Tag Archives: Deleuze

Deleuze Conference Abstract

I forgot to mention this presentation which I’ll be making at the annual International Deleuze Studies Conference in New Orleans this June. Here’s the successful abstract…

‘The Evolution of Theologies, or Opening the Histories of Hermeneutics’

The history of Christian theology is filled with changes, adaptations, and improvisations. To speak of theology as a singular notion imparts a level of orthodoxy which is impossible to maintain as a simple unity within an increasingly fragmentary religious traditions. The question of orthodoxy, then, presupposes a question of authority and answers it in a circular-but-arboreal manner: the orthodoxy — as defined by the authority — defines the authority. By changing even the slightest bit of scriptures, tradition, or institution, the entirety of orthodoxy splits into two parallel structures. Theology — and any kind of thought which establishes an analogue to ‘orthodoxy’ — is a process of mitosis. Unity, such as the appeal to a universal ‘body of Christ’ within Christian ecumenism, is most acutely realized through the very process of separation which creates multiple orthodoxies that are unable to be resolved. In other words, the desire for orthodoxy as an arboreal structure creates within theology a rhizomatic structure that resists the centralization of orthodoxy.

In this paper, I wish to present an argument for heterodoxy as a contingency of authority within theology. Heterodoxy in this case should not be seen as the opposite of orthodoxy but rather as the condition which makes ‘orthodoxy’ possible as an instance of a universal and singular authority. I shall argue that the assertion of orthodoxy is only possible when there is more than one valid claim. My argument will follow a largely Deleuzian approach as one way of interpreting authority through the play of sense. The Reformation era will serve the historical point at which the issue of authority was brought to the forefront of theology, and I shall argue that the most important question of modern ecumenism (still) revolves around this single issue. However, the tendency towards absorbing dissident groups back into one ‘Mother Church’ can only end in failure because heterodoxy — that is, the plurality of orthodoxies — is what makes ecumenical dialogue and reconciliation possible. Rather than suggesting that ecumenism must ultimately accept a single set of positions as properly authoritative from which all deviations move towards heresy, I suggest that there can never be such an orthodoxy for it is based on a gross misperception of the historical development of orthodoxy. To be orthodox, then, is to become something other-than-orthodox because orthodoxy is a semiotic play between theological sense and nonsense.

Disequilibrium of the Self

‘For when Kant puts rational theology into question, in the same stroke he introduces a kind of disequilibrium, a fissure or crack in the pure Self of the “I think”, an alienation in principle, insurmountable in principle: the subject can henceforth represent its own spontaneity only as that of an Other, and in so doing invoke a mysterious coherence in the last instance which excludes its own — namely, that of the world and God’. (Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 58).

Time Dependance

This is part 3 of 3 in the Meditations on Time series

We begin with time by reducing it to causality. In various forms of logic, this can be reduced to the equation ‘if p, then q‘. Yet, this is known to be problematic as there is no proof for p, it is always assumed. The quest for p is an old one. Perhaps the most famous resolution is that attributed to Aquinas: there must be a first step that is uncaused (which he then attributes to God). Generalising on these, time becomes a linear progression from God through innumberable events to p which finally causes q. Of course, the reply to Aquinas has been made, what caused God? The answer to this, however,  is lacking: God caused God.

To follow the critique of Aquinas, we can go on to infinity and never find an original cause without assuming one of two things: either the first cause is itself uncaused or self-caused (a la Aquinas) or there is no first cause (e.g. ‘turtles all the way down’). However, there is a third option: to reject the logic of time. To do this, we must first resurrect the time paradox of chicken or egg. In turning to science fiction, we can find that this paradox is not one at all because time is a play of nonsense.

In the series finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation (‘All Good Things’), the time paradox is realised by Captain Picard while he is trying to understand what he is experiencing (thanks to the almighty Q). Picard’s answer to the time paradox is that the past is caused by the future. Similarly, in at least one serial of Doctor Who (‘Terminus’), it is discovered that Event One (i.e. the big bang) was caused by a starship freighter caught in the far future in a vortex at the centre of the universe ejecting its fuel reserves as an attempt to escape that vortex. In both cases here, the future directly causes the past and even time itself to exist. It is here that the paradox of time foils the notion of linear and logical time. Yet, how can we understand time?

It is through a reading of Deleuze’s syntheses of time and Nietzsche’s amor fati that time itself can be understood. Here, destiny is not the determination of future events nor the divination of future events in the past. Destiny is the interpretation of the past such that the present has become inescapable. It is a synthesis of the past in the future and a recreation of the future in the past simultaneously. I was destined to write this, not because some thing (be it God or otherwise) declared it so millenia ago (or even ‘beyond time’). Nor was I destined to write this because a fortune teller saw me doing so months ago. I was destined to write it because, as I write this, my past has been altered such that past events lead to my writing here and now. In other words, destiny is not an act of future determination but of past possibilities. It is this kind of destiny that Nietzsche called Fate and embraced.

