Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The Body of the Letter: From Name-of-the-Father to Re-père
- 2 Theatres of Terror and Cruelty: From Noise to the Voice
- 3 The Three Syntheses of the Body: From the Voice to Speech
- 4 Logic of the Phantasm: From Speech to the Verb
- 5 The Speculative Univocity of Being and Language: From the Verb to Univocity
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - The Three Syntheses of the Body: From the Voice to Speech
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 April 2017
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The Body of the Letter: From Name-of-the-Father to Re-père
- 2 Theatres of Terror and Cruelty: From Noise to the Voice
- 3 The Three Syntheses of the Body: From the Voice to Speech
- 4 Logic of the Phantasm: From Speech to the Verb
- 5 The Speculative Univocity of Being and Language: From the Verb to Univocity
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Introduction: Lewis Carroll's Three Types of Esoteric Word
In the preface to The Logic of Sense, Deleuze spells out his aims in this book. He writes that in Lewis Carroll's work one finds a ‘chaoscosmos’ or paradoxical unity of ‘sense and nonsense’, ‘but’ that
since the marriage of language and the unconscious has already been consummated and celebrated in so many ways, it is necessary to examine the precise nature of this union in Carroll's work: what else is this marriage connected with, and what is it that, thanks to him, this marriage celebrates.
Firstly, this marriage of language and the unconscious – or this paradoxical unity of sense and nonsense – appears to allude to the work of the Lacanian school, which he later adds has ‘completely renewed the general problem of the relations between language and sexuality’. Secondly, to contribute something original, in light of Lacan's work – but also, it is implied, because Lacan's work has not yet reached its own ground (as conceived by Deleuze) – Deleuze is saying here that we need to turn to the work of Carroll, so as to examine ‘what else’ language and the unconscious are connected with. This third term, it is implied, is more fundamental than either language or the unconscious taken separately, underlying them both and accounting for the importance of their relation.
It is clear, not least from the book's title, that this third term is ‘sense’ or more precisely ‘the Univocity of sense’, in short univocal sense understood as ontologically bypassing what are termed ‘sense’ and ‘nonsense’, or language and the unconscious/sexuality/the body, respectively, when taken separately. For Deleuze, univocal sense is both the ontological ground of, as well as being produced by, the articulation of the unconscious/sexuality and language, bodies and language or, more fundamentally, being and thinking.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Psychoanalysis of SenseDeleuze and the Lacanian School, pp. 64 - 142Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2016