Spectre Shapes: "The Body of Descartes?

"
Author(s): Andrzej Warminski
Source: Qui Parle, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Fall/Winter 1992), pp. 93-112
Published by: University of Nebraska Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20685967
Accessed: 28-07-2015 18:07 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/
info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

University of Nebraska Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Qui Parle.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 28 Jul 2015 18:07:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Spectre Shapes:

"The Body of Descartes?"

AndrzejWarminski
This title-"The Body ofDescartes?"-quite
rightlydresses thebody
ofDescartes with a question mark.' The question mark ismost fitting,for,
indeed,what we might want to identifyunder itsgarments as thebody of
Descartes could turnout tobe a ghost or an automaton-like those hats and
cloaks at the end of the Second Meditation thatwe judge (by the "pure
inspection of themind") toclothemen butwhich may turnout tocover only
"spectres or feignedmen" (des spectres ou des hommesfeints).2 But these
shapes become all themore questionable ifwe remember that in context
theyare the figures fora stillmore famous body ofDescartes: thebody of
the "piece of wax." In the same way that ordinary language almost
deceives us into saying thatwe see the same wax after ithas undergone all
kinds of changes to its corporeal nature-when, in reality,what we do is
to judge by thepure inspection of themind that it is the self-same wax

so itwould deceive us into saying thatwe see men when we look out the
window at hats and cloaks passing in the street-when, in reality,what we
do is to judge by thepure inspection of themind that these hats and cloaks
cover thebodies ofmen and not ghosts or automatons. To speak of thebody
of thewax, then, is no idle figure, and Descartes unfolds its logic quite
consistently in thefollowing paragraph where he compares theanalysis of
the piece of wax to having removed its garments and considering itall
naked:

But when I distinguished the real wax from its superfi

cial appearances, and when, just as though I removed its
garments, I consider it all naked, it is certain that

there
although
mightstillbe someerrorinmyjudgment,
I could not conceive it in this fashion without a human

mind.
Qui Parle, Vol. 6, No. 1, Fall/Winter, 1992

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 28 Jul 2015 18:07:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

94 AndrzejWarminski
if the logic of Descartes' argument necessarily leads (no doubt
according to the order of reasons) to the conclusion that I could not have
performed theanalysis of thepiece ofwax and arrived at thewax itself,the

But

"real wax" as the translationputs it,without a humanmind, the rhetoricof

Descartes' textjust as surely leads to at least the suspicion that I could not

the argument or performed the analysis of thewax without

a human body thatcan be dressed up in,and then stripped of,
as
it
figuring

have made

its not-so-human garments. That thegarments may always be less-than

human-or

more-than-human?

or other-than-human?-is

certainly

sug

gested by the text's own figures.For ifthebody of aman isalways thebody

ifwe are not certain,we have, according to theDiscourse
of a man-and,

onMethod, certain reliable tests todetermine that it is indeed thebody of

a man and not an ingeniously devised automaton or the body of an
animal3-the garments, hats and cloaks, may always cover ghosts or
automatons-that is, bodies without souls or spiritswithout bodies that

can nevertheless wear clothing. But letus not hurry to conclude that these
figures-i.e., hats and cloaks thatmay cover not men but ghosts or
inany immediate sense a threatto theCogito argument.
automatons-are
As Descartes says, theremight still be some error inmy judgment even
after I have removed the garments of thewax and consider it all naked.

Indeed, I could be wrong both about my seeing thegarments of thewax in

the firstplace and about judging it to be wax in the second. Descartes
writes: "For itmight happen thatwhat I see is not reallywax; itmight also
"
. . . All this I can be
happen that I do not possess eyes to see anything
wrong about: thinkingthatIperceive wax and thinkingthatwhat Iperceive
iswax. But what I cannot be wrong about is theexistence of an "I" thatcan
think it perceives and think it judges one thing or another. Descartes
continues:
... but it could not
happen that,when I see, or what
amounts to the same thing,when I think I see, I who
thinkam not something. For a similar reason, if I judge
that thewax exists because I touch it, the same conclu
sion follows once more, namely, that I am."
In otherwords, as Descartes never tiresof reminding us in his Replies to
the various objections to his analysis of thepiece of wax, thepoint of the
analysis is not at all togain a knowledge of theessence of thewax, nor is
iteven a question of proving thewax's existence. Rather theexample of
thewax would demonstrate one more time that themind knows itself, its

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 28 Jul 2015 18:07:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Spectre Shapes 95
own nature as thinking thing (une chose qui pense, res cogitans) more
clearly and distinctly than itknows any body like, forexample, a piece of
wax. In short, theanalysis would reduce thewax to the truthand certainty
of theCogito. The naked wax is thewax of the Cogito, as though the
thinking"I" were to say: "This ismy body." The "I" could be wrong about
"this" and about the "body"-about
seeing thebody and about itsbeing a
cannot
be
about
is itsbeing mine, my body, which
it
what
wrong
body-but
I could not conceive in this fashion (however wrong or right Imay be)

without a human mind, as Descartes puts it,without being a thing that,

before itdoes or is anything else, is firstof all a thing that thinks.
All this is familiar.As always in the case of Descartes, thinking the
example of thewax correctly comes down to remembering itsplace and
function in the order of the argument, that is, according to the order of
reasons. Martial Gueroult, in his Descartes selon l'ordre des raisons,
summarizes it concisely:
Let us recall thatwhat is at stake in the analysis of the
piece ofwax is not to seek inwhat the essence of body
consists and even less to establish thatbody exists

