A Reading of Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense [first ed.] 9783031137051, 9783031137068

Citation preview

A Reading of Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense

Mehdi Parsa

A Reading of Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense

Mehdi Parsa

A Reading of Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense

Mehdi Parsa Bonn, Germany

ISBN 978-3-031-13705-1    ISBN 978-3-031-13706-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13706-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgments

This book is a revised version of a doctorate dissertation that was defended in July 2021 with the title of “An Ontology of Sense: A Reading of Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense” at the University of Bonn. I would like to thank my PhD supervisor Professor Markus Gabriel and my second reader PD Doctor Jens Rometsch for their insightful orientating instructions and all their support and advice during my research. I would also like to thank the other members of my defense committee—Professor Reiner Schäfer and Professor Wouter Goris. There are many friends and colleagues to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for supporting me in various ways during the research project which is finalized as the present book: Anna Longo kindly read some early materials of this book, supported the project and gave me very helpful recommendations during our meetings in Bonn and Paris. Particularly, I owe my discussion of Hyppolite and Gueroult in Chap. 8 to her. James Bahoh encouraged me in this project, not only through our discussions during his stay in Bonn in 2018 but also through our correspondences afterward. I owe the idea of reading Logic of Sense as a realist ontology and my reading of Lautman in Chap. 7 to him. Thanks to Shervin Olyaii and his expertise in French reading of ancient philosophy I could read Bréhier and Goldschmidt and use these readings with confidence in Chap. 4. I am very grateful to Christos Kalpakidis for his ongoing encouragement and analytical notices and also for his recommendations of secondary literature for my second and third chapters, and Marta Cassina for the continental spirit that she always brings with her. Discussions with James Williams and Sean Bowden during the Summer Symposium on The Philosophy of Events in v

vi 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

June–July 2018  in Bonn were profoundly and decisively helpful for my research. I’m also thankful to Mia Burnett who read the manuscript and suggested useful grammatical revisions. Furthermore, I would like to thank the following friends and colleagues in Bonn and elsewhere who each in a way improved my work through discussions and conversations during the time of my project: Sergio Genovesi, Christian Hoffmann, Lucas Machado, Renato Espinoza, Hessam Dehghani, Jose Fernandez and Nader Mohseni. Finally, I would like to thank my lovely brothers Mehrdad and Meysam and my dear parents. An early version of the first section of Chap. 9 appeared in “Speculative vs. Transcendental: A Deleuzian Response to Meillassoux” in La Deleuziana, Issue No. 11, 2020, on “Differential Heterogenesis”, edited by Anna Longo and Alessandro Sarti, pp. 171–185. Parts of the second section of Chap. 9 were published in “Transcendental Extinction: A Philosophical Response to the Anthropocene”, Athena: Philosophical Studies, Vol. 14, (2019), Lithuanian Cultural Research Institute, pp. 25–41. Some materials of the second section of Chap. 11 appeared in “Gilles Deleuze and the Desert Island as a Material Utopia”, Inscriptions 3, no. 2 (July 2020): 70. Some themes and phrases of my “Simulacrum and Sublime: From Deleuze’s Reverse Platonic Realism to His Reverse Kantian Naturalism”, which appeared in Lügen, täuschen und verstellen (Herausgegeben von Carmen Ulrich und Carmen Prüfer, München: iudicium 2019, pp. 52–69), are reused here in the first chapter and the fourth section of the sixth chapter. I gratefully acknowledge the permission of the editors to reprint this material.

Contents

1 Introduction  1 Repetition and Duration   6 Simulacrum and Production  11 Simulacrum and Naturalism  16 Towards an Ontology of Sense  24 References  30 2 Sense  from Frege to Deleuze 33 Frege’s Conception of Sense  35 From Frege to Deleuze: Sense or Signification?  41 Deference of Reference and the Univocity of Being  44 References  50 3 Frege’s  Paradox and the Serial Form 53 Determination of Signification  54 Structure and Series  61 Sense as the Condition of Truth  71 References  81 4 The  Stoic Logic of Events 83 The Existence of Causes  84 The Subsistence of Effects  87 The Sayable and the Stoic Logic  90

vii

viii 

Contents

Events and Verbs  94 Quasi-Causality and the Logic of Fate  97 Ethics and Time 104 References 117 5 Carroll  and the Logic of Nonsense119 Paradox and Nonsense 119 Carroll’s Paradox 123 Impossible Objects and the Neutrality of Sense 130 Ideal Game and the Time of Chance 132 The Broken Surface 137 References 141 6 Sense  as the Transcendental Field143 What Is a Transcendental Field? 144 Deleuze’s Rationalism 149 Sense, Common Sense, Good Sense 153 The Speculative, the Beautiful, the Sublime 157 References 167 7 The  Ideational Materiality of Sense169 Problematic Ideas 169 Albert Lautman and the Dialectical Ideas 175 The Materialization of the Transcendental 180 References 189 8 Logic and Ontology191 Logic and Existence 192 Fate and Knowledge 196 Synthetic Nomadology 200 The Genesis of Reason 206 References 210 9 Logic of Exteriority211 The Transcendental Versus the Speculative: A Battle on the Exterior 211 The Structure of Science and the Chaos of Philosophy 220 Transcendental Extinction 229

 Contents 

ix

The Principle of the Insufficient Reason 233 References 239 10 Dynamic  Genesis and Psychoanalysis241 From Logic to Psychoanalysis 241 Positions 245 Phantasm and Thought 257 The Metaphysics of Events 263 References 266 11 Madness vs. Stupidity267 Transcendental Stupidity 269 Transcendental Madness 274 Conclusion: Logic, Ontology, Ethics, Politics 283 References 288 Name Index289 Subject Index293

Abbreviations of In-Text References

Texts by Deleuze AO

Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix. 1983. Anti-­Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem and Helen R. Lane. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ATP Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. London and New York: Continuum, 2004. Bergsonism Deleuze, Gilles. 1991. Bergsonism. Trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam. New York: Zone Books. DI Deleuze, Gilles. 2004. Desert Islands and Other Texts. Ed. David Lapoujade. Trans. Michael Taormina. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e). DR Deleuze, Gilles. 2004. Difference and Repetition. Trans. Paul Patton. London and New York: Continuum. EP Deleuze, Gilles. 1990. Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza. Trans. Martin Joughin. New York: Zone Books. KCP Deleuze, Gilles. 1984. Kant’s Critical Philosophy: The Doctrine of the Faculties. Trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam. London: The Athlone Press. LdS Deleuze, Gilles. 1969. Logiques du Sens. Paris: Les Edition de Minuit. LoS Deleuze, Gilles. 1990. The Logic of Sense. Trans. Mark Lester and Charles Stivale, ed. Constantin V. Boundas. London: The Athlone Press. NP Deleuze, Gilles. 1983. Nietzsche and Philosophy. Trans. Hugh Tomlinson. London: Athlon Press. xi

xii 

ABBREVIATIONS OF IN-TEXT REFERENCES

PI The Fold WP

Texts by Others Bréhier

Deleuze, Gilles. 2001. Pure Immanence: Essays on A Life. Trans. Anne Boyman. New York: Zone Books. Deleuze, Gilles. 1993. The Fold: Leibniz and Baroque. Trans. Tom Conle. London: Athlone Press. Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix. 1994. What is Philosophy? Trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell. New York: Columbia University Press.

Bréhier, Émile. 1928. La Théorie des incorporels dans l’ancien stoïcisme. Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin. Carroll Carroll, Lewis. 1976. The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll. New York: Vintage Books. CPJ Kant, Emmanuel. 2000. Critique of the Power of Judgment. Ed. Paul Guyer. Trans. Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CPR Kant, Emmanuel. 1998. Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. and ed. Paul Guyer and Allen W Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Frege Frege, Gottlob. 1960. Translations from Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege. Ed. Peter Geash and Max Black. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Goldschmidt Goldschmidt, Victor. 2006. Le Système stoïcien et l’idée de temps. Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin. Hyppolite Hyppolite, Jean. 1997. Logic and Existence. Trans. Leonard Lawlor and Amit Sen. New York: State University of New York Press. Lautman Lautman, Albert. 2011. Mathematics, Ideas and the Physical Real. Trans. Simon B. Duffy. London and New York: Continuum. Long and Sedley Long A. A. and Sedley D. N. 1987. Hellenistic Philosophers, Volume One: Translations of the Principal Sources with Philosophical Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lucretius Lucretius, Titus Carus. 2001. On the Nature of Things. Trans. Martin Ferguson Smith. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. Plato Plato. 1961. Plato: The Collected Dialogues. Ed. E. Hamilton and H. Cairns. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

The relationship between logic as the theory of knowledge and ontology as the theory of existence constitutes the core problem of most post-­ Kantian philosophy. In order to make such a connection between logic and ontology possible, post-Kantian philosophers had to introduce a third realm distinct from the subjective realm of knowledge and the objective realm of being. To mention just a few examples, one can think of Hegel’s absolute spirit, Husserl’s perceptual noema, or Heidegger’s being-there (Dasein). Indeed, this search for the third realm begins in Kant’s own work, with the idea of “synthetic a priori”. He insists that in order to bridge the gap between logic and ontology, or between knowledge and existence (cognition and objects), we need migration from formal logic, or what he calls “general logic”, towards transcendental logic, and the main characteristic of transcendental logic is that it entails the a priori synthesis of logical entities (judgments).1 But Kant subjectifies the realm of the synthetic a priori and reduces it to one of the existing realms, and therefore fails in constructing a real transcendental logic in which synthesis is possible. It is regarding this problem that post-Kantian philosophy distances itself from Kant and begins a new effort to build the so-called third realm in which the real synthesis of logic and ontology takes place. The problem of the connection between logic and ontology can be explained both from the point of view of logic and that of ontology; from the former point of view the problem is how synthesis in logic is possible,

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Parsa, A Reading of Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13706-8_1

1

2 

M. PARSA

or how a synthetic logic is possible, and from the latter point of view, the problem is how and in what sense being is in itself rational or intelligible. The syntheticity of logic and the intelligibility of being are two sides of the same problem and this is why the discovery of a real transcendental logic would also solve the problem of the relationship between logic and ontology. My main claim here is that Deleuze’s Logic of Sense attempts to provide the so-called third realm in which logic and ontology join together, and therefore, it stands alongside post-Kantian philosophy. This third realm is called by Deleuze the realm of sense. This is sense as distinct from subjective manifestation and objective denotation (and also intersubjective signification, rendering sense as the fourth realm, or as Deleuze says, “the fourth dimension”) providing a field in which an ontological logic and a real synthetic a priori are possible. In this realm, logic does not deal with concepts (which belong to the realm of intersubjective signification) because concepts can only be analytically deductive in relation to each other. Sense provides a real synthetic logic which is not only the theory of knowledge but entails also a synthesis with (and within) existence. Deleuze’s magical tool to build such a logic of sense is the notion of genesis. Sense entails the genesis of the other three dimensions which are in themselves fully established. Deleuze’s main claim in Logic of Sense is a controversial one: things make sense through their genesis. Sense as genesis marks at once the genesis of objects, subjects and concepts and in this way identifies transcendental ontology, transcendental psychology and transcendental logic. As the element of logic, sense as genesis is radically different from established meaning (conceptual signification). Things do not have meaning, they make sense. The genesis of sense renders sense in a certain relation with nonsense, which is in turn the genetic element of sense.2 This amounts to say that making sense is the opposite of having meaning. This is what specifies Deleuze’s attempts regarding the post-­ Kantian problematic (differentiating him from Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger). His logic of sense is, indeed, a logic of nonsense because it takes into account the immanent genesis of sense. The other result of the claim that things makes sense through their genesis is that being (as the element of ontology) would be intelligible in generating (and thereby expressing) itself, and logic is nothing but this genesis of being. The intelligibility of being is not distinguished from its inner capacity to produce itself and this renders Deleuze a rationalist. He believes that being inherently expresses itself and makes itself intelligible.

1 INTRODUCTION 

3

But as the genesis of sense entails its nonsensical nature, Deleuze’s rationalism would be an irrationalism. Being is rational in its capacity to produce forms, not in producing objects based on established forms. This is why, as the main theme of ontology in Deleuze’s philosophy, being gives its place to becoming. Therefore, the genetic logic of sense would be the logic of existence, and the process of making sense is united with the genetic nature of existence. At this point, Deleuze introduces thought as an encounter with, and taking part in, the genesis of being. For him, thinking is not repeating existing patterns or representing such patterns, but rather a productive intervention in the genesis of being. The realm of existence is not a set of objects (or beings) that can be represented. It is rather composed of the series of events and encounters that entail its genesis. This is why, according to Deleuze, genuine thinking is problematic and full of nonsensical and paradoxical elements. Already-formed conceptual and representative thinking is just a result or even a reduction of this genuine thinking at the level of existence. The genuine thinking is sensing. The so-called reduction takes place by applying the established subjective categories to the realm of existence, which is in itself productive, generative, and processual. Therefore, Deleuze makes a distinction between the logic of sense and the logic of signification, where the latter is representational and an image of subjectivity, while the former indicates a rupture in representation and subjectivity by an openness to the exterior. Accordingly, there would be a distinction between two different aspects of our experience, namely thinking and recognition. It is only through thinking as sensing that we experience the exterior, while through recognition we only represent to ourselves what we already have, namely the objects as the images of subjective (and intersubjective) concepts. In order to recognize, we do not need any synthesis, but only the identity of the object, but on the other hand thinking is essentially synthetic, and its syntheticity demonstrates its entanglement with real existence. Being as becoming entails the infinite processual syntheses and this is why it is not representable. Thought is defined as participation in this process, as a synthesis. Again, reality is not a sum of objects, for if it was so, representational recognition would be enough, and there would be no need for incoherent problematic thinking. Being is rational and intelligible, but its reasons, far from being similar to the reasons of formal logic and subjective recognition, are essentially genetic, productive, and irrational (in comparison with the reasons of recognition.)3 The

4 

M. PARSA

intelligibility of being is in its capacity to multiply and generate reasons infinitely, without any established pattern. Therefore, the logic of sense is not the logic of simple deductive procedures, but rather it is as complicated as reality in taking part in its processual complexity. It is more like a novel, or a life, full of deviations and exceptions. This point is obvious in the very structure of Logic of Sense, which is, as Deleuze himself declares on the first page, “an attempt to develop a logical and psychoanalytical novel” (LdS 7; LoS xiv). Logic of Sense can be read as a novel that contains series of reasons (of being), rather than being read according to the official image of a work of philosophy with a linear chain of arguments. Deleuze gives reasons in response to certain problems, multiplies these reasons infinitely in series, and makes these series communicate (resonate) in a playful manner. This is Deleuze’s irrationalism, which does not mean the lack of reasons, but rather their abundance. The result is that there would be no law governing the entire logic of sense, but rather that it produces the laws governing each of its local realizations. Hence, the logic of sense is what occurs at the surface of thinking or a text, not a simplified structure that needs to be discovered beneath. The logic of sense does not wait for the fulfillment of the genetic structures in order to take a picture of them, but rather it moves with the genesis of the structures. It is the genesis itself; it is a movie. There are many different philosophical, scientific and literary sources that are synthesized in Logic of Sense, and obviously, any commentary on the book has to make selections when organizing itself. Our next four chapters are devoted respectively to Gottlob Frege (two chapters), the ancient Stoics, and Lewis Carroll as the figures who provide Deleuze with the main material for constructing a logic of sense. Frege’s name appears in the book via a reference to what Deleuze calls “Frege’s paradox,” which signifies the “regressive synthesis” as a core from which some of the most important notions of Logic of Sense emerge. Frege formulates the third realm by giving it the name of sense and focuses on its independence from subjectivity and referential objectivity. He introduces the very special objectivity of sense. He also demonstrates how the introduction of sense to logic clears the space for the possibility of real synthesis. His logicism, which is his efforts to liberate sense from psychology and subjectivity should be considered an important departure point for Deleuze’s logic of sense. The ancient Stoics elaborate the nature of sense (what they called lekton), introduce a notion different from existence to explain this nature (subsistence) and outlined the first ontological logic based on sense as

1 INTRODUCTION 

5

distinct from Aristotelian logic of essences. Through the Stoics, Deleuze renders his logic of sense as a logic of events and therefore elaborates an inherent relation between logic and ethics. And finally, Lewis Carroll demonstrates for Deleuze how something can make sense without having a pre-established meaning. He discovered the nonsensical nature of the logic of sense. Through Carroll, Deleuze indicates how the inherent relation between sense and nonsense underlies the genesis of sense within language. And it is worth noting from the outset that with all these three figures we find a move from the logic of judgments towards the logic of propositions and in this way the logic of sense would be inherently connected to the genesis of sense in language. But language is not here an instrument at the service of intersubjective communications, but the way being expresses itself in us and among us. In the current work, I focus on these three figures in the first part of the book, and after arming myself with an illustration of Deleuze’s application of these resources in Logic of Sense, I elaborate the nature of his logic of sense in relation to Deleuze’s ontology. In these chapters, the reader can find a close reading of Logic of Sense, focusing on Deleuze’s reading of these figures. The following chapters deal with the claim that Deleuze’s logic of sense is transcendental (not formal) and synthetic (not analytic), or in other words, its subject matter is what can be called the transcendental synthesis. I focus on the first aspect (Deleuze’s transcendentalism) in Chaps. 6 and 7 where I try to examine how Deleuze confronts with Kantian problematic and gives a materialist reading of Kant’s transcendental logic. In these two chapters, I introduce Deleuze’s philosophy as transcendental realism and transcendental materialism. Chapter 8 deals with the ontological and synthetic nature of the logic of sense. In this chapter, I give an account of Deleuze’s irrationalism. Then, in Chap. 9 I defend Deleuze against the accusations of subjectalism and vitalism. Chapter 10 focuses on the psychoanalytical part of Deleuze’s Logic of Sense where I present this part as the material and dynamic explanation of the so-called transcendental and synthetic logic. While the first nine chapters discuss mostly Deleuze’s account of static genesis, the tenth chapter deals with his account of dynamic genesis. And finally, in Chap. 11, I attempt to use the results of my reading to respond literary, psychoanalytical, social and political problems whose relevance to the logical-ontological problematic of Logic of Sense is evidenced through their appearance in its second appendix titled “Phantasm and Modern Literature”.

6 

M. PARSA

But before getting started, let us begin, in the present chapter, with some introductory remarks regarding the context on which Deleuze builds his logic of sense. This context is partially provided by Deleuze in the first appendix of the book titled “Simulacrum and Ancient Philosophy.” Furthermore, Logic of Sense is built on the basis of some of the outcomes of Deleuze’s previous books, including Bergsonism and Difference and Repetition. In the following, I describe briefly the notions from these works that, I believe, are intertwined with those of Logic of Sense. I provide a preliminary explanation of how these different works reflect the same system of thought. Afterwards, I give an account of the first appendix of Logic of Sense, deriving from it two titles which I believe can define well Deleuze’s general approach, namely anti-Platonism and naturalism, before getting thoroughly into the main body of the text.

Repetition and Duration Logic of Sense (1969) was published one year after Difference and Repetition (1968) and it would be safe to claim that they belong to the same period of Deleuze’s thought, or even claim that they pursue the same philosophical project in two different ways. The project in its core is the possibility and necessity of a logic without generality and universal concepts. Deleuze is critical of any logical system which reduces knowledge into the knowledge of generality. According to this logic, which prevails in most of the history of western thought, the only way to know a particular is to frame it under a universal. But Deleuze in Difference and Repetition introduces the notion of repetition against that of generality and takes repetition as that which attacks the logic of universal concepts: “There is a significant difference between generality, which always designates a logical power of concepts, and repetition, which testifies to their powerlessness or their real limits” (DR 13). How repetition can take the place of generality in constituting logic? First of all, Deleuze distinguishes his notion of repetition from the ordinary use of the term. According to him, real repetition which takes place in nature is not repetition of the same, but rather, that of difference. He calls the repetition of the same bare, or hypothetical, repetition. The true repetition, according to him, is not the repetition of the individuals in a generality. It does not entail the identity of the cases which resemble each other and therefore are replaceable. It is rather the inner repetition of a singularity which arrives at its nth power. Deleuze’s notion of repetition is

1 INTRODUCTION 

7

repetition in time (not the homogeneous time in which things take place but the inner time of the thing, of the singularity), and this is what distinguishes it radically from the repetition of the individuals in a generality. The difference between generality and repetition relies on the replaceability of terms in a generality and the irreplaceability of terms in a temporal repetition. Hence, Deleuze states, By contrast [to generality], we can see that repetition is a necessary and justified conduct only in relation to that which cannot be replaced. Repetition as a conduct and as a point of view concerns non-exchangeable and non-substitutable singularities. (DR 1)

The terms of true repetition are not individuals, but are called singularities by Deleuze. These singularities are connected together through time, or rather, there is always a singularity that repeats itself in time and rises to the nth power. Deleuze believes that in order to know something, we do not necessarily need a generality. Knowledge is indeed an encounter with the temporality of a singularity, which is embodied in its repetition (and in this sense, it is identical with what Deleuze calls “thought”). Of course, this knowledge is not conceptual but intuitive.4 The encounter with temporality takes place in intuition. Through understanding, we encounter only timeless objects which are the correlates of established concepts. This is not a real encounter, but a hypothetical one. The central point is that in reality, repetition always comes with difference. The repetition in the general concepts allows only a difference which is reduced into resemblance. But Deleuze’s notion of repetition entails a difference which is not conceptual; “Repetition thus appears as difference without a concept” (DR 15). Deleuze prioritizes this intuitive knowledge (the knowledge of repetition) over the conceptual knowledge (the knowledge of generality) and believes that the former is the site of the true differences in kind whereas the conceptual differences are indeed differences in degree, or, in other words, false differences. In this regard, repetition is the resistance of existence at the level of intuition against the conceptualization of understanding. Thus, to reformulate logic in terms of repetition, in place of generality, renders logic to be in a certain relation with time, and this takes place at the level of intuition and renders logic to be the logic of sense. It is only in this condition that logic does not reduce the temporal diversity and productivity of things into general categories.

8 

M. PARSA

The focus on intuition and time takes us to Deleuze’s reading of Bergson. In his Bergsonism, Deleuze applies Bergson’s notion of duration (durée) to explain how true differences in kind are differences in time:5 “Duration is always the location and the environment of differences in kind … There is no differences in kind except in duration” (Bergsonism 32). And if we remember Kant’s initial formulation in which intuition is “that through which [cognition] relates immediately to [objects]” (CPR 172; A19/B33), we can conclude that the intuitive differences are differences at the level of reality. Deleuze in Bergsonism gives a new meaning to the Kantian formula: “Intuition presupposes duration, it consists in thinking in terms of duration” (Bergsonism 31), and then he maintains, “without intuition as method, duration would remain a simple psychological experience” (Bergsonism 33). Intuition, according to Bergson and following him Deleuze, is not psychological, but rather, it marks the point of encounter between durations, an encounter with what is exterior. Thus, Deleuze endorses Bergson’s attempts to move from the differences at the level of understanding (Kant’s faculty of cognition containing conceptual differences) towards the differences at the level of intuition. It is only the latter that underlies true differences in kind, which are indeed, differences in duration or time, differences that alter the entity. What understanding grasps is the differences which are established within a homogeneous space, whose presupposition, according to Deleuze, results in false problems. From this Deleuze extracts the difference between intensive difference and extensive difference. The former is the difference which makes a real difference, which is to say, it changes the nature of the thing. The latter is just the secondary difference between a-temporal established things in a homogeneous space (these a-temporal things receive “later” a linear, one-directional temporality, a temporality which is derived from the homogeneous space and therefore is far from the genuine temporality).6 Deleuze’s aim in Difference and Repetition and Bergsonism is to define thought on the basis of the intensive differences in time instead of the extensive differences of things in homogenous space. This is the nature of the so-called Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism: to search for the real differences at the level of intuition. In this regard, what in Difference and Repetition is called “repetition” is comparable with that which in Bergsonism is called “division”. Dividing the spatio-temporal objects does not result in a difference in kind. Only the division at the level of intuition results in a real difference in kind. In other words, only when a singularity divides itself in time, it results in

1 INTRODUCTION 

9

something different. In the same manner, the repetition of the spatio-­ temporal objects is just a secondary and derivative repetition. The original repetition takes place when a singularity repeats itself in time. On this basis, Deleuze distinguishes between two types of multiplicity. The numerical multiplicity of the fully formed things in space is a secondary and derivative multiplicity in relation to the unity of each thing. The true and original multiplicity is in duration, when a singularity multiplies itself from within. Thus, the difference in space is posterior to identity and its unity, whereas difference in duration or time is prior to it because it constructs the entities and permeates in their identity. It is in this sense that difference for Deleuze is the fundamental character of the given, which is to say, intuition.7 Difference in this sense is not the negative relation between existing entities but is the power of the generation of things. It marks the immanent genesis of things. The articulation of reality is generated immanently in time. It is not provided transcendentally at the outset. Repetition is Deleuze’s name for this generative difference in duration. Deleuze replaces the notion of generality, which is based on differences in space, with that of repetition, which entails differences in duration, in order to build a philosophical logic which is not merely hypothetical and limited to subjective and conceptual constraints but rather is the logic of nature (or say, outside) in its infinite diversity and its productive power. Thus, he distinguishes the laws of nature which are the results of scientific experimentation in closed environments (laboratories) “in which phenomena are defined in terms of a small number of chosen factors” from the real natural phenomena which take place always in “a free state” where the number of factors and their interactions is not totalizable. It is only the former that illegitimately allows the substitution of the order of resemblance with that of equality and derives the notion of generality (DR 3). The knowledge of a totalizable set of factors is hypothetical. In scientific experimentation, all hydrogen atoms behave in the same way because in this case we deal with limited chosen factors. In nature, no two hydrogen atoms are the same. Their repetition does not entail sameness because they are subject to a constant evolution (in other words, there is no hydrogen atom as a substance; there are only processes and fluctuations). The reason why what we consider hydrogen atoms resemble each other must be searched for in the way they are connected together in the process of their immanent production. In Logic of Sense, the notion of series takes the place of the notion of repetition and events take that of duration. Here, the series of events

10 

M. PARSA

(which is Deleuze’s alternative for the set of substances) play the role of repetition in duration. Events are entities that entail their genesis; they are never fully actualized. In other words, far from being the established state of affairs which are distributed in space, events form time. An event is like a chemical solution which is undergoing a reaction, whereas a state of affairs is the result or outcome of that reaction. Unlike substances which are numerable, events are temporal multiplicities; they are processes. This is why one can only sense an event, whereas a substance can be recognized. In the same regard, meaning is the result of numerical multiplicities or spatial differences, while making sense has to do with intensive multiplicity and difference in duration. The pure event and the pure process is distinguished from the actualization of the event in state of affairs and the thing under process. The pure events and the pure processes are incorporeal and virtual yet real. In Chap. 4, in reference to the ancient Stoics, we discuss how Deleuze formulates an ontology of the broad category of something (ti, aliquid) composed of corporeal state of affairs and incorporeal events. There, incorporeal events play the role of the genetic or the processual element of the state of affairs. As Constantine Boundas declares, “in Deleuze’s ontology, processes are made of two intertwining flows—the one virtual, the other actual—with both being real”. The mistake is to reduce our ontology to one of its halves. “Deleuze’s ontology is an ontology of forces bent on correcting the mistake we make whenever we think exclusively in terms of things and their qualities: in privileging extension and extended magnitudes, we overlook the intensive genesis of the extended” (Boundas, 2006: 4). Pure processes and pure events are incorporeal. The incorporeal subsists in the corporeal state of affairs and constitutes the genetic part of its reality. Virtual intensities subsist in actual extended (and existing) things. The real is not limited to existing (and extended) things. It includes also (and primarily) the subsisting genetic element. Intensities as the generator of extensities are their genetic element or their real condition. In Chap. 6, we discuss how Deleuze changes the meaning of Kantian conditioning by transforming his formal condition into a real conditioning. In this way, he reaches a real transcendental which is distinguished from the Kantian formal transcendental. Now, intensity is the real transcendental and Kant’s transcendental logic is transformed into a transcendental ontology.8 According to Deleuze, the transcendental must be immanent. It cannot be an external pattern, but an internal force.

1 INTRODUCTION 

11

And the transcendental as the condition of experience is indeed the condition of existence. Thus, the corporeal state of affairs is generated out of corporeal mixture or chaos which includes the genetic element or the incorporeal surface within itself.9 Order emerges out of chaos, instead of being established in a transcendent world. The chaos does not receive the order from a transcendent establishment in order to become the cosmos; it generates order from within itself. Deleuze’s ontology of the broad category of something composed of existence and subsistence entails that a chaos subsists immanently in any order. This intertwined immanentism and transcendentalism is the result of taking “intuition as method,” thus basing logic on true differences in kind, which is, differences in duration. The logic of sense, in this regard, would be an attempt to build a temporal logic. This is why Deleuze introduces a new dimension of time for events. Logic of sense as the logic of events demands Aion as the true dimension of time.10 It is only in this way that logic can join existence. This is why the logic of sense is the logic of genesis, as that with which we can follow the steps of generation and the inductive relation between them.

Simulacrum and Production Deleuze’s reading of Plato can be very illustrative for understanding his early philosophy. This reading can be found in “Plato and the Simulacrum”, which is the first part of the first appendix of Logic of Sense called “The Simulacrum and Ancient Philosophy”, and also in the first pages of Logic of Sense. At the center of Deleuze’s reading of Plato stands an alternative duality, different from the duality of Ideas and images, that he introduces and claims that leads us to the motivation of Platonism. In order for reaching this new Platonic dualism, Deleuze demonstrates the existence of a new realm in Plato’s work, which is neither that of Ideas nor the images of Ideas. This new realm is called by Deleuze simulacra (the Latin word for Plato’s “phantasmata”).11 The new Platonic dualism that Deleuze introduces in his reading is between simulacra (phantasmata) and images (eikons). In “Plato and the Simulacrum”, Deleuze demonstrates how Plato introduces the simulacrum but at the same time suppresses it and spends a great deal of effort to expel it to the realm of non-being. As will be seen, this underlies a paradox in Plato’s work on Deleuze’s reading. On this

12 

M. PARSA

basis, Deleuze sometimes distinguishes between Plato and Platonism, because while in Plato’s text this paradox is struggling to survive, the Platonic tradition attempts to totally get rid of it. Thus, Platonism is Plato minus that which he wanted to exclude from his philosophy but had to preserve in some form, namely the simulacrum. Platonism here refers to a straightforward reading of Plato, based on the duality of Ideas and images, and the philosophical tradition which is based on this reading. Here, “to be” means to be the copy or the image of a model or Idea. By focusing on the notion of simulacrum in his reading, Deleuze changes the meaning of Platonic “to be” and brings to the light the being of that which Platonism considers as non-being, that is, the being of simulacrum. Simulacrum is defined by Deleuze as pure image or pure copy without being the image or copy of a model or Idea. Indeed, Deleuze distinguishes between the simulacrum and the image by claiming that there can be an image without an Idea or a model. Thus, the introduction of the simulacrum is the result of Deleuze’s attempt to think of Plato’s philosophy while the world of Ideas is eliminated. Through this elimination of the Idea and keeping the copy or appearance, Deleuze claims that he reverses Platonism and delegates the task of generation or production to the copies themselves.12 This reversal of Platonism can be considered as the departure point of Deleuze’s early philosophy. As the result of this reversal, there would be no primary model to form being, and being has to contain its genesis. Simulacrum signifies the production of copies without any model, or in other words, the constant immanent production of copies. So, in a sense here copies themselves play the role of model. But a copy as model does not generate the same, but rather it generates the other or the different. It would be a radically different model: “If the simulacrum still has a model, it is another model, a model of the Other…” (LdS 297; LoS 258). Thus, the reversal of Platonism entails the transition from the notion of the repetition of the same towards the repetition of difference. The Platonic Idea is the model of identity and unity because it is what preserves an entity as what it is and assures that the products, despite their differences, have the same essence. The essence is the trace of the Idea in the copy, that which guarantees that the Idea is still there and protects the solidity of the product. There is no place here for the production of a new entity, and the only plurality is the pre-established plurality of Ideas and essences. But the world of simulacra needs another model, a model which does not produce the same, but differences. Simulacrum is the copy of a copy … without a model. But since

1 INTRODUCTION 

13

there is no model, the copies are not the same. The simulacrum underlies the repetition of difference. In what we can call Platonic repetition, there is an original or a model that repeats itself in the secondary, tertiary … copies. The original is the essence which is there without being affected by the copies. Deleuze’s notion of repetition, as the result of his reversal of Platonism, entails a different structure in which the essence is a product. Simulacrum marks the originality of repetition, the original repetition. Daniel Smith in his reading of Deleuze’s Platonism explains this point clearly: There is not an originary ‘thing’ (model) which could eventually be uncovered behind the disguises, displacements, and illusions of repetition (copies); rather, disguise and displacement are the essence of repetition itself, which is in itself an original and positive principle. (Smith, 2012: 23)

Repetition, according to Deleuze, is not the bare repetition of a pure identity in its purity, but rather it entails always disguises and changing the masks. Deleuze here follows Nietzsche’s expression that behind each mask there is another mask, behind each cave a deeper cave. There is no original face behind the mask.13 In Platonism, the image masks the original; in reversed Platonism there is only the superimposition of masks. In Platonism, the sun shines behind the cave; in reversed Platonism behind the cave is a deeper cave. Therefore, we do not find here a simple reversal of Platonism in which the copy takes the place of the model. The aim of this reversal is to overturn the economy of models and copies, or Ideas and images. The reversal of Platonism means the abolition of both the world of Ideas and the world of the images of Ideas. This is the basis of Deleuze’s distinction between the simulacrum and the image; the image is defined in the economy of the essence, but the simulacrum overturns this economy. In order to reach this conclusion, Deleuze focuses on the motivation of the theory of Ideas. He claims that this motivation is to provide a criterion to select between true and false images. This theory arises, not only to announce the primacy of Ideas, but more importantly, to assure that there are true copies, true derivations and true secondaries. The reversal of Platonism does not mean to put the secondary at the place of the primary (Idea) while preserving the order. According to Deleuze, the main aim of this reversal is to establish a new economy in which the relation between

14 

M. PARSA

elements is different from copying and resemblance: it defines production as relation: copying without model is producing. Platonism makes a hierarchy between the “sameness” of the Ideas and the resemblance of copies. Sameness belongs only to the Ideas while copies enjoy only resemblance. Resemblance, here, is a diminished sameness. At this point, Deleuze argues, Plato can distinguish between internal resemblance and external resemblance, the former defines the being of copies and the latter defines the non-being of simulacra. All trees resemble each other because of their internal resemblance with the Idea of the tree. They share the same essence. But a tree and a tower (which is made in the form of a tree) just resemble each other externally. The resemblance here is just a semblance, a simulacrum. Now, the reversal of Platonism by Deleuze is to eliminate the essence and to make all resemblances external. In this way, the repetition of the things that resemble each other would essentially underlie the difference between them. External resemblance entails generation. The case is not that some of the entities have internal resemblance (i.e. have the same essence) but is that an entity comes out of itself and generates external resemblance. In this new economy, the essence exists but only as a result, an outcome, if the production of the entity is taken into account. A tree is a relatively stable product, but is not essentially so, and after all, it is a product. What is real is becoming tree, an event. If we reread Plato’s work based on this motivation, the main Platonic distinction would not be the distinction between the Idea and the image but rather that between two kinds of images: copies (eikons) and simulacra (phantasmata). The crucial point is that this is not at all a difference in degree but rather a difference in kind, for if it was a difference in degree, it would underlie nothing but the submission of the simulacrum to the economy of Ideas and images, models and copies. This difference in kind as the result of the reversal of Platonism is necessary to give the simulacrum an affirmative voice.14 In the First Series of Logic of Sense on the Paradoxes of Pure Becoming, Deleuze provides a similar reading of Plato’s text, focusing on a distinction Plato, in Parmenides and Philebus, makes between two kinds of entities. In Deleuze’s reading, the distinction is as the following: first, the “limited and measured things, the fixed qualities, which can be permanent or temporary, but always suppose pauses and rests, the establishments of presents, the assignations of subjects” (LdS 9; LoS 1), and second, “the pure becoming without measure, a veritable becoming-mad which never rests … always escapes the present, coincides the future and past, the more

1 INTRODUCTION 

15

and the less, the too much and not enough, in the simultaneity of an indocile matter” (LdS 9; LoS 1–2). This is a distinction between a docile and an indocile matter, which is comparable with the distinction between being and simulacrum in “Plato and the Simulacrum”. The former is being, that which receives the action of the Idea and accepts being a copy, while the latter is pure becoming, that which escapes or eludes the action of the Idea, and never rests to receive it. It is the simulacrum, the rebellious matter, which as becoming is essentially different from beings.15 In Plato’s own text, this rebellious (non-)being appears only in order to be suppressed. But in Deleuze’s reversal, the elimination of the world of Ideas would be the affirmation of pure becoming as that which entails its own genesis. Thus, the affirmation of simulacrum as the being of non-­ being is indeed the affirmation of pure becoming: We recognize this Platonic dualism. It is not at all the dualism of the intelligible and the sensible, of Idea and matter, or of Ideas and bodies. It is a more profound and secret dualism hidden in sensible and material bodies themselves. It is a subterranean dualism between that which receives the action of the Idea and that which eludes this action. It is not the distinction between the Model and the copy, but rather between copies and simulacra. Pure becoming, the unlimited, is the matter of the simulacrum insofar as it eludes the action of the Idea and insofar as it contests both model and copy at once. (LdS 10; LoS 2)

Paul Livingston, in the third chapter of his study, The Politics of Logic, which concerns “Deleuze, Plato, and the Paradox of Sense” makes the claim that the pure becoming in Deleuze’s reading can solve the main problem of Platonic theory recognized by Aristotle, namely the problem of participation. Livingston concludes, The question here is not, therefore, the question of the relationship of the static Idea to its static participant, but of what allows the participant to participate, and thus to ‘receive’ the various forms as it proceeds from one state to another. (Livingston, 2012: 106)

The main problem of Platonic theory is the consideration of both the model and the copy as static entities, or in other words, as pre-established entities. This halts any procedure of participation. Thus, the rebel becoming that Plato tries to repress is precisely that which his theory needs to connect the separated realms. The relationship between the static

16 

M. PARSA

participant and the static model would be resemblance. This is what Deleuze, in other contexts, condemns as representation. The simulacrum introduces the production of entities, which entails the becoming of any static entity out of an immanent Idea, namely, difference. In the second half of “Plato and the Simulacrum”, Deleuze relates the notion of the simulacrum with the power of art. This is a crucial move for our reading of this notion as underlying immanent production. It is well known that Plato, in the Republic, expels the artist from the city. Deleuze, by discussing the power of art in his text on Plato and the simulacrum, compares the repression of the simulacrum, which is the repression of pure becoming and pure production, with the repulsion of the artist from the city. Thus, the reversal of Platonism, suggested by Deleuze, should entail the affirmation of the productive power of art. In order to do so, we need to distinguish between two types of art. First, we have iconic or mimetic art, and second, we have simulacral or phantasmatic art.16 Plato wants art but only insofar as it is subjugated to philosophy, in the same manner as he approves the images insofar as they accept being secondary to the Ideas. But he cannot tolerate an originary image (simulacrum) and the originary art. According to Deleuze, Platonism wants to marginalize art and artistic or simulacral production and submit it to iconic or mimetic philosophy. Through the reversal of Platonism, he attempts to change this economy and introduce a different philosophical thought in which artistic production is not auxiliary to representational thought. It is in this sense that, at the end of “Plato and the Simulacrum”, he claims that modern art and literature heralds the triumph of simulacra, because in modernity art and literature think inherently. Or in other words, since Platonism cannot eliminate the simulacrum but only represses it and it is always at work there, even in Plato’s text, one can say, modernity is a time when the artistic production is not latent anymore, but instead comes to the surface. This can be called a Deleuzian reading of the superficiality of the artistic work of the figures like Andy Warhol. Is it not the repetitive and differential power of simulacrum which forms the main theme of his paintings?

Simulacrum and Naturalism Deleuze elaborates a similar notion of the simulacrum in the second part of the first appendix of Logic of Sense, “Lucretius and the Simulacrum”, which deals with the Epicurean atomism. Deleuze’s reading of Lucretius and Epicurus in this text is based on an important connection between the

1 INTRODUCTION 

17

notion of simulacrum and the idea of a philosophical naturalism. According to Deleuze, Epicureanism is one of the first attempts to consider the inherent diversity of nature, and more importantly, the production of the diverse in nature. If the other philosophers before them are interested in the diverse only in so far as they use it to explain unity, Epicurus and Lucretius take the diverse in itself as the subject matter of philosophy, or in other words, they initiate philosophical naturalism, which is nothing but the essentiality of the diverse in philosophy: Following Epicurus, Lucretius was able to determine as ‘naturalism’ the speculative and practical object of philosophy … The products of nature are inseparable from a diversity which is essential to them, but to think the diverse as diverse is a task on which, according to Lucretius, all previous philosophers had run aground. (LdS 307; LoS 266)

Epicurus and, following him, Lucretius introduce a world composed of atoms which are infinite in number and moving by nature. Nature is composed of infinite atoms and infinite void. Atoms are invisible because they are smaller than the minimum visible size. The invisible moving atoms collide and form visible objects or composites. Thus, Epicurean atoms as the sources of sensible objects are not themselves sensible, but intelligible by thought. Here is Pierre Hadot’s summary of Epicurean atomism: The bodies which we see—the bodies of living beings, but also of the earth and the stars—are made up of indivisible, immutable bodies, infinite in number. These are the atoms, which fall at equal speed in a straight line, as a result of their weight, in the infinite void. They collide and engender composite bodies as soon as they deviate infinitesimally from their trajectory. In this way bodies and worlds are born, and also disintegrate, as a result of the continuous movement of atoms. In the infinity of time and of the void, there is an infinity of worlds which appear and disappear, and our world is only one among them. (Hadot, 2002: 119)

The notion of infinity and infinitesimal deviation are the necessary conditions of the production of diverse things and worlds (being born and disintegrating). We return back to these notions below. But first, let us notice that, as the first book of On the Nature of Things suggests, the motivation behind this theory is a criticism of the previous philosophers on the basis of the fact that, according to them, the diversity of nature was only a departure point to reach a unity. No philosopher before Epicureans

18 

M. PARSA

performed the affirmation of the diverse for the sake of the diverse in his philosophy. Thus, for example, Lucretius criticizes Heraclitus’ theory of fire as the ultimate substance of things based on a simple argument: “I demand to know how things can be marked by such variety, if they are made of fire pure and simple?” (Lucretius 20; Book I, lines 640–650). And then he applies the same argument against the other theories belonging to “those who have chosen air as the original constituent material of things, or those who have thought that water by itself forms things, or that earth creates everything and converts itself into the substance of all things—all these thinkers have evidently strayed far from the path of truth” (Lucretius 22; line 710). But more importantly for our purpose, what interests Lucretius is not only the affirmation of the existing diversity of nature and its irreducibility, but also the production of the diverse: But if by chance you imagine that fire and the substance of earth and breezy air and sparkling water combine in such a way that the union involves no alteration of their nature, you will find that nothing can be formed from them, whether animate, or of inanimate substance like a tree. The fact is that in the mixture of this heterogeneous mass each element will exhibit its own special quality. (Lucretius 24; lines 770–780)

Therefore, the theory of atoms appears to compensate a deficiency in the previous theories, which is their incapability to explain the diversity of nature and the production of the diverse. Atoms can be combined and produce new things. Different “combinations and movements” of atoms lead to the production of new things (Lucretius 25; line 820). In book II, Lucretius begins to describe his theory of atoms. According to this theory, the world is composed of moving atoms that are capable of collide and form infinitely many compounds. The main characteristics of this theory can be summarized as the following theses. First, although there is a great variety of atomic shapes (book II, lines 333–380), the shapes of the atoms are not infinite in number but the atoms of each shape are infinite in number (book II, lines 478–568). Second, all atoms, even those in compounds, are in constant motion (book II, lines 80–141). Third, there must be a swerve (clinamen) in the collision between atoms in order to form these compounds (book II, lines 216–293). The notion of clinamen, or swerve, stands at the center of Deleuze’s reading of Epicureanism both in Difference and Repetition and “Lucretius

1 INTRODUCTION 

19

and the Simulacrum”. This notion is the same property that Hadot, in the quoted remark, describes as “infinitesimal deviation” as the necessary condition for the production of the composites. Lucretius provides the following argument for the necessity of the swerve: If they were not apt to swerve [nisi declinare solerent], all would fall downward through the unfathomable void like drops of rain; no collisions between primary elements would occur, and no blows would be effected, with the result that nature would never have created anything. (Lucretius 41; book II, lines 220–230)

As Lucretius makes it clear, the swerve would be necessary for the creation of things in nature. Deleuze, in his reading, emphasizes on the role of this notion as an element of indetermination within the Epicurean system which is necessary to provide the unlimited capability to produce the diversity of things. Indeed, he makes a connection between the element of indetermination and the production of diversity. The point of this connection is that, according to Deleuze, swerve as indetermination is indeed an immanent determination. In Difference and Repetition, he defines clinamen as, “the original determination of the direction of movement, the synthesis of movement and its direction which relates one atom to another” (DR 232). Thus, it is not just the element of chance, but rather, a determination which is pertinent to the collision of each set of atoms. In this way, Epicureans use the notion of clinamen to synthesize their materialism with the fact that freedom exists. As Lucretius in book II writes, If the spirit is not ruled by necessity in all its acts, if it escapes domination and is not reduced to total passivity, it is because of this slight deviation of atoms, in a place and a time determined by nothing. (Lucretius 289–293)

Freedom exists because there is deviation in the collision of atoms and therefore Epicurean materialism does not entail a mechanism. In this way, the source of freedom in us is in fact in the material world in which we take part. For Deleuze, this amounts to the absence of any external determination and achieves the idea of the immanent self-determination of the collision of atoms in the form of “the reciprocal determination”: “the clinamen is the reciprocal determination…” (DR 232). Instead of an external agent that determines the movement of atoms and the formation

20 

M. PARSA

of composites, they are determined by the reciprocal determination of the atoms themselves. Two conclusions result from this reading. First, the fact that any determination is a reciprocal determination in the Epicurean system is to say that within this system we deal only with multiplicities and there is no unified center that provides a transcendent determination. Second, the clinamen is not only the declination of atoms in the collision, but also the agent of synthesis. It is that which synthesizes the atoms in the compounds. The first point provides for a basis for Deleuze’s idea of genesis, because it helps Epicureanism get rid of the Platonic image of creation as the realization of Ideas and instead amounts to an immanent self-creation. The second point helps him to formulate his idea of an a priori synthesis which initiates the formation of compounds or objects. Putting these two points together gives us an image of what can be called a Deleuzian cosmology (or better, chaosmology). Deleuze is likely to claim that everything begins with a swerve, a deviation. But this claim entails a commitment to the eternal existence of the universe, which is an Epicurean belief. Therefore, each beginning would be a beginning again, any production would be a re-production.17 This can also be concluded from Deleuze’s reading of Plato which is discussed above. The elimination of the Platonic Ideas as origins results in the eternal production of simulacra which is always already a re-production. Therefore, the universe ought to be infinite, as we have seen in Hadot’s description, and Epicurus declares in the Letter to Herodotus that, “in addition, the totality of things is unlimited both by virtue of the multitude of the bodies and the magnitude of the void” (Diogenes Laertius, 2018: 509; book 10, § 42). Deleuze reconciles the Epicurean idea of infinity and the notion of clinamen to conclude the infinite (indeterminate) production of the diverse in nature. In both Difference and Repetition and “Lucretius and the Simulacrum”, he focuses more on the embodiment of the Epicurean infinity in the notion of clinamen as an indeterminate that determines itself. In “Lucretius and the Simulacrum”, Deleuze explains this inherent indeterminacy, or embodied infinity, by “the impossibility of bringing causes together into a whole” (LdS 312; LoS 270). In the course of the text, Deleuze defines nature as an infinite sum without totality: Nature as the production of diverse can only be an infinite sum, that is, a sum which does not totalize its own elements. There is no combination capable of encompassing all the elements of Nature at once, there is no

1 INTRODUCTION 

21

unique world or total universe… Nature is not collective, but rather distributive, to the extent that the laws of Nature… distribute parts which cannot be totalized. Nature is not attributive, but rather conjunctive: it expresses itself through ‘and’, and not through ‘is’. (LdS 308; LoS 267)

Deleuze turns the Epicurean idea of infinity into his “intotalizability”, which is to say, things exist “one by one”, but not “all at once”. This is reconcilable with the idea of nature as infinite production. If everything is ceaselessly under production, there would be no “all at once”. In this picture, nature is an infinite distribution, or as appears in Difference and Repetition and Logic of Sense, “a nomadic distribution”. This is the main difference between what Deleuze calls naturalism and what he calls Platonism. In fact, naturalism is the result of the reversal of Platonism and the affirmation of the indocile simulacra. The notion of simulacrum appears also in Deleuze’s reading of Epicureanism in “Lucretius and the Simulacrum”. It is the Latin word (simulacra in plural) that Lucretius uses in On the Nature of Things and is translated simply into “image” in the official English translation of Martin Ferguson. James Bennett in his study of Deleuze and Epicureanism claims that Lucretius’ notion of simulacra is exactly the same as the notion of eidola that Epicurus uses in Letter to Herodotus and therefore is the Latin translation that Lucretius uses for Epicurus’ original term. Thus, Bennett claims that what Deleuze means by Epicurean simulacra is in fact Epicurus’ notion of eidola and directs his reading more towards Epicurus’ text (Bennett, 2013: 132). In this text, eidola are defined as the “outline” or form of atomic compounds, which are themselves composed of atoms, but these atoms are “much finer than the objects of which they are the outlines” (Bennett, 2013: 132). In Lucretius’ On the Nature of Things, the notion of simulacra appears in the fourth book which is about the images which are emitted by things and define their forms (lines 54–216), which are fine atoms in the same manner. Thus, the identity that Bennett claims between the Greek word of eidola and the Latin word of simulacra appears to be well grounded. They refer to the same notion which is treated by Epicurus and Lucretius similarly. As stated, according to Epicurus and Lucretius, atoms are in constant motion, even those in compounds. Now, Epicurus claims that eidola, as defining the outline or form, are very fast, or more precisely “as fast as thought [hama noêmati]” (Bennett, 2013: 132). In this reading, eidola (or Lucretius’ simulacra) are the atoms that provide the form of the objects

22 

M. PARSA

that we perceive. From this notion arises the distinction between the true infinite and the false infinite which forms the center of Deleuze’s reading of Epicureanism. Eidola produce the image of objects, that which we can perceive. Atoms, including eidola or simulacra, are only thinkable, because they are too fine and too fast (“as fast as thought”) to be sensed (thought is much finer than sense-perception). Thus, simulacra produce the images also as illusions or mirages, if one makes an infinity based on the produced image. Deleuze describes it as the following: “In virtue of their speed, which causes them to be and to act below the sensible minimum, simulacra produce the mirage of a false infinite in the images they form” (LdS 321; LoS 277). The example of this false infinite would be the infinite duration of the soul, which is the source of suffering and psychic disturbance. Furthermore, the same mechanism is at work when we perceive the external objects and consider them as permanent. Bennett mentions a second example: Since eidola are not perceivable as such, one is only aware of perceiving permanent external objects. But the permanency of such objects is, for Epicurus, a function of opinion: we believe we see permanent objects or continuous motion, but we see eidola. (Bennett, 2013: 141)

Simulacra mark the transient or momentary form of atomic compounds that are in permanent motion. The false infinite makes the resulting image permanent, whereas the true infinite is the permanency of the motion itself. In this way, in Epicureanism, physics and ethics join together. The affirmation of the true infinite, which is, the fact that everything is composed of atoms which are in movement by nature and contingently (because of the clinamen) form objects. The resulting fact that nature is capable of the infinite production of new objects, helps us to get rid of the false infinite that brings us psychological pain and suffering. The true infinite is the immanent infinite, that is, the infinite capability of atoms in producing new compounds. The false infinite is transcendent infinite which appears in religious thought in its different forms. Epicureanism is an effort to demystify the false infinite and to obliterate the religious beliefs from the philosophical thought in order to submit philosophy to “the image of the free man” who is first and foremost free of the pains and sufferings of the soul. Brooke Holmes, in his study on Deleuze and Epicureanism titled “Deleuze, Lucretius, and the Simulacrum of Naturalism”, summarizes this point as the following:

1 INTRODUCTION 

23

the simulacrum is too rapid and too ephemeral to be captured by the senses … [therefore] it gives rise to myths and indeed to the most disturbing myths of infinite pleasure and infinite pain. (Holmes, 2012: 336)

Thus, the false infinite is “a false impression of will and desire” to believe in “an infinite capacity for pleasure and an infinite possibility of torment” (LdS 321; LoS 277). This is the result of believing in the permanent existence of the soul and the forms, to mistake the illusionary stability of the image, which is just a result, for the reality of what exists. Epicureans, by putting the true infinity of atoms in place of the infinity of the soul and the forms, perform an early reversal of Platonism and Aristotelianism, and claim that there is an ethical result for this replacement. Their result is the replacement of suffering by joy, and a religious philosophy by a true philosophy. As Deleuze declares, this true philosophy ceases to be the knowledge of “Being, the One and the Whole” which are “the myth of a false philosophy totally impregnated by theology” (LdS 323; LoS 279). It is worth stressing that believing in permanent pleasure (which is the other side of the theological coin of permanent suffering) is introduced in Epicureanism as the source of suffering. What Epicureanism introduces as joy or happiness is not at all a permanent pleasure, but rather the joyful affirmation of the infinite movement and the unpredictable changeability of everything. Therefore, Epicureanism as the joyful affirmation of the diversity of the natural world and the production of the diverse in nature stands against “the knowledge of Being, the One and the Whole” which are the theological forms of a false philosophy. This marks philosophy as naturalism which amounts to what Deleuze calls “demystification”, which is, denouncing mystifications and false infinities. This is only possible through the figure of the simulacrum which is not a degraded copy but rather marks the infinite reproduction of things without any model. Simulacrum, this notion, destructs the stability of objects and reveals the depth where they are under a permanent production. The task of philosophy as naturalism is to bring the simulacrum to the surface, in both a Platonic and an Epicurean sense. In this way, the indocile matter and the hidden and productive world of atoms join together. Holmes in his study attempted to relate the notion of simulacrum that appears in Deleuze’s reading of Plato with the same notion that appears in his reading of Lucretius: “the simulacrum’s relationship to the object is not that of a copy to its model … The Lucretian simulacrum is born, rather, out of

24 

M. PARSA

the atomic quivering of the object” (Holmes, 2012: 330). As we mentioned, in the fourth book of On the Nature of Things, Lucretius discusses the emission of simulacra from the objects. As Holmes claims, Deleuze reads this emission as “the body’s continual reproduction of itself” which is “an expenditure of matter that necessitates a renewal of atoms from the infinite bank” (Holmes, 2012: 330). This is nothing but the anti-Platonic affirmation of rebellious matter as the genetic essence of existence and the constant production of the diverse in nature.

Towards an Ontology of Sense Naturalism is the reverse of Platonism. They deal differently with the problem of diversity. Platonism aims to reduce it and control it, but naturalism is an attempt to philosophize with the diverse per se. Naturalism amounts to immanentism because it rejects any transcendent principle that would reduce the diversity into unity. But neither naturalism (except in the appendices) nor immanence are the central themes of Logic of Sense (although they are always present in the background). What Deleuze in Logic of Sense puts against Platonism is the notion of surface in contrast with height and depth, a notion whose founders are not Epicureans but the Stoics. In several occasions in the text, Deleuze insists that Stoic philosophy provides a more complicated and richer naturalism in comparison with the Epicureans. Here, the Epicurean “and” gives its place to the Stoic “infinitive verb”.18 Deleuze’s aim in Logic of Sense is to reformulate philosophy so that any Platonic hierarchy turns into a horizontal processual structure. Therefore, instead of the vertical cause, we have the immanent quasi-cause, and instead of the profound essence we have the surface of sense.19 In Deleuze’s thought diversity comes always from outside, which is to say, outside of subjectivity or the faculty of understanding. The Bergsonian notion of intuition defines the site of the encounter with the outside. In this regard, the naturalist diversity takes the name of the intensive or qualitative multiplicity. Therefore, the Stoic infinitive verb provides a better instrument in comparison with the Epicurean “and” because it puts more emphasis on the becoming and generation. Nature is not an infinite sum, but a primordial conflagrant fire. Moreover, it indicates becoming at the level of encounter. There are two ways to grasp the diversity of nature. Through understanding we represent it and therefore reduce it to the

1 INTRODUCTION 

25

established subjective structure; through intuition we make a real encounter, we take part in its multiplication and in its becoming. Francois Zourabichvili in a new introduction (2012) for his well-known Deleuze: A Philosophy of the Event (1994) claims, “There is no ‘ontology of Deleuze’” (Zourabichvili, 2012: 36). He makes this claim based on the evidence that “being” is not a Deleuzian theme: “If there is an orientation of the philosophy of Deleuze, this is it: the extinction of the term ‘being’ and therefore of ontology” (Zourabichvili, 2012: 37). Being is replaced by “difference”. And the only true difference is the difference which is encountered (in intuition). Therefore, Deleuze’s main problematic is not existence but experience. Deleuze is a transcendental philosopher who examines the conditions of experience. And if transcendentalism is coined as it is in Kantian philosophy, it would not be easy to reconcile it with ontology. But Deleuze uses the term ontology in an affirmative manner. His use of this term is always in relation to the univocity of Being. Indeed, if there is a Deleuzian ontology, it would be that of the univocity of being: Philosophy merges with ontology, but ontology merges with the univocity of Being … The univocity of Being does not mean that there is one and the same Being; on the contrary, beings are multiple and different, they are always produced by a disjunctive synthesis, and they themselves are disjointed and divergent, membra disjuncta. The univocity of Being signifies that Being is Voice, that it is said …. (LdS 210; LoS 179)20

The fact that in the univocity “Being is Voice” and “it is said”, together with the fact that Deleuze, through his reading of the Stoics, makes an inherent connection between the event and linguistic sense, indicates that an ontology can be the ontology of sense and of the intuitive encounter. In other words, it is possible to think of a post-critical or a transcendental ontology. Things make sense only when we encounter their becoming, their duration and their movement of difference (they have signification or meaning when we represent their essence). Therefore, the ontology of the univocity of Being is the ontology of events as the real conditions of experience; in this sense, it is a transcendental ontology. Deleuze’s passage from the possible experience to the actual experience is indeed a passage from Kant’s transcendental logic towards a transcendental ontology. This is my response to the question that Zourabichvili himself posed: “The question that every reader of Deleuze must confront if he wants to avoid

26 

M. PARSA

that bias … is how this thinker could coordinate two modes of approach which at first blush seem incompatible: transcendental and ontological” (Zourabichvili, 2012: 37). And he himself rightly introduces Deleuze’s immanence as the synthesis of the transcendental and the ontological (Zourabichvili, 2012: 39). It is only by the mediation of this transcendentalism that naturalism as the philosophy of the diverse joins the univocity of Being and becomes an ontology. What faces its extinction in the philosophy of Deleuze, in Zourabichvili’s reading, is the pre-critical ontology which is nothing but the theory of extensive objects or state of affairs. The epistemological turn (Kant’s transcendentalism) underlies the conditions of experiencing these objects. This is why, according to Deleuze, pre-critical ontology and critical epistemology are two sides of the same coin. A true ontology must be an ontology of sense and duration, of events and becoming. If we focus only on pure event and pure becoming, only on incorporeal surface of sense, we would be doing logic. The logic of sense deals with the incorporeal surface. But in Deleuze’s Logic of Sense both events and their actualization, both surface and depth, are taken into account. Hence, despite Zourabichvili’s reading, logic and ontology do not form an alternative when considered at the level of sense.21 Although the term ontology, in its pre-critical sense, has a bad reputation in post-Kantian philosophy (a reputation which is seemingly retrieved with the new movements of Badiou or Gabriel), and Derrida’s accusation that Heidegger’s use of the word being, which has, according to him, a profound affinity with presence which makes it difficult to use in philosophy, the term logic, in its history is likewise not innocent. If ontology is guilty, it is so in its both parts: onto and logy. This is why Deleuze’s logic of sense stands against almost all logical traditions, from Aristotelian logic of essence and formal logic to Kantian transcendental logic (with the exception of Stoic logic or Lewis Carroll’s logic which were never taken seriously in the history of logic). Thus, instead of forming an alternative between logic and ontology, we should think of a logic without logos and an ontology without being. Indeed, the reason why the logical systems fail is that they cannot establish a genuine relation with the exterior, or rather, existence. Therefore, I decided to keep the “pompous name of ontology” in my reading in order to demonstrate the deviation towards existence that Deleuze induces into logic. What is there to do is create a logic and an ontology which are not that of essences or beings, but that of sense and events. In order for this, Deleuze attempts to establish a new philosophy for which he sometimes uses the

1 INTRODUCTION 

27

traditional philosophical concepts that he rejects (the univocity of Being, quasi-causality, logic, etc.) and sometimes borrows terms from other disciplines to create philosophical concepts.22

Notes 1. In this regard, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason reads, “The explanation of the possibility of synthetic judgements is a problem with which general logic has nothing to do, indeed whose name it need not even know. But in a transcendental logic it is the most important business of all, and indeed the only business if the issue is the possibility of synthetic a priori judgments and likewise the conditions the domain of their validity” (CPR 281, A154, B193). Or elsewhere, “Now, one can take it as a certain and useful warning that general logic, considered as an organon, is always a logic of illusion, i. e., is dialectical. For since it teaches us nothing at all about the content of cognition but only the formal conditions of the agreement with the understanding, which are entirely indifferent with regard to the objects the effrontery of using it as an tool (organon) for an expansion and extension of its information, or at least the pretension of so doing, comes down to nothing but idle chatter, asserting or impeaching whatever one wants with some plausibility.” (CPR 198–199, A61–62, B86). On the distinction between formal logic and transcendental logic in Kant, see Manuel Bremer’s short essay “Transcendental Logic Redefined”, Review of Contemporary Philosophy 7 (Bremer, 2008). 2. As Deleuze states, “The logic of sense is necessarily determined to posit between sense and nonsense an original type of intrinsic relation, a mode of co-presence” (LdS 85; LoS 68). Hereafter, references to Logique du sens and Logic of Sense are given in this form: (LdS, French page reference; LoS, English page reference). All translations are from the official English translation of Mark Lester, Charles Stivale and Constantin V. Boundas. 3. This notion of irrationality is posed first by Francois Zourabichvili in his Deleuze: A Philosophy of the Event. In this work, he states: “Insistent on the difference between irrationalism and illogicism, Deleuze draws the consequences of his critique of the dogmatic image: thought refers to a logic of the outside, necessarily irrational, that challenges us to affirm chance. Irrational does not mean that everything is permitted, but that thought only thinks out of a positive relationship to what is not yet thinking” (Zourabichvili, 2012: 57). Thus, protesting against the confusion of irrationalism and illogicism, Zourabichvili attempts to demonstrate the irrationalism of Deleuze’s logic of sense.

28 

M. PARSA

4. Joe Hughes in his commentary on Difference and Repetition defines the term singularity in terms of intuition: “the word ‘singular’ doesn’t mean ‘notable’, nor does it refer to a point which gathers other points. Rather it means ‘single’ or absolutely individual. It refers to the immediate object of intuition without reference to any other object” (Hughes, 2009: 30). 5. In the existing literature about Deleuze’s philosophy the role of Bergsonism is mostly explained through the notion of “virtuality”. I prefer here to focus more on the notion of duration (which is very close to virtuality) because of its association with time, which is a central notion in Logic of Sense. Through duration we can emphasize the idea that a real difference in kind is that in which the terms are separated and connected together through time. As will be discussed, difference in itself is difference in time. It is becoming. For an account of Deleuze’s reading of Bergson focusing on the notion of virtuality see Moulard-Leonard (2008). 6. “When we divide something up according to its natural articulations…, we have: on the one hand, the aspect of space, by which the thing can only differ in degree from other things and from itself (augmentation, diminution); and on the other hand, the aspect of duration, by which the thing differs in kind from all others and from itself (alteration)” (Bergsonism 31). In the first case, it is the same thing that augments or diminishes or differs from other self-identical things; in the second, the thing really differs, it alters, first and foremost from itself. 7. Adrian Moore, in his chapter on Deleuze in The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics, describes Deleuze’s notion of “difference” as “temporal separation as a basic discriminator, something more fundamental than any articulation of reality into discrete entities and their various features, a kind of difference that is to be thought positively” (Moore, 2012: 556). 8. The term “transcendental ontology” is originated from Markus Gabriel’s book, where he discusses the post-Kantian German Idealism (in the work of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel) under this title. In the introduction, he provides this preliminary definition: “Transcendental ontology investigates the ontological conditions of our conditions of access to what there is. It sets out with the simple insight that the subject (in whichever way conceived) exists, that the analysis of the concept of existence is, hence, methodologically prior to the analysis of the subject’s access to existence. The subject with its conceptual capacities actually exists; it is part of the world” (Gabriel, 2011: ix). Deleuze’s position corresponds well with this reading. In his account, this definition can be translated to: The transcendental (the virtual, the incorporeal) exists (subsists). It is part of the world (part of reality). 9. This entails Deleuze’s transcendental materialism which will be discussed in the final section of Chap. 7.

1 INTRODUCTION 

29

10. Aion as logical time will be discussed in Chap. 4. 11. The reason why Deleuze uses the Latin word in his reading of Plato is the connection he wants to make between this notion and a similar notion in Lucretius who was writing in Latin. I will discuss Deleuze’s reading of Lucretius and its relation with his reading of Plato later in this introduction. 12. As Deleuze declares at the beginning of “Plato and the Simulacrum”, he follows here Nietzsche’s advice in defining “the task of his philosophy or, more generally, the task of the philosophy of the future” as “to reverse Platonism” (LdS 292; LoS 253). Nietzsche’s idea of the reversal of Platonism is first elaborated by Heidegger in the chapter 24 of the first volume of his Nietzsche: Volume I: The Will to Power as Art, where he states, “Nietzsche’s philosophy, according to his own testimony, is inverted Platonism” (Heidegger, 1991: 200). 13. Nietzsche in Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, in an apparent allusion to Plato brings to the scene this idea: “…whether behind every one of his caves there is not, must not be, another deeper cave a more comprehensive, stranger, richer world beyond the surface, an abysmally deep ground behind every ground, under every attempt to furnish ‘grounds.’” (Nietzsche, 1966: 229; section 289). 14. Daniel Smith in this regard states, “The inversion of Platonism … implies an affirmation of the being of simulacra as such. The simulacrum must then be given its own concept and be defined in affirmative terms” (Smith, 2012: 12). 15. Deleuze refers to Philebus and Parmenides, to show how Plato explains this indocile element: “’[H]otter’ never stops where it is but is always going a point further, and the same applies to ‘colder’, whereas definite quality is something that has stopped going on and is fixed;” and “…the younger becoming older than the older, the older becoming younger than the younger—but they can never finally become so; if they did they would no longer be becoming, but would be so” (Plato 24 and 154–155; LdS 9–10; LoS 3–4). 16. In this regard, Daniel Smith states, “the Republic does not attack art or poetry as such; it attempts to eliminate art that is simulacral or phantasmatic, and not iconic or mimetic” (Smith, 2012: 15). 17. Similar to Derrida’s idea of “originary trace or archi-trace” in Of Grammatology based on which “all begins with a trace” (Derrida, 1997: 61). 18. “Epicurean model privileges nouns and adjectives; nouns are like atoms or linguistic bodies which are coordinated through their declension, and adjectives like the qualities of these composites. But the Stoic model comprehends language on the basis of ‘prouder’ terms: verbs and their conjunction, in relation to the links between incorporeal events” (LdS 214;

30 

M. PARSA

LoS 183). In Chap. 4 the role of verbs in Deleuze’s reading of the Stoics will be discussed in detail. 19. As Jean-Jacques Lecercle declares, “the philosophy of sense is a philosophy of surface effects and quasi-cause, not the transcendent causes” (Lecercle, 2002: 103). 20. This is also the main theme of Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, where Deleuze extensively discusses the relation between the ontology of the univocity of Being and the idea of immanence. For example, Deleuze states, “Immanence for its part implies a pure ontology, a theory of Being in which Unity is only a property of substance and of what is” and “pure immanence requires a Being that is univocal and constitutes a Nature” (EP 173). Deleuze borrows the idea of the univocity of Being from Duns Scotus. We return back to this notion in the third section of next chapter. 21. On this basis, Guillaume Collett, in his Psychoanalysis of Sense: Deleuze and the Lacanian School, prefers the title “onto-logic of sense” to refer to Deleuze’s Logic of Sense (Collett, 2016: 3). 22. Even Zourabichvili himself, at certain moments of his study, submits himself to accept an “evanescent” Deleuzian ontology; an “evanescent ontology, which knows only becomings, transversal couplings or mutual diversions, coincides with the description of a field of experience freed from the supervision of a subject” (Zourabichvili, 2012: 39).

References Bennett, M. J. (2013). Deleuze and Epicurean Philosophy. Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy, XXI, 131–157. Boundas, C.  V. (2006). What Difference does Deleuze’s Difference Make? In V.  Boundas (Ed.), Deleuze and Philosophy (pp.  3–28). Edinburgh University Press. Bremer, M. (2008). Transcendental Logic Redefined. Review of Contemporary Philosophy, 7, 1–2. Collett, G. (2016). The Psychoanalysis of Sense: Deleuze and the Lacanian School. Edinburgh University Press. Deleuze, G. (1990a). Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza (M. Joughin, Trans.). Zone Books. Deleuze, G. (1990b). The Logic of Sense (M. Lester, Trans.). The Athlone Press. Deleuze, G. (1991). Bergsonism (H.  Tomlinson & B.  Habberjam, Trans.). Zone Books. Deleuze, G. (2004). Difference and Repetition (P. Patton, Trans.). Continuum. Deleuze, G. (1969). Logiques du Sens. Les Edition de Minuit. Derrida, J. (1997). Of Grammatology (G.  C. Spivak, Trans.). John Hopkins University Press.

1 INTRODUCTION 

31

Diogenes Laertius. (2018). Lives of Eminent Philosophers (P.  Mensch, Trans.). Oxford University Press. Gabriel, M. (2011). Transcendental Ontology: Essays in German Idealism. Continuum. Hadot, P. (2002). What Is Ancient Philosophy? (M.  Chase, Trans.). Harvard University Press. Heidegger, M. 1991. Nietzsche, Vol. I: The Will to Power as Art (D.  F. Krell, Trans.). Harper & Row Publishers. Holmes, B. (2012). Deleuze, Lucretius, and the Simulacrum of Naturalism. In B. Holmes & W. H. Shearin (Eds.), Dynamic Reading: Studies in the Reception of Epicureanism (pp. 316–342). Oxford University Press. Hughes, J. (2009). Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition: A Guide’s Reader. Continuum. Kant, E. (1998). Critique of Pure Reason (P.  Guyer & A.  W. Wood, Trans.). Cambridge University Press. Lecercle, J.-J. (2002). Deleuze and Language. Palgrave Macmillan. Livingston, P.  M. (2012). The Politics of Logic: Badiou, Wittgenstein, and the Consequences of Formalism. Routledge. Lucretius, T. C. (2001). On the Nature of Things (M. F. Smith, Trans.). Hackett Publishing Company. Moore, A.  W. (2012). The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics: Making Sense of Things. Cambridge University Press. Moulard-Leonard, V. (2008). Bergson-Deleuze Encounters: Transcendental Experience and the Thought of the Virtual. State University of New York Press. Nietzsche, F. (1966). Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future (W. Kaufman, Trans.). Vintage Books. Plato. (1961). Plato: The Collected Dialogues (E.  Hamilton & H.  Cairns, Eds.). Princeton University Press. Smith, D. W. (2012). Essays on Deleuze. Edinburgh University Press. Zourabichvili, F. (2012). Deleuze: A Philosophy of the Event (K. Aarons, Trans. and G. Lambert & D. Smith, Eds.). Edinburgh University Press.

CHAPTER 2

Sense from Frege to Deleuze

Deleuze’s Logic of Sense should be taken as an attempt to respond to the need to reverse classical Aristotelian logic, a need which is proposed first by the ancient Stoics, then by Lewis Carroll, and finally by the emergence of modern logic in the works of Frege and Russell.1 Deleuze, in Logic of Sense, gives an extensive account of these moments in the history of logic and takes them as his departure point to formulate his logic of sense. In this and the next chapters, I study the relationship between Deleuze’s logic and modern logic by focusing on the work of Gottlob Frege before continuing on to Deleuze’s reading of the Stoics and of Lewis Carroll in the following chapters. Aristotelian logic is the logic of syllogism, which is to say that it is the logic of general terms. It begins with general terms, and the singular terms are dealt with as secondary results. As mentioned, modern logic which emerged with the work of the German mathematician and logician, Gottlob Frege, attempted to reverse this order. As early as his first book, Begriffsschrift (which is sometimes translated into Conceptual Notation), Frege was making this attempt. Harold Noonan in his commentary on Frege, makes this point clear and, after describing Aristotelian syllogistic logic as “a logic of general terms” in which the “singular terms and sentences containing them … had to be dealt with as an afterthought”, claims that “this order of priority is reversed in Conceptual Notation” (Noonan, 2001, pp.  39–40). Conceptual Notation, published in 1879, is widely

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Parsa, A Reading of Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13706-8_2

33

34 

M. PARSA

considered the foundation of modern mathematical logic. And it is also widely accepted that the publication of this book underlies an upheaval in the history of logic which has remained almost always Aristotelian.2 Almost, because of the other moments that we have mentioned: Stoic logic, the logical works of Lewis Carroll, and of course, Kant’s transcendental logic. In this way, what Frege did is comparable to the Stoics’ work in logic. Noonan mentions this comparison: Aristotelian logic was recognized, long before Frege, as not covering the whole field of logic because it did not account for the validity of forms of argument such as ‘if the first then the second, the first; therefore the second’, which can be turned into valid arguments by replacing the place-­ holders ‘the first’ and ‘the second’ by sentences. The Stoics studied such arguments but did not think of themselves as offering a supplement, but rather a competitor, to Aristotelian syllogistic, whose champions in turn rejected Stoic logic. (Noonan, 2001, p. 40)

The difference between a supplement and a competitor is that in the first case we accept the suppositions of the Aristotelian syllogism but in the second we reject them. Noonan introduces Frege as a supplement although he himself declares that what appears in Frege’s Begriffsschrift is a reversal. Deleuze in Logic of Sense unites Stoic logic and the modern logic of Frege and Russell (together with the other mentioned moments) to pursue the reversal of Aristotelian logic. Whether or not Frege is read as a supplement or a competitor, he provides Deleuze with a departure point to perform this so-called reversal. Frege begins with singular sentences and puts them at the foundation of his logic. This leads him to give a new construal of the relation between the predicate and the subject in a proposition. In Aristotelian logic, this relation is construed as the inclusion of a particular in a universal. This is not satisfying for Frege because it fails in the case of a large variety of mathematical and logical instances. This is especially relevant for Frege, who began his career with mathematics and wished to found logic on the basis of arithmetic, and so dealt with a lot of such instances. Thus, he uses the mathematical notion of “function” to give a better description of the logical relation within simple propositions. Frege provides this description in his 1891 text, “Function and Concept”. In this text, Frege defines the essence of function as unsaturatedness. A function is not a complete entity, but necessarily entails empty places that are intended to be filled. Therefore, a function is not a thing, but underlies the act of predication. Frege’s example here is “Caesar conquered Gaul” in which “conquered Gaul” is

2  SENSE FROM FREGE TO DELEUZE 

35

the function. This is very different from the classical examples such as “Socrates is man” so that the function of “conquered Gaul” is essentially different from the classical logical interpretation of “is” (Frege, p. 31). If the predicate is a function, all copula should be interpreted as what they in a certain case do. Thus, “is” in “is man” would be part of a different function than “is” in “is wise”. And in the same manner, “man” or “wise” are not themselves the predicate but part of the predicate. This renders a radical change in the way we understand the logical structure of a proposition. The difference between the logical feature of a proposition in Aristotelian logic and its logical feature based on Frege’s understanding is that in the latter the predicate does not imply a simple inclusion but rather is a function that applies to the subject in each particular case, although the application of the same predicate on the particulars follows the same pattern (for example, the application of “is wise” to Socrates and Plato). Thus, generality gives its place to the pattern of applications. In this way, we start with singular cases and approach generalities, unlike the Aristotelian syllogism that starts with general cases. The difference is crucial because here generality does not have to entail belonging to the same type or enjoying the same essence. One year later in “On Sense and Reference” (1892), Frege pursues his thoughts on the logical nature of propositions so that it makes a further step in his reversal of classical logic. Following his description of the predicate as function, here predication is described as synthesis, unlike in Aristotelian logic where it is an analytic relation of inclusion. This difference is very crucial for our purpose of pursuing how Frege leads to Deleuze’s logic of sense. Let us discuss it in detail.