Yet, now what of the paradox of time? Was the big bang caused by a starship unloading its fuel reserves? Probably not. However, it is also not necessary to presuppose that the uncaused God caused everything. There is no logic to time, and either we impose our own creation over time (i.e. we cause our own destinies) or we accept that we exist. In either case, existence does not need a reason to exist.

Paradoxa

Hopefully, this is not against my better judgment, but I want to throw a little piece of something I’m working out at the moment.

Deleuze’s theory of meaning and sense is best described as ‘a series of paradoxes’, partly because ‘sense is a nonexisting entity, and, in fact, maintains very special relations with nonsense’ (Logic of Sense, xiii). Paradoxes are produced from the relationship between sense and nonsense; it is the very excess of that relationship. I suggest that this can also be interpreted through Tillich’s definition of paradox as the ‘logical form in which the perfectly concrete and the perfectly absolute are united’ (Systematic Theology 1, 167). While the word choice is different, the content is strikingly similar. Tillich’s ‘perfectly concrete’ speaks of a particular instance within the finite–in other words an understandable revelation. This is very much in agreement with Deleuze’s usage of ‘sense’. For both, this is not a final entity but a result, dependent upon the subject’s own context. The difficulty in equating Tillich’s and Deleuze’s definitions of ‘paradox’ comes with the second part of the ‘perfectly absolute’ and nonsense, respectively. For Deleuze, nonsense is can be compared to Tillich’s ‘perfectly absolute’ only as the infinite abyss beneath the surface. For Tillich, this abyss is the nonexisting God, the ground of Being.(ST1, 264) For Deleuze, however, this abyss is an empty signifier, a position without meaning; and this non-thing bears no relation to Being. With these differences aside, paradoxes are produced from the relationship between ‘sense’ and something else (the absolute or ‘nonsense’). Deleuze paints the two (sense and nonsense, that is) using the image of a Möbius strip; the two form the two halves of the the hermeneutical cycle that plays in the figuring of sense; it is the ‘coexistence of two sides without thickness’ as a flat, endless plane of meaning(LS, 22). For Deleuze, a symbol’s meaning is an infinite regress of signification where a symbol always and only points to other symbols. He has reduced this regress to a process of four steps which repeat infinitely:

There is [1] the name of what the song really is; [2] the name denoting this reality, which thus denotes the song or represents what the song is called; [3] the sense of this name, which forms a new name or a new reality; and [4] the name which denotes this reality, which this denotes the sense of the name of the song, or represents what the name of the song is called. (LS, 30)

The meaning of this process, that is the sense of the symbol, occurs twice because both events are ‘two simultaneous faces of one and the same surface, whose inside and outside, their “insistence” and “extra-being”, past and future, are in an always reversible continuity’ (LS, 34). In other words, meaning occurs both when an object of sense is seen as being formed from other symbols and as constituting the formation of other symbols. In semiotic terms, sense occurs as the synthesis of two different series: one as signifier and one as signified. At the point of this synthesis, a singularity of sense is created in both series: as an empty place within the series of signifier and a supernumerary object within the signified series. The relation of these series at their convergence forms the dual meaning of an object as a paradox between sense and nonsense. Nonsense should not be understood as the absence of sense but as that which produces sense; likewise sense produces nonsense as the two form a paradox of meaning throughout both series of signification. Meaning is the excess of these productions such that it occurs in both directions, simultaneously. In other words, the meaning of an object is only understood when it is placed within the context of its own text. A short example here would be one’s understanding of a sentence. A particular sentence has no meaning until every word and expression within that sentence is understood within the context of the language (i.e. within the context of its general usage) and within the context of the sentence (i.e. as the particular usage). While a phrase may have a metaphorical meaning (e.g. ‘kick the bucket’), that particular usage can only be understood within the context of a particular sentence as it also has a non-metaphorical meaning; this cannot be realised until the phrase’s context is realised. At that moment of realisation, the event of meaning finally occurs. In summary, meaning as the ultimate regression is what Deleuze terms the ‘excess’ of signification; it is the redundancy that arises when a signifier is realised to signify its own self (A Thousand Plateaus, 114). To clarify this one more time: a symbol’s meaning is understood only when the entirety of the semiotic relations that develop out of and into that symbol are understood—the symbol as a singularity.

Returning to Tillich, now, we can cast new light on Tillich’s usage of symbols. Symbols point beyond themselves like signs, however they must also ‘participate in the reality of that for which they stand’ (ST1, 265). This participation, in Deleuzian terms, is the duality of cause and effect which must coexist for the event of sense to occur. A symbol that does not participate in such a reality lacks the cause that gives it meaning; a symbol is meaningless without a creative relationship with its reference. A cross has no meaning in Buddhism itself because it, as a symbol, does not participate in the Buddhist reality. It is the duality of cause and effect which provides a reciprocal relation for a symbol and its reference in that the reference itself (e.g. the death and resurrection of Christ) becomes an occupant without a place within the signification of the symbol (e.g. the cross) and the symbol becomes an empty place within the signification of the reference. It is in this reciprocity that symbol and reference participate in one another; and this is the singularity that produces meaning. Tied with this is something implied in Tillich which Deleuze makes explicit: symbols always produce meaning, regardless of what that meaning is: ‘Your wife looked at you with a funny expression. And this morning the mailman handed you a letter from the IRS and crossed his fingers….It doesn’t matter what it means, it’s still signifying’ (ATP, 112). This is the reason why Tillich argues that symbols are irreplaceable; they are always producing meaning such that replacing them changes everything.

