At this point, it almost seems as if the discussion is on the brink of an in-depth phenomenology of writing, or perhaps a grammatology of grammatology. If it should proceed in such a direction, then that excavation can be said to have already begun, and this notice of it, merely its somewhat formalised announcement or acknowledgement.
There are many points, here, in your preceding response, that have been introduced, somewhat in the fashion of a proliferation, multiplication, or dissemination, of the initial topical impetus, though there was more than one topic. The comparative simplicity of origin has escalated into a constellation of potentially unruly complexities. Perhaps we have moved from a solar understanding to the requirements of a galactic comprehension?
The ‘standard moves’ point was not aimed at anyone in particular, but does indeed seem to constitute a large amount of theoretical and philosophical output that we probably both have seen over the years. It’s certainly not directed at you, Terence. Neither, really, is it a critique of anyone else, the ‘standard’ does occasionally require sufficient expression so as to constitute its standardisation. Your observation concerning the “time-wasting obsessive ritual retracing of connections between tokens” is a personal evaluation based on your own engagement with Stiegler’s oeuvre, as you say, and if I had read much more of Stiegler perhaps I would agree with you. But this is not really the central issue that I feel is at play behind these concerns.
The issue is, I would suggest, considerably broader in extent and sidesteps the more localised concern of basic immersion in a particular oeuvre, a concern that you characterise as a form of immanence. The areas that Stiegler addresses, that he actually writes, ‘about’, are common topoi to those of us with an interest in such things. With this in mind, another question can be asked: is there any philosophical writer, at all, who does not engage in “obsessive ritual retracing of connections between tokens”, when they are under the impression of conveying some kind of conceptual innovation?
I ask this question, to point out the deeper pressures of conventional imposition that afflict every writing occurring between an author and a reader. Those pressures of conventional imposition are largely responsible for the over-explication, or, as you say, “obsessive ritual retracing of connections between tokens”, afflicting any philosophical author attempting to convey their particular weltanshauung. But the common denominator underlying all of these attempted conveyances are the somewhat uncertain figures
of ‘convention’. It is usually always with a never-spoken respect to, or for, this figurality; to the obligations of this ‘figured reality’ of the conventional; that most authorial productions seem to circulate. Every author senses the consensus in their own way, responding to it, according to their intuitions and receptions of it. But the consensual is always a generalising assumption, configuring the somewhat uncertain figures of convention.
If Stiegler has built a ladder to do a particular job of ascension, his continued maintenance of that ladder may not lead to any different elevation, but perhaps it maintains the safety of that stepped implement?
(Thank you, to Terence Blake of AGENT SWARM, for the Facebook discussion, of which this post is a response.)