Frege’s Conception of Sense Frege begins his “On Sense and Reference” by distinguishing two kinds of identity propositions, one analytic and the other synthetic. That which is analytic has no cognitive value, and that which is synthetic provides the objectivity of knowledge. Frege’s well-known examples are “morning star is morning star” and “morning star is evening star”. “Morning star is morning star” and “evening star is evening star” are only instances of the law of identity of an object. Each object is identical with itself. To affirm that an object is identical with itself adds nothing to our knowledge of the object. But “morning star is evening star” is of a great cognitive value. Based on these two types of identity propositions, Frege distinguishes sense from reference. In “morning star is morning star”, the identity is

36 

M. PARSA

that of reference. “Morning star is evening star” is not the identity of one thing, but rather entails a real synthesis. This synthesis would be possible only if we define a realm distinct from the references, namely the realm of sense. In “On Sense and Reference”, Frege defines sense as the mode of presentation (gegebensein) of reference. For example, the planet Venus is a reference, and morning star and evening star are its modes of presentation. A synthetic identity proposition expresses both a difference and a unity. Frege separates sense and reference to introduce them respectively as the sources of difference and unity. Frege distinguishes sense from references or the external objects, but also distinguishes it from subjective ideas. This latter distinction is known as the objectivity of sense according to Frege. The subjective idea is in Frege’s definition personal and non-communicable. This is why it does not have any cognitive value. Sense, which is considered by Frege as the element of logic (because it makes logical synthesis possible), must not be a part or a mode of the individual mind. Frege summarizes this with the following: The reference of a proper name is the object itself which we designate by its means; the idea, which we have in that case, is wholly subjective; in between lies the sense, which is indeed no longer subjective like the idea, but is yet not the object itself. (Frege 60)

He then compares sense with the optical image in a telescope, which is “dependent upon the standpoint of observation; but it is still objective, inasmuch as it can be used by several observers” (Frege 60). The independence of sense from reference is provided in full detail in “On Sense and Reference” but its independence from subjective ideas finds its full description in “The Thought: A Logical Inquiry” (1918). In this late text, Frege considers a thought expressed by a sentence to be the sense of the sentence (the sense of a noun is the mode of presentation of its referent; the sense of a declarative sentence is the thought it expresses). He begins the text with the problem of truth as the subject matter of logic and searches for that which in a sentence is capable of being true or false. He concludes that neither the external object nor the subjective idea has any truth value. The thought is the only thing that can be true or false and therefore should be considered the unique subject matter of logic. Any sentence or proposition expresses a thought. It is a common belief to consider a thought as something in the mind of a person, but Frege makes

2  SENSE FROM FREGE TO DELEUZE 

37

thought the subject matter of logic by separating it from the subjective idea. The simple argument is that I cannot share my subjective idea with someone else, and therefore, my idea cannot be used in a scientific (i.e. cognitively valuable) logic. It can be used in my personal logic, but a personal logic is better called a psychology. Thus, a thought as something that I can share with someone else should be distinct from the idea that I have in my mind whose bearer I am (and is the subject matter of psychology).3 The possibility of a logic which is not mine, but which enjoys objectivity and truth, depends on how the thought is not an idea in my mind. Hence, Frege explains the distinction between a subjective idea and a thought as the following: What is a content of my consciousness, my idea, should be sharply distinguished from what is an object of my thought. Therefore the thesis that only what belongs to the content of my consciousness can be the object of my awareness, of my thought, is false. (Frege, 1956, p. 306)

There is something in my awareness which is not subjective, but absolutely objective. The thought that my sentence expresses, its sense, is different from the idea that I have in my mind. In other words, the thought is the objective content of the subjective act of thinking. It constitutes the realm of logic. This is a transition from psychologism towards logicism. If we consider thought as the sense of a proposition independently from the subjective act of thinking, we are claiming that its analysis does not belong to psychology, but rather to logic. Senses, which are independent from both references and from subjective ideas, belong to the “third realm” which is the realm of logic. The transition from psychologism towards logicism is the result of the independence of the realm of sense. There is only one true logic: the logic of sense (which is always under the threat of being reduced into the logic of references and the psychological logic of subjective ideas). The emphasis on the “independence” of the realm of sense could be misleading and arose controversies among scholars. In “On Sense and Reference”, Frege defines sense as “the mode of presentation” of the reference. Although sense constitutes a realm which is different from reference, but after all it is the reference that is presented in different modes. In a letter to Jourdain (1914), Frege defines sense as the mode of determination of the reference.4 This later definition as the mode of determination reconciles the two directions through which Frege had previously

38 

M. PARSA

attempted to approach the notion of sense (first from reference to sense and then from subjective idea to the thought as sense). Now, sense is that through which a subject determines an object or a state of affairs. Although the independence of sense disrupts any direct relation of representation between the subject and the object, defining it as the mode of determination reveals how sense always should be grasped by someone. Among the scholars of Frege, Gareth Evans and Michael Dummett focus more on this definition of sense as the mode of determination. Evans for example defines it as “the way of thinking of something”. In this way, we approach an account of logic in which it ought to be an aspect of our experience (see for example Evans, 1982, p. 20; Dummett, 1981, p. 85). Through this reading, Frege seems to be a Kantian who discovers sense as that which conditions our experience. But Frege’s emphases in “The Thought” makes his logicism far from mere transcendentalism. As Noonan claims, Frege’s account of the objectivity of sense is more radical than signifying pure shareability or accessibility: Senses, he [Frege] thinks, are mind-independent. They are not created by thinking and exist regardless of whether anyone has approached them. Senses are in this sense like physical objects; though they are not perceived, but grasped. (Noonan, 2001, p. 194)

Thus, Frege derives a realism from this thesis: A third realm must be recognized. What belongs to this corresponds with ideas, in that it cannot be perceived by the senses, but with things, in that it needs no bearer to the contents of whose consciousness to belong. Thus the thought, for example, which we expressed in the Pythagorean theorem is timelessly true, true independently of whether anyone takes it to be true. It needs no bearer. It is not true only from the time when it is discovered, but is like a planet which, already before anyone has seen it, has been in interaction with other planets. (Frege, 1956, p. 302)

It is not a new claim that what is true is so independently from us. What is new here is that only the inhabitants of the third realm of sense can be true. So Frege’s position is not a bare realism, but rather, a realism at the level of sense. It would be an uncontroversial claim to say that things exist independently from us and regardless of our presence or absence. But what does it mean to say that senses and thoughts exist in our absence? It

2  SENSE FROM FREGE TO DELEUZE 

39

means that truth is not the matter of planets themselves (references) but that of the interactions between planets. This is why Frege permanently insists that logic does not deal with things, but rather, with truth. In Chap. 4, we will see that this certain account of realism (the realism at the level of sense) is also an important aspect of the Stoic logic. In modern logic, this aspect defines that which is called “fact”. We will see that Deleuze takes this aspect to be what he considers as “event”. Logic is the science of facts or events; it is the science of relations and syntheses. In this sense, Deleuze poses the logic of sense against the logic of essence and prior to it. Things are essences; senses are not things or referents. This is exactly why Deleuze endorses Hume as the logician of relations and claims that modern logic follows his insights: Hume deserves the credit for breaking the bonds imposed by the form of the judgment of attribution, for making possible an autonomous logic of relations, and discovering a conjunctive world of atoms and relations, whose ulterior development can be seen in Russell and modern logic—relations are, after all, conjunctions themselves. (DI 163)

And what Deleuze calls conjunction in this fragment is that which we have called synthesis and introduced as what Frege takes as his departure point in “On Sense and Reference” to develop his logic of sense. Indeed, in a Humean manner, Frege considers “identity” or “equality” (“Die Gleichheit”: Frege, 1892, p. 25) to be a relation. It is not the analytic relation of one thing with itself at the level of reference; it is the synthetic relation of two (or several) things at the level of sense. Deleuze merges this logicism with a kind of empiricism in his account of the notion of sense. In Chaps. 6 and 7, we will see how he enriches this notion by taking it as the intersection of several philosophical lines: sense-­ perception, the Kantian faculty of sensibility, and Fregean sense. This will find its full elaboration in the next chapters. For now, we can see how he attempts to solve the Fregean dilemma of the unshareability of one’s ideas and the shareability of one’s thoughts. The interaction of the planets can be true regardless of my absence. But on this basis, we can distinguish between how we perceive the planets (references) and how we grasp the interactions (senses). The former can be the subject matter of physics and metaphysics, and the latter the subject matter of logic. Thus, “the mode of determination” or “the way of thinking” is the way a fact or an event relates with me (or with any other thing that can grasp it). Therefore, as

40 

M. PARSA

Dummett suggests, senses are objects but are not “self-subsistent” (Dummett, 1991, pp. 249–250). In the Stoic terminology that Deleuze uses, they do not exist (in the way of physical objects) but subsist.5 One more point remains to be noted. Frege defines sense as the mode of presentation of reference (to someone, according to some readings). But is the mode of presentation not the sign itself that we use to refer to the reference? Is the realm of sense not the language itself? It is obvious that “morning star is evening star” is not a claim of identity about the signs themselves because they simply are not identical (though some commentators provided evidences to prove it. See Perry, 1977, p. 483; Evans, 1982, p. 84; Noonan, 2001, p. 173). It is about the sense of signs. Here is Frege in “On Sense and Reference” (who sounds like the thinker of the arbitrariness of signs, Ferdinand de Saussure): Nobody can be forbidden to use any arbitrary producible event or object as a sign for something … If the sign ‘a’ is distinguished from the sign ‘b’ only as an object (here, by means of its shape), not as sign (i.e. not by the manner in which it designates something), the cognitive value of a=a becomes essentially equal to that of a=b, provided a=b is true. A difference can arise only if the difference between the signs corresponds to a difference in the mode of presentation of that which is designated. (Frege 57)

But is sense always the sense of a sign? Is it always a language (in a broad sense including Frege’s Begriffsschrift) that presents the references? It would be an acceptable claim that, if we take an extensive account of language, Frege’s sense signifies the realm of languages where propositions, independently from subjective judgments, articulate and synthesize the senses. Adrian Moore supports this reading of Frege’s notion of sense: While they [senses] may be independent of each of us, and in particular of each individual mind, they are surely not independent of all of us, and in particular of the meeting of our minds in communication. (Moore, 2012, p. 212)

Sense is not the reference or the external object, is not the sign as object, and is not the subjective idea; it is that which relates them and makes possible the communication of minds. Frege is not a philosopher of ordinary language, but he is after all a philosopher of language in broad sense, which is to say, a philosopher of that with the help of which we

2  SENSE FROM FREGE TO DELEUZE 

41

communicate. And precisely in the same manner, Deleuze’s logic of sense takes linguistic sense as its subject matter.

From Frege to Deleuze: Sense or Signification? David Lapoujade, in his Aberrant Movements (2014), makes a controversial claim about the totality of Deleuze’s work: “Deleuze is above all a logician and all his books are ‘Logics’” (Lapoujade, 2017, p. 27). If we accept this claim, Logic of Sense would be the pivotal work in Deleuze’s career not only because in this work logic finds its proper independence from physics and metaphysics, but also because here sense introduces itself as the unique realm of logic. In this regard, saying that Deleuze is a logician amounts to saying that he is not interested in the description of essences. Thus, his first task in Logic of Sense is to demonstrate the irreducibility of this realm. In this regard, one can read Deleuze’s work in light of the move towards logicism which is discussed above in the context of Frege. Therefore, in the Third Series of the Proposition in Logic of Sense, Deleuze emphasizes on how sense is essentially distinct from references (denotation), subjective ideas (manifestation), and general concepts (signification). Denotation is “the relation of the proposition to the external state of affairs.” Manifestation is “the relation of the proposition to the person who speaks and expresses himself.” It is “presented as the statement of desires and beliefs which correspond to the proposition.” And signification is “the relation of the word to universal or general concepts, and of syntactic connections to the implications of the concept” (LdS 22–24; LoS 12–14). Deleuze, after introducing these three relations (or dimensions) within the proposition, discusses how each of them is dependent on one other dimension as its basis. In order to work properly, denotation depends on manifestation and manifestation depends on signification, but in its turn, signification cannot work without manifestation and denotation.6 This confronts us with “the circle of proposition”. The circle indicates that the three conventional dimensions cannot sufficiently describe the functioning of language, and this leads us to the need for the fourth dimension of proposition, which is sense. Then Deleuze explains why sense cannot be localized in one of these three dimensions. First, sense cannot be localized within denotation which is the dimension of truth and falsity:

42 

M. PARSA

Fulfilled denotation makes the proposition true; unfulfilled denotation makes the proposition false. Sense, evidently, can not consist of that which renders the proposition true or false, nor of the dimension in which these values are realized … It is undeniable that all denotation presupposes sense. (LdS 28; LoS 17)

This is the independence of sense from reference, described by Frege in “On Sense and Reference”. A proposition can have sense independent of its truth and falsity. Second, sense cannot be localized in manifestation. Frege’s arguments in “The Thought” would help to approve this claim. But Deleuze’s argument follows a different line, claiming that the order of language (i.e. the signification of concepts) is always prior to beliefs and desires. So, he goes beyond Frege and claims that even personal ideas are not really personal by stating that “if these significations collapse, or are not established in themselves, personal identity is lost” (LdS 29; LoS 18). This is to say that, in order to say something, the sense of what I say must be already established in language as the location of logical signification. Third, sense cannot be localized in signification. The last two ways of tracing the independence of sense underlie almost the same lines that Frege already followed. But the distinction between sense and signification can mark an important move in Deleuze’s own contribution in the development of logic because signification is the realm of logic, if we take the latter as constrained to the logic of universal or general concepts. Signification underlies the conceptual necessity or determination, where from some premises we necessarily derive a conclusion. As will be seen, Deleuze’s logic of sense would not respect this determination and clears the space for a notion of logical fatality which will be discussed in the context of the Stoic logic. Now, in order to demonstrate that sense is not localized in signification, Deleuze refers to what he calls Lewis Carroll’s paradox because it is posed in Carroll’s celebrated text, “What the Tortoise Said to Achilles” (1894). We will discuss this paradox in full details in Chap. 5, but here we can satisfy ourselves with a very brief summary. In a logical demonstration, not only the premises (A and B) must be effectively true, but “the conclusion Z is true if A and B are true” must itself be posited as true. Then, Deleuze concludes: This amounts to a proposition, C, which remains within the order of implication, and is unable to escape it, since it refers to a proposition, D, which

2  SENSE FROM FREGE TO DELEUZE 

43

states that ‘Z is true if A, B, and C are true …’, and so on to infinity … In short, the conclusion can be detached from the premises, but only on the condition that one always adds other premises from which alone the conclusion is not detachable. (LdS 27; LoS 16)

This amounts to say that the logical signification of concepts can work only if it is provided with a denotative foundation that stops the infinite need for grounding. Thus, the logical implication needs something else to provide its determination and it cannot be primary. Deleuze calls this the “determination of signification” (LdS 85; LoS 68) according to which each term is determined by another term in an infinite regress. Sense must be introduced as not participating in the play of determination, but as that which grounds it at the same time as it grounds denotation and manifestation. Before getting into Deleuze’s positive account of sense, let us focus more on the comparison between Deleuze’s move and what Frege did in logic. Adrian Moore, in his The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics, claims that Deleuze’s notion of sense “is not the same as Frege’s notion of sense” (Moore, 2012, p. 564), and goes on to compare Deleuze’s triple aspects of proposition with Fregean notions: In the notion of denotation we hear echoes of Frege’s notion of Bedeutung [reference]. In the notion of signification we hear echoes of both Frege’s and the early Wittgenstein’s notions of sense. And in the notion of manifestation, or at least in notions that underpin the notion of manifestation, we hear echoes of both Frege’s and the early Wittgenstein’s notions of the grasp of sense. But Deleuze insists that, in addition to all of this, my proposition expresses what he calls sense. (Moore, 2012, p. 565)

This comparison would face challenges at least regarding the claim that in Deleuze’s notion of signification we hear echoes of Frege’s notion of sense. If this claim is true, there will be an essential difference between Deleuze’s logic of sense and Frege’s logicism. As mentioned, according to Deleuze, signification underlies the logic of general concepts and necessary implications between them, which is the characteristic of the Aristotelian syllogism. Regarding the Fregean revolution in logic explained at the beginning of this chapter, Moore’s claim does not seem to be justified because Frege at least attempted to form a logical system that does not simply respect the old laws of implication. Of course, Deleuze’s logic

44 

M. PARSA

of sense is different from Frege’s logicism, but they intersect in several points. These intersections will be unfolded in the following sections of this chapter and the next chapter. After all, Deleuze, throughout Difference and Repetition and Logic of Sense, refers several times to Frege’s and Russell’s notion of sense in order to elaborate his own account but never distinguishes his notion of sense from theirs.7 I would say that Deleuze uses the term sense in a broad sense in order to take what he needs from different resources in order to reconcile different philosophical disciplines. Thus, again, Deleuze’s notion of sense is not identical with Frege’s but it takes the latter as one of its resources. To identify Frege’s sense with Deleuze’s notion of signification would be a simplification of a complicated problem.

Deference of Reference and the Univocity of Being As discussed, Frege introduces sense as the realm which provides the source of diversity and synthesis. But sense is defined as the mode of presentation of the reference. In a proposition we have both the unity and the plurality. Reference provides the unity and sense provides the plurality. Deleuze uses this to elaborate his thesis of the univocity of being. The idea is that being is one but it distinguishes itself from within and presents itself in a plurality of modes. He takes the notion from the medieval philosopher Duns Scotus, addressing the problem of how being is at once unified and diverse. Let us quote the fragment in Difference and Repetition where Deleuze introduces the thesis of the univocity of being: There has only ever been one ontological proposition: Being is univocal. There has only ever been one ontology, that of Duns Scotus, which gave being a single voice… . A single voice raises the clamour of being. We have no difficulty in understanding that Being, even if it is absolutely common, is nevertheless not a genus. It is enough to replace the model of judgment with that of the proposition. In the proposition understood as a complex entity we distinguish: the sense, or what is expressed in the proposition; the designated (what expresses itself in the proposition); the expressors or designators, which are numerical modes—that is to say, differential factors characterizing the elements endowed with sense and designation. We can conceive that names or propositions do not have the same sense even while they designate exactly the same thing (as in the case of the celebrated examples: morning star—evening star, Israel—Jacob, plan—blac). The distinction between these senses is indeed a real distinction [distinctio realis], but there

2  SENSE FROM FREGE TO DELEUZE 

45

is nothing numerical—much less ontological—about it … What is important is that we can conceive of several formally distinct senses which none the less refer to being as if to a single designated entity, ontologically one. (DR 43–44)

The replacement of the model of judgment (which underlies Frege’s realm of subjective ideas) with that of the proposition (which expresses its sense regardless of the subjective idea) has a marvelous logical and ontological result. In the model of judgment, the diversity of senses is judged to belong to the same genus. This model belongs to the peripatetic logic. In the model of proposition, the diversity is expressed in the plurality of senses. It is only in the proposition that the plurality is irreducible. It is only in language that we can hear the clamour of being. I explain this thesis under the title of the deference of reference, a simplified explanation of which is that the equality of morning star and evening star (or, Israel-­ Jacob, etc.) can be extended to their referent, namely the planet Venus (“morning star is Venus”, “evening star is Venus”), which is to say that Venus is itself another sense, and we need another reference for the equality of morning star and evening star and Venus.8 And since this move could be infinite, one can claim that the ultimate reference is the indeterminate category of being. Being is not genus, it is the ultimate reference. Hence, the ontological proposition. And difference is the sense of the ontological proposition. Different senses are unified in one ever-­ withdrawing being as their reference. In this context, we can give a new meaning to Frege’s statement when he says, “All true sentences have the same reference”, namely the true; and continues, “From this we see that in the reference of the sentence all that is specific is obliterated” (Frege 65). In reference all beings are self-identical and in the ultimate reference all are the same. It is only in the realm of sense that they are specified. But these two realms cannot be considered separately. There is no unity but only univocity. There is no reference without the plurality of senses. In Frege’s “On Sense and Reference”, this withdrawal or deference is demonstrated through a transition from customary cases, where the sentences have customary references, to “the exceptions”. The case in which the proposition refers to an ordinary state of affairs as its reference is the customary case. The exception is where the proposition refers to another proposition or a thought. Here, the proposition or the sense which plays the role of reference has its own reference. Frege considers such a proposition as a proposition with indirect reference (ungerade Bedeutung) (Frege

46 

M. PARSA

68). This process of withdrawal of reference (or its regression) can be continued without any limitation, and the real existence of a direct reference is irrelevant in most of the cases, if we are in the realm of natural languages and their cultural counterparts. For example, a long and complicated history of theological life and culture in a huge era is really possible without any need for the actual existence of God. If we consider the natural languages, most of our communications are possible with the propositions which do not have customary referents. Frege indicates that the languages contain expressions “which fail to designate an object, although their grammatical form seems to qualify them for that purpose …” (Frege 69). A language which contains only propositions that refer directly to spacio-temporal objects, is a very weak and unnatural one, and cannot bring such a diversity to our understanding of the world. The strength of human languages arises from the ability to refer to other propositions, thoughts, convictions, doubts, and senses of other propositions. Therefore, what Frege calls “exception” is essential to natural languages. But Frege considers this as the imperfection of language. Natural languages seem too clamorous to him. This imperfection arises from the fact that languages can generate expressions with sense but without customary reference. According to Frege, ordinary natural languages are not suitable for logic precisely because of this imperfection: This arises from an imperfection of language, from which even the symbolic language of mathematical analysis is not free; even there combinations of symbols can occur that seem to stand for something but have (at least so far) no reference, e.g. divergent infinite series … A logically perfect language (Begriffsschrift) should satisfy the conditions, that every expression grammatically well constructed as a proper name out of signs already introduced shall in fact designate an object, and that no new sign shall be introduced as a proper name without being secured a reference. (Frege 70)

Through his Begrifsschrift, Frege attempts to get rid of this imperfection, but in “On Sense and Reference” he discovers the complex abilities of natural imperfect languages to take the sense of a sentence as the reference of another one. His deed stands against his intention. Deleuze is the Fregean of the natural imperfect languages. He radically changes the nature of Frege’s third realm (the realm of thoughts), if following the mainstream reading, we take it as the realm of platonic timeless (and

2  SENSE FROM FREGE TO DELEUZE 

47

non-­subjective) ideas.9 This Fregean Platonism goes hand in hand with his mathematical formalism, against which Deleuze brings forward a naturalism (a focus on natural languages and their productive power; in Chap. 7 we will see how Deleuze gives an account of a naturalistic mathematism based on the works of Albert Lautman). The difference is that a naturalism entails being open to revision (through withdrawal or regression) while mathematical formalism or Platonism designates a fixed system of governing laws that eludes any revision (a hard barrier against regression). Let us call, for a moment, Deleuze’s reading of Frege a naturalization of the third realm. In this way, Deleuze adds an important nuance to Frege’s formulation of the problem of the unity and diversity at the level of proposition. The problem with Frege’s formulation is that reference as the source of unity and sense as the source of diversity remain external to each other. But it is reference that presents itself in different modes; it is being which is clamorous. The deference of reference must result in the fact that being is sense itself. It is not the case that Venus is unified and morning star and evening star are distinguished. Thus, in the Twenty-Fifth Series of Univocity in Logic of Sense, Deleuze draws a picture in which the diversity and the unity join together: The univocity of Being does not mean that there is one and the same Being; on the contrary, beings are multiple and different, they are always produced by a disjunctive synthesis, and they themselves are disjointed and divergent, membra disjuncta. The univocity of Being signifies that Being is Voice, that it is said, and that it is said in one and the same ‘sense’ of everything about which it is said. That of which it is said is not at all the same, but Being is the same for everything about which it is said. (LdS 210; LoS 179)

This thesis of univocity, in Deleuze’s hand, makes a conversation between the thinkers as different as Spinoza and Frege. The system of Spinozian notions of substance, modes and attributes that Deleuze orchestrates in his Spinoza: Expressionism in Philosophy favors this conversation. The way he reads Spinozism as a movement against peripatetic philosophy (in figures such as Aquinas) can be read in line with how Frege’s propositional logic stands against Aristotelian logic of judgments. Indeed, the notion of modes in Deleuze’s reading of Spinoza is very close to that of sense in Frege. Modes, in this reading, designate the diversity of determinate essences which are numerically divisible. Substance is a unified infinite

48 

M. PARSA

sea of attributes in which the determinate modes take shape and are distinguished. Substance qualitatively differentiates itself and thereby expresses itself in quantitatively distinguishable modes. In this way, Spinoza’s view about the relation of the substance (God) and modes (creatures) is inherently different from Aquinas’ analogism or negative theologies. The univocity here is to say that the same attributes are attributive to substance and imply modes (EP 47–49). In short, each determinate essence (sense) is the mode of presentation (expression) of infinite substance (reference). And for Spinoza attributes are names with which the substance (God) speaks (expresses itself). The central role of attribution in Spinozism amounts to an ontological propositionality which is inherently different from scholastic analogical ontology which remains limited to judgments. In order to merge the diversity and the unity to form univocity, Deleuze changes the form of proposition by transforming the predicate into a verb phrase. Thus, instead of “the tree is green” we have “the tree greens” (or instead of “morning star is evening star” we have “morning star evenings”). This is to say that what expresses itself in the proposition and unifies it is the same thing that diversifies it, namely the event. Being as sense is the event. What unifies being is its evental aspect, or its becoming, and this aspect is precisely that through which it expresses itself. What the proposition “the tree is green” expresses (its sense) is the event of “greening”. The tree is the result of that event, as the nominative is the outcome of the infinitive verb. The fundamental aspect of being, its evental aspect, expresses itself in language in the form of the infinitive verb, while nominatives are just present in language as derivative and secondary. Therefore, from the plurality of “the tree” and “green” we read the unity of “to green”, but the latter is not a self-identical customary reference; it is an event, and this is why it also underlies the diversity in the form of immanent differentiation. Thus, the copula is not the true “gluon”, because what appears at its sides is not already separated.10 Being expresses itself by distinguishing itself from within and this is why it appears as the event. This construal is only possible if we move from categorical logic towards propositional logic (and this is why the Stoics and Frege are important for Deleuze). Events take place only in language in broad sense: “univocity refers both to what occurs and to what is said. Univocity means that it is the same thing which occurs and is said: the attributable to all bodies or state of affairs and the expressible of every proposition. Univocity means the identity of the noematic attribute and that which is expressed linguistically—event and sense” (LdS 211; LoS 180).

2  SENSE FROM FREGE TO DELEUZE 

49

Notes 1. This reversal of Aristotelian logic can be considered as an aspect of the reversal of Platonism which is discussed in the Introduction. 2. As Kant in the Preface to the Second Edition of the Critique of Pure Reason makes clear: “That from the earliest times logic has traveled this secure course can be seen from the fact that since the time of Aristotle it has not had to go a single step backwards, unless we count the abolition of a few dispensable subtleties or the more distinct determination of its presentation, which improvements belong more to the elegance than to the security of that science. What is further remarkable about logic is that until now it has also been unable to take a single step forward, and therefore seems to all appearance to be finished and complete” (CPR 106; B viii). As mentioned, Deleuze, despite Kant’s claim, takes Stoic logic to be more than just a dispensable subtlety and elevates it to the position of a reversal of Aristotelian logic. This will be elaborated upon in Chap. 4. The transcendental revolution in logic, performed by Kant himself, and Deleuze’s reading of it in Logic of Sense, will be discussed in Chaps. 6 and 7 of the present work. 3. Markus Gabriel in Fields of Sense emphasizes that what is usually considered as “psychologism” in the context of Frege has nothing to do with the discipline of psychology and describes it as the following: “Psychologism is the claim that certain apparently non-psychological entities under closer inspection, that is, under the scrutiny of conceptual analysis, turn out to actually be psychological entities. Here ‘psychological’ refers to ‘mental’ or ‘subjective’, and ‘subjective’ is understood as ‘merely subjective’. The presupposition is that mental content is private or ‘in the head’, and that psychology studies what is ‘private in the head’” (Gabriel, 2015, p. 339). 4. “An object can be determined in different ways” (Frege, 1997, p. 321). 5. We can keep the comparison going and claim that sense as that which subsists is not capable of physical causality; it is capable of logical (or linguistic) “quasi-causality” which is a Stoic notion and is discussed in details in Logic of Sense. It underlies an agency completely different from the physical agency or causality of things; it underlies a logical agency. Now that senses are independent from minds, they deserve to have a certain kind of agency. In “The Thought”, Frege approaches this view (one can just replace “being actual” with “being effective” in the following): “we are inclined to regard thoughts as unreal because they appear to be without influence in relation to events on events, while thinking, judging, stating, understanding and the like are facts of human life. How much more real a hammer appears compared with a thought. How different the process of handing over a hammer is from the communication of a thought… . Thoughts are

50 

M. PARSA

by no means unreal but their reality is of quite a different kind from that of things. And their effect is brought about by an act of the thinker without which they would be ineffective, at least as far as we can see. And yet the thinker does not create them but must take them as they are. They can be true without being apprehended by a thinker and are not wholly unreal even then, at least if they could be apprehended and by this means be brought into operation” (Frege, 1956, pp. 310–311). 6. I skip providing the full explication of the dependence of each conventional dimension on another in the body of the text because the existing literature on Logic of Sense provides good and sufficient account of this. For example, James Williams summarizes it in a concise way: “How a proposition refers to something in the world depends on how it is qualified by the moment when it is written or spoken by someone, and this in turn depends on how its meaning is set, for example according to dictionary definitions, but this is in turn incomplete without a reference” (Williams, 2008, p. 40). 7. Daniela Voss in “Deleuze’s Rethinking of the Notion of Sense” makes a similar claim and states that Deleuze considers Fregean sense as his notion of signification and introduces his own concept of sense against Frege (Voss, 2013a, p.  5). But Voss in her book called Conditions of Thought, which contains a reappearance of the mentioned article, eliminates this claim (Voss, 2013b, p. 50). I believe she is right in this elimination, because I cannot find any textual evidence in Logic of Sense and elsewhere to support the initial claim. 8. As Markus Gabriel declares, “According to Frege, the proper names “evening star” and “morning star” refer to the same thing, that is, Venus. However, “Venus” is also a proper name, and proper names have a sense even if we use them to denote the referent of a plurality of senses” and then he concludes that “there is no immediate access to reference” (Gabriel, 2011, pp. xiii–xiv). 9. Adrian Moore, for example, claims that the objectivity of sense in Frege is Platonic. He states, Frege “sees senses as abstract entities whose existence is completely independent of us” (Moore, 2012, p. 212). 10. See Graham Priest’s book, One: Being an Investigation into the Unity of Reality and of its Parts, including the Singular Object which is Nothingness, where in the first chapter “Gluons and their Wicked Ways” he discusses “Frege and the Unity of Proposition” to investigate the nature of the fundamental gluon (Priest, 2014, pp. 5–7).

References Deleuze, G. (1990a). Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza (M. Joughin, Trans.). Zone Books.

2  SENSE FROM FREGE TO DELEUZE 

51

Deleuze, G. (1990b). The Logic of Sense (M. Lester, Trans.). The Athlone Press. Deleuze, G. (2004). Difference and Repetition (P. Patton, Trans.). Continuum. Deleuze, G. (1969). Logiques du Sens. Les Edition de Minuit. Dummett, M. (1981). The Interpretation of Frege’s Philosophy. Duckworth. Dummett, M. (1991). Frege and Other Philosophers. Oxford University Press. Evans, G. (1982). In J.  McDowell (Ed.), The Varieties of References. Oxford University Press. Frege, G. (1892). Über Sinn und Bedeutung. Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, NF, 100, 25–50. Frege, G. (1956). The Thought: A Logical Inquiry. Mind, New Series, 65(259), 289–311. Frege, G. (1960). In P. Geash & M. Black (Eds.), Translations from Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege. Basil Blackwell. Frege, G. (1997). In M. Beaney (Ed.), The Frege Reader. Blackwell. Gabriel, M. (2011). Transcendental Ontology: Essays in German Idealism. Continuum. Gabriel, M. (2015). Fields of Sense: A New Realist Ontology. Edinburgh University Press. Kant, E. (1998). Critique of Pure Reason (P. Guyer & Allen W. Wood, Trans., ed.). Cambridge University Press. Lapoujade, D. (2017). Aberrant Movements: The Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze (J. D. Jordan, Trans.). Semiotext(e). Moore, A.  W. (2012). The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics: Making Sense of Things. Cambridge University Press. Noonan, H. (2001). Frege: A Critical Introduction. Wiley. Perry, J. (1977). Frege on Demonstratives. Philosophical Review, 86, 474–497. Priest, G. (2014). One: Being an Investigation into the Unity of Reality and of Its Parts, Including the Singular Object Which Is Nothingness. Oxford University Press. Voss, D. (2013a). Conditions of Thought: Deleuze and Transcendental Ideas. Edinburgh University Press. Voss, D. (2013b). Deleuze’s Rethinking of the Notion of Sense. Deleuze Studies, 7(1), 1–25. Williams, J. (2008). Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense: A Critical Introduction and Guide. Edinburgh University Press.

CHAPTER 3

Frege’s Paradox and the Serial Form

At the beginning of Logic of Sense, Deleuze defines paradox as “the affirmation of both senses or directions at once” (“le paradoxe est l’affirmation des deux sens a la fois”; LdS 9; LoS 1),1 and then he elaborates different paradoxes of sense. Thus, there are several aspects on which sense implies the affirmation of two directions at once. This affirmation is crucial to sense. As Paul Livingston in his chapter on Deleuze declares, the paradoxical aspect of sense is connected to the way it underlies becoming: “Sense for Deleuze also underlies the instability of meaning and, even more generally, the phenomena of change, flux, and becoming”, and he continues by claiming that the paradoxical aspect or the “bidirectionality” of sense “is necessary for understanding change and becoming” (Livingston, 2012: 96–97). In this regard, Deleuze’s account of sense is related to the second type of being which Plato recognizes in Parmenides and Philebus: “Pure becoming without measure, a veritable becoming-mad which never rests … and indocile matter” (LdS 9; LoS 1–2). Plato’s examples of these entities are that which is denoted by the words such as “hotter”, “colder” or “younger.”2 They do not denote the stable and established beings which suppose pauses and rests to be able to receive the action of the Ideas. They denote being as becoming, being as expressing itself in a diversity of modes. And as Plato’s examples indicate, being as becoming appears only in language. It is being as sense, as linguistic sense. The change that Deleuze makes here is replacing Plato’s comparative adjectives with infinitive verbs (this replacement is based on the Stoic reading and © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Parsa, A Reading of Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13706-8_3

53

54 

M. PARSA

will be discussed in detail in next chapter). This replacement entails a move from “becoming” to “the event”. Therefore, unlike the established being (which is just a result), being as sense is not one-directional, it is paradoxical. And this is why sense stands against common sense and good sense which are two ways for establishing a fixed direction: “paradox … destroys good sense as the only direction, but it is also that which destroys common sense as the assignation of fixed identities” (LdS 12; LoS 3). Common sense and good sense are sense in its finality and its fulfillment. But in order to analyze the nature of sense and its action, one should consider its paradoxical aspect.

Determination of Signification The first and foremost paradox of sense that Deleuze explains in the Fifth Series of Sense is called “the paradox of regress, or of indefinite proliferation” (LdS 41; LoS 28). This paradox arises from the essential distinction between what I say and the sense of what I say, or between propositions (language) and sense: “I never state the sense of what I am saying. But on the other hand, I can always take the sense of what I say as the object of another proposition whose sense, in turn, I cannot state. I thus enter into the infinite regress of that which is presupposed” (LdS 41; LoS 28). When I say something, I presuppose the sense of what I say. I don’t invent the sense of what I say through saying it, because I’m using an already-­ constructed language. Thus, whenever I use language to say something the sense of what I say is presupposed. There would be a permanent gap between that which is said and its sense. As the result of this gap, there is a proliferation of propositions each of which comes to state the sense of the other. Sense remains incorporeal and distinguished from the propositions. Deleuze calls this behavior of linguistic expression “Frege’s paradox”, because it is a result of the independence or the objectivity of sense in Frege’s works: “This infinite proliferation of verbal entities is known as Frege’s paradox” (LdS 41; LoS 28). Beside “On Sense and Reference”, in “The Thought: A Logical Inquiry” we find a gap between a thought expressed by a sentence as the sense of the sentence which is capable of being true or false, and the assertion that renders the sentence true or false. Here, Frege claims, “a thought is something immaterial and everything material and perceptible is excluded from this sphere of that for which the question of truth arises” (Frege, 1956: 292). The thought is

3  FREGE’S PARADOX AND THE SERIAL FORM 

55

capable to be true or false (and is the only thing which has this capability) but it is always distinct from the truth and falsity. It is neither truth nor falsity, but it is the only thing that can be true or false by an assertion. But what we assert is distinct from the assertion itself. Thus, the paradox arises from the distinction in any logical sentence between the material assertion and the immaterial or incorporeal thought expressed in the sentence, the distinction between a proposition and its sense. This distinction makes the linguistic expression very complicated. It is simplistic to say that when I say something, I refer directly to a state of affairs, or I express directly my emotions and desires. Sense intervenes and disturbs or deviates this direct accessibility. The sense of what I say is itself a kind of independent element which can be referred by another proposition which itself has a sense. Or as Deleuze states, “given a proposition which denotes a state of affairs, one may always take its sense as that which another proposition denotes [the reference]. If we agree to think of a proposition as a name, it would then appear that every name which denotes an object may itself become the object of a new name which denotes its sense” (LdS 41; LoS 28). A name does not only name the objects, but also other names and their senses. What Deleuze explains here refers to Frege’s indirect cases in which a sentence has as its reference the sense of another sentence. Frege’s examples of these cases (which he considers as exceptions) are “reported speech”, “direct or indirect quotation”, or the sentences containing “’say’, ‘hear’, ‘be of the opinion’, ‘be convinced’, ‘conclude’ and similar words”, or also “’perceive’, ‘know’, ‘fancy’”, or “that thought that” and “believe that”, and also “it seems that”, or “’to be pleased’, ‘to regret’, ‘to approve’, ‘to blame’, ‘to hope’, ‘to fear’”, and “adverbial final clauses beginning ‘in order that’”, or “’doubt whether’, ‘not to know that’”, and many others. Add to these also “clauses expressing questions” and “subjunctives” (Frege 59: 65–68). In all these cases, the sentence does not have a customary reference, but takes the sense of another sentence as its reference. Frege spends a large part of his “On Sense and Reference” analyzing these cases, but it seems that the cases can be extended to any abstract use of language. Deleuze reformulates Frege’s position by saying that a noun clause which “denotes an object [customary reference] may itself become the object of a new name [or a noun clause] which denotes its sense” (LdS 41; LoS 28). This can also apply to a sentence. Having analyzed these cases, Frege is well aware how simplistic the static image of proposition containing a fixed sense and a fixed reference is:

56 

M. PARSA

Almost always, it seems, we connect with the main thoughts expressed by us subsidiary thoughts which, although not expressed, are associated with our words, in accordance with psychological laws, by the hearer. And since the subsidiary thought appears to be connected with our words of its own accord, almost like the main thought itself, we want it also to be expressed. The sense of the sentence is thereby enriched, and it may well happen that we have more simple thoughts that clauses. (Frege 75)

But although a language which is devoid of this aspect would be too weak, accepting such a language is also not easy for Frege, because language in this way produces an infinite hierarchy of indirect references and indirect senses, or as Deleuze calls it, an “infinite regress”. As Noonan declares, “Evidently, this line of thought yields an infinite hierarchy of indirect references and keeping pace one behind, as it were, an infinite hierarchy of indirect senses, and Frege explicitly commits himself to this consequence of his thesis” (Noonan, 190). As mentioned, Frege is not happy with the results of his analyses and concludes that we should look for a language which does not suffer from such deficiencies in order to base a scientific language for logic. Thus, there is a bidirectionality in Frege’s work. His analyses make things more complicated, but his intention is towards more simplicity and the reduction of the proliferation of senses. But as will be seen, through Frege’s work itself, the reader can find out how weak a language containing discrete simple sentences with customary sense and customary reference is. Some critics also attack Frege, claiming that it is a disadvantage he assigns to language. For example, Rodolf Carnap, in the third chapter of Meaning and Necessity, claims that Frege’s conception “leads to infinite number of entities and infinite number of expressions as names for them”, and this is its “disadvantage”; “Frege’s method leads… to an infinite number of entities of new and unfamiliar kinds. And if we wish to be able to speak about all of them, the language must contain the infinite number of names for these entities” (Carnap, 1947: 130).3 For Deleuze, the infinite regress underlies indefinite proliferation and is not a disadvantage, but shows an essential power of language. According to him, language is equipped with the capability to produce an infinite number of entities and an infinite number of names for these entities. Deleuze states, “This regress testifies both to the great impotence of the speaker and to the highest power of language: my impotence to state the sense of what I say, to say at the same time something and its meaning

3  FREGE’S PARADOX AND THE SERIAL FORM 

57

[sens]; but also the infinite power of language to speak about words” (LdS 41; LoS 28–29). Is this not the logicism, the independence of the realm of logic, that Frege seeks? Is not the productive power of propositions, independent of unshareable and personal ideas, that can result in a logic which is indeed both the logic of being and the logic of sense? Deleuze connects this infinite regress with the “determination of signification” (LdS 85; LoS 68). Lewis Carroll’s paradox, according to which each logical inference must be grounded on the legitimacy of another inference, ad infinitum, reveals that this determination is ungrounded. Therefore, Carroll’s paradox and Frege’s paradox join together to accomplish the same task, which is overturning the logic of signification. Now, let us see how these paradoxes accomplish this task. We know that classical Aristotelean logic, or the so-called syllogistic theory, entails making a hierarchy of classes. In this logic, synthesis is only possible by subsuming individuals under a higher property, or a species under a genus. In this regard, one can say, Socrates is a man, a man is an animal, an animal is a body, etc. And each category constitutes a type of things. According to Deleuze, what is at work here is a “regressive law” which defines each class by a higher one. And since it is taken as granted that each determination is complete and full, each class forms a type. This is called the determination of signification in which each type is determined by another one. And it suffers from Carroll’s paradox which reveals an infinite regress of justifications. The paradox underpins the basic law of the logic of signification in all of its guises, including any aspect of modern logic that respects this law: the basic law based on which a class can be determined by a higher class. Carroll’s paradox indicates that there is always a gap between a law and its application because of the postponement of the justification of application from the side of the higher class due to the infinite regress. This paradox does not only attack Aristotelian syllogism but also any logical system that contains the determination of signification, which is, receiving determination from a higher class. We know that Russell, in a famous letter to Frege, diagnosed the existence of this problem in Frege’s system. Let us first quote Deleuze’s formulation of the problem in Logic of Sense: When the regressive law states that the sense of a name must be denoted by another name, these names of different degrees refer, from the point of view of signification, to classes or properties of different ‘types’. Every property must belong to a type higher than the properties or individuals over which

58 

M. PARSA

it presides, and every class must belong to a type higher than the objects which it contains. It follows that a class cannot be a member of itself, nor may it contain members of different types. Likewise, according to the disjunctive law, a determination of signification states that the property or the term in relation to which a classification is made cannot belong to any of the groups of the same type which are classified in relation to it. An element cannot be part of the sub-sets which it determines, nor a part of the set whose existence it presupposes. Thus, two forms of the absurd correspond to the two figures of nonsense, and these forms are defined as ‘stripped of signification’ and constituting paradoxes: a set which is included in itself as a member; the member dividing the set which it presupposes—the set of all sets, and the ‘barber of the regiment’. (LdS 85–86; LoS 68–69)

Here, Deleuze refers to the Russell’s paradox which appears in the short letter to Frege on 1902 (the explanation of the paradox appears one year later in more details in Russell’s The Principle of Mathematics).4 The paradox refers to the set of all sets that are not members of themselves. If that set is not the member of itself, it satisfies the condition and will be the member of the set, which is, itself. And if it is the member of itself, it violates the condition and is to be excluded from the set, which is, itself. Another version of the paradox refers to the barber who must shave all those in the regiment who do not shave themselves. If he does not shave himself, the condition is met, and he must shave himself. And if he shaves himself, he will be excluded from the law and he does not shave himself. Paul Livingston explains: the paradoxical Russell set has two determinants, which correspond precisely to the two sides of absurdity, as presented by Deleuze. First, there is the possibility for a set to be contained within itself, which Russell himself sought to prohibit through the imposition of a hierarchy of types (and which is similarly prohibited by what Deleuze calls the “regressive law.”) Second, there is the capacity of any well-defined set (given by the fundamental axioms of set theory [extensionality]) to determine a distinction (what Deleuze calls a “disjunctive synthesis”) between what is within it and what is outside it. (Livingston, 2012: 103)

The second determinant defines the determination of signification. Any well-defined set determines a distinction between what is within it and what is outside it. These well-defined sets are the sets which do not belong to themselves. Adrian Moore calls these sets “typical sets” because

3  FREGE’S PARADOX AND THE SERIAL FORM 

59

typically, the set of apples, for example, is not itself an apple (Moore, 2012: 217–218). Now, Russell’s paradox concerns the set of typical sets, namely the set of apples, planets, etc. In other words, it concerns “types” or the classes which are fully exclusive. Russell’s respond to his own paradox is as the following, as Livingston formulates it: he introduces as an absolute law of language and membership the hierarchy of types, which makes it impossible for the set of all sets (or the Russell’s set of all sets not members of themselves) even to be defined (let alone to ‘exist’). This gesture, indeed, defines as legal only those sets that comport with (the set-theoretic versions of) Deleuze’s two laws of normal signification: that no set can be a member of itself (no sign can denote its own sense), and that no set can define a disjunction that its definition itself presupposes. (Livingston, 2012: 103)

Deleuze’s response to the paradox is different and somewhat opposed to Russell’s. According to him, the prohibition of self-membership which is entailed in the paradox conditions only proper or non-paradoxical sense, which is indeed good sense, as that which is not bidirectional and therefore is subject to the law of non-contradiction. The paradox threatens the principles of ordinary set membership and the law of inclusion, or in other words, the law of the logic of signification. According to this law, a member must be within or outside of a set. Deleuze incorporates the paradoxical element into the logic of sense and in this way distinguishes it from any logic of signification. The paradoxical element is both within and outside of a set, and therefore the sets (involved in the regress) turn out to be series. The principles of set theory (the laws of membership) define what Deleuze considers the logic of signification. He distinguishes sense from signification and attempts to formulate the logic of sense on the basis of the notion of series where the paradoxical element is an occupant without a place in one set (an excessive element) and an empty place in the other (a lacking element), “always supernumerary and displaced”. This double role of the paradoxical element makes the sets to move and form a series. In short, the logic of signification is the logic of sets or types and the laws of their hierarchical determination. Carroll and Russell demonstrated the paradoxical aspect of this logic. Deleuze takes use of this discussion and defines a different logic which incorporates the paradox within itself,

60 

M. PARSA

namely the logic of sense which entails “serialization”. We will come back to this notion of serialization. As Livingston holds, in set theory (and thus in the logic of signification), “the relationship of inclusion [membership] symbolized by ‘∈’ is simply taken as a given and never defined. However—and this is the essential contribution of a theory of the paradoxical stratum of sense as prior to, and underlying, the domain of ordinary signification—if we may nevertheless accord sense prior to this paradoxical set or element, its sense will be, precisely, the sense of ‘∈’ itself” (Livingston, 2012: 104). In other words, the difference between sense and the law of signification is that signification presupposes membership, but sense takes membership as its internal problem, which is to say, sense must generate its law of membership. Sense, then, does not respect the determination of signification or any transcendent law of membership because it points to the moment of membership, when an element is entering the set, and at this moment, the element is neither within nor outside the set; it is the moment in which the set is under construction in the series. Thus, what is a negative paradox in the determination of signification receives a positive role in the logic of sense because the paradoxical element points to determination itself. The case in the logic of sense is not an established structure (an existing type) that determines the present structure or type. Rather, the case is the actual determination which is taking place in the formation of a type. In identifying the set theoretical laws with the laws of the determination of signification, we considered the set membership to be the same as falling under a concept. Therefore, a member here could be an individual that falls under a universal concept. In this respect, the logic of sense takes into account the production and the formation of the concept, while the logic of signification takes the universal concepts (which are the same as what Deleuze calls “types”) as given. Therefore, sense entails the production of concepts and this production is nothing but the real determination. Hence, Deleuze does not consider sense as a set containing certain elements, or a pure differential structure, subject to the determination of signification. This would change the nature of law-following rules because the logic of sense does not respect the law of membership and therefore there cannot be a fixed gap between the law and the members which are subject to it. Jeffery Bell, in “Deleuze and Analytic Philosophy”, introduces “immunity from revision” in experience as the criterion for the definition of a set (Bell, 2006: 6). Based on this definition, we can take

3  FREGE’S PARADOX AND THE SERIAL FORM 

61

permanent revision in experience as the criterion for the definition of series. It is in this regard that Deleuze in Difference and Repetition famously states, “the constants of one law are in turn variables of a more general law, just as the hardest rocks become soft and fluid matter on the geological scale of millions of years” (DR 2). The problem with the logic of signification is that it does not consider the movement, the transition, between the series and takes the governing relation between them as permanent. The paradoxes of the determination of signification reveal this problem. The logic of sense is an attempt to understand a law as that which “unites the change of the water and the permanence of the river” (DR 2). In other words, as Bell maintains, the problem with the logic of signification is the “relationship between the meaning of a statement as an abstract set or property and the elements that embody the use of this statement, or the elements of experience that verify this meaning and/or give it content” (Bell, 2006: 6–7). Russel’s paradox makes this distinction problematic. Meaning as an abstract set or abstract rule of membership is defined as immune from revision. This immunity requires the regress towards another abstract set. The paradoxical element that Deleuze adds to the system makes it possible to consider the abstract rule itself as a member or element and put it under experimental revision. Saying the sense of a proposition (in experience) produces another proposition, and changes the position of the first one in the hierarchy. The abstract law here is the sense of a reference which itself can be a reference. Therefore, laws and their realizations are not in different worlds, but this distinction induces itself to every point and every entity. The laws governing the facts are themselves facts. Or as Markus Gabriel holds, “objects really are identical with what is true about them” (Gabriel, 2015: 340). There is no stable distinction between abstract and formal laws and the concrete realizations or real elements. Sense marks a variation which keeps a connection with the previous state of the system and underlies the permanent change and revisability of the system.

Structure and Series While the paradox is a negative aspect of a logical system for Frege and Russell and they wish to get rid of it, Deleuze makes it a positive and affirmative entity in his proposed system. Therefore, he provides a new image of the structure based on the positive role of the paradox. Against the synchronic and Platonic image of structure, Deleuze introduces a

62 

M. PARSA

diachronic and serial image which circulates by the paradoxical entity. Now, if we define sense as structural effect, the Deleuzian dynamic view of the structure sheds a new light on the notion of sense. Let us elaborate this in more detail. In the short essay, “How Do We Recognize Structuralism”, which is published two years before Logic of Sense, Deleuze introduces the structure as the “third order” of “the symbolic”, distinct from “the real” and “the imaginary”: The first criterion of structuralism, however, is the discovery and recognition of a third order, a third regime: that of the symbolic. The refusal to confuse the symbolic with the imaginary, as much as with the real, constitutes the first dimension of structuralism. (DI 171)

Let us try to resist against the temptation of comparing this formula with Frege’s system (taking the imaginary as the realm of Frege’s subjective ideas and the real as the realm of references) and focus on Deleuze’s account of structure. Deleuze’s reference here is most of all to Jacques Lacan’s system of three “orders” and his description of the symbolic. But he takes the Lacanian picture beyond psychoanalysis towards a theory of linguistic and logical sense (although Lacan himself was well aware of the inherent relation of the symbolic order with language, famously claiming that the “unconscious is structured like a language”: Lacan, 1977: 20). Thus, the structure is the source of sense distinct from the three conventional dimensions of proposition: Distinct from the real and the imaginary, the symbolic cannot be defined either by pre-existing realities to which it would refer and which it would designate, or by the imaginary or conceptual contents which it would implicate, and which would give it a signification. The elements of a structure have neither extrinsic designation, nor intrinsic signification. Then what is left? As Levi-Strauss recalls rigorously, they have nothing other than a sense. (DI 173–174)

Deleuze describes the Lacanian orders by ascribing a number to each of them. The real is one: “the real tends towards one, it is one in its ‘truth’”. It is the source of unity in the same way as the reference is so. The imaginary is two: “The imaginary is defined by games of mirroring, of duplication, of reversed identification and projection, always in the mode of the

3  FREGE’S PARADOX AND THE SERIAL FORM 

63

double”. And the symbolic as the definitive of the structure is three: “structure is at least triadic, without which it would not ‘circulate’” (DI 172). The triadic nature of the symbolic structure makes it to circulate. On the basis of this ordinal difference, we can distinguish the symbolic structure (the structure of sense) from the other counterparts, and in this way, we can determine the nature of sense. Here the symbolic is abstract without being imaginary and is real without being identical with objective or referential reality. Hence, there is a difference between an imaginary structure and a symbolic structure. The imaginary structure is an established pattern of relations which is transcendent regarding realities and gives them their meaning. The realities constitute the representation of the structure, if we take a Platonic image. And the structure is the image of these realities if we hold a raw empiricist (psychologist) picture. Platonism and psychologism belong to the same realm, namely the imaginary. According to Deleuze, the main characteristic of this realm is representation. On the other hand, the symbolic is the structure without any image or imaginary relation, and without representation. It underlies the structural genesis of both the unified realities and their images. The distinction between the structure and referential reality takes us to its second characteristic, which is positionality. The real is defined by its fullness or saturatedness. The structure, on the contrary, underlies the empty places and the excessive elements, it always entails something which is missing from its own place. Now if we fix the position of the empty place and the excessive element, the result would be the imaginary structure. The symbolic structure is a space where the play of the empty places and the excessive elements triggers a circulation, and hence it entails incessant displacements and disguises. In this way, the symbolic structure, far from being the real in its completeness and imaginary dualism, marks a reality which contains its genesis within itself. The logic of signification belongs to the imaginary order. The determination of signification or the infinite regress reveals the problematic nature of this logic and clears the space for the logic of sense. Deleuze’s claim in Logic of Sense is that sense is not imaginary or representational; it is rather structural. The infinite regress infinitely multiplies this imaginary dualism and generates a serial form. A series thus is not defined by the homogeneous synthesis or the simple succession of names. It must entail difference in kind between the reference and the sense. There will be then an alternation in which each name is taken first in its reference and then in its sense. If there was no difference between sense and reference, there would

64 

M. PARSA

be no alternation because the sense of a name would be the same as its reference, and there would be a fixed relation between a name and its sense which in this case should be called meaning or signification. But the difference in kind between reference and sense results in the infinite multiplication of the play of excessive elements and empty places. This is why Deleuze claims that in the notion of a series “we are confronted with a synthesis of the heterogeneous; the serial form is necessarily realized in the simultaneity of at least two series … the serial form is thus essentially multi-­ serial” (LdS 50; LoS 36–37). The infinite regress underlies a zigzag relation of names and references, where the homogeneous infinite series of names intertwines with the homogeneous infinite series of references. Sense (as the effect of the structure) is the effect of the heterogeneous synthesis of at least two infinite series. Deleuze’s account of structure is based on this heterogeneous synthesis of infinite series. Thus, he makes a connection between the classic structural notions of signifier, signified and signification (and sense as a linguistic element) and the mathematical notion of series. In Eighth Series of Structure in Logic of Sense, Deleuze summarizes the “minimal conditions for a structure in general” as the following: 1) There must be at least two heterogeneous series, one of which shall be determined as ‘signifying’ and the other as ‘signified’ (a single series never suffices to form a structure). 2) Each of these series is constituted by terms which exist only through the relations they maintain with one another. To these relations, or rather to the values of these relations, there correspond very particular events, that is, singularities which are assignable within the structure. The situation is very similar to that of differential calculus, where the distributions of singular points correspond to the values of differential relations … 3) The two heterogeneous series converge toward a paradoxical element, which is their ‘differentiator’… This element belongs to no series; or rather, it belongs to both series at once and never ceases to circulate throughout them. (LdS 65–66; LoS 50–51)

The notion of series in Deleuze’s thought comes originally from mathematics, particularly from calculus. The central role of series for Deleuze demonstrates his tendency to using mathematics in philosophy well. From this we can define two mathematical directions in philosophy based on two types of multiplicities which Deleuze elaborates in his reading of Bergson and Riemann in the second chapter of Bergsonism: the “numerical or quantitative multiplicity” and the qualitative or “continuous

3  FREGE’S PARADOX AND THE SERIAL FORM 

65

multiplicity” (Bergsonism 39–40). The numerical multiplicity is the multiplicity of fully-formed objects which can be used as references. Since they are fully formed, the objects or references have no virtuality and no power. They are actualized. The mathematics of these objects is called arithmetic and its elements are numbers. And numbers represent actual objects which can be divided without changing in kind; “for number, and primarily, the arithmetical unit itself, is the model of that which divides without changing in kind” (Bergsonism 41). And in the same regard, they can be added to each other in a set without changing in kind. Against the arithmetic or the mathematic of numbers, Deleuze introduces differential calculus, which is, in Bergsonian terms, the mathematic of duration, of changing in kind and alteration. It is the mathematic of a multiplicity which “does not divide up without changing in kind, it changes in kind in the process of dividing up” (Bergsonism 42). And by the same token, they entail summation in the form of series which is necessary when the involving elements change in kind.5 Thus, unlike the arithmetic in which everything is actual, differential calculus takes into account the genesis of the actual, namely the virtuality that gives rise to it. Therefore, in chapter IV of Difference and Repetition, Deleuze elaborates his account of differential calculus based on, not Newton and Leibniz as its founders, but on Salomon Maimon, Hoëné-Wronski and Jean Bordas-Demoulin who lift it to a genuine philosophical enterprise. Unlike arithmetic that takes sets as its instruments of integration, calculus demands the notion of series of integrals. According to Deleuze, a series is composed of, not numbers, but differentials, which are the elements of continuous multiplicity. A differential is marked in calculus with the sign of dx which is essentially different from A or not-A, which represent the actual objects or references capable to take a place in a set. dx is prior to x (or A), and therefore, calculus is prior to arithmetic. A differential is not the difference between two fully formed things, but underlies a potential or a virtuality which generates the things. It is the unit of multiplicity. Both A and not-A are the results of the movement of differentials. So, there are two notions of difference. There is the original difference which is virtual (underlies a potentiality) and in Bergson’s terms is in duration (becoming and change as difference), and there is the secondary difference that takes place in space (not in duration). Only the first is taken by Deleuze as difference in itself and the second is considered by him as contradiction (which is the difference between the concepts and their correlates namely the objects). Thus, Deleuze claims that through calculus,

66 

M. PARSA

and particularly the symbol of dx, he gives an absolutely positive account of difference. “Just as we oppose difference in itself to negativity, so we oppose dx to not-A, the symbol of difference [Differenzphilosophie] to that of contradiction” (DR 217). Obviously, Deleuze is criticizing Hegel here, accusing him of taking that which is secondary (contradiction) as an original motor of dialectic. In Bergsonism, he defines “intuition as method” (which takes into account the difference in itself or difference in duration) against any dialectical method. In this regard, Hegel seems to Deleuze to play on the ground of the philosophy of the One and the Multiple, and not the philosophy of genuine multiplicity; we are told that the One is already multiple, that Being passes into nonbeing and produces becoming. The passages where Bergson condemns this movement of abstract thought are among the finest in his oeuvre. To Bergson, it seems that in this type of dialectical method, one begins with concepts that, like baggy clothes, are much too big. The One in general, the multiple in general, nonbeing in general. … In such cases the real is recomposed with abstracts; but of what use is a dialectic that believes itself to be reunited with the real when it compensates for the inadequacy of a concept that is too broad or too general by invoking the opposite concept, which is no less broad and general? (Bergsonism 44)

Hegel’s logic cannot take us from the abstract to the concrete because it is trapped within the play of concepts. There is no capability here to move towards the things in themselves. Deleuze formulates his logic of sense against the logic of concepts. Deleuze’s is a Bergsonian logic which, far from beginning with abstract concepts, takes intuition as its method, which is to say, it begins with the concrete itself, namely duration or sense as difference. In other words, Hegel’s dialectical process is not really a process or an evolution because it remains in the realm of arithmetical numerable concepts. A real process should not begin with the results of the process (concepts or objects). It should begin with the element which is capable of generating what we experience as fully formed, numerable things. In order to explain this process, Deleuze considers the notion of determination in differential calculus, where dx is undetermined, but at the same time determinable, because it forms a reciprocal determination (dy/ dx), which underlies the primary and pure relation. It also underlies a complete determination corresponding to the values of dy/dx. Complete

3  FREGE’S PARADOX AND THE SERIAL FORM 

67

determination here amounts to the generation of individual objects or the movement of individuation. As Deleuze declares, “dx is strictly nothing in relation to x, as dy is in relation to y” (DR 218). They are nothing in the economy of numbers or fully formed objects: “the zeros involved in dx and dy express the annihilation of the quantum and the quantitas, of the general as well as the particular” (DR 218). The quantum and the quantitas designate different directions of grasping a unity (of an individual or a general concept). The zeros of calculus rather mark a multiplicity which is not the result of adding the unities in an arithmetical manner. It is the unity which is the result of a genuine multiplicity not the other way around. In this way, we reach a notion of universality which is essentially different from generality or the unity of a type.6 Deleuze explains this move from multiplicity to unity in terms of determination. dx/dy (0/0) determines complete values corresponding to individuals, when a function like ydy+xdx=0 is solved (the differentials are integrated). Therefore, it is determinable. This determinability underlies an original reciprocal determination. Thus, “a principle of determinability corresponds to the undetermined as such” and “a principle of reciprocal determinability as such here corresponds to the determinability of the relation” (DR 219). Now, let us say, their being undetermined and their determinability belong to different economies. They are undetermined regarding the individuals or generalities and determinable in themselves. In this way, we reach the principle of the determination (or generation) of numbers (or individual objects or concepts).7 Now we understand why Deleuze, in Sixth Series of Serialization in Logic of Sense insists on the heterogeneity of series. The series of homogeneous terms which “are distinguished only according to type or degree” indicates only the succession of the results of the serial form. In isolation, it is only the series of the actuals, and therefore, is not a real series but rather an infinite set. The inclusion of the virtual renders the serial form to be essentially multi-serial. It underlies the elements which are nothing but the difference in itself, the difference in kind, the heterogeneous. The topology of sets entails a homogeneous space; the duration of series is essentially heterogeneous. Therefore, there are always two simultaneous series within a series. They are simultaneous but never equal; one is on the direction of duration (differentials) and the other on the direction of space (objects or concepts as the results). In reference to the terminology of structuralism, Deleuze calls them the signifier and the signified (each series is composed of a series

68 

M. PARSA

of signifiers and a series of signifieds). But he defines them in terms of sense and reference: We call ‘signifier’ any sign which represents in itself an aspect of sense; we call ‘signified’, on the contrary, that which serves as the correlative to this aspect of sense, that is, that which is defined in a duality relative to this aspect. What is signified therefore is never sense itself. In a restrained sense, signified is the concepts; in an extended sense, signified is any thing which may be defined on the basis of the distinction that a certain aspect of sense establishes with this thing. Thus, the signifier is primarily the event as the ideal logical attribute of a state of affairs, and the signified is the state of affairs together with its qualities and real relations. (LdS 51; LoS 37–38)

The problem with the arithmetical logic of signification is that it considers only half of the picture, namely the series of signifieds or concepts (“and also the denoted thing or manifested subject”). A true series takes its serial form from the inclusion of the process in which elements are generated. A true serial form is the movement of generation together with its results, the virtual and the actual. And since the virtual is real (indeed more real than the actual) and the process of production subsists in the product, series take their zigzag form that we have seen in the infinite regress or Frege’s paradox. Sense is not a thing; it marks at once the determination, the production and the reference to things. Therefore, it is not localizable in a set or a structure. It does not take place in space, but in duration. And since it is not localizable but marks the act of generation, it triggers a perpetual displacement in the series and induces a perpetual disequilibrium which circulates the series.8 This disequilibrium between the series indicates an excess in one of the series (that of the signifier or sense) and a lack in the other (the signified or reference). This means that if the act of referring is the same as production, there is always a reference which is under production and therefore the series of references has an empty place to be filled. It is in this way that the paradox of infinite regress or Frege’s paradox (according to which there is always an excessive sense which invokes a new name together with a new reference) becomes a paradoxical entity which circulates between the series and makes the serial form to circulate. Deleuze describes the paradoxical entity as the following: What are the characteristics of this paradoxical entity? It circulates without end in both series and, for this reason, assures their communication. It is a two-sided entity, equally present in the signifying and the signified series. It

3  FREGE’S PARADOX AND THE SERIAL FORM 

69

is the mirror. Thus, it is at once word and thing, name and object, sense and denotatum, expression and denotation, etc. It guarantees, therefore, the convergence of the two series which it traverses, but precisely on the condition that it makes them endlessly diverge. It has the property of being always displaced in relation to itself … We must say that the paradoxical entity is never where we look for it, and conversely that we never find it where it is. (LdS 55; LoS 40–41)

The entity is paradoxical because it has two unequal halves, one becoming and the other being, one duration and the other space, one sense and the other reference. Without this entity, the circulation stops, and the result will be a fixed image on which the objects are distributed on a homogeneous space and a concept corresponds to each of them. The paradoxical entity is the element of a productive world in which any entity is only the firewood for the production of another. It is identical with what is at stake in Russell paradox; it has “the property of always being displaced in relation to itself, of ‘being absent from its own place’, its own identity, its own resemblance, and its own equilibrium” (LdS 66; LoS 51). Now we can see that the source of the paradox that Russell discovered is the consideration of fixed sets and the fixed relation between them. For Deleuze, the paradoxical entity is the element of disequilibrium and displacement. The case is similar to Zeno’s paradox according to which where there is no element of displacement and every point is considered in itself, even in a movement, the movement would be impossible. This arises from one of the “false problems” that Deleuze explains in Bergsonism: we make time into a representation imbued with space. The awkward thing is that we no longer know how to distinguish in that representation the two component elements which differ in kind, the two pure presents of duration and extensity. We mix extensity and duration so thoroughly that we can now only oppose their mixture to a principle that is assumed to be both nonspatial and nontemporal, and in relation to which space and time, duration and extensity, are now only deteriorations. (Bergsonism 22)

This principle takes several names: essence, type, form, presence, etc. The false problem arises when we begin with the false difference between what we consider as time (but is indeed the mixture of space and time) and the nonspatial and nontemporal principle, or simply the things that happen in time. If we begin with the true difference in kind between duration and extension, the paradox receives a positive value and becomes that

70 

M. PARSA

which makes possible the series corresponding to each of them. Thus, the paradoxical entity is what should be injected into the Parmenidean-­ Platonic theory of essences and the Aristotelian theory of types, together with Frege and Russell’s set theoretical logic, in order to account for the generation of these entities into the system. The paradoxical entity leaves a permanent “empty square” or a “blind spot” in the structure. If we consider a curve the area under which is being calculated in differential calculus, this blind spot is the point where the curve changes its behavior. For such a curve, the integral series of summation diverges or converges to a point in infinity (when the value of the differential relation is infinity or zero). Deleuze calls such a point a singularity. Opposed to the singular point stand the ordinary points which denote the points where the curve does not change the behavior. In Ninth Series of the Problematic, Deleuze describes the singularity as the following: Singularities are turning points and points of inflection; bottlenecks, knots, foyers, and centers; points of fusion, condensation, and boiling; points of tears and joy, sickness and health, hope and anxiety, ‘sensitive’ points. Such singularities, however, should not be confused either with the personality of the one expressing herself in discourse, or with the individuality of a state of affairs denoted by a proposition, or even with the generality or universality of a concept signified by a figure or a curve. The singularity belongs to another dimension than that of denotation, manifestation, or signification. It is essentially pre-individual, non-personal, and a-conceptual. It is quite indifferent to the individual and the collective, the personal and the impersonal, the particular and the general—and to their oppositions. Singularity is neutral. On the other hand, it is not ‘ordinary’: the singular point is opposed to the ordinary. (LdS 67; LoS 52)

In this description, Deleuze begins with mathematical notions (“turning points and points of inflection”), then moves to geometrical notions (“bottlenecks, knots, foyers, and centers”), then chemical notions (“fusion, condensation, and boiling”) and finally psychological notions (“points of tears and joy …”). Deleuze concludes that the singular points are “sensitive” points, and then defines them as forming “another dimension” different from denotation, manifestation, or signification. In other words, the singular points constitute the dimension of sense. Thus, distinguishing the neutrality of sense from being ordinary, here, is important to understand what it means to say that sense is the effect of the structure. Sense

3  FREGE’S PARADOX AND THE SERIAL FORM 

71

underlies the singular effect of the structure, not its ordinary effect. And the singular effect, as the empty square or the blind spot, is indeed the cause. In other words, it is the genetic element of the structure, what makes it circulate. Sense is neutral regarding the conventional dimensions of the proposition and is productive of these dimensions.

Sense as the Condition of Truth Even if Deleuze’s logic of sense deals with language, it is essentially different from the philosophies of language for it takes into account its genetic element. In other words, Deleuze does not intend to describe how language in its current form works, but to explain how it is produced, and how its production is intertwined with the way it works.9 This is what separates Deleuze’s treatment of language from much philosophy of language; he considers language while it is under production, not a fully formed language. As Daniel Smith puts it, this also marks an upheaval: The limitation of much philosophy of language is not only that it has tended to focus primarily on the relation of denotation or reference … The deeper problem is that it has tended to focus on propositions in fully formed and already developed languages … without posing the question of their genetic conditions. (Smith, 2011: 84–85)

This entanglement of sense and genesis or production changes radically the conventional relation between sense and truth. If we take a fully formed language in its established dimensions, truth would be the matter of reference or representation (the Aristotelian “adequation”). If we take sense as the genetic element and the fourth dimension, truth would be the matter of production. Frege and Russell define sense as the condition of truth. In order to be true or false, a proposition needs to have sense. Deleuze endorses this definition, but changes its meaning. According to him, sense is the genetic element of truth and conditions it by generating it. Let us elaborate more on this. Russell in An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (1962) explores the definition of sense (“meaning” in this text) as the condition of truth. Deleuze takes this definition as his central departure point and criticizes Russell for not deriving from this definition its proper conclusions. According to Russell, for a proposition to be true or false it must first have

72 

M. PARSA

sense. Having sense forms a large category of propositions that some of them can be true. Once a proposition has sense, its truth would be defined through the reference to a state of affairs or an object. Obviously, having sense here provides only a formal condition that has no effect on the truth of the proposition. Deleuze accepts the definition of sense as the condition of truth but radically changes the meaning of conditioning. According to Russell’s conception of truth, since having sense is just a formal category and is the same for all propositions with sense, then all true propositions would have the same truth value. Deleuze transforms this formal conditioning into a real one in which it is not any more the matter of having sense in general but rather of making sense in each case. Truth is the result of experience at the level of sense. Therefore, in Difference and Repetition Deleuze famously claims, “We always have as much truth as we deserve in accordance with the sense of what we say. Sense is the genesis or the production of the true, and truth is only the empirical result of sense” (DR 193). According to Deleuze, Russell can separate having sense and being true only by separating the proposition from its living context, which is to say, from a real experience. “The present king of France is bald” is an example of such context-less and brut propositions. For Deleuze, sense is the condition of truth, but it is so in and through experience. Thus, sense has its own transcendental truth which is not any more the matter of adequation but rather that of productive experience. In this regard, Difference and Repetition reads, “sense is at once both the site of an originary truth and the genesis of a derived truth” (DR 198). The originary truth of sense is “the ideational material” or “stratum” which defines a non-objective reality, a non-objective “objectity” (or in some translations “objecticity” for the French “objectité”: LdS 72–73; DR 198) which cannot be denotative and subject of representation. It is, in other words, pure process and pure becoming. But it underlies at the same time the genesis of the objective or the empirical reality. It is the ideational material while the empirical reality contains only the conceptual material. The latter should be considered as some “rest” within the former. In Difference and Repetition, Deleuze maintains: Truth and falsity do not concern a simple designation [denotation or reference], rendered possible by a sense which remains indifferent to it. The relation between a proposition and what it designates must be established within sense itself: the nature of ideal sense is to point beyond itself towards the object designated. Designation, in so far as it is achieved in the case of a

3  FREGE’S PARADOX AND THE SERIAL FORM 

73

true proposition, would never be grounded unless it were understood as the limit of genetic series or the ideal connections which constitute sense. If sense points beyond itself towards the object, the latter can no longer be posited in reality exterior to sense, but only at the limit of its process. Moreover, the proposition’s relation to what it designates, in so far as this relation is established, is constituted within the unity of sense, along with the object which realizes this unity. There is only a single case where the designated stands alone and remains external to sense: precisely the case of those singular propositions arbitrarily detached from their context and employed as examples. (DR 192–193)

For Frege and Russell the realms of sense and truth work independently, and in some respects, they couldn’t consider conditioning as a real relation, although their progress in this direction is undeniable. For Deleuze, what is real is the process of genesis in the realm of ideal sense and the so-called material object or reference is nothing else than a limit or halt in that real process. Thus, the relation between the established (formal) sense and the established truth becomes the immanent production of truth out of sense as the ideational material (pure process). In this way, Deleuze believes he avoids the defect of formal conditioning and the perdurable gap between the condition and the conditioned. As Deleuze puts it, For the condition of truth to avoid this defect, it ought to have an element of its own, distinct from the form of the conditioned. It ought to have something unconditioned capable of assuring a real genesis of denotation and the other dimensions of the proposition. Thus the condition of truth would be defined no longer as the form of conceptual possibility, but rather as ideational material or ‘stratum’, that is to say, no longer as signification, but rather as sense. (LdS 30; LoS 19)

Behind the empirical entities and through searching for their conditions, Deleuze discovers sense as the genetic element and introduces it as the real condition. At this level, Joe Hughes’s reading of Deleuze as a Husserlian phenomenologist makes a perfect sense. Having defined the Husserlian phenomenology as a combination of two principles of phenomenological reduction and the problem of constitution, Hughes attempts to demonstrate a perfect correspondence between Husserl and Deleuze according to these principles. Regarding the first principle, which can be defined as “’putting out of play’ of all positions taken toward the

74 

M. PARSA

already given Objective world” (Hughes, 2008: 4), Deleuze’s debt to Husserl is uncontroversial and is admitted several times in Logic of Sense (although Deleuze’s references to Husserl in Logic of Sense are scattered and barely systematic), for example when Deleuze claims that Husserl’s “perceptual noema” mark the dimension of sense which is distinguished from, not only the Objective world, but also from the subject and the concept: “when Husserl reflects on the ‘perceptual noema’, or the ‘sense of perception’, he at once distinguishes it from the physical object, from the psychological or ‘lived’, from mental representations and from logical concepts” (LdS 32; LoS 20). The image of a world composed of objects (including subjective objects and intersubjective objects, namely concepts) is what Husserl calls the “natural attitude,” and this image ought to be reduced in order to clear the space for a transcendental attitude towards genesis, which is a movement towards the things in themselves.10 Now, as Hughes insists, the consideration of the object as phenomenon is necessary to take genesis not as objective constitution, but as the “bestowal of sense” (Hughes, 2008: 9). Thus, in phenomenology, constitution or generation does not entail the actual production of a physical object but the constitution of a phenomenon in experience. But for Deleuze, this distinction would be very tricky. What we consider as the physical object is indeed the phenomenon whose constitution is here under consideration. Thus, it is not just about treating the contents of consciousness as the contents of consciousness, as Dermot Moran puts it (Moran, 2000: 152; Hughes, 2008: 4). The aim of the reduction for Deleuze is to reveal the genetic reality, although at the level of sense and of experience. In other words, it reveals that the things in themselves are not already established objects in the realm of references, or Kantian phenomena; they must be sought at the level of sense as the ideational material, or the genesis of things. This phenomenological construal takes us from the logicism of Frege and Russell to the problem of experience, or a kind of transcendental approach, as we have seen in Deleuze’s critique of Russell regarding how his examples are isolated and independent from any experience. For this reason, Husserl’s departure point, which is, the inherent connection that he makes between judgment and experience is crucial for Deleuze. But as we mentioned, Deleuze never gives a systematic reading of Husserl and his references to him in Logic of Sense remain scattered. Instead, he gives a systematic reading of Bergson, where a similar connection between judgment and experience appears. Thus, the Husserlian focus on the transcendental aesthetics and the phenomenological method takes the form of

3  FREGE’S PARADOX AND THE SERIAL FORM 

75

“intuition as method” in Deleuze’s work. Therefore, intuition as method would entail the reduction of the natural attitude which underlies the false problems emerged from taking the differences of degree (false differences) as true differences in kind. The spatial differences between objects together with their subjective images (concepts) belong to this natural attitude. One of the reasons why Deleuze does not deal directly with the phenomenological reduction in the work of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty but addresses it through Bergson is that the latter more directly uses the Kantian architecture, where intuition as method entails the reduction of understanding. For Deleuze, the natural attitude underlies beginning with understanding and its reduction clears the space for intuition as method. It is understanding that takes the stable objects (correlated with concepts) as the departure point. And intuition as method is nothing but thinking in terms of duration or time. Understanding versus intuition, thus, align with representational truth and genetic truth. And the nature of this distinction underlies the relation between them; genetic truth includes the genesis of representational truth. The transcendental approach, in both Husserl and Bergson, poses a new problem regarding subjectivity which is different from what Frege accuses as psychologism. Husserl’s account of the subjective transcendental field (the transcendental ego) together with Sartre’s critique of it will be discussed in Chap. 6. But Bergson’s account of the subjectivity of duration is interesting here for the purpose of locating the notion of sense in Deleuze’s thought. As mentioned, the main question regards the relation between the Kantian faculties of understanding and intuition (sensibility). Bergson considers the differences of concepts in understanding (correlated with the differences of phenomenal objects) as a spatial difference (difference in degree) and subject to reduction.11 It is where the entities are already formed and established. Understanding cannot be a ground because it contains the results of a process. The process itself should be searched in intuition as the site of duration. Now, ordinarily, intuition is considered as innate and personal, reminds us that which is criticized by Frege as unshareable. According to Deleuze’s reading of Bergson, the huge diversity of spatio-temporal objects and the vastness of its realm which extends to the far galaxies form the illusionary realm of subjectivity. The real objectivity should be searched for where duration can be experienced, namely in intuition. Here, intuition underlies the point where subjectivity is under construction in experience. It indicates the passivity of the subject (which entails the activity of intuition in relation to the

76 

M. PARSA

subject). In this regard, Bergson’s intuition is of course comparable with Merleau-Ponty’s perception. Obviously, this move is not a return to subjectivity as though it is a return to intuition (or perception) as the true experience. It is rather a return to the constitution of subjectivity, which is to say, focusing on what in experience which modifies constantly the subjectivity. This provides Deleuze with his notion of an unconscious transcendental field which will be discussed in Chap. 7 and also Chap. 10. Briefly, Deleuze’s logic of sense is a transcendental logic in that it takes into account the problem of experience. But it entails a transition from conscious experience to unconscious and purely corporeal experience, and the latter underlies the real which is at work in us and tears apart the spatial and representational image of reality containing the established objects. This is why it deserves to be called a transcendental ontology. Therefore, Deleuze searches for the things in themselves in the production of phenomena. His philosophy has nothing to do with an idealist epistemology. It is rather a realist ontology; not an ontology of essence, but an ontology of sense. For Deleuze, in the realm of sense, logic and ontology join together and form a disjunctive synthesis. Thus, the logical proposition with its dimensions of denotation, manifestation and signification would correspond with “ontological proposition” with the dimensions of “the denoted, the manifested, and the signified” (the object, the subject and the concept, or, the individual, the person and the classes or properties). And if sense is the fourth dimension of the logical proposition, it is also the fourth dimension of the ontological proposition (namely the singularity). This is one of the reasons why the logic of sense is also an ontology of sense. The move from the logic of signification towards the logic of sense also entails a transition to ontology. Thus, as Deleuze after explaining this correspondence in Seventeenth Series of the Static Logical Genesis warns, the mentioned correspondence is disjunctive (“between the logical genesis and the ontological genesis there is no parallelism”), which is to say, it underlies the transition between logic and ontology. Sense is the result of the complex structure of the correspondence between the logical and the ontological. As the genetic element, it is necessary to explain the production of the object, the subject and the concept, or, the individual, the person and the classes or properties. According to Deleuze, the ontological proposition has a kind of priority over the logical proposition, in the same manner that the logic of sense has over the logic of signification. This is to say that everything begins with singularities, or in other words, with events. An individual is an

3  FREGE’S PARADOX AND THE SERIAL FORM 

77

actualization or the expression of the singularity-event. The ontological proposition is the relation of actualization or expression between the singularity-­event (as the predicate) and the individual (as the subject). Now, Deleuze claims that the analytic order of predicates is an order of coexistence or succession, with neither logical hierarchy nor the character of generality. When a predicate is attributed to an individual subject, it does not enjoy any degree of generality; having a color is no more general than being green, being animal is no more general than being reasonable. The increasing or decreasing generalities appear only when a predicate is determined in a proposition to function as the subject of another predicate. As long as predicates are brought to bear upon individuals, we must recognize in them equal immediacy which blends with their analytic character. To have a color is no more general than to be green, since it is only this color that is green, and this green that has this shade, that are related to the individual subject. This rose is not red without having the red color of this rose. This red is not a color without having the color of this red. (LdS 136; LoS 112)

This construal of predication as the order of mixture or coexistence guarantees the priority of the ontological proposition. It marks the domain of intuition where no attribution is less immediate than the other. In other words, the ontological proposition entails nothing but the relation of difference at the level of duration, or, in the terminology of Logic of Sense, of genesis. At this level, “the rose is red” is the becoming red of the rose, a singular event. The ontological proposition is the relation between a singular event and its actualization in an individual. The individual itself forms the analytic proposition. The event (becoming red or becoming green) subdivides endlessly at the level of duration and produces the extension in which “the rose is red” or “the tree is green” appear. These appearances form the connective series of the possible objects or ordinary points. But the so-called subdivision behooves each series to be constituted of divergent sub-series. Deleuze’s aim here is “to make of divergence an object of affirmation as such” (LdS 138; LoS 114). In other words, the singularity insists in the produced object. It is never dissolved. Therefore, the ontological proposition underlies a disjunctive synthesis, or, the affirmation of divergent series, which is the ontological counterpart of the logical generality. At this level, it is the analytic proposition. Therefore, instead of the individual cases which fall under universal concepts, we have various series which communicate through the paradoxical

78 

M. PARSA

entity, or the singular point. The only thing which is common between the series is this paradoxical entity. The logical proposition results from the third aspect of the ontological proposition, namely “the multiple classes or variable properties”. In the logical proposition, the individual as denotatum (the referent) needs to already be there. The same holds for manifestation and signification. We have seen that the logical proposition, with its tertiary arrangement of denotation, manifestation and signification, form a circle of dependence which necessitates the intervention of the third dimension, namely sense. Now that we discussed also the ontological proposition, we can see how sense enjoys a double generative role: not only does it engender the logical proposition with its determinate dimensions (denotation, manifestation, and signification); it engenders also the objective correlates of this proposition which were themselves first produced as ontological propositions (the denoted, the manifested, and the signified). (LdS 145; LoS 120)

If individuals are the outcome of the ontological proposition, truth would be the outcome of the logical proposition. Thus, we can distinguish between sense as the genetic element (or the condition) of the referent and sense as the genetic element (or the condition) of truth (of reference).

