ABSTRACT
Individual systems of closure, not groups or collections, realise material. It is individual human beings therefore that realise closure, not cultures or societies. The capacity to convey a closure from one individual to another through the use of language has however far-reaching consequences for each individual’s space. As we have seen the individual does not realise linguistic closure in a vacuum, as if each infant had to work out a system of language for themselves. Instead, the marks of language enable individuals to acquire the closures not merely of those with whom they come into contact, but to acquire an organised framework of closure that has been the outcome of the history of a culture. Although language consists of marks and not closures, these marks, and the way they are organised, carry with them the legacy of closures of the past, and more particularly those closures that provided a means of intervention that was in some manner held to be desirable.
