JEFFREY A.

BELL

Philosophy at the Edge

of Chaos:

Gilles Deleuze and the Philosophy

of Difference

U N I V E RSITY O F T O R O N T O P R E SS
Toronto Buffalo London
© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2006
Toronto Buffalo London
Pririted in Canada

ISBN 13:978-0-8020-9128-8 (cloth)

ISBN 10:0-8020-9128-8 (cloth)

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Pririted on acid-free paper

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Bell, Jeffrey A.
Philosophy at the edge of chaos : Gilles Deleuze and the philosophy of
difference 1 Jeffrey A. Bell.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 13:978-0-8020-9128-8 (bound)
ISBN 10:0-8020-9128-8 (bound)
ISBN 13:978-0-8020-9409-4 (pbk.)
ISBN 10:0-8020-9409-0 (pbk.)

1. Deleuze, Gilles. 2. Difference (Philosophy). 1. Title. Il. Title: Gilles

Deleuze and the philosophy of difference.

B2430.D454B44 2006 194 C2006-901760-3

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its

publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario
Arts Council.

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its

publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book
Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) .
For Elizabeth, Leah, and Rebecca
and
To the memory of my father
Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 3

Part One. Thinking Difference

1 Systematic Thinking and the Philosophy of Difference 13

2 Ironing Out the Differences: Nietzsche and Deleuze as
Spinozists 38
3 Philosophizing the Double Bind: Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 63
Pharmakon 68
Mimesis 76
Thumos 84
Critique without Redemption 106
4 Thinking Difference: Heidegger and Deleuze on Aristotle 1 14
5 Thinking and the Loss of System: Derrida and Deleuze on
Artaud 142

Part Two. Rethinking System

6 Rethinking System 1 77
Whitehead 1 79
Chaosmos and Expression 1 85
Dynamic Systems 200
viii Contents

Conclusion: Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos 21 1

Notes 231
Bibliography 277
Index 289
Acknowledgments

lt would be impossible to acknowledge ali the individuals who have

contributed in so many ways to this book. Throughout the years,
numerous colleagues and students at Southeastern Louisiana Univer­
sity have been extremely supportive through their listening and feed­
back, enabling me to develop and shape the arguments that would
eventually make their way into this book. Among my colleagues, 1 owe
a special thanks to Pete Petrakis, whose intellect and friendship have
been a continuai source of inspiration and guidance throughout the
process of writing and researching this book. 1 must also thank Michael
Zimmerman and John Glenn for their early and continuing support of
my work. lt was this support, in particular, that gave me the confi­
dence to submit and eventually publish an early version of chapter 3 in
the journal Philosophy Today (vol. 39, no. 4, 1995). University of Toronto
Press, and Len Husband, in particular, has from start to finish been
especially easy to work with, providing along the way whatever assis­
tance 1 needed. 1 also cannot thank enough the anonymous readers for
their invaluable suggestions for improving the manuscript. They were
both extremely thorough and professional, and this book would not be
nearly as good as it is if it were not for their efforts. And finally 1 must
thank my wife, Elizabeth, for her love and support, and my daughters,
Leah and Rebecca, for their sustaining love and energy. lt is this sup­
port and love which makes ali the difference.
P H I L OS O P H Y A T T H E E D G E O F C H A O S :
G I L L E S D E L E U Z E A N D T H E P H I LO S O P H Y O F
DIFFERENCE
Introduction

'To think is to create - there is no other creation - but to create is first of

all to engender "thinking" in thought.' 1 This line from Difference and Rep­
etition expresses one of the more important themes of Deleuze's entire
philosophieal project, which is to make of thinking, and in partieular
philosophie thinking, an enterprise that is truly creative and hence not
subordinate to factors that predetermine what this thinking should be.
As Deleuze otherwise states the objective of his project, it is to lay out a
philosophy of difference that truly thinks difference without reducing it
to a predetermining identity. 2 Deleuze, moreover, is not alone in his
efforts, for as we will see Heidegger and Derrida are equally committed
to 'thinking difference,' to developing a philosophy of difference that
shows how it is identity that is conditioned by a fundamental difference
rather than difference itself being conditioned by an already established
and predetermining identity, such as the difference between identities?
The difference between Derrida and Deleuze, however, is key, and it
becomes most evident in comparing their respective views concerning
systematic thought, or thinking in terms of systems. For Derrida, with
his development of the concept 'differance,' the very identity of a system
presupposes, he daims, a fundamental difference that prevents the sys­
tem from ever attaining any sense of completion or closure. This posi­
tion is itself simply the extension of his argument that every identity or
presence, every attempt to establish the self-identical, self-present
ground.ing and meaning from which all other meanings can then arise,
presupposes its other, a difference and / or absence which perpetually
defers the closure necessary to attain true self-presence. Derrida thus
defines the term 'differance' as 'an economie concept designating the
production of differing/deferring';4 and it is this continuai production
4 Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos

that defers and subverts (i.e., deconstructs) any system from attaining
completion (i.e., closure or self-identity). For Deleuze, by contrast, in
his single-authored works and then with Guattari, what is implicilty
developed is the notion of a fundamental both/ and or difference that is
inseparable from dynamic systems that are at the 'edge of chaos.' A
dynamic system, on this understanding, presupposes both the stable,
structured strata that are in sorne sense complete, and it entails the unsta­
ble, unstructured, deterritorializing flows. As Deleuze and Guattari
proceed to develop the implications of this thinking, or as they develop
a philosophy at the 'edge of chaos,' they neither create concepts which
solve, once and for ali, philosophical problems, nor do they slip into a
state of anarchical relativism. Rather, philosophy, as with a living organ-­
ism at the 'edge of chaos,' must maintain both its stable strata and its
uns table, deterritorializing flows. Without the former, a living organism
dies (or a philosophy slips into disordered nonsense and says nothing),­
and without the latter, an organism is unable to adapt and will also die
(or a philosophy falls into a mindless repetition of clichés and plati­
tudes). Unlike Derrida, therefore, there is the need for systems, dynamic
systems, and systems whose very completeness staves off a collapse
into the destructive consequences of an either 1 or (e.g., either nonsense
or cliché).5
In A Thousand Plateaus, the concept that carries much of the weight in
explicating this philosophy at the 'edge of chaos' is the notion of an
'abstract machine.' The abstract machine, as understood by Deleuze and
Guattari, entails a fundamental both/ and, or what they will cali a dou­
ble articulation, a double bind, and it is this both/ and that is inseparable
·
from and allows for the possibility of dynamic systems. This double
articulation, which we will discuss more fully in later chapters, involves
a first articulation whereby unstructured, deterritorialized flows - what
Deleuze and Guattari will refer to as the Body without Organs (BwO) -
cornes to be drawn into a plane of consistency such that, in the second
articulation, this consistency can be actualized as determinate, identifi­
able entities, systems, etc. Expressed in the terms of dynamic systems
theory, a dynamic system at the edge of chaos is a system such that only
when there is sufficient consistency to the system (first articulation) can
it then actualize and engender new, unpredicted systems and identities
(second articulation). 6 The abstract machine is precisely this double
articulation, the fundamental both/ and (ordered and chaotic, or chaos­
mos), that is inseparable from identities and from the transformations
and becomings of these identities. By arguing, then, that Deleuze and
Guattari understand identities in terms of abstract machines, where
 Introduction 5

such machines, as dynamic systems, presuppose the fundamental

both/ and of order and chaos, we can see more clearly how, unlike Der­
rida's understanding of 'differance,' the abstract machine is not a fun­
damental both/ and condition which subverts completion. To the
contrary, the fundamental difference, Deleuze's difference in itself, is
instead the immanent condition presupposed by dynamic systems, and
by the completeness and stability such systems require?
As Deleuze and Guattari develop the concept of the abstract machine,
along with the related concepts that support it or are connected to it
(e.g., BwO, plane of consistency, double articulation, event, rhizome,
and others as will be discussed in later chapters), it is important to rec­
ognize that despite the apparent novelty of this terminology, Deleuze
and Guattari's project is nonetheless much in line with the transcenden­
tal tradition in philosophy, especially the Kantian tradition. In fact, A
Thousand Plateaus is in many ways a Kantian critique which attempts to
delineate the appropriate limits within which the abstract machine is
the condition for a functioning, dynamic system, and they seek, through
advocating a form of experimentalism, to determine the limits beyond
which the abstract machine fails to actualize such a system but instead
collapses into either the cancerous body of uncontrolled proliferation
and chaos or the fascist body of smothering identity. 8 Deleuze and
Guattari, however, explicitly differentiate their transcendental project
from other similar attempts, especially Kant's. How they differ is that
the concepts Deleuze and Guattari develop in carrying forward their
transcendental project are not to be understood as predetermining iden­
tities, in the vein of Kant's categories, but rather are to be used as tools
...f or experimenting with and questioning various identities and systems.
In short, what Deleuze and Guattari seek to do with concepts such as the
: abstract machine is to provide concepts that are abstract enough to be
: applied to ali types of identifiable systems and that are yet not too
: abstract so that they fail to account for the transformative processes that
are the transcendental conditions inseparable from the identifiable sys­
tems they make possible. To clarify this project, we can see how Deleuze
and Guattari contrast it from others. Deleuze and Guattari, for example,
: will criticize Bertrand Russell's and Noam Chomsky's efforts to under­
\ �tand the identifiable system of language in terms of an abstract transcen­
�ental logic or grammar:
All methods for the transcendentalization of language, all methods for
endowing language with universals, from Russell's logic to Chomsky's
grammar, have fallen into the worst kind of abstraction, in the sense that
6 Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos

they validate a level that is bath too abstract and not abstract enough ...
9
'Behind' statements and semioticizations there are only machines.

By accusing Chomsky's and Russell's transcendentalization of lan­

guage with being too abstract, Deleuze and Guattari believe Chomsky
and Russell failed to adequately address social contexts, or the concrete,
material processes of economies, politics, desire, etc., and their roles
(i.e., abstract machinic roles) in the generation and transformation of lan­
guage systems. 1 0 Chomsky's grammar, and Russell's logic, are too
abstracted and hence disconnected from these other processes, and as a
result their transcendentalization of language is, in Deleuze and
Guattari's opinion, seriously incomplete and inadequate. 11
On the other hand, Chomsky's and Russell's approach is also not
abstract enough. What is meant by this is that Russell's logic and Chom­
sky's grammar are not abstract enough to apply to identifiable systems
other than language. Deleuze and Guattari, with their concept of the
double articulation of the abstract machine, clearly feel they have
avoided the 'worst kind of abstraction' that inflicted Russell and Chom­
sky, for these concepts are abstract enough to apply to an indefinite mul­
tiplicity of other systems. In the closing words to A Thousand Plateaus,
this sense of abstract machines as conceptually abstract enough to be
applied to indeterminately other identities is clearly evident:

Every abstract machine is linked to other abstrac� machines, not only

because they are inseparably political, economie, scientific, artistic, eco­
logical, cosrnic - perceptive, affective, active, thinking, physical, and
semiotic - but because their various types are as intertwined as their oper­
12
ations are convergent. Mechanosphere.

At the same time the concepts they develop are not too abstract so that
they leave one unable to understand the transformative processes
whereby established, actualized identities come to be. lt is at this
moment that it becomes most helpful, in our attempt to understand
Deleuze's project, to turn to Deleuze's early work on Nietzsche and
Spinoza. There are numerous reasons why this is so, but the most impor­
tant reason is that a careful examination of the concepts that Spinoza and
Nietzsche developed will show the profound extent to which Deleuze,
and Deleuze and Guattari, were, in their own conceptual formulations
and practices, innovative Spinozists and Nietzscheans.
We can begin to see this by beginning, as does Spinoza in his Ethics,
with God. In A Thousand Plateaus Deleuze and Guattari define God in
 Introduction 7

what at first might appear to be a tongue-in-cheek way: 'God is a Lob­

ster, or a double pincer, a double bind.'13 With what we have said so
far, and with what subsequent chapters in this book will reveal, we can
begin to see that this is in fact a philosophically sophisticated formula­
tion. First, by defining God as a 'Lobster, or a double pincer, a double
bind,' Deleuze and Guattari in effect define God as 'double articula­
tion.' In other words, as double articulation God is both the first articu­
lation, or the Abstract machine whereby the chaos (BwO) is drawn into
a plane of consistency, and God is the second articulation, or the
Abstract machine that enables the plane of consistency to be actualized
into identifiable, functioning states and systems. Placed into the con­
text of the concepts at work in Spinoza, especially Spinoza's Ethics, the
relationship between the two aspects of double articulation becomes
the relationship between substance as absolutely indeterminate and
the attributes, defined by Spinoza as that which the infinite intellect
perceives of the substance, constituting its essence (1D4).1 4 What we
will see in our chapter on Spinoza is that many of the apparent prob­
lems commenta tors have had with Spinoza' s philosophy can be largely
resolved if we understand Spinoza's philosophy in light of what
Deleuze will later do with his concepts - namely, develop the notion of
abstract machines and double articulation. In particular, applying
Deleuze's concept of double articulation wherein the first articulation
draws chaos (BwO) into a plane of consistency while the second articu­
lation actualizes the consistency into an identifiable state, for Spinoza
the first articulation is the drawing or expressing of substance in an
attribute, and the second articulation is the actualization or modifica­
tion of the attribute. There is consequently the necessity for the modifi­
cation of an attribute - infinite thought - to be that which perceives
substance and constitutes its identifiable, actualized essence, and it is
this dependency of the attributes upon a mode that has caused com­
mentators many problems.15
Stating Spinoza's point in Deleuze and Guattari's terminology, the
first articulation is only identifiable as actualized, or as a result of the
second articulation. Thus for Deleuze when the BwO is drawn into a
plane of consistency it is, as Deleuze puts it, real but not actual. When a
monkey, to use one of Deleuze's examples, learns that its food is in 'one
particular colour amidst others of various colours,' there occurs, in the
process of learning, 'a paradoxical period during which the number of
"errors" diminishes even though the monkey does not yet possess the
"knowledge" or "tru th" of a solution in each case.'1 6 In other words, the
monkey first achieves a level of consistency, or a plane of consistency is
8 Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos

drawn upon the monkey's initially random choices, and this consis­
tency is real but not yet actualized as 'knowledge,' and it is only as actu­
alized that one can speak of a determinate, identifiable 'essence,' 'rule,'
'knowledge,' etc., in the sense Spinoza and Deleuze intend. Similarly, it
is only as actualized within an infinite mode that the attribute which
expresses substance can be identified, and identified as the determinate
and constitutive essence of substance that it is. In short, stating this
again in Deleuze and Guattari's terms, God is the double articulation ­
the lobster - that is the process whereby absolu tely indeterminate sub­
stance, what they will refer to as THE BwO, becomes determinate and
known. lt was for this reason, then, that Deleuze and Guattari rhetori­
cally ask, '[I]s not Spinoza's Ethics the great book of the Bw0?' 17
lt is at this point where the significance of Nietzsche shines through,
for while concepts from Spinoza's Ethics may very well have been cru­
cial to Deleuze and Guattari's transcendental project, it was Nietzsche,
perhaps more than any other philosopher, who sought to restore to phi­
losophy the importance of becoming. Nietzsche's writings are replete
with lines such as the following: 'Heraclitus will remain etemally right
with his assertion that being is an empty fiction';1 8 'The character of the
word in a state of becoming as incapable of formulation, as "false," as
"self-contradictory ."' 1 9 Since an essential part of Deleuze' s transcenden­
tal project, as noted above, is to determine the conditions whereby the
abstract machine can allow for the emergence of new beings - that is, an
engendering of '"thinking" in thought' - it is thus the coming-into­
being, the becomings, of identities that is of key concem, and as a result
the influence of Nietzsche should not be surprising. This influence can
be seen in the use Deleuze makes of one of Nietzsche's most enigmatic
concepts - that is, the concept of etemal recurrence. As we will see
Deleuze argue in chapter 3, Nietzsche's notion of etemal recurrence
entails a double affirmation (a double articulation), the affirmations of
Dionysus and Ariadne. As Deleuze puts it, 'Dionysian becoming is
being, etemity, but only insofar as the corresponding affirmation is itself
affirmed.' 20 As the paradoxical both/ and that allows for the emergence
of identities, becoming is, as Deleuze understands it, and as detailed in
subsequent chapters, non-identifiable. lt is only as the object of a second
affirmation (second articulation), an affirmation that repeats the first,
that one can then say of becoming that it is something that is. The first
affirmation is indeed an etemal affirmation, for the Dionysian affirma­
tion of becoming cannot be reduced to the identities of the present, or to
what Deleuze will frequently refer to as the measurable time of chronos
 Introduction 9

- chronological time. In contrast to chronological time, the Dionysian

affirmation exceeds it, or is eternal - Deleuze will frequently contrast
the term aion to chronos, where aion is the immeasurable eternity that
cannot be reduced to measurable, chronological time. 2 1 Consequently,
Ariadne's second affirmation is a recurrence of the eternal - it is eternal
recurrence; ·and it is with the concept of eternal recurrence, Nietzsche
believes, where we have 'the closest approximation of a world of
becoming to a world of being.' 22
Returning now to Deleuze and Guattari, when they put forth the con­
cept of the Abstract machine, in contrast to the abstract machines, we
can see, with Nietzsche's concept of eternal recurrence in hand, that the
Abstract machine is God as a lobster, the double articulation which
entails a difference in itself that cannot be reduced to identity, and this
Abstract machine is only identifiable as the result of expressions that
repeat the paradoxical, immeasurable nature of the Abstract machine.
Here the Spinoza-Nietzsche connection becomes most clear, for the
concept Deleuze believed to be central to Spinoza's Ethics was the con­
cept of 'expression,' and it is with this concept that Spinoza, according
to Deleuze, is able to account for the relationship between substance
and its attributes, for the attributes, as Spinoza defines them, are
expressions of substance (1D6: 'By God 1 understand a being absolutely
infinite, i.e., a substance consisting of an infinity of attributes, of which
each one expresses an eternal and infinite essence' [emphasis mine]).
With the conceptual resources of Nietzsche added to Spinoza, we come
to the position that, in the terminology of A Thousand Plateaus, the
Abstract machine is the affirmation of becoming that allows for the sec­
ond affirmation whereby becoming becomes identifiable. The abstract
machines are these secondary affirmations (second articulations), or
they are the eternal recurrence of becoming, the 'closest approximation
of a world of becoming to a world of being.' Moreover, the identifiable
abstract machines, as expressions of the Abstract machine, express in
their own way (i.e., identifiable way) the paradoxical double bind of
determining and identifying the non-identifiable nature of becoming -
in short, these abstract machines are dynamic systems at the edge of
chaos. As a result, the abstract machines, as identifiable dynamic sys­
tems, are indeed identities, but identities that are assured of becoming
other, becoming another identifiable dynamic system. As Deleuze and
Guattari put it, 'there is no genetics without genetic drift.' 23 God is · a
lobster, then, a double pincer, a double bind, a double articulation, pre­
cisely because it is this condition that is necessary to, and inseparable
10 Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos

from, each and every identity. Deleuze and Guattari, therefore, reaffirm
(etemal recurrence) Spinoza's daim that 'God is Nature' (Deus sive
Natura), and for them this is precisely their transcendental project of
detailing the double articulation, the etemal recurrence, that is insepa­
rable from each and every natural process that cornes to be identified,
and cornes to be identified as expressions of the Abstract machine,
expressions that are only as an approximation of becoming to being.
In the chapters which follow, we will further elaborate how the con­
cepts of Nietzsche and Spinoza come to form the basis for Deleuze's
philosophy of difference. As these concepts come to be developed by
Deleuze, moreover, we will see that Deleuze is able to avoid the resid­
ual difficulties which remain in the philosophies of difference as set
forth by Heidegger and Derrida. These difficulties remain, as will be
argued in chapters 4 and 5, precisely because Heidegger and Derrida
do not develop the notion of a dynamic system at the edge of chaos, a
system that is both complete, ordered, and incomplete and chaotic. In
the concluding chapters we will retum to Deleuze's own efforts, efforts
that have been sketched here, to show how, in his own works and in
his writings with Guattari, an unending concem of his was to engen­
der "'thinking" in thought.'
PART ONE

Thinking Difference
1 Systematic Thinking and the Philosophy

of Difference

If to engender 'thinking' in thought entails encountering the condition

for the possibility of common thoughts and opinions, then 'thinking'
involves the instilling of aberration and movement into thought, or it
brings this thought to the edge of chaos so that 'thihking' can indeed
become crea ting. Success is not guaranteed, of course, but if it happens
it happens, as we will argue, precisely because 'thinking' has become
systematic thinking, or it has become a dynamic system that is the con­
dition of possibility for new, stable thoughts, beliefs, and systems. This
condition, moreover, is not to be confused with the conditioned, and
thus it is more correct to argue that engendering 'thihking' is to think
the uncommon condition for the possibility of every common and iden­
tifiable system. We will define this uncommon condition as paradoxa,
using the ancient Greek term which can be translated to mean contrary
(para) to what is common, and ih particular to common opinion and
belief (doxa). In thinking the whole of reality (i.e., system), this thinking
inevitably thihks paradoxa, paradoxa as the condition for the possibility
of any and all systems, and the condition of impossibility for a closed,
complete system, meaning a system that reduces the uncommon to the
common. This condition, as we will see, is inseparable from the systems
of which it is the immanent condition, and yet it is not to be identified
with these systems; consequently, in doing philosophy one necessarily
encounters that which cannat be identified with what is common (e.g.,
the system of practical, everyday interests). Philosophy is inevitably
uncommon and hence subject to the charge of uselessness.
This necessary uselessness of philosophy has long been recognized.
Plata, for example, ih his Republic, attempts, by analogy, to defend phi­
losophy against those who find it useless. In analogizihg the ruling of
14 Thinking Difference

the city-state to the sailing of a ship, Socrates argues that for 'the true
pilot it is necessary to pay careful attention to year, seasons, heaven,
stars, winds ... ' The true pilot will not do what is commonly done
aboard ships, namely, try to gain favour through persuasion, flattery,
politicking, etc., with the hopes of gaining power. Rather, the true pilot
will often be found alone, staring at the movement of the stars; conse­
quently, as Socrates continues, 'the true pilot will be called a stargazer,
a prater and useless to them,' useless to those who attempt to get ahead
in the common way.1 The uselessness of philosophy, as Plato's analogy
attempts to show, is precisely its greatest strength.
Philosophy is not the only discipline whose usefulness has been ques­
tioned. In the sciences, for example, the theories and formulas that have
been developed are often far removed from any practical application or
relevance. In current cosmological theory, for example, theoreticians
have constructed mathematical theories which involve many dimen­
sions beyond those which are practically relevant (e.g., the widely
accepted version of string theory calls for eleven dimensions). There is
a crucial difference between the cosmologist and the philosopher, how­
ever, and this difference is critical for understanding the· place and role
of philosophy. With the cosmologist, theoretical physicist, or mathema­
tician, the investigation pursued is of an already assumed reality, or
their theories in sorne way connect with, or represent, this reality. As a
result, these theories have the potential to be linked up with practical or
useful action, even if this potential is not realized immediately. With
philosophical investigations, on the other hand, the philosopher does
not assume reality but attempts to achieve an all-encompassing view of
reality, or he/ she attempts to arrive at an understanding of the condi­
tions which account for the reality of the real. In doing metaphysics,
therefore, the philosopher is thus forced to step outside the sphere of
practical, everyday reality in order to gain a perspective on the whole of
reality. The philosopher, in doing metaphysics, must be useless if he/
she is to understand the reality wherein practical, useful action occurs.
To charge philosophers with pursuing an impractical and useless disci­
pline is, from the perspective of the philosopher doing metaphysics, to
accuse them of doing what they should be doing.
lt is precisely at this point where the philosophical critique of meta­
physics cornes into prominence. Beginning with Nietzsche, and con­
tinuing through Heidegger to Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, and others,
the argument has been made that it is just this effort to achieve an all­
encompassing view of reality that is an impossible and misguided
 Systematic Thinking and the Philosophy of Difference 15

task; moreover, Nietzsche would argue that such an effort denies this
life, and presumably the practical everyday concerns of this life. One
might expect, then, that with the contemporary critique of metaphys­
ics, with the philosophical call for the end of philosophy, that the result
would be a philosophy more attuned to common, practical concerns.
This is rtot what one finds. Quite to the contrary, Heidegger, Derrida,
and others are routinely criticized for being obscure. Not only do
many not see any practical relevance for much of what Heidegger,
Derrida, and others have written; many have difficulty simply making
sense of the texts themselves. If anything, then, the common view of
writers such as Derrida is that they are even more removed from corn­
mon understanding than their more traditional philosophical counter­
parts. The same persan who can make sense of Aristotle's Poetics may
find Derrida's Of Grammatology unreadable.
Why has more recent philosophy failed to connect with the common
interests and practical concerns of society at large, especially given that
much of contemporary philosophy has been critical of the metaphysical
tradition, a tradition which implicitly justified neglecting the everyday,
common world so as to grasp the whole of reality? The reason for the
continued perception of philosophy as useless, or as out of step with the
common interests and practical concerns of society, is simply because
contemporary philosophy continues, insofar as it attempts to engender
'thinking' in thought, to attempt to think that which is uncommon.
From this perspective, therefore, a proper philosophical approach is one
which thinks the uncommon in everyday activity, or which confronts
the uncommon condition for the possibility of common activities and/
or knowledge daims. To this extent, then, we shall largely break with
many of the assumptions that are made concerning the 'critique of
metaphysics' or 'end of philosophy' traditions. 2 To state our position
baldly, to the extent that the 'philosophies' within the 'critique of meta­
physics' and 'end of philosophy' traditions attempt to think the uncom­
mon condition for the possibility of common, everyday practices and
beliefs, then they are doing what metaphysicians and philosophers
ought to be doing. They are, in short, doing philosophy.
To clarify what we believe to be the necessary and inevitable role of
philosophy, we need to clarify what it means to think the whole or sys­
tem, and more importantly why this thinking inevitably leads to think­
ing the uncommon condition for the possibility of this system (i.e.,
paradoxa). What is the nature of this necessary relationship between the
condition and the conditioned? What is the relationship between
16 Thinking Difference

thought and this necessary condition? What is meant by system,

thought, and necessary conditions? And finally (though not exhaus­
tively), how is it that paradoxa can be inseparable from yet not identifi­
able with the systems it conditions? To begin answering sorne of these
questions, we turn first to Hegel. In Hegel, too, philosophy's necessary
and inevitable role is to think the whole or system, and in thinking this
system philosophy necessarily encounters its own condition of possibil­
ity, a condition it only thinks when it thinks the system.
In Hegel's understanding of system, there is a glaring difference with
what we have argued occurs in thinking the system. Whereas we daim
that in thinking the system one necessarily confronts the uncommon
condition (paradoxa) for the possibility of this stable, identifiable sys­
tem, Hegel argues that this thinking confronts what is ultimately corn­
mon. To be more precise, Hegel argues that anything that might appear
to thought as something uncommon, novel, or unprecedented, is in real­
ity merely part of the emerging transparency of the Not ion to itself. The
Notion, as Hegel daims in his Science of Logic, is the ultimate reality that
is coming into an ever-increasing comprehension of itself. This self-com­
prehension must occur through an object that is other, or self-compre­
hension is necessarily mediated through something other - that is,
something different, uncommon. This other, however, is only appar­
ently other, for this other is simply the determina te content necessary for
the Notion to achieve self-comprehension. As Hegel argues, 'The Idea is
itself the pure Notion that has itself for subject matter and which, in run­
ning itself through the totality of its determinations, develops itself into
the whole of its reality, into the system of the science [of logic], and con­
eludes by apprehending this process of comprehending itself ... ' 3 In
other words, the determinate reality, including the novel and uncom­
mon, is ultimately subordinate to the Notion, and in thinking this
Notion, or in thinking the totality of these determinations, one inevita­
bly, according to Hegel, arrives at 'the science (or system) of logic'
wherein one has 'the self-comprehending pure Notion.' 4 And from the
perspective of this science there is nothing truly other, nothing truly
uncommon: 'determination [whereby through mediation the Notion
cornes to comprehend itself] has not issued from a process of becoming,
nor is it a transition. On the contrary, the pure Idea in which the deter­
minateness or reality of the Notion is itself raised into Notion, is an abso­
lute liberation for which there is no longer anr immediate determination
that is not equally posited and itself Notion.' In other words, there is no
'immediate determination,' no thing, no matter how unique or uncom-
 Systematic Thinking and the Philosophy of Difference 17

mon, that is not a positing and determination of Notion itself. As Hegel

.
continues, 'the simple being to which the Idea determines itself remains
perfectly transparent to it and is the Notion that, in its determination,
abides with itself.' 6 It is thus this self-transparency, or the identity of the
Notion with itself, that is, for Hegel, the condition. for the possibility of
ali systems, and the condition for the possibility of the absolute, com­
pleted system. The uncommon, in short, is subordinate to the self-iden­
tity of the Notion, or the uncommon is ultimately reducible to the
common (i.e., Notion) that is the condition for the possibility of ali the
determinations of the system.
The difference between our position concerning the thinking of sys­
tem and that of Hegel' s is clear. For Hegel the uncommon is not the con­
dition of possibility for any and ali systems, as we daim paradoxa is.
The common, or Notion, is this condition. And whereas we argue that
the uncommon is inseparable from the system it conditions and is not to
be identified with it, Hegel argues that the Notion is inseparable from
the determinations it conditions but would argue that it is to be identi­
fied with them. Despite this obvio�s difference, we remain agreed that
philosophy ought to think the condition for the possibility of system.
Our disagreement emerges when Hegel identifies this condition as the
self-identical Notion common to all determinations, and subsequently
when he reduces the uncommon to the common.
This is also Nietzsche's disagreement with Hegel. Nietzsche repeat­
edly criticized the tendency to reduce the uncommon to the common,
and in particular the herd tendency for individuals to become common,
to be like everyone else. Anything of value, for Nietzsche, is always
unique, exceptional, and rare: 'whatever can be common always has lit­
tle value.' 7 ln response to this tendency to reduce the uncommon to the
common - in other words, in response to the tendency epitomized by
Hegel - Nietzsche sets forth his famous dictum: 'become who you are.'
And to become who you are entails, as Nietzsche clarifies in The Gay Sci­
ence, becoming the unique, exceptional, and uncommon individual we
ali are: 'We, however, want to become th ose we are - human beings who
are new, unique, incomparabl e, who give themselves laws, who create
themselves.' 8 This contrasts sharply with Hegel, for although Hegel
does say that 'spirit ... makes itself that which it is,' 9 what it makes itself,
or what it becomes, is, as we have seen, that which is self-identical and
common to all the determinations of spirit (i.e., Notion).
Despite Nietzsche' s overturning of Hegel, or his call for becoming a
unique, uncommon individual as opposed to an individual who is
18 Thinking Difference

merely an expression of what is common, Nietzsche nonetheless recog­

nizes the necessity of reducing the uncommon to the common. The
result of this need to reduce the uncommon to the common is 'knowl­
edge.' Nietzsche is clear on this point: What is it that the common
people take for knowledge? What do they want when they want
"knowledge"? Nothing more than this: Something strange is to be
reduced to something familiar ... isn't our need for knowledge precisely
this need for the familiar, the will to uncover under everything strange,
unusual, and questionable something that no longer disturbs us? Is it
not the instinct of fear that bids us to know?' 1 0 It is for this reason that
Nietzsche refers to 'knowledge' as a 'condition of life'; 11 that is, in order
to live and thrive we must have a sense of familiarity and commonality
with our environment. Without this familiarity, we might perish. In fact,
Nietzsche will go on to argue that the strength of an individual can be
measured by how much one can cope with the strange and unfamiliar. 1 2
With this understanding of knowledge, Nietzsche clearly cornes
down against Hegel's theory of Absolute Knowledge. Absolute Knowl­
edge, according to Hegel, is the knowledge of the system, or it is the
complete self-conscious realization of Spirit, the self-comprehending
Notion. In other words, it is that which is common to all determinations,
including all novelty, etc., recognizing itself as self-transparently
present within these determinations. Nietzsche, to the contrary, under­
stands knowledge as a necessary condition for life, and thus it is what
one needs to 'know' in order to thrive. For example, in his famous dis­
cussion of master and slave morality, Nietzsche argues that the 'knowl­
edge' they each arrive at is a function of their strength. In master
morality, therefore, one is in a position of strength and is thus better able
to cope with that which is different, strange, and unfamiliar, and conse­
quent!y one does not perceive the strange and unfamiliar as a threat. As
for what is common to the masters, it is precisely their strength, domi­
nance, etc., with which they are familiar, and thus when they identify
that which is good they naturally point to themselves. What one in mas­
ter morality 'knows' to be good is one's self. Slave morality, on the other.
hand, arises from the slaves' position of weakness; consequently, that
which is strange, different, and unfamiliar - in particular, he who is
strong, dominant, and able to destroy them - is perceived as a threat. In
order to thrive, however, they must eliminate this threat; but being in a
position of weakness where this is not possible, they subsequently elim­
ina te instead the values embraced by the strong and affirm what is
familiar to thems elves - being weak, meek, and downtrodden. What
 Systematic Thinking and the Philosophy of Difference 19

one in slave morality 'knows' to be good is to be meek, selfless, and sub­

ject to a force greater than oneself (e.g., God); and one also 'knows' that
it is evil to be strong, fear-inspiring, selfish, and to live by one' s own val­
ues. What Nietzsche argues in contrasting mas ter and slave morality is
that the 'knowledge' which arises in each case is perfectly legitimate
from the perspective of one who is either strong or weak. Belief in the
truths of slave morality, after all, was and probably continues to be a
source of strength for many people. As a condition of life� the knowl­
edge master and slave morality professes is not an absolu te knowledge,
à la Hegel, but is what enables one in a given life-condition to thrive.
This understanding of knowledge is more commonly known as
Nietzsche's theory of perspectivism. Nietzsche's perspectivism, in fact,
is explicitly contrasted with Hegel, with what Nietzsche refers to as 'the
dangerous old conceptual fiction that posited a "pure, will-less, pain­
less, timeless knowing subject" ... "absolute spirituality," "knowledge
in itself,"' and to this he daims 'there is only a perspective seeing, only
a perspective "knowing"; and the more affects we allow to speak about
one thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we can use to observe one thing,
the more complete will our "concept" of this thing, our "objectivity,"
be.' 1 3 This perspectivism is not to be confused with relativism. Although
the perspectives of slave and master morality arise in response to their
respective !ife-conditions, this does not mean that one perspective is as
good as another. For Nietzsche both absolutism and relativism with
respect to values are 'equally childish.' 14 Furthermore, as any reader of
Nietzsche �s well aware, Nietzsche does not hold back in his criticisms
of slave morality. Nietzsche thus clearly embraces a criterion or stan­
dard whereby he judges the merits of a given perspective. This standard
is simply that of life itself: if a perspective or 'knowledge' enhances the
ability to live, which entails thriving, growing, and becoming dominant,
then it is better than one which leads to a decline. And accumulating a
number of 'different' perspectives, or acquiring the 'objectivity' of many
'different eyes,' enables one to be better able to adapt to changing cir­
cumstances. It is good for life, and consequently a more 'objective' per­
son will be more likely to cope with an uncommon, unexpected
circumstance than one who dogmatically clings to a single perspective.
This latter daim lies at the basis of Nietzsche's critique of metaphys­
ics. The desire to 'know,' to have certainty in an uncertain world, the
common in the face of the uncommon, reaches its pinnacle with religion
and metaphysics. ln fact, Nietzsche, in line with the argument sketched
above, states that 'how much one needs a faith in order to flourish ... is
20 Thinking Difference

a measure of the degree of one's strength (or, to put the point more
clearly, of one's weakness).' 1 5 And he places metaphysics in this cate­
gory as well: it is the faith in absolute certainties, in a reality that tran­
scends the perspectives of life; and thus, as with religion, 'metaphysics
is still needed by some.' 16 Metaphysics, including (perhaps especially)
the philosophy of Hegel, exemplifies the need to know, the need to
reduce the uncommon to the common, so that those who are weak, or
who cannot endure that which is strange and different, can live and
flourish. It is this move to reaffirm the uncommon, Nietzsche' s call to
become who you are in response to the perceived tendencies of religion
and metaphysics which call for one to become the common, the certain,
which has influenced, beginning with Heidegger, much of the twenti­
eth-century critique of metaphysics. Before we tum to a discussion of
Heidegger and this critique, however, we must first, in light of what we
have said so far, examine the relationship between the uncommon and
system in Nietzsche's writings.
To discuss the significance of system in Nietzsche's philosophy might
seem misguided, unless of course one intends to discuss Nietzsche's cri­
tique of system and systematic philosophy, such as his critique and
rejection of Hegel. Nietzsche, however, does not reject system or sys­
tematic philosophy. What Nietzsche rejects is a system which daims to
transcend the perspective of one's !ife-condition (as with Hegel, for
example). lt is in this vein, then, that, in the preface to his early work on
the pre-Socratics, Nietzsche praises the systematic philosophy of the
pre-Socratics. This philosophy, or the fragments that remain of it, how­
ever, do not express an absolute truth of the world; rather, the frag­
ments of the pre-Socratics express the personality (i.e., perspective) of
the philosopher. As Nietzsche puts it, these 'philosophical systems are
wholly true for their founders only. For all subsequent philosophers
they usually represent one great mistake, for lesser minds a sum of
errors and truths'; and yet, Nietzsche continues, 'whoever rejoices in
great human beings will also rejoice in philosophical systems, even if
completely erroneous. They always have one wholly incontrovertible
point: personal mood, color.' 17 In a later preface, he reiterates this point
more strong!y: 'The only thing of interest in a refuted system is the per­
sona! element. lt alone is what is forever irrefutable.' 18 In approaching a
philosophical system, therefore, Nietzsche is not looking for a timeless,
etemal truth, nor is he looking for a few shreds of truth scattered in
among the errors. This latter task is only what those with 'lesser minds'
do. What Nietzsche looks for is the unique, incomparable perspective
 Systematic Thinking and the Philosophy of Difference 21

which infuses the various daims that are made, much as, to use
Nietzsche's own analogy, one can come to an understanding of the soil
by studying what grows in this soil.19 Similarly, a philosophical system
grows from the perspective of the philosopher; or the philosopher' s phi­
losophy, as Nietzsche says much la ter in Beyond Good and Evil, is simply
'the persona! confession of its author and a kind of involuntary and
unconscious memoir; also that the moral (or immoral) intentions in
every philosophy constituted the real germ of life from which the whole
plant had grown.' 20
In Beyond Good and Evil it becomes much clearer what perspective
Nietzsche looks for in attempting to account for and understand a phi­
losophical system - namely, the moral (or immoral) perspective. In
particular, Nietzsche studies a philosophical system to see whether it is
the expression of an ascending or descending life. To the extent that
Nietzsche does this, it appears, then, that though Nietzsche stresses the
significance of the uncommon, unique, and incomparable, and rails
against metaphysics for reducing the uncommon to the common,
Nietzsche nonetheless does much the same thing. By setting forth the
criterion and standard which is based upon what is life-enhancing, one
could argue that Nietzsche, too, is doing metaphysics insofar as the
uncommon (e.g., the unique, incomparable perspective expressed
within a philosophical system) is reduced to that which is common, or
what Nietzsche will most frequently refer to as will to power - that is,
our common tendency as living beings to do what it takes to thrive. This
is roughly the criticism Heidegger makes of Nietzsche. Nietzsche,
Heidegger believes, was on the right track in attempting to overcome
the metaphysical tradition, and in many ways Heidegger believes
Nietzsche completely reversed the tradition, but by simply reversing it
Nietzsche remained within the grips of metaphysics and failed to over­
come it; or, Nietzsche was the last metaphysician.
In his critique of Nietzsche, Heidegger pays particularly close atten­
tion to Nietzsche's self-proclaimed attempt to move beyond Platonism
and, with this, be�ond Christianity, which Nietzsche called 'Platonism
for "the people."' 1 At the basis of Nietzsche's move beyond Platonism,
and the justification for his critique of Christianity, is an understanding
of life as will to power. Nietzsche is explicit on this point: anything that
'is a living and not a dying body ... will have to be an incarnate will to
power, it will strive to grow, spread, seize, become predominant - not
from any morality or immorality but because it is living and because
life simply is will to power.' 22 Nietzsche will thus criticize Platonism for
22 Thinking Difference

emphasizing the eternal life of the soul that is distinct from the body,
from 'incarnate will to power' (note Nietzsche' s criticism of Socrates for
accepting dea th as a cure for the illness of life); and he will say much the
same about Christianity and its valorization of the weak, downtrodden,
and self-sacrificing, while simultaneously giving greatest significance
to the eternal life after the death of this body. Heidegger recognizes the
importance life plays as a standard whereby Nietzsche judges various
perspectives. Most notably, Heidegger, in his book on Parmenides, rec­
ognizes the necessity for life, as will to power, to seek a continuai
aggrandizement of power: 'Power can only be assured by the constant
enhancement of power. Nietzsche recognized this very clearly and
declared that within the realm of essence of the will to power the mere
preservation of an already attained level of power already represents a
decrease in the degree of power.' 23 Therefore, as Heidegger notes,
because Nietzsche thinks 'in accord with the usual "biological" way of
thinking of the second half of the nineteenth century,' he thinks will to
power as life, or more precisely as the process whereby life is promoted
through the control, domination, and securing of one's environment.
The result of will to power, then, is an environment that is predictable,
calculable, comfortable, and thus an environment wherein a living
being, an 'incarnate will to power,' can thrive.
It would be a mistake, however, as Heidegger was correct to point
out, simply to identify Nietzsche's thought with the 'biological' way of
thinking, or of a reductionism based on biology, what Nietzsche's crit­
ics have called 'biologism.' In the appropriately titled chapter from his
work on Nietzsche, 'Nietzsche's Alleged Biologism,' Heidegger daims
that 'this current and, in a way, correct characterization of Nietzschean
thinking as biologism presents the main obstacle to our penetrating his
fundamental thought.' 24 This obstacle consists in assuming that a bio­
logical way of thinking has already decided which beings are being
questioned and examined, namely, living beings, when the real guid­
ing question, as Heidegger reads Nietzsche, concerns the nature of
beings as a whole. In extending the use of biological terms beyond the
realm of living beings, Nietzsche is not to be accused of a category mis­
take, which is one of the criticisms of Nietzsche's alleged biologism.
This accusation is symptomatic, according to Heidegger, of the failure
to understand Nietzsche's 'fundamental thought.' When Nietzsche
extends the use of biological terms, he does so, Heidegger concludes,
in order to think 'beings as a whole [systematically],' and thus 'he is
not thinking biologically [i.e., scientifically] . Rather, he r,ounds this
apparently merely biological worldview metaphysically.' 2 Nietzsche's
 Systematic Thinking and the Philosophy of Difference 23

thought is more than an example of the typical thinking of the nine­

teenth century; his thinking is rare and exceptional - that is, he
attempts to think beings as a whole, or Being.
Heidegger understands Nietzsche' s theory of perspectivism in terms
of this attempt to think beings as a whole. Heidegger does not read
Nietzsche's notion of perspectivism to mean, in the manner of Leibniz,
that there are an indefinite number of perspectives upon one, self­
identical being. 26 The perspectives are not the manner in which an
underlying reality appears, but instead reality is itself perspectival. As
Heidegger puts it, 'all appearance and all apparentness are possible
only if something cornes to the fore and shows itself at all. What in
advance enables such appearing is the perspectival itself ... [or] bein §­
real is in itself perspectival, a bringing forward into appearance ... ' 7
Nietzsche, in his theory of perspectivism, is not simply thinking 'bio­
logically,' but more profoundly Nietzsche is thinking metaphysically,
thinking Being as a whole, and with perspectivism Heidegger daims
'Reality, Being, is Schein in the sense of perspectival letting shine.' 28
In thinking metaphysically, however, Nietzsche's thought and phi­
losophy are not, according to Heidegger, to be interpreted as simply
another link in a long chain of metaphysical philosophies and systems.
Nietzsche's philosophy and metaphysical thinking also bring an end to
metaphysics: 'Nietzsche's philosophy is the end of metaphysics.' But as
end we are not to read dosure or completion of metaphysics; but, rather,
Nietzsche thinks the event which began metaphysics. Consequently,
Heidegger daims that Nietzsche' s philosophy is the end of metaphysics
'inasmuch as it reverts to the very commencement of Greek thought in
a way that is peculiar to Nietzsche's philosophy alone.' 29 This same idea
will be expressed in Heidegger's late essay 'The End of Philosophy and
the Task of Thinking,' when he says that 'the end of philosophy is the
place, that place in which the whole of philosophy's history is gathered
in its most extreme possiblity,' 30 and hence the task of thinking is to
think this 'extreme possibility,' or the very condition and possibility for
thinking beings as a whole, that is, for thinking metaphysically. And this
possibility is, as is well known, what Heidegger refers to as Being, as
aletheia and unconcealment; moreover, in returning to the commence­
ment of metaphysics, to the Greeks, we retum to the 'extreme possibil­
ity' they did not, could not, think: 'What do ground and principle and
especially principle of all principles mean? Can this ever be sufficiently
determined unless we experience aletheia in a Greek manner as uncon­
cealment and then, above and beyond the Greek, think it as the opening
of self-concealing?' 3 1 The Greeks, in particular Parmenides and Heradi-
24 Thinking Difference

tus according to Heidegger, did experience beings as a whole as Being,

as aletheia, but they could not think the 'self-concealing' of Being in
beings, the self-concealing that is the condition of possibility for meta­
physics. They could not think this, for though their thought was the
event which marks the commencement of metaphysics, they could not
think this possibility for it had not yet come to be. Thus, they did not do
metaphysics, or think Being as being, as presence, logos, etc. With the
metaphysics of Plato and Aristotle, being as a whole is thought, but it is
not thought as presencing and unconcealment (Being as aletheia), but
rather as presence, or as logos (being). lt is the self-concealment of Being
which is the 'extreme possibility' of metaphysics, and Parmenides and
Heraditus could not think this for they were experiencing Being, and
neither could Aristotle and Plato for Being had been forgotten. lt is to
this commencement of metaphysics, then, that Heidegger daims
Nietzsche's philosophy returns.
In returning to this commencement, however, Heidegger believes
that Nietzsche did not ultimately think the commencement in its
'extreme possibility,' but rather thought Being not as presencing but as
presence. For example, in returning to Parmenides and Heraditus,
Heidegger argues that Nietzsche's own philosophy is an attempt to
embrace both apparently contradictory aspects of their thought - that
is, Parmenides' daim that Being is and Becoming is not, and Heradi­
tus's daim that Becoming is and Being is not. Nietzsche does this,
Heidegger daims, by emphasizing the permanence of each: 'Nietzsche
argues that being is as fixated, as permanent; and that it is in perpetuai
creation and destruction.' 32 To justify this reading, Heidegger will cite
the famous passage where Nietzsche daims: 'To stamp Becoming with
the character of Being - that is the supreme will to power.' 33 In other
words, the permanence of Parmenides' Being is its stability, its perdu­
rance, and the same is true of Heraditus's Becoming, whereby Becom­
ing is the permanent nature of reality. Therefore, following the above­
cited quote of Nietzsche, Heidegger reads it to mean that 'the sense is
not that one must brush aside and replace Becoming as the imperma­
nent - for impermanence is what Becoming implies - with being as the
permanent. The sense is that one must shape Becoming as being in
such a way that as becoming it is preserved, has subsistence, in a word,
is.' And it is precisely this shaping of Becoming, this preservation of
Becoming which gives it subsistence, that is the role of will to power.
lt is this understanding of v.ill to power which leads Heidegger to
criticize Nietzsche as yet another metaphysician who fails to think
 Systematic Thinking and the Philosophy of Difference 25

Being. By making the supreme will to power that function which pre­
serves and shapes Becoming such that it is, Nietzsche thus thinks being
as a whole not as presencing, as Being, but as presence, as what is
(being). When Nietzsche daims, then, that 'the world viewed from
inside, the world defined and determined according to its "intelligible
character" - it would be "will to power" and nothing else,' 34 Nietzsche
continues to adhere to the metaphysical tradition which thinks Being as
being and as a whole, 35 or Being as presencing has been en-framed,
boxed in, contained and preserved as the presence of being and that
which is, that which has been stamped with being. Heidegger states this
criticism quite clearly when, after again quoting Nietzsche's statement
that the supreme will to power is 'to stamp Becoming with the character
of Being,' he says: 'Why is this the supreme will to power? The answer
is, because will to power in its most profound essence is nothing other
than the permanentizing of Becoming into presence.' 36 And later
Heidegger will criticize Nietzsche's notion of 'eternal recurrence' for
precisely the same reason that Nietzsche criticized Hegel - that is, he
reduced the uncommon to the common, the unstable to the stable:

Etemal recurrence [of the same] is the most constant permanentizing of

the unstable. Since the beginning of Western metaphysics, Being has been
understood in the sense of permanence of presencing, whereby perma­
nence has ambiguously meant both fixity and persistence. Nietzsche' s
concept of the eternal recurrence of the same expresses the same essence
of Being. Nietzsche of course distinguishes Being as the stable, firm, fixed,
and rigid, in contrast to Becoming. But Being nonetheless pertains to will
to power, which must secure stability for itself by means of permanence,
solely in order to be able to surpass itself; that is, in order to become. 37

Nietzsche's philosophy attempts to put an end to metaphysics, as

Heidegger correctly noted, by returning to the commencement of meta­
physics and the event which led to the decline that made metaphysics
possible; but with Nietzsche' s understanding of will to power and eter­
nal recurrence, however, he in the end does not think this commence­
ment and remains committed to the tradition of metaphysics which
arrested this commencement:

Neither Nietzsche nor any thinker prior to him - even and especially not
that one who before Nietzsche first thought the history of philosophy in a
philosophical way, namely, Hegel - revert to the incipient commence-
26 Thinking Difference

ment. Rather, they invariably apprehend the commencement in the sole

light of a philosophy in decline from it, a philosophy that arrests that
38
commencement - to wit, the philosophy of Plato.

It is for this reason that Heidegger believes Nietzsche's self-proclaimed

effort to twist free from Plato is destined to fail. Nietzsche's inversion of
Plato, Heidegger daims, 'represents the entrenchment of that posi­
tion.' 39 In other words, Nietzsche continues to adhere to the notion that
there is a true, ultimate reality. Thus, in inverting Plato, Heidegger states
that for Nietzsche 'the vacant niches of the "above and below" are pre­
served, suffering only a change in occupancy, as it were. But as long as
the "above and below" define the formai structure of Platonism, Pla­
tonism in its essence perdures.' The overcoming of Platonism is success­
ful only when 'the "above" in general is set aside as such, when the
former positing of something true and desirable no longer arises, when
the true world - in the sense of the ideal - is expunged.' 40 To the extent
that Nietzsche's understanding of will to power is such that it is what is
real, what is true, then Nietzsche does not successfully escape Platonism.
This is exactly how Heidegger, in his book Parmenides, interprets
Nietzsche's understanding of the will to power. Here, too, Heidegger
argues that 'the entire thinking of the Occident from Plata to Nietzsche
thinks in terms of this delimitation of the essence of truth as correct­
ness.' 41 Rather than thinking truth as unconcealedness, as aletheia, and
thus truth as the 'extreme possibility' for thinking and for thinking
beings, the being or reality of thought and beings is assumed, and truth
becomes the correct correspondence between thought and beings.
Tru th as aletheia, as the unstable Being and clearing which allows for the
presencing of thinking and being, is stabilized and replaced by the
Roman view of truth as veritas, as correctnes. And the Roman view
arase, according to Heidegger, for the sake of maintaining their imperial
command and security, whereby any instability and novelty must be
dominated and contained within an order-ing command, a command
which establishes a reality that corresponds to its will. 42 In the case of
Nietzsche, will to power completes this Roman view by also being
understood in the sense of a command ('will to power, as expressly
determined by Nietzsche, is in essence command'),43 or will to power
molds and shapes Becoming, the unstable and uncommon, so that
becoming can be preserved as that which is. To preserve becoming as
that which is, to constitute (schematize) a knowledge and enhancement
of power which is a necessary condition for life, this will to power must
 Systematic Thinking and the Philosophy of Difference 27

constantly reflect upon its own status, or it must continually determine

that it is in agreement with its will and necessity as will to power.
Heidegger is explicit on this point: 'ln the essence of assurance [i.e.,
assurance that there has been an "enhancement of power"] there resides
a constant back-relatedness to itself, and in this lies the required self-ele­
vation.' 44 With this move Heidegger believes that the Roman turn to
truth as veritas becomes completed when truth as certainty of corre­
spondence becomes absolutized to being the certainty of self-presence:
'In Hegel's metaphysics and in Nietzsche's, i.e., in the nineteenth cen­
tury, the transformation of veritas into certitudo is completed. This
completion of the Roman essence of truth is the proper and hidden his­
torical meaning of the nineteenth century.' 45 Thus, despite his professed
break with Hegel, Nietzsche remains firmly entrenched, on Heidegger' s
reading, to the Hegelian view that all novelty, all that is uncommon and
unstable, is ultimately reducible to the certainty of self-presence, to
what is essentially true and common to all (Spirit for Hegel and will to
power for Nietzsche). It is for this reason, finally, that Heidegger con­
eludes: 'Nietzsche's metaphysics, and with it the essential ground of
"classical nihilism," may now be more clearly delineated as a metaphys­
ics of the absolute subjectivity of will to power.' 46
To think the end of metaphysics and philosophy, Heidegger agrees
that one must, as did Nietzsche, return to the commencement of meta­
physics in arder to think its 'extreme possibility.' But in doing this one
does not simply abandon the traditional metaphysical question 'what is
being?' or 'what is being as a whole?' Rather, one inquires into the
beingness of being, or the Being of being. Nietzsche abandoned the
effort to answer the metaphysical question because he saw any answer
as a mere fiction one constructs in arder to give oneself a sense of secu­
rity and comfort. 47 But by accounting for this need for security and corn­
fort in terms of will to power, Nietzsche does not leave metaphysics
behind, but remains firmly within its grasp as what Heidegger calls the
'last metaphysician.' To inquire into the beingness of beings, the Being
of beings, however, or to return to the commencement of metaphysics
and the thinking of Being as a whole, one will not find the uncommon
reduced to the common; to the contrary, one will find the uncommon
within the common. Consequently, in his reading of Parmenides,
Heidegger finds that at the commencement of metaphysics the experi­
ence of Being - the experience that conditioned the metaphysician' s
pursuit of an answer to the question 'what is being?' - involved an expe­
rience of the uncommon, non-identifiable absence at the heart of what is
28 Thinking Difference

common. Heidegger thus daims that when 'Being cornes into focus,
there the extraordinary announces itself, the excessive that strays
"beyond" the ordinary, that which is not to be explained by explana­
tions on the basis of beings. This is the uncanny .' 48 The end of metaphys­
ics and philosophy, therefore, does not mean an end to philosophical
thinking, unless by that one means the reduction of what is uncommon
to that which is common and ordinary; instead, with the end of meta­
physics cornes the task of thinking the extraordinary within the ordi­
nary, the uncommon within the common, or what Heidegger calls the
'uncanny.'
It is perhaps this effort of Heidegger's to think the uncommon within
the common, the extraordinary within the ordinary, which has had the
most influence upon contemporary Continental thought, in particular
the work of Jacques Derrida. Derrida's philosophy, in fact, as even Der­
rida himself admits, is largely a continuation of the critique of meta­
physics begun by Heidegger. In particular, Derrida narrows in on the
daim made by Heidegger in his book Parmenides, and discussed above,
that 'the entire thinking of the Occident from Plato to Nietzsche thinks
in terms of ... truth as correctness.' 49 'The essence of truth as veritas (i.e.,
correctnes),' Heidegger adds, 'is without space and without ground.' 50
There is no space, no distance, between our true thoughts concerning a
state of affairs in the world and that state of affairs: the two coïncide. The
result is the presence of truth as self-evidence, or the presence of thought
to itself in the manner of self-identity. 'What is lacking,' as we have seen
Heidegger develop his critique of metaphysics, 'is the essential space of
aletheia, the unconcealedness of things and the disdosing comportment
of man, a space completely covered over by debris and forgotten.' 5 1
What is absent in traditional metaphysics is precisely a thinking sensi­
tive to the unconcealedness which allows for the presencing of that
which presents itself, and thus the spacing which allows for the ability
to think in terms of veritas and rectitudo.
Derrida is very much in agreement with Heidegger on this issue. In
Speech and Phenomena, for example, Derrida daims that the Western
emphasis upon the phonetic alphabet accounts in large part for the
understanding of truth as self-presence, or as the reduction and forget­
ting of space: 'hearing oneself speak is experienced as an absolutely pure
auto-affection, occurring in a self-proximity that would in fact be the
absolute reduction of space in general.' 52 But what Derrida will contin­
ually argue and remind us is that 'auto-affection' or 'self-presence'
already presupposes a 'pure difference ... and in this pure difference is
 Systematic Thinking and the Philosophy of Difference 29

rooted the possibility of everything we think we can exclude from auto­

affection: space, the outside, the world, the body, etc.' 53 And the term
most used by Derrida to characterize this pure difference which entails
the space auto-affection, or truth as veritas, thought it had expunged, is
differance; and the function of differance, this pure difference, is to delay
the coming to identity and presence of self, or it pollutes identity with a
trace of otherness, a space that cannot be reduced: 'this pure difference,
which constitutes the self-presence of the living present, introduces into
self-presence from the beginning the impurity putatively excluded from
it. The living present springs forth out of its nonidentity with itself and
from the possibility of a retentional trace. lt is always already a trace.' 54
Again, in Of Grammatology, Derrida will refer to differance as 'an eco­
nomie concept designa ting the production of differing/ deferring.' 55
Differance is therefore the pure difference which allows for the possibil­
ity of a self coming into presence with itself (i.e., as veritas), and yet it
forever defers complete presence and self-identity because it harbours a
trace of space and otherness that subverts this identity. More impor­
tantly, the fullness and plentitude of self-presence, the plentitude of
hearing oneself speak and of having a substantiality intimately tied to
the vocalized expression of our ideas, is not the condition for under­
standing self-presence (though this is the implicit, unquestioned
assumption of traditional ontotheologieal metaphysies according to
Derrida); rather, Derrida argues that differance (or what he also calls
trace) is the condition for this plentitude, and hence for traditional meta­
physies: 'The (pure) trace is differance. lt does not depend on any sen­
sible plentitude, audible or visible, phonie or graphie. lt is, on the
contrary, the condition of such a plentitude.' 56 Derrida's deconstructive
readings of texts, subsequently, involve thinking or observing the
effects of this trace, the play whieh allows for the presence of the ideas
in a text, but whieh also prohibits closure and complete self-presence.
An obvious target of such a deconstructive reading is the system of
Hegel. Hegel's system, as we saw, involved the coming to self-pres­
ence of the Notion, or what Hegel called the 'self-comprehending pure
Notion.' In his reading of Hegel, therefore, Derrida would argue that
there is a pure difference or trace whieh allows for the possibility of
Hegel's system, though a difference whieh renders impossible the suc­
cessful completion of this system. Differance forever exceeds system,
or is the condition for system that cannot be identified with system:
'differance ... cannot, as the condition of all linguistic systems, form a
part of the linguistie system itself and be situated as an object in its
30 Thinking Difference

field.' 57 And with this daim we see, finally, the manner in which we
can begin to understand our earlier daim that paradoxa is the condi­
tion for the possibility and impossibility of all systems, a condition that
is inseparable from systems though not to be identified with them. Dif­
ferance is the condition for the possibility of a Hegelian-styled system,
and it is inseparable from such a system for Derrida is dear that differ­
ance is not to be understood as absence, or as the negation of presence;
instead, differance leaves a trace, or an element of play and excess
within every system, and it is precisely the effort to read and uncover
these excesses and elements of play, the uncommon within the corn­
mon, that is the 'proper' task of deconstruction as Derrida sees it.
Derrida makes these points quite explicitly in his essay on Bataille,
or more precisely on Bataille's reading of Hegel. Derrida highlights
Bataille's understanding of sovereignty, and contrasts it with that of the
Lord. The latter involves the subordination of everything to the Lord' s
own positivity. Thus, for example, in his reading of Hegel, Bataille
believes that Hegel confronted the negativity of dea th and yet sought to
overcome it within the positivity of thought or system. As Derrida
describes it: 'The blind spot of Hegelianism, around which can be orga­
nized the representation of meaning, is the point at which destruction,
suppression, death and sacrifice constitute so irreversible an expendi­
ture, so radical a negativity ... that they can no longer be determined as
negativity in a process or a system.' 58 In Hegel, of course, this negativity
is always subordinated to the ultimate positivity of the Idea or Notion,
and thus Hegel's blind spot, his Lord function, is to understand nega­
tivity as 'the underside and accomplice of positivity,' or as what we
have also called the plentitude of self-presence. In his reading of Hegel,
Bataille .uncovers this blind spot, or reveals the play of a sovereign oper­
ation at the very heart of Hegel's system. This 'sovereign operation,' as
Derrida defines it, 'is neither positive nor negative. It cannot be
inscribed in discourse, except by crossing out predicates or by practic­
ing a contradictory superimpression that then exceeds the logic of phi­
losophy .' 59 As with differance, then, the sovereign is neither absence nor
presence; it is inseparable from systems but not to be identified with
them; it is the excess beyond and within system which Bataille, and Der­
rida, attempt to think.
Bataille also attempts to write this excess, or attempts to write the sov­
ereign, in a way that is not subordinate to sorne positivity à la Hegel.
Such a sovereign writing would neither be a writing subordinate to a
dominant meaning, nor would it involve a relation to an ultimate stan-
 Systematic Thinking and the Philosophy of Difference 31

dard and criterion; rather, this writing would 'institute a relation in the
form of a nonrelation, [it would] inscribe rupture in the text, [and
would] place the chain of discursive knowledge in relation to an
unknowledge which is not a moment of knowledge.' 60 To write in this
manner, however, entails, as Derrida goes on to clarify, passing between
'two dangerous straits.' 61 On the one hand, one 'must not isola te notions
as if they were their own context,' or as if one could understand the
meaning of what one is saying independently of its relationship to the
other notions and concepts that are at play in one' s writing. On the other
hand, 'one must not submit contextual attentiveness and differences of
signification to a system of meaning.' 62 In other words, one is to write
(or read) the uncommon within the common, the excess and beyond of
a system that is inseparable from the system, but one is to do so without
either subordinating the meaning of what one is saying to the totality of
a system, or by abandoning system and the interrelationships of mean­
ing altogether. As Derrida puts it, 'this transgression of discourse [asso­
ciated with sovereign writing] must, in sorne fashion, and like every
transgression, conserve or confirm that which it exceeds.' 63 In Bataille's
understanding of the sovereign function (and sovereign writing), there­
fore, there is a key similarity with Hegel's theory of the Aufhebung,
which also emphasizes the transgression and surpassing that simulta­
neously conserves. Derrida notes a crucial difference, however, in that
whereas 'the Hegelian Aufhebung is produced entirely from within dis­
course, from within the system or the work of signification ... [and thus]
the Aufhebung is included within the circle of absolute knowledge,
never exceeds its closure, never suspends the totality of discourse, work,
meaning, law, etc.'; Bataille's Aufhebung, to the contrary, is an 'empty
form of the Aufhebung,' or it is used 'in an analogical fashion, in order
to designate, as was never done before, the transgressive relationshi
which links the world of meaning to the world of nonmeaning.' E
Consequently, when one successfully steers a path between the two
dangerous straits, one does not abandon systematic thinking or writing,
one does not abandon what is common; one simply allows for the effects
of play and excess to enter the scene. 65
Derrida thus recognizes the importance of system, the need for sys­
tematic interrelationships, or what is often referred to as the interde­
pendence of texts, but this system is placed in relation to a non­
meaning, to a trace and pure difference whose spacing keeps the sys­
tem forever open to an outside, to new possibilities. Thus in his famous
essay 'Differance,' Derrida notes that Saussure was partially correct to
32 Thinking Difference

say that the meaning of any given word in a language is dependent

upon its relationship to all the other words in the language, or this
meaning is dependent upon how it differentiates itself from the other
words of the language. As Derrida puts it, 'Saussure had only to
remind us that the play of difference was a functional condition, the
condition of possibility, for every sign.' 66 The meaning of a word can
therefore not be understood independently of its relationship to the
other words of the language, or to the context of the language itself.
The meaning of each word is not, as a consequence of Saussure's view
of the differentiality of language, a self-contained identity and fullnes;
rather, 'the system of signs is constituted by the differences between
the terms, and not by their fullness.' 67 At the same time, and this is
where Derrida believes Saussure was incorrect, Saussure continued to
understand the differentiality of language in terms of the complete,
full system of language itself. Derrida even quotes Saussure's daim
that '"Whether we take the signified or the signifier, language has nei­
ther ideas nor sounds that existed before the linguistic system, but only
conceptual and phonie differences tlult lulve issued from the system."' 68
It is on this point where we can see that Derrida's reading of Hegel
will apply to a reading of Saussure. Just as Hegel understood the sig­
nificance of terms, concepts, and events as being in a relationship of
subordination to the totality of the system (or Notion), so too does Sau­
ssure understand the differentiai relationships between linguistic
terms to be subordinate to, and dependent upon, the totality of the sys­
tem of language. Derrida will reverse this relationship, and thus, as
was the case in his reading of Hegel, difference and differentiai rela­
tions are not to be conditioned by the totality and fullness of a system,
but instead it is a pure difference (differance or trace) which is the con­
dition for any and all possible systems. Derrida is straightforward on
this point: 'differance - is no longer simply a concept, but the possibil­
ity of conceptuality, of the conceptual system and process in general.' 69
And a little later he reiterates this point: 'we shall designate by the
term differance the movement by which language, or any code, any
system of reference in general, becomes "historically" constituted as a
fabric of differences.' 7° Consequently, Derrida will argue that to find 'a
way out of the closure' of Saussure's system, or the tradition of meta­
physics which thinks presence as self-presence, or totality and closure
as a coming back and into oneself, one needs to think system, presence,
etc., not as conditions for difference and differentiai relations, but one
needs to think system and presence 'as a "determination" and an
 Systematic Thinking and the Philosophy of Difference 33

"effect."' That is, system and presence are 'effects' of differance. Derr­
ida thus does not abandon system and systematicity, as we showed
above, but rather than posit a closed, total system such as Hegel and
Saussure, Derrida argues for an open system, a system of differance:
'Presence is a determination and effect within a system which is no
longer that of presence but that of differance.' 71
Derrida's understanding of system as an effect of differance has had
its critics. Among them is Manfred Frank. Frank argues that Derrida' s
'radical outbidding of Saussure' - that is to say, his daim that the system
of language is an effect of the play of differance rather than a condition
for such play - leaves Derrida unable to account for any identifiable
meaning. For Frank, 'without a moment of relative self-identity differ­
entiation could not be established at all, differentiation would lack a cri­
tenon and would be indistinguishable from complete inertia.' 72
Without at least a minimum of self-contained identity, a moment of sig­
nificance that is full and identifiable, Frank believes there is no way to
establish the differences between terms, or there is no criterion whereby
one can say a term is excluded from another. Frank will then cite what
appears to be Derrida's own recognition of this need:

Iterability requires a minimal remaining (restance) (like an, albeit limited,

minimal idealisation) for identity to be repeatable and identifiable in,
through, and even with a view to alteration. For the structure of iteration
73
- another decisive trait - implies at the same time identity and difference.

However, because differance forever delays and defers the retum to

presence, or forever subverts the possibility of self-contained, identifi­
able meaning, Frank argues that Derrida's own premises have left him
unable to account adequately for what he readily admits is needed.
And Derrida clearly and explicitly admits he is not abandoning the
standards and criteria of truth, which would leave us without a means
for determining whether a given text has been read and interpreted
truthfully or not. An interpreter cannot, Derrida argues, 'add any old
thing' to the text that has not been 'rigorously prescribed' by the text,
'by the logic of play' of this text. 74 'The value of truth,' Derrida points
out, 'is never contested or destroyed in my writings.' 75 Derrida will
even go so far as to say that Searle, in his critique of Derrida, in his
reading and interpretation of Derrida's writings, has not followed its
'logic of play,' and he has thus read him wrong, or falsely. But if
pushed to supply the logic, the protocol or criteria which one ought to
34 Thinking Difference

remain 'true' to, or the guard rails which would prevent one from add­
ing 'any old thing' to the text, Derrida confesses that '1 have not found
any that satisfy me.' 76 Frank's criticism of Derrida, as we have seen, is
that Derrida will forever remain unsatisfied, will never find an accept­
able criterion, unless he abandons his- premises concerning differance,
and in effect 'relinquishes his position.1 77
Throughout this book it will be argued that the difficulty Frank cites
regarding Derrida is avoidable, and more important!y it will be argued
that Gilles Deleuze has set forth what we believe to be an important
example of how to avoid it. The problem for Derrida arises in that he
understands system (i.e., Saussure's and Hegel's view of system) as an
'effect' of differance. Derrida therefore does not have Saussure's com­
plete system (langue) at his disposai in order to account for identifiable
meanings, or for a criterion. Derrida's theory of differance accounts
quite well for the underrnining of self-contained meaning and self-pres­
ence, but runs into difficulties in explaining how there can be identifi­
able meanings in the first place, how there can be acceptable criteria and
standards. Derrida is correct, we argue, to daim that the complete sys­
tem of Saussure is underrnined by differance; however, Derrida then
proceeds to prioritize differance over system, and hence the under­
standing of system as an 'effect.' We will daim that there is a reciprocal
presupposition between system, that is, system as dosed and complete
(if only provisionally so, as we will see) and differance. We will use the
terrn 'chaosmos' in referring to this reciprocal presupposition of com­
pletion and differance, system and paradoxa.
We have chosen the terrn 'chaosmos' for a straightforward reason ­
namely, it captures the sense that both chaos and cosmos are recipro­
cally presupposed78 Cosmos corresponds to the sense of system as
order, or system as traditionally understood by Hegel and others; that is,
system as the gathering of determinations and differences (e.g., the
novel and uncommon) in accordance with, or as subordinate to, an Idea
or Identity. ln the case of Hegel, this identity was the emerging self-con­
sciousness and self-presence of the Idea, and the entire system of
Nature, as we saw, was gathered and subordinate to this Idea. Chaos, on
the other hand, corresponds to what is beyond and exceeds system; it is
what Bataille and Derrida attempt to think when Bataille writes (of) the
sovereign function and Derrida writes of the functioning of differance.
Chaosmos, therefore, entails both a dosed, self-contained system and a
chaos which exceeds it. While exceeding cosmos, however, chaos also
contains or preserves it. This is the sense in which Bataille's sovereign
 Systematic Thinking and the Philosophy of Difference 35

writing transgresses while it preserves and affirms what is tra nsgressed

- Bataille's Aufhebung. Foucault notes much the same with respect to
Bataille when he argues that transgression (excess) simultaneously
affirms the prohibitions it goes beyond (i.e., system of laws). Where we
differ with this line of argument, and with Derrida in particular, is in our
position that chaos is not to be seen as a simple function (à la differance),
a differing/ deferring function; rather, chaos is the limit functioning
must forever stave off while not being a function itself. Derrida does say
that differance is likewise the condition of possibility for a text, a condi­
tion a text must repress or stave off if it is to function as a meaningful
text. But differance, as condition for presence and fullness, is not to be
identified with fullness; in fact, Derrida states quite explicitly, as we
have seen, that presence and fullness are 'effects' of differance. 79 The
argument set forth here, and detailed further in chapter 5, is that while
agreeing with Derrida' s position that chaos is non-identifiable, we differ
fundamentally with Derrida in daiming chaos is precisely the very full­
ness of identifiable beings, rather than an absence or trace presupposed
by such beings. Chaos is thus non-identifiable, or not to be confused
with the fullness of presence, for the reason that it exceeds the limits nec­
essary for identification and for presence.
In our chapter on Derrida, we will further examine Derrida' s daim
that plentitude and fullness is an 'effect' of differance. As the argument
cornes to be developed below, it will be shown that Derrida's critique of
fullness and plentitude is symptomatic of a motif common to traditional
metaphysics: namely, the reduction of the complex, chaotic, and multi­
ple to the simple. Derrida indeed recognizes this tendency in the meta­
physical tradition and will routinely reveal the excessive play that lurks
unquestioned within a text. Derrida' s understanding of deconstruction,
in fact, consists in large part in revealing and thinking that which is
uncommon, unique, non-identifiable, excessive, and complex; and he
thinks or reads this within a text which at one level daims to be setting
forth truths that are simple, pure, and common. We saw how Derrida
read Hegel in this way. Despite these moves, Derrida's understanding
of plentitude and fullness as conditioned by the productive function of
differance will in effect reduce the uncommon excess to being some­
thing ultimately related to a functional process that is common to all, in
particular to all texts. 80 Couple this with Derrida's further daim that
'there is nothing outside of the text,' 81 and it follows that everything has
one thing in common: they are all 'effects' of differance. As we under­
stand chaosmos, and as it will be argued Deleuze understands multi-
36 Thinking Difference

plicities, plateaus, bodies without organs, etc., it is, as Derrida argues

with respect to differance, non-identifiable, but it is non-identifiable
precisely because of its excessive plentitude and fullness, or because it is
inseparable from the systems it conditions. Chaosmos is only identifi­
able, we daim, when its excessive fullness is filtered, sustained, and
contained. Such a containment process does not arise ex nihilo; that is, it
does not create identity out of nothing (this was essentially Frank's
problem with Derrida); it always already has elements of containment,
a system, to work with. Chaos is inseparable from an identifiable sys­
tem, from a cosmos, and hence the term 'chaosmos.'
What this approach offers is an answer to the problem concerning
criteria we saw Frank draw attention to with respect to Derrida. In the
succeeding chapters of this book, it will be argued that chaos and cos­
mos are and ought to be in equilibrium, if only precariously so. Neither
chaos nor cosmos should be realized to the exclusion of the other. A
functioning system would collapse under either of the two possibilites
- pure chaos would destroy just as readily as pure cosmos, for to func­
tion a system needs order and predictability (cosmos), but to be able to
adapt to novel, unforeseen situations a system needs to experiment
with untried, uncommon methods (chaos). Both chaos and cosmos are
necessary, or, to recall the point made in the introduction, a functioning
dynamical system functions best at the edge of chaos. The criterion,
then, is chaosmos, or the necessity of maintaining the equilibrium
between chaos and cosmos. And with this we can further clarify our
position with respect to Derrida. In particular, the functioning of differ­
ance, as a functioning and 'production' of 'effects,' is a function which
is possible only on the condition of this precarious equilibrium, or on
the basis of a system at the edge of chaos (chaosmos).
In affirming and writing of differance, Derrida does affirm its both/
and quality (Derrida often refers to such both/ands as undecidables),82
but in extending Derrida we argue that system - that is, a closed sys­
tem which enables the identification and relation of terms, à la Saus­
sure - is not simply an 'effect,' but is equally affirmed in that which
exceeds it (chaos). Moreover, in affirming system, or cosmos, we affirm
what Bataille refers to in discussing Hegel's system: the concrete total­
ity of all that is. In rejecting Hegel's system, and in thinking the play of
differance which undermines Hegel's system by instilling a play of
meaning which defers the closure of this system, Derrida is ultimately
led to ignore the play of differance within the concrete totality, and
hence the relative lack of political engagement on Derrida's part with
 Systematic Thinking and the Philosophy of Difference 37

political systems. Rather than examining the textual effects of differ­

ance within texts, we will, beginning with Spinoza and continuing
throughout the remaining chapters of this book, show how important
concepts of key philosophers come, in Deleuze's hands, to be used to
think concrete totalities, totalities which are inseparable from, and
affirm, the uncommon (chaos) that transforms these totalities into a
multiplicity of other totalities - a thousand plateaus. Deleuze's effort,
in the end, is to think the uncommon within the concrete, common
reality, the chaos in the cosmos; in short, Deleuze is doing philosophy.
2 Ironing Out the Differences: Nietzsche

and Deleuze as Spinozists

Friedrich Nietzsche's critique of traditional philosophy is well known.

