Supplementary Reading II
Jacques Derrida: The Beast and the Sovereign I (455-463/343-349)
So, on that basis, I suggest two things for the twenty minutes or so we have left: first to
have a quick look at logos in Aristotle's Politics, in the famous passage in which Aristotle
defines man as zoon logon ekhon, and then, if we have time, a word about the Bible, with
which I meant to start at the very beginning. As I was saying very quickly last time, it's
the very beginning of book I of the Politics, that's where it starts, and Aristotle is defining
the polis, the state as a sort of community (koinōnia), which, as a community, is
constituted with a view to a certain good. The state is a community organized with a view
to a good, agathon. One might say that this agathon is naturally sought, as a good, by
every community, even an animal community, but what Aristotle announces from the
start is that the state as human community, as human koinōnia, is organized with a view
to the good as sovereign good; this is the standard translation, and of course the word
translated as sovereign is, as you'll remember from when we were talking about Bodin,
the word that is most often used in Greek to designate sovereignty, kurios: ... it is obvious
that all aim at a certain good and that precisely the sovereign good [kuriōtatou, the
sovereign good, the supreme good] among all goods is the end of the community that is
sovereign [kuriōtate] among all [the community is basically sovereign over all, and so the
notion of sovereignty is defined here, from the start, inscribed into the very concept of
state, polis, and community] and includes all the others: the one called the City or the
political community [e koinōnia e politikē]. [Aristotle, Politics, 1252 a 9]
Then, in the following paragraph, he will define, precisely, what is called a master
or a king, a man of state:
All those who imagine that a statesman (or magistrate), a king, a head of
household, a master of slaves [despotikon] are identical, do not express
themselves correctly [so he will distinguish between the statesman [politikon],
the king, the head of household, the slave-master: those who imagine that
these are the same thing, are identical, are wrong, are not expressing
themselves correctly, do not choose their words well]; indeed they see in each
of these only a difference of degree and not of kind: for example, if one
exercises authority over a small number, one is a master; if over a greater
number, a head of household; if a still greater number, a statesman or a king,
as though there were no difference between a large family and a small City [in
other words-and this is a tradition that will run up until Schmitt, you must not
imagine that the state is simply an enlarged family; so there is a structural
difference between a family community and a state community]; as for
statesman and king: if a man exercises power alone, he is a king; if on the
contrary he exercises it following the norms of political science, being in turn
governor and governed, he is a statesman. But this is not true, and what I have
to say about it will be obvious to anyone who examines the question following
our normal method. [Aris. Pol 1252a 4-23]
There follows a methodological expose which tries, which claims, to go back ex
arkhēs, to the beginning (the word arkhē, I recall, is the commencement and the
commandment): "so it is in examining things develop from their origin [ex arkhēs]
that here as elsewhere we can come to the best view of them." So let's go back to
the origin:
In the first place there must be a union of those who cannot exist without each
other; namely, of male and female, that the race may continue (and this is a
union which is formed, not of deliberate purpose, but because, in common
with other animals and with plants, mankind have a natural desire to leave
behind them an image of themselves) [in other words, generation and
reproduction is the proper of all living beings, be they plants, animals, or
humans], and of natural ruler and subject, that both may be preserved [this is
natural, by nature, phusei]. For that which can foresee by the exercise of mind
is by nature [still phusei] intended to be lord and master, and that which can
with its body give effect to such foresight is a subject, and by nature a slave;
hence master and slave have the same interest. Now nature [always phusei]
has distinguished between the female and the slave. For she is not niggardly,
like the smith who fashions the Delphian knife for many uses; she makes each
thing for a single use [...]. But among barbarians no distinction is made
between women and slaves, because there is no natural ruler among them [i.e.
neither woman nor slave has what naturally rules]: they are a community of
slaves, male and female. Wherefore the poets say, "It is meet that Hellenes
should rule over barbarians"; as if they thought that the barbarian and the
slave were by nature one.
Out of these two relationships between man and woman, master and slave, the
first thing to arise is the family [I'm reading rather fast to come on quicker to the
zōon logon ekhon], and Hesiod is right when he says, "First house and wife and
ox for the plough," for the ox is the poor man's slave. The family is the
association established by nature for the supply of men's everyday wants, and the
members of it are called by Charondas "companions of the cupboard," and by
Epimenides the Cretan, "companions of the manger." But when several families
are united, and the association aims at something more than the supply of daily
needs, the first society to be formed is the village. And the most natural form of
the village appears to be that of a colony from the family, composed of the
children and grandchildren, who are said to be suckled "with the same milk."
And this is the reason why Hellenic states were originally governed by kings;
because the Hellenes were under royal rule before they came together, as the
barbarians still are. Every family is ruled by the eldest, and therefore in the
colonies of the family the kingly form of government prevailed because they
were of the same blood. As Homer says [etc.]. [Aris. Pol. 1252a 27-1252b 22]
And this is where we come to things that are decisive for us:
The community born of several villages is the City, perfect, now reaching, as it
were, the level of complete self-sufficiency [autarkeia, independence, then, the
fact of commanding oneself, to have its own arkhe within itself]: being formed to
permit life [here, it's zen, the verb for zoon. the fact of living], it exists in order to
allow one to live well [eu zen]: so a political community, a city, has as its aim to
live well (eu zen). And so it's from this truth, as it were, this essence of the polis
that Aristotle will go on to the definition of man as he who, precisely, has the
logos. This is why every city exists naturally [still phusei], just like the first
communities; it is indeed, their end, and the nature of a thing is its end; because
what we call the nature of each thing is what it is when its growth is complete,
for example, a man, a horse, or a family. What is more, the final cause and the
end is what is best; now to be self-sufficient (autarkeia) is both an end and what
is best. [Pol 1252 b 27-1253 a4]
That's the ontological definition of sovereignty, namely that it's better since we're
trying to live well (eu zen)--to live in autarchy, i.e. having in ourselves our
principle. having in ourselves our commencement and our commandment, is better
that the contrary: “the final cause and the end is what is best; now to be selfsufficient (autarkeia) is both an end and what is best.” From which will follow the
definition, which is basically essential and necessary, of sovereignty: the sovereign
is one who has his end in himself or is the end of everything.
