Three Modalities of the Immanent Infinitude: Life, Matter and Thought in Henry, Deleuze and Badiou - Cengiz Erdem

8/19/2019 Three Modalities of the Immanent Infinitude: Life, Matter and Thought in Henry, Deleuze and Badiou - Cengiz Erd…

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Senselogi© 2015

Three Modalities of the Immanent Innitude Life, Matter and Thought in Henry, Deleuze and

Badiou

Cengiz Erdem><

Abstract

In this essay I attempt to explicate the sense in which Michel Henry’sreductive rendering of Life as aectivity resonates with Alain Badiou’ssubtractive rendering of the subect as eternity in time! I claim that

these two modes of subectivity are the two modalities of the "ealmanifesting itself as #uality $Henry’s patheme% and #uantity $Badiou’smatheme%! As the two anti&thetical components of a complementarymode of being and thin'ing( Henry’s and Badiou’s shiftingconceptualisations of the subect constitute a new understanding of the human! In Henry the subect ta'es the form of the human beforeits re)ection in philosophy and obecti*cation by science! +his non&human being of the subect is compared and contrasted with Badiou’sinhuman being of the subect which distinguishes between the humananimal and the immortal subect of truth! Henry and Badiou proclaim

a move away from the human&animal&machine and towards thehuman in human more human than human! It is there that werecogni,e -illes .eleu,e as the embodiment of these two anti&theticalyet complementary modalities of the "eal as immanent in*nitude inand through which life( matter and thought touch one another! And itis here that /lavo 0i1e' enters the scene proclaiming the inexistenceof the human animal as the determinate vanishing mediator in thelast instance!

Introduction

It is often said that philosophy is an in*nite #uestioning of that whichis( in the way of explicating that which is not and yet to come! /o asto begin at the beginning proper( we shall say that philosophy is alsoa continuity in change towards the un'nown( a dialectical process of truth( a practice of situating eternity in time! In the light of thisde*nition of philosophy we can say that Michel Henry( -illes .eleu,eand Alain Badiou are the philosophers par excellence! In their worldsthe future comes before the present( immanence beforetranscendence( and a2rmation before negation! It is at this uncturewhere the positions of causes and eects are reversed that things getcomplicated! 3or how can the future come before the present(immanence before transcendence( and a2rmation before negation(especially if we 'eep in mind that at the beginning there is almost

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less than nothing4 5e shall begin answering this #uestion by way of investigating the role of paradox( the relationship between being andtruth( as well as the positions of a2rmation and negation in Henry’smaterial phenomenology( .eleu,e’s transcendental empiricism andBadiou’s materialist dialectic in relation to the philosophical concepts

of life( matter and thought! +he #uestion of 6what is it that thesethree *gures a2rm and what is it that they negate47 is therefore thepoint of departure of this essay!

Armative Negation and Transcendental Immanence

Let us begin with Henry who radicalises phenomenology to such anextent that it almost turns into a non&phenomenology( even anoumenology perhaps( if we can be forgiven for using such anambitious term! "ather than being a negative opposition tophenomenology( his material phenomenology is driven by aradicalisation of the concept of immanence within philosophicaldiscourse itself! +his paradoxically a2rmative negation of phenomenology is precisely the reason why his concepts of Life( /elf and -od signify an aectivity transcendent and immanent to beingand thought at once!

+he aect is( *rst of all( not a speci*c aect8 instead( it islife itself in its phenomenological substance( which isirreducible to the world! It is the auto&aection( the self&impression( the primordial suering of life driven bac' toitself( crushed up against itself( and overwhelmed by its

own weight! Life does not aect itself in the way that theworld aects it! It is not an aection at a distance(isolated( and separate( something one can escape( forexample( by moving away or by turning the regard away! +he aect is life aecting itself by this endogenous(internal( and constant aection( which one cannot escapein any way! $Henry( Material Phenomenology 9:;%

+he three *gures whose in)uences on Henry can neither beunderestimated nor overestimated are


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slave mentality( 3oucault attempts to practice a new way of readinghistory which he( borrowing the term from numberlessbeginnings( whose faint traces and hints of colour are readily seen by

a historical eye!7 $3oucault( Nietzsche, enealogy, !istory :?@% +his isprecisely what Henry does in "he enealogy o# Psychoanalysis whichundermines the basic presumptions of 3reudian psychoanalysis(artesian philosophy and


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identity! +he negation of Being *nds its foundation in thevery operation of negativity!


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henomenality is a paradoxical a2rmation precisely because cogito isthe unconscious itself! henomenality turns out to be deceptive andcasting doubt on it by way of an a2rmatively recreated version of 3reud’s concept of the unconscious becomes necessary! After pointingout the misunderstanding concerning .escartes’ notion of cogito(

Henry critici,es phenomenality on the grounds that cogito is thea2rmation of phenomenality( of appearance( of my appearing tomyself! 6I thin'7 means 6I appear to myself7 and this is a certainty( one seescogito in such a way that one cannot doubt it! +he #uestion Henryas's is why and how .escartes a2rmed the cogito! ogito is indeed 6Ithin'7 but in this new light shed on it thought itself becomessynonymous with feeling! Although the dream is an illusion myfeelings while I’m dreaming are real nevertheless! I doubt everythingin the dream but my agony exists because I feel it! I cannot doubt myfeelings( hence I thin' is an I feel!

It is obvious that /pino,a( for example( made no progressin the artesian problem of the relationship between bodyand soul! /pino,a limits himself to resolving in anotherway the same problem posed by .escartes rather thanposing the problem in another way! 5hile it is doubtlesstrue that Hume did not modify the statement of thisproblem either( he at least had the merit of showing that(posed in this manner( the problem is absolutely insoluble!$Henry( Philosophy and Phenomenology o# the 'ody 9@?%

.escartes wanted to be certain of everything( and his will to certainty

lead him to scepticism! +o overcome his scepticism he had to #uestioneverything around him! As soon as he started thin'ing he was actuallythin'ing against himself! 5hen he said( 6I thin'( therefore I am(7 hisinner voice was saying this= 6+o be sceptical re#uires thin'ing( andsince I am sceptical about everything I must be thin'ing( and for meto thin' re#uires being( therefore I must be!7.escartes came to realise that he cannot be suspicious about hisscepticism! 3or if he were to be so( he would again be suspicious! Butwhy did .escartes thin' that he was telling the truth when he said 6Ithin'( therefore I am74 I can be sceptical about everything but notabout the 6I thin'!7 +hin'ing is a precondition of being and since I am

thin'ing then I must be! But what if I were to say( 6I *sh( therefore Iam!7 3ishing is not a sign of being! ou might be thin'ing that you are*shing( but might in fact be sleeping and having a dream in which yousee yourself *shing! +hin'ing is dierent from *shing and dreaming8being and thin'ing are preconditions of one another!

.escartes continuously a2rms that we sense our thought(sense that we see( that we hear( that we warm ourselves!And this primal sensing( since it is what it is( is pure self&identical appearance( identical to the being de*ned bythat sensing! I sense that I thin'( therefore I am! JK(ideor, in )idere )ideor, designates this sensing inherentto seeing and ma'es it an actual seeing( a seeing thatsenses itself seeing! JK .escartes categorically declares(


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EIf I ta'e FseeingF or Fwal'ingF to apply to the actual senseor awareness of seeing or wal'ing( then the conclusion is#uite certain( since it relates to the mind( which alone hasthe sensation or thought that it is seeing or wal'ing!E* Henry( "he enealogy o# Psychoanalysis G98 .escartes(

