The Classical Roots of Poststructuralism: Lacan, Derrida, and Foucault

Author(s): Paul Allen Miller

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Source: International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Fall, 1998), pp. 204-225
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 The Classical Roots of
Poststructuralism:Lacan,
Derrida, and Foucault*
PAULALLENMILLER

This paper argues that French poststructuralisttheory does not represent a movement
antitheticalto Classics and the Classical Tradition,but should be read as its extension.
Majorrecurringthemes of poststructuralistthought are articulatedat the beginning of the
1960's in Lacan'scommentarieson Sophocles'Antigoneand Plato's Symposium.Derrida's
reading of the Phaedrusas well as his citationof the Platonictraditionin his dispute with
Foucaultover the latter'sHistoirede lafolie furtherconfirm the importanceof the Hellenic
traditionto poststructuralism'sengagementwith occidentalphilosophy.Finally,Foucault's
late turn to Stoicism and the philosophersof the Roman imperialperiod can be seen as a
response to and criticismof the positions establishedby Lacanand Derrida.The Classics
are not only relevant to understandingpoststructuralisttheory and philosophy, but actu-
ally define the terms of its debates.

In this paper, I will argue that the popular conception of French poststructuralist
theory as representing an intellectual movement antithetical to Classics and the
Classical Traditionis rooted in a profound misreading of the texts of its most influen-
tial exponents. Such a misreading is not found just, or even primarily, among classi-
cists, but often is performed and publicized by poststructuralism'sown advocates.'
This paper will demonstrate that the works of Lacan,Derrida,and Foucault,however
revolutionary their intent, cannot be properly understood outside the context of their
own profound indebtedness to classical and particularlyHellenic culture. Thus, rather
than offering a rationalefor ignoring the classics, these thinkerspresent a mandate for

*
A version of this paper was originallydelivered as a plenaryaddress at the FourthMeeting
of the InternationalSociety for the Classical Tradition (ISCT)held in Tiibingen July 29-
August 2, 1998.Thanksare due to the Society and to the Office of the Provost at Texas Tech
University for making this possible. A portionwas also presentedat the 1999meeting of the
Classical Associationof the Middle West and South in Cleveland. The author would like to
acknowledge the helpful commentsand revisionssuggested by ProfessorsWolfgang Haase,
BruceClarke,and SharonDiane Nell. All remainingfaults are stubbornlymy own.
1. See for example Richlin'saccount (1998:165-67) of how many of Foucault'sstrongest femi-
nist advocates view the last two volumes of Foucault's Historyof Sexuality,which refer
respectively to Greece and Rome, as unimportantif not aberrant.As Richlin and Jameson
both note, the denial of history has been a common strain in much Anglo-American
poststructuralistwork (Jameson1991:405-6).

Paul Allen Miller, Program in Comparative Literature,Departmentof French and Classics,

Universityof South Carolina,Columbia,SC 29208,USA.
InternationalJournalof the Classical Tradition,Vol. 5, No. 2, Fall 1998, pp. 204-225.
Miller 205

their continued status as privileged interlocutors in serious intellectual debate. The

philosophy of the present, as they demonstrate, is most authentic when thought in
relation to its past. Indeed, as Foucaulthimself has argued, it is precisely in order to
remake one's relation to the world, to think again, to transformthought radically,that
the confrontationwith the genealogy of the present is necessary (1994b:580-81; 1994c:
612; Kremer-Marietti1985:247, 251-52, 261, 277-78). Poststructuralism,then, is better
thought of as continuing our dialogue with antiquitythan as repudiatingit.
This is not to say that the readings of classical texts offered by these thinkers are
necessarily the best or the most importantfrom a philological perspective. Their goal
is not simply to transmit the past. Indeed, their readings are partial and often avow-
edly part of a larger social, political, and philosophical agenda. But this is hardly
unique to poststructuralism.It is, in fact, the story of the reception of Classical Antiq-
uity from Callimachus to Hegel, Sartre,and Camus. We do not in the first instance
read Racine's imitations of Euripides, Pope's of Horace, or Pound's Homageto Sextus
Propertiusto learn about the inherentnature of their ancientmodels, but to see how the
Classical Traditioncontinues to serve as a source, provocation and touchstone against
which subsequent western intellectual and literary creations are tested. The French
poststructuralistsstand in much the same relation to the founding texts of occidental
civilization as Racine, Pope, or Pound: adopting a stance at once critical, contempo-
rary, and self-consciously in dialogue with tradition.
Before examining the texts themselves, however, a word or two on the origins
and characteristicsof poststructuralism are in order.2 As the name itself indicates,
poststructuralismis less a coherent school or body of doctrine than a reaction to, and
critical revision of, Saussurian linguistics and the structuralistliterary criticism and
anthropology founded on it that dominated Frenchthought in the late fifties and early
sixties. Indeed, in one early, influentialAmericanaccountof their work, Lacan,Derrida,
and Foucault are themselves labeled structuralists(Jameson1972: 101-216). One rea-
son for this identification was their concern with discourse and the regularities of
language, an important feature of structuralism.Yet all three soon rejected this tag.
The reasons for their aversion to the structuralistlabel go beyond a simple unwilling-
ness to be categorized under a generalizingrubric.For,while accepting structuralism's
focus on the determining power of language as well as its rejectionof Sartreanexisten-
tialist humanism, the poststructuralistssaw discourse not as an atemporal,synchronic
system, in the manner of Saussure, but as a set of historically specific, and thus con-
testable, norms (Flynn 1994: 29, 31; J. Miller 1993: 135, 148, 161; Palmer 1990: 25;
Jameson 1972: 139; 1991: 12). Poststructuralism,therefore, has a political and ethical
vocation that was often found wanting in classical structuralism.
Thus in the case of Foucault, for example, his rejection of humanism and other
models of the self as the origin of meaning did not lead him to embracestructuralism's
apolitical scientism, but rather to foster various forms of local resistance to power
wherever they might be found. He was thus active in supporting those who sought to
resist the coercive powers of the penal system, the normalizing discourse of psychia-
trists, psychologists, and sexologists, as well as the sclerotic and self-perpetuating
"revolutionary"parties and states of Eastern Europe (Macey 1993: 203-31, 257-352,
378-414, 436-56; J.Miller 1993:165-207;Jameson 1991:203;Taylor 1989:488). For him,

2. For two accessibleintroductionsto poststructuralism,see Eagleton(1996:11048) and New-

ton (1997:112-41).
206 International oftheClassical
Journal / Fall1998
Tradition

unlike for structuralistssuch as Todorov, Greimas, or Genette, knowledge and power

were deeply intertwined. Scholarshipcould not be above the fray.
A further area of disagreement between the poststructuralistsand structuralism
lies in the fact that where the structuralistssought to map out total systems of abstract
possibility (langue) that could account for all actual variations in concrete practice
(parole)-whether in literature,fashion, or kinship patterns--the poststructuralistscon-
sistently refused to endorse any form of totalization, preferringto concentrate on the
local and the particular.They refused to propound teleologies showing history's inevi-
table path to the present and explicitly rejected what they viewed as the hegemonic
subtext underlying structuralism'stotalizing vision. Ratherthan representing a simple
continuation of the structuralistenterprise, the rejection of both master subjects and
master narrativesby poststructuralistslike Lacan,Derrida,and Foucault reveals much
in common with those decentered and contingent forms of thought that Jean Frangois
Lyotard sees as characteristicof the "postmoderncondition" (Lyotard1984: 10, 37-41;
Flynn 1994: 43; Taylor 1989: 463, 489).3 Poststructuralismseeks not to categorize hu-
man culture and behavior, but to define the limits of those categoriesper se.

I. Lacan,Antigone, and the Ethics of Pure Desire

Jacques Lacanis chronologically the first of the thinkers labeled poststructuralist.

