Henri Van Lier

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Henri Van Lier
Born	(1921-05-27)May 27, 1921 Rio de janeiro, Brazil
💀Died	April 29, 2009(2009-04-29) (aged 87) Brussels, BelgiumApril 29, 2009(2009-04-29) (aged 87)
🏡 Residence	Brussels, Belgium
🏳️ Nationality	Belgian
🏫 Education	PhD in philosophy
🎓 Alma mater	Université catholique de Louvain
💼 Occupation
Notable work	Anthropogeny (2002), Priority of technique (Le nouvel âge, 1962), Philosophy of photography (1983)
👩 Spouse(s)	Micheline LO
🌐 Website	anthropogenie.com

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Henri Van Lier (1921–2009) was a Belgian philosopher. He was born on 27 May 1921 in Rio de Janeiro and died in Brussels, where he spent most of his life, on 28 April 2009.

Biography

After spending some time with the Jesuits (1938–1948), where he wrote a thesis on "The philosophy of sciences with Lachelier" – which will be completed later by a double doctorate in Philosophy (Belgian doctorate of State, and special doctorate of the Scolastic College Cardinal Mercier) – he marries Micheline Lottefier (Micheline Lo), teacher of philosophy and history of art and painter (1930–2003), who will work with him all her life. After publishing Sartre et la présence dans la conscience (Sartre and presence in consciousness) in the Encyclopédie française, he becomes a professor at the Université catholique de Louvain’s Institut des Arts de Diffusion (IAD).

Henri Van Lier was a formidable rouser of ideas, a born teacher who left his mark on several generations of students. Gifted with an extraordinary voice, Henri Van Lier took part in various series of radio shows on France Culture. Before that, he was a lecturer at the Leuven University, where he gave conferences on sexology, a nascent science at the time. During a journey to Canada, he became interested in experimental psychology alongside ethnologist Jean-Louis Laroche, with whom he stayed in touch for the rest of his life. Henri Van Lier came into the limelight in 1959 with the publication of Les Arts de l’espace. (The arts of space), then with Le nouvel âge, 1962 , (renamed Priority of technique ). He also taught at Brussels’ IAD (Institut des Arts de Diffusion). His encyclopaedic mind served him to develop a semiotic analysis of various areas of aesthetics (articles: “architecture”, “chromo, kitsch, ugliness”, “design”, “aesthetic”, “painting”, “sculpture” in Encyclopaedia Universalis from 1968 to 1972) and he devoted several articles to cartoons and photography : Philosophy of photography, 1983 ; A photographic history of photography, 1992 as well as works on linguistics broadcasted on France Culture (Logiques des langues européennes / Logic of European languages, 1989 and Histoire langagière de la littérature française / Language history of French literature, 1989).

From 1982 to 2002, he devoted all his time to Anthropogeny , a global and systematic body of work presented like a macro history of Homo, in the same vein as S.-J. Gould did for the microbiology of the living. In this work, Henri Van Lier analyses the evolution of Homo through “Punctuated equilibrium”. After describing the basics available to Homo from its beginnings as angular, transversalizing, possibilizing primate, Henri Van Lier analyses the accomplishments resulting from it (languages, writings, philosophies, arts, sciences). All human knowledge – in the state where discoveries in mathematics, physics, biochemistry now allow us to apprehend them – are analysed. “As a fact, the anthropogeny is the continuous constitution of Homo as a State-Moment of universe. As a theory, it is the discipline whose object is Homo’s own capacities and characteristics: angularization, orthogonalization, transversality, holosomics, rhythm, field effects...” Henri Van Lier turns his back to the specialisation of disciplines to provide an overview of the many different knowledge of Homo, seen as a “signed animal”. Around homo in eighty theses], 2003 succinctly recaptures the ideas found in Anthropogeny .