+ritings , 9D%5hen consciousness closes in on itself and thought becomes its ownobect( the subect and the obect are imagined to be integrated! +hegap between the subect and the obect is *lled with language( whichactually splits the subect and the obect! 5hat .escartes ignores isthat language has a signi*cant role to play in his thin'ing process! Heis not aware that he needs language to even begin to thin'! As aresult of this exclusion of language from the thin'ing process( theartesian subect remains loc'ed in a stage almost prior to the mirrorstage( a fantasy world of oneness with the universe! .escartesthought that consciousness could conceive itself directly( without themediation of language! But this is impossible( says Lacan( for beforethe ac#uisition of language there can be no thought! .escartes wasimagining that he was conscious of his thought( but he was in no wayconscious of what his thought symbolically meant!5hat happens when .escartes is thin'ing of being is consciousnessconceiving of itself as a thin'ing being! +he artesian subect can say6I7 outside of language! It does not distinguish between the spea'ingsubect and the obect being spo'en about! Lacan’s theory thatlanguage splits the subect and this split is constitutive both of thesubect and the unconscious explains .escartes’ paradox! 3or Lacan(

thought is the eect of a split within being in its relation to the world(and truth is the eect of a split between thought and being! +hesubect emerges from these con)icts within and without at once! EAslong as the truth isnFt entirely revealed( that is to say in all probabilityuntil the end of time( its nature will be to propagate itself in the formof error!E $Lacan( "he Seminar o# -ac.ues /acan, ' GC:%

Already the destruction of the positions of Humeintroduced us into the heart of a general criti#ue of artesian dualism and its philosophical ospring! +heabsurdity of the s'epticism of Hume is here the truth of artesianism8 throughout the coherence of the doctrine

and the exactitude of its deductions( it shows theabsurdity of the point of departure! Hume proved theabsurdity of artesian dualism( an absurdity which wasstill hidden by the verbalism of the theories of parallelism(occasionalism( or pre&established harmony in the greatartesians! $Henry( Philosophy and Phenomenology o# the'ody 9@?%

I would certainly be deceived if I were to see -od as a malignant spirittrying to deceive me! In order to escape from such a deception.escartes reformulates the ogito so as to *nd an indestructiblefoundation for -od in "he Passions o# the Soul wherein he opens anew *eld for philosophical thin'ing but was not aware of what he haddone! He didn’t name this new *eld as 3reud did! In this new *eld


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ogito was establishing itself upon the principle that consciousness isone with itself and thought reveals itself to itself at all times! 3or.escartes( -od was a priori to the human subect because for -od toexist it has to situate itself in the subect’s mind as -od *rst!.escartes had no thoughts about the role of culture in the formation

of the concept of -od! And if there was a -od it couldn’t be tellinglies( for that wouldn’t *t in with the symbolic idea of -od as perfect!/o all the naNve truths .escartes was sceptical about at thebeginning( such as a transcendental world beyond consciousness(must have been true! 5ith this thought in mind .escartes declaredthat being and thin'ing are one and the same thing! +hat said(.escartes was indeed the *rst philosopher to call representation into#uestion according to Henry( since 6I thin'7 doesn’t mean 6Irepresent to myself7 but rather that the latent content and themanifest content coincide( giving birth to the unity of form andcontent in thought as experience!

Hegelianism claims to overcome the dualism betweenform and content( to reconcile the *nite and the in*nite(the Being&there and the oncept8 but the immanence of the universal in the determination remains a purelyspeculative a2rmation as long as it is not experienced!$Henry( "he &ssence o# Mani#estation ?99%

3reud introduces the unconscious precisely because it’s whererepresentation disappears! +he unconscious is born as soon as I stoprepresenting the force of life within me! In a sense the unconsciousa2rms itself as the life of the spirit( so Henry can indeed proclaim

that true reality is the unconscious itself as the manifestation of areality dierent from that of representation! Hence a passage fromrepresented to non&represented ta'es place although the unconsciousitself doesn’t pass into the realm of visibility! 3or Henry( the true nameof the unconscious is life as lived experience( the invisible life of feelings( I may feel anguish( agony and pain but can never see myaects!

+he unconscious is situated outside the *eld opened byappearance and circumscribed by its phenomenality! +heconcept of the unconscious( even if *rst understood in theontic sense( cannot ta'e form and be de*ned outside its

relation to ontological consciousness( thus it is itself ontological! $"he enealogy o# Psychoanalysis GO@%

3or Henry( being is that which is prior to the subect&obect distinction!He attempts at de&ontologising being while ontologising thesubective experience of cogito by way of reducing the subect toaects! He intends thought and being to be contiguous to oneanother( if not altogether mutually exclusive( but since for himthin'ing is itself feeling( to thin' is to be auto&aected( thought itself is almost a sixth sense in addition to our *ve maor senses!

As a radical refusal of ecstatic phenomenality and itsclaim to de*ne psycheFs essence( the unconscious assuresman of a hold on his most intimate being= theunconscious is the name o# li#e In this regard( 3reud is


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placed directly in the train of /chopenhauer and


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to match the drive! But it is precisely this matching process thatproduces the desire for the obect so that the unconscious drive turnsinto 6conscious7 desire!In his 9DG; essay 'eyond "he Pleasure Principle( 3reud revised hisdrive theory and introduced his concept of the death drive! In this

revised drive theory 3reud conceptualised the life drive as inclusive of both the libidinal impulses and the self&preservative impulses! As forthe death drive( 3reud conceptualised it as the self&destructiveimpulse! /o( at the beginning 3reud argued that libidinal impulsescontain sadistic elements as well! 5hile in his *rst drive theory in %nNarcissism $9D9@%( 3reud suggested that aggression should beincluded within the life drive( in his second drive theory in 'eyond"he Pleasure Principle( he says that aggression is the will to return tothe inorganic state and is therefore directed against the self andserves self&destruction! According to this picture( if adaptation isessential to survival then aggression is against life and is amanifestation of the death drive!In 3reud’s vision the death drive was targeting the living organism(aiming at turning the organic into the inorganic! Because of theintervention of the self&preservative force of the life drive( the deathdrive was turned towards the external world by a psychic operation(so that the self&destruction of the organism was prevented! It isimportant to note here that the death drive does not correspond toself&destruction! +he death drive postpones the self&destruction of theorganism by proecting aggression onto the external world and hencecan be said to serve self&preservation! +he self&destructive impulse

turns against itself and manifests itself as violence and aggressionagainst the others! +he subect 'ills the others not to 'ill the self! 6+hedeath drive turns into the destructive force when( with the help of special organs( it is directed outwards( on to obects! +he organismpreserves its own life( so to say( by destroying an extraneous one!7$3reud( i)ilization, Society, and eligion :?% It is this scenario thatma'es it possible to say that there is a disunctive synthesis at wor'here! A term coined by -illes .eleu,e( dis6uncti)e synthesis de*nesthe operation in and through which the two components of anapparatus( a psychic apparatus in this case( appear to be twodierently conceived constituents of the same thing!

Qverall( 3reud rec'ons that the neuronal system is divided into two(one type determines experiences while the other type is self&excitement( not exogenous but endogenous! +his is the principle thatdetermines enthropy( li#uidates excitement and drives the subecttowards inertia and death! +he whole psychic apparatus is built onescape from excitement( the brain li#uidates excitement whichproduces malaise! Henry reects the death drive and claims thatli#uidating libido is pleasurable! In the world death drive rules( butthen Pros arrives to give life its character which again brings us bac'to


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5hen the suering of life can no longer be supported andbecomes an unbearable suering( this experience givesbirth to lifeFs movement to ta'e )ight from itself( and asthis is not possible( to change itself! It thus has need anddrive! rofoundly( 3reud says that 6the ego remains

defenseless against the excitations of the impulses!7 Life’sdefenselessness against itself is even what ma'es theimpulse! In this way( the aect is in itself a force8 itcontinually gives rise to force within itself in virtue of whatit is! $Henry( Material Phenomenology 9:;%


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primary modalities of life! /plendour comes from self revelation( lifefeels itself!