For Tillich, symbols hint at a paradox of participation. Taken through Deleuze’s's concept of paradox of the production of sense and nonsense, we can anticipate Tillich’s understanding of paradox as a ‘concrete event which on the level of rationality must be expressed in contradictory terms’ (ST1, 149). With God participating in humanity and humanity participating in God through the christological symbols, these symbols produce the same excess as the series of signification do. The christological symbols can only be understood in both directions simultaneously: without one, we have a Jesus without Christ; without the other, a Christ without Jesus. It is also here that Tillich’s christological paradox becomes clear: God does not exist (ST1, 227). Tillich does this by de-ontologizing God; God cannot exist because God is not a being that can exist. The ontology of God becomes in Deleuzian terms, the empty space in the series of signification; God becomes the supernumerary object in the second series such that God can never be found along the Möbius strip of theology. God is always immanent but never present. Perhaps this gives new meaning to Christ’s proclamation that the Kingdom of God is at hand; for Christ himself is the Kingdom of God, immanent and transcendent. Yet it is always both simultaneously. These two terms–immanence and transcendence–should not be confused with a concept of presence (which is, sadly, another post another day).

Difference and Pluralism

This is a followup of sorts to a previous post, Against Exclusivism.

In David Tracy’s On Naming the Present, he follows Ricœur in arguing for a ‘second naiveté allied to a genuine openness to otherness and difference’. This is a call to pluralism with the alternative leading to a ‘Hobbesian state of war of all against all’.  Naiveté is exactly what it is, as this pluralism subjugates difference to identity so that difference itself is lost. Difference does not just exist; it exists outright and on its own (conceptual) merit. Deleuze argues early on (in Difference and Repetition) that being is difference. Tracy’s argument (and presumably Ricœur’s as well) rests on the philosophical framework that unites the concept of difference with the concept of distinction. In other words, it is a comparison of two different entities; in short, a comparison of identities. Deleuze’s philosophy of difference conceives of difference as something that exists prior to comparison and distinction (c.f. Levi Bryant). A call to pluralism must first conceive of difference in itself, as something intrinsic to an entity’s act of self-identification, as an ontological concept. Pluralism must be open to both simple distinction as well as difference as the ‘prior ground of distinction‘.

However, when this occurs, inter-religious dialogue (i.e. pluralism) itself becomes problematic. This is because openness to such dialogue requires a level of understanding that is not easily possible. Such level of understanding is based on the ability to relate distinctions to known concepts and identities. In other words, communicative understanding takes place within analogies at the contextual level, not within the words expressed at the textual/discursive level. Here is where the problematic of pluralism emerges. If other religious traditions are truly other, that is different, the comprehension at the contextual level is always flawed because it ultimately rests on a conceptual identification where difference is reduced to distinction. Historically, we can see this in the colonial period of religious studies where examples such as Western influences in India created Hinduism as a consolidated tradition, including the ‘trinitarian’ concept of Trimurti.* In the 1970s, Edward Said published Orientalism in which he argues that the Western representation and understanding of other cultures is flawed for reasons similar to what I have noted above. While many pluralists seem confident that we are able to move past these flaws, I take a more critical approach. Even contemporary postcolonial religious studies have kept these flaws. As Ian Almond recently wrote, ‘we have seen how the use [a religious tradition] is going to be put to automatically creates the identity it is going to have…The “otherness” control of [that tradition], like the volume control of any stereo or radio, can be turned up or down according to the required context’ (The New Orientalists, 195).

While pluralism may be possible, it seems clear that we have not yet been able to see other traditions as different. I believe this may be in part because inter-religious dialogue can only treat otherness as objects of apprehension. As an object of apprehension, difference is readily replaced with distinction as we attempt to relate to another tradition through our own identity. It is an implicit action that changes the dialogue into an excercise of relations (i.e. comparison and distinction). Perhaps a better avenue for such discourse is not to relate to other traditions but to discourse with them without apprehension. In other words, by following Blanchot’s remarks about reading and writing*, we can (re-)discover that comprehension occurs after the dialogue, after the discourse—not during. Understanding occurs after the event of communication.

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NB 1: cf. Susan Bayly, Caste, Society, and Politics in India: From the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age and David Smith, Hinduism and Modernity

NB 2: Maurice Blanchot, The Writing of the Disaster