.m:2
3.9 A constitutive epistemology
Spinozian practice
always begins with the body as model.
However,
while the common notions set off from a corporeal domain,
they
also construct a theory of knowledge.
This constitutive
epistemology
which we find in the beginning of Book V of the Ethics is
radically
different than the given, pre-formed epistemology presented
in Book
II. "Dans le livre II de l'Ethique,
Spinoza considŠre les
notions
communes dans leur contenu sp‚culatif; il les suppose donn‚es,
ou
donnables .... Au d‚but du livre V
de l'Ethique, Spinoza analyse
la
fonction pratique des notions communes suppos‚es donn‚es; cette
fonction
consiste en ceci que la notion est cause d'une id‚e ad‚quate
d'affection,
c'est-…-dire d'une joie active." [265] The two
epistemological
arguments share the same categories and terminology,
but
they approach the topic from different perspectives. In Book II,
in the
speculative moment, Spinoza set out the logical arrangement of
the
three different types of ideas ordered by their truth and falsity,
by
their clarity and confusion. Now,
Spinoza's practical perspective
puts
this epistemological order in motion.
The common notion,
recognized
now as a constructive agent, is the mechanism by which we
move
from a passion to an action; thus, when considered only in terms
of
thought, the common notion is the means by which the mind moves
from an
inadequate idea to an adequate idea, from a confused idea to
truth. The formation of common notions is the
practical constitution
of
reason.
The theory that
epistemology can be constituted in practice
clearly
rests on a notion of the materiality of the intellect which
runs
throughout Spinoza's work. This
notion marks another way in
which
Spinoza conceives thought as "parallel" to extension; but more
profoundly
it solidly locates Spinozian thought both philosophically
in the
materialist tradition and historically in the age of the birth
of
Modern industry. An early passage
from the TdIE discussing the
method
of intellectual emendation illustrates these connections very
clearly. "Matters here stand as they do
with corporeal tools ....
Just as
men, in the beginning, were able to make the easiest things
with
the tools they were born with (however laboriously and
imperfectly),
and once these had been made, made other, more difficult
things
with less labor and more perfectly, and so, proceeding
gradually
from the simplest works to tools, and from tools to other
works
and tools, reached the point where they accomplished so many and
so
difficult things with little labor, in the same way the intellect,
by its
inborn power, makes intellectual tools for itself, by which it
works
still other tools, or the power of searching further, and so
proceeds
by stages, until it reaches the pinnacle of wisdom." [TdIE
30-31] The mind forges the common notion from
inadequate ideas just
as the
body forges a hammer from iron.
The common notion serves as a
practical
tool in our effort toward the pinnacle of wisdom.
The practical
perspective revises and gives a new foundation to
Spinoza's
division of the kinds of knowledge.
"Les genres de
connaissance
sont aussi des maniŠres de vivre, des modes d'existence."
[268] The first kind of knowledge consists of
imagination, opinion
and
revelation. Deleuze relates these
three forms of the first kind
of
knowledge to three modes of society: the state of nature, the civil
state
and the religious state. (19) What
all of these forms have in
common
is that in each an idea is constructed by signs rather than by
expression;
in other words, the idea depends on an external rather
than an
internal cause and is thus inadequate.
However, by making
clear
the relation between these forms of knowledge and the modes of
society,
Deleuze shows that there is a very important distinction
within
the first kind of knowledge.
Imagination arises from the
chance
meetings between bodies: "Cette connaissance est par exp‚rience
vague;
et vague, selon l'‚tymologie, renvoie au caractŠre hasardeux
des
rencontres." [268] Spinozian
imagination is a material
imagination
in that it reads the commonality and conflict in the
meetings
among bodies. Since it operates on
the material plane where
constitutive
relationships are possible, the imagination is presents
us with
indicative signs. On the other
hand, the other two forms of
the
first kind of knowledge, opinion and revelation, merely provide us
with imperative
signs. Civil law and religious law
are presented as
duty,
as the mandates of rulers and prophets.
The causes of these
ideas
remain obscure to us and therefore they cannot indicate the real
genealogy
of their formation, their real productive structure.
Spinoza treats the
first kind of knowledge just as he has treated
the
passions. First he operates a
devaluation: "Knowledge of the
first
kind is the only cause of falsity, whereas knowledge of the
second
and of the third kind is necessarily true." [Ethics IIP41]
However,
just as we have seen with regard to the passions, once
Spinoza
adopts a realistic attitude he recognizes that the vast
majority
of our ideas reside in the first kind of knowledge and in
fact
our project of intellectual emendation must begin here. The
project
of epistemology, then, is the movement from the first to the
second
and third kinds of knowledge. At
this point, Spinoza can
reassess
the value of the first kind of knowledge: it is composed of
ideas
which may be true. This
revalorisation does not yet give us a
strategic
point of departure. At this point,
just as we have
recognized
the distinction between joyful passions and sad passions,
we must
focus on the distinction between indicative signs and
imperative
signs. The imagination is affirmed
over opinion and
revelation,
because the ideas which arise from the material field of
imagination
may be adequate.
