Man and Worm 27:99-115, 1994. 1994 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

On writing it
STEPHEN A. ERICKSON Department of Philosophy, Pomona College, 551 N. College Avenue, Claremont CA 91711-6355, U.S.A.

Writing is a central activity for most of us who are working in fields such as philosophy, and not just for us, of course. This activity is usually attended by a certain complex experience which carries it forward. I wish to explore some implications of this experience, the experience of writing. The experience has a (seemingly) psychological dimension, open to what might very loosely be called "introspection." Regarding this dimension, as I shall hope to show, 1 some philosophers, Heidegger and Derrida most prominently, have drawn some extraordinary conclusions which well transcend, at least in intent, anything easily labelled "psychological observation." I mention this neither to praise nor to blame, but merely to begin to "map" them on what turns out to be a vast and largely obscure philosophical terrain, the one opened through "writing it. ''2 We are well acquainted with the Cartesian terrain, with the realm of consciousness and representation, doubt and certainty, formal and objective being. We are less aware, perhaps, of the manner in which the sixteenth century prepared the way for Descartes' particular mode of thought (and style of writing), how scholastic commentary gave way to the essays of Montaigne, foundationless and diverse, and how what we now label "modern epistemology" came into focus through the meditative reflections of Descartes. I believe we are in a similar transitional period as we approach the twentieth century's end, that what might be called epistemological commentary is giving way in contentious and diverse ways. Nietzsche an early example, Derrida a more recent one, to something yet unborn and, thus, not yet describable in terms of style or content. The new Descartes, in short, is yet to arrive. Nor is there guarantee there will be one. Through further reflection on the experience of writing I think it nonetheless possible to move closer to the current transition's end, however, for my sense is that writing provides an extraordinarily perspicuous access to the uncharted territory of the coming century's philosophical disquietudes, if not meditations and subsequent assertions.

100 Prolegomena are notoriously problematic, not just problematically programmatic. In the face of this recognition I provide in the second and remaining section of this study an account of how the "I" and the "it" (of writing it) came to separate and devolve so as to bring us to the "problems of consciousness" so endemic to late twentieth century epistemological inquiry. The problems, I should add, make the experience of writing at once both tangled and ambivalent, yet exceedingly fruitful as material for reflection. One might construe this material, potentially clear but in its very nature compacted, as lived data available for a phenomenology of postHusserlian "egological genesis," a genesis based on analyses of the force of certain fundamental prespositions in our language. How did the problems associated with the experience of my writing it come to be? How did 'T' and "it" fall apart? How might "I" and "it" come back together? By implication I try to found the problematic of consciousness on an account of the emergence of writing originally as failure and subsequently as (perhaps even spiritual) opportunity. As these reflections unfold, some unusual questions and directions are unavoidably suggested. From the start, however, an especially intriguing expository problem confronts us, one which can be expressed simply and grammatically. In what follows, as in what has already gone before, if only by means of this current investigation's title, a central question emerges: what is the referent of 'it?' To answer this question will mean to have been caught up in something once and perhaps especially now problematic to "philosophy." Does it also put us at the boundary of something else, something "other" to philosophy? If so, what might this "something else" be called, or does it, rather, call us? And what, then, are we to be called if, that is, we respond to (its/our) calling? As a partial, though incomplete means of engendering a setting, orchestrating a context in which responses to these latest, most bewildering questions become possible, even unavoidable, I will resort to a few, what elsewhere 3 I have called snipits. These are clearly marked (a, b, c...) interpolations in the text, serving contrapuntally, if not at times altogether discordantly, to undermine the underlying textual melody, be it that. Only through programmed recourse to such destabilizing cacaphonies is it possible, I believe, to engender the kinds of space and silence in which other sounds can begin to resonate and, then, eventually, to be written down. It is these other sounds which finally matter, however odd this itself must "sound." Normal scores, for our purposes often best troped as textualities tissued with numerous and diverse intertextual supplements, are but antechambers, vestibules, it strikes me, which enter on to what has been a largely silent concert hall.

