Hi Zoe

Interesting question. Foucault was clearly making a play on words here. ‘Dicible’ is a standard French word, which as you note means ‘speakable’ or ‘able to be spoken of’. ‘Discible’ is not a French word, but it reminds me of the Latin ‘discere’ which means ‘to learn’.

So the phrase could mean that the Visible can be neither spoken of, nor learnt about.

Another possibility is that ‘discible’ is a play on ‘discours’, and means ‘capable of being discoursed about’. This fits with Foucault’s argument that at the period (episteme) about which he is talking here (pre-clinic), what is seen does not (cannot) become the basis for a discourse on the body.

I’d say either translation adds a subtlety to the point he is making, though on balance I go for the second. The ‘non-translation’ of the two words in the English version makes me suspect that the translator had no idea, and hoped no-one would ask!

What do you think?

Nick

Thanks a million for this answer Nick. I had to laugh about the translator hoping no-one would ask. I like your tracing a hypothetical etymology of these words. Why do you favour the second tracing over the first?

I think its more likely: I can't really see why he would pick out a latin word to create his word-play, whereas 'discours' is part of his vocabulary. Indeed, he makes the link between seeing, saying and discourse early in the book (in my version on page xii).

It also makes sense and adds to the reading; and after all, my 'reader response' is an appropriate way to engage with a post-structuralist analysis!

Nick

Actually, "dicible" means speakable (the form "indicible" is more usual and used to express that something is beyond words). He could have said that the Visible was "indicible" but he wanted to play word games and keep us busy, perhaps.

I am investigating "discible" ;-).

Nick, you've given me the second big grin today. Who would want to be stuck in structuralism looking for certainty?! Thanks for your reply which makes good sense. The link between seeing, saying and discourse is also on p. xii in my version. Re-reading that is helpful. Thank you.

Sanda, thank you too for your reply. I await the outcome of your investigation into 'discible' with keen anticipation!

Hi Zoe,

Disclaimer: this is not my line of business (but languages are).

I got help from a French colleague whom I consulted just to check that what I am saying sounds correct to her.

Here is what we got between the two of us:

- dicible: that which can be said, which is expressible in words. Just as any "voie" (road) is "viable," every "dit" (spoken) is "dicible" (sayable, as it were).

- The term "discible" is not found in the usual French language dictionaries, such as the Petit Robert or the Littré. It seems to be used by some philosophers (e.g. Spinoza), so this may be a term inherent a specific disci-pline ;-). There is also a painting bearing this name. It reminds me of a dissociation which is perhaps the idea of "disc-," wrapped in poetic license.

My earlier disclaimer goes especially toward what I will say next: I have long suspected that what English speakers find very profound in some of the French philosophers' texts is to some extent (at least sometimes) an artifact of the mismatch between the two languages - English (very precise), and French (a language in which you can talk or write at length without a listener or reader being able to pin you down). This is further enhanced by writers such as Foucault who did not hate having the readers do what we are doing - spend a lot of time trying to decypher his texts; and, when we fail, conclude that it is because he is so much cleverer and more profound than we are... It does not hurt that French sounds so nice and sophisticated ;-). My colleagues are currently into "bricolage" - a run-of-the-mill term in French that roughly means tinkering (the stuff of DIY and Home Depot stores), but how much cooler does it sound when you call it bricolage?! You can even attribute to this term a ton of depth that it does not really carry in French.

I have just finished reading a cool book about whether and how the language we speak affects how we think. This is an example of YES! ;-)

Hi Sanda

re: "I have just finished reading a cool book about whether and how the language we speak affects how we think" — can you give us the reference please?

Thanks in anticipation!

How interesting Sanda! Thank you so much for the trouble you went to, consulting your colleague and thinking this through. For a while there I WAS thinking how clever Foucault was. Now I'm thinking about how mischievous he was.

I feel the urge to digress here and write about narrative therapy (my approach to therapeutic practice) - the close attention paid to the minutiae of language we use because of how it constructs our identity claims, our perceptions, the meaning we make of experience, in short, our worlds. And also the idea of discourses - how the discourses shape us and our experiences, and how we in turn shape the discourses. Perhaps my day-to-day practice as a therapist has recruited me into 'worrying' over words like 'discible' (my disclaimer!).

