.m:2
1.
Bergson: toward a positive movement of being
In the work of
Bergson, one might expect to find a psychology or
a
phenomenology of perception. It
may seem strange at first, then,
that
what Deleuze finds principally is an ontology: an absolutely
positive
logic of being rooted in time. As
we have noted, though,
Deleuze
does not move directly to the positive project but approaches
it by
means of a critical, aggressive moment: "Ce que Bergson reproche
essentiellement
… ses devanciers ...." ["Bergson et la diff‚rence" 79]
Deleuze
reads Bergson as a polemic against his philosophical
predecessors,
and the faults of these predecessors are found in their
most
concentrated form in Hegel's logic; Bergson critiques several
philosophical
arguments, but behind each of these Deleuze finds Hegel
occupying
an extreme, exaggerated position.
Deleuze does not claim
that a
direct antagonism against Hegel is what primarily drives
Bergson's
thought, but his reading of Bergson continually retains the
attack
on Hegel as its own critical edge.
In Deleuze's
interpretation,
Bergson does not challenge the central criteria for
being
inherited from the ontological tradition--simplicity, reality,
perfection,
unity, multiplicity, etc.--but rather he focuses on the
ontological
movement which is posed to address these criteria:
"difference"
is the Bergsonian term which plays the central role in
this
discussion. We should be
especially attentive at this point,
because
Deleuze's early study on Bergson stands at the head of a long
discourse
on difference in French thought and here we find a
particular
and specific usage of the term. In
Deleuze's reading,
Bergson's
difference does not principally refer to a quidditas or to a
static
contrast of qualities in real being; rather, difference marks
the
real dynamic of being, it is the movement which founds being.
Thus,
Bergson's difference relates primarily to the temporal, not the
spatial,
dimension of being. The essential
task which Deleuze sets
for
himself in the investigation of Bergson and the concept of
difference,
then, is two-fold. First, he must
use Bergson's critique
of the
ontological tradition to reveal the weakness of Hegel's
dialectic
and its negative logic of being, as a false conception of
difference. This attack is directed against two
foundational moments
of
Hegel's logic: the determination of being and the dialectic of the
One and
the Multiple. Secondly, he must
elaborate Bergson's positive
movement
of being in difference and show how this movement provides a
viable
alternative for ontology. It is
precisely the aggressive
moment
which prepares the ground for the productive moment.
Deleuze's work on
Bergson, however, presents a complication--and
at the
same time an opportunity--for studying the evolution in his
thought
because it is conducted in two distinct periods: one in the
mid-50s
and another in the mid-60s. The
major result of the first
period
is "Bergson et la diff‚rence", which was published in Les
‚tudes
bergsoniennes in 1956 but written at least two years earlier
and
presented to the "Association des amies de Bergson" in May 1954.
This
early article is very dense and contains the major points of
Deleuze's
reading of Bergson. Deleuze
published two other Bergson
texts
in this period, but neither substantially modifies the early
essay. The first is a chapter on Bergson for a
collection edited by
Merleau-Ponty,
Les philosophes c‚lŠbres, 1956, and the second is a
selection
of Bergson texts, M‚moire et vie, 1957.
The result of
Deleuze's
second period of Bergson study is Le bergsonisme published
in
1966. This short book takes up
much of the argument presented in
the
early article, but shows a change in focus and offers some very
interesting
additions to the original interpretation, additions which
show
the influence of Deleuze's intense Nietzsche period in the
intervening
years. These two phases of Bergson
study, then, provide
an excellent
opportunity to read the orientation of Deleuze's early
project,
because they not only straddle the work on Nietzsche (1962)
but
also the long publication gap, the "trou de huit ans" which as
Deleuze
suggests may be a site of considerable reorientation of the
project.
1.1
Real being and efficient difference
Deleuze's early
reading of Bergson is grounded on an attack
against
the negative process of determination.
The specter which
looms
over this question throughout Modern philosophy is Hegel's
reading
and critique of Spinoza. Hegel
takes a phrase from one of
Spinoza's
letters and, turning it back against Spinoza, makes it a
central
maxim of his own logic: omnis determinatio est negatio.
