The Parallel Campaign

Joseph Young 1980-2009

2009-10-12T16:44:00.003Z

I first met Joe shortly before the start of the MA in Continental Philosophy at the University of Warwick that we both took in 2002-03. He was reading a copy of the Bhagavad Gita in the corner of the Virgin and Castle public house in Kenilworth which I had just entered with a couple of other Warwick students. Hearing us talk about philosophy he introduced himself and almost immediately was engaging us in the most scintillating conversation. The basis of his erudition and skill as a raconteur was first of all his knowledge of literary and philosophical texts. It was also the result of his time as an undergraduate at the University of North London and the society he frequented in the capital. He mingled magnificently with a great variety of characters, in such places as the Coach and Horses in Soho. This society included artists, writers, actors, intellectuals, socialites and aristocrats (not all of whom were genuine). During his M.A. studies at Warwick he wrote accomplished pieces on the likes of Martin Heidegger, Henri Bergson, Friedrich Nietzsche, Marcel Proust and Georges Bataille. This contributed to his highly original and creative writing in the years after he left Warwick. He lived first in London and then for a longer period in Dorset, where he had been brought up. Over the last few years he was busy travelling the world. In many ways he embodied Gilles Deleuze’s dictum that ‘[t]he philosopher can reside in various states, he can frequent various milieus, but he does so in the manner of … a traveller or boarding house lodger’ (Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, p. 4). His journeys in both intensity and extensity were manifold. Thus whilst he had explored so many intense literary and philosophical ideas in the prose and poetry he composed, he developed these as he explored different continents. He spent time searching for profound experiences and inspirations in India, Nepal, Indochina, China, Japan, the U.S.A., Latin America, South America, Continental Europe, North Africa and the Cape of Africa. In an e-mail he wrote that ‘[i]n a sense its always been contingency – different states throwing different lights on a changing and undefined world, it’s the people who try to consider it fixed that get it wrong, …’.

This interweaving of journeys in literary and philosophic intensities with journeys in the extensities of space and history proved highly eventful. Joe was in Nepal during the uprising that brought its monarchy to an end and was able to write vividly about it. He also walked many miles in Nepal, visiting the base camp of Everest and finding in such places further resources for his creativity. He was in Tibet when the recent uprising occurred and was one of the first out, allowing him to spin some yarns to the journalists eager for accounts of what was going on inside Tibet. His journeys in the Amazon and into the Sahara provoked wonder in those of us who received his dispatches or who met the weary traveller when he arrived back for a brief stay in ‘the old country’. He wrote this from South America:
‘I travelled up the Amazon and saw the sunset at its basin, I hunted caimon by torchlight, found tarantulas in trees, saw Anacondas in the waters, caught a piranah … and, one halcyon morning, I took a dug-out into the waters of a quiet tributary and read “Heart of Darkness” all alone in the wild centre of a lake… I strolled the heart of colonial Peruvian towns, I took a small boat out in Lake Titicaca and met people who had for centuries lived on islands made of reeds, just floating in the freezing wind, I bought a charm from an old lady… I took a dilapidated bus across the plains and saw unimagined forgotten villages enshrouded by snow-capped mountains, […] … I scaled the height of Machu Picchu and looked down with heavy eyes upon a lost civlization now ratted with creeping tourists… and I forged my own path down through the jungle, my own way in thought, and thought about Neruda and solitude and the coming events of our world… I sit here in an airport lounge and think of these things, these things but a tiny piece of all that’s happened every day over the last few months and I look at where I’m going. I can’t seem to make sense of all the connections…’

Joe rarely sought to publish his writing and often deleted or destroyed his work, echoing Franz Kafka and Ludwig Wittgenstein in his approach to his own oevre. This stemmed from a creativity that always demanded a ‘clearing of the ground’, that wasn’t to be encumbered by any body of work. He was never satisfied with what he had done in the past and practiced ‘creative destruction’ in order that the ground should be cleared for unencumbered creativity. In an e-mail from Laos he wrote …
‘… I decided that the most important thing for me to do was strip away the layers in life and get back to the real core of my existence, tear away the superfluous thought and rediscover some ontologically pure core and be satisfied with it, use it as a platform for thought …’.
Like Jean-Paul Sartre he sold or gave away books, sometimes to people he met at the bus stop or in a café and with whom he had enjoyed a conversation. Related to this was a search for roots but not roots in the conventional or romantic sense. Instead it was a search for roots in the sense that Martin Heidegger professed when he sought the ‘ontological’ rather than the ‘ontic’, the source of the world’s creativity and of the givenness of the world rather than what is given or accumulated in the world. This source is not to be confused with what is given in the world but with the giving of the world as such. Hence the creative destruction that subjected even Joseph’s own work to critique and deletion. This rigor and purity animated him in a creative practice that is extremely rare. He perpetually moved on in his thought and experience, in ideas and places, so as to be equal to the creation of the world, to be attuned to creativity on its own terms.

Meillassoux, Kant and Absolute Contingency

2009-07-14T10:40:00.004Z

I would like to put forward a subject for debate on this site. This is something that arises out of the Speculative Realism movement and that challenges Transcendental Philosophy. In chapter 4 of Quentin Meillassoux’s After Finitude we find a critique of arguments from probability. The basis for this is the rejection of the notion that we can totalise reality and then argue on the basis of probability or chance. This opens the way for making contingency ‘absolute’ because we don’t have to secure either a metaphysical absolute (such as God) or transcendental conditions (such as Kant’s Table of Categories) to make experience possible. We do not have to shore up experience in the face of the balance of probability, the probability that conditions of experience that are contingent will not arise or will not endure if they do arise. It is only if we totalise reality that we can consider the probability that there will be constant change if conditions of experience are contingent. For Meillassoux, as for Alain Badiou, the contingent event is ‘absolute’ in its freedom from arguments from probability. Without totalisation there is nothing to rule out events that are contingent but secure reality in singular and enduring ways.

This leads to the question of the number and frequency of events or absolute contingencies. Is there one ‘world event’ that must improbably provide conditions for a reality where human life can be pursued and consciousness is possible? In fact there are multiple events for both Meillassoux and Badiou, something that would seem even less probable if probability was applicable to this reality. It is a contingent fact that multiple events extend conscious life rather than ending it. Yet the absoluteness of contingency means that its events are not undermined by probability. It can therefore provide the basis for an enduring reality.

Transcendental Arguments seem to be doomed in this universe insofar as they seek to establish certain conditions of possibility for experience. If we cannot totalise we cannot argue from the improbability of conditions of experience arising by chance. Their contingency is now the basis for their role as conditions, for their enduring and explanatory role in experience. Meillassoux argues that for Kant contingency is ruled out because if it held it would 'show itself', it would be obvious because it would make reality unstable and undermine possible experience as such (p. 94-5). Meillassoux seeks to reverse Kant’s identification of experience or sensation with contingency and the a priori with necessity (p. 95). He argues in favour of making the a priori structures of reality, which happen to support conscious life at present, contingent on the basis that probability or chance is no longer the measure of these structures. Contingency is now able to support the conditions that it provides. It is now experience or sensation that provides us with necessities because it leads us to maintain certain habits of thought. It actualises contingencies in determinate and stable ways (this leads into Meillassoux’s reading of Hume).

An alternative reading of Kant’s method of arguing can, I believe, be found in his Metaphysical Deduction in the Critique of Pure Reason. Here we do not find Kant arguing in the way Meillassoux suggests in chapter four of After Finitude. There is a sense in which Kant embraces an event in this short and under-appreciated section of the first Critique. This argument can be understood as a response to the absolute contingency of a set of conditions presented in a Table of Categories. The architectonic of the Critique of Pure Reason can be understood as a wager, as a form of fidelity, to this event. It is intended as a self-supporting argument, one that embraces an event that then unfolds in the text the proceeds it. Indeed those who argue that the Metaphysical Deduction must be supported by other parts of the text, where the ‘real’ argument allegedly goes on, neglect this wager. They seek to replace or supplement the Metaphysical Deduction with the first and second edition Transcendental Deductions and Analytic of Principles that follow it in the Transcendental Analytic. They are extremely puzzled by Kant’s fidelity to the Table of Categories.

Can we relate Kant’s framework for accounting for experience to Meillassoux’s understanding of a non-totalisable reality? Was Kant’s Metaphysical Deduction a reaction or an active response to the chaos in which he saw the sceptic wandering (the sceptic is portrayed as nomadic by Kant)? Does it respond to an unfathomable chaos in the way that Meillassoux’s concern with contingent events responds to the absoluteness of contingency? The Metaphysical Deduction puzzles many readers of Kant because it seems to have no reasoning behind it, to be trivial, artificial and underdeveloped. Could the Metaphysical Deduction be a creative response to contingency and not a retreat in the face of chance? We do not have to absolutise the twelve categories of Kant’s table to take this deduction seriously but we can absolutise the event that the Metaphysical Deduction represents. As an argument it would then embrace a series of events which are contingent but structure experience if we make a wager on them. The a priori would be a wager on an event. Rather than warding of chaos these events would be its realisation. The capture or realisation of chaos would be represented in the structuring of the account of experience given in the Critique of Pure Reason.

These are merely some thoughts I wanted to put forward. I think that the challenge represented by Speculative Realism is both formidable and stimulating. It seems to bring out much neglected sides of Transcendental Philosophy. The originality and force of Speculative Realism calls for a renewed and invigorated Transcendental Philosophy.

Sartre, Badiou and Bad Faith

2006-03-13T13:44:00.000Z

Sartre, Badiou and Bad Faith
(Some preliminary remarks)

[1] Well the lack of activity on the site has prompted me to put some of my latest musings up, on Badiou yet again. One day I'll write on something other than Badiou, but at least this time Sartre is the centre of attention. These remarks are not yet fully formed, and after spending some time reading the Critique of Dialectical Reason it is my first attempt to understand how the concept of bad faith has developed. Despite Sartre's later book screaming out for an editor, there is a considerable amount of interesting stuff in the sections on series and group formation. My initial idea was to see how Sartre's discussions had influenced Badiou's, and to situate Sartre as a somewhat banal predecessor to Badiou. But I have come to see that Sartre's theory has some considerable advantages over Badiou, especially for a political cynic like myself. I find the pessimism somewhat refreshing after reading so much of Badiou's enthusiasm for, and belief in, the possiblity of political action/reveloution.

Complexity and Development of Bad Faith

[2] Badiou’s philosophy of the event shares a great number of similarities to Sartre’s later work on group action found in the Critique of Dialectical Reason. In this later work the concept of bad faith does not appear, and this is not without good reason. The problem of bad faith is not a concept that is exhausted in Being and Nothingness; it is an idea that is still raised as a problem on the final page of the book, problematizeing the very possibility that a free for-itself could ever live outside of bad faith in a totally authentic existence.[1] The simple opposition of terms like good and bad faith, or authentic and inauthentic existence become far too limited for Sartre, who needs a more carefully graded system to bring out the variety of forms of bad faith and their various transformations.

[3] These ideas are developed in the Critique of Dialectical Reason, a book which examines in great depth the relation between free individuals and their situation. The idea of the situation is initially introduced in Being and Nothingness. Here, the situation is introduced as how an individual apprehends the world in terms of his freedom. This situation has an interior and an exterior, the interior being the those in-itself aspects of the world that the for-itself can manipulate and change, the exterior being the limit of the situation as delimited by other free for-themselves.[2] This exteriority is encountered within a situation every time the for-itself finds a meaning in the world that it did not create, generally speaking, our entire social environment. These aspects point beyond the situation to some other for-itself who produced these meanings; the exterior, or limit, is never directly encountered within the situation. The discovery of exteriority leads to the recognition that our actions, the meaning we give to the situation in our manipulation of it, has an exterior, for the other. Hence the meaning we give to something can be appropriated by the other and hence alienated. This section of Being and Nothingness concludes with a discussion of death as a totalized way of considering the limit of our situation, and hence that all our actions will become, immediately, alienated:

It is absurd that we are born; it is absurd that we die. On the other hand, this absurdity is presented as the permanent alienation of my being-possibility which is no longer my possibility but that of the Other. It is therefore an external and factual limit of my subjectivity![3]

[4] Death as the total limit of the situation as constituted by the Other, and as the permanent alienation of all my actions seems a terribly pessimistic conclusion to Being and Nothingness. Is this the new type of inescapable bad faith that Sartre worries about on the concluding page? It is clear that this alienation occurs because of the relations that the free for-themselves have with each other, that is, permanently mediated by the situation. There is no reciprocity between the free individuals, only via activity in the world in which their free action is alienated, and becomes an in-itself for the other. Sartre’s aim, therefore, is to describe a form of relation between individuals that is not mediated via their alienated action in a situation, a true reciprocity between free individuals.

[5] Here we can see the problem of bad faith problematized by alienation. Although a free individual might not think of himself as determined by in-itself qualities, as an isolated individual acting in the situation the perpetual alienation that he suffers through his actions is a permanent becoming-in-itself. The freedom experienced by the free isolated individual is a perpetual fight against this becoming, rather than a positive becoming, this positive notion can only be realised in group action.

[6] The point of the Critique of Dialectical Reason is to develop these ideas. Key concepts that are developed are of the two types of dialectic, or dialectic and antic-dialectic, which Sartre uses to differentiate between individual and group action, and these are called: the constituent dialectic and the constituted dialectic. The transcendent freedom of the individual is the motor of the dialectic, the for-itself as perpetually transcending itself. Hence the constituent dialectic describes the structures that emerge in the interaction between these constituent elements. When a group is formed, it is always formed from the constituent elements of free individuals; a group is always a compound, never a new type of individual, hence its actions and interaction with other individuals and groups can only ever be described as a constituted dialectic. It is also called an anti-dialectic as, due to its lack of individual freedom, it cannot transcend itself; it is only the specially co-ordinated activity of a number of individuals. This has important consequences, especially in regards to Badiou’s philosophy.[4]

[7] In this set up bad faith can be seen in the transition from active passivity to passive activity, and suffered in the mode of passive activity as alienation. [5] Activity within groups is active passivity, and that of isolated individuals is passive activity. Both types of activity are subject to change through the increase of the type of inertia encountered in the situation. The two types of inertia are serial inertia and pledged inertia.

[8] Serial inertia is experienced as the alienation that an isolated subject experiences within a situation for which it is not responsible. The for-itself's freedom fights against, and is usually crushed, by the inert structures that it encounters; freedom fights against this passivity. The individual’s activity is reduced to passivity by the inertia of the situation. On the other hand, pledged inertia is the positive passivity freely given by an individual within a group to work toward common goals. The transition occurs between the two types when the organised group becomes institutionalized.[6]

[9] We can see from this that the structure of bad faith has become considerably more complicated. One final point to make is that passive activity can never become active passivity through a simple transition, once a group is lost and has returned to a mere serial arrangement of individuals it cannot be reconstituted. A new group will have to be formed, and this can only happen in an event of novelty in which the group appears as a spontaneous fusion of individuals united against some threat. [7] This apocalyptic moment introduces something truly novel to the situation, and it initially operates free from all inertia, so its activity is neither active passivity, nor passive activity.[8]

[10] Finally, we can see how close Sartre is to Badiou in terms of his conception of the formation of the group in fusion as opposed to Badiou’s event. I have only touched on the complexity of this issue in the Critique of Dialectical Reason, but even now it clearly raises issues about the relation between Badiou and Sartre.

Badiou’s reliance on bad faith

[11] Why might we expect the problem of bad faith to be an issue for Badiou? Sartre tries very carefully not to import the problems of the individual, especially those that are the consequence of its fundamental existential make up, to the group level. The group is something radically different, something in which the individuals remain singular, free and never completely dissolved. This is why there can never be a return of a group, as a group has no actual unity; it is not a supra-individual. If it was possible for a group to exist as a constituent rather than as constituted its lapse into an institution would be equivalent to an individual being in bad faith. A group, as a group, cannot be in bad faith.

[12] In Badiou’s philosophy this is not the case, there is a subject to an event, and this can involve a number of individuals. Therefore, a subject composed from a number of individuals is possible. Here the term subject has a very specific meaning: being a finite portion of a truth procedure. So we might expect the problems that arise in bad faith for Sartre’s individual subjects to arise at this ‘higher’ level. One such problem is recognised and navigated by Badiou’s use of the future anterior to refer to subjects as something that will have been. This is close to Sartre recognising that although I can never say that I am X, I can say, without being in bad faith, that I was X.[9]

[13] Also in Being and Nothingness Sartre clearly states that the problem with bad faith is faith.[10] Now, if we consider the importance of the concept of fidelity to Badiou, we can recognise that there might be a problem here.

[14] Of course, the traffic flows both ways, and we can find criticisms of Sartre in Badiou. For Badiou, freedom on its own is insufficient to constitute a subject/group.[11] Freedom, or intervention, used in the absence of an event is a form of evil for Badiou, and leads inevitably not to the production of novelty but to the complete determination of the ontological situation: freedom used freely is un-free.[12] This is a consequence of the Axiom of Choice, which was the motivation for Zermelo’s initial introduction of the axiom, as it allowed him to state that all sets could be well ordered.

As I promised, nothing conclusive!

References:

[1] Sartre, Jean-Paul, Being and Nothingness, (Routledge, 2000) p628
[2] Ibid. pp509-10
[3] Ibid. p547
[4] Sartre, Jean-Paul, Critique of Dialectical Reason, (Verso, 1991) p332
[5] Ibid. p603
[6] Ibid. p603
[7] Ibid. p401
[8] Ibid. p398
[9] Sartre, Jean-Paul, Being and Nothingness, (Routledge, 2000) p65
[10] Ibid. p67
[11] Badiou, Alain, Being and Event, (Continuum, 2006) p210
[12] Ibid. pp230-31

Some thoughts on the subject in Badiou

2005-08-26T11:33:00.000Z

Some thoughts on the subject in Badiou’s philosophy

[1] It has been a suspicion of mine for some time that Badiou’s philosophy, and especially his conception of the subject, is too closely tied to an ideal of political commitment.  The need to keep alive the notion of meaningful political action directed toward a cause has resulted in a model of the subject cast in the restrictive mould of a perpetually active revolution.  Though Badiou claims that this activity is creative, I have some problem in seeing it as anything other than a negative project aimed at overthrowing some concrete structural aspect of a situation.  This suspicion rests with Badiou’s insistence on the model of set theoretical forcing as the archetypal example of an ‘event’.

[2] To understand my complaint we must turn to the mathematical significance of Cohen’s theory of forcing.  The introduction of set theoretical forcing was required to prove that certain axioms of set theory were independent: two separate consistent models could be constructed, one in which the axiom held, and one in which it did not.  The initial axioms that were of interest were the General Continuum Hypothesis (GCH) and the Axiom of Choice.  What such proofs allow is the ability to clarify the necessity of certain axioms.  Those axioms that turn out to be independent are not necessary to produce a consistent model of set theory.  This emancipation from certain axioms allows set theory to explore a wider range of set theoretical models; even introducing new axioms which contradict those which have been proved to be independent.  Most focus is put on GCH, partly due to Georg Cantor’s obsession with it, but mainly due to the fact that should it turn out to be the case that GCH is an integral part of set theory, the universe of sets would be a constructible and completely determined structure.  The independence of GCH meant that set theory lost the ability to be completely determined but became a far richer and indeterminate structure as a consequence.  The axiom of choice plays a significant role in Badiou’s philosophy and I will return to a discussion of it later.

[3] The question has to be asked: where are the creative and new aspects of set theory occurring?  Is it in the process of forcing itself, or is it in the invention and application of new axioms?  Badiou definitely locates the invention of the new in the process of forcing itself, in the construction of the generic sets integral to the procedure.  But what is the process of forcing really doing?  Its purpose, within mathematics at least, is to provide a partial proof of the independence of a given axiom; such proofs by forcing are called independence proofs.  Hence, the process of forcing has as its aim a negative goal, to produce a model in which a given axiom fails, as part of a full proof to demonstrate the axiom’s independence.  This proof has two possible uses; first, if an axiom is demonstrated to be independent it confirms that it is possible to use the axiom within a consistent system.  Second, it provides an opportunity for invention: a new model can be constructed without the given axiom, even a new model using a new axiom.  This second aspect is what occurred in the wake of the proof of GCH’s independence; it opened the door for all manner of Large (inaccessible) Cardinal Axioms.   This greatly enlarged and complicated the field of set theory.  To my mind it is in the invention and application of these new axioms that the creation of the new occurs.  Badiou’s theory seems perpetually stuck in the overturning of a given axiom, obsessed in constructing a model in which an axiom, a structural component representing the status quo of a situation, fails.

[4] For me, the real process of invention/creation takes place after an axiom is proved to be independent.  It is at this point that a new commitment is given, or a new selection made.  It does not occur, as it does for Badiou, in the perpetual process of constructing a model in which a given axiom fails.  What also puzzles me is Badiou’s introduction of the event as an unfounded set, this again seems an unnecessary complication required only in order to keep the subject bounded within finitude, and to prevent the possibility that an event may run its course and come to an end.  There is a time to pledge commitment to a cause but there is equally a time to let things go, perhaps the real challenge of an event is to know when to finish.  To give up on an event is, for Badiou, one of the forms of evil.  Within the mathematical application of forcing the non-constructible sets which are appended to a model in order to produce a system in which a given axiom fails, are never presented as unfounded.  An unfounded set being one that has no minimal element, such as the empty set, and can then belong to itself.   The event, as an unfounded set, remains as a surplus providing the impetus for, and demanding the fidelity from, a finite subject.

[5] The event as surplus ties in with Badiou’s interpretation of the Axiom of Choice, as essentially a faculty of freedom which belongs to a rational individual.  This freedom is the capacity to become a subject, by being traversed by a truth and being taken up into it as an integral part of its infinite procedure.  The subject is simply a finite portion, or segment, of a truth procedure.  This fidelity to an event played out through the militant experimentation of the subject, who interrogates the situation with regards to an event.  Now, within mathematics there is no need to actually carry out this labour; the labour of interrogating every element of a situation and asking whether it does, or does not, belong to an element of the event.  All that is required is to know that such a procedure is possible.  There is no interest in the actual content of this procedure, only in the consequence of it being carried out.  The ‘evental’ set is forced to belong to the original model, and as a consequence a consistent model is built in which a specific axiom fails.  But, for Badiou, the event itself is never forced to belong; it is always in the process of being forced.  This process is carried out by subjects to the event.  Therefore the process of building a model in which a specific axiom fails, or the status quo is undermined, is never complete, and is always in the process of happening.

