Homoclite / Heteroclite

Foucault's terms — in Les Mots et les choses (MC 9/xvii) and Le souci de soi — generalized by Leonard Lawlor (Ch 2 of Thinking through French Philosophy) into a spatialization-of-time apparatus that maps the diffraction between Merleau-Ponty's chiasm and Foucault's archive. The chiasm is a homoclite (literally "same-fold"): the mi-lieu (middle-place), the earth, the fold (le pli) where the multiple comes from the one without external cutting. The archive is a heteroclite (literally "other-fold"): the non-lieu (non-place), the desert/archive, the dépli (unfold) where the same becomes other without internal continuity. The opposition is the geometric-spatial form of the Sixties French point of diffraction as it appears between MP and Foucault — same Heideggerian inheritance of "the question of being," opposite ways of placing the question in space.

Key Points

Foucault's source-uses: (i) MC 9/xvii — heteroclite names what Borges's "Chinese encyclopedia" taxonomy is (the destruction of the and of enumeration, the impossibility of the in where things would be divided); (ii) Le souci de soi — heteroclite names the homosexual pederasty-relation (between two unlike beings, man and boy, in education); homoclite names the heterosexual marriage-relation (between two like beings, man and woman, in domestic life). The two source-uses are cross-categorial: MC's is taxonomic, Le souci's is sociopolitical.
Lawlor's generalization: Lawlor (Introduction raw 283; Ch 2.IV raw 569–577; Conclusion raw 583) takes Foucault's later (Le souci de soi) sociopolitical use of the pair and projects it back onto the early Les Mots et les choses archeological scheme — and from there onto the MP-vs-Foucault opposition. The result: MP's chiasm-as-mi-lieu = homoclite (same-fold of two seers seeing each other, two flesh-pieces of one body); Foucault's archive-as-non-lieu = heteroclite (other-fold of statements that are dispersed without enveloping totality).
Spatialization of time: the homoclite/heteroclite distinction maps the philosophical archeology of both MP and Foucault into a spatial opposition — the fold/unfold, the place/non-place, the earth/archive. This is what Lawlor calls the spatialization of time: the post-phenomenological move from time-as-living-present to space-as-fold/unfold.
The chiasm-X derivation: Lawlor (Ch 2 raw 569–573) derives the X-figure of the chiasm from binocular vision — two eyes looking out at a thing, the lines crossing at the thing; then reversed for the other looking at me, my eyes the crossed lines. The X has a point of intersection that is at once the thing-itself (objective) and the other's representation behind the eyes (subjective). This "halfway point" (mi-lieu) is nothing (refers back to two perspectives) yet something (what is seen — Wesen as verb). This is the homoclite structure.
The Borges-heteroclite derivation: Foucault's MC 9/xvii names the heteroclite via Borges's "Chinese encyclopedia" — a taxonomic list (animals are "those belonging to the Emperor," "those that are embalmed," "those that are trained," etc.) whose category (h) is "those included in the present classification" — destroying the and of enumeration, the in of division. The heteroclite is the non-place of the impossible-classification, the non-lieu where the common place dissolves.

Details

The two source-uses of heteroclite in Foucault

Foucault deploys the term heteroclite twice with different argumentative work:

1. The Borges-heteroclite (MC 7–9/xv–xviii). The Chinese encyclopedia (Borges, Otras inquisiciones) lists animal categories that cannot coexist in a common space because category (h) ("those included in the present classification") destroys the very and of enumeration. The heteroclite is what Foucault calls "the mute soil upon which it is possible for entities to be juxtaposed." The Borges-heteroclite is a taxonomic-archaeological concept: it names the non-place of the impossible-classification, the non-lieu where the common place dissolves into pure dispersion. This is what Les Mots et les choses extends as the principle of the archive.

2. The pederasty-heteroclite (Le Souci de soi). The relation between a man and a boy (in education, the homosexual relation) is actually a heteroclite because the two terms are unlike (different generations, different roles, different sexes-of-experience). The relation between a man and a woman (in marriage, the heterosexual relation) is actually a homoclite — because, despite biological difference, the two terms are alike-enough-to-be-domestic-partners. The naming is counter-intuitive: the heterosexual relation is homoclite, the homosexual relation is heteroclite. The pederasty-heteroclite is a sociopolitical-ethical concept.

