The Verge of Philosophy 9780226734279

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The Verge of Philosophy

The Verge of Philosophy

john sallis

The University of Chicago Press




Chicago and London

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
C 2008 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2008 Paperback edition 2009 Printed in the United States of America 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 2 3 4 5 6 isbn-13: 978-0-226-73430-9 (cloth) isbn-13: 978-0-226-73431-6 (paper) isbn-10: 0-226-73430-7 (cloth) isbn-10: 0-226-73431-5 (paper) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sallis, John, 1938– The verge of philosophy / John Sallis. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn-13: 978-0-226-73430-9 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn-10: 0-226-73430-7 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Philosophy. 2. Plato. I. Title. b53.s237 2008 190–dc22 2007014183 ∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1992.

In memory of Jacques Derrida

“. . .nous sommes aujourd’hui a` la veille de Platonisme.” « j a c q u e s d e r r i d a , “La Pharmacie de Platon” »

Contents Acknowledgments ix Exordium 1 1

Plato’s Other Beginning 11

2

The Place of the Good 29

3

Last Words: Generosity and Reserve 53

4

The Politics of Music 110

5

On the Verge 136 Index of Greek Words and Phrases 149 Index 151

Acknowledgments I am grateful for permission to use material that appeared in Heidegger and the Greeks, edited by Drew Hyland and John Manoussakis (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2006), pages 177–90; and material from my article “Last Words: Generosity and Reserve,” which appeared in Mosaic, a journal for the interdisciplinary study of literature, vol. 39. 3 (September 2006), pages 15–26. Thanks also to Nancy Fedrow and Shane Ewegen for their generous assistance. Boston March 2007

Exordium Near the beginning of Richard the Second, Bolingbroke denounces Mowbray, charging him, in his presence, with treason and murder. Bolingbroke pledges to King Richard that what he says about Mowbray he will prove on the field of battle: Besides, I say, and will in battle prove, Or here, or elsewhere to the furthest verge That ever was surveyed by English eye, That all the treasons for these eighteen years Complotted and contriv`ed in this land Fetch from false Mowbray, their first head and spring.1

The extent of the field is a measure of Bolingbroke’s resolve. Both are almost unlimited. In the end, his resolve will prove such that he will succeed in deposing the corrupt king, his deed redounding to the benefit of all of England. Yet, from the start, the extent 1. William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of King Richard the Second (I.i.92–97), in The Complete Signet Classic Shakespeare, ed. Sylvan Barnet (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979). A verge need not as such be remote. It may be as almost unlimitedly close as the farthest verge is distant. Thus, later in the play Gaunt says to Richard: “A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown, / Whose compass is no bigger than thy head, / And yet incag`ed in so small a verge / The waste is no whit lesser than thy land” (II.i.100–103).

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Exordium

of his resolve will have been indicated by that of a field limited only by the broadest horizon, by . . . the furthest verge That ever was surveyed by English eye,

by the outermost boundary, by the most extreme bound known to his people. Yet, however extensive the field may be, even if— as he says—it is bounded only by the furthest verge, still it has a limit, one that is defined politically, by reference to a people, by reference to what . . . ever was surveyed by English eye[.]

The limit is supposed to be definite, even if remote; yet it is not a limit that could be definitely fixed, that could be determined. Nonetheless it delimits also a beyond, providing a definite (yet indeterminable) limit delimiting the field of all that lies outside this furthest verge. Though definite with regard to its limit, this other field, never surveyed by English eye, is, from the operative perspective, more indefinite, precisely because it has never been surveyed by English eye. The verge itself is both the most definite and the least definite. On the one hand, it is the very source of definiteness; it defines the areas this side of and beyond the furthest verge and thereby bestows on each its definiteness. On the other hand, the verge not only is indeterminable but also is duplicitous in its relation to the two areas it delimits, belonging both to each and to neither. The verge lies neither on the side of what . . . ever was surveyed by English eye,

nor on the side that English eye has never seen. Yet, in a sense, it belongs to both fields, forms the edge of each, like the verges—as they are called—of green turf that gardeners use to separate their flower beds from the gravel walks that run through the garden. Belonging to both, the verge belongs also to neither, retreating, as it were, to a middle ground that is less ground than abyss. For

Exordium 3

whether the verge itself has ever been surveyed by English eye remains undecidable. All originary determination is situated on the verge. All determination in and through which something is brought about that is entirely unprecedented takes place on the verge. This is most purely the case when what is brought about is also itself originary in the sense of taking up an orientation to origins that would not have been manifest prior to this determination. Because philosophy would be the most radical such orientation, it must to the highest degree submit to the verge; it must assent to being itself determined as such on the verge. The place at which philosophy comes to be established as such, the place from which it comes to be determined as such, is neither simply outside philosophy nor simply within it. The authority of founding belongs to the verge; in this respect it is significant that the oldest sense of the word (from which there is a semantic flow to the more recent senses) is that of a rod or staff (from Latin virga) symbolic of an office (as, for example, carried before a church official in processions). It is also significant in this same respect that, in a very archaic usage, verge could designate a type of torch or candle. If philosophy is regarded in terms of the dynamics of its unfolding, then its founding can legitimately be traced back to Plato. This is especially the case if, with Heidegger, the course of philosophy is taken to be coextensive with the epoch in which the fundamental governing distinction (governing even the sense of fundamental) is that between the intelligible and the sensible. For it is primarily through Plato, in texts such as the Republic, that this distinction, which provides the most originary articulation of being as such and as a whole, comes to be established and, in being established, serves to determine philosophy as such. Even if there exists greater solidarity between Plato and his predecessors than would seem thus to be granted, even if—as has been demonstrated—there is much in the dialogues that contests and limits the otherwise exclusive operation of this distinction at the fundamental level, these displacements can be effected only

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Exordium

if the fundamental governance of the distinction is first granted and allowed to unfold toward its limit. The determination of philosophy as such is addressed at several points in the Republic but nowhere more thoroughly and persistently than in Book 7. Indeed, one could say that in Book 7 this is almost the sole concern: in telling the story of the cave, Socrates, at the outset, broaches this determination, and then, throughout the remainder of Book 7, reiterates it in various connections and directions. Among these reiterations, these repetitions of the determination of philosophy, the most extensive is that in which Socrates lays out the course of studies by which one would be brought to philosophy. The particular determination that is perhaps most explicit of all is set forth by way of introducing the curricular exposition. The question posed is that of how the would-be philosophers will be led up to the light, as if ascending from Hades. Socrates answers: “Then, as it seems, this would not be the twirling of a shell but the turning around of the soul from a nocturnal day to the true day, the ascent to being, which we shall truly affirm to be philosophy.”2 The passage draws a contrast, setting out the determination of philosophy through the contrast with the twirling of a shell. The reference is to the game of ÏFJD"␬\