Foucault, Experience, Literature

8/7/2019 Foucault, Experience, Literature

1/21

FoucaultStudies

TimothyOLeary2008

ISSN:1832

5203

FoucaultStudies,No5,pp.525,January2008

ARTICLE

Foucault,Experience,LiteratureTimothyOLeary,TheUniversityofHongKong

Abookisproduced,aminusculeevent,asmallmalleableobject(Foucault).1

Abookisagrainofsand(Calvino).2

Whatmostthreatensreadingisthis:thereadersreality,hispersonality,hisimmodesty,

hisstubborninsistenceuponremaininghimselfinthefaceofwhathereads(Blanchot).3

TheverygeneralquestionthatIwanttoaddresshereis,whatcanliteraturedo?4If

abookisaminusculeevent,asmallobject,ameregrainofsand,howcanitbesaid

to do anything at all? In one of several interviews in which he discusses his

dissatisfaction with the philosophical milieu of his student days, which was

dominated byMarxism, phenomenology and existentialism, Foucault makes the

following startling claim:forme thebreakwas firstBeckettsWaitingfor

Godot,

a

breathtaking performance.5My aim in this paper is to lay the groundwork for

understandinghowitispossibleforaworkofliteraturetohavesuchaneffectthat

is,toforceustothinkotherwise. Isitreallypossibleforworksofliteraturetochange

thepeoplewho read them?Or, togive thisquestiona slightlydifferent focus,are

peoplecapableofchanging themselves through their readingof literature?Letme

1

Michel

Foucault,

History

of

Madness,

trans.

J.

Murphy

&

J.

Khalfa

(London:

Routledge,

2006)

[Histoiredelafoliealgeclassique,2ndedition,Gallimard,Paris,1972(referencesherearetothe

Gallimardeditionof2001)].Henceforth,HM,withEnglishandFrenchpagenumbersgivenin

thetext:HM,xxxvii[9].Mytranslationvariesoccasionallyfromthepublishedversion.2 ItaloCalvino,TheUsesofLiterature,(SanDiego,CA:HarvestBooks,1987),p.87.3 MauriceBlanchot,TheSpaceofLiterature,trans.A.Smock(Lincoln,NE:UniversityofNebraska

Press,,1982),p.198.4 Iwould like thankseveralpeople forhelpingme toclarifymy thinkingabout thisquestion:

TimothyRayner,whoreadthepaperwithgreatcareandattention;themembersoftheSchool

of Philosophy, UNSW, Sydney at which I spent part of my sabbatical in 2006; and the

anonymousrefereesforFoucaultStudies..5

Interview

with

Michel

Foucault,

conducted

by

Charles

Ruas,

in

Michel

Foucault,

Death

and

theLabyrinth(London&NewYork:Continuum,2004),p.176.

5


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FoucaultStudies,No.5,pp.525.

sayfirstofall,thatIwillbeansweringthisquestionintheaffirmativethatis,Iwill

bearguingthatliteraturecanindeedhavethiskindofeffect.

Itwould,however,be futile toanswer thisquestion in theaffirmative ifwe

couldnotsaysomethingabouthow literaturecaneffectsuchchanges,and it is this

howwhichwillbemy focushere. Starting from the recognition that thework of

literature can onlybe fully understood as occurring in the interactionbetween a

readerandatext,wewillhavetoaddressbothsidesofthisdyad.Myquestionthen

becomes:Whatisit,intheformsofthehumansubject,ontheonehand,andinthe

formsandmodesofliterature,ontheotherhand,thatmakesitpossibleforthelatter

toactupontheformerwithatransformativeeffect?Inthispaper,duetolimitations

ofspace,Iwillfocusprimarilyontheformeraspect:theformsofhumansubjectivity

and their essential historicity. But, ultimately, we will see that a Foucauldian

approach to this question necessarily draws in the idea of fiction and the fictive,

whichwillallowustobuildabridgetothequestionofliteratureitself.TheapproachI am taking here, however, first of all requires a detailed excavation of the

developmentofthenotionofexperienceinFoucaultswork,fromhisearliesttohis

latest.

I FoucaultsArchaeologyofExperienceAmong the central concepts of Foucaults thought power, knowledge, truth,

critiquethereisonewhichhasreceivedlessattentionthanitdeserves:experience.6

Thisconceptruns throughFoucaultsworksfrom theearliest to the latest inawaythat rarely draws attention to itself,but occasionallybursts out in such resonant

phrasesaslimitexperienceandexperiencebook. Inaninterviewgivenin1978,7

forexample,Foucaultgivesanaccountofhisentirephilosophicaldevelopment in

terms of this concept. There were certain works, he says, by Bataille, Blanchot,

Nietzsche, that opened up for him the possibility of philosophy as a limit

experienceanexperiencewhich tearsusaway fromourselvesand leavesusno

longerthesameasbefore(EMF,241[43]).Suchbooks,whichhealsowishestowrite

6 Twonotableexceptionsare:TimothyRayner,Betweenfictionandreflection:Foucaultandthe

experience book, Continental Philosophy Review, no.36, 2003, pp.2743; and, Gary Gutting,

FoucaultsPhilosophyofExperience,boundary2,vol.29,no.2,2002,pp.6985.But,seealsothe

chapteronBataille,BlanchotandFoucault,inMartinJay,SongsofExperience:ModernAmerican

andEuropeanVariations on aUniversalTheme (Berkeley,CA:University ofCalifornia Press,,

2006),chap.9.7 InterviewwithMichelFoucault,inMichelFoucault:EssentialWorks,Vol.3;Power(Baltimore:

PenguinBooks,2000).This collection,henceforth,EW3.Entretien avecMichelFoucault in,

Dits et crits: IV, D. Defert and F.Ewald (eds.) (Paris: Gallimard, 1984). This collection,

henceforth,DEIV].This interview,henceforth,EMFwithEnglishand [French]pagenumbers

given

in

the

text.

Unfortunately

the

English

translation

of

this

interview

can

be

misleading

in

places.

6


3/21

OLeary:Foucault,Experience,Literature

himself, he calls experience books rather than truth books; and they are

experimental(expriencealsomeansexperiment)inthesensethattheyputtheauthor

and the reader to the testof theirown limits (EMF,246 [47]).Hence,hisbookson

madness,theprisonandsexualitynotonlyexamineourformsofknowledgeandour

practices,they

also

try

to

transform

them.

But

running

alongside

this

dazzling

use

of

the concept is amoremundane sense inwhich experience is taken tomean the

general,dominantbackgroundstructuresofthought,actionandfeelingthatprevail

inagivencultureatagiventime.Hence,forexample, theextensivediscussion, in

HistoryofMadness,oftheclassicalexperienceofmadness,ortheidentificationofa

modern experience of sexuality, inHistory of Sexuality, volume 2. In thatbook,

experienceisfinallypresentedasthehistoricalmodeinwhichbeingisgiventousas

something that can andmustbe thought,8while, in his very last lecture at the

CollgedeFrance,Foucaultcanstillspeak intermsoftheChristianexperienceand

themodern

European

experience

of

philosophy.

9Experience

is

then,

alimit

transcending,challengingevent,butalso thedominanthistoricalstructurewhich is

to be challenged. These two senses of experience, in all their apparent

contradictoriness,willbemyfocushere.

LetusbeginwiththePrefacetothefirsteditionofHistoryofMadness,where

Foucaultquotes,withoutattribution,apassagethatcomesfromoneofRenChars

prosepoems,endingwiththesentenceDveloppezvotretranget lgitime(develop

your legitimate strangeness/foreignness).10 This imperative could stand as an

epigraph toFoucaults entirework, a series ofbooks that in their effort to think

otherwise (penser autrement) (UP,9 [15])constantlyexplorewhatever is foreign to

ourways of thinking and acting.Thework onmadness, inparticular, sets out to

exploretheoriginalgesturebywhichmadnessandunreasonwereexpelledfromthe

rationalexperienceofthemodernWestthedivisioninwhichtheybecamewhatis

moststrange,foreignandexcludedforreason.11Whenthebookwasrepublishedin

1972,however,Foucaultremoved theoriginalPrefaceandwroteanewone. In the

newPreface,hestepsbackfromtheroleofauthorialvoice,resistingwhatheseesas

the temptation to imposea lawof interpretationon thework.Afterall,abook,he

8

Michel

Foucault,

The

History

of

Sexuality,

volume

II,

The

Use

of

Pleasure,

trans.

