Philosophy as Self-Constituting Discourse: The Case of Dialogue

Research in the analysis of discourse as such dates from the 1960s. Studying texts is, however, a much earlier practice. At first, the analysts of discourse were mainly concerned with corpuses that had not been studied previously: familiar conversations, mediated discourses, utterances linked to administrative, political, legal institutions, and so forth. They have thus allowed the traditional modes of analyzing philosophical, religious, or literary texts to endure. Still, I find it necessary to use the concepts and methods of discourse analysis with these corpuses as well; this is what I have been trying to do with philosophical dialogue since the 1980s by developing concepts adapted to this type of discourse (Cossutta 1998–2001) and applying them to the works of philosophers, in a methodological context bearing most especially upon the theories of linguistic enunciation (Benveniste 1966; Culioli 1990).

In this article, I shall consider the problem set by dialogue in philosophical discourse. Research on conversations is probably the most developed area of study, and I would like to show that the representation of the verbal interactions takes place within a very different framework when it comes to philosophical texts: not only because, like in theater, the texts are produced by an author (and are not real interactions), but also because the "self-constituting" character of philosophy decisively shapes the use of this genre.

1. Analysis of Discourse and the Specificity of Philosophical Discourse

At first sight, the philosopher's discourse could seem to represent a field of observation amongst others, in the same fashion as medical or political discourse, daily conversation, and such. We have shown elsewhere (Cossutta and Maingueneau 1995) that philosophical discourse belongs to the "self-constituting discourses," which stand apart not so much because of their privileged belonging to the written realm or because of their subject, but because of the way in which they handle their relating to writing and to discourse in general, or legitimate the enunciation allowing them to set their subjects. They are characterized by the asymmetric relation they engage in with other types of discourses, since they claim to be playing a founding role towards these, without having first to be founded:

These people are perceived as delivering not just any message, but one authorized by their privileged acquaintance with "ultimate" discourses: discourses upon which others are based—that have a particular relationship with the foundations of society and with the signification of human destiny. This asymmetry proceeds from the particular status of "self-constituting discourses": discourses like others, they are also discourses which claim to be above any other type of discourse. Discourses bordering on unspeakable meanings, they must negotiate the paradoxes that such a status implies. To found other discourses without being founded by them, they must set themselves up as ultimately bound with a legitimizing Source and show that they are in accordance with it, owing to the operations by which they structure their texts and legitimate their own context, the way they emerge and develop.

(Maingueneau 1990, 183)

The task of the analyst consists in "analy[zing] the textual operations by which self-constituting discourses manage their self-foundation" (183). The case of philosophy is all the more difficult as it enjoys, or claims to be enjoying, a quite special status. For centuries in Western history, it has, within self-constituting discourses, played a decisive, if not dominating, role by claiming to comprehend all discourses or to be acting as their critical authority. Yet, this feature depends perhaps more on the image that philosophy has of itself than on reality, since it has constantly competed with theological or scientific discourses.

By nature, philosophical discourse particularly resists the textual, linguistic, or discursive disciplines that would have it as the object of their study. Having the propriety of making explicit the conditions of its own discursive self-constitution and that of giving a theoretical status to language in general, it resents becoming the object of an investigation external to it and is critical of all the claims to autonomy and scientificity made by the disciplines of discourse. Philosophical discourse thus requires the discourse analysis considered as...