101

Consider some writing you are engaged in. You can't be said altogether to write it, for your experience is that it comes more to you than from you. As best you can, you do try to write it down, and to improve on it, however, even though it itself, that which prompts your writing, isn't exactly something that you do. To a significant degree, in fact, this strange "it" happens to you, and, then, through you (it) finds its way on to paper. Only metaphorically, in fact, can that which you work to convey itself be called writing (or speaking). Both the preceding italicized prepositions, 'to' and 'through' call for commentary, as does the "it" they varyingly mediate. In each instance of its use so far in these paragraphs the "it," in fact, refers in roughly the same way to the same, however differing the manners of its mediation. It is this "same" which most calls out for commentary. Alternatively, this "same" is the "it" which calls out most for exposition. Note, finally, that one does want to say: the same ... what? If one answers this question directly, however, making 'same' clearly and univocally adjectival, one has clearly, though not altogether univocally, become quite venturesome, in fact, inventive. In saying that it happens to you, - what you write down, that is - you might be said to be its object, a "direct" object at which it directs itself, to which (or whom) it gives directions (and directives), this to the extent, at least, that you are cooperative, solicitous. As a director it resembles in at least one sense a dictator: it dictates. Whether you write it down or not, you do receive dictation. But this is only half the story, if even that. Without you, it couldn't exist, for in this manner of speaking it is accusative and needs you as the "object" of its accusation, the "subject" of its order. After all, directors do need actors who follow their direction(s), as dictators need subjects, call them sometimes secretaries, who also act on it, "take it down," even transcribe it. Note how strange "it" is. Note, also, how strange it is to say that writing happens to you. Isn't it more the case that writing is your response to what happens - to and then "within" you? Doesn't it seem more perspicuous to construe the referent of 'it' to be thought, which writing then captures? The last two words of this last paragraph are terribly troublesome: ... 'then' ... 'captures.' Is 'then' a temporal notion? Often it will seem that writing follows after the thought, in some broad sense responding to it. But not always. Doesn't writing - more obviously in the case of its "analogue," speaking - sometimes precede thought in the sense of producing particular thoughts, perhaps even "causally?" Don't thoughts sometimes come after writing as its (writing' s) result? And we speak now of writing being written,

102 rather than writing later read, though with regard to the latter, what we say is perhaps more resonant. We speak more limitedly now, however, of one's own writing process, a subsidiary but significant componant of which is one's reading of one's writing, a reading of one's written, a reading derived from, made possible by, and, thus, parasitical on that writing which is our first concern. (a) One model is Augustine. The Confessions, spiritually if not bibliographically plural, are addressed and in response to a familiar "you," but not a human one. The "you" is present, though came overtly to be so over time, emerging recently in the self-comprehended life of Augustine. Intimacy has been attained and sustains what is confessed, even makes it possible .... The Heidegger circumstance is similar, though by no means the same. The "you" is absent, and came to be so over time, having departed prior to Heidegger's arrival on the scene. Not even contact or encounter, much less familiarity and/or intimacy, has been attained. There exists, rather, a void, itself perhaps eventually a space in which ... it (not "you") may come to give itself. But no more than with Augustine's "you" is this "it" construed as (simply) within and part of one. The 'then' of "writing then captures" is not altogether "logical" either. Where the "then" a rational consequent of that to which it responds, writing would be far less frustrating, far more predictable, more managable, but probably far less rewarding than we in fact experience it to be. And on such an account we would ourselves emerge far more machine-like, more "artificial" in intelligence (Is this in fact the word we want? But who, then, this "we?") than the various slippages in our expressings (and expressions) betray us as. Let us leave such experiential "data" aside, however, subject as they always are to theoretical disputes. For writing to be a rational, let alone a strictly logical consequent of that which it "then captures," then writes down, the "it" to which writing so responds must itself be a rational, perhaps even logical antecedent. It must itself, in short, be rational, logical, a status with respect to which it issues neither guarantee nor discernable evidence. Consider some of the many evasions of recognition of this underlying circumstance, however. It is sometimes said that the "it" to be captured must itself be logical, that it couldn't be otherwise. 4 Thus, though one may still miss its content altogether, by being logical one nonetheless, and necessarily, mirrors and thereby captures its form. But what guarantees the applicability of the form/content distinction as (allegedly) inherent to that "it" which one seeks to write down? In what sense, for example, does a river have a form? 5 And, surely, this is a different question than whether it flows in a particular direction. Wouldn't a treatise on the rationality and logic of rivers be a most misguided undertaking? Is writing a series of conclusions, inferences drawn from the "it" it seeks