Once again, the
common notion demonstrates the practical force of
this
distinction and puts it in motion.
"Envisag‚es dans leur
origine,
les notions communes trouvent dans l'imagination les
conditions
mˆmes de leur formation. Mais bien
plus: envisag‚es dans
leur
fonction pratique, elles ne s'appliquent qu'… des choses qui
peuvent
ˆtre imagin‚es." [273] Common
notions are necessarily
adequate
ideas; they are the building blocks which constitute reason
and
they can only arise on the terrain of the imagination. The
production
of common notions shows that there is what Deleuze calls a
"curious
harmony" between the imagination and reason: through the
common
notion, imagination and reason are linked on a continuum.
However,
there remains a real difference between them. The
imagination
begins by affirming the presence of an object, but no
matter
how strong or intense an imagination may be, we continue to
regard
the imagined object as present in a possible or contingent way.
The
specific property of reason is to consider things as necessary.
The
common notion, then, transforms the fluctuation and contingency of
imagination
into the permanence and consistency of reason. "An affect
which
arises from reason is necessarily related to the common
properties
of things, which we always regard as present ... and which
we
always imagine in the same way." [VP7Dem] Here reason is presented
as a
fortified imagination which has gained the power to sustain its
imagining
through the construction of the common notion. "N‚cessit‚,
pr‚sence
et fr‚quence sont les trois caractŠres des notions communes."
[275] Reason is an intensified imagination.
Earlier, we found
that the central difference between the joyful
passive
affection and the joyful active affection is the external
cause
of the former and the internal cause of the later. The common
notion
operates the transformation, maintaining the affection while
substituting
an internal for an external cause.
Here, in the
epistemological
domain, we are presented with a corresponding
framework. The imagination, like the joyful
passion, is the condition
which
allows us to begin the process.
The central difference between
the
imagination and reason is the contingency of the former and the
necessity
of the latter. The common notion
operates the
transformation
which makes the imagination permanent; it is the
passage
to reason. Therefore, we can plot
an epistemological
construction
parallel to our earlier diagram of the structure of the
affects. A constitutive epistemological practice
is defined by the
series
imagination -> common notions -> reason.
.m:1
second kind of
first kind of
knowledge
knowledge
^ / \
|
/ \
|
/ \
|
/ \
(common notions) <------ imagination opinion and
revelation
.m:2
The
keystone of Spinoza's revolution in epistemology is his conception
of the
role of the common notions as the link between imagination and
reason. Spinoza's constitutive epistemology
demystifies reason. In
the
speculative argument of Book II, reason was defined in a
Cartesian,
mathematical spirit. Reason was a given
system of
necessary
truth and thus the production of reason was completely
obscure. Therefore, the first kind of knowledge,
the source of all
error,
could play no positive role in a project for truth; the only
strategy
could be its negation. Now, in the
practical moment of
Spinoza's
thought, we find an important distinction between the
different
forms of the first kind of knowledge and a valorization of
the
imagination. The imagination
provides a real (if fluctuating and
contingent)
indication of the state of bodies which are present. The
common
notion intervenes with the capacity to make our imagining
permanent
and necessary, to elevate the imagination to the level of
philosophical
sources of this conception of reason, we should no
longer
reason. If we were to look for the
look to Descartes but
rather
to the Renaissance naturalism: this reason is not given in a
mathematical
order but constituted in the practical field of power.
Reason
is constituted through practice: this statement alone shows how
radical
Spinoza's epistemology is in the face of the Modern tradition
of rationality.
3.10 The art of organization
Politics arises as a
question of bodies. "Pour
penser vraiment
en
termes de puissance, il fallait d'abord poser le question … propos
du
corps ...." [236] The
introduction of the ontological principle of
power
was the key which opened the field of Spinozian practice for
Deleuze
and the question of the power of the body served as its
privileged
terrain, as its model. We have
seen that Deleuze's
original
interpretation of the common notions has brought to light the
real
constitutive force of Spinozian practice: in the epistemological
domain
the common notions are the means by which practice constitutes
reason
and truth. However, while it
provides some very important
results,
Deleuze's interpretation of the common notions diverts his
reading
of Spinoza's practical philosophy from its ethical and
political
focus. The thematic of the common
notions tends to shift
attention
away from the terrain of bodies and focus exclusively on the
project
of the emendation of the intellect.
Spinozian politics does
not
arise from an epistemological horizon, but rather from an
ontological
and physical scene. Let us return
to the plane of bodies,
then,
to investigate the extent to which Deleuze manages to construct
a
Spinozian politics on the basis of an ontological and physical
practice.
