Downcast eyes : the denigration of vision in twentieth-century French thought

648 Pages·1993·24.591 MB·English

by  Jay, Martin

Downcast
THE
Eyes
DENIGRATION
OF VISION IN
TWENTI ETH-CE NTU RY
FRENCH THOUGHT
Martin Jay
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BERKELEY LOS ANGELES LONDON
Downcast
Eyes THE
DENIGRATION
OF VISION IN
TWENTIETH-CENTURY
FRENCH THOUGHT
A CENTENNIAL
published between
bear this special
the University of
We have chosen
as an example
publishing and
UNIVER CALIFORNIA PRESS
Founded in 1893
Downcast
THE
Eyes
DENIGRATION
OF VISION IN
TWENTI ETH-CE NTU RY
FRENCH THOUGHT
Martin Jay
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BERKELEY LOS ANGELES LONDON
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
First Paperback Printing 1994
Copyright © 1993 by The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jay, Martin, 1944-
Downcast eyes: the denigration of vision in twentieth-century
French thought I Martin Jay.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN978-0-520-08885-6 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Vision. 2. Cognition and culture. 3. Philosophy, French-20th
century. 4. France--Civilization-20th century. 5. France-intellectual
life-20th century. I. Title.
B2424.P45]39 1993
194--dc20 93-347
CIP
Printed in the United States of America
12 11 10 09 08
14 13 12 11 10 9
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
ANSIINISO Z39.48-1992 (R 1997) (Permanence o/Paper). S
For Beth

Contents
lX Acknowledgments
1 Introduction
21 CHAPTER ONE: The Noblest of the Senses: Vision from
Plato to Descartes
83 CHAPTER TWO: Dialectic of EnLIGHTenment
149 CHAPTER THREE: The Crisis of the Ancien Scopic Regime:
From the Impressionists to Bergson
211 CHAPTER FOUR: The Disenchantment of the Eye: Bataille
and the Surrealists
263 CHAPTER FIVE: Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and the Search for
a New Ontology of Sight
329 CHAPTER SIX: Lacan, Althusser, and the Specular Subject
of Ideology
381 CHAPTER SEVEN: From the Empire of the Gaze to the Society
of the Spectacle: Foucault and Debord
435 CHAPTER EIGHT: The Camera as Memento Mori: Barthes,
Metz, and the Cahiers du Cinema
493 CHAPTER NINE: "Phallogocularcentrism": Derrida and lrigaray
543 CHAPTER TEN: The Ethics of Blindness and the Postmodern
Sublime: Levinas and Lyotard
587 Conclusion
595 Index
Vll

Acknowledgments
Registering the many acts of generosity that made this book possible is
both a pleasant and melancholy activity. Its pleasure follows from the fond
recollection of the people and institutions who were so supportive of the
project from the beginning. It is difficult to imagine a warmer or more
constructive response to a scholarly enterprise than was forthcoming in
this instance. Because the scope of the book is so wide, I have had to rely
on the expert knowledge of many people in a multitude of disciplines, all
of whom were remarkably willing to share with me the fruits of their own
research and learning. The melancholy flows no less inexorably from the
fact that several of their number are no longer alive and able to know how
deeply I benefited from and appreciated their help.
I would not have been in a position to solicit such aid without the sup-
port of the more anonymous benefactors who made the institutional de-
cisions that allowed this project to prosper. Let me thank them first. I was
given financial sustenance by the Rockefeller Foundation, the American
Council of Learned Societies, the University of California Center for
Germanic and European Studies, and the University of California Com-
mittee on Research. Clare Hall, Cambridge University kindly provided
me a visiting membership while I was engaged in writing the manuscript.
And three institutions allowed me to teach courses on its theme: the
College international de philosophie of Paris in 1985, the School of
ix