both things thatwe cannot actually know-but what are

the necessary conditions thatrender possible its repre
sentation as such. I thenperceive that these conditions
reside in an idea ofmy intellect alone, an intellect that

must be posited as known first.4

Remembering what we knowfirst-in order-is also what should keep us

fromattempting any kind of overhasty "rhetorical reading" ofDescartes'
text.For just as the figure of the garments' possibly covering ghosts or
automatons (and notmen) is no immediate threat to the certainty of the
fact, it rather corroborates the argument thatwe can be
Cogito-in
deceived about all kinds of thingswe see or thinkwe see but thatwe cannot

be deceived about therebeing someone there to thinkhe is deceived or

not-so the "rhetoric" of Descartes' textdoes not easily interfere
with the
"logic" of his argument, or, to speak a more Cartesian language, with the

methodical analysis according to theorder of reasons. Indeed, "rhetoric,"

as symmetrical metaphorical exchanges
understood in this sense-i.e.,
and transfersbetween intelligible and sensuous-can
only corroborate
Descartes' logic. If tropes and figuresdeceive us, this is all themore proof
that the senses and the imagination (whose language is the language of
tropes and figures) cannot give us anything toknow certainly and indubi

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 28 Jul 2015 18:07:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

96 AndrzejWarminski
tably.And what a trulyphilosophical textdoes when ituses figures, tropes,
metaphors, is,as itwere, touse themup: thatis, to render them transparent
to the truthand certaintyof itsargument, in short, to reduce the rhetoricof
the text to the logic of theargument. For instance, the figureof thedressed
or naked wax

is part of an entire tropological system of metaphorical

exchange thatDescartes' method of analysis constructs in order todoubt
everything all thebetter so that itmay know all thebetterwhatever is left
after this doubt is taken into consideration. In the First Meditation, for
example, we can doubt theknowledge of the senses thanks to thepossibil
ityof crossing from one side to the other in a chain of polarities-one of

whose main links is the naked/dressed opposition. Imay think that I am

sittinghere "wearing a winter dressing-gown," awake, and knowing; but
Imay in fact be lying naked in bed, asleep, and dreaming.

How many times has it occurred that the quiet of the

nightmade me dream ofmy usual habits: thatIwas here,
clothed in a dressing gown, and sitting by the fire,
although I was in fact lying undressed inbed!
Again, I can dream thatI am dressed or awake and knowing; and Ican know
thatI am naked or asleep and dreaming (like the slave at theend of theFirst

Meditation who dreams thathe is freeand "fears towake up and conspires

with his pleasant illusions to retain them longer"): thechiasmic crossings
are symmetrical.5 Since it is possible to cross from one series-dressed,

the other-naked, asleep, dreaming-it is impos

awake, knowing-to
sible to know whether we are awake or asleep, dreaming or knowing,
dressed or naked. Our possibility of deciding is suspended, and this is the
state inwhich the"I" finds itselfat thebeginning of theSecond Meditation:
"I feel as ifIwere suddenly thrown intodeep water, being so disconcerted
thatI can neitherplantmy feeton thebottom nor swim on the surface." This

suspension is, of course, the crossing up of the hyperbolic doubt-a

radical, metaphysical doubt made possible by the supposition of the
mauvais genie who, no matter how hyperbolic thedoubt his ruses make

possible, is nevertheless recovered (dialectically) forknowledge and for

the tropological system of the Cogito argument by being taken as the
it is what the text arranges only in order to
negation of knowing-and
recover from it.The suspension is itself suspended by theCogito. "I am
all of
convinced, I am deceived, I am dizzy, therefore I am"-because
these are under the governance of the "I think": "I think I am deceived,

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 28 Jul 2015 18:07:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Spectre Shapes 97
therefore I am." In otherwords, the vertigo of the language of the senses
and imagination-the illusions, delusions, and aberrations of tropological
transfersand substitutions-is not only no threatto thecertaintyand truth

of theCogito but also is thevery guarantee of thatcertaintyand truth.The

greater thedoubt, themore absolute thedoubt, then themore absolute the
one certain thing that is left over after the doubt has been taken into

consideration. Again, this is all too familiar, I am certain, and what it

amounts to rhetorically speaking is a philosophical textwhose logic and
grammar would eat up, as itwere, its rhetoric-an argument that uses
tropes and figures only touse themup all thebetter, towear themaway and
wear themdown according to the rule of theoldest metaphor ofmetaphor
in the book of philosophy: usure-a
process of regular loss (of the

sensuous and corporeal, say) and gain (of themental and spiritual, say) that
is thephilosopheme of discourses on metaphor.6 In short, like all philo
sophical texts, theMeditations would be just one more text of "white

mythology" in which the bodies, colors, and flowers of rhetoric are

submitted to the rigors of a stiffening,fading, and cooling machine of
analysis that spirits themaway. It's what happens to figures in the textof
philosophy, and it is what should happen in the case of thewax-for
example.

