scontrabile nell'episodio della pentola. 50 Questa «famous pot», [famosa pentola] nella quale si cucina il pastone del signor Knott, improvvisamente per Watt perde l'ausilio del nome: il segno linguistico s'incrina sulla linea tratteggiata che connette al referente: Looking at a pot, for example, or thinking of a pot, at one of Mr. Knott's pot, it was in vain that Watt said, Pot, pot. Well, perhaps not quite in vain, but very nearly. For it was not a pot, the more he looked, the more he reflected, the more he felt sure of that, that it was not a pot at ali. It resembled a pot, it was almost a pot, but it was not a pot of which one could say, Pot, pot, and be comforted. lt was in vain that it answered, with unexceptionable adequacy, all the purposes, and performed all the offices, of a pot, it was not a pot. And it was just this hairbreadth departure from the nature of a true pot that so excruciated Watt. For if the approximation had been less dose, then Watt would have been less anguished. For then he would not have said, This is a pot, and yet not a pot, no, but then he would have said, This is something of which I do not know the name. And Watt preferred on the whole having to do with things of which he did not know the name, though this too was painful to Watt, to having to do with things of which the known name, the proved name, was not the name, any more, for him.51 Ciò che è venuto meno a Watt è il «semantic succour», cioè l'ausilio della teoria - già di Berkeley - secondo cui un'idea (e conseguentemente un nome) può stare per idee e percezioni particolari, pur non per questo diventando generale, ma svolgendo una pacificante funzione di rappresentanza per una classe di idee particolari. Miseria della semantica (e delle idee astratte)! Il nome (la lingua della lingua, per Benjamin), il segno che viene asservito a comunicare qualcosa fuori di sé, cioè il peccato d'origine 143
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