Paolo Bosca

ABSTRACT ITA

Sinchisi è una parola solitamente usata in retorica e in medicina che indica, in generale, confusione e caos. Michel Serres, nel suo I cinque sensi, riabilita questo termine per suggerire un tipo preciso di congiunzione: la parola nomina l’atto di convogliare due fluidi insieme e può aiutare a pensare alle cose nella loro mescolanza, superando le difficoltà che di solito portano solo al caos. La sinchisi sembra l’avversario perfetto della linearità che il pensiero moderno insegue. Non appena lo sguardo si sposta oltre le pretese di purezza analitica, ci si rende conto che in realtà la sinchisi indica un gioco di forze fatto di spinte e coinvolgimenti reciproci completamente legati al flusso in cui si manifestano. La sinchisi, nel senso suggerito da Serres, configura un’interazione mescolata, libera e repulsiva rispetto agli strumenti di oggettivazione.

ABSTRACT ENG

Synchysis is a word usually used in rhetoric and medicine and indicates, in general, confusion and chaos. Michel Serres, in his The five senses, rehabilitates this term to suggest a precise type of conjunction: the word named the act of conveying two fluids together and can help to think about the mingle of things overcoming the difficulties that usually lead only to chaos. Synchysis seems the perfect adversary of the linearity that modern thought chases after. As soon as the gaze moves beyond the pretensions of analytical purity, one realizes that in fact synchysis indicate a play of forces made up of mutual thrusts and involvements completely bound up with the flow where they occur. Synchysis, in the sense suggested by Serres, configures a mingled interaction that is free and repulsive with respect to the tools of objectification.

EXCERPTS

Figuring out the relationship between two mixing fluids means challenging the epistemology that privileges vision as the main epistemological sense. The eyes tell us nothing but units, first two units and then one after a few seconds of indecision. If we try to see the play of the two liquids gradually mixing we get a kind of visual nausea.

Yquem is a white wine from the union of several grape varieties, the result of an authentic synchysis. Looking at the bottle there is no trace of the two starting liquids and we are tempted to think that there is a solid unitary object in front of us. Yquem is a unit, but “absolutely contradictory” (Tetsurō 1935, p.40). It is easy to see that it is precisely the contradiction that is difficult for rational thought to unravel that represents the richness of that specific encounter with the ‘given’ represented by the bottle of Yquem.

It is clear that we are far away from a method, from a neat list of guidelines on what and how to look for synchysis. However, in conclusion, let me make a suggestion about the experiences through which we can more easily give a consistency to this concept. I’m thinking about circumstances of great personal relevance, things, people, important moments in our lives. ‘Weakness and fragility mark the spot of their most precious secret. I seek to assist the birth of an infant.’ (Serres, Latour 1992, p.101) is in this sense an illuminating indication: the birth of a child is an event that involves us at such a deep level that a segmented understanding, limited to one sense or another, to one moment or another in time, is impossible.