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For negative correlation between visibility and the subject canbe overcome only in case of serious reorganization of the whole field of theconceivable, and not just separate concepts of “visibility” or “subject”. Therefore,the very emerging of this topic is already an indicator of such reorganization,7Lèbre J., Nancy J.-L. Signaux sensibles.
Entretien à propos des arts, Montrouge: Bayard, 2017. P. 5.6though its consistent theorizing is not warranted by it: as we will see later, it willinvolve individual and often very personal theoretical efforts of the above-namedauthors along the difficult third way of response to the structural invisibility ofsubjects chosen by them – the way between the extremities of severe criticism ofvision and scathing criticism of the subject. The four authors appear thus as keythinkers that disparately put in relief the effort needed to elaborate this response.Thus, theorizing of the subject's visibility is a certain “challenge” for thecontemporary French philosophy: simultaneously as an exigent problem, as arequirement of immediate interest and as an invitation to a competition with theintellectual clichés and thinking habits.
And as such it has not been studied yet.Extent of prior investigation of the topicThe topic of the subject’s visibility as a problem of contemporary Frenchphilosophy is covered in the relevant literature extremely poorly. Anyobservations, even if found, are usually limited to separate, rather casual remarks.The most profuse argument on the topic we found was in one of the chapters of thebook by Frédéric Rambeau “The Second Lives of the Subject: Deleuze, Foucault,Lacan”8. In his study, the author propagates the thesis that against the backgroundof the structuralist critics of the linguistic subject, it is at the level of the visiblethat the “dissolving and creative dynamics of subjectivization” becomes apparent.Nevertheless, Rambeau's study does not make a claim for consistency orcompleteness, being limited to the analysis of one case only (implicit polemicsbetween Foucault and Lacan related to the interpretation of Velázquez' “LasMeninas”).We shall consider the following texts as the examples of the seminalphilosophical statements testifying to incompatibility of visibility and subjectivityin contemporary French philosophy: Sartre's fragment on the gaze from “Beingand Nothingness”9 in its traditional interpretation associating the situation of8Rambeau F.
Les Secondes Vies du Sujet. Deleuze, Foucault, Lacan. Paris: Hermann, 2016.Sartre J.-P. Being and Nothingness. An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology/ trans. H.E. Barnes. N.Y.:Philosophical Library, 1956. P. 252-302.97“being visible under the gaze of the Other” with objectivization; a fragment onpanopticism from “Discipline and Punish"10 by Foucault where visibility in thepanoptic dispositif is associated with subjugation; Derrida's “Memoirs of the Blind.The Self-Portrait and Other Ruins”11 showing the impossibility to distinguish aself-portrait from a simple portrait solely at the level of the visible, that is therepresentation of the subject of representation from any another representation.However, the text by Jean-Paul Sartre can be read from another point ofview also.
Besides the traditional approach to commenting on this fragment wealready mentioned, widespread in the literature, especially in the so-called “criticalstudies”, it is possible to find some more sophisticated interpretations. The mostingenious and convincing treatment of the Sartre's fragment on the gaze againstthis prevailing approach was proposed by Rudolf Bernet in the article “To see andbe seen. The invisible phenomenon of the gaze and painting”12, in which heshowed how the gaze of Sartre's Other not only objectifies the I-conscience, butalso makes it possible to see the Other as a subject, that is, subjectifies it.Nevertheless, according to Bernet, the Other’s gaze in Sartre remains “an invisiblephenomenon”. The thesis of invisibility of the gaze of the Other-subject from“Being and Nothingness” should thus be analyzed regarding its conformity toSartre's earlier key texts, indirectly devoted to the topics of visibility and thesubject – “The Imaginary”13 and “The Transcendence of the Ego”14.
In hisinterpretation, Bernet does not take these texts into consideration, whichnevertheless, as we will try to show later, have a significant impact on the choiceof the relevant strategy of interpretation of the text.Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Sartre's contemporary and colleague, later spoke10Foucault M. Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison / trans.
by A. Sheridan, N.Y.: Vintage Books, 1995. P.170-177.11Derrida J. Mémoires d’Aveugle. L’Autoportrait et Autres Ruines. Paris: Editions de la Réunion des muséesnationaux, 1990.12Bernet R. Voir et être vu. Le phénomène invisible du regard et la peinture // Revue d’esthétique.
N. 36. 1999. P.37-47.13Sartre J.-P. The Imaginary. A Phenomenological Psychology of the Imagination / trans. by J. Webber. London,N.Y.: Routledge, 2004.14Sartre J.-P. The Transcendence of the Ego. A sketch for a phenomenological description / trans. by A. Brown.London, N.Y.: Routledge, 2004.8about the subject's visibility more openly. During the last period of his creativeactivity, in the unfinished work “The Visible and the Invisible”15, he made it hismission to theorize the seer's visibility.