Robert

Hurley

(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1988) [Histoire de la sexualit, 2, Lusage desplaisirs, Paris,

Gallimard,1984].Henceforth,UP,withEnglishand [French]pagenumbersgiven in the text.

UP,67[13].9 LectureofMarch28th1984;unpublished,but recordingsavailableatFondsMichelFoucault,

lIMEC,Caen.10 The originalPreface is included in theEnglish translation (op. cit.); the French is inMichel

Foucault,Ditsetcrits19541988:I,19541969,D.DefertandF.Ewald(eds.),Paris:Gallimard,

1994. Henceforth, HMP, with English and [French] page numbers given in the text. This

citation, HMP, xxxvi [167]. For Foucaults source, see Ren Char, Fureur et mystre, Paris:

Gallimard,1967,p.71.11

It

is

no

surprise

to

find

that

the

group

of

poems

from

which

the

Char

quotation

comes

is

called

PartageFormel(FormalDivision).

7


4/21


says,may indeedbeaminusculeevent(HM,xxxvii[9]),but it isaneventthat is

followed by a proliferating series of simulacra interpretations, quotations,

commentaries which an author cannot and should not try to limit.Making a

curiousdistinction,Foucaultsayshewouldnotwantabook toclaim for itself the

statusoftext,towhichcriticismwouldliketoreduceit.Hewouldlikeittopresent

itself, instead, as discourse,by which hemeans at the same timebattle and

weapon,strategyandblowirregularencounterandrepeatablescene(HM,xxxviii

[10]).What then istheseriesofevents inwhichthisbookonmadness is inscribed?

Towhatbattleandstruggledoesitcontribute?Onewaytoanswerthesequestionsis

tobeginwiththecentralityofthenotionofexperiencethatstructuresandanimates

Foucaultsapproachtomadness.

Atthecentreofthisbook,astheoriginalPrefaceshows,therearetwonotions

of experience. On the one hand, there is the idea of a limitexperience, a

foundational gesturebywhich a culture excludes thatwhichwill function as itsoutside(HMP,xxix[161]) in thiscase, theexclusionofmadnessandunreasonby

reason.Hence, it isaquestion in thisbookofgoingback to thedegrzro(HMP,

xxvii [159]) of the history of madness, where reason and unreason are still

undifferentiated,notyetdivided,toatimebeforethisexclusion.12Foucaultsuggests

thatonecoulddoaseriesofhistoriesoftheselimitexperiences,whichmightinclude

theconstructionoftheOrientasothertotheWest,thefundamentaldivisionbetween

reasonanddream,and the institutionof sexualprohibitions.To this listwecould

add the original division, represented for usby Plato,between the discourse of

reasonand the languageofpoetry. It isworthnoting that this1961vintagelimitexperienceisnotthesameastheoneFoucaultappealstointhe1978interviewthat

Iquotedinrelationtotheexperiencebook.13Inthatinterview,alimitexperience

isanextremeexperiencewhich transgresses the limitsofacultureanexperience,

that is,of thesort thatBataillebothdescribesandconjureswhereashere it is the

experience inwhichacultureactuallycreates those limits.Onceagain,wesee that

the tensionbetween the senses of experience has reproduced itself,but this time

withinoneofitsforms.However,letusremainforthemomentwithinthecontextof

HistoryofMadness.Inordertounderstandtheformoflimitexperiencewhichdivides

reasonfrom

madness,

it

is

necessary

to

turn

to

what

Foucault

calls

the

classical

experience of madness. In this phrase, which recurs throughout the book,

experienceistakenasarisingfromthewholesetofthedominantwaysofseeing,

thinking about, and acting towards madness ways which include systems of

12 ItisworthnotingthatFoucaultisnotherelookingforaccesstomadnessinsomesortofpure

state.Indeed,heexplicitlystateslaterinthesamePrefacethat itswildstateandprimitive

puritywillalwaysremaininaccessible(HMP,xxxiii[164]).However,onemightobjectthathe,

nonetheless,

seems

to

assume

that

there

is

such

a

state,

although

we

cannot

access

it.

13 Seenote6above.

8


5/21


thought, institutions and the legal apparatus (notions, institutions, judicial and

policemeasures,scientificconcepts)(HMP,xxxiii[164]).

The firstpoint tonoteabout this seconduseof theconcept is thatFoucault

nevergives an explicitdefinitionof experience,henever tellsus exactlywhat the

termcovers.

Early

in

the

book

we

read

phrases

such

as

all

the

major

experiences

of

theRenaissance(HM,8[21]),14theWesternexperienceofmadness(HM,16[34]),

theexperienceofmadnessinthefifteenthcentury(HM,24[43]),andofcoursethe

ubiquitousclassicalexperienceofmadness (HM,15 [32]),butexperience itself is

neverdefined.Nevertheless,itispossibletopiecetogetherFoucaultsunderstanding

ofthisconcept.Inthefirstplace, itinvolvestheway inwhichagivenobject isseen

and conceptualised in a given culture. For example, at the beginning of the

Renaissance,Foucaulttellsus,therewasaconfrontationbetweentwopossibleforms

of theexperienceofmadnessatragicandacriticalexperience (HM,26[45]).

Andthese

two

forms,

we

are

told,

are

the

basis

of

everything

that

could

be

felt

(prouv) and formulated (formul) about madness at the beginning of the

Renaissance (HM,27 [46]).Later, speakingof thegreatenclosureofunreason,he

says that it is this mode of perceptionwhichmustbe interrogated in order to

understand the classical ages form of sensibility tomadness (HM, 54 [80]).The

practiceof internment,he suggests,partly explains themode inwhichmadness

wasperceived,and lived,bytheclassicalage(HM,55[80]).Outofthispractice,a

newsensibility(sensibilit)towardsmadnessisborn(HM,62[89]),anewobjectis

created,andthemanywaysofengagingwithunreasonareorganisedaroundaform

ofperception(HM,101[140]).Afinalexample:classicismfelt(prouv) adelicacy

in frontof the inhumanwhich theRenaissancehadnever felt (ressentie) (HM,143

[192]).The first aspectof any experience, then,willbe the forms ofperception or

sensibility which it makes possible or even necessary. A given structure of

experiencemakespossibleandgivesrise tocertainwaysofsensing,seeing, feeling

anobject.

But these formsofperceptionarenot theonlycomponentsofa structureof

experience. Despite Foucaults apparent focus on phenomena of perception and

(individual)consciousness,itmustbeemphasisedthattheexperienceofmadnessis

notjust a form of sensibility. It also comprisesboth the institutional practices of

internment and the forms of knowledgewhich developwithin andbolster those

institutions. In an interview given shortly after the original publication, Foucault

makesthefollowingclaim,whichcouldserveasasummaryofthebook:Madness

onlyexistsinasociety,itdoesnotexistoutsidetheformsofsensibilitywhichisolate

itandtheformsofrepulsionwhichexcludeorcaptureit(DEI,169).15Theseformsof

repulsion,whichbothexcludeandcapture,maybetakentocomprisewhatFoucault

would latercall thepower/knowledgeaspectsof the relation tomadness.There is,

14

The

English

version,

inexplicably,

translates

Foucaults

toutes

with

many.

15 Thisinterview,publishedinLeMondein1961,isuntranslated.

9


6/21


for instance, a certain practice and concrete awareness (conscience) in classicism

which ispartof itsdistinctiveexperienceofmadness (HM,158 [211]). Indeed, this

experience is expressed in the practice of internment (HM, 137 [185]). In the

classical age, then, the forms of repulsion comprised the great hospitals (such as

BictreinParisandBethleheminLondon),combinedwiththemodesofknowledge

whichtriedtoexplainmadness,forexample,intermsofapurelynegativeabsenceof

reason.

