signature that puts an insignificant in effective relation

The

the exemplary

or nondescript

object

to an event (in this case, a crime, in Freud's

event) or to subjects (the victim, the murderer,

of a painting).

The "good God" who, according

Warburg's famous motto-which

to

Ginzburg uses as an epigraph to

his essay- hides in the detail, is a signataJ.

()

what is written

and what is meant, and equally between

the spoken and the written.?" The definition jamin in regard to the magical and mimetic perfectly

coincides

with the definition

above: "The mimetic

element

developed by Benelement of language

of the signature

in language

offered

can, like a flame,

manifest itself only through a kind of bearer [Treiger]. This bearer

of objects or bodies stand in a particular

relation to the crime. That is, the clue represents

the author

which

us of the oneiric objects of surrealism?

captions that accompany

case, a traumatic

vials contain-

of this kind are classified in perfect

is the semiotic or sentences ity appears. him-is

element.

Thus, the nexus of meaning

is the bearer through For its production

of words

which, lik~ a flash, similar-

by man-like

in many cases, and particularly

its perception

the most important,

by tied

to its flashing up. It flits past [Sie huscht varbei]."84 As we have seen in regard to the relationship tures and signs, immaterial

similarity

I

I

functions

between

signa-

in Benjamin

as

THE

an irreducible

SIGNATURE

complement

ALL

THINGS

to the semiotic

without which the transition Just as with Warburg's

OF

to discourse

astrological

THEORY

element of language cannot be understood.

signatures,

it is precisely the

knowledge of the mythical and magical elements of language that enables the overcoming

"The true image of the past flits by [huscht vorbei]. The past can recognizability,

definitions

clearer when restored

a medium into which the

ory of historical

and comprehension

research,

production

have

of its

and is never seen again."88

These famous

seen as the highest level of mimetic behavior and the most comearlier powers of mimetic

similarity:

be seized only as an image that flashes up at the moment

plete archive of nonsenuous

passed without residue, to the point where they have liquidated those of magic."8s

SIGNATURES

on the mimetic faculty used in regard to nonsensuous

of magic: "In this way, language may be similarity:

OF

of the dialectical

to their proper context,

signatures.

image become namely, the the-

It is well-known

that Benjamin's

following the examples of the surrealists

gardes, privileges

and the avant-

objects that because they appear to be second-

ary or even waste (Benjamin exhibit more forcefully

speaks of the "rags" of history),

a sort of signature

or index that refers

them to the present (the arcades, which already in the 1930S had

22

become

obsolescent

For Benjamin, especially from the time he begins to work on the

The historical

Paris arcades, history

accompanied

is the proper

sphere of signatures.

they appear under the names of "indices"

("secret,"

"historical,"

"temporal ") or of "images" (Bilder), often characterized lectical."

Here as "dia-

"The past," reads the second thesis "On the Concept

of History," "carries with it a secret index by which it is referred to redernption.?"

As fragment

N3,1 of

The Arcades Project makes

clear:

and almost

oneiric,

are their prototype).

object is never given neutrally; by an index or signature

and temporally

determines

and conditions

torian does not randomly or arbitrarily

rather, it is always

that constitutes

it as image

its legibility. The his-

choose the documents

out

of the inert and endless mass of the archive but follows the subtle and obscure

thread

of signatures

that demand

to be read here

and now. And the status of the scholar depends, precisely on the ability to read these ephemeral

for Benjamin,

signatures.

For the historical index of the images not only says that they belong to a particular time; it says, above all, that they attain to legibility only at a particular time .... Every present day is determined by the images that are synchronic with it: each "now" [jetzt] is the now of a particular recognizability .... It is not that what is past casts its light on what is present, or what is present its light on what is past; rather, image is that wherein what has been comes together in a flash with the now to form a constellation. In other words, image is dialectics at a standstill." The fifth thesis reaffirms, once again, the flashing and precarious character

of the image in the same terms that the fragment

23

Fashion is a privileged

site of signatures.

exhibit their genuinely

historical

that fashion continuously itself by means temporal

It is where signatures

character.

seeks to recognize

of a never-ending

network

For the currentness always constitutes cif references

and

citations which define it as a "no longer" or an "again."

That is to say, fashion introduces nuity, which divides it according ness, its being or no-longer-being subtle, is nevertheless

into time a peculiar to its currency

disconti-

or outdated-

in fashion. This caesura, albeit

clear insofar as those who must perceive

I I

THE

it necessarily manner

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

THINGS

THEORY

either perceive it or miss it, and precisely

in this

attest to their being in or out of fashion; however, if we

try to objectify it or fix it in chronological

time, it proves to be

ungraspable. of fashion tears the years (the 1920S, the 1960s,

the 1980s) out oflinear

chronology,

allowing them to have a spe-

cial relation with the designer's gesture, them appear in the incalculable present is in itself ungraspable, (not chronological!) entails a certain

of the proceedings.

Pierre Noailles has clarified the meaning of this last term. It is derived, according

to the traditional

etymology,

from vim dicere:

"to say or to show force." But what kind of "force"

is

involved here? Among the scholars, observes Noailles, the greatest confusion prevails on this point:

who cites them to make

"now" of the present.

Yet this

since it lives only in kairological

relation to the signatures

reason, being in fashion is a paradoxical

SIGNATURES

himself ready to suffer the consequences

literally,

The signature

OF

of the past. For this

condition that necessarily

ease or an imperceptible

lag, in which up-to-

They incessantly oscillate between the two possible meanings of the word: force or violence, that is, force that is materially put in action. In actuality, they do not choose, but rather each time propose either one or the other meaning. The vindicationes of the sacramentum are presented at one time as manifestations

of force, and at another

dateness includes within itself a small part of its outside, a tinge

as acts of symbolic or simulated violence. The confusion is even

of the demode. Like a historian,

the man of fashion is able to read

greater in regard to the vindex. In fact, it is not clear whether the

of the time only if he instead of entirely placing

force or violence expressed is his own, which he puts at the service

the signatures

himself in the past or coinciding in their "constellation,"

wholly with the present, lingers

of the law, or the violence of the adversary whom he denounces as contrary to [ustice ."

that is, in the very place of signatures.

Against such confusion,

Noailles

shows that the vis in ques-

tion cannot be a force or a material violence but must instead be

24

only the force of ritual, namely, a "force that compels, but does Indicium

(clue) and index derive from the Latin verb dico, which

not need to apply itself materially

in an act of violence,

albeit

originally

means "to show" (to show by means of the word and,

a simulated

therefore,

to say). Linguists and philologists

Aulus Gellius in which the "vis civilis ... quae verbo diceretur"

the essential

bond that joins the lexical

sphere of law. "To show by words" the juridical

formula,

the uttering

tion necessary to produce a certain the term dix-which form's sake")-means authority

have long observed family of dico to the

is the proper

operation

of

one.""

sition to the "vis quae manu fieret, cum vi bellica et cruenta." If we further

effect. Thus, for Benveniste,

hypothesis

"the fact of showing

verbally

and with

what must be.'?" Index is "the one who shows or indi-

cites a passage from

(civil force ... which is said by means of words) is placed in oppo-

of which realizes the condi-

survives only in the phrase diets causa ("for

On this point, Noailles

develop Noailles's

thesis, it is possible to offer the

that "the force said by means of the word" in question

in the action of the vindex is the force of the efficacious formula, as the originary

force of the law. That is to say, the sphere of law

is that of an efficacious

word, a "saying"

cates by means of the word," just as iudex is "the one who says the

(proclamation,

declaration),

law." To the same group belongs the term vindex, which denotes

in conformity

the one who in a trial takes the place of the accused and declares

cious word). If this is true, then law is the sphere of signatures

7 '1

solemn

that is always indicete

ius dicere (saying what is

with the law), and vim dicere (saying the effica-

THE

par excellence,

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

THEORY

THINGS

where the efficacy of the word is in excess of its

was Blumenberg's

OF

SIGNATURES

thesis contra Lowith) was in question.

meaning (or realizes it). At the same time, the whole oflanguage

secularization

here shows its originary

cepts in order to make them refer to their theological

belonging

Before (or better, together

language is the place of signatures, be able to function.

to the sphere of signatures.

wit,h) being the place of signification, without which no sign would

And speech acts, in which language seems to

was a strategic operator

Rather,

that marked political conorigins. To

put it differently:

secularization

acts within

the conceptual

sys-

tem of modernity

as a signature,

which refers it back to theology.

Just as, according

to canon law, the priest reduced

to a secular

border on magic, are only the most visible relics of this archaic

status had to bear a sign of the order to which he had belonged, so

signatory nature of language.

the "secularized" as a signature.

concept shows its past in the theological Secularization,

then, is a signature

sphere

that marks or

exceeds a sign or concept in order to refer it to a specific interpre-

25

tation or to a specific sphere without,

All research

in the human sciences-

context-necessarily

has to do with signatures.

it is all the more important correctly,

particularly

in a historical

So for the scholar

to learn to recognize and handle them

since in the final analysis they determine

of any scholar's investigation. philosophical

the success

Gilles Deleuze once wrote

that a

inquiry entails at least two elements: the identifica-

to constitute

a new concept

stake in the (ultimately

however, leaving it in order

or new meaning.

What is really at

political) debate that has engaged scholars

from Max Weber's time to the present can be understood we grasp the signatory character

of secularization.

What is decisive each time is the way we understand ence worked by the Signature. dominated

for approaching

as the human

sciences entail a more or less conscious

of signatures.

Indeed,

it. It is necessary

without

to add that concepts

entail.

which they remain inert and unproductive.

the debate in twentieth-century

It may even happen that what at first appears to be a concept is

basis of one important poses something

like the absolutizing

to say, a doctrine

of the constitutive

signatures

the transcendentals

are not concepts but

In the human sciences, too, we may at times deal with concepts are signatures.

part of twentieth-century

as well practice

to state that the thought presup-

of the signature,

that is

primacy of signatures

over

signification.

and "passions" of the concept of "being."

that in actuality

that have

philosophy

it would not be wrong

later revealed to be a signature (or vice versa). Thus, we have seen that in first philosophy

the refer-

Many of the doctrines

tion of the problem and the choice of concepts that are adequate signatures,

only if

One such concept is seculariza-

Consider

the concept of privative opposition

betzkoy, which has exerted a determinant

in Nikolai Tru-

influence on the human

tion, about which in the mid-196os in Germany there was a sharp

sciences of the twentieth

debate that involved figures like Hans Blumenberg,

term is not opposed to the marked term as an absence is to a pres-

and Carl Schmitt.

The discussion

none of the participants was not a concept, theological discontinuity

was vitiated

between

by the fact that

seemed to realize that "secularization"

in which the "structural

and political

Karl Lowith,

conceptuality Christian

theology

II

identity"

(Schmitt's

between

thesis) or the

and modernity

(this

century. It implies that the non-marked

ence, but rather that non-presence zero degree of presence

is somehow

(that presence

equivalent

to a

is lacking in its absence).

In the same sense, according to Roman Jakobson, the zero sign or phoneme, though not having any differential

character,

functions

precisely to oppose itself to the simple absence of the phoneme.