Notes 1. The French “sens” means also direction, and the English translation chooses “sense or direction” for it. 2. “‘[H]otter’ never stops where it is but is always going a point further, and the same applies to ‘colder’, whereas definite quality is something that has stopped going on and fixed”; “…the younger becoming older than the older, the older becoming younger than the younger—but they can never finally become so; if they did they would no longer be becoming, but would be so” (Plato 154–155; LdS 9–10; LoS 2). 3. Deleuze mentions this critique of Carnap in a footnote and takes it as a “resistance” that Frege’s “infinite proliferation of entities has evoked” in “many contemporary logicians”, a resistance which is “little justified” [peu justifiées] (LdS 42; LoS 337–338). As Deleuze claims, it is not only Carnap who resists against this aspect of Frege’s analysis. Michael Dummett also makes argument for the incoherency of this aspect, and concludes that Frege needs not to distinguish customary sense and indirect sense and reference at the first place. He summarizes his claim as the following, where “oratio obliqua” is equivalent to Frege’s indirect cases: “There is …

3  FREGE’S PARADOX AND THE SERIAL FORM 

79

no reason to think that an expression occurring in double oratio obliqua has a sense or a reference different from that which it has in single oratio obliqua: its referent in double oratio obliqua will be the sense which it has in single oratio obliqua, which is the same as the sense it has in ordinary contexts, which is the same as its referent in single oratio obliqua” (Dummett, 1973: 268–269). 4. In this letter, Russell recognizes the paradox in Frege’s logical system in Basic Laws: “I have encountered a difficulty on one point. You assert (p. 17) that a function could also constitute the indefinite element. This is what I used to believe, but this view now seems to me dubious because of the following contradiction: let w be the predicate of being a predicate which cannot be predicated of itself. Can w be predicated of itself? From either answer follows its contradictory. We must therefore conclude that w is not a predicate. Likewise, there is no class (as a whole) of those classes which, as wholes, are not members of themselves. From this I conclude that under certain circumstances a definable set does not form a whole” (cited in Noonan, 2001: 9). 5. Claud Imbert notices that this Riemannian-Bergsonian notion of qualitative multiplicity (what he calls “manifold”) opposes to the notion of set, although he does not mention its inherent relation to the notion of series: “This notion [algebraic manifolds (or varieties)] is borrowed [by Deleuze] from Riemann and Lautman, and preferred to that of sets” (Imbert, 1999: 134). The role of Lautman will be discussed in Chap. 7. 6. Sean Bowden in his Priority of Events declares, “while dy/dx expresses the cancellation of individual values and the variation of individual relations within the function, it also elevates the differential relation itself to the status of a universal which remains the same with respect to changing values and relations” (Bowden, 2011: 104). It is true that differential calculus provides us with a universality, but we should insist that what “remains the same with respect to changing values and relations” is the pure change, pure difference and pure relation. The universality here is essentially different from the general universality of concepts or types. 7. Sean Bowden devotes most of his fourth chapter on “Structuralism— Structure and Sense-Event” to an analysis of phonology, instead of calculus, referring to the work of Roman Jakobson (he discusses Deleuze’s use of calculus and the corresponding problem of determination in his third chapter on “Lautman and Simondon”. In this way, he follows Deleuze’s formulation of the problem in Difference and Repetition. But in Logic of Sense, Deleuze discusses the differential calculus in the context of structuralism and we follow this line of thought). Hereby, he gives a similar account of the three steps of the structural determination—undetermined, reciprocal determination, complete determination—focusing on the example of phonemes. Regarding the central role of language for structuralism and for

80 

M. PARSA

Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, this analysis is of a great value and we recommend it without repeating it here (See Bowden, 2011: 155–158). 8. As Deleuze puts it, “there is thus a double sliding of one series over or under the other, which constitutes both, in a perpetual disequilibrium visà-vis each other” (LdS 54; LoS 40). 9. The distinction between description and explaining arises originally from Dilthey and then Husserl. Particularly, Husserl uses this distinction to distinguish the genetic method and the problem of production; “In a certain way, we can therefore distinguish ‘explanatory’ phenomenology as a phenomenology of regulated genesis, and ‘descriptive’ phenomenology as a phenomenology of possible, essential shapes (no matter how they have come to pass) in pure consciousness and their teleological ordering in the realm of possible reason under the headings, ‘object’ and ‘sense’” (Husserl, 2001: 629). See also Hughes (2008, 8). A discussion of the relation between Deleuze and Husserl regarding the problem of genesis will appear later in this section. 10. Hughes discusses Deleuze’s debt to the phenomenological reduction mostly through Merleau-Ponty, focusing on the distinction in his Phenomenology of Perception between the dot-like objects in isolation and their belonging to the field of perception in a network of relations with other objects or within a context (Hughes, 2008: 5). Then he summarizes Merleau-Ponty’s idea as the following: “In our everyday experience, we see objects in the world, and they seem to be discreet representations: they are self-contained and have well-defined limits. A car can run into another car. Two billiard balls collide and go in their own separate directions. But these are the results of the activity of perception” (Hughes, 2008: 5). Considering the realm of objects as the result is absolutely compatible with Deleuze’s aims. But Deleuze never refers to Merleau-Ponty and Foucault claims that “The Logic of Sense can be read as the most alien book imaginable from The Phenomenology of Perception” (Foucault, 2016: 41). Therefore, I focus more on Bergson, although, despite Foucault’s claim, reading Deleuze in reference to Merleau-Ponty can be very fruitful, as Hughes demonstrates. 11. In Bergsonism, Deleuze explains why the difference between the spatio-­ temporal objects should be considered as the difference in degree: “Take a lump of sugar: It has a spatial configuration. But if we approach it from that angle, all we will ever grasp are differences in degree between that sugar and any other thing. But it also has a duration, a rhythm of duration, a way of being in time that is at least partially revealed in the process of its dissolving, and that shows how this sugar differs in kind not only from other things, but first and foremost from itself” (Bergsonism 31–32). The difference between things is a difference in degree because they appear in a homogenous space that remains the same among them.

3  FREGE’S PARADOX AND THE SERIAL FORM 

81

References Bell, J. (2006). Deleuze and Analytic Philosophy. Presented as the SEP-FEP Joint Conference. https://www2.southeastern.edu/Academics/Faculty/jbell/ deleuzeandanalytic.doc Bowden, S. (2011). The Priority of Events: Deleuze’s Logic of Sense. Edinburgh University Press. Carnap, R. (1947). Meaning and Necessity. University of Chicago Press. Deleuze, G. (1969). Logiques du Sens. Les Edition de Minuit. Deleuze, G. (1990). The Logic of Sense (M. Lester, Trans.). The Athlone Press. Deleuze, G. (1991). Bergsonism (H.  Tomlinson & B.  Habberjam, Trans.). Zone Books. Deleuze, G. (2004a). Desert Islands and Other Texts (D.  Lapoujade, Ed. and M. Taormins, Trans.). Semiotext(e). Deleuze, G. (2004b). Difference and Repetition (P. Patton, Trans.). Continuum. Dummett, M. (1973). Frege: Philosophy of Language. Duckworth. Foucault, M. (2016). Theatrum Philosophicum. In N. Morar, T. Nail, & D. W. Smith (Eds.), Between Deleuze and Foucault (pp. 38–58). Edinburgh University Press. Frege, G. (1956). The Thought: A Logical Inquiry. Mind, New Series, 65(259), 289–311. Frege, G. (1960). Translations from Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege (P. Geash & M. Black, Eds.). Basil Blackwell. Gabriel, M. (2015). Fields of Sense: A New Realist Ontology. Edinburgh University Press. Hughes, J. (2008). Deleuze and the Genesis of Representation. Continuum. Husserl, E. (2001). Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Syntheses: Lectures on Transcendental Logic (A. Steinblock, Trans.). Kluwer Academic Publishers. Imbert, C. (1999). Empiricism Unhinged: From the Logic of Sense to the Logic of Sensation. In J.  Khalfa (Ed.), An Introduction to the Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze (pp. 133–148). Continuum. Lacan, J. (1977). The Seminar: Book XI, “The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis” (1964) Alan Sheridan (Trans.). Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis. Livingston, P.  M. (2012). The Politics of Logic: Badiou, Wittgenstein, and the Consequences of Formalism. Routledge. Moore, A.  W. (2012). The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics: Making Sense of Things. Cambridge University Press. Moran, D. (2000). Introduction to Phenomenology. Routledge. Noonan, H. (2001). Frege: A Critical Introduction. Wiley. Plato. (1961). Plato: The Collected Dialogues (E.  Hamilton & H.  Cairns, Eds.). Princeton University Press. Smith, D.  W. (2011). From the Surface to the Depth: On the Transition from Logic of Sense to Anti-Oedipus. In C.  V. Boundas (Ed.), Gilles Deleuze: The Intensive Reduction (pp. 82–98). Continuum.

CHAPTER 4

The Stoic Logic of Events

The main aim of this chapter is to unpack Deleuze’s interpretation of Stoic logic in Logic of Sense. It is in this regard that I also discuss his account of Stoic (metaphysical) physics and Stoic ethics. According to “the aphorism-­ anecdote” that Deleuze quotes from Diogenes Laertius in Twenties Series on the Moral Problem in Stoic Philosophy, the Stoics take the parts of philosophy, in so far as they cannot be separated, as though they can be distinguished: “Diogenes Laertius relates that the Stoics compared philosophy to an egg: ‘The shell is Logic, next comes the white, Ethics, and the yoke in the center is Physics’” (LdS 167; LoS 142).1 Deleuze uses this allegory to show how Stoic ethics is intertwined with logic and physics. A disciple asks a question of a Stoic sage: O master, what is ethics? The Stoic sage takes then a hard-boiled egg from his reversible cloak and designates the egg with his staff. (Or, having taken out the egg, he strikes the disciple with his staff, giving him to understand that he himself must provide the answer. The disciple, in turn, takes the staff and breaks the egg in such a manner that a little of the white remains attached to the yoke and a little to the shell. Either the master has to do all of this himself, or the disciple will have to come to have an understanding only after many years.). (LdS 167; LoS 142)

Thus, one can answer the question “what is ethics?” only by understanding that there is logical ethics and physical ethics. And Deleuze uses © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Parsa, A Reading of Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13706-8_4

83

84 

M. PARSA

this parable to discuss Stoic ethics. But it holds for Deleuze’s entire reading of ancient Stoicism whose aim is to give an account of Stoic logic. Thus, one cannot answer the question “what is logic?” without understanding that it has a physical aspect and an ethical aspect. We begin by discussing its physical aspect through the quasi-causality of effects and then we move to its ethical aspect through the notion of Aion as a dimension of time. In Deleuze’s reading, Stoic logic is indeed their theory of lekta (λεκτα). Lekton (in singular) can be defined as the linguistic sense. This theory marks an effort to separate sense from the Platonic and the Aristotelian essence. Lekton is one of the four incorporeals (ασώματα) and in order to discuss it, Deleuze is required to discuss the Stoic theory of the incorporeals. Deleuze’s main source for his reading of the Stoic incorporeals is Emile Bréhier’s La Theorie des incorporels dans l’ancien stoicism [The Theory of Incorporeals in the Ancient Stoicism] (A. Picard 1907). This text contains the main elements and notions of Deleuze’s reading of this theory and I will refer to it extensively to elaborate this reading. Then, after discussing the quasi-causality of the incorporeal effects in regard with the Stoic theory of lekta, I move to Deleuze’s reading of the Stoic theory of time in relation with Stoic ethics whose main source is Victor Goldschmidt’s Le Systeme stoicien et l’idee de temp [The Stoic System and the Idea of Time] (Vrin 1953).

The Existence of Causes According to Sextus Empiricus, the Stoics provide a classification of the incorporeals and consider lekta (sayables),2 place, void and time incorporeal.3 For the Stoics, only bodies exist (a view that can be called “pan-­ somatism”). In this sense, they are full-fledged materialist. But they invent a realm distinct from existence for the incorporeals, namely that of subsistence. Since the subsistence is necessarily subsistence in an existing body, this invention does not harm their materialism, although it makes it very complicated and far from a bare materialism. As will be seen, Deleuze derives his notion of the surface in Logic of Sense from the Stoic idea of subsistence. Subsistence defines the incorporeal surface of bodies. Now, in Deleuze’s reading, Stoic philosophy entails the genetic role of the surface. The surface is where a body modifies itself or is under generation. But by introducing the quasi-causality of the surface-effect, Stoicism implies the independence of the surface and this leads to the introduction of the

4  THE STOIC LOGIC OF EVENTS 

85

notion of subsistence as distinct from existence. Hence the distinction between the causality of bodies and the quasi-causality of effects. Thus, our departure point would be the Stoic general genus “something” (τι, aliquid)4 and its division into the corporeals and the incorporeals. The corporeals exist and the incorporeals subsist. Emile Bréhier explains the Stoic incorporeals in contrast with their role in Platonic and Aristotelean philosophy. According to him, Plato’s and Aristotle’s recourse to the incorporeal entities comes from the fact that they consider the body as dead and inert and therefore there should be something alive to make it move. These incorporeal entities are true causes which give the bodies their movement and life. The Stoics reject any incorporeal cause; according to them, the bodies themselves are the true causes. They define a body as that which has the capability to act or receive an action. The Stoic incorporeals are the effects of bodies or the results of actions and passions of bodies. While for example for Aristotle there should be an incorporeal unmoved mover as the true cause of all corporeal causalities, for the Stoics bodies are themselves causes, and the incorporeals are effects. According to Plato and Aristotle, who search for a stable basis for the changing being, true causes are fixed incorporeals and bodies are effects. According to the Stoics, who deny such a basis, bodies are causes and the incorporeals are effects. Even in this initial move we can see that the Stoics reverse the Platonism of ideas and beings. The Stoic bodies are not docile and receptive regarding the action of ideas. They are effective in themselves. But in what sense can bodies act as causes? According to Bréhier’s reading of the Stoics, there is an essential difference between two conceptions of causality. Platonic cause is mathematical, as the idea of circle is the cause of all real circles. In the Platonic system, the cause is external to the effect. In contrast, according to the Stoics, the cause is the internal force of movement of a body and therefore is biological, or organic, as most of their examples which are borrowed from living entities indicate, such as the development of a germ or a plant.5 The Stoics tend to extend this organic and internal view of causality to all entities and the whole world: The whole world with its organization and the hierarchy of its parts, its evolution which goes from one conflagration to the other, is a living being. Even the mineral, with the cohesion of its parts, possesses a unity analogous to the unity of a living entity. Thus, one can say, the change in being is always analogous to the evolution of a living entity. (Bréhier 4–5)6

86 

M. PARSA

Unlike Plato and Aristotle who provide a “mechanistic explication of life” (Bréhier 5), the Stoics provide an organic explanation of the whole world. The world or cosmos is not a sum or collection of bodies but rather one organic body.7 Hence, the Stoic cause is an internal force which holds the parts of a body together and gives it its movement, whether it is a mineral, a plant or animal, or even the whole world: “The cause is therefore really the essence of being, not an ideal model which forces it to imitate, but a productive cause which acts on it, lives in it and makes it alive” (Bréhier 5). The Stoic unity of being is a vital and changing unity. Inside this unified being, the bodies are causes of one another, and they change because of this reciprocal causality. This Stoic view about causality is followed by their view about space (place and void). In this view, it is not the case that there is an empty space in which the objects can be set up. They introduce a living and dynamical account of the space itself. The essence of a thing actively produces its own special extension. Therefore, space is the result of the internal activity of a living being. This essence is the seminal cause and reason of each entity,8 and since the entities can join together to form new mixtures, this is the seminal reason of the whole world (Bréhier 42). Thus, for the Stoics the cause is an immanent cause of extension and production. The place of causality is at the center or the depth of bodies, and it is that which makes it possible for the bodies to affect each other and form new mixtures. In this sense, and with several references to Emile Bréhier’s study, Deleuze in Logic of Sense defines the existence of bodies and the causality among them. In the realm of existence, bodies are causes of one another and in this way they are connected together and form the state of affairs. This realm is constituted of the tensions and mixtures of bodies. Deleuze emphasizes how this view can be extended to the entire realm of existence: “At the limit, there is a unity of all bodies, in the function of a primordial fire in which they resolve and through which they develop according to their respective tension” (LdS 13; LoS 4). This forms what the Stoics call existence (huparchein) or present (enestos).9 The time of existence is the present, which is considered the connection of bodies through causality or continuity and duration by Deleuze. Bodies relate to one another in the present. But all bodies are connected together through the living present or the universal causality and form a “cosmic present embracing the entire universe” (LdS 13; LoS 4). This universal causality amounts to what Deleuze in his reading of the Stoics calls destiny and is what relates the individuals to the whole. In this regard, the time of the realm of existence

4  THE STOIC LOGIC OF EVENTS 

87

is also called “Chronos” in Logic of Sense. Chronos (which appears in the work of the early Stoics) is the time of the state of affairs and their causal connections and mixtures. This is the only existing time which, at the limit, designates the evolution of the universe. All presents (present day, present year…) are the pieces of the universal Chronos. There is only present and its extension into past and future which are in turn just the extensions of the present.

The Subsistence of Effects The body that acts and the body that receives the action are both causes. The effect is not a body. It is incorporeal and it does not have causal efficacy.10 Therefore, instead of existing (τὸ ὄν), it subsists (τὸ ὑφεστός) (LdS 13; LoS 4–5). The fact that the effect is incorporeal and is deprived of any causal efficacy is the most important and interesting Stoic discovery for Deleuze. But this lack of corporeality does not render it secondary or derivative regarding the bodies. Instead, it helps Deleuze to introduce a new realm different from and prior to the bodies and their interactions. In order to know what this realm is, we need to ask first: what is the incorporeal effect? It is the attribute or event. The point is that the Stoic account of causality is in terms of a changing flux in which involved bodies are under permanent modification. Now, there is a distinction between the modifying bodies (and their properties or accidents) and the modification itself as the incorporeal and logical attribute. And the latter is not reducible to the former. It is the irreducible surface of the changing bodies. Bréhier explains this with an example from Stobaus: When the fire heats the iron and makes it red, one should not say that the fire gave the iron a new quality, but the fire penetrates into the iron to coexist with it in all its parts. The modifications … are not new realities or properties, but only the attributes. (Bréhier 11)

The red iron is a mixture of fire and iron and the mixture undergoes a modification which happens to both involved bodies. The modification is not itself a body, or a quality of a body, but an attribute that happens to a body as an event. As the genetic surface, it is that which separates the bodies in a process (the red iron as a thing is separated from the other things).

88 

M. PARSA

This way of speaking is strange because, properly speaking, the effect is produced by the body and cannot happen to the body from without. But by identifying the effect and the event, Deleuze emphasizes that the effect is not produced in the same manner that a quality or an accident is produced. The effect happens to the body as if it is not derivable from its properties. Thus, the effect is essentially different from the bodies which exist and, in a sense, separable from it. Thus, this is a difference between what happens and what is. That which happens is not a body or a property of a body. Bréhier describes it as that which is used to be called “facts” (“c’est ce que nous appellerion aujourd’hui des faits”; Bréhier 12), and Deleuze calls it event-effect, or simply event. Deleuze prefers the notion of event to that of fact because he wants to emphasize the processual nature of the incorporeal effect. This brings about a difference in kind between the corporeal cause and the incorporeal effect. They are not two types of being. Only bodies are being. Incorporeals, as Deleuze declares, are “extra-being” (LdS 33; LoS 21). They are becoming, or the event. What distinguishes the Stoics from Aristotle (and the event or attribute from the Aristotelian accident) is the independence of the incorporeals from the bodies. The effect forms an independent realm of incorporeals that subsist in the bodies. According to Deleuze, the Stoic ontological rupture from Plato and Aristotle depends on this new distinction which is different from the Aristotelean distinction between substance and accident. In Aristotle the departure point is the substantial bodies which are capable of having different qualities or properties as accidents. Unlike the Stoic organic picture, here the substances themselves cannot evolve and accidents mark their evolution, or in other words, the evolution does not affect the substance; it is accidental. Thus, for Aristotle the relation between bodies is that which happens to them accidentally, and in order to exist a body does not need the other bodies. It is an ontology that takes the realm of existence as a sum. However, according to the Stoics, being forms a mixture. In the Second Series of Paradoxes of Surface Effects in Logic of Sense, Deleuze states: … in Aristotle, all categories are said in terms of Being; and there would be a difference in being, between substance as the primary sense, and the other categories which are related to it as accidents. For the Stoics on the contrary, the state of affairs, quantities and qualities, are no less beings (or bodies) than the substance; they take part in substance, and in this term they are

4  THE STOIC LOGIC OF EVENTS 

89

opposed with an extra-being which constitutes the incorporeal as a nonexisting entity. The highest term therefore is not Being, but Something, aliquid, insofar as it subsumes being and non-being, existence and inherence [subsistence]. (LdS 16; LoS 6–7)

Instead of the existence of substances and accidents, the Stoics make a new distinction between the existence of beings and the subsistence (or inherence) of extra-beings which are attributes or events. This is an important upheaval, because in the Aristotelean definition of Being, substance exists primarily and accident secondarily. For Aristotle, accident does not form an independent realm but only a subordinated degree of being and this makes the entire Aristotelian ontology hierarchical and submitted to Platonic economy. According to the Stoics, on the contrary, the essential difference between existence and subsistence prevents any subordination of the latter to the former. Thus, the Stoics introduce the general category of something (aliquid) composed of beings and extra-beings. In the Platonic tradition, including Aristotle’s Metaphysics, there are only beings and their subordinates (accidents). The Stoics add a new realm to the ontology which makes it much more complicated. And since the Aristotelian view is dominant in the history of philosophy and logic, the ancient Stoics can stand beside the modern figures who attempted to initiate a revolution in logic. Hence, in The Hellenistic Philosophers, which is a classic in Stoic scholarship, Long and Sedley declare: The Stoics avoid the common Platonist assumption… that to be something is already to exist. To be something is rather, it seems, to be a proper subject of thought and discourse. Most such things do also exist, in that they are bodies. But an incorporeal like a time, or a fictional object like a Centaur, does not. Since, however, expressions like ‘Centaur’ and ‘today’ are genuinely significant, they are taken to name something, even though that something has no actual or independent existence… Although they deny themselves the term ‘exist’ for such cases, the Stoics have recourse to the broader term under which it falls ‘subsist’… This latter term, in its Stoic usage, seems to capture the mode of being that Meinong called bestehen and Russell rendered by ‘subsist’ (in his 1904 articles on Meinong in Mind 13). (Long and Sedley, p. 164)

Long and Sedley in a comparison with Meinong, refer to what Bréhier calls the attribute or effect of the mixture of bodies as “the mode of

90 

M. PARSA

being.”11 The corporeal is being, the incorporeal is the mode or the way of being. This conception is also comparable with how Frege defines sense as “the mode of presentation” of a being (Gegebensein). Frege too insists on the independence and priority of sense over referents or subjective ideas (Frege 60). Accordingly, in Logic of Sense, Deleuze considers the ancient Stoics along with Meinong and Frege to indicate the insufficiency of the realm of existence of spatiotemporal objects (referents) to face many significant logical problems.

The Sayable and the Stoic Logic Stoicism is also a rupture from Aristotle in considering the sayables (les exprimables, lekta), instead of concepts (genus and species), as the elements of logic. Universal concepts appear in judgments while sayables appear in propositions. Unlike Aristotle whose logic deals with universal concepts and judgements, Stoic logic deals with an apparently linguistic entity, namely the sayable. What is incorporeal, according to the Stoics, is not the universal or general concept, but rather the sayable which is inherently propositional. In this regard, the Stoic logic is propositional, and its element is the sayable. According to the Stoics, only what is attributable is sayable (or expressible). On the one hand, the body cannot be said. Only the incorporeal effect can be said. On the other hand, the sayable must be incorporeal. That which is sayable by a body cannot itself be a body. Thus, a sayable is the incorporeal sense of a proposition. In the Stoic view, a proposition (an utterance) is a body (a voice, “tree” for example) which says something about another body (a tree, for example). The sense of the proposition (sayable) is not a body but is something incorporeal which subsists in the communicating bodies.12 It is, as Sextus Empiricus states, “the state of affairs signified and sayable, which is true or false” (Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors 8.11–12; Long and Sedley 196). And as we learned from Frege, that which is true or false is obviously not a body. Thus, the sayable, or sense, is the way a state of affairs is revealed by a proposition, not the state of affairs itself and not the proposition itself. This is a move radically different from the primacy of denotation that can be found in most of modern philosophy of language. The content of a proposition, what it expresses, is not the corporeal state of affairs, but rather the incorporeal sayable. The sayable relates two bodies which of course are not at the same level (one is signifier and the other signified;

4  THE STOIC LOGIC OF EVENTS 

91

later, through the thesis of the priority of event-effect over the involved bodies, we will claim that the bodies which are related to each other are constituted by the event-effect). A body (a voice, for example)13 signifies another body (the referent), and there is a third entity in this signification which is not itself a body although it subsists in the involved bodies.14 In other words, while the proposition is a body, its sense as the effect is not its quality, so that the sense of the word red is nor a quality of the word neither a quality of the red thing. The quality of redness has no independence from a red body and is not attributable to it. This is why sense is shareable and can be the element of a scientific logic of which Frege dreamt. This is similar to what takes place between fire and iron. When a body says something about another body, they form a mixture and the sayable or sense is the incorporeal effect of this corporeal mixture. It is in this sense that in Deleuze’s view the Stoics identify sense with event: “The Stoics discovered sense along with the event: sense, the expressed of the proposition, is an incorporeal at the surface of things, a complex and irreducible entity, the pure event which insists or subsists in the proposition” (LdS 30; LoS 19). This connection between the linguistic sense and the ontological event is one of the most interesting aspect of Deleuze’s reading of Stoicism. And Deleuze makes himself very clear in this ontological construal of language: “The event occurring in a state of affairs and the sense inhering in the proposition are the same entity” (LdS 213; LoS 182). The linguistic sense is the external event. The result is that linguistic expression is entangled with the becoming of things. If the world was a set of stable things, language would be the image or the representation of the state of affairs. Now that events are real things, language is not a subjective imaginary tool to depict the external reality because it shares something with it, namely sense. Language is not imaginary; it is real; and “events make language possible” (LdS 212; LoS 181). This is Deleuze’s immanentism in a nutshell; it is a bad question to ask, “what is the sense of this event?” The event is sense itself. And this is indeed a great Stoic discovery. According to the Stoics, what in a body which is expressible (sayable) by a proposition is the incorporeal attribute or event. This sayable is an intermediate which relates the proposition as a body to another body. There is no such a thing in Aristotle, for whom the proposition is the intermediary between thought and object. Therefore his logic is that of judgments, not of statements. Aristotelian logic is the logic of judgements, where the relation between universal concepts is the image of the relation between external objects and their qualities, and

92 

M. PARSA

there is no need for an intermediary to connect these two realms. According to the Stoics, on the contrary, although the sayable is not the proposition itself, but it ought to be expressible (sayable) in language in general sense (the realm of signs). Through the incorporeality of the sayable subsisting in the proposition, the Stoics raise the propositions beyond being a mere vehicle. Language receives a logical role due to the metaphysical nature of what it expresses, namely the sense. In fact, for Aristotle’s categorical logic what is sayable is a thought (a subjective idea), and the Stoic revolution in logic arises from considering the thought as corporeal and seeking the sense of a proposition as that which subsists in it.15 Therefore, the Stoic logic is the logic of propositions, and particularly, as will be seen, what in a proposition that expresses the event, namely the verb which takes the place of the predicate.16 The relation between events is expressed in the relation between propositions, which is dialectics as the essential part of logic: “the dialectics is precisely this science of incorporeal events as they are expressed in the propositions, and of the connections between events as they are expressed in relations between propositions” (LdS 18; LoS 8).17 Hence, Stoic logic is a search for sense in events that relate things and connect things and propositions. Consequently, the ancient Stoics held a different view towards the proposition. According to them, a proposition is not the connection of a pre-existing predicate with a pre-existing subject, or a property of a subject to that subject. Following the Megarians, the Stoics reject the copula “is.”18 Instead of “the tree is green”, their proposition is in the form of “the tree greens”. The attribute is, for the Stoics, the verb, which thereby represents an event. They replace the predicate with the attribute in this sense. The proposition does not imply a link between two established nominatives, but rather between a singular event (to green) and its actualization in an individual (the tree). Referring to the Stoics, Bréhier states, “the verb … does not express a concept (an object or a class of objects), but only a fact or an event” (Bréhier 20). Thus, the true proposition is what Bréhier calls the “proposition of fact” (Bréhier 21). Deleuze may prefer to call it the evental proposition. The predicate of the evental proposition is always a verb because here the predication is attribution. It is not any more the inclusion of general concepts. Deleuze explains this as the following: Sense is … the attribute of the thing or state of affairs. The attribute of the proposition is the predicate, a qualitative predicate like green, for example.

4  THE STOIC LOGIC OF EVENTS 

93

It is attributed to the subject of the proposition. But the attribute of the thing is the verb, to green for example, or rather the event expressed by the verb … The attribute is not a being and does not qualify a being; it is an extra-being. ‘Green’ designates a quality, a mixture of things, a mixture of tree and air where chlorophyll coexists with all the parts of the leaf. ‘To green’ on the contrary, is not a quality in the thing, but an attribute which is said of the thing, and does not exist outside of the proposition which expresses it in denoting the thing. (LdS 33; LoS 21)

The sense of a proposition is that which relates it to a state of affairs and therefore it must be also the attribute of the state of affairs or the thing. The attribute of the proposition, which is the predicate, becomes the attribute of the thing, which is the event. This becoming is embodied in the proposition as the verb. Thus, the verb does not signify the quality of the subject but rather the attribute which is not reducible to the mixture itself. In this sense, all real propositions (the propositions which are not context-­ less and express a real experience or relate to a real modifying thing) contain a verb. This results in a different interpretation of the role of copula. The formal logic tends to reduce all verbs into the copula in order to grasp the atomic elements. The Stoic logic goes the other way around and reads the copula as a transformed verb, in the same manner that Frege in “Concept and Function” claims that in “Socrates is wise”, the predicate is not the nominative “wise” but rather the function “is wise”. Therefore, the Stoic logic is not the logic of concepts but rather that of facts or events. If there was only three dimensions for the proposition and sense was reducible to signification, all verbs would be reducible to nouns and the only attribution would be possible through the copula. But Deleuze insists on the intervention of sense and changes the direction. Now, it is the nominative predication that gives its place to the infinitive attribution. This results in an ontology and logic in which being is not at the center and takes its place to events and becoming. Therefore, “the tree is green” is just a reduction of “the tree greens”, and the latter is where the real attribution takes place. This view leads to an ontology very different from the classical one that limits itself to the things that are (capable to appear in ontological propositions like “the tree is” or “the tree exists”). The only true ontological proposition is the link between the singular event and its actualization in an individual.

94 

M. PARSA

Events and Verbs Let us summarize what we learned until now. In a proposition, verbs are the expressions of events. According to the Stoics, a verb expresses something incorporeal which is attachable to a body.19 This incorporeal something is necessary in order to relate a proposition to a state of affairs. The sayable, or sense, is this incorporeal attribute that connects a proposition as a body to another body or a state of affairs. The incorporeal attribute is sense from the point of view of the first body (proposition) and event from the point of view of the second (state of affairs). An event occurs always between the bodies, but it is not itself a body, although it is something. Thus, names denote bodies and adjectives their properties, but verbs denote incorporeal events. They are the real attributes. Deleuze, quotes a fragment from Bréhier: When the scalpel cuts the flesh, the first body produces upon the second not a new property but a new attribute, namely being cut. The attribute does not designate any real quality…, (it) is, to the contrary, always expressed by a verb, which means that it is not a being, but a way of being … This way of being finds itself somehow at the limit, at the surface of being, and it cannot change its nature: it is, in fact, neither active nor passive, for passivity would presuppose a corporeal nature which undergoes an action. It is purely and simply a result, or an effect which is not to be classified among beings … (The Stoics radically distinguished) two planes of being, something that no one had done before them: on the one hand, real and profound being, force; on the other, the plane of facts, which play on the surface of being, constitute an endless multiplicity of incorporeal beings. (Brehier 11–13; LdS 14; LoS 5)20

Being cut is the event which is the effect of the mixture of the scalpel and the flesh. This mixture occurs at the surface of being, where it is not the place of being but that of the way of being, the incorporeal. Bodies are depths (causes) and events or effects play on the surface. They are extra-­ beings which have a kind of independence or indifference regarding the economy of being or causality. The indifference of these extra-beings in relation with beings is the same as the relation of language and propositions with bodies. Language cannot directly disrupt the causal relation of bodies and is indifferent in this sense. But it holds an efficacy over bodies in a different way which is not at all causal. Being cut is indifferent or impassible to the scalpel and to the flesh because it is not corporeal like

4  THE STOIC LOGIC OF EVENTS 

95

them. This is why Bréhier says that it cannot change the nature of the bodies and the relation of causality among them. Taking another example from Foucault, “dying” is “an incorporeal effect produced by a sword; a meaning [sense] and an event.” “Antony is dead” has “dying” as its sense. It “is something that occurs, as an event, to Antony” and thus has a side towards things, and has another side towards propositions because “dying” is “what is said about Antony in a statement” (Foucault, 2016, p. 43). Sense is both what is said of a thing and something that happens. The Stoic virtue is this discovery of sense together with event. And this discovery entails the privileged role of the verb in the proposition. Hence, there is a distinction between a property (or a quality) and an attribute, where the former is corporeal, and the latter is incorporeal. This distinction can be viewed as a difference between adjectives and verbs that both hold a kind of abstraction in comparison with substantives or nominatives. An adjective such as “green” is not itself a green thing, but it is still dependent to the thing which is green, while a verb “to green” enjoys a very different abstraction from bodies; it expresses, not a body or a property of a body, but an event. It is not dependent to the body although it subsists in it. “Green” signifies the mixture, but “to green” signifies what is in the mixture which is not reducible to the corporeal mixture itself. Therefore, we can simply say that the sayable (as the linguistic sense or sign) is the incorporeal which mixes two corporeal bodies (a proposition and a state of affairs) and ascribes an incorporeal attribute to each of them (respectively, sense and event, which join together in this attribution). It is the effect of the mixture of two bodies and at the same time mixes them. But the effect is that which really happens. “To live” does not mean “to be alive.” The latter is the reduction of the former. “Dying” is not “to be dead.” It marks a perfect instance of a life. It is the event. In this way, Deleuze gives a new and positive account of the way the Stoics use paradoxes. By making a connection between Stoic thought and Lewis Carroll, Deleuze indicates that the Stoic use of paradoxes is not absurd but is nonsense in the positive sense that will be discussed in the next chapter. Here, we can just briefly make the claim that, in Deleuze’s vocabulary in Logic of Sense, nonsense has no signification but has sense, while the absurd has neither signification nor sense: “the propositions which designate contradictory objects themselves have a sense … They are without signification, that is they are absurd. Nevertheless, they have a sense, and the two notions of absurdity and nonsense must not be

96 

M. PARSA

confused” (LdS 49; LoS 35). Lewis Carroll and the Stoics are thinkers of nonsense while Albert Camus, for example, can be considered a writer of the absurd.21 Now, as Ryan Johnson reports, in 2000 years of the dominance of Aristotelian logic, the Stoics are always mocked because of their supposedly useless appeal to paradoxes.22 No one took their endeavors seriously. One of the Deleuze’s main tasks in Logic of Sense is to show the essential role of paradoxes for a realist logic through the figures like Chrysippus or Lewis Carroll. According to Deleuze, for a logic which is not that of essences but that of events, dealing with paradoxes is inevitable. In this regard, Carroll’s or Chrysippus’ use of paradoxes is not just for fun, but has a logical significance. Thus, Deleuze writes, Perhaps the Stoics used the paradox in a completely new manner—both as an instrument for the analysis of language and as a means of synthesizing events. Dialectics is precisely this science of incorporeal events as they are expressed in propositions, and of the connections between events as they are expressed in relations between propositions… But it is the task of language both to establish limits and to go beyond them. Therefore language includes terms which do not cease to displace their extension and which make possible a reversal of the connection in a given series. (LdS 18; LoS 8)

The logical significance underlies the transition from the logic of signification to the logic of sense. The donation of sense would entail paradoxes. When language represents the order of judgments, it appears as logical in the sense of the established logic of signification. When it works on its own, regardless of the subjective and intersubjective order of judgments, it generates paradoxes. At this point, language goes beyond the limits that are established by itself. And how is it possible to establish limits without going beyond the already established limits? In this way, paradoxes show the independent power of language to generate sense. The logic of sense is the logic of the process of establishment while the logic of signification deals with already established meanings, judgments and concepts. Therefore, the Stoic interest in paradoxes should be considered an aspect that liberates logic from judgments and universal concepts and moves it towards propositions and lekta.

4  THE STOIC LOGIC OF EVENTS 

97

Quasi-Causality and the Logic of Fate Stoic logic is the study of the different relations between the propositions of fact, the singular propositions which denote the events. As has been said, according to the Stoics, bodies are causes in relation to each other and their causality produces incorporeal effects. The Stoic logic deals with the connections between the effects through the propositions of fact. The well-known example is “if it is day, it is light” (s’il fait jour, il fait clair).23 But what kind of connection is this link between the propositions of fact if we consider them as the pure attributions or events? Obviously, it is neither causality nor necessity. It is not a causality because causality is the link between bodies; and facts, or events, are not bodies but incorporeal. On the other hand, it is not necessary in a way in which an individual necessarily belongs to its general class, because both terms here are singular and there is no universal in Stoic logic. At this point, Deleuze introduces the “quasi-causality” of effects and the way it does not entail any necessity. Deleuze, through a reference to Clement of Alexandria, states that the link between the effects is not a causality but is like a causality: “The Stoics say that the body is cause in the literal sense, but the incorporeal is so metaphorically and in the manner of a cause” (Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, VIII, 9; LdS 115; LoS 343).24 The “quasi-causality” is Deleuze’s translation of “like a causality,” or causality in the metaphoric sense. What happens between the propositions of facts is like a causality but not a proper, corporeal causality. It means that the effects enjoy an efficacy, although not a corporeal causal one. This incorporeal efficacy constitutes the main Stoic notion for Deleuze to approach his idea of the static genesis. The quasi-causality marks indeed the static genesis. The effect is also the quasi-cause in the same manner that sense is generative (statically) regarding the object that makes sense. Thus, the difference between causality and quasi-causality underlies the difference between material production (how a body produces another body) and incorporeal static genesis (how a body is produced out of its transcendental conditions). This idea of quasi-causality is taken by Deleuze to indicate the independence of effects at the same time of their subsistence in the causes. Deleuze claims that the quasi-causality “assures the plain autonomy of the effect” (LdS 116; LoS 95) and the irreducibility of sense.25 Although events are the effects of bodies and dependent to them, they hold a relation among themselves which assigns a kind of independence to them. This relation is

98 

M. PARSA

necessary to save the effects from being reduced to causes (the reduction of attributes into mere accidents or properties). Effects must be effective. Otherwise, there would be only the order of corporeal causes or bodies and their properties or accidents. The connection between the incorporeal effects or events is called logic or dialectic which is a relation that cannot and must not be explained within the economy of causality. Events are the effect of bodies but the logical connection among them does not resemble causality. The series of events has no resemblance to a causal chain. The latter entails necessity while in order to explain the former Deleuze brings about the notion of co-fatality. Quasi-causality of effects is indeed the co-fatality of events. Here, Deleuze refers to the Stoic view about co-fated events in Cicero’s De Fato (On Fate). The relation between events or effects is independent of the corporeal causality and can be understood by what Cicero considers the link among co-fated events, “confatalia.” Deleuze discusses this concept in Twenty-Fourth Series of the Communication of Events where he claims, “the Stoic paradox is to affirm destiny (le destin), but to deny necessity” (LdS 198; LoS 169). The events are compatible or incompatible, instead of being the necessary causes of each other. An event can be co-fated with the other or not (LdS 199; LoS 170). In order to explain this quasi-causality through co-fatality, Deleuze refers to how Chrysippus in the Cicero’s De Fato transforms “hypothetical propositions into conjunctives or disjunctives” (LdS 199; LoS 170; see also Bréhier 29).26 Hypothetical or conditional propositions underlie necessity, while conjunctives or disjunctives denote the compatibility or incompatibility of events. Chrysippus transforms Chaldean astrological propositions because he believes that astrology deals with fatality and not necessity. Hence, instead of “if it is day, it is light,” which is still in the form of a “causal proposition” (Bréhier 28),27 we have, “this is not the case both that it is day and it is not light,” a fatal proposition. The first proposition expresses a kind of necessity while the second denotes quasi-­ causality in the form of incompatibility. Thus, we move from the logic of signification, which resembles the causal chain in so far as it deals with the syllogistic line of conceptual judgments, towards the propositional logic of sense which is deprived of necessity although not of co-fatality. As Cicero declares, “Chrysippus, rejecting necessity, yet believing that nothing can happen without antecedent causes, distinguishes causes into two kinds, in order to preserve the doctrine of fate and yet avoid that of necessity” (cited in Johnson, 2020, p. 189).

4  THE STOIC LOGIC OF EVENTS 

99

For the Stoics, fate is the necessary and causal relation of all bodies. The distinction between necessity and fatality that Deleuze emphasizes must be considered the relation between the part and the whole. Fate is indeed the Stoic awareness of the necessity on the part of the whole, set against any necessary relation between the parts. Therefore, fate appears in the form of a disjunctive proposition like “either there will or there will not be a sea battle tomorrow.”28 This is a fatal or evental proposition. It contains a relation similar to necessity with regard to the future. But it is different from “there will be sea battle tomorrow” which is the necessary conclusion of a syllogism in the form of “if it does not rain, there will be a sea battle tomorrow. It does not rain, therefore, there will be a sea battle tomorrow.” The problem with the syllogism is that it limits the factors to that which is mentioned and therefore it remains hypothetical. It is possible that it does not rain but because of some other reason which is now unknown, the sea battle will not take place. Fatality is an effort to take into account the (untotalizable) whole, even if most of its elements are unknown. The fatal inference foresees that the future arrives, and the event happens, although we never can know in which form. Thus, while necessity is the supposed relation between two bodies regardless of the effect of the other events (and this is why it is always hypothetical), fate is the necessary relation between all bodies together and renders the relation between two events as co-fatality. In this regard, necessity is causal, and co-fatality is quasi-causal. As is obvious, this view gives an essential temporal aspect to logic: If the event is possible in the future and real in the past, it is necessary that it be both at once, since it is divided in them at the same time. Is this to say that it is necessary? One is here reminded of the paradox of contingent futures and its importance in Stoic thought. The hypothesis of necessity, however, rests on the application of the principle of contradiction to the proposition which announces a future. In this perspective, the Stoics went to astonishing lengths in order to escape necessity and to affirm the ‘fated’ without affirming the necessary. (LdS 47; LoS 33–34)

Let us first elaborate on the relation between “the principle of contradiction” and necessity. The Stoic “incompatibility” is far from being a contradiction which is a relation between concepts or objects in a closed system. The closedness of the system (neglecting the relation with the whole) is that which renders it as hypothetical. Facts cannot contradict

100 

M. PARSA

each other, because, as Bréhier states, “a fact exists or does not exist; but how is it possible for a fact with a definite nature (the day) to contradict another fact with another nature (the night)?” (Bréhier 28). The contradiction has no sense in the realm of facts or events which are singular and therefore cannot exclude each other. The objects or bodies are not facts or events but follow the same logic of concepts (the logic of signification). Therefore, the logic of contradiction is the same as the hypothetical logic of causality among bodies or objects. And what is more, it is secondary in relation to the incompatibility of the events: “Events are not like concepts; it is their alleged contradiction (manifest in the concept) which results from their incompatibility and not the converse” (LdS 199; LoS 170). Quasi-causality is primary to the causal relations and their correlate, namely, conceptual necessity and contradiction. This is the modification that Chrysippus applies on astrology. Chaldean astrology is confused in considering the relation between facts and events as causal. Its aim is to reach a conceptual knowledge and prediction. Stoic astrology, in Deleuze’s reading, is a modification in introducing quasi-causality and co-fatality instead of causality and necessity. Rather than aiming at prediction, it aims at presentiment and a foreseeing. Consequently, we have Stoic astrology as a philosophical attempt to think of a different and new logical relation among events, far from the Aristotelean or formal logic which deals only with concepts. This is why Deleuze considers this relation alogical: the relations of events among themselves from the point of view of an ideational or noematic quasi-causality, first expresses noncausal correspondence, alogical compatibilities or incompatibilities. This was the strength of the Stoics to follow this path: according to what criteria are events copulata, confatalia (or inconfatalia), conjuncta, or disjuncta? Astrology was perhaps the first great attempt to establish a theory of alogical incompatibilities and non-causal correspondences. (LdS 200; LoS 171)

The temporal nature of the Stoic logic entails also an ethical aspect. In this ethical aspect, the Stoic logic is based on the reformulation of the human knowledge of the future in so far as we can live a happy life. Briefly, the logic of necessary concepts results in an unhappy life because it is based on a limited and hypothetical image of the whole. The logic of fate is the condition of happiness. And as Pierre Hadot declares, the Stoics made a significant change in the discourse on happiness. The Stoics attempted to find an immanent basis for happiness. “The Stoic choice is …

4  THE STOIC LOGIC OF EVENTS 

101

opposed to the Platonic choice, insofar as it holds that happiness … is accessible to all, within this life” (Hadot, 2002, p. 127). This affirmation takes place in the shadow of the awareness of “the tragic situation of human beings, who are conditioned by fate.” The situation is tragic because there is a conflict between our freedom and the ultimate fate which conditions us. Or rather, we are not free at all: It would seem that we are not free at all, for it is not up to us to be beautiful, strong, healthy, or rich, to feel pleasure, or to scape suffering. All these things depend on causes which are external to us … we are helpless and defenseless in the face of the accidents of life, the setbacks of fortune, illness, and death. (Hadot, 2002, p. 127)

Now that nature (or fate) is against our freedom, one would say it is that which is free. Thus, the only freedom which is graspable in our experience is graspable through living in harmony with nature.29 Deleuze’s translation of this Stoic law is living the event, or even loving the event; the event is that which happens to us from without. Only the event is free, which is to say, only that which is external to us (to our consciousness) is free. This is why Deleuze claims that “the Amor fati is one with the struggle of free man” (LdS 175; LoS 149). The free man is not the man who resists against the fate and can defeat it (such a defeat would be illusionary, and the corresponding feeling of freedom is thus illusionary too).30 True freedom is finding the freedom on the side of the event. And the event is “the setbacks of fortune, illness, and death”; and specifically, death. Living in harmony with nature means nothing but adjusting my will (my supposedly “free will”) with the will of nature (the true “free will”). And the will of nature appears only through the event. This adjustment is the love of fate (Amor fati), specifically the love of the eventual fate, which is death. Thus, Deleuze quotes from Joe Bousquet (who according to Deleuze, “must be called Stoic”; LdS 174; LoS 148), “To my inclination for death, which was a failure of the will, I will substitute a longing for death which would be the apotheosis of the will” (LdS 175; LoS 149), and then concludes the nature of Stoicism: “to become worthy of what happens to us, and thus to will and release the event, to become the offspring of one’s own events, and thereby to be reborn, to have one more birth, and to break with one’s carnal birth” (LdS 175–176; LoS 149–150). It is only in this condition that happiness would be possible for everyone, even for Joe Bousquet who lived his life in permanent pain and suffering.

102 

M. PARSA

But at the same time, the Stoics believe that the universe is rational: “Is it possible that there could be order in us, but disorder should reign in the All?” (Marcus Aurelius, 1909, p. 27) And the universe is at the same time free, and its freedom stands against us. Therefore, its freedom is very different from what we feel within ourselves as freedom, as the Stoics show how irrational and illusionary this feeling is, and how it is the source of our suffering. The freedom of the universe or nature is its contingency. So is also its rationality and order. Reason as fate and order as fate is the result of the logic of fate. It requires a new dimension of time based on which rationality and order can be defined after the fact. Anything which happens is rational and that which happens is contingent and free. In other words, as Hadot declares, what we experience as reason is a result: Human reason, which seeks logical and dialectical coherence with itself and posits morality, must be based upon a Reason possessed by the All, of which it is only a portion. Living in conformity with reason thus means living in conformity with nature, or the universal Law, which causes the evolution of the world from within. It is a rational universe, but at the same time totally material: Stoic Reason was identical to Heraclitean Fire. (Hadot, 2002, p. 129)

According to Deleuze’s reading, Stoicism is based on the subtle but important distinction between necessity and destiny (such a distinction is absent in Hadot’s reading. He focuses strictly on “necessity”; see, for example, Hadot, 2002, p. 130). This distinction is only understandable by considering fate as the defining element of time. The Stoic fatality (or the so-called necessity) has nothing to do with predicting the future, but the ethical state of grasping what happens. There must be an openness in the present that changes the essence of the future: that which happens, regardless of what it is, is rational. Now, this “rational” can be taken as “logical.” Cognitive prediction takes its place to preparedness for the event by exercise. It gives its place to foreseeing, specifically foreseeing of death. In this sense, according to the Stoics, logic is a practice. It has much to do with the way a teacher makes the students to practice a problem-solving experience rather than giving them an informational tool. As Johnson writes, “Stoics saw logic as pedagogical in nature and purpose” (Johnson, 2020, p.  177). This is precisely Deleuze’s famous view about learning in Difference and Repetition:

4  THE STOIC LOGIC OF EVENTS 

103

it is so difficult to say how someone learns: there is an innate or acquired practical familiarity with signs, which means that there is something amorous—but also something fatal—about all education. We learn nothing from those who say: ‘Do as I do.’ Our only teachers are those who tell us to ‘do with me’, and are able to emit signs to be developed in heterogeneity rather than propose gestures for us to reproduce. (DR 26)

In the same vein, the Stoic master does not provide the answers for the students’ questions; he actually does not know the answers. He gives the students the way to practice in order to be prepared to face real problems. Hence, the Stoic view about logic: “Logic … was not limited to an abstract theory of reasoning, nor even to school exercises in syllogistics; rather, there was a daily practice of logic applied to the problems of everyday life” (Hadot, 2002, p. 135). Thus, logic entails the practical preparedness for the event. The independence of the event from me is derivable from the independence of the incorporeal event-effect from the bodies. Thus, what can be called the physical logic is an instrument to see the becoming of things, the incorporeal pure becoming which is not reducible to an accident or a quality of the thing.31 There is an inherent relation between the Stoic ethical indifference and the neutrality of sense or of the effect-event. The events are indifferent to our will because the incorporeal effect is independent from the corporeal causality. The essential characteristic of an event is its exteriority (its independence and its subsistence at once). Thus, it is possible to experience the event, but it is not possible to comprehend it. In the same regard, the knowledge of the relation between events (logic or dialectics) is always partial (and mixed with physics and ethics). Thus, the Stoic astrologer feels something like causality between events and has to suggest a decision based on this feeling. Here, we can distinguish two kinds of agency, one based on knowing and causality, the other on feeling and quasi-causality. Michael Bennett, in his study about quasi-causality, referring to another study by Suzanne Bobzien, takes this relation as the element of what can be called the agency of language, or cultural agency. In order to do so, he considers quasi-causality as a relation in which an event (being cut, which is itself the effect of the causal relation between scalpel and the flesh) causes (partially, say “quasi”) another event (being in pain) (Bennett, 2014, p. 10). Another important example would be the (quasi-)causality of language to set a contract, like when “a judge’s statement transforms

104 

M. PARSA

the accused into the convict, or attaining the age of majority transforms a child into an adult” (Bennett, 2014, p. 16). In all of these cases, the agency cannot be explained through the notions of causality or logical necessity. It is more about the formation of a co-fatality among effects, a linguistic or social contract. This reading is acceptable only if we take it as an example of that which is far beyond human social life and marks the inherent aspect of an ontology. The agency of language indicates the possibility of a kind of agency that has no similarity to that of bodies.

Ethics and Time Ethics is a problem with time, because it is only regarding time that action, agency, anticipation, regret and so on receive their value. Stoicism is an attempt to change the dimensions of time in order to change our ethical status. It’s all about our position in relation with the event. The event is the point where Stoic ethics, Stoic logic and Stoic physics join together as what happens to me, as the sense of the proposition and as the effect of the state of affairs respectively. As mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, Deleuze’s main source for his reading of the stoic theory of time and its relation with ethics is Victor Goldschmidt’s Le système stoïcien et l’idée de temps. Goldschmidt’s study is significant in modern scholarship on Stoicism because he orchestrates a conversation between the early and late Stoics and the theory of time and ethics. Thus, he opens his third chapter by claiming that the transition from physics to ethics is the result of the transition from cosmic time to lived time: “Du temps cosmique au temps vécu, nous passons de la physique à l’ethique” (Goldschmidt 55).32 This is comparable with the transition from physical time (“How does the physicist encounter time”) to philosophical time (the way “the philosopher … has resolved to understand time in terms of time,” or time at the level of dasein) that Heidegger describes in his On the Concept of Time (Heidegger, 2004, pp. 1–4), and also comparable with Bergson’s transition from “spatial time” to time as duration. And Goldschmidt continues to describe this transition by mentioning Bergson: “Comme dans l’univers de Bergson, on va toujours, dans le stoïcism, du plein au plein; en ce sens, on peut dire que ‘tout est donné’” (Goldschmidt 55).33 It is interesting to compare Bergson’s empiricism, in which “everything is given” in intuition, with Stoicism in which “everything is given” as fate. In this regard, Goldschmidt and, following him, Deleuze, distinguish between two readings of time and discuss the

4  THE STOIC LOGIC OF EVENTS 

105

relationship between them: cosmic time, which is closer to the theory of time among the early Stoics such as Chrysippus, and lived time, which is discussed in the work of the late Stoics such as Epictetus or Markus Aurelius. This is an aspect of the fact that the early Stoicism is more focused on physics and logic and the late Stoicism is more ethical. Thus, for the early Stoics, time is more physical and cosmic, while for the late Stoics, it is more ethical and the matter of the fatal experience (as will be seen, if we consider time, or the Greek Chronos, as a physical subject, the late Stoic ethical thought is not really a theory of time). But it must be noted that these two readings are interconnected, so that it is the early view about the cosmos that echoes in late Stoicism, and there is obviously an ethical motive behind the physics and logic (or metaphysics) of the early Stoics. Goldschmidt refers to this distinction by the difference between the terms that the early and late Stoics in this regard used. The early Stoics such as Chrysippus used the Greek word for time, Chronos, while the late Stoics such as Marcus Aurelius used the word Aion which is ordinarily translated as “eternity” (Goldschmidt 39). Deleuze, in Logic of Sense, borrows this distinction from Goldschmidt to distinguish between the time corresponding to the physical logic and the time of the ethical logic.34 In short, Chronos is the time of the existing bodies and the cosmos, while Aion is the time of the incorporeal event.35 Chronos is the time of the causal connection of bodies and ultimately the time of the unified cosmos, while Aion is the time of disjunctive event. Chronos is the time of the present bodies and the present causal connection between them and therefore it is the present. And the Stoic wholism underlies the existence of a cosmic present.36 On the other hand, Aion underlies the division of time at any instant into past and future, in the result of which, a subsisting disjunction clears the space for the irreducible distinction between the body and the event, the cause and the effect. This is because no event can be present, as Deleuze argues mentioning the event of dying: “The event is that no one ever dies, but has always just died or is always going to die” (LdS 80; LoS 63). In the dimension of Aion, every instant is experienced in disjunction and as an event.37 Since the disjunction of the event in late Stoicism is the result of the view of the whole in early Stoicism (and since the Stoics are materialist), Chronos is not only the time of causality but also that of the whole, which is, destiny. Therefore, there is an aspect of Chronos which is inter-­ dependent to Aion. This aspect is considered “bad Chronos” by Deleuze. Good Chronos is the time of the causal relation between differentiated

106 

M. PARSA

objects. Bad Chronos is that of the corporeal mixture. In other words, good Chronos is the time of tertiary arrangement, of fully established language with its three dimensions of denotation, manifestation and signification of objects, subjects and concepts. Bad Chronos is the time of primary order, of depth and its undifferentiated mixture. Against these two, Aion is the time of the incorporeal surface of sense.38 In the terminology of Deleuze’s Bergsonism, Aion and bad Chronos indicate two aspects of duration, while good Chronos denotes the numerable spatial time where no division entails a difference in kind. Stoicism can be understood as the relation between bad Chronos and Aion. Deleuze relates the bad Chronos to the becoming-mad and simulacra: The becoming-mad of depth is then a bad Chronos, opposed to the living present of the good Chronos … The pure and measureless becoming of qualities threatens the order of qualified bodies from within. Bodies have lost their measure and are now but simulacra. (LdS 192; LoS 164)

Aion marks the surface, the incorporeal surface that subsists in (on) bodies. Against this incorporeal surface, Deleuze introduces two kinds of depths: the measured bodies of the tertiary arrangement and the measureless matter or the mixture. The latter, which is bad Chronos, is the material production of surface or simulacrum. The good Chronos is the established surface or that which can be called concepts as the subject matter of the logic of signification. The difference between Aion and bad Chronos is not only “a shift of orientation: in the case of Aion, the becoming-­mad of the depths was climbing to the surface, the simulacra [bad Chronos] in turn … showing as a crack in the surface”, but rather the independence and the purity of the surface itself (LdS 193; LoS 165). The most important point of Deleuze’s Stoicism is that when becoming ascends to the surface it changes its nature. It does not underlie a quality but rather an attribute. Therefore, bad Chronos is the material becoming and Aion is the incorporeal pure becoming. And notice that, in Stoicism, things have their becoming only as parts of the whole or cosmos as a conflagrant fire. Thus, Aion is the pure form of chaos. What Deleuze, following James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, calls chaosmos is but this Stoic connection between bad Chronos and Aion (LdS 206; LoS 176). On this basis, Deleuze, in Eighteenth Series of the Three Images of Philosophers, provides a structure composed of the notions of height,

4  THE STOIC LOGIC OF EVENTS 

107

surface and depth and classifies classical Greek philosophy. Pre-Socratic philosophy is the philosophy of depth, of the mixture and bad Chronos, Platonism is the philosophy of height and of good Chronos, and Stoicism is the philosophy of surface and of Aion. Platonism is not only the philosophy of good Chronos, but also that of good sense, or the popular philosophy against which Nietzsche demands the revival of pre-Socratic philosophy as the philosophy of the future. Thus, Deleuze’s notion of the simulacra belongs to the pre-Socratic orientation whose hero is Empedocles and his story with Etna (a hole towards the depth of the earth). The bad Chronos underlies the production of simulacra in a chaotic mixture. Good Chronos of Platonism, in contrast, entails a partial mixture which is raised in an illusionary manner to the level of the whole. It is only at a partial level that Ideas, or indeed essences, can be distinguished; the whole must be a chaotic mixture. Or in other words, going to the heights to find the whole provides only illusions; the whole must be found in the depths. Against these two orientations, Stoicism is the matter “of showing that the incorporeal is not high above (en hauteur), but is rather at the surface, that it is not the highest cause but the superficial effect par excellence, and that it is not Essence but event” (LdS 155; LoS 130). This formulation has an important ethical aspect. If Platonism is the morality of the good, and of established moral laws which are inscribed in the transcendent realm of Ideas, pre-Socratic philosophy is the ethics of the mixture in which there is no measure high above to allow us to define what is good and what is bad (everything is equally bad). Stoicism, at least in the ethical aspects that it shares with Cynicism, holds the same approach with a small nuance (everything is equally good). Deleuze, by “rereading Diogenes Laertius’ most beautiful chapters, those on Diogenes the Cynic and on Chrysippus the Stoic”, depicts their image of the philosopher as the following: the philosopher eats with great gluttony, he stuffs himself; he masturbates in public, regretting that hunger cannot be so easily relieved; he does not condemn incest with mother, the sister, or the daughter; he tolerates cannibalism and anthropophagy—but, in fact, he is also supremely sober and chaste. (LdS 155; LoS 130)

The reason why the Cynics and the Stoics hold such a position, as Laertius in the case of Diogenes explains, is that, according to them, “all elements are contained in all things and pervade everything.”39 This is the

108 

M. PARSA

bad Chronos of depths, in which everything forms a mixture. But the Stoics separate themselves from the pre-Socratics by believing in the independence of the superficial effect and its quasi-causality. Thus, a Stoic is not only the philosopher who does not condemn incest and tolerates cannibalism, but also the one who “keeps quiet when people ask him questions or gives them a blow with his staff … he also holds a new discourse, a new logos animated with paradox.” He is not dark and serious in the manner of a pre-Socratic philosopher but is humorous and light.40 The distinction between the pre-Socratics and the Stoics is the distinction between bad Chronos and Aion in relation to the role of the event explained above. The pre-Socratic ethics is physical, while the Stoic ethics is more logical.41 But the Stoic logic of fate is the result of the consideration of the whole as a physical mixture. What distinguishes Stoicism is the independence of the logical entities, namely the events, and their quasi-­ causality, at the same time of their subsistence in the physical entities. And Deleuze insists that this independence is necessary for the possibility of language or the system of propositions as the subject matter of the Stoic logic (the realm of lekta). If there was only the corporeal mixture and its qualities, there was no space for the liberation of linguistic sense from corporeal qualities. If so, there was only the green thing and the quality of being green, but not the linguistic sense which mirrors the attribute as becoming: to green. Without the independence of the event-effect, there was only corporeal mixture together with its noises, but there was no voice. Through its quasi-causality and independence, sounds can acquire sense, instead of being the physical qualities of bodies. Chrysippus taught that “if you say something, it passes through your lips; so, if you say ‘chariot’, a chariot passes through your lips,” and then probably laughs loudly (LdS 18; LoS 8). Here, Chrysippus humorously suggests nothing but the fact that Stoicism is a connection between bad Chronos (the mixture of bodies and their qualities) and Aion (the logical realm of sense or lekta). The Stoic paradox marks the point where the ethical meaning of the event meets its logical meaning. What happens to me is the same as what is expressed by propositions; it is the incorporeal which is independent from physical bodies. Something which is not corporeal can happen to me and it is absolutely different from my qualities and accidents. It is unwilled and unanticipated. In the same vein, my body can liberate sounds which are not expected from such a physical body: the sounds with sense! Both facts are equally miraculous, both belong to the same power: the quasi-causality of the event-effect.

4  THE STOIC LOGIC OF EVENTS 

109

The ethical aspect, which is described as the love of fate, is characterized, by Deleuze, in the figure of the Stoic sage and his action. “The Stoic sage ‘identifies’ with the quasi-cause” (LdS 171; LoS 146). The identification with the quasi-cause or the event has a specific signification which is described in Logic of Sense by notions of “operation” and “counter-­ actualization”, and the figures of “the actor, dancer, or mime” (LdS 197; LoS 168). The quasi-causality of effects and the logic of fate underlies a new agency which is different from the conscious agency of a subject (or the causal agency of an object).42 Deleuze approaches this agency through the act of the Stoic sage. The series of events resonates a response in the sage or the actor, a response which is not in the form of comprehension or understanding, but is in the form of pantomime and dance. The actualization belongs to qualities and concepts. Events, by contrast, contain always an unactualizable part, which is the pure event. Counter-actualization is dancing with the pure event, dancing with the purity of death as the ultimate event. The ultimate meaning of amor fati is dancing with your death. The quasi-causality as the priority of the event over the corporeal causes results in the ethical priority of what happens to me over myself. This is how Deleuze reads Bousquet’s formula: “my wound existed before me, I was born to embody it”. “I” is a side-effect of the essential effect, namely the event. Stoicism, specifically in the work of Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, is an effort to get rid of the central position of “I” and clears this position for the event. And this holds perfectly to the ultimate event. This is the ultimate meaning of fate: my death existed before me, I was born to embody it. Thus, the resonance never collapses into a corporeal mixture. The incorporeality of the event makes it possible for the agents to respond each other without collapsing into a unified divine agent. It implies the resonance of the divergent series of events. Identified with the event, the sage makes himself an event which communicates with what happens on him in a disjunctive synthesis. This is the ultimate sense of the Stoic sage and the Deleuzian teacher: he asks the student to “do with me”, “dance with me”. When a student asks a question, the master keeps silence or gives him a blow of his staff. This is not an answer, but a respond, a demand to move and to act. The sage is the actor. The event is representable only through the act. And the representation of an event is itself an event. Everything is an event in series, and they communicate in a disjunctive synthesis. Therefore, the move from the corporeal whole or cosmos towards the event as fate underlies a reverse move from the disjoint event to the

110 

M. PARSA

disjunctive communication of all events in an Event. Thus, Stoic ethics which begins with physical unity finds its final destination in the unity of pure events in an Event. This incorporeal unity is essentially different from the corporeal unity of cosmos (or the depth) because it does not form a continuum or interiority. It is a disjunctive unity which is called univocity. It is unity, but as externality, and implies the multiplication of surfaces; how does a series of events communicate with another series without interiorizing it, without reducing it into itself? The sage’s identification with the event is indeed a synthesis, and the same holds for all communications between the series of events, because to identify with one event is indeed to identify with all events (the events cannot appear in a closed and hypothetical system). But the synthesis of the univocity is neither a “connective synthesis (if … then), which bears upon the construction of a single series”, nor a “conjunctive” synthesis “(and), as a method of constructing convergent series”, but rather a “disjunctive” synthesis “(or) which distributes the divergent series” (LdS 203–204; LoS 174). The Event (as the univocity of being) is the disjunctive synthesis of all series of events; Stoic ethics is an invitation to participate in this synthesis. This simply can be the title of all Stoic manuals: how to make yourself an actor (and not a director)! At this point, through the mediation of ethics, the logic of sense becomes an ontology. And the ontology of sense is that of the univocity of being: “Philosophy merges with ontology, but ontology merges with the univocity of Being”. Being is uni-vocal: it is composed of voices, because events as the effects of state of affairs are the same as the senses of propositions or lekta: “Univocity means that it is the same thing which occurs and is said: the attribute to all bodies or state of affairs and the expressible of every proposition” (LdS 211; LoS 180). The sense subsists in the propositions and the state of affairs, but as the irreducible surface, never merges in them. The ontology of sense is the resonance of the series of events in their disjunction. The inherent connection between Stoic logic and Stoic ethics (through Stoic physics), and the consideration of the sage as an actor who participates in the disjunctive synthesis of the series of events (his identification with the event) would finalize our study of Stoic logic in an ontology of sense.

4  THE STOIC LOGIC OF EVENTS 

111

Notes 1. Diogenes Laertius (2018, p. 329; book 7, § 40). 2. In the contemporary standard literature about the Stoics (Long and Sedley, for example, or Michael Bennett), the English translation of Lekton is “sayable.” In France Emile Bréhier and Victor Goldschmidt translated it to “l’exprimable” and Deleuze follows this terminology. The English translation of Logique du Sens remains faithful to Deleuze’s French terminology and considers the “expressible” and not the standard “sayable.” Here, I follow the standard English terminology unless I want to refer to Deleuze’s notion of “expression.” 3. See Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors, 10.218, cited in Long and Sedley: “They (the Stoics) say that of somethings some are bodies, others incorporeals, and they list four species of incorporeals—sayable (lekton), void, place, and time” (Long and Sedley 162). Johnson, in his reading of Deleuze’s Stoicism, merges place and void in the category of space and claims that there are three Stoic incorporeals: space which is the subject matter of physics, lekta as the subject matter of logic, and time which is discussed in Stoic ethics: “Deleuze’s Stoicism articulates the following as the three incorporeals: space, λεκτα and time. Each of these three incorporeals is studied by each of the three parts in our book: Physics studies space, Logic studies λεκτα and Ethics studies time” (Johnson, 2020, pp. 10–11). 4. This general genus and the category of “something” (aliquid) appears in Seneca’s “Letter to Lucilius”: “This … is what genus is,—the primary, original, and (to play upon the word) ‘general’ … The Stoics would set ahead of this still another genus, even more primary … Certain of the Stoics regard the primary genus as the ‘something’. I shall add the reasons they give for their belief; they say: ‘in order of nature some things exist, and other things do not exist. And even the things that do not exist are really part of the order of nature. What these are will readily occur to the mind, for example centaurs, giants, and all other figments of unsound reasoning, which have begun to have a definite shape, although they have no bodily consistency” (Seneca, 1918, pp. 393–7; 58, 12–13). 5. The way the Stoic internalization of cause stands against Plato’s system is affirmed clearly in this fragment from Calicidius: “The Stoics criticize Plato for saying that, since exemplars of all things exist of old in another sublime and most excellent substrate, the sensible world was made by god after an immortal exemplar. They say that no exemplar is needed, since seminal reason, pervading a certain nature, which holds and contains it, has created the whole world and everything existing in it” (in Gourinat, 2009, p. 54). Thus, the Stoic seminal reason is the cause and there is no need for the Platonic sublime causality.

112 

M. PARSA

6. As far as I know, there is no English translation of this text and all quotations are translated by myself. 7. Of course, the Stoic prima metaphor for this one organic body is fire. The fire, even better than a germ or a plant, can explain the development of a body, which unlike in Aristotle’s theory, does not have a telos. Thus, as Johnson declares, “In ancient biology, fire and breath were closely related. Fire was considered the principle of organismic life” (Johnson, 2020, pp. 28–29). He also quotes from Cicero that life continues “as long as this [fire] remains in us, so long as sensation and life remain, but when the heat has been chilled and extinguished, we ourselves die and are extinguished” (Cicero, 1933, 2.24). 8. The so-called “spermatikos logos”; see for example, Plutarch’s De communibus notitiis, 10: 5b: 5VF 2.313. 9. See Sellars (2007, p. 186). 10. As Sextus Empiricus in Against the Logicians II defines the Stoic incorporeal distinct from the corporeal causality: “The incorporeal by nature neither acts nor is acted upon” (Sextus Empiricus, 2005, p. 263). 11. Deleuze also endorses Meinong as one of the thinkers who discovered the general category of something composed of existence and subsistence (see LdS 30; LoS 19). 12. Seneca in a Letter to Lucilius explains this clearly. “’I see Cato walking’. The senses indicate this, and the mind believes it. What I see, is body, and upon this I concentrate my eyes and my mind. Again, I say: ‘Cato walks.’ What I say [in this], they continue, is not body; it is a certain declarative fact concerning body” (Seneca, 1918, p. 117). 13. Since, as Diogenes Laertius declares, “And according to the Stoics voice is a body, as Archedemus says in his work On Voice, as do Diogenes and Antipater, as well as Chrysippus in the second book of his Physics. For everything that acts is a body; and voice acts when it reaches those who hear it from those who utter it.” (Diogenes Laertius, 2018, p. 334; book 7, § 55). 14. Johnson emphasizes this double aspect: “When Zeno speaks, what is expressed is not simply a swarm of sounds, but something else, something both beyond yet within the sounds. As bodies are beings and what is expressed is non-bodily, what is expressed is something between being and non-being … Whatever its name, it is not transcendent because it does not exist completely beyond the expression. It is both within yet without any particular expression” (Johnson, 2020, p. 109). 15. Frede (1994, p. 118). 16. For the Stoic conception of propositions and predicates, see Long and Sedley 196–200.