So now, after these premises, here is the fundamental canonical text around which,
you recall, the discussions and disagreement begin. You remember Agamben's
interpretation that we discussed, Heidegger's interpretation that puts in question this
very definition of man as zoon logon ekhon, which he says is unworthy of the
humanity of man, not only in that it is a "zoological" definition, says Heidegger,
not only because one attributes the logos to this zoon, but because one
surreptitiously neglects an interpretation of the logos… the zoon logon ekhon, the
animal rationale, concerns not only the definition of man in his relation to logos.
But also the definition of the political: man as political animal is indissociab1e
from the definition of man as having the logos, logon ekhon.
So here is Aristotle’s text:
From these considerations it is clear that the City is a natural reality and that man
is naturally a being destined to live in a City [political animal, ton phusei e polis
esti, kai oti anthrōpos phusei politikon zōon: is a political animal]; he who is
cityless is, by nature and not by chance, a being either degraded or else superior to
man [the one who is without a City. who is apolis, who is apolitical, is either
below or else above man, either an animal or else god: the political is properly
human: “He who is cityless is by nature and not by chance either below or else
above man.”]: he is like the man Homer reproaches with having “no clan, no law,
no hearth”; a man this way by nature is by the same token warlike; he is like an
isolated pawn in chess. And so the reason is clear why man is a political being
more than any others, bees or gregarious animals. As we maintain, indeed, nature
does nothing in vain; now alone among the animals man has speech [logon dē
monon anthrōpos ekhei ton zoon: so, there is an essential link between politicity
and the disposition to the logos, they are indissociable.] No doubt the sounds of
the voice [phone] express pain and pleasure, and so they are found in all animals:
their nature allows them to feel pain and pleasure and to manifest them among
themselves [so phone does not suffice to define logos]. [Aris. Pol. 1253a 2-14]
(When I distinguished—a very long time ago—between logocentrism and
phonocentrism, it was precisely to mark the fact that logocentrism, by reference to this
signifier, this vocable, logos, which is proper to the historico-cultural zone I was
defining a moment ago (Abrahamic, evangelical religions and philosophy), this
logocentrism appeared to me to determine this zone or this epoch in human history; but
phonocentrism seemed to me, still seems to me, to be universal, in that it defines the
authority or hegemony accorded to vocal speech and so to phonetic writing in all
cultures: which is to say that there is a phonocentrism, the signs or symptoms of which
can be identified well beyond Europe and even in cultures that practice writing of
a non-phonetic type—apparently nonalphabetic, non-phonetic. You know
that in Chinese culture, for example, writing is not of the phonetic type although there are
phonetic elements in it; nevertheless, there are many signs of a recognized authority of
the vocal, which means, in my opinion, that phonocentrism is universal, which
logocentrism is not. In any case, the phonē named here by Aristotle only concerns the
emission of sounds, and this can, indeed, appear in animals without reason, without
logos: there is phonē without logos.)
No doubt the sounds of the voice [phonē] express pain and pleasure, and so they
are found in all animals: their nature allows them only to feel pain and pleasure
and to manifest them among themselves. But speech [logos], for its part, is made
to express the useful and the harmful and consequently the just and the unjust, [in
other words, there is an essential link between speech (logos) and the good
(agathon), the just and the unjust (dikaion/adikon). Animals are incapable of this:
they do indeed have phonē, but they have neither logos nor a relation to the good,
to the sovereign good, to the just or the unjust]. This is, indeed. the distinctive
character of mankind compared to all the other animals: [pros talla zōa tois
anthrōpois idion: what is proper (idion) to man faced with (or in the eyes of) all
the other living beings] he alone perceives good and evil, the just and the unjust
[to monon agathou kai kakou kai dikaiou kai adikou] and other values [kai tēn
allōn aisthēsin]; now it is the common possession of these values that makes
family and city. [Aris. Pol. 1253a 10-18]
Which obviously leaves the question that we were raising last time, that of knowing
whether, in saying this, Aristotle—how should we put it?—was already sensitive,
accessible, open or not to what, in a certain French modality, is called "biopolitics." You
remember the distinction Agamben was trying to make, which seemed to me untenable,
between the definition of the zoon politikon as essential attribute or as specific difference.
But precisely, what Aristotle says—and this is where this distinction between the two
attributions docs not work—is that man is that living being who is taken by politics: he is
a political living being, and essentially so. In other words, he is zoo-political, that's his
essential definition, that's what is proper to him, idion; what is proper to man is politics;
what is proper to this living being that man is, is politics, and therefore man is
immediately zoo-political, in his very life, and the distinction between bio-politics and
zoo-politics doesn't work at all here—moreover, neither Heidegger nor Foucault stays
with this distinction, and it's obvious that already in Aristotle there's thinking of what is
today called "zoopolitics" or " biopolitics." Which doesn't mean—as I suggested last
time and I'm stressing today—which doesn't mean, of course, that Aristotle had already
foreseen, thought and understood, analyzed all the figures of today's zoopolitics or
biopolitics: it would be absurd to think so. But as for the biopolitical or zoopolitical
structure, it's put forward by Aristotle, it's already there, and the debate opens there.