Towards a Schizogenealogy of Heretical Materialism: Between Bruno and Spinoza, Nietzsche, Deleuze and other Philosophical Recluses

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Towards A Schizogenealogy Heretical of Materialism: Bruno Between Spinoza, and Nietzsche, eleuze other and Philosophical Recluses

Eliot Albert Submitted for PhD University of Warwick Department of Philosophy 10-v-99

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summary

The central problematic of this thesis is the formation of a philosophy of creative matter, a philosophical materialism, deriving from the work of Gilles Deleuze and Fdlix Guattari, and based substantially upon an examination of the consequences of their engagement with the philosophical tradition. I have supplemented the writers used by Deleuze and Guattari with the resources of Giordano Bruno's philosophy, as well as numerous examples and arguments from the natural sciences. Bruno is particularly important here, in that in his work and life, materialism is most tightly bound up with monism. Philosophical materialist monism can be crystallised as a sustained meditation upon one problem: that of the overcoming of dualism; and in this sense to speak of materialism is to speak of the problem of hylomorphism. The hylomorphic model, formalised by Aristotle, and operative in both philosophy and science, implies both a transcendent form that dead organises matter, and a matter, passively moulded by the imposition of that form. These ontological and epistemological assumptions have clear political and theological ramifications, contributing to an abstract diagram of State power. The for this critique of model calls a philosophy of active, self-organising matter- a heretical, thought, constitutionally necessarily materialist opposed to all transcendent powers. I In this chapter I produce a performative diagram of DeleuzeGuattari's heterogenetic the understanding of nature of the concept by examining those of drive, assemblage, multiplicity. The case used here is the linked complex of problems associated with death and entropy. These issues are posed throughout as means of indicating Deleuze and Guattari's challenge to dominant modes of philosophising. II Here I offer an elaboration of Deleuze and Guattari's relationship with cybernetics, through an outline of the work of Gilbert Simondon. The principal developed here, concepts are individuation and becoming. This is followed by hylomorphism extensive critiques of and autopoiesis. The categories of minor or nomad, and major or State, sciences, are introduced along with the related concepts of following and reproducing. This chapter III between the oppositions explores consistency and immanence and transcendence. Here I read two of Deleuze and organisation; Guattari's key concepts- intensity and incorporeal transformationin terms of Spinoza and Schelling respectively. Symbiosis and morphogenesis are examined as examples of the minor sciences introduced in the previous chapter. The minor then poses the questions of invention and pragmatics in philosophy.

IV This chapter is devoted to a critique of Manuel De Landa's reading of Deleuze and Guattari that aims to demonstrate, against his claims, the centrality The Marx to their of philosophy. chapter also elaborates upon the concepts of Geophilosophy, the machinic phylum, and machinic surplus value. This chapter offers a set of elaborations upon the nature of the materialism V by bringing Bruno into contact with that of Giordano the thought of produced Deleuze, thereby transforming both. Inverted vitalism is posed as a key marker of Deleuze's genealogy. I show the identity of metaphysics and politics, and its role in heresy. an account of materialist The final chapter consists of a critique of Kant's claim to being `Copernican', VI being demonstrates Bruno's It to Copernicus' the claim revolutionary. extent of and I Nietzsche's further ideas `perfect to the revolution. use of nihilist' cosmological invention and heresy advanced earlier, to end with a demonstration of philosophy's hybrid, being becomings dominant its in ideas to as opposed a of ever present permanent state of mourning.

AC

i

OWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

Mathematical osovhv's

'h

Straitiacket

0

Faultline

I

3

Tendencies:

Entronic

DeleuzoGuattarian Pulsional

ical Processes, Death,

Practice

Oedipal

10

Freud

13

Twice

Death, Final

Freud,

Nomolo

States,

15 Processes

Eternal

20

Critique

22

Entropic

Multiplicity

26

Against

Manichaean

Prigogine's

Dualisms

27

Vers la Grande Identite

iI

33

Singularity

Preindividual Entropic

29

Philosophy/Philosophical

Entropy

Ma tter. Tracking

Following

Tran sduction.

membranes).

36

Haecce ity (singularity! 44

Metast abiUty

47

Why Simondon? Simondon and the Critique Intensive Individuation

le Devenir sans Fin

51 61

Hylozoic Pragmatics

63

Nomadism and Life at the Limit Simmondonwith Spinoza

67

The Vampire

ITI ý

of Cybernetics:

72 75

of Thought

Stratific Immanent atio n: as Pragm atic Materialism Del euzeGuattari's Org anisation

Relations

in M

and Vertical Go and Chess Immanent and Transcendent

81

Excursus on Affective Bodies Incorporeal Materialism and Schelling

91

Horizontal

Spinozist Immanence

Immanent

96 100

partout

Invention

Criteria,

86

99

Bodies

Philosophical

84

Practice

Topological Thermodynamics. Simondon Again Che al vero filosofo ogni terreno e patria

103 106 112 117

N

S-chizoama ytic Materialism 1000 Plate aus? I

Marxism: and

1000 Years or l

Unevenness

V

and Heterogeneity The Internal Limit. Spinoza

127

Machinic

133

130

Critique

Elaborations 'Z.

between Bruno and Deleuze

Materialism on .s.

139 Chasm

140

Return of the Machinic Phylum Expression-Immanence-Neoplatonism

142

Immanence, Conatus and Death by Degrees A Rather Forbidden History

148

Bruno, Philosophy,

154

Eternal

163

Creation

156

Biology

Brunian Antica

145

filoso faa

160

Horizon of all Metaphysics Anima Mundi

160

Dead Matter

163

Political

Inorganic

VI

161 165

History

Crystal the of

The Shattering

Spheres: `rolling

from

the

I'... toward centre

i6

of the Future Kant's Secret Path

176

Bruno, Architect

"The Philosopher's

Serenity

181

and Philosophy's

191

Schizogenealogv a

CONCLUSION

Towards

APPENDIX

Georges Bataille,

Sadism' (Monday

186

Achievement"

12 May 1947)

`Evil in Platonism

and 197

REFERENCES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

267

1

ach

ledgements

I want to thank Keith A-P, for grasping this thesis as a virtual whole long before I was able to, and for scrutinising

and commenting on every word

with amazing precision and seemingly infinite patience, joy and generosity, for giving

me immense

support,

literally I without whom quite

encouragement

and confidence,

and

have couldn't written this, and certainly not

now,

helped in so many other ways, and my parents who

Arnaud

Desjardins,

Nick Land, Alphonso Lingis, and Caroline Warman

helped me to drag the Bataille translation, kicking and screaming, to life,

Matteo Mandarin,

Paul Bains, and Catherine Mary Dale read chapters,

beautiful advice, offered stringent critiques, and sometimes

for like Margarita. This, is finally, I to everything else, and owe everything, her, because of her, and in a million tiny ways inspired by her.

10--v-99 04: 16: 25

introduction

Philosophy's Mathematical Strain ticket it is of course clear why our academic thinkers dangerous; tradition

for their

thoughts

are not

grow as peacefully

out of

bore its tree as any ever apples: they cause no alarm,

they remove nothing from its hinges; and of all their art and be Diogenes there said when someone could said what aims praised

in his presence:

a philosopher

`How can he be

for long been he has a philosopher so considered great, since has DISTURBED never yet and to be the epitaph

' That, indeed, ought anybody?

of university

philosophy:

`it disturbed

nobody'. (Nietzsche 1983 194)'

Most materialists,

do have to they though wanted may even

away with all spiritual

entities, ended up positing an order of

things whose hierarchical idealist.

They situated

it out as specifically relations mark dead matter

at the summit

of a

facts, that diverse hierarchy perceiving without of conventional form ideal the into of in this way they gave an obsession with to form than that what other any was closer matter, with a God. idea, be. Dead the and pure matter, matter should (Bataille 1 179)

I

If out of the multiplicitous,

heterogeneous polyvocal and corpus of

Deleuze and Guattari's thought one can isolate a defining characteristic it would be the relentless maps, of immanent

attempt to construct a series of dynamic

forces and constitutive

relations, of trackings of

lines of power and affect. The combination of these terms in Deleuze Guattari's and

thought indicates a revolt against philosophy as the

judgement system of

and principles,

logic "a an advocacy of of sense

[ logic the ]a and event, and not ... of predication and truth" (Deleuze 1969/90 151/111), so that in every area of concrete enquiry, one is infinitely confronted with an

immanent growing set of explorations set

in motion,

by drives. Slavoj Zizek notes that the

introduction "radical

and constituted

drive for (by Freud Zizek), of a concept of guarantees

immanence"

1997 84). This connection

(Zizek

between

immanence and drive appears at numerous points, in several guises in Deleuze's work related variously to Spinoza's conatus, Nietzsche's will to power, Bruno's remarkable thinking

creative power of matter.

article

articulating

but not usually related--

expressed this commitment,

two thinkers,

Etienne Balibar,

in a

Deleuze's to central

Spinoza and Simondon-

has also

here be to argued common to all of the

figures in Deleuze's genealogy, not just the two to which Balibar applies it. Commenting

on the underlying

both in immanence perspective of

Leibniz and Spinoza, by which, Balibar writes "any individual

be can

be inner its the activity, which can own effect of singularised only under `tendency' (vis), `energy' `force' (conatus), some some conceived as some (appetitus), or some `desire' (cupiditas) to realise all its possibilities" (Balibar

be drive forms different The this 32). 1993 will concept of of

continually

hold it in to throughout this one sense work, and returned

Philosophy's Mathematical

Straitjacket

2

x

together, it is dealt with at greatest length in the first chapter dealing Deleuze's with complex, multifaceted

deployment of the concept of the

death drive; and in the fifth, which stages an engagement between themes in Deleuze and in Giordano Bruno. The concept will have to here definition, lapidary indeed Deleuze pass without as with all of and Guattari's

it is concepts, characterised

by its resistance

to such

definitions, it being constituted only through use, through its immanent has Hence in the concept specific concrete assemblages. emplacement for it It definition, is this that tffect. reason only sense or productive no is insisted that philosophy is neither a closed system, a totality, nor is it fitted be having its jigsaw that exactly can pieces neat edges puzzle, a together in one way and one way only, rather it is an assemblage of ill fitting,

sometime overlapping

has no machine parts each of which

in but is response combined with other such parts only single purpose, to a particular

dictionary Bataille's the In attack on a sense question.

applies particularly

by DeleuzeGuattari. to philosophy as practised well

Bataille writes that "a dictionary

begins when it no longer gives the

has C... Philosophy ] but tasks their aim no other meanings of words than

fitting

straitjacket"

all that

into exists

a straitjacket,

(Bataille I 217). This straitjacket,

Platonic forms, Kantian

a mathematical

composed variously of

is "the judgements what of god", categories,

It is this to to end Guattari's thought attempts Deleuze and relinquish. initially idea introduces the Deleuze that of plasticity,

to with regards

formation the of a superior empiricism, the place of will to power within [is A "plastic principle the reconciliation of principles with empiricism. itself that it with than changes is that] conditions, what no wider one determines", it determines itself as what along with the conditioned and

Philosophy's Mathematical

Straitjacket

3 =

such the plasticity

is index of concepts an of their immanence, or

flatness, with that which they determine; a plastic concept "is never determines it between to the that forces, it is superior ways a relation always plastic and changing" (Deleuze 1983 50).

Faultling

In the Logic of Sense Deleuze makes it clear that he considers be fundamental faultline "established to philosophy organised around a between those who linked sense to a new transcendence, a new avatar heaven, found God in transformed those man and a and who sense of depth his and underground" abyss, a newly excavated and

(Deleuze

1969/90 98/71). The presentation of this critique is important, for it is distant cast as a

precursor

of a central

Deleuze and concept of

Guattari's final joint work, What is Philosophy?, that of the conceptual bearer `effect', idea Here the as a of an we are presented with persona. in the science and medicine, examples of effects of sense, we are offered in which an "effect is [... ] designated by a proper name", or a disease doctor for the who elaborates named Philosophy?, this idea is returned

its symptoms.

In What is

to, to give form to the creative

"completely demand the that the imperative of philosophy, philosopher Guattari (Deleuze image thought" the and of changes

1990/94 63/65).

To return now to the critique, Deleuze goes on to give two, perhaps his former the side of three, thinly veiled, examples of philosophers on faultline,

Nietzsche Kant, is first writes: the whom since obviously

"transcendentalists

[... ] have been emancipated from the theologians:

by they Kant on them may, joy! which path a secret showed what --

Philosophy's Mathematical

Straitjacket

4

their own initiative

and with all scientific respectability,

from now on

follow their `heart's desire' (Nietzsche 1969 III § 25). This Kant is, for Deleuze, the perpetrator

of a new theology and a new humanism,

beneath the "misty sky [... ] of Königsberg" (Deleuze 1969/90 pacing 98/71), and in whom "both God and the I underwent resurrection" persona,

a practical

(Deleuze 1968/94 117/87). The second philosophical

author

of the second philosophical

effect, is perhaps

Heidegger. The latter will, in What is Philosophy? be "strict the called professor [ ... ] perhaps madder than he seemed", for whom "sense is presented as Principle, Reservoir, Reserve, Origin [... ] said to be fundamentally forgotten or veiled [... ] deeply erased, diverted and alienated" (Deleuze 1969/90 99/72). We might also hear in this the Derrida, sound of a especially when written in 1969, for he had recently published

the trilogy

of works,

Of Grammatology,

Writing

and

Difference, and Speech and Phenomena, all in 1967, in which he would seek to place transcendental

principles sous rature (or under erasure).

The trenchant critique of Derrida and his rhetoric of presence continues lines two this to the along and passage alone should serve as rebuke many commentators

who seek to impose common purpose on the

respective positions of Derrida

Deleuzeand

first, to suggest that

beneath the "erasure and the veil, we are summoned to rediscover and to restore meaning, in either a God which was not well understood, or in fully fathomed" by (Deleuze 99/72). And 1969/90 not a man second, how Deleuze figures two sketches offering of who are of great will read importance to Derrida, that is Nietzsche and Freud, in ways that are totally antithetical

to him. The form of the distancing from the current

both for is Nietzsche to clear and emphatic, and reading with regards

Philosophy's Mathematical

Straitjacket

5

Freud, Deleuze writes that "We do not seek in" Nietzsche, Freud, a prophet of reversal and transcendence, schemas for interpretation (Deleuze 1969/90 99/72). respectively

Whilst

most contemporary

philosophies

have adopted variants

of

Derrida's textualism, embodied in his declaration il n'y a pas de ýotvjt-*K, texte, Deleuze

Guattari and

have simultaneously

retrieved,

and

invented, a distinctive tradition of materialist thought, one that stakes itself upon the following of "matter in movement, in flux, in variation, matter as a conveyor of singularities Guattari and

1980/87 509/409). The specific details of this materialism

immanence further of are particular

and traits of expression" (Deleuze

worked out throughout

the thesis and in

in the treatment of the critique of hylomorphism in chapter

two. Whilst the Kantian critical revolution is conventionally taken to be the foundation of modernity, an assumption that is severely criticised here in the chapter dedicated. to Giordano Bruno, it is a modernity harbouring the covert mission of a "renovated theology" (Deleuze 1983 93). This mission, clearly marked from its inception by a legislated dissenters, in have did the Spinozism, for and of course repugnance immediately post-Kantian

them the was of of most notable period, one

Friedrich von Schelling. One of the themes running through this thesis, then, is the location of Deleuze and DeleuzeGuattari's describe as a tradition just heretical

heretical materialism, of

vis a vis mainstream,

I in what work

is that tradition not a

or State philosophy,

but also

by for it image heretical with regards to the of materialism constructed that State philosophy. The characteristics be explicated continually, will

Philosophy's mathematical

Straitjacket

heretical tradition this of

it I to summarise and will not attempt

6

here. Needless to say it includes those names familiar from Deleuze's but is supplemented by two significant own work,

Giordano others:

Bruno and F. W. J. Schelling, two writers who have traditionally been accorded a place within

neither

have they been nor

materialism,

discussed in relation to Deleuze2. The images assigned to these writers, that

Hermetic of

representative

magician

(Yates

of anthropomorphic,

1996 7) respectively

will

1964), and "the

last

great

theosophy" (Zizek

prescientific

have to be dispelled,

and their

ground

dismantled.

Schelling's work represents a massive attempt to engage with both Spinoza, and importantly

for this thesis, with Giordano Bruno (going so

far as to name one of his dialogues in the latter's honour, the 1802 Bruno, oder über das göttliche und naturliche Prinzip der Dinge), the for beyond Kantianism, is this the to grounds engagement need move and principally Kantian

distance to the that the overcome vast with a need

between had man and the rest of the system opened up

lack he Schelling's "the Hence the sees as of cosmos. critique of what in what is clearly meant to be Kantianism,

humility", requisite

insists upon "beginning bypassing concepts and

everything

straight

which

highest the away with

the mute beginnings

life ] [... this of all

from bedazzle the that very start with would rather overhasty nature beginnings descend to the than of natural spiritual concepts and cliches every

life"

manifestations

(Schelling

1997

148).

Spinozism

is taken, in this thesis, principally

in

its

various

for a as a sign

immanence, hylozoism, hence thought thought of active matter, or of a the principal as and

Philosophy's Mathematical

into means of making man an active part of

Straitjacket

7 =

nature. It is in the name of a Spinozism that Deleuze and Guattari create a philosophy that is a positive discipline, in contradistinction to its two dominant characterisations, it is neither the Lockean under labourer nor the Kantian prescriber of limitations; has it as such a positive, creative task, governed by the recognition that "there is no other truth than the creation of the New: creativity, emergence" (Deleuze 1985/89 191/147), and by the Nietzschean demand to make (Nietzsche 1974 § 110). This positive task of

philosophy experimental philosophy

is defined on occasion by Deleuze and Guattari

invention of concepts, or of multiplicities continually

explicated

possessed

of two

throughout

dominant

as the

(this sense of invention will be

this thesis). These concepts are

characteristics:

immanence

and

transversality.

Deleuze and Guattari's approach resonates with Schelling's critique of the top-down tendencies in philosophy that he rejected in favour of his wonder

that:

determinations

"Even

the smallest

grain

of sand must

contain

itself have laid that within we cannot exhaust until we

leading (Schelling it" It the 1997 to 122). out entire course of nature up is these

multiple,

DeleuzeGuattari's segmentarities,

heterogeneous

becomings

field of study: "multiplicities, lines of flight and intensities,

that

constitute

lines, strata and

machinic assemblages

bodies their types, without organs and their construction and various (Deleuze Guattari 1980/8711/4). and selection" and

What these objects hold in common is their character of being always already multiple,

Philosophy's Mathematical

differential, already

Straitjacket

they cannot be plotted as points

8

but rather must be diagrammed, with attention paid not to points but to the lines between the points; and as Deleuze has said of these lines, "lines aren't things running lines intersect" several

between two points; points are where

(Deleuze 1990/95 222/161). In so far as both

Nietzsche and Spinoza are philosophers who affirm the one, and who affirm the multiple within this one, this project is distinctly marked by them. For both, to parallel the preference alluded to above, the most amazing question is not that of the soul or spirit which "seems to me to be actually a life-endangering,

life-caluminating,

life-denying principle"

(Nietzsche 1968 § 644) but that of the body. As Deleuze writes, of a body "we will not define [it] by its form, nor by its organs and its functions,

by define ] it [... nor as a substance or a subject we will

longitude and latitude" (Deleuze 1988b 127; Spinoza 1985 E IIP13L1). The former, longitude, indicates a mode of defining a body by "the set of between particles relations of speed and slowness, of motion and rest, that compose it from this point of view"; whilst, latitude is "the set of The together body taken two that at each moment". occupy a affects constitute

The centrality a map.

DeleuzoGuattarian

of cartographic

fundamental, is project

the to strategies

it is, to the allied as

intensive working out of the concept of the machinic. The radicality of this aspect of their work is too often understressed

(whilst

that of

I The that distortion). to reading Spinoza's is ignored or subject massive the failure to here the subaltern mark properly exposes am proposing heretical the path, philosophical

materialist

tradition

the currently of path, out

canonised

indicated by the way in which Deleuze and

by Deleuze, initiated Spinoza The Spinoza. Guattari mobilise reading of furthered and

in the joint works with Guattari,

Philosophy's Mathematical

Straitjacket

indicates a massive

a critique of ontology. The Spinoza offered here, though materialist, is far from the determinism

attributed

to him by orthodox readings, his

matter is not the dead, brute force of the hylomorphic scheme, but the intensive site of

Spinoza's construal

body, the of of

is not of a homogeneous mass but a concatenation

materiality, differential

individuation.

of

forces, "distinguished from one another by reason of motion

and rest, speed and slowness, and not by means of substance" (Spinoza 1985 E IIP13L1).

This

thesis,

materialism,

a contribution

to a Schizogenealogy

heretical of

history to the attempts of philosophy, scanning it survey

for those moments

where philosophy

invents

new concepts that

how We itself. the that tells these of shall see contest story philosophy State beholden into to a philosophy events occur where matter erupts transcendence and theology. In this way, political-philosophical is shown to be ineluctably

and constitutively

not just to any materialism, its self-organisation, and by it transcendence. upon

tied to materialism,

and

but to a materialism on the side of matter,

a materialism

that refuses the image foisted

As Bataille

in the epigram above, shows

has been idealist insofar as it "situated dead matter

most materialism the summit at

heresy

of a conventional

hierarchy"

"gave into an and so

has 1179). Bataille (Bataille form ideal the of matter" with obsession here, lecture included in the this as an appendix scheme sketched indicating

how, following

its theological framework,

has philosophy

By inert. those where moments reclaiming evil as or matter evaluated be to this scheme is challenged we gain new conceptual weapons is Kampfplatz that in the contemporary philosophy. utilised

Philosophy's Mathematical

Straitjacket

,

lRter

Processes, Tendencies: Nomoloeical Death. ntronic DeleuzoGuattariau P arctice It is absurd to speak of a desire for death that would oppose itself qualitatively to the desires for life. Death is not desired, there is only death that desires, by virtue of the body without life immobile is there that the also motor, and or organs desires, by virtue of the working organs. (Deleuze and Guattari 1974/83 393/329)

don't death, line line flight into turns time we of a a of every de [instinct death like instinct drive internal the invoke an desire into but that play an puts again an assemblage of mort], definable machine. objectively or extrinsically (Deleuze and Parnet 1977 171)3

fusionability fusion, the as of multiplicity expresses infinite zero, the plane of consistency, Matter where there are forces, elements, substances, essences, as gods; principles no

Artaud

being modalities or of manners productions; remissions, breaths, Numbers. intensities, vibrations, produced

as

(Deleuze and Guattari 1980/87 196/158)

de [pulsion drive death kind mort]. We are not invoking any of desire, drives in internal only assemblages. There are no Desire is always assembled; it is what the assemblage

determines it to be. (Deleuze and Guattari

1980/87 280/229)

11

The principal

concern of this chapter is to make a deviation through

DeleuzeGuattari's

work, not to engage in a direct exposition of their

dicta, various statements etc. upon the field of problems indexically located under the heading, transcendental ethical

`death': an entity

treated either

as a

problem in the field of philosophy, or as an object of

speculation

bons around which a series of mots or ethical

statements circulate.

Rather, the concern is with the relationship deathof

principally

between one construction

that found in Freud's 1920 account of the death

drive, or rather one swathe of problems in which death figures, as a predicate of materiality-

figure into the this the explosion of and

DeleuzoGuattarian expansion of development within novel

procedures, understood as an entirely

a certain philosophical

materialism.

figure of death then is demonstrated to be an extraordinarily for invention the resource

The

productive

that the mark out problems specific of

DeleuzeGuattari's philosophical territory.

Ever since its Kantian fixingas an appearance

fixing Husserlian its or more precisely

to consciousness

factas

form the the of as

humanist its death has role within transcendental question, played out This figure the the noumenalisation noumenal. of philosophy as

is the

deep conceptual reason why death has been relegated to the realm of death, double the in after However, of aspect emphasising ethics. have death that Blanchot, Deleuze has made those aspects of traditionally

been considered `noumenal' to be the source of a profound

Foucault has death; `event' pointed the as and shown, of meditation on Processes Nomological Tendencies: Entropic

12

death to be the very form of the event (see Foucault 1977 173). To out, remain

the framework

within

of the Neo-Kantian

liberalism

that

dominates both wings of contemporary philosophy, that is to say the phenomenological or deconstructive, and the analytic, is to continue mistaking death for a personal limit. This is to continue treating death as an empirical fact discussed within

discourse distinguished, a

if by

nothing else, than by its pieties and by the obfuscation of what can only be described as a reconfigured religiosity. To evade this tradition means to investigate out-

the resources of materialism:

has been as said-

line roughly a stretched

between Bruno, Spinoza, a non-Oedipal Freud,

and the work of DeleuzeGuattari.

Finally, this chapter is, in part intended as a performative illustration heterogenetic the immanent of and DeleuzeGuattari's

character

of the concept in

Deleuze work. speaks of the assemblage as the

bringing into relationship

disparate of singularities,

of elements from

heterogeneous series Here the principal concepts are intensity, drive, multiplicity,

far from being imposed, and an attempt is made to extract

them from the material examined. In this case the line followed is that death figuring its of and

in a range of disciplines from Freud's non-

Oedipal, or pulsional work, to the development of thermodynamics from linear a entropic narrative

Heat in the promising an apocalypse given

Death of the universe, to its development into an account of infinite productive complexity.

Entropic Tendencies: Nomological Processes

13

Pulsion&d Freud, Oedipal Freud

Deleuze, and DeleuzeGuattari's

various treatments

of the concept of

the death drive constitute a complex, multi-dimensional diagram of a heterogeneous terrain. Notionally the concept is constructed and deployed within the field of psychoanalysis. Here, its position in a series different disciplines is examined, and its place amongst the governing of figures of Deleuze and Guattari's construction libidinal of or energetic materialism

is explicated. As a point of scholarly rectitude it might also

be worth noting that the specific figure of the drive in Deleuze has an his in treatment of the Spinozist conatus, a doctrine which if ur-source it mobilises nothing else in DeleuzoGuattarian thinking

thinking, mobilises the

of the Body without Organs. The BwO in the twin volumes of

Capitalism and Schizophrenia is always associated with Spinoza, it is for nothing that the Ethics is named as the "great book of the BwO" not (Deleuze and Guattari

1980/87 190/153); it is further

invoked as a

humanist, therapeutic or interpretative weapon against any

use of the

death drive. This is meant in the fashion of Logic of Sense and this is -the principal

critique

Freud in Anti-Oedipusthe of

that what is

he Freud be is human in depth "an that sought not explorer of and but discover "the prodigious rather originary sense" of the machinery of the unconscious" (Deleuze 1969/90 100/72). Hence for DeleuzeGuattari

it is always a question of sense and not meaning, of production and not factory the theatre the than the rather of unconscious representation, (Deleuze latter Guattari 31/24). This 1974/83 and of representation disastrous shift, marking the replacement of the pulsional, materialist Freud, with "a new brand of idealism" is dated to the introduction of Entropic Tendencies: Nomologi. cal Processes

14

Oedipus, and as the title of Deleuze and Guattari's

first book makes

abundantly clear: it is a polemic Anti, against, Oedipus.

The death drive predates Oedipus. However, the Manichean struggle between Eros and Thanatos, will not be seen as a means of deriving a master

for schema psychodramas,

complexity

of a thinking

but will

be placed within

force, intensity tendency, of

the

and matter.

Freud's `Beyond the Pleasure Principle'

"he 1920, engaged of where

directlymost

in specifically philosophical

how and penetratingly-

being (Deleuze 1989 111), the locus classicus of the as well as reflection" death drive occupies a privileged discourse

of the

Consequently,

subject,

position

in the thermodynamic

in the materialist

it has a critical

energetic

Freud.

DeleuzeGuattari's in to role play

production.

It is free action, however, which by its essence unleashes the power of repetition

force that multiplies a as machinic

its effect and pursues an infinite

Traits [... ] of movement

it describing a smooth space and connecting with expression a matter-flow

thus should not be confused with striae that

that form it grids expression of a make and space convert and organises

matter

(Deleuze

Guattari and

1980/87

622/498)

To examine the multiple

drive death the the series of and status of

it in Deleuze's in it appears as particular that work, up opens questions

back to Principle', Pleasure take `Beyond the some of will us in Freud's Processes Nomoiogical Tendencies: Entropic

15 a

Deleuze's earliest texts, principally

Coldness and Cruelty, The Logic of

Sense, and Difference and Repetition, all of which contain lengthy and detailed treatments

We follow to this this will also attempt of area.

thread in the multiple tracks it carves through the collaborative twin Capitalism Schizophrenia. volumes of and

The death drive constitutes a paradigmatic

diagram-

understood as

"the presentation of pure relations between forces or the transmission of' singularities describe

(Deleuze

1988a 82)4-

DeleuzeGuattari of what

"the images Noology, thought, of study of as

historicity"

(Deleuze and Guattari

and their

1980/87 466/376). How, it is asked,

does the death drive connect with "the forces of the outside" (Deleuze is kind What Guattari 467/377)? 1980/87 mobilised of war machine and by putting the death drive in to the centre of the DeleuzoGuattarian project?

Death. Twice

disciplinary temptations in and First a warning: spite of metaphorical beware literature, `critical' in of the must too we common pressures, all in Principle' Pleasure `Beyond in the for Freud's understanding settling inanimate "return to flattened to drive is death matter" the a which he that important (Deleuze 1968/94 137/104). Deleuze thinks this so death of picture a accept not the must we elsewhere: warning repeats increasing "tendency towards is it in drives read as a the which and of 333/259). (Deleuze 1968/94 inanimate to matter" return a or entropy the Spinoza's to of conatus writes Freud, coming only superficially close Processes Nomological Tendencies: Entropic

ia

"universal

living endeavour of all substance-

namely to return to the

quiescence of the inorganic world" (Freud 1920 267). As Deleuze makes clear, the problem with the Freudian model is that it remains "inseparable material

from the positing

bare and repetition

of an ultimate

term, the model of a

and the conflictual dualism between life

death" (Deleuze 1968/94 137/104). Not least of the problems and with this model is its completely inadequate dualist understanding of both life and death. Against the Freudian model we must insist that the difference

between "death as an empirical

`instinct' or transcendental maintained,

event and death as an

instance" (Deleuze 1968/94 149ff/112fi) be

hence, contra Freud who restricts his model of death to a

purely physical entropic model, Deleuze seeks to add a noncorporeal account, an account of death as an event. Whereas Freud restricts death to "the return of the living to inanimate

matter" giving death

"only an extrinsic, scientific and objective definition" (Deleuze 1968/94 147/111), and thus refuses death any other dimension. Deleuze seeks to dimension death by distinction, following this to restore other a making Blanchot, between a `personal' and an `impersonal' death. This first is the one to which Freud is restricted; Deleuze, on the other hand, seeks to pursue the second, impersonal death, "the other face, or aspect of death" which "refers to the state of free differences when they are no longer subject to the form imposed upon them by an I or ego, when they less that than of assume a shape which excludes my own coherence no identity any

whatsoever"

(Deleuze

1968/94 149/113). Curiously,

Freud's essay contains the germ of such an account, but leaves it separate and unintegrated.

Herein lies the problem, for Freud does not

integrate the account of the death drive, the account of cosmic entropic

Entropic Tendencies: Nomological Processes

17

linear

time (chronos),

introduction,

with

the central

section of the essay: the

in the account of the fort-da game, of repetition,

the

local (aion), time the time of complexity and of the account of cyclic Repetition "as conceived by Freud's genius is in and of eternal return. itself a synthesis of time-

`transcendental' a

synthesis. It is at once

before, during repetition of and after, that is to say it is a constitution in time of the past, the present and even the future" (Deleuze 1989115).

Deleuze's account of death as event is perhaps best summed up in his last published piece, the moving `L'immanence: une vie... ', a Lucretian dismissal of the fear of death (Lucretius

1947 3 830). Deleuze writes

that "Between life and death, there is a moment which is no longer just that of a life playing with death. An individual

life gives way to a life

impersonal yet nevertheless singular, extricates a pure event which, from the vicissitudes of the interior and exterior life, that is to say from the subjectivity

and objectivity

from which it comes [... ] It is a

haecceity, which is no longer individuation, immanence" pure

but singularisation:

life a of

(Deleuze 1995 5). The achievement of Deleuze's

it is drive to death that Freud's the able such account of reworking of it from death incorporate a making on the side of repetition, apart demonstrate is to thermodynamics, the new non-linear with consistent Freud's the depth of recognition essaytruly the of great philosophical the synthesis

in time repetition. given of

It also enables us to

that basis question a philosophical materialist a renewed on reconsider, Derridean in terms been has and a of only to considered now up Freud 74) 1995 (Guattari as a reader of of Lacanian `petrification' iterative is That the afterwork, of question texts. Processes Nomological Entropie Tendencies:

Nachträglichkeit.

In

18

Deleuze this question is explicitly posed in opposition to the readings of Freud defended by Derrida and Lacan. Deleuze's major discussion of the "the thus: question opens question of whether psychic experience is like language", famous Lacan's in formulation, "or even as structured a whether

the physical

be book" (Deleuze world may regarded as a

1968/94 160/122), as in Derrida's

all consuming

textualismb.

Deleuze, both of these questions are subject to the tyranny signifier

and the pursuit

of an originary

For of the

both be presence, and can

Nietzsche. between from As Freud and critiqued a position suspended have throughout seen see and as we shall we incorporeal

materialism

is predicated

this thesis, Deleuze's

difference-in-itself, upon a

"ontogenesis [the Gilbert Simondon's that to process principle according of individuation,

EA] becomes the point of departure of philosophical

thought; it really will be first philosophy", and so contrary to Levinas' "ontogenesis in first is this that perspective philosophy; ethics claim (Simondon precedes ontology"

1989 163). This is the ground for a

to being there which we can of plenitude any original ground rejection of heading, that truth to we telos a or equally of which we are return or a by the Deleuze's Rather, discovers. eternal return, world governed can "excludes "monster is `law' of energy" the groundless a of a world which the assignation of an originary

derived there though were a as and a

] difference [... the is because the first and second occurrence, sole origin absence of any assignable origin-

in other words, the assignation of

difference as the origin" (Deleuze 1968/94164/125).

dragging force DriveDeath the a Nonetheless, an association of dissolution death, Spinozist towards and bodies (in the wide sense) Processes Nomological Tendencies: Entropic

19

dissipation in an undifferentiated

energetic soup-- with the irreversible

tendency of the Second Law of Thermodynamics DeleuzeGuattari

is a necessity, for

insist that the unconscious belongs to the realm of

body "the physics without organs and its intensities are not metaphors, but matter itself" (Deleuze and Guattari the

and

complex,

thermodynamics

now

1974/83 336/283). However,

complexified,

for allows a stratification

structure

of nonlinear

dimension the of of time, we

local fort-da (the integrate the game) with can repetitive cycles cycle of The (Thanatos). towards maximal entropy an exponential movement distinction critical

is beneath just this the enquiry surface of running

that between telos (and its contemporary definition as teleonomy) and tendency. The stating of this distinction here has the specific purpose of disengaging millenialist

thermodynamic acceptance of a

framework

from the

the (apocalypsis) the truth for of of a revelation craving

32) (Wiener 1950 that Ragnarök Wiener's we as were, universal world, be This to it in the needs nineteenth century. shall see, attendant upon by First, distinct in two albeit seeking, ways. and strongly more stated by, investigate the indirectly, to answer, and also to role played in "interested the Nietzsche linked to Deleuze's was why questions as find in he to it that "discover his to time" sought was what of energetics And 313/243)? 1968/94 (Deleuze the science of intensive quantities" by in the Nietzsche "what discover context of noble" further to means that language "the noble his borrowing of energy physics and call[ing] transforming is of capable energy which Investigating 55)? 42 1983 and also by done be providing only Nietzschean

itself" (Deleuze 1968/94 60/41,

and answering these questions can

a philosophical

Deleuzian and

Processes Noi Tendencies: ological Entropic

perspective,

from a account, culled in which

elements

of

20

thermodynamics

deployed in a resolutely anti-teleological fashion, are

analyses of such sort being rejected as indissolubly theological. Second, scientifically,

with an examination

thermodynamics,

principally

of more recent interpretations

of

Prigogine's nonlinear refinements which

beyond it places mechanistic

interpretations,

such that

entropy

becomes an index of complexity.

Final States, Eternal

Philosophical

Processes

critiques

of mechanism

however, long predate the

being found from Bruno in tradition to threaded scientific, principally a Schelling,

thence to Nietzsche and Deleuze. As Nietzsche, echoing

Schelling almost verbatim who is in turn echoing Bruno, repeatedly final "if the that the aimed a state, state motion at stresses, of world 1 been [... have that the as a movement circular world reached would has already repeated itself infinitely infinitum"

in its and game plays often

(Nietzsche 1968 § 708,1066). Theses positing a beginning or

Day Big Bang, Genesis, be the it the of or a account of end, whether Judgement, or the Heat Death of the universe are born from the same theological source'. As noted, Nietzsche's critique of any thesis that (ie. time the reversibility), of mechanism same posits an end, at

is an

final "Has in Schelling's, the goal? a creation question couched of echo has " Schelling Elsewhere it And if so, why was not reached at once? a have few "If, supposed sages as a stunning rejection of mechanism: claimed,

the world

that ran and effects were a chain of causes

backward and forward to infinity, future. past nor

then there would in truth be neither

But this nonsensical

Processes Nomological Tendencies: Entropic

thought

should rightly

have

21

vanished along with the mechanistic system to which alone it belongs" (Schelling 1997 120). Indeed Spinoza is quite clear in the astonishing Appendix to the first part of the Ethics Appendix deserves that to an --be recognised as the true precursor to the critique of ideology and theological

"asylum ignorance", the and of the powerunreason, of

knowledge complex-

that "not many words will be required to show

that Nature has no end set before it, and that all final causes are This but human fictions" EI (Spinoza 1985 part of appendix). nothing Spinozism is important in the way in which it connects to a key thread in the materialism adhered to, and developed by, DeleuzeGuattari. That is the critique symptom

of mechanist

determinist or

for

is

of this

DeleuzeGuattari's

clockwork,

the

complete

absence

in

French Eighteenth to century work of any reference Holbach)

(La Mettrie,

materialism Stalinism,

example

materialism,

a telling

the zenith

is perhaps, along with which

determinism, of such a

a materialism

of

This is dead the materialism matter. of a

and critically

following terms: in Bataille the have precise that, as we castigates seen,

Most materialists,

have to they though wanted may even

do away with all spiritual

entities, ended up positing an

hierarchical things whose order of specifically summit without

idealist.

They situated

of a conventional perceiving

it out as relations mark dead matter

hierarchy

diverse of

at the facts,

that in this way they gave into an

form that form ideal the a with matter, of with obsession be. Dead to than matter should what other any was closer God I (Bataille 179) idea, the and pure matter, Processes Nomological Entropic Tendencies:

22

Developing

a position

Guattari's

diagramming

method

with

out of their

approach attempts to the

regard

varied resources, Deleuze and

selection

developments understood as intensity

to produce a rigorous

of problems:

tendential

shifts (becoming, process). The

here is that produced, in Michel Serres' words, by "the theoretical axis reconciliation

between information

theory and thermodynamics

[that]

favours and advocates the practical reconciliation between those funds knowledge of which exploited signs and those which exploited energy displacements"

(Serres

1977/82 270/81). The importance

of this

synthesis is to allow for the introduction of what I have described above fluidity into the way in which we are able to as a massive plasticity, or manipulate

concepts.

DeleuzeGuattari

The

importance

Serres' of

work

for

is inestimable, implicated as it is on the base level of

the series of distinctions clustered around the `royal', the `nomad' or the `minor' (Deleuze and Guattari

1980/87 446/361), and more specifically

for their consistent engagement with a series of questions derived from the manifold deployment of thermodynamics. for the introduction

inquiries of a series of

This deployment allows irreversibility, to related

probability, population, complexity.

Prigoirine's

Citiaue

"The cosmologists had predicted an eventual heat-death for the universe

(something

like Limbo: form and motion

heat-energy identical abolished, meteorologists,

in it); the at every point

day-to-day, staved it off by contradicting

Processes Nomological Tendencies: Entropic

with a reassuring array of varied temperatures" (Pynchon 19875)

The possibility of a thermodynamics scenario of its nineteenth work

of the physicist

breakthrough

came

thermodynamics,

longer limited to the end-game no

century incarnation Ilya

from

Prigogine his

was opened up by the

in the 1960 s. Prigogine's

development

of a non-linear

his and research on `dissipative structures'

which

resulted in an account of the production of order out of chaos in open systems far from equilibrium: self-organisation. His innovation, well by Capra, summed up was to move beyond the framework of classical thermodynamics friction,

in which "the dissipation of energy in heat transfer,

like the and was always associated with waste. Prigogine's

concept of a dissipative structure introduced a radical change in this by in that view showing open systems dissipation becomes a source of order" (Capra 1996 88-9). In this way, Prigogine's work appears as the physical

confirmation

of the concept of excess that Bataille

had

his in audaciously elaborated work on the general solar economy in the Accursed Share. Prigogine, in a reversal of the classical evaluation, how shows prodigious (similarly,

is excess productive,

rather

than wasteful

finding important biology is `germs', that an of symbiogenetic

be bringers just death disease but should not understood as of and as bearers of vivifying

It is the metaphysically governed, and complexity.

politically expedient, model of the self-contained organism adequating to Platonic perfection that has prevented this from becoming clear for leap The long). begin to to understand the epistemic required quite so long observed but numinous Entropic Tendencies: Nomological Processes

natural

patterns

now associated with

-

complexity, was an acceptance of Bataille's intuition, revolutionary

elaborated into a

attempt to explain the "general problems that are linked

to the movement of energy on the globe" (Bataille I 27/20). Prigogine had discovered that the flows of matter and energy that pass through certain physicochemical systems and "keep them far from equilibrium can nourish phenomena of spontaneous self-organisation, symmetry,

evolutions

toward a growing complexity

ruptures of

diversity" and

(Stengers 1997c 38). Here is how Prigogine, in words written with his collaborator

Isabelle Stengers, summed up the contribution

by made

his elaboration of dissipative structures to the philosophy and science of matter:

In

far-from-equilibrium

transformations

conditions

have we may

from disorder, from thermal chaos, into

dynamic New order. states of matter may originate, states the interaction

that reflect surroundings.

its of a given system with

We have called

these new structures

dissipative structures to emphasise the constructive role of dissipative

formation. in their processes

(Prigogine

and

Stengers 1984 12)

Prigogine's

is the then, reintroduction achievement,

into physics, of

time, and more specifically, the defence of the essentially Bergsonian thesis of a multiplicity

lived durations, "a radical multiplicity of

(Deleuze 1991 78)8. It is the introduction

of time"

of a synthesis capable of

both different time, holding together rhythms reversible of coherently irreversible. and

The recognition of the "irreversible time of evolutions

Processes Nomological Tendencies: Entropic

toward equilibrium,

time of structures

the rhythmic

whose pulse is

nourished

by the world they are part of, the bifurcating

evolutions

by instability generated

time of

[... ] and even microscopic time"

(Stengers 1997c 41). This is not far enough, to stop here would be a simpleminded Guattari

pluralism;

have further to we go

to make "PLURALISM

MONISM" =

Deleuze with and

(Deleuze and Guattari

1980/87 31/20); this formula is the key used by DeleuzeGuattari

dominates theology, that as enemy" necessary

dissolve the "entirely well

to

and transcendental

as metaphysical

Man.ichaean dualism (Deleuze and Guattari in to the surmount attempt guide by dualism that motivates posited

philosophies

alike:

1980/87 23/14). It is the

the irrevocable split in the world is it their philosophy, and all of

line bastard found the formula throughout that of are variants of this philosophy

with

which

they

identify

themselves:

from Bruno's

Bruno to the holding the together the multiple; one and of complicatio, Spinoza's in differentiation Spinoza's of one matter, given modal and for is "mutation Bruno's body another definition of a not striving and intensive 89); to 1998 being" (Bruno for but being, another mode of in "repetition that is difference. Finally, this formula opened out such basis the the in of same on conceiving the eternal return [... ] consists Here, this 60/41). 1968/94 (Deleuze different" unity of multiplicity the times, the that posited time, is of plurality such aimed at and unity in lived the "livable single a of perspective is or only possible, above, in local folds in time, a they spirals 199181), a single (Deleuze are time" demonstrations river, truth,

but a truth

the truth the relative, not of a relativity of of the relative of

Guattari Deleuze and 191/147 and Processes Nomological En,tropic Tendencies:

of

(See Deleuze 1993 20,1985/89 1991/94 55/54,123/130;

and the

26

of this

expansion

issue in chapter

below). Perhaps the best six

exposition of this phenomenally complex attempt to hold together the times of difference and of repetition, irreversibility

of increasing complexity, and of

is Massumi's: "there are many time lines, as many as

there are universes that will have been, even more, as many as the have been born and died in those worlds [... ] this that phenomena will amounts to a scientifically

derived version of Nietzsche's theory of the

difference" (Massumi 1992 168). eternal return of

Entropic

The

Muitinlicit

death

drive,

deterritorialised,

in

a sense is already

transversal.

plasticised,

It can be classified

already

according

to

Guattari's schema proposed in his `Machinic Propositions' as belonging to the first

`Flux the of

Deterritorialisation',

Propositions',

that

is as a `Positive

"basic those component[s] of propositions of one of

intensive flux (line of escape and line of abolition)" (Guattari 1977 357), it introduces

a thought

Deleuze suggests, of entropy which moves,

beyond the philosophical economy of truth and judgement and towards instinct "not it is the among others, merely one event; one of sense and but the crack itself around which all of the instincts (Deleuze 1969/90 431/326). The history disciplinary various

congregate"

law its in the entropy of

deployments displays characteristics embodied in

but "not is distinction, it a Guattari's critical a surplus value of encoding (Guattari trans-encoding"

1977 333), that is to say, it is transversal. It

has itself the taken that of vector "a specialised upon is component deterritorialisation.

In effect, what holds an assemblage together is not

Processes Nomological Tendencies: Entropic

27

the play of framing

forms

linear or

causalities

its most deterritorialised

potentially,

deterritorialisation"

but, actually

component, a cutting

(Deleuze and Guattari

or

edge of

1980/87 415/336). When

engaging with the death drive, with the multiple disciplinary structures and thought-events

in which it is implicated,

and with the multiple

series in which it is engaged in Deleuze and Guattari's thought, we will have to be attentive to the writing procedures by which they operate. By this, an evolutionary

drawing of the passage of the death drive

through a series of texts made from an external position of judgement be will rendered impossible, rather we will have to diagram the lines along which

this particular

heterogeneous [by] jumping

rhizomic

be immanent,

always

DeleuzoGuattarian

operates "in the

from one already differentiated

(Deleuze and Guattari

another"

structure

that

line to

1980/87 17/10). The method must is to say that

critique militates

the

operation

of

by transcendence against a

base level). (intensive production at process of self-organisation

Against

Manichaean

Subordinate, recognition,

Dualisms

death drive is the the to this recasting of and adjacent, literature, in the too secondary often overlooked all

that

Guattari Oedipus" (Deleuze imperialism "analytic from the and of apart 1974/83 30/23), the major attractor of DeleuzeGuattari's Freudian

is the maintenance corpus

in the animus

First dualism. `The Indeed, of

Positive Task of Schizoanalysis'

(Deleuze and Guattari

1974/83 385-

406/322-39) is almost entirely

taken up by a critique

Freudian of

dualism,

the proposal of a materialist and

Processes Nom. ological Entropic Tendencies:

psychiatry

based on a

28

philosophy of machinic intensity, the discovery of a "new energetic conversion [... ] the third kind of synthesis, the synthesis of conjunction" (Deleuze and Guattari

1974/83 395/330). In accord with Karl Krauss'

notion that "psychoanalysis is that illness of which it believes itself to be the cure", the argument of Anti-Oedipus is that Oedipalisation is indeed an incurable disease and one only propagated by its supposed cure. That is to say from a certain, dominant, way of understanding Freudian thought, a path that is unavowedly semiological, welded as it is onto the foundations of the primordiality the machinations

of the phenomenologically

Guattari

presence. Freudianism

linguistic the of signifier, and

economically

inspired

discourse of

the evolution

summarises

of

being from "the seething richness and disquieting as

atheism of its origins" to a structuralism

"recentred on the analysis of

the self, its adaptation to society, and its conformity with a signifying order" (Guattari

1995 10), its reterritorialisation

by a priesthood. system operated

into an overcoding

This recentring

is one that in

DeleuzeGuattari's

demonstrates "signifiance the symptoms of words

interpretosis" and

the "two diseases of the earth or the skin, in other

humankind's words,

fundamental

Guattari (Deleuze and neurosis"

1980/87 144/114). Even if Oedipus is a dead end there is still much to be gained in removing dualism from the Viennese body, it is this task that DeleuzeGuattari singular.

is in that assiduous, radical and a way set about

How is this operation to be effected? Deleuze argues that

Freud can be taken beyond crippling underlying

qualitative

amplitude

difference a

difference

dualism:

by suggesting that

is a "difference

time-scale" a on

in rhythm

and

(Deleuze 1989 115). The

from is dualism the the then always attacked perspective of question of Processes Nomological Entropic Tendencies:

a

problematic intensity"

of intensity, (Guattari

"ontological the proposal of a concept of and

1995 29), set up by the resonances produced

between a Spinozist and a Nietzschean relinquish

framework,

in which "if we

the soul, the `subject' in general disappears. One acquires

degrees of being, one loses that which has being" (Nietzsche 1968 § 485). With this elimination

of any adherence to the atomic subject

Nietzsche reaches the point of seeing the "subject as multiplicity".