4  THE STOIC LOGIC OF EVENTS 

113

17. What Deleuze calls “dialectics” refers to the Megarian “Dialecticians” who were the first teachers of Zeno the founder of the ancient Stoicism. According to Diogenes Laertius, “Dialecticians” is “a name they were first given by Dionysius of Chalcedon because they framed their discourses in the form of question and answer” (Diogenes Laertius, 2018, p. 112; book 2, § 106; for the influence on Zeno see 115, book 2, § 113 and § 114; see also Long and Sedley 190). 18. Johnson (2020, p. 113). 19. Diogenes Laertius, referring to the Stoics, states that “a verb is a part of language which, according to Diogenes, signifies a non-compound predicate… which signifies something attachable to something or some things, e. g. ‘I write’, ‘I speak’” (Diogenes Laertius, 2018, p. 335, book 7, § 58; Long and Sedley, p. 198). 20. The main example comes from Sextus Empiricus; see Long and Sedley 333 and 340 for a discussion of this example. 21. In “How Do We Recognize Structuralism?” Deleuze considers Albert Camus as a writer of absurd, and not nonsense: “Nonsense is not at all the absurd or the opposite of sense, but rather that which gives value to sense and produces it by circulating in the structure. Structuralism owes nothing to Albert Camus, but much to Lewis Carroll” (DI 175). 22. “For much of the history of philosophy, Stoic logic was widely panned, partly due to the Stoics’ fascination with paradoxes” (Johnson, 2020, p. 143). Johnson quotes Carl Prantl as an evidence for this: “it must have been a frightfully decadent and corrupted age that could designate so hollow a head as Chrysippus as its greatest logician … his activity consisted in this, that in the treatment of the material descended to a pitiful degree of dullness, triviality, and scholastic quibbling; or in this, that they created a technical expression for every possible detail, e.g., for the triflings of sophistries and paradoxes” (Prantl, 1855, p.  404 and 408; Johnson, 2020, p. 144). 23. Or maybe it is better translated as “if it makes day, it makes light” in order to emphasize its factuality. 24. The early versions of the official English translation of Logic of Sense made a mistake in translating Deleuze’s “d’une facon metaphorique” or Clement’s αἰτιώδης as “metaphysical,” a mistake which is rectified in the new versions. It is strange that Ryan J. Johnson in his commentary refers to the old versions despite the translator’s rectification. Then he derives this strange conclusion: “In English, an incorporeal is causal because it ‘poses in the manner’ of a cause. Working backwards through these translations, we see three senses of the quasi-cause: (3) in the English sense of the manner of a cause, (2) in the French sense of a metaphorical cause, and (1) in the original Greek sense of an “as-it-were cause” (Johnson, 2020, p. 57).

114 

M. PARSA

25. Bréhier refers to the same quote from Clement to emphasize the irreducibility of language for the Stoics. In his reading, logic is the same as the analysis of language. Deleuze would agree with this reading if we consider sense as distinct from signification. According to Deleuze, sense is not only distinct from the bodies and state of affairs, but also from the proposition. So, there is no sense without a proposition, but it is obvious that the sense of the proposition is not the proposition itself (See Bréhier 26). 26. Long and Sedley quote Diogenes Laertius to define “disjunctive propositions”: “A disjunctive proposition is one which is disjoined by the disjunctive connective ‘either’. For example, ‘Either it is day, or it is night’” (Long and Sedley 208). 27. It (if x, then y) “is the logical form of the physical causation” (Johnson, 2020, p. 67). 28. The example is from Aristotle in De Interpretatione, 9. Cicero in De Fato uses it in the sense we are using (See Long and Sedley 111–112). 29. Living in harmony with nature is one of the main themes of Epictetus’ The Manual: A Philosopher’s Guide to Life, where we read for example: “Do not take satisfaction in possessions and achievements that are not your own. If a horse were to say, ‘I am handsome,’ his pride may be excusable. But if you boast, ‘I have a handsome horse,’ you are claiming merit that is not yours. What, then, is your own? The way you live your life. When you are living in harmony with nature, you can take just satisfaction.” Or elsewhere: “Do not wish that all things will go well with you, but that you will go well with all things” (Epictetus, 2017: § 6, 8). 30. As Seneca famously says, “The fates guide the person who accepts them, and hinder the person who resists them” (Seneca, 1918, p. 107, 11). 31. As Marcus Aurelius states, “Acquire a method for contemplating how all things transform themselves into one another. Concentrate your attention on this without ceasing, and exercise yourself on this point. Observe every object, and imagine that it is dissolving and in full transformation, it is rotting and wasting” (Marcus Aurelius, 1909: X, 11, 18). 32. “Through the move from the cosmic time to the lived time we pass from physics to ethics”. There is no English translation of the text and translations are from myself. 33. “Similar to the Bergsonian world, in Stoicism we always go from plenitude to plenitude; in this sense, we can say ‘everything is given’”. 34. John Sellars, and following him, Ryan J. Johnson, doubt about the real existence of such a conception in the Stoic texts (Sellars, 2007, p. 204; Johnson, 2020, p. 216). Henceforth, Deleuze’s formulation of Aion and Chronos should be considered his free interpretation of Goldschmidt’s (again somehow free) reading. It is obvious (not only in this case) that Deleuze uses the Stoic themes to formulate his own philosophy. In this

4  THE STOIC LOGIC OF EVENTS 

115

regard, Sellar’s and Johnson’s insistence to look for the precise existence of Deleuze’s conceptions in the texts of the ancient Stoics makes no sense. It is very obvious that Deleuze is not a Stoic scholar, but as the title of Johnson’s book suggests, is a Stoic! (Thus, what they do would be like looking for Chrysippus’ theory of time in Markus’ Meditations). Therefore, Sellars’ ­conclusion that “There is certainly no evidence to confirm that the theory of aiôn and chronos made famous by Deleuze was in fact a Stoic theory” (Sellars, 2007, p. 204) must be revised as: Deleuze’s theory is not an elaborated ancient Stoic theory. 35. Goldschmidt quotes one of Diogenes’ description of the Stoics to reach this distinction: “seul, le présent exist; le passé et le future subsistent, mais n’existent pas du tout” (Goldschmidt 37). He then concludes there are two dimensions of time: the present and the subsistent. And he calls the second “temps-âion” or “l’âion infini”: “Ainsi n’est incorporeal que ce temps-âion, temps infini en passé et en avenir, et cet instant mathématique qui, lui même, se divise à l’infini en passé et future” (Goldschmidt 40). 36. Deleuze’s formulation can be supported by Chrysippus famous claim that “only the present exists”, as for examples Plutarch in On Common Conceptions accounts: “Chrysippus, wishing to be skillful in the division, says in his book On the Void and elsewhere that the part of time which is past and the part which is future subsist but do not belong [exist] and only the present belongs [exists]” (Long and Sedley 305). What is translated as “belongs” or “exists” (huparchein) means indeed a real connection or continuum, as the example of walking from Stobaeus suggests. Here is Long and Sedley’s account of the example: “’Walking’ belongs to (can be truly predicated of) me just when I am (present) walking. When I am lying down or sitting I am not walking, and so walking does not then belong to me. At the time of my lying down or sitting, it may be true that I have walked or that I shall walk, but those walkings do not belong to me at that time, and so they only subsist” (Long and Sedley 308). Long and Sedley’s emphasis on the idea of “presence” in describing “belongs” or “existence” supports well Deleuze’s formulation of Chronos. 37. John Sellars in his study “Aiôn and Chronos: Deleuze and the Stoic Theory of Time” criticizes Goldschmidt’s and Deleuze’s reading of the Stoic theory of time, and particularly their terminology of Aion and Chronos, as ungrounded. Referring to a study by Hadot, he declares, “Turning Goldschmidt’s claim on its head, according to Hadot it is Chrysippus who is the theorist of unlimited aion, while Marcus is the theorist of the extended present of chronos” (Sellars, 2007, p. 200). And elsewhere, “contra Goldschmidt, it is to Chrysippus (and not Marcus) that we must turn to find what Deleuze calls the Stoic theory of aion and it is with Marcus that we shall find the extended present of chronos” (Sellars, 2007, p. 204).

116 

M. PARSA

His evidence is Chryssipus’ claim that present is a mathematical line that separates the extensions of past and future, and Marcus’ claim that present is the site of our lived experience or “a certain thickness and duration, corresponding to the attention of lived consciousness” (Hadot, 2002, p. 192). There is a misunderstanding here in Sellars’ reading which results from his negligence of the inherent relation between the theory of time and the ethical problem. Sellars attempts to isolate a theory of time in Meditations which is indeed a moral treatise and deals with the notions of the event and fate. It is strange that the notion of fate that, I believe, stands at the center of Deleuze’s conception of Aion and Chronos, is never mentioned in Sellars’ study. Therefore, he neglects the fact that what is at stake in Marcus’ Meditations is the disjunctiveness of the experience of time and not at all a continuous lived experience. Chronos is understood by Goldschmidt and Deleuze as belonging and presence and thus it has nothing to do with Marcus’ invitation for the openness to the unexpected events. In the same regard, Chrysippus’ abstract and mathematical line of separation is not the same as what Goldschmidt and Deleuze consider as “instant” simply because it is abstract and mathematical. According to them, the subsisting Aion is the site of a real disjunctive experience. In the same regard, Sellars seems to confuse the ordinary sense of the word duration with its Bergsonian sense: Aion is the durationless instance but it is the site of Bergsonian duration as where the disjunctive event is experienced. 38. In Twenty-Third Series of the Aion, Deleuze quotes a fragment from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations where, he believes, the three dimensions of time are distinguished and the third dimension, namely the Aion, is preferred: “Above, below, all around are the movements of the elements. But the motion of virtue is in none of these; it is something more divine, and advancing by a way hardly observed it goes happily on its road” (Marcus Aurelius, 1909, p. 237, 6:17). 39. Laertius continues to make it a simple argument against vegetarianism: “not only is meat a constituent of bread, but bread of vegetables”. If everything is a mixture of everything, what is in meat is also in vegetables. 40. Deleuze also puts this Stoic humor against the Socratic irony and what he calls “classical irony” (LdS 163; LoS 138). 41. Deleuze, after describing the physical ethics of divination (that the Stoics share with the pre-Socratics and the cynics), maintains, “But it is not accidental that Stoic ethics was unable (and had no desire) to trust in physical methods of divination, that it oriented itself toward an entirely different pole, and that it developed itself in accordance with an entirely different method—namely logic” (LdS 168–169; LoS 144). 42. Thus, perhaps this new agent is better to be called a quasi-agent, as Goldschmidt declares, “le movement est une maniere d’etre de l’agent cor-

4  THE STOIC LOGIC OF EVENTS 

117

porel” or “… peut-etre … reussirons-nous a comprendre et a agir a la maniere de Dieu” (Goldscmidt 97 and 99). In the same manner of quasi-­ causality, which is in the manner of causality, the sage is in the manner of God. And since the quasi-causality is essentially different from causality and belongs to a different level of subsistence, the sage only subsists contrary to God who necessarily exists. Although the existence of God is divine, but as existing he is similar to the subjects and the objects. “The actor” rather, Deleuze claims, “is not like a god, but is rather like an ‘antigod’ (contredieu). God and actor are opposed in their reading of time. What men grasp as past and future, God lives it in its eternal present. The God is Chronos … The actor belongs to the Aion …” (LdS 176; LoS 150).

References Bennett, M.  J. (2014). Deleuze’s Concept of ‘Quasi-Causality’ and Its Greek Sources. The Transcript of a Seminar Presented in Classics Department at Dalhousie University. https://www.academia.edu/9062058/ Deleuzes_Concept_of_Quasi_Causality_and_its_Greek_Sources Bréhier, É. (1928). La Théorie des incorporels dans l’ancien stoïcisme. Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin. Cicero. (1933). De Natura Deorum (H.  Rackham, Trans.). Harvard University Press. Deleuze, G. (1990). The Logic of Sense (M. Lester, Trans.). The Athlone Press. Deleuze, G. (2004). Difference and Repetition (P. Patton, Trans.). Continuum. Deleuze, G. (1969). Logiques du Sens. Les Edition de Minuit. Diogenes Laertius. (2018). Lives of Eminent Philosophers (P.  Mensch, Trans.). Oxford University Press. Epictetus. (2017). The Manual: A Philosopher’s Guide to Life. Rendered into Modern English by Sam Torode from a Translation by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Ancient Renewal. Scotts Valley: Createspace Independent Pub. Foucault, M. (2016). Theatrum Philosophicum. In N. Morar, T. Nail, & D. W. Smith (Eds.), Between Deleuze and Foucault (pp. 38–58). Edinburgh University Press. Frede, M. (1994). The Stoic Notion of a Lekton. In S. Everson (Ed.), Companions to Ancient Thought: 3 Language (pp. 109–128). Cambridge University Press. Goldschmidt, V. (2006). Le Système stoïcien et l’idée de temps. Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin. Gourinat, J.-B. (2009). The Stoics on Matter and Prime Matter: ‘Corporealism’ and the Imprint of Plato’s Timaeus. In R.  Salles (Ed.), God and Cosmos in Stoicism (pp. 46–70). Oxford University Press. Hadot, P. (2002). What Is Ancient Philosophy? (M.  Chase, Trans.). Harvard University Press.

118 

M. PARSA

Heidegger, M. (2004). Der Begriff der Zeit. Gesamtausgabe 3, Band 64, Herausgegeben von Friedrich-Wilhelm v. Herrmann. Vittorio Klostermann. Johnson, R. J. (2020). Deleuze, A Stoic. Edinburgh University Press. Marcus Aurelius. (1909). The Meditations of Markus Aurelius (G. Long, Trans.). P. F. Collier. Prantl, C. (1855). Geschichte der Logik im Abendlande. S. Hirzel. Long A. A and Sedley D. N. 1987. Hellenistic Philosophers, Volume One: Translations of the Principal Sources with Philosophical Commentary. : Cambridge University Press. Sellars, J. (2007). Aiôn and Chronos: Deleuze and the Stoic Theory of Time. Collapse, 3, 177–205. Seneca. (1918). Epistles 1-65 (R.  M. Gummere, Trans.). William Heinemann; G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Sextus Empiricus. (2005). Against the Logicians (R.  Bett, Trans. and ed.). Cambridge University Press.

CHAPTER 5

Carroll and the Logic of Nonsense

In the course of Logic of Sense, Deleuze insists on the irreducibility of the inherent paradox of sense, which is, its impassibility and neutrality from one side and its productivity and genesis from the other. In order to emphasize this paradox, he introduces Stoic double causality, and ascribes a will to “the indifference.” These two aspects correspond with two sides of Stoic ethics: Aion as the neutrality of the incorporeal subsistence, and bad Chronos as the material generation of the simulacra. The paradox is the point where these two sides meet. It finds several names in the course of Logic of Sense: in addition to “Chrysippus’ paradox” and “Frege’s paradox” which are discussed in previous chapters, we have “Carroll’s paradox”, “Meinong’s Paradox”, “Robinson’s paradox”, “Lévi-Strauss’ paradox”, etc. In this chapter, I focus on Carroll’s paradox and explicate how Deleuze uses this paradox to introduce his logic of sense as a logic of nonsense. We will also see how all the paradoxes are different names for the same thing, but since that thing is moving by nature and is absent from its own place, its name also changes again and again.

Paradox and Nonsense Paradoxes are inherent for logic and language. This is why Lewis Carroll is a central figure in Logic of Sense. Through his reading of modern logic and ancient Stoic logic, Deleuze demonstrates that logic and language are

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Parsa, A Reading of Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13706-8_5

119

120 

M. PARSA

not able to function without paradoxes.1 But through Carroll, he shows how logic and language function with paradoxes. Thus, what has a negative function in modern and ancient logic receives a positive function in Carroll. Deleuze’s aim in Logic of Sense is to build a Carrollian logic on the basis of the positive function of paradoxes, by introducing the paradoxical element as the element of logic. In the opening of the Twelfth Series of the Paradox, Deleuze summarizes the relation between these two moves as the following: We cannot get rid of paradoxes by saying that they are more worthy of Carroll’s work than they are of the Principia Mathematica. What is good for Carroll is good for logic. We cannot get rid of paradoxes by saying that the barber of the regiment does not exist, any more than the abnormal set exists. For paradoxes, on the contrary, inhere in language, and the whole problem is to know whether language would be able to function without bringing about the insistence of such entities. Nor could we say that paradoxes give a false image of thought, improbable and uselessly complicated. One would have to be too ‘simple’ to believe that thought is a simple act, clear unto itself, and not putting into play all the powers of the unconscious, or all the powers of nonsense in the unconscious. (LdS 92; LoS 74)

Logic does not have to be a simplified image of thought; it can represent the reality of thought with all of its unconscious powers. We have seen this capability in Frege’s proliferation of linguistic entities, criticized by Carnap and others. The role of paradox is to perform the transition from the simplified image of thought (by showing its incoherency) to the real image of thought. The simplified image of thought is doxa. Deleuze considers two aspects of doxa as good sense and common sense. Therefore, sense stands against (and is prior to) common sense and good sense and is defined by paradoxa. Deleuze defines good sense as the existence of one determined direction, the right direction and the good Chronos. Sense as Aion though, is the affirmation of two directions at once. In the realm of sense, the right direction is not yet sedimented. It underlies the bifurcation. At the very beginning of Logic of Sense, Deleuze explains this aspect of sense in reference to Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland: When I say ‘Alice becomes larger’, I mean that she becomes larger than she was. By the same token, however, she becomes smaller than she is now. Certainly, she is not bigger and smaller at the same time. She is larger now;

5  CARROLL AND THE LOGIC OF NONSENSE 

121

she was smaller before. But it is at the same moment that one becomes larger than one was and smaller than one becomes. This is the simultaneity of a becoming whose characteristic is to elude the present. Insofar as it eludes the present, becoming does not tolerate the separation or the distinction of before and after, or of past and future. It pertains to the essence of becoming to move and to pull in both directions at once: Alice does not grow without shrinking, and vice versa. Good sense affirms that in all things there is a determinable sense or direction (sens); but paradox is the affirmation of both senses or directions at the same time. (LdS 9; LoS 1)2

“What is the meaning of life?” is a religious question, because it presupposes an established unique direction, or good sense (and as we have seen, according to Deleuze, God is Chronos, he is good Chronos). The question “how does life make sense?” is its philosophical alternative. The plurality of senses is inherent to philosophy and is what distinguishes it from religion. There are, of course, religious philosophies and logics (the philosophies of good sense and the logic of signification) and philosophical religions (the religions of sense).3 What is important is affirming an image of thought which corresponds to the plurality of senses and the positive power of paradoxes, and building philosophy and logic on this basis. Now, the paradoxical nature of sense renders its plurality to be in the form of bidirectionality. Thus, the plurality here is not that of the established beings, but rather a genetic multiplicity, or as Deleuze in reference to Riemann and Bergson calls it, “qualitative and continuous multiplicity” whose site is not space but rather duration or time (Bergsonism 40). The bidirectionality underlies also the inherent plurality of the event (which has no place in space, but is essentially in time); as Zourabichvili states, “there is no event except in plural, the event is always at least two” (Zourabichvili, 2012, p. 40). At any time and space, Alice is small or large, but in becoming large she can see herself becoming small (her feet for example; what is her self?). Thus, the evental bidirectionality of sense stands against the monodirectionality of good sense. Good sense defines the one-directional spatial time that goes from past to future and stands against the differentials of duration. There are, on the one hand, quantitative or discrete multiplicities in space which are indeed already-constituted multiplicities and, on the other hand, qualitative multiplicities which are becoming-multiple. This mixture of becoming and multiplicity radically alters the philosophical understanding of movement which is traditionally understood as tracking a trajectory or changing the spatial position whose

122 

M. PARSA

number defines time.4 Deleuze through Bergson provides an understanding of movement which is not in terms of static entities. Constantin Boundas explains this Deleuzian-Bergsonian account as following: “Movement affects both space and the bodies moving through it. To move is not to go through a trajectory which can be decomposed and recombined in quantitative terms; it is to become other than itself, in a sense that makes movement a qualitative change” (Boundas, 1996, p. 84). In short, it is wrong to understand movement in terms of space; it must be understood in terms of time. Hence, movement amounts to the qualitative change. This view unpacks the ancient paradoxes of movement and time. Zeno’s famous paradox indicates the paradoxical nature of the spatial image of time (and in the same regard, the logic of signification and good sense). Boundas maintains, Deleuze-Bergson reminds us that it was Zeno who showed that the arrow will not fly if it has to pass first, one by one, all the discrete points at the discrete times of an extended manifold; it will not fly because movement cannot be reconstituted on the basis of instants any more than being can be constituted on the basis of presents. (Boundas, 1996, p. 83)

The paradox attacks good sense as the good Chronos, induces itself within it, and generates sense which has paradox incorporated within itself. This is a transition from the negative paradoxes of signification towards the positive paradoxes of sense. The result is nothing but Aion as the time of the event. The other aspect of doxa is common sense as that which unifies and organizes as the result of the harmony between faculties or senses. It is what guarantees the unity and stability of the subject, the object and the world, or in other words, their identity. In this regard, the paradoxical nature of sense underlies the vaporization of identities. Here again, Deleuze refers to Alice’s adventures in Wonderland, where she “loses her identity” together with “the identity of things and the world.” When the Caterpillar asks Alice “who are you?” she responds: “I—I hardly know, Sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then … I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, Sir, because I’m not myself, you see” (Carroll 53–54). When identity is lost and things are not recognizable, sense appears as nonsense. This is the innate connection between paradox and nonsense:

5  CARROLL AND THE LOGIC OF NONSENSE 

123

The paradox therefore is the simultaneous reversal of good sense and common sense: on one hand, it appears in the guise of the two simultaneous senses or directions of the becoming-mad and the unforeseeable; on the other hand, it appears as the nonsense of the lost identity and the unrecognizable. (LdS 96; LoS 78)

And the reversal takes us to the donation of sense. Deleuze maintains that “it is here, however, that the gift of meaning occurs, in this region which precedes all good sense and all common sense. For here, with the passion of the paradox, language attains its highest power” (LdS 97; LoS 79). Therefore, the paradox of sense renders it as a genetic element, which is to say that sense is generated out of nonsense.

Carroll’s Paradox Lewis Carroll is a writer who deals directly with the nonsensical nature of the donation of sense. He is the true writer of the logic of nonsense. Deleuze in Logic of Sense examines the relation between Carroll the logician (he didn’t use the pen name Carroll in his logical works, but rather his real name, Dodgson) and Carroll the writer of fantastic works. His logical works, which came before his literary ones, come to demonstrate the incapability of a logic which is devoid of the nonsensical element (a purely formal logic or the logic of signification, or in other words, a logic which is not linguistic or propositional but rather is syllogistic). And his literary works, as a practice of his logical investigations, in most of the cases, deal more directly and positively with the generation of sense in language and therefore focus more on the nonsense itself. Here, I elaborate these two points of view respectively. One of the texts in which Carroll targets the elements of formal logic to reveal its insufficiency is “What the Tortoise said to Achilles.” The main argument in this text is quite simple. Consider these three familiar propositions: (A) Things that are equal to the same are equal to each other. (B) The two sides of this Triangle are things that are equal to the same. (Z) The two sides of this Triangle are equal to each other. All Carroll needs in order to undermine formal and syllogistic logic is to uncover the presuppositions behind this obvious inference and to insist

124 

M. PARSA

that this presupposition must be written by Achilles. One can accept the conclusion (Z) if and only if accepts this hypothetical: (C) If A and B are true, Z must be true. And this can be accepted only if we accept: (D) If A and B and C are true, Z must be true. And so forth ad infinitum (Carroll 1226–1229). C must be declared (in written form), and D too, etc. This basic regression in formal logic occurs when we remove the ground on which logic stands. There are always presumptions or premises, and logic just makes them hidden or transparent as common sense. Carroll, who is well aware of this deficiency of classical logic, wants to invent a logic that founds its ground from within: a logic without transcendent logos. Logic ought to generate its own laws. In other words, when we conclude a proposition from some premises, we want to use the conclusion independently of those premises. But we can do this if the premises are effectively true, and this necessitates a presupposed relation between the premises and a state of affairs in relation to which they are true. The truth of premises needs additional propositions, distinct from the premises themselves, which confirm that they are true, and those propositions should be themselves true ad infinitum. This demonstrates that there is no external realm which provides the subject matter for logic. It must produce it within itself. And since the production cannot be the imaginary production of that which is already there and the ground must really ground the conclusion, logic must also include the genuine ontological element. The inference from A to Z is subject to the logic of signification, and the infinite intervention of C, D, etc. indicates that this logic does not have itself a logical basis, and there should be something unconditioned as the condition of its possibility, namely sense with its intrinsic relation with nonsense. Hence, the entire inference from A to Z has nonsense as its generator. Sense is what logic presupposes. But if it has to invent it within itself, it becomes nonsense. Thus, nonsense is what makes it possible to really add C, D, etc. It is that which really conditions. This addition is in fact the generation of the inference from within it. The inference (deduction) in this way takes the form of an induction. Therefore, what Carroll

5  CARROLL AND THE LOGIC OF NONSENSE 

125

indicates in “What Tortoise said to Achilles” is the same as the paradox of infinite regress or Frege’s paradox, but this time in the case of the logical form of inference: instead of the relation between sense and nonsense as its genetic element, it deals with the relation between an established logical form and its genesis by indicating the infinite regress of what is presupposed. In short, Carroll demonstrates that the logic of signification presupposes the givenness of its subject matter, its material ground, but this presupposition condemns it to refer back to another sentence which is not itself really a ground, and this renders an infinite regress. And the only way to get rid of the infinite regress in this case is an inner invention, and this turns the infinite regress into infinite proliferation. Thus, the infinite regress of sense clears the space for nonsense as the factor of a disjunctive synthesis as the real ground of logic. Thus, nonsense has two roles, a negative role in regressive synthesis and a positive role in disjunctive synthesis (LdS 84; LoS 67). In Carroll’s work, a similar account also appears in Through the Looking Glass, when instead of the logical form, we face the same experience regarding the process of naming. Here, there is a Knight who wants to sing a song for Alice. This is the conversation between the Knight and Alice: The name of the song is called ‘Haddocks Eyes’”—“Oh, that’s the name of the song, is it?” Alice said, trying to feel interested.—“No, you don’t understand,” the Knight said, looking a little vexed. “That’s what the name of the song is called. The name really is ‘The Aged Aged Man’”—“Then I ought to have said ‘That’s what the song is called?’” Alice corrected herself.—“No, you oughtn’t: that’s quite another thing! The song is called ‘Ways and Means’: but that’s only what it’s called, you know!”—“Well, what is the song then?” said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.—“I was coming to that,” the Knight said. “The song really is ‘A-sitting on a Gate’! …. (Carroll 244; LdS 42; LoS 29)

The song is a name which has a name, and that name itself has a name, ad infinitum. Each practice of naming can be added to the last one in order to form a series of events (of naming). And therefore, language must contain an infinite source of names, or the capability to produce the infinite number of names, in order to be able to continue the process of naming (a problem that Carnap recognized in Frege). What is at stake here is the name-becoming of what is named, or becoming sense of each reference. Again, this infinite regress leads to the necessity of an element of

126 

M. PARSA

naming, distinct from the existing names, an element which is capable of synthesizing disjunctively. But the logic of signification can continue working only through fixing and immobilizing each term or proposition in order to be able to extract from it its sense. This is what Deleuze in his reading of Carroll calls “the paradox of sterile division, or of dry reiteration” which can be considered a result of the main paradox of sense, namely the infinite regress or proliferation. This paradox is to emphasize that the infinite process of naming or the infinite regress from one name to other or one proposition to other is only possible if one makes an irreducible distinction between the names or propositions which are statable and the incorporeal layer of sense which stands beyond any penetrability. Hence, it is true that a name can play the role of the sense of another name, but this is only possible if there is an irreducible distinction between the statable and communicable names and the impenetrable layer of sense. This is exactly the distinction between existence and subsistence, or names and verbs, which is discussed in the previous chapter in the context of Stoic logic. In this regard, impenetrability means the irreducibility of the surface of sense to a corporeal mixture, or of quasi-causality to the corporeal causality. Names can name each other only because the dimension of verb can subsist in them. And Carroll is well aware of this role of verbs as forming the impenetrable surface of sense, as for example Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking-Glass compares two sorts of words: “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs: they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That’s what I say” (LdS 37; LoS 25). Humpty Dumpty introduces himself as the actor or operator of this impenetrability (a sage); he can manage them. The surface of sense is formed by a kind of an agency which is very different from the causality of bodies (and their names and adjectives), and we considered this agency quasi-causality. It is the agency of a contract that halts and directs in a propositional manner, and not at all like physical barriers. Therefore, we can distinguish between a physical resistance, like when someone walks in water, and ideational resistance, like when someone confronts a stop sign. Humpty Dumpty, as the agent of this kind of agency, says “when I use a word … it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less” (Carroll 214). In this way, we move from the materiality of bodies and their causality (infinite regress) towards the incorporeal sterility of sense and its quasi-­ causality. But this halt in the causality and infinite regress of bodies and

5  CARROLL AND THE LOGIC OF NONSENSE 

127

names refers us into another materiality which is not at all that of bodies: there is a point where Humpty-Dumpty can say a word and make it mean what he chooses it to mean. This is the material genesis of sense out of nonsense through the disjunctive synthesis. According to the first account of the paradox of infinite regress, no word can say its sense. Each word has to presuppose its sense before being used. But at the same time, language does not take its sense from the outside world or from inside of minds. Sense is produced within language. Therefore, there must be a point in language where it says its sense by producing it. Now, Deleuze’s main claim in his reading of Carroll’s literary work is that a nonsense word is the only word that says its sense.5 Or in other words, if a word would say its sense, it would be nonsense. If one invents the sense of a word by saying it, the word would be nonsense. Deleuze considers Carroll’s esoteric words as examples of how language can generate sense through nonsense. In Seventh Series of Esoteric Words, Deleuze provides a classification of these Carrollian nonsense words and discusses the role of each type in the genesis of sense. What is common between them is that they mark the synthesis of heterogeneous series. The first type is when a word is the contraction of other words, like in the case of “y’reince” which takes the place of “Your royal Highness”. This marks what Deleuze calls connective synthesis of a single series and is not of great importance. But the important type is what Carroll himself calls portmanteau words, and this is because they have a joint like a suitcase and two parts that are joined. They entail at least two series. Deleuze divides the portmanteau words into two types. The first forms a conjunctive synthesis between series, an example of which is Snark (Snake + Shark), and the second forms a disjunctive synthesis, the famous example of which is “Frumious” which is not just the conjunction of fuming + furious, but rather entails a ramification of series while synthesizing them. For Deleuze, the third type defines the true portmanteau words and demonstrates the main aim of Carroll’s use of esoteric words: If your thoughts incline ever so little towards ‘fuming’, you will say ‘fuming-­ furious’; if they turn, even by a hair’s breadth, towards ‘furious’, you will say ‘furious-fuming’; but if you have that rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say ‘frumious’. (Carroll 754; LdS 61–62)

A disjunctive synthesis is a synthesis in which the process of synthesizing or its genesis is not dissolved. Thus, according to Deleuze,

128 

M. PARSA

portmanteau words indicate the youth of language, when words have not yet been completely constructed. A portmanteau word is a word composed of two parts, which precedes its components. It is undecided in regard to its parts because it is prior to them. Hence, the function of esoteric words in this sense is to indicate the point of separation, when separated words appear out of the undifferentiated noises. Therefore, Snark for example is a name for something unknown. In a familiar gesture, Carroll, in order to explain why the Snark “softly and suddenly vanishes away”, says, “for the Snark was a Boojum, you see” (Carroll 778). Thus, Boojum is another name for the same unknown thing. The hunting of the Snark is a search for the sense out of nonsense: a move from Snark to Boojum. Deleuze restates Carroll’s statement with Stoic nonsense words: “for Blituri was a Skindapsos, you see” (LdS 83; LoS 66–67).6 What do we mean when we say that Snark is a Boojum? And how is it different from saying that a Snark is a Snark? In an Aristotelian framework, it could mean that in the first case we are dealing with the relation between genus and species, or particular and universal. But no esoteric word is more universal than the other. They don’t signify each other. They denote something, but not a denotatum. If Frege’s “morning star is evening star” is only possible in the realm of sense, Carroll’s “Snark is a Boojum” is only possible in the realm of nonsense. In order to approach this something, Carroll focuses on the function of the main denotator or indicator “it”. In third chapter of Alice, called “a Caucus-Race and a Long Tale”, “The Mouse recounts that when the lords proposed to offer the crown to William the Conqueror, ‘the archbishop of Canterbury found it advisable—’ ‘Found what?’ said the Duck. ‘Found it, the Mouse replied rather crossly, ‘of course you know what ‘it’ means’. ‘I know what ‘it’ means well enough, when I find a thing’, said the Duck. ‘It’s generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find’”. (Carroll 36)

Indeed, the archbishop “found it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William and offer him the crown” (Carroll 37). For the Mouse, “it” refers to, not a denotatum or referent, but another proposition or its sense. But for the Duck, “it” always refers to a “thing”, a consumable thing like a frog or a worm.7 Carroll plays with and mixes these two uses

5  CARROLL AND THE LOGIC OF NONSENSE 

129

(similar to Chrysippus’ humor—e.g. if you say something, it passes through your lips; so, if you say ‘chariot’, a chariot passes through your lips”). This is also the same as the distinction between “customary cases” and “exceptional” cases in Frege’s vocabulary, the distinction between where the function of sense is transparent and invisible, and where it is visible. Thus, as has been mentioned, Carroll’s paradox is indeed a version of Frege’s paradox, and its task is to reveal the groundlessness of the logic of signification. The difference is that in Carroll’s case the paradox receives a more positive role and besides revealing the groundlessness of the logic of signification through the regressive synthesis, it refers more directly to nonsense as the element of the disjunctive synthesis. Moreover, Deleuze also emphasizes how for Carroll this is a distinction between the consumable and the non-consumable. The object or referent is “generally a frog, or a worm”, something which is not impenetrable and can be eaten or consumed (and form a mixture). Sense is the resistance of the incorporeal surface against the softness and consumability of the material things. When sense is established, the referent of “it” is not consumable. And without the establishment of the surface of sense, you can eat the referent of your denotation. Speaking is a resistance in the complacency of eating, where morality and civilization begins (in fasting, for example). In this sense, the discontents of civilization are indicated by Surrealism, in Dali for example or Hitchcock under his influence, by emphasizing the uncomfortable softness of bodies.8 Carroll however looks after a point where the softness and impenetrability meet, the point of articulation of eating and speaking, which is worthy for Deleuze in his search for the genesis of language: to speak of food or to eat words. In Fourth Series of Dualities, Deleuze states, The two dimensions of the proposition are organized in two series which converge only in infinity, in a term as ambiguous as ‘it’, since they meet one another at the frontier which they continuously stretch. One series resumes ‘eating’ in its own way, while the other extracts the essence of ‘speaking’. For this reason, in many of Carroll’s poems, one witnesses the autonomous development of two simultaneous dimensions, one referring to denoted objects which are always consumable or recipients of consumption, the other referring to always expressible meanings or at least to objects which are the bearers of language and sense. The two dimensions converge only in an esoteric word, in a non-identifiable aliquid. (LdS 39; LoS 26)

130 

M. PARSA

In this regard, “it” functions as a perfect esoteric word. Thus, esoteric words like “Snark”, “Phlizz” or “frumious” in Carroll’s work are corporeal words or wordy bodies, indicating the point where words and bodies are mixed and about to be separating. In the case of Snark, it can be hunted as a body by an instrument like a thimble or fork, and as a sense or event by care or hope: “They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;/ They pursued it with forks and hopes” (Carroll 769). In Deleuze’s reading, “it [an esoteric word] circulates throughout the two series of orality, alimentary and semiological, or two dimensions of the proposition, the denotative and expressive” (LdS 59; LoS 44). If Snark were the coexistence of two types of animals, it would remain in the Classical logic of types and would harbor no real heterogeneity and no real synthesis. Aristotelian universals are names for self-sufficient substances. Carroll’s esoteric words are names for x, for displacement itself. Therefore, one can see two heterogeneous series in one point, like the mouth with which I eat the denotata and I express sense, each forms a series and the two series are divergent but there is a strange communication between them in mouth, when I eat a word or speak a food. In the same manner, when a student asks a question from a Stoic sage, he gives him a blow of his staff, to remind that a linguistic conversation which is limited to questions and answers and is deprived of action or operation (or dance) is taking place in the imaginary dimension of language and lacks reality. The symbolic is the result of the addition of the reality of language (nonsense) to its imaginary dimension.

Impossible Objects and the Neutrality of Sense The separation of sense is the liberation of a dimension which is radically different from the causal and corporeal dimensions of the proposition. It is neutral and indifferent to the ordinary directions of the proposition and forms “the paradox of neutrality, or of essences third state” (LdS 46; LoS 32). For example, it is indifferent to particularity and universality, and in order to explain this, Deleuze refers to the Persian philosopher Avicenna who famously claims that essence is neither particular nor universal. Avicenna separates the essence of animal from the particular animals and from the universal concept of animal, to solve the Aristotelian problem of essence or substance. He states that “animal is nothing other than only animal” (“animal non est nisi animal tantum”) (LdS 48; LoS 34).9 In Deleuze’s reading, the universal indicates the realm of signification as the

5  CARROLL AND THE LOGIC OF NONSENSE 

131

order of concepts and the implications of concepts, and the particular indicates the realm of denotation. In this respect, Avicenna discovers essence as sense, distinct from signification and denotation, in the neutrality and sterility of animal tantum, only animal, a strange position which is not even reducible to nominalism, because “only animal” is even less than the word animal. But one can also consider Avicenna’s position (and Deleuze’s too) as a reading of Aristotle, regarding two different conceptions of substance in Metaphysics. Thus, in the Aristotelian system we have two substances and the accidents: substance as universal, substance as singular, and accidental individuals. In this reading, “animal tantum” is the singular substance. Important is that the singular substance accepts no universality and no stability, no common sense and good sense. It belongs to the realm of sense. What connects things together, and makes the heterogeneous series communicate, is not a universal concept, but a singular point which displaces eternally between series. It is not only indifferent to the universal and the individual, but also to all other oppositions, because in logic of substance and accident, all oppositions are reducible to this great opposition between universal and individual: it [sense] is indifferent to the universal and to the singular, to the general and to the particular, to the personal and to the collective, but also indifferent to affirmation and negation, etc. In short, it is indifferent to all opposites. (LdS 49; LoS 35)

But the most controversial aspect of the neutrality of sense is about how the propositions that designate self-contradictory objects that have no signification and no referent, have sense. This aspect defines what Deleuze calls “Meinong’s paradox” or “the paradox of the absurd, or of the impossible objects” (LdS 49; LoS 35). It was Alexius Meinong who, in his theory of objects, drew “the most beautiful and brilliant effects” of this paradox. The real things are the objects of denotation and the possible things are the objects of signification, but sense as the real condition of possibility “is common to the real, possible and impossible” (LdS 49; LoS 35). Specifically, the impossible objects like round squares or mountains without valleys have very important roles in indicating the nature of sense, a role that they share with Carroll’s esoteric words. What makes sense ought to not have itself a preexisting meaning. Thus, impossible entities underlie sense as what is expressed in the proposition which is not reducible to the external denotata (the objects)

132 

M. PARSA

and to signification (the concepts). They indicate the irreducibility and independence of the realm of sense. In this regard, the role of the impossible entities, such as round squares, is similar to Carroll’s esoteric words. They mark a realm which is beyond that which respects the principle of contradiction. And Meinong uses the term “extra-being” for this realm, a term which in used extensively in Logic of Sense regarding the Stoics and their realm of subsistence. Thus, round squares and Snarks demonstrate that a proposition expresses its sense in a (bi)direction different from that in which it denotes a denotatum and that in which it signifies a concept (and also that in which it expresses a subjective idea or desire). This demonstrates also the inherent connection between sense and nonsense. If the donation of sense is to be considered in any theory of sense, then it cannot be reducible to the established meaning of the real and the possible that respects the principle of contradiction. The donation of sense marks a realm prior to that of the real and the possible which have their established meaning. That which generates the empirical field does not respect its produced principles.

Ideal Game and the Time of Chance Paradoxes in ancient philosophy, for example in the case of Zeno’s Paradox, focus on the fact of the absence of the element of movement or displacement in logic and ontology. This is why Deleuze identifies what he calls “the paradoxical element” with the essential element of change or movement. The ancient paradoxes are the result of the fact that in classical logics and ontologies movement, or displacement, is accidental. In order to examine the substantiation of this element, Deleuze in Tenth Series of the Ideal Game refers again to Carroll, to what in Alice in Wonderland is called the “Caucus-race,” which is a race Dodo proposes to Alice and the other fantastic animals to make them dry, and when they ask what kind of race it is, “it” responds, “the best way to explain it is to do it” (Carroll 37), but Carroll explains it as the following, First it [Dodo] marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle (‘the exact shape doesn’t matter’, it said), and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no, ‘One, two, three, and away’, but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half

5  CARROLL AND THE LOGIC OF NONSENSE 

133

an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out, ‘The race is over!’. (Carroll 38)

Carroll’s idea of a Caucus-race explains what Deleuze calls “nomadic distribution.” The most important characteristic of a Caucus-race for Deleuze is that it does not have any fixed rules. This provides Deleuze with the best example to elaborate the concept of an ideal game in which the elements of movement and displacement are essential, not accidental. Our normal games are based on a fixed system of categorical rules governing each throw of the game. The governing idea of these games is not itself a game, but a fixed system. A game is moving by nature, but a normal game is based on a principle which is not itself moving. The element of chance is accidental here, a deficiency in the idea which of course makes the multiplicity of throws or instances possible. Hence, our normal games are profoundly Platonic and are secondary and derivative in their nature. We play the games in so far as we accept that games are evil. They are pure hobbies which are allowed, but at a limited scale in order to lessen the resulting bad conscience. We must return back to serious business as soon as possible. The concept of an ideal game constitutes part of Deleuze’s effort to reverse this Platonism. Thus, the ideal games define the realm of simulacra. The idea of games, what governs them, should be pure game, pure movement and being aleatory. Here, “there is no pre-existing rules, each throw invents its rules” (LdS 75; LoS 59). What makes a throw possible, its condition of possibility, is not a categorical law, but an element of movement, the best examples of which are Plato’s simulacrum and Lucretius’ clinamen. Deleuze’s philosophy is an effort to give a centralized role to this element. Deleuze uses this element to explain how the multiplicity of throws can join together to make a same game. To have a unity, we don’t need a universality or a fixed system of concepts. Each throw is a series of events. A set of throws join together only in “a unique cast (lancer) which is endlessly displaced throughout all series” (LdS 75; LoS 59). The events join together in an Event, but the latter is as singular as the formers. A difference between a Caucus-race and our normal games is that, in the former the space should be absolutely open. Thus, the participants in the race start a nomadic distribution. A closed space is a space which is pre-organized by a conceptual system. A nomadic distribution is what generates the organizations as its fragments. Hence, hierarchies are the

134 

M. PARSA

fragments of a unique anarchy. An ideal game is a game in which a player can perform an absolutely unpredictable act. It is the game of art par excellence. Deleuze explains this distinction between normal games and Carrollian ideal games also by discussing how they distribute chance (hasard) in the game. Normal games “retain chance only in certain points, leaving the rest to the mechanical development of consequences or to skill as the art of causality” (LdS 75; LoS 59). To be a good player, you need to have a good knowledge of causal laws. Ideal games, on the contrary, distribute chance to all and every point in the game. As it is obvious, causality is a relation which is dependent on how we can limit chance. But unlimited chance clears the space for a different relation which is quasi-causality. The difference can also be formulated as the distinction between the role of faith (Deleuze refers here to Pascal and Leibniz) and the role of fate (Deleuze refers to the Stoics and Nietzsche); therefore, chance is either attributed to an external agent (God) to make us immune to it, or chance itself is mundane. It is about how they explain the development of organizations in the world. In this regard, according to Pascal and Leibniz, the laws of nature are defined by chance, but from an external source, and this is why we don’t experience them as chance. The decision is made, no matter it was by chance, and now we have to deal with the determinative laws. This leads to the idea of change or motion which has a determined telos and whose time is defined by the number of movements. But according to the other perspective, chance is the element of development of nature or reality in each moment. Here, Deleuze, following Borges and Carroll, introduces another form of movement without telos which calls for a different form of causality and time. In the absence of determined telos, it is quasi-­ causality which generates states of change and nomadic distribution of chance, and it is Aion which defines time. It is the infinitely subdivisible time that generates change in every single draw.10 In Alice, in the seventh chapter called “A Mad Tea-Party”, Carroll extends the idea of ideal game to time and talks about a mad conception of time, which was probably an inspiration for Deleuze on the notion of Aion. Hatter, a participant in the eternal tea-party, explains the ideal time as such: For instance, suppose it were nine o’clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons: you’d only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner! …

5  CARROLL AND THE LOGIC OF NONSENSE 

135

“That would be grand, certainly” said Alice thoughtfully. “But then—I shouldn’t be hungry for it, you know”. “Not at first, perhaps,” said the Hatter, “but you could keep it to half-­ past one as long as you liked”. (Carroll 78)

The chapter is called a mad tea-party, not because the March Hare is mad, but because they stuck in an eternity (“it’s always tea-time”, Carroll 80), in which there is no measure (time “won’t stand beating”, Carroll 78). Madness is the elimination of “measures … and pauses which relate qualities to something fixed” (LdS 97; LoS 79). It is again about two different kinds of distribution of chance; a distribution based on a fixation in time that establishes qualities (Bergson’s spatial time or Heidegger’s physical time), and a mad or nomadic distribution in which chance and freedom join together (Bergson’s duration or Heidegger’s philosophical time). Hence, Deleuze discusses these two distributions according to two dimensions of time, namely Aion (together with bad Chronos) and good Chronos, and through them defines two kinds of chance. The first one, which can be considered Aristotelean chance, is the result of the collision between causal objects, and therefore in this case chance is accidental. This is a negative view toward chance that says it occurs when a seed, for example, didn’t become a tree, and so it is a deviation from ordinary actualizations of potencies. This is chance according to time as good Chronos. But the other, which is according to Aion and bad Chronos, results from a mad movement without telos, which is without a pre-established form. In previous chapter, we defined Chronos as present and Aion as infinite division of each point to past and future which is never present. But since it holds an inherent connection with bad Chronos, a being present should be ascribed to Aion. It is not an abstract mathematical point which makes possible the infinite division to past and future. It is the (genetic or real) ability to flee in two directions at once, to be extended to past and future. It is the Bergsonian duration in which at each instance a true difference in kind takes place. It is presence but without continuity and chronological existence. Thus, the connection with bad Chronos in essential; the surface of sense is produced ceaselessly by the chaotic and mad mixture. With this picture, we can better understand how Carroll’s nonsense writing clears the space for a logic of sense. It has been said that sense is in a specific relation with nonsense because it is against good sense and common sense. Now, Deleuze defines good sense as “an order according to which it is necessary to choose one direction” (LdS 93; LoS 75). It

136 

M. PARSA

guarantees a certain direction for linear time, from past to future. Good sense as good Chronos is the necessary condition of morality because it provides the principle of choice. On the other hand, sense as affirmation of two directions at once is Aion. This is how Deleuze defines sense with regards to the time of Aion. “In which way, in which way?” asks Alice; the question has no answer (it may trigger a response, an action, a dance), because it is proper to sense to not have any direction, to not have any ‘good sense’, but always both directions at once, in the infinitely subdivided and elongated past-future” (LdS 95; LoS 77). What Alice finds in the mad tea-party is “wasting time” as “asking the riddles that have no answers” (Carroll 78). What makes this time mad is that nothing is predictable in it. All kinds of predictions belong to good sense which stretches a single direction and establishes a system to regulate points of presence. Aion splits every moment to past-future thereby introducing infinity to every moment, “which endlessly decomposes itself in both directions at once” (LdS 95; LoS 77), and thereby sidestepping present forever. This provides every moment with pre-individual singularity that follows a nomadic distribution. Good Chronos is the time of partial systems, striving for temporary organizations, whereas Aion as the time of the donation of sense or of the paradox, in which “no present can be fixed”, is the time of resonance between series of events. Aion is the given time of making sense or nomadic distribution as such, which makes all times communicate with one another. It is the universal time, the time of the set of all sets which are not members of themselves, the time of the disjunctive synthesis. But it is not an illuminating universal that shed light on each particular. It is a dark universal, or rather a singularity which gains its universality only through its capability to pass between the series. It is mad because, as Deleuze states advisably, “one must be two to be mad, one is always mad in two (on est toujours fou à deux)” (LdS 97; LoS 79), referring to being two of the Hatter and the Hare in “A Mad Tea-Party” in which they “went mad together the day they ‘murdered time’”, and one can also think of Estragon and Vladimir as another mad twin in Waiting for Godot, who truly “murdered time.” If good sense is about the direction in which things happen, common sense is about the identity of those things and what makes possible to recognize them. It is “an organ, a function, a faculty of identification, which relates any diversity to the form of the Same” (LdS 96; LoS 77–78), what subsumes different organs in a person, or different qualities in an object, or different properties in a concept. Thus, common sense is what

5  CARROLL AND THE LOGIC OF NONSENSE 

137

designates egos, things, and concepts as stable entities, capable of manifestation, denotation and signification. It is against common sense in this sense that Alice loses her identity, and in her adventures the objects and concepts lose their identities too. Hence, wonderland is the realm of sense, deprived of common sense, such as in Sylvie and Bruno, Carroll introduces Fairyland as opposed to the “Common-Place”: “it was only one of two who had chivalry to go beyond the Common-Place” (Carroll 673). It needs a real chivalry to risk your identity (your “I”), your world and your logic to pass into the logic of sense; the chivalry of the little girl.

The Broken Surface In Logic of Sense, Deleuze makes a connection between Carroll’s logical works and his fantastic works in order to focus on the nonsensical element of sense, and therefore he indicates the formation of the surface of sense out of nonsense as depth which is in its turn the genetic element of sense. Hence, we can distinguish the surface of sense and the depth of nonsense. No logic of sense is possible without a logic of nonsense inherent in it; no surface without a depth. Now, Deleuze insists that surface is fragile and is always threatened to be broken; “nothing is more fragile than the surface” (LdS 101; LoS 82). Normally, our access to the depth is through the genesis of surface. But the broken surface gives an access to a formless, fathomless nonsense, where there is no sharp distinction between language and body. In the absence of the surface, any communication between bodies is in the form of mixture, any speaking is in the form of eating. At this point, Deleuze makes a comparison between Lewis Carroll and Antonin Artaud. Unlike Carroll who plays and commutes between surface and depth, Artaud’s writing represent the pure depth, before any formation of the surface. Therefore, there is a difference between Carrollian and Artaudian approaches towards nonsense, where in the former it reveals itself through the genesis of sense while in the latter it is grasped directly by a different expression that does not need any superficiality. Carroll shows us nonsense from the window of sense, but Artaud’s “howls-­ breaths” (cris-souffles) indicate nonsense in its purity: “Ratara ratara ratara Atara tatara rana Otara otara katara…” (LdS 102; LoS 83). Unlike Carroll’s esoteric words, such as Snark, it has no resemblance to the elements of sense. In Thirteenth Series of the Schizophrenic and the Little Girl, Deleuze explains this dichotomy of surface and depth in terms of the distinction between the little girl and the madman. Carroll is a genius in

138 

M. PARSA

not remaining at the level of established meaning and discovering the genesis of sense, but he is careful to not lose the thread that connects him to the surface, careful to not falling into madness. Artaud rather dives into the ocean of madness. His genius is careless. And Deleuze after all praises the latter over the former, even if he spends almost the entire of Logic of Sense to the former. This is why, perhaps, after Logic of Sense, he almost left the language of the philosophy of sense behind and began a very different philosophy in Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, together with Felix Guattari, which can be called the philosophy of depth.11 Where there is no surface, and no frontier between things and propositions, there is a unity of everything in a grand mixture and a universal depth, in a body without organs. This is the universal loss of meaning where “every word is physical, and immediately affects the body” (LdS 107; LoS 87). It is not about the quasi-causality of effects anymore, but rather the very causality of affects (which is of course different from the causality of differentiated bodies). Language in its incorporeality is dependent to the liberation and independence of surface from the interacting bodies. But it, in its corporeality, is itself a body, a corporeal noise, which affects the other bodies. It is a purely oral language that cannot appear in written form; it is the deafening language of the schizophrenic, a language without articulation, or with a little articulation: “Until rourghe is to rouarghe has rangmbde and rangmbde has rouarghambde” (LdS 110; LoS 89). This little articulation, according to Deleuze, is not enough to generate sense and it’s not at all a continuity of what Carroll does. From Carroll to Artaud there is a change in dimension, and they represent different dimensions of language, namely its incorporeal surface and its corporeal depth. There is no continuum between the sense of surface and the nonsense of depth, because the latter ceases to give sense to the surface. Like a black hole, “it absorbs and engulfs all sense” (LdS 111; LoS 91). It is the night of being, but a clamorous night. And its clamors are noises which are absolutely different from the voices of surface. A main problem of the logic of sense is to tell the story of how the noises become voices, and how depth generates surface. The unbridgeable gap between depth and surface, between Artaud and Carroll, is necessary for not taking one on the image of the other. What produces sense or makes sense has no sense in itself and entails no resemblance to sense. We come back to this story in our tenth chapter, when we follow Deleuze’s psychoanalytic treatment of the problem of the relationship between depth and surface.

5  CARROLL AND THE LOGIC OF NONSENSE 

139

Deleuze’s Logic of Sense is a praise of natural language and stands against any logic which wants to separate or purify itself from it, or against any attempt to purify the language itself from the paradoxical and nonsensical elements; it stands against any movement which tries to remove the poetical nature of language to make it suitable for logic. On the other hand, and in the same regard, his reading of Artaud is not at all a migration from language towards a purely corporeal and emotional communication, but rather is to move towards the most linguistic aspect of language, namely its genesis. Language is not generated from logos, but rather from poesis. Carroll’s childish linguistic games indicate the childhood of language, its points of genesis, where sense is still merged with nonsense, while Artaud depicts the painful birth of language. Thus, even the operation and action, the staff blow of the sage, should not be considered a migration from language; even pantomime and dance hold a linguistic aspect, that which Deleuze sometimes calls “flexion:” If language imitates bodies, it is not through onomatopoeia, but through flexion. And if bodies imitate language, it is not through organs, but through flexion. There is an internal pantomime, internal to language, as a discourse or a story within the body. If gestures speak, it is first of all because words mimic gestures. (LdS 332; LoS 286)

Language is not against the body’s flexions; it is within body and constitutes one of its flexions. The surface of sense also appears in the other flexions such as dance or pantomime (one may speak with coquetry or walk with coquettishness), even if, contingently, what we call language had more success in liberating its surface from the corporeal depths (the liberation of culture from nature). This is why Artaud’s poetry is not a deviation from language, but rather, it is language; it is the language.

Notes 1. As it is discussed in previous chapters, it is indeed a linguistic logic, and not a pure formal logic, which cannot function without paradoxes. Deleuze in Logic of Sense aims to merge the problem of logic with that of language. Paul Livingston, in his The Politics of Logic, traces the role of logic in twentieth century philosophy after the so-called linguistic turn in both continental and analytical traditions under the title of “Paradoxico-Criticism.” According to him, it is indeed the linguistic turn that puts paradoxes at the center of logic (see his “Methodological Preface”: Livingston, 2012, pp.

140 

M. PARSA

xi–xii and the first pages of chapter two: 65–66). In this regard, Deleuze’s Logic of Sense fits well with Livingston’s reading. 2. Here Deleuze refers to the sections in Alice in Wonderland where Alice enlarges and shrinks by drinking the “drink me” bottle and eating the “eat me” cake. Particularly, when she enlarges after eating the cake, she sees her feet becoming smaller and smaller: “’Now I’m opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!’ (for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so far off). ‘Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears?’” (Carroll 26). 3. As Zen Buddhism plays a role in Logic of Sense. See Nineteenth Series of Humor, particularly LdS 162; LoS 136. See also Tony See and Joff Bradley’s Deleuze and Buddhism (See & Bradley, 2016). 4. Aristotle’s well-known definition of time in Physics: “a number of change in respect of the before and after” (Aristotle, 1983, p.  44; 219 b 1–2); Τούτο γαρ εστι ο χρόνος, αριθμός κινήσεως κατά το προτέρον και υστέρον. The word Κινησις is occasionally translated to “change”, “motion” or “movement”. For instance, David Bostock in his chapter “Aristotle’s Account of Time” in Space, Time, Matter and Form: Essays on Aristotle’s Physics uses occasionally the words “motion” and “movement” (Bostock, 2006, pp. 135–158). 5. “Nonsense” is “a word which says its own sense” (LdS 84; LoS 67). 6. For these Stoic nonsense words, Deleuze refers to Sextus Empiricus’s Adversus Logicos (Against the Logicians), VIII, 133 (Sextus Empiricus, 2005, p. 115). 7. Jean-Jacque Lecercle refers to the same story and concludes that the Duck “is the representative of common sense”, and therefore “’it’ should be a bearer of denotation”, but the Mouse “is aware that the function of this ‘it’ is not to denote, that it has no referent. Or, rather, that the only referent of this ‘it’ is not an edible object, but the event expressed by the proposition” (Lecercle, 2002, p. 124). 8. In the case of Dali, see his “Persistence of Memory” in 1932, for example, and also Hitchcock’s insistence on the too soft sofas in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956). On the other hand, another example which emphasizes on the impenetrability of the surface of sense is Luis Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel (1962) where the guests of a dinner party are unable to leave for no causal reason. 9. Deleuze’s reference to Avicenna is through Etienne Gilson’s L’Etre et l’Essence: Gilson (1948), pp. 120–123). 10. Zourabichvili connects this Deleuzian notion of chance to the encounter with the exteriority and the event: “the relation [encounter] is contingent and hazardous [hazardeuse], since it cannot itself deduce the nature of the

5  CARROLL AND THE LOGIC OF NONSENSE 

141

terms that it is relating: an encounter is always inexplicable. Yet just as necessity depends precisely on the exteriority of the relationship, chance [hazard] loses here its traditionally negative value” (Zourabichvili, 2012, p. 57). 11. Jean-Jacque Lecercle, in Deleuze and Language, claims, “with Logique du sense we are at the stage of reversal, where height is demoted and depth is still present; the stage of cancellation, where everything is inscribed on a plane, comes later” (Lecercle, 2002, p. 104). His claim is that Deleuze’s later philosophy, after Logic of Sense, is a pure philosophy of surface, in the form of the philosophy of the plane of immanence. This is against my claim that, in his later work with Guattari, Deleuze attempts to provide a pure philosophy of depths. Anyhow, one should not reduce his philosophy after Logic of Sense as a homogenous direction and one can claim that in his last book, What is Philosophy? a synthesis between these different emphases takes place, a claim which needs meticulous elaboration and is beyond the aims of current study.

References Aristotle. (1983). Aristotle Physics: Books III and IV (E. Hussey, Trans.). Oxford University Press. Bostock, D. (2006). Space, Time, Matter and Form: Essays on Aristotle’s Physics. Oxford University Press. Boundas, C. V. (1996). Deleuze-Bergson: an Ontology of the Virtual. In P. Patton (Ed.), Deleuze: A Critical Reader (pp. 81–106). Blackwell. Carroll, L. (1976). The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll. Vintage Books. Deleuze, G. (1990). The Logic of Sense (M. Lester, Trans.). The Athlone Press. Deleuze, Gilles. 1991. Bergsonism. Trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam. New York: Zone Books. Deleuze, G. (1969). Logiques du Sens. Les Edition de Minuit. Gilson, E. (1948). L’Etre et l’Essence. Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin. Lecercle, J.-J. (2002). Deleuze and Language. Palgrave Macmillan. Livingston, P.  M. (2012). The Politics of Logic: Badiou, Wittgenstein, and the Consequences of Formalism. Routledge. See, T., & Bradley, J. (Eds.). (2016). Deleuze and Buddhism. Palgrave Macmillan. Sextus Empiricus. (2005). Against the Logicians (R.  Bett, Trans. and ed.). Cambridge University Press. Zourabichvili, F. (2012). Deleuze: A Philosophy of the Event (K. Aarons, Trans. & G. Lambert & D. Smith, Ed.). Edinburgh University Press.

CHAPTER 6

Sense as the Transcendental Field

The main aim of this chapter is to tackle Deleuze’s contribution to post-­ Kantian transcendental philosophy by introducing a new account of the transcendental which can be called the immanent, or real, transcendental, and which entails real conditioning as production or generation. This amounts to an explanation of a title that describes Deleuze’s early philosophy well, namely “transcendental empiricism” which deals with experience at the level of transcendental sensibility or, in Deleuze’s term, sense. In this way, he disavows attaining the transcendental from subjectivity or any recourse to concepts. Thus, Deleuze ascribes an objectivity, or better, a materiality, to the transcendental which is not differentiated in the form of objects (Deleuze assigns the term “objectité”, and not objectivité, to the transcendental field to distinguish it from the empirical objectivity; LdS 72–73). He learns from Kant that the objects are the correlates of subjects and this correlation underlies the application of concepts. Thus, he blames Kant for taking one side of this correlation as the condition of the other because in this way the conditioning would be just formal. Deleuze searches for a real conditioning and defines it as generating. Therefore, the condition must be essentially different from the conditioned and should not be located in the subject and in already established objects. In this regard, Deleuze introduces sense as the transcendental field. In his term, sense is the ideational material and marks the genesis of the entities of the empirical field. In the course of the present chapter, I try to explain how

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Parsa, A Reading of Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13706-8_6

143

144 

M. PARSA

Deleuze makes a reconciliation between sense as the transcendental sensibility and sense as the source of intelligibility. This would be possible if we consider it the real transcendental field.

What Is a Transcendental Field? In Logic of Sense, particularly in Fifteenth Series of Singularities, Deleuze explicitly introduces the dimension of sense as the transcendental field (le champ transcendantal) (see LdS 124–128; LoS 101–105). With this, he attempts to distinguish the transcendental field from all empirical fields, including that of objectivity and subjectivity (essences and identities). In his formulation, the transcendental, which in traditional Kantian philosophy is defined as the a priori condition of experience, is the genesis of the empirical; it conditions the empirical by generating it. But what does it mean to say that sense as the transcendental constitutes a field? The search for a transcendental field dates back to Husserl’s efforts to introduce a transcendental ego as the condition of empirical entities. However, Deleuze’s engagement in this phenomenological discussion is through Sartre, who in his The Transcendence of the Ego criticizes Husserl’s introduction of the ego as the element of the transcendental field. Sartre endorses Husserl’s effort to set aside (or reduce) empirical entities and search for a transcendental realm (the realm of consciousness), but criticizes Husserl because he finds the transcendental in what is itself empirical, transcendent, and therefore subject to the phenomenological reduction.1 According to Sartre, Husserlian phenomenology fails because the ego is itself transcendent and an empirical result; it fulfills a practical, not transcendental, function. He insists that the transcendental field ought to be impersonal: ‘the transcendental field becomes impersonal, or if you prefer, “pre-personal”, it is without an I’ (Sartre, 2004/1937: 3). But for Sartre, the disavowal of the ego leads to the transcendental role of consciousness itself: a consciousness devoid of ego, or in other words, an impersonal and universal consciousness. In this way, Sartre gives an objective register to consciousness, against the Husserlian subjective one. Deleuze deploys a similar critique against Sartre, arguing that Sartre’s definition of the transcendental field as a universal consciousness does not solve the problem of Husserlian phenomenology. This is because a

6  SENSE AS THE TRANSCENDENTAL FIELD 

145

consciousness, even an impersonal one, resembles empirical entities in its crucial need for unity (through universality). In Logic of Sense, Deleuze takes a step beyond Sartre and migrates from an impersonal consciousness towards an impersonal unconscious: We seek to determine an impersonal and pre-individual transcendental field, which does not resemble the corresponding empirical fields … This field cannot be determined as that of a consciousness. Despite Sartre’s attempt, we cannot retain consciousness as a milieu while at the same time we object to the form of the person and the point of view of individuation. A consciousness is nothing without a synthesis of unification, but there is no synthesis of unification of consciousness without the form of the I, or the point of view of the self. What is neither individual nor personal are, on the contrary, emissions of singularities insofar as they occur on an unconscious surface…. (LdS 124; LoS 102)

Sartre believes he can preserve the idea of a transcendental consciousness which is devoid of the individuality of self or I. Deleuze contests that it is not possible, and the only thing that can assure the unification of consciousness is a self or an “I.” Thus, Deleuze’s task is the removal of the unified consciousness from the transcendental field; this results in a transcendental unconscious. What is an impersonal consciousness? Deleuze responds that by being impersonal it stops to be consciousness and takes us to the realm of the transcendental unconscious, which is a field that essentially lacks unification, whether that of ego or a universal consciousness (which are the same, because a universal consciousness gains its universality only from a universal I or self). The idea of unity is what connects Sartre to Husserl. Sartre’s critique of Husserl underlies only a change in the site of unity, instead of totally rejecting it, as he, by deriving the implications of the phenomenological idea of intentionality, argues against Husserl’s Ideas that “through intentionality it [consciousness] transcends itself, it unifies itself by going outside itself” (Sartre, 2004/1937: 3–4). And as the third consequence of his rejection of the Husserlian account of the transcendental field, he argues that “the ‘I think’ can accompany our representations because it appears against the background of a unity that it has not contributed to creating, and it is this pre-existing unity which, on the contrary, makes it possible”. The problem that Sartre seeks to respond in The Transcendence of the Ego is about the real unity of consciousness, and therefore he presupposes this unity. Thus, although Sartre

146 

M. PARSA

disavows ego from the transcendental field, but, as Henry Somers-Hall notes, he leaves the unity of the field intact.2 Deleuze, on the other hand, introduces the notion of surface in Logic of Sense. As he in the quoted remark puts forward, what is “without a synthesis of unification … occur on an unconscious surface”. The transcendental field ought to be expanded upon and expanded as a surface, and this makes it different from the punctuality and unification of the empirical entities which gain their unity from a center. This is why Deleuze insists that “the real transcendental field is constituted by this topology of surface” (LdS 133; LoS 109). The notion of surface allows Deleuze to insist that the transcendental field ought not to be centralized, such as in the form of an ego, self, or I (forming a unity around a center). In this way, it refines out of itself any stain of the empirical and becomes the real transcendental field. By the same token, this notion of surface disavows consciousness to form the transcendental field because, as Deleuze argues, “a consciousness is nothing without a synthesis of unification, but there is no synthesis of unification of consciousness without the form of the I, or the point of view of the self.” Instead of putting a transcendental unity (consciousness) against the empirical manifold, Deleuze considers a transcendental unconscious against any field which is endowed with unification. In terms of the unconscious, the transcendental field implies a multiplicity which is not unifiable. In other words, consciousness implies an interiority, even if it is not the interiority of the I or self, while Deleuze’s notion of surface ascribes a pure exteriority to the transcendental field. In Deleuze’s later work, the notion of surface gives its place to the plane of immanence which designates pure exteriority as well as the transcendental field. The plane of immanence as pure exteriority is not only opposed to the interiority of egos or subjects but also to the interiority of objects including the objective consciousness. In Logic of Sense, Deleuze argues how the referential objects (belongings to the realm of denotation) are the correlates of the subjects. Thus, the real as the condition of consciousness and its correlates must be in the form of surface, it must be the pure plane of immanence. In a late short text called “Immanence: A Life,” Deleuze explicitly identifies the transcendental field with “the plane of immanence” and in this way gives a further explanation of that which in Logic of Sense has been called surface. The transcendental field or surface is indeed the plane of immanence. This move is the result of the fact that, according to Deleuze, what constitutes the empirical entities, namely the subject and the object, is their transcendence, which is to say, they are products that reside outside

6  SENSE AS THE TRANSCENDENTAL FIELD 

147

of the genetic field. Anything which is centralized and unified is transcendent to the field, including universal consciousness.3 Hence, Deleuze states, The transcendent is not the transcendental. Were it not for consciousness, the transcendental field would be defined as a pure plane of immanence, because it eludes all transcendence of the subject and of the object. Absolute immanence is in itself: it is not in something, to something; it does not depend on an object or belong to a subject. (PI 26)

The transcendental field is the pure plane of immanence distinct from any transcendent entity and any kind of transcendence. Indeed, any transcendent entity is just the empirical result or outcome of the transcendental field. Sartre is well aware that the transcendent cannot be the transcendental and that the subject and the object are transcendent and therefore outside of the transcendental field; but he still considers the latter as a universal consciousness. According to Deleuze, the universal consciousness is nothing but a universalized subjectivity even if it works without concepts. The idea of the pure plane of immanence is indeed Deleuze’s instrument to denounce the philosophers like Sartre or William James who take consciousness as the transcendental field, for a consciousness, even an impersonal one, has to be in something, or better, to something, namely the subject (PI 32, note 2). Therefore, Deleuze introduces the pure plane of immanence, the absolute immanence which is not immanence to something but immanence of immanence, and takes it as the ground, the in-itself.4 It is the transcendental unconscious, the pure exteriority. As the transcendental, it is the real condition of experience, that is, the real condition of the transcendent subjects and objects, of ego and the universal consciousness as the elements of experience. In other words, it is the real space(-time) where the subjects and the objects and other empirical entities emerge and interact. And based on Deleuze’s essential thesis that the transcendental as the ground must never resemble and never be derived from that which it grounds, it must be in-itself, or in other words, the plane of immanence. And as Leonard Lawlor states, “according to Deleuze, as soon as a philosopher turns immanence into immanence to consciousness, the difference between ground and grounded collapses” (Lawlor, 1998: 27). There is no real transcendental philosophy which is transcendent. Introducing the plane of immanence as pure exteriority and transcendental unconscious has a history in Deleuze’s work. Even the first

148 

M. PARSA

appearances of the notion of immanence in his work, for instance in Spinoza et le problème de l’expression, entails this exteriority: in this text, immanence is understood in terms of expression, explication, and evolution. Immanence is not a movement toward the interiority of God, but rather the movement that brings God outside to nature. This is an account of immanence (as the exteriority of nature) which has not yet reached the level of the transcendental. It is in light of post-Kantian philosophy that immanence receives a new register as the transcendental field. Then, in collaboration with Guattari, Deleuze brings the psychoanalytic notion of the unconscious to the scene, where the immanent and real transcendental field finds a language to speak which is very different from common philosophical language. Here, the immanence of the transcendental unconscious receives a material and social register in terms of an exteriority that really produces interiorities in the so-called universal history. We return back to this psychoanalytic account of the transcendental unconscious at the final section of next chapter. The last point to mention at this stage is about the connection between sense as the fourth dimension of the proposition and nonsense as the unconscious. We discussed in our second chapter how Deleuze introduces sense as the fourth dimension of the proposition, distinct from denotation, manifestation and signification. We also mentioned the inherent connection between sense and nonsense. Now, we can use the conclusions of these discussions to clarify more Deleuze’s contribution in the nature of the transcendental field. As mentioned before, Deleuze introduces the dimension of sense, for the first time in Logic of Sense, in the Third Series of the Proposition, and he derives the notion of sense from analyzing the dimensions of the proposition. But all what he says about the proposition is applicable to consciousness. As Hughes in reference to Husserl and Heidegger declares, consciousness is necessarily propositional and therefore this application is justifiable: “consciousness is always preoccupied with judgment and its product, ‘knowledge’, and knowledge is expressed in propositional form” (Hughes, 2008: 21). Thus, all we said about the four dimensions of the proposition can be applied to consciousness itself. And sense as the fourth dimension of consciousness can be defined as unconscious. Therefore, Deleuze’s contribution in the formation of the transcendental field is that it does not entail consciousness in its three dimensions, in the manner of Husserl and Sartre, but it underlies the addition of the fourth dimension of sense which modifies radically its established form and renders it as the unconscious. It is in this sense that the

6  SENSE AS THE TRANSCENDENTAL FIELD 

149

object, the subject and the concept as ontological counterparts of logical proposition belong to the empirical realm of consciousness. We already discussed the correspondence between the logical and ontological proposition in the final section of chapter three.

Deleuze’s Rationalism In order to understand better Deleuze’s contribution in the development of the transcendental philosophy, we need to refer back to his reading of Kant’s transcendentalism as the departure point of this philosophical tradition. In fact, Deleuze, in his early works including Difference and Repetition and Logic of Sense, believes that there is a problem in Kantian transcendentalism that remains unsolved in this tradition. It is in order to solve this problem that he introduces the notion of sense as the transcendental field. But before examining Deleuze’s solution, let us pursue for a while the way the problem is formulized by Salomon Maimon in his Essays on Transcendental Philosophy which is a revision and reconstruction of the main problematic of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. According to Maimon, Kant’s magnum opus fails to bridge the gap between transcendental thought and empirical reality. This gap appears in Kant’s first Critique as the dichotomy of two main faculties, namely the understanding and the sensibility. According to Maimon, what Kant does is to draw the outlines of conceptual thinking while taking the content of sensibility just as given. Frederik Beiser summarizes this point as the following: Maimon believes that Kant’s transcendental induction takes granted what is questioned by Hume … that our sensical impressions are just accidental associations. Kant answers the question of Quid juris but not Quid facti. (Beiser, 1987: 289)

Therefore, Kant assumes a direct access to the given reality and analyzes only the conditions of possible experience, that is to say, the conditions of experience in general before being in any actual circumstances (Quid juris), but not the conditions of real experience (Quid facti). This is because Kant, who makes an unbridgeable gap between the two faculties, burdens the entire weight of the transcendental on the understanding which, as Maimon insists, can only provide the form of thinking: “in philosophy the understanding produces only the form of thinking out of

150 

M. PARSA

itself; but the objects it is applied to must be given to it from elsewhere” (Maimon, 2010: 6). Indeed, Kant at the beginning of “The Transcendental Logic” maintains that thought is secondary regarding the reception of representations. It does not take place in the process of giving the experience. This is why it is reduced to the cognition of an established object (CPR 193, A50). Precisely at this point, there is an unbridgeable gap between intuition and concepts. According to Maimon, this marks a failure because, on the one hand, by introducing the synthetic a priori, the main aim of transcendental philosophy supposed to be providing a necessity and universality which is not merely logical and formal, that is to say, not between universal concepts. And on the other hand, thought as the condition is supposed to condition the intuition, not merely itself. The result would be Kant’s famous confession that “we can cognize of things a priori only what we ourselves have put into them” (CPR 111, B xvii). In short, a subjective idealism. With Maimon, the aim of transcendental philosophy is the search for a real synthetic necessity and universality that takes us beyond that which we already put into reality. This is because Kant traces only the conditions of experience formally, regardless of any practical implementation. Maimon claims that the categories or concepts cannot apply to experience, because an a priori concept is valid for objects in general, that is to say, for any possible object, or in Kant’s own words, “the pure thinking [thought] of an object”, which is, the established form of the object (CPR 196, A55). Then, Maimon maintains, “it [understanding] can only be valid for already constituted [gemacht] experiences, and cannot be valid a priori for experiences yet to be constituted” (Maimon, 2010: 7–8). The way to solve this problem is searching for the transcendental beyond the duality of sensibility and understanding which both have their own form and matter. Maimon’s suggestion is to imagine an infinite understanding at the level of sensibility that generates both the form and the content of experience and therefore really conditions it. In this way, the Kantian formal conditioning gives its place to real genesis. As Daniel Smith summarizes: Against Kant, Maimon argues that one cannot simply assume these supposed ‘facts’ of knowledge or morality, but must instead show how they are engendered immanently from reason alone as the necessary modes of its manifestation. In short, a method of genesis has to replace the Kantian method of conditioning. (Smith, 2006: 49)

6  SENSE AS THE TRANSCENDENTAL FIELD 

151

This view results in a different formulation of the transcendental which is not formal anymore but is real, which is to say, it does not condition the empirical formally from outside (or from a transcendent position) but in fact conditions it through the immanent genesis. Based on this Maimonian insight, Deleuze formulates his own version of transcendentalism which entails a distinction between the transcendental and the empirical at the level of sensibility, although he makes a step beyond Maimon by refusing to use the term understanding. This effort implies the search for the intelligibility within the sensibility itself. As Levi Bryant in his Difference and Givenness states: if Deleuze is able to depart from the philosophy of representation characterized by the primacy of the concept, then this is because he discovers intelligibility in the aesthetic itself, in the very fabric of the given, in the form of the differentials of perception. (Bryant, 2008: x)

Bryant in his interpretation of Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism defines it as a “hyper-rationalism” because it extends intelligibility to intuitions, or in his terms, to “the aesthetic itself” or to “the very fabric of the given.” It is no longer the case that understanding thinks and sensibility just provides the blind and passive contents for its thinking. In addition, it is no longer the case that understanding is productive of the forms and sensibility is just receptive of those forms. Intuition is not any more “passive and merely receptive, and without productivity” and so what is given is “the result of a productive or creative intuition” (Bryant, 2008: 9). This is the new role that Deleuze gives to intuition through his reading of Bergson as the site of true differences in kind. The passage from the central role of the understanding in Kant towards the productive and differentiative intuition is indeed a passage towards exterior, towards the things in themselves and locating the transcendental in the plane of immanence.5 By focusing on the Bergsonian notion of intuition as duration, which is, an aspect of experience in which the true differences in kind take place, Deleuze distances himself from the idea of intuition as the given or as already-present; what is experienced in intuition is the event and the event is defined by its disjunctiveness. Duration is the site of qualitative multiplicities and that which multiplies itself qualitatively (repetition for itself) is experienced as an event. It is never given. In this regard, Deleuze connects the notions of intelligibility and productivity and searches for this connection, beyond the conscious

152 

M. PARSA

conceptual understanding, in the exteriority of experience or its evental aspect. This is a crucial move in the course of transcendental philosophy in which Deleuze changes the classical meaning of conditioning by merging it with the notion of genesis. He believes that in this way it arises to its real implementation. Therefore, the transcendental field becomes really generative regarding the empirical entities, or in other words, it entails their genesis. It underlies the genetic surface of empirical depths. In this picture, Deleuze uses the notion of sense and takes it as the transcendental field or surface. Using this term has the advantage of, on the one hand, making a contribution to the Maimonian reading of Kant and keeping a connection with the transcendental philosophy and, on the other hand, making a contribution to the problem of meaning and intelligibility or what can be called thought. In fact, in the notion of sense as the transcendental surface and the genetic field sensibility and intelligibility join together. This is a radical change in the formation of the transcendental because for Kant intuition or anything which is connected to it cannot satisfy the requirements of the transcendental. This is because the intuition is temporal (or as Deleuze suggests in his reading of Bergson, it is the duration itself). Kant supposes that the transcendental field must provide the unity and stability of experience, and since this unity and stability is always that of objects and subjects, he recognizes the transcendental field in terms of the transcendental object and the transcendental subject whose form entails nothing but the concept. In fact, according to Kant, since it must provide unity and stability, the transcendental field must be extracted from the form of the object and the subject. According to Deleuze, following Maimon, this is a failure because the object and the subject are empirical, and the transcendental must not be derived from the form of the empirical. For Deleuze, Kant’s failure is due to the fact that his transcendental entails the condition of unity and stability. According to Deleuze, the pure form of objectivity ought to be what he calls “singularity”. Kant recognizes the need for a move towards object=x for the consideration of the transcendental field, a move towards the objectification of the transcendental, but he fails because instead of taking the pure form of objectivity as singularity, he takes it as conceptual objectivity which renders it dependent to subjectivity (LdS 128; LoS 105). This is also why Deleuze cannot approve Sartre’s solution because his transcendental field too retains the unity as the pure form of the objectivity of the transcendental field. Deleuze changes the nature of the transcendental field by defining it as the source of the temporal emission of singularities (LdS 124; LoS

6  SENSE AS THE TRANSCENDENTAL FIELD 

153

102). In this way, the transcendental form of objectivity would be the pure and empty form of time (Aion). In this way, it marks the real condition of experience, not only in its plurality and diversity, but also in its qualitative productivity and multiplicity, far from being the condition of the unity and the stability of experience. Conditioning now marks the process of individuation, which is to say, the genesis of individuals including objects and subjects.