[Science
of Logic 113] (1) This phrase
describes for Hegel the
process
of determination and the state of determinateness. The Logic
begins
with pure being in its simple immediacy; but this simple being
has no
quality, no difference--it is empty and equivalent to its
opposite,
nothingness. It is necessary that
being actively negate
nothingness
to mark its difference from it.
Determinate being
subsumes
this opposition, and this difference between being and
nothingness
at its core defines the foundation of the real differences
and
qualities which constitute its reality.
Negation defines this
state
of determinateness in two senses: it is a static contrast based
on the
finitude of qualities and a dynamic conflict based on the
antagonism
of differences. [cf. Taylor 233-7]
In the first sense,
determinateness
involves negation because qualities are limited and
thus
contrast, or passively negate, what is other than themselves (in
the
sense that red negates green, yellow, etc.). In the second sense,
however,
there is an active negation which animates determinateness,
because
determinate things are in a causal interaction with each
other. The existence of something is the
active negation of something
else. Therefore, even the state of determinateness
is essentially a
negative
movement. This insistence on a
negative movement of
determination
is also the heart of Hegel's critique of Spinoza. Since
Spinoza's
being is absolutely positive, since in Spinoza pure being
does
not actively negate nothingness and does not proceed through a
negative
movement, it lacks the fundamental difference which could
define
its real existence. In Hegel's
eyes, Spinoza's ontology and
any
such positive, affirmative ontology must remain abstract and
indifferent. "Reality as thus conceived [as
perfection and
affirmation]
is assumed to survive when all negation has been thought
away;
but to do this is to do away with all determinateness." [Science
of
Logic 112] Negation cannot merely
be passively "thought away",
Hegel
maintains, but is must be actively engaged and really negated--
this is
the role of the process of determination.
Consequently,
finally,
inevitably, because Spinoza's being is not held different
from
nothingness as its opposite, it dissolves into nothingness just
as does
Spinoza himself in Hegel's Romantic imagination: "The cause of
his
death was consumption, from which he had long been a sufferer;
this
was in harmony with his system of philosophy, according to which
all
particularity and individuality pass away in the one substance."
[Lectures
on the History of Philosophy 257]
This polemic against
Spinoza
constitutes one of Hegel's strongest arguments for the
ontological
movement of negation: being not determined through
negation
will remain indifferent and abstract, and finally since it is
not
held different from its opposite it will fade into nothingness.
Hegel
insists that if we are to recognize difference, the real
difference
which characterizes the particularity and individuality of
being,
we must first recognize the negative movement of being; or
else,
we must disappear along with Spinoza in "acosmism", in the
indifference
of pure, positive ontology.
Deleuze's early
reading of Bergson seems to accept the Hegelian
formulation
that the determination of being must be characterized by
negation. Rather than challenging that
formulation, Deleuze charges
that
process of ontological determination itself undermines the real
foundation
of being; he claims that the difference constituted by the
negative
movement of determination is a false notion of difference.
Hence,
the process of determination both destroys the substantial
nature
of being and fails to grasp the concreteness and specificity of
real
being. Here, though, Deleuze's
critical method takes on an
interesting
form. He does not attack the
dialectic directly, but
rather
he introduces a third philosophical position which he locates
between
Bergson and the dialectic. Deleuze
engages this proximate
enemy
on the specific fault which marks its insufficiency, and then he
proceeds
to show that Hegel, the fundamental enemy, carries this fault
to its
extreme. In the Bergson studies,
Deleuze engages Mechanicism
and
Platonism as the proximate enemies and in the Nietzsche study, he
brings
in Kant. The advantage of first
addressing these proximate
enemies
is that they provide a common ground on which to work out the
attack
which can be subsequently extended to the dialectic. Indeed,
as
Deleuze's thought evolves we will see that he has continually
greater
difficulty in finding a common terrain for addressing the
Hegelian
position. More importantly,
though, this method of
triangulation
shows us that even in this early work Deleuze has a
problematic
relation to opposition. It is
clear that Deleuze is
attacking
the dialectic as the fundamental enemy, but this method
affords
him an oblique posture with regard to Hegel so that he does
not
have to stand in direct opposition.
