Stefan Kristensen

The psychoanalyical notion of the unconscious is often considered as being out of reach for phenomenological thinking. When Merleau-Ponty refl ects on it, he takes the unconscious as the realm, in bodily life, that being not yet conscious, is likely to become conscious. He formulates it in his Résumés de cours with the famous sentence “The unconscious is the sensing itself”. Lacan, facing this interpretation, explains that Merleau-Ponty fails to recongnize the essential discontinuity between consciousness and the unconscious. From that criticism, it is possible to follow the reflection of Félix Guattari who develops, both alone and in collaboration with Gilles Deleuze, a conception of the “machinic unconscious”, a notion that can be read as an attempt to articulate the merleau-pontian and the lacanian approaches and to sketch out a theory of the becoming-subject. My aim in this paper, in speaking about “Merleau-Ponty Tomorrow”, consists therefore in appropriating some of his suggestions in this regard and to detect them in an unexpected context, thereby also noting the differences between them. Through this dialogue, I get to a position where it is possible to outline a critique of the contemporary “theory of the self”, which in myview is unaware of the fact that the self is always already caught in power relations. Guattari’s “micropolitics of desire” allows precisely to account for that and thus to develop the phenomenological approach to the self.

This essay is a second attempt to reconcile the perspectives of Merleau-Ponty and Guattari, following on the examination of the unconscious in a previous issue of Chiasmi. Here the focus concerns an ontology that overcomes the dualistic heritage of Western metaphysics. More precisely, I compare the concept of flesh as Merleau-Ponty employs it in his later texts with that of the machine as Guattari uses this from the end of the 1960s until his last writings in the early 1990s. The machine concerns the potential for transformation in a given social and political configuration, so that the ontology to be drawn from this concept is a thought of transformation. The position of individual subjectivity in this context is not so different from that granted to it by Merleau-Ponty in his last writings: a curvature of the flesh or, as Deleuze and Guattari write about the artisan in A Thousand Plateaus, “one who is determined in such a way as to follow a flow of matter.”Cet essai est une deuxième tentative de rapprochement des perspectives de Merleau-Ponty et de Guattari, après la problématique de l’inconscient traitée dans un précédent numéro de Chiasmi. Cette fois elle a lieu sous l’angle d’une ontologie qui surmonte l’héritage dualiste de la métaphysique occidentale. Plus précisément, je mets en comparaison la notion de chair telle que Merleau-Ponty la met en oeuvre dans ses textes tardifs et celle de machine telle que Guattari l’emploie depuis la fin des années 1960 jusqu’à ses derniers écrits du début des années 1990. La machine concerne le potentiel de transformation dans une configuration sociale et politique donnée, de sorte que l’ontologie qu’on peut tirer de cette notion est une pensée de la transformation. La position de la subjectivité individuelle dans ce contexte n’est pas très différente de celle que lui accorde Merleau-Ponty dans ses derniers écrits : une courbure de la chair, ou comme l’écrivent Deleuze et Guattari dans Mille plateaux à propos de l’artisan, « celui qui est déterminé à suivre un flux de matière ».Questo saggio è un secondo tentativo di avvicinare le prospettive di Merleau-Ponty e di Guattari, dopo quanto fatto in un precedente numero di Chiasmi attorno alla problematica dell’inconscio. Questa volta, tale raffronto sarà nella prospettiva di un’ontologia che superi l’eredità dualistica della metafisica occidentale. Più precisamente, intendo confrontare la nozione di carne, nel modo in cui essa prende corpo nei testi dell’ultimo Merleau-Ponty, e quella di macchina di Guattari, nella maniera in cui è caratterizzata dall’autore a partire dalla fine degli anni Sessanta fino ai suoi ultimi scritti dell’inizio degli anni Novanta. La macchina riguarda il potenziale di trasformazione in una configurazione sociale e politica data, e quindi l’ontologia che ne deriva implica un pensiero della trasformazione. In questo contesto, la posizione della soggettività individuale non è molto diversa da quella caratterizzata da Merleau-Ponty nei suoi ultimi scritti: una curvatura della carne, o, come scrivono Deleuze e Guattari in Millepiani a proposito dell’artigiano, “colui che è determinato a seguire un flusso di materia”.