To speak of the classical experience ofmadness is, then, to speak of the

forms of consciousness, sensibility,practical engagement and scientific knowledge

whichtakemadnessastheirobject.AndeventhoughFoucaultwaslatertoadmit

thathisuseof the termexperiencewasvery inconstant[trsflottant] inHistoryof

Madness,16itisneverthelessaconceptthatrecurswithacertainregularitythroughout

therestofhiswork.So,forexample,inTheOrderofThings,wearetoldthathisaimis

to show what becomes of the experience of order between the sixteenth andnineteenthcenturies.Hisquestionhereishowdidtheexperienceoflanguage a

global,culturalexperienceofthelateRenaissancegivewaytoanewexperience

in the classicalage?17 Itwouldbewrong to suggest,however, that thehistoryof

Foucaultsuseof theconcept isentirelyseamless. It isclear,forexample, thatafter

thelate1960s,andupuntilthelate1970s,hewaslessandlesswillingtocharacterise

hiswork intermsofan investigationofexperience.Wecansurmisethatthiswasa

resultofhisincreasingdissatisfactionwiththefluidityoftheconcept,butalsoofthe

factthattheconcept,withitsconnotationsofindividualpsychology,clashedwithhis

newfocusonbodies,resistanceandpower.Wecannote,forexample,hiscommentinTheArchaeologyofKnowledgethatHistoryofMadnesshadgiventoogreataroletoan

inchoate notion of experience one that was in danger of reintroducing an

anonymousandgeneralsubjectofhistory.18

Nevertheless,by the late 1970s, accompanying the final twist in Foucaults

trajectory, the concept of experiencehad returned.Now itwasno longerquite as

inconstant as it had been before, a change largely the result of the increased

complexityofhismethodologyasawhole.Summarisingbriefly,wecouldsay that

Foucaults approach to any question will now contain three moments, each

representingaparticular

phase

his

work

has

gone

through.

So,

in

afield

such

as

sexuality,hewillfirstconsidertheformsofknowledge(savoir)anddiscoursewhich

16 Preface to TheHistory of Sexuality,Volume II, in Paul Rabinow (ed.), The FoucaultReader

(London:PenguinBooks,1991).FortheFrenchtext,see,MichelFoucault,Ditsetcrits,IV,op.

cit.Henceforth,PHS,withEnglishand[French]pagenumbersgiveninthetext.PHS,336[581].17 MichelFoucault,TheOrderofThings:AnArchaeologyoftheHumanSciences(London:Tavistock

Publications,1982)[Lesmots et leschoses:unearchologiedesscienceshumaines,Paris:Gallimard,

1966].Henceforth,OT,withEnglishand [French]pagenumbersgiven in the text.OT,4546

[56].18

Michel

Foucault,

The

Archaeology

of

Knowledge,

trans.

A.

Sheridan

(London:

Routledge,

1989),

p.18.Note,however,thatexprienceismisleadinglytranslatedasexperiment.

10


7/21


aregeneratedaround sexualbehaviour (roughly corresponding tohiswork in the

1960s);secondly,hewillconsidertheformsofpowerthattakeholdofourbehaviour

(roughly corresponding to hiswork in the 1970s); and thirdly, amoment that is

addedonlyintheearly1980s,hewillconsiderthemodesofrelationtoselfwhichour

sexualitypromotes

and

builds

on.

It

need

hardly

be

pointed

out

that

even

though

thisfirst,secondandthirdfollowedthatsequenceinhisowndevelopment,onceall

three approaches become available they are inextricably linked and have no

chronologicalhierarchy.AsFoucaultpointsoutinalateinterview(RM),thesethree

domains of experience can onlybe understood one in relation to the others and

cannotbeunderstoodonewithouttheothers.19Indeed,ifthesecondphasedoesnot

somuchaddpowertoknowledgeasintroduceanewconceptpowerknowledge

we could say that the final phase introduces another new concept power

knowledgethe self.What is important forus, however, is that this new tripartite

conceptcan

in

fact

be

given

asimpler

name

experience.

II TheTransformationofExperienceFoucaultbeginstobeexplicitaboutthecentralityoftheideaofexperiencefromthe

late 1970s; initially in an interview conducted in 1978,but firstpublished in 1980

(EMF),and later in thevariousversionsof thePreface to thesecondvolumeof the

HistoryofSexuality.20Inthe1978interview,theinterviewerpresseshimtoclarifyhis

relation to the entire constellation of French intellectual life after WWII, from

Marxism and phenomenology to existentialism and literary modernism. What

emergesmostclearlyfromhisresponsesisthesensethat,atleastatthisstageinhis

thought,Foucaulttakesacertainnotionofexperienceastheguidingthreadlinking

multiple aspectsofhis intellectual, andpersonal, trajectory.Wehavealready seen

how this interviewprioritiseswhathecalls thelimitexperiences,which forhim

arerepresentedbyBatailleandBlanchot thoseexperiences thatserve totear the

subjectawayfromitselfandensurethatthesubjectwillnotremainasitwasbefore

(EMF,241[43]).Andwealsosawthathewisheshisownbookstohavethiskindof

effect,bothforhimselfandforhisreadershewantsthemtobeexperiencebooks

ratherthantruthbooksordemonstrationbooks(EMF,246[47]).

This interview also gives us a way of understanding how these limit

experiences relate to the other kind of limitexperience, thosewhich, aswe saw,

represent a foundational gesture by which a culture excludes that which will

functionasitsoutsideforexample,madness(HMP,xxix[161]).Foucaultspeaksof

thesemomentsofrupture,ordivision,asgivingrisetoacertainexperienceinwhich

asubjectemergesasaconcomitanttoafieldofobjects.Thus,theprocessbywhich

19 TheReturn ofMorality, inL.Kritzman (ed.),Michel Foucault: Politics, Philosophy,Culture

(London:

Routledge,

1988),

p.243

[DEIV,

697].

20 Detailsbelow.

11


8/21


theobjectmadnessemergesinthelatenineteenthcenturyalsoinvolvestheprocess

ofemergenceofasubjectcapableofknowingmadness(EMF,254[55]).Thisqualifies

as a kind of limitexperience because it involves a transformation in a form of

subjectivity,throughtheconstitutionofafieldoftruth.However,whatisimportant

for Foucault is that abookwhich uncovers this history should itself provide an

experiencewhich,initsownway,isalsoalimitexperience.Hence,

theexperiencethroughwhichwemanagetograspinanintelligiblewaycertain

mechanisms(forexample,imprisonment,penality,etc.)andthewayinwhichwe

managetodetachourselvesfromthembyperceivingthemotherwise,should be

one and the same thing.This is really theheartofwhat Ido (EMF, 244 [46],

modified).

Whatwe find, then, is thatFoucaultuses the conceptof limitexperienceon, as it

were,bothsidesoftheanalysis:itisboththeobjectofthehistoricalresearch,andina

differentsenseitsobjective.Asheadmits:itsalwaysaquestionoflimitexperiences

andthehistoryoftruth.Imimprisoned,enmeshedinthattangleofproblems(EMF,

257[57]).AlongsidethemanyattemptsFoucaultmadetocharacterisehisownwork

(in termsofknowledge,power/knowledge,orknowledgepower subject),wecan

placethisasanadditionalandperhapsusefulformula:hisworkcontinuouslystrives

to understand and disentangle the connectionsbetween forms of experience and

forms ofknowledge,between subjectivity and truth.And this is an entanglement

thathecontinuestoexploreupuntilandincludinghislastworks.