Like Bergson, the
Mechanicists try to theorize an empirical
evolution
of the differences of being, but in doing so Mechanism
destroys
the substantial, necessary quality of being. Deleuze's
Bergsonian
challenge to Mechanicism takes the form of a curious
proposition:
in order for being to be necessary, it must be
indeterminate. This discussion of ontological
determination turns on
an
analysis of the nature of difference.
The form of difference
proposed
by the process of determination, Deleuze argues, always
remains
external to being and therefore fails to provide it with an
essential,
necessary foundation. These are
the terms Deleuze uses to
critique
the simple determination of Mechanicism: "Bergson montre que
la
diff‚rence vitale est une diff‚rence interne. Mais aussi, que la
difference
interne ne peut pas ˆtre con‡ue comme une simple
d‚termination:
une d‚termination peut ˆtre accidentelle, du moins elle
ne peut
tenir son ˆtre que d'une cause, d'une fin ou d'un hasard, elle
implique
donc une exteriorit‚ subsistante ...." ["Bergson et la
diff‚rence"
92] A Mechanistic determination of
being, while it
attempts
to trace the evolution of reality, destroys the necessity of
being. The external difference of
determination is always reliant on
an
"other" (as cause, end or chance) and thus it introduces an
accidental
quality into being; in other words, determination implies a
mere
subsistent exteriority, not a substantial interiority. Right
away,
however, we have to find Deleuze's explanation puzzling. In
effect,
Deleuze has reversed the terms of the traditional ontological
problematic
here: he does not question how being can gain determinacy,
how
being can support its difference, but rather how difference "peut
tenir
son ˆtre." Deleuze gives
difference a radically new role.
Difference
founds being: it provides being with its necessity, its
substantiality. We cannot understand this argument for
internal
difference
over external difference unless we recognize the
ontologically
fundamental role which difference is required to fill.
I would
suggest that we can best understand Deleuze's explanation
through
reference to Scholastic conceptions of the ontological
centrality
of causality and the productivity of being. (2) In many
respects
Deleuze reads Bergsonian ontology as a Scholasticism in which
the
discourse on causality is replaced with a discussion of
difference.
(3) We do not have to depart very
far from the text to
read
the claim that determination "ne peut tenir son ˆtre que d'une
cause,
d'une fin ou d'un hasard" as an attack on three conceptions of
causality
which are inadequate for the foundation of being: a)
material--a
purely physical cause which gives rise to an external
effect;
b) final--a cause which refers to the end or goal in the
production
of its effect; c) accidental--a cause which has a
completely
contingent relation to its effect.
What is central in each
case is
that the cause remains external to its effect and therefore
can
only support the possibility of being.
For being to be necessary,
the
fundamental ontological cause must be internal to its effect: this
internal
cause is the efficient cause which plays the central role in
Scholastic
ontological foundations: "The efficient cause is God."
[Suarez,
Disputaciones metafisicas 444]
Furthermore, it is only the
efficient
cause, precisely because of its internal nature, which can
support
being as substance, as causa sui. (4)
In the Bergsonian
context,
then, we might say that efficient difference is that
difference
which is the internal motor of being: it supports being's
necessity
and real substantiality. Through
this internal productive
dynamic,
the being of efficient difference is causa sui. The
determination
of Mechanicism cannot fill this role because it is
constituted
by an external, material causality.
After having laid out
the terms of an attack on the external
difference
of determination with the critique of Mechanicism, Deleuze
engages
Plato, a second proximate enemy, to refine the attack.
Deleuze
recognizes that Plato shares with Bergson the project to
construct
a philosophy of difference ["Bergson et la diff‚rence" 95],
but
what Deleuze challenges in Plato is the principle of finality.
Once
again, the critique is focussed on the external nature of
difference
with the ontological criteria as measure.