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+he so&called human sciences( fascinated by the -alileanmodel( borrow its mathematical methodologies and strainto extend them systematically! In so doing they remainoutside the sphere of what is proper to man as living/elves! In eect( an abyss opens between life and

mathematical ideals( separating reality and irrealityforever! +his abyss was perceived by MarxFstranscendental ga,e when he as'ed about the possibilityof measuring the living $and thus real% wor' that madepossible the economic exchange of goods! +he randomand arbitrary construction of ideal economic obects thatare presumed to be the representatives $thus theobective e#uivalents% of invisible life( the invention of economics( was the response of humanity to a practicaland unavoidable #uestion! $ 4m the "ruth GCC&?%

Herein resides the core of Henry’s material phenomenology of auto&aective life which persists in and throughout his ouvre from "he&ssence o# Mani#estation to 4m the "ruth( including his rigorousreading of Marx in the middle! 3or Marx( being is external to thought(they are mutually exclusive as a conse#uence of the replacement of the use value with the exchange value as well as the alienation of humans from their own realities under the rule of capital! In his Marx9 4 Philosophy o# !uman eality, Henry subverts the dialecticalmaterialism of Marx and turns it into a materialist dialectic a la Badiouwho says in his /ogics o# +orlds that 6there are only bodies andlanguages( except that there are truths!7$@% Henry is on a par with

Badiou on this point( but for Henry the truth is a #ualitative matterrather than a #uantitative idea! 5hen Henry says am the "ruth whathe means is that my thought is my feeling and feelings are the onlyway in which truths manifest themselves!

Tant has shown that the possibility of 'nowing anyphenomenon whatsoever refers bac' to a priori forms of intuition $space( time% as well as to categories of understanding( forms without which there would be nophenomenon for us( and conse#uently no science! +ranscendental philosophy leads us from what appears tothe appearing of what appears! +his pure appearing

considered in itself is called by modern philosophyEconsciousness(E Etranscendental consciousness(EEconsciousness of something(E Eintentionality(E EBeing&in&the&world(E and so on! +hese diverse systems of conceptuali,ation assert the relation to an EQutsideE andthe truth of the world as the uni#ue essence of phenomenality! $GC&C%

3or Henry( transcendental categories are nothing other than re)ectiveabstract ideas! Although Hume’s return to sensations is a stepforward( it is still insu2cient in that it posits empiricism andrationalism as mutually exclusive! Against the rationalism of .escartes and Hume’s empiricism Henry ta'es it upon himself toconstruct an ontology of subectivity( a transcendental immanence( a


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material phenomenology based on the unity of the soul and the bodyas well as thought and feeling! 3rom this point of view thephenomenological transcendental ego is that which constitutes thecogito! In this new light deduction is a reduction( it reduces thetranscendent being to immanent subectivity in such a way that

causality becomes not homogeneous but heterogeneous! +his is anontological problem in that causality is not an a priori condition of experience! Henry’s idea derives from the fact that being is not&all( itis never fully constituted! +he origin of the idea of causality is a lac'because the problem is falsely posed in the *rst place! +he conditionof experience and the experience itself are separated( causality isitself the position of the subect( it is itself posited by the subect!Hence Henry can introduce the notion of auto&aection!

+his unconscious( which & for simplicity we will callrepresentational unconscious $7cs U s:, has nothing todo with the unconscious that secretly refers to lifeFsessence! +he bar placed on phenomenality concerns onlyrepresentational phenomenality( and its reection liberatesappearanceFs original dimension in which being revealsitself to itself outside and independent of e'&stasis( in theradical immanence of its self&aection as life! $ 4m the"ruth GO?%

+he main problem of humanity is the habit of posing false problemsand the addiction of trying to solve them! According to Henryreduction helps us create the conditions for the possibility of certitudeand avoid false problems! +his re#uires an 6internal transcendental

experience7 driven by 6intuitive udgments7 positing cogito not as are)ective udgment in the Tantian sense! $riti.ue o# -udgment 9:%Henry’s transcendental immanence solves the problems of Tantiantranscendentalism by way of situating lived experiences $Prlebnisse%outside the latonic heaven of ideas! Internal apperception overcomesthe transcendental categories! "eduction to the sphere of immanenceis what is meant by phenomenological reduction in Henry’s world of sensible being of things!Henry’s philosophy is probably one of the most magni*centsymptoms of our perilously nihilistic times although it is at the sametime an attempt at overcoming this very nihilism with a recourse to

-od as immanent in*nitude! In order to creatively resist againstcapitalist axiomatics an intervention at the level of aects as well aspercepts is re#uired! Henry’s attempt at escaping from the capitalistaxiomatics by way of withdrawing to the domain of aects andturning towards religion is insu2cient for achieving what he intends inspite of the immanence at wor' in his onto&theology! His strategy is areactive defence at best to say the least! +ruth is neither only outthere nor resides solely within! +ruth is the eect of a con)ict&eventbetween the subect and the world of obects! .iving into oneself fromtime to time may indeed be necessary for touching the truth of being(but one also has to come bac' up to the surface from the mysticaldepths and transmit the being of truth in such a way as to initiate atransformative intervention at the level of percepts as well as aects!


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Sltimately life is the wager( made on a body that hasentered into appearing( that one will faithfully entrust thisbody with a new temporality( 'eeping at a distance theconservative drive $the ill&named Vlife’ instinct% as well asthe mortifying drive $the death instinct%! Life is what gets

the better of the drives! $Badiou( /ogics o# +orlds ;D%In his essay entitled Philosophy and Psychoanalysis $9D&GC% as well asin the *nal part of 'eing and &)ent and the last boo' of /ogics o# +orlds, Badiou investigates the relationship between science(philosophy( politics and psychoanalysis in relation to the legacies of lato( .escartes and Lacan! In these three texts by Badiou what’s atsta'e is the correlation of being&thin'ingtruth&event in conunctionwith the logic of appearance( the criti#ue of phenomenology and theemergence of the subect! Although Badiou calls thin'ing the non&dialectical unity of theory and practice( and compares the act of thin'ing as it ta'es place in science( politics( philosophy andpsychoanalysis( here I will limit my rendering of his stance particularlyto the interaction between politics and psychoanalysis( withphilosophy as the mediator in&between!In psychoanalysis the goal is to thin' the singularity of the humansubect confronted by language and sexuality( hence there is atension between the universal and the particular at wor'!sychoanalytic thin'ing searches for a new possibility of the subectsuering from symptoms and the aim of the cure is to reducesuering to a minimum! sychoanalysis wor's towards the normalfunctioning of the subective structure! +he subect’s accomodating its

real is the aim( so that the symptom of the real is displaced and thesubect is re&accomodated in relation to its real! 3or psychoanalysisthe relation to the real is inscribed in the structure( but in politics thereal is subtracted from the state! 5hile political action displaces thereal itself and not only the symptom of the real( psychoanalysis wantsto thin' the dierence of the sexes as the real! /o Lacan can say that6there is no sexual relation!7 3or psychoanalysis the real is negative( asource of scepticism! +here is always a con)ict between the real lifeof individuals and the symbolic order of the state! In this sense if psychoanalysis listens to politics it is exposed to scepticism $negativeaxiom%( and if politics listens to psychoanalysis it is exposed to

dogmatism $a2rmative axiom%! olitics and psychoanalysis( however(can encounter each other in a productive manner in and throughphilosophy! Being neither an imaginary construction or empty symbol(truth can touch the real of the subect’s desire as well as transcendingthe regime of opinions! "ather than being a correspondence betweenthought and thing( for Heidegger truth is unveiling( for Althusserproduction( and for Badiou it is a process! As for Lacan( truth is notade#uation between language and thing but the 6depositing of speech in the big Qther!7 recisely because thought has no directaccess to the real( truth is the eect of a separation( not acorrespondence! onse#uently( truth is nothing but an encounter withthe real by way of which the void is mediated( generating a rupturebetween the thought of the subect and the obect of thought!


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At the end of this process truth appears as the disappearance of absolute 'nowledge8 truth emerges as absolute 'nowledge absolvesitself! 3or Heidegger( truth is the structure of the forgetting of being(whereas for Badiou truth emerges with the disappearance of theevent which gives birth to it( the event becomes the absent cause of

truth( ust as for Lacan what founds the truth is the big Qther as avoid in symbolic 'nowledge( a result of the separation betweenthought and real! 3or Badiou( as opposed to Henry( life is a blindprocess with no potential for creative thought capable of generatingtruth!