His seminars, begun in the 1950s, drew up to eight hundred people and influenced all
the major intellectuals of the 1960s and 1970s in France.One could agree or disagree
with him, accept or reject his teaching, but one could not ignore his provocative
rereadings of both the classics of western culture in terms of psychoanalysis and of
Freud in terms of the history of literature,philosophy, and art.4 Indeed, Lacan revolu-
tionized the practice of psychoanalysis in Franceby reading Freud's corpus not as a
manual of interpretationthat provided potted answers to pre-existing questionss but
as a grammarthat made it possible to begin the long labor of decoding the rhetoric of
desire. Lacan was the first to apply the findings of linguistics to the study of psycho-
analysis, and from the beginning his work had a strong affinity with philology. Lacan's
concept of desire, moreover, finds its roots in the Platonic corpus. His work on both
love and transference,as MicaelaJananindicates, draws heavily on the Symposiumand
the Phaedrus(1994:7-21, 144), and the Platonicconcept of love as the effort to return to
a lost-but somehow dimly remembered-unity figures prominentlyin his work (Lacan
1973: 119; 1975: 67-68; 1986: 341; Julien 1990: 112, 186; Janan 1994:27; Halperin 1994:
48).
Thus in 1959, Lacanpresented the paradigm of Sophocles' Antigoneas a model of
pure desire for his seventh seminar on TheEthicsof Psychoanalysis:

3. For a good treatmentof the relationof postmodern "antifoundationalism"to contemporary

classical studies, see Fowler (1994).
4. On the influence of the seminars, see Schneiderman (1983: 28-30); on his multi-faceted
involvement with the majorintellectual figures of the century, see Ragland-Sullivan(1986:
87, 91) and Roudinesco (1997: 31, 98-101); and on his largely correct assertion to have
anticipatedDerrida'sclaims in Of Grammatology, see Lacan(1966:11).
5. Such a cookie-cutterstyle of interpretationis the problem with most of the psychoanalytic
investigations examined by Hugh Lloyd-Jonesin his dismissive account(1985=1990).Lloyd-
Jones is unaware of Lacan'swork.
Miller 207

Antigone presents herself as autonomos,the pure and simple relationship of

a humanbeing to thatwhichit miraculouslyfindsitselfcarrying,thatis the
rupture of signification, that which grants a person the insuperable power
of being--in spite of and against everything-what he [sic] is.... Antigone
all but fulfills what can be called pure desire, the pure and simple desire of
death as such [i.e., of that which is beyond the pleasure principle].6 She
incarnatesthis desire. (1986:328-29)7

Lacan's commentary on the Antigone,however, is not well known. His allusive and
convoluted style has proven a significantbarrier to the dissemination of his work in
the Classics community, while his close readings of canonical texts have failed to
appeal to many of his less learned,postmodern successors."
Lacan'schoice of Antigone as his model for elaboratingan ethics of pure desire is
triply motivated. First, he notes the obvious interest of all facets of the Oedipus myth
for psychoanalysts. Second, he observes the relationship of the Freudian concept of
catharsisto its Aristotelianprecursorin the Poetics.Tragedyin general, and the Antigone
in particular,he argues, must occupy a central place in any satisfying psychoanalytic
account of culture and ethics. Accordingly, Lacanbegins his commentary on Antigone
with an explication of catharsis as defined by the Stagirite.The purgation of pity and
fear, he notes, does not merely posit the representationof such emotions. Indeed, as he
observes, Antigone herself exhibits neither. But rather the phenomenon of catharsis
evokes the existence of a position that transcendsboth pity and fear, a position beyond
conventional categories of emotion, which he in turn links with Antigone's uncondi-
tional pursuit of an object of desire that is itself beyond the bounds of a strictly
normative or utilitarianreason (Lacan1986:285-90, 300, 372;Julien 1992:112).9
Finally, Lacan notes that the Antigone itself has long played a central role in
westernethicalthought.He arguesthat,whetherwe realizeit or not, the play forms
part of our implicit morality (1986:330),

I did not by some decree make Antigonea central point in the matter that
concerns us, ethics. For a very long time this has been known, and even

6. See Moi (1985: 101), "If we accept that the end of desire is the logical consequence of
satisfaction(if we are satisfied, we are in a position where we desire no more), we can see
why Freud in Beyondthe PleasurePrinciple,posits death as the ultimate object of desire-as
Nirvana or the recapturingof the lost unity, the final healing of the split subject."
7. All translationsare my own unless otherwise noted.
8. As Roudinesco notes, the many mistakes in the Greek in the published version of the
seventh seminar are as much a function of Jacques-AlainMiller's refusal to accept the
suggestions of PierreVidal-Naquetas of Lacan'sown ignorance(1997:423).
9. Lacan,moreover, frames the whole of his investigation of the ethics of psychoanalysis and
of the Antigonewith a series of trenchantcomments on the NicomacheanEthics.The next
year he would qualify this work as a decisive step in the development of Western ethical
thought (1991:14). Lacan,however, is anythingbut Aristotelian.Aristotle'sethics, he notes,
representa discipline of happiness based on the reasoned pursuit of communally acknowl-
edged goods, in the context of what Lacan, and later Foucault, would label an ethos of
mastery inextricablybound to the subjectposition of members of the Greekruling class. In
its stead, Lacanoffers Antigone as the model of an ethics that transcendsthe historicallyand
politicallyorderedrealm of the pleasureprinciple,an ethics that therebyrevealsthe limits of
any sociallyconstitutednotionof the good (1986:32, 39,281, 338-39,363;Julien1992:109).
208 International oftheClassical
Journal Tradition
/ Fall1998

thosewho have not acknowledgedits presenceknowthatit plays a partin

thediscussionsof the learned.(1986:285)

In the contextof this evocationof the traditionof erudite,philosophicallyin-

formedreadingsof the play, Lacanmakesparticularnote of the famedinterpretations
offeredby Hegel and Goethe.He remarksthatHegel is mistakenin his reductionof
the conflictbetweenCreonand Antigoneto a mereallegoryof the contradictionbe-
tween the discoursesof the polisand the oikos(1986:276).10Lacanalso objectsto
at the play'send betweenthe two competing
Hegel'spositingof a finalreconciliation
discursivemodes (1986:292). Antigone'ssplendid isolationin her choice of death
presentsher as a figurewhose ethicalact can neverbe recuperatedby the civic dis-
course,of which Creonperceiveshimselfas the sole legitimaterepresentative(Lacan
1986:300-01;Zizek1989:117).Tothatextent,Lacan'sreadingis closerto Goethe'sthat
posits-not an oppositionbetweentwo abstractprinciplesbut--a conflictbetween a
representativeof the state,who overstepshis boundsand triesto forceeven the dead
to conformto the normsof civic life, and the victim,or ratherthe agent,of an all-
consumingpassion(Lacan1986:297).
Lacannotes thatAntigone'sdecisionto defy Creonand buryPolynicesis an act
thatconsciouslyseeks death.She makesno effortto defendPolynices'actionsnor to
deny Creon'sargumentthatEteoclesand Polynicesshouldnot be accordedthe same
honors (Lacan1986:290, 323-25; Guyomard 1992:106).1 Her choice takes her beyond
the realm of rationaldiscourseand the collectivenorms of satisfactionit implies,
beyondthe Freudianyin and yang of the pleasureand realityprinciples,beyond an
Aristotelianconceptof the good (Lacan1986:78,281;Zizek1991:25;Julien1990:109).
Hers is a positionthat transcendsthe comfortablebinaryoppositionsthat structure
daily life. As such, becausethe choiceof death cannotbe understoodaccordingto
strictlyrationalnorms,she cannotbe readas representingsome simple antithesisof
freedomto tyranny,or theindividualto thestate(Lacan1986:281;Zizek1989:116-17;
1992:77-78).In fact,as she acknowledges,she had chosendeathbeforeCreon'sdecree
againsttheburialof Polyniceshadbeenpromulgated, andshe definesherselfto Ismene
as one alreadybelongingto the realmof the dead:"Youlive on! My soul has long
since died so that it might serve the dead" (l. 559-60; see Lacan 1986: 315, 326;
Guyomard 1992: 106). Creon does not represent the tyrant who forces Antigone to
make an impossible choice between life and freedom, but embodies the civic norms
that her pursuit of a desire beyond the bounds of those articulatedwithin the realm of
common life both requires and transcends.Her choice thus represents a pure ethical
act that is shaped neither by the banality of a self-interestedselection among commu-
nally recognized goods nor the self-loathing of conforming to a code that is both