103 to capture, now construed as premise(s)? There is no independent means of determining and revealing such (alleged) "premises," for all inquiry regarding them, all searching, researching and sharing, takes place through writing or through speaking, through language in the broadest sense. How does one then know that these sought after "premises," purportedly the "true" beginnings of all inquiry, are truly premises, possessing "logical form?" Might one make inferences from varying written or spoken, that is, linguistic "conclusions" to such "premises," reversing (logical) direction so to speak? No, for in a most tangled way this would be "affirming the consequent," itself a logical fallacy. No, nothing follows from affirmed conclusions regarding their underlying premises. Nor can we call such "its" as "writing then captures" premises at all. Once again, there is no independent access to them, nor way to know that writing is their (logical) consequent or conclusion. Writing, rather, is an outcome, a bodily issue, which issues from such "its" as "writing then captures." Its so issuing, however, and "its" so issuing, those "its" which "writing then captures" - remain themselves an issue. And the 'then' of "writing then captures," could hardly be causal either, as if writing were somehow automatic, its practitioners automatons. One need not "write it down." There is seldom, if ever, compulsion. Often, in fact usually, one decides not to do so. Sometimes, even, having decided to write "it" down, one discovers that one (seemingly) can't, however hard one tries, - And who is this "one?" And how stands such a one in relation to 'T'? To "we"? What status, dynamics and interactions, interrelations, such ',voices?"6 On the other hand, there are such moments as those in which, though not compelled, one acquiesces and "then" follows, writing "it" down as it "comes," largely succeeding in capturing "it" as it "comes," "it" gives itself. These are often experienced as fortunate times, when "things just flowed." - And what is meant by "things," by "it"? Ideas? Thoughts? Subsystems or systems of connections between...? And why should 'flow' seem an appropriate and apt verb? From where might the flow be said to come? Where its sourc? And where does it go? Where when unrecorded? And where does it first "arrive" such that it "then" can be directed toward, "expressed" (pressed out) on(to) paper, or allowed to pass on "through"? 7 Again, on through to ... where? To ... what? Do such questions put us in the vestibule, the antichamber of neuro-psychology? Or do neurophysiological investigations themselves place their practitioners just as much in a vestibule? Whose? Acquiescing, following, writing "it" down as it comes are far from cause end effect, close to what Wittgenstein and others ruminated on as being guided by. Perhaps the "then" of writing, when "writing then captures," is

104 an accepting of guidance, not logical, nor illogical either, not causal, nor random either. But also something more than merely temporally contiguous. "...which writing then captures." "... being guided by . . . . " Capturing and being guided by suggest slightly different processes, even through their grammar. What is captured is an "object" pursued and, thus, an "object" of pursuit. This "object," of course, can be far more than "merely" objective, as when an animal or person is pursued. And the "it" pursued in writing is often experienced as elusive, wily. A reflexive relation is even possible, as when one tries to bring to the surface and determine one's true feelings or true nature. Whatever the particular case may be, the pursuer - shall this be called the "writer"? - is nonetheless the primary subject engaged in the activity and is, thus, the actor or agent of record. The (most problematic) "it," of writing "it" is, then, the pursued. By a slight twist of emphasis, however, one sees that the agent of record in fact seeks to record, to be a recorder. To do so is to be guided by ... that which is to be recorded. In being so guided agent turns to patient, becomes patient, as suggested by the passive construction 'am ... by.' Not only this. There is indirection, though this is somewhat difficult to clarify. You can be hit without your cooperation, in spite of attempts to the contrary in fact, attempts, that is, to avoid, even thwart being hit. But you cannot be guided without considerable cooperation on your part. You have, in effect, to want to be guided, and sometimes wanting is simply not enough. More is needed, some of which requires considerable preparation. Medical students, for example, study long and hard to reach the point where they can be guided by diagnostic data. And many people have great difficulty knowing what their feelings actually are regarding various matters and even greater difficulty letting those same feelings guide them. - Is it sometimes the case that wanting itself needs to be cultivated? For some at least, to know one's feelings requires that one want to do so, sometimes in the face of not wanting to know them, not wanting to have to deal with them. And how is such wanting cultivated, especially in the face of a conflicting want which stands in seeming opposition? 8 The last remarks are problematic because so easily misleading. Note the seeming changes in direction that have been opened up. We have been centered in our meditations through focussing on the sometimes difficult task of writing "it" down. It is this phenomenon which is meant to guide our undertaking. The "it" of "writing it down," however, is little resemblant of medical data, for, unlike medical data, its availability is privileged and invariantly individual. Access to "it" is only "introspective." What other answer might Mozart or anyone of us give when asked the source of and

105 route to the notes now being composed, the lines being written? Another sort of problem (and set of problems) arise when "determining ones feelings" or "letting them guide one" is allowed to be paradigmatic with respect to "writing it." Feeling is often contrasted with thought, and human beings are primarily identified with the latter, feelings then and thereby getting troped as a lesser part of "me" - not as distant from my "center" as, say, my pancreas, but concentrically further removed than, say, my overt phantasies. (In this respect the Cartesian tradition and its close intertwining of identity and transparency has lingered well beyond its exaggerated "conceptual" death.) Note how the notion of a center, the sphere of "thought," of "consciousness," has begun to emerge in this particular troping. Heed next how seemingly easy it becomes, from that center, to comprehend feelings as subsidiary, as virtual, though seldom actual "objects," accessibile to (and made accessible by) that center. These "objects" get construed as engagable within the center's field of influence and as usually very much engaged. They also get construed as somewhat peripheral to, yet constitutive of that center - for a center after all is a center of"something" - and get construed, also, as under that center's control, not altogether, but at least to some degree, as it might equally be said, with some combination of intelligence and care, but also luck, one, as a center, can control one's (less central, but not so peripheral as not to be important) complexion. To speak of luck, of course, is to admit that what constitutes that of which a center is a center, and a (partially) controlling center at that, in this case a complex of feelings, also effects that of which the center is a center, including the "very" center itself. These matters are by no means easy to comprehend, much less to articulate. What begins as a meditation on writing gets caught up in issues traditionally the province of philosophical psychology and philosophy of mind. Curiously, the notion of a center has not itself typically been central to these latter reflections. How long does a center remain a center? How much can it be separated from and still remain itself, remain, that is, a center? As a center of something, it cannot be totally divested of all else but itself and remain central, remain itself as center (of). And, again, without its "ofness," after all, a center could not be (a center). Or could it? In the West we have tended to think at times of total separability in principle, as if as humans we were pure thought (Descartes) or extractable sould imprisoned in a bodies (Plato). Even then some "centrality" remains and, thus, ourselves as centers remain as well, for the "objects" of our thought (or of our soul's devotion) might be said to surround us, be around us. Our thinking radiates out toward and to them. Their totality constitutes the sphere of our awareness, though not always of our influence. - And note the oddity, even