Metaphysician

From the age of eight, Henri Van Lier “knew” that he would always and foremost be a metaphysician. However, from Priority of technique (Le nouvel âge, 1962), where he describes the three ages of the machine, it is technique that he puts to the forefront. At the end of his life, when he wrote his last text From metaphysics to anthropogeny, 2006–2008 , he begins Chapter 10 with the following words: “Wittgenstein dies in 1951 and we can consider that this date marks the death of metaphysics”. Metaphysics approached the being through thought alone. From then on, it was time to shift from metaphysics to anthropogeny, and to focus on Homo with the help of technique and science.

Philosopher of technique

Henri Van Lier perceived technique as “first” among Homo’s accomplishments. His text Priority of technique starts with the observation that Homo has been a technician for more than two million years, while he only speaks in a detailed manner for a few thousand years. His global work Anthropogeny (30 chapters, 1000 pages) opens with a chapter entitled The technical and semiotic body , based on the notion that Homo is not technician by accident. Homo’s body gave him a system of reference that makes him apt to become a technician. Thus, Homo enjoyed “... the special chances linked to the fact that he was the most angular of hominid primates, thus the most capable of instruments and tools; hence, the most capable of Technique and Semiotics” .

Technique thus precedes semiotics. Henri Van Lier thought that the passage from technique to semiotics takes place when the technical (physical) “distance” is replaced by semiotic (cerebral) “distanciation”. Or more precisely, when the operability of technical links is deactivated. He writes “Technical objects, tools (...) refer to one another within panoplies and protocols. In a first while, they will do so operatively, technically, as the relays of an operation. But they can also do so by putting operativity between parenthesis, and thus in a purely referential basis, let us say in a semiotic manner” .

An anthropogenist, founder

Henri Van Lier spent 20 years writing Anthropogeny (1982–2002) . Before that, he had written many texts (1957–1981) that he will later encompass under the name Local anthropogenies. For Henri Van Lier, anthropogeny designates "the constitution of Homo as a state-moment of the universe, and the discipline using this constitution as a theme" (see Anthropogeny <24D>). If this work, spanning over 40 years, were to be based on four elements, they would be: space, time, sign, and presence. And its reduction in one sentence would be: The history of mankind and its accomplishments from the systematic exploration of these four elements.

Henri Van Lier relies on topology for space, on cybernetics for time, on semiotic for sign and on presentivity for presence (see Anthropogeny <8H>). From these four elements, he systematically sees and demonstrates the capacity of characterising eras, peoples, individuals, artists and generally speaking all the accomplishments of Homo. <From metaphysics to anthropogeny, chapter 9>. Amongst the 4 foundations retained (space, time, sign, presence) the sign (resulting from technique) occupies a place of pride in all 30 chapters of Anthropogeny , as it is suggested by the titles of the first chapters: Chapter: 1 – The technical and semiotic body , Chapter 3 – The encounter (strongly semiotic) , Chapter 4 – Indicia (primary signs) , Chapter 5 – Indexes (intentional signs) , etc.

Let us note that he sees a revolution of human thought in the passage from metaphysics to the anthropogeny. While the first operated from top to bottom (by deduction, from ideas to facts), the second operates from bottom to top (by induction, from facts to ideas).

Limits and openings of the system

In his Post-scriptum (2007) , Henri Van Lier indicates that anthropogeny is the missing foundation of human sciences. In his eyes, human sciences would all benefit in drawing on well-identified referentials such as topology, cybernetics, semiology and presentivity.

As for limits, he sees several. In particular, the status of the definitions in the anthropogeny, the evolutionary discipline character of which makes impossible to define tables (dictionaries) of hominid faculties since the entire anthropogeny would have to be reminded for each point. He also notes the interdisciplinarity of the anthropogeny with history on which it depends, or its interdisciplinarity with human sciences, whose foundations are often fragile.