Lawlor's projection

Lawlor's Ch 2 (raw 569–577) and Introduction raw 283 take the pederasty-heteroclite (sociopolitical) and project it back onto the Borges-heteroclite (taxonomic) and then forward onto the MP-vs-Foucault opposition. The projection chain:

pederasty-heteroclite (sociopolitical) ↔ Borges-heteroclite (taxonomic) ↔ archive-heteroclite (archaeological)
paired with: marriage-homoclite (sociopolitical) ↔ chiasm-homoclite (philosophical-perceptual)

The result is that MP's chiasm becomes a homoclite-archeology (the earth as same-fold) and Foucault's archive becomes a heteroclite-archeology (the archive as other-fold). Both are forms of philosophical archeology (per archeology-philosophical), but they spatialize time differently.

The two places — earth and archive

The opposition between earth and archive is the geometric-spatial form of the diffraction:

	Chiasm (MP)	Archive (Foucault)
Place	mi-lieu (middle-place)	non-lieu (non-place)
Fold	le pli (fold)	le dépli (unfold)
Spatial form	earth, soil, Boden	desert, archive, dispersion
Source	binocular vision (X)	Borges Chinese encyclopedia
Principle	totality, single task, Vorhabe	multiplicity, exteriority, dispersion
Memory	Stiftung as power to forget origins	counter-memory, absolute memory
Affect	sympathy, salvation (Lawlor's Christianizing gloss)	the gray dimension of water (Foucault RR 133/103)

The earth is the homogeneous element of being; the archive is the dispersed exteriority of statements. Both are productive lacks — but the earth-lack is folded (pli), the archive-lack is unfolded (dépli).

Why the spatialization is structurally important

Lawlor's third post-phenomenological move (after the convergence-of-phenomenology-and-structuralism and the prioritization-of-sense) is the prioritization of spatiality: the space of memory replaces time-as-living-present. The homoclite/heteroclite distinction is the form of this spatialization — it lets the diffraction between MP and Foucault be measured spatially (where is the lack? in the fold or in the unfold? in the mi-lieu or in the non-lieu?) rather than only temporally (when does the lack happen? in the originary past or in the eternal return?). This is what Appendix 1 Q4 calls the "places of institution" diffraction: MP/Deleuze = earth, Derrida/Levinas = desert, Foucault = archive.

Wordplay: the pli hidden in im-pli-cit

Lawlor (Ch 2 raw 561) extracts the pli from "im-pli-cit": the implicit sense Foucault opposes to the statement is for Lawlor literally a fold, the totality having "all sayings folded up inside itself." Foucault's archeology rejects this totality-of-the-fold; Lawlor's wordplay makes the rejection grammatical — the im-pli-cit IS the folded-up, the homoclite, what the heteroclite-archive unfolds.

What the Concept Does

The homoclite/heteroclite pair does geometric-spatial work for Lawlor: it lets the diffraction between MP and Foucault be visualized — same productive lack, opposite spatial forms (fold/unfold, mi-lieu/non-lieu, earth/archive). The concept's argumentative function is to spatialize the philosophical archeology, distinguishing two ways of placing the question in space; its diagnostic function is to flag where MP and Foucault converge (both philosophical archeologies, both productive lacks) and diverge (fold vs unfold); its methodological function is to enable a spatial-bilateral reading of any MP-Foucault opposition.

What It Rejects

The pre-spatial reading of philosophical archeology: Husserl's Origin of Geometry archeology is temporal (the regressive inquiry into the original Stiftung event). MP and Foucault both spatialize this archeology — into the earth and the archive respectively. The homoclite/heteroclite distinction names this spatialization.
The collapsing of MP and Foucault into "two archeologies of the same kind": MP's archeology is a homoclite (the chiasm is one fold of one flesh); Foucault's is a heteroclite (the archive is the unfolded dispersion of multiple statements). They are both archeologies but they are not the same kind.
The reading of the chiasm as merely a perceptual figure: Lawlor's binocular-derivation of the X-figure shows the chiasm IS a geometric-spatial figure with a point of intersection (the mi-lieu) that has the same structural role as Foucault's non-lieu. The chiasm is not just about perception; it is the geometric form of MP's homoclite-archeology.