106 mystery of this. Can you always influence the "objects" of your thought? Try. And what does 'influence' mean? Alter? Persuade? Flow into? Minimally, it is often thought, feelings belong inseparably with thought, that center without which they could not be, but which would not exist without them either. This center, it is said, is that from which feelings proceed, but which often subsequently (and at times contentiously) these same feelings engage, disrupt, supplement, confuse, guide, calm, agitate, and so on. "Writing it down," "being guided by it and trying (at the same time) to capture it," suggest a subtly different model than the one which reference to feelings tends to generate. On the "feeling" model feelings tend to be secondary, their possessor primary. "Writing it down," if taken paradigmatically, tends to make the "it" primary, ourselves as its recorders (scribes, conveyers, reporters) secondary. We might be said (at least to try) to circle around "it," rather than to construe it as somehow circling around us. But there is more. Feelings tend to be viewed as precariously cognitive, if cognitive at all, as largely lacking in any sequential dynamic, if having one at all, as primitive, if not altogether deficient with respect to the adjectival relevance and applicability of such terms as the following: halting, insightful, slow, brilliant, English, ponderous, uninformed, flowing, propositional, rapid, multi-directioned, disorganized, persuasive, cunning. Feelings, also, we are inclined to believe, are "objects," primarily of psychological interest, beyond, that is, their obvious personal importance, their significance to (and for) those who possess them (and to and for those who must or choose to deal with those who do). But is it the case that the "it" which gets written down is also primarily of psychological interest? What sense can be made, for instance, what value found in and from a psychological study of the "it" which Kant wrote down, or Einstein, Beethoven, Frege, Aristotle, Newton, Hume, Darwin or Stravinsky? And they did all write "it" down, offering it in varying forms for our reading. No, "feeling" belongs to the psychological in a way in which the "it" which writing attempts to capture does not. A denial of this circumstance cannot but catapult its adherent into the most blatant of psychologisms. Note further. One can, in fact usually does have various feelings, sometimes intense ones regarding the "it" which writing captures, and often even stronger ones regarding attempts at capturing and/or improving "it." But the "it" itself is not in this sense a feeling, however many and diverse those it may produce or provoke in us. And this raises troublesome, even paradoxical questions. Do all the (relevant) feelings provoked, produced, belong to us? Or some to it? Do they invariably come to us, or sometimes from it? If they come to us, from where (or whom) do they come? Do we provide them, or are they given to us, provided for us? More generally, does "it"

107 belong to us or do we belong to it? And what in either case can 'belonging' mean? In the terrain adumbrated through such questions the task of conceptual cartography appears bewildering. (b) Note how closely the "it" of writing it (down) parallels in many of its various and complex features Heidegger's Being. Consider, first, the "it." Without us "it" would not, could not be written (or spoken). If it turned out to be of the e s s e n c e of "it" to find expression of itself - for itself? then without us (or creatures much like us) it would not be, and this would in itself be an essential truth regarding "it," one neither accidental nor arbitrary, a truth built into "its" definition. And could one imagine an "it" such that it never got written down nor, perhaps, could be so written? An "it" which was (somehow) independent of us? What, then "it"? And who "we"? Yet the writing of "it" would not be it, nor would such writing likely exhaust it, however much it depended upon us for its "being." Heidegger's manner of speech and underlying philosophical commitment, of course, involve claiming that it is of the essence of Being to give itself, to manifest itself, that Being (therefore) needs "man." Humans are construed as Being's poem, presumably as its expression, its saying, its writing (down). This poem (Being) would (and could) not otherwise exist. Now turning the matter around, as cognitive beings whose essential character is somehow inextricably caught up in awareness, both of significance and at the same time, potentially at least, of itself, that is, as reflexive, we need that to which writing is a response: that which guides and thereby makes writing (and speech) possible. And surely through these and similar observations we get caught up in a terrible tangle, one which has alternatively haunted and tyrannized over the passing twentieth century. Though thought - presumably that which (however imperfectly) gets written down - has been said to have no existence apart from language, language, construed either as writing or as speech, is very frequently, perhaps almost always, a response to something far less obviously language, if language at all, something which languages tries to capture, to express, to "get right," to write (down). Heidegger tells us that it is of o u r essence to live within an understanding of Being, without which - the understanding a n d (however faintly or precariously) the understood - we would not, could not be. Another Heideggerian way to put this is to say that we are our openness, that openness is intentional, and that intentionality places (what "then" becomes) us in the order of significance. Yet another way is to say we "are" only so long as Being "is," that is, so long as Being gives itself, so long as "it" gives.

