The Basics of the Project

Derrida’s reading of the Project in "Scene" initially establishes that Freud, in his own words, intended to "furnish a psychology that shall be a natural science" by representing "psychical processes as quantitatively determined states of specifiable material particles" (I 295). Continuing in this materialist and mechanistic mode, the Project is founded on Freud’s "principle of inertia," the basic principle that "neurons tend to divest themselves of Q" (296), which Freud defines simply as the quantitative difference between activity and rest. This principle of inertia, what Freud calls the "primary function" (297), is complicated by the fact that the neuronal system itself has a source of Q, "endogenous stimuli" (297) which Freud calls Qh . Another complicating factor, according to Freud, is that the complexity of the human organism and the exigencies of life require that this Qh be kept at a level sufficient to stimulate the appropriate movement toward fulfilling the "major needs: hunger, respiration, sexuality" (297) and to guard against unwanted increase in Q. This is the "secondary function" of the neuronal system of the psyche: keeping the level of Qh at the lowest level possible while making sure there is enough of it to energize the fulfillment of the major needs. This secondary function will evolve into the psychoanalytic concept of the "principle of constancy." Moreover, what will later become the pleasure principle, the reality principle, and libido, are all foreshadowed here by the Project’s Qh in relation to the secondary function. What Freud would later call the "Nirvana principle" in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, following the suggestion of English psychoanalyst Barbara Low, is prefigured by the primary function of the principle of inertia (Lap67 272). With the principle of inertia, the Nirvana principle, and Freud’s Todestriebe, there is a common movement toward a zero state.

The Project also tries to establish memory, according to Derrida, as "not a psychical property among others [but] the very essence of the psyche" (201). Memory in the Project is a factor of the differences between the Bahnung or "breaches" of the "impermeable" neurons, or y neurons. External Q is transmitted to the y system along the f system of permeable neurons. This dual system of neurons allows Freud to at least address, if not solve, what he sees as a conundrum of neurons: how "neurons are permanently different after an excitation from what they were before, while nevertheless it cannot be disputed that, in general, fresh excitations meet with the same conditions of reception as did the earlier ones" (299). This is a version of the conundrum Freud returns to in 1924 with "A Note upon the ‘Mystic Writing-Pad’": the f neurons would be analogous to the pad’s topsheet, and the y neurons would be analogous to the wax. According to Freud, the y neurons are "the vehicles of memory and so probably of psychical processes in general" (I 300). The y system offers resistance to the Q that passes through the f system, which remains unchanged in that system. The resistance of the y neurons, their impermeability, is what allows for the alteration of that system. Though the y neurons are not a s much impermeable as they are permeable with resistance, Freud conceptualizes them as the termination location of Q. The alterations of y neurons are a factor of the differences between the Q in question and the resistance of the y neuron in question, which makes memory (and therefore the psyche in general) a factor of the difference between Qs.

Freud calls this difference "Bahnung," which is translated as "facilitation" by Strachey, "frayage" by Derrida, and "breach" by Alan Bass, the translator of "Scene." Bass argues that, with respect to the many difficulties of translating "Bahnung," "it is crucial to maintain the sense of the force that breaks open a pathway, and the space opened by this force" (Der78 329n2). Bass’s translation, however, seems to interpret Bahnung in terms of a singular force opening a pathway and space in a neuron. What I believe is also crucial to the concept of Bahnung is the meeting of two types of forces, one of external Q and the other of the internal Qh that provides the resistance to the external Q. According to the Project, "memory is represented by the differences in the facilitations between the y neurons" (300). Memory is a complex of differences: the differences in the breaches between y neurons, and the differences between Q and Qh within the y neurons. Breaching, according to Derrida, is the "tracing of a trail … [w]hich presupposes a certain violence and resistance to effraction" (200), and is better suited to being read as a "metaphorical model and not … a neurological description" (ibid.).

Derrida’s "trace as memory" above seems to beg the question a bit: what seems to be at issue in "Scene" is whether Freudian memory as conceptualized in the Project has any relation to a Derridean trace. Moreover, Freud might have conceptualized the "difference between breaches" as predetermined, a possibility I will suggest here, rather than as "ungraspable." Freud’s breakthrough for Derrida it seems was the recognition of difference as the (non)essential aspect of the operation of the machine of the psyche, or establishing the psyche as a "scene of writing" where "writing" is understood to be one of différance and not of the translation of an immobile text.

Difference is a non-essential aspect of this machine because such a machine would have no essence, center, or origin given the effect this type of differential "system" has on structures, origins, and whatever essentialism they foster. The (non)essence of this machine is better served by Derrida’s notion of différance, since it alludes to an element of displaced temporality. The word "différance" alludes to both difference and deferral, and the temporality of this type of system would be one where deferral was always already a part of it, from the non-origin. Difference and deferral areinseparable here, and, along these lines, Derrida writes that the "irreducibility of the ‘effect of deferral’–such, no doubt, is Freud’s discovery" (203). He writes this after giving the reader the impression that Freud’s breakthrough was establishing the psyche as a differential mnemic system. Derrida sees deferral as an integral element of any differential system. Referring to the differences of breaches and resistances to those breaches, Derrida states that, according to the Project, all "these differences in the production of the trace may be reinterpreted as moments of deferring" (202). Freud’s breakthrough, according to Derrida, is one of recognizing the importance of difference/deferral for the "scene of writing" of the psyche.