"Lorsque Spinoza
dit: Nous ne savons mˆme pas ce que peut un
corps,
cette formule est presque un cri de guerre." [234] Spinoza's
battle
cry is aimed first of all at Cartesian morality. Descartes'
conception
of the eminence of the mind over the body brings with it
certain
moral duties which require that the mind make the body obey
the
transcendental laws to which the mind itself is submitted.
According
to Deleuze, this Cartesian conception of duty and order is
founded
on the idea that there is an inverse relationship between the
action
of the mind and the body: "le corps pƒtit quand l'ƒme agit, le
corps
n'agit pas sans que l'ƒme ne pƒtisse … son tour." [234]
Spinozian
parallelism denies this moral foundation with the claim that
there
is a positive relation between the action of the mind and the
body:
"the order of actions and passions of our Body is, by nature, at
one with
the order of actions and passions of the Mind." [Ethics III
P2S] In other words, a passion of the mind
is also a passion of the
body;
the two passions are really one and the same, considered first
under
the attribute of thought and second under the attribute of
extension. The same, of course, holds true for an
action. Spinozian
materialism,
then, focuses attention on the body not to claim a
priority
of the body over the mind but rather as a reaction to the
dominant
Cartesian position of the dominance of the mind: there is a
real
equality between the two attributes.
The most important effect
of this
parallelism, this equality among the attributes, is that it
refers
to being, it brings the question of order back to the
ontological
terrain. "C'est en ce sens
que le parall‚lisme exclut
toute
‚minence de l'ƒme, toute finalit‚ spirituelle et morale, toute
transcendance
d'un Dieu que r‚glerait une s‚rie sur l'autre." [235]
All
order must be constructed from the ontological elements on the
immanent
horizon.
The importance of a
constructive force on this ontological
horizon
leads us to the second aspect of Spinoza's materialism. "On
se
souvient que Platon disait que les mat‚rialistes, s'ils ‚taient
intelligents,
parleraient de puissance au lieu de parler du corps.
Mais il
est vrai inversement que les dynamistes, quand ils sont
intelligents,
parlent d'abord du corps pour ®penser¯ la puissance."
[236] Materialist thought is ontological
thought, and vice versa.
Spinoza
does give a certain priority to the investigation of the body:
but the
body is taken as model so as to be able to "think" power. The
investigation
of power is on one hand an excavation of being, and thus
an
ontological foundation supports materialism; yet, on the other hand
the
practical deployment of power involves the real constitution of
the
order within being, and thus it is a materialist foundation of
ontology. This constitutive aspect of the
ontological discussion of
power
is what distinguished Spinoza's ethics from a morality for
Deleuze. "La th‚orie de la puissance ...
forme une vision ‚thique du
monde. La substitution de l'‚thique … la
morale est la cons‚quence du
parall‚lisme,
et en manifeste la v‚ritable signification." [236] The
theory
of power and the ontological parallelism of the attributes show
us the
direct progression in Spinoza, a constitutive movement, from
ontology
to ethics.
Spinoza is able to
pose ethical questions directly in ontological
terms
by constructing a passage through a juridical domain. The
theory
of power and bodies is brought closer to real practice in the
form of
a theory of right. "Tout ce
que peut un corps (sa puissance),
est
aussi bien son ®droit naturel¯." [236] Spinoza's theory of
natural
right, along with that of Hobbes, is greatly different from
the
natural law of the ancients. The
ancients defined natural law in
terms
of perfection; they conceived of nature as oriented toward its
ends,
toward a final cause. Spinoza, as
we have seen on several
occasions,
always rejects the final cause for the efficient cause: "la
loi de
nature n'est plus rapport‚e … une perfection finale, mais au
premier
d‚sir, … ®l'app‚tit¯ le plus fort." [238] Once again, it is
Spinoza's
ontological perspective which guides the logic here: being
is
directly and immediately productive at each step of its
constitution. No one is born rational, just as no one
is born
citizen. Every element of Spinozian society must
be constituted with
the
elements at hand, by the constituent subjects (be they ignorant or
learned),
on the basis of the existing desires (be they passions or
actions). No order can be imposed by any
transcendent elements,
anything
outside of the immanent field of forces.
Therefore, power
and
right are primary and unconditioned.
Any conception of duties or
morality
must be secondary and dependent on the affirmation of power.
"Les
vraies lois naturelles sont les normes du pouvoir, non pas des
rŠgles
de devoir." [247] The theory
of power, of the free
constitution
of norms, founds an ethical sociality.
"Aller jusqu'au
bout de
ce qu'on peut, est la tƒche proprement ‚thique. C'est par l…
que l'Ethique
prend modŠle sur le corps; car tout corps ‚tend sa
puissance
aussi loin qu'il le peut. En un
sens, tout ˆtre, … chaque
moment,
va jusqu'au bout de ce qu'il peut." [248] The enormous
strength
of Deleuze's Spinozian approach to right, we must emphasize
once
again, is that it never negates its ontological foundation. The
productivity
of being itself is the motor which animates the entire
discourse
on right.
