Foucault And Deleuze.pdf

A N G E L A K I

journa l of th e th e oretical humani tie s

v olum e 5 numbe r 2 augus t 200 0

systematic distinction, in the broadest

available terms, of Foucault from Deleuze with

regard to their conceptions of individuation and

experience. Deleuze, I will argue, pursues a fully

singular conception of the individual, Foucault a

fully specific one. This distinction says more

about their fundamental projects than the many

and generally familiar thematic resemblances

that linked their work and justified their mutual

admiration.

For these two approaches to individuation,

singular and specific, are poles apart. 1 The

singular is aspecific . 2 If a specific individual

is one which exists as part of a relationship to a

context, to other individuals and to itself, a

singular individual is one which like a Creator-

god transcends all such relations. A singularity

creates the medium of its own existence or

“expression,” in Spinoza’s sense. Examples of

singular logics include the sovereign of

absolutist political theory, the proletariat of

Marxist–Leninism, and the market affirmed by

contemporary global capital; each constitutes

itself through itself, to the exclusion of

others (other sovereigns, other classes, other

markets …). 3 The singular recognises no limits.

The specific, on the other hand, exists only

in the medium of relations with others, and

turns ultimately on the confrontation of limits –

the limits, for instance, of experience, of

language, of knowledge, of expression, of intro-

spection …

The essential difference between Deleuze and

Foucault, then, can be stated very simply:

Deleuze seeks to write a philosophy without

limits (through immediate intuition of the unlim-

ited, or purely creative), whereas Foucault writes

a philosophy of the limit as such (at the limits

of classification, at the edge of the void that

lies beyond every order of recognition or normal-

isation). 4

peter hallward

THE LIMITS OF

INDIVIDUATION,

OR HOW TO

DISTINGUISH

DELEUZE AND

FOUCAULT

I deleuze and the singularity of

creation

Towards the end of his life, Deleuze presented

his project as part of a general shift in contem-

porary thought, whereby “the function of the

singular is replacing that of the universal” as the

fundamental horizon of philosophy. 5 While

universality presents an empty, static field in

which distinct particularities are distributed and

measured, in which relative differences are

consolidated and regulated, singularities create

their own medium of extension or existence;

rather than move through a “universal” field

presumed to pre-exist it, a singular movement

takes place as the unfolding of its own time and

space. However varied these unfoldings might be

in Deleuze’s work, their fundamental logic is

invariable: “every creation is singular, and the

concept as properly philosophical creation is

DOI: 10.1080/0969725002001222 3

9 3

M y aim here is to provide the basis for a

the limits of individuation

always a singularity” (QP 12/7tm). Every creative

“explication is always an auto-explication” (SP

103/68tm); every genuine definition always

implies a “veritable generation of the object

defined.” 6 And if Deleuze’s own fundamental

concept is a concept of difference , this should not

be understood as a difference in tension with

singularity. Deleuzian difference is itself singular

in the strictest possible sense, it is properly a

difference without others . 7 Deleuze seeks to write

a difference that is indifferent to distinctly

differed terms, i.e. difference without mediation

or relation between the differed. This effort

constitutes the major interest and difficulty of his

work; it is also, I will suggest, the source of its

ultimate incoherence.

Deleuze’s singular and immediate difference

begins where Aristotelian or Hegelian “specific

difference” ends. 8 If specific difference relates

subject to object through a situation which co-

implies both, singular immediate difference

equates subject and object in a single material

creation, one movement-time creative of the

world itself, the basis for a “new earth” (MP

636/510). For Deleuze as for Parmenides, “think-

ing and being are one and the same” (QP 41/38).

If then “there is only one kind of production, the

production of the real” (AO 40/32), it follows

that there can be only one mechanism of under-

standing or perception, one creative faculty of

expression-interpretation, and this faculty applies

indifferently to the material, semantic, or spiri-

tual composition of things.

the radical immanence of all forms of reality

within a single “plane of consistency,” “a plane

upon which everything is laid out, and which is

like the intersection of all forms, [ … ] a single

abstract Animal for all the assemblages that effec-

tuate it” (MP 311–312/254–255). Affirmation of

this ultimate plane of immanence or consistency

ensures the eradication of all equivocal notions of

distinct Beings, i.e., all forms of transcendence,

all distinction in types or levels of being (literal

as opposed to figural, real as opposed to imagi-

nary or symbolic … ). Very simply, everything is

real , and everything means in the same way, the

same literal and immediate way. As a general

rule, all forms of discourse which relate a literal

to a figured meaning are to be replaced by an

articulation of the literal pure and simple. Ellipse

rather than metaphor is the decisive figure of this

articulation or consistency – the immediate,

instantaneous leap from one fragment or name of

reality to another.