Much of his philosophical venom, as we shall see in more detail in the
next chapter, is directed against what he sees as the life-denying intel­
lectual legacy that originated with Plato. lnduded among Nietzsche's
flurry of criticisms, however, is an important and influential critique of
Descartes. In particular, Nietzsche argues that Descartes' daim to have
established the certainty of the cogito is far from certain and instead pre­
supposes a 'grammatical habit: "Thinking is an activity; every activity
requires an agent; consequently -."' 1 The eventual lesson Nietzsche
draws from Descates' case, as well as a host of others, is that any philos­
opher's daim to have uncovered a bedrock of certainty is ultimately
nothing other than a coping mechanism that satisfies a need, what
Nietzsche refers to as a 'metaphysical need.' 2
It should come as quite a surprise, then, that Nietzsche, in a letter to
Overbeck, writes, '1 am amazed, utterly enchanted! 1 have a precursor,
and what a precursor! 1 hardly knew Spinoza ... ' 3 This should be espe­
cially surprising to Spinoza scholars for two reasons, and perhaps
more. First, Spinoza, as the influential Spinoza scholar Martial Guer­
oult has argued, goes even further than Descartes in arguing for the
ability of human beings to acquire absolute, certain knowledge. As
Gueroult points out, although Descartes and Leibniz both believe there
are things we can know, and know with certainty, God is not one of
these things; and yet, for Spinoza, God can be known with certainty. 4
The other reason Nietzsche's praise should come as a surprise is that
many commentators interpret Spinoza in light of Descartes. Although
differences between Spinoza and Descartes are noted, Spinoza is
widely seen to have been profoundly influenced by Descartes and to
 Nietzsche and Deleuze as Spinozists 39

be continuing the Cartesian project, even if to the extreme. 5 Nietzsche's

criticisms of Descartes should therefore apply to Spinoza. Spinoza, in
fact, seems to have carried the 'metaphysical need' to lengths that not
even Descartes dared to take it.
Nietzsche does indeed criticize Spinoza at a number of places. For
instance, Nietzsche refers to the 'hocus pocus of mathematical form
with which Spinoza dad his philosophy - really "the love of his wis­
dom,"' 6 and he criticized Spinoza for emphasizing self-preservation
(what Spinoza calls conatus) to the neglect of will to power, of which 'the
struggle for existence is only an exception.' 7 And finally, though not
exhaustively, Nietzsche was very critical of Spinoza's efforts to 'so
naively [advocate] the destruction of the affects through their analysis
and vivisection.' 8 Yet despite these criticisms Nietzsche does not group
Spinoza with Descates as one who daims to have grounded knowledge
on the certainty of the cogito and its dear and distinct ideas; to the con­
trary, in the previously cited letter to Overbeck, Nietzsche states that in
addition to their shared tendency to 'make knowledge the most power­
fui affect,' there are five other points where they agree: 'he [Spinoza]
denies the freedom of the will, teleology, the moral world-order, the
unegoistic, and evil.' By seeing Spinoza as a philosopher who identified
knowledge with the affects, and with the most powerful affect,
Nietzsche places Spinoza at odds with the Cartesian daim that knowl­
edge and the will are distinct, or that error cornes in when our will and
passions ex tend beyond the dear and distinct ideas our mind (cogito)
presents. This interpretation is further reinforced, at least in Nietzsche' s
mind, by Spinoza's deniai of the freedom of the will. This chapter shall
therefore take Nietzsche's daims regarding Spinoza as a precursor seri­
ously, and by doing this we will see how this reading of Spinoza can
address many of the central problems and controversies that have
plagued Spinoza's commentators, problems and controversies we feel
result from an implicit and at times explicit reading of Spinoza as a Car­
tesian (i.e., as a metaphysical dualist). This reading will enable us to
clarify two themes that were important to both Spinoza and Nietzsche
- the critique of teleology and the effort to account for how a finite, mor­
tai person can live eternally. Finally, by taking Nietzsche's daims con­
cerning Spinoza as a precursor seriously, we can come to a greater
understanding of the powerful influence both Spinoza and Nietzsche
had on the work of Deleuze. Thus, despite what many see as Deleuze' s
excessive Nietzscheanism,9 a Nietzscheanism that is certain!y present, it
is also important to recall and account for the fact that Deleuze claimed
40 Thinking Difference

to be a Spinozist: ' ... 1 consider myself to be a Spinozist ... Spinoza is for

me the "prince" of philosophers.' 1 0

Of the controversies and criticisms which Spinoza's writings have gen­

erated, Part 5 of his Ethics has received perhaps the harshest and !east
forgiving of criticisms. Even scholars who are generally sympathetic to
what Spinoza is doing find it difficult to accept many of the daims he
makes in Part 5. Jonathan Bennett, for example, in his book on Spinoza,
is quite forthright in his criticisrn of Part 5, in particular the last half of
this part: 'Those of us who love and admire Spinoza's philosophical
work should in sad silence avert our eyes from the second half of Part
5.' 1 1 Of the many problems Bennett finds here, one of the most trou­
bling for him is Spinoza's discussion concerning the eternal part of the
mind. Bennett daims that Spinoza unsuccessfully attempts to argue
that the eternal part of the mind does not undergo change and is
always and eternally what it is and will be, and yet at the same time he
argues the eternal part of the mind can be enlarged, though with 'great
effort.' 1 2 Bennett believes this inconsistency is 'unhealable' and daims
that many of the remarks Spinoza makes in the latter pages of Part ?
betray an effort to 'hide' it.
Edwin Curley largely echoes these complaints, with his primary con­
cern being Spinoza's daim that the more we understand of the body
under the species of eternity, the more our mind itself will be eternal.
Had Spinoza simply said that our consciousness of the eternity of the
mind would have increased, and not the eternity of the mind itself, then
Curley could have agreed. But to say that an increased understanding of
the eternity of the mind also entails an increase in the eternity of the
mind itself is something Curley finds 'completely unintelligible.' 1 3 On
Curley's reading of Spinoza, what is eternal in a mind are certain facts
that are common to ali minds; therefore, with increased understanding
we have not an increase in the eternity of a particular mind, but an
increase in the understanding of the eternity of mind in general. This is
not, however, what Curley believes Spinoza actually says; it is only
what he feels he should have said.
What seems to be common to both Bennett's and Curley's difficul­
ties with Part 5 is a distinction they make between an act of intuition
and the object intuited. The abject of an intuition is distinct from, and
ought not to be confused with, the intuition itself. 1 can understand
 Nietzsche and Deleuze as Spinozists 41

and have an intuitive sense of how another might be feeling, but it

does not follow from this that 1 am feeling that way. To daim, then, that
understanding what is etemal in the mind actually increases the eter­
nity of the mind would thus seem to confuse the object of an intuition
with the intuition itself, and it is precisely this type of confusion which
Bennett and Curley accuse Spinoza of making.
There is textual evidence to support Bennett's and Curley's position.
For example, Spinoza states in 5P33S that 'the mind has had etemally
the same perfections which, in our fiction, now come to it.' The fiction he
alludes to is the necessity of speaking about the mind as if it were begin­
ning to acquire, and we were beginning to understand, its etemity. Such
a fiction allows for 'an easier explanation,' and yet the assumption is
clear: the mind is already as etemal as it will be. Though we can come to
a conscious awareness and understanding of the etemal perfections of
the mind, such an understanding is distinct from the abject intuited.
Bennett and Curley thus seem to think that Spinoza should, if he were
going to be consistent, have remained true to a fundamental, Cartesian
distinction between an act of intuition and the abject intuited. Spinoza,
however, goes on to argue that 'the more the mind understands things
by the second and third kind of knowledge, the grea ter the part of it that
remains unharmed' (5P38D). In other words, the more the mind under­
stands its etemal nature, the more of it that becomes etemal. Spinoza
thus appears to fall afoul of Descartes' metaphysical dualism, and the
working assumptions this entails, and it is this which Curley finds
'unintelligible.'
The difficulty here seems to be quite serious, and because of this prob­
lem, along with others, Bennett recommends we 'avert our eyes from
the second half of Part 5,' suggesting we do this rather than attempt
'sorne rescuing interpretation.' Such an interpretation, Bennett argues,
does not hold Spinoza to 'a more demanding standard,' and conse­
quently does not show Spinoza's thought the respect it deserves; rather,
rescuing interpretations blindly assume that Spinoza 'is always or usu­
ally right.' 14 However, by suggesting as Bennett and Curley do that
Spinoza should have consistently maintained the dualistic assumption
of there being a fundamental distinction between the understanding
and that which is understood, one subsequent!y holds Spinoza to a stan­
dard that brings with it new difficulties. For example, because Spinoza
defines the attributes as that which 'the intellect perceives of a sub­
stance, as constituting its essence' (104), he seems to be presupposing
the mode of an attribute (i.e., the attribute of thought) in his very defi-
42 Thinking Difference

nition of attributes. A related problem would be Spinoza's daim that

God is a substance which consists of an 'infinity of attributes,' a daim
that is often interpreted to mean that the attributes are distinct predi­
cates of a distinct subject, substance, 1 5 while others have stressed the
strict identity of the attributes and substance by arguing that the
attributes are not simple predicates of substance, but substance pure
and simple. 1 6 Alan Donagan, Gilles Deleuze, and others have recog­
nized the contradictory and problematic nature of these positions, and
have attempted to reconcile them by emphasizing Spinoza's daim that
each attribute 'expresses an eternal and infinite essence.' 17 In other
words, by understanding the attributes as expressions of substance,
they believe we can resolve the difficulties that stem from the dualistic
assumption that there is a hard and fast, irreconcilable difference
between the attributes as that which an intellect perceives of substance,
and substance itself, or the difference between an act of intuition and the
object intuited.
The awareness of these difficulties can be traced back to the earliest
commentators on Spinoza's Ethics. 18 In the remainder of this chapter,
we propose to follow a Nietzschean, non-dualistic reading of Spinoza
by arguing that substance, or God /Nature (Deus sive Natura), is to be
understood as absolutely indeterminate self-ordering becoming. We
adopt the term 'absolutely indeterminate' from H.F. Hallett, though for
slightly different reasons. 1 9 The term is appropriate, we feel, for at least
two reasons that are essential to Spinoza's project. First, since God is
defined as absolutely infinite (1 06), God can in no way be lirnited or be
in any way determinate. This is why God is absolutely infinite rather
than infinite in its own kind. For God to be infinite in its own kind
would require being a determinate and hence lirnited substance, a sub­
stance that presupposes something other than this substance, a sub­
stance of an other kind that limits and determines this one. Spinoza' s
monism dearly rules out this possibility. The second and related
reason why 'absoutely indeterminate' is appropriate follows from
Spinoza's daim in his letter to }elles (Letter 50) that anyone who 'calls
God one or single has no true idea of God' because one is forming a
deterrninate, lirnited idea of God. Furthermore, since 'determination is
negation,' 20 a person who develops a determinate conception of God
thus lacks, for Spinoza, a true understanding of God.
With this understanding of God (or Nature), we propose to under­
stand the attributes as the determina te order of identities immanent to
absolu tely indeterminate substance - that is, the order immanent to self-
 Nietzsche and Deleuze as Spinozists 43

ordering becoming. Modes shall be understood to be the actualization of

this order, or more precisely they are the condition that allows for the
possibility that the order immanent to self-ordering becoming cornes to
be determinate and identifiable. The attributes, then, are not identities
waiting to be discovered; rather, they are identifiable as such only as
modified. This suggested way of reading Spinoza might appear to force
Spinoza' s philosophy into addressing a set of concerns that were not his
(i.e., the problem of being and becoming) .2 1 This criticism would seem
to be especially valid to those who take Spinoza to understand sub­
stance as an eternal, unchanging being, or as a static substrate for
attributes and modes. 22 There is a long tradition of contrasting interpre­
tations, however, that stress the dynamic nature of substance, and it is
with this camp that this chapter sides, at least initially. 23 Later we will
see that it is only by unduly stressing the order immanent to substance,
the being immanent to becomings, that many are led to argue for the
nature of substance as static being (i.e., as subordinate to static laws of
nature).
To show that our reading of the relationship between attributes and
substance is not forced but actually illuminates many of Spinoza's
explicit concerns and themes - in particular, his critique of teleology
and the notion of living eternally - we begin by turning our attention to
2P8. The importance of this proposition has been noted, especially as it
appears to reveal an apparent inconsistency in Spinoza's understand­
ing of substance as necessarily and exhaustively actualized. 24 There
should be no possibilities of substance that are not actualized, and yet
that seems to be precise!y what the proposition states: 'The ideas of sin­
gular things, or of modes, that do not exist must be comprehended in
God's infinite idea in the same way as the formai essences of the singu­
lar things, or modes, are contained in God's attributes' (2P8). Spinoza
bases this argument on 2P7, or his famous argument for the parallelism
of ideas and things - 'The order and connection of ideas is the same as
the order and connection of things' - but most especially he daims that
2P8 follows from the scholium to 2P7.
In this scholium, Spinoza reminds his readers that 'whatever can be
perceived by an infinite intellect as constituting an essence of substance
pertains to one substance only, and consequently that the thinking sub­
stance and the extended substance are one and the same substance,
which is now comprehended [comprehenditur] under this attribute, now
under that.' For our purposes, the key to this scholium is to clarify what
is meant by saying that substance is 'comprehended' und er an attribute.
44 Thinking Difference

As a preliminary answer, we daim that for the attributes to comprehend

substance is to function as a condition for the possibility that the abso­
lutely indeterminate becomes actualized in an infinite number of possi­
ble finite, determinate modes. 25 Thus Spinoza adds that the same
substance that is comprehended in different ways continues to be the
same, 'but [is] expressed in two ways.' The attributes thus comprehend
different manners of actualization, and the modes are these actualiza­
tions. The attributes therefore comprehend absolutely indeterminate
substance by allowing for an infinite number of actualizations in an infi­
nite number of determinate ways; or, as Spinoza argues in 104, the
attributes constitute the essence of substance ('By attribute I understand
what the intellect perceives of a substance, as [tanquam] constituting its
essence').
This retums us to our initial difficulty, however, for it appears that
an infinite mode of an attribute (the infinite intellect) is used in the
very definition of an attribute. lt is no wonder, then, that this definition
has led to many disputes among commentators. As Curley notes, tan­
quam can be translated by 'as' or 'as if.' The latter translation is prof­
fered in support of subjective interpretations (e.g., Wolfson, Joachim,
Kline, and others) 26 whereby the attributes are not taken to be real, and
hence really distinct from each other, but are simply intellectual con­
structs. The objective interpretation by commentators as diverse as
Gueroult, Curley, and Donagan holds that the attributes are really dis­
tinct constituents of the essence of substance. We side with the realist
position, but shaH argue that by understanding substance as the self­
ordering becoming that is the condition for the actualization of deter­
minate beings, we believe we can shed light on this debate. To see this,
let us retum to 2P7.
In an example from the scholium to 2P7 that foreshadows the daims
made in 2P8, Spinoza daims 'a cirde existing in nature and the idea of
the existing cirde, which is also in God, are one and the same thing,
which is explained through different attributes.' In other words, despite
the two ways of conceiving a cirde, as an extended cirde actually exist­
ing in nature or the idea of this cirde, they each reflect 'one and the same
order, or one and the same connection of causes.' Spinoza then reminds
the reader that the idea we have of the cirde is only as a mode of
thought, a mode caused by another mode, and so on to infinity, and the
cirde as extension is caused by another mode, the drawing hand, and so
on. He condudes the scholium to P7 by stating that 'God is really the
cause [of the parallel order of causes] insofar as he consists of infinite
 Nietzsche and Deleuze as Spinozists 45

attributes. For the present, 1 cannot exp lain these matters more clearly .m
Part of the lacking explanation, we argue, is that God's essence is his
power, the power of self-ordering becoming as the condition for the pos­
sibility of determinate being, and hence for the possibility that a deter­
minate, infinite intellect can differentiate between substance and its
attributes, and hence perceive what constitutes the essence of substance.
The lacking explanation thus relies, on our argument, on assumptions
that are radically non-dualistic, and the significance of 2P8 is that it lays
the groundwork for the explanation as it emerges in the latter half of
Part 5.
Yet another reason 2P8 is so important is that it brings to bear an
important distinction between durational and eternal existence. The
former applies to the causal series of singular things. As Spinoza puts it
in the corollary to PB, 'when singular things are said to exist, not only
insofar as they are comprehended (comprehenditur) in God's attributes,
but insofar as they are said to have duration, their ideas involve the
existence through which they are said to have duration [i.e., other exist­
ing finite modes ad infinitum] .' Spinoza then moves on to the scholium
to explain this further by bringing in the example of a circle wherein
'there are contained infinitely many rectangles that are equal to one
another.' 'Nonetheless,' Spinoza continues, 'none of them can be said to
exist except insofar as the circle exists, nor also can the idea of any of
these rectangles be said to exist except insofar as it is comprehended
[comprehenditur] in the idea of the circle.' With this move, Spinoza par­
allels the relationship between the 'infinitely many rectangles' compre­
hended by the idea of the circle and the infinitely many singular things
that are comprehended by God's attributes, and adds to this a third par­
alle! to non-existent modes. Thus, the infinitely many singular things are
comprehended by the attributes; the rectangles are comprehended in the
idea of a circle; and the non-existent modes are comprehended in God' s
infinite ideas, that is, by an infinite mode. Once one of the infinitely
many rectangles comprehended by the idea of the circle becomes actu­
alized, however, one can then say that there is both the idea of the rect­
angle as comprehended in the idea of the circle and there is the idea of
the rectangle that actually exists. In the case of the former, the idea exists
'only insofar as they involve the existence of the circle,' and in the case
of the latter the idea involves the determinate, finite mode of the actu­
alized rectangle, a finite mode dependent on another finite mode, ad
infinitum. As for the controversy over non-existent modes, it stems from
unduly stressing the order immanent to substance, an order taken to be
46 Thinking Difference

actualized (in actu) rather than a mere possibility (in potentia). Claiming
there are non-existent modes appears to contradict this view. On the
reading of Spinoza put forth here, however, substance is in actu as abso­
lutely indeterminate, and it is only as an infinite mode, the intellect, per­
ceives and comprehends the modes as determina te that one can say they
exist. To argue, therefore, as Spinoza does, that the ideas of modes 'that
do not exist must be comprehended in God's infinite idea' (2P8) is sim­
ply to argue for the relationship between an infinite mode and the abso­
lu tely indeterminate substance it allows to become determina te. God' s
infinite idea comprehends the absolutely indeterminate, and in doing
this comprehends that which is not determinate, and therefore non-exis ­

tent; but it is this same idea that facilitates the becoming determinate of
the indeterminate.
This reading helps us to explain the important difference between
the infinitely many rectangles comprehended by the idea of a circle and
substance as comprehended by the attributes, and infinite modes of
these attributes, a substance Spinoza describes in his famous letter to
Lodewijk Meyer as the 'infinite enjoyment of existing.' 28 This 'infinite
enjoyment of existing,' or substance as etemity rather than duration, is
placed by Spinoza on the side of natura naturans as distinct from natura
naturata, where the infinitely many rectangles would be placed. This is
an important distinction for Spinoza, but it retums us to our earlier
problem. If the attribute, as Spinoza defines it, is 'what the intellect per­
ceives of a substance, as constituting its essence,' then the infinite intel­
lect, which Spinoza places on the side of natura naturata and not natura
naturans (i.e., substance),29 would be used to define the supposed con­
dition for natura naturata that is, natura naturans. Our reading resolves
-

this apparent circularity for we argue that an attribute is indeed sub­

stance, or is self-ordering becoming, but it is a substance that can only
be said to have determinate and determinable identity when this
becoming becomes resisted and actualized within determinate and
determinable modes. The modifications of substance, as actualizations
of absolutely indeterminate substance, are precisely this resistance that
allows for the possibility that becomings become determina te and iden­
tifiable, where, in short, one can say that becomings are and in what
determinate and determinable manner they are. This is why it is an infi­
nite modification of substance, the infinite intellect, that perceives
attributes as constituting the essence of substance. It is not that the
attributes are an already existent property (predicate) of a substance
(subject) just waiting to be perceived as constituting the essence of sub-
 Nietzsche and Deleuze as Spinozists 47

stance; rather, the very process wherein the infinite mode perceives the
attribute as a deteminate, identifiable attribute of substance is precisely
the act of constituting the determinable essence of substance - it is
substance as self-caused. Substance only is, and is of such and such a
determinate and determinable nature, when 'the infinite enjoyment of
existing' becomes resisted - that is, when it becomes a modification
(actualization) of substance. An infinite mode (the infinite intellect) is
indeed then the condition that allows for the determination of abso­
lutely indeterminate substance, and thus it constitutes its determinate,
identifiable essence.
We can now see the significance of the parallel Spinoza establishes in
2P8: just as the infinitely many rectangles are determinate and deter­
minable only insofar as they are comprehended under the idea of the
circle, so too the infinite enjoyment of existing is determina te and deter­
minable only insofar as it is comprehended under an attribute, an
attribute that is itself only determinate and determinable when per­
ceived by a determinate, actualized mode of an attribute. The parallel is
not perfect, as Spinoza himself admits,30 for the relationship between
the idea of a circle and the infinitely many rectangles that may come to
have a durational existence is a relationship between determinate enti­
ties. The relationship of substance to the attributes is that of the abso­
lutely indeterminate to the determinate, and the determinate nature of
the attributes, the identity immanent to self-ordering becoming, is
itself, as we have seen, reciprocally dependent upon an actualized
modification of this identity. Unlike the rectangles that do have a deter­
mina te reality distinct from the circle that comprehends them, the
attribute is not a pre-existent identity separate and distinct from the
conditions that enable its identification.
Des pite the rough fit of the analogy, it is fruitful in clarifying the rela­
tionship between attributes and substance, and with this clarification
we can begin to situate our position relative to other interpretations of
Spinoza. In Pierre Macherey's interpretation of Spinoza, for instance,
he argues that there is a double-movement at work throughout the Eth­
ics. Macherey cites the shift in emphasis from 1P15 to 1P16 as emblem­
atic of this double-movement. 1P15 reads as follows: 'Whatever is, is in
God, and nothing can be or be conceived without God.' Here is IP16:
'From the necessity of the divine nature there must follow infinitely
many things in infinitely many modes, (i.e., everything which can fall
under an infinite intellect.)' According to Macherey, PIS expresses the
centripetal movement whereby all things are in God and there is noth-
48 Thinking Difference

ing that can come into being or even be conceived without the power of
God. P16 expresses the centrifugai movement whereby all determi­
nate things - namely, 'everything which can fall under an infinite intel­
lect' - follow from the nature of God. Stated in our terms, the first
movement is the power of God as self-ordering becoming, and all
things that are or can be conceived presuppose the infinite power
whereby they come into being, or the determinate presupposes the
absolutely indeterminate. The second movement is that of finite or infi­
nite modes that result when substance as self-ordering becoming
becomes resisted. This resistance is the modification that allows for the
possibility that a determina te thing 'can fall under an infinite intellect.'
The absolutely indeterminate, in other words, presupposes the deter­
minate modifications that enable the infinite intellect to perceive and
hence constitute the determina te and infinitely determinable essence of
substance. All determinate things ultimately express the essence and
power of God, and these determinate things are in tum comprehended
and made determinate by virtue of the attributes and modifications of
God. This double movement of 'comprehending' and 'expressing,' cen­
tripetal and centrifugai, Macherey finds to be a pervasive aspect of
Spinoza's Ethics, and with it he daims to resolve many of the outstand­
ing problems among Spinoza commentators. 3 1
We can now further expand upon our discussion of the relationship
between attributes and substance and tum to a frequent problem, even
among Spinoza's early commentators, regarding the precise relation­
ship between the attributes and the substance whose essence these
attributes express. What is this essence? Commentators such as Ben­
nett find the very relationship between attributes and substance prob­
lematic. Others such as Curley and Donagan believe that what is
expressed are laws of nature. Another problem is the problem of the
infinite attributes - that is, how can we know God adequately, as
Spinoza daims we can, if we know only two of the infinite attributes?
This problem was brought to Spinoza's attention by Tschirnhaus, and
Spinoza's response is seen by many to be inadequate. Gueroult offers
an innovative interpretation to resolve this problem. He argues that
although we may not know the other attributes, these attributes are
distinct constituents of the essence of a unique substance, God, and
this unique substance has a single attribute that we can come to
know. 32 Donagan finds Gueroult's solution to the problem problematic
and argues instead that Spinoza is at bottom a dualist; consequently,
the two attributes we know are all there is to know, and this knowl-
 Nietzsche and Deleuze as Spinozists 49

edge is achieved by coming to know the 'laws of nature' these two

attributes, Thought and Extension, express. 33 Without entering into all
the intricacies of this debate, 1 believe our approach supplements Don­
agan' s interpretation. By understanding the essence that is expressed
by the attributes as 'self-ordering becoming,' the laws of nature are
understood here to be the immanent order that the intellect can grasp
through careful study of the becomings of nature; however, by stress­
ing the becoming of self-ordering becoming, we mean to contrast our
position from one that understands the laws of nature in the manner of
an already established, predetermining law that is imposed on a pliant
substance. 34 Such a predetermination is contrary to the notion that sub­
stance is absolutely indeterminate. What is assumed, ultimately, is that
substance is a determinate, static substance, a substance identical to the
laws of nature. From the perspective that substance is dynamic and
absolutely indeterminate, however, the contrasting view set forth here
is that the laws of nature are simply one of the ways in which sub­
stance cornes to have, by virtue of the intellect, a determinate essence.
We can now summarize our reading of the relationship between sub­
stance and attributes. Both are understood by Spinoza to be examples
of natura naturans, meaning they are for Spinoza to be understood
through themselves and not by means of a transcendent other. That
said, substance as we understand it is the eternity of becoming, or the
infinite enjoyment of existing that cannot be reduced to a limiting, pre­
determining identity (e.g., being, laws of nature, transcendent God,
etc.), and the attributes are the intelligible identity and order immanent
to self-ordering becoming. This identity is not an already established
identity simply waiting for an intellect to discover it. Rather, the
attributes are the immanent, determinate identities that are only deter­
minable as self-ordering becoming becomes ordered and actualized.
These actualizations, the modes (e.g., infinite intellect), are then the
condition for conceiving substance as determinate and existing. This is
the uniqueness of self-cause, a uniqueness that accounts for Spinoza's
difficulty with explaining the process by way of analogy to circles com­
prehending rectangles.
For Spinoza, then, the infinite intellect functions as the model, or
useful fiction, for explaining the process whereby absolutely indeter­
minate becoming becomes infinitely determinate and determinable
beings, and thus this fiction parallels the one discussed earlier where
one believes that one cornes to acquire more eternity. The infinite intel­
lect, as a useful fiction, enables Spinoza to explain how self-ordering
50 Thinking Difference

becoming becomes ordered, much as the fiction regarding an increase of

the eternal perfections of the mind, the becoming perfect of the mind,
facilitated, as Spinoza put it, 'an easier explanation' (5P33S). 35 This
effort to think the relationship between being and becoming antici­
pates Nietzsche's own efforts, with his notion of 'will to power,' to do
the same.
With this last point, we see perhaps the most important and pro­
found reason for the fact that Nietzsche saw in Spinoza's philosophy a
precursor to his own thought. This is further validated when one con­
siders that Spinoza begins his Ethics by defining self-cause: 'Dl : By
cause of itself 1 understand that whose essence involves existence, or
that whose nature cannot be conceived except as existing.' Much of the
commentary on Spinoza's work seems either to discount this first defi­
nition as unimportant or to see it as an unnecessary relie of the scholas­
tic tradition; and still others see it as merely preliminary to more
important definitions, such as the definition of God (D6). 36 As we
understand this first definition, however, it is absolutely crucial to the
entire project of the Ethics. If substance is self-ordering becoming, the
absolutely indeterminate and infinite enjoyment of existing, then this
substance can only be conceived as existing by virtue of the attributes,
and modifications of the attributes, that themselves presuppose self­
ordering becoming as their condition of possibility. This self-ordering
nature of becoming is how we understand this first definition, and its
implications run throughout the Ethics, as our arguments have illus­
trated. Moreover, Nietzsche's own notion of 'will to power' echoes
these very same issues. In a note written about the same time that
he wrote Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche daims, 'To impose upon
becoming the character of being: that is the supreme will to power' ;37
and again, in Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche's Spinozistic monism
becomes even more apparent: 'The world viewed from inside, the
world defined and determined according to its "intelligible character"
- it would be "will to power" and nothing else.' 38 It is no wonder, then,
that Nietzsche, if he at all read Spinoza as we propose reading him,
saw in Spinoza a precursor. These similarities between Nietzsche and
Spinoza become even more obvious when we examine their critique of
teleology and their daim that to live an affirmative, joyful life is to live
eternally. These points are themselves built upon the arguments we
have set forth heretofore, and thus by discussing these points we will
further darify our proposed reading of Spinoza. It is to this discussion
that we now turn.
 Nietzsche and Deleuze as Spinozists 51

II

A likely reason why Spinoza's critique of teleology appealed to

Nietzsche, and on a number of levels, derives from the fact that Spinoza
ties teleology to the appetitive concems of the body: 'By the end for the
sake of which we do something 1 understand appetite' (407). Our body,
however, as Spinoza argues in the Ethics, continuing arguments begun
in his Short Treatise,39 is understood to be identified as a proportion of
motion and rest. For example, Spinoza daims that a body made up of
many smaller bodies, such as our body is, will continue to be the same
singular body as long as these bodies 'communicate their motions to
each other in a certain fixed manner' (2L30ef.) . And again, '2LS: If the
parts composing an individual become greater or less, but in such a
proportion that they all keep the same ratio of motion and rest to each
other as before, then the individual will likewise retain its nature, as
before, without any change of form.' Such an individual composed of
many parts is still considered by Spinoza to be the same singular thing
insofar as the parts are maintained within a fixed proportion and ratio
of motion and rest. 40 And finally it is this proportion of motion/rest
which defines a body as this body and no other, or it is that feature
without which the body would not be this body; in short, this propor­
tion of motion and rest is the singular finite essence of our body, a daim
which follows from Spinoza' s very definition of essence: '202: 1 say that
to the essence of any thing belongs that which, being given, the thing is
necessarily posited and which, being taken away, the thing is necessar­
ily taken away; or that without which the thing can neither be nor be
conceived, and which can neither be nor be conceived without the
thing.'
We can now elucidate the meaning of Spinoza's daim that our appe­
tite is the end for the sake of which we act. Appetite, as Spinoza makes
dear, is nothing but our striving to persevere in our being, and this
striving, 'as related to the mind and body together, it is called appetite'
(3P9S). As related to our body, therefore, our appetite is the striving to
persevere in a given proportion of motion and rest. Spinoza refers to
this striving as the 'actual essence of the thing' (3P7), as opposed to the
formai essence of the thing, which is 'the essence of each thing insofar
as it exists and produces an effect, having no regard to its duration'
(4Preface). The formai essence, or our proportion of motion and rest, is
independent of its duration in the face of extemal objects, objects
which could, if they caused our body to lose this proportion, kill the
52 Thinking Difference

body Y The formai essence of the body is the idea of the body as com­
prehended under the attribute of extension, in contrast to the actual
essence of the body that has durational existence. Understood in the
context of other bodies, that is, actually and not formally, our striving
is to maintain the proportion of motion and rest in the face of extemal
differences (other bodies) which might lead to the death and dissolu­
tion of our body. One of the functions or effects of our appetites, there­
fore, is to select against excessive differences and determinations. Such a
selection process is simply part and parcel of the striving to persevere
in one's own being with its proportion of motion and rest. 4 God, on
the other hand, as absolutely indeterminate, self-caused substance, is
the infinite enjoyment of existing that affirms all differences. Since God
is not absolutely indeterminate substance in potentia, but in actu, and
because God does not have to select against difference (i.e., there is
nothing lacking in God), God is the most perfect being. Finite and
determinate beings, however, must select against difference if they are
to persevere in their being. This is their appetite, with its proper goal
and end. At the same time, however, it is not clear what differences we
must select against, or how much we can endure and still persevere in
our being in the face of differences. Consequently, through processes
of experimentation and leamed association, we can become more per­
fect; that is, the more difference we do not have to select against, the
more perfect we become; and it is in this light that Spinoza argues, in
3P12, for the existence of ideas that 'aid the body's power of acting.' 43
By arguing for the effectiveness of such ideas, Spinoza is not being
inconsistent with his earlier daims that the 'decisions of the mind are
nothing but the appetites.' To the contrary, the decisions of the mind
which aid the body's acting by selecting against difference, or by
reducing difference to a common, known form, are nothing but the
appetite itself, or our striving to persevere in our being.
This further explains why the human striving to persevere in its
being by selecting against difference is carried out in two ways. One is
the tendency of our body to recognize and then assimilate differences.
ln 3P52, for example, Spinoza states: 'If we l;l.ave previously seen an
object together with others, or we imagine it has nothing but what is
common to many things, we shall not consider it so long as one which
we imagine to have something singular.' Stopping to rest upon those
things we imagine to have something singular, and passing over those
that are common and familiar, is only the first step in the perceptual
process of familiarizing ourselves with this singularity, the first step in
 Nietzsche and Deleuze as Spinozists 53

reducing it to what is common and identifiable. We tend to ignore the

sounds our car makes, for example, unless it makes an unfamiliar
sound. The other way is the tendency of the mind to reduce singulari­
ties to something common through the use of language and concepts,
or what Spinoza refers to as common notions or beings of reason. Such
common notions iron out the differences and lead us to overlook the
singular differences and peculiarities of an individual. Rather than
perceive the particular details of an individual tree, we see simply
what we take to be common and universal to all trees. Such a 'Being of
reason,' Spinoza daims in the Appendix to his work on Descartes, 'is
nothing but a mode of thinking, which helps us to more easily retain,
explain, and imagine the things we have understood' (1/233). In other
words, it assists us in identifying or classifying the things we have
understood, or it irons out the differences for the sake of easy compre­
hension. 44 This process is precisely our striving to persevere in our
own being; or, it is the appetite which is the end for the sake of which
we act.
This clarifies an important confusion which surrounds Spinoza' s
critique of teleology. ln particular, we can see that to make a conscious
decision to bring about a certain state of affairs, a decision which
prompts certain actions and behaviours, is not inconsistent with
Spinoza's daim that the mind can have no effect on the body (5 Preface),
nor with his daim that our decisions are determined by our appetites
(1 Appendix). 45 The reason is simple: any conscious decision or deter­
mination one makes negates, or selects against, other possibilities (recall
Spinoza's famous statement 'determination is negation' in Letter 50). To
make such a decision is not necessarily a conscious decision to select
against difference, though it could be; rather, the decision itself is deter­
mined by the process of selecting against difference - that is, it is deter­
mined by our appetites. Furthermore, this tendency to select against
difference characterizes both the mind and the body; consequently, the
conscious decision to bring about sorne state of affairs is simply the
mental counterpart to a bodily process of selecting against difference.
This follows both from the fact that for Spinoza 'the order and connec­
tian of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things' (2P7) and
from his understanding of appetite as the striving to persevere, a striv­
ing that is expressed by both the mind and body. Spinoza's critique of
teleology, in summary, is thus not a critique in the sense that conscious
decisions to do things (i.e., act for the sake of sorne good or goal) are in
sorne way empty or illusory; his critique ought instead to be understood
54 Thinking Difference

in the manner of a Kantian critique - namely, an attempt to reveal the

conditions for the possibility of making such goal-oriented decisions.
And the condition for this possibility is the tendency to select against
difference; or, as Spinoza defines it, it is our appetites. Furthermore, it is
precisely Spinoza's understanding of teleology in terms of appetites
and selecting against difference which most appealed to Nietzsche. For
reasons discussed in the next chapter, Nietzsche, too, with his notion of
the 'will to power,' will understand our motivations in appetitive terms
and in terms of a need to iron out the differences.

III

We can now return to sorne of the statements in the latter half of Part 5
which have caused many problems for commenta tors, in particular the
statements concerning the difficulty and yet desirability of achieving
the goal of increasing the eternity of our mind through an increase in
the third kind of knowledge. This is an aspiration that Spinoza had
had since his earliest work, Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect. In
this work he sought to find a method whereby one could overcome the
unhappiness and misery which accompanies our love of finite, perish­
able things, and replace this with a love for that which is eternal. Much
this same sentiment is expressed in the Ethics: ... it should be noted
'

that sickness of the mind and misfortunes take their origin especially
from too much love toward a thing which is Hable to many variations
and which we can never fully possess' (5P20S). After noting this,
Spinoza then tums to the second half of Part 5, wherein he discusses
the love of God, or a love that realizes the etemal and non-perishable.
The theme with which Spinoza began his earliest work thus continues
to be a concern of his up to the end of his la test works.
There are sorne crucial differences, however, with respect to the man­
ner in which Spinoza sought to understand the love of the etemal in his
Treatise, and how it cornes to be understood in the Ethics. In both works
Spinoza ties the love of the eternal to a knowledge of the eternal, but in
his early work the majority of the discussion concems the method
which will best suit us in pursuing such knowledge, and in the Ethics
one could say that Spinoza is using the method he spoke of in his earl y
work. But much more needs to be said. For one thing, the Treatise was
left unfinished, and thus for· whatever reason Spinoza felt he needed to
begin again in his efforts to clarify the love of the etemal. The reason
Spinoza felt dissatisfied with his early work has to do, we believe, with
 Nietzsche and Deleuze as Spinozists 55

the difficulty he encountered in explaining how the love of the eternal

and infinite could be founded upon the finite and determinate.46
This difficulty begins about halfway through the Treatise when
Spinoza daims that the truth and certainty of an idea 'is nothing but
the objective essence itself, i.e., the mode by which we are aware of the
formai essence is certainty itself. And from this, again, it is dear that,
for the certainty of the tru th, no other sign is needed than having a true
idea' (§35, 11/ 1 5). In other words, the truth of an idea does not depend
upon sorne independent criterion or method which will in turn be sub­
ject to independent verification, and so on to infinity; rather, the mode
in which a true idea is grasped is the truth and certainty of this idea.
The method for achieving the love of the infinite and eternal, therefore,
will thus be seen by Spinoza to be dependent upon a true idea, or
dependent upon the manner in which an idea is grasped: ' ... Method is
nothing but a reflexive knowledge, or an idea of an idea; and because
there is no idea of an idea, unless there is first an idea, there will be no
Method unless there is first an idea. So that Method will be good which
shows how the mind is to be directed according to the standard of a
given true idea' (§38, 11/ 15).
The truth of a given idea is thus to be our standard; furthermore, the
method founded upon such truths, what Spinoza discusses in this
work as developing thoughts from 'true and legitimate definitions,'
will reflect the mode of the intellect itself. Thus, late in the Treatise,
Spinoza returns to the theme of attaining knowledge of eternal things
and daims that

when the mind attends to a thought - to weigh it, and deduce from it, in
good order, the things legitimately to be deduced from it - if it is false, the
mind will uncover the falsity; but if it is true, the mind will continue success­
fully, without any interruption, to deduce true things from it. This, 1 say is
required for our purpose. For our thoughts cannot be determined by any
other foundation. (§104, 11/ 37-8, emphasis added)

If the mind has a true idea, its activity will continue unimpeded and
will be able to deduce other true ideas from it; however, if the mind has
a false idea, its activity will stall, and it will only be able to go so far.
This activity of the mind, whether unimpeded or impeded, is the on?;
foundation upon which the truth of our thoughts is to be determined. 7
Consequently, in returning to the proper method for achieving knowl­
edge of eternal things, Spinoza states that our thoughts ought to be
56 Thinking Difference

directed by the method which reflects 'this foundation.' But since a

method is nothing but 'reflexive knowledge itself,' Spinoza concludes
that the proper method 'can be nothing other than knowledge of what
constitutes the form of truth, and knowledge of the intellect, and its
properties and powers' (§1 05, 11/38). In other words, since it is a mode
of activity of the intellect which will serve as the foundation for acquir­
ing knowledge of etemal things, an adequate method must reflect this
activity. The method of beginning with true and legitimate definitions,
and then deducing other truths on the basis of these definitions, only
succeeds because of the power of the mind; and yet to say how such a
method would actually proceed requires clarifying the powers of the
mind. This is where the difficulty arises, for though Spinoza recognizes
the necessity of understanding tpe activity of our mind, he admits to
lacking such an understanding:

But so far we have had no rules for discovering definitions. And because
we cannot give them unless the nature, or definition, of the intellect, and
its power are known, it follows that either the definition of the intellect
must be clear through itself, or else we can understand nothing. It is not,
however, absolutely clear through itself ..
. (§107, Il/ 38)

Because the intellect is not clear through itself, it appears all might be
lost. Spinoza is not willing to throw in the towel, however, and begins,
in the final paragraphs of the Treatise, to show how the nature of the mind
can be understood on the basis of the properties of the mind. Spinoza
never completed this and left the Treatise unfinished. Part of the reason
for this is probably that Spinoza was dissatisfied with having to say that
if the mind cannot be known through itself, then it must be known
through its proxima te cause, or by virtue of properties of the mind. 48 The
difficulty with this is if the method for directing the mind towards
knowledge of the etemal is founded upon a knowledge of the proxima te
cause of the mind, then the method depends upon something which
transcends the mind, and we can therefore ask what determines the truth
of our knowledge of the proxima te cause, and so on ad infinitum. Spinoza
would later criticize Descartes for understanding the mind in terms of its
proximate, transcendent cause (i.e.; God), and it is therefore unlikely that
Spinoza would do the same, especially considering that the Treatise and
his work on Descartes were written within months of each other. 49
Understanding the mind on the basis of the properties of the mind is
equally dissatisfying for Spinoza. As Spinoza- would daim later in the
Short Treatise, properties, or 'Propria,' do 'indeed belong to a thing, but
 Nietzsche and Deleuze as Spinozists 57

never explain what it is' (ST l .vi.6). What Spinoza ultimately feels he
must do, though at the tirne of the Treatise felt he could not do, is to corne
to an understanding of how a knowledge of the etemal and infinite
could be founded upon a knowledge of the essence of our singular, finite
rnind rather than basing the ernendation of the intellect on a truth that
transcends the intellect. Because of Spinoza's dissatisfaction with the
alternatives he had before hirnself in the Treatise, he abandoned this
work so that he could address the issue of the love of the etemal from a
different perspective, a perspective which emerges with the Ethics.
What is most noteworthy about the position which emerges in the
Ethics is the rnanner in which the etemity of our singular, finite rnind is
related ta the essence of Gad. Crucial ta this new position is the role self­
cause plays in enabling Spinoza to relate the finite and deterrninate ta
the etemal. More irnportantly, what emerges in the Ethics is Spinoza's
argument that a finite, singular rnind can corne ta know Gad and
increase the etemal part of the rnind. To dernonstrate briefly how this
argument unfolds, let us retum ta our earlier discussion of 2P8, and
especially ta the corollary of that proposition. We noted at the tirne that
this proposition played an important role in later arguments for the
etemity of the rnind; sa, as we address these arguments, let us recall the
corollary itself:

... so long as singular things do not exist, except insofar as they are com­
prehended in God's attributes, their objective being, or ideas, do not exist
except insofar as God's infinite idea exists. And when singular things are
said to exist, not only insofar as they are comprehended in Cod' s attributes,
but insofar as they are said to have duration, their ideas also involve the
existence through which they are said to have duration.

The important point ta note here is the rnanner of existence of singu­

lar things, including singular rninds. Singular things can exist 'insofar
as they are cornprehended in God's attributes,' but even then only 'inso­
far as God's infinite idea exists.' They can also exist in the rnanner of
having duration whereby they 'involve the existence through which
they are said ta have duration,' rneaning another singular thing and sa
on ad infinitum. Existence in the first sense is etemal existence. What
does. this mean? Applying the conclusions reached earlier, ta exist as a
singular thing 'cornprehended in God's attributes' is to exist within the
identity immanent ta self-ordering becorning, to the 'infinite enjoyrnent
of existing,' but even then only 'insofar as God's infinite idea exists' ­
that is, only when there exists a deterrninate mode that facilitates the
58 Think.ing Difference

determination of the absolutely indeterminate. This infinite enjoyment

of existing, as we saw earlier in discussing Spinoza' s letter where this
description is used, brings with it the difference between Etemity and
Duration. As Spinoza says in this letter, 'it is only of Modes that we can
explain the existence by Duration. But [we can explain the existence] of
Substance by Etemity, i.e., the infinite enjoyment of existing ... ' The idea
of a non-existent mode, therefore, which was precisely the theme of 2P8,
is not inconsistent with Spinoza' s argument that substance is necessar­
ily and exhaustively actualized . For Spinoza substance as etemity, as
infinite enjoyment of existing, is, stating it in the manner we have been
using, the absolutely indeterminate self-ordering becoming that is abso­
lutely and infinitely determinable, exhausting and exceeding, more­
over, each and every actual and possible determination. The infinite
determinations of substance - that is, the infinite attributes - are them­
selves reciprocally dependent upon modifications that in tum allow for
the possibility of perceiving the attributes as infinitely determina te and
determinable identities that comprehend infinitely many singular
things. Stated in a manner that recalls Nietzsche's project, the attributes
immanent to self-ordering becoming must be stamped with 'the charac­
ter of being' 50 in order to be identified and known, and the modes pro­
vide the stamp.
With this argument in mind, we can begin to clarify the proposition
from the latter half of Part 5 that has caused so much controversy - P23:
'The human Mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the Body, but
something of it remains which is etemal.' Bennett and others argue that
this proposition is a hopeless attempt to appease religious critics of
Spinoza's philosophy. On doser examination of the demonstration that
supports this proposition, however, coupled with our analysis of 2P8,
we can see that such a dismissal is not only premature but ultimately
misguided for it fails to appreciate the deeper concems of Spinoza's
project. Key to resolving the difficulty in our view is to differentia te the
something of the mind that remains from the mind that Spinoza defines
as being nothing but the idea of the body (2P1 3). 5 1 What this differenti­
ation brings into play is the distinction between etemity and duration,
and thus as the demonstration to 5P23 proceeds, it should not be sur­
prising that Spinoza cites 2P8C. Here is the demonstration:

In God there is necessarily a concept, or idea, which expresses the essence

of the human Body (by P22), an idea, therefore, which is necessarily some­
thing that pertains to the essence of the human mind (by 2P1 3). But we do
 Nietzsche and Deleuze as Spinozists 59

not attribute to the hurnan Mind any duration that can be defined by time,
except insofar as it expresses the actual existence of the Body, which is
explained by duration, and can be defined by time, i.e. (by 2P8C), we do
not attribute duration to it except while the Body endures. However, since
what is conceived, with a certain eternal necessity, through God's essence
itself (by P22) is nevertheless something, this something that pertains to
the essence of the Mind will necessarily be eternal, q.e.d.

To state this point using our earlier conclusions, the human Mind
that is etemal is not the determinate, identifiable mind, but rather the
immanent condition for the possibility of such a determina te identifica­
tion - in short, it is the power of self-ordering becoming that allows for
the possibility of determina te, singular bodies, and for the determina te
singular minds that are the ideas of these bodies. Furthermore, under­
stood in this way we can explicate the reasoning behind two other key
daims by Spinoza, the first being how the knowledge of God results in
increasing the eternity of the mind and secondly the la te proposition in
Part 5 (P39) that daims, 'He who has a Body capable of a great many
things has a Mind whose grea test part is etemal.' In justifying this latter
daim, Spinoza parallels the ordering of bodily affections with the order
of the intellect, and hence with relating the affections of the body 'to the
idea of God' wherein something of the human mind remains. This idea
of God is not a determinate idea in the sense the analogy from 2P8
might imply. The analogy was not perfect, as Spinoza admitted, and
this was because the 'idea of God' is the condition that facilitates the
process whereby absolutely indeterminate self-ordering becoming
becomes determinate, and this process is what Spinoza equates with
God's power (1 P34: 'God's power is his essence'). 52 This power is the
etemal 'infinite enjoyment of existing.' Consequently, the more one is
'capable of a great many things' with one's body, then the less one
needs to iron out the differences, and hence the more one expresses the
power of God and can embrace and affirm the coming into being of other
determina te identities, the determina te identities comprehended by the
'idea of God.' God as etemal, indeterminate power is the self-ordering
becoming that is inseparable from the determinate and determinable
beings with which human beings are continuously engaged. Thus the
more one knows God and, more important!y, knows, loves, and affirms
that God's essence is power, then the more one lives God's power as a
condition for the possibility that other determinate beings can come
into being. Much as a State in Spinoza's mind is strengthened by allow-
60 Thinking Difference

ing for the freedom to philosophize since this better facilitates the pos­
sibility of allowing for the immanent order of nature (or God) to
become determinate and known, similarly for Spinoza the more one is
able to do with one's body, the more one allows for the possibility that
the order immanent to self-ordering becoming can become determi­
nate. Stated in yet another way, the more one cornes to know God, the
more one lives and experiences God's power, a consequence will be
that, as lived and experienced, the act of intuition becomes nothing other
than the object intuited - it is the infinite enjoyment of existing. To live in
this manner is to live etemally. 53 This is the most powerful affect, the
joy of which we are capable, and it is a joy beyond the dualistic deter­
minations of subject or object, act of intuition or object intuited. This
most powerful affect is beyond good and evil.
Nietzsche would most certainly agree with this conclusion. This was,
after ali, one of the primary reasons why Nietzsche saw Spinoza as a
precursor. But the convergence of thought between the two goes even
further, for a primary concem of Nietzsche's was, as we have shown it
was for Spinoza, to relate the singular and finite to the etemal. More­
over, this is precisely where Deleuze takes on the projects of both
Spinoza and Nietzsche. As Deleuze puts it in Expressionism in Philoso­
phy: Spinoza, 'What interested me about Spinoza wasn't his Substance,
but the composition of finite modes. 1 consider this one of the most orig­
inal aspects of my book. That is: the hope of making substance tum on
finite modes, or at least of seeing in substance a plane of immanence in
which finite modes operate.' 54 In other words, rather than attempt to
explain how substance is related to the already identified modes and
attributes, an attempt that has left a wake of controversy and difficulties
among Spinoza scholars, Deleuze instead calls for understanding the
determinate, identifiable nature of substance as being from the start tied
to the finite modes rather than being a distinct reality from which finite
modes arise. The plane of immanence, or what will be discussed in the
next chapter as 'plateaus,' is, to apply the terminology used here, self­
ordering becoming as the power that exhausts and exceeds the determi­
nate modifications and actualizations, and yet it is the power that is
inseparable from the finite, from the coming-into-being of determinate,
finite modes and singular existents. Deleuze also tums to Nietzsche for
conceptual help on these matters, for with Nietzsche too a central pre­
occupation was to account for the relationship between singular, finite
identities and the etemal, an effort that takes its most recognizable form
with Nietzsche's concept of 'etemal recurrence.'
 Nietzsche and Deleuze as Spinozists 61

Without venturing into the many debates surrounding the enigmatic

concept of 'eternal recurrence,' debates taken up in the next chapter,
one point that Nietzsche does seem to make quite dear is that the
notion of eternal recurrence can serve as a barometer of the extent to
which one affirms one's singular life. lf one can affirm that one's life, 'aU
in the same succession and sequence,' ought to repeat itself again and
again into eternity, and affirm it without deleting unwanted sequences,
then imagine, Nietzsche asks rhetorically, 'how well disposed would
you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently
than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?65 This 'eternal confir­
mation and seal,' on our reading, is the affirmation of becoming and the
arder or being immanent to self-ordering becoming. Nietzsche explic­
itly identifies eternal recurrence with the affirmation of becoming later
in the same note cited earlier where Nietzsche daims that 'to impose
upon becoming the character of being ... is the supreme will to power.'
He adds the following daim: 'That everything recurs is the dosest
approximation of a world of becoming to a world of beings: - high point of the
meditation.66 To state Nietzsche's view in slightly different terms, eter­
nal recurrence is the affirmation of the power whereby becoming
actively becomes being, beings that in turn become yet other beings,
and so on ad infinitum. Thus, as Nietzsche nears the end of Thus Spolœ
Zarathustra, Zarathustra urges the 'higher men' to say yes to all things,
to affirm the becoming that allows for the eternal return of beings: 'All
anew, all eternally, all entangled, ensnared, enamored - oh, then you
loved the world. Eternal ones, love it eternally and evermore; and to
woe too, you say: go, but return! For all joy wants - eternity.' 57
It becomes dear now why Nietzsche saw a precursor in Spinoza, a
philosopher who shared with him the same tendency to 'make knowl­
edge the most powerful affect.' This affect, moreover, is positive and
absolutely affirmative - what they both caU joy. To live such an affirm­
ing life requires, for Nietzsche and for Spinoza, an affirmation of the
power of becoming, a power that is, in the end, inseparable from one's
finite, mortal self. Nietzsche and Spinoza are also not interested in a
quantitative eternity, an eternity that is simply an unending duration.
The eternity Spinoza seeks is the 'infinite enjoyment of existing,' an
eternity that exceeds and overflows any determinate and determinable
conceptions of eternity, and an eternity that is experienced through the
love and joy of a God that is the power of absolutely indeterminate,
self-ordering becoming. To capture and live a life of joy, a life that rec­
ognizes and affirms the determinate and singular, induding one's self,
62 Thinking Difference

as being inseparable from the absolutely indeterminate power that is

God, or what Nietzsche calls will to power, is to live the 'infinite enjoy­
ment of existing' - it is to live etemally. Moreover, this shared concem
between Nietzsche and Spinoza for living etemally was for Spinoza
something that was central to his intellectual labours for the greater
part of twenty years. It is also this concem for living etemally that occu­
pies Deleuze. In the hands of Deleuze (and Guattari), living etemally
will also mean to live a life that affirms becoming, and affirms it with­
out predetermination. This is the meaning of Deleuze and Guattari' s
call to become a body without organs, a call that will become of increas­
ing focus over the next three chapters. Far, then, from seeing the final
half of Part 5 to Spinoza's Ethics as an unnecessary appendage to
Spinoza's corpus, we must conclude that the concems and arguments
of this part are not only of integral and essential concem to Spinoza' s
work, but they also anticipate and influence, as an important 'precur­
sor,' the work of Nietzsche and Deleuze. We would be advised, there­
fore, not to 'in sad silence avert our eyes' from Part 5.
3 Philosophizing the Double Bind: Deleuze

Reads Nietzsche

1 say unto you:one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a
dancing star. 1 say unto you:you still have chaos in yourselves.
- Nietzsche, 'Zarathustra's Prologue'

Spinoza would also daim that one must still have chaos in oneself to
be able to give birth to a dancing star. With his discussion of the third
kind of knowledge, Spinoza, as we have seen, argued that we ought to
strive to the point where we do not have to select against difference -
that is, to the point where one can still have chaos in oneself. One could
argue, of course, that for Spinoza God, who does not have to select
against difference, is far from chaotic. Nevertheless, if we understand
chaos as the absolutely indeterminate and indeterminable condition for
the possibility of determination (a position we will argue for below),
then our argument here will be much in line with our previous discus­
sion of Spinoza. However, as we turn now to Nietzsche, it will be
important not only to situate Nietzsche's thought within the terrain
charted by Spinoza, but also, and more importantly, to contrast
Nietzsche's approach with the general philosophical tradition of the
West. In this way, we can begin to establish the uniqueness of the
philosophical path upon which Spinoza, Nietzsche, and others have
walked, or, as Nietzsche might put it, danced. This will shed light on
recent work in philosophy, in particular the work of contemporary
French philosophers such as Derrida and Deleuze, who state, follow­
ing Nietzsche, that their task is to reverse the Western philosophical
tradition they trace back to Plato.
On the surface, at least, there are sorne important similarities between
Plato and Nietzsche, for Plato too was well aware of this 'chaos in one-
64 Thinking Difference

self.' In The Republic, for example, we find the recognition of this chaos,
a recognition that necessitates the attempt to explicate both the reasons
why order needs to be imposed upon this chaos, and the manner in
which this is to be done. This need is particularly true of children, for, as
Plato notes, the soul of young children is very malleable, or plastic, and
thus can be molded into an indefinite number of shapes; consequently,
throughout The Republic it is stressed that this plasticity and indetermi­
nacy which forever threaten to subvert and de-stabilize order (i.e., jus­
tice) must be contained and ordered. The plasticity within oneself thus
harbours potential disorder and chaos, and must, from the time we are
young, be molded and stamped with a simple, identifiable form:

Don't you know that the beginning is the most important part of every
work and that this is especially so with anything young and tender? For
at that stage it' s most plastic, and each thing assimilates itself to the model
whose stamp anyone wishes to give to it. (377b) 1

The young and tender soul is at its most impress-ionable stage, and
thus this is the time when a simple, ordered model can be most suc­
cessfully impressed upon the 'chaos in oneself.' Similarly, in a frag­
ment from Will to Power (§515), Nietzsche, too, will daim that we need
'to impose upon chaos as much regularity and form as our practical
needs require.' Both Plato and Nietzsche are agreed, then, that it is nec­
essary to impose order upon chaos.
Why is it necessary to impose order upon chaos? Plato's and
Nietzsche's answer to this question is on the surface quite simple. As
presented in The Republic, chaos and disorder are incompatible with
justice (i.e., order), and since the stated goal is to find the conditions
which make justice possible, and allow for its continued existence, one
must then find a way to institute this order upon the plasticity of
oneself. For Nietzsche the imposing of order upon chaos is necessary
for life. Order, regularity, and predictability are necessary simply to
survive:

... it might be a basic characteristic of existence that those who would

know it completely [the 'chaos in oneself' ] would perish, in which case
the strength of a spirit should be measured according to how much of the
'truth' one could still barely endure - or to put it more clearly, to what
degree one would require it to be thinned down, shrouded, sweetened,
2
blunted, falsified [i.e., how necessary it is to impose order upon chaos].
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 65

In order for us to get on with our lives, to get started, the chaos in one­
self needs to be diluted and falsified. We thus begin with the false. Only
later, with enough strength, will we perhaps be able to peer 'into the
chaos and labyrinth of existence' 3 without perishing or needing this
chaos to be ordered, diluted, falsified. In the meantime, we have our
lies, our falsifications, that serve as our necessary antidote for 'truths'
that might otherwise prove fatal - 'No one dies of fatal truths nowa­
days: there are too many antidotes.' 4
We also begin with the false in The Republic, and at two crucial points
in the text. The first occurs with respect to molding the plasticity of the
soul. To educate and mold the young and tender soul most effectively,
one would do best to begin with the telling of tales that are, on the
whole, false:

'Won't we begin educating in music before gymnastic?'

'Of course.'
'You include speeches in music, don't you?' 1 said.
'l do.'
'Do speeches have a double form, the one true, the other false?'
'Yes.'
'Must they be educated in both, but first in the false?'
'1 don't understand how you mean that,' he said.
'Don't you understand,' 1 said, 'that first we tell tales to children? And
surely they are, as a whole, false, though there are true things in them too.
We make use of tales with children before exercises.' (376e-377a, empha­
sis added)

In further clarifying and attempting to address Adeimantus's doubts

about beginning with what is false, Socrates first discusses the plastic­
ity of the young and tender soul (quoted above), and then adds that
children cannot differentiate between what is true in these tales, what
he refers to as the 'hidden sense' of the tale, and what is not: 'A young
thing can't judge what is hidden sense and what is not; but what he
takes into his opinions at that age has a tendency to becom� hard to
eradicate and unchangeable' (378e). The child will naturally conform
to the truth ('hidden sense') of the tale without recognizing this truth
as truth, and thus a great emphasis will be placed upon telling tales
which, although on the whole may be false (i.e., they might be fantasti­
cal tales of great exploits, adventures, etc., which could in no way be
true, but attract and 'grip' children precisely because of their fantasti-
66 Thinking Difference

cal nature), must nevertheless have a hidden sense that conforms to a

true and ideal madel - the madel of justice for example.
The second instance of beginning with the false occurs when
Socrates attempts to darify what the truth and ideal (eidos) of justice is.
To do this, Socrates proposes constructing a city in speech. If they can
construct a city in speech which would function in perfect harmony,
then the assumption is that not only must this city be just, but that by
analogy an individual's soul would also be just if it were structured
just as the city was. This would also retum us to the theme of how best
to mold and arder the plasticity of the soul. But after constructing a
city with which Socrates feels satisfied, a city wherein one's necessities
are met with only a few minor 'relishes,' Glaucon urges Socrates to
consider a more 'conventional' city, a city much more like Athens; in
short, Glaucon wants Socrates to consider a 'luxurious city.' Socrates
concedes to Glaucon's request but adds that 'the true city is in my
opinion the one we just described - a healthy city, as it were. But, if
you want, let's look at a feverish city, too' (372d). And it is indeed the
feverish city, the unhealthy falsification of 'the true city,' which will
hereafter become the tapie of discussion. Not only is the 'luxurious
city' a copy or representation of a city, a city in speech, it is a false copy
(i.e., phantasma); and hence the tale of this city is a fantastical tale.
Plata, as with Nietzsche, will also call for the necessity of lies and fal­
sifications as an antidote for preventing terrible consequences. Lies are
'useful against enemies, and as a preventive, like a drug, for so-called
friends when from madness or sorne folly they attempt to do some­
thing bad' (382c); and lies are useful for rulers to tell the ruled in cases
when the ruled are unable to grasp the true reasons for the ruler's
actions (e.g., the 'noble lie' of bronze, silver, and gold in the soul [414c-
415c]). Therefore, just as children should first be told stories that are
false, so too should adults be told lies, and the reason in each case is
the same: to secure the health and justice of society and the individual.
Beginning with the false is a necessary remedy and preventive, but a
remedy that in time one will perhaps be able, with enough strength, to
do without.
Let us pause for a moment. There are, on the surface at least, dear
similarities between Plata and Nietzsche,5 but, and as Nietzsche would
be the first to point out, we must not condude that Plata and Nietzsche
have the same concems. In a very important sense, Nietzsche daims to
be doing, or to be concemed with, the inverse of what Plata is doing.
Nietzsche consequently daims to be righting Plato's 'standing of truth
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 67

on her head and [his] denying [of] perspective.' 6 And with this move
Nietzsche launched what has come to be called the critique of meta­
physics, a critique taken up most notably by Heidegger and Derrida.
Heidegger, however, has remarked with respect to Nietzsche that
Nietzsche's inversion of Plata, as an inversion and reversai, remains
fully inscribed within that which is being reversed? 5o is Nietzsche' s
critique a failure? This very same criticism, furthermore, has also been
levelled against the other major proponents of the critique of meta­
physics, including Heidegger. Jürgen Habermas, John Searle, and Fre­
dric Jameson, to name only a few, are all agreed, although they differ
in many other respects, that the critique of metaphysics as found in the
thought of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, and others, is fundamen­
tally flawed because of an implicit commitment and adherence to the
very same tradition they are criticizing. 8
This critical strategy is not new. One can see it at work in the Pla­
tonie dialogues when, for example, Socrates' interlocutors end up con­
tradicting their initial position, thus affirming the very position they
initially rejected (e.g., Thrasymachus, Republic 349b-350c). What is
new, perhaps, is that the critique of metaphysics daims to be reversing
the entire tradition of metaphysics since Plata. This reversai, however,
does indeed, as is often acknowledged, resemble the tradition that is
being reversed, yet despite this resemblance it is not to be seen as part
of the same tradition. The reason for this is that the crucial aspect of
metaphysics which the contemporary critique attempts to reverse is,
paradoxically, the very notion of reversai itself, and the binary opposi­
tion such a notion presupposes.
In this chapter we will attempt to justify this notion of a 'reversai of
reversai' by continuing our discussion of the relationship between
Nietzsche and Plata, and we will also elaborate upon themes discussed
in earlier chapters; in particular, we will discuss how Nietzsche' s 'rever­
sai of reversai' entails reversing the traditional emphasis upon a funda­
mental either 1 or and emphasizes instead, as did Spinoza (though not as
explicitly as Nietzsche), a fundamental, non-identifiable bath/ and con­
dition - namely, paradoxa. To do this, our discussion will centre upon
three themes. The first theme will be the need for remedies - the need for
lies, falsifications, arder, etc. Derrida's discussion of this tapie, in his
essay on the pharmakon (Greek for remedy), will help us to begin to
direct our attention to the criticisms that have been directed against the
critique of metaphysics. This will also help us to situate Nietzsche's
thought with respect to Plata. Our second theme will be the notion of
68 Thinking Difference

plasticity, and in particular the tendency for the plasticity within oneself
to become an imitation, representation, and approximation of sorne
model. In this context we will discuss the theme of mimesis and the
implications of our tendency, or weakness, as Nietzsche refers to it, to
see the similar as being the same. In this section we will continue to
explore the intricate relationship between Nietzsche and Plato. In the
third section we will analyse the relationship between Nietzsche and
Plato in terms of Nietzsche's notion of will to power. At this point we
will draw significantly from the work of Deleuze, and we will once
again return to the issue of Nietzsche's inversion of Pl;'l.to and the cri­
tique of metaphysics, and more importantly to Nietzsche's understand­
ing of will to power as a fundamental, non-identifiable both/ and
condition. Moreover, we hope to demonstrate that a Nietzschean-styled
critique need not be a reversai, inversion, or negation of that which is
critiqued, nor need it be a Kantian-styled critique which reveals identi­
fiable 'conditions of possibility'; rather, what will be sketched is an
understanding of critique as that which forever confronts its conditions
of impossibility, a critique that reveals both the impossibility and neces­
sity of reversai - in short, a critique without redemption.

Pharmakon

The poison of which weaker natures perish strengthens the strong - nor do
they cali it poison.
- Nietzsche, The Gay Science (§19)

They might, in fact, even cali it a remedy, a preventive or antidote.

