What Is a Book? Kant and the Law of the Letter

IF 2 2区 社会学 Q1 CULTURAL STUDIES
Critical Inquiry Pub Date : 2023-06-01 DOI:10.1086/725060
A. Pottage, M. Biagioli
{"title":"What Is a Book? Kant and the Law of the Letter","authors":"A. Pottage, M. Biagioli","doi":"10.1086/725060","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Kant’s essay on the question of literary piracy has so far been read as a foundational text in the history of literary property. When Kant refers to the book as a “mute instrument,” scholars of intellectual property already know how to interpret that formulation because they presume the distinction that the contemporary jurisprudence of intellectual property makes between matter and form and its concomitant assumption that print is just an inert, nonagentive medium. In fact, Kant begins his analysis of unauthorized publication not with the question What is an author? but with the question What is publication?. His insight was that unauthorized publication revealed a structural feature of publication in general. The effect of the interposition of print, or the fact that speech begins in and with print, is that the author is structurally alienated from his or her speech. Kant was not an Enlightenment media theorist, but he recognized that speech had to be mediated and therefore delivered to the reader and that it was the medium itself that determined the conditions under which authors and readers could exist and be present to one another and under which speech could become an authorship. In order to create a language channel for public reason, Kant had to take a detour through the legal fiction of agency. Speech might have been an action that could have its existence “only in a person,” but this supposedly innate bond was made by a legal fiction of representation, according to which one person could truly speak “as if” they were another. Kant’s answer to the question What is a book? developed a law that was not so much a law of literary property as a law that sought to suspend the alienating effects of print so as to restore the Enlightenment ideal of communication.","PeriodicalId":48130,"journal":{"name":"Critical Inquiry","volume":"49 1","pages":"605 - 625"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Critical Inquiry","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1086/725060","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"CULTURAL STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1

Abstract

Kant’s essay on the question of literary piracy has so far been read as a foundational text in the history of literary property. When Kant refers to the book as a “mute instrument,” scholars of intellectual property already know how to interpret that formulation because they presume the distinction that the contemporary jurisprudence of intellectual property makes between matter and form and its concomitant assumption that print is just an inert, nonagentive medium. In fact, Kant begins his analysis of unauthorized publication not with the question What is an author? but with the question What is publication?. His insight was that unauthorized publication revealed a structural feature of publication in general. The effect of the interposition of print, or the fact that speech begins in and with print, is that the author is structurally alienated from his or her speech. Kant was not an Enlightenment media theorist, but he recognized that speech had to be mediated and therefore delivered to the reader and that it was the medium itself that determined the conditions under which authors and readers could exist and be present to one another and under which speech could become an authorship. In order to create a language channel for public reason, Kant had to take a detour through the legal fiction of agency. Speech might have been an action that could have its existence “only in a person,” but this supposedly innate bond was made by a legal fiction of representation, according to which one person could truly speak “as if” they were another. Kant’s answer to the question What is a book? developed a law that was not so much a law of literary property as a law that sought to suspend the alienating effects of print so as to restore the Enlightenment ideal of communication.
什么是书?康德与文字法则
迄今为止,康德关于文学盗版问题的论文一直被视为文学产权史上的基础文本。当康德将书称为“无声的工具”时,知识产权学者已经知道如何解释这一表述,因为他们假设了当代知识产权法理学在物质和形式之间所做的区分,以及其伴随的假设,即印刷品只是一种惰性的、非能动的媒介。事实上,康德在分析未经授权的出版时,并没有问什么是作者?而是带着一个问题:什么是出版?他的见解是,未经授权的出版揭示了一般出版的结构特征。印刷品的介入,或者言语开始于印刷品的事实的影响是,作者在结构上与他或她的言语疏远了。康德不是启蒙运动的媒介理论家,但他认识到言论必须经过中介,因此才能传递给读者,而媒介本身决定了作者和读者能够存在并相互呈现的条件,在这种条件下,言论可以成为作者。为了为公共理性创造一个语言通道,康德不得不绕道而行,通过代理的法律虚构。言语可能是一种“只能在一个人身上”存在的行为,但这种被认为是天生的联系是由一种法律虚构的代表构成的,根据这种虚构,一个人可以真正地“像”另一个人一样说话。康德对“什么是书”这个问题的回答?制定了一部法律,与其说是一部关于文学财产的法律,不如说是一部试图中止印刷品的异化效应,以恢复启蒙运动理想的交流的法律。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 求助全文
来源期刊
Critical Inquiry
Critical Inquiry Multiple-
CiteScore
2.80
自引率
0.00%
发文量
88
期刊介绍: Critical Inquiry has published the best critical thought in the arts and humanities since 1974. Combining a commitment to rigorous scholarship with a vital concern for dialogue and debate, the journal presents articles by eminent critics, scholars, and artists on a wide variety of issues central to contemporary criticism and culture. In CI new ideas and reconsideration of those traditional in criticism and culture are granted a voice. The wide interdisciplinary focus creates surprising juxtapositions and linkages of concepts, offering new grounds for theoretical debate. In CI, authors entertain and challenge while illuminating such issues as improvisations, the life of things, Flaubert, and early modern women"s writing.
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
确定
请完成安全验证×
copy
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
右上角分享
点击右上角分享
0
联系我们:info@booksci.cn Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。 Copyright © 2023 布克学术 All rights reserved.
京ICP备2023020795号-1
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术官方微信