[6] This need to keep the process of forcing as a never ending process, whilst maintaining the subject as finite, means that the event itself becomes a source of excess that provides the impetus for the continued action of the subject.  Not directly, but through the faithful declaration of the subject, in his devotion to the cause.  This means that the event itself must remain an unfounded set during this procedure: the subject’s experience of it being something akin to a pure experience, a pure sense, an intellectual intuition.  Keeping the event as an unfounded set is a distinct deviation from how it is understood within its original mathematical context.  The subject’s finite perspective, in the midst of carrying out a truth procedure, means that the event itself, which from the perspective of the situation remains un-founded (un-grounded), appears, through fidelity/faith, as self-founding (self-grounding).  As was mentioned above, mathematically the process of forcing is carried out, and a model in which a specific axiom fails is produced.  The ‘event’ does not remain as unfounded, only effectual in relation to a subject, but is forced to belong and in the process overturning an axiom.  There is no interest in the actual content of this procedure.  The interest for the mathematician comes after such a proof, in the potential opened up by a specific axiom becoming independent.

[7] This seems somewhat heavy going, and there is a fair degree of repetition.  But in conclusion I want to draw attention to the point that I’ve been trying to make.  Badiou’s use of set theory only goes so far before deviating from its standard use.  Therefore, set theoretical forcing does not provide an archetypal model of the structure of the event.  The model that Badiou uses deviates from its mathematical use by fixing the process of forcing as a never-ending process linked to the finite perspective of a subject.  The subject is then fixed within very narrow limits; a subject committed to a cause.  But this cause is never anything creative; it always seems reactive, perpetually caught within a process to undermine a specific aspect of the situation.  A model that I find leans toward the political, despite Badiou’s four types of event.

Badiou and Saint Paul

2005-03-22T12:52:00.000Z

Well it's been a while, but this is the rather rough paper I gave the other day at the University of Bristol's 10th Postgraduate Conference on Theology and Religous Studies (12th March 2005). It is essentially yet another introduction to Badiou, but I managed to get to grips with certain important themes in his work whilst writing this. But let me know what you think.

Badiou and Saint Paul

[1] As my abstract suggests, this paper is predominantly about Alain Badiou, rather than Saint Paul, and as such is essentially a philosophical paper that I hope will be of interest to a wider, theologically minded audience. What I aim to achieve is an introduction to Badiou’s philosophy, which will attempt to make some of his more abstract and mathematical concepts more accessible through an engagement with Badiou’s own work on Saint Paul.

[2]Although Badiou’s work is becoming increasingly well known, it is still prudent to assume that most people, outside of a certain specialist area of research in continental philosophy, will have had a limited encounter with his philosophy. Badiou is a somewhat controversial figure in contemporary continental philosophy, much maligned by philosophers from both analytical and continental backgrounds. The cause for such rancour is Badiou’s use of contemporary mathematics married to a radical political stance, which is recognisably continental. His use of mathematics is seen as yet another ‘bad’ appropriation of Science by continental philosophers, whereas his attempt to resurrect such unfashionable concepts as universal truths, rationalism, and systematic thought, along with the claim that ontology is nothing more than mathematics has alienated him from certain strands of continental philosophy. He is still alive, and working today, and is in my opinion one of the most exciting and challenging of contemporary philosophers.

[3] Before continuing, I would like to highlight the two points that I will examine in relation to Badiou and his work on Saint Paul, these are: first, the initially strange sounding concept of the possibility of a material faith, and the consequences of such a faith, which is a truth procedure which founds a universal truth. Second, a truth procedure, which founds such a universal truth, is governed by a fidelity, or faith, to some event that has ‘happened’. The inexplicable nature of this event means that the procedure operates without reference to any rule, or law. These are two common themes within the letters of Saint Paul; the superiority of faith over works and that faith operates free from the law. In a sense, one of Badiou’s aims is to wrest religion’s final defence from it; the invocation of faith, and make it operate in a wholly material fashion, devoid of all theological reference. In order to be able to understand Badiou’s interpretation of the works of Saint Paul it will be necessary to elaborate in some detail the workings, and concerns that drive Badiou’s systematic thought.

[4] Badiou’s philosophical concerns clearly belong to a contemporary strand of continental thought, perhaps best called philosophies of difference, or the event, which are most familiarly associated with the works of the later Heidegger, Derrida and Deleuze and Guattari, to name but a few. These philosophies tend to be preoccupied with the generation, or creation of novelty, in all its forms, be it scientific, natural, artistic etc. The fundamental problem stems from what Badiou succinctly calls his ‘wager’: that the One is not. Anything that counts for a One, or a unity is not, the correlate of this is that what is is pure multiplicity, or pure difference. This is the root of Badiou’s anti-theological stance, which he equates with any system of thought that has as its fundamental ground of existence in some unity, be it a transcendent omnipotent entity, or the unity of some impersonal vital force that somehow permeates all reality. It is important to note that Badiou’s rejection of theology acknowledges that it is not something that can be disproved or debunked, the very language of a wager on multiplicity, as opposed to unity, recalls the language of Pascal wager on the existence of God.

[5] Introducing some important terminology, this pure multiplicity is completely unordered and un-orderable, it cannot be taken as a unity or totality; it is therefore inconsistent multiplicity. That which can be unified, or counted as one, is consistent multiplicity. What will be of interest is the relation or, as it will turn out, non-relation between consistent and inconsistent multiplicity. It is at this juncture that Badiou’s indebtedness to mathematical set-theory begins to assert itself. At the beginning of his seminal work L’être et l’événtment Badiou states: ‘what must be said is that the one, which is not, exists solely as operation. Or; there is no one, there is only the count-for-one.’ This count for one presents what has been counted to consist as a unity, what has been gathered together to form a one, but this pure operation has, as yet nothing to operate on. It is the foundational step of applying this pure process of naming to inconsistent multiplicity that grounds all possible systems of related and consistent unities. This operation when applied to what is, inconsistent multiplicity, can present, as consistent, precisely nothing. All that appears, or is presented, is the pure operation of gathering.

[6] Set theory is concerned with the manipulation and relation of consistent multiplicities, or aggregates. In this theory there is only one founding axiom that existentially asserts the existence of a set. This is the empty set axiom. All the other axioms state how to manipulate sets which have already been given. The empty set has its own special symbol Æ, but is in essence simply a pair of empty braces {}, nothing but the presentation of the operation of gathering, or drawing together as a one. It is also possible, within this theory, to show that all other sets can be generated from this one set through the application of the remaining axioms.

[7] Inconsistent multiplicity, or the Void as Badiou sometimes calls it, cannot be presented, but it founds all possible presentation. The empty set is therefore what Badiou calls a pure, or empty name, it is not the presentation of the Void but its name. Therefore inconsistent and consistent multiplicity are linked through this axiomatic naming through the application of the count for one, the empty set sutures the presentation of consistent multiplicities, which are not, to inconsistent multiplicity, which is: Æ, the empty set, is the proper name of being. It also has a strange universal property; it is included in every set but never belongs. Therefore every set represents the void, but it is never presented and its universal property does not amount to much, it is simply the representation of nothing.

[8] What this recognises is that there is no ultimate, or absolute, first element with regards to a consistent set-theoretical construction. This foundational naming is a decision taken in the face of the void, an empty naming which makes consistent construction possible. All such foundational elements will always be essentially empty; therefore any regressive philosophy that attempts to understand itself through an ever more thorough examination of its foundations will fail. Badiou acknowledges a point already made clear in Heidegger’s Being and Time, that one always already has a primordial understanding of one’s situation, and finds oneself in the midst of things. In being capable of examining anything, one must have already understood the situation in order to orientate oneself towards what is being examined. The horizon of a situation cannot itself, as horizon, be bought into the foreground and examined: it is the condition of possibility for making things present. The same is true of the foundational nature of the empty set, and the axiomatic approach in general, they constitute the conditions of possibility for a situation, such that anything can appear at all.

[9] What does appear, in this mathematical model of a situation, are consistent multiples, or sets. Now with regards to sets Badiou places a lot of emphasis on the difference between belonging , the fundamental non-logical operation of set theory, and inclusion, being a subset. The importance of these two different operations is that they are not equal, although every element that belongs to a set is also included as a subset in it; it is not true that every subset is itself an element of the original set. To make this distinction clear let me take the example of the people in this room. Taken together we form a set, precisely of all the people in this room. But this set can be divided into a number of parts, for example we could divide it between men and women, speaker, chair and audience, and so on. With a finite number of people n, there are only a set number of ways of dividing us up, in fact 2n ways, but it should be noted that there are always more parts to a set than elements.

[10] What Badiou claims is that this difference between being an element of (belonging to) a set and being a subset, or part, of a set has huge ontological significance. For Badiou, a situation is simply the material elements that compose it; a situation is a set. The actuality of a situation is its presented material elements. The possibility inherent in any situation is simply the totality of possible arrangements of its elements, that is to say, the totality of its parts/subsets. What a subset does, in relation to a situation, is to re-present a part of it, therefore the totality of such subsets is a re-presentation of the situation taking into account all the possible ways that it might appear. This re-presentation, or the set of all subsets, is called the power set of a given set and is one of the most powerful concepts in set theory. At a finite level the power set of a set is strictly calculable, 2n, but one of the fundamental aspects of set theory is that it allows for completed infinite sets, such as the set of all natural/whole numbers. At an infinite level the concept of all possible arrangements does not seem to have an intuitively obvious meaning, and in fact turns out to be un-decidable. It is this aspect of in-determination that appears in the heart of mathematics that Badiou is interested in, and means that his philosophical appropriation of mathematics is not a simple return to determinism.

[11] It will be useful to recap some of the points made above. What I have been trying to highlight with the above rapid overview of Badiou’s philosophy is the following. All there is is inconsistent multiplicity; an empty founding decision forecloses a consistent realm against the inconsistency of the void. The realm of consistent multiplicity that has been founded through this subtraction from the void is a consistent self-contained world, or universe, governed by two limits: first the material of the situation which is presented as a set, this can be thought of as the actuality of the situation. And the possibility inherent in this situation, which is limited by the re-presentation of the situation in terms of its parts; these are the categories and divisions which can be brought to bear on it. What is problematic is that this second limit of possibility is un-decidable with reference to an infinite situation (all situations are, for Badiou, infinite). For the world to remain consistent and foreclosed against the void an extra condition will have to be brought in to give a measure to the un-decidable excess of the power set of a situation. The fact that the power set of an infinite set is un-decidable does not mean that a consistent measure cannot be given to it. The situation constitutes what can appear, and the horizon (power set) limits how it appears. And as long as there is a strict relation between the two, i.e. a measure has been given to the excess of re-presentation over presentation, then this world operates in a consistent manner, totally subtracted from and un-related to the void.

[12] We are now in a position to approach the central concern of Badiou: the event. The event constitutes a basic question that concerns many philosophies of difference: how can novelty be created, or generated? It is clear from the above model of how a consistent world operates that everything possible has already been accounted for. Badiou does not want to seek novelty in changing the situation, the content is to some extent irrelevant to his highly formal philosophy. Any such operation from ‘outside’ the current consistent world would be an unwarranted appeal to some transcendent factor. It would put the possible comprehension of novelty beyond every situation, if it is always intruded on from ‘outside’ or ‘beyond’. What Badiou wants is an event that triggers the possibility of novelty from fully within a given situation, using nothing more than what is already available to the situation: its material elements. An event is immanent to a situation and always disrupts the status quo of that situation. It is a revolutionary moment and demands militant action. What an event will provoke is the transformation of a situation, not into something which completely destroys or erases the previous consistent world, but one which transforms and extends it.

[13] The way that this may occur will rest on the relation between presentation and re-presentation, and the measure given to this representation. The state of a situation is what Badiou calls the re-presentation of a situation that is controlled by some measure, hence there is no gap between a situation and its state; the state accounts for all legitimate possible expressions of the situation. In some sense the state of a situation can be thought of as the language that expresses it. What is clear is that if a certain number and type of illegitimate expressions can somehow be made to consist within this consistent system they will disrupt and undermine the authority of the situations state. If it is insisted that these expressions truly belong to this system then the language of this system will have to be extended in order to accommodate them. The system will then have been transformed and extended, by using initially illegal expressions. It is important that these expressions are formed only from the material of the situation, and do not import anything from outside, as they would lose all chance of claiming legitimacy. By holding to the belief that these supposedly illegal expressions really are expressions of the situation it will be possible to modify the language to act ‘as if’ they were legitimate. The most complicated part of Badiou’s appropriation of set theory rests on how these illegitimate expressions can be held to in such a way as to modify and extend the language of expression/representation. Also, not just any expression can be used, they have to be ones that if acted on ‘as if’ they were expressions of the situation do not lead to fundamental paradoxes and inconsistency within the new extended system.

[14] The most important thing to understand in this attempt is the difference between an intentional and extensional conception of sets. Set theory only requires sets to be extensional, that is they are identified solely by their elements. An intentional definition would recognise the elements of a set as fulfilling some condition. For example, the set of all even numbers has an intentional definition; all its members fulfil the condition of being even. The intentional definition for a set, if it exists, can be substituted for its laborious extensional definition: the set with elements x, y, z,… One of the key ways of limiting the state of a situation is to only allow sets which have an intentional definition; they are sets which can be constructed according to some rule or law. The simple rules of construction which at a finite level can easily calculate all the possible permutations a finite set can be consistently modified to work on infinite sets, but it is no longer clear that this process of calculating permutations will actually exhaust all possible compositions of infinite sets. This difference is recognised by the two categories of constructible and non-constructible sets.

[15] It is these non-constructible sets that will form the heart, or site, of an event. It is clear that such a set cannot have a condition of membership by definition, such sets are completely unstructured. If a situation is governed by a state which only allows constructible sets, then a non-constructible set, although composed of the same material elements of the situation, will not be represented as a possibility of the situation, it will be invisible. The existence of such sets can only be asserted to exist; one must have a belief in them, and a faithful fidelity to the consequences that such a belief will deploy. This is what occurs in a truth procedure, stemming from the declaration of an event, which is simply the assertion that a number of non-constructible sets exist as possibilities of the situation. This fidelity to an event will force the language, or representation, of the situation to operate in a new way which will extend its usual functioning, such that it will begin to incorporate and make visible the consequences of holding such an event as true. The only way for this to happen is to investigate the situation element by element, and ask whether each element belongs to the non-constructible sets we are asserting exist. Every element must be investigated as the non-constructible set has no rule or condition that might include, or exclude any element in advance of an actual immanent investigation. The full sequence of these investigations constitutes an extension of the original representational range of the state of a situation; to such an extent that it can now consistently operate ‘as if’ the non-constructible set belonged to the representation of the situation.

[16] The last stage in this somewhat laborious overview will be the more philosophical distinction between a subject and an individual in Badiou’s philosophy, before finally turning to Badiou’s work on Saint Paul. A subject for Badiou is simply a finite portion of an infinite truth procedure. By investigating an infinite set, element by element, it is clear that a truth procedure is an infinite affair; any finite portion of this procedure can constitute a subject. An individual will simply be the notion of someone defined entirely by the legalistic definitions deployed in the state of a situation, be it their physical materiality, their belonging to a certain community or country etc. In other words, an identity centred on some definable trait, what such an individual is capable of is to be traversed by a truth procedure; that is to be taken up by it, such that his identity is shifted away from a comfortable constructible identity and moves toward a faith in a non-constructible, unstructured event.

[17] Due to a lack of time, my engagement with Badiou’s work on Saint Paul may well appear as a somewhat clumsy mapping of the terms introduced above onto the figure of Saint Paul. To some extent this is Badiou’s approach. He wants to conceive Saint Paul, and his activity in a purely formal light, in such a light Paul’s activity and response to the event of Jesus Christ’s death and subsequent resurrection appears as a Badiouian truth procedure. Paul becomes a subject in his fidelity and faith to the event of Christ’s death and resurrection, and this is manifested in his wondering militant preaching of the Gospel, not only to fellow Jews but also to the Gentiles. The message must be truly universal, as the event held to introduces a number of non-constructible elements, which if adhered to as true requires that this ‘message’ must be taken to all elements of the situation. In this case the situation is that of social world of the Roman Empire, and the preaching of the Gospel must be carried out as a systematic militant investigation of every element of that situation. No group can be assumed to belong to this truth in advance, according to some condition such as the laws governing Judaism, nor can any group be excluded in advance due to any condition. I think realistically I can only concentrate on perhaps one element of Badiou’s relation to Saint Paul in the time remaining, and that will be Saint Paul’s consideration of the law.

[18] Badiou’s strongest engagement, can perhaps predictably, be seen in his investigation of Paul’s relation to the law, and the message that Christ’s death and resurrection brings to the law. The discussion on law is taken up in Paul’s letter to the Romans, where the law is seen as death, and that which introduces the possibility of sin. This is the life of the flesh, and for Badiou is the simple animal life that we lead as mere individuals, living only according to specified rules and laws equates with the controlled representation, or state of a situation. Such laws can either be fulfilled or negated, and their very invention leads to a desire to violate and transgress them. Such transgressions do not challenge the law, but merely affirm their status and justify the need for their existence. Law and transgression form a neat binary relation. Both of which can be easily formulated in the language of the situation in terms of a condition, and the negation of that condition. The event for Badiou, in this case the death and resurrection of Christ, is not illegal in this sense, the event’s non-constructible elements are invisible to the legal constraints of a situation, the law lacks the ability to be able to properly talk about an event; it can neither affirm nor condemn it. But also Christ’s resurrection is a resurrection into life. The death to sin and the life of the flesh does not mean an eradication of law and sin, but only that through a faith and fidelity to an event one operates according to faith and not according to law. One can only investigate a situation’s elements according to a non-constructible set if one holds that this set exists, as no proof as to its non-constructible nature can ever be given. What this new life according to faith does is to transform and extend the situation, to add something truly new, to create something new from the given material. There is no intervention, or addition of new material from outside, this novel transformation happens immanently through the faith in an event which disrupts the relation between the horizon of a situation and what can appear within that horizon. The resurrection and life according to faith is a true life, a life that is truly creative as it deploys the consequences of an event and transforms its situation. This life of faith proceeds in a lawless fashion, distributing its message in a universal way to the furthest reaches of a situation.

Problems of Thinking The Event

2005-02-07T11:48:00.000Z

I would like to offer some comments and questions in connection with our ongoing debate over Badiou and his relations with other thinkers. These are brief and not intended as a conclusion but to see whether my understanding of the issues holds water and to carry on the debate.

[1] My interest in Deleuze and Kant – in their encounter – is not without relevance to this. Badiou himself makes it clear that a principal question is whether there simply is difference, which must be supplemented by the event, or whether difference is productive as the element of a vital and germinal ‘life’. If there is any notion of excess – such as the Kantian Idea or the event – does this need to be implicated and explicated within the differential engineering that goes on within the open whole of this univocal ‘life’? It does if difference is vitally productive but doesn’t if the excessive and new must interrupt or break with difference. This is not to deny the role of the Idea or the event in Deleuze’s differential ontology but it opens up the dichotomy between ‘the logic of sense, of an immaterial becoming as sense event, as the EFFECT of bodily-material processes-causes’ and ‘the logic of becoming as PRODUCTION of Beings’ [Zizek, ‘Organs Without Bodies,’ p. 21]. This is the problem of understanding the ‘place’ of the folding of intensive and extensive or of the circuit of virtual-actual within an open whole. With difference as productive the Idea or the event would have to be reconciled with the continuity of ‘life’ so as to be productive in its interaction with it. Does a radical break, the new, require the event or is the plane of immanence upon which the dice can be thrown equal to this over- or super-human becoming? Does the voice of the new get lost in the ‘clamour of being’? This connects to Kant’s concern that sensibility, incentives and illusions that distract us from the ‘voice of reason’ in morality. There is certainly a problem with trying to maintain both the continuous and flowing, and the new and evental. It is the capacity for a thinker or artist to become a solitary wonderer, ‘a boarding house lodger’, that is in question.

[2] One point that is made in criticism of Deleuze is that his work holds onto the primacy of the human in ‘becoming-animal’ and so on. It neglects the animal reality in pursuing the super- or over-human (cf. KAP ‘Germinal Life’, ch. 3 and conclusion). This may represent the problems of a thinking of the event in terms such as biological ones, conceiving a germinal life that cannot attain the distance from anthropology that an ontology of mathematics can. Hallwood puts it thus: ‘Mathematics is then the most “truthful” component of science because, thanks to its strictly axiomatic foundation, it is most firmly abstracted from any natural or objective mediation, the most removed from our habitual ways of thinking, and by the same token the most obviously indifferent to the identity of whoever comes to share in its articulation.’ [Introduction to ‘Think Again’, p.3].

[3] Deleuze is from the first concerned with immanence and an immanence that exceeds human categories and preconceptions, perhaps best summed up as good sense and common sense. Upon the plane of immanence movements must be complex and rich so as to connect us with virtual, unknown and unpredictable events. This must be an open whole not containing and establishing essences but keeping bodies attuned to ‘becomings’, ‘becomings-other’. Of course this means that an understanding of the event, the new, has to be transversal and cosmic since otherwise ‘becoming’ would be local and preserve the continuity of the one situation. Badiou does not accept that this conception can be maintained within immanence. He believes that the virtual and actual are two sides of being that disrupt immanence and so Deleuze’s thought is haunted by transcendence [Todd May ‘Think Again’, p. 70]. Thus the sets of two concepts that form a series throughout Deleuze’s work do not form a line of the flight. This is always in-between the two terms and preserves immanence in full force by producing, as the difference between them, a circuit of the two terms. The movement ‘in the middle’ cannot be attached to an essence. It prevents one side from becoming transcendent. It is, in ‘Difference and Repetition’, the difference between the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ repetitions. The ‘good’ doesn’t transcend the ‘bad’ but is always coexistent with it. Todd May asks whether the virtual and actual can be kept distinct without the One becoming Two and reintroducing transcendence [ibid, p. 71]. Can the open whole maintain its motion in-between and so never on one side or the other. For Deleuze, univocity is never a quality. The whole is a productive movement traversing all sets, opening one set onto the other, transforming one set into another [Deleuze, ‘Negotiations,’ p. 55]. Can this whole range over all sets – immanent and equal to the new - or does it take a disruptive break to achieve a thinking of the event?

[4] Of course Deleuze’s Bergsonian is a key factor in this. Badiou seems to separate time from the virtual-actual circuit. Deleuze sees in time the conception of the open whole of such richness and productivity that it denies the void. Todd May makes a good case that Badiou forgets Bergson’s duration and thus the spatio-temporal dynamisms that overcome a conception of objects as being ‘part’ actual and ‘part’ virtual [ibid, p. 76]. Through temporal unfolding the virtual-actual relationship overcomes any static dualism between two sides of ontology. Instead, the spatio-temporal dynamism is always an open and implicated in the folding of past into present and so into the future. Perhaps this temporal thinking is the key challenge to Badiou. James Williams conceives of the stages of thinking immanence. The one is formulated within immanence as a process to which connection is made in thought [‘Gilles Deleuze’s Different and Repetition: A Critical Introduction and Guide’]. The One is ongoing; it is a movement of temporal unfolding. From this I believe we can lay against Badiou the charge that he concentrates on the question of the One and then asks whether it is immanent or transcendent. Instead, Deleuze conceives of the movements and the conditions for the production of experience. Univocity is always a process, a ‘life’, and never to be conceived in spatial terms or outside of its activity. I would be interested in what people think about this.