Vers la Grande Identity

As has been suggested, much of Deleuze's work, both with and without Guattari,

is geared towards the derivation

is formula, that of a vital

(Deleuze and Guattari

1980/87 31/20),

"PLURALISM

MONISM" =

philosophically

this is mapped out within the space of the concept of

fifth for the this The chapter of intensity. are coordinates early crucial in Sensible', Synthesis the `Asymmetrical Difference and Repetition, of how a the Deleuze produce one might of problem addresses which transcendental

principle

from energy; and the second chapter of

These two Reactive'. `Active Philosophy, chapters Nietzsche and and to this that by threads central are together of tied number a are flight line of discussion. i) The strong identification of a subterranean has Deleuze to which between Nietzsche and Spinoza, the constitution, "great leads9, the history in of his the philosophy of work said all of here the 1988c), (Deleuze upon configured identity Nietzsche-Spinoza" Nietzschean the Spinozist conatus and basis of the "common sun of the 71) the 1995 selective of a (Zaoui principles operative as to power" will The to ii) 60/41), 1968/94 Deleuze produce a attempt (see ontology Processes Nomological Entropic Tendencies:

30

concept of dynamic, generative force as the basis of a philosophy of immanence. iii) An account of the role played by thermodynamics as from Deleuze Guattari begin their nonpoint which and

the starting dialectical, that

non-dualist

accounts of classical philosophical

is to say the development

intermeshed the of

questions; concepts of

intensity, drive, multiplicity.

The Nietzschean critique of science is separated by Deleuze into three levels operating,

simultaneous

"against

logical

identity,

against

(Deleuze 1983 mathematical equality and against physical equilibrium" 45). These three levels are taken by Deleuze to be unified by their opposition to the undifferentiated,

he gives as an example the promise

Nietzsche (Deleuze 1968 (`heat' 1983 45 "death and or otherwise)" of a § 1053-1067),

that is the cosmological ground plan of nineteenth

endtime thermodynamics'°.

century

Indeed the thought

is based, albeit complicatedly

recurrence

and critically

of eternal have as we

begun to see, upon that thermodynamics: "The law of the conservation That Nietzsche demands should wed, eternal recurrence". of energy albeit

problematically,

understanding subsuming entirely

a critical

element

law think us make should of physical

him to a phenomenological

limited

his thought, of

tradition

twice before

that has almost

itself to textual exposition, and become increasingly

hostile to technoscience. But more importantly attention

to an

to the limits

it should draw our

for this Nietzsche's point, on own science, of

Deleuze in in the is and sense which Nietzsche not abstract enough, Guattari

for inventing That is Spinoza. praise

"elements that have

in though this function, that form even abstract sense are nor neither Processes Nomological Entropic Tendencies:

A

they are perfectly real [... ] distinguished

solely by movement and rest,

slowness and speed" (Deleuze and Guattari 1980/87 310/253). Nietzsche's important

thought

of the eternal

recurrence,

one of the most

and complex elements of his thought, is inextricably

up with thermodynamics.

bound

One of the most striking things about this is

his attempt to launch, what turns out to be, an astonishingly prescient critique of the thermodynamics of his day, then committed to a thought of the universe culminating nontheological,

in a heat death, a cosmological, apparently

day of judgement, the physical levelling of differences.

Nietzsche insists on numerous occasion in his work, principally in The Will to Power, that "we deny end goals: if existence had one it would have been reached" (Nietzsche 1968 § 55), as such Nietzsche's critique is also the start of an exposure of the transcendental illusion of entropy and of an account of the world in terms of becoming. The problem of here lies fact Nietzsche's in justification the that abstraction

for this

his lies being in infinite the there position rejection of possibility of an draw, he idea that the an reservoir of novelty upon which world may describes as "unforgivably insane". That Nietzsche should be led to this conclusion

leads us to the limit

materialist

limit of the possibilities for his thinking, for as Lee Smolin,

the most eminent of one "Nietzsche

was right

his thinking, of

contemporary

or rather

cosmologists,

to worry about the impossibility

to the

has put it of novelty,

because on the physics of his time it was indeed impossible to imagine how it might occur" (Smolin 1997 298)'1. If on this point Nietzsche by a mechanistic materialism, remains somewhat constrained

in other

beyond his he far in this, his thought principally goes adoption of areas

Processes Nomological Tendencies: Entropic

OC)

24L

force-point-world, dynamic of a or a relational view of matter deriving from the Dalmatian physicist Ruggiero Boscovich'. As an example of an advocate of such an unmitigated mechanism that presupposes a final state, Nietzsche refers to William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin, the author

in 1852 of the first

thermodynamics).

formulation

law the of second of

Thomson's claim here lies in the introduction, in the

second law, of the idea that there is a universal tendency operative in the cosmos toward

the degradation

somewhat complicated formulation becoming "rigid, equilibrium"

In energy. a

of mechanical

impossibility the of

dry, dead, nothing"

of the world

its reaching of

"a state

of

Nietzsche writes: "If, eg., the mechanist theory cannot

drawn by for it William Thomson, of leading to a the avoid consequence, final state, then the mechanist theory stands refuted" (Nietzsche 1968 1066). Nietzsche's formulation

of eternal return, then, offers a glimpse

Schellingian have is, in seen, a as we of a critique of mechanism what fashion, followed by a magnificent

infinite of an vision

universe as a

"monster of energy, without beginning or end [ ] as a play of forces and ... forces [... ] forces, the time a sea of one and many at same waves of flowing and rushing together, eternally

flooding changing, eternally

back" (Nietzsche 1968 § 1067). Nietzsche's account, when written, the end of the nineteenth diametrically

century,

to the scientific opposed

was moving

at

in a direction

it consensus, was utterly

has is the Yet it that correspondences enormous with a vision untimely. opened

possibilities transformation twentieth

by developments up

of thermodynamics,

since the

the complexity

nonlinear late the of

demonstrates, It than perhaps more convincingly century.

his Nietzsche "possessed that thought, an acute of element other any Processes Nomological Tendencies: Entropic

33

untimeliness

in his instincts

sciences" (Whitlock

concerning the future direction of the 1996 220). Nietzsche's own description of the

philosopher in his `Schopenhauer as Educator' is fully applicable here: "Nature propels the philosopher into mankind like an arrow; it takes no but hopes the arrow will stick somewhere. But aim countless times it misses and is depressed at the fact" (Nietzsche 1983 177).

Preindividual

Sinfalarity

The

of

r

point

thermodynamics, historical

rr_.

mapping

and principally

scholarship,

adequation

out

Nietzsche's

engagement

its second law, goes beyond fidelity to

beyond and an assessment of the formal

Nietzsche's of position to the contemporary

status of thermodynamics

with

(his or our)

from the position of scientific objectivity, the

law is anything but settled, thermodynamics as a the status of second discipline and as a set of metaphorics is almost by definition far from equilibrium'.

What must be attended to here is the introduction

change in the possibilities radicalisation

of conceptualisation

by the opened up

of energetic and tendential categories, and the necessity

them mapping onto representational of looking

of a

in some detail

impersonal singularities,

by do I to this problems. want

Deleuze's at account of preindividual

and

between the this account connection and at

Deleuze's importance first, to the philosophy of an energetics, and and drive. death In Freud's immensely intricate of an second, of an account Sense Deleuze "problem The Logic that the recognised of of passage of his because it to is the work precisely concentrates crucial entropy" fashion in transversal a remarkably question of singularity Processes Nomological Tendencies: Entropic

34

The question whether the world itself has a surface capable forming of again a potential of singularities is generally resolved in the negative. A world may be infinite in an order of convergence and nevertheless may have a finite energy, in which case this order would be limited. We recognise here the problem of entropy, for it is in the same way that a is extended over a line of ordinary points and

singularity

that a potential energy is actualised and falls to its lowest level (Deleuze 1969/90 145/110)

This is the conclusion to Deleuze's principal transcendental

field, constituted

attempt to reconstruct a

by "impersonal

and preindividual

(Deleuze 1969/90 145/109), an account, that

nomadic singularities"

be here, implications its must explicated as will reverberate throughout this thesis. Deleuze's location of singularities philosophy of energetic materiality founded on two principles:

his as a conceptual core of

is an attempt to guarantee its being

immanence,

intensity. and

This whole

basis, for is the critical problem account predicated upon an energetic Kantian its in philosophy

with transcendental lies

Deleuze illegitimate

in its

strictly

metaphysical

form as identified dependence

between "either an undifferentiated choice

by

upon an ground,

a

differences formless and nonbeing, or an abyss without groundlessness, Being individuated intensely an and without properties, or a supremely impersonalised

Form" (Deleuze 1969/90 141/106). In other words

Kantian

transcendental

strictly

incapable

philosophy remains theological: in that it is

of offering

Processes Nomological Tendencies: Entropic

a coherent

account

of genesis or

M.

individuation,

and incapable of thinking matter without imposing upon it a whole series of dictats which are imposed on it from the outside (eg Spirit, the subject, Platonic form, species, Kantian categories, all forms of what DeleuzeGuattari

condemn as the strata or "the judgements of

god"), all the generalities to which a thought of singularity is opposed. As such, we can see the great stakes, political and philosophical, involved in the maintenance, in transcendental thought of the hylomorphic schema, and correspondingly of the critique of that hylomorphism, and the active advocacy of a hylozoism, a philosophy ascribing immanent power to matter, in heretical thought. A heretical materialism Guattari,

here represented principally, drawing and

philosophy'.

substantially

Kant is conventionally

by the work of Deleuze and Gilbert upon

Simondon's

seen as transcending and unifying

competing strands in philosophy (represented in Kant's own account principally

by Rousseau and Hume), but as we will have cause to

repeat on a number of occasions in this thesis, this was achieved on the basis of a hegemonised hostility Spinozist

This

questions.

to Spinozism, and the silencing of

silencing,

though,

was not entirely

homogeneous and contained substantial cracks: their dominant names being Schelling, Marx, Nietzsche. Regardless of the massive differences between

these figures,

Spinozist prioritisation

it is their

common attempt

body, the of materiality of

to think

the

that is of concern

here. Schelling for example, in what has judiciously been called "one of the seminal works of materialism"

(Zizek 1996 7), the remarkable

drafts of his projected Weltalter, notes that things "stand before us as incomprehensible an

find its traces of manner of growth whole until we

before ] learn [... distinctive development the we about and gradual Processes Nomological Tendencies: Entropic

36

circumstances in which the individual developed and formed" (Schelling 1997 121), it is as a development

Schellingian this of

Simondon's account of individuation

is presented in the next chapter.

This is part of Schelling's

theme that

doctrine (vital for DeleuzeGuattari)

of a

germinal life, which is precisely one of those `extraordinary moments', of which Deleuze speaks, in which "philosophy makes the Abyss (Sansfond) speak

finds and

the mystical

language

its of wrath,

its

formlessness and its blindness" (Deleuze 1969/90 142/106). However, Deleuze explains, to make the formless speak is not sufficient to escape the alternative

of transcendental

beyond this move

philosophy

and metaphysics; the

lies in the exploration choice,

impersonal and preindividual

singularities"

"a of world

of

(Deleuze 1969/90142/107).

Deleuze credits Nietzsche with this discovery, and for renaming this "the free by to world power, will a and unbound energy", populated "nomadic singularities individuality

longer imprisoned within the fixed which are no

infinite Being (the immutability the of notorious

God), of

finite boundaries inside (the the the nor sedentary of subject notorious limits

knowledge)" of

(Deleuze

Deleuze's world of intensities, constitutive

relations

between

1969/90 142/107). In this world,

singularities,

multiplicities,

"[c]rowned series,

and the

anarchies

are

distributions hierarchies for the of representation; nomadic substituted for the sedentary distributions

" (Deleuze 1968/94 representation. of

356/278).

Entrouic

Philosonhv/Philosonhical

Entropy

The conceptual issues involved here revolve around the possibilities of Processes Nomological Tendencies: Entropic

37

there

being

a philosophical

manifestation,

nonlinear

account

and statistical,

here Critical is a reworking chaos'. (assemblages)

machines

(Deleuze and Guattari

of entropy

in its current

and as a map at the edge of

desiringthe three of elements of

in Deleuze

Guattari's and

Anti-Oedipus

1974/83 404/338) in terms of parts: working,

Numen, Voluptas; forms Libido, and of energy: mobile motor, adjacent; finally

its three operative syntheses: connective syntheses of partial

disjunctive flows; objects and

and chains;

syntheses of singularities

conjunctive

intensities syntheses of

These becomings. positions and

definitively

DeleuzeGuattari's mark

from their the rest of work off

philosophical Derridean thinking

milieu-

deconstruction

the

uncomfortable

settlement

defanged Frankfurt and a

that so dominates contemporary philosophy-

between

style critical in a way that

Spinoza designation the felicitous Negri's savage as of corresponds with breach the to have this As corresponds already seen we anomaly. Kantian by in the Spinozism hostility to ushered unprecedented reformulation

to reconstitute able of philosophy, as such we are

DeleuzeGuattari that allow moves

Philosophy thought

to claim that with them

is no longer synthetic judgement;

synthesiser

the

functioning

it is like a

to make thought travel,

Cosmos (Deleuze force the it and it of a make mobile, make Guattari

1980/87 424/343)

here being to for its referred The point of this statement and the reason in disparate "unite to elements is that it captures the effort made the material,

formula from to the transpose one parameters and

Processes Nomological Entropic Tendencies:

k

another" (ibid. ), this is a path not lacking in dangers, as Deleuze and Guattari stress, for one might "overdo it, put too much in". It is a longer philosophy no subject to the tyranny of the true, one that has logic "a renounced of predication and truth" in favour of a "logic of sense and the event" (Deleuze

1969/90 151/111, emphasis added). The

seismic importance of this move can hardly be exaggerated because it allows for a positive assimilation of modern information theory, that is the negentropy principle of information fundamentally

(Prillouin)'

energetic and so materialist,

is able to derive

squabblings over ontology

differentiations

are reconfigured as quantitative

a thermodynamic

is that a model

from zero, as such one

principle

for the selection of

problems (Prigogine and Stengers 1988 285), for the pursuit of signsfor the substitution particles, and

for It is of sense and affect meaning. that one is able to draw some of

non-coincidental,

and non-trivial,

DeleuzeGuattari's

into, from, concepts and of course energetics and not

least of all because there is a complex network of personal associations, intellectual two way and a

between their own thought and relationship

that of one of the pioneers in the field of nonlinear thermodynamics, Ilya Prigogine

have already whose work we

encountered.

With,

Stengers, his sometime philosophical collaborator, Prigogine has echoed Guattari is from Deleuze to the that theme critical with regard and a discussion current

Matter is not given. In the present day view it has to be fundamental constructed out of a more quantum

fields.

thermodynamic

In

this

construction

(irreversibility, concepts

Processes Nomological Tendencies: Entropic

in terms of concept of

matter,

have entropy) a

ý -9

role to play (Prigogine and Stengers 1984 288)17

Elsewhere Prigogine has noted the indissoluble relationship between the being-far-from-equilibrium, condition of

and the immanent creativity of

"matter matter, acquires new properties when far from equilibrium that fluctuations

instabilities and

in

becomes Matter the are now norm.

more `active' [... ] matter far from equilibrium

acquires new properties"

(Prigogine 1997 65-7)'8.

The question of the link between energy and death in DeleuzeGuattari be death they argue can now restated:

is part of the desiring machine, a part that must itself be judged, evaluated in the functioning of the machine and the its energetic conversions and not as an abstract system of Guattari 397/332) (Deleuze 1974/83 and principle

What happens here is an attempt to extract from a Freudianism that has become frozen

into

dualist a

molar

overcoding

system par

lack, Oedipus, (all is to to to or or what ever master reduced excellence code the particular

immanent analyst chooses), an

became the manipulation

"transcendent of a

function.

death instinct

What as a

398/333), is into Guattari 1974/83 (Deleuze reinserted a and principle" conjunction Deleuze

with

Spinozist a

uncoupling

judgement. the system of calls

of philosophy

from what

In `Beyond the Pleasure

bound for Freud, ineluctably is, Drive Death the Principle', up with the him, to then specifically available energetics Processes Nomological Tendencies: Entropic

that of Helmholtz,

it

40

expresses an irreversible

tendency for entities to return to inorganic

matter. The relationship

between forms of matter (modes of substance

in a Spinozist vocabulary), the routes between them and immanence, is deep But in theme their a work. note that "immanence is not said to but substance, substance and its modes are in immanence" (Deleuze 1995 4)-

immanence

is never to something, to suggest this is to back in under cover of this `something' (see

smuggle transcendence Deleuze and Guattari

1990/94 46/44), an analogous formula will be

applied later to a Bergsonian consciousness

is always

transcendental

principle

(ie. of consciousness

understanding

said of something,

do we not make a

In Thousand A of consciousness per se).

Plateaus they write:

it is, in effect, a distinction

between matter and life, or

between is two there states, only matter, since one rather, two tendencies of atomic matter [... ] Stating the distinction in the most general way, we could say that it is between stratified

systems or systems of stratification

hand, and consistent, self-consistent

on the one

aggregates on the

being far from is But that the consistency, point other. forms, fully life the to to most pertains complex restricted elementary

atoms and particles

(Deleuze and Guattari

1980/87 413/335)

life-death, lifethat thinking this to important It is most of understand but is these just does of philosophy said particulars, concern not matter

itself,

and of everything

that

Processes Nomological Entropie Tendencies:

comes within

the

purview

of

Al

DeleuzeGuattari's

thought. This adherence to a thought of an intensive continuum derives from the critique of hylomorphism that will be elaborated in the next chapter, and is the illustration of the core position that the thinking of matter has to DeleuzeGuattari's thought.

As Deleuze claims in a lecture on music:

In every domain we are done believing in a hierarchy that from the simple to the complex, according to the would go scale. It could be on the contrary

matter-life-mind matter

is more complex than

simplification durations

life,

and that

that

life is a

It be that vital rhythms and of matter. could

are not organised and measured by a spiritual

(spirituelle]

form but take their

articulation

from the

outside, from molecular processes that traverse them. In have as well we abandoned the traditional

philosophy coupling

of an undifferentiated

categorical

forms of thought

thinkable

matter

with

We or grand concepts. are

trying to work with carefully elaborated thought materials to render thinkable

those forces that are not thinkable by

themselves [... ] In philosophy it's no longer a matter of an thought absolute

such as classical philosophy wanted to

but impossible is thought, that to say rather an embody, the elaboration of a material that renders thinkable those forces that are not thinkable by themselves. (Deleuze 1978)

To recapitulate tendential

the principal repeat and

analysis

is not metaphorical,

Processes Nomological Tendencies: Entropic

point of this chapter: entropic it is directly

allied

to the

42

by DeleuzeGuattari made

onslaught

The drives (Eros and Thanatos)

Guattari

of

difference in every variant of metaphysical or signifying

quantitative regime.

upon the prioritisation

belong, for Deleuze and

to the realm of physics, that is, to recall `The Molecular

Unconscious',

"the body without

its intensities organs and

are not

but matter itself' (Deleuze and Guattari 1974/83 336/283). metaphors, The figure of entropy is not considered here to be merely a trope (as Martin

his in suggests paper on the subject),

Rosenberg

nor a

it is metaphor, an essential marker on the plane of consistency, and finally thermodynamics,

is the status of not given of whatever variety,

discourse, down top royal a rather

accepted,

its is teleological nor

it is taken

interpretation

to be a fundamental

DeleuzeGuattari constructing what

element

posit as a transformative

in

diagram.

Entropy is sedimented into at least seven different regimes: classical linear, and nonlinear biology,

molecular

Freudianism', transversal

Neo-Darwinism,

information

theory,

non

Oedipal

economics',

for the is creation of coordinate a prime and as such connections,

deterritorialisation Isabelle

thermodynamics,

Stengers

it

acts

as

a vector

in each of these disciplines. has perfectly who

captured

of potential

I concur here with this

sense of the

by by thermodynamics suggesting occupied position peculiarly powerful that it offers an exemplary opportunity concepts, of shifting

for "modifying

the scope of

introducing landscape, into of a new problems

drastically that questions

(Stengers disciplines" the nature of change

1997c 36), it is precisely this modifying, shifting, questioning, activity, is that the that inventing philosophy characterises irrepressible this, As as configured necessarily here`. are profiles for entropic such argued Processes Nomological Entropic Tendencies.

43

the horizon of DeleuzoGuattarian problems; problems that are simply not amenable to the preformed

logical orders, and overcoding

lead These thought. procedures characteristic of stat/e/ic questions us towards the nomos...

Processes Nomological Entropie Tendencies:

chapter

ij

Following Matter. Tracking Haecceity (singiAarity/m. embr

Transduction. Metastability es).

4b

In their book on Franz Kafka DeleuzeGuattari note that long form deformation the the as as and or expression are for themselves, there can be no real way out, not considered level the Only at even of contents. expression gives us the method (Deleuze and Guattari 1975/86 29/16)

This proposition in the text that appears between the twin volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia serves as an indicator of the centrality logic has his logic Deleuze the that of of expression, a understood since earliest work as underpinning

Spinoza's monism, to their exposition of a

deriving formation The philosophy of matter. of a philosophy of matter from the work of DeleuzeGuattari examination

is forged substantially

out of an

Gilbert their the engagement with consequences of of

Simondon'. The nexus of problems encountered here can be simply in hylomorphic linked the the models critiques of rubric of cited under philosophy

to their concept respective approaches and science and

formation.

Hence the focus of this chapter will be a pursuit

by DeleuzeGuattari launched the attack specificity of image of thought"

(Deleuze 1968/94), upon hitherto

of the

"classic the on existent ways of

It is problems. philosophical selecting of questions, asking philosophical DeleuzoGuattarian locate the that in this particular sense one must enterprise

as a challenge

philosophy

immanent,

to philosophy,

just not

as the attempt

discipline a

to make

that manipulates

the

This then this but that as practice. `immanence' maintains one concept in definition Deleuze's of philosophy summary is a response to Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

Dialogues as "la theorie des multiplicites" 179),

and

to learn

an attempt

(Deleuze and Parnet 1996

how to become a "keeper

(Serres 1995 24). The relationship

multiplicities" and multiplicity

of

between immanence

is given by Deleuze and Guattari

by the above

suggestion that expression provides us with a method. How so? As we have already seen, the question of multiplicity is always posed, by Schelling, by Bergson, and by Deleuze and Guattari, finding

a philosophical

as a means of

rejection of the absolutism of dialectics or of

dualism (they play the same ordering role in philosophy), the response to dualism is not to posit the one, but the multiple, and "to attain the multiple,

have one must a method that effectively

(Deleuze and Guattari

it"

constructs

1980/87 33/33). That method is expression or

immanence, and "immanence is revealed as expressive, and expression The immanent" (Deleuze 1968/92 159/175). multiple, a multiplicity, as holding becoming is together the as a means of understood a symbiotic heterogeneous,

it is the task of philosophy

heterogeneities,

logical (Deleuze "preformed that the and order" such

Guattari

1980/87 307/251) of transcendental

actively militated

to understand

philosophy

such

will

be

instead the consistency of an assemblage, a against;

multiplicity,

be heterogeneous, `holding the together' the can only of

understood

"case to case" according to immanent

criteria.

In the

here this that the concept of note present chapter, we must context of consistency

its relationship and

to that

immanent of

function

Guattari, Deleuze like in is, in and (developed much else chapter one) "the that Simondon from relation derived who argues

to the milieu

during individuation, before to be relation as or either envisaged, cannot The is itself homogeneous a a milieu system, milieu. and a unique Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

47

synthetic grouping of two or more levels of reality, between which there `intercommunication' individuation" to was no (Simondon 1995 prior 28n6) As such Deleuze and Guattari's

philosophy is guided by the

principle that Deleuze sees as informing Foucault's work: "that every form is a compound of relations between forces. Given these forces, our first question is with what forces from the outside they enter into a relation,

and then what form is created as a result" (Deleuze 1988a

124).

Why Simondon?

Gilbert

Simondon's

individuation,

unique

career

dedicated was

to thinking.

drawing degree to to the to which and attention extreme

both philosophy and science are subject to the pernicious influence of the hylomorphic

fixed "assumes that the matter-form model a schema:

form and a matter

deemed homogeneous" (Deleuze and Guattari

1980/87 508/408). Simondon's thought is distinguished by drawn DeleuzeGuattari upon myriad resources far more conceptually each

significant

amongst the

for several reasons,

than the pedagogic task of

tracing `influences', or of reducing DeleuzeGuattari's

in to a stage work

in is the Simondon's that history. amongst singular work philosophical his in infest Deleuze to `great' names of philosophy whose work claims his own philosophical account of reconstructed, critical

formation,

but its conceptual invention

component

Second, substantial

in the diagramming

it is not substantially is directly

utilised

as a

of concrete assemblages.

being for his than adapted work, rather sections of

for for they the purposes were which in used are problems novel use Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

4.

designed. Third, Simondon operates as the key conceptual resource for one of the most striking DeleuzeGuattari's

distinctive, and yet understudied, elements of

philosophy;

that is their obscured yet trenchant

involvement critique of, with, and recognition of, the great importance of, cybernetics

in its most stratified

DeleuzeGuattari's

form. This critique is posed in

attempt to think the meaning of the shift of man's

dominant relationship

forces the with of the outside (see the books on

Kafka and on Foucault) from carbon to silicon. For Deleuze this means to think

an attempt

into enter a relation

the superfold by which "the forces within

man

forces from the outside, those of silicon with

Simondon's (Deleuze fact 1988a In those 131). superseding of carbon" critique,

simultaneous (in which

cybernetics

with

the development

the observer

of second-order to be an intrinsic

is taken

decisive for description is that of a system), component of any adequate of what we might call third order cybernetics', applications

in the cultural

inaugurated arguably

its current generalised

This new phase of cybernetics, sphere.

by the libidinal

materialism

of the 1970's and

is the by Bataille's most of one perhaps general economics, precursed features

significant

Mechanosphere the of

in the late twentieth

that that to As any philosophy say such, one might venture century. by is to doesn't attempt to make a response almost cybernetics definition

be to politically going

philosophies

and culturally

irrelevant.

Of those

that do engage with cybernetics, they either reject the

in the in the animal and machine' `science of control and communication human, is defence to the kind a proper of what of name of some inspiration; the HeidteSge distinctly NO other else on or technophobia of hand offer an equally anthropocentric Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

and mindless celebration of all

49

things cyber that imagines that the coming of the computer is the first time that man has come into contact with a prosthetic. DeleuzeGuattari and the biologists of symbiosis show to the contrary that life has always been a question of a coeval relationship between the bios and technics to the extent that a separation of these terms is almost meaningless, and can only be made on the basis of an arbitrary As one of Deleuze and Guattari's

anthropocentrism. Samuel Butler,

his in wrote astonishingly

heroes, great

prescient novel Erewhon

(1872) "Where does consciousness begin, and where end? Who can draw the line? Who can draw any line? Is not everything interwoven with Is linked life in an infinite variety anything? not machinery with animal " (Butler of ways? philosopher

1965)'. One of Deleuze's teachers, the historian and

Georges Canguilhem of science,

Butler merely updates

he "consider that technology as a universal when one must writes biological phenomenon and no longer simply as an intellectual operation to be carried

by (Canguilhem man" out

lineage DeleuzeGuattari but everywhere

1992 64). Furthering

this

declare: "There is no biosphere or noosphere,

the same Mechanosphere"

(Deleuze and Guattari

1980/87 89/69). Fourth, Simondon, by lodging his work so concretely within

a problem,

demonstrate

that of individuation,

is able to performatively

his critique efficacy of

the immanent

to so central a

by is hylomorphism. Fifth, it that pursuing of philosophical complex as the limitations contact

with

is into Simondon's that put one work and edges of the serious

challenge

by DeleuzeGuattari's posed

to other schools of philosophical research. achievement

Finally, and as if in illustration Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

Deleuze's the above, can of we consider

50

Simondon importance the to his thought given in a own account of of Logic Sense (Deleuze to 1969/90 136n. 1/344n. 3). Deleuze note of Simondon credits with inspiring perhaps his most important and radical legacy, that of the creation of a new, non-Kantian

philosophical

non-phenomenological,

basis for the transcendental

and thus of anti-generalities

singularities,

hypothesis for the determination

and

field, "the idea of

[... ] must now serve as our

domain [the this transcendental, of

EA] and its genetic power" (Deleuze 1969/90 122/98). Deleuze writes that the five characteristics impersonal and pre-individual

of this transcendental

field, composed of

Simondon's in singularities, are all given

difference that the only et sa genese physico-biologique and

L'individu

between the two writers lies in their conclusions. Just to ensure that the importance proposed

I is this reiterate not missed. of

here,

phenomenological

amounts

to

and analytic

that what is being

break

a radical

with

both

the

in so far as both are

traditions,

to different to in a philosophy of subject-object, ways, committed, albeit transcendental a

field populated by such unities, and to the parallel of

Derrida). Husserl found in (as and the transcendental and the empirical Taking

this as the basis of his philosophy

DeleuzeGuattari's,

very

serious

alternatives.

to the

challenge

The Mawrcharacteristics

Deleuze's, and marks philosophical

transcendental this new of

field

are given as:

1. internal resonance of series 2. topological surface of membranes 3. organisation of sense 4. status

the problematic of

Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

(Deleuze

1969/90 136n.

51

1/344n. 3)

Simondon

and the Critique

Cybernetics: of

1e Devenir

sans Fin

In the same way that Deleuze and Guattari describe Spinoza's Ethics as the great book of the BwO, I would like to describe Vladimir Vernad. sky's The Biosphere as the great book of the geology of morals, of more specifically, the plane of consistency. For Vernadsky went further than anyone in the direction of the cosmic monism elaborated in the account of the abolition of all distinctions.

It is Vernadsky who first

attempted an answer to the question "Who does the Earth think it is? ". The Biosphere offers an extended account of the "relationship between the development of life on earth and the formation of the biospherethe envelope of life where the planet (Vernadsky

1998 39), which

meets the cosmic milieu"

demonstrates

how the "plane

of

knows differences level, in consistency nothing of orders of magnitude, distances. knows difference It between the the natural and or nothing of the artificial.

It knows nothing of the distinction between contents and

between forms formed (Deleuze that and substances" expressions, or Guattari and

1980/87 89/69).

Following Simondon explicitly, and I hope to show Vernadsky indirectly, Deleuze and Guattari have gone some way towards constructing a set highly form together that a original and extremely powerful of concepts critique

Wienerian that the riddle problems of

canonical cybernetics

domains) for (in its that passes certain the orthodoxy autopoietic and Guattari these Deleuze Whilst address questions rarely and successor. Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

52

directly,

an exception being perhaps Guattari's

brief discussion of

his in Chaosmosis, one can argue on the contrary that the autopoiesis idea that underpins everything that we are about to discuss, that the of concept of system and in particular

the difference between open and

closed systems, is all that they have ever written about. In a discussion A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze makes it clear that he considers the of guiding idea of that book, the rhizome, to be "precisely one example of an open system" and goes on in the same work to discuss the concept of the "open totality"

(Deleuze 1990/95 43/32).

Autopoiesis is a term and a body of theory developed by Humberto Maturana

Francisco and

Varela

living'. the of

the `organisation

characterise

in the 1970's as an attempt The term

to

is self-

Greek (self) its to explanatory when returned components: auto poiesis (creation/production).

As such it characterises the living as that which

replicates

itself. As Maturana

"resulted

from

characterisation

the direct

it, the construct of autopoiesis: put [... ] to provide

attempt

of the organisation

a complete

that makes living systems self-

the that relations explicit makes and contained autonomous unities, among their continuous (Maturana

components structural

which

must remain

transformation

invariant

and material

under a turnover. "

1980 45).

few to Kampis, George the seriously and The systems theorist one of has Bergson, of an assessment with engage sympathetically "music he the that I fully of writes agree, autopoiesis with which details however [... ] the harmonises efforts our own with autopoiesis Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

53

implications and considerably.

Maturana of and Varela's and our developments differ

The words that describe what an autopoietic

system

looks like could be our words; this is not true for the logic behind [sic] for and some of the conclusions" (Kampis 1991 387). As such, Kampis expresses my own reservations

about autopoietic theory. Maturana

Varela be inspired by laudable intentions, and their theory to and seem be to appears consonant with the positions expressed here. They insist for example, that their approach is a materialist

in forces "no that one

be will adduced which are not found in the physical

or principles

Similarly, universe". the statement

that

the potentially

nonessentialist

"our problem

is the living

approach given in organisation

and

therefore our interest will not be in properties of components, but in processes

and

relations

components" (Maturana

between

processes

realised

through

least Varela 75) 1980 and seems promising at

from the perspective of the relational, machinic materialism argued for here. In spite of this apparently m.achinic character of autopoiesis, the first quote from Maturana reveals the fundamental problem with their deployment lies `autonomy'. For it in term the the of approach, and its is this the at show, organised section will rest of autopoiesis, as deepest level around a fundamentally molar understanding molar-molecular

reactionary, metaphysical, and

(the it is that characterises an entity of what

distinction

in DeleuzeGuattari

is not a question of

the but the the entity concerned). of organisation nature of one of scale, Stengers, in leads Isabelle that It is this metaphysical prejudice one of Cosmopolitiques, her the volumes of remarkable seven volume series, that judgement judicious one deliver when she writes on autopoiesis to a Varela's Maturana faut [il be and attempt of mefier] se suspicious must Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

54

to "found a general epistemology of the living basis the on of the (Stengers 1997b 123) and that autopoiesis simply "does not explain the living". concept of autopoiesis"

Maturana

Varela and rely upon an ill conceived understanding of the both the organism and of the machine; an understanding that nature of when pushed, reveals itself to be thoroughly metaphysical, relying upon eighteenth

century

consequence, utterly

physicalist

incapable of conceptualising both individuation

and the machinic thinking this latter initiates that,

in terms of assemblages and becoming that

in DeleuzeGuattari.

I have suggested,

investigation

models of both terms, and is as a

pervades

of the starting

The metaphysical prejudice

autopoiesis

is revealed by an

point, and perhaps the most important

Simondon's hylomorphism. point, of extensive critique of

Simondon starts out from a fundamental

critique of all philosophies

that remain attached to a transcendent principle, on the basis that, in forms they the that the rely ontological all upon presupposition varying individual of an concept

is a meaningful one, they claim, in Simondon's

"that individual it is the words,

is individual that as already constituted

the reality of interest, the reality to be explained" (Simondon 1995 21). Kant,

for example, insists

that "one must make one's beginning

deriving from incapable human is that of any reason utterly something fully formed begin [... 1 with man as a one must previous natural causes by Simondon that 49). 1983 (Kant scientific arguing continues adult" "accords privilege an ontological assumptions such on out work carried For (Simondon individual" 1995 21). to the already constituted Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

55

Simondon then, the problem to be addressed is that of the assumption of the unified one as the starting point of any philosophy or science. In contrast to this, Simondon proposes that the starting point must be "the idea of a principle

individuation of

[... ] which would provide a

how had be individual individual the to sufficient explanation of an come for its and account singularity

(haecceity)" (Simondon 1995 21). We

have already seen in chapter one that this critique was adopted by Deleuze in his positing of difference in itself. As if to provide a case in point,

Maturana

Varela and

kind from the of precisely start out

be the Simondon they that posit avoided: suggests must assumption autopoietic

unity.

Simondon's, and by extension DeleuzeGuattari's,

be from it for to apparent should autopoiesis, critique clearly applies between division brief look that autopoiesis relies upon an a priori our impervious to the itself hence the the organism and renders world, and in the between distinction the pursued and assemblage machine critical In 411/333). Guattari 1980/87 A Thousand Plateaus (Deleuze and contrast

to this presumed unity,

Deleuze and Guattari

the assemblage or multiplicity. concept of Guattari and multiplicity,

the multiple make

the posit

Following Bergson, Deleuze

into a substantive,

into a noun: a

"An the one. in this with connection all sever way and

dimensions in the increase multiplicity a of this is assemblage precisely its it in connections" expands as nature that necessarily changes is then An 15/8). always 1980/87 Guattari assemblage (Deleuze and the by nature the paranoiac whilst fact in outside, to, constituted open In by the its terror is outside. of theory exposed of autopoietio dictates that autopoietic an autonomy the of concept autopoiesis, Deleuze by the and being by outside. destroyed contacted is entity Haecceity Tracking Following Matter,

56

Guattari's concept of the assemblage corrodes false any security given by the assumption that the outside can be separated from the inside and vice versa.

We have already seen the acuity of Isabelle Stengers critique of autopoiesis, however she goes on to become inexplicably soft on for from her justified suspicion of its claims, to autopoiesis, she moves thinking that Guattari's modifications of autopoiesis in C'haosmosisare sufficient to make it workable.

In spite of the implied critique of autopoiesis that Guattari had helped to develop in the joint work with Deleuze, in his sole authored book, Chaosmosis, he is oddly optimistic

for the of possibilities a peculiarly

has What Ansell Pearson Deleuze autopoiesis. modified written of and neo-Darwinism,

seems especially apposite here of Guattari,

"does not appear to appreciate [... ] that his thinking fundamental

that he

] presents a 11...

(Ansell Pearson tenets to the some of core of" challenge

1997 129) autopoiesis. As we shall see Guattari does not seem aware that his earlier work constituted, albeit indirectly, a devastatingly fatal Stengers, here Like he to tries that the save. autopoiesis critique of Guattari living

"lacks that characteristics autopoiesis concedes

organisms,

essential to

like the fact that they are born, die and survive

Given 39). 1995 that autopoiesis only (Guattari through genetic phyla" Guattari is biological, to it the to as why mysterious explain claims it that. it that to even cannot explain clearly given save would want has his he inexplicable, that is at Guattari's next move even more given to the assemblage with which disposal the superbly mobile concept of Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

57

assess the "institutions

and technical

machines"

proposes to account for on the basis of a rethought Autopoiesis, he writes, "deserves to be rethought evolutionary, relations

collective

of alterity,

institutions

entities,

and technical

product

themselves"

autopoiesis. in terms

of

diverse types of

which maintain

rather than being closed in on themselves [... ] machines appear to be allopoietic".

latter term is merely Maturana as the

he now

which

of their

(Maturana

This

and Varela's for systems which "have

functioning

different

something

from

Varela 1980 135; Varela, 1979 15), in and

other words: man or indeed, animal, made machines and technologies are allopoietic, `natural' machines are autopoietic. Guattari goes on to from level the regress of sophistication

Capitalism in reached

and

Schizophrenia with the suggestion that autopoiesis be viewed "from the of the

perspective

mechanosphere

ontogenesis

superposed

and phylogenesis

biosphere" the on

proper

(Guattari

to a

1992/95

62/40). In order not to be too uniformly hostile to Guattari's solo work it is worth noting that in his earlier Cartographies schizoanalytiques, he marks

the distance between schizoanalytics

theories, vis. that their utility principles

intelligibility of

and general systems

is limited to the extent to which "their

renounce all universalist

pretensions and

in have than that they that of combining a no other mission admit territories" existing of cartography

In his article

(Guattari 1989 12).

`Du Chaos et de 1'Auto-Organisation

Neocomme

25, Gilles Chätelet sets up what is politically Conservatisme Festif mathematically

regressive

in most complexity

thinking,

and

but his

Contrary directly be to to most autopoiesis. applied thought could Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

58

commentary

on these

questions

le betail chaotique and cyber

Chatelet

aligns

l'enthousiasme

with the Robinsonade Right, and clearly

demonstrates the collusion of much cybernetic thinking with rampant free market individualism'. attempt

Whilst, autopoiesis is clearly not the only

to adequate a revamped cybernetics to developments in a

developed instantiation the range of sciences since it is important project

the cybernetic of

for for its to a) claims provide a general model

the biological and b) for its impingement upon certain attempts to give Deleuze and Guattari's

hard In in these these edge areas. work a

it On Simondon's is other strata an essential counterfoil. work respects is apparent that connectionism with,

is a more important

locked as it is in to the architecture

processing,

and problems

within

cognitive

field to grapple

of parallel

distributed

science and artificial

intelligence, the questions at stake here seem to be variants upon those attached

to the critique

dynamical of

Kampis' George systems.

limited the the autopoietic of utility extremely summary assessment of that the devastatingly is observation simple and revolves around model "excludes it is that external control or the problem with autopoiesis higher "allopoietic basis these a that of notions the are selection" on (Kampis level" the destroy the autopoiesis of given level, that would but hand true, is only on the one 1991 390). Ultimately, autopoiesis in its basic level the the statement embodied of trivially so and only at the is of ie. that characteristic a definitional terms self-production own "selffor its closed living; but more perniciously conclusions only allow from insulated ), ibid. (Kampis artificially units" referential, autonomous in the Uexküll, Jakob encounter we shall Like whom von the outside. he Uexküll, Kantian, Maturana unlike a off as starts next chapter, Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

59

remains one, and his autopoietic units cannot be estranged from this 02'lgl L

To continue this critique from DeleuzeGuattari's argue

like

that

classical

cybernetics

with

be to position would its feedback

sets up closed systems as idealised

autopoiesis

entities

loops, and so

forecloses upon their essential innovation of the predication of external metastable

milieus

and therefore

singularities.

seems to suppose that it is legitimate operationally

Maturana

himself

to take the biological entity as

closed to the world. From our perspective, and that of

Vernadsky, Bataille, Deleuze and Margulis such a position is entirely be herself It Margulis that untenable. might counterclaimed uses the but it is autopoiesis, word clear on closer examination that she uses the term in an extremely limited fashion and that her substantial position because Margulis' is work and not only

beyond itactually goes way central to problematising dead that Maturana autopoietic Maturana

the distinction

between the living and the

by be imposition the the to of resolved assumes

The conception scheme. Varela attribute and

`operational of

to a discriminable

that closure'

Varela (see unity

defined [are] (dynamic) "mechanistic 1979 54-9), such that as systems by their organisation. a unity are organisationally

We shall say that autonomous systems

is is, That their characterised organisation closed.

by processes such that (1) the processes are related as a network, so that they recursively realisation

depend on each other in the generation

(2) they themselves, constitute the and processes of

and the

(domain) in the in the which space recognisable unity a system as favour be in 55) then 1979 " (Varela of an rejected must processes exist, Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

§Q

understanding semipermeable

of all entities membranes,

as open to the cosmos across selective flows to open of matter

and energy,

becomings. to The only entity to which Maturana subject alien Varela's

definition

metaphysical

be can applied, without

assumption,

is the entirety

and

illegitimate making an known the of universe.

Nietzsche then is prescient in insisting that "it is part of the concept of the living

that it must grow -

that it must extend its power and

[... incorporate forces ] it is all the same whether one consequently alien has in view an individual

living or a

(Nietzsche 1968 § 728). Maturana dead, metaphysically composed of

body, an aspiring

`society'"

is, Varela's ultimately, and world legislated, artificially

sterile, closed

entities.

One final point that renders autopoiesis incompatible

Deleuze

Guattari's and

distinction

thought

is the assumption

with

binary of a

between the living and the dead. As we have seen, Deleuze

transformation Guattari the concept of a noncorporeal posit and

to deal

life, his In artificial of study superb a question. such with precisely him for that, Claus Emmeche critiques Maturana on the grounds he 25), 1994 (Emmeche half-dead" being and "there is no such thing as being "rather than as concept" that all-or-nothing an to write goes on it is features: has "life a continuum Maturana suggests, continuum-like `more than alive' are of which some patterns, property of organisational is Sagan "there Margulis for no 39), 1994 and (Emmeche and others" life is finger this ends where to say and your point way convincing really (Margulis begins" and inorganic nonlife the of is realm this where and the of that have question We evades autopoiesis 92). seen Sagan 1986 individuation: transformation

limits the that it also evades of

life, the and of of

between the two, most contemporary

Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

research on

61

which, suggests that "the roots of life reach down into the realm of nonliving

(Capra 1997 94), and that it is "virtually matter"

impossible

to give a concise definition of the difference between living and nonliving substance"

(Margulis

Sagan 1986 72). Deleuze and Guattari and

suggest too that there can be no strict distinction death, arguing, Maturana,

Emmeche, Margulis with

between life and

Sagan, and and against

basis the on of a continuum, or of intensity, that "if we ask

life fits [... ] we see that it undoubtedly where consistency,

in other,

destratification).

words,

a surplus

implies

(surplus value

in a gain value of

[... ] But the question is almost contradictory, because

life fits it in to treating amounts as a particular asking where having its own order and befitting

stratum

forms having its and own order,

From [ ] the this may oppose consistency standpoint, we substances ... But this to the again, once milieus. of stratification of assemblages is only relative, opposition

entirely

relative"

(Deleuze and Guattari

1980/87 414-5/335-7). It is to questions of intensity

individuation and

that we now turn.

Intensive

Individuation

transduction

[... ] denotes

a process-be

it physical,

biological, mental or social - in which an activity gradually itself sets

in motion,

through a structuration

propagating

within

a given area,

it the operates. area over which of

(Simondou 1995 31)'

for the powerful, a necessary concepts then Simondon provides Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

62 1

pragmatic

critique of scientific research programmes which start out

from an assumption

of the one, of unity. I want to develop this by

examining three key concepts that contribute to Simondon's proposal haecceity (thought

of an alternative: singularity),

transduction,

extensively

worked

DeleuzeGuattari,

of in terms of membrane and

metastability.

out in Simondon

These three concepts are with

decisive

results

for

it is also worth noting that haecceity is also a term

proper to the Leibnizian

Spinozist and components of their work,

deriving as it does from Duns Scotus, one of the key figures in the line of (in Difference Repetition, Duns Scotus is the third univocal ontology and besides familiar the name more

Spinoza Nietzsche), it is ones of and

therefore the pivot around which one brings an unexpected Spinozist thought into the set of problems generated by Simondon. It is perhaps little a surprising

then that the helpful footnote on the history of the

does Simondon, "This is haecceity instead it mention word not reads deriving from This `here is is'. `ecceity', the word ecce, sometimes written from haec, Scotus Duns the the concept word and created an error since But it is a fruitful

`this thing'. individuation Guattari and

because it suggests a mode of error

that is distinct from that of a thing or a subject" (Deleuze derivation a

1980/87 318n1/540n33),

then from the

(Deleuze 57/39). 1968/94 book "greatest the of pure ontology" author of dealing

Nonetheless

we are still

individuation

is a thought of intensity,

with

Spinozist

questions,

for,

Spinoza is to it gives who and

is for individuation intensive his Deleuze whom quantity, and concept of "neither intensive" attribute

qualitative

nor extrinsic,

but quantitative

intrinsic, and

(Deleuze 1968/92 181/197). Deleuze recognises that to heterodox, difficult Spinoza is that to and and such a position

Following Matter, Trading

Haecceity

63

Spinoza "does not appear to have had any clear solution at the outset, nor even a clear statement of the problem" (ibid. 178/197), however it is difficult to see that an intensive theory of individuation not possibility

entailed

by modal difference

is the only

and Spinozist

univocity:

individuations

on a plane composed of one substance can only be posed individuations degreeas of matter congealed at different degrees, of heat, latitude longitude. In Difference and Repetition whiteness, of of and the link is made even more direct: "The essential process of intensive is individuation.

quantities

Intensity

quantities are individuating

Hvlozoic

is individuating,

intensive and

factors" (Deleuze 1968/94 317/246).

Pragmatics

We can turn

now to an assessment of the pragmatic

distinction

Schizophrenia and

in Capitalism elaborated

2 between reproduction Eric must, but following. however, Alliez, First to to quote and we

displace his comments from What is Philosophy? to Capitalism and Schizophrenia

how

2, elaborate

DeleuzeGuattari

"sketch

the

but follows from, the at on programme of a physical ontology which same time

surpasses

`phenomenology', phenomenology founded

by

integrating

of scientific

thought

upon a generalised

characterisation

between

the opposition

the

`physicalism'

physico-mathematical

to a speculative

dynamics"

and

(Alliez

materialism

1993 48)'. Alliez'

is problematic in that it seeks to return the specificity

DeleuzoGuattarian the of

discredited back to two philosophical moves

Any those phenomenology of ontology and phenomenology. endeavours: however,

any

ontology,

Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

that

emerges

from

DeleuzeGuattari's

64

programme would be entirely unrecognisable to those who currently practice

those disciplines.

Here their

innovations

located are as

relentless rejections of the assumptions of the above principally issue individuation. the vis of

a vis

The axis for their move consists in taking

the problem of the individual,

the entity, whatever it might be in the

case under consideration, out of its ontological founding and replacing it with the resolutely materialist Deleuze and Guattari critical with

deployed by Simondon. set of concepts

follow Simondon in this move, such that the

issues are displaced from the (post) metaphysical obsessions Being,

identity,

diagrammatisations

absence

and presence

becoming, of singularity,

and switched

to

Central and assemblage.

to Simondon's own agenda is the consignment of this former set of categories to the reservoir "metaphysical

of redundant

metaphysical

baggage, the

bog where", Bataille reminds us "it sometimes seems a

laugh" (Bataille for serious person would only go a good "Unity

and identity"

1988 79).

Simondon writes "are useless in helping us to

discover the process of individuation

itself", metastability,

potential

(Simondon 1995 their replacements, energy and entropy are amongst 24). For as Simondon goes on to argue, the terms and concepts of individuation: incapable of comprehending classical ontology are utterly "none them dualistic too of too they are and as a consequence static, becoming" the to of process simple me explain can completely be invented. 188)(Nietzsche 1983 as such new concepts must both have "we to determined this: new methods Simondon is use will on by "construct the to reality given a of essence refuse and and notions" Relation 30). (Simondon 1995 rather, relation" means of a conceptual be understood must

as constitutive,

Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

the entity of part as

under

K

for in the context of the critique of consideration, shall as we see again DNA, ontology only perceives a diminished being "due to its having been separated out into milieu and individual. They do not refer to the whole [... ] to the totality that will be formed later by the individual together with

(Simondon

the milieu"

1995 30). It is on the basis of this

Simondonian critique of ontology that Deleuze Guattari say "What is becoming block is itself, becoming, the the real of not the supposedly fixed terms through which that which becomes passes" (Deleuze and Guattari

1980/87

interdependence

291/238).

