Summary of our second seminary about "El Poder": 05-03

Yesterday, we finished the first Deleuze's book about Foucault, "El Saber", retaking the discussion carried out the last week abot statements, knowledge and the relationship (or no-relation) between the visible and the statable. 

In this session, we wanted to answer three main questions:

1. The relationship between the statable and the visible

2. How could be possible a relationship in the non-relationship between the statable and the visible?

3. How is the movement from knowledge to power?

So these points were the central topic of our seminary. First of all, we concluded that the relationship between the statable and the visible is base on the mutual capture. There is no knowledge without mutual capture between the visible and enunciable: no knowledge is possible without a mutual interlacement between them.

It is not translatable (in Actor-Network Theory terms), the catch is only possible (it only can be explained) jumping to another dimension, power. Jumping to the other axis, we move to the second book (we will talk about it next week). So, summing up, dualism on Foucault and Deleuze: we start from two forms, then we jump to another dimension that brings up a multiplicity (centers of power).

In this vein, we have to highlight that power is not a form, is an informal dimension: power has not form. 

Another interesting questiong that emerged in the seminary, was about an example given by Foucault when he talked about the Magritte's picture of a pipe with the sentence: "this is not a pipe". Thus, Deleuze shows us the relation between the statable and the visible with this picture in this sense:

"This is not a pipe: you can not put the sign "this is a pipe" under the picture of a pipe, because the pipe drawn is a picture, not a real pipe. Therefore, the only sentence that is possible is "this is not a pipe", which would be the statement, and acts as mediator (Actor-Network Theory again). The transfer traslate us, a move from one medium to another (from reality to the drawing). If we put the phrase "this is a pipe", we would be breaking the principle that a statement has no external reference, only refers to itself."

(This paragaph is our, reading Deleuze, but not him directly).

It is quite difficult to understand when we are referring to a sentence or a statement. A sentence is the "mark" of the statable, the place where we look for a statement, but never it is a statement itself. We have to break sentences in order to find statements.

We can deduce then, that statements are only necessary when there is a change of medium (heterogeneous system), if not, the statement is not necessary (eg. ZERT is not a statement within the typewriter because it is their original place, but what is when we write on paper it becomes a statement). Perhaps is more easy to understand whith the yoga's examples given in the last seminary.

Finally, answering the question about how we move from knowledge to power, we had more problems because we have not yet read the second book, but, as Deleuze does, we "spread" some topics in order to delimit the topic:

1. Power is to be able to do (the ability to): can to do, can to speak ... no power in a negative sense or oppressive power.

2. Power relations establish a dispersion of singularities; if we change the dispersion of singularities, then changes the relationship of singularities.

3. Knowledge is a form; power is a force. There is a relationship between them although different dimensions.

4. Power is not up nor down of knowledge, but is immanent to know.

5. The power is not derived from an institution, but the institutions are integrating a force field that is power. Like the statement prevails on light,  power prevails over knowledge.

That is all, we hope you have undestood our discussion, and we want to hear your opinions about the relationship between power and knowledge; the visible and the statable.

Photo Credit: Flickr, Steven Zucker (Ceci n'est pas a pipe, by Magritte)