In the earliestversionof thePreface to the secondvolumeof theHistory of

Sexuality,21Foucaultexplainstherelationbetweenhisnewinterestinsubjectivityand

hisearlierfocusondiscourseandpower,intermsofageneralprojectofthecritical

history of thought. This would mean the history of the forms of objectivation,

subjectivationand coercionwhich, ata certain time, foraparticular setofpeople,

constitutewhathecalls,thehistoricalaprioriofapossibleexperience(F,460[632]).

Adopting theperspectiveofHistoryofMadness, forexample,wecouldsay that for

certain people in the eighteenth century the experience of madness was made

possible by a historically specific combination of forms of objectivation,

subjectivationandcoercion.Theseforms,thesestructuresofexperience,determined

theway that crazy, irrationalpeoplewere seen, conceptualised and related to,bythosewhoconsidered themselves tobesaneand rational. In thesecondversionof

thisPreface,22Foucaultexplainsthattotreatsexualityasahistoricallysingularform

ofexperiencemeanstotreatitasthecorrelationofadomainofknowledge,atype

21 The dictionary entry titled Foucault that Foucault himself published under the name

MauriceFlorence is,accordingtotheeditorsofDE,basedonanearlyversionofthisPreface.

See the introductorynote inDEIV, 631; and inEssentialWorks of Foucault, 19541984,Vol. 2,

James Faubion (ed.), (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 2000), p.459.Henceforth, EW2. This

article,

henceforth

F,

with

English

and

[French]

page

numbers

given

in

the

text.

22 PrefacetotheHistoryofSexuality,VolumeII,PHS,citedabove.

12


9/21


ofnormativityandamodeofrelationtoself(PHS,333[579]).Inordertocarryouta

critical history of this complex experience (ibid.), however, he must have the

methodological tools for investigatingeachof theseareas,and it is for this reason

that,intheearly1980s,hetriestoworkoutawayofunderstandingthethirddomain

that

of

the

self

and

its

relations.

It

is

interesting

to

note

that

in

this

Preface,

referring

back to his earliest work, he mentions his dissatisfaction with the method of

existential psychology (represented for him by his work on Binswanger23) a

dissatisfactionthatarose,henowsays,fromthatmethodstheoreticalinsufficiency

in the elaboration of the notion of experience (PHS, 334 [579]).One of the key

differences then,betweenwhatwecouldcallFoucaultsprecriticalandhiscritical

phasesispreciselytheworkingoutofasufficientlycomplexnotionofexperience.

Akeypartofthisnotionis,aswehaveseen,theideathatourexperiencein

theeverydaysenseofthe term isdeterminedbyformsofknowledge,powerand

relationto

the

self

which

are

historically

singular.

24And

now

we

can

add

that

these

forms,asawhole,constitutewhatFoucaultcallsthoughtthatis,thecriticalhistory

ofthoughtsimplyisthehistoryoftheforms,orstructuresofourexperience.Indeed,

thought,onthisaccount,iswhatconstitutesthehumanbeingasasubject.

Bythought,Imeanthatwhichinstitutes,indiversepossibleforms,thegameof

truthandfalsehoodandwhich,consequently,constitutesthehumanbeingasa

subjectofknowledge;thatwhichfoundstheacceptanceortherefusaloftherule

and constitutes the humanbeing as a social andjuridical subject; thatwhich

institutes therelation toselfand toothers,andconstitutes thehumanbeingas

ethicalsubject.(PHS,334[579]).

Thoughtis,therefore,atthebasisoftheconstitutionofthehumanbeingasasubject

inthethreedomainsofknowledge,powerandtheselfwhichare,aswehaveseen,

the three fundamentaldomains,oraxes,ofexperience.Ofcourse,on thisaccount,

thought isnotsomethingtobesoughtexclusively inthetheoreticalformulationsof

philosophyorscience. Itcan, rather,be found ineverymannerofspeaking,doing

andconductingoneself.Itcanbeconsidered,infact,Foucaultsays,astheveryform

of action itself (PHS, 335 [580]).Aswe can see,Foucault isnowworkingwith a

multilayered notion of experience; and it is one which is not accessed through

individual

awareness,

but

through

an

analysis

of

what

he

now

calls

practices.

We

canstudytheformsofexperience,hesays,throughananalysisofpracticesaslong

asweunderstandpracticesassystemsofactioninhabitedbyformsofthought

(ibid.).Andthisispreciselywhathedoesinhishistoriesofmadness,theprisonand

sexuality.

23 SeeFoucaultsIntroductiontoLudwigBinswanger,Lerveetlexistence(Paris:Desclee,1954).24 This may offer a way of differentiating Foucaults account of experience from that of

phenomenology.

This

is

not

the

place

to

address

that

issue,

but

see

Guttings

article

(in

n.6

above)forasketchoftheissuesinvolved.

13


10/21


The Kantian echoes of this critical project have no doubtbeen resonating

clearly: Foucaultwas awoken from the slumber of existential psychologyby his

encounterwithNietzsche,andemergedintoacriticalphaseinwhichhesoughtthea

prioriofexperience.However,itwasnottheKantianapriori,butthehistoricalapriori

thathesought;andnotallpossibleexperience,buthistoricallysingularexperience.

Foucaultsproject then,differsfundamentallyfrom thatofKantnotjustbecauseof

thishistoricisingofboth theaprioriandexperience (andofcourseof theknowing

subject),butalsobecauseitsetsitselfthetasknotofidentifyingunbreakablelimitsof

reason,but of identifying singularities andworking towards their transformation.

WhichistosaythatitiscriticalintheNietzschean,nottheKantiansense.Whatthis

means forexperience is that thecriticalprojectaimsnot simply tounderstand the

historicalgroundsofourexperience,buttoseetowhatextentitwouldbepossibleto

change that experience to transform it, through a criticalwork of thoughtupon

itself. In the final version of the Preface to the second volume of the Historyof

Sexuality,Foucaultsituatesthisprojectinthecontextofapossiblehistoryoftrutha

historyof thegamesof truth, thegamesof the trueand the false, throughwhich

beingisconstitutedhistoricallyasexperience;thatis,assomethingthatcanandmust

be thought (UP, 67 [13]).25 It is these games of truth, and through them, these

historicallysingularformsofexperiencewhichcanperhapsbetransformed.

Nowthatwehavereachedthisideaofthetransformationofexperience,letus

return to theambiguitywithinFoucaultsuseof the term.On theonehand,aswe

havejustseen,experienceisthegeneral,dominantforminwhichbeingisgiventoan

historicalperiodassomethingthatcanbethought.Ontheotherhand,experienceissomethingthat iscapableoftearingusawayfromourselvesandchangingtheway

thatwe thinkandact.Throughouthiswork,andhis life,Foucaultvalorised those

experienceswhich takeus to the limits of our forms of subjectivity.Thiswas the

attractionofwriterssuchasBataille,BlanchotandNietzscheinthe1960s;itwasthe

attractionof thesadomasochisticpracticeswhichhediscussed in interviews in the

early1980s;and itwasalso theattractionofhismore sedateengagementwith the

StoicsandtheCynicsoflateantiquity.Therewasnopoint,hebelieved,inwritinga

bookunlessitwasanexperiencewhichinsomewaychangedoneself.Ashesays,at

theend

of

the

early

version

of

the

Preface

to

the

History

of

Sexuality,the

pain

and

the

pleasureofthebook istobeanexperience(PHS,339[584]).Buthow isitpossible

for experience tobeboth thegeneraldominantbackground and the external force

whichintervenestochangethatbackground?

This problem,which canbe related to the problem of explaining historical

change, is one which, in different forms, animated Foucaults entire theoretical

trajectory.And it is a problem ofwhich hewaswell aware. Let us look at one

25

Note

that

the

French

could

be

translated

as

through

which

being

constitutes

itself

historically

asexperience(traverslesquelsltreseconstituehistoriquementcommeexprience).

14


11/21


example,fromTheOrderofThings,whereheraisesthequestionofthelegitimacyof

establishingdiscontinuitiesandperiodsinahistoryofthought.Howcanwejustify

definingthelimitsofanageforwhichweclaimacertaincoherenceandunitysuch

as the classical age for instance? Isnt this simply setting an arbitrary limit in a

constantlymobile

whole

(OT,

55

[64])?