10. In this objection,Lacanis echoed by PatriciaJohnson'srecentpsychoanalyticreading of the

character of Antigone throughout the Sophoclean corpus. Johnson notes that Antigone
cannot be conceived of as the representativeof the oikostout courtsince her allegiance is
exclusively to the male members of the household. Thus she rejectsher sister even when
Ismene offersto share Antigone'spunishmentalthoughshe did not share the crime (Johnson
1997:369-72). For anotherrecent psychoanalyticaccountof tragedy that makes mention of
Lacan,though not of his commentaryon the Antigone,see Caldwell (1994) (and for a brief
skepticalreportSchmidt1997/98:442).
11. See Johnson (1997:374) on "the excessive, or at least self-destructive,nature of her attach-
ment to Polynices in Antigone,observedby every readerof the play."
Miller 209

recognized and despised (Julien 1990: 112; Zizek 1992: 77). Such an ethical choice, as
Lacanimplicitlyacknowledges,is Kantianin its devotionto a pure conceptof duty,
but psychoanalyticin its predicationon a highlyindividualizeddesirethatcannotbe
generalized,with regardto its content,into a universalethicalmaximof the kind that
Kantrequired(Lacan1986:68,365-66).
Antigone'schoice,her desire,is pure preciselyto the degree that it ultimately
rejectsall claims of othernessand enclosesitself in what PatrickGuyomard,in his
recentcriticalresponseto Lacan'sreading,sees as an incestuousnarcissism.Forthis
latter day French psychoanalyst, it is precisely Creon's bitter ability to learn from his
mistakes, rather than Antigone's suicidal purity, that presents the real ethical model
(1992:45, 52, 62-64, 75). But for Lacan,it is the beauty of Antigone's choice of a Good
beyond all recognized goods, beyond the pleasure principle, that gives her character
its monumental status and makes her a model for an ethics of creation as opposed to
conformity (1991: 13). It is for this reason that he cites Antigone's self-comparison to
Niobe as the central axis around which the play turns (1. 823-33):for in this one image
we see brought together the themes of beauty, monumentality,and death in a singular
apotheosis of tragic transgression(Lacan1986:311, 315, 327). Beauty for Lacan repre-
sents the perfect moment between life and death, a moment both articulatedby and
beyond time and desire, a moment whose true achievement can only be imagined as
the incarnationof a pure desire beyond any recognizable object (1986:291, 344; 1991:
15, 154;Julien 1990: 114-15; Zizek 1989: 135). For Lacan, then, as will be the case for
Foucault in his turn to antiquity, the search for an ethics leads above all to an aesthet-
ics of existence, to the search for the beautiful life (Foucault1994d:415; 1994c:617).

II. Lacan,the Symposium, and Transference

The year following Lacan's fascinating, if controversial, commentary on the

Antigone,his seminar continued its engagement with Classical Antiquity by focusing
on Plato's Symposium.Socrates, like Antigone, represents for Lacan a kind of purity
that exceeds the bounds of communally acknowledged goods. His atopia,as Alcibiades
terms it (215A2),places him beyond the bounds of the order defined by the Athenian
polis, and that singularity in tumrn
is the basis of his purity (Lacan 1991: 18-19, 126-27;
1973:287).12 Thus, in the wake of Lacan'sencounter in the Antigonewith an ethics of
creation that sought an authentic beauty and monumentality beyond all conventional
representations,the Parisian psychoanalyst turned to Socrates and the Symposiumto
find a model for elaboratinga theory of love as a response to the fundamental lack in
our being that Freudiantheory sees as the root of human desire.
As Jeffrey Carnes has noted, the Symposiumis a natural choice for Lacan:
Aristophanes'myth reads as if the Parisiananalyst himself wrote it himself. In it, "The
impulse toward sex has its origin in the recognitionof castration--ofthe loss (or
impossibility)of fullness.Zeus,thephallicfather,punishesandsays 'no'yet alsogives
us sex (while hiding his own desire).Indeed,this coupureor cut gives rise to the
individualsubjecthimself,who is a symbolon-atally,a half of his formerself,but also
a symbolonin the sense of a signifier.This individuation,not freely chosen, is the
sourceof sexualdesire,a markof our mortalityand imperfection..." (Carnes1998:

12. On atopiaas a trope in ancient philosophy, see Davidson (1995:23) and Hadot (1987:205;
1995:57).
210 International oftheClassical
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114-15). It is Aristophanes, Lacannotes, who introduces the concept of the splitting of

the subject, or Spaltung, which played a central role in Freud's etiology of desire
(Lacan 1991: 108, 144; Cames 1998: 115). Lacan goes on in his eleventh seminar to
develop Aristophanes' myth further by adding the concept of the lamelle,Le. a "thin
blade or membrane." 13 The lamellerepresents both the effective agent that splits the
initial dyadic unity of self and other-emblematically portrayed in psychoanalysis as
the infant's relation with the mother-and that which remains after the splitting of the
subject,i.e., the desire that pushes us to seek what we have lost, but also that which, as
desire, guarantees that we will never find it. This, Lacanobserves, is the crucial differ-
ence between the Aristophanicand Freudianaccounts:in Aristophanes'speechsub-
jectsseek their"sexualcomplements," in psychoanalysisthey seek thatwhich is gone
forever(Lacan1973:211,221,223,229;Zizek1996:192-93).
What Lacanis investigatingin his readingof the Symposium, however, is not
merely desire or love. He is interestedin a specialkind of love, that which a patient
feels for his or her analyst. This is known as transference,since it is believed to be a
metaphoricalkind of love in which the analyst comes to occupy the place of the object
of desire in the patient's extra-clinicaluniverse. The essence of the transferentialrela-
tionship thus is the possibility of substitution, and the fundamental model for this
substitutive relationship, according to Lacan, can be found in the complex interplay
between Socrates and Alcibiades at the end of the Symposium.Two different, but
complementary, levels of substitutabilityare present in this passage: the well known
inversion of roles wherein erastesand eromenosexchange places, as Socrates becomes
the object of Alcibiades' desire; and the possibility of substituting Agathon for the
object of desire of both Socrates and Alcibiades, so that each comes to occupy for the
other the logically necessary, but empty, third position that makes Symbolic relation-
ships of equivalence, and hence substitutability,possible.14This third position is pre-
cisely that occupied by the analyst in the typical psychoanalytic scenario. Nonetheless,
transference is not a phenomenon limited to the analyst's couch. It is, as Lacan ob-
serves, in the nature of love and of Symbolic relationshipsper se (Julien1992:74, 120;
Henderson 1993:125-26). The psychoanalyticrelationshipis only a specific instance of
this more general phenomenon. The purpose of Lacan's commentary on the Sympo-
sium is not to psychoanalyze Plato, nor to apply Freudian concepts in an ahistorical
fashion to ancient philosophy, but to demonstrate why psychoanalysts should read
Plato (Lacan 1991: 129). His reading thus escapes the sometimes well-deserved con-
demnations of facile applications of psychoanalytic typologies to ancient authors and
the charactersin their texts (H. Lloyd-Jones1985=1990;cf. 1997/98: 605).
The first level of substitution, that between the erastesand the eromenos,and hence
between Socratesand Alcibiades, is the most apparentin Plato's text and the easiest to
elucidate. Alcibiades tells us that it is well known that Socrateswas his first lover, but