[5] Badiou writes of Deleuze’s ‘latent certainties’: movement as superior to immobility, life superior to the concept, time to space, affirmation to negation, difference to identity, and so on [‘Theoretical Writings,’ p. 98]. This is a challenge that Deleuze has to face since territory is constituted by its implication in deterritorialized movements. It must be re-territorialized through a connection with an Outside that does not destroy or kill but brings it into participation with super- or over-human forces. Whether these are ‘latent certainties’ is, I think, doubtful. This seems to suggest that the transcendental deduction of the production of experience never engages fully with the justification of its ‘certainties.’ A term like essence being inferior to becoming, tendency and haecceity is something deduced within a thinking through of immanence. The critique of common sense and good sense in ‘Difference and Repetition’ is not lacking in depth. Whilst these terms are, for Badiou, unequal to a thinking of the event we should not neglect the Kantian rigor of Deleuze’s deductions in which they are formulated.

[6] Perhaps the crux of the matter is Badiou’s belief that the All or One is not the only source of ‘the principle of the pure multiple’s excess-over-itself.’[ibid, p. 77] He argues that an excess of power haunts every multiple, nothing can give shape to it except an ‘aleatory decision’ which is only given through its effects. He sees in the ‘One-Life’ that Deleuze takes from Bergson an intuition of monotony, a uniformly deployed surface of actualisations. This means that productive forms of thought don't select the unknown [p. 78]. In this way the capacity to think the new, the event, is denied. It rejects the possibility of the dice-throw where chance is embraced and the unknown and unpredictable is produced. I think this brings us again back to time and temporal thinking. The potential of time to unfold and to produce and proliferate the new is shown in a number of different encounters, that with Cinema we have already mentioned. Also, the three-fold synthesis of time in ‘Difference and Repetition’ replaces a spatial thinking with an understanding of the becoming of time that exceeds the present and the past. The third synthesis of time is ‘a less simple and much more secret, much more tortuous, more nebulous circle, an eternally excentric circle, the decentred circle of difference which is re-formed uniquely in the third time of the series. … The form of time is there only for the revelation of the formless in the eternal return. The extreme formality is there only for an excessive formlessness (Hölderlin’s ‘Unförmliche’). In this manner, the ground has been superseded by a groundlessness, a universal ungrounding which turns upon itself and causes only the yet-to-come to return.’ [p. 91] This is also formulated by the break down of the sensory-motor image in the ‘Cinema’ books. I leave this issue affirmatively open to further discussion.

[7] An interesting point in David’s Hamman piece, at paragraph 3, is the notion that divine creation does not equate to divine manifestation. This is set against Spinoza who of course must accommodate the consistent and inconsistent within one Being or infinite substance. This connects to the Badiou-Deleuze question. There is a great distance between humankind and ‘God’ in Spinoza but this must be accommodated within univocity. It is a distance to be affirmed in order to bring about the wholly new. Difference must be possible within univocity. The latter is broad, groundless and rich enough to express difference and by the same token to itself be formed by it. Difference and unity cannot be separated. It is when difference and the new are found to be the principles and driving forces of an open and ongoing whole that Deleuze has a strong case. Differential production must keep everything formed, determined and consistent in its finite situation and yet infinitely open to a virtual. This process, this becoming, this territory and deterritorialization, is the meaning of its wholeness. This is difference’s burden and also its joyful affirmation.

Bibliography:

Ansell Pearson, Keith (1999) ‘Germinal Life,’ London: Routledge.

Badiou, Alain (2004) ‘Theoretical Writings’, trans. Ray Brassier and Alberto Toscano, London and New York: Continuum.

Deleuze, Gilles (1995) ‘Negotiations,’ trans. Martin Joughin, New York: Columbia University Press.
- (1994) ‘Difference and Repetition’, trans. Paul Patton, London: Athlone.
- (1989) ‘Cinema 2’, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta, London: Athlone.

Hallward, Peter (2004) ‘Think Again,’ London and New York: Continuum.

Zizek, Slavoj (2004) ‘Organs without Bodies,’ London: Routledge.

Williams, James (2003) ‘Gilles Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition: A Critical Introduction and Guide,’ Edinburgh: at the University Press.

Hamann's Ontology

2004-11-02T09:14:00.000Z

This, my first post was inspired by Brian’s essay on ‘The Appropriation of the Figure of Nietzsche in Heidegger, Deleuze… and Badiou?’. I believe his explanation of the theory of the event in Badiou resonates with certain parts of Hamann’s ontology. I had hoped to reveal this similarity in more forceful terms, however, it is apparent as a result of writing this piece that an attempt to do so is not only impossible, but unhelpful in terms of understanding Hamann’s unique position. So, it seemed best not to stretch the envelope too far. Despite this concern, I have chosen to retain some of the language used in Brian’s essay so as to offer a less mystical, and thus philosophically discussable appraisal of Hamann.

Hamann’s Ontology

“What does this young person mean to make of me?” – If only I understand my hero as well as Simon the tanner! (Hamann 1995, Socratic Memorabilia, p. 65)

[1] Attempts to formulate Hamann’s philosophy according to a consistent ontological theory have been notoriously difficult. The very nature of Hamann’s project, combined with its stylistic idiosyncrasies has further confounded the task. In this paper I will attempt to bring about a clearer definition of his ontology, driven by a proposition that it is best understood according to a fundamental division. Initially I will present my understanding in language alien to Hamann’s prose. From this short elucidation I will go on to express the theory in an extended manner, drawing examples from his writing.

[2] At the heart of Hamann’s philosophy rests a paradox. Grasping the nature of this dilemma is central to an understanding of his ontological position. The problem is best summarised by two apparently incompatible premises:

i) Humanity must maintain its relation to God as the transcendental precondition of existence. This is achieved through the biblical conception of grace, which links divinity to the manifest world of beings through the process of creation. Man and, for Hamann world too, are made in God’s image.

ii) That humanity accept the directive that meaning be derived from the existential world, which is condescended as an inconsistent infinity, capable of manifesting itself through multiple situations, each with its particular axiomatic dynamic.

From these two contrary propositions there arises a fundamental division within Hamann’s ontological structure. There is a requirement made that he defend a fiercely metaphysical view, which perceives a transcendental origin for our world, and an anti-metaphysical perspective, which pictures a world, where truths are existentially derived case-by-case. This requires a simultaneous belief in a transcendent other that exists in a state of infinite consistency, and a world that is experienced as a set of speciously related situations. More confusing still is the fact that this world’s existence as a state composed of fluctuating situations is made in the image of that which is singularly consistent.

[3] In answer to this paradox the following thesis is established: divine creation does not equate to divine manifestation; there is no room for a notion of pantheism in Hamann. Contra to Spinoza a shared ontological depth does not equate to a universal communicability or order between situations. God is understood only as the giver, or existential signifier, and not as a model or embodiment of ontological consistency. The world is a condescended unity, this being an absent ground devoid of God’s will; it is in metaphysical terms a void or pure inconsistent infinity. From this circumstance there occurs the possibility of an infinite variety of situations manifesting as what Hamann calls ‘archipelagos’ (islands of concern). However, these concerns present in each situation, do not act as sites of revelation; the prospect of subjective transcendence is rendered impossible by the original inconsistency of the world.

[4] Universal consistency is unattainable, but this, rather than collapsing meaning back into the nihilistic void, opens up the possibility of holding simultaneously contradictory proofs in relation to the given parameters of a situation, precisely because individual proofs are not valued according to a meta-thesis. Thus, the void is a precondition present in every situation, but never an answer to be decanted from its particularity. This produces a realm where concerns must be founded in the dynamic of each situation: we make our judgements according to these relations. Hamann singles out the following types of judgement as principle examples of this condition: aesthetic feeling, poetic interpretation, and ultimately love. These types of engagement are only possible once it is accepted that in a given situation a number of equally sustainable yet contrary positions may be held (truth in these cases remains indiscernible).

[5] This condition of inspired feeling based upon the possibilities derived from the particular axioms of a given situation, equate in Hamann’s language to the following ontological position: Man and world imitate God, not through the consistency of design, but through their freedom to care and feel for their existent world as he does. God gave his world the freedom to internally contradict itself, so that it might maintain and inspire itself without his presence or omnipotent power; its only debt to him, was that its denizens maintain a faith in the world as something that matters. To conclude, feeling as a characteristic central to our existential-being is dependent on certain necessarily indiscernible notions of truth present in every given situation, and this relation mirrors God’s relation to his world, which remains indiscernible in its separated existence from his divine unity.

[6] Having spelt out Hamann’s ontological position, in as brief a manner as I can , I shall now try to draw this same structure from his texts. As a starting point I will examine his definition of a new methodological direction for philosophy. To achieve this, something further needs to be said regarding the intellectual climate that leads him to this turn. In Hamann’s first mature work, The Socratic Memorabilia (first published in 1759), a defence is given to Kant and Berens regarding the methodological possibility of philosophy under the conditions of his new faith. Hamann had returned in 1758 from an unsuccessful business venture undertaken on behalf of the family of his university friend Berens. The nature of this failure had had a dramatic impact upon the young scholar: for the final months of his stay in London he studied and completed an extended biblical tract. The text asserted a revised and radicalised form of empirically based Lutheranism. Hamann who had left an ardent supporter of the Aufklärung returned a religious mystic. The consequence of this was the weakening of links between himself and the Berens and more importantly a rejection of his marital aspirations towards Katerina their daughter. However, the rift was not absolute. Berens enlisted the help of his close friend, a certain Immanuel Kant, to rebuild a working relation between the two. So started a year of protracted correspondence and half-projects. Ultimately, Kant’s refusal to respond to Hamann’s letters, which expressed anxieties about the certainty of enlightenment rationality, inspired the speedy and feverish writing of The Socratic Memorabilia. The essay was written both as a defence of his position and as a challenge to Kant’s. The foundation of this challenge rested with an elucidation of Socrates as a typological vehicle for a better philosophical praxis. Two key themes need to be drawn from the text in order to understand its argument: the characteristics of ‘humility’, ‘ignorance’ and ‘faith’ required of the philosopher, and the inversion of Humean scepticism as a contemporary source for Lutherean revitalisation. I will analyse each of these in turn.

[7] The introduction to the Socratic Memorabilia begins in a manner particular to Hamann; a series of dedications are swiftly followed by a paean to its recipients, namely Kant, Berens and the anonymous academic body: “With a double dedication to NOBODY and to TWO.” (Hamann 1995, Socratic Memorabilia, p. 57) In addressing his inquisitors in this manner, he attempts to invert the subject of his tribunal, as Socrates used his trial to analyse the views of those condemning him. The faults Hamann chooses to scrutinize are pride and avarice: the false idols of the current philosophical community. In tackling pride, he raises grave concerns over the possibility of establishing truth as a known quotient or transcendental condition particular to every experience: “to dissect a body or event down to its first elements…” would in turn make Man a master of his own fictitious religion. (Ibid, p. 64) Avarice is allied to this drive through the belief that philosophical deductions are capable of calculating the relative values of conceptual systems, according to their potential mastery of experience. Hamann expresses this pact through the term alchemy: it being the rational transformation of material resources, as the highest political, and therefore theoretical project. He writes: “No aspect of criticism is more certain than that which has been invented for gold and silver. Therefore no confusion in Germany can be as great as that which has crept into all the usual text-books.” (Ibid, p. 60) A rejection of this principle is made: it is abhorrent and disrespectful to the true practice of philosophy that an economic register be applied to the process of theoretical argumentation; this control brings about an inauthentic relation to experience, best expressed by the age’s mania for productivity. Yet, the Aufklärung through figures such as Adam Smith, ironically the subject of Hamann’s only pre-conversion essay, established the legitimacy of this capitalistic enterprise. For Hamann, this is an essentially blasphemous act carried out against the complexity of God’s condescended world. In a piece of typical Hamannian prose, he suggests his words will act as sweet and irresistible cakes that will ultimately burst the belly of this idol: the perfect laxative for his age.

[8] The problematic of the era predetermines Hamann’s choice of the first characteristic required of the philosopher. He or she must not seek to take the place, nor act as the human idolisation of God’s divine power and transcendental unity; one’s relation to the world must in contrast accept its humble condescended origin. When Hamann suggests that the philosopher comes to actively embrace the humility of his or her origin, as an existential being, he uncovers a central ontological value: that the stimulus of our existent situation provides the only reliable starting point for philosophy. Transcendent aspirations are akin to sacrilege. A biographical skit of Socrates’ upbringing secures the thesis. Learning lessons from his mother, a midwife, and father, a sculptor, Socrates establishes a particular attentiveness to the world. First as a midwife he, “merely comes to the aid of the work of the mother and her ripe fruit, and assists both.” (Ibid, p. 66) In philosophical terms, Socrates remains attentive to the pregnant moment; he helps it give birth to its particular presentations and concerns. Then as a sculptor he personifies the twin powers of critique and creation. He hews out the bad aspirations, which seek to master experience unjustly, as the sculptor removes the dead and unwanted wood, leaving a manifest image or notion derived from the axioms of the situation. The method rejected a transformation of experience into philosophical building blocks, and thus realised a humble relation to the pre-eminence of experience: “Therefore the greatest men of his time had ‘sufficient reason’ to cry that he would fell all the oaks of their woods, spoil all their logs, and could only make shavings of their timber.” (Ibid, p. 66) One’s thoughts, if they are not to amount to a deluded intellectual authority, must accept their origin amongst the concerns of the subject’s existential situation: this is what Hamann determines as humility.

[9] Despite expressing the ideal of humility, Socrates’ peculiarly sensitive character does not amount to a potential state-of-mind or stimmung from which the harmony of ontological consistency may be disclosed. By staying close to the empirical stimulus of experience, Socrates encounters at first hand the inconsistency of the existential realm. His parental influences drew him simultaneously to the beautiful and the boisterously sexual nature of experience. Between the expressions of the intellect and the lusting of the body he found his world one of irreconcilable choices – these choices being the true subject of human endeavour. Hamann raises Socrates' notoriety: “his taste for well-built youths.” (Ibid, p. 67) Rather than sweeping these aside, as many esteemed philologists did, leaving a polite figure in Socrates’ place, Hamann suggests this vice (there was no doubt for a man of Hamann’s age that homosexuality was) need not sully the intellectual validity of his actions. In this quandary lay a hidden subtext, meant specifically for Kant and Berens. Whilst in London Hamann himself had become involved with a rich lord, who housed him through several months of poverty: whether the relationship was based on love, lust or money it is impossible to decipher. Hamann found great comfort in Socrates’ struggle, and a retort to the disapproval of his peers: if confusion arose in the stimulus of the admirable form (the masculine body), which provided a number of sustainable judgements (lust being one), this dilemma had to be faced. Avoiding vice through the authority of doctrine did not attend in a solicitous manner to the actual problems of existence: these were to be felt and experienced. Neither consistent rational argument nor moral law could sustain a judgement against such actions; they could not persuade the soul, nor alleviate the feeling initiated by the situation; to do so would be a sin: “One cannot feel a lively friendship without sensuality, and a metaphysical love perhaps sins more coarsely against the nerves than an animal love against flesh and blood.” (Ibid, p.68) If the example of gender determination sits unhappily with our current liberal standpoint, the general methodological principle derived from it should not. The object of philosophy is experience, replete with contradictions; these should not be replaced with an avoidant metaphysic, but applauded. Thus, the premise that we replace existential dilemmas with consistent metaphysics, is to be supplanted by an empirical counter that attends to the possibilities of an often indiscernible world: “The pagans were accustomed to such contradictions from the clever fables of their poets; until their sophists, like ours, damned them as they would a parricide, which one commits against the basic principles of human knowledge.” (Ibid, p. 68)

[10] However, Socrates’ sensible relation to his world does not fully explain his philosophy. Without a mode of intellectual engagement, a grasp of one’s existential origin remains little more than a haphazard potential for emotional response. How does one respond to the struggle that is existence, in a manner that is authentically philosophical? Initially he tells us what this intellectual engagement must not be: sophistry as the false arguments of unification is denounced. Instead, the philosopher embraces an approach founded on the perpetual declarations of ignorance. Hamann states that to achieve intellectual expression, Socrates was condemned as a hypochondriac is plagued by the need to describe his imaginary symptoms, to decree a continual avowal of ignorance; this act determines his wisdom. (Ibid, p. 70) He expressed the symptoms of sophistry, arguing in a rhetorical fashion, whilst lacking the rational disease that afflicts theorists of this type. In Socrates’ hypochondria there stands a warning, one must not misappropriate his most quoted maxim: ‘I know nothing!’ No dialectic or sophistic trick must turn on the negation of knowledge as a first philosophical principle. Three inauthentic models are revealed; in all, a learned demonstration of ignorance is required to free philosophy of the shame of knowing nothing. First, in Descartes an inability to express certainties about the world, does allow access to a notion of self: doubt affirms ego as an irrefutable fact. Then in Shaftesbury, an inversion of the rational depth of existence for an affirmational comprehension of flux and force, establishes irrationality as a basis for human knowledge. And finally, of most import to Hamann is the stance held by the pre-critical Kant and the German Enlightenment in general: that the as yet unknown world provides itself as the subject for a project of comprehension. With relation to these historical reinterpretations of Socrates’ philosophical ignorance, Hamann spits: “The ancient and modern sceptics may swaddle themselves in the lion-skin of Socratic ignorance as much as they like; but they betray themselves by their voices and ears.” (Ibid, p. 73) Instead, Socrates being truly ignorant is not ashamed of his failings: “he is ignorant even of the shame, which haunts rational people, of seeming ignorant.” (Ibid, p. 70) But, what sort of philosophy does this mean Socrates practices?

[11] Hamann tells us that Socrates enters into rhetorical debate, in the manner a card player might, if he at first declares: “I don’t play.” (Ibid, p. 72) The statement, ‘I don’t play’, can be read in several ways, but only one displays the true wisdom of Socratic ignorance. Ignorance might equate to the refusal to play, as a lack of knowledge might equate to a genuine unawareness of the rules of the game; or it might be claimed as a refusal on moral grounds. However, these two readings do not fit Socrates; he was neither a philosophical novice, nor a moral critic. So, when he claimed in the heat of philosophical debate that he was not aligned, or even capable of expressing the meaning of existence, what was he seeking to achieve; how could he win from such a position? The answer is simple: ‘I don’t play’, means literally, ‘I don’t play to win’. The conception of play as a combative term is refuted. Socrates did not want to participate as swindlers and deceivers do; his mistress was chance, not competition. No desire drove him to impose his perception of truth; rather he sought to reintroduce the situation’s concerns to the debate. To do this he had to play the game better than all the cheating academics, only then could he rest the questions that matter from the aims of individual power. The feeling these concerns introduced was more important than their mastery. In summary, the declaration of ignorance is a philosophical argument that returns the dialogue of sophistry to the realm of experience: “The ignorance of Socrates was feeling.” (Ibid, p. 73) By speaking in this way, Socrates was able to adhere to the problems of life, without asserting a role as an explainer of existence, and by proxy drag those who had lost sight of the earthly origins of their questions, to those feelings that had first inspired them to philosophise.

[12] Reflecting on Hamann’s interpretation of Socrates’ philosophical practice as I have presented it, the following points can be summarised: humility promotes, as the true subject of philosophy, the dilemmas of existential experience over ontological consistency; declarations of ignorance maintain a discussion of experiential problems over the false resolutions of sophistic thought. By accepting these factors, Socrates’ ideological strategy cannot be sustained by the compelling force of rationalism. Hamann must suggest an alternative initiative for his praxis: the concept of faith is given. Faith operates in a manner completely different to reason: “faith arises as little from reason as tasting and feeling.” (Ibid, p. 73) By this Hamann means that thought does not require the certainty of logical proof to ‘feel’ for its subject and, that in-fact our feelings often stand in stark contrast to the reasons we use to explain them. Accordingly, he asserts the following thesis: proofs may be believed without us having faith in them or their ends.

[13] As a philosophical term faith accepts a universal depth apparent in existence; it is ‘a faith in existence’. This mode of belief differs from a belief in a particular proof: it is founded on nothing. Faith is the definition of a human ability to believe without proofs; this is something one does every time they accept the empirical stimulus of experience, as that which inspires concern. Its advantage is that it is able to access the value of a judgement according to the needs of the situation from which it is born. This worth is furthered when a situation’s needs remain indiscernible; here faith accepts the existential challenge of choice rather than seeking to close the situation’s integral axiomatic dilemma. In contrast to this positive relation, reason by accepting the unifying potential of its proofs, blinds the wisest individual, making their selection of one of many proofs, ‘the truth’: “There are proofs of truths which are as worthless as the use to which these truths can be put; indeed, one can believe the proof of a proposition without applauding the proposition itself.” (Ibid, p. 73) The philosopher like the poet must remain capable of feeling for their world, even when their model of order falters in the face of an essentially indiscernible situation – philosophy is an open-ended and creative struggle carried out by individuals who have faith in this existential task as something that universally matters. Traditionally philosophy has not been able to achieve this comprehension; without faith it requires its idol of transcendental order to impose authority, and in this way relates its project to a false-god, loosing any meaningful (existentially felt) direction for its judgements: “Fate places the greatest philosophers and poets in circumstances where they both feel; and the one renounces his reason, and reveals to us that he does not believe in the best of all possible worlds, no matter how well he can prove it, and the other finds himself robbed of his muse and his guardian angel with the death of his Meta.” (Ibid, p. 73)

[14] Socrates manifests the characteristic of faith through his daemon. He listened to what it said and found purpose in its concerns: “he had a genie on whose knowledge he could rely, whom he loved and feared as his god, whose peace mattered more to him than all the reason of the Egyptians and the Greeks, whose voice he believed…” (Ibid, p. 75) It is his ability to listen to this passionate voice, which prohibits his declarations of ignorance becoming an inert thinking. By allowing Socrates to respond to his feelings, Hamann finds his actions directed by the potential of ‘genius’. Genius is the intuitive act carried out without adherence to reasons dictates: the proactive result of faith. Arguments born in this way transform philosophy into an artistic act; by which Hamann means Socrates creates a language and form of communication that is inspiring. He relies on analogy, sensuous analysis, mockery, humour, and a total lack of respect for truth in the application of his method. This changes philosophy’s very form. Its model should no longer be the comprehension of knowledge via instruction; instead it affirms intuition. Between its conflicting proofs and propositions one feels concern for the issues it frames. The success of the philosopher is staked on his or her ability to engage their ‘public’ in a manner that gives them access to the orientation of faith. Hamann perceives the whole of Socrates’ life as an attempt to do this; he therefore imitates at a stylistic level what he deems a Socratic method. The Socratic Memorabilia, ought to arouse a feeling in its readers (Kant and Berens); clean their ‘systems’ of the false judgements by which they condemn him, and once more reveal a world of concerns.