Deleuze has very
clearly laid out the juridical and ethical
conditions
of the state of nature. Now, this
foundation needs to be
animated
and forged as a political project.
The state of nature
itself
presents us with an unlivable condition.
Deleuze elaborates
this
problematic in a very suggestive form, posing it in terms of the
types
of meetings between bodies. In the
state of nature, I
experience
chance meetings with other bodies which, since we are
predominantly
determined by passions, have very little in common with
my
body. Therefore, not only is my
power to be affected filled
predominantly
by passive affections, but also those passive affections
are
mostly sad. What is most useful
and joyful for a human is a
meeting
with another human in as much as the two share common internal
relationships. "Il n'y aurait qu'un moyen de
rendre viable l'‚tat de
nature:
en s'effor‡ant d'organiser les rencontres." [239] The first
step of
a Spinozian politics is to organize social encounters so as to
encourage
compatible and useful relationships and thus joyful
passions. Deleuze's analysis makes clear that in
Spinoza there is a
real
continuity from ontology to ethics to politics; just as the state
of
nature is never opposed or negated in the civil state, so too the
ontological
foundation remains continuously as the constructive force
on the
ethical and political horizon.
There is no transcendental
mediation
or imposition of order, but rather the organization of
bodies
in joyful meetings must arise from the immanent productive
forces
which invest the material scene.
This is the Spinozian
political
project, the project of an absolute democracy.
Deleuze conceives of
Spinoza's politics, then, as the "art
d'organiser
les rencontres." [241] In his
study of Nietzsche we
discovered
a Leninist political tendency, the art of insurrection, and
now in
Spinoza we find its (equally Leninist?) complement, the art of
organization:
the pars destruens is followed by a pars construens. Is
anyone
still tempted to call this practical movement a dialectic? It
is in
fact dialectical in that it consists of relational moments
linked
together in development; but this progressive movement
constitutes
an enormous difference from the Hegelian dialectic. Since
there
is nothing conserved in the destruction which remains to form
the
basis of the subsequent construction, since the first movement
does
not supersede its enemy "in such a way as to preserve and
maintain
what is superseded" [Phenomenology 188], there can
consequently
be no final synthesis. The art of
insurrection is the
unreserved
attack against an "essence" which on the basis of a
transcendental
foundation imposes order and value on the material
horizon. This first moment clears the
terrain. The art of
organization,
then, constructs order and value on the basis of the
real
material essence, which is the power and right of the constituent
elements
of the scene. Some might say that
this is merely a dialectic
"which
has lost its 'magic'" [Butler 184]: indeed, Spinoza's political
thought
is founded on a critique of superstition.
The dialectical
"magic"
which we have lost is precisely religion's dictation of
transcendental
value and the State's imposition of a transcendent
order. On Deleuze's account, Spinoza destroys
the transcendental
power
of magic, embedded with all its medieval and baroque qualities,
and
proposes the immanent power of art.
Spinozian democracy, the
absolute
rule of the totality by all its constituent members, is
founded
on the art of organization.
At this point,
however, we are presented with the weakest section
of
Deleuze's analysis. On the basis
of a solid ontological
foundation,
Deleuze has argued that politics begins on a material
terrain
devoid of external order where chance meeting between bodies
result
predominantly in conflict and sadness.
The political project,
then,
is the immanent organization of meetings to promote common
relationships
and joy. Clearly, this project
remains cold and
unproductive
unless it is animated by a real political practice.
Deleuze,
however, does not arrive at the formulation of a practice
which
could constitute political order.
Instead, he offers a brief
analysis
of the social contract and the formation of the State which
seems
to position Spinoza between Hobbes and Rousseau and which, more
importantly,
negates the constitutive ontological thrust of the
project
through the transferance of powers and rights. [244-5] On the
basis
of Deleuze's own interpretation, we have to reject this step.
How can
we discover a practical passage, a practical constitution of
political
order which builds on the productive, ontological foundation
of our
argument? We have at hand an
adequate Deleuzian example in the
theory
of common notions. In the epistemological
domain, we have seen
how the
common notion is the mechanism by which practice constitutes
an
order of knowledge: the practical passage from the joyful passive
affection
to the active affection, just like the passage from
imagination
to reason, develops through the common notion. Now, the
theory
of ontological parallelism tells us that if we can identify
such a
practical passage in the realm of thought, we must be able to
recognize
a similar passage in the realm of extension. In other
words,
if Deleuze were to pursue his interpretation of parallelism
consistently,
he would have to discover a corporeal common notion
which
would serve to organize the chance, inadequate and predominantly
sad
meetings of bodies into coherent, adequate and joyful encounters,
just as
on the basis of inadequate ideas (imagination) the
intellectual
common notion constitutes adequate ideas (reason).
