The Seventh Function of Language

“I am told that you have in your possession something that may find a buyer here.”

“You must be mistaken, madame.”

“On the contrary, I think it is you who is about to make a mistake. A mistake that would be regrettable, for everyone.”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about, madame.”

“Nevertheless, I am prepared to purchase it myself, for a substantial compensation, but what I want, more than anything, is a guarantee.”

“What sort of guarantee, madame?”

“The assurance that no one else will benefit from this acquisition.”

“And how do you imagine you will obtain this guarantee, madame?”

“That’s for you to say, Slimane.”

Slimane notes the use of his first name.

“Listen to me carefully, you stupid bitch. This isn’t Paris, and your two lapdogs aren’t with you now. Talk to me again and I’ll bleed you like a pig and throw your body in the lake.”

Foucault returns from the toilets. He has obviously splashed water on his face, but his bearing is impeccable. The illusion would be perfect, thinks Kristeva, were it not for a waxy look in his eyes. You would swear he was ready to give a talk—and in fact that is exactly what he is going to do, just as long as he can remember what time his lecture is supposed to take place.

Kristeva excuses herself as she gives him back his seat. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Slimane.” She doesn’t offer him her hand because she knows he won’t take it. He won’t drink from bottles that have already been opened. He will not use the salt cellar on the table. He will avoid all physical contact of any kind whatsoever. He’s deeply suspicious, that one, and he’s right to be. Without Nikolai, things are going to be a bit more complicated. But nothing, she thinks, that she can’t deal with.

69

“Deconstructing a speech consists in showing how it undermines the philosophy to which it lays claim, or the hierarchy of oppositions to which it appeals, by identifying within the text the rhetorical operations that confer on its contents a presumed foundation, its key idea or premise.”

[Jonathan Culler, organizer of the conference Shift into Overdrive in the Linguistic Turn.]

70

“We are, so to speak, in the golden age of the philosophy of language.”

Searle is making his speech, and all of American academia knows it is going to be an all-out attack on Derrida to avenge the honor of his master, Austin, whose reputation the American logician believes was seriously damaged by the French deconstructionist.

Simon and Bayard are in the room, but they don’t understand anything, or not much anyway, because the talk is in English. It mentions “speech acts,” and they get that part. Simon gets “illocutionary” and “perlocutionary.” But what does “utterance” mean?

Derrida didn’t come, but he has sent emissaries, who will report back on the speech’s contents: his faithful lieutenant Paul de Man, his translator Gayatri Spivak, his friend Hélène Cixous … In truth, everyone is there, except for Foucault, who did not feel like leaving his room. Maybe he is relying on Slimane to give him a summary, or maybe he just doesn’t care.

Bayard spots Kristeva, along with all the people he saw in the cafeteria, including the old man in the wool tie.

Searle repeats several times that it is not necessary to restate this or that, that he will not insult his esteemed audience by explaining such and such a point, that there is no need to dwell here on what is so blindingly obvious, etc.

In spite of this, Simon gathers that Searle thinks you must be really, really stupid to confound “iterability” with “permanence,” written language with spoken language, a serious discourse with a fake discourse. Essentially, Searle’s message is: Fuck Derrida.

Jeffrey Mehlman leans down to whisper into Morris Zapp’s ear: “I had failed to note that the charmingly spiky Searle had the philosophical temperament of a cop.” Zapp laughs. Students in the row behind shush him.

When the speech is over, a student asks a question: Does Searle think that the dispute between himself and Derrida (because, even though he took care not to name his adversary, everyone realizes the Frenchman was the subject and the target of his ire—murmurs of approval in the lecture hall) is emblematic of the confrontation between two great philosophical traditions (analytic and continental)?

Searle responds in tones of suppressed anger: “I think it would be a mistake to believe so. The confrontation never quite takes place.” The understanding of Austin and his theory of speech acts by “some so-called continental philosophers” has been so confused, so approximate, so filled with errors and misinterpretations, “as I just demonstrated,” that it is pointless to dwell on the subject any longer. And Searle adds, like a severe clergyman: “Stop wasting your time on those lunacies, young man. This is not the way serious philosophy works. Thank you for your attention.”

Then, contemptuously ignoring the tumult in the lecture hall, he stands up and leaves.