For the example of the piece of wax is not only the example of the
corporeal in the text of philosophy, but it is also the example of the
"corporeal" of the textof philosophy. That is, it is an example of what
happens to example-to
figures, tropes, rhetoric-in the textof philoso
too
if
And
it
is
all
clear
and too familiarwhat happens to the vivid
phy.
sensuous corporeality of thewax-"This
bit of wax which has just been
taken from the hive" and that"has not yet completely lost the sweetness

of the honey itcontained" and "still retains something of theodor of two

flowers fromwhich itwas collected" and whose "color, shape, and size are
apparent; itcan easily be touched; and, ifyou knock on it, itwill give out
some sound .. ."-namely, its reduction to the truthand certainty of the

Cogito, it is perhaps less clear what happens to theexample of thewax, the

example of what happens to example-the
example, in short (and as
this text of firstphilosophy. For whereas the
always), of example-in
analysis of thewax as a figure of the corporeal in the text leaves no
remainder, no residue, no left-overs-except for theone, first,thing that
thinks, theCogito-the analysis of thewax as a figureof thecorporeal of
the text-again, of what happens to the figures of rhetoric in the philo
sophical text-leaves

a remainder or, better, remainders thatare not just

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 28 Jul 2015 18:07:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

98 AndrzejWarminski
one and not just firstand not reducible to just theCogito. Rhetorically
speaking-as distinguished from,say, "logically speaking"-left over are
the hats and cloaks thatmay cover ghosts or automatons, spectres or
feignedmen. But how can we say this-especially afterwe have already
said and insisted thatthe figuresof ghosts and automatons are not only no
threatto theCogito argument but also corroborate it?Once again, let's not

hurry: in this case, let's not hurry to conclude that the figure of the
garments, the hats and cloaks thatmay cover ghosts or automatons, is a
figure or isjust a figure. It ismore (or less?) than just a figure in the same
way thattheexample of thewax isnot just an example of thewaxbut also
example of ex
always, already, supplementarily (en suppliment)-an

ample. This is true, firstof all, on a purely formal or even thematic level
in that the figure of thehats and cloaks means quite explicitly to illustrate
how it is that I say I see the self-same wax after ithas undergone all kinds

of transformationswhen, in reality, Ijudge by the pure inspection of the

mind that it is the self-same wax. As such, a figure that is added on to the
analysis of the figureof thewax, the figureof hats and cloaks is explicitly
a figure of figure. And Descartes deems this (supplementary) figure
necessary because even after the analysis of thewax I am still apt to fall
into error:
For even though I consider all this inmy mind [apudme]
without speaking, still words impede me, and I am
nearly deceived by the termsof ordinary language. For
we say thatwe see the same wax if it is present, and not

thatwe judge that it is the same from the fact that ithas
the same color or shape. Thus Imight be tempted to
conclude thatone knows thewax bymeans of eyesight,

and not uniquely by the inspection of themind. So Imay

by chance look out of a window and notice some men

passing in the street,at the sightofwhom I do not fail to

say I seemen, just as I say that I see wax; and neverthe
less what do I see from thiswindow except hats and
cloaks which might cover ghosts or automatons which
move only by springs?But Ijudge thattheyaremen, and

of judgment
thusI comprehend,
solelyby thefaculty

which resides inmy mind, thatwhich I believed I saw

with my eyes.

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 28 Jul 2015 18:07:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Spectre Shapes 99
In otherwords, the figureof hats and cloaks is introducedbecause ordinary
language-the language of the senses and of the imaginationwhich, here,
is clearly identified as figurative language (that is, saying thatone sees is

really only a figure for saying thatone judges by thepure inspection of the
mind)-because
ordinary language still leads us astray, into error (and
hencemay be what is responsible for themind's penchant forvagabondage,
wandering, erring-the reason Descartes has given it the freest rein by
introducing the example of thewax, but only inorder to pull itup so that
"it may themore easily be regulated and controlled"). But rather than
settling thematter once and for all, and ending themind's penchant for
aberration and error, this figure (of figure)-which also amounts to an

erring (of erring)-leaves a residue and an excess, a remainder of figure

(and hence of errance). How so?
The figure of hats and cloaks remains, and will not be reduced to the
logic of theCogito argument, because, firstof all (and stillquite schemati
cally), it asymmetricalizes the tropological system of symmetrical ex
changes and substitutions that the first twoMeditations have set up. The
figure of hats and cloaks possibly, always possibly, let us add, covering

ghosts or automatons is asymmetrical to the (ultimately recoverable) play

of chiasmic reversals between naked and dressed because it is theexample
not of someone, some I,who thinkshe (or she) isdressed but isdeceived
or, vice versa, thinkshe (or she)* is naked but isdeceived, etc. Rather this
example introduces thepossibility-and, as always a possibility, it is also
the necessary condition-of someone, some I,who is deceived not just
about being dressed or naked but about being someone or some I. That is,
I can think that I can be either naked or dressed-and
I can be deceived
*
I
What about those little
parenthetical "(orshe)"-'s? Why do have the
a
"I"
could
be
the
Meditations
not
that
of
the
"she"
without
feeling
inflecting
or deflecting the rhetoricalfigureof dressing/undressing ina significantly
different
way? That's not altogethera rhetoricalquestion, although Iadmit
that I have a fewnotions about thepossible answers. Theymight have
something todo, forexample, with thediscourse on whetheror notone can
even imaginesuch a thingas a femininesoul and thuswhethera woman's
body can be made available forthesame rhetoricaloperations of analogy
you have described. And forthesame or a similarreason, theundressed
femininebody isundecidablymore and less than thehouse of thesoul, the
covering fortruth.Itis theveiled or dressed body ofwoman thatfigures,in
a certain rhetoricalbut also metaphysical tradition,the truth.Iknow thisis
very thoroughly
explored ground elsewhere, and I'mcertainlynotpresum
ing to remindyou of what you know better than I.But Iwas wondering

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 28 Jul 2015 18:07:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