On the path of Anthropogeny

The texts written before Anthropogeny fed its foundations. In Les Arts de l’espace, 1959 (The Arts of Space) Henri Van Lier broaches space. With Priority of technique ( Le nouvel âge, 1962 ), he focuses on time. In L’Animal signé , 1980 (The Signed Animal) he studies the sign. And since his article L’existentialisme de Jean-Paul Sartre, 1957 (The Existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre), the “presence” can be found in all his writings

This path space + time + sign + presence announces the four referentials of Anthropogeny (topology, cybernetics, logico-semiotics, presentivity). Interdisciplinarity is a decisive advantage of these four referentials that can be applied to natural sciences, human sciences and technique.

Amongst these areas, technique will have a rising place. For Henri Van Lier, indeed, it is the technical objects that have the most impact on society, culture, and mankind (Homo). The increasingly unrepresentable sciences and increasingly fragmented arts have everyday less impact on them.

Presence, 1957

In 1957, Henri Van Lier writes an article on Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism L’existentialisme de Jean-Paul Sartre . He focuses there on the notion of presence. Later, he will attribute to Sartre the philosophical glory of having approached presence for the very first time in a frontal manner. Sartre saw a presence that he questioned at the very heart of conscience. This presence was similar to an apparition without being describable. This is the sense that Henri Van Lier will adopt for Presence. In 1975, he definitely adopts the fundamental distinction between functionings and presence. All that is describable belongs to functionings. The rest is within the realms of presence. The functionings / presence couple will be that of Anthropogeny . Functionings encompass all that can be described using topological, cybernetic, logico-semiotic and presentive referentials

Space – The arts of space, 1959

Henri Van Lier writes his first book Les Arts de l’espace on the arts of space (painting, sculpture, architecture). This was not by accident. He recalls Hegel and Faure’s observation that architecture marks the birth of civilisations.

In Les Arts de l’espace (The arts of space) the main issue is the “subject of work”. For Henri Van Lier it is the pictorial subject, the sculptural subject and the architectural subject, which gives its structure to a painting, a sculpture or architecture. In the work of Rubens, everything is spiral. In the work of El Greco, everything is torch. In the work of Picasso, space is existentially without thickness and “the eye decomposes and recomposes the exploded fragments of the world very easily as it sees them slide one over the other in one same plan”.

Each “subject of work” is studied in its relation with the artistic information, with the scenic subject, with the formal absolute, and with the means of expressions. However, Henri Van Lier notes that the notions used are cultural. And as early as in 1959, he suggested resorting to topology (Chapter III, III B) to address the primary and contemporary arts that escape the Euclidean space.

However, we are still a long way from Anthropogeny. Les Arts de l’espace goes from the most complex to the most simple while Anthropogeny systematically takes the opposite path, going from the most simple to the most complex (Indicium, Index, Massive image, Detailed images, etc.). Following this simple to complex path, the weight of cultures will be reduced significantly. Anthropogeny will also put forth a notion of destinies-choices of existence, which is broader and more explicit than the “subject of work”.

Time – Priority of technique, 1962

With Priority of Technique (Le nouvel âge, 1962), Henri Van Lier takes several turns. First, he goes from the simplest to the most complex. Second, he applies the same approach to four very different aspects of human activity: technique, sciences, arts and ethics. Third, he approaches time using technique (cybernetics), and not using the temporal Arts (music, literature), as he would probably have done in 1959

Henri Van Lier sees the machine enter into a third age. It no longer draws its strength in (from) man or nature, like its predecessors the hammer or the windmill (Age 1). It no longer towers before man, like the steam machine or high furnace (Age 2). It is now in synergy with man and nature (Age 3). Everywhere, humanity enters the era of the network: machine networks in the technical area, networks between theories and instruments in the scientific arena, networks between spectator-creator in the artistic world, networks between people in the ethical sphere

Henri Van Lier notes that it is the dialectic machine (3rd Age) that opened his eyes to the third age of arts. First, the artist – like the technician – drew his content in nature (art of the vital element). Then, like the technician, he worked forms before him (the art of the form). Now, like a technician, he combines, conjugates and makes work together (with a spectator-creator) functional elements (art of the functional elements).

