SYSTEM AND STRUCTURE Essays in Communication and Exchange Second Edition ANTHONY WILDEN
Contents PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Introduction (1980): The Scientific Discourse: Knowledge as a Commodity page xiii XVI xvii XVIII I II The Symbolic, the Imaginary, and the Real: Lacan, Levi-Strauss, and Freud 1 Metaphor and Metonymy: Freud's Semiotic Model of Condensation and Displacement 31 1 The Two Theories 0/Symbolism in Psychoanalysis 31 2 Overdetermination and Equifinality: Relations betueen Relations 34 3 The Freudian Points 0/ View 40 4 Cathexis and Intentionality 41 5 The Semiotic-Grammatic Metaphor 43 6 Condensation and Displacement 46 7 Metaphor and Met01lymy 47 8 The Repression 0/the Signifier 50 9 Manzanita Wood 56 10 Postscript 60 III IV Death, Desire, and Repetition: Commentary on Svevo's Confessions 0/Zeno Montaigne on the Paradoxes of Individualism: A Communication about Communication 1 The Ideology 0/the Self 2 Levels and Mirtors 63 88 88 93
viii : CONTENTS 3 The Communicational Model 4 Bildung and Entäusserung 5 The Paradoxes of Existence 6 Know Thyself 7 Pathological Communication page 95 100 103 105 107 V VI The Double Bind: Schizophrenia and Gödel 1 Closure and Context 2 Logical Conditions for the Double Bind 3 Real Conditions 4 The Paradox of Paradox Beyond the Entropy Principle in Freud 1 Introduction: The Biomechanistic View 2 Cybernetic Explanation 3 Critique of the Energy Model 4 Homeostasis and Repetition 5 Energy and Information 6 Secondary Process and Signijication 7 The Fort! Da! of Beyond the Pleasure Principle 8 Verneinung and Verleugnung 110 110 117 119 122 125 125 131 132 138 141 146 147 152 VII Analog and Digital Communication: On Negation, Signification, and Meaning 155 1 The Analog Computer 155 2 The Digital Computer 156 3 The Computer and the Brain: Boundaries and ~~ 1~ 4 Distinctions in Logical Form 161 5 Distinctions in Function 164 6 Difference, Distinction, and Opposition 168 7 Logical Typing 170 8 Play 172 9 Digitalization and Decision: The Nerve Axon 174 10 Zero and Not 178 11 Some Guiding Principles 188 Appendix I: A Table of Relations 191 Appendix 11: Analog and Digital, by Vincent Hollier 196
VIII IX X Epistemology and Ecology: The Difference that Makes the Difference 1 Some Tentative Axioms 2 The Counter-adaptive Results of Adaptive Change 3 Positive Feedback 4 The Paranoia of Symmetry 5 Cogito ergo sum 6 The Biasodal Unit ofsurvival 7 Dialectics and Schismogeneris 8 Better Dead than Red CONTENTS 1X page 202 202 205 207 210 212 217 225 227 Nature and Culture: The Emergence of Symbolic and Imaginary Exchange 230 1 Grammar and Gödel 230 2 Information, Meaning, and Redundancy 233 3 Structure and Infrastructure: The Questicm of the Unconscious 236 4 Leoi-Strauss and Systems Theory 239 5 The Symbolic Function 241 6 Nature and Culture: Anthropology 245 7 Nature and Culture: Zoology 250 8 Nature and Culture: Economic Exchange Theory 251 9 Recapitulation: Symbolic Exchange 255 10 The Imaginary other in Relation to the Other 260 11 The Problem ofinterorganismic Authority 261 12 The Symbolic and the Veil of Maia 264 13 C. S. Peirce on Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness 265 14 Nature and Culture: The Phallus in Exchange 268 15 Nature and Culture: Primary Process and Secondary Process 269 16 Summary: Use Value and Exchange Value 272 Appendix: The Logical Typing of the Symbolic, the lmaginary, and the Real, by Gerald Hall 274 Critique of Phallocentrism: Daniel Pau1 Sehreber on Women's Liberation 278 1 Therapy and Ithology 278 2 Lacan's Theory of the Name-of-the-Father 281