Pushed
to its conceptual limits, ontological parallelism means that
the
constitution of knowledge must be equalled by a constitution of
society. Precisely on this point, Antonio
Negri's reading of Spinoza
appears
to complete Deleuze's analysis adequately. The multitude, a
Spinozian
concept which is developed fully only in the Political
Treatise,
functions in the role of a corporeal common notion; it is
the
constitutive element which opens the path to a political practice
as the
foundation of a democratic society.
Careful consideration of
Negri's
interpretation of the multitude, I believe, would show that in
important
ways Negri extends and fleshes out Deleuze's political
intuitions.
Remark:
rereading Althusser: practice and production.
Now that we have
fully elaborated Deleuze's conception of
practice
in Spinozian philosophy we can return to Althusser and
reconsider
the strength of his phenomenological critique. The crux of
the
issue, from the perspective of our study, is the relationship
between
speculation (or theory) and practice.
We have seen that
Deleuze
reads Spinoza as an extended drama dealing with the form of
this
relationship: in the first sections of the Ethics Spinoza
investigates
being from a speculative perspective and discovers the
fundamental
ontological principles; later, from a practical
perspective,
Spinoza leads us toward a real constitution of being in
epistemological
and social terms. One of the most
important
contributions
of Deleuze's interpretation is to discover and clarify
these
two related moments in Spinoza's thought: speculation and
practice. On this specific point, we may be
tempted to say that the
positions
presented by Althusser and Deleuze are finally not
irreconcilable
because, in certain regards, Althusser presents a
similar
relationship between theory and practice.
First we find that
theory
draws from practice. "Poser
et r‚soudre notre problŠme
th‚orique
consiste donc finalement … ‚noncer th‚oriquement la
®solution¯,
existant … l'‚tat pratique, que la pratique marxiste a
donn‚e
...." [Pour Marx 165-6]
Inversely, practice is dependent on
theory. This is best expressed by one of
Althusser's favorite quotes
from
Lenin: "sans th‚orie pas de pratique r‚volutionnaire." [PM 167]
Reading
Deleuze's Spinoza, we have developed a certain relationship
between
theory and practice: in effect, ontological speculation has
prepared
the terrain for a constitutive practice.
Several years
later,
in an interview with Foucault, Deleuze gives a more developed
explanation
of this relationship, as a series of relays. "La pratique
est un
ensemble de relais d'un point th‚orique … un autre, et la
th‚orie,
un relais d'une pratique … une autre.
Aucune th‚orie ne peut
se
d‚velopper sans rencontrer une espŠce de mur, et il faut la
pratique
pour percer le mur." [Les intellectuels et le pouvoir 3]
Thus,
using this image of relays, we can give a Deleuzian reading to
Lenin's
insight. Sans th‚orie pas de
pratique r‚volutionnaire:
without
theory there is no terrain on which practice can arise, just
as
inversely, without practice there is no terrain for theory. Each
provides
the conditions for the existence of the other.
In order to pose this
common concept of the theory/practice
relationship
shared by Althusser and Deleuze, however, we have had to
obscure
some fundamental differences.
Consider, for example, how
Althusser
interprets Lenin's motto: "®sans th‚orie pas de pratique
r‚volutionnaire¯,
en le g‚n‚ralisant: la th‚orie est essentielle … la
pratique
...." [PM 167] Althusser's
extension of Lenin involves an
important
modification. The relation between
theory and practice can
be read
as a relationship of equality, but Althusser poses theory as
primary,
as the essence of practice. The
October Revolution gives
Althusser
a concrete example: "la pratique du parti bolch‚vik est
fond‚e
sur la dialectique du Capital, sur la ®th‚orie¯ marxiste." [PM
177] The primacy given to theory here allows
Althusser to subsume
practice
within theory itself. While, of
course, there are other
forms
of practice, Althusser's analysis always drifts to focus on "la
pratique
th‚orique" as the central political form. Even when, years
later,
Althusser is addressing this position as a problem, in the
spirit
of self-criticism, he does not substantially modify this
essential
relation between theory and practice.