Thus the very same substance, if substance is the proper word, can
either strengthen or destroy, enhance or diminish. But how do we
decide, or is it even possible to decide, what the effect will be in each
instance? 'Will this make me stronger, or will it kill me?' Is there a stan­
dard, criterion, or test we can use in answering this question? Indeed
there is a standard or protocol of experimentation and observation that
is common to biochemists, pharmacists, etc., and the result is a list of
known effects, symptoms, or side-effects that correspond to each drug
(or substance). Yet this protocol assumes that the substance in ques­
tion, or what is referred to when asking what the effects of this will be,
has been identified. Once this substance has been identified, it is a
rather straightforward procedure which will lead us to state whether
this will strengthen or weaken; and yet even here things are not so sim­
ple. Although most researchers would agree upon the protocol and
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 69

procedures to use in determining whether a substance is harmful or

not, there is often significant disagreement concerning the conclusions
of this research. But what if we have yet to, or cannot, identify what it
is that might help or hurt us? Is there the possibility of a standard or
protocol in this case that will allow us to know something about some­
thing we don't know (or haven't identified)? More importantly, can we
even ask the question. 'Will this help or harm me?' if we don't already
implicitly know what this is?
These questions lead us to one of the problems of most renown in
Plato's thought: the problem of the Meno, or the problem of accounting
for how we can teach that which we do not know (in this case, virtue),
or, conversely, how we can learn something if we already know it.
Socrates daims this problem is simply the result of a 'trick argument'
(Meno, BOe), the 'trick' being the assumption that knowledge is some­
thing one can teach or impart. Socrates denies this assumption and
daims that 'there is no such thing as teaching, only recollection' (82a).
Everything we come to know is something the soul already knows (we
implicitly know what this is) but we have forgotten due to our bodily
nature. And Socrates' dialectic and speech, his logos, is a remedy for
this forgetfulness, for our having forgotten what this (e.g., virtue) is.
Socrates' subsequent task and passion, and his hope for philosophy, is
to cure us of our forgetfulness, and save us from the evils that result from
it - hence Socrates' daim that the we do evil only out of ignorance, that
is, forgetfulness. Nietzsche is therefore correct to note that 'he [Socrates]
seemed to be a physician, a savior.' 9
The Socratic therapy and cure, his remedy for our forgetfulness, has
as its end the knowledge of what is good, or 'the idea of the good,' and
hence Socratic therapy is the highest of ail pursuits, 'the greatest study'
(Republic, 504d-505b). And yet the good itself, as Socrates makes
explicit, exceeds his capacity to discuss it, is out of his range (506e),
though he is willing 'to tell what looks like a child of the good and most
similar to it ... '; and that which fust cornes to mind as 'a child of the
good' is the sun:

... the sun is an offspring of the good I mean - an offspring the good begot
in a proportion with itself: as the good is in the intelligible region with
respect to intelligence and what it intellected, so the sun is in the visible
region with respect to sight and what is seen. (508b--c)

Just as the the illumination of the sun allows for the possibility of per­
ception, for the relationship between perceiver and perceived, so too
70 Thinking Difference

does the good allow for the possibility of intelligence, for the relation­
ship between the intellect and the intellected. Furthermore� with this
analogy, we see that not only does Socrates find himself incapable of
knowing the good directly (he must go through the offspring of the
good), but to know the good directly, to recall it completely, would
bring annihilating harm:

. . . it occurred to me that 1 must guard against the same sort of risk which
people run when they watch and study an eclipse of the sun; they really
do sometimes injure their eyes, unless they study its reflection in water or
sorne other medium. 1 conceived of something like this happening to
myself, and 1 was afraid that by observing objects with my eyes and try­
ing to comprehend them with each of my other senses 1 might blind my
soul altogether. So 1 decided that 1 must have recourse to theories, and
use them in trying to discover the truth about things. (Phaedo, 99d-e)

We therefore need a remedy, a supplement, or something other

between ourselves and the good itself, something that will protect us
from sorne harm. But with this move our earlier question retums: 'will
that which we do not know, the good, help us or harm us?' It does seem
that if we are to know the good through our senses without being
harmed, we need 'theories,' or we need to know the good through some­
thing other than the good, through the 'child of the good,' for example.
Yet the good itself is to be understood as something simple, as some­
thing that does not entail otherness. Thus, in the Lysis, after remarking
that the good is a 'medicine [pharmakon] for evil,' for humans that are
'between evil and good,' Socrates observes that 'where there is no dis­
ease, there is, we are aware, no need of medicine. This, then, it appears,
is the nature of good' (220d). The good is incapable of being harmed, of
suffering disease, etc., and for this reason it neither requires anything
other (i.e., medicine), nor does it assist anything other - 'it is,' as Socrates
puts it, 'of no use.' Similarly, in The Republic, when determining the man­
ner in which the gods are to be portrayed, it is concluded that the gods
must be presented such as they are, and not as anything other than what
they are. And since the gods are 'really good,' they must not be por­
trayed as anything other than good; hence the gods must not be
depicted as being the cause of bad, evil, or harmful things (379a-c). But
with this daim a tension arises which is central to Plato's thought:
namely, there is both the necessity of othemess, and the necessity to sup­
press and eliminate othemess. To know the good, we need 'othemess,'
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 71

but if the good is to be established, we need to eliminate 'othemess.' It

is this tension and ambiguity, this double bind, that interests Derrida. In
fact, the method of deconstruction itself (if you can call it a method) is
one of revealing, as Alan Schrift has noted, that which has been neces­
sarily retained yet suppressed within a given text: 'Derrida's decon­
structive reading seeks to indicate those assumptions which a text
acknowledges [e.g., the necessity of knowing the good through some­
thing other] but must suppress in order to function [e.g., the necessity,
in The Republic, of suppressing othemess so that justice, and its principle
of 'to each his own,' can function] .' 1 0
In tuming to Derrida' s interpretation, it is important to note that there
has been a shift in our questioning. We were first concemed with how
one decides if something (this) is either helpful or harmful, but this
quickly became the problem of understanding how othemess can be
both helpful and harmful. Derrida would daim that the shift to another
ambiguous both/and is far from accidentai. In Derrida's long essay on
Plato, 'Plato's Pharmacy,' but also in his work as a whole, it is precisely
sorne ambiguous, undecidable both/ and which allows for the possibil­
ity of deciding with respect to an either 1 or. Decisions regarding an
either 1 or necessarily refer to, or depend upon, sorne problematic, unde­
cidable both/ and, yet in the process of deciding, this undecidability
must be suppressed. It is precisely this process which deconstruction
investigates. For example, in his reading of Plato, Derrida focuses upon
the Greek word pharmakon, which can be translated to mean either rem­
ecly or poison, and he refers to the several places where it is ambiguous
what the proper meaning is; in short, the question is precisely whether
the pharmakon will help or harm.
Derrida first cites the Phaedrus where Pharmacia (Pharmakeia) is
referred to as that which caught up Orithyia and blew her into the
abyss and killed her (229d); and then just a little later, the texts Phae­
drus brought with him are compared by Socrates to a remedy or cure:
' ... you seem to have discovered a remedy [pharmakon] for getting me
out' (230e). The administering of the pharmakon produces both harms
and benefits, though perhaps the benefits of getting out of the city are
not too clear (Derrida notes that it was hot and 'getting out' allowed
Socrates to cool off by the river, the same river in which Orithyia was
thrown, and hence the ambiguity retums once more). Derrida will later
cite the Phaedo in which Socrates attempts to find a remedy or cure for
the childish terrors and fear of death that the 'little boy' in each of us
has. This is the fear that once the soul leaves the body 'the wind may
72 Thinking Difference

really puff it away and scatter it.' To remedy this situation, Socrates
says that one must 'say a magic spell over him [the child] every day
until you have charmed his fears away' (77e). And there is no greater
magician, as Simmias and others were well aware, than Socrates hlm­
self. Just recall Meno's reaction to Socrates:

Socrates, even before 1 met you they told me that in plain truth you are a
perplexed man yourself and reduce others to perplexity. At this moment 1
feel you are exercising magic and witchcraft upon me and positively lay­
ing me under your spell until 1 am just a mass of helplessness. (Meno, 80a)

Although it is a magician's magic and spells that are a cure and rem­
ecly for the childish fear of death, this magic is to be distinguished
from the magical wizardry of the imita tors, a magic that must be elimi­
nated. For example, in The Republic the gods are not to be represented
by the poets as being anything like 'a wizard, able treacherously to
reveal himself at different times in different ideas [eidos] ... ' (380d). A
god is what he is, and need not, nor should not, be anything other than
what he is. Similarly, with the poets if one

who is able by wisdom to become every sort of thing and to imitate all
things should come to our city, wishing to make a display of himself and
his poems, we should fall on our knees before him as a man sacred, won­
derful, and pleasing; but we would say that there is no such man among us
in the city [and we would therefore] . . . send him to another city . . . (398a)

This banishment need not be permanent but must be maintained until

a remedy or antidote for the speeches of the poets has been found.
Thus, when the theme of the poets returns in Book X, Socrates implies
that although imitative poetry seems 'to maim the thought of those
who hear them [the poets] and do not as a remedy [pharmakon] have
the knowledge of how they really are' (595b), such poetry is permissi­
ble, and perhaps desirable (we will discuss this in the next section), for
those who do have such a remedy, since they will have established a
resistance to the poet' s magic.
There is thus the magic and wizardry of dispersal, of things not
being what they are, or for things that are changing, in flux, unpredict­
able; and this is a magic that captivates us and has us 'on our knees.'
But then there is the magic and wizardry of eidos, of things being what
they are, static, repetitive, predictable; and this is also a magic that cap-
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 73

tivates us and leaves us as 'just a mass of helplessness.' It is the speech

and discourse of the second magic which gets directed against the
intoxicating effects of the first, and for this reason this second magic is
referred to in the Laws as an antidote: 'The one certain touchstone of all
is the text of the legislator. The good judge will possess the text within
his own breast as an antidote [alexipharmaka] against other discourse
[in particular, discourses of 'poesy with its eulogies and its satires, or
utterances in prose ... with their contentious disagreements' - i.e., their
tendency for dispersal], and thus he will be the state's preserver as well
as his own' (XI 957d). The pharmakon is administered against itself. The
good drug and remedy - Socratic dialectics in the service of eidos - is
necessary to counter the intoxicating effects of the bad drug - imitative
poetry and discourse which promotes dispersal and othemess; but this
Socratic treatment would not be possible, Derrida argues, 'if the phar­
mako-logos did not already harbor within itself that complicity of con­
trary values,' 11 if it were not in 'sorne sense' already both a poison and
a remedy. 1 use the qualification 'sorne sense' because the pharmakon is
not to be seen as being identifiably a poison and a remedy, nor does it
have a 'proper' sense; rather, Derrida understands it to be the non­
identifiable element which is prior to, and allows for the possibility of,
making identifiable distinctions:

The 'essence' of the plulrmakon lies in the way in which, having no stable
essence, no 'proper' characteristics, it is not, in any sense (metaphysical,
physical, chemical, alchemical) of the word, a substance. The plulrmakon
has no ideal identity; it is aneidetic ... It is rather the prior medium in
which differentiation in general is produced, along with the opposition
between the eidos and its other; this medium is analogous to the ... tran­
scendental imagination, that 'art hidden in the depths of the soul,' which
belongs neither simply to the sensible nor simply to the intelligible, nei­
ther simply to passivity nor simply to activity P

To make a decision, however, to identify whether this is helpful or

harmful, the non-identifiable and hence undecidable medium of the
pharmakon must be left behind. It is precisely this move which Derrida
believes Plato makes:

Plato decides in favor of a logic that does not tolerate such passages
between opposing senses of the same word ... And yet ... the pharmakon,
if our reading confirrns itself, constitutes the original medium of that deci-
74 Thinking Difference

sion, the element that precedes it, comprehends it, goes beyond it, can
never be reduced to it, and is not separated from it by a single word P

This logic which Plato decides in favour of is nothing less than the logic
of either 1 or, and Plato uses this logic, Derrida argues, in his 'attempts to
master, to dominate [i.e., dominate ambiguities such as pharmakon that
are both poisons and cures] by inserting its definition [e.g., pharmakon,
whose definition or 'essence' is ambiguous, 'aneidetic,' and undecid­
able] into simple, clear-cut oppositions: good and evil, inside and out­
side, true and false, essence and appearance.' 14 Derrida's critique of
Plato is therefore both a critique of Plato' s decision, or what Derrida also
refers to as the decision of metaphysics, to favour the logic of either1 or,
and it is a critique in the Kantian sense in that it reveals the conditions
which make this decision possible.
But this is already Nietzsche's position. Early in Beyond Good and
Evil, Nietzsche daims that 'the fundamental faith of the metaphysi­
cians is the faith in opposite values.' 15 In particular, he notes the 'typi­
cal prejudice' of metaphysicians that something cannot 'originate out
of its opposite.' Truth cannot originate in error; selfless deeds in selfish
deeds; and, as we have seen in The Republic, the goodness of the gods
cannot originate in, or even participa te in, evil. In contrast to this 'prej­
udice,' however, Nietzsche argues:

It might even be possible that what constitutes the value of these good
and revered things is precisely that they are insidiously related, tied to,
and involved with these wicked, seemingly opposite things - maybe even
one with them in essence. Maybe! 1 6

That the word 'maybe' is emphasized and repeated should be noted,

for, as with Derrida, the condition which 'constitutes the value of these
good and revered things,' although 'insidiously related' to the opposite
of these things, is itself, in 'essence,' the undecidable medium which
allows for the possibility of deciding whether something is good or evil.
In itself, however, one cannot decide with respect to this medium; one
is left simply saying, 'Maybe!' The terms Nietzsche most often associ­
ates with this undecidable medium are 'will to power,' 'life,' and 'diony­
sian frenzy.' Thus it is life, will to power, etc., which constitutes value
(i.e., allows for the possibility of decisions between good and evil, etc.),
but they in turn cannot be evaluated, cannot be decided, and are in short
'unapproachable':
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 75

One would require a position outside of life, and yet have to know it as
well as one, as many, as ali who have lived it, in order to be permitted
even to touch the problem of the value of life; reasons enough to compre­
hend that this problem is for us an unapproachable problem. 17

Life, as will to power, 18 is always evaluating and deciding between

good and evil, helpful and harmful, etc., but life itself cannot be evalu­
ated. Life is the non-identifiable, aneidetic medium which, to use the
previously quoted phrase of Derrida, 'harbors within itself that com­
plicity of contrary values.' The logic of either 1 or is thur. made possible
by a non-identifiable life wherein the opposite values are 'insidiously
related' (i.e., undecidable both/ and).
We are now in a better position to understand Nietzsche's inversion
or reversai of Plato. To daim that Nietzsche is simply reversing or
inverting terms, or that he is simply taking the opposite stance, would
be missing the point of Nietzsche' s critique. Most especially, this would
be assuming that Nietzsche uncritically accepts a faith in opposite val­
ues when it is precisely this faith, as we have shown, which he ques­
tions. The 'reversai of reversai' is, for Nietzsche, a critique of the
metaphysician's fundamental 'faith in opposite values,' and yet it is just
this faith that forms the basis of many of the criticisms that have been
directed against Nietzsche and the 'critique of metaphysics.' 1 9 Foucault
refers to this tendency as 'Enlightenment blackmail' : either you accept
the logic of either 1 or and the faith in opposite values, or you are an irra­
tionalist and a relativist. 20 But the point of the 'reversai of reversai' is
not that something is being opposed to the logic of either 1 or, but rather
it is an attempt to reveal, within this either 1 or, a non-identifiable, unde­
cidable, aneidetic medium wherein both the either and the or are 'insid­
iously related.' Foucault, for example, attempts both to criticize the
Enlightenment and maintain a vigilant acceptance of rationality, and
for this reason he expresses his agreement with Habermas' s daim that
'if one abandons the work of Kant or Weber ... one runs the risk of laps­
ing into irrationality.' For Foucault, reason can neither dispense with
the irrational, nor should the irrational dispense with reason, but we are
in 'this sort of spiral' wherein there is both rationality and irrational­
ity. 2 1 Foucault's critique, as with Nietzsche's,22 is therefore both a cri­
tique of the decision to favour the logic of either 1 or, and it is a critique
in the Kan tian sense in that it argues for a fundamental both / and at the
heart of this either 1 or, or it reveals the fundamental both/ and which is
the condition of possibility for this logic.
76 Thinking Difference

There are, however, questions and potential problems with this

approach. First, is this position also not, in 'sorne sense,' Plato' s posi­
tion? Does not the plasticity within oneself harbour a 'complicity of con­
trary values' insofar as this plasticity can be molded into either a good
or evil form; thus the concem for censoring and banishing the evil
forms? And is this plasticity also not the reason for the ultimate failure
and fall of justice in that this plasticity cannot be contained within, or be
completely reduced to, a simple form? lt is necessary for the philoso­
pher-king to eliminate othemess, but this othemess is there from the
start: it is the non-identifiable plasticity of the soul, a plasticity that can
come to be identified as any of an indefinite number of types; but as the
possibility and medium for this identification, whatever type or model
does get stamped on the soul will always contain the possibility of
becoming an-other type. lt is this possibility that results in a double bind
that is central to Plato' s thought: it is both necessary and impossible to
eliminate othemess. 23 An instance of this double bind in The Republic
concems the necessity and impossibility of eliminating the poets,
poetry, and the imitative arts. But does not Plato implicitly recognize
this double bind/4 and moreover does he not also acknowledge a fun­
damental both/ and which is the condition for deciding in favour of a
logic of either 1 or? Does not Nietzsche' s and hence Derrida' s critique of
Plato subsequently entail a fundamental mis-reading; in short, are they
not criticizing him for not doing or being aware of something he is doing
and aware of? 'Maybe!' But to conclude from this that they are all doing
the same thing, or that they are all part of the same tradition, would in
tum be a mistake. There are indeed clear sîmilarities between them, but
to say of similar things that they are the same thing is itself a fundamental
error, an error of which Nietzsche was well aware. lt is to a discussion
of this error that we now tum, and, by continuing to follow the contours
between Plato and Nietzsche, we will address many of these questions.

Mimesis

Seeing things as similar and making things the same is the sign of weak eyes.
- Nietzsche, The Gay Science (§228)

Integral to the process of 'making things the same' that are merely sim­
ilar is what Heidegger will call, in extending Nietzsche' s work, the 'fic­
tioning essence of reason.' This term arises in the context of a discussion
of Nietzsche's schematism, or of the necessity of imposing order upon
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 77

chaos. Heidegger cites a fragment from Will to Power (no. 515): 'Not "to
know" but to schematize - to impose upon chaos as much regularity
and form as our practical needs require.' 25 Our practical needs thus
entail that what is strange be reduced to what is familiar because, as
Nietzsche continues, 'only when we see things coarsely and made equal
do they become calculable and usable to us [i.e., conform to our "prac­
tical needs" ] .' This point is made even more clearly in The Gay Science
(§1 1 1 , 'Origin of the Logical'): 'The dominant tendency ... to treat as
equal what is merely similar - an illogical tendency for nothing is really
equal - is what first created any basis for logic.' La ter in this same book,
Nietzsche will stress that our need for knowledge is nothing more than
a need for the familiar, for the same. 26 But, as Nietzsche points out,
'nothing is really equal,' nothing is really the same, and therefore the
schematism is in the end nothing more than the imposition of a useful
fiction (or, as Nietzsche will often refer to it, a 'necessary lie'). Nietzsche
is also clear in saying that 'no pre-existing "idea" was here at work' /7 in
other words, the categories, ideas, etc., under which what cornes to be
known is subsumed, are themselves the result of the schematism, and
are not something which precedes it. These categories and ideas are, as
Heidegger puts it, fictioned: 'That which is fictioned in such a fiction is
categories. That which properly appears to us and shows itself under its
aspect: this same thingness of the thing - what in Greek would be
referred to as "ldea" - thus created, is originally fictioned.' 28
With Nietzsche's interpretation of the schematism, his reversai or
inversion of Plato becomes more clear. First, for Nietzsche, unlike Plato,
the ideas (eidos) do not pre-exist their being applied to the realm of prac­
tical, day-to-day necessity; they are a consequence of this necessity, of
our 'practical needs.' And related to this reversai is that of the fictioning
process itself. For Plato, as Heidegger discusses this point in referring to
the Phaedrus, when he 'tells the myth of the descent of the "idea" from
a place above heaven, hyperouranios topos, into the human soul, this
myth is ... none other than the Greek interpretation of the fictioning
essence of reason.' 29 The fictioning of the 'ideas,' in other words, occurs
in the supersensuous realm 'above heaven.' For Nietzsche, on the other
hand, the fictioning occurs within the sensuous realm of life, and it is
only as a consequence of the necessities of life that the notion of super­
sensuous 'ideas' cornes about (i.e., are fictioned). Nietzsche thus inverts
or reverses the Platonic interpretation of the relationship between the
sensuous and the supersensuous; however, it is precisely this reversai
that Heidegger finds problematic:
78 Thinking Difference

But what does that [Nietzsche's inversion] mean - the sensuous stands
above ali? It means that it is the true, it is genuine being. If we take the
inversion strictly in this sense, then the vacant niches of the 'above and
below' are preserved, suffering only a change in occupancy, as it were.
But as long as the 'above and below' define the formai structure of Pla­
tonism, Platonism in its essence perdures. The inversion does not achieve
what it must ... namely, an overcoming of Platonism in its very founda­
tions. Such overcoming succeeds only when the 'above' in general is set
aside as such, when the former positing of something true and desirable
no longer arises, when the true world - in the sense of the ideal - is
expunged. 30

What Heidegger believed Nietzsche failed to overcome is the very

opposition between an 'above' and a 'below,' and thus he maintained
the metaphysician's faith in opposing values. Did he? Heidegger grants
that Nietzsche did come to question this faith in opposing values, but
that he did so 'only in his final creative year (1 888).' 3 1 What we have
tried to show is that Nietzsche was well aware of this faith in opposing
values, and questioned it not only in Beyond Good and Evil (1 886), but
also in his early work Human, All Too Human (1878). The latter work
begins by noting that 'metaphysical philosophy' responds to the prob­
lem of 'how something can arise from its opposite' by 'denying the ori­
gin of one [e.g., logic] from the other [its opposite, e.g., the illogical] .'
Nietzsche proposes, by contrast, that a 'historical philosophy' would
pursue 'a chemistry of moral, religious, aesthetic ideas and feelings ...
[a] chemistry [that] might end with the conclusion that, even here, the
most glorious colors are extracted from the base, even despised sub­
stances.' 32 This 'chemistry' might find that the glorious and the logical
are 'insidiously related' to their 'supposed' opposites, to the despised
and the illogical, 'maybe even one with them in essence. Maybe!' One
must therefore question Heidegger's daim that Nietzsche's inversion
and reversai of Platonism 'means' that the sensuous 'is the true ... gen­
uine being [as opposed to a false and counterfeit being] .' This is in effect
Derrida's criticism of Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche: 'Nietzsche has
written what he has written. He has written that writing - and first of aU
his own - is not originarily subordinate to logos and to truth.' 33 Even
though Nietzsche does emphasize the importance of the sensuous life,
and the practical necessities of life, life itself is ultimately 'undecidable,'
and thus cannat be subordinated to truth, or to what is genuine and
'proper.'
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 79

What, then, are we to make of Nietzsche's reversai of Platonism? If

there is the double bind that fictioning, the poets, is both necessary and
impossible (i.e., impossible in that becoming cannot be fictioned), and if
this is a double bind that even Plato seems to have been aware of, then
how is Nietzsche doing something fundamentally different than Plato?
This is the question that underlies Heidegger's critique: Nietzsche's
overcoming of Plato is not successful for he is not, in the end, doing any­
thing fundamentally different. But what would count as doing something
fundamentally different? Is there a criterion or standard which will
allow us to decide? Can we say that since Plato and Nietzsche are similar
in fundamental ways, that they are doing the same thing? This is the
problem of mimesis, the double bind of mimesis - in short, we can and
we must say that they are the same, we must decide, but these decisions
are in tum impossible, are always 'improper.'
This very problem was even brought to Nietzsche's attention. 34 In a
letter to Nietzsche from his friend Edwin Rohde, Rohde remarks, 'The
Persian sage is no doubt yourself ... Plato created his Socrates and you
your Zarathustra.' 35 Not only does Rohde identify Nietzsche with Zar­
athustra (which at times Nietzsche seems to be inviting us to do), but
he identifies the relationship between Nietzsche and Zarathustra with
that between Plato and Socrates. The implication is that Nietzsche and
Plato are not merely similar, they are doing the same thing. Nietzsche's
response to this identification, to Rohde's 'decision,' is straightfor­
ward: 'Everything in it [Thus Spoke Zarathustra] is mine alone, without
model, comparison, or precursor; a person who has once lived in it will
retum to the world with a different face.' 36 Rohde's daim that there is a
model with which Nietzsche's work can be compared is therefore, as
Nietzsche sees it, 'improper.' Why? An initial reason is that Rohde's
remark challenges Nietzsche's belief that he is reversing Platonism, or
that he is doing something fundamentally different. For the sake of
consistency, therefore, Nietzsche must reject Rohde's suggestion. A
more fundamental reason for this rejection, and this directs us to the
core of what we take to be Nietzsche's project, is that Nietzsche is con­
cemed with that which is absolutely unique, singular, incomparable,
and, yes, undecidable.
lt is at this point where we again confront the double bind. If
Nietzsche's concem is with the absolutely unique, singular, and incom­
parable, and if this cannot be fictioned but cannot not be fictioned, then
it seems the double bind is our fate. Indeed, it is our fate, but it is pre­
cisely our fate which Nietzsche affirms - amor fati:
80 Thinking Difference

My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati; that one wants
nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all etemity. Not
merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it - all idealism is menda­
ciousness in the face of what is necessary - but love it.37

If it is our fate that fictions cannot be eliminated, if lies are always

already present and necessary, does this then mean that anything goes,
that we might as well get along with any fiction, with any lie? For
Nietzsche, the answer is 'No!' What, then, is the criterion whereby one
can say this lie is better than that one? We will address these questions
more directly in the next section, but for the moment we can say that
'strength' is Nietzsche's 'standard.' 38 Fictions that are the result (i.e.,
were fictioned) of strength are better than fictions that are the result of
weakness, or fictions that enhance life's power are better than those
that diminish it. Nevertheless, we cannot do without fictions altogether
- they are our fate. What we can do, and this is where we begin to see
the motivation behind Nietzsche's unrelenting critiques, is to demon­
strate that what had been taken to be a fundamental, ultimate 'truth' is
merely a convenient and necessary fiction. But this is a critique without
end, a critique without redemption, for there is, as Nietzsche argues, no
final truth that will ground all our decisions; no 'reality' that will sweep
away all our fictions; and no knowledge that will transcend all our
opinions. There are nothing but fictions and opinions, and conse­
quently Nietzsche will not attempt to exit the cave of opinion.
Nietzsche's critique, rather, is an attempt to dig deeper within this cave,
to find an even deeper cave - to enter the abyss. As the hermit argued -
can we identify the hermit with Nietzsche? Would they each have said
the same thing? This is still our problem, the problem of mimesis - the
cave is our necessary state:

The hermit . . . will doubt whether a philosopher could possibly have 'ulti­
mate and real' opinions, whether behind every one of his caves there is
not, must not be, another deeper cave - a more comprehensive, stranger,
richer world beyond the surface, an abysmally deep ground behind every
ground, under every attempt to fumish 'grounds.' . . . Every philosophy is
a foreground philosophy ... Every philosophy also conceals a philosophy;
every opinion is also a hideout, every word also a mask.39

Plato was also well aware of the necessity of being in the cave, but the
effort such an awareness motivates is (perhaps) quite different from
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 81

Nietzsche's. Whereas Nietzsche is concerned with revealing beneath

the 'known' (i.e., familiar) causes and the dominant 'habituai explana­
tions' that which is unique and unfamiliar,40 Plato, on the other hand,
attempts to reveal that which is always the same within that which is
new and unfamiliar. Nietzsche's critique, although recognizing and
affirming the fact that one is fated to fiction the unfictionable (i.e., fated
to see the similar as the same), is nonetheless a critique which attempts
to reveal the uniqueness and novelty from which the same, the fiction,
emerges. Plato seeks to do the reverse: the goal here is to ascend from
the cave of similarity, novelty, and difference, and emerge into the light
of that which is forever the same. For Plato the necessity of being in the
cave merely reflects the fact that this is where the process of acquiring
knowledge begins, or it is that from which we seek to get outside. This
analogy is reversed by Nietzsche: he seeks to get deeper and deeper
inside, to the caves behind the caves, to the abyss.
But things are not quite this simple. Both Pléito's and Nietzsche's use
of a cave analogy reflects a recognition of a fundamental impossibility.
For Nietzsche this is the impossibility of getting to a final, ultimate
reality or ground (the last cave), wherein fictions would be unneces­
sary; and for Plato this is the impossibility of reconciling Being with
Becoming, or of reconciling Being with the necessity of telling fictions
to those in the world of Becoming. For example, when presenting the
cave analogy, Socrates (or is it Plato?) asserts that moving from the
darkness to the light is a possibility inherent in the soul; consequently,
and this retums us to our earlier discussion of the problem of the Meno,
he daims that 'education is :n,ot what the professions of certain men
[i.e., sophists] assert it to be. They presumably assert that they put into
the soul knowledge that isn't in it, as though they were putting sight
into blind eyes' (518b). They presume, in short, that the knowledge of
what is - Being - can come into being (becoming), but this is a contra­
diction in terms for Socrates. What Socrates argues for, as we have
seen, is for the recollection of a knowledge that is always already there,
that has not come-into-being. However, for humans that have neces­
sarily forgotten the truth of what is, for those in the cave, the process of
recollection entails a temporary transition from the same to the unique
and unfamiliar. The 'habituai explanations,' the dominant beliefs and
assumptions about reality, these are unsettled, and one is left disori­
ented before the strange and unfamiliar. But this is only temporary,
and eventually that which is strange will be seen to be similar to what
used to be taken to be real, and then this in tum will lead to the re-cog-
82 Thinking Difference

nition (i.e., recollection) of that which remains the same and is the
cause of the many similar appearances. It is this recollection of Being
which is the always already given possibility of the soul:

. . . this power [recollection] is in the soul of each, and ... the instrument with
which each leams - just as an eye is not able to tum toward the light from
the dark without the whole body - must be turned around from that which
is coming into being together with the whole soul until it is able to endure
looking at that which is and the brightest part of that which is. (51 8c)

Thus, Nietzsche's project of revealing the unique and unfamiliar

beneath the familiar and habituai is for Plato only a necessary and tem­
porary evil (i.e., pharmakon). It is part of the process whereby bad habits
(i.e., opinion, tumed towards Becoming) are replaced by good habits
(i.e., knowledge, tumed towards Being). At this point, however, we
encounter the problem of how best to mold the plasticity of the soul,
how best to instil one with good habits, and Plato' s favoured solution to
this problem, as discussed earlier, is to tell a fantastical tale, a tale that
might not be true, a tale that might, in fact, be false. It is precisely these
fantastical tales, the tales told to children, that were seen to be an excel­
lent means of instilling 'proper' habits in children, habits that will
become 'hard to eradicate and unchangeable' (378e). But this applies to
adults as well, and to the 'little child' in each adult that fears death. The
aging Cephalus, for example, confesses at the beginning of Book 1 of The
Republic that, 'the tales told about what is in Hades - that the one who
has done unjust deeds here must pay the penalty there - at which he
laughed up to then, now make his soul twist and tum because he fears
they might be true' (330e). Cephalus at first laughed at the 'childish' fear
that upon dea th 'the wind may really puff it [the soul] away and scatter
it' (Phaedo, 77e), and he attempted to achieve all he could in this life, in
the life that would end at dea th, even if this meant doing 'unjust deeds.'
But in the twilight of his life, Cephalus begins to wonder whether it
'might be true' that the soul does not 'scatter,' but that it continues on to
suffer the consequences of the unjust deeds done during his life; conse­
quently, the fear of death becomes transformed into the fear of a pun­
ishment without end, and it is this fear which motivates Cephalus to
attempt to rectify his unjust actions, to do what is 'proper' and right.
The problem with the telling of such tales is, as Adeimantus pointed
out (379a), deciding whether a tale is 'proper' or not, whether it con­
forms to the model of justice or not. It was in response to this problem
that Socrates proposed to construct a 'city in speech.' With this cons truc-
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 83

tion, Socrates hoped to show why he feels 'injustice is never more prof­
itable than justice' (354a), even though injustice often seems to be more
profitable. But, as we saw, they did not construct a true or healthy city;
rather, they constructed a 'feverish' city, a city that needed medicines
(i.e., pharmakon) in order to be retumed to health (Socrates the 'physi­
cian'). The medicines necessary to cure such a city were, in many
instances, lies (noble lies), and hence the necessity of that which might
not be true, that which might be fiction. And in Book X this necessity
becomes even more obvious when they retum to the question of show­
ing that 'injustice is never more profitable than justice.' At this point, and
to Glaucon' s surprise, the argument tums on showing that the soul is
immortal (608d-6l l a). The assumption is made that when one is unjust,
even if one appears just to others, this injustice 'doesn't escape the notice
of (the) gods' (612e). The gods can discem and decide whether one is just
or not; they won't be fooled by appearances or by the changing flux of
Becoming. From here it is an easy transition to the tale of Er, to a tale
which recounts how the gods punish an immortal soul for the injustices
done during life (i.e., while in the realm of Becoming): 'For ali the unjust
deeds they had done anyone and ali the men to whom they had done
injustice, they had paid the penalty for every one in tum, ten times over
for each' (615a). It is therefore this tale of Er, a tale that 'might be true,'
which, if we are 'persuaded by it' (62l c), will motivate us to be con­
cemed, not with the realm of change, similarity, and becoming, but
rather with the realm of the stable, with that which is forever the same
- namely, Being. To 'persuade' us to be just and 'proper,' to be concemed
with the sameness of Being, The Republic thus depends upon tales that
might be false (i.e., they are, at the very !east, fictions), such as the tale
of Er or the tale of the feverish city. They are necessary fictions. The
Republic as a whole, in fact, can be seen as a series of these necessary fic­
tions that fiction that which cannot be fictioned. And the reason for a
series of fictions is that each fiction entails the fictioning process, a pro­
cess which is itself the gap or passage from like to same, and it is pre­
cisely this gap that remains forever unthought and thus subject to yet
another fiction to fiction the unthought, and so on ad infinitum. Plato' s
fictions, his analogies, are substitutes for, or etemal recurrences of, the
incomparable and unthinkable.
What has become of Nietzsche' s inversion of Plato? Is it nothing more
than a difference in the fictions that are used to fiction the fictioning
process, fictions that necessarily fail to represent this process? Does
Nietzsche, to restate Rohde's daim, have his Zarathustra, and Plato his
Socrates? If both ultimately confront and fail to think the unthinkable,
84 Thinking Difference

generating instead a series of fictions, then is not bath Nietzsche's and

Plato's thought confronted with a double bind? If so, how are we to
understand Nietzsche's self-proclaimed break with traditional meta­
physics? Is he, as many of his recent critics seem to suggest, merely
deluding himself? To begin answering this question, we will direct our
attention to a discussion of 'necessity.' Both Plata and Nietzsche recog­
nized the necessity of lies, fictions, analogies, etc., and bath also implic­
itly recognized the necessity of mimesis - that is, the necessary
transition from seeing something as similar to seeing it as the same, or,
to put it another way, the necessity of habits. What is the condition for
this necessity, or why is the 'necessary' necessary? Does Nietzsche have
an answer to this question which will help us to address the problem of
how a philosophical discourse is to proceed, how it will supply a needed
truth and knowledge; or are the critics right to say that Nietzsche, and
those who have been influenced by him (e.g., Derrida, Heidegger,
Deleuze et al.), have no answer to this question, and that as a result phi­
losophy sinks into an abyss of anarchical relativism? Nietzsche does, as
we will see, have an answer to this question, and an answer which will
demonstrate that his inversion of Plata both is and is not a reversai (it is
a 'reversai of reversai'). His answer, in short, is 'will to power.'

Thumos

The world viewed from inside, the world defined and determined according to
its 'intelligible character' - it would be 'will to power' and nothing else.
- Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (§36)

'Will to power' is the world 'viewed from inside'; it is not the world
viewed from outside, from sorne privileged perspective beyond the
world. This is also true of life, and it was for this reason that the prob­
lem of the value of life was seen to be an 'unapproachable problem' by
Nietzsche. To resolve this problem 'would require,' Nietzsche daims,
'a position outside of life,' but it is precisely such a position Nietzsche
denies. We cannat step outside our lives; we cannat get beyond will to
power: 'life simply is Will to Power.' 41 Or, as Nietzsche also puts this,
our fate, our necessity, is to be part of a whole, to be the whole, where
the whole is not understood as a Being, but rather as a becoming:

One is necessary, one is a piece of fatefulness, one belongs to the whole,

one is in the whole; there is nothing which could judge, measure, com­
pare, or sentence our being, for that would mean judging, comparing, or
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 85

sentencing the whole. But there is nothing besides the whole ... the world
does not form a unity either as a sensorium or as 'spirit' - that alone is the
great liberation; with this alone is the innocence of becoming restored.42

We are a piece of fatefulness, a piece of the whole that does not forrn
a unity. And this whole that does not forrn a unity is a whole that cannot
be completely known, or it is infinitely variable,43 and this variability
cannot be unified or represented by a model or schema which would
allow us to predict this variability; there is always an element of chance.
Each prediction is a 'roll of the dice.' In short, the world, or Nature, as
Nietzsche also refers to it, is characterized by 'chance' : 'Nature is
chance.' 44 Since Nature is chance, it is unpredictable and infinitely vari­
able; it cannot be adequately represented; it cannot be unified. In other
words, Nature, as well as life, the world, will to power, and our self, is
at bottom 'chaos,' and hence any representation, theory, or order which
is imposed upon this chaos is, as discussed earlier, a necessary falsifica­
tion, a necessary lie. These necessary falsifications, however, are not
without sorne merit, or they do not arise without reason. These falsifi­
cations are necessary, and Nature itself, as Nietzsche argues, is nothing
but these necessities:

Let us beware of saying that there are laws in nature. There are only
necessities: there is nobody who commands, nobody who obeys, nobody
who trespasses. Once you know that there are no purposes, you also
know that there is no accident; for it is only beside a world of purposes
that the word 'accident' has meaning.45

Nature is neither to be understood to be completely random, a jum­

bled manifold of fortuitous events, nor is it to be understood to be
ordered by unifying laws. Rather, Nature is characterized by Nietzsche to
be both chance and necessity, or it is a dynamical system. What happens
by chance and what happens by necessity are not mutually exclusive;
there is no either 1 or here, and this is precisely because the 'innocence of
becoming' is the condition that makes this either 1 or possible. Becoming
cannot be grasped, represented, or unified within this logic of either 1 or
- it is 'undecidable' - but it is the both/ and that allows for the possibility
of deciding with respect to an either/or. We see this in Twilight of the
Idols, for example, when Nietzsche argues:

If there is to be art, if there is to be any aesthetic doing and seeing, one

physiological condition is indispensable: frenzy . . . What is essential in
86 Thinking Difference

such frenzy is the feeling of increased strength and fullness. Out of this feeling
one lends to things, one forces them to accept from us, one viola tes them ­
this process is called idealizing. 46

By idealizing, Nietzsche does not mean a process of 'subtracting or

discounting the petty and inconsequential,' but rather a 'tremendous
drive to bring out the main features so that the others disappear in the
process.' A decision is made, an aesthetic differentiation, and it is the
dionysian frenzy, or the chaos and becorning within oneself, that makes
this possible. This dionysian frenzy, with its 'increased strength and
fullness,' is the medium of this decision, the condition for this difference
(i.e., difference between the 'main features' and the 'others' that disap­
pear). But when referring to a state of 'increased strength and fullness,'
a strength that is discharged or expended as the medium of a decision
or difference, Nietzsche will most often use the term 'will to power.' 47
Consequently, 'will to power' is to be understood, and this is how
Deleuze will interpret it, as the medium or condition which makes deci­
sions (i.e., differentiation) possible. 'Will to power,' as Deleuze puts it, is
'the genealogical element of force, both differentiai and genetic.' 48 As
the differentiai element, what is differentiated by will to power are,
Deleuze argues, forces, the forces, as quoted above, that are part of the
'feeling of increased strength and fullness.' lt was this force that both
forced the 'main features' to the fore and forced the 'others' to disap­
pear, and hence the decisions or differences that are made possible by
will to power are decisions and differences of force. Therefore, if the
world or Nature as 'viewed from inside' is nothing but 'will to power,'
then Nature itself is nothing but forces, an infinite variability of forces,
a dynarnical system of forces.
The importance of 'force' within Nietzsche's thought has long been
recognized, at least since Heidegger. 49 Deleuze, however, does not fol­
low Heidegger when Heidegger identifies force as simply another name
for will to power;50 rather, Deleuze argues that for Nietzsche 'will to
power' is the non-identifiable differentiai element which allows for the
identification of forces and the evaluation of the differences between
them (e.g., active and reactive). At the same time, 'will to power' is not
something separate from these forces, something which 'lacks' force;
on the contrary, 'will to power' 'inheres or subsists,' to use a phrase of
Deleuze's, within the forces of which it is the 'differentiai element,' and
yet it is not to be identified with them.
This notion of a non-identifiable differentiai element is perhaps the
most 'central' notion of Deleuze' s work, and he will use a number of dif-
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 87

ferent terms throughout his writings to refer to it: 'singularity,' 'aleatory

point,' 'event,' 'inclusive disjunction,' 'incorporeal transformation,' and
'becoming-x' (e.g., 'becoming-animal,' 'becoming-woman,' 'becoming­
imperceptible'). In Logic of Sense, for example, Deleuze daims that an
'event,' as with his understanding of 'will to power,' neither is separable
from actual bodies or states of affairs (or forces), - it 'inheres or sub­
sists1 5 1 in them - nor is it to be identified with them; it forever eludes
such identification:

With every event, there is indeed the present moment of its actualization,
the moment in which the event is embodied in a state of affairs, an individ­
ual, or a person, the moment we designa te by saying 'here, the moment has
come' . The future and the past of the event are only evaluated with respect
to this definitive present. On the other hand, there is the future and past of
the event considered in itself, sidestepping each present, being free of the
limitations of a state of affairs, impersonal, pre-individual, neutra!. 52

The 'event' thus has, as Deleuze notes, a 'double structure.' An event

is not separable from the 'present' of sorne body or state of affairs (it
inheres or subsists in them); and an event eludes this present, being
simultaneously past and future. This 'double structure' also character­
izes, as Deleuze reads Nietzsche, 'will to power.' On the one hand,
Deleuze daims that the will to power is 'never separable from particu­
lar, determined forces, from their quantities, qualities and directions.' 53
On the other hand, Deleuze cautions that 'inseparable does not mean
identical,' that will to power and force do differ, or that 'force is what
can, will to power is what wills.' In other words, for Deleuze 'forces will
remain indeterminate unless an element which is capable of determin­
ing them from a double point of view is added to force itself.' 54 This ele­
ment is will to power, and the double point of view is that of quantity
and quality. Will to power is simultaneously the differentiai element for
quantitative differences between forces (i.e., the 'mechanistic' interpre­
tation of forces) and for the qualitative differences between active and
reactive, master and slave, etc. (i.e., the genealogical interpretation of
forces). In itself, however, will to power is the 'difference that makes a
difference,' the non-identifiable, differentiai element which is not to be
identified with force. Thus, will to power forever eludes being reduced
to sorne identity, even the quantitative identity and equality of forces. It .
is for this reason that Deleuze believes Nietzsche favours quality over
quantity (i.e., genealogy over mechanism), because, as Deleuze puts it,
'quality is distinct from quantity but only because it is that aspect of
88 Thinking Difference

quantity that cannot be equalized, that cannot be equalized out in the

difference between quantities.1 55 As the differentiai element, therefore,
the double structure of will to power is inseparable from particular,
identifiable, interpretable forces; and yet, as the non-identifiable ele­
ment that allows for this identification and interpretation, it 'itself'
eludes identification.
But now the problem, as Deleuze is well aware, is interpretation
itself. How do we interpret these forces? What interprets them? What
is our criterion? Or, to return to our earlier question, how is a philo­
sophical discourse to proceed? The answer to all these questions, on
Deleuze's interpretation of Nietzsche, is will to power. 56 It is the will to
power that interprets, and the standards and criteria used in this inter­
pretation are those of will to power itself; that is, Deleuze feels there is
a dual distinction to will to power (i.e., a double structure) which is
expressed within the interpretations that are will to power; and then
there is a dual distinction which is the repetition of will to power, or it
is the interpreted distinction between active and reactive forces: 'active
and reactive designate the original qualities of force but affirmative
and negative designate the primordial qualities of will to power.' 57 It is
this notion of repetition that is key, for it is here where the will to
power is fundamentally related to Nietzsche's idea of eternal recur­
rence. Active and reactive forces are the recurrence and repetition of
affirmative and negative will, a will that is both their condition of pos­
sibility, and their limit, or that which is forever beyond them. As
Deleuze states the relationship between them:

It is as if affirmation and negation were both immanent and transcendent

in relation to action and reaction; out of the web of forces they make up
the chain of becoming. Affirmation takes us into the glorious world of
Dionysus, the being of becoming and negation hurls us down into the dis­
quieting depths from which reactive forces emerge. 58

It is therefore with respect to becoming, and the being of becoming,

that we must turn in order to clarify these relationships - that is, the
relationship between active and reactive, affirmation and negation,
will to power and force - as well as to clarify the role of interpretation
as Deleuze understands it. There are two additional reasons for mak­
ing this move: first, this will place Nietzsche' s discussion of will to
power, force, eternal return, etc., within the context of his desire for
'the great liberation ... [whereby] the innocence of becoming is restored';
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 89

and secondly, with becoming we find again the double structure

Deleuze daimed to be characteristic of the 'event' and 'will to power,'
and with Nietzsche' s understanding of becoming we will find the
deeper motivation and reason for these characterizations (i.e., his effort
to think difference).
That much of Nietzsche's writings were concemed with stressing the
role of becoming over the role of being is common knowledge. Claims
to this effect abound: 'Heraclitus will remain etemally right with his
assertion that being is an empty fiction'; 59 ' everything has evolved;
•••

there are no etemal facts nor are there any absolute truths' ;60 'It is of time
and becoming that the best parables should speak: let them be a praise
and a justification of all impermanence' ;61 'The character of the world in
a state of becoming as incapable of formulation, as "false," as "self-con­
tradictory."' 62 But what is perhaps unique to Deleuze's discussion of
this theme is the stress he places on the 'self-contradictory' nature of
becoming, or the double structure of becoming. In Logic of Sense, for
example, Deleuze daims that there is

a sirnultaneity of becoming whose characteristic is to elude the present . . .

becoming does not tolera te the separation o r the distinction o f before and
after, or of past and future. It pertains to the essence of becoming to move
and pull in both directions at once: Alice does not grow without shrink­
ing, and vice versa. 63

The reference to Alice is to Alice in Through the Looking Glass, for when
'Alice becomes larger,' she becomes larger than she was and is yet
smaller than she becomes. Or, as Deleuze puts it, 'she is not bigger and
smaller at the same time. She is larger now; she was smaller before.'64
The daim is thus not that Alice is, at sorne 'present' moment, bigger
and smaller at the same time, but rather that in becoming larger she is
simultaneously becoming smaller than she becomes. Becoming entails
this double structure, this being pulled in both directions at once, and
this 'at once' is not an identifiable, present moment, but is a 'self-con­
tradictory' moment that will forever 'elude the present.'
As that which forever eludes the present, is non-identifiable and 'self­
contradictory,' becoming must in tum elude being 'known,' at least if
knowledge is assumed to be a manner of grasping and identifying
something. And this is precisely what Nietzsche, after stating that
becoming is 'self-contradictory,' daims: 'Knowledge and becoming
exclude one another.' 65 But if we are to get on with our lives, we must
90 Thinking Difference

also, as we have discussed earlier, have 'knowledge,' or the strange and

unfamiliar (i.e., becoming as 'self-contradictory') must be reduced to the
habituai and the familiar (i.e., being as non-contradictory). 'Conse­
quently,' as Nietzsche continues, 'there must first of all be a will to make
knowable, a kind of becoming must itself create the deception of
beings.' 66 This will is the 'will to power': 'To impose u � on becoming the
character of being: that is the supreme will to power.' 6 Yet, as 'a kind of
becoming,' will to power must itself be 'self-contradictory,' or have the
double structure of being simultaneously pulled in two directions at
once; and, indeed, this is what we, following Deleuze, have argued is
the case with respect to Nietzsche's notion of the will to power. The will
to power, as we will now clarify, is simultaneously pulled in the direc­
tions of becoming both affirmative and negative, becoming and being,
chance and necessity. It is, in other words, 'the world defined and deter­
mined according to its "intelligible character."'
As that which interprets, or as the non-identifiable will which evalu­
ates while itself remaining 'unapproachable' and incapable of being
evaluated, will to power is to be interpreted, and this is Nietzsche' s
strategy, with respect to that which is evaluated, or that which is valued.
The will which wills and affirms 'being,' for example, the 'will to make
knowable,' is for Nietzsche a negative will. The reason for this is that this
will affirms being, it says yes to being, yet it simultaneously negates
becoming, and negates it in order to have knowledge; but since the will
to power, even the 'will to make knowable,' is a 'kind of becoming,' this
will consequently negates itself. It is a will directed against itself, or, as
Nietzsche refers to this, 'the condemnation of life is only a value
judgment of life ... ' 68 And this leads Nietzsche to the conclusion that this
condemnation is symptommatic of a 'declining, weakened, weary, con­
demned life.' This is a will and life that does not have the 'strength of
spirit' 69 to endure the 'truth' of itself - that is, the 'tru th' of becoming.
Consequently, this is a will that simply reacts to and affirms things as
the result of a fundamental negation, and thus this affirmation is not, as
Deleuze points out, an affirmation of strength, or even an affirmation
that affirms what is (i.e., being). This is the affirmation of the ass in Zar­
athustra (IV, 'The Awakening'): 'He carries our burden, he took upon
himself the form of a servant, he is the patient of heart and never says
No.' 70 In other words, as a result of negating its own becoming, the will
to power is left merely repeating this fundamental negation, and thus
the ass's 'Yea-Yuh' is an affirmation that does not know how to say 'no'
to this fundamental negation (i.e., nihilism). The ass's 'Yea-Yuh' reacts
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 91

to, or is a servant of, the consequence of this negation (i.e., the affirma­
tion of 'being,' 'reality'), or, as Deleuze puts it, 'he always answers yes,
but answers yes each time nihilism opens the conversation.1 71 The ass
bears the load of 'reality' and 'being.'
But the will to power is not simply pulled in the direction of becoming
a negating will, it is also simultaneously pulled towards becoming an
affirming will; and that which is affirmed is will to power itself, or, since
will to power is a kind of becoming, it is the affirmation of becoming.
Furthermore, since the world, nature, and life are understood by
Nietzsche to be "'will to power" and nothing else,' the affirmation of
will to power is therefore simultaneously the affirmation of ali that there
is - namely, being as a whole. However, because the will to power is the
non-identifiable medium which evalua tes, affirms, and wills, it can only
be affirmed, Deleuze argues, if another will affirms it. Deleuze thus
daims that Nietzsche has a conception of being, but that this being
entails a 'double affirmation' : 'lt is primary affirmation (becoming)
which is being, but only as the object of the second affirmation. The two
affirmations constitute the power of affirming as a whole.1 72 Dionysian
affirmation, in order to be raised to the level of being, must itself be
affirmed, and it is for this reason that Deleuze feels Nietzsche had to
discuss not only Dionysus's affirmation, but also Ariadne's affirmation
of Dionysus. Ariadne's affirmation is a repetition or recurrence of
Dionysus's affirmation. This is not, however, a repetition of an identifi­
able, static 'being,' and thus this is not a repetition understood in the
manner of a 'habit' or 'memory' - that is, repetition of the same. Ari­
adne's repetition is also not a repetition that repeats at sorne 'present'
:moment something that has already happened in the past (as do habits
and memories). The will to power as affirmation, as becoming, forever
eludes the present, and it also, as we saw Deleuze daim, 'does not tol­
erate the separation or the distinction of before and after, or of past and
future.' Ariadne's repetition is hence a repetition of that which is time­
less, or that which forever eludes the understanding and identification
of time as the passing of 'present' moments into the past; consequently,
Ariadne's repetition is a recurrence of the timeless and eternal - it is
'eternal recurrence.' And this is precisely Deleuze's interpretation of
Nietzsche's notion of eternal recurrence: 'Dionysian becoming is being,
eternity, but only insofar as the corresponding affirmation is itself
affirmed';73 and this, in turn, is the reason for Nietzsche's daim that the
eternal return 'is the dosest approximation of a world of becoming to a
world of being.' 74
92 Thinking Difference

The double structure of will to power entails both affirmation and

negation; however, between affirmation and negation there is not, as
Deleuze points out, a 'univocal relation.' 75 The ass's affirmation, for
example, begins with the negation of becoming, and it is with this that
'being' and 'reality' arises and is affirmed; thus what is positive and
affirmed is the consequence of negation, or it is the 'positivity of the neg­
ative.' Dionysian affirmation, on the other hand, is a yes that says 'no' to
nihilism, and to nihilism' s negation of becoming: it is a negation of nega­
tion. But the positivity of this affirmation; the negation of negation, is
not, and this is where Deleuze sees Nietzsche being radically anti-Hege­
lian, a consequence of negation; rather, the negative is itself a conse­
quence of affirmation, of becoming, and of the self-differing double
structure of becoming. lt is 'the negativity of the positive.' In addition,
this negativity is not opposed to affirmation, but is the expression of this
affirmation, the expression of difference. Therefore, instead of saying
yes to that which is the result of negation, or the result of a dialectical
process, affirmation entails saying no (the Lion's 'no') as a consequence
of the affirmation of difference. lt is for this reason that Deleuze believes
negation and affirmation are not univocally related: 'Negation is
opposed to affirmation but affirmation differs from negation.' If we
begin with negation, with what is not (e.g., becoming as negated for the
sake of knowledge), then what cornes to be affirmed as what is (being)
is affirmed as that which is opposed to (or is not) what is not. 'Opposition,'
Deleuze adds, 'is the essence of the negative as such' ;76 and therefore we
can see why he characterizes Hegel as the 'philosopher of the negative.'
But if we begin with affirmation, with the double structured self-differ­
ence of becoming, then what is not, or negation, cornes simply to be seen
as what is different. 77 Deleuze thus contrasts Hegel's negation of nega­
tion which results in something positive, with Nietzsche's affirmation of
affirmation - that is, etemal recurrence - which is positive, which is the
being of becoming. As Deleuze summarizes this position, he notes:

Being ought to belong to becoming, unity to multiplicity, necessity to

chance, but only insofar as becoming, multiplicity and chance are
reflected in the second affirmation which takes them as its object. It is thus
in the nature of affirmation to return or of difference to reproduce itself.
Return is the being of becoming, the unity of multiplicity, the necessity of
chance: the being of difference as such or the eternal return?8

In looking at the world 'from inside,' what Nietzsche daims we find

 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 93

is will to power, but will to power, as Deleuze interprets it, is 'the dif­
ferentiai element that produces and develops difference in affirmation,
that reflects difference in the affirmation of affirmation and makes it
return in the affirmation which is itself affirmed.' And the whole which
harbours this 'difference in affirmation' (i.e., will to power) is a whole
which forever eludes achieving equilibrium - that is, stable self-iden­
tity - and in the affirmation of this whole, will to power is precisely
this difference and non-equilibrium that is affirmed: both necessity
and chance, both being and becoming, both identity and difference?9
And it is this affirmation of affirmation, or eternal recurrence, which is
'the dosest approximation of a world of beconüng to a world of being.'
But is not Plato's project, at least in The Republic, also that of finding
'the dosest approximation of a world of becoming to a world of being'?
For example, when Glaucon asks Socrates whether the 'city in speech'
they are constructing, or 'fictioning,' to use an earlier term, could ever
'come into being' (471 c), Socrates responds by accepting the difficulty of
creating an actual city, a 'city in deed,' that would correspond exactly to
the 'city in speech'; however, Socrates adds that 'if we are able to find
that a city could be governed in a way most dosely approxima ting what
has been said [i.e., fictioned] ... (and) that we've found the possibility of
these things coming into being ... won't you be content if it turns out this
way? 1, for my part, would be content' (473a-b). Analogously, if the phi­
losopher-king (who, after Socrates confesses he is content with only an
approximation, immediate!y becomes the topic of discussion) has as his
goal the knowledge of the 'ideas' (eidos), ideas that have in turn been fic­
tioned by the gods in the place above heaven (hyperouranios topos), then
perhaps he too will be content if it is possible for an approximation of
these ideas to come into being. In the philosopher-king's attempt to rule
the city in the best possible manner, is he not attempting to bring about
in the world of becoming (i.e., in deed) the dosest approximation of that
which is in the world of being (i.e., the 'ideas' fictioned by the gods)?
Whether or not the philosopher-king is able to leave the cave of becom­
ing and look 'at that which is and the brightest part of that which is'
(51 8c), it is nonetheless dear that Socrates feels the 'ideal' city could only
be, as actualized in the world of becoming, an approximation of this
'ideal.'
Despite the apparent similarity between Plato's and Nietzsche's fun­
damental efforts to think an 'approximation of a world of becoming to
a world of being,' there is, however, a crucial difference. For Plato this
'approximation' is understood to be the resemblance in the world of
94 Thinking Difference

becoming to an already fictioned and created 'idea,' and the philosopher

attempts to bring about this resemblance, or recognize it. For Nietzsche
this 'approximation' of becoming to being is not an approximation of an
already fictioned being; rather, it is an approximation of being insofar as
becoming is essentially what is, and 'the brightest part of that which is,'
but is being only as the object of a second affirmation, of an affirmation
that returns to becoming as the being of becoming (i.e., eternal return).
The eternal return is thus the return and affirmation of that which is non­
identifiable, self-differing (i.e., double structure of becoming). The eter­
nal return, in short, entails the non-identifiable, self-differing 'will to
power' as the differentiai element which allows for the possibility of dif­
ferentiating, deciding, evaluating, etc., and, as self-differing, allows for
a different will which affirms itself, affirms its irreducible difference. The
eternal return is therefore not the return of something that has already
been created and fictioned, something which remains the same and can
be identified (recollected); it is the return of difference itself, a difference
that creates, fictions, becomes, and eludes all identification. Thus, for
Nietzsche, the approximation of becoming to being entails creation,
whereas for Plato it entails re-creation.
We are now in an even better position to understand Nietzsche's
inversion and reversai of Plato. We have seen that for Plato the solution
to the problem of the Meno entailed arguing for a knowledge that
already exists in the soul, or that has already been stamped upon the
soul. Consequently, when we come to know the ideas, we simply recel­
lect something that was already there. 80 Nietzsche, on the other hand,
since his concern is for the repetition and return of difference, and not
for the repetition or recollection of the same, will be critical of the Pla­
tonie theory of recollection. Nietzsche will subsequently emphasize
and praise forgetfulness in one of the preludes to The Gay Science. This
particular prelude is titled, perhaps in reference to Plato, 'Dialogue':

A. Was I ill? Have I got weil?

Who was my doctor? Can you tell?
Oh, my memory is rotten!
B. Only now you're truly weil.
Those are weil who have forgotten. 81

Only if we have forgotten something can we see it again for the first
time, see it as something unique and different. Similarly, only if we for­
get who we are, or who we are supposed to be, can we then create our-
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 95

selves - 'We, however, want to become those we are - human beings

who are new, unique, incomparable, who give themselves laws, who
create themselves.' 82 To do this, however, entails a continuai overcom­
ing of the tendency to settle into habits, yet this does not mean, as it did
for Plata, that 'bad' habits are to be replaced by 'good' habits (Republic
401b); instead, it entails the affirmation of oneself as the fundamentally
different, 'unique, incomparable' medium whereby these habits are
created. In other words, what is affirmed is will to power as the differ­
entiai element of forces; and habits, as understood here, are forces that
come to be predominant, familiar, and predictable. Thus, to create and
affirm ourselves as new, unique, and incomparable - that is, to restore
'the innocence of becoming' - the 'free spirit' thus 'ha tes all habits and
rules, everything enduring and definitive; that is why, again and again,
he painfully tears apart the net around him.' 83 Nietzsche's reversai of
Plata, therefore, is not concemed with bringing about or restoring what
is fundamentally and forever the same, but it is rather the attempt to
res tore what is fundamentally and etemally new, different, incompara­
ble - 'the innocence of becoming.' 84
Again, things are not so simple. In the relationship between 'Plata'
and the poets, the rationale for the Platonic disenfranchisement of
poetry and the imitative arts is that they tend to promote dispersal, or
to instil a desire for multiplicity and othemess, a desire that results
from the poets' ability 'to imitate all things' (398a). Poetry softens the
plasticity of the soul and prohibits the stamp of good habits from solid­
ifying. Without such habits, and with the tendency for dispersal and
othemess, the principle of 'to each his own' becomes impossible to
maintain, and hence so too does justice in the city and the soul. Despite
their disenfranchisement, however, the poets, as Plato seems to be
aware, are not dismissed so easily. Why this is so becomes clear when
we look at the Ion. In this dialogue the poets are said to lack art (i.e.,
techne), and 'good epie poets' (533e) are simply the medium through
which it is 'the god himself who speaks' (534d). It is thus 'not by art
[that] they utter these [poems], but by power divine, since if it were by
art that they knew how to treat one subject finely, they would know
how to deal with all the others too' (535c). Since the poets do not know
what they are doing, or because they do not have an art that can pro­
duce things other than poems, their efforts are not to be lauded but crit­
icized. Yet it is precisely because the poets do not know but are
inspired, or because it is 'the god himself who speaks,' that difficulties
arise with respect to criticizing and dismissing the poets. In particular,
96 Thinking Difference

if the 'ideas' are created and fictioned by the gods, and if it is the 'god
himself who speaks' through the poets, then it would seem that the
poets would be an exceptional resource for anyone who wishes 'to
know' these 'ideas.' But this is not the case. The effort in The Republic to
dismiss the poets from the city appears to show that they are not seen
as such an exceptional resource. The reason for this is that the poets
lack the art (techne) of applying the 'ideas' the gods fiction to the many.
It is therefore precisely because of a concem for the realm of becoming,
for the realm of the many, that the poets are of no use to the city. But
why must we also get rid of the poets' poetry? If we are interested in
knowing the 'ideas' that have been fictioned by the gods, can these
same ideas not be gleaned from the poetry these gods have fictioned?
More troubling, perhaps, is the difficulty of reconciling the daim that
the gods speak through the 'good' epie poets, with the position in The
Republic that we must censor all poetry which falsely portrays the gods
as being liars, deceiving, changing forms, etc. Do the gods falsely por­
tray themselves? Socrates would clearly reject this possibility, for the
gods, he daims, have no reason to lie (Republic, 382e). Are these poets,
therefore, such as Homer, whom Socrates cites as an example of one
who portrays the gods falsely (379d-380a), to be deemed 'bad'? This, in
tum, does not appear to be a response Socrates would accept, for he
repeatedly applauds Homer, and in the Ion he declares Homer to be
'the best and most divine of all [the poets]' (530b). How, then, are we to
account for these contrasting daims conceming the poets, and in partic­
ular the apparent difficulty in accounting for the relationship between
the poets and the 'fictioning essence' of the 'ideas' - namely, the gods?
One possible way of clarifying the 'Platonic' attitude to poetry is to
understand it as the result of a confrontation with the double structure
of becoming. Plato both affirms and negates the poets, not because he is
inconsistent or lacks rigour in his thinking, but precisely for the reason
that Plato confronts and attempts to think the 'fictioning essence' of the
ideas, or Plato is attempting to think difference. And since we have been
arguing that this 'fictioning essence,' following Nietzsche, is the non­
identifiable double structure of becoming which forever eludes the sta­
bility of the present, it should not be surprising that Plato's discussion of
the poets, who are intimately related to this 'fictioning essence,' should
repeat this double structure. In addition, as Plato attempts to explicate
and think the fictioning process itself, or the process whereby the gods
fiction both the ideas and poetry (via the 'good' epie poets), it is also not
surprising that we find both being and becoming. On the one hand, the
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 97

gods do not depart from their own idea, or they forever are what they
are (Republic 380d-381 c); and, on the other, the poets, with their ability
'to imita te ail things,' consistently become other than what they are. The
fictioning process, as with Nietzsche's notion of will to power, is the
non-identifiable differentiai element whereby the differences between
various fictions (forces, for Nietzsche) can be decided and evaluated,
but it is not to be identified with these fictions. Similarly, for Plato the
gods are the condition for differentiating between the ideas of justice,
beauty, couch, etc., but they are not to be identified with these ideas.
Nietzsche and Plato therefore confront this fundamental differentiai
element, this fictioning process, and in doing this they both affirm the
Being of becoming. However, whereas for Nietzsche the Being of
becoming is the self-differing, self-affirmation (i.e., eternal return) of
becoming, for Plato the Being of becoming is the self-identical, self-affir­
mation (i.e., repetition of the same) of Being (e.g., the gods as forever the
same). But this decision of Plato's is itself made possible by the non­
identifiable differentiai element which is both being and becoming; con­
sequently, Nietzsche's reversai of Plato is not an opposition or negation,
but rather a continuing attempt to think the fundamental difference
Plato also sought to explicate (i.e., the fictioning process). Nietzsche's
philosophy, as Deleuze would also argue, entails a positive affirmation
of difference, not the affirmation of negation, and hence Nietzsche' s
reversai does not negate or oppose itself to Platonism. Nietzsche
affirms, rather, a reversai of reversai, or what he referred to as the 'trans­
valuation of ail values' (including the value of opposite values), and this
entails affirming the non-identifiable differentiai medium which is the
condition for such values, but is 'itself' absolutely different, unique, and
incomparable. In short, Nietzsche' s reversai of reversai implies restor­
ing 'the innocence of becoming,' or the fundamental double structure
(both/ and) that is the condition for reversai, and for the logic of either 1
or (e.g., either Plato or Nietzsche). Nietzsche's philosophy does differ
from Plato's; however, it is not the opposite of Plato's, its negative image,
so to speak.
How are we to interpret the manner in which Nietzsche and Plato dif­
fer? In other words, what is left for interpretation to do in the wake of
this confrontation with the non-identifiable differentiai element? To
identify a 'proper' standard or task for interpretation would be to run
counter to the very daim that what is crucial for any interpretive, eval­
uative task is precisely that which is non-identifiable and 'improper' -
namely, the differentiai element. Are we left with relativism? On the one
98 Thinking Difference

hand, no, we are not left with relativism, for the weight of the criticism
which accuses a position of relativism resides in a faith in objective stan­
dards, or a faith in an either 1 or (either objective or relative); but the
position we have been discussing is critical of this very either 1 or, and
thus we would accuse the objectivist critic of 'Enlightenment black­
mail.' 85 On the other hand, this response seems to leave the question of
interpretation, or the question of how a philosophical discourse is to
proceed, unanswered. But we have stated that there is an answer to
these questions, and the answer, put briefly, was said to be will to
power. To darify this, therefore, we need to return to the notion of will
to power; more precisely, we will return to the theme of the 'double
structure' of will to power, or, as we have referred to it earlier in this
chapter, the 'double bind.' To darify the consequences the 'double bind'
has for understanding the role of interpretation, or for how a philosoph­
ical discourse is to proceed, it will be helpful to refer to Gregory Bate­
son's theory of the double bind. Bateson, as we will argue, can be seen
to be an important influence on Deleuze' s work, and for this reason the
consequences upon behaviour which Bateson daims result from a dou­
ble bind will darify what Deleuze feels is philosophy's 'proper' task.
Bateson argues that a double bind consists of two injunctions. The
first or primary injunction says that one must or must not do so and so;
the second injunction is more general, or more 'abstract,' and it conflicts
with the first. For example, a mother might tell her son not to do so and
so, but then might, by her more general behaviour - for example, by her
gestures, intonation, or other non-verbal means of communicating - tell
him not to submit to her prohibitions. Regardless what the son does,
therefore, he will be in the wrong. 86 Subsequently, Bateson argues that
in such a situation, a person is likely to choose one of several alternatives
in response to his or her inability to judge what the other person 'really'
means. To judge what a person 'really' means, Bateson refers to as being
able to discern the 'metacommunicative level' of another's discourse,
the level where we are 'able to comment directly or indirectly on an
expression.' Most of the responses to this failure Bateson daims are
pathological: for example, paranoïa, when the person assumes that
what is 'really' meant is ultimately harmful; hebephrenia, when the per­
son gives up on attempting to distinguish between levels of meaning
and hence either takes everything literally or takes nothing seriously;
catatonia, when the person detaches from external communication and
withdraws into internai processes; and even schizophrenia, in which
hallucinations and delusions are created to resolve the double bind. 87
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 99

Not all consequences of a double bind, however, are pathological. Bate­

son notes that just as the schizophrenie responds to the double bind by
creating hallucinations, delusions, etc., so too, he daims, can this cre­
ativity be used as a means of resisting pathological consequences. Bate­
son thus observes 'that if this pathology can be warded off or resisted,
the total experience [of the double bind] may promote creativity.' 88
Rather than submit or succumb to the 'pain and maladjustment' of the
'no-win' double bind, the resistance to this pain and maladjustment can
be creative, a creativity which actualizes this pain while being counter
to it; or, to put it another way, it 'counteractualizes' this pain. 89 Thus,
although the double bind can result in the failure of communicative
interaction, wherein either it collapses into being nothing other than a
self-referring threat (paranoïa), or it disrupts conventional forms of
communication to the point where it no longer refers (schizophrenia); it
can also result in the creation of new forms of communication, new con­
ventions, that can reopen the lines of communication.
This creative response to the double bind is not simply a phenome­
non of individuals but is one of cultures as well. In Bateson's analysis of
Balinese culture, for example,90 he daims that their cultural interactions
differ greatly from those of traditional cultures of the West. In the West,
for example, Bateson daims that cultural/individual forces and ten­
sions are built up to a point where there is a release of tension, or a
return to calm, order, and stability. This usually entails either sorne cli­
mactic release of tension, after which the intensity is greatly reduced
(Bateson cites orgasm as an example), or sorne power or force that inter­
venes from outside to restrain the build-up of intensity. This b.uild-up is
thus seen to be incompatible with order and stability, and therefore for
the sake of stability either there is to be a release from this build-up
(orgasm) or it must be restrained from the outside (e.g., government
intervention). The Balinese, by contrast, are confronted with a double
bind: they demand order and stability on the one hand, and, on the
other, that the instability, intensity, and dynamics of forces be main­
tained from within. In other words, their cultural interactions reflect an
effort to maintain stability while allowing for neither a climactic resolu­
tion nor a restraining outside force. 9 1 The Balinese response to this chal­
lenge, or to this double bind, is the creation of what Bateson refers to as
a 'plateau of intensity' (p. 1 1 3). For example, rather than building up
sexual intensity to a climax and release of tension, the Balinese substi­
tute a plateau of intensity that is maintained and stabilized without
release (i.e., without orgasm); and with quarrels, to take another exam-
100 Thinking Difference

ple, rather than resolving the quarre!, the two men 'will register their
quarre! [formally ], agreeing that whichever speaks to the other shaH
pay a fine or make an offering to the gods' (p. 1 13). This is not, Bateson
observes, a means of resolving the hostility between the two, but rather
a means of stabilizing it, or a recognition and maintaining of this hostil­
ity. The Balinese thus do not attempt to resolve the build-up of tension
by transcending it and bringing it to a close, whether from within or
from without, but they maintain a 'plateau of intensity' from within, a
plateau without resolution.
We can now begin to see, especially with the notion of a 'plateau of
intensity,' the influence of Bateson on Deleuze (and Guattari). In fact,
the very title of Deleuze and Guattari's companion volume to Anti­
Oedipus, Thousand Plateaus (Mille plateaux), is indebted to Bateson's dis­
cussion. They acknowledge this debt in the introduction to this work:

A plateau is always in the middle, not at the beginning or the end. A rhi­
zome is made of plateaus. Gregory Bateson uses the word 'plateau' to des­
ignate something special: a continuous, self-vibrating region of intensities
whose development avoids any orientation toward a culmination point or
external end ... It is a regrettable characteristic of the Western mind to relate
expressions and actions to exterior or transcendent ends, instead of evalu­
ating them on a plane of consistency on the basis of their intrinsic value . . .
W e are writing this book a s a rhizome. I t i s composed o f plateaus. 92

In contrast to what Deleuze and Guattari will refer to as the 'regrettable

characteristic of the Western mind,' with its emphasis upon 'arboreal'
roots and transcendent ends,93 they propose to write plateaus, rhi­
zomes, and planes of consistency. In their work, they are interested nei­
ther in arboreal roots (i.e., a single origin, beginning, or primary cause)
nor in transcendent ends (i.e., a purpose, goal, or telos); rather, they map
the plateaus within which such goals come to the fore - that is, come to
be the predominant forces, intensities, etc. With this move, we find the
continued link to Nietzsche, for this concem for plateaus and planes of
consistency (i.e., consistency of intensities and forces) which one cannot
get beyond, or which one is always already 'in the middle of,' and sim­
Harly with Bateson's discussion of the consequences of the double bind:
these themes were already at work in Deleuze's book on Nietzsche.
In particular, these issues were at work in Deleuze's discussion of the
will to power. As the non-identifiable differentiai element, it is impos­
sible to decide, evalua te, or interpret the will to power, for such an eval-
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 101

uation would entail stepping outside or beyond it. Nevertheless, since

all there is for Nietzsche is will to power and 'nothing else,' and since
will to power is precisely what evaluates, differentiates, or is, in short,
'the difference which makes a difference,' it is also impossible not to
evaluate and interpret. Furthermore, since the world and Nature,
understood from within (since we can't get beyond it, or outside it), is
also will to power and 'nothing else,' and because Nietzsche daims that
the fundamental character of the world is 'chaos,' 94 we are subsequent!y
led to a double bind with respect to the theme with which we began this
chapter: the chaos in oneself. lt is thus impossible to know and evalua te
the chaos in oneself, and yet it is necessary to know it, to impose an
order and 'kflowledge' upon it. And it is precisely Nietzsche's response
to this double bind, or what he thinks ought to be our response to it,
which answers the question of interpretation, or the question of how a
philosophical discourse ought to proceed.
Nietzsche's response, à la Bateson, is to create. Thus, rather than sub­
mit or succumb to the pain and suffering of our existence, or our double
bind, one can actively resist this pain through creativity. We turn our pain
and suffering into an active, creative suffering, or what Nietzsche calls
the 'great suffering.' lt is this 'great suffering' which Nietzsche believes
'has created all enhancements of man so far,' and it has done this as a
result of 'its inventiveness and courage in enduring, persevering, inter­
preting, and exploiting suffering.' 95 As an active, creative suffering, this
'great suffering' is to be contrasted with the suffering of a passive 'crea­
ture' who simply accepts and succumbs to its suffering:

In man creature and creator are united: in man there is material, fragment,
excess, clay, dirt, nonsense, chaos; but in man there is also creator, form­
giver, hammer hardness, spectator divinity, and seventh day: do you
understand this contrast? 96

lt is with respect to the latter that Nietzsche has sympathy, or it is the

'great suffering' for which he has pity, and this pity is contrasted to the
pity for the passive suffering of the creature within us. Nietzsche calls
this pity a 'converse pity,' and 'thus,' he concludes, 'it is pity versus
pity.' The 'great suffering' does call for pity, as did the 'pain and mal­
adjustment' of Bateson's double bind, but this is not a pity for the crea­
ture who has succumbed to suffering, but rather a pity for that which
crea tes in response to its suffering; it is a pity that is counter to this pity
- that is, it 'counteractualizes' this pity.
102 Thin_king Difference

A question arises here, however, for if we are both creature and cre­
ator, and if chaos is an aspect of the former, then what is the relationship
between chaos and will to power? Had we not earlier roughly equated
will to power with the chaos in oneself? Is chaos being contrasted with
the will that creates, with the great suffering? This apparent difficulty
arises only if we do identify will to power with chaos, but since both will
to power and chaos are non-identifiable, non-interpretable, this prob­
lem is avoided. But how then, one might now ask, can we identify the
contrast between them? Is not the daim that the will to power crea tes, or
hammers out a form upon this chaos, an identification or interpretation?
lndeed it is. Furthermore, Nietzsche, as is well known and readily
apparent for anyone who reads him, is never lacking in evaluative com­
ments, interpretations, criticisms, historical analyses, etc. However,
what is to be stressed in Nietzsche' s interpretation conceming the rela­
tionship between the will that crea tes and the chaos that is given a form,
is that there is not either chaos in oneself or will to power; there is both:
'creature and creator are united.' Will to power is 'itself' also double, is
the differentiai element, and is the non-identifiable difference which is
the condition for identifying the difference between suffering and 'great
suffering,' pity and converse pity. But to identify this difference, to state
what the fundamental difference is, is precisely the thought of the eter­
nal return; consequently, although Nietzsche does interpret, state, and
identify fundamental differences - for example, Dionysian/ Apollinian,
noble/slave, high/low, affirmation/ ressentiment - and even though he
clearly favours and contrasts the former to the latter in each case, this is
always a favouring (a converse pity) which affirms difference; it is not
an affirmation of oppositions. ln addition, as the differentiai, non-iden­
tifiable element, will to power both allows for the evaluation and inter­
pretation of differences, and as 'self-differing,' or as that which is
forever in a state of non-coincide.nce with 'itself,' will to power entails
the possibility of another will, a will that affirms the non-identifiable dif­
ference of the first (i.e., it affirms the being of becoming). It is in this
sense, then, that one must create and interpret oneself, or that one
'becomes what one is' : that is, to create and identify oneself, to interpret
ourselves, entails affirming our fundamental difference, that which is
unique, new, and incomparable within us (i.e., the thought of the eternal
return). And Nietzsche's converse pity for the 'great suffering' is like­
wise an affirmation of difference: 'Profound suffering makes noble; it
separates.' 97 This 'profound suffering' is itself, as we have seen, the cre­
ative response to the dual impossibilities of identifying the fundamental
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 103

difference and chaos in oneself, and of identifying, for the sake of sur­
vival, the chaos in oneself. To create oneself, to 'become what one is,' is
therefore what Nietzsche believes ought to be our creative response to
the double bind.
Y et not all responses to the double bind, as we saw with Bateson, are
creative, and Nietzsche was well aware of this. Nietzsche recognizes, for
example, the possibility of what he calls 'the grea test danger that always
hovered over humanity,' this danger being 'the eruption of madness -
which means the eruption of arbitrariness in feeling, seeing, and hear­
ing . . ' 98 In short, the danger is that the will will succumb and submit to
.

chaos, to 'arbitrariness.' Nevertheless, this danger should not be elimi­

nated, or we should not deny any rights to the chaos in oneself, for
Nietzsche also stresses the need for madness, for the madness and chaos
that is necessary to create: 'almost everywhere it was madness which
prepared the way for the new idea, which broke the spell of a venerated
usage and superstition.'99 And thus madness is necessary to avoid what
Nietzsche takes to be our other danger: the collapse of the will into the
'venerated' repetition of the same 'enduring habits,' 1 00 customs, and tra­
ditions. One must be a little crazy, or one must have a little chaos in one­
self, in order to create, to 'throw off the yoke' of traditions.
There is thus a twofold danger associated with the delicate balance of
creativity, or a danger inherent in the non-identifiable both/ and struc­
ture of will to power. In short, the both/and of will to power runs the
risk and danger of collapsing into a destructive either 1 or: either the
eruption of madness, or the repetition of the same. In both cases, what
is destroyed is the ability to crea te and impose order, or what Nietzsche
will also speak of as the ability 'to promise.' 1 01 The ability to promise is,
as Nietzsche points out, liberated from the 'morality of eus tom,' but it is
also, and he recognizes the 'paradoxical' nature of this daim, not with­
out a calculable, predictable order. Those who are subservient to custom
and tradition would be unable to promise, for they would lack the abil­
ity to create, to be inventive and experimental, an ability which is often
necessary to fulfil our promises (especially when contingencies arise);
but one who is mad would also be unable to promise for he/ she would
lack the necessary order and regularity. Promising is thus a delicate, dif­
ficult, and dangerous undertaking - it forever risks collapsing into a
destructive either 1 or. 1 02
Nietzsche's critiques and interpretations are likewise threatened by
such a collapse. Nonetheless, he attempts to affirm and evalua te the par­
adoxical instance - that is, the both/ and of creativity - which gives birth
104 Thinking Difference

to new ideas, to ideas that are likely to become 'venerated' and blindly
repeated. In doing this, Nietzsche assumes that 'ali our actions are alto­
gether incomparably persona}, unique, and infinitely individual [i.e.,
will to power as paradoxical and non-identifiable both/ and]; there is no
doubt of that.d 03 Nietzsche's critiques and interpretations will subse­
quently consist of pointing out the habits, necessities, and imposed
order which form the basis for the reasons, purposes, and goals we
attribute to these actions: 'morality and religion: the reasons and pur­
poses for habits are always lies that are added only after sorne .geople
begin to attack these habits and to ask for reasons and purposes.' 04 Fur­
thermore, as Nietzsche looks at these habits, he is concerned with
whether they are 'the product of innumerable little cowardices and lazi­
nesses or of your courage and inventive reason.' 1 05 In other words, are
these habits the result of a creative, unique, and singular act, or are they
the consequence of submitting to eus tom and tradition? Are we creating
ourselves, or are we allowing ourselves to be created?
Even if we do create ourselves, however, this creation entails contin­
uously dancing the fine and dangerous line between tradition and
madness, or between chaos and the repetition of the same: it is the
dance of continuai self-overcoming. 1 06 Nietzsche's interpretive strat­
egy and criterion, consequently, is to affirm and reveal the unique, sin­
gular, and perspectival conditions for the possibility of identifiable
habits, forces, values, for the repetitions of the same (this, as we saw, is
his interpretation/criticism of Plato); and yet this interpretation itself
forever risks the possibility of either simply repeating venerated eus­
toms and philosophical traditions, or collapsing into the arbitrariness
of relativism. 1 07 One must, Nietzsche believes, both create new ideas
and affirm the tradition. This is the dangerous both/ and Nietzsche rec­
ognizes: 'He who strays from tradition becomes a sacrifice to the
extraordinary; he who remains in tradition is its slave. Destruction fol­
lows in any case.' 1 08 To avoid this destruction requires the paradox of
creativity wherein we have both chaos in ourselves, a chaos which we
creatively affirm without forsaking arder, 'knowledge,' and form; and
we have the creator in ourselves which creates this order without dis­
enfranchising chaos, and thus without succumbing to the repetition of
the same. 1 09 To extend Nietzsche's metaphor, therefore, 'one must
have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star,' yet this
creative birth can result, not in a 'dancing star,' but in a collapse into a
'black hole' of forever repeating the same, or an explosion into a fiery
'supernova' of madness.
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 1 05

Much of Deleuze's work can be seen to be a similar extension of

Nietzsche's metaphor. For example, in reference to the notion of an
'event' in Logic of Sense, Deleuze daims: 'This event is, of course, quickly
covered over by everyday banality or, on the contrary, by the sufferings
of madness.' 11 0 The double, paradoxical structure of the event, the event
as both embodied in the state of affairs of sorne 'present,' and forever
eluding this present, being simultaneously past and future; this unique
and singular event thus risks collapsing either into the repetition of the
same, or of dispersing into the chaos of madness. The fusion or 'black
ho le' of the same, or the fission of the supernova: these are the two poles
that forever threaten the event, the destructive either 1 or which haunts
it. 111
This either 1 or, following Bateson once again, is the potential conse­
quence of failing to respond creatively to the double bind, to the dual
impossibility and necessity of both being unable to identify and inter­
pret the chaos in oneself, and being unable not to identify and interpret
this chaos. This creative response, furthermore, entails the affirmation
of the differentiai both/and structure of will to power. In Deleuze's
theory, this affirmation entails creating a plateau and plane of consis­
tency that is both fusion and fission, or, to use Deleuze and Guattari's
terminology, both territorialized and deterritorialized. If a plateau,
assemblage, plane of consistency, or event were to be completely terri­
torialized, this would result in the blind repetition of the same and
would render it incapable of responding to the unpredictable, and
hence it would ultimately be destroyed; and yet if it were to be com­
pletely deterritorialized, this would render the event incapable of
acquiring the necessary order and stability to function, and it would
likewise be destroyed. To avoid this consequence, there must be the
continuai, eternal return of the event, the return of that which is both
past (i.e., tradition, territorializing, being) and future (i.e., progress,
deterritorializing, becoming). The both/ and of the event must eter­
nally return in order to prevent or correct the destructive tendency this
both/ and has to settle into an either 1 or: either 'everyday banality' or
'the sufferings of madness.' The event is therefore the 'negentropic
activity' (another term Deleuze uses) which actively resists the sedi­
mentation of the both/ and into the either 1 or. 11 2
This theme becomes even more important in Deleuze and Guattari's
last co-written work, Qu'est-ce que la philosophie? In this book they rec­
ognize the impossibility of identifying and ordering chaos, but they
also, in turn, recognize the necessity of this identification and ordering.
1 06 Thinking Difference

This is the double bind they explore, and what interests them are the
creative responses scientists, artists, and philosophers take with
respect to this double bind. The artist, for example, creates what
Deleuze and Guattari refer to as a 'chaosmos,' or an ordered chaos: 'art
isn't chaos, but a composition of chaos which gives rise to sight or sen­
sation, with the result that it constitutes a chaosmos, as Joyce said, a
composed chaos - neither predicted or anticipated.' 11 3 Art is thus both
chaotic and unpredictable, and it is ordered and composed. In con­
fronting chaos, therefore, the artist creates a composed chaos, 114 but
this creative act also risks the possibility of being either a mere cliché
or a chaotic piece which lacks the order necessary for 'sight or sensa­
tion,' for something new and determinate to be seen rather than some­
thing that is mere indeterminate, non-differentiated porridge. The
artist is thus both for and against chaos: he/ she is against chaos insofar
as it needs to be ordered, given a form, etc., and she/he is for chaos as
that which allows the artist to create something that is not a repetition
of the same, a cliché. This both/ and is not only true of the artist (the
scientist, the philosopher) but is true of ali creative responses to the
double bind which resist its 'pain and maladjustment,' and thus resist
the tendency to submit to the pain and destruction of an either 1 or. Our
'proper' activity, therefore, or the 'proper' task of philosophy, science,
art, etc., is to create a plateau, plane of consistency, assemblage, work,
or self that is both for and against the 'chaos in oneself.'