While in
Bergson,
difference is driven by an internal motor (which Bergson
calls
intuition), in Plato this role is only filled by an external
inspiration
from the finality: the difference of the thing can only be
accounted
for by its destination, the Good. [95]
If we translate this
into
causal discourse we can say that Plato tries to found being on
the
final cause. While Bergson, like
Plato, does conceive of the
articulations
of reality in terms of functions and ends, in Bergson
there
is no separation between difference and the thing, between cause
and
effect: "la chose mˆme et la fin correspondante sont en fait une
seule
et mˆme chose .... Il n'y a plus
lieu de parler de fin: quand
la
diff‚rence est devenue la chose elle-mˆme, il n'y a plus lieu de
dire
que la chose re‡oive sa diff‚rence d'une fin." [96] Once again,
the
discussion of difference is perfectly consistent with a causal
ontological
argument: Bergson's efficient difference is contrasted to
Plato's
final difference. The key to the
argument turns, as it did in
the
case of Mechanicism above, on the need for difference to bear a
substantial
nature, on its ontological centrality.
Bergson presents
difference
as causa sui, supported by an internal dynamic, while
Plato's
difference is forced to rely on the external support of
finality. Hence, Platonic difference is not
capable of supporting
being
in its substantiality and necessity.
This explanation of the
faults of Mechanicism and Platonism
provides
us with a means of understanding the Bergsonian distinction
which
Deleuze finds so important between "differences of nature" and
"differences
of degree": "Ce que Bergson reproche essentiellement …
ses
devanciers, c'est de ne pas avoir vu les vraies diff‚rences de
nature.
... L… o— il y avait des diff‚rences
de nature, on n'a retenu
que des
diff‚rences de degr‚." [79]
At times it seems as if Deleuze
and
Bergson are using these terms to distinguish between qualitative
and
quantitative differences, but, especially given the sweeping claim
about
the originality of this conception in the history of philosophy,
this
interpretation proves inadequate.
We gain a much clearer
perspective
if we refer, once again, to the tradition of Scholastic
causal
arguments: "differences of nature" appear as those differences
which
imply necessity and substance, corresponding to the Scholastic
causae
per se; thus, "differences of degree" are those which imply
accidents,
causae per accidens. (5)
"Penser la diff‚rence interne
comme
telle, comme pure diff‚rence interne, arriver jusqu'au pur
concept
de la diff‚rence, ‚lever la diff‚rence … l'absolu, tel est le
sens de
l'effort de Bergson." [90]
While Mechanicism and Platonism do
succeed
in thinking difference, they only arrive at contingent
differences
(per accidens); Bergson's conception of internal
difference
leads us to recognize substantial differences (per se).
Hegelianism, however,
is the fundamental target we find at the
base of
each of these critiques; Hegel is the one who takes the
exteriority
of difference to its extreme.
"On peut de mˆme, … partir
de
certains textes de Bergson, pr‚voir les objections qu'il ferait …
une
dialectique de type h‚g‚lien, dont il est d'ailleurs beaucoup plus
loin
que de celle de Platon." [96]
One might expect that with the
critique
of Platonic finality as an introduction, Deleuze would mount
an
attack against the final cause and teleology in Hegel: in effect,
he
already has the weapons for such an attack at his disposal. He
turns instead,
though, back to the process of determination and the
basic
negative movement of the dialectic, to the founding moment of
Hegel's
logic. "Chez Bergson ... la
chose diffŠre avec soi d'abord,
imm‚diatement. Selon Hegel, la chose diffŠre avec soi
parce qu'elle
diffŠre
d'abord avec tout ce qui n'est pas elle ...." [96] In
Bergson,
the thing immediately differs with itself; in other words,
the
difference of the thing is supported through an internal,
efficient
production. The common fault of
Mechanism and Platonism is
that
they both conceive of difference as dependent on an external
support;
however, they each identify specific external supports (an
external
material thing in Mechanicism and a function or finality in
Plato)
and thus the exteriority of difference in each case is limited.