This

interweaving

between, individual

of, and mutual is taken up

and environment,

line direct Guattari, by Deleuze to them via a and comes and wholesale thinking. of

Claude Bernard's distinction between `milieu interieur' and

`milieu cosmique' was taken up both by one of the early cyberneticists, Walter

Cannon (originator

by homeostasis), the and concept of of

Vernadsky. It is the latter who makes a point directly paralleling that "in he their by Simondon, works studying of most writes made above living organisms, the biologists disregard the indissoluble connection In the living the between the surrounding milieu and studying organism. the from distinct the cosmic environment, organism as something quite but body pure a they Bernard natural a not study said, milieu, as thinking" their product of

Alliez'

final

(Vernadsky 1998 30).

term `generalised

DeleuzeGuattari's transcendentally

position generated

dynamics'

Haecceity Tracking matter, Following

as

kind any

of

as well

as

is seen to eliminate general

for demand Their a return dynamics. "language never has universality

is also problematised

systems

theory

to pragmatics,

that in which

in itself, self-sufficient formalisation,

a general

semiology,

(Deleuze and Guattari

or a metalanguage"

1980/87 140/111), necessitates precisely this attack. The pertinent latter the of

characteristic simplicity-

not as

being an attachment

to invariance

and

opposed to complexity in any technical sense- to

degree that verges on the theological, although Deleuze will write in a the Logic of Sense that simplificatio, unity

"identity the One the or of or the

Whole" (Deleuze 1969/90 398/297) is quite precisely, the of

Christian. Attention of the critique hylomorphic

be directly to the must also paid political element

hylomorphism, of

that

is to stress the origin of

down in top schemas control

Deleuze systems. and

Guattari write that "[r]oyal science is inseparable from a `hylomorphic' model implying

both a form that organises matter

and a matter

derives been for form; has it this the that prepared often schema shown less from technology or life than from a society divided into governors Gilbert Hottois Guattari (Deleuze 457/369). 1980/87 and and governed" in his Simondon et la philosophie de la `culture technique' has gone some Spinozist in the towards sense of course, of explicating an ethics, way hylozoism. We will see later how those thinkers Bruno's

led been have thesis all of animate matter advocacy of a heresy, theological the and also road of political and along

ineluctably

how his critique democratic, attention

have followed who

Copernicanism of

bottom-up

politics.

to singularities

is intimate

Against

with

a radically

dynamics we counterpose

(haecceities), coupled with the position that

Repetition Difference in developing where contra Deleuze was and between distinction the is placed upon general systems, emphasis basis the biological) the (physical of on different types of system and "process of individualisation Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

determines which

that actualisation"

67

(Deleuze 1968/94 328/255). Similarly form substance, and matter notions of primary

by fundamental the are replaced more

information,

and orders of magnitude"

for Simondon, "the notions of

internal

(Simondon

resonance, potential energy 1995 30). As such Simondon

places considerable emphasis upon the political his to position, express chosen

charge of the words

demonstrates his that range of and

dynamism, fixity intensity than and rather concepts are all concepts of direct is Simondon's is terms it that a choice of also clear and stability; Guattari's Deleuze and parallel with

outline of the terms associated

bodies. As this Spinozist the see, shall we analysis of affective with latter thesis is ramified and radicalised into an onslaught on ontological Capitalism in generalities

have As 2. Schizophrenia already we and

seen, the only other position, different

disciplinary

conceptually

in an entirely albeit one embedded

to, that or as close seems vaguely assemblage,

DeleuzeGuattari, that of rigorous and productive as,

is

to Bergson his Kampis, seems George that of positive engagement with be critical implicitly,

in this regard. I shall draw upon Kampis' work, mostly in thesis the in the rest of throughout this chapter and

general.

Nomadism

Limit the Life at and

The section of Capitalism

Schizophrenia and

2 with which we are

directly concerned is is the also The III: machine war of Proposition exteriority

the intimates existence by which to epistemology, attested

Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

68

and perpetuation of a `nomad' or `minor science' (Deleuze Guattari and

The critical formalisation"

1980/87 446/361)

here isolatable "modes the question asked concerns of (Deleuze and Guattari

1980/87 448/362) operated by

these generic types of scientific enterprise.

The distinction

between

following derived is from reproduction and a properly pragmatic one different modes of concept production, they are the modes of operation Here `royal' `nomadic' the to the and sciences respectively. appropriate declension is in the take that there of the note more at stake we must frequently is than nomad reading

assumed-

DeleuzeGuattari

particularly

as operating

in a certain way of

a quasi-Feyerabendian

its equally simplistic political analogue. epistemological anarchism, or layers deeply in itself is The concept of the nomadic several embedded briefly here DeleuzeGuattari's Deleuze enumerated work, and of

formations their Nomadic i) in a reading of the great and socioeconomic technologies; implication with metallurgical modes of

defines itself through that the figure ii) as the society par excellence of (a history of one against than number of principle geography rather identified frequently being latter as a Euclidean geometry; this paradigmatic

State science);

less romantically and

that as a society

fixity the of movement against

of the sedentary

iii) perhaps more importantly deploys a principle

the form the which against (the enemy of form condensed state Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

Ul

entirety

DeleuzeGuattari's of

thought

is directed). In this respect

Deleuze's work is unique amongst that of his contemporaries, in being one of the only attempts Nietzsche's singularly

to follow the positions

in sketched out

important essay on `Schopenhauer as Educator'

(the major discussion of the `following-reproducing' distinction is directly related to this essays' magnificent

State assault on philosophy, the professor

State or

functionary");

the value of this is attested to by taking

Kant as

representative

firm has State For Kant the thought. grasp upon a of

conversion

of the philosopher

into

"public a

threat posed by the nomad to sedentary thought, declaring that "the life, broke despising up all settled modes of sceptics, a species of nomads, from time to time all civil society. Happily they were few in number, [that is its the to sedentary of government prevent unable were and further Aix). Kant is (Kant 1929 being EA] established anew" reason, doctrine its "tracing form juridical giving and a philosophy with credited Guattari (Deleuze and faculties the power" state of organs onto of final in two further the be This theme will pursued 1980/87 466/376). in inscription the Bruno the Giordano state of and chapters examining the cosmos.

launched devastation in upon ontological figure the utter iv) as a critical in the Repetition played role Difference and from onward, and questions Capitalism from distribution, and which by the concept of is for it by joined within population, Schizophrenia onwards is "logos the between the nomos" and that a split occurs distribution is distribution form distinction In this of 54/36)30. a 1968/94 (Deleuze is `nomadic', the the which of effect is name that discovered accorded

Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

70

the introduction structures

"unsettling of

denoting distribution nomos, a

transductions

dimension

[... ] into the sedentary

(Deleuze 1968/94 55/37). Crucially, the

of representation"

the topological

difficulties

in space, marks out the importance of

of the membrane/limit

as operator

of

(transcodings), the flattening or equivalence of exchange

and production,

the redundancy of the bounded entity. As Simondon

writes

the living

lives at the limit of itself, on the limit

characteristic

life of

polarity

[... ] the

is at the level

of the

here it life is that membrane; exists in an essential fashion dynamic topology which maintains as an aspect of a metastability

the

by which it exists [... ] the entire content of

internal space is topologically in contact with the content of the exterior

limits the at

living the of

(Simondon 1995

224-6).

The theme of the constant topological contact between organism and milieu,

and the assault upon the integrity

consistent refrain worked

in the DeleuzoGuattarian

the all of strata out across

anthropomorphic

distinction, that of

less no

than

the

with more

is a

finds itself corpus and which

they deal, the

obviously

germane

(Deleuze Guattari 1980/87 627/502). and organic physicochemical and

It is necessary to insist again that DeleuzeGuattari's

deployment of

Simondon also pays attention to the political implications

of the

formits the hylomorphism, terms as replacement as well of critique of Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

71

matter, with the more mobile content-expression. The embeddedness of politics in this seemingly abstruse critique is already well attested to in Capitalism

Schizophrenia and

discovering

the roots of the machinic

technological

developments

"relation conceived as a

1 where Simondon is credited for for and rendering

phylum,

immanent

and allowing

that is subordinated

them to be

to a field of forces

operating as a concrete physical system" rather than as "an abstract unity

intellectual or

(Deleuze and Guattari

system reigning

over separate subaggregates"

1974/83 262/221). Similarly, the problem of the

lineages in those in theory, state of political which it is conceived of as an abstraction, transcendental

is transformed

"it

so that

is no longer

the

law that governs fragments"; rather "it must fashion as

best it can a whole to which it will render its law immanent"(Deleuze Guattari and tradition

1974/83 262/221). This opposition

is the Spinozist

by Hardt Negri, "against the negative constructed and which

dialectic ] [... the present a positive process of constitution movement of [and] conceive of democracy as an absolute, completely immanent Negri (Hardt 1994 free from transcendent and any norm" government, 285 and 6). It is at this point that it becomes possible to insert the importance of the Spinozist move for Deleuze and DeleuzeGuattari

on

the grounds of the centrality of the logic of expression, of capturing the State instantiates in the the which ways specificity of to precise diagrammatisations.

itself according

Read in this way the immense range

hylomorphism the attack upon and power of diverse corners of the DeleuzoGuattarian

itself in the most reveals

trajectory in all strata where

individualisation bare lays it specific modes of

without

positing the

bare form being to there substance. abstract welded a of necessity Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

72

Deleuze's destruction entity"

(Deleuze

"fallacious the of concept of a sadomasochistic

1967/89 50/57), for example, is implemented

in

briefly, it is suggested that this entity cannot be these terms; precisely described using either material or moral categories of identity, but must be tracked

formally

with

Ultimately

patterning.

attention

fixed on the specificity

then, masochism,

its of

like other and sadism,

be flattened "with `grid', cannot out an abstract

material instantiations

libidinal though as a common

flowed form, into now substance one now

into another" (Deleuze 1967/89 41/45). In the same fashion, in Cinema 2: The Time-Image,

the traditional by taking

film canons of the components

theory

are

of cinematic

economically

reduced

representation

linguistically formed "a material not as produced out of

even though

it is not amorphous,

aesthetically

and pragmatically"

be multiplied cases could

formed is and

semiotically,

(Deleuze 1985/89 33/29). These two

but is the a significant move result endlessly,

towards developing a radically new philosophical pragmatics.

Simondon

with Spinoza

An important

Spinozist

dimension

to the critique

hylomorphic of

that to transcendence of the lies in the of plane opposition of schemas book, Spinoza little titled Deleuze's In significantly consistency. the types these of plane are accorded Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, respective characteristics transcendent

the organisation of

or theological,

development the of or

to the composition as opposed

of the

Us', `Spinoza in the In this and chapter case, immanent or consistent. is Philosophy constructed plane Practical ethological an Spinoza: in

Traces Matter, Following

Haecceity

73

in terms of milieu, couched velocity,

elements, composition,

spine that effects a transductive

a conceptual

between different

unformed

material

is the working respect

and conceptual

strata.

and

operation

Critical

in this

of the concept of immanence as an aspect of

expression.

The earliest

location

Philosophy:

Spinoza, where Plotinus

for this is in Expressionism in Spinoza for and are praised

latter The immanence. creating an expressive plane, that of consistency immanence, or components

is explicitly

from the Spinoza-Simondon

rejection of any transcendentally otherwise,

conceived

being built of as

structure

conjunction,

out of

and as the

formation, pre or governed schema of

"only instead What is are offered or genesis.

haecceities, affects, subjectless individuations

that constitute collective

326/266): Guattari 1980/87 (Deleuze and assemblages"

Spinoza writes

Bodies are reciprocally

distinguished

with

to respect

in to relation and not movement or rest, speed or slowness, I)31 L P II 13 E 1989 (Spinoza substance

Similarly for Simondon: The existence of a plurality interpreted

be of systems of norms can

is There in a way other than as a contradiction.

from the multiplicity resulting contradiction only a if one makes of the individual individuation an of expression

Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

of norms

the not and an absolute creating a metastable state

74

only and provisionally

discontinuous as a phase of transfer. "

(Simondon 1995 245).

Having made this connection between Spinoza and Simondon it seems Simondon's to have I tried to show misplaced, necessary point out own, and somewhat conventional hostility to Spinoza (in this connection one bear in mind that Wiener's own attitude to Spinoza was equally might if considerably

negative,

less nuanced,

highlighted and

by his

Leibniz "patron for for the three championing of as saint cybernetics" reasons, the third universal

being the most pertinent:

i) for his pursuit

of a

ii) the avowal of a calculus of reasoning, from symbolism,

his Wiener which modernist with

orientation

derives mathematical

logic, less directly, for his iii) notation and symbolic adherence to and dynamics

as against

Spinozist

geometry').

Simondon

objects to

basis (Simondon 238) 1995 the on monism"

Spinoza's "substantialist

that all theories of substance, and here Simondon is using the terms of the above quoted Spinoza passage, but misreading them, "rely on a conception of exchange and modification and stable equilibrium,

not metastability"

know alteration which only (Simondon 1995 238)'. From

Simondon's Spinoza, the perspective of a conventional understanding of the but the it is that is of major claims one of clear a valid one, point BalibarNegri Deleuze, following in and we are-which way

reading

Spinoza, is that this critique is seriously misplaced.

The Vampire

Thought of

"imply is to in is The distinction then set up this way: reproduction said Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

75,

the permanence of a fixed point of view that is external to is what and in a sense that could be seen to ally it to

reproduced", similarlythose sciences that

are mechanical,

perspective of reversibility

dynamic

(linear),

or take a

vis a vis physical processes- reproducing

"treats differences of time and place as so many variables" (Deleuze Guattari and

1980/87 461/372), ultimately

then these positions remain

Kantian the within orbit, and are irrevocably transcendental. As early Difference Repetition Deleuze had as and realised that the concept of difference was only to be conceived in an empirical and materialist fashion, and was equating difference with intensity, intensity'

"`difference of

is a tautology" (Deleuze 1968/94 287/222). In Logic of Sense

the constitution

difference is (as intensity taken of noted again as up

field Simondonian themes, transcendental a above) as an elaboration of impersonal and

"pre-individual composed of

1969/90 348/297). Singularities

singularities"

(Deleuze

in this Deleuzian and Simondonian

intensive in themselves, composed of and of sense are always multiple degrees, each of which is already difference in itself: "Intensities differentthe in the themselves unequal or comprehend different in itselfalready manifestation

is each one

in the them that are comprehended all of so

Intensity 348/297). (Deleuze 1969/90 of every one"

is

is "philosophy that but to not the to such n one, never equal -1, but (Deleuze 1997), (l'etre)" being with the one, concerned with multiplicity.

discovers the Deleuze that positing Simondon in It is also

condition

of metastability-

individuation--problematic of Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

a prior material

of the

for the grounding

"the existence of a `disparateness' such

76

least two orders of magnitude or scales of heterogeneous reality as at between which potentials are distributed" (Deleuze 1968/94 317/246). Metastability

is defined by Deleuze as the constitutive

exists, contrasted in

which a world composed of singularities-events equal measure to stability and to instability. in state which concatenations

condition in

Metastability

refers to the

"endowed are with a

of multiplicities

differences between series are distributed" the potential energy wherein (Deleuze 1969/90 136/103). Metastability

is the ground of a cosmos of

febrile becoming, as supposed in contemporary

complexity theory,

dimensions to the map which proposes of physical systems whose far-from-equilibrium, is always condition

just this side of chaos, it posits

that all entities from the level of a cell, to an animal, to a society, a in a permanent state of global economy, a planet, and a cosmos are disequilibrium, becoming, of perpetual active

difference intensive or

is to is It only now, with what coming generating new series continually. be recognised as a third scientific revolution (to surpass the Newtonian, Quantum') and

be that theoretical models, and empirical studies, can

has been Nevertheless glimpsed a realm such realm. a made of such by infinite, before, in Bruno's a permanent acentric cosmos governed will-to-form

has Bloch, 222-4), (Mendoza 1995 perhaps poetically what

described as "the formative

inherent power

in things [which] never

had been It 849). (Bloch 1986 forms" suggested new wearies of creating to Share, Accursed create an abstract in Bataille's a grand attempt "atom, disparate molecule, as diagram adequate to such entities as idea that 75) to the 1988 (Bataille all society" organism, cell, micelle, is it this by energy excess maudite, a part an excess, are characterised 1/199120/10). life" (Bataille into the of "translated effervescence is that Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

77

In this sense Nietzsche is quite literally state of equilibrium

he "that correct when writes a

is never reached proves that it is not possible"

(Nietzsche 1968 § 1064), a world that is a "monster of energy, without beginning, without end" (Ibid. § 1067). Since equilibrium is the absence literally difference, it death, is for as Depew and Weber of equality, quite literature the write summing up copious

biological definitions the on of

life and death: "the only time" that entities "achieve thermodynamic is when they are dead [... ] that is probably the best

equilibrium

definition of biological death" (Depew and Weber 1996 466), stasis.

*ollowing'

is the term that Deleuze and Guattari

investigation of

critique

appropriate

the `singularities'

is where

pragmatic

in Simondon's

that singularities

metastability this then

of a matter

461/372),

that has apprehended

[matieere],

discover to and not out

[materiau],

becoming" the

A mode in which one sets out in "search of

hylomorphism. of

1980/87

to the cosmos of "endless

1995 21) that opens to thought

(Simondon

give to the only mode

form" a language

immanentism

(Deleuze

Guattari and

it is precisely

within

by isolated located potentials, and are

involved becomes one that

of a material

or rather

marks

with

the specific form of

DeleuzoGuattarian the out

programme.

At the heart representation nonetheless,

DeleuzeGuattari's of

then, is this elaboration it will be critical

be constructed cannot frequently

frequently

Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

of

`following', of a practice of

`following' figure the that to show of fashion,

that problem a

to deploy the figure

of the abstract

in a transcendent

plagues attempts

invoked critique

2a

There is no transcendent method of following, that can be laid machine. out in the abstract, for "thought is like the Vampire, having no image, either to make a model of or to copy" (Deleuze and Guattari

1980/87

467/377). The warning that Isabelle Stengers attached to the concept of transduction

also applies to that of `following'.

She warns that

anyone who thinks that they can derive from the notion of transduction the "power to recognise that the production individuated

having an of a child

language `same' to the to relation responds problem as the

have genesis of a crystal would completely misunderstood the concept [utilise le concept a rebours] and would moreover pay for it with the derision that would be aroused! " (Stengers 1997b 137)'. Following, like transduction,

be in to concrete edges of relation can only emplaced

decoding and deterritorialisation

that are constructed in relation to

is "Each bodies, a abstract machine problems and concepts. specific consolidated aggregate of matters-functions (Deleuze and Guattari immanently

(phylum and diagram)"

1980/87 637/511), that can only be invented in

derived analyses based on micropractice.

Haecceity Tracking Matter, Following

chapter

iii

Qrganisation as Stratification: Immanent Relations in DeleuzeGuattari's Pragmatic Materialism There is no great difference between false materialism typical forms of idealism. (Deleuze and Guattari

Two great philosophical

traditions thought,

and

1974/83 29/22)

history in the therefore, of clash, is Kampfplatz that that setting up

idealism But those these traditions two of are not philosophy. `aleatory They tradition the of are and materialism. materialism' and all the rest. (Negri 1996b 61)

80

Perhaps

the most distinctive

feature

Deleuze Guattari's of and

polyvocal work and the feature that distinguishes them most sharply from their contemporaries in both Continental and Anglo-American philosophy who have taken, to varying degrees, the `linguistic turn', is, have as we seen, their dedication to thinking

a philosophy of matter,

endowed with, amongst other things, the wholly new terms forged by Simondon in his critique of hylomorphism. This new materialism must attempt, as Toni Negri has claimed of A Thousand Plateaus, "construct the terrain upon which to redefine the materialism

first the twenty of

(Negri 1998a 86), and as such, must adequate to the global century" late the twentieth century, its cultures, sciences, politics. conditions of This c4wpQr attempts implementations. simultaneous

to test this claim on the basis of a series of

The peculiar

performance

difficulty

of their

and explication

lies in its work

of the principle

of the

by difficult it is immensely isolate from to rhizome, single strands which for form it, is thought their entire so very tightly enmeshed, each within dragging is to that to the start element with each other, examine one it. Nonetheless, is in to this U-, paid (L attention entire oeuvre out with that DeleuzeGuattari

the thorough

critique

organisation

and their

offer of the principle

in its stead, of a principle advocacy,

of of

"the is plane of consistency or composition composition or consistency: formation" (Deleuze that to of organisation or another plane, opposed Guattari and following,

1980/87 456/368), the former is that encountered in

the latter

in representation.

The route to this question

between, the detour through relationship involves a an examination of in their hand, the and conceptualisation given cases the material one on

Organisation

as Stratification

81

A Thousand Plateaus Simondon's

work

and, on the other hand, certain elements of

interrelated the on

questions

limit the of

and

individuation. Arnaud Villani has paid some attention to the role played by the `the material cases' in what he calls the physical geography of A Thousand Plateaus. I concur with Villani's characteristic

claim that the principal

`cases' is "effect in these the they the of way which

describe" in that they that their singularity movement and "immanent series of

(Villani syntheses"

constitute

1985 331)"6.As such Deleuze

Guattari's from invented, a case study or and concepts are or extracted body of disciplinarised knowledge and then given a transversal direction, in an attempt to achieve a flatness with those cases. It is this flatness that

constitutes

what

Deleuze

Guattari and

immanence, which "has no supplementary

call the plane

of

dimension; the process of

for itself, be through EA] [of the apprehended must plane, composition It is it in it that a plan of composition, that which gives. which gives, 128). (Deleuze 1988b development" not a plan of organisation or

Horizontal

and Vertical

immanence, building which aims This process of concept on a plane of is horizons the space, horizontal conceptual of of the extension at dimension the Guattari to by Deleuze as verticality and counterposed far, Philosophy? they is What In on so go thought. of metaphysical transcendent. the with to synonymous verticality make as occasion, the throughout is horizons used extensively This idea of the pushing of Philosophy? What is in Immanence' Plane `The devoted to of chapter in the is itself that horizon relative movement: is the "it that such

Organisation

Stratification as

82

horizon

recedes when the subject advances, but on the plane of immanence we are always and already on the absolute horizon" (Deleuze and Guattari 1991/94 40/38). Deleuze Guattari define two and types of horizon: the relative and the absolute; the former functions as limit "which a changes with an observer and encloses observable states of affairs" whilst the latter, the absolute is "independent of any observer, which makes the event as concept independent of a visible state of affairs" (Deleuze and Guattari 1991/94 39/36). The distinction is posed in a distinctly "has its own horizon,

represented,

fashion, for Kant every concept

non-Kantian that

is a variety

of things

which

be can

and, as it were, surveyed from that standpoint.

horizon must be capable of containing

an infinite

This

number of points,

has its own narrower horizon" (Kant 1929 A 658/B 686). each of which The Kantian hierarchy,

horizon

then is an ordering

imposer concept, an of

from "universal to the a standpoint which one proceeds up

horizon" A (Kant 1929 659/B 687). Deleuze and Guattari's true and horizontality, hierarchy

is on the contrary,

performed

an extension of the abolition

by Cusa and Bruno's thought

"opposed to any [... I hierarchical

of

immanence, of

(Deleuze the conception of world"

1968/92 157/173), as in the various Medieval chains of being. Antonio Negri explains that Neoplatonism is interesting it's own subordination

"'horizontal' the of

`vertical' creation and hierarchisation"

to Deleuze insofar as

relation to the order of the

be, can and was, transformed

into a philosophy of expression (a philosophy which as he have already seen, and as will

continually

be stressed, is central

to Deleuze's

thought), "a philosophy of surfaces, in order to eliminate any aspect of transcendence,

Organisation

hierarchy, of

Stratification as

of emanation"

(Negri 1991a 18), this

ý-3 aspect of Neoplatonism

is also stressed in Alliez'

commentary

on

Plotinus (Alliez 1991/95 63-123/27-74). Deleuze suggests that there is a counter tradition

to this hierarchical

thinking,

it is and one that

revolves around the linked terms immanence and expression, also identified with the terms complicare and explicare in a note he writes that it is "above all in Nicholas of Cusa and in Bruno that the notions acquire a rigorous philosophical

character" (Deleuze 1968/92 159 n.

1/377 n. 12). In one of the most thorough

between immanence and expression, `Immanence and the

relationship Historical

statements of the direct

Components

`Expressioif7, of

Deleuze argues that

the

pursuit of univocal ontology, given in Spinozist immanence constitutes the only pure ontology. That is a "pure ontology" in which "Unity is only a property of substance and of what is" in which immanence "requires being, the as a principle equality of or the positing of equal Being [... ] not defined by their rank in a hierarchy" (Deleuze 1968/92 157/173). It is the contrast offered between the rhizome, and the tree or arborescence that best captures the importance of the determination dimensions: horizontality transcendentally organisation,

and verticality.

of these two

It is precisely these kinds of

imposed schemas that Deleuze characterises

as

imposed inert the presupposing an matter, on a plan

have in This is, as we seen, coupled critique existence of stable entities. DeleuzeGuattari's

thought

to Simondon's revolutionary

thinking

of

individuation,

describes he focusing the that thinking as on process of a

individuation

"an operation resulting grasped as

between, and compatibility

of, a singularity

Simondon for Hence conditions".

Organisation

Stratification as

from the meeting

and energetic and material

84

To seek the principle of individuation in matter, form, or force, is to restrict oneself to being able to explain individuation

only in those particular

cases that seem

simple, such as the atom or the molecule that is instead of taking the genesis of the individual and supposing that be to genesis already made in formal, material or energetic elements, and owing to these elements already bearers of individuation, generating by composition an individuation is which actually simpler. It is for this reason that we have never wanted to undertake the study of the individual

as

from the elementary particle (Simondon 1995 79starting 80)

Go and Chess

The significance

for I the this thesis of above statement and, would

for the DeleuzoGuattarian argue,

by in is project general, revealed

by Deleuze important the most strategic moves made examining one of Nomadology: Treatise `1227: Guattari in the on plateau entitled and -The War Machine'. This strategic move will be used here to position DeleuzeGuattari

in a critical relation to two of the most radical projects

in contemporary systems theory and second-order cybernetics. That is George Kampis' work embodied in his theory of `component systems', `relational the project of and Nicholas

Rashevsky'.

that observation

Organisation

as Stratification

biology' pursued by Robert Rosen and

My starting

point is the apparently

banal

K

Chess pieces are coded; they have internal an intrinsic

properties

situations, contrast,

from

which

their

nature and movements,

derive [... ] Go pieces, in

and confrontations

are pellets, disks, simple arithmetic

units, and

they only have an anonymous, collective or third-person function [... ] elements of a nonsubjectified machine assemblage with no intrinsic

properties,

only situational

(Deleuze Guattari 1980/87 436/352) ones and

Thinking along a parallel path, Rosen suggests that

once we talk

about organisation, we are in a relational

We basically defining context. are a machine as a material system

that

admits

(ie.,

that

realises) a relational

description, a description in terms of sets and mapping, and between them (Rosen 1991 183) entailments

Rosen's concept of entailment generative

relationality

that the properties

perfectly captures the idea of absolute,

that permeates this thesis; his argument is

of components are strictly

emergent and only

"description in from their their a system, changes as position generated the system to which it belongs changes" (Rosen 1991 121). It is this individuations complex concatenation of to which

and their material coordinates

Simondon refers above that provides the motivation

for

Deleuze and Guattari in their pursuit of the (dated) event, which is "not from it inseparable is itself inseparable from variations, only made up bodies, lived in is it reality actualised or the state of affairs, and which

Organisation

Stratification as

86

brought about" (Deleuze and Guattari

1991/94 150/159). The crux of

these investigations turns around the concept of organisation, and it is to organisation

that we now turn.

Immanent and Transcendent

If, as Michel Foucault

Deleuze Guattari once claimed, and

offer an

`introduction to the non-fascist life', and if the mode of living such a life is embodied in the set of practices (and hence it is a process) known as the Body without Organs ("you can't reach it, you are forever attaining it, it is a limit"

Deleuze and Guattari

DeleuzoGuattarian principal object of

1980/87 186/150), then the

(such is an organisation critique

by lead Nietzsche in is to the given of course accordance with emphasis become, Whitehead, to philosophy, prioritise a process with what would § Organisation, 655). Nietzsche `entities'" 1968 "Processes treat as and for Deleuze and Guattari within

is homologous with stratification,

the regime of signs'

constituting

it is and

science that organised,

' importance. stratified matters are of utmost

Schizophrenia Capitalism two the Running throughout and volumes of Deleuze and Guattari

between distinction raise and elaborate upon a

difference is to this that It is crucial clear made codes. axiomatics and understanding thought.

In

stratification

the differing addition

immanent modes of

to this

to axiomatisation

the

concomitant

and transcendent attachment

is made. It is with the identification

of of

immanent transcendent code with and organisation, a axiomatics with (compare importance its distinction this that assumes composition

Organisation

as Stratification

27

Deleuze and Guattari taken to institute a semiotisation,

1980/87 567/454 and 174/143). The axiomatic is

a regulative order (stratification),

"an axiomatisation,

which is contrasted to "a diagram

a physicalisation"

[... ] the programme of a stratum, against the diagram of the plane of (Deleuze consistency" 1980/87 179/143). The and Guattari mathematician

Robert

DeleuzeGuattari's

understanding

that the axiomatic convention t

the

principal

of mathematical

is no longer an analytic

delimits

that

Blanche,

tion). Finally,

field"

source

of

axiomatics, insists

proposition,

but is "a

(Blanche

1990 19, -my Isabelle Stengers and Bernadette Bensaudea certain

Vincent in their History of Chemistry give specific content to this in the field of chemistry,

by suggesting that "the multiplicity

crystallography, industrial

history to the more precisely with reference of and often the

interest of the properties linked to `deviations' from the `rule'

were substituted

for the conventional

`normal case' (an illustration

differentiation

between the

`defects' (a the rule) and nonhierarchical of

favour it)" the that circumstances group of cases, each associated with Stengers and

(Bensaude-Vincent

1993 259). The line

taken

by

Stengers and Bensaude-Vincent lies in close proximity to that taken by DeleuzeGuattari,

for helps focus idea is those it that the to and what

disciplines that manifest the characteristics associated with the minor, like Thom's interest bodies that seven the are, are of or states of affairs catastrophe's,

Thom's (when limit using phenomena concerned with

his basis Platonic import the to take of not care great must model one be implemented diagrams to they that to remain ensure mathematics, displays be imposed), to and of rupture than plans rather in they a state are heterogeneity: systems made perceptible only when

Organisation

as Stratification

ff

of collapse,

in systems variation

defined

by "constants not

homogeneity but on the contrary by a variability immanent, are (variable

continuous,

and regulated

[facultatives]

or optional

rules)"

and

whose characteristics

in a very specific mode (Deleuze and Guattari

1980/87 118/94). This is a thought that has preoccupied Deleuze since least Difference Repetition becomes in at real and which a concept only to the extent continuity

that

"it designates

catastrophes:

in the series of resemblances

either

impassable or

breaks of fissures

between the analogical structures" (Deleuze 1968/94 52/35); and it only be to reflexive ceases implication irreducible equilibrium

in order to become "catastrophic".

Another

to which I return shortly: catastrophe bears witness to "an ground

which

continues

of organic representation"

to act under

the apparent

(ibid). That is to suggest that

Deleuze's foundation of concepts of irreducible difference or fissure is a The fixity in critique the grounds. of ontological classical acid corrosive is Anti-Oedipus, in important the a the so concept of partial objects, of key element of this critique of unity, and at the same time one aimed at lost for lament inspired Heidegger Derrida's dominant theme the of DeleuzeGuattari presence.

believe in the longer "We no pointedly write:

like fragments antique that, an of pieces the existence of of myth they that be turned last to for so the up, one statue, are merely waiting longer We ] [... no to back together unity be a create glued may all final totality in a believe in a primordial totality that once existed, on 1974/83 Guattari (Deleuze date" future and that awaits us at some the to of thought entirety is the which grand 50/42). This indeed in-itself is "Difference, dedicated: that is Repetition Difference and is there that 169/129), no 1968/94 (Deleuze Repetition" already

Organisation

as Stratification

89

"ultimate

fixed (ibid. term" 139/105) to be uncovered; put or originary

thus, it is also crucial in the critique systems, that there is no originary

Freudianism, of

of signifying

trauma to be resolved; only the

effects of the concatenation of heterogeneous series. But this, is to run ahead of ourselves,

let and so us return

to another aspect of the

question of organisation.

In a lecture entitled `The Nature of Flows' Deleuze insists that the flow be is to thought in relation to five others: that of pole; concept of legal transformation; code or accounting system; stage of material or by (the is inflection these terms their specific of given sector; and stock in, and derivation

imbrication

from, the discourse of Keynesian

five flow However is these it to the the second of relation of economics). And importance. insisted is ie. that upon as of primary code, correlates, in regard to a philosophy

is this entirely of matter

It is apposite.

impossible writes Deleuze to "seize flows other than by and through the flow is, fact is that the them: strictly non-coded a codes which operation (Deleuze 1971). thing" speaking an unnameable or merely a

is, flux, is as axiomatics As we have seen, code and with associated (Deleuze involved intimately DeleuzeGuattari note, with stratification Guattari and

Deleuze If 75/57). and 1980/87 one goes along with

favour be in is to of rejected Guattari here, it follows that organisation In immanence, univocality. composition, upon an approach predicated both differentiated, be is to taken such an approach/ matter in by intensities, which of virtue only empirically, and philosophically be differentiated individuation, can only the an of objects particles, or

Organisation

as Stratification

90

by their "speed and that enter into this or that individuated assemblage depending on their connections, their relations of movement" (Deleuze Guattari and

1980/87 312/255). It is against this background that

classical ontological

questions predicated

Being upon are severely

problematised, the temptation is to say that there is no space for what counts as ontological questions in a DeleuzoGuattarian

cosmos, simply

because the focus cannot be placed upon a being but rather upon the dynamic relationships

that hold them together. Ontological questions

for DeleuzeGuattari

be from the perspective can only asked

of

Spinozism, and in this latter, ontology is always a substrate of politics (Antonio

Negri's

for Spinozism

An account,

materialism'). relation/force

formula

of this

is `ontology + politics

character,

(an index of consistency,

or of consolidation)

intermezzo, is not a moderated or different species of analysis altogether,

predicated

=

upon or the

different it is a ontology:

the Greek on is non-existent, and its

described does is Nietzsche does figure figure, then what not what study "seductive the as

flash of gold on the belly of the serpent vita"

(Nietzsche 1968 § 577). Haecceities, degrees, intensities, individuation interrogation, having their own modes of each

the rigidity refuse which

This locked default into by sedentarisation. of all ontologies which are language "in by to latter is expressed the return which pragmatics, has universality never semiology,

in itself, self-sufficient formalisation,

a general

Guattari and

1980/87

or a metalanguage"

(Deleuze

140/111), an utter rejection of all philosophical produce

themselves

as modes of realisation

fail to that positions immanent

to that

deploys its "that dimension", materiality "energetic, molecular a space through matter,

Organisation

its through traits itself that propels a number unto

Stratication as

91

form" (Deleuze and Guattari

1980/87 509/409). This formulation

will

later importance assume greater when we see it emplaced in a discussion of morphogenesis.

Excursus

on Affective

Bodies

It is absolutely vital to pause here, to stand back, and to note the role by Deleuze's reading played

bellicose Spinozist doctrine the of of

bodies. Both Negri Deleuze it affective and make perfectly clear that they

consider

Spinozism

to have been a declaration

in of war

Kampfplatz, is the the always that philosophy, and ground staked out, body, the or of materiality. of transformation

For Negri,

Spinoza's

corporeal

"horizon the of war" scene of philosophy marks a of

(Negri 1991a 144), whilst for Deleuze, Spinoza's great provocation that "no one has yet determined what the Body can do" (Spinoza 1985 E from demand battle the to P2D) is U ground of philosophy shift cry, a a Spinozist is be Spinoza, to To to a the abstract to the material. respond Deleuze the in to think calls what accord with a refusal refusal, great a less "a he by image of thought" more or "traditional means which implicit,

determines image thought our which of tacit or presupposed

In the this 1994 (Deleuze move case, to think" try xvi)'. goals when we to beyond the image of thought constitutes a refusal

define a thing

its by its form, by its organs and nor

] C... we will functions, nor as a substance nor as a subject be body A latitude. anything; can define it by longitude and it idea; can body an or mind a be sounds, of it can animal, a

Organisation

Stratification as

92

be a linguistic

corpus, a social body or a collectivity. We call body the set of relations of speed and of a

longitude slowness,

and rest, between particles

of motion

compose it from

this

point

of view, that

that

is, between

We latitude the set of affects that unformed elements. call body occupy a at each moment, that is, the intensive states of an anonymous force (force for existing, capacity for being In this way we construct affected).

a map of the body.

(Deleuze 1988b 127)

What is important

though, is to realise that we have also gained, as a

byproduct, an insight into the apparently flippant designation of Louis Hjelmslev

"Spinozist as a

Guattari (Deleuze geologist" and

1980/87

58/43), on the basis that, as John Deely writes, the "priority of relations intrinsic the over

constitution

being in the case of objects of subjective

in their difference from things has best been stated in semiotics by Louis Hjelmslev" (Deely 1994 217). The horizon of ontological questions is the Spinozist one of speed, that is to say of an intensive multiplicity, "a but form, is complex rather with not concerned with and as such Correlate 1988b 123). (Deleuze differential between velocities" relation horizon the into the locking is of the of ontological questions with this "internal individuation, the of pursuit about questions as concrete, intensive "consist[s] terms Deleuze's in quantity of genesis" which Deleuzian In 26/40). this 1968/94 (Deleuze than schema" rather fused, the that Simondon Spinoza such are and understanding, infinite to from ] [... finite a quality an the proceeds "individuation of corresponding

Organisation

quantity,

Stratification as

irreducible into divides which

intrinsic

or

23

intensive parts" (Deleuze 1968/92 182/199)'. The novelty then of the ontological position staked out by the tradition in which Deleuze and Guattari position themselves lies in its predicationcontra the philosophies

fixed not on a ur-ground, not on a

of representation--

for lost search a plenitude or origin, or for ideal forms, but on intensive difference. An ontological perspective cognisant only of the intensities generated from what we might call cosmic heterogenesis, something akin to Bruno's will-to-form into

affect,

(Mendoza 1995 222-4). Intensity is locked

and affect is always

about relation

and

such that this recasting of ontology has a further aspect.

production,

The prioritisation

of relation (we have already seen that intensity the concatenation

only generated out of relation, series),

a question

which

is illustrated

DeleuzeGuattari's,

on certain

deployment

strata

is

heterogeneous of by Deleuze, and

of the ethology-

the Umwelt

Uexküll, "an Jakob inventor the of admirable theory of von

research-

of transcodings"

(Deleuze and Guattari

1980/87 386/314)'. Or better

becoming-Spinozist but deployment, is it a not a still,

Uexküll: in of

Deleuze indeed that "an thing" would any entity or animal, a which identify as a body "is never separable from its relations with the world. The interior

is only a selected exterior, and the exterior, a projected

Uexküll in discussion The the 125). (Deleuze 1988b interior" plateau of Deleuze First, in has Refrain' two Of and `1837the principal results. Guattari's

for Kantian Uexküll's that hands, of a self-confessed work,

Kant's is the biology to research" "the of result task expand of whom 288), Uexküll 1992 T. in and who Uexküll (Jakob von von quoted interesting describe fit the to most Heidegger saw as becomes an interesting

Organisation

as Stratification

biologist alive,

That Spinozism. and unexpected elaboration of

94

is to say it lays the grounds for a possible displacement of the study of consciousness and subjectivity from its current dominance by rivalling behaviourism schools of phenomenology,

and some form of Kantian

to a Spinozist

concern with

Heideggerian or

affect, power and

decidedly a nonhumanist and nonanthropomorphic approach.

relation--

Second, it allows for a Spinozism expressed in the terms Simondon's of analysis of the role of the membrane in the living. Needless to say, this detour through Uexküll, gives us a central mechanism of the SpinozaSimondon conjunction or thought-event, had previously distinctions

been subject to the stultifyingly

artificial,

reifying

between subject and object, organism and environment,

in to reside come relation, Simondon

in which all questions which

Uexküll and

in the intermezzo". The combination

is of especial importance

of

here because in

for to a philosophical programme a recasting of an ontology of addition becoming,

and a critique

Kantianism, the of stasis of

individuation the mechanisms of concrete studies of the formation

of milieus

they offer

(Simondon), and of

becoming from the the of perspective of

nonhuman.

The `thing-in-itself relationships,

nonsensical.

`properties', the all

If I remove all the `activities' the all

of a

because thingness does thing thing, the not remain over; has only been invented by us owing to the requirements of bind (to defining, logic, thus with the aim of communication together

the multiplicity

of relationships,

§ 558) 1968 (Nietzsche activities).

Organisation

as Stratification

properties,

95

The emphasis on production, or alternatively

becoming, is a necessary

component of an ontology predicated upon the priority of relation or of force. In Deleuze and Guattari force and relation are almost his In discussion diagram, Deleuze the "the that synonymous. of writes be like is to force, power affected a matter of and the power to affect is like a function of force" (Deleuze 1988a 72), it is then in force or relation that one apprehends mutant emergences, the creation of the new. This both being having the power of affecting emphasis on affected and dealing both Nietzschean that with are makes clear we a concept with Spinozist and

be to that to elements, conatus and will power are

understood conjointly, as means of understanding that mutual process in which organisms both make, and are made, by their worlds. Acting in the world adds a new strata to it: affections, forces are never single, it is in fact absurd to think of them as such, they are always, already plural, in relation. Massumi and Dean posit this force-relationality basis of a materialist

political

it is the very stuff

relational,

pair as the

"force is that they state philosophy, of relationality:

non-coincidence,

their less than of thing point at energy and matter a vector, This 157). Massumi 1992 (Dean becoming" indiscernibility E...] it is and differential,

its relationships set-up and

Uexktill the schema outlined above with

liquidate basis to the gives us

questions of subjectivity,

meaning,

Dean Massumi and ideology, in both materialist political philosophy, as been have the which in world, nonhuman of studies state, and terms. importation dominated by the of such anthropomorphic

It is in the tradition

Ryan Michael that of such a political philosophy

(potenza) "potential power" against Spinoza that privileges can write,

Organisation

as Stratification

96

and that "Potential

is the materialist

production and constitution

of

being in Spinoza" (Ryan 1991b 216). It is basis this that we can say on that this process of production, individuation in Simondon, becoming in Nietzsche and Deleuze is not to be understood as tending towards a finished state, a final entity, as Bergson puts it "matter or mind, reality has appeared to us as a perpetual becoming. It makes itself or it but itself, it is never something made" (Bergson 1913 287). unmakes Further,

"it does not aim at a final state, does not flow into `being'

(Nietzsche

1968 § 708), any attempt

beginnings

is irreducibly

theological,

at positing

either

it has an "ulterior

ends or

theological

This (Ibid. § Giordano 1066). is Bruno and to motive" realisation crucial it is the starting point for his conception of an infinite

universe with

limit. by definition This is thought materialist neither centre, nor antiteleological, opposed to every shred of transcendence, any attempt to reintroduce

be God: "Becoming must explained without a notion of

final intentions; to recourse

becoming must appear justified

at every

deny it is total [... ] To to this a consciousness of necessary end moment becoming, a 'God', to avoid bringing all events under the aegis of a being From 708). (Nietzsche 1986 this does knows but feels not will" and who day his the the Nietzsche's offers science of scrutiny of perspective, in trends for those basis and science contemporary of a critique vital God into thought to of technoculture that are attempting reintroduce a cosmology`.

Incorporeal

Materialism

The relationship

Organisation

Schelling and

here is being between philosophy and science sought

as Stratification

97

asymmetric and is bound up with a conceptualisation of the limit, or rather with what it is that the limit materialises in the specific case in which it is embedded: - -philosophy

is dependent upon the passing of words to the limit, the

deformation

of concepts, as in Whitehead's demand that "[w]ords and phrases must be stretched towards a generality foreign to their ordinary

usage", (Whitehead

1978 4) or Ciliberto's

description

of

Bruno's concept of language as "an expressive reality" in which "the linguistic plane becomes interwoven with the essential planes of human history'" (Ordine 1996 154)4x. - -science figures"

is dependent upon bodies overstepping "the limit of their

(Deleuze

instabilities,

Guattari and

1980/87

138/108),

that are subject to what DeleuzeGuattari

in defects,

call incorporeal

transformations (Deleuze and Guattari 1980/87 132/108).

I propose that the development

incorporeal of an

materialism

is

derived DeleuzeGuattari's Schellingian in it is work, as element another by Schelling from his critique of dialectics, and from his deep immersion in Bruno (for Bruno's account of incorporeal transformation

his see

1998 75 - 9). As a critique of dialectics it is doubly connected to Deleuze direct is, Schellingian The Guattari. as we shall see, a critique and precursor

incorporated the one of

by Deleuze from Bergson. In a

Schelling the Hegel, that to problem with suggests pointed reference lack "its intermediary is of contemporary philosophy

[... ] concepts what

in is is free not spiritual is not morally straightaway mechanistic, what he "the is highest only argues the sense corporeal", such concepts are, genuinely

Organisation

explanatory

as Stratification

be to in the whole of science" and concepts

98

without

them is to be "fully incapable of discovering truth" (Schelling

1997 150). It is this insight that leads Schelling to propose a concept of the incorporeal, for the above citations are in response to the question "what is it that leads most people to slander matter? " Schelling argues, basis his the on of concept of the intermediary (or multiplicity) that the accepted understanding coupled

with

incorporeal"

the fact

"the of construction that

forces "are

of matter out of forces" undeniably

something

compels one to comprehend matter as being constituted

by the incorporeal. transfiguration"

He goes on to argue that without

the "transition

"point a of

from the inorganic to the organic would

be inconceivable" (Schelling 1997 151).

This

Schellingian

incorporeal the concept of

DeleuzeGuattari's to absolutely critical

transformation

is

because philosophy of matter,

it is here that the relationship between bodies, the immanent limit and infinitely an

longer is thematised, subject a matter no variable matter

to the statistical capture of hylomorphic determinations. To quote from A Thousand Plateaus "an incorporeal transformation

is still attributed

to bodies, but it is now a passage to the limit: that is the only way, not to eliminate

death, but to reduce it or make it a variation

(Deleuze and Guattari

itself"

1980/87 137/108). This passage goes on to

introduce the opposition between the major and minor sciences such that the attachment

(materialist of pragmatics

is the clarified. matter of philosophy and science

Organisation

as stratification

philosophy) to minor

99

Spinozist

Bodies

From the distinction

given above it can be seen that philosophical

assemblages are those in which it is "words that pass, words that are of passage" that are to be constructed,

components "order-words

[that]

in and which

composition"

stoppages

or organised,

one is attempting

of order into components

components Guattari

mark

as opposed to stratified,

to "transform

the

of passage" (Deleuze and

1980/87 139/110). Whilst scientific assemblages depend upon

the recognition

in of matter states in which it is bodies that pass to

"bifurcations,

slowing-downs, and accelerations produce holes, breaks

and ruptures

that refer back to other variables, other relations, and

(Deleuze Guattari 1991/94 118/124). other references" and

This condition of dependency denotes a criticality deterritorialisation as a vector of

(transversality),

between science and philosophy

relationship

be indexed which can and as such, the

becomes one that is

linked Hence or articulated. we confront processed as autonomous, yet a problem of organisation

(which is, as we have seen, necessarily an

axiomatic or a stratification),

because science also has passwords and

bodies. Superficially bodies, Spinozist has to this can appear philosophy be implicit

(hence the rampancy of antiphilosophical

tendencies in

Sokal figures in the best as and work of such embodied perhaps science Brigmont'),

become in given science. nevertheless concepts can always

drawing by This denotes an ambulant coupling of affectation and event, the distinction

in this way it becomes apparent that there are both

is is it that philosophy associated incorporeal and corporeal events, and

Organisation

as Stratification

I

100

with the former, and science with the latter. These assays of the limit concur with the attempt by DeleuzeGuattari breach between discussion Linguistics',

and major sciences (see in particular

minor

in the

plateau

Deleuze

20,1923:

Postulates

1980/87 137-9/108-10

forcing this distinction object of

binary of some

invention of a philosophy variation,

`November

Guattari and

The passim). ultimate resurrection

to conceive of a historical

choice or prioritisation,

and science of matter

the of and

is not the

but the active

infinite to subject

the creation of a plane of "a single liberated matter that

deliberately figures, is in contains no expression unformed, and retains (Deleuze in tensions" those tensors and and content only cutting edges, Guattari and

1980/87 138/109)'.

Immanence partout

Any attempt to do philosophy under the aegis of DeleuzeGuattari must be welded to a pragmatic

commitment

immanence that are primary, in sharp contradistinction

that it is materiality

and

immanence partout. This will mean that

to philosophy understood as the protector of

(the true the images of thought, as an affinity with philosophy of the in in the way State), or the transcendent and absolute; philosophy lacking is declares the it, that concept DeleuzeGuattari practice which to is it that "to other concepts and the connected not in meaning extent (Deleuze helps to it that resolve" resolves or is not linked to a problem is first to in the This, 76/79). chapter, 1991/94 saw we as Guattari and in Guattari's concrete produced Deleuze as concepts and characterise body to immanent of bearing a relationship an analyses, and

peon

Stratification as

101

knowledge, immanent

historical, of

technical

and political

procedures.