Critique without Redemption

What is new, however, is always evil, being that which wants to conquer and
overthrow the old boundary markers and the old pieties; and only what is old
is good. The good men are in ali ages those who dig the old thoughts, digging
deep and getting them to bear fruit - the farmers of the spirit. But eventually
ali land is exploited, and the ploughshare of evil must come again and again.
- Nietzsche, The Gay Science (§4)

Entropy will take its toll, and a once fertile soil, a soil that could give
rise to healthy fruits, to new ideas, will soon lie dead. When this hap­
pens, the ploughshare of evil must necessarily come again and again; it
must rip open the land, separating and overturning long-standing soil.
Nietzsche's thought of the eternal return is his vision of this necessary
return, the return of a creative act, a 'negentropic act' - the eternal
return of the ploughshare.
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 1 07

Plato also called for the return of the ploughshare, or for the necessity
of an activity which would overturn opinion and separate it from
knowledge, from the truth of what is (i.e., eidos). Socrates the physician
must return, again and again, to administer his medicine (pharmakon)
and return the knowledge of ideas that have been long since forgotten.
If this fails, as it often does, Socrates rests content with at least having
the remedy for dogmatism: namely, dialectics. With the dialectical
method, people become cured of their enduring opinions, of their long­
standing yet mistaken belief that they know. Theaetetus, for example,
after agreeing with Socrates that they have 'brought to birth all we have
to say about knowledge,' and that he himself had 'given utterance to
more than 1 had in me,' is urged by Socrates to 'henceforth try to con­
ceive afresh, Theaetetus, [and] if you succeed, your embryo thoughts
will be the better as a consequence of today's scrutiny, and if you remain
barren, you will be gentler and more agreeable to your companions,
having the sense not to fancy you know what you do not know' (Thea­
etetus, 210b--c ) . Socrates' remedy is therefore both an effort to overtum
dogmatism and an attempt to give birth to ideas that are already there.
Socrates' task is thus one of restoration and redemption, the recovery of
forgotten ideas. Nietzsche's task is also one of restoration and redemp­
tion, but, and this is where he differs from Plato, this is not an effort to
recover forgotten ideas, but rather an effort to give birth to new ideas.
Nietzsche's ploughshare, as with Plato, is necessary both to overtum
dogmatism and to give birth to ideas, but this birth is not the return of
an idea that has remained the same; it is the return of that which forever
differs, the difference that cannot be identified - in short, Nietzsche's
ploughshare of evil is necessary 'to restore the innocence of becoming.'
Although they do indeed differ, Plato and Nietzsche both seem to be
motivated by an effort to restore something that has been lost, and their
critiques are consequent!y to be seen as critiques with sorne redemptive
aim. For Plato the aim is to restore and recover being, whereas for
Nietzsche it is becoming that is to be restored. Thus, if the tradition of
metaphysics is understood to be primarily concemed with restoring
and recovering sorne fundamental truth or reality that has been forgot­
ten, or is at least constrained and held captive, then are not Nietzsche
and Plato both a part of this tradition? In particular, is not Nietzsche's
effort to liberate and restore the innocence of becoming simply a version
of the modern 'enlightenment' project of restoring the captive liberty
and freedom (i.e., becoming) of human beings? If this is so, then is the
contemporary 'critique of metaphysics,' a critique that we have seen to
108 Thinking Difference

be largely motivated by Nietzsche, also part and parcel of the tradition

of metaphysics? Is it doing anything different, or has it, as Heidegger
would argue, kept the redemptive motivation of metaphysics while
only changing that which is to be recovered: namely, a non-identifiable
becoming rather than an identifiable being? A brief summary of the
path we have travelled might clarify the sense in which we take
Nietzsche not to be concemed with recovering something that has
been lost. This will further demonstrate that Nietzsche's critique, his
ploughshare of evil, is a critique without redemption.
In Derrida's well-known critique of metaphysics, a critique he
acknowledges continues the work of Nietzsche and Heidegger, meta­
physics is indeed characterized as being concemed with redemption: in
short, metaphysics is the attempt to restore to 'presence' sorne simple,
ideal, normal, self-identical origin. Derrida's subsequent 'deconstruc­
tion,' his critique of metaphysics, consists in demonstrating the inevita­
ble play of an 'undecidable' which prevents such a simple retum,
recovery, and liberation of sorne lost 'presence.' These undecidables, as
we saw, entail a fundamental both/ and which cannat be decided or
identified by the logic of either 1 or, for it is precisely this both/ and
which allows for the possibility of deciding with respect to an either 1 or.
The both/ and is thus what a text must acknowledge and suppress in
arder to function, that is, decide and identify. In Plata, for example, the
pharmakon is the undecidable that is both acknowledged and sup­
pressed. Throughout Derrida's writings, these undecidables (e.g., sup­
plement, hymen, gram, spacing, incision, iteration, etc.) 115 will play the
crucial role in his critique of metaphysics, or in his effort to explicate that
which makes metaphysical decisions possible while forever eluding
such decisions, or forever eluding restoration and redemption.
A fundamental consequence of this critique is that Derrida will not see
the task of interpretation as being one of recovering and revealing sorne
fundamental meaning (e.g., a transcendental signified). Derrida criti­
cizes hermeneutics for attempting just such a task, but neither does he
feel that there are no standards or criteria for interpretation, or that one
interpretation is as good as the next. An interpreter cannat, Derrida
argues, 'add any old thing' to the text that has not been 'rigorously pre­
scribed' by the text, 'by the logic of play' 116 of this text. Furthermore, to
follow this logic in a text is for Derrida to remain 'true' to the text,
whereas if this logic is not followed a reading will likewise be, as Derr­
ida daims is often the case in interpretations of his writings, 'false.' 'The
value of truth,' Derrida points out, 'is never contested or destroyed in
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 1 09

my writings.' 117 But this logic which one is to follow to remain 'true' to
the text, even though Derrida adroits that it entails 'protocols of reading'
which will act as guard rails to prevent any reading whatsoever from
being advanced, is itself left undecided. Thus, when pressed to state
what such protocols might be, or the logic one is to remain 'true' to, he
confesses that '1 have not yet found any that satisfy me.' 118 Conse­
quently, despite Derrida's daim that 'undecidability is always a determi­
nate oscillation between possibilities ... [and that] they are pragmatically
determined,' 11 9 if the protocol and standard whereby such determina­
tions can be judged is not clarified, one is again left wondering whether
any 'determinate oscillation' will do. How are we to know when the
deconstructionist has gone too far?
Deleuze is less hesitant to state and attempt to clarify what this pro­
tocol might be, and, as with Derrida, he feels that it is pragmatically
determined; however, there are sorne crucial differences between them.
First, although Derrida daims the 'oscillation between possibilities' is
'pragmatically determined,' he then adroits that the nature of this prag­
matic determination itself needs further elaboration, elaboration he has
not yet given. 1 20 Deleuze and Gauttari, on the other hand, go to great
lengths in their two-volume work, Capitalism and Schizophrenia, to set
forth their version of 'pragmatics' (also referred to as 'schizoanalysis,'
'rhizomatics,' and 'nomadology') and with it to clarify the process of
pragmatic determination. Secondly, whereas Derrida focuses almost
exclusively upon the 'determinate oscillations' of sorne written text,
Deleuze and Guattari are interested in the oscillations (i.e., between
fusion and fission, paranoïa and schizophrenia, black hole and super­
nova, etc.) of activity in general, both natural and human activity.
Part of the reason for Deleuze' s more developed clarification and con­
cern for the nature of the 'pragmatic determination' of activity can be
traced to Nietzsche; in particular, to Nietzsche's daim, quoted above,
that we need 'to impose upon chaos as rouch regularity and form as our
practical needs require.' Consequently, the protocol which is to serve a
critique for Deleuze is, following Nietzsche, determined by the practical
needs of the functioning assemblage, whether this assemblage be
human, social, natural, etc.; and thus the protocol reflects the creative
response to the double bind, a response which resists the tendency to
collapse into a destructive either/or. Deleuze's more explicit depen­
dency on or repetition of Nietzsche is therefore to be seen as an ad van­
tage rather than a detriment, 1 2 1 for it is because of this that Deleuze is
better equipped to grapple with, unlike Derrida, the problem of clarify-
1 1 0 Thinking Difference

ing the pragmatic determination of the protocols of activity, induding

interpretive, natural, and revolutionary activities.
To briefly summarize how this pragmatic determination is darified, it
must first be stressed that the protocol which results is both an attempt
to impose a form, order, and regularity upon chaos, and an attempt 'to
institute,' as Deleuze puts it, 'the chaos which creates.' 1 22 Without a pro­
tocol which demands order, form, and regularity, the corresponding
activity would collapse into non-sense; but without instituting the
chaos which creates and gives rise to that which is unpredictable, then
again nothing is said or done: ' ... what we call the meaning of a state­
ment is its point. That's the only definition of meaning, and it amounts
to the same as the novelty of statement ... the problem isn't that what
someone says is wrong, but that it's stupid or irrelevant - that it's
already been said a thousand times.1 1 23 With this daim, we can see an
interesting parallel with contemporary chaos theory, in particular, infor­
mation theory. Claude Shannon, for example, has argued that the more
chaotic a message is, the more random and unpredictable, the more
information it has. Shannon does make a distinction between meaning
and information, and thus would not follow Deleuze in daiming that
chaos gives rise to meaning. Robert Shaw, however, a more recent pro­
ponent of chaos theory, does go so far as to say that chaos is the source
of everything that is new, and thus he would agree with Deleuze. 1 24
Chaos theorists also argue, as does Deleuze, that there is a necessary
form and order to chaos, but that this order cannot be used to predict
what a given dynamical system will do next (the 'strange attractor' is
their famous example). Similarly, Deleuzean pragmatics will argue for
a necessary order, form, protocol, etc., but will likewise daim that such
a protocol cannot, nor should it, be used to determine what the order
will be like in the future. There is thus a purposiveness to Deleuzean
pragmatics, for there is the creation of a necessary order and protocol in
response to the double bind, but there is no purpose or goal which tran­
scends this purposiveness.
As a purposiveness without purpose, Deleuzean pragmatics pro­
ceeds to attempt to darify the plateaus, planes of consistency, and
assemblages that are themselves constitutive and constituted exempli­
fications of this purposiveness without purpose. In other words, prag­
matics has no prior agenda (i.e., purpose), nor is it without purpose;
what it is to do, they argue, is to make a plateau, a rhizome:

Schizoanalysis, or pragmatics, has no other meaning: Make a rhizome.

But you don't know what you can make a rhizome with, you don't know
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 111

which subterranean stem i s going to make a rhizome, or enter a becom­

ing, people your desert. 5o experiment.125

Experiment. A Nietzschean theme for sure, but we are still left with
the question of how we are to go about experimenting? Deleuze and
Guattari are aware of this question and admit that their 'experimenta­
tion imperative' is 'easy to say' but might be hard to follow, especially
since there are no 'preformed logical orders to becomings,' to rhizomes
and plateaus, an order that can be used to guide such experimenting.
Nevertheless, they do daim that 'there are criteria' that are to be
adhered to in experimenting, or in making a rhizome - that is, for prag­
matics. For example, pragmatics is not to be used after the fact, but is to
be applied 'in the course of events ... [and it should] be sufficient to
guide us through dangers,' 1 26 such as the danger of collapsing into one
of the two poles of the either 1 or. Secondly, pragmatics will 'reject the
idea of an invariant immune from transformation.' 1 27 There is nothing,
in short, following Nietzsche, that is not part of becoming, and hence
susceptible to becoming other than what it is. It is for this reason that
Deleuze and Guattari will stress the importance of becoming-x (e.g.,
becoming-animal, imperceptible, woman, etc.). Third, pragmatics will
explicate the internai reasons which will not allow something (e.g., lan­
guage) 'to close itself off,' 1 28 or to be immune to transformation. And
finally, though not exhaustively, pragmatics will trace and map pro­
cesses of transformation whereby non-formed flows and processes of
becoming are selected, territorialized, and stratified, and will then
show how these territorializations are in turn susceptible to deterritori­
alizing flows, to 'lines of flight' that will transform them again. 1 29
Every assemblage, every plateau, has both its elements of territorial­
ization and its deterritorializing flows. For example, in discussing
genetics, Deleuze and Guattari note that for any genetic or structural
identity that is passed through hereditary succession, there coexists a
simultaneous de-coding, an ever-present becoming-other (i.e., trans­
formation). There is 'no genetics,' they conclude, 'without "genetic
drift."' 1 30 And it is precisely the task of pragmatics, its protocol, to note
both the territorializing and deterritorializing poles within which all
assemblages, according to Deleuze and Guattari, oscillate. These poles
are not to be understood as binary opposites, but rather as the both/
and which is constitutive of these assemblages (there is 'no genetics
[territorialization] without "genetic drift" [deterritorialization]). Prag­
matics, furthermore, notes these constitutive both/ ands for the express
purpose, or purposiveness, of resisting the dangerous tendency the
112 Thinking Difference

both / and has to settle into one of the poles of an either 1 or, a pole
which would bring about the destruction of the assemblage (e.g., either
the genetic succession repeats the same to the point where the organ­
ism cannat adapt and thus becomes extinct, or it transforrns and
mutates into an organism that cannat adapt and dies).
Deleuze and Guattari discuss these constitutive both/ ands, or what
they refer to in Anti-Oedipus as 'inclusive disjunctions,' throughout A
Thousand Plateaus; or, as the title suggests, they make a thousand pla­
teaus. They also set forth a criterion or protocol for this enterprise - that
is, for pragmatics - both a protocol for resisting the tendency to collapse
into an either 1 or, and one which helps to clarify the manner in which
differentiations are pragrnatically deterrnined. lt is this latter clarifica­
tion which is lacking in Derrida. Derrida does indeed demonstrate the
limits of oppositional differentiatian, or the logic of either 1 or, but he
leaves unanswered the question of how a positive, non-binary mode of
differentiation ought to proceed, or what protocol it is to follow. With
Deleuze and Guattari's pragmatics, however, we have both a critique of
binary oppositions, the logic of either 1 or, and we have a protocol which
clarifies how one can positively differentiate, evalua te, judge, etc. Prag­
matics is thus a critique with no goal or purpose of restoring and liber­
a ting something that has been held captive. lt is a critique as resistance,
for it resists the double bind that conditions it (i.e., purposiveness with­
out purpose); but it is neither a critique which transcends and resolves
this double bind, nor a critique with a 'pre-existing' logic and order for
resisting the double bind; it is, in other words, a critique without
redemption. Consequently, rather than having an order, forrn, or idea
(eidos) in ourselves, an order that ought, à la Plato, to remain the same,
this critique, following Nietzsche, daims that we ought to have chaos in
ourselves, a chaos that gives birth to a dancing star; and this dancing
star is not a repetition of the same, but is a repetition of the difference
that is constitutive of it, a difference whose destructive consequences
ought to be resisted. For if we are not careful and diligent, if we slack in
our rigour and resistance, then the chaos in ourselves rnight not give
birth to a dancing star, but, as a result of either collapsing into a black
hole or exploding into a fiery supernova, this chaos might die.
Deleuze and Guattari's critique without redemption is indeed a part
of traditional metaphysics insofar as it launches (e.g., through pragmat­
ics, schizoanalysis, etc.) a critique and interpretive project with a deter­
mina te protocol, or insofar as it is a critique which accepts the wisdom
(or lack thereoO of a given position. Their position is also a further elab-
 Deleuze Reads Nietzsche 1 13

oration of a Kantian-styled critique in that, as with Kant, it attempts to

reveal the conditions for the possibility of knowledge (i.e., identifica­
tions, territorializations). However, whereas Kant reveals identifiable
categories and forms of experience which are the conditions for the pos­
sibility of knowledge, Deleuze and Guattari encounter the non-identifi­
able both/ and condition (e.g., will to power). It is on this point that they
break with the tradition which traces its lineage to Plato. This break is
not, moreover, one of opposing the tradition, but rather it reveals the
double bind whereby the tradition itself is made possible, yet through
which its success (i.e., its attempt to successfully redeem or restore a lost
identity) is rendered impossible. The condition for the possibility of the
tradition of metaphysics is also its condition of impossibility. A critique
without redemption, therefore, and this should not be surprising at this
point, is both for and against traditional metaphysics. In fact, as we will
explore more fully in chapters 5 and 6, Deleuze unabashedly pursues
and carries out metaphysics, what we will call a metaphysics of
dynamic systems. Before we tum to discuss Deleuze's metaphysics of
dynamic systems, however, we will first examine. Heidegger's critique
of metaphysics, or more precisely his critique of Aristotle and the meta­
physical tradition Aristotle largely initia tes. This discussion will further
extend our examination of the philosophical effort to think difference,
and it will set the stage for illustrating why a metaphysics of dynamic
systems is able to overcome sorne of the shortcomings which continued
to haunt Heidegger (and Derrida, as we will see in chapter 5).
4 Thinking Difference: Heidegger and

Deleuze on Aristotle

Difference has been an important theme in contemporary philosophy,

especially contemporary Continental philosophy, where many of the
key players put an enormous amount of emphasis upon an under­
standing of difference. There is Derrida's well-known discussion of dif­
ferance, for example, but there is also Jean-François Lyotard's concept
of the 'differend'; Luce Irigaray explores the theme of sexual difference
in her book An Ethics of Sexual Difference; and Gilles Deleuze attempts
to set forth a philosophy of difference in his book Difference and Repeti­
tion. An important theme which circulates throughout these works,
and which seems to characterize much of contemporary Continental
thought, is that an adequate understanding of difference would be one
which does not reduce difference to the conditions or logic of identity.
More to the point, they argue that although thought and understand­
ing itself is indeed of identities, the condition for the possibility of
thinking and understanding identities is not itself identifiable, or it is a
fundamental difference which cannot be thought in terms of identity.
This daim immediately gives rise to sorne important questions: How
can difference be thought if it is not to be thought in terms of identity?
Or, if it cannot be thought, how can we know that it is the condition for
the possibility of thought unless we grasp it as such - that is, think dif­
ference as this condition? In short, what is the relationship between
difference and thinking?
To avoid repeating what many others have said concerning these
themes and questions, this chapter shall take as its point of departure a
comparison and contrast of how two of the more important figures
in Continental philosophy understand difference - Heidegger and
Deleuze. In particular, we will examine how Heidegger and Deleuze
 Heidegger and Deleuze on Aristotle 1 15

each sets his own understanding of difference apart from that of Aris­
totle. This analysis should clarify the differences between Heidegger's
understanding of the ontological difference and Deleuze's attempt to
set forth a philosophy of difference. The differences between Heidegger
and Deleuze regarding their understanding of difference have received
little attention, but considering the importance of difference to contem­
porary Continental thought, it seems this discussion can facilitate a
grea ter understanding of what is at stake in contemporary Continental
philosophy. Furthermore, by placing this discussion in the context of
Aristotle' s understanding of difference, we can see how Heidegger' s
and Deleuze's approaches do or do not differ from that of traditional
metaphysics.

In his Metaphysics, Aristotle understands difference in two ways. First,

he defines difference as that which is said of something that is 'the same
in sorne respect, only not in number but in kind or in genus or by anal­
ogy' (1018a14-1 5). 1 Things are different in this first sense, therefore,
only if they are the same in sorne other respect. What 1 am as a human
being is different from what my cat is, though we are also the same inso­
far as we are both mammals. To understand the difference between
human being and cat we must, according to Aristotle, have a common
ground to work from - namely, a common genus such as mammal, ani­
mal, etc. The second definition of difference is that things can also be dif­
ferent in the sense of being 'contraries,' whereby contraries are those
things which either 'differ according to genus and cannot at the same
time be present in the same thing,' or those things which 'differ most in
the same genus' (ibid.). For example, 1 am different from my car, not
because we differ with respect to something which is the same (i.e., a
genus), but because we differ in kind; or, though 1 and my wife are of the
same genus, as man and woman we can be said to be different insofar as
we 'differ most in the same genus.' The key to this second understand­
ing of difference is that one cannot be both a man and a car, or a man and
a woman. These differences are differences of kind and are irreconcil­
able, whereas with the first understanding of difference, the differences
are reconciled by, or understood and made possible by, a common genus
which is the same despite these differences.
One could argue, however, that differences according to genus, as
well as the greatest differences within a genus, are reconcilable: they are
116 Thinking Difference

reconcilable insofar as they all have 'being' in comrnon. Whatever the

differences between humans, cats, cars, men and women, we can say of
all of them that they are. To put this in Aristotle's well-known terminol­
ogy, one might say that just as the difference in species between cats and
humans is a difference with respect to a common genus (mammal), so
too one could argue that differences in genus are differences with
respect to a common being. Being, in other words, would be the genus
of all genera. Yet this argument is one that Aristotle rejects:

It is not possible for either 'unity' or 'being' to be a genus of things; for

each differentia of any genus must be and also be one, but it is impossible
either for the species of a genus or for that genus alone to be a predicate of
the proper differentiae of the species. Thus, if unity or being is indeed a
genus, no differentia will be either a being or one. (998b22-28)

To clarify by way of example, Aristotle repeatedly refers to the human

being as a rational animal. The differentia of the species 'human' is the
predicate 'rational,' or when rationality is predicated of the genus 'ani­
mal' we have a human being. Genus is thus determined by the differen­
tia of the species, but in itself the genus is simply the unity of the many
differentia - that is, there is no animal in itself, only many species of ani­
mal. Put in other terms, the 'genus' animal does not rnake a human
being what it is as a human being, or a cat as a cat, for it does not include
the content that makes these things what they are. If 'animal' were to
include the differentia 'rational,' it would be redundant to define a
human being (species) as a rational animal. The differentia is thus not
included within the genus but rather adds something or is a differenti­
ation with respect to a common genus (i.e., it is a differentia), and it is
this differentia that makes some-thing the thing it is. Similarly, if being
were to be a genus, then it too would not include the content that makes
something what it is, but this is contradictory for, as Aristotle argues, the
'differentia of any genus must be'; consequently, being is not a genus.
Aristotle's effort to understand and think difference thus brings him
to the central problem of his Metaphysics: what is being? Or, to put the
problem differently, how can we consistently maintain the view that
things can be irreconcilably different and yet both be? Aristotle's initial
answer: being is one, though it is said and meant in many different ways,
for example, as quantity, quality, relation, etc. Despite these many
senses, however, Aristotle argues 'that of these the primary sense is
whatness, and used in this sense it signifies a substance' (1028a14). To
 Heidegger and Deleuze on Aristotle 117

clarify how being is both one and said in many ways, w e must clarify
the primary sense of being, substance. The question 'what is being?'
becomes, for Aristotle, 'what is a substance?' (1028b4).
ln his discussions of substance, one of the more important character­
istics of substance that Aristotle repeatedly emphasizes is that sub­
stance individuates matter as such-and.-such a thing, or it individuates
matter as a this of a certain type. ln the Categories, for instance, Aristo­
tle daims, 'Every substance is thought to indicate a this' (3b1 0); and
with this daim Aristotle contrasts his notion of substance with the Pla­
tonie conception of Ideas as universals, for, Aristotle argues, 'if they
[principles or Platonic Ideas] are universal, they will not be substances;
for none of what is common signifies a this but only a such, and a sub­
stance is a this' (Metaphysics, 1003a7-1 0). ln other words, if the Ideas
were to be a universal and a this, that is, an individual, then the prob­
lem this gives rise to is how the two different individuals are related to
one another - for example, how is the Platonic Idea of beauty as an
individual and a this, related to the existent individual or to the this
that is beautiful? There must be a third thing (i.e., the third man), Aris­
totle argues, whereby these two are related to one another; but this in
tum gives rise to the problem of the relationship between this third
thing as an existent this and the essence or Idea of this third thing. ln
short, to avoid the famous third-man argument, a universal is not to be
confused with a substance, a this.
What is a substance, then, if it is not a universal? Simply put, as that
which individuates, substance determines an individual, a this, as such
and such an individual. By individual Aristotle means 'that .which is
numerically one' (lOOOal ), and by numerically one Aristotle means
that whose 'matter is one' (1 026b32). Therefore, insofar as the matter
that constitutes me as an individual is not the same as the matter
which constitutes someone else, 1 and the other are then numerically
distinct individuals, or we are two individuals, not one. However, if
this other person is a human being, 'we may then be numerically dis­
tinct individuals, but in species we are one, wherein something is 'one
in species if the formula is one' (ibid.). The formula is that which forms
the matter as such-and-such a thing, or makes it to be a certain type of
thing, namely, a human being. This, however, leads to an apparent
ambiguity in Aristotle's thinking, for the substance of a thing appears
both to be the matter which constitutes the numerical individuality and
thisness of a thing, and it appears to be the form which constitutes the
individual as a certain type of thing. In the first sense, substance is the
118 Thinking Difference

underlying subject of predication, or the this which receives attributes

and qualifications (e.g., this is red, loud, smart, etc.). ln the second
sense, substance is the form that allows us even to identify an individ­
ual as an individual, an identification which presupposes grasping the
form or type of individual being presented. Aristotle recognizes these
two meanings of substance: 'The term "a substance," then, has two
senses: it means the ultimate subject which is not predicated of some­
thing else, and also that which is a this and is separable, such being the
shape or form of each thing' (1017b23-26).
We can resolve the apparent ambiguity when we consider the role of
matter in Aristotle' s metaphysics. If matter is the underlying subject
which receives the form or shape of a given species, then we would once
again confront the third-man problem, for how would we account for
the relationship between species and matter unless by sorne third thing,
a third thing which in turn in volves a subject which bears a certain form.
To avoid the third-man problem and the infinite regress it generates,
Aristotle argues that there is a point where the essence or form of the
thing is the same as the thing itself, a point where the subject and its
form are one and the same. This point Aristotle refers to as primary sub­
stance, and it is this thesis which Aristotle attempts to establish in the
crucial yet difficult Book Z of the Metaphysics. ln brief, to avoid the third­
man problem, Aristotle must show that primary substance is indeed
some-thing that is the same as its essence (i.e., form).
To establish this daim, one of the first orders of business is to reject
the daim that substance is matter. ln recognition of the ambiguity we
noted above, Aristotle first admits that 'from what has been said, it fol­
lows that matter is a substance [or it is the primary subject],' but he
immediately goes on to reject that this is so: 'But this is impossible; for
to be separable and a this is thought to belong most of ali to a sub­
stance' (1029a27-30). It is not the matter which allows us to pick out
something as a this separable from another this; rather, it is the form,
or what Michael Loux has referred to as the 'forming function' of sub­
stance} which allows us to pick out sorne matter as a this. Aristotle will
emphasize this point again later in Book Z, though this time he explic­
itly rejects the possibility that matter is primary (or first) substance:

In sorne cases the essence of a thing and the thing are the same, as in first
substances. For example, curvature and its essence are the same if curva­
ture is a first substance . . . But things which exist as matter, or which
include matter, are not the same as their essence. (1037b1-8)
 Heidegger and Deleuze on Aristotle 1 19

Why does Aristotle reject matter as substance? There are two impor­
tant and related reasons. The first is Aristotle's adherence to the law of
non-contradiction. Everything that exists in truth and actuality is what
it is and is not simultaneously its opposite. 1 cannot in actuality be in
my office and home on my sofa at one and the same time. Matter, how­
ever, is for Aristotle pure potentiality, as opposed to substance, which
is actuality, and in this way 'the same thing [as matter] can be poten­
tially both contraries at the same time, but it cannot be so in actuality'
(1050b28). 1 cannot actually be at work and home at the same time, but
1 simultaneously possess the potential for both; similarly, matter has
the potential both to be or not to be actualized according to a particular
form. Substance, therefore, if it is the primary sense of being or of what
is, must be what it is without contradiction, and hence it cannot be
matter. Matter we can refer to as the genetic element, or that which is
only potentially an actualized, non-contradictory, this. Aristotle is clear
on this point:

What is called 'a form' or 'a substance' is not generated, but what is gen­
erated is the composite which is named according to that form, and that
there is matter in everything that is generated and in the latter one part is
this and another that. (1 033b16-20)

Later in Book Z Aristotle reiterates much this same point, though he

emphasizes here the actuality /potentiality distinction:

Now a substance is an underlying subject; and in one sense, this is matter

(by 'matter' 1 mean that which is not a this in actuality but is potentially a
this); in another sense it is the formula or the form, which is a this and sep­
arable in formula. (1 042a27-30)

The ambiguity is by this point resolved. Substance is the underlying

subject or matter only as potentiality, as genetic element, whereas true
and primary substance is an actual this. Nevertheless, the question
remains: how does substance as actual relate to the production of com­
posite substances? What is the relationship between actual and poten­
tial? Unless these questions are adequately addressed, one can accuse
Aristotle of simply repeating the errors he found in Plato. In other
words, to account for how the actuality of substance can transform the
potentiality of matter into the actuality of composite substances, must
Aristotle presuppose a mediating third party which facilitates the pro-
1 20 Thinking Difference

duction of composite things? Clearly Aristotle would deny the need

for such a mediating third party, though what he says to clarify the
relationship between the actual and the potential does not do much to
address our questions. What Aristotle offers is an analogy which he
believes makes the relationship between the actual and potential intu­
itively obvious. Exploring the implications of this analogy should help
us to further trace the trajectory of Aristotle's thought with respect to
substance, and more precisely to show the consequences of this view
with respect to Aristotle's understanding of difference. Here is what
Aristotle offers us:

What we mean [by distinguishing between actual and potential] is clear by

induction from individual cases, and we should not seek a definition of
everything but should also perceive an object by means of an analogy;
thus, as that which builds is to that which is capable of building, so is that
which is awake to that which is asleep, or that which is seeing to that which
has its eyes shut but has the power to see, or that which is separated from
matter to matter itself, or the finished product to the raw material. Let the
term 'actuality' signify the first part of each of these differences and 'the
potential' signify the second part. (1 048a36-b7)

Does this analogy help? It is clear at !east what Aristotle is saying. Just
as the finished product is related to the raw material which went into
the product, so too 'that which is separated from matter' (i.e., substance
as forrn) is related 'to matter itself.' With respect to the relationsh�p
between finished products and raw material, however, there is an
important mediating factor: namely, the artisan. This mediating factor
is one of Aristotle's four causes - efficient cause. The relationship
between finished product (final cause) and raw material (material
cause) is indeed one which is mediated by a third party, the artisan.
What fills this role with respect to the relationship between that which
is separate from matter and matter itself? Aristotle's analogy does not
answer our earlier questions, but rather places its significance in clearer
focus. Moreover, in Book Z Aristotle uses yet another, sirnilar analogy
when arguing for the daim that substance is the cause of a thing:

Why is the matter sorne one thing?'; for example, Why are these materi­
als a house?' Because to them belongs this, which is the essence of a
house; and because a man is this, or, this body has this. Thus, we are seek­
ing the cause (and this is the form) through which the matter is a thing;
and this cause is the substance of the thing. (1 041b5-10)
 Heidegger and Deleuze on Aristotle 121

A thing, therefore, as with a house, entails a productive process

whereby sorne material is put together in such and such a way, that is,
in accordance with a form, so that it is this individual and not another.
As Aristotle puts it, 'a thing is a threshold,' where threshold entails the
composition of matter in 'such-and-such a position,' as a house is a
thing defined as 'bricks and timber in such-and-such a position'
(1042b27-1 043a10). When Aristotle uses the analogy of building, for
example, building a house, he is thus not simply thinking of human pro­
duction; rather, he is arguing that all things, as composites of matter and
form, are generated and produced. The key, then, is to understand how
this generative process is carried forward without in turn falling into
the problems Aristotle recognized in Plato.
Aristotle's effort to do this centres around, as we have seen, sub­
stance, whereby substance is the cause of the thing, or it is the cause
which oversees the productive process through which matter is
arranged and composed in 'such-and-such a position.' Substance, how­
ever, or at least primary substance, is free from matter, and is to matter
much as the finished house is to the raw material of bricks and timber.
Primary substance, therefore, must be a non-composite substance, for
only non-composite substances, Aristotle argues, are 'neither generated
nor destroyed' (1051b29). If they were generated, they would have to
have not been at one time, and this would violate the law of non-con­
tradiction. Only non-composite substances exist as pure actuality,
whereas composite substance has the potential to exist or not to exist. lt
is non-composite, primary substance which is both essence and subject,
both what this is and that this is, and it is this primary substance which
in sorne way causes the composite things. How does it do this?
According to Loux, the primary substance is to be understood as
'substance-species,' and it is the substance-species which allows for the
existence of a subject as a subject of a particular kind. Thus, as Loux
contrasts the substance-species with a universal, he daims 'the univer­
sals in virtue of which something is musical, walking, or white require
subjects in which they might be present; and the existence of these sub­
jects turns on their membership in their respective substance-species.1 3
These substance-species themselves, moreover, 'can be viewed,' Loux
argues, 'as forming functions,' or 'functions that take as their argu­
ments appropriate parcels of matter' and then generate the subjects
which can then be the bearers of universal predicates. lt is these sub-·
stance-species which are the actualities which precede the things which
are the result of their forming function. These substance-species are
therefore presupposed by every generative process, or, as Aristotle puts
1 22 Thinking Difference

it, 'actuality is prior to potency and to every principle of change'

(1051 a4).
·

We can now begin to see how Aristotle addresses the question of

What is being?' and, in tum, how he thinks difference. First, being, we
saw, could not be a genus for a genus is simply a common term or uni­
versai applicable to many different things. In itself the genus does not
con tain what it is to be a human being, for example, but is simply a pred­
icate that can be accurately applied to humans, cats, dogs, etc. Sirnilarly,
if being were a genus, then it too would not çontain what it is that makes
humans, cats, and dogs be; but since being is taken precisely to be that
which humans, cats, and dogs presuppose such that they are, then being
must not be a genus. If being is not a genus, then it is something else, and
this something else is substance. As substance, the forming function of
substance-species does indeed contain what makes a human being what
he/ she is, and as substance-species the term is not a genus which
app lies to many things, but just to that one substance-species. One could
argue that this is not so. After all, the students in my classes are human
beings, and thus do I not apply the species-term to many different
things? Aristotle's point, however, as we have tried to show, is that
although the species-term can be a pplied to many composite substances
generated in accordance with the form of the substance-species, the sub­
stance-species itself is a non-composite free from matter. The many dif­
ferent students in my class are therefore different materially, but not in
species; in species they are numerically one.
We can now retum to our earlier discussion of Aristotle's attempt to
think difference. Aristotle repeatedly daims that difference must for­
ever be understood with respect to something that is the same. To quote
from Book I of the Metaphysics, Aristotle argues, 'But that which differs
is different from something else in sorne respect, so that there must be
something which is the same with respect to which there is a difference.
And that which is the same is the genus or the species' (1054b26-28).
The students in my class are indeed different, but this difference is
thought on the basis of that which remains the same, namely, their sub­
stance-species. As for things that are different in genus, Aristotle argues
that these things 'have no way of proceeding to each other but are far
removed and noncomparable' (1055a8), and he adds later that 'there is
no difference in relation to things outside of a genus' (1055a27). In other
words, because there is no basis for comparison between genera, or
nothing which remains the same with respect to both, we cannat think
or discuss this difference, and thus for all intents and purposes there is
no difference here.
 Heidegger and Deleuze on Aristotle 1 23

Aristotle, however, is not content simply to let this irreconcilable dif­

ference between genera stand. Aristotle recognizes that being is an
inadequate concept with which to compare the different genera. The
prirnary sense of being, we saw, is substance, or more precisely sub­
stance-species, and this substance is the actuality which precedes poten­
tiality and change, and it is the actuality which causes actual, composite
things. There are many different substance-species, however, and in
many different genera. There is the substance-species 'hurnan being' as
well as the substance-species 'gaseous planet,' and the two are, from
Aristotle's point of view, non-comparable because they are each in a dif­
ferent genus. Nevertheless, as substance-species, they are pure actuali­
ties which are prior to the composites which they rnake possible.
Prirnary substance, recall, can neither be generated nor destroyed, for
this would violate the law of non-contradiction. But it is at this point
where we encounter a problern. If the substance-species is that which is
the actuality that is free from the potentiality of matter, then is Aristotle
cornrnitted to the viewpoint that the hurnan substance-species is etemal
and hence existed long before hurnans ever evolved? To rnake such a
daim would risk reinstating the Platonic doctrine of the Forrns, sorne­
thing Aristotle was loath to do; yet to daim that such substance-species
had not always existed, or had corne into being at sorne point, would
seern to violate the law of non-contradiction. 4 With regard to this last
point, Aristotle would daim that this is not necessarily the case. If the
substance-species 'hurnan being,' for exarnple, were at sorne point
rnerely a potential substance-species, then it would violate the law of
non-contradiction, for the sarne thing would both be sornething and
potentially not be sornething. Likewise, if the substance-species as actu­
ality were to corne into being from non-actuality, or from non-being,
then this too would violate the law of non-contradiction, for the sarne
thing would corne into being from non-being. If, however, there is a
pure actuality which generates other actualites such as the hurnan spe­
cies-substance, then although this substance-species is generated, it is
not rnerely a potentiality waiting to be generated, nor is it generated
from nothing. lt is sirnply one actuality that is the effect of another.
This leads us to Aristotle's farnous argument for the unrnoved
rnover. The substance-species of a hurnan being is, Aristotle argued, a
rnover in that it is the cause which allows for the generation of com­
posite hurnan beings. This rnover or actuality is, in tum, made possible.
by another rnover or actuality. However, if there is to be any motion at
all, there must be a first rnover which is itself unrnoved; otherwise, the
series of causes would stretch back to infinity and nothing, Aristotle
124 Thinking Difference

argues, could then ever be caused or moved (see 994bl-10). To avoid

violating the law of non-contradiction with respect to the many differ­
ent species, including the many different genera to which they belong,
Aristotle argues that there must be a single, unmoved mover, or there
must be a single heaven (see 1 074a33-38). Aristotle's science of being,
his theory of substance, thus leads him to the science of the single,
overarching cause, the cause which remains one and the same despite
the many different species, genera, etc. Aristotle's metaphysics, or his
science of being (since he does not use the . word 'metaphysics'), leads
to theology, and he himself recognizes this:

The first science, however, is concerned with things which are both sepa­
rate and imrnovable ... if there were no substances other than those
formed by nature [i.e., movable substances], physics would be the first
science; but if there is an imrnovable substance, this would be prior, and
the science of it would be first philosophy and would be universal in this
manner, in view of the fact that it is first. And it would be the concern of
this science, too, to investigate being qua being, both what being is and
what belongs to it qua being. (1 026a1 5-32)

The differences in genera, therefore, are not maintained as irreconcil­

able differences, for all species and genera which can be thought and dis­
cussed must, Aristotle argues, presuppose sorne one thing. If these are
differences between things, then this referential same is either the spe­
cies or genus; and if the differences are between genera, then either they
cannot be thought or they are to be thought in terms of the identity of the
unmoved mover. Without this identity, of either heaven (unmoved
mover) or substance, no thing could be thought or communicated. Aris­
totle is clear on this point. To think and communicate, one must be think­
ing and communicating sorne one, identical, self-same thing:

For not to signify one thing is to signify nothing, and if names have no
meanings, then discussion with one another, and indeed even with one­
self, is eliminated; for it is not possible for anyone to conceive of anything
if he does not conceive of one thing, and if it is possible, he could then
posit one name for this one thing. (1 006b8-12)

And again, later in the Metaphysics, Aristotle reiterates the same point:

Now those who are to have a discussion with each other must also under­
stand each other; for if this does not happen, how can they comrnunicate
 Heidegger and Deleuze on Aristotle 1 25

with each other? Accordingly, each name used must be known and sig­
nify something, but only one thing and not many. (1062a12-1 5)

Consequently, it is by now clear that if we are to conceive of differ­

ence, we must conceive it with respect to sorne one thing, and this is
either a genus or a species; and with respect to the differences between
genera, since there is no one thing to compare them to, these differences
cannot be thought and conceived, unless they are thought in the theo­
logical sense with respect to the one unmoved mover. Aristotle is quite
straightforward, then, in holding to the position that difference can only
be thought in terms of identity.

II

Moving now to Heidegger's reading of Aristotle, Heidegger will stress

the significance for Aristotle of the distinction between potentiality and
actuality. In his study of Aristotle's Metaphysics 8, 1-3, Heidegger rec­
ognizes the importance of substance-species as the overseer of the pro­
cess from potentiality (&Jvaw; ) to actuality (èvépyeta) . The substance­
species, eidos (el8o!i ), is for Heidegger that which gathers together the
elements necessary for a thing to become such-and-such a thing. As dis­
cussed above, the eidos is thus the forming-function that defines a thing
according to its threshold, such as a house, to quote Aristotle, is the
threshold wherein 'bricks and timber [are] in such-and-such a position'
(1043a10). As Heidegger reads Aristotle:

In producing something, the thing to be produced must necessarily be

previewed even though it is not yet finished or perhaps not even begun. It
is simply represented, in the genuine sense of the word, but not yet
brought about and produced as something at hand. This representing and
previewing of the §pyov in its eidos is the real beginning of producing . . .
Eidos i s a kin d o f being gathered together and selected, a legomenon; i t is
logos. Eidos is also telos, the ending end.5

This eidos, or representation, which gathers and selects what is nec­

essary in order for the end (telos) of the productive process to be actu­
alized, is not simply a representation which guides human productivity.
Aristotle's point, as Heidegger correctly points out, is that this eidos
(substance-species) is 'the real beginning' of ali productive processes,
both natural and human. It is true that flowers and trees are not pro­
duced in the same way that houses and violins are, and Heidegger notes
1 26 Thinking Difference

that Aristotle distinguishes between phusis onta and techne onta,

whereby the former 'produces itself by arising out of itself; techne on ta is
produced by human planning and production.' 6 As a natural being
(phusis onta), flowers and trees are not in need of another in order to be
produced, or they contain within themselves the principle which gov­
erns their emergence as flowers and trees; houses and violins, on the
other hand, do not contain their own principle of emergence, or they
only emerge because of humans' ability (i.e., techne) to execute their
ideas. The substance-species, therefore, and to re-emphasize an earlier
point, is inseparable from the natural objects which emerge by means of
it. Nevertheless, these natural objects which are not in need of an exter­
nal principle to govem their production are, as Heidegger argues, still
understood by Aristotle in the sense of 'having been produced':

For even that which i s not i n need o f production, and precisely this, i s also
understood with respect to its being in terms of the essence of having
been produced. This is the sense of the basic fact that such concepts as
eidos, telos, and peras (i.e., threshold), as fundamental moments of
beings, are not restricted to the things which have been produced, but
rather concern the full array of beings?

At this point we could introduce the standard Heideggerian critique

of eidos: namely, that by thinking beings in terms of eidos, Aristotle
thinks them in terms of their presence, their substance-species, rather
than as the presencing of presence, or as Being. Aristotle, in other
words, fails to think Being as the presencing of presence. This will be
Heidegger' s ultimate critique of Aristotle, but Heidegger recognizes
that Aristotle's position is not as straightforwardly susceptible to the
critique as might first appear. This becomes clear as Heidegger exam­
ines Aristotle's critique of the Megarian thesis.
The Megarian thesis, put briefly, denies potentiality and states that
potentiality can only be judged or known when actualized. If 1 have the
potential to be an excellent musician, the Megarians would argue, then
this potential can only be known, or can only be, once it is actualized;
otherwise, this potential as potential simply does not exist. The non­
actualized, therefore, is, according to the Megarians, nothing. This posi­
tion, however, as Heidegger reads Aristotle's critique of it, fails to
recognize that the actual (i.e., substance-species as the actuality which
guides the productive process) is not a simple presence, but is rather
an active presencing and gathering: 'The Megarians comprehend the
"non" [non-actualized] as pure negation - rather than as a distinctive
 Heidegger and Deleuze on Aristotle 127

privation. That which is negated, enactment itself, they comprehend

only as the presence of something - rather than as transition, that is, as
kinesis.' 8 The eidos as substance-species is thus not understood by Aris­
totle as a simple presence, but it is that which allows for the proceeding
forth and gathering in, and this proceeding forth and gathering in is also
a point Heidegger will emphasize when setting forth his own under­
standing of Being. The actuality of substance-species, the actuality
which is the cause or principle of the production of things themselves,
is not then 'a thing or property from which something proceeds (as the
Megarians understand it),' but is to be understood as 'an origin for
something other [that] is in itself a proceeding to the other.' 9
Despite Aristotle's critique of the Megarian thesis, however, Heideg­
ger maintains that he did not go far enough. Aristotle continued to think
of the 'proceeding forth and gathering in' of eidos as a process which
can be named and thought in terms of the logic of identity: that is, the
process is identifiable as one thing, as a process of such-and-such a type;
and as one thing this process can have a corresponding word to name it.
Aristotle, in other words, ultimately subordinated the presencing of
eidos to the identity of logos, or to logic. 1° Consequent!y, although Aris­
totle made great strides by understanding the presence of beings in
terms of eidos as 'proceeding forth and gathering in,' when eidos itself
was subordinated to logos, the moves here were lost. As Heidegger put
it in his Introduction to Metaphysics, 'being as unconcealment [is] the very
thing that has been lost by logic,' and this 'logic arose in the curriculum
of the Platonic-Aristotelian schools.' 11 Thus, by subordinating eidos to
logos, Aristotle presupposes the presence of that which 'lingers awhile
in unconcealment,' 1 2 or that which lingers long enough so that it can be
identified as one thing of such-and-such a kind, a thing that can be
named. Aristotle thinks Being, not as the presencing of Being, but as the
presence of being, or, to use one of Heidegger's oft-quoted terms, Aris­
totle thinks 'beings as such ontotheologically.' 1 3
Returning to our theme of thinking difference, it now becomes even
clearer that Aristotle thinks difference in terms of identity. If eidos or
substance-species is fundamentally something that can be said, then
what can be said, as we saw above, must be one and non-contradictory.
Substance-species therefore equals the identity of actuality rather than
the contrariety of potentiality; and yet this is precisely the point Aristo­
tle argued for repeatedly. But by arguing this point, Aristotle reveals
his bias for thinking difference in terms of identity, a bias which, from
Heidegger's point of view, leaves him unable to think Being.
As we turn now to Heidegger, we find Heidegger much more will-
128 Thinking Difference

ing to embrace a fundamental contradiction with respect to Being; or,

Heidegger does not, as Aristotle does, shy away from accepting a fun­
damental both/ and. In fact, Heidegger explicitly argues that when it
cornes to Being, there is an adrnitted and accepted contradiction:

The word 'being' is indefinite in meaning and yet we understand it defi­

nitely. 'Being' proves to be totally indeterminate and at the same time
highly determinate . . . we have here an obvious contradiction . . . we find
ourselves standing in the middle of this contradiction, and this 'stand' of
ours is more real than just about anything else that we cali real; it is more
real than dogs and cats, automobiles and newspapers.14

With this recognition of a fundamental contradiction, Heidegger

launches an effort to think difference as difference, and not as subordi­
nate to identity; and in doing this, Heidegger makes moves towards
overcoming the tradition of metaphysics as 'ontotheological.'

III

Heidegger is quite forthright in daiming that he wants to think differ­

ence as difference, and not difference as identity. In his book Identity and
Difference, Heidegger daims that 'the matter of thinking is the difference
as difference.' 1 5 Earlier in this same book, however, Heidegger seems to
repeat Aristotle's daim that difference is to be understood in terms of
identity: 'The Reader is to discover for himself in what way difference
stems from the essence of identity.' 16 Heidegger will qualify this state­
ment, though, by referring to the essence of identity as being 'the Same,'
whereas the Same is understood by Heidegger to be the difference
between Being as presencing and beings as presence - that is, the Onto­
logical Difference. Thus, prior to stating that the matter of thinking is
'difference as difference,' Heidegger daims, 'For us, the matter of think­
ing is the Same, and this is Being - but Being with respect to its differ­
ence from beings.' 17 Heidegger, in fact, will later contrast identity, or the
identical, with the same:

The equal or identical always moves toward the absence of difference, so

that everything may be reduced to a common denominator. The same, by
contrast, is the belonging together of what differs, through a gathering by
way of the difference.1 8

Consequent!y, when Heidegger states that 'difference stems from the

 Heidegger and Deleuze on Aristotle 1 29

essence of identity,' he means that the difference between identifiable

beings stems from the essence of Being as the gathering by way of dif­
ference; or the proceeding forth and gathering in of Being allows for the
presence of beings, and hence the difference between beings. This is
quite different from what Aristotle argued. Aristotle recognized the
importance of the 'proceeding forth and gathering in' of eidos, as we
saw, but this proceeding and gathering occurs, not 'by way of the dif­
ference,' but rather by way of logos, or by way of what can be said.
Heidegger's understanding of the gathering in of Being does not pre­
suppose the lingering presence of the identifiable, the identifiable that
can be named, but is the very condition for the possibility of lingering
presence. Heidegger thus continues Aristotle's project of attempting to
think being qua being, but for Heidegger this involves thinking differ­
ence as difference, or it involves thinking the ontological difference
between Being and beings, presencing and presence.
In thinking the difference ·between Being and beings, Heidgegger is
clear that such a thinking does not entai! answering the question 'what
is Being?' by pointing to sorne identifiable thing as Being. Rather, Being
is the very condition for the unconcealedness and identity of beings.
'The disclosedness of Being,' Heidegger maintains, 'alone makes possi­
ble the manifestness of being.' 1 9 Consequently, to think the difference
between Being and being is not to think the difference between an iden­
tifiable Being and an identifiable being. This latter thinking of differ­
ence already presupposes the ontological difference, which allows for
the emergence of identifiable entities, entities which form the basis of
identifiable differences. This was Aristotle's understanding of differ­
ence, and Heidegger is clear that such an understanding is made possi­
ble by the ontological difference, a difference Aristotle failed to think:
'A is differentiated from B - with the "is" we already maintain the older
difference.' 20
What, then, does thinking difference as difference entai! if it is not
thinking the difference between identifiable things? How do we think
the disclosedness of beings? Are we to tum our backs on beings and
enter a meditative state of openness, a state free of thoughts regarding
beings? Although Heidegger would not be opposed to a meditative
openness, he would not urge the abandonment of beings. The reason for
this is that Being and beings essentially presuppose one another. lt is
true that identifiable beings presuppose the disclosedness of Being, or
Being is in this way the ground of beings, but Heidegger adds that 'not
only does Being ground beings as their ground, but beings in their tum
ground, cause Being in their way. Beings can do so only insofar as they
130 Thinking Difference

"are" the fullness of Seing: they are what is most of all.' 2 1 Seing and
beings are thus involved in what Heidegger calls 'reciprocal reflection,'
or 'the circling of Seing and beings around each other.' Moreover, this
circling implies for Heidegger a free space, an empty region, which
allows for the lingering presence and presencing - that is, circling of
presence and presencing - of beings. This circling is simply the ontolog­
ical difference, and it is precisely this, Heidegger daims, that is to be
thought: 'Seing essentially occurs in that it - the freedom of the free
region itself - libera tes all beings to themselves. It remains what is to be
thought by thinking.' 22
To think Seing, therefore, and to think the ontological difference
between Seing and beings, does not require for Heidegger the abandon­
ment of beings; instead, we are to think beings with respect to the noth­
ingness which they presuppose, or we are to think beings with respect
to what they are 'not.' This 'not' is not a simple negation of beings, a
negation which leaves us with an empty void. The thinking of this nega­
tion is a thinking that confronts the non-identifiable condition for the
possibility of identifying beings, a condition which, precisely because it
cannot be identified, provokes anxiety. Thus, in his Introduction to Meta­
physics, Heidegger argues that 'anxiety is being "at one with" beings
that are slipping away as a whole,' and adds that 'in anxiety nothing is
encountered at one with beings as a whole.' 23 To think Seing as the
negation or nothingness essentially related to beings is not to abandon
beings, for this nothingness is at 'one with beings as a whole'; instead,
this thinking confronts the non-identifiable condition for the possibility
of identifying beings, and in doing so this thinking involves anxiety.
Is this discussion of anxiety in the face of thinking nothingness to be
seen as a product of Heidegger's early, subject or Dasein-oriented
work, a discussion which becomes irrelevant in his later works? Such a
dismissal would be unwarranted, we argue, for what Heidegger refers
to in 1943 as the 'narcotization of anxiety in the face of thinking' will
continue implicitly as the basis for his critique of technology, a critique
Heidegger continued to set forth up to the end of his career. This will
become especially clear as we compare and contrast Deleuze and
Heidegger, especially their views regarding technology and capitalism.
It is therefore to this discussion that we now turn.

IV

One issue which Deleuze and Heidegger initially appear to be in

agreement on, or even an issue sorne could argue Deleuze simply
 Heidegger and Deleuze on Aristotle 131

appropriated from Heidegger, is the notion of the 'event.' It is well

known among Deleuze scholars that the concept 'event' is one of the
more important within the Deleuze (and Deleuze-Guattari) corpus. As
Deleuze understands 'event,' such as sense, which is for him an event,
it is neither to be identified with states of affairs in the world or with
the propositions which refer to these states of affairs; rather, an event is
the non-identifiable, unique singularity which allows for the possibil­
ity of identifying and reiating states of affairs to propositions. An event
thus functions as what Deleuze refers to as a 'differenciator of differ­
ence;' that is, as differenciator, an event allows for the recognition and
identification of difference, for example, the difference between states
of affairs and propositions.
But was this not already Heidegger' s position? The ontological differ­
ence, as we saw, is not a difference between identifiable entities - Being
and beings - but is rather the condition of possibility for identifying and
differentiating between beings. The ontological difference is itself, to
use Deleuze's terminology, a differenciator of difference. Furthermore,
Heidegger will also refer to the ontological difference in its capacity as
differenciator of difference by the term 'event' (Ereignis). Thus, in Time
and Being, Heidegger daims, 'What determines both, time and Being, in
their own, that is, in their belonging together, we shall call: Ereignis, the
event of Appropriation.' 24 This event, moreover, is not simply one state
of affairs among others, or one identifiable occurrence among others,
but as the differenciator of difference the event is the condition of pos­
sibility for identifiable occurrences: an "'event" is not simply an occur­
rence, but that which makes any occurrence possible/ 25 Heidegger also
refers to these events, as does Deleuze, as singularities, or as a condition
which is non-identifiable, unique, and incomparable: 'The term event of
appropriation here no longer means what we would otherwise call a
happening, an occurrence. It now is used as a singulare tantum. What it
indicates happens only in the singular, no, not in any number, but
uniquely.' 26
These obvious parallels between Heidegger and Deleuze did not go
unnoticed by Deleuze. In Difference and Repetition, for example, Deleuze
argues that with Heidegger's notion of the ontological difference he
appears to set forth an understanding of the differencia tor of difference,
though Deleuze believes that ultimately Heidegger did not follow
through on this attempt to set forth a philosophy of difference which
thinks difference as difference. To see why Deleuze makes this daim, it
will be helpful if we first tum to Deleuze's critique of Aristotle. This will
prove useful, for although both Deleuze and Heidegger believe Aristo-
1 32 Thinking Difference

tle never adequate!y thought difference as difference, an examination of

Deleuze's critique of Aristotle will ultimately reveal why Deleuze feels
this same criticism applies to Heidegger as well.
Deleuze' s criticism of Aristotle occupies only a few pages of his
work Difference and Repetition; and yet the significance of these pages,
especially as they relate to Deleuze's criticism of Heidegger, should
not be underestimated. Deleuze's criticism of Aristotle, in short, is that
while Aristotle recognizes the importance and productive nature of
difference, this difference nonetheless is subordinate to identity, and in
two fundamental ways. The first way in which the productive nature
of difference, that is, the differenciator of difference, is grounded in
identity is with the identity of substance-species, or what Deleuze
refers to as infima species:

The determination of species links difference with difference [i.e., differ­

ence which determines species - e.g., rationality - with difference which
constitutes genus - e.g., animal vs. non-animal, etc.] across successive lev­
els of division, like a transport of difference, a diaphora of diaphora, until
a final difference, that of the infima species, condenses in the chosen
direction the entirety of the essence and its continued quality, gathers
them under an intuitive concept and grounds them along with the term to
be defined, thereby becoming itself something unique and indivisible
[atomon, adiaphoron, eidos] . 27

As a species, difference determines human beings by differentiating

them from other animais - humans have rationality. As an animal,
however, humans are different from non-animais such as geometrie
figures, rocks, etc. In the Aristotelian scheme, therefore, difference is
productive of the categories within which things are identified, yet this
productive power of difference is limited by the ultimate determina­
tion of an identifiable substance-species, the infima species. Difference is
thus subservient to the end of determining an ultimate identity, a non­
difference [adiaphora] .
The second way i n which difference is subservient to identity is more
complex, although initially it is straightforward enough. Put simply,
the determination of species and the productive power of difference is
limited by the genus within which these differences occur. Aristotle, we
will recall, argued that difference within genus is the greatest differ­
ence, and beyond that there was no difference because differences
between genera had no basis for comparison and hence could not be
 Heidegger and Deleuze on Aristotle 1 33

discussed or thought (except theologically). Differences within a genus

- that is, species - do have such a basis for comparison and are there­
fore the only differences that can be thought. Deleuze recognizes that
for Aristotle 'specifie difference is maximal and perfect, but only on
condition of the identity of an undetermined concept [i.e., genus] .' 28
However, this leaves the question of the difference between genera
unanswered. Perhaps it could not be answered since such an answer
would entail the identity of a concept, and since the difference between
genera are not subsumed by such a concept an answer is not possible.
Deleuze recognizes this possible approach to understanding difference:
'genera as ultimate determinable concepts (categories) ... are not subject
to the condition that they share an identical concept or a common
genus.' 29 The reason for this, of course, is that being is not a genus.
There opens up, then, as Deleuze reads Aristotle, a fracture within Aris­
totle's thought between a difference that is subservient to the identity
of a concept (species difference) and a difference that is not subservient
to such an identity:

It is as though there were two 'Logoi,' differing in nature but intermin­

gled with one another: the logos of Species, the logos of what we think
and say, which rests upon the condition of the identity or univocity of
concepts in general taken as genera; and the logos of Genera, the logos of
what is thought and said through us, which is free of that condition and
operates both in the equivocity of Being and in the diversity of the most
general concepts. When we speak the univocal, is it not still the equivocal
which speaks within us?

With this fracture in Aristotle's thinking of difference, Deleuze feels

that an opportunity for a philosophy of difference emerges - namely, a
philosophy which does not think difference in terms of identity, but
thinks difference as difference. Despite this opportunity, however,
Deleuze goes on to say, 'Nothing of this kind occurs with Aristotle';30
the opportunity for a philosophy of difference is missed.
What Aristotle does to turn away from this opportunity, as dis­
cussed above, is to understand generic difference with respect to the
analogy of the productive relationship itself, a relationship that is
established and assured by the identity of the unmoved mover, the one
heaven; and furthermore, the essence of each and every productive
relationship, regardless of the genus, is such that it can be named. In
other words, despite the differences in genera, there persists the iden-
134 Thinking Difference

tity of productivity itself, and for this reason Deleuze condudes that
Aristotle does not follow through on the opportunity to develop a phi­
losophy of difference: 'The fact is that generic or categorial difference
remains a difference in the Aristotelian sense and does not collapse
into simple diversity or otherness. An identical or common concept
thus still subsists, albeit in a very particular manner.' 3 1 This particular
manner is precisely the analogical identity of the productive relation­
ship, or it is the identity which allows itself to be named or expressed
in the form of judgments. There is not a difference, in other words, that
cannat be thought, named, and judged. Thus, Deleuze condudes:

Whereas specifie difference is content to inscribe difference in the identity

of the indeterminate concept in general, generic (distributive and hierar­
chical) difference is content in turn to inscribe difference in the quasi­
identity of the most general determinable concept; that is, in the analogy
within judgment itself.32

Aristotle does not think difference as difference, and in fact, for

Deleuze, Aristotle initiates a tradition in philosophy which is based
upon a confusion that prevents thinking difference as difference.
Deleuze daims that this occurs when

assigning a distinctive concept of difference is confused with the inscrip­

tion of difference within concepts in general - the determination of the
concept of difference is confused with the inscription of difference in the
identity of an undetermined concept.33

Rather than developing a concept of difference which gives credit to its

productive nature, that is, differenciator of difference, and hence rather
than thinking difference as difference, this task of thinking becomes
confused with developing a concept of difference in terms of its inscrip­
tion within the identity of an undetermined concept, such as genus or
the analogy within judgment in the case of Aristotle. In Aristotle, there­
fore, 'we never discover,' according to Deleuze, a philosophical appre­
ciation and thinking of the 'differenciator of difference.' 34
We can now relate Deleuze's critique of Aristotle to his critique of
Heidegger. At first such an attempt seems unwarranted, for, as Deleuze
himself admits, Heidegger does appear to develop a notion of Being
which appreciates difference as the differencia tor of difference. 'Being,'
Deleuze daims, 'is truly the differenciator of difference - whence the
 Heidegger and Deleuze on Aristotle 1 35

expression "ontological difference."' 35 Later in the same work, Deleuze

reiterates this same point:

In accordance with Heidegger's ontological intuition, difference inust be

articulation and connection in itself; it must relate different to different
without any mediation whatsoever by the identical, the similar, the analo­
gous or the opposed. There must be a differenciation of difference, an in­
itelf which is like a differenciator, a Sich-unterscheidende, by virtue of
which the different is gathered ali at once rather than represented on con­
dition of a prior resemblance, identity, analogy or opposition.36

Deleuze's critique of Aristotle's failure to think difference as differ­

ence appears then merely to echo Heidegger's own critique of Aristo­
tle. Their respective critiques of Aristotle are largely in agreement, but
as Heidegger develops his understanding of Being as differenciator of
difference, Deleuze finds two key problems which ultirnately under­
mine Heidegger's efforts. His first objection is that Heidegger under­
stands difference as a means for gathering into the same, or difference
appears to be mediated by the primai and inviolable unity of a self­
contained, pure and simple Being. His second objection is that Heideg­
ger's tendency to contrast Being with the fullness of beings, or to strike
through Being as the nothingness opposed to beings, has the conse­
quence of denying reality and fullness to Being, or to the differencia tor
of difference, which is something Deleuze refuses to do.
As for the first objection, it is certainly clear that Heidegger empha­
sizes the role of the same, whereby the same is that w!:Uch 'gathers
what is distinct into an original being-at-one.' 37 However, Heidegger
also stressed, as we saw, that this gathering into an original 'being-at­
one' is not, à la Aristotle, subordinate to the identity of substance-spe­
cies, to a one that can be named, but rather it allows for the lingering
presence whereby one can identify a being. Similarly for the second
objection, it is true that Heidegger contrasts Being as nothingness with
the identity and fullness of beings. For example, Heidegger argues that
scientists are concemed solely with 'beings, and beyond that - noth­
ing,' and adds that 'when science tries to express its proper essence it
calls upon the nothing for help. lt has recourse to what it rejects.' 38 This
nothing, moreover, is not to be confused with the beings science inter­
rogates, and hence the nothing is not to be interrogated in the manner
of science: 'Interrogating the nothing - asking what and how it, the
nothing, is - tums what is interrogated into its opposite.' 39 Neverthe-
1 36 Thinking Difference

less, Heidegger stresses that the nothing is not an empty void, nor
should it be understood to be in opposition to beings, for the nothing,
as we saw, is reciprocally and essentially related to the beings it
grounds; or the nothing is inseparable from beings, even though it is
not to be confused or identified with them, or as one of them (and this
is precisely how Deleuze characterizes the event).
lt seems, then, that Deleuze's criticisms of Heidegger might not stand
up to a more thorough examination of Heidegger' s texts. We argue that
this is not the case. A more thorough examination of Heidegger's texts,
and in particular a close analysis of his criticisms of the West's techno­
logical, capitalist-dominated society, will show that Deleuze's criticisms
are indeed valid. To gain a better understanding of these criticisms,
therefore, and to clarify further the sense in which Deleuze sets forth a
philosophy of difference, we tum now to their critiques of capitalist
society.