13. The related English term, 'lamella', does not really translate the French lamelle,which re-
tains the notion that it is the diminutive of lame,the blade of a knife or sword, as well as
signifying a membranebetween cells.
14. The logical necessity of a third position to make any determination of value, and hence
comparison and exchange or substitutability,possible was first demonstrated in modern
times by Hegel (1980: 63-70 and passim; 1977: 58-66 and passim), and then specifically
elaborated upon by Marx (1991:37-82; 1976:125-77) in his notion of the universal equiva-
lent. On the relation of these dialecticalsystems of thought to Freud and Lacan, see Goux
(1968;1969;1990:9-63).
Miller 211

when he sought for Socrates to affirm his desire for him directly the philosopher
always evaded the question. Alcibiades therefore sets out on the path of seduction
hoping to come to possess Socrates'wisdom--the agalmaor image of divine essence
locked inside his Silenic exterior-by allowing Socrates to possess him in the more
conventional pederastic sense. Yet theirs is anything but a normal pederastic relation-
ship since the older lover has become the objectof pursuit and the younger beloved,
the pursuer (215A4-222A6).The unusual nature of this situation is highlighted by the
fact that many commentatorshave felt that the eruption of the drunken Alcibiades on
the scene of the Symposium'sorderly exchange of speeches in praise of Love consti-
tuted a breech in the stylistic and thematic unity of the dialogue. Indeed, Lacan re-
marks, the dialogue's first Frenchtranslator,Louis Le Roy, chose to end his text with
Socrates' recounting of the lesson of Diotima, believing that the Alcibiades passage
was a joking coda that was neither integral to the dialogue nor appropriate reading
matter for a Christian nation (1991:30-31, 36; K. Lloyd-Jones1996: 100-101; Le Roy
1558:180r).
Yet, as Lacan also notes, the theme of substituting the lover for the beloved is
present from the earliest speech in the dialogue, where Phaedruspraises both Alcestis'
dying in place of Admetus and Achilles' taking the place of Patroclusafter the latter's
death (179B4-180B5).The first is an example of simple substitution along the lines of
Alcibiades and Socrates. Alcestis assumes the role of Admetus, without any relation-
ship to a possible third position that would make a more general equivalence possible.
The case of Achilles, however, as Phaedrus observes, is worthy of greater praise and
wins him the reward of spending the hereafterin the Isles of the Blessed. In it, the
eromenosdoes not merely take the place of the erastesbut actually becomes a subject of
desire in his own right. "Achilles, having come to the aid of and having avenged his
erastes,Patroclus,not only dared to prefer to die in place of, but also in additionto, the
one whose life had already ended" (179E5-180A2,emphasis mine). In short, Achilles
can occupy the vacant place of the erastesand die in turn, precisely because Patroclus
himself has died, has moved to the vacant third position. It is the transformationof
Achilles into a lover, into one who actually occupies the place of Patroclus, that is so
miraculous (Lacan1991:69):

Aeschylus talks nonsense when he says that Achilles desires Patroclus.He

was more beautiful not only than Patroclusbut than all the heroes, and he
was still beardless, since he was much younger, as Homer says. Truly, this
is why the gods greatly honored his virtue in love, moreover they wonder,
admire, and esteem it more when the eromenosis fond of the erastesthan
when the erastesis fond of the boy: for such a boy is more godlike than the
lover of boys; he is divinely inspired. On account of these things, the gods
honored Achilles more than Alcestis, sending him to the Isles of the Blessed.
(180A4-B85)

Achilles does not simply mirrorPatroclus,in the manner of Alcestis and Admetus, but
actually assumes his position, suffers what he suffers. As Lacanshrewdly notes, such a
transformationmust assume that one of the two positions in the essentially dyadic
love relationship has become vacant, so that the necessity of a third position (in this
case death) must be posited (1991:63). The existence of this more complex triadic love
relationship,in turn, looks forward to that of Socrates,Alcibiades, and Agathon.
212 International oftheClassical
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/ Fall1998

Alcibiades' attempt to seduce Socrates, we find out, fails. The merely dyadic
pattern of substitution comes up short. Socrates refuses to adopt the passive position
because he refuses to admit the existence in himself of a positive substance that is the
object of Alcibiades' desire (Lacan 1991: 185, 188). Rather he recognizes that what
Alcibiades in fact desires is Socrates' desire, that is to realize his own desire through
the desire of the Other, in Lacan's hermetic vocabulary (Lacan 1991: 202-03; Julien
1992:122).It is for this reason that Alcibiades must paradoxicallyseek signs of Socrates'
love, while confessingthat it is universallyknown that Socrateswas his first lover.
Why does he need signs of that which is alreadybeyond question?He seeks not so
much to confirm Socrates'love but to possess it as an object(Lacan1991:185). Socrates
in his recognitionthatErosis not a positivesubstancebut rathera daimonicmediator
between presenceand absence,mortaland immortal,the ugly and the beautiful,as
demonstratedin Diotima'sspeech,can only trulygrantAlcibiades'desireby refusing
him (201D1-204C6; Lacan1991:144;Clarke1995:13, 19-20;Carnes1998:115).This
recognitionof desireas a fundamentallackconstitutesthe essentialkernelof Socrates'
erotic mastery(1991:185-86).This in fact is the agalmaAlcibiadesseeks and that
Socrates,in refusingthe latter'sadvances,grants,if only Alcibiadescould recognizeit
(Zizek1991:7;see also Berger1994:107).It is the recognitionof the constitutivelackat
theheartof desirethatmakessubstitutionitselfpossiblebut alsoinfinite,foras Diotima
in the Symposium and Socratesinthe Phaedrus demonstrate,what is desired in the
individualbeloved is not that which the individual possessesbut the possibilityof
seeingin the individualthatgood whichis lackingor lost fromthe self. Theagalmafor
Lacan,thus,standsfor the "lost"object(or objetpetita) whose absenceis constitutive
of both humandesireand individualidentity(Lacan1991:190-91,201-02;1973:119,
283-84;Julien1992:121-22).
We are now in a betterpositionto see how Socratesoccupiesthe place of the
analystin the transferential relationship(Julien1992:118).The goal of Lacanianpsy-
choanalysis,as we have alreadyseen in Lacan'sexaminationof its ethicsthroughthe
figureof Antigone,is not to providepatientswith interpretations or answers,but to
allow them to realizetheirown desiresas constitutedin theirambivalentrelationto
the world of conventionallyrecognizedgoods (Lacan1991:18;Schneiderman 1983:94;
Ragland-Sullivan 1986: 81-82).As Foucault recognized, Lacandid not seek to normal-
ize his patients,but to found a theory of the desiringsubject(1994e:204). The end of
analysiswas not the acceptanceof a singlesummumbonumto which the subjectmust
submitor be labeledperverse,but therealizationof one'sown constitutivelack(Lacan
1986:347).It is this emptyplaceof desire,whichis occupiedand made visibleby the
analyst,that engendersthe transferential relationshipsummed up by Lacanin the
phrase "the desireof analyst,"punningupon the ambiguityof the objectiveand sub-
jectivegenitive.And it is herethatthe Socraticlessonis mostto be takento heart:

It is not to say that the analystought to be a Socrates,or pure, or a saint.