And,

having

established

this

continuity,

how

canwethenexplainthecollapseordisappearanceofthiscoherentsystem?Ifthisage

containswithin itself aprinciple of coherence, then fromwherewould come the

foreign element [llment tranger] which undermines it (OT, 56 [64])? How,

Foucaultasks,cana thoughtmeltawaybeforeanythingother than itself? (ibid.)

How can we explain the fact that within the space of a few years a culture

sometimes ceases to thinkas ithadbeen thinkingup till thenandbegins to think

otherthingsinanewway?(ibid).ThebestanswerthatFoucaultcangiveistosay

that this kind of discontinuitybegins with an erosion from outside (ibid.), an

erosionwhich

is

made

possible

by

the

way

in

which

thought

continuously

contrives

toescapeitself(ibid.).Thetaskofinvestigatingthesemodesofescape,however,is

onewhichFoucault sayshe isnotyetprepared toundertake.For themoment,he

says, we will simply have to accept the posited discontinuities in all their

obviousnessandtheirobscurity.

Eventhough,inthiscontext,Foucaultbacksawayfromfurtherconsideration

of thisoutsideof thought, inanothersensewecansay thatallofhisworkwasan

attempt to investigate the way that thought contrives to escape itself through

contactwithsuchanoutside.Andateveryrenewedturnofthateffort,theguiding

threadwas the idea of the strange, the foreign, the alien and the question of its

provenanceanditseffects.Summarisingbriefly,onceagain,wecouldsaythateach

of the threeperiods intowhichwe candivideFoucaultswork carrywith them a

differentconceptionoftheoutside.26Inthe1960s,thatconceptionisboundupwith

hisengagementwithliteratureand,inparticular,withtheideasoftransgressionand

theoutsidewhichhegetsfromBatailleandBlanchot.Inaseriesofessayspublished

in literary journals at this time, Foucault demonstrated the influence that, for

example,Blanchots thought of the outsidehadon thedevelopmentofhis own

approach to this setofquestions.27 Inparticular,Blanchots literarycriticalwriting

allowedhimtoformulatetheconnectionbetweenacertaincrisisofsubjectivityand

26 For a similar categorisation of Foucaults approach to the outside see, Judith Revel, La

naissancelittrairedubiopolitique,inPhilippeArtires(ed.),MichelFoucault,lalittratureetles

arts,Paris:EditionsKim,2004).27

See,

for

example,

A

Preface

to

Transgression,

on

Bataille,

and

The

Thought

of

the

Outside,

onBlanchot,bothinEW2andDEI.

15


12/21


theexperienceofanoutsidethatcomestousinasubjectlesslanguage.28Inthe1970s,

withtheturntopoliticsandthequestionofpower,wecouldsaythattheoutsideof

thought,theengineormotorofchange,isconceptualisedasresistancethat,perhaps,

has itssource in the forcesof thebody.While in the1980s,with thefinal turn, the

outsidebecomes,inastrangeway,theinsideofsubjectivityitself;inotherwords,the

potentialforchangeemergesoutofafoldingbackoftheselfuponitself.

One of the constant elements in thisdevelopment is theway that the term

trange(strange/foreign)keepsreappearing inall itsforms.Wehavealreadyseen

the line from Ren Char that Foucault includes in the first Preface to History of

Madness Dveloppez votre tranget lgitime. Several years later he turns this

around, in a display of ironic selfdeprecation,while responding to critics of The

Order of Things. In response to their criticism he speaks of his sense of his own

bizarrerie[bizarreness] andwhathecallshistrangetsipeulgitime[hissolittle

legitimate strangeness] (DEI, 674).29 In TheOrder

of

Things itself, he speaks of

literatureasaformofdiscoursewhichis,sincethesixteenthcentury,mostforeign

towesternculture(OT,49[59]);andspeakingofthefiguresofthemadmanandthe

poet,hesaysthattheyfind theirpowerofforeignness[leurpouvoirdtranget]at

thelimits,theexteriorboundariesofourculture(OT,55[64]).Muchlater,intheearly

1980s, he can say that thewhole and only point inwriting abook, or doing

philosophy, is precisely to introduce an element of the foreign into ourways of

thinking.Whatwouldbethepointinwritingabook,heasks,ifitdidnotallowthe

personwhowrote it toestablishwithhimselfastrangeandnew relation? (PHS,

339[584]).Indeed,accordingtothefinalvolumesofTheHistory

of

Sexuality,itisthe

task of philosophy to see towhat extent it can think otherwise,by the exercise

whichitmakesofaknowledgewhichisforeigntoit(UP,9[15]).

Returningtothequestionofhowexperiencecanbebothacceptedbackground

and transformative force,wecannowsay that thispossibilityalwaysarisesoutof

somethingthatfunctionsasanoutside.Thereisnothingconstantoruniversalabout

thisoutside,however, since it isalways relative to thedominant formsofagiven

regime of thought and practice.We have seen that for Foucault the locus of the

outsidechangesashisgeneralmethodologydevelops. In the1960s it issomething

whichis

experienced

and

conveyed

through

certain

works

of

literature,

and

also

in

the foundational gestures of exclusion,whileby the 1980s it is somethingwhich

28 Idonothave spacehere todojustice to this element inFoucaults 1960s engagementwith

literature,but seemymuchmoredetailed exposition in FoucaultsTurn FromLiterature,

Continental Philosophy Review, forthcoming. Iwouldjust point out that the approach I am

developinginthispaperoweslesstoFoucaultsexplicitlyliterarywritingsofthe1960sthanto

his later elaborationofa theoryof experience (althoughof course therearemanynecessary

connectionsbetweenthetwo).29 SeeEnglishtranslation(whichvariesfrommine):PoliticsandtheStudyofDiscourse,inG.

Burchell,

C.

Gordon

and

P.

Miller

(eds.),

The

Foucault

Effect:

Studies

in

Govermentality

(New

York:HemelHempstead,PrenticeHall,1991),p.53.

16


13/21


makes itself felt, forexample, in thecultivationof transformative techniquesof the

self.AtthisstageFoucaulthas,apparently,leftbehindhisinterestinandhisfaith

inliteratureasoneofthewaysinwhichthoughtcontrivestoescapeitself.Inhis

latework,hisexperiencebooksarenolongerbyBeckett,BlanchotorBataille,butby

Seneca,Diogenes

and

Plato.

And

they

are

also,

of

course,

his

own

books

especially

History of Madness, Discipline and Punish and the first volume of the History of

Sexuality.Wemust,however,resist the temptation tosee thisshiftasaprogressive

developmentwhichwouldleavebehindeachearlierphase.Rather,thereisnothing

to stop us frommaintaining all three levels simultaneously, so that thework of

transforming experiencemay, atdifferent times and indifferentways,be effected

throughworksof literature, througha resistancewhosesource is in thebody,and

through a reelaboration of relations to the self. For us, it would then become

possible to combine Foucaults conceptualisation of the foreign, or the outside, of

thoughtwith

his

notion

of

experience

and

its

possible

transformation,

and

to

use

this

framework as a way of understanding one of the effects of which literature is

capable.

III Fiction,Experience,ExperimentFoucaultsanalysisofexperiencegivesusawayofanswering the firstpartofmy

question,relatingtotheconditionsofpossibilityofthetransformationofexperience,

but it alsogivesus awayofbeginning to answer the secondpart, relating to the

capacityofliteraturetoactasanexperiencetransformer.Itdoesthis,aswewillsee,

through the role which it gives to fiction and the fictive, a notion which may

ultimately helpus todetermine thedistinctivemode of action of literaturewhich

makes such transformation possible. Even though I have nowish to formulate a

generaldefinitionofliteraturehere,onewhichwouldsafelyincludeandexcludeall

thoseworkswhichareorarenotworthyofthattitle,itmaystillbepossibletogivea

minimal, preliminary account ofwhat these forms all share.And that,we could

simplysay,isaparticularuseoflanguagethatisfictiveinnature.Tosaythatthisuse

oflanguageisfictive,however,isnottosaythatithasnorapportwith theworldwe

livein,orforthatmatterwith truth.InanearlyessayonsomemembersoftheTel

quelgroup,forexample,Foucaultrejectstheeasyoptionofunderstandingfictionin

termsofanoppositionbetweentherealandtheunreal,realityandtheimaginary.30

Heurgesusinsteadtothinkofthefictiveasarisingfromacertainkindofdistance

notthedistancebetweenlanguageandthings,butadistancewithinlanguageitself.