II This attempt at shared "reflection" - is reflection, then, when successful, a mirroring, a non-distorting capturing (of "it") as in a mirror, a duplicating?

108 But let me start again. This attempt to reflect in a sharable way, this attempted writing (of) "it down - is the writing, then, something that belongs to it, something that is of it? Or does "it" belong to the writer? But I must start ... again. This writing "it" (down) gave rise already in the first section, explicitly as "its" (and, yet also, at that last section's) end, to the question of belonging. Does the "it" of (attempts at) writing down belong to "us," or do "we" belong to "it?" And what in either case can 'belonging' mean? Again, what (or who) "it"? And who (or what) "we"? It is now fashionable, often in fact helpful, to ask in the case of written work w h o is writing/signing, whose signature is affixed to the writing. This can be especially important where "we" is used in the body of the text, for in the usual circumstance where there is just one signature, a singular ascription of authorship, a reader is left somewhat perplexed, though more often suspicious regarding recourse to the first person plural in the text's body, subsequently (and with seeming inconsistency) signed singularly. From these circumstances arises the notion of a floating "we." This "we" gets constituted, perhaps, by one or more readers assenting to it at each particular point of its emergence - and not necessarily any of the same readers from paragraph to paragraph, that is, from we to we. At any point where the reader disagrees, after all, the "we" becomes for that reader, a they: those, who along with the author, believe or ascribe to what the "we" asserts (or confesses). Perhaps this "we" is at a certain point the writer (signatory, author) and just one reader. Or no reader ever acquisces and the "we" is the writer's illusion of a group of like-minded people, perhaps an illusion deliberately created by the writer as a rhetorical device to engender agreement, to persuade, an attempt to engender the so-called bandwagon effect. Perhaps the "we" then functions often in what many would call an ideological manner. To pursue this further is to move us - us? - further into politics. Insofar as it proves possible, it is just precisely this move I hope to minimize, to some extent even transcend or overcome with respect to reflection on writing "it." On writing "it," remember, is the reflexive focus (and quandry) of this study. In fact it is this study, this study's title, its (thematic) signature. (Is a title, as a signature, a name? Often just a label? Aren't labels also always political?) With respect to writing (it), construed now as "item" pursued within this study, under the guidance (and direction) of this study's title, is it possible to circumvent political gestures? Or, is such (attempted) circumvention not itself also quite political? The issue is most difficult. But why even attempt to avoid being political? This brings us to the crux of the matter. There is an intriguing aphorism, attributed to the French: things begin in

109 mystery and end in politics. Picking up again from earlier reflections, 9 what might be called the "aboutness" of writing 10 - this "aboutness" or "reference" now construed as the "it" writing would disclose, write (down) - is best construed as (pre-political) mystery, however many political consequences might get subsequently drawn. And, of course, such an assertion is never provable through inference, any more than is the "it," and it (the assertion) a n d "it" are always disputable. The "it" to be written (down) might be said to lie beyond space and time. Sources - and is not "it" a source of (and for) writing? - inaugurate spaces (and times). Equally, beginnings - and is not "it" a beginning of (and for) writing? - inaugurate times (and spaces). As coordinate systems used not just for measurement, but also often for placement, for control, and, thus, as instruments of power, space and time belong to the realm of politics. Perhaps they should be construed as the minimal conditions for politics' occurrence. Consider. We often seek to possess, thus bring under our control, that which we encounter. And surely the "it" of writing is a supreme example, a prime cause and stimulatn of such a desire - whatever other responses (to "it") are also possible, those, even, that might dissolve, or render ineffective, possessive urgings. To control is to position and, therefore, to be in a position to put (something, "it") into a position. To be oneself in such a position - a position to position - is to have (or be) a context or frame (work). In a broad, though "manageably" metaphoric sense it is to be spatio-temporal and on (and as) that basis to be what Heidegger would call c a l c u l a t i v e . And note the attendent oddity yet familiarity, even resonance, of the broadly philosophico-religious story of human historical decline when refracted through such formulations. The "fall" into space and time made anything but decline impossible, for to be in space and time is to be positioned, but, more importantly, positioning, thus calculative. Calculation gets construed, and unavoidably, as on a continuum at the other end of which is devotion. Much like hot and cold, the degree of presence of the one is that degree less presence of the - that is, its - other. Calculation is possession's mode of thought, as devotion is absorption's, and possessive/absorptive anal/oral - like hot/cold are mutually exclusionary, but, as with hot/cold, in terms of degree. Possessive/absorptive, in fact, might be said to be t h e most basic (and oppositional) qualifiers of openness: possession "closure," absorption "disclosure." Now positioning itself arises out of the urge to possess, thus control - or is to control, thus possess? Is the urge to control/possess, to be centering (and thus oneself the center), itself the cause of the "fall" into space and time, which are, in fact, the conditions making possession and control, and underlying them as their condition, centeredness, t h u s s e l f itself, possible? But, then w h o has this urge? A referent to such a "who," perhaps, in fact, an