Withouta doubt these explorerslike Socrates... can give us some indica-
tionsconcerningthefield in question.Thisis an understatement.... Rather
it is exactly because they have done the exploration that we are able to
define.., the coordinates that the analyst ought to be able to recognize
simply to occupy the place that is his, i.e., that vacant place that he ought to
offer to the desire of the patient in order that he might realize himself as the
desire of the Other. It is for this reason that the Symposiuminterests us.
(Lacan1991:128)
Miller 213

Thus it is through the empty space of Socrates' desire that Alcibiades can realize his
own, but only insofar as Socrates presents himself as one who desires but does not
yield to false satisfactions, that is only insofar as Socrates remains an erastes and
refuses the seduction of becoming Alcibiades' eromenos,which paradoxically he could
only become by declaringhis desires in the manner of a conventional erastes.
To return to the paradigm offered in Phaedrus' speech at the beginning of the
dialogue, the challenge is for Alcibiades to become Achilles. He must transformhim-
self from an eromenosinto a true erastesby occupying the vacant place of the desire of
the Other. Instead, what he has desired to this point is merely to remain at the level of
Alcestis, who took the place of her lover while staying the beloved. It is the more com-
plex, triadicsubstitutiverelation--exemplifiedby Achilles-that is glimpsedin Alcibiades'
relationshipto Agathon, as mediated through the desire of Socrates(222B4-223B2).
The Symposiumleaves the actual consummationof this ultimate transformationan
open question since at the very moment when Socratesis to praise Agathon in front of
Alcibiades a second crowd of revelers bursts in, bringing the evening's orderly pro-
ceedings to a close. But, as Lacanhimself notes:

That Socrates should praise Agathon is the response not to a past, but
present demand of Alcibiades. When Socrates praises Agathon, he gives
satisfaction to Alcibiades. He gives satisfaction through his actual act of
public declaration,of putting on the plane of the universal Other that which
happened between them behind the veils of shame. The response of Socrates
is this-you can love the one I am going to praise because praising him I,
Socrates,will know how to show the image of you as a lover, insofar as it is
through the image of you as a lover that you are going to enter onto the
road of higher identificationsthat the way of beauty traces (1991:189-90).

In his evocation of the way of beauty and of the road of higher identifications, Lacan
here clearly alludes to the centralmyth of the Phaedrus,which, as Phillipe Julien notes,
features a perfect description of the mutual identification of erastesand eromenos,and
the consequent possibility of a substitution of places through their recollection of, and
identification with, a vacant third position, the lost realm of the forms (1992: 121).1s
The role of the analyst, like that of Socrates, is to be the midwife that makes this
intellectualbirth--through the power of recollectionin the field of desire-possible.

III. Derrida, the Phaedrus, and the Pharmakonof Writing

Plato, however, was not of interest to Lacan alone. The Platonic corpus, particu-
larly those texts that interrogate the relation between desire and truth, and between
love and transcendence, are a central concern for all the major figures in post-
structuralism.The Phaedrus,thus, is a crucial text for Derrida as well, himself a fre-
quent audience member at Lacan's seminars (Schneiderman1983:28). With Derrida,
though, the lens through which Plato is read is no longer psychoanalysis but philoso-
phy. In his essay, "Plato's Pharmacy," the ambiguous figure of the pharmakos/
pharmakon16 functions as the instantiation of the problematic status of writing, inten-

15. On the parallelsbetweenPlato'sdescriptionof desire in the Phaedrusand Freud's,see

Ferrari(1987:156-61).
16. On the relationbetween these terms,see Culler (1982:142-49).
214 International oftheClassical
Journal Tradition
/ Fall1998

tionaliry,and meaning that Derrida sees as structuringthe subsequent western meta-

physicaltradition.Plato'saversionto writingis interpretedas symptomaticof a more
generaltendencyin philosophyto banishthe externaland the materialfrom the es-
sence of meaningand value,or the logos(Derrida1972:182-83;Levin1997:412).This
Platonicattemptat metaphysicalclosure,at the creationof a finite system of fixed
meaningsbeyondthecontingenciesof themerelymaterialletter,canin turnbe seen as
parallelto the system of preexistinginterpretations and conventionallyrecognized
goods thatLacansees as the antithesisof whatconstitutestheethicsof psychoanalysis.
In each case, it is assumed that meaning preexists the acts of enunciation and interpre-
tationthatmakesignificationpossible.Boththe pottedanalyticinterpretation and the
attempt to establisha closed logocentricuniverseare, in the last analysis,designed
more to limit the realmof possiblemeaningsthanto createnew possibilitiesof self-
creationandunderstanding.
ThatDerridashouldrecognizein Platothe chiefinstantiationof such a systemof
metaphysicalclosure,or at leastof the attemptto createsucha system,and Lacanthe
traceof a path beyond the closed worlds of the pleasureand the realityprinciples
describesthemajorsplitbetweencontemporary interpretersof thePhaedrus and Derrida
himself:for, whereDerridasees a necessarilyfailedattemptto createa closedsystem,
many critics see a self-consciousacknowledgmentof the necessity of that failure
(Shankman1994b:8). In placeof an unfulfilledmonologicalstrivingfor metaphysical
closure,they see the dialogue'smultileveleddeploymentof Socraticironyas recogni-
tion of the ultimateopennessof the dialecticalprocess.Thus,while the basic logic of
Derrida'sreadingof the dialogueas exemplifyingthe impossibilityof such closureis
hardlyever called into question,the issue is whetherPlato,in the words of David
Halperin,can be viewed "as a kind of deconstructionist avantla lettre"(1994:62; see
also Ferrari1987:207,220).In pointof fact,the issue is largelymoot since, as Berger
and othershave noted, Derrida'sinterestis less in Plato than in Platonism(Berger
1994: 76, 97).17 His focus is on the role of the Platonic texts in the establishment of
systematic western philosophy (Derrida1972:182-83; Ferrari1987:214);his argument
is that, if we are to grasp the subsequent history of occidental thought, we must first
understand how the logosis constituted at philosophy's beginnings. Hence, whether or
not the historical Plato was aware of the contradictions of reason in ways that his
successors were not is largely irrelevant to Derrida's argument. Indeed, as we shall
see, it is precisely Foucault's failure to recognize the determining influence of the
traditionof post-Socraticphilosophy on the understandingof the nature of reason that
constitutes one of Derrida'smajorcritiquesof Histoirede lafolie.
Derrida begins his reading of the Phaedrusin an imminently philological fashion.
He notes that the dialogue has been the topic of many debates concerning both its date
and quality. The final disquisition on the origin and history of writing, he observes,
has often been felt to be extraneous to the main argument of the dialogue and has
hence been taken as a sign of either juvenile ineptitude or creeping senescence. Thus
the traditional understanding of both the quality and the date of the dialogue are
shown to be dependent on the relationship of the final characterizationof writing to
the body of the work as a whole. Derrida's thesis is that this final section forms a
crucial part of the dialogue and that writing, and its metaphoricalrepresentationin the

17. Bruce Clarke'sdistinction between Socraticand Neoplatonic allegory marks the same his-
torical/conceptual division (1995:25-44).
Miller 215