100 AndrzejWarminski
about
dressed

naked or
(believing to be

being

dressed when I am naked,

believing tobe naked when
I am dressed, etc.)-but I
cannot (just) think that I
am not there as an I and
still be dressed or naked.
Again, better, I can think
that I am either dressed or
naked, but I cannot think
me, an I, as at the same
time something radically
differentfromanI-aghost
or a machine-and
yet naor
ked or dressed: in short,
both an I and something
different from, other than,
an I, simultaneously, at the
same time and in the same
place, wearing thesame hat

whethera rhetoricalanalysis of theCogito

can take these other, not strictlyor not
simplyrhetoricalpoints intoaccount with
out gettingoff its track,or ratherwhether
gettingoffthe trackis thenecessary fate
and chance-of a rhetoricalreading? Is
therenota kindofassymetryhere-that of
sexual difference-which thesymmetrical
operationof theanalogy, includingeventu
ally, in theThirdMeditation, theanalogy or
resemblance between God and the "/,"
triestokeep atbayjustasittries tokeep the
logicalCogito safe fromits rhetoricalgar
ments? What would happen if,instead of
just automatons or ghosts, Descartes had
mentioned a thirdpossible error: that the
clothes-cloak and hat-might disguise a
woman ratherthana man? Is thispossibil
ityforaberrationless ormore disruptiveof
symmetrythan theotherones mentioned?
Less ormore disruptiveforDescartes'logi
cal argumentand foryour rhetoricalread
ing?The latterarenot rhetoricalquestions.

dntko
and the same coat. The
mauvais genie may indeed
to make me
not be to
able
all
ariculae
thenatur
caefull-an ots et
ofotiealine
believe that I am nothing as long as I think that I am something-i.e., as
eor:
athr
a stillthanbl
"nate and
can
s aquetio
I think
trickier
all-but the text,
deceiver,
anything atofartcultion
long as becuseit

nornothing(andyet
inscribethepossibilitythatI am neithersomething
of
"contituion",
ofartiulai
anofs
orabertin(nls
mo-rirupti
of theCogito.Thisghost-or
fortheveryself-identity
both)inthefigure
coeriong
joining.
Tht i,agin,theyiguetr
fhaand
leoher ossil
of theCogito, the text,would be the real evil genius:
automatic-writer
one who does notmake you thinkthatyou are either something or nothing

but rathermakes you write or read yourself, the text,as something else.

and tooschematic-toformu
Thatwouldbe oneway-still preliminary
ofhatsandcloaksexceedsthetropological
latethesenseinwhichthefigure
sstem

of symmetrical exshange

(between nake

an
d

d
dress,

for

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 28 Jul 2015 18:07:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Spectre Shapes

101

ghosts or automatons is in itself or by itself-i.e., as figure-not what

disarticulates the tropological system of theCogito argument and "opens
itup" radically to an endless erring or errance, to the endless, mechanical

reproduction of figures of figure.No, if this "figure," which is simulta

neously "other-than-figure," can make a difference to the argument, to
thinking,to theCogito, it is on account of thedifference it introduces into
the fundamental analogy thatprograms the tropological systemof the text:
namely, theanalogy garments are to body as body is to soul,which yields
such common metaphors as "the body is thegarment of the soul" (or,more

weird, "the garment is the body of the body"). The "figure" of hats and
cloaks possibly covering ghosts or automatons introducesadifference into
this programmatic analogy insofar as it introduces the ghosts or the
automatons in the "slot" occupied by thebody. On theone hand, this is of
course no threat to theCogito argument and its tropological system. In
comparison to the thinking soul or themind, thebody is a mere machine
and, in theorder of reasons, is as non-existent as a ghost (like thatof the
wax reduced to nothing ... nothing but theCogito). What could be more
consistent andmore Cartesian! But, on theother hand, the introductionof
theghosts or automatons in the slot of theanalogy occupied by thebody
as in garments are tobody, which would now read garments are toghost
or automaton-disrupts themetaphor and theCogito and ismost un- or
other-than-Cartesian.

For

the ghosts

or automatons

can now

be

the figure

of, for example, a mechanical or a ghostly soul or spirit, theCogito as a

mechanical ghost. And, as always, there is now nothing to stop us from
taking themind or soul or spiritas the figure for a spiritualmachine or a
ghost that is still all too bodily or toomechanical because itcan stillwear
a coat and a hat.And there is nothing tobe done about it,no way to rid the
text of these ghastly-ghostly,mechanical figures for theCogito. For as
soon as you introduce figures, as soon as you figure the spiritual by the
sensuous, i.e., give ita body, you also necessarily introduce thepossibility
thatthe spiritor the soul or themind may also be all too sensuous or bodily

ormechanical and, on theother hand, that thebody may, as itwere, have

itsown reasons,may be all too spiritual. In short,as soon as you construct
a house of tropes, you necessarily introduce not only figures for the
literal-like thebody in the relation body-is-to-soul-but also figures for
figure-like thebody ingannents-are-to-body. It is thisnecessity that the
ghosts and automatons wearing hats and cloaks rendervisible-or, better,
readable-in
the textofDescartes. His house of tropes contains not only
garments of bodies or bodies of souls but also garments of garments,

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 28 Jul 2015 18:07:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