Dialectics
takes external difference to its extreme, to absolute
exteriority,
"jusqu'… la contradiction": the dialectic presents the
thing
differing with an unlimited other, "avec tout ce qui n'est pas
elle":
this is absolute exteriority. In
effect, if we ignore question
of
historiography, Hegel appears to gather the faults of Mechanism
and
Platonism and repeat them in their pure form by taking external
difference
to its extreme. The Bergsonian
critique is obvious when we
focus
on the causality implied by the dialectic. From the very first
moments
of the Logic--from pure being to nothingness to determinate
being--the
dialectic is constituted by a dynamic in which the cause is
absolutely
external to its effect: this is the essence of a dialectic
of
contradiction. The process of the
mediation in the opposite
necessarily
depends on an external causality.
As such, Hegel's logic
of
being is vulnerable to a Scholastic response: a conception of being
founded
on an external cause cannot support the necessity or
substantiality
of being because a cause external to its effect cannot
be
necessary; the successive external mediations which found
dialectical
being cannot constitute causa per se but must rather be
recognized
as causa per accidens. Thus,
because of the contingency of
this
external causal movement, the being of the dialectic is the
extreme
case of a "subsistent exteriority". The core of a Bergsonian
attack
on the Hegelian concept of dialectical mediation, then, is that
it
cannot support being as necessary and substantial.
Not only does the
Hegelian dialectic, like Mechanicism and
Platonism,
introduce accident into being, but it also fails to grasp
the
concreteness and singularity of being.
"Or, si l'objection que
Bergson
pouvait faire au platonisme ‚tait d'en rester … une conception
de la diff‚rence
encore externe, l'objection qu'il fait … une
dialectique
de la contradiction est d'en rester … une conception de la
diff‚rence
seulement abstraite." [96-7]
The logic of this further
attack
is not immediately clear: how does it follow that the
difference
of dialectical difference is abstract merely from the
condition
that its support is absolutely external?
Deleuze backs up
this
claim by quoting Bergson on the logic of external perception.
"Il
n'est guŠre de r‚alit‚ concrŠte sur laquelle on ne puisse prendre
… la
fois les deux vues oppos‚es, et qui ne se subsume par cons‚quent
aux
deux concepts antagonistes. ...
Cette combinaison (de deux
concepts
contradictoires) ne pourra pr‚senter ni une diversit‚ de
degr‚s
ni une vari‚t‚ de formes: elle est ou elle n'est pas." [96-7,
cited
from PM 198, 207] Once again, the
argument is most clearly
understood
in terms of causality. First,
Bergson claims that a
dialectic
of opposites remains a mere "combination" of two terms, not
a
synthesis, because the terms remain absolutely external to one
another
and thus cannot form a coherent, necessary causal chain. This
charge
is backed once again by the principle that an external cause
cannot
be necessary. Secondly, Bergson
claims that the result of this
combination
of abstract concepts cannot produce something concrete and
real. This claim is based on another
fundamental principle of
causality:
an effect cannot contain more reality or perfection than
its
cause. The heart of a Bergsonian
attack on the Hegelian concept
of
dialectical synthesis, then, is that its result must remain both
contingent
and abstract.
Up to this point we
have considered Deleuze's Bergsonian attack
on
Hegel's negative ontological movement as it is presented in
Deleuze's
first phase of Bergson study, and principally in the early
article
"Bergson et la diff‚rence".
Deleuze has attributed difference
with an
ontologically foundational role and then constructed a scale
for
evaluating various conceptions of difference based on their
capacity
to fulfill this role. We have
found that, because of the
ontological
demands at its core, Deleuze's discussion on difference
can be
clearly understood if it is continually referred to a
Scholastic
discourse on causality. Bergson's
internal difference,
appearing
as an efficient causality, grasps differences of nature or
differences
which support substance in its necessity and reality; the
external
difference presented by the proximate enemies, Mechanicism
and
Platonism, is only capable of carrying differences of degree which
cannot
support being as necessary; finally, the Hegelian dialectic,
with
its absolutely external negative movement, can grasp neither
differences
of nature nor differences of degree--the being of the
dialectic
not only remains contingent but also abstract. "Ce qui ne
comporte
ni degr‚s ni nuances est une abstraction." [97] (6) The
negative
movement of dialectical determination, while it purports to
establish
the basis for real difference, actually ignores difference
altogether. Deleuze has managed to turn Hegel's
argument for
determination
completely upside down. Hegel
proposes the negative
movement
of determination on the basis of the charge that Spinoza's
positive
movement remains abstract and indifferent; here, however,
on the
basis of classic ontological argumentation, Deleuze turns the
charge
of abstraction against Hegel and claims that dialectical
determination
ignores difference: "on a substitu‚ … la diff‚rence le
jeu de
la d‚termination." [96] The
antagonist foundation of Deleuze's
argument
is its driving force. When he
claims "non seulement la
diff‚rence
vitale ne sera pas une d‚termination, mais elle en serait
plut“t
le contraire, au choix elle serait l'indetermination mˆme" [92]
it is
very clear "against whom" these principle concepts are directed.
