The Social Occupations of Modernity: Philosophy and Social Theory in Durkheim, Tarde, Bergson and Deleuze

THE SOCIAL OCCUPATIONS OF MODERNITY: PHILOSOPHY AND SOCIAL THEORY IN DURKHEIM, TARDE, BERGSON AND DELEUZE

DAVID TOEWS

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the 00 degree Doctor Philosophy for the of of requirements

University of Warwick, Department of Philosophy August 2001

For Barbara and Sarah

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Page 3

DECLARATION

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ABSTRACT

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PROLOGUE - Occupations

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INTRODUCTION - Social Ontology: Occupations,Modernity and The Contemporary

PART I-

THE SOCIAL WHOLE AND THE SOCIAL PART

Ch. 1- Durkheim's Conception of the Social Necessity of Modernity

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Ch. 2-

Social Quantity and Difference

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Ch. 3-

Tarde's Ontology of the Social Particular

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Ch. 4-

The Sociologisms of Durkheim and Tarde: A Comparative Evaluation

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PART II - THE OUTSIDE

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Bergson's Social Thought as an Alternative to Sociologism

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Ch. 6- DeleuzianSocialPhilosophy:TheHorde andRevolutionaryDesire

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CONCLUDING CHAPTER - Social Need as Occupational: Toward an Ontology of Modern Time and Space

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Ch. 5-

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis was developed and written with funding from a number of sources including a Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities ResearchCouncil of Canada(SSHRC). I would like to thank my supervisors at the University of Warwick: Peter Wagner (Sociology Dept.), who provided me first few days from in through to very my with outstanding guidance every aspect the end; and Keith Ansell-Pearson (Philosophy Dept.), who provided me with invaluable suggestionsand careful readings. A number of individuals read portions of this thesis and provided me with de Charles Beistegui, Fine, Miguel Robert constructive criticism, particularly Turner, and Mike Neary of Warwick University, and Matt Brower of the University of Rochester, N. Y. The collegiality of all those associated with the Doctoral Program in Philosophy at Warwick, particularly John Appleby and the Philosophy, Warwick Journal The Pli: of as well as all those editorial collective of Centre, Jones, Social Theory Francis Warwick the especially associated with Secretary, and Angelos Mouzakitis, helped me greatly. I would also like to thank Andrew Wernick of Trent University, Canada, who believed in my project from its very beginning.

My family and friends in Canada,the U. S., England, and Holland, provided me throughout with indispensible support and encouragement, financial and Anna Boldt, Registered Psychotherapist, of my mother, otherwise, especially Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada,who inspired me to think the outside.

DECLARATION

This thesis is all my own work and contains all original material, and has not been for degree at any other university. a submitted

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ABSTRACT This thesis explores the relationship between occupations and the ontology of the social. I begin by drawing a distinction between the messianic and the modern as in concentrated the affective transformation of vocation into occupation. I then, in the Introduction, sketch an ontic-ontological contrast proper to the modern, between modernity, as the collective problematization of social diversity, and the contemporary, as the plural ground of need which provides a source for these distinction I that this problematizations. argue will enable me to shed new light on the occupational as a distinctly modern event. In Part I, I begin by providing a reading of Durkheim in which I argue that the but longer by is be to no occupational means of the understood ontologically, theorization of society and social types. This kind of theorization, exemplified in Durkheim's concept of solidarity, contains a fundamental ambiguity between this concept's ontological senses of original diversity and of unity in diversity. Durkheim's thought is thus first intelligible in terms of an implicit evolutionary sense of coherenceor `needof wholeness.' However, the explicit evolutionary framework and its central typological difference between the mechanical and organic is an it fail because that to the addressesprimarily a attempt must ambiguity resolve distinction of obligation rather than a distinction of need. Obligation is shown to be distinction facticity the and obscures of need. I then a concept of which overcodes go on to argue that sociality can be better accounted for in terms of a continuity of in is becoming a perspective of modernity purged of the social revealed which in `solidity' this terms to tendency continuity such metaphorize as modernist (Durkheim) and `flow' (Tarde). This perspectiveis the irreducibly plural perspective by lies in I Part I the suggesting, conclude a sense of contemporary, which, of merging with a social outside. In Part II, I turn to investigate the outside by discussingthe social thought of Bergson is Bergson's Deleuze. thought presented as an alternative to the deductiveand because it Tarde, Durkheim of and attempts to critically approaches sociologistic duration However, I the of social continuity. argue that the notion of smooth affirm `open society' that Bergson presentsis still too tied to a model of rare spirituality and henceto the messianicperspective. I then proceed to a social-theoretical analysis of Deleuze's oeuvre, in order to show how he uses elementsof a thought of continuity from Tarde (microsociology) and from Bergson (multiplicity), but that he is able to transcend the family-model-centeredness of Tarde and the rare-spiritual-modelcenteredness of Bergson, by theorizing non-modelled figures of transformative affective multiplicity inscribed within the actual, ie. `full particularities'. In my concluding chapter, I show how the intellectual trajectory which takes us from Durkheim to Deleuze can be analysed as a movement from a doctrine or relatively image towards of social social notion externality a more active of the outside. passive In particular, I am concerned to show how this image of the outside can be rein be terms that thought of as a can of movement of occupation contextualized always combining a senseof the contemporarywith a senseof modernity.

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PROLOGUE: OCCUPATIONS

The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science,into its paid wage-labourers(Marx and Engels 1982: 11).

One can think of the halo... as a zone in which possibility and reality, indistinguishable. become The being that has potentiality and actuality, its has its that consumedall of possibilities thus receivesas reached end, is... fusional This insofar a possibility. act, supplemental as a gift a is it, in but mixed and dissolved in a form or nature not preserved specific imperceptible This birth trembling of the finite that residue. without new indeterminate limits its and allows it to blend, to make itself makes displacement is the tiny that every thing must accomplish in whatever, the messianicworld (Agamben 1993: 55).

Why does Marx speakof halos in relation to `the bourgeoisie', which is, after him for the most natural emblem of modernity? There is something about the all, included in in elements of which are every case, every stage,of transformation nexus from tradition to modernity that has a structure antithetical to that of halos. As

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Agamben points out, the halo is evidenceof whatever is made, of accomplishments, it in as were, this world; but which are at the sametime something sui generis, somethingperfect, somethingwhole, or at least intrinsically worthy, as Marx says,of honour and awe. Modernity brings about a destruction of the halo, but a preservation of the form; a preservationof the occupation, but a destruction of its capacity to constitute original, intrinsically valuable action. This is all from the point of view, as Agamben puts it, of the messianicworld. Marx and Engels were concerned,in the Communist Manifesto (1982) in which this quotation appears,to a large degreewith establishingthe outlines of a stagetheory of history, in which modernity is a progressiveaccomplishmentof the bourgeois and working classes. Perhaps,however, as with Walter Benjamin's conception of history, the spiritual impulse which dominatesin the messianicworld is not completely alien to the modern world. As Benjamin puts it, "the class struggle, by influenced is fight for Marx, historian is the crude and to a which always present a material things without which no refined and spiritual things could exist" (1973: 246) And, indeed, for Hannah Arendt, in The Human Condition, the rising paradigm of "the society of jobholders" in the post-industrial societieswhich succeedsthe be labour and could still construed primarily as a signification of paradigmsof work the loss of the creative locus and the intrinsic worth of action: "to let go... to individuality, individually the still sensedpain and trouble of living, and abandon... dazed, in functional behavior" `tranquillized, ' (1998: 322). type a of acquiesce Marx's heading of `class struggle' is intended as a way of expressingthe raising of the occupational into the context of the problem of consciousnessand selfinto that context by which is revealed the intrinsic capability of the consciousness, know itself labour to agent as occupational which has the potential to become `for-

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itself or revolutionary. For Marx, occupation cum labour is the key social transformation within capitalism that containsthe meansto its overthrow. The becomes labour distinguished from and emphasizedover the thus problem of problem of occupation. Perhapsone could define `vulgar' Marxism by the way it seesthis relation as a victory for labour through an at least conceptualovercoming of the occupational. Nonetheless,the 20th-century has forced us to recognizethat such could never be more than a hollow victory becausethe occupational level of socialization has been continuously problematic, unmitigated by class consciousness, and resistantto periodization. It is as if the occupational has beento capital and labour what in 20th-century ineliminable has been to epistemology an and current philosophy ontology ground know We shall never whether or not Marx of concernover modernist optimism. is There did hesitate this enough of a question over it, at any optimism. really over rate, to suggestthat the social and the philosophical registers are probably neither identical nor in opposition with one another as Marx often suggested. Rather, the A in they that curiously parallel. are constant critical social theory suggests evidence is that occupations- the social needsof work, labour, activities, practices, be held broadly to the cutting edge,the creative and the at are considered destructive edge, of modernity. The glow of prestige that still often surroundsthe like the chancethat philosopherscan still seizeupon to make a role for occupational, themselvesas philosophers, indicate for us that Marx was exaggeratingwhen he said that the occupation could ever be completely `stripped' of its halo, or that philosophy could ever be completely surpassed.Even in Marx's own theorization of capital, is is final but the of primary surely significance separation, never rather always what the interface, in abstract labour, in social practices, of myth and machine. At any rate

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if it it is does, think as at all continues, we modernity, patently an initiative which still needsto be enactedoccupationally; and occupation is, as we seemto be able to infer, a pursuit which is in searchof a halo - or at least somerecognition larger than mere pay. If in this sensethat which is for-itself is to become,once more, in-itself, it is then no accident that at the sametime philosophy is still required to sort out the distinction between ontology and epistemology in order to clear room, as it were, for ontology. Thus, we could say that, in modernity, philosophy is as much a need as occupation, inasmuch as philosophy, or at least someway of distinguishing between existencesand essences,is precisely neededin order to account for the enigma of an occupational mode of socialization which has becomean end in itself but which can no longer be conceived as a processrevolving around distinct valued vocations. Perhapsone of the most important points causingthis confusion is that it is an between describe the the messianicand the modern to to relationship error ourselves as a transition, especially when by transition is understood succession. Far from capturing the essenceof modern dynamism and change,surely `transition' and `succession'rather denotea quite rigid imposition of the perspectiveof one world be denoted here is What the perspectiveof the messianicworld would upon another. imposed upon modernity, a point of view centeredin and sustainedby concernsover that which is yet to come and hopesfor the recovery of that which is lost. On this basis one can only infer a negative, phantasmatic,`end-of' definition of modernity, as when Gianni Vattimo speaksof an accomplishednihilism in terms of the `end of here (1991). danger follow The for deracinated to this modernity' moment a languageof teleology - is the obfuscation of modernity as a variety of meansand problems which needto be specified. Of course, on the other hand, againstthis danger,the theory of history of the Communist Manifesto, qua the organization and

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is, in historical be It any materials, cannot read simple way as objective. selectionof in large part, a function of the inclusive internal trajectory of Marx's careerin social thought, from his philosophical investigations to his social theory of capital. The orientation of critical social thought points to the opening of at least one major possibility: modernity can be interrogated, in the multiple modesin which it for-itself`pure', both inso to speak. as and exists, as an unforeseenmovement, But this possibility must come together with a necessarytwo-fold qualification, namely, that this interrogation cannot be conceived as the outcome of any `overarching' or `underlying' motivations, such as the `high' motivation to establish `low' for basis the motivation to theory or statements, an objective social policy as a bring (or that vice versa). the can philosophy camaraderie gain great pleasureand Rather, it has to be conceivedas an attempt which needsboth philosophy and social theory to work towards a more accurate,flexible, and contemporary definition of social practices. The greatesttemptation at such a juncture of questionsconcerning modernity has perhapsbeen the impulse of positivism, or broadly speakingthe impulse to posit inasmuch it by be `pure' that as unify experience would would one modernity help determine to that which select and us constituting a set of criteria which could In 1958 Arendt the to social and our practices. about ask and ought we can determination the contemporary projects of social scientific case against summarized human life itself, "the that conditions existence of she noted succinctly when `explain' the plurality, can what and earth never mortality, worldliness, and natality for the simple reasonthat they never the of who we are or answer question are we has (1998: Arendt been proven correct. 11). condition us absolutely"

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However, today, after the critique of positivism, in a situation in which we have also pushedthe critique of knowledge itself to its limit, we have arrived at a general `post-modern' point of view. Here it has, indeed,begun to seemdesirableto turn againtowards understandingthe organization of our social practices. Thus we might now add the following qualification: such determination is undesirablenot so much becauseit purports to do somethingto all of life - to totalize, to explain - that it is unable to do. Rather, our perspectivetoday is more that the unduly narrow perspectiveevoked here, together with the stunted architectureof social systemsthat' results from it, are increasingly revealedto be intimately related to a retrospective, nostalgic orientation - "the presen'e of the past in a presentthat supercedesit but is (1995: 75). This lays in Auge it, " Marc the to an orientation still words of claim through which one attemptsto alleviate the needto place determinableproblems in the context, not just of life-as-a-whole, but more specifically in life-as-it-faces`non-places', leading to the thus or pockets of comfort and security, rise of onward: in the airport, the shopping mall etc., in non-symbolizedspace,by which the image (Auge As is 1995). future the the of contractual process relations conflated with of Auge puts it, "try to imagine a Durkheimian analysis of a transit lounge at Roissy!" (1995: 94). This complex of `super-modernity', is, in Auge's reckoning, today the longer just is the that no at cutting-edge, of marginal studiesof culture, but problem in terms of the usual broad definition of the study of taken of anthropology humankind (1995). The problem of occupations,spilling over as it naturally does into the is formulation defining the the occupying of space, a social of of problem of problem practicesthat is no longer a problem of social fact but rather a problematization per in inherent all problems that pressupon us in the urgent terms of the actual se

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in that themselvesthe very essenceof the problematizations are each unexpected perspectiveof modernity in- and for-itself, ie. multiple modernities. Today these personaland impersonal problematizationsowing to the brutal continuity of the actual, thesejarring distinctions we createbetween placesand non-placesfor example,these are such that they rise above determination-orientedways of posing the problem of social life. But this is certainly not becausethe actual is shaped through them into total institutions that dominate our lives to an oppressivedegree, as if the latter were absolutepowers, born as such simply through their longevity or persistenceof existing. Already in the 1950sSartre decriesa pervasive "spirit of " in which "man pursuesbeing blindly by hiding from himself the free seriousness, project which is this pursuit. He makeshimself such that he is waitedfor by all the tasks placed along his way" (1994: 626). It is surely no accident that the contemporary 1950swestern vocational model of social life had begun to crack but just industry, the the transformation the post-war of of wars of under pressurenot historical felt development increasingly had it became that this to be related that and decade later is back Just to and a ontology ontology. a full-blown western somehow cultural preoccupation,though now, perhapsquite predictably, one related rather increasingly to a `lightnessof being,' as Kundera put it, which could then feel just as difficult to adjust to as the heavy hand of institutions (1984). Our occupationshave becomemore and more intimately and consciously related to our questionsconcerning ontology. They have proven themselves increasingly co-extensivewith our entire social lives, amenableand a familiar sight in non-placesas well as the usual places. In this they have becomepursuits that are but image the and necessary occasionally sufficient, as of the total never, with always institution, such as that of the old-model `full-time job', always necessaryand always

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sufficient. Now our contemporaryoccupationscan be among the most serious life at the same time as being the least seriousof such aspects. aspectsof social Make no mistake, in both of these simultaneously heavy and light aspectsthey are necessary,as well as sufficient in the context of the case. But they can, for us, as Sartre seemedto prophesize,precisely never again be the only serious side of social life, the only source,guarantee,or `base' of a rational sufficiency. Of course, however, we have learnt this not from an existentialism which dawns once and for all after the dark age of the war, but rather from ontological studieswhich over the whole 20th-century gradually increasein richness,variety, and precision of approach. Occupationsare today specifically and immediately significant, but will never is irreducible diversity of be This the a result of again generally and vaguely so. both traverse placesand non-places. To be sure,both places occupationswhich now and non-placesare subordinateto the general and vague category of spaceas that by is which constituted the activity of occupation. But I would suggestthat it would be simplistic to conceive of occupationsas the spatial modalities of practices. That is by is which constituted something not necessarilyits essentialfeature. This is the casehere: from the perspectiveof the question of social practices, as distinct from the perspectiveof an anthropology of supermodernity,but from within its historical has to be posed as a question of something other the space question of point of view, than space,and not, as we might suspect,just as an abstractbinary opposition between attributes of placenessor non-placeness.We must be able to do justice to a diversity of media of practicesas well as a diversity of practices. That which must help us to frame the question of space,that which gives the latter meaning, is movement. The relevanceof movementto questioning individuals

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emerges,more than ever today, vis-a-vis occupational change. The question of the becomes it then more and more, as ought to be, a properly ontological occupational questionconcerning social practices. There is one key philosophical approachtoday into the context of social practices. However, this approachsees which setsontology this processof contextualization as primarily a way of analysing and clarifying the background social of certain recognizablepolitical positions. For example,for CharlesTaylor, "ontological questionsconcernwhat you recognize as the factors you will invoke to account for social life" (1990: 181). According to Taylor, "any good ontological thesis" is simply a way to "structure the field of possibilities in a more is is Forme (1990: 183). that too hasty in this there something perspicuousway" in `recognition', `possibility' the terms something and which results privileging of of debates between, to tendency the to a question of of ontology as question a reduce Taylor puts it, "atomists" and "holists" (1990: 181). I do not believe that one can in `position' the to the of concept political order to show how any ontological extend level. deeper has a given political position In my view it is the relative indeterminacy of the occupational, not a relative determinacy of political positions, that gives rise to the question of ontology. The frequent it involves the ever more mode of change evokes and occupational a shared is that the as such, means occupational concern which, precisely not reducible social to a set of positions. Similarly, for earlier thinkers the vocation involved an element for be that them the vocation meant could not reducible to a merejob. of value which But what is perhapseven more to the point, contra Taylor, is that for theseearlier thinkers the value of one's vocation was precisely a value derived directly from its constituting a sourceof self-existential illumination in the face of the perceivedly dehumanizing effects of analytical proofs of various types of existence. As Johann

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Fichte put it in The Vocation of Man at the very beginning of the 19th-century,"that determination being the and of my being outside myself, the expression causeof my determined by causesoutside it - that was what repelled me so further of which was (1987: italics. Author's ). 20. original vehemently" For such a romanticist as Fichte, the project of classifying beings involves the over-determination of being, and this involves the constitution of an outside which is essentiallyunderstood asthe observed,or as the fragmentedelementsof a gaze which diverts attention from the question of value. That is why Fichte holds that

final his is the the and purpose of sensible world, man not a product of beyond in it. His be time and goes vocation existencecannot attained is he is he know He what and what must spaceand everything sensible. to make of himself. As his vocation is lofty, so his thought too must be have limits He to sensibility. all of must an above able rise entirely home, his being is his there to this; at necessarily where obligation thought will also be at home (1987: 114).

For the apparently cold and merely comparative concept of position, thus, a Fichtean humanistic the substitute warm and more might concept of conception of vocation home. But would not this latter proposition involve simply a replacementof a valueWould both Taylor's term one? a not conceptions, and value-loaded with neutral Fichte's, in this sense,refer the ontological question of the occupational ultimately to the question of value? It is becauseoccupationsare related to our questions have that traditionally defined occupationsmore as we concerning ontology

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vocations than as transitions, successions,or mechanicalchanges. But we add to definitions of occupations,inasmuchas we comparethem and contrastthem with vocations,the aura of value, use-value,the `highest values', or even indeed exchange-value,the simulacral condition of `communication'. I believe this focus upon value is outdated and misleading, but perhapsmore importantly, that it doesnot do justice to our practicesof modernity. It is only from a retrospectivepoint of view that occupationscould, with such means,be determined, even if only in terms of the minimal essenceof being the `origin of modern diversity'. This is illustrated particularly clearly in Fichte's approach to philosophy. Fichte's approach is novel to the extent that he explicitly relates\the question of ontology to the question of vocational form and movement, but Fichte's aim is to use this novel ontological problematic as again only another way to capture, re-integrate, own, and dominate the outside, and thus not at all to think the outside: "this form, this peculiar movement, this thinking, in harmony with each other, this persistence of all those essential properties amid a variety of accidental changes, are mine so far as I am a being of my species" (1987: 13). And, in Fichte's words,

I want to have an inner peculiar power to expressmyself in an infinitely just like forces those manner, of nature, a power that expresses varied itself just as it expressesitself for no other reasonthan simply that it expressesitself in that way; but not, as with those forces of nature, that it just happensto occur under those external circumstances(1987: 21).

Such a necessaryarticulation of being from a gratuitously personalpoint of view shows that any Fichtean conception of diversity could never transcendegoism,

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kind a of nostalgic desire of nature. What is implied is a anthropocentrism,and sequenceof separationfrom one's sensible,familiar surroundings,then a nostalgic desire-being, of and eventually a kind of return to a discovered articulation Such `home'. a point of view might have been laudable two hundred vocational years ago, but today it would be seenas sedentary,impractical, and untenable. I think that what is at stakein modernity for us, for our questionsconcerning ontology, is an element that our own senseof the contemporary impressesupon us, and this element is an occupational event of a rather different nature. This event is not essentiallya processof self-grounding amidst a project of classifying nature and determining the categoriesof being. However, what is intriguingly continuous with older conceptionsis that our occupational event still takes place by constituting and involving a senseof an outside. Without being deterministic, our contemporary Value is a structure not essentially of possibility. occupational event nevertheless have increased. hand, On have decreased than they the the more other expectations is decreasingly dialogue a mode of event with a contemporary occupational description of what is essentially a static position. It is also decreasinglya cyclical home. for And yet the contemporary departure work and return movement of is life, that through which one puts one's qua affectsoccupational event still latter, directly in in the the plurality of at stake the social milieu, and motivations, all this, at least for me, still makes it a movement of modernity. But it is today a flexible constitutes and reconstitutes which a outward variety of movement practices do they precisely when not apply themselvestoward a return to which are stronger the same. Thus, in my view, ultimately, today, it is for practical reasonsrelating to the indeterminacy of boundary constitution, and no longer primarily for normative-

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identity reasonswhich could be upset by simulation, that our occupationscannot be determinedvis-a-vis what is as if what is is only what appears. Occupations,have, as Marx put it, `lost their halo', which meanswe have lost the belief that being and appearanceare not always already identical. This meansthat their contours,just like those of a waiting lounge filled with lap-top users,can no longer be understoodas signs or hypothetical determinationsof what would be intrinsically worthy action, since in any caseas such they would be, after all, if `would be' made any sensehere, only enactmentsof hope and concern for, in Agamben's formulation, whatever. Surely we have passedthe point in which that naivete would go unchallengedthat would consist in assumingthat in a perfect world occupationswould appearas infinite happily trivial variety of practices, or as the mode of random whatever, as a information linkage among agentsof a `cyberdemocracy'. We now just as often tend to link the practical with a senseof problematization in which we feel ourselves `unplugged,' or wandering outside of our usual links to standardresources. I would contestthe cyberneticist notion that we more than ever tend to link the practical with the informative in the illusory interiority of simulated environments. The latter, in fact, can be read as only a last-ditch attempt to over-code or unify in someway the in fated it this to than sense, which was, offer more an attempt could practical, deliver. On the other hand, to be sure,the concernsof philosophy and occupation have beenconverging for a long time now. Indubitably, a new kind of ontological investigation will be required to account for this odd new symbiosis between philosophy and occupation which contrasts so sharply with the rigid separation betweenthem assumedby the ancient Greeks. Despite our new modalities of practice, the problem of the social as an ontological problem pressesupon us, and is

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due do to to to the distinctions we continue to guaranteed continue so, virtually make, as the Greeks did, betweenour motivations and our occupations. But these distinctions, for better or worse, are no longer establishedin external political arenas, for in in that any situations matter or which it might be supposedthat ideally philosophers,politicians, soldiers, and workers could mingle and determine their differences. Rather, thesedistinctions are now intrinsic to our practicesand are formulated `in the courseof the job', so to speak. If certain corporate interestshave aimed to create a public illusion that there is no longer any possibility for this even in the course of our practices,but at the sametime have privately held on to the distinction betweenthe managerand the managed,henceforth the problem has becomeone of preventing the conflation of our motivations and our occupationsat the same time as preventing their alienation. This has beenthe raison d'etre of the in despite theory the decline of the continues social which occupational point of view industrial inflection this discussionused to have. If here and now it is true that there can be no pre-establishedsocial agenda, desire for informal fellowship, it is a an of spirit of a question nor even also true that have have the to managed as come misgivings about this situation. managersas well But to seeonly a form of universal alienation here would be to distort the real is Alienation only a problem where a messianicperspectivedominates: in, problem. for example,the `early Marx'. What kind of purchasecould such a conception have in an increasingly post-managerialworld? There is, of course,the apparent alternative of `self-management.' But perhapsthe solution of `self-management' is only a novel type of a more traditional processthat has an essentially messianic structure: individual purification in anticipation of the ever-to-come manifestation of a judging, God-like power; but with the difference that this time the God-like power

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is `change' consideredabstractly as an inevitable force, and the `judgment' is rather a selectionof the strong over the weak. In the question of the definition of our social practices,for me there is only one real source of continuity and only one real priority that social theory, in our contemporaryperiod, has to continually address: this is the complex problem, quite contrary to that of alienation, of our tendencyto confusethe real, pressing,synthetic problem of the conflation of our motivations and our occupationswith the theoretical, deferrable, hypothetical problem of the immanenceof both in the constitution of an impersonal, social modernity. Our problem today is to a large have itself, difficulties to the the when situation we seem extent one of of perspective arrived at seemsto have eliminated any chanceof seeingthings anew. Every in investigate is distinct to that needed order and perspective problem requires a becomes formulate So to the that problem part of the even address problem. problem. We have arrived at a unique, unforeseencomplex of issues: to addressthe bad impulsive faith of self-purification, or more generally the conflation of our being to today, avoid need we overly frightened of motivations and our occupations Marx's warning that this conflation is accomplishedand that the differential is have What to carefully and collapsed. agency we need conditions of social brings that this the new possibility problem of a new perspective positively examine infor-itself the processof the constituting of problems, as and upon modernity as problematization; the question of how the sourcesof theseproblems, our affective individual hence, limited that traditionally to see cognition and we as multiplicities, in have function to the of constituting, the ultimately, mere possibility, might actually actual processof problematization itself, a new post-vocational senseof occupational

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continuity; the question of whether this continuity, as a partly impersonal, partly unconscious,synthesizing process,could be encounteredin a senseof exteriority that by be different from that any would which older `realistic' social facts were identified; and finally the question of whether or not there is any new meanshere to for based theory social a new plane of consistency, asserta new paradigm, upon the pursuit of understandingthe explosion of social diversity.

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INTRODUCTION

SOCIAL ONTOLOGY: OCCUPATIONS, MODERNITY, AND THE CONTEMPORARY

Occupationsare intimately related to the question of a new modern attitude to life. The study of them thus cannot begin with any simple way of thinking about (and in history There theory the of philosophy and social not social existence. are, between latter, history in the the the relations of rivalrous a point coincidentally below) important for become the unusual some precursors significant which will The Emile the to problem of occupations. case penetrate of outlook required Durkheim's thought, grounded as it is in his seminal The Division of Labour in Society, is of key importance. Durkheim will always play a role in helping us to think through the relation between occupations,modernity, and social ontology. Hence, Durkheim's thought will play a central role in this thesis. Above all, it was Durkheim who submergedhimself into a life-long study of the reasonsfor the fact that to identify ready-madeimages of objectified modernity, imagesthat dependupon manifestation at somepoint, is not a possible option in the images definition Such by movements. modern always be `out of date.' study of will `Manifestation' and `modernity' are at odds with each other. This is Durkheim's great ontological thesis, the operation that for him links the occupational with the

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paradigm of philosophical rationalism. Modernity has a reality that is more real, more felt, more powerful, than any object. Objectifications will always lead us away, not towards, a rapprochementwith our real sensesof modernity, those senses, those affects, that are inescapable,as well as culpable. But now, for Durkheim, also, an objectification is a way of perceiving a resemblancein an image through a mode of contemplation in which each consciousnessblends into others and action has collapsed into itself and becomemerely mechanical. The division of labour, the for him, becomes then, a surpassingof this mechanical mode systemof occupations, and a bearing towards an organic wholenesswhich would become,precisely, is is here infor-itself. What that Durkheim seesmodernity as meant modernity and an evolving and expanding organic paradigm, not as an omnipotent force. This is formations Durkheim that claims social of modernity and of tradition evident where can, will, and do co-exist. Here we ought to, for the time being, turn away from investigations of the way our practices presupposeutilizations and confrontations of the messianic into for identification, inter-subjectivity, and investigations, example, perspective: deconstruction. All of thesethree styles of social investigation - for example in their Freudian/diagnostic,Habermasian/communicative,and Derridean/post-structuralist formulations - all three of theseapproachesassumethat the task of social inquiry is to open the presentto an interrogation. They thus unduly privilege the messianic is My aim not to undermine the messianicperspective. Rather, I aim to perspective. investigate what will be at stakeonce we are to switch, as the pure perspectiveof invites do, it is instead `time to thinking to us of as occupied' modernity of an `historical present which we must open'. There is no question of elimination here. The question will involve the past and the future in addition to the present. But it

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its have dangers, own and its own benefits, and perhapsalso its own intellectual will harbingers. Above all, there will be an affinity here with the thought of Bergson and his successors,since it was Bergson's project to formulate a method of intuition that might finally become adequateto `real time. ' Furthermore, in his The Two Sources figure here, Bergson finally Morality Religion, text that prominently of will and a contextualized his project explicitly against,though as informed by, the Durkheimian irreducible `social intuiting to of openness' process an problematique, with a view that takes place as if it were a volcano constantly erupting underneathDurkheimian involve Bergson's Understanding thought re-reading social will categories. Durkheim. As we shall see,Bergson's attempt to move beyond Durkheim does not, in fact, result in a clear break with Durkheim. I do not meanthat I believe Bergson in his be incorrect be to philosophical analysis of the power of creative shown will destruction of social openness,or that this will not necessarilyinvolve a turn away from the model of Durkheimian sociology. Rather, there is a certain theoretical insufficiency in Bergson's critique of Durkheim. This insufficiency lies in the fact that the notion of `opening', no matter how irreducible and effective it is, neverthelesstends to presupposerather than usefully re-theorize what Durkheim in ie. labour `the division society', our occupations. I have thus come to of called believe that it is necessaryto go back to reproblematizeDurkheim's conception of labour `division in of a essentially society'. Philosophy and social as modernity theory must advanceby seizing the opportunity to theorize rather than merely by the constituting socially-necessarydivisions which assume occupationswhich, fracture and thus problematize the `full' labour of the historical present,transcendthe

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subjectof knowledge and his or her domain of presence. In this, thesedisciplines must pick up certain key and salient threadsof the Durkheimian project. To be sure,there is a difficulty inherent in the `positivist' side of Durkheim's approach. Despite his rationalism, his strategy is to take the social as a phenomenon, facts. he But fact. At to time the social modern wants unveil same as a social is better today, tend to above all an unsettling process. recognize modernity, as we I Indeed I would hold that modernity is, in fact, not a phenomenon. For example, this

is recognized in various critical approachesto the subject. The main insight of `critical theory', for instance,has precisely beento explain why phenomenahave to take only a secondary,illustrative part in the social theory of modernity. Critical theory has made it its own raison d'etre to addressthe potential problems of by by the abuse, totalization and particularly use created objectification and Heideggerians,of descriptive phenomenology(see,eg., Adorno 1973). The only its `community ' in is, theory, theory neglect, not of my view, shortcoming of critical if (see, but is even negatively so still phenomenological, which post-Heideggerian its but 1991), Nancy 1988; Blanchot rather neglect of taking any stepstowards eg., (see, Tarde 1903; Bergson 1977; Deleuze eg., social ontology non-phenomenological here, latter Durkheim 1984). I For 1988; Guattari 1984; the argue and, as will and in investigative direct decline has to the possibility proportion an risen as perspective in the paradigm of experience. If `survival in the outside' is our new social paradigm be to thoroughly confronted and challengedwith all our critical needs one which forces begin by that should perhaps we seeingthe world and material recognizing only vis-a-vis the presenceand absence,the negation, or even the deconstructionof `phenomena' has communicatedto the new paradigm, if not its method, its aim: get interiorizing from branches the the the storehouses, contemplation, of offices, away

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and get to the things themselves,to the locale, to the basics: the message,which far from being contradicted is much rather clarified by these movementsis not so much `get back' as `get out'. Vattimo, whose project is a rather intellectualist style of analysis of the raison d'etre of postmodernthought, seesthe latter embeddedin the perspectiveof Nietzsche, whosework, according to him "fundamentally possesses this meaning... [that] the call that comesto us from the world of late modernity is a call for a taking leave" (1991: 29). This shift that would be at stakefor a nonby in just Gilles Deleuze is terms as sharp phenomenologicalsocial ontology put life? it is " he "why to the own question of our a primitives, when return when asks: (1988: 209). What is at stakeis a biscourse of `pure' modernity as a fully practical discourseof actors: the event of social relevanceas a temporally inclusive, always but from from the point to tradition transformation modernity, always problematical for-itself. inand of view of modernity For when this pure, living senseof modernity is our point of view, we no longer conceive ourselvesand our modernity as situated in `the historical present,' a if life future Rather, for provide can still, needed, alibis. present which roots and a intimately involves needand living need is a fully contemporary question. It is, indeed, the question of the contemporary itself. Need will tend to clarify, in each case,the necessarycharacteristicsof modernity. To speakof modernity in- and foritself is never to speakof a new unity, such as to saythat we have `arrived at a full modernity' - this is precisely never the case. Rather, `the contemporary' has come to in denote is link the to the ways which modernity usefully able control or not control in the presentbetween feeling and practice which guides our senseof need. This clarity is the richness,the `fullness' of the contemporary, and its distinction from modernity.

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The `contemporary' has come to include the future in the presentrather than to comparethe future with the past. That is to say, we have here a supple category which gatherstogether a future that is immediately felt without needof any intermediary objects of attraction, without need of intervening `phenomena',or inferior be here that that superior there. or which will vague signs of which was once The contemporary, for us, tends more and more to denotea concatenationof disjointed relations whose minimal condition of coherenceis a `we are the future' ' become by denotedin the outward-projected energy which social encounters events. The extent to which these eventsare controlled or not controlled is a useful measure in Or other words, the contemporary,especially our of contemporary modernity. it inasmuch the provides a sourceof a novel as contemporary contemporary, or sociality for us, denotesthe possibility of a critical perspectiveupon the varieties of become heading has Here the of realism, veiled social ontology, under modernity. is for But this social ontology very reason gathering potential perhaps and obscure. to be revealedas more than ever the pre-eminent problem of modernity vis-a-vis the contemporary. Again, the essenceof that `networking' - voluntary or coerced- which we for does the to of a universal model social status relations not seeing rise are perhaps lie in a `work-a-day' anxiety to meet the demandsof external pressures. Rather, the key to understandingcontemporary modernity must surely be the realization of the

' We might consider that, for many of the up-and-coming youth of our western cultures, the 1980s rave culture and the 1990sclub and festival cultures have held an increasing centrality of interest for their sophistication of organization which is at the sametime a (dis)organization; and we might fruitfully consider how this festival culture is particularly attuned to events, such that, when it becomespolitical - inasmuch as it might help, for example, to provide the current phenomenonof `anarchist' protest at world trade meetings with its unforeseenmodel of social and political interaction intertwined The inextricably become the the the the political and aspect relation aspect of of event between (dis)organization and festival eventswas suggestedto me by Arun Saldanhain his presentationof his paper "(Dis)organization and the postcolonial politics of silence in Goa" at the

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fact that `networking' representsa decline in the modernist paradigm of `experience' and a rise in the new modernist paradigm of `survival in the outside'. Indeed, social eventsare less and less documentedwith a view to experience. According to Kroker and Weinstein, "ours is a time of non-history... [where] nothing is ever really experienced,only processedthrough the ether-net of virtualized flesh, like an invisible acid rain of neutrinos blasting through the earth's crust" (1994: 136). We judgement, less deliberate through experience and and rely actions understood on `leanness', that comes the the stoical almost on more creativity-through-necessity, from being outside. The important distinction here is that modernismis always an attempt to over-code the ontological challenge of the contemporary,while we can think of modernity as the critical, problematic edgewhich challengestheseovercodings and in the processimbuesthe contemporarywith a particular critical zeitgeist. Is the spirit of our times then basedin a new and precariousbalancebetween believe identity identity? do Cultural became I so. not a and cultural networking large-scaleproblem, a specific type of `problem of modernity', around the middle of the 20th-century. At that time there seemedto be growing a stronger and stronger tendencyof the individual to becomeseparated,through various factors of an increasingly mediatized society, from his or her cultural context. This relative identity shared problem causes a major of and a re-questioning of separation individuality. The problem of identity, as such, seemsto be a fixed, universal its problem of modernity, since proper redressis basedin registers of experience,and experienceis a neutral, universal fact - or seemsto be. There were debatesover the factual versus the hermeneutical sides of experience. But these debateswere International Social Theory Consortium SecondAnnual Conferenceat the University of Sussexin Brighton, UK, July 5-8,2001.

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irreversible by long-term `postmodern' realization the more and seemingly eclipsed that the `capacity for experience' neededto participate productively in society could by it distributed be throughout the to societies merely supposing equally world's not be the essentialgrist of human nature. For it hasbeen the casethat a very different kind of problem of modern difference gradually has come to the fore over that of cultural difference and has latter. This simultaneously newer and older been the confusedwith sometimes from is that our own cultures vis-a-vis a gradual separation complete of our problem dissipation of the 19th-centurymodel of civilization as a higher-order family of human beings: the problem of `pure difference.' Here is precisely where the fill for difference to the this apparent attempts account cannot problem of cultural fascism, kinds projects of and peculiar of undesirable void with various totalitarianism, and various other conformisms. The first half of the 20th-century' difference, between by two dominated these this orders of while the confusion was frustration itself has half times to sense of at great extricate a with struggled second from it. It seemeda very seriousassertionindeed in the 1960swhen Herbert Marcuse, in One Dimensional Man, singled out "the threat of an atomic catastrophe" domination force unification and world of unwanted under as a new contemporary the nefarious heading of the pursuit of the mastery of nature, and when he claimed that "advanced industrial society becomesricher, bigger, and better as it perpetuates the danger" (1986: ix). However, Marcuse did not seemto notice the full implications of the fact that the driving force of an unwanted homogenization and begins longer in here become in to a society precisely particularized, no conformism (1986: defense but in he identity "the structure" rather what claim, called mode of an ix).

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One could claim with somejustification that it is precisely becauseof a growing and compelling internal distinction between modernity and what has now becomeclear is only one of its contingent attributes, ie. universality, that modernity is no longer conceivable, in grand style, as a leviathan, or a `monolith dominating it is interesting little identities'. In this context, when Carl Schmitt points out our that the reception of Hobbes's symbol of the leviathan has always wavered between firstly taking it as the man-beastpeculiarity that it appearsas and secondly taking it as a referenceto a reasonedpolitical position on the apparentlyuniversal question of whether or not to have an authoritarian state. According to Schmitt,

humanitarian [of the 18th-century] could the enlightened although conceive of and admire the stateas a work of art, the symbol of the leviathan as applied to the state appearedto his classical taste and bestiality feeling or as a machine turned into a Moloch as a sentimental that lost all the powers of a sensiblemyth and at first representedan externally driven lifeless `mechanism' and then an animate `organism' of driven from (1996: 62). organism an within" a political contrast,

Perhapsit is precisely becauseof the bloated and conspicuousnature of defense `the is institutions that today structure' modernity such as modernist force beast (which taken as a particular, as a of uncritical as a much more often is, ) it rather than as a transparent,neutral and modernism undoubtedly universal fact of progress. But the question here is this: if modernity is now revealedto be a project of the particular, is there room only for fear and loathing or is there not also now a new

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and more sober opportunity to analysedifferences relative to particularities as distinct from differences relative to abstractuniversalist identifications? While efforts have been made to account for the problem of cultural identity within social theory as a classic problem of the theory of the modern, the problem of `pure difference', a contemporary problem of the theory of the modern, has, in fact, lacked 2 due lagging behind Is this to theory simply social a social-theoreticalcontext. changesin the real? I think it is rather becausethe vast majority of social theories up to now have relied more or lessupon a classical ontology of the social in which social forms are determined in the last instanceby referenceto a `reality' that by definition cannot include the future. Social theorists seemto have an inbuilt bias Social have the theorists the contemporary. of against either pointed to perspective apparentlyobjective structural characteristicsof societiesand/or what seemto be patternsdiscernedin the numerical, extensive quantities of these characteristics,or they have pointed to the more or less open interpretation of the hermeneutical in in to the the symbolic phenomena communication of actor relation situation of socio-cultural contexts. Despite the internal strugglesbetween such approaches,they have in common a deliberately narrow focus upon what could be called `the historical present.' Everything earlier than the subject-mattersthey can theorize is thrown into the general, amorphouscategory of `tradition. ' Everything beyond these social subjects is either too prone to error to study, or `postmodernism'. The itself eludes social theorists. contemporary Our task, sinceMarx, is understandingsocial occupationswhich, quite images is to the to give rise of modernity which specify variations simply, - such as 2 There have of coursebeen a number of social-theoretical studies of the uncritical responses,such as the responseof totalitarianism, to the problem of pure or non-cultural difference (seein particular Arendt 1973), but studies of the more critical responseshave been left to philosophers who only study

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that of the outside - which link feeling and practice. The contemporary, inclusive of the plurality and contingency that Arendt speaksof, is this ground of ontology (1998: 11). My argument, in short form, will be this: if the doctrine of the externality of the is in find in Durkheim, substantialterms the agent of the social, such as we destructionof the plurality of modernities, the image of the outside which we can trace out of it is the always accompanying,but irreducible creative agent: the image labour, the of and all pursuits which we recognize modernity work, par excellenceof is feel My to raise occupationsout of their aim activities and as occupations. as division labour become in has the analysis of of all too an which stasisas mere units demonstrate, to perhapsmore sharply this time, that they are the very and managerial processesof the dynamic transformations of contemporary modernity. In my view, the common elementsof these processescan helpfully be introduced and the processusefully reconstructedby meansof drawing a certain trajectory of social thought from Durkheim through Gabriel Tarde and Henri Bergsonto Gilles Deleuze. For eachof thesethinkers contributes something but in broader in the their also something context, essential own contemporary picture, to the understandingof this process. This particular trajectory as a whole less illustrative is of a group of scholars who more or agree, not assemblage certainly is far disagree, this to one another's premises as we shall see, with or even agree from the case! The trajectory and the thesis as a unit is rather illustrative of a destructive in inclusion the the the creative and agents modern of mutual principle of social ontology, of the simultaneity of the over-bearing necessityand the underdetermined contingency of casesof modernity. In a sense,I privilege Durkheim, becausein my view his novel linkage of occupationsand social ontology provides the contemporary intellectual conditions under which the concept of community simply may or may not be disavowed (seeBlanchot 1988 or Nancy 1991).

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the most natural and provocative starting point for my analysis. But it is through a critical re-examination of the social theory of Durkheim, only in the comparative light of the uncompromising and varied internal challengesto the latter provided by Tarde,Bergson, and Deleuze, that we can, in my opinion, best show how these elementscan be reconstructedto exhibit the processof modern becoming that occupationsdisplay. Right from the initial inception of Durkheimian thinking, there was already a kind of basic, internal conflict which over time gradually developed: between a highly novel and successfulDurkheimian social philosophy and its own quite become doctrinaire is It to a attempt sociologism. unfinished unsuccessful, well known that the Durkeimian school's institutional objectives were concretely hamperedby what could be called their interest, an interest which explains their disciplinary tactics and which is necessaryto help explain the unusual strength of their positions with respectto epistemology, scientific methodology, metaphysics, ideas I behind In the the theory. compose chapter one a careful analysis of and moral interest of Durkheimian classical sociology using one of the key terms of Durkheim himself. as being directed primarily and positively towards an avowal of social `solidarity'. As we shall see,`solidarity' in the Durkheimian meaning is tantamount to a metaphysical and external substance. At the sametime, however, it is a key term in a metaphorical kind of rhetoric indicative of Durkheim's investment in his strategy facts. The focussing social consolidated words solidarity and consolidated of upon `solidity', have to the the of relating notion and this strategic sameroot meaning even intentionally is fully, consonantwith Durkheim's ontological symmetry of meaning conception of sociology. They refer alike, one on the side of ontology, one on the basis, it, he As know, in to the of sociality. as sees we methodology, ultimate of side

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the event of its communication such a doctrine easily proved unacceptable,as we might say,to all but the converted: the institutionalisation of Durkheimianism in France,though collectively sought, proved to be individually basedin its material successes.Taken, as Durkheim took his doctrine, as itself a kind of sufficient reason for a nascentmode of French political socialization in the Third Republic, it proved to be completely chimerical. But we can and we must distinguish betweenthe important insight and the innovative methods which lead to a doctrine and the doctrine itself. We can and this hasbeen done and done well - analysethe clash between a more or less complete doctrine and the disciplines which it makes nervous by its very formulation and-which it indeed attemptsto colonize (economics, human geography,history, and psychology to name only a few). However, I would assertthat what is also important but unaccountedfor thus is the felt creativity of thought which leads to a new paradigm and how this mode of the conceptualizationof the doctrine clasheswith philosophy, if we understandthe latter as a discipline that has a special interest in the criticism and careful production of creative conceptualizationsof a higher-order, systematicnature. Thus I presumethat there is a creativity of thinking, a Durkheimian social philosophy, which can be analytically isolated for these purposes of contrast. For on the more sociological side of social epistemology and methodology, a close and problematic relation of nascentsociology with philosophy would have to be a matter of assumptionin any account of the continuing echo of Durkheimian premisesin the contemporary social sciences. It would be hard, if not impossible, to question this assumptionfrom within these discourses. A safe option be to think of Durkheimianism being transported, as it were, acrossvast fields might of disciplinary changeon the back of the internal and external philosophical

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criticisms of the sociology of knowledge and sociological epistemology. But anyone would have to admit that this metaphor,which ultimately concealsan ahistorical perspective,would have severelimitations if there should arise a need to ask such questionsas how this Durkheimian social philosophy arises in the context of competition and cooperationwith other contemporary intellectual models. This needto set Durkheim's thought into the context of creative social thought dovetails with the need to understandDurkheim's affirmation of modernity in- and for-itself and the needto criticize his positivistic side. For there arisesa problem with Durkheim's affirmation of this pure senseof modernity which becomes one of conflict between a social part predisposedto `mechanical' inter-relations, the theory of which Gabriel Tarde develops,contra Durkheim, into a theory of creativeimitative practices; and the social whole, which Durkheim makes it his businessto defend, contra Tarde, as a vital plane of existenceindifferently constraining and influential over all of the practicesof the social subject. There is then also a problem of inconsistencyin Durkheim stemming from his rhetoric of solidarity/solidity, but also a problem with Tardian rhetoric which reacts againstthe former. The problem disjunction Tardian dominate Durkheimian this the concernsof the versus of will first part of this thesis. The first part will contain four chapters. These chapterswill naturally have as their subject-matterthe classical social theories of Durkheim and Tarde. Tarde and Durkheim can be understood as rivals in a common project of the founding of is in France. My aim to work towards a position in which I may formulate sociology a comparative evaluation of their main sociological ideas. My goal is to identify a major error that I think they sharein common, namely, the error of aiming to formulate a `pure sociology'. As we shall see, `pure sociology' is sociology that

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takes for granted that the question of the social is a question of isolating the nature of social substance,in order to determinewhether the essenceof the social lies in the be for it to seem a or occupations vehicle whether emanates external constraint which from the nexus of motivations involved in the socializing self. My plan in chapter four is to clearly show the exact reasonswhy any such attempt at a `pure sociology' issue into This dissolve the to of will allow me separate mere sociologism. must `pure sociology' from the issue of `pure modernity', to show how the latter, as an intrinsically ontological question and at the sametime an intrinsically social dependent is upon pure sociological postulates. question, neverthelessnot The secondpart will deal with one way in which, in the trajectory of thought from Durkheim and Tarde to Bergson and Deleuze, there emergesa way of thinking is independent about modernity of the axioms of which and socially ontologically both philosophy and sociology, and which therefore injects new life into and a new image latter. This the thinking the rallies around of of way rapprochementamong the outside. The image of the outside is of central significance, in different but Deleuze's in Bergson's and work. related ways, After my discussion of pure sociology and sociologism, I will be able to begin discussion into focussed Bergson's forward thought, to social part of a move two. I shall investigate how Bergson identifies the weaknessof Durkheimian and Tardian sociologisms as the way they oppose eachother to form a kind of focus be incompleteness. The will upon the way conundrum of completenessversus Bergson, and Deleuze following Bergson, pose fundamental challengesto the do from but invented by Tarde Durkheim the they this also upon way and categories for inescapability how basic the to the account social-theoretical problem of within judging. in individual knowing, Basically, to thinking, the and my relation social of

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aim, roughly from chapter four onwards,is to show that the apparentcontradiction between `opening' and `closing' can be solved but that it has two major solutions which must be somehow set into cooperationwith one another. Bergson's solution is one which intimately involves his whole philosophical work and particularly his critique of the spatial metaphor of time. But my discussionof Tarde and of Bergson will necessarilyinvolve simultaneouslybeginning to introduce the secondsolution, which is my own attempt to link the concept of the outside with the concept of occupation. My overall aim, then, in

part

two, is to show how the image of the outside is

in fact introduced by Durkheim into social theory as its primary point of perspective, and that this image necessarilydevelopswithin social theory and peculiarly always at a critical tangent to sociologism. Thus, Bergson and Deleuze can be understood from within a perspectiveintrinsic to social theory, as long as the qualification is is that philosophy an essentialpart of their approachbecauseit aids them understood in challenging the tendencytowards representationalclosure in sociology. It is the developmentof the image of the outside, from a mere passiveexteriority towards a more active senseof modern movement,that defines the trajectory that I will trace betweenthe thought of Emile Durkheim and Gilles Deleuze, and Gabriel Tarde and Henri Bergson are read as key intermediaries in this connection. In the concluding chapter I aim to have finally arrived at a position from which to sketch a positive analysis of the dynamic process of social occupations as transformative variables of modernity. I will do this by meansof relating the process to the term, or terms, of the problem of the outside, that the latter has been shown to in generate Part II. We shall seethat it will be possible to identify at least three levels of the social register of the outside. Each of these levels I will derive from

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producing a novel theoretical comparison among the sourcesDurkheim, Tarde, Bergson, and Deleuze. Thesethree analyseswill not standon their own as isolated aspectsof the problem. Rather, they only exist as mutually implicated. Thus, I attemptto draw an outline of the play of their inter-relation. My aim is to have becomeable to explicitly outline the social metaphysicsof the outside and the conceptsthat we use in our practicesof constituting this metaphysics. If successfulI have been able to display the dynamic and transformative processof the social will occupationsof modernity.