102 AndrzejWarminski
soulful bodies or bodily souls, thinkingbodies or bodily thoughts. It is a
haunted house full of ghosts, automatons, zombies. That's what the
"figure" of hats and cloaks covering ghosts or automatons makes possible
(and necessary)-or, again, readable-whereas,
say, a naked ghost or a
naked automaton would only confirm the tropological system by leaving
the spiritualand themind on theone side and themechanical and thebodily
on the other. (As in the case ofWordsworth's drowned man, it's only a

machine or a corpse with clothes thatwill hurtyou-for it introduces the

possibility that the soul too can die, be a dead soul, and yet live on like a
ghost wearing clothes.7) In otherwords and again, it's not so much what
ghosts or naked automatons-that
disarticulates the tropological system but rather the very possibility of
ghosts and automatons wearing clothes. For it is theirgarments thatrender
their constitution, i.e., their essence (and even their existence), less
is under the hats and cloaks-naked

important than their function as place-holders, stand-ins,mannikins, not

just for human bodies but for "human" souls, "human" minds, and
"human" thoughts.Their garments render the ghosts or automatons not
just carriers of meaning but "syntactical plugs," place-holders in or
markers of an order thatmake meaning possible but thatare themselves not
necessarily meaningful. As Wordsworth well knew, words thatare to the

thoughts they express not like thebody is to the soul but rather likewhat
the garments are to the body-such words kill, they kill thoughts, they
make itpossible for themind to die and for the spirit to be dead spirit. I
quote from the thirdof theEssays upon Epitaphs:
Ifwords be not [recurringto ametaphor before used] an
incarnation of the thoughtbut only a clothing for it,then
surely will they prove an ill gift; such a one as those

poisoned vestments, read of in the stories of supersti

tious times,which had the power to consume and to
mind thevictimwho put themon.
alienate fromhis right

Language, if itdo not uphold, and feed, and leave in

quiet, like thepower of gravitation or theairwe breathe,
is a counter-spirit, unremittingly and noiselessly at
work toderange, to subvert, to laywaste, tovitiate, and
to dissolve.8
Even without really beginning to read this rich passage, one can still see
quite clearly how it is thatwords, garment-words, kill thoughts: if thought

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 28 Jul 2015 18:07:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Spectre Shapes

103

is like thebody in relation to thegarments (and not like the soul is to the
body), then thought isbeing analogized to thebody, to something corpo
real andmortal. If thoughtsare like thebody, then thoughtscan die. In the
analogy, garments are to body as words are to thoughts, something
spiritual and presumably immortal-thoughts-is
being analogized to
therefore the analogy
something corporeal and mortal-the body-and
opens up thepossibility of figuresof figure thatdis-figure and disarticulate
the tropological system based on the "garments are tobody as body is to
soul" analogy: figures/other-than-figureslike spiritual, immortal corpses
or bodily thoughts and dead spirits.This happens-and has to happen
as soon as thereare physical, carnal, corporeal figures for the spiritual and

intelligible. And therealways are such figures-for, without them, there

is neither thoughtnor spirit.As soon as the firstincarnate thoughtappears,
thereappears along with it (parasitically, supplementarily, etc.) a thought
dressed up inhat and coat-like a ghost or an automaton. Indeed, itwould
be more correct to say that the "first" incarnate thoughtdoes not, and
cannot, appear "in the firstplace" without at the same (divided) time
appearing as a thoughtwearing clothes. Rhetorically speaking, there isno

difference between words as the bodies of thought and words as the

garments of thought.9
But let us not end there-with the dead spirit or themechanical
Cogito. Let us rathergo back to thebody ofDescartes' naked wax. For if
our no doubt overhasty attempt to read theway inwhich the figures/other
than-figures of hats and cloaks possibly covering ghosts or automatons
introduces, or leaves, a remainder-an indigestible left-over,as Derrida
might say inhis seminar on "Eating theOther"-10in (and "outside" of) the
tropological system of theCogito argument is, if not "correct," not just
"wrong," thenthisreading cannot help but have implications forDescartes'
analysis (by striptease 1) of thewax. A good way to re-articulate this

remainder, or, better, the remaindering-the restance-of the textof the

Cogito isby way ofGassendi's objections to theanalysis of thewax in the
Fifth Objections. Although on the one hand Gassendi does not really

understand the logic of Descartes' Cogito argument (and its radicality)

very well, nevertheless, on the other hand, he reads the rhetoric of
Descartes' textall toowell-at
least all toowell for thegood of theCogito.
In so doing, Gassendi' s reading also makes itpossible forus tounderstand
a bit better thenecessity of such reading--why itdoes and has tohappen
whether itbe a reading of Descartes' textbyGassendi's or Descartes' by
Descartes. Gassendi's misunderstanding requires littlecomment: hewould

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 28 Jul 2015 18:07:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

104 AndrzejWarminski

persist in thinkingof Descartes' analysis of thepiece of wax in the terms

ofmedieval, scholastic philosophy-as
thoughwhat Descartes had done
were to "abstract theconcept of thewax from theconcept of itsaccidents."
As Descartes writes in his rather curt reply:

Here, as frequently elsewhere, you merely show that

you do not have an adequate understanding ofwhat you
are tryingto criticize. I did not abstract the concept of
the wax from the concept of its accidents. Rather, I
wanted to show how the substance of thewax is re
vealed bymeans of its accidents, and how a reflective

and distinct perception of it (the kind of perception

which you, 0 Flesh, seem never to have had) differs
from the ordinary confused perception.12
But getting theargumentwrong nevertheless putsGassendi on the trackof
Descartes' figures, inparticular thatof thedressed and thennaked wax. He
begins by putting the question in terms of accident and substance or
subject:
Besides thecolor, the shape, the fact that itcanmelt, etc.
we conceive thatthere is somethingwhich is the subject
of the accidents and changes we observe; but what this

subject is, or what its nature is,we do not know. This

always eludes us; and it is only a kind of conjecture that
leads us to think that theremust be something under

neath the accidents.