110 "I" is said only to arise, to become possible, after and as a (likely) consequence of what the urge effects: space and time, and a not necessarily altogether unified and integrated centering which acts calculatively so as to control and possess, possess and control. The answer to the "who"? question, if this be true, is given, if at all, only much later through those activities most appropriate to the urge, activities now appropriately troped, properly and with propriety, as incorporation, ingestion, eating, assimilation, identification, introjection, appropriation and so on. Who, then, is the we? At what is seemingly the deepest level we can reach, the "we" is subject to a problematic emergence, far more perspicuously troped in psychological/religious language than in the discourses of politics - though obviously gathered up into and conversant with (and through) those languages as well. In the light of this last paragraph, an obscure light at best, given the inherent difficulties of ex-position, of re-moval to a pre-spatio-temporal original (and originating) position, a pre-position, the "it" to be written might be called the "food" for thought. But it might equally, therefore, be called the source (and substance) of the "who," the different (from "me") it, identification with which provides the (problematic) "me" with whatever identity it can have, whatever identity "it" can give me, whatever identity, thus, I can come to have, an identity I receive through "its" coming to me in its difference and as different, a coming I receive, write down as "it" comes to me, and become. I become, that is, come to be because it comes. I am "it" to the degree I absorb it. To whatever degree I do not, I am not. As ingesting and identifying myself with (and as) this coming, I am. Insofar as I identify myself with this coming, I am agent. Identified not with, but as this coming, I am vehicle of its coming, for it comes through me as vehicle of its emergence. Or is it, in fact the other way around: as this coming I become agent, with the coming I am vehicle? Let us consider now from still another perspective. Do I belong to it? Without it I am not. If it is what thinking is, the reality and manifestation of thought, and I am the rational animal, the thinking thing, then without it (or before it and after it - and is the after, then, death?) I am not. The thinking comes, however. "It" comes. From where and how, then, comes the 'T'? Is it the thinking or a part of the thinking? How could this be? After all, I try to capture "it," try to write "it" down. Often "it" escapes me, frustrates me, baffles me. What am I trying to say? And what am I? I seem separate from the thinking. But am I (and 'T'), however disguisedly, part of "it"? If so, I belong to it. I am its (almost cunning?) manifestation. If not, if 'T' not part of it, how, where, when I? Now from the "other" side. - On whose side are you? On whose side am 1? Which side am I? Its side?

111 From the other side. Does it belong to me? Well, the it I try to write down, when I am trying to write it down, is no one else's is it? No one else has access to it, unless I choose to give them access through telling them. I seem often able to shut it off, easier done than turning "it" on. (Often, in fact, "it" turns me on). Sometimes I can't control it. On the other hand, neither can I much control my heartbeat. Perhaps it is best to take a step back, this in order to ask what 'belonging' means. But in the absence of belonging's preposition, what is available for reflection is meager and inconclusive. X might be said to belong to Y, or equally with y.11 Minimally, with the issue of prepositional qualifier left in abeyance, "belonging" suggests that the X which belongs could be elsewhere, or under different controls, and that is sometimes perhaps is. And now we come to the crux. The "to" suggests Y's ownership, its possession of X, whereas "with" suggests a togetherness in which neither X nor Y need be said to "own" or possess the other. Neither need be construed as precedent. But note how our question of the "it" and the "r' who tries to write it down has been cast, viz., as "to" question. On such a basis ode of the two, the 'T' or the "it" (of writing it down) must have ascendency over the other. Prepositional grammar, seemingly dictates that such be the case, and it is precisely at this point that our more modest labors regarding "writing it" begin to merge with major issues in contemporary philosophy. Some recent philosophers, most notably Derrida, 12 as we know, have been inclined to call such a circumstance as (my) writing "it" engenders a binary opposition. In such an oppositional circumstance, the "opposites" not opposites necessarily at all, just simply in "opposition" and thus "antagonists" - contend for supremacy. To forward the notion that the contenders cannot be without each other, that in an important sense dominance is a misguided notion within the binarity, the notion of "privileging" is introduced. It is then said that "we" privilege, that is, choose to give preference to one or the other of the binary elements, its other, then, being in effect "marginalized." Note how the story, a significant dimension of philosophical (hi)story, can now be told. The "I," and the "it" this 'T' seeks to write (down), belong with each other. However, and even at an early point, the issue of ascendency or superiority arises. Whether the prepositional transition from 'with' or 'to' is cause or effect in this regard does not concern us for the moment. Once the issue of ascendency does arise, however, it is judged that the superior of the two, as partial proof of its superiority, as, in fact, a sign it bears as well as one of its inherent features, must control its lesser partner, dominate it, which, then, makes its lesser partner suporbinate. What might demonstrate such control? Power over the (then) controlled, though not assured, is made more, secure more susceptible of proof, if it