Sense, Common Sense, Good Sense In the third chapter of Difference and Repetition titled “The Image of Thought,” Deleuze distinguishes sense from (and prioritizes it over) common sense and good sense. In both Difference and Repetition and Logic of Sense, this distinction and priority is a crucial move to formulate the formation of sense as the transcendental field. This chapter begins with criticizing the way Descartes and Kant take something uncritical as given, namely good sense and common sense. In the course of the chapter, Deleuze demonstrates how this given is just an empirical result. Good sense and common sense indicate two essential aspects of the empirical field against which sense as the transcendental field receives its formation. In this chapter, Deleuze defines Good sense as presupposing an “affinity between thought and the True” like for example in the case of Descartes who, according to Deleuze, believes in “a good will on the part of the thinker and an upright nature on the part of thought,” which is to say that, there is no possible doubt in the thinker’s will to grasp the truth and no doubt in his ability to do so, that is, in the upright nature of thought in its affinity with truth (DR 166–167). It is indeed Descartes himself who begins his Discourse on the Method by repeating the old saying that “good sense is the most evenly distributed thing in the world” (Descartes, 2006: 5). This is to say that people may suffer from a lack of memory or imagination but all of them are equipped with the maximum of reason and intelligence. We may fail accidentally, but we have an essential access to truth. This description corresponds with the definition of good sense, in Logic of Sense, as the givenness of the right direction which is provided by God as good Chronos. Here, the result of the absence of good sense is the bidirectionality of sense, or where Alice asks, “which way, which way?” (LdS 92–95; LoS 75–77). Common sense, in its turn, receives its best explanation in Kant’s doctrine of faculties and can be defined as the harmonious agreement of

154 

M. PARSA

mental faculties that makes it possible to recognize a supposed same object. In Deleuze’s reading, Kant explains the distinctions between the faculties and the task of each of them without explaining the source of the differentiation and the agreement or harmony between them. He just presupposes this differentiation and the agreement as the source of commonality and communicability of individual human beings. This too corresponds with the definition of common sense in Logic of Sense as the unity of organs in an identity (an identity which is lost in the case of Alice, LdS 95–97; LoS 77–79). Common sense and good sense mark the inherent element of what is called reason. But Deleuze reminds us that the rationalism of common sense and good sense is non-philosophical and dogmatic because it relies on doxa, on what “everybody knows”, and on presupposing a vulgar belief. It is indeed doxa that is the most evenly distributed. It would be non-philosophical to build our philosophy on empirical results. Instead of the rationalism of common sense and good sense, Deleuze introduces the rationalism of sense which relies on a transcendental field which is not good in any way and is not yet common. The priority of sense results in a rationalism which assumes no good nature for reason and searches for the source of what is common among humans in that which is in no way common. This is why we chose the name of irrationalism for Deleuze’s philosophical system. And precisely in this positive irrationalism, Deleuze is faithful to the ancient depiction of philosophy as departing from doxa. Thus, against the common belief on the basis of which sense means common sense or good sense, Deleuze emphasizes on an inherent connection between sense and nonsense. Therefore, there are always two aspects of the transcendental surface of sense, one connected to the empirical meaning and the other to the transcendental nonsense. This is why in “How do We Recognize Structuralism?” after stating that, “sense is always a result, an effect” Deleuze continues, “There is, profoundly, a nonsense of sense, from which sense itself results” (DI 175). Sense as nonsense is the ground and the condition of a sense which keeps an affinity with truth, namely common sense and good sense. The difference in nature that Deleuze assumes between the ground and the grounded requires that what gives sense does not already have sense. Sense is the transcendental field that has nonsense as its genetic element and generates contingently common sense and good sense as the empirical results. Based on this distinction between transcendental sense and its empirical results, Deleuze distinguishes between thought and recognition.

6  SENSE AS THE TRANSCENDENTAL FIELD 

155

It is based on common sense and the presumption of good sense that we ordinarily recognize objects and therefore take the role of subjects. The subject is the one who recognizes. Deleuze introduces thought as the transcendental condition of this recognition. Thought in this sense marks the productive implication of sensibility and therefore is not at all constrained within subjectivity or the Kantian faculty of understanding. It has nothing to do with the conscious application of concepts on objects by a subject. In an important fragment of the third chapter of Difference and Repetition, Deleuze states, Something in the world forces us to think. This something is an object not of recognition but of a fundamental encounter. What is encountered may be Socrates, a temple or a demon. It may be grasped in a range of affective tones: wonder, love, hatred, suffering. In whichever tone, its primary characteristic is that it can only be sensed. In this sense it is opposed to recognition. In recognition, the sensible is not at all that which can only be sensed, but that which bears directly upon the senses in an object which can be recalled, imagined or conceived. The sensible is referred to an object which may not only be experienced other than by sense, but may itself be attained by other faculties. It therefore presupposes the exercise of the senses and the exercise of the other faculties in a common sense. The object of encounter, on the other hand, really gives rise to sensibility with regard to a given sense … It is not a sensible being [an object] but the being of the sensible. It is not the given but that by which the given is given. It is therefore in a certain sense the imperceptible [insensible]. It is imperceptible precisely from the point of view of recognition. (DR 176)

Thought takes place at the point of an encounter with the outside that affects us in a range of tones.6 These affections mark the points of a modification in mental faculties. We think only when something from outside forces a change in the ordinary practice of recognition and triggers a new formation of the faculties the harmonious exercise of which makes possible again a recognition in a new common sense. Thinking is a transcendental exercise at the level of sense which does not take the empirical harmonious exercise (common sense) as granted. Recognition is just the derivative and empirical exercise of senses which becomes common and is supposed to be directed by good sense. What we know as our everyday experience is recognition, and despite Descartes and the tradition that he inherits, Deleuze believes that we rarely think. Thus, thinking is, first and foremost, sensing and its first appearance is in the form of tones like

156 

M. PARSA

wonder or suffering. It takes place through an encounter and it marks the construction of that which later becomes subjectivity which works only with concepts. Senses are the genetic elements of concepts. They are also the genetic elements of the faculties the harmonious exercise of which provides us with objects. What I sense is not an object but is the sensible, the being of the sensible. It is empirically imperceptible, and only transcendentally sensible. The thing in itself is intelligible but not in conceptual manner and not as a thing. It is intelligible only transcendentally and as the being of the sensible. Thus, Deleuze’s account of sense is not identical with the Kantian faculty of sensibility but rather marks any faculty in its disjunction and outside of empirical harmonious exercise. And he does not limit the number of faculties into three. Indeed, there is an unknown number of faculties as well as the capability to generate new faculties. Each faculty can be considered in its empirical exercise, which is, in an established harmony with the other faculties, or in its transcendental exercise, which is, in its disjunction. In this regard, Deleuze discusses the empirical and transcendental memory, imagination etc. Regardless of which faculty is under consideration, its transcendental exercise deserves to be called sense. And its practice deserves to be called thought.7 Yet, the empirical harmonious exercise is constrained within common sense. In this way, Deleuze gives a new meaning to the Kantian faculty of sensibility.8 In order to examine more precisely the nature of sense as the transcendental sensibility, which stands against the empirical common sense, we need to refer to Deleuze’s reading of Kant’s esthetic judgments in “The Idea of Genesis in Kant’s Esthetics” or Kant’s Critical Philosophy: The Doctrine of Faculties. These texts focus on the formation of faculties that Kant provides in his The Critique of the Power of Judgment. There, the faculty of sensibility gives its place to the faculty of imagination and takes a productive role. In the vocabulary of the third Critique, Kant builds a system of three faculties, imagination, understanding and reason. In the realm of the cognitive judgments, the faculties work harmoniously under the legislation or determination of understanding and constitute the speculative common sense. This legislation is the priority of concepts over the activity of imagination to receive the sense-data and marks the act of recognition. The Deleuzian-Maimonian criticism indicates that the accord between understanding and imagination is a formal one which can be disrupted with the introduction of the faculty of reason. Kant explains how they work harmoniously, without asking how they happen to do so.

6  SENSE AS THE TRANSCENDENTAL FIELD 

157

What Deleuze does at this point is the introduction of the Idea of reason as the genetic element to respond to that failure. The genetic element is, in a word, sense and the transcendental exercise marks the way it liberates itself from cognitive common sense. But this journey passes through an esthetic common sense. Let us close this chapter by reviewing this journey.

The Speculative, the Beautiful, the Sublime Kant’s theory of knowledge, his epistemology, in The Critique of Pure Reason suggests an agreement between the imagination and the understanding, the cooperation of which makes possible the recognition of an object. We can recognize the ordinary objects because our imagination is capable to schematize the form of an object out of sensory manifold and this schematization is under the legislation of understanding’s concepts. The so-called legislation provides the objective necessity and universality of our epistemic judgments (the necessity and universality of the laws of phenomenal nature). To put it simply, this judgment takes the particulars from nature to subsume them in universals in order to make us able to recognize the objects and to communicate on an objective ground. But in the Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant introduces a kind of judgment which is not any more legislative and determining, but reflecting. Through reflection, the judgment liberates itself from understanding and becomes a faculty.9 This is only possible if the imagination can liberate itself from being determined by the understanding. This takes us to Kant’s analysis of the esthetic judgment, or the judgment of taste. The esthetic judgment is also based on an agreement between the imagination and the understanding. But in its case, the agreement is not legislated or determined by the understanding. The esthetic judgment (which analyzed by Kant in his Analytic of the Beautiful) underlies a free agreement between the imagination and the understanding. As Deleuze writes, in this judgment, “the free imagination agrees with an indeterminate understanding” (DI 57).10 The agreement in the case of the speculative judgment is under the governance of understanding and produces the objective knowledge while in the case of the esthetic judgment it is free and produces the subjective pleasure (of the beautiful). In other words, in the esthetic judgment, since the agreement is free, it can only be felt, not known. In this free agreement, according to Kant, the imagination “schematizes without concepts” (CPJ 167, 5: 287). Deleuze contests that schematization without determining concepts deserves to gain a new name:

158 

M. PARSA

“Without a concept from the understanding, the imagination does something else than schematize: it reflects. This is the true role of the imagination in esthetic judgment” (DI 59). Thus, reflection is the free act of the imagination.11 It is the liberation of the imagination from representing the objects, i.e., from the schematical relation with the understanding. In reflection, the imagination is not any more reproductive, but rather “productive and self-active” (CPJ 124, 5: 240). But the esthetic judgment is still a judgment, which is to say that the involved pleasure must be communicable. I can say, “It is beautiful!” On this basis, Kant introduces an esthetic common sense which is distinguished from the speculative or cognitive common sense: …taste can be called sensus communis with greater justice than can the healthy understanding, and that the aesthetic power of judgment rather than the intellectual can bear the name of a common sense, if indeed one would use the word ‘sense’ of an effect of mere reflection on the mind: for there one means by ‘sense’ the feeling of pleasure. One could even define taste as the faculty for judging that which makes our feeling in a given representation universally communicable without the mediation of a concept. (CPJ 175, 5: 295).

In other words, the esthetic common sense entails the communicability of the subjective feelings without the mediation of concepts, which is to say, without attachment to objects. The object is still there but as a pure form in the subject; an object without objectivity. Therefore, the subjects can freely communicate their feelings by their free imaginations.12 This is the esthetic common sense; the universality of the esthetic judgment does not need any objectivity but is satisfied with the pleasure of the subjects who play freely with forms. Thus, the freedom in esthetic judgment is freedom from the objectivity but not from the subjectivity in the form of intersubjectivity. After all, the subjects have to agree. There must be a second forced movement to liberate the judgment from subjectivity. This liberation from objectivity and subjectivity, from the cognitive common sense and the esthetic common sense, is what we need in order to liberate the transcendental field of sense, which is to say, sense as that which is not reducible to subjective (and intersubjectively communicable) feeling. But before examining this forced movement, let us notice that, according to Deleuze, the free agreement is prior to the determined agreement of the imagination and the understanding. Any fixed or proportioned

6  SENSE AS THE TRANSCENDENTAL FIELD 

159

agreement has to be initiated from a free agreement. He claims, “the faculties would never enter into an agreement that is fixed or determined by one of themselves if, to begin with, they were not in themselves and spontaneously capable of an indeterminate agreement, a free harmony, without any fixed proportion” (DI 58). This is why the movement towards freedom is indeed a movement towards the ground. Now, according to Deleuze, the esthetic Judgment can provide the indeterminate agreement as the ground of the proportioned speculative agreement. In Deleuze’s reading, The Critique of the Power of Judgment constitutes the ground of the other two Critiques which both include the fixed and proportioned agreements (the Critique of Practical Reason is based on the agreement between the understanding and the reason which is legislated or determined by the faculty of reason), because in order to form a determined agreement, the faculties must first be able to enter into a free agreement. Now let us examine the second forced movement of freedom which liberates sense from the subjective common sense. This is only possible through the intervention of the Ideas of reason. At this point, Deleuze, in his reading of Kant’s third Critique, introduces the Analytic of the Sublime, which expresses a (non-)agreement between the imagination and the reason. Through the analytic of the sublime, the understanding is finally abandoned, and a real freedom of the imagination is realized. But this freedom is forced by reason. As Deleuze explains, the result of this relation between the imagination and reason is a feeling and not knowledge, but this time it is not pleasure; it is pain: “Reason and imagination agree or harmonize only from within a tension, a contradiction, a painful rending. There is an agreement, but in a discordant concord, a harmony in pain. And it is only pain that makes pleasure possible here” (DI 61–62).13 In this way, we move to another ground, that which grounds the subjective communicability. In this “discordant concord”, the reason confronts the imagination violently with its limits, so that the imagination is forced to imagine what it cannot imagine. In this experience, the imagination confronts with an exteriority, a realm beyond phenomenal objectivity. The elimination of the understanding from the agreement amounts to transgressing beyond the world of phenomena and objects and also beyond the beautiful form of the objects: The beautiful in nature concerns the form of the object, which consists in limitations; the sublime, by contrast, is to be found in a formless object insofar as limitlessness is represented in it, or at its instance, and it is also

160 

M. PARSA

thought as a totality: so that the beautiful seems to be taken as the presentation of an indeterminate concept of the understanding, but the sublime as that of a similar concept of reason [the Idea].14 (CPJ 128, 5: 244)

Deleuze claims that in this painful experience of discord, “the imagination realizes its very passion” (DI 62). The passion of imagination as an independent faculty is to imagine without any constraint of a pre-established harmony, to imagine what is unimaginable, to perceive what is imperceptible from the point of view of recognition. There is no understanding in this case to teach the imagination how to imagine; and the task of reason is to force the imagination to transgress beyond the limits of its habitual harmony with the understanding. It would be in this case a productive imagination, and the so-called pain is the pain of being born, of genesis, because “an agreement is born at the heart of this discord” (DI 62; italic in original); a new agreement and a new configuration of the faculties. In other words, in the experience of the sublime there is a conflict between the faculty of reason and the imagination, in which reason demands the imagination present that which it itself is capable of comprehending under its concept, namely the Idea, but is beyond the capacity of the imagination which is learned to work in cooperation with the understanding and under the legislation of its concepts. The conflict is due to the essential distinction between the concepts of the understanding (the categories) and the concepts of reason (the Ideas). As Kant mentions, “what is properly sublime cannot be contained in any sensible form, but concerns only ideas of reason” (CPJ 129, 5: 245). Through the experience of the sublime, the Ideas of reason are presented forcefully on the realm of the imagination, which is, sensibility or intuition. The tension between reason and the imagination “expands the soul” (CPJ 156, 5: 274), which is to say, it forces the mental faculties to reconfigure themselves in response to the experience, or say, the encounter. In this way, “reason exercises over sensibility [or imagination] only in order to enlarge it in a way suitable for its own proper domain” (CPJ 148, 5: 265). This precisely leads Deleuze to what he called “genesis”. As Daniela Voss declares, “what will emerge from an exposition of the experience of the sublime is that the accord of the faculties is the product of a veritable transcendental genesis” (Voss, 2013: 165). The genetic element is the transcendental Idea that forces the faculties to enlarge themselves and form new configurations. Hence, reason is not only a faculty but also the source of the genetic element of the faculties; and the number of the

6  SENSE AS THE TRANSCENDENTAL FIELD 

161

faculties is not limited to three; they multiply themselves in this genesis. The Idea of reason marks the multiplicity of the faculties. The transition from common sense to what Deleuze calls “para-sense” is that from the fixed structure of the faculties to an infinite multiplication. In this way, the Idea of reason as the element of Deleuze’s rationalism entails what we already considered his irrationalism. Deleuze claims that, Kant at this point approaches for the first time to “a dialectical conception of the faculties” (DI 62). Dialectic here underlies the tension which renders the formation of the faculties as metastable and forces them to generate new configurations. According to Deleuze, the Analytic of the Sublime puts Kant’s philosophy, not against, but besides the post-Kantians like Maimon and Fichte (DI 61). Thus, while in Difference and Repetition Deleuze criticizes Kant of remaining in the realm of common sense and searches for the way out in the Post-Kantian philosophy, in “The Idea of Genesis in Kant’s Esthetics” he finds the way out of the prison of common sense that Kant builds in the first Critique in his own work, namely in The Critique of the Power of Judgment, in the “dialectical conception of the faculties.”15 As mentioned, the harmony in the epistemic judgment is known and in the judgment of taste is felt. The feeling of accord is what can be called freedom. But in the experience of the sublime, we can find a different conception of freedom based on a different feeling. The feeling of freedom within the accord of subjective faculties is the source of pleasure. But the freedom of the imagination to surpass its limits is felt as pain. In this case, it loses its sweet feeling of freedom by breaking the chains of subjectivity. The result would still be a feeling or a tone, not an access or knowledge. The feeling of pain is prior to the feeling of pleasure, and discord is the genetic element of harmony or accord. Any agreement is born out of discord. And corresponding to each feeling there is a kind of freedom, one empirical and the other transcendental. The transcendental freedom is the encounter with the ideal intensity which affects and expands the mental system. It is not the freedom to play within the constraints of the harmonious collaboration of faculties, but rather the freedom to violate this collaboration. The experience of the sublime marks the transcendental exercise of the imagination, which is imagining what is empirically unimaginable. What forces the imagination to imagine the unimaginable in the experience of the sublime is the Idea that the faculty of reason attaches to it. Deleuze in Difference and Repetition even claims that, in the absence of harmony,

162 

M. PARSA

“there are Ideas which traverse all the faculties” (DR 183). It is through the Idea of reason that, not only the imagination, but any faculty receives its transcendental exercise. The Idea which appears first in Kant’s Transcendental Dialectic receives a positive role in The Analytic of The Sublime and becomes the element of a dialectical conception of the faculties, or in other words, the element of the synthesis of heterogeneities. In this regard, it marks also the genetic element and the element of the transcendental field. In the absence of common sense as the presupposed communication or pre-established harmony, the faculties enter into a forced communication or synthesis whose agent is the Idea, a synthesis which takes place on the transcendental field. This alters radically the solution that Kant proposes by his transcendental synthesis of apperception which is a synthesis within the subject or the presupposed unity of the faculties. Deleuze poses the synthetic a priori beyond the subject, at the point of its formation. This is a crucial move from the concept towards the Idea as the agent of synthesis, and from recognition towards thinking. According to Deleuze, the former is just the result while the latter can play the role of the ground. We rarely think and thinking is painful. In order for this, Deleuze makes an identity between two accounts of the Idea that Kant distinguishes. As Voss summarizes, according to Kant, “while the Idea of reason is a concept (of the supersensible) to which no adequate intuition can ever be given, the aesthetic Idea is an intuition for which no concept can be found adequate” (Voss, 2013: 175). On the basis of this distinction, Kant defines genius as the faculty of esthetic Ideas, or a kind of creative (productive and self-active) intuition. Deleuze, in his reading links these two accounts of the Ideas. This gives a special meaning to intuition, very different from its role in Kant’s first Critique. In this context, genius receives its new definition. Genius is that with which the artist creates esthetic Ideas in order to respond the exigencies that reason with its Ideas applies. It is obvious that this creation does not respect the established accord of the faculties; it participates in the generation or reconfiguration of them. The application of the rational Idea on the creative production on the side of the esthetic Idea transforms the intuition from a receptive faculty into the faculty of making difference, which is, making true differences in kind. The transcendental Ideas induce themselves in intuition. This marks a transcendence in intuition that can be defined as a move towards nature. Deleuze’s final move at this point is to reveal how the transcendental exercise of the faculties entails the involvement of nature. In order for this,

6  SENSE AS THE TRANSCENDENTAL FIELD 

163

in “The Idea of Genesis in Kant’s Esthetics” he explains how reason attaches synthetically the Idea of an agreement between nature and our faculties to the free agreement of the imagination and the understanding in the judgment of taste, or in general, to the free agreement of the faculties among themselves. Deleuze, here, insists that “this agreement is external to the agreement of the faculties among themselves” (DI 65). Therefore, reason attaches a goal to the esthetic judgment which is in itself disinterested, and this attachment results in a feeling of that which is not a judgment, namely the sublime (and therefore is not communicable, neither scientifically nor subjectively; it is only communicable through resonating, as pain is communicated among the patients). This entails the synthesis of nature and our harmonious faculties in what can be called an encounter. Now, this agreement without a goal, or in other words, this external synthesis, serves as a genetic principle for the established agreement of the faculties among themselves. The crucial point here is that the imagination which is constrained in the established harmony reflects only the form. But the purpose or the Idea attached to the judgment of taste (or to the free harmony between the imagination and the understanding) has to do with matter. It is not at all the objective matter, but rather is called by Deleuze “free matter” or “primal matter” (DI 65). It is not at all the object of intuition in the sense of the first Critique which has to be subsumed to the object, but rather the formless matter which marks the differentiation of the intuition in its new sense. The understanding conceives the object through an agreement with the imagination (or through schematization). The imagination reflects the form of the object through a free agreement with the understanding (or through the judgment of taste). The reason perceives the matter devoid of the form, or free matter, through a discordant concord or a forced agreement with the imagination (or through the experience of the sublime). The latter is a purely rational intuition or experimentation whose instrument is not the concept but the Idea. Reason senses the pure matter (devoid of form), or nature, in a direct experience whose subject is, as Deleuze declares in Difference and Repetition, “the Idea” which “is necessarily obscure in so far as it is distinct” (DR 184). This is Deleuze’s rationalism at the level of sense or productive intuition. Here, Deleuze is attempting to demonstrate that Descartes’ “clear and distinct” ideas are indeed what in Kantian terminology called the concepts of the understanding and mark his attachment to good sense or the logic of recognition. The synthesis at the level of the

164 

M. PARSA

differential intuition (the disjunctive synthesis) is through the Ideas whose distinctness entails obscurity, which is the obscurity of the free matter. The Ideas are the genetic elements of concepts, and constitute that which Deleuze calls the transcendental genesis. They are not subjective concepts, but rather mark the genesis of the concepts and subjectivity. The free matter is the matter of the subject, the material formation of the subject and its counterparts, namely the object and the concepts. Genius has nothing to do with the creation of forms but rather that of matter. It marks a point in the work of the creator which is not subjective but triggers the formation of the subject and the object. It is what in the work of the creator that connects it with nature. Thus, the transcendental synthesis of apperception in the first Critique would be just a formal synthesis, a fake synthesis. The real and material synthesis takes place with nature. Here, we can find a rationalism, not of understanding, but of the faculty of reason, a reason which induces itself in the intuition.

Notes 1. Sartre endorses Husserl’s phenomenological method in Logical Investigations but renounces his revert in the Ideas “to the classical thesis of a transcendental I”: “Having considered that the Me was a synthetic and transcendental production of consciousness (in the Logische Untersuchungen), he reverted, in the Ideas, to the classical thesis of a transcendental I that follows on, so to speak, behind each consciousness, as the necessary structure of these consciousnesses, whose rays (Ichstrahl) fall on to each phenomenon that presents itself to the field of attention. Thus transcendental consciousness becomes rigorously personal” (Sartre, 2004/1937: 3). 2. “For Sartre, it is the unity of consciousness that forms the transcendental field, a consciousness that is impersonal through the removal of the concept of the ‘I’ from its foundational role … The ego still exists but is now a unity on the same level as any other object to which consciousness relates. It is a formal unity produced by the unity of consciousness” (Somers-Hall, 2012: 31). 3. Derrida in “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of Human Sciences” indicates very well the idea of the inherent transcendence of the center. In this manner, what he calls the transcendental signified, which is a register of consciousness, amounts to this Deleuzean idea of transcendence. Like Deleuze in “How Do We Recognize Structuralism?”, Derrida too believes

6  SENSE AS THE TRANSCENDENTAL FIELD 

165

in the immanence of the structure, that is to say, the decentralization of the structure. Cf. Derrida (2001: 352). 4. Francois Zourabichvili, in his commentary, construes this identity between the plane of immanence and the transcendental field as the affirmation of exteriority: “The plane of immanence is Deleuze’s name for this transcendental field where nothing is presupposed in advance except the exteriority that precisely challenges all presuppositions” (Zourabichvili, 2012: 74). What he calls “presuppositions” are the same as the transcendent entities such as ego or the individual objects through which there is no way to exteriority. It is only the plane of immanence, the in-itself, that opens the experience of exteriority. This is why the immanent transcendental field is also the real transcendental field. 5. Constantine Boundas, who prefers to refer to Merleau-Ponty’s perception instead of Bergson’s intuition, approaches this passage towards locating the transcendental inside things themselves: “Deleuze, for whom consciousness is the ‘opaque blade’ in the heart of becoming and therefore subject to intensive reduction, assigns to radical empiricism the responsibility of putting perception inside things, rather than of coaxing eloquently about its ineradicably ambiguous grounding in the ‘lived body’” (Boundas, 2006: 10). 6. Zourabichvili, in Deleuze: A Philosophy of the Event, provides this concise description of Deleuze’s notion of “encounter”: “An ‘encounter’ is the name of an absolutely exterior relation, in which thought enters into relation with that which does not depend upon it” (Zourabichvili, 2012: 57). 7. Zourabichvili opposes the transcendental field against “the act of thinking”: “The transcendental field is impersonal, asubjective, unconscious. The act of thinking is certainly not unconscious, but is engendered unconsciously, beyond representation” (Zourabichvili, 2012: 74). It is obvious that here he does not consider thought in the Deleuzian sense of the word, but just common sensically as what Deleuze calls recognition. In other words, “the act of thinking”, according to Zourabichvili, amounts to the empirical thought. But in Deleuze’s term in Difference and Repetition, the act of thinking and the generation of thought appear to be inseparable. In other words, according to Deleuze, thinking is transcendental and unconscious. 8. Leonard Lawlor connects this Deleuzian notion of sensibility to what in Logic of Sense is called “sensitive points”, which is, “the points of tears and joy, sickness and health, hope and anxiety…” (LdS 67; LoS 121; Lawlor, 1998: 19). It is on these points, these singular points, that thought receives its transcendental exercise. 9. As Daniela Voss writes, “in the first Critique, judgment was not considered a faculty in its own right but a function belonging to the understanding …

166 

M. PARSA

In the third Critique the faculty of judgment is presented as an intermediate faculty between reason and understanding. It fulfils the role of a mediator, or in other words of an overarching faculty, since it brings together all other cognitive faculties to the end of producing a single cognitive product, i.e. the judgment” (Voss, 2013: 160). 10. Kant describes this free agreement also as “a free play”: “The powers of cognition that are set into play by this representation are hereby in a free play, since no determinate concept restricts them to a particular rule of cognition” (CPJ 102, 5: 217). 11. Kant who defines the schematization of the imagination without concepts as its lawfulness by itself, is aware that his formula of schematization without concepts leads to contradiction: “Yet for the imagination to be free and yet lawful by itself, i.e., that it carry autonomy with it, is a contradiction. The understanding alone gives the law … Thus only a lawfulness without law and a subjective correspondence of the imagination to the understanding without an objective one—where the representation is related to a determinate concept of an object—are consistent with the free lawfulness of the understanding (which is also called purposiveness without an end) and with the peculiarity of a judgment of taste” (CPJ 125, 5: 241). 12. So, Kant states, “The subjective universal communicability of the kind of representation in a judgment of taste, since it is supposed to occur without presupposing a determinate concept, can be nothing other than the state of mind in the free play of the imagination and the understanding” (CPJ 103, 5: 217–218). 13. Kant does not directly claim that the experience of the sublime is a painful experience although he uses in this regard the term “displeasure” (CPJ 143, 5: 260) and states that “it were doing violence to our imagination” (CPJ 129, 5: 245). But in other cases, he still believes that this experience is a kind of pleasure, although it is essentially different from the pleasure of the beautiful. So he describes it as a “negative pleasure”: “(the feeling of the sublime) is a pleasure that arises only indirectly, being generated, namely, by the feeling of a momentary inhibition of the vital powers and the immediately following and all the more powerful outpouring of them … the satisfaction in the sublime does not so much contain positive pleasure as it does admiration or respect, i.e., it deserves to be called negative pleasure” (CPJ 128–129, 5: 245). 14. Kant already in the first Critique defines the Ideas as the concepts of reason. He takes the concept as a general category which can be divided into the concepts of sensibility or empirical concepts, the concepts of understanding (categories) and the concepts of reason (ideas): “A concept is either an empirical or a pure concept, and the pure concept, insofar as it has its origin solely in the understanding (not in a pure image of sensibil-

6  SENSE AS THE TRANSCENDENTAL FIELD 

167

ity), is called notio. A concept made up of notions, which goes beyond the possibility of experience, is an idea or a concept of reason” (CPR 399, B377). We use the term concept in most of the cases for the concept of understanding in accordance with Deleuze’s terminology. Notice that ­ when Kant claims the idea “goes beyond the possibility of experience” he means the experience in terms of the accordance of sensibility and understanding. Obviously, here, Kant gives a negative account of reason. Deleuze reformulates Kant to give a new account of experience as a discord of reason and the imagination. 15. As Daniel Smith claims, “Deleuze presumes that Kant, having read Maimon and declared him to be his most astute reader, effectively tried to respond to him in the Critique of Judgement. The Critique of Judgment is, in fact, the only one of Kant’s critiques to adopt a genetic viewpoint, and not merely the viewpoint of conditioning. What plays the genetic role in the Critique of Judgement? Unsurprisingly, it is the Ideas of reason” (Smith, 2006: 49).

References Beiser, F. (1987). The Fate of Reason: German Idealism from Kant to Fichte. Harvard University Press. Boundas, C.  V. (2006). What Difference Does Deleuze’s Difference Make? In C.  V. Boundas (Ed.), Deleuze and Philosophy (pp.  3–28). Edinburgh University Press. Bryant, L. (2008). Difference and Givenness: Deleuze’s Transcendental Empiricism and the Ontology of Immanence. Northwestern University Press. Deleuze, G. (1990). The Logic of Sense (M. Lester, Trans.). The Athlone Press. Deleuze, G. (2001). Pure Immanence: Essays on A Life (A.  Boyman, Trans.). Zone Books. Deleuze, G. (2004a). Desert Islands and Other Texts (D.  Lapoujade, Ed. and M. Taormins, Trans.). Semiotext(e). Deleuze, G. (2004b). Difference and Repetition (P. Patton, Trans.). Continuum. Deleuze, G. (1969). Logiques du Sens. Les Edition de Minuit. Derrida, J. (2001). Writing and Difference (A. Bass, Trans.). Routledge. Descartes, R. (2006). A Discourse on the Method (I.  Maclean, Trans.). Oxford University Press. Hughes, J. (2008). Deleuze and the Genesis of Representation. Continuum. Kant, E. (1998). Critique of Pure Reason (P.  Guyer & A.  W. Wood, Ed. and Trans.). Cambridge University Press. Kant, E. (2000). Critique of the Power of Judgment (P. Guyer, Ed. and P. Guyer & E. Matthews, Trans.). Cambridge University Press.

168 

M. PARSA

Lawlor, L. (1998). The End of Phenomenology: Expressionism in Deleuze and Merleau-Ponty. Continental Philosophy Review, 31(1), 15–34. Maimon, S. (2010). Essays on Transcendental Philosophy (H.  Somers-Hall, A. Welchman, & M. Reglitz, Trans.). Continuum. Sartre, J. P. (2004/1937). The Transcendence of the Ego (S. Richmond & A. Brown, Trans.). Routledge. Smith, D.  W. (2006). Deleuze, Kant, and the Theory of Immanent Ideas. In C.  Boundas (Ed.), Deleuze and Philosophy (pp.  43–61). Edinburgh University Press. Somers-Hall, H. (2012). Hegel, Deleuze and the Critique of Representation: Dialectics of Negation and Difference. State University of New York Press. Voss, D. (2013). Conditions of Thought: Deleuze and Transcendental Ideas. Edinburgh University Press. Zourabichvili, F. (2012). Deleuze: A Philosophy of the Event (K. Aarons, Trans. and G. Lambert & D. Smith, Ed.). Edinburgh University Press.

CHAPTER 7

The Ideational Materiality of Sense

In this chapter, I attempt to explain how in Deleuze’s thought sense is both ideational and material. To do this, I focus on Deleuze’s reading of Kant’s “Transcendental Ideas” in Difference and Repetition and Logic of Sense and elaborate on the link that he makes between Ideas and problems. Next, through a reading of Albert Lautman, I give a realist account of this transcendental idealism. And finally, I connect this dynamic and genetic realism with a transcendental materialism and conclude the materiality of sense as the transcendental field. This entails a change of direction from focusing on sense as the transcendental surface to nonsense as the transcendental depth which underlies turning from the language of transcendental philosophy towards the language of psychoanalysis, and is the result of Deleuze’s replacement of the unconscious as the transcendental field for Sartre’s consciousness.

Problematic Ideas In chapter IV of Difference and Repetition, Deleuze makes an identity between Ideas and problems. He argues that Kant’s formulation of the Ideas of reason is not exclusively negative. It is a mistake to believe that reason’s Ideas pose only false problems: “Ideas have a perfectly legitimate ‘regulative’ function in which they constitute true problems or pose well-­ founded problems. This is why ‘regulative’ means ‘problematic’” (DR 214). Deleuze is attempting to give a positive account of the Kantian © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Parsa, A Reading of Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13706-8_7

169

170 

M. PARSA

Ideas of reason and the problems. If understanding knows the objects with recourse to concepts, reason thinks the problems with recourse to Ideas. Thus, problems are the objects of reason; and according to Deleuze, problems are the true objects because thinking is prior to knowing. Understanding’s objects are just objects in limited sense, in the restriction of being correlated with established categories or concepts.1 Problems mark the point where true objects stimulate and disturb the mental faculties. While the phenomenal object corresponds to the harmonious cooperation of the faculties, the problem is the object of the discordant concord of the faculties.2 In other words, the objectivity of the problem is to say that the problematic Ideas are undetermined but not in the sense of a lack of knowledge about them. It is rather indeterminacy as virtuality or as the potency to generate an actuality. This is what the Ideas of reason have to do with sense and intuition whose virtuality is at the center of Deleuze’s reading of Bergson. In short, what makes a difference in kind in intuition is the problematic. Reason in its positive function of posing true problems is located at the level of intuition, where the true objects (problems) are donated without being given. In this way, Deleuze links the intelligibility and the sensibility: Ideas of reason are not located in the realm of concepts but in the realm of sense. Deleuze derives this conclusion from a reading of Kant’s section “on the Transcendental Ideas” in the Critique of Pure Reason where he makes a radical transformation: Kant derives the concepts of understanding (the categories) from the form of judgments and the concepts of reason (transcendental ideas) from the form of syllogism.3 Reason, for Kant, is syllogistic. Deleuze rather, in his own version of the transcendental dialectics, replaces the Kantian syllogistic reason with a propositional reasoning.4 On this basis, Kant claims that “the transcendental concept of reason is none other than that of the totality of conditions to a given conditioned thing” (CPR 400, B379). Deleuze locates the link between the infinite regress and the disjunctive synthesis in place of the totality of conditions in order to reach a disjunctive reasoning. The form of syllogism depends on the totality of conditions or premises. But a propositional regress transgresses such a constraint. This move is the same as what we find in Stoic logic in contrast to syllogistic Aristotelean logic or Chaldean Astrology. Therefore, the totality of conditions, in Deleuze’s reading, gives its place to an evental univocity in order to receive a positive role (the voice in univocity signifies the propositional nature of reason). If the problem is the

7  THE IDEATIONAL MATERIALITY OF SENSE 

171

object of the Idea, there would be an identification of the Idea and the event: Events are ideal … Events are ideational singularities which communicate in one and the same Event … Events are the only idealities … To reverse Platonism is first and foremost to remove essences and to substitute events in their place, as jets of singularities. (LdS 68–69; LoS 53)

And elsewhere: “The mode of the event is the problematic. One must not say that there are problematic events, but that events bear exclusively upon problems and define their conditions” (LdS 69; LoS 54). Events are the problematic objects of the transcendental Ideas. This is the result of two interrelated treatments of the event in Deleuze’s reading of the Stoics which are discussed in our third chapter: the event as the incorporeal effect and the event as the point of the Stoic ethical holism (the point of view of the cosmos). This is precisely that which transforms the syllogistic reason into a propositional one. In this regard, there must be an essential difference, a difference in kind, between the subject and the predicate. The subject belongs to the ordinary realm of existence. As the result of the unity of apperception, it entails the connective synthesis of perceptions under an object. The synthesis between the subject and the predicate must be different. The predicate must be the subsisting attribute, or the event, and not at all the existing properties or accidents. The difference in kind between the sets of accidental predicates of the object (correlated with the subjective synthesis of apperception) and the series of its evental attributes renders the involved synthesis as a disjunctive synthesis. The result would be the disjunctive univocity which, unlike the illusionary totality, plays a positive role (the communication of the events in the Event). This is based on a different account of the conditioning of the attribution of the categories. According to Kant, the Idea of reason is that which conditions the attribution of a category of relation (composed of substance, community, and causality) to all objects of possible experience (LdS 343; LoS 295). In this way, the three Ideas of reason are distinguished: The Self is the Idea which corresponds to the category of substance; God is the Idea which corresponds to the category of community; and the World is the Idea which corresponds to the category of causality. According to Kant’s famous account, their constitutive application leads to the dialectical antinomies (of the World), paralogisms (of the Soul or Self) and the ideal (of God). But Deleuze considers a regulative, or say,

172 

M. PARSA

problematic, correspondent for each of them. The problematic Self is a counter-self, the vague person or nobody. The problematic God is the Stoic sage, the actor and the receiver of the event, and the problematic World is chaosmos or the incompossibility.5 In other words, Kant’s thesis of the transcendental illusion is to mistake the transcendental problem or the object of the Idea as a phenomenal object. But one can also think of the transcendental regulation (or the transcendental problematics) as dealing directly with the problem as the object of the Idea. Thus, instead of the antithetical objects of antinomies, paralogisms and ideals, we have the problematic objects which are the nobody (person), the sage and the incompossibility. These are the objects which are not representable or recognizable but rather purely thinkable. In other words, the transcendental Ideas do not represent the existing objects but rather they express the subsisting objects, or say, the events. This is the Deleuzian reading of Kant’s distinction between the constitutive and the regulative principles. According to Kant, the regulative principle is that which provides the experience with its maximum of systematic unity. The unity is attainable through taking a cosmic perspective. But such a perspective cannot be reached by the categories of being (substance, community, and causality) and a connective or conjunctive syntheses, in such a way that can be found in Aristotle’s metaphysics and logic, but by an evental univocity, in the way of the ancient Stoics and Spinoza (the quasi-causality of the events and the disjunctive synthesis). The unity of experience is evental, which is to say that, our experience is genetic, disjunctive and processual; its subject is the nobody (the vague person), its agent is the sage, and its site is the incompossibility. This, according to Deleuze, is necessary to reach a real transcendental logic and ontology. And he believes that this move is really initiated by Kant, although his religious bias prevents him to take the final step. Deleuze is amazed by Kant’s finding: As it happens, it is with regard to one of Kant’s theses on theology, an odd and particularly ironic thesis, that the problem of the disjunctive syllogism takes on its full import: God is presented as the principle or master of the disjunctive syllogism. To understand this thesis, we must recall the link that Kant poses in general between Ideas and syllogism. (LdS 342; LoS 294)

The disjunctive syllogism is what we already considered as propositional reasoning and stands against the categorical syllogism. Ideas are supposed

7  THE IDEATIONAL MATERIALITY OF SENSE 

173

to ground the attribution of categories to all objects of possible experience. In Kant’s understanding of “the philosophical Christian God” it is defined as “the sum total of all possibility, insofar as this sum constitutes an ‘originary’ material or the whole of reality. The reality of each thing ‘is derived’ from it” (LdS 343; LoS 295). The disjunction here means the determination of each object from the rest of the totality. But Deleuze claim that this Kantian disjunctive syllogism is merely negative and limitative. Without the totality of the conditions, disjunction receives a new meaning which is exemplified in the regressive synthesis discussed above. Therefore, the negative and limitative God gives its place to the sage, the actor, the anti-God or Antichrist. It is now the Stoic sage who is the master of disjunction by identifying with the event and initiating the propositional reasoning. Here, there is no totality anymore, the number of predicates is infinite, the predication is the evental attribution, and the disjunction is always the disjunction with the contingent exteriority. And together with the death of God, it is the self which collapses into the Nobody, together with the collapse of the substance, in its identification with the event. And the World vanishes in the incompossibility of disjunctive infinite series of the events and becomes a chaosmos: It is true that the form of the self ordinarily guarantees the connection of a series; that the form of the world guarantees the convergence of continuous series which can be extended; and that the form of God, as Kant had clearly seen, guarantees disjunction in its exclusive or limitative sense. But when disjunction accedes to the principle which gives to it a synthetic and affirmative value, the self, the world, and God share in a common death, to the advantage of divergent series as such, overflowing now every exclusion, every conjunction, and every connection. (LdS 205–206; LoS 175–176)

The last point to mention at this stage is that Deleuze’s reading of Kant’s transcendental Ideas stands in line with his reversal of Platonism in focusing on the immanence of the transcendental Ideas. First of all, Kant derives his notion of Ideas through a critique of Plato: “Ideas for him [Plato] are archetypes of things themselves, and not, like the categories, merely the key to possible experiences. In his opinion they flowed from the highest reason, through which human reason partakes in them” (CPR 395, A313, B370). Therefore, Kant suggests the “immanent use” of Ideas: “the transcendental ideas too will presumably have a good and consequently immanent use, even though, if their significance is

174 

M. PARSA

misunderstood and they are taken for concepts of real things, they can be transcendent in their application and for that very reason deceptive” (CPR 590, A643, B671). With a completely Kantian gesture, Deleuze builds his transcendentalism on the basis of the notion of immanence. He discovers a point in Kant’s philosophy which underlies what Nietzsche defines as the ultimate task of the philosophy of the future: to reverse Platonism. Therefore, as Daniel Smith writes, “Transcendental philosophy is a philosophy of immanence, and implies a ruthless critique of transcendence (which is why Deleuze does not hesitate to align himself with Kant’s critical philosophy, despite their obvious differences)” (Smith, 2006, p. 47). Immanent also means regulative and stands against constitutive. An important aspect of this distinction, in Deleuze’s term, is that while constitutive means having to do with causality, regulative can mean having to do with quasi-causality. So, while “the world is the Idea which conditions the attribution of the category of causality to all phenomena,” the incompossibility underlies the disjunctive quasi-causality of all events in an Event. We discussed how the causality of the objects is the image of the necessary relation of the concepts or categories and therefore is phenomenal in the Kantian sense of the word. It is in this sense that Ideas cannot be constitutive. The effectivity of Ideas is not in the form of the relation between the objects which are transcendent to each other. It is in the form of the logical relation between the incorporeal and subsistent events. Regulative means immanent and problematic because Ideas alter the subject in a relation different from the causality of the objects which are external to each other and remain the same in its course. As a result, the work of transcendental Ideas is so that the mental faculties cannot stay in a safe distinction from each other. As Daniela Voss declares, For Deleuze, reason is no longer the privileged faculty of Ideas as it was for Kant, since there are Ideas corresponding to each of the faculties … Ideas … occur throughout the faculties and concern them all. A sort of communication arises between the faculties, which is initiated through the Ideas they encounter. (Voss, 2013, p. 143)

As we have seen in previous chapter, while the recognizable object is the result of the harmonious cooperation of the established faculties, the problem as the object of the Idea is the object of the tension and discordance of the faculties. This difference is due to the distinction between the

7  THE IDEATIONAL MATERIALITY OF SENSE 

175

object as the phenomenon and the object as the event. The latter marks the exteriority the encounter with which does not leave the faculties and their harmonious cooperation intact.

Albert Lautman and the Dialectical Ideas The link between the transcendental Idea and the problem that Deleuze elaborates in his reading of Kant is initially posed by the French mathematician and philosopher, Albert Lautman (1908–1944). Lautman deals with the Idea and the problem not directly in reference to Kant, but to Heidegger. It is through Lautman that Deleuze gives to the Ideas a dialectical role, which is to say, instead of observing the peaceful harmony of established faculties, they operate their discordant dialectic. In this sense, Ideas are truly problematic. What takes the place of the mental faculties for Lautman are mathematical theories, or in short, mathematics. According to him, there must be a realm beyond mathematical theories which governs the dialectical relation between theories, a realm which is called by him “Dialectic” or sometimes, following Hilbert, “metamathematics” (Lautman 89 and 197). He claims that theories are like the stable solutions of a problematic dynamics and the reality and life of mathematics should be searched in the governing realm of metamathematics. And Ideas belong to this governing realm. Thus, on the one hand there is mathematics with the system of mathematical theories and notions and on the other there is metamathematics with the dialectical Ideas: “This distinction between dialectic and mathematics leads us to a more precise analysis of the nature of the ‘governing’ (domination) relation that exists between dialectical Ideas on the one hand, and mathematical theories on the other” (Lautman 299). What Deleuze, in his reading of Kant, calls “a dialectical conception of the faculties” (DI 62), in which each faculty forces another to exceed its limit, is replicated in Lautman’s dialectical conception of mathematical theories. Hence, the Kantian transcendental Idea which circulates the dialectic of the faculties takes here the name of the dialectical Idea. And the system of theories or mathematics in its entirety does not form a stable structure. It is the dynamic dialectic of theories and notions that necessitates the independence of the dialectical Ideas. Therefore, Lautman does not deal with mathematics as constituted of fixed systems of theoretical axioms. Instead, as Fernando Zalamea writes, he deals with the “concrete action of the mathematician to gradually build

176 

M. PARSA

the mathematical edifice” (Lautman xxiv). The systems may look well-­ formed, symmetrical and coherent, but considering them as developing constructions takes us to an unfathomable complexity, very different from the apparent complexity of an established mathematical theory. For Lautman, this complexity, which is the result of the evolution of mathematical theories, constitutes the life and essence of mathematics. It would be “necessary to provide a whole series of precisions, limitations, exceptions, in which mathematical theories are asserted and constructed” (Lautman 205). Metamathematics does not concern the resemblances or commonalities of mathematical theories but rather the limitations of such a unification. What unifies diverse mathematical systems, calculus, geometry and arithmetic for example, is not another mathematical theory, but is their dialectical dynamic. In other words, it is not provided by general concepts or grand theories but rather by the dialectical Ideas. This necessitates a metamathematics which is independent from the mathematical theories, even from a whole bunch of them. The metamathematical Ideas which govern theories are derivable from exceptions rather than from the common laws. This is why the Ideas are problematic from the point of view of each theory. In other words, the consistency and completeness of a mathematical theory is always ideal. As Lautman, in reference to Hilbert, claims, “a theory … is itself incapable of providing the proof of its internal coherence. It must be overlaid with a metamathematics that takes the formalized mathematics as an object and studies it from the dual point of view of consistency and completeness” (Lautman 89–90). The dialectical tension between the theories and the problematic nature of mathematics is due to the essential gap between the mathematical real and the mathematical articulation. The real is not graspable by the theory unless through the dialectic or the problematics. Furthermore, unlike Russell, Wittgenstein and Carnap for whom mathematics is only a formal system that connects the physical data, Lautman considers the independent construction of mathematics as a whole, instead of treating it as a formal instrument for physics (Lautman 87). Mathematics does not have physics as its reality, its application to the real; it has its own reality. Having considered together with its metamathematics, it constitutes a whole ontology on its own. Mathematical reality is not physical but dialectical. In this way, Lautman introduces a new register of the real: Between the psychology of the mathematician and the logical deduction, there must be room for an intrinsic characterization of the real. It must

7  THE IDEATIONAL MATERIALITY OF SENSE 

177

partake both of the movement of the intelligence and of logical rigor, without being mistaken for either one, and this will be our task, to attempt this synthesis. (Lautman 89)

This is an important move. Lautman is defending a realism which stands against the pure objective logicism of Frege, Russell and the Vienna Circle from the one hand and the psychologism of the figures such as Brunschvicg from the other.6 We have already seen in our first chapter that Frege’s failure was in neglecting the existence of a third way between the pure scientific logicism and what he considers as psychologism. Lautman criticizes psychologism in order to hold a realism regarding mathematics, but without falling down into an objective logicism. As Duffy writes, While Lautman follows Brunschvicg in distrusting … ‘the reduction of mathematics to logic’, he doesn’t endorse Brunschvicg’s concept of mathematical philosophy ‘as a pure psychology of creative invention’. For Lautman the task of characterizing the mathematical real must be undertaken rather by mediating between these two extremes … Lautman proposes a third alternative characterization of the mathematical real that is both axiomatic-­ structural and dynamic, where the fixity or temporal independence of the logical concepts and the dynamism of the temporal development of mathematical theories are combined. (Duffy, 2013, p. 120)

In order to do this, Lautman recourses to a reality which is inherently problematic: it appears in precisions, limitations, exceptions; it is “an ideal reality that is dominating with respect to mathematics” (Lautman 30). Logicism is for him a pure formalism (Lautman 143). He turns to a view of mathematics which emphasizes on the contingent life of mathematics and believes that in this way he is holding a realistic approach. Thus, the mathematical real, according to Lautman, is not that which is represented by a mathematical theory, but rather that which resists against such a representation. What Lautman calls “a positive study of mathematical reality” (Lautman 88) is nothing but this resistance. He emphasizes on this aspect, referring to Brunschvicg: There is no philosopher today more than Brunschvicg who has developed the idea that the objectivity of mathematics is the work of intelligence, in its effort to overcome the resistance that is opposed to it by the matter on which it works. This matter is neither simple nor uniform, it has its folds, its

178 

M. PARSA

edges, its irregularities, and our conceptions are never more than a provisional arrangement that allows the mind to go further forward. (Lautman 88)

This is not about searching for the psychology of the mathematician against the logical deduction. It is rather searching for a dialectical point which synthesizes them a priori. This point belongs to the realm of the problematic and dialectical Ideas of metamathematics. The ideal reality is not reducible to the activity of the mathematician but is not also reducible to an objective logicism. It governs the plurality and dialectic of the activities and theories. The realm of the problematic Ideas governs or dominates the mathematics. Lautman, following Heidegger, uses here the term transcendence. The dialectical Ideas are transcendent in relation to the theories. It is this transcendence that forces the theories to exceed their limit. But simultaneously, according to Lautman, the realm of theories or solutions are immanent to that of the problematic Ideas. He links this transcendence and immanence by the notion of genesis: Insofar as posed problems, relating to connections that are likely to support certain dialectical notions, the Ideas of this Dialectic are certainly transcendent (in the usual sense) with respect to mathematics. On the other hand, as any effort to provide a response to the problem of these connections is … constitution of effective mathematical theories, it is justified to interpret the overall structure of these theories in terms of immanence for the logical schema of the solution sought after. An intimate link thus exists between the transcendence of Ideas and the immanence of the logical structure of the solution to a dialectical problem within mathematics. This link is the notion of genesis which we give it, at least as we have tried to grasp it, by describing the genesis of mathematics from the Dialectic. (Lautman 205–206)

As James Bahoh, in reference to Heidegger, declares, transcendence here means “surpassing” (Bahoh, 2019, p. 35). Transcendence here signifies an act or a dynamism. It means that there is always in mathematics a problematic Idea that transcends the theories. The problematic Idea marks the life and reality of a mathematical theory. This is what a logicism or a pure formalism lacks. Because of the transcendent Idea, the theory is always metastable and problematic. And this is exactly why the transcendence here does not stand against immanence because transcendence is that which connects the evolving theory to what it becomes, instead of separating it. This connection is nothing but genesis. If genesis is defined

7  THE IDEATIONAL MATERIALITY OF SENSE 

179

by Deleuze as the relation between the virtual and its actualization, it would be, in Lautman’s term, the relation between the problematic Idea which is subsistent (or immanent) in the theory and the actual theory itself as the solution. So, the genesis of mathematics from the dialectic is the same as the realization of the dialectical or problematic Ideas in theories. And genesis here is different from the Platonic creation because, as Duffy writes, “dialectical ideas only exist insofar as incarnated in mathematical theories” (Duffy, 2013, p. 125). In other words, they are immanent. The Ideas are there in theories as their genetic element. This transcendence and immanence of the Ideas is also understandable in reference to the way the ideal events are always exterior but simultaneously subsistent in the corporeal bodies. The real exterior is not that which can be represented but rather that which happens as an event. It is subsistent or immanent because it is not representable. In Deleuze’s thought, the problematic Ideas, or simply problems, constitute the transcendental field.7 The simultaneity of the transcendence and immanence constitutes Deleuze’s transcendental realism which has two principal enemies: the subjective idealism and the objective (empirical) realism. The transcendent problem subsists in (or is immanent to) the solutions, which is to say, it never becomes dissolved in its solutions. As Deleuze states, “A problem does not exist, apart from its solutions. Far from disappearing in this overlay, however, it insists and persists in these solutions” (DR 212). This is only possible if the condition (the transcendental) becomes the genetic element. The genetic element is the problematic field which is independent from the empirical realm of solutions while subsisting in it (or is immanent to it). All these thoughts are summarized in Deleuze’s reading of Lautman in Difference and Repetition: Lautman’s general theses, a problem has three aspects: its difference in kind from solutions; its transcendence in relation to the solutions that it engenders on the basis of its own determinant conditions; and its immanence in the solutions which cover it, the problem being the better resolved the more it is determined. (DR 226)

Or elsewhere in the same text, The problem is at once both transcendent and immanent in relation to its solutions. Transcendent, because it consists in a system of ideal liaisons or differential relations between genetic elements. Immanent because these

180 

M. PARSA

liaisons or relations are incarnated in the actual relations which do not resemble them and are defined by the field of solution. (DR 203)

What is common between Lautman’s treatment of mathematics and Deleuze’s deployment of it in philosophy in terms of the genetic relation between the problematic or transcendental Ideas and the philosophical concepts as the empirical solutions is the role of the real, the transcendence and immanence of the real in relation to conceptual theories, objective realities and subjective ideas. In other words, what Deleuze takes from Lautman’s study of mathematics is the problematic nature of the experience of the real, regardless of the domains on which this real is expressed: a mathematical theory or a philosophical concept (or a conceptual structure). Thus, Jean-Luc Nancy claims, “Deleuze does not attempt to speak about the real as an exterior referent (the thing, man, history, what is). He effectuates a philosophical real” (Nancy, 1996, p. 110). This “philosophical real” fits perfectly also to Lautman’s mathematical real which is inherently metamathematical, or metaphysical. It is a transcendental real, a virtual or an ideal real, which underlies the contingent genesis of the actual or empirical reality. As Nancy maintains, “… the real ‘in itself’ is chaos, a sort of effectivity without effectuation” (Nancy, 1996, p. 110). In other words, it underlies the complex durations which are considered apart from their actualization. Without this formulation of the real, Lautman’s thought would remain to be a mere Platonism or a Platonic idealism. Deleuze shed a Kantian light (of course not a straightforward Kantianism) on the so-called Lautmanian Platonism by giving a realist reading of his Dialectic.8 Deleuze appreciates this Lautmanian link between the dialectical or problematic Ideas and the metamathematical real and on its basis formulates his account of the transcendental field.

The Materialization of the Transcendental Deleuze’s transcendental realism, far from being the realism of objects, deals with the real genesis of objects, subjects and concepts. It is a realism at the level of sense. In this final part of the chapter, I’m going to claim that this realism amounts to be a materialism. This underlies a transition from sense as the transcendental surface towards nonsense as the transcendental depth. As has been discussed in Chap. 2, through a reading of contemporary theories about linguistic sense, Deleuze in the first series of Logic of Sense

7  THE IDEATIONAL MATERIALITY OF SENSE 

181

relates the empirical realms of objects, subjects and concepts to three dimensions of proposition, namely denotation, manifestation and signification. Each theory of linguistic sense considers one of these dimensions as the ground of the others or as a priori regarding the others. But Deleuze indicates that all these three realms are representations of each other, and they all form the different aspects of the empirical field. As a result of this representational relation, we can see how causality as a relation between objects is an image of necessary deduction as a relation between concepts and also an image of argumentation as a relation between subjects. None of these relations can have a transcendental priority over the others, and all of them need an a priori condition. In order to satisfy this need, Deleuze introduces a fourth dimension of proposition, namely sense, as the condition of the entire space of the empirical, composed of objects, concepts and subjects. Therefore, sense is not only the condition of truth, but also the condition of veracity or the manifestation of a will or desire, and the condition of meaningfulness or the signification of concepts. And conditioning here entails genesis. Hence, Deleuze writes in Logic of Sense: [Sense as the condition of truth] ought to have something unconditioned capable of assuring a real genesis of denotation and of the other dimensions of the proposition. Thus the condition of truth would be defined no longer as the form of conceptual possibility, but rather as the ideational material or ‘stratum’, that is to say, no longer as signification, but rather as sense. (LdS 30; LoS 19)

The originary truth of sense is “the ideational material” or “stratum” which defines a non-objective reality, a non-objective “objectity” (or in some translations “objecticity” for the French “objectité” (LdS 72–73; DR 198)). It is at the same time the genesis of the objective or the empirical reality. It is the ideational material while the empirical reality contains only the objective (or conceptual) material. The first is the real ground of the latter and marks its genesis. The genetic element is ideational and material. The conception of sense as the transcendental surface renders it to be the incorporeal on the surface of empirical bodies which constitute the ordinary materiality. If the empirical materiality is considered, sense would be incorporeal. In this regard, sense implies the genetic element of the empirical bodies whose study is called, in Logic of Sense, the static genesis. But at the same time, sense marks a transcendental materiality which issues

182 

M. PARSA

from its inherent nonsensical nature. Thus, inherent to sense as the transcendental surface (which is distinct from empirical bodies or depths), there is nonsense as the transcendental depth. This underlies what is called by Deleuze the dynamic genesis. The difference between static genesis and dynamic genesis in Logic of Sense indicates also a difference in the philosophical language which is recognizable in Deleuze’s work too. The former relates to the philosophical language when it approaches the non-conceptual material ground and the latter requires a language which implies itself a materiality which is not graspable through the conceptual language of philosophy. This is what urges Deleuze to induct literary or psychoanalytical expressions into his work and indicates a migration in his career towards the latter. In Logic of Sense the transcendental materiality is referred by the notion of depth. The transcendental depth is indeed matter in its transcendental register and is the same as what Deleuze in “The Idea of Genesis in Kant’s Esthetics” calls the “free matter” (DI 65). The free matter is the material ground of the objective matter which in turn is representable by the understanding’s concepts. It also belongs to what Deleuze, following the Analytic of the Sublime in Kant’s “meta-esthetics”, calls nature. Nature is nonsense in itself, the genetic element in itself. It marks the material unconscious transcendental field. But beside nature, which is not a principal notion in Logic of Sense, the transcendental depth takes many different names throughout the book before receiving its full explanation in last one third of the book through the language of psychoanalysis. Its first name is chaos, the pure chaos, which in its impurity constitutes chaosmos (a term borrowed from James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake). Chaos is everywhere, and every writing denotes it. But it is only in nonsense literature that the pure chaos remains irreducible. Thus, Jean-Jacques Lecercle mistakes to claim that “Carroll’s work deals with the creation of cosmos out of chaos” (Lecercle, 2002, p. 102). Every writing deals with the creation of cosmos out of chaos, but Carroll’s specialty is in making chaos to remain irreducible in cosmos. His work deals with the creation of chaosmos out of chaos. The transcendental depth is called also the mad matter or schizophrenic matter. The mad matter stands against the docile matter that in Platonic view accepts to be a degraded copy that receives the action of the superior ideal model. The mad matter inheres the transcendent idea immanent in itself. It is also called “the simulacrum”, the pure power of production of copies without any external archetype. Through the schizophrenic matter

7  THE IDEATIONAL MATERIALITY OF SENSE 

183

as the reversal of the Platonic idea, we can see how the problematic or dialectical Idea that we discussed in the previous sections of this chapter is materialized. Deleuze’s transcendental materialism finds its full elaboration in his collaboration with Felix Guattari in Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Here, unconscious as the transcendental field receives a psychoanalytical account and is described in terms of the productive schizophrenic desire. In Anti-Oedipus, Deleuze and Guattari accuse psychoanalysis, in work of Freud and his heirs, of committing a phenomenological mistake: it takes the oedipal and familial desire, which is just a secondary product, as primary. In other words, its departure point is personal desire while neglecting that persons are products of primary (non-­ familial) social registers. Thus, the Freudian psychoanalysis fails to introduce an unconscious which is not reducible to the elements of consciousness. Deleuze and Guattari’s task in Anti-Oedipus is formulating an unconscious desire which is not derived from conscious and personal forms. Therefore, the central notion in Anti-Oedipus is the transcendental unconscious, which is, the primary and irreducible unconscious. This implies of course a reference to Kant and makes the claim that what psychoanalysis can do for philosophy is introducing the unconscious as the synthetic a priori. Deleuze, both in his Kant’s Critical Philosophy and in Anti-Oedipus, makes a connection between Kant’s transcendental philosophy in Critique of Pure Reason and his theory of desire in Critique of Practical Reason. The outcome of this connection is the introduction of the unconscious desire as what bridges the gap in Kant’s first Critique, the gap that Salomon Maimon first diagnosed and Deleuze elaborates on it in the fourth chapter of Difference and Repetition. In the original Kantian definition, the transcendental is characterized as synthetic a priori. Put differently, it marks the primary synthesis. The primary synthesis cannot be defined in terms of the synthesis of produced entities. Therefore, in a Kantian manner, Deleuze and Guattari in Anti-­ Oedipus distinguish between illegitimate and legitimate uses of the syntheses of unconscious, one transcendent and the other immanent (see AO 68 and 75). Kant himself refers to legitimate and illegitimate uses of faculties. For example, legitimate use of the faculty of understanding is when it applies itself to phenomena and illegitimate use is when it applies itself to things as they are in themselves. Kant in Critique of Practical Reason refers to these uses or employments in terms of “immanent or regulative employment” and “transcendent or constitutive employment” (see Kant, 2015,

184 

M. PARSA

p. 109, A247/B304, and KCP 25). These employments should be considered in view of the way the faculty of understanding, for example, in cooperation with the faculty of imagination synthesizes the apprehended manifold into a representation. Conditioning here refers to the role of the understanding to apply immanently to phenomena. As Deleuze in Kant’s Critical Philosophy declares, in Kantian account, “knowledge implies two things which go beyond synthesis itself: it implies consciousness, or more precisely the belonging of representations to a single consciousness within which they must be linked… On the other hand, knowledge implies a necessary relation to an object” (KCP 15). Although Deleuze in Kant’s Critical Philosophy has not yet reached the position of considering the general forms of subject and object as transcendent principles but it is obvious that he is approaching an immanent synthesis which is not under the governance of such general forms. This leads us to the synthetic role of desire and taking conditioning as producing. In Anti-Oedipus, Deleuze, together with Guattari, realizes this aim and applies the Kantian distinction between legitimate and illegitimate uses to the synthetic acts of desire. Producing is synthesizing. Desire synthesizes. Transcendent and illegitimate use of syntheses here entails the synthesis of complete objects by a full conscious subject. It requires a transcendent model and cannot be primary. In other words, the transcendental synthesis of consciousness is illegitimately determined as transcendental. Immanent and legitimate use rather results in the synthesis of partial objects; this takes place at the level of transcendental unconscious. It is only at the level of the unconscious that synthesis finds its transcendental register. Deleuze and Guattari summarize this distinction as following, In what he termed the critical revolution, Kant intended to discover criteria immanent to understanding so as to distinguish the legitimate and the illegitimate uses of the syntheses of consciousness. In the name of transcendental philosophy (immanence of criteria), he therefore denounced the transcendent use of syntheses such as apparent in metaphysics. In like fashion we are compelled to say that psychoanalysis has its metaphysics—its name is Oedipus. And that a revolution—this time materialist—can proceed only by the way of a critique of Oedipus, by denouncing the illegitimate use of syntheses of the unconscious as found in oedipal psychoanalysis, so as to rediscover a transcendental unconscious defined by the immanence of its criteria, and a corresponding practice that we shall call schizoanalysis. (AO 75)

7  THE IDEATIONAL MATERIALITY OF SENSE 

185

What Deleuze and Guattari do is not just the application of a Kantian-­ style (“in like fashion”) critique within psychoanalysis. Rather, they perform that which can be called the materialization of the Kantian critique through psychoanalysis. In other words, if the psychoanalytical notion of the unconscious is supposed to replace the notion of consciousness and solve the problems of Kantian transcendental philosophy, it must be first and foremost anoedipal and therefore non-metaphysical. This amounts to a transition from idealism (having to do with ideology or any account of Platonism) to materialism. Immanent synthesis, the synthesis that does not have a transcendent and ideal Platonic model, defines the transcendental (and not empirical) materiality; it marks real conditioning as material production. Thus, we can think of a transcendental materialism as the psychoanalytical counterpart of what in Deleuze’s early work is known as transcendental empiricism. Here, the experience of a subject which is permanently under production through experiencing is viewed, not from the point of view of the produced subject, but from the point of view of the material ground that is the site of immanent synthesis of partial objects. In this regard, Deleuze and Guattari discuss “a materialist reduction of Oedipus as an ideological form” (AO 107, italics in original). The materialist reduction here is the psychoanalytic version of the phenomenological reduction. Phenomenological reduction means bracketing the empirical production, or putting it out of play, in order to discover the transcendental ground. As Joe Hughes observes, Difference and Repetition and Anti-­ Oedipus both perform a reduction of “the form of representation” in order for “the discovery of the genetic element of that form”. Hughes maintains that, “In Anti-Oedipus, desire plays the role that difference does in Difference and Repetition. Desire, like difference, is productive. Oedipus, on the other hand, plays the role of ‘representation’” (Hughes, 2008, p.  53). But this parallelism makes Hughes ignore the difference between a purely phenomenological reduction and the psychoanalytical material reduction of Oedipus. There is a difference between genesis and production. The oedipal and ideological structure must be reduced to clear the space for transcendental materiality. The difference between the phenomenological reduction and the materialist reduction, or between genesis and production, can be explained by reference to Logic of Sense, in terms of the distinction between dynamic genesis and static genesis. Static genesis is the genesis of the given, of the established structure, the Husserlian genesis. Here, we begin with the structure, the phenomenon, or the

186 

M. PARSA

empirical, and search for the transcendental. The outcome of the reduction is here the transcendental surface. Dynamic genesis is the contingent production of the structure out of the formless matter or depth: “It is a question of a dynamic genesis which leads directly from … depth to the production of surfaces, which must not implicate at all the other genesis [static genesis]” (LdS 217; LoS 186). In this case, reduction, which is material, underlies a transcendental material depth. Here, we are totally outside of the tradition of transcendental phenomenology. Dynamic genesis requires a style of writing which is different from common philosophical writing. To undertake it, Deleuze chooses the language of psychoanalysis. In Logic of Sense, this is attempted by referring to the work of Melanie Klein and the notion of partial objects, what we deal with in our tenth chapter. In Anti-Oedipus rather, in his collaboration with Guattari, Deleuze uses the notion of desiring-production. Here, we can see the transition from phenomenological reduction to material reduction and from genesis to production. After all, by using psychoanalytic language, Deleuze and Guattari seek to make the unconscious speak in its own productive and transcendental language. The schizophrenic rupture with the real is therefore a rupture with the phenomenal common-sensical real towards a profound material real, which is, the non-representative reality of desiring-production. The schizophrenic performs practically the material reduction. And this reduction results in a transcendental schizophrenic materiality which is not at all the empirical already-articulated materiality of objects which is representable to subjects. The schizo-materialism marks the rebellion against the Platonic idealization that requires only docile objects and against the psychoanalytic oedipalisation that requires only docile subjects. The difference between the schizo (the wild, the rebellious) and the neurotic (the docile subject, the favorite patient of psychoanalysis, the subject of common sense) is the difference between “those who do not tolerate oedipalisation, and those who tolerate it and are even content with it and evolve within it” (AO 124). This is Deleuze and Guattari’s transcendental materialism in a nutshell: [schizoanalysis] sets out to explore a transcendental unconscious, rather than a metaphysical one; an unconscious that is material rather than ideological; schizophrenic rather than Oedipal; nonfigurative rather than imaginary; real rather than symbolic; machinic rather than structural … Schizoanalysis is at once a transcendental and a materialist analysis. (AO 109)

7  THE IDEATIONAL MATERIALITY OF SENSE 

187

This is also a reference to Jacques Lacan who formulates his psychoanalysis by distinguishing the symbolic structures from the imaginary gestalts. Turning against Lacan, and also against some structuralist moments of Logic of Sense that we discussed in Chap. 3, Deleuze and Guattari claim that a symbolic structure is indeed an imaginary gestalt which is ego-less, but argue that, like Sartre’s universal consciousness, it lacks the real unconscious materiality and is not open enough. In Anti-­ Oedipus, they provide a positive account of the real, which is considered impossible by Lacan. For Deleuze and Guattari, the real is not impossible but rather is the condition of possibility, it is the transcendental. If Lacan’s contribution in post-Kantian philosophy is rejecting the imaginary ego-­ centered condition and introducing the structural symbolic unconscious as the transcendental, Deleuze and Guattari claim that the structural unconscious as the transcendental must give its place to the real as the element of the unconscious and the transcendental field.

Notes 1. In the following passage, Kant uses the term “object” for the phenomenal objects of understanding, and this is why he refers to the objects of the transcendental Ideas as problems: “the pure concepts of reason … are transcendental ideas. They are concepts of pure reason; for they consider all experiential cognition as determined through an absolute totality of conditions. They are not arbitrarily invented, but given as problems by the nature of reason itself, and hence they relate necessarily to the entire use of the understanding. Finally, they are transcendent concepts, and exceed the bounds of all experience, in which no object adequate to the transcendental idea can ever occur … Thus we might say that the absolute whole of appearances is only an idea, since, because we can never project it in an image, it remains a problem without any solution” (CPR 402, B384, A328). Deleuze’s reading underlies the objective reality of problems as are related by Kant to the transcendental ideas. Thus, there is an apparent difference between Kant’s and Deleuze’s formulations (although Deleuze could claim that his reading is legitimate regarding the main Kantian problematics): Kant restricts the objectivity to the phenomenal objectivity. Thus, he claims that since the objects of Ideas are given as problems, they actually do not have any corresponding object. Deleuze rather take the problem itself as the real object of the Idea. 2. In this regard, Daniela Voss states, “the object of the Idea is the problem or the ‘problematic’ … This means that each faculty discovers at its extreme

188 

M. PARSA

limit something which it cannot grasp (from the point of view of its empirical exercise) but which it is forced to grasp nevertheless” (Voss, 2013, p. 143). 3. While Kant uses “ideas”, Deleuze in Difference and Repetition capitalizes it as “Ideas” probably in order to keep a reference to Plato while discussing Kant. See Deleuze (1968), pp. 218–224). 4. In “Klossowski and Bodies-Language”, which is a text from 1965, Deleuze discusses “disjunctive syllogism” against “categorical syllogism” in a reading of Kant (LdS 342–343; LoS 294–296). Here, Deleuze criticizes Kant for taking a merely “negative and limitative use” of the disjunctive syllogism. In the body of Logic of Sense (1969), he attempts to dissolve completely the syllogistic logic into the propositional one in order to realize a positive use. 5. Deleuze discusses two of these three counterparts (the vague person and the incompossibility) in his reading of Leibniz and Husserl in Sixteenth Series of the Static Ontological Genesis (LdS 140–142; LoS 115–117). The God’s counterpart appears in Twenties Series on the Moral Problem in Stoic Philosophy where the Stoic sage is introduced as actor or operator, Twenty-­ First Series of the Event where the actor is introduced as an anti-god, and in “Klossowski or Bodies-Language” where this anti-god or the Antichrist takes the place of the Idea of God as the master of the disjunctive syllogism (LdS 342–344; LoS 294–296). But in Twenty-Fourth Series of the Communication of Events, Deleuze summarizes all these aspects as following: “The divergence of the affirmed series forms a ‘chaosmos’ and no longer a world; the aleatory point which traverses them forms a counter-self, and no longer a self; the disjunction posed as a synthesis exchanges its theological principle for a diabolic principle. It is the decentered center which traces between the series, and for all disjunctions, the merciless straight line of the Aion, that is, the distance whereupon the castoffs of the self, the world, and God are lined up: the Grand Canyon of the world, the ‘crack’ of the self, and the dismembering of God” (LdS 206; LoS 176). 6. As Simon B. Duffy in his chapter on Lautman in Deleuze and the History of Mathematics declares, “While Lautman took a position against the version of logicism and formalism proposed by the Vienna Circle, he also distances himself from the empirico-psychologising perspective of French mathematicians such as Brunschvicg” (Duffy, 2013, p. 120). 7. Anna Longo, in her “Deleuze and Mathematics,” pays attention to the way Lautman adopts the notion of surface from Bernard Riemann and Hermann Weyl to describe the problematic nature of the Ideas. It is on a given surface that “the conditions of a problem should be specified” (Longo, 2020, p.  21). Without mentioning the term, throughout her essay, Longo approaches to the formation of the problematic Ideas as the elements of a transcendental field from which the empirical solutions emerge.

7  THE IDEATIONAL MATERIALITY OF SENSE 

189

8. Duffy distinguishes between Lautman’s Platonism and the traditional Platonism: “Lautman is here opposed to the Platonism traditionally founded on a certain realm of ideas, which interprets mathematical theories as copies, reproductions, translations, or simple transpositions of eternal ideal models or forms” (Duffy, 2013, p. 123). It does not matter whether we consider his thought a peculiar Platonism which underlies a “participation of the sensible in the intelligible” or a reversed Platonism which raises the sensible to the level of the intelligible (see Lautman 12). What matters is that through Lautman we can find a reformulation of the philosophical notions of Ideas, problems and theories or concepts which leads in a new realist ontology.

References Bahoh, J. (2019). Deleuze’s Theory of Dialectical Ideas: The Influence of Lautman and Heidegger. Deleuze and Guattari Studies, 13(1), 19–53. Deleuze, G. (1984). Kant’s Critical Philosophy: The Doctrine of the Faculties (H. Tomlinson & B. Habberjam, Trans.). The Athlone Press. Deleuze, G. (1990). The Logic of Sense (M. Lester, Trans.). The Athlone Press. Deleuze, G. (2004a). Desert Islands and Other Texts (D.  Lapoujade, Ed. & M. Taormins, Trans.). Semiotext(e). Deleuze, G. (2004b). Difference and Repetition (P. Patton, Trans.). Continuum. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1983). Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (R. Hurley, M. Seem, & H. R. Lane, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press. Deleuze, G. (1968). Différence et Repetition. Presses Universitaires de France. Deleuze, G. (1969). Logiques du Sens. Les Edition de Minuit. Duffy, S. B. (2013). Deleuze and the History of Mathematics. Bloomsbury Academic. Hughes, J. (2008). Deleuze and the Genesis of Representation. Continuum. Kant, E. (1998). Critique of Pure Reason (P.  Guyer & A.  W Wood, Trans. and Ed.). Cambridge University Press. Kant, E. (2015). Critique of Practical Reason (M. Gregory, Trans.). Cambridge University Press. Lautman, A. (2011). Mathematics, Ideas and the Physical Real (S.  B. Duffy, Trans.). Continuum. Lecercle, J.-J. (2002). Deleuze and Language. Palgrave Macmillan. Longo, A. (2020). Deleuze and Mathematics. In La Deleuziana: Online Journal of Philosophy, N. 11 on “Differential Heterogenesis”: 19–28. Nancy, J.-L. (1996). The Deleuzian Fold of Thought. In P. Patton (Ed.), Deleuze: A Critical Reader (pp. 107–113). Blackwell. Smith, Daniel W. 2006. Deleuze, Kant, and the Theory of Immanent Ideas. In Deleuze and Philosophy. Ed. Constantine Boundas, 43–61. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Voss, D. (2013). Conditions of Thought: Deleuze and Transcendental Ideas. Edinburgh University Press.