Jean-Luc Godard’s Eye and MindIn his commentary concerning Jean-Luc Godard’s film, Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle, the film critic, Alain Bergala, writes that certain sequences of this film are “at the same time cinema and philosophy of cinema, a philosophy not very far from that of Merleau-Ponty in Eye and Mind, but a joyful and actually cinematic philosophy.” Here I propose a reading of Godard’s certain works found in different periods (Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle, Ici et ailleurs, Passion et JLG – Autoportrait de décembre), according to this precise axis, namely, as a cinematic response to Merleau-Ponty’s Eye and Mind. To do that presupposes that we open up the stakes of this famous text, which is at the limit of the philosophical and political, and that we grasp the work of the filmmaker as a movement of thought which continues and deepens Merleau-Ponty’s questions concerning the political dimensions of flesh.L’occhio e lo spirito di Jean-Luc GodardNelle sue osservazioni sul film di Jean-Luc Godard, Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle, il critico cinematografico Alain Bergala scrive che alcune sequenze del film sono “allo stesso tempo cinema e filosofia del cinema, una filosofia non troppo lontana da quella elaborata da Merleau-Ponty in L’occhio e lo spirito, una filosofia gioiosa e davvero cinematografica.” Propongo qui una lettura di alcune opere godardiane di periodi differenti (Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle, Ici et ailleurs, Passion e JLG – Autoportrait de décembre), muovendomi lungo questa stessa linea, dunque intendendo quelle opere come una risposta “cinematografica” a L’occhio e lo spirito. Fare questo significa, d’altra parte, rianimare la posta in gioco di questo celebre testo, situata al limite tra il filosofico e il politico, e assumere l’opera del regista come un movimento di pensiero che prolunga e approfondisce l’interrogazione merleau-pontyana sulle dimensioni politiche della carne.

Jean-Luc Godard’s Eye and MindIn his commentary concerning Jean-Luc Godard’s film, Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle, the film critic, Alain Bergala, writes that certain sequences of this film are “at the same time cinema and philosophy of cinema, a philosophy not very far from that of Merleau-Ponty in Eye and Mind, but a joyful and actually cinematic philosophy.” Here I propose a reading of Godard’s certain works found in different periods (Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle, Ici et ailleurs, Passion et JLG – Autoportrait de décembre), according to this precise axis, namely, as a cinematic response to Merleau-Ponty’s Eye and Mind. To do that presupposes that we open up the stakes of this famous text, which is at the limit of the philosophical and political, and that we grasp the work of the filmmaker as a movement of thought which continues and deepens Merleau-Ponty’s questions concerning the political dimensions of flesh.L’occhio e lo spirito di Jean-Luc GodardNelle sue osservazioni sul film di Jean-Luc Godard, Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle, il critico cinematografico Alain Bergala scrive che alcune sequenze del film sono “allo stesso tempo cinema e filosofia del cinema, una filosofia non troppo lontana da quella elaborata da Merleau-Ponty in L’occhio e lo spirito, una filosofia gioiosa e davvero cinematografica.” Propongo qui una lettura di alcune opere godardiane di periodi differenti (Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle, Ici et ailleurs, Passion e JLG – Autoportrait de décembre), muovendomi lungo questa stessa linea, dunque intendendo quelle opere come una risposta “cinematografica” a L’occhio e lo spirito. Fare questo significa, d’altra parte, rianimare la posta in gioco di questo celebre testo, situata al limite tra il filosofico e il politico, e assumere l’opera del regista come un movimento di pensiero che prolunga e approfondisce l’interrogazione merleau-pontyana sulle dimensioni politiche della carne.