In calling what we do when we are led to think that theremust be

"something underneath the accidents" a "conjecture," Gassendi's objec
tion is already shading intoa reading ofDescartes' rhetoric-for "conjec
ture," from con- plus iacere, is, after all, virtually a Latin transcriptionof
theGreek symbol, from sym-plus ballein, to throw together-suggesting
thatwhat we do when we thus conjecture is not to judge by the pure
inspection of themind but to read a symbol. And his reference to the
"something underneath the accidents" necessarily

leads him to read

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 28 Jul 2015 18:07:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Spectre Shapes
Descartes'

105

figure of garments: "So I am amazed," he continues,

... at how you can say thatonce the forms have been
stripped off like clothes, you perceive more perfectly
and evidently what thewax is. Admittedly, you per

ceive that thewax or its substance must be something

over and above such forms; but what this something is
you do not perceive, unless you aremisleading us. For
this "something" is not revealed to you in theway in
which a man can be revealed when, after firstof all
seeing just his hat and garments, we then remove the
clothes so as to find out who and what he is.
Although Gassendi's objection as objection again misses Descartes'
point-in this case, thatDescartes at thispoint in theorder of reasons did
not at all mean todiscuss what the"something" of thewax is-his reading
of the figureof garments ison themark, forwhat itamounts to ishis noting
analogy between dressed wax and dressed men on theone
hand, and naked wax and naked men on theother, breaks down. This is as
clear as could be: when we strip themen of theirclothing, presumably we
thatDescartes'

see thebodies ofmen; whereas when we strip thewax of itsgarments,we

see

... what?

Certainly

not

the "body"

of

the wax,

for the garments

we

have stripped itofwere itsbody. And certainly not the "soul" of thewax,
since that,whatever itmay be, is not visible in theway that thebodies of
men are visible. How can you, then,0 Mind, say thatyou perceive thewax

more perfectly after ithas been strippedof itsgarments? The naked wax
or, as Gassendi puts it later in thisobjection, "the alleged naked, or rather
hidden" wax-is precisely not like thebody underneath thegarments. It is
like thebody only insofar as thebody is like the soul ormind-i.e., only

within the tropological systemof theanalogy garments are tobody as body

is to soul. In short,and again, the analogy breaks down. Although, on the
level of the argument,Descartes could quite easily reply that thebreak
down of theanalogy was precisely his point-namely, thatthe soul ormind

more troublereplyingto
is not like thebody-he would have a little

s reading of his figures.For thisreading leaves Descartes' naked

theCogito thatthewax is reduced toand a figurefor-with only
two ratherbleak choices. On the one hand, Descartes can tell us how it is
thathe perceives thewax betterafter itsgarments have been strippedaway.
But there is no way for him to do so-to say anything at all about soul,

Gassendi'
wax-and

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 28 Jul 2015 18:07:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

106 AndrzejWarminski
spirit,mind, thought-without employing the language of the senses and
the imagination, the language of figures,and therebywithoutcorporealizing
the naked wax, without saying that it is indeed like the body. Gassendi

continues:

Moreover, when you thinkyou somehow perceive this

underlying "something," how, may I ask, do you do so?
Do you not perceive it as something spread out and
extended? For you do not conceive of it as a point,
although it is thekind of thingwhose extension expands
and contracts. And since thiskind of extension is not

infinitebut has limits,do you not conceive of the thing

as having some kind of shape [ne la concevez-vous pas
aussi en quelquefagonfigurie]? And when you seem as
itwere to see it,do you not attach to itsome sortof color,
albeit not a distinct one? You certainly take it to be
somethingmore solid, and somore visible, thana mere
void. Hence even your "understanding" turnsout tobe
some sort of imagination.

That would be theone hand: as soon as you say anything,you turnsoul into
body and contaminate thoughtwith imagination. On the other hand,
Descartes can not tell us how it is thathe perceives thewax better after its
garments have been stripped away. He can, in otherwords, keep insisting
thatthenaked wax isnot like thebody at all, thatwhat is leftisonly the soul
or spiritormind strippedof thebody, etc. But thenhe can have nothing at
all to say about it,forhe therebyrenders his wax notmore naked butmore
hidden. Gassendi continues: "If you say you conceive of thewax apart
from any extension, shape (sans figure) or color, then you must in all

honesty telluswhat sortof conception you do have of it."These are the two
possibilities-the only two possibilities once you dress thewax in cloth
ing-and it ismost fitting that they are very precisely and very neatly
inscribed inDescartes' own text in theuncanny figures of hats and cloaks
thatmay cover ghosts or automatons. The latter-the "automatons" or
"feigned men" (as theFrench translationputs it)-is a figure for the all
too-mechanical and all-too-corporeal Cogito thatalways gets produced as

soon as you dress it in garments and then strip itnaked. The former-the
"ghosts" or "spectres" (which are not there in theLatin but are something
found, as itwere, in theFrench translation "authorized" byDescartes)

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 28 Jul 2015 18:07:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Spectre Shapes

107

is a figure for the all-too-ghostly and all-too-spectral Cogito thatalways

gets produced when you say that it is not a body and not like a body and
yet nevertheless insist that itcan wear garments and be stripped naked. In

theone case, you have toomuch to say and theCogito is too bodily; in the
other, you have nothing to say and theCogito is too ghostly. In both cases,
itbecomes a figment (a figure,a fiction) of your imagination.And, inany
case,

it's always

too much,

in excess,

a remainder.