The

character of Deleuze and Guattari's concepts then is posed

in direct contradistinction

to Kant's declaration that "reason is never in

immediate relation to an object, but only to the understanding

[... ] it

does not, therefore, create concepts (of objects) but only orders them" (Kant 1929 A 643/B 671). DeleuzeGuattari's distinctly

n,

even anti-Kantian,

philosophy is, therefore,

in that it is only concerned with the

Philosophy?, What is in that the of concepts are, words of

production

distinction by function found the the situated around a within scientific interlinked

questions

of inseparable

variations

(philosophy),

and

independent variables (science). "Events on a plane of immanence and states of affairs intensive internal

in a system of reference (the different

ordinates

in each case derives from this since they are

but the only coordinates of extensive concept, components of

functions, in abscissas

when variation

Concepts and functions

variable). multiplicities Guattari

status of

is no more than a state of

thus appear as two types of

different" or varieties whose natures are

(Deleuze and

1991/94 121/127). It is in the selection of problems then that

between draws a minor and the science minor a relation singular one deploys Deleuze the here is that A whenever point of note philosophy. he is the the signalling the multiple or of multiplicity of concept dialectic, to in this opposition resolute a concept of embeddedness in Bergson, to longstanding his and deriving from commitment particular

to the decisive influence

by him Bergson's exerted on in the second chapter of his

kinds two the multiplicity of of analysis is it This is a of course especially pertinent when Time and Free Will. introduction the for this Consider of example question of methodology.

Organisation

stratification as

102

issue in Deleuze's `The Theory of Multiplicities notion of multiplicity

in Bergson', "the very

taken as a substantive implies a displacement of

for thought: the dialectical opposition of the one and the multiple, all of we substitute introduction

the typological difference between multiplicities"'. of the concept of multiplicity

beyond its role in a demonstration reason

is important

for another

of the abstract

dialectics. Multiplicity pejorative sense) character of

The

(in a

Deleuze and gives

Guattari a criterion for the selection of true problems, the discernment false it invent their them to such gives as of ones: allows problems, and philosophical

symptomatology

basis. It is no a genuinely pragmatic

Deleuze is it is that the that giving point precisely at mere coincidence his account of this invention, in the first chapter of his Bergsonism, that he cites Marx's dictum: "Humanity

it is itself that problems only sets

Marx's Deleuze 199116)'. in (Marx sentence quoted capable of solving" itself found be the that "it only arises problem always will continues, when the material

for its are at exist or already solution conditions

least in the process of formation". Invention means the shattering of ; by the thinking imposed orthodox canons of the frameworks on it transmitted Deleuze ideas). (Marx's knowledge calls a prejudice ruling by order-words

towards accepting ready-made problems, accepting

it `Being', for example, as the philosophical problematic par excellence, disciplines their problematics. own invention with the minor of means in to think is accord a refusal The rejection of ready-made problems intellectual its and cultural State-form various and with the his in to of Althusser concept (what approximate would assemblages The these ISA). Apparatus' minor of State character or the `Ideological license is this is however no invention, arbitrary, not this disciplines, of

Organisation

as Stratification

103

for extreme subjectivism, for as we are always concerned to show, the thought of the State and the thought of heresy each have their own diagrams, abstract and an invention is always made on the basis of the possible, in Marks words, "when the material conditions for its solution already exist".

Philosophical

invention

Philosophical concepts then can be characterised as being produced locally, embedded in machinic assemblages of thought and matter, as being immanent to a specific case, and as located on a transversal line drawn through

the-strata.

Immanence becomes resolved as method

line This in tandem with what runs and content. philosophical mode a Antonio

Negri calls the constitutive

method,

a method

whose criteria

tendency, practice, principle barely

surprising,

philosophical

criteria

determinate are

`constitution' of

given that

Marx's materialist of

in Negri's

abstraction,

(of the structure), construction

it is

Marx's

-of Spinoza, is his only philosophical predecessor genealogy

that the moment in the Grundrisse from which these criteria spring is a that at which Marx identifies production with consumption, and in turn the Spinozist

determinatio

identifies

this with

Spinozist

Marx will become increasingly

This est negatioM.

important

as this thesis

formation the both in terms of and practice philosophical of progresses, the selection of problems. concepts,

The profound singularity

joint is DeleuzeGuattari's marked not work of

invention, just by a mode of conceptual

Organisation

Stratification as

by it is, nor a prodigious as

104 CC=

mere recasting of philosophical concerns in the crucible of a sustained critique of a series of legacies, Freudian, Marxist, structuralist, phenomenological, cybernetic, and analytic. The shattered detritus of a series of modes of thinking

all of which were, to varying

degrees,

characterised by a confidence as to their ability to secure an absolute point of view, by their harbouring of some kind of progressivist illusion, and all of which sought to sketch a "transcendental genesis of meaning, truth, or the conditions of possibilities of every truth" (Althusser 1997 11). Rather, with Deleuze and Guattari one is led to the invention of a plastic

and positive

fundamenta materialism

set of precise theses, which

describing of what we are

immanent as

constitute

the

or pragmatic

(Hardt and Negri 199417).

The task here then is to continue with the elaboration of the essential have I suggested that a productive propositions of such an enterprise. his for Simondon's is this enterprise projection of own critical precursor "the theory, theory of mode of conceptual production as an allagmatic in contradistinction operations" structures

to, and symmetrical with the theory of

(Simondon 1995 260). Robert Rosen too, in outlining

attack on reductionism,

his

dynamics, and mechanism in the Newtonian-

Cartesian model of science proposes that what is called for is a form of is the in the championed against component which relational modelling "particle function" for Rosen is, the the crucially, of component particle; (Rosen 1991 120), Rosen's position is explicitly

in terms that are cast

discrete be he things the to takes of stasis and to ontology what critical direct Rosen's Karl In to parallel work, a science. most underpinning Pribram",

Organisation

interesting the most one of

as Stratification

of contemporary neuroscientists

105

has explicitly

followed Bergson in developing a position that seeks to beyond both state and process classifications. Pribram found move that when attempting traditional

to classify brain cells by function, both of the

options, that is state and process, were severely deficient, on

the basis of such categories, he writes, he could "no more classify the brain cells than [he] could classify people". In their he found that stead, it was only a schema based on "the properties of a network or group of cells that permitted classification" (Pribram 1987 165). Pribram's work then points to the necessity of a relational,

intensive pragmatic and

modelling, and in this respect recalls Rosen's concept of entailment that we encountered earlier. From a vantage point similar to that of George Kampis,

Rosen castigates

most of what passes for revolutionary

(here I refer to the rhetoric science

of what is vaunted

being fundamentally traditional complexity revolution) as ontology and epistemology'. of the scientific

continuation

Rosen's position tradition

as the

level the at of

be may seen as a

tracked in Gilles Chatelet's

Les du recent mobile: mathematique, physique, philosophie. enjeux Chätelet focuses upon those recurring physical

in sciences which the virtual

dominance of the Aristotelian

history in the of the moments has erupted to displace the

presumption

forms. He of stable notes

for example that Galois' Theory of Algebraic Equations

"no longer

describes but ) (in for `solutions' an expression such as x =... searches the very dynamics of this research through the gradual individuation of roots"64.It is no surprise complexity interested

then that in Herbert

in his The Sciences of the Artificial distinctly are

that the versions

Organisation

Simon's genealogy"

as Stratification

of

those in which we are

This is resultant absence absent.

of complexity

of versions

from the fact

by Simon remain within cherished

the

106 orthodox ontological framework whose persistence and whose unique claim to authority is undermined by, amongst others, Chätelet and Rosen.

Immanent

Criteria.

It is imperative

Practice

to note here, that one of the results that is being

claimed for DeleuzeGuattari's

work, as exemplified principally

Thousand Plateaus (and perhaps somewhat formalised Philosophy? ) is that it represents

in A

in What is

break thorough a with currently

disciplined modes of theoretical work. It is suggested that this break is level just the not on of the ontological and epistemological positions that it assumes, but, that embodied in Deleuze and Guattari's

is work a

down thrown the to to to respond unavoidable challenge unique attempt The by Feuerbach. is Marx's then thesis on claim eleventh philosophy that Deleuze and Guattari are announcing a renewal of a philosophy of interventionist, practice, an

pragmatic,

materialist

The philosophy.

light imperative in is this as an element of seen critique of organisation that had fostered heresy and struggle [... ] that

the "long tradition organises

itself

as a theoretical

practice

that,

battlefield the on

between ideologies that philosophy represents, sustains and imposes an antidialectical,

antihumanist,

antihistoricist

" (Negri point of view.

finitude, teleologies that A 61). 1996b and and refuses all point of view that positively

maintains

the "search for an open subjectivity

that

is together,. that to theory a practice say concept and construct would (Negri 1996b 59), to in philosophy" a practice resolve which of practice fine Spinoza's Balibar, in Etienne to a analysis of what adhering

Organisation

Stratification as

107

politics, calls the "continuous production" of human individuals (Balibar 1998 65)',

Simondon

and that

calls the "fundamental

mode of

becoming: the living being conserving in itself an activity of permanent individuation' (Simondon 1995 27). For Deleuze Guattari, for and as Negri and Balibar, this cannot be a question of making revolutionary proclamations, conceived

the question

of practice

and executed part

inseparably

intertwined

be immanently must an hand, they are at

of the analysis

and constitutionally

indivisible

Practice in Deleuze and Guattari's understanding other. forming multiplicities

from each is the art of

becomings (the two are synonymous), and this or

be done cannot according to a "preformed logical order" (Deleuze and Guattari

1980/87 306/251), this however is not to counsel the random,

the unthought, or the simplemindedness of the anarchic. The formation of multiplicities, transcendental and universally

whilst blueprints

lacking

in "preformed

order"-

dogmatic the adherence to a stable such as

applicable revolutionary

for (see example programme

the politics of the Stalinised Third International, down politics),

logical

imposition the or

a classic case of top

of abstract schemata-

does have

decisions local, immanent, These that micrological are criteria criteria. utilise the material

brought be from in hand, for the can nothing at

They write: outside.

Practice does not come after the emplacement of the terms drawing in but the actively participates and their relations, dangers the the it lines: and same the same confronts of Schizoanalysis like does. is the emplacement variations as Or the rather, new. the art of

Organisation

as stratification

there is no problem of

108

application: the lines it brings out could equally be the lines life, of a a work, of literature or art, or a society, depending is chosen (Deleuze and

on which system of coordinates Guattari

1980/87 249/203)

In a parallel move, George Kampis writes By describing

the general `laws' of component-systems

independently

from their material

realisation

(molecular,

deep a unity of the

cellular, organismic, mental, cultural),

domains be various phenomenological can recognised, and this

makes a metatheory

of systems that

from range

biology to society possible (Kampis 1991 275)

To reiterate,

derived from drawing is the what

lines is of a set of

demonstrating concepts, concepts of matter, concepts immanent an

character. differ

themselves

radically

history

philosophical disciplinarisation,

The terms from

by their

`pragmatic'

their

canonical

activation

a pragmatic and `immanent' and usage within

as questioners

by their being conceived on, and as, concepts of the

limit, a limit that is always conceived by DeleuzeGuattari and numerical

(Deleuze and Guattari

DeleuzeGuattari two, chapter construction

of

as material

1991/94 112/118). As we saw in

unquestionably

follow Simondon in the

logic innovative their the and radical elements of most of

distinctive their the materialism; as such, will we of spine expression, of limit the the that role occupies un primordiale of question maintain for Simondon is limit The 91). 1995 or membrane where (Simondon

Organisation

as Stratification

109

"everything happens" (Simondon 1995 26), and where for microbiologist Lynn Margolis, life happen'.

Margulis' theory of symbiotic evolution is predicated upon and develops a profound

meditation

identitarian

sanctity

upon the meaning

of membranes

bounded the of entity,

for the

and upon the "old

metaphysical prejudice, [... ] the thinly disguised axiom [... ] that human beings are radically separate from all other organisms" (Margulis and Sagan 1986 19). She anatomises those philosophies and sciences that take it upon themselves to search for a mark of distinction whether it be the possession of a soul, of language, of technology "something, that can be used to "unequivocally

anything"

from `lower' life forms" (loc. cit. ). Margulis'

distinguishe[s]

people

work constitutes powerful

ammunition in the philosophical critique of the unitary self, of the eidos, basis for the the and of species, and provides necessary scientific a materialist,

energetic, contagious antihumanism.

concerned,

develop the argument one can

So far as Margulis is

`Memories the of

Bergsonian' plateau (Deleuze and Guattari 1980/87 290-2/237-9),

of a in

is becoming proposed, such that which a communicative or contagious the thesis of symbiosis as conceived under the aegis of the concept of the block of becoming, is mobilised as a key concept in the development "Becoming is involutionary, Darwinism: of a critique of molar

involution

is creative" (Deleuze and Guattari 1980/87 292/238). Similarly, against Darwinism,

"becoming is" shown to be "not an evolution, at least not an

filiation". descent by and evolution

becomings, Guattari, Deleuze for only contains veritable Evolution, and

Organisation

as Stratification

110 s

and this is a truly Margulisian

thought, in the "domain of symbioses,

that bring into play beings of totally different scales and kingdoms, with no possible communication" (loc. cit. ). This transversal communication across the heterogeneous DeleuzeGuattari's

is at the heart

of the machinism

of

thinking; the machine in their work is defined, beyond

any technical specification, as the assemblage of the heterogeneous. It be should apparent how this critique reiterates a point raised earlier as an element in the construction of Deleuze and Guattari's ontology: the championing of the horizontal as a principle of immanence against the of the transcendent.

verticality

Molar Darwinism

lines of descent and filiation

vertical

forms), and critiqued contagious

(the perfectionism

by DeleuzeGuattari

involution.

Contagious

is built upon pure Linnaean of

Margulis' and

horizontal "Contagion,

communication.

involves heterogeneous: terms for that epidemic, are entirely example, human being, bacterium" a an animal and a

(Deleuze and Guattari

1980/87 295/242). This is indeed the case with the relationship between deep sea fish and the bioluminescent their hosts to illuminate

permitting

bacteria

that inhabit

them,

the Hadean darknesses of the

bottom of the seas (Pain 1999), and between fungi and trees, indeed the main

reason,

Margulis

points

latter's for the out

resistance

is the intense degree of the symbiotic relationship,

cultivation

factory in the conditions of modern agriculture'. replicable

to

non-

"There is a

block of becoming between young roots and certain microorganisms, by is in between the the alliance effected materials synthesised which the leaves (rhizosphere)" contiguous

(Deleuze and Guattari

1980/87 291/238). A

largely here, it is that one will remain and path opens

beginnings leading to the the in of an attack upon implicit my remarks,

Organisation

as Stratification

111

Neo-Darwinism the of

assumptions

described as "a minor twentieth

that Lynn Margulis

century

religious

has aptly the

sect within

sprawling religious persuasion of Anglo-Saxon biology" (Margolis 1997 100), an attack Margulis, this

born out of the congruence

Rosen, and DeleuzeGuattari'.

would

most closely resemble

developmentalism, (Depew

The biological tradition be that would

that

of a revivified

has been dubbed the "new Geoffroyism" what

Weber and

morphogenesis,

between Simondon,

1996 433), in particular

its emphases

on

Deleuze "is folding" as suggests all about

which

(Deleuze 1990/95 216/158), and thermodynamics as applied to radically open systems, the historical names to which this tradition is attached be Geoffroy, d'Arcy Thompson and arguably those elements of would Waddington's

work

where it is inflected

by Thom, an affective,

intensive, contagious biology. A figure such as Kauffman would also be here, as he assigns a critical role to morphogenesis, indeed

important his

account

of rhythmic

of evolution that operates according to filiation,

theorisation with

phenomena,

the DeleuzoGuattarian

prioritisation

of consistency

of assemblages or organisms,

examination

"epidemic to filiation, sexual reproduction kingdoms

his and opposition

of nature.

to a

concurs in the

with the opposition

of

heredity, by to contagion peopling contagion to [... ] Unnatural

participations

[

] spanning the ...

by epidemic, by contagion,

Propagation

has

heredity" Guattari by do (Deleuze filiation 1980/87 to and with nothing It is these morphological

295/241)'.

characteristics adequation, specifications,

Organisation

practices that tend towards the

of nomad science, continuous variation,

inequations, hylozoism,

as Stratification

pursuit

of singularities

material-forces

the display of

in matter, folding

contra matter-form

(vis.

112

Deleuze and Guattari

1980/87 458/369). The question of consistency is

here crucial as it operates as a central weapon in any attempt to shatter the stratifying procedures of molar or royal science:

the problem of consistencyconcerns the manner in which the components of a territorial

assemblage hold together.

But it also concerns the manner in which different hold together, with components of passage assemblages (Deleuze Guattari 1980/87 403/327). and relay and

Topololical

Thermodynamics.

the living

Simondon

Again

lives at the limit of itself, on the limit

characteristic

polarity

life of

[... ] the

is at the level

of the

here life in fashion it is that membrane; exists an essential dynamic topology which maintains as an aspect of a metastability

the

by which it exists [... ] the entire content of

internal space is topologically in contact with the content of the exterior

limits the at

living the of

(Simondon 1995

224-6).

The most perceptive observers of the scientific revolution underway,

currently

the explorers of that unstable realm on the edge of chaos:

have implications its that most radical the complexity revolution, noted being overlooked. are

Those implications

level the are at of the

to to and ontology welded stability. epistemology an posed challenges What is missing is a philosophy sufficiently powerful to take cognisance

Organisation

Stratification as

113

of these explorations. I have tried to suggest that one place to look for such a philosophy is Deleuze and Guattari's critique of organisation, the inverted vitalistic philosophy of matter that is produced by their work. What I have initiated then is an examination of that "whole history on the level of the membrane or limit" (Deleuze and Guattari 1980/87 67/51) that DeleuzeGuattari seek to uncover. The problem of morphogenesis introduced

above is part of a minor,

biology, it is aware and one that sits well within the

philosophically

DeleuzeGuattari's range of

scanning of critical problems in the natural

In it is for testcase their theoretical sciences. a sense, something of a does, key it issues in the their as so many of

work, encapsulating discernment

of problematics.

Morphogenesis,

with

its hylozoic,

form into those of the expressive collapsing of categories of matter and intensity. and

matter

As such it acts as a condensation

hylomorphism index that the questions critique of

of the

basic as a structure

for scientific and philosophical practice. Simultaneously it poses severe difficulties for molar, zoocentric biology predicated upon the species.

In a paper entitled Prusinkiewicz

`Visual Models of Morphogenesis'

Przemyslaw

be discerned in the two types that of approach can notes

forms development (the in the of patterns and study of morphogenesis domain of the living)

d'Arcy Thompson, following is first tradition 1. the where one would

form Rosen, in is taken as a figures locate which such as derivative

Organisation

Thompson "that "It is the writes obvious" of growth:

Stratification as

114

form of an organism

is determined

by its rate of growth in

directions; hence rate of growth deserves to be studied as various a necessary preliminary

to the theoretical

study of form, and

form itself is found, mathematically organic

be to speaking, a

function of time" (Thompson 1952 79). 2. the second approach, deriving from Turing, focuses on the flow of substances through a medium, in which "the systems considered consist of masses of tissues which are notgrowing, but within which certain substances are reacting chemically, and through diffusing" (Turing they 38). which are

Evidently,

this first tradition

identified

in his work on Spinoza as intensive

individuation intrinsic,

is one that exhibits, what Deleuze had quantity,

Spinozist

is "neither qualitative nor extrinsic, but quantitative

and

intensive" (Deleuze 1968/92 181/197). That this principle is

Guattari's biology, brings it Deleuze that to and and critique of critical them into direct relation with the former morphogenetic tradition, evidenced

by the following

key a statement

citation,

is

of their

Occurring in the middle of one growth. of morphogenetic comprehension intricate, the most of

iconoclastic, conceptually fertile and at the same

time rarely considered passages in A Thousand Plateaus, this passage individuation that questions of makes clear

in the natural world from

Deleuze Guattari to to the the crystal and as organism are as central demonstrates it Moreover that these questions Simondon. they are to be treated to metaphor, as not are pragmatic

but rather

deployments, of transversal

as Strat

cation

and

derived from concepts a range

immanently disciplines diverse rendered and of

Organisation

distillations, as

functional

in defined

115

milieus:

When content and expression are divided lines the along of the molecular and the molar, substances move from state to state, from the preceding state to the following state, or from layer to layer, from an already constituted layer to a layer

in the process of forming,

forms

while

install

themselves at the limit between the last layer or last state and the exterior milieu. epistrata

Thus the stratum

and parastrata;

develops into

this is accomplished through a

inductions layer from layer to set of and state to state, or at the limit. A crystal displays this process in its pure state, form its directions but in since expands all always as a function of the surface layer of the substance, which can be emptied of most of its interior without interfering

with the

Guattari (Deleuze 1980/87 78/60) growth. and

Schizoanalytic

limit the questions concerning

are cemented into a

highly complex, mobile and immensely powerful abstract machine, or The by Margulis elements contributed minor philosophical assemblage. Simondon and

taken are

deterritorialisation

finely up as

honed cutting

individuation aimed at symbiosis and

the nomos and transduction

(transcoding).

edges of

respectively,

But to unleash its full

delineated These do operations. operations potential requires carefully to the to of philosophy supposedly superior an abdication not amount in implementations forged the clarity of concepts

and encodings of the

physical

implementation the sciences,

practices,

Organisation

as Stratification

of empirical

the

==

encoding of material

phenomena in physical law. Nor can they be

by the Kantian

contained theorisation.

prescription

limits the of

Instead, the full weight of DeleuzoGuattarian

of scientific pragmatics

is directed at the production of transversal concepts which dislodge, and then follow, singularities

produced in a range of cases, across the

strata, always governed by a pursuit of materiality diagrammatisation,

its and generative

this pursuit is always creative, for having liberated

from the tyranny philosophy

its is the true, of object emergence, the

creation of the new. The meaning of the heterogenesis of the concept becomes particularly

basis for it is this the at point, as

pertinent

dignity longer it is the servant of science philosophy's and autonomy, no interpreter the nor

it its The of art, regains convergence own creativity.

that is run here is between parallel theses in minor disciplines, a minor science and a minor philosophy.

It is in this sense then that at the

level its the production of affects structure of a philosophy, micrological history, level, this term the and will a macrological concepts, and at and be a misnomer,

of philosophy

and that of the relationship

between

is (nonphilosophy, its art, science) cognised as outsides philosophy and "becoming,

history; not

it is the coexistence

Guattari (Deleuze and succession of systems" philosophical

of planes, not the

1991/94 59/59). Hence

time is a time of coexistence, a time that superimposes

the before and after in a "stratigraphic

Guattari (Deleuze and order"

Prigogine Ilya Stengers Isabelle As 58/59). 1991/94 and write of the dispute between Bergson-

"homogeneous his and rejection of and

different "many favour in rhythms which, slower independent time" of different kinds degree tension the relaxation of or faster, of measure or had Einstein1991207) (Bergson sought and who of consciousness"

Organisation

as Stratification

117

to eliminate

time from physics altogetherdurations, of

existence of a plurality

on the questions of the

of time and its irreversibility,

"[e]very complex being is composed of a plurality

of times, connected

together by way of subtle and multiple articulations" 42). Indeed, prioritised

(Stehgers 1997c

by Deleuze and by Guattari (see in particular

the latter's Cartographies schizoanalytiques) are geographic as opposed to historical

principles, the multidimensional

and cartography

against the simplistic

complexities of topology

rigidity

of monodimensional,

dialectical oppositional or schemas.

Che at vero filosofo oM i terreno 0 xýatria6'

Deleuze and Guattari's work is replete with references to the sciences in demands for from the the a new earth continually reiterated earth, of both Anti-Oedipus and What is Philosophy?, to the great concepts of deand reterritorialisation,

stratification,

folding, and sedimenting, culled

from geomorphology and geology, Guattari's

cartographic strategies,

joint in the the the worksmapping of milieus emphasis on and

the

insistence that "we are not even doing history [... ] we are trying to make maps of regimes

Guattari (Deleuze and of signs"

1980/87

Geology Morals `10,000 BC: the 149/119), and of course of plateau Villani, Arnaud Is? )'. It Think Earth (Who Does the

have as we seen,

describes A Thousand Plateaus as containing a physical geography, and the of one programmatic

chapters

Philosophy?, is What of

an exceptionally

"thought for a geophilosophy which puts chapter, calls

Guattari (Deleuze 1991/94 the and earth" into a direct relationship with is tellurian emphasis, a geomorphism, 82/85). This adoption of a

Organisation

stratification as

l lý

deployed Principally slightest

to deliberate

pragmatic

key tactical ends, as a

move.

it serves as a means to ward off "the slightest [... ] the risk interpretation" (Deleuze and Guattari 1980/87 392/318) of To make philosophy a geophilosophy is a great

anthropomorphism.

affront to the way in which Deleuze had been taught the discipline (as he reminds us in Negotiations), that is as the history of philosophy. It is also of course a rejection of the dominant forms of philosophy adhered to by Deleuze Heideggerian

Guattari's and

contemporaries,

they be

whether

Hegelian, or which remain avowedly historicist

in their

of the unfolding of the concept, "inasmuch as they

various narratives

history form posit as a of interiority

in which the concept necessarily

develops or unveils its destiny" (Deleuze and Guattari 1990/94 91/95). This transformation

of philosophy,

Deleuze and Guattari

is write,

imagined in much the same way as Fernand Braudel's transformation history Braudel's itself, into is of concerned with a geohistory. work "this rich zone, like a layer covering the earth [... ] material material civilisation"

life or

(Braudel 1985 23), and his questions always ask

`how (recall `where', `what', the the the and many' our comments about Bergson and multiplicity') above on

he `when', than the talks of rather

history in terms of "numbers, lines of force, repetitions and typologies" (Braudel Nomads,

1985 92), and of certain as an attraction

towards

here, the coming of the events, "cyclonic zone, an enormous a

"electric [... ] 96), towns 1985 transformers (Braudel and of as vacuum" restrictive

distinctive and

both DeleuzeGuattari the irreducibility

(Braudel 1985 479,491). geometries"

For

Braudel, is the geographical associated with and

to the the cult of necessity as opposed contingent of

Guattari (Deleuze 1990/94 92/96), historical by the and harboured with

Organisation

as Stratification

11

the currents of winds and oceans, the shearing points of ice masses, the speed of overflowing contingency

lavas, and shifting

that provides the character

It is this same magmas. Guattari's Deleuze of and

becomings, the meetings of the heterogeneous, hence their association becoming, They the of concept with write and so with geography. "becoming is the concept itself. It is born in history, and falls back into it, but is not of it. In itself it has neither beginning nor end but only a milieu.

It is thus more geographical

Guattari

than historical. " (Deleuze and

1990/94 106/110).

In the next chapter we turn to a critique of a work that seeks to pursue the meeting

DeleuzeGuattari's of

geohistory.

Organisation

Stratification as

geophilosophy

Braudel's and

chapter -R Ar

-0

Ar

0

1004 '1ateaus? ý1

In this way the boundless refuse of activity pushes human plans- including those associated with economic operationsinto the game of characterising universal matter; matter, in fact, can only be defined as the nonlogical difference that represents in relation to the economy of the universe what crime represents in relation to the law. (Bataille 1/1985 319/129)

Hence it happens

that

one who seeks the true cause of like is miracles, and eager, an educated man, to understand natural things, not to wonder at them like a fool, is generally denounced heretic by impious those considered and as an honor interpreters the people of nature and the as whom Gods. For they know that if ignorance is taken away, then foolish wonder, the only means they have of arguing defending their authority, is also taken away.

and

(Spinoza, 1985 EI appendix)

121

In the `Conclusions Nonlinear

History

and Speculations' (De Landa

to his A Thousand Years of

1997 257-74)

describes his book as offering "historical a `stuff,

as well as with the hardenings

Manuel

De Landa

flows these survey of of

themselves" (De Landa 1997

259). The stuff referred to is broken down in the book the structure of into three sections, each corresponding to one of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's organic

three major strata, that is, the "physicochemical,

and anthropomorphic"

(Deleuze

Guattari and

1980/87

627/502), which for De Landa are taken to be `Lavas and Magmas', `Flesh and Genes', and `Memes and Norms'.

The hardenings,

or

elsewhere `slowings down' of this stuff, or matter-energy in movement, take different

forms on the three strata: the formation of features of

the geological landscape by the hardening of the eponymous lavas and flows biological the "biomass, the magmas; coagulation of of matter, genes, memes and norms" (De Landa 1997 258) into human and bodies; languages from the the "momentary slowing animal extrusion of downs or thickenings institutions

in a flow of norms",

and the creation

of

hardenings flows "transitory in the considered as of money,

A further (De Landa 1997 259). is in qualification routines and prestige" hardenings flowing further: before the to which matter we go any order is subject come in two different forms, forms named by Deleuze and Guattari

it and renamed, would as strata and self-consistent aggregates,

appear quite arbitrarily,

by De Landa as `hierarchies' and `meshworks'.

builds De Landa In executing this analysis a conceptual armature out first, two elements: of a weave of

patterned

Fernand on

Schizoanalytic Materialism

Braudel's

historical a

magisterial

perspective

Civilisation

closely

and

122

Capitalism:

15th-18th

Century,

the fine grain

the of micrological

secured by the perspective of the longueduree and an attention to the flows life: Kondratieff cycles and of economic lenses of nonlinear

the through seen waves

dynamics. Second, and perhaps more important

here is De Landa's extensive engagement with key concepts drawn from the two volumes Schizophrenia,

Deleuze Guattari's of and

in particular

Capitalism

and

from the second volume, A Thousand

Plateaus. What would appear to be most in accord with the approach to these concepts argued for in this thesis, is De Landa's attention to the pragmatic

emplacement

in the an empirical of concepts

study, the

DeleuzoGuattarian The lodge to them on a specific stratum. attempt Deis De Landa those and of most concerned are concepts with which restratifccation,

Body life, the without nonorganic

Organs, and the

fusion The two these the elements, allows of result of machinic phylum. demonstrate Years to A Thousand as a sustained attempt one to read Consistency' Plane `The his in Guattari's of the validity of article claim historythread "what the that of makes scientific revolutions-

from protohistory until the

is the machinic phylum" (Guattari

1977 315).

familiarity Years A Thousand In a certain respect presupposes a Intelligent Age War in book, first the De Landa's of his detailed he first that understanding there

with

Machines as it is

in the the way of which

in human, is imbricated and particular military, with machinic phylum detailing by this is it that Landa relationship history. De only contends be history written. can that a genuinely materialist

Lurking

De is Landa's beneath the far an of work too surface not

unexpected

clearly most one agenda,

Materialism Schizoanalytic

in his revealed spoken

123

presentations

his of research: that is an unmitigated

attack upon, and

rejection of, Marxism as a tool of historical analysis, it is significant in this respect that the only overt criticism of Deleuze and Guattari given inA Thousand Years is precisely for their commitment to Marxism:

[d]espite the fact that their philosophical work represents intense an

movement

destratification, of

Deleuze and

Guattari

have to seem preserved

Marxism,

hardly they touch or criticise (De Landa which

their

own stratum,

1997 331).

The problem Marxism liminal,

with

this attack is principally

this: commitment

to

by Deleuze Guattari's is on and part no means accidental or it plays, I want to suggest, a privileged

role amongst the

draw. from Indeed it they plays a critical which cornucopia of sources key dominant in Capitalism in set of concepts, most role organising a Schizophrenia. and

such that the substantial

Oedipus, `Savages, Barbarians

third chapter of Anti-

Civilised and

Men' can barely be

Marx's is to scarcely comprehensible, without reference understood, Grundrisse, the chapter is in fact best read as an attempt to rewrite fundamental and expand certain

that section of it that deals with `Precapitalist

particular Formations'.

Economic

At the same time, this chapter is preoccupied with a

debate central to Marxist teleology

themes of the Grundrisse, and in

in Marx's

theory, that of the presence or absence of

human history. account of

resolutely

his in opposition clear

identifying

it as a "metaphysical

Materialism Schi.zoanalytic

Marx himself

was

to any semblance of teleology

(Marx Engels 1976 59), spectre" and

12244y

writing

that "history

is nothing but the succession of the separate

generations [... ] This can be speculatively distorted so that later history is made the goal of earlier history [... ] thereby history receives its own special goals and becomes a person ranking with other persons' (to wit: `self-consciousness, criticism, the unique', etc), while what is designated with the words `destiny', `goal', `germ', or `idea' of earlier history is nothing more than an abstraction from later history" (Marx and Engels 1976 59). Such is Marx's consistently held position on this subject. Let be us perfectly

clear about this:

impositions

of telos, necessary

history Marx imputed Marxism the to progress on course of or

are

distortions introduced by, on the one hand, Stalinists, who had political do later Marxists to so, and reasons

failed to understand who

the

known depth Marx's Hegel (as Marx is well and of critique of

radicality

himself disassociated from to the that thought much of claimed sharply be produced under his aegis). All of the latters' categories are for Marx irretrievably

theological; and, on the other hand, by opponents of any

form of Marxism.

As Marx makes clear, in his analysis of the "ruling

have ideology in ideas", the general, and as we and of ruling class and Guattari Deleuze in in their this thesis, and concur repeatedly shown ideas in State teleological the necessity are of cast science, analysis of This Hegel is theological philosophical event called ones. same mould as State, Spinoza Hegel functionary is in it the Spinoza", a of and and ou its most virulent Spinoza

"regard It is these that grounds on we can critic.

Marx's as

standpoint"

direct only

ancestor,

from the philosophical

(Aithusser and Balibar 1970 102)'. Understood in this way

it is possible to reconceptualise Deleuze's continual prioritisation

Materialism Schizoanalytic

the political

stakes invested

in

Spinoza Hegel. For of over all of these

'ý s_. _

reasons, any project that attempts to account for social history in a way that claims some fidelity

to Deleuze and Guattari

doomed if it pretends that Marxism

is an irrelevance

is ultimately or a nostalgic

affectation

hung onto by disappointed soixante-huitards. Deleuze and

Guattari's

attempt

to understand

capitalism

as a voracious,

ever

expanding, all consuming producer of axiomatics is incomprehensible without reckoning with the event of Marx. De Landa states that there least "at two things" that prevent him from subscribing to Marxist are concepts, these are "the labour theory of value which Piero Schraffa [sic. this should read `Sraffa', EA] has clearly shown to be a redundant part

Marxist of

traditional

built-in [... ] the economics and

teleology in the

Marxist periodisation of history" (De Landa 1997 281). Both

demonstrate for I insufficient these that reasons of are, shall entirely function and

Sraffa Whilst it is the true that as crudest caricature.

launched an attack on the labour theory of value and by so doing exited from Marxist economics it is also the case that the one need not lead to the other. Support for the labour theory is by no means a prerequisite long is Marxism, indeed tradition there a of

Marxism (one that within

A Marx) it. that also rejects contemporary, and starts arguably with virulently

Marxist, argument in favour of rejecting the labour theory is

Negri by Antonio the the rubric real subsumption of of under presented labour For Negri the the theory to redundancy of of capital. society "to is tied a previous and out-dated organisation value accumulation"

labour of and

has to that taken a major shift goes on write place and

in the political landscape of the developed world (or the core) and that hypostatised in for the name of a a politics maintained problems exist his bringing Negri the of project as assesses industrial proletariat.

Materialism Schizoanalytic

16

two traditional

thematics, the question of the validity of the

law of value, and the development of the transition between socialism and communism, into contact with the new phase history: the subsumption

of political

of the entire society

under capital in the process of capitalist accumulation, and therefore the end of the centrality

factory the of working

class as the emergence of revolutionary

subjectivity (Negri

1996a 149).

It is the conjunction of "post-Fordism as the principal condition of the new

social

organisation

labour of

and as the new model

of

ideology the accumulation, and post-Modernism as capitalist adequate to this new mode of production"

that together form the assemblage

by (Negri Negri "the named real subsumption of society within capital" 1996a 154). De Landa is constitutionally because his understanding

incapable of recognising this

Marxism incontrovertible is as a set of of

lucidly Guattari Felix than truths points rather as a method. empirical Grundrisse "insisted Marx in it is the the that absurdity and who on out the transitional (Guattari

based on work time" character of a measure of value

1996 205), the simple reason for this is that as Marx

between discrepancy is the there machinic, a growing recognised, intellectual

labour, "Human that time of such and manual components

is increasingly

by (Guattari time" machinic replaced

is the factor in transition this of course crucial

1996 207). A

of the economies of

being based America from North the Japan, Europe, production on and information the the to of predominance of physical commodities

Schizoanalytic Materialism

and

127

service industries.

De Landa's second reason for rejecting Marxism ie.

that it is beholden to a predetermined teleological progression of stages is simply, and I return to this point later, laughable. Such an argument is a fatuous irrelevance that can only be countenanced seriously in a culture where Marxism's image has been so thoroughly tarred with the brush of Stalinism that it is possible to present it in such a caricatured form.

Unevenness

and Heterogeneity

De Landa's book then is significantly

by the total inadequacy of marred

this attack, and it is upon this that I wish to concentrate. The Marxism that he professes to reject is one entirely

stripped of subtlety, one

debates have the that of extensive raged within

ignorant

theory on the genesis of different literatures concomitant various

positions

Transition

Controversy'),

and of the

`stageism', on on the origins of capitalism (the

in this debate are collected in the volume The

from Feudalism

Foster-Carter's

modes of production,

Marxist

important

to Capitalism,

Aidan in assessed and

Modes `The Production survey article of

the nature of the world system (a concept cursorily

by being De Landa in terms classic postmodernist rejected as a "great homogenisation", the master concept, great

De Landa 1997 267), and

development. It is the and of combined uneven concept most notably this latter idea which plays a crucial role in DeleuzeGuattari's Marx, in particular of Landa

in Anti-Oedipus,

has, in recent

apparent

and curious

Schizoanalytic Materialism

De the text, a sense of which

spoken presentations', ignorance.

reading

Marx

demonstrated

an

discusses

the

explicitly

128

existence of the symptoms of a previous social form in a

continued

period when its material base or `cause' has long vanished: "Alongside the modern evils, we are oppressed by a whole series of inherited evils, arising from the passive survival of archaic and outmoded modes of production, with their accompanying train of anachronistic social and political relations. We suffer not only from the living, but from the dead. Le mort saisit le vif./" (Marx 1976 91). So much for linear causality in Marx.

Rather

involution

have here the presaging we

that Deleuze and Guattari

that are without finality

of a complex view of

describe as "reverse causalities

but testify nonetheless to an action of the

future on the present, or of the present on the past", and note this well, "it is these reverse causalities that shatter evolution" (Deleuze and 1980/87 537/431). On this latter point De Landa suggests

Guattari

that only his model, nominally derived from the application of nonlinear dynamics to economic theory, can account for a situation such as that in which one sees the existence of an urban agglomeration evincing nominally

capitalist

relations

of production

surrounded

by a rural

however by dominated feudal It is precisely such relations. expanse by for heterogeneous that the are accounted elements assemblages of development for (see Marxist example concept of combined and uneven analyses of the situation Revolution, Petersburg, production Trotsky

in Tsarist

Russia on the eve of the 1917

in which one finds large urban centres, Moscow and St. characterised including

by advanced

capitalist

relations

of

the largest factories then extant in Europe-

US in in 1914 17.8% for the the that, of example notes

in factories Russia 1000 in of workers or more, workforce was employed by in figure 41.4% the corresponding surrounded a countryside was -

Schizoanalytic Materialism

129

which social relations

were entirely

feudal, peasants were still, in

Gogol's phrase, and as detailed in his novel of the same title, dead souls that is chattels bound to, and sold with, plots of land rather than being free agricultural

labourers selling chunks of variable capital embodied

in their labour, the existence of serfdom was a de facto reality into the 1920's early even though it was juridically Here,

1861).

"Unevenness, reveals

itself

then

is the

classic

annulled in the reforms of of the

statement

principle:

being the most general law of the historic most sharply

process,

in the destiny

and complexly

of the

backward countries [... ] From the universal law of unevenness thus derives [... ] the law of combined developmentarchaic with more contemporary finds

its direct

correlate

[... ] an amalgam of 1980 6). This law

forms" (Trotsky

in DeleuzeGuattari's

deterritorialisation

theorem

eight of

generalised

double

assemblage

does not have the same forces or even speeds of

deterritorialisation coefficients

as another;

be must calculated

under consideration" the mechanisms generated

different

states

in each instance,

"one

the indices and

block becoming the to of according

(Deleuze and Guattari

by which

between

which

that

1980/87 377/307). It is to

these grotesque economic

dissymmetries

are

by Capitalist the zones

his dedicated has Samir Amin that project. a major part of axiomatic Amin's work, we should note, plays a critical Guattari's thirteenth

account of contemporary Apparatus BC: `7000 plateau

Capitalist

Deleuze in and role axiomatics

in the

Capture'. This is account of

becoming has described Negri Antonio as evermore prescient, one that is in Mille Plateaux he has the time still of suggested, and consequently the future,

it is in the process of becoming, and it is "Becomings,

Schizoanalytic Materialism

130

becomings-animal, history, individual Whilst

becomings-molecular,

Guattari (Deleuze 1980/87 200/162). or general" and

one may critique

progressive

Amin's

impoverishment

underdevelopment

[that, EA] have replaced

which

for from the proposals escaping by the

generated

is contingent

development

of

upon these asymmetrical

ludicrously being briefly, Put Amin idealist. relations as proposes and directly development advocates a model of autarchic economic which opens onto and supports the third-worldist

ideology rampant in the

1970's, one cannot help but find his general thesis, which serves as a inanities to the patent caustic rejoinder

bourgeois faith in the the of

be down to the trickle effect played out on a global scale, generosity of convincing'.

The Internal

I, mit. Spinoza

'Integrated World Capitalism', to use Alliez and Guattari's terminology Marxist in is de Landa's to never characterised claims, and contrary theory as a smooth space of homogeneous relations,

but rather

is

level by the of every at of unevenness coexistence radical marked investigation.

Marxist economics at its most powerful, is committed to

an anti-Platonism

it the in that the possibility of rejects sense precisely

the existence of pure forms, an evolutionary

it is procession of stages,

indeed predicated upon the existence of noncapitalist

relations, the

has "no Guattari, Deleuze to and quote global axiomatic of capitalism, believe it for like that It to but laws immanent ones. would confronts us limit Universe, the limits the the of resources and energy. extreme of

But all it confronts are its own limits" (Deleuze and Guattari 1980/87

Schizoanalytic Materialism

131

579/463)

so that

to the "deepest law of capitalism;

according

it

sets and then repels its own limits, but in so doing gives rise

continually

to numerous flows in all directions that escape its axiomatic" (Deleuze Guattari and Capitalism capitalist

1980/87 590/472). In more orthodox Marxist "is born and develops within

the framework

terms,

of a pre-

(Mandel 1977 125). The model that De

mode of production"

Landa projects onto Marxism

is one that the Trotskyist

economist

Ernest Mandel has diagnosed as "isolat[ing] `pure' forms which in real life are combined, or have more or less degenerated. To reduce economic history

to a series of `stages' or to the successive appearance of

`categories'

is to make it excessively mechanical,

to the point of

it The Marxist [... ] rendering unrecognisable conception of economic and has for fatalism No phase of social change any or automatism. no place social organisation

`must' necessarily succeed another" (Mandel 1977

91). As such the development Guattari

for Marxism, and

Capitalism, of

for both Deleuze and

is predicated upon the existence of the

different is it is development that to sectors, say, an axiom of of uneven Capitalism,

a structural

demonstrating

difference has This a structure necessity.

selfsimilarity

(between hemispheric

from the global on each and every scale

(between to the to regions), national sections),

the local (between and within, for example, the different areas of a city). This proposition takes the form of the internal limit, "the South is an Third designating World the term or the periphery, and even abstract that there are Souths or Third Worlds inside the centre" (Deleuze and Guattari

1980/87 585/468). The problem with De Landa's position as

he book, be is that in to this whilst claims consistent with staked out DeleuzeGuattari's

Schizoanalytic Materialism

has he fact in project chosen to ignore or reject an

12

fundamental absolutely part of their work, a part of their work to which the bulk of Anti-Oedipus

least two plateaus of A Thousand and at

Plateaus is dedicated, and that is their account of Capitalism's spread across the globe in terms of "(t)he four principal flows that torment the of the world economy, or of the axiomatic, [which] are

representatives

the flow of matter-energy,

the flow of population, the flow of food, and

the urban flow [... ] the axiomatic never ceases to create all of these problems, while at the same time, its axioms, even multiplied,

deny it

the means of resolving them" (Deleuze and Guattari 1980/87 585/468). This account is explicitly

derived in from, terms given and consistent

with, the most sophisticated Marxist accounts of the functioning of the Capitalist world machine or axiomatic, and Deleuze and Guattari's twin volumed

Capitalism

Schizophrenia and

is nothing

if else not a

There be Marx. to this to sustained engagement with seems reader no possible way around this without misrepresentation engagement

with,

of their work. Freud

committing

the most grotesque

Hence, whilst the critique of, and

in the two volumes

Capitalism of

and

Schizophrenia is often remarked on, the equally important development Marx, to think the attempt of

Marxism, a

is overlooked. The entire

Anti-Oedipus is third to the on of already remarked chapter point of history Hegelian its which will escape secure an account of universal determination

by hold "the (teleology) theology of conditions seizing as a

its contingent, of

its irony, its and singular existence, own critique"

(Deleuze and Guattari

1974/83 324/271). Deleuze and Guattari's work

having do far be to then can more with that particular seen as Marxism, school of Marxism

by Althusser, inspired which

French

develop to a sought

inspired by Spinoza rather than by Hegel. Why? "Because

Schizoanalytic Materialism

133

Spinoza is the founder of an absolutely original conception of praxis because he teleology, thought the presence of the cause in its without effects and the very existence

of structure

in its effects and in

(Negri 1994/95 125/12). One can only agree with Fredric presence" Jameson's judgement thinkers

"Deleuze is alone among the great this: on in having accorded Marx an

of so-called poststructuralism

fundamental his in absolutely role philosophy" (Jameson 1997 395).

Machinic

Critique

To return to this question of the nature of the Capitalist machine we must

ask

what,

DeleuzeGuattari,

in

this

in sense,

the

sense understood

by

is a machine? In beginning to address this question we

be in that a way approaching one of the most must quite clear we are distinctive elements of their thinking

is that precisely their attack and

upon one of the great structuring

dualisms of Western thought, that

between mechanism and vitalism,

and their transcending of the split

', "which is thinking, the a proposal of a great machinic machinism with fluxes designates it that every system cuts off something else entirely: beyond both technology the the organisation of and mechanics of going the organism, whether it be in nature, society, or man" (Guattari 1995 99). Deleuze and Guattari

lengths is to to that stress great what go

being proposed here is in no way subject to the great dispute between for in this to they above, are not alone mechanism and vitalism alluded the biologist Robert Rosen too makes clear that there is a third way immutable for Rosen it is beyond two these alternatives, called passing biology he that mustnotes complexity,

Schizoanalytic Materialism

for biological indeed and some

134

scientists,

notably

Kauffman and

this is a basic

beyond move mechanism, and the "alternative

starting pointvitalism,

Rosen, Margulis

it is complexity"

is not

(Rosen 1991 262)'. Deleuze and Guattari

make much of this set of distinctions, recall the section of Anti-Oedipus entitled `Beyond vitalism and mechanism', a beyond that returns us to the opening of this section: with the machinic phylum.

In the present circumstances machine

in DeleuzeGuattari's (something

metaphorical demonstration

it will have to suffice to note that the work

of which

is by no means something

de Landa gave an exemplary

in his previous book's discussion

Sadi Carnot's of

discovery of the abstract diagram in relation to his research into the heat De Landa The 1994 141). machine engine, of a

construction

denotes something

that is "constituted

from the moment there is

communication

between two portions of the outside world that are

distinct really

in a system that is possible although less probable"

(Deleuze and Guattari 1974 466); it is axiomatic then that a machine is definition heterogeneous its that goes elements and also composed of beyond technical. the merely way

The analysis of the machine is

historicopolitical for its towards, example, extended Deleuze's article

deployment in

devenir' focusing intimacy `Controle the on et on

between the changing nature of the abstract diagram through time and the different relationship

forms in it is embedded: think which societal

between clockwork and the absolutist state, disciplinary

thermodynamic and societies information

of the

"control [... ] machines, societies with

technology and computers" (Deleuze 1990/95 237/180).

Pierre Levy has extended some of these considerations in his account of

Schizoanalytic Materialism

135

the virtualisation instruments

his demonstration the tool of and

that "material

large and artifacts provide us with a number of concrete

and socially

shared

models,

with

which

we can metaphorically

apprehend more abstract phenomena or problems" (Levy 1998 125). This machinic account is one that is philosophically

and pragmatically

rigorous, one that operates according to an expanded logic of general economics to the scale of the universe. Intimately DeleuzoGuattarian

concept of the machine

connected to the

is that

of machinic

enslavement, now the Marxist concept of the machine obviously has a direct correlate

to this in that of exploitation,

vaguely resembling essentially

is such a concept entirely

but anything

even

in De Landa, absent

he elaborates a concept of capitalism

(and indeed of all

devoid is that social regimens) of conflict either endemic or accidental, he leaves therefore ultimately

for no space politics,

presents an entirely theoreticist

class or otherwise,

and

devoid position of praxis,

devoid of any conceivable pragmatic implementation

implication. or

The ultimate reason for the absence in De Landa of an understanding of lies his in conflict or exploitation utter misunderstanding

the theory, of

Marxian Antonio is Negri to crucial analyses, of surplus-value, which as notes "the centre, now and always, of Marxist theory" and the key to demonstrating

the "productive

materialisation"

its (Negri of method

1991b 60). Hence the deformations and deployments that the theory of Capitalism Schizophrenia in (principally surplus value undergoes and distinction between in the machinic and as surplus value of code, and human machinic important

surplus

value with

enslavement

the concomitant

and social subjection) constitutes

DeleuzoGuattarian in the element

Schjzoanalytic Materialism

distinction

between a critically

conceptual assemblage.