The sign – The signed animal, 1980

The sign progressively takes place in the texts of Henri Van Lier, for instance in Le Bruxellois ce sémiologue né, 1968 (The inhabitant of Brussels, a born semiologist), or in Signs and symbol in the sexual act , 1970 . This place will become essential from 1980. Because there is no mankind, no thought, no society without visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory or gestural signs. Henceforth, Van Lier will describe Homo as the signed animal.

L’Animal signé , 1980 (The Signed Animal) is for Henri Van Lier an occasion to summarize the great classics of semiotics and semiology (Pierce, Saussure, etc.). It is also for him an occasion to introduce the notion of field effects, which alone – in his view – is capable of extending semiotics to plastic arts, music, cinema, etc. These field effects will take an important place in his Philosophy of photography, 1983  ; in A photographic history of photography, 1992 , and in Anthropogeny, 1982–2002 . However, such notions as indicia (primordial signs) and indexes (intentional signs), which are essential in Anthropogeny cannot yet be found in the L’Animal signé . In L’Animal signé, indicium is not yet perceived as a sign, since it is not intentional. In Anthropogeny indicium becomes a sign, the primordial sign even, because it is a segment of the universe that can thematize (in a pure way) other segments of the universe.

Photography, 1983 and 1992

In Philosophy of photography , 1983 and A photographic history of photography , 1992, Henri Van Lier challenges photography. Photography shakes all perceptions. It deploys a space, not a place. It fits into a time, but without depth of duration. It is made of imprints (photonics), not of signs (intentional). It blurs the line between real and reality (presence and functionings). It is real (indescribable) when it is perceived as a simple photonic imprint. But it changes into reality (describable) when it is resituated in sign systems. In a word, photography blurs all the classical definitions of space, time, sign and presence. It is easy therefore to understand why Henri Van Lier came back to it on two occasions, in 1983 and 1992.

But that’s not all. While for Henri Van Lier, painting, sculpture, literature and even music force us to consider things from the top (from full intentional signs), photography takes us in the opposite direction. We must first make our path through segments, indicia (imprints), indexes, field effects, etc. Photography thus traces very naturally the direction (from bottom to top, from simple to complex) that will be that of Anthropogeny .

Anthropogeny

There are thirty chapters and approximately one thousand pages in Anthropogeny . The first eleven chapters focus on what is most fundamental in Homo (hominid specimen). It is Homo as we could have encountered him a million years ago. Then come chapters focusing on the accomplishments and social articulations of Homo until now.

The basics (Chapters 1 to 11)

It would be correct to say that the guiding line of the first eleven chapters of Anthropogeny is the sign. But it is even more accurate to say that it is the SEGMENT. For Henri Van Lier, technique and then sign are born "of" segmentarization. The tool (the technique) applies to segmentarized things. The sign is a segment (of universe) that thematizes other segments (of universe). The word segment is understood in its etymological sense. The segment is the product of a cut, a portion. Segmentarization creates limits, thence parts, i.e. sections. Animals break but do not cut. Therefore, they cannot segmentarize. Homo ceases to be an animal as soon he segmentarizes (in the sense of the author).

First of all, Henri Van Lier notes that Homo’s body is fundamentally different to that of other vertebrate animals. The body of vertebrate animal is oriented head-tail (mouth-anus). Homo’s (upright) body is transversal (in width), orthogonalizing (with many right angles) and segmentarizing. This body is predisposed to technique and signs. Unsurprisingly, the first chapter of Anthropogeny is entitled The technical and semiotic body .