[15] This conclusion draws together the requirements of humility, ignorance and faith in a unified philosophical approach. The disclosure as it has been presented so far has explained in some detail its functioning according to the second of my proposed premises: that meaning be derived from the existential world, which is condescended as an inconsistent infinity, capable of manifesting itself through multiple situations, each with its particular concerns. Socrates’ philosophy feels for and consequently acts as a way of disclosing these concerns to its community. But, this argument fulfils only one half of his ontological system. It cannot be forgotten that Hamann was a religious man, and that the Socratic Memorabilia also acts as a defence of this belief.

[16] Hamann’s religious conversion had resulted in a particular construal of Lutherean Christianity. Whilst in London, Hamann had read the bible for an extended period, finally drawing his notion of faith from this experience. If in relation to Socrates’ philosophical practice, faith had retained a peculiarly secular status, in its biblical derivation a theological significance is conserved. In adherence with traditional Lutherean values, Hamann considered a turn to the text over Church doctrine essential. The bible stands as the source of guidance and thus religious comprehension for Man in his condescended state. From it, the individual may recognise the authority of God, the limits of his or her freewill, and a faith that these facts are not only true, but also universally matter. However, for Hamann the nature of God’s authority is not expressed according to an unequivocal code of conduct; his authority means simply that the issues he sets before us are important and must be attended to. Therefore, the loss of freewill does not equate to a state of divine determinism, but as a relation that accepts one’s existential creation: Man is free to sin, but not free to overcome the temptations of existence. Thus, faith must be seen as a belief in God’s world, as something we belong to and cannot help but feel for. The bible acts as a stimulus to this effect: its narratives, its poetic language and allegorical form demands an engagement with the issues of existence in an interpretative manner. As a text it inspires feeling, presenting God’s relation to his world, by imitating this concern in its manifest state. Thus, for Hamann, the bible is an authority only in as much as it provides the hermeneutic subject for our feelings. Stated simply, biblical interpretation provides access to an empty, yet ameliorating metaphysical truth. In every situation, irrespective of the multiplicity of sustainable judgements we can make, God’s concern for his world is mirrored in our feelings; this truth exists as a zero degree proposition.

[17] To better understand Hamann’s affirmation of faith as the notion of belief without proof, it helps to place his argument in the context of the theological debate of his time. What disturbed the religious mind most in the eighteenth century was how God could act as the rational source of all meaning, when his world existed as its apparent antithesis; with suffering and reward arbitrarily distributed. The intellectuals of the era answered the challenge through Leibniz’s thesis: that the world existed as the best of all possible worlds, and consequently certain cases of evil had to be endured for the universal and historical good of Mankind. Hamann’s problems were twofold in relation to this theodicy. The first was purely subjective, as an individual he found it impossible to reconcile a belief in a rational God with the stoicism required of Leibniz’s logic; what he existentially felt contradicted what he could prove: “What one believes has therefore no need of proof; and a proposition can be irrefutably proven without being believed.” (Ibid, p. 72) In addition he provided a philosophical attack: how do we know that the world is created in a consistent form? It is on this thesis that the whole of Leibniz’s argument stands: God being a perfect mind produced a world in which his order was reflected in every being, and in the highest of these, the intellectually enlightened substantial form (human beings) there occurred a rational comprehension of the consistent concomitance between existent substances. Through the writings of Hume, Hamann turned this basic question into a fractious disagreement. What Hamann seeks to take from Hume’s empirical philosophy, is the notion that meaning is necessarily derived from experience. Judgements are applied a posteriori to sense perception, and are therefore the results of experience. Our only access to our world is that derived through these sensory stimuli; therefore we must remain eternally sceptical of the propositions we use to explain existence, as these too are only testable a posteriori. If this traditional attack upon rationalism is well known, Hamann’s deviation of the argument is not. He controversially inverts the sceptical result of Hume’s argument, and raises faith in its place: “The reasonings of a Hume may be convincing and their refutations clear postulates and doubts; but faith both wins and loses greatly by this most skilful pettifogger and most honourable attorney.” (Ibid, p. 72) The Hume who seeks the establishment of a scientific project based in empirical testing is a pettifogger. However, the honourable attorney, the good Hume, asserts the universal truth of faith. Empirically what we experience is inspirational, it affirms its divine creation, without the need of a priori proof. Religious faith is thus established without a need to first offer rational proof. Our world matters even when we cannot understand it; thus when if differs from our conception of how it rationally should be, we still retain a valuable relation and concern for it.

[18] To summarise Hamann’s religious stance it can be said that through the declaration of faith, one can express the value of experience as uniformly related to God, and therefore the ground, or ontological depth from which all concern arises, without defining the nature, or operation of this depth. One may have a faith in God, without having him function as a comprehensible proof or rational system. God feels for rather than manages his world – and man must therefore feel rather than try to usurp his imagined authority. Of significant import to Hamann’s thought is the fact that whilst maintaining faith in existence, one is free to accept the duplicity and non-conformity of the particular propositions drawn from each and every situation. This duality of judgement exemplifies Hamann’s ontological division that states: that indiscernible occurrences can exist within a consistent ground.

[19] To conclude this explanative exercise, I would like to draw my conclusions in relation to one of Hamann’s exemplary passages. In Aesthetica en Nuce: A Rhapsody in Kabalistic Prose (first published in 1762) there is provided what I believe to be the most lucid and succinct disclosure of Hamann’s ontological viewpoint:

[T]he book of creation has instances of universal concepts which GOD desired to reveal to the creature through the creature; the books of the covenant contains instances of the secret articles which GOD wanted to reveal to people through people. The unity of the Prime Mover is mirrored even in the dialect of his work; in all One note of immeasurable depth! A proof of the most glorious majesty and purest self-emptying! A miracle of such infinite silence, that makes GOD as nothing, that one in conscience must deny his existence or be a beast; but at the same time of such infinite power, that fulfils all in all, that one cannot flee from his ardent solicitude! (Hamann 1995, Aesthetica en Nuce: A Rhapsody in Kabalistic Prose, p. 204)

[20] The passage begins from the basis of biblical interpretation. From the book of Genesis, God discloses a need for Man to feel for his natural world in a sensuous manner. Existence brings with it the universal concept of interest in one’s existential realm. From the book of Moses, Man is given a narrative that draws him to feel for the interpersonal relations present in every existent situation. The article once more is concern, however in this case not only for one’s own sensuous nature, but also for a realm shared by all. At both sensible and social levels, as creatures, and people, we are drawn to feel concern – and this concern is not offered by a transcendent ruler, but by the creature to the creature, and by a people to a people. Concerns are condescended. This inevitable feeling speaks as a dialect in all our existential situations, mirroring the concern of the Prime Mover for his world. However, this wonder only occurs through the removal of God’s will; we may only feel for each other, if God acts out his own self-emptying from the existential realm. God’s silence protects man from his blasphemous aspirations (bestiality); it affirms the truth that the subjects of his world must draw from their existence (not an idea of God’s imposed order) the issues that best respond to their situations in a solicitous manner. Ontologically speaking, existence affirms concern as a universal zero present in every situation, so as to best attend to the subject’s application of judgments in a manner that is capable of accepting the potential indiscernablity of truth particular to each and every existential context.

Bibliography

Johann Georg Hamann (1995) Socratic Memorabilia, trans, Gwen Griffith Dickson, New York: Walter de Gruyter.
– (1995) Aesthetica en Nuce: A Rhapsody in Kabalistic Prose, trans, Gwen Griffith Dickson, New York: Walter de Gruyter.

Jacques Derrida, 1930-2004

2004-10-12T20:07:00.000Z

‘But a reading here should no longer be carried out as a simple table of concepts or words, as a static or statistical sort of punctuation. One must reconstitute a chain in motion, the effects of a network and the play of a syntax.’
[Jacques Derrida on reading Mallarme, ‘The First Session’ in Acts of Literature, p. 144]

‘His being is a being-at-the-telephone. He is hooked up to a multiplicity of voices and answering machines. His being-there is a being-at-the-telephone, a being for the telephone, in the way that Heidegger speaks of the being for death of Dasein.’
[Jacques Derrida on Leopold Bloom, ‘Ulysses Gramophone’ in Acts of Literature, p. 273]

‘In any encounter, whether I destroy or be destroyed, there takes place a combination of relations that is, as such, good.’
[Gilles Deleuze, ‘Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza’, p. 249]

[1] I would like to offer my impressions of Derrida’s work. My engagement has been limited and I apologise if my use of concepts and terms is in fact inappropriate at any point. In order to distinguish this short piece from the obituaries offered by the English newspapers, and their ‘descriptions’ of Derrida, I shall begin with a particular concept. Then I will work from it in an attempt to show the power and radicalism of his thought to the best of my abilities. This concept is text or ‘textuality.’ Derrida was concerned with writing and its creative displacement of categories dominant in philosophy. We therefore will begin from a basic notion that is opposed to presence and is a terrain for thought (it is difficult to say general things about it since it displaces categories we might use to describe it and it is in its immanent ‘play’ that it is best seen). This of course meant that Derrida was accused, especially by Anglo-Saxon intellectuals, of destroying the distinction between fiction and reality. He is said to neglect common sense and to be obscure for no good reason. Of course Derrida must live for us by being precisely what the analytic tradition is not. He works with literature because it does not look at things from outside in order to critique them. Instead it takes hold of them and plays with them. The text-world distinction is thus displaced, as is that of outside-inside. The difficulty is to conceive of thinking without a solid and clear starting point, which would suggest that the text wasn’t already in operation. Literature cannot be limited and philosophy cannot tell it what it is. Anything can therefore become literature because there is no such thing as literature. To define it would be to practice metaphysics, to subordinate it to ontology.

[2] A further key concept is repeatability (Signature, Event, Context, 1991, p. 90). This is the structural possibility of a written mark being severed from its alleged origin or production. A chain of differential marks thus replaces pure presence. Rather than these leading to any origin they are differential in the sense of expressing an irreducible absence of any intention, context, ordinary language, presence and so on. This is something akin to Deleuze’s notion of the creative destruction, which is non-dialectical because it does not preserve the essence of anything but destroys everything. In this way a ground for complete creativity is cleared and difference is affirmed. This casting adrift of the written mark does not lead to a relativism in which different opinions are equally valid (leading to the utterly horrific notion of a ‘supermarket trolley’ approach to knowledge). The play of the text displaces categories such as the subject which relativism has at its centre. This is instead the immanent re-thinking of everything and the openness onto possibilities without limit. The potential endlessness of repeatability allows for the text to be compared to a textile or veil where there is no centre or transcendence (Dissemination, 1981, p. 240). This element spreads out and in its immanent play or activity there is only text. Text is a dynamic, not a substance because this would be to limit what it can be, to define it in relation to an outside or other. Communication becomes a movement rather than a phenomenon of meaning or signification. Only in this way is it productive through itself. It is movement concerned only with its own play and not with realising or attaining anything outside this proliferation of difference. ‘Displacement’ is textual movement that denies all fixed essences through the self-sufficiency and radical effects of this dynamic. Rather than the literature being open to the different interpretations of human beings it is instead the case that we are open to interpretation by the processes of the text.

[3] For Derrida, the autonomy of the text implies circularity and this affirms the notion of fabric or veil. No restrictions are imposed upon the text because of its self-sufficiency (it has no outside but this does not mean it has a sufficient reason, which for Derrida would be to limit it). Therefore, without dependence on any outside, circularity can be expressive of difference without limitation. Alternative possibilities flow from the freedom of the text, from the creativity of art liberated from mimesis. For example, mime in Mallarme doesn’t do anything, there is no act, no acting agent and nothing ‘is.’ In fact, Derrida writes, the word ‘is’ does not appear because ‘play’ eclipses ‘being’ (‘The First Session’ in Acts of Literature, p. 169).

[4] In a way, Derrida can be seen as taking further Merleau-Ponty’s notion of ‘universal flesh’ by retaining this notion of a continuous fabric but as a more decentred and decentring practice. The text avoids being related to the human being in the way that flesh is and this may undermine Merleau-Ponty’s concern with the body. The text bypasses intentionality since it does not attempt to realise phenomenology in a more radical way. The operations of the text can be said to concern the workings of experience and not simply language. This has to be the substance of Derrida’s greatness. He wasn’t simply using the text as a helpful tool. Instead the human being is decentred, if anything we are the tools of the text (although this implies an intentionality, and thus a duality, that has no place in the play of the text). Therefore, to decide where to begin is always to commit an act of violence. With no natural beginning, the text is not a ground but much more like a situation of ongoing movement. The movement is one of difference and thus of displacement. Circularity cuts off any grounding of textuality and any beginning. Without the categories and essences structuring experience there is the task of thinking equally to difference. This means not conceiving of sufficient reason because to do so would be to ground textuality and violate its circularity.

[5] Perhaps Derrida’s greatest achievement is to have been a ‘philosopher of language’ and actually to have thought equally to language. Like Lyotard and Wittgenstein, he is magnificently able to see, within the limits of language, the liberation of philosophy rather than its severe limitation. Instead of the death of metaphysics being a cause for reaction and retreat, as it was for Moore, Russell, Ayer and others, it was the key to thinking in radically new ways. He really asked what kind of thinking can happen in a language, how has it been limited and neglected in philosophy. This was a positive and utterly non-reactive response to a serious problem for thinkers of his generation. Indeed, for Derrida it is really any kind of thinking that happens in a language. If perhaps language philosophy is for some a negative retreat in the idea that we can only know what is human and scientific - the philosopher as narcissus or ‘bourgeois’ as Adorno would assert - it is for Derrida the overcoming of this state. The pure affirmation of language is his greatest legacy.

The context of Deleuzian concepts: Ideas, expression, the virtual and the groundless ground

2004-10-06T09:04:00.000Z

Dear friends,

I offer these fragmentary observations by way of comments upon Brian’s recent piece upon coalition systems. They are not intended as definite conclusions but to be suggestions from my reading of Deleuze as to the limitations of the Maimon-Deleuze encounter. Most importantly I am concerned to question the meaning of the term ‘concept’ and any potential role it has in expressing a link between Maimon and Deleuze. I would like to offer reasons for there being limits to the Maimon-Deleuze encounter and not to comment on potential links with Badiou. These sound most interesting I don’t think I know Badiou well enough to offer any views at this stage.

[1] I would argue that the idea ‘coalition system’ sounds promising if it seeks to preserve some sense of ‘irreducible difference’ between the systems involved. Deleuze’s practice the encounter does attempt to do this. I wonder where these approaches differ. Maimon was certainly a lot more polite to Kant than Deleuze is to those he attempts to encounter. Also, Maimon’s scepticism seems to distance him from the positivity of Deleuze’s encounters. For the latter a logic of affirmation meant that his conceptions of univocity could include (i.e. affirm) multiple systems of thought. He seeks affirmation in those he writes about so that this can be traced to a common and resonating ground of non-opposition and negation. Univocity and immanence seem to hinge upon a willingness to affirm a vital and productive depth (whether Spinoza’s substance, Bergson’s duree, Nietzsche’s field of forces, etc.). This impersonal ‘life’ is what seems to accommodate ‘irreducible differences’ in the movements of Deleuze’s thought.

[2] There is therefore a real sense in which Deleuze sees the univocity and the groundless ground, which he introduces in his works through the 1960s, as establishing a new terrain for thought. (Afterall, how else could Deleuze affirm Spinoza and Kant and still be an ‘engineer of difference’?) Kantian Ideas find their place within a logic of expression elaborated from the sufficient reason of Spinoza. The activity of thinking is made up of singular instances that attempt to capture, within a particular contexts, the implications and explications of these singularities in their connection with virtual formations (Ideas, intensities) of the groundless ground. Ideas become ideal and virtual structures within the expression of a Deleuzian appropriation of the Spinozan univocal Being. Maimon is crucial to this movement and I don’t dispute the potential for encounter at a certain level. In place of Spinoza’s attributes, virtual Ideas or ideal structures, which function as problems, Ideas do indeed allow actualisation of difference. The question, as I understand it, is whether a coalition system can take the link between Deleuze and Maimon further. What do Deleuze and Maimon share beyond the creative actualisation of Ideas in differential relations (something Brian interesting terms ‘rhizomatic’ and has a lot to offer to Deleuze’s project). Deleuze moved from Nietzsche in the late 1960s to other thinkers to connect with and appropriate a fuller thinking of immanence. What I would argue is that most fundamentally he moved from Nietzsche to Spinoza, not to Maimon. This does not negate Maimon’s role but suggests the limits of the encounter.

[3] The paper titled ‘The Method of Dramatisation’ shows the productivity of Deleuze’s relation to Maimon. In the questions that followed in, Deleuze was drawn to discuss the latter’s ‘the sub-representational genesis of the transcendental imagination.’ ‘A dialectic of synthesis is developed’ - we cannot discern what we produce and what the object produces (‘Desert Islands and Other Texts’ p. 115). But Deleuze makes clear that in whilst this virtual apparatus and its attendant forms of actualisation are something he and Maimon can affirm together, he must think differently also:
‘To sum things up, I don’t have the same conception of the unconscious as Leibniz or Maimon. Freud already went down that road.’ (ibid)
[4] At paragraph 2 the point is raised that Deleuze didn’t attempt to stage an encounter with Badiou. If he had then, as Brian suggests, this would have probably not been very productive. Mathematics is for Deleuze a Plateau whose concepts may connect with intensities and in these instances create concepts (insanely). But if mathematics were used in the absence of a groundless ground, one conjectures, it would become for Deleuze sterile and lifeless because it is not connected with the impersonal and intensive life that must animate concepts. Deleuze wishes to look for the connections of every actual thing with its causes. The groundless ground must cause the actual to resonate in complete determination through the two fields being bridged by common forms (attributes in Spinoza), which are virtual Ideas or ideal structures. Deleuze is keen to distinguish the virtual from the possible because in the possible there is identity in the concept. In the virtual there is pure multiplicity in the Ideas (Difference and Repetition, p. 211-212). The virtual is qualitative and formal whilst the actual is quantitative. If concepts are seen as total, Deleuze argues, thought can become dominated by good sense and common sense. He wants to keep concepts open onto the non-conceptual in order to avoid relation of opposition and negation that would form a dialectical movement. We might argue that his interest in Kant is partly fuelled by an interest in the limits of conceptualisation. He wants to think Kant without Hegel, to discuss an affirmative triad of Being, virtual and actual without being subsumed into a conceptual dialectic.

[5] Brian writes in paragraph three that Maimon makes it possible for us to think about intuition as "an unclear ‘picture’ of a purely rational interrelation of concepts." "A consistent conceptual understanding of intuition" is suggested in paragraph four. At paragraph six there is reference to our intuition of space being seen as "a type of sketch or picture of its true rational structure." This suggests relations of resemblance. These are what Deleuze strives to escape. He makes reference to groundlessness that lacks individuation and therefore lacks all singularity. He sees this in Schelling and Schopenhauer (Difference and Repetition, p. 276). He argues that ‘their groundlessness cannot sustain difference.’ The point here is not simply that we get the movement from virtual to actual (differenciation) but also that there is movement from Being to the virtual (differentiation). This envisages that Ideas are not simply rational objects in an infinite intellect but differentiated as forms of Being (groundless ground). Otherwise, the actual cannot resonate as an expression of this groundless ground. Maimon wants to establish an infinite intellect and for it to be the sufficient reason of possible experience. The virtual-actualisation apparatus is of great interest to Deleuze since differential calculus can be affirmed by his system of expression. These seem to be the limits of the affinity. Maimon does not affirm the univocity needed at work in Deleuze. This is of course unless he has this ability and I have not recognised it. One possibility was if he had overcome his scepticism at some point and worked Spinoza into his system. Without this, I think that given the nature of Deleuze’s thought as a whole, Maimon seems to be outside its logic and its notion of Being. What if we still say that in a coalition system we can preserve the ‘irreducible difference’ between two thinkers like Maimon and Deleuze? It might be objected nevertheless that such a coalition would be too general and artificial to mean anything or affirm anything.

Maimon and Coalitions

2004-09-28T19:21:00.000Z

Here are some of my latest musings, somewhat in response to Ed’s recent paper. I hope you find it interesting, and I would much appreciate some feedback, especially from Ed, to see if we have similar ideas about Maimon.

Maimon’s Idea of a ‘Coalition System’ as a Possible Point of Reference Between Badiou and Deleuze

[1] What is it that makes the idea of a coalition system appealing, or interesting, in a new way? Well if the notion of a coalition, as opposed to a synthesis (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel), is to preserve some sense of an irreducible difference between the approaches of rationalism and empiricism, then this can be applied to the two different approaches of Badiou and Deleuze. Badiou is already attempting a synthesis of sorts through an introduction of category theory; a supposed phenomenology of appearance. Although not in terms of some transcendental subject, resulting from a Husserlian reduction, or epoché, but in terms of mathematical axiomatics; that is, a given minimal condition, a transcendental positing of a degree zero measure (see Hegel and the Whole, in Theoretical Writings). What these categories capture is something of the order of sets, something beyond their purely ontological or extensive nature. This distinction, between the pure cardinal extensional nature of sets and a second level which takes account of their ordering, their ordinal nature, sets up the distinction between a pure ontological foundation and the ‘appearance’ of these sets in terms of categorical distinctions. What is important is that at the most basic level set theory operates with a purely extensive notion of set, so this ‘phenomenology’ can always be reduced to extensive cardinal set theory.

[2] Deleuze never recognized the significance of Badiou’s work, and so a response to Badiou’s attempt to subsume Deleuze’s work as a phenomenological aspect of his own work, was never developed. Deleuze made no attempt at either a synthesis or a coalition, but simply rejected Badiou. But what I would like to attempt to see in these two thinkers’ work is a radically transformed repetition of the two contrasting themes of the early enlightenment; rationalism and empiricism. Deleuze often, in his early work, talks about a superior empiricism, and Badiou has been recently cast as a practitioner of aleatory rationalism (see postface to Critical Writings); this being a bizarre form of material (mathematical) formalism. So the temptation arises to bring the two together in a coalition, as opposed to a synthesis; thus paying homage to Maimon.

[3] In Maimon the existence of the infinite intellect is used as a transcendental condition, used to justify the application of intellectual categories to sensuous intuition. The de facto assumption of Kant’s, that we have experience, is replaced in Maimon by the recognition that the de facto moment can never be proved, but must be axiomatically decided for. We must readily know and assert presuppositions, or minimal determinations. Only then can the consistent rational systems which we can deduce and construct have any validity. In other words it allows us to consider intuition as an unclear ‘picture’ of a purely rational interrelation of concepts.

[4] The use of the ‘axiom’ of the infinite intellect is used to provide a dual function; initially as an axiom from which rational methods can be deployed to construct a consistent conceptual understanding of intuition. But, secondly, through the distinction between our finite intellect and the idea of an infinite intellect, it forms a separation between the finite and infinite. The infinite intellect is then used to represent a notion of ideal unified totality.