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PART I

THE SOCIAL WHOLE AND THE SOCIAL PART

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CHAPTER ONE

DURKHEIM'S CONCEPTION OF THE SOCIAL NECESSITY OF MODERNITY

The Division of Labour in Society can be consideredthe cornerstoneof Emile Durkheim's sociological project and a classic of social theory. It containshis first and most long-lasting formulation of the western sociological problematique: the question concerning the relationship betweenthe existenceof society and the essence first What this concerns chapter is this relationship as set by Durkheim of modernity. into the context of a theory of occupational differentiation. I am interestedin Durkheim's reconceptualizationof modern occupationsas the basic elementsof the social whole. My basic dispute with Durkheim will be that he did not recognize the full, radical implications of the fact that the social whole in itself has a reality that is only virtual in relation to its particular actual cases. The social does not exist as a totality brought about in a compulsion of social need as if it were, by virtue of this, over and above manifestedoccupations. Rather, I will argue that the social is simply a term for occupationsconsideredfrom the virtual point of view of their particular and actual necessity,ie. their `event of need'. Everything will thus first dependupon an investigation into the necessityof social occupations,their provenanceor lack thereof in human needsand obligations. In this first chapterwe shall therefore be

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exploring the extent to which modernity is a social necessity,leaving the creativity and culture of modernity as a critical issueto be dealt with mainly in subsequent chapters. We may begin by noting that modernity has often been describedfrom the apparentlyopposite point of view of human contingency. Indeed, Durkheim himself fully acceptedthat the progressof modernity involves an increasing contingency. Even in the primary text that the readeris referred to in this chapter, in the Division of Labour. Durkheim's aim was to show how the progressof modernity loosensthe ties that bind simply-structured communities. In modernity an unlimited creation of strong new social intersectionsand intensities takes hold. The humanworld becomes more and more legally, materially, technically, and ethically complex. However, rather than merely proliferating in an infinite processof complexification, for Durkheim this vast web of differentiations congealsinto various complex stratifications. According to Durkheim these stratifications exert a force of constraint which in effect restructuresour whole human experienceinto a just Thus, taking modern stratifications for granted as than modern one. rather objects of sociological description, Durkheim argued that the division of labour is not just the structure but is also the primary, unconsciousmotivating factor of modernity. Durkheim's way of thinking is therefore potentially quite radical in that it requires an attempt to conceptually encompassboth the effect and the causeof modern society. Modernity and society are subsumed,as it were, into a differential, structural, social it has is be, Durkheim's Insofar thinking to ontology. as ontological, paradoxically, focussedupon the human necessityof relations which in their own terms display an increasing contingency. Indeed it is the mark of ontology to attempt to include an

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accountof both necessityand contingency. However, its primary insight in its has source a certain claim of necessity. neverthelessalways `Radical,' for me, would entail the relevance of a social theory to a global falls Durkheim's realities. ontology plurality of contemporary social short of becoming radical in this way because,as we shall see,it is not sophisticatedenough to deal with the illusion of completeness. For Durkheim, to the contrary, the appearanceof the contours of various modem social phenomenaas vast, grand, and `solid,' as overarching the individual in their superior complex being, is something that we have to simply affirm if sociological comparisonsare to resonatewith is do For that there sense can no common anything other than affirm common sense. being. is deny The the complex metaphor a of a superior of solidity or existence leading one to affirm the obviousnessof such an at calculated choice aimed existence. With this metaphorof solidity and its intimations of fertility and grandeur Durkheim chose a way to make sociology popular which, we could say, involves making an appealto the individual's senseof the sublime. And, indeed, againstthis decidedly dimension involves this metaphorical are made most of approachwhich the external criticisms of most sociologies. Criticisms againstthe `meta-narrative' of inevitable in modern society complete are perhaps a potentially an over-arching, hand, On the to repeatthis criticism other contemporary age of plurality. increasingly involves little more than unwittingly testifying to the influence of Durkheim upon many sociologies. How could it be translatedinto any positive insight into how the contemporary is or is not related to the critical convergenceof modernity and society?

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A serious internal criticism of Durkheim's involvement with the metaphor of solidity is yet to be made,a criticism which could show how Durkheim's approach diverts attention from the particular involvements of the division of labour in the individual is lives below What I social of actors. will present an argumentto this effect. I stressthat Durkheim's ontology of society was `too metaphorical' to the extent that it did not recognizeits own stark implication that everything that is liberating but also newly constraining about the developmentof modernity results from the contributions of actual, particular social occupations. Rather than calling for an alternative postmodern microsociology I am claiming, in large part, that Durkheim neglectedto investigate social occupations in their own terms. For it is a little observedfact that we can still be vitally interestedin the question of social occupationsin our own contemporary situations. Naive observersthink that social occupationsare subordinateto changesin the world of work and that the question has becomemoot becauseit is a question concerning what it is to experiencea kind is is Against the this, socialization on wane. my which point of view of work-a-day that the question of social occupationsrather concernswhat it is to becomesocially creative, and what is necessaryin this, even in a `postmodern' era. When we ask what it is to be socially creative we are not just asking, human about what constitutesour practices. sociologically or quasi-sociologically, We are asking further about why our practices occupy us. It is specifically during dimension to take strange us a which we forget our occupationswhich in directly become which encounter and we an active practices and ourselves and differentiations'. is in `vast It that our occupationsthat we personally web of part of have social feelings which can be good or bad. These factors far exceedthe significance of empirical evolutions in the world of work. Often counterposedto

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work-basedsocial criticism is identity-based social and cultural theory. Thesetwo approachesvie against eachother to explain the effect of difference in modem society. But due to the peculiar way occupationsunfold it is they, precisely as distinguished on the one hand from our jobs and on the other from our identities, that explain the coherenceof thesedifferentiations, and therefore explain what we can still say about the coherenceand impact of modem societies. Everything thus dependsupon whether we can grasp the real significance of occupations for our social existence. Strangely, our occupationsseemto become more like social creationsand open up more social feelings the more they help us to transcendour human experienceand statesof affairs - including our metaphors. Modernity and the Metaphor of Solidarity-Solidity Modernity, for Durkheim, cannot be defined as a more or less complete phenomenonwhich comesto act upon and transform social existenceat a certain is initially like latent theme of all forms in history. Modernity rather more an stage of social existencewhich at various significant points in the development of those becomes Those line collectively more explicit. societies a cross at which an societies impressed individual becomes the upon consciousnessof unavoidable necessity in the overall of social existence other than the static terms of nature negotiating tradition. In Durkheim's view, modernity is that perspectiveupon social existence blueprint instances highlights basic the of society's case-specific various, of which is This the meaning of Durkheim's famous transformation. collective existential is between distinction' It the the organic. a matter of demechanicaland social between de-historicizing the transition tradition and modernity. From or periodizing the `mechanical' or the bare material of the gathering of the similar and the primal dense `organic' the or a and complex entity action of communication, we arrive at

i

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that is less and less capableof being conceived or manipulated from any individual viewpoints. Modernity is thus conceived as a kind of social transcendenceof the human condition: "becausesociety surpassesus, it obliges us to surpassourselves.1-53 The vehicle for this, this entity which comesto be tantalizingly outside us, modern society, seemsto increasingly solidly cohere as a single organism which absorbsreal human its as vital organs. At the core of Durkheim's lifelong particular practices thinking, as at the core of his original thesis, is a concernto account for this increasing modern externality of the social so as to make possible a better understandingof the social anomie apparently causedby it. What I intend to show in this chapter is that there is a certain confusion in Durkheim's conception of this externality causedby a certain use of spatial or division labour, in his theorization the of of and that this physical metaphor by how his be be thought showing remedied can productively confusion might still re-organizedaccording to a non-metaphoricalconception of social occupations. Durkheim himself certainly did not believe that his central distinction between in it it that to solidarity a and organic was simple one or solidarity regard mechanical On be be the to to confusion easily. contrary, avoid sure,the project possible would inherent itself just in study will contain an complexity, order to be of sociological describing distinction. its For lifelong Durkheim, this to the object of adequate is key the to this complexity. For him, this and society convergenceof modernity discipline that every phenomenon any aimed at understandingthe connection creates in. been interest it has difficult to find In has taken an addition, always social ever difficulty is this the these to significance and convey of social phenomena, concepts one of Durkheim's major preoccupations.

3 On Morality and Reli 'gýon, 163.

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It is clear that Durkheim's choice of focus and terminology lies in the theory of the emerging `organism', which in the Division of Labour already guides every facet of Durkheim's way of thinking the social. The notion of `organism' captures Durkheim's way of simplifying our understandingof complexity non-reductively. Given this focus and this terminology, it is perhapseasyto supposethat Durkheim in this social and modem confluence essentially terms of an analogy with understood the emergenceof a biological organism. My view is that this supposition, if in interpretation distortion the too of certain could cause a emphasized much, Durkheim's thought. Durkheim understoodthe birth of an organism as an event 4 is for him, level Nature, difference the a of nature. primarily on which makes a is biological. includes Therefore, the the the that analogy clearly social and reality beyond it includes because category-identity goes a sense of which not metaphorical, description. Perhapsthe expressionis not even analogical. Analogies are generally direct comparisonsmade for heuristic purposesand thus have no needof relying in links `nature' ' Durkheim's `nature. Indeed, terms third case, such as upon explicit the terms comparedby indicating a common operative plane which cannot be known in an unmediatedway but only in the terms of an unfolding of that which comes to in just if is Durkheim It of evolution perceived a model as unfolding nature not exist. in biological conceptions and then simply transposedthis intellectual model into be it `organism' I Rather, to the think call notion more accurate of would sociology. in Durkheim evidence of ontology rather than analogy. One can, with best precision, interpret Durkheim's way of thinking as a way of thinking ontologically which, as a intimate happens its being to thinking an effect a of ontology, consequenceof connection in his thinking of the existenceof the biological and the existenceof the a According to Durkheim sociology regards "social facts as explicable naturally." In order to distinguish this idea from positivism, however, Durkheim would warn us that "we should... hesitateto

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social. Moreover, this perspectiveexplains why Durkheim never makeshis points by relying upon a direct comparisonof features of the biological and the sociological and insteadprefers to make general comparisionsbetweentheir methodologies,as well as betweentheir methodologiesand those of other scienceswhich have a stake in the field such as psychology. Durkheim's methodological concernstake their cue from original observationsof what he called `social fact' as well as from previous intellectual models. However, I neverthelessbelieve that there is a metaphor at work in Durkheim's thinking of the convergenceof modernity and society, and that it is a metaphorwhich createsan unsurýountable obstacleto any refinement of his social thought in general. For Durkheim, modernity and society converge in the form of a metaphorical code. This metaphorical code is a `solidarity' which regardlessof degreeof compositional complexity is neverthelessalways characterizedby the basic feature of having more or less `solidity. ' In Durkheim's own words, solidarity is "the way in which men are solidly linked to one another" (1984: 126). The metaphor that createsa stumbling block for the continued influence of Durkheim's thought and which confuseshis ontological insight is therefore not biological but rather physical. Inclusive of the mechanicaland the organic, the physical and spatial is heading the metaphor of solidarity-solidity under-which Durkheim's whole understandingof social ontology is organized. We must ask then if it would be possible to criticize this heading and still preservethe original contours of Durkheim's core sociological problematique. This is doubtful. We are unlikely to be able to avoid taking up a fundamental critique of his seminal sociological thinking. One strategy of such an avoidancewould be to simply criticise Durkheim

term [sociology] naturalistic" (1982: 159).

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for using a metaphor as opposedto more precisetechnical meansof expression. But one's criticism would only have a significant effect if it could explain why the metaphoris used. We ought to ask what kind of difficulties it glossesover and this should give us our clues as to the usageof expressionand also asto whether and how the situtation ought to be remedied. I would contend that the imprecision inherent in the concept of solidaritysolidity lies not so much purely in the descriptive aspectof the fact that it is a metaphor. As a metaphor it is a groundlessdirect comparisonbetween the social and the physical. But the problem is not so much the making of a leap to description on the basis of something groundless. It is not a groundlessnessper se that ought to concernus. Metaphors used descriptively can lead to all kinds of equivocations. Metaphors also cannot be avoided easily and probably have to play all sorts of roles in social thought. But the problem in this caseis rather that the equivocation here is formulation kind the enables of assertionwhich of Durkheim's most important also a defended in the Division of Labour. "To create conceptions and most passionately betweentwo or more people a feeling of solidarity" is Durkheim's fundamental conception of the division of labour's "true function" (1984: 17). Since any society is pre-defined for Durkheim as constituted by some form of solidarity, and for him the division of labour is argued from factual reality to be a particularly modern is labour division the thus positioned within an argument which will of phenomenon, have to either confirm or disprove its role as the `true' or underlying reality of the modern social world. There is a claim of theoretical argumentation to be dealt with here with respect to the true correspondenceof a theory with social reality. What is is issue not simply another example which supports a linguistic theory that asserts at

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the witting or unwitting usageof metaphor in language. The stakesare more immediate than that. If it cannot, almost by definition, be the subject-matterof an objective theory, be help theories theorized to such can can nevertheless and metaphoricalusage illuminate certain aspectsof the strategiesof theoretical argumentation. In this case even a loose, superficial metaphorical analysis revealswhat we might call a certain `vision of the sublime' inherent in Durkheim's conception of the social. But in this fall `postmodernism' in have and rise we are probably all too seen age which we familiar with the limitations of such analysis. I am convinced that such analysis, linguistic its framework has be in it to to the of conclusions restricted as ultimately theory, cannot fully explain the theoretical passionsabout certain social feelings that in truth classical social theory. To shapean effective claims shapesuch grandiose directly by how to the claims showing our challenge of such criticism we ought meet is justified truth on the samegrounds as that upon claims skepticism about such just is in this to they case on ontological and say not asserted, which are which linguistic grounds.5 This would not be so pressingif it were not for the fact that in the presentday it continuesto be common - and perhapseven necessary- to think t

do in Furthermore, society. when we so, our modern ontologically about contemporary period, we tend to think of society existing very negatively and `constant both liberating of and oppressive phenomenon change'. a confusedly as On the one hand, this contradictory opinion of society is a sure sign that the central issue of society remains the issueof modernity. On the other hand, what needsto be

5 My distinction between the ontological and the linguistic here is intended as one of emphasis,not exclusion, I am well aware that a certain tradition, namely that which links thinkers such as Heidegger and Derrida, has seenin linguistics an uncritical assumptionof a link between logos and factual. I agree to the the or ontology ontic or an ontology restricted an unnecessarily ontos, uncritical with them on this point, but I differ with them as to how our ontological investigations ought to proceed after this criticism.

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mademore clear is what kind of contemporary societiesare linked with this present type of modernity. I think it is becoming clear that the latter phaseof `postmodern' discourse has been its `linguistic turn' really only a steptoward coming to a better with increasingly be `constant to surmise of what we change.' Thus, it is understanding possiblenow to seethat modernity remains as much more of an ontological issue for is issue. linguistic It therefore very possible that modernity hasbeen than a us issue all along. For surely our pressingneedto gain social ontological primarily a precision in our individual and collective assumptionsabout `change', which we always understandas social change,continuesto overshadowany phasewe may have gone through in the recent past in which we have debatedwhether society is or is not more than a narrative of modern progress. Modernity has always been more about an urgency of clarifying and explaining ontologies than about simply asserting is denying The the typically modem view also on them. pluralism same or insights from long Having extensive a postmoderncritique of gained methodologies. linguistic usagewe should at least be able to recognizethat we have absolutely defending by `postmodernism' `postmodernism' to replacing or either gain nothing linguistic by `ism. ' Deconstruction theory themselvescannot and with some other help us to avoid the trap of replacing a linguistic truism about `metaphoricalusage' investigative `constant Further innovation truism about change'. ontological an with is now required. We are being challengedto investigate what we meanby constant latter tends to summarizeour current way of thinking about the changeand why do in is bring A to this to our current questions my view modern society. sound way to bear upon the classical formulations of the existenceof society such as Durkheim's. I am convinced that the latter contain important clues as to why we

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think of that which persistsand has reality in society as changeand why this seems so contradictory and difficult for us to conceptualizegiven that we tend to rely upon classicalterms. In this way, it ought to be a key concern of social theory today to exposein social theoretical terms the conceptionswhich independentlyunderlie Durkheim's sublime vision of the externality of the social. This is what I intend to pursue. For the equivocation implied by the metaphor of solidarity-solidity is not simply between theseterms, `solidarity' and `solidity'. It is not simply the `sublime' connection between society and some senseof physical constancyand grandeur that must level is To that on of concernus. remain analysis to miss an important contemporary here I am precisely not asserting,contra Durkheim, that the of concern. point is, the social as one might say, `something that we cannotbelieve in. ' externality of Such assertions,both pro and con, lead nowhere. Rather, as I intend to show, Durkheim presentsan equivocation which lies between two background concepts which underpin the metaphor of solidarity-solidity: the concept of needand the concept of obligation. The `solidity' which Durkheim thinks of as `solidarity' is is describe It the understandingof necessityin to a certain necessity. meant Durkheim that causesthe confusion which leadsto the metaphorical solution. In in Durkheim to significant advances any more our studies of make order we shall have to return to the issue of necessityover which, in his thought, philosophy and diverge. sociology Durkheim's understandingof necessityhas two sides,that of need and that of obligation. Obligation, for Durkheim, is the key explanation of `solidarity': as Durkheim will put it in the Rules of Sociological Method, "in reality, as far as one fact in history, back the of associationis the most obligatory of all, becauseit can go

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is the origin of all other obligations" (1982: 130). Furthermore, in Durkheim's view, "all that is obligatory has its origins outside the individual" (1982: 130). Therefore, for Durkheim, this exteriority of obligation signifies obligation's suitability as a commonly recognized notion available for the formulation of the social-theoretical conceptof solidarity. For Durkheim does not hesitateto draw the rather dramatic conclusion, basedupon the premise of exteriority, that "as all societiesare born of other societies,with no break in continuity, we may be assuredthat in the whole courseof social evolution there has not been a single time when individuals have really had to consult together to decidewhether they would enter into collective life together, and into one sort of collective life rather than another" (1982: 130). The is deduction thus solidarity a matter of supplementedby existenceof social in inference based historical But I than that study. upon will argue observationrather Durkheim's way of thinking solidarity is deducednot from obligation itself but rather from a premise of need; the role of obligation is only to help to explain this special social need or, in what amountsto the samething, to offer a proof that a social need exists by appealto the facticity, articulation, or ontic aspect,of the it is in Thus, this way that the main theme of the Division of existenceof obligation. Labour (1984), the theme of how the primary need of sociality can be differently in in types of societies and especially modem society, articulated various foreshadowsand complementsDurkheim's argumentsin the later Rules of Sociological Method (1982) defending social ontology by appealto `constraint' and `obligation'. The Division of Labour is thus of primary importance for me, since it posits and propounds the basic doctrine of sociology that the Rules only develops in methodological precision and flexibility: that the possibility of a plurality and typology of solidarities follows from one essentialfeature of obligation: that it is

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basedin types of human need; the division of labour is in design a result of one such type of need. Already in the first few lines of the Division of Labour, for Durkheim `need' refers to a necessityof any relations becoming a durable sourceof human life by being persistentand structured in various ways (1984: 11). In Durkheim's thought, needis conceptually composedby blending the notions of structure and source. For example,at an early point in the text in which he explains his basic conception of society Durkheim adducesthe example of conjugal solidarity (1984: 18). Marriage is a prime example of solidarity. In addition, the persistenceof marriage goesto show that solidarity is not necessarilya fusion of similarities but is also likely to between of connection prevail under conditions subjectswho otherwise differ 6 in its The context is calculated to highlight the special example profoundly. methodological advantageof conceiving sociology's object as solidarity since it seemsto show how solidarity is a highly inclusive and yet very specifically social phenomenon. This is at least the explicit meaning of the example. However, I it has implicit is that that that the another, more meaning, suggest and would insofar it as stemsfrom a kind of human need,proves that existenceof marriage, solidarity, or structure and constancyin human life, in certain forms, can be a need. This senseof need is taken to make the persistenceof types of solidarity readily 6 In the Durkheimian view this difference is very much one of a power imbalance, and marriage is consideredto be a kind of imperfect corrective to this imbalance. The difference in question is thus thought of especially as a hierarchical genderdifference discriminatory against women, though it could also be, for Durkheim, a racial/cultural difference biased against strangers. It is interesting to note that Durkheim holds that marriage falls into a class of rituals that can act as a kind of imperfect corrective or defensemechanismagainst a threat of violence inherent in casesof the proximity of unequal subjects. As Mike Ganepoints out, there is here implied a little known theory that Durkheim holds that at a certain point in human anthropology, due to a fear of blood and a desire to overcome this fear by instating the abstractand misogynist principle of blood relations, women became "subjects minoris resistentiae." Strangersare also held to be treated, traditionally, in a similar fashion. Gane persuasivelyarguesthat Durkheim never fully problematized his perception of women and that a tendency to misogyny led Durkheim to be particularly uncritical on the question of gender (seeGane 1992: 109; 85-132). In my opinion, this does indeed seemlikely to be the case,and if so,

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understandable. Durkheim is here dependingupon us understandingthat thefeeling of wholenessthat marriage ostensibly provides for its participants is such a need. We are supposedto intuitively understandthat a feeling of wholenessis for married 7 in life. However, in his people a neededsourceof constancyand structure illustration Durkheim downplays the significance of the conditions under which 8 into in first being in the the marriage comes place and role of attraction this genesis. Surely the latter is an essentialpart of the definition of marriage, a part the existence or lack of existenceof which in marriage will always standto problematize any complacentunderstandingof this institution as an effect of natural needs. At first glance, this neglect of attraction in social formation may not seemlike difficulty for is insightful in Durkheim. And there a certain much of a novelty implying that society, particularly as shapedby the division of labour which is traditionally explained in terms of the creation of wealth or the predispositionsof talent, is rather basedin human need. What "confers value upon" the division of labour, what provides a "reason for its existence," is for Durkheim "the fact that it is here for (1984: 15). But is Durkheim at stake needs" what not meetscertain is (1984: is What "goods 15). the at stake of civilization" not specifically wealth, or defined needswhich as such result from the division of labour. Rather, there is only in kind one of need which can, the Durkheimian perspective,be construedas the

we would have to say that it would weaken Durkheim's theory of solidarity even further. However, it is not my aim here to argue this point. Durkheim's study Suicide also supportsthis view in a negative way inasmuch as one can find therein a reaffirmation of what Durkheim calls "the prophylactic virtue" of married family life. Conspicuously, Durkheim makesa point of arguing that a contemporary increasein the suicide rate according to certain statistics must be regardedas "independent of marital status," and this even despite a lengthy discussion in which Durkheim points to "changes... in the constitution of the family which no longer allow it to have the samepreservativeinfluence as formerly" (1966: 377). One family if be have impact the to really can simply and shown no statistically upon the why, wonders suicide statistics, why then it should warrant an extendeddiscussion as to its changing statusas a sourceof social cohesion. 8 As Ganepoints out, for Durkheim, "the two sexes,reflecting the forces of the division of labour, are `impelled towards' each other but come to desire each other only under determinatecircumstances, `only after having enteredinto relations' with one another" (1992: 99).

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division labour, is the the need of sociality. In other words, all that source of of and particular needsare supposedto arise from this concretely universal, socialexistential need. For Durkheim, when solidarity arises as a need,needdefines the wholeness of a society, and needthen provides a meansto outline the boundariesof the society in its totality so that it can be comparedand contrastedwith other types of society. But for Durkheim this dependsupon our acceptingthat need sometimeshas a special fact from itself that this factual pressurealone arises us as and upon way of pressing in every casethe demandsof obligation. For a big part of Durkheim's argument here is to adduceobligation as a fact in support of his understandingof society as a in short as a unique entity and special,non-psychological, non-biological entity therefore as an entity with a necessaryexistence. Just as he needsto prove the he find to of sociality, needs or a sourceof obligation. existenceof a social need need This double strategy indeed has resulted in a certain novel and even insightful distinguishes in What Durkheim's Durkheim's theoretical result. symmetry sociological approachis that `obligation' is not a logical a priori duty simply based but is initially-posited anthropological premise of need, rather understood as upon an an experiencedmanifestation of need's real but not always clearly visible from in diverges Sociology this philosophy at precisely point his archeology. thinking. He comesto locate the theory of obligation in a sourcewhich is quite outside its provenancein moral philosophy and intellectual history. However, if, as I have argued above, need cannot be construedas the sole if structure, other aspectssuch as attraction play an essentialrole, social source of then need's connection with obligation is not as symmetrical as Durkheim would like least, for line Durkheim Such the that to to a of criticism at very shows, suppose. us

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indicative his to throughout career obligation as refer of the existenceand structural integrity of whole societiesand of the disciplinary importance of sociology is an by is that shaped appeal a reliance upon a tautology evident in the undoubtedly theoretical interdependenceof his conceptsof need and obligation. Need, qua the is the the of sourceas well as structure of whole society, a constantforce proved by the fact of obligation, since obligation, for Durkheim, is the main evidence that such less have more or stability dependingupon the force of societiesactually exist and is be At to the time, obligation proven effective as a necessaryconstraint same need. by the reasonthat in order to hold such societiestogether in a coherentform, the things that go to make them up could not be otherwise. But this coherenceis nothing but the constancyof the force of need expressedin experiential terms, in terms of knows. ' it, As `everyone Durkheim supposedly put rather dogmatically, "he what who speaksof obligation speaksat the sametime of constraint" (1984: 13). Durkheim is here assumingrather than explaining his most basic subject-matter, social solidarity. The notion of solidarity, as the term which provides a focus for thematizing the `solidity' of this constraining necessity,can therefore be said to constitute nothing more than a metaphoricalaffirmation of a tautology. Supplementaryto this I initially argued that the metaphorical figure of solidarity-solidity is calculated to invoke a senseof grandeur in the continuity of the social. What we must seek out, therefore, is why such social feelings are linked with a conception that accountsfor the issue of necessityby meansof a doctrine of the externality of the social, and how be for in immanent less feelings dogmatic accounted may a and more such social way.

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Externality

versus Objectification

What remains at issueis the statusof the notion of `the externality of the social' as a concept presumablyreferring to an entity independentof individual experiencesand statesof affairs. It might seemto many that the most pressing questionis whether or not this externality is an effect of some sort of alienating objectification that can be eliminated or alleviated in someway. However, I will arguethat Durkheim correctly discoveredthat the externality of the social is real, and doesrefer to an independentor sui generis social being, and that the latter is not related in any essentialway to what is known in social theory as `objectification. ' We will see,as a result, how Durkheim differentiates sociology from pursuits such as political economy and managementstudiesin general. To begin with, it should be made clear that Durkheim's sociological approach was never to take an `objective reality' for granted and then measurethe extent and strength of whatever determinesit. This would require supposingthat Durkheim independent fact, he in In society's existence. simply posited was never a positivist this sense. Rather than argue for the existenceof some objective society, Durkheim for from the existenceof the social per se. solidarity crafted an argument Let me recapitulate briefly some relevant points from what we have already seenin regard to the argument from solidarity. The main thrust of this argument is that it resolvesthe factual observationof obligation with a deductive reasoningbased is by The resolution of need. accomplished meansof the an assumption upon physical metaphor of `solidity', a metaphor which describesthe repeated juxtaposition of individual facts and the reasonsfor their obligatory, needful in `structural' implies This terms. that society as the quasi-spatial or association kind has this repetition a. of independenceas a moulding or shaping force in whole of

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humandevelopment. It is characterizableas the latter to the extent that it somehow auto-selectsfrom the material universe the elementsthat go into making up those various tangible organic designsfor human living that are necessaryand unavoidable in the long-term perspectiveof human existence. This is really a spatial, even architectural metaphor describing a certain durability. However, in reverseorder the implied ontological argumentbecomesmore independent durability the the the obvious: of social proves coherenceof the various instancesof its design which proves its superiority over its own transient and its its proves necessity contingent materials which which proves existence. Moreover, the physical metaphor involved here createsthe illusion that social facts are transparentlyknowable once the spatial structure of the featuresthat one wants to know are retraced. In addition, for the Durkheim of the Division of Labour, one cannot do this retracing without detecting and following the movement or birth of a society from the mechanicalto the organic. Thus, the knowable essenceof a society is, from the beginning for him, identical with the progressof its modernity. One cannot fully know a society defined as solidarity unless one witnessesits modern from know What type to solidarity can one of another. we about pains growing in it if define as solidarity, consists the movement of modernity. For society, we Durkheim everything applied to the social, both ontology and epistemology, goes back to the definition of organic solidarity. Now becausehe involved organic solidarity so inextricably in his central definition of modern society, Durkheim's social ontology and social epistemology are misleading and as we have seenrely upon hidden tautologies and groundless metaphors. I could admit that it may not be possible to avoid tautology when dealing interesting if instead However, it be the the of social. externality of using would with

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an overly-specific metaphorof more or less solid connectivity we could say that the externality of the social is what humanssimply refer to as `the outside'. One of the aims of Part II and my concluding chapter is to socially account for `the outside.' For `the outside' must be distinct from other geographicalreferencessuch as `the environment' precisely to the extent that it is a social distinction. We refer to an `outside' precisely when we think, not just of human geography,but more specifically of our human strugglesboth for social freedom and social inclusion involved in that geography. Indeed, these social struggleswould therefore be the explanation for `constantchange' and what we collectively call `modernity.' Durkheim understood `constantchange' as a social necessitystemming from the necessityof the division of labour. Occupations,in this sense,are, in his way of thinking, the basic agentsof modern change. Up to the presentwe have had only a vague intimation of what is at stakein the notion of `the externality of the social.' However, we have now at least come to in the Durkheimian see more precisely occupations point at which we may why are a factor in thinking not a contributory emphatically objectifying processes. It of way might be easyto musunderstandDurkheim on this point and to accusehim of absurdity for his claim that the social could exist independentlyof the very individuals that go to make it up. However, absurdity only enterswhen one assumes that existenceincludes manifestation at somepoint. It is true, as we have seen,that Durkheim believes `obligation' comesto us in a factual way in key social experiencesand statesof affairs. But `obligation' is understoodby Durkheim only as a kind of facticity of thesemanifested,experiencedsocial realities; it is an important, general fact but it does not define the form or content of the social positively by its fact. inheres in the social For Durkheim status as a general virtue of obligation

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but kind facticity. The distinction, rather generality as a of neutral not as a passive fine it be but is in fact a highly important one for to this a one, put way, appears understandingDurkheim's social theory, for if attendedto correctly it can show us just exactly why we must attack Durkheim's theory of obligation on grounds of ambiguoustautology rather than on grounds of vagueness. The `constraint' of the is important facticity for Durkheim but as an this, the of ambiguous social, and for him it is facticity sufficient to define the social and thus he not allegedly neutral have have To the to transcend this to ambiguity. end, attempted we seen can claim how he believes that that which is required for this transcendenceis to connect fully for in to social reality. Durkheim wants to order account obligation with need is for That sociology. why, perhapsrather countera social ontology provide intuitively, social need is not a manifested, experiencedfact for Durkheim but is in key his a need of sociality, a of portion of social an assertion premise, rather a his is, from be following To this portion of analysis sure, on ontological analysis. this premise, deductive, and the form of deduction can indeed make Durkheim's hard to assail. theory seemvery social The subject-matterof his attention, social reality, for Durkheim, lies in his fact. Later between the the and career,Durkheim turned premise somewhere (I Labour Divison his `spatial from the of of arguments' will cover these away `emblematology', in in detail turned towards two) and more an a chapter arguments theory of symbolism in the formation of societies(Gane 1992: 61-84). But even f

there what was suggestedby Durkheim was not that the manifestation of emblems is it, As Durkheim to the societies. put of manifestation equivalent if the moral force sustainingthe believer does not come from the idol he him he from he is it is the outside of emblem venerates,still as adoresor

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well aware. The objectivity of its symbol only translates its externalness (Durkheim, quoted in Gane, 1992: 80. Italics mine.) Thus, the later Durkheim cannot be said to have modified his basic premise that the is fundamentally irreducible the to the manifestationsassociated social externality of with it. The latter cannot therefore be understood as more than, for him, ontically necessaryobstaclesor codings which societiescan, nonetheless,in casesof creative practice, critically and massively surpassin ontological terms. What is interesting to lay in is how in Durkheim's thought this the division of labour, in creativity early me the way the division of labour provokes a need of wholeness,a social need. For in this Durkheimian way of thinking, the social occupation is in this real sensesocial fact before before in itself, important In the the and premise. an sense,the reality Division of Labour had to be written before the concept of emblematismcould be formulated. It is the externality of the social, as grounded there in occupational Durkheimian all of sociology. grounds social need,which

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Durkheim's claim as to the independentexistenceof the social apart from individuals is therefore not as absurdas it seemsat first glance. For Durkheim never initially that and continuously thereafter for him go to occupations,which argued in independently the themselves, the social, are manifested of of reality make up individuals. He rather arguedthat occupationsare the focal point, the creative and inexorable locus Thus, need of a specifically of an social existence. essential Durkheim's social theory certainly does not entail the supposition that `occupations' from items for be `individuals manifested apart such as, example, who can somehow are occupied', or an `occupationalevent.' We have now seenthat the independenceof the existenceof the social does in include Durkheim's thought, not, any stageof properly speaking

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manifestationat somepoint. Durkheim is never a positivist, at least not in any essentialway. Durkheim's social thinking has a factual side, an empirical side which conceptually encompassessocially-related manifestation, and to this he identifies only `obligation' as of key relevance. Even then obligation is not simply de facto obligation but is a `needed' or `structural' obligation. It is thought of as only a framework for a social reality which is irreducible to the framework. This ontological way of thinking does,therefore, require supposingthat this sort of social existenceis superior to, or `over and above' a merely individual existence. Beings will be categorizedand preferred in accordancewith their relative proximity to the main needof sociality. But this superiority is not an empirical superiority. It has to be a non-empirical superiority for Durkheim. Thus, what is superior and what is inferior cannot be pre-defined. Durkheim holds that individual existence,that which is objective and apparently isolated in social modernity, is in truth dependentupon social existence. But this social existenceis a zone of indeterminacy from the point of view of the individual. It is a wholly other, larger reality that is not dependent upon contextualized individual existence. The superiority of the social is an ontological superiority only. But from what we know about Durkheim's social theory, this senseof ontological superiority cannot be taken to dilute the force of his belief that occupationsare for him the elementsnot just of a zone of indeterminacy but more specifically of a social whole which exists independentlyof individuals. What this is describe he that this senseof the superiority of the social means can only metaphorically. We are supposedto take the concept of `solidarity' as a kind of master-emblemof this superiority of social existenceover individual existence. Of course, as I have shown, there is an inherent weaknessin Durkheim's concept of

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solidarity. Indeed, there are problemswith his whole theorization of the social. However, these problems do not include the problem of objectification, if the latter is understoodto include the notion of manifestation at somepoint. Objectified phenomenaare manifestedand appearas empirically isolated in relation to other objects. Occupations,for Durkheim, are precisely never isolated phenomena. Indeed, it is perhapsa more acute problem for Durkheim that due to his ontological approachto the social via the theory of occupationshe will have difficulty in specifying particular empirical occupations. But certainly they are not `piecesof an objective reality' or even of an ideology which makes a claim on such a reality. How then, could a Durkheemiandeal with the more empirical issue of the fact that occupationscontinue to run the risk of being `objectified' as work and labour? Indeed, we can here broadenour perspectiveto include contemporary social reality. `Objectification', or somethinglike it, is the modus operandi of the identifications relied upon in managementand self-management. The working and labouring subject has no freedom to changethe managementand self-managementsystem. Attempts have for a long time been madeto isolate subjectivity at someextreme in revolutionary point which non-work and non-labour might be at least notionally incorporated into the processof work and labour and a more socially responsible social whole established. At the sametime we have seenfrom practice that this is idealistic and impossible, and not just due to endemic class conflict, but due more generally to the fact that the working and labouring subject's class identity is weakened,or at least mediated,by the necessityof occupational differentiation, as difference by difference. This point has even becomea and as gender race well textbook truism in the sociology of work: "gender, ethnic and occupational divisions, mediated by the interpretative processesof individual and social

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interaction, ensurethat heterogeneitynot homogeneity is the historically constructed norm at the level of social groups and individuals" (Grint 1991: 152). Despite its drawbacks,Durkheim's way of thinking is neverthelessuseful for dispelling the grip of this `objectification' conundrum. He showedalready in the 19th-centurythat the reality of these divisions alone is evidenceenoughof the impossibility of any revolutionary objectification of non-work and non-labour, ie. a social revolution, from the limited perspectiveof work and labour. Today, it seems that Durkheim was correct to the extent that social opinion appearsto have come to acceptthe fact that strength-in-recognition on the shop-floor cannot and should not be assumedto carry with it the sameat home. In the end, it is likely that the sphere labour domestic the the sphere of and and work can only be harmonizedas such of from the objectifying perspectiveof managementand self-managementwith the support of govermentswhich value managementefficiency above all else. And then be would always a matter of attaining a degreeof such a politics of compromise harmony that would probably become more unsatisfactoryto more citizens the more its compromiseswould be able to take effect. A controversy-freepolitics would, in fact, be likely to have the inadvertent effect of provoking general instability; as long it be for it a source of pessimism various agentsof human as continues will certainly liberation. Surely it has gradually becomeclearer since the days of classical social theory that `objectification' is a less compelling issue in society than the `division of labour.' This is all the more clear when we consider the class subjectivity which was different to modesof such objectification. The enduring, supposed accompany is despite change occupational changewhich goes on class essentialsocial subjectivity. That is not to supposethat class subjectivity and objectification do not

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important importance. is is have Rather, that a certain sense no what really occur or of occupationalexistencecontinues amidst the decline of these classically work9 centredways of thinking about social practices. There is a lack of conceptualtools today which might help us to specify the modernity, the social impact upon individuals, of this working as well as non-working occupational existencethat continuesamidst ongoing occupational change. Conclusion This is what I take Durkheim's main insight to be: occupations delimit an is the not an effect of objectification, since objectification social which externality of includes manifestation at some point and occupations are not a part of manifestation or vice versa. Occupations are rather a social need and social need always exceeds human According Durkheim, `grounds' the to though even manifestation. social or intricately dynamic, increasingly is and socialized, social occupations modern, world are still able to generate for individuals a sense of coherence related to social need. Durkheim argued that this coherence was a function of what he called `solidarity. ' I have argued that this is a mere tautology and that `solidarity' explains nothing in this is is in from It diverts that at stake socialization. which attention regard and actually himself Durkheim thematize that to admits cannot which a physical metaphor used be physically manifested. With this critique of Durkheim, then, we have opened up the possibility of a broader viewpoint from which we can see, more clearly than Durkheim did, just exactly why the criterion of modernity cannot be derivable from the objectives of management and organization, nor indeed from any politicallatter is because This the the work against case not economic conceptions. , `solidarity' but rather because the latter are defined within a perspective in which

9 On this decline, for a neo-liberal point of view seeRifken 1995; for a more critical, post-marxist Gorz Vaneigen 1983. 1967 1982; for of view see and a radical-anarchist point see point of view

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social practices are summedup and criticized according to the extent to which they are manifestedin themselvesas objective occupations. The criterion of modem is but socially not manifestation practicesconsidered rather occupation.

This chapter,then, has also servedto point our way forward. What has been is by the that they must involve of occupations non-manifestability suggested alternatively some other senseof reality. It was correctly proposedby Durkheim, in my view, that for social ontological reasonswe must use some sort of indirect method of analysing social practices. But then, as I seeit, he confusedthis issueby introducing his metaphor of solidarity into the apparentgap between social concepts and social reality. All he was warranted in assertingwas that the division of labour is in it is left Thus, the to the to us modern externality of social. some now related way to investigate how strong and motivating this `outside' really is that is createdduring the occupying moments of modern social practices. If the outside is that intrinsic part of social occupationswhich meansthat they are precisely not manifested,then indeed it must be worthy of investigation. The outside,that vital and yet ominous by division labour the created modern of senseof social externality must be but is directly that somehow sensed not observed. something What we have to deal with socially, therefore, and what I have formulated, is is because That criterion. we must assignexistenceto the occupation an ontological basis immediate human individual their the the of and on constitution, outside and involves that the though strictly must say speaking occupation we a even transcendenceof subjective human experienceand objective statesof affairs. In contrast, managementand most political economy works with mediated generalities that are indifferent to their human origins and therefore assumesthat the outside is

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merely the relative difference between objectives. Much of mainstreamsociology, following Durkheim, counterposesto this an idea that the power of the social is irreducible to thesebusinessobjectives becauseit involves a power of solidarity, a power of the group,and its inherent morality. But the theory of this social wholeness is, as it indeed should be, basedupon our ontologically-sensitive attention to the division of labour and specifically our occupationsas the agenciesof social change and therefore as seriousinternal challengesto social integrity. And even from the most simple of such social-ontological observationsit should be clear that in involve individual strugglesfor wholenesswhich are actuality social occupations `not always yet' achieved. The persistentnotion of an outside gives us an intuition of this fundamental incompleteness. That the struggle implied by the notion of the outside must be manifestedcreatively is our intuition of the constitutive feature of modernity. We have thus reachedthe limits of the social necessityof modernity, but we have neverthelessconfirmed that there must always be a certain intensity of this be linked must always social necessitywhich with social needsand thus connected with social occupations.

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CHAPTER TWO

SOCIAL QUANTITY AND DIFFERENCE

The managerialoutlook on the world has been suspectedby many of having a strong will to quantify and control"every aspectof society. However, in my view, is what more specifically characteristicof managementand organization and most of political economy is a concernto do with the manifestation of social phenomena. By `manifestation' I the term am calling attention to something other than an using is bias. in Quantification the social sciencesthat is a generic approach empirical disputed even in managementstudies,whereasa focus upon manifestation much betrays a concernto seekout signs and opportunities of the more specifically optimization of social reality. The ways of sociology and practical philosophy are certainly unifiable only to the extent that ontology is taken to be the paramount questionwith respectto the it Ontology to attempts avoid what seesas concernsthat are peripheral to social. includes in is This the manifestation, which existence. usual understanding mixed Ontological the of appearances. contingency approachesto the social are with in common sociology and practical philosophy. Thesedisciplines attempt to deal from However, necessity. a perspectivesuch as this which sees primarily with

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manifestationas a false problem, it is neverthelesspossible to see quantification as an important part of social ontology. In the Division of Labour Durkheim saw quantification as a key component in his argument from solidarity for the existenceof society. As I have argued above, the argumentfrom solidarity relies solely upon a tautology between the background conceptsof need and obligation and thus standsor falls dependingupon whether we acceptthis tautology. But Durkheim, of course, did not seeit that way. He believed he could support his equation and the structural description of human needthat is basedupon it by meansof a causalargument. It thus remains for me to show how this causalapproachdoesnot support Durkheim's theory. I will not arguethat his invalid is logically or that causalargumentscan never be madeto causalargument but theory rather that Durkheim's argument is contextually unsound. support social This is because,for reasonsthat I believe even Durkheim himself would ultimately have to accept,a quantitative argument can only account for the degreesof spatial dimension and not the basic types of structure of human need. Moreover, there are two distinct notions of difference implied in the latter two categories,and we shall seethat the lack of a rigorous distinction betweenthesetwo orders of difference is at the root of Durkheim's error. Thus, my argument will conclude that Durkheim issue dimension is how bound instrinsically the to see of spatial neglected up with social occupations. This neglect was causedby his focussing his attention instead upon an investigation into an erroneoussupposition that spatial arrangementand rearrangementmight be an objective causeor condition of the existenceof society. Social Quantity Durkheim's main causalargument for the existenceof society finds the cause in of solidarity the phenomenonof population density. Population density is indeed

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is that an objective phenomenon physically measurableusing a statistical method. It is obviously related to the social in someway. What Durkheim seesas its impact is that, according to him, increasesin population density inevitably lead to a struggle for existencewhich determineschangesbetween types of solidarity. For Durkheim, is density thus a quantitative phenomenonwhich can be said to determine population qualitative social changein general. Durkheim thus hasto understand`population density' in a very broad way. And I believe it is a way which includes and confuses the issuesof quantity changeand quality change. The main focus of what I seeas Durkheim's confusion over social quantity has nothing to do with merely counting the individual membersof a population and whether or not this is possible and the extent of its accuracyand whether or not it reflects factual reality. Rather, it hasto do with a question of theoretical principle concerningwhether or not measurablespatial changehas the capability to determine in between Durkheim what called mechanical and the organic types a change nature believed Durkheim that what he called mechanical social relations are of solidarity. in essencespatial relations between `segments' of the population. In Durkheim's way of seeingthe social world, a population is a mosaic of formal `segments'. A is individual the the a section of population membersof the population. segmentof It is defined externally as a potential organ of society or by its potential for integration, and internally as a collective consciencecontingent upon the degreeof its According to Durkheim, therefore, segmentshave no members. resemblanceof have intrinsic dissolve if it happens to that these individual and reality necessary, resemblancescome to be sharedto a significant degreewith those of other segments. Instead of appearingas a collapse of the social need for the role that these segments dissolution is fulfill, the the of segments rather characterizedas a dissolution might

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of participatory boundarieswhich createsthe conditions for a struggle between contendingsocial participants over a natural need for society which endures. The essenceof social struggle is thus for Durkheim a struggle for substitution which looks like a kind of natural selection. As Durkheim claims, "specialization cannot fail to be the outcome" (1984: 212). The struggle appearsto be between segmentsof the population and it may be necessaryto speakin terms of segmental strugglebut becausesegmentshave porous boundariesthe struggle is actually among the membersof those segmentswho find themselvesinvolved in an identityin the of challenging reorganization roles society that needto be fulfilled. Indeed, we might seeevidenceof such a phenomenontoday in the difference betweenthe apparentlyobjective managerialconception of job redundancyand the ways in which the reality of these firings have an impact beyond the objective factors to include in identity issues society. In his day Durkheim could still feel core and value justified in making use of a certain common rhetorical optimism: "the segmentary organ that triumphs, if we may speakin those terms, cannot be sufficient to undertakethe larger task that now falls to it in the future saveby a greater division of labour" (1984: 212). Nonetheless,the hard truth that Durkheim discoveredthat is probably still true today is that a segmentin itself and its basis in resemblanceor in `what one is used to' is only a relative human needwhereassociety as a focus for organizing different distributions and identities is, very likely in some sense,an absolutehuman need. The processbegins in an inflexible segmentaryorganization that has little overall coherenceand limited diversity and moves toward a modem has greater overall coherenceand diversity but comesto organization which not only dynamic, though metaphysicalreality in itself which the membersof any exist as a population can still recognize as stemming from their social needsbut to which they

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if by feel become bound They this as their absolute obligation. as an nevertheless involving become of concentrationwhile at the practices vertically more and more sametime horizontally more and more interrelated with those of others, and thus becomemore and more social occupations. "A break in the equilibrium of the social massgives rise to conflicts that can only be resolved by a more developedform of the division of labour: this is the driving force for progress" (1984: 212). In my view, there is a great amount of accuracy in Durkheim's theory of is because However, Durkheim's to reasoning a significant extent weak modernity. his causalargument, as a statistics-basedargument, fundamentally appealsto a individual degree the the membersthat go to make up the quantity of of varying is inconsistent his density fact therefore and with argument with social of population labour in division basis the the to of need. In the overall argument,the of respect division of labour is explained by the necessaryexistenceof types of structure of human need. The main thrust of the argument is that modem structuresof difference tend to becomea human priority over traditional structuresof resemblancewithout development is latter. Human therefore a tendency the completely eliminating toward a modem progressdefined by differentiating externalization which are historically `solidified' into forms of social existencewhich are more and more flexible, coherent, independentof the individual, and organic. In the causal division labour directly link is to the to therefore of more argument, an attempt made the dissolution of primitive organization. The main argument dependson this link. The way Durkheim outlines his theory of this changeis therefore consistentas a strategyof argumentation. However, if we consider this move as a theoretical strategy, I think there is in Durkheim a fatal inconsistency stemming from a confusion over the relation of space

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and quantity. It is the issue of this relation in particular that the metaphor employed in the overall argument completely glossesover. In the causalargumentDurkheim assumesas a premise that an increasein the number and physical concentration of individual personsis a direct causeof the duplication of roles among various societal segments. But why do not increasesin population density simply result in the spatial modification of the samesegmentaryorganizations? Durkheim implies to the contrary that primitive organizationsrequire their own unique, static spaces,and there seemsto be no justification on his part of this assumption. Indeed, in this lie inspiration his the to seems of unexaminedpremise notion of solidity. The problem is that before\ve can accept any argumentto do with a struggle for substitution we must acceptthat social role duplication (the duplication of traditional ways of fulfilling social needs,) and indeed a relatively unlimited multiplication, occurs spontaneouslyalong with increasesin population density. Here we have to acceptthat populations spontaneouslygroup together into unique segments. We also have to acceptthat these segmentsare somehow originally differentiated indubitably Durkheim therefore spatially. partitioned posits the existenceof static spacesas the original sites of traditional organizations. For Durkheim, the traditional is traditional becauseof its lesserproximity to a juncture in itself is in fact a problem, and to the feeling of that sociality which one might sense sociality as a feeling of needwhich first gives rise to this juncture. Durkheim's conception of the static nature of traditional sites is linked with his assumptionthat these sites are containersof a finite number of human members. Any new members it full must spill segment over, as were, acrossthe partitions of the segments. He of a has to explain the dissolution of bordering segmentsand what he is attempting to suggestis that a spatially-motivated exclusion acrosspartitions - not a needbut

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dissolution. this causes much rather an over-abundance-For according to Durkheim the more this excretion occurs the more redundancyor inter-segmentalmembership duplication occurs: this has the net result of making bordering segmentsmore and more alike and their borders unnecessary.But why doesDurkheim supposethat intra-segmental spatial solutions are not found that can addressspatial problems? The whole problem that I am addressingin my critique of Durkheim is this have We that spaces are static containers. social would no unjustifiable supposition accountof why thesecontainerswere originally differentiated, of how they acquired their contents and why. Two criticisms can therefore be asserted. On the one hand, from an empirical point of view, Durkheim seems to unjustifiably suppose that segmentary societies have no indigenous mechanisms for controlling and directing population growth. Here Durkheim would respond that he is not claiming that social resemblances can be explained spatially but rather that spatial techniques must be explained socially. But there are probably many spatial techniques which would factor into the constitution of a segmentary society which he does not explore, and therefore until investigate the extent of these we cannot accept that the sole significance of we spatial social change is to cause role duplication and a resulting progress of social modernity.

Some spatial techniques such as many solutions to population density

that we see in Asia would likely even problematize our whole conception of modernity, particularly if our conception had no cultural dimensions and rested upon '° premature conclusions about the social significance of space.

On the other hand, one can asserta theoretical criticism. This is the criticism that Durkheim confused spaceand quantity, and in my view it is the more serious '° One example that comesto mind is that of compartment-hotelsin Japanwhich representan internal or organizational spatial responseto a spatial problem.

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part of the problem. If we think of social changeas a breaking up of traditional static social spaces- as differentiation - we nonethelessneedto account for why, in the first place,numbers of similar actors do gravitate together and reproducetheir segmentof the population in close proximity. Durkheim simply posited the existenceof the `horde' and basedhis theory upon this unexaminedpremise (1984: 126). The theory of social segmentsdoes not constitute the necessaryexplanation for the positing of the horde. It simply takes as its point of departurean apparent `solidity' of their formation at an arbitrary point. Durkheim therefore attemptsto introduce a quantitative argumentto supplementthis theme of his main structural and he introduces but is actually argument, what only nominally a quantitative qualitative argument. It is not fully a quantitative argument if it attributes no significance to the individuation of elementsand the operationsbetweenthem that result in the setsof elementsin question. Durkheim is actually only interestedin the dissolution of differences between he discrete sets, in is interested only agents, ie. ready-made thosewith more or less completeboundaries. Durkheim therefore does not seemto have much faith in quantity at all. In the end, there is little to distinguish his position from the naive position that quantity in general provides somekind of `solidity'. The Perception of Difference I would tend to link thesetwo possible criticisms. A primary problem as I see it is that we are left with no explanation on the part of Durkheim for the role of in the original creationsof societies. Durkheim would gravity and mutual attraction have us believe that this is "a moot point" (1984: 25). For Durkheim it is simply life, it becomes inevitably "social lasting, tends to assumea that wherever axiomatic definite form and becomeorganised" (1984: 25). Why does Durkheim posit such a he I the that accept cannot simplistic explanation was simply enamoured premise?

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form he the experiencedin founding a new school of thought. Putting with of power the questionthis way is again to ignore the reasonsfor this new kind of power, motivated as it was by the kind of grandiose social convictions that were commonly displayedby nearly all of the classical social theorists. As we have seen,Durkheim's main theme from the outset of his work hasto do with a fundamental connection he draws between modernity and society. In the Division of Labour he proposedthat modernity can and should be conceived as progressive,as a matter of positive social need,rather than as something merely negative or merely new and unsettling to various traditions. Nonetheless,for Durkheim, modernity is highly complex. What is interesting is that for Durkheim modernity arises precisely when lines are blurred and borders are crossedbetween kinds differences, level feelings the of on of segmented of inferiority and superiority, exclusion, inclusion, and between correspondingspatio-temporalsituations. This be heart issue difference to the the at seems of perception of of classical Durkheimian social theory. Durkheim set these feelings and situations into the context of a theory of modern social movement which he derived from studying the division of social labour. According to Durkheim, individuals who perceive differences among themselvesare motivated to becomeinnovators of cooperative movementsand to oblige each other to sustainthese movementsas projects of socialization. From this arisesincreasingly formal, regular, and persistant patternsor social structures. New, ever-increasingly stratified societiesare the overall result. For once a certain social implies, is is inherent Durkheim in it there experienced, a repetition regularity which begins again to createborders betweengroups of individuals. In Durkheim's way of

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thinking, modernity, with all the social repetition that emergesfrom it, paradoxically is inextricably interwoven with a perception of difference. Furthermore, Durkheim goes so far as to claim that social repetition causes segmentaldifferences. As the latter emergethey becomeadded,cumulatively, to old disappeared. have This `bare' repetition of the same completely oneswhich never differencesunderminesthe bonds of obligation to the extent that there arisesa need in of wholenesswhich acted upon results new obligations that come to standbeside he had With Durkheim this that obligations. was satisfied old arrived at a description of the developmentof modern social complexity. To find a solution to this complexity, the whole question of evolutionary timing and of `anomie', seemsto have beenthe most pressing question for him. But from our perspectivetoday we have easily seenthat there is something strongly doubtful about this problematique. What is primarily doubtful is not so much the call for `solidity' in itself, nor but in familiar things those strange are still as political or metaphoricity generalis doubtful, What really and perhapsmuch more disturbing, quasi-political rhetoric. is the conception of modern necessitywhich lies behind them which is guided by the figure of a `needof wholeness'. The `needof wholeness' is for Durkheim that which explains both how innovation how towards social apart and and people are pulled people are pushed together and away from further social innovation. It is supposedsomehowto in difference, for two types therefore these and essence,supposesthat of account these differences are the same. The early Durkheim, the Durkheim of the Division of Labour and the Rules, wants to prove that there is one seamlesssocial ontology, by in the the the need of negative and wholeness, which connects positive unifed life. have insufficient how But and misleading was we seen utterly modern social

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Durkheim's attempt at a causalargument from population density in support of this proof. What is much more coherentand compelling in the early Durkheim is the insight that one can still gain from a perspectiveon society which is fundamentally ontological. For despitean ever-advancingmarch of modernity, contingency, and individuality which is obvious to all, Durkheim's perspectiveprivileges necessity, where the need of wholenessis socially speaking at least arguably still a veritable universal need. Only a veritable universal need can supply the senseof necessity which proves the independentexistenceof the social. In Durkheim's view, only independent justify the the existences of social can proof of a sociology. For Durkheim, then, individualities are only transitory moments in a greater processof social necessity. According to Durkheim, in modernity we seean increasein contingency and individuality but therefore also a correspondingincreasein the need intrinsically therefore a proliferation of wholenessand of complicated social circles. In his way of thinking, social ontology can help to explain and thus perhapsmitigate the `anomic' dangersof this complexification. Durkheim could therefore still be said to have fashioned in his early writing careera compelling attempt to ground the effects of modernity in the development of is feeling life But there that shortens sociology. nevertheless an and unsettling social our praise of Durkheim, one which comes from our common contemporary perception that the `needof wholeness' seems,in this way of thinking, to be all too ready to engineer `solutions' to the perception of difference. NonethelessI think that there is a real problem that needsto be actively addressed,and that is that the needof wholeness,the motivation of social totalization, is taken, too often by its harshest its as sentimental adherents- and classically by Durkheim, which critics as well

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his makes work so instructive - as `the one' explanation which somehow accounts for both large ruptural social differences and small differences made by social repetition. The lack of any unity, of even any potential `normal' unity, betweenthese latter two social aspectsis a point which so many subsequenttheorists will, not surprisingly, begin to insist upon. However, almost as if he already sensedthis shortcoming, after The Rules Durkheim's writing began to take on the burden of explaining how the needof wholenessis implicated in social psychology, specifically in the formation of models that are collectively followed by membersof societies,and in the emblematismthat I already mentioned above (p. 51). In this later period Durkheim came to rely upon a theory of collective effervescencefor his account of social innovation. As Stephen Lukes puts it, "from the first publication of The Rules onwards, the focus of Durkheim's attention shifted... to what we might call the cultural or ideational dimension of social reality, and what Durkheim himself called `collective representations"' (Durkheim 1982: 6). The theory of collective effervescence,as found in Durkheim's last major Forms Religious Life, The Elementary the of constitutesDurkheim's monograph, theory of the genesisof collective representations(1961). Collective representations, for Durkheim, are mental statesand ideasthat cannot be held individually and can only be held in common in a society. The theory of collective effervescenceattempts to account for how these collective mental statesand ideasarise. However, we need not go far into the theory in order to show clearly that it still only accountsfor the into forms life have being. In of collective which already come repetition of Durkheim's own words, it explains only how a novel ideal, a social model, can be "added' to the reality of a collective life which is already given (1973: 195. Italics

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). mine. Thus, we may immediately seethat if we are seeking an explanation and not merely a further description of Durkheim's positing of the need of wholeness,then we have run into an unsurmountableobstaclein Durkheim's thinking. In my view, it would not be too strong to say that the theory of collective effervescencecan only mystify rather than clarify the provenanceof the need of wholenessfrom which, accordingto Durkheim, necessarymodern societiesemerge. Becauseit is strictly an empirical notion, the notion of `effervescence'takes us further away from, rather than closer to, an understandingof how the need of wholenessis involved in our various ongoing social occupations. Durkheim held the satisfaction of the need of wholenessas a background idea which defines the end of social innovation, but he also therefore implicitly took wholenessto be an activity that one can pursue since social innovation meansnothing without including a sense in of pursuit, even where as the majority of casessuch pursuit is not goal-directed. In this implicit aspectof Durkheim's thinking lies an important insight which reveals the properly occupational meaning of social existence. But it is, ironically, an insight which the preeminent theorist of the Division of Labour did not and could not develop, since there is no way of connectingthe pursuit of an occupation experientially with obligation in the way that one can think of the connection betweenthe need of wholenessand obligation experientially. Thinking about our experiencesrequires reflection upon eventswhich have already happened. `Effervescence' seemsto have been selectedas a concept by Durkheim later in his careerprecisely becauseit is, in principle, an historically observablecollective " But our occupations,which are much more pervasively experience. and immediately our social subject-matter,are clearly not historically observable

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collective experiences,or are so in only a very partial way. Rather, occupationsare in incorporating that, composed such a way so many different kinds of feelings and perceptionsover the courseof a day, we could never believe that they could be by wholly explained referenceto obligations which come from the past. But then nor could they be explained by some collective sensationfrom the immediate past which we might describeas effervescence,since the latter would still be no more then a mere generalization basedupon experience,no matter how `close' to the presentit is. If we had to rely only upon experience,upon reflection `at the end of the day' for example, our occupationswould appearrather simply as blank spacesof memory amidst an incoherent mix of activities without any clear internal boundaries. Any immediately them appearas over-generalizations. would generalizationsabout Hence the famous `silence' of the worker who hasjust returned home. In the same in just ignorance inherent this experience creates as much a problem for the way, concept of the `needof wholeness'. This concept includes, as a hidden premise, or as a kind of blind spot, that social individuals perceive differences amongst themselves. We can only presumethat Durkheim supposedthis perception of difference to be simply primary, obvious, and unproblematic. But if we take it to be it is be in based to means supposed which experience,the concept, an empirical is in important difference For surely meaningless. an sense,experience perception of is difference, or a kind of difference, whereasdifference itself is not exhaustedby is there therefore nothing about experienceper se which can provide and experience, difference. in Experience simply purchase upon every casetakes a critical us with the perception of difference for granted. Hence, if the `need of wholeness' cannot be left as an intuitive proposition but rather has to be set into the context of a richer 11By this I mean that it is conceivable that we have all had someintimation of such a phenomena occurring, ie. we can shapean hypothetical description of it in our minds and comparethis description

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theory of social occupations,the perception of difference must also find its sourcein the sameoccupational context, and does not necessarily have to be related to some other context, such as the context of symbolism and of the sign. Therefore, from the point of view of developing the theory of social occupations,we needto confirm only two aspectsof the later Durkheim. Firstly, Durkheim seemedto recognize in his later period the need for an account of social innovation in that he beganto formulate a theory of social model formation. However, secondly, from the fundamental premisesof the theory that he formulated, the theory of collective effervesence,we can confirm that the need of wholeness in be for his to taken research granted, and perhapseven more and more to continues be taken as a given. Therefore, despitehis move towards making an account of the `cultural or ideational dimension' of social reality, Durkheim actually formulated an in his later work which added nothing profound the the of social genesis accountof to his earlier thought, and in fact only supplementedhis earlier assumptionswith a theory to do with one of the effects of social genesisin the field of social psychology. He did not, in the end, vindicate his whole project and defenceof sociology but only 12 it. complicated So where doesthis needof wholenesscome from? From where emergesthis intial impulse to socialize? Durkheim will only suggestthat it comesfrom the have already establisheda solid network of obligations, of societies example which is from in fact to the say, example of societies are which which already constituted. But surely a principle of social genesiscannot be derivable from already constituted

against our experiences. 12I would just clarify my position here: whether or not this complication proves, in its own way, productive or unproductive is not my concern. Here I am only concernedwith Durkheim's theory of occupational difference. My claim is only that there are difficulties in the early theory which are not addressedby the moves made in the later theory and that this is unfortunate. I do not mean by this

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factual, from the of experiencedreality. As I point view of societiesconsideredonly is last Durkheim in this tautological the and unacceptable. answer chapter, showed developedsome important conceptsand an orientation to the subject-matterof the for its in is to necessity,showing us challenging us account significant social which that needand obligation are linked in the genesisof the social, but he nevertheless brings us no further toward understandingthis social genesisin itself and therefore is influential interesting be That the and upon us. which social should why interesting and influential upon us is likely to involve us in some form of social innovation. But becauseDurkheim connectedneedwith obligation tautologically, he barred himself formulated basis theory that then a of social psychology, upon and from incorporating any positive account of social innovation. Conclusion Essentially, Durkheim relied upon us somehowto intuitively understandhow in innovation, addition to obligation, must rely upon a need of wholeness. social This intuitive understandingis supposedto include, as if automatically, a perception in have fundamental Durkheim difference. In over seen a confusion we addition, of the issue of social quantity. Now thesetwo major confusions, the first over the need be issue be to the the quantity, can over of social shown second of wholenessand isolated We these two, to to apparently are ready summarize related one another. in This effect, only one confusion. one confusion constituting, confusions as rather is over the basic issue of difference. Durkheim's causal argument in the Division of Labour rests on an assumptionthat social difference is ultimately a kind of spatial difference between social groups with more or less complete boundaries,a difference different in But theory the a quite vein, of organic solidarity, of repetition. that the later theory in itself has a lesservalue. I only mean that it has no more than a marginal relevance to this thesis.

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difference arising from the sourceof the structure of presupposesa perception of organic solidarity in a needwhich is, in large part, a symptom of a social incompleteness,and this links this kind of difference with the affective origins of social rupture. Two kinds of difference, of completenessand incompleteness,of it in by closednessand openness,exist, as were, side side Durkheim's social thought, with hardly any mention at all of the apparentcontradiction. Henri Bergson, late in his career, made a suddendiversion from philosophy into social theory, and it was precisely to take up this challenge left behind by Durkheimian social thought. If we consider Bergson's relevancehere, we have an addedreasonfor attempting to take advantageof Gabriel Tarde's contemporary it is because in its Durkheim, a although neglected and critique own useful critique of has do to with the fact that Bergson's critique of right, our main motivation Durkheim could not have been fashionedwithout it. I will thus turn to an investigation of the social thought of Tarde immediately in the next chapter.

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CHAPTER THREE

TARDE'S ONTOLOGY OF THE SOCIAL PARTICULAR

It is now time to move positively beyond Durkheim in order to searchfor relevant explanations for the relation between social creativity and social be investigation A to start an will of Durkheim's occupations. good place contemporarytheoretical opposition in the form of the writings of Gabriel Tarde. In Tarde we shall seehow the primary mode of actualization of the individual struggle for wholenessinvolves a certain understandingof social genesisas model formation. From Tarde's point of view it will become clear how arbitrary it was for Durkheim to formation to the end of overall social solidarity. And the model role of subordinate indeed, I will agreewith Tarde that model formation should not have a lesser theoretical statusthan the term of solidarity, particularly if the latter concept contains have is key I This shown above. a part of the reasonwhy as confusion, an essential for in begin the plural without appealingto to social genesis account we must now `solidarity'. is look This that turn to of such as why we must now any generic model Gabriel Tarde, the thinker of social quantity Durkheim's the of antagonist, at work 13 formation par excellance. In chapter one I and the social significance of model

13In many ways, Tarde's oeuvre is also worth studying in its own right. Tarde's writing has been neglectedfor some time now, and many of his books and essayshave gone out of print. However, very recently there has been revival of interest in his work. A particularly strong current here is the Eric Alliez, a fine philosopher and Deleuze scholar, who has been at the centre of a concern project of

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focussedupon the formulation of the `needof wholeness' only becauseit was necessaryto fashion a preliminary account of the ontological statusof the social whole. Now that we have found that this statusof the social whole is intimately bound up with its particular modes, ie. social occupations, and that at the sametime the `social whole' is actually always and essentially fractured into `that which is closed' versus `that which is open,' it has becomeobviously necessaryto focus upon the perception of difference implied by the need of wholenessin order to work up a critical account of the ontological statusof social occupationsas particulars. Precisely because`the whole' is always fractured, there can be no other kind of theory of the particularity of social occupationsthan a differentialist theory. I believe Durkheim should have developedthe implications of this, and admitted that `the externality of the social' is not a seamlessentity, instead of compounding his problem by taking the route of correlating social ontology with the representations and operations of social psychology. The existenceof the latter relationship, by definition, can only account for an alleged social interiority and cannot account for the perception of difference, the fractured outside, that the social occupation takes as its primary function to generate,and which social ontology absolutely assumes. In this chapter we shall seehow Tarde perceivedthat in Durkheimian sociological theory there is no satisfactory account of this presumedsocial motivation towards wholeness,and that therefore the problem with respectto social wholenessas a given is a false problem. On the other hand, in Tarde's view, social parts are not to be consideredmere `atomic' fragments which have an innate tendencyto assemble. Social parts still, for

to re-publish Tarde's writings in France. As a result, most of Tarde's work, including several obscure writings, after a long hiatus are now being re-published with special introductions pointing to his contemporary relevance. For detailed referencesseemy review article "The renaissanceof philosophie tardienne" (Toews 1999: 164-173).

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him, must relate in someway to a kind of production of a sort of social whole, to a is but is processwhich necessary which never quite fully achieved: the production of a `civilization', for example. Thus, for Tarde, that which is particular about social forms hasto be the product of an aspiration or attraction, ie. a desire constituting the `provisional this are constructed precisely social elements which as particular social whole' is constructed. Tarde will thus show how any `pure sociology' must place its innovation the of account of social existence. The concept of need centre social at it formation but be the this cannot explain of models which are of account, may part do followed. Accomplished societies not automatically provide a model of actually individuals for The `solidarity', to to. aspire need of wholenesscould wholeness,a its is in by What be result. needed order to understandthe simply explained never is deepening Tarde, to a of our understandingof the according social scientifically, logic imitative in in their terms terms of model of of currents, of societies existence formation, rather than in terms of any models already formed. The end-point, the into is facts `reality', a quasi-objective no longer of interest. consolidation of social What Tarde calls for is an ontology of the particular and the dynamic in social formation. It will be recalled from chapter one that Durkheim relied upon a flawed his in metaphor of solidity-solidarity as the theme which of support causalargument defines the overall coherenceof social forms. We saw that it was flawed becauseit in the terms of a quasi-spatial,quasimetaphor ultimately merely rephrased quantitative theory of `segments.' As we saw, Durkheim's theory of segmentsbegs the question of the geo-historical origins of so-called `primitive' or `mechanical' formations. for formation At boundary Durkheim, the the time, same of social complex modern organic social systemsis a dynamic processthat, via the division of

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labour, distinguishesmodem societiesin structure and in nature from mechanical onesand thus revealsthe perspectiveof sociality as a necessary,whole, but nonmanifestedreality. However, for Durkheim, even though the necessityand metaphysicalnature of the social, its principle of reality, is increasingly revealed as modernity progresses,the formations of modernity still find their principle of actuality, as Durkheim's misguided attempt at a causalargument shows, in the initially, juxtaposed least in space. that they are, at supposition It is difficult to seehow, in the Durkheimian view, mechanicaland organic isolate (1984: 121). To Durkheim's Durkheim as claims co-exist, societies is perspectiveupon social space to exposea strange,ultimately metaphorical feature of Durkheimian thinking. Let me suggestthat we could think of the co-existenceof the two opposing types of societiesin question, the one traditional and the other modern, as the co-existenceof strata. I am not particularly referring to the concept of statistical stratification of subsequentempirical sociology, but rather to a feature basic layering Durkheim's the of ontological view structural, or archeological of of is is in is Durkheimian forms. What that the remarkable view modernity an social in formed distinguished new strata are a solidification which and ahistorical moment, from more establishedstrata. At the sametime, Durkheim, after a certain ontological fashion, distinguisheswith respectto the real the metaphysical from the actual. Thus, with Durkheim we have a view of the metaphysical as grand form or as form his Because the as spatially-detailed or as stratified. and actual monumental, is spatial and physical, Durkheim's monument can metaphor of actuality principle or only be understood as `solid' or what we might call monolithic. To be sure, Durkheim's work is remarkable for the original and influential distinguishes he the metaphysicaland the actual with a view to making such a way

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distinction enabling for the progressof sociology. However, if Durkheim thus moved sociology toward a more sophisticatedstudy of social structures,this distinction, in my view, still puts too much faith in the givennessof `mechanical' societiesas spatially and empirically isolated composites,and too much credencein the idea of the modernity of `organic' societiesas a need arising when through isolation is duplication felt as difference and a lack of wholeness. their proximity and Durkheim's formulation of modernization is still too much imbued with a notion of the organic transcendenceas a deterritorialization which is successive. There is not enoughof an attempt to critically

this deterritorialization to the premisethat

`relate mechanicalsocietiesderive their structural coherencefrom resemblancesrather than from, as in the organic case,needsarising from difference. For Durkheim does not sufficiently follow up a line of reasoningthat this implicit relation points to, namely, that there is a close relation betweenresemblanceand `primitive' social formation. He ignores his own implication that resemblanceis essentially involved in the ignores He the suggestivenessof this that so-called space. production of social be deterritorialization to their able produce societies must own mechanical or be could not merely `primitive', undeveloped,barely metaphysicalreality and is that co-extensivewith manifested social actuality. simply which materialistic, or Instead of positing a consciencecollective as the sum of the perceptionsof formulation in further tells mechanical society, a which us nothing resemblance a from how these they operate,one could say with resemblances come or about where he have justification that to taken the ontology of so-called mechanical ought some societiesmore seriously. In his seminal, but perhapsneglectedbook The Laws of Imitation Gabriel Tarde takes up, in particular, perhapswhat is the most obvious theme of the

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insufficiency of Durkheimian sociology. He takes up Durkheim's neglect to investigatethe origins and operationsof the social resemblancesthat the theory of the consciencecollective and the later theory of the symbolic can only presuppose.'4 Durkheim had arguedthat mechanicalsocieties,those in which social psychology originates,have this statusbecausethey are bound by the resemblancesbetweentheir inside members. Tarde's attack does not initially dispute this but rather askswhy it is that resemblances- including, crucially for a critical stanceagainst Durkheim, duplication resemblances- may come about also betweenthese so-called segments. Tarde raisesthe question of apparently fortuitous resemblancesbetweenwhole, widely-dispersed communities. In chapter one we saw that Durkheim had simply assumedthat duplication resemblancesoccur and that the latter are primarily for certain membersof the segments(p. 63). Tarde askson what basis a significant fortuitous resemblancebetween `small segmentswithin larger segments'is assumed ignored in favour then of the supposedlyessentialresemblancesthat and quickly bind together the whole group. Tarde thus adducesthe social theoretical role of descriptive homology and exposeshow it is diminished in favour of what he argues is a no-lessdogmatic reliance upon functional analogy (1903: 40). More generally, however, Tarde is suggestingthat to take such a line of criticism is to criticise the very premise of the group as a starting point for sociological analysis. One could say then with considerablejustification that Tarde's aim is to strike right at the heart of the mainstreamsociological project. What Tarde's problem is meant to indicate is that resemblanceis a phenomenonwith a 14Noted for his colourful rhetoric and occasionallinguistic ambiguity (seeTarde's own self-criticism in 1903: xiii), Tarde once averred that "there are few truths as useful as Mr. Durkheim's errors" (Tarde quoted in Gane 1988: 76). To be sure, in The Laws of Imitation (1903) Tarde does not state explicitly that he is taking up a criticism of Durkheim's theories, but this can neverthelessbe inferred without too much difficulty. Interestingly, debatesbetween Durkheim and Tarde were frequently of a

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in much wider provenance the social world than merely in so-called traditional or mechanicalsocieties,and that therefore any segmentaltheory could not possibly satisfactorily account for social resemblancesas a whole. If Durkheim has not fully accountedfor social resemblances,therefore, Durkheim has no right to move to a definition of society as basedin primitive cultures which then become modernized through functional differentiation. There would be a whole range of phenomenaof social resemblancesready for anyoneto point to with the power to upset this narrative of the emergenceof a monolithic modernity. For Gabriel Tarde, "resemblances between communities which are separated by more or less insurmountable obstacles," ie. Durkheimian segments, can and should be explained, "through the common possession of some entirely forgotten primitive model" (1903: 46). Tarde thus elaborates in The Laws of Imitation, in direct counter-position to Durkheimian sociology, a theory of social formation through model formation. Modernity will no longer be viewed as a monumental, floating but the of moment of change symbol within societies general, rather as an but irreversible specific and of small changes that bring about the series open-ended Tarde fall back of societies. will not upon an hypothesis evolution and multiplication force in is immanent in a general, optimistic which of creation all of pan-genesis how but the resistance of the social particular show will rather particularities becomes a model and as such defines the social, from a micrological perspective, as one force of continuity among others. He thus argues that the original social group is born in this model formation, and in the way this resistance of the social particular acquires consistency, for Tarde, particularly via the model of the family (1903: 287).

person-to-personnature at sociological conferencesin the early 20th-century. For an illuminating transcription of one such debateseeTarde 1969: 136-140.

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My aim in this chapter is to learn from Tarde's alternative theory of model formation, to seekout its strong and weak points, and to adapt his insights to my differentialist, occupationaltheory of the social. If social theory is to avoid falling back into a metaphoricalDurkheimian realism it will be essentialto specify how in being that agencywhich has the capacity to occupationsconsist precisely incorporatethe perspectivesof the social whole as well as the social part. If `modern society' consists in a need of wholenesswhich is generatedby its own, immanent processof differentiation, it is clearly difference that lies at the root of a pure sociology, and the social part would consist in the perception of social difference. The theory of the relation betweenthe social part and the social whole would be a theory that would have to deal primarily with the issueof social variation. Any theory of the relation betweenthe social part and the social whole would have to at least begin as a differentialist one. And yet social needs,the ontological perspective, must be incorporated. In the last chapterI discussedhow the social whole exists on the basis of the perspectiveof that which is necessaryin particular social relations. Someheadway towards this goal was achieved,but it has now becomeclear that any further progresswill dependupon our investigation into the extent to which social difference must play a foundational, rather than a secondaryrole in social ontology. It is thus the burden of the presentchapterto show to what extent we could say that particular social relations, rather than constituting solutions to mere contingent needs in themselves are a constitutive element the genesisof the social of particulars, precisely becausethey are neededto explain the original becoming of the whole. The Perspective of Science Tarde's critique of Durkheim strikes right at the core of Durkheim's definition of the social fact. We have seenhow Durkheim's definition of the social

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fact can be illuminated by reference to his conception of need and of obligation and his archeological metaphor which for him links the two. Durkheim's image of sociology is shaped by his perception of a monolithic modernity in which philosophical speculation can and must be overcome by an archeological, sociological attunement to the ground of need. This is not conceived as an external or merely empirical or scientistic critique of speculative thinking but rather, if we take seriously his Division of Labour in Society, as the absolute presupposition, the metaphorical meta-occupation of all the particular occupations of society. Tarde will begin by questioning the scientific basis of what he sees as Durkheim's sociological pretensions. However, Tarde will not end up by espousing any sort of skeptical position. Rather, he will take very seriously and positively Durkheim's idea of a pure sociology, and he will even retain, to a certain extent, the analogy between sociology and archeology.

One must be careful in reading Tarde not to confuse his initial problem of the his idea of a pure sociology. Tarde's attack on with nature of social resemblances the Durkheimian social fact points out that Durkheim assumessocial resemblances. But with this Tarde is not taking a critical view of an illegitimate assumption,or of in is He rather pointing out, a theoretical mode, that the social resemblancesper se. fact of social resemblancesmust be put into the more general context of the theory of is He pointing out that, according to an activist conception of scientific method. himself Tarde would endorse,resemblanceis a necessaryconstruction sciencewhich is In this the view, resemblance internal to modernity rather of scientific method. than prehistorical in relation to it, and there is no major distinction possible between idea The and scientific resemblances. of a monolithic modernity resemblances social

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contrastedwith a chaotic set of traditions will have to begin to crumble, as he seesit, under a sophisticatedtheory of science. Tarde's conception of the scientific method is, admittedly, a curious and innovative one. His view of scienceis particularly influenced by his interpretation of Leibniz's principle of continuity and Leibniz's perspectiveof composition. One of Tarde's early essaysis entitled "Monadologie et Sociologie" (1999). Eric Alliez has recently argued that all of Tarde's work can and should be read through the prism of this essay(Alliez 1999). 1think Alliez is clearly correct in this, since as we shall see, Tarde's main work, The Laws of Imitation, is shot through with implicit references to the Leibnizian point of view. At the same time, as Gilles Deleuze has pointed out, the outcome of Tarde's rapprochement with rationalist philosophical speculative thinking is highly original (Deleuze 1994: 313-14). In Deleuze's view, Tarde was less to complete micrological social metaphysics. able outline a more or

I will treat Deleuze's view of Tarde extensively below. For the purposesof the presentchapter, it should suffice to begin by presentingthe elementsof Tarde's appropriation of Leibniz. I will then discussthe Tardian social-philosophical in that emerge the processof this appropriation. My basic argument with concepts be Tardian thought to that although Tarde presentsa brillant and social will respect useful argument with respectto the conditions of a pure sociology, this will have, for him, do to more with a project of re-linking the image of social ultimately thought with the ontology of the spontaneousmodem social person, with the theory it it has than the to do with providing a method for of avant-garde, as were, objectively understandingthe particular currents of contemporary social modernity. There is a certain impersonality about Tarde's system,but this impersonality resides implicit in Tarde's stand against subjectivist intellectual property, which results, only

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aswe shall see,from a distinction he draws betweenthe historical particular and the social particular. There is no evidenceat all that Tarde should be seenas attempting to effacethe ideas of the creative, spontaneous,social person, and in fact a number of core aspectsof his thought point in the opposite direction. Repetition I mentioned above that Tarde's point of attack upon Durkheim's conception of the ultimate social fact is Tarde's problem of resemblance. In fact, Tarde's problem of resemblance is a rephrasing of Leibniz's problem of continuity, or what the empiricists called the problem of uniformity.

This problem is the battleground

for all debates over the notion of coherence. Empiricists such as Hume investigate the phenomena of coherence for a uniformity which should be the condition of truth and knowledge but conclude that we can only be profoundly skeptical about whether or not we can ever truly and objectively know what uniformity in itself, this condition, is. Leibniz, on the other hand, holds precisely the opposite opinion that we can, in fact, know exactly what constitutes coherence and uniformity.

The

knowledge, for is Leibniz, this to to seek for the conditions of according condition uniformity in the constitution of continuity.

He relies here on a kind of implicit

contrast between the ideas of coherence and continuity.

In this view, whereas the

imply deep, to a mysterious uniformity of a general coherence seems of notion investigated if be carefully continuity can seen as in itself surface of continuity, deeper the a uniformity of particulars. The investigation of surface of actually only continuity, then, ought to provide a means to penetrate deeper behind the premise of coherence.

The human point of view is admittedly split, according to Leibniz, along the lines of the distinction between deduction and induction. But it is not an exclusive,

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shatteringsplit, since for Leibniz the particular point of view, or the point of view of the particular, has to include the deductive point of view in a latent, unconscious form. The deductive point of view can never be fully known since it includes all the the past,presentand future, but it neverthelesscan and has to be constructedin particular casesas they unfold. Sensitivity to a continuity of particulars, for future in the the to the trace the present,is thus all the of past and example, sensitivity there can be toward particulars. For empiricists such as Locke this would constitute a fallacious and uncritical acceptanceof the scholasticdoctrine of innate ideas. But it is one thing to reject a doctrine of innate ideasand quite anotherto innate ideas how doctrine the of arisesalways in the context of the recognize development latter in The the the Tardian view, continuity. of approach, problem of is a pre-condition for the developmentof a modern, sociological outlook on the is The continuity precisely a problem of modernity as problem of world. distinguished from a doctrine of tradition. But it perhapswould be fair to say that it is a problem which, at least initially, leadsto a rationalistic optimism rather than a skepticism. Tarde's appropriation of Leibniz's problem of continuity is presentin the in form fortuitous he Durkheim's to the the sociology poses of problem of challenge have had As Durkheim seen, assumedthat some sort of we resemblances. social duplication of functions occurs among so-called segmentalsocieties defined as societieswhich coherevia the resemblanceof their members,and Tarde points out that there is nothing to distinguish a `duplication of a function', in this context, from any kind of `resemblance',and that therefore Durkheim has explained nothing about why and how segmentalsocieties,and therefore any societies, should be the focus of before Instead, key Tarde, to attribution. according we can speakof ontological a

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duplication resemblance and we must examine the notion of repetition. In Tarde's view, "every advance in knowledge tends to strengthen the conviction that all resemblance is due to repetition" (1903: 14). The notion of repetition grounds our understanding of resemblance and duplication.

What is real in resemblance and

duplication is the repetition that they bring about.

Repetition is always the repetition of particulars. In Tarde's words, "the relation of universal to particular... is precisely that of repetition to variation" (1903: 7). And furthermore, "repetition exists... for the sakeof variation," and not vice lies (1903: 7). Herein the main source of agreementbetween Tarde and versa Leibniz. For Leibniz, precisely becausecoherenceis basedin continuity, and it is to continuity only attributable particulars, cannot be attributed to any uniform, generalcategories. Similarly, for Tarde, becauseresemblanceis basedin repetition, and repetition is only attributable to particulars, a structural principle of resemblance cannot be attributed to what he takes to be a general `mechanical' type of society over other `organic' types. Now, actually, we have seenthat in Durkheim generality has a specific limited place and is not for him sufficient to define a social category. Generality, in does is interesting is fixity. What Tarde theory for why this propose an short, not should be so, one which differs from Durkheim's evolutionism. According to Tarde, "as soon as a new sciencehas staked out its field of characteristicresemblancesand it repetitions, must comparethem and note the bond of solidarity which unites their does But, fact, the as a matter of mind concomitant variations. not fully understand nor clearly recognisethe relation of causeand effect, except in as much as the effect resemblesor repeatsthe cause,as for example,when a sound wave producesanother sound wave, or a cell, another cell" (1903: 6). Now while Durkheim does not

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attribute an absolutefixity to the social types, he neverthelessdoes explicitly attribute to them, as we have seen,a relative solidity (p. 39). In Tarde's view, insteadof firm, `solid' types of societieswe ought to think of reproductions of societieswhich exhibit similar compositions. In the words of Tarde, "at all times and placesthe apparentcontinuity of history may be decomposedinto distinct and separableevents, eventsboth small and great, which consist of questionsfollowed by solutions" (1903: 156). The problem of continuity brings to light, for Tarde, a compositionalperspective, a perspectiveupon `things' as certain repeatedgatherings of elements,as particular eventswhose unity is no greaterthan that of complex, problematic compositions. In this compositional perspective,`similarities' are seen,not simply as constructions,or as purely subjectively necessaryas opposedto absolutely or objectively necessary,but rather as intrinsic and constitutive as opposedto extrinsic and merely passively perceptual. It is important to note that, like Leibniz, Tarde feels no needto draw from this any skeptical conclusion that we cannot therefore know with certainty whether or not societiesexist at all or that `societies' are only the degreeof any given aggregationof individuals. Rather, the full, overall necessity of the existenceof the particular via repetition and/or continuity is upheld by both Tarde and Leibniz. As Tarde puts it, "repetitions and resemblances...are the differences themes the of and variations which exist in all phenomena" necessary (1903: 6). And it follows from this, in Tarde's view, that nor are "the crude incoherenceof historic facts... proof at all against the fundamental regularity of social life or the possibility of a social science" (1903: 12). For Tarde, repetition, not coherence,is the primary concept of a pure sociology, and the problem of repetition is derived from the problem of the

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resemblanceof particulars. Clearly the concept of repetition can be seenhere to have evolvedtoward a sociological perspectiveand far away from any purely philosophical doctrine of innate ideas. In his later work, one could say, Durkheim accountedfor innate ideasas symbols perceived by the individual but necessarily basedin the common consciousnessof social resemblancesrather than in individual psychology. But even such `emblems', as Durkheim saw them, in the Tardian view are now to be explained in an evenmore pure sociological fashion by examining the featuresof the processof social repetition that underlie the `social facts' that are repeated. For Tarde it is repetition that clearly underlies the Durkheimian theory of social resemblances. For the perspectiveof repetition, as a scienceof particulars, in this view brings the social fact back into the context of history. But by the same token Tarde is not completely dismissing the Durkheimian approach. For Tarde, history does not mean a history of the historians. Rather, what Tarde proposes to do is to take Durkheim's archeological metaphor and demetaphorize it. That is to say, he claims to find in the sociological perspective a methodology that has actually been unwittingly and independently clarified by archeologists who have "unconsciously adopted" a similar scientific outlook (1903: 89). Archeology has clarified sociology's scientific modus operandi because it reveals that "social science must deal exclusively with a multitude of homogeneous facts, " which, as such, are too mundane, too much a part of the very fabric of social be historians" "carefully by (1903: 13). Thus, it is the to concealed not continuity, is distinguish he interested in, Tarde to the that means clear particularity a social particularity, from an historical particularity, but at the same time save concrete from its in fate the hands of what he takes to be Durkheim's social particularity inattention to the composition of apparently `solid' continuity.

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According to Tarde, historical particularities are exceptional and unique, "violent eventswhich are in themselvesdissimilar," and from their viewpoint history is a mere aggregationof such events (1903: 91). But "below the surface,in some way, of the violent and so-called culminating eventsthat are spokenof as conquests, invasions, or revolutions, the archaeologistsshow us the daily and indefinite drift and history, true the stratifications of successiveand the of piling up of sediments contagion-spreaddiscoveries" (1903: 91). Thus, Tarde's transformation of Durkheim's archeological analogy is basedin his conviction that particulars are not necessarilyunique, historical particulars. Instead, Tarde affirms the particulars of uniformity, reproduction, and duplication; he questionswhy they should be ignored. He affirms the particulars of repetition. But it should also be clear that, on the other hand, if it were not for Durkheim's importation of an ontological perspectiveinto sociology this social `solidity', this mode of the continuous reproduction of social facts would perhapshave never come to light. In the end, however, the Tardian is `solidity' to the that gives substance position and only an position complements deployed in support of a social typology which once a metaphor, ontic attribution, facts. the to threatens social real composition of obscure again Against Intellectual

Property

Now, as I have already anticipated above, for Tarde, social repetition is formulated as a theory of imitation. Tarde must therefore affirm, however, that imitation implies the event of "an original act of imagination" (1903: 43). The latter, including everything social that is supposedto come of it, is deducedfrom Tarde's human it from "desire", Tarde as somtimes also puts or positing of a necessary "organic wants" (1903: 44). According to Tarde, "every organic want is experienced in the characteristic form which has been sanctionedby surrounding example" (1903:

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44). Imitation is thus how we experiencethe social, although it is not its only defining feature. For "every social resemblance"is only a kind of precedentwhich is setby "that initial act of imitation" of an original act of imaginationor innovation (1903:44). The tendencyto imitate is a "form of a desirewhich I myself hold to be innateanddeep-seatedand from which I deduce.. the laws of social reason, all namely,desirefor a maximum of strong and stablebelief' (1903: 50). We are thus coming closer to a position from which we might understand what might be meant by imitation for Tarde. Imitation is for Tarde neither simple mimicry nor even a varyingly-structured mimetic tendency in society. Imitation is for Tardc neither an effect or a cause of the social. If a cause is to be found it is to be sought in a long, forgotten chain of innovations originating in pre-history, the vast, irreversible, continuous series of innumerable and imperceptible social changes which compose "the subject" of imitation (1903: 43). 'Imitation, ' in Tarde's usage of the term, is not an imitation of a discrete, perceived, coherent innovation with a clear beginning and end. Rather, imitation is understood by Tarde as the premimetic, or the 'original', operation of the compositional perspective within social formation. Imitation is a 'current', to use Tardc's expression: "all these streams and currents of belief and desire which flow side by side or contrary to one another in society, quantities whose subtractions and additions are regulated by social logic... all arc derived from imitation" (1903: 150). An imitation involves a particular social movement in itself, a quantity, without necessarily implying the involvement of a particular manifested quality that can be described as the subject or object of that movement in historical retrospect. Imitation is indeed for Tardc the subject of pure social change.

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For Tarde, from a certain perspective,imitation is primarily a kind of continuouscurrent of social changewhich is also a composition. That is to say that as imitation flows in its repetition or copying of a model all social changebecomesa following, it is a gathering or coming together of certain `like-minded' imitators, flow imperceptible together create a seamless of which accumulated changes. That which seemedto Durkheim to be a clear and distinct social fact is according to Tarde desire. flow Social facts are createdby humans,but of composedof a complex rather than implying that the social is created and led by geniuses,which implies a is leadership, Tarde that creativity is rather defined by many means model of what followings of many impersonal currents of innovation. A creative individual becomesa social model only insofar as he or she is immediately constituted as a subjectof imitation. Herein lies one of the peculiarities of Tarde's thought: it is the creativity, the desire, and not the imitation, that actually by degreesconstitutesthe beliefs together the that hold the latter with strong social uniformity resulting together. Thus, Tarde proposesthat we conceive of the social as a systemof impersonal movements. However, that does not meanthat personsare not involved. In fact, personsare highly involved in Tarde's system. Persons,especially creative hoc kind in and ad a spontaneous way, a of primal anarchy of persons,make up, However, Tarde. to according while each personal social growth and change, initiative is therefore radically discontinuous,the `primal' anarchy this implies could therefore never be manifestedas any sort of perceivable, coherentphenomenon. It is a virtual anarchy, not an empirical anarchy. As a virtual, flowing reality, the social directly be as a set of personal initiatives but only traced in their cannot perceived imitations. Herein lies a key limit to what we should understandas the

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`impersonality' of Tarde's understandingof the social. For just as easily we could for initiative is is because Tarde it This theory. a personal call a radically personalist individual historical, by the traced and the manifested experiencing not observing in but by thereof, a group, rather observing the transmission of actions either alone or the social in that which is partly consciously and partly unconsciously createdand be kick-start level high A to creativity required any of personal would repeated. very Nor trajectories. these can we conclude that what are referred to as given one of imitations-repetitions might be better describedas habits, either, becausehabits are is behavior. Repetition not accessibleto experience,or to patternsof experienced indicates Repetition the ontology, not the experience,of the any normal empiricism. particular. Consideredfrom the virtual point of view of the whole of the social, from its ontology, imitation is the necessarytheme, the principle of social continuity, of many in imitative is illustrated innovations. For Tarde, the the substanceof current original in' its it is looking hand, On `outside the the composition. of other social continuity, is imitation is for Tarde, true that a primarily composition which only equally imitation, for independent candidate one one and secondarilya current; very often, interfere indicating invention, another, with relations of conflict and will coherent it, first instance, in led "we As Tarde inter-dependency. the to copy are puts spiritual from others everything which seemsto us a new meansfor attaining our old ends, or ideas" for (1903: 207). In the old our or a new expression satisfying our old wants, begin do however, "we instance, that the time to adopt this same we at second innovations which awaken new ideasand new ends in us" (1903: 207). Herein, in this latter perspective,is affirmed the `inside looking out' of composition, the discontinuity, the equally essential resistance,or power to change of perspective

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direction, of the social particular. Furthermore, in this latter instanceof social conflict, according to Tarde, substitution is the result, and in this lies the possibility of what I referred to earlier as `duplication resemblances.' But for Tarde there is no necessityto seetheseduplications as function or role boundary crossings,and thereforeas the meansto dissolving and re-forming groups, as Durkheim does. Resemblances,for Tarde, canjust as easily be fortuitous and only parallel to one another. This leadsto the perhapssurprising but at least, for Tarde, consistent is that the conclusion group not a useful starting premise for sociology. According to Tarde, imitation is a personal current or force which is inside an impersonalcomposition. The soAl is the flow of many personal movementsof desire,of many model formations, which then become contractedinto stablebeliefs which make the social appearto coherein certain formations. But theseformations, once formed, do not then interact to createanother, higher typology of social facts. Rather, desire and belief are poles of a common social spectrum. Their content is not important as as the fact that they indicate pure or virtual social quantities, which is to say degreesof social change,which are analytically isolated at the points in which societiesswitch directions this way and that, according to movementsof imitation which are either accumulative or substitutive. According to Tarde, there is no ontological coherenceof the social apart from the consistencyof these flows. And depend for him it is flows the that these absolutely case upon personalpreference yet, and personal creativity. Perhapsthe central characteristicof the social that Durkheim had referred to as a basic feature of the definition of a social fact and the starting point of sociology was social regularity, or continuity. Tarde does not disagreewith this. He only disagreeswith the premise of the static, pre-defined group of resemblances. In this context it would be a red herring, and an error, to aver that

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Durkheim did not attribute fixity to theseprimitive social types. For one must issue issue. is here is stasis, `solidity', or is kind fixity What at at of specify what fixity. fixity, general relative not absolute, On the other hand, what Tarde proposesas a positive alternative to social typeswill likely not satisfy many of his readers. In Tarde's view, the social "regularity to which I refer is not in the least apparentin social things until they are resolvedinto their severalelements,which it is found to lie in the simplest of them, in combinationsof distinct inventions, in flashes of genius which have been into lights" (1903: 3). Thus, a major aspect commonplace changed accumulatedand in is Durkheim, it Tarde's to that that theory, contrast of placed entails a certain as of ideation thinking the to of and power of as forces of social optimism with respect change. At times Tarde is capableof putting this point very bluntly: "let us explain thesechangesthrough the more or less fortuitous appearance,as to time and place, of certain great ideas, or rather, of a considerablenumber of both major an minor ideas, birth; ideas and anonymous usually of obscure are generally of which are which illustrious, but seldom are which are always novel. abstruse; which simple or Becauseof this latter attribute, I shall take the liberty of baptising them collectively inventions" (1903: 2). It should be noted that theseTardian inventions, these novel ideas,thesepersonal moments of creativity with direct social ramifications, have to be prior to and irreducible to the actions of individuals. Thus, perhapscontrary to imitation is for Rather, Tarde type as of action. not meant a sense, common imitations, the media of inventions, are the social as such. Tarde is similar to Durkheim in that he believes the making of adequateformulations of the ontology or is both for existence a priority sociology and the main criterion of social ground of any useful sociological concepts.

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In Durkheim's casethe ground is the need of solidarity, and in Tarde's case the ground is the social desire inherent in the point of view of imitation. Tardian imitations are direct, immediate, single, and personal perspectives- ontological windows, as it were - which in overview directly constitute the totality of social for illusion They the the purpose explaining of of the resemblances. are conceived individual resemblances.Here, one could say with some completenessof justification, Tardian conceptscan serve a salutary critical function. However, the in imply be that then this an ontology alternative would grounded sameconceptsalso necessityof an incomplete and continuous social existence. As Tarde reminds us, "this is idealism... if you chooseto call it so; but it is the idealism which consistsin its ideas historian" history through those the the through of actors, not of explaining (1903: 3). According to Tarde, the philosophy of history supposesthat "there is a fundamentalcontinuity in historic metamorphoses"(1903: 2). However, in Tarde's "can be "the true reduced to a chain of ideaswhich change of social causes" vew, in but distinct be themselves to are which and sure, very numerous, are, discontinuous,although they are connectedby the much more numerousacts of imitation which are modelled upon them" (1903: 2). The study of imitation is an history facts digs to reveal the radically singular the of underneath archeology which historical continuity. compose particulars which Thus, it would be too facile to say, as a quick formula, that for Tarde what is basic in the experienceof society and constitutive of all imitation is the perception of is idea'. Such `having However, not a statement untrue. an of a personalmoment the relationship in a statementsuch as this between `having' and `thinking' rather has to be understood as a part of the wider relationship between social resemblancesand latter itself be the and should recognizedas a part of the even creativity, personal

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wider relationship betweenrepetition and difference. For Tarde, the existenceof sociologicaldifference, the difference of the social particular, is primary and is explainedby the highly personal creativity inherent when models are formed by a kind of anarchic or spontaneousinvention throughfollowing. I would say that the link implied here between having and thinking constitutes,in effect, a theory profoundly against the notion of historical intellectual for property, and profoundly an archeological theory of interiority in which the social particular is concentratedand determinedin the having and thinking of a particular social person. In other words, while the personality is for Tarde the agencyof social creationand existence,this is true not for an individual psychological personality but is rather true only insofar as the personality is a sociological personality.15 This is similar to saying that the sociological personality, the super-ego,as it were, is independentof psychological individuality, or the ego. But in contrast to this Freudian understanding,Tarde's notion of the sociological personality is one of absolutely rather than relatively spontaneouscommunion with social movement in itself in `thinking' as the pure perception of `having'. Tarde's notion is perhapsmore like `capital', taken as the whole of the social pursuit and as a sufficient reasonfor his from Thus, perspective,Tarde can ask "how and why did human social change. by its initial to all, unless course at virtue of certain come run genius causeswhich, in its by it from torpor, original also stirred one up, one, the deeppotential arousing human the soul? And were not these causescertain primordial and capital wants of inventions and discoverieswhich beganto spreadthrough imitation and which inspired their imitators with a taste for invention and discovery" (1903: 42)?

15SeeTarde's note on his own turn from individual psychology toward social psychology in 1903: 145.

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In my view, Tarde's understandingof the social does not go far enough towardsaccountingfor the influence of needupon thesepursuits and these changes. It revertstoo much much away from the concept of concrete social needtowards the deductionof a pure necessityon the part of the provenanceof social changeas stemmingfrom an abstract sociological personality. If Tarde's aim is to break down the dogmatic Durkheimian social fact, "and other verbal palliatives of... ignorance of the real groundwork of things," (1903: 1) what he is then challengedwith is having to find someway to account for personalcreativity which is, at the sametime, irreducible to historical intellectual property, or as Tarde puts it, "let us... ward off the vapid individualism which consistsin explaining social changesas the caprices of great men" (1903: 2). Of course, one agreeswith this. But what Tarde also appealsto is the possibility of a social ontology, alternative to that of Durkheim, that desire in be based the pursuit of and the formation of social spontaneous would is fully in is 1 Tarde. This think problematized not need where models. This model formation, which he speaksof as imitation, would constitute the bond is for bond This based Tarde. in the continuity therefore social social primary desiring But would not this ontology of the social particular particulars. of radical, becomefor Tarde a doctrine itself, perhapseven as an ideology of `spontaneity', no longer to be taken merely as a critical problem stemming from the apparentnecessity is indubitably discovers What Tarde that there exists a pure of social resemblances? is just inasmuch it as unconscious as conscious which change as of social perception help to to constitute the entire, unlimited possible range and accompany out stretches based differences. Any social ontology, upon repetition, assumessocial of social difference. But if therefore the positing of Durkheim's consciencecollective is be illegitimate to an way to make conceivablethe unity of social shown rightly

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groupsand make possible common sensecomparisonsbetweensegmentsof social resemblances,precisely becausethose resemblancesimply a repetition which cannot be taken for granted, on the other hand Tarde's pure processof production and reproduction,of inextricably and immediately linked invention and imitation, if taken as a positive fact, is surely just as mysterious. In Tarde's own words, "there is nothing more mysterious, one may say, than such reproductions. 1 admit this: but is have there this mystery, nothing clearer than the resulting once accepted when we series. Whereas,every time that production does not meanreproduction of self, we in both dark" (1903: 6). Thus, Tarde and Durkheim are for a though the are entirely \ individuality, i-ejection our naive and of affirmations of sociological problematization both thinkers unfortunately come to a dogmatic conclusion, the one affirming a transcendentexternality of the social and the other affirming instead an immanent, impersonaltransmission of personalcreativity. Conclusion Tarde is perhapsunique among social theorists becausehe formulates a theory of personal creativity, indeed a theory of radical human contingency, one which explodesthe myth of a monolithic modernity. At the sametime, remarkably, Tarde's social theory is neverthelessontologically grounded in the necessary. Tarde's point of departurefor his own positive social theory is the necessary he deduces from Durkheimian premisesof social resemblanceof a existence be in has brilliantly difference He to the touches primary social. of which perception in issue is that contemporary society, that which most pressing which on exactly troubles us about Durkheimian `solidarity', and that which we seemto continually One ongoing about our modernity. might now put the question like misunderstand this: why can we not affirm that society positively exists, or has certain particular

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human individual beyond the condition, without subordinatingthe socially effects useful conceptsthat we can derive from such casesof the existenceof the social to criteria limited by the needsof a myth of a transcendentcollectivity? Why do we appearto needto formulate the existenceof a social substance?PerhapsTarde's imitation is identical is formation, ie., insight that model with most profound with the creationof those socially useful concepts,and therefore that, at least from this point fact imitation the essential of the social. However, constitutes of view, defend in have to this point of view Tarde must that order seen paradoxically, we formula. imitation Social metaphysicsarisesone the to metaphysical of a status raise more time. In the next chapter I aim to make clear why Tarde must introduce his own social substance,one located in the field of ideation, over againstthat of Durkheim's have We already seena hint of the reason: for quasi-physical social substance. Tarde ideasare actual, even, to a certain extent, empirical. For to support such a theory Tarde must make a compromise: ideas can be said to be actual only insofar as they are related to an imitation, a following, or a tracing of an invention, and this ideas be ideas flow If can only metaphysical. of as real, essentially social essence discontinuous, effective particulars in the social world, the social is nonethelessthe metaphysicalconcept of their existenceand the status of this `flow', or continuity is discontinuous, thus also metaphysical. the among Nevertheless,despitethis major concessionto social metaphysics,Tarde has he in has my openedan opportunity to theorize the view: point, one major won Tarde, According to the particular. whereassocial sciencemust social ontology of be facts there the of social can also a positive social repetitions, particular study ideas in the the of social particular themselves. Indeed, he philosophy which affirms

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believedthat "social sciencemight be as advancedas the other sciences,and... social philosophy is actually much more so than any other philosophy" (1903: 13). Thus, the net effect of Tarde's social theory is therefore the creation of a new image of philosophical thought, one which is identified as a pure sociology. This has a future for the of sociology and philosophy. It inscribes an profound meaning in between them the precisely at point essentialcooperation which Durkheim believedthey must diverge. This freeing-up of social thought from the constraintsof social sciencewhile neverthelessin close cooperation with those constraints surely indeed innovative be the and salutary aspectsof Tarde's critique of one most must of Durkheimian sociologism. His return to metaphysicsnotwithstanding, my responseto this Tardian position, however, is to ask about specifics. Why it would not be much more logical to saythat all that we can speakof in terms of a pure perception of social changeis a pure or deductive perception of the processof division, of a problem-based differentiation, which is experiencedin occupations. Why is there something that is Why there someperson which must be the change? of occupy moment must occupied? Does not modernity reveal that the social consists rather in the notion, is in being image to say, a plurality of pure social outside, which and of sense, immanence have Surely transcendence nor a monopoly on the neither occupations? duration and spaceof the social. Even though Durkheim tends toward taking the side it is focus Durkheimian the transcendence, precisely upon occupations,even social of the occupationsimplied by inventions and imitations, that Tarde can have no have have For, I Durkheim to. argued, as as although we seenabove raised response this point but then neglectedit, occupationsare surely exactly those processesduring is involved, in the to the the of social as such revealed person consistency not which

III manifestedappearances,nor on the contrary in an unextendedself which multiplies but in drama rather a of externalization, of `going and organizesappearances, outside'. From this perspective,Tarde seemsagain to want to locate the consistency in in interior logic `having'. flux Rather, is the the an experience, an social of of of forget the the the occupation makes social which us our having ground of not through our attraction to difference in itself and our attendantmovement outside? Does not the occupation include and even embraceour future which has never been experienced? PerhapsTarde's sociology of modernity, though it redressesan imbalance by immanence, is the of neverthelessnot ontological neglectedperspective exhibiting investigation into fully have Perhaps to modern society ontological a would enough. incorporate a more full account of desire constraints which are not inherent even in the operationsof unconsciouscreativity. Indeed, I think that Tarde's criticism of Durkheim's premise of the basisof the social fact in need is not sufficient grounds for a rejection of Durkheimian thought becauseit does not go far enough sufficiently to deal critically, for example,with the doctrine of social constraint. As we have distinction between historical Tarde's the critical and sociological cost of seen, investigation is that he must posit that social constraint is a construction only of the On hand, be the to and resemblance. other of repetition sure, scientist's perception Durkheim confused social numbers,and the attendantpressuresand constraints he though spatial constraint, even cleverly avoided placed upon social members,with the inherent problems with this by attributing the processof boundary construction to But one error cannot correct another. of solidarity. notion a metaphorical Thus, in order to look into this further, in the next chapter 1 proposeto compareTarde's and Durkheim's approachesto the question of sociology. With this

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begin to more positively specify the limitations of `pure comparisonwe may in We then, the following chapter, be in a position shall sociologism. sociology' or to begin to appreciatewhy and how Henri Bergson came to recognize late in his careerthat there is an element of truth but also an element of error in the positions of both Tarde and Durkheim. He grappled with the consistencyof social movement betweenits apparentpoles of attraction and constraint, and explicitly attemptedto avoid sociologism, the positing of either a self or a social externality.

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CHAPTER FOUR

THE SOCIOLOGISMS OF DURKHEIM AND TARDE: A COMPARATIVE EVALUATION 1

However directly inaccessibleour object of understanding,the social, becomesby taking on its essentially occupational character,we can nevertheless benefit from a theoretical as well as a practical rationale for studying it. My aim is ideas Durkheim Tarde to summonup an explicit the to and of use main now theoretical context for the theory of social occupations. Essentially, in this chapter, broadly-defined derivation is focus for this upon only one error of Durkheim and my Tarde which I believe can be found to dominate in both of their works. Each offers individual insights into the nature of the social. Nevertheless,they each considerable fall into a similar error which results in a significant distortion of the processual life. The source of this error is no less than a guiding realization of modern social idea which is common to both of their writings, namely, the idea of a `pure in Tarde Durkheim rivals a common attempt to achieve a `pure and were sociology'. is, ' Pure precisely, organized primarily with a view to the sociology sociology. it be Thus, the specific task of this chapter to support the must social. ontology of the theory of occupations,which 1 conceive as a social ontological theory, by

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be the the to that approaches study social of must all ontological not showing conceivedas `pure sociology'. Pure Sociology and its Two Perspectives There are two perspectiveswhich vie against each other to becomethe dominant focus of pure sociology. The first kind of approach is exemplified by Durkheim's discussion of his methodology in the Division of Labour. It has perhaps beentempting at times to seethis early part of Durkheim's work as a sourceof in Durkheim But functionalism sociology. attemptedto rebut such a abstract sterile, his first book. he it, in As "the word in the of major pages put opening view advance function is used in two somewhatdifferent ways. Sometimesit designatesa system from it At divorced living their times other effects. expressesthe movements, of between these movementsand certain needsof existing relationship corresponding the organism" (1984: 11). He then goes on to make perfectly clear that he favours the latter understanding(1984: 11). Therefore, given that for Durkheim it is not in the extent to which "`results' or to empiricism, ordinary possible employ an `effects' cannot satisfy us either, becauseno idea of correspondenceis evoked", thus, for is know important is "what to us whether this correspondence rather simply is (1984: Thus, Durkheim is for it 11). in what not calling consists" exists, and what but functionalism, theory systems, social rather a grounded social of or a an abstract ontology. But nor doesthat which is `purely sociological' in Durkheim come from fact he from in Rules disciplinarity the that the to attempted scientificity, or sheer domain (see is facts 1982). It the of sociology easy and specify the criteria of social to conceive such specifications as being also an integral part of a merely empirical in Durkheim `pure Rather, partakes sociology' precisely and exclusively approach.

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in the extent to which he attemptsto construct an identity, not just a mere but correspondence an existing, sui generis,purely tautological correspondence, betweensocial causeand social effect. We have seenin chapter one that that which is implied here is an argument for an exclusive relation of necessitybetweenthe down breaks barriers, in the need which quasi-spatial a social and the sourceof social structureof this event as a unique and modem kind of quasi-temporal durational constraint over individuals. The first kind of `pure sociology' is that tendency in sociology which seeksto kind is `pure itself in The tendency of sociological' second ground need. desire `desire by Here Tarde. to to the align seeks oneself one with as exemplified invent', or the decomposition of the grounding in need for the sake of new does involve Perhaps this surprisingly, perspective a somewhat not compositions. forces idea that there the or constraintswhich tend to make are rejection of `individuals' inessentialin comparisonwith the larger social whole. Desire is not an is for desire is it Tarde individual that the since what peculiar about attribute of "completes and is part of the logical need for unification" (1903: 150). Rather than is does desire Tarde individual put at stakethe agency of desire as what assuming located in a personal self with a problem which surpassesthe personality becausethe invent. how have As I is to shown in chapterthree, in problem a social problem of Tarde there is a strong senseof the larger impersonality of the social existing The `impure' implicit the criticism of sociology personal. constructively alongside in this secondperspectiveconsistsnot in the rejection of the notion of a force of impersonality but rather in the rejection of the notion that such a force could lend the Instead, is externality. of quasi-spatial, quasi-temporal what any sort whole social between but desire ideational is nevertheless personal quantitative continuum seen an

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form belief. it, impersonal force in As Tarde the of puts "desire and belief they and are the substanceand the force, they are the two psychological quantities which are found at the bottom of all the sensationalqualities with which they combine; and when invention and then imitation takes possessionof them in order to organiseand (1903: 145-6). As Tarde seesit, the them, they quantities" real social also are use "the simplicity of such principles equalstheir generality, and I grant that it is much follow down lay them, than to to them through the to them prove and even easier labyrinth of their particular applications. [But] their formulation is nevertheless in his (1903: In this sense, and own terms, Tarde has "tried, then, to necessary" x). outline a pure sociology" (1903: x). Durkheim agreesthat what is interesting is "what social phenomenaare when (1982: in 55). However, Durkheim's view, there elements" stripped of all extraneous is no purity in locating the substanceof the social in desiring-imitations since the latter are operative so far away from their source in need, and are conversely so far impossible labyrinth Tarde into to that the so of, as make speaks a consolidated, gone structural definition of their part in social existence. In Tarde's perspective,on the implicate justification is hand, to there such a senseof sociological simply no other for insofar `Pure Tarde, it is linked in sociology' as ontology. with strategy social be described as a necessaryattunementor alignment any sort of method, can only inasmuch become desires forceful flux they the the which, as particular of with follow, immediately innovatively they the constitute the new models pursuits of in form beliefs. for Thus, the of the provisional of societies wholeness senseof Tarde, beliefs, which provide the social with `wholeness' in particular casesof desiring-imitations, are actually always immediately connectedwith the

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multiplicitous social particulars of desire. They could not be just `ideals' or general ideasheld in abstraction. What is `purely sociological' in both Durkheim and Tarde does not come from abstractionor generalization. Nor does it come from a reflection upon the transcendentalnature of certain sociological categories. The term `pure', here, should not be understoodin a Kantian or quasi-Kantian sense. What is at stake is `strategical' rather than `critical. ' Durkheim and Tarde eachhave a strong senseof strategywhich guides their work. Strategyis disciplinary in the caseof Durkheim inter-disciplinary in the caseof Tarde. But this only goes to show that, in fact, and the issue of disciplinarity is not of key significance. What is important is that each thinker's strategy develops in a dialogue with that which he posits as a key social substance.Each thinker is thus bound to link his strategy with the very nature of the social substancehe arguesfor. This link, then, between strategy and social substance,will be our provisional definition of `pure sociology'. Pure Sociology, Metaphor,

Sociologism

1think there is enough evidenceto saythat the groundings and alignments of Durkheim and Tarde can be organized into two basic sociological perspectiveswhich grant ontological significance and analytical emphasisto certain featuresof the social. The first perspectivetargets the featuresof constraint, obligation, endurance and concentratesits ontological deduction of the necessaryexistenceof the social feature the central of social externality. The secondperspectivetargets upon attraction, play, spontaneity and emphasizesthe ontological necessityand centrality by first Durkheim, is primarily deductive The the self. perspective,exemplified of inasmuch as it generatesa strong, circular conception of the features it privileges, interpret to tending the other perspectiveweakly as basedupon insignificant while

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epiphenomena.The secondperspective,exemplified by Tarde, is primarily critical and intuitive, combining an effective criticism of the tautology involved in the first position with a radical intuition of the relation between the positive features neglectedin the first position and social becoming, while tending to dismiss the featuresemphasizedin the first position as objectifying or derivative. How can we formulate a seriousevaluation of the pursuit of a `pure sociology', an evaluation that can take into serious account the featuresof both kinds of approach? Above all, a serious account must evaluatethe pursuits of Durkheim and Tarde in ontological terms. Thus, we must ask whether the goal to establishthe is the substance an appropriate way to pursuethe ontology social nature of ultimate of the social. Certainly, a social ontology needsto be inclusive. But does it needto be universal as well? 1 think that the searchfor substancesleads away from inclusivity and toward an ideal universality which will always fail to be absolute. Thus, in my view, it should be clear that the criteria of ontology cannot be positive, or linked with certain featuresover others. In my view herein lies the common error of Durkheim and Tarde. We ought to ask whether any kind of `pure sociology' can outline an effective relation betweensocial space-timeand social existencewithout becoming too dogmatic on either of the sidesof stasisor dynamics. Now we are in a position perhapsto make a significant theoretical criticism of Durkheim and Tarde. If we ask what is common in these mutually-opposed facts. interesting Durkheim find of conjunction and Tarde both attempts,we an becomedogmatic at certain points in their social ontologies. Thesepoints are those in which they link the substanceof the social with an agencywhich they suppose, rightly or wrongly, to be a certain locus of creative originality: the self in the caseof Tarde and the horde or simple group in the caseof Durkheim. At this point each

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thinker doestwo things. First, they immediately inject temporality into the locus by supposingit to be creative. Secondly, but with less promising effect, they additionally assumethat the locus they have isolated has certain spatial properties, including, for example, spatial difference. Durkheim perhapssank deeperinto this error than Tarde did becauseDurkheim thought that such spatial properties could play a causalrole in social genesis. But this obvious error only helps to illuminate a more subtle, common error, namely, that eachthinker assumesthat spatial characteristics,whether causalor not, are always unproblematically linked with temporal change. They speakof spatial characteristicsof the social in temporal terms such as `change', `continuity', `current', `persistence'. At first glance this might not seemlike a big problem. Why do we needto worry about specifying what spatial featuresthe social has, if indeed it has any? Why cannot we be content with this loose, `strategical' way of thinking about `social space'? Perhapswe can, but then we would at least have to admit that we have no reasonto assumethat such terms could be used to describeany aspectof real space. Moreover, it does not help to answerthat what is being referred to in ontologically oriented social thought such as this is social rather than physical space. What could `social space' be, given that the term `social' is already immediately impregnated with a fundamentaltemporality? How can spacebe describedin terms of time? Would we not, with `social space', have simply formulated another contradictory term of analysis? At the crucial junctures of their attempts at `pure sociology', as a result of the `pure sociological' requirement to posit a creative locus, both Durkheim and Tarde each provide a classical example - and furthermore theseare examplesthat are otherwise supposedto be opposedto one another - of what can only be describedas

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a temporal metaphor of space. The one relies upon the metaphor of `solidity' and the other upon the metaphorof `fluidity'. In this, `pure sociology' necessarily becomesa mere sociologism. Two Criticisms of Sociologism

The essenceof sociologism, as I would now define it, lies in this reliance upon a variety of temporal metaphorsof spaceas proof that the social exists and is life in of modes of social variety which subsumethe manifested a corresponding individual. From this definition, l will the comparatively short-lived existenceof but there three that criticise sociologism, one can as I will argue, only ways show are the last two are real, effective criticisms that we can learn from. The first and most common way of criticising sociologism is the external individual from the the of of point view and accuses comes criticism which banal lacking formulating `common truisms and, as a result, of of sociologism from doctrine, is to this It position, rely upon a enough, such as that probably sense'. in for `the ' to `human the regularities of that order account sacred', of nature, or of social practices. However, despitethe numerous and obvious difficulties in least doctrine, the truth the not a of which would be an at least such of maintaining for metaphors, presentpurposeswe needonly explanatory reliance upon equivalent it. is in This is intrinsically defect that such a position unable recognize one relevant to specify its object of criticism, such as whether the object of criticism is the idea of is it in latter. the or a certain whether practice of general awareness sociological It is extremely important for our purposesthat we attempt to understandthe defined practices of the classical project of sociological elusive motives and carefully is highly in if As 1 such an understanding chapter one, relevant, argued awareness. immediate it to still since we share own social awareness, with a our not essential,

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is Sociologism a certain becoming dogmatic of theseclassical senseof modernity. types of sociological awareness. Even today it supplies the public with echoesof a discourseagainstwhich a sufficient attack is merely that which can be seento be dealing only with another kind of discourse as discourse. Such attacks can easily by their and vagueness appearingto directly addressthe conceal own naive realism terms, or the `deconstruction' of the terms, before them. This is why sociologism is undesirable:it distracts attention from the social needsand desiresthat most instead to to attracts obscurantisttypes of criticism. and sociology attempts attend Over againstthese ill-informed types of criticism, but informed by their attempts and their deficiencies, l think we must attempt to formulate effective internal criticisms of sociologism. Firstly: a problem of hollowing, or false transcendance. Sociologism begins from being againstthe idea of spaceas an exclusive property of the private individual, but on the grounds of ontology rather than political economy. It wants to fundamental in its the the nature of social existence. address problem radically at root But it also seessocial existencefundamentally imbued with creativity and thus with for its In time to time. non-private activities, it fails to address eagerness appropriate the relation betweentime and spacein social existence. Instead it comesto rely upon does It its this to temporal space. communicate of metaphors criticism of the various its idea to alternative communicate of a social reality that and appropriation of space life death individual. the that the temporally of and supercedes of encompassesand What is involved here is primarily an ontological approachto the necessityof social latter floating the to somehow over and subsumingprivate as spaceswhich wants see both in It to time. therefore a mystery attributes real spaceand time or proper space,

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itself which is matchedonly by the apparentprofundity of the questionsraised by the notion of a sui generis social space. In Durkheim, for example,we have seenhow an `insight' into the necessity is linked fact with a theory of spatial social segments. of society as a sui generis Sociologism comes from the theoretical pursuit of a `pure sociology' which aims at features the of social existence,and thus the essential providing an outline of questionsraised as to the provenanceof social spacein social existenceare addressed theoretically. But also in Durkheim we have seenhow a certain distinction is initially implied and then comesto be developed between his theory of `organic first is implied to be metaphysical his The theory segments. of structural need' and be They level be to the the to contrasted are on and actual. of theory: the first second is implied to be non-spatial and the secondto be spatial. Together they are supposed to accountcomprehensivelyfor one reality of modernization. But what is spatial cannot provide, on its own, an explanation for what is non-spatial, and what is nonits for explanation on own, a reciprocal cannot spatial provide, what is spatial. Such a tautology will obscurethe social meaning of the actual as obligation and thus as intimately involved in social necessity. At the sametime it will introduce an assumptionthat the actual, now a sphereof quasi-spatialrelations, somehow, somewhere,constitutes a sui generis movement of social creativity. To come to rely upon a temporal metaphor of spaceis to implicitly separate into from insight the of social necessity spaces one's theory of ontological one's those spacesand to come to rely upon an increasingly hollow formulation of the latter. As we have seenabove, Durkheim's attempt to unify his theory by developing his ineffective. is its This theorization, aspect of and aspect a causalargument weak is insignificant in fact in being to the theoretical that, choice, comparison a order of

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to developa concrete,grounded social ontology, Durkheim must actually bifurcate his theory, with the result of creating parallel theories, one purportedly to do with the non-spatialand one purportedly to do with the spatial. There is, in fact, no way to unify such theories as parts of a coherent ontological problematic except by meansof using an overarching metaphor which is an emblem of that which is mysteriously false is hollow, in both. This transcendence. They are, in fact, only creative a theoriesof certain quasi-spatial effects of social creativity. The power of the metaphorof `solidarity' is only its appealto a senseof the mystery of social creativity, and it is only a quasi-spatial metaphor. It is, to be precise, a temporal metaphorof space. Furthermore, Durkheim's opposition from within the project of `pure sociology' makes almost exactly the samemistake. The only difference between Tarde and Durkheim on this point is that Tarde did not attempt to draw out an explicit causalargument for imitative currents. But he did not needto make such an in order to end up with exactly the samekind of argument attempt at a causal ontological bifurcation of social theory which requires the samekind of metaphorical invention is kind Tarde's of a of creativity of the self which has a concept solution. mysterious effect of inspiration upon others. It does not createex nihilo but is rather following, kind formation ' kind `model through a of model of fashion. By of a `follow', influence to or to appropriate for one's creatively selecting some cultural follow for development, to model others as well and in this own one createsa imitation a social current comes into being. One can thus have an influence on from live one's own time. many generationsapart agentswho However, Tarde's notion of invention, or what I have describedas `model formation through following, ' is neverthelesssystematically separatedfrom his

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theory of imitative currents. Moreover, this confusing bifurcation is a necessary consequenceof his approach. For even if imitative currents are not intended to refer to solid space,they are still intended to refer to quantifiable social flows. The sociological idea of quantity, without solidity, is flow. The idea of flow, or to use Tarde's term `current', makessenseonly in referenceto an idea of space,even if Over in to on the other side of the equation, the notion of only pure changes space. invention has to remain `a flash of genious', an element of mysterious creativity. Sincethe agentsof invention-imitation have no spatial solidity and therefore no spatial contact or proximity whatsoever,only the idea of a flow or current, which is idea, linked temporal a can remain to link invention and when with creativity imitation if they are to retain a senseof quantifiability. In Tarde's thinking there is no contact or proximity that is presumedto take boundaries between is eliminated so that the problem The problem of place agents. of the social part within social processescan take pre-eminenceover the allegedly false problem of the social whole. Durkheim's idea was of a kind of `worldly space' boundaries him solidarity made see enduring of which as intrinsic to the social he because boundaries, Just but at the same this sense rejects of question. exactly time wants to keep quantity central to the social question, what Tarde generatesis an kind in `outer temporal space' of alternative metaphor of a which the question of boundariesis left completely behind but in which the idea of spacenevertheless remains important. Tarde's idea is that of an unlimited reservoir of flows or currents imitative bond, distinguish, in together agents re-bond and a constantly which fluctuating social eternity. This kind of notion of a flux is still just as hollow and falsely transcendentas that of Durkheim, however, becausethe more we affirm the

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`reality' of the description, the more we must supposethat what it meansto be socially situated comes from some fundamentally mysterious creativity. Secondly: a problem of flattening, or false immanence. The reliance upon a temporal metaphorof spacecreatesthe unfortunate effect that social time can only be conceivedflatly in terms of general moments which separatetraditions from effects of modernity. Durkheim's distinction between `mechanical solidarity' and `organic in his first is formulated major work and remains as the primary insight solidarity' which guides his entire subsequentwork (1984). The first category refers to traditional sociality, the secondrefers to modem sociality. As we have seen,the transition betweenthe traditional and the modem is de-historicized in Durkheim's thought. The main link to history he retains is a vague sensethat the division of labour which he believes spurs on the transition between tradition and modernity has acceleratedin relatively recent times. At the sametime, Durkheim's explanation of the division of labour, and indeed of modernity in general, is evolutionary, not duplication deals It the and substitution of functions gradual with revolutionary. basedin social need and a resulting complexification basedon the necessary forms. It dealsmainly with the new social evolutionary co-existenceof old and by this complexification. But nowhere is there caused of society exteriorization explained the time of this exteriorization process,which is the modem creative social processpar excellance. On the one hand, it appearsthat Durkheim has conceived time as immanent in discovers inasmuch he a sui generis creativity of the social in its as sociality becoming complex and modern via the division of labour. And for Durkheim thus, generally,

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the guidelines in relation to which [time] is divided and organized are fixed by the movementsof concentration or dispersion of society (1973: 218).

On the other hand, there is another sensein which it seemsfor him that time is simply a flat backdrop againstwhich actors play out a struggle over their social boundaries. In Durkheim's their of roles and problems accompanying needsand words,

the rhythm of collective life dominates and embraces the varied rhythms it from lives the results; consequently the time which of all elementary which it expresses dominates and embraces all particular durations. It is time in general. For a long time the history of the world has been only (1973: history 218). the society of another aspect of

If Durkheim does not attribute generality to social types he neverthelessdoes is It there time. to simply one time which expandsas seems attribute generality boundary all needs and all accommodates changes. modernity expandsand As we have seen,Tarde attacksDurkheim's conception of a monolithic linking Tarde the However, of modernity with the senseof a only attacks modernity. individual be to to that external appears actors. monolith as a phenomenon Modernity is still highly active in Tarde's conception of society. For Tarde, however, modernity is not really consideredwith respectto the `whole of the be be innovative Tarde's to aggregation said an of modernity could only process'. ideas sustained,concentrated,and fluctuating in the imitative spacebetween

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individuals, in what Durkheim called `negative solidarity' (1984: 75-77). Modernity for Tarde is not an objective phenomenonwith an organic nature of its own. The immanent in for Tarde, conceived as are a social substanceof momentsof modernity, ideaswhich in themselvesare the radical particulars of social continuity which lend form to history and to the infinite varieties of imitation. Thus, in Tarde's thinking, ideas innovation imitation time time and particularity, and and a of of a we might see however For Tarde here but following there two times are not and continuity. and his history identical. does In have its is time view, not own, simply which only one overarchingtime. For Tarde, all time is social and archeological. Rather than describe an increasing alienation between traditional forms and modern forms as Durkheim does, Tarde simply collapses them into one spontaneous social cosmos. In Durkheim, become In institutions this though process, modern. must are everything social increasingly divided and differentiated, time is gradually expanded, homogenized, kind freedom for to of quasi-spatial as a reservoir of modernizers accessible and diversity. Not unlike Durkheim, in Tarde's conception, modernization is a "growing between barriers individuals the all customary whom of reciprocal of resemblance imitation have been broken down, and who imitate one another more and more freely... and yet more and more necessarily", and this "makes them feel with a injustice (Tarde irresistible 1903: the of privilege" power growing and, eventually, xxiv).

However, in Tarde, everything social is already modern in principle; the

imitations have been is of which always acceleration an acceleration of progress it, from "far Tarde As in human smothering their true puts taking place society. originality",

the progressive resemblance of individuals "fosters and favours it"

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(1903: xxiv). The traditional is merely improved by modernization, not revolutionized, in Tarde's way of thinking. This need not obscurethe fact that Tarde is very pro-modern according to his is "what Tarde Indeed, that claims contrary to personalpre-eminence own standards. is the imitation of a single man whom people copy in everything. But when, instead few, borrow from a hundred, or or after a after one person we of patterning one's self ten thousandpersons...the very nature and choice of theseelementary copies, as well astheir combination, expressesand accentuatesour original personality" (Tarde 1903:xxiv). Modernity, for Tarde, is accompaniedby an increasing desire for living in a novel way, a desire for difference and a maximum of spontaneouspersonal innovation. Social change,for Tarde, is immanent in a social substancecomposedof radical social particulars. But theseradical particulars are already posited from the is Tarde's Consequently, conception that of a `false immanence' inasmuch as outset. time has to be posited as a pre-establishedcontinuity which accompaniesthe social `current'. Time does not changesignificantly when any new particular social innovation occurs. Time is the flat, grey, impersonal continuity of otherwise discontinuous archeologically-discoveredsocial facts. Time plays a role only as an for `current', is the the concept super model which or actually only a over-arching his Tarde `pure sociology', to attempts, aiming at spatial metaphor with which thematize social diversity. Conclusion Sociologism can be defined as one dimensional social ontology justified We by temporal to of space. can now conclude that metaphor a recourse primarily the usageof such a metaphoris the element which must be held in common in the is This `strategies' `pure the meansof `pure of sociology'. opposed various, even

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link however, is The to that `pure substance and strategy. end, sociology's attempt sociology' cannot be maintained as a project without becoming sociologism. The is it that confuses social time and social space. The main problem with sociologism interwoven heterogeneity,the virtual confluence, of social time and social spacein in is ignored, glossed over sociologism. The types of our actual occupations sociologismwe have analysedimply a common model of time that is so generalas to be indifferent to social change. In addition, they imply different notions of space falsify in different insight into our ontological ways our each which nevertheless do by for They this positing a substanceof the social and a need social existence. locus of social genesisand an intrinsic connection between substanceand locus. This connection can only be strategicaland thus it can only be metaphorical. But in it in have to qua metaphorical criticize order to mount an no way we only needed effective criticism. Rather, we need only point out that the theoretical evidence be it does from there that can no privileged locus of social exposition, our shows,as if furthermore in ' in `group. And `self' the the we or concur that we change,either cannot leave this question as a mere matter of theoretical preference,we must then be be If there that there social substance. can no can also no social substance, admit there can still be metaphor,but the metaphorhas been shown to be arbitrary and of little consequence.Thus, it is not necessaryto criticize the use of metaphorsper se, but it is necessaryto ask if they might be used, as they have been by Durkheim and Tarde, to gloss over a major theoretical problem. As I have already suggestedin many places above, I think the contemporary formulate basically human to theory a us ontological still requires practices of social from but in `Pure a similar notion ends sociology' starts a problematic. social its in forecloses terms, the possibility of re-opening the own sociologism which,

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question. It attemptsto finally answer what cannot be finally answered. For there is somethinginevitable about the needto formulate a social ontological problematic. This is not simply becausehuman practices are social, a persuasiveand realistic tautology, but a tautology nonetheless. But nor is it becausepractices are inherently self-creative,basedon an intuition or an idealistic reflection upon the flux of our existence. Rather, for me social ontology is required becausethe social, our in its become this, tend to and occupations, vital state,the social is practices, inaccessibleto direct observation. In our occupationswe somehow, somewhere, have been in. `state' `process' Social ontology `outside' the the or we move of either is thus of a central, eternally recurring importance. To answerthe social question on the basisof any particular set of spaceand time bound observationswould be like trying to do literary criticism by watching someonebecome embroiled in reading a is in The that of all practices side which, constituting a social novel. occupational diversion, there is engendereda socially significant feeling and a personally relevant, but complex, and thoroughly social concept of the externality of the social. In my fully for have `outside' by this than accounting of other way no we would view, analysing social practices ontologically. But not all ontological approachesto the social needto be formulated as a `pure sociology'. From the shortcomingsof Durkheim and Tarde we can learn an important lession, namely, that it is a mistake to supposethat the sourceof social key be isolated, for be if it then of significance our social would could genesis, having learned from is I What the excessesof sociologism we that propose practices. is for in in left that that affirm significant may which social a position which we are in is important is indeed, that generally social matters, simply which and ontology, full occupation. This is what `full occupation' meanstoday: that the drawbacks of

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`pure sociology', evaluatedcomparatively, have confirmed that what is neededfor in is to organize phenomena our understandingaround the neither social occupation is desirable in is that social occupations not, on the what mantle of social stability, into intuition leap hand, the to stream of courageously our of social change. other `Full' social genesisis rather an occupying movement which temporarily dissolves the fracture between `that which is closed' and `that which is open' by meansof image temporary, of the `externality of the social'. The socially-useful generatinga for interior of significance only self are an and of reflection perspectivesof group is this and past movement, experience only one aspectof upon a past experienceof disjointed in Therefore, intrinsically is movement. complex, need what we a what order to surpasssociologism effectively, to reopen the question of social ontology futurally-inclusive, is immanent, phenomenology of social effectively, an by is to an analysis of the space-timeof one guided say, occupations,which be dualistically Time trajectory. space should not analysed and as occupational but locus, rather as parallel aspectsof a variety of separateaspectsof one creative lend the social their peculiar colour and as social qualified are which social quantities inasmuch as they are socially involved, somehow, somewhere. What is of interest in `somehow, is this somewhere'. sociology now only

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PART II

THE OUTSIDE

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CHAPTER FIVE

BERGSON'S SOCIAL THOUGHT AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO SOCIOLOGISM

It might be said that philosophy in turn of the century and early 20th-century France for our purposesis best understoodas a kind of neutral reservoir of intellectual talent from which a new science- sociology - wanted to recruit much-neededintellectual capital. Becauseof the tendencyto inflate their vision of social sciencewith Durkheim's social philosophy, the Durkheimians did not pose a direct challengeto mainstreamphilosophy in France,but simply drew upon it as a resource. It has been shown that the majority of the Durkheimians were recruited precisely from the mainstreampool of neo-Kantian rationalist philosophers (Besnard 1983). However, thinkers such as Celestin Bougle, Paul Lapie, and Dominique Parodi, who were at the core of participation in the Annee Sociologique as well as of the defenceof the tenetsof the Durkheimian doctrine, had no problem, ideological or institutional, in remaining philosophically based. Durkheim himself, trained as a philosopher like the others, continued to describehimself as a `rationalist' even at a very key his in Sociological Rules Method (1982: 33). the of preface of explanatory moment Besnard's studies show that Durkheim actively recruited scholarsfrom within from disciplines far (1983: 11-39). But at the same than more any other philosophy, time, Durkheimian sociology sat well, probably too well for its own institutional

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has Karady established,with establishedphilosophy (1983: 71-89). The good, as discipline of French philosophy never appeared`purist' or threatenedto the point of desiringto wholly exclude the development of the sociological movement from its domain. Thus, I think the issue of fluctuations in the boundariesof the philosophical discipline vis-a-vis fluctuations in the boundariesof the new discipline of sociology, is large issue the a part, really explains little by itself about of recruitment of which the emergenceof the project of sociological awareness. For example, if we want to if Durkheimian to there are any the we will ask movement want understand philosophical grounds which explain why the Durkheimians did indeed want to distancethemselvesfrom establishedphilosophy. At this point, such a question ceasesto be a question of cross-boundarymovement. In my view, too many thinkers have simply taken Durkheim at his word, have succumbedto his repetitious formulations, that his motivation to createa sociological paradigm was purely sociological. Alternatively, it is sometimestempting to offer a quasi-psychological decline for today's of sociology which consists in supposingthat relative explanation by delusions untenable classically, of grandeur. But why sociology was motivated, have such delusions, such as that of Durkheim, been so compelling for so many inside discipline thinkers, the and outside of sociology, while of social generationsof latter if Moreover, has the to the to tended surely answer suffer? question, sociology it could be answered,would have to do with specialization more than with crossdisciplinarity. The latter indubitably rests upon the successof the former. Intellectual workers in academiahave traditionally felt compelled on the one hand to form small groups of specializationsand on the other hand to oppose eachother for

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the sakeof lending to their special pursuits a critical or cutting edge. If delusions of in in do this they arise context of success would enlarging the group grandeur arise, delusions its Such would therefore rest upon a while preserving special principles. tacit assumptionthat effective difference is measuredby productivity stemming from oppositionand competition. More to the point, one ought to recognize that one identify delusions. just Thus, the to simply any such assumption such an would need assumptionthat difference is subordinateto productivity could not be purely be individually least not psychological since it is, for sure, could psychological, or at in kind of absolute presupposition western societies even today. a The net effect of our productivity paradigm indeed has been that the social indeed large of society every member at who acceptsthe and sciences,sociology, basic assumptionsof the former, have necessarilytended to forget the basic paradox is It this paradox that we must understand them together. ties all of modernity which in order to begin to understandBergson's resistanceto sociologism. The paradox issues, irresolvable key fact in the that such as many social questionstend to consists be, are neverthelessimpossible for anyoneto set aside, as one might attempt to do for the sakeof concentrating, in a vulgar modernist mode, strictly upon in broader Of terms, social or upon work productivity. course, verifiable/falsifiable long inherent have in this thinkers the various seen paradox as purely many social hermeneuticsand/or critical hermeneutics(eg. Gadamer 1994; Habermas 1984; 1987; Giddens 1990; Touraine 1995) and deconstructive modes (eg. Derrida 1978; Lyotard 1988; Nancy 1991) with which we approach social questions. Historical 1995) (Foucault (eg. Hobsbawm Hill 1991; and cultural materialists materialists 1991a; Bourdieu 1977) have interpreted it in terms of class struggle or of the circuits former The two capital. approachesstressthe ethical problems of and of power

inter-subjectivity, but then tend to either posit an abstract-functionalist notion of an ideal situation of communicative action, revive the abstracttheorization of structure andagencyin holistic-reflexive terms, or affirm an abstract-eschatologicalnotion of a newjustice and a new community to come. In contrast, the two latter approaches haverestedupon objectivist illusions, the first upon the illusion of unmediated(or insignificantly mediated) class group agency and the simplistic model of power as domination, and the secondupon the determination of the cultural product vis-a-vis a cultural `field' which is all-pervasive and virtually devoid of agency. However, it has been shown recently that there can be a non-objectivist alternativeto hermeneuticsand deconstructionwhich is neverthelessprogressiveand not intrinsically a postmodern or cultural-theoretical approach: one can classify and historicize the different modalities of the paradox to createthe useful effect of broadening,decentering,and specifying our understandingsof modernity (Wagner 1994). Faithful to the paradox as such,this perspective has, in part, had the effect of confirming that there must be something more immediate and vital in the paradox than merely an historical lessonas to why we need to approachsociality with a has, interpretations. least, It become the of at very variety apparentthat without a theorization of modernity even an interpretive-historical approach cannot fully grasp Kant's observation that the paradox createdby thesetypes of troublesome social longevity but from from their their inescapability rather questionscomes not (Wagner 2001). It is becauseof inescapability that human reasonsimply fails to render our powers of knowledge such as explanation, interpretation, and critical faculties. into In the samestroke, reflexivity uncontroversial, automatic inescapability motivates us to attain stable, systematic answersto our social questions,but then tends to push this attainability decisively out of reach. For the

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formulated kinds difficult these are of questions with a view to eliminating, more inescapability in their order to switch the focus to containing, or glossing over from the the ground of need,and then strays more one narrow, solvable questions, the more all of our questionstend to lose their internal animus as well as their is Bergson's We that thought see shall aimed precisely at contextualrelevance. his in his final that this tendency, strategy, and years, comesto be aimed countering implicitly as a critique of the formulation of `anomie' by meansof illuminating a interpretation in Durkheimian the of the paradox. particular shortcoming Durkheim's interpretation of the Kantian paradox is certainly a sophisticated holds inescapability Durkheim in question that the the that paradox. one affirms involves a constitutive externality of social relations which derives from a social describe it is to ourselvesas something that that we necessarily so powerful need sacredand beyond our direct knowledge. However, he is neverthelessoptimistic that certain of the vicious effects of this, particularly those which create obstaclesto the be innovation in through can mitigated societies, our of social rational organization theory and practice. Rather than eliminate the paradox we can alleviate it. In comparativereflection upon the social structuresof morality and religion we can falling human though reason which, short of providing elaboratea genealogyof be that capableof rendering the sacredobsolete,can nevertheless solutions would help to develop a therapeuticunderstandingof the problems that a scientific modernity generatesof skepticism and general anomie. The key difficulty with Durkheim's perspectiveupon social theory which does lie in distinction from it the above mentioned not ones a more recent marks off betweengrand, all-encompassingtheory versus modest, situatedtheory. The difficulty rather consists,as I suggestedin chapter four above, in Durkheim's implied

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link betweenstrategy and substance,in that for Durkheim modernity is not a intensities but is problem rather a monolithic perspective paradoxical constellationof division by the of labour in society, which he generated a single substantialproblem, theorizesas an overarching problematic of `institutions' by virtue of its essenceas an inescapableexternalization process. Durkheim's insight was to conceive a kind of division labour) inescapable, (the of as an collective problematization ontologicallysignificant processof externalization. Durkheim's error was to supposethat it follows from this that only one fact, have involved in In division is this the as we seen process. above, of problem labour in society as Durkheim expressesit is so general as to be, in fact, not a social is he theorizes rather simply the very processof modern problem at all: what socialization itself! Given this difficulty, we can supposethat it must have appeared to Durkheim that the only way to salvageany critical edgewas to posit one side of the `problem' as normality and the other side as pathology. But the latter division lies Herein important another confusion. yet and modality only causesmystification have distortion: taken a processwhich he describesin Durkheim's to tautological of for in the terms same process problematical terms. as an explanation operational In this context, Gabriel Tarde begins to emphasizethe phenomenonof imitative repetition over social externality and the flow of desire over the stability of far is from Tarde if Durkheim is that It the away as of of as one position as systems. be in kind believing hold to that ought sociology rooted some of pure while still can held intrinsic Tarde deduction. However, that the even aim of social sociological desire is to attain; if not a complete explanation of society, neverthelessa maximum Durkheim's (1903: Tarde's belief 147). and projects were very much of stable both began from but they to nevertheless other, within philosophy and opposed each

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subsequentlycameto feel a need for an organic interdisciplinarity organized around what might be called broadly the perspectiveof social thought. They both believed this broad perspectivecould enablethem to advancetoward the goal of inventing sociological paradigmswhich they thought might be able to develop a better understandingof, if not to completely answer, those ultimate questionspointed to but neglectedin contemporary philosophical neo-Kantian rationalism. In this way, in the context of early 20th-century philosophy in France, researchsurrounding the Kantian paradox is transformed, from the starting point of a by inescapability, and meansof sociological deductions of rationalist affirmation therefrom, into a program of researchinto sociality. Bergson's point of attack will becomeprecisely this reliance upon deductive ontological arguments. From Bergson's point of view, a deductive approachallowed Durkheim and Tarde to simply posit the social problems of the creative agent rather than explain them by penetratingto the problem of the practical processof creativity itself with its subis `pure It this sociological' legacy of of action. problems of memory and rationalism, with its espousalof purely metaphoricalunderstandingsof time and become for de-emphasizedin favour of `problems to the that social' of allows space, `social problems', ie. for problems to becomedetachedfrom their specific social instead become implications, to entrenchedin ontologically and ontological desensitizedlanguage. It is precisely in this context that Bergson arisesas yet another kind of figure from dismal the turn away project of analysing and philosophy who would make by the sciences, those are set aside questions which apparentlyultimate clarifying discerning in in the the to of project effects of modernity participate rather and in in did After Kant, the social sciencessuffer from science. art and not only society,

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too much emphasisupon the pursuit of positive knowledge, but philosophy around the world, in Bergson's view, beganto gradually espousea more limited and ultimately self-defeating approach: one of merely refining theories of representation. In order to resist this stagnationof philosophy, Bergson's basic agendabecomesone instrument brain "the of action, and not of representation"(1988: as an of asserting 74). But Bergson's approachis, in my view, as I will argue we can seefrom his last book, The Two Sourcesof Morality and Religion (1977), more than a mere pragmatism. It is also, and perhapsmore profoundly, a significantly distinct and both Durkheim's affirmation of social externality and to constitutively rival attempt Tarde's affirmation of personalcreativity. This is not to say, of course,that Bergson's thought is necessarilyequally fact, In is Bergson's these two thinkers. towards thought and/or critical sympathetic he Durkheimianism is and of as a critique more sympatheticto oriented particularly Tardian thought. There are important reasonsof theoretical-intellectual rivalry for this particular bias against Durkheim. Firstly, it is Bergson's wish not to compromise but rather to intensify an attitude of philosophical holism (Moore 1996: 42-3). This holistic bias makesBergson more intensely a rival of Durkheim. For Bergson this is bound up with the distinction between social theory and social latter is his best the that the approach sense suited to the and with philosophy, like Bergson holism. This to effect a reform of would why explains position of it. break than a with philosophy rather In addition, however, Bergson holds, despite even his own emphasisupon is important level in fact is Durkheim: that there to that an of close action, a premise irreducible be to that of action and confronted philosophically. must which analysis In Bergson's view, despitethe importance of focussing upon the problematique of

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action versusrepresentation,"there would still remain" a complimentary though irreducible aspectof action "which is of a more metaphysical order - viz.: that in pure perceptionwe are actually placed outside ourselves;we touch the reality of the immediate intuition. " (1988: in The is 75) to become more object an philosophy in Bergson's view, the farther it proceeds effectively practical and action-oriented, deference from together the the towards memory with attitude of of away constraints longevity or the mere persistence of institutions, towards "that other extreme plane images", ie. is longer to... towards the problematic of the affixed where no action any constitution of external reality itself (Bergson 1988: 243). Durkheim's attempt to alleviate the difficulty of self-knowledge attainability through the indirect study of inescapability into doctrine involves the making of a of social social structures for Bergson's Durkheim, is if But the this case approach rather tends to externality. tilt the opposite way: towards problematizing inescapability and the metaphor of structure in relation to the perspectives of action and memory.

Bergson's conception of action vis-a-vis external reality has to do with his desireto position a holism of life, a kind of vitalism, over against the dogmatic holism of sociologism. What are the meansof this new problematization, if memory is its past and action its future? We shall seebelow that Bergson makes significant However, Bergson be Durkheim. Tarde's will of not satisfied merely critique use of to seekan alternative to the notion of structure as Tarde doeswith his theory of imitation. Bergson's interest is in mobilizing Tarde's idea of social formation as illuminate help is to that to an aspect of action model a attraction common (1977: 209-66). Because kind `dynamic theactions religion' of as a characterizable that go to make up our social practices are always already dynamic, there emerges help for deductions transcendental the which can us to map abstract need neither

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limits for our desiresby meansof theories of representation,nor an indifferently in does defacto the thing same a way. In Bergson's passiveexternal reality which is be there of motivation some mode generic, and thus nevertheless which must view, inescapable,in every caseof action, which is not for example a contingent rational intention. is Bergson's to say that with solution of purpose an arbitrary stimulus or in there passive element, not which `we place' emergesa necessary every action ie. he `we `outside' (1988: in but 75). But are placed', an as says, which, ourselves in contrastto, for example,Auge's non-places(see 1995), Bergson's notion of the for be to an extended not continuum provide, constituted outsidewould understood the sakeof an ultimately-finite quantity of contractual relations, but rather an for the multiplicity of social coherence ontological unextended,virtual point of practicesand experiences. Here is implied a `coherence'that no architecture could provide. In contrast to the environmental or dwelling-related necessityof architecture, Bergson's image intimate is differently is that necessity the or advanced quite outside of a more of inescapable. By image does the the to means of such an of sense one without, related foundation illusion hand, transcendental to or the a one appealing of reality on `beyond these illusory walls in the real world', or on the other hand, lapsing into an idealism which affirms only the concept of `another world out there that is more real in in latter thing to the The to the same contrast outside than this one'. amount for forms is these of provision a sedentary,negative unity, question which not one of but rather could only be understood as a new principle of ontological coherence have begun diversity that to the see practical the practices modern of active amidst idealistic borders. longer No both would ontology realistic and uselessnessof Pure invoking concept. a causal priority or a more general perception either require

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and the outside would be produced only in parallel processesable to provide each other mutual support without mutual conflation. For most of his career,much dependedfor Bergson upon establishing his theory of pure perception. We will naturally want to examine it carefully for clues to the provenanceof the outside. However, our first step must be to recognizethat we in find cannot such clues an examination of the theory of pure perception which is discern to philosophical consistencyand soundness,as it appears solely undertaken in its own explicit terms in Matter and Memory. For this could only reproduce rather than begin to explain the apparentmystery of the metaphysicsthat Bergson claims, at that point in his writing career,that the outside evokes. Moreover, one would be follow Bergson's to own path towards an arbitrarily and unproductively refusing interdisciplinary attempt to account for this metaphysicsin his later writings. Particularly in his Two Sourcesof Morality and Religion (which was unintentionally his last book), beyond his Bergson the constraints widened ambit unfortunately and board in take to on a perspectiveof social thought in order of philosophical analysis the light of sociology's contemporaryclaims to have openedthe way to explaining the social origins of metaphysicalbeliefs and practices. In this way, the outside image by be Bergson the to social offered of as an recognized aimed at ought both formulation in Kant's the transforming, stroke, same of critically `inescapability' and Durkheim's formula of `constraining externality.' Bergson's Philosophy and Postmodernism Today we find ourselvesin a position in which our modern beliefs and been deeply have it is by being far from challenged, rather said, supported, practices, interdisciplinarity and by postmodernismmore generally. Thus, I think it will be inevitable now for enthusiasticcomparisonsto be raised betweenBergson's thought

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it be the casethat this will become even more tempting may and postmodernism,and oncewe exhibit Bergson's critique of the sociological account of society. For it should be appreciatedthat, not unlike postmodernists,Bergson wanted to distancehis link from the question of what exists with what we can to attempts own approach know, a classical framing of philosophy, exemplified by Kantianism, which separates the world from thought in accordancewith an image of more or less punctual is for image linked Bergson idea This the an and return. with separation of spatial measurement.Bergson was concernedabove all else with durations, and thus to Thus, intrusion the the spatial metaphor. of while one may very well find criticize helpful in interesting thought many ways, I think it will be useful to and postmodern discussfrom the outset severalkey points of disanalogy between Bergson's thought Bergson's to thus position. clarify and and postmodernism, The key point of disanalogy here is that while Bergson's explicit aim is to in time order to perceive the workings of `real time', of criticize spatial metaphors his resulting theory of duration is not intended, as was the Tardian notion of `flow', believes Bergson his that theory of really metaphor. an alternative merely as duration penetratesthrough to the immediacy of time. It is easyto seehow to many this focus could seemquite presumptious, simplistic, and even impossible at first is for just often scorned similar alleged shortcomings. as postmodernism glance, Ithe Bergson's turn to duration entails that he hold position that `epistemology', the implicitly knowledge that theory characterizes, of or explicitly the pursuit of a sound first task of traditional Kantian modern philosophy, consistsonly in the erroneous assumptionthat we can encompassand stabilize - referentialize - our vital processes by meansof philosophical concepts. Since postmodernismhas also been concerned been dissappearance has `the ' Bergson's the termed sometimes of referent, with what

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concernsseemas if they overlap with those of this latter development. Perhaps Bergson's thought carries with it many of the worries that today we all have about postmodernism. However, Bergson arrives at this position with very different means: what is involved in Bergson's thought cannot involve a passiveskepticism. `Postmodernists' in ideas kind for their a communicating of political and economic are often chastized defeatismstemming from a belief that all experiencehas become fragmented, impossible to politically and economically reorganize. However, in singularized, and duration, for Bergson, thought combineswith external reality on the condition of irreducible from distinct to objects of referencethemselvesbut and remaining becoming hand the merely a variable subjective perspectivewhich other without on in theories relation to them. Quite to the contrary of perceivesobjects and modifies `postmodernistthinking', for Bergson there is real immediate evidenceof veritably for duration, in is fragmented, thought that solely which conscious which unbroken ie. simulacra, exists. To begin with, the subjectivity which is to be criticised by `postmodernists' a becomes fifty forty Bergson to after unjustifiable, in this new point of years good intellectual in history fairly in point recent which the optimism of the view, only at a `social turn' in philosophy more or less comesto an end. In contrast, Bergson was beginning Such this turn. the of claims regarding at rather writing precisely been justifiable in had, this often seen as context, early on strategic subjectivity Kantian These the strategic steps were aimed attempts at alleviating earlier grounds. by paradox meansof theorizational comparisonsamong societiestaken as in field the the to the and order of past present, relativize of morality. representatives But, counter to many of the more vulgar receptions of postmodernthought, the most

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features in fluids these to, of amount what all simple language,is that liquids, unlike solids, cannot easily hold their shape. Fluids, so to speak, neither fix spacenor bind time.. . .Fluids do not keep to any shapefor long and are constantly ready (and prone) to changeit; and so for them it is the flow of time that counts, more than the spacethey happento fill but `for a moment.' [Thus] when they that all, occupy; space,after describing solids, one may ignore time altogether; in describing fluids, to leave time out of account would be a grievous mistake. Descriptions of fluids are all snapshots,and they need a date at the bottom of the picture (Bauman 2000: 2).

In my view, the great disserviceof this kind of theorizing is summedup by Bauman himself when he goes on to propound what he seesas the relevance of this to social criticism:

We associate`lightness' or `weightlessness'with mobility and inconstancy: we know from practice that the lighter we travel the easier and faster we move. Theseare reasonsto consider `fluidity' or `liquidity' as fitting metaphorswhen we wish to graspthe nature of the in history in the novel, phase of modernity (Bauman many ways present, 2000: 2).

Essentially, for this all-too-common type of postmodern theory, flow is a metaphor that people apply more and more as a way of understandingthe social processes

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taking place around them. But could it really be as Bauman suggeststhat the only descriptions `reflect these to upon' naive simply of contemporary role of criticism form Does this popular of postmodernism simply representa mode not modernity? descriptions? From the such a Bergsonian point of view of of simple multiplication sucha perspectiveprecisely missesthe point of memory, or that which governs the relation betweenthe past and the present, as a tool of action. What we have to its implication flow the to with of the reduction of reality to metaphor of counterpose duration in is be the of reality unbroken which no way can snapshots successive For Bergson, "the duration the succession. of unrolling our model of understoodon its in in the of an advancing unity aspects movement of and others some resembles the multiplicity of expanding states;and, clearly, no metaphor can expressone of thesetwo aspectswithout sacrificing the other" (1999: 27). In contrastto the is, duration Bergson, intended flow, to then, according not as an metaphorof full is but in the time, of sense rather a concept of which alternative metaphor between for the the the sake of the the past and present relation memory governs future. The future is, in Bergson's famous image in Matter and Memory, the conical body, brain, (1991: if 152). However, the the and action of of materializations point it from is dissociated duration entropy does not meanthat the materializations therein in question are merely `flowing' on and on interminably. Bergson's theory entails is for him in There be the there process of escape. that pure the view can no such image of the outside very clearly a dimension of inescapability which cannot be theorized as a mere materialization. Escapewould entail closure. Materializations despite fact depend from the that they closure not upon an attaining are prevented image of being outside in relation to both the past and the presentbut precisely

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becauseof this. The future, in Bergson, is not the simple manifestation or successof level' discrete, fragmented if it `arrivals a chaotic of episodes simply actions,as were future in life. Rather, the the and existence of useful evinced Bergson's of vital perspectiveinvolves neither a simple materialism nor idealism but rather a mediating image of the exterior, the purely external, or the outside. This image is, as it were, a by-product createdby our activities which encouragesthem and provides, not a but kind local self-justification, rather simply a of basic utopian rationale or even a durations. after all, a plurality of are, actions and among what ontological coherence One could indeed say that there would be nothing to stop us from conceiving for'political image as a prerequisite such an

and economic reorganization.

If it is true

that Bergson has little to say about the organization of political economy, it could is he be that essentially and consistently optimistic about the argued nonetheless its Bergson's conditions. popular main point, of retheorizing positively possibility however, is that we would have no account of such popular durations if we did not

is It dialectics beyond the not so much the Kantian paradox object. of subject and go that Bergson rejects as the false solution of dialectics. But nor could that which takes its immediate despite for duration, in Bergson, relation with thinking, ever place image interior, in itself thinking ego. of an a pre-dialectical again resolve Admittedly, here is, again, another surface similarity between Bergson's thought and `decentering' in However, to a mere of subjectivity which contrast postmodernism. involves a movement of deferral, duration is a point of critique against dialectics future. into facing driven We "ever the toward are a which much rather emphasizes involved is here is (1988: 243). What by future the an the weight of our past" intuition of the whole of time from a concrete perspective,which, just becauseit is future. it does follow from But the this, and nor not materializes concrete and active,

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doescommon senseallow us to believe, that the future is that point of our processes future is The is not conceived as an end-point within a materialized. simply which for internal but Bergson rather as an motivation, or a kind of processof entropy, `building self-encouragement',or `effort' of action. The outside would therefore be an externality not as general or container-like have it function because the not merely would of supporting the succession as space, implies idea is The in that succession of externality concentrated of phenomena. describe duration. In Matter and Memory therefore cannot succession objects,and Bergsonwill claim, againstthe common belief in the unity of the human pysche as a developed in forget "they that that an are which sensations space, of private sequence impersonalbasis remains in which perception coincides with the object perceived itself' (1991: image in fact, 66). An is, externality of the outside will and which function for Bergson to support the expansionof casesof thought into a larger, though constitutively incomplete, inter-becoming of thought and reality. Concepts blocked within intuited successioncan therefore never capturethis externality but be it (1960: 108-111). they may a upon which constructed as plane only utilize For Bergson philosophy is always articulated in practical, `immediate' it this to as were, within concrete philosophical activity, element of passivity, relation this inexhaustible, unlimited senseof a beyond that exists not in thought or in thought's focus of attention. Philosophy partakesof an element of thought which Kant first noted but too hastily conceived as a kind of universal default structure for thought (1996). Kant thought that this structure or `condition' of thought could determined be through the philosophical rigour of the transcendental nevertheless long judgment, first to as and as we could agree morality, reason, make a of critiques decision to adhereonly to the ultimately circumstantial evidenceof thinking

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indicatedin our apparentpower to referentialize and to know, ie. to adhereto in be To contrast to Kant, the absolute sure, conceptsand conceptualization. intuition that Bergson appealsto seemsto be self-defeating or incoherent sincewhat Bergsonwould seemto be attempting to grasp philosophically would neverthelessbe determinations. beyond In Bergson's own be the to of philosophy's grasp admitted he kind in "it is to the of philosophical method would advocate, regard only words, truly itself when it goesbeyond the concept" (1999: 30). Somewell-respected critics implicitly for fundamental laud Bergson the to recognizing modem are often ready in inescapability his Bergson to seem and even agree with of apparently problematic it, As Adorno "the Kant. put aporetical conceptsof negativestanceagainst just is (1973: not objectively, cogitatively, of unresolved" philosophy are marks what 153). However, such critics are often at the sametime quick to point to an apparent lack of appreciation in Bergson of the significance of the mediating social world for this problematic, for which reason,according to them, we must avoid the Bergsonian "cult of irrational immediacy" (Adorno 1973: 8). But, as we shall see,it would be is lack Bergson's that there to a of optimism on suppose part that an wrong simply be in interest thought the can and ought undertaken of social of problematic explicit fully modernizing our way of doing both philosophy and social theory. In Chapter is key had is, Durkheim there that that a sense argued of externality as which we saw in irreducible to the objectification and, an ontological-analytical social, a senseof had Durkheim thus already relocated the problem of the sense,unmediated. from the problems of objectification an away society convergenceof modernity and implies into the of externality which a whole new context of a problem negation and Bergson's Once difference. understand we starting point asthis problematic of his than the rather older problem objectification externality of of work problematic

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beginsto appearless as a philosophical idealism and more as a productive development to the thought to and of the problematic of contribution social difference. The Image of the Outside and Sociology I think Bergson's whole philosophy only begins to make senseonce the implication is understoodthat for him ultimate reality is a multiplicity of the durationsof thought and action within a multiplicity of material ends which sharea he imaging The in that the passages outside. outside speaks an of of common means it is in his is implicit Nonetheless, largely a special, central image work. above becauseit has the special function of communicating his ontology. This ontology is For Bergson, does origin. ultimate reality a pre-historical not neither abstractnor is from the the past only a tool of action. Thus, ultimate reality is for past since stem Bergson somehow always already becoming accomplished, and is therefore in in to that addition an analysis metaphysics of action requires order to something becomeintelligible. Bergson has often been accusedof mysticism. But this only is Bergson that articulates not completely unimaginable, and perhaps what confirms its relation to imagination and the image is the clue that we can use to develop a better understandingof his thought. I think if we concentrateupon the image of the find be illuminating in his his to thought novel able might ways of we outside thought comparatively. There is an image in `the outside' that is proper to this question of Bergsonian being also proper to other modes of thought which are concerned while philosophy in have As the seen chapter one, the classical we paradox of modernity. with indeed has interest interest in Durkheim and also an an ontological sociology of be here To be the the call also outside. sure, outside could would perceived what we

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in as a necessaryexternality, relation to the living and thinking human individual, of a constitutive sociality which is inescapablyimplied in every concept and material. This is Durkheim's point of departure for what has been called his `conversion' from philosophy to sociology. It is the perception of the externality of the social which providesthe key elementwhich will lead Durkheim away from philosophy towards his basic strategyto focus his analysis strictly upon consolidated facts of social phenomena. Bergson's Social Thought and Durkheimian Metaphysics There are severalpossible points of comparison betweenBergson and Durkheim, the first of which is disciplinary, or more precisely, methodological. I believe I have already pointed to sufficient evidenceto assumethe existenceof a both to of their works to whom disciplinary reception subject of philosophical boundariesare relatively unimportant. Below I have formulated a discussionof their is intelligible I to then mainly as a function of the want show methodologieswhich differencesbetween their respective imagesof the outside. But first I want to discuss how their methodological dispute arisesout of a difference over social metaphysics. As we have noted, Bergson's method is, or is at least intended to be, direct and for have (1999: As I Bergson is 22). noted, already no point of reference absolute into in to a perception of the movement of objects (1999: 21). required order enter Our habit of analysing an event by breaking it down into spatialized componentsis indivisible Intuition is the to the this apprehension of event. never adequate is Bergson What concernedto convey, particularly in his writings up apprehension. to and including Creative Evolution is above all a method of intuition. According to Bergson, intuition is hardly distinguishable from what he calls former is become (1999: the 45). to until able precisely methodological metaphysics,

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Metaphysicsis that form of outlook on the self and world which always claims to dispensewith symbols and enter into a communion with the thing itself (1999:24 ). Here is the main similarity between intuition and metaphysics. To be sure,for Bergsonmetaphysicscan be, and has been, a rigorous science. But metaphysics,or traditional metaphysics,has been too concernedwith furnishing the mind with static imagesof the design of movement. For instance, it has beentoo concernedwith duration taken as a generality, on the basis of which it then contrasts a relatively fixed unity with a relatively static multiplicity (1999: 46). Metaphysics has merely by it infinity to the communicate appealing to the multiplicity of aims asserted for it Instead, a need order among and simulacra. representations as were, possible intuition operatesto enter into things themselves,not as an infinity of attempts,but in implies finitude This, turn, the the existenceof a successes. of particular as duration of the unique successeswhich constitute the entirety of movement as at the sametime a variety of qualities and a unity of direction. In short, Bergson's notion in in is intuition that succeeds particular cases which thought becomesfully which of adequateto correspondingparticular events. If the problem of epistemology is by-passedin this manoevre, for Bergson it is becausehe is interestedprimarily in ontology, and for him nothing exists properly from the reality of thesetwo-sided particulars. Bergson's analysis of speakingapart dualism here is not, as in traditional modern philosophy, that of a `mind' versus a `body', or representationversus reality, but is rather that of a triangulation of the body as a site of vibrations creative of two levels of representation,that of concepts images level level. be To it the that the on objective and of subjective sure, seems on is interested in level Bergson that the the particularly surface of conceptsto the on images, he level "forget the that too that, if of when claims of we easily neglect

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it be is can only a laborious, and even painful, effort to metaphysics possible, in the thought, the of of slope work order to place oneself directly, remount natural by a kind of intellectual expansion,within the thing studied: in short a passagefrom longer from (1999: 45). However, to to no concepts concepts and reality" reality is is he to not so much a privilege of conceptsover reality but really pointing what is fact in basic "duration that the the making" and the continually rather more intuition of it is "not a single act, but an indefinite series of acts" (1999: 27; 46). Bergson's primary aim is to attain a perspective in which the successof intuition is not simply presumedto be automatic and require no effort. The `effort' it for is Bergson though these played through the body, does not for him stem of acts, from the body originally. Nor does it becomedeposited in a self-sufficient realm of intention is likely Bergson's It to locate in the body a site of not concept-forms. creative originality, or in conceptsan original creative product. For if that were the casewe could correlate bodies and conceptswith acts that have already been bodies discrete for Bergson But are not entities that are separatefrom accomplished. their products, and conceptsare not forms that are greater and more original than their components. Conceptionssuch as thesetend to orient the body and concepts faces that only the certainty of the present and present a past within exclusively knowledge. Rather, I think what Bergson is interested in is an intuition that facesthe from future illuminates the the the thus of point present vantage and and which past the characterof knowledge as a contingent composite. Instead of manipulating the interpretation of acts that have already been accomplished,in Bergson's view, intuition" (1999: by "proceed 46). to metaphysicsought The distinction betweentraditional metaphysicsand intuition as a method involves inclusion future in the the latter. For this reason, of a orientation essentially

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Bergsonis a thinker of the possibility of a modern metaphysics,or more precisely, a infor-itself. it is follow If to and necessary and account metaphysicsof modernity for inescapablereality, as metaphysicshas traditionally attemptedto do, there for the the of attainability, perspective modern necessity practical, arises nevertheless free problem-setting in conjunction with this following. In Bergson's view we may knowledge. We "attain fluid to to may of only concepts, certainties not attain its in following all sinuosities and of adopting the very movement reality capableof be built Only life inward thus things. a the will progressive philosophy up, of of freed from the disputeswhich arise between the various schools, and able to solve its it be from in because the terms released will artificial expression problems naturally, (Bergson " 1999: 51-2) Thus, the modem posited. are of which such problems `effort' in question,for Bergson, is indicative for him that creativity is the creativity body, the as an agent of sense,and as conceptually engagednot with negating of immediately but inescapable, and or really sensedproblems. with rather sense Bergson is certainly not concernedwith an individual free agent who attains is in The question a collective actualization of the ontological effort solutions. distinction between metaphysicsand the method of bodily intuition, and is, as a irreducible to either. sense, matter of We can seethat, in the Two Sources,once directed towards the question of discerning involve directly have intuition the to social as a seriesof will society, intelligent collective movements. It is already implied as a background assumption for Bergson that society,just like any entity, can no longer be fit into a prefor A Bergsonian framework thought. conditions position will of or set established have to advocateattaining to the movement of the social itself rather than to an is It Bergson had held in true that state. external social metaphorically or abstractly

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his Introduction to Metaphysics that "all reality... is tendency, if we agree to mean by tendency an incipient change of direction" (1999: 50). But social thought appears to be structured like a progressively expanding common intelligence.

In Bergson's

is "a tendency, or acquired, one thing, another thing the necessarily natural view, being will use to restore to it its force and to rational method which a reasonable it" intelligence, (1977: Such is 22). Bergson says in the Two opposing combat what Sources, is constantly intervening in the real, but presumes to be aimed at a human (1977: 269). the that confronts which condition of overcoming systematic Bergson will indeed have to show that a special methodology of critical thinking be have depend human to to this will upon collective purports as philosophy such intelligence for its material and for its motivation.

Philosophy will thus have to

determine depend "the tendencies the trend of a general which very upon ultimately development necessarily extends over a more or less considerable society, and whose number of generations" (1977: 296).

To provide a framework for a timely analysis of the direction of such tendencies- such as a nefarious, technology-driven "concern for comfort and luxury" - is, in a sense,the raison d'etre of Bergson's final book, The Two Sources (1977: 298). Like Religion Morality most social thought, there is a kind of and of in be Bergson's To is I think there effort. embedded sure, problematique political by Bergson's illuminated be in deal diagnoses to to reference particular not a great that book or through a reconstruction of his political views, since these are bound to the context of contemporary society and politics. Rather, what concernsus here is between Bergson's method of Sources Two linkage the announces the general intuition and his conception of social agency and the generalview of the social and

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is is It therein. that mainly for these latter reasonsthat Bergson's contained political be Sources. Two through the the read prism of should whole work can and However, from the outset, the Two Sourceshas also to be read in relation to a it in did to today than the 1930sof a serious that easily us more comes recognition difficulty with the type of approachto the question of the social that Bergson chose for the purposeof communicating his ideas. We cannot simply proceed to read and interpret the Two Sourcesonly in relation to Bergson's earlier work without discussingthis problem from the outset. I would summarizethe difficulty by stating the following fact: that we have already, indeed, a way of thinking and a recognized term for the idea of a progressivecommon intelligence, the term `civilization. ' In drastic Not least this the there notion. with problems are of these addition, difficulties is that we have left the 19th-century. At that time, to be sure a very formative time for many of our categoriesof social thought, the question concerning `civilization' and its future dominated our social and political horizons. But now we have left even the 20th-century in which the concept of `civilization' was demolished,not just by wars but by deeply moving critiques of its racist, sexist, classist,and other unwarranted assumptions. The concept of civilization was productively ambiguous in the 19th-century, but fatally ambiguous in the 20th, becauseit was basedon a procedure of assimilating certain advantageousparts of every social movement to the aims of This the undesirable parts. society and repressing meant that the civil restricted first in 19th-century the recognized which were social movements of could quality then still be judged initially by a few problem-setters. But by the next century technical and legal problems were growing exponentially with modernization, and so define those the to number of setting and expected growing what these were

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`judgements might say, and so, we were attendant of quality' are, actually problems increasingin occurenceand diffusion throughout societies. Actually, we have seen that this continued far beyond the critical point in mass society where this nexus of in definable `judgements hardly terms of seemed of quality' social movements is impossibly latter the sedentaryand unfeasably seemsand probably anymore,since individualistic, especially when contrastedwith the new productivist jargon of an `exploitation of an opportunity', or a `creation of a demand' and so on. Thus, we depending to on the quality of relevant social of philosophies speak may still need is judgements link idea but that theory that the are which and practice movements, for all practical purposesforeclosed to us. This foreclosure of individualistic judgement, along with the `postmodern' based it, both Kantian that the was upon paradigm complicates and questioning of futures for Bergson's The thought. the of social a reappraisal of need up speeds become linked have together closer than they ever thought and of philosophy social have been,but the linkage itself has become more obscuredin darknessthan ever. However, on the positive side, this could be understood, indeed to Bergson's credit, departure Bergson's social thought and that which makesthe the of of point very as latter still worthwhile reading. It is as if the Bergson of the Two Sourcesrealized, in in increasingly the 1920sand 30s, that and mass society the context of an unstable it have is to made the culminating question of a life's this relation paramount and 16 His work is radically exceptional for its lack of having recoursein the last work. image judgement. instance He theory to and of civil subjectivity an of a practical because it has become impossibly become has to that this us closed path argued increasing (1977: Bergson 66). "intellectualist" assumed an modem general and 16Seein particular Bergson's commentson the problem of world peacein his "Final Remarks" (1911: 266-318).

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find be but `non-intellectualist' to to a new, a reality, wanted complexity social but its intuitive to nevertheless methodically guide mitigate simplicity sourceof least, Bergson At to though that the recognize, choseto write ought we very effects. be `civilization' discourse on which would soon outmoded, within a mode of insight, in its important departure, his an point of contains very nevertheless work into what kind of method would be neededwithin the context of this imminent decline. And this also confirms an important point for our internal reading of his be his faithful Bergson Sources Two to to the attempted consistent and work: with book has intuition therefore the this to the and significance nothing end, of method of to do with any departure from his own basic method of thinking. Thus, on the one hand, there is no doubt that the method of intuition Bergson's holistic and socially-tending approachto philosophy - has to be is if Bergson's in to understand more explicit social thought. one advance understood But on the other hand, as we shall see,in Bergson's explicit social thought we might find new, legitimate, and constructive basesfor a critical understandingof his has latter been intuition. The taken within philosophy approach not method of becauseit meanstaking his social thought seriously and comparing it with have kinds But hand, the the we, on other of sociology. contemporary and rival freedom, and indeed, the need,to perform such an analysis below. Methodology and Ontology The difficulty lies in finding the point of comparison. Of course it would be just Bergson's thought treat any sociology, as say, a peculiar to as absurd `sociobiology'. Rather, we could say that Bergson's social thought contains and features the of a whole class of sociologies that we might call emphasizes essential `microsociologies.' Thus, in my view, his social thought could be roughly but

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effectively understood by comparing its basic features with a class of sociologies that it opposes,which we might call `macrosociologies.' I am not saying that we have to commit ourselvesto this dichotomous terminology. Rather, the distinction between micrological and macrological is only a methodological ramification of a more core dispute over the nature of social ontology. In practice, we will be aiming to compare the ontological assumptionsof the method of intuition with those of the method of comparison, since the latter is the method of `macrosociology.' The Two Sources draws heavily, both in theoretical content and in quasi-anthropological style, upon Durkheim's sociological method, as a sourceboth to learn from and to attack polemically - particularly with respectto the central issue of Durkheim's social ontology. The method of comparison, as laid down by Durkheim in his Rules of Sociological Method, has to assumea relative externality of the social, becauseit has to take juxtaposed social phenomenaand teaseout explanationsfor their association or lack of association,hencesocial phenomenaare inferred to be necessarilyand intrinsically external to individuals, and this seemsto explain the long-term persistenceof social facts beyond the lives of particular individuals (1982: 130). Thus the method of comparison is not ontologically indifferent but rather carries with it distinct ontological implications. Theseimplications, at least at first glance, include, for Durkheim, the requirement of ruling out the notion of social reality being in every casegiven immediately to the mind. The tactical method of intuition hasto be opposedto this strategic social had dismissing fact Durkheim the that life as a whole is of short stopped ontology. neverthelessthe necessary`substratum' of the social fact (1983: 95; 1982: 39). Nevertheless,in Bergson's view, there is an ignorance on the part of Durkheim of the

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true ontological role of life in socialization (Bergson 1977: 100-101). By the same token, however, for Bergson this is an essential qualification of any theory of mind, `social' for him `mind' be a special locus of for Bergson, the nor can neither since his believes Bergson that method of intuition, in contrast to the method of ontology. in its duration, for is to own wait, a node of association as a whole able comparison, in look this event where phenomena are supposed to be the to at point event, indiscernability between them. In to specify a necessary zone of associated, and other words, a positive social referent or relation of social atoms need not be isolable in order for Bergson's concepts to do their work, and this is the key to how he will attempt to avoid both psychologism and the sociological critique of psychologism. This micrological view adduces contra Durkheim a power to dissolve and reshape the configurations of phenomena to accord with the practical and sensible constraints involved observer, and these practical perceptions can and are occasionally of an disseminated in special events which involve certain particularly inventive observers in lead the way whole societies percieve the world. changes who

Thus, one could say that one advantagethat Bergson's method of intuition have Durkheim's strategy of the affirmation of solidarity is that over might Bergson's method is able to re-insert, as it were, the `speaking-position' of the theorist. Furthermore, Bergson doesnot just adduce a perspectiveof composition less isolate free-association, basis then that or a subject of more as does on and Tarde. Bergson's method further implicates apower of composition. This is becauseBergson's analysis essentially involves a distinction between the how its the and virtual reality an association of of actuality constant multiplicitous indeterminacy will be guided to shapea whole, continuous, particularizing, event. For Bergson there is a pragmatic question to be addressed,as it were, around every

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These pragmatic questions are anti-deterministic not because corner. metaphysical they are loaded againstthe perspectiveof metaphysicsbut rather becausethey appeal to the relative opennessof any system as a whole which is guaranteednever to be beyond intervention by such a system's continuous, inevitable, and simultaneous impulse determinism The is of and particularization. overall alteration not does fail for Bergson to remind us that the actualization of the thus; not unaccounted is in the always perceived, somewhatparadoxically, as its events same composition is Bergson draw But to most concerned what attention to is that constraining closure. the virtual and the actual are always co-existing, not asjuxtaposed entities, but as '7 modalities of power. In Bergson's way of thinking, the ontological distinction between the virtual and the actual explains the always double-sided (ie. closed and open) ontology of the social which is only assumedby the comparative method and shows how this is broader both involves that than methods. For if `closed a problematic ontology indicates `open is basic the constantly the society' unit of comparison, society' inexplicable to are solely on the premise of succeedingchanges such societieswhich interplay between inclusive is It the closed and the open that the closed society. forms. The externality of the for the social particular of real emergence accounts form is to that a social makes which closed or bounded, is only an say, social, which In Bergson's Durkheim's dynamic this view, complexity. attribution of a effect of thing-like quality to social facts (Durkheim 1982: 35-36; 60) is in error, not because it is an objectifying attribution or `reification, ' but rather becausesuch a strategy tends to reduce externality to the static side of an impersonal dichotomy between dynamic complexity and static complexity, whereas for Bergson externality takes the 17For clarifying the central distinction between the virtual and the actual in Bergson's writing we are indebted to Gilles Deleuze's Bergsonism (1988: 65).

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important senseof non-generalcomplex reality that Durkheim pointed to only from the metaphysical interplay that we can transformatively intuit betweenvirtual opennessand actual closedness. Durkheim's strategy is, for Bergson, tantamount to deliberately ignoring how social facts come into existence,to ignore Becoming for the sakeof identifying Being. Bergson's Conception of Social Agency Bergson leavesus in the Two Sourceswith a new ontological distinction betweenclosednessand opennesswhich provides a philosophical solution to Durkheim's social ontological dilemma. Each society must recognize its closed and open sidesas co-existing in order to account for the complete and vital existenceof that society. Thus, indeed, there is a notion of fundamental struggle located at the core of every society's overall existencethe explanation of which is precisely made impossible if one is to simply posit from the outset, as Durkheim does, a intimated distinction. Rather, is much more the struggle normal/pathological less framework for thus much a mere and convenient sensually synthetic, continuous, in The this: the overall reality of the society as a consists struggle social analysis. intuited immediately is directly, by the `given the to mind' or whole virtual, freely sympathizewith the problems that society has and who understand participants been formed to deal with, but at the sametime this reality is necessarilyperceived as external to everyone's actual activities, creating the reality and the perception of bodies be done, them to constricting and what constraining must resistant creating divisions of labour. Thus, sometimeswe think that society is alive and vital and is it dead think and gone, and more often than not equally correctly sometimeswe today these sentimentstend to be schizophrenically simultaneousand creative of a `postmodern' vertigo. Bergson showsus the way to the heart of the problem:

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societyhas never conformed exactly to either of these attributes but consists exactly in the continuity and changing logic of senseeffected by their interplay. To be sure, for Bergson, the model formation which guides and conditions cooperation,sympathy, and gregariousnessis not the only mode of social instinct has In an equally potent social role to play, addition, natural actualization. connectinghuman reality to the whole universe. In Bergson's view, the overall virtual reality of particular societiesin formation, perceived in actuality as external, has its sourcesin thesetwo modes. Bergson's idea of model formation was inspired by Tarde. As we have seen,Tarde had thought that there is no social reality outside imitation invention, between the and opposition, of currents of persons;he had no beyond institutions these micrological developments. Tarde persist accountof which had therefore raised model formation to the status of an ultimate social fact contra Durkheim's Rules of Sociological Method, which had emphasisedthe externality of the social. Actually, Bergson eschewsboth of these positions as `sociologisms'. Bergson's idea of model formation is not merely a `reality' but a power which struggleswith natural instinct by setting problems or challengeswhich can only be solved by overcoming habit through the organization of new social movements,thus but to complexity also creating the macrological effect of micrologically adding externality. Nevertheless,Bergson is significantly influenced by Tarde's critique of Durkheim. This critique consistsof an attack upon the way Durkheim posits as the basic unit of sociological analysis,with little or no explanation, a primary `horde' individuals is of who resembleone another and which a spontaneousgrouping through their `mechanicalsolidarity' sharea collective consciousness.For Tarde and Bergson this meanstaking too much for granted the subject-matterof sociology. In

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contrastto Durkheim, they conceive the primary subject-matter of sociology rather as modelsthrough which people are attracted to one another creating a social subject. For Bergson, in particular, the key to social thought, far from taking such models for dynamic discern formation of these models. is the the to means of granted, rather The `models' that are formed are not simply imitated - not functions of pure is function but that as which appealing and generative in social rather resemblancesbecause is inspiring They the creativity of so problem-setting movements. are and is leads following this to particular social a and created as result, a attractive and formations. Bergson attributes to the social model a relative universality which does in it does Tarde's family have the specific sociological as postulation a content of not becomes for for Bergson even more emphasized just but this reason, model perhaps, as a general criteria of the social. If this relative universality inherent in Bergson's conception of the social it determined does have content qua model, neverthelesslends itself to a not model is It leaders key, initiation. that charismatic of examples religious privileged certain he it, Bergson to sees prime examplesof agentsof the as supply with, come formation of these primary social models. Herein Bergson privileges a certain type and a rather unconvincing one at that - of social agency. He appealsto mystics as be to the change overall social capability of occasionally concentratedin evidence of the influence of certain singular and well-placed visionaries. I think it would be fair to argue,however, that the statusof Bergson's claim here need not be granted any less sociological statusthan, say, Max Weber's analysis of charisma: it can be taken for isolated is that type sociologically specific and not of agency as only one insight level. It Nor do I this certain sociological contains a on exhaustivepurposes. believe it involves a special,covert ontological attribution. For Bergson what is

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deducedis rather the definite historical existence of a type of model formation that has `inspirational' and `opening' consequencesfor society as a whole: the kind of major changehe believes in has a kind of rare, almost eschatological structure. But his appealto spiritual leadershipis not exactly a normative prescription, for tellingly, Bergsoncreatesno rigid definitions which could become conceptual obstaclesto the further expansionand updating of this notion of model formation according to the reality of the leadership,or lack thereof, of contemporary social movements. What is important for Bergson is the way model formation, along with other factors, is able to have a transformative role in socialization and, most importantly, in between distinction closednessand opennesswhich would otherwise be actualizing a formation instinct Bergson this then model contrasts with only abstract. natural which he takes to explain the force of the closure of societiesunder the habits and repetitions which, causinga social pressurewhich is neverthelessalso a losing of sight of the practical aims of society, make a reliance on the force of moral for increasingly necessary the survival of particular social formations. In obligation Bergson's view, model formation exacts"another kind of obligation", which "supervenes,above and beyond the social pressure" (1977: 33). According to Bergson, this makes model formation a prime aspect of human, as distinct from (1977: 35). anthropology social, What is the morality of culture, as distinct from the morality of society? According to Bergson, men have attemptedto account for a power of transcendence have deduced "a they through the existenceof God and which via priori reasoning", the communion of Reason,using the languageof religion and the languageof hand, (1977: On have 33). been the there sometimes other offered philosophy for "love for family, love the morality explanations of culture as one's psychological

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for one's country, love of mankind" (1977: 38). But all of theseapproachesare incorrect since they are all too intellectualist. For Bergson "it is through an excessof intellectualism that feeling is made to hinge on an object and that all emotion is held to be the reaction of our sensoryfaculties to an intellectual representation"(1977: 40). Cultural morality, or the `morality of aspiration,' as he sometimescalls it, it, in just be taking representationally,after the fact, but must also, cannot explained for be accounted through an analysis of what motivates those who and primarily, initiate the creation of it, ie. the exceptional mystics who founded the great religions and philosophies (1977: 34). Bergson observesthat "the saintshave their imitators"; but he asks"why do [these] great moral leadersdraw the massesafter them? They have They they no need to exhort; their mere existence receive. ask nothing, and yet is Such precisely the nature of this other morality" (1977: 34. Italics suffices.... is formation ). The the then, of model, not simply the institutional conferral of mine. is but rather the constitution of a special, sainthoodupon an exemplary person its has kind in the saint. What which center of of social existence gravity unforeseen kind is this the of aura around the saint which signifies that his or her saint marks in influence his her the that only exactly and or consists appeal existencehas for others. According to Bergson, then, only such exemplary souls are able to mediate life, it the claim, and and "transfigure it". (1977: 33) social give vibrancy and expand This alternative morality is not just one of a special kind of existenceper se but incarnated in "exceptional for is Bergson men" (1997: 34). Examples rather clearly Bergson provides are "the saints of Christianity the sagesof Greece,the prophets ... besides" (1977: kind Arahants Buddism, 34). This Israel, others and of and of of in incarnate be in "must a privileged personwho becomesan morality, other words, is (1977: 34). Here "impersonal formulae" the to the essential contrast example" of

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demands arising from social pressure, and/or a priori conceptions of philosophy and theology (1977: 34). In Bergson's words, "the generality of the [impersonal, social law, in that of the [personal, cultural the universal acceptance of a morality] consists imitation (1977: in 34). of a model" a common morality]

Thus, for Bergson, "whereas natural obligation is a pressureor a propulsive force, complete and perfect morality has the effect of an appeal" (1977: 34). Here Bergsonattemptsto explain:

As a matter of fact this personality takes shape as soon as we adopt a ideally longing to the resemble, which generates the form, is an model; incipient resemblance; the word which we shall make our own is the have heard (1977: 35. Italics ourselves within word whose echo we mine. ).