CHAPTER 8

Logic and Ontology

Deleuze is famously an anti-Hegelian, for he criticizes Hegel’s philosophy, specifically in Nietzsche and Philosophy and in Difference and Repetition, for how it takes negativity to be the principal force and the motor of the dialectical movement. In Deleuze’s view, negativity is a conceptual result and has no capacity to provide the element of an original force. But, on the other hand, Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism holds powerful connections with post-Kantian philosophy, which is discussed in detail in our sixth chapter. In this regard, there would be a systemic Hegelianism in Deleuze, if one compares the ways two philosophers respond to the Kantian problematic through Maimon and Fichte. In what follows, I am not going to explore this general comparison between Hegel and Deleuze (a task which is done by Henry Somers-Hall, 2012), but I will instead focus on Deleuze’s Logic of Sense and how it can be considered a Hegelian move to bridge the gap between logic and ontology. An apparent ground for this reading can be found in Deleuze’s review of a book by Jean Hyppolite about Hegel called Logic and Existence. In this text, Deleuze, following Hyppolite’s Hegel, brings forward the idea of the connection between logic and ontology by introducing the notion of sense as the genetic account of being. Logic and ontology join together in the notion of sense where the source of intelligibility comes from being itself, that is to say, being as sense. But through Hyppolite we can see that the move from Hegel to Deleuze is possible due to the injection of nonsense into the Hegelian notion of sense. This injection applies a change to © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Parsa, A Reading of Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13706-8_8

191

192 

M. PARSA

post-Kantian rationalism, results in a certain kind of rationalism which has been called irrationalism. In order to explain this modified rationalism, in this chapter, after giving a reading of Deleuze’s review on Hyppolite’s Logic and Existence, I refer to Deleuze’s reading of Leibniz, and how he turns Leibniz’s principle of reason into a principle of unreason (in the form of the principle of infinite reason). Afterwards, I refer to a crucial figure of French rationalism, namely Martial Gueroult, to explain this difference based on a difference between the reasons of knowledge and the reasons of being. At this point, I focus on Deleuze’s review of Gueroult’s genetic method to demonstrate that reasons become the reasons of being (and logic becomes ontology) only if we can take nonsense as the genetic element of sense.

Logic and Existence It is well known that Jean Hyppolite’s book on Hegel, Logic and Existence, was very influential on Deleuze, specifically on his Logic of Sense. Indeed, as the English translators of Hyppolite’s book claim, Deleuze adopts the title of the book Logic of Sense from Hyppolite who considers Hegel’s logic as a logic of sense, against a logic of essence (see Hyppolite xiii and 170). Therefore, a review that he wrote on Hyppolite’s Logic and Existence should be taken seriously in order to make sense of what Deleuze looks after in Logic of Sense. Deleuze begins his 1954 review of Hyppolite’s book by saying that for him “philosophy must be ontology, it cannot be anything else; but there is no ontology of essence, there is only an ontology of sense” (Deleuze, 1997, p. 191). According to Deleuze, this is the main theme of Logic and Existence, which is a book about the relationship between Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit and his Science of Logic. If we take the former as Hegel’s ontology and the latter as his logic, Hyppolite’s task is to bridge the gap between the two by introducing the notion of sense. Philosophy must be ontology. The main reason behind this philosophical move towards ontology is the critique of subjectivism. This would be a move from the thing as relative to the subjective thought towards the thing in itself, towards being as the subject matter of ontology. As Deleuze maintains, “that philosophy must be ontology means first of all that it is not anthropology” (Deleuze, 1997, p.  191). This is the detachment of philosophy from human problems, and to make it an instrument to think being in itself as problem. Hence, the significance of Hegel’s work is finding a genuine identity of thought and being, not in terms of subjectivity

8  LOGIC AND ONTOLOGY 

193

but in terms of the Absolute, because in the Absolute the external difference between thought and being becomes an internal difference of being itself. And being in this sense “is not essence, but sense” (Deleuze, 1997, p. 193). What does it mean to say that being is not essence, but sense? It means being is intelligible in itself. The consideration of being not as dark essence, but as enlightened sense, amounts to say that there is no need for a “second world” to make this world intelligible; it is intelligible in itself. Thus, the brilliance of Hegel’s work, according to Hyppolite and Deleuze, is “transforming metaphysics into logic, and […] logic into logic of sense” (Deleuze, 1997, p. 193). The logic of sense as an ontology is nothing but the rejection of the second world and the search for intelligibility in being itself. Deleuze, through a reading of Maimon, pursues the task of overcoming the Kantian gap between understanding and sensibility as two different sources of knowledge, where the latter provides the mute content and the former its intelligibility. For Kant understanding is what gives voice to senses. Deleuze by taking the term sense also as meaning connects these two sources. Being as sense does not need understanding to borrow intelligibility because it is not mute anymore; it is clamorous. Hegel too is well aware of this connection. In his lectures on fine art he states, Sense is this wonderful word which is used in two opposite meaning. On the one hand it means the organ of immediate apprehension, but on the other hand we mean by it the sense, the significance, the thought, the universal underlying the thing. And so sense is connected on the one hand with the immediate external aspect of existence, and on the other hand with the inner essence. Now a sensuous consideration does not cut the two sides apart at all …. (Hegel, 1988, pp. 128–129; Hyppolite 24)

This jubilant unification that takes place with the notion of sense results in the consideration of being as Geist in which the Absolute Knowledge and the mute sense-perception join together. Deleuze’s Hegelian move here is that his logic of sense is an ontology only if sense plays the role of being for him. Therefore, sense would be what aggregates in itself Maimon’s infinite understanding and Hegel’s Geist. But the main problem with this comparative reading of Hegel and Deleuze is that Hegel is famously a philosopher of identity, not difference. In fact, Hegel is the culmination of the philosophy of identity or presence, or as Derrida mentions in Of Grammatology, “Hegel was already caught up in this game [of presence]. On the one hand, he undoubtedly summed

194 

M. PARSA

up the entire philosophy of the logos. He determined ontology as absolute logic; he assembled all the delimitations of philosophy as presence; he assigned to presence the eschatology of parousia, of the self-proximity of infinite subjectivity” (Derrida, 1997, p. 24). This is why Hegel plays the role of an enemy for the philosophy of difference. But interestingly, Derrida goes on to say that on the other hand, “Hegel is also the thinker of irreducible difference” (Derrida, 1997, p. 26). The role of Hegel as the culmination and the end of the philosophy of presence and identity and the beginning of the philosophy of difference brings forward very interesting questions about the place of the latter in relation with the former, which is outside of the aims of the present work, but is discussed very well in the work of Jacques Derrida. But having this problem in mind, we can examine Hyppolite’s book as a bridge between these two Hegels. The English translators of Logic and Existence take a step further and claim, Logic and Existence opened the way for the theme that would dominate French thought after Sartre’s Being and Nothingness; the concept of difference found in the philosophies of Deleuze, Derrida and Foucault would not exist without the publication of Logic and Existence. (In Hyppolite ix)

How is it possible to give a reading of Hegel that can initiate the French philosophies of difference? How can one reconciliate these two Hegels? Of course, Hegel’s philosophical thought needs a modification to be capable of this inauguration, a modification which is performed by Hyppolite. In Logic and Existence, Hyppolite introduces a Hegel which is not only the philosopher of identity, but also a genuine philosopher of difference. The first and foremost modification in Hegel’s philosophical thought would be a transformation of Hegel’s notion of contradiction to that of difference. What initiates the movement of concepts would not be contradiction, but difference. If dialectics wants to furnish the genesis of the empirical, and plays the role of a non-subjective or absolute transcendental, its motor should not be contradiction because the latter belongs to the realm of the empirical and indicates the relationship between already established concepts and cannot provide the genesis of concepts. We need a different notion, the notion of difference, which is not empirical anymore, but rather transcendental. The logic of contradiction, or concepts, is the logic of signification. The so-called modification in Hegel entails a move from the logic of signification to the logic of sense which has difference as its motor.

8  LOGIC AND ONTOLOGY 

195

The Hegelian aim of making logic an ontology falls short with the logic of contradiction (or signification) because it would be in this way totalizable. Any totalizable system remains within the realm of subjectivity, even if it is absolute. The result would be just an absolute subjectivity, instead of a real absolute. The first move to make an intotalizable logic is to turn the classical notion of a concept to that of sense, and this is exactly what Hyppolite indicates in his reading of Hegel. Sense entails the genesis of concept and if we understand sense as identical to classical concept, we should explain that sense as what includes its own genesis would be in a special relation with nonsense. And Hyppolite is well aware of how this genetic aspect of sense entails nonsense: Here perhaps we get to the decisive point of Hegelianism, to this torsion of thought through which we are able to think conceptually the unthinkable, to what makes Hegel simultaneously the greatest irrationalist and the greatest rationalist who has existed. We cannot emerge from Logos, but the Logos emerges from itself by remaining itself; since it is the indivisible self, the Absolute, it thinks the non-thought. It thinks sense in its relation to nonsense, to the opaque being of nature. It reflects this opacity into its contradiction. It raises thought, which would be only thought, over itself by obliging it to contradict itself …. (Hyppolite 102)

This brilliant comment is about the relationship between genesis and nonsense, and although Hyppolite still takes genesis in terms of contradiction, there is here just a short step to move towards the notion of difference. Contradiction provides us with clarity and enlightenment, but the opacity of contradiction, and taking Hegel’s rationalism as a kind of irrationalism, transforms contradiction to the free movement of difference. In this way, Deleuze’s logic of sense is an extension of Hegelianism, and its reversal, at once. Or one would say, it is a change in priority from Hegel’s logic of sense in which sense differentiates itself through contradiction, to his own logic of nonsense in which, as Leonard Lawlor states, “sense is differentiated by nonsense” (in Hyppolite xiii). What is primary is nonsense as the genetic element. This productive and primary nonsense is far from being the result of lack of knowledge: “nonsense does not have any particular sense, but is opposed to the absence of sense” (LdS 89; LoS 71). Nonsense is not the absence of sense, but rather is opposed to the absence of sense. It is the real presence of sense in being the element of its genesis and its production.

196 

M. PARSA

Now, Deleuze affirms the possibility of a grasp of this genetic element. In a Kantian view that separates two worlds, we can know concepts (and through this knowledge recognize objects), but have no access to the genesis of concepts (and objects). Kant believes that we cannot know the noumena, but we can think them, and this thinkability provides a source for Deleuze to overcome Kantian dualism by considering thought as the knowledge of the genesis of concepts distinct from the knowledge of concepts. Hegelian Absolute knowledge can be understood as an effort to overcome this non-knowledge of the genetic element. Hyppolite states, “Absolute Knowledge means the in principle elimination of this non-­ knowledge, that is, the elimination of a transcendence essentially irreducible to our knowledge” (Hyppolite 3). Deleuze’s reading of this Hegelian insight is to get the knowledge of non-knowledge, to extend knowledge to an absolute scale, to the knowledge of nonsense; in short, to the point where thought and thing-in-itself become identical. This is a rationalism, not in limiting everything to human reason, but in extending reason to the inhuman, to being as reason, and this is why it is at the same time an unreason. Absolute Knowledge is the naivety of “the things themselves”, the naivety of “the immediate knowledge.” This is why Hyppolite concludes that “empiricism and rationalism are not opposed to one another” (Hyppolite 4). And in the same vein, one can claim that Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism and his (ir)rationalism are not opposed to each other. This would be possible only if sense can be released from subjectivity, and this clears the space for the identification of thought and being. This is the ultimate meaning of Deleuze’s logic of sense and his claim that Hyppolite’s Hegel pursues nothing but making philosophy an ontology of sense. And this is why Deleuze claims in Logic of Sense that “the logic of sense is necessarily determined to posit between sense and nonsense an original type of intrinsic relation” and spends a large part of this work to Lewis Carroll who is the great thinker of nonsense (LdS 85; LoS 68). Being is sense as nonsense, and therefore thought liberates itself from subjectivity and is no longer a subjective reflection that is alien to being.

Fate and Knowledge Logic of Sense is considered sometimes as a book on the philosophy of language, as it is full of discussions about the linguistic sense and its genesis. The Hegelian insights discussed above can also shed a light on this aspect of the book. Even when Deleuze examines human languages, it is wrong

8  LOGIC AND ONTOLOGY 

197

to say that he falls short of ontology and reduces his philosophy to anthropology. He obeys here a Hegelian view which is considered by Hyppolite: “The highest form of human experience is the penetration into the structure of this universal self-consciousness at the heart of which being says itself, expresses itself, stating the thing of which one speaks as well as the ‘I’ who speaks” (Hyppolite 5). This is a possible source for Deleuze’s thesis of the univocity of being, if we just remind ourselves that for Deleuze a universal self-consciousness is just an absolute subjectivity and we need to replace it with a universal unconscious to reach a real absolute realm and this is only possible through finding the genetic element of sense in nonsense. Through this universal unconscious or absolute nonsense, being expresses itself and therefore there is no ineffable (any non-expressible being). This results in an inseparability of being that expresses itself (to us) and the thought that thinks being (through language). Therefore, human language is never a prison, but rather it has always something from without. It is tainted with the absolute exterior. Of course, this inseparability of being who expresses itself and the one who thinks the being through language does not entail a mirroring. Deleuze’s discussion about the circle of proposition in the first series of Logic of Sense reveals this point very well. It is not to say that what I denote is the being itself. Sense as the element of this inseparability is what differentiates the difference between what “I” say and what “it” says. Thus, it is true that “human language is constituted as the Dasein of spirit and the sense of being” (Hyppolite 6), but the Dasein of spirit and the sense of being are differentiated in language. The result would be an absolutization of language: Object and subject finally transcend themselves as such in the authentic language of being, in the Hegelian ontology. This language appears as the existence of the essence, and dialectical discourse appears as the becoming of sense. However, within natural language, how is this language, which is no longer that of anyone, which is being’s universal self-consciousness, to be distinguished from human, all-too-human, language? In other words, how does the passage from the phenomenology to Absolute Knowledge work? This question is the Hegelian question par excellence …. (Hyppolite 26–27)

We can know this transcendental (but not transcendent, for the reason that will be clear at the end of this very sentence) language only through the way it affects the empirical language, that is to say, human, all-too-­ human, language. It is spirit that is there in human language, and it is

198 

M. PARSA

being that speaks in it, but it is not at all to say that being as sense is reduced to my manifestation and its images (denotation and signification). The injection of being into language and language into being indicate that there is always something in empirical language which is not linguistic and is not empirical, something which is exterior and not reducible to any sense of subjectivity. This is the case when Deleuze examines thought as an objective encounter with events. It seems in these cases that Deleuze believes in an Absolute Thought which is independent but somehow connected to human thinking. As James Williams states, Gilles Deleuze deposes the human thinker as the basis for thinking. I would say more precisely: any kind of thinker is deposed as a basis of thinking … for Deleuze familiar kinds of candidates such as human subjects, animals, machines and iterative procedures retain much of their functions but they are shorn of claims to priority, control and precedence. Thinking becomes something that works through and with familiar thinkers, rather than simply without them or straightforwardly from them. So, we are thinkers, but only insofar as we take our place within wider processes. (Williams, 2008, p. 175)

In Williams’ reading, Deleuze’s idea of thinking appears as a kind of Hegelian belief in an Absolute Thought (or an absolute knowledge distinct from subjective knowledge) in which we inhabit when we think. This Absolute Thought can be called sense and demonstrates Deleuze’s account of the intelligibility of being. A difference between this absolute thought and a subjective thinking is that the former is intotalizable and harbors difference while the latter is totalizable and conceptual. Therefore, there will be an essential difference between subjective thinking and the genuine thinking of a subject which is making a connection with absolute thought and through this thinking desubjectivizes itself. Thinking is an encounter with event, that is to say, with what in a subject which is not subjective. It is an encounter between a finite and an absolute, and the absolute is nothing but a beyond of subjective knowledge that affects it. Thinking is taking part in the noumenal part of our experience, namely events. What is a knowledge of “a ‘beyond’ of knowledge”, of “an ineffable Absolute” (which is not ineffable anymore)? To answer this question, I would like to make a distinction between knowledge in terms of faith and knowledge in terms of fate. The difference lays in the fact that in the knowledge of ineffable the knowledge and the ineffable affect and change

8  LOGIC AND ONTOLOGY 

199

each other, while to consider knowledge as faith means that the ineffable stands always in a safe distance. The Hegelian view about the inseparability of knowledge and being is in fact to say that knowledge can and must intervene in the safe realm of the ineffable and lets itself be affected by this intervention. Subjectivity is something like faith. What makes subjectivity what it is is security, being at a safe distance, and preservation. In this sense, there is a close connection between egoism and religious faith. It is all about protection; a psychological motive to protect a territory against knowledge and language. Such an explanation can be found in Hegel’s criticism of Jacoby’s faith, the criticism of a position in which “silence, the ineffable, would be higher than speech” (Hyppolite 10). Subjectivism and egoism are against absolute knowledge, against pushing knowledge towards the absolute, to make it wirklich (actual). Therefore, absolute exteriority is not subject to faith, but to knowledge, and is what affects knowledge and transforms it into thought. This affection by ineffable is what in Deleuze’s reading of the ancient Stoics in Logic of Sense (specifically in his reading of Cicero’s De Fato) is called fate. If faith means protection, fate entails contamination with outside. Fate is a kind of belief which is not protectionist and lets itself be modified in interaction with the absolute, and in this way, it joins the absoluteness of the absolute. This distinction between faith and fate appears in Difference and Repetition where Deleuze compares Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. First, after introducing true repetition which is, according to Deleuze, the repetition of difference, and distinguishing it from false repetition, or the repetition of the same, he claims that both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche are the thinkers of true repetition and stand against Hegel who conceptualizes repetition and therefore is the philosopher of false repetition. Unlike Hegel whose work, according to Deleuze, is conceptual and theoretical because it is governed by opposition and mediation, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche provided an essentially theatrical work: “Theatre is real movement … this movement … is not opposition, not mediation, but repetition” (DR 11). But then, Deleuze compares Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, claiming that their stand against Hegelian logicism belong to different fronts. And Deleuze praises Nietzsche over Kierkegaard:

200 

M. PARSA

Kierkegaard offers us a theatre of faith; he opposes spiritual movement, the movement of faith, to logical movement … With Nietzsche, it is a theatre of unbelief, of movement as physis, already a theatre of cruelty. Nietzsche’s leading idea is to ground the repetition in eternal return on both the death of God and the dissolution of the self. However, it is a quite different alliance in the theatre of faith: Kierkegaard dreams of an alliance between a God and a self rediscovered. (DR 12)

As mentioned, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard are both considered by Deleuze as the thinkers of true repetition against the false repetition of the same within the concept. But Nietzsche’s repetitive movement is that of naturalism, while Kierkegaard’s is that of spiritualism. Deleuze in these pages of Difference and Repetition does not ascribe Nietzsche’s thought to the notion of fate, but elsewhere he discussed his philosophy based on the idea of amor fati, the love of fate.1 In this regard, this difference between fate and faith is that the former underlies the absolute affirmation of chance and event, while the latter entails an established distinction between that which must be affirmed and that which must be rejected. The first is a naturalism because it affirms the diverse as diverse, but the second is a spiritualism because it fixes a dualism. One can find in triangle (of Hegel, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche) how Deleuze takes Hegel’s absolutism, Nietzsche’s naturalism and Kierkegaard’s true repetition to build his own philosophy.

Synthetic Nomadology To understand better the meaning of fate and its relation to logic we need to focus for a while on Deleuze’s reading of Leibniz. Although Deleuze’s logic of sense as an ontological logic is owed to Hegel through Hyppolite’s reading, but he never gave a detailed explanation of his philosophy’s dependence to Hegel. In turn, he explained in Logic of Sense and elsewhere how his logic is depended to Leibniz and how this renders it to be an ontology. In Logic of Sense it is in the series about Leibniz that he introduces genesis as what unifies logic and ontology. According to Leibniz’s Monadology, there is no causality between monads and he introduces a pre-established harmony to get rid of the problem of causality. Deleuze deploys a refinement to Leibnizean system by eliminating the idea of a pre-established harmony and keeping the rest of the system. Deleuze endorses Leibniz’s criticism of causality based on

8  LOGIC AND ONTOLOGY 

201

the fact that it is the direct connection between two entities without being affected by the other entities in the system. Thus, if a system wants to be really a system, it must be devoid of causality. Mutatis mutandis, what connects the monads is the system itself and therefore causality would be replaced by a logical relation and a knowledge of the system would be necessary for any two monads to be connected. For Leibniz, the existence of God assures this knowledge of the system. The passage 51 of Monadology reads: the influence of one monad upon another is only ideal, and it can have its effect only through the mediation of God … For since one created monad cannot have any physical influence upon the interior of another, it is only by this means that one can be dependent upon the other. (Leibniz, 1986, p. 246)

The relation between monads depends on their reciprocal “accommodation” in the system, which is how they are posited regarding the others. There is a pattern for this accommodation, which is the so-called pre-­ established harmony provided by God. Thus, each monad represents or expresses all the others, in being part of a pattern. This is why the relation between monads is logical, or as Leibniz calls it, ideal.2 In this sense, Leibniz is a pioneer for modern structuralism which bases values on differential positions.3 But there is a hierarchy between monads regarding their relationship with the structure, which is to say, regarding the way they represent the system. A monad has a distinct perception of the sub-structure of the monads below it in the hierarchy, and a confused or vague perception of the sub-structure of the monads above it. God stands on the top of this hierarchy and therefore enjoys a distinct perception of all monads. It is the representation of all representations and assures the logical connection between all other monads. Hence, from its point of view, all of the relations and events are analytic because they are a priori in the distinct perception of God. It is in this sense that, according to Leibniz, causalities are logical and ideal. For example, the proposition “Adam sins” is analytic, because everything takes place according to a pre-established harmony assured by the distinct knowledge of God. Adam the sinner must sin a priori. This would be the reduction of the verb into the copula (the reduction of “Adam sins” into “Adam is the sinner”). This can also be explained with the terminology of necessity and contingency. Necessity refers to the distinct perception, and contingency to the confused one. Adam sins

202 

M. PARSA

contingently from his own point of view, but necessarily from the universal point of view of God. As has been said, Deleuze eliminates pre-established harmony and God from the system, and indicates how the rest of the Leibnizean system works without it. According to him, there is no causality between elements because any other element affects the relation between them. But there is also no pre-existing pattern for the system of “monads” and no distinct perception of the whole. Indeed, Deleuze refines the Leibnizean system in order to make all representations confused and vague, or in other word, contingent. This is the condition for the possibility of synthesis. In the realm of clear and distinct perceptions all propositions are analytic while in the realm of confused and vague perceptions they are all synthetic. Now let us elaborate how this application of the “death of God” to the Leibnizean system results in the syntheticity of logic. Logical synthesis is considered an event by Deleuze. Signification is logic as the pre-existing pattern or pre-established harmony. Logic in this sense is theological because it presupposes the right direction and good sense and is a gift from God. Logic of sense is a logic without God as a criterion to guarantee the correctness of propositions. It is the free synthesis of elements by the paradoxical instance. This is why Deleuze defines God as the principle of signification which is a fixed system of concepts against which stands sense which is a fluid or contingent system emanates from nonsense. As we have seen in Chap. 5, the problem with the logic of signification is what appears in Zeno’s paradox. It should presuppose a leap between any two points in time or space. Logic of sense, on the contrary, brings forward the paradoxical element capable of passing infinite points or being two things at once. This element, which is the element of movement and change, an element which is absent from its proper place, which is always somewhere else, makes Deleuze’s ontology essentially dynamic. Deleuze also calls this element nomadic, what initiates nomadic distribution and transforms Leibniz’s Monadology to his own “Nomadology.”4 Hence, if God is what makes the system stable, paradoxical element as what provides the life of the system takes its place to make the Leibnizean system a nomadology. In Leibniz the principle of sufficient reason is what unifies reason and causality, or determination and existence. It indicates how reason as the act of thought is extendable to being in itself. But Deleuze makes a radical modification in Leibnizean system, when he eliminates God as what

8  LOGIC AND ONTOLOGY 

203

guarantees the principle of sufficient reason, and delegates this task to the evental nature of thought (or sense) itself. According to the principle of sufficient reason, every existing entity is logically necessary, or in other words, only what is logically necessary can exist. Deleuze respects Leibniz’s effort to base existence on the logical relation between entities (monads). But he eliminates what provides the pre-established logical connection, and takes this connection between monads as what occurs instead of what is determined from the outset. Deleuze transforms Leibnizean necessity into a contingent fatality or evental necessity. In this reading, monads necessitate each other without forming a totality which is under the governance of pre-established harmony. This is to say that an evental necessity is not a relation between two monads, but between a monad and all other monads; and the number of all other monads is not countable, which is to say that they do not form a totality. This is the meaning of fate in Logic of Sense. What ultimately happens necessarily happens, but this necessity comes from its happening, instead of from some pre-established pattern. This results in a radical change in Leibniz’s philosophical system, in which all propositions are analytic, even the ones that express a real synthesis, based on the principle of reason. For Deleuze all propositions are synthetic, even the analytical ones, based on his modification of the principle of reason through his idea of fatality. For Deleuze it is necessary to connect logic and ontology. Leibniz fails to perform this identification because analysis is an aspect of formal logic, not the (immanent and non-­subjective) transcendental logic. The move from formal logic to a real transcendental logic entails the injection of syntheticity into it, and Deleuze performs this task by the idea of fatality. Being is logical, but its logic (which is called logic of sense) is contingent, which is to say, it allows for synthesis. The evental (or fatal) necessity is nothing but contingency. Fatality is a unification of necessity and contingency, and this unification is only possible through a certain reading of time. A fatal event is necessary after the fact. It is contingent before occurrence but once it occurs, it changes all other events in a way as if it is necessary. Therefore, Deleuze transforms Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason into a principle of infinite reason, according to which all events become reasonable after the fact. Reason is a result, an effect, and it enjoys a quasi-­ causality which is appropriate to effects. What logic of signification discovers as infinite regress results in the infinite proliferation of reasons. The elimination of God from the Leibnizean system and the delegation of its role to the system itself can be considered an application of the

204 

M. PARSA

Spinozist model to Leibniz. But it can also be considered a modification in the negative role of the Kantian Ideas of Reason by defining a positive role for them. This modification must be applied not only to God, but also to the other Transcendental Ideas, because, “if the self is the principle of manifestation in relation to the proposition, the world is the principle of denotation, and God the principle of signification” (LdS 206; LoS 176). Therefore, the death of God and the delegation of its role to the system must be accompanied with a similar change in the role of the world and the self. This marks three different ways in which sense is not reducible to the existing dimensions of the proposition. A similar modification that we discussed regarding signification must be applied on denotation and manifestation. Regarding the world as the principle of denotation, Deleuze considers incompossibility in place of the Leibnizean compossibility. According to Leibniz, the relation of monads in a system forms connective series of events and these series construct a world if they are compossible or convergent. God is what provides the principle of compossibility. In a world, the series are convergent and the synthesis between them is conjunctive. In Deleuze’s reading, on the contrary, series are divergent, because there is no God or pre-established harmony to guarantee their convergence. The series or worlds are incompossible and the synthesis between them is disjunctive. Therefore, the paradoxical element provides a transcendence from one world to communicate several divergent series or incompossible worlds. Regarding the self as the principle of manifestation, Deleuze switches from Leibniz to Husserl, who introduces the transcendental Ego as what covers (and therefore transcends) the worlds. A monad is immanent to one world, but the transcendental Ego transcends that world. But Husserl’s logic is a logic of manifestation which is an image of the logic of signification. Although unlike individuals that belong to a world, Ego or self transcends that world, but it performs this transcendence in an imaginary way. The transition from this logic to the logic of sense is done by introducing the person (nobody) in place of Ego. The difference between person and Ego is that, as the French word suggests, person has a negative connotation. Person is impersonal and plays the role of the paradoxical element. As Deleuze states,

8  LOGIC AND ONTOLOGY 

205

Instead of each world being the analytic predicate of individuals described in the series, it is rather the incompossible worlds which are the synthetic predicates of persons defined regarding disjunctive synthesis. (LdS 140; LoS 115)

Individuals belong to a series and persons to the synthesis of divergent series through a disjunctive synthesis. Individuals are determined and persons are undetermined and vague determinators. This vague person is the only thing that is objectively common between incompossible worlds and defines a real transcendental field in which real synthesis is possible. His vagueness is the vagueness of a vagabond, a person who is no one (il est personne) and a wanderer between incompossible worlds. For a transcendence to the compossible worlds, an Ego or subject would be enough. But for incompossible worlds, transcendence should entail person as object=x, something that can be objectively (not subjectively) common between the worlds, which is to say that the person wanders between them. Thus, although Leibniz himself gives a metaphysical account of possible worlds, in Deleuze’s refinement, the elimination of God results in a move from the metaphysical into a phenomenological account, where Lebenswelten take the place of Leibnizean possible worlds. In this regard, what is possible in a Lebenswelt, or a world of (living) experience, is impossible in another world. But what is crucial here, and what transforms an experience in a world into an experimentation (or transforms a possible experience into a real experience), is what can be called an Umwelt, which is the transition between the worlds. Through this transition the possible experience, or recognition, of objects becomes something essentially different, namely an experimentation, an encounter with events, or an experience of the impossible. Here, there is a dialectic of metaphysics and phenomenology, and that of possibility and impossibility, through which a possible world of experience (or recognition) comes into existence through an experimentation of a new world or a transition between the possible worlds. This experimentation or phenomenological experience of impossibility clears the space for what we call thought, or the painful discord between reason and imagination in the sublime as the genetic element of any harmony between understanding and imagination. Hence, this is the difference between transcendental events and empirical objects. Our evental thinking is the only thing in our experience that demonstrates the absolute existence of reality, exterior to my possible experience and my Lebenswelt. Incompossibility is that which opens the system to the exterior. We can invent the objects of our knowledge, but the contingent

206 

M. PARSA

changes of our evental experience transcends this ability and demonstrates the existence of an absolute exteriority. Therefore, unlike conscious knowing, thinking an event is not and cannot be comprehensive and total. It is what affects us, and indicates an encounter or a partial mixture. Events come from outside and affect thought in an absolutely unpredictable way. They tear it apart. Thinking is being torn apart in an encounter with outside, marking the disjunctive synthesis of divergent series.

The Genesis of Reason Deleuze’s rationalism entails a connection between intelligibility and reality. Only the transcendental is real, which is to say, only what is intelligible in thought is real. This thesis has two interconnected registers: first, only thought (and not recognition) has access to reality (logical register), and second, reality is in the form of what distinguishes thought from recognition, that is to say, in the form of events (ontological register). The main point to understand Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism is to understand how these two registers are two aspects of the same idea, an idea which is called sense. Deleuze’s rationalism is obvious in his interest in the famous rationalist philosophers, namely Leibniz and Spinoza, where he finds a connection between rationalism and a certain reading of genetic structuralism, which is crucial for understanding his view about logic and its relation to ontology. Here, reasons play the role of the genetic elements, what produce a structure and therefore provide the source of intelligibility for the structure. This marriage of rationalism and genetic structuralism can be found, among other texts, in “Gueroult’s General Method for Spinoza” (1969), which is a text on Martial Gueroult’s Spinoza (1968) which was apparently influential on Deleuze’s own reading of Spinoza. Gueroult is one of the twentieth century’s French rationalist philosophers (together with Jean Cavaillès, Albert Lautman, Gaston Bashelard and Gilles Châtelet), whose interest in Spinoza, Leibniz, Salomon Maimon and Fichte, and the way he puts together ideas from each of these figures to form his genetic method is crucial for our purpose of reading Deleuze on a rationalist basis. Olivier Revault, a friend of Deleuze during his time as a student in Sorbonne, reports, “I always found Gilles to be a great student of Gueroult” (cited in Lundy & Voss, 2015, p. 3). And it seems that much of Deleuze’s knowledge of Maimon and Fichte comes from his familiarity with Gueroult.

8  LOGIC AND ONTOLOGY 

207

Furthermore, a great part of Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism can be found in Gueroult’s philosophical system. And in his text on Gueroult’s Spinoza we can see how different elements of his transcendental empiricism are put together. In this text, which is published in Revue de metaphysique et de morale (vol. LXXXIV, no. 4), and then in Desert Islands and Other Texts, Deleuze writes, In Gueroult’s method, a structure is defined by an order of reasons. Reasons are the differential and generative elements of the corresponding system; they are genuine philosophemes that exist only in relation to one another. Reasons are nonetheless quite different according to whether they are simple reasons of knowledge or genuine reasons of being—in other words, according to whether their order is analytic or synthetic, an order of knowledge vs. an order of production. It is only in the second case that the genesis of the system is also the genesis of things through and in the system. (DI 146)

The marriage of structuralism and rationalism is interconnected with the link between logic and ontology. A purely formal logic deals only with the reasons of knowledge, but the Deleuzian version of a transcendental logic (or the logic of sense, the logic of being as sense) deals with the reasons of being. It is only in the latter that logic entails synthesis. Gueroult, and following him Deleuze, are well aware that this discovery is originated from German Idealism and a certain reading of Kant, and this is why Deleuze attempts to make the distinction more complicated. The analytical method has no choice other than integrating synthesis within itself, and synthetical method must entail a mode of analysis in the movement between the reasons of being. Therefore, Deleuze immediately refers to what Gueroult considers as “Fichte’s method, which is opposed to Kant’s analytic method” (DI 147). Deleuze compares the relationship between Fichte and Kant to that of Spinoza and Descartes. Descartes and Kant are philosophers who search for a ground for knowledge or certainty, and they attempt to introduce God or Subject as the ground. Spinoza and Fichte are structuralist philosophers who keep the grounding and leave the grounds. The result would be a new definition of structure and logic: The order of reasons is in no case a hidden order. It does not refer to a latent content, to something left unsaid; rather, the order of reasons is always on the same plane as the system … Structure is never something left unsaid which must be discovered beneath what is said; the structure can be discovered only by following the explicit order of the author … Seeing structure

208 

M. PARSA

or the order of reasons is thus following the path along which the material is dissociated according to the demands of the order, and the ideas decomposed according to their generative differential elements, along which also the elements or reasons are organized into ‘series’; one must follow the chains to where independent series form a ‘nexus’ the intersections of problems or solutions. (DI 147)

Deleuze’s post-structuralism in relation to structuralism holds the same relation that we have mentioned between Fichte and Kant or Spinoza and Descartes. Deleuze’s post-structuralism is the structuralism of not simple but complicated structures; and not deep but superficial structures; the ones that we see before recognizing any pattern. It indicates the messy genesis of what structuralism takes as structure. The structure of a text, for example, is “the explicit order of the author”, not the implicit order of what the author intends to say. This is why a structure is not a pattern constituted of the elements of a set, but a “nexus” or “intersection of problems or solutions” in a “series.” A structure is the form of dissociation of a material, a dissociation which is absolutely contingent. And in the same vein, logic is the contingent dissociation of being and how these dissociated pieces of being reassociate in series of events. The distinction between the reasons of knowledge and the reasons of being (which is another expression of the distinction between recognition and thinking) helps to explain the laws of Deleuze’s contingent or ontological logic. The principle of non-contradiction is the only law that governs the reasons of knowledge. But the reasons of being need a principle of choice or a principle of preference between the options which are different but not contradictory. In the latter case, there would be no universalized principle like that of non-contradiction, but rather there would be a different principle regarding a different situation, or in other words, each choice produces the law governing the preference. The reasons of being concern this principle of choice, which is not analytical, but rather synthetical. They are productive reasons and the results of the determination of what is produced from the side of producer. There is no pre-existing pattern to govern this production. Therefore, we can put synthesis alongside difference, which stand against analysis and contradiction, and conclude the same move that we have seen in Deleuze’s Hegelianism through Hyppolite. The synthetical order of the reasons of being renders the latter to be intelligible, but its intelligibility would be that of the immanent generation of sense out of

8  LOGIC AND ONTOLOGY 

209

nonsense. The principle of choice which is inherent in this order indicates the way how the structural production of being as sense is evental and fatal, and its contingency is the real source of any logical necessity. Hence the central role of ethics, and particularly Stoic ethics, in Deleuze’s Logic of Sense. This connection between Deleuze’s post-structuralism and his rationalism through Gueroult’s method of reading Spinoza results in what we called irrationalism and can be considered as a specific kind of rationalism. It is a rationalism because it considers being as sense and it takes reasons as ontological elements, but since its account of sense entails an inherent relation with nonsense and its reasons (of being) form a contingent and fatal connection, it is an irrationalism. Hyppolite’s reading of Hegel provides Deleuze with an account of being as sense and its intelligibility and furnishes the first step for him towards the move from sense to nonsense. In his reading of Leibniz, Deleuze finds a rationalist basis for this account, and in order to reach that move, he transforms the Leibnizean principle of sufficient reason into a principle of infinite reason that results in the injection of syntheticity into logic. And since it is radically contaminated with nonsense, the principle of infinite reason is also a principle of unreason. The distinction between the reasons of knowledge and that of being in Deleuze’s reading of Gueroult completes this picture by giving an account of reasoning that entails contingency and reminds that it is possible to grasp a structure and logic without reducing reality into fixed and simplified patterns.

Notes 1. For example, in LdS 175; LoS 149. Nietzsche defines the idea of amor fati in Ecce Homo: “My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary—but love it” (Nietzsche, 1989, p. 258). 2. One can conclude that instead of a physical causality, Leibniz introduces an “ideal causality” which is comparable with what we considered in our chapter on the Stoics as “quasi-causality”. Nicholas Rescher is his commentary on Monadology uses this term of “ideal causality”. See Rescher (1991, p. 179 and 200). 3. See Deleuze’s account of the positional criterion of structuralism in “How Do We Recognize Structuralism?”, DI 173–175. 4. See ATP 387–467.

210 

M. PARSA

References Deleuze, G. (1990). The Logic of Sense (M. Lester, Trans.). The Athlone Press. Deleuze, G. (2004). Desert Islands and Other Texts (D.  Lapoujade, Ed. & M. Taormins, Trans.). Semiotext(e). Deleuze, G. (1969). Logiques du Sens. Les Edition de Minuit. Deleuze, G. (1997). Review of Jean Hyppolite, Logique et Existence. In J.  Hyppolite (Ed.), Logic and Existence (pp.  191–196). State University of New York Press. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (2004). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Continuum. Derrida, J. (1997). Of Grammatology (G.  C. Spivak, Trans.). John Hopkins University Press. Hegel, G. F. W. (1988). Hegel’s Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art (2 vol., T. M. Knox, Trans.). Oxford University Press. Hyppolite, J. (1997). Logic and Existence (L. Lawlor & A. Sen, Trans.). State university of New York Press. Leibniz, G. W. (1986). The Monadology and Other Philosophical Writings (R. Latta, Trans.). Oxford University Press. Lundy, C., & Voss, D. (Eds.). (2015). At the Edges of Thought: Deleuze and Post-­ Kantian Philosophy. Edinburgh University Press. Nietzsche, F. (1989). On The Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo (W. Kaufmann, Trans. and Ed.). Vintage Books. Rescher, N. (1991). G. W. Leibniz’s Monadology; An Edition for Students. University of Pittsburg Press. Somers-Hall, H. (2012). Hegel, Deleuze and the Critique of Representation: Dialectics of Negation and Difference. State University of New York Press. Williams, J. (2008). Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense: A Critical Introduction and Guide. Edinburgh University Press.

CHAPTER 9

Logic of Exteriority

This chapter centers our reading of Deleuze’s contingent (ir)rationalism and on this basis responds to the contemporary Cartesian tendencies in philosophy that build their critique of Deleuze around a negligence of the essential contingency in his philosophical system. Although this line of thought initially brings us to Alain Badiou, but I prefer to discuss two of Badiou’s disciples, namely Quentin Meillassoux and Ray Brassier, who made more clear confrontations with Deleuze regarding our discussed issues. Particularly, I respond to an accusation that they both charge on Deleuze, namely a spiritualist account of vitalism. I try to explain how Deleuze’s contingent and (ir)rational vitalism cannot and should not be considered a continuum of conscious reasoning and subjectivity. This takes me again to Deleuze’s reading of Leibniz’s principle of reason, but this time I focus on his book on Leibniz, namely The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque.

The Transcendental Versus the Speculative: A Battle on the Exterior The connection we made in previous chapter between German Idealism and Deleuze’s philosophy could serve Quentin Meillassoux to unpack that which he in “Iteration, Reiteration, Repetition: A Speculative Analysis of the Meaningless Sign” calls “subjectalism”, which is an enemy against which he constructs his own philosophical system called “speculative © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Parsa, A Reading of Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13706-8_9

211

212 

M. PARSA

materialism” (the other enemy is called “correlationism”). Subjectalism is a term that unifies Hegel’s idealism and Deleuze’s alleged vitalism. By this term, Meillassoux states that despite their efforts to overcome Kantian subjectivism, transcendental philosophers after Kant (including Fichte, Hegel, Heidegger, Deleuze, Derrida and others) remained in the realm of subjectivity but in different guises of Absolute, Being, differance, etc. Against him, in the course of the chapter, I defend the claim that a transcendental materialism is possible and is that which deserves to be considered true materialism. Indeed, Meillassoux, in several articles and in his major book After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency, appears to be completely against contemporary philosophy, or even philosophy in general, because he believes that philosophy in its totality continues to pursue notion of logos embodied in the principle of reason. Instead of searching for a connection between logic and ontology, he attempts to replace them with mathematics and mathematical sciences because he wants to abandon the principle of reason in favor of “the principle of unreason” which is embodied in intotalizability of a particular theory in mathematics, namely set theory, where we find an intotalizable absolute. For Meillassoux, logic (and therefore philosophy) is inherently connected to the laws of logos, which have to be completely abandoned. His main reason for this abandonment is that post-Kantian philosophy in its different versions reduces the subject matter of philosophy to the correlation between thought and being and renounces any grasp to the being in itself. He divides post-­ Kantian philosophy into two fronts. The first front is correlationism, which is skeptical about the possibility of any knowledge about the outside of correlation or the absolute exteriority (that includes Kantianism and different versions of phenomenology). The second front is subjectalism, which denies the existence of such an outside and instead absolutizes the correlation itself, which is to say, it states that the correlation is itself absolute exteriority (and this includes Hegelianism in its different German, French and even pragmatist versions). Following After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency, in “Iteration, Reiteration, Repetition: A Speculative Analysis of the Meaningless Sign”, Meillassoux makes a more concerted effort to denounce some of the post-Kantian philosophers who, far from being correlationist (which is a form of skepticism or anti-absolutism), affirmatively absolutize correlation, and are as such dubbed subjectalist. This new task is more delicate, given that Meillassoux defines his own philosophical project as the sketching of a thought which is capable of acceding to the

9  LOGIC OF EXTERIORITY 

213

absolute. But he distances himself from the so-called post-Kantian absolutisms, by defining the absolute as the absolute exteriority (he refers to the etymology of the word absolute: “the ab-solutus is first of all the separate, the non-relative”; Meillassoux, 2016: 118). Hence, he triggers a battle on the absolute with subjectalists who are, according to him, metaphysical absolutists who believe in the subjective principle of reason. He designates his own position as absolutory, in order to distinguish it from any metaphysical absolutism. And he divides the latter into two main fronts, namely rationalism or idealism, exemplified in Hegelian philosophy, and vitalism, which includes Nietzsche, Bergson, and Deleuze. In this section, I focus in particular on Meillassoux’s accusation that Deleuze is a subjectalist, in the context of his vitalism. I believe that the core of Meillassoux’s criticism against Deleuze is not, however, the fact or not of his vitalism, but rather the notion that his philosophy falls short of attaining the thought of the absolute in the sense of absolute exterior. Against Meillassoux’s reading, I argue that Deleuze in fact advances a peculiar kind of vitalism, which might better be called mortalism, alongside a peculiar kind of rationalism which is better called irrationalism. Further, I attempt to defend the thesis that Deleuze’s philosophical system satisfies Meillassoux’s main requirement, which is to say, it provides the outlines of a thought which is capable of attaining that which is beyond thought. In order to do this, I focus again on the contingency of Deleuzian thought, and claim that a contingent absolutism like that of Deleuze reaches a point not far from what Meillassoux defines as the main aim of his endeavor. Meillassoux’s main argument to demonstrate that Deleuze’s philosophy falls short of attaining the absolute outdoor is to interpret his ideas of “intensity” and of “intensive difference” as “difference of degree” instead of “difference in nature.” Accordingly, Deleuze can never grasp a difference in nature between human and the non-human, resulting in the absolutization of what is human (intensive difference) and taking it as commensurate with reality. In this reading, intensive difference is what Deleuze takes from subjectivity and applies to external reality. Instead, Meillassoux maintains a sharp, Cartesian distinction, between thinking subject (or organic world) and pure objectivity (or inorganic world). For him, the rigor of this distinction is necessary in order to reach his absolutory position. In this manner, he claims he can save objective reality from any taint of subjectivity. Contrarily, in my reading, it is the sharp dualism between the subjective and the objective that is the result of subjective categorization and can never takes us to the outdoor. My claim is that absolute exteriority is

214 

M. PARSA

reachable, in Deleuze’s philosophy, through the notion of durative intuition as the only site of making the difference in kind at the level of which the encounter with the problematic events takes place. In this sense, intuition is the site of the ontological sense. As a result, subjectivity as a part of exterior reality has to contain an aspect which is essentially contingent, unconscious, and passively productive from the point of view of consciousness which is indeed the extensive subjectivity and is just a result and a product of an ontological intensity. In this way, there will be no need to protect reality from subjectivity, because we can follow a different path in which we understand subjectivity based on absolute exteriority. This amounts, indeed, to a kind of materialization of subjectivity (intensive matter of the unconscious) in which the difference in nature induces itself in intuition (the Bergsonian/Riemannian “qualitative multiplicity”). It is not the case that Deleuze derives his realism from subjectivity, but rather that he understands subjectivity as a result of material reality. Meillassoux’s speculative materialism meanwhile maintains that the only way to hold a realism is to consider reality as devoid of any dynamism and productivity (any intensity). According to him, reality should be dead because life in all of its forms belongs to subjectivity. Deleuze, in his turn, dedicates his philosophy to tracing the (living) death of subjectivity. In this regard, intensive difference is not the essential aspect of subjectivity against the extensive exterior, but is what attacks subjectivity from the side of absolute exteriority. In order to attain this reading, we need to focus on the central role that death plays in Deleuze’s philosophy and particularly in his alleged vitalism. In some readings, for Deleuze, what differentiates and is productive is not life, but death. David Lapoujade, for example, states, [Deleuze’s] most ‘vitalist’ texts are always at the same time texts concerned with death, with what life puts to death in us in order to liberate its forces … Life isn’t restricted in Deleuze to producing organisms, nor does it invariably take organic form. Aberrant movements partake of an ‘inorganic life’ that permeates organisms and undermines their integrity…. (Lapoujade, 2017: 36)

This inorganic life finds its elaboration in Deleuze’s work in the idea of “anti-production” of the body without organs in Anti-Oedipus and more explicitly in the notion of “A Life” and its intrinsic relation with death in “Immanence: A Life” (see AO 9–15 and PI 27–29). As we saw in our chapter on Stoicism, the force of death is related to the quasi-causality of

9  LOGIC OF EXTERIORITY 

215

dying as an infinitive verb which underlies the event with its disjunctiveness and exteriority. The true synthesis, which is disjunctive synthesis, is synthesis with the absolute exterior, and this is the only synthesis that can provide us with a synthetic logic and makes possible the marriage of logic and ontology. Thus, Deleuze’s philosophy is not about disseminating oneself everywhere, even into rocks and particles, as Meillassoux sketches it, but rather, it brings what exists in rocks and particles into selves in such a way as to undermine their integrity. Deleuze is a transcendental philosopher in the sense that he focuses on the conditions of our experience. But for him, the transcendental is not consciousness or one of its affiliates. His transcendentalism entails that which is the trace of external reality in our experience, and which conditions it from without. This is how he proposes real conditioning (the conditions of real experience) against the Kantian formal conditioning (the conditions of possible experience). A real condition tears the conditioned apart. A real experience marks at once the de-­ subjectivization of our subjectivity and the way our subjectivity grasps the absolute exteriority. This entanglement of condition and conditioned in the real experience can also be called production. Real conditioning entails the production of the conditioned and therefore Deleuze’s transcendentalism marks the contingent production of experience by reality. This is why transcendental empiricism is also a transcendental realism. Hence, Deleuze can conclude that external reality (nature) is productive, but its productivity is not the productivity of organic life or consciousness, but rather that of death, inorganic life or unconscious. The difference is that consciousness always follows a telos and a direction (explained for example through the principle of reason) but death produces with absolute contingency. Through a reading of the Stoics, Deleuze indicates that this contingent productivity is necessary for any materialism, and this is the point of Deleuze’s comparison of the Epicureans and the Stoics in Logic of Sense, where he puts the Stoic “double causality” against Epicurean “single causality” of bodies (LdS 115; LoS 94). The latter amounts to a materialism without productivity and without the ability to explain the Stoic puzzles of sense (lekton). Meillassoux meanwhile believes that the Epicureans are the true materialists. Deleuze however claims that their materialism, unlike that of the Stoics, falls short of explaining the production of novelty in nature. The Stoics introduce material reality as a conflagrant fire whose components burn one other, with sense as nothing but an attribute (or effect) of the internal interactions between these

216 

M. PARSA

components. Deleuze ascribes a kind of causality (a “quasi-causality”) to these attributes or effects, which explains primordially the emergence of incorporeal agencies such as consciousness. Epicureanism lacks this explanatory tool (yet, Deleuze in “Lucretius and the Simulacrum” brings forward an Epicurean transition from corporeal simulacra toward incorporeal “phantasms.” If we accept this reading, we would disagree with Meillassoux, for whom the Epicureans hold a bare materialism (LdS 321; LoS 276–277; Meillassoux, 2016: 120)). Nevertheless, this Stoic explanatory tool is not at all an aspect of organic life. The Stoic conflagrant fire exists anterior to every subject and organic life and has no resemblance to it. Its organization is inorganic. What makes it different from organic organizations is its contingency, as explained in Deleuze’s Logic of Sense with reference to Cicero’s notion of fatality in De Fato (LdS 199; LoS 170–171). In Deleuze’s reading, the Stoic fatality has nothing to do with predictability (any principle of reason) and he explains this by pointing to the way in which Stoic astrology differs from Chaldean astrology. The former is not about finding laws of nature in order to predict its behavior, but feeling the lawfulness of nature and waiting for its contingent behavior. This is the meaning of Amor fati for the Stoics, and explains the central role of death in their philosophy: death, as the ultimate fate, in fact marks the ultimate contingency. For Meillassoux, what guarantees both the exteriority of reality and its non-dependence on subjectivity is what he calls “the necessity of contingency.” A necessary contingency, according to Meillassoux, is an ontological one, a contingency which is not the result of a lack of knowledge, but of a positive property in reality itself. It seems that the point which distinguishes Meillassoux’s account of contingency from that of Deleuze is thus the way in which the former is speculative, the latter transcendental, which is to say that for Deleuze, contingency is the matter of experience (but still not of conscious knowledge). From a Deleuzian point of view, Meillassoux is right to say that “the necessity of contingency” guarantees absolute exteriority, but it does not entail a rupture from the problem of access and transcendentalism tout court. After all, it’s Meillassoux himself who affirms that it is the result of an encounter: “I affirm that the only point of absolute exteriority encountered by thought is that of contingency” (Meillassoux, 2016: 142).1 Therefore, although Meillassoux claims to go so far, to absolute exteriority and ancestrality, he remains, ultimately, at the level of the contingency that thought encounters. My claim here is that Meillassoux’s speculative account of reality (his positive philosophy) is not

9  LOGIC OF EXTERIORITY 

217

so far from Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism, given that despite their radical differences, both philosophers seek the experience of exteriority through an encounter with contingency. In fact, along with Catherine Malabou, I claim that we cannot relinquish the transcendental (Malabou, 2014: 247–254), because even a speculative materialism has to limit itself to the absolute exteriority that thought can “attain,” “accede” or “encounter” (Meillassoux, 2016: 119, 120, 142). Hence, we can make a distinction between Meillassoux’s negative philosophy (his arguments against “the era of the Correlation”) and his positive philosophy (his principle of factiality and the thesis of the necessity of contingency), and claim that his negative philosophy can be read partially as a follow up to the critiques of representation and subjectivity in Heidegger and Deleuze (taking these philosophers as themselves the subjects of their own critique). Further, that his positive philosophy is perhaps compatible with Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism, specifically with what in Logic of Sense, Deleuze refers to as his idea of fatality, defined as an aggregation of necessity and contingency (LdS 47; LoS 33–34). Fatality is Deleuze’s account of the necessity of contingency, or his factiality. The difference is that he also takes into account the accessibility of ontological contingency and its appearance in experience (his transcendentalism), which, as we have seen, despite his best efforts, Meillassoux cannot elude. And the fact that Deleuze takes into account the accessibility of contingency does not mean that he reduces it into this accessibility. In After Finitude, Meillassoux criticizes transcendentalism for its reliance on transcendental subjectivity, but never examines a transcendentalism without subjectivity, such as is exemplified in Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism (see Meillassoux 2008: 22–26). In “Iteration, Reiteration, Repetition,” he claims that the transcendentalist philosophies which attack subjectivity are themselves subjectalist, given that they criticize subjectivity while relying on notions like perception or will. A problem with Meillassoux’s negative philosophical endeavor, however, is that he considers subjectivity as a coherent realm in which life, perception, productivity, will, etc. share uniform values distinct from materiality. But the point is that these aspects of subjectivity are diverse; some of them are more material, more unconscious, more external. Indeed, there is a difference between someone who understands the world as thought or spirit and someone who considers all entities as dead or the products of blind force. To imbricate all of these attitudes is a simple reductionism. Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism indicates a move, not (a representational extension)

218 

M. PARSA

from subject to objective reality, but the other way around, from the real (the transcendental) to the subject as a product (the empirical). The question for him is how material reality can (contingently) produce consciousness, and his answer is: by an infinite production of reasons. In contrast, Meillassoux’s answer is: by no reason! But Deleuzian contingency of the multiplication of reasons entails that reason here does not at all mean an established direction. But what causes Meillassoux to consider Deleuze a subjectalist is the fact that, according to Deleuze, the contingency of nature is not limited to the contingent production of consciousnessindeed all productions in every aspect of reality or nature are contingent. Deleuze is thus a metaphysician, positing contingency as productive of all acts of nature. For Meillassoux, the non-organic world is a homogeneous reality, and the only heterogeneity is in relation to the organic world. For Deleuze however, every corner of the world harbors heterogeneity. The inorganic, before the emergence of intelligent life, was full of quantum fluctuations, full of the capability to produce new forms, and this is not at all an image of subjectivity, because this production is absolutely contingent, very different from conscious subjective production. Besides, we haven’t learned this through the human sciences, but rather through the natural sciences and a naturalist-historical view to human life. And the transcendental aspect of Deleuze’s philosophy entails that we can know the contingency of being in itself through the experience of contingency which harbors the trace of the real in our experience at the level of intuition or sense. Deleuze’s transcendentalism does not maintain that there exists a fixed logical precondition for existence. It rather holds that a fluid transcendental/empirical distinction is necessary in order to get rid of a dogmatic image of reality composed of objects (referents) and their correlates, namely subjects and concepts. Therefore, for Deleuze, the transcendental/empirical distinction is not a distinction between subjectivity and objectivity, but a distinction within objectivity based on the real existence of subjectivity. Meillassoux claims that if we take reality as absolutely devoid of any capacity to produce subjectivity and organisms, we will discover an infinitely more interesting world, in which there is ex nihilo emergence of realities that potentially did not exist before. Against the Bergsonian and Deleuzian idea of creation and virtuality, Meillassoux defines his absolute reality by the idea of “pure ruptures” (Meillassoux, 2016: 146). But he understands Bergsonian and Deleuzean virtuality as submitted to the principle of sufficient reason. Again, I believe that Meillassoux’s interesting

9  LOGIC OF EXTERIORITY 

219

and acceptable position, which takes “pure ruptures” as defining absolute exteriority, is not so far from Deleuze’s position, with the difference being that Deleuze multiplies infinitely these pure ruptures (synthetic reasons, or reasons of being), whereas Meillassoux tends to fix them in a Cartesian manner. Besides the fact that, in my reading, Deleuze’s real (that is, not fixed) transcendental/empirical distinction suggests nothing, but what Meillassoux takes as a pure rupture, Deleuze deals directly with the result of this distinction in the explanation of reality in itself, when he quotes and elaborates on Spinoza’s claim that “we do not even know what a body can do” (EP 255). The ability of body to produce realities that absolutely did not exist before is not at all a subjectivization of body. Meillassoux is right to put contingency against the principle of sufficient reason and define it with the principle of unreason. But the latter entails that we can never know what a body will do. Meillassoux is also right to assume that subjectivity follows the principle of sufficient reason. But he then gives a generalized account of reason that includes unconscious and poetical reasoning, and accuses the philosophers who deal with these kinds of reasoning of again being subjectalist, without considering the essential contingency of their reasoning and the absence of the principle of reason in this contingent (and material) reasoning. The Deleuzian distinction between the necessary reasons of knowledge and the contingent reasons of being is absent in Meillassoux’s thought, and this is why he cannot give any account of the nonsensical intelligibility of being. I would claim, however, that no contingent account of the real is subjectalist, and this holds perfectly in the case of Deleuze. Meillassoux’s characterization of Schopenhauer’s will or Nietzsche’s power is only correct if will or power determine a definite direction (or reasons of knowledge, or good sense). No extrapolation is possible if they are blind or bidirectional. Hence, Deleuze is a true philosopher of contingency regarding the problem of the emergence of life. It is not the case that, according to Deleuze, intelligent life already exists in dead matter, the point is rather that dead matter can contingently produce intelligent life, or in other words, can produce heterogeneity (because intelligent life is not something determinate. It could have any other form. Its current form is absolutely contingent, though this does not deny the difference in nature between the material world and intelligent life. I insist that Deleuze is a philosopher who wants more, not less, heterogeneity. And Meillassoux believes that in order to affirm heterogeneity in its true sense, you have to accept only one heterogeneity, which is between subjectivity and absolute

220 

M. PARSA

exteriority). Inorganic matter is not already living or intelligent, but we never can know what it can do. What we can know is that it necessarily makes ruptures. Meillassoux asks how “a non-subjective real is perfectly thinkable”? In the context of Deleuze’s reading of Leibnizian-Maimonian rationalism, we can refer to the intelligibility of reality as the condition of its accessibility for thought. Meillassoux refers instead to the mathematizability of reality. It is thinkable because it is mathematizable. He claims that the difference is that intelligibility provides us with continuity, while mathematizability provides us with rupture. My claim, based on Deleuze’s transcendentalism, is that mathematizability marks a rupture within experience that provides us with the thought of the absolute real—not a rupture from experience into the absolute real, because, as we have seen through Lautman’s studies, mathematics is after all a human endeavor, and it has a certain place in the history of our thought. Mathematics indicates perhaps a part of our thought which provides us with the maximum of objectivity, but if so, Meillassoux follows nothing but Deleuzian transcendental realism (not speculative materialism) in which we search for that which is in our experience but not subjective. On the other hand, Deleuze’s account of intelligibility differs from the post-Kantian one in a crucial aspect, which is its contingency. In this vein, Deleuze’s rationalism should be considered as an irrationalism, in the context of its focus on the nonsensical nature of its logic. If Hegel’s logic is a logic of sense, as Hyppolite in his Logic and Existence claims (Hyppolite xiii and 170), Deleuze’s is a logic of nonsense. Hence, we have here a kind of intelligibility that does not form a continuum but rather is based on ruptures. This is the main point of the bidirectionality of sense and its paradoxical nature which is examined in previous chapters.

The Structure of Science and the Chaos of Philosophy Thus, there is a reverse move in Deleuzean ontology, from absolute exteriority to subjectivity, not the injection of subjectivity everywhere, to which Meillassoux ascribes it. For example, the Deleuzean idea of nomadic distribution is not a consideration of all distributions based on human nomads, but rather a consideration of human nomads as distributing like molecules or chemicals. The same holds for Deleuze’s references to the

9  LOGIC OF EXTERIORITY 

221

history of mathematics through the works of Lautman. Although Lautman takes the real of mathematics as lying in the work of the mathematician, this is not a subjectivization of mathematics, because according to him, in this way it reveals “precisions, limitations, exception.” It is true that Lautman deals with “the effective life” of mathematics, but this does not render him a vitalist, because real mathematics is alive in its precisions, limitations, exceptions, or, in a word, in its contingency. Here, untotalizability reveals itself in limitations and exceptions, in every mathematical act, against the totalizability of mathematical theories. One could say that although set theory propounds the idea of untotalizability, in being a theory it is totalizable. A well-formed and coherent mathematical theory does not define a dead objectivity, as Meillassoux claims about set theory, but rather a deep subjectivity that projects its own image onto the real. A dead pattern or structure is a perfect image of the work of a living established subject. Lautman is a true realist in his effort to transcend subjective mathematical theories and look into what renders mathematics real, namely its contingent historicity as its life. This is the basis of what Deleuze considers the problematic, what demonstrates thought’s encounter with the real. Meillassoux reads Deleuze’s “intensive differences” as “differences of degree” and therefore considers his philosophy as a continuative monism, and he is right in believing that every such monism is a subjectivism. He is also right to say that “what we need are dualisms everywhere- pure differences in nature,” not differences in degree. Meillassoux advocates, in apparent opposition to Deleuze, the need for “The heterogeneous turned against the intensive, difference in nature turned against difference in degree; the eternally possible polydualism of Hyperchaos against the pseudonecessary monopluralism of Chaosmos” (Meillassoux, 2016: 132), as if Deleuze were a philosopher of homogeneity, and his chaosmos a homogeneous sphere subject to the principle of sufficient reason. This neglects the fact that the alleged continuity in Deleuze’s thought is in fact a way to induce heterogeneity everywhere.2 If Meillassoux believes in a dead dualism of nature between subject and object, he would be a subjectivist Cartesian; if he believes in a “poly-­ dualism” which induces heterogeneity everywhere, he would be a genuine Deleuzian. And I think there is indeed an inconsistency in Meillassoux’s thought between these two poles. But the crucial point here is that from a Deleuzian point of view, Meillassoux’s Cartesian account of heterogenesis remains at the level of the actual, and never reaches the point of virtual or differential heterogenesis. Or, as I will elaborate shortly, his criticism of

222 

M. PARSA

transcendental philosophy remains at the level of the empirical. Thus, what Meillassoux takes as difference in nature in his definition of heterogeneity amounts to an empirical difference, which in its turn needs to be explained based on its genetic structures. The problem can also be traced through Deleuze’s deviation from Hegel, the way in which he searches for non-contradictory heterogenesis as the genetic motor of his dialectic and condemns Hegel for taking conceptual contradiction as a negative motor. In this regard, Meillassoux stands with Hegel and against Deleuze, and would be the perfect subject for a Deleuzian criticism of conceptual and extensive difference. Meillassoux defines the absolute as that which is separate and independent from us. Therefore, what is absolute must be, and really is, contingent (independent from the subjective principle of reason). Hence, the laws of nature discovered by mathematized physics are contingent. And the contingency of the laws of nature means that natural events could be otherwise. But the connection between laws and events entails that the revisability of laws and the contingency of events are the same thing, which is to say, that the revisions of the laws of nature throughout the course of the history of physics demonstrate a change in the content of physical theories, namely natural events. Of course, physical laws change in interaction with their experimental (or laboratory) contents. But obviously, it is not the case that the world was Newtonian in the time of Newton, and Einsteinian in the time of Einstein. I believe that the only way to solve this dilemma is to abandon the idea of the absolute independence of the laws of physics, and to affirm that their revisability indicates the real work of the physicist, which is, of course, also part of the real. Based on this, I think, Meillassoux’s use of set theory is fully negative. As mentioned above, he defines the absolute (his deuteroabsolutory) as what is independent of our thought. Then he takes formal meaning, provided only by set theory, as the only meaning “capable of producing deuteroabsolutory truths” (Meillassoux, 2016: 162). Formal meaning has this capability only because it is pure, devoid of any content or definition. But why does this deficit give formal meaning this capability? Because, in this view, any content or definition comes from us. Thus, to grasp absolute exteriority, we need an absolutely structural and formal instrument, namely set theory. But, as I have said, this move is thoroughly negative. Is evacuating any subjectivity the means to open up the space for objectivity? I doubt it. My question, in this context, would thus be; is mathematics pure symbolism, or it is about something? Meillassoux takes mathematics as

9  LOGIC OF EXTERIORITY 

223

pure symbolism, because for him any content constitutes a trace of subjectivity. My response is to point once more to the Lautmanian-Deleuzian approach to mathematics, according to which it is indeed about something at the points of its impurity, which is to say, at its problematic points. According to Lautman, mathematics is not a pure symbolism which has physics as its content; there is the Dialectic or metamathematics which governs mathematics and immanent to it and provides it with its reality (Lautman 30). But of course, this response assumes that subjective activity is part of (and a result of) objective reality. Therefore, the “ontology of empty signs” that Meillassoux proposes is a negative ontology, or better, a destructive one, which exists only in order to reject any subjectalist ontology. My point here is that we can think of a meaningless sign because it would not be absolutely independent of us, but would connect us to the absolute outdoors; it would be the problematic. This is exactly the play of sense and non-sense that Deleuze brings to the scene. Nonsense is not the absence of sense but rather its infinite abundance. The Deleuzian disagreement with Meillassoux is thus not that a meaningless sign is not a sign (nor that it is not meaningless), rather that it is not absolutely distinct; it is the point of an encounter with the absolute. We might consider the realm of sense as the circle of correlation. Now, nonsense as the genetic element of sense would tear this circle (as Deleuze declares in Logic of Sense, regarding the circle of proposition; LdS 29–31; LoS 15–18) and make the encounter with the absolute possible. Thus, Deleuze’s irrationalism is fundamentally different from the subjectalist rationalisms which are subjected to Meillassoux’s criticism. Meillassoux considers this emphasis on the encounter that which renders Deleuze’s thought a transcendentalism based on the priority of perception. In contrast, he himself focuses on the capability of pure thought to grasp the absolute, and pure thought reveals itself only in mathematics. This stands in contrast to Deleuze’s interest in sensation as a rich activity of thought, likewise his use of literature and of poetic language in the context of philosophical thought, alongside his interest in transcendental philosophy and the problem of the conditions of sense-perception. Thus, we might say that the difference is between Deleuze’s definition of thought as an encounter with the event as absolute exteriority, and Meillassoux’s definition of thought as an encounter with the absolute. And this difference lies in the problem of purity and impurity. For Meillassoux, the thing in itself would be “intemporal and non-­ spatialized” because time and space are the forms of perception, which is

224 

M. PARSA

in its turn an extension of subjectivity. Pure thought, revealing itself only in mathematical set theory, is that which can grasp the thing in itself. This is why he renounces Bergson and his heirs (or Merleau-Ponty as the philosopher of perception). The problematic claim here is that a pure thought, devoid of any perception, is possible. Deleuze indeed defines thought in such a way as it includes Bergsonian perception. True thinking is sensing. There is no pure thought in a formal sense for him, and his account of the priority of contingent thought, his irrationalism, establishes the priority of impure thought over pure recognition or understanding, which are subject to the economy of representation. Thought is the product of disjunction in our experience, and by positing an ontology based on such a thought, Deleuze distributes disparity and heterogeneity everywhere, instead of establishing as distinct the two homogeneous and pure realms of subjectivity and absolute objectivity. There is no pure thought; there is rather the transcendental thought, which takes different forms of the transcendental imagination, the transcendental memory, etc. This belief in pure thought, and indeed the separation Meillassoux makes between thought and perception resembles the Kantian separation of understanding and sensation criticized by both Maimon and Deleuze, and makes of him a representationalist. This is confirmed by his discussion of the contingency of the laws of nature. As he reminds us, Kant assumes the necessity of the laws of nature, such as renders him an uncritical metaphysician. Kant believes that the laws of nature are necessary and are the condition of possibility of our representations of nature. Meillassoux, however, holds that the laws of nature need not be necessary as the condition for our representations of them. They can be (indeed have to be, based on the principle of non-contradiction which Meillassoux assumes as the only ontological principle) contingent. The only condition is that they don’t change frequently. Thus, his semi-Kantian argument would be that since we have representations of the laws of nature (and these representations are authentic), the contingent laws of nature do not change frequently. In this way, Meillassoux is a possible target for the critics of representation, including Deleuze, as Anna Longo suggests in “The Contingent Emergence of Thought” (Longo, 2014: 47).3 Meanwhile, one of Meillassoux’s critiques against Deleuze is that the latter is a philosopher of chaotic becoming or frequent change, which I think is a confusion of the empirical and the transcendental regarding Deleuze. To understand this confusion, let us compare Deleuze’s chaotic becoming and Meillassoux’s contingent being.

9  LOGIC OF EXTERIORITY 

225

According to Meillassoux, nature can change without any reason, but fortunately, it does not change frequently, and this is why we can discover the laws of nature which are the representations of what governs nature. For Deleuze, chaotic becoming is not the physical change of empirical beings but is what makes thought as the encounter with the problematic possible. In What is Philosophy?, Deleuze, together with Guattari, states: The plane of immanence is like a section of chaos and acts like a sieve. In fact, chaos is characterized less by the absence of determinations than by the infinite speed with which they take shape and vanish. This is not a movement from one determination to the other but, on the contrary, the impossibility of a connection between them, since one does not appear without the other having already disappeared, and one appears as disappearance when the other disappears as outline. Chaos is not an inert or stationary state, nor is it a chance mixture. Chaos makes chaotic and undoes every consistency in the infinite. The problem of philosophy is to acquire a consistency without losing the infinite into which thought plunges…. (WP 42)

The laws of nature are the local appearances in the objective fields of sense, and chaotic becoming is the aggregation of these localities in a whole, something like a conflagrant fire. As Deleuze and Guattari state, “the problem of philosophy is to acquire a consistency without losing the infinite.” Consistency is what provides the laws, while the infinite is a look to the aggregate, to the chaotic transcendental. The immanence of the transcendental is what distinguishes philosophy from science. The plurality of the laws of nature is only possible in the immanence of the infinite, where each law “appears as disappearance when the other disappears as outline.” In other words, for Deleuze, laws are local appearances, but if we extend perception with the help of philosophy, we can reach an infinite or a chaos (different from Meillassoux’s “trans-finite” or “hyperchaos” only in being immanent) which is not local any more, even if it is immanent to the laws as their infinite aggregation (and having nothing to do with monotonous Heraclitian becoming, considered in Time without Becoming as a “metaphysics”; Meillassoux, 2014: 26). Thus, obviously, Meillassoux is a philosopher of transcendence, while Deleuze is a philosopher of immanence. And the problem with any transcendent philosophy is that it takes an empirical distinction (between ancestral and anthropocentric for example) for a transcendental difference.

226 

M. PARSA

Hence, Deleuze does not need stability for the possibility of laws, because they are local (but not subjective) views of chaos. Chaos is neither fixed nor a monotonous becoming, but is an untotalizable infinity in which, for every infinite speed, there is another which is infinitely faster.4 The fact that chaos is infinite and transcendental also dismisses Meillassoux’s accusation in “Potentiality and Virtuality” that Deleuze relies on chance as a totality of possibilities which is just beyond our knowledge. The Deleuzian distinction between normal games and ideal games in Logic of Sense indicates different meanings of chance, such that one is a determination beyond our knowledge and the other is an ontological contingency (“nomadic distribution”) (LdS 75; LoS 60). This also indicates the difference between Deleuze and Meillassoux’s ideas of virtuality, which, for the former is chaotic, and for the latter successive (Longo, 2014: 49). This philosophical infinite provides the untotalizability that Meillassoux searches for and apparently finds in set theory. Meillassoux’s acceptable idea of the (positive) contingency of the inorganic -which entails that the inorganic is capable of producing the heterogeneous- and his rejection of so-called Deleuzian vitalism are inconsistent, because for Deleuze, emergence ex-nihilo is what happens everywhere in the inorganic and the organic world. My ultimate claim here is that the Fregean notion of sense that Deleuze uses and expands in Logic of Sense (and which is, I believe, compatible with Markus Gabriel’s idea of fields of sense) does not fail to explain the possibility of ancestral statements: morning star and evening star were distinct before the emergence of life on earth. The objective existence of fields of sense does not depend on the existence of any subject. We can discover in a transcendental way that there is no reality which does not express or present itself, and this expression or presentation is not at all to a subject, which is exactly Deleuze’s thesis of the univocity of being. Perhaps Frege himself was thinking about intersubjectivity when he thought about the objectivity of sense, but Deleuze’s (and Gabriel’s) idea of sense has nothing to do with intersubjectivity: Logic of sense is the logic of existence. In the case of Deleuze, sense is distinct from signification, which is the result of intersubjective conventions. Of course, Deleuze’s transcendentalism entails keeping a connection with sense-perception, but also searching for a real condition within the latter which might make possible its transcendence in a movement towards what contingently (and really) conditions it. We can therefore think about an ontology independent from subjective accessibility, in which things make sense without receiving this sense from

9  LOGIC OF EXTERIORITY 

227

any subjective meaning. This objective sense can be considered as the genetic element of subjective meaning (manifestation) and intersubjective signification, and also as the meaning of an object (denotation), which is why its logic is the logic of nonsense. Subjective meaning exists because things make sense in themselves, but their making sense is radically distinct and exterior to subjective meaning and its correlates. Deleuze explains this by referring to the Stoic materialism in which sense (what the Stoics call lekton) is an incorporeal effect of the interaction between bodies (like time, space and void). And this effect enjoys a quasi-causality in a fatal relationship with the other effects. The interactions occur without any need for the existence of a subject and produce incorporeal effects. Meillassoux would claim that Deleuze and the Stoics conceive of the real in this way in order to make it compatible with the meaning-maker subject. He would argue that the real as absolutely distinct from subjects is senseless. Yet it can produce life and consciousness without any reason. And this is why Deleuze would argue that it is not, in fact, senseless, but nonsense as the genetic element of sense. It can produce life and consciousness, together with an infinity of other things, without any reason. And this is its making sense: being expresses itself in the contingent production of new forms. I think the value of Meillassoux’s efforts is not in rejecting some philosophers as correlationist or subjectalist in favor of other philosophers, or of putting an end to the era of correlation, but in revealing a developing conflict between the modern sciences and philosophy. Ray Brassier, in his Nihil Unbound, recognized this problem and suggested a substitution of Meillassoux’s ancestral phenomena with the reality described by “the modern natural sciences tout court” (Brassier, 2007: 59). Thus, the Meillassouxian problem would be that of the conflict between the manifest image of philosophy and the scientific image. The modern sciences discovered realms of reality which are truly human-independent and autonomous, like those of “thermonuclear fusion, and galactic expansion.” However, I think Deleuzian philosophy suggests that instead of rejecting one and endorsing the other in a Meillassouxian gesture, we ought to think about the interaction between the two. In this picture, what modern sciences do is to expand the scale of the reality which is manifest to us. They discover new scales of reality far smaller and larger than those afforded by our imaginatory power. The relation between science and philosophy should be considered as similar to the dialectical dynamism of the faculties in which each faculty forces the other to exceed

228 

M. PARSA

its limits. In doing so, they add these new scales to our manifestation, making it larger and more complicated. On the other hand, they keep opening absolute exteriority to our experience, which is not at all a characteristic of modernity (indeed we have never been modern, in this sense), but rather traceable back to the elementary forms of science throughout history. In this regard, to be an immanent philosopher amounts to not taking our knowledge of absolute exteriority as given before making sense of our worldly reality, in such a way as we might understand exteriority based on an image produced in our representational thought. It rather amounts to conceiving of our interiority in terms of an openness to absolute exteriority. This is not at all to say that science provides us with an empirical (or instrumental) account of reality, while philosophy with a transcendental one. Science and philosophy work together disjunctively and discordantly, in order to approach this absolute exteriority and to extricate us gradually from our ego-centric habits (or correlationist circles) of deriving our reality from our own repetitive sensations. Modern sciences are not theories of an absolute exteriority, but they do define a distinctive human effort to approach such an exteriority, and they profoundly affect philosophical endeavors. The modern sciences constitute a very distinctive human activity, but their distinctiveness is not in being non-empirical (or better, non-­ experimental) and escaping any condition of experience. Certainly, they engender a profound change in the notion of experience, but it is wrong to believe that they theorize a reality which exists in isolation. This picture may still seem correlationist to Meillassoux, but we might ask him whether an ever-expanding and self-unfolding correlation is still a correlation? Is a correlation that unceasingly modifies itself in encounter with exteriority still a correlation? I believe that Deleuze’s so-called transcendental realism can play a crucial role in the future appearances of these scientific exigencies. What modern sciences demand from philosophical endeavors is a modelization that ought not to be an a priori set of possibilities, but rather ought to take into account the becoming of such a set in a series of events. To put it simply, modern science needs an explanatory system that evolves together with the evolution of the area of science in question, and is heterogeneous in trying to explain the heterogeneity of that area. In short, we might no longer have to reduce a real system when we try to model it. And Deleuze’s philosophy provides an essential resource for this exigency, by introducing the infinite and contingent production of the reasons of

9  LOGIC OF EXTERIORITY 

229

being, which, unlike the reasons of knowledge, are not the simple patterns recognizable and repeatable by ordinary users. In other words, Deleuze’s post-structuralism seems to be crucial for modern science because it is a structuralism not of simple but of complicated structures; not deep but superficial structures; the ones that we see before recognizing any pattern.

