Transcript
Claire ParnetGreat answer. So, "K" is Kant. Of all the philosophers that you have written on, Kant seems the farthest from your own thought. However, you have said that all the authors you have studied have something in common. So, first of all, is there something in common between Kant and Spinoza, which is not at all obvious?
I'd prefer, if I might dare, the first part of the question, that is, why I took on Kant, and once said that there is nothing in common between Kant and Spinoza, nothing in common between Nietzsche and Kant although Nietzsche read Kant closely, but it's not the same conception of philosophy, it's not... So why am I nonetheless so fascinated by Kant? For two reasons: Kant is present at so many turning points, and he initiates and then pushes something as far as possible, something that had never been advanced in philosophy. Specifically, he establishes tribunals, perhaps under the influence of the French Revolution. Now, up to the present, one always tries, or I try, to talk about concepts as characters. So, before Kant, in the 18th century, there is a new kind of philosopher presented as an investigator, investigation, Investigation into Human Understanding, investigation of this, investigation of that. The philosopher saw himself to some extent as an investigator. Even in the 17th century, and Leibniz is no doubt the last representative of this tendency, he saw himself as a lawyer, defending a cause, and the greatest thing is that Leibniz claimed to be God's lawyer. So there must have been things to reproach against God at the time, and Leibniz writes a marvelous little work on God's cause, in the juridical sense of cause, God's cause to be defended. So, it's like a sequence of characters-the lawyer, the investigator- and then with Kant, the arrival of a tribunal, a tribunal of reason, things being judged as a function of a tribunal of reason. And the faculties- in the sense of understanding, the imagination, knowledge, morality- are measured as a function of the tribunal of reason. Of course, he uses a certain method that he invented, an amazing method called the critical method, the properly Kantian method. Now, I have to admit this aspect of Kant almost makes me cringe in horror, but it's both horror and fascination, because he's so ingenious. If I return to the question. . . Among the concepts that Kant invented, and Lord knows he invented them, I consider the concept of the tribunal of reason to be inseparable from the critical method. But finally, what I'd rather dream of. . . It's a tribunal of judgment, it's the system of judgment. Simply, it's a system of judgment that no longer needs God, a system of judgment based on reason, and no longer on God. With all the writers that affect me- we haven't considered this problem, but we can introduce it now, it will save us the trouble of returning to it. One can always wonder about this because there is something mysterious: why does someone, someone in particular, you or me, get connected to or identify especially with one kind of problem and not another? What is someone's affinity for a particular kind of problem? That seems to me to be one of the greatest mysteries of thought. A person might be fated for one problem since we don't take on just any problem. And this is true for researchers in the sciences, a person's affinity for a particular problem, but with some other problem, he just doesn't get involved. And philosophy is an aggregate of problems, with its own consistency, but it does not pretend to deal with all problems, thank God. Well, I feel rather connected to problems that aim at seeking the means to do away with the system of judgment, and to replace it with something else. So there, we have the great names. Indeed, it's a different tradition. Yes, you were right when you said there's an opposition. I see Spinoza, I see Nietzsche, in literature I see [D.H.] Lawrence, and finally the most recent and one of the greatest writers, Artaud, his To Have Done With the Judgment of God, really means something, it's not the words of a madman. We really have to take this literally: to have done with the system of judgment. Well, all that, those are things. . . only there you are. . . And underneath-as always, it's like when I say that one has to look underneath concepts for problems-and underneath, there are some astonishing problems posed by Kant, that are really marvels. He was the first to have created an astonishing reversal of concepts. Here again, this is why I get so sad when people, even young people preparing the baccalauréat, are taught an abstract philosophy without even trying-perhaps it's not possible- to have them participate in problems that are quite fantastic problems, much more interesting than. . . I don't know exactly what. I can say that, up until Kant, for example, time was derived from movement, it was second in relation to movement, it was considered to be a number of