THE

The philosophical

SIGNATURE

OF

foundation

ALL

THINGS

THEORY

of these concepts

lies in Aristo-

(steresis), of which Hegel's concept of

tle's theory of "privation"

Atifhebun8 is the consistent

development.

Aristotle, privation is distinguished

Indeed,

according

to

from simple "absence" (apou-

sia) insofar as it still entails a referral to the form of which it is a privation, which is somehow attested through its own lack." At the end of the 1950S, Claude Levi-Strauss concepts in his theory of the constitutive over the signified.

According

to Levi-Strauss,

originally in excess over the signifieds this gap translates matter of non-signs

In other words, it is a

of a supplementary

symbolic

con-

clear when read as a doctrine

priority of the signature

of

over the sign. The zero

that, in the absence of a signi-

to operate as the exigency of an in finite significa-

tion that cannot be exhausted Once again, everything understand

is

or signs having "zero symbolic value, that is,

the necessity

degree is not a sign but a signature fied, continues

signification

that are able to fill it, and

devoid of meaning.

tent."?' This theory becomes the constitutive

these

into the existence of free or floating signifiers

that are in themselves a sign marking

elaborated

excess of the signifier

by any Signified. depends

we

in the last thirty years of the twen-

tieth century was intimately tied to an interpretative suspends signatures words, deconstruction pure writing

infinite

the sense of the notions

In other

about signatures

which thus guarantees

deferral-of

signification.

of "arch i-trace"

and "originary

ment" as well as the insistence nonconceptual

event of meaning.

is a way of thinking

beyond every concept,

inexhaustibility-the

practice that

and makes them idle, in such a way that there

is never any access to the realized

as the

This is supple-

with which Derrida affirms the

character of these "undecidables":

of concepts but of archi-signatures

or "signatures

which are always already posited as supplement

H

SIGNATURES

every concept and every presence.

A signature,

separated

origin and from the origin in the position of supplement,

at the exceeds

in a ceaseless dif.ferance and erases its own trace

every meaning

in a pure auto-signification. must be absolutely

"Therefore

the sign of this excess

excessive as concerns

all possible presence-

absence ... and yet, in some manner it must still signify .... trace is produced as its own erasure.I'" A signature's

The

auto-signifi-

cation never grasps itself, nor does it let its own insignificance rather, it is displaced and deferred is then a signature

suspended

in its own gesture.

and referred

be;

The trace

toward itself, a ketiosis

that never knows its own pleroma. The strategy

of Foucault's

archaeology

It, too, starts with the signature However,

is entirely

different.

and its excess over signification.

just as there is never a pure sign without

signature,

neither is it possible ever to separate and move the signature originary position (even as supplement). that in The Archaeolo8Y mass that is inscribed

if Knowled8e

to an

The archive of signatures gathers

into every signifying

the non-semantic discourse

and sur-

rounds and limits the acts of speech as an obscure and insignifi-

on the way in which

this primacy of Signatures over the sign. The ephem-

eral success of deconstruction

OF

cant margin,

also defines the whole set of rules that determine

the conditions

of the existence

make sense and are juxtaposed one another

and operation

in space and time. Foucauldian

seeks the origin

or its absence.

ignoring

of its history. own proper

to produce a geneal-

or inaccessible

every beginning,

On the contrary, dispersal,

lingering

the details and accidents

or the episodes and accidents it means keeping events in their on the smallest

deviations

it is a matter not

the aberrations

at degree zero,"

ing. In a word, it means seeking in every event the signature

with respect

characterizes

to

never

or of morals does not mean to seek its origin,

as irrelevant

that accompany

archaeology

As the 1971 essay "Nietzsche,

Genealogy, History" never tires of repeating, ogy of knowledge

of signs, bow tbey

to one another, how they succeed

that accompany them and determine and specifies it and in every signature

I)

and

their meanthat

the event and

THE

SIGNATURE

the sign that carry and condition

OF

ALL

THINGS

it. To put it in Foucault's words:

"to show that to speak is to do something-something

CHAPTER

other than

Philosophical

to express what one thinks.'?' It goes without saying that deconstruction not exhaust the catalog of signatorial example, to imagine in pure signatures

a practice

THREE

and archaeology

strategies.

that without

or simply inquiring

Archaeology

do

It is possible, for

infinitely

dwelling

into their vital relations

with signs and events of discourse reaches back beyond the split between

signature

and sign and between

the semiotic

and the

semantic in order to lead signatures to their historical fulfillment. Whether

a philosophical

inquiry is possible that reaches beyond

signatures

toward the Non-marked

coincides

with the paradisiacal

that, according to Paracelsus,

state and final perfection

they say, another story, for others to write.

is, as

I

The idea of a "philosophical

archaeology"

time in Kant. In his "jottings"

appears for the first

for the essay "What Real Progress

Has Metaphysics Made in Germany Since the Time of Leibniz and Wolff," Kant explores the possibility of philosophy."

A philosophical

history of philosophy,

"is itself possible, not historically i.e.,

0

of a "philosophizing

or empirically,

history

he writes,

but rationally,

priori. For although it establishes facts of reason, it does not

borrow them from historical

narrative,

but draws them from the

nature of human reason, as philosophical archaeology [015philosophische Archao108ie].'' The paradox implicit in such an archaeology is that, since it cannot merely be a history of what philosophers have "been able to reason out concerning

the origin, the goal, and

[MeJnun8en]

the end of things in the world," that is, of "opinions

that have chanced to arise here or there," it runs the risk of lacking a beginning not happened."!

and putting forth a "history

Kant's notes return cannot write a history for which nothing raw materials."?

of the thing that has

more than once to this paradox: of the thing that has not happened,

has ever been provided He adds: "All historical

cal. ... Thus a historical

presentation

as preparation

knowledge

of philosophy

philosophizing

has been done hitherto,

philosophizing

is a gradual

development

"One and and

is empiri-

recounts

how

and in what order. But of human reason,

and

this cannot have set forth, or even have begun, upon the empirical

II n

8

1

THE

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

THINGS

PHILOSOPHICAL

path, and that by mere concepts."! Finally: "A history of philoso-

it investigates

phy is of such a special kind, that nothing

1971 essay "Nietzsche,

what has happened, have happened,

without

knowing

can be told therein

beforehand

of

what should

is immediately

and also what can happen.?"

Let us pause on the rather peculiar that Kant calls "philosophical as a "history,"

origin,

is at the basis of Foucault's

Genealogy,

History."

clear: it is a matter

model Foucault reconstructs

The essay's strategy

of playing genealogy,

from Nietzsche,

whose

against any search

of this science

for an origin. From this perspective,

it may even be useful to seek

This science appears

an alliance with history: "Genealogy

does not oppose itself to his-

character

archaeology."

and factical

ARCHAEOLOGY

and as such it cannot but question its own origin;

tory ... on the contrary,

it rejects the metahistorical

however, since it is a, so to speak, a priori history, whose object

of ideal significations

coincides with the very end of humanity,

to the search for 'origins.'''8

that is, the development

and indefinite

teleologies.

deployment

It opposes itself

Thus, among the terms employed

and exercise of reason, the arehe it seeks can never be identified

by Nietzsche,

Foucault distinguishes

with a chronological

for "origin,"

the bete nail' from which we must stay away, and

datum; it can never be "archaic."

more, since philosophy is concerned

Further-

not only with what has been

that has not yet been given, just as

its history is "the history of the thing that has not happened." For this reason, sophical thinker

the two terms that "are more exact than Urspruna in recording object of genealogy": Herkurift, which he translates as "descent, "dan E ntste }"lUna, emergence, t he moment 0 f ansmg. .. "9 If Nietzsche refutes the pursuit of the origin it is because Urspruna the true

but also with what ought to or could have been, it ends up being in a certain sense something

Kant argues in the Loaie that "every philo-

names "the exact essence of things, their purest possibilities, their carefully protected

builds his own work, so to speak, on the ruins

identities;

[arif den Triimmern] of another," and that "one cannot learn philos-

the existence

ophy, because it is not yet aiven."s Archaeology,

of accident and succession.

of ruins, a "ruinology" transcendental

given as an empirically

then, is a science

whose object, though not constituting

principle

a

in the proper sense, can never truly be present whole. The archei are what could

or ought to have been given and perhaps one day might be; for the moment,

though, they exist only in the condition

objects or ruins. Like philosophers, An "archetype,"

adds Kant, "remains

of partial

who do not exist in reality,

they are given on ly as Urbildei, archetypes

images.6

or original

such only if it can never be

reached. It must serve only as a guideline

[Riehtsehnur]."7

of immobile

was already there,'

genealogist

dishomogeneity,

historical

a constitutive

Ii

practice

contains

gap between

and it necessitates

this idea. It is not that the

does not look for something

is never the "inviolable

an

the arene

the removal

disclose an original identity."!"

goes to war against

like a beginning.

ever, what he or she finds "at the historical

beginning

How-

of things"

identity of their origin." Thus "a geneal-

ogy of values, morality,

cultivate

world

to 'that which

the 'very same' of an image of a primordial

asceticism,

and kno",;ledge

confuse itself with a quest for their 'origins,'

2

essential

This search is directed

of every mask to ultimately Genealogy

and

because this search assumes

forms that precede the external

truth fully adequate to its nature,

as inaccessible

The idea that every authentic

Ursprunp, which he reserves

will never

will never neglect

all the episodes of history. On the contrary,

the details and accidents

that accompany

it will

every begin-

ning .... The genealogist needs history to dispel the chimeras of the origin."!! The French term conjurer- translated here as dispel-

encompasses

two opposite meanings:

Ii \

"to evoke" and "to

THE

SIGNATURE

OF

-*LL

PHILOSOPHICAL

THINGS

expel." Or perhaps these two meanings are not opposites, for dis-

when starting

pelling something-a

and history

specter, a demon, a danger-first

requires

ARCHAEOLOGY

from the essential difference

that one can explain

between

why prehistory

conjuring it. The fact is that the alliance between the genealogist

special consideration.

and the historian

relevant and more decisive than any history, even outside of the

expulsion."

finds its meaning

precisely in this "evocation-

Years later, in a 1977 interview,

the same gesture will

Prehistory

history of the Church.

is in fact-and

prehistory

enjoys such a

The history

of the moment

of arising or

J is of incomparable

value for the

define the relation between genealogy and the subject: one has to

emergence

account for the constitution

history of every living being and, more generally, of life."!'

of the subject within the weavings of

history to get rid of it once and for all: "It is necessary to get rid of the subject itself by getting rid of the constituting

subject, that is,

to arrrive at an analysis that would account for the constitution the subject in the historical

of

plot. This is what I would call gene-

alogy: to account for the constitution

of knowledge,

discourses,

involved in genealogy

up and eliminating

consists

in conjuring

the origin and the subject. But what comes

to take their place? It is indeed always a matter of following threads

back to something

discourses, stitution"

like the moment

the

when knowledge,

and spheres of objects are constituted.

Yet this "con-

takes place, so to speak, in the non-place of the origin.

Where then are" descent" (Herkurift) or "emergence"

For Overbeck, necessarily

splits itself into prehistory

and Geschichte), therefore history

this means that every historical

require

which are connected different

and history (UrBeschichte but not homogeneous,

methodologies

does not merely coincide

phenomenon

and precautions.

chronologically

and Pre-

with what is

most ancient:

spheres of objects, etc. without having to refer to a subject.l"? The operation

[EntstehunBsBeschichte

absolutely-more

and "the moment of arising"

(EntstelJUnB) located, if they are not and can never

be in the position of the origin?