Admittedly, there is here involved an obscurenotion of imitation that is hardly fully developedby Bergson. Nevertheless,we can clearly seehere what appearsto be the key relevanceof personality for this kind of morality that Bergson has set in his it is And the morality, or the wholenessor completenessthat accompanies yet sights. imitation this the realization of and which is the sine qua non-natural obligation of non of this morality, this wholeness,which remains central to Bergson's analysis, no is in how the model-formation. personal crucial matter

[For] the personmatters little. Let us merely make the point that, first distinctly it the the the more potent was more morality whereas broke up into impersonal obligation, on the contrary the latter morality,

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intelligence first dispersed to general among precepts our which gave at its allegiance, but which did not go so far as to get our will in motion, becomesmore and more cogent in proportion as the multiplicity and its into merge more completely of maxims man's unity and generality individuality (1977: 35).

Thus, it is not a cult of personsor saintsthat Bergson is appealing to. Rather, he located in to the a complete morality possibility of cultural anthropology as appeals in action, indeed, a morality that would become complete only inasmuch as it becomesidentical with the actions of individual men. But this completenesswould is individuality. Rather, "principle a of action" one of not support sheer,egoistic Bergson's primary concerns,one which "here takes the place of the natural obligation" (1977: 35). This raisesthe question of the social, or non-social, statusof this morality of by it be Bergson that matters suggesting could complicates said that exemplarity. being instead is "human of merely social" (1977: 35). It this morality properly in implicated but it has the social claim of closed society, an social, now remains dimension Bergson's the stress which of upon analysis seems anthropological added to lead. However, Bergson is more clear when he distanceshimself from any doctrine of human nature, humanism or "love of humanity," or indeed any "altruism" (1977: 36). Indeed, any objectification of this morality would be "too vast, the effect too diffuse" (1977: 36). Therefore, the subject of this morality of exemplarity is neither the object of a human or social claim, ie. a mere substratumof instinctive, natural activity, or an be a subjective, principled of self-willing, which would merely affective expansion

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an intellectual conceit, according to Bergson. The problem that Bergson counterposesover againstthe Durkheimian question concerning social facts is rather simply this: "how comes it that the men who have set the example have found other men to follow them? And what is the power that is in this casethe counterpart of social " (1977: 39). In responseto his own question, Bergson comesto this pressure? instinct have Beyond "ve choice. no and habit there is no direct action conclusion: on the will exceptfeeling" (1977: 39. Italics mine.). The raison d'etre of the new morality of open society, then, is the emergenceof "unsuspectedtones of feeling", into "draw this music that we may expressit in action" (1977: them which us after 40). Therefore, creative emotion, hereafter, is the focus of Bergson's analysis of the has insofar bond. Creative a purchase only emotion as it has an affect on what social Bergson calls "the activity of life" (1977: 54). Now this contradicts Durkheim in several interesting ways. Primarily, there is Bergson's rejection of the primacy of the problematic of social ontology as taken to pertain specially to a discipline of sociology. According to Bergson, what is always important is the "generative effort of life" (1977: 54), which will always like have biologist" "eve (1977: 54), who will the to that right proceed a guarantee it in "that tendencies the are, as were, organic which social life have maintain in beginning" (1977: be 56). To is "it for closed, the they were what sure, remained fundamental in is that the and structure, original moral societies man simple made" (1977: 56). Social solidarity is a biological fact for Bergson, a fact of nature. Now it is too little appreciatedthat this is true for Durkheim as well. Bergson, however, does implicitly recognize this. The problem with Durkheim for Bergson is that Durkheim allegedly does not notice the key event of what Bergson calls the "passing from social solidarity to the brotherhood of man" (1977: 58). And according to

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Bergson"between the first morality and the second,lies the whole distancebetween reposeand movement" (1977: 58). In other words, there is an interval which is intution distinct impersonal the the cuts across essences of enactedas and the personal,making it in effect adequateto human life itself. On a narrower plane it is hard not to seein this Bergson's particular way of conceiving a necessary,but antagonisticrelation between sociology and philosophy. For Bergson refusesto follow Durkheim into an affirmation of the radical symmetry of social fact and sociology. For Bergson, every society is constantly compelled to struggle betweenthese implicated `two sources'- society and culture - with their two apparently mutually but not really mutually opposedexplanations,of social actualization. Bergson's is harmonized his thus with method of intuition, his conceptionof social agency image his duration of the outside which for him, taken together, and conceptionof end any need for a static social ontology. Continuity

in Bergson's Thought

Bergson thus made an intuitive connection between the writings of Durkheim implying integrating Tarde, that neither was exactly right about the their work, and in Social between the the consists rather ontology social. of movement ontology their insights. This goes to showjust exactly how there is a fundamental continuity betweenBergson's philosophical thought and his social thought. In the broader have Bergson's to comparethis odd thought simply we as a whole, context of his here earlier writings and particularly synthesis with apropos would sociological be his manifesto for philosophy in an Introduction to Metaphysics- in order to see how closely linked the main ideas are. The problem of the appearanceof external intuition in book is immediate this earlier given philosophicallyreality versus

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informed sociologically-thick description in a much later, final writing. On the level direct is between the duality in the book on there a continuity of solutions, metaphysicsof following reality versus free problem-setting and the duality in the Two Sourcesof natural instinct versus model formation. Theseare exactly the same classof inclusive disjunction, motivated by the sameinterest in ontology and is in no way an anomaly with respectto the core Sources Two Thus, the creativity. is in fact development it. Bergson's thought, and a of of But what is this essenceof this new development? I believe that the lies in his attempt to provide a Bergson's thought primarily social significance of new, more positive and modern image for philosophy as a de-centeredthinking of it in in but the challenge provides the way of a critique of also continuity, Durkheimian sociologism on the level of the image of thought as a non-objective, links instinct In that the externality. nexus natural non-subjective and model formation Bergson is writing about a new, nonjudgmental way of conceiving the linkage between theory and practice, one which is based in an image of thought in different is between, by, though shared utilized ways philosophy and which longer In this can no philosophy remain a purely intellectual view, sociology. derives from image intellectual its Or appeal an rather, of opening up what pursuit. has becomeclosed, which is itself properly a social distinction, indeed a social struggle. On the other hand, according to Bergson's point of view sociology hasto requestion its committment to social gregariousnessand the premise of the group. The Durkheimian doctrine of the externality of the social perceivesthe social facts which are explained by thesepremisesas existing outside ourselvesand takes this irreducible proof of an as uncontroversial sociality. Bergson does not perception

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disagreethat the image of the outside exists and has prime relevanceto the question it into doctrine. be believes Rather, he but that the a cannot made of social ontology, bears image the a relation, via a problematic continuity, to external outside of social interprets Durkheim be than that assumed. simply must explained rather constraint doctrine is the then the as obligation; sociological social of constraint an apparent basedupon a common senseappealto the existenceof obligation, which supposedly is deny, then correlated with this alleged the social space of character and no one can inevitability of obligation (1982: 130). Bergson points to the obvious inconsistency here: obligations are simply not capableof stabilizing social phenomenain a formation, between so such correlations external spatially condensed,relatively is "obligation formations For Bergson, are arbitrary. obligations and existing social in no sensea unique fact, incommensuratewith others, looming above them like a have In Bergson's (1977: 20). view, as we seen,obligations mysterious apparition" limited force be the struggles, a model which of with only can the modulations of from being focus keep to the the subject attracted other, rival to social of success, for be dynamic. has has It to Social to as something accounted continuity models. be internally explained, not assumed,as one doesboth when one simply refers to its is to that refers a process of symbolism characteristicof externality, and when one is forms. for It in based this be that these reason, also, to social upon supposed Bergson's view, morality and religion do not, as Durkheim proposed in The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, provide the object of a stable sociology that higher-order for Concepts, foundation its in the concepts. of object can observe Bergson, are not products of morality and religion. Rather, morality and religion are initiation, formation to the the of models, necessity the of to necessityof witnesses the to of minds mystery of creation. closing the opening and to continual and

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The Durkheimian position of sociological reduction was quite popular among the contemporary- especially the young - philsophical elite in France. This view held that the social domain, with its various legal and technical extensions,ought to be understoodasthe proper depository of the problems that philosophy has traditionally taken as its right to investigate. We should understandBergson, as a being thinking, new mode of as ambitious pressedto provide a means purveyor of an of countering the tendencyhere towards Durkheimian sociological imperialism, its key insights. Thus, we can derive of creative while neverthelessrecognizing one from the Two Sourcesa questionthat has two irreducible sides: what is this irreducible form of social externality that even the limit-case of pure thought, in discipline it is the of philosophy, needsand absolutely presupposes; embeddedas but conversely,what is this philosophical attempt to transcendthe investmentsand Bergson's the work points to the hypothesisof there social context? of constraints being only a single and samesynthesisinvolved in both of these pursuits, the intelligence image cases of modern converging and of particular synthesisof an in Outside-which-is-opened, into being their own an without coming a function of function being interiority, but is a rather of continuity, or and extension so coits duration the critical movements. of extensivewith Understanding such a question raised by Bergson's Two Sourcesrequires key Bergsonian as a creative rival of Durkheimian philosophy understanding from is here There to us prevent recognizing how nothing sociology. incommensurablethesetwo rival approacheswill become once they become be It for did, Bergson thought. to should noted, social as even establishedparadigms his credit, that there is nothing in his own analysis to prevent sciencefrom setting up frames of referencewithin which it can provide opportunities for the indirect

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duration. is just for It Bergson - and here he differs the that of effects of observation from Tarde - the reference points of science ought not to be confused with the process itself or with the philosophical concepts that aim to combine directly intuitively - with this process. Another objection might be raised that a Bergsonian believing has become that thus to then philosophy entail point of view must rearticulated within the field of the mystical agent of social creation. Bergson is a be little for to there philosophy to gain by Bergson's seems philosopher, and

`spiritualistic' move in the Two Sources. Indeed, it would have to be admitted that there is necessarilya question left open as to whether Bergson's social thought his duration, theory of philosophical of a reorganization requiresa reorganization that he would thus have not had time to addressin its full ramifications for long Sources before Two Bergson's death. the published was not philosophy, since But just from the latter book alone it would be hard to arguethat Bergson's move toward social thought in his later years has nothing to do with a motivation to encouragethe project of pragmatismto embracea modern mysticism. Bergson's thought does have to do with a concernto recognize how a spiritual tendency in harmonized be life could with the principle of a sustainablemodernity, or modern in is `mysticism' But perhapsa misleading term plurality of modernities, openness. it because his thought to seemsto suggestthat Bergson was interested when applied in religion for its own sakeand as an end in itself. Bergson does not seekto for example, a modern religion centeredaround a principle of openness. establish, Rather, it is much more characteristicof Bergson to ask, as he did, "is the distinction between the closed and the open, which is necessaryto resolve or remove theoretical be little help It if to the closed society of would us practically? utility problems, able

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has always been so constituted as to shut itself up again after each momentary opening" (1977: 271). In my view, what ought to be recognized as intervening here is continuity added to externality, Bergson's social thought added to Durkheim's premise, the human into being though contingent of an outside which upon action, could coming neverthelessserve as the necessaryontological image of those samemodem practicesconsideredas sociality per se. I think something like this is indeed implicit in Bergson's thinking. However, Bergson himself choseto account for the openness constitutive of the outside by referenceto a significantly modified Tardian `significantly because, I the models. say of social attraction modified' conception of for Tarde, desire is an automatic, unconscious,micrological occurencein which the kind is of remainder amidst a flux of attractions. self constituted negatively as a Bergson rather choosesto maintain a link between ontology and a kind of rare creative originality constitutive of relative cultural universalities, a `grand from for to social models could only stem which come call a total originality', which reconfiguration of our social practices, models such as we find in the pantheonof saints. Certainly in his earlier work, Bergson holds that durations are the provenance intuitive imaginative function he that as an method, an a so much of method not hopes might be inspiring of a modern and mature philosophical activism. The intuition of duration is interpreted by him as aproject. This self-interpretation is including by Creative Bergson (1983). Evolution to and up actively promoted Bergson then does not produce any major work until he publishes the Two Sources. Despite the gap in time, I would argue that his analysis of sociality, religion, and implicitly linked broken is with, not wildly away from, the morality nevertheless

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earlier analysis of the passivesynthesisof externality effected in duration. If the Two Sourcesis to be read as a natural extension of Bergson's philosophy as I believe it must, then I think that what we can learn from Bergson is a useful way to reformulate the paradox of modernity. This distinction would lie betweenthe acts of imagination and myth-making required to re-open, re-constitute, and refresh the social bond by refreshing our senseof common `attainability', and the image that everyoneneverthelesstakes as an `inescapable' starting point for their social projects is and which therefore the proper subject of a sociology: an outside which supplies the possibility of there coming into being many durations of being.

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CHAPTER SIX

DELEUZIAN SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY: THE HORDE AND REVOLUTIONARY DESIRE

Sexuality and love do not live in the bedroom of Oedipus, they dream instead of wide-open spaces,and causestrangeflows to circulate that do not let themselvesbe stocked within an establishedorder (Deleuze and Guattari 1984: 116).

When we read Bergson's social thought in the Two Sourcestoday, to a considerable in it it `dated', the that sense constitutes a responseto a set of pre-war extent seems be It circumstances. must read, to a significant extent, as a timely diagnosis of the dangerof continuing, given contemporary modern conditions, to believe in a unified, in his being. final Bergson this, returns social work, to the Kantian substantive is formulation interplay His this the of paradox upon as emphasis an paradox. between closednessand openness. Perhapsthis work even seemsto still be tinged from divorced that of the messianicworld, completely not with a perspective have it in towards the open. As we have seen, to the seems sympathy particularly Bergson finds the two sourcesof closednessand openness- social constraint and brought into interplay desire by the sustained social and personal personal -

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by spiritual models, which are, after all, far more models of presented challenges opennessthan they are of closedness. There is, however, a more recent reading of Bergson which re-opens someof the social and political issuesraised in that book. This reading has been led by Gilles Deleuzeand Deleuze's attempt to develop, using Bergsonian concepts, a more intrinsically modern account of social plurality. As we shall see,whereasBergson attemptsto think the outside as sustainedexemplary openness,Deleuze attemptsto think the outside as the production of an impersonal field of social modernity. We for is important is Deleuze that see a mode of virtual co-existencelocated shall what in particular modernization initiatives which purportedly makesthese particulars `full', or devoid of any needto import sensefrom the limited or concreteuniversality of a model. Deleuze does not work with any concept of a `needfor initiation. ' Writing well after the war and the reconstruction of Europe, with these `full begins demand in Deleuze to that critical thinkers ought to again mind, particulars' less, substancethan Bergson was willing to assumevis-a-vis sociality more, not attribute. Arguably, with Deleuze we will have come as close as perhapsis possible to a perspectiveof modernity in- and for-itself. Desire and Culture UnderstandingDeleuze's social philosophy requires a knowledge of how Deleuze negotiatesbetweentwo essentialmovementsto do with thinking the social. Firstly, there is the project of classical social theory, with its consensusagainst its internal debateover whether or of sociality and explanations purely psychological be associatedwith an apparent externality of the social should existence social not life and of cultural creativity. Secondly, and processes of with or rather world importance, is there the explicitly anti-social-theoretical stanceof perhapsof greater

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Deleuze's greatestinfluence, Bergson, with his suggestionthat the social exists for the thinking individual in accordancewith intuition somewherebetween interiority its departure Deleuze's takes thought point of somewhere social and exteriority. betweenBergson and classical social theory, and it is one of the primary aims of this his to position. chapter clarify One highly relevant sourcefor the social thought of Deleuze is the work of Gabriel Tarde. Tarde had a significant influence upon Deleuze and was himself a thinker situated very much between classical social theory and Bergsonian becoming lies in Tarde Durkheim, thought that tension, With social philosophy. instead However, individuation. in of seeingthis tension as often conflict, with decisive,beginning among the conditions of a `horde' and thus before any individuation, for Tarde becoming social is problematic and begins as individuation. In Tarde's view, becoming social involves the constitution of a rule of fashion which in "The the intimate in rule opposition with of custom. or rule tension, conflict, sits by blossoming in the things is distinguished fashion of of certain great every order of it is deduced from Though (1903: 342). individualities" free social, not and individual premises,Tardian thinking indeedtends to emphasizethe significance of particular agentsof social change. However, for Tarde, as for Deleuze, such individualities are not what is really do They `the the they in only products of are social; not social'. at stake speaking of by themselvesilluminate many of the most important elementsthat go into the indeed, is Tarde, For the the production of social a process the social. production of becoming their to difficult the of persons on part way sacrifices on of the making of by familial their to their Individuals individuals. gains sacrificing make able only are follow distant innovatively in identities to and more greater models: order roles and

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In the beginning the family... was the only social group, and... every in lessening its importance... by change resulted subsequent constituting new and more ample groups which were formed artificially, at the families, the side of and which reducedthem to mere of social expense physiological expressions;but that, finally, such dismemberedfamilies tended to aggregateinto a kind of enlarged family that was both natural family like the except that the physiological original and social characteristics,which were transmitted through heredity, existed mainly to facilitate the transmissionthrough imitation of the elementsof civilisation, and not vice versa" (1903: 287).

Thus, for Tarde, becoming social in no way involves the coming about of an anarchy of isolated, `fashionable', individuals who `celebrate' their own self-centered individuation in implicates It the progressionand expansionof rather achievements. down its family the to model of straight natural primitive origins. Indeed, a cultural for Tarde, it implicates the individual in a `vacillating struggle between custom and fashion which lasts until the ultimate triumph of the former" (1903: 343). Becoming individuation, but it begins then moves on to ultimately becomea thus as social larger cultural force. There is a certain paradox in Tarde's thinking of social becoming. Here we have seenthat Tarde assumesthat the family is the original starting point of sociality. On the other hand, the point of view of Tarde is that of desire, specifically desire for distant desire to a model and as thereby significant for new as attraction modernity, formations `artificial' or social made of single individuals. and progressive

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However, whatever social progresscomes about, the family, for Tarde, is always for interactions, if certainly as a model customary as a physically, not reinstated, is in In Tardian for `tradition', the short. understanding, modernity a struggle model inherent in family He traditional the the social practices. of model was, against however, categorical that modernity could never effect a complete break with the family model. This has important implications for Tarde's notion of desire. Due to this familial imperative, for Tarde, desirewill never be completely anarchic. Quite to the contrary, desire will for him always be modulated as an `attraction' which familial elements. organizespotential Now when we turn to Deleuze, it does not seemlikely that we would find him desire to an analysis of the sociality of the this of of analysis restriction agreeingwith is in be in in fact, found interest Deleuze's Nowhere, there to work any attraction. involves Tardian thought topic. a very non-Deleuzian concept of social social such a desire'. `social here However, containment of call a we we might repressionwhich it fact, because was precisely a similar notion of social come acrossa strange for in from Tarde Bergson Sources. Two the took that the use writing of repression The question thus arisesas to whether Deleuze will be able to agreewith Bergson on this point. We shall seethat this will becomea very important problem both for the for his Deleuze's the time and originality at same philosophical of question for its the relevanceto our own question of social ontology. and social conception of Any insight into this question of the nature of desire must take classical social theory into account. For Bergson's explanation of sociality, which depends intelligible inasmuch it is Tarde, that as only constitutes an of significantly upon by Durkheimian `external' the the to social of as necessitated model rival attempt be dependent Bergson's thought thus to social comes upon the constraint-obligation.

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Tardian concept of desire. Henceforth, his thought becomesinterwoven with classicalsocial thought. The possiblity of this convergencedependsentirely on Tarde, in the way Tarde emphasizesthe socially progressive feature of imitationbecause this allows Tarde to researchsocial repressionfrom the point attraction and of view of incorporation rather than externalization. It makespossible an attempt at immanent a non-Durkheimian, account of social repression. There are two meansby which Deleuze is influenced by Tarde: through direct reading as we can seefrom referencesto Tarde in Deleuze's work, '8 and through Bergson's appropriation of Tarde. This two-fold nature of this influence complicatesDeleuze's relation to Tarde. But the relation is well worth examining since particularly the latter meansof appropriation, through Bergson, meansthat Tarde will be more than just a passinginspiration for Deleuze. For Bergson is an indispensible, main sourcefor Deleuzian philosophy. It is quite simple to formulate a provisional, working definition of Deleuze's relation to Bergson with particular important The in to thought. element social most shared respect common in Deleuzian and Bergsonian social philosophy is the idea that becoming social means becoming conscious beyond one's ego of one's situation in something like an `open is Part Bergson's to phrase. of what at stake is a senseof reality felt society', use immediately and emotionally. Part of what is at stake is an intuition of the limits of in In Deleuze's this to sense. social words, "if man accedesto philosophy attaining the open creative totality, it is... by acting, by creating rather than by contemplating. In philosophy itself, there is still too much alleged contemplation: Everything happensas if intelligence were already imbued with emotion" (1988a: 112. Italics `becoming Bergson, ). Deleuze sees social', with as the need to dispersethe mine.

18Of particular importance is a long footnote in Difference and Repetition (1994: 313-4).

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ego in an `open totality' which then enablesaccessto free emotional currentswhich for fashioning the creativity, particularly motivate of higher-order concepts. Bergson emphasizedopennessand processthroughout his work. But in for Sources, Two Bergson, every philosophical motivation the particularly becomesattainable only by meansof various socially-originating affects as that through which such attributes as `openness'and `process' may exist. Bergson's social thought is in this sensea kind of social justification or `rendering timely' of Bergson's philosophical thought. However, in the Two Sources,indeed his last important work of thought, he still saw this conjunction of tendenciessustainedby objects of desire which initiate a variety of social subjectivities. Thus, despitehis emphasisupon opennessand process,Bergson's conception of the social is still heavily involved with a notion of the socially creative force of mystical, charismatic, leaders. involved is It thus still spiritual with the reduction of desire to attraction. Thus, the difference from Deleuze here may indeed be more significant than has previously been recognized. Tarde had emphasizedthe need for a kind of `self-fashioning' which would involve creativity and a social individuality. This had a certain influence on Bergson who used it as a way into researchingwhat was for him a new field: the sociological field. Being a student of Bergsonianthought, the task for Deleuze is, then, to either acceptthis Tardian conception of socialization as a premise or createone's own latter it. Deleuze We takes the that shall see path and that what is created version of is a much more radical version. It takes its point of departurefrom the end-point of Bergson's writing, that which dwells upon the theme of the social, but it endsup far beyond Bergson's responseto this question. going

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I would put all of this in even stronger terms: if Deleuze could be said to differ him break Bergson or with significantly, it could only be here, in with make a little known break discussed implicit highly a very or with aspectof Bergsoniana Tardian social thought: the conception of desire as attraction, not least inasmuch as this might be taken as an implied criticism and an alternative explanation for Durkheim's social example of `marriage'. Herein, in my view, lies the great (1984), AntiOedipus written together with the radical psychologist of significance Felix Guattari, the most socially-oriented of Deleuze's books. If Deleuze was the bound Bergson, to the premisesand the aims of his of apprentice philosophical diversion begins to open onto a new and and new alliance masteruntil a certain AntiOedipus for Deleuze, then was - and I think it is original area of research Deleuze's first wholly original work. The one thing that begins to make Deleuze differ significantly from Bergson is that which takes him onto the sociological ground that Bergson believed had been his Sources. by Two On the one hand, this the of writing obviated or surpassed might seemlike an obscurepoint. Even with a working knowledge of all of Deleuze's texts it might still be possible to miss the significance of Deleuze's is for And this to good reason,since little explicit sociology. classical relation found in be Deleuze's texts. Indeed, even some to can sociology classical reference do little have his to to themes with the question of the social. Let us seem main of take Deleuze's Difference and Repetition (1994) as a casein point. The main theme do itself have the to tradition than with to philosophical with more much seems Repetition be Difference believe I will mainly and read as problems. sociological it should - as a highly original essayon the problem of thinking without

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presuppositions,of the unthought within thought, or the problem, as Deleuze puts it, 19 in (1994: begin 129). "where to philosophy" of Philosophy and Difference Difference and Repetition is one of Deleuze's most philosophically-oriented monograph's. But then, to a sociologically-informed reader, even here one can find how show sociological premises are implicit from the very subtlereferenceswhich beginning of properly `Deleuzian philosophy'. To be sure, there is a problem of scholarship: up to and including Difference and Repetition,-the referencesin in small number. The only reference of lasting questionare short, vague, and very in footnote is long Tarde Deleuze to which a claims Tarde's work is a significance `microsociology' basedon a similar line of thought to Deleuze's own (1994: 313-4). But this too might seemmarginal and of little significance. There is also a problem is Deleuze's to perform thought experiments,or method explicit of methodology: creative appropriations of concepts,using the thought of many thinkers. So why be important few Tarde to than his other, considered more references should a diverse references? Late in his career,Deleuze noted that philosophy has traditionally been it that thrives upon an agonistic relationship with various such constructed disciplinary rivals, beginning with the Platonic struggle with `sophistry' (Deleuze is lot be kind It 1-12). Guattari 1994: the to of philosophy a of Socratic and `underdog', always carefully, intentionally, and deliberately facing various and is integrity It here, thought. to the though, that we of precisely challenges repeated find Deleuze noting a curious fact, that in modem times, "especially sociology, Guattari (Deleuze [philosophy]" 1994: 10). Is this a revealing to and replace wanted

19Seein particular the chapter on "The Image of Thought" (1994: 129-167).

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it in introduction be level, On to appears only a comment passing an one statement? justify in is But really matters. what would to a monographwhich on other us is large The is it claim, surely, quite and comment? only a passing supposing is key Indeed, this would the that modem rival of philosophy. sociology significant: haveto be the casefor Deleuze's point of view if we consider that the greaterthe here is is that the the to challenge claim great - then the and challenge philosophy in be, Deleuze's way of thinking, the concentratedeffort at a greater should strategicalresponse. Indeed, then, it would not be too far to propose from this that, if Deleuze held this view more or lessthroughout his career, he would have had to have had as a kind idea Difference during Repetition background the the of and writing assumption of that modem philosophy is somehow bound up with an effort to wrest from standard from `broader truth' the the contemporary philosophical sociological conclusions be in Now, Deleuze to sure, as made explicit project of sociological awareness. What is Philosophy? (Deleuze and Guattari 1994), any question of `truth' is for him the rights of a philosophy to maintain or alter restoring of a question of more rather the composition of higher-order conceptsin accordancewith the immediate needsof fond became "so he long is As there thinking. claiming, of as a time creative, useful be for that the this operation undertakes will always creating concepts, and a place implication 9). But is Guattari 1994: (Deleuze the clear: and called philosophy" there should indeed be a basis for us to treat Deleuze's textual referencesto sociological works with special care. I believe we ought to seekin Deleuze's referencesto Tarde signs of Deleuze's main strategy of thinking rather than just interesting embellishmentsor tactics. And from this point of view, many interesting possibilities for reading

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Deleuzedo emerge. In particular, one can isolate two main aspectsto Deleuze's long footnote to Tarde in Difference and Repetition. Firstly, there is a rather stunning implied suggestionon the part of Deleuze that the whole outline of Difference and Repetition was inspired by what he found in Tarde's work, particularly in a couple of Tarde's essays,"Monadologie et Sociologic" (1895/1999) and "La Variation Universelle" (1895). According to Deleuze, these essays present "the free figure of difference" (1994: 314). If the Laws of Imitation had focussed upon `universal repetition' as the ground of scientific inquiry that enables the pursuit of sociology and binds it into a in his relationship philosophy, short essays Tarde had been better able working with to highlight more effectively the ultimate end of repetition as difference. In Deleuze's words, it is specifically Tardian philosophy, "one of the last great philosophies of nature, in the tradition of Leibniz, " in which we can find the discovery that "repetition... is not the process by which difference is augmented or diminished, but the process by which it `goes on differing'

and `takes itself as its

in (1994: 313). Similarly, Difference and Repetition Deleuze states explicitly end"' that his own interest lies primarily in a "difference that would not extend, or `would far have to as as opposition and contradiction; [and] a concept of extend' not repetition in which physical, mechanical, or bare repetitions... would find their raison d'etre in the more profound structures of a hidden repetition in which a `differential' is disguised and displaced" (1994: xx). What matters to Deleuze is this idea that he discovers in Tarde: that "the perpetual divergence and decentring of difference [corresponds] closely to a displacement and a disguising within repetition" (1994: xx).

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To be sure, Deleuze's writing of Difference and Repetition intimately involves an original, sustainedattempt to situate the theme of difference vis-a-vis the is Its novelty the way Deleuze takes the Leibnizian insight practice of philosophy. into repetition as particularity and radicalizes it by placing it into the theoretical in anti-Cartesian, post-Spinozist materialism context of a radically which an ontology become difference (Marks 1998: 75-7; Hardt possible purportedly would of pure 1993: 79). Perhapseven more important for the future transmission of this book's importance is the way Bergson's concept of intuition, as an affirmative notion of difference as processbut also as act, provides a kind of two-layered understandingin Deleuze's intrepretation of Spinoza as, in a certain fundamental sense,expressionist (1992), but in another, irreducible sense,pragmatic (1988c). However, what is is book, here Deleuze's first the thesis the that of relevant self-professed primarily from Deleuze's comes original philosophy, at an reading of Tarde, a selfattempt professedmaster of `pure sociology'. Sociology and Difference The secondmain aspectof Deleuze's long footnote to Tarde follows from the first. This secondpoint takes Deleuze away from philosophy and toward more straightforwardly sociological matters. Here Deleuze explicitly makes a claim as to the essenceof Tarde's approachto sociology. This time the contrast with Durkheimian sociology is explicit. Durkheim had intentionally focussedupon that is far from being by individuals that so controlled which sociological subject-matter fact. independent, `external' it But Durkheim concentrates an arguably constitutes individuals, ie. between happens interactional theory upon an what much upon not so individuals, ie. `all' institutions, constrains as upon what upon an ontological of is institutions. For Durkheim this theory of reason often seenas having invented a

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`macrosociology' which is then contrastedwith an interactional `microsociology' which is built upon skepticism against Durkheimian social ontology. The Durkheimian point of view is that `microsociology' runs the risk of lapsing back into individual ontology unless it ultimately locates the sourceof the symbols involved in interactions in the necessaryphenomenaof long-term social duration rather than in the contingent circumstancesof social contact. In contrast to thesetwo points of implicitly his footnote, in Deleuze, affirms that Tardian `pure sociology' view, constitutesa third sociological possibility which rejects skepticism against social latter for "assuming but is the critical of nevertheless ontology what must be (1994: 314). explained" Thus, Durkheimian ontology is tacitly acceptedby Deleuze as a point of departurefor thinking the social. What is distinctly Tardian about Deleuze's emphasisis that a notion of the personal self's necessaryinvolvement with social into is back brought the sociological picture. Quite commendably in my ontology important distinction is Deleuze an which recognizes not always well view, Deleuze theorists. social recognizesthat `microsociology' even among recognized between be and encounters relations a study of exemplary individuals: "for neednot the alternative - impersonal givens or the Ideas of great men - [Tarde] substitutesthe little ideasof little men, the little inventions and interferencesbetween imitative in here is (1994: Now how 314). a crucial point which can we see currents" important a knowledge of social theory which includes a knowledge of the thought of Tarde is for the interpretation of Deleuze's thought. For it might seemtempting for description interpret this of an alternative, perhapsa `radical' to statementas a some kind of interactionist sociology. The rhetoric of `little ideas of little men' seemsto interactionist its the of project microsociology with with concern to get back resonate

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life. is, in fact, absolutely no basis for such an But there to the problems of everyday interpretation. For Deleuze, Tarde is "not necessarilyconcernedwith what happens betweenindividuals" (1994: 314). Generally interactionists study that which takes it in individuals' in `between the appears communication as or more generally place languageof the symbolic. According to Deleuze, where Tarde's main interest lies is but `what happens the symbolic rather or with with within a not with communication hesitation `infinitesimal for individual, understood as example, social single `infinitesimal (1994: invention 314). social adaptation"' as or opposition', Furthermore, Deleuze is right, because,as we have seenin chapter three, the major formulated "the imitation free itself Tardian tendency to as of sociology, of premise from reproduction" meansthat imitation can be at a great historical distanceand that it is therefore not contingent upon intimate, or ultimately physical, social contact (Tarde 1903: 250). Tarde reservesa place for the personal self as the key agency of social from do Durkheim's but Tarde to within so ontological affirmation attempts change, by long term meansof reconceiving the archeological configurations, social of imitative isolating `currents' in the that purportedly of as a method method sociology link already establishedsocial configurations to a common model. One great virtue `mechanical instead is that that this simply presuming solidarity', or traditional of of by `organic solidarity', or modern configurations, are repeatedlyovertaken is important it first to Tarde that to come out grips with what points configurations, `Mechanical is `mechanical the theory solidarity', as solidarity'. goes, constitutes basedupon resemblances. In addition to `mechanical solidarity', Durkheim had have `custom' the that certain effects upon characterof could also supposed it but less that was somehow a significant phenomenon primitive social groups

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(1984: 66). Tarde will begin from the premise that the resemblancesof `mechanical (1903: 253-4). custom of resemblances solidarity' are all essentially Custom, for Tarde, is not understood in the ordinary senseof simply any is In Tarde's is through tradition. transmitted that view, custom organized practice According Tarde familial to the territorialization. sociological through precisely familial fact in lies territorializations somehow come that the customary problematic imitations' bring inspiring `innovative by be which about a to challenged exciting, family inclusive `civilization. ' flexible, of as model and new, more modern, Purportedly, only this way of conceiving sociology may begin to problematize `what Durkheim could only assume', ie. that sociological researchmust take its point of departurefrom the phenomenonthat similar people gather to form groups in an Tarde, According to manner. apparently spontaneous

independently of any contact with alien civilisation, a given people in inevitably to territory continue grow numbers, and must within a given in life. inevitably less towards consequence urban progress must no Now, this progresscausesthe nervous excitabily which develops aptitude for imitation. [By contrast] primitive rural communities can only imitate their fathers, and so they acquire the habit of ever turning towards the in life they because their which the are open to the of period only past, impressions of a model is their infancy, the age that is characterisedby because, they as children, are under parental and susceptibility, nervous rule (1903: 247-8).

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Clearly, Tarde can only be said to `reproblematize', not `breakwith' Durkheim's premise. For Tarde agreeswith Durkheim that social resemblanceand social in directly interlinked that them changes and are related to the quantity are transformationto modernity. We saw also in chapter four above that the difference between Durkheim and Tarde is more subtle than perhapsthesetwo thinkers themselvessupposed. The difference between them will become a great challenge for Deleuze. In what difference from between Deleuzian the these most significant perspective, a consists, two classical social thinkers? According to Tarde, modern organization, basedas it is upon the development of urban life, in its earliest form arisesthrough the territorial direct family. Social in the this. But according quantity plays a role establishmentof to Tarde social quantity is related to this transformation only through a `nervous is is he What to a purely affect-basedcollective phenomenon. referring excitability'. Thus, according to Tarde, resemblanceand social quantity are not, as the Durkheim of the Division of Labour thought, a causeof modernity simply by virtue of bringing have idea duplication. As the seen above, we of role duplication is about role formulated as such in order to resonatewith the idea that the source of participation is `need the therefore a of wholeness'. Whatever spatial of society source and have thus correlated, as we about are seenarbitrarily, with come configurations implication Durkheim's is duplications thus that occur. was society whatever role thus somehow extendedin spaceby meansof a non-extendedsource of constraint. In Tarde's view this makesDurkheim's sociology unworkable. In Tarde's view, imitation is is phenomenon general of more a much which rather what at stake Tarde `ideas', plane, with a non-extended what called on completely on a operates kind of socio-psychic current of contagion.

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Two points here are relevant to the social thought of Deleuze. Firstly, as we haveseenabove, despitehis salutary critical point of view, neverthelesswith the theory of contagious `currents' Tarde fails to provide a non-metaphorical account of `current' it is Secondly, from the though of contagion, continuity. social a Deleuzian perspectivetantalizingly close to providing a new model of philosophy that would be is back for a senseof in desire, always referred unfortunately grounded social family. For `figure this the the the to reason of of difference' that coherence model Tarde elaboratesby meansof the metaphor of `currents' is not as radical, not as `free', not as Bergsonian, as someoneinterested in radical process such as Deleuze in his first for for. So two these reasons, collaboratory work with Felix wish would Guattari, AntiOedipus. Deleuze will begin to implicitly but clearly diminish the had in he Difference Tarde that towards and Repetition. Deleuze optimistic attitude `pure the turn of sociology' upon metaphor, but he will become reliance against will idea by family the the the the recurrence of revulsed of even more model of perhaps in the realm of culture. And as we shall see,perhapssurprisingly, this will bring him toward a reappraisalof the notion of the horde. Revolutionary Desire At first glance such a direction may seemimpossible for a thinker such as Deleuze. Surely Deleuze is one who sharesan intellectual affinity with those, such individual becoming Freud, an social as working to control the who conceive as forces that constitute his or her ego and thus to better manageany obstaclesto in better in Is Deleuze this to all, who wants us one not way, get growth. personal desires? his Is `real the within our touch with not a project of possibilities' contained `diagnosis'? From a Deleuzian point of view one could not be less satisfied with dispersal is Deleuze For the the of ego at the sametime the a project. such

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impersonal fully field, social not a merely `super' ego. As Deleuze constitution of a for it, is "a Guattari schizophrenic out a walk put a better model than a neurotic and lying on the analyst's couch. A breath of fresh air, a relationship with the outside dispersal is (1984: The 2). the of ego a processwhich testifies to an actual world" contribution to `the outside world'. It is, in a word, a synthetic, not simply a investigative heuristic, operation. As Deleuze and Guattari put it, `, what or negative, is a `real' desire, since repressionis also desired? How can we tell them apart? We demandthe right to a very deliberate analysis. For even in their contrary uses,let us make no mistake about it, the samesynthesesare at issue", ie. those in psychic in (1984: 116). those social repression repressionand Deleuze is thus led to the very Tardian and anti-psychologistic tendency in be it is "social believed that should repression not understood by using as a which starting point a familial repressioncoextensivewith civilization - far from it; it is in be inherent terms that to a of a social must understood repression civilization Guattari (Deleuze form 1984: 118). However, for and production" of social given Tarde, it did not seeminconsistent to formulate that form of social production invention-imitation disjunction by then to this and still as organize paradoxically Guattari family Deleuze to and want to completely destroy the model. reference a `model', families between the of a and notion and on an even deeper connection level, as they made clear in A ThousandPlateaus(1988), their follow-up to AntiOedipus, to challenge `the model' wherever it tends to takes root (1988: 3-25). Deleuze had realized as early as Difference and Repetition that the risk here is that if this kind of `model-unity' is rejected one will always be left with dualism unless one itself. in As Deleuze it in Difference locate process put a certain univocity and can Repetition, "univocity, for its part, has two completely opposing aspectsaccording to

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in is `in being manners' all a single same sense, but is said thereby of that said which difference is displaced differs, is itself which said of a always mobile which and ). being" (1994: 304. Italics mine. This univocity is the `virtual ontology' within being (Boundas 1996). For with the time grounds and ungrounds at same which Bergson and, I would say, contra Adorno, Deleuze believes that the metaphysics of directly, reality not through some system of symbolic with process must combine mediation. Such mediation implies the reduction of process to a mere `realization of possibilities'.

As Deleuze put it in Difference and Repetition.

the only danger in all of this is that the virtual could be confused with the is The possible opposedto the real; the processundergone by possible. the possible is therefore a `realisation'. By contrast, the virtual is not opposedto the real; it possessesa full reality by itself. The processit be is It that would of actualisation. wrong to seeonly a verbal undergoes dispute here: it is a question of existenceitself (1994: 211. Italics mine.).

In this way, according to Deleuze, the virtual must not be understood as a inversion the of the economic whole or as a simple sociologistic plenitude of is because `scarcity', the virtual a continuous and open precisely concept of left is Thus, to understandthe virtual as a `full the only option process. full, itself' if Deleuze `existence And together with s already as particular'. Guattari goes on to elaboratein AntiOedipus, it does not needa model of for diagnosis it lacks. that a or search something on modelled problem-solving The textual evidence,however, shows that Deleuze is interested in Tarde as for Deleuze's inspiration Difference the theme philosophical main of and an

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Repetition, and also as a sourcefor the theory of revolutionary desire in AntiOedipus. The consequenceof this must be, and is, that despite Deleuze's is Bergson's there philosophy, of a significant extensivecreative appropriation difference between Bergson's understanding of sociality and that which Deleuze will in difference I between Let think this hold. consists what to propose me come Deleuze and the common tendency of Bergsonian and Tardian social thought: Deleuze is influenced by their emphasisupon process,especially that of Bergson, highlights between desire Tarde the he the relationship and the way and commends is For Deleuze for but Deleuze too this and negative not all practical enough. social, define in it is to the define simply conditions to enough not which the ego sociality A Bergson Tarde thought. dispersed, be greater practicality, even than and as may that of Bergson, is desired. I can seetwo main aspectsof this greater intensity of practical disposition in Deleuzian thought. The first is historically contextual. Deleuze's formative milieu in the radical 1960sis one in which forces of the constitution of the ego againstits dispersal,formulated as `conformism', seemto be stronger than ever. In the `Preface' of Difference and Repetition, one of Deleuze's first attempts at an original is life "modem by [we he begins that that such observing are] confronted philosophy, inside the repetitions, stereotypical most the and outside most mechanical, with is difference form The that (1994: this significant of amidst xviii). ourselves" between identities, difference but traditional is pre-established, thus not a modernity (1994: In between difference xviii). sociological terms: what repetitions rather a Deleuze is recognizing is that what is at stakeis not a grand difference among distinctive individuals with differing philosophies, but a difference made impersonally and often without even being recognized among already socialized

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difference, ie. `escape' between individuals, small or a variation, made single institutional repetitions. Indeed, this post-war age is an age in which `institutional institutionally, lie Here, is high to the seems social agenda. a good part on analysis' for desires. Deleuze the that of the greater practicality response calling challenge of On the other hand, Michel Foucault, in his introduction to AntiOedipus, hints deeper but `philosophical' for or more perhaps reason at a secondand related, i

Deleuzian pragmatism. Most projects of institutional analysis, especially in this impersonal beyond the that and quasi-objective, are changes social period, assume influence of personal creativity. Although he is inspired by institutional analysis, it is the peculiarity of Deleuze that he seems,uniquely, to be writing `ethics' (Deleuze and Guattari 1984: xi-xiv)

It is perhapsmainly for `ethical' reasonsthat Deleuze .

figure is institutional The Spinoza be analysis. of omnipresent satisfied with cannot in Deleuze's writing and testifies to this Deleuzian desire for a practical and involves Institutional primarily analysis a revolutionary resistance materialist ethics. kind is but forces this of of resistance most still too potentially to the of conformism; humanist in the sensethat it is still too much involved with political economy as selfFor himself Foucault from the these the ego. of very reasons of view point criticism form institutional is in involved heavily to that create a of analysis attempting was further for Deleuze But `the than must one go negative'. anti-humanist. explicitly Deleuze is explicitly concernedin Difference and Repetition to research"a concept (1994: difference xx). negation" without of In fact, Deleuze's strong interpretation of Foucault's oeuvre is highly his his In book Foucault, Deleuze's own project. of on perception revealing of Deleuze of course points out the primary distinction in Foucault's early work between visual knowledge and articulable, linguistic knowledge, and the problem

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" that arises:"how could statementsexplain scenes,or scenesillustrate statements? (1988: 121). According to Deleuze, it is "Foucault's major acheivement" to have effected a "conversion of phenomenologyinto epistemology" (1988: 109). But Deleuze goes father and arguesthat the new, discursive-materialist formulation of the epistemological problematic is, in Foucault's work, particularly in its later trajectory, governed by the image of a radical exteriority composedof scenesand statementsfolding into themselvesto createa radical interiority which "condenses the past...in ways that are not at all continuous but instead confront [the past] with a future" (1988: 119). As a result, Deleuzethinks there is a certain commonality betweenhis and Foucault's projects, starting as they do in philosophy, but ending in for look "as forms In Deleuze's Melville different words, says, we quite of analysis. be there that no one there and that man's soul will will a central chamber, afraid (who for but immense looking terrifying think and void an would of nothing reveal life among the archives?). But at the sametime we try to climb above the strata in substance' 'non-stratified that to element, atmospheric a order reach an outside, an forms how be the two of knowledge can embraceand capableof explaining would intertwine" (1988: 121. Italics mine.). According to Deleuze, "to be realized in this different" (1988: integrated becoming both 122). and way means Becauseof his engagementwith contemporary problems of institutions and of knowledge, Deleuzian thought opensagain to the problem of social ontology amidst is however, diversity. This turn, closely qualified for Deleuze conditions of modern by the Spinozist injunction to critically confront the philosophical hastewhich wants is Deleuze dualism. It that torn betweenthis to expeditiously overcome seems Spinozist doctrine of `caution' (Deleuze 1988c) and Bergson's more optimistic doctrine of `intuition' (Deleuze 1988a). On the one hand, the need of overcoming

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dualism without creating a `third term' might be taken to explain certain Deleuzian formulas. Let us take the assertionthat "social production is purely and simply desiring-production itself under determinate conditions" (Deleuze and Guattari 1984: 29). The `determinateconditions' might be understood as taking the place of a `third term' through a direct analysis of their composition which is true simply if it `works' be fundamental difference between `usefully ' However, there a would or coheres. this interpretation and Deleuze's more typically Spinozist assertionswhich affirm the ontological strategy of `univocity-through-parallelism'. A casein point is Deleuze's famous, rather haunting claim that "there is only desire and the social, and nothing else" (Deleuze and Guattari 1984: 29). I am not sure that this tension between the Bergsonian and the Spinozist sides by is Deleuze of properly explained the caprices of what one might call `philosophical taste'. I think the difference rather residesin the distinction between that which is modern and that which is contemporary in the modern. AntiOedipus, from which these quotations are taken, is in part a document of the time in which one frustration diagnostic the certain model and a timely call for a with can observea more positive image of revolutionary movement. But this tendency co-exists with for book link different 60s and 70s to this tendency, also wants another,very is `the `untimely' this and social', with a again very movement or revolutionary `more purely modernist' aspectof the book. AntiOedipus is set againstthe it left-wing But is just '68 the avant-garde. not a responseto post-May pessimismof AntiOedipus is of affairs. states also an experiment a certain set of experiencesand had been developing in Deleuze's that thought ontology on social a certain view with before '68 and essentially since his engagementwith Bergson and Tarde through Bergson.