+hat which is thus forever burdened with self( only thiscan we truly call a /elf! Herein is accomplished themovement without movement in which it receives( as asubstantial and burdensome content( that which it is8 itmasters itself( arrives at itself( experiences its ownprofusion! +he /elf is the surpassing of the /elf asidentical to self! $Henry( "he &ssence o# Mani#estation@?:%

In Henry the self can be transformed and turned into a subect onlyfrom within( that is( he only wor's for a #ualitative change within theindividual! 5hat is missing in Henry is the #uantitative change of theembedded selves! Analogous to that( what is missing in Badiou is a#ualitative change within the selves constituting the society! +he#uestion is( why does one aspect of transformation has to be absentin these two modalities of potential subectivity4

+his new simple fundamental nature is that of the union of

soul and body! artesianism is no longer a dualism( thethree primitive simple natures are e#ual in their dignityand in their autonomy( e#ual also with regard to thebonds of the dependence which unite them to theabsolute substance( i!e! -od! $Ibid! 9:?%

According to Henry’s account we can say that the evil genius turnsagainst itself in such a way as to access the goodness inherent inhuman essence! +his immanence of goodness in human essencesigni*es an a2rmation of the good not as a transcendent entity butrather as a negation of the evil without human essence! In contrast toBadiou’s proclamation that one can only *ght against evil in this world

so as to create goodness( Henry claims exactly the opposite to be thecase! 3or Badiou the good is that which transcends life( it is beyondtemporal time of the mortal human animals( whereas for Henry theevil within humans is created by the external world in which one isembedded and is not essential!3or .escartes( perfection is lac' of lac'! +he freedom fromimperfection ta'es place when nothing is lac'ing( a lac' of limitationoccurs( the in*nite lac's nothing and since -od is that which lac'snothing it is perfect in itself! But since -od lac's nothing -od ceasesto exist in itself as soon as one tries to represent it! -od is a pre&linguistic entity which is but does not exist nevertheless! +hedierence between to be and to exist is the dierence between beingand nothingness!


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of an obect is to a2rm presence of being outside of scienti*c'nowledge! +o a2rm being outside of science is to negate scienti*c'nowledge as human reality!

Men given over to the insensible( become themselvesinsensible( whose eyes are empty as a *shFs! .a,ed men(

devoted to specters and spectacles that always exposetheir own invalidity and ban'ruptcy8 devoted to false'nowledge( reduced to empty shells( to empty heads>toEbrains!E Men whose emotions and loves are ustglandular secretions! Men who have been liberated byma'ing them thin' their sexuality is a natural process( thesite and place of their in*nite .esire! Men whoseresponsibility and dignity have no de*nite site anymore!Men who in the general degradation will envy the animals!Men will want to die>but not /i#e It is not ust any godtoday who is still able to save us( but>when the shadowof death is looming over the world>that Qne who isLiving! $ 4m the "ruth G?%

+he presumed dividedness of Henry and Badiou is a division betweendierent modalities of the same thing( this division is betweensomething and nothing( and therein resides the gap that splits as itunites the physical and the metaphysical in a fashion analogous tothe synapses connecting and disconnecting the neurons in the brain!65e could say that the epic heroism of the one who gives his life issupplanted by the mathematical heroism of the one who creates life(point by point!7 $Badiou( /ogics o# +orlds 9@%

6-od is dead7 means that man is dead too! Man( the lastman( the dead man( is what must be overcome for thesa'e of the overman! 5hat is the overman4 Ruite simplyman without -od! Man as he is thin'able outside of anyrelation to the divine! +he overman decidesundecidability( thus fracturing the humanist predicate!$Badiou( "he entury 9CO%

Henry’s philosophy of life involves the deliverance of the un'nown inthe way of situating the history of an error in a new context! +his newcontext renders Henry capable of articulating the process of becoming non&identical of the old 'nowledge( thereby creating the

conditions of possibility for the manifestation of a new subectivebody as the generic truth not situated in time! Henry’s aect asphenomena is distinctly non&temporal while Badiou’s ontology asmathematics aims at situating eternity in time! Although both of themdo render in*nitude immanent as the subect( the collective and#uantitative change for Badiou becomes the individual and #ualitativechange for Henry! Qne can see the romethean and the Hermeticorientations of thought manifested in these two respectively!

The Dierence et!een eing and E"istence

In his essay entitled &xistence and 3eath as well as in /ogics o# +orlds( Badiou ma'es it explicit why being and existence are not the


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same thing! According to Badiou existence is an ontic category( it isbeing&there as a substantial obect( or being&in&the&world asHeidegger would put it( whereas being is an ontological categorywhich does not re#uire an earthly subsistence( it resides in thedomain of the subect without a substance!

It is this 6artesian7 motif of the subect as in*nite&existence in and by freedom that supports the famous/artrean de*nition of consciousness( that is to say of existence= 6a being that is in its being the #uestion of itsbeing( insofar as this being implies a being other thanitself!7 A de*nition about which a humorist once remar'edthat it used the word 6being7 *ve times only to designatenothingness! +he immediate conse#uence of thisde*nition is indeed that consciousness is not what it is(and is what it is not! If existence is in*nite freedom( it isthe constant putting bac' into #uestion of its being( neveridentifying itself with the forms of being that it ta'es on(and holding itself beyond these forms which are nothingbut its singular outside( or its transitory obecti*cations!$Badiou( &xistence and 3eath C:&?:%

In Tier'egaard and Heidegger at the beginning there is anxiety whichis a subective experience of negativity( but philosophy cannotcontinue ad in*nitum at an individual level! Husserl’s WpochW involvesthe suspension of any relation to obectivity( he( too( begins with purebeing separated from existence! +he movement is from being toexistence( from that which is not here to that which is there! Both

Husserl and Henry e#uate being and experience! In both casesphenomenology turns out to be the idea that we cannot go from beingas experience to being as existence( or from subective non&being toobective being! 5hen Henry removes consciousness andintentionality from the scene he drifts towards nihilism( which is theconviction that the experience of negativity cannot be interrupted(that anxiety cannot be overcome( that suering is inevitable as acondition of philosophical novelty( that a2rmation is impossible( thatnothing other than experience exists! Badiou( however( a2rms thattruths exist! His is a positive a2rmation of existence( claiming thatthere is a distance between being and existence which has to be

traversed! +he immortal subect of truth goes beyond the livedexperience( negative distance between being and existence is turnedinto a positive gap( a thin'ing of negativity and not only anexperience of it is at sta'e! Although Henry’s -od is immanent it isstill a negative relation to in*nity within *nitude! A dialectical readingreveals that Henry goes from nothing to one and Badiou goes fromvoid to in*nity!Badiou’s being is not a solid( organically self&integrated andhomogenous domain of reality( but rather inconsistent multiplicity! +here is no ultimate being #ua being( being is a non&totalisablemultitude stric'en with tensions and antagonisms which initiate theevent and ma'e change possible! Being introduces a split in the orderof becoming( a rupture( a discontinuity( which is why Badiou has to


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explicate the structure of being in and through set theory according towhich the singular in&itself doesn’t exist! It is at this point that thenotion of universal singularity becomes an eect and a function of theadvent of a novel idea in the present!According to Tant we cannot 'now the real of being but we can thin'

it nevertheless! He identi*es the a priori in his Introduction to "heriti.ue o# Pure eason, and in the way of a non&metaphysicalontology introduces the notion of a priori synthesis! At the beginningTant thin's that 'nowing the distance between to be and to exist isimpossible( but then he goes on to construct the 'nowledge of thisdistance! +he distinction Badiou ma'es between being and existencebecomes clearer as it is situated in relation to Tant in /ogics o# +orlds!