136

The transfiguration

of the theory of surplus

value of code is to be understood DeleuzoGuattarian principal

into value one of surplus

as the principal

mechanism

of

A mechanism cutting across the three

thought.

strata, as follows: "Each chain captures fragments of other

from it `extracts' just chains which a surplus value, as the orchid code `attracts'

the figure

both demonstrate of a wasp: phenomena

surplus value of a code" (Deleuze and Guattari of this

ramifications DeleuzeGuattari's

transfiguration

the

1980/87 47/39). The wide,

are

because

in

hands the concept of the surplus value of code, the

fragments, has two principal results. First, it gives the capture of code principal mode of understanding deterritorialisation

processes, they are

indeed functionally identical in the analysis of the flows of capital in the third

substantial

Anti-Oedipus chapter of

', Vincennes in 1970's) the of which

University the weekly seminar at is, as we have seen, principally in

which

deterritorialisation" second fundamental

"great

movement

(Deleuze and Guattari

decoding of

or

1974/83 308/259). The

result of the analysis of the surplus-value of code

is to produce the principal representation

Grundrisse the an engagement with and

the

we witness

(as well as in Deleuze's

mechanism

whereby philosophy

(the goal of a nonrepresentational

in turn deterritorialises

by joining

avoids

thought): "the wasp

with the orchid: the capture of a

fragment of the code, and not the representation of an image" (Deleuze Guattari and

1975/86 26/14, trans.

surplus value and consequently

altered).

Lacking

one of machinic

a theory of

surplus value, De

Landa has no means of constructing a concept of conflict, neither one of class nor one of minorities whatever

it's other

Schizoanalytic Materialism

merits,

and majorities, and contrary

consequently

his work,

to its author's

claims,

137

constitutes

not

DeleuzeGuattari's always

development a

but of,

definitive a

break

with

theoretical innovation, which, whatever else it is, has

been, as Deleuze reminds

Marxist us,

(Deleuze

1990/95

232/171)'.

De Landa

for the originality, of grand claims

makes a number

perspicacity and cutting edge nature of his work, however throughout this thesis I want to demonstrate that far more effective analyses of the kinds of phenomena that preoccupy De Landa exist; the tradition that

I am thinking

revolutionary Vladimir

work

here is that of

from the genuinely

long biogeochemist Russian the of neglected

I. Vernadsky whose 1926 magnum opus, The Biosphere has

been translated this only year Vernadsky

deriving

into English in its entirety'.

It is to

his his Bataille in influence, and under explicit and cited

Accursed Share (and not, in spite of his protestations De Landa) that we owe the complimentary dynamic earth as an open

to the contrary,

modern conceptions of the

flows to of matter system subject

Lovelock Margulis' (precursor to and energy

and

Gaia theory), and that of

life in A living, the spoken of prodigious realm of nonorganic matter as Thousand Plateaus and constantly affirmed and reiterated throughout Deleuze's work from Bergsonism, to the two books on Cinema, to The Fold. It is this theme that runs like a transversal spine throughout the invention

line bastard from Bruno, Leibniz, to the of philosophy, of

Nietzsche and Bergson all united under the arch of a stripped down Spinozism singularity, Guattari's

directed number

towards

intensity and

concentration

Schizoanalytic Materialism

the empirical

discovery

in and of matter.

"matter on a

haecceity, of Deleuze and

that is no longer a chaos to

138

conquer and organise, but matter moving in continuous variation" (Deleuze and Guattari

1980/87 419/340 trans. altered, EA) is given in a

discovery. discovery Such is in turn an opening of process of creative a philosophy to the enormity of its altneu task of confronting a matter no longer subject to its expulsion from the realm of the living, beyond hylomorphic and

theological

determinations gaining

of theological

philosophy.

It is a granting

to, and a

frozen beyond the of a new set of objects,

by, philosophy

dualisms, a philosophy, not of the inert and

rigidities

of philosophical

finished,

but of "unformed

directions

constraint,

longer no subject to the

and unstable

[... ] free intensities

matters

[... ] flows in all

or nomadic singularities

(Deleuze

Guattari and

[... I mad or

1980/87 54/40). A

transitory

particles"

philosophy

becoming than than rather of goals, of processes rather

being. The discovery of a new Earth.

In the next chapter we turn our attention

to the production

of this

he between Deleuze thinker in interstices the about whom and a vision to but contribution whom we shall argue makes a crucial rarely writes, the vital intellectual great representativeNola.

Schizoanalytie Materialism

tradition

just is Deleuze the most recent of which

Giordano Bruno, the apostate Dominican

of

chapter

v

Elaborations on Materialism Between Bruno and Deleuze The general framework seems at first to be an animist, hylozoist, pre-Socratic one. But vitalism finds itself inverted at the very moment that it is asserted, for it does not present itself either as an envelope of the real, or as a conception of the world, nor as a force which is not distinct from the but historical, the as all production of real, whether natural or at once, placed at the service of the production of singularity, of the emergence of singularity

of these elements

(Negri 1995 99)

Life is not only everywhere,

but souls are everywhere

in

matter (Deleuze 1988/93 15/11)

A Thousand Plateaus [... ] remains forever open is constantly being reopened through an amazing will to theorise, and with heretical proclamations. a violence worthy of (Negri in Deleuze 1990/95 232/171)

What is it that leads most people to slander matter as therdo? In the end, it is only the modesty of matter that is so offensive to them. But this very composure proves that something dwells within matter, something of that original essence, of the is that something germ and primordial material of existence, but itself is in the the purest spirituality outside passive on (Schelling 1997 150)

140

chlasm

There is a sense shared by many commentators Guattari's

Deleuze on and

"stems that from the fact that [they] their work power

detaching in themselves from Parisian succeed

temporality"

(Land

1993 66)73.The question to be pursued in this case then is, in what time Deleuze Guattari best be located? The implication made here is can and that Deleuze, principally,

be located in the period prior to the invention

Kantian hence location to the of critique, and prior conventional of the birth of modernity with Kant and the Aufklärung.

That is on the cusp of

the Renaissance and the Baroque. The towering figure of this period is without

doubt, Bruno, and in these theses it will be shown how, on a

drawn lines be directly between issues, him number of crucial can and Deleuze. These lines descend from those elements of Bruno's thinking that are most heterodox to those in Deleuze that are most untimely. The questions to be activated here are: the truth of the relative; the invention

haecceity individuation; of as a concept of

active matter entails;

dissolution the and of eternal

ontology

hylomorphic the of

the doctrine of glue that this

flow; concept of the universal

nous,

immanent in the universe; revised vitalism; hylozoism. A chasm can be lies his his from it in Deleuze that contemporaries, separates opened immersion in a conceptual world that is resolutely, pre-Kantian? 4,and in the identification

distinctive Deleuze's concepts as most radical and of

being clearly adumbrated hierarchy the rejection of

in Bruno. Principal

in this regard is the

being (a initiated rejection of

by Cusa and

decisively developed by Bruno), in favour of philosophy as survey of a flat zone of immanence, univocal ontology: "Immanence [... ] implies a

Elaborations on Materialism

141

Being in Unity is only a property of theory pure ontology, a of which substance and of what is. [It] requires as a principle the equality of being, or the positing of equal Being [... 1 not defined by their rank in a hierarchy"

(Deleuze 1968/92 157/173). Recall here Deleuze's succinct

letter to Badiou, which read in its entirety: "immanence = univocity" (Badiou 1998 28).

For critics of Bruno like Frances Yates, who is, as some have pointed be detractors, Bruno is his long line Catholic last to in the out, of a identified religion identifying

founding heretical the of a new priest preoccupied with as a a neo-Egyptianism

or cult,

him with Rosicrucianism,

(hence her insistence

upon

the precursor of Free Masonry,

from derived language does draw for its rituals principally upon a which Bruno however, it is Guattari that Deleuze Following Egypt). clear and immanence, insistence his be instead, upon absolute with read can flatness, the spiral, and his opposition to hierarchy, as being committed to philosophy understood in part as naturalism.

"Whenever there is

State in imperial the sky or on earth, Being, transcendence, vertical immanence" is there is there is religion; and there philosophy whenever (Deleuze and Guattari

1991/94 46/43). It is imperative

in setting up

Antonio that the Bruno that sickness avoids one of such a reading has Anomaly, Savage The Spinoza, Negri, in his magisterial reading of diagnosed as afflicting the alternatives

historiography, philosophical

that of "orienting

So than 1991a (Negri the rather toward xxi). past"

in "a cultural study offering

here "a is is at stake genealogies" what

is functions this thought", not of and conditions of material genealogy is its thought such context, sociopolitical within the a setting of merely

Elaborations on Materialism

142

all that

be done by can standard

materialist

accounts, what are

engaged in Negri's proposed superior materialism conceptual work's constitutive-productive force, the interweaving

material historical

are the contours of a

profile: thought rendered as a

linguistic the of

human the with

planes alluded to above. For Negri the "liberation

of a

be "if it is cumbersome past" will worthless not carried through to the benefit of the present" and critically,

"to the production of the future".

Bruno, treated in this way becomes the conceptual architect of such a future.

The point then is not to ask such questions as "What does

Deleuze say about Bruno? " or "What is the influence, direct or other but Bruno Deleuze? ", in to a non-personalist on rather examine wise, of fashion the force or life of concepts, the degree to which they become The forces. investigation then this mode of material Kantian

in its refusal

is resolutely non-

to be bound by subjectivity;

rather,

it is

force the of the concept as event, with conceptual concerned with Guattari 3). (Deleuze 1991/94 and chapter personae

Return

Eternal

A fundamental materialist thought,

claim

monism

Machinic the of

P1ylum

by for Deleuze and made

is that

distinctive of a

(re)discovery, the of

Guattari's and sedimented

mode of apprehending

matter.

into This

had hylomorphic that to the model presupposed apprehension, opposed "a fixed form Guattari

and a matter

deemed homogeneous"

(Deleuze and

1980/87 508/408), is of a matter reconceptualised, redefined,

"materiality, is it to matter as an approach as the machinic phylum, natural or artificial,

both is it in simultaneously, matter movement, and

in flux, in variation,

matter as a conveyor of singularities

Elaborations on Materialism

and traits of

143

expression" (Deleuze and Guattari century materialist this phylum

1980/87 509/409). The sixteenth

heretic, Giordano Bruno, had also offered a vision of

in his Anti-Aristotelian

formulation:

"matter produces

forms from itself [... ] and does not receive them as from outside" (Bruno 1998 81), and this is no surprise, for as Whitehead notes "the nonevolution of matter has been a tacit assumption throughout

modern

thought. Until the last few years the sole alternatives were: either the material universe, with its present type of order, is eternal; or else it into being, being, fiat to the came and will pass out of according of Jehovah"

(Whitehead

machinic

phylum

1978 95). Hence, the indication

be "(re)discovered" to was

be it to the guiding supposing tradition

that

is predicated

longstanding, axis of a

the upon

serpentine

For Whitehead the thought of within philosophy and science.

the phylum is one that erupts periodically into history, crystallising particular

thinkers.

in

It is a thought that had forced its way into view

had, have Spinoza; is I Bruno, in it that argued appeared with and Creative Evolution Bergson's in at the turn of this century, expressed lies The Deleuze. in the the within machinic phylum concept of and now but derided it is tradition the, of vitalism, oft simplemindedly, purview of a certain

vitalism

constituent

construed

in such a way as to be one of the

elements of the counter-tradition

already alluded to, put

by Geist is taken in the it is or spirit place of which a vitalism succinctly brain Bergson, follow This is, brain75. to the a only actualised brain a

immanence, Consciousness something.

that

is recognised

in consciousness

from transcendental, the severed

A brain, moreover, that is multiple,

in

of x.

it is always of

fractured,

by riven

homogeneous longer the phrenology; object of rather no clefts, synaptic

Elaborations on Materialism

144

one in which the "model would be rather a state of things which would constantly change, a flowing-matter

in which no point of anchorage nor

centre of reference would be assignable" (Deleuze 1983/86 33/57). It is such a state of affairs, this coexistence of structure and change that Bertalanffy von `flowing of

his in dynamic descriptions to was attempting capture

balance'

Fliessgleichgewicht (Capra or

1996 48). Now

Deleuze Guattari has been insist indeed it is vitalism, as and never one, had "has two possible alternatives: that of an Idea multiple and always that acts, but is not -- that acts therefore only from the point of view of knowledge (from Claude Kant Bernard); or that to an external cerebral of a force that is but does not act-

that is therefore a pure internal

Awareness (from Leibniz to Ruyer) [... ] the second interpretation (Deleuze and Guattari

to us to be imperative" variant of vitalism,

seems

1991/94 201/213). The

described on occasion as a "technological vitalism'

(Deleuze and Guattari

1980/87 507/407) that is being suggested, is not

the vitalism that is usually baldly counterposed to mechanism. Indeed as some contemporary

biologists have recognised, the alternative

is not vitalism,

mechanism imperative

component

materialism'.

but complexity,

of the

This is a vitalism

contemporary

form

is an

of superior

that has ceased to posit entities

by an extra, or metaphysical,

mobilised

latter this and

to

force, a "supplementary

dimension" in Deleuze's terminology, but rather one that opens entities to the outside, legislation

in counterposition and stands

to the metaphysical

infinite It is thought the of a one, unity. of

variation

and

"philosophical As Bruno, Spinoza. the being of minnesinger pace modal infinity"

(Bloch 1986 848), suggests "there is no thing which is all it can

but he be" be, (Bruno 66) 1998 he is and Man be. can not all can what

Elaborations on Materialism

145

Spinoza proclaims: "For indeed, no one has yet determined what the Body can do, ie. experience has not yet taught anyone what the Body do from the laws of nature alone" (Spinoza 1985 E IIIP2D); can driving

thrust

of this thought

definitive marks a

the

from move away

classical ontology for it refuses to think the entity as static, as the on, but rather makes bodies into a locus of force, a condensation of affects, it makes potentia constitutive". task of thinking

For Bruno, Spinoza and Deleuze the

is open to the future, to becoming, haecceitas (Scotus's

univocal ontology) and singularisation.

Expression-Immanence-Neonlatonism

Eric Alliez is quite adamant that his treatment of Plotinus should resist the dominant

trend of Neoplatonic

scholarship

Judeo-Christian Plotinus into the reintroduces

that "fraudulently

mould" (Alliez 1991/95

37/77), and he notes secondarily that Plotinus introduces something into his system that decisively distinguishes it from Platonismthis novel non-Platonic

be important to the most addition

I take

element of

Plotinus' system that Bruno adopts - and it is the distillation here of a by dominant trends that the that thought constitute resists capture Platonic Judeo-Christian being in nor neither early modern philosophy by virtue of its being a part of (it is obviously non-Aristotelian, 1eoplatonism). The distinctively non-Platonic idea that Plotinus adds, is that it is the "immanent soul, and not the demiurge, that engenders, force its kosmos through the living like a silent of sole organism, a contemplation intelligence

intelligible the of

identified

with

that life of the

from which it proceeds" (Alliez 1991/95 80/39), and as

Elaborations on Materialism

146

Deleuze confirms in his preface to Alliez' book "there is a world soul, and the soul is itself a world" (Alliez 1991/95 8/xii). It is this account of the immanent creative force that runs through Bruno's philosophy of expressive matter as the anima mundi.

It is only now with the development of the theory of self-organisation and the new understanding

dissipative of

structures

that we are

beginning to create the scientific models that can adequate to this, the great tradition of expressive immanence in philosophy.

Seen in this light, it becomes clear that the tradition in which Deleuze's philosophy of matter is best placed is one that he often describes as being open to the danger of pantheism, "always subject to the charge of pantheism"

(Deleuze 1968/92 12/16). Seen in more contemporary

terms, this is the accusation

has been that one often

of vitalism,

levelled at Spinoza, at Leibniz and at Bergson, amongst others, as is all too familiar

these figures are amongst Deleuze's philosophical heroes,

happy he his is for and as such own philosophy to run the risk of this lethal lethal: for be It is to apparently accusation. precisely accused of the charge of being a pantheist irrationalism, philosophy

or a vitalist

is equivalent to that of

find beyond it is to the remit of sound mysticism, oneself however, Deleuze For is there a vitalism and science.

life, link between "a to the profound signs, power of nonorganic subject life and vitalism events,

[... ] Everything

I've written

is vitalistic,

at

least I hope it is, and amounts to a theory of signs and events" (Deleuze 1990/95 197/143).

Elaborations on Materialism

147

In the following passage in What is Philosophy?, Deleuze and Guattari explicitly

lay out the political stakes at play in philosophy, as well as

the necessary relationship

between philosophical

heresy and the

thought of the State on the one hand, and the philosophy of immanence and monism on the other: "Putting their work and sometimes their lives dose that the philosophers at risk, all must prove of immanence they inject into world and mind does not compromise the transcendence of a God to which immanence must be attributed only secondarily (Nicholas burning be be Cusa, Eckart, Bruno) [... ] Immanence the to said of can issue of all philosophy philosophy

because it takes on all the dangers that

must confront, all the condemnations,

persecutions and

Guattari 47/45). 1991/94 " (Deleuze it that and undergoes. repudiations

Deleuze notes that this tradition labours under the aegis of the concept Spinoza Leibniz, by invented this that and concept as expression, and "takes on the force of an Anticartesian rediscovery

Nature of

reaction

[... ] It implies

her power and a recreating and

`materialism' ontology: a new

`formalism' and a new

300/322). The true target of this Anticartesianism

a

logic and of

(Deleuze 1968/92

in Deleuze's hands is

be it the dualism, in fractured of whether the profoundly world given the Kantian of Cartesian, concept such Platonic, as and varieties, or expression

to occupy a position comes

Expression

has two complementary

heart the at

of monism.

"implication components:

and

in bound the together of synthesis involution evolution" and explication, One in One, the in the "inherence of and the multiplicity of complicatio, Plateaus. Thousand A identity of the many", ie. the pluralism-monism Neoplatonism both, is to and central As Deleuze points out, complicatio

Elaborations on Materialism

148

s

Christian to thought, this latter being subject to the simplificatio, alien the "identity

One the of or the unity of the Whole" (Deleuze 1969/90

398/297). As I have already suggested, complicatio is also critical to both Spinoza and Leibniz, there is however a gap, both historical and between Neoplatonism conceptual,

hand Spinoza the on one and and

Leibniz on the other. Who fills the gap? In Difference and Repetition Deleuze suggests a possible answer, when he writes that it is Giordano Bruno

is "theoretician the who

of complicatio"

(Deleuze 1968/94

161/123). Put this way, Bruno is quite convincingly

the true dark

both Spinoza Leibniz, precursor of and and so ultimately Moreover,

it is precisely

Spinoza and Leibniz

Deleuze. of

those elements of Bruno that influence

respectively

that

Deleuze picks up on and

his in own work. elaborates

Immanence.

Conatus and Death by Degrees

The Gay Science § 109 is the nexus for a number of convergences between Nietzsche, Spinoza and Bruno. Greg Whitlock and Yirmiyahu Yovel note that in developing his unified theory of force and in particular Spinozist draws the Nietzsche the will to power conatus, classically on expressed as

The endeavour (conatus) wherewith

to thing endeavours a

the being is than in its of essence actual else nothing persist E IIIP7) 1985 (Spinoza thing that

doctrine for Spinoza, the however For our purposes we cannot stop with

Elaborations on Matexri.alism

149

of conatus can be found directly prefigured in Bruno (Deleuze of course identifies the Lucretian clinamen as a "kind of conatus differential of -a matter and, by the same token, a differential of thought" Deleuze 1969/90 365/269. Bruno was a voracious reader of Lucretius

and the

former's work is redolent with Lucretian tones). Conatus is not just one theory amongst many, it constitutes the second major axis of the line of thought embodied in Bruno, Spinoza, Schelling, Nietzsche and Deleuze: is the on one side expression and on the other, conatus; these two taken together constitute the plane of immanence drawn by this philosophical Conatus gives

tendency.

internally of

us an account

development, that is to say the immanent

involution

driven

form, of or put

in it gives us an account of selfotherwise and a scientific register, organisation,

is nothing which

other than an account of order, of

being driven entirely

Spinoza's persistence

internally

without

the

influences, the trace transcendent of a slightest without stamp of any Negri in This is deus then the sense which, as ex machina. mysterious its itself inverts the of enunciation. at very moment suggests, vitalism This inversion of vitalism will be seen as the horizon of any philosophy attempting science

to adequate itself

of the

autocatalysis.

various

to recent conceptualisations

manifestations

within

of self-organisation,

of

That which Nietzsche calls will to power, and Spinoza

Bruno calls conatus,

terms "vital

internal "the elsewhere

artificer"

principle"

(Bruno

1995 156) or

(Bruno 1998 38), and he is quite

than immanence, is earlier this so even part of principle explicit that had Bruno find that of all purged already a vitalism posited expected we metaphysical residues.

Elaborations on Materialism

150

it shapes matter, forming it from inside like a seed or root shooting forth and unfolding trunk thrusting

the trunk,

from within

the

boughs, from inside the boughs the the out

derived branches, and unfurling

buds from within

these

(Bruno 1998 38)

Everything is caused by the sufficient interior principle by it is which naturally stirred, and not by an external principle (Bruno 1995 156)

Kant, however, desperate to hold onto the metaphysical inheritance by which rendering inverted

vitalism,

matter

as lifeless refuses this possibility

hylozoism, of a

outright,

he insists

of an

that "the

living lifelessness, is inconceivable ] [... possibility of a matter quite since inertia, constitutes the essential characteristic

(Kant 1952 of matter"

§ 73). Kant offers not an argument, but bald assertion from accepted definition,

from ideological

hylozoism is that necessity, atheism-

because by be living is inertness. characterised matter matter cannot The preceding accusation is levelled, albeit indirectly, at Spinoza, but of the two it is Kant's system, which whilst it may not be theist, and not Spinoza's, that reintroduces a transcendental self organised

matter.

The difference

agent into its account of

between Bruno,

Spinoza,

Schelling and Nietzsche on the one hand, and Kant on the other is given by Deleuze in his distinction between two different "conceptions of the from "any that He `plan'". comes above and organisation writes, word hidden be be it theological transcendence, a to can called a one, a refers directs forms be transcendence that ] it [... as a plan of will always plan

Elaborations on Materialism

151

well as subjects, and that stays hidden [... ] always has an additional dimension; it always implies a dimension supplementary to the dimensions of the given. " Thus Kant. On the other hand "a plane of immanence

has no supplementary

dimension;

the process of

be for itself, through that which it gives, composition must apprehended in that which it gives. It is a plan of composition,

not a plan of

development" (Deleuze 1988 128). Kant certainly would organisation or have had nightmares had he access to recent experiments, principally those of Stanley Miller

Harold and

Urey that have attempted

to

for brewing life "slow from the the recreate conditions of early nonlife" (Margulis and Sagan 1997 51). As should be apparent from our earlier discussion, these experiments noncorporeal transformation,

serve as an empirical exploration of a life in the realm of the roots of showing

nonorganic matter.

The view of death posited in both Nietzsche's particular

The Gay Science, in

in § 109, and in Bruno's Ash Wednesday Supper are also

identical: Nietzsche writes that "Once you know there are no purposes, beside for it is know is there that a world of only no accident; you also beware Let has `accident' of saying us meaning. purposes that the word dead, is living is life. type The death is to that of what merely a opposed death is So for Bruno § 109). too (Nietzsche 1974 type" and a very rare "when intensity: something see we of of composition, change a merely dies but believe thing die, that that is to rather not must we said which that it changes and terminates

its accidental composition and unity"

it is to that 157), 1995 (Bruno say: undergoes a change of organisation, link further to themes To elsewhere pursued a out send of consistency.

Materialism Elaborations on

152

in this thesis,

it must be noted that in the same passage Bruno

expresses the view that "since everything participates in life, many and innumerable beings live not only within us but also in all composite things" (Bruno 1995 157, emphasis added), this is a line of thought that directly into Leibniz's Monadology, Nietzsche's critique of the passes unitary

subject, Deleuze and Guattari's

biological involution, Lynn Margulis'

and eventually

affective, contagious view of

finds empirical confirmation

in

birth the account of of the eukaryotic cell through the

capture of the once independent cyanobacteria that live in every cell and still maintain

Every living

an entirely separate DNA and RNA.

cell contains aliens crucial to its survival, Deleuze's "thousands of little witnesses which contemplate Nietzsche's

alien

DeleuzeGuattari

forces and their

within

(Deleuze 1968/94 103/75), us"

(Nietzsche

1968

§ 728).

To follow

source on the concept of consistency,

Eugene Dupreel, "life went not from a centre to an exteriority but from discrete fuzzy from interior, to to aggregate or an or rather a an exterior its consolidation" (Deleuze and Guattari 1980/87 405/328).

Nietzsche ends The Gay Science § 109 with the programmatic question, "When may we begin to `naturalise' humanity in terms of a pure, newly discovered, newly redeemed nature", and as if in response avant la lettre, Spinoza had written to Oldenburg that "the human body is a part is human I it Mind too think As the Nature. a part of nature" regards of (Spinoza 1966 III).

There is a consistent tradition

that seeks to carry out precisely this naturalisation Lucretius

to the Arab historian

1377, The Mugaddimah,

Elaborations on Materialism

in philosophy stretching

Ibn Khaldün whose startling

from

book of

holds that "man belongs to the genus of

153 gý

animals [... ] created from a drop of sperm, a clot of blood, and a lump of flesh" (Khhaldfn 1967 340), and from Bruno to Spinoza Nietzsche. and

A Rather Forbidden

Amongst the philosophically fusion of production dualism),

History

significant results of this approach is the

and expression (and hence the dissolution

and with it the possibility

of

of gaining access to a certain

hidden, "a tradition, tradition subterranean philosophical a with rather history" forbidden (Deleuze A 1968/92 322/300). tradition and a rather that is most forcefully

and subversively

in the work of represented

Giordano Bruno. Whilst Deleuze's direct references to Bruno are few, two to be precise, they are exceptionally important and philosophically fecund. These two references stand as brackets philosophical

Deleuze's around

do its (in 1968's two they ends at career appearing as

Difference et Repetition

baroque Leibniz le Le written et and pli:

in

1988). These two direct references stand facing each other on the Moebius strip that represents Deleuze's thought, for they both refer to Bruno as the great expositor of the theory of complicatio. Deleuze's be then as a vigilant pursuit of what can understood entire career can Brunian theme, be as a perpetual spiralling around great seen as a now formula in the the development this magic of shape complicatio of a 31/20); this Guattari 1980/87 (Deleuze MONISM" "PLURALISM = and formula is the basis upon which the DeleuzoGuattarian

philosophy of

intimacy the that is it the built, is peculiar generates seed and matter in intensity that individuation, singularity, the questions of of philosophy.

Elaborations on Materialism

154

Bruno. Philosophy, Creation

For Bruno

the hylomorphic

broken is couple

by rendering

form

immanent to matter, and different entities (formed matters) aspects of the singular

(it is from this that Spinoza derives his

substance

intensive understanding

is it the the continual generation of modes), of

form from within matter that is constitutive the terms of the critique

hylomorphism, of

Without of reality. using Hilary

Gatti assesses

Bruno's critique of contemporary science in a way that reflects some of its concerns, she notes that Bruno takes "the new mathematics [... ] as attempting

a schematic abstraction

formulae into static of matter

to imprison the vital vicissitudes

of universal

hence State science is characterised

validity"

(Gatti 1999 3),

as a mode of capturing,

of

hylozoic, to inert the vitalistic practice matter, contrary overcoding, an following singularity. of

Ilya Prigogine expresses this Brunian project as

being the quest of those explorers of the contemporary sciences who have understood the need to undergo the complexity revolution, abolition

the counterposition of

the

between being and becoming. For

for both has Deleuze this epistemological and ontological ramifications, "there is no other truth

than the creation

New: the creativity, of

first Bruno It is 191/147). 1985/89 (Deleuze provided who emergence" his in this, to sustain enough powerful picture an ontological it from to form is "when ceases that matter separated understanding Ordine, Nuccio 86). (Bruno 1998 is the matter" with case not exist, as Philosophy Bruno the Giordano the book of and in his remarkable on importance the Ass, is also cognisant of

Materialism Elaborations on

invention of

to philosophy,

155

4

noting

that

relationship

Bruno's

"concept of language

[... ] expresses a strict

with philosophy. Words and terminology become malleable

materials that are controlled and shaped to express a view of the world [... ] Bruno reaffirms the possibility of inventing new words [... ] `[Bruno's language, ' writes Ciliberto, `is an expressive reality [... ] The concept of] linguistic plane becomes interwoven with the essential planes of human history'"

(Ordine

1996 154). Gatti suggests that Bruno's critique of

language, principally genere), represents

in A General Account of Bonding (De vinculis in an attempt

to "demonstrate

the ways in which

language in all its forms acts on human behaviour, influencing and even (Gatti 1999 3), in other words, she attributes the enslaving will"

to

Bruno, albeit in very different terms, an account of the linguistic order Deleuze language Guattari's State to the the close and account of of as become demand Bruno's that one of overcoding. philosophy a creative endeavour

is enunciated,

his is metaphysics, as every point of

in

Ordine forges forged is in, and what parallel with a political critique, and language". Given Ordine's final that anti-pedantic

"structurally calls a

Science and Human Science: A `Nouvelle alliance"

`Natural chapter,

book Stengers' Ilya Prigogine's Isabelle the the to title of and of refers here he is it that is uncannily close perhaps not surprising same name, to what Isabelle Stengers has called the "the real risk of speculative thought",

that

"experimentation

is, the

creation

of concepts

which

permit

an

both habits ingredient the are at once of which our

Creation, invention 142). the (Stengers 1997b [cible]" target of and the demand for freedom being from is a of subjective the new, converted he Brunian immanence; to again a plane of yet embodying expression for things, inventors be the "we words new new wherever of will writes

Elaborations on Materialism

156

these words might come from. Let Grammarians be the servants of have "" words, we will words serve us.

Bin

Arguments

similar

is work peculiarly contemporary

Bialo

to that espoused here, specifically has and a particular

untimely,

that Bruno's for relevance

debates, have scientific come to prominence in various

ways in recent Bruno scholarship,

in particular

in work by Gatti,

Mendoza, and to a degree Ordine. Gatti offers a concrete genealogy to for this, suggesting that the interest in Bruno in the Romantic account his by Schelling Coleridge focused "vitalistic in period, particular and on concept of matter"

(Gatti

1999 141). She notes that in the late

Bruno "several one of commentators would consider nineteenth century the principal forerunners of an idea of natural evolution" and cites H. F. Osborn's 1894 work, From the Greeks to Darwin:

Idea to this effect, curiously

Development of the Evolution Vernadsky naturalists

thought

that

An Outline of the enough

Osborn was "one of the most eminent

Gatti 111). (Vernadsky 1998 time" thinkers goes of our and

on, somewhat unfortunately,

to claim that it is "interesting to think of

[Bruno] in reference to the newest biological discoveries such as DNA" (Gatti

1999 142). Unfortunate

because DNA is a peculiarly

bad

I to for that explain. attempt shall reasons example

for but debates, not Bruno is relevant to contemporary scientific The debates that to the problem Gatti's reasons, and not she suggests. has knowledge her is that no she Gatti's example with and account with Elaborations on Materialism

m=

of, what we have denoted as, the complexity revolution, connected to self-organisation. of science that is strictly

or of ideas

Gatti then, is committed to an account

pre-complexity.

unable to take account of the truly

As a consequence, she is

radical implications

Brunian of

ontology and cosmology which, as I have been at pains to point out, coincides not with the molar, overcoding procedures of State science, of DNA the which model is a case par excellence, but with Deleuze and Guattari's molecular destratifying whilst critique

final it. A critique of note of caution:

I have claimed that Deleuze and Guattari

carry out such a

they may not have been aware of its full implications,

as

Ansell Pearson makes clear "Deleuze does not appear to appreciate [... ] that his thinking

[... ] presents a fundamental challenge to some of the

core tenets of the neo-Darwinian

(Ansell Pearson 1997 129). synthesis"

Elements of a critique of the popular and scientific `myth' of DNA can be pieced together from varying sources. But first, the nature of the myth: principally

the deference to DNA as the overarching, all powerful

biological, for embodied all questions, physical and source of explanation in the immense investment of financial and institutional the Human Genome Project (HGP).

in resources

The HGP is perhaps the most

international prestigious and overdiscussed

scientific research project

HGP, The the that the in mapping entire of goal of existence. currently human genome has acquired, perhaps more than any other scientific AIDS, for discovery the beating the and cancer of cures even project, degree, in in Certainly to the holy popular, and some grail. a of status the scientific, imagination

the achievement of this goal is seen as some

human it for kind of panacea ailments: will enable a a cornucopia of

Elaborations on Materialism

158

cure for all genetic diseases, and reveal the solutions to a multitude the mechanisms

mysteries,

of

of aging and the nature of intelligence

amongst them (an excellent selection of essays on the various social and scientific issues involved is Kevles and Hood 1992). The elements necessary for a critique, of what is essentially the greatest coding problem

ever

set,

DeleuzeGuattari's transduction

can

be found

in

several

account of the mechanisms

which together constitute

creative involution,

and

becomings: or

a critique of the "vapid and foggy notions of the

Second, in "the post-Darwinian

recapitulation

of transcoding

multiplicities

innate and the acquired" (Deleuze and Guattari

[... ] as bricolage"

First,

places.

(Varela

1980/87 409/332).

conception of the evolutionary process

et al 1991 196), which

is in effect a

Deleuze Guattari's Third, the of of and account machinic.

in Vernadsky's

biosphere, distinction in the the account of which

between organisms and the environment is rigorously questioned, and the relationship bilateral,

between them conceived as thoroughly

and actively

that is a critique of the idea that "organisms are basically

Richard Lewontin (ibid. into 198). parachuted a pregiven environment" has expressed the idea thus: "the environment

is not a structure

imposed on living beings from the outside but is in fact a creation of those beings. The environment

is not an autonomous process but a

[... ] is biology there the the no organism without species of reflection of an environment, (Lewontin

is there no environment so

Varela in quoted

without

an organism"

Following 198). 1991 et al

from on

Vernadsky, Lynn Margulis has argued that one can no longer imagine a narrative

in, that life the organisms evolve and are planet such on of

formed by a given environment,

Elaborations on Materialism

rather there is a coeval relationship

159

between them: organisms make, just as much as they are made by, the This is a productivist

environment.

expressed by DeleuzeGuattari opposite terms confronting bipolar

opposites within

immanentist

vision, such as that

thus: "man and nature are not like two each other-

a relationship

not even in the sense of ideation,

of causation,

or

expression [... ] rather, they are one and the same essential reality, the Production

producer-product.

idealistic all

as process overtakes

categories and constitutes a cycle whose relationship to desire is that of immanent an

principle"

(Deleuze and Guattari

1974/83 10/5). In the

biologist Susan Oyama has radically downgraded the the same vein, by role played genetic factors in the characteristics "there

is no intelligible based)

genetically

and

distinction acquired

between inherited

(biological,

(environmentally

mediated)

[... ] What is required for evolutionary

characteristics

encoded as opposed to acquired traits,

genetically

of the organism:

developmental

is change not but functioning

(quoted in genomes" systems: ecologically embedded

Varela et al 1991 200). This metaphysical

prejudice on the part of

biologists had in fact been exposed much earlier than the foregoing by long Sorbonne, is in 1920's the that the that at would suggest, "in Vernadsky, far-seer, their that most of works who wrote neglected studying

disregard biologists indissoluble the the organisms,

living

living In the between the organism. surrounding milieu and connection studying

the

environment

[

organism

as something

quite

distinct

from

the

] they study not a natural body but a pure product of ...

their thinking"

(Vernadsky 1998 30). My argument here is designed to

heretical, the kinds partners these are minor sciences, of that of show non-mechanistic,

non-determinist,

Elaborations on Materialism

materialist,

Aristotelian anti-,

(and

160

by extension non-Kantian) cosmophilosophy explicit in the tradition derived from Giordano Bruno, here traced through Spinoza and and Leibniz, to Nietzsche, and thence to DeleuzeGuattari.

Antica

filosofia

Bruno, like Nietzsche and Deleuze, has taste for the a pre-Socratics, and, whilst charging Aristotle with distorting the teachings of the antica filosofia, he adopts from Heraclitus an ontology flow, of eternal of becoming, from the Stoics, Lucretius, and Heraclitus he takes again, the concept of the universal nous, immanent in the universe; and as if to ensure that no ambiguities his most unrestrained

remain, castigates "Aristotle"

attacks as "a thoroughly

in one of

and sophist, by his

malignant explanations and his frivolous persuasions, [he] perverts the statements of the ancients and sets himself against the truth" (Bruno 1998 91).

Political

Horizon

of all Metaphysics

Clearly as soon as one posits an animate matter, or one that generates form from within, "matter

have both Bruno Deleuze do, seen as we and a

[that] produces forms from itself, so to speak and does not

(Bruno from 1998 81), is them outside" one rendering the as receive metaphysical

question

intimate

with

the political,

initiating

questioning

for the a political regulator, philosophically need of

constitutes

a powerful

rejection of the viability

a this

of any transcendent

bottom-up the the championing of methods of control mechanisms, and

Elaborations on Materialism

161

self-organisation.

The thought of Brunian

matter then is cast as an

immediate attack upon any form of political authority and an affront to the established order, it is the thought of one "brave like Lucretius [... ] wrathful

human at oppression" (Nietzsche 1983 189). It is Bruno's

means of opening philosophy to an expanded zone of immanence, to a philosophy of expressive production.

Anima Mundi

In Difference and Repetition Deleuze calls Bruno the "theoretician

of

(Deleuze 1968/94 161/123), and it seems clear that The

complicatio"

Fold too is informed by him at certain crucial points, namely the idea that "Life is not only everywhere, but souls are everywhere in matter" (Deleuze 1988/93 15/11). This is Bruno's concept of plenitude and the immanent

hylozoism. The Brunian truly panzooism, mind. universal

revolutionary

discovery of Bruno's ontology: that matter is intelligent

be begun has intelligence to realised empirically, only now material, and in a neuroscience that takes its lead not from Kant, but from Bruno, Spinoza and Bergson. ' It is under the aegis of the latter that Deleuze "Intelligence can write:

is contracted in matter at the same time as

(detendt is expanded matter

in duration; both find the form that is

Current these 1991 89). (Deleuze them" to along research common but Capra "mind is thing by Fritjof thus: lines is summed up a not a process-

life [... Mind] the very process of

mental process-

is immanent

or, more accurately,

in matter at all levels of life [... ] The

in the the dissipative process participates organism of structure entire higher has brain the and a organism a not or whether of cognition,

Elaborations on Materialism

m

nervous

system"

(Capra

1997 68);

he goes on to quote

the

Candace Pert who argues that "'White blood cells are

neuroscientist

bits of the brain floating around in the body' Ultimately

this implies

that cognition is a phenomenon that expands throughout the organism, operating

through

integrates suggestion,

intricate an

our mental, by David

chemical network

of peptides that

biological and

The

emotional, Chalmers

activities".

and Andy Clark

in their,

as yet

`The Extended loose Mind', be from that unpublished paper, prised mind its

cranial

container

consciousness

takes

Pert

across the surface

further, even

and

spreads

For Bruno

of the world.

too,

for be localised body "spirit, in the consciousness cannot any one part of degrees life found fills is in in things soul, all and all matter" varying (Bruno 1998 45). Deleuze's explication of the "universe that has lost all be figure that attributed could centre as well as any 1988/93 131/124) is given in Bruno's radicalisation

to it" (Deleuze

Copernicus, the of

heavens him [in beyond the "far the ceiling of which] and above move (Bloch fixed left had latter the the to stars attached" which cracks, 1986 848). One important consequence of this radicalisation, of Bruno's is the Medieval the the new crystal spheres, conception of abolition of both be infinite that macro and can extended on universe picture of an micrological

described has this Lovejoy position as eloquently scales.

life, life "universal and of everywhere preying on parasitism, of one of the human body itself as infested with myriads creatures"

of tiny predatory

(Lovejoy 1978 238), a picture presciently paralleling

that

bacteria. biology the by of to of omnipresence contemporary us given

Elaborations on Materialism

163

Dead Matter

One of the central tropes of State philosophy attacked by Deleuze is representation, illusion"

principally

condemned as the "site of transcendental

(Deleuze 1968/94 341/265). For the purposes of our interests

here, crucial to the schemas of representation matter,

is its denigration

that is to say the genetic attachment

coupling

found

of

to the hylomorphic

in both the State sciences of control

and their

concomitant philosophies. To scrutinise this coupling opens us to an awareness of the antinomy in which matter is held in the different forms of the dominant philosophical tradition, "the `blessed' tradition of philosophical thought, that is to say, the tradition that justifies Power State" (Negri does, 1996b 61), it in varying the and exalts consisting, as proportions

Judeo-Christian of

theology,

Aristotelian

formalism,

Kantian schemas, and liberal politics, and the many varieties of what Bataille felicitously calls its "metaphysical scaffolding" (Bataille I 220). The antinomy, central to this scaffolding, in which matter is held is one in which it is taken to be, on the one hand inert, dead, only subject to motivation

impact the of an external under

force in one guise or

(consider form, Hebrew be Platonic it the spirit, ruah another, whether by dead Golem, the invocation the matter vitalised of now canonical life the the on other giving or subjectivity; words'), external addition of hand, matter is qui

simply

latter This is position e accursed, evil.

tradition in ancient a very embedded

stretching

from the Gnostics,

latter baldly Plotinus, is the that Augustine states through matter and dualisms in "evil to that the "primary evil" and principal se", and on per have dominated philosophical

Elaborations on Materialism

Descartes'. speculation since

It is this

164

determination

dead, inert, the the that forms then a as

of matter

centrepiece

of the,

philosophical

tradition.

ultimately

theological,

of the

architecture

Conversely the minor tradition

that Deleuze

invents and that is being augmented here, principally with the names of Bruno, and Bataille, is a philosophical heresiology committed to a thought of creative, active matter and the practise, actualised

virulent both

philosophically

singularities the inert.

following of

and scientifically,

immanent

as opposed to the imposition of transcendent plans upon These philosophical heretics have parallels in the sciences,

principally

Vernadsky,

Bateson, Margulis,

Kauffman. and

These

explorers

have recognised the value invested in the hylomorphic

structure

have taken and

shattering

its of capture

it upon themselves

of matter,

to engage in the

and to adopt the concomitant

adherence to monism, a vital weapon in detheologising philosophy and science and simultaneously ridding them of representation.

In such a

by forms State the thought of Bruno context, evaluation succeeding of heretic, Spinoza and as atheist, materialist

is clear, as is the elaborate

bound in "Matter", these terms together. are caught and weave which by Deleuze from Aristotle is taken philosophers notes

be to onwards

"already formless" such that "form is not separable from the model of the species or that of the morphe, and the whole is under the protection of the

internal

to

(Deleuze 1968/94 353/275)ffi. The reconstruction

of a

categories

representation" materialism

[... ] this

couple

is completely

be "the in Bataille's then, the name would words, worthy of

idealism, to amounts saying ultimately, which of obstinate negation

of

I (Bataille 220), this basis the very statement comes philosophy" of all inestimable for `Base beginning of value our project, of an article at the

Elaborations on Materialism

165

Materialism declaration

Gnosticism'. An inestimable for its and article, of value in basis the of a war philosophy on of the evaluation

its isolation

matter;

of the question

of matter

issue at stake in philosophy,

the theological

crystallising

of the status

of as

centring

around the equivalence of matter with evil; its speculations upon the utilisation

of a philosophy

of matter

in overturning

the "great

ontological machines"; and finally for its recognition of the importance Gnosticism of Plotinian

for have the the, as one of root sources seen, as we

doubly for Bataille is important equation of matter with evil.

this study: first as already noted for his construction of a materialism idealism to every residue of opposed

implacably

a tradition

traditions,

philosophical characterisation

Kantianism of

following course

Nietzsche

theological

prejudice,

perspective, perhaps

(Deleuze is "renovated theology" of as a

his unconscious

both

his moralistic

1968 § 530). Second, and

is his long term

with,

and

I. Vernadsky's (1863-1945)

The

engagement

in is Vernadsky made explicit engagement with

The Accursed Share

inaugurated

dogmatism,

Nietzsche

development of, themes in Vladimir Biosphere. Bataille's

that still accords to Deleuze's

here, for whom: "In the case of Kant,

dominant", were

more radical,

in the dominant

1937 in the 1946 article and of

that

`Sacred is Sociologie, College de that the semi-legendary

Sociology and the Relationships

between `society', `organism',

and

`being".

Inorganic

'stor'y

history inorganic, is the Bruno, there a of For both Deleuze and

Elaborations on Materialism

an

166

inorganic life of things, "nonhuman becomings" (Deleuze Guattari and 1991/94 200/213), such that all things, to use Plotinus's term, are contemplations,

not just humans and animals, but plants, rocks, even

planets, carve out a universe,

a specific series of affects that spins

them into being, that allows them to differentiate matter. statement

Recall

Deleuze

of their

Guattari's and

cosmophilosophy:

themselves out of

magnificent

speculative

"not all life is confined to the

organic strata: rather, the organism is that which life sets against itself in order to limit itself, and there is a life all the more intense, all the more powerful

for being anorganic" (Deleuze and Guattari

1980/87

628/503). A statement to which Bruno had seemingly responded, in that Talmudic fashion, with another equally great question: "How much hold from intellect that that, the interior of superior must we artistic the seminal matter, solders together the bones, extends the cartilage, hollows the arteries, airs the pores, interweaves the fibres, branches out the nerves and arranges the universe with such praiseworthy divine is " Bruno's is (Bruno 39). 1998 and pervaded cosmos mystery? by an immanent mind, there is no transcendent deity, and no telos for Bruno; what there is, is a grand ecological vision, matter in a process of self

organisation,

manifestations

prodigiously

throwing

forms, out new

new

(somewhat like the planet in Stanislaus Lem's novel

What Solaris). Bruno film Tarkovsky's the Audrey of same name, and intuited, what Leeuwenhoeck thought he saw through his microscope, a universal

parasitism,

beyond the and a smearing of consciousness

limits of the metaphysically legislated discrete organism, is affirmed in Mille Plateaux. "If everything

is alive, it is not because everything is

because is but, the the a contrary, organism on organic or organised

Elaborations on Materialism

167

diversion of life. In short, the life in question is inorganic, germinal, and intensive" (Deleuze and Guattari 1980/87 623/499).

I will now, in the final chapter attempt to bring some of the concerns of this thesis, and its projected Schizogenealogy to bear upon a key case: that of the very birth of modernity itself. The stakes are high here, for is is Kampfplatz that the shown what inscribed one

inception the at

is of contemporary philosophy

of the modernist

The project. war

be by immanence is to the contestation point, seen machine mobilised then as now, and it is one that simultaneously implications incalculable with philosophy.

Elaborations on Materialism

reveals and explodes,

the theological and political carapace of

chapter

Th

ter'

vi

Crystal S

from 'rolling th-e e:

I... toward centre Since Copernicus man has been rolling from the centre toward

x (Nietzsche 1968 § 1.5)

himself have to on an got man seems inclined plane- now he is slipping faster and faster away from the centre into- what? into nothingness? into a `penetrating Since Copernicus,

his nothingness"? sense of (Nietzsche 1969 III § 25)

be he have Therein we the reason why every man, whether on has the in the sun, or on another planet, always earth, he in impression that all other things are movement whilst he will certainly centre; his place of as according vary will which poles always choose In Mars the the is etc. the moon, earth, sun, existence

himself

is in a sort of immovable

be whose mundi there a machina always will consequence, is is circumference to whose everywhere, speak, so centre he is God is its for and centre and circumference nowhere, everywhere and nowhere (Cusa, De Docta Ignorantia

Bk. II, ch. 12)

169

Kant claims that his achievement in philosophy is the analogue of that Copernicus' in cosmology. Colloquially this carries the sense of of a major paradigmatic

shift in perception: since Kant is claiming for his

Critical

the status of a rupture

philosophy

with the past, a clean

break. The problem with this claim, however, is revealed as soon as one begins to examine the cosmological, metaphysical

Copernicus' becomes It then charge of work. apparent that

political Kant's

and concomitant

is not really

claim

as apocalyptic,

as cataclysmic,

or as

for the terms, conventions, limits and possibilities

revolutionary,

of

thought as he would have us think, or as conventional philosophical historiography

has claimed ever since. His claim is ultimately

in

Bataille's sense, comical. "No one can say without being comical that he is getting ready to overturn things: He must overturn, and that is line (Bataille 11199120/10). Put being in the thought all" otherwise, of followed here, Kant's thought is characterised as being a "renovated theology" (Deleuze 1983 93). In consequence, far from constituting the State-form "blast that the thought and would escape of a

invention

open the continuum

history" of

Kantianism

to be a clandestine

is taken

1973 Thesis XVI)',

(Benjamin

means of reinstating

transcendence®. The link between the State-form and transcendence is the compliment

to the intimacy

diagram of immanent intimacy different

critique and philosophico-political

is not accidental manifestations

transcendence'.

that can be explored in an abstract

Deleuze

but constitutive; through Guattari and

heresy, this

the State-form

history capture

is

sustained

in its by

the issue thus:

Being, State imperial in the is transcendence, "Whenever there vertical is is there there religion; and philosophy whenever sky or on earth, from `rolling X'... the toward Spheres: Crystal centre the Shattering The of

170

there

is immanence"

Guattari and

1991/94 46/43). An

of this abstract diagram of power and transcendence is

understanding the necessary Copernican,

(Deleuze

precondition

Kant's

of accepting

to being

claim

it does of course give that claim an entirely

negative or strictly contradictory

delimited,

different,

value. What is the force behind these Chiefly,

statements?

that

Copernicus'

revolution

consists merely in carrying out a cosmic swapping of places: that is to he Sun in the centre of the cosmos, where the Earth the say, places had been. Copernicus, in other words, replaces geo- with the still more heliocentrism, ancient for another, Ptolemaic

hierarchical trades thinking and one variant of

he leaves in place the clockwork

cosmos, preserves the crystal

mechanisms

of the

spheres, allows them to

floating in the ether, and allows them to continue playing the continue music that

resonating stupefied

had entertained

the subjected for a millennia

Despots and Popes, and half. This and a celestial

disrupted is intervention the symphony not until rude

of the apostate

Dominican of Nola, Giordano Bruno and his decision to stop listening to the "asses dressed up with diadems and hacks decked with rings under the title of doctors" (Bruno 1998 25)'. It is only with Bruno that the left definitively it is is the exploded, and medieval mind closed cosmos of to Bruno to venture the possibility of a way of thinking hierarchical,

the stratified,

necessity of thinking

and the vertical.

the world topologically,

other than the

Bruno announces the rhizomically,

and of

fluid the that complexity of such a reality, will reflect creating concepts an open conceptual structure,

acentric and connected each point to

lines, form by thought transversal a cosmos and a without every other a transcendent

Bruno it. to anchor proclaims centre

from `rolling the X'... Spheres: toward crystal the centre Shattering The of

an unstable

171

lacking hierarchy, value and direction, in which "meaning does cosmos limit itself, for wherever it goes, always and everywhere it is not visible at the centre of the horizon, whether it shifts its observation point on the surface of the earth or on the edges of the universe as it crosses other worlds" (Bruno 1879-9111204).