The fundamental

character of prehistory is that it is the history

of the moment of arising [Entstehun8s8eschichte),

and not, as its

name might lead one to believe, that it is the most ancient [uralt). Indeed, it may even be the most recent, and the fact of being recent or ancient in no way constitutes a quality that belongs to it in an original way. Such a quality is as difficult to perceive in it as any relation to time that belongs to history in general. Instead, the relation to time that belongs to history is attributed to the subjectivity of the observer. Like history in general, prehistory is not tied to any specific site in time."

3

At first glance, the heterogeneous

The idea that all historical

inquiry

of a fringe or of a heterogeneous the position of a chronological

involves the identification stratum

that is not placed in

character

of prehistory

has

insofar as "history begins only where the

monuments

become intelligible

other,

testimonies

are available. Behind and on this side of it, there lies

the theo-

prehistory."

Nevertheless,

origin but is qualitatively

derives not from Nietzsche but from Franz Overbeck,

an objective foundation

and where trustworthy

written

the following passage clarifies beyond

logian who was perhaps the most faithful and lucid of Nietzsche's

all doubt that at issue is not an objective given, but rather a con-

friends.

stitutive heterogeneity

Overbeck

calls "prehistory"

sion with which every historical history-must

necessarily

engage.

Il t1

(UrBeschichte)

inquiry-

this dimen-

and not just Church

Thus he writes:

"It is only

inherent

each time must confront "prehistory,

in historical inquiry itself, which

a past of a, so to speak, special type:

too, has to do with the past, but with the past in a

K

I,

THE

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

THINGS

PHILOSOPHICAL

special sense," with respect to which "the veil that is suspended over every tradition

end the book lives by itself, and no longer its author in it. This is the

Litetatut, Overbeck

time of literary history, whose fundamental motif is the reflection

a cbiistlicbe Uiltterauu and an uichristliche Literatur;

distinguishes

and in a posthumous

on the author of books that are now the only things left alive ....

work he makes clear that "the past of an

Utlitetatut is not a simple past, but a qualified

At this stage, the book ... acts separately from its author, though

past or a past to

a process is thereby introduced that in the end will exhaust every efficacy. IS

[Mehr-als- VerBanBenheit] or

the second power-more-than-past

•

unity, though it dissolves in the course of its effectivity, until in the

darkens to the point of impenetrability."!'

In his essay, Uber die ArifanBe der patristiscben

ARCHAEOLOGY

superpast [UberverBanBenheit]: there is nothing or almost nothing of the past in it."16 History

and prehistory,

originally

unified,

irrevocably

sepa-

rate from each other at a certain point:

4Anyone who practices

historical

inquiry

must sooner

In the history of every organism, there comes the moment when the

engage the constitutive

limits dividing it from the world can no longer be shifted. In that

This can be done in the form of either the critique

instant, preh istor y or the history of the moment of arising [Entste-

or the critique

hunBsBeschichte]

Criticism

separates itself from history. Hence the similarity

heterogeneity

of sources,

concerns

or later

inherent in his or her work.

both of which demand

not just the ancient character

of tradition special care.

of the past but

between this moment and death and the ease with which every his-

above all the mode in which the past has been constructed

tory-understood

tradition. Overbeck, having long worked on the patristic sources, is perfectly aware of this:

in the common sense of the term-appears

history of decline [VeifollsBeschichte].

as a

It loosens once again the bond

among dements that prehistory has produced .... Therefore, if one has to distinguish, within the things that have a life and historical efficacy, between their prehistorical

and historical epochs; it is

prehistory that lays out the foundation of their historical efficacy.'? It is not only that prehistory

and history are distinct,

accompanied by a tradition, this does not mean ... that what is called tradition is always the same thing .... The writer of history must approach its exposition by means of a tireless preliminary work: this

albeit con-

is the critique of tradition. To the extent that historiography presupposes this critique and that criticism's claims to autonomy are justi-

that in history we are used

tion is established and it is right to ask if the tradjtion of prehistory

fied, then the necessity of retracing every period back to its tradi-

with this distinction. to considering

There is no history without tradition - but if every history is thus

is bound up

nected. The very historical efficacy of a phenomenon In fact, in prehistory,

into a

the elements

as separate

coincide

immediately

and manifest

themselves

only in their living unity. Take the case of a book. In

prehistory,

argues Overbeck,

it

should not be described before the tradition of every other period." The critique

of tradition

with a meta-historical

as well) deals not

but with the very structure

acts as a closed unity of itself and the author .... At this time, to take

historical

a book seriously means knowing of its author nothing else beyond

the pages of section 6 of BeinB and Time which Heidegger

the book. The historical efficacy of the book is grounded on such a

cates to the" destruction

H (,

inquiry.

(and of sources

beginning

of

It is along these lines that one should reread of tradition"

H

dedi-

and where it is possible to

THE

SIGNATURE

perceive echoes of Overbeck's

opposition

ALL

PHILOSOPHICAL

TH1NGS

thought.

The famous distinction

(Historie) and "historicality"

between "history" elaborated

OF

there is not metaphysical, between

(Geschichtlichkeit)

nor does it simply imply an

object and subject. The distinction

becomes

prehistory-requires as the moment

ARCHAEOLOGY

a further operation.

of the manuscript

tradition,

even though clearly it is not possible

to gain access to the source

without

intelligible as soon as it is referred to its context, namely, the dis-

analysis of that tradition.

tinction between tradition and source criticism. Heidegger writes:

it is possible to access the manuscript

what it "transmits" is made so inaccessible, proximally and for the most part, that it rather becomes concealed. Tradition takes what has come down to us and delivers it over to self-evidence; it blocks our access to those primordial "sources" from which the categories and concepts handed down to us have been in part genuinely drawn. Indeed it makes us forget that they have had such an origin, and makes us suppose that the necessity of going back to these sources is something which we need not even understand." The "destruction tradition

of tradition"

must confront

in order to enable "the return

current

philological

tradition-is

of tradition

and the canon? Clearly the problem here

is not merely philological, cal precautions

because even the necessary

for such inquiry

are complicated

this freezing of

in a new way, beyond tradition, in question

the very historical

putting to gain

Provisionally,

tion bars access to the sources, which is especially true in regard

investigation

to the original

with the moment

of a phenomenon's

To be sure, there are also

then, is the epistemological

of inquiry itself.

in any historical

we may call "archaeology"

other ways in which access to the sources is barred or controlled. In modern culture,

tion without deconstructing

one of these occurs when knowledge transforming

the manuscript

tradition.

If philology

healthy critique of such tradition,

defines the very

namely, the study of

performs

a necessary

and

it cannot ipso facto give back to

conditions

objective and subjective never the emergence

graph, the access to the source character

HH

of a text-that

is, its

It cannot confront techniques,

tradi-

and prac-

access to sources, and in the final analysis determines

constitute

but to the auto-

arising and must therefore

the paradigms,

the very status of the knowing

the critical text that it produces its character as a source; it cannot is possible to go back not so far as the archetype

but

tices through which tradition regulates the forms of transmission,

on a threshold

it as a moment of arising. And in those cases where it

that practice which

has to do not with origins

engage anew the sources and tradition.

thereby

when dealing

to the sources without

the mechanism by which tradi-

criticism,

philologi-

subject who is supposed

sources. Overbeck calls "canonization"

textual

to when engaging in

with Urgeschichte and Entstehung. It is not possible to gain access

to the past" (Riickgong

access to the sources into a special tradition,

of that

the exception).

access to them. What is in question,

and regulates

having

to the Urge-

tradition

entails the capacity to renew knowledge

But what does the scholar seek to return a critique

is not true:

without

of arising (anyone familiar with

paradigm

literature."

tradition

whereas going back from the manuscript

schichte-which

a firsthand

practice knows that this, in fact, is the rule,

zur Vergongenheit), which coincides with renewed access to the

Christian

undertaking

The inverse, furthermore,

access to the source as moment When tradition thus becomes master, it does so in such a way that

The source, understood

of arising, does not coincide with the documents

the emergence

subject. The moment

of arising is

at the same time and is indeed situated

of undecidability

between

of the fact without

object and subject. It is at the same time being

of the knowing subject itself: the operation

origin is at the same time an operation

HI

on the subject.

on the

THE

SiGNATURE

OF

ALL

PHILOSOPHICAL

THINGS

6

5 An important

precaution

poses a unitary

must be taken whenever

(or in any case, more originary)

before a historical

one presup-

prehistoric

stage

split with which we are familiar. For example,

consider the division between the religious and the profane juridical spheres, each of whose distinctive well-defined,

characteristics

appear to be

at least to a certain extent. If a more archaic stage is

reached in one of these spheres, we are often led to hypothesize that there was a previous stage beyond it in which the sacred and the profane spheres were not yet distinct. whose work concerns "pre-law"

(pre-droit)

were indiscernible.

the most ancient

Hence Louis Gernet, Greek law, has called

an originary phase in which law and religion And Paolo Prodi, in his inquiry on the politi-

cal history of the oath, similarly evokes a "primordial

instinct"

in

which the process of separation between religion and politics had not yet begunY

In such cases, one must take care not merely to

project upon the presupposed

"primordial

instinct"

the charac-

In the 1973 introduction Georges

Dumezil

to the third volume of My the et epopee,

sought to define his own research

which he resolutely described as "historical," the structuralism

prevalent

I am not a structuralist;

I do not have the opportunity

vieille bistoire et de 10 Jran8e d 'ultra-histoire

the comparison of some of these primary data, going back to the secondary data that constitute their common prototypes." As Dumezil readily acknowledges, the comparative sometimes

grammar

theory'

of the most ancient traditions

is not necessarily Pre-law

the sum of the characteristics (conceding

division

defining its frag-

that such a hypothesis

could make

that at a certain

this method is derived from

of Indo-European

called 'Dumezil's

that cannot be reduced to the

what stands prior to the historical

one can reasonably

in spheres that are known to be genetically akin and then, through

think, following

has specific properties

1 that

attempt to reach; this is limited to the observation of primary data

bering

sum of its elements,

to be or not

historian of the oldest history and fringe of ultra-history [de 10 plus

of the split. Just as a chemical

compound

in a polemic against

to be one. My effort is that not of a philosopher but of a historian, a

teristics defining the religious and political spheres known to us, the outcome

methods,

at the time.

which are precisely

ments.

ARCHAEOLOGY

languages:

point Indo-Europeans

in the linguists'

"What is

consists entirely in remem-

footsteps,

existed

and to

that the comparison

of peoples who are at least in part

their heirs must allow us to catch a glimpse of the basic outlines of their ideology."24 The consistency

of the "fringe of ultra-history"

that the histo-

sense) cannot simply be a more archaic law, just as what stands

rian attempts to reach here is therefore intimately tied to the exis-

before religion as we historically

tence of the Indo-European

tive religion.

know it is n~t just a more primi-

Rather, one should avoid the very terms "religion"

and "law," and try instead every care in defining,

to imagine

practicing

a kind of archaeological

that suspends, at least provisionally, that we commonly prehistory

an x that we must take

the attribution

epoche

of predicates

ascribe to religion and law. In this sense, too,

is not homogeneous

with history and the moment

arising is not identical with what comes to be through it.