Transcendental Extinction Following Meillassoux, Ray Brassier in his Nihil Unbound: Extinction and Enlightenment elaborates a similar criticism against the so-called vitalist philosophers including Deleuze. But unlike Meillassoux who focuses on ancestrality, for him the thought of extinction is that which stands beyond the ability of vitalism to speculate. He proposes the idea of an absolute extinction which annihilates the experience together with its conditions. In his work, he oscillates between a transcendental and speculative approach, but since he dedicates an extensive part of the book to criticizing what he calls vitalism, and, like Meillassoux, he views Deleuze as a vitalist, I tend to read his text as opposed to the transcendental approach. Brassier’s reading of Deleuze amounts to the claim that “being as such is nothing but differentiation” (Brassier, 2007: 221). Hence, the priority of death over life in Deleuze would be nothing but a metaphysics of life (vitalism), in which being as such differentiates itself through death. Deleuze’s “intensive death” is called by Brassier the “spiritualization of death,” which is merely a form of life (Brassier, 2007: 222). I would claim that Deleuze is a transcendental philosopher, whose metaphysics entails only the immanence of the transcendental, which is to say, he migrates from the transcendental subject to the conditions of experience in general. Here, Immanence plays the role of what can be called facticity, making the transcendental subsist at the surface of the empirical and hover over it. We enjoy experience and we can search for the ontological (and objective) conditions of this experience. Therefore, Deleuze’s alleged spiritualization of death is a misreading that reverses his search for the traces of death within life as seeking life everywhere. Therefore, my response to Brassier’s question, “if being is essentially active, affirmative, creative and productive, then why does it ever become alienated from itself in reactivity, negation, sterility, and representation?” (Brassier, 2007: 220; he obviously refers to Deleuze’s Nietzsche and Philosophy) is to repeat a question Deleuze asks in Difference and Repetition: “how stupidity (and not error) is possible?” (DR 189) The difference

230 

M. PARSA

between the productive and the representational being does not lie in two epochs of being, where it was first productive and then it becomes representative in consciousness. It is not an error at all. It is structural. The condition indeed subsists at the surface of the conditioned, but it does not mean that the transcendental (or the ontological) difference is reducible to a mere creative or productive matter. Deleuze’s becoming is not his account of being in itself, but rather it marks the ontological condition of the empirical appearance of being in language and thought. He does not search for being in itself beyond thought, but rather, being-in-itself in thought and as thought. Thus, being expresses itself in thought either through representation and recognition which mark a limited and reduced image or through affirmation and production that give us an absolute image. Brassier recognizes this Deleuzian approach and criticizes it by claiming that “to construe being as a function of affirmation, rather than an object of representation, is merely another way of making the world dependent upon thought” (Brassier, 2007: 218), as if in order to grasp the being in itself we need to make a Cartesian sharp distinction between being and thought. At this point, Brassier’s position is not far from Meillassoux. But since both of them doing philosophy in a tradition that, following Parmenides, considers the connection between being and thought as the main subject matter of philosophy, they cannot help but rely on the thought of “a world without thought.” Hence, Brassier’s suggestion is to bring a speculative approach by asking such questions as: “How does thought think a world without thought? Or more urgently: How does thought think the death of thinking?” (Brassier, 2007: 223) The real questions are: Is the distinction between the thought of thoughtful world and the thought of a world without thought really different from the Deleuzian distinction between (subjective) recognition and (objective) thought? Is it possible to respond to these questions by migrating beyond transcendental philosophy? It seems that, according to Brassier, the thought of extinction marks the vaporization of the transcendental, and the (empirical) death of the intensive and productive death. This would mean the death of experience together with its conditions. He tells the story of this extinction in a dramatic way: But this is only to postpone the day of reckoning, because sooner or later both life and mind will have to reckon with the disintegration of the u ­ ltimate horizon, when, roughly one trillion, trillion, trillion (101728) years from now, the accelerating expansion of the universe will have disintegrated the fabric

9  LOGIC OF EXTERIORITY 

231

of matter itself, terminating the possibility of embodiment. Every star in the universe will have burnt out, plunging the cosmos into a state of absolute darkness and leaving behind nothing but spent husks of collapsed matter. All free matter, whether on planetary surfaces or in interstellar space, will have decayed, eradicating any remnants of life based in protons and chemistry, and erasing every vestige of sentience—irrespective of its physical basis. Finally, in a state cosmologists call ‘asymptopia’, the stellar corpses littering the empty universe will evaporate into a brief hailstorm of elementary particles. Atoms themselves will cease to exist. Only the implacable gravitational expansion will continue, driven by the currently inexplicable force called ‘dark energy’, which will keep pushing the extinguished universe deeper and deeper into an eternal and unfathomable blackness. (Brassier, 2007: 228)

Now that the Sun is going to die and atoms will cease to exist, philosophy must be speculative. Extinction hatches the death of correlation, of being-­ toward-­death of Dasein and Deleuze’s intensive death. If it were just the death of Sun, the correlationist could say it would just be another prerequisite for cosmic life. But Brassier goes beyond the solar death and asks about a total and absolute extinction. What is absolute extinction? Is the extinction of life, the atomic structure, and the matter itself “absolute enough” to be called so? Eventually, Brassier would claim that the absolute extinction is the extinction of the (real) transcendental. But he depicts it partially using a limited means of a scientific, empirical language. I claim that absolute extinction is only philosophizable transcendentally, not as an empirical time that arrives in one trillion, trillion, trillion years from now, but as he himself notices, as what has already happened. I think this “being already happened” is a point in Brassier’s text that serves against his goal to relinquish the transcendental, and indicates a transcendental point in his thought because it marks a change in the linear and empirical image of time. The idea, on the one hand, is that since we are aware of the ultimate extinction, we cannot continue with transcendentalism. On the other hand, it means that, as it has already happened, it hovers over here and now, over the realm of existence, which makes it the transcendental realm of subsistence and indicates an immanent transcendental. Hence, we can see how Brassier’s reference to the scientific previsions affect philosophical thought. In order to move from this empirical scientific approach to his philosophical idea of universal annihilation, he needs to make a further step and reckon the extinction of the dark energy itself, which is clearly beyond the capability of natural sciences. Thus, the

232 

M. PARSA

empirical absolute extinction is not possible, because absolutism belongs to transcendental philosophy. Through the thought of empirical total extinction, he brings forward the relinquishment of the transcendental. Yet a further move towards an absolute extinction brings him back to the transcendental approach. If the time of extinction is not “a localizable spatiotemporal occurrence”, but “the extinction of space-time” the extinction of cosmological physics, and it has already terminated the correlation, then what separates it from a transcendental look that hovers over what is going on here and now? (Brassier, 2007: 230) I would agree that the posteriority of extinction is still a correlate “for us” because it is still a scientific narrative that can be used by a transcendental philosophy. I respect Brassier’s effort to accentuate the thought of extinction, but he has to elaborate more on why “the thought of the absence of thought” is absolutely different from the other thoughts? Why is this and only this thought transformable into an object? (Brassier, 2007: 229–230) Why is the concept of extinction the only concept which is objectifiable? Why is posteriority of extinction, unlike the ancestrality, not reducible to the anthropocentric? Why is it not a time, but the extinction of time, if our narrative takes its form from the empirical scientific evidences? Whether ancestrality or extinction, they both presuppose a line of time which is called by Heidegger in The Concept of Time as the physical time, which stands against the metaphysical time (Heidegger, 2004: 109–110). In order to explain the nature of the metaphysical time, Heidegger begins an analysis of Dasein, which belongs of course to a transcendental approach, which is to say, it considers the conditions of the experience of temporality. It is in this sense that the question “what is time?” gives its place at the end of the text to the question “who is time?” Physical time is only possible under the conditions of metaphysical time. Therefore, the speculative attack on the transcendental by Meillassoux and Brassier would face a counterattack by transcendental philosophers that condemn it to remain within the constraints of the empirical, in the form of the physical time. Therefore, for a transcendental philosopher like Heidegger or Deleuze, the positivist thesis of ancestrality or the nihilist thesis of extinction are only graspable as conditions and not at all as empirical facts which are beyond the ability of experience. They would criticize the speculative thinkers to take ancestrality or extinction as similar to the empirical facts but paradoxically beyond the experience. The question is that if they are absolutely beyond the experience, how can we claim that the absolute

9  LOGIC OF EXTERIORITY 

233

ancestral or the absolute extinction are just events like the other events?5 Being is not a being among the others and the condition should not be built in the image of the conditions. And at least in the case of Deleuze, this does not entail remaining within the constraints of the correlation, because of the objectivity and the facticity of thought as the transcendental. Scientific findings expanded the realm of experience and this entails an expansion of the transcendental. The fact that we can think of ancestrality or absolute extinction indicates the limitedness of subjectivity but the powerfulness of thought. The power of thought to multiply reason infinitely goes hand in hand with the power of science to expand the realm of experience.

The Principle of the Insufficient Reason Now, at the end of this chapter, let us come back to Deleuze’s interpretation of Leibniz, this time focusing on his The Fold: Leibniz and Baroque, in order to explain how his irrationalism does not entail a commitment to the principle of sufficient reason. As mentioned, according to Deleuze, we don’t have to eliminate reason in order to reach a principle of unreason, but it would be enough, in a Leibnizian manner, to multiply principles of reason infinitely, as if we never get the sufficient number of reasons. In The Fold, Deleuze writes, The Baroque solution is the following: we shall multiply principles—we can always slip a new one out from under our cuffs—and in this way we will change their use. We will not have to ask what available object corresponds to a given luminous principle, but what hidden principle responds to whatever object is given, we shall invent its principle. It is a transformation from Law to universal Jurisprudence … The true character of Leibnizian game— and what opposes it to the roll of the dice—is first of all a proliferation of principles: play is executed through excess and not a lack of principles; the game is that of principles themselves, of inventing principles. It is thus a game of reflection, of chess or checkers, where skill (and not chance) replaces old gifts of wisdom or prudence. (The Fold 67–68)

Leibniz’s response to the question, “why is there something rather that nothing?” is not discovering principles to justify existence, but is inventing principles to justify it. He is the nihilist philosopher of unreason who invents reasons where there is existence without any reason. According to

234 

M. PARSA

the Deleuzean reconstruction of Leibniz in The Fold, nature is contingent in itself and the task of scientist is inventing laws in order to intervene in its contingency. In this reconstruction, Leibniz is the true philosopher of syntheticity. His identification of logic and ontology, or the connection he makes between the reasons of knowledge and the reasons of being, takes place through the way he turns analyticity into infinite analysis, and the latter amounts to be synthesis. All synthetic propositions are analytic, but at infinity. This provides Deleuze with a contingent hyper-chaos which acts as an infinite understanding (suggested by Maimon) in which logic and ontology, and thought and perception, join together. In order to do this, Leibniz has to make a connection or continuum between the principle of contradiction as the law of analyticity and the principle of sufficient reason as the law of syntheticity. This can be done by saying that the truth of a proposition does not depend only to the internal contradiction of subject and predicate, but also to the external contradiction to the other predicates. Therefore, we move from possibility through non-contradiction into compossibility through the principle of sufficient reason. In Deleuze’s reading of Leibniz, compossibility itself takes the place of God as the transcendent condition of possibility, that is to say, the transcendent transcendental. Of course, for Leibniz God is part of the system of monads and therefore immanent to the system, but he occupies the highest point of a hierarchy, and furthermore he is the only necessary monad against all other contingent monads and this would be enough to form a transcendence. Now for Deleuze, compossibility of contingent monads provides an immanent condition of possibility, or in other words, the immanent transcendental, that not only can take the place of transcendental God, but also the place of the Cartesian version of the transcendental subject, namely Cogito as the ground against which Leibniz builds his system. Hence, Deleuze finds in Leibniz a transcendentalism which is not constrained to transcendental subjectivity. The transcendental here is not provided through a center like ego or subject, but rather through a coherent system or a structure. The transcendental as the determinate condition is the source of any necessity. For Kant what is crucial is not analytic necessity, but synthetic necessity, that is his synthetic a priori. Deleuze discovers that the way to reach synthetic a priori, or the real transcendental, could be found in Leibnizian infinite analysis which connects analyticity and syntheticity, and this would provide an alternative for Kant’s transcendental subject. In this way, we reach a necessity at the level of the real. Hence, the principle of

9  LOGIC OF EXTERIORITY 

235

contradiction or identity and the principle of sufficient reason join together. In The Fold, Deleuze explains this through the way these two principles can be translated into two directions of an identity. The principle of contradiction can be translated to “all analytic propositions are necessarily true”, and the principle of sufficient reason can be read as “all true propositions are necessarily analytic,” and this amounts to saying that true synthetic propositions are analytic even if to reach this we need an infinite analysis. The infinite analysis is what can be called a transcendental analysis and provides the link between analyticity and syntheticity (The Fold 51). Leibniz needs this link because he is well aware that it is not possible to examine the truth of synthetic propositions by referring only to the principle of contradiction. Therefore, he invents another principle for his logic, namely the principle of sufficient reason, which is about the existence of a direction in order to guarantee the truth of synthetic propositions. This direction provides a necessity very different from the necessity of analytic propositions. This would be a real necessity, a necessity in nature. In the same vein, the infinite analysis is a way to make a connection between transcendental deduction and transcendental induction, through the identity it makes between the principle of sufficient reason and the principle of contradiction or identity.6 An empirical deduction is normally in the form of “A is B, B is C, then A is C.” A transcendental deduction, which is the point where empirical deduction joins empirical induction, entails, “A is B, B’ is C, then A is C.” In order for the latter to be true, we need to demonstrate that B is B’ and this takes us to another deduction ad infinitum. This is exactly what Carroll recognizes in “What Tortoise Said to Achilles” and discussed in our fifth chapter in comparison with Fregean infinite regress. Everything happens here (as an event), between B and B’, in this synthesis, and it is where exteriority injects itself in the principle of reason and the laws of logic. It is a move from a subjective (or intersubjective) logic (of signification) towards a logic of being (as sense). The infiniteness of the analysis indicates that the analysis which is performed by the side of the experiencer (B) needs to be joined to a direction or reason (sens) by the side of the experienced (B’). This direction is a force in the realm of being which can be joined to deductive reasoning. Sufficient reason is the reason of being, an inductive force that determines infinite deduction. Now, according to Leibniz, God is what provides this inductive force, because it is only in God that knowing and creation join together. God exists at the point of infinite analysis. In Deleuze’s reconstruction, the infinite analysis receives its proper meaning, because here

236 

M. PARSA

God gives its place to a Spinozean nature as the true source of induction. But by the help of Leibniz, Deleuze gives a structural sense to the Spinozean substance. This structuralism, unlike Spinoza’s monism, entails an absolute gap between the realms that ought to be connected, namely the realm of analysis and that of synthesis, and this is why it can be called a transcendental structuralism. In this structuralism the transcendental/ empirical distinction would be the distinction between the structural elements of conjunctive synthesis and the paradoxical element that performs the disjunctive synthesis. The principle of sufficient reason provides this disjunctive synthesis. The problem with Leibniz’s own system is that his divine monad fails to provide the disjunctive synthesis of the system, because it exists only empirically prior to the other monads to be able to create them. This is the same problem that Deleuze finds in Kant where transcendental subject exists only empirically prior to experience and this is why it fails to effectively condition it. But Deleuze thinks he can save Leibniz’s philosophy by taking the structural system as the transcendental. Thus, Deleuze transforms the Spinozean monism into his Leibnizean transcendental structuralism. This transformation is necessary for not confusing the continuum of analyticity and syntheticity through infinite analysis, and his idea of intensity, with a monism (or taking it as a mere continuum). For Deleuze any structuralism necessarily entails a dualism, because it has necessarily a serial form. This dualism is the source of the distinction between conjunctive synthesis (differential relations) and disjunctive synthesis (the paradoxical element). The infinite analysis does not dissolve the difference in nature between the principle of contradiction which applies on the necessary truths of reason and the principle of sufficient reason which applies on the contingent truths of facts (explained for example in paragraph 23 of Monadology) or between the signifying series and signified series. Structuralism is transcendental exactly because of this difference in nature. As Deleuze mentions, Leibniz uses the term force as defining difference in notion against extension which is in appearance and empirical. Deleuze’s intensity is different from extension. He refers at this point again to Leibniz who explains a change in notion without a jump, but through a singular point at the limit where a difference in nature takes place, for example where an ellipse turns to be a parabola (LdS 138–139; LoS 346, note 4 of Sixteenth Series of the Static Ontological Genesis). In the serial form there are ordinary points and singular points. Ordinary points form a continuum and singular points indicate the disjunctions that

9  LOGIC OF EXTERIORITY 

237

render the continuum as series. What is usually considered as infinitesimal difference belongs only to the former. All these structural efforts are in order to introduce a transcendental necessity which is essentially different from analytical necessity as the result of the principle of contradiction, and also different from empirical contingency. Transcendental necessity is identical with transcendental contingency. This identity indicates a point in infinity where the series of necessity and contingency join together, what Deleuze suggests by his Stoic notion of fatality as the identity of necessity and contingency. This identity through the infinite analysis changes radically the problem of grounding or determination in Kant’s transcendental philosophy. Here what conditions the conditioned is not just an empirical being that plays the role of the condition or the transcendental, something like a subject, God or the world, but rather the very contingent coherency of the empirical beings as a structure. And again, in Deleuze’s reading the structure is not a pre-­ established harmony, but furnished by a singularity that intervenes in the relation between each pairs of empirical beings. This is the truth of Deleuze’s rationalism, which deals with the reasons of being and provides an identity of logic and ontology. Trees do things for reasons, in the sense that they make reasons as products in a contingent reasoning. It is only secondarily that we can recognize this reasoning through concepts. Deleuze’s logicism stands against subjectivism and objectivism, and his ontologicism against conceptual logicism. This is his account of the intelligibility of being, which, far from being a conceptual intelligibility, is a result of the thesis of the univocity of being. Being expresses itself in various ways, but these ways do not have to be limited to our subjective conceptual reasoning. Again, it is wrong to say that Deleuze forms a vitalism or a subjectalism when he believes in the intelligibility of being, because as has been seen, the latter has nothing to do with subjective or conceptual intelligibility. Furthermore, Deleuze also holds a position that can be called facticity by trying to explain the genesis of concepts. In this position, a concept is distinguished from being universal and considered the infinite analysis of the particular. Leibniz believes that no two things in the world have the same concept. What defines a concept lays not in how it contains something, but rather, how it represents something. The neighbor monads entail infinitesimal differences and thus have different concepts. But the connection between them makes them represent each other and this is why they form a proposition containing concepts. A universal concept

238 

M. PARSA

takes its form when we stop the infinite analysis in order to have a finite and determinate representation of a monad by its neighbors. This would be a transition from the transcendental to the empirical. Therefore, we think basically in the way a tree thinks, which is to say, we produce reasons contingently. There is no full and complete concept in our thinking, or in other words, no reasoning is in the form of a complete argument. Thinking is that which takes place there, beside trees and galaxies. Concepts really exist, but they are never pure and complete. Thinking is the infinite process of the generation of concepts.

Notes 1. The quote continues: “…its own contingency, and that of its world”. We know that “Iteration, Reiteration, Repetition” is the text of a talk Meillassoux gave on the 20th of April, 2012, in Berlin. In the original talk, this sentence was: “I affirm that the only point of absolute exteriority that thought encounters is that of the radical contingency of our world.” This change from the “contingency of our world” to “its own contingency” is very significant for our purposes. The necessity of contingency entails the contingency of exteriority, but our thought encounters the absolute contingency of exteriority through the contingency of our world, which signifies nothing but Deleuzian transcendental empiricism. The change in the sentence demonstrates that Meillassoux is well aware of the problem and wants to bypass it. 2. Arjen Kleinherenbrink in his Against Continuity: Gilles Deleuze’s Speculative Realism interprets Deleuze’s thought in such manner and defends him against the accusation of being the philosopher of continuous processes. He rightly distinguishes the irreducible discreteness of events, machines or becomings from the conceptual distinction of objects, although he keeps the name object in order to reconcile Deleuze’s thought with the Object Oriented Ontology (Kleinherenbrink, 2019). 3. In this work, Anna Longo writes that Meillassoux’s materialism “assumes to know the inorganic as a dead independent exteriority and thought as a dead axiomatic, but it is not able to understand life. So it is actually the separation between thought, as system of representation, and being, as represented, that Deleuze wants to challenge in order to understand how thought can be forced by real intensities to create new rules, to evolve, to change” (Longo, 2014: 47). Here, we can find in Longo’s emphases Meillassoux’s belief in the purity of thought and its absolute distinction from pre-established pure being which renders it representative.

9  LOGIC OF EXTERIORITY 

239

4. As mentioned, in Time without Becoming Meillassoux charges Deleuze with believing in a monotonous and metaphysical becoming, disregarding the fact that Deleuze’s main referent in Logique du Sens when explaining his idea of becoming is Plato’s (rather than Heraclitus’) wonder regarding the terms less and more, and how they indicate a kind of untotalizability (Meillassoux, 2014: 26). Another referent in Logic of Sense in this regard is Alice’s becoming bigger when she becomes smaller and her becoming smaller when she becomes bigger, which is against the principle of reason as the determination of a direction (cf. LdS 9–10; LoS 1–2). 5. As I mentioned, Brassier in parts of his work seems to hold a transcendental approach, when he claims that the thought of extinction refers to an event which is radically different from ordinary events, a gesture which is absent in After Finitude. 6. The same effort can be found in Peircean idea of “abduction” as the transition from particular to the universal. Brief accounts of this can be found in Vinicius (2017) and Vellordi (2014).

References Brassier, R. (2007). Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction. Palgrave Macmillan. Deleuze, G. (1990). The Logic of Sense (M. Lester, Trans.). The Athlone Press. Deleuze, G. 1990. Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza. Trans. Martin Joughin. New York: Zone Books. Deleuze, G. (1993). The Fold: Leibniz and Baroque (T.  Conle, Trans.). Athlone Press. Deleuze, G. (2001). Pure Immanence: Essays on A Life (A.  Boyman, Trans.). Zone Books. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1983). Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (R. Hurley, M. Seem, & H. R. Lane, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1994). What is Philosophy? (H.  Tomlinson & G. Burchell, Trans.). Columbia University Press. Deleuze, G. (1969). Logiques du Sens. Les Edition de Minuit. Heidegger, M. (2004). Der Begriff der Zeit, Gesamtausgabe 3, Band 64. Herausgegeben von Friedrich-Wilhelm v. Herrmann. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. Kleinherenbrink, A. (2019). Against Continuity: Gilles Deleuze’s Speculative Realism. Edinburgh University Press. Lapoujade, D. 2017. Aberrant Movements: The Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze. South Pasadena: Semiotext(e). Lautman, A. (2011). Mathematics, Ideas and the Physical Real (S.  B. Duffy, Trans.). Continuum.

240 

M. PARSA

Longo, A. (2014). The Contingent Emergence of Thought. In Q. Meillassoux & A. Longo (Eds.), Time without Becoming (pp. 31–50). Mimesis International. Malabou, C. (2014). Can We Relinquish the Transcendental? The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 28(3), 242–255. Special Issue with the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy. Meillassoux, Q. (2008). After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency (R. Brassier, Trans.). Continuum. Meillassoux, Q. (2014). Time without Becoming (A.  Longo, Ed.). Mimesis International. Meillassoux, Q. (2016). Iteration, Reiteration, Repetition: A Speculative Analysis of the Sign Devoid of Meaning. In S. Malik & A. Avanessian (Eds.), Genealogies of Speculation: Materialism and Subjectivity Since Structuralism (pp. 117–198). Bloomsbury Academic. Vellordi, K. (2014). Diagrammatic Thought: Two Forms of Constructivism in C.S. Peirce and Gilles Deleuze. Parrhesia, 19, 79–95. Vinicius, J. d. A. (2017). Diagrams and Art: Some Thought Based on Peirce and Deleuze. Kínesis, IX(20), 304–320.

CHAPTER 10

Dynamic Genesis and Psychoanalysis

Up until now, Deleuze has been described as a transcendental philosopher who, despite constantly criticizing the philosophers of the transcendental tradition, never ceases to tackle the problem of the transcendental, which is to say, the conditions of experience. Therefore, he introduces his own version of the transcendental philosophy which underlies the materialization of the transcendental and deserves to be called transcendental materialism. But at the same time, a tendency is visible throughout Logic of Sense to abandon the language of transcendental philosophy, a tendency that remained with him for his entire career (although he preserves a dialectical correspondence with the philosophical language of transcendentalism, even in Anti-Oedipus which is usually considered a departure from transcendental philosophy).1 His blatant preference of Antonin Artaud over Lewis Carroll or the generous praise he gives to pre-Socratic philosophers despite of spending a large part of Logic of Sense to the Stoics are examples of such a tendency. But at the end of the book, this tendency finds an extensive and systematic elaboration, when he turns towards psychoanalysis. This chapter aims to give a reading of this part in view of what we already discussed up until now.

From Logic to Psychoanalysis The identity of logic and ontology in the notion of sense, or the introduction of the contingent reasons of being instead of the necessary reasons of knowledge, takes us to what is called by Deleuze dynamic genesis which is © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Parsa, A Reading of Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13706-8_10

241

242 

M. PARSA

the material process of abstraction or making sense. This process is explained through the last series of Logic of Sense (from Twenty-Seventh Series of Orality to Thirty-Second Series on the Different Kinds of Series) mostly in a psychoanalytic language. Deleuze uses this psychoanalytic language to explain the dynamic genesis of sense because psychoanalysis provides us with an example of the most contingent or most materialist account of the production of sense in human life. Psychoanalysis is of course a practice, but it is also a science, although it is a science that is as minimally conceptual as it is possible to be. Thus, one can claim that psychoanalysis begins at the point where transcendental philosophy ends, namely the materialization of the transcendental, which underlies a transition from consciousness to unconscious. In this regard, psychoanalysis marks a sphere in which unconscious introduces itself as the material genesis of consciousness. Psychoanalysis brings the development of thought to the scene and provides a genetic image of thought. In psychoanalysis thoughts are not initially concepts in mind but senses and emotions. But, it worth noting from the beginning that, as Joe Hughes mentions, what Deleuze pursues here is a “transcendental” psychoanalysis, and not an empirical one (Hughes, 2008: 45). Or to put it differently, as Guillaume Collett claims, Deleuze’s “psychoanalysis of sense” is “ontological and not merely psychological” (Collett, 2016: 3). This is to say that psychoanalysis here keeps a permanent contact with an ontological and philosophical terminology. But before getting into the psychoanalytic details we should notice how the so-called dynamic genesis forms an onto-logic, or a dialectic. Dynamic genesis embodies a contingent logic the possibility of which was discussed in previous chapters. This is a logic and at the same time a material process. Deleuze explicates this logic by introducing different kinds of series and the relation between them. The first is connective series, the elements of which are analytically connected together in a connective synthesis. The second is conjunctive series which is composed of heterogeneous yet convergent series and makes possible conjunctive synthesis. And the third is disjunctive series which is composed of divergent series and makes possible the disjunctive synthesis of these series.2 This dynamic structure of the series indicates not only a transition from analysis towards synthesis and the generation of disjunctive synthesis out of connective and analytic matter, but also indicates a movement of an immanent abstraction from connection towards resonance or communication between divergent series. Dynamic genesis entails the real production of the transcendental surface

10  DYNAMIC GENESIS AND PSYCHOANALYSIS 

243

out of the physical depth. This production takes place in a logical or dialectical form, a dialectics which is contingent and this contingency would be enough to render the production real.3 This triple structure is the core of dynamic genesis and corresponds with another triad explained throughout Logic of Sense, namely that of depth, surface and height. In light of this correspondence, one would conclude that depth contains homogenous and connective series harboring intensive or potential differences which in their turn render it metastable and prone to produce the surfaces of heterogeneous series. The production of surface out of depth indicates a non-successful (failed) sublimation or abstraction, where the subsistence of surface keeps a connection with the material depth. But surface through its own aufhebung generates thought in what can be called a successful sublimation or abstraction. Therefore, there is a physical surface and a metaphysical surface, and each indicates a phase of dynamic genesis. The aim of the entire process is the production of real communication or resonance between the divergent series without any direct reliance on the material ground or depth, that is to say, the production of thought. Thus, it is wrong to reduce Deleuze’s notion of difference to connective difference because dynamic genesis explains the move from the physical and connective difference to the abstract difference or difference in kind (embodied in the difference between not only heterogeneous but also divergent series). What makes possible immanently is what distinguishes, or what makes a distinction, and the immanent process of distinction in the dynamic structure explained above entails a dialectic of the empirical and the transcendental. What produces distinction in the connective depth is the conjunctive synthesis of surface which is in its turn produced by the disjunctive synthesis of thought. Therefore, the physical surface plays the role of the transcendental for the empirical depth and metaphysical surface (thought) for the empirical aspect of the physical surface. In this way, in both cases, what is expressed (sense) is distinct from the expression (the conditioned) and connected to it (subsists in it). Therefore, the expressed (surface) makes possible the expression (the production of surface) and plays the role of the transcendental. This is the strange result of rendering transcendentalism immanent. The same relation holds between static genesis and dynamic genesis. Undifferentiated depth produces differentiated surface, but the result (the surface) defines how the depth will be differentiated. The laws of differentiation are the results of the process of differentiation.

244 

M. PARSA

This is another aspect of the immanence of the genesis, in which there is no pre-established pattern to govern the process. In the case of our human life, the production of abstract surface is instantiated in the liberation of language out of body. Human thought is possible only through the independence of language from body. Hence, the main problem of dynamic genesis for Deleuze is the immanent genesis of language. He defines the main task of dynamic genesis as: to retrace the history which liberates sounds and makes them independent of bodies. It is no longer a question of static genesis which would lead from the presupposed event to its actualization in states of affairs and to its expression in propositions. It is a question of a dynamic genesis which leads directly from states of affairs to events, from mixtures to pure lines, from depth to the production of surfaces, which must not implicate at all the other genesis. (LdS 217; LoS 186)

Static genesis is a structural analysis that leads to the genesis of sense. Dynamic genesis pursues the story (or the history) of this genesis and therefore unveils the synthesis of that structural analysis. Consequently, from a dynamic point of view, a synthetic logic would be historical or in the form of a story or a novel. The fact that dynamic genesis does not entail static genesis introduces the notion of contingency. No analysis helps us to trace the story of the genetic evolution of sense, and it is in this sense that Deleuze’s philosophy is an empiricism (or better, experimentalism4). Logic as history entails pursuing the dialectical phases, but it is an inductive, an Odyssean dialectic, whose laws appear through occurrences. From the point of view of static genesis, we grasp the genesis only through the notion of subsistence which shows us the connection within the separation. Static genesis is about the quasi-causality of effects and how what is separated determines the separation structurally. It leads us to the idea of genesis through introducing the idea of the distinction between a quality, which belongs to a body, and an attribute which subsists in a body, but is not its continuation, and therefore entails an immanent separation. But the connoted idea of genesis in static genesis is not the genesis itself. It is dynamic genesis that directly deals with genesis through retracing a history instead of a structural analysis of what is already separated. Hegel rightly discovered that a true synthetic logic is in the form of a history. This history can be the story of how language separates itself from the noises or cries as qualities in the body of a newborn child and then becomes

10  DYNAMIC GENESIS AND PSYCHOANALYSIS 

245

capable of denoting bodies and producing objects, or manifesting bodies and producing subjects, or signifying subjects or predicates and producing concepts. The structured language capable of tertiary arrangement of denotation, manifestation and signification is a result of a process of separation from body and noises and cries as its qualities. This process is tractable through how surface separates itself from depth. As Deleuze mentions, “the depth-surface distinction is, in every respect, primary in relation to the distinctions nature-convention, nature-custom, or nature-­ artifice” (LdS 217–218; LoS 187). This is a good demonstration of how Deleuze is a materialist in giving priority to the material language of depth/surface over the philosophical language of nature/culture. And this very point justifies the use of psychoanalytic language in explaining the dynamic genesis of sense. By using philosophical language, you have to begin with the established structures and search for their genetic conditions (transcendental philosophy). But if you want to deal directly with the genesis of sense, you have to abandon philosophical language and go for a more materialistic one, namely the language of psychoanalysis. And Deleuze in the last part of Logic of Sense really abandons the language of transcendental philosophy (his transcendental empiricism) and gets ready to begin a relatively more materialistic philosophical endeavor in his later works, specifically his works with Felix Guattari.

Positions Dynamic genesis is the history of separations and hence begins from the point where there is no separation. This departure point is called depth which is a mixture without any dichotomy. In Twenty-Seventh Series of Orality, Deleuze deals with this notion of depth in reference to Melanie Klein’s psychoanalysis of newborn child in the first year of its life, in a dialectical fashion (in the sense explained above). It contains three positions (instead of theses). The first position is called by Klein “paranoid-schizoid position” which is a state where the body of infant forms a mixture in itself and with the body of the mother. This mixture contains partial objects, all in connection with each other, with no full separation. It includes the partial objects of the body of the child and also the exterior partial objects, for example the breast or the hands of the mother. In this phase there is no separation between inside and outside. But the mixture of course contains intensities and potential differences, and therefore is capable of producing new objects, which is why Deleuze calls it simulacrum. There are violent

246 

M. PARSA

forces in the mixture that make it possible to form new partial separations and connections. For example, the child eats the external partial objects and produce new ones. This eating can include any absorption of different kinds of stimuli which vary in intensity. Klein explains the activities of the child in its paranoid-schizoid position through the terms “introjection” and “projection.” The depth contains the interactions between partial objects, the objects which are not fully separated from the other objects. The first separation begins to take shape when some interactions become introjection and some others become projection. This position can be called oral-anal, because the body which is itself a partial object in the whole eats the other partial objects and makes a selection between them, by introjecting some and projecting the others. We can call the first absorption and the second excretion. This is the source of the first division in depth and through this Klein makes a distinction between good and bad partial objects. For Klein, the good partial objects can be introjected, while the bad partial objects must be projected. But Deleuze reformulates the Kleinian picture by saying that partial objects are all at first bad because they are partial: “every piece is bad in principle … only what is wholesome and complete is good” (LdS 219; LoS 188). Introjection and projection are both violent; introjection is not more peaceful than projection. Therefore, according to Deleuze, the first distinction is shaped, not in Klein’s terms between the good and bad partial objects, but rather between bad partial objects and “an organization without parts” or “body without organs.” It is a distinction between a hollow depth or a mixture in which the solid pieces collude and harm each other and a full depth or a liquid mixture which provides rather a pleasant image. The mechanisms of introjection and projection, explained by Klein and refined by Deleuze, demonstrate the existence of a psychic life in newborn child, in the absence of fully-formed psychic structures. This psychic life is fueled by the basic violent death drives or impulses or actions and passions in depth. But in Deleuze’s reading, these mechanisms result in a kind of unity of the body which is called the body without organs. This is a transition from the depth as mixture to the depth as a liquid whole. This is the first step of the dynamic synthesis which marks a corporeal dialectic. As Aaron Schuster in his The Trouble with Pleasure: Deleuze and Psychoanalysis writes, “the body without organs is the name of the primordial synthesis that the body performs upon itself; or rather, it is the first synthesis to

10  DYNAMIC GENESIS AND PSYCHOANALYSIS 

247

which the fragmented body is submitted, and through which a kind of unity (a rather bizarre one) is created” (Schuster, 2016: 77). The body without organs is a primitive corporeal ego and marks a primary narcissism. Schuster reads the Deleuzian distinction between partial objects and the complete body without organs in terms of the Freudian distinction between id and ego: “The polarity of the depths thus contains within itself an archaic version of the tension between id and ego, where the tearing and cutting of the aggressive impulses are opposed by their liquefaction into a vapid corporeal oneness, a strange kind of id-ego” (Schuster, 2016: 77). The ego of the depth or corporeal ego is a schizoid ego whose unity is completely corporeal and liquid. Klein calls the second position the “depressive position” or the “manic-­ depressive position” which underlies the complete external good objects. This is when the Other’s voice from the height is encountered and is considered as a good and complete object, a superego in Freudian vocabulary. In this position, the child strives to identify with this complete object and to receive identity. The difference between this identity and the schizoid unity is that in this case the externality of the good and complete object renders it inaccessible and this engenders depression. Here, unlike the schizoid position, the unity appears as a lack, in the form of an image, or in terms of “idols” and not simulacra. In order to move to this second position, a dialectical transition is needed, a transition through which the depth as whole is transported to the complete and good objects of height. On the other hand, the image of a whole cannot take form in the mixture if a good object does not apply its image on it from the height. In other words, the depressive position is about the formation of ego as an image in identification with superego. In this way, the formation of the first distinction in the first position actualizes itself as the distinction between the first and the second positions. The good object is in fact the synthesis of the two schizoid poles: “that of partial objects from which it extracts its force and that of body without organs from which it extracts its form, that is its completeness and integrity” (LdS 221; LoS 190). As a result of this synthesis, there will be a full separation between an integrated ego and the complete objects of height. It is a move from partial objects of the schizoid position to complete objects of the depressive position, from connection and mixture to separation and hierarchy. In this way, the connective series of depth bifurcates into two conjunctive series which are from different kinds, or in other words, have different values, which is to say, they form a hierarchy.

248 

M. PARSA

The schizoid position indicates the material state where partial objects are in causal relation with each other, that is to say, where there is only actions and passions of bodies. Regarding Deleuze’s explanation of the images of philosophers, schizoid position is exemplified by Pre-Socratic philosophers who are the philosophers of depth and dark matter. The manic-depressive position is instead exemplified in Platonic philosophy, or the philosophy of height and good or complete objects (ideas). Like Platonic ideas, the good object applies its power while withdrawing. In fact, it is always a lost object that renders frustration in the child. It is exactly by being lost that the good object gains its goodness and completeness. This is why this goodness and completeness has to be imaginary. Through the frustration caused by the absence of good object, the introjection-­ projection or action-passion, which is always violent and aggressive, gives its place to a new relation, namely love and hatred, which defines the formation of ego in relation to superego, and instead of violence, produces, in Deleuze’s Artaudean terminology, cruelty. In this vein, Deleuze argues that, the difference between Masochism and Sadism is not that in the former the subject likes to undergo suffering while in the latter it likes to confer it, but that the former belongs to the depressive position while the latter belongs to the schizoid position. One applies cruelty while the other applies violence. Masochism can be defined through identification with the cruelty of the good object (how it always withdraws), and Sadism through the projection (and also introjection) of aggressiveness (LdS 224; LoS 193). The dialectic of depth and height indicates the first step of the dynamic genesis of language. The depth or the body of newborn child as a mixture is clamorous, that is to say, it harbors noises. The good object of the depressive position extracts a voice out of these noises. Or from the other point of view, the Other applies its voice upon the noises. The completeness of the good objects of height denotes a pre-established and organized language with which the parents speak with the child. The child does not understand the voice, but receives its power from above. This power becomes knowledge through a process in which the child grasps the denotation without knowing to what the voice denotes, and the signification without knowing to what it signifies, and the same for the manifestation. It is through the power of denotation and the hierarchy of the voice that one begins to know what is denoted, etc. It is like when we hear the voice of someone who calls us to awaken us. In this case, there would be a transition from noise to voice. In Deleuze’s beautiful expression, “we are

10  DYNAMIC GENESIS AND PSYCHOANALYSIS 

249

schizophrenic while sleeping, but manic-depressive when nearing the point of awakening” (LdS 226; LoS 194). We form a mixture with the noises of outside when sleeping (we take the voices too as noises), but nearing the point of awakening the voices of outside transform our sleeping state brutally, that is to say, we receive their power and begin to understand it. Brutality is always needed if we want to awaken someone. Through a similar process, the good object which is signified by a voice from the height or superego provides the source of identification which leads to the formation of the imaginary ego in the child. Good and bad objects are first and foremost good and bad mixtures, or in other words, a mixture that forms a whole and a mixture that remains partial and demands more introjection and projection (simulacrum). But the whole cannot take shape without the external application of an image or a voice from the height. This is similar to what Lacan explains as gaining identity by identification with the other in mirror stage, forming the imaginary order. The good object is the lost object that applies its image to produce an integrated ego which has therefore an imaginary essence. The third position is sexual position and is discussed in Twenty-Eighth Series of Sexuality. The dialectic of partial objects of depth and complete objects of height results in a topological differentiation on the surface of body, which is to say, the physical surface. At this point, Deleuze introduces the idea of different zones which are territories and sources for the activities that invest these territories. The superficial zones define the sexual-­perverse position as the synthesis of depth and height. Sexuality is depended to erogenous zones which are territories around orifices. These orifices constitute singularities that produce surface around themselves, a surface which is “prolonged in all directions up to the vicinity of another zone depending on another singularity” (LdS 229; LoS 197). In this regard, our skin is all and all sexual, more sexual around erogenous orifices, and less sexual in the areas far from them. The first step of the formation of surface is the formation of partial surfaces or zones as the result of the interaction between depth and height. This would be a move from the destructive death drives of depth to the constructive drives of sexuality or through the mediation of the self-­ preservation drive of the manic-depressive position. Sexual constructive drives are in fact the destructive drives seen from a point of view of height, and therefore it is the productivity of death that forms the positive libidinal drives of sexuality. In this manner, destruction is not that of a fully-­ formed object, but is an original force that needs to be seen from above,

250 

M. PARSA

from the point of view of cosmos, in order to find a direction. The emergence of the physical surface of sexuality is the result of this transition from the destructive drives of depth to the libido or life drive through the mediation of height. The productivity of death, discussed in previous chapter, can find an explanation in this emergence. Hence, the differentiation of body without organs into the zones (and the formation of the surface of the body) is at the same time the process of directing the profound interactions of the mixture into drives. In the manic-depressive position, the body is a whole body, or a body without organs, in which the destructive drives of the schizoid position are substituted with the self-preservation drive. A differentiation emerges in this body without organs which is that of sexuality and leads to the formation of surface. Therefore, the oral drives, anal drive, etc. become differentiated together with different zones related to them. This process entails a horizontal movement which is explained by the psychoanalytic term of perversion and stands against the vertical movements of conversion (depressive ascent) and subversion (schizophrenic fall). Perversion is the movement of sexuality and defines the formation of surface. It is of course a constructive and original movement, the result of the interaction between depth and height, which becomes autonomous and independent from the objects of satisfaction. This is what can be called the liberation of the physical surface. But the pervert aspect of sexuality always reminds us the blindness of its libido in so far as it is emerged from the destructive drives (or rather, it is a destructive drive seen from the height). This aspect of sexuality is crucial to explain how it signifies an original perversion that defines the cultural development of life in general. Sexual perversion is the productivity of surface, which stands against the conservative attitude of manic-depressive position that tends to preserve the unity of the body without organs. Sexuality as synthesis harbors its own dialectical development, namely that of pre-genital and genital sexuality which sublates into oedipal sexuality. This dialectic begins with the connective synthesis of pre-genital sexuality which entails the first formation of zones, and leads to a conjunctive synthesis or the convergence of the series of each zone towards one of them, namely the imaginary penis (or imaginary phallus). And finally, it concludes as a disjunctive synthesis in oedipal sexuality based on phallus as the element of castration and divergence (symbolic phallus). Pre-genital sexuality can be defined by what Deleuze calls autoerotism, which is the result of the differentiation between zones and the formation

10  DYNAMIC GENESIS AND PSYCHOANALYSIS 

251

of surface. The random interactions in the mixture, harboring destructive drives, find repetitive rhythms related to each zone. Repetition is the characteristic of pre-genital sexuality, but is also what it has in common with genital sexuality, which is now a zone beside the others, before gaining its primacy. This repetition is what Deleuze considers the autoerotism of pre-­ genital sexuality, which points to the imaginary objects, instead of real objects, that make repetition possible. Autoerotism is the result of the liberation of sexual drives from the self-preservation drive, and also from the destructive drives of the schizoid position, each of them are depended to real objects; the partial objects of depth in the case of schizoid position, and the ideal objects of satisfaction in the case of manic-depressive position. The object has to be imaginary in the case of sexual-pervert position. The autoerotism triggered by this imaginary object helps the independence of zones and makes them to stand beside each other, forming a Harlequin’s cloak in which “each erogenous zone is the dynamic formation of a surface space around a singularity constituted by the orifice. It is able to be prolonged in all directions up to the vicinity of another zone depending on another singularity” (LdS 229; LoS 197). Pre-genital sexuality is like the monophonic music of early Baroque time whose development is triggered by connective synthesis of neighbor mosaics. Now, the connective relations between the zones (what Deleuze calls “contiguity”) becomes possible when each zone can provide an image for the repetitive drive of another zone. At the limit, this process leads to an integration of different zones around a universal image that is provided by phallus, a term Deleuze borrows from Lacan. The role of phallus as an image is giving privilege to one of the zones in the game of sexuality, namely the genital zone (and of course this privilege is contingent, and could be given to other zones to form oral or anal sexuality, for example).5 The phallus is nothing but the image of the good ideal penis. Therefore, the penis of depths which is itself fragmented, and harbors aggression, receives integrity and peace from the image of the penis of heights which is idolized in itself and applies cruelty. The result would be a peace as the synthesis of violence and cruelty. But this peace is not graspable without the mediation of an image, which is phallus, and this is why, as will be seen, there is no perpetual peace. The imaginary aspect denotes that the aggressive forces are always at work in the peaceful genital sexuality and the existence of love-objects. But by the way, the phallus as image converges the drives of different zones and unifies the surface. And convergence is always towards an image. This is the birth of a narcissistic ego and the

252 

M. PARSA

imaginary unification of surface. Ego is nothing but any sense of the unification of the system, and its first appearance is in the formation of body without organs. But it is the imaginary and narcissistic ego that is the subject matter of the vulgar psychology and cultural symptoms. Therefore, there is a “primary narcissism” of body without organs, exemplified in the figure of Humpty Dumpty, very different from the “secondary narcissism” of sexual-pervert position that can be found everywhere in our sexual societies (LdS 237; LoS 203). And in between, there are small egos of the pre-genital sexuality, as the result of the auto-eroticism of partial surfaces and small images for partial masturbations. The third step of the dialectic of sexuality takes place through the so-­ called Oedipus complex, or the experience of castration, and is explained by Deleuze in an independent series with the title of “Good Intentions Are Inevitably Punished.” “The good intentions” signifies the peaceful aspect of genital sexuality engendered by the phallus as image. Here, the centralized drives around an image take the form of “intention” that belongs only to a narcissistic ego. The third step begins with the castration of the phallus as image through the intervention of the penis of the depths and the penis of the heights which work beneath the image and respectively castrate and frustrate the genital peaceful intentions. It begins only because the first step is involved in the second. Here, Deleuze beautifully reminds us that the “constitution of surface is the most innocent, but innocent does not signify without perversity” (LdS 237; LoS 203). The peacefulness of the genital sexuality tends to hide the pervert nature of sexuality, what returns back into the scene in the Oedipus complex. The imaginary nature of the integration of all zones under a unified surface entails an imaginary unification of penis and breast, the father and the mother. The oedipal sexuality emerges through the differentiation of the father and the mother. The first appearance of the distinction is still based on an imaginary unification in which the ego peacefully wants to repair the body of the mother and to bring about the return of the withdrawn father. But this peaceful identification fails and the distinction turns to a gulf, a dualism, between the forces. The emergence of ego-surface in the sexual-pervert position entails the formation of the unified good intention. But the surface is imaginary and therefore the good intention has to confront its unfortunate destiny and a bad punishment. Deleuze explains this by a reference to the figures of Oedipus and Hercules in Greek tragedies, how they both have peaceful and good intentions and end up with a bad punishment (Oedipus blinds himself, and Hercules burns himself in

10  DYNAMIC GENESIS AND PSYCHOANALYSIS 

253

a funeral pyre, after the destruction of his skin by a tunic covered in his lover’s poisonous blood). This would be the defeat of narcissism and the emergence of the metaphysical surface. The formation of the narcissistic ego and the imaginary unification of the partial surfaces or zones under the surface of the body is a defense mechanism that takes place in order to protect the body. As mentioned, it is the synthesis of the body without organs as an inorganic unity and the pre-genital sexuality or the contiguity of partial surfaces or zones that form organs through the autoerotism. The result is an organized body which needs to be protected against both the destructive drives of the depth and the overstimulation from the outside. Deleuze also explains the emergence of a total surface by reference to the biological notion of membrane from the works of Gilbert Simondon. But he transforms this biological language into a psychoanalytical language (thus the protective membrane becomes the narcissistic surface-ego) in order to facilitate the explanation of the emergence of the metaphysical surface. The organic unity of a sexual organism is very different from the unity of the body without organs, for the latter has to sit down stationary (on a wall, in the case of Humpty-Dumpty), while the former can move and walk. This is why a body without organs does not need that protection and an organism needs it. Thus, the sexual organism gains the capability to distinguish different organisms, and this capability begins with the ability to distinguish the father and the mother as different sexes. The narcissistic ego now finds the father and the mother as incomplete and lacking (the mother lacks penis and the father has retreated) and feels the power in itself to repair and restore them. The good intention of the narcissistic ego is in this will to repair the mother and restore the father. But since the intention is narcissistic and the unity of the surface-ego is imaginary this intention fails. The narcissistic ego is a tragic hero, full of good intentions. But something is drastically wrong with it. The problem with a good intention is not that it is good, but that it is an intention, which is to say, a projected image. And this is why it is fragile, like all surfaces. It protects itself from the projection of the image of phallus. Castration cuts the phallus off and tears the surface apart. Castration is the destruction of the good intention in confrontation with the tragic fate and the eventual breaking down of the narcissistic fragile surface, exemplified in Hercules’ fate of seeing his skin burns by the poisonous tonic. In Deleuze’s account, it is not only the Oedipus complex that explains the nature of castration through the eventuality of killing the

254 

M. PARSA

father, but also the Hercules complex that explains the nature of castration even better through the experience of losing the imaginary unification of the physical surface. As has been said, the imminent destiny of the narcissistic ego, or the tragic hero, is because of the imaginary nature of the physical surface. In this phase, the coordination of surface is threatened, not only by the destructive forces of the depth, but also by the forces from the height, or superego.6 This destiny is the result of the ultimate distinction between intention and height in this new sense, which is exterior reality. Now that the fragile surface separated the inside and the outside, the latter threatens the former and finally destroys the surface. This leads to the dissipation of the surface and opening a deep Spaltung in it that tears the imaginary good intention apart and destines the fate of the tragic heroes (which are truly one-day heroes!). This is the breakdown of the coordination of the physical surface which can never be unified without an image, and now the image is castrated. This breaking down is nothing but the birth of a different surface, a metaphysical or a transcendental one (or even a “cerebral” surface) which takes form together with the dissipation of narcissism. This would be the openness of an organism that has lost its imaginary physical surface towards the other organisms in a communicational manner. In Deleuze’s account, the main force that triggers the transition from the physical surface into the metaphysical surface arises from the distinction between an intended action and an accomplished action. The imaginary nature of genital sexuality issues from the ignorance of this distinction or gap. This is why the ego denies the consequences of its action. This denial triggers the first separation of metaphysical surface from the physical surface and the liberation of thought. The first appearance of thought is in the form of “that’s not what I wanted…” (LdS 242; LoS 208). It liberates itself from the good intention. But this denial of responsibility fails and the ego has to confront with the consequence of its action. This would be a confrontation with an event. Thought is the effort to justify the event, an always already failed effort. Therefore, a thought always contains a gap, a chasm that renders it as an image very different from the imaginary phallus in genital sexuality. The sublation from sexuality through castration defines a new form of image which can be called phantasm. The nature of genital image is convergence towards phallus. The intrinsic chasm of oedipal sexuality introduces this new image that covers the divergence of sexual series and defines

10  DYNAMIC GENESIS AND PSYCHOANALYSIS 

255

phantasm. Therefore, the three phases of sexuality correspond with three kinds of images, namely the connective image of pre-genital sexuality, the conjunctive image of the genital sexuality, and the disjunctive image of oedipal sexuality, and the latter sublates the sexuality itself and triggers the transition from the entire surface of sexuality into a difference kind of surface, namely the metaphysical one.7 This is a process which is called by Deleuze “desexualization” and is the liberation of the metaphysical surface or the surface of pure thought from the physical or sexual surface. It is on the metaphysical surface that the intention and will is transformed into the event, pure event, through the mediation of eventual catastrophic destiny of physical surface. This is a transmutation of the will into the “failure of the will” and the “inclination for death.” The transition from the good intention of ego to the eventual event (the punishment) is the same as the transition from physical imagination into the metaphysical thought. This brings us outside of the realm of sexuality through the movement of desexualization. This desexualization defines what Freud calls death instinct which is different from the death drives of the schizoid position. It is an abstraction from the life drives of sexuality or libido towards a kind of death which is purely metaphysical or speculative (the event of events). Deleuze defines two aspects for this movement, namely “sublimation” and “symbolization” (LdS 243; LoS 208) as two ways of speculative killing and castrating. Sublimation is the projection of body on the metaphysical surface, while symbolization is the ability of body to justify the events through the production of symbols. This is the first emergence of the incorporeal and the superficial event, in the sense which has been discussed in the first parts of Logic of Sense and our first chapters. Therefore, the productivity of the speculative death (which is different from the productivity of physical death) would be that of event, an evental productivity. In this regard, phantasm as the disjunction and divergence is in fact Aion or the pure form of time, or in other words, the transcendental and irreducible difference. The nature of phantasm and thought will be discussed in the next part of this chapter. But for now, we should notice that the formation of the metaphysical surface through desexualization is discursive and communicational. As has been seen, in the genital sexuality, which is extremely narcissistic and imaginary (under the control of the phallus as image) the ego takes the others as sexual objects (the others are at the beginning of the dynamic genesis nothing but food. Afterwards they become idols, before the emergence of the sexual surface). Desexualization is the first move to consider the others as

256 

M. PARSA

subjects. This can be said about both the development of a child and also that of a primitive culture, where one can find a transition from taking the other as food (cannibalism) towards taking it as sexual object (alliances and filiations) and finally as subject (moralism). Desexualization marks not only the emergence of thought, but also that of morality. Let us summarize the entire picture before moving to the next section. It is through the genital sexuality that the complete surface of body takes form. In the pre-genital sexuality, the synthesis is connective and the partial surfaces stand beside each other like a Harlequin’s cloak. But through genital sexuality the synthesis is conjunctive, which is to say, it does not simply put the pieces beside each other but merges them in one complete surface. What performs the conjunctive synthesis is the phallus. As Deleuze mentions, The phallus should not penetrate, but rather, like a plowshare applied to the thin fertile layer of earth, it should trace a line at the surface. This line, emanating from the genital zone, is the line which ties together all the erogenous zones, thus ensuring their connection or “interfacing” (doublure), and bringing all the partial surfaces together into one and the same surface on the body of the child. (LdS 235; LoS 201)

That which penetrates belongs to the depth. The phallus is structural and symbolic, in the sense explained in “How Do We Recognize Structuralism?” If we take a conjunctive synthesis as the true synthesis (in the sense Kant and Hegel use the term), the third synthesis can be called a failed synthesis, because it does not result in a conjunction, that is to say, a synthesis. This failure underlies the transition from the physical surface to the metaphysical surface. This transition demands an abstraction from the body which initiates through the oedipal sexuality. The so-called failure brings forward a gap between the intention and the accomplishment. As the result of this gap, the unity (the conventional meaning of synthesis) is intended but is not reached, and this is nothing but the idea of the univocity. This failed synthesis marks the aim of the entire process: the affirmation of divergence without reducing it into convergence, or to make the divergent series to communicate. Since the failed synthesis is the result of the absence of the phallus as the agent of the successful synthesis of the physical surface and genital sexuality, Deleuze refers to it through castration. It marks the empty square or the blind spot which makes the structure to circulate. This is why

10  DYNAMIC GENESIS AND PSYCHOANALYSIS 

257

castration not only results in sublimation but also symbolization. The empty square (or the fact of castration) necessitates a permanent excess or a remainder which always transgress the recognition. It marks the thought of that which cannot be thought (recognized).

Phantasm and Thought Static genesis explains how thought is connected with body, while dynamic genesis focuses on how thought separates and liberates itself from body. In the Thirties Series of Phantasm and the Thirty First Series of Thought, there are phrases and expressions very similar to those appear in the first series of Logic of Sense regarding the nature of events and sense. After a long psychoanalytic journey (starting from Twenty-Seventh Series of Orality), Deleuze begins again to talk about event, effect, sense, propositions, verb, problematic, neutrality and quasi-causality. But this repetition is in fact a collusion, an encounter. At this point, we can get into the main elements of the formation of the metaphysical surface respectively, namely phantasm and thought. According to Deleuze, phantasm represents the pure event. Therefore, the liberation of phantasm would explain also the liberation of event or effect from its causes. This liberation is possible by what we discussed in the context of static genesis in our fourth chapter, namely quasi-causality. Indeed, the formation of phantasm is submitted to a double causality, which is to say, its being the effect of the physical surface of sexuality, and its independence from it through the quasi-causality of effects. Hence, sexual libido (physical surface) as a cause generates effects through the experience of castration, and the quasi-causality of the effects or events produces the pure event which is represented by phantasm. Oedipus is what with the help of which the event disengages itself from its cause in the depth. But there is a need for a post-oedipal phase in order for the event or effect to be independent and pure. This post-oedipal phase is called desexualization. As we have seen, three phases of sexuality correspond with three kinds of series: connective, conjunctive and disjunctive. The disjunctive series of the genital sexuality, or Oedipus, entails a resonance, a forced movement (the movement of desexualization), which begins the extraction of phantasm. What originates directly from corporeal interactions forms the physical surface. Phantasm receives its independence through the way pure event separates itself from the events of physical surface (or sexual drives).

258 

M. PARSA

Desexualization, as the forced neutralization of sexual forces, takes place at this point, between events and phantasm as pure event. Therefore, phantasm would be purely incorporeal and independent from the physical surface and absolutely desexualized. It harbors an energy which is absolutely unsexual, or speculative, or in Deleuze’s terms, a “neutral energy” (LdS 249; LoS 213). This neutralization is only possible through the quasi-causality of the effects of those causal and sexual forces. It is the body that produces phantasm through its dialectics, but the latter liberates itself fully from the corporeal elements by the so-called quasi-causality of effects. Hence, the idea of double causality as indicating the production of phantasm out of the corporeal causality and its independence from it. Therefore, according to Deleuze, phantasm is a “noematic attribute” which signifies that it is an effect (attribute), but an ideal and pure effect. This is the same as the difference between properties which are attached to bodies and attributes or events which are ideal or noematic and happen to bodies. For example, the images which are at work on the physical surface can be considered as the properties of the body or the effects of physical causes and phantasm as pure event would be distinct from them, and this is why we insisted that phantasm is not an image in that sense. This distinction can also be explained as the difference between adjectives and verbs. An adjective like “green” is not itself a thing, but is dependent on it. But the verb “to green” (verdoyer) is not dependent on the existence of a green thing (that is, one of the moments in the process of becoming green). It represents not a thing, but an event. Now, Deleuze focuses on the verbal nature of phantasms, referring to Freud’s consideration of them as “verbal images” (LdS 250; LoS 214). As verbal images, they are the mediations between the visual images which are dependent on the physical body and language which enjoys a full abstraction. Through the superficiality of the event, Deleuze concludes that phantasm is neither internal nor external. It is important to insist that phantasms are not internal images. On the other hand, they are not external objects. This is why, Deleuze refers to Freud’s claim in his analysis of the case of the Wolf Man that phantasms are produced by reality. They are not subjective products. Deleuze explains the verbal nature of phantasm through the way it narrates a story. It is verbal in telling a story and the story is an idea that can be actualized. Therefore, phantasm is distinct from its causes as well as its actualizations. Whereas the physical surface is constructed by an image of a physical object (phallus as the image of penis), phantasm receives its

10  DYNAMIC GENESIS AND PSYCHOANALYSIS 

259

abstraction, not directly from a physical cause, but rather through a reciprocal communication among effects. Therefore, as has been emphasized, phantasm is not in the form of an image, but rather a narration (composed of the communication of the series of events on the metaphysical surface) which can generate logical entities. It is not of course a linear narration. As composed of ideational attributes or effects, it is different from imaginary effects which are capable of a linear narrative. What is more, the difference between an idea and an image is in the capability of the former to actualize a concept.8 The verbal nature of phantasm (the fact that it is in form of a narration constituted from the horizontal communication between the series of effects or events) results in a crucial difference between physical surface and metaphysical surface, where the former is formed around a central image while the latter lacks such a center. This can be considered as the dissipation of ego. Deleuze stresses that phantasm is subjectless. In other words, in phantasm the ego or subject spreads itself on the surface. In this regard, phantasm can be considered as an example, or better the example, Deleuze provides to elaborate his reading of Sartre’s Transcendence of the Ego: “what appears in phantasm is the movement by which the ego opens itself on the surface and liberates the a-cosmic, impersonal, and pre-­ individual singularities which it had imprisoned” (LdS 249; LoS 213). This movement is that of desexualisation, of neutralizing the sexual energy. The ego which is centralized around the image of phallus in the physical surface, opens itself in order to engender the metaphysical surface. And the metaphysical surface marks the emission of impersonal and pre-­ individual singularities. In other words, what constitutes my human singularity is my phantasms. But phantasm does not have a subject or an object and is neither subjective nor objective. It is rather the objective production of images without being the image of an object. Thus, a crucial difference between a phantasm and a sexual-narcissistic imagination is that in the case of the former the narrative is experienced as an event, which is to say that, there is no conscious agency at work in its production, while the latter is absolutely dependent on the intention of the ego. Therefore, what Deleuze calls “counter-actualization” (contre-­ effectuation; LdS 247; LoS 212), together with sublimation and symbolization, is necessary in order to move from sexual-narcissistic intentions towards the liberation and freedom of the metaphysical surface, because the natural attitude of sexuality is a directed move from physical causes towards their actual effects, and without a counter-actualization the effects

260 

M. PARSA

cannot receive their independence from being the actual results of physical forces. This amounts to saying that the metaphysical surface is not a physical actuality. But it is nevertheless real, without being actual (the virtual reality). Now, metaphysical surface is exactly what is called the real transcendental field, and its formation through desexualization is indeed the dynamic genesis of the transcendental. Counter-actualization is an abstraction from the imaginary entities that constitute the actual objects of the narcissistic ego, and therefore results in the dissipation of the ego itself, but not in returning back into the small egos of the pre-genital sexuality or the body without organs, but rather in going forward into the realm of the communication between divergent series or incompossible worlds, through the so-called disjunctive synthesis, where the ego loses its identity not in collapsing into the depth, but in joining the exterior worlds, in what Deleuze calls gaining an infinite identity. The infinite identity stands against the finite identity of the physical surface (the number is one in the case of genital sexuality and numerous but finite in the case of pre-genital sexuality) and the absence of identity in the depths. The metaphysical surface is infinitely differentiated. Thus, counter-actualization results in a move towards a counter-ego, and this would be a transition from ego to the emission of pre-individual and impersonal singularities. A phantasm is composed of divergent series the resonance of which provides the forced movement that triggers the full independence of the metaphysical surface from the sexual physical surface. What makes the infinite identity (which involves the identity of disparities) possible is nothing but infinitive verb which provides different forms of copulation and synthesis. The verbal nature of phantasm entails the way it arranges the divergent series of events in a narrative, and this is why, according to Deleuze, there is something essentially literary about it. This is to say that, phantasm signifies a narrative which is different from the conjunctive and imaginary narratives of the physical surface. Sexuality too has a narrative, but a connective one in the case of pre-genital and conjunctive in the case of genital sexuality. Through Oedipal complex and castration, it gains a disjunctive narrative which clears the space for a transcendence from sexuality towards a-sexual phantasm; it involves the unity of divergent series in so far as they are divergent, without reducing them into an alienated synthesis. The movement of phantasm is nothing but the internal resonance between these series of events. This makes phantasm a forced movement, because there is nothing in the series themselves to ease the synthesis, and

10  DYNAMIC GENESIS AND PSYCHOANALYSIS 

261

therefore the nature of its freedom is very different from that of intention and desire, which are essentially sexual. The emergence of phantasm is its forced liberation from ego-centric desires and subjectivity in general. It is in this sense that it is the product of reality without being the image of an object. Therefore, since a phantasm is not the image of an object and enjoys an independence from the physical surface, it is wrong to interpret it as revealing a suppressed desire. Phantasm has nothing to do with desire, which is sexual in nature, and psychoanalysis, in Deleuze’s reading, is not at all the science of desires, but rather, that of events. Amor fati, or willing the events, opens a new dimension for psychoanalysis which makes it far more than just examining sexual desire. This new dimension, which is metaphysical and is graspable through desexualization, would be a rich enterprise which stands besides logic and literature. Specifically, this connection with literature is what Deleuze takes into consideration in “Plato and the Simulacrum” which constitutes the first appendix of Logic of Sense. In this text, after a reference to the modern forms of literature (and other arts) in which “several stories” are “to be told at once” (Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, for example), Deleuze maintains that, “Freud has already shown how the phantasm results from at least two series, one infantile and the other post-pubescent. The effective charge associated with the phantasm is explained by the internal resonance…” (LdS 301; LoS 261). The early and puerile phantasms are sexual, but gain their purity through the movement of desexualisation. In this way, they lead to the emergence of thought. Phantasm as the identity of disparities always involves a passage or a leap. It is extremely dynamic and mobile. At this point, and based on the capacity of phantasm to traverse the heterogeneous surfaces and incompossible worlds, Deleuze defines thought. Thinking is exactly this generative transition into a new surface. It is only possible with the mediation of phantasm as the transition from sexual difference that belongs to the physical surface of body to the difference of intensity which constitutes thought and the metaphysical surface (LdS 255; LoS 219). The difference of intensity is a desexualized or neutralized difference (or energy) “which marks the zero point of thought’s energy” (LdS 255; LoS 219). Desexualization neutralizes sexuality and what remains is pure difference or pure thought, which Deleuze calls the “neutral energy”. Phantasm marks the transition between the surfaces; thought is the outcome of this transition: it is the metaphysical surface in its purity.

262 

M. PARSA

This neutralization is also a sublimation, or the transition from the sexual to the sublime. This marks an absolute abstraction from the corporeal forces and the wound of castration towards “the cerebral crack and the abstract line” of thought. Castration as reinvested in thought through phantasm could be open either into the depth of the body or into the absolute exteriority, and it is the latter that defines the formation of the metaphysical surface and entails sublimation. This is why Deleuze states, “the phantasm is the process of the constitution of the incorporeal” (LdS 256; LoS 220). It goes from adjective to infinitive verb, from the figurative to the abstract, from repetition to obsession.9 It is the process of the constitution of pure thought as pure event. Thus, the trace of castration becomes the crack of thought, which marks the powerlessness to think, but also the zero degree of thought. Phantasm is “a machine for the extraction of a little thought,” a machine which nourishes itself from castration. Thought reinvests what is projected over its surface with the part of event which is “non-actualizable.” If an event is what connects the body to the absolute exteriority, thought would be the sublimation of the body towards that exteriority, by inducing a pure difference into it and liberating a metaphysical surface out of it. The extraction of the metaphysical surface and its sublimation marks a movement towards exteriority. In this manner, what Deleuze calls “extra-being” in the first series of Logic of Sense receives a new sense here, this time dynamic. This is to say that, it enjoys a liberation and independence, as Deleuze declares, “pure events are results, but results of the second degree” (LdS 257; LoS 221). Thus, sublimation is not the simple symbolization of something corporeal, for if it was so, the symbol was still connected to the body, and was still an adjective. But pure event is the liberation of thought from body through the action of infinitive verb as extra-being, as absolute exteriority, as “eternal truth, and sense which hovers over bodies” (LdS 257; LoS 221). This is why the process of sublimation and symbolization must entail a counter-­ actualization, without which they just return back to the first degree of event, that is to say, its actualization, or the effects which are still the effects of their causes. Hence, it is only pure thought that brings us to the great outdoors, to the absolute extra-being.

10  DYNAMIC GENESIS AND PSYCHOANALYSIS 

263

The Metaphysics of Events Michel Foucault in his short commentary on Logic of Sense focuses on how one can consider Deleuze’s philosophy as a metaphysics. This amounts to a reading of the role of the metaphysical surface as the final phase of dynamic genesis and the point where it meets the incorporeal surface of sense or the transcendental field. Foucault declares, Logic of Sense should be read as the boldest and most insolent of metaphysical treatises on the simple condition that instead of denouncing metaphysics as the neglect of being, we force it to speak of extrabeing. Physics: discourse dealing with the ideal structure of bodies, mixtures, reactions, internal and external mechanisms. Metaphysics: discourse dealing with the materiality of incorporeal things—phantasms, idols, and simulacra. (Foucault, 2016: 41)

With Deleuze metaphysics gains a new meaning: it deals with the materiality of incorporeal things. The metaphysical surface (the place of incorporeal things) is not physical, but precisely because of this, it is material. Thus, there is a materiality which is not physical, an incorporeal materiality, the materiality of the emission of singularities. Phantasm marks this incorporeal materiality. When we say that phantasm is the dynamic account of event, it is also to say that it materializes the incorporeal event. Or as Foucault maintains, Phantasms must be allowed to function at the limit of bodies; against bodies, because they stick to bodies and protrude from them, but also because they touch them, cut them, break them into sections, regionalize them, and multiply their surfaces … [phantasms] topologize the materiality of the body. (Foucault, 2016: 40–41)

This refers us back to the transcendental materiality that we introduced in our seventh chapter against the objects. It is a metaphysical materialism because unlike physics it does not deal with bodies. Indeed, bodies, the subject matter of physics, are not material because their materiality is conceptual, or in other words, it signifies only the actualizable materiality. Metaphysics clears the space for another materiality which is graspable only through thought and phantasm which mark a non-actualizable materiality or that which is not actualizable in objects and bodies namely the events. When we say, thought is “the event that befalls the phantasm and the phantasmatic repetition of the event”, we are trying to define thought

264 

M. PARSA

as the transcendental imagination, as imagination with the exteriority of the event (Foucault, 2016: 46). It is nothing but the affirmation of the disjunction between the phantasm and the event, and forming a passive synthesis. This is again the agency of death, an agency in me which comes from without. It is in this sense that death is the event of events. The transcendental materiality is the materiality of death drive and Deleuze’s metaphysics is an effort to philosophize without any recourse to the alleged fact that we are alive against dead beings. Again, we can conclude that the metaphysical surface is not at all identical to a consciousness. It transcends whatever may be conscious and forms an impersonal and pre-individual transcendental field. Materiality here entails a power and bliss which does not belong to a living and conscious subject, but is instantiated in a moment in Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend which is described by Deleuze in Immanence: A Life when the hero, who is a disreputable man and a rogue, is between his life and his death; the moment of dying as pure verb and pure event (See PI 28). Thus, the dynamic meaning of quasi-causality would be also clear. Physics concerns causes, and the metaphysics of events concerns quasi-­ causes. But if we refer this distinction to that between two different agencies, the conscious agency and the agency of death, we can conclude that the physical causality is nothing but an image of the conscious agency (a problem which is examined beautifully by Hume). The quasi-causality rather would be the true material causality of disjunctive events. This materiality is only possible as the result of the dynamic genesis because from the point of view of the static genesis quasi-causality is purely superficial and belongs the surface of incorporeality. Dynamic genesis does not denote anything else; it tells rather the story of the surface as genesis. Thus, the dynamic genesis reaches at its final stage when we see how in the metaphysical surface the depth which is marked by eating finds its synthesis in speaking through the mediation of sexuality. The transcendental materiality that dynamic genesis denotes is the result of the fact that the metaphysical surface liberates itself immanently from the material depth with the mediation of the sexual surface.

Notes 1. Joe Hughes believes that a transcendental phenomenology is at work in Anti-Oedipus. He writes, “Anti-Oedipus develops a theory of the genesis of representation which is strikingly similar in shape to the one developed in

10  DYNAMIC GENESIS AND PSYCHOANALYSIS 

265

The Logic of Sense” (Hughes, 2008: 51). This reading is obvious at least in the first sections of Anti-Oedipus where the notion of the transcendental unconscious in conversation with Kant is elaborated (see AO 75). 2. Deleuze summarizes the “three serial kinds” as “the connective synthesis on a single series, the conjunctive synthesis of convergence, and the disjunctive series of resonance” (LdS 267; LoS 229). 3. We discussed in chapter eight the relationship between Deleuze’s philosophy and Hegel’s in a certain regard. But here we see Deleuze’s attempt to formulate a “dialectic” which is not at all Hegelian. As Daniel Smith puts it, “Despite his reputation, Deleuze is not ‘against the dialectic’. What one finds in Deleuze’s philosophy is not a rejection of dialectics, but rather a new concept of the dialectic that breaks with previous conceptions, including Hegel’s” (Smith, 2006: 44). 4. We should be careful here to distinguish between artistic experimentalism (in the case of an experimental film, for example), which is endorsed by Deleuze in “Plato and the Simulacrum”, and scientific experimentalism, which is denounced by Deleuze in Difference and Repetition. See different uses of “experimentation” in these two works: DR 3 and LdS 300; LoS 260. 5. Piotrek Świa ̨tkowski in his Deleuze and Desire which is a commentary focused on the psychoanalytic part of Logic of Sense claims that the genital zone receives its privilege “only because its stimulation is more intense than that of other zones” (Świa ̨tkowski, 2015: 114), and tries to give some arguments. I insist that this privilege is contingent and we can imagine the existence of a community of people which is formed around an absolutely different form of sexuality and an absolutely different method of procreation and reproduction. 6. This is similar to the third step of Sartre’s Transcendence of the Ego, where the ego relates to the other fully-formed egos in an intersubjective relation which entails a transcendence, and the latter makes the formation of ego a failure. See Sartre (2004/1937: 12–15). 7. Since Deleuze prefers to keep the term “image” exclusively for the sexual position, we too won’t take phantasm as an image, but it would be useful to note that its role for the metaphysical surface is comparable with the role of phallus as image for the physical surface. See LdS 252; LoS 216. 8. Piotrek Świa ̨tkowski in Deleuze and Desire claims that the physical surface “is an actualization of the ideational surface. It is a solution or expression of an extensive problematic field” (Świa ̨tkowski, 2015: 187). It seems to me that here he confuses the static and dynamic genesis. This quote belongs to his sixth chapter on Phantasm, but the fact that the physical surface “is an actualization of the ideational surface” has nothing to do with the nature of phantasm which is dynamic and not at all statically transcendental. Dynamic genesis entails how the physical surface generates the ideational surface, not

266 

M. PARSA

how the former is the actualization of the latter, which is in its turn a statically transcendental problem. In this sense, I disagree with him when he claims that the quasi-causality plays a role in the depressive position (Świa ̨tkowski, 2015: 188), where there is only a vertical relation between the body and the idol, and there is no space for a horizontal relation which is a pre-requisite for the activity of quasi-causality. Even in the previous chapters in Logic of Sense, where Deleuze discusses quasi-causality in the realm of static genesis, it is clear that it is the agency of language and social-­ communicational tools, which are of course absent in the depressive position. In this respect, all of Świa ̨tkowski’s efforts in explaining phantasm in terms of the Stoic philosophy and the figure of sage are in my view in a wrong direction. Nevertheless, his recourse to Deleuze and Guattari’s accounts of phantasy in A Thousand Plateaus is very valuable and the reader of the present work can for sure find it as a supplementation for our essay in this chapter. 9. In his later works, Deleuze shows more interest in the other way of the openness of the crack into the depth of the body, and therefore he prefers to focus on the figurative paintings of Francis Bacon in his The Logic of Sensation. But in Logic of Sense he follows the path in which the crack opens to the line of thought and marks a different view toward art, which is this time abstract.

References Collett, G. (2016). The Psychoanalysis of Sense: Deleuze and the Lacanian School. Edinburgh University Press. Deleuze, G. (1990). The Logic of Sense (M. Lester, Trans.). The Athlone Press. Deleuze, G. (2001). Pure Immanence: Essays on A Life (A.  Boyman, Trans.). Zone Books. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1983). Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (R. Hurley, M. Seem, & H. R. Lane, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press. Deleuze, G. (1969). Logiques du Sens. Les Edition de Minuit. Foucault, M. (2016). Theatrum Philosophicum. In N. Morar, T. Nail, & D. W. Smith (Eds.), Between Deleuze and Foucault (pp. 38–58). Edinburgh University Press. Hughes, Joe. 2008. Deleuze and the Genesis of Representation. London and New York: Continuum. Sartre, J. P. (2004/1937). The Transcendence of the Ego (S. Richmond & A. Brown, Trans.). Routledge. Schuster, A. (2016). The Trouble with Pleasure: Deleuze and Psychoanalysis. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Smith, D.  W. (2006). Deleuze, Kant, and the Theory of Immanent Ideas. In C.  Boundas (Ed.), Deleuze and Philosophy (pp.  43–61). Edinburgh University Press. Świa ̨tkowski, P. (2015). Deleuze and Desire. Leuven University Press.