I think between what you have written, and what Nick has written (above), the 'answer', or at least the thinking about this of the moment, is that our own response is what is called for here. Perhaps this fits well with what Foucault is trying to get across - the link between what we see, how we speak about what we see, and what the effects of this experience are.

A couple of years ago I also 'worried' over the word 'bricolage' for a piece I was writing. I had some help from a French friend who is very interested in language. I began to have some understanding, from our discussions, about the playfulness of the French language, the mischievousness of it, and the Gaelic shrug of it that expresses so much.

What is the cool book you've just finished reading?

Thanks again Sanda.

Maurice and Zoe, thanks for the good words.

The book I just read is by Guy Deutscher and it is called "Through the language glass: Why the world looks different in other languages" (Metropolitan books, 2010). I am a language nerd and can read boring stuff, but this is rather entertaining. Or perhaps you will tell me that indeed I am a nerd and it is boring, but I am betting on Guy Deutscher!

Hi Sanda and Zoe

It would be helpful to know how Spinoza used ‘discible’ as no doubt Foucault was familiar with his work. I had been working on the theory that it was Foucault’s own neologism.

But anyway I don’t go with the argument that Foucault just invented a word to confuse or entertain his readers: I am sure if he was playing on the word ‘dicible’ it was to some end (a ‘mot juste’ as it were).

An analogy would be Derrida’s neologism ‘differance’, a hybrid word he invented that encapsulated the sense of both differing and deferring.

Nick

AND Derrida took the time/space to explain differance so that we could understand what he meant by it.

I'd like to know how Spinoza used 'discible' too, or anyone else's use of it that you found Sanda.

I've requested Deutscher's book from the University library. Thanks for the reference.

OK, so I don't have a direct line to the link Spinoza-discible, but I looked up a few examples (in French - you'd think they should know!) of the use of this word. It is not rare! Several instances suggest confusion with "dicible." However, many concur and consistently use the word with a meaning related to the ability to separate. Indiscible is "neither this nor that" - something you can't separate, as for example, in certain cases, identity and religion, which may have been the Spinoza reference (not sure!)

Thanks Sanda — so discible meaning distinguishable and dicible speakable, meaning the original quote "Le Visible n'etait pas Dicible, ni Discible" to me now translates pretty much as: "We cannot really put into words or even adequately elucidate what we see". Have I got the sense of how you interpret it?

Hi Maurice

Foucault was talking about an earlier episteme, so perhaps:

(At that time) the Visible could neither be Spoken nor Differentiated.

I would love to see some of the other citations of the use of 'discible' that you unearthed, Sanda.

Thanks

Nick

Hi again, Maurice.

Yes pretty much that is how it I would understand that particular sentence (keeping in mind that my day-job rarely includes deciphering Foucault). The other mentions of discover seem to carry the same meaning. I do wish philosophers opted for a bit more clarity! But I guess the choice is not mine to make...

Nick, the instances I found of the use of discible are all in French. I confess to using Google, which stubbornly offers to correct my search to "disciple."

PS: my cell phone "corrects" my spelling - in the comment above, I meant "discible" of course, not discover!

But since I am now on the computer, here are for Nick some of the places where the word is mentioned:

http://www.cafepedagogique.net/Documents/CNAM_tabRonde1.htm

http://1libertaire.free.fr/castoriadis11.html

http://www.entretemps.asso.fr/Badiou/06-05-00.pdf

http://cafes-philo.org/2011/03/connaitre-la-vie-dun-ecrivain-nous-aide-t-il-a-comprendre-ses-oeuvres/

http://www.europhilosophie.eu/recherche/IMG/pdf/COURS_EPISTEMOLOGIE_HISTOIRE_2_2e_partie.pdf

http://agone.org/lyber_pdf/lyber_390.pdf

http://passouline.blog.lemonde.fr/2012/02/08/ne-tirez-pas-sur-le-traducteur/

http://psicologiaysociologia.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/castro-edgardo-el-vocabulario-de-michel-foucault.pdf

Hi Sanda

Are you able to provide an example tha nails this meaning of separable, in French if possible?

I've found some too, but as you say, sometimes it seems like a typo for 'disible'. For instance:

N’avons-nous pas tendance à espérer une réponse pensable, discible?

appears at http://macgyver74.free.fr/nd/nd_08_17.htm

The logical translation of this is 'Don't we usually hope for a reply that is thinkable, speakable?