'I

C)

of

language and of the people who spoke

it. It exists in the same sense and in the same measure in which an Indo-European

form exists (for example,

that are usually preceded tinguished

'~deiwos or t.'med, forms

by an asterisk so that they can be dis-

from the words belonging to the historical languages).

However, rigorously speaking, each of these forms is nothing but an algorithm

that expresses a system of correspondences

between

existing forms in the historical languages, and, in Antoine Meillet's

'/

I

THE

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

words, what we call Indo-European correspondences

THINGS

PHILOSOPHICAL

is nothing but "a system of

... that presupposes a language x spoken by people

x at place x and at time x," where x merely stands for "unknown.":" Unless one wants to legitimze inquiry

extrapolate

of a historical

its original

documents

one can never

from the Indo-European

language

events supposed

to have taken place historically. made a significant

advance

the end of the nineteenth ognized

century,

mythology

when, around

that the ideology of the three functions

riors, shepherds, economy)

or, in modern

"did not necessarily

into an actual

tripartite

terminology, translate,

division

Indian model [of the three castes of an ideology, something a way of analyzing

of

1950, he rec-

(priests,

religion,

war-

war, and

in the life of a society,

of this society, based on the

1,"

but rather represented

more

like "an ideal and, at the same time,

and interpreting

the forces that determined

the course of the world and the life of men."26 that archae-

ology seeks to reach cannot be localized within chronology, remote past, nor can it be localized historical aternporal structure

beyond this within

system of a hominid).

words,

a present

historical

languages,

their development

a meta-

(for example, as Dumezil said iron-

ically, in the neuronal it represents

in a .

Like Indo-European

and operative

which conditions

tendency

within

and makes intelligible

in time. It is an arche, but, as for Foucault and

Nietzsche, it is an arcM that is not pushed diachronically past, but assures the synchronic

comprehensibility

into the

and coherence

of the system.

epistemological its objective

il

decisive-first

appearance

This dimension

having reference

that of its conditions

its positivity

of possibility.'?"

is "the envisaged

to its rational

value or

and thereby manifests

a history which is not that of its growing

perfection,

Foucault

but rather

specifies

that it

is not so much a history of ideas or of sciences as it is an inquiry that, by going back upstream tions, knowledge, knowledge

in the history of discursive

and practices

and theory

order knowledge

forma-

seeks to discover "on what basis

became

possible;

was constituted;

within

what space of

on the basis of what historical

a priori, and in the element of what positivity, ideas could appear, experience

be reflected

in philosophies,

rationalities be formed, only, perhaps, to dissolve and vanish soon afterwards."28 Let us pause on the oxymoron

"historical

the 1971 essay, it aims to underscore meta-historical determines

knowledge.

in The Archaeology cal practice,

As in of a

gift that founds and

As Foucault made clear three years later

if Knowledge,

the episteme

is itself a histori-

"a total set of relations that unite, at a given period,

the discursive

practices

ures, sciences,

and possibly formalized

Nietzsche

a priori."

that it is not a matter

origin, a kind of originary

that give rise to epistemological

the possibility

at a specific

terms,

fact" of its existing fact of its "moment

its prehistory).

'-1 I

fig-

The a priori

is its own history level of its

at a particular

way; or, to use the terminology

essay, the brute

in Overbeck's

systems,":"

of knowledge

level. This is the ontological

the "brute

time and in a certain

tions. It had made its discreet-though

and para-

a priori," where knowl-

of possibility.

forms, grounds

in

of that word," is

field, the episteme in which knowledge,

apart from all criteria

simple existence, is linked to Michel Foucault's investiga-

archaeology,

meaning

a sort of "historical

edge finds its condition

grasped

The term "archaeology"

There

as an inquiry into an at once transcendental

that conditions

7

Things.

to history in the "traditional

sciences be established,

The "oldest history," the" fringe of ultra-history,"

if

to The Order

digmatic dimension,

This is why Dumezi i's method

on the comparative

contrast presented

the monstrum

that produces

in the preface

ARCHAEOLOGY

from the

of arising"

(or,

Yet how can an a priori

THE

SIGNATURE

OF

be given and exist historically?

ALL

PHILOSOPHICAL

THINGS

And how is it possible

to gain

almost nothing

ARCHAEOLOGY

of the past"). In his essay on deja vu, Henri Berg-

son put forth the thesis that memory does not follow perception,

access to it? In all probability,

the idea of a "historical

a priori" originates

more from Marcel Mauss than from Kant's philosophical

archae-

if

but rather is contemporaneous the attention

with it, and can thus, as soon as

of consciousness

relaxes, produce a "false recogni-

ology. In his General Theory Magic (19°2-19°3), Mauss argues that mana is "the very condition of magical experimentation" and

tion" that he defines with the only apparently

"exists, a priori, before all other experience.

the past in its form and of the present in its matter."!' Moreover,

is not a magical representation

Properly speaking, it

in the same way as those represen-

tations of sympathy, demons, and magical properties. magical representations

and is a condition

It produces

of them. It functions

as

a kind of category, making magical ideas possible in the same way as we have categories a significant

which make human ideas possible." With

elaboration,

Mauss defines this historical

dental as "an unconscious suggesting

in this way that the epistemological

for such knowledge of conscious nevertheless ing historical historical

category of understanding,"

cannot

historical

it is

is itself inscribed

within a determinate

In other words, it realizes the paradox

condition

that can only constitute

that is inscribed itself a posteriori

history in which inquiry-in

within

a history

with respect

and

to this

or its moment

of arising,

did not question

the specific temporal

past in question here is, like Overbeck's "fringe of ultra-history,"

structure

that

a priori. Yet the

prehistory and Dumezil's

a special kind of past that neither pre-

cedes the present chronologically

as origin nor is simply exterior

to it (in this sense, in Overbeck's

words, it contains "nothing

q'l

phenomenon

and a history,

a history

of the sources

as they coincide for an instant in the moment Benjamin

in Overbeck's

footsteps,

(VOT- und Nacbpe-

that the entire

in a "historical

is the restitution

that in the

object are contained

and its "post-history"

into the present

Origen, apokatastasis

similar in mind

he wrote

of the historical

and a insofar

of arising.

must have had something

structure

split in

in it a before and an

that are in actuality contemporaneous,

brought

seems to be implied by the notion of a historical

of archaeology

after, a prehistory

both its "prehistory"

Foucault

every historical

sehiehte), or when he suggested

8

the archae-

historical tradition Walter

in

so to speak, toward the

from the viewpoint

with the fault line separating

monadological

discover it.

in question

seeks to reach is not only

such an a priori retreats,

It is as if, considered

accordance

be

with the real and the present. It is and remains

ologist pursuing present.

of possibility

in them as well. With a singular gesture,

when, following

Foucault's case, archaeology-must

to the actual and the image of memory

a priori that archaeology

implicitly with that

Such a memory, he writes, "is of

In the same sense, the condition the historical

contemporaneous

kuowledge.l? But as with Foucault,

experience,

corresponds

expres-

to the virtual, then the virtual will, for Bergson, necessarily contemporaneous with the real.

immanent

model required

homogeneous

if perception

transcen-

clear that for Mauss the a priori, though condition-

constellation.

of an a priori

be entirely

sion "a memory of the present."

paradoxical

past must be

apocatastasis.?"

(For

of the origin that will take

place at the end of time; by characterizing

an eschatological

real-

ity as "historical," Benjamin makes use of an image quite similar to Foucault's "historical a priori.")

or

'I !.

THE

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

THINGS

PHILOSOPHICAL

the psychoanalytic

9

Freudianism

Enzo Melandri

deserves

sophical relevance

credit for grasping

of Foucault's

early on the philo-

archaeology

and for seeking to

principle,

ARCHAEOLOGY

interpretation

is to have unmasked

Melandri notes that while usu-

analysis is to reduce apparent

of a culture are explicated

ally a revival of the old: substitute

expli-

cative power is attributed

(this is the model of the "origin"),

Foucault "archaeological

inquiry instead sets out to overturn

procedure

or better to make the explication

immanent

in its description.l'P

metalanguage

with the

of the phenomenon

This entails a sharp refutation

and instead assumes a "paradigmatic

lost archaic

object,

of

derivatives

conception

genius

of

under its rationaliza-

Here the function

of the

novelty by showing that it is actu-

but various names to designate features of the new."36 Melandri's

matrix, both

of the pleasure

its sublimations.

ally the basic codes and matrices

recourse to a code of a higher order to which a mysterious

"The

the archaic form of the human,

tions, its idealizations,

develop and clarify its structure.

by a

of culture: the strategy

satisfaction,

restoration

of the

from early fantasies-these

are

the restoration

of archaeology

as for Foucault, the point of departure

of the old in the

is entirely different. Just lies in Nietzsche-

ticular, the concept of a "critical history"

in par-

from the second essay

concrete and transcendental,

that has the function of giving form,

in Untimely Meditations, that is to say, a history that criticizes

and

rule, and norm to a content"

(this is the model of the "historical

destroys the past to make life possible.F Melandri

this

a priori").34 Melandri locating

seeks to analyze this immanent

it vis-a-vis the Freudian

opposition

matrix by

between

the con-

renders

concept more general by connecting it, through an extraordinary tour de force, to Freud's concept of regression:

scious and the unconscious. Paul Ricoeur subject"

had already spoken of an "archaeology

in regard

in Freud's thought.

to the primacy Freudian

process of consciousness

of the

of the past and the archaic

analysis shows that the secondary

is always delayed with respect to the pri-

mary process of desire and the unconscious.

The wish fulfillment

pursued by the dream is necessarily regressive insofar as it is modeled on the "indestructible

desire" of an infantile

place it takes. For this reason, which dreams

are the witness

is unable to completely

writes Ricoeur:

the indestructible."35

of

repression

is the

of a psychism condemned

to

and to being ever prey to the infantile,

Ricoeur argues that next to this archaeology

in the strict sense of the word, there is in Freud's metapsychological writings

a "generalized

archaeology"

I) II

history]

genealogy

must retrace

established

between

as well, which concerns

and Foucault,

understood

that has been

and the unconscious.

and

in tracking

in reaching

reveal its real meaning.

to the unconscious

of

Ricoeur

"archaeologi-

back to where the phenom-

splits into the conscious

Only if one succeeds

"repressed."

call this procedure

genealogy

Crit-

aimed at the recovery

as the historical

as just mentioned,

cal." It consists

While

the conscious

thus has the role of a therapy

the unconscious,

dynamic

The division

the actual

(historia rerum 8estarum)

historiography

has always existed between ical history

direction

(res 8estae) is quite similar to the one that, for Freud,

actual history

syndrome

in the opposite

of events that it examines.

enon in question

effect this replacement

form of repression;

ordinary rule or working condition making a late appearance

"Regression,

and the model, shows that man

and definitively

except in the inadequate

scene, whose

[Critical

and the unconscious.

that point does the pathological So it is a matter of a re8ression: not

as such, but to what made it unconscious-

in the

sense of repression."

the link between

already established

archaeology

and regression

was

in Ricoeur, Melandri radically inverts its sign

THE

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

in this dense passage. The pessimistic is incapable of overcoming

THINGS

PHILOSOPHICAL

vision of regression,

which 10

the original infantile scene, cedes its

place to an almost soteriological

vision of an archaeology

capable

The image of a procession

of going back, regressively,

to the source of the split between

is, of course,

conscious

But how are we to understand

familiar

and unconscious.

singular "archaeological the unconscious

regression,"

advances

conscious and uncon-

and history (and, more generally, between

all the binary oppositions

defining the logic of our culture),

It is not merely a question of bringing

which comes back in the form of a symptom,

In the ninth

thesis,

the future

a reculons.