figureof thepharmakon,
representthe keyphilosophemesthatsimultaneouslyhold the
dialoguetogetherand divide it againstitself(Derrida1972:74-75;Halperin1994:66-
67; Clarke1995:3).
The word pharmakonis first used to describe writing in the Phaedrusin reference
to the copy of Lysias' speech that Phaedrus uses to lure Socratesbeyond the walls of
Athens (230D8;Derrida 1972:78-79). Pharmakon is also the term used by Theuth at the
dialogue's end to describe to Ammon his invention of writing (274E7) and again by
Ammon in his reply (275A7). Derrida notes that Plato deliberately plays upon the
inherent ambiguity of the word: for while Theuth presents writing as a remedy or
beneficialdrug,one meaningof pharmakon,
Ammonsays it is in factjust the opposite
(tounantion,275A2) and thus deploys the equally common meaning of poison or harm-
ful drug. This play on the different senses of the word, as Derrida observes, is almost
always lost in translation,where a choice must be made either to translate the same
word two differentways, in which case Plato's "anagrammatic"jest is lost, or to accept
only one of the two possible meanings, in which case the point of the repetition is lost
(1972: 109-11). The use of the term pharmakon(poison/remedy/charm) to describe
both Lysias' speech, which is an example of dishonorablewriting, and the invention of
the technology of inscription itself is, Derridanotes, not an accident. It shows that the
same basic suspicion not only envelops both writing and medicine but also that the
fundamental ambiguity denoted by the equation of writing and the pharmakon is one
of the most basic philosophemes structuring the dialogue (Derrida 1972: 77, 81). In-
deed, Plato's punning use of the word pharmakon is an illustrationof the fundamental
problem he is addressing in the Phaedrus: the divorce between the external inscription
of the signifying substance in both writing and seduction and the presumed internality
of meaning and love in relation to the logositself.'" The final discussion, then, on the
origin, history and value of writing is not merely an extraneousexcrescence,or a mark
of the dialogue's imperfection, but rather its fitting climax. In this context, Derrida
observes that the question of what exactly is the nature of logographiaor speech-
writing--a term whose combination of logos with graph!neatly sums up the issues
evoked by the dialogue as a whole--is posed, in terms of its total number of lines, at
the exact mathematicalcenter of the work (257C-E;Derrida 1972:76).
These formal considerations are not the only indication of the importance of the
figure of the pharmakon to the institution of the Platonic logos.Derrida remarks that in
Socrates'jesting, rationalist accounting of the myth of the abduction of Oreithyia by
Boreas, Oreithyia is said to be playing outside the city walls with another young girl
named Pharmakeia,or "poisoner," at the time she is swept into the abyss (229C10;
Derrida 1972: 78). Thus, Derrida notes, the motifs of the pharmakon,externality, and
death, as well as the opposition between a traditionalmuthosand a rationalizing logos,
are in play from the moment Socratesis enticed by the lure of Lysias' speech to come
out of Athens into the Attic countryside.19Socrates'humorous account of the myth,
which he himself promptly rejects,is reminiscentof the probabilisticmanner of argu-
ment typical of the sophists. And they, like Lysias, are subsequently stigmatized as

18. On the theme of internality versus externality,see Ferrari(1987:38-39) and Berger (1994:
94).
19. "[J]ustthis, I believe, is Plato's point in 'doing philosophy' in this dialogue through two
distinct and strikingly juxtaposed verbal paths of myth and dialectic. He allows neither
path to reacha satisfactorygoal; ratherone leads only to the other" (Ferrari1987:34).
216 International oftheClassical
Journal / Fall1998
Tradition

dealing only with the externalitiesor appearancesof knowledge, in the same way that
writing is criticized by Ammon as a mere simulacrum of the logos (Ferrari1987: 10,
234n.12;Halperin 1994:52-53).20
Pharmakeia, however, is not the only potential poisoner on the Platonic scene of
writing. Pharmakeios, the masculine form of Pharmakeia, is applied to Eros in the Sympo-
sium (203D8).Elsewhere in the same dialogue, the verb pharmattein is used by Agathon
of Socrates'attemptto charm,bewitch,or seduce him with the promise of the audience's
expectations concerning the former's speech in praise of love (194A5; Derrida 1972:
135-35). Writing, rhetoric, and the pharmakonin the Platonic corpus are clearly por-
trayed as simultaneously seductive and dangerous, attractive and disruptive. In the
Republic,Socratesuses pharmakon of lies or fictions that he qualifies as both potentially
dangerous to the polis and useful when dealing with enemies or educating the young
(382A-D, 387A-D; Berger 1994:83). But, while Plato, according to Derrida, strives in
the Phaedrusto create a clear opposition between writing and the Socratic dialectic of
truth, the pharmakon and Socrates'status as potential pharmakeios demonstrate that this
opposition is in constant danger of collapsing. Socrates'speech both is and is not of the
order of the pharmakon(Derrida 1972: 105, 142-43), just as Plato both is opposed to
writing and the author of beautifully craftedworks.
What writing and the pharmakon have in common is that both belong to the realm
of externality. They are supplements to the logosand the body and as such represent
their contaminationby forces that are properly outside them (Stoekl 1992:201; Derrida
1972:112-17). Like the pharmakos or scapegoat, they are the foreign agents that must be
expelled if a realm of internal purity is to be established in both the person and the
polis (Derrida 1972: 149; Stoekl 1992: 204). Writing does not, Ammon responds to
Theuth, actually improve memory but rather degrades it by substituting a mere fac-
simile of knowledge for its vital presence. In place of mnbnm,active recollection, we
have hypomndsis,the dead letter of the passive reminder (274E-275B3).21 In place of the
living logos, we have the mindless repetition of muthos (Derrida 1972: 84, 98, 126).
Thus, as in the case of the pharmakon, what on one level appears to be a remedy, on
another proves to be a poison. Yet the externalityof writing is ultimately indissociable
from knowledge and memory per se (Stoekl1992:202).This is perhaps nowhere clearer
than at the end of the Phaedruswhen Socratesconcludes that what dialectic demands
is not the dead letter of logographoilike Lysias but a kind of writing on the soul
(276A6-11, 278A3;Halperin 1994:51, 61-62). "Afterhe complains at some length of the
inferiority of the written word to the best kind of speech, he goes on to speak of the
good discourse as 'another sort of writing' in which the dialectical speaker directly
inscribes his auditor's soul" (Berger 1994: 76). The metaphor here is telling because,
even at the level of the most profound internality,the presence of the logosin the soul
can only be conceived of as a form of othemrness or externality that has penetrated it
(Derrida 1972: 105). If that were not the case there would be no need for philosophy
and dialectic, since the logos would be fully present to each and all of us. A supple-
ment is always required. It is for this reason, Derrida suggests, that epistim8or knowl-
edge of the order of the logos is itself described as a pharmakon in both the Critiasand

20. On the sophists, like writing and the pharmakon,as being both inside and outside the
charmed circle of Platonism,see Derrida(1972:123).
21. On the homology of the relation between these two terms with the opposition between
rhetoric and dialectic and their subsequent deconstruction in the dialogue, see Halperin
(1994:72n18).
Miller 217

the Channrmides
(10685-6, 155D-157A;Derrida1972:142-43).The status of the logographoi,
whether writing on paper or the soul, is thus shown to be the central problem in the
inaugurationof Western reason.
"Plato'sPharmacy"was published by the journal Telquelin 1968, four years after
Lacan's revisiting of the Symposiumin his eleventh seminar. This, however, was not
the first time Derrida had raised the issue of the constitution of the interiority of
Platonic reason in relation to a fallen, but logically necessary, outside. In 1963, the
young Derrida had addressed the Colligephilosophique22 concerning the recently pub-
a
lished Folieet Draison, Histoirede la folie l'flgeclassique,by his former teacher at the
EcoleNormaleSuprieure, Michel Foucault. The lecture, later revised and published as
"Cogito et histoire de la folie," is a searching critique of the basic philosophical as-
sumptions underlying Foucault'sproject.For our purposes, however, only one aspect
of Derrida's argument is relevant:his charge that Foucault ignores the profound ties
between reason as constituted in the seventeenth century-when Foucault argues that
the modemrn concept of madness as rationality's opposite was first formed-and the
logos of Socraticand Platonic philosophy. Foucault'sclaim, advanced in his preface, is
that the Greek logos knew no opposite. As Derrida notes, such a reading is not only
untrue to the text of Greek philosophy but a logical impossibility necessitated by
Foucault'sthesis that western reason was produced by the seventeenth century's mass
internment of the mad and the socially marginal (Derrida 1967:62-66; Larmouret al.
1998b:6-9). It is Derrida's thesis that the history of both western reason and its other
can only be understood in relation to reason's initial constitution in the opposition of
muthosand logosthat characterizesPlatonicphilosophy (1972:98).