Stakes

If accepted: (a) the MP-Foucault opposition becomes a spatial opposition (fold vs unfold) rather than a generic phenomenology-vs-archeology opposition; (b) the places of institution (per Appendix 1 Q4) become a primary axis for reading the Sixties French inheritance — earth (MP/Deleuze) vs desert (Derrida/Levinas) vs archive (Foucault); (c) the spatialization of time becomes the central post-phenomenological move (after the linguistic turn and the Urdoxa-critique).

If rejected: the homoclite/heteroclite pair remains a local Foucault terminology with limited cross-author resonance; the MP-Foucault opposition reverts to generic phenomenology-vs-archeology; the places of institution schema loses its primary axis.

Problem-Space

The problem the concept addresses: how to spatialize philosophical archeology so that two archeologies of the same kind can be told apart. Pre-Lawlor approaches: (i) treating archeology as purely temporal (Husserl, Origin of Geometry); (ii) treating MP and Foucault as having unrelated philosophies (most secondary literature). Lawlor's homoclite/heteroclite is one possible answer: spatialize the archeology, and the fold/unfold distinction does the differentiating work.

Connections

is the spatialized form of archeology-philosophical in the MP-Foucault diffraction
names two forms of fold-pli — the chiasmatic-knotted (Derrida) AND the homoclite-mi-lieu (MP) on the folded side; the Möbius-strip-unfolded (Deleuze) AND the heteroclite-non-lieu (Foucault) on the unfolded side
is the geometric form of chiasm — the binocular-X-figure derivation in Lawlor Ch 2 raw 569–573 makes the chiasm a homoclite-geometric figure with a mi-lieu point of intersection
is the spatial diffraction of point-of-diffraction between MP and Foucault
requires stiftung (Husserl) as the genealogical antecedent: the Stiftung-as-power-to-forget-origins (MP S 73–74/59) is the homoclite-temporal counterpart of Foucault's heteroclite-spatial counter-memory
contrasts with the Hyppolitean condensation (LE 230/176 "Immanence is complete"): the homoclite/heteroclite is what the immanence diffracts as
false-friend caution: Lawlor's homoclite/heteroclite is NOT Foucault's pederasty/marriage opposition in Le Souci de soi simpliciter — it is Lawlor's projection of that opposition back onto the archeological scheme. Readers of Foucault who use the terms in the sociopolitical-ethical sense should not assume Lawlor's spatialized-archeological sense
false-friend caution: "heteroclite" in English has a separate ordinary-language meaning ("anomalous, of mixed kinds"). Lawlor uses the term in its etymological sense ("other-fold") via the French Greek-rooted hétéroclite. Do not collapse

Open Questions

Is Lawlor's projection of Le Souci de soi's pederasty/marriage opposition back onto Les Mots et les choses's Borges-heteroclite philologically sound? The two source-uses are different categorial registers (sociopolitical vs taxonomic).
Does the homoclite/heteroclite spatialization survive Deleuze? Deleuze's plane of immanence is a third spatial form (the surface of the Möbius strip) that doesn't fit either pole.
Where does Levinas's desert fit? Appendix 1 Q4 places Derrida/Levinas in the desert (a third place beyond earth/archive); is the desert a heteroclite or a homoclite or a different kind altogether?
Is the homoclite/heteroclite pair binary (only two options) or typological (one of several options)? Lawlor presents it as binary in Ch 2 but the Conclusion's three-option schema (Derrida/Deleuze/Foucault + MP) suggests the binary is incomplete.

Sources

lawlor-2003-thinking-through-french-philosophy — Introduction (raw 283) for the Le Souci de soi projection-source; Ch 2.IV (raw 569–577) for the full chiasm-binocular and archive-Borges derivations; Conclusion to Ch 2 (raw 581–593) for the spatialization of time synthesis; Appendix 1 Q4 (raw 2179–2183) for the places of institution (earth/desert/archive) generalization.