The French idiom ‘voir venir’ fuses certainty and ignorance of what comes
Evidence
The dialectical composition of such concepts as the ‘future’, ‘plasticity’, and ‘temporality’ form the anticipatory structure operating within subjectivity itself as Hegel conceived it. To distinguish this structure from the future as it is ordinarily understood, we will name this structure ‘to see (what is) coming’, obeying Hegel’s injunction to philosophize in one’s idiom. ‘Voir venir’ in French means to wait, while, as is prudent, observing how events are developing. But it also [I emphasize, J.D.] suggests that there are intentions and plans of other people which must be probed and guessed at. It is an expression that can thus refer at one and the same time [I emphasize again, J.D.], to the state of ‘being sure of what is coming’ and of ‘not knowing what is coming’. It is on this account that ‘to see (what is) coming’ can represent that interplay, within Hegelian philosophy, of teleological necessity and surprise. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 55
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines the central neologism ‘to see (what is) coming’ — the anticipatory structure of subjectivity that holds teleological necessity and surprise together in one term.
- XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s brain/plasticity work — anticipation as a structure that holds determination and openness simultaneously, a launch point for how neural prediction could be thought dialectically. — connects to: Voir venir means anticipating while not knowing what comes; The French idiom voir venir holds anticipation and surprise in one dialectical movement. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 48
- QUESTION: Worth chasing: does ‘voir venir’ also appear in Malabou’s later work on plasticity and the brain as the name for prediction-error processing?
- recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
Broader Connections
- Voir venir means anticipating while not knowing what comes
#expands(0.95) - The French idiom voir venir holds anticipation and surprise in one dialectical movement.
#corroborates(0.90) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 48