x. CONTENTS 3 The Phallus as the Instrument ofexploitation 4 Repressed Homosexuality and Paranoia 5 Schreber's Desire to be Unmanned 6 Sehreber as a Social Philosopher page 283 289 291 295 XI The Structure as Law and Order: Piaget's Genetic Structuralism 1 The Representatioe Metaphor 2 Piaget' s Review of Structural Theories 3 Piaget's Conceptum of Structure 4 A Note on Multifinality 5 Piaget' s Atomistic Rationalism 6 The Confusion Between Development and Evolution 7 Natura non facit saltum 8 Structuralism and Economics 9 Bioenergetics and Marxism 10 Games, Probahility, Diachronie Linguistics 11 Leoi-Strauss: One-dimensionality, Autonomy, Closure 12 Piaget and Gödel 13 The Structure as Law and Order 302 302 306 311 322 324 330 331 334 336 338 342 344 348 XII Ecosystem and Metasystem: A Morphogenie Model of Emergenee in Open Systems 351 1 Selection and Combination 351 2 System and Metasystem 353 3 Homeostasis, Homeorhesis, Homeogenesis, Morphegenesis 354 4 The System as an Ecosystem Subject to Non- Holonomic Constraints 355 5 The Closed and the Open System 356 6 Complexity and Teleonomy 361 7 Entropy and Injlexibility 364 8 Osciliation, Tension, Contradiction 367 9 The Morphostatic Model 368 10 The Survival ofthe Fittest 370 11 The Morphogenie Model 373 12 Evolution in the Arehaie System 377 13 Capital and Entropy 390
CONTENTS xi XIII XIV Order from Disorder: Noise, Trace, and Event in Evolution and in History page 395 1 The Writing Metaphor in Freud 395 2 Logocentrism and the Trace 396 3 Noise in Evolution 400 4 Noise in History 402 5 Hegel on Erinnerung 403 6 Redundant Synchrony and Permanent Evolution 406 The Scientific Discourse as Propaganda: The Binary Opposition 413 1 Epistemological Considerations 413 2 The International Unity of the Scientific Discourse 414 3 The Scientific Discourse as Propaganda 417 4 The Enemy Brothers 418 5 Philosophies of Opposition 420 6 A Note on Genetic Difference 424 7 Postscript 428 XV Language and Communication 430 1 The Goalseeking System and the Law of Absence 431 2 Communication and the Impossible Dialogue 432 3 Bioenergetic Thinking and Rationalism 433 4 Communication and Biology 437 5 Extension of the Critique 440 XVI XVII Linguistics and Semiotics: The Unconscious Structured like a Language 445 1 Preliminary Critique 445 2 The Unconscious and the Primary Process: The Urverdrängung 450 3 Freud's Two Languages 457 4 Linguists, Semiotics, Ideology 458 5 The Splitting of the Subject 460 The Ideology of Opposition and Identity: Critique of Lacan's Theory of the Mirror-stage in Childhood 462 1 Introduction 462 2 The Mirror-stage 463 3 Sartre's Transcendence of the Ego 465
xii CONTENTS 4 Being and Madness page 467 5 Death and Narcissism: The Solipsist and the Salauds 468 6 The Confusion ofthe Symbolic with the Real: Science and Theology 471 7 One Way Out 475 8 Master and Slave in Context 477 9 The Violence of the Reduetion of the Cultural to the Ontological 479 10 Summary oflacan's Position 483 11 The Ego's Attempts to Square the Circle 484 12 Phallocentrism in the Body-Image 485 13 Concluding Unscientijk Postscript 487 APPENDIX: ADDITIONAL NOTES (1980) 490 BIBLIOGRAPHY 523 ADDITIONAL REFERENCES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING (1980) 545 NAME INDEX 559 SUBJECT INDEX 565 NAME INDEX (ADDITIONS) 587 SUBJECT INDEX (ADDITIONS) 589