In his own reading of the figureof hats and cloaks, Gassendi may be
an erratic thinker,but, again, he is aquite consistentrhetorical reader.Once
he has picked up the scent of the imagination and its too-corporeal
figures-no doubt by sniffingat thegarments of the fugitiveCogito-he
hunts itdown to its lair:
What you have to say about "men whom we see, or
perceive with themind, when we make out only their
hats or cloaks" does not show that it is themind rather
than the imagination thatmakes judgments. A dog,
which you will not allow topossess a mind like yours,
certainlymakes a similar kind of judgment when itsees
not itsmaster but simply his hat or clothes. Indeed, even
if themaster is standing or sitting or lying down or

reclining or crouching down or stretched out, thedog

still always recognizes themaster who can exist under
all these forms, even though like thewax, he does not

keep the same proportions or always appear under one

form rather thananother.And when a dog chases a hare
that is running away, and sees it firstintact, thendead,
and afterwards skinned and chopped up, do you suppose
thathe does not think it is the same hare?When you go
on to say that theperception of color and hardness and

so on is "not vision or touch but is purely mental

scrutiny," I accept this,provided themind is not taken
to be really distinct from the imaginative faculty.

Much-too
much-is
going on here. The dog whom Descartes will
not allow to possess a mind like his, the dog incapable of theCogito, is

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 28 Jul 2015 18:07:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

108 AndrzejWarminski
nevertheless able toperform a process of analysis likeDescartes' analysis
of thewax ormake a judgment likewe do when we look out thewindow

passage also captures some of theviolence

implied but muted in Descartes' Cogito argument and its process of
analysis and judgmentwhich always entails thedis-figuration or disfigure
ment of figure-like thepiece ofwax looked at, touched, licked, smelled,
at hats and cloaks. Gassendi's

knocked on, and thenbrought close to the firewhose heat is then turnedup.
The dog who dutifully recognizes his master under myriad forms and
underneath many costumes is also a dog thatmay not recognize the

master and thehare he hunts down and kills, seeing

difference between that
it firstintact, thendead.13 Such a dog clearly thinks toomuch and too little

taste. Justgive him a hat or a cloak, any piece of clothing,

to sniffon, he will always findhis prey, and bring itback-if not dead or
alive, thanas a ghost or an automaton. It isno wonder, then,thatinhis reply
Descartes is especially hard on this hunting-or reading--dog:
forDescartes'

I do not see what argument you are relying on when you

lay itdown as certain thata dog makes discriminating
judgments in the same way as we do. Seeing thata dog

is made of flesh you perhaps think that everything

which is in you also exists in thedog. But I observe no
mind at all in thedog, and hence believe there is nothing
tobe found inadog thatresembles the things I recognize
in a mind.

The dog is all flesh-just as Gassendi is all Flesh when his thinking
is so dogged-and Descartes will allow neither topossess a mind like his
own. But even thoughDescartes would seem tobe able to ridhis language

of flesh easily enough-both dog-flesh and Gassendi, whom Descartes

addresses in his reply as "0 Flesh!" (0 caro! 0 chair!) in retaliation for
Gassendi's
(0 anima! 0
having addressed Descartes as "0 Mind!"
ame!)-he would have a littlemore trouble stripping itof garments, hats
and cloaks, the colors and figuresof rhetoric thatmake such an exchange

the tropological system of

of compliments-0
Flesh!/O Mind!-and
metaphorical exchange between body and soul possible in the firstplace.
Here Descartes sees, thinks,reads and writes, clearly. Reading Gassendi,
he writes: "Then you begin with apleasantenough figureof rhetoric,called
prosopopoeia, toquestion me no longer as a whole man but as amind [or
soull separated from thebody .. ."In otherwords, when Gassendi objects

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 28 Jul 2015 18:07:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Spectre Shapes

109

"O Mind!" and Descartes replies "O Flesh!," theirdouble address ismade
possible (and impossible) by a third,still other address-that of a 'figure
de rhitorique assez agriable," prosopopoeia-which
always, relent

lessly, noiselessly, undecidably, reads and writes along with them: "O
Garments!" (O vestes! O vitements!). It is this third,other, address that
makes itpossible togive a face or a mask, a face and/or (undecidably) a
mask, both to themind and to thebody, and makes it impossible ever to
know what will be leftover once it-face or mask?-is
stripped away.14
The "O" of "O Garments!" articulates and dis-articulates, joints and dis
joints, the "O" of "O Mind!" and the"O" of "O Flesh!" It rewrites and re
reads theirdouble "O!"/"O!" as "Uh, oh!"15

The Editors thankPeggy Kamuf forpermission toprintpart of her formal

response to thisessay.
1

This paper was firstdelivered at the 1990IAPL conference in Irvine

at a session organized byGeorges Van Den Abbeele and entitled "The
Body ofDescartes?" My thanks toGeorges and toPeggy Kamuf for
helpful and enjoyable discussion of Descartes

and others on that

occasion.

3
4

All quotations inEnglish from the second Meditation are from: Ren?
Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, trans.Laurence J.Lafleur
(New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1960).Where necessary, I have corrected
the translation slightly. Quotations of or references to theLatin and
French are from Volume II of: Descartes, Oeuvres philosophiques,
ed. Ferdinand Alqui? (Paris: Gamier, 1967).
See Part V of theDiscourse onMethod.

Martial Gueroult, Descartes' Philosophy Interpreted According to

theOrder of Reasons, Volume I "The Soul and God," trans.Roger
Ariew (Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press, 1984), 97.
Or, as Kevin Newmark has pointed out tome, theyat least seem tobe
symmetrical.Actually, thedream argument already crosses themup.
But in order to demonstrate this, it is necessary to read dream as

radically rhetorical "representation" and not as sensuous image (still

within the tropological system of exchange between sensuous and
intelligible). In other words, my reading of hats and cloaks in this
paper could be read back into the dream argument. On a related

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 28 Jul 2015 18:07:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

110 AndrzejWarminski
question, see Kevin Newmark's reading of Schein in "Nietzsche,
Deconstruction, History," Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal

15:2(1991).