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In AntiOedipus, Deleuze, together with his co-author, Guattari, does not want between family that the the the to relation supposition psychology of merely overturn desireand the constitution of the social can be simply that of a model to a copy. Theseauthors do not simply want to show that the latter are `complicit'. If that were true then most of the alternative conceptsthat we find in the book could simply be explained as deliberately timely products of a contemporary `spirit of `eccentric timely as rather an accidentally perhaps product or of experimentation', `machinic' But the the of could not be conceived in this concept particularly minds'. in `machinic' is There the the age of the advent of the timely about nothing way. digital revolution. The time in which AntiOedipus is written, the late-60s and early 70s, is precisely the time in which the machine and a machine-centeredmode of industrial production is being overtaken by the cybernetic model of `post-industrial' `machinic', it back And the though the thousandsof concept of yet goes production. figure deployed figure is of modernity and as a as a central of the years, nevertheless book. The figure of the `machinic' appearsin Deleuze's writing whenever there is a desire. In addition, the `machinic' involves the of operation unconscious question of is fully structure, and which of connection a modern, even a method of assemblage, `modernist', productivity-oriented paradigm of object relations. However, in Deleuzian thinking, the play of assemblagecentral to modernity constitutes a new, in is harmonized is desire What this modern unity on the one processualsocial unity. hand and production involving an open-endednumber of production factors on the does Nor Deleuze desire of attraction. object special needto some and not other, `technology' for to to such as concept account explanatory assemblage. an appeal Such notions for Deleuze always carry with them connotationsof anthropocentrism

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(Deleuzeand Guattari 1984: 4). They again only revert to assumingwhat must be humans doctrine `rational ' The `machinic' that the as are such animals. explained, is, therefore, on one level, introduced in AntiOedipus as an alternative to the humanistic model of psychic interiority. But the providing of an `alternative' is not its whole purpose. For Deleuze theory is never just a question of `getting it right', of adaptingone's premisesto correspondmore accurately with reality. Rather, only if background Deleuze's the ontological of social entry onto this we understand his deployment fully can understand we of a concept such as the sociological stage `machinic'. For this there is a very specific reasonof hidden intellectual genealogy. Let idea `machinic' is begin the the that the of proposition related to the classical with us sociological stugglesagainst psychology's tendency to grant an ontological privilege to the individual. From this perspective,what would be at stake in the concept of the `machinic', given Deleuze's `rivalrous' relationship with sociology? What is at stake is that it allows Deleuze and Guattari to formula their intuition of a desirewithout break Deleuze This to a complete allow make will with the appealsto attraction. Bergson's Two Sources. in This to turn will allow of mysticism charismaand Deleuze to steerontology back towards an `affective materialism'. At the sametime, through the concept of the `machinic' Deleuze will have found the material he needs desire `revolutionary' formulate than that of Tarde. The concept of to a more demand in circumstances such a concept contemporary ethical order to and practical break out of the recuperationsof the time by rediscovering the `untimely' element of `revolutionary' keep in have Of term the to scare quotes,as we course, modernity. Deleuze does, becauseof this untimely way that machinic desire producesthe social. And this clears up a minor mystery that has gathered around Deleuze's vehement

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opposition to the notion that the `machinic' and other such conceptsare mere `alternative metaphors'. For truly, in severing desire from attraction Deleuze will have no further needto indulge in inspirational temporal metaphorsof contemporary `social space'. The time and spaceof desire will have become much more anarchic than ever before. The Horde The central significance of Deleuze's social thought is that while he finds a in for to the the theorizing eliminate unconscious need way social theory to supply social descriptions of `the actual' - understood here as knowledge basedin the relation between past social `reality' and prescriptions for actions toward the future `state' of the social, or `knowledge seekingjudgement, ' in short - in the samestroke he begins to createa theory that might becomeadequateto the `immanence' or the `pure operation' of the social consideredontologically which had first appearedto Durkheim as an inexplicably persistant `externality', a fact upon which Durkheim had founded sociology. With his focus upon the intensity of pre-consciousaffects figural, Deleuze's the social thought presentsa novel solution to the vis-a-vis arising impassein Durkheim's social thought between `the actual' and `the metaphysical'. Deleuzian philosophy is shot through with implications for sociology, and this has for though perhaps good reason. At the time of gone completely unrecognized, Deleuze's main writings perceptionsof reification dominate the concernsof radical social thinkers. The reception of any thinker who could explicitly claim that the first is "to facts basic social consider of sociology rule as things", as Durkheim and most did, is understandablyat a very low ebb (1982: 60). Tarde's critique of Durkheimian `reification' had been formulated from the point of view of attraction. Tarde wondered what attractedtogether the primitive

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had been Durkheim taking simply as given facts. Durkheim's response that groups to sucha question was to posit a spontaneousgenesis of a horde, which was for him a more or less accidental group madeup of similar individuals. This was a weak moment in Durkheim's thinking. Where Durkheim's theory was provocative and where it made a lasting contribution to social thought was with his theory of V

modernization according to which, given these primal groups, individuals neverthelesslose their affiliations to them by losing their similarities and becoming unconsciously affected by their remaining differences, not through internal strife, but inter-group through primarily competition and the consequent`division of labour' or specialization. Durkheim thus attemptsto explain social facts by reference only to other social facts, and he believes that successin this implies successin establishing the autonomy of sociology. From this point of view, he had no option but to respond obtusely to Tarde's criticisms, and to prefer to simply assertthe premise of `the horde.' The premise of `the horde' is formulated as such precisely becauseit relies not at all upon individual psychology. But Deleuzian thought exposesDurkheim's error as one of ambiguity. Durkheim's `horde' - the formless `germ' from which the mechanical solidarity of the clan emerges- is neverthelessan extended,spatially-homogenoushorde, a `solid' one basedupon relatively stable numbers (1984: 126-131). As Durkheim puts it, "otherwise [these segments]would become so lost in one another as to vanish" (1984: 128). Taken together in its spatial and social senses,then, this could only is horde that autochthonousor immediately territorial. To be sure, in mean a chaptersone and two abovewe did not need a Deleuzian conceptual framework in is Durkheim's to that thought see weakenednot so much becauseof his order dogmatic methodological pronouncementsbut rather becauseof his hasty premises

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boundaries. Durkheim's is thought social weak becausehe felt it regardingoriginary despite its distort his to the tendency to to metaphor of solidarity stick was necessary social ontological analysis, especially with respect to so-called `early' societies. But Deleuze's thought is indispensible when one wants in a more detailed way to account for why the formless, unboundedgerm of society, a rhizome, neednot be supposedto. have, asDurkheim supposedit to have, at the sametime no unity and a "supplementary dimension" or a "comprehensive secretunity" in which it exists as a ie. (Deleuze Guattari 1988: 6). By clan a potential and root, as radicle or potential its from horde the attribute of ambiguous non-unity/secret-unity, with positing Deleuzian thought we can infer that Durkheim attempted to by-passthe question of the unity of the primal clan and of mechanicalassemblage. Indeed, Durkheim's tactic here gives the impressionthat Durkheim is devaluing the social criterion of in favour of a more scientific approachto the explanation of the origins of unity has But Durkheim to supplementthis obscure explanation straight then society. kind by to the a of proto-typical spiritual reality or collective clan away granting is intellectual In there a strange symbiosis here which conscience. other words, denial in includes thought the a and an affirmation of unity. same somehow In A Thousand PlateausDeleuze and Guattari claim that "the abortionists of because doctores indeed they affirm a properly angelici, angel makers, unity are insight is 6). But (1988: this perhaps mainly available to angelic and superior unity" those who have indeed searchedfor such a unity. For, to be sure, with Tarde and Foucault, and againstDurkheim, Deleuze himself, between Difference and Repetition and A ThousandPlateauscan be understood as searchingfor nonby that are nevertheless characterized social analysis of nonsubjective units both Tarde Durkheim, Deleuze Against and wanted to reject the strategy extension.

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of using a metaphor to convey to whatever non-extended social agency that will be found a merely symbolic status. With Spinoza, Deleuze is a affective realist and a is Spinozist for However, thinking to the purely unable account materialist. developmentof a paradigm of productivity and the consequentcoming into necessity of a conceptualconvergencebetween society and modernity. As usual, it is Bergson that comesto the aid of Deleuze. Deleuze and Guattari would explain this in A ThousandPlateaus.

In Bergson there is a distinction between numerical or extended multiplicities

and qualitative or durational multiplicities.

We are doing

approximately the same thing when we distinguish between arborescent multiplicities

and rhizomatic multiplicities.

micromultiplicities.

Between macro- and

On the one hand, multiplicities

that are extensive,

divisible, and molar; unifiable, totalizable, organizable; conscious or preconscious - and on the other hand, libidinal, unconscious, molecular, intensive multiplicities

(1988: 33).

It is on the basis of this distinction betweentypes of multiplicities that Deleuze and Guattari propose their breakthrough figures of the machinic and the rhizome. But is Deleuze and Guattari's `rhizome', for example, simply a new `horde', a disavowed unity, a new model-in-waiting-for-formation? Unfortunately, secret new I do not have the spaceto fully addressthis question here, but we can note that this is is by deploying Deleuze to Bergson's concerned avoid precisely and explicitly what distinction betweentypes of multiplicities. The `rhizome', like the `machinic' in AntiOedipus, is not intended as a model. A model is precisely an idea which may or

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design its be is then and extension; contingency given not extrinsic rather than may intrinsic. According to Deleuze, unity and universality are only contingents,but the latter are, however, necessarilyextracted from what is at hand. This does not decreasetheir contingency, but it conditions it. Or, better yet, as Deleuze and Guattari put it in A ThousandPlateaus,uniquenessis that which is subtracted from be in to constituted events (1988: 6). So, for example,the whatever multiplicities are clan is not, as Durkheim seemsto suggest,an accidental, additional, or supplemental from horde. Rather, the clan's arose a prior somehow, somewhere given which be thought propose should only contingency- one could now of as a uniqueness itself constitutes,not only potentially or to the extent that it is clan each which in future differentiating functionally a which is far away, but rather capableof in future is through a need which always at hand. For one actually and necessarily for `clan' the sake of a neededcollective that the or group exists only could say ie. for to allow multiple modesof voice to addresstogether a future enunciation, form by is is the shared problems given which critical and clan compelled to which face with directnessand immediacy. Thus, the solution to Durkheim's problem, though Deleuze does not refer to this problem as such, is neverthelesstangible for Deleuze via Bergson.. It lies in the theory of what we could call -I would provide a definition here to remain within the illustrate in horde, to theory a point non-extended order social whose of ambit -a be is to than actively critical of certain overgeneralized and unity no more by boundaries instead hidden not affirming a new or more external apparently interiority such as a reflected and opinionated self but rather a particular, practical, What here is outside continuity. we are speaking of not an entity, problem-centered,

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then, but rather the theory of an act of exteriorizing creative disorganization implied and fostered in every actual event of collectivization. There are more than fanciful reasons for such a reading of Deleuze. Durkheim posited a `horde' which, given his aims and his evolutionary framework, he could be satisfied with defining as an amorphous `primitive'

group. Given the

distinction between types of multiplicities Bergson's new rigorous requirements of and his conception of creative or open evolution, it is logical for Deleuze to turn himself to investigate `the horde'. But this time what will be investigated will not be a horde in the sense of a primitive group. It will rather be a horde in the sense of a `crowd' or `mass', a horde that can be fully relevant in modernity. What is now of interest is a horde in immediate relation to an unbridled modern process of horde `body', in the process of forming, one as a pre-territorial one a production, body is In "a organized. short, such without organs is not an empty not yet which body stripped of organs, but a body upon which that which serves as organs... is distributed according to crowd phenomena... in the form of molecular multiplicities" (Deleuze and Guattari 1988: 30).

So `the horde' will have to be for Deleuze a `body of the crowd' or a `full body', and be situated in direct relation to production. In this way, the `horde' is also a zone of sociality, or a `socius'. For one needsto account for that which appearsto is how that since organized production miraculously create organizedproduction, ie. According to Deleuze, however, to given. as an accidental subjects, new appears this solution of `the given', along with its potential for a favourable reception among `good common sense' and/or a symmetrically critical reception among of subjects be in favour to radicals, ought revolutionary rejected of a conception unreconstructed is Deleuze process. rhizomatic often particularly uncompromising in of unconscious

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his stanceagainst what he takes to be vulgar radicalism and what he seesas its "if knows In Deleuze's the words, unconscious negation. central method, namely, is in is because it the unconscious, only there nothing negative nothing of negation, indefinite moves toward and away from zero, which does not at all expresslack but (Deleuze body Guattari full the as support and prop" the and positivity of rather 1988: 31). Negation is often valued among radicals for the way it is able, if applied is illusion that the to social reality madeup of atomsthat can to reifications, expose be known with certainty, ie. that have no mediating and thus potentially controversial Guattari, `horde' be Deleuze For between the them. and can neither relationships in fashion. Durkheimian It be isolation in can only postulated nor analysed `founding `true by the the mythology', perception of examined carefully penetrating But the false primitive social group. call also, one of the we movement' which a interesting aspectsof this theory of the social body is that it brings the social question back into the context of the question of senseand away from the context of the questionof certainty. A `non-extendedhorde', though it is not named as such, is the focus of Deleuze and Guattari's analysis of the question of social substanceinasmuch as the latter is analytically prior to that which may become perceived as given, certain, divine, and autochthonous. The `non-extendedhorde,' if it is not `the One' socius, is because `the is Many' Many' `the either, a multiplicity people of or a sheermass not One' its function `the dividing. by determined to is and of reference that ultimately Rather, "it is only the category of multiplicity, used as a substantiveand going beyond both the One and the many, beyond the predicative relation of the One and desiring-production for desiring-production: is pure that account can the many, is irreducible is that to to that any sort of unity" an affirmation say, multiplicity,

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(Deleuzeand Guattari 1984: 42). The `horde', then, in Deleuze's thinking, can be defined as a non-extended,indeterminate, but substantive `social multiplicity'.

It is

the substanceof desiring-production. AntiOedipus and Postmodernism Is there any `deeperreason' for this `return to the horde'? I think the reason is primarily that Deleuze, together with Guattari, cannot be satisfied with Bergson's final importance `open ' is becauseDeleuze This the to of society. conclusion as further for like him for the think to of ethical conditions practice, which as would Guattari involves boundary issuesand therefore also thinking again in terms which ie. in boundaries, social-ontological terms. Deleuze and Guattari want problematize in no way to assumeboundaries,particularly territorial, group boundariesbasedon a family model. But, tellingly, they will also have nothing to do with or say about Mark Seem, in `mutual his introduction to self-care'. of alternative models AntiOedipus, suggeststhat such a anarchic system of care, basedon `personalenergy implicit for be in Deleuzian model could an collectivity control', under personal thinking (Deleuze and Guattari 1984: xxii). Let us supposethis meansthat this care is defined as a processthat takes place between single personsor agentswho are defined by the needsand desiresof their extendedbodies. Such an interpretation of Deleuze would involve an unfortunate error. Even if one could remain on this level, interpretive' have difficulty in `politically one probably would great superficial (p. between 171) distinction for I Deleuzianthe the above mentioned accounting Tardian social philosophy of the single social agent and the microsociologies with `the focus between', `the the mutual' to or upon such as sameagentswhich respect interactionist sociology.

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But secondly, and more seriously, one would miss the more subtle distinction betweenthe social philosophies of Deleuze and Tarde. The Tardian conception of the social is of a quasi-tragic struggle against the family for the purpose of establishingnon-hierarchically-basedcultural customs. The Deleuzian conception seemsto refer to the samestruggle, and Deleuze seemsto add only the emphasisthat this is always a struggle againstthe `family within the self.' But this is simply not true: the social referent is not exactly the samefor the two thinkers. If Tarde idea be that the social rejected progress could critically conceived and challenged into by to taking solidarity needs of reference without account and organized solely the significance of new group models createdby new attractions, Deleuze, following Bergson, rather challengesboth sides of this equation. Bergson challengedthe idea that social configurations must have boundarieswhich are ultimately extendedand closed, and that social relations are static subject-object relations vis-a-vis these boundaries. Bergson challengesrepresentationin sociology. Deleuze goes further than Bergson. Deleuze challengesnot so much the representationalidea that boundariesinvolve `closure' and `exclusion' as the defeatist idea that it is not possible to conceive of social groups ontologically and outside of a critique of social representations. This attitude of Deleuze's makesit difficult to situate his thought in relation intellectual influential the movement of his own time, and to what was perhaps most leader, be `postmodernism'. Since he to thought namely, a often was of which `postmodernism' is a confusing term that has been used in many different contexts to let field down different the to narrow phenomena, us and/or events and refer vastly be inhabit `postmodernism' to the core of the that which might said take only form it is has if from that thinking a movement of which evolved movement -

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Heideggerianthought where the term might be said to have its greatest senseof polemical relation to the western philosophical and cultural tradition tout court. Heideggeriandeconstructionbegins with an attempt to correlate `use' and the `being there' of the using subject in a way which problematizes human Being as a purported in The totalitarianism the mid-20th-century then causesan problem of universal. descriptive to this make a of attempt phenomenology work to abandonment illuminate the conditions of a `fundamental' ontology. Indeed, it is not the project of `fundamentalontology' so much as the way the latter is linked with a method of descriptive phenomenologythat becomesstrategically suspectin the post-war period. This is evident in the fact that deconstructionends by eschewing description `re-thinking that continually proposing community' will lead to an altogether and avowal of the complexity of a `justice' that will in turn constrain intelligent social individuals to a tolerant disposition. The problem is that Deleuze's approachoften seemsto sharemore of an later Heidegger. This is true in a the the than the of method early rather affinity with very specific sense: that Deleuze and the early Heidegger tend to focus most of their `the great Kantian error' which consists in assuming that the attention upon critical is useful only as an meansof the verification or of phenomena appearance falsification of knowledge. Knowledge is madeup of claims which imply a judgement that certain realities and certain accompanying modes of criticism can be defined for `everyone'. Now, in my view, with the early Heidegger, Deleuze's interest lies not so much in `representation'per se as in how the question of knowledge can be transformed into the more productive question of how notions `use' Moreover, Deleuze arguably takes to of may phenomena vary. respect with this line of thinking to a more logical conclusion than that of mere `deconstruction'.

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For eventhough the end of deconstruction might seemethically justifiable such a is because it dubious intelligence, dubious. It highly presupposes path remains in socialization, and variation the technical means of society. I often get the impressionthat such categoriesare, as a result, more compartmentalizednow than the statethey were in before Heidegger published Being and Time. This is what interestsme in the Deleuzian position: the distinction betweenDeleuze and postHeideggerianthinking lies precisely in that Deleuze acceptsthat sociality requires that we discussnot only community but also how social relations must vary in how has technical the means, and a variations concept with concommittantly central role only as a pragmatic crystallization of this relation. To be sure, comparisonsbetween Deleuze and Heidegger are only beginning in Heidegger's Even the project was still one of comparisons. `fundamental' ontology - it was still primarly oriented to investigating the `grounding' of ways of being. Due to Bergson's influence, Deleuze, together with Guattari, is always primarily interestedin `the intuition of the actual'. Indeed, Deleuze well observedhis own contemporary circumstancesin which he along with discrediting final the and complete of sociologism and a everyone else witnessed 20th-century ' In including for `alternative to thinkers, most contrast models. need Heidegger, Deleuze rejected intellectual elitism. Deleuze refused to dismiss the `idle him `ideology' talk', or as screensthat are or as academicconversationsaround `unfortunately necessary'to control the intensity of the feelings which connect us did believe Deleuze filters that simply not society. such or with other membersof definition in included be Deleuze the of a modem society. necessarily should media did not becomea `60s thinker. '

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Nonetheless,Deleuze believed in the development of socially-informed for key Deleuze But the to the advancementin such philosophy is not to philosophy. first formulate the conditions in which `mutual self-care' might be possible in the midst of a horde that one posits as a `masssociety' which swings wildly between anarchyand total control. Rather, following the Tardian dictum not to take social but in for also view of the error that Tarde made by hastily ontology granted, family is theory the the of model, espousing what therefore important for Deleuze is to formulate and explore the horde itself, or pre-familial and pre-individual social reality. In their social thought Deleuze and Guattari are interested in `the actual' particularly as a construct of anarchic and yet strangely consistent `hordic thinking'. Since such collectivity-based thinking is the key to the creation of all socially-useful higher-order concepts,Deleuzian philosophy has to be said to be essentially a social furthermore its takes and one which point of departure from an implicit philosophy, critique of Durkheimian sociology. Thus, with Deleuze, sociology well and truly meets its rival, philosophy, and it is a meeting point at which one can no longer be surejust exactly in what their has `affiliation' Is line Deleuze's consisted. of thinking `post-modern' or previous `pre-modern'? Deleuzian thought intimately involves a social ontology horde' `non-extended that of a which affectively conditions first characterizableas individually-useful then concepts, a way of thinking and being our sociallyand our that animatesthe tribe as much as it swarmsin the flows of capital. As Deleuze and Guattari would put it, "it cannot be said that the previous formations did not foresee this Thing that only came from without by rising from within, and that at all costs had to be prevented from rising" (Deleuze and Guattari 1984: 153). By thus basic transforming sociology's most premise, the premise of the primitive critically

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`the in this terms of revolutionary of an analysis actual' with group, and combining `desiring-production', Deleuzian thought exposesboth the absurdity but no lessthe intuition Durkheimian delirious social ontology. of uncanny, The Actual and the Virtual

Bergson formulated metaphysicsas the desire to intuit reality directly, as "the (1999: Since dispense 24). this `reality' is thus to that symbols" with claims science itself, time and since the movement of time involves the the substantialmovement of future as well as the past and the present,intuition bears more precisely upon what future be included in `the the the actual even to may since actual', we ought call though the future is not included in anything we can call reality. Rather than oppose the future and reality, Bergson includes the future in the actual. For the future is the is in from that the the processof time only view of point of which movement of actualizing, and not of that which simply might actualize, since such `possibilities' in included But by definition time. the this raisesanother of movement not are between is the coherenceor co-existence,and relationship question,namely, what how How co-exist, can these apparently regular patternsof the actual? can anything is if future for life, future is the the the a part of exist, actual, since example, of social future is, in fact, itself the the since and extension, non-extended shape undetermined from the point of view of time? The answerthat Deleuze finds in Bergson is, on one level, quite simply deduced: co-existenceis not the form of the determined or a `relatively solid' snapshotof the frozen but rather comesto eachco-existing form from without. It is a zone of indeterminacy. But at the sametime it arisesfrom `full' indeterminacy the the rich or of the actual, since within the movement of inasmuch is involved dawns in only as each upon each actual other's existence leaves having Bergson the thus scene usefully provided an outline of a movement.

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decentredsociology, one without a group and without a self, one which focusses, for Deleuze,upon the nature of an `open society of creators' (1988a: productively, 111). What Bergson allows for, but does not follow up, is a thinking of variation in key formation. Deleuze takes the step of linking social formations with the social desiring-production. `The in AntiOedipus, becomes`the actual', variations of machinic.' After Bergson `the actual' can finally be organized ontologically in terms of a virtuality which is no longer merely `the whole' but rather includes the future in is Implicit Deleuzian thinking the actual. a `non-extendedhorde' which is within the virtual principle of social co-existencewhich `organizes' the actual. The `nonbody' but horde' is `full a one precisely `without organs'. That is to say extended that it exists prior to the organization efforts of individuals. This intuition of Durkheim was correct: "there is not one of all the single centers of consciousness body the of the nation, to whom the collective current is not make great up who almost wholly exterior, since each contains only a spark of it" (1966: 316). The problem is that Durkheim, following the model of other sciences,too-hastily attributed extension to this `body', such as this `national' extension. The theory of the non-extendedhorde allows one to perceive,without compromising and in fact through enhancing the point of view of the actual, how organization, along with the `external social patterns' of organization-over-time, and therefore the appearanceof `social externality, ' is actually immanent in the horde. Every organization arises from within the horde in responseto the problems of a desirewhich has not yet any body which is distinct enoughtto `attract' it or guide it `from beyond its own horizons', since at this stageit has no `horizons'. What is at stake are the problems desire inventing the the time are at same problems a which of of coping machines.

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Thus, by meansof the Bergsonian analysis of time, the actual is able to becomes beyond But totality. the of problem what progress of central importance is the way the theory of the actual and the virtual is able to exhibit, in real time, our curiously modem and machinic mode of co-existence. This is the mode of coexistencethat Durkheim first called attention to in the Division of Labour in Society, in which Durkheim showedthat modem social reality lies precisely and positively in division, structure, and connection. To be sure, a significant part of the aim of Deleuze and Guattari in AntiOedipus is to show how the figure of the `machinic' involves a critique of the Freudian concept of the death drive, the psychological conception according to which "desire can be made to desire its own repression" (1984: 105). Freudian theory is a useful starting point for Deleuze and Guattari in AntiOedipus. But their framework of analysis is simultaneously anti-psychologistic for them, conversely, the discovery that "social enables, anti-sociologistic, which and desiring-production are one and the same" (Deleuze and Guattari production and 1984: 116). It might be objected that Deleuze formulates such a radical social theory that it is far too divorced from reality to be of any use to working philosophers and interpretation Here the of Deleuze of Alain Badiou is recently popular sociologists. ironic. Badiou's revisionist reading of Deleuze is that Deleuze pertinent, and rather is actually much more conservativethan most observersthink, since, according to him, "Deleuze's fundamental problem is most certainly not to liberate the multiple but to submit thinking to a renewedconcept of the One" (2000: 10). To be sure, as in Spinozism is Deleuzian have thinking, and the there of a strong element seen, we in from One Deleuze Spinoza. Thus, all "those who the comes precisely concept of for is Deleuze everything a whom celebrate event, surprise,and creation naively

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[forget] that the multiplicity of `what-occurs' is but a misleading surface, becausefor is ] `Being in [in Deleuze's the thought, unique words, event which all veritable (2000: According 10). is Badiou, "it to one another"' eventscommunicatewith therefore necessaryto maintain that Deleuze's philosophy is particularly systematic in that all the impulsions are taken in by it according to a line of power that is invariable precisely becauseit fully assumesits status of singularity. This is why, in described it be (2000: 16). Thus, as an abstract philosophy" can also my view, ... from Badiou's point of view, for example, one would read Deleuze and Guattari's What is Philosophy? as a clarification of a philosophy which was all along a I indeed be think that. than some such assertion never more would philosophy and in entailed Badiou's argument. I agreewith one of the key implications of Badiou's reading, namely that it is `early be there to an socially-concerned Deleuze' and a suppose erroneous would `late purely philosophical Deleuze' which can be significantly contrastedwith one is because Badiou Deleuze was However, that this claim would whereas another. in his "ethics (2000: 16), I would rather thought" of an of pursuit single-minded in Deleuze's the writing as strategical variations stemming from variations explain between in Deleuze's tension philosophy and sociology. I think Badiou the work ignorance his to apparent of the sociological side of makes a seriesof errors related Deleuze's work. Of most concernis that, becauseBadiou missesDeleuze's implicit Deleuze's interest in he that theory, supposes non-extended engagementwith social flux is merely indicative of a philosophical taste for `the abstract', or as Badiou defines the latter, for the "quasi-organic consistencyof conceptual connections" (2000: 16). This, perhapstogether with his observation of Deleuze's apparently leads is Badiou Deleuze kind lifestyle, to that then suppose simply a of stoic. ascetic

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For `stoics' are concernedprecisely with a philosophy of death, and Badiou thinks an is to attraction such a philosophy exactly what explains the appearancein Deleuze's thinking of the `categoryof the outside' which is necessarily correlated with a nondeath is, "For " in impersonal Badiou's reckoning "above all exteriority. extended intimately is individual it to the that most simultaneously related which else, affects impersonality in or exteriority to this individual. In and a relationship of absolute this sense,it is thought, for thinking consistsprecisely in ascetically attaining that impersonal is by individual is the transfixed that the exteriority where equally point his or her authentic being" (2000: 12). What a strangeirony that Badiou should raise his voice in the period of denouementof the Deleuzian oeuvre only to make a pronouncementupon Deleuzian from exactly that which was the point of view against philosophy of turnphilosophy here `thinking' What Badiou is in fact nothing more calls sociology! of-the-century `thinking Durkheimian the than the social.' Moreover, it model of and nothing other it basic forgotten Durkheim be in that the text to this produced was who seems Suicide (1966) had lengthy the expresspurpose of on monograph which a regard: by the the the theory of ontological externality social of arguing that the supporting latter's limit-case and final proof residesin the phenomenonof extreme selfhave held, Guattari Can Deleuze really all along, the point of view and abnegation. Deleuze Guattari in Quite Certainly death? to the and contrary, stated not. of AntiOedipus that "the subject-groupalways invents mortal formations that exorcize (1984: And instinct" it death in xxii). even more simply several the effusion of a kind "eve death drive" in Plateaus: later, A Thousand are not evoking any of years (1988: 229).

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But perhapssuch quotations are not enough to persuadea tenacious reader such as Badiou. Perhapsonly a more full clarification of Deleuze's relation to Durkheim would enablea real refutation of Badiou's interpretation of Deleuze. In fact, I believe this must be so. For we needto know precisely why Deleuze would be against such an interpetation of his own thought. For this one must begin, as we have, by examining Deleuze's connection with Bergsonian post-sociology. And the have in as we must answer, seen, reside the contrast between two basic elements. Firstly, we have seenDurkheim's marriage-influenced model of social ontology in which the externality of the social is proved by reference to obligation, denoting a `reality principle' by which is explained the rest of social organization including `love' or desire-as-attraction. Is this that far from Badiou's position? Secondly, we have seenthe way Deleuze and Guattari, by following out and problematizing the Tardian critique of resemblance,turn Durkheimian sociology on its head by analysing first the necessarycollective production of `the actual', as can be dynamic horde, in they argue, only within a conceived, relation to which attractive bodies, love, and capital appearonly as contingent, symptomatic, or derivative is do here All I can point out the significant difference betweenwhat productions. Deleuze and Guattari have expresslyproduced by way of social theory. But indeed for it is impossible basis that me to agreewith Badiou, who, due to his alone on immanent their critique of sociology, seemsto supposethat their work of neglect constitutes no more than a prolonged philosophical contemplation of the main problematic of Durkheim's sociology. Conclusion What is Philosophy may appearto turn away from the earlier, more socially it, Deleuzeseemsto summarily dismiss sociology by declaring it In relevant work.

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But par excellance. rival modern careful attention to the implications philosophy's how the subsequenttrajectory of Deleuze's thought to of such a claim and implications, least testifies these the to to the impossibility of at very corresponds such a dismissal. As even Badiou correctly points out, a concern with the `outside' later in implied, However, does this that work. even remains not changeor diminish the fact that in the earlier work the constitution of an outside, as analysedin Deleuze's book on Foucault, is linked more explicitly with revolutionary, antibecoming social, such as we seewith the figure of the of ways psychologistic in machinic AntiOedipus. Figures such as the machinic are in Deleuze's work social in diagonal lines throughout societies ramify which particulars which leave no become the object of a projection of essenceor origin. then could which remainder The machinic is precisely not an essenceor origin of modernity but is just simply one impersonal modesof assemblage. Perhapswhat makesthis plural, of modernity's difficult to seeis that the connectionbetweenthis kind of pluralistic philosophy and the premisesof classical sociology, by the time of the writing of AntiOedipus, have been largely forgotten. Even in the works of the late sixties and early seventiesthe between the outside and the classical sociological problematic of the connection by is ignored the virtually everyone. social externality of But let us point the blame more specifically at what seemsto be a certain inattention in the social theoretical and philosophical communities to the influence of Bergson upon Deleuze. Bergson's inconclusive struggle with Durkheimian into Deleuze's be to seen carry over clearly work. In contrastto can sociologism Bergson's contemplation of a needfor an `open society', Deleuze was able to As Deleuze the society. said of Foucault, with whom he felt open theorize notion of less is key "speak Open the to the than of the Outside" (1988: of a strong affinity,

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113). Herein is announced the key, implicit distinction between the post-messianic fully Bergson the modern perspective aimed at by Deleuze and and perspective of Foucault. Deleuze himself had begun to theorize the outside already in Difference and Repetition and then together with Guattari, by reappraising Tardian social it of the tendency to metaphorize the open space of creative and purging philosophy imitation, and by examining instead the specific unconscious operations by which `openness' is the collective production of the actual, or the production of an impersonal field of forces. In contrast to Tarde's mere suggestiveness, Deleuzian thought effectively replaces what Durkheim could only pose as a doctrine of the `externality of the social'. What arises in its place is an analysis, inspired by but how intuition Bergson, beyond the of specific movements of intelligence, of going forces technical productive operate together along what are only socialization, and desire trajectories of and the social. Together, they produce a apparently opposed synthesis: an outside which is seized immediately as it appears, seized as a virtual but no less urgent reality, as an ordinary rather than an exemplary source of by and through each actor as an moderating and stimulating intuition of sustenance, co-existence with others within the actual.

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CONCLUDING CHAPTER

SOCIAL NEED AS OCCUPATIONAL: TOWARD A CONTEMPORARY ONTOLOGY OF MODERN SOCIAL TIME AND SPACE

The trajectory Durkheim-Tarde-Bergson-Deleuzetakes us through three major following from the the social ontology, one of upon other: provenance on positions the deductive approach(pure sociology), to the discovery of limited universals (social models), to the project of conceiving fully-ramifying particulars (figures). There is one transformation that links them all together: the movement from a doctrine or relatively passivenotion of social externality towards a more active social image of the outside. In this final chapter I shall attempt to work toward an analysis based the upon the elementsof this movement, of a principles, of main of some time and space. social of modern ontology contemporary This takes me back to my starting point: the notion of occupation in Durkheim. For like him, I seein the movementof modernity a glimpse of the key to the movement of social ontogenesis. However, the movement of modernity that I his he `increasing is theory the the presents with of as what same perceive not at all be It type the the mechanical of solidarity. organic over will preponderance'of how different is it I to conception my of show modernity now and as see necessary -

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how different it must be after reading Tarde, Bergson, and Deleuze - from that of Durkheim. For the outcome of this reading might be mistaken for a theory, for example,of a new modern archetypethat would simply be an improved alternative to that of Durkheim's conception of organic solidarity. The transformation from the image to a more positively externality responsible a of perceived of the notion outside might indeed be tempting to presentas an archetype embeddedin our collective unconsciousperhapsas a result of a political revolution or some other it difficult for kind for to account might seem otherwise of event, a nonmajor for how this non-empiricality is precisely what is to account empirical repetition, and issue here. at However, archetypes,though in themselvesnon-empirical, are nevertheless in behavioral, be to some combination of manifested cultural, and supposed is development. I What think essentialabout modernity is rather the birth conceptual is kind related to the constitution of the outside. This which of movement of a direction in the opposite of any movement that one movement would move virtually from As lynchpin the the an archetype. outside, as stemming conceive could of its is become, the of constitution agency would constituted, as it modern sociality, Durkheim less rightly separatedthe question of so. not more manifested, were, he from But believed, do I the ontology. of social question social reality as empirical but indicated harmony, in is there nevertheless that non-empirical an ultimate not, law and social constraint, betweenthe factual and the ontological levels of the he his is This to tried the express with metaphor of what social. question of `solidarity', and this is what I have devoted most of the first part of this thesis to attacking.

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There are a number of points over which I very much agreewith Durkheim. Durkheim argued that our occupations, as can be seen in an analysis of the division of labour in society, are creaturesof an ongoing crisis and creation of social modernity. They do not only resonatewith our present senseof our employment situations. Rather, they re-enactthe creative/destructive process,the difference, from from society, that modernity createsas an ontological and apart selves, apart it is both. As a result, not merely our social practices but rather critical window upon the occupational dimension of our social practices that is the ontological source of the theory and genealogyof, as well as the responsibility for, the problems constitutive of social modernity. However, I disagreethat one can fruitfully apply a notion of institutional Rather, to this social occupations. of modern concept we can and ought persistence instead By I the the to actual. a concept of actual meanthe spatioemploy now temporal sensory modality of social existencewhich is parallel, co-extensive,and coterminous with the ontological point of view of the occupation. One could say that, having undertaken the trajectory of social thought that this thesis has taken, the kind become has the of sociological correlate of the a actual, occupation, as Deleuzian conception of the virtual, rather than of the Durkheimian conception of the includes The the the trajectory of the virtual, actual, as an actualization of whole. future. the the past, present,and also occupation through Below I will illuminate what have been describedtraditionally as mainly horizontal relations betweena past, presentand future which succeedeach other, as, instead, structured in each moment of modernity as vertical passagesfrom our in into through the our sense of presence a real of outside, outside, a critical notion `full' or mature, responsibleimage of the outside, toward theform of occupation

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in formal is longer but is rather the occupation as a the sense of vocational no which boundary-formation which is, again, constitutive of the notion of the outside. This is the circuit of the social as a medium of sense,of the condition of cognition in the layering incorporates the conceptualization and the real encounter which ontological with the external. Deleuze's notion of `full' particularity provides the inspiration for this spatiotemporal fullness of the occupation which reaches,as it were, its vertical peak in the image of the outside. It is an agencywhich is always already `full' of time and space,rather than lacking on, or dominated from, one side or the other. Though it is is `the `full' particularity, occupation' not a substanceand never could be, precisely a becauseoccupationsare processes,not loci, of creative destruction. Perhapsoften our `feelings of being occupied' are vibrant and alive, and they seemto be accompaniedby regular as well as new social opportunities. But that is only because it `get link They there', as were. out us us with an outside that is `larger' occupations than ourselves. Occupationsmake us forget ourselves and feel ontological continuity immediately, with no creative locus, and even without an intermediary `community. ' Precisely becauseof their function of creative dislocation they allow us to feel bad, feelings, be they to the social as a whole. to our or relate good continuity, For me, as we shall see,society exists only in this occupational sense. Society is wholeness,but wholenessas contingency, as incomplete; occupation is the in its internal this of social wholeness accordance necessity with or need incompleteness. But what I am referring to here is not an internal teleology which finality. For itself it is the time at to a certain same with as an act seeks complete fullness. is latter The thus cannot mean already always also occupation upon a need, intrinsically is it complete or abstractly whole. But nor doesthis that somehow

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fullness mean that it is `not lacking, ' as if it were a task indifferently waiting for an itself for it. Rather, here is in to manifest occupation come will agencywhich from it distinct has kind full that messianic which means as modem a of principle being itself in its is the to a process of creation of need which at the same adequacy time no more than a thinking of the particular problems of that need. This thinking out of prioritized problems is co-extensive with and dependent it if is determined, but as were a part of the manifestation, the not upon practice `tricks of the trade', of certain practices. Practice takes place in the present. If involves drama, like in the a partly conscious, partly unconscious present, practice `necessary illusions', if then a play of and reality, of appearance we convergence itself isolate be isolating to would only practice we an were social-theoretically assumptionthat appearanceand reality are separableprior to and/or at the end of but Alternatively, that practices posit are then our could never-ending, we practice. identity to them since collapse speak of would an eternal of of whole conception be it `incorrect', be though would not would nevertheless and reality, appearance incomprehensible. That and which makes the assumption nonsensical paradox, pure is duality a necessary part of practices reality the and appearance not this of of duality itself as if it were a `real duality', which is absurd, but nor is this agency definable in terms of an identity that could somehow be conceived apart from the face In is in the these duality, of alternatives, absurd. equally which problem of is an occupationalperspectivewhich enablesus to account create practice what we for what makes necessaryillusion, the whole problem of simulation for example, a define being The to sufficient us. occupational necessarypart of practiceswithout dynamic in is the simply of a sequenceof practices perception perspective differences, for example first the difference of the initial role; then the difference of

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the impression that thesedifferent practices together make something new which is sensednot as a new somethingbut rather simply as the thrilling feeling of participation; then the difference of the emerging forms of work, labour, or action against which, in productivity terms, the initial role is evaluated. These differences take place in practices but are not manifested as a part of practices. They are that aspectof practices which - not successivelybut rather simultaneously or vertically within an event of practice- opens,occupies,and moves on. It is occupational sequencessuch as thesethat are primary in social practices. Neither the concept of a practice not the observationof that which appearsas that practice can grasp these events becausethey cannot revive the forward-facing senseof need which animates them. I first want to discussthe issue of social need in greater detail. I will then turn to use the insights that ariseto indicate someof what I think will be main features of a contemporary ontology of modem occupations. Two Principles of Modern Existence: Need and Obligation For Durkheim social necessityis a combination of need and obligation. Instead of accepting Durkheim's tautological equation we can restyle social necessityas an ontological distinction operative throughout the Division of Labour. Let us then examine how we might effect such a reconceptualization of his project. Durkheim's argumentas a whole in the Division of Labour, basedas it is is the explicitly channelled through his concepts of need and of obligation, upon "organism" is An `organism'. for Durkheim the relation of society as an conception between"living movements" as seenfrom the perspective of the whole or the unity be (1984: 11). There those must some place for a conception of the movements of `social whole' in any theory of social necessity. The point of view of the `social for is because, Durkheim, this is the only perspective whole' significant primarily

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from which we have any chanceof telling whether or not a particular movement is absolutely neededand therefore felt as obligatory. If a need is felt, it is indicative, for Durkheim, of the possible attainment of this holistic perspective. As in the division labour, for Durkheim, is a responseto a `needof the of exampleof marriage, in wholeness' which results the pursuit of an overall evaluative perspective. The first steptoward understandingthe ontological distinction operative here is to seethat Durkheim is implying in his reasoning that the human need of in function has a particular or vital movement. On the no provenance wholeness other hand it is true that, with his novel strategy of argumentation which appealsto `structuresof need', the primary social motivation, the `needof wholeness,' is idea divorced from the of social relations considered asgeneralities, productively such as we consider the relation of exchange. The need of wholeness is for Durkheim real not becauseit is conceptually general but rather becauseit is continuous and external, and is thus contendedto be primary among that which As Leibniz pointed out, generalizationspresupposean external concepts. conditions both Tarde's Durkheim's and social philosophies begin, in different and continuity, is first formulate Durkheim the to this type. the premise of ways, with a premise of becomes What fundamental in for him, terms. theoretical social continuity strongly but his is most that also controversial original most premise, constitutes which and that the `structure' arising from the need of wholeness,that is, the way each individual finds the other, is, in substance,"outside each other" (Durkheim 1984: 22). There is a constitutive moment in social theory here where an image of the And here I is first to social existence. should reiterate of a convey used outside in Durkheim though I base that to even one, chapter attempted argued as a course, deduction of social fact upon this image, there is, in fact, nothing in itself deductive

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it, deductive in form, is it Durkheim's though of expression merely about and metaphorical. Though he falls into the trap of a metaphorical realism Durkheim nonetheless `right by basing For to the upon a mere generalize'. sociology avoids successfully falls is into Durkheim Rather, linguistic trap that token, the not unavoidable. same his shortcoming lies in his neglect of searchingfor a way to attribute existenceto is Durkheim's According to view, existence only attributable particular occupations. to the social insofar as it transcendsthe practice and the self of the individual in an determinism. is For This after this transcendencethe a not absolute manner. individual is in fact left to re-assume,if not an autonomy of action, neverthelessa it, "society As Durkheim ultimately, put can exist privilege of agential particularity. fashions individuals it in image `its if it the of and and penetrates consciousness only is in (1973: There 149). it this of contingency a great amount process; resemblance"' determinism There determinism than the tendency a of rather particular. of evokes a is, precisely, much indetermination in the point of view of the individual according to Durkheimian thinking. What is of primary importance is that for Durkheim the intuition from feeds individual the the source of the of the whole. social existenceof Durkheim does not explicitly statethat occupationscannot exist as for For him little that they he leaves but the they can. supposition room particulars, One differentials that could say an occupation, a structure. of as are only considered like a gender difference, is for Durkheim the whole as a senseof lack seenfrom is by individual inasmuch the real as that this confronted particular the as part, within lack But her his beyond this is durably generalization. sense of conceptual or which is for Durkheim not simply a matter of messianicwaiting, mourning, or desire, individual for indicative is just it the because of worldly enablementas as much

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constraint. In other words, in Durkheim's view, the social promises to the individual not a redemption or return or the overcoming of a privation but rather an overarching grandeur of its own possibilities of freeing them to be more of what they already are becoming, not through a senseof destiny but through a sensethat special roles, though changing and dynamic, still must, through a kind of metaphysical taxonomical evolution, eachbring about a significant difference vis-a-vis the social whole. This is that sensewhich is for Durkheim linked with the durable externality of each social fact in relation to the other as confirmed and indicated by the history of rules, regulations, and law. But this is precisely where one will begin to have a problem with Durkheim's way of thinking, becausefor him what the modernity of the modern occupation is is kind that society a a special of reality the necessityof which cannot reveals its in merely actuality. Rather, "eve must determine the degreeto which the consist labour] [the division producescontributesgenerally to the integration of of solidarity society. Only then shall we learn to what extent it is necessary,whether it is an essentialfactor in social cohesion" (Durkheim 1984: 24. Italics mine.). The study of the division of labour and the intrinsic plurality of occupations standsor falls on beginning it from Durkheim has posited, that that the or confirms which not whether "social solidarity is a wholly moral phenomenonwhich by itself is not amenableto (1984: 24). Indeed, the study to measurement" observation and especially not exact is "solidarity that confirms solidarity something too indefinite to of modern organic be easily understood. It remainsan intangible virtuality too elusive to observe. To take on a form that we can grasp, social outcomesmust provide an external interpretation of it" (Durkheim 1984: 27). And yet solidarity is not merely possible, it fact despite that the cannot be materially manifested. For or a mere possibility,

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"where social solidarity exists, in spite of its non-material nature, it does not remain in a stateof pure potentiality, but shows its presencethrough perceptible effects" (1984: 24). Thus, the necessityof society for Durkheim cannot be merely particular, merely general, or even merely possible. Its reality does not consist in such attributes. Nor is it a necessityof constraint, of actual boundaries such as laws, since these are for him only indicators of something else. Rather, the necessity of society is for Durkheim simply the necessityof coherenceamidst diversity, the necessityof `the whole'. The social occupation itself is only a contingent division of this One whole entity. I would opposethis proposition. I would say rather that with respectto ontology society as a senseof the necessityof coherenceand wholeness is a mere contingency, since those attributes refer to the representationalproblem of the dualism of appearanceand reality with its reduction of time to the dialogue between the past and the present. This problem, I would submit, is subordinateto the more fundamental sensein which occupationsare the creation and addressingof needsand in which they are in this the very necessityof an ongoing sociality. In a sense,then, one could with somejustification claim that Durkheim did not attribute enough durability to society, in the sensethat he did not attribute to society a durability that could extend to the temporal modality of needas oriented toward a future that is intimately included in unfolding time. The insight of Durkheim that social quantity does not dependupon empirical manifestation is probably correct, but we have seen that he is frustrated, and falls into obvious errors, when he then wants to link social quantity with progress. With Durkheim we are limited to peering at the future through the opaque lensesof a comparative method. With such a method we restrict ourselvesto the

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elementsof the past and the present. If that means supposing that beyond such a 20 ideal `science' flourish, it also must mean that the restriction such an as may not peculiar temporality of needis fated to remain obscure, addressed,if at all, in only an inadequate,circular fashion. Durkheim feels it is sufficient to make statements such as that "men draw closer to one another becauseof the strong effects of social solidarity" as that social solidarity "is strong becausemen have come closer together" (1984: 25). There is, ultimately, only a linguistic figure at work here which employs the metaphor of strength and solidity to stand for the coherenceof a society which is more than an aggregateof individuals. Durkheim's whole social philosophy boils down to this thin thread of coherencewhich claims to be the basis of every society but which cannot even be proven to be necessaryin relation to any existing be because his To sure, society. realism is precisely only metaphorical, the begins to becomedetachedby Durkheim, albeit in as a social occupation occupation a confusing way, from the false problem of manifestation. With the advent of his social philosophy we can start to envisagethe occupation in a new, more essential, and more invigourating light: in terms of the image of the outside, which is nonfeature But the characteristic of Durkheimian methodology is always the empirical. for he to the metaphysicsof society through actualities which account attempts way limbo between in kind the past and the present. suspended of comparative a are Within the tenetsof Durkheimian sociological method, societies must be posited only as metaphysicalprinciples of totality that - somehow, somewhereimmediately bound and organize `the horde.' In Durkheimian sociology there can be horde subordinateto a metaphysicsof the whole, never a real metaphorical only a horde or virtual coexistenceof the random elementsof the actual. This is brought 20Durkheim often presentedhimself as a champion of the scientific point of view. Seefor example Durkhcim 1996: 121-128.