The plane of consistency is the abolition of all

metaphor; all that consists is real [ … T]he

most disparate things and signs move upon it;

a semiotic fragment rubs shoulders with a

chemical interaction, an electron crashes into a

language, a black hole captures a genetic

message, a crystallisation produces a passion,

the wasp and the orchid cross a letter [ … ].

It’s just that they have been uprooted from

their strata, destratified, decoded, deterritori-

alised, and that is what makes their proximity

and interpenetration in the plane of consis-

tency possible [ … ]. The plane of consistency

knows nothing of differences in level, orders of

magnitude, or distances. (MP 89/69)

(a) ontological univocity

Singular differentiation or individuation thus

presumes, as its first effectively transcendental

condition, the absolute univocity of being.

Deleuze is categorical on this point. “There has

only ever been one ontological proposition: Being

is univocal. There has only ever been one ontol-

ogy, that of Duns Scotus, which gave being a

single voice [ … ]. From Parmenides to

Heidegger it is the same voice which is taken up,

in an echo which itself forms the whole deploy-

ment of the univocal.” 9 There is but one matter-

energy, and “whether organic or inorganic,

matter is all one” (LB 11/7). Univocity implies

This univocity, of course, in no sense implies

ontological uniformity . On the contrary: univoc-

ity is affirmed as the basis and medium for an

effectively unlimited differentiation. Since it is

univocal, Deleuzian difference must be “imma-

nent” or “internal” difference, self-differing (and

thus “without others” [LS 350/301]). Deleuzian

reality is nothing other than a process of self-

differentiation: “everything divides, but into

itself” (AO 91/76). And it is an unlimited process

of (self-)differentiation, because there is nothing

outside reality – no second or further reality, no

horizon to reality, no dualism of subject and

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object … – that might limit its play. Unlimited,

the singular is, indifferently, infinitely large or

infinitely small – “the smallest becomes the equal

of the largest once it is not separated from what

it can do” (DR 55/37tm). Every singular “auto-

affection [is the] conversion of far and near” (C2

111/83). Likewise, each singular

event is the smallest time, smaller than the

minimum of continuous thinkable time [ … ],

but it is also the longest time, longer than the

maximum of continuous thinkable time […].

Each event is adequate to the Aion in its

entirety [ … ], all form one and the same single

event, event of the Aion in which they have an

eternal truth. (LS 80–81/63–64)

Singular difference is thus immediately intra-

rather than inter-individual. “Immediate” must,

again, be taken literally: as immediate , singular

differentiation is nothing other than pure time in

itself, time compressed to an all-inclusive instant

moving at absolute speed . The singular equates

the whole with the point or instant. “The whole

ought to belong to a single moment” (NP 81/72).

Again, “the One expresses in a single meaning all

of the multiple. Being expresses in a single mean-

ing all that differs [ l’Etre se dit en un seul et

même sens de tout ce qui diffère ].” 10 The singu-

lar always moves with the force of a power

creative of the very medium of its movement, a

power beyond all possible mediation.

The essential logic of such singular differenti-

ation is best evoked, I think, by a fairly crude

analogy with familiar notions of divine Creation

or “expression.” 11 Such notions generally

presume at least three things: (a) the effectively

unlimited power of the Creator (there is only one

Creator, who creates not only every possible crea-

ture, but the very medium of creation itself); (b)

the consequent univocity of creation (all crea-

tures, whatever their differences, are creatures in

the same way); (c) the absence of constituent

relational differences between creatures (for what

distinguishes one creature from another is deter-

mined by their direct, immediate relations to the

Creator). If specific or mediate difference differs

one creature from another, then singular-imme-

diate difference is simply creative of the differed.

It is the status of this last and all-important

point that is, in my view, the most controversial

aspect of Deleuze’s philosophy. There is no more

important question to be asked of Deleuze than

this: should he be read as a philosopher of rela-

tional difference? Though there isn’t space here

to justify my commitment to a negative answer to

this question, it is at least possible to spell out

some of the implications of such a reading.

The most important of these determines the

general orientation of Deleuze’s many and varied

accounts of individuation: rather than relational

and “mediate,” Deleuzian individuation proceeds

as singular and immediate. The essential, endlessly

ramified point is that, according to Deleuze, active

differentiation does not take place within the field

of actuality or experience but at the level of its

production – not in creation, but from its creator.

In every case, Deleuze reserves differing power to

an effectively absolute determining instance, a

pure creating in some sense outside or beyond its

derivative (differed) effects, or creatures.