IV. Foucault, Stoic Ethics, and the Dialogics of Response

As we have seen in the cases of Derrida and Lacan, poststructuralism-far from

constituting itself in opposition to Classics and the ClassicalTradition-was bomrn in a
series of debates about the meaning and significance for modem thought of Greek
tragedy and philosophy. More recent and better known is Foucault'sengagement with
ancient philosophy in general and Stoicism in particularas he attempted to found an
ethics of self-fashioning in the last two volumes of the Historyof Sexuality.Foucault's
effort to discover in ancient philosophy and medicine a way of thinking about ethics
founded not on a juridical, authoritarian,or disciplinary structure but on what he
refers to as an art or stylization of existence has already received extensive comment
from classical scholars and is more familiar than the corresponding work of Derrida
and Lacan (J.Miller 1993:323-22, 340, 346-47; Larmouret al. 1998b:22-33; Vizier 1998:
67-68, 71).
In particular,Foucault sees in the work of such philosophers as the Stoics, Seneca
and Epictetus, and the Platonist Plutarch, a turn to the self that, through various
practices of examination and study, seeks to fashion a beautiful existence in which the
subjectattainsperfectmastery over itself (Foucault1994f:356)23:

22. A philosophicalassociationheaded by JeanWahl.

23. On the convergence of the various philosophical schools of the imperial period in their
focus on philosophy as an askesis,or technology of the self, see Davidson (1995:30-31) and
Hadot (1987:206; 1995:59). Hadot 1995 is ostensibly a revised English translationof Hadot
1987.The revisions, however, are in some cases quite extensive and the reader is generally
advised to consult both texts.
218 International oftheClassical
Journal / Fall1998
Tradition

In the philosophical traditioninauguratedby Stoicism, askesis,far from de-

noting self-abnegation,implies the progressiveconsiderationof the self, the
mastery of the self-a mastery one attains not by renouncing reality,but by
acquiring and assimilating the truth. The ultimate goal of the askesisis not
to prepare the individual for anotherreality,but to permit him to accede to
the reality of this world. In Greek, the word that describes this attitude is
paraskeuaz6 ("to prepare oneself").The askesisis a set of practicesby means
of which the individual is able to acquire, to assimilate the truth, and to
transformit into a permanentprinciple of action. Alitheiabecomes ethos.It
is a processof intensifyingsubjectivity.
(Foucault1994g:800)

Stoicaskesis-as opposedto laterChristianpractice,whichoftenborrowsmanyof the

same techniquesof self-surveillance-isnot designedto root out hiddendesires,nor
to decipherthe realityof who we are beneathappearances, but as a device to mold
is less disciplinary,in the sense of being designedto
behavior.This self-surveillance
make the individualconformto a single pre-establishedend, than shaping.It is a
technologyof the self that allows the subjectto attain masteryover its thoughts,
feelingsand reactionsto externalevents(Foucault1994c:610,615,626-27;1994f:359,
364-65;P. Miller1998:184-88).Self-mastery,on this view, is an end in itself. Stoic
askesis,as such,conformsto Foucault'sdefinitionof ethicsas the "mindfulpracticeof
freedom"(1994h:711-12).It is less a purelycognitiveact than a practice,or in the
words of PierreHadot, a "spiritualexercise"(1987:15-16; 1995:82-83).24
None of the above should come as a surprise to anyone who has followed the
reception of the last two volumes of the Historyof Sexualityby professional classicists.
What is far less well understood in the Classics community is the larger intellectual
dialogue to which Foucault'slater work constituted a response. Indeed, that some of
his supporters have seen Foucault's turn to antiquity at the end of his life as an
aberrationratherthan something centralto his largerintellectualproject(Richlin1998:
167; Macey 1993: 467; J. Miller 1993: 322-33) is a misreading. As Roy Boyne makes
clear, the turn to the study of ancient philosophies of the self can be seen as part of
Foucault'scontinuing attempt to come to terms with Derrida'scritique of Histoirede la
folie. That Derrida's criticism of Foucaulthad struck home can be seen in the fact that
he waited over nine years to respond and that, when he did, he ignored those parts of
Derrida'sargument that dealt directly with the constitution of Westernreason. Instead
he dropped from the 1972 edition of the book the original preface in which he had
made the claim that the Greek logos knew no opposite (Boyne 1990: 74-76, 118). In-
deed, as Foucault himself admitted at the beginning of Volume Two of the Historyof
Sexuality,it had become clear to him that his genealogies of modernity could only be
valid if theirdifferencefromand groundingin antiquitywere established(1984a:11-14).
shouldhardlybe seenas a mereconcessionto
Nonetheless,theHistoryofSexuality
Derrida. Rather,one of its purposes is to answer Derrida's criticisms while also dem-
onstratingthe superiorityof Foucault'sown approach.In his initialresponse to Derrida's
essay, Foucaulthad argued that Derrida'sperspective was too exclusively philosophi-
cal, that it sought to reduce history to a system enclosed within the Socraticlogos,and

24. On Hadot's importance to Foucault's project, see Davidson (1994: 121-23; 1995: 1). On
Hadot's subsequent criticismof Foucault'sreading of the Stoics as too narrowly focussed,
see Davidson (1995:24-25) and Hadot (1987:229-33; 1995:206-213). For a good in-depth
discussion of the practiceof Stoic meditatio,
see Newman (1989).
Miller 219

that it treatedsociallyand historicallyembeddeddiscursivepracticesas meretextual

traces(1972:584,602).Twelveyearslaterwhen Foucault'sown work on ancientphi-
losophyandethicswas published(anyoneso credulousas to believethatthe Historyof
Sexualityis aboutsex is boundto be mightilydisappointed),the more strictlyphilo-
sophicaldiscoursesof a Plato,an Aristotle,or a Senecaare recontextualized
by being
readin thelightof ancientmedicine,manualsof domesticconductsuchas Xenophon's
Oikonomikos, and personalcorrespondencesuch as the Lettersof the youngerPliny.
Thus while Foucault finishes his career by granting Derrida's contention that it is
impossible to do a genealogy of modem, western reason without a thorough consider-
ation of its earliest exemplars, he simultaneously demonstratesthe virtues of his own
method of examining discursive practicesas opposed to texts.
In addition, there is also in his privileging of the Stoics throughout his later
work---particularlythat published in interviews, occasionalessays, and the transcripts
of lectures--a subtle retort to Derrida's focus on Plato and the latter's suspicion of
writing. Foucault observes that in the Stoics, and indeed all the philosophers of the
imperial period, the exclusion of writing is completely discarded (Foucault1994f:361).
Philosophical pedagogy had changed, he notes, so that the truth became something
one received from a master or professor.

The Platonic culture of the dialogue cede[d] its place to a culture of silence
and the art of listening (Foucault1994g:796).

In making this case, Foucaultimplicitly argues that there is a counter-philosophi-

cal tradition to the Platonic one from which Derrida derives, a tradition whose pri-
mary focus is ultimately on practice ratherthan the logos,and whose chief concern is
the ethics of self-fashioningratherthan the metaphysics of presence.25
Indeed, while Derrida is never mentioned, the careful reader of Foucault's vari-
ous dits et &critscan discover a careful rebuttal of all the major points made in "La
pharmaciede Platon,"beginningwith the pharmakon
itself.26Thepharmakon,
it will be
recalled, symbolizes writing's suspect status as something outside, yet also integral to,
the logos itself. Thus Plato has Ammon argue that writing is a pharmakon that allows
to
people appear to know more than do
they by repeating the discourses of others, as
of
Phaedrus does in the case Lysias, ratherthan coming to real knowledge through an
active engagement in dialectic. In contrast,Foucaultpoints out, in the imperial period
even a Platonist such as Plutarch recommends learning the discourses of others as a
pharmakon, or drug, that guards the soul against illness (Foucault1994f:360). What the
one sees as harmful, the other views as beneficial. Where Plato rejectswriting, accord-
ing to Derrida, as mere hupomndsisinstead of mnim, the philosophers of the empire,
Foucaultobserves, directly advocated the keeping of hupomnimata,27 or notebooks, not

