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Klossowski and Wittgenstein on Sensation and Privacy

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Abstract

This paper compares the treatment of private sensations in the works of Wittgenstein and Klossowski. Its aim is to show that, despite the differences between their traditions and methods, they align in at least one important respect: rejecting relations of reference between signs and private sensations. The paper briefly contextualises their lines of attack on these relations, situating the two thinkers’ commonalities amidst what are undeniably divergent wider purposes. It proceeds to argue for two more specific conclusions. Firstly, Klossowski’s own rejoinder directed at reference to private sensations is rooted in his comparison of linguistic meaning to economic valuation in Living Currency. Secondly, Klossowski goes beyond Wittgenstein in arguing that, regardless of the status of reference of this sort, no complete account of sensation can view it only as private.

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Notes

  1. Smith (2017. pp. 1–28).

  2. Smith (2017, pp. 1–2).

  3. Wittgenstein (2001, p. 2e).

  4. Wittgenstein (2001, p. x).

  5. Helgeson (2011, p. 338).

  6. Helgeson (2011, p. 338).

  7. Grondin (2010, p. 363).

  8. Dastur (2010, p. 320).

  9. McGuiness (2009, p. 24).

  10. Rigal (1961, p. 2).

  11. Wittgenstein (2001, p. 10e).

  12. Pitcher (1964, p. 190).

  13. Stern (2013, p. 180).

  14. Smith (1997, p. xi).

  15. Klossowski (1997, p. 15).

  16. Klossowski (1997. p. 99).

  17. Klossowski (1997, p. xviii).

  18. Tremblay (2012, p. 9).

  19. Tremblay (2012, p. 10).

  20. Klossowski (1997, p. 80).

  21. Wittgenstein (1981, p. 95).

  22. Wittgenstein (1981, p. 93).

  23. Wittgenstein (1981, p. 95).

  24. The scope of this assertion would exclude the early Wittgenstein.

  25. Wittgenstein (2001, p. 89e).

  26. Stroud (2000, p. 69).

  27. Pitcher (1964, p. 283).

  28. Pitcher (1964, p. 282).

  29. Temkin (1981, p. 97).

  30. I am very grateful to Ian James for drawing my attention to these resonances in the interpretation of Wittgenstein, as well as more general comments on this essay.

  31. Wittgenstein (1968, p. 277).

  32. Wittgenstein (2001, p. 76e).

  33. Wittgenstein (2001, p. 76e).

  34. Gustafson (1968, p. 143).

  35. Wittgenstein (2001, p. 76e).

  36. Murphy (1968. p. 62).

  37. Bouveresse (1987, p. 52).

  38. Peacocke (1982, pp. 162–170).

  39. Foot (1983. p. 189).

  40. Wittgenstein (2001, p. 76e).

  41. Temkin (1981, p. 106).

  42. Wittgenstein (1981, p. 96).

  43. Wittgenstein (1968, p. 314).

  44. Wittgenstein (1981, p. 279).

  45. Wittgenstein (1981, p. 279).

  46. Wittgenstein (1968, p. 292).

  47. Pitcher (1964, p. 281).

  48. Candlish and Wrisley (2014).

  49. Hacker (1990, p. 3).

  50. Klossowski (2017, p. 73).

  51. Klossowski (2017, p. 47).

  52. Klossowski (2017, p. 51).

  53. Klossowski (2017, p. 68).

  54. Klossowski (1997, pp. 47, 51–52, 60, 63).

  55. Klossowski (1997, p. 48).

  56. Klossowski (2017, p. 68).

  57. Klossowski (2017, p. 47).

  58. Klossowski (2017, p. 67).

  59. Veblen (1912, p. 48).

  60. Smith (2017, p. 21).

  61. Bataille (1997, pp. 167–168).

  62. Klossowski and Bataille here echo elements of the Marxian perspective on utility. In The German Ideology, Marx (1) asserts the irreducibility of certain desires to more fundamental ones, at least as far as the utilitarian reduction is concerned, and (2) denies that said desires, however they may or may not be reduced, are independent of economic factors. “All the activity of individuals in their mutual intercourse, e.g. speech, love, etc., is depicted as a relation of utility and utilisation. Hence the actual relations that are presupposed here are speech, love, the definite manifestations of definite qualities of individuals. Now these relations are supposed not to have the meaning peculiar to them but to be the expression and manifestation of some third relation introduced in their place, the relation of utility or utilisation”.

  63. Klossowski (1997, p. 42).

  64. Klossowski (1997, p. 26).

  65. Klossowski (1997, pp. 43, 138, 260).

  66. Klossowski (1997, p. 68).

  67. Klossowski does not debar all relations between these terms, lest trivial relations be raised as counter-examples.

  68. Pitcher (1964, p. 281).

  69. Wittgenstein (2001, p. 75e).

  70. Wittgenstein (1968, pp. 276, 279, 280).

  71. Klossowski (1997, p. 34).

  72. Wittgenstein (1968, p. 275).

  73. Klossowski (2017, p. 47).

  74. Klossowski (2017, pp. 75–76).

  75. Bataille (1997, pp. 167–168).

  76. Clinton (2017).

  77. Living Currency equivocates between living objects of sensation (an entire body or person) and sensations themselves, but other texts such as Sade My Neighbour provide ample evidence that the characteristics predicated here of the former apply equally to the latter. This paper assumes, therefore, that there is no material difference between occurrences of “living objects of sensation” and “sensation” in the former text. .

  78. Smith (1997, pp. ix–x).

  79. Wittgenstein (2001, p. 75e).

  80. Klossowski (1991, p. 36).

  81. Klossowski (2017, p. 51).

  82. Klossowski (2017, p. 68)

  83. Klossowski (2017, p. 88).

  84. James and Ford (2005, p. 4).

  85. Klossowski (2017, p. 94).

  86. Dastur (2010, p. 319).

  87. Dastur (2010, p. 319).

  88. Klossowski (1997, p. 79).

  89. Klossowski (1997, p. 36).

  90. Klossowski (1991, p. 120).

  91. Klossowski (1997, p. 34).

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    Conor Husbands

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Husbands, C. Klossowski and Wittgenstein on Sensation and Privacy. Axiomathes 31, 529–548 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-020-09492-w

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