'Separable' makes no sense here.

It's all very obscure. What a good quesion, Zoe :))

Nick

Nick, most of the examples I listed above used the word correctly (not in place of dicible) but that does not mean they are models of clarity. The fact that people use these terms in the wrong place as in your example shows the perils of using obscure language: you can count on many not noticing the errors, and even more being ashamed to ask and thereby show they don't know. Moreover, people cite each other (in the documents I found) or use the term in a "safe way" that does not require them to have a handle on it (a this point, I feel I can play that game too!) As a result, instead of progressive clarification through discussions, it seems to me we are seeing here progressive obfuscation. Therefore, I would not expect to find the ultimate citation that nails the meaning... But hope springs eternal: I'd love to see anything you find that settles the matter.

One more observation from a translator's point of view, since I argued from the start that some of the fog is due to translation issues. I wonder whether a text in Russian (i.e., a language that is so different from French that they can't possibly use the same words, as we do in English as if those words naturally occurred in the same form) could be more helpful to us. How do they translate Foucault's dicible and discible (if they ever do)? Granted, we'd see the translator's choice rather than the ultimate proof of meaning, but perhaps such a translator had the time to do more research before making the choice. So we may need the help of a Russian (or Hungarian, etc.) fan of Foucault who reads him in his/her own language rather than in French or English.

Thank you all for your contributions to this topic. It would be very helpful if we could find a way to look inside an edition published in another language. I've had a look at the German edition online but there's no preview so I can't look inside. Maurice speaks German - perhaps you can find it somewhere Maurice?

Zoe, my compliments on asking an intriguing question that has kept us pleasantly busy.

Hi everyone

I think there’s a need for a further update on this, I’m afraid. I’ve had some e-mail exchanges with Sanda over the weekend and also been able to consult with an acquaintance who is bilingual French/English.

Having had a chance to look at the various web sites that include the word ‘discible’, and from my associate’s experience, there does not seem to be evidence that ‘discible’ is a word in current French usage. As noted, it does not appear in any of the French dictionaries checked. Where it does appear, I suggest it is a spelling mistake or typo for ‘dicible’. Indeed, apparently this mistake is so common in student work that it is actually highlighted as a specific error to be looked out for by examiners.

This becomes clear when looking carefully at the meaning being transmitted in many of the occurrences of ‘discible’. For instance, as I noted in an earlier post:

‘N’avons-nous pas tendance à espérer une réponse pensable, discible?’

which appears at: http://macgyver74.free.fr/nd/nd_08_17.htm, makes most sense when translated as:

‘Don't we usually hope for a reply that is thinkable, speakable?’ In other words, given the accepted meaning of ‘dicible’ as ‘speakable’ or ‘expressible’.

‘Separable’ makes little sense here. Indeed, in none of the occurrences of ‘discible’ identified did the alternative sense proposed of ‘separable’ make more sense than this conventional meaning.

I want to turn now though to the example identified by Sanda that seemed to give a direct meaning for ‘indiscible’. This appears at: http://www.cheminsmystiques.fr/en_chronology.html and reads:

‘On est bien obligé d´apporter ici quelque précision en cernant l´in-discible en un : « ni ceci, ni cela » !’

Which I’ll translate as: ‘What’s essential here is some accuracy: to define the in-discible as "neither this nor that"

However, I now want to put this sentence in the context of the rest of the web page.

What the author Dominique Tronc is doing is launching into an argument about the nature of mysticism, and the first line of his discourse is to offer (for some reason) a definition of the ‘in-discible’ (a word that has not been used up to this point and is not used again in the rest of the text, though ‘indicible’ does). What follows is an argument that mysticism cannot be understood as this, that or the other, but rather (as he says at the end of his argument a few lines later) that:

'Il ne reste plus que le grand Rien, le grand Vide. ... « La mystique » en tant que corpus textuel ne fait pas partie du champ intellectuel, n'élabore pas de champs conceptuel ou de problématique : elle tente péniblement d'exprimer l'indicible par des mots’. (Note that this time the word is ‘indicible’).

I'd translate this as:

‘It is no more nor less than the great Nothing the grand Void. ... ‘Mysticism’ when set out in words is not part of an intellectual field, it does not elaborate a conceptual field, or a problematic: it painfully tries to express the inexpressible in words.’

So this is the context in which he has offered the preamble of defining indiscible as neither this nor that. The only purpose is to set up the argument that mysticism is beyond words. What this means is that he has not defined a separate 'indiscible' at all, he has merely offered a further more quirky definition of 'indicible' (the inexpressible or ineffable): note his exclamation mark.

Critically, once again, this is just another mistake in spelling: 'indiscible' should be 'indicible'.

So what do I conclude from all this? Basically, that there is not a word ‘discible’ in current French usage: it is merely a typo when it occurs. Foucault’s use of it in Birth of the Clinic is a neologism, and his is thus the only example of its being used intentionally.

On that basis, the only recourse is to try hermeneutically to understand 'discible' from the context of its use in Birth of the Clinic.

Sorry this is such a marathon

Nick

That's a very thorough and comprehensive posting Nick. Thank you. We are back to your second posting in which it is up to readers to make what sense they can of Foucault's 'discible'. The understanding of it being a common spelling mistake in French adds a layer of nuance I think. The capitalisation of this word in the original French (along with Visible and Dicible) is also interesting. My French friend says that capitalisation in French can be a personification of an abstract concept or what she called "conceptualisations of substantives." THE Visible....

Thanks Nick. From that perspective, it's interesting that discible as a Foucauldian neologism has not been further developed. Perhaps the 'meaning' has not been clear enough (visible) or easily enough articulated (dicible) to have resulted in further usage by others. If we take the interpretation, Nick, that you used earlier, of 'differentiated', then presumably there was not a sufficiently nuanced difference from other available French words such as distinguer or différencier to make enough people think "Aha, yes, I must use that word too". Because you're right about the online examples making sense as a typo for dicible — at least the ones I checked. Which also means we could assume that Foucault's objective in not explaining further may have been realised by the very act/fact of having people struggle to make meaning. Either way, it's at least made us all think more about what is visible, speakable, discoverable and differentiable, and achieving some kind of group consensus now has given a bit more meaning to discible by virtue of usage, perhaps! :-)

Hi Maurice

Actually I want to retract my proposition of ‘differentiable’: it was based on insufficient evidence. I think we have no clear idea what Foucault wanted to convey. I think Zoe has a point about the capitalisation, and I also believe that the answer will have to be found by close reading of The Birth of the Clinic.

In my early posts on this topic I speculated that it could meant ‘discour-able’, and made the cross-reference to a comment in Foucault’s preamble (page xii) about the emergence in the early 19th century of the ‘new’ clinic, in which the Visible was the Speakable. He stated: ‘A new alliance was forged between words and things, enabling one to see and to say. Sometimes indeed the discourse was so completely ‘naive’ that it seems to belong to a more archaic level of rationality ... ‘

I also agree with you that it is most odd that there is no previous debate about Foucault’s use of DIscible. Can we be the first people in forty years to have discussed this? Hard to imagine.

Nick

Partners, I feel we made progress, although in some sense we circled back to the beginning (in two ways). The first way is that by now we have scoured sources and it does seem there is no more to be gleaned from other examples of usage of "discible," and Foucault would have done everyone a favor by shedding some light on it himself, since he felt it necessary to use this arcane word (or made it up - but to communicate what?!)

The second way (hat tip to my French colleague) is that we confirmed essentially what she told us at the outset (see above), which Nick verified - that the word does not exist in the usual French dictionaries, and that instances in which the word is used are essentially misspellings of "dicible." She is also the source of the separation hypothesis, based on her interpretation of the first part of the word "disc" which she associated with dissection.

At this point, other than Nick's suggestion of interpretation, we are left with one investigative tool - figuring out how this text was translated in another language that cannot just use the same word, as was done in English, which lent itself to this strategy because we have words that end in "-ble" so it can sound legit. We should do this if we think that there is so much meaning captured by the mysterious word that it is worth expending the time. I leave this to others because I am not a Foucault scholar.

Typically, the word 'dicible' would be used as either 'utterable' or 'speakable' as many have stated here; the former being more common use. As far as ''discible', I've never encountered it outside of Foucault's writings and would assume, with all of the problems of assumptions, that he uses it to describe the process of putting something within an academic discipline or being claimed by a single academic discipline.

As far as the problems with translations go, one only has to look at how Punir et surveiller was translated as Discipline and Punish in English. If only translations came with statements of intent, oh how easy life would be!