Indeed,
the acceptance of the term "indetermination" to describe
Bergson's
difference should be read principally as a refutation of the
negative
movement of the dialectic. We
should note here that this
early
article is the only occasion on which Deleuze attacks the
Hegelian
dialectic directly, on its own terms, and perhaps for this
reason
it is his most powerful critique.
Later, when Deleuze returns
to
attack the dialectic in the second Bergson phase of study, in
Nietzsche
or in Diff‚rence et r‚p‚tition, he always addresses an
extrapolation
or derivation of the dialectic.
This direct
antagonistic foundation, however, already raises a
slight
problem: the radical opposition to the dialectic appears to
force
us to read Bergsonian being as "indeterminate" in the Hegelian
sense. We will find below, however, that
Hegel's claims about the
attributes
of the state of determinate being--quality, finitude and
reality--are
equally claimed by the being of Bergson's internal
difference.
(7) Deleuze feels the need to
correct this false
impression,
warning us not to confuse Bergsonian "indetermination"
with
irrationality or abstraction: "quand [Bergson] nous parle
d'ind‚termination,
il ne nous invite pas … abandonner les raisons, mais …
rejoindre
la vraie raison de la chose en train de se faire, la raison
philosophique
qui n'est pas d‚termination mais diff‚rence." ["Bergson"
299] We will find below, in fact, that Bergson's
"indetermination"
has
little to do with Hegel's "determination", but rather it relates
to an
idea of the creativity and originality of real being:
"l'impr‚visible". Bergson's term is neither consistent
with nor
opposite
to Hegel's. We will return to the
specifics Bergson's
positive
ontology below; it is sufficient at this point to recognize
the
force and the initial consequences of the antagonistic foundation
of
Deleuze's argument.
1.2
Multiplicity in the passage from quality to quantity
When Deleuze returns
to Bergson in the mid-1960s to write Le
Bergsonisme,
takes up again many of his early arguments but his
polemical
foundation changes slightly. The
analysis still contains an
attack
against the negative movement of determination, but now the
central
critical focus is directed toward the problem of the One and
the
Multiple. This reorientation,
however, does not by any means mark
a
departure from the earlier analysis, simply a progression: we can
imagine
that Deleuze has merely continued in his reading of "The
Doctrine
of Being" in Hegel's Science of Logic, moving from Chapter 2
on
determinate being to Chapter 3 on the construction of being-for-
self
through the dialectical relationship of the One and the Multiple.
It is
still the opposition to Hegel's ontological problematic which
provides
the dynamic for Deleuze's exposition of Bergson's position;
it is
as if Deleuze has merely descended one level deeper into Hegel's
logic
of being, with Bergson, his Virgil, close at his side.
It should come as no
surprise, therefore, that when Deleuze
approaches
the problem of the One and the Multiple in Le Bergsonisme,
his
critique of the dialectical solution is very similar to the
earlier
critique of the dialectical process of determination. "Nous
connaissons
en philosophie beaucoup de th‚ories qui combinent l'un et
le
multiple. Elles ont en commun de
pr‚tendre recomposer le r‚el avec
des
id‚es g‚nerales." [Le bergsonisme 37-8] Deleuze provides us with
two
examples of this generalizing negative movement. "On nous dit: le
Moi est
un (thŠse), et il est multiple (antithŠse), puis il est
l'unit‚
du multiple (synthŠse). Ou bien,
on nous dit: l'Un est d‚j…
multiple,
l'Etre passe dans le non-ˆtre, et produit le devenir." [38]
Deleuze
has three arguments ready in his arsenal from the earlier
attack
on determination. A) Contradiction
is a misreading of
difference
which can only be achieved by posing general, imprecise
terms
which are abstract from reality.