Melandri's

is the inverse and complementary

the angel

of progress, "Dionysian"

image of Benjamin's

angel. If the latter advances toward the future with a gaze fixed

was

on the past, Melandri's

the repressed,

to consciousness,

citation.

who must have been

whose wings are caught in the storm toward

regression

in time that turns its back on the goal

found as well in Benjamin,

with Valery's

of history,

or the forgotten in the past so much as to go back

scious, historiography produced?

this

which does not seek to reach

to the point where the dichotomy between

ARCHAEOLOGY

ing at the future.

as

neither

angel regresses

Both proceed

into the past while look-

toward something

that they can

see nor know. The invisible goal of these two images of

the vulgate of the analytic model would have it. N or is it a matter

the historical process is the present. It appears at the point where

of writing the history of the excluded and defeated, which would

their gazes encounter

be completely

past and a past reached in the future for an instant coincide.

homogeneous

with the history of the victors,

as

the common and tedious paradigm of the history of the subaltern classes would have it. Melandri to be understood

precisely

opposite of rationalization.

makes clear that archaeology

as a regression

What is

and as such it is the

governed

ization. Rationalization and regression are inverse operations, just like the differential and the integral. ... To take up a very wellknown expression of Nietzsche's, which has nevertheless not yet been understood (and if what we are saying is true, then it is also never be possible to understand it

entirely), we may say at this point that archaeology requires a "Dio-

a

reculons .... To understand the past, we should equally traverse it 39

the split between

historiography

conscious

the

before the split is

such a "before"

indeed

in the split, presupposing

prior to it that at a certain

itself. In this case, this is expressed

in

It should by now be obvi-

by the split itself. To imagine condition

reaches

and unconscious,

the moment

involves, following the logic inherent an original

regression

in the

and history that defines the condition

ous that our way of representing

more, the regressive operation is the exact reciprocal of rational-

a reculons.

when archaeological

which we find ourselves is produced?

For archaeology, the concept of regression is essential. Further-

nysian" regression. As Valery observes, nous entrans dans ]'avenir

where

between

He writes:

true that it will unfortunately

point

happens

each other, when a future reached

by the tendency

point divided to represent

the before or the beyond of the dichotomy

as a state of happiness,

a kind of golden age devoid of repressions

and perfectly conscious

of and master of itself. Or, as in Freud and Ricoeur, as the in finite repetition

of the infantile scene, the indestructible

of the phantasm

of desire. On the contrary,

split, in the disappearance sentation,

of the categories

manifestation

before or beyond the governing

its repre-

there is nothing but the sudden, dazzling disclosure

the moment of arising, the revelation

of

of the present as something

that we were not able to live or think.

'I

Ii

'1'1

~

THE

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

THINGS

PHILOSOPHICAL

ARCHAEOLOGY

event is preserved and at the same time repressed the etymology that unites tradere and tradire).

I I

The idea that the present stitutive

inaccessibility

trauma and repression. experience cerning either

- a train

sexuality), because

some reason

might be given in the form of a con-

is bound up with Freud's conception According

to this conception,

crash, an infantile

scene (generally

a drive - is repressed

of its traumatic unacceptable

of

an actual con-

character

or because

for consciousness.

it is for

It thus enters

never taken place. Yet during this stage neurotic to the return

child has experienced reached

symptoms

begin to appear in the subject, bearing of the repressed.

Thus Freud writes:

a

and not understood

witness a

by the time he has

At any time in later years, however,

events] may break

In her book Unclaimed Experience, Cathy Caruth suggests that latency is somehow constitutive

into his life with obsessive

except [those

impulsiveness,

The historical power of the trauma is not just that the experience is For history to be a history of trauma means that it is referential precisely to the extent that it is not fully perceived as it occurs; or to put it somewhat differently, that a history can be grasped only in the very inaccessibility of its occur rence.V Let us try to elaborate unexplained,

by a preference

that so

with reference

these ideas, which the author leaves to archaeology. They imply above all

as in Bergson, but also forgetfulness,

often cannot be rationally

defended.?" Only analysis is able to

contemporaneous

with perception

go beyond

and compulsive

ceive something,

we simultaneously

repressed

actions, back to the

events. of the law by Moses was followed

by a long period in which the Mosaic religion entered a stage of

its traumatic perienced

character

and forget it. Every

or its excessive proximity

in every experience

Heidegger's

ism with which we are familiar. Freud institutes

destines itself to a tradition

parallelism between as 'unconscious"

remember

the "special state of memory that ... we class

and historical tradition.

Thus he writes: "In this

Indeed, it is,

at the limit, what remains non-lived in every life, that which, for

latency, only to appear later in the form of the Judaic monothein light of this a

are

and the present. While we per-

present thus contains a part of non-lived experience.

In Moses and Monotheism, Freud applies this scheme to the history of the Jews. The imposition

and

repeated after its forgetting, but that it is first experienced at all. ...

that not only memory,

the symptoms

and that

precisely

consist not in the forgetting of a reality that can hence never be

direct his actions, force him to like or dislike people, and often of his love-object

experience

and experienced

The experience of trauma, the fact of latency, would thus seem to

decide

the choice

of historical

the traumatic event is preserved only through its forgetting:

fully known, but in an inherent latency within the experience itself.

or

"What

the age of two he may never again remember,

in his dreams ....

to

into the unconscious

stage of latency during which it seems as if it had, so to speak, oneiric content

(according

remains unex-

(or, if you wish, in the terms of

history of being, it is what in the form of forgetting and to a history). This means that it is

above all the unexperienced,

rather than just the experienced,

gives shape and consistency

to the fabric of psychic personality

that

feature we expect to find an analogy with the state of mind that

and historical

and ensures their continuity

and consis-

we ascribe to tradition

tency. And it does so in the form of the phantasms,

desires, and

when it is active in the mental emotional

life of a people.':" In other words, with respect tradition

functions

to its traditum,

as a period of latency in which the traumatic

1011

tradition

obsessive drives that ceaselessly push at the threshold of consciousness (whether

individual or collective).

, II I

To paraphrase

a saying of

THE

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

PHILOSOPHICAL

THINGS

Nietzsche's, one might say that whoever (an individual or a people) has not experienced

something

always has the same experience.

ARCHAEOLOGY

seek, as in Freud, to restore a previous stage, but to decompose, displace, content

and ultimately

bypass it in order to go back not to its

but to the modalities,

circumstances,

which the split, by means of repression, 12

Thus it is the exact reciprocal

The analogy between archaeological

regression

and psychoanaly-

sis now seems clearer. In both cases, it is a question access to a past that has not been lived through, that technically has remained

cannot be defined present.

of gaining

and therefore

as "past," but that somehow

In the Freudian

scheme, such a non-past

bears witness to its having been by means of neurotic which are used in analysis as an Ariadne's

thread to go back to

that has been covered over and repressed possible by the patient work that rather origin, focuses on the moment

by tradition

is made

than searching

for the

of arising. Yet how is it possible

to gain access, once again, to a non-lived

experience,

to return

to an event that somehow for the subject has not yet truly been given? Archaeological

regression,

of the dividing line between

going back to the hither

and non-lived

experience

and forgetting,

both communicate

from each other. It is not, however, a matter of realizing,

it as origin.

face of the eternal return:

it does

transforming contrary,

the "so it was" into "so I willed it to be." On the

it wills to let it go, to free itself from it, in order to gain

access beyond or on this side of the past to what has never been, to what was never willed. Only at this point is the unlived past revealed for what it was: contemporary

with the present. It thus becomes accessible for the

first time, exhibiting itself as a "source." For this reason, contemporaneity,

co-presence

the experience

to one's own present, insofar as it entails

of an un lived and the memory

rare and difficult; for this reason, archaeology, side of memory and forgetting, to the present.

constitutes

of a forgetting,

is

going back to this

the only path of access

side

the conscious and the unconscious,

also reaches the fault line where memory

constituted

in

not will to repeat the past in order to consent to what has been,

symptoms,

the originary event. In genealogical inquiry, the access to the past

and moments

lived

with and separate

13 The text where Foucault perhaps most precisely foresaw - the strategies

as in the dream, the

essay he published,

and gestures

described - or

of archaeology

is the first

the long 1954 preface to Le Reve et l'existetice

by Ludwig Binswanger.

Even though the term itself is obviously

simistic vision of Beyond the Pleasure Principle, of infinitely repeat-

absent, "the movement

of freedom"

ing an original trauma. Nor, as in a successful analytical therapy,

the dream

of bringing

archaeology.

"indestructible

repressed

back to consciousness in the unconscious.

of conjuring inquiry,

desire" of an infantile

up its phantasm,

scene, nor, as in the pes-

all the content that had been

On the contrary, through

meticulous

in order to work on it, deconstruct

the point where it gradually In other words, archaeological

it is a matter genealogical

it, and detail it to

erodes, losing its originary regression

I II

status.

is elusive: it does not

and imagination

that Foucault

shares the meanings

From the beginning,

dream as vicarious fulfillment

attributes

to

and aims of

he refutes Freud's thesis of the

of an original wish. If the dream is

dream, rather than satisfied desire, this is because it "also fulfills counter-desires is the burning

that are opposed to desire itself. The oneiric fire satisfaction

of sexual desire, though

what makes

it possible for desire to take shape in the subtle substance

I

I)

\

of fire

THE

is everything extinguish language

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

PHILOSOPHICAL

THINGS

that denies such desire and incessantly

it." Hence, the insufficiency of the dream is reduced

seeks to

of Freudian analysis: the

solely to its "semantic

tion," leaving aside its "morphological

and syntactical

that is to say, the fact that it articulates is entirely omitted,

"psychoanalysis

dimenhas never

succeeded in making images speak.''" The movement restoration

scene or trauma

because it goes well

beyond them in order to reach back to the "first movements freedom,"

until it coincides

of

with the "trajectory

of existence

itself." For the subject, to follow such a trajectory

in the dream

means to put itself radically in question,

the transition

"existence

the phantasm movement

above all taking the risk

so in the dream "there

from anthropology

itself ... in the fundamental represents

of regression,

to ontology,"

direction

foundation.Y"

goal orienting

the dream and the imagination

Indeed, a phantasm

where

of the imaginary

And while for Freud

the indestructible

ally call into question every crystallization image or phantasm.