[5] The finite rational, consistent, structures we deduce from assuming that our intuition is the possible product of an infinite intellect in no way guarantees the continual correspondence between our rational constructions and intuition. There are two possible extremes; the first is that there is no rational conceptual framework underlying or producing intuition: any such appearance is simply an illusion, and what we are faced with is intuition as a pure inconsistent multiplicity. The second possibility is that provided by the idea of the infinite intellect. These two ideas are, from our perspective in the middle, unprovable they act as fictions, or regulative ideas. Each is as important as the other and they constitute the irreconcilable poles of scepticism and rationalism. Deleuze’s innovation is to redeem the sceptical pole, and not see it as simply a break, or check, on an otherwise rampant rationalism. But to revive it, and see it as productive in its own right, thinking is motivated to create as much through the idea of inconsistent multiplicity as it is through a notion of an infinite intellect. But I get ahead of myself, I will return to this point latter, first I must finish talking explicitly about Maimon.

[6] This lack of a guaranteed correspondence between our finite rational concepts and the intuitions to which they apply leads to a possible disruption of the process of rationally modelling our intuitions from two directions. Each side (either the conceptual, or that of intuition) could make the other redundant, or collapse its validity or stability. Our conceptual constructions can move beyond the constraints of intuition to reach new, purer and more general heights. Take for example our conception of space, it has moved on from our initial experience of an apparently three-dimensional Euclidean space to the multiple general ideas encompassed by modern topology. Does this contemporary conception of space still fall under a single idea, or a priori intuition, which constitutes a ‘one’ as Kant claims in the transcendental aesthetic of the Critique of Pure Reason? Hence our intuition of space can be seen as a type of sketch or picture of its true rational structure. This is how Maimon’s use of Leibniz moves beyond Kant’s criticism, which held that Leibniz took intuition to be a thing-in-itself. That is, the original intuition is the monad, and is therefore the central point, or structuring idea for all subsequent productive conceptual sequences. It is essentially arboreal, with the concept as a central trunk with the concepts it produces branching from it. Maimon’s use is far more reminiscent of a rhizomatic structure. The initial intuition gives rise to a number of conceptual developments, but the initial intuition does not necessarily cover them as a single over-arching structure. In the complex production of ideas, and their interrelations the initial intuition or idea can become displaced and incorporated as part of a more developed structure. As in the previous example, our experience of space becomes a ‘picture’ of a more general and complex notion of space. Also because of the axiomatic nature of the assumption of the infinite intellect the initial intuition is not definitively thought of as being a rational structure, but only possibly a rational structure. The initial intuition is explicitly accepted as possibly being the thing-in-itself, not as actually being the thing-in-itself. Its rational development, justified by the axiom of the infinite intellect is a process of becoming, a becoming actual.

[7] Returning to the dual function of the ‘axiom’ of the infinite intellect, it only provides the justification for approaching intuition in a rational way but it also provides a transcendent model of absolute consistent rational unity. This gives an unfair bias toward the working of our finite minds by promoting the process o actualising conceptual frameworks as progressive, and sees the motivation for this articulation in a pure rational unity. This would be as opposed to the inconsistent (not-one), or pure multiplicity of a virtual impetus; something that motivates through an unconscious process of desire.

[8] This would mean that the empirical realm of multiplicities is no longer one which is pre-conceptual (the ultimate unprovable axiom of Maimon’s scepticism), but a realm of concepts that cannot be reconciled to a unique consistent systematic framework. The not-one of pure multiplicity takes over from the axiom of the infinite intellect. Nothing is pre-conceptual. It’s just that concepts are not always, or almost never, the object, or intention, of a rational consciousness, or one of its constructions. This would be something like Deleuze’s notion of a superior empiricism: ‘Empiricism is by no means a reaction against concepts, nor a simple appeal to lived experience. On the contrary, it undertakes the most insane creation of concepts ever seen or heard.’ (Difference and Repetition: pxx) What this change of direction allows is the independent existence of a multitude of sequences driven by an impetus bo become unified, consistent, or even rational. There is no longer an over-arching notion of an infinite intellect that would se these independent processes of becoming, either reconciled t each other in a totalising system, or rejected as having become false in the light of such a system.

[9] Deleuze’s use of Maimon seems to want to shift the emphasis of the fundamental axiom away from the conscious structure of the infinite intellect, and towards the pure multiplicity of intuition. Thus it is not a one way process of deciphering the rational underpinnings of pure multiplicity according to the schema of the infinite intellect, what we are interested in is the breaks and ruptures that happen to this progress/process, as the nature of pure multiplicity erupts within the framework of a becoming rational. Badiou wants to accept the notion of a rational/consistent axiom, but not through a radical separation of the finite and the infinite. Badiou uses instead the empty set axiom, rather than the infinite intellect. Then change and transformation are, like for Deleuze, no longer generated from the idea of a god-like infinite intellect, but he does not turn the other way towards pure multiplicities, or the inconsistent. Badiou’s event utilises non-constructible sets, which are in themselves consistent multiplicities.

[10] This piece doesn’t draw any conclusions about the possibility of a coalition between Badiou and Deleuze, but it is my first thoughts on the matter as I begin to examine Deleuze in more depth. I hope to be able to write a more coherent and well thought out continuation of this initial reflection soon.

Insubstantial Asides II: Schlegel on Kant

2004-09-22T21:49:00.000Z

Drawn by a recent discussion on Kant over his indisputable and undiminishing influence over modern philosophy I felt the desire to register for the delectation of the assorted company a fragment from the pen of Friedrich Schlegel, a leading member of the early Romantic circle who dwelt in the immediate shadow of Kant, and parlayed with the likes of Fichte and Schelling. Furthermore, Schlegel, for the record, later became the figure of disgust for Hegel (which surely must make him something of a hero). His remarks are interesting and stimulating, even if the one I choose is perhaps merely thought-provoking rather than strictly philosophical. Beyond this I draw attention to it here because Schlegel, unlike Hegel, is witty. However, it should be at once highlighted that he is not as funny as Nietzsche, and with respect to observations on Kant, neither is he as witty: only Nietzsche could ask what has Kant really given us? with the appropriate disdain. We all know what Nietzsche has to say about that timely Konigbergian. The manner of Kant's daily constitutionals is itself surely enough of a refutation - the walk entirely regulated, never straying from his path or his allotted routine, or for that matter ever desiring a new terrain from which to appreciate an altogether different view. It is said you could set your watch by him - is it any wonder that Kant had no feeling let alone any understanding of art or that his writings breathe the air of pastoral conservatism? In sum: Kant never left Konigsberg - need we say any more?

*

But let us return our thoughts to Schlegel, who throws light on the "Kantian scene" and on what for him it means to be a Kantian:

"The world considers anyone a Kantian who is interested in the latest German philosophical writings. According to the school definition, a Kantian is only someone who believes that Kant is the truth, and who, if the mail coach from Konigsberg were to ever have an accident, might very well have to go without the truth for some weeks. According to the outmoded Socratic concept of disciples being those who have independently made the spirit of the great master their own spirit, have adapted themselves to it, and, as his spiritual sons, have been named after him, there are probably only a very few Kantians." (Athenauem Fragments, 104)

The question we might ask ourselves in the light of this attempt to denominate the true path of Kantian scholarship perhaps then, in the light of the acknowledged influence of Kant on all modern Western philosophical thought, is who are these disciples? - that is say, who is properly taking up the baton that was proffered by Kant?

Immanent Critique: Conference Paper.

2004-09-04T13:15:00.000Z

Dear friends,

Here is my conference paper from 26th August at Greenwich. Apologies if it does not read well. I prefered not to read it out straight when I delivered it but to discourse from key points and quotations. Therefore, in joining it up in this form it may not flow as well as it should. I hope it does argue it's point well - I was worried that due to the limits of time my ability to actually make the encounter resonate properly might be limited. I hope that the account of Deleuze's engagement with Maimon that I get to towards the end of the paper doesn't seem too rushed or insubstantial. If it does then my attempt to motivate or encourage a turn to Maimon through the limitations of 'Nietzsche and Philosophy' is to blame for taking up too much space. The handout that I include here originally had the diagram's arrows drawn by hand and in trying to represent them on the computer I show the limits of my I.T. knowledge.

It is a bit of a digression from the flow of our discussions here on the Parallel Campaign but I suppose that it does flesh out Deleuze's concern with the virtual and in this way indirectly builds a case for considering that he can defend himself well against Badiou. It does also leave the way open for others to suggest that perhaps Maimon has productive affinities with Badiou.

Best wishes,

Ed

Immanent Critique: Evaluating Deleuze’s 1960s Readings of Kant
(Paper Presented to the Society for European Philosophy Annual Conference, University of Greenwich, 26-28th August 2004)

Title of this paper is very broad. My aim here is to argue that Solomon Maïmon provides a very productive link between Kant and Deleuze. By this I mean that Maïmon’s development and extension of ideas put forward by Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason combines creatively with Deleuze’s philosophical project of the 1960s. Maïmon in this way allows Kant to be found and connected with anew.
To make this move I want to first provide some reasons for Maimon being liberating and offering something that might be lacking elsewhere. I want to suggest before I talk about Maïmon that the evaluations of Kant formed in Deleuze’s Nietzsche and Philosophy are not as productive as the Maïmon link. This is not to say that they are wrong or incorrect. Rather, the reading of Kant occurring in the Deleuze-Nietzsche encounter does not allow as much creativity or innovation as when a Deleuze-Maïmon-Kant encounter is activated. I want, therefore, to show that Maïmon is a key player and not just a footnote in Deleuze’s thinking. It is therefore a question of whether greater possibilities for advancing thought can be attained in the situation of the particular encounter. I have chosen not to talk about Deleuze’s Kant’s Critical Philosophy and ‘The Idea of Genesis in Kant’s Aesthetics’ essay. This is not to downplay their importance but what I want to do here is activate a marginal encounter so as to suggest that it deserves as much attention as the more established sources of understanding Deleuze’s relationship with Maimon. I am also interested in the specific encounter of Nietzsche-Deleuze and that of Deleuze-Maimon and how Kant becomes the third partner in each case. The issue is the productive capacity of each encounter.
Turning to Nietzsche and Philosophy we find a very intense and productive encounter between Nietzsche and Deleuze. This produces a reading of Kant that is both positive and negative. We notice without difficulty that the evaluation and genealogy practiced by Nietzsche contrasts with Kant’s faith in the ends of reason. In Chapter 3, ‘Critique’, we find Kant recognised for having correctly seen that experience had to be constructed and the purpose of critique is to scrutinize claims that are made about the existence of things. This is ‘immanent’ critique because it looks at the forces at work within human thought itself. Kant reveals that illusion is an active and powerful state and he uncovers it with rigor. This is a radical and creative Kant. At page 89 he is recognised for having understood critique as total and positive - restricting the power of knowing whilst also ‘releasing other previously neglected powers.’ Experience can now be seen as constructed and transcendence is undermined in ways utterly positive for Deleuze’s 1960s thought.
The more negative reading of Kant is one produced by the limits of the Nietzsche-Deleuze encounter to affirm Kant. There is so much that is productive in this book but the logic of this very productivity limits what can be done with Kant’s ideas. He is deemed to have restricted his critique through compromise with tradition and morality. By always aiming at justification he is said to begin by believing in what he criticises (page 90). Kantian critique is blunted because it isn’t able to overcome certain limits. The role of values in the construction of experience is not recognised - this is fatal for his reception within this encounter. For Nietzsche-Deleuze this is a blindness they can’t work or engage with because their encounter produces questions like: what are the forces of reason and of understanding? What stands behind reason? (page 91) Kant doesn’t ask these questions so the engagement with him can’t go any further. In this way, Kant gets sucked into the radical questioning of Nietzsche and Philosophy which leaves nothing outside of the active science of symptomatology, typology and genealogy. At page 94 Nietzsche-Deleuze affirm that the aim of critique is not the ends of man or of reason but in the end, the Overman. This means a critique driving forward ‘…not justification but a different way of feeling’ which is also ‘another sensibility.’ In this concern with overcoming moral symptoms, Kant inevitably comes out badly because he isn’t attuned to Nietzschean genealogy.
It is not my intention to argue that this reading of Kant is wrong or incorrect. Therefore I want to suggest only that it is a particular encounter that is not the right situation in which the full creative and productive potential of Kantianism for Deleuze’s philosophy of difference may be revealed. If Kant seems somewhat flat in Nietzsche and Philosophy it is because a Deleuze-Nietzsche system comes into life here and leaves limited room for anything else. A great deal has been achieved but the greater realisation of Kantianism for Deleuze is to be found in other situations. These need to be open to making the connection, able to further Deleuze’s thought without restrictions and inhibitions.
Maïmon engaged with Kant’s first critique with an intention not unlike Deleuze’s. He believed that the ideal method was to form a ‘coalition system’ with other thinkers.
In his book The Philosophy of Solomon Maïmon Hugo Bergman (upon which I shall rely in the absence of an English translation of Maïmon’s works) describes this as clarifying the vague idea of a thinker through one’s own reflection (p. 5). In other words, thinking one’s way into a system through creative engagement with it meant that the fundamental directions could be realised in new ways. The potentiality of a system could in this way overtake the intentions and certain conclusions of its author. Maïmon, in his most optimistic moments, hoped to find in his own thinking a unifying point common to Kant, Spinoza, Leibniz and Hume. This he came to reject as his scepticism grew and established itself later in his life.
He was very positive about Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and considered that he was only adjusting it whilst remaining true to its original insights. Unlike Nietzsche he didn’t find Kantian morality alienating -nor was morality nearly as important for him as it was for Nietzsche’s whole approach - and was able to connect with or attune to the directions and possibilities of the system of the Critique of Pure Reason affirmatively and creatively.
I’ll try now to show how this was done and then try to connect it with Deleuze’s 1960s work. Maïmon wrote, concerning the Critique of Pure Reason in a letter to Kant, that he had ‘tried as hard as I can to draw the final implications from this work’. (7 April 1789, p. 133, Arnulf Zweig [editor and translator], Kant: Philosophical Correspondence, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967).
Drawing the ‘final implications’ meant realising the potential of the Critique of Pure Reason by overcoming its problems, developing its internal dynamic so as to remove impurities or contradictions. In this endeavour Maïmon rejected the notion of the thing-in-itself because he felt that anything outside and alien to the intellect was not necessary or meaningful, it was non-sense. He wanted to conceive of the production of objects from only one source, without a role for sensibility or matter. He argued that anything that can’t be explained by the intellect isn’t meaningful. Despite rejecting Kant’s belief in ‘given’ sensation, Maïmon saw this as actually developing Kant’s own powerful ideals of unity. Human beings feel incomplete as sensible beings and have Ideas that are ideal focal points for thought and life. We see this in the Critique of Pure Reason especially at chapter three of the Transcendental Doctrine of Method: The Architectonic of Pure Reason. Here, structuring the whole involves ‘a single supreme and internal purpose’ making the whole possible. The Idea of a final purpose is made ‘the whole vocation of a human being.’ But Kant says that we can subordinate the particular only using something whose origin is completely different. What if he took Ideas (the ultimate expressions of unity) in Kant and made them part of a system productive of experience? We would have so complete a system that no contribution by sensibility would be needed. The finite-infinite sides of humankind conceived by Kant are taken further, developing the infinite roots that seem to deepen things. This depth offers unity as an Idea of internal production without any notion of content, sensation or matter that cannot be explained.
In constructing his system of the production of experience Maimon took and expanded another idea from the Critique of Pure Reason. The ‘infinite intellect’ is an Idea of Reason and the thought of an understanding which could produce the unity of consciousness without needing to synthesise the manifold of perception (B138-9, Transcendental Logic). Such an understanding would be one whose presentation of objects would also constitute the existence of those objects. The human understanding does need the synthesis of the manifold and this is inescapably the human condition. This becomes in Maïmon a conception of the production of experience (the unity of consciousness) which is unified and does not involve any contribution from a separate source. In this way Kant’s Ideas of reason - soul, world, and god - are reduced to one alone: the infinite intellect.
This means that human beings possess only a limited, fragmentary or finite intellect but every object can be accounted for by ‘conceptual relations’ if we can conceive it completely i.e. as it is ‘thought’ or presented in the infinite intellect. In this way, there is no gap between the object and its source so that an ideal continuum encompasses all of experience within a productive unity. This complete and perfect cognition is an ideal and is attained only by the infinite intellect. Human, finite intellect can think the object to a lesser degree of completeness but it is still the same object.
The diagram on the handout shows how the infinite mind or intellect is the sole source of experience. The arrows going upwards show our infinite striving for the perfection or completion we can never reach and also how the object is an incomplete representation of what is presented in the thought of the infinite mind. Both subject and object are schemas of their complete realisation in the infinite intellect, they are realised within its continuous production of experience. This is the infinite progress that Kant recognised in his regulative Ideas but never took to these lengths.
Quickly we see that this diagram is necessarily limited and imperfect (hence it is titled ‘an incomplete representation of Maïmon’s system’) because it does not show the ideal continuum that connects our finitude to the complete object. It doesn’t represent they way in which the object and the subject are situated, integrated and immersed within an infinite production and that they arise within this. There is no dualism but a single production through which objects are produced according to rules. This actualisation of objects is internal to the system of the infinite intellect. Appropriately the diagram can only represent inadequately the system of production. The distances and the arrows shown in the diagram distort the unity of the system.
Given that matter is an incomplete form of thought it involves very human illusions. The crossed out line on the diagram between ‘finite mind as schema’ and ‘object of intuition as schema’ shows that there is no external link between subject and object. Instead of a mysterious connection between two different sources of cognition we have an ideal continuum. The finite stage of knowledge - the human condition - in which we are situated, is therefore full of illusions. This is explained by the imagination filling in the gaps in our knowledge so that we conceive a world that is composed of both sensation and intellect as different sources of experience. There seems to be no internal production but only external and mysterious correspondence.
Deleuze shows his affinity with Maïmon when he refers to neo-Kantian interpretations in the Introduction to Difference and Repetition. He agrees in seeking an ‘internal genesis’ related to Ideas rather than to concepts of understanding.
This link will really make sense and take on importance when we introduce the thinking of difference. As with Maïmon, for Deleuze we do not have an external difference (between sense and intellect) because this would not allow any combination or synthesis to develop internally. They both want to think this because they see it as providing the conditions for experience.
Let’s now look at the role of difference in Maïmon’s system as an element of its internal production by turning again to the handout. The first quotation shows how sensation is not ‘given’ but actually produced through combination. ‘White’ and ‘black’ exist in or through their relation to each other. The judgement ‘white is not black’ occurs instantly without having to rely upon sensation. This implies that there is no need for anything to confirm the judgement since it is produced internally to the infinite intellect as a continuous production.
The second quotation develops this by introducing the term ‘differential’. The relations of a triangle always remain the same even if the extensive magnitude has ceased. Thus the intensive is the differential of the extensive. Maïmon is drawing upon the qualitative determination of the lines of a triangle. This allows him to think the production of the objects rather than beginning with given and unexplained extensive magnitude as sensation or matter. This effectively situates objects within the production of an infinite intellect since internal relations or qualities can account them for without needing to draw on any further source.
The real interface between Maïmon and Deleuze emerges in these passages and it is a creative elaboration of Kant’s Ideas. Maïmon writes of this in a letter to Kant:
‘I define a new class of ideas which I call ideas of the understanding, which signify material totality, just as your ideas of reason signify formal totality.’ [Maïmon to Kant, April 7, 1789, P. 133-4] In Bergman (page 63) we find Maimon’s differential defined as a ‘unit of production’ as opposed to being an atom or part of an objects. Instead, they realise a productive depth because they express that depth in sensation. The infinite intellect thinks objects by thinking the rules of production. These are ideas of understanding and at the same time an element of a particular intuition. Thus we see that Maimon wants to conceive of the actualisation of Ideas at the finite and human stage of knowledge through difference, i.e. in the intensive differential. We could say that differentials translate Ideas of the infinite intellect into finite and human knowledge. The finite is expressed in our experience whilst it is only a degree of the complete and perfect Idea of the Understanding.
Let us now turn to Deleuze’s concerns in Difference and Repetition. Here at chapter four he argues that Kant had held to the viewpoint of conditioning without attaching a genesis (p. 170). This is precisely what seems to be overcome in the passages from Maïmon we have just been considering. Deleuze moves to engage productively with Kantianism by seeking the ‘critical’ point at which its potential could be fulfilled. This is ‘the horizon or focal point at which difference qua difference serves to reunite.’ In this spirit he turns to ‘the esoteric history of differential philosophy’ (ibid) in which he includes Maimon.
Deleuze seeks continuousness in the actualisation of virtual Ideas through difference: these unite all particulars in an internally productive depth. At page 172 he argues that objects are ‘differentiated’ not in the particular and the general but ‘in and by’ the universal, through ‘relations of the universal.’ This universality therefore involves not isolated particulars or anything abstracted or generalised but each term exists only in and through its relation to the others. Maimon’s differential is affirmed here to again relate human experience to a productive depth. This allows a univocal resonance, this is universal not in being a static state but as continuous the production of experience. This is a principle of ‘reciprocal determinability’ immanent to experience itself. Maimon uses this univocal conception in his Versuch über die Transscendentalphilosophie because the unity of his system comes from a similar kind of thinking. Combination is an active principle because predicates are thought only as part of the synthesis (page 377). This means that the determinant is not external but it creates internal synthesis (p. 391). This is a univocity where actual objects are the expression of the infinite intellect, which is complete enough to emanate the whole of experience within itself. In both cases a principle of determinability unites all differences through an expressive unity of process or production rather than as a static state. This means that no objects are isolated from the standpoint of the system as a whole since relations connect a body to all other bodies in our system (Bergman p. 178). It is in these relations that experience is expressed. This connection means that for Maimon (Bergman chapter 6, p. 124) we find that the state ‘a and b’ expresses a relationship of determinability holding between them. This leads to the judgement that ‘a is b’ and, due to the meaning given the relation between the two, this instantiates the category of reality. It is between objects that categories are realised in such a way that they cannot be thought of in isolation. In the relation of the particular to the resonating whole of experience there can be reality itself.
Maïmon’s genius, Deleuze argues, is that he showed conditioning to be an inadequate point of view (Difference and Repetition, p. 173). Determinability itself must be conceived as pointing towards ‘a principle of reciprocal determination.’ ‘Reciprocal synthesis’ as source of production of real objects. Everything is connected and in this sense there can be internal production, internal genesis. In the third quotation on the handout we see that, for Maimon, ‘fire melts wax’ concerns not a judgement concerning or conditioning sensation but a representation of the elements; the differentials that have a conceptual relation sufficient onto themselves occur within sensation. Beneath apparently ‘given’ and finished representations, depth is uncovered by both Maimon and Deleuze, which allows us think in a new way the unifying role of the Kantian Idea.
There is in Maimon the openness of objects to their being constructed that Kant realised and Deleuze affirms. It is taken to these new lengths in conjunction with the Kantian drive to establish greater unity. This unity comes to connect all particulars in a univocal and ongoing expression:
‘Hence, it is necessary that the understanding should think this triangle, from the standpoint of all its constructions, not as already in existence but in the process of being created…’ (Tr, pp. 33-35).
There is much more I could say but I hope that I have given a sense of the possibilities opened up for the relations of Kant and Deleuze by Maimon. Kant’s concern for unity and his use of Ideas are developed into a philosophy of difference. Maïmon’s productive ‘coalition system’ seems to have the creativity and rigor to take Kant forward and Deleuze recognises this. If Nietzsche and Philosophy did not recognise this potential of Kantianism this is because it was not open to this aspect of Kant’s work. This shows that Deleuze needed a different perspective and situation to connect with Kant fully. He works to realise and activate a productive and vital depth and this resonates and works in partnership with Maimon’s creative coalition to produce a further coalition. Differential relations are internal to a process of production that is universal through this very production. Kant’s opens up the way to seeing objects as constructions - for asking ‘how’ instead of ‘what’ concerning an object - allowed Maïmon to expand this in a bid for fuller unity. Deleuze’s concern with the actualisation of virtual ideas engages with a Kantian inspired production of objects according to differentials. This must not obscure the fact that Maimon’s conception of productive depth is different from the virtual and the complex virtual-actual circuits of Deleuze. Maimon doesn’t include difference within that depth but only in its translation into finite knowledge. Yet the use he does make of the differential and of depth beneath representations resonates through Deleuze’s engagement with his work. I have tried to show that Kant’s Ideas are the key to this because they give life to a thinking of the actualisation of differences and thus to Maimon and Deleuze’s work.