112 can be shown that ownership (possession) is involved. One way, however primitive, through which this is accomplished is to experience (or simply claim) that the controlled issued from its (purported) controller - for example, these "its" (thoughts, feelings) issue from me and, thus, are mine; as their owner, in whose possession they are, I am the dominant one, these various "its" subordinate to me, however unruly they sometimes are. Another way bypasses the question of issuance, of origin, and seeks to demonstrate control by taking it ("it," of course, in a double sense) over for example, I come to discipline, to harmonize my various "its" (thoughts, feelings); thereby, they become more and more within my power to guide, at times even command, for they have become progressively more and more mine through my mastery of them. But there are always doubts, doubts based, often, on occurrences (irruptions?) which shake belief in any easy answer to the superiority question. The doubts can perhaps be settled more "theoretically." Isn't the real (or more real) the superior of the two? What is "real," then, what (appropriate criteria of) reality? The real is lasting - Isn't that I? I ' m always "here"; my feelings and thoughts, those "its" of mine, they come and go. And surely the real is rational - now consider my thoughts and feelings in their frequent irraitonality. We could continue along these lines, but this would be unnecessary, for the underlying points have already emerged. Ascendency becomes an issue - something which could only have happened because "I" and "it" fell out of underlying harmony, or because "I" emerged and the "harmony" issue, for whatever reason, became one of dominance. Dominance then got demonstrated either through activities (of domination) or through theories (of superiority). The "theories of superiority" avenue is terribly suggestive. Its first suggestion is that domination could not be convincingly established nor could attempts at it be altogether convincingly frustrated. Some measure of domination, always capable of being lost, made possible the concern over further domination, and proof of dominance was one form the concern for further domination took. If such a suggestion is valid, then theory emerges as primarily an instrument of domination, one "I" employ to control (further) and thereby dominate more over my varying "its." Must there be a dominant one in a duet? By claiming one partner dominant that partner is thereby chosen, is privileged, is given certain privileges. But "who" does the initial claiming that dominance exists and that "this particular partner," rather than that, is in fact dominant? Who is the initial privileger? Who does the choosing, establishing thereby a chosen? The way our story unfolds, some combination of Freud and Darwin on the one hand, Plato and Western Rationalism on the other, the (at first

113 precariously emergent) "I," seeking further powers, is the chooser. The sought after powers this 'T' experiences as having to come at the expense of those (sometimes bewildering, even threatening) "its," out of whose mutual entanglement and confusion the 'T' has (recently) emerged. The "I," thus, is "self-choosing." It chooses itself. Given its sense of "at the expense of" - its primitive, and therefore all the more powerful adherence to exclusive alternation, to either 'T' or "it" and never both - its choice unavoidably impoverishes its partner. Theories of the emerging ' T " s own superiority are, thus, tools, employed by this 'T' toward its various ends, ranging from separation and independence, through control and domination to renunciation and extirpation (of those "its" from which the 'T' seeks relief - and release). How is the choosing accomplished? Here there is a deep curiosity. Given the undulying sense of either/or, but never both, any act of affirmation by the 'T' is itself a choosing. And by this relentless (and relentlessly oppositional) "logic," such affirmation is in its very emergence a negation of the partner, the "it" member of the duality. Duet becomes duel. May the better win. Thus opposition, antagonism is built in to the very process of the "I"'s emergence. Affirmation is negation. But negation is, then, affirmation as well. To negate the "it" is, by exclusional "logic," to have affirmed the "I" in the very negating action. Part of the negating activity, the distancing involved in separating and becoming independent as an "I," takes the form, however "unintended," of transmuting the partner into (not altogether simply, but in another sense simply) other. Consider carefully. A duet is being "sung." Harmony, mutuality, perhaps nearly fused intimacy are in play. One partner affirms, however, and, by the logic of exclusion, thereby denies (the other partner, now, simply, the other). What I do with you becomes, when I do it as and for me, something I do to you. The "withness" of belonging takes on a "to-ness." If and when this "to-ness" is applied to the "belonging" itself, the non-oppositional duality, the duet, becomes oppositional, potentially antagonistic, an issue of ascendency and control. In fact, the first issue that issues from the separate assertion of I, and thus the transforming of belonging with into belonging to, is the issue of dominance/subordinance, superiority/inferiority. It is at least conceivable that the "it" of writing it down was once, and primordially, not an "it" at all, but more akin to an "I." It would in fact not at this earlier point be an "I," for "I" arises from assertion and involves, by exclusionary implication, a denial of "I-ness" to what would then become its other and, thus, an "it." Were the "it," thus, of writing "it" down, to be construed as originally "I," the "I," who now struggles to write "it" down, become "itself.' an "it" in "early times."