I have posed that existence is nothing other than thedegree of self&identity of a multiple&being( such as it isestablished by a transcendental indexing! 5ith regard tothe multiple&being as thought in its being( it follows thatits existence is contingent( since it depends>as ameasurable intensity>on the world where the being(which is said to exist( appears! +his contingency of existence is crucial for Tant( because it intervenes as adetermination of the transcendental operation itself! +hisoperation is eectively de*ned as Vthe application of thepure concepts of the understanding to possibleexperience’! In my vocabulary>and obviously with noreference to any Vapplication’>this can be put as follows=

the logical constitution of pure appearing( the indexing of a pure multiple on a worldly transcendental! But( ust aswith the obect( Tant will immediately distinguish withinthis operation its properly transcendental or a priori facetfrom its receptive or empirical one! $G:?%

An obect is a being which appears in the world and is measured by itsdegree of existence! In Tant the obect is dierent from being( truebeing cannot be 'nown as an obect( pure being is always a subectiveexperience! Tant distinguishes between the ontic and the ontological(but for Badiou this dierence has degrees! ure materialism considersthe being and the obect to be the same thing! +here is no dierence

between being and its appearance in the world! +he obect is asubective creation for Tant( being as such is present in the obectitself! 3or Badiou being as such cannot be reduced to the obect in theworld but mathematics has access to pure being as pure multiplicityalthough this pure multiplicity cannot be reduced to an obect or athing that exists! /o Badiou can say that death is being in the worldwith ,ero degree of existence and life is a process of disappearance inthe world! Living.ying is a movement towards a minimal degree of existence! In an event we have the appearing of being in the world!According to Marx( for instance( proletariat is the true being of societyand a revolution is the becoming visible of the truth of society!Identity of the obect and the thing re#uires revolutionary action toinitiate a becoming e#ual of thing and obect( to cause a change of


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places in the hierarchy of being( obect and thing( an eectuation of being in existence resulting in an emergence of a new truth as aconse#uence of a *delity to an event which changes the coordinatesof a given situation!

In what it would instead call an ideological conception of

Life( democratic materialism sees nothing but fanaticismand the death instinct! It is true that( if there is nothingbut bodies and languages( to live for an Idea necessarilyimplies the arbitrary absoluti,ation of one language( whichbodies must comply with! Qnly the material recognition of the Vexcept that’ of truths allows us to declare( not thatbodies are submitted to the authority of a language( farfrom it( but that a new body is the organi,ation in thepresent of an unprecedented subective life! I maintainthat the real experience of such a life( the comprehensionof a theorem or the force of an encounter( thecontemplation of a drawing or the momentum of ameeting( is irresistibly universal! +his means that( for theform of incorporation that corresponds to it( the advent of the Idea is the very opposite of a submission! .ependingon the type of truth that we are dealing with( it is oy(happiness( pleasure or enthusiasm! $/ogics o# +orlds 99%

Badiou attributes four distinct aects corresponding to the faithfulsubects of the four conditions of philosophy= enthusiasm for thepolitical subect( pleasure for the subect of art( happiness for thesubect of love( and oy for the scienti*c subect! +hese aects

characteri,ing the individual generic procedures are thensupplemented with a universal process of four other aects whichsignal the incorporation of a human animal into the process of becoming the subect of truth= terror( anxiety( courage( and ustice!

+o oppose the value of courage and ustice to the VPvil’ of anxiety and terror is to succumb to mere opinion! All theaects are necessary in order for the incorporation of ahuman animal to unfold in a subective process( so thatthe grace of being Immortal may be accorded to thisanimal( in the discipline of a /ubect and the constructionof a truth! $Ibid! O?%

+he constitutive lin' which has come to be considered missingbetween the mental phenomena and the physical entities is actually anon&relation rather than an absence of relation( for it is neithertranscendental nor immanent to the subect( but is rather themanifestation of phenomenal aectivity supplemented withmathematical ontology intervening in the ordinary )ow of things andthereby initiating a rupture in time itself!

But the ontological brea'( whether mathemati,ing orvitalist( does not su2ce! 5e must also establish that themode of appearing of truths is singular and that it plotsout subective operations whose complexity is not evenbroached in the purely ontological treatment of 'eing and&)ent ! 5hat the 9DOO boo' did at the level of pure being


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>determining the ontological type of truths and theabstract form of the subect that activates them>thisboo' $/ogics o# +orlds% aims to do at the level of being&there( or of appearing( or of worlds! $Ibid! O%

An event is that which causes aection which creates the possibility

of a new truth! Being a rupture in becoming( the event can only berealised retroactively! +he process of a truth is necessary for therecognition of an event as an event! /ituation is a pure multiplicitywhich is turned into a cause by way of which a *delity to truth isactualised( thereby turning the pure multiplicity into a genericmultiplicity! Badiou passes from theory of sets *'eing and &)ent % totheory of categories $/ogics o# +orlds%! ositive a2rmation of a newintensity of existence( a #ualitative dierence signi*es the passagefrom ontology of being to existential intensity by way of a *delity toan event!As the degree of the subect’s intensity of existence increases( so

does its pain and anxiety in the face of death! +his causeshopelessness and despair which may or may not lead to a totaldevastation of the proect of inverting and putting into the spotlightthe void at the centre of the subect! Heidegger repeatedly puts allthis down in 'eing and "ime when he says that 6being&towards&deathis angst!7 Qne cure for expelling anxiety has been to believe in -od(any other metaphysical construct( or in some cases it has even ta'enthe form of a materialist system of thought8 in all these cases(however( an escape is seen as a solution when in fact it is theproblem itself! 3or our concerns( an escapist attitude striving to go

beyond that which is here and now does not wor' at all( since whatwe are loo'ing for is a way of learning to ma'e use of the reality of the death drive as an interior exteriority constitutive of the subect asa creatively generative agent of change at present( in the time of theliving and the dead at once( that is! +he Lacanian de*nition of thesubect referred to by Badiou towards the very end of 'eing and&)ent sums it all up= 6I am not( there where I am the plaything of mythought8 I thin' of what I am( there where I do not thin' I amthin'ing!7 $Lacan #uoted in Badiou( 'eing and &)ent @:9%At the current conuncture we don’t 'now if it is still worth mentioningthat neither Badiou nor Henry propose a full blown return to Marx and

Hegel( but rather a reversal of the dialectical process in such a waythat a2rmation comes before negation within the dialectical processitself! +heir thoughts signify not a total negation of the dialecticalcorrelation of thought and being but its partial a2rmation! Badiou’sthought is Henry’s thought without the aective and #ualitativedimension of being and Henry’s thought is Badiou’s thought withoutthe logical and #uantitative dimension of being as Xohn Mullar'ey putsit in his Post;ontinental Philosophy Henry’s and Badiou’s enterpriseas a whole aims at a new conceptualisation of the subective bodyand thereby a new subective mind within and without the capitalistaxiomatics at the same time! In both cases the law of the mar'et asthe law of *nitude based on the exploitation of mortality must beovercome for the sustenance of the conditions for the possibility of


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transforming the human&animal&machine into the immortal subectbeyond the life&death&drives! It is at this point that we recogniseBadiou and Henry as the two anti&thetical but complementarycomponents of a becoming revolutionary of the machinic&human&animal reduced to its function in the servicing of goods and

pathological drive towards that which is not( that which is lac'ing andfor which it strives in need of a future less worse than the present asit is! In accordance with such a dialectical reading we shall thereforesay once again that Henry goes from nothing to one and Badiou goesfrom void to in*nity!