Derrida makes the claim about Freud and the irreducibility of the effect of deferral after noting the concepts of Nachträglichkeit and Verspätung (delay), concepts which, according to Derrida, "govern the whole of Freud’s thought and determine all his other concepts" (ibid.). I will show in the next chapter that Freud does not use the concepts of Nachträglichkeit and delay only in the vein of the irreducibility of the effect of deferral, but also, and more often, to protect a transcendental and originary presence, an essence. Nachträglichkeit is also dear to the Freud of the hypomnemic or immobile text, as we will see with the discussion of phylo-"genetics" below. As Derrida argues, however, Freud is also consistently concerned with, and conflicted about, "the effort of life to protect itself by deferring a dangerous cathexis, that is, by constituting a reserve (Vorrat)" (202), and Derrida supports this claim by connecting the theme of deferral to "the detour (Aufschub, lit. delay) which institutes the relation of pleasure to reality" and the "death at the origin of life which can defend itself against death only through an economy of death, through deferment, repetition, reserve" (ibid.), as in Beyond the Pleasure Principle. For Derrida, there is no doubt that "life protects itself by repetition, trace, différance (deferral)" (203). Here we have a foreshadowing of chapter four as the themes of life-death are connected with différance and memory as a product of the difference between the differences between forces–and of deferral.

The dual impossibilities of (non)originary repetition and différance as the (non)essence of the "system" are the dual impossibilities of the "scene of writing," and are connected here by Freud to equally aporetic concepts of life and death, and which should be associated with Derrida’s "life death," the title of his seminar preceding "To Speculate–on ‘Freud.’" Since these impossibilities are what make possible "life"–the phantasm of life by itself–together they might be called "(im)possibility." Derrida connects life to (non)originary repetition when he argues that life "is already threatened by the origin of the memory which constitutes it, and by the breaching which it resists, the effraction which it can contain only by repeating it" (Der78 202). But "the very idea of a first time becomes enigmatic" because the first time is a repetition. The alogic here "begins" with the atemporality of a "system" of différance that precludes any beginning of a simple presence, any a priori text, here "impressions" or an engram:

For Derrida, these are "the enigmas of the ‘first time’ and of originary repetition"–and I would add différance–as presented by Freud in the Project in terms of memory and the psyche: memory as trace. For both Derrida and Freud, the "scene of writing" is attributed to the primary function of the psyche, and, for Derrida, Freud "excludes any possible derivation" of this function.

According to Derrida, memory is posited by Freud in the Project as the essence of the psyche and its primary function, and this primary function serves as a protection device that deals with dangerous cathexes with the tools of "repetition, trace, différance (deferral)" (203). What is being protected? Life. But, Derrida warns, it is not "life present at first which would then come to protect, postpone, or reserve itself in différance" (ibid.). Enter the second (im)possibility and its connection to life: because différance "constitutes the essence of life" (ibid.), but "différance is not an essence, as it is not anything, it is not life, if Being is determined as ousia, presence, essence/existence, substance or subject" (ibid.). The (necessary) combination of these (necessary) (im)possibilities and their relation to the psyche in the Project, Derrida suggests, is the harbinger of the "graphematics still to come," the horizon Freud supposedly sets his sights on in the Project. Out of this combination, and its relation to the psyche, comes what I think is the crux of Derrida’s essay for us here: Freud’s take on memory in the project establishes it as a process and product of différance or archi-writing, and this process is basic to how life "must be thought as trace before Being may be determined as presence" (ibid.). The memory Derrida finds in the Project, therefore, becomes highly disruptive to any theories of the psyche’s mechanisms being based on some immobile a priori text, ontology, or metaphysics of presence. Derrida and Freud meet here with a memory psychology based on the dual (im)possibilities of the "scene of writing." Freud’s breakthrough, which Derrida suggests above is a repetition of Nietzsche’s breakthrough, is a breaking away from the history of logocentric repression in the service of the self-present subject through the establishment of the unconscious as a non-original "scene of writing," a play of différance. The (im)possibility of the y system as a harbinger of the self-alienated subject of psychoanalysis would constitute a break from Platonic metaphysics of presence based on phonologism and self-presence. The y system is here a precursor of "the" Freudian unconscious, if this unconscious is understood as one of the "scene of writing," and writing is understood as (non)essentially of différance and very mobile texts.

The very mobile text of memory established in the Project, however, is complicated when memory as a factor of the f and y systems is integrated into the rest of the psychic machine Freud attempts to construct there. The y system as a precursor of the various Freudian unconsciouses, and the large role played by Qh in this system–as well as its relationship to what Freud names the ego in the Project–will foreshadow the significance of instinct, drives, and fantasy in Freud’s subsequent theories. The y system, I will argue, is as much, if not more, a fantasy system than a mnemic system when it is put into relation with regulatory processes of the whole machine (pleasure-unpleasure, ego). Furthermore, the fantasy aspect of this system is the precursor of the very immobile texts of what Freud would later call "primal phantasies," which ultimately imply a scene of writing of translation, a scene radically different to the one described above. Before I substantiate these claims, I would like to return to Freud’s theory of hysteria and its relationship to memory to show how Freud consistently moves away from the contingencies and chance of memory toward something more reducible, more congenial to totalizing theory and immobile texts.

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