We begin this section with an appeal Heidegger makes to refrain from

tuming away from the nothing, or from Being: 'The more we tum
toward beings in our preoccupations the less we let beings as a whole
slip away as such and the more we tum away from the nothing. Just as
surely do we hasten into the public superficies of existence.' 40 The
more we get caught up in beings, in the everyday superficies of life, the
less we attend to what is essential, to Being (the nothing). More to the
point, the dominance of capitalism and technological expansion and
control in Western cultures represents for Heidegger a frenzied
attempt to make up for the lack of what is essential by excessively con­
trolling and arranging the everyday world of beings:

The consumption of ail materials, including the raw material 'man,' for the
unconditioned possibility of the production of everything is determined in
a concealed way by the complete emptiness in which beings, the materials
of what is real, are suspended. This emptiness has to be filled up. But since
the emptiness of Being can never be filled up by the fullness of beings,
especially when this emptiness can never be experienced as such, the only
way to escape it is incessantly to arrange beings in the constant possibility
of being ordered as the form of guaranteeing aimless activity.41

To retum to our earlier theme of the 'narcotization' in the face of the

 Heidegger and Deleuze on Aristotle 137

anxiety provoked by nothingness, we can see here a similar theme and

concem being expressed: in the face of the emptiness of Being, the
resulting anxiety inspires a mad, futile effort to fill this emptiness with
an ever-increasing ordering of beings. This futile effort finds its grea test
expression in technology and capitalism; however, the technological/
capitalist exploitation and ordering of beings does not attend to Being;
but, rather, it is precisely the tuming away from Being which accounts
for the rampant success of technological expansion. And it is .this failure
to attend to Being, to the nothingness, which concerns Heidegger. The
reason for this is that Heidegger believes that a proper attunement to
Being would lead to a respect for the intrinsic limitations and possibili­
ties of Being. Because the technological/ capitalist world view is one
that tums away from Being, the result is a transgression of these intrin­
sic limitations and possibilities. The consequence for Heidegger is that
'technology drives the earth beyond the developed sphere of its possi­
bility into such things which are no longer a possibility and are thus the
impossible.' And, a few !ines later, Heidegger adds:

It is one thing just to use the earth, another to receive the blessing of the
earth and to become at home in the law of this reception in order to shep­
herd the mystery of Being and watch over the inviolability of the possible.42

It is at this point where Deleuze's criticism of Heidegger becomes

more clear, though on fust reading one might not think so since
Deleuze, too, will criticize the excesses of capitalism, or the excesses of
capitalist/technological processes of appropriation. 43 The basis for
Deleuze's criticisms, however, is quite different from Heidegger's.
Whereas Heidegger accuses technological/ capitalist expansion of vio­
lating the simplicity and limitations of Being, Deleuze argues that cap­
italism improperly staves off its condition of possibility - chaos.
The key here is clearly the term 'chaos' (as was also true in the previ­
ous chapter). Deleuze and Guattari discuss chaos at greatest length in
their last collaborative work, What Is Philosophy? In this work, they
define chaos and explicitly contrast it with nothingness:

Chaos is defined not so much by its disorder as by the infinite speed

which every form taking shape in it vanishes. It is a void that is not a
nothingness but a virtual, containing ali possible particles and drawing
out ali possible forms, which spring up only to disappear immediately,
without consistency or reference, without consequence.44
138 Thinking Difference ·

lt is true that Heidegger also thought of Being as a nothingness which is

not simply the lack of being; however, Deleuze's point is that Heideg­
ger's tendency to use the word 'Being,' and to strike through Being,
leads one to the conclusion that whereas beings are the fullness of Being,
Being itself is empty. Deleuze daims quite the opposite: it is not beings
that are full, but Being as chaos which is the fullness that gives rise to
beings when the infinite speeds and inconsistencies are limited and
slowed to a level where consistency, and hence beings, can emerge.
Heidegger was right to daim that Being should not be thought in terms
of beings, but not because it is the nothingness which allows for the
presencing of full presence; rather, it is because Being is the chaotic full­
ness which exceeds the intrinsic limitations of finite beings.
In the context of their discussion of capitalism, many of these same
points are made. For example, Deleuze and Guattari argue, along with
Heidegger, that capitalism is excessive, and to the extent that it is
excessive, it merely recapitula tes its condition of possibility - chaos. In
other words, capitalism institutes chaos as part of its process of creat­
ing an increasing number of new markets, products, etc., and this is a
process which necessarily involves the undermining of (Deleuze and
Guattari use the word 'deterritorializes') old markets, or at least the
transformation of these markets. Yet it is precisely chaos which for
Deleuze and Guattari is the condition of possibility for such creative
changes and transformations. At the same time, however, if capitalism
is to function, it must forever avert completely realizing its condition
of possibility, for if it were to do so the markets would lack the consis­
tency and predictability necessary to make profits. This point is made
quite explicitly in Anti-Oedipus, though here they use the word 'schizo­
phrenia' in much the same way they will later use the word 'chaos' :

One can say that schizophrenia is the exterior limit of capitalism itself or
the conclusion of its deepest tendency, but that capitalism only functions
on condition that it inhibit this tendency, or that it push back or displace
this limit, by substituting for it its own immanent relative limits, which it
continually reproduces on a widened scale.45

Deleuze's critique of the excessive controls of capitalism, therefore,

will not be based, as with Heidegger, on the theory that it transgresses
the inviolability of Being, or the mystery of the Same; to the contrary,
Deleuze's criticisms are based on the assumption that capitalism
improperly staves off chaos, or that it improperly limits a chaos that
al ways already transgresses whatever limitations might be set forth.
 Heidegger and Deleuze on Aristotle 1 39

What would properly staving of the chaos entail? Simply put, chaos
is understood as the differencia tor of difference, or that which produces
and creates difference without being mediated in any way by identity.
Chaos is what is to be instituted for the possibility of change, or for the
possibility of thinking and feeling differently. Such change is clearly
necessary, as is stability, for in a world of change and becoming we must
forever dip into the chaos to be able to initiate and carry forward
change. Without sufficient stability, we lack the consistency necessary
to survive; without sufficient chaos, we lack the ability to change and
adapt (see the previous chapter). A proper use of chaos, therefore,
would function as a dynamical system and hence stave off chaos for the
sake of being able to function, while remaining attuned to Being, to
chaos, as the ever-present possibility of difference, of thinking, feeling,
acting differently, etc. An improper use of chaos, from Deleuze's point
of view, would therefore be one that holds the differentia ting power of
chaos subservient to identity. And this is precisely what occurs in capi­
talism, and even according to the self-acknowledged admission of cap­
italists themselves, such as Peter Lynch, the legendary one-time
Magellan fund manager at Fidelity. Lynch clearly recognizes that the
processes of capitalism are subservient to the production of homogene­
ity and sameness rather than difference: 'The very homogeneity of taste
in food and fashion that makes for a dull culture also makes fortunes for
owners of retail companies and of restaurant companies as well. What
sells in one town is almost guaranteed to sell in another ... '46
We can now make better sense of Deleuze's criticism of Heidegger.
First, just as Deleuze criticizes the capitalist appropriation of difference
for the sake of producing the same - that is, the same consumers coming
back again and again; so too does Deleuze criticize Heidegger's daim
that difference is the means whereby an 'original being-at-one' is gath­
ered. By arguing for this 'gathering by way of the difference,' Heidegger
is continuing in the tradition which fails to think difference as differ­
ence, that is, as the differenciator of difference. This is further exacer­
bated by Heidegger's tendency to refer to Being as a simple unity with
intrinsic limitations of possibility. This was exemplified most in Heideg­
ger's critique of the technological exploitation of the earth. The problem
with this, for Deleuze, is that Heidegger again seems to call for a differ­
ence that is subordinate to a more fundamental unity and identity; and
it is hard not to come to this conclusion when Heidegger himself uses
the word 'the Same' to characterize Being. Deleuze will thus conclude
that by contrasting the same with the identical, rather than contrasting
the same and identical with the different, Heidegger betrays his contin-
140 Thinking Difference

ued adherence to a philosophical tradition which has failed to think

difference as difference. 47 Deleuze's criticism of Aristotle, namely, that
difference is thought only as inscribed within the identity of a general
concept, can in turn be directed towards Heidegger' s understanding of
difference as that which is self-inscribed within the inviolable unity and
purity of Being. 48
Despite these differences, it is important to note, as we close this chap­
ter, that in many ways Deleuze is continuing the Heideggerean tradition,
in particular Heidegger' s understanding of authenticity. Heidegger and
Deleuze will each lambast against the preponderance of homogeneity
and samenenss in daily life. In a passage from Being and Time, for exam­
ple, Heidegger argues that this homogeneity is a result of the 'dictator-
·

ship of the they':

We take pleasure and enjoy ourselves as they take pleasure; we read, see,
and judge about literature and art as they see and judge; likewise we shrink
back from the 'great mass' as they shrink back; we find 'shocking' what they
find shocking. The 'they,' which is nothing definite, and which all are,
though not as the sum, prescribes the kind of Being of everydayness.49

· Deleuze, as we have been arguing, disagrees sharply with the ulti­

mate justification Heidegger gives for his critique of the homogeneity
of the everyday. By basing this critique on the Sameness of Being rather
than the differencia ting difference of Chaos, Deleuze feels that Heideg­
ger ultimately remains within the tradition of philosophy which fails to
.
think difference. When one takes this criticism into account, and if one
accepts Deleuze's daim that Being is ultimately a Chaos of infinite,
inconsistent speeds which is not the emptiness and nothingness that
conditions the fullness of beings, but rather the excessive fullness that
only allows for the emergence of beings when slowed and limited; if
this is ali taken into account, then Deleuze and Heidegger sound
remarkably similar. Deleuze thus echoes Heidegger:

For there is no other aesthetic problem than that of the insertion of art into
everyday life. The more our daily life appears standardized, stereotyped
and subject to an accelerated reproduction of objects of consumption, the
more art must be injected into it in order to extract from it that little differ­
ence which plays simultaneously between other levels of repetition, and
even in order to make the two extremes resonate - namely, the habituai
series of consumption and the instinctual series of destruction and death.50
 Heidegger and Deleuze on Aristotle 141

At this point we could return to the themes of the previous chapter -

that is, realizing the chaos within, or injecting art into everyday life,
while avoiding the dual dangers of cliché and madness. We could then
focus upon the notion of chaos in Deleuze's work and see in what way
it moves beyond Heidegger, or how it is to be understood in the context
of thinking difference. Before turning to these themes, however, in the
next chapter we will first examine the work of a near contemporary of
Deleuze - Derrida. Derrida will also emphasize the importance of a fun­
damental difference that cannot, nor should not, be subsumed by the
logic of identity. Furthermore, Derrida is clearly following in the foot­
steps of Heidegger, more so than Deleuze at least; and in many ways
Derrida's critique of metaphysics extends Heidegger's own critique.
And finally, Derrida also stresses a theme that is dear both to Heidegger
and Deleuze, and a theme that has been central to this work - that is, the
role of doing philosophy as thinking the uncommon within the corn­
mon. A discussion of Derrida will therefore bring together many of the
themes and issues that have been the concern of this work, and it will
further highlight the differences between what we argue is Deleuze's
dynamical systems approach to doing philosophy and the approaches
of philosophers such as Heidegger and Derrida. The next chapter will
also begin addressing the problems that remain, problems that will be
taken up most fully in chapter 6 when we rethink system.
5 Thinking and the Loss of System:

Derrida and Deleuze on Artaud

In our critique of Heidegger in the previous chapter, we did not ade­

quately address sorne important themes which, in light of Derrida's
work, may very weil take the wind out of the sails of our critique. In
particular, by arguing as we did that chaos is the fullness of being, the
excessive fullness that allows for the identification of beings when this
excessiveness is slowed and limited, we appear to endorse a position
that Derrida subjects to critique and deconstruction - namely, the full­
ness or presence of being. Derrida's critique of presence, in short, is
implicitly a critique of our (and Deleuze's) position. To take the full­
ness of chaos as the condition for the possibility of identifying beings,
Deleuze, Derrida would argue, would continue in the metaphysical
tradition which understands identity and truth in terms of an always
presupposed, unquestioned, metaphysical presence. 1 By basing an
understanding of the emergence of stable forms and identities on the
grounds of the fullness and excessiveness of chaos, we seem then to be
open to Derrida's objection that identity is being understood in terms
of an unquestioned, presupposed identity (chaos as fullness and pres­
ence). We have failed to think difference. Moreover, in Derrida's exten­
sion of Heidegger's critique of presence, Derrida explicitly utilizes this
critique in an effort to think difference, or to think/ write the uncom­
mon within the common and self-evident. Derrida states this openly in
his work Of Grammatology: 'To make enigmatic what one thinks one
understands by the words "proximity," "immediacy," "presence," ... is
my final intention in this book.' 2 Consequently, in order to show that
our critique of Heidegger is not susceptible to Derrida's (and Heideg-
 Derrida and Deleuze on Artaud 143

ger's) own critique of the metaphysics of presence, we must further

elaborate upon Derrida's critique of presence and then compare this
with Deleuze's critique of the metaphysical tradition.
Derrida's critique of metaphysics surfaces primarily, as we stated
above, as a critique of presence, or, to be more precise, it is a critiqu e of
the simultaneity and self-presence the metaphysical tradition presup­
poses. Related to this critique is the critique of the fundamental either 1
ors and dualities which are the stock and trade of metaphysics. If the
purity and inviolability of tru th is taken, as Derrida believes it is, within
the metaphysical tradition to be equivalent to the presence and fullness
of that which is 'self-evident,' then that which lacks this self-evidence
and purity is impure, vulgar, or false. The pure/impure, true/false,
original/copy, transcendent/worldly distinctions are the either/ors
and dualities which are the unquestioned givens that for Derrida both
founds the tradition of metaphysics and continues to circula te through­
out it. On this point Derrida follows Heidegger; in particular, Derrida
recognizes that the reason Heidegger referred to Nietzsche as the 'last
metaphysician' was precisely because Nietzsche continued to adhere to
an unquestioned duality. To recall our earlier quote, Heidegger notes
that in his reversai of Plato' s understanding of the relationship between
the sensuous and the supersensuous (i.e., the Forms), Nietzsche contin­
ues to adhere to the sense of an 'above and a below'; he only reverses the
priority of the two, and thus 'as long as the "above and below" define
the fonnal structure of Platonism, Platonism in its essence perdures.
The inversion does not achieve what it must ... namely, an overcoming
of Platonism in its very foundations.' 3
Derrida accepts Heidegger's critique of metaphysics, but he does not
read Nietzsche as one who necessarily falls into this Platonic tradition.
In Derrida's attempt 'to save Nietzsche from a reading of the Heideg­
gerian type,' he daims that in reading Nietzsche one must

accentuate the 'naieveté' of a breakthrough which cannot criticize meta­

physics radically without still utilizing in a certain way, in a certain type or
a certain style of text, propositions that, read within the philosophie cor­
pus, that is to say according to Nietzsche ill-read or unread, have always
been and will always be 'naievetés' incoherent signs of an absolute appur­
tenance. Therefore, rather than protect Nietzsche from the Heideggerian
reading, we should perhaps offer him up to it completely [and then dis­
cover that] [h]e [Nietzsche] has written that writing - and first of ali his
own - is not originally subordinate to the logos and to truth.4
1 44 Thinking Difference

In reading Nietzsche, or in extending Heidegger' s reading of Nietzsche,

Derrida argues that one recovers the 'absolute strangeness' of what he
has written. This writing is not a reversai of rnetaphysics in the sense
that it offers sornething other to replace this tradition; instead, one
encounters what Derrida will refer to as a 'trace,' an undecidable, an
excess of rnetaphysics [i.e., a trace] which is not strictly to be identified
within the pararneters of rnetaphysics [i.e., and thus be susceptible to a
Heideggerian reading], nor is it sornething identifiably other than rneta­
physics. It is a both/ and, or it is a writing that is 'not originally subor­
dina te to the logos and to truth,' and hence to the either 1 or this irnplies.
ln his essay on Bataille, Derrida finds in Bataille's notion of the 'sov­
ereign' an operation or writing which is in excess of a: writing based in
a rnetaphysics of identity (what Bataille calls the Lord function), yet
'this transgression of discourse [and rnetaphysics] must,' Derrida con­
tinues, in sorne fasion 'conserve or confirrn that which it exceeds.' 5 ln
contrast to the Hegelian Aufhebung, which also surpasses and con­
serves, the Hegelian transgression and excess is always subordinate to
the identity of the system which is corning into self-realization (i.e., the
Lord function). For Bataille, to the contrary, and sirnilarly for Derrida's
reading of Nietzsche, the transgression and excess which preserves is
an 'ernpty forrn of the Aufhebung,' or it is used 'in an analogical fash­
ion, in order to designate, as was never done before, the transgressive
relationship which links the world of rneaning to the world of non­
rneaning.' 6 ln other words, Bataille and Nietzsche, in their writing, do
not write an excess which would point to another writing, an alterna­
tive to rnetaphysics. Their writing is an excess of rnetaphysics which
confirrns and preserves it by unsettling it, or by the 'absolute strange­
ness' of the trace whereby this rnetaphysics is inextricably tied to non­
rnetaphysics, presence is tied to absence, purity to irnpurity, truth to fal­
sity, etc. As Derrida reads Nietzsche, therefore, he does not follow the
Heideggerean reading which assumes a continued adherence to an
either 1 or; rather, Derrida finds in Nietzsche a writing which is critical
or beyond such either 1 ors.
Moreover, in Derrida's most extended treatrnent of Heidegger, Derr­
ida argues that in his reading of Aristotle, Heidegger hirnself presup­
poses the dualities of rnetaphysics he finds in Aristotle (and in
Nietzsche as we saw). Despite this eventual criticisrn, Derrida largely
accepts and endorses what he sees, in his essay 'Ousia and Gramme,' as
Heidegger' s atternpt to think 'Being and tirne otherwise than on the
basis of the present.' More to the point, Derrida adds that for Heidegger
 Derrida and Deleuze on Artaud 145

'it is not a question of proposing that we think otherwise, if this means

to think sorne other thing. Rather, it is thinking that which could not
have been, nor thought, otherwise. There is prod uced in the thought of
the impossibility of the otherwise ... a certain difference, a certain trem­
bling, a certain decentering that is not the position of an other center.' 7
It is in this manner, then, that Derrida reads Heidegger's long footnote
towards the end of Being and Time. In the note, Heidegger briefly
sketches the manner in which Hegel's philosophy of Nature extends
and is indebted to Aristotle. In particular, Hegel's understanding of
time in terms of the 'now' follows Aristotle's placing of the essence of
time in the nun (present). In doing this, Heidegger daims that by show­
ing the 'connection between Hegel's conception of time and Aristotle's
analysis, we are not accusing Hegel of any "dependence" on Aristotle,
but calling attention to the ontological import which this filiation has in
principle for the Hegelian logic.' 8
It is this latter point which is key, both for Derrida and Heidegger,
and the 'ontological import' of the filiation between Aristotle and Hegel
reveals its significance, for Derrida, with Aristotle's aporia regarding
time. In the Physics, Aristotle asks whether time belongs to beings or
non-beings. When time is understood on the basis of the now, the
present (nun), time is not. The reason for this is that each instant, each
now, is simultaneously9 both what is becoming past, or is no longer, and
coming into being, or not yet is. If one thinks of time from the perspec­
tive of passing presents, or what Derrida calls the vulgar, everyday con­
ception of time, then time is not. Nevertheless, by virtue of the fact that
we attribute temporal characteristics to things and events, we presup­
pose that in sorne sense time is. Derrida will later point out that Aristo­
tle, in the context of discussing Zeno's paradox, will repeat this aporia,
but he does so 'without deconstructing it.' 1 0 As Derrida puts Aristotle's
point: 'Time is not (among beings). It is nothingness because it is time,
that is a past or future now.' 11 In other words, if time is thought in terms
of the now, presence, then time is not, and yet this very argument pre­
supposes what time is (i.e., 'a past or future now [present, presence]'). It
is for this reason that Derrida will daim that for Aristotle 'Being is non­
time, time is nonbeing insofar .as being already, secretly has been deter­
mined as present, and beingness (ousia) as presence.' 1 2 It is this latter
secret determination, the presupposition of presence, which Aristotle
fails to deconstruct. And to deconstruct this presupposition involves,
for Derrida, revealing the necessary connection between presence and
absence, being and non-being, time and non-time. In short, Derrid a will
146 Thinking Difference

read in Aristotle, as he did with Nietzsche, the 'absolute strangeness' or

excess which is not subordinate to logos, truth, and presence. Derrida
will carry forward the deconstruction Aristotle failed to.
In subjecting Aristotle's understanding of time to a deconstructive
reading, Derrida will, as discussed above, render the self-evident enig­
matic, or reveal the 'absolute stÏ-angeness' within what is taken to be
obvious. In the text of Aristotle, this reading focuses upon a single word:

Aristotle' s text cornes down upon a word so small as to be hardly visible,

and hardly visible because it appears self-evident, as discreet as that
which goes without saying, a word that is self effacing, operating ali the
more effectively in that it evades thematic attention. That which goes
without saying, making discourse play itself out in its articulation, that
which henceforth will constitute the pivot of metaphysics, the small key
that both opens and closes the history of metaphysics in terms of what it
puts at stake, the clavicle on which the conceptual decision of Aristotle
bears down and is articulated, is the small word hama.13

Hama is the Greek word for 'together,' 'all at once,' 'at the same time.'
This word appears five times in the crucial passage from the Physics
where Aristotle puts forward the aporia regarding time (218a). lt is this
word, and the presupposed, unquestioned, and unthought duplicity
associated with 'at the same time,' 'simultaneous,' etc., which is what
allows for the possibility of the aporia as aporia. Consequently, if time
does not participa te in being, this is because time is thought in terms of
nows; thus, one now cannat follow another by immediately destroying
it, for then there would be no time (recall, time is past and future nows);
nows cannat follow one another with overlapping simultaneity, for
here too there would be no time, or no temporal distinction between
past and present; and finally, past and future nows cannat coexist 'at the
same time' in a single now, for then events distant in time would be
simultaneous. As Derrida concludes, the absurdity of the latter point is
made possible by virtue of 'the self-evidence of the "at the same time,"
that constitutes the aporia as aporia.' 14
This presupposed, unquestioned self-evidence of the 'at the same
time' results, as Derrida continues his reading of Aristotle, in sorne
strange conclusions. If time is not to be understood in terms of being,
then what truly is is not in time. This is precisely what Aristotle says
regarding the pure actualities, the Being in act, which is the presup­
posed actuality which allows for the possibility of potential Beings, or
 Derrida and Deleuze on Artaud 147

for the possibility that something has the potential to come into Being
and be actualized (recall our earlier discussion of this in the previous
chapter when we examined the distinction between dynamis and ener­
geia in greater detail). Since these etemal beings are what truly is, they
cannot be in time since time does not participa te in Being: 'Thus it is evi­
dent that eternal Beings (ta aei onta), as eternal, are not in time' (Physics
221b). 1 5 But Aristotle's very aporia is based on an assumption of what
time is - namely, it is a past or future now: 'One part of it has been and
is no longer; another part will be and is not yet. Such are the components
of time - of infinite time and of time considered in its incessant return.
Now it seems impossible that that which allows non-beings in its com­
position participates in beingness' (21 7b-a). This impossibility, as we
have seen Derrida point out, is an impossibility because of the presup­
posed self-evidence of the 'at the same time.' But because the nature of
what time is, is itself taken as a given, 'time,' Derrida continues, 'is not
non-Being, and non-Beings are not in time.' 16 In other words, for some­
thing to be in time it must have come into being, or it must have begun
a process whereby it becomes what it was not, or was only in potentia.
These beings that are in time, that are in various processes of becoming,
do not lack being according to Aristotle. These beings are not pure
Beings, for if they were they would not be 'in time' - they would be eter­
nal beings. Therefore, something which is not yet, or only potentially is,
is thus a non-Being which is not in time yet. Aristotle's conclusion, then,
as Derrida notes, is that 'it is evident that non-Being will not always be
in time' (221b). In short, and this is where Derrida's deconstructive
reading leads him, an understanding of time based on presence (Being)
necessarily involves and presupposes its other, absence (non-Being).
This is why the term hama ('at the same time') is so important in Der­
rida's reading of Aristotle, 'the pivot of metaphysics.' Aristotle's aporia
was constituted by, or based upon, the self-evidence that two different
things cannot be at the same time - for example, past/ future now and
present now could not coexist at the same time. But the very term hama
presupposes the coexistence, the duplicity, of different things at the
same time. What Aristotle failed to recognize, according to Derrida, is
that while this unquestioned self-evidence of the term hama allowed for
the possibility of the conclusion that etemal Beings are not in time, it
simultaneously led Aristotle to the conclusion that non-Beings 'will not
al ways be in time,' or that an understanding of time based on presence
simultaneously entails an understanding of time in terms of its other.
Derrida refers to the simultaneity of these two conclusions as 'a formai
148 Thinking Difference

rule for anyone wishing to read the texts of the history of metaphys­
ics.rt 7 In the context of Aristotle, this rule involves reading the term
hama, for example, as something that is simultaneously submitted as the
unquestioned premise upon which Aristotle bases his understanding of
time as well as his metaphysics. This self-evident given lays the founda­
tion, then, for the distinction between a pure Eternal Being that is not in
time and a fallen, temporally bound being, or a being that has fallen
from its pure state and is, but only 'barely and obscurely' is (Physics
218a). The term hama is submitted as the unquestioned ground for the
dualities of metaphysics (e.g., etemal being vs. finite, temporal being),
or it is, as Derrida says, the pivot of metaphysics. By contrast, and by
necessity, the presupposed duality and duplicity of the term hama must
be subtracted from what is acceptable or passes as tru th in metaphysics
- for example, past and future cannot be at the same time, something
cannot both be and not be. In reading Aristotle, therefore, Derrida
shows that hama is both submitted as the basis for thinking time and it
is subtracted from this thinking as the manner in which time is not to be
thought, or the manner in which it is impossible to think time. Derrida's
deconstructive reading does not offer an other reading, a pure as
opposed to an impure reading, but it reads a text in order to reveal the
impossible presupposed by the possible, or the enigmatic within the
self-evident. By following the formai rule Derrida proposes in reading
the texts of metaphysics, one does not leave metaphysics behind for
something else, a better alternative; one instead finds within metaphys­
ics itself that which exceeds it, or that which transgresses it while pre­
serving it.
Derrida will also apply this same formai rule to his reading of Heideg­
ger. For Derrida, despite the 'extraordinary trembling to which classical
ontology is subjected in Sein und Zeit [this book] still remains within the
grammar and lexicon of metaphysics.' 18 The reason for this is that
Heidegger, too, appears to presuppose the incompatibility of two differ­
ent times being at the same time, or of a pure and a fallen time. It is true
that Heidegger recognizes the metaphysical tendency to think the Being
of beings as presence rather than presencing, and for this Derrida
grea tly admires Heidegger, but then Heidegger refers to the time that is
thought in terms of beings (presence) as a falling from, or a forgetfulness
of, Being as presencing. 1 9 This falling from an authentic to an inauthen­
tic temporality is built in, so to speak, to the nature of temporality itself.
In other words, for Heidegger temporality includes both its authentic
and inauthentic modes. Heidegger has thus moved beyond Aristotle
 Derrida and Deleuze on Artaud 149

(and Hegel) by explicitly recognizing what was implicitly at work in

Aristotle (i.e., the presupposed duality of time, or hama). Where Derrida
daims Heidegger continues within the lexicon of metaphysics is with
his use of the term 'fallen' (Verfallen). Derrida asks of Heidegger: 'is not
the opposition of primordial to derivative still metaphysical? ... Why
determine as fall the passage from one temporality to another? And
why qualify temporality as authentic - or proper (eigentlich) - and as
inauthentic - or improper - when every ethical preoccupation has been
suspended?' 2° For Derrida, Heidegger continues to utilize the tradi­
tional metaphysical parameters and dualities, and rather than read the
excess or nonsense which both submits and is to be subtracted from the
meaning of these traditional terms, Heidegger instead inquires into the
meaning of being. This, in Derrida's view, accounts for the significance
of Heidegger' s closing question in Being and Time, a question concerning
'whether this primordial temporality constitutes the horizon of Being,
[or] if it leads to the meaning of Being.' 2 1 Such a question betrays, for
Derrida, a continued adherence to the metaphysical notions of purity,
systematic totality, and completeness or closure; consequently, it is an
assumed primordial temporality that leads Heidegger to ask whether it
constitutes the 'horizon of Being,' or whether it is the standard whereby
the meaning of being is fulfilled. To push Heidegger beyond metaphys­
ics, therefore, will not involve offering an alternative to Heidegger, but
rather it will read in Heidegger the excess or nonsense which is neces­
sarily presupposed by, and accompanies, the notions of completeness,
purity, etc. And this excess does not destroy Heidegger's metaphysics ­
to the contrary, it is the excess that is submitted and subtracted by the
metaphysics it makes possible.
On reading Heidegger in accordance with his formai rule, Derrida
argues that the plentitude and fullness of authentic, primordial tempo­
rality is made possible by the 'absolute strangeness' of an enigmatic,
undecidable trace; and it is this trace which must be subtracted,
excluded, and suppressed if the metaphysical text is to achieve com­
pleteness. Heidegger's thought of a primordial temporality and the
horizon of Being is therefore a thought based on the fullness and plen­
titude of presence. Consequently, Derrida's critique of presence will
apply to Heidegger as weil, for Heidegger continues to take, much as
Aristotle did, as unquestioned the self-evidence of plentitude, presence,
purity, and completeness. Derrida's critical response to this metaphysi­
cal approach, therefore, or his effort to think difference, involves reveal­
ing the 'absolute strangeness,' the enigmatic, which the self-evidence of
1 50 Thinking Difference

metaphysies presupposes. The plentitude, as Derrida will argue, is con­

ditioned by the undecidable trace, or what he also calls differance. As
Derrida puts it: 'The (pure) trace is differance. It does not depend on any
sensible plentitude, audible or visible, phonie or graphie. It is, on the
contrary, the condition of such plentitude.' 22 As its condition of possi­
bility, however, differance is also the presupposed difference which
defers and subverts efforts to overcome difference by virtue of the
purity and plentitude of something that is self-identieal. Differance is
thus the condition of impossibility for any complete, total, self-con­
tained system. In short, what Heidegger failed to recognize, as Derrida
reads (or deconstructs) him, is the impossibility of thinking 'the meaning
of Being.'
We can now further extend our earlier critique of Heidegger. Earlier
it was argued that Heidegger's definition of the Same as that which
'gathers what is distinct into an original being-at-one' betrayed an
adherence to an ideal of simplicity, purity, and self-containment. Differ­
ence, we argued, was reduced to the primordiality and simple identity
of this self-contained 'being-at-one.' Heidegger failed to think differ­
ence. Similarly, Derrida also sees in Heidegger the ideal of a primordial
plentitude from whieh other states fall or are derived (e.g., forgetfulness
of being), but then Heidegger does not recognize the fundamental dif­
ference (or differance, trace, etc.) whieh is the presupposed condition
for the possibility of this plentitude. Because he fails to recognize this
presupposed condition, he also fails to realize the impossibility of think­
ing a complete, pure, self-contained meaning of Being whereby every­
thing is gathered into an 'original [primordial] being-at-one.' Because of
this, Heidegger continues to hold to the possibility of thinking the mean­
ing of Being, a meaning which expresses the essence of Being as the sys­
tematic gathering of elements (i.e., differences) into an original being-at­
one. From Derrida's perspective as well, then, Heidegger fails to think
difference. Difference, and this was true of Hegel as weil, is ultimately
gathered by and subordinate to a fundamental identity - for Heidegger
this was the primordiality and inviolability of the Same (Being), and for
Hegel this was Spirit.
Derrida would clearly reject Hegel's view of system as well. Because
Hegel explicitly affirms an understanding of system whereby all differ­
ences between elements are related to one another by virtue of their
being subordinate to the self-identity of Spirit, then Derrida' s decon­
structive reading would uncover the enigmatie presupposed by Hegel' s
system. While Heidegger explicitly rejects understanding the differ-
 Derrida and Deleuze on Artaud 151

ences between beings (i.e., beings as presence) in terms of another being

(e.g., the self-presence or being of Spirit), his understanding of the pres­
encing of Being as the Same which gathers differences into an original
being-at-one ultimately repeats, if only implicitly, Hegel's position
regarding system. Derrida will subsequently argue that systems, as
with any complete, full presence and plentitude, presuppose the trace
(or differance) as their condition. Moreover, if we take into consider­
ation Derrida's daim that differance is 'an economie concept designat­
ing the production of differing/ deferring,' 23 then we can extend this
concept so as to understand more dearly Derrida' s position regarding
systems. For instance, in Of Grammatology, while discussing the linguis­
tic system presupposed by linguists such as Hjelmslev and Saussure,
Derrida daims:

It is because arche-writing, movement of differance [i.e., differance as 'pro­

duction of differing/ deferring'), irreducible arche-synthesis, opening in
one and the same possibility, temporalization as weil as relationship with
the other and language, cannot, as the condition of all linguistic systems,
form a part of the linguistic system itself and be situated as an abject in its
field. (Which does not mean it has a real field elsewhere, another assign­
able site.)24

lt is the movement of differance, the production of differing/ defer­

ring, which allows for the possibility that the terms of a language can be
related to the other terms of the language. 25 This is not to deny Saus­
sure's daim, and later Hjelmslev's, that there are systematic relation­
ships among the terms of a language. In his essay where he discusses
Saussure at length, Derrida recognizes the significance and validity of
Saussure's daim that the meaning of a word in a language is not a self­
identical entity, an entity independent of other words and meanings,
but rather it involves a necessary relationship to the other words of the
language (la langue as system). Much of Derrida's efforts at deconstruct­
ing texts, or following his 'formai rule,' involves showing that any daim
to have achieved a pure self-identity and presence necessarily presup­
poses (i.e., submits) and yet denies (i.e., subtracts) a fundamental differ­
ence, an other or absence which is inseparable from the proposed self­
identity and presence. What Derrida rejects in Saussure and Hjelmslev
is that they transfer the meaning of a word from the self-identity and
completeness of a meaning-in-itself to the self-identity and complete­
ness of the linguistic system. In either case, they fail to recognize the
1 52 Thinking Difference

movement of differance which allows for the possibility of thinking a

system as a complete, self-identical totality, but a movement that ren­
ders it impossible to think system as a complete, self-identical totality.
With this critique of Hjelmslev's and Saussure's understanding of
system, we seem to find common cause between Derrida and Deleuze.
In an earlier chapter, we showed how important the notion of a double
bind can be in understanding what is at work in Nietzsche, and then
with Deleuze as he extends Nietzsche's work. Likewise, with the Der­
ridean daim that differance allows for the possibility and impossibility
of thinking a system as a complete, self-identical totality, we once again
encounter an apparent double bind. Without repeating our earlier dis­
cussions in showing how Derrida and Deleuze agree in so many ways
(which we could do), it will be more helpful at this point to focus upon
sorne issues where they appear to differ. In particular, Deleuze will
often speak of the 'plane of consistency [plan de consistence]' in terms
that seem to echo Heidegger's references to the horizon of Being; more
importantly, Deleuze also accepts a view of completeness which Derr­
ida would reject. For example, in discussing the schizo-revolutionary in
Anti-Oedipus, Deleuze and Guattari argue that the processes associated
with genius may appear incomplete to others, though this is only
because, 'from the moment there is genius, there is something that
belongs to no school, no period, something that achieves a break­
throu�h - art as a process without goal, but that attains completion as
such.' 6 Moreover, in reference to the artistic and schizo-revolutionary
art experiments of Artaud, and to the completion inherent in the pro­
cess of such. experiments, Deleuze and Guattari retum to the use of the
metaphysical duality Derrida criticized in Heidegger - that is, the
pure/impure duality:

It is here [with Artaud for instance] that art accedes to its authentic moder­
nity, which simply consists in liberating what was present in art from its
beginnings, but was hidden underneath aims and objects, even if aes­
thetic, and underneath recodings or axiomatics: the pure process that fulfills
itself, and that never ceases to reach fulfillment as it proceeds - art as 'experi­
mentation.' 27

By focusing on these apparent differences, therefore, we can con­

front directly the possibility that Deleuze's understanding of chaos
may simply be a repetition of Heidegger's understanding of Being,
and hence be susceptible to a Derridean critique. To examine this pos-
 Derrida and Deleuze on Artaud 1 53

sibility, we will examine more closely Deleuze's and Derrida's inter­

pretations of Artaud. Both Derrida and Deleuze devoted much time to
writing on Artaud, and although Deleuze and Guattari may be better
known for adopting Artaud's phrase 'Body without Organs,' Derrida
himself has consistently, and throughout his career, retumed to the
writings of Artaud. 28 A brief discussion of Deleuze's and Derrida's
interpretations of Artaud, and in particular Artaud's use of the phrase
'Body without Organs,' will, it is hoped, allow us to address the poten­
tial problems with our earlier (Deleuzean) critique of Heidegger.

II

There has been a continuing fascination with the writings of Artaud.

This is no doubt in large part due to the rare combination of having tre­
mendous writing and poetic skills coupled with a constant and almost
obsessive process of self-examination regarding the mental illness one is
suffering. The result, in the case of Artaud, is a fascinating and disturb­
ing look into the mind of a schizophrenie. This same rare combination
was present in Daniel Schreber, and hence the continued interest in his
Memoirs of My Nervous Illness. This fascination with Artaud was present
from the beginning. ln his famous correspondence with Artaud, for
example, Jacques Rivière noted the striking contrast between 'the
extraordinary precision of your [Artaud's] self-diagnosis and the
vagueness, or at least the formlessness, of your creative efforts.1 29 How
could Artaud be so precise, so exacting in his self-examination, and yet
submit poetry for publication whieh, in the words of Rivière, fails to
'succeed in creating a sufficient unity of impression.' 30 It was precisely
this striking contrast, or the window which Artaud's writings opened
onto the mind of a schizophrenie, whieh ultimately led Rivière to ask
Artaud to publish their correspondence. This interest in Artaud has con­
tinued unabated.
From our perspective, Artaud's writings are no less interesting. As
both Deleuze and Derrida note, the problem for Artaud was one of
thinking, of being able to think something. Thus, when responding to
Rivière's criticism that his poems lack a 'unity of impression,' Artaud
says that it 'must be attributed not to a lack of practice, a lack of control
over the instrument 1 was handling ... but to a central collapse of the
soul, to a kind of erosion, both essential and fleeting, of the thought ... to
an abnormal separation of the elements of thought.' 3 1 What is needed,
Artaud says later, is to in sorne way 'restore to my mind the concentra-
1 54 Thinking Difference

tion of its forces, the cohesion that it lacks, the constancy of its tension,
the consistency of its own substance.' 32 In other words, the elements of
thought need to be systematieally gathered together to form the cohe­
sion and consistency whieh would then crystallize into the creation of
something that is thought, or a poem with 'unity of impression.' Artaud
states this need explicitly: 'A man possesses himself in flashes, and even
when he possesses himself, he does not reach himself completely. He
does not realize that constant cohesion of his forces without which ali true
creation is impossible.' 33 And again in another letter, Artaud complains
that at

the moment the soul is preparing to organize its wealth, its discoveries,
this revelation, at that unconscious moment when the thing is on the
point of coming forth, a superior and evil will attacks the soul like a poi­
son, attacks the mass consisting of word and image, attacks the mass of
feeling, and leaves me panting as if at the very door of life.34

lt is for these reasons that Artaud opened his first letter to Rivière with
the confession that

1 suffer from a horrible sickness of the mind. My thought abandons me at

every level. From the simple fact of thought to the extemal �act of its
materialization in words. Words, shapes of sentences, internai directions
of thought, simple reactions of the mind 1 am in constant pursuit of my
-

intellectual being.35

Artaud's observations of his mental state, and his interpretations of

what is going on, are echoed by many psychologists who have studied
schizophrenia. Andras Angyal, for example, in an essay written on
schizophrenia in 1939, argues that 'the thinking of the schizophrenie
patient is not impaired so far as apprehending of relationships is con­
cerned; the schizophrenie - when he fails in the solution of an intellec­
tual task - fails in the apprehension of system-connections.' 36 More
recently, Anton Ehrenzweig has reaffirmed this view of what is going
on in schizophrenie thought processes. What is interesting in Ehrenz­
weig's work, however, is that he explores the workings of the schizo­
phrenie mind by examining artworks, and in doing this he will come
close to the position Deleuze and Guattari put forward. As he puts it,

Psychosis and creativity may be two sides of the same coin. Both are in a
· sense self-destructive. But while the creative man can absorb the ego's
 Derrida and Deleuze on Artaud 155

temporary decomposition into the rhythm of creativity and achieve self­

regeneration, the psychotic is left only with the first schizoid phase of cre­
ativity. He has not learned to dedifferentiate the scattered fragments of
his surface ego. 37

In order to think, or in order to create (whieh are for Deleuze one and
the same thing),38 the elements of thought must be gathered into a
coherent system of interconnections, or they must be 'dedifferentiated.'
Artaud recognized this need, as well as his inability to attain it; or, in the
words of Angyal and Ehrenzweig, Artaud recognized his inabiltity to
apprehend 'system-connections,' 'to dedifferentiate the scattered frag­
ments of his surface ego.' Where Derrida's and Deleuze's interest with
these issues is most relevant, is not with the causes or reasons why the
schizophrenie has lost his /her hold on system, but rather with the
philosophieal implications the schizophrenie brings to bear on under­
standing the relationship between thought and system. In particular,
what they focus on are Artaud' s statements conceming what he believes
needs to go right for him to be 'normal,' for him to find and establish his
'intellectual being.' What, in other words, is the condition whieh allows
for the possibility of systematic unity, coherence, and consistency, and
thus for the possibility of thought and creativity? These are obviously
important philosophieal questions, and it is therefore no surprise that
Derrida and Deleuze (who are simply two among many) will attempt to
mine philosophieal insights out of the writings of Artaud.
When Artaud expresses himself regarding what is needed to gener­
ate the systematie coherence he so desperately wants yet lacks, he will
often speak of a 'powerlessness' or impower (impouvoir) of thought
whieh is closely tied in sorne way to a process whereby the elements of
thought are 'crystallized.1 39 Expressed in other terms, Artaud says,
'Everything depends on a certain flocculation of things, on the cluster­
ing of all these mental gems around a point whieh has yet to be
found.' 40 What is this point, or what is the seed or imperfection that
'crystallizes' the elements of thought into a systematic, coherent, and
complete whole? Artaud struggled with this issue throughout his life.
He clearly saw the nature of his own incapacities (as Rivière and others
saw), and he continually attempted to express the hope and desire for
the missing point, the missing crystallizing seed, that would enable
him to overcome these incapacities. In his late writings, this hope was
expressed as the desire to become a body without organs, as in the fol­
lowing lines from the radio broadcast 'To Have Done with the Judg­
ment of God':
1 56 Thinking Difference

Man is sick because he is badly constructed.

We must make up our minds to strip him bare in order to scrape
off that animalcule that itches him mortally,

god,
and with god
his organs.

For you can tie me up if you wish,

but there is nothing more useless than an organ.

When you will have made him a body without organs,

then you will have delivered him from his automatic reactions
and restored him to his true freedom.

Then you will teach him again to dance wrong side out
as in the frenzy of dance halls
and this wrong side out will be his real placeY

Deleuze and Guattari will read much into Artaud's cali to become a
body without organs. An entire chapter from A Thousand Plateaus is
titled 'How Do You Make Yourself a Body without Organs?' and the
date preceding this title is 28 November 1947, which was the date orig­
inally planned for the radio broadcast of 'To Have Done with the Judg­
ment of God.' But before clarifying the manner in which Deleuze and
Guattari read Artaud, it is nonetheless clear that one can easily be led to
conclude that they, too, as with Artaud, long for a lost homeland, a
deeply buried purity and freedom which has since been covered over by
layers of impurities (in this case, organs) which only serve to hinder the
freedom necessary for thought and creativity. If this is how Artaud is to
be read, it is evident, then, that his longing is a metaphysical longing, a
striving to regain a lost presence. This is precisely the reading Derrida
has of Artaud (at least in his early writings on Artaud). 42 Before tuming
to Deleuze and Guattari's reading of Artaud, or, better put, to their use
of Artaud, we will first address Derrida's reading of Artaud. In this way,
we can better focus upon whether Derrida's critique of Artaud applies
to Deleuze and Guattari as well, and in tum to their critique of Derrida
(or, at least, our interpretation of what their critique would be).
On an initial reading of Artaud, Derrida sees in Artaud a profound
critique of the metaphysical tradition. In his critique of traditional the-
 Derrida and Deleuze on Artaud 1 57

atre (discussed at grea test length in Theater and Its Double), Artaud sets
forth the notion of a theatre of cruelty. This theatre, Derrida argues,
reacts against 'the differences upon which the metaphysics of Occiden­
tal thea ter lives (author-text/ director-actors), its differentiation and its
divisions, transform the "slaves" into commentators, that is, into
organs.' 43 The resulting theatre would have no text which actors would
rehearse and repeat, over and over again; the emphasis, instead, will
be on the living gestures of the person on stage. With this move, Derr­
ida believes that although Artaud seeks to undermine the traditional
duality between author-text/ director-actors, what he calls to replace it
is simply the pure presence of an actor to himself, a presence without
interior differences.
To support this reading, Derrida tums to Artaud's comments con­
ceming the body without organs. Derrida notes that for Artaud 'the
division of the body into organs, the difference interior to the flesh,
opens the lack through which the body becomes absent from itself ... ' 44
He cites Artaud: 'The body is the body, 1 it is alone 1 and has no need
of organs, 1 the body is never an organism, 1 organisms are the ene­
mies of bodies, 1 everything one does transpires by itself without the aid of
any organ, 1 every organ is a parasite, 1 it overlaps with a parasitic
function 1 destined to bring into existence a being which should not be
there.' 45 The 'organ,' Derrida adds, 'thus welcomes the difference of
the stranger into my body: it is always the organ of my ruin ... ' More­
over, since 'everything one does transpires by itself without the aid of
any organ,' it is therefore the body without organs which possesses the
autonomous means of doing something - that is, thinking and creat­
ing. The desire for a pure theatre of cruelty, a theatre without the meta­
physical dualities of the past, is of a piece, according to Derrida, with
Artaud's desire to become a body without organs, or the free, autono­
mous body which does not suffer from internai divisions and the
attendant possibility that something strange or other might insinuate
itself by virtue of these differences. Derrida thus concludes by arguing
that for Artaud, 'the reconstitution of the body must be autarchic; it
cannot be given any assistance and the body must be remade of a sin­
gle piece.' He then quotes Artaud: 'lt is 1 1 1 who 1 will be 1 remad e 1
by me 1 myself 1 entirely 1 ... by myself 1 who am body 1 and have no
regions within me.' 46 The theatre of cruelty is Artaud's answer, as Der­
rida reads him, to this call to the 'reconstitution of the body.' 1t is with
this theatre, finally, that all difference will be purged: 'Restored to its
absolute and terrifying proximity, the stage of cruelty will thus retum
1 58 Thinking Difference

me to the autarchic immediacy of my birth, my body and my speech.

Where has Artaud better defined the stage of cruelty than in Here Lies,
outside any apparent reference to theater: "I, Antonin Artaud, am my
son, 1 my father, my mother 1 and myself."' 47
Derrida will retum to this last quote in another essay devoted to
Artaud written at around the same time, 'The Theater of Cruelty.'
Here, too, Derrida argues that the quoté is exemplary of Artaud's effort
to restore a lost presence and purity. In this essay, Derrida reiterates the
point that Artaud 'wanted to save the purity of a presence without
interior difference and without repetition ... Is it not Artaud who wants
to reduce the archi-state [i.e., reduce it to "the purity of a presence
without interior difference"] when he writes in Here Lies: "I Antonin
Artaud, am my son, 1 my father, my mother, 1 and myself."' 48 There­
fore, despite his critique of the traditional metaphysical dualities of the
theatre, Artaud's theater of cruelty is in the end, according to Derrida,
a theatre which in tum repeats the metaphysical tradition which thinks
in terms of a pure, self-identical presence. Much as Aristotle's meta­
physical understanding of time presupposes another, non-metaphysi­
cal understanding, so too, in Derrida's summation of Artaud, does
Artaud' s nonmetaphysical theatre of cruelty rely on metaphysics: 'One
entire side of his [Artaud's] discourse destroys a tradition which lives
within difference, alienation, and negativity without seeing their origin
and necessity. To reawaken this tradition, Artaud, in sum, recalls it to
its own motifs: self-presence, unity, self-identity, the proper, etc. In this
sense, Artaud's "metaphysics," at its most critical moments, fulfills the
most profound and permanent ambition of Western metaphysics.' 49
In light of Derrida's critique of Artaud, the question we tum to now
is whether Deleuze and Guattari's call to become a body without organs
is susceptible to a similar critique. In Difference and Repetition, Deleuze
repeatedly argues for a philosophy of difference, for a philosophy
which does not, as he argues traditional metaphysics has done, reduce
an understanding of difference to a fundamental identity. He calls for a
philosophy which thinks 'difference in itself.' If Derrida's critique of
Artaud applies to Deleuze and Guattari, then it would seem that they
ultimately do think difference in terms of identity, or they fail to see the
persistence of metaphysics within Artaud (and hence in their own the­
ory of chaos as the excessive fullness which is the condition for the pos­
sibility of identity). Yet Deleuze and Guattari do recognize that Artaud' s
statements are open to a Derridean-style critique. In the chapter previ­
ously mentioned, 'How to Become a Body without Organs,' Deleuze
 Derrida and Deleuze on Artaud 159

and Guattari, in speaking of Artaud's play Heliogabalus, daim that

'heliogabalus and experimentation have the same formula: anarchy and
unity are one and the same thing, not the unity of the One [i.e., body
without organs as One], but a much stranger unity that applies only to
the multiple.' ln a footnote connected with this passage, Deleuze and
Guattari recognize that 'it is true that Artaud still presents the identity
of the One and the Multiple as a dialectical unity, one that reduces the
multiple by gathering it into the One ... but this is a manner of speaking,
for from the beginning multiplicity surpasses ali opposition and does
away with dialectical movement.' 50 As Deleuze and Guattari under­
stand Artaud's call to become a body without organs, then, it is not a call
to become that which would unify and encompass the organs (which
Derrida recognized as well), nor is the body without organs other than
the organs (as Derrida does imply). 51 Derrida acknowledges Artaud's
aversion to the organization and differentiation inherent to the body
with organs,52 but for Derrida the way Artaud avoids this organization
is to call for a body without organs that is completely undifferentiated,
that is a pure presence to itself. This, we saw, was the significance for
Derrida of Artaud's enigrnatic utterance '1 Antonin Artaud, am my son,
my father, my mother, and myself.' Deleuze and Guattari, on the other
hand, agree that the body without organs is offered as an alternative in
opposition to the organization of the body with organs, but it is not put
forward as something that is in itself undifferentiated: 'The BwO is
opposed not to the organs but to that organization of the organs called
the organism ... the BwO and its 'true organs,' which must be composed
and positioned, are opposed to the organism.' 53 The BwO is not undif­
ferentiated, but has its own inner differentia tian, its composed and posi­
tioned "true organs," and it is in this manner, then, that Deleuze and
Guattari can read Artaud's call for a BwO as not being a call for a One
in opposition to the multiple.
But what is this BwO, if it is neither the pure, self-identical One in
opposition to the multiple, nor the organization that is the organism? ln
Anti-Oedipus, the BwO is defined as matter and substance: 'The body
without organs is the matter that always fills space to given degrees of
intensity, and the partial abjects [e.g., organs] are these degrees, these
intensive parts that produce the real in space starting from matter as
intensity = O. The body without organs is the immanent substance, in the
most Spinozist sense of the word ... ' 54 This view is reiterated again -in
A Thousand Plateaus: 'The BwO is that glacial reality where the alluvions,
sedimentations, coagulations, foldings, and recoilings that compose an
1 60 Thinking Difference

organism ... occur.' 55 The organs are conditioned by this immanent sub­
stance, this glacial reality, or the organs are, to use Artaud's wording,
'parasitic' upon this Bw0. 56 The BwO, as we will see, is understood by
Deleuze and Guattari to be the 'strange unity' which neither is opposed
to the organs, nor is the unity of the One; and it is this 'strange unity'
which is key to how the BwO as immanent substance is used to clarify
the relationship between the organs and their condition of possibility.
In Anti-Oedipus, where Deleuze and Guattari first develop the notion
of a body without organs, they stress the role of the BwO in the pro­
cesses of production, in particular, the productions of desire. Within
these processes, the BwO is not a pre-existent ether or substance which
makes production possible, and likewise the identity of that which is
produced; rather, the BwO is itself produced within the production pro­
cess itself: 'The body without organs is nonproductive; nonetheless it is
produced, at a certain place and a certain time in the connective synthe­
sis, as the identity of producing and the product ... It is perpetually rein­
serted into the process of production.' 57 It is the nature of the BwO as the
identity of 'producing and the product' which is important in this con­
text. As Deleuze and Guattari elaborate, 'Producing, a product: a pro­
ducing/product identity. It is this identity that constitutes a third term
in the linear series: an enormous undifferentiated object. Everything
stops dead for a moment, everything freezes in place - and the whole
process will begin over again.' 58 ln the series between producers and
products, a product can only in tum become a producer, or continue the
series, if it is both product and producer. The body without organs is the
condition which allows for the connective links and series to continue,
or as they put it, 'The body without organs, the unproductive, uncon­
sumable, serves as a surface for the recording of the entire process of
production of desire.' 59 In other words, identifiable processes of pro­
duction presuppose a condition that allows for the relationship between
producer and produced to be identified, and yet this condition is not to
be identified with the producer (it is non-productive), nor with the pro­
duced, if by this it is meant that it is produced by something other.
Deleuze and Guattari' s notion of the body without organs is an effort to
account for the connections between producer and produced without
presupposing a transcendent, organizing Law which predetermines the
connections that will occur (e.g., the Judgment of God). 60
To clarify by means of an example, Deleuze and Guattari daim early
on that capital is a body without organs: 'Capital is indeed the body
without organs of the capitalist, or rather of the capitalist being.' 61 In a
 Derrida and Deleuze on Artaud 161

traditional market economy, buyers and sellers enter into mutual

agreements that are assumed to benefit both parties. Market forces of
supply and demand determine the priee a seller can ask and expect to
receive, as well as the priee a buyer can expect to pay. In a barter-based
market economy, transactions are determined by what specifie needs
the potential parties can satisfy (i.e., do they have what 1 need, such as
wheat, wool, fish, etc.?). With the advent of money, the condition for
successful transaction has been abstracted from specifie needs, and
thus money becomes a condition for unrestrieted transactions between
buyers and sellers (or they are only restricted by the amount of money
one has). As money becomes capital, money becomes abstracted from
a market-based economy where priee is largely determined by the rela­
tionship between supply and demand. Capital becomes a means of
determining and fixing the priees whieh buyers and sellers ultimately
agree to. By amassing a large storehouse of a given commodity, the
capitalist can cause a shortage and then sell his stockpile for a profit,
and with this profit he can tum around and amass another quantity of
goods and repeat the same process over again. lt does not matter what
the commodity is. As capital it is merely a means of determining and
fixing priees in order to create more capital. This is where we can see
why Deleuze and Guattari refer to capital as the 'body without organs
of the capitalist.' Capital is neither to be identified with the capitalist
who buys the goods and commodities, nor is capital a commodity. 62
Capital is what allows for the possibility of the relationship between
the capitalist and these goods and commodities. Capital is the presup­
posed condition for the relationships that emerge between capitalists
and commodities, or capital is the recording surface for the various
connections these relationships will establish. Similarly, capital is
related to other bodies without organs, whieh in tum crea tes the possi­
bility for yet other relationships and connections to be established. For
example, capitalists may set up relationships with people's desires, or
they may establish relationships with weather-related phenomena
(such as an agrieultural commodites speculator might do), or even
with genetie material (as in capitalist investment in genetic research).
The point for Deleuze and Guattari is that capital, as body without
organs, is the unstructured, unformed medium, or it is the fundamen­
tal both/ and (producer and produced) which is presupposed by the
structured, formed, and identifiable relationships between capitalist
and commodity, or the relationships whieh emerge when capital con­
nects with other unstructured flows (BwOs), such as with the dynamie
1 62 Thinking Difference

relationship between the hydrosphere and atmosphere which is the

BwO presupposed by the hurricanes, pressure systems, wind currents,
and temperature gradients (e.g., El Nifto) which emerge upon (i.e., are
recorded on) this BwO. A capitalist connects with this BwO, for
instance, when speculating on coffee futures (e.g., a capitalist might
risk losing a fortune if there is a bad freeze in Brazil). 63
We are now in a better position to understand why Deleuze and
Guattari consistent!y referred to the BwO in terms of 'matter' or 'imma­
nent substance.' The BwO is not a conceptual matter, or a heuristic
deviee (or what Kant might call a regulative principle) which enables
one to understand the processes one observes and identifies; rather, the
BwO is through and through a material condition for the possibility of
identifying a producer and a product, capitalist and commodity, or even
for identifying hurricanes, as discussed above. This material condition,
however, although inseparable from those things which come to be
identified, is not to be confused with them. Thus, while capital is insep­
arable from capitalist and commodity, it is not strictly to be identified
with either; similarly, while the dynamic relationship between hydro­
sphere and atmosphere is inseparable from hurricanes and pressure
systems, it is also not to be confused with them. The BwO, instead, is to
be understood as the 'strange unity' these identifiable entities and rela­
tionships presuppose. The BwO is indeed a unity, but not a unity in the
traditional, metaphysical sense - namely, a unity whereby diverse ele­
ments are gathered by a transcendent and /or privileged element (e.g.,
the Judgment of God). Thus, the BwO is not an other which restores a
lost unity or presence; it is the 'strange unity' whereby 'anarchy and
union are one,' or it is the consistency necessary for the emergence of
identifiable, non-strange unities. To clarify this latter point, we need to
tum to the self-engendering aspect of the BwO, or to what Derrida saw as
yet another metaphysical attempt on the part of Artaud to purge all dif­
ference and othemess.
In Deleuze and Guattari's reading of Artaud's statement that he is
his son, father, mother, and himself, they do not follow Derrida and
daim that this is evidence that the BwO lacks differentiation. To the
contrary, they see the BwO as self-engendered, or as autarchic, and
thus while it is not to be seen as a product of a distinct producer, it is,
as the self-engendered condition for identifying producers and prod­
ucts, the strange unity which is inseparable from ali potentially identi­
fiable producers and products. Deleuze and Guattari are clear on this
point:
 Derrida and Deleuze on Artaud 163

The full body without organs is produced as antiproduction, that is to say

it intervenes within the process as such for the sole purpose of rejecting
any attempt to impose on it any sort of triangulation implying that it was
produced by parents. How could this body have been produced by par­
ents, when by its nature it is such eloquent witness of its own self-produc­
tion, of its own engendering of itself . . . Yes, 1 have been my father and 1
have been my son. '1, Antonin Artaud, am my son, my father, my mother,
and myself.' 64

As the strange unity presupposed by all identifiable processes of

production, including identifiable producers and products, the BwO is
affirmed within each and every different process. Far from being a
rejection of difference, a purging of othemess, the BwO is the very
affirmation of difference, or it is what is affirmed anytime something
identifiable is produced (or identified as producing). What the BwO
does reject, as Deleuze and Guattari made clear, is the view which
daims that the processes of production presuppose a transcendent
other, an other that is identifiably distinct. Deleuze and Guattari thus
reject a transcendent other and difference, or they follow Artaud in
being done with the judgment of God, and argue instead, in Spinozist
fashion, for an immanent other and difference, a non-identifiable dif­
ference which is immanent to the processes of production. This is why
the BwO is referred to as an 'immanent substance.' Moreover, as a self­
produced, self-engendered substance which is immanent to, and
affirmed within every identifiable process, the BwO will by its nature
be complete. As the immanent difference and substance presupposed
and affirmed within processes of production, the BwO is not complete
by virtue of a reference to an objective marker or goal. Deleuze and
Guattari reject, as we have seen, an understanding of the BwO in terms
of such transcendent objects; nor is the BwO complete by virtue of
sorne other that has come to complete it, for this too would presuppose
a transcendent other. The BwO is complete precisely because it is the
self-produced substance which is the condition for the possibility of
conceiving transcendent objects and goals. 65 The BwO is complete in
itself, and not because of sorne other. Again, Deleuze and Guattari are
clear on this point as well:

For the new earth is not to be found in the neurotic or perverse reterritori­
alizations that arrest the process or assign it goals; it is no more behind
than ahead, it coïncides with the completion of the process of desiring-
1 64 Thinking Difference

production, this process that is always and already complete as it pro­

ceeds, and as long as it proceeds. 66

Much of Deleuze and Guattari's later work, in particular, in A Thou­

sand Plateaus and What Is Philosophy?, can be understood as a continu­
ing elaboration upon this theme of the BwO as the self-produced,
complete-in-itself condition for processes whereby goals and products
are produced and identified. An important addition to these later
works is the notion of a 'plane of consistency.' We have mentioned ear­
lier that the strange unity of the BwO was to be understood as the con­
sistency which allowed for the emergence of identifiable unities and
objects (e.g., producers and products). With the notion of a plane of
consistency, this theme becomes explicit. Thus, in A Thousand Plateaus,
Deleuze and Guattari argue that 'a plateau is a piece of immanence.
Every BwO is itself a plateau in communication with other plateaus on
the plane of consistency. The BwO is a component of passage.' 67 If we
will recall our earlier reference to the BwO as being composed of 'true
organs,' organs which are themselves positio�ed, the plane of consis­
tency is the standard or criterion they ·offer for a BwO which can suc­
cessfully maintain and increase its connections with other BwOs, or
with other unformed flows. And in the processes which presuppose a
BwO, the plane of consistency is only one manner in which the BwO
can be expressed and composed, and more precisely it is how Deleuze
and Guattari believe it ought to be expressed: 'all becomings are writ­
ten like sorcerer's drawings on this plane of consistency, which is the
ultimate Door providing a way out for them. This is the only criterion
to prevent them from bogging down, or veering into the void.' 68 In
other words, the self-production of the BwO does not necessarily
result in a consistency which allows for the emergence of identifiable
processes. The self-production can, to reintroduce a theme from chap­
ter 3, either get bogged down or veer into the void. The plane of consis­
tency is what is drawn when the BwO avoids either of these two
alternatives. As Deleuze and Guattari put it,

. . . the totality of all BwOs can be obtained on the plane of consistency only
by means of an abstract machine capable of covering and even creating it
[i.e., the plane of consistency], by assemblages capable of plugging into
desire, effectively taking charge of desires, of assuring their continuons
connections and transversal tie-ins. Otherwise, the BwO' s of the plane
will remain separated by genus, marginalized, reduced to means of bor-
 Derrida and Deleuze on Artaud 165

dering, while on the 'other plane' the emptied or cancerous doubles will
triumph. 69

Or again,

The material problem confronting schizoanalysis is knowing whether we

have it within our means to make the selection, to distinguish the BwO
from its doubles: empty, vitreous bodies, cancerous bodies, totalitarian
and fascist ... distinguishing within desire between that which pertains to
stratic proliferation, or else too-violent destratification, and that which
pertains to the construction of the plane of consistency?0

The concept of a BwO being drawn into a plane of consistency in con­

trast to the cancerous and fascist bodies is where we see Deleuze and
Guattari developing the notion of a dynamic system. A dynamic system
that is in process is complete in itself as process, and not because of sorne
objective, transcendent goal or other. A dynamic system, however, is a
system in accordance with the 'criterion' of the plane of consistency.
Deleuze and Guattari's concem, or 'the material problem confronting
schizoanalysis,' is to discem and hopefully avoid the stratified, closed
systems, the systems whereby the multiple is gathered under the unity
and dictatorship of the One. A dynamic system is thus not a system as
Hegel understood it, nor even as Heidegger implicitly understood it.
On the other hand, a dynamic system is a unity, a 'strange unity,' such
that the elements are in a relationship of consistency with one another,
and it is this consistency that allows the dynamic system to continue
functioning, or to continue its processes of becoming. A dynamic sys­
tem that veers towards the void becomes a cancerous system, a system
whereby the unity exp lodes into an uncontrolled process that results in
death. With the notion of a plane of consistency, therefore, Deleuze and
Guattari have further clarified the manner in which a BwO is to be
understood as the 'strange unity' which is neither the unity of the one,
nor is it a chaos which lacks unity altogether. The BwO is a dynamic sys­
tem, or we might say it is chaosmos, a system at the edge of chaos. 71
With this understanding of a BwO as a dynamic system, we can
further address the criticism Manfred Frank made of Derrida's work
(discussed in chapter 1). Frank, it will be recalled, argued that in his
rejection of Saussure's notion of system, Derrida left himself without
any sense of completion or self-identity, and without this Derrida was
unable to account for the emergence of meaning altogether. Derrida
1 66 Thinking Difference

agreed with Saussure's move which rejected the intrinsic meaning of a

word while arguing instead for the dependency of this meaning on a
word's relationship to all the other words in the language. Where Der­
rida broke with Saussure, as we saw, was with Saussure's replacement
of the self-identity and completeness of a word's meaning with the self­
identity and completeness of the system of language. What Derrida
argues for, instead, is a notion of differance which is an 'economie
concept designa ting the production of differing/ deferring.1 72 But this
production of differing/ deferring is a production without end, a neces­
sarily incomplete production, as Derrida would admit; yet it is precisely
this production of differing/ deferring without completion that leaves
Derrida, according to Frank, unable to account for any identifiable
meaning. With Deleuze and Guattari's notion of the BwO as a dynamic
system, we can see that this problem is avoided. Quite simply, the BwO
is complete in itself, or it is a 'process that is always and already com­
plete as it proceeds, and as long as it proceeds.' Identifiable meanings
can be accounted for, then, if one sees them as conditioned by language
as a dynamic system. At the same time, language is not a closed system,
or a system that is objectively complete and immune to change and vari­
ability. Far from it, language, as a dynamic system, is complete only
insofar as it proceeds, or only to the extent that it is constantly becoming
other. A language that is objectively complete, such as Latin, is dead.
Deleuze and Guattari thus appear to avoid sorne of the criticisms that
have been directed at Derrida.
But have we successfully salvaged Deleuze and Guattari from a Der­
ridean-style critique? We have illustrated, by means of comparing
their readings of Artaud, the clear differences between Deleuze and
Derrida, but has this resolved the critical question concerning whether
Deleuze's project presupposes notions Derrida himself criticized as
demonstrating an unquestioned adherence to a metaphysics of pres­
ence? Before we turn to a further discussion of dynamic systems in
Deleuze's work, we should first consider, then, sorne recent criticisms
of Deleuze. These criticisms can be seen as an extension of Derrida' s
critique of the metaphysics of presence, but in this case they are
directed at the heart of what is taken to be the unquestioned premise of
Deleuze's approach to systems (or what we call his implicit theory of
dynamic systems). Since Deleuze's theory is part of an effort to think
difference without reducing it to identity, and if this theory presup­
poses an unquestioned id,entity, as the criticism we will discuss sug­
gests, then Deleuze' s theory of dynamic systems would indeed fall
 Derrida and Deleuze on Artaud 167

prey to the type of criticism we have seen Derrida put forward. It is to

this criticism, and to the possible response to it, that we now turn.

III

The first major criticism of Deleuze is one that Derrida and others have
directed at Bergson. Deleuze, as Constantin Boundas correctly points
out, consistently incorporated Bergson's ideas throughout his writings;
consequent!y, a critique of Bergson might quite logically be extended to
Deleuze. In particular, the criticism is that Bergson's theory of time fol­
lows the Aristotelian model by thinking of time in terms of presence; 73
or, in applying this to Deleuze, Deleuze's conception of chaos as the
excessive plentitude which is slowed in order for identifiable entities to
emerge, this too can be taken to be an understanding in terms of pres­
ence. The argument against Begson, as found in Derrida, is that while
Bergson criticized the notion of the 'possible as possible,' a notion
which subordinates the possible to the actual and thus understands
time in terms of the realization (actualization) of the possible, Bergson
nevertheless maintained a duality between the virtual and the actual
which largely repeats Aristotle. The primary difference between Berg­
son and Aristotle is that whereas Aristotle daims the possible lacks
reality until actualized, Bergson argues that both the virtual and actual
are real. The resulting question, then� is to account for the difference
between the virtual and the actual, or how can this difference be under­
stood in a non-Aristotelian manner? Boundas noted this problem when
he stated that 'Deleuze-Bergson will have to account for the formation
of closed, "extended" or "cool" systems inside the open-ended, inten­
sive chaosmic virtual.' 74 To put this in terms we will discuss below,
how do equilibrium systems arise from dynamic, far-from-equilibrium
systems?
The answer Deleuze develops in his book Difference and Repetition to
explain the actualization of the virtual centres around the dual terms
differentiation/ differenciation. Deleuze defines these terms as follows:
'Whereas differentiation determines the virtual content of the Idea as
problem, differenciation expresses the actualization of this virtual and
the constitution of solutions (by local integrations).' 75 To better clarify
Deleuze's understanding of this process, we can turn now to Deleuze
and Guattari's discussion of chaos, which they will also describe as
the virtual which is real though not actual, that is, identifiable; or, in
the words of Boundas, it is the 'chaosmic virtual.' Deleuze and
168 Thinking Difference

Guattari explicitly define chaos in their last collaborative work, What

Is Philosophy? :

Chaos is defined not s o much by its disorder as by the infinite speed with
which every form taking shape in it vanishes. It .is a void that is not a
nothingness but a virtual, containing ali possible particles and drawing
out ali possible forms, which spring up only to disappear immediately,
without consistency or reference, without consequence. 76

Chaos is thus not to be understood in terms of an order or identity

which it negates - that is, dis-order. Chaos will lack consistency, not
because it is the negation of consistency and order, but rather because
it contains elements of infinite speed that exceed consistency. Chaos is
therefore not a lack or negation of consistency and order; it is an excess
that has not been caught within the paramaters of consistency. More
importantly, chaos is the condition for the possibility of the consistent
systems which emerge by virtue of what Deleuze and Guattari will call
abstract machines, the machines which allow for the slowing down of
infinite speeds, and hence for the possibility of consistency.
To explain how there can be such infinite speeds in the first place, and
then how they can be transformed into finite, consistent speeds,
Deleuze will frequently refer to differentiai calculus. In discussing the
French mathematician Albert Lautman, for example, Deleuze notes that
Lautman makes a fundamental distinction between the 'distribution of
individual points in a field of vectors,' and 'the integral curves in their
neighborhood. 177 The manner in which these points are distributed in
the field is the central issue. Chaos, on Deleuze' s reading, consists of
infinitesimal vectors which cannat be reduced to a level of consistency,
or in the language of differentiai equations, these points cannat be inte­
grated. The distribution of individual points must therefore be trans­
formed into an integrable distribution of points, or points consistent
enough for the integral curves to be drawn in their neighbourhood. The
abstract machine, as we will further clarify below, performs the function
of filtering the field of vectors (chaos), and transforms it into an integra­
ble distribution. This integrable distribution is what Deleuze refers to as
differentiation, or the virtual content of the Idea as problem. The inte­
gration of these distributed points, or the integral curve in their neigh­
bourhood, is, as Deleuze makes clear, 'the thing that brings about or
actualizes relations between forces.'78 Or, it is the differenciation of the
integrable distribution, an integration which constitutes solutions to the
problem.
 Derrida and Deleuze on Artaud · 169

Speaking in much these same terms in his work on Leibniz, Deleuze

refers to a sense of 'anxiousness' arising from a confrontation with the
non-integrable forces or vectors of chaos. What is needed, therefore, is
a taming or subduing of this chaos, or what Deleuze will cali an
'accord':

1 produce an accord each time 1 can establish in a sum of infinitely tiny

thlngs differentiai relations that will make possible an integration of the
sum - in other words a clear and distinguished perception. It is a filter, a
selection. 79

These differentiai relations or series from which an integral curve is

possible are not, however, differentiai series or relations that could, if
taken in toto, converge upon a complete and total picture of the uni­
verse. To assume this would be to attribute a comprehensive unity or
identity to the universe, an identity the differentiai series would
approxima te. lt is clear this is the assumption Leibniz makes, for in dis­
cussing the monads in his Monadology, Leibniz uses the analogy of the
perspectives upon a city to show that although there are an infinite
number of monads that are different from one another (or, to use our
terms, an infinite number of differentiai series), each monad neverthe­
less is a different expression of one and the same universe. Thus, 'as
the same city regarded from different sides appears entirely different
... [similarly] there are an infinite number of universes [i.e., monads or
differentiai series] which are, nevertheless, only the aspects of a single
one.' 80 Deleuze, however, breaks with this faith in a pre-existent total­
ity or identity, and it is with his notion of chaos that he will argue
instead for a non-identifiable inconsistency which exceeds identity and
is only identified once the chaos is filtered, or once an accord is pro­
duced. Consequently, for Deleuze, the relationship between differen­
tiai series is not one of accord, as it was for Leibniz, but one of
divergence wherein the excess of chaos entails the possibility of under­
mining the consistency and unity. Deleuze is explicit on this point:

Each series tells a story: not different points of view on the same story, like
the different points of view on the town we find in Leibniz, but com­
pletely distinct stories whlch unfold simultaneously. The basic series are
divergent: not relatively, in the sense that one could retrace one's pa th and
find a point of convergence, but absolutely divergent in the sense that the
point or horizon of convergence lies in a chaos or is constantly displaced
within that chaos. 81
1 70 Thinking Difference

These divergent series are nonetheless put into relation with one
another, or, despite their divergence lines of communication are
opened. In his early work Difference and Repetition, for example, Deleuze
speaks of the 'dark precursor' as that which, 'by virtue of its own power
... puts them [the heterogenous differentiai series] into immediate rela­
tion to one another ... ' 82 Deleuze then immediate!y addresses the logical
criticism of this position: if there is a 'dark precursor' which enables the
heterogenous series to communicate, must there not then be an identity
to this precursor, or to the abstract machine Deleuze and Guattari refer
to later, and a resemblance between the two series which enables them
to communicate with one another? Deleuze's response is · that indeed
'there is an identity belonging to the precursor, and a resemblance
between the series it causes to comrnunicate. This "there is," however,
remains perfectly indeterminate.' Deleuze will then ask, 'Are identity
and resemblance here the preconditions of the functioning of the dark
precursor, or are they, on the contrary, its effects?' Deleuze' s answer will
be that identity and resemblance are the effects of the dark precursor,
and not vice versa; in other words, the precursor is the indeterminate,
the absolutely indeterminate substance as discussed in chapter 2, that is
real though neither individuated nor determined, and it is 'this' which
makes individuation and determination possible. 83 The dark precursor
thus functions much as Deleuze and Guattari will come to understand
the BwO drawn into a plane of consistency: it is the virtual real which
functions as a 'component of passage,' or it establishes connections
between heterogenous series.
An example which Deleuze spends sorne time on to clarify these
issues concems the psychoanalytic theories surrounding the effect of
repressed memories on present behaviour. The past, according to
Deleuze, does not have the same status or identity as the present (i.e.,
just a past present). The past is therefore not related to the present in
the sense that it is part of the same extended series of identities (i.e.,
presents). Nor does the past act on the present through resemblance ­
for example, the resemblance between a persan in the past (one's
mother for example) and a persan in the present as an explanation for
the repetition of certain (childlike) behaviours. Deleuze argues that
this repetition of behaviour 'is constituted not from one present [past
present] to another [present present], but between the two coexistent
series [series of past and present] that these presents form in function
of the virtual abject [the dark precursor, or Bw0].' 84 It is not the resem­
blance between the mother and a present persan which accounts for
 Derrida and Deleuze on Artaud 1 71

the repetition of childhood patterns; rather, the virtual object is the

indeterminate object which is to be identified with neither the mother
nor the present person, and yet it is the condition which allows for the
possibility of seeing the resemblance, and hence for the repetition of
the behaviour.
The virtual is therefore not to be confused with an Aristotelian under­
standing of the possible. First, the virtual is real, whereas the possible is
not; and secondly, the virtual does not resemble the actual, while the
possible (in the manner of a blueprint) does resemble its actualization.
The virtual is the indeterminate reality, or what Deleuze will often refer
to as the paradoxical instance, which is presupposed by any integrable
series, a series that can in turn be actualized (through differenciation).
The reason the virtual is then able to draw a plane of consistency is
precisely because it differs fro� itself, or it is the heterogeneity in itself
(difference in itself) which allows for the possibility of drawing heter­
ogenous points into a plane of consistency (or a BwO as discussed
above). One should not conclude from this that there is a pre-existent
chaos upon which these paradoxical, self-differing instances draw
planes of consistency; rather, Deleuze's point is that when a BwO is
composed, it will in turn compose a plane of consistency; however, an
immanent possibility in this process is the drawing of a line that leads to
chaos (cancerous bodies) or the line that bogs down in a proliferation of
strata (fascist, empty bodies). When a BwO is composed, and not a fas­
dst or cancerous body, then this composition necessarily presupposes,
as a condition of possibility, the paradoxical, self-differing instance
which is inseparable from the virtual, integrable BwO. Boundas makes
much this same point concerning the virtual when he comments on
what is necessary if the virtual is to be differenciated (i.e., integrable):
'What is differenciated must, first of all, differ from itself, and only the
virtual is what differs from itself.' 85
This last point brings us to one final criticism. Lutz Ellrich, in a recent
article on Deleuze, has recognized the significance Deleuze places on the
self-differing nature of the virtual. But this is just what causes prob­
lems for Deleuze, according to Ellrich. In Ellrich's reading of Difference
and Repetition, the dark precursor (difference in itself) is able to relate
difference to difference (i.e., relate heterogenous series) by virtue of dif­
ference itself. 86 For Ellrich, however, if this is the basis for a philosophy
of difference, a philosophy which does not think difference in terms of
identity, then Deleuze failed miserably. The reason for this is the pre­
supposed identity of difference to itself, or difference must have identi-
1 72 Thinking Difference

fied itself as that which it is relating to in the process which draws

heterogenous series into a plane of consistency. As Ellrich puts it, 'Dif­
ference can exclude identity from its referential figures only if it identi­
fies the different, to which it connectively refers, as precisely what it
itself is.' 87 Ellrich concludes by saying that 'in the final analysis, the inev­
itable band that joins what differs to what differs has no other alternative
but to rely on precisely those mediating instances that anti-representa­
tional thought condemns.' 88 In other words, in the very process of set­
ting forth a philosophy of difference which condemns and attempts to
avoid relying upon the identity of representations, Deleuze ultimately
had to rely upon this very identity - namely, the representational iden­
tity of difference to itself. Deleuze has not avoided what he thought
could be avoided, and to this extent Ellrich believes Derrida at least rec­
ognized the necessity of falling prey to the illusions of identity, or, as we
have discussed it above, the impossibility of setting forth an alternative
philosophy, one which avoids repeating the metaphysics of presence. 89
We can best respond to this criticism if we return to our understand­
ing of the virtual as a dynamic system. In particular, we turn to an
important passage from Deleuze where Deleuze discusses positivity
(i.e., reality of the virtual). The key part of the passage reads as follows:
'But the fact, that real space has only three dimensions, that time is not
a dimension of space, really means this: there is an efficacity, a positivity
of time that is identical to a "hesitation " of things and, in this way, creation in
the world.' 90 The important phrase in this quote is the positivity that is
identical to 'a "hesitation" of things.' In terms of dynamic systems, this
hesitation of things is equivalent to the edge of chaos, or it is that critical
point (threshold point) in a dynamic system that is far from equilibrium
where the possibility for bifurcating into a stable state is greatest. At a
critical temperature, for example, and under the right conditions,
heated oil will spontaneously generate a series of vortices. Prior to
reaching this new, stable state, the heated oil will be in a period of tran­
sition far from the previous equilibrium state (when the oil was at room
temperature), and yet not be at the new stable state either. This transi­
tion state, or what is called a phase transition state in dynamic systems
theory, is best characterized as being at the edge of chaos. Such a state is
not chaos, for it possesses enough consistency and order that it can set­
tle into a stable state through bifurcation. An edge-of-chaos state is
what we have been discussing, in Deleuze's terms, as the virtual BwO,
and with this notion we can also begin to sketch our understanding of
dynamic systems and then turn to address sorne of Ellrich's (and by
extension Derrida' s) criticisms.
 Derrida and Deleuze on Artaud 1 73

First, a dynamic system at the edge of chaos is not strictly identifiable.