#enr$%s Material &henomenolog$ and Deleuze%sTranscendental Em'iricism

+hat which does not surpass itself( that which does nothurl itself outside itself but remains in itself withoutleaving or going out of itself is( in its essence( immanence!Immanence is the original mode according to which isaccomplished the revelation of transcendence itself andhence the original essence of revelation! $Henry( "he&ssence o# Mani#estation GG?%

"he &ssence o# Mani#estation de*nes ontological monism as the ideathat nothing can be given to us in any other way than from within!Henry himself is an ontological dualist precisely because he thin'sthat there are two orders of meaning and being! He thus underta'es aphenomenological reduction situating the transcendent within

immanence and inversely! His eort is in the way of seeing thesubect neither as an obect of phenomenology nor as an obect of scienti*c en#uiry! His aims at bringing to light the human reality inand through a metaphysical investigation of the subective body( oran ontology of subectivity! His philosophy is a phenomenology and amethodology at the same time because there exists a transcendentalinternal experience for which an immanent ontology of subectivity isre#uired! $Henry( Philosophy and Phenomenology o# the 'ody 9&9;%An internal transcendental sense( an auto&aection( is the essence of manifestation! Henry discovers a new subective body( a body notsubectivised by obective reality( an absolute subectivity consisting

in a transcendental immanence( a radical empiricism! $Ibid!! @G&G%5hat is a transcendental *eld4 It can be distinguishedfrom experience in that it doesn’t refer to an obect orbelong to a subect $empirical representation%! It appearstherefore as stream of a&subective consciousness( a pre&re)exive impersonal consciousness( a #ualitative durationof consciousness without a self! It may seem curious thatthe transcendental be de*ned by such immediate givens=we will spea' of a transcendental empiricism in contrastto everything that ma'es up the world of the subect andthe obect! $.eleu,e, Pure mmanence G%


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/ubectivity is in no way an impersonal milieu( a simpleFtranscendentalF *eld which( at the end of classicalthought( dissolves into a pure mirage( into an emptycontinuity( a simple representation deprived of all content!F+ranscendentalF does not designate what subsists after

this )ight from reality( in this dissolution of alleectiveness( vi,! a pure nothingness( but a region of perfectly determined and absolutely concrete being!$Henry( Philosophy and Phenomenology o# the 'ody 9OC%

Both Henry and .eleu,e theori,e a pre&lingustic( pre&re)ective andpre&symbolic realm wherein aects( percepts and sensationsdominate the scene! In Henry this realm is not a transcendental *eldbut a sphere of radical immanence! In .eleu,e( however( it is atranscendental *eld operating as a plane of immanence! 65henimmanence is no longer immanent to something other than itself it ispossible to spea' of a plane of immanence! /uch a plane is( perhaps(a radical empiricism7 $.eleu,e and -uattari( +hat is Philosophy< @C% +he dierence between Henry’s transcendental immanence and.eleu,e’s plane of immanence is that for Henry immanence is actualand real rather than virtual and real as it is in .eleu,e! It is of coursepossible to designate both Henry’s and .eleu,e’s stances astranscendental empiricism( but here complications arise! Henryhimself is #uite clear on this point( his is de*nitely an empiricism of subectively lived experience $Prlebnis% before the rational mindobecti*es the sense data! Henry is a card carrying non&biologicalthin'er( while .eleu,e is well 'nown for his biologism! +hat said( one

must submit that .eleu,e is ambiguous when it comes to thedistinction between the empirical data provided by scienti*cnaturalism and the sensual data provided by lived experience alone!Here we have two distinct forms of empiricism! It is well 'nown that.eleu,e considers relations between obectssubects to be externalto the subectsobects themselves! As for Henry( it should havebecome clear to the reader by now that he has no symphaty even forintersubectivity let alone obectivity! +heir common denominator isobviously a persistent stance against obectivity!

Life is thus not a something( li'e the obect of biology( butthe principle of everything! It is a phenomenological life in

the radical sense where life de*nes the essence of purephenomenality and accordingly of being insofar as beingis coextensive with the phenomenon and founded on it!3or what could I 'now about a being that could notappear4 Because life is the original phenomenali,ation atthe core of being and thus what ma'es it be( one mustreverse the traditional hierarchy that subordinates life tobeing under the pretext that it would be necessary for lifeitself 6to be!7 As such( the living would delineate only aregion of being( a regional ontology! $Henry( MaterialPhenomenology :%

.eparting from Hegel( Marx had proposed a new dialectical logic inthe way of creating a new humanism for humanity! 5hat Henry too'


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upon himself was nothing less than developing Marx’s proect of materialising Hegel’s idealism! Henry’s endeavour of materialphenomenology is an attempt to negate the presuppositions of Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology! +hat said( the idea of aects in&themselves capable of meaning anything without the

intersubective dimension of their receptivity in socially receivableforms is a mystery! As for the manifestation of truth( it is e#uallymysterious what 'ind of truth can be produced without any relation tothe real conditions of existence of the really suering people in thistime!

+his inde*nite life does not itself have moments( close asthey may be one to another( but only between&times(between&moments8 it doesn’t ust come about or comeafter but oers the immensity of an empty time whereone sees the event yet to come and already happened( inthe absolute of an immediate consciousness! $.eleu,e("he /ogic o# Sense GD%

In this light we now see more clearly what .eleu,e is aiming at withhis disunctive synthesis of transcendence and immanence leading tohis transcendental empiricism! Pmpiricism starts from the materialworld rather than from the metaphysical world which it sees only as aproduct of the representations of experience through language! Infact( it 'nows no world other than the material world( and even if itdoes it prioriti,es the physical world over the metaphysical world!Pxperience of the world before subectivation is what .eleu,e is tryingto access! /ince reaching the pre&subective *eld of partial obects is

possible only through language( and he 'nows that( he says that wehave to produce that pre&subective *eld which uxtaposes thetranscendental *eld and the plane of immanence! +hat said( I will now leave behind the exhausted subect of mind&bodydualism and move towards the more recent theme of the relationshipbetween bodies and languages( with the hope of opening up a *eldacross which one passes and in the process of this passage becomesthe embodiment of a new possibility of signi*cation( another sign(neither within nor without the old mode of signi*cation! 3or this athird dualism is re#uired( and that third dualism( being that of language and Pvent( has already been wor'ed through by .eleu,e!

5ith .eleu,e the artesian mind&body dualism has been replaced bybody&language dualism! 5ithout being too insistent about it at thisstage I would li'e to hint at where the relationship between thesedualisms is heading! I propose( therefore( what .eleu,e has alreadypointed out( namely a new possibility of analysing the nature of dialectics in the context of the relationship between language and itsaective #uality( what he calls the sense;e)ent ! As he puts it in hisinema 29 "ime;mage( .eleu,e thin's that neither the grounds of mind&body dualism nor those of body&language dualism are su2cientto theori,e a progressive movement towards a new mode of signi*cation!

+he interval of movement was no longer that in relation towhich the movement&image was speci*ed as perception&


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image( at one end of the interval( as action&image at theother end( and as aection&image between the two( so asto constitute a sensory&motor whole! Qn the contrary thesensory&motor lin' was bro'en( and the interval of movement produced the appearance as such of an image

other than the movement&image! /ign and image thusreversed their relation( because the sign no longerpresupposed the movement&image as material that itrepresented in its speci*ed forms( but set aboutpresenting the other image whose material it was itself tospecify( and forms it was to constitute( from sign to sign!$.eleu,e( inema 2 ::%

6+he event considered as non&actuali,ed $inde*nite% is lac'ing innothing! It su2ces to put it in relation to its concomitants= atranscendental *eld( a plane of immanence( a life( singularities!7$.eleu,e( Pure mmanence :9% 5hat we encounter with .eleu,e istherefore a replacement not only of mind&body dualism with body&language dualism( but also a beyond of both( a trinity is at wor'8body&language&event! +his event is the sense&event and it is here thatwhat is meant by meaning becomes relevant! "eferring toTlossows'i’s boo' on


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being generates the space between past and present out of which thefuture emerges! +he event initiates the emergence of being out of non&being( what .eleu,e calls a static genesis( the driving force of becoming! +his emergence( however( has neither a beginning nor anend( and therefore being is itself the becoming impersonal of self&

consciousness8 6I am all the names in history(7 says


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be thought! It is the nonthought within thought! It is thebase of all planes( immanent to every thin'able plane thatdoes not succeed in thin'ing it! It is the most intimatewithin thought and yet the absolute outside&an outsidemore distant than any external world because it is an

inside deeper that any internal world= it is immanenceK$.eleu,e( 3i=erence and epetition 9?C&?% +he non&external outside and the non&internal inside is where thoughtencounters its being! +he being of thought and the thought of beingwithin and without the *eld of transcendence and the plane of immanence is the space&time within and without which the productionof thought gives birth to the generation of being and inversely! If being re#uires being conceived( and since( as /chopenhauer puts it(the eye cannot see itself unless there is a mirror in front of it( an ideaworthy of the name of truth can only be generated in an through anovercoming of the physical and the metaphysical presuppositionsali'e! +he passage from transcendental idealism to transcendentalempiricism ta'es place when and if the creative act is turned into ageneric act! Here comes the dierence between #ualitative and#uantitative modes of change and how they can be disunctivelysynthesi,ed!