This clearly is a transformation

Cusa's dicta of quoted above that God is an entity whose "centre so to speak, is everywhere,

whose circumference

is nowhere",

into a

both statement with cosmological and epistemological ramifications. Ramifications

in which, contemporary

Smolin's statement relational;

that any description

cosmology, accord with Lee be "entirely of space must

there must not be any fixed or absolute structure of space"

(Smolin 1997 278)1. As Nuccio Ordine comments, in Bruno's hands "the old cosmological concept that relegated the `edges' to a perpetually falls to pieces, for everything can become the centre, marginal position every element

different can occupy a

Deleuze and Guattari's

(Ordine place"

1996 166).

here immanence is smooth space, or plane of

Bruno's in monistic ontological and epistemological perfectly prefigured Nietzsche's but is too vision, perspectivism'. so

When approached in

this way it becomes clear quite how these diverse doctrines are all derived from the destruction Bruno's

extension

of the cosmological,

implications epistemological, out the trajectory

of transcendental

by values executed

as well as ontological

and

limit, Copernicanism their to marking of

by the performed perfect nihilist

who comes out on

the other side of the inevitable event of nihilism.

Crucial to this trajectory is Bruno's adoption and transformation of the Raymond Lull, in Catalan the and polymath, mystic and system of from `rolling the X'... toward Spheres: Crystal centre the The Shattering of

172

particular

his of ars combinatoria,

cybernetic

machines

Combinatoria'.

via

its

Lull's breakthrough

so often cited as a precursor influence

Leibniz' on

of

De Arte

was to endow concepts with a new

fluidity and dynamism utterly alien to the Medieval world of hierarchies for Spinoza "the ideas and categories, as order and connection of writes is the same as the order and connection of things" (Spinoza 1985 E IIP7).

Lull

restraints

too postulates

from "the free in which, a new world

hierarchical the of

structures

The of medieval concepts.

in to relationships one another, concepts were now understood relative that were open because they could be reversed" (Roob 1997 287). Bruno's critique and development of Copernicanism is explicitly carried out

on the

simultaneously,

metaphysical,

cosmological,

and political

planes

indeed, as Negri insists in his reading of Spinoza, the

In Bruno 1994). (Negri 1991a is and political critique of metaphysics this identity

is performatively

demonstrated.

To trace out these

formation dissect the is to and origins, apparently obscure arguments by(a itself foundations modernity of conceptual philosophico-political its `postmodernity' terms is the that and this analysis product of describe to terms limited their a be to as origins cognates must particular

architectural

historically naive and

theoretically them are style; all other uses of

ill informed-

is unless of course one enamoured

idea that somewherethe going are we of

by virtue of their being

doctrine form teleology, or one or other of ineluctably tied up with one birth look this When to of at start we other of universal progress). to heart its the in so and find nihilism; of snake coiled modernity, we find Habermas, by distort, we made point a take up, and somewhat happened and every has again, and again, and birth again, that this X'.. from toward the `rolling Spheres: centre Crystal the . The Shattering of

173

time that the refrain of modernity is played it comes accompanied by nihilism: Nihilism

their

would appear to be symbiogenetic'.

relationship,

is a constitutively

productive element of modernity. It is the

recognition of the inevitable coming of this unwanted accomplice that composes one of the elements of Deleuze's understanding of Nietzsche, it he is "Nietzsche that and why says can think that nihilism is not an history in event

but the motor of the history

of man as universal

history. " (Deleuze 1983 152).

It is not, then, with Copernicus who, after all, "maintained the idea of an absolute point of view" (Stengers 1997c 40), that any sort of threat is posed to the terrestrial

its celestial order via an onslaught upon

but full Bruno. The import of this shift of attribution cognate, with considerable

has and nothing

to do with

correcting

is

Kant's use of

longer he ie that and other self-aggrandisers no suggesting metaphors, think

of themselves

and their

having the the status of works as

Copernican revolution but rather as being Brunian in their shattering by described is both This scientific and philosophical, revolution, effects. Alexandre Koyre as follows

the destruction

disappearance, Cosmos, is, the that the of

from philosophically

the of and scientifically valid concepts,

hierarchically finite, the closed, and world as a conception of by indefinite its ] [ an replacement ordered whole ... and by its bound identity is the together of which universe fundamental

laws, in these all and and which components

level being. This, in turn, the same of concepts are placed on from X'... `rolling toward the Spheres: Crystal centre The Shattering of the

174

implies

the

discarding

considerations

based

by scientific upon

thought

value-concepts,

of all such

as

harmony, finally perfection, the utter meaning and aim, and devalorisation

being, divorce the of of the world of value

from the world of facts. (Koyre 1957 2).

Bruno is acutely aware of Copernicus' limits, and notes them curtly, as follows:

he, Copernicus

"did not go much further

[away from the

common and vulgar philosophy] because he could not plumb and probe into matters to the extent that he could completely uproot unsuitable he did have [... be ] to and empty principles not sufficient means able to defeat

completely,

conquer

and suppress

falsehood

beyond

all

The first Copernicus' (Bruno 86). in 1995 print of resistance" mention heliocentric

thesis was with the publication

1514, this publication

his Cornmentariolus in of

long hiatus by followed in it which was a was

largely ignored, and when Bruno starts lecturing upon its contents and implications,

it is not as Copernicus' first acolyte and proselytiser, but

77), (Mendoza 1995 his first and as such, and most severe critic as before the world was able to absorb the implications bringing Bruno was already system, unfamiliar,

Copernicus' of

them news from a much more

disquieting planet: for barely had man been removed from

the centre of the cosmos, than Bruno was abolishing the concept of but Galileo Kepler, "Bruno and not only anticipated centre altogether. he passed beyond them into an entirely new world which had shed all the dross of tradition"

(Singer 1950 49).

demand Deleuze Guattari's that bold of and Bruno offers a precursor from 'rolling X'... the toward Spheres: Crystal centre The Shattering of the

175

philosophy be in accord with the formula "PLURALISM (Deleuze and Guattari against

both

intellect and

1980/87 31/20), as when he notes, explicitly

Aristotelian

transcendentalism,

MONISM" =

Platonic and

forms

dualism of

and

that "nature descends to the production of things,

ascends to the knowledge of them, by one and the same

ladder. Both ways proceed from unity to unity" (Bruno 1998 93)'. In this Bruno goes far beyond a naive empiricism and ventures close to a speculative

materialism

differentiation. immanence

in his promotion

Bruno

writes

of a monism of modal

is, in of what effect, the plane of

that it is "complicative

[... ] one, immense, infinite

and

being, in it is comprehensive of all and an explicative manner, present in sensible

bodies and in the potency and the act that

we see

distinguished in them" (Bruno 1998 93). He goes on to note that it is the "understand feeble it that the multiplicity mind cannot mark of

except

through many species, analogies and forms [... ] The premier intelligence (Bruno idea" 1998 in a single, absolutely perfect embraces everything 95). This places Bruno directly in the line of univocal ontology, beyond the Scholastic categories, and in touch with a certain nominalistic Aristotelian the critique of

architecture

of natural

species and of the

Lange's following by Nietzsche being latter The a critique adopted eilos. the instance "no is there same that at and empty of so such position time crass a superstition

few Species, there that are probably and of as

have in gone on rocking which men points baseless argumentations

themselves

with such

into dogmatic slumber" (Lange 1879 iii 27).

from X'... "rolling the toward Spheres: Crystal centre The Shattering of the

176

Bruno. Architect

of the Future

It is entirely predictable that any discussion of nihilism will have to begin with Nietzsche, and specifically with the writings collected as The Will to Power. Nietzsche's characterisation

is complex,

of nihilism

multifaceted,

and ranged over several levels, referring

ontologically

distinct

objects.

Without

wanting

to several

to attribute

to

Nietzsche a closed, totalising system, it seems that the constellation of does indeed knit together several of the most important axes of nihilism Nietzschean

To put it in his own words, Nietzsche sees

thought.

himself as "a spirit of daring and experiment [who] has already lost [its] labyrinth in every way once

future" (Nietzsche 1968 preface § 2) the of

he finds is there and what nihilism. diagnosis of nihilism

The sustained understanding

or

is in a sense the most successful actualisation of

definitions Nietzsche's is the the that role of one of of philosopher: as a diagnosis in the physician engaged of the sicknesses afflicting the world in which he finds himself, `the philosopher as cultural physician's. "But it is sick, this unchained life, and needs to be cured. " (Nietzsche 1983 120). The philosopher "soothsayer-bird

being a physician as well as

be must a

back "looks when relating what will come" spirit" who

(Nietzsche 1968 preface § 3), and what this soothsayer sees in this been "has toward is as a catastrophe", moving a culture which case, is the that advent of nihilism. catastrophe and

The describer of this

by this is a vision perfect nihilist, of virtue catastrophe

that is to say

the the has through experience of nihilism, conflagration gone one who behind, himself. has left Nihilism it outside and transcendent values, of immediate diagnosis is the of our then

past, and of our immediate

from X'... rolling the toward Spheres: Crystal centre The Shattering of the

177

present. As for Walter Benjamin, so for Nietzsche, both the past and the future are littered with signs, and speak "even now in a hundred (Nietzsche signs"

1968 preface § 2). The past is a transmitter

of

wisdom, and it is only the soothsayer who may read this

oracular

but Nietzschean like Benjamin's and Paul Klee's oracle; a soothsayer, history is Janus faced, he is orientated simultaneously angel of the future

towards "architect

and the past. It is only the soothsayer,

both the

future" (Nietzsche 1983 94), who knows the present the of

it is imperative that the sooth-sayer "looks the may who read oracle; back when relating what will come" (Nietzsche 1968 preface § 3), the philosopher

be beyond" "telephone from (Nietzsche 1969 the must a

III 5), and the news that he brings is that of nihilism. the coming of nihilism, unavoidable,

and our experiencing

For Nietzsche,

of it, is inevitable,

Nietzsche's in is it that much so order and necessary;

vaunted transvaluation

"must experience of all values may occur: we

had. We `values' find before these really out what value we can nihilism Diagnosis § " 4). (Nietzsche 1968 preface require, sometime, new values. the the revelation of and prescription: elements of etiology consists of cause

of the

sickness,

anatomisation

of the

symptoms,

and

for It is that these reasons precisely prescription of a curative solution. Deleuze notes that the "whole of philosophy is a symptomatology, and a semeiology",

and that

consequently

its object of study,

"phenomenon [... ] is not an appearance or even an apparition

the but a

force" (Deleuze in finds its an existing meaning which symptom sign, a his immensely is precise with each element of 1983 3). Nietzsche diagnosis of nihilism,

his less in so account and unusually perhaps, no

The two in the of than source precise elements. other its etiology of from )C toward `rolling the Spheres: centre Crystal The Shattering of the ...

178

nihilism for Nietzsche lies in Nicholas Copernicus' overturning of the Ptolemaic geocentric cosmology, and its replacement with the, in certain senses still more ancient, heliocentric model; as is all too familiar, the immediate consequence of this, is that "the faith in the dignity and uniqueness of man, in his irreplaceability in the great chain being" became "thing of a of the past", Copernicus' projection placed man on "an inclined plane" so that "now he is slipping faster and faster from the centre intoaway his sense of nothingness'

It follows

into what? nothingness? into a penetrating (Nietzsche 1969 11125).

from this that

the Copernican

revolution

be to needs

displaced from its principal position in the narrative of nihilism, "this long plenitude cataclysm"

breakdown, and sequence of

(Nietzsche

destruction,

ruin and

1974 § 343). As already noted, Kant prides

himself in carrying out a Copernican revolution in thought, he believes his own thought to be a seismic event in the possibilities, trajectories he believes his Critiques that and purposes of philosophy, represent a in shift philosophy

by Copernicus in that as radical as represented

his Chinaman Königsberg The is to of course entitled cosmology. of own Copernicus is it is that to that the the not problem self-assessment, bears his be to that name ought attributed, revolution the event that Kant believes himself revolution

hence that and

to be analogous to is not a

but a mere holding manoeuvre on the part of a faltering,

thought. of crumbling ancien regime

In light

issue the the of nihilism, above, of

when understood

as a

diagnosis of Occidental culture since roughly the late nineteenth from `rolling X'... the toward Spheres: Crystal centre the Shattering The of

1779

century

of faith

crisis

be must recast.

understood to be precipitated

Classically

it has been

largely by various developments in the

natural sciences, critically the Darwinian

from the top removal of man

of the chain of being, or rather the removal of that `chain' altogether, and the complete absorption of the ramifications `Copernican'

revolution:

the abolition

of the much earlier

of the geocentrism

of the

Ptolemaic cosmos. A single gathering wave from the sixteenth to the late nineteenth

However, the advent of nihilism

centuries.

be can

history in the refashioned as a constantly recurring refrain of thought. Understood as a persistent scepticism, and as a resolute rejection of all transcendent

values, nihilism,

understanding

is absolutely intimate

and at the same

of philosophy's role as a naturalism,

time a part of Nietzsche's

Deleuze's with

demand that philosophy

become both

immoral and historical. Although his work hurls countless accusations it is that philosophy, one can arguable and critiques against all prior isolate in Nietzsche two central reasons as to why "every philosophical architect

in Europe has built in vain" (Nietzsche 1982 preface § 3).

Kant's answer that the reason for this is the absence of a critique of ludicrous. is adjudged reason

The first reason, for Nietzsche, is the

by morality, eternal seduction of metaphysics truth, with preoccupation understand, Guattari

he in "succeeded making us against which

is creation,

not will

to truth"

(Deleuze and

1991/94 55/54). The demand for "historical philosophising" is

Nietzsche's failure

thought

and the concomitant

forms the the the to of generalised second of response

hitherto of all

existing metaphysical

is that that philosophy,

he is think[ing] "from and now as man they start out involuntarily him. They an analysis of

their goal through

think of `man' as an aeterna

from X'... `rolling toward the Spheres: Crystal centre The Shattering of the

180

veritas [... ] they will not learn that man has become, that the faculty of has become" (Nietzsche 1986 § 2)'. This is cognition clearly a charge that can be laid against Kant, who as we have already seen specifically counsels us to "begin with man as a fully formed adult" (Kant 1983 49), and who acts as if science is and always be Newtonian science will "thereby branded as impossible any opposition to and classical science that was not an opposition to science itself" (Prigogine and Stengers 1984 86). Kant is quite explicit motivation

about this, and it is clear that his

for such a position, and for much else in his system, is

derived from the necessity of resisting the implications of a philosophy has that of nature consistently Spinoza's intention

dethroned the sovereignty of man,

to treat man as if he were dealing with "lines,

bodies" (Spinoza 1985 E III preface) for example 100. Here is planes and Kant's most forthright

statement of the necessity of limiting science:

It is, I mean, quite certain that we can never get a sufficient knowledge of organised beings and their inner possibility [... ] by looking merely to mechanical principles of nature [... ] it is doing for to thought men even entertain any absurd or of so to hope that maybe another Newton may some day arise, to make intelligible

to us even the genesis of a blade of grass

from natural laws that no design has ordered. Such insight § deny (Kant 1952 75). to mankind. we must absolutely

For Nietzsche the event of nihilism leaves the way open for a chemistry in contradistinction of concepts and sensations, which ontological

and epistemological

to the frozen

eternal verities of metaphysics will

from `rolling X'... the Spheres: toward. Crystal the centre The Shattering of

181

recognise that

everything

has become: there are no eternal facts, just as

there are no absolute truths. Consequently what is needed from now on is historical philosophising

(Nietzsche 1986 §

2)

The dawn of nihilism then, construed as a thinking of "existence as it is, without meaning or aim, yet occurring inevitably without any finale of nothingness" materialism

(Nietzsche

1968 § 55), is a part

of that

that runs through Occidental civilisation

virulent

in perpetual,

destroying idols, ideals, the absolute opposition, pronouncing end of renouncing states, smashing superstitions, engaging in an indefatigable "practical

critique

of all mystifications"

from Sextus Empiricus

to Lucretius,

(Deleuze 1969/80 378/279), Bruno to Spinoza, Marx to

Nietzsche.

Kent's Secret Path

In this way, Kant's self-proclaimed attempt

be imagined as an revolution can

to cancel time; and the critiques

be can envisaged as a

back horrors hold dam built the to of a world without meaning, massive hinges interpretation (the its from torn most profound a world Hamlet's

time "out of joint").

Kant himself

is adamant

"concept of noumenon is thus a merely limiting

of

that the

[... is ] it and concept

A (Kant 255E 311) 1929 or therefore only of negative employment" determinedly even more

"it is not indeed in any way positive" (Kant

from `rolling Y... the toward Spheres: Crystal centre the The Shattering of

182

1929 A 252). The Kantianism

system then is a sea wall built to ensure

that "the voyage of our reason may be extended further than the no continuous coastline of experience itself [... ] a coast we cannot leave without venturing upon a shoreless ocean which II. ] compels us in the .. end to abandon as hopeless all this vexatious and tedious endeavour" (Kant 1929 A 395). In other words, to accept the decentring of man and the necessity of a transvaluation Cosmology

would,

for Kant,

of all values implied by a Brunian

unleash

once again the corrosive

speculations of those "sceptics [that] species of nomads" who "despising all settled modes of life, broke up from time to time all civil society" (Kant 1929 A ix). And that, needless to add, was not an option that Kant would countenance. Copernicanism was already conceptually and empirically mantle,

discredited, though as is evidenced by Kant's claim to its

not politically

foundations

and culturally

its shattered; empirical

redundant,

its ontological

by the suppositions superseded

Bruno's leaping imagination, scope of epoch

before its general even

later by Galileo Kepler. The the acceptance, and observations of and Vatican had in fact developed a far more perceptive assessment of the metaphysical,

ontological

and political

stakes

involved

in the

Copernican `hypothesis' than Kant ever did'°'. The Vatican's censorship body, the Index Congregation, characterised the Copernican enterprise "as simply consequence

doctrina Pythagorica" a didn't

find

(Lange 1879 i 232), and as a

it necessary

to place

the Book of the

Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres on the Index of proscribed books its 1543 three publication, and sixteen years years after until seventy "evidence Koestler is indeed there Bruno's shows of as murder, after Vatican" by Copernican ] in [... interest the theory the benevolent early

from `rolling X'... the toward Spheres: Crystal centre the Shattering The of

183

(Koestler 1959 155). The Catholic hierarchy then was fully cognisant of the fact that the threat posed by the Copernicanism of its author was minimal-

the old Canon Copernigk stayed in his isolated tower

and troubled noone, unlike the seemingly fearless Nolan driven by an furore, had both Apollinean and Dionysian dimensions "the eroico which former because it was a passion for truth and knowledge, the latter because it led to death and resurrection" harboured

no reticence

(Mendoza 1995 xxiv)' his disdain

about promulgating

for the

established order. The Canon, on the contrary was never persecuted, he was in fact feted, even encouraged, by elements reaching as high up the Vatican hierarchy as the Pope himself, and to reciprocate for this patronage,

it is the name of Pope Paul III that is found in the

dedications

Book Revolutions, the page of of

written

in June 1542

(Koestler 1959 176); it is in this dedication that Copernicus claims "in typical renaissance fashion [... ] that rather than presenting a novelty he was restoring

lost" had been (Gatti 1999 that an ancient wisdom

15). No such collusion occurs with Bruno, whose purpose is explicitly revolutionary

dogmatically destruction directed imposed the to of and

ideas and values. So if Kant can ignore Bruno, if he can write as if Bruno had never happened, and if he can pretend that the revolution keep As he intact. happen Copernicus the does old order can with really Nietzsche points out:

Kant, transcendentalists since daythe more won

have kind once of every

they have been emancipated from the

Kant them joy! a path secret showed theologians: what -by which they may, on their own initiative

from X'... `rolling the toward Spheres: Crystal centre the The Shattering of

and with all

184

scientific respectability, from now on follow their `heart's desire' (Nietzsche 1969 III § 25)

That is, they can sustain the existence of the transcendental without having to resort to the theological. They can garb themselves with the cloak of revolution

and simultaneously

reconstitute

different a

"regulative fiction", a new form of "police supervision" (Nietzsche 1974 § 344). In Nietzsche's judgement, then, Kant is subject to the rebuke that he had himself directed at those he dubbed `pretended indifferentists',

that they "fell back [... ] into those very metaphysical

assertions which they profess so greatly to despise" (Kant 1929 Ax). As has already been indicated tripartite,

Nietzsche's diagnosis of nihilism

is

the third part being prescriptive: for after the revaluation of

formation the all values comes perfect nihilist

The of new ones. programme of the

is inscribed, Nietzsche reminds us, on the title page of

his "gospel of the future" and it is "The Will to Power: Attempt Revaluation lives through,

at a

All Values" (Nietzsche § Nietzsche 1968 4), of preface indeed escalates, ("You ain't seen nothin'

yet"), the

drags from necessary event of nihilism, and something shining and new the catastrophic

wreckage,

the psychic detritus

having of

been

Christian for two thousand years. Unlike Kant, Nietzsche understands that the disarmed surreptitiously

depth charge dropped by Copernicus had been

retrieved,

rewired

depleted and given a uranium

by destructive Kant Bruno. immense power retains, claws warhead of back, the centre that

Bruno

transcendental, the standpoint of Humanist

had abolished.

In constructing

the

Kant reformulates the Renaissance

dignity, follow human Nietzsche, Kantian to the vision of

from `rolling Spheres: the centre toward X'... Crystal the The Shattering of

la5

supposition of the scientific human subject deciphering natural law, the subject of the critical

epistemology

for his man own self-glorification" Kantian

critical

enterprise

desire for centring

"was immediately (Nietzsche

keeps man in thrall

by employed

1990b § 106). The of the pathological

that still orders the healthy human psyche, the

"coming of Spirit apprehending itself" (Prigogine and Stengers 1984 89) in Hegelian

language, the psychoanalytic

Freudian the subject on

This drive for be there to couch. a centre is a veritable,

persistent,

Witness, for history languages the pernicious pathology. example, of of the self predicated

health they the as are upon equation of with

beauty balance, (vis ideas centredness, symmetry also conventional of the the to average of physical calculate and current spurious attempts based deviance face the the proportions of upon perfect features from a statistical

facial of

is This cauterised norm). pathology

at

furiously his by Bruno antitheological, relentlessly amoral, and source pursuit

figure lost has "universe that the all centre as well as any of

that could be attributed

to it" (Deleuze 1993 124). In philosophical

history there are two types of hermit or recluse: first is the voluntary like Kant, and second those condemned to exile, the heretical, Contrary outcast.

the

to his own belief that he is "a solitary by instinct

(Nietzsche in his found has and outside" aside standing advantage who belongs, Nietzsche latter truly that type 1968 preface § 3) it is to the

huntedlong Outcasts of society, persecuted and sorely Giordano Spinozas the and the recluses, enforced also become in the refined vengeanceBrunosend always § 25) (Nietzsche 1990a brewers poison of and seekers X'... from toward `rolling the Spheres: centre The Shattering of the Crystal

186

"The Philosopher's

Serenity

and Philosophy's

Achievement"

As has repeatedly been intimated, it will not be enough for Nietzsche to simply

recognise

Nihilism,

the necessity,

the repetition,

and the event of

beyond it, and take its implications on board in one must go

the task of creating new values. "Radical nihilism an absolute untenability

is the conviction of

highest it to the of existence when comes

values one recognises; plus the realisation that we lack the least right to posit a beyond or an in-itself (Nietzsche

be `divine'" things that of might

1968 § 3). The basis for this revaluation,

through, lies in a dizzying perspectivism

defiant and a cheerfulness

that enables one to approach the "gloom without involvement

and above all without

for this living

any real sense of

fear for any worry and ourselves"

(Nietzsche 1974 § 343). Related to this, and presumably with the just Guattari Deleuze Gay Science from in the and mind, quoted passage is commonly what make a very simple yet astounding comment about held to be the archetypal, the pinnacle, event of nihilism, that "for philosophers

neither

That [... I philosophers problems tragedy is astonishing.

atheism

they write

death God the are of nor

be death to the take a of god still

Atheism isn't a drama, but the philosopher's

Guattari 1991/94 (Deleuze and serenity and philosophy's achievement" 89/92, my translation).

Now this idea eliminates

whole currents of

both in thought, past and present analytic and continental philosophy, by by been the have the what past, burdened as they weight of God. This truly the philosophical of shadow Nietzsche on occasion calls, attitude,

described

by Deleuze

Guattari, and

f X'... the toward `roiling Spheres: centre Crystal om The Shattering of the

is precisely

what

Ig7

Nietzsche means by furor philosophicus and by cheerfulness, and Spinoza by joy. This cheerfulness is the only way to confront the "monstrous logic of terror" (Nietzsche 1974 § 343) by the entailed destruction of transcendent values, and of the consequences of `the death of god' Nietzsche says

They are not at all sad and gloomy but rather like a new and scarcely describable kind of light [... ] We philosophers

`free feel, hear the and spirits' when we

news that the `old god is dead', as if a new dawn shone upon heart us; our premonitions,

overflows

with

gratitude,

amazement,

expectation. At long last the horizon appears

free to us again, even if it should not be bright; at long last the horizon appears free to us again, even if it should not be right,

long last at our ships may venture

out again.

(Nietzsche 1974 § 343)

As we have seen, the most striking Copernicus is the restriction

Bruno's result of radicalisation

of

Canon's the of work to a mere cosmic

The Nolan, swapping of places. on the contrary, eliminates the entire its with armillary medieval machinery, hierarchies

fixed firmament, its spheres,

infinite, it with an and centres and replaces

acentric,

topological smooth space.

You will no longer say that there is an edge or limit either to the extent or motion of the universe; you will esteem the belief in a primum

mobile, an uppermost and all containing

from `rolling X'... the toward Spheres: Crystal centre the The Shattering of

188

heaven, to be a vain fantasy (Bruno 1950 361)

It is with this invective that Bruno admonishes those who hang still on to a medieval or even a Copernican cosmos, and he might have added Nietzsche with

Admiral and

would tremble

lot knew if I a more you where was taking

Turenne,

"You tremble, carcass? You you"

(Nietzsche 1974 277)108.It is this abolition of the cosmological primum had lead Bruno to the requisite perspectival and historical that mobile, Nietzsche for Two to that approach epistemology prescribes. options knowledge are posed in the aftermath

of the event of nihilism.

For

Nietzsche both must be avoided with equal vehemence, on the one hand, there is the stifling atmospheresuicidal-

Kantianism's of

relativism"

(Nietzsche

had Kleist that so made one

"gnawing and disintegrating 1983 140), an atmosphere

scepticism and in of scepticism

§ live" 84), (Nietzsche 1990b the the "no and other, on can one which its [which] in "belief truth appearance as a social makes pathological § Nietzsche's 91). (Nietzsche 1990b has [and] a moral origin" necessity but knowing, in dire "lies in both these to not options of response to One § 84). the 1990b (Nietzsche statements as clearest of creating" follows by is Nietzsche this as means what

For the plant the world is thus and such; for us the world is thus and such. If we compare the two perceptual powers we ie. be the to the correct one, more world of view our consider The ] [... the truth to the one that corresponds more closely natural mirror

by Thus the things is science. carried on process liberating themselves ever more clearly, gradually

X'.. from toward `rolling the Spheres: centre The Shattering of the Crystal .

189

themselves from what is all too anthropomorphic. plant,

the whole world is a plant;

For the

for us, it is human

(Nietzsche 1990b § 102)

It is a constant of Nietzsche's critique of Kant that the latter remains ahistorical,

that his philosophy

movement; without

is "entirely

for his [... 1 the time any eye actuality of way off

historical it to when comes great Directly

historical the outside

(Nietzsche § 1968 95,101). values"

tied to this is Kant's reinvention

subject, and the reinscription

human the of sovereign

of this subject in the centre of the

knowable cosmos though the invention of the categories of reason. It is basis for Kant the anthropocentric platitude, that this upon provides a is the measure of all things man

dismissed by Nietzsche as the

"hyperbolic naivete of man" (Nietzsche 1968 § 12), the quintessence of humanism against which Bruno had so diligently he posed with which

Nietzsche,

fought, and against

"smallness man's

and accidental

(Nietzsche 1968 becoming flux in the and passing away" of occurrence § 4). Similarly epistemological

Michel

Serres has emphasised the ontological

flattening this consequences of

Medieval the of

hierarchy of being on a cosmic scale thus

Nothing

distinguishes

me ontologically

from a crystal, a

drifting the the are we world; of order or animal, plant, an depths black the the the toward of together noise and flowing diverse are complexions systemic our and universe, itself the toward adrift origin, solar the stream, entropic up being. itself, [... I this is complexity which was once called

from X'... toward `rolling the Spheres: centre Crystal The Shattering of the

and

190

(Serres 1977/82 272/83)

Since the result of nihilism is the recognition of the destruction of man's privileged

the acentric, valueless, non-hierarchical

position within

entanglement that is the world, and that Nietzsche warns against and actively

seeks to circumvent,

the possibility

that his analysis, his

diagnosis of nihilism,

be taken for a merely negative platitude; he will

writes that "nihilism

is not just a collection of speculations around the

theme `all is in vain! ': it is not just the thought that everything deserves to be destroyed: the nihilist 102/§ 24, my translation),

helps to destroy" (Nietzsche 1968/95 §

ds. 104 having destroyed, rebuil. and

X'... from `rolling toward the Spheres: centre Crystal The Shattering of the

conclusion

Towards a Schizgg!2nealoLrv

192

I have tried, throughout unbreachable,

this thesis to insist upon the radical, and

chasm that exists between, on the one hand, Deleuze

DeleuzeGuattari's and

heretical materialism, and on the other hand, the

that dominate philosophy. The differences exist on many

traditions

levels as I have endeavoured important,

least at

for

to articulate,

my

proposed

but perhaps the most project

of creating

a

Schizogenealogy, to which this is merely a prelude, is one that appears level the on of affect and that directly grows out of the conclusion of my last chapter.

Deleuze and Guattari are not unique in pointing to the event of nihilism, indeed this is common to most of their erstwhile contemporaries; where they are unique contemporary

though,

is in their

French philosophy,

dominated

by a thought

rigorously

describing in refused,

mourning;

non-mourning

For to this event. response

Anglophone its reflection, and

of mourning,

a thought

is

that Deleuze has

his own work as "not a work of

takes even more work" (Deleuze 1990/95

118/84). He goes on to further displace his project: "I've never worried (Deleuze death beyond the of philosophy" metaphysics or about going 1990/95.122/88), Guattari

finally, and

in their last joint work, Deleuze and

declare that "we have never been bothered with the death of

idle just it is pointless, metaphysics or the overcoming of philosophy: incoherencies [d'inutiles,

de penibles radotage]" (Deleuze and Guattari

invitation is Deleuze that The an offers 1990/95 14/9). philosophy life, to the active continuation

to

inventive its to creative, of philosophy,

becomings hybrid. In active opposition to the philosophy that throws the the sciences in of superior grasp hands supposed its at surrender up

Towards a Scbizogenealogy

193

on truth,

and that mourns the loss of certainty brought about by the creative destructions of immanence's struggles with transcendence, philosophical (Deleuze

thought

for Deleuze "is creation,

Guattari and

actualising,

of virtual

philosophy

that

not will

to truth"

1991/94 55/54). It is the invention, potentialities

is sought

and

from the texts of science and

by a Schizogenealogy,

a positively

constructive task, a rebuilding from the ground up, as Marx, Nietzsche, Deleuze and all suggest.

The approach that I have adopted here, and the readings offered, are an attempt at an original and innovative intervention

into the reading of

our philosophical modernity. The thesis' novelty and radicality then is triply marked. First by the attempts to produce materialist readings of Bergson, Spinoza, Bruno, and to a lesser degree, of Schelling which would

vitiate

determinism

the charges of vitalism,

idealism,

mysticism,

and

in However, their which prevail reception. such readings

for the sake of hermeneutic are not carried out

superiority,

nor to

ascertain the truth of these texts, nor finally are they arbitrary, rather

these readings

seek potentialities

but

that can be actualised,

be build in that to the assembled a elements can war machine active terrain of philosophy. This is not done with etymological investigation, syntactical

boldness,

grammatical

invention,

or typographical

Guattari's Deleuze (I techniques rejection of such and noted cleverness in the first chapter, see 1980/87 33/22), but rather by seeking those moments

where a philosophical

perhaps most significantly, references

to Bruno

Towards a Schizogenealogy

opposition

Second, emerges. and

I have, by locating the few, very brief

in Deleuze's

work,

been able to: shift

the

194

framework in which the latter is seen; demonstrate the crucial role and that Bruno

plays in the organisation

heretical of

of the tradition

The discovery of Bruno, the revelation of clear Brunian

materialism.

influences upon key figures in Deleuze's genealogy (Spinoza, Leibniz, Nietzsche, Schelling, arguably Marx, and indirectly the latter's

Bergson through

for, Plotinus),

close study of, and admiration

is doubly

leads introduction this to the third major claim. It is argued critical, and that a Schizogenealogy severely contests the dominant construction of in terms of a generalised acceptance of, and reverence for,

modernity

the projected founding break made by Kant's self-declared `Copernican' (indeed, the very word `revolution' is historically

revolution

bound up

displacing, limiting Copernicus). The the radicality of result of and with Copernicanism,

Kantianism, thereby and

tradition

powerful

of ontological

for the rescue of a allows

materialism

"wrest it tradition to obfuscation, enables us

from

deliberate

from away a conformism"

(Benjamin 1973 Thesis VI) that has very nearly convinced everyone of its power. The retrieval of the conceptual innovations of this tradition, and their mobilisation hitherto

closed continuum

configuration homogeneous Philosophy,

for an explosion in the

opens the possibility

history,

of contemporary

"it gives that

"blast the to of out a specific era a shock" allowing us history" course of through seen

(Benjamin

Schizoanalytic

1973 Thesis XVII).

is eyes, stratigraphic

figures in the retrieved time which coexistence" of grandiose

"a and

by State thought, them to image from our all are the given rescued brighter light is dead "like luminous whose stars points contemporaries, 59/59). Guattari 1991/94 than ever" (Deleuze and

Towards a Schizogenealogy

195

It must also be insisted, and I have done so often, that contrary to `good sense' and to doxa, philosophy

is the site of war; it is not a polite

exchange of opinions, the "Western democratic, popular conception of [... ] providing pleasant or aggressive dinner conversations", philosophy has a conception which never "produced a single concept" (Deleuze and Guattari 1991/94 138/144,12/6). Philosophy as it is understood here, identity the with of ontology and politics, is the privileged site of political highest the conflict, at which stakes are raised. Recall that, as we saw in the chapter

Bruno, on

the philosopher

"puts their

work

and

lives is their that this in the sometimes at risk", and most seen sharply burning immanence, "the issue of all philosophy because it question of takes on all the dangers that philosophy

must confront,

all the

condemnations, persecutions and repudiations that it undergoes [... I the immanence is not abstract or merely theoretical. It is not problem of immediately

dangerous, but is It immanence it is. engulfs clear why so

Guattari (Deleuze 1991/94 47/45). and and gods" sages

The philosophy

Schizogenealogy in a explored

is not a discipline

immanent active,

is it from the militantly world, abstracted

to the

discussed in brain the identity in the world so eloquently of and world, the of second

two books

Schizogenealogy singularities thought

on cinema.

heretical of

Here,

materialism,

in formulating

I have sought

a

those

doxa, break with where a where philosophy actualises a

immanence wrests a materialism of

by it metaphysics. upon emplaced materialism

I have tried to show that a pragmatically

always actualises philosophical

cacoethes, an uncontrollable

Towards a Schizogenealogy

from the image forced

revolt, it is a

harmful. Deleuze for asks, something urge

196

for whom is philosophy harmful? He claims too, that it is not clear why immanence

is so dangerous. I have tried to shed some light on the

diagram dangers immanence, in to the to this the second, of put or terms of the first question, to show that the harm, the damage, that immanence can do, is to the thought of the State, to the "tradition that justifies Power and exalts the State" (Negri 1996b 61), to the powers of mystification,

the to transcendent. and

Towards a Schizogenealogy

appendix

Georges a

in Platonism 12 May 1947), 1°5 .

'Mna

198

I have chosen to include this piece for a number of reasons, reasons identical to those which drew me to translate it in the first place. In this lecture, I see Bataille doing something both akin to, and quite different from, what I am trying to achieve on one level. That is his attempt to treat, in a direct and unmediated fashion, metaphysical and ontological first foremost As is suggested in the questions as and political ones. first

footnote

aftermath

to the piece, this talk

Holocaust, the of

concentration

in immediate the was given

"diabolical the of

organisation

of the

destruction (Deleuze 237/207), 1985/89 the of of camps"

Europe. Given in a city barely free from Nazi occupation it represents one of the earliest

to discuss philosophically

attempts

that most

discuss "the death, the to of world of mechanised momentous eruption concentration territories

"operates

camp" which

by numeration as

lineages by as much

and

[and in which] The question is not one of

Guattari 486/390). 1980/87 (Deleuze but bad and of specificity" good or Furthermore,

it is a particularly

the achievement of of example virulent

demonstration that the "great the post-war philosophers and writers", "thought

has something

to do with Auschwitz"

(Deleuze 1985/89

history. In life this immanent is to piece thought 239/209), and that and Bataille

how internal "the shows

the external and of memory sheets

layers of reality will be mixed up" (loc. cit. ). It is intriguing

then, that in

French in Holocaust debates the philosophy the about extensive all of Bataille in initiates it that that this piece and the series of arguments A figure. principal never

lies its in I for this, would suggest, reason

its immanence, the concomitant and fearless approach to question of dominant traditions the of theological of nature the critique of issue the to this then, at very raised an In returns a sense philosophy.

Bataille-

Sadism' Platonism in and `Evil

199

start of this thesis. For Bataille

focuses questions about death and

breaking the matter as point at which a counter-tradition

singularises,

it takes the eruption of immanence as the starting point of philosophy, and treats the event of nihilism,

the conflagration

of transcendent

but `deaths `ends of, values, not as a site of mourning of so many of and beginning the as

heretical in philosophy of philosophy, of an always

immanence.

Bataille-

Sadism' Platonism in and `Evil

200

We can interpret the common assumption that we currently live in a deep disorder in several ways. ' We have forgotten, in state of moral particular, that those contemporary ethics, upon which behavior and judgements are founded, are based upon very dualisms in the ancient realm of principles.

It was once thought,

and perhaps it still is, that the world sets two

principles against each other: the principles of matter on the one hand and of spirit on the other. It is not generally conceded that matter is held to be evil and spirit, good. It is, I think, nevertheless, the general tendency of all religions -- the major religions at least hold to matter -to be evil, and spirit, good.'

I don't want to start out from quite such a crude schema however.

In spite of being unable to accurately

attribute

this more precise

to Plato, even though it has subsequently

formula

taken on more

following fairly to the proposition a solid value: meaning, one can give the good would not be spirit, it would not be the idea, it would not be be be but it the the government of reason; and evil would reason, would fact that reason is governed by matter, if you like, and with regards to behavior, by the passions. According to this Platonic conception, evil is instantiated

dominated becomes by the the reason when moment at

' passions.

diametrical in I think that one can establish an absolutely and a sense inevitable

Bataille-

Platonic between to this notion and a principle opposition

`Evil in Platonism and. Sadism'

201

Sade, doesn't he directly, though it which even express gave a gripping form, when, in Philosophy

in the Bedroom, he depicted the death

penalty as the most indefensible

his he had, in though act, even all

depicted the murder of others as, one can hardly put it work, only otherwise, the good.

Nevertheless

he condemned the death penalty as a principle. ' For

Sade, a punishment that implies the unleashing of the passions cannot be dealt out unemotionally.

It is unacceptable to Sade, to unleash one's

him" degree kills to that such a one passion on a man

because simply

because demands it. judge it reason or a requests

I think it difficult at best to oppose the two principles which I have just

judgments in implicit Platonism the those to and a part of ascribed Bedroom. in Philosophy in formulates Sade the which

We are not at present, overly troubled by ethical questions. In general, justifiably and perhaps

by very crude, very vulgar we are governed

being be, the hold to We the the moral, nice, judgments. whole, on good, harming law, is the living in behaving well; and not accordance with it is being

others,

family a good

duty doing one's man,

in all

fellow the citizens"'. of one's esteem and earning circumstances

difficult it is is It clearly conceivable, and contrary,

but ultimately,

to seriously protest to the

be the the posed with good question of can

It family that the seems etc.? man to good of as questions such regard do for difficult to so, and an extremely simple reason: to me extremely

Bataille-

`Evil in Platonism and Sadism'

202

that is, if we do good in the current sense, for whatever reason, it is because there is, in so doing, a good at stake that follow we must either or not, and this good cannot be the action itself, but only that for which the action is carried out.

In this respect it seems to me that religious perspectives are rich, when compared to the emptiness of the ideas held by those who live now and In the religious are moral.

perspective, the issues at stake are: the

God. is, From this moment on, one can no longer say that it is that good, be to pointless concerned with this or that fact, that it is senseless on its own but only in relation to other things. At this point one would no longer be able to say that other things would be nothing: there is no God. is there nothing,

But you will go along with me when I say that God is dead, and such

that it is difficult to be more dead (d'etrepl us mort). " What, from here on, is the meaning of the ethics that we follow? The indefinitely question of good conduct concerns us

to regards an with

for to to I come an everybody agreeable state of affairs. am quite willing be fact that an agreeable state of affairs must agreement around the he he that tells but us will we still condemn our neighbor when sought, be Will beyond he is damn doesn't give a we such a state. going and that kind him that doom the to to moral that of abjection moment able, at approbation

brings to bear upon anybody who ceases to behave in

Is law, that in to the good sense? and even conformity conformity with deaf is justified to reason sort of anger which

Bataille-

`Evil, in Platonism and Sadism'

has to one simply when

203

reproach a man for not having acted in conformity with reason? "

This seems to me all the more questionable because it is difficult

to

imagine that reason commands all of men's actions in a general way. That man is not reducible to reason, is something that poses itself again in relation to the difficulty that I was just discussing. When I say that it was necessary to propose that acts taken as moral have an end that transcends them, in the sense that if we are entirely reducible to reason, it would be impossible for us to carry within ourselves an end which

transcends

reason, which

be would always a principle

of

behaviour, that is, a calculation subordinated to a subsequent end but is from which one never given, apart at the moment at which one deifies it. But is deified reason exactly reason? This is what I am going to attempt to examine now.

In principle,

in idea theology the the one can encapsulate entirety of

that reason is deified, because the notion of God is quite precisely founded upon the principle that reason is divine, and on the principle that the divine being, the divine essence, is reasonable.

I don't find it particularly longer

finds

it credible.

helpful to carry on talking about God if one no There

is evidently

something

in these

discussions that some people are ready to uphold: I don't know if it is because, here, being trouble the after all, when one of cautious worth has done with the notion of a reasonable God, one is forced to succeed in turning

God into, I don't know if one can put this in any other way, a

kind of overthrowing of himself, X14 an overthrowing

Bataille-

`Evil in Platonism and. Sadism'

this to that which of

24

notion is condemned to adhere, to that which it is bound up, particularly in the experience of mystics.

But everybody knows what a mystic is: it is someone who refuses to himself to any argument which transcends itself in advance. As confine it is a consequence, perhaps unnecessary to waste too much time on their opinions.

But, if we are now able to dissociate ethics from the divine, if to be more precise, we can dissociate reason from the divine, the deep covenant upon which

based decidedly broken. is is We find moral outrage

in ourselves a situation that is entirely open, entirely new. On the one hand we surrender ourselves to ill considered judgments, and on the longer have lose other we no anything spiritual: we meaning, the reason for which we act; we no longer know what the point is when we say that for longer know is it is the thing good. good which one good, since we no

To find oneself once again in this kind of labyrinthine unfortunately

is it problem,

historically. What things to take we up again necessary

division fundamental is the of origi.nary and must question, of necessity, the two principles,

spirit

and matter.

As long as that division

is

is, there regardless of what one says, a superiority of spirit established, over matter, and spirit acquires every conceivable superiority, namely, divine, hand the the the and on other, reason. one on

But, this dualist

division is extremely

fragile.

One can see that in

be divine the to the the considered of must notion as reducible principle,

Bataille-

`Evil in Platonism and Sadism'

205 Zm=

sacred. Now, it is quite apparent that in its origin the notion of the sacred cannot in any way be reducible to reason: hence there is a possible slippage between the two notions. The fact that the sacred is be to transcendent, that it is beyond this world, in excess of understood everything, that it is totally other, means as a consequence that it has some relationship in principle with the world of transcendence taken as the world of reason. "5

It is perhaps the most fragile part of the edifice upon which the entirety human in thought the sense that one can say in the simplest, of rests, clearest way that the sacred is precisely the opposite of transcendence, that in fact the sacred is precisely immanence.

The sacred in both its simplest and its most evolved forms is always be is the to sacred essentially communication: rediscovered, something it is contagion. ll6 The sacred exists at the moment when something be, is be, it stopped unleashed, and which must although which will not is going to destroy, which

takes the risk of tampering

with,

the

established order.

The sacred, if one wishes to pay it sufficient attention, can be simply reduced to the unleashing unleashing

is it this And it is that evident of passion.

For is Plato it is to that reason. most contrary of passion

in be the that governance of reason, placed under which must precisely if, the that moment, government at any such a way begin. by this unleashing, evil would exceeded

Bataille-

`Evil in Platonism and Sadism'

of reason was

g06

This immanence of the sacred finds itself completely inverted in the evolution of religions, the reason for this can be quickly seen: the sacred itself to the profane, and it is this opposition of the sacred to opposes the profane that introduces

a transcendence. If one passes from the

profane to the sacred world, one does so by a leap: there is no other way to introduce immanence. But at this point it is necessary to ask what it is that is signified by the profane world in relation to some precisely principles that I am about to discuss. "

It seems to me that the profane world is quite precisely reason. Reason, it divine it whether one admits or not, whether one calls or whether one ignores

it, is essentially

equivalent

with

the profane,

is reason

introduces far in it the that essentially calculation equalities; and as so is this calculation, in so far as it introduces equality, it is that which is totally exterior to us, it is totally exterior to us when we are alive, when foundations into the of our selves. we plunge

in a different

is there a way,

If one wishes

to present

transcendence

belongs to to the objects, exactly profane which of

things

from is An us. completely separated everyday object everyday objects. This table upon which my hand is resting, is as perfectly separated from me as I could wish; there is no possible contagion between this table and me, unless one introduces

irrational some

concept, which

introduces that table over there perhaps: I don't know. "8

But you will concede that it is easy for me, having this table under my from follow the that to that the hand, to point out myself all principles

Bataille-

`Evil in Platonism and Sadism'

207

the equality

stability,

of this table with itself, transcend me at the

same time as the table transcends me, that is to say that it is totally exterior to me, that is to say that this flow of life which I am cannot "9 it, enter and that it presents a resistance that is inherent to it owing to the fact that it is not me, because it is before me as an equivalence (egalite) with itself.

If you have followed me in this account of the constitution of the world if is transcendence, the the and world of constitution of of reason, which it shows you that at a given moment, owing to the fact that the sacred it its the through transcendent profane, relationship with appeared as became possible - given that the sacred had a great value and that bestowing to merge value a great on reason simultaneously one was -(confondre) them transform

reality,

by an abuse of language, but which

which

can perhaps

leave intact. it can perhaps also

It

became possible to merge them by an abuse of language. And at that divinity God had the the of reason. and of concept one point

It became apparent that this unleashing of the passions which could have been found in the sacred, found itself chained at this point. in the but is it God, sense in is same Perhaps there still passion passion Since is it dog dog is chained. that when even that one can say a still a In itself. this to for God's release God is reason, there is no way passion it since mine, with accord will sense perhaps mystical experience to an from way the sacred one must give demonstrates that to proceed from the in one to sacred, proceed order since unleashing, unlimitable limits the of boundary, to kind consider break cease of every must

Bataille-

`Evil in Platonism and Sadism'

20

as possible. But, once again, isn't it evident that at this point God dies? Isn't it obvious that by separating oneself from the basis upon which his identity with himself was founded, his nature it vanishes, ceases to be the guarantor of life that we had become used to thinking it was; insofar as we attach ourselves to this tradition, by reason or of morality

covering over an abyss into which we sink voluntarily,

or precisely into

which the mystic needs to sink because it is necessary for him to himself separate entirely from this world of reason which is for him precisely just that which he can hate.

In this sense, the mystic, seems to me to open the way to Sade, and it is not by chance that, in an experiment which has been carried out in multiple

forms, even sensual passion, the most brutal passion, the

have been most vulgar passion, always combined.

been through

Having

this experience it is scarcely credible that

hope, for instant, to return to a world, in which anybody could even an tables stand and in which one is obliged to submit to the tables simply because we all want them to stand. And for the tables to stand, there ' be but thieves, must not only police!