(b) immediate non-relational difference

It is this determining instance that Deleuze calls

virtual . The virtual, as the word implies, is what

conditions or lies behind actual being or experi-

ence. A virtuality is an absolute, self-defining

intensity (variously, an Idea, Event, Problem, or

Concept): actualities are composed as so many

materially existent incarnations or consequences

of the virtual. Only the conditioning instance

actively differs; differed beings are nothing more

than the literal actualisations of their virtual

creator. In every case, active “becoming [ le

devenir ], change, and mutation affect [virtual]

composing forces, not composed forms” (FC

91/87tm). Every creative composing or determin-

ing force is virtual (or self-differing), while actual

forms (or creatures) are merely composed .

All actual existent individuals, then, are

simply so many immediate actualisations of one

and the same creative force, variously termed

desire or desiring-production, 12 life, élan vital ,

matter-energy, the virtual, or power – the force

that drives the chaotic distribution of things

across the plane of immanence. (“Everything I’ve

written,” Deleuze declared in 1988, “is vitalistic,

at least I hope it is.”) 13 What differs these actu-

alisations, first and foremost, is not a complex

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the limits of individuation

dialectic of inter-actual relations so much as the

stark simplicity of a creative hierarchy . Yes,

“equal, univocal being is immediately present in

everything, without mediation or intermediary,”

but “ things reside unequally in this equal

being ” (DR 55/37). Deleuze’s Spinoza agrees

with Leibniz, that “everything can be said to be

the same at all times and places except in degrees

of perfection.” 14 Actualities differ in terms of

their absolute proximity to pure creation, i.e., in

terms of the amount of creative energy they

express or expend.

This is why creative differences are essentially

quantitative , and why the infinitely diverse

components of univocal reality can in principle

be accounted for in terms of differing degrees

along a single ontological scale. “Quality is noth-

ing other than contracted quantity” (B 73/74);

“quality is nothing but difference in quantity”

(NP 50/44). For Deleuze as for Nietzsche, a strict

quantitative “hierarchy is the originary fact, the

identity of difference and origin” 15 – in the

compressed formula of Deleuze’s Cinema 2 ,

“irreducible difference allows resemblances to be

graded” (C2 234/180). To stick to the most

significant example, “individuation is, in

Spinoza, neither qualitative nor extrinsic, but

quantitative and intrinsic, intensive,” “ purely

quantitative ,” according to “the degree of [a

thing’s] power”; 16 any actual mode, human or

otherwise, “is, in its essence, always a certain

degree, a certain quantity, of a [divine] quality”

(SE 166/183; cf. MP 314/257).

What is thereby eliminated is not difference,

certainly, but specific or relational difference;

“what vanishes is merely all value that can be

assigned to the terms of a relation [ un rapport ],

for the gain of its inner reason, which precisely

constitutes difference.” 17 The only creative rela-

tionship between individuals must be measured

in terms of the virtual which effectively underlies

them all – a relation of purely quantitative differ-

ence along a single hierarchical scale of absolute

proximity to the full creative potential of force,

life, or the virtual. 18 Always, the power of “actu-

alisation belongs to the virtual. The actualisation

of the virtual is singularity, while the actual itself

is [merely] constituted individuality.” 19 The

multiple modes or singular actualisations of the

one Real are no more related to each other than

are Leibniz’s windowless monads. 20 The creative

“movement goes, not from one actual term to

another, nor from the general to the particular

[through the specific], but from the virtual to its

actualisation – through the intermediary of a

determining individuation” (DR 324/251tm).

The only legitimate relation between actual x and

actual y is the immediate reference back to the

virtual z , which they both individuate to differ-

ent degrees. To move from x to y is to jump from

one degree or one fragment of the plane of imma-

nence to another, via an immediate, instanta-

neous ellipse beyond distance (i.e., via a shift in

intensity rather than a change in extension).

“The virtuals [ les virtuels ] communicate imme-

diately above the actual that separates them.” 21

Consequently, “the relative positions of the

[actual terms in a given series] in relation to one

another” depend only on their absolute position

in relation to “the virtual paradoxical element”

that distributes the series in the first place (LS

99/81).

Our only problem – but there is no greater prob-

lem – is that we generally live in ignorance or

denial of these virtual forces. The singular nature

of creative virtuality is itself generally obscured

by its very actualisation in particular situations.