erhaps this is the supreme act of philosophy= not somuch to thin' "!& plane of immanence as to show that itis there( unthought in every plane( and to thin' it in thisway as the outside and inside of thought( as the not&external outside and the not&internal inside &&that which

cannot be thought and yet must be thought( which wasthought once( as hrist was incarnated once( in order toshow( that one time( the possibility of the impossible!$.eleu,e and -uattari( +hat is Philosophy< D&C;%

+he being of the sensible cannot be represented because it isdierent from the sensible being itself! $.eleu,e( 3i=erence andepetition 9?C&O;% +he sense and the non&sense are split in such away as to situate the source of the given to the realm of ideas whichcan neither be 'nown nor experienced but can be thought! $Ibid! 9D9%-od begins to emerge as an idea not externally constituted butinternally generated! 5e have already turned towards an ontology of

eternity in time! 5e determine -od as a regulative idea *rst andforemost! +his internal determination already situates the in*niteobect within the *nite subect! +he real( the non&being is therebyplaced within the temporal dimension of being human! -od as anintuitive idea contains human as that which it has created! $Ibid! 9D@&%5e hope the reader can now see how the self generates here aregulative idea suitable for thin'ing the in*nite! +he self is therebyretroactively given to its passive receptivity as an active subectivityin the last instance!

It would be wrong to confuse the two faces of death( asthough the death instinct were reduced to a tendencytowards increasing entropy or a return to inanimate


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matter! Pvery death is double( and represents thecancellation of large dierences in extension as well asthe liberation and swarming of little dierences inintensity! 3reud suggested the following hypothesis= theorganism wants to die( but to die in its own way( so that

real death always presents itself as a foreshortening( aspossessing an accidental( violent and external characterwhich is anathema to the internal will&to&die! +here is anecessary non&correspondence between death as anempirical event and death as an FinstinctF ortranscendental instance! 3reud and /pino,a are both right=one with regard to the instinct( the other with regard tothe event! .esired from within( death always comes fromwithout in a passive and accidental form! /uicide is anattempt to ma'e the two incommensurable faces coincideor correspond! However( die two sides do not meet( andevery death remains double! $Ibid! GD%

.eleu,e invites exploration of a text in the way of explicating aprogressive potential within the text which had hitherto beenconsciously or unconsciously ignored or neglected( or even repressed! +his theme is lin'ed to .eleu,e’s life&long concern with


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meaningful without a context! But non&sense is not the absence of sense! It is( rather( sense with its own particular context which itcreates in the process of emergence from out of the old context!Being without the predominant context ma'es the thought seemabsurd( non&sense( but not meaningless( for meaningless means

absence of thought!onsciousness becomes a fact only when a subect isproduced at the same time as its obect( both beingoutside the *eld and appearing as 6transcendent!7onversely( as long as consciousness traverses thetranscendental *eld at an in*nite speed everywherediused( nothing is capable of revealing it! It is expressed(as matter of fact( only when it is re)ected on a subectthat refers it to obects! +his is why the transcendental*eld cannot be de*ned by the consciousness which iscoextensive with it( but withdraws from any revelationnevertheless! $.eleu,e( Pure mmanence GC%

In this light we now see more clearly what .eleu,e is aiming at withhis disunctive synthesis of transcendence and immanence leading tohis transcendental empiricism! Pmpiricism starts from the materialworld rather than from the metaphysical world which it sees only as aproduct of the representations of experience through language! Infact( it 'nows no world other than the material world( and even if itdoes( it prioriti,es the physical world over the metaphysical world!Pxperience of the world before subectivation is what .eleu,e is tryingto access! /ince reaching the pre&subective *eld of partial obects is

possible only through language( and he 'nows that( he says that wehave to produce that pre&subective *eld which uxtaposes thetranscendental *eld and the plane of immanence as 6one Being andonly for all forms and all times( a single instance for all that exists( asingle phantom for all the living( a single voice for every hum of voices and every drop of water in the sea!!!7 $.eleu,e( "he /ogic o# Sense 9O;%

(rom the Machinic #uman Animal to the Immortal )ub*ecte$ond the +ife,Death,Drives

5hat 3reud( in i)ilization and ts 3iscontents( calls the 6oceanicfeeling(7 is the security of existence in the womb( tied to the motherwith the umbilical cord( and swimming in the placental waters infoetal shape without the danger of drowning! In what follows I willattempt to compare and contrast .eleu,e’s( Badiou’s and Henry’sphilosophies in relation /lavo 0i1e'’s stance!0i1e' points out .eleu,e’s emphasis on the passage from metaphorand towards metamorphosis in terms of the dierence between6machines replacing humans7 and the 6becoming&machine of humans!7

+he problem is not how to reduce mind to neuronal6material7 processes $to replace the language of mind by the language of brain processes( to


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translate the *rst one into the second one% but(rather( to grasp how mind can emerge only bybeing embedded in the networ' of social relationsand material supplements! In other words( the trueproblem is not 6How( if at all( could machines

imitate the human mind47 but 6How does the veryidentity of human mind rely on external mechanicalsupplements4 How does it incorporate machines47$0i1e'( %rgans +ithout 'odies 9C%

Here we see the theme of machines replacing humans in the processof being replaced by the theme of humans connected to machines( ormachines as extensions of humans providing them with another realmbeyond and yet still within the material world8 the psychic and thematerial hori,ontally situated next to each other!In his Marx9 4 Philosophy o# !uman eality ( Henry distinguishesbetween Marxism and the thought of Marx( ust as he distinguishesbetween hristianity and the passion of hrist in am the "ruth andncarnation9 4 Philosophy o# the Flesh! In a similar fashion we can saythat Henry ma'es a distinction between humanism and human reality!5e can even go further and claim that Henry’s humanism is a non&humanism in the sense of Laruelle’s non&philosophy( or what he laterdesignates as non&standard philosophy! onse#uently( Henryproclaims a humanism without humanism( a move away from theanimal&machine and towards the human in human more human thanhuman( that is( a non&standard humanism of the human before itsre)ection in philosophy and before its obecti*cation by science! +his

new humanism resonates with that of Badiou’s anti&humanist orinhuman humanism which ma'es a distinction between the humananimal and the immortal subect of truth! +he human animal is what Badiou calls the contemporary condition of human beings! Animal machine is what Henry calls the same thing! InHenry we have a coupling of humans with machines( whereas inBadiou we have a coupling of humans and animals! In what follows Iwill try to *gure out the philosophical and political implications of these two distinct couplings!

+hought is the one and only uni#uely human capacity( andthought( strictly spea'ing( is simply that act through

which the human animal is sei,ed and traversed by thetraectory of a truth! +hus a politics worthy of beinginterrogated by philosophy under the idea of ustice is onewhose uni#ue general axiom is= people thin'( people arecapable of truth! $Badiou( Metapolitics D?&O%

+he ontological determination of the essence of the bodyas extension has an absolutely general meaning inartesianism= +hat the body must be understoodessentially as extension does not hold only for the inertbody of physical nature( this a2rmation also applies tothe living body and the human body! +he result is( in onecase( the famous theory of animal&machines and( when it


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comes to the human body( the conception of the latter asan assemblage in extension of extended parts bound toone another according to a mechanical relationship!Actually( there is no dierence between the human bodyand the body of the animal( any more than there is

between the latter and any physical body whatever!$Henry( Philosophy and Phenomenology o# the 'ody 9:C%In his /ess "han Nothing, 0i1e' points out that the artesian cogito isnot a dierent substance separate from the body as .escarteshimself has misunderstood his own insight! "eferring to Xac#ues.errida’s deconstruction of the hierarchical human&animal distinctionin "he 4nimal "hat "here#ore 4m, 0i1e' goes on to say that thecategory of 6the animal7 is an anthropocentric category( a result of producing otherness as negativity( an unfortunate habit of philosophysince Aristotle( gaining momentum with .escartes who introduced thenotion of animal&machine $animals don’t feel pain( they don’t suer assuch%( passing through Heidegger who says they are speechless andnarrow worlded if not altogether worldless because they lac'language( and moving onwards to Badiou who considers thecontemporary human being as a human animal servicing the goods of capital without an Idea! $0i1e'( /ess "han Nothing @;O&9G%

+he problem with BadiouFs dualism is thus that it ignores3reudFs basic lesson= there is no Ehuman animal8 a humanbeing is from its birth $and even before% torn away from itsanimal constraints( its instincts are Edenaturali,ed8 caughtup in the circularity of the $death% drive( functioning

Ebeyond the pleasure principle8 mar'ed by the stigma of what Pric /antner called EundeadnessE or the excess of life! +his is why there is no place for the Edeath driveE inBadiouFs theory( for that EdistortionE of human animalitywhich precedes the *delity to an Pvent! It is not only theEmiracleE of a traumatic encounter with an Pvent whichdetaches a human subect from its animality= its libido isalready in itself detached!