That is, it is not a stable, identifiable state, but a state of 'hesitation,' a
state that is neither the previous stable state nor yet the stable bifurcated
states it might become. At the same time, such a dynamic system is not
pure, undifferentiated chaos. Pure undifferentiated chaos would, as we
saw Deleuze define it, lack all consistency and hence be incapable of
being actualized into a stable, identifiable state. A dynamic system is
not chaos but is at the edge of chaos, or it is chaosmos. Second, such
dynamic systems are clearly inseparable from the identifiable, stable
states which presuppose them. The heated oil at the edge of chaos is
clearly inseparable from the oil which has entered the stable state (e.g.,
the vortices). Third, the virtual, non-actualized dynamic system is only
non-actualized insofar as it has not settled into a stable state, but it is not
something other, a possibility which lacks the reality of the actual. By
prioritizing dynamic systems, we are not setting forth on behalf of
Deleuze an alternative to the representational philosophies of presence.
We are doing much the same as Derrida; we are simply arguing the
point that stable, identifiable states and systems presuppose, as a con­
dition of possibility, dynamic, virtual systems. Where criticisms such as
Ellrich's gain their force is by assuming that this self-differing condition
of possibility (the virtual) is something other than, or distinct from,
identifiable states and systems. To the contrary, the virtual, dynamic
system is self-differing precisely because it inheres or subsists in con­
crete, identifiable systems and states. The virtual, dynamic system is the
condition for the possibility of becoming and change in such an identi­
fiable system.
In Deleuze's fust major work, a book on Hume, he sets forth a notion
of transcendental empiricism. By traditional methodolgy and philo­
sophical thinking, a transcendental empiricism is an oxymoron. For
Deleuze, however, the oxymoron arises because of a tendency to suc­
cumb to what one might call, following Kant, a 'transcendental illu­
sion.' 91 The illusion results, in this instance, from the tendency to
assume that what is actual must resemble, in sorne way, the condition
which allowed for these particular forms to emerge. With this illusion
began the metaphysical tradition of differentiating between the possible
and the actual, whereby the possible is subordinate to the actual which
it in sorne manner resembles. Plato's Ideas are the classic case of an
actual, true reality which is related, by means of resemblance, to the pos­
sible manifestations of these ideas in the world. Insofar as Ellrich
assumes that the differentiating condition, the virtual difference in
itself, is distinct from, or other than, the states it conditions, Ellrich tao
1 74 Thinking Difference

understands the virtual in terms of identity (he succumbs to this version

of the transcendental illusion). It is clear Ellrich makes this assumption
for he assumes that Deleuze, in his effort to think difference without
recourse to identity, must think difference in a manner distinct and sep­
arate from traditional metaphysics and philosophy.
Deleuze, on the contrary, understands identifiable states and systems
in terms of the virtual (i.e., dynamic systems), and this virtual is not a
separate, identifiable existent a part from these identifiable systems; the
virtual is inseparable from identifiable things and states. Moreover, and
to return to our earlier point, the virtual is the hesitation in things which
is the self-differing differentiating condition which allows for the pos­
sibility of identifying new states and things. Because this condition is ·

inseparable from empirical states of affairs, including empirical sys­

tems, Deleuze will refer to his study of these conditions as a 'transcen­
dental empiricism.' To repeat the words of Deleuze, this condition is a
transcendental condition for the possibility of identifiable states and
systems, but it is not other than these states and things; it is a '"hesita­
tion" in things' which allows for the possibility of 'creation in the
world'; it allows, as was Artaud's quest, for the engendering and cre­
ation of thought and its 'unity of impression.1 92
To explain this notion of a dynamic system further, and to under­
stand the manner in which a rethinking of system as dynamic system
can further elaborate our earlier criticisms of Heidegger and Derrida -
that is, Heidegger's continued adherence to system as self-identical
and complete, and Derrida' s rejection of system and turn to a self-dif­
fering function without completion - we will need to clarify further
how a dynamic system is both self-differing and complete. It is to this
rethinking of system that we now turn.
PART TWO

Rethinking System
6 Rethinking System

As our discussion of Derrida has pointed out, there is an acknowledged

need (acknowledged by Derrida himself as well as many others) for a
criterion whereby meaning can gain a foothold. Derrida is understand­
ably hesitant to offer up the 'guard rails' and 'logic' that would legiti­
mate one reading as acceptable and true and another as unacceptable
and false. Any such offering would itself fall prey to a deconstructive
reading, a reading that undermines and subverts the legitimacy and
self-identity of the proposed criterion. Consequently, Derrida will read
texts closely, and dare 1 say accurately, and he will accuse others (e.g.,
Searle) of a false reading of his own writings; yet despite this, he offers
no basis for rendering these judgments and admits to being 'unsatisfied'
with any criteria offered so far, regardless of the need for them and Der­
rida' s own implicit reliance on them.
It is precisely Derrida's resistance (sorne would say failure) to setting
forth an explicit logic and criterion for reading a text and interpreting
its meaning which has been the source of much criticism of decon­
struction. The standard objection is that with deconstruction (and, by
association, Derrida) truth has been thrown out the window, and hence
any reading goes. Interpretation is merely playing with a text, and it is
a play without rules of right and wrong, true or false. Frank's objec­
tions to Derrida, discussed earlier, thrust at the very core of what Frank
believes is a central inconsistency or failing in Derrida's philosophy.
This failing is a natural consequence of there being no criteria whereby
it can be judged whether or not one has grasped the meaning of a text.
The criticism, to recap briefly, is that by exploding the system of Saus­
sure (i.e., Saussure's theory that the meaning of a given ward in a lan­
guage depends upon its relationship to, and difference from, all the
1 78 Rethinking System

other words in the language), Derrida denies his theory the conditions
which make identifiable meanings possible. For Derrida language is
not a completed system or totality, a system which conditions (à la Sau­
ssure) the meaning of a word; as a result, Frank argues, Derrida is
unable to account for meaning at all.
We have seen how most of these objections to Derrida, including
Frank' s, do not pay proper attention to the sophisticated and subtle
attempts by Derrida to give a non-metaphysical account of meaning.
Most notably, the critics have not given due notice to Derrida's admit­
ted adherence to system, a system of 'traces' which functions as the con­
dition for identifiable meanings. Such a system is greatly different from
Saussure's understanding of system, but by continuing to rely upon a
notion of system, Derrida makes great strides in setting forth a criterion
which avoids the dual pitfalls of absolute relativism and irrationalism,
on one side, and dogmatism, on the other. What is needed, we argue, is
to develop further this understanding of system. Derrida's own efforts
conceming system are, as we have seen (and as Gasché argues so well),
part of an attempt to rethink, or deconstruct, Hegel's system. However,
in the process of overtuming Hegel' s view of a system as something that
is subordinate to a self-identical Idea, Derrida does not give adequate
emphasis to the importance of identity within systems (or system as
identity); and it is this lack of emphasis which we believe has left the
door open to Derrida's critics.
What we shall do in this chapter is to reconsider, rethink, system. We
will argue for a view of system wherein a system is complete and self­
identical (or self-similar, as we will prefer to call it), but not in the sense
that its identity is subordinate to a single or sole ldea. A system, we
will daim, is to be understood as a chaosmos; that is, it both involves
the identity and completeness of cosmos, and it entails a chaos which
subverts this identity and completeness, and thus renders the system
open, or, as we will see, dynamic. As a dynamic system, chaosmos is
necessarily self-identical (self-similar) and complete, for without the
integrity of this self-identity, a system could not function and perdure;
and yet chaosmos is forever open to an outside it presupposes, an
immanent chaos which both threatens the system and allows it to cre­
ate novel adaptations. Adaptations to what? one may ask: to the chaos
within/without, or to the chaos chaosmos is, and hence a dynamic sys­
tem is a system that creates itself - that is, it creates and constitutes the
identity it is in response and adaptation to the chaos it is. To be, in
other words, is to become.
 Rethinking System 1 79

To elaborate this last point and further detail our understanding of

system, and to relate this to issues discussed earlier in the context
of Aristotle, Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Derrida, we will focus on the
theme of expression and self-cause. In relating chaosmos to the themes
of expression and self-cause, we will clarify the manner in which chaos­
mos both involves the identity necessary to account for meaning and
interpretation (and therefore to address the concems of Derrida's crit­
ics), and involves the chaos of non-sense which subverts a final, ulti­
mate meaning and truth. In developing this argument, we will first
explore the significance of system and self-cause within Whitehead' s
philosophy, in particular, his work Process and Reality. This should set
the stage for Deleuze's discussions of self-cause, system, and expres­
sion, and in doing this, it will become clear both why Deleuze considers
himself a Spinozist and why he admired Whitehead as one of the most
important philosophers of the twentieth century. 1 With these philo­
sophical themes in place, we will tum next to a discussion of chaos the­
ory and self-organization (i.e., self-cause). Recent research in science
lends further support to the notion of chaosmos we are developing here
- namely, that chaosmos is a dynamic, self-organized system that is
simultaneously complete and open. At this point we will be able to
address the concems with which we were left upon completing our dis­
cussion of Derrida. Within a self-organized, dynamic system, a criterion
necessarily emerges which enables this system to continue to be, and it
is with this criterion that one can say, for a given system, that this does
or does not work, this is true or false. And with this, finally, we will tum
to discuss how philosophy itself can be a dynamic system. Such a philo­
sophical system would not be a completed work which is offered to the
reader as a fait accompli, but instead its intent would be to engender phi­
losophizing (to 'engender "thinking" in thought' as Deleuze put it), or
it will be a process which, if successful, will be further developed in cre­
ative, novel ways as it is appropriated by readers and deployed as one
of their own tools in their own processes of growth as a dynamic system.

Whitehead

The notions of 'process,' 'system,' and 'self-cause' are integral to the phi­
losophy of Alfred North Whitehead and most especially to his work in
Process and Reality. Whitehead states quite bluntly in beginning Process
and Reality that speculative philosophy, which is what he will be engag­
ing in, should attempt 'to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of
1 80 Rethinking System

general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be

interpreted.' 2 And in founding such a system, a speculative philosophy
then seeks for an ultimate entity with which to found, relate, and inter­
pret 'every element of our experience.' For Whitehead, 'in all philo­
sophie theory there is an ultimate which is actu:al in virtue of its
accidents. It is only then capable of characterization through its acciden­
tai embodiments, and apart from these accidents is devoid of actuality'
(10). In Locke, for example, what is ultimate is substance, but this under­
lying reality is only actual 'in virtue of its secondary properties (e.g.,
colour, shape, etc.). In traditional philosophy, such as Locke's, though
Whitehead also discusses Aristotle, Hume, and Spinoza, what is taken
to be ultimate is a subject that is in virtue of its predicates. Whitehead, to
the contrary, argues that in his 'philosophy of organism this ultimate is
termed "creativity."' (ibid.). In other words, rather than a static subject
which bears its predicates, Whitehead argues that it is creativity, and
creative process, which is in virtue of the accidents which actualize this
process - and for Whitehead the exemplar accident to actualize creativ­
ity is God: 'and God is its [creativity's] primordial, non-temporal acci­
dent' (ibid.). Whitehead thus knowingly places his philosophy of
organism in opposition to traditional Western philosophy and aligns it
with 'sorne strains of Indian, or Chinese, thought,' and with Spinoza as
we read him - 'One side [i.e., Eastern tradition] makes process ultimate;
the other side [i.e., Western tradition] makes fact ultimate' (ibid.).
At the heart of Whitehead's efforts to develop the system of a philos­
ophy of organism is the notion of an 'actual entity.' The 'actual world,'
Whitehead explains, 'is a process, and the process is the becoming of
actual entities' (27). And this process of becoming an actual entity
involves the actualization, or what Whitehead calls concrescence, of
many potentials: 'in the becoming of an actual entity, the potential unity
of many entities - actual and non-actual - acquires the real unity of the
one actual entity; so that the actual entity is the real concrescence of
many potentials' (ibid.). As Whitehead will elaborate, an actual entity is
simply the process of becoming actual, and in this process there is
involved three distinct things. First, there is the actual entity that appro­
pria tes or prehends (Whitehead's term) the potentialities which become
actual within the actual entity. Second, there is that which is prehended,
or what it is that is being appropriated. And finally there is the manner
in which this datum is prehended, or how the actual entity prehends it
(28). Yet, as the subject involved within this process, Whitehead is quick
to point out that an actual entity is not a static, self-identical entity which
 Rethinking System 181

remains the same throughout the process of becoming actual. To the

contrary, the actual entity creates itself, or is both the subject actualizing
by means of prehension and it is the subject that is actualized upon com­
pleting this process. ln order to capture this distinction between actual­
izing and actualized subject, and to distance himself from traditional
Western philosophy, Whitehead introduces the di.stinction subject­
superject:

It is fundamental to the metaphysical doctrine of the philosophy of organ­

ism, that the notion of an actual entity as the unchanging subject of change
is completely abandoned. An actual entity is at once the subject experienc­
ing and the superject of its experiences. It is subject-superject, and neither
half of this description can for a moment be lost sight of . . . 'subject' is
always to be construed as an abbreviation of 'subject-superject.' (34)

Each actual entity, in other words, is self-caused: it is its own reason

and means for existence. As Whitehead puts it: 'lt is to be noted that
every actual entity, including God, is something individual for its own
sake; and thereby transcends the rest of actuality ... To be causa sui
means that the process of concrescence is its own reason for the deci­
sion in respect to the qualitative clothing of feeling' (106). An actual
entity is both the subject that chooses what is prehended and how, and
it is the superject that becomes by means of this decision. At the same
time, however, an actual entity never becomes what it is; rather, it is by
virtue of its becoming. Put another way, an actual entity is by virtue of
the process whereby entities are prehended within its own self-actual­
ization (i.e., its own self-causation). To say of an actual entity that it is,
that it is complete, is to say that it is no longer in process, and hence its
life is complete. Whitehead will consequently say that 'an actual entity
has perished when it is complete' (99). Although its temporal life as
process is complete, however, the specifie manner in which an actual
entity prehends and integrates elements within its own self-formation
can in turn be prehended by other actual entities within their own pro­
cesses of self-formation. An actual entity can live on, then, within other
actual entities as part of what they appropria te in creating themselves.
Whitehead refers to this as the objective immortality of an actual entity.
This notion of an objective immortality further clarifies how White­
head's philosophy is a departure from traditional Western philosophy.
By becoming that which another actual entity prehends in its own pro­
cess of becoming, an actual entity is thus th�t which allows for the pos-
1 82 Rethinking System

sibility of creativity. ln other words, as the ultimate category for

Whitehead, creativity is, to recall our earlier discussion, by virtue of its
accidents - in this case, these are the actual entities which instantiate
creativity in themselves and contribute to the creativity of other actual
entities (i.e., objective immortality). Creativity and process are not to be
understood in terms of the entities they serve - the traditional Western
view; rather, actual entities are to be understood in terms of the creativ­
ity and process they serve.
Another point on which Whitehead b-reaks with traditional Western
philosophy concerns the relationship between the temporal and the
eternal. To sorne extent, Whitehead would list himself as being simply
one in a series of footnotes to Plato, and in this case because he, White­
head, daims that 'the things which are temporal arise by their partici­
pation in things which are eternal' (53). Where Whitehead breaks with
the tradition, including Plato, is in arguing that the temporal and the
eternal coexist within actual entities. This is a clear departure from
Plato, who placed the eternal ideas in a separate realm from that of the
temporal; but Whitehead would add that because the en tire tradition of
Western philosophy has seen facts as ultimate, it is subsequently con­
demned to see the eternal in terms of eternal things, whether Plato's
Ideas, Spinoza' s substance,3 or Descartes' res cogitans. Whitehead, on the
other hand, by emphasizing the ultimate nature of creativity, will sub­
sequently understand the eternal as that which is inseparable from tem­
poral, creative processes, but which is nevertheless not to be identified
with these creative processes. Whitehead will most often refer to this as
the mental pole of an actual entity - that is, it is the potentiality pre­
hended within the self-formation of an actual entity, and a potentiality
which can only be said to be (in contrast to Plato) when it is involved in
such a process. This mental pole of potentiality and conceptuality
(Whitehead' s term) is inseparable, within an actual entity - and recall
that in Whitehead's system there is nothing but actual entities - from its
physical, temporal pole: 'each actuality is essentially bipolar, physical
and mental. The integration of the physical and the mental side into a
unity of experience is a self-formation which is a process of concres­
cence, and which by the princip le of objective immortality characterizes
the creativity which transcends it' (128). And again: 'Every actual entity
is "in time" so far as its physical pole is concerned, and is "out of time"
so far as its mental pole is concerned' (290).
Each actual entity, in summary, then, is a self-caused both/and - that
if?, both physical and mental, 'in time' and 'out of time.' And it is on the
 Rethinking System 183

basis of this understanding of actual entities that Whitehead then tums

to examine the traditional philosophical notion of facts. In short, rather
than argue, as we have seen, that facts are what is ultimate, Whitehead
will daim that facts are derivative of actual entities, or they are com­
plexes and societies of actual entities: 'The philosophy of organism is a
cell-theory of actuality. Each unit of fact is a cell-complex ... ' (256). To
say· of something, to use Whitehead's favourite example, that this is a
grey stone is not to refer to an actual entity, but instead to an objective
complex and society of such entities. A society, as Whitehead defines it,
is 'a nexus of actual entities' which are ordered in one of various ways.
Without going into details, the grey stone is a nexus of actual entities
which exemplifies a highly homogenous order with little diversity, but
which can, subsequently, endure as this society, despite the many
changes that might occur around it to less stable, though more highly
structured and diverse, societies (e.g., a flower). This aspect of White­
head's thought has been widely discussed and examined. 4 For our
purposes, however, the importance of the notion of societies is that
with this concept Whitehead cornes close to setting forth the notion of
what we have called chaosmos:

Spread through the environment there may be many entities which can­
not be assigned to any society of entities. The societies in an environment
will constitute its orderly element, and the non-social actual entities will
constitute its element of chaos. There is no reason, so far as our knowl­
edge is concemed, to conceive the actual world as purely orderly, or as
purely chaotic. (131)

The world, in fact, is composed of nothing but actual entities, and to

the extent that these entities are integrated within the nexus of a soci­
ety we have order, and the degree to which we have free-floating,
nomadic actual entities we have chaos. The world, however, involves
both, or it is chaosmos. Moreover, on this point Whitehead again cites
his closeness to Plato: 'There is another point in which the organic phi­
losophy only repeats Plato. In the Timaeus the origin of the present cos­
mie epoch is traced back to an aboriginal disorder, chaotic according to
our ideals. This is the evolutionary doctrine of the philosophy of
organism' (1 14). In other words, the origin of our 'cosmic epoch' is sim­
ply the result of the integration of nomadic actual entities into societ­
ies, and societies with ever-increasing diversity, structure, and (for
Whitehead) intensity.
1 84 Rethinking System

It is with this 'evolutionary doctrine' where the significance of God

for Whitehead appears with its full force. First, according to White­
head, it is 'the immanence of God [that] gives reason for the belief that
pure chaos is intrinsically impossible' (131). Secondly, for Whitehead,
God is the very 'principle of concretion,' by which he means that God
is 'that actual entity from which each temporal concrescence receives
that initial aim from which its self-causation starts' (286). God thus
guarantees that the creative process, the process whereby an actual
entity creates itself, can initiate and be successful. God's role in White­
head's system is therefore quite crucial. 'God,' Whitehead states, 'is the
presupposed actuality of conceptual operation, in unison of becoming
with every other creative act' (406). By conceptual operation, White­
head means the infinite possibilities of conceptual qualities, qualities
abstracted from their physical, actual instantiations. For example, as a
conceptual, abstract quality, red is boundless, or harbours an infinite
number of possible realizations. Such conceptual qualities, however,
and this is central to Whitehead's criticism of Plato, among others, do
not pre-exist independently of the concrete, actual entities in which
they inhere. To the contrary, the conceptual operation is the process
wherein the abstract qualities are actualized, but actualized always
within the constraints laid down by pre-existing actual entities - that
is, the objective immortality of such entities. There is not, in itself, an
infinite, boundless realm of abstract possibilities. As Whitehead
argues, 'The "boundless, abstract possibility" means the creativity con­
sidered solely in reference to the possibilities of the intervention of
etemal objects, and in abstraction from the objective intervention of
actual entities belonging to any definite actual world, including God
among the actualities abstracted from' (258) But such abstractions are
precisely that: an abstraction from the 'objective intervention of actual
entities'; and, as such, they presuppose the actual entities from which
the abstract qualites are derived. Ultimately, however, there is nothing
but actual entities, and the conceptual operation is simply the manner
in which conceptual possibilities become realized within actual enti­
ties. And what assures that there is no boundless abstract realm is God,
or God is presupposed by every novel, creative advance. Whitehead is
clear on this point:

The universe includes a threefold creative act composed of (i) the one infi­
nite conceptual realization, (ü) the multiple solidarity of free physical
realizations in the temporal world, (üi) the ultimate unity of the multiplie-
 Rethinking System 185

ity of actual fact with the primordial conceptual fact. If we conceive the
first term and the last term in their unity over against the intermediate
multiple freedom of physical realizations in the temporal world, we con­
ceive of the patience of God, tenderly saving the turmoil of the intermedi­
ate world by the completion of his own nature. (408)

lt is therefore the unity of God, or God as an actual entity, and hence

God both as the subjective potentiality seeking realization and the sub­
ject (superject) that is realized and completed; it is this unity which is
the condition which assures the harmony and systematic unity of the
world of physical multiplicity and diversity. God therefore assures
that the diversity of the world will not slip into boundless chaos and
'turmoil,' or God assures that nomadic actual entities will never gain
the upper hand and will remain forever subordinate to the processes
that result in ordered, structured societies. It is for this reason, then,
that Whitehead daims God 'does not create the world, he saves it'
(ibid.). lt is with this latter point that our notion of chaosmos diverges,
as we shall see.

Chaosmos and Expression

Before elaborating on this divergence, we will first sketch sorne key

similarities and differences between Whitehead's notion of an actual
entity and our use of the term 'expression.' As for a key similarity, the
term 'expression,' as with Whitehead's understanding of an actual
entity, implies a fundamental both/ and - in particular, a subjective and
objective component. An expression entails both a subject expressing
itself by means of an expression, and that which is the expressed within
the expression, or that which one hopes to express in any complete and
successful expression, something someone else can in turn express to
another, perhaps even in a foreign tongue. A second key similarity con­
cerns the notion of self-cause; therefore, just as an actual entity is self­
caused, so too is chaosmos, or we might say it expresses itself. In claim­
ing that chaosmos expresses itself, or actualizes itself within its expres­
sions, we in turn reiterate Whitehead's threefold division of the creative
act (in this case, the expressive act). There is (i) chaosmos as expresser,
or the boundless potentiality which seeks to be constrained and limited
to a degree which allows for the possibility of identification (i.e., for
something to be expressed); there is (ii) the expression itself, or the
physical realization of an act of expression, a realization that can
1 86 Rethinking System

assume an indefinite variety (e.g., different languages); and finally,

there is (iü) chaosmos as expressed, the identifiable, objective sense
which can be translated from one language to another (one form of
expression to another). It is the middle term, expression, which is sig­
nificant for us, for expression, we will argue below, is the both/ and that
allows for the identification of an expresser (subjective-pole) and an
expressed (objective-pole). Where this differs from Whitehead's three­
fold division is that whereas Whitehead argues that God is the condi­
tion which guarantees that the multiplicity of actual entities will be
integrated into orderly societies and structures, we shall argue that
there is no such condition. Order does emerge out of free, nomadic
actual entities (or what we earlier referred to as the non-integrated
points or vectors), but it is not guaranteed by a single, privileged condi­
tion (i.e., God as actual entity); rather, the chaos of nomadic entities and
singularities self-organizes into ordered structures, and does so with­
out a guiding, ordering condition. We will elaborate on this point in
greater detail below when we discuss work in chaos theory and
dynamic systems, but for now our concem has been simply to sketch
where our approach differs from that of Whitehead. Despite this impor­
tant difference, however, we remain indebted to Whitehead's work,
and largely follow him in applying the threefold division to chaosmos.
Consequently, the notion of chaosmos as boundless, infinite potential­
ity, corresponds to chaos; chaosmos as the expressed, the identifiable
and objective, corresponds to cosmos; and the both/ and aspect of
expression is what we have called chaosmos. In the discussion to fol­
low, we will argue that it is the both/ and of expression (chaosmos)
which is the condition of possibility for identifying the subjective and
objective poles. Chaosmos, in other words, is, as expression, the condi­
tion for the possibility of asking the questions: who/what expresses
chaosmos? And what is expressed in these expressions?
Our approach is clearly at odds with the traditional understanding of
expression. An expression, as usually understood, presupposes the sub­
ject (expresser) 1 object (expressed) dualism, rather than the reverse. An
expression, this argument runs, presupposes a subject who has some­
thing to say, and who realizes this intention within an expression. The
problem with this argument, however, surfaces when one attempts to
account for the relationship between what a subject in tends or means by
an act of expression and the meaning itself that completes this act. This
problem haunted Husserl's efforts to account adequately for the rela­
tionship between the intentionality of consciousness and the objects
 Rethinking System 1 87

intended by this consciousness; most notably this gives rise to the prob­
lem of accounting for an-other consciousness that is not merely a corre­
la te, or analogue, of one's own intending consciousness. 5 One way to
resolve this problem, and this is the tactic Husserl and others have
taken, is to posit a paradoxical entity which is simultaneously intending
and intended, subject and object, expresser and expressed, and then to
argue that it is this paradoxical element which is the condition for dif­
ferentiating between an intending and intended consciousness, subject
and abject, expresser and expressed. 6 With respect to the latter distinc­
tion, which is our primary concem here, the famous linguist Louis
Hjelmslev takes just this approach when he argues that the sign, or what
he also caUs sign-function, paradoxical as it may be, is the condition for
distinguishing and relating both expresser and expressed:

The sign is, then - paradoxical as it may seem - a sign for a content-sub­
stance and a sign for an expression-substance. lt is in this sense that the
sign can be said to be a sign for something. On the other hand, we see no
justification for calling the sign a sign merely for the content-substance, or
(what nobody has thought of, to be sure) merely for the expression-sub­
stance. The sign is a two-sided entity, with a Janus-like perspective in two
directions, and with effect in two respects: 'outwards' toward the expres­
sion-substance and 'inwards' toward the content-substance?

The sign, as with our notion 'expression,' is a two-sided entity, or a

both/ and entity; it is directed towards both expresser (expression-sub­
stance) and expressed (content-substance). This understanding of
expression is a philosophically useful concept for several reasons. First,
the concept 'expression' provides an intuitively straightforward way of
approaching the problem of one and many - that is, the problem, as dis­
cussed earlier with respect to Aristotle, of several entities maintaining
their individuality and differentiatian from others, but at the same time
continuing to be, and hence be One with everything else that is (ousia).
In expression such a relationship between one and many occurs as a
matter of course: many different expressions, in many different lan­
guages, can express one sense or meaning. A second use of the concept
'expression' echoes Hjelmslev's use of the notion 'sign.' ln short, it
answers the question of how to relate the expressions we utter to the
intention of a speaker and the intended meaning being expressed. As a
paradoxical both/ and, an expression is tumed both towards the subject
who expresses him/herself and towards the objective content that is
1 88 Rethinking System

being expressed. When 1 express myself, 1 both take my expressions to

be an adequate expression of my subjective state (if 1 have expressed
myself well, that is) and 1 take them to bear an objective content that ath­
ers can understand. This everyday use of expressions as a means of
relating one's self to others emerges, then, as a solution to the problem
left by Descartes. This well-known problem follows upon Descartes'
daim that the mind (res cogitans) and fact of thinking cannot be doubted
since it is known in and through itself; however, when it cornes to
knowledge of other things, or things that we know through their
attributes, the difficulty is to show that the mind can come to know
things other than itself. Descartes' solution to this problem entailed
knowing the cause through the caused, and hence knowledge of an
effect expresses knowledge of its cause; or, to narrow in on Descartes'
argument, knowledge of an infinite perfection expresses a knowledge
of the cause of this knowledge, namely, God. But to know God is to
know something other, and with this move the door to knowledge of
the world of extended things (res extensa) is opened.
This solution to the problem was inadequate from the perspective of
both Leibniz and Spinoza. Their criticism, put briefly, is that to know
God through our knowledge of the idea of infinite perfection is to know
God through an attribute of God; but the problem was precisely to show
how we can know something through its attributes. In other words,
Descartes assumes precisely what he hopes to justify. To resolve this
problem, then, both Spinoza and Leibniz, as Deleuze has shown, use the
concept 'expression.' Leibniz, for example, in a letter to Arnaud, will
daim that 'every individual substance [i.e., monad] expresses the whole
universe in its own manner' ; 8 and Spinoza daims in his Ethics, 'By God
1 understand a being absolu tely infinite, i.e., a substance consisting of an
infinity of attributes, of which each one expresses an eternal and infinite
essence.' 9 Their reason for this move to the use of .the concept 'expres­
sion,' according to Deleuze, is that it adequately explains how two het­
erogenous series may nevertheless be related. Mind and body,
therefore, may be two different monads, but they each express the one
world, according to Leibniz; and Mind and Body may be two different
attributes, as Spinoza understands them, but they in turn express the
one substance. Therefore, just as the sign was able, as Hjelmslev under­
stands the sign-function, to bring an expression-substance (i.e., physical
utterances, signs, etc.) into relation with a content-substance (i.e.,
intended meaning, concept, etc.), so too does an expression bring a
series of mental entities into relation with a series of physical entities.
This relation, however, is, as Deleuze will darify this point, a non-causal
 Rethinking System 1 89

relationship. That is, although the expression-substance is related to the

content-substance, neither one causes, or is dependent upon, the
other. 1 0 They are each, Hjelmslev daims, functives of the paradoxical
sign-function. Similarly, with the concept of expression one can explain
how mind and body are related without arguing that one is dependent
upon the other. As Deleuze puts it, 'the relation between the two series
[i.e., mind/body, corporeal/ spiritual], and their relation to what is
invariant between them, depends on noncausal correspondence. If we
then ask what concept can account for such a correspondence, that of
expression appears to do so.' 1 1 It is on this conceptual basis, then, that
Spinoza develops his famous theory of the parallelism of mind and
body, and Leibniz develops his notion of the pre-established harmony.
These theories of pre-established harmony and parallelism recognize
the close ties between mind and body, and yet they attempt to explain
the relationship between them without resorting to a causal explana­
tion. The problem of knowing how mind and body are related is now
simply a matter of recognizing mind and body as expressions of an
invariant (i.e., the pre-established harmony of the world for Leibniz,
and substance for Spinoza).
The concept 'expression' is also useful in accounting for a knowledge
of that which is other, or for the problem Descartes left behind. The
importance of the concept here is that when one gains a greater and
more detailed knowledge of the attributes of God, for example, one is
not coming to a knowledge of God through something other than
God, such as the attribute of infinite perfection. As expressions, these
attributes are not other than, or distinct from, God, but are God and sub­
stance as expressed (for Spinoza); or the monads are not other than the
world, but each is a different way in which the world is expressed. It is
precisely this aspect of expression that Deleuze finds to be most signif­
icant - that is, the expressed 'inheres or subsists' in the expression. As
Deleuze argues this point in Logic of Sense, sense, following the Stoics,

does not exist outside the proposition which expresses it; what is
expressed does not exist outside its expression. This is why we cannot say
that sense exists, but rather that it inheres or subsists. On the other hand,
it does not merge at aU with the proposition, for it has an objective (objec­
tite) which is quite distinct. 1 2

One does not come to a knowledge of God through something other,

for example, the attributes of God, but instead one knows God in these
attributes, as that which is not to be confused with these attributes in
190 Rethinking System

the sense of being wholly identified with them, but nonetheless as that
which does not properly exist independently of these attributes. God
'inheres and subsists' in these attributes as what is expressed. To
resolve the Cartesian problem, therefore, of accounting for a knowl­
edge of something other that does not itself depend upon a knowledge
of attributes that are other than God, Leibniz moves to a concept of
expression whereby God (or God-created world for Leibniz) is not
truly other than the monads (i.e., as separable existent), but rather
'inheres and subsists' in the monads as what is expressed therein.
Deleuze will subsequent!y restate the daims of the previous quote, but
will state it later in Logic of Sense in Leibnizean terms:

It is indeed true that the expressed world does not exist outside of the
monads which express it, and thus that it does exist within the monads as
the series of predicates which inhere in them. It is no less true, however,
that God created the world rather than monads, and that what is expressed
is not confused with its expression, but rather inheres and subsistsP

At this point a comparison with Whitehead will be beneficiai. As is

well known, Whitehead's own 'cell-theory of actuality' 14 mirrors in
many respects Leibniz's monadic theory of actuality. There is, how­
ever, an important difference between the two theories. As Whitehead
expressed the difference, Whitehead's own theory of monads 'differs
from Leibniz's in that his [Leibniz's] monads change. In the organic
theory, they merely become.' 1 5 In other words, Whitehead's monads,
as discussed earlier, are in his system referred to as 'actual entities';
however, one cannot say of these actual entities that they are, or that
they are an identifiable fact, for once their process is complete and they
are identified, they perish and then assume an objective immortality
insofar as they are prehended by other actual entities in their own pro­
cess of becoming. Leibniz's monads, on the other hand, are undestood
in the manner of an ultimate fact, or something that is. Consequently,
for Leibniz change is something that occurs to monads that are (and
they change following their own internai principles), whereas White­
head's actual entities only come to be seen as identifiable facts and
entities that change (e.g., the grey stone) when they converge and are
organized into a society of such entities. Thus, actual entities become,
but to say that they change would imply that they change from being in
one state to being in that of another, and this is something that can only
be said of facts.
 Rethinking System 191

Despite this important difference between Leibniz and Whitehead,

both are generally agreed that 'actuality' entails a convergence and sys­
tem of monads whereby the world as a whole is expressed. To rephrase
Whitehead's daim, the monads are the accidents (i.e., expressions) by
virtue of which the world is actualized; similarly, for Whitehead, God is
the accident by virtue of which the world, or facts, can be actualized. 16
And it is with respect to the presuppositions implied by this common
ground between Whitehead and Leibniz that Deleuze breaks with Leib­
niz and that we, by extension, break with Whitehead. To understand
this break, we must first set forth Deleuze's notion of 'the two stages of
passive genesis,' for it is on the basis of this distinction that Deleuze
will criticize and break with Leibniz.
By 'passive genesis,' Deleuze simply means the genesis of actualities,
a genesis that is passive because there is no active, creative agent direct­
ing the process. In Leibniz, for example, the world and its pre-estab­
lished harmony would be the result of an active genesis, but the
monads which express the created world would be the result of passive
genesis. This passive genesis, however, is, as we saw, the means
whereby the created world is actualized when the monads converge
into a system, a system which expresses the pre-established harmony
and identity of the world (i.e., the fact that God created the best of all
possible worlds). The monads, in other words, are subordinate to, and
are organized with respect to, a world which determines what can and
cannot be grouped together within the system of monads. This system­
atizing and passive genesis is what Deleuze refers to as the first stage of
passive genesis. As Deleuze makes the distinction, 'First, beginning
with singularities-events [i.e., monads] which constitute it [the world],
sense engenders a first field wherein it is actualized: the Umwelt which
organizes the singularities in cirdes of convergence; individuals which
express these worlds; states of bodies; mixtures or aggregates of these
individuals ... ' 'Then,' Deleuze adds, 'a second, very different field
appears, built upon the first; the Welt common to several or to all
worlds; the persans who define this "something in common"; synthetic
predicates which define these persans ... Just as the first stage of the
genesis is the work of sense, the second is the work of nonsense, which
is always co-present to sense (aleatory point or ambiguous sign).' 17
And with respect to Leibniz, Deleuze daims that 'no matter how far he
may have progressed in a theory of singular points and the play, [Leib­
niz] did not truly pose the distributive rules of the ideal game and did
at best conceive of the pre-individual very much on the basis of cons ti-
1 92 Rethinking System

tuted individuals.-t 8 In other words, along with the strictures and struc­
tures of an identity which organizes singularities, singularities which
express this world (i.e., the world is the sense expressed in these singu­
larities), there is, for Deleuze, a simultaneous presence of nonsense, an
aleatory point which eludes and undermines the stable identities and
structures necessary for the first stage of passive genesis. Leibniz,
according to Deleuze, recognized only the first stage of passive genesis,
and not only did he not recognize the second stage, he outright
shunned it, and hence Deleuze's critical reference to 'Leibniz's shame­
ful declaration: he assigns to philosophy the creation of new concepts,
provided that they do not overthrow "established sentiments.111 1 9 We
can further clarify this critique, and the two stages of passive genesis,
by placing Whitehead's discussion of actual entities within the context
of Deleuze' s critique of Leibniz. We will then be able to clarify the man­
ner in which our understanding of chaosmos breaks with Whitehead' s ·

understanding of God.
From Deleuze's perspective, although he never actually made this
argument, Whitehead is a clear advance over Leibniz. The reason for
this is that Whitehead recognized the necessity of what he called the
'non-social actual entities,' or chaos. These were the actual entities that
had not been integrated within the nexus of a society; they were free,
nomadic entities, or what Deleuze will call the nomadic singularities
and aleatory points. Leibniz, on the other hand, does not recognize the
possibility of free, nomadic monads: all monads express the pre-estab­
lished harmony of the world (i.e., first stage of passive genesis). It was
because Leibniz rejected the possibility of such nomadic monads that
he believed in the possibility of a mathesis universalis. Leibniz, there­
fore, will argue for a system of monads, but a system that is pure order,
or a completely lawful cosmos. Whitehead argued, as we saw, that
there are always sorne free, non-social actual entities, that there is
never pure order, nor is there ever pure chaos; rather, there is both
order and chaos, or what we have termed chaosmos. It is this move to
chaosmos which is an advance over Leibniz's continued adherence to
cosmos.
Whitehead's view of chaosmos is not in complete agreement with our
understanding of it. To see where we break with Whitehead, we need to
recall his 'threefold' division of the creative act, and trace where
Deleuze does and does not follow Whitehead. There was first the 'one
infinite conceptual realization,' or a pure potentiality that is 'free, com­
plete, primordial, eternal, actually deficient and unconscious' (407).
 Rethinking System 193

Then there is 'the multiple solidarity of free physical realizations in the

temporal world,' or the actualization of this potentiality, an actualiza­
tion that is now limited by the existence of what is already actual. And
finally, there is 'the ultimate unity of the multiplicity of actual fact with
the primordial conceptual fact' (408). The intermediate or second stage
was, as we saw, saved by God, 'by the completion of his own nature'
(Ibid.). Deleuze will follow much this same model, though rather than
stressing the saving nature of God, Deleuze will emphasize the nature
of the event. This concept of an 'event' is perhaps Deleuze's most impor­
tant concept. For this reason, it is worth quoting in full one of Deleuze' s
most straightforward definitions of an 'event':

With every event, there is indeed the present moment of its actualization,
the moment in which the event is embodied in a state of affairs, an indi­
vidual, or a person, the moment we designate by saying 'here, the
moment has come.' The future and the past of the event are only evalu­
ated with respect to this definitive present. On the other hand, there is the
future and past of the event considered in itself, sidestepping each
present, being free of the limitations of a state of affairs, impersonal, pre­
individual, neutrai. 20

We can now resta te Whitehead' s threefold division of the creative act.

There is first what Deleuze will most often caU a transcendental field of
pre-individual singularities. Within this transcendental, 'unconscious'
field, Deleuze daims these pre-individual singularities 'are distributed
in a "potential" which admits neither Self nor 1, but which produces
them by actualizing or realizing itself, although the figures of this actu­
alization do not resemble the realized potential.' 21 In other words, in
agreement with Whitehead, this first stage is a field of potentiality that
is 'actually deficient and unconscious.' The second stage is the actual­
ization of these pre-individual singularities, the actualization which
produces Self and 1, or it is the event as 'embodied in a state of affairs, an
individual, or a person.' And finally, there is the objective form, struc­
ture, or assemblage within which an event occurs. For example, a battle
is an event which, following Deleuze's example, both inheres and sub­
sists in the individual bodies and states of affairs, and there is the per­
sistent event as pre-individual and neutra! which 'inheres or subsists' in
the individual bodies and states of affairs while not being confused with
them. This both/ and structure of the event, however, also occurs within
a larger structure and assemblage, such as being part of a larger war (or
1 94 Rethinking System

war-machine). An actualized event, in other words, is actualized within

a certain assemblage or form, or within a certain structure. Even an
event that may not be 'captured' by a larger assemblage or structure, an
isolated, nomadic event so to speak, will necessarily arise with a certain
form and consistency. An actualized event, in short, is both form and
content, pre-individual and individual, 'here and now' while forever
'sidestepping each present' here and now. The question, then, is how
the actual becomes actual, and with a certain form and structure?
For Whitehead the answer to this question is God. For Whitehead,
God is the form of Self which guarantees successful actualization
because the 'completion of his own nature [i.e., Self]' makes it possible
for all other entities to achieve self-completion (actualization). Deleuze
explicitly breaks with this understanding of actualization:

A consciousness is nothing without a synthesis of unification, but there is

no synthesis of unification of consciousness without the form of the 1, or
the point of view of the Self [e.g., God for Whitehead] . What is neither
individual nor personal are, on the contrary, emissions of singularities
insofar as they occur on an unconscious surface and possess a mobile,
immanent principle of auto-unification through a nomadic distribution, radi­
cally distinct from fixed and sedentary distributions and conditions of the
syntheses of consciousness. 22

Deleuze thus posits an 'immanent principle of auto-unification' that

is 'radically distinct' from Whitehead's understanding of a synthesis
and unification that is under the direction of the form of an 1 or Self
(God). What is this immanent principle? In Logic of Sense Deleuze refers
to this principle of auto-unification as the 'paradoxical element' which
traverses the singularities and draws them into relationships that allow
for the possibility of being actualized. The actualization of the event,
the immanent principle which allows for the possibility that an event
will have the double structure form/content, pre-individual /individ­
ual, etc., is the paradoxical element which brings the two heterogenous
sides into relationship with one another (and hence for the actualization
which includes both sides). As Deleuze argues, 'It seemed to us that the
event, that is, sense, referred to a paradoxical element, intervening as
nonsense or as an aleatory point, and operating as a quasi-cause assur­
ing the full autonomy of the effect [i.e., event as self-identical, or self­
completed, individual, state of affairs, etc.].' 23
To understand this concept of a 'paradoxical element,' and its role as
 Rethinking System 195

'quasi-cause' of actualized events, we need simply recall Hjelmslev's

concept of the paradoxical sign-function. The sign-function, we saw,
was what allowed for a non-causal correspondence between heteroge­
nous series. That is, one series did not function as the cause of another
that was its effect; rather, both series are non-causally related by virtue
of the sign-function, and thus the sign can be called, as Deleuze does, a
'quasi-cause' of the resulting relationships. In the context of Hjelmslev,
the sign-function is paradoxically both form and content, or it is more
properly the condition for the possibility of distinguishing between a
form and a content, or more precisely it allows for the possibility of dis­
tinguishing between an expression-substance and content-substance, as
well as the corresponding expression-form and content-form. For exam­
ple, the sign-function which engenders the sign 'I don't know' has both
an expression-substance and expression-form. The expression-sub­
stance is the physical utterance, or the written sign. The expression­
form would be, among other things, the accent with which the words
are spoken, the tone, inflection, or even a written word that is italicized
for emphasis. The content-substance is the meaning expressed by the
expression, a meaning that can be expressed in a number of ways in a
number of languages (e.g., je ne sais pas in French). The content-form is
the grammatical, linguistic structure of a language, as well as the struc­
ture and traditions of a culture, which determine what can be meant. 24
The sign-function is precisely the function which allows for the relation­
ship between form and content, expression and content (meaning), to
occur, or to be actualized. Similarly, for Deleuze, the paradoxical ele­
ment is the condition of possibility for similar relationships to o�cur
within actualized events. Consequently, the content would be the pre­
individual, non-personal singularities and nomadic points; the form
would be the consistency, or set of integrable points, which allows for
the possibility of drawing a line through these points, a plane of consis­
tency or plateau. The singularities and nomadic points can be under­
stood, then, to be as points scattered across a Cartesian graph. The use
of differentiai equations allows one to plot the points on the graph, and
the integration of these differentiai equations results in a solution or for­
mula that enables one to draw an integral curve and determine where
the next point, or any point, will be. In other words, what may initially
appear as a random set of points on a graph acquires a consistency by
means of the differentiai equations as such, and the integration of these
equations gives us the identity of a rule or formula that removes the
spectre of randomness. 25 The paradoxical element thus allows the
1 96 Rethinking System

points to be drawn into relationship with one another, or for what

Deleuze also calls a 'plane of consistency' or 'cirde of convergence.'
And with this consistency, with this form, the actualization of an indi­
vidual which embodies this form is made possible.
We can now more adequately darify Deleuze's daims regarding the
two stages of passive genesis. The first stage was the stage goverened
by 'the work of sense.' Here Deleuze refers to the primordial form, or
Umwelt, which 'organizes the singularities in cirdes of convergence;
individuals which express these worlds; states of bodies; mixtures or
aggregates of these individuals.' This stage of passive genesis is the
work of sense, that is, sense as event, because sense/ events entail both
the pre-individual and an objective form. The intermediary stage of
Whitehead's threefold division - 'the multiple solidarity of free physi­
cal realizations' - is possible because there is a form or consistency to
the work of sense, and when this consistency is worked upon the pre­
individual singularities, this allows for the possibility of actualization
(integration). Leibniz, we saw, recognized only this type of actualiza­
tion; however, we can see that Whitehead, to the extent that he privi­
leges the guiding form and 'self-completion' of God, is also working
with this understanding of actualization. Deleuze offers another
understanding of actualization, one that occurs not by the work of
sense, but rather by the work of nonsense, the paradoxical element and
aleatory points. Such points are not separable from the first stage, from
the work of sense; they are, as Deleuze said, 'always co-present to
sense.' 26 To darify the manner of this co-presence to sense, let us retum
to the theme of chaosmos as expression.
Our discussion to this point should make it much dearer what is
meant by saying chaosmos is to be understood as expression. First, as
expression, as an event, chaosmos entails a fundamental both/ and
structure. Chaosmos, as we have been repeating throughout this work,
is both chaos, or a field of free, nomadic singularities (Whitehead's non­
social actual entities), and chaosmos is cosmos, order, individuals, iden­
tity, structure, and the interrelationship of all these in accordance with
law. To this point, then, we are simply setting forth an understanding of
chaosmos that corresponds to the first stage of passive genesis, and we
are not saying anything very different from what Whitehead has
already argued. However, we shall follow Deleuze in his daim that
there is a second stage, that of nonsense, aleatory points, or a paradox­
ical element that is in disequilibrium with itself, absent from its own
place, and is yet the condition for the possibility of a non-causal corre-
 Rethinking. System 197

spondence between chaos and cosmos (i.e., paradoxical element as

'quasi-cause'). As Deleuze puts it, 'The metamorphoses or redistribu­
tions of singularities form a history; each combination and each distri­
bution is an event [first stage of passive genesis]. But the paradoxical
instance is the Event in which all events communicate and are distrib­
uted [second stage].1 27 The paradoxical instance allows for the commu­
nication and non-causal relationship between singularities, and hence
for the circles of convergence and consistencies which allow for the inte­
gration and actualization of events. In this sense, the paradoxical
instance, or what we have defined as paradoxa, is the condition of pos­
sibility for chaosmos, or for any functioning assemblage, and it is cha­
osmos which is the expressed within events, or within the first stage of
passive genesis. 28
This discussion of circles of convergence, consistency, and integrable
forms reveals sorne important concepts in the work of Deleuze that he
uses in attempting to offer a 'radically distinct' understanding of syn­
thesis, auto-unification, and actualization. The notion of a circle as a
condition for the possibility of actualization is not a new concept, and
it has been of particular importance in accounting for systems. In
Hegel's system, for example, all notions and determinations are one
with the unfolding and retum of Spirit to itself. This leads Hegel to say
that 'the image of true infinity, bent back into itself, becomes the circle,
the line which has reached itself, which is closed and wholly present,
without beginning and end.' 29 And in the Phenomenology of Spirit, in
the context of discussing system as the whole, and absolute knowledge
as knowledge of system or whole, Hegel daims: 'The True is the
whole. But the whole is nothing other than the essence consummating
itself through its development.' 30 Actualization is part and parcel of a
larger circle: the consummating retum of Spirit to itself. For White­
head, too, the notion of a circle (circling self-completion) is important.
God is the actual entity whose form of self-completion guarantees the
possibility of sucessful self-completion by other actual entities. Unlike
Hegel, Whitehead argues that each actual entity, including God, is self­
caused, though God is given, as we have shown, a privileged status
over other actual entities.
For us, every circle of convergence, every event which expresses
chaosmos, is interrelated in that each is made possible by the Event, or
paradoxa. Chaosmos, therefore, is a system; however, this is an under­
standing of system quite distinct from that of Hegel or Whitehead.
Although Hegel and Whitehead argue for system, their system is not,
198 �ethinking System
Deleuze would say, truly univocal. By arguing that the formai proper­
ties and characteristics of a system (i.e., the nature and interrelationship
of the entities which constitute a system) are made possible by a condi­
tion which is similar to that which is conditioned - for example, the
self-completion of God is comparable to the self-completion of other
actual entities - one is left with the necessity of privileging a particular
forrn or identity as the condition of possibility for all other identities.
The conditioned identities thus do not express themselves in quite the
same way as the privileged or conditioning identity does. Despite the
fact that Whitehead daims God is one actual entity just as any other,
these other actual entities are 'saved by' God, and therefore God does
not express him/herself in the same way, or actual entities are
expressed equivocally, depending on whether the actual entity is God
or not. In following Deleuze, we daim chaosmos is systematic in the
sense that each event, each actual entity (induding chaosmos itself), is
conditioned by that which in no way resembles it - namely, paradoxical
instance, or paradoxa. In saying this, we are not privileging one identi­
fiable event as sufficiently self-expressed whereby all others are only
sufficiently self-expressed (or actualized) on the condition of this first;
rather, the paradoxical instance is what allows for the possibility of an
actualized event, an event with a dual forrn/ content structure (i.e.,
event as expression of chaosmos, or first stage of passive genesis), but
the paradoxical instance does not itself have this structure, or it is non­
identifiable. The paradoxical instance is not a privileged forrn or iden­
tity, a privileged individuality, precisely because it is pre-individual,
a-formai, and non-identifiable. And since Whitehead does view God
both as a privileged actual entity, by which the multiplicity of other
actual entities is 'saved,' and as the self-identical and self-complete
actual entity which guarantees the emergence of new, identifiable enti­
ties, we can see, finally, where Deleuze, with his notion of the paradox­
ical instance, ultimately breaks with Whitehead. In our terms, then,
paradoxa is the condition of possibility all actual events presuppose, or
it is the condition that does not exist independently from, or in separa­
tion from, these events. Paradoxa is the immanent, non-identifiable
condition that inheres or subsists in all identifiable events, or it is
'always co-present to sense.' As Deleuze defines univocity,

if Being is the unique event in which ali events communicate with one
another, univocity refers both to what occurs and to what is said. Univocity
means that it is the same thing which occurs and is said: the attributable to
ali bodies or states of affairs and the expressible of every proposition.3 1
 Rethinking System 1 99

Paradoxa, or Event and paradoxical instance, is the immanence pre­

supposed by all actual entities, whether states of affairs or propositions,
but it is at the same time the immanent outside of every state of affairs
and every proposition, because it is both not to be confused with the
identities and actualities it makes possible (it is non-identifiable), and it
is the condition of impossibility that must remain outside the syntheses
which allow for the expression (actualization) of a given identity, for
without doing so the system will collapse into nonsense and cease func­
tioning altogether. All actualized entities, therefore, are systematically
interrelated in that they immanently and univocally express paradoxa,
both as its condition of possibility and its condition of impossibility.
This does not mean that there is just a single system, or a whole which
con tains all things; to the contrary, there is a multiplicity of systems, and
more precisely there is a multiplicity of dynamic systems. It is these
dynamic systems which presuppose and express paradoxa as the con­
dition of possibility for a system which is constantly changing and in
flux, that is, which is dynamic. At the same time, such a dynamic system
expresses paradoxa as the limit it must avoid (its condition of impossi­
bility) if it is to remain a dynamic, functioning system. lt is this view of
system that we believe Deleuze to be setting forth.
To illustra te further our daim that Deleuze is developing a metaphys­
ics of dynamic systems at the edge of chaos, we shall look at sorne of the
principles of self-organization (auto-unification) as they have been put
forth within contemporary dynamic systems theory; and we will look at
complementary work in chaos theory, work which is often used to sup­
port the dynamic systems approach. This discussion of dynamic sys­
tems should clarify two important philosophical points. The first point
arase in response to Frank's criticism of Derrida. By doing away with a
closed, self-identical system (such as Saussure offered), Derrida was left
with an open system that was unable, according to Frank, to account for
any identifiable meaning. To respond to this criticism, we argued that
what was needed was an understanding of system as simultaneously
complete and open. Related to this view of a system as simultaneously
complete and open is the notion of self-identity. In particular, the view
of dynamic systems we will be sketching below will argue that these
systems are both self-differing (i.e., constantly changing and becoming
different) and self-identical, though in this context we will adopt the
concept of self-similarity (following chaos theory and its understanding .
of the self-similarity of fractals). The second point that our discussion of
dynamic systems should clarify is the role of the paradoxical instance,
or paradoxa. As those working in chaos theory and dynamic systems
200 Rethinking System

theory have been arguing, there is no fixed, privileged form or identity

which governs the processes of organization. Rather, dynamic systems
are self-organized in such a way that they both exhibit the presupposi­
tion of a paradoxical, aleatory point which conditions them, and they
exhibit this same condition as a limit to be avoided. What we have to
this point referred to as chaosmos, we will now discuss as dynamic sys­
tems, and in this way better connect with other fields and with their
efforts to account for self-organization and the emergence (actualiza­
tion) of stable identities, forms, and patterns.

Dynamic Systems

A guiding question of recent work in dynamic systems is how arder -

that is, the sophisticated, stable patterns which are readily apparent ­
are able to emerge despite the second law of thermodynamics, which
states that arder tends to move to chaos, or that systems in disequilib­
rium tend to move to equilibrium. Returning to our earlier analogy of
the random points on a graph, we see that this question relates directly
to our effort to explain how consistency and hence identifiable arder is
able to emerge and be actualized from within a random set of points.
What researchers in dynamic systems theory and chaos theory will
most often point to is the fact that such arder does emerge (obviously),
but only under certain circumstances, in particular circumstances that
are far from equilibrium. To take a frequently cited example, oil, when
heated, will suddenly exhibit convection rolls and vortices as it is
heated and before it boils. Before the oil is heated, the oil is in an equi­
librium state in which entropy is at a maximum; in other words, the oil
molecules are randomly scattered throughout the container such that
no arder or consistency is present. One section of the container would
be indistinguishable from another. We thus have chaos, or a random
set of points with no identifiable arder, what is called 'equilibrium
thermal chaos.' When heated, however, the oil maves away from equi­
librium, and it is under these conditions that the convection rolls and
vortices appear. Once the oil is in a full boil, chaos reappears, or 'non­
equilibrium thermal chaos,' and subsequently one section of the boil­
ing water is indistinguishable from any other. Dynamic systems and
chaos theorists will pay particular attention to far-from-equilibrium
conditions, and more precisely to the arder which emerges at the criti­
cal threshold between equilibrium and non-equilibrium chaos.
The far-from-equilibrium conditions which give rise to spontaneous
 Rethinking System 201

order most often occur during what is called a phase transition. A phase
transition is a transition between two steady and stable equilibrium
states, such as liquid and gas, or liquid and solid. As these systems
approach a phase transition, they enter a far-from-equilibrium state
wherein self-organized patterns tend to emerge, and at a critical point
(e.g., of temperature), there is a discontinuous jump to the new phase.
Related to these phase transitions, and also occuring in far-from-equi­
librium conditions, is the phenomenon of bifurcations. As Ilya Prigog­
ine and Isabelle Stengers discuss bifurcations in their well-known book
Order out of Chaos, a bifurcation point arises at a critical point where a
system is poised to transition and when not just one stable state but,
rather, 'two new stable solutions emerge.1 32 For example, at the critical
point where the stable solution of a convection roll appears in the
heated oil, the rolling motion may assume either a clockwise or coun­
terclockwise direction - both solutions are possible. Which solution, or
which branch of the bifurcation the system will 'choose,' is impossible
to predict: 'How will the system choose between left and right? There is
an irreducible random element; the macroscopic equation cannot pre­
dict the path the system will take ... We are faced with chance events
very similar to the fall of dice.1 33 As the oil is heated, further bifurcations
appear, rolls within rolls, in what is called a process of 'cascading bifur­
cations,' which then leads to turbulent chaos. A bifurcation diagram of
such a process between 'equilibrium thermal chaos' and 'non-equilib­
rium thermal chaos' is surprisingly ordered, or 'order or coherence is
sandwiched between thermal chaos and non-equilibrium turbulent
chaos.' 34 If one enlarges a portion of a bifurcation diagram, for example,
one will find that it resembles the whole, and an enlarged portion of this
would in tum resemble the whole. A bifurcation diagram, and the more
commonly referred to Mandelbrot sets or fractals, exhibit the important
feature of self-similarity, or a consistency and order which appears
between 'equilibrium thermal chaos' and 'non-equilibrium thermal
chaos.' In Stuart Kauffman's recent book, At Home in the Universe, as
well as in the work of J .A. Scott Kelso, attention has shifted to this emer­
gence of order within a dynamic system that is on the 'edge of chaos,' or
a system that is poised between equilibrium and non-equilibrium
chaos.
These findings in chaos theory have raised enticing possibilities
regarding the study of the origins of life, human behaviour, and con­
sciousness. It seems a natural extension of work in chaos theory and its
study of the emergence of order amidst the turbulence in fluids, to tum
202 Rethinking System

next to living organisms, for they seem to be just the sort of dynamic sys­
tem which inhabits the 'edge of chaos,' the ordered middle ground
between thermal equilibrium (which would be death) and non-equilib­
rium chaos (which would also mean death). 35 Kauffman, in fact, will
argue that life emerges and best maintains itself at the 'edge of chaos,'
and it is with this notion, therefore, that Kauffman proposes we
approach the difficulties in accounting for the origins of life which have
plagued traditional approaches. For example, considering the number
of random chemical reactions which must occur and be synchronized
with one another to form a living being, and if you factor in the amount
of time within which such random reactions may occur, the result is that
the possibility such a chain of events will actually lead to life becomes
astronomically remote. Since such a chain of events obviously did
occur, the conclusion traditionally reached is that we human beings are
extremely lucky - 'We, the improbable,' to quote Kauffman. What
Kauffman argues, to the contrary, is that life did not emerge piecemeal,
or through a process of graduai accumulation. Life arose at once. Kauff­
man' s argument, in short, is that as the chemical reactions in a given
pre-biotic soup increase, the number of catalysts which can enter into
new reactions also increases, which in turn crea tes even newer catalysts.
At a critical point, according to Kauffman's hypothesis, a phase transi­
tion occurred, a discontinuous emergence of life:

Life, in this view, is an emergent phenomenon arising as the molecular

diversity of a prebiotic chemical system increases beyond a threshold of
complexity. If true, then life is not located in the property of any single
molecule - in the details - but is a collective property of systems of inter­
acting molecules. Life, in this view, is not to be located in the parts, but in
the collective emergent properties of the whole they create.36

Kauffman gives a helpful example to illustra te the sense in which life

is an emergent property. Imagine a number of buttons scattered ran­
domly across the floor. If one begins randomly connecting two buttons
at a time by means of a thread, one will at first have a random collection
of connected buttons. Occasionally a button will be connected to more
than one other button, and many others will remain isolated altogether.
At a critical point (when the number of threads is roughly half the num­
ber of buttons), a rapid phase transition occurs after which almost all
the buttons are interconnected to one another. Moreover, as the number
of buttons which one begins with increases, Kauffman notes that the
 Rethinking System 203

phase transition becomes even more discontinuous, such that 'were

there an infinite number of buttons, then as the ratio of threads to but­
tons passed 0.5 the size of the largest component would jump discon­
tinuously from tiny to enormous.' 37 The idea here is that at the critical
phase transition, there suddenly emerges a global interrelation between
all the buttons. In applying this idea to the growing number of catalytic
reactions, Kauffman argues that when a critical phase transition is
reached, the system suddenly becomes autocatalytic. Within the sys­
tem, catalytic reactions occur as before, but after the phase transition
these reactions occur within a dynamic system that is self-sustaining, or
the catalytic reactions maintain the system and the system maintains
these reactions, that is, the system appropriates the chemicals (food)
necessary to feed the reactions. Life thus does not emerge slowly, or
after a long process of tinkering and additions; life emerges discontinu­
ously, as with the interconnected buttons, and as a whole or emergent
property of its chemical constituents. Once it arises, Kauffman argues,
this living, dynamic system will only continue to exist and maintain its
stability and order (as with the bifuraction diagram) if it strikes a bal­
ance between order and chaos. This is perhaps Kauffman's most central
thesis in his book:

For what can the teeming molecules that hustled themselves into self­
reproducing metabolisms, the cells coordinating their behaviors to form
multicelled organisms, the ecosystems, and even economie and political
systems have in common? The wonderful possibility, to be held as a
working hypothesis, bold but fragile, is that on many fronts, life evolves
toward a regime that is poised between order and chaos. The evocative
phrase that points to this working hypothesis is this: life exists at the edge
of chaos. Borrowing a metaphor from physics, life may exist near a kind
of phase transition. 38

We are now in a better position to clarify what is meant by our use of

the notion 'paradoxa.' Key to the emergence of order, as we have seen,
are the phase transitions that are far from equilibrium. Within such a
state, and at a critical threshold, a bifurcation occurs such that the sys­
tem suddenly, and discontinuously, moves into a stable attractor (i.e.,
state), or it unleashes a self-similar cascade of bifurcations poised
between order and chaos. Both possibilities are, as we will se�, integral.
to dynamic systems. In the first, a dynamic system settles into a stable
state while being immune to slight perturbations. For example, a swing-
204 Rethinking System

ing pendulum, if perturbed slightly, will soon return to its attractor state
(swinging back and forth); thus, a dynamic system will not be sent into
chaos at the slightest provocation. In the second case, a dynamic system
must be sensitive to changes which might call for an adaptive response,
and it is here where the cascading bifurcations (the self-similar bifurca­
tion diagram) cornes into play. This is so because the cascading bifurca­
tions have not 'chosen' either of two bifurcated alternatives, but rather
continually generate further bifurcations and alternatives while avoid­
ing a collapse into chaotic disorder. By doing this, a dynamic system is
able to maintain the flexibility of choosing and selecting among the pos­
sible bifurcated states, and consequently is better able to adapt. In both
cases, the primary operative mechanism is the discontinuous bifurca­
tion and/ or phase transition; for example, catalytic � autocatalytic, sta­
ble state � 2 bifurcated stable states. Paradoxa is precisely the critical
threshold, the 'bifurcation point,' 39 which is a point of instability (or
what Deleuze would cali an aleatory point) that allows for the possibilty
of a bifurcation to two steady states, a bifurcation wherein one cannot
predict which of the two states will result. In terms of our earlier discus­
sion of the Event, paradoxa is the point that is instantiated, the critical
threshold that a scientist can measure and determine. At the same time,
paradoxa is neither to be identified with the initial stable state - it is a
point of instability between stable states - nor is it to be identified with
either of the two bifurcated states it makes possible. Paradoxa is the con­
dition of possibility for the bifurcation which allows for two different
identifiable states, but in itself it is non-identifiable. Paradoxa is insep­
arable from the identifiable states which emerge and change, hence the
possibility of measuring and determining the 'bifurcation point,' and
paradoxa is not to be confused with the stable states which come to be
identified.
Paradoxa is also the condition or limit a dynamic system must for­
ever avoid, or it is this system's condition of impossibility. As the point
of change, the aleatory point, which harbours an intrinsic instability
that allows for the emergence of stable, identifiable order, paradoxa
must neither be completely actualized as stable, ordered systems, nor
must it be completely actualized as chaos and disorder. Paradoxa is the
condition for the possibility of actualization which must remain unac­
tualized. Put another way, by not being confused with the actuality of
chaos (e.g., random distribution of points), or with the emergent prop­
erties of order which emerge as a result of interrelationships between
these points (e.g., autocatalysis), paradoxa is the unactualized, heter-
 Rethinking System 205

ogenous and / or discontinuous condition which allows for the rela­

tionships of consistency to emerge. Kauffrnan cites an intriguing
experirnent which elucidates this point. In a computer simulation,
100,000 lightbulbs are interconnected to one another, and they turn on
or off by a simple rule - narnely, the bulb switches on or off depending
on whether the bulbs it is connected to are on or off. What Kauffrnan
found was that if the bulbs were connected to only one other bulb, the
network of bulbs quickly 'freezes up, saying the sarne thing over and
over for all tirne.' 40 At the other extrerne, if the bulbs are connected to
every other bulb, the network is so susceptible to any slight change
that the system never settles down, but continuously jurnps from
attractor to attractor, and because the nurnber of potential attractors is
so large the resulting changes are in effect randorn, and thus we have
chaos. If the bulbs are connected to two others, then rather than a ran­
dorn, chaotic range of potential attractors, 100,000 bulbs will settle into
one of 31 7 attractor states. Kauffrnan will note that the 100,000 proteins
that rnake up DNA produce the 256 cell types that rnake up the hurnan
body. The point, in short, is that the virtually infinite nurnber of con­
nections and patterns which could have ernerged from the interrela­
tionships between 100,000 bulbs or proteins, settles instead into a
rnuch stabler, though still flexible, system with 317 patterns (or 256 for
the hurnan body). Kauffrnan is clear that this is an important factor for
the stability of dynarnic systems: 'For a dynarnical system, such as an
autocatalytic net, to be orderly it must exhibit horneostasis; that is, it
must be resistant to srnall perturbation. Attractors are the ultirnate
source of horneostasis as well, ensuring that a system is stable.' 41 Para­
doxa is the condition which allows for the possibility of patterned
interrelationships arnong randorn points (i.e., attractors), but paradoxa
is neither the attractor - or set and system of attractors, as is found
within the hurnan body - nor is paradoxa the randorn points brought
into relationships of consistency and arder with one another; rnore­
over, paradoxa is the non-identifiable condition which should not be
actualized, for to do so would be to actualize it as either the random­
ness of chaos, or the stifling arder and stability of an unchanging
attractor.
The importance of dynarnic systems, or systems that are at the 'edge
of chaos,' has ernerged as an important new direction in science, sorne
would caU it a paradigrn shift. In fields as diverse as quantum physics,
political theory, child developrnent, and biology, researchers are finding
important conceptual tools within the theory of dynarnic systems. In his
206 Rethinking System

own book, for example, Kelso argues that the notion 'edge of chaos,'
what he also calls 'interrnittency,' clarifies many of the observed phe­
nomena conceming behaviour. With respect to perception, though later
Kelso will extend this hypothesis to include consciousness and the pro­
cesses of the brain as well, Kelso argues:

Intermittency means that the perceptual system (and the brain itself?) is
intrinsically metastable, living at the edge of instability where it can
switch spontaneously among collective states. Rather than requiring
active processes to destabilize and switch from one stable state to another
(e.g., through changes in parameter(s), increases in fluctuations), here
intermittency appears to be an inherent built-in feature of the neural
machinery that supports perception. 42

Esther Thelen, a leading reseacher in early cognitive and behavioural

development, has also utilized the concepts of dynamie systems theory.
In her book with Linda Smith, A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Devel­
opment of Cognition and Action, Thelen and Smith reiterate Kelso's point
that for a dynamic system to maintain its flexibility and order, it must be
at the edge of chaos, or at the point of instability between stable states,
whieh in tum conditions the actualization of a stable state. In borrowing
an example from P.J. Beek, Thelen and Smith note that 'skilled jugglers,
while having to execute highly phase-entrained movements of both
hands, stop short of complete phase-locking. Rather, they operate just
on the borders of phase-locking, so to speak. This gives them the flexi­
bility to adagt to even small fluctuations that are inevitable in each catch
and throw.' Similarly, in the cognitive and behavioural development
of children, Thelen and Smith will argue that their actions are quite
often at the 'borders of phase-locking,' and this becomes apparent as
one studies a child's growth and development. 44 The concepts of
dynamie systems have also come to be used in work in cognitive sci­
ence. In Being There, Andy Clark, in his efforts to overcome what he sees
as a dualism in traditional cognitive science - that is, the tendency to see
the brain as an input-output deviee with the resulting problem of relat­
ing this deviee to the actions of a body in the world - argues that the con­
cepts of 'feedback loops and closely coupled physieal systems ... [as
found in] the province of standard Dynamieal Systems theory' 45 are
helpful. For example, in manoeuvring one's way through a cluttered
room, one does not, so this theory goes, take the visual input, process it,
and then create a map with whieh to direct one's manoeuvring through
 Rethinking System 207

the room; rather, Clark argues that the perceiving agent and world are
a 'coupled complex system ... whose joint activity solves the problem.' 46
Organized, controlled behaviour does emerge, and emerge as if an orga­
nizer controlled the process, but with the concepts of dynamic systems
theory in hand, Clark prefers to see the organized behaviour as an
'emergent property' which is the result of the coupled, complex system
of interactions between perceiver and perceived. In other words, and to
repeat Kauffman' s earlier point, the organized behaviour is an emergent
property which arises after the number of perceiver-perceived reactions
reaches a critical threshold or phase transition, and then suddenly the
behaviour emerges. It was for this reason that Thelen argued that a
child's developmental process is dependent upon being at the 'borders
of phase-locking.' A child is a complex, dynamical system, and being at
the edge of chaos allows the child to proceed through the phases of
development.
Clark will extend his notion of a feedback loop to include not only the
complex, developing interaction of perceiver and perceived, but also
the interaction between speaking agent and language. In fact, Clark
puts forth the notion 'scaffolding,' following suggestions of Vygotsky,
and argues that the functioning of the brain and language, language as
an extemal artifact or 'scaffolding,' is itself part of a complex dynamical
process. As Clark puts it, 'The complementarity between the biological
brain and its artifactual props and supports is thus enforced by coevo­
lutionary forces uniting user and artifact in a virtuous circle of mutual
modulation.' 47 One could see the development of the relationship
between human beings and tools (including language as 'artifactual
prop') in terms of an emergent property, where at sorne critical point of
instability in the number of interactions between human beings and
their tools, language suddenly and discontinuously appeared as an
emergent property of these interactions. 48 Philosophy itself, as Merlin
Donald argues and as Clark cites in his book, can be seen as a further
development, or a new phase transition, in the development of the rela­
tionship between human beings and their tools. As an 'artifactual prop'
which can be used to record memories and store knowledge, writing
has led to a 'feedback loop' process whereby the knowledge base has
exploded. Socrates likely expresses common knowledge when he rec­
ognizes the usefulness of writing as an 'artifactual prop,' though per­
haps his suspicion of language for this very reason was not so
common. 49 This use of writing had been around for centuries prior to
the Greeks, with the Egyptians, Sumerians, etc. The novelty of the
208 Rethinking System

Greeks' use of language, according to Donald, was that they 'were

employing extemal memory deviees to their fullest effect, in a way that
was totally new. Although phonetie writing had been invented by the
Egyptians and la ter refined in ma � cultures, it had never been used to
record the thought process itself.' The Greeks invented what Donald
calls a new 'ESS [extemal symbolic storage] loop'; that is, rather than
simply using language as an 'artifactual prop' for recording and storing
data, it now becomes a medium for recording the processes of thought
itself. This new loop initiates, for Donald, the birth of philosophy.
At this point we can retum to the theme with whieh we began this
book - the end of philosophy. Heidegger's discussion of this theme,
developing upon sorne of Nietzsche's insights, maintained that to
understand the end of philosophy one needed to rethink the moment of
its birth. Without repeating this earlier discussion, we can now see that
our argument brings us to the same conclusion, if from a different direc­
tion. We have argued that philosophy necessarily thinks the unique,
uncommon, non-identifiable condition for the possibility of identifi­
able, common knowledge. Philosophy is inherently uncommon. This
condition we have called paradoxa. More importantly, paradoxa is also
the condition of possibility 1 impossibility for dynamic systems, and it is
this latter notion whieh we argued overcomes sorne of the difficulties
we found plaguing the contemporary critique of metaphysies (e.g., Der­
rida). Now as we come to Donald's work, and to his daim that philos­
ophy is an emergent property expressive of the dynamie interaction
between human beings and language as 'artifactual prop,' or what he
caUs extemal symbolic storage deviee, we can see that the signifieance of
philosophy's beginning, its condition of possibility, is important for
understanding whether philosophy has ended, or ought to. Moreover,
we can see that as we think through philosophy, through its legitimate
and / or illegitimate possibilities, we inevitably confront the condition
for these possibilities - namely, paradoxa as the condition of possibility
for a dynamie system. What is left, then, for philosophy to do, or how
has this discussion resolved questions of what philosophy can or ought
to do? We will answer these questions in detail in the next and final
chapter, but for now we can say that what philosophy ought to do is to
engender the conditions that allow for something to be thought.
Deleuze will note Artaud's recognition of the difficulty of doing this:
'the problem [for Artaud] ... was to manage to think something,' and in
his efforts to do this he was 'forced to think [thought's] own natural
powerlessness whieh is indistinguishable from the greatest power.'
 Rethinking System 209

And to this Deleuze adds, 'To think is to create - there is no other cre­
ation - but to create is first of all to engender "thinking" in thought. , s1
As we have been arguing throughout this work, what is necessary to
'engender "thinking" in thought' is that this thinking maintain itself as
a dynamic system at the edge of chaos. Now as we draw this work to a
close, we will, in the next and final chapter, first elaborate upon the
sense in which we take philosophy to be a dynamic system, and how
this might be translated into philosophical practice. For Deleuze, this
practice was the transcendental project in which he engaged in his own
works and in his work with Guattari, and key to the success of this
project, as Deleuze and Guattari themselves admitted, was that they
formulate concepts that were not too abstract and yet were abstract
enough. lt was a philosophy at the edge of chaos that accomplished this
task. Secondly, we hope to show that an understanding of philosophy
as a dynamic system, along with the concepts we have discussed which
have been generated by the work being done within dynamic systems
theory, are helpful tools in avoiding sorne of the pitfalls that we feel
have often accompanied traditional philosophical approaches, pitfalls
we have detailed throughout this work. And finally, we will discuss a
possible example of a philosophy and philosophical approach that
explicitly takes itself to be a dynamic system - an approach based on
'definitions.' Rather than an approach which inherently is a dynamic
system, or might even speak of the importance of process and philoso­
phy as process - (that is, that it represents philosophy as a dynamic pro­
cess, or paints a stable picture of what philosophy is), this approach,
to the contrary, would attempt to engender 'thinking,' or it will set
forth points of instability (i.e., definitions) which may lead to further
work and 'thinking' in other areas (possible bifurcations). This is doing
philosophy.
Conclusion: Philosophy at the Edge of
Chaos

In our discussions to this point, we have repeatedly ernphasized the

sirnilarity between Derrida, Deleuze, and others, on the therne of a fun­
darnental difference, or a non-identifiable, undecidable both/ and. In
the context of Derrida, this undecidable both/ and was critical to the
rnethod of deconstruction; consequently, for Derrida every identity
or presence, every atternpt to establish the self-identical, self-present
grounding and rneaning from which all other rneaniilgs can then arise,
presupposes its other, a difference and / or absence which perpetually
defers the closure necessary to attain true self-presence. Deleuze and
Guattari, as they too develop the philosophy of difference Deleuze
began in Difference and Repetition, will set forth a sirnilar position. As we
have seen, Deleuze and Guattari argue for a fundarnental differentiat­
ing condition (recall Deleuze' s both/ and reading of Nietzsche' s notion
of the 'will to power' discussed in chapter 3) which allows for the pos­
sibility of identity, an identity which presupposes that which cannot be
identified. Thus, to put it in their terrns, each stable, identifiable straturn
presupposes its unstructured flows (i.e., a body without organs - BwO).
As this both/ and cornes to be developed in A Thousand Plateaus, it is the
concept of the 'abstract machine' which carries rnuch of the weight of
explicating a philosophy at the 'edge of chaos.' The abstract machine is
the fundarnental both/ and condition for the possibility of dynarnic sys­
tems (a condition we have to this point referred to as paradoxa, and
what Deleuze referred to as the paradoxical instance, event, etc.). It is
with this concept that we saw most clearly the key differences between
Deleuze and Derrida, especially with Deleuze and Guattari's argument
that abstract machines, as conditions for dynarnic systems, require the
cornpletion necessary for the stability and functioning of such systems.
212 Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos

As we argued in the Introduction to this work, Deleuze and Guattari' s

concept of the abstract machine should be interpreted along the lines of
Kant's transcendental categories. A Thousand Plateaus, we argued, is in
many ways a Kantian critique which attempts to delineate the appro­
priate limits within which the abstract machine is the condition for a
functioning, dynamic system, and is one of many concepts that accom­
panies the various experimental forays of Deleuze and Guattari that we
can see now as attempts to determine the limits beyond which the
abstract machine collapses into either the cancerous body or the fascist
body. We are now in a much better position to understand how Deleuze
and Guattari's project differs from Kant's as well as those of Heidegger
and Derrida. As our previous chapters have shown, the philosophical
trajectories of Heidegger and Derrida both fail, as did Kant, to think dif­
ference, or to engender 'thinking' in thought. What has been crucial to
Deleuze's success, both in his own works and in his works with
Guattari, we believe, is the ability to avoid being either too abstract or not
abstract enough. Now that we have detailed the manner in which
Deleuze's philosophy at the edge of chaos is able to think difference, we
can tum to the theme with which we began this book - viz. thinking dif­
ference without being too abstract or not abstract enough.
To show how the concept of the abstract machine is abstract enough
to apply to various phenomena without being too abstract, we must first
recall the significant role Louis Hjelmslev's work plays as Deleuze and
Guattari develop this concept, a concept which largely extends Hjelms­
lev's work, in particular, his concept of the sign-function. 1 For instance,
just as Hjelmslev argues that a meaningful expression is made possible
by a sign-function, so too are dynamic systems2 understood by Deleuze
and Guattari to be expressions of a machinic-function (i.e., abstract
machine). In addition, as Hjelmslev argues that the sign-function is par­
adoxically both expression and content, so too is the abstract machine
both differentiation and differenciation,3 or what is referred to in A Thou­
sand Plateaus as both a first and second articulation (double articulation).
And finally, Deleuze and Guattari follow Hjelmslev' s daim that expres­
sion and content each has a corresponding subtance and form; thus, the
first articulation (differentiation) involves both substance and form, and
the second articulation (differenciation) likewise has a corresponding
substance and form. It is this understanding of abstract machines as
expression, or as double articulation (both/ and), which is abstract
enough to apply to a multiplicity of circumstances. At this point exam­
ples will clarify how Deleuze and Guattari believe this is so.
 Conclusion 213

The first example is Deleuze and Guattari's, and it cornes from the
important third chapter of A Thousand Plateaus, wherein they detail
what is meant by a double articulation model (i.e., abstract machine). 4
To clarify this model, they give the example of sedimentation, or the
processes that lead to the formation of the strata which are sedimentary
rocks. In the first articulation (differentiation), a heterogeneous collec­
tion of sedimentary material (i.e., particles of varying size) is collected
into a layer of largely homogeneous material. The process which filters
the heterogeneous material into a series of largely homogeneous layers
is the flow of water which, depending upon the intensity of the flow,
carries particles at different rates downstream. Particles that are
roughly the same size will be carried at the same rate downstream, and
hence they will tend to form generally homogeneous layers as they
reach their ultimate destination. 5 This first articulation has, as Deleuze
and Guattari argue, a substance (the sedimentary particles) and a form
(the homogeneity of the layers which results as the particles are sorted
by the flow of the fluid which transports them to the sedimentary bed).
In the second articulation, this homogeneous layer of sedimentary par­
ticles is transformed, through what geologists caU cementation, into a
new substance. The pores between particles which were previously
filled by fluid, become replaced, as additional layers increase the grav­
itational pressure upon lower layers, by agents (e.g., silica and hematite
in the case of sandstone) which act as a cement that binds the particles
and creates a new entity - sedimentary rock (substance). Restating this
example in the terminology Deleuze used in his early work, Difference
and Repetition, the process which results in an identifiable entity (sedi­
mentary rock) involves both differentiation - that is, the sedimentary
particles are filtered into roughly homogeneous and consistent layers6 -
and differenciation - that is, the consistent, homogeneous layers are
transformed (or actualized, as Deleuze often sa ys) into a new, identifiable
entity.
In Deleuze and Guattari's final work, What Is Philosophy?, published
twenty-three years after Difference and Repetition, much this same
approach is taken. The process of double articulation, or differentia­
tian/ differenciation, is discussed more straightforwardly in this work
as the process of becoming. In the 'becoming' of sedimentary rock, for
example, the process involves the transformation of one substance (sed­
iment) into another (sedimentary rock). What interests Deleuze and
214 Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos

Guattari, of course, is the process itself, and on this point their la te work
largely reaffirms Deleuze's initial understanding of the process in Dif­
ference and Repetition . This later formulation is quite to the point: in the
becoming of 'b' (e.g., sedimentary rock) from 'a' (e.g., sediment),
Deleuze and Guattari argue that 'there is an area ab that belongs to both
a and b, where a and b ''become" indiscernible. These zones, thresholds,
or becomings, this inseparability, define the internai consistency of the
concept.' 7 It is precisely this 'internai consistency,' or what we discussed
in chapter 5 as the 'plane of consistency' drawn on the BwO, which is
key. The BwO is thus a body without organs because it is not to be
strictly identified with the entities that become. It is this BwO as drawn
into a plane of consistency which allows for the becoming of b, or it is the
consistency resulting from the fust articulation (differentiation) which
then becomes actualized in the second articulation (differenciation).
In the case of sedimentary rock, the sedimentary particles play the
role of BwO, or, relative to the structured entity - that is, sedimentary
rock - the sedimentary particles comprise the unstructured flow which
facilitates the possibility of sedimentary rock. However, for sedimen­
tary rock to be actualized, to become, this flow must first be drawn into
a plane of consistency (the homogeneous layer), and it is this consis­
tency, namely, the indiscernibility of ab, which is in tum actualized by
the second articulation. In itself, however, sediment is a highly struc­
tured chemical compound composed of various elements, including,
for example, silica, carbon, magnesium, phosphate, etc. These ele­
ments, moreover, can in tum be understood in terms of dynamic pro­
cesses - that is, as expressions of an abstract machine. To state this in
another way, in the process of a becoming b, a (e.g., sediment) is not, for
Deleuze and Guattari, a simple given, but is itself the result of a pro­
cess of becoming, or it too presupposes its own BwO and 'internai con­
sistency' as its own condition of possibility.
The dynamic process which gives rise to carbon is an important case
in point. The current account which is given is that it is only within the
fumaces of stars where there is sufficient energy to fuse the atoms which
make up carbon, and hence become the flows (BwO) that become car­
bon-based life-forms. Carbon therefore first depends upon the origin of
stars, and here again we find the applicability of the double articulation
madel (i.e., abstract machine). In the first articulation, the hydrogen and
helium which are nearly all that exists in the universe soon after the Big
Bang begin to coagula te and form points of condensation. Minor differ­
ences in the spread of these a toms lead, through gravitational attraction,
 Conclusion 215

to an aggregation of atoms sufficiently dense to become transformed

(i.e., actualized) into a star. If this critical density and mass is not
reached, a giant gaseous planet might be formed (e.g., Jupiter) rather
than a star. Therefore, in the first articulation (differentiation), hydro­
gen (substance) is sorted and condensed by means ·of gravitational
attraction to a critical point of density and mass (form); and this critical
point of density and mass (form) is then transformed in the second artic­
ulation (differenciation) into a star (substance). The BwO in this instance
is hydrogen, for it is, relative to the star, the unstructured flow which,
when drawn into a plane of consistency (i.e., brought to a point of crit­
ical density by means of gravitational attraction), is the condition for the
possibility of a star, a condition which is actualized through double
articulation (abstract machine) . It is only within stars, and in particular
dying red giant stars, where one finds, according to current cosmologi­
cal theory, the conditions necessary for the origin of carbon, and thus
carbon and the other heavy elements that constitute the sedimentary
flows (BwO) necessary for the origin of sedimentary rock are them­
selves actualized by a process of double articulation. 8
Moving on to carbon-based life, most biochemists argue that carbon
is a necessary precondition for life. The reason for this is that carbon, due
to its atomic structure - it has a valence of 4 - can combine with four uni­
valent a toms or groups of a toms (elements with a free electron), or it can
combine with itself. There are other 4-valence elements (e.g., silicon, ger­
manium, and tin), but the attraction these elements have for their
valence electrons is increasingly weaker than that of carbon. 9 The result
is that carbon has a high degree of flexibility and is able to combine with,
and react with, many other elements and compounds. The significance
of this flexibility becomes especially clear and important in recent theo­
ries conceming the origin of life. In Stuart Kauffman's theory, discussed
in the previous chapter, he daims that the emergence of life, or what he
calls an autocatalytic set, becomes inevitable once a critical threshold of
molecular interactions occurs. In a normal molecular interaction, two
molecules will interact if there is a sufficient amount of free energy to
initiate the process. Within catalytic reactions, however, the catalyst
lowers the amount of free energy necessary for the chemical reaction to
occur. 1 0 The result is that the frequency and ease with which reactions
can successfully occur is higher in catalytic reactions. Couple this cata­
lytic process with the intrinsic flexibility of the carbon atom, and one has
a situation where these catalytic reactions can reach unprecedented fre­
quency and complexity. This is precisely what Kauffman argues. He
216 Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos

states that given a sufficient degree and frequency of interdependent

catalytic reactions, a critical threshold is reached and an autocatalytic set
emerges; in other words, this autocatalytic set emerges as a self-sustain­
ing, self-duplicating set which will maintain its functional identity as
long as there is an adequate supply of chemicals (i.e., food) to maintain
the catalytic reactions within the setP Again, the double articulation
model fits with this understanding of the origins of life. In the first artic­
ulation, the chemicals (substance) which react and catalyze with one
another achieve a degree of interdependency and frequency (form) such
that these interdependent reactions (form) emerge as a new entity - an
autocatalytic set, or a living being (substance). The BwO in this double
articulation is the molecular reactions themselves. The molecules and
chemicals are in themselves obviously highly structured, as our previ­
ous discussion has made clear, but with respect to the autocatalytic set
which emerges, these reactions constitute the unstructured flow (BwO)
that becomes, through double articulation (abstract machine), the struc­
tured entity that is a living organism.
Deleuze offers an example, discussed earlier in the Introduction, of
the double articulation 1 abstract machine model that applies to living
organisms themselves, and in particular to the learning process of a
monkey. At the time of Difference and Repetition, this example was dis­
cussed in terms of the process of differentiation/ differenciation,
which, as we have seen, is carried forward largely unchanged in A
Thousand Plateaus (and What Is Philosophy?) under the terminology of
the abstract machine of double articulation. Deleuze describes the
example as follows:

. . . a monkey is supposed to find food in boxes of one particular color

amidst others of various colors: [during the test] there cornes a paradoxi­
cal period during which the number of 'errors' diminishes even though
the monkey does not yet possess the 'knowledge' or 'truth' of a solution
in each case.1 2

This critical, paradoxical period soon gives way to the 'knowledge'

which enables the monkey to eliminate the errors altogether. What
occurs in this learning process, according to Deleuze, is that for a solu­
tion (i.e., knowledge) to arise, what must first be established is a critical
phase in which the exploratory behaviour acquires a consistency or
coherence which is then capable of an integration (i.e., differenciation)
that enables a solution. In his summary of this learning process, Deleuze
 Conclusion 21 7

describes it in terms that are now quite familiar: 'Learning is the appro­
priate name for the subjective acts carried out when one is confronted
with the objectivity of a problem (Idea [or what Deleuze also calls dif­
ferentiation]), whereas knowledge designates only the generality of
concepts or the calm possession of a rule enabling solutions [i.e., differ­
enciation].' 1 3 In short, in the first articulation the choices of the monkey
(substance) achieve a critical, paradoxical period when the number of
errors is reduced (form - i.e., relationshp between right and wrong
choices); and in the second articulation these reduced errors (form) find
the solution which actualizes the rule that accounts for the reduced
errors, and with this the monkey acquires knowledge of the correct
choice (substance). The desire for food, and the flow of behaviours
directed towards the acquisition of the energy necessary to maintain the
living organism (i.e., as autocatalytic set), functions as the BwO in this
instance. These food-oriented behaviours are filtered by means of a sort­
ing mechanism (i.e., visual perception, including the ability to differen­
tiate colours), which then allows for the double articulation to unfold
(much as the flow of a river allows for the double articulation which cre­
a tes sedimentary rocks).
This same double articulation model, to use one last example, can be
seen at yet another level, or at another of a thousand plateaus as Deleuze
and Guattari might put it. An important argument in American colonial
history states that the colonies initially allowed for a high degree of
social mobility. In the early days of seUlement, when what was most
important was carving out a living from the untamed wilderness, people
with talent, energy, and resolve could easily find themselves rising to
positions of importance, while those with less talent, energy, etc., did
not. This flexibility was not present in Europe, where most privileges
had long been established according to traditional hereditary and class
distinctions. Barly on, then, the colonies attracted those who sought to
attain the privileges (i.e., power and wealth) that were closed to them in
Europe. This freedom of social mobility did not last. By 1 700 it was
becoming increasingly difficult to move into the upper echelons of the
social hierarchy. In a famous theory proposed by Charles Beard, Beard
goes so far as to propose that the framers of the Constitution themselves
sought, with this document, to formalize and institutionalize the dispar­
ity in privileges which had evolved. These framers, who were men from
the upper echelons of American society, had supported the revolution­
ary war as a means of increasing their ability to maintain and enhance
their economie advantage. They therefore invested in public securities
218 Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos

in support of the war, and once the war was won they made sure,
according to Beard, that the Constitution would protect their economie
interests. 14 Gordon Wood has more recently qualified Beard' s argument.
Although Wood believes the economie motive was certainly at work, he
daims it was not the sole factor at play as the framers ironed out the Con­
stitution. Wood will stress the equal importance of ideological and prag­
matic concems, in particular, the concems with how to establish a
govemment which best serves the majority, even if this means that the
majority does not get a say in the running of this government. Never­
theless, Wood supports Beard's basic premise that the Constitution for­
malized and institutionalized certain disparities in privilege (including
economie and political privilege) that had gradually taken shape out of
the earlier colonial context and its greater social mobility. 1 5
The double articulation model is again applicable to this case. In the
first articulation, the relationships between human beings (substance)
are sorted by means of their talents and abilities to carve a successful
living out of the frontier, and the result is that certain disparities (form)
arise with respect to economie, political, and social privileges; and in
the second articulation, these disparities (form) become actualized
within a constitution, and with the institutions based upon this consti­
tution (substance). The BwO in this case are the human beings them­
selves, or more precisely the economie, political, and social positions of
human beings. These are the positions that are sorted within a double
articulation which constitutes them as part of a new social structure
(i.e., a class structure, or even a caste system).

II

At this point it will be helpful if we compare our reading of abstract

machines (i.e., the double articulation model) with DeLanda' s reading
of Deleuze. In many ways, as we will see, we follow DeLanda's read­
ing, and in fact much of this discussion has been in part indebted to
DeLanda's understanding of abstract machines as he lays it out in A
Thousand Years of Nonlinear History (1977) and, more recently, in Inten­
sive Science and Virtual Philosophy (2002). There are, however, sorne
important differences that we should examine, for in doing so we will
gain a better understanding of what Deleuze and Guattari are doing,
and ultimately clarify what we believe it means for them to be doing
philosophy.
Our most significant agreement with DeLanda is with his reading of
 Conclusion 219

what Deleuze and Guattari mean when they daim that previous
attempts to understand systems in terms of an abstract, transcenden­
tal, generative function have been both too abstract and not abstract
enough. DeLanda argues that Deleuze and Guattari intend that the
notion of an abstract machine (i.e., their transcendental, generative
condition) should be both concrete enough to account for the variety of
material factors which give rise to any given system (this, recall, was
why Russell's logic and Ch�msky's grammar were too abstract, for
they were left unable to account for these factors); and the notion of an
abstract machine should be abstract enough to be plugged into a vari­
ety of different circumstances, and yet continue to be equally relevant
in each of these circumstances. DeLanda has applied this notion of an
abstract machine (or what is discussed in his most recent book as the
'quasi-causal operator') to, in A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History, an
understanding of the generative processes involved in economie,
urban, biological, and linguistic history, and, in Virtual Philosophy, to
mathematics and science. Our efforts here to apply this same approach
to an understanding of the origins of sedimentary rocks, stars, autocat­
alytic sets, and the U.S. Constitution are thus largely in agreement with
DeLanda. DeLanda, however, although he believes that the double
articulation abstract machine (the mode! we have been using) was
thoroughly developed in A Thousand Plateaus, argues for a second
abstract machine - the self-consistent aggregate mode!. This abstract
machine is, according to DeLanda, 'much less weil developed than
their double articulation model.' 1 6
DeLanda accepts the first abstract machine, the double articulation
mode!, and will on more than one occasion cite Deleuze and Guattari's
example of the origin of sedimentary rocks as a case in point of such a
mode!. The second abstract machine DeLanda calls for, the self-consis­
tent aggregate mode!, is fundamentally different. Rather than the
two-step mode! of double articulation, DeLanda argues that the self­
consistent aggregate mode! involves three distinct elements. In the first,
heterogeneous elements are brought together through 'an articulation
of superpositions' 1 7 which establishes an interconnection of diverse but
overlapping elements. For example, in the autocatalytic set a diversity
of molecules (i.e., heterogeneous elements) is brought together by
means of their ability to react with one another, or their ability to facili­
tate reactions by acting as a catalyst. In an ecosystem, you have a simi­
lar interconnection of heterogeneous elements. The plants and various
species of animais are brought together through their role in the preda-
220 Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos

tor/prey food chain. And finally, DeLanda cites pre-capitalist markets

as yet another example of a self-consistent aggregate. In this case, a
heterogeneous collection of buyers and sellers, with a diversity of
needs and products to sell, are brought together within the market by
means of the role these products play in satisfying the demands of both
buyers and sellers. 18 The second element of the self-consistent aggre­
gate is the intercalary element, or the facilitator which allows for the
interrelationship between the heterogeneous elements to be estab­
lished more easily. In the autocatalytic set, this intercalary element is
the catalyst (as we discussed above); in the ecosystem, DeLanda cites
the bacteria which assist in the process of digestion; and in the pre-cap­
italist market, money functions as the facilitator of exchange. The third
element of the self-consistent aggregate is the behavioural patterns and
stability which constitute an 'emergent property' of the heterogeneous
elements. The self-replicating behaviour of an autocatalytic set, for
example, and the behaviours associated with this behaviour which
maintain the autocatalytic set as a relatively stable state, is an 'emer­
gent property' in that this stable state is not to be identified with the
heterogeneous elements of which it is composed. Similarly, the stable
state of a particular ecosystem is an emergent property which is greater
than, or distinct from, the heterogeneous elements which make up an
ecosystem; and again Braudel and others have noted that economie
markets themselves exhibit stable states and patterns of behaviour
which can in turn be understood as an emergent property of a hetero­
geneous set of individual decisions and exchanges. 1 9
This self-consistent aggregate model is, according to DeLanda, quite
different from the double articulation model. In the double articulation
model, heterogeneous elements are not brought together, but rather
they are sorted into homogeneous, consistent strata (e.g., sedimentary
rocks). Rather than being the cementation of a homogeneous layer, the
self-consistent aggregate represents the synthesis of heterogeneous ele­
ments, and it is the model that accounts for this synthesis that DeLanda
believes Deleuze and Guattari only implicitly developed. To justify this
position, DeLanda quotes Deleuze and Guattari's recognition that there
is indeed a synthesis of heterogeneities, and draws our attention to their
further daim that 'the term machinic is precisely this synthesis of heter­
ogeneities as such.' 20 But Deleuze and Guattari immediately add to this
daim that since 'these heterogeneities are matters of expression, we say
that their synthesis itself, their consistencr or capture, forms a properly
machinic "statement" or "enunciation.'" 2 As an expression, a machinic
 Conclusion 221

'enunciation' or 'statement,' this synthesis (e.g., autocatalytic set, eco­

system, pre-capitalist market) thus entails the paradoxical both/ and
structure of the abstract machine, or these expressions (following
Hjelmslev) will exhibit, as we have discussed above, the abstract
machine of double articulation. The double articulation model does
seem, then, especially with the notion of a 'plane of consistency' drawn
by the 'machinic-function' (abstract machine), capable of addressing
DeLanda's concept of a 'self-consistent aggregate.'
Yet there is another, likely more important, reason why DeLanda
calls for abstract machines and models other than the double articula­
tion model. Of particular significance for DeLanda in this regard is the
emergence of a living being that can search for its own food. DeLanda
argues that a third abstract machine is necessary (in addition to the
double articulation model and the self-consistent aggregate model) to
account for this phenomenon. This machine he refers to as a 'probe
head,' which he describes as a 'sorting deviee' coupled with an 'ability
to replicate with variation.' 22 This third abstract machine is thus a com­
bination of the first (i.e., its ability to sort and filter) and the second (i.e.,
self-replication of self-consistent aggregates) abstract machines, and
furthermore this machine can better model behaviours which are
clearly not shared by rocks. Moreover, even with respect to the second
abstract machine (the self-consistent aggregate model), the emergent
property of self-replication is not to be identified with the chemical
reactions which constitute a living being, nor, more importantly, do
sedimentary rocks even appear to possess such an emergent property.
A sedimentary rock is generally taken to be nothing more than the sed­
iment which constitutes it. To account for these clear differences, there­
fore, DeLanda proposes that we use three (and eventually more)
abstract machines to model the various phenomena of the world.
The key point we have been stressing, however, is that we need to
understand dynamic systems as expressions of a machinic function
(abstract machine, paradoxa), which consequently illustrate the double
articulation which is immanent to these systems. Therefore, a dynamic
system involves stability, slowness, and stratified elements, while also
requiring the flexibility to adapt, transform, and destabilize these very
elements. The first and second abstract machines DeLanda calls for are
precisely the two heterogeneous elements that are brought together,
paradoxically, as expressions of the abstract machine - Mechanosphere
- or, all is an expression of an abstract machine and everything is con­
sequently a dynamic system, a self-consistent aggregate, and a stra-
222 Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos

tum. This is clearly the case in living organisms, such as human beings.
As a living organism, a human being is a dynamic system, but he/she
also has stable, slow to change strata - that is, the genetic code. This is
not to say that the genes are not themselves dynamic. From the per­
spective of a human being, or even the human species, the genetic code
is a stratum, but from the perspective of evolutionary time the genes
are the vehicles of the dynamic process of evolution itself. 23 And even
the elements which constitute DNA are constituted (e.g., carbon), as
we have seen, within a dynamic process which encompasses an even
larger scale of time and speed.
In A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari recognize the cosmic
scope of the abstract machine, a scope in which differentiations occur
based upon the speed and slowness of the flows which facilitate the
emergence of various forms - for example, the flow of proteins which
facilitates genetic mutation versus the flow of food which facilitates the
growth, change, and development of a single organism. The plane of
consistency, as we have seen, is the term Deleuze and Guattari yjve to
that condition which allows for the emergence of new forms. 4 This
consistency corresponds to the consistency of the first articulation, or
the consistency (form) of differentiation which allows for the possibil­
ity that something can be actualized (i.e., the substance that emerges as
a result of differenciation). In expanding the scope of this process,
Deleuze and Guattari argue that

the plane of consistency of Nature is like an immense Abstract machine . . .

there i s therefore a unity t o the plane o f nature, which applies equally to
the inanimate and the animate, the artificial and the natural [and this
unity] is a plane upon which everything is laid out, and which is like the
intersection of ali forms, the machine of ali functions . . . It is a fixed plane,
upon which things are distinguished from one another only by speed and
slowness. 25

This plane of consistency, as we saw in the previous chapter, is pre­

cisely the condition a BwO presupposes if an identifiable form is to
emerge. Thus, the sediment was sorted into the homogeneous layers,
which were then cemented and stratified into a new entity - sedimen­
tary rock; a set of chemical reactions, with the aïd of catalysts, achieves
a state of high interdependence and overlap, and this in turn allows for
the phase transition which results in the emergence of a new entity - a
living organism; and a monkey searching for food under coloured boxes
 Conclusion 223

attains a state in which it consistently chooses the right box more than
the wrong, and it is this consistency which then gives rise to a new stable
state - knowledge. Relative to that new entity which ultimately
emerges, the BwO is an unstructured flow, but for this flow to be able to
allow for new substances to develop, this flow must achieve a state of
consistency, or, as discussed above, the BwO must be drawn by the
abstract machine of double articulation into a plane of consistency. And
on this point, success is not guaranteed. Deleuze and Guattari recognize
the possibility that either no consistency is drawn, with the result that
the functioning system which requires that a plane of consistency be
drawn by the BwO explodes into what Deleuze and Guattari call a can­
cerous body; or, on the other extreme, the BwO may fail to allow for con­
sistency to be drawn from the unstructured flow by simply obstructing
all flows whatsoever, resulting in what Deleuze and Guattari call a fas­
dst body. In both cases, the unstructured flows of the BwO collapse in
such a way that it is no longer possible for anything new to emerge, or
for the double articulation to proceed. To restate this in terms used in
our chapter on Spinoza, the absolutely indeterminate substance which
exceeds and transgresses each and every determinate identity must be
drawn into a plane of consistency (the attributes), or substance must be
ironed out and avoid excessive differences, and then and only then can
it be actualized into determinate, identifiable states (modes), states that
are the determinate essence of substance itself. Or to rephrase Niet­
zsche's daim that one must have chaos in one's self to give birth to a
dancing star, Deleuze and Guattari add Artaud's call that one needs to
become a BwO, and a body that can be drawn into a plane of consistency
so that something new can emerge, something new can be thought.
We can now understand the sense intended by Deleuze and Guattari
when they daim that things are to be distinguished from one another
'only by speed and slowness.' The unstructured flow of proteins (BwO)
through the process of genetic evolution occurs at a rate, or speed,
which is slow in comparison to the rate of the unstructured flow of food
(BwO) through a living organism as it grows, develops, and ages. Sim­
Harly, the unstructured flow of hydrogen (BwO) which gives rise to stars
and, ultimately, carbon is slow in comparison to the rate at which carbon
itself (as a component of protein) flows through genetic evolution.
Expanding the perspective to encompass the entire natural universe, we
see that here too anything which develops and differentia tes itself from
something else requires that a BwO be drawn into a plane of consis­
tency. One should therefore read Deleuze and Guattari literally when
224 Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos

they speak of the 'plane of consistency of Nature.' The natural universe,

as a whole, is the field which conditions the possibility that new forrns
and entities can emerge. Furtherrnore, when Deleuze and Guattari add
that this plane of consistency of Nature is like an 'immense Abstract
machine,' and do so with a capital 'A,' we come then to understand that
Nature itself must be understood as a dynamic system that is both stable
and changing, or that requires both slow, stable elements and speeds
and flows (i.e., BwOs) which allow for change. Consequently, when
expanded to encompass the plane of consistency of Nature, the BwO is
simply the flow or intensity from which a plane of consistency can be
drawn, and in turn from which an identifiable, stable state can emerge,
a state which can then serve as the BwO from which another plane of
consistency, another dynamic system, is drawn, and so on, ad infinitum.
The BwO that becomes the plane of consistency of Nature is thus the min­
imal condition or speed for the possibility that any identifiable entity or
state can be - Deleuze and Guattari will refer to this BwO as The BwO ­
and for this reason Deleuze and Guattari argue that this BwO has an
intensity equal to zero. In other words, relative to the extemal, identifi­
able states which function as the standard for measuring intensity (e.g.,
the speed of identifiable molecules as the standard presupposed by any
measurement of 'heat'), The BwO, as the condition for the possibility of
any extemal standard, is thus, relative to these standards, non-identifi­
able, or it has an intensity equal to zero. The BwO is thus not to be con­
fused with Whitehead's view of God, for in this case God is the self­
identical condition that guarantees the emergence of other identities, or
God is an identity which conditions other identities. The BwO, to the
contrary, is in itself non-identifiable, or has an intensity equal to zero.
Yet by having an intensity equal to zero, this does not imply, as Deleuze
and Guattari make clear, that the B� is something negative:

The BwO causes intensities to pass; it produces and distributes them in a

spatium that is itself intensive, lacking extension. lt is not space, nor is it
in space; it is matter that occupies space to a given degree [i.e., measur­
able intensity] - to the degree corresponding to the intensities produced.
lt is nonstratified, unformed, intense matter, the matter of intensity, inten­
sity 0; but there is nothing negative about that zero, there are no nega­
=

tive or opposite intensities. 26

A few lines later they ask, rhetorically, 'is not Spinoza's Ethics the
great book of the Bw0?' 27 This reference to Spinoza is significant, for
 Conclusion 225

DeLanda was indeed correct to note the differences he sees in the differ­
ent abstract machines he calls for. After all, sedimentary rocks and mon­
keys who learn are clearly different. However, these abstract machines
are, as we have shown, themselves expressions, or they are repetitions
of the Abstract machine which expresses, paradoxically, both the hetero­
geneous and the homogeneous, the stratified and the dynamic, the
territorialized and the deterritorialized, differentiation and differencia­
tion. This is where Deleuze's understanding of what he takes to be
Spinoza's theory of the univocity of expression is crucial. By univocal
expressions of the Abstract machine, Deleuze (on our reading) is not
assuming that all abstract machines are one and the same; rather, as
identifiably distinct, they presuppose the immanence of the Abstract
machine, and the immanence of The BwO.
As we argued in the Introduction, Deleuze's work needs to be under­
stood in light of the concepts of Spinoza and Nietzsche, and we see
again why this is so. One of many problems commentators have had
with Spinoza from the beginning has been in understanding the rela­
tionship between finite, actual modes and infinite substance and
attributes. Similarly, critics of Deleuze such as Alain Badiou have
found a major 'stumbling block' in Deleuze's theory of the virtual to be
an accounting of the relationship between the virtual as completely
determined and the actual of which the virtual is a part. 28 The basis for
these criticisms is the same in both cases - viz. what is presupposed is
the identity of, or the identifiable difference between, the modes and the
attributes of substance for Spinoza, and the virtual and the actual for
Deleuze. What was argued for in our chapter on Spinoza, however, and
what subsequent chapters have argued with respect to Deleuze, is that
the attributes are dependent upon the modes in order for the attributes
to be identified as the actual, constitutive essence of substance; and for
Deleuze the problematic of the ldea, the reality of the virtual and The
BwO, is identifiable as such only within the actualities that are the solu­
tions to this problematic. There is thus, to repeat, an indiscernible, non­
identifiable difference in itself - that is, a difference without mediation,
without basis for comparison - and the problematic Idea is indiscern­
ible from the actual precisely because there are real problems (reality of
the virtual) that are yet to be solved, but which are inseparable from the
actualities that are themselves solutions. Deleuze remained to the end,
then, as he himself admitted, a Spinozist.
We can gain even further understanding of the terminology of
Deleuze and Guattari by recalling our previous discussion of expres-
226 Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos

sion. Part of Deleuze's interest in Spinoza and Leibniz, and the great
advance these two philosophers made over Descartes in his opinion,
was their use of the concept 'expression.' Understood in the context of
what we have been saying here, Hjelmslev's concept of the sign-func­
tion, the function that is paradoxically both expression and content,
can now be seen to be expressed as the Abstract machine that paradox­
ically both is chaos, BwO, becoming, and is order, actualization, being.
The Abstract machine, to state it in yet another way, is a dynamic sys­
tem at the edge of chaos. Furthermore, since the Abstract machine is
the paradoxical 'machinic-function' that is both chaos and order (it is
chaosmos), the identifiable abstract machines are simply repetitions or
further expressions of the Abstract machine.
It is here, as we also argued in the Introduction, that Nietzsche's con­
cept of etemal recurrence becomes important. To restate briefly what
was argued earlier, the Abstract machine of double articulation is itself
a double affirmation, an etemal recurrence, in the sense that the first
affirmation (the affirmation of Dionysus) is only identifiable as being
an affirmation when it cornes to be repeated by a second affirmation or
articulation (the affirmation of Ariadne). Since the first affirmation is
non-identifiable and bence outside the measurable time of chronos, this
second affirmation is therefore the recurrence of the etemal, the retum
of aion. In a similar fashion, each of the abstract machines repeats the
etemal recurrence of the Abstract machine, or each of the abstract
machines, as identifiable, is an expression of the non-identifiable
Abstract machine, much as the attributes are expressions of God for
Spinoza. Moreover, the identifiable abstract machines, as expressions of
the Abstract machine, express in their own way (i.e., identifiable way) the
paradoxical double bind of determining and identifying the non-iden­
tifiable nature of becoming - these abstract machines are dynamic sys­
tems. 29 With this convergence of Spinoza and Nietzsche in the work of
Deleuze and Guattari, and with their further elaboration of a transcen­
dental project infused with the conceptual implications of univocity
and etemal recurrence, we have, as was true for Nietzsche, 'the closest
approximation of a world of becoming to a world of being.' 30

III: Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos

In drawing this work to a close, we tum now to discuss what doing

philosophy might mean, or how it might proceed if it were to be a
dynamic system at the edge of chaos. By way of introduction, we will
 Conclusion 227

discuss again Merlin Donald's theory concerning the emergence of

philosophy. With this discussion in hand, we should then be able to see
the reason why we believe doing philosophy through definitions could
constitute a dynamic system, or how this could be doing a philosophy
at the edge of chaos. What we will be arguing below has an important
precedent in Deleuze himself, for not only did Deleuze and Guattari
write plateaus (more on this below), but in an important yet small
book, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, Deleuze devotes the majority of this
book to setting forth definitions of key concepts in Spinoza. In follow­
ing up on Spinoza's own philosophical labours that hinged on defini­
tions, Deleuze thus appears to have found this effort to begin with
definitions to be an important aspect of doing philosophy.
In Donald's analysis of the emergence of theoretic philosophy in
ancient Greece, he emphasizes the role written language plays in this
process, and more precisely he stresses the significance of a phonetic
written language. 3 1 The ancient Greeks, of course, were neither the first
to use language as a form of extemal storage, nor did they invent the
phonetic alphabet (the Phoenicians, for example, had a phonetic alpha­
bet, and it was their encounter with the Phoenicians around 900 B.C.
which led to the reappearance of writing). The Greeks were not even the
fust to record their thoughts and observations on events (Donald notes
that this was present in China, Egypt, and Mesopotamia); however,
what Donald daims is the 'critical innovation' of the Greeks was to have
'developed the habit of recording the verbalizations and speculations,
the oral discourses revealing the process itself in action. The great dis­
covery here was that, by entering ideas, even incomplete ideas, into the
public record, they could later be improved and refined.' 32 The Greeks
thus began, and on this Donald believes they were the first, 'to record
the thought process itself.' 33
We can restate Donald's theory in terms of the double articulation
model, and in fact by doing so we begin to draw in other factors not
mentioned by Donald. In the first articulation, we have the written,
extemally stored record of oral commentary, a record that could,
because of the phonetic alphabet, more accurately reflect the oral pro­
cess associated with this commentary. As the Greek culture began to
engage in increased trade and acquire grea ter influence throughout the
Mediterranean, it became increasingly important to acquire the ability
to record transactions in writing so as to keep track of this trade, and
with this development more and more individuals acquired the ability
to write, including, most importantly, individuals who may not have
228 Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos

been from one of the traditional classes that would have acquired this
skill - namely, the political or religious courts. The written thoughts and
observations thus begin to take on a more secular, worldly tone. In time,
with this increased recording of thought in writing, and with the exter­
nal record of the process of thought itself, there emerged a critical point,
a critical mass, from which emerged an activity concemed with think­
ing about the processes of thought thernselves, a type of autocatalysis of
thought. Thus, in the first articulation the extemal recording of thought
in phonetic writing (substance) attains1 because of increased economie
activity by more and more individuals, a critical mass (forrn); and with
the second articulation this critical mass (forrn) becomes transforrned
into a new activity (substance) - that is, thought about the processes of
thought, or philosophy. More precisely, what emerged, especially with
Socrates, was the attempt to define clearly the words used within the
processes of thought. More to the point, Socrates not only sought to
define the words used within the processes of thought, but sought a rule
that could be used to account for each and every possible use of a par­
ticular word. It is this 'rule' that is the object of the second articulation,
much as it was for the monkey who leamed the rule.
To set forth a series of definitions as a dynamic system, one would in
many ways be continuing within the Socratic tradition. However, there
is an important difference between a philosophy at the edge of chaos
and what Socrates (and Plato and much of the philosophical tradition
which follows) attempts to do. In his conversations, Socrates sought to
determine the true definitions of the topics being discussed - for exam­
ple, justice, beauty, love, knowledge, etc. - and a true definition that was
non-contradictory. If an interlocutor says justice is doing harrn to ene­
mies and good to friends, but later adrnits this is not what justice is,
Socrates concludes that this person does not 'know' the true definition
of justice. Underlying this approach is, as has been a central theme in
this book, the assumption that the various instances of justice could be
reduced to an identifiable, non-contradictory definition. We have repeat­
edly seen that this attempt to ground knowledge on the basis of a fun­
damental identity (e.g., a true definition) necessarily presupposes the
non-identifiable condition for this identity, what Derrida, for example,
referred to as differance. We have shown that this non-identifiable con­
dition is to be understood as a fundamental difference, a non-identifi­
able both/ and, which allows for the possibility of non-contradictory
identities. We have referred to this condition by various names - will to
power, chaosmos, paradoxa, and, most recently, the abstract machine of
 Conclusion 229

double articulation. We have argued that doing philosophy involves

encountering this both/ and condition, paradoxa, or that it involves
thinking the different, the uncommon, within the identity of that which
is common. We have also argued that philosophy ought to be system­
atic, or that it ought to concem itself with a systematic approach to the
phenomena which can be thought, even if, as we saw, this equally
involves encountering the non-identifiable condition for these phenom­
ena, a condition which cannot be thought, and a condition that may lead
to the transformation of the system. What we have claimed is needed is
a philosophy that is systematic, though not in the Hegelian sense - that
is, where the elements of the system are interrelated by means of their
relation to a controlling, systematizing identity (e.g., Spirit), an identity
one can know and think (e.g., Hegel's Absolute Knowledge); rather,
what is needed is a philosophy that explicitly seeks to be a dynamic sys­
tem, or a philosophy at the edge of chaos. Deleuze and Guattari's phi­
losophy, or their writing of plateaus, is an instance of such a philosophy.
By setting forth terrns and definitions, they too set the stage for the actu­
alization of their philosophy, the second articulation of their plateaus,
within an indeterrninate number of deterrninate contexts. 34
lt is the use of definitions that is key. In a philosophy at the edge of
chaos, the definitions do not comprise a dictionary. As Umberto Eco has
discussed this point in setting forth his notion of the 'Open Work,' the
words of a dictionary lack the order and systematic interdependence
which would allow one to read it like a novel. 35 If done right, the defi­
nitions would have a type of order and systematic interdependence,
and thus they would be related to each other, but not in the sense that
they are under the hierarchical governance and control of a first or dom­
inant definition. Rather, each definition is to be understood as a repeti­
tion of the first definition, though not as a repetition of the same, but
rather as a repetition of the non-identifiable differentiating condition
(e.g., abstract machine ... double articulation ... chaosmos ... paradoxa
... ), a condition which allows for the very possibility of identifying and
defining the terrns at all. In short, the pursuit of definitions is already a
repetition of the non-identifiable condition, a repetition of the double
bind of the abstract machine, and thus presupposes still other abstract
machines (e.g., it presupposes machinic functions associated with lan­
guage, academies, publishing, etc.). Therefore, the abstract machine, or
the both/ and condition of double articulation, will be univocally
expressed in each of the definitions one would set forth, and for this rea­
son there would be a type of relationship between them. Moreover, the
230 Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos

interaction and relationship between these definitions may generate a

systematic, consistent philosophy, but only a system that is an emergent
property of the interactions and relationships between these definitions.
There is no guarantee, of course. The definitions may fail to draw a
plane of consistency, and hence they may fail to generate a consistent,
dynamic whole, the result being just an inconsistent, incoherent, mean­
ingless jumble of words and ideas; or again they may slip into platitudes
and again fail to say something new, fail to generate the conditions
which allow for the creativity of thought to appear. Deleuze and
Guattari worked to crea te these conditions for the creativity of thought,
and with the series of terms and definitions they offer us, they have pre­
sented a systematic philosophy, a series of plateaus, that should not be
seen as a completed work or system; to the contrary, to the extent that
their philosophy is successful, is doing what it ought to be doing, it will
engender further thought, it will engender a thinking that will become
other and still other philosophies. This is the work of doing philosophy.
Notes

Introduction

1 Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1 994), 1 47.
2 Ibid., xix. In the Preface, Deleuze states, 'We propose to think difference in
itself independently of the forms of representation which reduce it to the
Same, and the relation of different to different independently of those
forms which make them pass through the negative.' This passing through
the negative implies, according to Deleuze, that the 'subordination to the
identical is maintained.'
3 Miguel de Beistegui, in Truth and Genesis: Philosophy as Differentilll Ontology
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), has recent!y focused on this
concern of twentieth-century Continental philosophy to 'think difference.'
In impressive readings of the philosophical tradition, especially Aristotle
and Heidegger, Beistegui shows that Deleuze's effort to 'think difference'
entails an understanding of immanent genesis which avoids problems
Beistegui finds in Aristotle and Heidegger. We agree with much of what
Beistegui is doing. Where this work differs is in stressing the influence of
Spinoza and Nietzsche on Deleuze' s effort to think difference, an influence
we argue is most visible when Deleuze is read in line with a theory of
dynamic systems.
4 Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Bal­
timore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1 976), 23.
5 This theme will be discussed thoroughly in the third chapter as we address
the influence of Nietzsche's thought on the work of Deleuze.
6 Christopher Langton, a pioneer in the field known as 'artificial life,' uses
the term 'edge of chaos' to describe the conditions necessary for the emer-
232 Notes to page 5

gence of new life forms. Langton arrived at this conclusion after simulating
on a computer the interaction of numerous species in an ecosystem, and
programming these entities such that they possess the ability to self-repli­
cate with the possibility for variation (i.e., mutation). Langton could run a
computer simulation which could quickly see what happens over the space
of hundreds and thousands of generations. What he found was that if the
parameters which determine the amount of variation between generations
were set too low, the life forms would soon collapse into one or a few non­
changing varieties - and hence no new forms would evolve and the ecosys­
tem would eventually collapse. If the parameters were set too high,
changes would be so rapid that stable forms could neither emerge or be
maintained, and here too life forms, and hence the ecosystem, would die
off. It was only when the parameters were set at a critical period, the 'edge
of chaos,' that new, stable forms could emerge. The 'edge of chaos,' then, is
for Langton both ordered and chaotic, stable and unstable. See Langton's
introduction to Artificial Life: An Overview (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
1 995). See also, from this same book, Kunihko Kaneko's essay, 'Chaos as a
Source of Complexity.'
7 For more on the differences between Deleuze and Derrida, see Between
Deleuze and Derrida, ed. Paul Patton and John Protevi (New York: Contin­
uum, 2003). For works that interpret Deleuze's philosophy in light of
dynamic systems theory (or complexity theory, as it is also known), see
Brian Massumi, A User's Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Deviations
from Deleuze and Guattari (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1 992); Manuel
DeLanda, A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History (New York: Zone Books,
1 997) and Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy (London: Continuum,
2002); and Mark Bonta and John Protevi, Deleuze and Geophilosophy: A Guide
and Glossary (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004). Where this
book contributes to the understanding of Deleuze and dynamic systems is
in detailing how Deleuze's dynamic systems approach enables him to
address issues that have been persistent throughout the philosophical tra­
dition. In short, the extended comparative analyses offered here examine
the relationship between Deleuze's project and those of Plato, Aristotle,
Spinoza, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida, and in doing this show how
Deleuze' s dynamic systems approach is better able to 'think difference' ( see
note 3 above).
8 Bonta and Protevi, in Deleuze and Geophilosophy, make a similar point. They
argue that 'just as Kant's Critiques were in a sense the epistemology, meta­
physics, ethics, and aesthetics for a world of Euclidean space, Aristotelian
time, and Newtonian physics, Deleuze provides the philosophical concepts
 Notes to pages 6--8 233

that make sense of our world of fragmented space . . . twisted time . . . and the
non-linear effects of far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics' (vii-viü).
9 A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis:University of
Minnesota Press, 1 987), 1 48.
10 This is why Deleuze and Guattari prefer the socio-linguist William Labov
to Chomsky. See Thousand Plateaus, 93-4.
1 1 Perhaps a similar criticism i:ould be made of Derrida. A common crticism
of Derrida has been that he looks at nothing but texts, and even when he
discusses concrete phenomena (e.g., politics, art, etc.) he almost exclusively
focuses upon the written texts which refer to them. For Deleuze and
Guattari, on the other hand, their notion of an abstract machine as a double
articulation (or bath/ and) can be used as a tool in thinking through and
understanding concrete processes rather than simply texts. Bonta and Pro­
tevi point out this difference as well, arguing that Deleuze and Guattari
should not be placed in the 'post-structuralist neighbarhood,' if by that is
meant the study and critique of 'discourses' and 'regimes of signs.' See Geo­
philosophy, 39.
12 Thousand Plateaus, 514.
13 Ibid., 40.
14 References to Spinoza's Ethics are from The Collected Works of Spinoza, vol. 1,
ed. Edwin Curley (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1 985). As is stan­
dard in referring to Spinoza's Ethics, the first number corresponds to the
Part, the letters to definitions (D) and propositions (P) - hence 1 D4 is from
Part 1, the fourth definition.
15 See chapter 2 below for our discussion of the problems commentators have
had with Spinoza and how the reading offered here not only resolves these
problems but also clarifies bath Spinoza's and Deleuze's projects. Further­
more, the same problems commentators have had with Spinoza can also be
found in the commentary on Deleuze. The most notable instance of this is
Alain Badiou's criticisms of Deleuze in Deleuze: The Clamor of Being, trans.
Louise Burchill (Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press, 2000) . lt is
precisely the relationship between the virtùal and the actual -or more pre­
cisely, Deleuze's daim that the virtual is completely determined and yet
defined 'as strictly a part of the real abject' (51 ) - that Badiou finds to be the
'stumbling black for the theory of the virtual' (ibid.). By showing how the
virtual depends upon the actual, much as the attributes of substance
depend upon the modes of the attributes for Spinoza, we can resolve
Badiou's criticism as well.
16 Difference and Repetition, 164.
1 7 A Thousand Plateaus, 153.
234 Notes to pages 8-1 8

18 Twilight of the !dols, in The Portable Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Walter Kauf­
mann (New York: Penguin Books, 1954), 481 .
19 The Will to Power, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage
Books, 1 967), no. 5 1 7 (p. 280).
20 Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, trans. Hugh Tomlinson (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1983), 1 87.
21 See, for instance, The Logic of Sense, trans. Mark Lester (New York: Colum­
bia University Press, 1 990), 1 62-8 ('Twenty-Third Series of the Aion') .
2 2 Will to Power, 330.
23 A Thousand Plateaus, 53.

1. Systematic Thinking and the Philosophy of Difference

1 Plato, The Republic, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1 968), 1 68
(488d-e). This is a persistent theme in Plato's writings. Socrates will, on a
number of occasions, identify his method of inquiry and questioning - that
is, his philosophizing - as 'out of the common.' See, for instance, Plato' s Apol­
ogy, 20c. See also chapter 3 below for a more extended discussion of Plato.
2 It should be noted that Deleuze bad little interest in the critique of metaphys­
ics or the end of philosophy debates. In Negotintions (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1995), for example, Deleuze states, 'l've never been wor­
ried about going beyond metaphysics or any dea th of philosophy' (136).
3 G.W.F. Hegel, Hegel's Science of Logic, trans. A. V. Miller (Atlantic High-
lands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1995), 843.
4 Ibid., 844 .
5 Ibid., 843.
6 Ibid.
7 Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New
York: Vintage Books, 1 966), sec. 43.
8 The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1974),
sec. 335, p. 266. See also sec. 354: 'Fundamentally, ali our actions are alto­
gether incomparably persona}, unique, and infinite}y individual; there is no
doubt of that.'
9 Kaufmann cites this passage in a footnote (Gay Science, sec. 270n). The
quote is from Reason in History, trans. Robert S. Hartman (Indianapolis:
Bobbs-Merrill, 1953), 69.
10 Gay Science, sec. 355.
1 1 Ibid., sec. 1 1 0.
1 2 See, for example, Beyond Good and Evil, sec. 39: 'it might be a basic charac­
teristic of existence that those who would know it completely would per­
ish, in which case the strength of a spirit should be measured according to
 Notes to pages 1 9-25 235

how much of the "truth" one could still barely endure - or to put it more
clearly, to what degree one would require it to be thinned down, shrouded,
sweetened, blunted, falsified.' Or, to put it in other terms, to what degree
do they need to 'know' it?
13 On the Genealogy of Morais, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage
Books, 1969), third essay, sec. 1 2, p. 1 1 9.
14 Gay Science, sec. 344, p. 285.
15 Ibid., sec. 347, p. 287.
16 Ibid., p. 287.
17 Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, trans. Marianne Cowan (Chicago:
Regnery Gateway, 1 962), 23.
18 Ibid., 25.
19 Ibid., 23-4.
20 Beyond Good and Evil, sec. 6, p. 13.
21 Ibid., p. 3
22 Ibid., sec. 259, p. 203.
23 Martin Heidegger, Parmenides, trans. André Schuwer and Richard
Rojcewicz (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1 992), 58.
24 Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche, trans. David F. Krell (San Francisco: Harper­
Collins, 1991), vol. 3, p. 41 .
25 Ibid., p. 46.
26 I refer, of course, to Leibniz's example, in the Monadology, trans. George
Montgomery (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1 988), of the various perspectives of
the same city. See section 57, p. 263.
27 Nietzsche, vol. 1, p. 215.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 1 99-200.
30 'The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking,' in Basic Writings, ed.
David Farrell Krell (New York: Harper & Row, 1 977), 375.
31 Ibid., 391 .
32 Nietzsche, vol. 2, p. 200.
33 The Will to Power, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage
Books, 1 967), no. 61 7, p. 330. Quoted by Heidegger, ibid., p. 202.
34 Beyond Good and Evil, sec. 36, p. 48.
35 In Nietzsche, vol. 2, p. 1 87, Heidegger argues that metaphysics is guided by
a single question, What is being, or the beingness of being? and in answer­
ing this question it has forgotten Being as presencing unconcealment, as
self-concealing aletheia, and answers instead in terms of being: 'Being as a
whole has now [i.e., with metaphysics] become visible for the first time as
being and as a whole.'
36 Nietzsche, vol. 3, p. 1 56.
236 Notes to pages 25-31

37 Ibid., p. 212.
38 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 205.
39 Ibid.
40 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 201 .
41 Parmenides, 50.
42 Ibid., 50. Heidegger describes this as the imperial aspect of the Roman
view, a view he daims 'springs forth from the essence of truth as correct­
ness in the sense of the directive self-adjusting guarantee of the security of
domination. The "taking as true" of ratio, of reor, becomes a far-reaching
and anticipatory security. Ratio becomes counting, calculating, calculus.
Ratio is self-adjustment to what is correct.'
43 Ibid., 53.
44 Ibid., 58
45 Ibid.
46 Nietzsche, vol. 4, p. 1 47.
47 Thus Nietzsche's famous phrase regarding Being as 'the last wisp of evapo-
rating reality' (quoted in Nietzsche, vol. 4, p. 1 82).
48 Parmenides, 101 .
49 Ibid., 50.
50 Ibid. (emphasis added).
51 Ibid.
52 Jacques Derrida, Speech and Phenomena, trans. David B. Allison (Evanston,
IL: Northwestern University Press, 1973), 79.
53 Ibid., 82.
54 Ibid., 85.
55 Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri C. Spivak (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1 974), 23.
56 Ibid., 62.
57 Ibid., 60.
58 Jacques Derrida, 'From Restricted to General Economy: A Hegelianism
without Reserve,' in Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: Uni­
versity of Chicago Press, 1 978), 259.
59 Ibid.
60 Ibid., 268.
61 Ibid., 272.
62 Ibid., 272-3.
63 Ibid., 274.
64 Ibid., 275.
65 Derrida, for example, will cite Nietzsche as an example of a systematic
thinker who does not subordinate his system to a standard or presence
which would complete and close the system.
 Notes to pages 32-5 237

66 Speech and Phenomena, 133.

67 Ibid., 139.
68 Ibid., 1 40. Quote is from Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Unguis-
tics, trans. Roy Harris (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1 983), 1 1 8.
69 Speech and Phenomena, 140.
70 Ibid., 141 .
71 Ibid.
72 Manfred Frank, 'Is Self-Consciousness a Case of présence à soi? Towards a
Meta-Critique of the Recent French Critique of Metaphysics,' in Derrida: A
Critical Reader, ed. David Wood (Oxford: Blackwell, 1 992), 231 .
73 Ibid. Quoting Limited, Inc., trans. Samuel Weber and Jeffrey Mehlman
(Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1988), 24-5.
74 Dissemination, trans. Barbara Johnson (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1981), 64.
75 Limited, Inc., 1 46.
76 Positions, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981 ), 63.
77 Frank, 'Self-Consciousness,' 232.
78 We have appropriated the term from Félix Guattari, who uses it extensively
in his book Chaosmosis, trans. Paul Bains and Julian Pefanis (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1 995); and Guattari appropriates the term from
James Joyce. For a study of the term in Joyce's writing, see Umberto Eco,
The Aesthetics of Chaosmos: The Middle Ages ofJames Joyce, trans. Ellen Esrock
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982).
79 Recall our earlier citation from Of Grammatology: 'The (pure) trace is differ­
ance. It does not depend on any sensible plentitude, audible or visible,
phonie or graphie. It is, on the contrary, the condition of such a plentitude'
(62).
80 Recall another earlier citation, also from Of Grammatology: 'entity and
being, ontic and ontological, "ontico-ontological," are, in an original style,
derivative with regard to difference; and with respect to what 1 shall later
cali differance, an economie concept designating the production of differ­
ing/ deferring' (23). Todd May has offered a criticism of Derrida that is sim­
ilar to ours, when he contrasts Deleuze' s understanding of difference with
Derrida's conception of differance: 'Deleuze's notion of difference is dis­
tinct from Derrida's notion of differance. The latter involves an inevitable
play of presence and absence, a specifie economy of the two, which,
although issuing in any number of philosophical possibilities, nevertheless
governs them with a certain type of logic that is necessary to ail discourse'
('Difference and Unity in Gilles Deleuze,' in Gilles Deleuze and the Theater of
Philosophy, ed. Constantin Boundas and Dorothea Olkowski [New York:
Routledge, 1994], 40) . ln short, Derrida reduces the uncommon, the plenti-
238 Notes to pages 35-40

tude and diversity, the chaos of a text, to being an 'effect' of a simple neces­
sary function that is common to all texts.
81 Of Grammatology, 1 58.
82 See Positions, 62.

2. Ironing Out the Differences: Nietzsche and Deleuze as Spinozists

1 Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New
York: Vintage, 1 966), 24.
2 Ibid., 20.
3 Friedrich Nietzsche, letter to Overbeck, 30 July 1 881, in The Portable
Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Viking, 1 969), 92.
Richard Schacht begins his essay on Spinoza and Nietzsche with this quote.
See 'The Spinoza-Nietzsche Problem,' in Desire and Affect: Spinoza as Psy­
chologist, ed. Yirmiyahu Yovel (New York: Little Room Press, 1 999). In this
essay, Schacht argues, among many other things, that Nietzsche saw in
Spinoza a precursor because of the latter's naturalistic understanding of
religion, morais, and psychology. Nietzsche's main criticism, according to
Schacht, is that Spinoza didn't go far enough and develop a naturalistic
understanding of reason. Schacht is probably correct, though our concem
here is different in that we shall attempt to explicate the philosophical ten­
dencies the two philosophers share, and then show how this goes sorne
way in confronting problems many commentators have had with Spinoza.
4 See Martial Gueroult, Spinoza 1: Dieu (Ethique, l) (Hildesheim: Georg Olms
Verlagbuchhandlung, 1 968), 9-1 2.
5 Edwin Curley, in Behind the Geometrical Method: A Reading of Spinoza's 'Eth­
ics' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1 988), takes this approach and
daims that his own 'method will be to start from the philosophy of Des­
cartes and to see how far the central themes of the Ethics can be derived
from critical reflection on the Cartesian system' (3) .
6 Beyond Good and Evil, 13.
7 The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage, 1974), 292.
8 Beyond Good and Evil, 109.
9 A well-known and representative instance of this view can be found in the
collection of essays published under the title Pourquoi nous ne somme pas
nietzschéens (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1991 ) . Vincent Descombes' essay in this
collection, 'Le moment français de nietzsche,' faults Deleuze for glorifying
in excess the sovereignty of the individual, a glorification he argues pro­
motes irresponsibility and immorality (see 1 21-3).
1 0 Gilles Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy, trans. Martin Joughin (New
York: Zone Books, 1 990), 1 1 .
 Notes to pages 40-2 239

1 1 A Study of Spinoza's 'Ethics' (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1 984),

375.
12 Ibid., 362-3. The reference here is to Spinoza's dosing words of the Ethics,
when he daims that salvation can be achieved only with 'great effort'
(5P425). Citations from the Ethics are from Edwin Curley's translation, The
Collected Works of Spinoza, vol. 1 (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1 985); and we will be following Curley's notation style when referring to
the Ethics (e.g., 1 P7 refers to Part 1, proposition 7).
13 Edwin Curley, Spinoza's Metaphysics: An Essay in Interpretation (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1 969), 1 43.
1 4 A Study of Spinoza's 'Ethics', 372.
15 There are a large number of commentators who have made this daim.
Pierre Bayle, H.H. Joachim, and Bertrand Russell are among those who
interpret Spinoza in this way.
16 Edwin Curley, for example, takes this position. See his Spinoza's Metaphys­
ics: An Essay in Interpretation, chapter 1 .
1 7 Alan Donagan, Spinoza (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 1 77:
'Spinoza's position is both that the divine attributes are really distinct, and
that they each express the same divine essence. Classical metaphysics puts
down such a conjunction as impossible, self-contradictory.' By emphasizing
the concept of expression, Donagan, along with others such as Gilles
Deleuze (Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza), H.F. Hallett (Benedict de
Spinoza: The Elements of His Philosophy [London: Athlone Press, 1957]), and
Fritz Kaufmann ('Spinoza's System as a Theory of Expression,' Philosophy
and Phenomenological Research 1 [1940] : 83-97), have offered interpretations
of Spinoza that, although they differ in many other respects, argue for a
way of understanding attributes that attempts to overcome the apparent
inconsistency. They do not accept, in short, the dualistic assumption of 'das­
sical metaphysics,' and as a result with the concept of expression they argue
for a non-dualistic theory of the attributes and substance. It is this theory
that is, from the perspective of dassical metaphysics, 'self-contradictory.'
18 See Christiane Hubert, Les premières réfutations de Spinoza: Aubert de Versé,
Wittich, Lamy (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1994) . See also Pierre
Bayle's critique in his Historical and Critical Dictionary, ed. and trans. Rich­
ard Popkin (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1 965), 288-338.
19 See H.F. Hallett, 'Substance and Its Modes,' in Spinoza: A Collection of Criti­
cal Essays, ed. Marjorie Grene (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1 973), 139. We differ with Hallett in that we emphasize an under­
standing of self-cause as self-ordering becoming wherein the determina te
order is already immanent to becoming itself. Hallett does not stress the
immanence of determina te order to becoming (or to 'potency-in-act' to use
240 Notes to pages 42-3

Hallett's phrase) but instead tends, as Donagan has pointed out (see Dona­
.
gan, 'Essence and the Distinction of Attributes in Spinoza' s Metaphysics,'
in Grene, ed., Spinoza: A Collection of Critical Essays), to speak of absolutely
indetenninate God as cause and the plurality of attributes as effects of
God's naturing activity, or of potency-in-act. This would then make of the
attributes something that are ultimately not known through themselves,
but through another, which clearly is counter to Spinoza's understanding
of attributes. By stressing the immanence of order to self-ordering becom­
ing, we feel we can safely avoid Donagan's objections. We also feel our
interpretation, although remaining true to the spirit of Hallett's, clarifies his
points. This clarification is perhaps necessary, for we agree with C.L. Har­
din's assessment that Hallett 'is at the same time the most profound and the
most gratuitously obscure of ali the Spinoza commentators' (Hardin,
'Spinoza on Immortality and Time,' in Spinoza: New Perspectives, ed. Robert
W. Shahan and J.I. Biro [Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1 978],
n. 4).
20 Spinoza, Letters, trans. Samuel Shirley (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing
Co., 1995), 260.
21 For instance, in his appendix to his work on Descartes' Principles of Philoso­
phy, 1 and Il, Metaphysical Thoughts, Spinoza does not address the prob­
lem of becoming, or even appear to see it as a problem. For example, in Part
Il, chapter 4 ('Of God's lmmutability'), Spinoza argues that it is 'as impossi­
ble for us to conceive that God can change his decrees as it is for us to think
that the three angles of a triangle are not equal to two right angles' (Col­
lected Works, 323.) This is true, however, with respect to the determinate
order immanent to self-ordering becoming, but not, as we will see, to abso­
lutely indetenninate substance.
22 Among the commentators who have interpreted Spinoza in this way are
Bayle, Kant, Joachim, Russell, and more recently Curley. As for Curley, it
must be stressed that although he distances himself from what he calls the
Bayle-Joachim position as well as the Wolfson position, he nonetheless, as
we will see below (see note 34), takes what A. Wolf has called the 'logico­
mathematical' view of substance and the attributes, especially as this
relates to his argument that the attributes are, in essence, the laws of nature.
23 Among the commentators in this camp is Kuno Fischer, who is probably
one of the first to interpret the attributes as active, dynamic forces and who
also influenced Nietzsche's reading of Spinoza. A. Wolf, H.F. Hallett, E.
Giancotti, G. Deleuze, and P. Macherey are among more recent commenta­
tors who read Spinoza this way.
24 See, in particular, Elhanan Yakira, 'Ideas of Nonexistent Modes: Ethics II
 Notes to pages 44--7 241

Proposition 8, lts Corollary and Scholiurn,' in Spinoza on Knowledge and the

Human Mind, ed. Yirmiyahu Yovel (New York: E.J. Brill, 1994), 159-70.
Yakira recognizes the significance of this proposition as one that plays an
important role in later arguments, most notably, for our purposes, 5P21 D
and 5P23D, where Spinoza argues for the etemity of the mind. Yakira,
however, stresses the emergent understanding of logical relations implicit
to this proposition. Although 1 do not take issue with her arguments per se,
1 stress the manner in which this proposition clarifies explicit concerns and
themes of Spinoza rather than implicit themes.
25 As for the infinite modes, both immediate and mediate, 1 generally agree
with Emilia Giancotti's argument that the infinite mediate modes were not
important to Spinoza and that the infinite immediate modes served as reg­
ula ting principles for the process of pluralization that Giancotti sees as key
to Spinoza' s understanding of substance. See 'On the Problem of Infinite
Modes,' in Cod and Nature: Spinoza' s Metaphysics, ed. Yirmiyahu Yovel (New
York: E.J. Brill, 1991 ) . Later (note 35) we will argue in a similar fashion that
the infinite intellect (God's 'infinite idea') serves as a conceptual tool or
useful fiction for Spinoza to explain how self-ordering becoming cornes to
be an actually ordered set of beings, or how becoming becomes stamped
with the character of being (what Nietzsche will cali 'will to power').
26 See H.A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza: Unfolding the Latent Processes of
His Reasoning, 2 vols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1 962
[1 934]); H.H. Joachim, A Study of the Ethics of Spinoza (New York: Russell
and Russell, 1962 [1901]); George L. Kline, 'On the Infinity of Spinoza's
Attributes,' in Speculum Spinozanum, 1 677-1977, ed Siegfried Hessing (Lon­
don: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1 977).
27 As Curley reminds us, Gueroult daims 2P21S and 3P2S provide the expia­
nation lacking here. The second proposition, in particular, explicitly refers
to 2P7 as a basis for accounting for the relationship between the mind and
the body.
28 Letter 12, in Collected Works, 202.
29 See 1 P31 : 'The actual intellect, whether finite or infinite, like will, desire,
love, etc., must be referred to Natura naturata, not to natura naturans.'
30 2P8C & S: ' . . . it follows that so long as singular things do not exist, except
insofar as they are comprehended in God' s attributes, their objective being,
or ideas, do not exist except insofar as God's infinite idea exists. And when
singular things are said to exist, not only insofar as they are comprehended
in God's attributes, but insofar also as they are said to have duration, their
ideas also involve the existence through which they are said to have dura­
tion. Schol: If anyone wishes me to explain this further by an example, 1
242 Notes to pages 48-50

will, of course, not be able to give one which adequately explains what 1
speak of here, since it is unique. Still 1 shall try as far as possible to illustrate
the matter . . . '
31 See, among many of Pierre Macherey's works, Introduction à l' É thique de
Spinoza (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1 998), 23-6, and 'The Prob­
lem of the Attributes' in The New Spinoza, ed. Warren Montag and Ted
Stolze (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998). This essay is a
translated chapter from Macherey's influential work Hegel ou Spinoza
(Paris: François Maspero, 1 979) .
32 See Spinoza l, 141-2 and 230-2.
33 See Donagan, 'Spinoza's Dualism,' in The Philosophy of Baruch Spinoza, ed.
Richard Kennington (Washington, OC: The Catholic University of America
Press, 1 980), and 'Substance, Essence and Attribute in Spinoza, Ethics 1,' in
Yovel, ed., God and Nature.
34 This is how we read Curley's argument, in Spinoza's Metaphysics, when he
addresses 2P8S. For Curley the idea of God that comprehends substance,
much as the idea of the circle comprehends the rectangles, is to be under­
stood as the laws of nature. As he puts it, 'Just as the circle defines a class of
possible rectangles, so the laws of nature define classes of possible entities'
(141 ) . This reading, however, assumes that substance is predetermined, or
limited to the 'logico-mathematical' (see note 22) possibilities of the laws of
nature, but this is to understand substance as limited rather than as abso­
lutely indeterminate substance - as self-ordering becoming. It is for this
reason, among others, that we place Curley among the commenta tors who
does not interpret substance as dynamic.
35 A thorough justification of our daim that the infinite intellect is a 'useful
fiction' would take us too far afield of our primary concerns in this chapter,
for we would need to lay out Spinoza's philosophy of language, the rela­
tionship between common notions, beings of reason, and adequate ideas,
and then address the diverse daims of the many commenta tors who have
tackled these issues. Nevertheless, we believe a case can be made that
Spinoza recognized the limitations of language, and for a fundamental rea­
son - language is by nature something that is common to the community of
language speakers, and yet the truth Spinoza is attempting to convey
through language is singular and unique. We have already seen this once
when Spinoza recognized that an analogy from geometry was inadequate
in conveying the uniqueness of the relationship between substance and the
attributes - namely, the uniqueness of self-cause. This is even more the case
with language. (For more on this line of argument, see David Sa van,
'Spinoza and Language,' in Grener, ed., Spinoza: A Collection of Critical
 Notes to pages 50-1 243

Essays. See also G.H.R. Parkinson's dissenting view in his article 'Language
and Knowledge in Spinoza' from the same volume.) In fact, it is perhaps
not inappropriate to argue that much as Wittgenstein, in concluding his
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (trans. Pears and B.F. McGuinness [London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1 974]), a work whose title reflects the influence
of Spinoza on Wittgenstein, daims that 'he must transcend these proposi­
tions, and then he will see the world aright'; so, too, for Spinoza one must
move beyond the 'useful fictions' and the language of the Ethics and get to
the point where, with the third kind of knowledge, one simply 'sees the
world aright.' This reading is given even greater credibility when one
examines the historical circumstances of Spinoza' s Tractatus Theologico­
Politicus. As Jonathan Israel has argued in his recent book, Radical Enlight­
enment (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), the radical critiques of
the Koerbagh brothers were in part motivated by a desire to show how the
language that is used is itself a political tool to perpetua te the power of
those with the requisite ability to use the terms correctly (Radical Enlighten­
ment, 1 92) . For Spinoza, too, who knew the Koerbagh brothers weil, his
work was also condemned, and for similar reasons. Spinoza argued that
the writings of the Bible were not expressions of tru th but simply 'useful
fictions' that engendered obedience and right conduct. One could extend
this argument to the Ethics and argue that there too the 'useful fictions' are,
much as for Wittgenstein, to be moved beyond so as to acquire a proper
view of the world, a view that in turn motivates proper conduct. Expand­
ing upon these themes would reveal sorne of the reasons why the Ethics is
an ethics, but it is again beyond the scope of this chapter.
36 H.A. Wolfson is perhaps most outspoken in his daim that the first defini­
tion is of minimal importance. Gueroult argues that Dl is important, but
D6 is for him the definition that does much of the philosophical work in the
Ethics. Bennett and Donagan find Dl to be problematic because they both
feel Spinoza did not state his position clearly enough. For Bennett, 'that
whose nature cannat be conceived as existing' must 'surely mean "that
whose essence cannat be conceived except as instantiated'" (A Study, 74) .
For Donagan, Spinoza's first definition would have been much clearer had
he more immediately tied it to the distinction between immanent and tran­
sient causation (Spinoza, 60-4).
37 The Will to Power, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage,
1 967), 330.
38 Beyond Good and Evil, 48. For more on this aspect of Nietzsche's thought
and its relationship to Deleuze, see the next chapter.
39 See Short Treatise, Part 2, Preface (1/52-3).
244 Notes to pages 51-5

40 See 207: 'By singular things I understand things that are finite and have a
determinate existence. And if a number of Individuals so concur in one
action that together they are ali the cause of one effect, I consider them ali,
to that extent, as one singular thing.'
41 In the Short Treatise, for example, Spinoza daims ' . . . if other bodies act on
ours with such force that the proportion of motion and rest cannot remain 1
to 3 [for example], that is death, and a destruction of the soul .. .' {1 /53).
42 This is yet another place of convergence between Nietzsche and Spinoza. In
The Gay Science, for example, Nietzsche argues that knowledge is nothing
but the need to select against excessive differences by reducing them to
something common and familiar: 'Look, isn't our need for knowledge pre­
cisely this need for the familiar, the will to uncover under everything
strange, unusual, and questionable something that no longer disturbs us?
Is it not the instinct of fear that bids us to know?' (300-1 ). This is a central
theme of the next chapter.
43 Much of Deleuze's work on Spinoza has been to stress the role of 'common
notions' in Spinoza's work as part of an effort to explain how certain ideas
or useful fictions aid the 'body's power of acting.' Deleuze believes that
Spinoza recognized this near the end of his Treatise on the Emendation of the
Intellect when he daimed that 'there seems to be considerable difficulty in
our being able to arrive at knowledge of these singular things. For to con­
ceive them ali at once is beyond the powers of the human intellect . . . So
other aids will have to be sought' (§102). These other aids, on Deleuze's
interpretation, are what come to be called the common notions (see note 46
below for more on the significance of common notions for Deleuze).
44 This lends further support to arguments concerning 'useful fictions' as
sketched above in our earlier note (note 35).
45 Bennett argues that Spinoza denies any validity to teleological daims such
as 'if it would help x to do A, x does A,' wanting instead to reduce them to
daims such as 'if x does A, it is helpful to x to do A.' Bennett argues that
Spinoza begins with the second daim but ultimately switches to arguments
that are dependent upon the first (see 'Spinoza and Teleology: A Reply to
Curley,' in Spinoza: Issues and Directions, ed. Edwin Curley and Pierre­
François Moreau (New York: E.J. Brill, 1 990]). We agree, though possibly for
different reasons, with Lee Rice's criticism of Bennett on these points (see
'Spinoza, Bennett, and Teleology,' Southern Journal of Philosophy 23.2 [1985] :
(241-53).
46 Gilles Deleuze has offered probably the most thorough analysis of why the
Treatise was left unfinished. For Deleuze the reason is simple: 'when he dis­
covers and invents the common notions, Spinoza realizes that the positions
 Notes to pages 55-60 245

of the Treatise on the Intellect are inadequate in several respects, and that the
whole work would have to be revised and rewritten' (Spinoza: Practical Phi­
losophy, trans. Robert Hurley [San Francisco: City Light Books, 1981 ], 120-
1 ) . Common notions, according to Deleuze, allow Spinoza to account for
the development of knowledge from vague, random experiences to the
knowledge of essences (see note 43 above). In short, and this is where we
further extend Deleuze' s argument, with common notions Spinoza is better
able to explain the relationship between finite and determinate beings and
the eternal, infinite enjoyment of existing that is substance.
47 G.H.R. Parkinson has pointed out the significance for Spinoza of under­
standing true ideas, not as representations but as activities of the mind that
are in sorne way complete. See '"Truth Is Its Own Standard": Aspects of
Spinoza's Theory of Truth,' in Shanan and Biro, eds, Spinoza: New Perspec­
tives.
48 Early in the Treatise, Spinoza offers this alternative way of knowing the
essence of something: 'there is the Perception we have when a thing is per­
ceived through its essence alone, or through knowledge of its proximate
cause' (§19, 11/ 1 0).
49 See Spinoza's Descartes' 'Principles of Philosophy,' Part 1 , Prolegomenon
(11147-148).
50 A reference to our earlier citation from Nietzsche's notebooks: 'To impose
upon becoming the character of being: that is the supreme will to power.'
51 2P13: 'The object of the idea constituting the human Mind is the Body, or a
certain mode of Extension which actually exists, and nothing else.'
52 For a recent interpretation of Spinoza that emphasizes the concept of
power, see Lorenzo Vinciguerra, Spinoza (Paris: Hachette, 2001 ).
53 This theme has been discussed b y many commentators, though not quite in
the manner that we have set forth. Yirmiyahu Yovel, for example, has dis­
cussed the significance of the third kind of knowledge as a qualitative shift
which does not change the content of what is known (i.e., the essence of
God), but represenfs a shift in perspective to seeing the individual as the
embodiment of the etemal laws of nature grasped by the second kind of
knowledge (see 'Third I<ind of Knowledge as Alternative Salvation,' in
Curley and Moreau, eds, Spinoza: Issues and Directions.) See also Charles
Ramond, Qualité et quantité dans la philosophie de Spinoza (Paris: Presses Uni­
versitaires de France, 1995) for an extensive reading of Spinoza that pays
close attention to the conceptual work the quality 1 quantity distinction
plays in Spinoza' � philosophy. Similar to the qualitative shift Yovel and
others recognize, our reading emphasizes the shift as an existential shift, a
shift that brings into focus the activities, emotions, and joy of existing (for a
246 Notes to page 60

similar account, an account that also supports sorne of our daims made in
note 35, see Yosef Ben-Shlomo, 'Substance and Attributes in the Short Trea­
tise and in the Ethics: An Attempt at an "Existentialist" Interpretation,' in
Yovel, ed., God and Nature). The difference between our position and
Yovel's becomes more dear when one sees how Yovel compares and con­
trasts Nietzsche and Spinoza (see 'Spinoza and Nietzsche: Amor dei and
Amor fati,' in Spinoza and Other Heretics [Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1 989)). Because Yovel sees the third kind of knowledge as a manner
of living and experiencing the eternal, unchanging laws of nature, in con­
trast to our daim that it is coming to live existentially the absolutely inde­
terminate substance as the power of self-ordering becoming, Yovel
concludes that despite the fact that each rejects a transcendent God,
Nietzsche is to be contrasted with Spinoza because 'Nietzsche's experience
of immanence leaves no room for order, permanence, fixed laws, inherent
rationality, or truth ... ' (107). We, to the contrary, find that on this point
Spinoza is a profound precursor to Nietzsche, not a contrast. Another view
similar to the one set forth here is that of Herman De Dijn. In a number of
places, especially in Spinoza: The Way to Wisdom (West Lafayette, IN: Pur­
due University Press, 1996) and 'Wisdom and Theoretical Knowledge in
Spinoza,' in Curley and Moreau, eds, Spinoza: Issues and Directions, De Dijn
has argued that the third kind of knowledge is not a 'theoretical' knowl­
edge but rather a type of lived experience, and an experience that parallels
the experiences of enlightenment comrnonly found among Buddhist
monks and sages.
A more traditional interpretation is offered by Alan Donagan, who bases
his argument, as we do, on a reading of 2P8. Donagan argues that to be
comprehended under an infinite idea of God is to exist as an already deter­
mined identity (i.e., the idea of the formai essence of the body) that simply
lacks bodily existence (see 'Spinoza's Proof of Imrnortality,' in Grene, ed.,
Spinoza, 251 ). This does make sense of 5P23, but it is problematic, and hence
on this point we agree with C.L. Hardin's objections to Donagan's argu­
ments (see his essay 'Spinoza on Imrnortality and Time,' in Shahan and
Biro, eds, Spinoza: New Perspectives). Hardin, however, and Allison, who
adroits to being a 'Hardinist' on this position (see Allison, 'Spinoza's Doc­
trine of the Eternity of the Mind: Comrnents on Matson,' in Curley and
Moreau, eds, Spinoza: Issues and Directions), interprets 2P8 much as Curley
does, arguing that to be 'comprehended under' entails being subject to 'a
set of conjoined law-like propositions' (Hardin, 136). To this daim we can
simply repeat our earlier criticism of Curley's position (see note 34). We feel
our 'existential' interpretation of living eternally, coupled with our reading
 Notes to pages 60-7 247

of 2P8, is more successful at giving 5P23 the full weight and significance we
believe Spinoza intended it to have while at the same time placing it into
the broader context of Spinoza' s arguments and concerns.
54 Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, 1 1 .
55 Gay Science, 274
56 Will to Power, 330.
57 Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in The Portable Nietzsche (New York: Penguin Books,
1 954), 435.