of the dream can never exhaust itself in the

of an original

occurs

of arising and pure being-there,

indicates its own ontological

structure,"

itself in images. For this

reason, insofar as the analysis of the properly imaginary sion of expression

func-

moment

ARCHAEOLOGY

continu-

of their impetus in an is generated

"when the

subject finds the free movement

of its existence annihilated

presence

that surrounds

of a quasi-perception

it."? On the contrary,

and 'poetic

in the

and immobilizes

"the value of a poetic imagination

sured by the power of destruction "all imagination,

the

is mea-

internal

to the image."48 Thus

in order to be authentic,

must learn to dream;

art' has meaning

only insofar as it teaches itself to

break the spell of images in order to open to the imagination

of its own" derealization." To imagine Pierre after one year of absence does not mean announcing him in the mode of unreality .... It means first of all that I derealize myself, absenting myself from this world where for me it is not possible to encounter Pierre. This does not mean that I "escape to another world," or that J walk along the possible margins of the real world. I ascend to the streets of the world of my presence;

free path toward the dream, which offers, as absolute 'indestructible

kernel of night'."

and phantasms

toward which the movement

directed

This dimension

is not the obsessive repetition

scene, but the initial moment constitution

truth,

the its

beyond images

of the imagination

is

of a trauma or of a primal

of existence

when "the originary

of the world is accomplished.l'""

and then the lines of th is necessity from which Pierre is excluded become blurred, and my presence, as presence to this world, is erased.:"

Far from restoring

14 Let us elaborate

a previous

archaic stage, a phantasm,

a family history, the dream begins by destroying

or

and shattering

philosophical

the specific

archaeology.

a past but a moment

temporal

be obtained

over and neutralized

jective and objective

point where the split occurred

by returning

back to the point wh-ere it was covered

by tradition

world on the daybreak of its first explosion, when it still coincided

unconscious,

with its own existence."45 Just as archaeology

ing, the arche of archaeology

is defined precisely by grasping phenomena

I II

II

in the 1969 book at the level of their

in a

What is at stake in it is not properly

tion. If it goes back in time, it is in order to leap over the subto it toward "the

implicit

of arising; however, access to such can only

every real world while dragging itself as well into such destrucuniverses corresponding

structure

historiography

(in Melandri's

between

and history).

terms,

to the

the conscious

and the

The moment

of aris-

is what will take place, what will

become accessible and present, only when archaeological

I (I I,

inquiry

THE

has completed

SIGNATURE

its operation.

OF

ALL

THINGS

It therefore

PHILOSOPHICAL

has the form of a past in

the future, that is, afuture anterior. Here it is not merely a matter, appeal for the alternative

the tight-knit

as has been suggested,

developments

of "an

Archaeology

that forbids us to conceive of his-

atheological,"

into unrealized.

because memory

the unrealized 51 If memory

somehow

into realized and

thus constitutes

the

moves backward

as the imagination represent

through the course of history, just

moves back through individual biography. Both

a regressive force that, unlike traumatic

not retreat toward an indestructible point .where history

less confirms

accessible for the first time, in accordance

it (and yet somehow archaeology

is what incessantly

guards its presence).

Instead, the point of

is to gain access to the present

beyond memory and forgetting

removes

for the first time,

or, rather, at the threshold

of their

indifference.

(whether

of the future anterior. In this way, the relation becomes transparent.

individual

between

It corresponds

or collective)

past is projected

into the future.

to Le Rive

In the introduction

theology, too) at once distinguishes

archaeology

or praxis in God: the work of redemption

the dream is not so much that it resuscitates

the former correspond

to this doctrine, the prophets,

and that of creation. To

who serve as mediators

order to affirm the work of salvation; to the latter correspond angels, who mediate the work of creation.

or she] does not yet know, which is nevertheless

precedes

in rank that of creation,

prophets

over the angels. (In Christian

den of [his or her] present .... The dream anticipates of freedom. compelled

It constitutes repetition

a harbinger

of the traumatic

the moment

united in God, are assigned to two distinct

Trinity: the Father and the Son, the all-powerful

we must specify that the future at issue in archaeology intertwined

with a past; it is a future anterior.

becomes

It is the past that

will have been when the archaeologist's gesture (or the power of has cleared away the ghosts of the unconscious and

the imaginary)

I II

Ii

Redeemer,

persons within

the

Creator and the

aspect

of this conception

is that redemption

creation in rank, that the event that seems to follow is

in truth anterior. rather

of the

in whom God emptied himself of his force.)

The decisive precedes

the

theology, the two works,

past."52

of freedom that frees itself,"

in

The work of salvation

hence the superiority

of history, before being the

Leaving aside the accent placed here, perhaps too ingenuously, on the future as the "first moment

and cre-

there are two kinds of work

which the patient will finally reveal to the analyst the secret [he the heaviest bur-

and Jewish

and joins redemption

angels. According

the moment in

and history

(am!') and "creation" (khalq), prophets and

ation, the "imperative"

tension of the dream toward the future: "The essential point of the future. It foretells and announces

becomes

to the relation that in Islamic

et l'existence, Foucault observes (contrary to Freud) the intimate the past as that it

does

with the temporality

theology (and, though in a different way, in Christian

Precisely for this reason, the space opening up here toward the

announces

neurosis,

origin but rather toward the

force that gives possibility back to what has been (and nevertheit as past), forgetting

con-

sciousness truly become possible.

brance we have an experience

the realized

which block access to history.

that had been condemned

15

modifies the past, transforming

fabric of tradition

Only in the form of this "will have been" can historical

in the first trial" nor of conjecturing possible alternatives to the actual state of things.50 Benjamin once wrote that "in rememtory as fundamentally

ARCHAEOLOGY

It is not a remedy for the fall of creatures,

that which makes creation

gives it its meaning.

comprehensible,

For this reason,

I () "

but

that which

in Islam, the light of the

THE

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

THINGS

PHILOSOPHICAL

Prophet is the first of all beings (just as in the Jewish tradition

the

been put forth by Hermann

ARCHAEOLOGY

Usener at the end of the nineteenth

name of the Messiah was created before the creation of the world,

century in his work Gotternamen

and in Christianity

tigation,

the Son, though

Father, is consubstantial

he was generated

by the

and coeval with Him). It is instructive

(1896). At the outset of his inves-

he asked himself how the creation of divine names had

been possible, and observed

that in order to attempt

to find an

that in Islam and Judaism the work of salvation, while preceding

answer to such a question - one that is absolutely fundamental

in rank the work of creation, is entrusted

the history ofreligions

to a creature.

This con-

- we have no other "evidence"

(Urkunde)

firms the paradox, which should by now be familiar to us, that the

than that originating

two works are not simply separate but rather persist in a single

even before him, though with much less rigor, comparative

place, where the work of salvation acts as a kind of a priori that is

mar had inspired the investigations

immanent

Muller to Adalbert

in the work of creation and makes it possible.

To go backward

through

the course of history, as the archae-

attempted

from an analysis of language.

However,

53

gram-

of scholars ranging from Max

Kuhn and Emile Burnouf,

to provide a foundation

for

all of whom had

for comparative

mythology and

ologist does, amounts to going back through the work of creation

the science of religions in the last thirty years of the nineteenth

in order to give it back to the salvation from which it originates.

century.

Similarly, Benjamin made redemption

reconstruct

a fully historical

category,

one opposed in every sense to the apologia of bad historians. not only is archaeology but the gesture

institutions"

a priori of historiography,

of purely linguistic

data, was reaching

constitutes

cation of Benveniste's

the paradigm

project

author's-or

toward a formalized

that determines

his or her rank,

but the way in which he or she has been able to bring it back to the work of redemption,

to mark it with the signature of salvation

and to render it intelligible.

Only for those who will have known

in its effort

started

themselves

Indo-European

the analysis

its apex (with the publiLanguage

to decline in conjunction

a la Chomsky,

model

through

and Society),

with linguistics'

turn

horizon made such an endeavor inadmissible. This is not the place to ask about the function in how the arclle that is in question in archaeology stood.

If it is indeed

true that inquiry

advance when it abandoned,

16

the

whose epistemological and future of

the human sciences today. Instead, we are interested

how to save it, will creation be possible.

to

not only the "divine names" but the general outline

of every true human action. For it is not merely the work of an of anyone's-life

grammar,

of "Indo-European

the immanent

of the archaeologist

And

But just when comparative

once again

is to be under-

had made a Significant

in the fields of linguistics

and the

history of cultures, the anchorage in a language that was supposed Before entering sciences

a stage of decline,

saw, during

decisive acceleration,

the history

of the human

the first half of the twentieth with linguistics

and comparative

century,

to be real and in the people who spoke it ("the academic Indoa

grammar

assuming the roles of "pilot science" in the field. The idea that it might be possible, through a purely linguistic to more archaic stages (or ultra-historical take up Dumez ils expression)

of the history

I II

H

analysis, to return

stages, to once again of humanity

had

European language spoken, so one thought, 'at the moment of the dispersiori'"!"), important

and if scholars had understood

to reconstruct

explain comparatively

an unverifiable

the known languages,

not possible within that perspective links to the ontological

that it was not as

prototype

as it was to

nonetheless

to completely

support implicit in the hypothesis.

I Ii Ij

it was

cut off all the Thus,

THE

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

THINGS

PHILOSOPHICAL

when in 1969 Benveniste published his masterpiece, means clear how the epistemological tency of something understood.

it was by no

locus and historical

like an "Indo- European institution"

And it is quite probable

consiswas to be

that Benveniste

would not

comparative

grammar

an originary historical

ARCHAEOLOGY

grounded

in it) is

event and for generative grammar

(and for the disciplines

(and for

the cognitive disciplines associated with it) is the neuronal system and genetic code of Homo sapiens. The current

predominance

have been able to suggest a solution in this regard, even if he had

the human sciences of models originating

not been struck by a type of total and incurable aphasia.

ences bears witness to this shift of epistemological

From the perspective

of the philosophical

posed here, the question be completely regresses

regarding

The arche toward

revised.

is not to be understood

in a chronology

ontological

words expressing

a system of connections

accessible languages,

history,

pro-

the human sciences will be capable of reaching their decisive epis-

must

temological

which archaeology

threshold

only after they have rethought,

bottom up, the very idea of an ontological anchoring, envisaged being as a field of essentially historical

instead,

like the Indo- European between

historically

or the child of psychoanalysis

exerting

an

active force within the psychic life of the adult, or the big bang, which is supposed to have given rise to the universe continues

to send toward

us its fossil radiation.

big bang, which astrophysicists in terms of million anthropogenesis

Yet unlike

anthropogenesis,

the

of years), the arche is not a given or a sub-

and history, between

between

but which

claim to be able to date (albeit

stance, but a field of bipolar historical currents stretched becoming,

an archi-past

between

the moment of arising and

and the present.

And as 'With

which is supposed to have taken place but which

cannot be hypostatized is able to guarantee

in a chronological

the intelligibility

event - the arche alone

of historical

phenomena,

"saving" them archaeologically

in a future anterior in the under-

standing not of an unverifiable talizable history.

origin but of its finite and unto-

At this point, it is also possible to understand

what is at stake in

the paradigm shift in the human sciences from comparative mar (an essentially (ultimately, the problem

historical

discipline)

a biological discipline). of the ultimate

I I II

to generative

gram-

grammar

In both cases, there remains

ontological

Yet

anchoring

(even with as large a frame as prehistory); force within

paradigm.

archaeology

in any way as a given locatable

it is an operative

in

from the cognitive sci-

anchoring,

which for

I I I

from the and thereby

tensions.