Being in general, non-being in
general,
the One in general, the Multiple in general: these terms are
too
large, too abstract to grasp the specificity and singularity of
reality;
they are cut too big and hang loosely on reality, as Bergson
says,
"comme de vˆtements qui flottent." [38] B) The negative
movement
of the dialectic violates the real relations of being.
"Bergson
reproche … la dialectique d'ˆtre un faux mouvement, c'est-…-
dire un
mouvement du concept abstrait, qui ne va d'un contraire …
l'autre
qu'… force d'impr‚cision." [38]
As we found above, polemics
about
false and real movements of being have their foundation in
causal
ontological arguments: the dialectic of contradiction can only
imply causae
per accidens. C) Finally, the
dialectical synthesis
cannot
grasp the plane of reality by combining opposed abstract
concepts:
"que vaut une dialectique qui croit rejoindre le r‚el quand
elle
compense l'insuffisance d'un concept trop large ou trop g‚n‚ral
en
faisant appel au concept oppos‚, non moins large et g‚n‚ral? On ne
rejoindra
jamais le concret en combinant l'insuffisance d'un concept
avec
l'insuffisance de son oppos‚; on ne rejoint pas le singulier en
corrigeant
une g‚n‚ralit‚ par une autre g‚n‚ralit‚." [38] As we noted
above,
the principle that an effect cannot contain more reality than
its
cause denies the power of the dialectical synthesis to move from
abstraction
to reality, from generality to singularity.
We should pause for a
moment, though, to evaluate Deleuze's
characterization
of the dialectic. "... le Moi
est un (thŠse), et il
est
multiple (antithŠse), puis il est l'unit‚ du multiple (synthŠse)":
certainly,
Hegel's treatment of the One and the Multiple is much more
complex
than this. Is Deleuze merely
setting up a straw man? An
Hegelian
could well object that Deleuze's characterization is
presented
in "inappropriate form" since it expresses the One and the
Multiple
as propositions: "this truth is to be grasped and expressed
only as
a becoming, as a process, a repulsion and attraction--not as
being,
which in a proposition has the character of a stable unity."
[Science
of Logic 172] This is certainly a
valid charge against
Deleuze's
mock dialectic; we have seen elsewhere, however, that
Deleuze's
principle charge is not that the dialectic fails to
recognize
being in terms of a dynamic, a process, but that the
movement
of the dialectic is a false movement.
Let us venture into
the
complexity of Hegel's argument, then, to gage the validity of
Deleuze's
attack. For Hegel, the movement
between the One and the
Multiple
represents a higher level of mediation than the movement of
determination
and constitutes a logical passage from the quality to
quantity
of being. Determinate being, the
result of the previous
development,
gives way to the abstract, posited unity of being-for-
one. This One enters the quantitative domain
through the dialectical
process
of repulsion and attraction, which is simultaneously internal
and
external in its complex movement of self-relation. "The one as
infinitely
self-related--infinitely, as the posited negation of
negation--is
the mediation in which it repels from itself its own self
as its
absolute (that is, abstract) otherness, (the many), and in
relating
itself negatively to this its non-being, that is, in
sublating
it, it is only self-relation; and one is only this becoming
in
which it is no longer determined as having a beginning, that is, is
no
longer posited as an immediate, affirmative being, neither is it as
result,
as having restored itself as the one, that is, the one as
equally
immediate and excluding; the process which it is posits and
contains
it throughout only as sublated." [Science of Logic 177] The
infinitely
self-related one, a posited indetermination, enters into
relation
with its abstract and multiple other, its non-being, and
through
the sublation of this opposition we get the becoming of the
one, a
realized ideality.
It is very easy to
apply Deleuze's charges against the negative
ontological
movement to this passage. The
initial movement of the One
into
its opposite, into its non-being, is completely external and can
only
imply an accidental relation.