The fictive, in this sense,wouldbe the capacity of language to, as Foucault says,

bringus intocontactwiththatwhichdoesnotexist, in so faras it is (DEI,280).

30 Michel Foucault, Distance,Aspect,Origine, inMichel Foucault,Dits et crits 19541988: I,

1954

1969,

D.

Defert

and

F.

Ewald

(eds.)

(Paris:

Gallimard,

1994),

p.

281.

Henceforth,

DEI.

This

essayhasnotbeentranslatedintoEnglish.

17


14/21


And,accordingtoFoucault,anyuseoflanguagewhichspeaksofthisdistance,and

exploresitwhetheritisprose,poetry,novelorreflection(presumablyincluding

philosophy)isalanguageoffiction(DEI,2801).

It might help if we situate this formulation in relation to a much later

discussionof theroleofthe intellectualfroman interview in1983.HereFoucault

suggeststhatthetaskofthephilosopherhistorian is tocarryoutadiagnosisofthe

present by focusing on the lines of fragility which make possible virtual

fracturesinourcontemporaryreality.Byfollowingtheselineswewouldbeableto

grasp those elements of our present which are open to change. The role of the

intellectual thenwouldbe tosay thatwhich is, inmaking itappearas thatwhich

maynotbe,ormaynotbeas it is.31This isan interestingechoandreversalofthe

earliercharacterisationoffiction:fictionsaysthatwhichisnot,insofarasitis;while

theintellectualsaysthatwhichis,insofaras(potentially)itisnot.But,ofcourse,this

isnot somucha reversalasanalternativeexpressionof the samesuggestion: thatfiction(inthebroadestpossiblesense)relatestorealitybyopeningupvirtualspaces

whichallowustoengageinapotentiallytransformativerelationwiththeworld;to

bringabout thatwhichdoesnotexistand to transform thatwhichdoesexist.The

insightFoucaultisexpressinginthe1960sessayisthatthispossibility,thepossibility

ofbridgingthedistancebetweenthatwhichisandthatwhichmaybe,isgivenforus

intheverynatureoflanguage.

There is nodoubt that Foucault understood his ownworks of reflection,

thatistosayhisworksofhistoricophilosophy,asoperatingwithinthisfieldofthe

fictive.InadiscussionofhisHistoryof

Sexuality,

volume

I,forexample,herespondsto

aquestionaboutthedramaticnatureofhisworksbysaying,IamwellawarethatI

have neverwritten anythingbut fictions.32A fiction, however, is not necessarily

outsideoftruth.Itispossibleforfictiontoinduceeffectsoftruth,justasitispossible

for a discourse of truth to fabricate, or to fiction, something. Since fiction is not

definedinoppositiontotruth,therefore,Foucaultsstatementcannotbetakenasan

admission of historical inaccuracy. It is, rather, a claim about the creative or

productivepowerofthebook inthecontextofaparticularhistoricalmoment.This

book, in fact allhisbooks, are fictions in the sense that they intervene in agiven

situationin

order

to

bring

about

or,

to

fiction

atransformation.

One

fictions

historystarting fromapolitical realitywhichmakes it true,one fictionsapolitics

whichdoesnotyetexiststartingfromahistoricaltruth(ibid.).

Wemustthinkoffiction,therefore,inthesamewaywethinkofpoesis,thatis,

asafundamentallyproductiveengagementintheworld.Tofictionistofabricate,to

produce, tobring intoexistence.Thedistinctive featureofFoucaultshistories, the

31 StructuralismandPoststructuralism,inEW2,p.450(DEIV,449).32 TheHistoryofSexuality,ColinGordon(ed.),Power/Knowledge(NewYork:PantheonBooks,

1980,

p.193

[Michel

Foucault,

Dits

et

crits

1954

1988:

III,

1976

1979,

D.

Defert

and

F.

Ewald

(eds.)(Paris,Gallimard,1994),p.236.Henceforth,DEIII.

18


15/21


featurewhichgives them their transformativepower, is the fact that they arenot

only descriptions of the past, but attempts to modify the present through a

transformation,orafictioning,ofexperience.Andallexperienceis,atacertainlevel,

relatedtothefictive.InadiscussionofHistoryofMadness,inthecontextofhisideaof

anexperience

book,

Foucault

underlines

again

the

importance

for

him

of

inducing

an

experience in the reader that would have a transformative effect. This effect,

however,mustbebased onhistorically accurate research. It cannot, as he says,

exactlybeanovel(EMF,243[45]).Butwhatmattersmostisnottheseriesoftrue,

orhistoricallyverifiable,findings;itis,rather,theexperiencewhichthebookmakes

possible.Andthisexperienceisneithertruenorfalse;likeeveryotherexperience,it

isafiction.Anexperience,Foucaultsays,isalwaysafiction;itissomethingwhich

one fabricates for oneself,which doesnt existbefore andwhich happens to exist

after(ibid.,modified).Nevertheless,thisfabricatedexperiencemaintainsacomplex

setof

relations

with

the

truth

of

historical

research.

The

experience

that

the

book

makespossible isfoundedon the truthof itsfindings,but theexperience itself isa

newcreationwhichmayeven,uptoacertainpoint,destroythetruthonwhichitis

based.Itisnotsurprisingthen,thatFoucaultadmitsthattheproblemofthetruthof

whatIsayis,forme,averydifficultproblem,andeventhecentralproblem(EMF,

242[44]).

Butwhatofthisideathateveryexperienceisakindoffiction,orissomething

thatwefabricateforourselves?Howcanwemakesenseofthissuggestion?Itmight

help here if we begin by recalling some of the semantic richness of the term

experience, inboth theFrenchand theEnglish languages.Wehavealreadyseen

thatinFrenchthetermexpriencecanmeanbothexperienceandexperimentandthis

isapossibilitywhich,asRaymondWilliamspointsout,33alsoexisted inEnglishat

leastuntil the end of the eighteenth century.The term experience, at that time,

becamenotonlyaconscioustestortrialbutaconsciousnessofwhathasbeentested

or tried, and thence a consciousness of an effect or state.34 And this is a

consciousnessthatemerges,astheLatinrootofthewordindicates,fromanopenness

totheworld,anopennesswhichisinherentlydangerous.InLatin,expereri(totry,or

totest)islinkedtothewordfordangerpericulum.35Experience,therefore,inbothof

itssenses,issomethingthatemergesfromanecessarilyperilousencounterwiththe

worldorwiththestrangeandtheforeign.Onephilosopherwhomobilisesthisway

of conceiving experience is John Dewey. Briefly, for Dewey experience is not

something that simplyhappens tous, it isnot something inwhichwearemerely

passive recipients. It is also a form of activity. In its broadest sense, it is the

interaction of an organism with its environment. The central idea here is that

experienceisamatterofdoingandundergoing.Inexperience,Deweysays,theself

33 RaymondWilliams,Keywords:AVocabularyofCultureandSociety (London:Fontana,1976),p.99.34

Ibid.

35 SeetheexcellentdiscussionoftheseissuesinMartinJay,SongsofExperience,op.cit.,pp.911.

19


16/21


acts,aswellasundergoes,anditsundergoingsarenotimpressionsstampeduponan

inert wax but depend upon the way the organism reacts and responds.36 The

organism,therefore,isaforce,notatransparency(ibid.).37Iftheorganism,orthe

individual, isa force rather thanapassive recording surface, thenwecansay that

every experience is a fiction in the sense that something new is fabricated, that

somethingnewemergesfromtheinteractionbetweenorganismandworld.