The locus classicus of thisquestion is, of course, Jacques Derrida's

"La mythologie blanche" inMarges (Paris: Minuit, 1972), but see
also his "La langue et le discours de lam?thode," Recherches sur la
philosophie et le langage 3 (1983), 35-51. Also instructive and

therapeutic in this regard is Paul de Man's essay on Nietzsche,

"Rhetoric of Tropes," In Allegories of Reading (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1979). See also my "Prefatory Postscript" inRead
ings in Interpretation: H?lderlin, Hegel, Heidegger (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1987) and "Towards a Fabulous
Reading: Nietzsche's On Truth and Lie in theExtra-moral Sense,'"
7

8
9

Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 15:2 (1991), 93-120.

See my "Facing Language: Wordsworth's First Poetic Spirits," Di
acritics 17:4 (Winter 1987), 18-31. Reprinted inRomantic Revolu
tions, ed. Kenneth Johnstonet. al. (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1990).
W.J.B. Owen, ed., Wordsworth's Literary Criticism (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974), 154.
In his fine essay on de Man's "Autobiography as De-facement,"

Hans-Jost Frey seems tomiss this as the point of de Man's reading.

See Hans-Jost Frey, "Undecidability," in Yale French Studies 69

(1985).

10 Presented at theUniversity of California, Irvine (Spring 1990 and

1991).
11 For a different, though related, reading ofDescartes' figures in other
texts, see Ralph Flores, "Cartesian Striptease" in his The Rhetoric of
Doubtful Authority: Deconstructive Readings of Self-questioning
Narratives, St. Augustine to Faulkner (Ithaca: Cornell University

12

Press, 1984).
I quote the exchange between Gassendi

and Descartes

in the Fifth

Objectionsand FifthReplies from thehandyselectionsin John

Cottingham's translation of theMeditations on First Philosophy

(London: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 76-7.
13 The point is not just the contingent possibility that the dog may
confuse themaster and thehare but rather the (tropological) necessity
of his "turningon" themaster. In brief, the"master" tobemaster needs
to figure himself in trope, that is, he needs to perform the same

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 28 Jul 2015 18:07:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Spectre Shapes

111

Operation of (self^identification as thedog's identifyingthehare. But

indoing so, themaster enters a tropological systemwhich opens up,
which can't be closed off?and which creates figures of figure (and
not just figures for a self-same self) and therebydismembers him,

turns him into not just dog but also hare, not just master but also
victim, prey.
14 In otherwords, "0 garments !"would be a "third thing,"asymmetrical
to thebody/mind opposition and yet thatwhich makes thisopposition
possible: that is,makes itpossible tofigure soul, spirit,mind, in the
firstplace.
15 What we have done here is a reading of one linguistic, textual,model
of theCogito (and itsundoing): what could be called the tropological
"model." The full-lengthversion of thispaper will go on to two other
linguistic, textual, "models" of theCogito: "performative" and "in

scriptional." The "performative"model is presentedmost rigorously

in a famous essay by JaakkoHintikka, "Cogito, Ergo Sum: Inference
or Performance?," in Descartes, ed. Willis Doney (Notre Dame:
University ofNotre Dame Press, 1968), 108-39. It can be shown that:

of the Cogito relapses into

trueand false as soon as it is
of
cognitive, epistemological questions
set up; 2) insofar as Hintikka's argument ultimately depends on what
Iwould call a "determinately negative" relation between the speech
act's "I don't exist" not coming off and its negation's ("I exist")
coming off, itdepends on something that a strictdefinition of the
performative (as speech act) prohibits. Another linguistic "model" of
theCogito that remains to be read?and that I would call "inscrip
1) Hintikka's

"performative" model

be theCogito as zero: that is, in its radicality?? la

limite?the "principle" of theCogito needs no other determinations
except that it be first?and utterly heterogeneous to the order of
reasons like the zero is heterogeneous to theorder of number. But, at
the same time,Descartes needs theprinciple of theCogito tobe "first"
in theway that thenumber one isfirst?that is, homogeneous enough
tional"?would

to the order of reasons thatat least one other certain knowledge can
follow from it inorder (e.g., "Sum res cogitans"). In short, in order to

be as hyperbolically, metaphysically, radical as Descartes needs it to

be, theCogito has tobe a zero; but inorder foranything at all to follow
in order from thisfirstprinciple, theCogito has tobe a one: simulta
neously zero and one, irreducibly and incommensurably. Some help
fulpointers toward a reading of theCogito as zerowould be Derrida's

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 28 Jul 2015 18:07:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

112 AndrzejWarminski
in
comments at the end of "Cogito and theHistory of Madness,"
of
Bass
trans.
Alan
and
(Chicago: University
Writing
Difference,
a "point z?ro"?
Chicago Press, 1978) and his calling the Cogito
to
be
interned,domesticated,
utterly,hyperbolically mad?that needs
reinscribed, in thenarrative of theorder of reasons. De Man's reading
of the zero in "Pascal's Allegory of Persuasion," inAllegory and
Representation, ed. Stephen Greenblatt (Baltimore: JohnsHopkins
University Press, 1981) and his remark that"allegory (as sequential
narration) is the trope of irony (as theone is the tropeof zero)" would
be indispensable for such a reading of theCogito to come.

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 28 Jul 2015 18:07:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions