From: Damien Broderick (thespike@earthlink.net)
Date: Wed Dec 11 2002 - 00:22:53 MST
As against my previous citation by someone who didn't bother trying to see
what Derrida might actualy have meant, here's something that supports my own
reading (I had not read Dr Plotnitsky 's paper until now, FWIW):
http://www.duke.edu/web/FacultyForum/vol8/ffnov.htm
========
Another response to Lawrence Evans
--by Arkady Plotnitsky
Literature Program and the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Science
and Cultural Theory
"The Einsteinian constant is not a constant, not a center. It is the very
concept of variability--it is, finally, the concept of the game. In other
words, it is not the concept of something--of a center starting from which
an observer could master the field--but the very concept of the game [jeu]
which, after all, I was trying to elaborate [in the lecture]."
Along with other quotations accompanying Professor Lawrence Evans's
contribution ("Should We Care about Science `Studies'?"), The Faculty Forum
(Vol.8, No.1, October 1996) cites Steven Weinberg's comment on this remark
by Jacques Derrida. The remark itself was made famous by its incessant
recycling in recent discussions around the so-called "Science Wars" in the
wake of Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt's Higher Superstition, and then
"Sokal's hoax," both of which comment on it, as does Professor Evans.(1) I
complete Derrida's sentence in accord with the original, since the term
"game" or "play" (a better translation here of the French "jeu," which
carries both meanings) has a very specific meaning in Derrida's statement.
The concept of play is central in Derrida's essay "Structure, Sign, and Play
in the Discourse of the Human Sciences," an oral presentation of which at a
conference at Johns Hopkins in 1966 occasioned the discussion in which this
remark was made, as part of Derrida's reply to a question from the French
philosopher, Jean Hyppolite, who was also present.(2) Understanding how
Derrida uses this term in his essay and understanding what Hyppolite means
by "the Einsteinian constant" are essential for a reading of Derrida's
statement, especially if one wants to make a responsible claim concerning
it--say, considered as a statement on the philosophical implications of
Einstein's relativity.(3) If Derrida's statement is given without any
further explanation, it would be difficult to blame Professor Weinberg for
saying "I have no idea what this is intended to mean" (New York Review of
Books, August 8, 1996, p. 11), or Professor Evans for smiling at Derrida's
"absurd attempt to say something profound about Einstein's relativity"
(Forum, p. 1). A rather different picture emerges, however, once one
considers carefully Derrida's and Hyppolite's statements themselves and
their context. According to Hyppolite, then:
With Einstein, for example, we see the end of a kind of privilege of empiric
evidence. And in that connection we see a constant appears, a constant that
is a combination of space-time, which does not belong to any of the
experimenters who live the experience, but which, in a way, dominates the
whole construct; and this notion of the constantis this the center [i.e.
would it be, according to Derrida's argument]? (Languages of Criticism, p.
266, emphasis added).
Hyppolite's first sentence is somewhat obscure, which is not surprising
given the extemporaneous nature of his comments (on which point I shall
comment below). It can, however, be shown to be compatible with certain
aspects of special relativity, in particular with the idea that the
distinction between space and time depends on the observer. More important
here is the question of "the Einsteinian constant." The phrase may not
meanand does not seem to mean--a numerical constant, as virtually all the
physicists who commented on it in print appear to assume. Instead it appears
to mean the Einsteinian (or Einsteinian-Minkowskian) concept of space-time
itself, since Hyppolite speaks of "a constant which is a combination of
space-time" (emphasis added). Given the text, such an interpretation is more
plausible than seeing this phrase as referring to a numerical constant. This
alternative interpretation is not definitive, and perhaps no definitive
interpretation is possible here, in view of the status of the text as the
transcription of extemporaneous remarks given orally. Similar problems may
also arise in regard to Derrida's statement.(4) That said, however, it is
more productive to take these complexities into account, to sort them out to
the degree possible, and to give these statements the most sensible, rather
than the most senseless, interpretation.
In view of those aspects of Hyppolite's and Derrida's meanings that can be
established more definitively, and given the text of Derrida's essay itself,
the interpretation suggested here is both possible and plausible. The moment
one accepts this possibility and reads the Einsteinian constant as meaning
the Einsteinian concept of space-time, Derrida's statement begins to sound
quite a bit less strange. It acquires an even greater congruence with
relativity theory once one understands the term "play/game" as connoting, in
this context, the impossibility, within Einstein's framework of space-time,
of a unique or uniquely privileged frame of reference--a "center starting
from which an observer could master the field" (i.e. the whole of
space-time). Even if my reading of Hyppolite's term "the Einsteinian
constant" is tentative, the meaning I suggest for Derrida's "play" or "game"
[jeu] is easily supportable on the basis of his essay and related works. So
is the understanding of this concept as congruent with (I do not say
equivalent to) philosophical ideas of relativity.
With these considerations in mind, one might see Derrida's statement as
suggesting that, in contrast to classical physics, the space-time of special
(and even more so of general) relativity disallows either a (Newtonian)
universal background or a uniquely privileged frame of reference for
physical events (which become contingent upon the frame of reference from
which they are seen). In short, one might see Derrida's statement as
alluding to standard features and questions at issue in Einstein's
relativity--admittedly, in a idiom that is nonstandard, especially for
physicists. At the very least, both Derrida's and Hyppolite's remarks can be
read as consistent or, again, congruent with the philosophical ideas and
implications of relativity as they have been elaborated in traditional
scientific and philosophical literature on the subject. What Hyppolite
suggests here is that (part of) the conceptual content of Einstein's
relativity may serve as a kind of model for Derrida's concept of decentered
play and related ideas.
Of course, there has been much debate concerning the philosophical
interpretation and implications of relativity, and one could certainly argue
about how productive a Derridean framework could be in approaching
relativity. Such an argument would, however, be quite different from reading
Derrida's statement in a deliberately distorted manner, as in Sokal's hoax;
or from offering "criticism" of it that is clearly uninformed, as in Gross
and Levitt's book; or from other dismissive non-treatments of it on both
sides of the recent "science wars." Such an argument would also be different
from what one finds in Sokal's "serious" article in Lingua Franca
(disclosing his hoax): manifest philosophical naivete and ignorance of
philosophical literature, including literature on relativity and quantum
physics.(5) The question here is not whether Derrida's philosophical ideas
about relativity or his work in general should be criticized. The question
is at what level of intellectual engagement, knowledge, and scholarship such
criticism of Derrida (or of Hyppolite and others cited in those texts)
should take place.
Derrida's statement on relativity has been commented upon without any
consideration of its textual and circumstantial context, and without even
minimal attention to the meaning of its terms--even, sadly, by scholars and
scientists of extraordinary achievement, such as Steven Weinberg. Obviously,
most scientists are not familiar with the ideas and contexts that would
enable them to offer the kind of reading of Derrida's statement that is
suggested here. One might, however, regret a certain lack of intellectual
curiosity on their part and their evident unwillingness to consult scholars
familiar with Derrida's thought, or indeed--why not?--Derrida himself. At
issue here is not only the citation of Hyppolite's and Derrida's remarks out
of context but the ignoring of even the minimal relevant norms of
intellectual and, especially, scholarly exchange.
Derrida's quoted statement appears in the transcript of an improvised
response to Hyppolite's question following an oral presentation of his
essay. The essay does not mention relativity and the statement itself makes
no substantive scientific claims. Relativity, and specifically the idea of
the Einsteinian constant, are brought in by Hyppolite, not Derrida, who
responds to Hyppolite extemporaneously, in the context of his just-delivered
paper. It is curious that out of thousands of pages of Derrida's published
works, a single extemporaneous remark on modern physics is made to stand for
nearly all of deconstructive or even postmodernist (not a term easily
applicable to Derrida) treatments of science. Given the circumstances
described here, a responsible scholar, journalist, or other commentator
would be hesitant to judge or present Derrida's statement as representative
of his mode of writing or arguing, or of his thought on relativity,
mathematics, or science, or indeed of anything else. There is nothing
exceptional in the circumstances themselves. Such complexities of
improvisation, transcription, translation, and interpretation often arise at
conferences, and the circumstances that lead to them remain significant when
such exchanges are subsequently reproduced in conference volumes, as is the
case here and as is made clear by the editors of the volume containing the
Hyppolite-Derrida exchange (Languages of Criticism, xi-xiii).
Scholars in the humanities should, of course, exercise due caution as to the
claims they make about science. Correspondingly, scientists and other
non-humanist scholars should exercise due care and similar caution in their
characterization of the humanities, especially when they are dealing with
innovative and complex work, such as that of Derrida, and all the more so if
they want to be critical about it. In the case under discussion, however, no
criticism in any real sense--not even a dismissal that can be taken
seriously--has been offered, at least not yet. A serious engagement with
Derrida's thought on the part of scientists is possible, however, and we
might yet see it. Then, perhaps, we will also have a better understanding of
why "the Einsteinian constant is not a constant, is not a center," why "it
is the very concept of variability," and why "it is, finally, the concept of
the game"or, if that is the case, why it is none of the above.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---- Notes 1 Steven Weinberg, "Sokal's Hoax," New York Review of Books (August 8, 1996), pp. 11-15; Alan D. Sokal, "Transgressing the BoundariesTowards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity," Social Text (Spring/Summer, 1996), pp. 217-252; Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt, Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels with Science (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994). 2 Both the text of the essay and the transcription of the discussion are in The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man: The Structuralist Controversy, eds. Richard Macksey and Eugenio Donato (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970); the essay itself is included in Derrida's Writing and Difference, tr. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978). 3 I leave aside for the moment the problem of translation, although it is significant for the present discussion. On the circumstances at issue, see The Languages of Criticism, xi-xiii. 4 See, again, the editors' discussion in The Languages of Criticism, xi-xiii. 5 Alan D. Sokal, "A Physicist Experiments with Cultural Studies," Lingua Franca (May/June 1966), pp. 62-64. =========== Damien Broderick
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