Bibliography
Gilles Deleuze (1983) Nietzsche and Philosophy, trans. Hugh Tomlinson, London: The Athlone Press.
(1994) Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton, London: The Athlone Press.
(2004) Desert Islands and Other Texts, trans. Michael Taormina, Los Angeles: Semiotext(e).
Samuel Hugo Bergman (MCMLIV) ‘Solomon Maïmon’s Philosophy’ in The Autobiography of Solomon Maïmon, trans. J. Clark Murray, London: The East and West Library.
(1967) The Philosophy of Solomon Maïmon, trans. Noah J. Jacobs, Jerusalem: Magnes Press, The Hebrew University.

Handout: Immanent Critique: Evaluating Deleuze’s 1960s Readings of Kant.

Infinite mind-----------thinks----------------> Real object
[presentation of…] [pure concept]
s
t ^ ^
r
i
v
i
n
g
Finite mind/ / / / / [object not reached]/ / / / / Object of intuition
as schema as schema
[representation]
An imperfect representation of Maïmon’s system.
---------
Relevant passages from Maïmon’s work translated by Hugo Bergman in his Philosophy of Solomon Maïmon (trans. Noah J. Jacobs, Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1967).
‘The syllogism occurs outside of time, i.e. instantly. For example, the judgement "white is not black" contains two feelings, white and black, and one intellectual representation, that is, the representation of difference between white and black. It is impossible that the two feelings mentioned should occur in the senses or the imagination except successively, that is, at different times; however, their combination in a judgement (white is not black) can only occur instantly, in such a way that through it the successive feelings are combined in one intellectual representation.’ [Gibeath hamore, p. 61]
‘If we reduce an extensive magnitude to its differential, we can still think it as existing because of its intensive magnitude within an extensive magnitude relation. For example, if we think of a triangle, one of whose sides moves in the direction of the angle lying opposite to itself, in such a manner that the side constantly remains parallel to itself, and do so until the triangle becomes smaller and smaller ad infinitum (differential), we find that the extensive magnitude of the sides has ceased … but the relations of the sides of the triangle always remain the same … In this way the intensive (the quality of the quantity) becomes the differential of the extensive, and the extensive the integral of the intensive. Quality abstracted from all extensive quantity can, nevertheless, be thought in a quantitative relation … This relation does not exist among the lines insofar as they are measured but insofar as they are determined qualitatively.’ [Versuch über die Transscendentalphilosophie, p. 395]
‘If we say, for example, that fire melts wax, this judgement does not refer to the fire nor the wax as objects of intuition but rather to their elements (the differentials) thought by the understanding’ [Ibid, p. 356]
‘The intuitions receive their objective reality only be being resolved ultimately into the idea’ [Ibid, p. 366]

The Appropriation of the Figure of Nietzsche in Heidegger, Deleuze… and Badiou?

2004-08-26T11:39:00.000Z

Ok, here's my first post, its a bit long and is essentially an essay. But it does fit into our current discussion, and I hope it sheds some light on Badiou's position. The symbols have all gone to pot, but I've managed as best I can.

The Appropriation of the Figure of Nietzsche in Heidegger, Deleuze… and Badiou?

[1] In this short piece of work I want to cover a fairly ambitious range of thinkers. Taking as my impetus a single aphorism of Nietzsche’s, number 374 in the Gay Science entitled Our New Infinite, I want to develop the theme of this aphorism by exploring the character that Nietzsche takes in the works of Heidegger and Deleuze; as the ‘last metaphysician’ and the ‘superior empiricist’ respectively. This examination will centre on the nature and importance of the ‘event’ in both of these thinkers’ work, and will be contrasted against the backdrop of an essentially Badiouian framework. This study will restrict itself to the middle period work of Heidegger, which sees him struggle with Nietzsche’s conception of truth, and culminates with the accusation of a falling back into Platonism through the back door. I will also restrict myself to the early works of Deleuze, concentrating almost entirely on Nietzsche and Philosophy. In essence this essay will be a survey of my concerns with philosophy, motivated by the aforementioned aphorism, and using the figure of Nietzsche as a common theme to traverse the theory of the event in Heidegger, Deleuze and Badiou.

[2] To begin with let me quote the passage in aphorism number 374 that I find most important:

[T]he world has become "infinite" for us all over again, inasmuch as we cannot reject the possibility that it may include infinite interpretations. Once more we are seized by a great shudder; but who would feel inclined immediately to deify again after the old manner this monster of an unknown world? And to worship the unknown henceforth as "the Unknown One"? (The Gay Science No. 374)

[3] I think in this small section we see Nietzsche’s commitment to a philosophy of multiplicity, with the strong rejection of deifying this infinity of the world; to subject it, in the old manner of metaphysics, to a totalising concept of the ‘One’. The infinity of the world cannot be taken as a ‘One’, but only as a pure multiplicity; but what are the consequences of this move? The consequences of rejecting the possibility of an overarching concept, or totalising form, is what I believe lies at the heart of the three philosophers I want to link through this aphorism. The affirmation of a multiplicity which is not a one links fundamentally to a second theme; that between relation and non-relation.

[4] This denial of a single fundamental ground for metaphysical philosophical thought sees a division between philosophy’s two main historical concerns of absolute foundations, and the relations between beings. Historically some form of connection had always been sought between immediate appearance, and fundamental grounds, but with this statement the possibility of a ground has disappeared. Here we find the familiar themes of the absence of the ground of metaphysics in such terms as the groundless ground, abgrund, void and abyss. The absolute ground of metaphysics is not a ground, but the absence of ground. Hence the new infinite that Nietzsche talks about is a pure multiplicity that is completely unrelated to the immediate relations between beings. This is the division that I want to concentrate on between pure inconsistent multiplicity, non-relation, and collections of related ones, or beings; consistent multiplicities.

[5] The history of philosophy, according to Heidegger, has always sought to bridge this gap between an absent ground and existent beings. Here the immediate relations between beings have always sought to become more general, and as such more abstract, this is an attempt to reach the concept of Being through a more and more minimal description of beings. But if the groundless ground is non-related then no level of abstraction will bridge the gap, as it will always remain fundamentally a relation, and through greater degrees of sophisticated abstraction this method of trying to understand being actually covers over and moves away from the simplicity of non-relation. Heidegger’s notion of the event ultimately revolves around the unveiling of this fundamental difference, as the recognition of something that cannot be directly expressed. But both Badiou and Deleuze have a more positive conception of the possibilities of ‘metaphysical’ thought in the wake of this revelation. Their respective philosophies seem to gravitate more toward a Nietzschean notion of incorporation. These themes will be developed throughout this essay.

[6] Here then we can see the two types of infinity, that of Nietzsche’s new infinite, in the form of the non-related pure inconsistent multiplicity, and that which follows after the old manner; related consistent multiplicity, which up until now had always been linked to a One. Contemporary continental philosophy is almost exclusively concerned with these two types of multiplicity, and the manner in which they belong together, to form an identity of fundamental difference. This belonging together is almost always articulated by some form of ‘event’, a singular and unpredictable occurrence that articulates this difference. This articulation of fundamental difference is the site, or source of novelty and creation. Badiou’s philosophy does not follow this pattern, but provides a framework in which we can understand both Heidegger and Deleuze in terms of the above description. Such uses of the ‘event’ Badiou see as a return to a deified praise for an ‘Unknown One’.

[7] Before examining the figure of Nietzsche in both Heidegger and Deleuze I will begin with a characterisation of the two forms of infinity given above in the work of Badiou. Badiou’s concern to warn off a return of the ‘Unknown One’ in his philosophy is made clear in meditation one of his major work L’être et l’événtment, here he states: ‘what must be said is that the one, which is not, exists solely as operation. Or; there is no one, there is only the count-for-one.’ The ‘one’ is not is the fundamental wager of Badiou’s position, only pure inconsistent multiplicity ‘is’, every being as one is this inconsistent multiplicity subjected to the operation of a count-for-one. Here we see the first form of infinity; the pseudo-foundational aspect of a pure inconsistent multiplicity, all consistent being is subtracted via a count-for-one from this inconsistency. These subtracted consistent ‘ones’ form no relation to this inconsistent multiplicity which is unaffected by this operation.

[8] The two forms of multiplicity, inconsistent and consistent, can now be distinguished. The first is the inconsistent multiple, an uncounted and unstructured infinity; the second is consistent multiplicity, a multiple constructed from a number of ‘ones’ taken together as a whole, or one. Every counting-for-one, that is any structured multiple, is a presentation of the inconsistent multiple from which it has been subtracted. Therefore every structured multiple is split between the structure it presents, as a multiple of ones, and the inconsistency from which, as a one, it has been subtracted. Badiou equates these consistent multiples with mathematical sets, and it is in this way that they can form a consistent concept of the infinite. This introduction of set theory also introduces another interesting aspect of Badiou’s philosophy, that of his axiomatic approach.

[9] In this essay I do not want to enter into a detailed discussion of the technical complexities of Badiou’s system, as these are considerable, and I do not have the space to examine them sufficiently. But what the introduction of set theory allows Badiou to do is to deal with infinite consistent multiples, and use the empty set axiom coupled to the distinction between belonging, being an element, and inclusion, being a subset, to highlight how both the consistent and inconsistent aspects of a consistent multiple operate within a set.

[10] The empty set axiom is the only existential axiom in the system of modern set theory, the ZF system named after its two key developers Zermelo and Franknel, and it simply asserts the existence of a set, a consistent multiple, with no elements. The empty set collects together nothing, it is asserted precisely as Badiou conceives it must; as a pure operation. A set M is usually the result of drawing together an number of elements to form a whole; M={m1, m2, m3,…}. The empty set, usually represented by the symbol 0 (the best I can do), is simply this operation of gathering, or the gathering of nothing; 0={}. This holds to Badiou’s initial assertion that the one is not, here we see that the one is essentially nothing, or void, in its initial existential assertion it appears only as an operation. For Badiou this empty set, 0 , which he calls the void, is the proper name of being, it is the presentation of the inconsistent multiple. It is not the inconsistent multiple itself, but its presentation, its being made consistent through the operation of a count-for-one. But what the empty set presents is precisely nothing; it is a name without reference.

[11] Another axiom, and the last that I’ll discuss in detail, is used to generate from this unpromising beginning the whole variety of possible sets, this is the power set axiom. This axiom allows all other sets to be constructed from the empty set. The power set of a set is the set formed from all the possible parts of the original set; this is best explained with an example. Take the simple set of two elements M={m1, m2}, there are four possible subsets, or parts: {m1}, {m2}, {m1, m2} and finally {0 }, which is equivalent to {{}}. Therefore the set formed by taking all of these subsets together is {{m1}, {m2}, {m1, m2}, {0 }}, this is the power set P(M). In general if a set N has n elements then the power set, P (N), has 2 to the power n elements. What is interesting to note is the appearance of the empty set, which does not appear as an element in the initial set and highlights a peculiar quality of this set. There is a distinct difference between belonging to a set as an element, and being included in a set as a subset. This can be seen from the example above, m1 and m2 are both elements and subsets of M. But the subsets {m1, m2} and {0 } are not elements of M, they are not presented in M. The peculiar quality of the empty set is that it is included in every set, but belongs to no set; it is never presented in a set.

[12] This is how the inconsistent aspect of multiplicity is included in every consistent multiplicity, but it is never presented as an element, as something which belongs to a consistent multiple. Here in this presentation of nothing we see expressed the non-relation of the inconsistent multiple to consistent multiples. What is presented is only ever the proper name of this inconsistent multiple, and never the multiple itself; the void, 0 , is the proper name of being. The empty set, or void, the pure operation of making consistent, is also the foundational element of every set. It is included in every set, and also all of its elements can be considered as constructions from the void. This is achieved through the repetition of the power set operation. If the power set operation is repeated on the empty set then a string of successive sets is generated, each with one more element than the last, this succession can then be considered as the generation of the natural numbers, the starting point for the construction of many important
sets:
o = 0
P(0)={0}= 1
P ({0})={{0}, {{0}}}= 2
P ({{0}, {{0}}})= {{0}, {{0}}, {{0}, {{0}}}}= 3

[13] One of Cantor’s main triumphs in the development of set theory was that the infinite, or as he called them transfinite, sets were mathematically consistent. The infinite set of all natural numbers, for example, was a completed consistent entity. In modern set theory this is codified in an axiom, the axiom of infinity which Badiou sees as a wager on the infinite. Therefore, so far we have seen the first type of infinity that I wanted to characterise, the inconsistent multiple, which is named by the empty set axiom. This axiom, in conjunction with the power set axiom and the axiom of infinity, can be used to create a second form of the infinite; consistent transfinite sets. The smallest of these sets, the natural numbers, are well behaved but if the operation of the power set is reapplied to these transfinite sets a new type of undecidable, and immeasurable, but not inconsistent, transfinite set is created. For the sake of brevity my engagement with this problem, essentially the problem of Cantor’s continuum hypothesis, will have to remain descriptive and un-technical. The cardinal number of the smallest transfinite set is called Aleph 0, but the cardinal number associated with its power set P(Aleph 0) is unknown. What it is important to note is that although this value cannot be measured in an absolute way, this does not mean that it sits in non-relation to consistent sets, such as Aleph o, it is also itself a consistent set, or multiplicity. The power set P(Aleph o) always maintains a minimal relation to Aleph o, a relation of being immeasurably greater: P(Aleph 0)> Aleph 0, this is a determinate relation and distinctly different from the non-relation of inconsistent multiplicity.

[14] What this introduces into mathematics is a field of indetermination, something not usually associated with its severely rigorous and analytical image. What Cohen achieved in 1963, with the development of his method of set theoretical forcing, was to exploit this indeterminacy. Cohen’s theory of forcing provides the central model for Badiou’s theory of the event, and possibly the greatest barrier to the reception of his work. The idea that Badiou is utilising though is simple. Cohen’s theory of forcing is used to prove independence theorems, independence theorems demonstrate that certain assertions made about a model of set theory can neither be proved nor disproved within that model. Such assertions, although consistent with the model, cannot be proved and so cannot be theorems of the model, but can only be adopted as independent axioms, who’s inclusion depends simply on a decision.

[15] The method of forcing was first used to demonstrate the independence of Cantor’s continuum hypothesis by constructing a model of set theory in which this hypothesis fails. Cantor’s continuum hypothesis is an attempt to put a precise measure on the value of P(Aleph 0), this value is usually called Aleph 1. This value is the smallest value that can be assumed for P(Aleph 0), and the purpose of adopting it is to precisely rule out the space of indetermination opened up through the use of the power set axiom, it is a last attempt to sure up the realm of mathematics as something completely determinable. Cohen’s proof is a proof by contradiction, assuming that p(Aleph 0)=Aleph 1 he then forces the conclusion that P(Aleph 0)> Aleph 1. This is achieved by assuming the existence of a certain number of sets from this field of indeterminacy, these sets are known as non-constructible sets, and using these sets to rearrange the elements of À 0 in such a way as to form an excess of new subsets such that these new subsets combined with those generated by normal methods taken together form the power set of Aleph 0 such that P(Aleph 0)> Aleph 1.

[16] Badiou translates this procedure into his theory of the event. The fundamental concerns about systematic, especially mathematical, approaches to philosophy have always centred on their determinism, but with Cohen’s theory of forcing, following on from Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, Badiou thinks that mathematics is not a hermetically sealed deterministic project, but one that can generate novelty in a systematic fashion, in response to a singular occasion. To put it simply, Badiou conceives of situations in terms of set theoretical models, they operate with a few basic axioms and also with a number of independent axioms which have been assumed. The axiomatically infinite nature of such situations always means that there is a field of indeterminacy permeating a situation, certain indiscernible ontological entities which cannot be identified according to the current model governing the situation. As we saw above, Cohen’s theory of forcing can be used to assume the existence of some set of indiscernible beings, and use their assumed existence to rearrange the current situation in such a way that some of the independent axioms assumed to govern that system are proved not to hold. This is a dynamic ever changing view of existence, with their being no ultimate set of axioms, precisely because they are independent. An event for Badiou is precisely the coming to prominence of something that had been previously indiscernible, something invisible at the borders of the situation. And a subject is born in affirming the existence of this indiscernible event, and holding to it in such a way as to constitute a procedure of forcing that will transform the situation.

[17] Events appear, in Badiou’s system, as a void for a situation. Their indeterminacy acts as a void or an inconsistency only relatively to a situation. Through a truth procedure this inconsistency is incorporated into a transformed situation, and its existence, although still not ultimately decidable, is accepted. The situation has been transformed ‘as if’ the undecidable aspect belonged. This is probably the most important aspect of Badiou’s theory, in no way can the event be seen as the actual appearance of the inconsistent multiple, the event only acts like a void in relation to a specific situation. This possible confusion between an event, and an appearance of the inconsistent multiple is what lies at the heart of Badiou’s criticism of Deleuze.

[18] I can now conclude this section on Badiou, as I have developed the two forms of infinity that will be vital for characterising the approaches of Heidegger and Deleuze. The two forms of infinity are associated with the two types of multiplicity; the first is the absolutely inconsistent multiplicity, which sits in non-relation to consistent multiplicity. The second is consistent multiplicity, which always carries a trace of the inconsistent multiple within itself in the form of its proper name; the void or empty set. Consistent multiplicity can then form the second form of infinite, associated with the transfinite sets first developed by Cantor, but most importantly the immeasurable excess of possible parts over the whole embodied in the power set of any transfinite cardinal number. This second form of infinity is consistent, and maintains a definite relation to other consistent multiplicities, although it is a minimal relation which embodies a degree of indeterminability.

[19] The notion that something un-presentable somehow permeates the whole of being, and forms its groundless ground is no longer a revelation, as it is for Heidegger, but a simple consequence of the empty set axiom. Heidegger’s characterisation of Nietzsche as the last metaphysician highlights his theory of the event based solely on the revelation of the separate and irreconcilable difference between consistent and inconsistent multiples. Only when these two aspects, of a first and an other beginning are allowed to be, that is to belong together in an identity of difference, can novelty or creation occur. The idea is that once this distinction has been allowed the realm of beings, in consistent multiplicity can act with a certain freedom, free from being chained to a project of domination that saw it try to represent its other side. For both Badiou and Deleuze this is not enough.

[20] Heidegger characterises Nietzsche as the ‘last metaphysician’ as despite his correct diagnosis of the inherent theme of nihilism at the heart of Western philosophy, he did not turn away from it but simply affirmed it for what it was. This was an affirmative form of nihilism that affirmed the ultimately groundless and purposeless nature of existence, but no longer lamented this position as if some purpose or ground had been lost. It is no longer a melancholy desire for some lost golden age. For Heidegger, Nietzsche’s will to power is nothing more than a will to will, and as such rejects the possibility of a new approach to the question of the truth of being, in denying any ultimate or teleological aim for being, will can only will itself.

[21] As was mentioned above, Heidegger’s preoccupation with the history of Western metaphysics revolves around the idea that the development of philosophy, science and mathematics leads to a domination of the themes of the first beginning; this approach is concerned only with the essence of being conceived solely in terms of what a being is, what is present or presented. Rather than the concern of the other beginning, coextensive with the first but always dominated by it, this position is concerned with the existential aspect of beings, the ‘thatness’ of their being, or their being there. This clearly corresponds to the notion of consistent and inconsistent multiplicities introduced above. If consistent multiplicity is linked with the first beginning’s concern with what a being is, as what is presented, and inconsistent multiplicity as the beings existence, making it be there. A consistent multiplicity is a presentation of its elements, and the trace of the inconsistent multiple is the foundational empty set, from which all other sets are constructed.

[22] The movement of the first beginning as a move to cover over and suppress the other beginning is a movement that not only ignores inconsistent multiplicity but one that tries to represent it in terms of a being. For Heidegger this is the history of Western metaphysics, which introduces the concept of transcendence in order to present something like the inconsistent multiple in terms of presentation. This concept of transcendence is motivated by a move to the infinite, and usually associated with a divine one. But this move to the infinite is an intrinsic property of consistent multiplicity introduced above. This is where the second form of the infinite emerges, with the introduction of the immeasurability of most transfinite sets. The consequences for Heidegger’s position are interesting; initially this transfinitude can be seen as a move toward presenting the inconsistent multiple. The indeterminacy introduced at this level certainly reduces the determinacy of the consistent multiple, this minimal relation can no longer be absolutely measured but it retains the minimal relation of being comparably bigger. This indeterminacy could be seen as presenting the inconsistency of the inconsistent multiple, with the greater generality acting as some sort of notion of progression, or approximation of the ultimately inconsistent and non-relational multiple: an approximation that would render this pure multiplicity as a ‘one’.

[23] In recognising that the inconsistent multiple is coextensive with consistent multiplicity Heidegger rejects this whole movement to infinity as inextricably linked to a project of transcendence, a project which would hope to present the inconsistent multiple in the form of some form of totalising ‘one’. The truth of be-ing lies in a turn away from such transcendent or infinite consideration of being and recognises its immanent determination in an identity of difference. Therefore when Nietzsche diagnoses the development of philosophy and science as a striving to represent a transcendent one through a consideration of infinite being, but fails to turn away from these methods toward the new, semi-mystical revelation of the truth of be-ing he becomes the ‘last metaphysician’.