3. Philosophizing the Double Bind: Deleuze Reads Nietzsche

1 Plato, The Republic, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1 991), 54.
Ali references hereafter will be to this translation. References to the States­
man are from Seth Benardete's translation (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1 986). Ali other Plato references are from The Collected Dialogues of
Plato, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1961 ).
2 Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New
York: Vintage Books, 1966), 49.
3 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York:
Vintage Books, 1974), 254.
4 Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, trans. Marion Faber and
Stephen Lehmann (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984), 238.
5 Heidegger, Kaufmann, Nehamas, and Schacht have ali discussed impor­
tant similarities they have seen between Nietzsche and Plato, as weil as
their important differences. I will discuss sorne of their observations below,
but my reasons for bringing in the similarities I have sketched here are
quite different in intent, as will also be seen below.
6 Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche' preface, 3.
7 See Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche, vol. 1, trans. David Farrell Krell (San Fran­
cisco: Harper Collins, 1991), 201 .
8 I n The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, trans. Frederick Lawrence (Cam­
bridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987), Habermas cites Derrida's reference to
Heidegger's daim that the Nietzschean reversai 'and demolition remains
dogmatic and, like ali reversais, a captive of that metaphysical edifice
which it professes to overthrow' (166). Habermas then daims that such a
daim is equally valid of Heidegger and Derrida themselves. In particular,
he feels that they are both within 'the constraints of the paradigm of the
philosophy of the subject,' a paradigm they daim to be criticizing.
Searle's inclusion on this list should perhaps be elaborated. In his criti-
248 Notes to pages 67-9

cism of Derrida, Searle does not direct!y criticize Derrida' s critique of meta­
physics, nor does he explicitly daim that Derrida is committed to the very
tradition he criticizes. However, in criticizing Derrida's reading of Austin,
this is implicitly at work. First of ali, Derrida is clear in saying that his cri­
tique of Austin is in line with his critique of metaphysics, which entails
showing the untenability of 'returning, "strategically," ideally, to an origin
or to a "priority" held to be simple, intact, normal, pure, standard, self­
identical, in order then to think in terms of derivation, complication, deteri­
or;ation, accident, etc.' (Limited, Inc. trans. Samuel Weber and Jeffrey Mehl­
man [Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1 988], 93). Derrida will
then criticize Austin's 'strategie' exclusion of 'non-serious,' 'non-ordinary,'
'fictional' discourse that was designed to aid in understanding 'serious,'
'ordinary' discourse. Searle's criticism is therefore implicitly directed
towards Derrida's critique of metaphysics. Furthermore, for Searle's argu­
ments to carry any weight one must remain committed to the very distinc­
tions Derrida questions. Derrida thus asks rhetorically: 'how can one
oppose to it [Derrida's article 'Signature, Event, Context'], qua dogma,
what it seeks to cali into question?' (Limited, !ne., 72). Searle therefore pre­
supposes that Derrida, if not at least actually committed to a tradition of
metaphysics that he has simply misunderstood (e.g., Searle argues that
Derrida has failed to understand that fiction is logically dependent upon
ordinary, 'simple' discourse), then he ought to be so committed. In either
case, Searle has both failed to understand Derrida' s critique of metaphysics
and has assumed that Derrida is or ought to be committed to the very tradi­
tion he is criticizing, and thus the inclusion of Searle on this list.
Fredric Jameson, in Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1991), daims that 'postmodernism
[which includes for Jameson poststructuralism and the critique of meta­
physics] is not the cultural dominant of a wholly new social order ... but only
the reflex and the concomitant of yet another systemic modification of cap­
italism itself' (xii, emphasis added). The critique of metaphysics remains
committed to, and is simply the latest form of, capitalism.
For more criticisms along these lines, see Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut,
French Philosophy of the Sixties (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press,
1990); and Ferry and Renaut, eds, Pourquoi nous ne sommes pas nietzschéens
(Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1991), in particular, Vincent Descombes' article 'Le
moment français de Nietzsche' (96-128).
9 Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the !dols ('The Problem of Socrates,' 1 1 ), in
The Portable Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Walter I<aufmann (New York: Penguin
Books, 1954), 478.
 Notes to pages 71-5 249

10 Alan Schrift, Nietzsche and the Question of Interpretation: Between Hermeneu­

tics and Deconstruction (New York: Routledge, 1990), 1 04.
11 Jacques Derrida, Dissemination, trans. Barbara Johnson (Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1981), 125.
12 Ibid., 125--6 .
13 Ibid., 98-9.
14 Ibid., 103. This quote is a concluding summary of the following long quote
from the Phaedrus, which details King Thamus's rejection and suppression
of Theuth's daim that writing is a pharmakon : 'But the king said, ''Theuth,
my master of arts, to one man it is given to create the elements of an art, to
another to judge the extent of harm and usefulness it will have [i.e., good vs.
evil] for those who are going to employ it. And now, since you are father of
written letters, your patemal goodwill has led you to pronounce the very
opposite of what is their real power [claimed it is helpful when it is harm­
ful]. The fact is that this invention will produce forgetfulness in the souls of
those who have leamed it because they will not need to exercise their mem­
ories, being able to rely on what is written, using the stimulus of extemal
marks that are alien to themselves rather than, from within [i.e., inside vs.
outside] their own unaided powers to cali things to mind. 5o it's not a rem­
ecly [pharmako n ] for memory [as Theuth claimed], but for reminding, that
you have discovered. And as for wisdom, you're equipping your pupils
with only a semblance of it, not with truth [appearance vs. reality]. Thanks
to you and your invention, your pupils will be widely read without benefit
of teacher' s instruction; in consequence, they'll entertain the delusion they
have wide knowledge, while they are, in fact, for the most part incapable of
real judgment [knowledge vs. ignorance] . They will also be difficult to get
on with since they will be men filled with conceit of wisdom, not men of
wisdom"' (274e-275b; quoted by Derrida in Dissemination, 1 02).
15 Beyond Good and Evil, 10.
1 6 Ibid. This was already Nietzsche's position at the time of Human, All Too
Human, when Nietzsche distanced himself from the tradition which
'denied the origin of the one from the other (i.e., its opposite) . . . [and
Nietzsche offers instead a] historical philosophy [which pursues] a chemis­
try of moral, religious, aesthetic ideas and feelings [which might] end with
the conclusion that, even here, the most glorious colors are extracted from
base, even despised substances' (13-14) .
1 7 Twilight of the Idols ('Morality a s Anti-Nature,' 5), i n The Portable Nietzsche,
490. In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche identifies life with will to power:
'life simply is will to power' (203); and again, in Twilight of the Idols, he asso­
ciates 'dionysian frenzy' with will to power: 'that wonderful phenomenon
250 Notes to pages 75-7

which bears the name of Dionysus: it is explicable only in terms of an

excess of force' (560), where excess of force is one of the ways in which
Nietzsche defines 'will to power.' 1 will discuss will to power more fully in
the third section ('Thumos') and bring in Deleuze's interpretation of it as
the 'differentiai element' - that is, the element which is the condition, à la
Derrida, for differentiating between good and evil, etc.
18 See Beyond Good and Evil, §259: ' ... !ife simply is will to power.'
19 1 will discuss sorne of these criticisms below, but 1 am here referring to note
8 above, where 1 discuss Habermas, Searle, Jameson, and other's criticisms
of the contemporary critique of metaphysics.
20 Michel Foucault, What Is Enlightenment?' in The Foucault Reader (New
York: Penguin Books, 1984), 43.
21 Michel Foucault, 'Space, Knowledge, and Power,' an interview with Paul
Rabinow in March 1982, in The Foucault Reader (New York: Pantheon
Books, 1984), 248-9. The Habermas quote is on page 249.
22 For a good study of the close relationship between Nietzsche's and Fou­
cault's critiques, see Michael Mahon, Foucault's Nietzschean Genealogy
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992).
23 Our use of the term 'double bind' cornes from Gregory Bateson. We will
further clarify the connection between Bateson's understanding of double
bind, and its implications for philosophy, below. See Gregory Bateson,
Steps to an Ecology of Mind (New York: Ballantine Books, 1972). In particu­
lar, see the essay 'Double B�d,' 271-8.
24 Seth Benardete, for example, argues that Plato was indeed aware of this
impossibility. See Socrates' Second Sailing: On Pltito's Republic (Chicago: Uni­
versity of Chicago Press, 1989). Derrida also daims that Plato was aware of
such impossible both/ and' s, but argues that he merely made note of them
'in passing, incidentally, discreetly' (Dissemination, 126). Our point, how­
ever, is that such an awareness was not 'incidental' to Plato's thought, but
one of the central problems of his entire corpus.
25 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York:
Vintage Books, 1 967), 278. This fragment is dated March-June 1 888.
26 Gay Science, 30Q-1 : 'What is it that common people take for knowledge?
What do they want when they want "knowledge"? Nothing more than this:
Something strange is to be reduced to something familiar ... Look, isn't our
need for knowledge precisely this need for the familiar, the will to uncover
under everything strange, unusual, and questionable something that no
longer disturbs us? Is it not the instinct offear that bids us to know?'
27 Will to Power, 278.
28 Heidegger, Nietzsche, vol. 1, p. 584 (German edition); quoted by Phillippe
 Notes to pages 77-85 251

Lacoue-Labarthe in Typography: Mimesis, Philosophy, Politics, ed. Christo­

pher Fynsk (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 70.
29 Ibid., 585; quoted by Lacoue-Labarthe in Typography, 71 . See The Republic,
597c-d.
30 Heidegger, Nietzsche, vol. 1, trans. David Farrell Krell, 201 .
31 Ibid., 202. Heidegger daims this questioning first occurred in a section in
Twilight of the Idols entitled 'How the "True World" Finally Became a Fable:
The History of an Error.' In this section, Nietzsche daims that not only is
the 'true world' to be abolished, but 'along with the true world we have
also abolished the apparent one!' With this move, Heidegger believes that
Nietzsche conducts himself 'for the first time into the brilliance of full day­
light ... Thus the onset of the final stage of his own philosophy' (208). lt is
for this reason that Heidegger devotes much of his long work on Nietzsche
to an analysis of the late notes to Will to Power, the notes of his 'final creative
year.'
32 Human, Ali Too Human (§1, 'Chemistry of concepts and feelings'), 1 3-14.
33 Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Bal­
timore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974), 19.
34 1 am indebted to Lacoue-Labarthe's work for pointing this out, and for
much else that has been influential in my thinking through the themes of
this section.
35 Quoted by Lacoue-Labarthe in Typography, 48.
36 Ibid., 49; also in Nietzsche: A Self-Portrait from His Letters, ed. Peter Fuss and
Henry Shapiro (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 77.
37 On the Genealogy of Marals; Ecce Homo, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York:
Vintage Books, 1969), 258 (emphasis added).
38 Recall our earlier quote in which Nietzsche daimed that 'a basic character­
istic of existence [might be) that those who would know it completely
would perish, in which case the strength of a spirit should be measured
according to how much of the "truth" one could still barely endure.' In
other words, the more strength a spirit has, the fewer the fictions and lies it
will need, and thus Nietzsche will evaluate our judgments (i.e., beliefs and
values), not on the basis of their truth or falsity, but, as we will discuss in
the next section, on the basis of whether they were created (fictioned) from
a position of strength or weakness.
39 Beyond Good and Evil, 229 (emphasis added).
40 Twilight of the Idols, 497. See also: Beyond Good and Evil, 216; Gay Science, 205,
249.
41 Beyond Good and Evil, §259.
42 Twilight of the Idols, 500.
252 Notes to pages 85-9

43 By infinite variability, 1 mean there is an infinite variation or number of

perspectives that can be taken upon this whole. It is this understanding of
infinite which Nietzsche refers to in The Gay Science (§374, 'Our new "infi­
nite"'): 'the world [has] become "infinite" for us all ove;r again, inasmuch as
we cannot reject the possibility that it may include infinite interpretations.
Once more we are seized by a great shudder; but who would feel inclined
immediately to deify [i.e., form into a unity 1 again after the old manner this
monster of an unknown world? And to worship this unknown henceforth
as "the Unknown One"?'
44 Twilight of the Idols, 517.
45 The Gay Science, 1 68.
46 Twilight of the Idols, 518 (emphasis added).
47 See, for example, Beyond Good and Evil, §13: 'A living thing seeks above all
to discharge its strength - life itself is will to power .. :
48 Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, trans. Hugh Tomlinson (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1983), 50.
49 See Heidegger, Nietzsche, vol. 2, p. 86: 'What is the pervasive character of
the world? The answer is: "force."'
50 Ibid., 87: 'What Nietzsche calls "force" becomes clear to him in later years
as "will to power."'
51 Gilles Deleuze, Logic of Sense, trans. Mark Lester (New York: Columbia Uni­
versity Press, 1 990) 228. Deleuze is speaking of 'sense' subsisting or inher­
ing in propositions and states of affairs in this context, but for him sense is
an event, and thus the same applies for events more generally.
52 Ibid., 151.
53 Nietzsche and Philosophy, 50.
54 Ibid., 51 .
55 Ibid., 43-4. Deleuze refers to the following relevant passages from Will to
Power: 'We cannot help feeling that mere quat:ttitative differences are some­
thing fundamentally distinct from quantity, namely that they are qualities
which can no longer be reduced to one another' (565); 'Mechanistic inter­
pretation: desires nothing but quantities; but force is to be found in quality.
Mechanistic theory can therefore describe processes, not explain them'
(660); 'The reduction of ali qualities to quantities is nonsense' (564).
56 Ibid., 53.
57 Ibid., 53-4.
58 Ibid., 54.
59 Twilight of the Idols, 481 .
60 Human, Ali Tao Human, 15.
61 Thus Spoke Zarathustra ('Of the Blessed Isles'), in The Portable Nietzsche, 1 98-
9.
 Notes to pages 89-93 253

62 Will to Power, no. 517.

63 Logic of Sense, 1 .
64 Ibid.
65 Will to Power, no. 517, p. 280.
66 Ibid.
67 Ibid., no. 617, p. 330.
68 Twilight of the !dols, 490. We referred to this section earlier in our discussion
of Derrida.
69 This refers to our earlier quote from Beyond Good and Evil (p. 49) wherein
the 'strength of a spirit should be measured according to how much of the
"truth" one could still barely endure ... '
70 Thus Spolœ Zarathustra, 424.
71 Nietzsche and Philosophy, 1 82.
72 Ibid., 186.
73 Ibid., 187. Deleuze also argues that this is why Nietzsche refers to the eter­
nal return as a wedding ring - the marriage of Dionysus and Ariadne (see
Zarathustra, III, 'The Seven Seals').
74 Will to Power, no. 61 7, p. 330; quoted by Deleuze (ibid.).
75 Nietzsche and Philosophy, 1 88.
76 Ibid.
77 We see in this the well-known contrast between master and slave morality.
Whereas master morality affirms what Nietzsche refers to as a 'pathos of
distance,' or it affirms one's own düference and distance from others as
'good,' and on this basis negates or denies that which is düferent, or that
which is 'bad,' weak, sickly, declining, etc.; slave morality negates what is
other - that is, master morality - and on this basis affirms itself as what is
'good,' and the negated other cornes to be seen as the opposite of good, or
'evil.' Good and bad differ, but good and evil are opposed. See Genealogy of
Morais.
78 Nietzsche and Philosophy, 1 89.
79 Since the will to power is the düferential element which produces the dif­
ferences between, and allows for the identification and evaluation of,
forces, it is consequently this 'difference in affirmation' which also prevents
these forces from coming into equilibrium, or into a static identity. Thus
Nietzsche daims, 'That a state of equilibrium is never reached proves that
it is not possible' ( Will to Power, 547).
As an aside, which will be developed in later chapters, this position is
very similar to that of chaos theory (see, in particular, Dya Prigogine and
Isabelle Stengers, Order out of Chaos [New York: Bantam Books, 1984]). In ·

chaos theory, also known as complexity theory, non-linear theory, or

dynamic systems theory, the focus is upon systems that are in a 'far-from-
254 Notes to pages 94-8

equilibrium' condition. It is only as a consequence of such a condition, Pri­

gogine and Stengers argue, that the distinction between past and future
cornes about: Only when a system behaves in a sufficiently random way
may the difference between past and future ... enter into its description'
(16). In far-from equilibrium conditions, furthermore, complexity theorists
argue that there is both being and becoming, necessity and chance, predict­
ability and unpredictability, multiplicity and unity. In addition, a funda­
mental daim of complexity theory is that far-from-equilibrium conditions
are not uncommon deviations from a universe that would otherwise be at
or near equilibrium; rather, they argue the reverse: far-from-equilibrium
conditions are the rule, and equilibrium states are the exceptions which
arise from them.
80 See our earlier discussion. See also the Theaetetus, 191c-d.
81 The Gay Science, 41 .
82 Ibid., 266.
83 Human, Ail Too Human, §427, p. 206. See also §228.
84 It is for this reason that Nietzsche rejected Rohde's remark, discussed ear­
lier, that 'Plato created his Socrates and you your Zarathustra.' Socrates is
the figure of recollection, the return of the same, but Zarathustra is the fig­
ure of forgetfulness, the retum of difference; consequent!y, Nietzsche
claimed that 'everything in it [Zarathustra] is mine alone, without model,
comparison, or precursor .. .'
85 This phrase is from Foucault (we mentioned it earlier), but it should be
noted that Richard Bernstein makes use of this notion in his book The New
Constellation (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991 ). He also notes, and 1 will echo
this, that despite the poststructuralists' emphasis upon a 'both/ and' which
eludes the constraints of the Enlightenment blackmail' s 'either 1 or; one
'cannot avoid asking ... [regarding the poststructuralist critique] . . . "critique
in the name of what?"' (318). For example, Bernstein argues that Foucault' s
critique implicitly affirms, or is in the name of, an 'ascetic-aesthetic mode of
ethical life,' but that he never says why such a life is 'desirable' (1 64), or
why it should be affirmed. Bernstein calls for this type of affirmation, but
he recognizes the necessity of a 'double attitude,' or what 1 would prefer to
call a 'double bind,' which caUs both for the necessity of affirmation and
the recognition 'that any affirmation can be called into question' (31 8). 1 am
very sympathetic to Bemstein's position - one could even say that he calls
for a critique without redemption - but there are important differences
which 1 will clarify in the conduding section of this chapter.
86 Bateson describes the following example: ' .. if he responds to his mother's
simulated affection, her anxiety will be aroused and she will punish him . . .
 Notes to pages 98-102 255

if he does not make overtures of affection, she will feel that this means she
is not a loving mother and her anxiety will be aroused. Therefore, she will
either punish him for withdrawing or make overtures to the child to insist
that he demonstrate that he loves her.' But if he does this, obviously, he will
arouse her anxieties and be punished; hence, the 'no-win' situation of the
double bind (Steps to an Ecology of Mind, 212-13).
87 See Gregory Bateson, 'Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia,' in Steps to an
Ecology of Mind, 201-27. As an example of the latter, Bateson cites an exper­
iment of Erik Erickson's. Erickson was 'able to produce a hallucination by
first inducing catalepsy in the subject's hand [through hypnosis] and then
saying, ''There is no conceivable way in which your hand can move, yet
when 1 give the signal, it must move" ... When Erickson gives the signal,
the subject hallucinates the hand moved, or hallucinates himself in a differ­
ent place and therefore the hand was moved' (223).
88 'Double Bind,' in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, 278.
89 Bateson cites 'play therapy' as one means of working through, or 'counter­
actualizing,' the effects of the double bind (see 'A Theory of Play and Fan­
tasy,' in Steps to an Ecology of Mind). Bateson also notes that the double bind
can be used against itself. He cites a therapeutic situation in which Frieda
Frornm-Reichmann placed her client into a double bind in order to engage
her in the therapeutic process; and once engaged, the client was then able
to confront the syrnptoms which resulted from her initial double-bind situ­
ation (i.e., she counteractualized them).
90 See 'Bali: The Value System of a Steady State,' in Steps to an Ecology of Mind,
1 07-27.
91 Ibid., 1 1 9-20. Bateson points out that the Balinese do not have an under­
standing of 'laws' which transcend individual interactions, or that are die­
tales from someone on high 'who made the rules' which require one to
treat him- or herself, as weil as others, in a particular way; rather, they view
wrongs as being 'against the natural structure of the universe,' against its
stability, order, etc., of which they are a part.
92 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Mas­
surni (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1 987), 21-2.
93 For a discussion of the distinction between rhizornatic and arboreal per­
spectives, see 'Rhizome,' in Thousand Plateaus, 3-25.
94 Gay Science, §109: 'The total character of the world . . . is in ali eternity
chaos .. .'
95 Beyond Good and Evil, §225, p. 1 54.
96 Ibid.
97 Ibid., §270, p. 220.
256 Notes to pages 1 03-4

98 Gay Science, §76, p. 130.

99 Friedrich Nietzsche, Dayl:!reak, trans. R.J. Hollingdale (Cambridge: Cam­
bridge University Press, 1 982), §14, pp. 13-14.
100 See The Gay Science, §295, for Nietzsche's critique of 'enduring habits.'
101 See Genealogy of Morais, second essay, section 2; and also The Gay Science,
303.
102 Vincent Descombes, in his article 'Le moment français de Nietzsche,' in
Ferry and Renaut, eds, Pourqoui nous ne sommes pas nietzschéens, argues
that this discussion of promising shows that 'Nietzschean philosophy
does not have principles other than those of the modem project; theirs is
only another version of these principles' (126, translation mine). This
applies, he adds, to contemporary interpretations and approaches to
Nietzsche, in particular that of Deleuze. He daims that Deleuze's stress
upon 'irresponsibility' in Nietzsche and Philosophy, and the resulting daim
that Nietzsche eliminates 'all subjection of the superior individual,'
whereby this individual is a 'sovereign and legislator' without being sub­
ject to this legislation - these daims show that the individual is 'irrespon­
sible' with respect to such legislation (123-5). Descombes' criticisms
would have sorne force if Nietzsche' s notion of self-creation were simply a
'repetition' of the 'modem project'; however, since he is interested, as we
have shown, in the non-identifiable both/ and (e.g., both creator and crea­
ture) which allows for the distinction to be made between irresponsibility
and responsibility, Descombes' criticisms prove to be misdirected. We are
responsible, Nietzsche (and Deleuze) would daim, but we are responsi­
ble, not for repeating 'venerated' ideas and customs, but rather are
responsible for actively creating in response to the chaos in oneself. This
responsibility is thus not to be understood as the opposite of irresponsibil­
ity, if irresponsibility is understood to be the absence of obligation or duty
(this is Descombes' interpretation); but neither is this a responsibility obli­
gated to the 'morality of custom.' This is a responsibility whose obligation
is to crea te in response to the chaos in oneself, and thus it is to be under­
stood as a 'converse responsibility,' or a 'counteractualized' responsibility.
This is the sense Nietzsche, and Deleuze, give to irresponsibility.
103 The Gay Science, 299.
104 Ibid., 1 02.
105 Ibid., 246 (emphasis added).
106 The themes of dancing and self-overcoming are to be found throughout
Nietzsche' s writings, though they are particularly evident in Th us Spoke
Zarathustra.
107 Despite Nietzsche's avowed perspectivisrp., he argues that this is not to be
 Notes to page 1 04 '1!57

confused with relativism. For example, in The Gay Science (§345), concern­
ing the opposition between those who argue that these 'principles must be
unconditionally binding also for you and me' and those who hold 'that
among different nations moral valuations are necessarily different and then
infer from this that no morality is at ali binding,' Nietzsche comments that
'bath procedures are equally childish.'
108 Hul11il n , All Too Hui?Uln, §552.
109 With this interpretation, we can respond to Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut's
criticisms of Nietzsche in 'Ce qui a besoin d'être démontré ne vaut pas
grand-chose,' in Pourquoi nous ne sommes pas nietzschéens. They argue that
Nietzsche' s attempt to merge what is independent of tradition with tradi­
tion is an impossible one. For example, in Twilight of the Idols Nietzsche
daims that 'democracy has ever been a form of decline in organizing
power . . . [and the primary reason for this is that there is no longer] the will
to tradition, to authority, to responsibility for centuries to come, the soli­
darity of chains of generations, forward and backward ad infinitum'
('What the Germans lack,' 39). What Nietzsche is critical of is the rejection
of the past, of tradition, for the sake of sorne future state. For example,
Nietzsche criticizes Socrates' rejection of the Hellenes in arder to obtain
sorne future recognition of the truth by means of the dialectic; or the
Christians' deniai of their finite mortal selves in arder to obtain future sal­
vation. This is the modem malaise as Nietzsche sees it, and it entails two
presuppositions he seeks to overcome: (1) a faith in opposite values, for
example, past/future, appearance/ reality, good / evil; and (2) an affirma­
tion of one as superior to the other, an other that needs to be overcome ­
for example, tradition, appearance, and evil. The result of this move is an
either 1 or: either you seek to maintain tradition, or you progress towards
the emancipation of humanity (i.e., the modem, democratie move), but
not bath. Ferry and Renaut interpret Nietzsche in terms of such an either/
or and consequently see problems in his position. For example, they see
Nietzsche's notion of the eternal retum as nothing more than a Hegelian
Aufheben, or a resolution of the opposition between tradition and creative
change. Ferry and Renaut thus feel Nietzsche is committed to the idea of
progress, or to sorne future synthesis and transcendent state, but they note
the idea of the etemal retum 'negates by definition such an idea' (148).
Nietzsche is thus attempting an impossible, contradictory task. What we
have tried to show, however, is that Nietzsche's position is not one of
founding positivity (i.e., etemal retum) on a negation or opposition.
Rather, he affirms the non-identifiable bath/ and which makes the opposi­
tion between past and future, tradition and modernity, possible. Thus, the
258 Notes to pages 104-6

will to power wills both 'forward and backward,' or it is the paradoxical

condition whieh is always already past (i.e., tradition), and always willing
and crea ting that whieh is yet to come. It is this both/ and which is the
condition for, and always runs the risk of, collapsing into a destructive
either 1 or: either a slave to tradition, or a sacrifice to the extraordinary.
1 1 0 Logic of Sense, 249.
1 1 1 Constantin Boundas, in his introduction to The Deleuze Reader (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1993), refers to this notion of the two poles as
Deleuze's idée mère. He notes 'that fusion and fission are the external limits
of ali functioning assemblages, natural or man-made . . . [and that] assem­
blages . . . that are still in operational order avoid these external limits
through the preventive mechanism of a controlled repetition: they repeat
the very conditions the extremes of which would have brought about
their entropie stasis and death' (11). In other words, they repeat the para­
doxical both/ and (i.e., both fusion and fission, tradition and novelty, or, to
use sorne of Deleuze's common polarities, intensity and extension, para­
noïa and schizophrenia, sense and nonsense, sedentaries and nomads),
which is the condition for the destructive either/or.
1 1 2 This is yet another instance where Deleuze's work parallels chaos theory.
One of the central daims of chaos theory is that the universe is not going
to suffer an 'entropie' death; that is, the universe will not achieve a state of
equilibrium wherein no heat is generated, heat being dependent upon a
non-equilibrium condition. Rather, chaos theorists argue that the universe
is sufficiently chaotic such that 'negentropie' activity can arise (order out
of chaos), and sorne daim that the universe is expanding in the manner of
a fractal, or is expanding infinitely within a finite area, and thus won't
reach the point of entropie death. There will consequently always be room
for, and perhaps the necessity for, negentropie activity.
1 1 3 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Qu'est-ce que la philosophie? (Paris: Les
Éditions de Minuit, 1991), 192.
114 The philosopher, similarly, creates a 'concept,' a concept being itself a cre­
ative response to the double bind of having to order that which cannot be
ordered, make sense of that which makes no sense, etc.; and the scientist
creates 'representations' whieh map the world to sorne function, a func­
tion whieh is an attempt, and this is the scientist's double bind, to prediet
the unpredietable. It is for this reason that Deleuze and Guattari stress the
importance of 'strange attractors' in contemporary science (p. 194). The
'strange attractor' was a discovery of what has come to be called chaos
theory, and its unique characteristic - although chaos theorists would say
it is not unique but rather the norm - is that it is both predictable and
unpredietable.
 Notes to pages 108-21 259

1 1 5 See Jacques Derrida, Positions, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1981), 42-3, for a discussion of these undecidables.
1 1 6 Dissemination, 64. This is from the brief introduction to the long essay
'Plato's Pharmacy,' an essay which is itself written 'by force of play' (65) .
1 1 7 Limited, Inc., 146. Derrida daims in this work that Searle, for example, sets
forth a false reading of his texts.
1 1 8 Positions, 63.
1 1 9 Limited, Inc., 148.
120 Ibid., 148n1 6: 'Grammatology has always been a sort of pragmatics, but
the discipline which bears this name today involves too many presuppo­
sitions requiring deconstruction ... A pragrammatology (to come) would
articulate in a more fruitful and rigorous manner these two discourses.'
121 Ferry and Renaut, for example, in French Philosophy of the Sixties will fault
Deleuze for 'merely repeating the Nietzschean approach' (19), whereas
we daim it is precisely this repetition which helps hlm and us to address
key problems in contemporary philosophy.
122 'Plato and the Simulacrum,' in Logic of Sense, 266.
123 'Mediators,' in Incorporations, ed. Jonathan Crary and Sanford Kwinter
(New York: Zone Books, 1 992), 289.
124 See Claude Shannon, 'A Mathematical Theory of Information,' Bell System
Technical ]ournal 27 (1948): 379-423, 623--56; and 'Prediction and Entropy
of Printed English,' Bell System Technical ]ournal 30 (1951 ) : 50--64. See also
Robert Shaw, 'Strange Attractors, Chaotic Behavior, and Information
Flow,' Zeitschrift für Naturforschung 36A Uanuary 1 981): 79-1 12.
125 Thousand Plateaus, 246.
126 Ibid., 251 . The previous two quotes are from this page as well.
127 Ibid., 139.
128 Ibid., 82.
129 We will expand on this theme below, both in chapter 5, 'Thinking and the
Loss of System: Derrida and Deleuze on Artaud,' and again in chapter 6,
'Rethinking System.'
130 Thousand Plateaus, 53.

4. Thinking Difference: Heidegger and Deleuze on Aristotle

1 All references to Aristotle' s works in this essay will be from Hippocrates

Apostle' s translations, published by the Peripatetic Press.
2 Michael Loux, Primary Ousia: An Essay on Aristotle' s Metaphysics Z and H .

(lthaca, NY: Comell University Press, 1991), 237.

3 lbid., 40.
4 It is this Aristotelian bias which is widely regarded to have been one of
260 Notes to pages 1 23-31

the obstacles to the formulation and acceptance of evolutionary theory.

5 Martin Heidegger, Aristotle's Metaphysics Book Theta 1 -3 : On the Essence and
Actuality of Force, trans. Walter Brogan and Peter Wamek (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1 995), 121 .
6 Martin Heidegger, Early Greek Thinking, trans. David Farrell Krell and
Frank Capuzzi (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1975), 15.
7 Arisotle's Metaphysics, 154.
8 Ibid., 1 80.
9 Ibid., 85.
1 0 In The Glanee of the Eye: Heidegger, Aristotle, and the Ends of Theory (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1999), William McNeill compares and
contrasts Heidegger and Aristotle by way of the former' s appropriation of
the concept 'seeing,' or in this case 'foreseeing,' as an essential component
of knowledge. By doing this, McNeill is able to detail the extensive and
complex influence of Aristotle on Heidegger' s thinking but also show how
they differ. This difference, as we are discussing it here, is that foreseeing as
Aristotle understands it, is predetermined by the identity of what can be
said - that is, by logos or logic.
1 1 Martin Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. Ralph Manheim (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1959), 121 .
12 Early Greek Thinking, 38.
1 3 Martin Heidegger, 'The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking,' in
Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings, trans. Joan Stambaugh, ed. David Farrell
Krell (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1977), 388.
14 Introduction to Metaphysics, 78.
15 Martin Heidegger, Identity and Difference, trans. Joan Stambaugh (New
York: Harper & Row, 1 969), 47.
16 Ibid., 21 .
1 7 Ibid., 47.
18 Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New
York: Harper & Row, 1 971 ), 218.
1 9 Martin Heidegger, Essence of Reasons, trans. Terrence Malick (Evanston, IL:
Northwestem University Press, 1969), 23.
20 Aristotle's Metaphysics, 20.
21 Identity and Difference, 68-9.
22 Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche, vol. 4, trans. David Farrell Krell (San Fran­
cisco: HarperCollins, 1991), 250.
23 'What Is Metaphysics,' in Basic Writings, 1 04.
24 On Time and Being, trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper & Row, 1972),
19.
 Notes to pages 131-40 261

25 Ibid.
26 Identity and Difference, 36.
27 Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton (New York: Columbia Univer­
sity Press, 1994), 31 . The differenciator of difference will be discussed in
la ter chapters as the second articulation of the double articulation model
(i.e., abstract machine).
28 Ibid., 32.
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid., 33.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid., 34.
33 Ibid., 32.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid., 65.
36 Ibid., 1 1 7.
37 ' . . . Poetically Man Dwells . . . ' in Poetry, Language, Thought, 219.
38 'What Is Metaphysics,' 97.
39 Ibid., 98.
40 Ibid., 106.
41 Martin Heidegger, 'Overcoming Metaphysics,' in The End of Philosophy,
trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 106-7.
42 Ibid., 101 .
43 For an extended discussion of these themes in Deleuze's work, see 'Post­
scriptum sur les sociétés de contrôle,' in Pourparlers (Paris: Les Éditions de
Minuit, 1990).
44 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, What Is Philosophy? (New York: Colum­
bia University Press, 1994), 1 18.
45 Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark
Seem, and Helen R. Lane (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1983), 246.
46 Peter Lynch, Beating the Street (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 152.
47 Our Deleuzian critique of Heidegger is largely in agreement with Migliel
de Beistegui's. In Truth and Genesis (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
2004), Beistegui argues that despite the moves Heidegger makes in his later
work to move beyond the phenomenological tendency to assert the 'ontical
privileging of human eixistence' (1 1 6), his thought nonetheless remains
largely anthropocentric and does not reach the pre-individual in the way
that Deleuze does. Where we differ is in our emphasis upon an excessive or
chaotic nature of the pre-individual reality, an excess that cannot be cap­
tured by any 'privileged' limitations, and it is this chaos that becomes,
262 Notes to pages 1 40-5

through the double articulation (difference in itself) of dynamic systems at

the edge of chaos, identifiable.
48 Although we are not focusing upon Deleuze's political theory in this book,
there are a number of important books that develop, with the concept 'mul­
titude,' arguments quite in line with what we have set forth here. These
arguments, moreover, draw their inspiration in large part from Spinoza.
See, for instance, Antonio Negri, The Savage Anomaly, trans. Michael Hardt
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991); Negri and Hardt's col­
laborative works, including Labor of Dionysus (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1995), Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2000), and Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (New
York: Penguin Putnam, 2004); and É tienne Balibar, Spinoza and Politics,
trans. Peter Snowdon (London: Verso, 1 998).
49 Being and Time, 1 64.
50 Difference and Repetition, 293.

5. Thinking and the Loss of System: Derrida and Deleuze on Artaud

1 Derrida's well-known example of such a presupposed, unquestioned pres­

ence is the self-presence of our thought within the sounds which express
these thoughts. It is the plentitude of this sound, the physicality and self­
presence of hearing ourselves speak, which is the unquestioned self-pres­
ence one presupposes in understanding truth as the self-identity and coïn­
cidence of the world and our thoughts regarding the world.
2 Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri C. Spivak (Baltimore: Johnson Hopkins
University Press, 1974), 70.
3 Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche, vol. 1, trans. David F. I<rell (San Francisco:
HarperCollins, 1 991), 2001 .
4 Of Grammatology, 1 9
5 Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: Univer­
sity of Chicago Press, 1978), 274. See our earlier discussion of this topic in
the Introduction.
6 Ibid., 275.
7 Jacques Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: Univer­
sity of Chicago Press, 1982), 38.
8 Ibid, from Being and Time (New York: Harper & Row, 1 962), 500, n. xxx . For
a more extended study of the interplay among Aristotle, Heidegger, and
Derrida and their respective understandings of time, see John Protevi, Time
and Exteriority: Aristotle, Heidegger, Derrida (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell Uni­
versity Press, 1994).
 Notes to pages 145-54 263

9 The importance of the notion 'simultaneity' for Derrida's reading here will
be discussed below.
10 Margins, 50.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid., 51 .
13 lbid., 56
14 Ibid.
15 Quoted by Derrida in Margins, 62
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid., 63.
19 Derrida quotes the following passage from Heidegger in support of this
reading: '"Spirit" does not fall into time; but factical existence "falls" as fall­
ing from priomordial, authentic temporality. But this "falling" has its own
existential possibility in a mode of its temporalizing - a mode which
belongs to temporality' (Being and Time, 486).
20 Margins, 63.
21 Ibid. See Being and Time, 488: 'ls there a way which leads from primordial
time to the meaning of Being? Does time itself manifest itself as the horizon
of Being?'
22 Of Grammatology, 62.
23 Ibid., 23.
24 Ibid., 60.
25 It is useful to recall here Saussure' s argument that the meaning of a term in
a language is dependent upon the system of the language as a whole (la
langue). The meaning is not a self-contained identity, but rather is depen­
dent upon the identity of the system, and the relationship between this
word and ali the other words of the language.
26 Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark
Seem, and Helen R. Lane (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1 983), 370 (my emphasis).
27 Ibid., 371 (my emphasis).
28 In Margins, for example, published in 1968, two essays are devoted to
Artaud, and thirty years later he published The Secret Art of Antonin Artaud
(Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1998).
29 Antonin Artaud, Selected Writings, trans. Helen Weaver, ed. Susan Sontag
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1 988), 38.
30 Ibid., 33.
31 Ibid., 35.
32 Ibid.
264 Notes to pages 1 54-9

33 Ibid., 43.
34 Ibid., 45.
35 Ibid., 31 .
36 Andras Angyal, 'Disturbances of Thinking in Schizophrenia,' in lAnguage
and Thought in Schizophrenia, ed. J.S. Kasanin (New York: W.W. Norton &
Company, 1939), 1 1 7.
37 Anton Ehrenzweig, The Hidden Order of Art (Los Angeles: University of Cal­
ifornia Press, 1 967), 1 24-5.
38 See Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton (New York: Columbia Uni­
versity Press, 1994), 146--8; for example: 'To think is to create - there is no
other creation - but to crea te is first of ali to engender "thinking" in
thought' (147).
39 Selected Writings, 82: 'A powerlessness to crystallize unconsciously the bro­
ken point of the mechanism to any degree at ali.'
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid., 570-1 . These are the closing lines from 'To Have Done with the Judg­
ment of God.'
42 In his more recent work on Artaud, Derrida has emphasized the aspect of
Artaud's work which undermines the metaphysical tradition. Derrida rec­
ognized the necessary presence of such an undermining differance in his
early writings on Artaud - part of his deconstructive approach, as we have
seen (e.g., in his reading of Aristotle), is to show the necessary other, the
repressed other, a metaphysical text presupposes. However, in his later
writings, Derrida emphasizes the undermining differance rather than the
continued adherence to metaphysics.
43 'La Parole Soufflée,' in Writing and Difference, 1 86.
44 Ibid.
45 Ibid.
46 Ibid., 187. Derrida foliows this quote with the foliowing, to show that the
purging of differences involved with becoming a body without organs is
part of the same process involved with the theatre of cruelty: 'Reality has
not yet been constructed because the true organs of the human body have
not yet been assembled and put in place. 1 The theater of cruelty has been
created to complete this putting into place and to undertake, through a new
dance of the body of man .. .'
47 Ibid., 190.
48 'The Theater of Cruelty,' in Writing and Difference, 249.
49 Ibid., 194.
50 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Mas­
sumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1 987), 1 58.
51 This is precisely the duality in Artaud which Derrida criticized, and which
 Notes to pages 159-62 265

was simply Artaud's 'metaphysics.' Thus, the 'autarchic' body is the body
which lacks organization and articulation, while the body with organs is
organized and articulated - that is, has internai divisions and regions.
52 See Writing and Difference, 1 86.
53 Thousand Plateaus, 1 90.
54 Anti-Oedipus, 326-7. We can now begin to see the continuing significance
and importance of Spinoza in Deleuze's work, especially with our reading
of Spinozist substance as absolutely indeterminate becoming. We will draw
out this comparison further in the conclusion.
55 Thousand Plateaus, 1 59.
56 Recall our earlier quote of Artaud, cited by Derrida: 'The body is the
body, 1 it is alone 1 and has no need of organs, 1 the body is never an
organism . . . every organ is a parasite .. .' ( Writing and Difference, 1 86).
57 Anti-Oedipus, 8.
58 Ibid., 7.
59 Ibid., 1 1 .
60 At this point our reading converges with other recent discussions that com­
pare and contrast Derrida and Deleuze. Daniel Smith, for instance, in
'Deleuze and Derrida, Immanence and Transcendence: Two Directions in
Recent French Thought,' in Between Deleuze and Derrida, ed. Paul Patton and
John Protevi (London: Continuum, 2003), daims that Derrida's thought
emphasizes transcendence, whereas Deleuze stresses immanence.
Deleuze's critique of the Judgment of God, therefore, is ultimately an affir­
mation �f immanence, whereas Derrida's understanding of differance,
according to Smith, is of a notion that 'exceeds or transcends metaphysics'
(49). John Protevi, in Political Physics, offers a similar contrast, arguing that
Derrida, with his compelling critique of onto-theo-logo-centric identities, is
a philosopher whose approach is 'top-down' in its focus; and Deleuze, with
his emphasis upon offering an account of the emergence of identifies
through immanent processes, processes that are in line with complexity
theory, sets forth a 'bottom-up' philosophy.
61 Anti-Oedipus, 10.
62 This is why capital is not to be identified with money, for money can and
has been treated like a commodity. During the currency crisis in Asia of
1 998, for example, the Malaysian prime minister blamed the collapse of his
currency on large speculators who sold his currency short, which led to a
devaluation and collapse of the currency, and ultimately to the enrichment
of the speculators. In other words, currency traders buy and sell money as a
commodity, and large specula tors can use this commodity as capital, or as a
means of deterrnining priees that will translate into more capital.
63 1 am largely following Manuel DeLanda here, from his book A Thousand
266 Notes to pages 1 63-9

Years of Nonlinear History (New York: Zone Books, 1997). ln particular, see
pages 260-3. Here he argues that 'since what truly defines the real world
are neither uniform strata nor variable meshworks but the unformed and
unstructured flows from which these two derive, it will also be useful to
have a label to refer to this special state of matter-energy information, to
this flowing reality animated from within by self-organizing proœsses con­
stituting a veritable nonorganic life: the Body without Organs (BwO).'
DeLanda then discusses how the flow of energy from the sun is the BwO
from which many of the self-organization processes on our planet derive,
including weather phenomena, which presuppose their own BwO, accord­
ing to DeLanda - 'the coupled dynamics of hydrosphere and atmosphere
and their wild variety of self-organized entities: hurricanes, tsunamis, pres­
sure blocks, cyclones, and wind circuits.' (262). In the conclusion, we will
revisit DeLanda's theory and contrast it with our own.
64 Anti-Oedipus, 15.
65 We will discuss this further in the next chapter, 'Rethinking System,' as well
as in the conclusion.
66 Anti-Oedipus, 382.
67 A Thousand Plateaus, 158.
68 Ibid., 251 .
69 Ibid., 166.
70 Ibid., 165.
71 This ties in with our earlier chapter, chapter 3, on Nietzsche and the impor­
tance of chaos.
72 Of Grammatology, 23.
73 See Margins, 63n36 . See also the earlier section of this chapter where this
issue is discussed at sorne length, as well as the previous chapter.
74 'Deleuze-Bergson: An Ontology of the Virtual,' in Deleuze: A Critical Reader,
ed. Paul Patton (London: Blackwell, 1996), 85.
75 Difference and Repetition, 209. For an excellent secondary source on Difference
and Repetition, see James Williams, Gilles Deleuze's Difference and Repetition: A
Critical Introduction (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004).
76 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, What Is Philosophy? (New York: Colum­
bia University Press, 1994), 1 18.
77 Gilles Deleuze, Foucault, trans. Sean Hand (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1988), 78.
78 Ibid., 79 (emphasis mine).
79 Gilles Deleuze, The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1993), 1 30-1 .
80 G .W. Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics; Correspondence with Arnauld; Monad­
ology (La Salle, IL: Open Court Publishing Company, 1988), 263.
 Notes to pages 169-74 267

81 Difference and Repetition, p. 123.

82 Ibid., 1 1 9. The term 'dark precursor' Deleuze gets from the example of
thunderbolts: 'Thunderbolts explode between different intensities [i.e.,
between the heterogenous series of positively and negatively charged par­
ticles], but they are preceded by an invisible, imperceptible dark precursor
... Likewise, every system contains its dark precursor which ensures the
communication of peripheral series.' The following two quotes are from
this same page.
83 Recall our earlier discussion of Spinoza, where this is discussed in detail.
84 Difference and Repetition, 104-5.
85 'Deleuze-Bergson,' 91 .
86 Lutz Ellrich, 'Negativity and Difference: On Gilles Deleuze's Criticism of
Dialectics,' Modern Language Notes 1 1 1 (1996): 463-87. Ellrich has the fol­
lowing passage in mind from Difference and Repetition: 'Given two heteroge­
nous series, two series of differences, the precursor plays the part of the
differenciator of these differences. In this manner, by virtue of its own
power, it puts them into immediate relation to one another: it is the in-itself
of difference or the "differently different" - in other words, difference in
the second degree, the self-different which relates different to different by
itself' (119).
87 'Negativity and Difference,' 484.
88 Ibid., 487.
89 Ibid., 463: 'Thought that remains directed toward the priority of the identi­
cal is charged with having fallen prey to an illusion, be it necessary (Derr­
ida) or an avoidable one (Deleuze).' In a footnote to this, Ellrich adds that
because of 'this assumed necessity, the illusion cannot be destroyed
through aesthetic masquerades as Derrida argues, but only de-constructed,
i.e., enacted as illusion.'
90 Gilles Deleuze, Bergsonism, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam
(New York: Zone Books, 1988), 104; emphasis mine.
91 Kant used this term in Critique of Pure Reason to refer to the tendency to
attribute to regulative principles, principles which allow us to make sense
of our world, the status of being a knowledge-constitutive principle.
92 For an interesting reading of the difference between Derrida and Deleuze
that complements the reading set forth here, see Leonard Lawlor's essay
'The Beginnings of Thought: The Fundamental Experience in Derrida and
Deleuze,' in Patton Protevi, eds, Between Deleuze and Derrida. Lawlor states
the difference between the two quite succinctly: 'the fundamental principle.
of Deleuze's entire thinking' is 'immediate duality,' and for Derrida it is
'mediate unity' (79). Stated in our terms, and with our emphasis upon
dynamic systems as the self-differing condition for identities (difference in
268 Notes to pages 1 79--88

itself), Deleuze understands identity in terms of a fundamental difference

that is inseparable from the identities themselves, or there is an immediate
indiscernibility between this difference and the 'unity of impression.' For
Derrida, by contrast, the 'unity of impression' is, as we have argued, the
effect of, or is mediated by, differance as an 'economie concept designa ting
the production of differing/ deferring' (Of Grammatology, 23; cited in the
introduction to the present work).

6. Rethinking System

1 In Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton (New York: Columbia Uni­
versity Press, 1994), Deleuze daims that Process and Reality is 'one of the
greatest books of modern philosophy' (284-5).
2 Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality (Boston: Free Press, 1969), 5.
Hereafter ali citations from Whitehead will be from this book and will be
cited in the text (in parentheses). For perhaps the closest and most impor­
tant reading of Whitehead to emerge in recent years, and a reading that is
sympathetic to Deleuze's project, see Isabelle Stengers's Penser avec White­
head (Paris: Gallimard, 2002).
3 Our reading of Spinoza differs with Whitehead' s. Whitehead is yet another
commentator on Spinoza's work who understands substance as static, and
as a subject that bears predicates (attributes). Earlier we listed Bertrand
Russell among those who read Spinoza this way, and, considering the close
working relationship between Whitehead and Russell, it should not be sur­
prising that whitehead reads Spinoza this way too. We sided, by contrast,
p
with those who read substance as dynamical, or as rocess.
4 For sorne good discussion on this topic, the best place to start is Nicholas
Rescher's Process Philosophy: A Survey of Basic Issues (Pittsburgh: University
of Pittsburgh Press, 2000).
5 For a detailed discussion of these problems, see my book, The Problem of
Difference: Phenomenology and Poststructuralism (Toronto: University of Tor­
onto Press, 1998).
6 Ibid., 33--48 .
7 Louis Hjelmslev, Prolegomena to a Theory of Language, trans. Francis J. Whit­
field (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1961 ), 58.
8 G.W. Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics; Correspondence with Arnauld; Monad­
ology (LaSalle, IL: Open Court Publishing, 1988), 69.
9 Ethics (106), in The Collected Works of Spinoza, vol. 1, ed. and trans. Edwin
Curley (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985). See our discussion of
this theme in chapter 2 for a more thorough treatment of Spinoza's use of
the concept 'expression.'
 Notes to pages 189-97 269

10 lt is on this point that Hjelmslev breaks with Saussure. Saussure main­

tained a causal relationship between the content-substance and the expres­
sion-substance that signifies this content. The expression-substance
depends, according to Saussure, upon the content that it cornes along to
represent and signify, whereas Hjelmslev daims both are made possible by
the paradoxical sign-function.
1 1 Gilles Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, trans. Martin Joughin
(New York: Zone Books, 1990), 327. The remaining part of this chapter will
show how Deleuze's philosophy carries to fruition his Spinozism, or why
Deleuze says he is a Spinozist. With immanent, dynamic substance, or
dynamic systems, and with the importance of the concept of expression in
Deleuze's work, it is not surprising that Deleuze thought of himself as a
Spinozist.
12 Logic of Sense, trans. Mark Lester (New York: Columbia University Press,
1990), 21 .
13 Ibid., 110.
14 Process and Reality, 256.
15 Ibid., 97.
16 Ibid., 10.
1 7 Logic of Sense, 1 1 6.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid., 151 .
21 Ibid., 103.
22 Ibid., 102 (emphasis mine).
23 Ibid., 95.
24 In a famous example of this, Sapir and Whorf have argued that the linguis­
tic form and structure of the Navajo language, a structure that lacks the
present tense of verbs, limits what can be said and meant in that culture.­
More recent studies have supported the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
25 See Logic of Sense, 54: 'in the theory of differentiai equations, the existence
and distribution of singularities are relative to a problematic field defined by
the equation as such. As for the solution, it appears only with the integral
curves and the form they take in the vicinity of singularities inside the field
of vectors.' Deleuze will use the conceptual tool of differentiai equations
again in Difference and Repetition, and again much later in his book Foucault.
26 Logic of Sense, 1 1 6.
27 Ibid., 56.
28 Both Whitehead and Umberto Eco note that chaosmos is a balance between
two extremes, either of which, if actualized alone, would render the iden­
tity and existence of a work (functioning assemblage) impossible.
270 Notes to pages 197-208

29 G.W.F. Hegel, Science of Logic, trans. AV. Miller (Atlantic Highlands, NJ:
Humanities Press International, 1995), 149.
30 G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. AV. Miller (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1976), 1 1 .
3 1 Logic of Sense, 180.
32 llya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers, Order out of Chaos (New York: Bantam
Books, 1984), 161.
33 Ibid., 162. Recall the significance of 'chance' for Nietzsche, as discussed in
chapter 3.
34 Ibid., 1 67.
35 Recall Deleuze and Guattari' s notion of the cancerous and fascist BwOs,
discussed in the previous chapter, or Nietzsche's concern with being able
to give birth to a dancing star as discussed in chapter 3.
36 Stuart Kauffman, At Home in the Universe (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1 995), 24.
37 Ibid., 57.
38 Ibid., 26.
39 Prigogine and Stengers, Order out of Chaos, 1 60.
40 Kauffman, At Home in the Universe, p. 81 .
41 Ibid., 79.
42 J.A Kelso, Dynamic Patterns (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995), 223.
43 A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Development of Cognition and Action
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), 68.
44 For example, Thelen and Smith argue that in studying the processes associ­
ated with learning to walk, a dynamic systems approach overcomes past
failures to account adequately for the complexity of the data.
45 Andy Clark, Being There (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1 997), 99.
46 Ibid., 98.
47 Ibid., 213.
48 It is perhaps worth noting that Wittgenstein, in beginning his Philosophical
Investigations (trans. G.E.M. Anscombe [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1953]),
Wittgenstein stresses that in looking at language, 'it disperses the fog to
study the phenomena of language in primitive kinds of application in
which one can command a clear view of the aim and functioning of these
words. A child uses such primitive forms of language when it learns to talk.
Here the teaching of language is not explanation, but training.' (§5). See also
Terrence Deacon, The Symbolic Species (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997).
49 See Phaedrus. See also our earlier discussion of Derrida.
50 Merlin Donald, The Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution
of Culture and Cognition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991),
343.
 Notes to pages 209-15 271

51 Difference and Repetition, 147.

Conclusion: Philosophy at the Edge of Chaos

1 For a more thorough discussion of the influence of Hjelmslev on Deleuze

and Guattari's work, see the previous chapter.
2 Deleuze and Guattari do not actually use the term 'dynamic systems; but
their use of the terms 'assemblages' and 'abstract machines' is generally
synonymous with this term, and we believe, based on what we have
shown, that they likely would have had no objections to our use of this
term, especially given the fact that they began to refer to work in chaos the­
ory in their last work together, What Is Philosophy?
3 This distinction is from Deleuze's, Difference and Repetition. We discussed
this in the previous chapter, though we will discuss it again below.
4 See A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1 98 7), 40-1 .
5 See Harvey Blatt, Gerard Middleton, and Raymond Murray, Origin of Sedi­
mentary Rocks Œnglewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1980), chapter 5.
6 Deleuze, as discussed earlier, often borrows an analogy from differentiai
calculus, and thus the stage of differentiation draws a line of consistency
between points on a graph. The stage of differenciation integrates this line
and offers a solution which captures all possible points and allows one to
determine and identify where the next point on the line will be.
7 What Is Philosophy?, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 20.
8 See John Barrow, The World within the World (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1 988 ), 354. lt is only within a dying red giant star that a sufficient
amount of carbon is produced because a star, once it has run out of its
hydrogen fuel (which it has fused into helium), begins to die, and in this
process the helium fuses with itself and other elements to form the heavier
elements. It is to this latter process that we can apply the double articula­
tion model to the origin of carbon. The current consensus on the origin of
carbon within dying red giant stars is that there are two possible routes. In
the first, three helium atoms, if in appropriate proximity and relation to
each other, can fuse to form a carbon nucleus. The first articulation is the
conditions within a dying red giant that places helium (substance) in just
the right relationship to two other helium atoms (form). The second articu­
lation is the fusion of the helium atoms in this 'just right' relationship
(form) into carbon (substance). The second, more widely accepted view is
that two helium atoms fuse to form a beryllium isotope which is unstable
enough to fuse easily with helium to form carbon, but not too unstable such
272 Notes to pages 215-20

that it flies apart before being able to fuse with helium. The second view is
more widely accepted because it is better able to account for the amount of
carbon in the universe. As for the double articulation madel, we could
expand the helium to carbon synthesis by breaking it into two double artic­
ulations, the first being the fusion of helium to form beryllium, and the sec­
ond the fusion of beryllium and helium to form carbon.
9 See Carl Noller, Chemistry of Organic Compounds (Philadelphia: W.B. Saun­
ders Company, 1957). There is sorne debate about the possibility, given dif­
ferent initial conditions, of whether life could originate based on silicon.
The reason for this is that silicon, although it does not attract its valence
electrons as strongly as carbon, is stronger than germanium and tin. The
resulting speculation, then, is that while it is statistically less likely that life
could originate from silicon, it is not necessarily impossible.
10 For example, methyl iodide (CH31) can react with water (H20) to produce
methyl alcohol (CH30H) plus hydrogen iodide (Hl). A bromide ion (Br-),
however, can act as a catalyst and react with methyl iodide to form a mole­
cule of methyl bromide, which then reacts with water to give back the ini­
tial bromide ion and methyl alcohol. The catalyzed reaction requires less
free energy than the uncatalyzed, and hence the catalyst will increase the
speed with which these reactions can unfold (what chemists refer to as the
'kinetics' of a chemical reaction). For more on catalytic reactions, see Myron
L. Ender and Lewis J. Brubacher, Catalysis and Enzyme Action (New York:
McGraw Hill, 1973), chapter 1 .
11 See Stuart Kauffman, A t Home in the Universe (New York: Oxford Univer­
sity Press, 1995), Chapter 3. The term 'emergent property' is discussed
more fully in the previous chapter, and will be discussed again below.
12 Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1994), 164.
13 Ibid.
14 See Charles A. Beard, An Economie Interpretation of the Constitution of the
United States (New York: Macmillan, 1935).
15 See Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic (Chapet Hill: Uni­
versity of North Carolina Press, 1969), 393-6.
16 Manuel DeLanda, 'Imma nence and Transcendence in the Genesis of Form,'
South Atlantic Quarterly 96.3 (Summer 1997): 507.
17 Ibid.
18 DeLanda refers frequently to Fernand Braudel's analysis of pre-capitalist
markets in Braudel's Wheels of Commerce. In this book, as well as the other
two from this series, Braudel analyses the role of the markets in Europe
(e.g., the markets at Champagne) between 1400 and 1 800, and he examines
the emergence of capitalism as what he calls an 'anti-market' system. In
 Notes to pages 220--6 273

capitalism, merchants use various techniques (such as hoarding in a ware­

house) to manipulate priees to their benefit. See Civilization and Capitalism,
vol. 2, Wheels of Commerce, trans. Sian Reynolds (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1984), 226-30.
19 With respect to this last example, DeLanda cites recent studies which have
found that economie cycles can be understood in terms of what is called the
'economie long wave or Kondratiev cycle.' According to this view, eco­
nomie downturns emerge in a pattern of 50-year cycles, and this pattern is
an emergent property whieh reflects the interdependence of a series of het­
erogeneous elements. See J.O. Sterman, 'Nonlinear Dynamics in the World
Economy: The Economie Long Wave,' in Structure, Coherence and Chaos in
Dynamical Systems (New York: Manchester University Press, 1989), 389-
414. Braudel also notes that the economy of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century
Europe entered into pattemed cycles whieh would occur throughout
Europe, regardless of what might be happening at vastly removed loca­
tions in Europe. In Wheels of Commerce, for example, Braudel argues: 'His­
torically, one can speak of a market economy, in my view, when priees in
the markets of a given area fluctua te in unison, a phenomenon the more
characteristic since it may occur over a number of different jurisdictions or
sovereignties' (227) .
20 A Thousand Plateaus, 330-1 .
21 Ibid. (Deleuze and Guattari's emphasis).
22 'Immanence and Transcendence in the Genesis of Form,' 5 1 1 . See also 'Vir­
tual Environments and the Emergence of Synthetic Reason,' in Flame Wars:
The Discourse of Cyberculture, ed. Mark Derby (Durham: Duke University
Press, 1994), 263--86.
23 See Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (New York: Oxford University Press,
1989).
24 See previous chapter for more on this term.
25 A Thousand Plateaus, 254.
26 Ibid., 153.
27 Ibid.
28 Alain Badiou, Deleuze: The Clamor of Being, trans. Louise Burchill (Minneap­
olis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), 51 . See Introduction, note 15,
where this was first discussed.
29 We can now see most clearly how our position differs from that of
DeLanda. Although DeLanda's identification of three abstract machines
does indeed further the work of Deleuze and Guattari, an effort, as we shall
see below, that they would endorse, Deleuze and Guattari nonetheless rec­
ognize that whatever abstract machines are identified come to be this way
as a result of the double articulation that allows for the identification of the
274 Notes to page 226

non-identifiable (double bind). Thus, although Deleuze and Guattari may

leave the self-consistent aggregate model undeveloped, as well as the
probe-head model, this is not because of an oversight (or perhaps it is), but
rather it is because these models, as identified abstract machines, are repeti­
tions and expressions of the Abstract machine, the double articulation
model, and this is a model which they do thoroughly discuss.
This same point can be made with respect to DeLanda's more recent
book, Intensive Science and Virtual Philosohpy (London: Continuum, 2002).
Although DeLanda does great service to Deleuze's work by reconstructing
Deleuze's concepts in light of complexity theory, and, in particular, with
his application of the notion of a cascading of symmetry-breaking phase
transitions, he admittedly recognizes that he does not discuss the notion of
the 'edge of chaos' and its relevance to the actualization of abstract
machines (or what he calls the quasi-causal operator). As DeLanda puts it:
'Finally, there is a term which refers to the actualization (or effectuation) of
the quasi-causal opera tor itself. 1 did not discuss this in detail, but 1 did
give an example in Chapter 2 of the neighborhood of a phase transition (or
"edge of chaos" )' (168). What we have done in this work is to focus upon
the actualization of the abstract machine, arguing that it is precisely at the
'edge of chaos' where this actualization is able to be effected. More impor­
tantly, we have shown how by understanding the conceptual development
of Deleuze's thought as being in line with the concepts associated with
dynamical systems theory, and especially with the notion of the 'edge of
chaos,' we have been able to address and darify a number of issues related
to the philosophical tradition. DeLanda dismisses Plato ali too quickly as
merely a thinker of transcendent essences. What we have shown, however,
is that Plato's philosophy as itself an expression of the abstract machine, or
more accurately as an effort to 'engender "thinking" in thought,' ultimately
attempts to philosophize the double bind. Consequently, Plato's thought,
and the same was true of Aristotle, as we saw, cannot be so quickly dis­
missed and bears in many ways profound similarities to Nietzsche (and, by
extension, Deleuze). Another crucial difference between our project and
DeLanda' s results from the emphasis we placed upon Deleuze' s
Spinozism, and related to this the daim that the double articulation model
is a crucial part of the abstract machine, or it is how the abstract machine
becomes effectuated in actual entities. Thus, the two aspects of the quasi­
causal opera tor that DeLanda discusses - namely, its (1) meshing of 'multi­
plicities by their differences,' or the drawing of a plane of consistency; and
(2) its ability 'to generate the multiplicities by extracting them from actual
intensive processes' (103) - are, from our perspective, another way of dis-
 Notes to pages 226-9 275

cussing double articulation, which DeLanda seems to view as distinct. The

first task, drawing a plane of consistency, is precisely what we have dis­
cussed as the first articulation; or, as Spinoza discusses this, it is the
attributes as expressions of God's essence. The second aspect of the quasi­
causal operator, 'to generate the multiplicities by extracting them from
actual intensive processes,' does appear to differ. However, if it is recog­
nized, as we argued in our chapter on Spinoza, that the identifiable essence
of substance, of God, is only made possible by way of the modifications of
an attribute, then the infinite substance, the univocity of being, is insepara­
ble from the actual, identifiable entities. Consequently, singularities, or
multiplicities, are inseparable from the actual, and problems are insepara­
ble from their solutions (as DeLanda correctly emphasizes). The abstract
machine is therefore the condition of possibility for the actual insofar as the
BwO is drawn into a plane of consistency, a plane of consistency that is
then actualized by way of the second articulation; and yet the abstract
machine is also the condition of impossibility for the continued identity of
this actualization, for inseparable from this actualization are multiplicities
that will, when actualized through yet another double articulation (eternal
recurrence), transform the identity of the given actuality. Deleuze and
Guattari thus say, in good Spinozist fashion, that God is a 'Lobster, or a
double pincer, a double bind' (A Thousand Plateaus, 40).
30 The Will to Power, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage
Books, 1967), 330.
31 This discussion can be found in Merlin Donald, The Origins of the Modern
Mind (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 340-4.
32 Ibid., 342.
33 Ibid., 343.
34 To list just a few examples of sorne excellent work on Deleuze that has
done just this, one could begin with DeLanda' s book, but their have been
others as weil, such as Mark Bon ta and John Protevi, Deleuze and Geophilos­
ophy: A Guide and Glossary (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004).
Note this book includes a 'glossary,' and hence the important role of defini­
tions in doing philosophy. Other books include Gregory Flaxman, The
Brain Is the Screen: Deleuze and the Philosophy of Cinema (Minneapolis: Uni­
versity of Minnesota Press, 2000); and, though not exhaustively, Keith
Ansell Pearson, Germinal Life: The Difference and Repetition of Deleuze (New
York: Routledge, 1999).
35 Umberto Eco, 'Poetics of the Open Work,' in The Open Work, trans. Anna
Cancogni (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989).
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Index

abstract machine, 4-5, 6, 168, 2 1 1 -12, Bateson, Gregory, 98-1 00

21 8-25; Abstract machine and Beard, Charles, 217-1 8
abstract machines, 9, 226 becoming: Nïetzsche's philosophy
aion, 9 ot B-9, 25, 85, 89, 97
aletheia, 26 Beistegui, Miguel de, 231 n3, 261 n47
amor fati, 79-80 Bennett, Jonathan, 40-1 ,- 58, 244n45
Aristotle: aporia of time, 145-8; and Bergson, Henri, 1 67
Body without Organs (Bwü), 1 56- Beyond Good and Evil, 21, 74
8; Deleuze's critique of, 132-4; biologism, 22
Derrida's reading of, 223; and for­ Body without Organs (BwO), 4-5, 8,
getfulness of Being, 24; Heideg­ 155-66, 21 1 , 214-1 8, 222-5; cancer­
ger' s reading of, 125-9; and ous/fascist Bwüs, 1 65
substance, 1 1 7-18; substance not both/ and: contrasted with destruc­
matter, 1 19; and understanding of tive either/or, 1 03-4, 1 1 1-12, 228-
difference, 1 1 5-1 6, 122-3; and 9; and creativity, 1 05-6
unmoved mover, 123-5 Boundas, Constantin, 1 67
Artaud, Antonin, 1 52-4; and BwO,
155-8; Deleuze and Guattari's capitalism: capital as BwO, 161-2;
reading of, 159-60; Derrida's read­ Deleuze' s critique of, 138-9;
ing of, 156-8 Heidegger's critique of, 13t;-:7
artificial life, 231-2n6 chaos: Deleuze and Guattari's defi­
attributes (Spinoza's theory of), 43-4 nition of, 137, 1 68; equilibrium
and non-equilibrium thermal
Badiou, Alain, 225, 233n1 5, 273n28 chaos, 200-1 ; and schizophrenia,
Balinese, 99-1 00. See also Bateson, 138
Gregory chaosmos, 34, 36, 1 65, 1 78, 1 96; and
Bataille, Georges, 30-1 , 34-5, 1 44 expression, 185-7; and Whitehead,
290 Index

1 83, 192. See also both/ and; differance, 3-4, 28-9, 36, 1 50
dynamic systems; event differentiai equations, 195
Chomsky, Noam, � 219 Donagan, Alan, 48-9
'
chronos, 8-9 Donald, Merlin, 207-8, 227-8
Clark, Andy, 206-7 double articulation, 4-5, 7, 212-13,
common notions, 53, 244n43 227-8; and carbon and carbon­
cosmology: contemporary theories, based life, 215-1 6; and sedimen­
14 tary rocks, 21 4; and U.S. colonial
creativity: and both/and, 1 0�; and history, 21 7-18. See also abstract
double bind, 99; and great suffer­ machine
ing, 102-3; and thinking, 3, 208-9; double bind, 79, 98-1 00, 1 12; and cre­
and Whitehead, 1 80-3 ativity, 99
critique of metaphysics, 14-15, 19, dynamic systems, 4-5, 36, 85, 1 13,
67, 143 139, 1 �, 1 72-4, 178, 204-6, 221 ;
Curley, Edwin, 40-1 definitions as, 228-9; and edge of
chaos, 20�. See also chaosmos
deconstruction, 29-30, 1 48-50
Del..anda, Manuel, 218-21, 2�n63, Eco, Umberto, 229
273-5n29 edge of chaos, 4, 36, 1 65, 1 72-3, 201-
Deleuze, Gilles: common notions in 2, 231-2n6; 21; and dynamic sys­
Spinoza, 244n43; and concept of tems, 20�
'event,' 87, 193-4; critique of Aris­ Ehrenzweig, Anton, 154
totle, 132-5; critique of Heidegger, either/or, 105. See also both/and
134-5, 138, 1 39-40; critique of Ellrich, Lutz, 171-2
Whitehead, 192-4; and difference, Er (tale of), 83
1 1 4; and double bind, 103-6; and eternal recurrence, 8-9, 61, 88, 91-2,
'edge of chaos,' 4-5; and Guattari, 94, 106, 226; Heidegger's critique
4-7, 21 1-14; and importance of of, 25
system, 34; and pragmatics, 1 09- even� 193-4; defined, 87
1 1 ; and psychoanalysis, 1 70-1 ; expression, 185-7; and Spinoza and
similarities to Heidegger, 131-2, Leibniz, 188-91
140-1 ; as Spinozist, 60, 225
Derrida, Jacques, 3-4, 10, 1 8-19, 67, force, 86
1 77-8, 211-1 2, 228; and impor­ forgetfulness, 94-5
tance of system, 31-2; influence of Foucault, Michel, 14-15, 35, 75
Heidegger on, 28; interpretation of Frank, Manfred: critique of Derrida,
pharmakon, 71-2; reading of 33-4, 1 65, 177-8, 1 99
Nietzsche, 143-4
Descartes, René, 38-9, 1 88 Giancotti, Emilia, 241 n25
Descombes, Vincent, 256n1 02 God: as double articulation, as lob-
 Index 291

ster, 7; and finite, singular things, metaphysics: critique of, 14-15, 19,
_
57-8; Spinoza and, 9-1 0, 42 67, 143; doing metaphysics, 14;
Metaphysics (of Aristotle), 1 1 5-18;
Habermas, Jürgen, 67, 75 metaphysical need, 38
hama (at the same time, simulta­ Meyer, Lodewijk, 46
neous), 14&-7 mimesis, 7&-9
Hegel, G.W.F., 1 &-19, 29-32, 92, 144- monads, 190-1; nomadic monads,
5, 1 78, 1 97--8 191-2
Heidegger, Martin, 3, 10, 67, 86; on
Aristotle, 125-9, 143-4, 208; cri­ Nietzsche, Friedrich, 6, 8-10; and
tique of Nietzsche, 21-7, 78; Derr­ cave analogy, 80-1; and critique of
ida's critique of, 148-50, 212; Hegel, 1 7-1 8; and critique of meta­
similarities with Deleuze, 130-1 ; physics, 1 8-19; Derrida's reading
and thinking difference, 128-30 of, 143-4, 208, 223, 226; Heideg­
Heraclitus, 8, 23-4 ger's critique of, 21-7, 78, 94-5;
Hjelmslev, Louis, 151-2, 212, 221; and reversai of Plato, 6&-7, 75, 77,
and sign-function, 1 87-9, 195 79, 83-4; and significance of sys­
Husserl, Ed�und, 1 8&-7 tem, 20-1
Notion (Hegel's theory of), 1 &-1 7
Irigaray, Luce, 1 14
paradoxa, 67, 197, 199, 203-5;
Kant, Immanuel, 5, 54, 68, 74, 1 1 3, defined, 13; and paradoxical ele­
162, 1 73, 212 ment, 1 94-5. See also abstract
Kauffman, Stuart, 201-3, 205, 21 5-1 6 machine; both/ and; double articu­
Kelso, J.A. Scott, 205-6 lation; event
knowledge: absolute knowledge, Parmenides, 23-4
18 passive genesis, 191-2, 196
perspectivism, 19, 23
Langton, Christopher, 231-2n6 pharmakon, 67--8, 70-1, 82; Derrida's
Lawlor, Leonard, 267-8n92 interpretation of, 71-2
Leibniz, G.W., 23, 1 69, 188-92, 226 phase transition, 201 , 203
Loux, Michael, 1 1 8-19, 121-2 plane of consistency, 7-8, 1 64-5, 222-
Lyotard, Jean-François, 1 1 4 3
plateau, 99-100. See also plane of con­
Macherey, Pierre, 47--8 sistency
Mandelbrot, Benoit, 201 Plato, 1 3-1 4, 26; and cave analogy,
master and slave morality, 1 8-19 80-1 ; contrasted with Whitehead,
May, Todd, 237-8n80 182; and disenfranchisement of
Megarian thesis, 12&-7 poets, 95-6; and forgetfulness of
Meno (problem of), 69, 81 Being, 24, 127--8; Nietzsche's
292 Index

reversai of, 77, 94-5; similarities theory of attributes and modes,

with Nietzsche, 63-4 43-4; and Treatise on the Emenda­
poets, 95--6 tion of the Intellect, 54-7, 244-5n46;
pragrnatics, 1 1 0-12 and what a body can do, 58--60
pre-Socratics, 20 Stengers, Isabelle, 201
Prigogine, Ilya, 201 substance: as self-ordeFing becom­
probe head, 221 ing, 42-3, 48--9 . See also Aristotle
system: Hegel' s understanding of,
Republic, The, 13-14, 64-6, 82-3, 93 16-:-17; Saussure's linguistic sys­
Rohde, Edwin, 79 tem, 32
Russell, Bertrand, 5-6, 219
Thelen, Esther, 206
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, 269n24 thermodynamics, second law of, 200
Saussure, Ferdinand de, 31-3, 151-2, third-man argument, 1 1 7-18
1 77-8 Thousand Plateaus, A, 4-5. See also ·
Schacht, Richard, 238n3 Deleuze, Gilles
schizophrenia, 153; and art, 154-5 transcendental illusion, 1 73-4
Schreber, Daniel, 153 Treatise on the Emendation of the Intel­
Searle, John, 33, 247-8n8 lect, 54-7; Deleuze's reading of,
self-consistent aggregate, 219-21 244-5n46
sense, 1 89
Shaw, Robert, 1 1 0 virtual, 170-1
slave morality. See master and slave
morality Whitehead, Alfred North, 1 79-80;
Smith, Linda, 206 and critique of Western philoso­
Socrates, 228; Socratic therapy, 69 phy, 1 80-2; Deleuze's critique of,
Spinoza, Benedict de, 6-8, 63, 1 88, 192-4, 197-8; and Leibniz, 190-2
223, 224-6; critique of teleology, will to power, 26-:-7, 50, 74-5, 84-5,
50-4; and infinite intellect, 44, 49; 90-1; as differentiai element, 1 00-1
Jonathan Bennett's and Edwin Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 243n35,
Curley's criticisms of, 40-1; 270n48
Nietzsche's critique of, 39; philoso­ Wood, Gordon, 218
phy of language of, 242-3n35; as
precursor to Nietzsche, 38--9, 61-2; Zarathùstra, 79