L’instance de la lettre et la dernière instance

The instance of the letter and the last instance In the 1960s and 70s, first Lacan and then Althusser invoked the category of instance, in a way which would mark what is today called the «structuralist moment» of French philosophy, profoundly influencing the discourse of those who were the disciple...

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Détails bibliographiques
Auteur principal: Balibar, Étienne
Format: Article ou chapitre numérique
Langue:Français
Publié: 2016
Sujets:
Accès en ligne:Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
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Résumé:The instance of the letter and the last instance In the 1960s and 70s, first Lacan and then Althusser invoked the category of instance, in a way which would mark what is today called the «structuralist moment» of French philosophy, profoundly influencing the discourse of those who were the disciples of both. The complex system of references to action, demand, insistence, effectivity, decision, hierarchy, which found themselves combined in the notion, proves difficult to translate into other languages, and in particular into English (which has today become the paramount language of critical theory). In order to achieve a syncretism of three heritages (Marx, Freud, Saussure), the French theorists drew on the polysemic extension of the word « instance», which while it does exist in English, operates differently. Hence the interest in examining the divergent choices made by the English and American translators, reading them as symptoms of certain tensions and of a logical instability which affect, from within, the «structuralist» paradigm à la française.