[24] This need not be the case, if the aim of a consideration of infinite consistent multiplicity is to present a totalising ‘one’ then it is doomed to failure. But, if as Nietzsche does, one affirms this movement for what it is, then one can recognise the indeterminacy opened up by this consideration of the transfinite realm of consistent multiplicity as a realm of possibility for invention and experimentation. It is in no way implicitly necessary that any such pursuit of the possibilities inherent in this indeterminacy of being be understood as an attempt to found being, or present the un-presentable. This is clear from the examination of Badiou given above. Heidegger equates all such scientific procedures linked with analytical and systematic approaches to be linked to the consideration of infinite being, and therefore metaphysics. The operations of consistent multiplicity freed from scientific practice operate in a completely new and different way, characterised by such terms as poetic thought, poetry and poesis. Therefore Nietzsche’s insistence on transforming these practices into a gay science, one that might explore this realm of indeterminacy freed from any conscious totalising, or teleological, objective is simply impossible, and is a relapse into a metaphysical position which has dominated the West since Plato.

[25] Deleuze’s early preoccupation with Nietzsche is markedly different. Deleuze positively affirms Nietzsche’s position, heralding him as a ‘superior empiricist’, and a practitioner of gay science. Deleuze’s understanding of the will to power, the eternal return, and their connection, allows him to characterise Nietzsche as precisely free from the constraints of following a totalising teleological science, and left to explore and experiment with out conscious aim. Here the realm of indeterminacy opened up by transfinite consistent multiplicity is the indeterminate border of consistent being, forming its unconscious limit. As with Badiou, it is from this border territory, the indiscernible limit of continuity and consistency that creation, and novelty spring. Badiou’s criticism is that the singular moments which appear in this indeterminacy which motivate the multiple events of expression, are taken by Deleuze to be expressions of the founding inconsistency of consistent unities.

[26] The will to power in Deleuze’s book is both the hidden foundational element/aspect in every consistent being, and that which appears at its indiscernible limit expressed as an unconscious desire for expansion, and novelty: ‘The will to power is both the genetic element of force and the principle of synthesis of forces’. Thus every unity is founded on this disunity and incoherence of will to power, and every being is an expression of will to power. This is hidden to the extent that a being considers itself as final, as having defined its own limits. The true expression of will to power is only found in the unique novel transformation of a being. It cannot be expressed either in some final being, or in a state of pure becoming that would expand without limit. A process of becoming must be checked by occasional static moments, or pauses, in which a being can still affirm itself as a being and consolidate itself. This process of continual becoming is not the limit of some unity, or some being, but the limit of unity itself. The degree of expansion, and growth which a being can maintain and still retain a sense of identity, not in some external form, but in the immanent unity holding together these moments of transformation. This is the notion of incorporation, the extent to which a being can act in a dominant way and impose its form on other forces, testing the limits of its unity.

[27] In this we can still see that this idea follows the pattern of analysis started above. If the will to power is a genetic element of force, which we associate with the inconsistent multiple, it is filled with an irrepressible desire to express itself. But expression is only possible in the form of a being; therefore this inconsistent multiple must express itself through a consistent multiple. Although every consistent multiple is an expression of this inconsistency, through the trace of the empty set, this is far from sufficient. It seeks to express itself through an expansion of this consistent multiplicity, to create a new multiplicity that expresses more. But as the inconsistent multiple is completely inexhaustible and unaffected by the subtractions of consistent being the will to expansion, or power is insatiable and unending. The will to power is then seen as the founding aspect, in terms of the empty set, and also as the impetus for an expansion and transformation of this set, as it always desires to express more. Therefore it finds its true expression in this continual movement of becoming, the transformation from each determinate stage to the next as the unity which traverses these transformations. It is this return of the will to power that finally allows for its expression; the expression of the will to power is fundamentally linked to its recurrence, as both founding and transformational. And as such will to power cannot be separated from force, i.e. beings, and cannot be thought of as a principle which is pre-existent or transcendent. It is the immanent condition for being, or force; the will to power ‘is’ only to the extent that beings are. Therefore the eternal return is the eternal recurrence of the will to power. This analysis is criminally brief, but it will have to suffice for the time being.

[28] As there is no transcendent notion of the will to power, but only its multiple expression in multiple beings, or aggregations of force, each such expression is considered in its own right an event. Here again we can reintroduce Badiou’s framework to see what Badiou calls a return of a metaphysical ‘one’ in Deleuze’s work. Here the singularity that appears in the indeterminate, and indiscernible, realm of being is equated with a return of the inconsistency at the heart of being. Badiou sees this as clear misapprehension of what events are; they are not recurrences of the inconsistency of being, i.e. the void, but are only what appear as void-like relative to a situation. They are in fact perfectly legitimate and consistent sets/beings in their own right. This is a confusion between inconsistency and indeterminability; the equation of the two is a simple return of a ‘one’, which is kept from becoming transcendent through the introduction a vital expressive urge inherent in this inconsistency. The multiple events of Deleuze are nothing more than recurrent expressions of inconsistent multiplicity, essential a new ‘one’. Badiou’s events are completely independent multiplicities; each is affirmed in its own right through an ongoing truth procedure which affirms this specificity.

[29] I myself am not sure to what extent we should take the criticisms of Badiou seriously, with respect to Deleuze. We could just as easily read the expression of the inconsistency at the heart of being to be precisely not an actual presentation of this inconsistency, but as simply an occasion for transformation. At bottom the argument between Deleuze and Badiou relates to their reception of a positive Nietzschean inheritance. Both want to affirm the possibility, in the form of multiple events, of a positive role for philosophy after the ‘end of philosophy’ heralded by Heidegger, and his characterisation of Nietzsche as the last metaphysician. But to do this they must show how ‘metaphysical’ practices can operate outside of the worship of some ‘Unknown One’. Deleuze introduces the notion of inconsistency, which lies at the heart of being, in terms of an unconscious vital urge for expression. Whereas Badiou sees events as extra-philosophical, the response to events, in terms of a truth procedure are realised in purely metaphysical operation. Although the actual function of philosophy in Badiou’s system is far from clear What is the best way to accept this inheritance; through vitalism or through a simple fidelity to the specificity of an event? I am in no position to answer this question, and this essay has been less than satisfactory in its analysis, especially with regards to Deleuze. What it has been though is a survey and a statement of intent for my future research, which will seek to follow through this analysis of the function of the event in contemporary philosophy, between the two positions suggested here of a ‘superior empiricism’ and an ‘aleatory rationalism’.

Being forced to sense and think difference: further issues concerning the artwork.

2004-08-01T11:31:00.000Z

Dear Friends,

1.
I wanted to add some more thoughts about the subject under discussion and related to my ongoing study of ‘Difference and Repetition.’ The nature of differential mechanisms in the virtual is very important to this issue because if actualisation involves a synthesis of depth it can be hidden and covered over on the surface but never removed. Even the singular does not get away from this depth because the singular is universal thanks to its rooted-ness in this dimension. To understand the role of the artwork in transcendental empiricism we can look at this universality of the singular. This concerns our ability to dispense with general or natural laws that ignore this depth that is revealed though thinking difference itself. The actual is rooted in the virtual to the extent that every object has a double aspect. This is expressed by the coupling ‘clear-confused’ as an individuated or singular unit. This is a state of actualised individuality and it defines the individual as being both local and global. It is locally clear and yet also globally obscure. This follows because the universality of anything, according to Deleuze, is not at all an impersonal abstraction. If it were then we would have a simple and empty repetition. If repetition is a repetition of difference we must say that ‘The highest generalities of life, …, point beyond species and genus, but point beyond them in the direction of the individual and pre-individual singularities…’ [p. 249] The individual is in this way expanded since we can think its universality without resorting to a representation that removes its concrete singularity. This singularity relates to the instance of actualisation as a production of the virtual. If this is ignored the rooted-ness of the actual in the virtual is covered over and the singularity not seen in the vital context of its progressive determination. Individuality thus becomes part of a global process and is not seen as a closed and static object. The objectivity of what is actualised belongs to this process itself. This double nature as ‘clear -confused’ gives the object both its singularity and its global connection or implication. Whilst being made clear by the focus of its singular actualisation, it is confused by its connection with global movements and processes such that a zone of indetermination surrounds the individual. This makes it open confusedly onto the cosmos in a way that anticipates the more radical thinking present in ‘Capitalism and Schizophrenia.’

2.
Deleuze elaborates this idea by constituting the life of empirical reality through intensities. All intensities are implicated in one another so that each continues to express the changing totality of Ideas, the ‘variable ensemble’ of differential relations [p. 252]. This communication via implication is about the expression, production or incarnation of the actual. The connection of intensities opens up the product of actualisation to wider reality. At the same time, each intensity expresses clearly only certain relations or degrees of variation. It focuses upon these in its enveloping role. Yet as something enveloped and incarnated it still expresses all relations and all degrees, but confusedly. In this sense, the clear-confused is an expression of the production active in the virtual-actual circuit. This means that whilst the world is made coherent in a seemingly general and human way, ‘the advent of coherence is no more our own, that of mankind, than that of God or the world.’ [p. xxi] Since individuations are impersonal, the singular is universal in being produced continuously by a virtual depth and yet singular by virtue of being a specific and focused instance of actualisation. In this sense the event is both unique and rooted in a universal synthesis of depth and also of time (the eternal return).

3.
Perhaps the most concrete illustration of the clear-confused in ‘Difference and Repetition’ is Deleuze’s reference to Job at page 7. Job challenges the law by dismissing the general in order to reach the most singular as principle or as universal. This is not an example of existentialism. Instead it expresses an excess over the general ways of representing reality that would limit it to human forms of calculation and thought. Instead, that which escapes all calculation, prediction and explanation is invoked in concrete despair and attunement to the singular. Job’s experience of the universal had everything to do with this overflowing in the intensity of his singular situation. To return to the question of the artwork, it must be able to capture sensation that is singular and yet which embodies the universal in its very singularity. This is the ‘being of sensation’ that is in excess of general or natural laws. Only through the singular do we capture this excess that is lost in the representation of generality. The artwork is able to present this excess by avoiding the logic of representation in its harnessing of the forces of sensation.

4.
Deleuze elaborates this excess immanent to sensation when elucidating ideas of ‘the dice-throw’ that makes the point of actualisation aleatory and singular. With characteristic perversity Deleuze invokes a peculiar image of divine creation:
‘… God makes the world by calculating, but his calculations never work out exactly, and this inexactitude or injustice in the result, this irreducible inequality, forms the condition of the world. The world "happens" while God calculates; if the calculation were exact, there would be no world.’ [p. 222]
Without this preservation of difference in the unequal there would be no production of the new, no change, no occurrence. There would be simply stasis and no production of anything: ‘…the unequal in itself which testifies to the existence of a natural "remainder" which provides the material for a change of nature.’ [p. 238] The artwork is supposed to capture or harness universal forces active in sensation that testify to an excess of difference that covered over by representations of general and predictable laws. This makes difference the being of sensation and its sufficient reason. The artwork captures the rooted-ness of the singular in the universal workings of actualisation. In this way the universal is concrete and alive rather than being drained of all vital and immanent process as it is in representation. Deleuze elaborates this in terms of a ‘signal-sign system’ in which every phenomenon flashes. This is made up of at least two heterogeneous series that communicate with signals. Without the unequal, the differential that differentiates these systems of differences (object=x), there would be no reason or being of the sensible. If there were sameness and identity there would be no motor of actualisation and the artwork would just represent things and not actually think difference.

5.
An amusing comment by Deleuze proclaims that good sense is the ideology of the middle class [p. 225]. As such it is less acting that foreseeing and a belief in predictability. Perhaps this is rather apt when it comes to the artwork. The bourgeoisie protest that they like representational art because they want it only to be pleasant and perhaps soothing. They want it to flatter their own belief in the correctness of their way of life were everything or ordered for their material advancement without anything troubling their sense of self worth. Was there really ever any representational art other than that produced for the middle classes? Difference is for Deleuze that which cannot be thought. It is excessive and does not fit into the limit of our ability to comprehend it. Yet it is something that thought cannot avoid thinking about because as excessive and differentiating it is productive of sense and of the actual. The artwork embodies this un-thought or imperceptible that shocks us into thought. It is not given but which the given is given through depth that is differentiating, the un-grounding ground [p. 226]. We find in this the vocation of the artwork because as creator God is faced with interval and distances to fill (Deleuze offers these ideas whilst considering Plato’s Timaeus). He covers everything with intermediaries [p. 233-34]. Yet he ‘dances on a volcano’. This is the virtual depth constituted by difference. If in the artwork (Klee being a good example here) the abstract line is clear and yet confused it is because it is abstractly universal. The line captures the universality of movements that produced the singular line. It captures what we are forced to think without being able to fit it into manageable thought. The middle classes like to manage things and so management speak is utterly alien to the thinker and the artist.

6.
I hope this is clear. Deleuze weaves together his thought using very rigorous concepts and yet these are so complex that capturing this rigor in one’s own words is utterly difficult. My main purpose here has been to further my attempts to expound on Deleuze’s aesthetics via his ideas of depth and the virtual that continuously implicate the sensation that artworks capture or harness within something global. Deleuze complains that whilst Schelling and Schopenhauer think depth they do not manage to preserve difference within it. This is an issue we could go into in the future. For now, the question I suppose I would put to the Badiouians in our midst concerns the value of thinking difference whether in the artwork or in anything else. Deleuze’s approach seems to remove the problems of dualisms by making this difference not at all a problem but something to be positively affirmed and in which to find the vital mechanisms of life. I am not sure if I could give this up. Forgive me these bold statements.
Best wishes,
Edward

Insubstantial Aside (Kierkegaard)

2004-07-30T14:20:00.000Z

During my research I recently stumbled across this rather perverse little fragment and thought I might introduce it here:

"Socrates, who, according to his statement wanted to ask the wise in the underworld whether they knew something or not, may get hold of Hegel in order to question him about the absolute method. Perhaps it would become evident that Hegel, who became so extra-ordinarily absolute in his earthly life, which ordinarily is the life of relativity, would become rather relative in the absoluteness of eternal life." [K., JP II 1606]

- the gadfly of Copenhagen registers an impolite sting on the nose of the great systematist...

Aesthetics and Thought according to Transcendental Empiricism

2004-07-01T15:42:00.000Z

Dear friends,

I would like to offer a posting in response our continuing philosophy and art problematic and also as an attempt at a response to Scott's fascinating recent posting. I would like to be provocative in offering ideas from Deleuze that unavoidably conflict with the ideas from Badiou that Scott discussed. This is perhaps appropriate given that this is possibly the most pressing dichotomy in early twenty first century thought (if that is not too bold a claim).

I found very insightful the tracing of this whole problematic back to the Romantics and forward into Badiou's great syntheses. This transversal elicited in me both admiration and also stirrings of my Deleuzian sensibilities (perhaps I should say ‘of my Deleuzian pretensions’ since I feel myself to be merely at an early stage on the path towards grasping this great thinker). I hope that I can do justice to Deleuze's encounters with works of art.

Deleuze launches into a creative criticism of Kant in 'Difference and Repetition' by expressing dissatisfaction with the status and power given to sensations. They are already formed and given to a passive self. We might say that the Kantian epistemological machine seems to have something missing. For Deleuze the doctrine of the faculties is based upon a repression of the real nature of sensation. He wants to find sensations that force us to think (he sites this idea as a highly positive contribution by Plato). He uses the term 'sign' to denote sensations that are a shock to thought. Instead of sensation being finished and given it is challenge to our thought. Signs can only be sensed or felt since to allow them to be represented would be to falsify them. They are an element of reality neglected by representational thought. They are singular and cannot be generalised. They also bear a problem (for Deleuze a problem is not something defined by its ability to be solved but is a denial of general and common solutions [Deleuze (1994) p. 161f]).

The conclusion that Deleuze draws from this dissatisfaction with Kantianism, and representational thought in general (the dogmatic image of thought), is that we must innovate in our approach in order to liberate sensibility. He proceeds dramatically, in the pages of 'Difference and Repetition' and elsewhere, with the reunion - perhaps in the spirit in Kant himself - of the two senses of Aesthetics that appears in the Critical System. These two halves are said to be artificial because they limit the power of sensibility to be an activity of thinking itself. In the Transcendental Aesthetic we have a theory of the forms of experience and in the Third Critique we have the work of experimentation (cf. Daniel W. Smith, 'Deleuze's Theory of Sensation: Overcoming the Kantian Duality' in "Deleuze: A Critical Reader", 1996). The Kantian arrangement forces sensibility to play a part in the working of the faculties in two different positions that do not allow its genesis in the fully unity of its power and force. Now, the artwork is not a representation but is an experience and a way of exploring the sensible. Instead of being either a form of receptivity on the one hand and creativity within the sphere of aesthetic contemplation on the other, it is a full 'being of sensation'. This explains why Deleuze can say that his writings upon art are works of philosophy in a very literal sense.

In ‘Difference and Repetition’ we can grasp the in-itself of difference and repetition as repetition of difference within the work of art. If art were a mere matter of psychological activity it would remain separated from the activity of thought. Deleuze finds this artificial because it denies the autonomy both of sensation and thought. He tries to illustrate how everything removed from the continuum of living reality is mistreated and alienated. If we remove ourselves from this in our thinking we cannot think equally or adequately to the activity of sensation. This is elaborated in ‘A Thousand Plateaus’ where music is said to harness the forces of cosmos. Music can become a ‘cosmic sound machine’ since it is not a representation of cosmic forces that are the elements of reality and constitute sensation. It is plugged into them and thus traversed by them. Unless thought is seen to be this transversal force to which the rhizomatic (open onto the outside, onto the multiple) is subject we cannot truly think. Whether we take the later or earlier vocabulary we find that art is a science of the sensible because the artistic composition of the sensible is affective in and of itself. If we consider the work of art from this viewpoint of creation then we begin with the being of sensation itself and this allows us to think immanently to this activity of sensation. It allows creation to have the autonomy as an event in itself and this makes the subjective processes and responses of the artist and viewer a secondary occurrence. To paint becomes not at all representation at a distance but a composition of forces in the work. This is a true apprenticeship to signs since it anticipates and presupposes nothing about the occurrences within sensation. Aesthetics achieves immanence to sensation and thus bypasses the categories of representation.

The ultimate expression of the new status of art in the Deleuzian universe is its ability to think with a nobility equal to that of science and philosophy. Deleuze evokes the status and evocation of the work of art in words that he wrote with Guattari:

‘The thing has become independent of its “model” from the start, but is also independent of other possible personae who are themselves artists-things, personae of painting breathing this air of painting. And it is no less independent of the viewer or hearer, who experience it after, if they have the strength for it. What about the creator? It is independent of the creator through the self-positing of the created, which is preserved in itself. What is preserved - the thing or the work of art - is a bloc of sensations, that is to say, a compound of percepts and affects.’ (‘What is Philosophy?’ p. 164)

If percepts can exceed the strength of those undergoing them, sensations are beings in themselves and in excess of the postulates of the dogmatic image of thought (representational and similar). Just as Kant’s Ideas exceed cognition, Deleuze’s Ideas are signs that implicate sensation in a virtual object = x that is nevertheless immanent to the virtual-actual dynamism.

If we conceive of sensation as the realisation of differential relations, we open ourselves, in the experience of the artwork, to the full force of forms of thinking that are harnessed in the composition itself. In ‘Difference and Repetition’ Deleuze argues that ‘difference must be the element, the ultimate unity’ so that divergence and decentring must be affirmed (p. 56). The identity of everything is swallowed in difference so that each thing is only a difference between differences. For Deleuze thought that is equal to difference must express in itself the being of sensation and compel the apprentice to signs to follow its realisation of thought. Deleuze recognises in modern art a ‘theatre of metamorphosis and permutations.’ This ‘labyrinth without a thread’ is outside or in excess of the logic of representation because sensation is not formed or mediated but allowed to draw the viewer into the fullness of immanent sensation itself. Transcendental empiricism is Deleuze’s project and it is not simply assisted by the work of art but this is its very realisation. This non- representational thinking realises the life of sensation itself, it espouses vitalism by being itself a vital movement that shocks the subject. Thought becomes the realisation of signs occurring in situation, immanent to this continuum. The categories of the dogmatic image of thought seek to impose the values of representation, the similar, mediation, analogy and so on (a full list is given on page 167 of ‘Difference and Repetition’). This makes the work of art the immanent realisation of the undoing of this dogmatic system of postulates for the apprentice to signs.

Centring this issue around the thinking of difference, Deleuze makes clear that the repression of difference is the poison of many presuppositions with which philosophy begins. The work of art is a composition of differential relations and their realisation in the repetition of differences that includes difference without mediation. Rather than the giving of form to sensation it is a realisation of the forms of sensation themselves. This is involuntary and violent, it is a shock. Francis Bacon seems to concur with this when he writes of painting that:

‘The story that is already being told between one figure and another begins to cancel out the possibilities of what can be done with the paint on its own.’ (‘The Brutality of Fact’ p. 23).
Figuration can have a similar alienating role in painting as that which representation has in philosophy.

Deleuze extends his ideas to Proust’s ‘In Search of Lost Time.’ He latches onto the difference of the former present (as it was lived) and the present present. These two series have an identity and resemblance (the madeleine, breakfast, the taste that coexists across two moments) but this is not where the secret lies. This is the surface but at a certain depth is what the taste envelops, this is something = x, something without an identity. This is Combray as it is in itself, which exists or insists as virtual. It is essentially different and as differenciator it produces the identity and resemblance of the series. These coexist in relation to the Combray in itself as object = x which causes them to resonate. This movement of thought within the novel is not a something that can be represented by generalities. The singular manifestations of difference in the forces composed by Proust are signs that very literally carry their apprentice in his journey. They are productive of a resonance between the present present and former present as two different series where the workings of difference forces thought upon us. Involuntary memory is shown most truly in this composition that embodies the interaction between the virtual and the actual, it presents sections of this activity.

In my last entry I offered some tentative perplexities about Nietzsche. He does not seem to offer any of the great workings out of approaches and of the workings of reality as Deleuze does in a systematic and pluralist fashion. Yet he is a pluralist (in the sense of an empiricism that is open to the divergent and multiple manifestations of life and the world) and this seems to overwhelm our attempts to get hold of him. Deleuze’s book on him is a reasonable approach to grasping the workings of the Nietzschean reality (feel free to attack me on this point). If we limit Nietzsche by claiming that he avoids all systematic thought on principle, it seems that he fails to cope with the disorder that he recognised as the great challenge for thought. Yet what did not kill him could only make him stronger. This strength suggests an engagement with this challenge; the attempt to capture in thought something that is too strong for us. Perhaps this can only be done in a limited and embryonic way or as a shadow (if it is only the overman who is to experience thought fully).