Althusser wants to
correct
the "erreur th‚oriciste" [El‚ments d'autocritique 41] which
skewed
his analysis and specifically he sees the need to revise his
"®Th‚orie
de la pratique th‚orique¯ qui repr‚sentait le point
culminant
de cette tendence th‚oriciste." [EA 51] Althusser, however,
is, as
always, very subtle in his self-criticism. When he seems to be
modifying
a past position, his argument serves instead to reinforce
that
same position. Consider his
self-criticism of the theory of
theoretical
practice. "En surestimant th‚oriquement
la philosophie,
je l'ai
alors, comme n'ont pas manqu‚ de le relever ceux qui me
reprochaient
… juste titre de ne pas ®faire intervenir¯ la lutte des
classes,
politiquement sous-estim‚e." [EA 100] We have to read this
sentence
very carefully. Althusser has been
critiqued (… juste titre)
for not
having given sufficient importance to the class struggle as a
force
of political practice. Accepting
this critique, he reframes the
discussion
of theory and practice in terms of philosophy. His error,
then,
was to misjudge philosophy: in overestimating it theoretically,
he
underestimated it politically. On
this basis he gives a (new?)
definition
of the theory-practice relationship.
Philosophy is "la
politique
dans la th‚orie", or more specifically, "la philosophie est,
en
derniŠre instance, lutte de classes dans la th‚orie." [EA 100-1]
The
relationship to philosophy allows Althusser to subsume practice
within
theory once again as a secondary and dependent element.
We clearly find a
different relationship between theory and
practice
in Deleuze. Even though there is a
relationship between the
two
domains, they remain separate and autonomous. In one respect, we
can
relate this discussion back to Spinoza's attributes. Let us
propose
as a first approximation that theory characterizes our
activity
in the realm of thought and practice that in the realm of
extension. We have seen that Deleuze argues on the
basis of an
ontological
parallelism that all the attributes are autonomous and
equal
in principle. "The Body
cannot determine the Mind to thinking,
and the
Mind cannot determine the Body to motion, to rest or to
anything
else (if there is anything else)." [Ethics IIIP2] In our
present
discussion, the autonomy of the attributes means that theory
cannot
be the essence or foundation of practice: theory and practice,
a
spiritual automaton and a corporeal automaton, are two separate
causal
series. They are equal and
parallel expressions of being so
that
the essence of practice, like the essence of theory, is the power
of
being. Therefore, when we pose the
foundation or cause of a
practical
act, such as the 1917 Bolshevik insurrection, we cannot look
to a
theoretical act, such as Marx's use of the dialectic in Capital,
but we
must search for a practical cause or foundation, such as the
1905
insurrection, the Paris Commune or the French Revolution. Lenin
and
Trotsky, men who know practice, conceive of the genealogy in this
way. Therefore, just as in the
interpretation of the attributes
Deleuze
combats all privileges of thought, in this context we can
construct
a Deleuzian argument to resist all privileges of theory on
the
basis of a Spinozian ontology.
Althusser remains too Cartesian:
theory
is the foundation of practice, just as a Cartesian mind
determines
the body to act. "La pratique
th‚orique" serves Althusser
as a
sort of Cartesian pineal gland to subsume practice and pose the
primacy
of theory. The Spinozian approach
would pose a parallel
relation
between theory and practice. The
structure and order of
theory
is the same as the structure and order of practice. An
increase
in our theoretical power is accompanied by an increase in our
practical
power, and vice versa.
We have been
operating on a partially false hypothesis in this
discussion,
though, because we cannot relate theory and practice
directly
to the attributes. Speculation
investigates the principles
of
being equally in the domain of thought and that of extension.
Similarly,
the practical constitution of being involves both the mind
and the
body. There is a definite slippage
between the two couples
mind/body
and speculation/practice; the autonomy of the attributes
does
not imply an autonomy between speculation and practice.
However,
in both cases the argument for autonomy should be read above
all as
a reaction, as a polemic. Just as
Spinoza's claim of the
autonomy
of the attributes is an attack against the Cartesian primacy
of
thought, against the theoretical framework which effectively
subsumes
the body within the order of the mind, so too our Deleuzian
claim
of the autonomy of practice is a reaction to conceptions of a
primacy
of theory which effectively subsume practice within theory.
Furthermore,
I would argue that just as Spinoza's elaboration of the
autonomous
workings of the corporeal domain marks his real detachment
from
Cartesianism, so too Deleuze's elaboration of the autonomy of
practice
signals his detachment from Hegelianism.
The production of a
corporeal
practice resides on a terrain completely outside of Hegel's
dialectic;
it can never be recuperated in the movement of spirit.
Perhaps,
as Althusser claims, a materialist perspective can constitute
a
"renversement" of the idealist dialectic [PM 87 ff.]; but on a more
radical
plane, a practical conception of production can constitute a
real
detachment from the dialectic tout court.
Practice is the real
locus
of production. Therefore, we can
find a strong parallel between
the
"c‚sure" which Althusser finds in Marx's thought (the Theses on
Feuerbach)
and the "c‚sure" which Deleuze finds in Spinoza's thought
with
the practical function of the common notions. The effort to
discern
an autonomous practice is also the effort to identify what is
specific
to the moment when we stop interpreting the world and begin
to
change it, to constitute it ourselves.