movement or a measure of movement. What does Kant do? However he does it, there's the creation of a concept, and in all I am doing here, we never stop moving forward in considering what it means to create a concept. Kant creates a concept because he reverses the subordination. With him, it's movement that depends on time. And suddenly, time changes its nature, it ceases being circular. Because, when time is subordinate to movement, for reasons that would be too long [to explain], finally the great movement is the periodic movement, it's the periodic movement of heavenly bodies, so the movement is circular. On the contrary, when time is freed from movement and it's movement that depends on time, then time becomes a straight line. And I always think of something that Borges said- although he has little relation to Kant- when Borges says that a more frightening labyrinth than a circular labyrinth is a labyrinth in a straight line. It's marvelous, but it's Kant, it's Kant who lets time loose. And then this story of the tribunal, measuring the role of each faculty as a function of a particular goal, that's what Kant collides with at the end of his life, as he is one of the rare philosophers to write as a very, very old man a book that would renew everything, the Critique of Judgment. He reaches the idea that the faculties must have disorderly relations with each other, that they collide with each other, and then reconcile with each other, but there is a battle of the faculties where there is no longer any standard, where they are no longer subject to a tribunal. He introduces his conception of the Sublime, in which the faculties enter into discordances, into discordant accords. So all that pleases me infinitely: these discordant accords, this labyrinth that is nothing more than a straight line, his reversal of relations. . . I mean that all modern philosophy flows forth from this point, that it's no longer time that depended on movement but rather that movement depended on time- that's a fantastic creation of concepts. And the whole conception of the Sublime, with all the discordant accords of the faculties. I am enormously moved by these things. So, what can one say? It's obvious that he's a great philosopher, a very great philosopher, and there is a whole substratum in his works that excites me enormously. And all that is built on top of this has no interest for me, but I don't judge it, it's just a system of judgment that I'd like to do away with, but without standing in judgment.
Claire ParnetWhat about Kant's life. . .
Oh, Kant's life. . . That wasn't planned for our discussion.
Claire ParnetYes it was. . . There is another aspect that might also please you in Kant, the aspect discussed by Thomas De Quincey, this fantastic life regulated by habits, his little daily walk, the life of a philosopher that one might imagine mythically, something very special. And one thinks of this when one thinks about you, that is, something quite regulated, with an enormous number of habits, work habits. . .
I see what you mean, and De Quincey's text is one that we both find quite exciting, a real work of art. But I see this aspect as belonging to all philosophers. They don't all have the same habits, but to say that they are creatures of habit seems to suggest that they don't know. . . It's obligatory, it's obligatory that they be creatures of habit. Spinoza as well... My impression of Spinoza is that there's not very much surprising in his life, he had a life there, he polished his lenses, we always imagine him polishing his lenses, he received visitors. . .
Claire ParnetHe earned his living polishing lenses. . .
So, it wasn't a very turbulent life except for political upheavals at that time, but Kant also lived through some very intense political upheavals. Thus, all that people say about Kant's clothing apparatuses, that he invented for himself a little machine to pull up-I don't know- his underwear, his stockings. . . all that makes him extremely charming, if one needs that kind of thing. But, all philosophers. . . it's a bit like Nietzsche said, philosophers are generally chaste, poor, and Nietzsche adds, we simply guess at how philosophers make use of all of this, how they make use of this chastity, how they make use of this poverty, etc. Kant had his little daily walk, but that's nothing in itself. What happened during his little walk, what was he looking at? One would have to find out. In the long run, that philosophers are creatures of habit. . . I think that habit, I am going to tell you, it means contemplating, it's the contemplation of something. Really, habit in the true sense of the term means contemplating. What did he contemplate during his walks? We don't know. . . As for my own habits, well, it's shameful. . . yes, ok, I have quite a few of them, they are contemplations, I enter into contemplation. . . Sometimes these are things that I am alone in seeing, ok, that's what a habit is.