I take Scott’s point that metaphors such as a ‘symphony of thought’ resolve the problem by simply deferring it. This I think points to the need for Deleuzian reading of metaphor as metamorphosis. If the work of art is a composition of sensation or force, we avoid ending up with a metaphor that is a form of representation artificially disembodied and isolated from the forces that composed it. The same goes for metaphors used in philosophy, creation with concepts rather than sensations.

The problem that Scott dramatizes in terms of two opposed receptions of Nietzsche’s philosophy, as either a ‘gleeful aesthetic dance’ or taking Nietzsche as metaphysician is I agree important and unsatisfactory (what indeed, could be more tame than a mirror to represent our own enthusiasms). If aesthetics is separated from philosophy (as a sober continuation of metaphysics or as its successor) then Nietzsche seems to be lost in this division. Yet with Deleuze I think we see a way into reading Nietzsche without needing to make this moribund separation.

The issue of the finite and the infinite is a fascinating transversal. Deleuze’s thinking attempts, using diverse materials and encounters, to establish the unity of thought and art in the immanent workings of difference. Artistic experimentation produces instances of this incarnated unity. Deleuze would perhaps argue that the infinite should not be presupposed through temporalisation as Badiou suggests in one of the quotations Scott uses. Instead the Eternal Return should be the formless being of difference since only in this synthesis is difference affirmed as it should be. The work of art as an immanent section of sensation testifies to the mechanisms of difference. Ultimately, the virtual object = x, through itself, is the differenciator of difference. The fully adequate and fully immanent excess. Deleuze warns that a conversion of the excess to the void would reintroduce the transcendent. He prefers the dice-throw (involving the affirmation of chance not as probability but as fate) on the site as a power of ‘making’ the event. Otherwise……

‘philosophy thus seems to float in an empty transcendence, as the unconditioned concept that finds the totality of its generic conditions in the functions (science, poetry, politics, and love). Is this not the return, in the guise of the multiple, to an old conception of the higher philosophy?’ (‘What is Philosophy?’ p. 152-53)

Badiou is criticised for his theory of multiplicity because it does not offer two multiplicities (two types) from the start. This is necessary according to Deleuze because multiplicity happens between the two and this avoids the need for the transcendence that Badiou offers to compensate. These two types of multiplicity are one beside or against the other and not one above the other.

I expect violent condemnation from the rhizome that Brian and Scott have formed with Badiou (don’t spare me insults).

Best wishes,

Ed

Update: The Stellar Matheme

2004-06-28T14:57:00.000Z

A subset (or is it a power set?) of The Parallel Campaign is currently running a reading group on the philosophy of Alain Badiou, focusing particularly on Peter Hallward's Badiou: Subject to Truth, and the recently translated collection of essays, Theoretical Writings. A more detailed listing of the areas covered will be posted, as will hopefully a recording of some of the remarks and insights gathered therein.

Here is a copy of the reading list:

Wk 1-2
Reading Ch.3 & 4, ‘Infinite by Prescription,’ & ‘Badiou’s Ontology’
Hallward, P., Badiou: A Subject to Truth.

Wk 3
Reading “The Event & the Instance of Chance” in Ch.5, ‘Subject & Event’
Hallward, P., Badiou: A Subject to Truth.

Week break

Wk 4
Reading Ch.5, “On the Edge of the Void”
Hallward, P., Badiou: A Subject to Truth.

Wk. 5
Reading Ch.5, The Generic Set/Forcing
Hallward, P., Badiou: A Subject to Truth.

Wk 6
Reading Ch.5, “Towards a Topological Understanding of Subjective Space”
& “The Generic Procedures”
Hallward, P., Badiou: A Subject to Truth.

“Postface”
Badiou, A, Theoretical Writings

The Language of Finitude: Contemplating the Ontological Status of Poetry via an Analysis of Nietzsche, the EGR, and Badiou

2004-06-19T01:22:00.000Z

A number of questions arise in the wake of the interesting contemplations that took place in the first contribution to our fledgling discussion forum, questions which for the moment I can only address in a preliminary form. Principally the questions that concern me draw from simply considering: What is the relationship between poetry and philosophy? (is it philosophy’s other?) and further, what are the stakes apropos of their respective claims over thinking?

In the context of Nietzsche’s thought, certain possible answers seem to appear: Thus Spake Zarathustra does indeed seize the initiative by generating a “symphony of thought.” However, one wonders whether such metaphors actually resolve the problem or, on the contrary, just defer it. After all, what sense does this metaphor actually draw from us? – Are the operating conditions for thinking in Nietzsche musical? Perhaps we can infer from Schopenhauer’s continued influence over Nietzsche (even during this period) that music, understood as a non-representational art form, in an unresolved consistency, perfectly expresses the movements of an implacable will (music then, as the language of suffering). From hereon in we can perhaps conceive of the operation of thought swaying precisely in the poetical dithyrambic movements of the text, lured into the rhythm of thinking, a thinking which is at once ruptured against the unfolding revelations of the last man, the übermensch, and the eternal recurrence. But to ask again here, what then is the dithyramb? Are we claiming it is the condition of thinking? Has poetry then not taken on a distinctly ontological significance? It is interesting of course to observe that at precisely these points ostensibly Nietzsche becomes a problematic figure for the history of philosophy – that is, a potentially anti-philosophical figure.

Now this claim is made so often that one might wish to reject it immediately on account of its superficial temerity, yet I suspect that to dismiss it in such a manner is to fail to address the very real difficulties in Nietzsche’s work not merely in its assault upon the academy and the challenges that arise thereof, but also for any serious practitioner of philosophy – that is, anyone who wishes to uphold metaphysical discourse. Now Nietzsche can of course himself be labelled a metaphysician, indeed the metaphysician of all metaphysicians if we are to follow Heidegger – one, that is who sees through the history of philosophy but critically, with his investment in the notion of the will to power, fails to draw the right conclusions. Yet Nietzsche is surely closest to slipping the metaphysical web for Heidegger when he announces himself in the form of poetry. However, what becomes clear with Heidegger, and this should be immediately merited for Nietzsche as well (though without the same degree of philosophical rigour), is that poetry is a very particular discourse engaged in only by the few and the rare. To enter into poetry in these terms is to draw into an authentic singular relation, a relation which Nietzsche properly designates as untimely. It is clear at this point that poetry in this sense, that is, as the language beyond metaphysics, is something very different from anything we are normally given to investing in the term.

To consider Nietzsche from a different direction, it is, of course, unquestionably significant to draw attention to the systematic motivations within Nietzsche’s thought (e.g. Time Atom Theory) but more particularly Deleuze’s remarks about the Genealogy. Deleuze’s careful systematic, indeed scholastic, treatment of Nietzsche is indeed welcome. However, there are a number of points apropos of Deleuze’s treatment that are worth recognising here and potentially hazardous oversights which we should be aware of. Firstly, the conflation of the poetical TSZ and the Genealogy is misleading in terms of the development of Nietzsche’s thought, and more precisely, in the way in which Nietzsche’s thought develops as we shall see. It suffices to say here that the systematic operations within Nietzsche’s work during the period of TSZ are entirely distinct from the Genealogy – and subsequently the concerns with “Zarathustrian poeticism” are no longer evident in the Genealogy. Secondly, Deleuze picks up particularly on the Genealogy and his recognition of it as a Kantian style post-Darwinian Critique serves to direct us towards his own metaphysical project. The result of this is that Deleuze overlooks the most distinctive feature of the Genealogy – that Nietzsche drops the transcendence of the eternal recurrence.

Returning to TSZ, the poetical transcendence exhibited in the text is suggestive of a mystical referral or access to being. This movement, “the movement of thinking,” which turns out of the history of metaphysics: does it remain outside of this history? Or are we reined back in? The former case scenario implies that we all effectively give up the metaphysical dialogue and become poets, or philosopher-poets, the latter that we return to Nietzsche as a metaphysician (who makes a pragmatic tool of poetry) as the vitalist thinker of the will to power.

What do we find in the wider reception of Nietzsche in this respect? On the one hand, swathes of contemporary literature praising Nietzsche’s poetic philosophical effusions, his transcendence from the metaphysical sphere in a gleeful aesthetic dance; on the other, the attempts to seriously ground out Nietzsche as a metaphysician (whether in the French Deleuzian tradition, or as a hermeneutical or even neo-Kantian reclamation typical of the German response).

In the wake of this schism one thing is clear: for those who take Nietzsche seriously, for those who take the death of God seriously, we are always left feeling remarkably short changed. Of course, the literary-poetical posturing response to Nietzsche will continue to trade on the interdisciplinary ambiguities between literature and philosophy and process more and more books precisely on the back of this apparently productive void. But who then is this Nietzsche? Every time it is the romantic Nietzsche. How then are we to understand these literary-philosophical responses? Are they not after all failed novel(ist)s?

But let us situate this claim and draw its significance by tracing this question of the romantics back to the appropriate point of departure. What we discover of course is that the thought of philosophers becoming poets, or at least philosopher-poets, does not first arise as a serious consideration with Nietzsche, but with the early German Romantics, and hence I would argue with fragmentary discourse (the discourse of finitude) and the birth of modern subjectivity. Thus it is here, with the German Romantics, one should refer to really get to grips with the significance of the relationship between poetry and philosophy.

It is interesting what the stakes are when registered from the early Romantic point of departure. From this outlook we gain an entirely different perspective, a perspective that perhaps fulfils our suspicions: it may surprise us, but we must seriously ask ourselves has not poetry since the Romantics been entirely in the ascendant in the continental tradition? Badiou offers a remarkable insight on this point:

“if one considers the status ascribed to poetry and mathematics by Plato, one sees how, ever since Romanticism, they have swapped places and conditions.” (TW: 25)

Our pleasure at this recognition at first cannot help but sever us from the sneers of the analytic mind who has failed to register the significance of this victory – we might even humour ourselves in this light for a moment as poetic. Isn’t this after all what we wanted? In this respect Nietzsche acts like a mirror to our own desire – perhaps because with him the struggle was most palpable. But what was this struggle against? The answer rings clearly enough: romanticism. What is romanticism for Nietzsche other than the clearest symptom of décadence and decline? – it is in other words, the seedbed of what Nietzsche would later align with nihilism. In the Gay Science aphorism 370, Nietzsche explores the question “What is romanticism?” and plays between various formulae to distinguish the Classical (or rather “Dionysian pessimism”) and the Romantic urge to create (over-fullness versus impoverishment of life). His analysis however, is here only a staging of how he himself bears its burden and more and more clearly traces it back to himself – Epicurus is now a romantic, Wagner and Schopenhauer are now romantics. What is clearly evidenced in this passage is Nietzsche’s developing understanding of the romantic condition – yet it is also clear that from the perspective of the early German Romantic (Schlegel, Novalis) he does not know what a romantic is. Further, his own mode of production is far more drawn into the romantic tradition than he at this time suspects, or dares to acknowledge. As always with Nietzsche, these are masks he is casting aside, projecting distance from these caricatures even as he identifies them more clearly with himself. What then would nihilism be if not the very point at which he has cast aside all masks only to recognise the process of production itself? – it is here that we suspect Nietzsche is thoroughly romantic, a romanticism which unleashes itself most fully in the astonishing folly of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Zarathustra, following in the wake of the Gay Science is the full-blown ecstacy of romantic production. Once it is recognised it can hardly be denied – Zarathustra is the romantic gesture par excellence to the event of the death of God. The formula: Existence is suffering, the suffering of a finite being in a world divorced of God. The problem to be resolved: How can existence affirm life? In its dithyrambic refrain Zarathustra pursues Nietzsche’s metaphysical preoccupation with the question of finitude and the One – that is, the singular event of the eternal recurrence.

Zarathustra, following on the back of The Gay Science, is thus the thought contusion in which Nietzsche principally works through the problematic of the modern condition, assessing the severity of its symptoms in modern consciousness. The eternal return is the concept he gifts with the weight of an answer to the burden of finitude – the greatest of all weights. It becomes the very heading under which man can still call out “I love you, O Eternity” (Z: 3, ‘Seven Seals’). However, in the winter of 1884, Nietzsche began adding a final part to his work, a part that in terms of its poetic power and inspiration is undoubtedly of lesser power than the others. What then was taking place here? Nietzsche it seemed, had blown a gale, but was now beginning to falter – were the metaphysical cracks beginning to show? The eternal return is once more affirmed at the end of the fourth part, but had this become something of a parody?

Prior to the writing of the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche’s evolving response to the eternal recurrence becomes suddenly remarkably ambivalent in a superbly lucid entry in the notebooks entitled “European Nihilism” dated June 10th, 1887. Here, our response to this development and its potential unfolding significance for Nietzsche’s ontological concerns hangs particularly upon the reading we give to the passages 15 and 16:

“Who will prove to be the strongest? The most moderate, those who have no need of extreme articles of faith…who can think of man with a considerable moderation…the richest in health, who are equal to the most misfortunes and therefore less afraid of such misfortunes… (15)

What would such a man think of eternal recurrence? –” (16)

The implication it appears to me, is the recognition of the need of the recurrence being no longer necessary, of it having essentially become acknowledged as precisely an extreme article of faith that to the healthy and the stronger type is unnecessary – indeed, it is a thought that still bears the signature of having been cast in the very same fire that animated the first withdrawal of the Christian God – and thus ultimately fails still to think beyond it. What is remarkable about this passage and the Genealogy that immediately followed is how the desire for metaphysical significance is set aside in favour of a method drawn out of a socio-political analysis via a genealogical method.

To turn back to the early Romantics at this juncture, what was very particular to Romantic speculation was the introduction of historicism to philosophy, a thought which “established itself as a horizontal structure for the historicity of the finitude of existence” (TW: 24), a thinking which, as a projection of the limit as a horizon and the theme of finitude is entirely alien to mathematics. The stakes of this for Badiou are nothing less than entirely obstructing the significance of the death of God by reversing the Platonic conditions. From the Romantics through Nietzsche, into Heidegger (who gets so far only to reintroduce poetry as the proper, the language of being), poetry issues as the productive ontological site of philosophy and is specifically introduced, and thus tied to, the language of finitude (the language of authenticity, etc). The seriousness of this implicit tie between the introduction of finitude and poetry has potentially grave consequences for Badiou; namely, “that we do not possess the wherewithal to be atheists so long as theme of finitude governs our thinking” (TW: 26). He clarifies this point further:

“In the deployment of the Romantic figure, the infinite, which becomes the Open as the site for the temporalization for the site of finitude, remains beholden to the One because it remains beholden to history. As long as finitude remains the ultimate determination of existence, God abides. He abides as that whose disappearance continues to hold sway over us, in the form of the abandonment, the dereliction, or the leaving-behind of being” (TW: 26).

Our co-extensiveness with time maintains in us a “tacit God” (TW: 26) delivering us over, via the medium of history, to “a new avatar of the One” (TW: 27). What the matheme offers as a productive ontology is the infinite inscribed in terms of a “neutral banality” – by returning mathematics to its proper place within philosophy and simultaneously banishing finitude and historicism, Badiou claims, only then “does it become possible to think within a radically deconsecrated realm” (TW: 27). If the language of infinity is for Badiou properly to be understood as mathematics, then the language of finitude is poetry. Furthermore, the finite, grasped as it is “in the pathos of mortal being” (TW: 27), is “in thrall to an ethical aura” (TW: 27).

What is this ethical aura of finitude? – it is an essential pathos that a finite being communicates in its singular relation. Insofar as romantic philosophy localizes the infinite in the temporalization of the concept as a historical determination of finitude, ethics is limited to a particular configuration of language – a language which in rejecting the metaphysical identification unfolds in a more originary enacting of being. But is its pronouncement necessarily configured in terms of the One? That is to say, must poetry as an ontologically originary operation, emit the singular relation of being as a discourse of the pathos of finitude? As Badiou elucidates:

“On the one hand, the ethical pathos of finitude, which operates under the banner of death, presupposes the infinite through temporalization, and cannot dispense with all those sacred, precarious and defensive representations concerning the promise of a God who would come to cauterize the indifferent wound which the world inflicts on the Romantic trembling of the Open” (TW: 37).

What then is poetry in terms of an ontological determination if not the language in the wake of a mislaid God? By turning to poetry, philosophy continues to breathe the decadent air in the final throes of nihilism – that is, it renounces metaphysics only to continue to passively give in to the intoxicating fumes of the One. In Nietzsche’s beautiful hymn to romanticism, Zarathustra, we witness precisely the confirmation and seal of this tendency – poetry emerges out of, and returns to the singular evental structure of the One in the eternal return. In this moment, Nietzsche commits the romantic error of failing here to properly think multiplicity and of evidencing within his own thought the language of romanticism – finitude. In doing so, in his proselytizing fervour he fails to think through the implications of his own thought and continues to attach himself to the One. In contradistinction, Badiou emphasizes:

“there is nothing but infinite multiplicity, which in turn presents infinite multiplicity, and the one and only halting point in this presentation presents nothing. Ultimately, this halting point is the void, not the One. God is dead at the heart of presentation” (TW: 37)

In romanticism a reconciliation between philosophy and poetry has already taken place. This reconciliation is drawn to its completion with the deposition of mathematics from philosophy in the work of Hegel where a rivalry is set up between it and philosophy with respect of the same concept, the infinite. What Badiou holds to is the termination of the romantic introduction of finitude into the work of philosophy and this implicates a radical caesura of philosophy and poetry – a break true to Book X of Plato’s Republic. Tying philosophy to the language of finitude fails to effect an atemporal break with established discourse the effect of which is to devastate philosophy rendering it “homogenous with the historical power of opinion” (TW: 30).

In his essay “Language, Thought, and Poetry,” Badiou concludes that it is fatal for philosophy to give up the mathematical paradigm, for what lies in its wake is merely the wreckage of a “failed poem” (TW: 241). In contrast he similarly claims that objectivity inflicts a mortal wound to poetry, turning it into “didactic poetry, a poetry lost in philosophy” (TW: 241). In the final analysis, Badiou summons us to celebrate the quarrel that lies in the midst of this schism for ultimately with respect of thinking one can after all recognise a common task:

“Let us struggle then, partitioned, split, unreconciled. Let us struggle for the flash of conflict, we philosophers, always torn between the mathematical norm of literal transparency and the poetic norm of singularity and presence. Let us struggle then, but having recognized the common task, which is to think what was unthinkable, to say what was impossible to say. Or to adopt Mallarmé’s imperative, which I believe is common to philosophy and to poetry: ‘There wherever it may be, deny the unsayable – it lies’”(TW: 241 my italics).

Introduction: Nietzsche, Philosophy, & Poetry

2004-06-19T01:06:00.000Z

Dear friends,

I want to offer a subject for discussion that I have already discussed at length with some of you and which I think is of interest to us all. I will try to give some thoughts upon the issue and to give some passages from a new book on Nietzsche that I think could provoke some discussion.

I suppose that there is something repulsive about the student of anglo-american philosophy who says that he finds Nietzsche's works to be nothing but 'literature.' When someone said this to me I did however wonder whether it was really an insult since it shows Nietzsche to have been open to using literary style to explore philsophical issues. Of course the speaker really meant that being literary Nietzsche gives out only wholly 'subjective' pieces of flowery language.

On the one hand we have Nietzsche's Time-Atom Theory(1873) in which a very analytical style is used to argue that time is not a continuous series. Against this we have the poetry of the Dithyrambs of Dionysus. Two different styles. The Genealogy of Morality is systematic enough for Deleuze to suggest that it is Nietzsche's re-writing of Kant's critique. However, Thus Spake Zarathustra seems more a piece of prophetic literature. This simple opposition between 'poetry' and 'thought' falls apart when we consider the truthbehind Deleuze's description of Thus Spake Zarathustra. He called it a symphony of thought because within it thought moves.

I have started with a very simplistic an inadequate definition of the terms 'poetry' and 'thought.' Of course, seeing poetry as bound to subjective relativism wrongly ties it to a supposed sollipsism of the poet. Poetry can be intensely subjective and personal but this doesn't stop there being poetic truth, truth about the world and existence bestexpressed through poetic inspiration. Nietzsche powerfully portrays the intensely personal and'subjective' experiences of the human being into the terms of Willing as opposed to any interior andpsychological ego. If we take the Will to Power to be a form of externalism we find that the ego becomes a state or point upon a broader canvas. Therefore, we cannot draw a distinction between the philosopher as a seeker after objective truths and a poet as a seeker after wholly 'subjective' and relativistic experiences.

The fact that truth is often attacked by Nietzsche as a reactive way of characterising or 'reading' reality shouldn't mean we have to assume that Nietzsche wantsto be a relativist. What survives the Genealogy and trasnvaluation is of course going to be complicated and hard to grasp. The Will to Power as a standard of truth allows Nietzsche to make very real and credible what were before denigrated as merely relativistic and subjective experiences. Poetry is in this sense liberated - it is able to capture reality by embodying forces that before were not considered fully or properly real.

Nietzsche will value the ability to think in different ways, to have different perspectives. Poetry must complement a relentless logic and vice versa. This does not mean we have no truth but that grasping truth demands virtuousity of thinking. I think Nietzsche calls it a 'gymnastics' of thinking. Kant was prone tothe occasional literary flourish and no one would denythat these all to brief moments are compatible with, and take further, the force of his rational arguments.

'Oh! how happy we are, we knowers, provided we can keep quiet long enough!...'['On the Genealogy of Morality,' p. 5, ed KAP, CUP(1994)].

The book I would like to select passages from is Alenka Zupancic's 'The Shortest Shadow: Nietszche's Philosophy of the Two', The MIT Press, 2003.

p. 7-8
Nietzsche was an 'anti-philosopher' but 'Nietzsche didnot oppose himself to philosophy, for instance, in the name of a more artistic mode of expression; ...Something else is at stake that could be formulated in these terms: to locate the point of the inner limit,or the inherent possibility, of a given discourse(...), and to activate this precise point as the potential locus of creation.'

p. 15
The subject must travel a certain distance in order to'take place', to 'happen' at the point of the Other thing. 'Zarathustra is the epic of such travel.'

p. 94
Truth is not an epistemological category but a matter of courage.

p. 97
Perspectivity does not make all truth subjective and partial for Nietzsche. If we relativise everything we hold onto a 'last solid truth' that there is no truthand in this we can still take refuge.

p. 98
Perspectivism is not a point of view but is truth engaged in life. It makes truth immanent while scepticism excepts itself from the situation it describes.

p. 99
'Is there a perspetive that belongs to no subject, and that no subject could claim to be his or her own, although there would be an intrinsic link between this singular perspective and the constitution of every subject belonging to this situation? The Nietzschean enterprise concerning a new notion of truth is heavily dependent on the answer to this question.'

p. 122
Truth can only take place within life, in the 'middle' of life.

I hope this makes sense and is of interest.

Best wishes,
Edward