CorporealSemiotics:TheBodyoftheText/theTextoftheBody 395
Gods,allthreeareultimatelytransportedtoTroywhereAsklepiosheals
Philoctetes, and the latter, reinvigorated, kills Paris with Heracles' bow
andarrows.
The Philoctetes story was repeatedly dramatized in classical
antiquity, by Aischylos and Euripides among others. The mark of
Sophocles'treatmentofthemyth,where"medicalandaestheticinterests
cometogether"(Budelmann455),isthatitconstitutesaveritablefeatof
radicallinguisticexperimentation,allthisinanattempttotreatanguish,
not as an inescapable fate (μοί ρα/m oira) in the sense adumbrated by
Gadamer but as a marked quality of elevated individual characters with
an impact on others (Worman 5). Rather than making Philoctetes
another test case for wily Odysseus' famed silver tongue, Sophocles
foregrounds another kind of persuasiveness, that of Philoctetes as he is
caughtupinthemostextremeformofpain.
Beyond its historical context, this drama invites reflections on how
therepresentationofextremepaincandomorethanprecipitate"asense
of epistemological crisis" (Leder 10); in this case, it figures forth a
moment (certainly exceptional within the ethos of its time) of sensory
attunement when a bond of interpersonal obligation forms itself for
whichCavell'sassertion"yoursufferingmakesaclaimonme"(We263)
would be a descriptive, if anachronistic, shorthand. It may even be
helpful to read on, as Cavell at this point unfolds a broader canvas in
which his reflections on the pain of others and their semantic dynamics
areto beseen:"A 'failuretoknow'mayjustmeanapieceofignorance,
an absence of something, a blank. A 'failure to acknowledge' is the
presence of something, a confusion, an indifference, a callousness, an
exhaustion,acoldness..."(We263).
Other than in Wittgenstein's private language argument, pain, for
Cavell,isindeedapowerfulandethico-socialsignifier,arepresentation,
not of something(an inner bodily condition) so much as of somebody,
another person "in pain" to whom an obligation is owed. In this
perspective, the meaning of pain representation begins to slide, from a
morenarrowlysemiotictoamoreinteractionalmeaning,whichhasbeen
capturedwithcriticalintentbyRobertHughesinhisphrase"democracy
ofpain"(qtd.inlllouz,OprahWinfrey57).
The "privacy of pain" (We 242), then, does not take Cavell—in
contradistinction to Wittgenstein—to a reflection on epistemological
aporiasbutinsteadtooneonthemutualrelationsamonghumanbeings.