Once we have acknowledged this disappearance of God, we go beyond. Once God is unhinged'

from the frame where theology, positive

theology at least, had fixed him, we are longer confronted by that which I was just calling the sacred, a name which is perhaps purely pedantic, is ultimately and which ultimately

Bataille-

just the unleashing of the passions, which is

the world that Sade had depicted and which nobody wants

`Evil in Platonism and Sadism'

-a

becauseit is frightening.

It is clear that these ideas don't make life any easier. As soon as one loses that control once exerted over reason by the sacred, ' human possibility

disappears as it were, it becomes somewhat blurred. Once

he has absolutely

lost control of reason man ceases to be man: he

be And it is natural that an objection should arise, as it is mad. would quite natural that man should continue indefinitely

like a dog forever -

behave its tail to to that chasing well, men simply so other continue behave well; so that there exists a world of good conduct which would indefinitely

be this that to chase after something good would contrary

behavior.

However, I don't know if fear can be considered by man as the last obstacle, whatever

this to appear when expect one may resistances

fundamental know is it to that "fear" is mentioned, one may also word Inhering in his fear. least be to if then to overcome at afraid, man, not is fear. This him in to to is that response give never urges a voice man continually

doubtful for in often all sorts of random acts, and given,

reasons.

he is himself in that to not subject But man needs to prove every way fear, that he beyond is in the final even, that and to fear in a end sense, he fear by he is long he only exists beyond fear, because as governed as is not yet a man.

fear, the in to very in at But if it is true that general man cannot give

Bataille-

`Evil in Platonism and Sadism'

2Q

least he indefinitely

postpones that moment when he will have to

himself his fear. He indefinitely the confront with object of that

moment

bereft when,

postpones

both help the of of reason that

God

help God that that reason guaranteed, man finally guaranteed, and of of finds himself confronting his own naked image.

It is necessary to step back, but it is also necessary to leap, and has back. leap better, first in to take to order a step one perhaps

It seems to me in this regard that Sade's example is one of the most impressive,

because one cannot say that Sade hadn't leapt! ' And I

think that even if one wants to consider carefully a reality like that depicted in Sade's work, one must acknowledge that it surpasses us in One Hundred his in to the and own world man able recognise every way: Twenty Days does not yet exist. '

There is in this brutality

limit, the take that cannot cognizance of

leaping in before hesitate case. every one which makes something be the Sade's precise Perhaps, considered as cruel representations can definition of the leap that it is necessary to make, in the sense that one in Sade leap kind that represents is not necessarily bounded by the of fantasies. terrifying living the actions of his characters out their most the behavior follow these exactly, But if it isn't necessary to characters in indicated is behavior by demonstrated their sufficiently surpassing depth. ' by its instance every

that in the way If it is unnecessary to set about treating one's neighbor

Bataille-

`Evil in Platonism and Sadism'

211

the characters in One Hundred and Twenty Days do, is it necessary to liberation that grant moral marked

that I have just evoked, the distance

by Sade's out cadavers? From a certain point it becomes

impossible

to joke. It is impossible

to joke precisely because the

because is the the unleashing of unleashing of passions at stake, and the passions is the good, which has always known how to incite men in the way that we have seen, which has given them licence to behave with unprecedented

brutality,

whilst

they reduce the good to the

impoverished things that we are familiar with.

The unleashing of the passions is the only good - this is the kernel of is from had have I the this to point when reason no evening -say what longer divine, from the moment at which there is no longer a God. There is no longer anything which for us can merit the name "sacred, " which the " "good, than the the passions. of unleashing other name merits

What is the meaning of our activities? What does the train of thought What the is the following been have of work meaning that we mean? which

These things do in to eat? order we must

always signify

before like that a beyond the places one carrot us, something placed have We led if forward donkey when one wants it to move on a rope. as for more us but the matters to nothing when point stop at no choice for us than that which is free, at the point when nothing matters more

than what exists at that moment. because in this however, the to argument, It is possible see weakness have I it, have I it, of spoken I soon as and as speak of when

Bataille-

`Evil in Platonism and Sadism'

212

subordinated my life to something that was not immediately present. I cannot pretend, even when I raise my voice a little, that I am unleashing my passions here. Standing before you, I am not in the least bit unleashed. I am precisely chained. And I when raise my voice, it is perhaps nothing but a wailing (gemissement), because there is no other for find to the phrase that corresponds to my will. I am way me amongst you searching, but knowing that as long as I search with you I be limited by the research that we can do together; and that will limitation will remain such that the research be but will nothing a research and in no way will its object appear before us.

In order for this object to appear before us, it would at least be

do to necessary what is unacceptable when we engage in discourse, because it is discourse that concerns us at the moment: it would be necessary for me to speak like a poet. I would have to forget that I had have I become to to to something say you. would wrapped up with before forget live but to myself you, you and nothing my madness.

Still, if I were to do it, I would not be able to be sure of success, because

kinds burden, itself is I to poetry subject all of and think that the demands which have been made are of a character that shows the I weight of which am speaking.

All the work which developedto give poetry back the freedom which it is losing at every instant, marks the distance that I have said must be leap be but This to leap. by when poetry claims can poetry, a cleared leap at the moment it evaluates itself, when it sees the leap that must

Bataille-

`Evil in Platonism and Sadism'

213

be made, and when it has not yet destroyed everything, then poetry is also the powerlessness of poetry.

I'll stop speaking now, but will answer any questions that you might

have.

Bataille-

Sadism' Platonism in and `Evil

211

J. WAHL: It's obviously very difficult to respond to such a talk, but rd like to invite someoneto start the discussion. even so, I am going to say a few words, but it is very difficult, becausethe most formidable objection that I could make to Bataille be to say: would evidently, you are right! In which case, whatever I would say... BATAILLE:

I think that I had this objection in mind from beginning to

I end. think that what I have shown is that it is an objection.

J. WAHL: The second thing, since we cannot talk about that objection, is this: you said that nothing can count more for you than what is free; it is not only unchained passion that poses objectives for itself quite arbitrarily.

But, is this passion? Doesn't it believe its objectives to be reasonable? The word "reasonable" isn't really the one that we're after. But, the impassioned man, nevertheless, thinks that he has reason even in his hard If I it is take to conceive of a passion. anger as an example, very passion without objective, without content.

Notice that I say this, but on the other hand I'd very much like to be in but difficult isolate this it is to to very passion able explain myself, way.

I am coming to the fundamental

been have two oppositions question:

hand, immanence the the transcendence sacred and on one and set up:

Bataille-

`Evil in Platonism and Sadism'

215

the profane on the other. What is new about this is that you identify transcendence with the profane, immanence with the sacred. In what is It is the transcendent? in profane sense a sense other than the This is in You table ordinary. no way me. said in parenthesis however, that perhaps it has a very profound relationship with me

BATAILLE:

It is no longer profane.

J. WAHL: Yes, but even when it is no longer profane, it has a certain I is `here is to which a part of me which profane, relationship with me. but doesn't have it in to to a sacred me, a relationship order write: cling it does have a relationship to a profane me. Yes.

Finally, I detect an echo of Sartre's en-soi and pour-soi. You say. "this find to We " I'm But, table is this table. are no more able not sure. "this fiction to It is in in than the say pure a ourselves. world stability table is this table. " This table is changing.

BATAILLE:

It is in so far as transcendence is a fiction.

J. WAHL: The immanent

however to it isn't is the sacred: necessary

doesn't imagine I a passion which distinguish between the passions. can know there is not to The are whether have a sacred character. question become to in fulfil sacred. order must some conditions which passion I that That is the posing. be am question Not all passion could sacred.

BATAILLE:

Bataille-

It is a very difficult

Sadism' Platonism `Evil in and

dependent a upon one and question,

216

profane science, that is, it is necessary to consider very immediate things as the foundation of the profane sciences, as the subject of sociology.

J. WAHL: I don't even know if that would give us an answer. BATAILLE:

It is, indirectly, a way to proceed from sociology.

J. WAHL: I would like to pin you down on specifics, since they are not in Why given your answer. are certain passions sacred, and others not? BATAILLE:

It is always confused because the division between the

sacred and the profane is continually

becoming formal, and when the

defined is formally everything gets confused. sacred

J. WAHL: Would anybody else like to continue this discussion?

ANONYMOUS: is irritated who

I wonder if one can't describe Sade, as a sacred being by his own damnation;

he his and when seeks

deaths he in finds that an ordinary isn't it tortures that characters' death, the death of a bourgeois in his bed, is a profane death, and that he tries to make it sacred by surrounding it in torture, plunging these beings into the fire, or else behaving as some did during the war: we have plunged entire peoples into the crematorium, towns with atomic bombs like at Hiroshima ' Critique. recent edition of

Bataille-

`Evil in Platonism and Sadism'

have we strewn

Bataille in a as writes

217

What I want to ask then is this: isn't Sade the sacred, irritated by his becoming profane?

I don't think

BATAILLE:

Sade cared about being either sacred or

In life left if is in there the notion of the sacred, profane. any case, any Sade perfectly captured it. The essentials, it seems to me, are given by Sade in this respect, in that he doesn't allow even for an instant that a dispassionate interest can intervene in his unleashings. And it is in this definition that the sense the profound

Bedroom is Philosophy in in the of evil given of everything

condemnation

that we have seen the

Germans do. Because it is clear that compared to the executions of the Terror that Sade contemplated in Philosophy in the Bedroom , Nazi images, to the the to suggestions of executions responded still more Sade. But

also, they responded

continually

to the fundamental

from Terror, the Sade the to since that of executions made objection beginning

to end, the unchaining

Buchenwald

Auschwitz or

that the raged at passions of

was an unchaining

that was under the

government of reason.

And it is because of this that an opposition between,

hand, the one on

traditional

be madecan now

morality

represented

by

hand, morality that stupefying the profound, Platonism, and on other that can today take on the greatest meaning, and 127 definitive. is that in landmark perhaps way a a even serve as

Sadeby offered

ANONYMOUS:

but to little the extent what is it Perhaps subject, off a

himself the devotes are do you think that the civilisations to which man

Bataille-

`Evil in Platonism and Sadism'

218

caricature of the madnesses that he resists? BATAILLE:

It is very difficult

to reply. I don't know in this sense if

Buchenwald can be considered to be a caricature of One Hundred and Twenty Days. The word "caricature" is a little limited perhaps.

THE SAME: rm not thinking of Buchenwald exactly, but of societies, of civilisations yet to come, as well as of communist society.

BATAILLE:

It is very difficult for me to speak of a society that doesn't

exist.

THE SAME: But nevertheless it is developing!

BATAILLE:

It is developing. Nobody, not even Soviet communists

themselves, would claim that communism exists to any degree.

THE SAME: Potentially, up to a certain point.

J. WAHL: I do not see how your formula can be easily applied.

THE SAME: Nevertheless, since the call to accomplish the communist to a certain unchaining calls other society requires beyond the realisation which can go quite

of the passions

I that society; would say of

is these blockage time that there comes a created, when when a

passions are guillotined.

Bataille-

`Evil in Platonism and Sadism'

219

BATAILLE: It seems quite impossible to me for a society to exist that would admit into its breast a multitude of Sades each as free as the This time it is not me who makes the objection. I say that it other. difficult that such a society could exist. I would do nothing in any seems case to prevent its arrival, and I consider that one would be in breach of the most profound morality by doing anything that would prevent its realisation.

ANONYMOUS:

M. Bataille can you explain what you meant when you

dead, "God is is difficult it be dead? " to said: and more BATAILLE:

This cannot be explained!

J. WAHL: Surely we can discuss the "more dead."

BATAILLE:

It is legitimate,

intervention

is this one quite poor. of a poetic absurdity;

ANONYMOUS:

in a talk, to sometimes allow the even

Do you consider Malraues unchaining of action to be a

describing? that the the you are passions caricature of unchaining of

BATAILLE:

In any case the word "caricature"

being strikes me as

instance. in this unwarranted THE SAME: It seems to me that one can draw out as a conclusion the

idea that there is nothing more radical than the unchaining of the passions.

Bataille-

`Evil in Platonism and Sadism'

220

BATAILLE : In effect.

THE SAME: On the other hand, it seems that through Malraux action, far went enough in intensity when losing himself in a very distinct It passion. seems to me that this is superior to what can result (pent from the pure passion that you recommend (preconisez); so aboutir) long as, according to Malraux, it maintains a means of creation.

BATAILLE:

It is possible that from the perspective of reason, which is

perhaps

the perspective

of communism,

allowing

the intervention

of passion. For at a given time Malraux

Malraux

by goes wrong

divorce between the announces reason and passion, and it seems to me, at the moment, to end in confusion.

THE SAME: I don't want to defend Malraux, but I think that action have You ignored. term that third opposed completely constitutes a you is but is to to perhaps, passion most opposed reason passion, what action.

I attributed

fact that importance to the action, a certain

is not perfectly

being of

BATAILLE: which

reasonable,

which

as a result

lead to is to anything. passion, an action which cannot subordinated

THE SAME: You would be able to avoid unrestrained

It is a passion.

there the are more profound same, perhaps question of reason; all impressions in reason.

Bataille-

`Evil in Platonism and Sadism'

221

BATAILLE:

It is clear to me that history is made up of distortions

similar to the ones that you have made of what I said. THE SAME: If the unchaining of the passions is the ultimate, is it all the same historically if one doesn't follow it?

BATAILLE:

It is quite difficult

to speak on this point, because in the

if is end, passion really unleashed to such a point that it is possible to have spoken about One Hundred situated

Twenty Days, and well, we are

beyond far so such a conversation

that we cannot free

ourselves of evocations that are really out of place, as soon as one for in is speaks example a meeting; already when one alone with is it not so easy. oneself,

THE SAME: Finally

Sade's in that work are powerful actions occur

lacking in bloody I think a certain not enough, which are enough, even grandeur;

he in that is it this purely positive sense, precisely and

unleashes passion.

BATAILLE:

It seems to me that to the extent to which they have this

least be, like they to they they at would are not exactly what grandeur, haven't sought that grandeur

for its own sake, and that they are,

however, subordinated to that grandeur, to the government of reason. Wasn't this the same minimum by Hitler. possessed

Bataille-

`Evil in Platonism and Sadism'

that the was government of reason of

222

All action bears a profound weakness, have two options: either, and you it claims to carry out an act of reason, and in this case we no longer speak of passion; or it is a pretence destined to liberate passion, and in this case passion finds itself morally under the government of reason to it foreign. is And this is the deep meaning of everything that I which have said this evening, and it is what makes impossible to seem -action has me, since one not separated it entirely from passion. And perhaps for that reason, action is, like everything

human, immediately else

before the category of the impossible. placed

THE SAME: On the subject of reason, the rather shabby appearances have it which you given are, all the same, those that are transcended in the work of someone like Kant, and precisely in the moral sphere. And here: Kantian by by kind its the one can see something reason, rigor, of in sacred which

it reflects

itself,

God. As a

ends up postulating

God does the to consequence, passage of reason not prevent a return to God by reason itself, reason itself is almost irrational

and surpasses

itself in its assumptions.

BATAILLE:

I would like to learn from that rather than reply. '

J. WAHL:

What

Heraclitus'

work,

characteristics

is that, say, one can

in when reason appeared

bore " it "logos, he the some word used when

that one could call profoundly irrational.

The two are

birth, is " its "logos, more contradictory. at more united, and is in have reason a particular epoch. criticised you

Bataille-

`Evil in Platonism and Sadism'

So, what

223

BATAILLE: relationships difficult

Yes. There is, in the fact of the birth with transcendence,

in its reason, of

infinitely connections which are

to sever. It is perhaps at the heart of one of the most difficult

philosophical

questions,

historically, resolved

and especially

be because it can only so

do knowledge I that this not and presupposes

possess.

J. WAHL: If nobody has anything else to say we can end the meeting.

Bataille-

`Evil in Platonism and Sadism'

224,

NOTES TO INTRODUCTION 1

All references in this thesis are given in the text by author, date publication of the edition used, and page number. The only exceptions being references to collected works eg. Bataille's, where the date is dropped in favour of volume and page number; or else in the case of authors, to whose work there is a standard scholarly method of reference that eschews page numbers eg. most of Nietzsche's works are referred to by section number, and Spinoza's Ethics, to which reference is by Part, Proposition, Scholia etc, according to Edwin Curley's scheme, and his made letters that are referred to by number. Finally documents from the WWW are, of necessity, unpaginated.

Where two numbers are given in a reference they refer to the French followed by the standard English translation. In some instances, I have only given one reference, this is either where only one or the other version was available to me, or else in cases where I have made my own translations, owing either to unavailability, nonexistence, or more rarely to the inadequacy of the extant have I for indicated As translation, this. standard usually other works, where the be French is it to only reference given a edition, can assumed that the translation is largely is to the the this especially and scandalously case with regards my own, Stengers. Simondon, Chätelet, Alliez, and untranslated work of such authors as Fortunately for Anglophone readers, major works by the latter two are currently in translation and will be available soon. Hopefully, the availability of such work will for that thinking the the possibilities exploration of encourage more widespread these writers provoke, and will facilitate a leap beyond the current frozen image of the is to This thesis spread, contribution as small a offered continental philosophy. in the Anglophone world, of the renewed materialism embodied in these writers. To the best of my knowledge Bruno has never been discussed in relation to Deleuze, at least not in print, whilst Schelling crops up only very rarely. 2

NOTES TO CHAPTER I (New Line On in the the 3 In the translation of this piece published volume desir' de is rendered as `agencement York: Semiotext(e), 1983), the phrase `arrangement', I have replaced this with the more customary, and more Guattari Deleuze Anti-Oedipus In `assemblage'. and term machinically precise in because the however, manner of frequently used the term `desiring-machine', by term this interpretation replaced itself was leaves to it a subjective open which `assemblage' in A Thousand Plateaus.

References

225

4

Note that

diagram, a when presented in this way, is an immanent counterpart of a Kantian schema: the latter imposes a logical order from the outside, the former follows forces immanent to that which is studied. 5

Deleuze, and Deleuze and Guattari's, work contains numerous critiques of the work of their contemporaries, most of them-- like the two that have we already pointed to in this chapter are by allusionthat others, are direct, principally directed at Lacan in Anti-Oedipus. Most of the allusory ones are, I would claim, directed at Derrida, take for instance that to be found in `Introduction: Rhizome'. "To attain the multiple, one must have a method that effectively constructs it; no typographical lexical blending cleverness, no agility, no or creation of words, no syntactical boldness, can substitute for it" (Deleuze and Guattari 1980/87 33/22). All of these could be said to appear to varying degrees in Derrida's his Glas work, (1974) being a case in point, displaying typographical cleverness, and the blending and creation of words, in abundance. 6

This gives us an opportunity to point out one of the major breaches between Deleuze and Guattari's critique of `modernist' texts and those deriving from Derrida and Lacan. I shall use as an example, the self-confessed Lacanian-Hegelian, Slavoj Zizek's encapsulation of the Lacanian reading of the structure of Freudianism. Zizek recounts a story about Freud taking a walk in a subterranean cave system, in the depths of which he encounters "another visitor to the caves, Dr Karl Lueger, Mayor of Vienna [... ] a notorious anti-Semite", he tells us, portentously, that we be fact German, `Lueger' "immediately in to the that the must attentive name associates with Lüge, a lie". The meaning of this story, according to Zizek is that it New Age approach according to which, upon goes against the "obscurantist depth discover Self, to there true the our penetrating of our personality, we ultimate Freud is implicit in instead the that shows, whom we must open ourselves", and kernel is discover deepest "what in the that a of our personality we argument fundamental, constitutive, primordial lie, the proton pseudos". For Zizek, and he DeleuzoGuattarian, Foucauldian, Lacan, the this and also argues contraindicates begins development line the that in the with of of psychoanalysis Christian practice of confession" (Zizek 1996 1). The problem with Zizek's argument the is that, from our perspective, it is not what is discovered by psychoanalysislater the lieit that of truth and confession, of a part as constitutes or primordial "insertion

find in is to but that there State, the very presumption anything apparatus of the the first place. Hence it is the structure of psychoanalysis that we object to, its in discovered be the to is there that an originary plenitude/absence presumption first place- not what it finds there. It is therefore in its claim to holding the key to truth.

References

226

For a magnificent account of Millenialist movements throughout history see Norman Cohn's The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages. 8

Alison Coudert has argued that an early version of this thesis entered the philosophical tradition with which we are concerned via the "practicing alchemist l Kabbalist" [... Lurianic (Coudert Helmont's Francis Mercury 1995 95) and van influence on Leibniz. Coudert's book provides incontrovertible evidence that Leibniz by Helmont, influenced van profoundly was and over a considerable period of time, demonstrates from key derived Leibnizian ideas Helmont that she were via van Kabbalist and alchemical ideas, suggesting for example that his monadology draws Neoplatonic from `seeds' `flower' the of substances, and on alchemical notions about hand here, On Kabbalist the theories she argues that point at of emanation. and "Van Helmont rejected the common view of time as a continuum of infinite indivisible moments or points of duration [... ] in his view time was not an absolute Helmont Van individual. It intrinsic to consequently each concept. was relative and biologists" later for idea `biological time' the which proved so useful of arrived at (Coudert 1995 97), including, as we shall see in chapter three, Jakob von Uexküll. Pierre Zaoui: "Deleuze says in the course of an interview regarding his work in the history of philosophy that `Everything leads towards the great-identity de travail d'une interview, ä ("Deleuze en son Nietzsche-Spinoza'" propos au cours histoire de la philosophie: `Et tout tendait vers la grande identite Nietzsche9

Spinozae), Zaoui 1995 65. Zaoui is quoting Deleuze 1988c.

`From his in by Landsberg Peter paper 10 See the survey of such positions Entropy to God?'.

References

227

11

Smolin is one of those physical scientists (at the time of publication of his book, The Life of the Cosmos, he was Professor of Physics at the Center for Gravitational Physics and Geometry at the Pennsylvania State University) who frequent make appearance in this thesis and whose very existence provides difficulties for the work of Alan Sokal and Jean Briqmont empirical who recently attracted much media attention for their attacks upon the use made by a series of French philosophers of examples, concepts, and arguments from the physical sciences, usually in the defence of some form of social constructivism. Smolin's work is interesting for a host of reasons, but we need only mention here the proximity of his overall view of cosmology to the philosophical positions espoused in this thesis, his and omnipresent enthusiasm for, and granting of, a prominent place to, the style of philosophy advocated here. Of interest principally are, his thorough critique background Platonic the of of most orthodox scientific thought, leading him to an ontological and epistemological position close to the Nietzschean perspectivism that we will encounter in several places below; and for his key statement of relationality "the world is a vast interconnected system of relations, in which even the properties of a single elementary particle or the identity of a point in space requires and reflects the whole rest [sic] of the universe" (Smolin 1997 221). This by no means exhausts the points of convergence. 12

Two thorough

Boscovich Whitlock Nietzsche's to studies of are relation (1996), and Stack (1983) chapter nine. Whitlock's two excellent articles assess and by Nietzsche's not inconsiderable understanding of the the explicate role played his focus his day His is on the physics of central philosophical concepts. upon influence of the Dalmatian physicist Roger Joseph Boscovich on Nietzsche (critically for the interpretation of Nietzsche in this thesis, Whitlock also emphasises the Spinozist elements of the eternal return, for which see also Yovel's fine study, Nietzsche is that to show principal point a radically relational or intensive view of matter, pace that Interestingly, Guattari. Deleuze to and and attributed fascinating work on Leibniz we have already encountered, 1988). Whitlock's

derived from Boscovich, espoused in this thesis Alison Coudert, whose had Leibniz that argues

In forces. "complex be treated in to of as a which matter was arrived at a position this he was anticipating modern field theory, which treats material particles as by founder [... ] its duly forcefields recognised an anticipation of concentrated Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich" (Coudert 1995 97).

References

28

is

On

these

`Thermodynamic

and related questions see L. Ropolyi's excellent essay Elements in World ViewsWorld View Elements in

Thermodynamics'

in Thermodynamics:

History

Philosophy. and demonstrates that

Facts, Trends,

Debates, pp 424-38. Ropolyi convincingly even the most fundamental intensive concepts eg. entropy, equilibrium, extensive work, and he disagreement, based to total this qualities, are subject almost upon "Thermodynamics is a science in crisis and a that programmatically concludes Martin for have " Barrett Elliott Sober science of crisis. and example suggested that "entropy is not simply a technical system applying to closed gas chambers, but has larger To order". reinforce this point meaning a of as measure organisation and a debate biology import, interpretation in the the might concerning also survey one Wiley, law, Brooks E. O. inter Daniel R. the and see second alia and structure of The Biology (Chicago London: Toward Unified Theory Entropy: and of a as University of Chicago Press, 1988), Bruce H. Weber, David J. Depew, and James D.

Evolution Smith,

Entropy,

Physical Perspectives Evolution: New and on and MA and London: The MIT Press, 1988). In (Cambridge, from tropes the of use widespread one can examine

Information,

Biological Evolution

to this, addition thermodynamics across a wide range of social commentators, writers and artists from Henry Adams, and Spengler, to Freud, to the novelist Thomas Pynchon (in `Entropy'), his Rainbow, Gravity's his in short story and magnum opus particular Matta-Clark. Gordon in the the artist work of and

in dealt hylomorphism is the to with 14 Simondon's contribution critique of here the that to It detail of in account two. note suffice will chapter greater the its the of concepts use of singularity currently under consideration and in Bear from Simondon. drawn is limit, and topological surface explicitly membrane, French first and is cybernetics, the of Simondon philosophers that of one mind also thermodynamics, first to modern the on write philosophically correspondingly one of these two being intimately entwined. The in Kauffman's A. work This line of thinking is elaborated 15 Oxford (Oxford: Evolution in Selection Origins of Order: Self-organisation and University Press, 1993). in Stuart

See 1962). Press, (Academic Theory 16 Leon Brillouin, Science and Information Columbia York: (New System Living Theory the Information Gatlin, Lila and also Press, 1972).

References

229

"

The relationship between Deleuze and Guattari and Prigogine and Stengers has been adequately mapped by James Flint in his `Mapping the Plane of Consistency', and I shall not attempt to repeat it here. Note though that their both friendship relationship was one of personal and intellectual solidarity, and that the original French version of this book contains not inconsiderable references to Deleuze and to Michel Serres (the references to the latter alone have been carried differs English from French, into translation to the the the considerably which over detriment of a solely Anglophone readership). In a recent interview about his work, including its relations with that of Deleuze, Prigogine has said that he considers the term `repetition' to be coextensive with the time-reversible frame (that of dynamics), while `difference' is coextensive with the time-irreversible (that of thermodynamics, and complexity).

References

perspective

230

18

As Prigogine

informs

us (Prigogine and Stengers 1984 153-6, Prigogine 1997 66-7) this result was only proved by the Belouzov-Zhabotinsky reaction in the early 1960 s. This experiment, a complex demonstration of regular chemical oscillation, showed that when matter is pushed to the limits of it stability it begins to self-organise into new and novel forms. It is the empirical basis for Nietzsche's world "eternally changing, eternally flooding back, with tremendous years of recurrence, with an ebb and a flood of its forms; out of the simplest forms striving toward the most complex, out of the stillest, most rigid, coldest forms toward the hottest, most turbulent, (Nietzsche 1968 § 1067). This most self-contradictory" experiment, and related research programmes on different strata give rise to a concept that I would call, `creative instability'. Another, seemingly unrelated, theory is that of punctuated equilibrium, developed by Niles Eldridge and Stephen Jay Gould, as a challenge to the gradualism implicit in orthodox Darwinian evolution. The theory in brief suggests that the evolutionary history of most species is by long by characterised periods of stability, punctuated calamitous changes. Such lead instabilities to one or several species undergoing rapid events or can transformation or even extinction, and then the onset of a long period of stability or dinosaurs The is the the this, extinction of classic example of of course, equilibrium. into Research issues impact these the object. of an extraterrestrial as a result of in (Huggett 1997) has led to a revitalisation the the tradition of catastrophism of Darwinian "the to gradualism" such challenge greatest earth sciences, and poses that

"catastrophe

the linear

temporal

with creep of microevolution is As bursts 75). that (Davis 1996 this science a such, of macroevolution" nonlinear fully opens the Earth to what Deleuze calls the `forces from the outside' (we return directly This to detail in in forces two). relate to these research seems chapter more illustrates the distinct DeleuzoGuattarian themes, least two very serious to at and i) their to of critique their that of science: philosophy orthodox poses work challenge replaces

ii) involution; their with creative development of concepts of external metastable milieus and singularity as concepts

Darwinian

linear evolution

of individuation.

References

and its replacement

231

19

The elements of a thermodynamic or energetic economics are contained in sources as diverse as Rosa Luxemburg, Georges Bataille's Accursed Share, and two magnificent and obscure studies: Nicolas Georgescu-Roegen's The Entropy Law and the Economic Process and Alf Hornborg's `Machine Fetishism, Value, and the Image of Unlimited Good: Towards a Thermodynamics of Imperialism'. Like Deleuze and Guattari's, Georgescu-Roegen's work rests on a thorough critique, and definitive distinction rejection, of the nature-culture and its replacement with what DeleuzeGuattari call the machinic phylum, a commitment to understanding the world as a single plane of consistency, a single matter, organised in multiplicitous ways. This is a commitment to a complete overcoming of anthropocentrism by the adoption of, a biocentrism by Georgescu-Roegen and Vernadsky, DeleuzeGuattari's geocentrism, or Bataille's general economy (a concept, incidentally, that Bataille may have derived from Vernadsky's use of it in The Biosphere), concerned with the study of "unformed matter" which is "not dead, brute, homogeneous matter, but a bearing matter-movement singularities or haecceities, qualities, and even operations" (Deleuze and Guattari 1980/87 638/512). Georgescu-Roegen describes his work as an attempt to show that thermodynamics "is the foundation of a physics of economic value [... I the Entropy Law is by its very nature the most economic of all the physical laws" (Georgescu-Roegen 1995 83), his work represents flows body the the an empirical study of matter of and energy over of the "immanent

unity of the earth" (Deleuze and Guattari 1980/87 171/146), and as such it is the realisation of Bataille's project. Whilst Georgescu-Roegen, perhaps not doesn't Bataille, both have to surprisingly, refer something very important in

both heterodox inspired in by their the work of common: were economic endeavours Vladimir Vernadsky, a figure whose work we will return to at several points throughout this thesis. Jacques Grinevald, who has done more to publicise this his in introduction tradition than to a scandalously overlooked anyone else, writes being from Georgescu-Roegen's that, apart edition of a writing dissident" he "one heterodox was of the and economist, a scientific ideahave development the taken to theoreticians seriously of economic rare de Chardin, by Teilhard Vernadsky, Lotka, inter-war in the and sustained years French recent "nonconformist

has become that with industrial a veritable civilisation, man in living forces in the the the work at world most powerful geological agent, one of Georgescu-Roegen in Grinevald (Jacques Earth" face the the transformation of of 1995 1,13). As well as advocating Georgescu-Roegen's work, which he names a Edouard

le Roy-

has also written the introduction founding work in this area, Vernadsky's The Biosphere. `bioeconomics', Grinevald

References

to the new edition of the

232

20

To locate

in Freud is not of course a move unique to energetics DeleuzeGuattari, it is to be found in the other works of libidinal economics, Lyotard's Libidinal Economy and Baudrillard's principally attempts in Symbolic Exchange and Death. These latter texts were exhumations of the Siegfried work of Bernfeld, who had made a study of this element of Freud's work in his `Freud's Earliest Theories and the School of Helmholtz'. In the fifties Lacan applied himself Freudian to excavating energetics, the pertinent papers are `The Symbolic Universe', `Materialist

Definitions

of the Unconscious', `Homeostasis and Insistence', `Freud, Hegel and the Machine', `The Circuit'. All are collected in Seminar II. " The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954-5. As Freudianism itself into a statist therapeutic apparatus all mention of energetics in death drive became strictly verboten. See also in particular the general and Guattari's comments in `Les energetiques sßmiotiques' the second chapter of his Cartographies schizoanalytiques (Guattari 1989). Guattari comments that with the

territorialised

to Id-Ego-Superego subordination of the triad Unconscious-Subconscious-Conscious (the shift from dynamic to the topographic), Freudianism shifted its ground from an he initially Lacan's In that to notes anthropomorphic case energetic an model. but be "simple to taken shifts system of energetic notation", a was declaring "la thermo-dynamique ä n'etre elle-meme qu'un jeu de signifiant". Rosenberg is 1993. in this respect useful secondary study

libido

References

to A

233

21

One of the examples that Stengers gives to illustrate her sense of the term `invention' is particularly relevant here, it is that of the birth of thermodynamics in Carnot's work on the heat cycle. She writes that the immediate backdrop to the Carnot cycle is lodged in three distinct `lineages-disciplines' or assemblages, the latter defined by her as a complex of "object/representation/practice" (Stengers 1997c 205): that of theoretical studies of the outputs of engines and of heat, and of empirical technical studies on the outputs of steam engines. From this background she writes: "Carrot invents a relationship that was not contained in any of these three lineages-disciplines

and creates a new theoretical object, unexpected by any of them; unexpected for mechanics since one passes from the usual conversions between kinetic and potential energy to quite different energetic conversions, which imply a change in the state of matter; unexpected for the specialists of heat since its specific dimension of dissipation is systematically eliminated represented as subjected to laws analogous to the reversible unexpected for the engineers who find themselves offered, as (Stengers 1997c 207). Using this with zero productivity" understand Marx's study of "the capitalist mode of production,

in the cycle that is laws of dynamics; a model, an engine

schema we could and the relations of forms production and of intercourse that correspond to it" as the invention of such an object of study with its concerted attempt to comprehend "the economic law of Stengers we could motion of modern society" (Marx 1976 90-2). Following Lenin "three ideological the calls main currents of the nineteenth what lineages-disciplines the that precursed Marx's work, that is century" as relevant "classical German philosophy, classical English political economy, and French

understand

1967 I 7). An analysis produced in this way would be far more little in Lenin's is than than more an exercise own which rigorously materialist history. The ideological currents of Lenin's analysis would become intellectual (Lenin socialism"

interlocked

machinically assemblages of political dynamics, technical study and research.

References

international power,

political

234

NOTES TO CHAPTER II 22

Simondon's primary work and the one upon which we shall draw most is L'individu et sa genesephysico-biologique. This is a reprint of the 1964 edition and includes some important additions: an extra chapter and some supplements. The only text by Simondon yet published in English translation is the introduction to this latter work under the title `The Genesis of the Individual'. It was also reprinted as the first part of the introduction to Simondon's L'individuation Psychique et Collective, under the title `Position du probleme de l'ontogenese', the second part is `Concepts directeurs pour une recherche de solution: Forme, Information, Potentiels et Metastabilite'. These two books together comprise a partial reprint of Simondon's Doctoral thesis `L'Individuation it la Lumiere des Notions de Forme et d'Information'. The English translation of L'individu et sa genesephysico-biologique is due to be published by Zone Books in 2000; I have also heard of plans to publish a translation of L'individuation Psychique et Collective. 23

As a historical introducing cybernetic

it is worth noting that Simondon was critical in research into France and gave a major paper at the first French conference to be organised for the benefit, and in the presence, of Norbert Wiener. The proceedings of this significant event are published as Le concept de l'information dans la science contemporaine, ed. by Louis Couf ignal (1965). 24

point

In the most extensive discussion of Butler by "shattering the credited with vitalist argument personal unity of the organism, and the mechanist by calling in question the structural unity of the

in Anti-Oedipus

(338/284) he is

calling in question the specific or argument even more decisively,

In addition to which, Butler encounters the crucial concept of surplus value of code, in which "a part of a fragment its of another machine, and own code a code machine captures within thus owes its reproduction to a part of another machine". machine".

See Stengers Cosmopolitiques 6: La vie et l'artifice: visages de l'emergence, p. 123 n. 15, and Gilles Chätelet `Du Chaos et de 1'Auto-Organisation comme NeoConservatisme Festif. An expanded version of this paper has been printed in 25

Chätelet's recent book Vivre et penser comme des pores: de l'incitation les democraties-marches.

References

a l'ennui dans

25

26

Steven J. Heims (1991) gives a clear and politically astute account of the collusion between the founders of Cybernetics and the American military-industrial complex, showing for example how Cybernetics research was tied institutionally financially to weapons research. More recently, the origins of the internet in the and development of a networked computer system, the ARPANET, for the American have been widely demonstrated by, amongst others, Manuel De Landa

military (1994). 27,

As a technical term in virology, transduction is defined as the process in which "a virus takes up a piece of DNA from its bacterial host and incorporates it into its own viral genome. After the virus has multiplied, many copies the of virus erupt from the infected cell [... ] Transduction by virus works in eukaryotic organisms as well. The discovery that large blocks of genetic instructions can be swapped and transferred among creatures is a clue that the insertion of new genes could be the mechanism behind evolution. If viruses can transfer eukaryotic genes across species boundaries, and can install their own genes into their hosts, the case for the new mechanism is even stronger. " Processes such as this are entirely inexplicable by autopoietic theory, which cleaves to a paranoid model of selfpreservation of the pure autonomous entity, and go towards a strengthening of the cases both for Deleuze and Guattari's parallel to Lynn Margulis' symbiogenetic by lineage; Darwinian filiation to challenge pure and evolution and to a theory of constitutive heteronomy, or machinic surplus value. Tying these two areas together DeleuzeGuattari write: "the living thing has an exterior milieu of materials, an interior milieu of composing elements and composed substances, an intermediary limits, and an annexed milieu of energy sources and milieu of membranes and defined by being is Every periodic coded, a code milieu actions-perceptions. but in transduction. is transcoding or state of code a perpetual repetition: each Transcoding or transduction is the manner in which one milieu serves as the basis for another, or conversely is established atop another milieu, dissipates in it or is constituted 28

in it" (Deleuze and Guattari

See also Gilles

Chatelet,

1980/87 384/313).

Les enjeux du mobile: mathematique,

physique,

philosophie.

DeleuzeGuattari refer to the Biblical book of Numbers, as the place in between discover Hebrews a the numbers, and nomadism the connection which literally book is translated: Hebrew the title the of connection made clearer when Bemidbar, in the desert. 29

References

236

s0

The same source is cited for the etymological argument in both Difference Repetition and and A Thousand Plateaus, that is Emmanuel Laroche, Histoire de la racine `nem' en grec ancien, where it is argued that in pre-Solonic Attica nomos referred to a distribution of arable land that did not involve division of space into allotments but rather the scattering of livestock across that land, hence the nomos designated an "occupied space, but one without precise limit", as such there was a distinction between the polis (controlled by logos) and the exterior subject to nomos. All of these distinctions play a critical role in the procedures of both Differenceand Repetition, and A Thousand Plateaus, principally in the opposition of Riemannian topological smooth space to the Euclidean geometry of the striated. Such a distinction is fundamental to Simondon's rejection of Euclidean models in the realm living fashion" "the be Euclidean in the of cortex cannot a adequately represented (Simondon 1995 225). This conceptual continuity is further ammunition to be used between breach Deleuze the those of the claim a clear against who would Deleuze `academic' Guattari, the the of early, sole authored, and partnership with books.

this into English from the French translation by Charles in a way that is more akin to the Spinoza used by Appuhn (Flammarion), As has been noted elsewhere, principally by Antonio Negri in his DeleuzeGuattari. having English far the this French is than Spinoza, the a point, on clearer work on becomes this The Latin. Spinoza's direct obvious example where relation to more between distinction types two Spinozist is the of power: pouvoir around pertinent I lost Subjectively, English. in distinction A (potentia). (potestas), and puissance have found that it is only through reading Spinoza in French (presumably the effect 31

I have translated

is multiplied

on an exponential

is the Latin) to in that potentia grasp able one scale

Spinozist the challenge. of Bergsonian `Newtonian in the chapter entitled and 32 These points are made Animal in the Communication the Control and Cybernetics: Time' in Wiener's and or Book `The in Needham, Joseph of that is Machine. As a side issue it worth noting his in two Leibniz', magisterial of volume Changes and the Binary Arithmetic of due is it to China, that in Civilisation Science notes and of study multivolumed has that cybernetics Leibniz' deep study of Chinese civilisation that one can say Chinese roots, vis "although Chinese civilisation could not spontaneously produce the itself without perfect not `modern' natural could science natural science, 340). 1962 (Needham Chinese civilisation", of philosophy characteristic

References

27

ss

It was only after formulating this sense of Simondon's proximity to Spinoza, in spite of himself, that I discovered a very similar argument in an article, that I have had occasion to discuss earlier, by Etienne Balibar. Balibar writes that "I was discover to that specifically this term [transindividuality, EA), with a full surprised definition and theoretical implementation, has been by [Simondon] My used surprise was even greater when I realised the extent to which Simondon's arguments in fact are truly Spinozistic, literally converging with some basic propositions of the Ethics" (Balibar 1993 10). Balibar then goes on to note, as I have, Simondon's own "rather conventional" rejection of Spinozism. 34

Stephen Brush is somewhat more catholic in his interpretation of the scope of the second, `probability revolution' giving it a much rider range in both time and he scope, writes: "The first Scientific Revolution, dominated by the physical astronomy of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton established the concept of a `clockwork universe' or `world machine' in which all changes are cyclic and all in determined by motions are principle causal laws. The Second Scientific Revolution, associated with the theories of Darwin, Maxwell, Planck, Einstein, Heisenberg, and Scrödinger, ultimate philosophical Weber 1996 330).

substituted

meaning

still

a world

remains

of process and chance whose obscure. " (Quoted in Depew and

35 See Paul Bains' use of this, and related material, in his 'And if one day the brain became inobjectifiable'.

NOTES TO CHAPTER III indeed programmatic, statement clear, gives an extremely logic in both from distance its thinking and phenomenology and concerning machinic An 355. Moleculaire, his Revolution La in `Les propositions p. machiniques' 36

Felix Guattari

inaccurate, but does it is book English this such a translation so exist of abridged De Eric Alliez' it. to have I to give references chosen not poor edition, that French the is de la phenom nologie current l'impossibilite an essential map of based is Guattari's how Deleuze work and clearly very scene showing philosophical the bulk their the different at that contemporaries, of of predicates of on entirely demolition a and the it is of phenomenology, time possibility very of an expert same demonstration of the need for, and possibility of, thinking in entirely other ways.

References

238

s'

This is chapter eleven of Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza. The French title of the book is far clearer as to its intention, that is Spinoza et le probleme de l'expression. The theme of the identity of expression, elsewhere called production or developed in DeleuzeGuattari's is immanence throughout constructivism work, with this thesis, in particular in the sections dealing with Giordano Bruno. See Robert Rosen, Life Itself A Comprehensive Inquiry into the Nature, Origin Life: In Search `Topology Fabrication Life, Nicholas Rashevsky, of and and of and General Mathematical Principles in Biology and Society'. 38

References

239

39

Deleuze

define a regime of and Guattari signs as "any formalisation of expression [... ] at least where the expression is linguistic" (Deleuze and Guattari 1980/87 140/111); the importance of the introduction of such terms is that it marks one of the principal routes by which Deleuze and Guattari distinguish themselves from the rest of the French philosophical scene. This is elegantly, albeit negatively, marked by an essay, stunning in its uselessness as a discussion of Deleuzian philosophy, but useful in stating the breach opened up between Deleuze his and I refer to Jean-Luc Nancy's `The Deleuzian Fold erstwhile contemporaries. of Thought' in which he acknowledges that "Deleuze's thought is so far removed from the sources, schemata and modes of conduct which, for me, are those of "within philosophical work" and insistently (Nancy 1998/96 my tradition", 115/107). Establishing a clear and distinct breach between the work of Deleuze and Guattari and the rest of the French philosophical scene (and for what it's worth, the British establishment of an image of thought for Continental Philosophy)

is one of the tasks implicit in this thesis. Alliez' (1993,1995) in this area is of work course exemplary in its invention of a Deleuzian counter tradition, this work must exceed the discursive formation of `history of philosophy' and even of genealogy to invent singularities, thought events that can explode the present time of philosophical actualityas is common to that line of thinkers of a materialism in which thought sediments itself as a material force, following Bruno, Spinoza, Marx, Reich, Bataille, including Deleuze and Guattari. to A philosophical up and heresiology.

Most, principally deconstruction inspired, philosophy that claims to exceed the Greek inheritance, the logos, then. is shortcircuited from the start by the irrevocable indebtedness of the sources used precisely to that tradition (Levinas' stated aim is precisely to fold Judaism back into Western thought, into sacred history),

failure their to comprehend the extent to which philosophy is and dominated at the deepest and most profound levels by the politico-theological complex, Control. In order to genuinely break from that tradition requires a has kind hitherto been that rethinking of a not attempted, and one of its principal be in a sense a revocation of Casaubon's 1614 redating of the resources will Hermetic texts (for two differing assessments of the impact of Casaubon's work on Black Athena Martin Bernal's I thought seventeenth century and culture see vol. and Frances Yates' Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition). Hardt and Negri have difference following by illustrated that tradition the that the we are elegantly noting is "in line not with the Judaism of Emmanuel Levinas, which Derrida seems to Deleuze 330). but Negri 1994 heretical Judaism Spinoza" (Hardt the of and prefer, declaration his his State to the thought, total tradition of war, opposition of signals down to the detail of mirroring Schopenhauer's programming of his lectures to clash with

Hegel's,

by lecturing

Paris. in seminars

References

at Vincennes

contemporaneously

with

Lacan's own

240

40

It is unfortunately beyond the scope of the present chapter to bring these concerns to bear upon the relationships between a DeleuzoGuattarian and a Marxist materialism in the context of stratification in the social domain. There is a further exploration of the relationship in chapter four. Another route to follow would be one in which the principal axis of engagement is with Althusser and Negri's `aleatory materialism', see Louis Althusser, `Sur le materialisme aleatoire', and Antonio Negri, `Notes on the Evolution of the Thought of the Later Althusser'. Essentially this is an assemblage composed of Deleuze and Guattari's joint and separate works that are specifically concerned with Marxism, and the peculiarly French school of Spinozist Marxism. A good survey of these Marxist "detours" (Althusser) through Spinoza is Tosel's Du materialisme de Spinoza.

41

This quote is from Deleuze's preface to the English translation Difference of and Repetition. Hence the single page reference. 42

This idea is subject to an extended elaboration in the important twelfth chapter of Deleuze's Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza and in chapter seven of Antonio Negri's The Savage Anomaly. 43

For an excellent introduction to Uexküll's own work see both T and J von Uexküll 1992; for treatments to Uexküll see Ansell of Deleuze's relationship Pearson (1996), and Bogue (1997).

44

Deely goes on to show how this line of thought, following the prioritisation of relationality and an immanently creative matter, permits the development of the biosemiosis. field The `Actor Network Theory' which is "a ruthless relatively new of application of semiotics [in which] entities take their form and acquire their attributes as a result of their relations with other entities. In this scheme of things have divisions bonfire inherent thrown the on entities are no qualities: essentialist dualisms" Latour, (Law) Bruno Michel Callon is the and others of associated with be development. Guattari's It very worth examining yet another cognate would he from 1960 the s where very clearly adumbrates certain themes prescient papers that will later be developed in biosemiotics and in various non or anti-Darwinian biologies. Clearly we will have to deal here with the persistent critique of Darwinism that exists in Deleuze's work at least since Difference and Repetition. Noone has devoted more time or acuity to Deleuze's complex involvement with Darwinism than Keith Ansell Pearson (see especially his Germinal Life 1999).

References

241

45

For examples of such texts which are unashamedly theological: Paul Davies God and the New Physics ; John Barrow and Joseph Silk, The Left Hand Creation; of John Barrow and Frank Tippler, The Cosmological Anthropic Principle; Arthur Peacocke, God and the New Biology; Paul Davies, The Mind of God. Scienceand the Search for Ultimate Meaning. Countless others such as Roger Penrose are more making the theist move by an adherence to a remarkably Platonic forms theory to account for, in Penrose's case, mathematical unmediated of objects. For a critique of the latter, coupled with an attempt to found a corporeal, materialist mathematics that avoids the unexamined mentalism of constructivism surreptitious,

(mathematical Platonism

"shuck that to stricto sense rather than philosophical), aims and off in the end as a theological obfuscation of `number'" see Rotman 1993

passim. See also Isabelle Stengers `Introduction' to L'effet Whitehead, pp. 9 -11 for between Whitehead's thought and this the aspect of relationship commentary on that of DeleuzeGuattari.

46

This tendency in science can be seen in such popular figures as Hawking Lewis Wolpert, and Steve Jones who simultaneously arrogate to themselves the in those justify `philosophy' their to claims, and scientific role of providers of a in `scientism' inspiration, Heideggerian scornful of a supposed philosophers, of 47

has to that nothing the philosophy claim most extreme of whom will philosophy, learn from or say to science. To the latter one can only repeat Nietzsche's critique, flee from his "Philosophers day, to Kantianism that: science, wish the of aimed at lead longer lies: the they but it pursues them. One can see where their weakness no into is turning is itself because gradually and science merely philosophy way, § but 1974 112, 1990b (Nietzsche border also but patrolling" professional nothing "this that the editor rightly notes 344,1983 188 for a similar argument), of which in in 1870's" it the than today is was wide-spread more conception of philosophy both its `Analytic' and `Phenomenological' varieties.