CHAPTER 11

Madness vs. Stupidity

One of the main themes of Deleuze’s Logic of Sense is the possibility of the communication of divergent series without reducing them in a connection, continuity or convergence. Taking divergent series as convergent (and heterogeneities as homogeneous) marks an illusionary communication, not a real one. The real and non-reductive communication, which Deleuze sometimes calls resonance, entails an element of forced movement, an element that takes several names in the course of Logic of Sense: paradoxical element, aleatory point, object=x, nomadic instance, esoteric word, etc. This element is not determined by an external agent, but it randomly determines itself and produces experimental and contingent determinations. This brings about a new idea of freedom and chance. Everything is determined by a paradoxical element or an aleatory instance. Everything gains its sense from nonsense. Introducing events as submitted to fatality is an attempt to find a third way between determinism and freedom, and this would be possible only through seeking a connection between nature and human being by the introduction of this nomadic movement as a common source that motivates their movements. What connects external nature and human nature is neither determinism nor freedom, but this third realm of fatal events. We are not determined, neither by an external divine force, nor an internal self-consciousness. We are determined by a mad aleatory determinator. And the same is the case about the rest of nature. It is in this sense that, in the course of Logic of

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Parsa, A Reading of Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13706-8_11

267

268 

M. PARSA

Sense, one can ascribe a naturalism to Deleuze, a kind of transcendental naturalism that connects human nature and nature as the great outdoors. At the point of this transcendental naturalism, sense finds its nonsensical element and its logic joins its ontology. At this point, what is free in nature (free matter) joins the feeling of freedom in a consciousness and turns it to unconscious. Deleuze explains this play of determination and freedom in the first pages of the text “Klossowski or the Bodies-Language” which appears as the first part of the second appendix of Logic of Sense (LdS 325–326; LoS 280–281). There, he explains the formation of a member in a body, and how it receives a determination. Natural sciences (genetics, for example) seek something determined before the formation of the member, but Deleuze reminds us that the determination takes place during the development of the member.1 Therefore, “the butt of a limb is determined as a paw,” but neither as right nor left paw (LdS 325; LoS 280). It receives its final determination as right or left paw in its development and in interaction with its environment. Therefore, there are hesitations in it and it proceeds by way of dilemmas. Traditional natural scientists try to demonstrate that everything is predefined, but despite their effort, Deleuze emphasizes that the first appearance of an embryo has no sexuality. In this regard, everything is acquisitive. Thus, determination is not inconsistent with nomadic distribution, but rather entails it. Interestingly, Deleuze compares this view with the development of a syllogism. Any abstract argumentation produces its governing laws during its development, and this is what gives it its concreteness. Any line of argument begins with a dilemma where no direction is defined. Arguments are nothing but the transformation of corporeal movements and mimes into incorporeal reasons, and building a line out of a chaotic pantomimic sequence. Thus, empirical naturalism (that of natural sciences), logical determinism (any analytic logic, or logic of signification), and the theological and psychological theories of free will go hand in hand in suppressing the paradoxical element and stand against the transcendental naturalism which introduces a different account of freedom and determination. Transcendental naturalism is not a physics, but rather the metaphysics of the material incorporeality of events. It is submitted to the logic of sense and is reconcilable with a materialist psychoanalysis. The paradoxical and nomadic element is the shared subject matter of these disciplines.

11  MADNESS VS. STUPIDITY 

269

Transcendental Stupidity The freedom which is experienced in social life is a feeling which is the result of social interactions. Deleuze invokes another conception of freedom based on nomadic movements, which is not individual and conscious, but rather singular and unconscious. Deleuze’s introduction of the nomadic element can also be considered an effort to change the current form of social life into a different one which is no longer based on consciousness and individual freedom. This can be considered a move from the neurotic social life towards the schizophrenic one, which is elaborated fully in Deleuze’s later work with Félix Guattari, but its embryo is already present in Logic of Sense. The difference between the neurotic and the schizophrenic is first of all the difference between the established person or structure in relation with its genesis and a structure which is never established. The privilege that Deleuze gives to the schizophrenic is due to the fact that the stability of common sense is fragile. Senses flicker always beneath any harmony or commonality of common sense or reason and threaten our images of established and stable psychic or social structures. This is also the priority of emotions over concepts. Deleuze seeks to respond the question of how can emotions persist in concepts? How can the genesis of concepts subsist with concepts? Here is the transcendental in terms of the process of formation and learning, not using what is already learnt. This is why little children and the mental disordered are interesting for Deleuze. In their cases we have emotions without fully established concepts, and the tensions between emotions (which marks indeed the formation of concepts) instead of the communication of ready-made concepts. Children and schizophrenics deal with partial objects instead of complete objects and therefore they are not complete persons. They work with parts of words and their repetition and condensation (Carroll’s esoteric words), not full words. Foucault in his reading of Logic of Sense mentions that negativity is “the neurosis of dialectics” (Foucault, 2016: 50). Negativity marks the logic or dialectic of concepts. But the Deleuzian dialectics of sense which is discussed in our previous chapter clears the space for a move towards schizophrenia: positivity as the schizophrenia of dialectics. From this, we can think of a communicational notion of dialectics (dialogue) which is schizophrenic and productive in this sense. The schizophrenic sociality is the sociality of partial subjects and objects in their formation and tension. It is a sociality that leaves free spaces for the constitutive play of emotions.

270 

M. PARSA

Language plays an important role here, for it is in fact through language that free will as a feeling is produced. Social life builds its prison by the bricks of language. But simultaneously, it is through language that one can break this prison. Therefore, we can make a distinction between two different images of language. On the one hand, there is a communicative language which is the subject matter of most traditional philosophy of language and many directions of logicism. It is the language of common sense, the fully-formed conceptual language, which is, in Deleuze’s thought, just a reduction of what language really is. Against it, there is genetic language, which is not conceptual, entails its own genesis, includes poetical uses of language, and is in a certain connection with body. The genetic language is indeed communicative, but not by using existing concepts and between fully-formed conscious subjects. It does not circulate common sense. It communicates by producing itself, by circulating resonance between heterogeneous series. The communication of bodies and partial subjects, unlike the communication of conscious complete subjects, has to contain the genetic elements of language, of half-words and demi-morphemes. Language has an essential corporeal and pantomimic nature. It is with this language that being communicates itself (or expresses itself) and thereby the body of a child, for example, generates noises and makes voices out of noises. Deleuze’s logic of sense and its entanglement with language suggests that there is no pure conceptual language, no pure denotative or manifestative language, for language is always under construction in the course of its usage. Each usage of language is also a stage in its contingent production. The production of language is not limited to children. And it is not only children who learn the language at the same time of using it. But the conceptual and communicative image of language becomes dominant during some phases in life and forms what we call reality as where we live and communicate. This results in an empiricism which is extremely non-philosophical: the empiricism of natural reality, which is, the reality of natural attitude or common sense. What I called, in the course of the present essay, Deleuze’s transcendentalism is an attempt to withdraw from such an empiricism. Deleuzian empiricism, which is transcendental empiricism, has nothing to do with being receptive of an established reality, but rather entails a productive account of reality.2 Now, we can understand this distinction based on the distinction between two images of language. Deleuze’s transcendentalism is indeed the affirmation of the genetic element.

11  MADNESS VS. STUPIDITY 

271

The fact that Deleuze’s philosophy remains faithful to a version of transcendental philosophy (although a strange one that depicts a transcendental unconscious) indicates that in one aspect he never wants to detach himself from philosophy. At least in Logic of Sense and the preceding works, despite a tendency which appears in some occasions, Deleuze does not want to collapse everything into depth and reduce philosophy into a psychoanalytic poetry. There is a sense in which Deleuze respects philosophical awareness, and this sense is nothing but the philosophical effort to stand as far as possible from common sense or doxa. But common sense takes different faces, from the classical idiocy to the modern stupidity (bêtise) (see DR 165–166, 188–190; and Lambert, 2002: 5). I consider stupidity vs. madness as two ways in which emotions fail to relate to concepts, one issues from the power of concepts and impotence of emotions to express themselves and other from the weakness of concepts to control emotions. Let us first focus for a while on this notion of stupidity, against which modern philosophy, and particularly the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, formulates itself. In my reading of Deleuze’s account, stupidity is when the power of conceptual communication succeeds systematically to shut the genetic forces off. It is the triumph of determination over contingency. It marks the conquest of sociality over singularity, the conquest of recognition and common sense over thinking as sensing. And it is the task of philosophy to reveal that what is real could be different. In Nietzsche and Philosophy Deleuze defines stupidity as the baseness of thought: When someone asks ‘what’s the use of philosophy?’ the reply must be aggressive, since the question tries to be ironic and caustic. Philosophy does not serve the State or the Church, who have other concerns. It serves no established power. The use of philosophy is to sadden. A philosophy which saddens no one, that annoys no one, is not a philosophy. It is useful for harming stupidity, for turning stupidity into something shameful. Its only use is the exposure of all forms of baseness of thought. (NP 106)

What philosophy is supposed to do is transcending and transgressing doxa. Deleuze learned from the phenomenological tradition in philosophy that all we know as reality can be reduced to “the empirical,” a phenomenological reduction which is performed in order to clear the space for seeking a transcendental reality, what he finds in the genetic element. Everything, with all of its apparent diversity, with all objects and subjects, together with all arguments we make about it and all of reasons we attribute to it,

272 

M. PARSA

belongs to the realm of the empirical, which is constructed based on the principle of habit. In this realm, it is enough to recognize things without any need for thinking. Deleuze introduces a new urge for seeking the reasons of being, the genetic and transcendental reasons, which are infinite and intotalizable. Philosophy, in one of its utopian aspects, reminds us that we do not communicate only in the realm of the empirical common sense, through known concepts and established languages. We communicate as being communicates itself in making sense without having one. In this vein, the idea of the real transcendental entails a kind of practice which is very different from that of pragmatism and classical accounts of practical philosophy. Philosophical abstraction harbors a radical practice against empirical practical problems.3 Philosophy is not practical in that it is capable of solving an empirical problem, but rather in that it can reveal the stupidity of empirical problems, the comic aspect of serious empirical life, how all our problems of life and death lose their value in a cosmic point of view, introducing being as a transcendental problem (hence, the Stoic humor, the Sage with his staff). Therefore, philosophy is practical, not in its ability to solve a problem in the current mode of life, but in making it possible to think about a different mode of life, in its ability to change the current state of affairs. It is in this sense that philosophy in its essence is utopian. And it is in this very sense that it saddens and harms. As mentioned, this view underlies a pragmatism of sense, against the straightforward pragmatism of common sense. But philosophy in this sense is more like literature, or better, what Deleuze in Difference and Repetition calls the best literature (DR 189). Sometimes it seems that philosophy harms no one, and this task of philosophy is delegated to literature. That literature-free philosophy cares only about empirical and banal truth and does not have the capability to distinguish between a stupid and a smart truth. Yes, some truths are stupid, and the philosophers of the harmless philosophy indifferently care about an indifferent truth. Jacques Derrida in his text “The Transcendental ‘Stupidity’ (Bêtise) of Man and the Becoming-Animal according to Deleuze” (which is a transcription of a lecture Derrida delivered at the conference “Derrida/Deleuze: Politics, Psychoanalysis, Territoriality,” held at the UC Irvine, April 12–13, 2002) focuses on a question Deleuze asks in Difference and Repetition and through which makes a connection between stupidity and truth. Deleuze’s question is “how is stupidity (not error) possible?” (DR 189). What is interesting for Derrida is the parenthesized “not error.” Philosophers for a long time devoted themselves to

11  MADNESS VS. STUPIDITY 

273

the identification of reality and truth and wondered how error is possible. Deleuze changes the question and hereby introduces a new conception into philosophy: the possibility of a stupid truth. Derrida states, …bêtise (stupidity) is not the relation of a judgment to what is, illusion, or a hallucination, or a mistake in knowing in general. One can be true, one can be in truth, one can know everything, and nevertheless be bête (stupid). At the limit, there might be a bêtise in absolute knowledge…. (Derrida, 2007: 45)

If stupidity is not an error, not a bad or wrong judgment, then what is it? Derrida connects it to the problem of freedom. It is the inability to judge, to make a decision, and in a word, the inability to be free. Philosophy must be the discourse and practice of the free man. This is what Deleuze learns from the Cynics and the Stoics. The stupid has access to truth, but cannot make judgments about it. The stupid truth is a bare truth without judgment. It is understandable, but triggers no will. The literaturization of philosophy is nothing but the excess of will over understanding, albeit a will which is not ego-centric, since ego’s will is the will to recognize. The bête can recognize, and at the best, can produce beautiful objects (the possibility of stupid art), but is unable to create the sublime and the genuine. Deleuze’s question is a question of possibility and therefore it defines a transcendental stupidity, its structure. As Zourabichvili declares, stupidity “concerns not simple facts but principles” (Zourabichvili, 2012: 58). And if we could distinguish between an empirical and a transcendental truth or error, we can make the same distinction between an empirical stupidity and a transcendental stupidity in philosophy. In order to trace this transcendental stupidity, we have to remind ourselves that Deleuze in Difference and Repetition makes the claim that the animal cannot be stupid, a claim with which Derrida at the end of his essay disagrees. The condition of possibility of stupidity is human and is related to thought, to the ability of thinking. It is only human that can be stupid. It is only human that can reduce the thought into the level of recognition, which is the baseness of thought. We use the term stupidity to accuse the others, but according to Deleuze, stupidity is never that of others, it is always mine or ours (Derrida, 2007: 48). In ancient Greek “Kategoria” means accusation, and we use the term stupidity to categorize the others. But if stupidity is always mine or ours, it can be also a kind of self-categorization.

274 

M. PARSA

This self-categorization is what a nonhuman animal cannot do. Bêtise is not the property of a person, but that of what he does. And he is always aware of the stupidity of his deed. There is no stupidity without this awareness. This awareness makes the distinction between the transcendental and the empirical possible, and marks what can be called thought. Therefore, Deleuze can talk about the fond of bêtise, the abyssal depth of stupidity. There is a possible stupidity in the sublime, in the groundless ground which is different from the empirical stupidity of das Mann. The schizophrenic is human, and can be stupid. And the transcendental stupidity, which is the stupidity of the groundless ground or sans-fond, conditions the empirical stupidity. Stupidity is not the absence of thought, but its weakness, and the problem of a bad philosophy is that it has no access to the transcendental stupidity, but only to the transcendental error. Thus, all what Deleuze does here is making immanent the transcendental: only the one who can think can recognize.

Transcendental Madness As discussed, in Logic of Sense, Deleuze introduces the idea of the transcendental surface as a field which lacks the unificatory center of the empirical field. And he makes a distinction, within the transcendental field, between the transcendental surface and the transcendental depth, particularly by introducing the notions of the simulacrum, or the mad or schizophrenic matter, and bringing to the scene the figure of Antoine Artaud against that of Lewis Carroll in the 15th series of Logic of Sense and the psychoanalytical part of the book. Whereas the empirical depth signifies the objective differentiated matter, the transcendental depth marks an undifferentiated materiality. The distinction between the transcendental surface and the transcendental depth can also be considered that which is between sense and nonsense. And Deleuze maintains that “between sense and nonsense” there is “an original type of intrinsic relation” so that nonsense is the genetic element of sense (LdS 85; LoS 68). This distinction and relation between surface and depth or sense and nonsense is the principal interest here. In “Michel Tournier and the World Without Others,” Deleuze explains this distinction within the transcendental field in reference to the notion of the other as an a priori structure vis-à-vis “the World Without others” as the groundless ground or sans-fond. In order to understand how Deleuze regards any structure as always the “structure-other” it is

11  MADNESS VS. STUPIDITY 

275

sufficient to consider his description of the nature of structure in “How do we recognize Structuralism?” and to pay particular attention to his treatment of Jacques Lacan’s depiction of a symbolic structure where the Other plays an essential role.4 While Deleuze’s description of structure is mostly a symbolic or a superficial account, one can even here find an initial separation between the transcendental surface or the structure-other and the transcendental depth or the dissipation of the other. This separation finds its full elaboration in “Michel Tournier and the World Without Others” which is a text on the transcendental depth or the structure of the absence of the other. Against these two notions (the transcendental surface and the transcendental depth, the other and the absence of the other) stands the I or ego which is considered by some philosophers as the ground or the transcendental field. However, Deleuze demonstrates that their efforts fail because the ego is just an empirical result and cannot play a transcendental role. Therefore, the transcendental field cannot be explained with a basis in the I, but rather a basis in the role of the other, its presence and absence. In the text on Michel Tournier, Deleuze explains this distinction (between presence and absence of the other) by asking the following questions: what would be perception with the other as structure, and what would it be if there is no other? This is indeed making a dualism between “the effects of the ‘structure-other’ of the perceptual field and the effects of its absence (what perception would be were there no Others)” (LdS 358; LoS 308). The other as the structure is another name for sense as the transcendental surface, what differentiates and opens all possibilities in a possible world. It marks the condition of objectivity by separating it from subjectivity. This is what is done through the mediation of the other: “The part of the object that I do not see, I posit to be seen at the same time by the other.”5 The perception in the world with others is the perception of objects, or, say, phenomena. But the major concern here pertains to the transcendental depth or perception in a world without others. It is obvious that the perception in a world without others is not at all the perception of an ego because the latter is just the result of social communication with the others. Thus, when the others disappear, what remains is not the I or ego. When there is no other, it is the ego that gradually dissipates.6 In “Michel Tournier and the World Without Others,” Deleuze explains this dissipation through a reading of Tournier’s Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique (Paris: Gallimard, 1967) which is Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe being retold and

276 

M. PARSA

drastically modified. What makes Tournier’s Robinson interesting for Deleuze is that, unlike Defoe’s story, it is not about the imaginary reconstruction of the same life that he had lived before being shipwrecked, but, rather, a philosophical experimentation which examines the nature of perception in the absence of others. At first, Robinson could not but restore the language with which he used to speak and think, and while doing this he had been restoring the other. But, after a while, he begins to lose his communicative cage in order to become identical with the island itself: Consciousness ceases to be a light cast upon objects in order to become a pure phosphorescence of things in themselves. Robinson is but the consciousness of the island, but the consciousness of the island is the consciousness the island has of itself—it is the island itself. We understand thus the paradox of the desert island: the one who is shipwrecked, if he is alone, if he has lost the structure-other, disrupts nothing of the desert island; rather he consecrates it. (LdS 362; LoS 319–320)

The identification of the shipwrecked with the desert island is also the main theme for another text that Deleuze wrote on Desert Islands. In that text, Deleuze introduces an élan for isolation and creativity which is not conscious but provides a kind of collective unconscious drive which is marked by the dreams of peoples. According to Deleuze, this unconscious drive defines the mythology in which each people dreams. Defoe’s Robinson represents the misinterpretation of a genuine mythology and he displays the reduction of the mythical economy of free imagination into the market economy of possession (DI 9–12). The mythical economy marks the desert island as the place of infinite creativity and imagination. In Deleuze’s later text on Desert Islands, Tournier materializes this mythology. Thus, the identification with the island itself can be construed as returning back towards the unconscious and mythical élan for isolation and creativity. This is not only Deleuze’s endorsement of Tournier against Defoe, and mythology (and modern literature) against classical literature, but it is also his response to a phenomenological tradition that introduces a universal consciousness instead of the transcendental ego, the way Sartre stands against Husserl. In Deleuze’s critique of Sartre’s The Transcendence of the Ego, the notion of a universal consciousness suffers from the same deficiency that Sartre diagnosed in Husserl, and should be replaced by a universal unconscious (the mythology in which people dream).7 In this

11  MADNESS VS. STUPIDITY 

277

manner, consciousness evolves to become the island itself, the thing in itself, in its full materiality; it turns out to be the material transcendental field, or what we call the transcendental depth. Therefore, we have here a three-step procedure, from the empirical ego, via the other as transcendental surface, and then to the absence of the other as the materialization of the transcendental, or pushing it into the depth (or sans-fond). In this way, the transcendental is dehumanized (“déshumanisé”): the transcendental becomes the island (LdS 363; LoS 312). Of course, this process has to be gradual, since the first thing that the disappearance of the other triggers is an effort to retain the structure of the other in its absence. This is what Deleuze considers as “neurosis” (LdS 364; LoS 313). Our first reaction to the absence of the other is despair, which happens when “the structure-other is still functioning, though there is no longer anyone to fill it out or actualize it” (LdS 364; LoS 313). And Deleuze claims that in this situation the structure functions more rigorously. This is the neurotic loneliness that is full of pain, suffering and regret, while one ends up amusing oneself by reviewing past stories. Robinson, in Tournier’s story, does not stay in this neurotic phase, but rather he tries to amuse himself with order and hard work and in this way changes the phase. This is still an effort to retain the structure of the other, but this time he saves the objects by creating them. When you are not sure if there are objects, since there is no other, you can simply construct them. Objects belong to the same structure of the other, to the same organization and order. Robinson produces objects for consumption, and therefore, there is an economy and ethics in this production-consumption in which the former is good and the latter is bad. But this is only a mediatory phase in order to move towards a mad production of objects, followed by the dissipation of all objects towards an emphasis on the pure materiality, the depth of the earth, and the island itself. In this mad production of objects, the produced objects are not useful anymore, and they are produced just for the sake of production (the production of simulacra). Where there is no consumption, the economy and ethics, or the structure of the other, will collapse. It represents an extreme form of bureaucracy, which is pure and mad (and is dramatized perfectly in Kafka’s novels). It also suggests a move against neurosis, which is still attached to the structure and the organization of the other, for using and for being useful, towards psychosis, or the production of the schizophrenic object, an object which is not useful, and has no place in the structure of the world with others. Deleuze takes an untransportable boat made by Robinson on the island as

278 

M. PARSA

an example of such a schizophrenic object and compares it in a footnote with Henry Michaux’s description of a table which is made by a schizophrenic (LdS 365; LoS 366). In Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Deleuze and Guattari develop further their thinking on the schizophrenic table described by Michaux, and quote its description at length, making it a perfect example of the productive act of desire (AO 6–7). Thus, the result of the full dissolution of the structure of the other is the aggressive return of sans-fond (the bottomless abyss), the point at which psychosis attacks neurosis, and schizophrenia takes the place of loneliness and despair. But the story does not stop at the point of a happy schizophrenic who plays alone on a desert island: it does not stop at the point of a Beckettian nihilism. In Deleuze’s reading, the main character of Tournier’s story is not Robinson, but a young boy called Friday who initiates the formation of a new surface (phantasm) out of depth (simulacrum). Unlike Defoe’s story, Friday here does not accept being enslaved by Robinson but metaphorically eats him.8 He accomplishes the journey that Robinson had begun on the desert island by turning the schizophrenic happy solitude into the formation of a new schizophrenic sociality and communication. It is not at all a rediscovery of the structure of the other, since, according to Deleuze, it “is too late for that, the structure has disappeared” (LdS 367; LoS 316). It is an establishment of a totally new structure whose founder (Friday) “is not an other, but something wholly other”9). This formation of a new surface (the surface of phantasm and thought) is done through the process of desexualization, and since Friday is not an other, he does not stimulate sexual appeal in Robinson. Sexuality belongs to the physical surface of social needs and linguistic communications. But this a-sexual, a-social surface which is formed within the depth of earth and the materiality of sans-fond is something totally different. It cannot be defined within a world or compossible worlds; it defines the communication of divergent series and incompossible worlds. Schizophrenia in this way gains a utopian value, for it helps us to think about a totally different communication. It marks what Deleuze calls the “Great Health.”10 Neurotics find their health neither in the reparation of the ego or the structure-other, nor in the image of a private schizophrenic, but rather the formation of a new form of communication and a new community. In this regard, psychoanalysis is for Deleuze essentially political. A schizophrenic who wanders alone on a desert island finds its value and health only in being an element of a new society which is formed not on

11  MADNESS VS. STUPIDITY 

279

the basis of common needs, such as sexuality (in its different forms, including love), but rather based on divergences. In this new utopian society, the sexual difference which belongs to the structure of the other gives its place to the infinite multiplication of differences which are too unstable to favor needs. They underlie the positivity of desire. We should move from the human brutality of love (which is dependent on the stability of sexual difference) towards an inhuman and natural violence in the form of a resonance of divergent series and incompossible worlds. This is the aim of the whole story: a schizophrenic utopia. In the text “Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Precursor of Kafka, Celine and Ponge” which appeared in Desert Island and Other Texts, Deleuze approaches a connection between the idea of the absence of the others and that of a schizophrenic social life. First and foremost, he takes a stand against the idea of common needs as the raison d’etre of societies, declaring that “one of Rousseau’s constant themes is that need is not a factor which brings people together: it does not unite, it isolates each of us” (DI 52). Need is a source of self-sufficiency and egoism, and to consider it as a common element would lead to the main paradox of our time: “The root of evil in modern society is that we are no longer either private individuals or public citizens: each of us has become ‘homo oeconomicus’ in other words, ‘bourgeois’, motivated by profit” (DI 55). The result is that we are “mean”. The only problem with capitalism is that it makes us mean. It makes our dreams cheap (which is exemplified in the manner Defoe’s Robinson is indeed a cheap bourgeois interpretation of the myths of desert island). Now, Deleuze demonstrates that Rousseau in two of his great works, Emile and The Social Contract, indicates two different yet interconnected ways to restore a true commonality. Emile is about the reconstitution of the private individual, while The Social Contract deals with that of the citizen: they are two sides of a coin that marks social life as different from a modern need-based sociality. In this context, we can make a connection between Deleuze’s account of schizophrenia in his reading of Tournier’s Robinson, which underlies a departure point for a material utopia, and an actually social schizophrenia which is delineated in A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. It is not surprising that Deleuze, in “Klossowski or Bodies-Language” (the first part of the second appendix to Logic of Sense called “Phantasm and Modern Literature”) makes a contribution to Bataille’s solar economy and Derrida’s general economy. The main aim of the Deleuzian idea of schizophrenia is this contribution in the utopian thought of a use-less

280 

M. PARSA

communication and its economy. Michaux’s useless table and desexualized Friday play the role of elements of this communication. In order to approach this thought Deleuze distinguishes, in “Klossowski or Bodies-­ Language”, between “exchange” and “true repetition”: One theme runs through the entire work of Klossowski: the opposition between exchange and true repetition. For exchange implies only resemblance, even if the resemblance is extreme. Exactness is its criterion, along with the equivalence of exchanged products. This is the false repetition which causes our illness. True repetition, on the other hand, appears as a singular behavior that we display in relation to that which cannot be exchanged, replaced, or substituted—like a poem that is repeated on the condition that no word may be changed. It is no longer a matter of an equivalence between similar things, it is not even a matter of an identity of the Same. True repetition addresses something singular, unchangeable, and different, without ‘identity’. Instead of exchanging the similar and identifying the Same, it authenticates the different. (LdS 333–334; LoS 287–288)

The exchange economy is only possible on the condition that it generates understanding and identity amongst people; it rules over what we call the market economy. Moreover, it is the cause of illness and meanness amongst us. On the contrary, Deleuze suggests an economy which may bring the Great Health, and is marked by the idea of “true repetition,” considered in this text from how pantomime stands against conceptual linguistic communication. Pantomime marks the communication of difference while conceptual language only makes the Same communicable. Difference can be communicated through pantomime and poetry, but not through understanding. It is “the unexchangeable”. What repeats itself in true repetition, Deleuze claims, is “the intensity of the Different” (LdS 335; LoS 289). Difference has no identity, but rather intensity. The sickening illusion is to believe that we can fully understand and exchange things. What understands and exchanges is an ego, and the ego lacks intensity. Thus, we can distinguish the sick violence of ego from intensive healthy violence. Nature is full of the latter, while the former belongs only to an ego-centric consciousness.11 At this point, Deleuze’s philosophy is not far from Levinas’ description of ethics as prior to understanding, reasoning and justification. For Levinas, ethics is the prime philosophy, and sensibility is the true site of ethics. Both philosophers search for the possibility of a communication which is capable of communicating the unexchangeable or the different (communication of divergent series in a disjunctive

11  MADNESS VS. STUPIDITY 

281

synthesis). It is not only about the ethical aspects of communication, but it also deals with the phenomenological problem of expressing the inexpressible. Hence, both Deleuze and Levinas deal with a dilemma through which the dialectic of language and ego brings ethics and phenomenology together: it is through language that ego takes its form, but it is also through language that we grasp the dissolution of the ego. Therefore, we can imagine non-conceptual, corporeal language as the medium of an ethical communication in a Levinasian sense. Hence, Deleuze’s point is not putting language and pantomime against each other, but rather it is about introducing a pantomime within language: If language imitates bodies, it is not through onomatopoeia, but through flexion. And if bodies imitate language, it is not through organs, but through flexion. There is an entire pantomime, internal to language, as a discourse or a story within the body. If gestures speak, it is first of all because words mimic gestures. (LdS 332; LoS 286)

The language at issue here defines a different kind of sociality. Here Deleuze argues against the orthodoxy of egoism and the way egos can relate to each other on the basis of common needs (this is also the source of common sense). What he introduces positively is the multiplicity of singularities which form intensities and intensive differences that define at each instance a flexion and deviation. It is through the flexion that bodies make sense. In order to reach this point, we need not only the absence of ego but also the absence of the others as a primary structure. Now, we can see how the absence of the others can play the role of a new transcendental which is totally different from the transcendental ego and the structure of the other (the transcendental surface). Throughout the texts we have considered in this section, Deleuze first distinguishes the a priori Other (Autrui a priori), designating the structure, from real others that actualize that structure in a certain field. This is the distinction between empirical individuals and the transcendental field in which the latter underlies the existence of the possible (the real condition of possibility): the other marks the structure of possibility of objects and subjects, their appearance in a world, and the relation between them, which can be called need. It is only in the structure of the other that it is possible to need an object, and along with this need come the pains and troubles of neurosis. This is what makes us not only ill but also mean. But then Deleuze discovers that the personage

282 

M. PARSA

of “Robinson” introduces the absence of the other as structure or the a priori (or the transcendental). He calls the move from the structure of the other to the absence of the other as structure as a move towards the Great Health. This is a transition from neurosis towards psychosis and, particularly, schizophrenia. But how can psychosis take the form of a new organization and a new structure? In order to explain the absence of the other as structure, as there is no a priori without a structure, Deleuze considers it in terms of perversion. The structure of perversion is the principle of the absence of the other as structure. It marks the point of “flexion” (material plasticity) where language joins the body, and terminates conceptual communication as it learns how to express the inexpressible in “reflection” (LdS 331; LoS 284). Let us call this the perverted transcendental field. Deleuze distinguishes a pervert’s behavior from the fundamentally perverse structure. What is crucial in order to grasp this structure, and to distinguish it from the behaviors of the pervert, is that there is no other in this structure. It is a big mistake to take the relationship between the pervert and his victims like the one between a self and the other; this is a confusion of the empirical and the transcendental, or the conditioned and the condition, similar to the confusion of egoist and natural violences. Perversion as structure contains no other, no object, and therefore no need and desire. Hence it disavows the difference of sexes, rendering the pervert sexually neutral. When a pervert man dresses like a woman, it is not due to a desire to be a woman, but rather an effort to neutralize his sexuality. Structurally, it indicates an initial movement of desexualization. Through this reference to perversion, Deleuze attempts to introduce a new structure which is absolutely different from the structure of the world with the others, or the world of possibilities. The absence of the others as a priori structure has nothing to do with creating new possibilities. It brings forward a new category, which is the necessary: The world of the pervert is a world without others, and thus a world without the possible. The other is that which renders possible. The perverse world is a world in which the category of the necessary has completely replaced that of the possible. (LdS 372; LoS 320)

The structure of perversion is indicative of actions in the absence of subjects and objects, as well as desire and will. It is to the pervert in this sense that freedom liberates itself from consciousness. The notion of the necessary that Deleuze brings forward here has nothing to do either with

11  MADNESS VS. STUPIDITY 

283

determination or free will, which both are within the economy of the possible, or, if you prefer, the market economy. It marks the priority of action, of structure as action, as what takes place between incompossible worlds when they meet in a field deprived of any possibility. The structure of perversion requires human beings for work but not for producing useful things. It works where the island meets the sky and fire meets iron: the world without the other, without the self, without consciousness, empty of objects and concepts, where helium (the necessary) takes the place of oxygen (the possible).

Conclusion: Logic, Ontology, Ethics, Politics Our journey through Logic of Sense departed from logic, the Fregean logicism, with a look at the fact that for Deleuze it is not the matter of the pure formal logic (pure symbolism) but rather a real transcendental logic. Meanwhile we emphasized that the logic of sense has an inherent ontological nature because it is not merely a theory of knowledge but rather the logic of existence. We attempted to link the systheticity of logic and the intelligibility of being and to demonstrate how this link implies a radical modification in logic (from logic of essence to the logic of sense) and in ontology (from being to becoming). This is why, through the Stoics, we have shown that a realist ontology cannot deal with the existence of objects; it must be an ontology of events. But, again through the Stoics, we have seen that events appear at the borderline between logic and ontology: The Stoics replace existence by the category of subsistence. This was an early attempt to philosophize otherwise than a philosophy which is used to be based on the separation of the realm of being and the realm of knowledge: the intelligibility of being is the syntheticity of logic. The place of logic is not the human mind or the intersubjective realm of language; it appears at the surface of ontology. In the course of this study, we have seen how this view changes our image of knowledge and of existence and the relation between them. Our knowledge (and knowledge in general) is part of existence. Existence is infinitely diverse, productive and contingent. Its laws are not pre-­ established but rather evental. The laws of nature come always after the fact. Nature does not follow laws but generates them. Thus, there is nothing to be represented because nature is moving and changing contingently. The structure of nature is not representable by any conceptual notation. Deleuze always attempted to introduce a new image of structure along

284 

M. PARSA

with a new image of thought. The Aristotelian laws of logic (syllogism) present a simplified, hypothetical, and therefore wrong image of thought. Categorization and generalization are reductions. Is it to say that knowing is inevitably reducing? No! We don’t think logically in the categorical sense. Syllogism is a superficial product. Also any timeless structure. In a more profound sense, being expresses itself (through us and other entities) with reasons which are much more complex and contingent. Lewis Carroll recognized well how laughable is a syllogistic logic when one puts it in the context of ordinary language. Language is a product of body and logic and knowledge cannot be considered independently from this production. Language is not at all logical in the syllogistic sense of the word. It is the same about thought. Grammar and logic are reductions and products. This is why the materialist psychoanalysis is an essential part of the logic of sense. The science of logic cannot ignore that it is the body of the new born child that in interaction with outside generates language and thought. It is noises and cries that become meaningful sounds. If this is the case, we should admit that the way we think is related to the way we learned to think. The Schizophrenic and the Little Girl! Lewis Carroll and Melanie Klein (A magical marriage at the heart of Logic of Sense)! This link between logic and ontology, or thought and existence, made us to conclude a Deleuzian rationalism which is discussed in our chapters on Kant, Hyppolite’s Hegel, and Deleuze’s Leibniz. Deleuze is at once a rationalist and an empiricist. Although in the manner of the empiricists he pictures existence as radically irreducible to subjectivity, but he reformulates knowledge so that it operates on the other side of, and against, subjectivity. As we have seen in the course of the text, I would prefer to claim that Deleuze is at once irrationalist and non-empiricist, if we can approve that the negative prefixes guarantee a positive link with the traditions of rationalism and empiricism. In other words, the sense-data are not passive and ready-made to mental faculties, and on the other hand, the faculty of understanding does not hold the full agency in the manner that appears in Kant’s first Critique. Deleuze’s reformulation (his revised rationalism and empiricism) can be summarized as the following: the unconscious experiences the contingent and productive existence by taking part in its production. Knowledge is practice therefore logic and ontology hold an inherent connection with ethics. The central role of the events in Logic of Sense renders it, among other things, a book of ethics. The connection between logic and ethics is reflected in Logic of Sense by linking two senses of the

11  MADNESS VS. STUPIDITY 

285

term event: event as effect or attribute and event as the element of time. Syllogistic logic underlies a certain relation with future that entails a certain ethical attitude (necessity; transcendent morality). For the logic of sense rather, necessity belongs exclusively to the untotalizable whole. This leads to an immanent ethics. The move from hypothetical syllogistic logic to a realist logic leads to a transition from a hypothetical morality (living following transcendent moral laws) to a realist ethics (living in harmony with nature). Deleuze translates the Stoic living in harmony with nature into living the event or loving the event. It is an openness to what happens and results in the so-called contingent rationalism: what happens is rational or logical, regardless of what it is. At this point, logic of sense joins the ethics of the event. In this sense, logic and ontology of the event has nothing to do with the representative knowledge because the events are not something to be known or represented; they are something to operate, mime or dance. It is logic as practice. This results in discovering an agency which is different from the causal agency of objects and conscious agency of subjects. It is only this new agency that can be responsible to the event, responsible to the unconscious desire. This agency defines a relation which is not with an object or a subject but rather in the form of the communication of events. It is not in the form of grasping or comprehending but responding and operating. In this way, the agents can join together in the univocity which is the disjunctive unity, a unity without commonality, without a shared essence. When the instrument of communication is not a ready-made conceptual language but rather a language which is under construction and contains noises which are becoming voices, any communication would be in form of resonance, the resonance of divergent series of events, the disjunctive synthesis of divergent series. This in turn brings to the scene the utopian thought of a community and a sociality which is not based on conceptual understanding but rather the communication of divergent operators. The logic of sense is also endowed with a political aspect which is exemplified in the central role of the disjunctive synthesis in it. The politics of the logic of sense entails forming a community without having anything in common, a sociality not based on conscious need but on unconscious desire, not based on a free will that can choose between chocolate and vanilla, but a desire that can create something unexpected. It entails a society not before or after revolution, but under a permanent revolution, a society which is permanently under construction. In the same manner that logic of sense deals with

286 

M. PARSA

language and thought at the point of their construction, the politics of sense deals with society at the moments of its construction. It is a frightening politics which is not based on dialogue but rather on a contingent dialectics; with an economy which far from being exchangist, is radically productionist. It is a politics which is not at all conservative and protectionist for any attempt to reduce the political element to conceptual mutual understanding and dialogue, to shared values, to aims to protect the current state of affairs. Rather, the politics of sense aims to produce new social and political forms and is inherently genetic; it stands against the politics of common sense severely. It is not representational, but rather functional. Far from being protectionist, it tends to be open to the unseen societies with unseen values. The politics of sense has the genesis of values at its center, not only in the sense of a genealogy of the values, but the generation of new values; it is essentially contingent. From logic to politics there is a thin line which connects the philosophical endeavors throughout the history. Philosophy is all about taking a stand against representational logic, representational ontology, representational ethics and representational politics; against the logical, ontological, ethical and political common sense or doxa. This is only possible through the independence of a domain in which disjunction takes place, namely, the realm of sense. It is a unique realm for the logical, ontological, ethical and political sense because it is here that something changes its direction and makes a disjunction. In addition, this is the Deleuzian account of freedom: the irreducibility of such a field of sense; the field of the necessity, rather than the possibility, of disjunction, of deviation, of change in direction, and of making sense. In deviating from doxa, in its obsession with making sense, philosophy always attempts to establish a link between logic, ontology, ethics and politics.

Notes 1. Some contemporary biologists are well aware of this developmental determination among whom I would like to mention Lambros Malafouris who in his How Things Shape the Mind, A Theory of Material Engagement writes: “The unidirectional formula (prevalent in molecular biology) by which genes drive and determine behavior is replaced with a new scheme that explicitly recognizes the bidirectionality of influences between the genetic, behavioral, environmental, and socio-cultural levels of analysis” (Malafouris, 2010: 40 quoted from Malabou, 2017). For Malafouris the idea of

11  MADNESS VS. STUPIDITY 

287

­ epigenetics” has changed the “unidirectional” attitude in genetics (and “ molecular biology) that traces only the way genes determine behavior. The change in behavior is always the result of an interaction between genes and the environment. The same holds in the case of the formation of an organ. 2. Gaston Bachelard, in his The Formation of Scientific Mind (1938), already formulated such a distinction in terms of the distinction between naïve and “passive empiricism” of pre-scientific era and the “inventive empiricism” and “active” empiricism of modern science, when he invites us “to appreciate the distance there is between the passive empiricism that just records and the empiricism that is active and thought”. According to him, the latter entails the conception of the discursive and dialectical objectivity of modem science (Bachelard, 2002: 64 and 103). 3. Gregg Lambert approaches this idea of a pragmatism of sense, against the pragmatism of common sense: “according to Deleuze, pragmatism begins to go astray when it confuses this immanent plane with the representation of a common sense (cogitatio natura universalis), under the false presupposition that the more simple and direct understanding is for that reason more open, more gregarious, more ‘democratic’ and, consequently, is considered to be more immanent thanks to the qualities that define it. However, it is precisely this model of ‘recognition’ that Deleuze most vehemently rejects from Difference and Repetition onward” (Lambert, 2002: 4). 4. See DI 172–174; here, the Other appears in the form of the symbolic father or the “Name-of-the-Father.” 5. “La partie de l’objet que je ne vois pas, je la pose en même temps comme visible pour autrui”, LdS 355. 6. Constantine Boundas explains this point, referring to Deleuze’s reading of Sartre: “If Sartre, Deleuze claims, is correct in arguing for the contemporaneity of ego and the other—if both structures are the result of a dialectic of non-egological consciousness—the (intensive) reduction of the one will precipitate the reduction of the other” (Boundas, 2006: 15). Boundas claims that the reduction of the structure-other, together with that of the ego, results in the creative life, or the plane of immanence. Without rejecting such a reading, we, focusing on different Deleuze’s texts, pursue another path towards the structure of perversion. 7. Sartre (2004/1937: 3); LdS 124; LoS 102; PI 32 (note 2). 8. See DI 12: “Any healthy reader would dream of seeing him [Friday] eat Robinson”. Compare with the notion of “Great Health” discussed below. 9. “Non pas un autrui, mais un tout-autre qu’autrui”; LdS 368; LoS 317. 10. “la grande Santé”; LdS 367; LoS 315. 11. This helps to get rid of the confusing connections between natural violence and human violence, for example in Nazi readings of Nietzsche or Lars von

288 

M. PARSA

Trier’s The House that Jack Built (Nordisk Film 2018). Natural violence has nothing to do with egoism together with all of its extensions (nationalism, racism, etc.).

References Bachelard, G. (2002). The Formation of the Scientific Mind: A Contribution to a Psychoanalysis of Objective Knowledge (M. M. Jones, Trans.). Clinamen Press. Boundas, C.  V. (2006). What Difference does Deleuze’s Difference Make? In C.  Boundas (Ed.), Deleuze and Philosophy (pp.  3–28). Edinburgh University Press. Deleuze, G. (1983). Nietzsche and Philosophy (H. Tomlinson, Trans.). Athlon Press. Deleuze, G. (1990). The Logic of Sense (M. Lester, Trans.). The Athlone Press. Deleuze, G. (2001). Pure Immanence: Essays on A Life (A.  Boyman, Trans.). Zone Books. Deleuze, G. (2004a). Desert Islands and Other Texts (D.  Lapoujade, Ed. and M. Taormins, Trans.). Semiotext(e). Deleuze, G. (2004b). Difference and Repetition (P. Patton, Trans.). Continuum. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1983). Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (R. Hurley, M. Seem, & H. R. Lane, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press. Deleuze, G. (1969). Logiques du Sens. Les Edition de Minuit. Derrida, J. (2007). The Transcendental ‘Stupidity’ (‘Betise’) of Man and Becoming-Animal According to Deleuze. In E. Ferris (Ed.), Derrida, Deleuze, Psychoanalysis (pp. 35–60). Columbia University Press. Foucault, M. (2016). Theatrum Philosophicum. In N. Morar, T. Nail, & D. W. Smith (Eds.), Between Deleuze and Foucault (pp. 38–58). Edinburgh University Press. Lambert, G. (2002). The Non-philosophy of Gilles Deleuze. Continuum. Malabou, C. (2017). The Brain of History, Or, the Mentality of the Anthropocene. South Atlantic Quarterly, 1(116), 39–53. Malafouris, L. (2010). How Things Shape the Mind, A Theory of Material Engagement. MIT Press. Sartre, J. P. (2004/1937). The Transcendence of the Ego (S. Richmond & A. Brown, Trans.). Routledge. Zourabichvili, F. (2012). Deleuze: a Philosophy of the Event (K. Aarons, Trans. and G. Lambert & D. Smith, Ed.). Edinburgh University Press.

Name Index1

A Aquinas, T., 47, 48 Aristotle, 15, 49n2, 85, 86, 88–92, 112n7, 131, 140n4, 172 Artaud, A., 137–139, 241, 274 Avicenna, 130, 131, 140n9 B Bachelard, G., 287n2 Bacon, F., 266n9 Badiou, A., 26, 211 Bataille, G., 279 Beckett, S., 278 Beiser, F., 149 Bell, J., 60, 61 Bennett, J., 21 Bennett, M., 21, 22, 103, 104, 111n2 Bergson, H., 8, 28n5, 64–66, 74–76, 80n10, 104, 121, 122, 135, 151, 152, 165n5, 170, 213, 224

1

Bobzien, S., 103 Bordas-Demoulin, J., 65 Borges, J. L., 134 Boundas, C., 10, 27n2, 122, 165n5, 287n6 Bousquet, J., 101, 109 Bowden, S., 79n6, 79n7 Brassier, R., 211, 227, 229–232, 239n5 Bréhier, E., 84–89, 92, 94, 95, 98, 100, 114n25 Brunschvicg, L., 177, 188n6 Bryant, L., 151 Buñuel, L., 140n8 C Calicidius, 111n5 Camus, A., 96, 113n21 Carnap, R., 56, 78n3, 120, 125, 176

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Parsa, A Reading of Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13706-8

289

290 

NAME INDEX

Carroll, L., 4, 5, 26, 33, 34, 42, 57, 59, 95, 96, 113n21, 119–139, 182, 196, 235, 241, 269, 274, 284 Cavaillès, J., 206 Céline, F., 279 Châtelet, G., 206 Chrysippus, 96, 98, 100, 105, 107, 108, 112n13, 113n22, 115n34, 115n36, 115–116n37, 119, 129 Cicero, M. T., 98, 112n7, 199, 216 Clement of Alexandria, 97 Collett, G., 242 D Dali, S., 129, 140n8 Defoe, D., 275, 276, 278, 279 Derrida, J., 26, 29n17, 164n3, 193, 194, 212, 272, 273, 279 Descartes, R., 153, 155, 163, 207, 208 Dickens, C., 264 Dilthey, W., 80n9 Dionysius of Chalcedon, 113n17 Duffy, S., 177, 179, 188n6, 189n8 Dummett, M., 38, 40, 78–79n3 Duns Scotus, 30n20, 44 E Einstein, A., 222 Empedocles, 107 Epictetus, 105, 109, 114n29 Epicurus, 16, 17, 20–22 Evans, G., 38, 40 F Ferguson, M., 21 Fichte, J. G., 28n8, 161, 191, 206–208, 212 Foucault, M., 80n10, 95, 194, 263, 264, 269

Frege, G., 4, 33–48, 53–54, 90, 91, 93, 119, 120, 125, 128, 129, 177 Freud, S., 183, 255, 258, 261 G Gabriel, M., 26, 28n8, 49n3, 50n8, 61, 226 Gilson, E., 140n9 Goldschmidt, V., 84, 104, 105, 111n2, 114n34, 115n35, 115–116n37, 116n42 Guattari, F., 138, 141n11, 148, 183–187, 225, 245, 266n8, 269, 278 Guerroult, M., 206 H Hadot, P., 17, 19, 20, 100–103, 115–116n37 Hegel, G. F. W., 1, 2, 28n8, 66, 191–196, 199, 200, 209, 212, 220, 222, 244, 256, 265n3, 284 Heidegger, M., 1, 2, 26, 29n12, 104, 135, 148, 175, 178, 212, 217, 232 Heraclitus (Heraclitean), 18, 102, 239n4 Hilbert, D., 175, 176 Hitchcock, A., 129, 140n8 Hoëné-Wronski, J. M., 65 Holmes, B., 22–24 Hughes, J., 28n4, 73, 74, 80n9, 80n10, 148, 185, 242, 264–265n1 Hume, D., 39, 149, 264 Husserl, E., 1, 2, 73–75, 80n9, 144, 145, 148, 164n1, 188n5, 204, 276 Hyppolite, J., 191–197, 199, 200, 208, 209, 220, 284

  NAME INDEX 

I Imbert, C., 79n5 J Jacoby, F. H., 199 Jakobson, R., 79n7 James, W., 50n6, 147, 198 Johnson, R., 96, 98, 102, 111n3, 112n7, 112n14, 113n18, 113n22, 113n24, 114n27, 114–115n34 Jourdain, P., 37 Joyce, J., 106, 182, 261 K Kafka, F., 277 Kant, I., 1, 5, 8, 10, 25, 26, 27n1, 34, 49n2, 143, 149–154, 156–162, 166n10, 166n11, 166n12, 166n13, 166–167n14, 167n15, 169–175, 182–184, 187n1, 188n3, 188n4, 193, 196, 207, 208, 212, 224, 234, 236, 237, 256, 265n1, 284 Kierkegaard, S., 199, 200 Klein, M., 186, 245–247, 284 Klossowski, P., 280 L Lacan, J., 62, 187, 249, 251, 275 Laertius, Diogenes, 20, 83, 107, 112n13, 113n17, 113n19, 114n26, 116n39 Lambert, G., 271, 287n3 Lapoujade, D., 41, 214 Lautman, A., 47, 79n5, 169, 175–180, 188n6, 188n7, 189n8, 206, 220, 221, 223 Lawlor, L., 147, 165n8, 195

291

Lecercle, J.-J., 30n19, 140n7, 141n11, 182 Leibniz, G. W., 65, 134, 188n5, 192, 200–206, 209, 209n2, 211, 233–237, 284 Levinas, E., 280, 281 Lévi-Strauss, C., 62, 119 Livingston, P., 15, 53, 58–60, 139–140n1 Longo, A., 188n7, 224, 226, 238n3 Lucretius, T.C., 16–19, 21, 23, 24, 29n11, 133 M Maimon, S., 65, 149–152, 161, 167n15, 183, 191, 193, 206, 224, 234 Malabou, C., 217, 286n1 Malafouris, L., 286n1 Marcus Aurelius, 102, 105, 109, 114n31, 116n38 Meillassoux, Q., 211–230, 232, 238n1, 238n3, 239n4 Meinong, A., 89, 90, 112n11, 119, 131, 132 Merleau-Ponty, M., 75, 76, 80n10, 165n5, 224 Michaux, H., 278, 280 Moore, A., 28n7, 40, 43, 50n9, 58, 59 Moran, D., 74 N Nancy, J. L., 180 Newton, I., 65, 222 Nietzsche, F., 13, 29n12, 29n13, 107, 134, 174, 199, 200, 209n1, 213, 219, 287n11 Noonan, H., 33, 34, 38, 40, 56, 79n4

292 

NAME INDEX

P Pascal, B., 134 Peirce, C. S., 239n6 Perry, J., 40 Plato, 11, 12, 14–16, 20, 23, 29n11, 29n13, 29n15, 35, 53, 78n2, 85, 86, 88, 111n5, 133, 173, 188n3, 239n4 Ponge, F., 279 Prantl, C., 113n22 Priest, G., 50n10 R Rescher, N., 209n2 Revault, O., 206 Riemann, B., 64, 79n5, 121, 188n7 Rousseau, J. J., 279 Russell, B., 33, 34, 39, 44, 57–59, 61, 69–74, 79n4, 89, 176, 177 S Sarti, A., vi Sartre, J.-P., 75, 144, 145, 147, 148, 152, 164n1, 164n2, 169, 187, 194, 259, 265n6, 276, 287n6 Saussure, F., 40 Schelling, F., 28n8 Schuster, A., 246, 247 See, T., 140n3 Sellars, J., 114n34, 115n34, 115–116n37 Seneca, 111n4, 112n12, 114n30 Sextus Empiricus, 84, 90, 111n3, 112n10, 140n6

Simondon, G., 79n7, 253 Smith, D., 13, 29n14, 29n16, 71, 150, 167n15, 174, 265n3 Socrates, 35, 57, 93, 155 Spinoza, B., 47, 48, 172, 206–209, 219, 236 Stobaus, 87 Świa ̨tkowski, P., 265n5, 265–266n8 T Tournier, M., 274–279 V Von Trier, L., 288n11 Voss, D., 50n7, 160, 162, 165–166n9, 174, 187–188n2, 206 W Warhol, A., 16 Weyl, H., 188n7 Williams, J., 50n6, 198 Wittgenstein, L., 43, 176 Z Zalamea, F., 175 Zeno (Stoic), 69, 112n14, 113n17, 122, 132, 202 Zourabichvili, F., 25, 26, 27n3, 30n22, 121, 140–141n10, 165n4, 165n6, 165n7, 273

Subject Index1

A Absolute Knowledge, 193, 196, 198, 199, 273 Absolutism, 200, 213, 232 Absolutory, 213 Actor, 109, 110, 117n42, 126, 172, 173, 188n5 Affect, 86, 88, 122, 138, 155, 161, 197–199, 202, 206, 228, 231 After Finitude (book by Meillassoux), 212, 217, 239n5 Agency, 49n5, 103, 104, 109, 126, 216, 259, 264, 266n8, 284, 285 Aion, 11, 84, 105–108, 114n34, 115–116n37, 116n38, 117n42, 119, 120, 122, 134–136, 153, 188n5, 255 Alice in Wonderland (book by Lewis Carroll), 120, 132, 140n2 Amor fati, 101, 109, 200, 209n1, 216, 261 Analogism, 48

1

Analytic philosophy, 60 Ancestrality, 216, 229, 232, 233 An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (book by Russell), 71 Anthropology, 192, 197 Anthropophagy, 107 Antichrist, 173, 188n5 Anti-Oedipus (book by Deleuze and Guattari), 138, 183–187, 214, 241, 264–265n1, 278 Arithmetic, 34, 65, 176 Art, 16, 29n16, 134, 193, 261, 266n9, 273 A Thousand Plateaus (book by Deleuze and Guattari), 138, 266n8, 279 Atom, 9, 17–24, 29n18, 39, 231 Atomism, 16, 17 Attribute, 47, 48, 68, 87–89, 91–95, 98, 106, 108, 110, 171, 215, 216, 244, 258, 259, 271, 285 Autoerotism, 250, 251, 253

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 M. Parsa, A Reading of Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13706-8

293

294 

SUBJECT INDEX

B Becoming, 3, 14–16, 24–26, 28n5, 29n15, 30n22, 48, 53, 54, 65, 66, 69, 72, 77, 78n2, 88, 91, 93, 103, 106, 108, 121, 125, 140n2, 165n5, 197, 224–226, 228, 230, 238n2, 239n4, 258, 283, 285 Begrifsschrift (book by Frege), 46 Being and Nothingness (book by Sartre), 194 Bestowal of sense, 74 Body without organs, 138, 214, 246, 247, 250, 252, 253, 260 Buddhism, 140n3 C Calculus, 64–67, 70, 79n6, 79n7, 176 Cannibalism, 107, 108, 256 Carroll’s paradox, 42, 57, 119, 123–130 Castration, 250, 252–254, 256, 257, 260, 262 Chaldean astrology, 100, 170, 216 Chance, 18, 19, 27n3, 132–137, 140–141n10, 200, 225, 226, 233, 267 Chaos, 11, 106, 180, 182, 220–229 Chaosmos, 106, 172, 173, 182, 188n5, 221 Chronos, 87, 105–108, 114–115n34, 115n36, 115–116n37, 117n42, 119–122, 135, 136, 153 Common sense, 54, 120, 122–124, 131, 135–137, 140n7, 153–159, 161, 162, 186, 269–272, 281, 286, 287n3 Conjunctive synthesis, 110, 127, 236, 242, 243, 250, 256, 265n2 Connective synthesis, 110, 127, 171, 242, 250, 251, 265n2

Consciousness, 37, 38, 74, 80n9, 101, 116n37, 144–149, 164n1, 164n2, 164n3, 165n5, 169, 183–185, 187, 214–216, 218, 227, 230, 242, 264, 268, 269, 276, 277, 280, 282, 283, 287n6 Contiguity, 251, 253 Contingency, 102, 201, 203, 209, 211, 213, 215–222, 224, 226, 234, 237, 238n1, 243, 244, 271 Conversion, 250 Copula, 35, 48, 92, 93, 201 Correlationism, 212 Counter-actualization, 109, 259, 260, 262 The Critique of Practical Reason (book by Kant), 159 The Critique of Pure Reason (book by Kant), 49n2, 157, 170 The Critique of the Power of Judgment (book by Kant), 156, 157, 159, 161 Cruelty, 200, 248, 251 Cynicism, 107 D Dance, 109, 130, 136, 139, 285 Dasein, 1, 104, 197, 231, 232 Death, 101, 102, 109, 173, 200, 204, 214–216, 229–231, 246, 249, 250, 255, 264, 272 Deduction, 124, 176, 178, 181, 235 Demystification, 23 Denotation, 2, 41–43, 69–73, 76, 78, 90, 106, 129, 131, 137, 140n7, 146, 148, 181, 198, 204, 227, 245, 248 Depression, 247 Depressive position, 247, 248, 266n8 Depth, 23, 24, 26, 86, 94, 106–108, 110, 137–139, 141n11, 152,

  SUBJECT INDEX 

169, 180, 182, 186, 243–254, 256, 257, 260, 262, 264, 266n9, 271, 274, 275, 277, 278 Desexualization, 255–261, 278, 282 Desire, 23, 41, 42, 55, 116n41, 132, 181, 183–185, 261, 278, 279, 282, 285 Desiring-production, 186 Determination of signification, 43, 54–61, 63 Dialectics, 66, 92, 96, 98, 103, 113n17, 161, 162, 170, 175, 176, 178–180, 194, 205, 222, 223, 242–244, 246, 248–250, 252, 258, 265n3, 269, 281, 286, 287n6 Diogenes (the Cynic), 107, 112n13, 113n19, 115n35, 116n41, 273 Discourse on the Method (book by Descartes), 153 Disjunctive synthesis, 25, 47, 58, 76, 77, 109, 110, 125, 127, 129, 136, 164, 170–172, 205, 206, 215, 236, 242, 243, 250, 260, 281, 285 Divination, 116n41 Doctrine of faculties, 153 Donation of sense, 96, 123, 132, 136 Doxa, 120, 122, 154, 271, 286 Dynamic genesis, 5, 182, 185, 186, 241–264 E Effect, 30n19, 50n5, 62, 64, 70–72, 84, 85, 87–91, 94, 95, 97–99, 103–105, 107–110, 131, 138, 154, 158, 171, 201, 203, 215, 216, 227, 244, 257–259, 262, 275, 285 Egoism, 199, 279, 281, 288n11 Eidola, 21, 22

295

Emile (book by Rousseau), 279 Encounter, 3, 7, 8, 24, 25, 104, 140–141n10, 155, 156, 160, 161, 163, 165n6, 174, 175, 198, 205, 206, 214, 216, 217, 221, 223, 225, 228, 238n1, 257 Epicureanism, 17, 18, 20–23, 216 Epistemology, 26, 76, 157 Erogenous zones, 249, 251, 256 Eschatology, 194 Esoteric word(s), 127–132, 137, 267, 269 Esthetic common sense, 157, 158 Esthetics, 74, 156–159, 162, 163 Ethics, 5, 22, 83, 84, 103–110, 111n3, 114n32, 116n41, 119, 209, 277, 280, 281, 283–286 Event, 3, 5, 9–11, 14, 25, 26, 29n18, 39, 40, 48, 49n5, 54, 64, 68, 76, 77, 83–110, 121, 122, 125, 130, 133, 136, 140n7, 140n10, 151, 171–175, 179, 188n5, 198, 200–206, 208, 214, 215, 222, 223, 228, 233, 235, 238n2, 239n5, 241–264, 267, 268, 283–285 Exteriority, 103, 140–141n10, 146–148, 152, 159, 165n4, 173, 175, 199, 206, 211–238, 262, 264 Extinction, 25, 26, 229–233, 239n5 Extra-being, 88, 89, 93, 94, 132, 262, 263 F Fact, 17–20, 22, 25, 39, 85, 87, 88, 92, 93, 100, 102, 108, 132, 146, 150, 198, 201, 203, 213, 218, 219, 221, 226, 244, 259, 264, 265n8, 269, 271, 283

296 

SUBJECT INDEX

Factiality, 217 Facticity, 229, 233, 237 Faith, 134, 198–200 Fate/fatality, 42, 97–104, 108, 109, 114n30, 116n37, 134, 196–200, 203, 216, 217, 237, 253, 254, 267 Flexion, 139, 281, 282 Freedom, 19, 101, 102, 135, 158, 159, 161, 259, 261, 267–269, 273, 282, 286 Free matter, 163, 164, 182, 231, 268 Free will, 101, 270, 283, 285 Frustration, 248 Function, 22, 34, 35, 67, 77, 79n4, 79n6, 86, 93, 120, 128–130, 136, 139n1, 140n7, 144, 165n9, 169, 170, 198, 230, 263, 277 G Generality, 6, 7, 9, 35, 67, 70, 77 Genesis, 2–5, 9–12, 15, 20, 63, 65, 71–77, 80n9, 97, 119, 125, 127, 129, 137–139, 143, 144, 150–153, 160, 161, 164, 178–182, 185, 186, 194–196, 200, 206–209, 237, 241–264, 269, 270, 286 German Idealism, 207, 211 Gluon, 48, 50n10 God, 46, 48, 111n5, 117n42, 121, 134, 148, 153, 171–173, 188n5, 200–205, 207, 234–237 Good sense, 54, 59, 107, 120–123, 131, 135, 136, 153–157, 163, 202, 219 Great Health, 278, 280, 282, 287n8

H Happiness, 23, 100, 101 Height, 24, 106, 107, 141n11, 243, 247–252, 254 Heraclitus (Heraclitean), 18, 102, 239n4 Heterogeneity, 67, 103, 130, 162, 218, 219, 221, 222, 224, 228, 267 Heterogeneous series, 64, 127, 130, 131, 243, 270 Historicity, 221 Humor, 116n40, 129, 272 Humpty Dumpty, 126, 127, 252, 253 Hyper-rationalism, 151 I Ideal game, 132–137, 226 Idealism, 150, 169, 179, 180, 185, 209n1, 212, 213 Idea of reason, 157, 161, 162, 171 Idol, 247, 255, 263, 266n8 Image of thought, 120, 121, 153, 242, 284 Impassibility (of sense), 119 Impenetrability, 126, 129, 140n8 Incompatibility (of events), 98, 100 Incompossibility, 172–174, 188n5, 204, 205 Incorporeal, 10, 11, 26, 28n8, 29n18, 54, 55, 84, 85, 87–92, 94–98, 103, 105–108, 110, 111n3, 112n10, 113n24, 115n35, 119, 126, 129, 138, 171, 174, 181, 216, 227, 255, 258, 262, 263, 268 Induction, 124, 149, 235, 236 Infinite regress, 43, 54, 56, 57, 63, 64, 68, 125–127, 170, 203, 235

  SUBJECT INDEX 

In-itself, 2, 3, 13, 17, 28n5, 58, 65–69, 138, 147, 156, 163, 165n4, 180, 182, 192, 193, 219, 223, 224, 234, 245, 251, 253, 277 Intelligibility, 2, 4, 144, 151, 152, 170, 191, 193, 198, 206, 208, 209, 219, 220, 237, 283 Intensity, 10, 161, 213, 214, 236, 238n3, 245, 246, 261, 280, 281 Introjection, 246, 248, 249 Intuition, 7–9, 11, 24, 25, 28n4, 66, 75–77, 104, 150–152, 160, 162–164, 165n5, 170, 214, 218 Irony, 116n40 Irrationalism, 3–5, 27n3, 154, 161, 192, 195, 209, 213, 220, 223, 224, 233 J Judgment, 1, 5, 27n1, 39, 40, 44, 45, 47, 48, 74, 90, 91, 96, 98, 148, 156–159, 161, 163, 165–166n9, 166n11, 166n12, 170, 273 L Language, 5, 29n18, 40–42, 45–48, 53–57, 59, 62, 71, 79n7, 90–92, 94, 96, 103, 104, 106, 108, 113n19, 114n25, 119, 120, 123, 125, 127–130, 137–139, 139n1, 148, 169, 182, 186, 196–199, 223, 230, 231, 241, 242, 244, 245, 248, 253, 258, 266n8, 270, 272, 276, 280–286 Lekton/lekta, 4, 84, 90, 96, 108, 110, 111n2, 111n3, 215, 227 Libido, 250, 255, 257 Literature, 16, 28n5, 50n6, 111n2, 182, 223, 261, 272, 276

297

Logical Investigations (book by Husserl), 164n1 Logicism, 4, 37–39, 41, 43, 44, 57, 74, 177, 178, 188n6, 199, 237, 270, 283 The Logic of Sensation (book by Deleuze), 266n9 Love, 101, 109, 155, 200, 209n1, 248, 279 M Madness, 135, 138, 267–286 Manic-depressive position, 247–251 Manifestation, 2, 41–43, 70, 76, 78, 106, 137, 148, 150, 181, 198, 204, 227, 228, 245, 248 Masochism, 248 Masturbation, 252 Materialism, 5, 19, 28n9, 84, 169, 180, 183, 185, 186, 212, 214–217, 220, 227, 238n3, 241, 263 Material reduction, 185, 186 Mathematics, 34, 64, 65, 175–180, 212, 220–223 Meaning and Necessity (book by Carnap), 56 Meaning of life, 121 Megarians, 92, 113n17 Membrane, 253 Metamathematics, 175, 176, 178 Metaphysical surface, 243, 253–257, 259–264, 265n7 Metaphysics, 39, 41, 105, 172, 184, 193, 205, 225, 229, 263–264, 268 Metaphysics (book by Aristotle), 89, 131 Mime, 109, 268, 285 Monadology, 200–202, 209n2, 236

298 

SUBJECT INDEX

Movement, 17–19, 22, 23, 25, 26, 47, 61, 65–69, 74, 85, 86, 116n38, 121, 122, 132–135, 139, 140n4, 148, 158, 159, 177, 191, 194, 199, 200, 202, 207, 214, 225, 226, 242, 250, 255, 257, 259–262, 267–269, 282 Mythology, 276 N Narcissism, 247, 252–254 Nationalism, 288n11 Natural attitude, 74, 75, 259, 270 Naturalism, 6, 16–24, 26, 47, 200, 268 Neurosis, 269, 277, 278, 281, 282 Neutrality (of sense), 70, 103, 130–132 Neutralization, 258, 262 Nietzsche and Philosophy (book by Deleuze), 191, 229, 271 Nobody, 40, 172, 173, 204 Noema, 1, 74 Noematic attribute, 48, 258 Nomadic distribution, 21, 133–136, 202, 220, 226, 268 Nomadology, 200–206 Nominalism, 131 Nonsense, 2, 5, 27n2, 58, 95, 96, 113n21, 119–139, 148, 154, 169, 180, 182, 191, 192, 195–197, 202, 209, 220, 223, 227, 267, 274 Noumenon (Noumena), 196 O Objectity, 181 Object=x, 152, 205, 267 Obsession, 262, 286 Oedipal family, 183 Oedipus complex, 252, 253

Of Grammatology (book by Derrida), 29n17, 193 Ontology, 1–3, 5, 10, 11, 24–27, 30n20, 30n22, 44, 48, 76, 88, 89, 93, 104, 110, 132, 172, 176, 189n8, 191–209, 212, 215, 220, 223, 224, 226, 234, 237, 241, 268, 283–286 Operation, 50n5, 109, 130, 139 P Pantomime, 109, 139, 280, 281 Paradox, 11, 12, 42, 53–54, 96, 98, 99, 108, 119–123, 130–132, 136, 202, 276, 279 Paradoxical element, 3, 59–61, 64, 120, 132, 202, 204, 236, 267, 268 Paranoid-schizoid position, 245, 246 Partial objects, 184–186, 245–249, 251, 269 Penetrability, 126 Penis, 250–253, 258 Peripatetic logic, 45 Perversion, 250, 282, 283, 287n6 Phallus, 250–256, 258, 259, 265n7 Phantasm, 216, 254, 255, 257–264, 265n7, 265–266n8, 278 Phenomenology, 73, 74, 80n9, 144, 186, 197, 205, 212, 264n1, 281 Phenomenology of Perception (book by Merleau-Ponty), 80n10 Phenomenology of Spirit (book by Hegel), 192 Phonology, 79n7 Physical surface, 243, 249, 250, 254–261, 265n7, 265n8, 278 Physics, 22, 39, 41, 83, 103–105, 110, 111n3, 112n13, 114n32, 176, 222, 223, 232, 263, 264, 268 Physics (book by Aristotle), 140n4

  SUBJECT INDEX 

Plane of immanence, 141n11, 146, 147, 151, 165n4, 225, 287n6 Platonism, 11–14, 16, 21, 23, 24, 29n12, 29n14, 47, 49n1, 63, 85, 107, 133, 171, 173, 174, 180, 185, 189n8 Pleasure, 23, 101, 157–159, 161, 166n13 Poetry, 29n16, 139, 271, 280 Portmanteau words, 127, 128 Pre-Socratic philosophy, 107 Primary order, 106 Principia Mathematica (book by Russell and Whitehead), 120 The Principle of Mathematics (book by Russell), 58 Principle of sufficient reason, 202–203, 209, 218–219, 221, 233–236 Problematic Idea, 169–175, 178–180, 188n7 Production, 9, 11–24, 60, 68, 69, 71–74, 76, 80n9, 86, 97, 106, 107, 124, 143, 162, 164n1, 182, 185, 186, 195, 207–209, 215, 218, 227, 228, 230, 242–244, 255, 258, 259, 270, 277, 284 Projection, 62, 246, 248, 249, 253, 255 Proposition, 5, 34–37, 40–48, 50n6, 54, 55, 57, 61, 62, 70–73, 76–78, 90–99, 104, 108, 110, 114n25, 114n26, 123, 124, 126, 128–132, 138, 140n7, 148, 149, 181, 197, 201–204, 223, 234, 235, 237, 244, 257 Psychoanalysis, 62, 169, 182–187, 241–264, 268, 272, 278, 284 Psychologism, 37, 49n3, 63, 75, 177 Pythagorean theorem, 38

299

Q Qualitative multiplicity, 24, 79n5, 121, 151, 214 Quantitative multiplicity, 64, 121 Quasi-causality/quasi-cause, 24, 27, 30n19, 49n5, 84, 85, 97–104, 108, 109, 113n24, 117n42, 126, 134, 138, 172, 174, 203, 209n2, 214, 216, 227, 244, 257, 258, 264, 266n8 R Racism, 288n11 Rationalism, 3, 149–154, 161, 163, 164, 192, 195, 196, 206, 207, 209, 211, 213, 220, 223, 237, 284, 285 Realism, 5, 38, 39, 169, 177, 179, 180, 214, 215, 220, 228 Recognition, 3, 62, 154–157, 160, 162, 163, 165n7, 205, 206, 208, 224, 230, 257, 271, 273, 287n3 Reflection, 157, 158, 196, 233, 282 Regressive synthesis, 4, 125, 129, 173 Reiteration, 126, 217, 238n1 Religion, 121 Resonance, 109, 110, 136, 242, 243, 257, 260, 261, 265n2, 267, 270, 279, 285 Robinson Crusoe (book by Defoe), 275 S Sadism, 248 Sayable, 84, 90–95, 111n2, 111n3 Schematization, 157, 163, 166n11 Schizophrenia/schizophrenic, 137, 138, 182, 183, 186, 249, 250, 269, 274, 277–279, 282, 284 Science of Logic (book by Hegel), 192

300 

SUBJECT INDEX

Sensibility, 39, 75, 143, 144, 149–152, 155, 156, 160, 165n8, 166–167n14, 170, 193, 280 Series, 3, 4, 9, 14, 46, 59–71, 73, 77, 78, 79n5, 80n8, 96, 98, 109, 110, 125, 127, 129–131, 133, 136, 171, 173, 176, 180, 188n5, 197, 200, 204–206, 208, 228, 236, 237, 242, 243, 247, 250, 252, 254, 256, 257, 259–262, 265n2, 267, 270, 274, 278–280, 285 Set theory/set theoretical, 58–60, 70, 212, 221, 222, 224, 226 Sexuality, 249–257, 259–261, 264, 265n5, 268, 278, 279, 282 Sexual-perverse position, 249 Signification, 2, 3, 25, 41–44, 50n7, 54–64, 68, 70, 73, 76, 78, 91, 93, 95, 96, 98, 100, 106, 109, 114n25, 121–126, 129–132, 137, 148, 181, 194, 195, 198, 202–204, 226, 227, 235, 245, 248, 268 Simulacrum/simulacra, 11–24, 29n14, 106, 107, 119, 133, 182, 216, 245, 247, 249, 263, 274, 277, 278 Singularity, 6–9, 28n4, 64, 70, 76, 77, 136, 145, 152, 171, 237, 249, 251, 259, 260, 263, 271, 281 The Social Contract (book by Rousseau), 279 Space, 4, 8–10, 28n6, 42, 63, 65, 67–69, 74, 75, 80n11, 86, 105, 108, 111n3, 121, 122, 125, 133–135, 147, 181, 185, 196, 202, 205, 222, 223, 227, 231, 251, 260, 263, 266n8, 269, 271 Speculative materialism, 211, 214, 217, 220 Static logical genesis, 76

Static ontological genesis, 188n5, 236 Stoic sage, 83, 109, 130, 172, 173, 188n5 Structuralism, 62, 67, 79n7, 113n21, 201, 206–208, 229, 236 Structure, 4, 13, 24, 25, 35, 60–71, 76, 79n7, 106, 113n21, 161, 164n1, 165n3, 175, 178, 180, 185–187, 197, 201, 206–209, 220–229, 231, 234, 237, 242, 243, 245, 246, 256, 263, 269, 273–275, 277–279, 281–284, 287n6 Stupidity, 229, 267–286 Subject/subjectivity, 4, 24, 28n8, 34, 35, 59, 60, 75–77, 92, 93, 106, 109, 143, 144, 146, 147, 149, 152, 153, 155, 156, 158, 162, 164, 171, 174, 181, 184, 185, 195–199, 212–218, 220–224, 234, 248, 252, 256, 271, 275 Subjectalism, 5, 211, 212, 237 Subjectivism, 192, 199, 212, 221, 237 Sublimation, 243, 255, 257, 259, 262 Sublime, 111n5, 157–164, 166n13, 182, 205, 262, 273, 274 Subsistence, 4, 11, 84, 85, 87–90, 97, 103, 108, 112n11, 117n42, 119, 126, 132, 231, 243, 244, 283 Subversion, 250 Superego, 247–249, 254 Surface, 4, 11, 16, 23, 24, 26, 29n13, 30n19, 84, 87, 91, 94, 106, 107, 110, 126, 129, 135, 137–139, 140n8, 141n11, 145, 146, 152, 154, 169, 180–182, 186, 188n7, 229–231, 242–245, 249–257, 259, 261–264, 265n8, 274, 275, 277, 278, 281, 283 Syllogism/syllogistic, 33–35, 43, 57, 98, 99, 103, 123, 170–173, 188n4, 188n5, 268, 284, 285

  SUBJECT INDEX 

Sylvie and Bruno (book by Carroll), 137 Symbolic, 46, 62, 63, 130, 186, 187, 250, 256, 275 Symbolization, 255, 257, 259, 262 Synthesis, 1–5, 19, 20, 25, 26, 35, 36, 39, 44, 47, 57, 63, 64, 76, 77, 109, 110, 125, 127, 130, 136, 141n11, 145, 146, 162–164, 170–173, 177, 183–185, 188n5, 202–208, 215, 234–236, 242–244, 246, 247, 249–251, 253, 256, 260, 264, 265n2, 281, 285 Synthetic a priori, 1, 2, 27n1, 150, 162, 183, 234 T Tertiary arrangement, 78, 106, 245 Theology, 23, 172 Third realm (Frege), 1, 2, 4, 37, 38, 46, 47, 267 Through the Looking Glass (book by Lewis Carroll), 125, 126 Time, 7–11, 16, 17, 19, 28n5, 29n10, 38, 43, 44, 49n2, 56, 66, 69, 72, 74, 75, 80n11, 84, 86, 87, 89, 95, 97, 99, 102, 104–110, 114n32, 115n34, 115n35, 115n36, 115–116n37, 116n38, 117n42, 120–122, 125, 127, 132–137, 145, 147, 148, 153, 159, 161, 181, 184, 196, 202, 203, 206, 211, 214, 222, 223, 227, 231–233, 241, 242, 250, 251, 255, 262, 266n9, 272, 275, 277, 279, 285 Transcendental field, 75, 76, 143–149, 152–154, 158, 162, 164n2, 165n4, 165n7, 169, 179, 180, 182, 183, 187, 188n7, 205, 260, 263, 264, 274, 275, 277, 281, 282

301

Transcendental Idea, 160, 162, 169–175, 180, 187n1, 204 Transcendental materialism, 5, 28n9, 169, 183, 185, 186, 212, 241 Transcendental ontology, 2, 10, 25, 28n8, 76 U Unconscious, 62, 76, 120, 145–148, 165n7, 169, 182–187, 197, 214, 215, 217, 219, 242, 265n1, 268, 269, 271, 276, 284, 285 Univocity (of Being), 25–27, 30n20, 44–48, 110, 197, 226, 237 Unsaturatedness, 34 Utopia, 279 V Vegetarianism, 116n39 Verb, 24, 29–30n18, 48, 53, 92–96, 113n19, 126, 201, 215, 257, 258, 260, 262, 264 Vienna Circle, 177, 188n6 Virtuality, 28n5, 65, 170, 218, 226 Vitalism, 5, 211–214, 226, 229, 237 Voice, 14, 25, 44, 90, 91, 108, 110, 112n13, 138, 170, 193, 247–249, 270, 285 Void, 17, 19, 20, 84, 86, 111n3, 227 W Waiting for Godot (play by Beckett), 136 What is Philosophy (book by Deleuze and Guattari), 141n11, 225 Z Zen, 140n3 Zeno’s paradox, 69, 132, 202