Hi Allan,

Thanks for joining us. There was an interesting piece in the latest Guardian Weekly (14 March, p. 37) by Lucy Greaves (a translator in residence at the Free Word Centre) about what she does when she finds an untranslatable word. You might find it interesting. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/31/word-untranslatable-lucy-greaves

Thank you Thomas, now I am really intrigued - I hope Zoe has the "specs." Again, what we will learn is not quite what Foucault meant by that word, but rather what the German translator thought it meant and what German word s/he thought capable of conveying that sense or close enough... Still interesting!

It is almost at the end of chapter 3, in fact five paragraphs from the end of that chapter.

Can't wait to see what you find Thomas. Thanks so much for offering to help. In my edition it is the very last sentence of the fifth paragraph from the end of Chapter 3.

Thanks Thomas. That's what the German translator understood anyway! ... and probably you're right in the assumption that the Latin discere was the link to such an interpretation.

Thank Thomas! I wish Foucault had written in German -this is so much mor intelligible at least at the language level! I bet the immediate clarity of his sentence in German would have caused him to lose sleep...

(Never use smartphones to write to Researchgate: smartphones think they are really smart, and substitute what they think you wanted to write! I should have let mine answer this question by itself! A bit of over-anthropomorphizing there, I admit, in order to explain typos.)

Discere is Latin for 'to learn' rather than 'to teach', so its a bit of a leap.

What's so fascinating is that, given we now know there is no such word in French as 'discible', that this translator has fabricated this meaning from somewhere. What would be great would be if s/he had added a note explaining the reasoning for this translation.

I spend a lot of time reading Deleuze and Guattari and their work is full of words that do not easily translate from French to English. The translation of 'agencement', for example, a not-too-common word in French that basically means 'arrangement' has been translated as 'assemblage' in Massumi's version, and this latter term has now been adopted very widely in Anglophone Deleuze studies. It does add something to the sense D & G were trying to communicate, but it also detracts from the allusion to 'agency' that was present in the original.

Fortunately D & G debated their concepts very widely, so we do not have to dredge the text for meaning like we have done with discible.

Nick

Hi all, I've just been reading Foucault's 'The Order of Things' and came across this:

"The primacy of the written word went into abeyance [in the 16th century]. And that uniform layer, in which the *seen* and the *read*, the visible and the expressible, were endlessly interwoven, vanished too. Things and words were to be separated from one another. The eye was thenceforth destined to see and only to see, the ear to hear and only to hear. Discourse was still to have the task of speaking that which is, but it was no longer to be anything more than what it said" (pp. 47-48).

I'm only guessing now of course, but I'm wondering if Foucault's word 'discible' might have some reference to this earlier work of his. Perhaps it means something that might be expressible, but that cannot be more than what is expressed. I shall read on and report back if I find more.

Nick, thanks for writing about D & G who are next on my TBR list to grapple with. I hope you will allow me to call on your help again!

Hi Zoe

Yes that’s very interesting and confirms that it’s going to be within Foucault’s work that we find the answer. So in the Order of Things, he is saying that in the 16th century, discourse can no longer engage with the Visible.

This then explains what he is saying in Birth of the Clinic, when he says that in the days of the ‘old’ clinic (before the modern period), that the Visible was neither Expressible nor ... ‘Discours-able’.

That, to me, supplies us with good evidence for ‘discible’ = ‘discours-able’!

(Have to say it’s not a great word in English.)

We need to recall that for Foucault, ‘discourse’ doesn’t just mean extended talk or public speaking, but something imbued with both power and ‘knowledge’. So he is saying that at that time, the Visible did not contribute to authoritative statements of ‘how things are’. This he contrasts with the modern period, in which the Visible has that capacity. Hence the significance of the ‘gaze’ of power that establishes ‘the order of things’ in the clinic, the prison and so forth.

Nick

PS D & G: any time!

Thank you for making this clearer Nick. Yes, I think we can justifiably conclude that discible = discourse-able, using Foucault's conception of the word "discourse". This makes sense. This question is now solved to my satisfaction.

I'm so grateful to everyone who has contributed to this discussion. It's amazing to think that we are on different sides of the world, but that we can have such a conversation.

Nick, thanks for your p.s. I just know I'll be calling on your clear thinking again! :D