Then everything follows. Indicia <4> (traces, imprints) appear as primordial signs . Indexes <5> (fingers, pointers, gestures and much later the words) appear as (empty) intentional signs . Possibilization <6> arises with segments (signs) perceived as interchangeable . Massive images <9> bring the first representative signs . Massive music and languages bring musical and vocal signs <10> . At this stage, Homo is a long way from the animal. But to cover what he sees as the basics of Homo’s constitution, Henri Van Lier approaches another five essential points: The Endotropic brain <2> (in closed regime) , The encounter <3> (social and selective) , Field effects <7> (perceptive-motor and logico-semiotic) , The distinction between functionings and presence] <8> , and The articulation of the hominid specimen <11> (which allows Homo to keep his unity, particularly with the rhythm)

The three "WORLDS" (Chapter 12)

Henri Van Lier sees an (obliged) global order in hominid developments. He calls them WORLD 1, WORLD 2 and WORLD 3. These three worlds could be summarised in three words: In, before, with. To simplify to the extreme, we could say that Homo and his objects are first in nature (WORLD 1), then Homo is before (in front of) his objects and nature (WORLD 2), and today he is with his objects and nature (WORLD 3). These notions appear in the chapter The three WORLDS <12>, and are completed in the following chapters.

WORLD 1 goes from the origins of Homo to the end of primary empires (Sumer, China, India, Egypt). Architecture, sculpture, music and the machine are then in nature, according to a continuous-close topology. WORLD 2 covers Antique Greece to the 1900’s. Architecture, theatre, painting, and the machine are then at a “right distance”, before man and nature, according to a continuous-distant topology. WORLD 3 begins in the west in 1850 and invades the planet from 1950. Cinema, cartoons, technique, networks, ecology are in synergy with man and with nature, according to a discontinuous topology (cubist painting, televised sequences, internet, etc.).

Homo’s fundamental achievements (Chapters 13 to 17)

After defining the three “WORLDS”, Henri Van Lier broaches Homo’s fundamental achievements. He identifies four. These are Tectures <13> (architecture, sculptures, furniture), Detailed images <14> (segmentarized), Detailed music <15> (with tone), and spoken language: a complex subject on which he writes two distinct chapters Dialects as to their elements <16> and Dialects as to their practice <17>.

Homo’s subsequent achievements (Chapters 18 to 24)

Then come what Henri Van Lier calls subsequent achievements. They include The writings <18> (of accounts, of language, of literature, of music), Mathematics <19> (absolute practice of pure indexes), The logics <20> (syntactic, semantic, pragmatic), The theories of things: philosophy and sciences <21> (ultimate things or things of nature), The theories of Homo according to his languages <22> (myth, epic, tragedy, comedy, novel), Homo’s urgent theories <23> regulating conflicts (aesthetic and erotic, economic, political, linguistic), Homo’s contemplative theories <24> whose object is Homo himself (psycho-sociology, anthropologies, anthropogeny).

Social articulations (Chapters 25 to 30)

Finally, Homo lives in society. Henri Van Lier will dedicate six chapters to it. The hominid ethos <25>, i.e., habits without moral appreciation, The illnesses <26> (physical and mental), The multiple Lives <27> (everyday, artistic, love) and the way in which Homo avoids his own fragmenting (dehiscence), The ethnic groups <28> in the broad sense (genders, planetary civilisations, dialects, etc.), The epochs <29> punctuating the 3 WORLDS (Temporality, Contemporaneity), and finally, The galaxy of X-self <30> (what characterises homo, everywhere and always, until eventually on other planets).

The referentials of Anthropogeny (topology, cybernetics, logico-semiotic, presence)

WORLDS 1, 2 and 3 were defined from two couples of topology (continuous-discontinuous, and close-distant). Cybernetics of course was not far away. In WORLD 3 (discontinuous), there must be incessant actions-reactions, compositions and re-compositions of our brain so that the discontinuous sequences of a film, the functional elements of an abstract painting, the networks of Internet pages should take one or several senses. The more discontinuous the world is, the more cybernetic it must be.

This being said, the definition of WORLDS 1, 2 and 3 only exploits a small part of the referential topology + cybernetics + semiotic + presence which is that of Anthropogeny.