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the rise of human as a species being! Human animal is a newcategory produced from the perspective of humans! +here is noessence of the animal and the real universality is composed of theoutcasts! Spon applying the Hegelian dialectic and explicating whythe *rst antagonism is between universality and its particular forms(

0i1e' refers to Marx’s writings on money and animals in apital’s *rstedition! Marx’s early writings underline the species being of humansand that humans relate to themselves as a universal species! 5e arethe animals immediately caught in our environment and we miss thedimension of what we humans really are! Let’s consider the twomodes of human&condition in its being and becoming rendered byTier'egaard and Heidegger!

+he 'ey point here is that it is not enough to say that(while such a determination of animals as speechless( etc!(is wrong( the determination of humans as rational(spea'ing( etc!( is right( so that we ust have to provide amore ade#uate de*nition of animality && the entire *eld isfalse! +his falsity can be thought in terms of theTier'egaardian couple of becoming and being= thestandard opposition animalhuman is formulated from theperspective of the human as being( as alreadyconstituted8 it cannot thin' the human in its becoming! Itthin's animals from within the given human standpoint( itcannot thin' the human from the animal standpoint! Inother words( what this humananimal dierenceobfuscates is not only the way animals really are

independently of humans( but the very dierence whicheectively mar's the rupture of the human within theanimal universe! It is here that psychoanalysis enters= theEdeath driveE as 3reudFs name for the uncanny dimensionof the human&in&becoming! $0i1e' @9;%

+he death drive is situated in a domain that is not yet cultural andbutnot natural anymore( no longer animal nature andbut not yet humanculture! $::@% 0i1e' mobili,es the Hegelian dialectic of non&all(pointing out that retroactivity is not simply subective( since *ction isa necessary condition of reality! It is part of our identity as humansthat we are unable to see ourselves in becoming! 5e cannot see

ourselves in ourselves( not that we cannot see animals in themselves!5e see past as if it’s always already here( as if it is not a *ction! Tantproposes man as an animal who needs a master( since only humanshave an unruliness which has to be cultivated! +here is a brea' withnature but it has to be cultivated! It’s not that we need culture totame us( the brutality is embodied by the 3reudian drive in betweennature and culture!


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.rive is *xation on this impossibility( hence one gets caught in avicious circle with no possibility of escape! 0i1e' reects Badiou’snotion of human animal caught in utilitarian pleasures( which issubectivised only with the arrival of an event from beyond! +here isno human animal( says 0i1e'( in nature itself we strive for suering

and unhappiness! 5hat Badiou calls human animal is a secondaryideological formation! +he duality of human animal and the subect of event is not su2cient to explain the drama of human&condition8 therehas to be a third domain and this is the death drive( the compulsion torepeat by way of which we generate our own problems and get stuc'!Humanity is a product of a malfunctioning which we enoy! Beinghuman means you *nd a libidinal obect and you become obsessedwith it! Human freedom emerges out of the natural causal orderprecisely because ontological reality is not&all! "eality in itself is neverfully constituted( there are always gaps in it! It is even said that thereis a virtual dimension as a void in reality itself! Badiou says( forinstance( that the event is not a miracle( but is rather subtracted froma situation( not a creation ex&nihilo but a fragment of being itself! Inhis riti.ue o# Practical eason, Tant claims that if we had access tothings&in&themselves we would become puppets of the noumenalrealm( adding that our freedom and ethical activity are conse#uencesof our *nitude! If the event is a fragment of being( then why can’t wereduce it to being4 Because we are *nite! Being is incomplete( says0i1e'( being is never all but always non&all!

According to Heidegger( the Hegelian process of experience moves at two levels( that of lived experience

$Prlebnis% and that of conceptual machination$Machenschaft%= at the level of lived experience(consciousness sees its world collapse and a new *gure of the world appear( and experiences this passage as a pureleap with no logical bridge uniting the two positions! E3orus=F however( the dialectical analysis ma'es visible howthe new world emerged as the Edeterminate negationE of the old one( as the necessary outcome of its crisis!Authentic lived experience( the opening to the


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from its truth8 it is also the painful awareness that thistruth itself is non&All( inconsistent! $0i1e' OCO&D%

Conse-uences

+hought can mean something only insofar as it is situated within analready given ontic realm( but for thought to mean something worthyof the name of truth it also has to leave the old paradigm behind(change the co&oordinates( and perchance initiate a new course of continuity in change separate from but in contiguity with the myth of the given and the myth of the non&given at the same time! +heemergence of a more than human subectivity arising from humanbeing itself is indeed re#uired to sublate the very mode of being andthin'ing in which the subect is embedded and embodies( since theideas are themselves obects we are embedded in and embody atonce! +rue progress is a matter of realising that theory and practice arealways already reconciled and yet the only way to actualise thisreconciliation passes through carrying it out and across by introducinga split between the subect of statement $the enunciated content% andthe subect of enunciation $the formal structure in accordance withthis content%! In Hegel’s wor' this split is introduced in such a way asto unite the mind( the brain and the world rather than 'eeping themapart! It is a separation which sustains the contiguity of these threeconstitutive elements of consciousness( not only as thought andconcept but also as percept and aect!

+he paradoxical nature which some humans a2rm as the humannature is in fact a product of the culture of death instituted by aninherent contradiction of the hristian religious discourse driven bythe fact that hrist was a living human being cruci*ed by humanbeings who saw him as a threat to their order of the day! +he bodywas seen as an obect of mutilation unless it conformed to the word of -od they created in their minds in those times( or the logos of the dayaccording to the above mentioned cruci*ers!5hen Marx said that commodity fetishism remains even if we exposeit in theory( when


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universal singularities beyond the servicing of goods and thesatisfaction of common&sense of those who 6would much rather willnothingness than not will!7 $


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9 .eleu,e( "he /ogic o# Sense( pp! GDO&D! Here .eleu,e incorporates a #uotefrom ierre Tlossows'i’s Nietzsche $aris= ahiers de "oyaumont( Wditions deMinuit( 9DC?%( p! G::! I’m indebted to .enise "iley for bringing this up in "he+ords o# Sel)es $/tanford= /tanford Sniversity ress( G;;;%( p! 9O@

ibliogra'h$

Badiou( A! /ogics o# +orlds( trans! Alberto +oscano $London= ontinuum( G;;D%

Badiou( A! 6hilosophy and sychoanalysis(7 trans! "aphael omprone andMarcus oelen in Smbr$a%= %ne(


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3reud( /! i)ilization and ts 3iscontents( trans! Xames /trachey $London=enguin( 9DO%

3reud( /! i)ilization, Society, and eligion( trans! Angela "ichards $London=elican( 9DO%

Hegel( -!5!3! Philosophy o# ight ( trans! +!M! Tnox $Qxford= QS( 9D?O%

Heidegger( M! "he %rigin o# the +or o# 4rt $9D:%( Basic 5ritings( ed! +rans!.avid 3arrell Trell $

Three Modalities of the Immanent Infinitude: Life, Matter and Thought in Henry, Deleuze and Badiou - Cengiz Erdem

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