114 How to construe an "it" as, originally, more akin to an "I," but not one? One reason this is so hard a question to answer is that it is addressed, however unthematically, to an "I," and, for an affirming "I," the answer given builds on the basis of an "it," that is, assumes the referent of the answer to be an "it" - this because for an affirming 'T' the non-"I" is, by exclusionary logic, invariably "it," as "personal" I, the non-I is, by the same relentless, obviously in fact destructive logic, impersonal. In short, to ask "us" to answer this question, to address the question to us, is already to have undercut the possibility of an appropriate, that is, resonant response. For "us" to answer is for "our" answer to make fundamental reference to an "it," just precisely and explicitly what the question seeks to transcend. I have just made mention of resonance, of resonance (as preferable to appropriateness) in response. One of the consequences of the emergence of belonging to, and thus opposition, from the potentially more harmonic relation of belonging with, is a still further, but slightly different prepositional transition, viz., from the "with," this time of resonating with, through the "to" of responding "to," to the "atness" of looking at in the sense of "objective" examination. If what I have suggested itself resonates, engenders an acknowledging response, then there also comes a recognition that "writing it (down)" is best served by resonance and that appropriation already assumes a distance, which a subsequent set of appropriative acts would alleviate. Properly understood, but first necessarily lived (and resonantly) the I-it (of writing "it" down) is towards, if not in the center of that which motivates the unfolding and spiritual disclosure of our human existence. Might this indicate the direction of post-twentieth century philosophical thought? I think so, but to think so with that persuasive force which engenders acquiescence is less a matter of "thinking" than of finding access to and within the tangled terrain of writing and, then, yes, finding a way of writing "it."

Notes 1. However important Heidegger and Derrida are to the development of late twentieth century thought, they are not the thematic focus of what follows. Reference to their work, thus, in the main body of the text, is decidedly more allusive than argumentative or demonstrative. I will remedy this to some extent through some strategically placed footnotes. One of the things which late stage philosophical thought is doing, I believe, is gradually extricating itself from the increasingly confining parameters of commentary. In this respect Montaigne is perhaps unfortunately apt for our time in his reflections on the pervasiveness of commentary. 2. Heidegger's account of Being's "giving itself," in fact, may well have been generated from something closely akin to the experience of writing. See in this

115 connection, Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1962). See especially pp. 55-63 and 203-214. See in this connection "The Presence of the Present as Absence: Some Reflections," Man and WorM, Vol. 24, Fall 1991, pp. 355-72. This is surely Wittgenstein's view, for example, in the Tractatus, as well as Husserl's in his Logical Investigations. When T.S. Eliot writes "The Dry Salvages" section of Four Quartets, referring to the river as "a strong brown god," he is very close to a precarious and, in Derrida's sense, "trembling" boundary between what the older tradition was most comfortable calling "God and man." As I indicated in snipit (a), though did not explicitly state, Augustine and Heidegger work very close to this boundary's edges, at times virtually erasing them. And obviously plurality is involved here. The decenteredness so much upon us through Foucault and others need not imply some existential variant of a no occupancy theory of "consciousness." Multiple voices are not only likely, but perhaps unavoidable. See in this connection, Jacques Derrida, "Eating Well," or the Calculation of the Subject," trans. Peter Connor and Avital Ronell, in Who Comes after the Subject? ed. Eduardo Cadava et al. (New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1991). Pp. 96-119. Note the Heideggerian reference to ausdruecken (expression) in Being and Time. See especially pp. 190-191. The Heideggerian struggle to connect the "call" of conscience and "wanting to have a conscience" is obviously a variant of this problem. In another context it might be argued that Heidegger is trying to find a way to give himself over to the "it," from Being and Time to his belated interview, published posthumously, in which he says that "only a god can save us." See in this connection "The Presence of the Present as Absence: Some Reflections," Man and World, Vol. 24, Fall 1991, pp. 355-372. The designation which I prefer regarding the "aboutness" of writing is Toward Disclosure. It names at once a series of articles, some of which are published, and some still in progress, and also a longer study which will appear under this title, viz., Toward Disclosure. It might be helpful to keep a few examples in mind. (1) Jane belongs to Jack (or Jack belongs to Jane). (2) Red belong to colour (is one). (3) Jane belongs with Jack (or Jack belongs with Jane). (4) Extension belongs to (with) space. (5) The chair belongs over there. (6) They belong together. (7) Language belongs to humans. (8) Humans belong to language. See in this connection, for example, Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1978). See particularly pp. 196-231.

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