To apprehend the extent of these referentials, we can undertake three exercises. First, we shall ask ourselves whether the human face (bare, made-up, filmed) is not one the most topological thing (number of possible spatial configurations), one of the most cybernetic thing (number of possible temporised actions-reactions), one of the most semiotic thing (number of segments thematizing other segments that are internal or external to the face) and one of the most presential thing (real and indescribable). For the second exercise, we will transpose this human face into painting, sculpture, photography and even literature. For the third, we shall transpose it in all seven global civilisations: Japanese, Chinese, Arab Islam, West, Black Africa, and South America.

Anthropogeny offers a similar journey, accompanied by associated referentials (space, time, sign, presence) through civilizations, eras, peoples, individuals and artists.

Bibliography

For an exhaustive list, please refer to Anthropogénie

• Les Arts de l’espace (The arts of space), Casterman, 1959, 6th ed. rev. 1975 (out of print)
• The new age, renamed Priority of technique) translated from Le Nouvel âge , Casterman, 1962 (out of print)
• L’Intention sexuelle (The sexual Intention), Casterman, 1968 (out of print)
• L’Animal signé (The signed Animal), Vander, 1980 (out of print)
• Philosophy of photography translated from Philosophie de la photographie, Les Cahiers de la Photographie, 1983, reprint Les Impressions nouvelles

• A photographic History of Photography translated from Histoire photographique de la photographie, Les Cahiers de la photographie, 1992, reprint Les Impressions nouvelles
• Anthropogeny, 2002, Les Impressions nouvelles, 2010
• Around homo in eighty theses translated from Le tour de l’Homme en quatre-vingt thèses, 2004, Musée de la Maison d'Erasme

Numerous articles (published in Encyclopédie française, Encyclopaedia Universalis, Le Français dans le monde, Le Langage et l’homme, Critique, Communications, Revue de psychologie – Montreal, Diogène, etc.)

Radio broadcasts on France Culture with Emmanuel Driant

• L'espace artistique (The artistic space), 1981, (1 broadcast)
• L'atlas de la lumière (The atlas of light), 1981, (1 broadcast)
• Les mouvements de l’esprit dans la langue du XVII° siècle (The movements of the spirit in the language of the seventeenth century), 1981, (5 broadcasts)
• Les refoulements des sciences humaines (The repressions of the human sciences), 1983, (5 broadcasts)
• Victor Hugo : le grand-père et l’univers (Victor Hugo: The Grandfather and the Universe), 1985, (5 broadcasts)
• Le concert des media (The concert of the media), 1985, (6 broadcasts)
• Le bon plaisir de Paco Rabanne (To the good pleasure of Paco Rabanne), 1986, (1 broadcast – contribution)
• Le bon plaisir d'Ilya Prigogine (To the good pleasure of Ilya Prigogine), 1986, (1 broadcast – contribution)
• Anthropologie de la musique (Anthropology of Music), 1987, (5 broadcasts)
• Les logiques des langues européennes (The logic of European languages), 1989, (10 broadcasts)
• Lire avec Van Lier (Read with Van Lier) Une histoire langagière de la littérature française (A language history of French literature), 1989–1991 (30 broadcasts)
• Anthropogenèse de l'écriture (Anthropogenesis of writing), 1992, (1 broadcast)
• L'atlas des écritures (The atlas of writings), 1992, (1 broadcast)
• Les années Nadar : la fermentation généralisée (The Nadar years: the generalized fermentation), 1994, (1 broadcast)

References

Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at fr:Henri Van Lier; see its history for attribution.

External links

• Works of Henri Van Lier (About 67 texts available in English)
• Le tour de l'homme (Around Homo), in Liberation (In French)
• Quelques idées que m’inspire l’œuvre d’Henri Van Lier (Some ideas inspired to me by Henri Van Lier's work)
• L’événement Van Lier, Anthropogénie et linguistique (The Van Lier Event, Anthropogeny and Linguistics)
• Henri Van Lier, Anthropogénie et Linguistique, Devenirs méditerranéens (Anthropogeny and Linguistics, Mediterranean Futures)
• Der belgische Barthes (The Belgian Barthes)

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