Furthermore, this movement between
terms
(Hegel calls them "absolute") claims to arrive at a determinate
synthesis. "The one one ... is the realized
ideality, posited in the
one; it
is attraction through the mediation of repulsion, and it
contains
this mediation with itself as its determination." [174] The
mere
fact of abstract mediation results in a real determination. As
we have
seen above, just as Deleuze charges that mediation implies an
accidental
relation he also refuses dialectics the power of real
synthesis:
the "combining" and "joining" of abstract terms cannot have
a real,
concrete result. To these two
attacks we can add the charge
that
the very terms which Hegel uses are imprecise. For this
argument,
Deleuze invokes Plato and his metaphor of the good cook who
takes
the care make his cuts in the right place according to the
articulations
of reality. What Hegelian
terminology lacks is close
attention
to the specificity and singularity of real being: Hegel
appears
as a careless dialectical butcher when compared to Plato's
fine
talents. To arrive at a singular
conception of unity and
multiplicity
in real being we have to begin by asking, in Platonic
fashion,
which being, which unity, which plurality? "Ce que Bergson
reclame,
contre une conception g‚n‚rale des contraires (l'Un et le
Multiple),
c'est une fine perception de la multiplicit‚, une fine
perception
du ®quel¯ et du ®combien¯, de ce qu'il appelle la ®nuance¯
ou le
nombre en puissance." [Le bergsonisme 40]
What has Deleuze
gained, then, in this second phase of Bergson
study,
by refocusing his attack from the problem of determination to
that of
the One and the Multiple, from the discussion of quality to
the
passage from quality to quantity?
As always, Hegel is very clear
about
the stakes in the discussion.
Describing the defects of the
conception
of one and many among the ancient atomists who give
precedence
to multiplicity, he provides a suggestive analogy: "Physics
with
its molecules and particles suffers from the atom, this principle
of
extreme externality, which is thus utterly devoid of the Notion,
just as
much as does the theory of the State which starts from the
particular
will of individuals." [Science of Logic 167] The passage
from
quality to quantity reveals at the heart of an ontological
problem,
a political problem. The stakes
are quite high: it is clear
to
Hegel that the relationship between the One and the Multiple is a
(analogical)
foundation for a theory of social organization, an
ontological
basis for politics. To attack the
dialectical unity of
the One
and the Multiple, then, is to attack the primacy of the State
in the
formation of society, to insist on the real plurality of
society. Here we begin to see traces of the
movement which has taken
place
in Deleuze's "trou de huit ans": the slight shift in focus in
his
attack on Hegelian logic, from Chapter 2 to Chapter 3 of "The
Doctrine
of Being", brings ontology into the sphere of politics. What
this
new attack gives rise to specifically is a new conception of
multiplicity. "La notion de multiplicit‚ nous
‚vite de penser en
termes
de ®Un et Multiple¯." [Le bersonisme 37] This is where Deleuze
manages
to establish his preferred triangular configuration of
enemies,
because we find there are two types of multiplicities. The
proximate
enemies are B. Riemann and A. Einstein: these thinkers are
able to
conceive of multiplicities, but
merely of numerical,
quantitative
multiplicities which only succeed in grasping differences
of
degree. [32-4] Bergson, in
contrast, realizes a qualitative
multiplicity
founded on differences of nature.
The first, the
multiplicity
of exteriority, is a multiplicity of "order"; Bergson's
internal
multiplicity is a multiplicity of "organization". [30-1] The
Hegelian
dialectic, of course, occupies the third, extreme position,
unable
to think multiplicity at all because it recognizes neither
differences
of nature nor differences of degree.
The configuration of
proximate
enemies, though, allows Deleuze's Bergson a detachment from
the
Hegelian terrain: "il ne s'agit pas pour Bergson d'opposer le
Multiple
… l'Un, mais au contraire de distinguer deux types de
multiplicit‚."
[31] We will return to analyze
this positive project
of
multiplicity below, but is is important now to recognize the
clarity
of the political framework of the project which has resulted
from
the critique: Deleuze has created a position to advocate a
pluralism
of organization against a pluralism of order. And this is
far
removed from Hegel's State philosophy of the unity of the One and
the
Multiple.