In fact, the idea that experience is an activity of the individual, rather than

somethingthat happenstotheindividual,isalreadycontainedwithinthestructures

oftheFrenchlanguageinawaywhichisnotthecaseinEnglish.InFrench,tohave

anexperienceisfaireuneexprience(literally,tomakeanexperience).Inasimilarway,

justasinEnglishwewouldsaythatwehaveadream,inFrenchonemakesadream

(jaifaitunrve).Inthecaseofexperience,whatthismeansisthatwheneverweread

in English of Foucault discussing having an experience,more often than not in

Frenchheisusingthephrasefaireune

exprience.Thesignificanceofthisdifferenceis

thatthisisaphrasethatcould,almostaseasily,betranslatedintoEnglishasdoing

anexperiment.InFoucaultsuseoftheterm,therefore,theideathatexperienceisan

activeandexperimentalengagementisneverfarfromthesurface.38Wecanseenow

howitispossibletolinkuptheideaoffiction,initsbroadestsense,withtheideaof

experience.Wecandothisthroughtheconceptofexperiment,whichistheelement

thattheyhaveincommon.So,whenFoucaultsaysthatallhisworksarefictions,we

canunderstandhimas saying that theyare fictionsbecause theyareexperimental

and,conversely,theyareexperimentalpreciselybecausetheyarefictions.

ItshouldalsobepossiblenowtodistinguishclearlybetweenthetwosensesinwhichFoucaulthasbeenusingthetermexperience.Wecandistinguishbetween,on

theonehand, something thatwe can calleverydayorbackgroundexperience

and,on theotherhand,something thatwecancalltransformativeexperience.In

HistoryofMadness,forexample,wecouldsaythatFoucaultdescribedaspectsofthe

everydayexperienceofmadnessintheclassicalage,whereasinthelastvolumesof

the History of Sexuality, he explored the everyday experience of sexuality in the

ancientworld.However,we have tobear inmind that this everyday experience

incorporatesawiderangeofelements(epistemological,normative,etc.)ofwhichany

givenindividual

may

be

unaware.

It

is

not

everyday,

therefore,

in

the

sense

of

being

36 JohnDewey,ArtasExperience(NewYork:PerigreeBooks,1980),p.246.37 Idiscuss theseparallels inFoucault,Deweyand theExperienceofLiterature,NewLiterary

History,vol.36,no.4,2005,pp.543557.38 Letmegiveoneexampleofhowthissemanticrichnessislostintranslation.IntheinterviewI

havebeenquotingfrom,Foucaultsays,Monproblmeestdefairemoimme,etdinviterles

autres faire avecmoiune expriencede ce que nous sommesune expriencede notre

modernit telle que nous en sortions transforms (EMF, 242 [44]).TheEnglish translation,

however,reducesthissenseofengaginginatransformativeexperimentbyspeakingsimplyof

sharing

an

experience.

This

translation

also

commits

the

error

of

translating

the

first

faire

moimmeasconstructmyself.

20


17/21


commonlyunderstood,but in the sense that it forms a constant, albeit constantly

changing,background toourwaysofperceiving,understandingandacting in the

world.This form of experience iswhat Foucault finally speaks of in terms of the

three axes of knowledge, power and the self.On the other hand, the category of

transformativeexperiences

would

comprise

not

only

the

Bataillean

limit

experiences

of the1960s, and themore sedateexperiencesprovidedbyFoucaultsownbooks,

understoodasexperiencebooks,butalsothesortsofexperiencesthatmanyworksof

literatureopenupfortheirreaders.Theseareexperienceswhichstopusinourtracks

andmakeitmoredifficultforustocontinuetothinkandactaswehaddonebefore.

Inotherwords, theymake itmoredifficult forus to carryonunthinkingly in the

formsofoureverydayexperience.

Butwhatabouttherelationbetweenthesetwoformsofexperience?Howdo

transformativeexperiencesactuponeverydayexperience?Letusstartbyobserving

thatwhen

Ispeak

of

everyday

experience

Iam

speaking

of

experience

in

general,

which is, in some sense, always singular,whereas in speaking of transformative

experiencesIamobligedtospeakofexperiencesintheplural.Whatthisindicatesis

thattransformativeexperiencesarediscrete,punctualeventswhichinterveneinand

interrupt the formsofeverydayexperiencewhicharemorefluidandcontinuous.39

However, they are notjust highpoints, ormoments of intensity, in the everyday

flow;rather,or inaddition, theyareeventswhich leavethebackgroundexperience

transformed. Ifwecall thiskindofexperience transformative, then, it isbecause it

tends to transform our everyday experience by bringing about a shift, or a re

configuration,alongthethreeaxesofknowledge,powerandtheself.Inotherwords,

atransformativeexperience,whether itcomesintheformofaworkofphilosophy,

fiction, orhistory or in any of its othermultiplepossible forms will leave the

individualnolongerthesameasbefore.

IV TowardsLiteratureAtthebeginningofthispaper,IsaidthatthequestionIwantedtoaddressis,what

isitthatmakesitpossibleforworksofliteraturetoactupontheformsofthehuman

subjectandexperiencewithatransformativeeffect?Thefirstpartofmyanswerwas

to point out that these forms of human subjectivity and experience arebuilt up

historically in such a way that they are in a constant state of change and

modification.Thesecondpartofmyanswer,whichIwillsketchnow, istosuggest

that literature can contribute to this process of transformation through its fictive

naturewhichboth resonateswith theproductive,creativenatureofallexperience,

39 Itwouldbe interesting to compare this accountwith thedistinctionDeweymakesbetween

ordinary experience and an experience; and alsowith the distinction common in German

philosophy

between

Erlebnis

and

Erfahrung.

Such

a

comparison

is,

however,

beyond

the

scope

ofthepresentpaper.

21


18/21


andintroducessomethingthatcanfunctionasanoutsideinrelationtotheeveryday

experience of a reader. It is important to point out, however, that literature, like

philosophy,isnotalwaysornecessarilyonthesideoftransformativeasopposedto

everydayexperience.It isjustas likely, infactmuchmore likely, thatwhatwecall

literaturewillbolsterandreinforceacceptedmodesofexperienceandthought,than

that itwillundermine and transform them.Theseworks arealways tentative and

experimental in nature; there is no guaranteed way to transform everyday

experience,justasthereisnowaytoaccuratelypredicttheeffectorpotentialofany

suchwork.And it is equally important to remember that suchmodifications are

alwayssmall,fragileanduncertain,especially,wemustadmit,thosewhichliterature

iscapableofeffecting.

Inorder tosketch thisanswer Iwant toreturn toBeckett;not toWaitingfor

Godot,whichwasso importantforFoucault,but tohisnovelTheUnnamable(1958),

thethirdinatrilogythatincludedMolloy(1955)andMaloneDies(1956).40Whatcan

we say about the effect of these novels?What kinds of transformation are they

capableofeffecting?Oneof theirpotentialeffects, Iwouldsay, is tomake itmore

difficult for readers to carry on with a certain understanding of themselves as

centers of rationality, language and experience. Speaking very schematically, we

couldsaythat theeverydayexperienceofselfwhich thebooksundermine isbased

upontheCartesiancogito.Descartescandoubteverything,excepthisownexistence

asathinking,andthereforerational,being.ButBeckettcandoubteventhat.Andin

factwhathisbooksmakepossible,throughthefictionalworldtheycreate,isforthe

readertoshareinanexperimentinwhichthisconceptionoftheselfisputtothetestand,perhapsmomentarily,exploded. Inadiscussionof theartof thenovel,Milan

Kunderamakes the point that a fictional character is not an imitation of a living

being,but an imaginarybeing.An experimental self.41We should not see this

beingasprimarilyanalteregofor theauthor,butmoreasanexperimentalselffor

anyreaderofthework.WithregardtoBeckettsnovels,however,wecansaythathis

charactersareexperimental inadoublesense:notonlyaretheyanexperimentthat

the author sets up and allows the reader to participate in,but they continuously

engage inexperimentationon themselves.At times thiscanappear tobesimilar to

thethought

experiments

that

philosophers

such

as

Descartes

or

Husserl

use,

but

Beckettscharacterstypicallymoveinacontrarydirection,thatis,notthroughdoubt

toanewfoundationforcertainty,butfromcertainty,throughdoubt,toasplintering

oftheselfanditsholdontheworld.