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in those at points precisely which `organic solidarity' is traced in out most clearly For these are the points in which Durkheim's than penal sanctions. rather restitutive way of thinking shifts abrubtly from what seemsto be the neutral, empirical framework provided by law to the concernsof social theory. At these points, according to Durkheim, the type of society that correspondswith the restitutive type law be cannot comparedwith that which correspondswith the penal type of law of by treating them asjuxtaposed in space. There is a certain non-empiricality about is here. from being However, this all-important point of view, that addressed society repeatedso often in Durkheim, societieshave suddenly and unaccountably become have become `positively' They than merely non-empirical. metaphysical more by degree the only of their effects that are accessibleto individual compared entities, human the the and nature of needthey correspondto. In Durkheim's consciousness farthest law from "restitutory the springs zones of consciousnessand extends words, itself, it becomes beyond it The its distance" (1984: the them. takes more more well 16). What is at work here is a kind of traditional deductive way of thinking in its because, limit Society to see as seem exists we casein `organic ontologically. be inclusive it `farther' than conceived can or more nothing on the part of solidarity', I

individuals, not merely becauseit displays effects which seemto be patterned as by is defined just by design. Society of coherence, a principle not sort of a some for become first design. "The to an entity condition coherent is for the of principle But discordantly. harmony form it does that to such an external clash not not parts bring about cohesion. On the contrary, it presumesit" (Durkheim 1984: 75). The in just that we conceive effect entails of coherence societies not requirement as actual but as `the real', as immediately metaphysicalorganizations of the actual. The mere

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designor systemof a modem society is only an aspect of "negative solidarity", is is "only in the that of another solidarity emanation positive which nature: it is the in feelings `real' the sphere social of of rights which come from a repercussion different source" (1984: 77). Here what is properly metaphysical and real can only be `solidarity', as Durkheim claims. But he does not seemto notice that the latter term, to the contrary, symbolizes a physicality and a characteristic of manifestability that Durkheim has already clearly shown cannot be attributed to the social. Moreover, for Durkheim the articulation of solidarity in modernity is one of business, life, in in commerce, in court, and in administration in family cooperation, in in by that these tasks the or projects are undertaken spheres special various have become just as futureThis that to to show social actuality ought goes groups. it became in Durkheim's thought as past- and present-oriented. Projects oriented require cooperation among an exclusive clique of actors who understandthe special They "overflow to take that the therefore aims project up. or challenge problem beyond" the common consciousness(1984: 82). The formal outside constituted as be have in be fact, filled to to to overflowing with said, would solidarity negative by Durkheim, by `negatively' The as conceived outside, which I meanas projects. is the through of of solidarity, concepts externality and at the sametime an mediated infinite multiplicity of cooperativeprojects, a `multiplicity of ends', so to speak. ' What could be intuitively understoodas a zone of indeterminacy is rather, for some is What boundary this alleged solid. as of solidarity mysterious reason,understood is but not a unity? unity a which 21A concept of the `multiplicity of ends', or polytelisme, was invented by an avowed Durkheimian, CClestinBougld, and promoted by him in an article in 1914 (Vogt 1983: 243). It seemsto me that Durkheim's in be `futural' understanding more could very useful side and perhaps concept a such In his it has in teleology. addition, vis-a-vis while position not seemednecessaryto clarifying even formal here ontological considerationsare of primary concern, I this more connection where explore

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It is indubitable that the occupation, for Durkheim, as the perspective of the division of labour in society, always has the character of a social venture which comestogether with social feelings, feelings of participation in a project. As Durkheim put it in his prefaceto the secondedition of the Division of Labour,

it is otiose to waste time in working out in too precise detail what [our laws] should be. In the present stateof scientific knowledge we cannot foreseewhat it should be, except in ever approximate and uncertain terms. How much more important it is to set to work immediately on constituting the moral forces which alone can give that law substanceand shape!(1984: lvii).

Furthermore, one can seethat for Durkheim occupational agency holds the potential for social innovations and personalinitiatives of varying degreesof originality (1984: 81-5). According to Durkheim, "the more extensivethis free area is, the stronger the cohesion that arisesfrom this solidarity" (1984: 85). But if it seemsthat Durkheim is on the verge of re-thinking social variation in an exciting way, we must remember that for Durkheim, there is no post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning intended in the latter proposition. For Durkheim it is always primarily his concern to hold that "the individuality of the whole" is what is mostly at stakein his thought since few in the latter him, have the to and how it "grows at the sametime understood past, according as that of the parts" (1984: 85). In the Durkheimian view it is actually the mode of least `precedes' that ontologically grounds the free acts, and not cohesion or at social in as moral and political philosophieswhich promote an image of statesof vice versa think it would be well worth doing so to comparethe Durkheimian ontology of social modernity with concepts of society in political philosophy.

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is It `consequences' the occupational arise out of actions. which affairs as holds for Durkheim the key to the occupation as a process, which corporation, not the capacity we need in order to attain a social stability (1984: xxxi-lvii). In Durkheim's way of thinking the social, this premise of the precessionof the social, far from leading him to posit any kind of parallelism as might seem logical, rather runs the risk of being taken by carelessreadersas a positing of an latter indeed be The the would absurd and would social. empirical precessionof if dismissing Durkheim be for Durkheim's project could shown to constitute grounds hold such a belief. But Durkheim does not, in fact, hold such a belief. Rather, Durkheim holds the much more complicated and rather difficult to grasp supposition that the relationship between need,as the sourceof coherence,and obligation, as the general formula of the articulation of this source and as such the structuring is implicit ontological-level equation. Or to an condition of social manifestations, here background `source' it two the concepts are main and another way, put `structure', and in Durkheim's view there is a perfect symmetry between the two as if it two two as modesof expression, were, of what is really they were equal aspects, only one social existence. Of course, Durkheim's social philosophy runs counter to common sense. For distinction between justification the why need and one might ask perhapswith some `stress' `tension'. kind Surely be of or as a simply most obligation cannot construed is do do believe to to and what one that obliged tacitly needs are very one what of us leads However, to this that practical conflicts. to often opposed one anotherand interesting, is and what our common senseunderstandingcannot grasp what deny, is it ignore that but or sometimesoccurs that need can only affirm, rationally the to and yet at sametime supportive of one one another opposed are obligation and

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another,when individuals can no longer practically distinguish between need motivating obligation and obligation satisfying need. This is when, in the Durkheimian view, individuals must simply affirm `solidarity, ' as takes place, he in for example, a vow of marriage. These `events of coherence', as we might claims, for Durkheim are ontologically primary in relation to the more them, call individualistic negotiationswith contradiction. Durkheim's argument implies that between blurring distinction the of such a needand obligation in `factual reality' is evidenceof the genesisof properly social forms of existence. The problem is that such a formulation contains a fundamental ambiguity. How could this possibly engender- as in chapter two we have seenDurkheim imply boundary? In intangible, tend to moments of crisis, social we all see need as an -a virtual reality and obligation as an all-too-tangible, actual reality and on the basis of this division we convince ourselvesof a great, impassable- indeed sublime - gulf between them. The necessityof getting along with others seemsalways twofold in accordancewith a social-ontological acceptanceof a distinction between virtual need divide is But the obligation. not exclusive and boundary-constitutive. and actual And contrary to what Durkheim asserted,we do not needmerely the observation of factual reality to give us essentialinformation in this regard, as we might gather it by fact. We the assigning the virtual reality of change cope with modem can after future. to the the to the to the obligation actual reality of and past present and need But even this tells us little of what we needto know about the distinction becauseto the extent that it is focussedin this way upon the attainment of presence, is If the need of of a need wholeness. as understood still, erroneously, need is be there somesort of event of coherence. Would not the must actual, wholeness Tarde as argued,rather constitute a continuity that can and must of coherence, event

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be composedand decomposedvis-a-vis particular repetitions which, if we supposed them to be unified a priori, would simply not exist, and which must therefore lead us to the premise that the real is a function of the particular, not the whole? On the other hand, such a conception contra Durkheim of the primacy of particularity could not allow us to escapethe problem of the reduction of social existence to the problem of the real. The problem of the real, in its temporal aspect,is always only the problem of the relation between the past and the present. We could satisfy ourselvesby simply stating a truism such as that obligation is only secondaryto the shapingof social time as an unfolding of the immediate present,and need contrastswith obligation becauseneed is more relevant to the in immediacy the the senseof of the particular. It seemsto us that many present social philosophies tend to link needwith the real in such a way. If the latter tend to disagreewith the precessionof the social as a principle of totality, they nevertheless agree with the precessionof needand the way this distinguishes a sociology of the social particular from, say, an economic theory of individual behavior basedupon an inverted or naively externalist conception of needconstruedas `scarcity'. But such a be social philosophy could saying more than that obligation not really particularist has a kind of `mental' priority in social matters,that it is only a priority in conscious reflection, not for that adventurewhich motivates us and of which the best is still to is little Here I too that there still upon which to make a would suggest come. between distinction a particularist social philosophy and a rugged economic practical individualism. I am not saying that the two are the sameor that they refer to the same problems, events, and phenomena. I am rather saying that nothing positive is in fact said about needitself in either conception and in fact we tend to revert with them to an orientation towards the future which is no more than a kind of blind

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waiting which we have seendominatesin the messianic perspective. Perhapsit is no accidentthat at the sametime the theories of the particular, such as we can find in Tarde and Bergson, eachexhibit a peculiar urge to celebratethe power of the model. Let us, then, turn the tables on Durkheim, but without unduly privileging the realist perspectiveof the particular. We begin by recognizing obligation and its imperative to wait for the good which will satisfy needsas the true negative figure. Obligation is a figure of monolithic modernity, a gentle monster that will do the best it can for us `until the systemimproves', but one which at the sametime assertsits privilege to define itself as a leviathan, an `increasing preponderance',or movementforce which tends to eclipse everything. Obligation operatesprecisely as a meansto eclipse need, to divide everything into the attainable and the unattainable, and to strive for that which seemsnecessaryand possible over againstthat which seems impossible. Need, on the other hand, is a figure of multiple and unnecessary modernities. Need is a temporal concept without a before and after and thus without succession,and thus without teleology, without a sourceor an aim in wholeness(in contrast here to obligation). There is no spatial outcome of need. There is only a sequenceof synthesescharacterizableas occupationswhich delimit the everis defined Occupation thus practical contours of need. changing as that aspectof social activity which constitutesand shapesneedinto a reality. Only in retrospect does this seem like a choice betweenone's following of an internal desire versus

22 everyone'sconformityto externalpressure.

22There is also in Durkheim strong evidenceto suggestthat the distinction I draw in this paragraph between need and obligation is closely related to the history of gender relations (see Gane 1992: 85132). I would suggestthat one might fruitfully think; for example, of obligation as a principle of patriarchy and need as a principle of feminism; and one might even correlate theseprinciples each image image the an of outside-as-social-inclusion,ie. a `working contrasting of outside, such as a with outside' among men contrastedwith patriarchy and an image of outside-as-social-exclusionor a `domestic outside' among women contrastedwith feminism, such that each image of the outside refers to an outside of one of the principles in question. Of course, such a correlation might constitute the

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We have thus reachedan understandingthat is required in order for us to turn now to examining fresh ways of socially perceiving, socially understanding, and socially existing, namely, that there are no needsthat precede occupations. Everything social begins with occupation, as occupation. Since occupation constitutes need, and obligation requires the sublimation of need, obligation, far from being a meanstowards facing up to a work-load which calls to be completed, as it is often presentedin vocational terms, can rather be understood as a meansto marginalize the occupation, to contain and minimize the extension of the occupational and the creation of new needs,new problems, and new accomplishmentsinto all areasof life. Social Need as Occupational: Three Analyses We are now in a position to re-evaluateand re-construct the elementsof that intellectual trajectory which takes us from Durkheim to Deleuze. My first premise is that everything social exists on the basisof a logic of being that unfolds in and through occupations. This logic of being is not a logic of a thing that moves but is a logic of movement itself, or a senseof movement. As Bergson teachesus, a thing that moves is most naturally or common-sensicallydefined in relation to successand from distinct is But labour categories such as precisely work, occupation succession. in defined because it is For to success and this succession. relation action, tot and be intuition defined in had have to that occuption traditionally ought an reason,we in `intrinsic ie. from to terms, the relation perspective, messianic value', vocational displacement', `end in itself. but ' `accomplishment tiny or as an worthy of a as an The vocational conception both presupposesand emphasizesa subject of value, a kind of halo over the vocation, exhibiting something about the vocational subject that beginningof suchan analysis,but it would haveto be submittedto extensivecritical andhistorical for here. I do have not space which reflection

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is more important than the vocation itself. But in modernity, what we are compelled to consider about our practicesis not so much this completion, recognition, and hallowing of the educationof the subjectbut rather more pressingly its problems of inadequacyand redundancywithin `progress', within movement, ie., its contextualized needs. If work, labour, and action are now, in modernity, applied to movement, occupation ceasesto believe in itself as a vocation and becomesprecisely no more or less than that portion of work, labour, and action which is adequateto movement at any given time and beyond which lies the slipping of movement into its Occupation chaos. mere sheds pretenceof experienceand becomesa perspective intrinsic to movement consideredin- and for-itself. My aim is to seehow this occupation can be investigated, still as distinct from categoriessuch as work, labour, and action - as that which is non-empirical is distinct from that which is empirical - but now from a perspectiveproper to is, Modernity modernity. as the truism goes, pure movement, pure change. But what distinguishes it from mere chaos? I believe an occupational perspective upon inand for-itself can provide us with a meansto a new rigour in modernity both For the changeand the generic modernity. occupation contains understanding logic, both the movement and the sense,of modernity, in plural occupational events. By `occupational events' I meanthe occupation consideredontologically apart from I `ontologically' By mean not as a unity of subject or a subject object of occupation. but is designating those terms than rather a way object which greater of and a distinction between movementsand the sensesof those movements. Movements, taken as simple movements,cannot be fully graspedwithout a notion of `trajectory', framework I from trajectory Durkheim to of as speak a of succession, when a or Deleuze, who are finite manifestations,as it were, of a certain intellectual movement.

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Trajectory, as such, has to be defined concretely, retrospectively, and historically. But the sensesof movementsare appreciationsof the element of the broadening, and over-running of borders,that all movementsshare. This feeling of occupation, this social-occupational affect, is indeed common to the politico-militant and work-practical spheresof human activities, and is, I would submit, the key connection betweenthe latter which is irreducible to either. Now it will perhapsbe thought that it is no accident that the intellectual trajectory I have presentedculminates in the very peculiar context of the 1960s,where this connection becomesa matter of intense,popular, and global debate. This is certainly true. However, at the sametime, in this context, the contemporary thinker whose have I discussedhere, Gilles Deleuze, was a thinker very much aheadof this works decadeand of stereotypically `60s thought'. It might be charged,then, however, that I have presentedideasthat are not very well `in sync' with the intellectual trajectory I have described. I would, in fact, discouragetoo much faithfulness to Deleuze. But I would implore by be the time, to us, at same not cowed those, such as Alain Badiou, also who would attempt to impose their own memory of the 60s as a criteria against be in is found lacking Deleuze's to political and effort measuredand which May '68 in Paris in the Let the example of organizational will-power. us re-consider light of our discussionsabove. In my view, May '68 in Paris was neither a purely rhizomatic multiplication of desire acts, nor an organizational effort by face in the of too much external pressure. Let us revolutionaries which aborted demonstrators, There the the neither collective evidence. was, among consider enunciation or affirmation pure and simple, nor an agendaeither explicit or hidden. Nevertheless,during this period in Paris, what was peculiar was that revolutionaries

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and workers somehow combined their efforts to create an unintended and unforeseen kind of demonstration. This demonstration was neither rhizomatic nor organizational but was, in fact, occupational, and very intuitively

so. Student militants and factory

labourers were able to join forces only very intermittently

and temporarily: but these

distinct their types of occupations could be set very moments were precisely when aside for the sake of a general militant occupation of politically strategical spaces deterritorialized occupations were

and reinscribed within an occupational movement

(see Vienet 1992). Occupation here sheds its vocational aspect and takes on a very different, non-linguistic, in fact hardly communicable but nevertheless virtually literal, meaning of occupying time and space. But precisely it does not become so literal that this could be understood apart from the sense of overcoming the earlier, now seemingly more mystifying vocational sense of the term. Thus, we could say that it is the focal point in the occupational movement that raises what had up until 1968 been only random, isolated demonstrations into a sense of an event which as such supplies an image and a memory even today.

This example, this particular event, is precisely not isolated. It has still, arguably, a vital continuity. Indeed, the overall radical movements of the `60s, taken together, provide a good exampleof a sequenceof eventswhich could only become become they a sharedsenseof a movement outside, when they could potent when kinds literal In become tactics. of events, social functions, such occupationsas could less increasingly the manifested, and more are social as concrete machines, or less A thus abstract. social ontology of social and abstract,not more constraining be inadequate in is, to proven and prone to such events, structuresor systems distortion. And this `making strange' of systemswas, in fact, a common raison d'etre of these movements. Even if the eventsof the '60s consideredas acts of

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systemicrevolution were not successful- or perhapsprecisely becauseof this lack of demonstrators the regime were able to overcome borders creating a new an aim of intensify for time, to a certain sociality. They created a new and a certain extent, demonstration. They affirmed that the social is essentially paradigm of social-critical occupationalbut demonstratedthat this senseof the occupational, which contains its borders, has its broadening logic own pure senseof and overcoming of own of is I become This, the social paradigm that we, submit would generalized, sociality. live for better for in today, still or cultures with worse. It is not especially western surprising, then, that our contemporary modem senseof sociality has precisely been difficult to describe,explain, or quantify in terms such as work, labour, or action. If the paradigm of the 60s is not caricatured as a mere sentiment of freedom intimately is rather as a paradigm of and understood or of revolution relating problems and practicesthough occupational action, then perhapsit is still a vital inclusive distinction between for If now make an must us. so, we paradigm movement and our occupational sensationof movement. This distinction I hope will enableus to specify different modalities of this occupational sense. Notion-sense Where is the starting point of modern sociality, if not in `revolution'? The first modality of the social senseof occupation is notion-sense. Notion-sense shapes its point of view on the model of empirical observationsof human practices around is its design but that perception an analytical of of social mode of operation and us, For beginning is is ie. it outlook. this the ontological example, an of what coherence, is at stake in the Durkheimian and Tardian clash over `solidity versus fluidity'. The formations his Durkheim through to that social metaphor of attributed solidity `solidarity' already presumesin advancethat the socially-derived conceptssuch as

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that of totality will display a certain cognitive or analytical stability. The fluidity that Tarde attributed to social formations through his metaphor of `imitative currents' in in `ideas', terms of micrological social that understood presumes advance innovations fashions in in flux amidst terms such as new social of social multiplicity, each other, are that which are able to undermine perceived, stable resemblances (which he in family the the se of sociality per sees continuity undermining as without model of civilization). At first glance, we seemto have here only opposed accounts of the social is However, distance, multiplicity. what cognitive at stakein of origin of critical inferiority inclusion is of and exclusion, these accounts rather our senseof and incompleteness, These and so on. sensessensea superiority, of completenessand force, internal or external, a current or a solidity, that is somehow preventing a full is for but time the the this material at same which productive resolution is, indeed, level, `revolution' Like the occupation on one productive resolution. inclusive However, this notion-sense, resolution. of the always an addressingof is the not only aspect of the senseof concepts, other such and revolution of concept it is that but the to extent constitutes the the occupational rather only occupational beginning of a perception of an outside. For the outside in notion-senseis only a beginning becauseit still perceives fullness as otherness. The occupational notion-sensehere, in this perception of is for by `directive' in that example, critical the moment a of perception otherness, in between terms of movement analysis an a) of there option arises an which determination, ie. in terms of a blocked subject and a blocking object, orb) in terms in ie., beginning `pure terms Bergson the of perception' of the called of what formation of images. Senseis not here related automatically to an object but is rather

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a kind of interval, or critical hesitation, which mulls over the kinds of critical oppositionsmentioned above. As Bergson puts it, "the diverse perceptions of the by different object, given my senses,will not, then, when put together, same image the complete of the object; they will remain separatedfrom each reconstruct by intervals other which measure,so to speak,the gaps in my needs" (1988: 49). The analysisof pure perceptioncan be articulated in terms of the notion-senseof is by first initiated a formulation of need. It is on the level there occupations which of notion-sense,of cognitive-critical-sense,that a new needfirst emerges,when one is initiated, for example, into an office or a task which one feels necessarilyrequires support. Need is not just anotherabstractconcept. Rather, our occupationsare that by imagining the we create possibility of which an outside and need is generated as our way of articulating this possibility which, precisely, we immediately senseis shared by others. This capacity is thus not simply a neutral or stablecognitive function -a for for `taking giving or orders', example. Rather, it is meant to guide us in capacity our negotiation and overcoming of the oppositions we perceive. Its essenceis that it is the beginning of a capacity for modern sociality, for `smooth functioning, ' as it is irreducible for has Wholeness, that to wholenessitself, a a need example, were. from but does wholeness,a needwhich does not come not need which aims at be incompleteness from would a straight contradiction. either, which exactly come The need of wholenessrather comes from occupation itself; it is the occupation, not focus be the to that therefore of social ontological analysis. primary ought wholeness, Occupations are, in the initial phaseof notion-sense,that by which we challenge ourselvesvis-a-vis the changesgoing on around us with our `notion of the it is in being For the occupied courseof necessaryto maintain a notion of outside'.

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the outside since the notion suppliesthe possibility of choosing to move outside is which the condition of changing or modifying occupations. The notion of the is is the condition of possibility of the really outside outside which not yet occupation as flexibility, as variation, as what Durkheim called `the division of labour in society'. But too often the perspectiveof `managementstudies' influences here. is because leave This to the the `notion' of the unfortunate, simply question us outside is not sufficient material to composea concept of the necessity of the outside it is ideology feeling For true that the also as a of social occupation. of `constant change' attempts to oblige us to restrict ourselvesto a notion of the outside and to ignore our immediate senseand image of it. It is an ideology with an interest in leaving us with a perpetual feeling of unsatisfaction which it would have us take as a social norm. Social occupationstherefore intimately involve a social struggle. For the is derived from by itself, in the always a situatedness notion of outside, mere an `mechanical' For in the example, spatio-temporal relation. already-constituted Durkheim is a notion-senseof the outside. It involves a certain acceptanceof a distinction betweenwhat is inferior and what is superior which is always in the last instance, as the theory goes, determinablespatially in terms of what Durkheim called `segments'. These 'segments'- one could think of them, for example, as tasks -are isolated, bounded sectionsof sociality. Thus, according to Durkheim the mechanical becomesrelated primarily not to the outside but rather to an inside, a conscience inside, feature. This isolated its be to or notionprimary collective, which seems in involved be the objectification and to primarily thus the seems outside, senseof dissolution of the real senseof the outside. Movement here is perceived abstractly as destructive, `against ' the comfort of colleagues, as as as one might put it. successive,

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But what I am attempting to say,in occupational terms, is that movement is destructiveonly from a certain, initial point of view. This point of view is what I call the notion which is involved in the initiation of the senseof movement, or notionsense. For the notion is certainly not something to be devaluedand marginalized in the theory of social occupations. We ought not to stressonly its conservative possibility, its possibility of choosing the path of subject-object analysis. We can also stressits role as a potential source of contradiction and opposition. Durkheim seemedto sensethis as we can seein his claims that `mechanicalsolidarity' somehow must always co-exist with `organic solidarity' even at the height of modernity. At times Durkheim seemedto stressthe nefarious, conservative possibility of `mechanicalsolidarity' as an exclusionary force. At the sametime he was forced, within the terms of his own conception, to admit that he needsto suppose that the mechanical is a necessaryorigin of what seemsto be a collective consciousness.The metaphorof solidarity-solidity led him into this contradiction. First he confusedthe mechanicalwith a processof externalization and solidification. Then this idea of exclusion had to dependfor Durkheim upon positing an entity which could exert a motivating influence upon mechanicalrelations and causethis process,which he called the consciencecollective. Due to this positing of the existenceof a consciencecollective, this construction of an abstractinteriority, Durkheim's implied criticisms of mechanicalrelations had to therefore be silenced by Durkheim himself. He deprived himself of a basis of criticism, leaving the diagnosis of social ills to the vagariesof polemical emphasison the one hand and the rigid normal/pathological distinction on the other.

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There should be no needto posit somemystical conscience collective once in issue the of social externality the terms of an outside. A notion of the we rethink is involved in form an objectifiable a gaze upon social outside and a perception of distance from this object. This is what tends to happenin Durkheim's `mechanical' relations, but Durkheim could provide no explanation for objectification other than i

his description of a primal, `mechanical' tendency. But how could one have a notion if has this never come within a senseof the outside or, to put it in externality one of if thing, to the same one has never been outside? What another way which amounts is missing in Durkheim's account is the immediate senseof the outside itself, and as for `mechanical', `organic' be that the to take the cannot or matter, result we more a than hypothetical conceptslinked by the metaphor of solidarity-solidity. What is always presupposedby the notion of the outside, and by its potential inside, is a senseof the outside. In contrast with mere notion, absolutenotion, or notion arbitrarily abstracted from sense,a notion-senseof the outside already is the outside, is already a modality it begins become it is level For to that the the of sense on clear, outside. of if had that things as we some are either certain or uncertain, notionally, not traditional cosmological relationship with `things' which precedesthe initiation of a become it begins in to Rather, clear that the outside is modernity modern sensibility. become in it begins because to apparentthat we modernity composedof movement, infinite, dynamic finite between draw static and and elements useful oppositions can in nature. Thenotion of the outside is always included in this emerging senseof for movement,- this emerging senseof self-empowerment, example at work -be ill-conceived, it, for therefore in would the and of phase emerging especially have We to seem arrived at a choice of whether to example, as a negation of sense.

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determination the of a servant or of movement. But since see notion as determination implies movementmuch more than movement implies determination, is however is Therefore, movement. notion, critical, is always a what primary modality included among the sensesof movement, and it is thus nothing less and nothing more than an initial contribution to the image of the outside, even if it stands in both notional and image worlds in the sensethat it holds the potential to imagine an inside as well. Despite the fact that notion-sensedoes not necessarilylead outside, which is to say to a richer senseof the outside, the notion of the outside also does not necessarilylead to objectification and interiorization. Rather, like that which in the viewer of art a gallery, the notion of the outside involves the facing confronts of a choice between a hesitating, gazing objectification which de-occupiesboth the viewer and the object, and a movement to the outside of the work where the various occupationsthat constitute the work, such as those of the artist, the gallery, and the immediate become On level the and sensible. notional real, we can only viewer, before that the of criss-cross us as possibilities. At this variety practices perceive begin have to that to sense sense and an outside moment also we we very our own into We those then stable objects-objectives,but vectors may resolve occupations. the price of that choice is in any caseto lose our senseof occupation. Since our high. is the stakes are senseof occupation our senseof social reality, Image-sense In one way the outside is a simple, immediate, sensualconstitution. Perceptually, it is multiplicity. However, it is not just a senseof empty spacein is it directly because isolated contingent upon practice and movementsoccur, which by initiation the observational-critical attitude the that, through provided movement

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of notion-sense,crossessocial boundaries. That is why the senseof the outside is always connectedwith a nascentimage of the outside. Indeed, there is much to say distinct the topic of the image-senseof occupation. For an image of the outside on does have a certain content inasmuchas it accompaniesthe senseof the outside as an indeterminate feeling of occupation. Theaffect of occupying is thefeeling of the image links immediate The the thus senseof the outside with the practiceoutside. movementsthat generatethat sense. If the notion-sensecritically raises the event of the occupation into the senseof becoming a moving outside, it is the image-senseof the outsidethat makespossiblethe discernmentof the event of crossedboundaries involved in an immediate senseof the outside. The immediate senseof the outside be in social sense, and not a specifically would probably not exist at all any would be for if the and notion-sense would nothing, there was not generated sustainedway, this image. The image of the outside is always a positive effect of the occupational for further kind. has In the of events same and positive consequences contrast, event it is only the notion-senseof the outside that facesa choice of whether or not to become `deeply' involved with the outside, of whether or not to move `further' In image it has because the the outside. of other words, sensed not yet outside, but to the neverthelessstill real, claim reality of a vanishing, notion-sensechallenges senseof the outside. As an undergoing and an overcoming of this painful initiation, social is Image-sense is large that image-sense. to which makes us a extent, ontology, describe the social to ourselvesas an ideal structure of action that is irreducible to kind is It In of exhileration. a contrastto the states affairs. of actual experiencesand does image-sense just indicate `public the not spheres', of a special representation domain or realm but rather stemsfrom the occupational affect of a social individual

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image-sense Now, feels it is this of course, carries implications of outside. which both inclusion and exclusion. Durkheim attempted to account for this apparently internally contradictory nature of the division of labour by formulating a holistic he `solidarity' would attempt to both explain and transcend with which category of the contingent divisions of inclusion and exclusion. This perhapsworks to a certain if difference inherent in the the structure and one considers only perception of extent he he But then neededto specify a type of solidarity solidarity. called organic what by which organic solidarity could be measuredin a comparative fashion, namely, the initiated Tarde that critique of Durkheim which type of solidarity. mechanical impossibility being lack image in there total the of a of precisely exposes certain types of societieswhich are supposedlyconstituted as a melangeof concatenated resemblancesamidst the membersof a community. For Tarde there could not be just this mechanicalassemblageby itself but rather there had to be for him first a familial desire amidst the assemblage,a kind of `welcoming' as it were, and then an impersonal model of civilization arising out of this and finally the possibility of a civilizational archeology. We have seenthat Bergson's critique of sociologism is linked with the way Bergson brings this Tardian model back into the scopeand influence of a personal is, him, This Bcrgsonian to according capable, in rare sensation. personalsensation become to a spiritual event of a new sensewhich moments, of extending outwards be done involving how others things and can ourselves of completely makes us see differently. The image-senseof an occupation is thus not simply a `welcoming to' or Image-sense `opportunity routine. already established rather an within' an it it itself being As the the as were. such points to openings of model constitutes become have tended to closed systems. For Bergson the otherwise within what

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in in this together the way a continuum of differentiating personal and social exist modes of sense. Bergson teachesus that image is always within senseand as such does not transcendsenserepresentationally or constitute initially a negation of sense. What Deleuze then does is clarify for us how the continuum of sensedoes not have to be conceivedas unified on the level of a model, and that, in fact, the `continuum' is only a presuppositionthat sensemust sensein an infinite multiplicity directions, basis. ongoing of ways, and media on an Form-sense This is why social ontology, as the study of the plurality of modernities, is his form-sense. inaugurated Durkheim this with seminal distinction also perspective between the mechanicaland organic types of solidarity. What is at issue in these types of solidarity is not just a social formation, for instancea particular institution, but rather the form of these formations. The types of solidarity are not models; they are not configurations of the social that are manifestedfor others to observe and affirm, ignore, or deny. Nor are they general conceptsof various kinds of political arrangementof human affairs. Rather they are the sense,the felt affect, of a specific kind of needful relation to wholeness,non-empirical or non-manifested,but neverthelessa real, felt needwhich occurs as a kind of structuring of configurations. They are the form or immediate shapeand dispensationof need. They are general described types of the senseof social needconceptualizedand as types of solidarity. While they are prototypical casesof form-sensethey are at the sametime, for Durkheim, structural types, since they determinethe mode of the perception of difference for the configurations under theseforms. What is important here and now is to point out that this is not the only way in which form-sensemay operate. Deleuze has shown us a way in which form-sensebecomeslinked with the

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continuous multiplicity of practices: through the medium of figures. For example, the whole raison d'etre of Deleuze's A Thousand Plateausis to experiment with figures. He presents,for instance,the figure of the nomad (Deleuze and Guattari 1988: 351-424). The nomad, on the one hand, involves a logic of senseon many levels, both of humour and of seriousness. On the other hand, the nomad is a figure which presentsan intimation of a temporary autonomy of form. There is a figure of the rat which swarms and the figure of the swarm itself through which we intuit not a model of the social or observean actual social formation but through which we sense kind kind the effusion of a of `hordic' social desire (Deleuze and a of social need and Guattari 1988: 233). I often think of thepirate as a figure central to early modernity. For the pirate form-sense the of an outsider who seeksan expansion of wealth and us with presents displays an advancedtechnological innovativeness,but he or she cultivates his or her initiative not for the sakeof capital accumulation but rather for the sake of sustaining is lived life The as pirate a symbol a symbol of good or of evil; as a outside. a framework is he to a preconceived of values. The or she evaluatedaccording symbol immediately is it however, has form-sense, effective, since more much more pirate as to do with fright than with calculated disapproval. The fear a pirate brings with him discomforting is but is the her fear senseof the rather of a man or woman or not a form of pure modernity, the fear of the co-existenceof the creative and the destructive in one life. Form-senseis not simply form, nor formation, nor any other kind of product. Rather, it is a mode of our occupational senseof the social, one of is just how It the to social exists. through not the modes which we can understand ironically be it be fact that that the can an occupation, piracy can curious out point it is like rather to point out that piracy is occupation, in any other occupation; much

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all its senses,that all the fears and expectations,needsand promises of early modern being are convergent,concentrated,exploded, and dispersedthrough the intensity and the contiguity of thesesenses: the militant-(de)territorial, work-active, and outside-exploratorysensesof occupation.

The notion of the outside in Deleuzian philosophy could not have emergedif it were not for Bergson's notion of `open society', and the latter could not have been developedif it were not for the challenge posed by Durkheim's doctrine of the is There kind the social. a of externality of overarching reasonfor this intellectual genealogy. For the outside is the key to an immanent account of what has appeared in the past to be the twin, inseparablecriteria of modernity: the autonomy of intelligent desireson the one hand, and the overall societal discipline required for their coordination and technical achievement on the other. A socially-immanent is of account modernity now necessaryfor two reasons. First, it is necessaryin order to avoid elevating modern intelligence to a transcendentalplane at the `end of history' upon which there can only flourish a struggle between `intellectual property' and the `conscientiousgood will' of a global elite. Secondly, it is necessaryto avoid issue the time the same of production to a struggle between the reducing at determinations of an oppressive,quasi-objective political economy, and mere `anticapitalist' destruction. The notion of the outside fills a practical and popular function that all classical social conceptshave filled. Certainly it could not have been formulated in its presentstate if philosophy had not taken a `secondsocial turn' in the thought of Deleuze. Durkheim's approachto the problem of defining the externality of the social linked its inextricably have as with context: the theory of seen,conceived was, as we

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by `monolithic' the contours of the `division of labour.' What shaped modernity a division labour instead theory a of of of a now need which shapesthe grand we is edifice of a single modernity rather to theorize occupational difference as a basis for multiple modernities. One of the obstaclesconfronting the theorization of a plurality of modernities has beena certain inherited way of seeingthe relation betweentime and space. In has been formulated in mainly this theories modernity relation of more universalistic two ways: sometimesas a confrontation between a pre-establishedmental continuity blocked and fragmented by technocratically-ordered spatial patterns of social is institutions but to time rather attributed social sometimes as testified production; by their longevity and their history as over against a spaceof vital mental freedom from institutional control. The difficulty with both points of view lies in the way they imply that is is necessaryto compare time and space. Such comparisonsalways imply a kind of dialectical conflict betweentwo things: actualities situated in the from the past. While the paradoxical element of the coming presentand actualities is fact be there that the always an element of may real conflicts of modernity inescapablity co-existing with an element of unattainability - the answersformulated in terms of time and spacehave never beenmore than heuristically-useful and have illusory. been ultimately always This problem of social time and spaceshould, to begin with, be set into the between the social part and the social whole. the the of relation problem context of For what occurs in the peculiar relation of social part to social whole in modernity is labour the of and under the virtual heading of actualities work the reorganization of involve image-sense, form-sense a notion-sense, and occupations which social of being outside. This existenceoutside is intimately related to the problem of social

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time and space. The modern social occupation is not just a role-specialization which labour for the sake of economic traditional and organizations of work supplants it includes is labour but `special' the that to extent within work and rather efficiency ' `fullness, its is ' intrinsic its `effort, a spatio-temporality own which own an outside, it is intrinsic it is Since to these than an ontological activities. extrinsic rather instrumental The than, of rationality. outside a say, problem problem, rather becomesmore than a notion associatedwith the essentially static locations of sets of `inferiors' and `superiors'. It becomessomething real and necessaryto modern increasing inter-connection in the and multiplication ever of social people engaged tasks. Modern social actors sensean outside to the extent that they sensethe instances in deal instances `progress' by those this particular and with of necessity image In depending this sense,as a social fact, of an an outside. upon creating and is, in fact, It includes larger' is `much but than that a phenomenon work. occupation also exceedsthe actual tasks and sets of rules, procedures,and conventions of work by but by is defined labour. It the those rather notion-sense, actualities not and image-sense,and form-senseof the outside that it generates,a negotiation at the intersection of many social vectors in the processof emerging, combining, and disappearing.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY This bibliography includes all the primary and secondary material referred to in the text, as well as additional material that I consulted in the course of the writing. Author lists but not exhaustive of those authors' works. are are provided, sub-sections

Works by Durkheim (1961) The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life: A Study in Religious Sociology. London: Allen & Unwin. (1966) Suicide: A Study in Sociology. Translated by John A. Spaulding and George Simpson. Edited with an introduction by George Simpson. New York: Free Press. (1969) Primitive Classification. 2nd ed. London: Cohen and West. (1973) On Morality and Society: SelectedWritings. Edited with an introduction by Robert N. Bellah. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (1974) Sociology and Philosophy. New York: Free Press. (1982) The Rules of Sociological Method: And Selected Texts on Sociology and Its Method. Edited with an introduction by Steven Lukes. Translatedby W.D. Halls. London: Macmillan. (1983) Pragmatismand Sociology. Translated by J.C. Whitehouse. Edited and introduced by John B. Allcock. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (1984) The Division of Labour in Society. Translated by W. D. Halls. Basingstoke: Macmillan. (1996) Durkheim on Politics and the State. Translated by W. D. Halls. Edited with Giddens. Cambridge: by introduction Anthony Polity Press. an Works by Tarde (1895) Essaiset m6langessociologigues.Paris: Editions Maloine. (1899) Social Laws: An Outline of Sociology. Translated by Howard C. Warren. New York: Macmillan. (1903) The Laws of Imitation. Translatedfrom the secondFrench edition by Elsie Clews Parsonswith an introduction by Franklin H. Giddings. New York: Henry Holt and Company. (1969) On Communication and Social Influence. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

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(1999) Monadologie et sociologie. Prdsentationd'Eric Alliez. Postfacede Maurizio Lazzarato. Oeuvresde Gabriel Tarde 1. Paris: Synthdlabo.

Works by Bergson (1919) Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. Translated by F.L. Pogson. New York: Macmillan. (1977) The Two Sourcesof Morality and Religion. Translatedby R. Ashley Audra and Cloudsley Brereton with the assistanceof W. Horsfall Carter. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. (1983) Creative Evolution. Authorized translation by Arthur Mitchell. Lanham, MD.: University Pressof America. (1991) Matter and Memory. Translatedby Nancy Margaret Paul and W. Scott Palmer. New York: Zone Books. (1999) An Introduction to Metaphysics. Translatedby T.E. Hulme. Indianapolis: Hackett.

Works by Deleuze (1979) "A Quoi Reconnait-on Le Structuralisme. " La Philosophie Au XX° Siecle. ed. Francois Chätelet. Vol. 4. Verviers: Marabout. 306-12.

(1983) Nietzsche and Philosophy. Translatedby Hugh Tomlinson. London: Athlone. (1984) Kant's Critical Philosophy: The Doctrine of the Faculties. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (1985) Cinema 1: The Movement-Image. Translatedby Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam. London: Athlone Press. (1988a) Bergsonism. Translatedby Hugh Tomlinson. New York: Zone. (1988b) Foucault. Translatedand edited by SeanHand. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (1988c) Spinoza: Practical Philosophy. Translated by R. Hurley. San Francisco: City Light Books. (1989) The Logic of Sense. Translatedby Mark Lester with Charles Stivale. Edited by Constantin V. Boundas.London: Athlone. (1989) Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Translatedby Hugh Tomlinson and R. Galeta. London: Athlone Press.

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(1991) Empiricism and Subjectivity: An Essay on Hume's Theory of Human Nature. Translated with an Introduction by Constantin V. Boundas.New York: Columbia University Press. (1992) Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza. Translated by M. Joughin. New York: Zone Books. (1993) The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque. Foreword and translation by Tom Conley. London: Athlone. (1994) Difference and Repetition. London: Athlone Press. (1995) Negotiations, 1972-1990.New York: Columbia University Press.

Works by Deleuze and Guattari (1984) Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism & Schizophrenia. Mark Seem& Helen R. Lane Translated by Robert Hurley. London: Athlone, 1984. (1988) A Thousand Plateaus:Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translation and foreword by Brian Massumi. London: Athlone, 1988. (1994) What Is Philosophy?. Translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchill. London: Verso, 1994.

Other works in Philosophy and Social Theory Adorno, Theodor W. & Horkheimer Max (1979) Dialectic of Enlightenment. Translated by John Cumming. London: Verso. Adorno, Theodor W. (1973) Negative Dialectics. Translatedby E. B. Ashton. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Agamben, Giorgio (1993) The Coming Community. Translated by Michael Hardt. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Eric (1999) "Presentation," in Gabriel Tarde, Monadologie et sociologic. Alliez, Paris: Synthelabo. Ansell-Pearson,Keith (1997a) Deleuze and Philosophy: The Difference Engineer. London: Routledge. (1997b) Viroid Life: Perspectiveson Nietzsche and the TranshumanCondition. London: Routledge. (1999) Germinal Life: The Difference and Repetition of Deleuze. Routledge: London and New York. Arendt, Hannah (1988) The Human Condition. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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(1973) The Origins of Totalitarianism. New ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Auge, Marc (1995) Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. Translated by John Howe. London: Verso. Badiou, Alain (2000) Deleuze: The Clamour of Being. Translated by Louise Burchill. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press.

Baudrillard, Jean(1988) The Ecstasy of CommunicationTranslatedby Bernard & Caroline Schutze. Edited by Sylvere Lotringer. Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Seriesed. New York: Semiotext(e). Philip Beitchman Simulations. Paul Patton Translated by Paul Foss. and -----(1983) New York: Semiotext(e). Bauman, Zygmunt (1991) Modernity and Ambivalence. -----(2000)

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Beistegui, Miguel de. (1998) Heidegger & the Political: Dystopias. London: Routledge. Bell, Daniel (1973) The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. New York: Basic Books. Benjamin, Walter (1973) Illuminations. Edited and with an introduction by Hannah Arendt. Translatedby Harry Zohn. London: Fontana. Besnard, Philippe (ed. ) (1983) The Sociological Domain: The Durkheimians and the Founding of French Sociology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Besnard, Philippe (1983) "The Annee sociologique team," in Besnard (ed. ), The

Sociological Domain: The Durkheimians and the Founding of French Sociology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 11-39. Blanchot, Maurice (1988) The Unavowable Community. Translated by Pierre Joris. Barrytown, N. Y.: Station Hill Press. Boundas, Constantin V. (1996) "Deleuze-Bergson:An Ontology of the Virtual, " in Paul Patton (ed.), Deleuze: A Critical Reader. Oxford: Blackwell. Boundas,Constantin V. & Olkowski, Dorothea (eds.) (1993) Gilles Deleuze and the Theater of Philosophy. London: Routledge. Bourdieu, Pierre (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Translatedby Richard Nice. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. Debord, Guy (1977) Society of the Spectacle. Rev. ed. Detroit: Black & Red. Derrida, Jacques(1995) The Gift of Death. Translated by David Wills. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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