Notes

CHAPTER Michel

1.

erine

ONE:

Porter

Dreyfus

and Hermeneutics.

if

Truth, trans. Lysa I-Iochroth

Semiotexte,

and Cath-

2007), pp. 60-6l.

and Paul Rabinow,

Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism

With an Afterword by and Interview with Michel Foucault (Chi-

cago: University 3· Michel

IS A PARADIGM?

The Politics

Foucault,

(Los Angeles:

Hubert

2.

WHAT

of Chicago

Press,

'983), p. 199.

The Order oj' Things (New York: Vintage

Foucault,

Books,

1973),

pp. 239-40. 4· Michel Georges

Foucault,

Canguilhem,

Books, 1991),

s· Thomas sity of Chicago

P:

to The Norma} and the Pathological,

introduction trans.

Caroline

R. Fawcett

(1978; New

by

York: Zone

16.

The Structure ifScient!fic

S. Kuhn, Press,

Revolutions (Chicago:

Univer-

'970), P: 182.

6. lbid., p. 46.

7· lbid., p. 187. 8. Michel (Paris:

Foucault,

GaJlimard,

9· Michel

Dits et ecrits, ed. Daniel

Defer

and Fra ncois

Ewald

1994), vol. 2, P: 240.

Foucault,

"Truth

1954-1984, ed. James D. Faubion,

and Power," in Power: Essential Works of Foucault trans. Robert

Hurley

(New York: New Press,

2000), vol. 3, P: 114. 10.

lbid., Pl': 114-15.

11. Michel Smith

Foucault,

The Archaeology of Knowledge, trans.

(New York: Pantheon

Books,

1972), P: 181.

12. lbid., pp. ,86-87.

1 1

3

A. M. Sheridan

THE

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

THINGS

NOTES

13. lbid., p. 191.

CHAPTER

14. lbid., p. 192. 15. Michel Foucault, Sheridan

Discipline and Punish: the Birth

(New York: Vintage

rf the Prison, trans.

Alan

Books, 1995), P: 200.

1991),

P·236.

OF SIGNATURES

the Signature 1,

of Natural

ed. Arthur

Edward

Things," Waite

in The Her-

(London:

James

1894).

Von den noturlicben

2. Paracelsus,

17. Daniel S. Milo, Trahir le temps: Histoire (Paris: Les Belles Lettres,

THEORY

"Concerning

metic and Alchemical Writin8s: Vol. Elliott,

16. lbid., pp. 205, 220, 221.

Johannes

in Biicher und Schriften,

Ditiqen,

(1859; Hildesheim-New

Huser

York: Georg

ed.

Olms, 1972), vol. 3.7,

p. 131.

Prior Analytics 69aI3-15.

18. Aristotle, 19· Immanuel (Cambridge,

Kant,

Critique

UK: Cambridge

rf the

University

rf [udqment,

Press, 2000),

trans.

Paul Guyer

p. 121.

4· Paracelsus,

Von den naturlichen

5. Paracelsus,

"Concerning

Vrin, 1985), p. 53.

iu«, p.

10.

Le paradi8me dans la dialectique platonicietuie,

24. Goldschmidt,

p. 84.

25. Plato, ReplIblic 6.509d-511e.

Ibid.

11. lbid., p. 189.

Princeton

Selected Writin8s, trans. Norbert

University

13. Paracelsus,

28. Ibid., 7.533c6.

14. lbid., vol. 2.4, p. 316.

Bein8 and Time, trans. John Macquarrie

Heidegger,

(New York: Harper

and Row, 2008),

and Edward

p. 195.

(Princeton,

NJ:

Biiclier und Schriften, vol. 1.2, p. 234.

15. lbid., vol. 1.2, p. 110. 16. Paracelsus,

30. Ibid.

Guterman

Press, 1988), pp. 122-23.

27. lbid., 6·51Ob9.

"Concerning

the Signature

of Natural

Things,"

p. 172.

17. Ibid.

31. Johann

Wolfgang

in Gedenkauspabe

32. Johann

Natunvissenschciftliche

von Goethe,

Schr!ften, vol. 2,

der Werke, Briefe, und Gesprdclie, cd , Ernst Beutler

1949-52),

(Zurich:

vol. 17, p. 691.

Wolfgang

von Goethe,

Naturwissenschoitliche

Schriften, vol. 1, in

ibid., vol. 16, pp. 851-52. 33· lbid.,

p. 171.

174.

12. Paracelsus,

26. lbid., 6.511b2-CI.

Artemis,

Things,"

9. ibid., p. 188.

23. Plato, The Statesman 278b-c.

Robinson

of Natural

7. Ibid. 8.

lbid., P: 77.

29. Martin

Diiiqen, in ibid., vol. 3·7, P: 133.

the Signature

6. lbid., p. 173.

Le paradi8me dans la dialeciioue platonicienne (Paris:

21. Victor Goldschmidt,

Liber de podaqricis, in ibid., vol. 2·4, P: 259.

3. Paracelsus,

Power

20. Plato, The Statesman 2]8c.

22.

TWO:

1. Paracelsus,

P:

34. Goethe,

852·

ibid. Ibid.

21.

Ibid.

(Whitefish,

Schr!fteIl, vol. 2, in ibid., P: 706.

Noturwissensclioltlicbe

Wolfgang

19. 20.

22. Jakob Bohme,

35. lbid., vol. 1, P: 871. 36. Johann

18. Ibid.

Works q}jacob Behmen: The Teutonic Philosopher:

MT: Kessinger,

23· Bohrne,

2003), p. 9.'

Works rfjacob Behmen, P: 9.

24. lbid., p. 10 von Goethe,

2, P: 693.

Maximen und Reflexionen,

in ibid., vol.

25. Ibid. 26. lbid.,

I I

P: 59.

1 1

Vol. 4

THE

SIGNATURE

OF

ALL

THINGS

NOTES

5l. Ibid.

27. lbid., p. 239·

The City rifGod against the Pagans, ed. and trans. R. W. Dyson

28. Augustine, (Cambridge,

UK: Cambridge

P:

29· lbid.,

Press, 2007), P: 397.

University

30. Hugh of St. Victor, De sacrametitis cbrisuonae

32. Thomas

Blackfriars,

Summa sententiarum,

Aquinas,

Iidei, PL, 176,

P:

35a.

(London:

PL, 176, p. 117b.

Summa theolopiae, trans.

David

Bourke

(London:

Institute,

57. lbid.,

Contra epistolam Parmeniani, PL, 43, p. 7

P:

in A Select Library

D. Hartranft,

rif the Nicene and Post-Nicetie Fathers rif Literature

60. lbid., p. 29.

ibid., P: 30.

62. Enzo

Summa theologiae, P: 83·

Melandri,

"Michel

umane,' Lingua e stile 2.1 (1967),

38. Ibid.

63. lbid., p. 148.

39· Ibid., p. 79·

64. Emile

40. Ibid.

Foucault:

P:

L'epistemologia

delle

scienze

147.

Problemes de linguistique generale (Paris: Gallimard,

Benveniste,

1974), vol. 2, p. 64.

65. Ibid., pp. 65-66.

Ibid., P: 83·

42. lbid., pp. 83-85.

44. lamblichus, P. Hershbell

CT: Yale University

De mJsteriis, trans. Emma C. Clarke, John M. Dillon, and (Atlanta:

Society

of Biblical Literature,

45. Iamblichus de mysteriis AegJptiorum,

2003), p. 115·

Cbaldoeorum, AssJriorum; Proclus ...

Press,

1979), pp. 3-4.

Problemes de linguistique 8eneraIe, p. 65.

67. Benveniste,

The Archaeolo8J rif Knowledge, trans.

68. Foucault,

de sacr!ficio et magia ... MarsiJjo Ficinoj1orentino interprete (Venice: Aldi, 1516), P: 7.

(New York: Pantheon

Books,

1970),

P:

Le pape et les sorciers: Une consultation de Jean XXII sur

la magie en 1320 (manuscript

B.A.V. Borghese

348) (Rome:

Ecole Francaise

de

A. M. Sheridan

Smith

84.

69. lbid., p. 88. 70. lbid., p. 86.

46. lbid., p. 35. 47. Alain Boureau,

Words upon Words, trans. Olivia Emmet (New Haven,

66. Jean Starobinski,

43. Ibid., P: 87·

71.

•

lbid., pp. 86-87.

72. lbid., p. 111.

nlbid.

p. ix.

48. lbid., p. '5.

74. lbid., p. 117·

4.9. lbid., p.

75. Edward

)0.

The Order rifThings (New York: Vintage Books, 1966),

59. lbid., pp. 28-29.

61.

1887), p. 475.

37. Aquinas,

Rome, 2004),

1986), pp. 33 and 51.

p.26. On Baptism, Against the Donatists, 5.24, trans. J. R. King, rev.

the Christian Church, Vol. 4, ed. Philip Schaff (Buffalo, NY: Christian

Jackson

of London,

Ill.

58. Michel Foucault,

"

36. Augustine,

4l.

University

56. lbid., P: 8.

35. Ibid.

Company,

Warburg

David Britt (Los

The Latin Version rif the CaJat al-hakim

ed., Picatrix:

Pingree,

trans.

1999), P: 569.

Institute,

55· lbid., pp. 8-9·

33· lbid., p. 127.

Chester

Research

54· lbid., p. 51.

1975), vol. 56, p. 55.

34. Augustine,

Getty

53· David

399·

3l. Anonymous,

The Renewal rif Pagan Antiquity,

52. Aby Warburg, Angeles:

2;1'

Ibid., p. 18.

Arrowsmith,

I I

j,

Herbert,

De veritate, trans. Meyrick

1937), p. 191.

I I

H. Carre

(Bristol:

J. W.

THE

76. Moshe

Hayyim

SIGNATURE

77. Carlo Ginzburg,

ALL

NOTES

THINGS

Le phitosophe et le caba!iste: Exposition

Luzzatto,

debat, ed. Joelle Hansel (Lagrasse:

Anne C. Tedeschi

OF

Verdier,

d'un

1991), pp. 86-87.

Johns Hopkins

University

Press,

1989), P: 106.

(Cambridge, 2.

UK: Cambridge

3· lbid.,

4. Ibid., P: 419.

rf the

Freud,

Moses

Hogarth

82. Walter

Press,

rf Sigmund

P:

Edi-

Freud, trans. James Strachey

1953), vol. 13, P: 222.

Benjamin,

"On the Mimetic

in Selected WritinBs: Vol-

(Cambridge,

MA: Belknap

Press,

Kant, Logic, trans.

(New York: Dover, 1974), 6. Immanuel

8. Michel

Foucault,

10.

85. Ibid.

11.

the Concept

of History,"

in Selected

(Cambridge,

MA: Belknap

86. Walter

Benjamin,

"On

WritinBs: Press,

87. Walter

The Arcades Project, trans. Howard

Benjamin,

(Cambridge,

88. Benjamin,

MA: Belknap

"On the Concept

(Coral

Gables, FL: University

90. Pierre Lettres, 91.

1948),

Noailles,

P:

jlIS:

LanBuage and Society, trans. Elizabeth Press, 1973), P: 336.

of Miami

93. Claude

Etudes de droit romain (Paris:

Les Belles

94. Jacques

Derrida,

versity of Chicago 95· Foucault,

Press,

to the Work

Mauss, trans.