Situating Invention: Power Stengers and The essays collected in Isabelle 48 here. invention suggested Science,constitute a powerful statement of the sense of The Bergson'. in Multiplicities provenance of 49 Gilles Deleuze, `The Theory of Murphy, Tim its translator, this text is hazy. In a personal communication, "apparently is of text a set the the that manuscript containing explained to me the France, though in Philosophy Society lecture to invited of for some an notes important An " MS. date the There is either. on no specific. coordinates aren't in which the number of analysis Bergson's theory of multiplicity occurs statement of Duration', The Idea of States. Conscious of Multiplicity `The two, of chapter opens his Time and Free Will, pp. 75-90. References

242

60

Deleuze

invites

the citation from Marx with this from Bergson: "The truly great problems are set forth only when they are solved". The quotation from Marx is from A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy By . Deleuze key is this, citing endorsing a part of Marx's philosophy, a question that is us to compare

debates the the centre of all of right at about determinism in Marx (debates that we are in no position to examine here). The position that I would support, and that Deleuze is indicating, is one that seems to be true to Marx (the dubious value of being fidelity such a notion of accepted in silence). It is summarised in the idea that `man makes history but not in conditions of his own choosing', this is the formula that needs to be applied to the question of conceptual invention that we are raising here- it avoids both arbitrary subjectivism and mechanistic determinism. See Antonio Negri Marx Beyond Marx: Lessons on the Grundrisse, pp. 47--58 Karl Marx Marx's for the constitutive method, and materialist elements of Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft), p. 90 for Production', `Consumption Spinoza, the pp. to and the reference section entitled and

51

90-4

for an expansion of this equivalence.

Rosen, Pribram 52 It is the work of such philosophically astute scientists as dismiss "we Watson's Sean that truth the Margulis that comment of confirms and the biological in naive of epistemologically the work as general, neuroscience, and implications is just It the (Watson 15). philosophical `technicians' at our peril" not direction their but the philosophical own of these the moreover scientists, work of of Briqmont, that Sokal and he and the to interests, that gives the recent outbursts of irrelevant for defend latter the and the reactionary that the science view of exposes it is. that charade `Science in the of work much of the For conservatism 53 political an account of Neol'Auto-Organisation de Chaos comme `Du Chätelet Gilles et Complexity' see term the the of misuses Conservatisme Festif, and for a careful study of some of Situating Invention: Power her in ', Fad? and `Complexity: Stengers Isabelle a see Science, pp. 3-19.

54

Gilles Chatelet,

`Virtuality

That', unpublished, as yet all and

hence

unpaginated ms. Artificial, the Sciences The Herbert A. Simon, of 55 Views of Complexity', pp. 170-81.

References

`Alternative chapter seven

243

56

In the context of my earlier comments on the productive results of forcing a Spinoza Simondon, it is perhaps not surprising that it is Balibar of meeting and Because knowledge, it is Balibar, Balibar this to comment. who makes and my has lenses. Spinoza Simondonian See Balibar through alone, who also written on 1993. In this unique article, he surveys Spinoza's conception of the continual individual, therein the the the to of paying particular of role attention production immanence of relation, and conceives the whole complex as a precursor of necessary his "veritable theatre of individuation" Simondon's concept of transindividuality, (Simondon

1995 25).

Margulis and her son Dorion Sagan state that "No life without a membrane in Fritjof Capra, Similarly Sagan kind known" 54). (Margulis 1986 is and of some his exemplary exposition of autopoietic theory, notes that for Maturana and Varela living in their definitive that limit is the system the creation of a of or membrane "autopoietic organisation includes the creation of a boundary that specifies the domain of the network's operations and defines the system as a unit" contrary to is boundary because their living do "constitute systems, not catalytic cycles which (Capra the independent ] by factors [... determined that are catalytic processes" of

57

1997 98).

References

244

58

See chapter eleven of Microcosmos, `Late Bloomers: Animals and Plants', in particular the passage on fungi. Elsewhere in this remarkable book, Margulis and Sagan tend towards DeleuzoGuattarian theses, vis. the thorough machinism of their discussion of the virtual impossibility that biologists face in giving a "concise definition of the difference between living and nonliving substance" (Margulis and Sagan 1986 72). It is precisely this nondeterminate difference that is traversed by the machinic phylum as laid out by Deleuze and Guattari (1980/87 414/335) and by Deleuze alone in his Bergsonism (1991 101), such that one cannot ask about the distinction between life and matter, but rather two states of matter: "stratified systems" and "self-consistent aggregates". Which as DeleuzeGuattari conclude is cut across by "a machinic phylum, a destratifying, transversality [which] moved through elements, orders, forms and substances, the molar and the molecular, freeing a matter and tapping forces". Margulis' biology and DeleuzeGuattari's

schizoanalytics between on the one hand, converge also in the relationship Deleuze's theory of contraction and habitus sketched out in chapter 11 of Difference Repetition and resulting in the dissolution of the unitary self in favour of the complicatio of "thousands of little witnesses which contemplate within us: it is always a third party who says `me'" (Deleuze 1968/94 103/75) and again in Logic of Sense in an analysis of Klossowski's critique of the Kantian-Christian self and the concomitant untenability of any account of the psyche be may an other, that something else thinks in us [... ] things think in us" (Deleuze 1969/90 399/298); this Deleuze and Guattari up to their last collaborative

based on phenomenology, "I because so many beings and

is to remain with work, where it is given an inflection that relates it to the inverted vitalism discussed at length elsewhere in my work. They write that "even animism, when it implies little immanent souls in organs and functions, is not so far removed from biological science as it is said to be, on condition that these immanent souls are withdrawn from an active role so as to become solely sources of molecular perception and affection [... ] bodies are thought

by little infinity populated an of monads" (Deleuze and Guattari 1991/94 124/130). This philosophical move is coupled to Margulis' empirical confirmation in her, increasingly accepted, thesis that "all organisms of greater morphological complexity than bacteria, that is nucleated or eukaryotic organisms [... ] are also polygenomic, having selves of multiple

heterologous (different-sourced) ] [... origin comprised of kind (Margulis from than ancestor" and genomic systems, evolved more one of Sagan 1997 65). In an article outlining the tenor of the `new biology', which is, he by its mutually interdependent critiques of i) the dominant between distinction body, ii) the the the plant and and monolithic model of unified `assembly', kingdoms, Dorion Sagan, the eukaryotic cell as an characterises animal Guattari's the hence Deleuze tantalisingly, to of concept usage and comes close and fact, in is, `animal' Sagan "each an cell writes: eukaryotic of the assemblage. tells us characterised

distinct the prokaryotic metabolisms. evolutionary merger of uncanny assembly, Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a one-celled plant or animal [... ] all

References

245

biology has been previous grossly zoocentric" (Sagan 1992 363). For yet another convergence see Guattari's `Redondances Intensives et Redondances Expressives' he where writes that "multicellular organisms continue to be colonies, packs of living

by in by intracoding, in unicellular organisms, part a system of part and transcoding" (Guattari 1977 336). Guattari's anticipation of the nascent field of biosemiotics is astounding. I take these themes up in more detail elsewhere. Finally,

takes on another dimension in the context of the critique of for being dicta living is Goethe's "[e]very that not a example ontological unity, see but it individual, insofar it thing, to single a plurality; even appears as us as an living, beings" Morphologie, (Goethe, independent quoted still remains a collection of this material

in Stack 168 n. 27), and the influence on, and development of, this line of thought from the incisive in Nietzsche. An important these questions survey of and Eighteenth century onwards can be found in the fifth chapter of Michel Foucault's The Order of Things, the sections on `Monsters and Fossils' and `The Discourse of Nature' are especially apposite. Elements of Foucault's approach are deployed to Yoxen's (1981) in critical great effect biology. molecular

study of the presuppositions

of contemporary

Valuable work in this area, concentrating entirely on Simondon's her essay `L'individuation in by Fagot-Largeault done Anne been has contribution, biologie'. en

59

60 See the chapter `Morphology, The Origins of Order.

Maps and Integrated

Tissue' in Kauffman's

is (1998 21) the variously philosopher of 61 "to true the is the as else world" or translated as "the true philosopher's country Bruno's discussion in This of his a lands occurs comment own". are philosopher all his interlocutor that by idea the Aristotelians Oxford proposed the and attack on is it that this evinces in be own", one's not "must a country an agitator not one latein the is taken idea This up of course internationalist Bruno's response. Giordano Bruno's fine description

revolutionary of a watchword and nineteenth Manifesto in homeland; the has of the no internationalism, revolutionary such that, have "working country. no the that men for Party, example, we read the Communist twentieth

centuries

as

have they from got". them not take what we cannot

References

246

N

CHAPTER IV ATO

62

As exemplified for example in the title of Pierre Macherey's book. In a far cruder register see Jean-Bernard Pouy's Spinoza encule Hegel, literally `Spinoza fucks Hegel up', a science fiction novel in which les Spinozistes are a group of nomadic antistate rebels carrying out guerrilla type attacks on the forces of an authoritarian state. 63

For recognising the decisiveness of Spinoza for reconstructing theory, if for nothing else, Althusser's greatness must be acknowledged.

Marxist

64

1 refer here to two talks given by De Landa in Winter 1997 the `Institute at of Contemporary Art' and the `Architectural Association', both in London. 65

Kenneth Surin offers a particularly lucid account of Amin's work from a perspective close to our own in his article '"Me Continued Relevance of Marxism' as a Question. Some Propositions'. A different critique, focusing on the "third-worldist" implications of Amin's position is contained in Robert Brenner's dispute generating article `The Origins of Capitalist Development: A Critique of Neo-Smithian Marxism'.

66

See their immensely important

article `Systems, Structures

and Capitalistic

Processes'. 67

To redress the balance, De Landa is not the only reader of Deleuze and Guattari to ignore the seriousness and centrality of their engagement with Marx, it is a conjuring act common to most Anglophone readings. There are of course notable exceptions: Jameson, Hardt, Holland to name the most prominent; as well as those Warwick, have done integrity, from of great considerable work recent graduates who formation to the contributing of a Marxism, reinvented, reconfigured through the future oriented lenses of Deleuze and Guattari. The disappearance of Marx from his indices is DeleuzeGuattari those of relatively merely another of reception of recent, yet extremely thorough, intellectual coordinates.

from the set of commonly possessed excision

The section entitled `The Molecular Unconscious' in Anti-Oedipus is one of the most important passages in DeleuzeGuattari's joint work dedicated precisely to this task. 68

References

247

69

It is relevant to point this out because it is of course in the field of biology that the question of vitalism originally arose and in which it has the greatest pragmatic implications.

70

In an act of inestimable value to all those interested in the evolution of Deleuze's thought, his notes for these lectures have been transcribed and made now available to all on the WWW at imaginet. fr/deleuze. 71

The full

quote, in a discussion with Toni Negri, reads "I think Felix Guattari and I have remained Marxist, in our two different both but ways, of us. " As is well known, the text upon which Deleuze was working at the time of his death was a book on Marx, apparently to be called La Grandeur de Marx, of which Negri has written: "In a text carefully drawn up [elaborato] by Gilles Deleuze, and his death which untimely prevented him from publishing, La Grandeur de Marx, it is precisely this realisation of Marxist theory which is studied and identified as an dispositif/apparatus. Communism, Deleuze says, is a concept which ontological becomes a `common notion' through the power [puissance/forza] of the masses, a notion/name that corresponds to the way of existing/being of the multitude/masses, becoming, in it gives reality to the masses/multitude" (Negri 1998b that or rather 8). The translation of this section is in a private communication to me from Matteo Mandarini. For more on this, now nonexistent, book see Negri's Exil (1998c 28),

Holland (1997). and

References

248

72

A complete French translation, that used by Bataille, was published in 1929. Jacques Grinevald's introduction to the new scholarly English translation, the first complete one, of The Biosphere, `The Invisibility of the Vernadskian Revolution', gives an excellent account of the political and scientificoideological background to the half-century long neglect of Vernadsky's work outside the Soviet Bloc. On the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain, Vernadsky has the status of a scientific giant, to the extent of there being institutes, scientific prizes, streets, a mineral (vernadite), mountain ranges, a lunar crater, and even a species of bacteria (one active in the formation of sea bottom manganese and iron ores) in his name; in there was also a significant and well addition to which, and more importantly, funded multidisciplinary Biogeochemistry, founded on research programme, Vernadskian

lines. A fascinating

be is to explicitly study waiting written of the `positive' effects of the Soviet attempt to invent a proletarian science, a science in frozen form the accord with of Marxism developed to justify Soviet power, Dialectical Materialism (Diamat), or again a science that claims to follow from Engel's The Dialectics of Nature. Vernadsky's theses with their rejection of the idea of passive by distant, being his `life is acted on organisms a reified environment, slogan of a force', his geological research on the manifold ways in which the environment is and by beyond bemoaned formed fact, far in in those naive piously shaped, ways be that could easily coopted and made to are clearly ones environmentalists, harmonise with the rhetoric of the Soviet state. This is clearly how Vernadsky's his leading Lapo. That Andrei Soviet by commentators, one of work was portrayed being said, Lapo is able to cite certain comments by Vernadsky himself that are little but but ] I know [... Marx "I in Marx to a most superficial way: sympathetic think that the noosphere will be fully in accordance with his basic conclusions" life by Vernadsky's 68). Lapo 1987 as a geological concept of quoted force is in fact fully in accord with Marx and Engel's critique of the nature-culture division in The German Ideology, where they write against Feuerbach that "He does (Vernadsky

from direct him is thing all given not a not see that the sensuous world around industry the but the of the state of and of product same, ever eternity, remaining by few transplanted ] [... The [... 1 centuries ago was only a cherry tree society of the The 47). 1976 Engels (Marx aspects into negative and our zone" commerce in the having known, their for too apotheosis well such a science are all campaign Guattari's Deleuze and Lysenko episode. From the perspective of the genealogy of Deleuze from Uexkull, and the that whom ethologist work we might observe in the like Vernadsky key quite neglected Guattari draw certain concepts, was, University the of his Estonia, at West, yet championed in a centre where native derived directly field in a Tartu still bears his name, and now carries out research in important level, there ways are from his work, Biosemiotics. Beyond this trivial by described biology' `new both, the as to of themes are elements common which the Finally, for general this). (see given the Dorion Sagan more on previous chapter lectured Vernadsky it is at that thesis this intellectual background to worth noting

References

14-9 the Sorbonne in 1922 on `Geochemistry', where he was in contact with Bergson, whose work he read and is explicitly influenced by. This Bergsonian influence is further felt in the work of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen,the economist who has done most to create a thermodynamic economics explicitly building on both Vernadsky and Bergson, and indirectly on Bataille's general economics.

1VQTESTO CHAPTER V ?s

This is Nick Land's judgement on Deleuze alone, in `Making it With Death: Remarks on Thanatos and Desiring Production'. The idea that there is an unbridgeable chasm between Deleuze, Guattari and their contemporaries is derived from Land, but the one carved here is through very different has materials, a different shape, and so very different consequences. Deleuze himself has indicated, albeit for very different purposes, some of the components of his philosophical make him belonging that to a tradition utterly at odds with that of his mark up out as he remarks in a letter that "What I most detested was contemporaries; Hegelianism and dialectics" (1990/95 14/6), a moment in philosophical history in which most of his contemporaries are of course immersed to varying degrees; he has he "never worried about going beyond metaphysics or the death too that notes big [... ] thing about giving up Totality, Unity, the of philosophy, and never made a Subject" (ibid. 122/88) one could add to this his utter rejection of Heidegger and his having lifelong been his CPF; the phenomenology; and a member of never outspoken adherence to Marxism; his utter refusal to succumb to psychoanalysis; his preference for Anglo-American over French literature (Deleuze and Parnet 1996 Capitalism ie. in Saussure, 47ff), and for Hjelmslev the turn and over Schizophrenia, to semiotics. In the Abecedaire, Parnet poses Deleuze's tradition to

him in terms of his preference for the `z' in philosophy": Zen, Zarathustra, Spinoza, Leibniz, Nietzsche, BergZon (Deleuze), and one might oppose to this the three `h's'

Husserl, Heidegger. Hegel, of phenomenology: See Alain Badiou (1997 69) for an elaboration of the idea that Deleuze's doesn't denotes that Badiou By is `Classical'. this any philosophy philosophy by invented if the Kant's injunctions, that critical process acts as critical submit to

74

Kant was null and void; and that also opposes any of the much-vaunted "returns to demarcate Deleuze's doing to Badiou too In Kant", to critique, etc. sharply seeks so in his from participate, of whom that all contemporaries, erstwhile of position

degrees, in this neo-neo-Kantianism. varying

References

250

'5

This formulation

originates in Negri `On Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus' 98. In an extremely unusual, highly provocative, and to my mind quite superb, analysis of Leibniz and the Kabbalah Allison Coudert writes that Leibniz and his close associate Francis Mercury van Helmont "both reject the corpuscular philosophy of the Cartesians and Gassendists for a vitalist philosophy that endows matter with force and activity" (Coudert 1995 54). Coudert performs a minor reading of Leibniz, exploring his relationship with, and in some cases, active production of Kabbalistic and alchemical texts that explodes his insulation by the philosophical establishment in a hermetic and teleological discipline by allowing these excluded traditions of thought to leak in and corrupt the body. philosophical She writes for example of Leibniz "Ghost-writing book for a a self-proclaimed Kabbalist [van Helmont, EA]" and notes dryly that this is "extraordinary for an act someone supposedly repelled by fanciful Kabbalistic theories" (Coudert 1995 13). A similar minor reading that incurred perhaps greater hostility is Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs' pioneering work on Newton's lifelong involvement with alchemy. 76

The relevant works of biology to which I refer are Robert Rosen's Life Itself A Comprehensive Inquiry into the Nature, Origin and Fabrication of Life, and Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan's Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Microbial Evolution. The pertinent critique

issues in these works are akin to those we had encountered in the of autopoiesis: the recognition that mechanism is not counterposed by but by complexity; and that the boundary lines separating the organism

vitalism from the world

increasingly are life lies its in of

under

challenge,

such that

the dominant

symbiotic, contagious nature: the mutual Deleuze Guattari that the and entity, of each and every process heterogenesis. This concept suggests that one can no characterise as machinic longer ask about the identity, the bounded unity of a being, but rather about its both forces interlocking that cut through and transverse network of complex with a characteristic interdependence

[... ] in "the its which a part of a phenomenon surplus value of code, of fragment its of another machine, and own code a code machine captures within thus owes its reproduction to a part of another machine" (Deleuze and Guattari 1980/87 339/285), and see the discussion of this concept above. The second direction from which this challenge comes is in that work that (to name four very it by virtue

Pert) Butler, Candace Samuel Clarke, and and authors: brain indeed the be the or that contained within not even cognition can suggests body, but is rather smeared across the world, and embodied, or immanent to different

matter.

References

Chalmers

251 xs

77

For some fascinating, if characteristically idiosyncratic, comments on the continuities between Spinoza and Bruno, see Ernst Bloch's `Bruno and the Infinite Work of Art; Spinoza and the World as Crystal'. Bloch credits them both with espousing an immanent philosophy of "sorrowless and daybright materialism" (864), and sees them both as direct philosophical precursors of Marx. 78

Fred Beiser's chapter on `The Rise of Spinozism in Germany 1680-1786' gives a vivid account of the terror that Spinozist materialism and atheism inspired in the forces of authority, and principally in Kant.

79

For a popular account see Margulis work see her Symbiosis in Cell Evolution.

80

and Sagan 1997, for Margulis'

technical

Bruno, De minimo in opera latine conscripta I, III, p. 135 quoted in Ordine

155. 81

Steven Rose, one of DeleuzeGuattari's favourite biologists on whom they frequently rely for their understanding of the sciences of the brain, has superbly summarised a similar critique of the DNA myth thus: "to put the organism and its lifeline back at the core of biology [... ] means replacing the static, reductive, DNAcentred view of living systems that currently pervades biological thinking with an emphasis on the dynamics of life. We need instead to be concerned with process, with the paradox of development by which an organism has simultaneously to be and to become" (Rose 1998 18). Roses's work on the Conscious Brain is referred to in both A Thousand Plateaus and in What is Philosophy?

82

One can similarly detect the emergence of a nascent Spinozist influence in a heretical wilfully research programme in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. I refer to the work of Rodney Brooks at MIT, announced in his 1987 paper, `Intelligence Without Representation'. Brooks' approach to building `intelligent autonomous robots' is anti-representational, acentric, embodied, and bottom-up; and based on the argument that intelligence is not abstract and his but The immanent Spinozist work representational, element of and embodied. lies in his method, which is not "the usual decomposition of a system by function but rather a novel decomposition by activity" (Varela et al 1991 209); an account bodies. further Brooks directly Spinozist Deleuze's argues recalls account of which that "there is no single place where `perception' delivers a representation of the Brooks is In in ibid. 211). (Brooks there in the traditional work quoted sense" world no representation, no central system, and no transcendence.

References

252

83

See chapter two of Aryeh Kaplan's excellent, instructive translation of and commentary on the Sefer Yetzirah: The `Book of Creation' in Theory and Practice, this text is both the most ancient and one of the most important works in Jewish Kabbalism, being the urtext of that literature deals which with the creation of both spiritual and physical Golems. Kaplan reminds us that in Genesis 1: 2 "The Earth was chaos (Heb.: tohu) and void (Heb.: bohu)" and that "Tohu denotes pure does that Bohu is pure information that does substance not contain information. not relate to any substance". It is impossible to state the hylomorphic coupling more clearly. This coupling resonates through the ages and as I am concerned to is show one of the most important axiological structures of State thinking. The trope of the Golem is far reaching, for beyond its origin in Kabbalist speculations on the creative power of the word, it has exerted its influence upon, for example, Norbert Wiener one of the originators of cybernetics who saw fit to suggest that one of the earliest computers be named Golem, see also his collection of essays God and Golem Inc., and has generally served as a metaphor for passive matter activated by force; transcendent a contrary to its recent use by blind technophiles as a fashionably recondite metaphor for `matter out of control', it is in fact the model of State science par excellence. For a detailed treatment of the history of the Golem see G. Scholem's essay `The Idea of the Golem', and Moshe Idel's monumental Golem: Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on the Artificial Anthropoid. his Confessions, for Enneads Plotinus Book VII the see of see in Evil', Matter `Plotinus text Denis O'Brien's the and my are quotes on paper and from Enneads 1.8.3.35-40 and are cited by O'Brien. For the beginnings of a critique lecture Platonism `Evil in Bataille's 1947 George the on matter-evil complex see of le le divin `Du his Sadism', the et rapport entre same year, review article of and Gnosticism'. Materialism `Base breaking his and article on ground mal', as well as 84

For Augustine

References

zu

The price for such heresies has differed through history. Whereas now it be difficult kinds funding for to secure an academic position or might simply certain his formed Beiser, in Spinozism the that multifronted war on of research, account of the backdrop to the writing of the Kantian critiques, writes in his The Fate of

85

Reason (Beiser 1987 48) that by 1710 in the German states there was a Catalogus in had held Anti-Spinozanorum in Leipzig to to subscribe which one scriptorum Century in Sixteenth license. R. Mendoza G. that to teaching writes secure a order Oxford "every bachelor and master who dared to diverge from Aristotle's Organon, indeed 24), five (Mendoza 1995 fined it, until shillings" was or violate any point of the late nineteenth century both Oxford and Cambridge were closed to religious has the Nietzsche most scathing attacks of one written of course nonconformists. University between State the syllabi, the the of management and complicity upon kind between intimacy this censorship the to of peculiar attention paying particular Educator'. his `Schopenhauer in as the of paragraphs closing and philosophy his based principally upon Bruno's own critique of the academic politics of exclusion, his in theme is deeper is Oxford constant a and study of worthy at experiences The Expulsion the Supper Wednesday Ash The of in See and particular work. Unity. Cause, Principle found in be and Triumphant Beast, references are also to

bizarre Patton the Paul takes 86 It should be noted that in his translation is "matter dej informee" ä already "la as est the matiere sentence step of rendering here. to informed", it is, needless say, corrected

References

254

87

This article is published in English in Denis Hollier's valuable collection of lectures and other material connected to The College Sociology 1937-39, pp. of 73-84. Regrettably the history, trajectories, and influences both intellectual and political of the College have not yet been treated to the detailed study they so richly deserve; it was without doubt one of the most important, innovative and seminal events of modern intellectual life. One of the reasons, I suspect for the absence of lies in the nature of the concerns guiding the current orthodox reading study such a Bataille, crudely put, the `transgressive' reading. The Bataille that emerges from of the Collegeperiod is somewhat inassimilable to this reading, focusing as he does on political and scientific, as opposed to literary and phenomenological questions. One deal to admirable attempt with this side of Bataille's work is Richman 1982. Issues arising from Vernadskian themes in Bataille, Nietzsche's critique of science, and related elements of superior materialism reappear in numerous places throughout this thesis. Bataille's work has suffered from an exceptionally thin both for by is inspiration: the that to say, a narrow reception, governed, most part, largely by his defined is Derrida's `From interests in that the one essay scope of Restricted to General Economy: A Hegelianism Without Reserve'; directly related to this is a severe limiting of the Bataillan corpus, a Bataille composed of his erotic hence his `properly' texts, we philosophical more novels, and a careful selection of Bataille. In dominant `transgressive' image the the the current work, a of are given Bataille's by is to this upon concentrating my attention offered, picture corrective by imposing is this a periodisation case of no means a economic and political works: he for is Bataille's to consistently produced work attuned as self-evident, career, on he "the Bataille's issues. calls to economic and political engagement with what (Bataille the linked to the globe" movement of energy on general problems that are VII 27) ranges from the articles for Contre-Attaque and Acephale in the 1930's, and Share. The Accursed culminates in the already mentioned magnum opus,

NOTES TO CHAP Benjamin Walter History' Philosophy 88 of In Thesis XVI of the `Theses on the his be "in to historical of control it is the critic task the materialist that of writes following The thesis, history". blast the of to continuum open enough man powers, historical that theses, the such theme, the permeates which elaborates on "based but on a is a constructivism, not a passive empiricism, materialism homogeneous the course "blast it of to out era specific a seeks constructive principle" lifework". the life of out the work 1 history [... a specific or era out of a specific of history the of to continuum they that "the make Again, are about awareness their action" the of moment the at is classes revolutionary of characteristic explode (Thesis XV).

References

M

89

For a detailed exposition of the concept of the `State-form', its differences from the classical Marxist model, and the necessarily transcendent nature of State thought see Hardt and Negri, Labor of Dionysus: A Critique of the State-Form. Of particular relevance is the section called `Genealogy of the Constituent Subject', pp. 308-13. The construction of this abstract diagram is sketched out in greater detail in the previous chapter, `Elaborations on Brunian Materialism in Deleuze'. Antonio Negri's work (1991 and 1994) on the identification of politics and ontology, in Spinoza and Descartes in particular, is also essential in this respect.

90

Frances Yates offers a detailed account of the long history of heliocentrism, Neopythagorean Neoplatonic in to the the and role of sun paying especial attention between boundaries how As index the were artificial an of quite mysticisms.

91

"science and Hermeticism in the Renaissance" (Yates 1964 155) she writes that "Copernicus' discovery came out with the blessing of Hermes Trismegistus upon its head, with a quote from that famous work in which Hermes describes the sunI And t... the in Egyptians their moment, the crucial at religion magical of worship just after the diagram showing the new sun-centred Hermes Trismegistus on the sun" (loc. cit. ).

References

system comes a reference to

266 92

For a snapshot

of the range of different interpretations of the Brunian achievement vis a vis Copernicanism, and specifically, on the limitations of the latter, see Gatti (1999 102-6) Whilst Yates is and Yates (1964 237-9). concerned to show either that Copernicanism is marginal to Bruno's thinking or else that his writings on cosmology, far from being inspired by contemporary science are entirely indebted to hermeticism and Gnosticism, that he is concerned not with but "Egyptian truth, magical truth" (Yates 1964 239). Gatti's book scientific, with is dedicated to showing that Bruno is the first philosopher of the new science, and with regard to the issue at hand, that "Bruno never believed that Copernican cosmology in its original formulation abolished the celestial spheres. He claimed that discovery for himself" (Gatti 1999 104). Yates' project is extraordinary for two here: first, whilst the great bulk of her connected reasons worth mentioning scholarly output is dedicated to Bruno, and as a whole constitutes an invaluable body of work that almost singlehandedly kept interest in him alive in the Anglophone

world in the middle part of this century. And that second, this body of dimensional Bruno who is to constitutes as work unrelenting attempt portray a one nothing more than "an out-and-out magician, an `Egyptian' and Hermetist of the

deepest dye" (Yates 1964 450); as such Yates' work acted as a dam for decades by kind hopefully, Gatti, Mendoza, the and myself. preventing of work carried out Yates was, as Lindsay has pointed out, perhaps the last in the long line of Catholic is another), the cosmologist but has throughout the centuries, whose changed manifestation of whose work him belittle Bruno's has to to reject work, or sideline and remained constant: object has Nietzsche, Bruno his Mendoza, in with comparison of as a mad apostate. by by both their that contemporaries and were grossly misunderstood pointed out detractors

Bruno of

Stanley

(the Catholic

Jaki

highly [... ] thinking interpreters their their was subversive as well modern many of derangement" 219). (Mendoza 1995 by to their mental enemies some of attributed Finally, for a comprehensive survey of the varieties of Bruno interpretation see had I book Gatti's Unfortunately (1998). Antonio Calcagno was published when been have I this able the not consequently and chapter, of writing almost completed The liked. that have I fully her note will integrate reader to as would research as Gatti, 1999 taken 1998, Calcagno, 1995, dates Mendoza, and the publication of four the Nolan in interest the as we approach together indicate an intensification of hundredth

anniversary

his immolation of

in 2000.

Smolin, whom we have encountered before, is rare amongst contemporary for Bruno post-complexity, his in contemporary, of positive assessment cosmologists

93

cosmology.

References

M7-

94

For Deleuze and Guattari philosophy is characterised as a constructivism with two interconnected yet distinct elements: "the creation of concepts and the laying out of a plane" of immanence, this latter "constitutes the absolute ground of deterritorialisation, its the foundation on which it creates its philosophy, earth or concepts" (44/41). Philosophy in this sense is coterminous with immanence, it is not that immanence is one concept among many that one can choose to think or not, at the same time it is not a master key, for "whenever immanence is interpreted as to Something, (48/45); transcendent"

immanent

be Something that this reintroduces can sure we defined by immanence is rather philosophy

the in

"Whenever there characterises religion. which contradistinction is transcendence [... I there is religion; and there is philosophy whenever there is immanence" (46/43). There is no one plane of immanence; it is the mark of great "officially Nietzsche's "functionary" (52/51), the to as opposed philosophers, invent their (Nietzsche 190), they 1983 that recognised guild of pseudo-thinkers" to the transcendent

the invention It is that immanence. this specific mode gives planes of own plane of linear for it is succession, time of a not question a as stratigraphic, philosophical of but interlacing dead (a Necronomicon), no list of planes, the an rather a of names of is "Philosophy below. but by before longer characterised rather above and or after, becoming, not history; (59/59). An excellent,

it is the coexistence of planes, not the succession of systems" in Bento be found is to this matter extended treatment of

Prado Jr. 1998.

Deleuze from and in the preceding paragraph are All nonsourced quotations Guattari's

References

What is Philosophy?

258

99

Recall that Norbert

Wiener acknowledges Leibniz as the "patron for saint cybernetics" (Wiener 1994 12) for two reasons: first, for anticipating mathematical notation and second for constructing an early symbolic logic; but one can also construe a third reason, and that is for the implications of Leibniz's thought for the mechanical actualisation of thought "in the metal". However as Ernst Bloch argues, the credit here should go to Lull, whose combinatory circles take pride of place as the first abstract diagrams of a calculating device, and now "Lull's arithmeticised dream has been turned into a whole intellectual industry, with speed as witchcraft" (Bloch 1986 652). Both Yates and Bloch show that a considerable Bruno's part of work, principally his earlier texts on mnemonic techniques, constitute an attempt to improve upon or rationalise the Lullian art. It should though be born in mind that, for Bruno's syncretism, his as with all of the other figures cannibalised interpretation Lull "even is of more peculiar, and more remote from the medieval Lull,

than [that

found] in normal Renaissance Lullism" (Yates 1966 207). Once again then we see Bruno's decisive stamp on one of the key figures of the Deleuzian genealogy. Calcagno is right to point out that "the exact relationship between Leibniz and Bruno has never been established" (Calcagno 1998 38), however

Bruno's

his by frequency Leibniz is is the on of evidenced wide, as from Bruno, The Fold: brevis, Leibnizian is in in taken the monad appearances ] "Neoplatonic [... for its in to a the transformation of emanations role principally large zone of immanence" (Deleuze 1993 24); the supposition of a universal influence

parasitism

is Brunian;

as is the Leibnizian

complicatio.

In what is, I suppose, a landmark essay `Modernity-- An Incomplete Project' Jürgen Habermas notes the frequency, dating back to the fifth century, of the use of the term `modernity' to denote "the consciousness of an epoch that relates itself to the past of antiquity, in order to view itself as the result of a transition from the old to the new" (Habermas 1985 3.) 96

his Bruno's Calcagno's interesting entire 97 Antonio reads analysis of identity this dedicated multiplicity. to and of unity of out working a as philosophy in See the Nietzsche's in collection particular 98 This is a common theme work. 69-76; the Truth, Philosophy notion in and title pp. this and of aphorisms under health ideal the the Nietzschean, great of pursues that the perfect nihilist, the (1974 § 382). German The in Feuerbach 99 Marx and Engels have a similar critique of hand the is one confined on Ideology, "Feuerbach's `conception' of the sensuous world `Man' he feeling; to posits it, the mere other to mere contemplation of and on (1976 48). German'" `the `Man' is historical really instead of `real man'.

References

259

100

For an account of the role that the rising tide of Spinozist inspired Natur had philosophie upon much of Kantianism see Fred Beiser's chapter on `The Rise of Spinozism in Germany 1680-1786' referred to above. Zammito's work is also indispensable for understanding the role that opposition to Spinozism played in inspiring the critical system, and in particular the third critique, again suggesting that Kant is principally motivated by a need to combat hylozoism. Zammito goes so far as to suggest that it is impossible to understand Kantianism without considering this polemic and its political dimensions.

101

Between the completion of the manuscript of The Book the Revolutions in of 1530 and its eventual publication, Copernicus vacillated, terrified by the possible consequences of the public availability of his book and his neurotic obsession with maintaining a Pythagorean secrecy. Like Copernicus, Darwin too vacillated in his publishing genuinely revolutionary findings, unlike Copernicus, Darwin was genuinely terrified about the social, political and religious conflagration that his did, work might, and spark. Darwin's fears are minutely detailed in Desmond and Moore's magnificent biography. When Copernicus' book was eventually published it came with a preface by the cofounder of Lutheranism, Andreas Osiander, who unlike his colleagues, Luther himself and Melanchton, was favourable to Copernicanism. There is some historical controversy as to Copernicus' attitude towards this preface, indeed it is not even certain that he was in any position to death his book hours before his by first it, the read printed copy of as arrived only had become Earth his the time soon mind apparently quite as unhinged as which for it be. it, is The that this mentioning and my sole reason would preface, point of describes the contents of the Revolutions as "hypotheses [which] need not be true be found Koestler 573 in 1959 full (the the text n. of preface can nor even probable" 59). Eroicofurore is the title of one of Bruno's books, the most recent English The Heroic Bruno's Giordano by Memmo Paul is that translation of which entitled Frenzies, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1964). 102

This quotation has a page reference, rather than a section number as is The Fearless Ones' book five We because it is the of Nietzsche of motto usual with Gay Science. According to Walter Kaufmann's commentary, this splendid quotation French de Turenne, general. Vicomte the from century the seventeenth great comes 103

References

260

10'

That

"Nietzsche

was aroused

from

his dogmatic

(Kaufmann

slumber

by Darwin"

1962 142), is a commonplace. But what is less remarked upon is that whilst Nietzsche had a long and sustained engagement with Darwin, it is Darwin substantially a mediated through the book that Nietzsche called variously "treasure house" and `the most significant a philosophical work to have appeared in the last hundred years'Friedrich Lange's History of Materialism. Of the small, but growing literature on the influence, upon Nietzsche, of Lange's astonishing and compendious three volume work, I have consulted the work of Stack (1983), and Ansell Pearson (1988). A detailed examination of the complex Nietzsche and set of relationshipsLange, Nietzsche and Darwinis beyond the scope of the present thesis. However, I would like to examine some aspects of the latter elsewhere. Especially worth pursuing would be the resonances of Darwin's horrendous realisation that "It is absurd to talk of one animal being higher than another [... ] We consider those, where the intellectual faculties [are] most developed as highest. bee doubtless -A would [use] instincts [as a criterion]" (Darwin quoted in Desmond and Moore 1997 232) in Nietzsche's diagnosis his of nihilism and coterminous project of It might also be pointed out, although not pursued here, that perspectivism. Spinoza had advanced an equally radical perspectivism in his polemical letters on superstition to Boxel. Spinoza writes "when you say that if I deny to God the acts of seeing, of hearing, of attending and of willing etc. [... ) I suspect therefrom that you believe that there is no perfection greater than that which is unfolded in the said attributes [... ] I believe that a triangle, if only it had power of speech, would say in like manner that God is eminently triangular, and a circle would say that the Divine Nature is eminently circular" (Spinoza 1966 LVI). One of the principal objects of Nietzsche's implacable philosophical scorn is the skin of humanism that bounds the dominant traditions of philosophical history, an anthropomorphism that Spinoza had stretched between Plato and Kant. An anthropomorphism, his banish from I here "All to thought: the attempted own prejudices undertake to expose depend on this one: that men commonly suppose that all natural things act, line There direct do, is EI (Spinoza 1985 a as men appendix). on account of an end" from this Spinozism to Marx's critique of reification. This humanism which grounds feel ie. instrumentalism ("to `humanise' to the ourselves more and more world, an by is the cosmos skewered masters within Nietzschean perspectivism and its speculations upon the possibilities of nonorganic by "interpretations" Nietzsche that the writes nonhuman senses. perception and human "than insects different ones are merely other species of animals and The § 616). (Nietzsche 1968 existence of such senses perhaps somewhere possible" deep from the by is now supported sea studies of solid empirical evidence ranging fish that can see light at wavelengths well beyond the range perceptible to the human (eg. Pain 1999), to the sonic abilities of bats and dogs, and beyond the different Uexküll's temporalities the ranging organisms to of on writing von senses it",

References

Nietzsche

1968 § 613) towards

261

from the tick to the tree, to a bacteria. The line of thought opened here, has, it can be argued, culminated in, or at least currently arrived at, what Ilya Prigogine has called the end of certainty. In Prigogine's interpretation, is the apotheosis, quantum mechanics, and actualisation, of the analysis of nihilism and its transvaluation that we have developed out of Nietzsche. Prigogine writes that "we are on the eve of the `probabilistic revolution', which has been going on for centuries. Probability is no longer a state of mind due to our ignorance, but the result of laws of nature" (Prigogine 1997 132): we must henceforth confront not a relativity of truth, but a truth of the relative. (See Deleuze 1993 20,1985/89 191/147 and Deleuze and Guattari 1991/94 55/54,123/130).

NOTES TO APPENDIX 105

All notes are my own, excepting numbers 1,17, and 21 which were added by the editors of Bataille's Euvres Completes. I have however made an obvious to note 1. The revised text of this talk, delivered at the `College addition Philosophique'

on Monday 12 May 1947, was published as `Sade et la morale' in La profondeur the third volume of the Cahiers du College et le rhythme, Philosophique. It is reprinted in Bataille's (Euvres Completes VII pp. 445-52. The principal reason for including this piece rather than the later article is that whilst in the latter Bataille tightens or clarifies some of his formulations, it lacks the instructive discussion session that follows the present lecture which falls French for Sade criticism, that is the appearance of a within modern crucial period debate Sade's the to a cluster of questions which solidified around as responsibility for Nazism. On this issue, Deleuze has described Bataille's Eroticism as "a text Georges Bataille Sade Nazism, to theories that ought to invalidate relating all language it is is because Sade that the paradoxical essentially that of a of explains Maurice ideas. lecture This those the (Deleuze 1989 17). germ of contains victim" Lever, in his recent biography of Sade, Sade: A Biography, locates the beginnings of in his front, Lectures Raymond Queneau's "debate" in this published pour un Batons, chiffres et lettres (Paris: Gallimard, 1965), in which the latter writes that "the world imagined by Sade and willed by his characters (and why not by Sade by Gestapo [... ] the himself? ) was a hallucinatory the with world ruled precursor of by but head thousands longer horrors of their practised a man's within confined no houses. Lever " in be, it charnel philosophies end may as Allies the Six 3,1945. "November earlier months notes that this text appeared on had liberated Buchenwald. " In the present article, as in his prescient and then `Nietzsche the in from Nazism Nietzsche disengagement and of almost singular fanatics.

Disagreeable

diametrically Bataille January took opposed 1937). 2, Fascists' (Acephale a position Bataille's his bulk reading of politically to that of the censorious contemporaries. of References

262

"dangerous" texts and authors represents a serious challenge and a or ethically to the vacuities of the procedures associated with powerful alternative deconstruction and its subdisciplines in this respect. Starting out from Bataille's approach here, it is apparent that there is substance to be extracted from an examination of the panoply of responses generated by the three most prominent aires in twentieth century French thought (those focused around Sade, Nietzsche, affaires later Heidegger) that would allow for a more sophisticated, and infinitely more and productively political approach to the immanence of violence to what is called has hitherto been by deconstructive dominance than the culture allowed of concerns in these areas. That Bataille played a crucial role in, and took a revolutionary and far astonishingly sighted position on, the first two of these affaires, is worth noting here, but is, unfortunately, beyond further comment. We can simply note that the by both Bataille Nietzsche Sade taken positions on and were stigmatised and when by beyond Nazism the as virtually the complicit, grave, with anathematised depth intelligentsia French is to the testimony the and untimeliness of entirety of his reading, to his absolute disregard for the conventions of intellectual good taste, directions in directions his that in thought to ran and pursuing courage and by intellectual the those to authorities of and moral sanctioned absolutely counter bourgeois France. True to his intentions to live by Nietzsche, Bataille is almost Nietzsche's he in that castigation of academic philosophy as escape would alone having disturbed noone (see the third section of `Schopenhauer as Educator'). It is for the maintenance of a disturbing Bataille that I have translated this piece. The Guattari Felix Deleuze by Gilles be and what asked are crystallised questions to by Heidegger Nazism have called that reterritorialisation of philosophy on effected "constitutive the is it of geophilosophy, they a of a question write, of which Guattari 1990/94 (Deleuze and nonphilosophy" with philosophy relationship of but the I take full for here only can 104). There is not the space exposition "strangest the be that commentaries taken, to of the to not path note opportunity dark" in "still leave the us [... ] complicated and convoluted arguments" that only Spirit: Of Derrida's Jacques (ibid. ), this is the interlocking set of texts comprising Philippe `the jews', Heidegger Lyotard's and and Heidegger and the Question, J-F is that, I What on Politics. suggest Art would Heidegger, Lacoue-Labarthe's and by inaugurated Bataille, that `official', issues the current this and so many other domesticated least, version. Derrida, is a severely inadequate, and at the very

References

263

107

See Nietzsche, Will to Power (1968) § 676, "We are in the phase of modesty of consciousness." 107

A critical confrontation here would be with Plotinus, principally his The in Enneads I. 8 `The Nature and Source of Evil', that "the cause of statement evil is matter. " Boa

had begun this characterisation figure the of of Platonism in a review article of Simone Petrement's book Le dualisme dans l'histoire de la philosophie et des religions entitled `Du rapport entre le divin et le mal' (XI 198-207). Here he had outlined two of the themes of the current lecture: first the lies for Plato in "the subordination of reason to the unchaining of that notion evil Bataille

the passions" (Bataille XI 208); his contention that contrary to Platonism it is not but divine. basis is This is that to the the reason, passion allied of Bataille's delirious materialism, the location of an "ungraspable horror" (Bataille XI 207) in the heart of the sacred. One could also trace this theme through Enlightenment founding An the assumptions of anthropology. and subsequent progressivism be Kant's in important to this critique of the regard would moment examine "despotism of desires" at Critique of Judgement § 83. See Sade's various arguments that it is imperative to "get rid forever of the life is law because the which attempts a man's atrocity of capital punishment, the (Sade 493/310), 1966/91 inadmissible" impractical, of a principle as unjust, "Sade Lyotard Economy that his Libidinal In Republican, atheist state. notes law, is because it is to that infamy death is a say that the a an penalty clearly says be it is if more a intensities, no would passionate, murder whereas of regulation is Bataille Sade The that 182). (Lyotard 1993 concerned is than orgasm" crime Sade Lucretius, the Spinoza "Sade is lecture is of the and this throughout who with 109

libidinal etre `Francais, encore un effort pour republicains', a 64). 1993 (Lyotard desire desire here to sustain" and we

materialist,

the one

law, "since the law cold murder 110 Sade argues that the the commit cannot in justify to man the able to are is total which passions impersonal, stranger a and is to Nature, from able his impressions who the cruel act of murder. Man receives Nature is it to and law, as opposed the him the always forgive this act; contrary, on herself the be to same her, permit from authorised cannot receiving nothing have the law rights" same the having cannot the same motives, extravagances: not (Sade 1966/91 493/310).

References

264

111

This recalls in many ways Nietzsche's coruscating attack on the "weakness of the outlines and the dullness of the colours in the picture of modern life" (Nietzsche 1983 149). Artaud's looking back to the medieval days of mysticism where, as Agamben says, the everyday was not so horribly banal as it is now, but "the was speck of impurity around which experience accrued its authority, like a pearl" (Agamben 1993,14). Thanks to Catherine Mary Dale for this reference. 112

There is a discussion of this strange phrase in the question session following the lecture, that is, on p. 377 of the French edition. 113 See Pierre Klossowski's critique of the concept of the general will on the basis that "logic then commands that we take the right to exist away from him who remains outside the species and is thus necessarily a monster, " in (Klossowski 1991 125). Sade again "now, would it not be to carry your injustice beyond all limits were you to send the law to strike the man incapable of bowing to the law? " (Sade 1966/91 493/310). 114

The phrase used by Bataille here is "une espece de culbute de lui-meme"; it is worth noting that "culbuter quelqu'un" means to "fuck somebody over." 115 For earlier elements of Bataille's understanding of the relationships between immanence and transcendence see Bataille 1992, especially pp. 157-60. I: Tropisms, Repulsion and 109-12. Tears, (Hollier ' in 1988 103-12), pp. especially and

116

See Bataille,

`Attraction

Sexuality,

Laughter

See Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari 1980/87 229/187, and Deleuze 1968/94 55/37 on this leap. One should also bear in mind the consistent On Nietzsche. figure in Bataille's this appearance of 117

his Bataille VII 448) ' (Bataille la 118 In `Sade et point more makes morale, from distinctly is hand is separated "This table as resting my which upon clearly: between is There be: proximity much as the nothing. changes proximity as could me " if table the this table and me as were on another planet. in Kojeve, Alexandre is Hegel', that X, Lecturer 119 See also the `Letter to on ) 90. 1988 (Hollier in life, " is "open that Bataille the my wound of writes which table the initially in on two play a as Bataille is using this reference 120 ways, in pointer a had been interested as he second and earlier, whose physical existence law. table transcendental of towards the concept of a

References

265

121

The phrase used by Bataille is "sortir de ses gonds," the expression "sortir (hors) de ses gonds" means "to lose one's temper, to fly handle. the " off 122

In `Sade et la Morale' (Bataille VII 450), Bataille writes "If one loses the control that reason had over violence (the sacred), human possibility fades away." 123

The audience, of course, would have heard the second sense of "sauter, " that is fucking. 124

The context of this line of argumentation lies in Bataille's reintegration of horror (more broadly, perhaps crudely, the transgressive) within the experiences of human remit of experience. One of Bataille's most powerful formulations of this follows: "Auschwitz, like the Pyramids or the Acropolis is the position runs as achievement, the sign of man. Man's image is henceforth inseparable from a gas XI 226). A further lies in Bataille's this chamber..., " (Bataille aspect of does but in a way that completely with not yet exist", dialectic, doctrines truck teleology, escapes any any with with project orientated of his and our time: his reading of Sade is conditioned by the impossibility of his being by hypocrisy" "vulgar impotence... those whose a a pretentious read without

preoccupation

the "what

in Sade "resembles that relation to their relationship of primitive subjects with king, whom they adore and loathe, and whom they cover with honors and narrowly in The Sade is the figure to 111 54). these two (Bataille " respects central of confine, development of Bataille's theory of heterology. For these questions see 'The Use Value of D. A. F. de Sade', (Bataille

II 54-69).

The complexity of this paragraph lies within Bataille's extended use of the 125 leap, le saut, here the suggestion is that contemplation of the moral leaps that Sade's characters make puts one into a contagious communication with the hauteur, lies introduction in the The this a of impossible. the of strength unknown, knowledge by The in high jump a is offered hauteur possibilities athletics. a saut en by the overbearing doubly inscribed is representation Sade's of a plane on work of final deictic in the phrase. the of weight XI 172-87), (Bataille d'Hiroshima' review a d'habitants de 126 `A propos recits 1990). Penguin, (London: Hiroshima book Hersey's John article of that Bataille de Sade' posta F. D. A. suggests Value Use `The In 127 of the political to in and economic addition require, would society revolutionary its having orgiastic goal as "antireligious organisation asocial and an organisation, "this that to he " destruction, argue on forms goes different in of participation the than scandalously one have morality of conception other no can organisation 11 69). (Bataille " de Sade, by the Marquis first for time the affirmed

References

g

128

On this involution in Kant consider Deleuze's claim that "this is what Kant

Critique least in Pure Reason, the saw so profoundly of at at one point: the manner in which the speculative death of God entails the fracture of the I, the simultaneous disappearance of rational theology and rational psychology. " (Deleuze 1968/94 117/86).

129 Bataille concludes `Sade et la morale' with a suggestion that might be derived from this brief exchange. "In order for words to correspond to my passion, I `discourse' from have have I to indeed to the pass renounce enchaining, would would to poetry. It is in this sense that Kant's judgment was sound when he made art the identical is domain in the is the end which only model of the moral act, since art level is the discourse to insufficient: Bu is of this the raised not still means. with VII 452). lucidity. (Bataille ' by abandoning poetry simply

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