Early in TheUnnamable, for example, the narrator (ifwe can call him that)

beginsaprocesswhichseemstobedecidedlyCartesian:I,ofwhomIknownothing,

Iknowmyeyesareopen (U,304).But thisonecertaintywillnotbeallowed to

40

Samuel

Beckett,

Three

Novels

(New

York:

Grove

Press,

1991).

41 MilanKundera,TheArtoftheNovel(London:FaberandFaber,1988),p.34.

22


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form thebasis for any other knowledge.How does he know his eyes are open?

Becauseofthetearsthatpourfromthemunceasingly(ibid.).Hecontinues:

Ahyes,Iamtrulybathedintears.Theygatherinmybeardandfromthere,when

itcanholdnomoreno,nobeard,nohaireither,itisagreatsmoothballIcarry

onmyshoulders,featureless,butfortheeyes,ofwhichonlythesocketsremain.Andwere itnot for thedistant testimonyofmypalms,mysoles,which Ihave

not yetbeen able to quash, Iwould gladly givemyself the shape, if not the

consistency, of an egg, with two holes no matter where to prevent it from

bursting(U,305).

It is importanttonoticethattheprocessbywhichthespeakergiveshimselfaform

here is essentially fictive in nature. He does not ascertain his shape through

introspectionorselfexamination,ratherhegiveshimselfashape,hefictionshimself,

throughhisownspeech.Iwouldgladlygivemyselftheshapeofanegg,hesays,

andlater

even

the

tear

filled

eyes

will

be

transformed.

Ill

dry

these

streaming

sockets too,bung themup, there, its done, nomore tears, Im abig talkingball,

talking about things that do not exist, or that exist perhaps, impossible to know,

beside the point (U, 305).Whether or not such things exist isbeside the point,

because,nonetheless, theyare there forus, thereadersof thenovel.Theyattest,as

Foucaultwouldsay,tothepoweroflanguagetoconveythatwhichdoesnotexist,

insofarasitis(DEI,280).

Blanchot, in the epigraph I have used for this paper, decries the readers

stubborn insistence upon remaining himself in the face ofwhat he reads. But

Beckettswork

matches

this

with

his

own

stubborn

insistence

upon

engaging

in

an

experimental disaggregation of his characters. The transformative experience this

makespossibleforthereaderisforthem,too,tolosetheirheads,toseeiftheycould

notalsodowithouttheseorgans,allthethingsthatstickoutwhyshouldIhave

asex,whohavenolongeranose(U,305).Afterall,whydoweneedorgans?What

istheirfunction?Asthespeakerasksalittlelateraboutthemouth,Woulditnotbe

better if Iwere simply tokeepon sayingbabababa, forexample,whilewaiting to

ascertainthetruefunctionofthisvenerableorgan?(U,308).Inthisway,thenovel

opensup the individualasanembodied, thinking, speakingbeingand stubbornly

insists that the readerno longer remainherself in the faceofwhatshe reads.And

this,toborrowFoucaultswords,wouldbethepleasureandthepainofthebook.My

suggestion, then, is that ifwesituateourselves in theperspectiveofFoucaults late

work,drawingupontheanalysisofthenotionofexperiencewhichIhaveoutlined

here,wewillbeabletogiveaneffectiveaccountofhowliteraturecanbringabouta

transformationofexperience.Myclaimisthatworksofliteraturearecapable,notso

much(or,notonly)ofexpressinganexperience,butoftransforminganexperience.

And they do thisby experimentally intervening in andmodifying ourmodes of

thoughtwhere thought isunderstood in theverybroadsenseoutlinedabove. In

otherwords,wecanunderstandworksofliteratureasexperimental,transformative

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interventions in the readers everyday experience where everyday experience is

understoodalongthethreeaxesthatFoucaultsaccountlaysopen.

Thiswayof formulating theeffectof literature,however,raisesanumberof

important questions that we have not yet addressed . As we know, Foucaults

analysisofexperience involvesseparating (at least in theory) threeaspectsoraxes:

knowledge,power, theself.The firstquestion thatmayarise, therefore, iswhether

we should say that this tripartiteexperience is transformedonly ifall threeof the

axesaremodified.Inotherwords,canwespeakoftransformationoccurringifonly

oneof the three isaffected?Inthefirstplace,wehave toremember thatFoucaults

approach to individualandsocialchangehasalwaysrecognisedboth thenecessity

and thevalueofpartial,nontotalisingpractices,and there isnoreason tosuppose

hisattitudetoliteraturewouldbeanydifferent.Wecansafelysuggest,therefore,for

aworksuchasBeckettsTheUnnamable tobeeffective in theseFoucauldian terms,

wewouldnotnecessarilyberequiredtomodifyourexperiencealongallthreeaxes.But that still leaves the question of whether works of literature are only, or

particularlysuitedtohavinganeffectonasingleaxiswhichwould,presumably,be

theaxisof the selforethics.Following this lineof thought,wemight suggest, for

example, that a work such as Charles Darwins Origin of Species (1859) had a

profoundtransformativeeffectonourexperienceatthelevelofknowledge,whereas

aworksuchasDostoevskysTheBrothersKaramazov(1879)was(andcontinuestobe)

morecapableofeffectinganethical transformation.Would this imply thatethics is

thedomaininwhichliteratureismostlikelytobeeffectiveoreventhedomainin

which it isexclusivelycapableofhavinganeffect?There isnodoubtthattheseareattractive,andinaway,easyconclusionstodraw.Buttheproblem isthattheytoo

easilycompartmentalizethethreeaxesofwhichFoucaultspeaks.Canwereallysay,

forinstance,whichaxiswasmostaffectedbyDarwinswork?Diditnotprofoundly

alterourselfunderstandingintermsofscience,religion,andethicsinfactallthree

axes of our experience? And, similarly, could we not say that the value of

Dostoevskys work comes from his insight into human behaviour and the

knowledgewegain fromthatasmuchasfromitsabilitytomodifyourrelationto

ourselves?Going further,we could in fact argue that itmodifies our relation to

ourselvesprecisely

insofar

as

it

modifies

what

we

take

to

be

facts

about

human

behavior.What this impliesforthecaseof literature istheextremedifficulty, ifnot

the impossibility, of clearly delimiting the axis alongwhich an effect takes place,

given the reverberatingconsequencesofsucheffectsalong theotheraxes. Inother

words, tobebrief,wehave to take seriouslyFoucaults insistence that these three

axesareintimatelyintertwinedandthattheycanonlybeunderstoodoneinrelation

totheothersandcannotbeunderstoodonewithouttheothers.42

42 TheReturnofMorality(DEIV,69)7,op.cit.,p.243.

24


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25

However,atleastinthecontextofthispaper,itisnotnecessarytogiveafinal

accountofthecomplexitiesoftheserelations.Instead,itwouldbebettertomaintain

anopennesstothemultipleeffectsofwhichliteraturemaybecapable.Allweneedto

conclude for now is that the schema I have outlined here gives us a way of

understandingthe

idea

we

started

from;

that

certain

works

of

literature

can

compel

us to think otherwise. Because,while it is true thatworks of literature are, in a

fundamental way, products of their time, this idea must be balanced with the

insistencethattheycanact, inthemannerofanexperiment,bothwithin theirtime

andagainsttheirtime.Theseminusculeevents,thesegrainsofsand,arenotwithout

theirmultiple,strangeeffects.

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Foucault, Experience, Literature

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