1987), P: 64.

MarBins rfPhilosophy,

trans. Alan Bass (Chicago:

1972), p. 65.

Archoeolosy

rf Marcel

I I

H

p. 20.,.

in Aesthetics,

Method,

1998), P: 370.

(New York: New Press,

and Prancois

Ewald

Kirchenlexicon

Materialen:

Werke unci Nachlass (Stuttgart:

und Kuluir, ed.

Cbristenuun

1996), P: 53.

Metzler,

lbid., p. 53·

18.Ibid., p. 54. lbid., p. 52. Heidegger,

21. Overbeck,

costiuiziona]e

Perennial,

Kirchenlexicon,

22. Paolo Prodi, Uni-

Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie

(New York: Harper

and Edward

1962), p. 4-3.

p. 56.

J1 sacramento del potere: J1 giuramento

dell'Occidente

23· Georges

rf Knowledse,

Hurley

History,"

16. lbid., p. 55.

Robinson

Introduction

Schriften,

1994), vol. 3, P: 147.

von Reibnitz,

20. Martin

Metaphysics 1004a.16.

Routledge,

Genealogy,

Foucau It, Dits et ecrits, ed. Dan iel Defer

Gallimard,

Barbara

19·

Levi-Straus,

P: 7.

lbid., p. 371.

12. Michel (Paris:

17·

57.

Baker (London:

in Gesammeite

1973), vol. 29,

IS. Ibid., P: 5J.

390-91.

lbid., P: 59.

92. Aristotle,

Felicity

Fas et

Pl':

Schwarz

14· lbid., p. 57.

Press, 1982), pp. 462-63.

of History,"

Indo-European

89. Emile Benveniste,

Eiland and Kevin

and Wolfgang

Ibtd., pp. 372, 373.

13. Franz Overbeck,

2003), p. 390.

S. Hartman

Enzyklopadie,

De Gruyter,

"Nietzche,

84. Ibid.

Volume 4, 1938-1940, trans. Edmund [ephcott

Robert

29.

and Epistemolooy, trans. Robert

722.

Press, 2002), pp. 417 and 419.

7. Ibid.

9· lbid., pp. 373, 376.

Palmer

P:

Philosophische

Kant, (Berlin:

83. Ibid.

McLaughlin

University

Gary Hatfield

417.

Akadeinie-Auscabe

Faculty,"

ume 2, 1927-1934, trans. Rodney Livingstone 1999),

in The Standard

of Michelangelo,"

Complete Psyclioloqical Works

(London:

p.

5. Immanuel "The

ARCHAEOLOGY

Philosophy cifter 1781, trans.

lbid., p. 419.

79. Ibid. 80. lbid., pp. 97-98.

PHILOSOPHICAL

Theoretical

Kant,

78. Ibid., P: 101.

81. Sigmund

tion

THREE:

1. Immanuel

Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method, trans. John and

(Baltimore:

CHAPTER

(Bologna:

il Mulino,

1992), P: 24.

Durnezi l, My the et epopee (Paris: Gallimard,

24. Ibid.

I I

politico nella storia

1968), vol. 3, p. 14.

THE

25· Antoine Champion,

p.

OF

ALL

THINGS

NOTES

Lin81/istic historique et lin8uistic 8enerale (1921; Paris:

Meillet,

(975),

SIGNATURE

324.

47. Ibid., p. 116.

26. lbid., vol. 1, p. 15.

48. Ibid.

if Things

The Order

27· Michel Foucault,

(1994; New York: Vintage,

1970),

p. xxii. 28.

46. lbid., P: 109.

49. Ibid., pp. 118, 1'7. 50. Paolo

Ibid., pp. xxi-xxii.

29· Michel

metropoli,"

30. Marcel Mauss, A General Theory and Kegan Paul, (972), P:

31. Henri

grave Macmillan, 32. Walter McLaughlin

umane,"

if Magic,

trans. Robert

Brain (London:

H. Wilson

Carr

(New

York: Pal-

(Cambridge,

MA: Harvard

Melandri,

"Michel

52. Foucault,

University

Foucault:

di parole:

Dits et ecrits, vol. Usener,

Press,1982),

Klostermann,

My the et epopee, vol.

2000), I,

scienze

Litiqua e stile 2.1 (1967), p. 78.

34· lbid., p. 96. 35· Paul Ricoeur,

Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation,

Denis Savage (New Haven, CT: Yale University

trans.

Press, (970), p. 445.

36. lbid., P: 446. 37· Friedrich (Cambridge,

UK: Cambridge

38. Enzo Melandri, (Macerata:

Untimely Meditations,

Nietzsche,

Quodlibet,

trans.

R.

J.

Hollingdale

Press, 1997), P: 67.

University

La linea e il circolo: Studio logicofilosrifico sull'aoaloqta 2004),

pp. 65-66.

39· lbid., P: 67. 40. Sigmund York: Vintage

Moses and Monotheism, trans. Katherine

Freud,

Jones

(New

Books, (937), p. 162.

41. lbid., p. 163. 42. Cathy (Baltimore:

Caruth,

Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History

Johns Hopkins

43· Foucault,

University

Press,

Dits et ecrits, vol. 1, pp. 69-70

44· lbid., p.

Ill.

45. lbtd., p.

100.

(I

(996),

delIa

Costa & Nolan,

Venuch einer Lehre von del' reliqiosen

P: 459. delle

Ilardi (Genoa:

Iinguistica

P: 99.

I,

Gotternanien:

Eiland and Kevin

L'espistemologia

Per uri'analisi

The Arcades Project, P: 471.

Begr!fFbildullg (Frankfurt: 54. Dumezil,

The Arcades Project, trans. Howard

dedalo

in La citta senza luoqhi, ed. Massimo

53. Hermann

trans.

"Un

1990). p. 74· 51. Benjamin,

2007), p. 133.

Benjamin,

33· Enzo

A. M. Sheridan

118.

Mind-Ener8Y,

Bergson,

trans.

Books, (972), p. 191.

Smith (New York: Pantheon

Routledge

if Knowledpe,

The Archaeology

Foucault,

Virno,

pp. 17-18.

and 73.

121

p. 9.

p. 5.

Index

ABU

MA1SHAR,

Augustine,

50.

Saint,

Alexander

of Names

ENRICO

40-41,

of Hales,

44-45,

DEL CARRETTO,

45.

J1EDVRE,

LUCIEN,

Ambrose,

4.1.

Festus,

Aristotle,

17-18, 20, 24, 26, 72.

Feuerbach,

Ast, Georg

Anton

Aulus Gellius,

Friedrich,

25.

Sextus

Ficino,

70.

SAINT,

Benjamin,

20.

Walter,

88, 91, 97,

Jeremy,

16.

Benveniste,

Emile,

Berengarius

01"Tours,

Bergson,

I lend,

Bertillon, Binswanger,

Marc,

Bohmc, Burnouf,

Sigmund,

GALTON,

95.

28, 38-40,

Cernet,

66.

FRANCIS,

Goethe,

GEORGES,

10,12.

HEGEL,

Derrida, Doyle,

64.

63.

Dreyfus,

Herbert,

Durnezil,

70.

Georges,

21, 23.

Martin, Edward,

FRIEDRICH,

Hugh

25-26,

Hugo

of St. Victor,

64.

IAMBLlCHUS,

10. 84-85,

Isidore

von, 52. 41.

87, 100.

123

47.

of Seville,

81, 93.

60-61.

72.

Conan,

Hubert,

27-28.

Victor,

GEORG WILHELM

Heidegger,

54.

GILLES,

Jacques,

26.

24,72.

Enrico,

Arthur

Bigordi,

63-65.

Wolfgang,

Goldschmidt,

9,.

65.

Domenico Carlo,

Hofmannsthal, DELEUZE,

92-93,

Louis, 83.

Giorgione,

100.

Croll ius, Oswald,

89-90,

93.

Ginzburg,

Cathy,

So.

63-65,

95, 97, 98.

Jacob,

Castelnuovo,

95, 98.

Ghirlandaio,

Emile,

13.

7, 13,9-17,21,29,

del Cossa,

16.

CANGUILHEM,

Caruth,

Michel,

Hans, 71.

Jakob,

Burckhardt,

Freud,

65.

Ludwig,

Blumenberg,

69, 101.

41.

87-88,

Alphonse,

II.

Alessandro,

Francesco

55-57,

47-4.8.

Ludwik,

85-90,

Bentham,

17.

7.

35,38,53-55,57-58,60,73,76-77,

100.

Bloch,

Ludwig,

Foucault,

7, 65-68,

16.

Pompeius,

Marsilio,

Fleck, Fontana,

BENEDICT,

49.

47.

41.

THE

JOHN

XXII,

Jakobson,

SIGNATURE

48.

POPE,

Roman,

OF

ALL

THINGS

64.

SASSOFERRATO,

72.

Saussure,

Ferdinand

Schleiermacher, KANT,

19-20,75-76,87.

IMMANUEL,

Ernst, 16.

Kantorowicz, Kepler,

Johannes,

Koyre,

Alexandre,

Kuhn,

Adalbert,

Kuhn,

Thomas

LANDRU)

Leibniz,

40. 12.

Luzzatto,

Moshe

Meyerson,

87.

12. 30.

USEN

41-42.

AQUINAS,

37, 64.

ER,

VALERY,

Nikolai,

71.

l.-JERMANN,

i

oo ,

91.

PAUL,

Friedrich

Theodor,

Weber, 63.

ORIGEN,

88.

II.

69-70.

Franz,

78-82,

66,74· Parry, Milman,

27.

Pasquale,

21-24,

13.

27, 62.

Prod us, 48. Paolo, 83.

Ptolemy,

II.

RAlllNQW,

86-88.

31-38,40,43,47,53-54,

PARACELSUS,

Pasquino,

Wind, Wolfson

ISAAC)

Pierre,

PAUL,

AllY,

26-27,

65-66.

100.

Noailles,

Overbeck,

WARBURC,

34.

Max,

10.

RicOClII', Paul, 89-90,

II ,

Leo, 62.

Vischer,

12.

Giovanni,

NEWTON,

n 0[[('

62.

S., 16.

Henry,

Morellli,

Rodier,

Strauss,

Titian,

85.

Emile,

Milo, Daniel

Prodi,

Wallace,

53.

Enzo, 18,35, 55, 57, 88-91, 97.

Melandri,

Plato,

George,

Stevens,

Trubetzkoy,

MARCEL,

Muller,

72.

Hayyim,

Antoine,

More,

Steiner,

53.

62.

von, 40,

26.

Karl, 71.

Ernst,

66.

Wolfgang,

Baruch,

THOMAS

Claude,

Lippi, Filippo,

MAUSS,

65.

Willhelm

Lowith,

Meillet,

Richard

Spinoza,

S., 10-IS.

Gottfried

Gershom,

Semon,

100.

Daniel

Carl, 71.

Scholem,

HENRI-DESIRE}

75· Levi-Strauss,

25· Schmitt,

de, 56.

Friedrich

Goorg('s, 21. Jilizabcth, 17.

92.

Max, 71. Edgar, Harry

64. A., 62.

50, 52-53,

911~~1,llmll~~I,I~llllll