Finally, however, the
claim of the autonomy of practice only
functions
as a polemical position. Once we
accept that there is no
priority
of theory over practice, we must recognize that practice is
related
to speculation in very profound ways and that we are left with
a very
weak conception of practice when we attempt to pose it
completely
outside of these connections. The
very idea that an
ontological
practice can found politics, which we have developed in
this
reading of Deleuze, relies implicitly on these connections.
However,
it is difficult to illuminate this domain on the basis of
Deleuze's
work. We have found in his interpretation
of Spinoza that
speculation
prepares the terrain for practice.
This could serve of a
summary
of the entire evolution in Deleuze's thought which we have
traced
from Bergson through Nietzsche to Spinoza: he begins on an
ontological
horizon which he transforms into an ethics, which in turn
is
developed into a politics. The
endpoint preserves its origin:
Deleuze
constructs an ontological politics.
To complement this
Deleuzian
evolution we will now turn to look at Negri's work. In
effect,
Negri's studies on Marx, Lenin and Spinoza present an
evolution
in the opposite direction: from politics through ethics to
ontology. Negri's evolution also preserves its
origin and thus
arrives
at a political ontology. With the
complement of Negri's
thought,
we will be able to develop this fundamental Deleuzian
conception
of practice.
.m:1
Notes
1 - Although this work has had a much
smaller general audience than
Deleuze's
other readings in the history of philosophy, the
interpretation
of Spinoza has revolutionized Spinoza studies. Along
with
the readings of the Althusserians (developed by P. Macherey and
E.
Balibar), Deleuze's work is the major influence to have emerged in
French
Spinoza studies in the last 30 years. The French tradition is
very
rich. Aside from Deleuze and the
Althusserians, some of the
major
20th-century figures which constitute this tradition are F.
Alqui‚,
S. Zac and M. Geuroult. We will
have ample opportunity to
draw on
their readings in the course of our study.
2 - In a letter to L‚on Brunschvicg,
Bergson wrote, "on pourrait
dire
que tout philosophe a deux philosophies: la sienne et celle de
Spinoza."
[Ecrits et paroles 587] A very
acute analysis of the common
themes
in the two philosophers is presented by Sylvain Zac in "Les
thŠmes
spinozistes dans la philosophie de Bergson". Also see Moss‚-
Bastide,
"Bergson et Spinoza", which draws heavily on Bergson's
courses
at the College de France. The most
significant theme which
Deleuze
chooses not to treat, both in Bergson and Spinoza, is that of
religion
and mysticism. Both Zac and
Moss‚-Bastide consider this a
fundamental
aspect of the Spinoza-Bergson relationship.
3 - I use "difference" and
"distinction" as if they were
interchangeable
here because they seem to fill the same role in
Deleuze's
thought. We might ask ourselves,
however, if an important
nuance
could be discerned between the two terms.
It may be, in fact,
that
the common usage of "difference" implies an other or an external
cause
and therefore "distinction" would be a better term for defining
the
singularity of being. We should
keep in mind, of course, the two
separate
contexts: Bergson's use of difference derives principally
from biology
and mechanicism, which consideration of distinctions in
Spinoza
must be linked first to Descartes and then to the Scholastics.
4 - Once we pose the common thesis of
the singularity of being in
Bergson
and Spinoza, we have to immediately acknowledge the important
difference:
"tandis que la philosophie de Spinoza est une philosophie
de la
n‚cessit‚, la philosophie de Bergson est une philosophie de la
contingence."
[Zac, "Les thŠmes spinozistes" 126] Any student of the
history
of philosophy would point out, along with Zac, that Spinoza is
a
"d‚terministe absolu" while Bergson constructs an ontology based on
the
"impr‚visible nouveaut‚."
I am very suspicious, however, of this
traditional
opposition. In Deleuze's work, as
in that of Spinoza, we
find
that the conventional distinctions between necessity and freedom,
between
determination and creativity are effectively subverted.
Perhaps
these theoretical oppositions can only be maintained through a
confusion
of domains: we could pose, as an hypothesis at this point,
that
there is a necessity in speculation and a freedom in practice
which
do not conflict, but on the contrary complement one another.
5 - Deleuze's insistence on the
thematic of expression constitutes a
polemic
against semiology on ontological grounds.
A system of signs
does
not recognize being as a productive dynamic; it does not help us
understand
being through its causal genealogy.
The "absent cause",
which
supports much of the French structuralist and semiological
discourse
in the 60s, denies a positive ontological foundation. In
contrast,
a theory of expression seeks to make the cause present, to
bring
us back to an ontological foundation in making clear the
genealogy
of being.
6 - On the relationship Duns
Scotus-Spinoza, Deleuze makes one of
his
rare forays into philosophical historiography. It is unlikely, he
notes,
that Spinoza would have read Duns Scotus directly; however,
through
Juan de Prado who is certain to have read Duns Scotus, Spinoza
could
have received a Scotist account of univocity and the formal
distinction. Deleuze then sets this axis of thought,
Duns Scotus-
Spinoza,
against its enemy axis Suarez-Descartes.