The framework for the interpretation of thisprogram, especially as regards to the concept of the subject of “The Visible and theInvisible”, was developed by the comments of Renaud Barbaras 16. The article byPierre Cassou-Noguès17 on the notion of the subject in “The Visible and theInvisible” can also be considered as an important complement to the analysis madeby Barbaras. Nevertheless, the comments of these authors require duesystematizing and development adjusted for the topic of our study. Of no lesserimportance is that Merleau-Ponty did not come to the ideas of “The Visible and theInvisible” at once, and one should also pay attention to how his theory of visibilitywas gradually prepared in the polemics with Sartre in the courses of lectures readby Merleau-Ponty in the mid-1950s: the course on psychology and pedagogic ofthe child18 read in Sorbonne in 1949-1952 and the course read in 1954-1955 inCollège de France and devoted to the topic of passivity19.
More relevant forinterpretation of these texts are the comments of Emmanuel de Saint Aubert20 whoscrupulously reconstructed in his studies the intellectual context proceeding fromwhich the most innovative solutions and concepts of the late Merleau-Ponty wereborn. It is also necessary to mention the monograph written by AnnabelleDufourcq21 in which she gives a detailed analysis of the formation of the theory of15Merleau-Ponty M. The Visible and the Invisible. Followed by working notes / trans. by A. Lingis.
Evanston:Northwestern University Press, 1968.16The most seminal among them are Barbaras R. De l’Être du Phénomène. Sur l’Ontologie de Merleau-Ponty.Grenoble: Million, 1990; Barbaras R. Tournant de l’Expérience: Recherches sur la Philosophie de Merleau-Ponty.Paris: Vrin, 1998. For us, some of his later articles are of particular interest: Barbaras R. The Ambiguity of theFlesh // Chiasmi International. 2002. N. 4. P. 19-25; Barbaras R. Les Trois Sens de la Chair. Sur une Impasse del’Ontologie de Merleau-Ponty // Chiasmi International.
Vol. 10. 2008. P. 19-32.17Cassou-Noguès P. La Définition du Sujet dans Le Visible et l’invisible // Merleau-Ponty aux Frontières del’Invisible / sous la dir. de Cariou M., Barbaras R., Bimbenet E. Milan: Mimesis, 2003. P. 163-183.18Merleau-Ponty M. Child Psychology and Pedagogy. The Sorbonne Lectures 1949-1952 / trans. by T. Welsh.Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2010.19Merleau-Ponty M.
Institution and Passivity. Course Notes from the Collège de France (1954-1955) / trans by L.Lawlor and H. Massey. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2010.20For the moment, his key books are the following : De Saint Aubert E. Du Lien des Êtres aux Eléments de l’Être:Merleau-Ponty au Tournant des Années 1945-1951. Paris: Vrin, 2004 ; De Saint Aubert E. Le Scénario Cartésien.Recherhes sur la Formation et la Cohérence de l’Intention Philosophique de Merleau-Ponty.
Paris: Vrin, 2005 ; DeSaint Aubert E. Vers Une Ontologie Indirecte. Sources et Enjeux Critiques de l’Appel à l’Ontologie Chez MerleauPonty. Paris: Vrin, 2006 ; De Saint Aubert E. Être et Chair I. Du Corps au Désir: l’Habilitation Ontologique de laChair. Paris: Vrin, 2013.21Dufourcq A. Merleau-Ponty: une ontologie de l’imaginaire. Springer: 2011.9relationship between imagination and perception of Merleau-Ponty, though doesnot devote particular attention to the role of the visibility of another-subject in thiscontext. Another description of the visibility of the subject as a special visibility ofcogito demonstration, alternative to that of “The Visible and the invisible”, can bealso found in the last, unfinished, course by Merleau-Ponty “The CartesianOntology and the Ontology of Today”22.Jacques Rancière, another author quite openly theorizing the subject’svisibility, in his political texts of late 1980ies-1990ies, formulated the imperativeof subjectivization in the terms of “becoming visible, becoming subject” (thoughhe did not specially dwell on the problematical character of the link between thesubject and the visible for philosophy).
This imperative is thematized in the twokey collections of political texts by Rancière: “On the Shores of Politics”23 and“Disagreement”24. From the point of view of aesthetics, in Rancière's later texts thetopic of the subject's visibility receives a different interpretation, its most completeand unequivocal statement contained in the “The Politics of Literature”25.Although there is a sufficiently extensive group of Rancière's analysts alreadyexisting, we have not found any study focused on his theory of visibility ofsubjects.
This deficit is partially compensated by interviews with Rancière 26 wherehe frequently formulates his stand more clearly and definitely. Conversations andstatements are included in the heritage of Rancière in their own rights on a par withmore traditional forms of philosophical expression.The texts of Jean-Luc Nancy in which he develops the topic of a portrait ofthe subject also attract our attention here as we treat is as one of the manifestationsof the subject of our study. In his fragmentary corpus, one can find at least four22Merleau-Ponty M.
Notes des Cours au Collège de France. 1958-1959 et 1960-1961. Paris: Gallimard, 1996. P.160-267.23Rancière J. On the Shores of Politics / trans. by L. Heron. London, N.Y.: Verso, 1995.24Rancière J. Disagreement. Politics and Philosophy / trans. by J.
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