Creative (i.e., purely intense or fully implicated )

“difference is explicated in systems in which it

tends to be cancelled” (DR 293/228), and “life as

movement alienates itself in the material form

that it creates.” 22 We begin our lives, as crea-

tures, in precisely such alienation. For Deleuze as

for the Spinoza he emulates, we always begin in

“impotence and slavery,” in “ignorance” (SE

241/263, 268/289–90). We are naturally trapped

in delusions of ontological equivocity or dualism

– the belief that we are subjects as distinct from

objects, and thus subjects who represent, figure

or otherwise interpret objects; belief in psycho-

logical sufficiency, in organic specificity, territo-

rial integrity, and so on. We must then somehow

discover what we are , i.e., contingent fragments

of a vital or creative energy pulsing through and

beyond the whole of actuality. Though we begin

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as “territorialised” we must find ways to “deter-

ritorialise,” knowing that singular “deterritoriali-

sation is absolute when it brings about the

creation of a new earth” (MP 636/510). Again:

“all our false problems derive from the fact that

we do not know how to go beyond experience

toward the conditions of experience, toward the

articulations of the real [ du réel ]” (B 17/26).

Access to these creative articulations is some-

thing we must learn . Philosophy, aided by

science and art, is part of this learning process

(its conceptual part). Deleuze’s small army of

kindred spirits – Guattari, Spinoza, Leibniz,

Masoch, Nietzsche, Artaud, Beckett, the nomad,

the schizo, the dice-thrower, etc. … – is made up

of those who, differently, inspire one and the

same movement, the movement from a deluded

creatural isolation toward an eventual redemptive

fusion with creation as such.

More crudely: creatures relate only to their

creator, and as creatures, our only access to

creative power is governed by processes

(machines, agencements ) of “extraction” or

“counter-actualisation” that allow us in some

sense to move from our derivative, static actual-

ity, back to the dynamic, effectively disembodied

vitality that expresses us, that makes us literally

what we are. 23 Whatever the actual animal, “it is

still the same abstract Animal that is realised [ qui

se réalise ] throughout the stratum, only to vary-

ing degrees, in varying modes” (MP 62/46).

Now since everything that is is real, real in the

same way, then to grasp the real (that we are, that

everything is) we need only eliminate everything

that persuades us that there are different levels or

spheres of being, i.e., everything that keeps us at

a certain distance from our real immediate being.

If “equal, univocal being is immediately present

in everything, without mediation or intermedi-

ary” (DR 55/37), then our task is to eliminate

everything that mediates or re-presents this

being. To articulate the real in Deleuze’s sense

invariably and exclusively involves the destruc-

tion of the mediate in all its forms (psychologi-

cal, imaginary, figural, political, and so on). This

involves, first and foremost, elimination of noth-

ing less than the very notion of traditional self-

consciousness, of the self as the mediator of

objects, of other selves, and of itself. Hence the

long campaign to free us from the “shackles of

mediation,” from the “long error” of representa-

tion, and with it, from subjective interiority,

equivocity, signification, territoriality, desire-as-

lack, transcendence, etc. By definition, all medi-

ations serve only to obscure reality. Any properly

insightful philosophy, by contrast, will be consis-

tent with a kind of radical empiricism, so long as

we remember that “empiricism is a kind of ‘phys-

icalism.’ As a matter of fact, one must find a

fully physical usage for principles whose nature

is only physical … ” (ES 136/119). The model of

Deleuzian interpretation is thus biochemical (NP

60/53) or mechanical, geared to a single

“Mechanosphere” (MP 641/514), a single “coex-

tension of man and nature” (AO 128/107), culmi-

nating in the virtual identity of Cosmos and

Brain (C2 268–69/206–07). To move in this way

from the confines of the creatural to the absolute

sovereignty of the creator (or creating) coincides

with the movement from the confines of a partic-

ular organism to “the non-organic life of things

[ … ] which burns us [ … and] unleashes in our

soul a non-psychological life of the spirit , which

no longer belongs either to nature or to our

organic individuality, which is the divine part in

us, the spiritual relationship in which we are

alone with God as light” (C1 80/57).

Deleuze’s most general aim is thus to affirm

Creation or Life at a coherence which effectively

excludes that of the specific, living organism –

the coherence achieved, ultimately, by the noto-

rious “Body without Organs.” 24 “To move

beyond the human condition, such is the mean-

ing [ sens ] of philosophy” (FC 139–40/124–25tm).

This power to overcome one’s specific or organic

limits provides one (quantitative) index of the

given creativity of a thing, its assigned degree of

proximity to pure differing production. The crit-

ical question is always a variant of the same

imperative: “How can we rid ourselves of

ourselves [ nous défaire de nous-mêmes ], and

demolish ourselves?” (C1 97/66). How can we

“attain once more the world before man, before

our own dawn, the position where movement

was [ … ] under the regime of universal variation

[ … ], the luminous plane of immanence”?

(C1 100/68). Deleuze’s enduring dream is to be

thus

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