The lines of battle
are
univocity, immanence and expression (in Duns Scotus and Spinoza)
versus
equivocity, eminence and analogy (in Suarez and Descartes). As
always,
Deleuze's ideas about the history of philosophy are very
suggestive,
but, from the philological or historiographic point of
view,
not very fully developed. For an
explanation of the theory of
the
formal distinction in Duns Scotus, see Etienne Gilson, La
philosophie
au Moyen Age, pp. 599 ff.
7 - Hegel's reading of the attributes
is at the center of a long and
complex
controversy in Spinoza scholarship.
We will return to analyse
this
issue in detail below.
8 - Alqui‚ presents a definition of
Spinozism as the synthesis of
Cartesian
science and mathematics with Renaissance naturalism.
9 - Martial Gueroult presents a
thorough history of this controversy
in
Spinoza studies. See Spinoza,
volume I, pp. 50, 428-61. Gueroult
clearly
supports an objectivist interpretation.
10 - According to Gueroult, Hegel's
interpretation is "l'inspirateur
de
toute une lign‚e de commentateurs qui, depuis le d‚but du XIXe
siŠcle
jusqu'… nos jours, n'ont pas cess‚ de soutenir une
interpr‚tation
commune...." [I, 466]. See
also pp. 462-8.
11 - Vincent Descombes, Le mˆme et
l'autre.
12 - "Parallelism" is not Spinoza's
term, but rather it is introduced
by
Leibniz's interpretation. Many
have contested that it is not
appropriate
to apply this term to Spinoza's thought.
Sylvain Zac, for
example,
objects to the use of the term "parallelism" to describe the
relation
between the Spinozian attributes: "il ne s'agit pas d'une
correspondance,
d'un parall‚lisme de terme … terme ou de tout … tout
entre
le psychique et le physiologique." [L'id‚e de vie 96-7] Zac
argues
that the attributes are not parallel, but instead they are
substantially
identical, viewed from different perspectives. For this
reason,
it is important that Deleuze not claim an equality of
correspondence
in particulars, but an equality of principle. Given
this
nuance, it is not clear that Zac's objection would adequately
address
Deleuze's interpretation.
13 - Negri poses very forcefully the
problem of the attributes as a
problem
of organization. The ontological
order which they constitute
presents
a being which is pre-formed, an ideal construction. This is
the
reason, Negri argues, that the attributes must drop out of the
discussion
when Spinoza develops toward practical and political
concerns. Deleuze, however, seems to be either
unaware of or
unconcerned
with this problem.
14 - We will see below that, although
Deleuze eloquently proposes
this
ontological parallelism, he fails to apply it to its fullest at a
crucial
point in the investigation, when practice is constituting a
politics.
15 - Special difficulties are presented
for my thesis by the
reappearence
of the attributes in Part V of the Ethics. Negri
maintains
that this reappearence is due to the fact that Spinoza
drafted
different sections of Part V during different periods, that
Part V
contains residues of the pantheistic utopia of Spinoza's early
work. My Deleuzian proposal suggests a
different explanation. I
would
maintain that Spinoza's effort in Part V to rise from the
second
to the third type of knowledge, to rise to the idea of God
requires
a new speculative moment, a return to the earlier mode of
research. The return to Spinoza's Forschung
brings with it all of
its
scientific instruments, including the attributes.
16 - In Spinoza's Theory of Truth
(Columbia Univ Press, 1972),
Thomas
Mark gives a very thorough account of Anglo-American and
analytic
interpretations of Spinoza's epistemology. Mark explains
that
the traditional approach (Joachim, Stuart Hampshire, Alisdair
MacIntyre)
poses Spinoza against a correspondence theory of truth and
in
favor of a "coherence theory" where truth is defined as coherence
within
the orderly system that constitutes reality. Mark argues,
however,
that Spinoza is better situated in the much older
epistemological
tradition of truth as being.
"If we wish to see
Spinoza's
theory of truth in its historical setting, we must contrast
the
correspondence view not with coherence, but rather with theories
of
'truth of being' or 'truth of things': ontological truth." [85]
According
to Mark this theory of ontological truth situates Spinoza in
the
Platonic tradition in line with Plotinius, Anselm and St.
Augustine. Deleuze's reading is consistent with
Mark's to a certain
point,
but the crucial factor is that Mark does not recognize, as
Deleuze
does, the central relationship between truth and power. Once
the
question of truth becomes also a question of power, Spinoza's
epistemology
tends toward a practical epistemology.
Therefore,
Deleuze's
reading situates Spinoza's "ontological truth" not in the
Platonic
but the Nietzschean tradition.
17 - A given idea of a circle may be clear and dist