25. On Foucault'santi-Platonicproject,see Flynn (1991:112).

26. In at least one case, Foucault'sinterviewersclearly invite him to situate his work relative to
the problematicinvestigatedby Derridain "LaPharmacie."Foucault'sresponse is to switch
immediately to a discussion of the history and technicalstatus of hupomnmata,a move that
appears to refuse the engagement with Derridawhile simultaneously accepting it on his
own terms (Foucault1994c:624-25).
27. The importanceof the hupomnimata as a genre of philosophic writing that was designed to
serve as a spiritualexercise, and hence a technology of the self, is discussed by PierreHadot
in referenceto MarcusAurelius' Meditations(1992:40-49; Davidson 1995:10-11).
220 International oftheClassical
Journal / Fall1998
Tradition

as a substitute for memory--conceived of by Plato as vital and interior to the soul-

but as a form of practice,a technology of the self (Foucault1994d:417-19; 1994f:361-
61). Writing,ratherthan underminingthe presence of the logosto itself or representing
a form of discourse whose author is never present to defend the integrity of his
intentions, actually renders the absent party present, according to Seneca (Foucault
1994d:425). The grapheme is not the foreign element that threatensthe interiority of
the soul, but ratherthe technology that makes interioritypossible.28Foucaultstates:

The hupomntmataought to be resituated in the context of a very palpable

tension during this period: inside this culture that was so affected by tradi-
tion, by the recognized value of the quotation, by the recurrence of dis-
course, by the practiceof "citation"under the seal of age and authority, an
ethics was in the process of developing that was very openly oriented by
the care of the self toward some very precise objects:the retreatinto oneself;
the interior life; independence;the taste for oneself. Such is the objective of
the hupomnhmata: to make the memory of a fragmentarylogos transmitted
by teaching, listening or reading, a means of establishing a relation with
oneself as adequateand perfectas possible. (1994c:625-26)

Thus Foucault carefully and unobtrusively takes up each of Derrida's major themes
with regard to the role of writing in the constitutionof western philosophical reason-
the pharmakon, versus hypomnisis,presence versus absence, interiority versus
mnhmn
exteriority-and demonstrates the existence of a counter-traditionthat Derrida ig-
nores. That counter-tradition,like Foucaulthimself in his response to Derrida'sattack
on Histoirede lafolie, privileges practiceover the abstractionsof pure reason, and self-
fashioning over textualityin a vacuum.
At the same time, it would also be hard to imaginehow Foucault'sattempt-
through an examination of Greco-Romanmoral philosophy-to elaborate an antiau-
thoritarian,antidisciplinaryethics, based on a creative art of existence, could not take
place in the shadow of Lacan'sown endeavor to do the same in his commentaries on
the Antigoneand the Symposium(Davidson 1994:117-18). Indeed, Lacan himself saw
Stoic ethics as anticipating those he outlined for psychoanalysis (1973: 283). A re-
sponse to Lacan's reading of ancient philosophy was made all the more necessary
since one of the basicchallengesof the Historyof Sexuality,as Foucaultconceivedit,
was to elaboratea way of thinking about the genealogy of sexuality that did not rely,
at least implicitly, on a Freudian model (Foucault1994c:610; 1994i:215; Butler 1990:
72-73;Jameson 1991:12;Black1998).
In fact, there are numerous echoes between Foucault's and Lacan's texts, more
than thereis roomto tracein this essay.Two briefexamples,however,will indicate
the importanceof this relation.First,in the openingpages of the seminaron the
Antigone,LacananticipatesFoucault'sargumentsin VolumeOne of the Historyof
Sexualitywhen the formercontends that "genitality"is an ideological construction,not
a biological reality, and that psychoanalysis in striving to produce a scientiasexualis
has neglected the establishmentof an ars erotica(Lacan1986:17-19, 182;see also 1973:

28. For writing as that which makes the creation of highly interiorized lyric consciousness
possible in the period immediatelypreceding the time Foucaultis discussing, see P. Miller
(1994).
Miller 221

213;Foucault 1976:71-98, 204-05). Second, in the seminar on the Symposium,we find a

discussion of how the ethics of pederasty differed from one community to the next in
ancient Greece, immediately followed by a comparison of the eromenosto the beloved
in the Medieval courtly tradition. Both ideas are closely paralleled by a series of pas-
sages in Foucault's L'usagedes plaisirs(Lacan1991:42; Foucault.1984a:211-12, 216-17,
235-36). In short, a number of the concepts that Foucaultwould later develop in more
detail and from the standpoint of a different philosophical agenda can already be
found in ovo in the seminars of Lacan.
Most important from our perspective, however, is that Foucault chooses to close
Volume Two of the Historywith his own extended reading of the Symposium.Where
Lacan focuses on transference, the problematics of desire, and the nature of erotic
substitution, Foucault argues that the Platonic text represents a historical mutation in
the development of Greek pederastic discourse, wherein the seeker of truth is de-
scribed as the erastesand the role of the eromenosdisappears (Foucault 1984a: 266;
Carnes 1998: 110; Nicholson 1998:26-28). In its place, a regime of erotic symmetry is
instituted based on a new discourse concerningthe ontology of love, as opposed to the
more traditional debates on the proprieties of the pederastic relationship that focused
on questions such as to whom, how often, and under what circumstancesa boy should
grant his favors to a suitor (Foucault 1984a:259-64). What Socrates introduces is not
the figure of the desire of the analyst but that of the master of truth who reduces
others to amorous slavery in their pursuit of wisdom and who wins this position
through the power that he exercises over himself as demonstrated in his relation to
Alcibiades (Foucault 1984a: 265). Foucault's reading of the Symposiumthus differs
from Lacan's in two crucial fashions. First, Foucault historicizes Lacan's reading by
recontextualizing the Symposiumwithin the larger discourse of pederasty in classical
Greece. Second, the gesture of historicization renders impossible any easy identifica-
tion with the figure of Socrates.Hence, while for LacanSocrates serves as a precursor
for the psychoanalyst, Foucault himself explicitly rejectedthe role of maftrede la vrit
(Stoekl 1992:197;Poster 1989:34-52; Macey 1993:458, 468).

V. Conclusion

What I have presented here is only a small sample of the whole topic. A more
complete understanding of the role of antiquity in poststructuralismwould have to
include: an examination of Derrida's use of Plato's letters in La cartepostaleas part of
his response to Lacan'sreading of Poe's "PurloinedLetter";Luce Irigaray'streatment
of the Myth of the Cave in her Speculumde l'autrefemme,the text which constituted her
break with Lacan;Julia Kristeva's exploration of the Timaeus'concept of the chorain
her Revolutiondu langagepo~tique;and Michel Serre'sRome:le livredesfondations,as part
of his more general project to produce a philosophy of time. Finally any such larger
projectwould have to look at the interrelationsbetween the poststructuralistsand the
leading classical thinkers in France.It is known that both Georges Dumdzil and Paul
Veyne had close intellectual and personal friendships with Foucault and that Pierre
Vidal-Naquet was familiar with Lacan'swork. A complete survey would also have to
examine the relations between poststructuralismand the thought of scholars such as
Marcel Detienne, Jean-PierreVemant, and Nicole Loraux. But at this point we have
crossed well beyond the bounds of an individual essay and are looking instead at a
projectthat would be of monographicproportions.
222 International oftheClassical
Journal / Fall1998
Tradition

What even this brief survey shows, however, is that French poststructuralist
thought, far from being opposed to the study of Classics and the Classical Tradition,
offers new ways of thinking about traditionaltexts. The works of Lacan,Derrida,and
Foucault rather than constituting a warrant for presentism, demand a knowledge of
the Classics if they are themselves to be fully understood. Yet this is only the most
superficial level on which the case for the classical roots of poststructuralismcan be
made: for, as we have seen, not only do these thinkersand writers comment upon the
literature of antiquity, but their very debates are often couched in terms of those
commentaries. The way antiquity is understood functions as one of the central
problematicsaround which the various strands of poststructuralistthought have been
elaborated.

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