Reading for Symptoms: Althusser, Bachelard, Barthes, Foucault

Abstract

This paper argues that a mode of reading which has much in common with that which Althusser, in Reading Capital, calls "symptomatic". has proven to be one of the most productive but neglected textual procedures of our times. By way of a discussion of the reading practices of Althusser, Barthes, Bachelard and Foucault, it is argued here that these practices are connected, not only as regards parallel concerns and themes, but more important still concerning the figure of discontinuity which underpins all symp­tomatic readings. This discontinuity, the paper suggests, is not only of the conceptual or philosophical variety, but extends to the concepts of history in Foucault's ar­chaeologies to that of the subject in Bachelard, and to representation itself in the work of both Althusser and Barthes. Opsomming In hierdie referaat word redeneer dat 'n wyse van lees wat baie gemeen het met dit waarna Althusser in Reading Capital verwys as "simptomaties". onbetwisbaar as een van die produktiefste, maar tegelyk oak mees verwaarloosde tekstuele prosedures van ans tyd is. Aan die hand van 'n bespreking van die leespraktyke van Althusser, Barthes, Bachelard en Foucault, word hier beweer dat die praktyke verband met mekaar hou, nie net vir saver dit paralelle belange en temas betref nie, maar belangriker nag, rakende die diskontinurteit wat al die simptomatiese lesings onderle. Hierdie diskontinu'iteit is. volgens die referaat, nie net van konseptuele of filosofiese aard nie, maar betrek oak die konsepte van die geskiedenis in Foucault se argeologiee, tot die van die onderwerp in Bachelard, en tot representasie as sodanig in die werk van sowel Althusser as Barthes.