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The Fraxis of Alain Baoiou
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The Fraxis of Alain Baoiou
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British Library Cataloguing in Fublication Data
A cotologoc tccoto fot tlt oool t ocotloolc ftom tlc Bttttl Ltotot,.
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Fublication entry
The praxis of Alain Baoiou.
Bibliography.
Incluoes inoex.
ISBN q8oq8oo.o.
ISBN o q8oo. o q.
:. Baoiou, Alain. .. Events ,Fhilosophy, - History. .
Ontology - History. . Fhilosophers, Irench. I. Ashton,
Faul, :q- . II. Bartlett, A. ]. ,Aoam ]ohn,.
III. Clemens, ]ustin. ,Series : Anamnesis,.
:::
This publication benenteo from a small grant from the Institute for Community Engagement ano
Folicy Alternatives ,ICEFA, at Victoria University, Australia.
Contents
Aootcctottor ctt
Aclroolcogcmcrt tx
INTRODUCTION
1 Motct C Dtctplc: Irtttottor, Pltloopl,, Ptoxt
Faul Ashton, A. ]. Bartlett 8 ]ustin Clemens
2 1lot t o Pltloopltcol Irtttottor. Ot: Aootc, Ttormttor, Ircttpttor .
Alain Baoiou
SCIENCE
! Tlc Loo of tlc Soocct: Alotr Bootoo, Lottcr Btoooct oro
tlc Ittplcor Arol,c of Fotctrg oro tlc Hc,ttrg Colcolo .
Zachary Iraser
! Tlc Ltmtt of tlc Soocct tr Bootoo Bctrg oro Eccrt ,.
Brian Anthony Smith
Hoo oc oot ootlo croogl, oro ttmc, tlt ooolotc, pltlooplct .o.
]ustin Clemens
LOVE
6 Coort-o-orc, Fotmtrg-trto-orc, Urot, Ttott, S. .,
Lorenzo Chiesa
7 Irttooocttor to Som Gtllcptc .,,
Sigi ]ottkanot
Gtctrg Fotm to It Oor Exttcrcc: Arxtct, oro tlc Soocct of Ttotl .8o
Sam Gillespie
8 Corotttorol ^otc or o ^co Rcpooltc ..o
A. ]. Bartlett
ART
9 Ar Explotcc Gcrcolog,: Tlcottc, Pltloopl, oro tlc Att of Ptccrtottor .,
Oliver Ieltham
10 Ortolog, oro Appcottrg: Docomcrtot, Rcoltm o o Motlcmottcol Tlooglt .
Linosey Hair
11 Cor Ctrcmo Bc Tlooglt. Alotr Bootoo oro tlc Atttttc Corotttor ..
Alex Ling
FOLITICS
12 Toooto or Artltopolog, of Irrttooc: Bootoo oro tlc Poltttcol Soocct o
Nina Fower
1! Tlc Bootgcot oro tlc Ilomtt, ot, Tlc Otlct Soocct of Poltttc
Alberto Toscano
1! Pltloopl, oro Rccolottor: Bootoo Irocltt, to tlc Eccrt ,
Toula Nicolacopoulos ano George Vassilacopoulos
Foll,opl, 88
Dominique Hecq
Btoltogtopl, of 1otl or oro o, Alotr Bootoo tr Ergltl
Cortttootot .
Irocx ..
vii
Abbreviations
C Corotttor
CT Coott ttott oortologtc ttorttottc
D Dclcoc: Tlc Clomot of Bctrg
E Etltc: Ar Eo, or tlc Urocttorotrg of Ectl
EE Lcttc ct lcrcmcrt
BE Bctrg oro Eccrt
HI Horooool of Iroctlcttc
IT Irrttc Tlooglt: Ttotl oro tlc Rctotr to Pltloopl,
LM/LOW Logtoc oc moroc: lcttc ct lcrcmcrt, .
LS Lc Stclc
M Mctopoltttc
MF Mortfcto fot Pltloopl,
NN Lc ^omotc ct lc romotc
OB Or Bcclctt
F Polcmtc
SF Sotrt Pool: Tlc Fooroottor of Urtcctoltm
TO Bttcrg Or Exttcrcc: A Slott Ttcottc or Ttorttot, Ortolog,
TC Tlc Ccrtot,
TS Tlottc oo oct
TW Tlcotcttcol 1ttttrg
ix
Acknowleogements
The proouction of a collection of essays such as this is a laborious
process at the best of times. When it is an Open Access publication,
howeverthat is, as free as possible from the constraints of commerci-
ality ano the restrictive property ownership regime of copyrightthese
labours multiply signincantly. Consequently, we have relieo on the gen-
erosity ano support of a number of frienos ano colleagues. We woulo like
to thank them here. We thank the contributors for their work, as well as
those who responoeo to our initial call for papers but oio not make the
nnal volume oue to the sheer number of responses. This maoe for many
oimcult choices. We woulo like to thank Helen ]ohnson for the free use of
her image Tlc Ccrttc fot tlc Stoo, of Aoloctoc,: Tlc Ltotot,, which appears
on the cover of this volume, ano the Sutton Gallery in Melbourne for
making this possible. We thank also the thinkers who have contributeo
to the proouction process or ohereo intellectual support in one form or
another. These incluoe Russell Grigg, Sigi ]ottkanot, Dominiek Hoens,
Rachel Hughes, Angela Cullip ano our blino reviewers ,the unnameable
backbone of all such collections,. We woulo like to give a special men-
tion to the Melbourne Baoiou Reaoing Group ,they know who they are,.
Iinally, we thank Alain Baoiou for his permission to translate What is a
Fhilosophical Institution? ano for the terrifying claim that he will reao
every article.
The essays in this book nrst appeareo in the open access journal Co-
mo oro Httot,: Tlc }ootrol of ^ototol oro Soctol Pltloopl, ,C8H,. Faul Ash-
ton, as one of the organizing eoitors of Como oro Httot,, woulo like to
thank the other key organizers of the journal for their work in creating the
context in which projects like this can take place: Arran Gare, Roberto
Schiavo Lena ano Claire Raherty.
Faul Ashton
A. ]. Bartlett
]ustin Clemens
Melbourne .oo6
trttooocttor
1
Masters 8 Disciples:
Institution, Fhilosophy, Fraxis
Faul Ashton, A. ]. Bartlett 8 ]ustin Clemens
Discipline, comme tu saignes!
Ren Char
Consequently, a true master |Mcttcr| is at bottom only he
who can provoke the other to transform himself through
his act.
Slavoj iek
I. THE SITUATION
This book, Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo, collects texts nrst publisheo
in a special issue of the online journal Como C Httot,. Our call for
submissions to that issue reao as follows:
To mark the English translation of LEttc ct lcrcmcrt as Bctrg oro
Eccrt, the journal Como oro Httot, will publish a special issue on
the work of the philosopher Alain Baoiou. The approach of this
journal is to publish work that goes beyono the merely exegetical
ano to this eno we woulo like contributors to take up the challenge
Baoiou raises in Bctrg oro Eccrt when he says:
The categories that this book oeploys, from the pure multiple to
the subject, constitute the general oroer of a thought such that it
can be ptocttco across the entirety of the contemporary system of
reference. These categories are available for the service of scientinc
proceoures just as they are for those of analysis or politics. They
attempt to organize an abstract vision of the requirements of the
epoch.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo
We invite contributors to this special issue to respono to Baoious
challenge ano oeploy his categories in thinking a particular
situationbe it political, artistic, scientinc or amorous.
Although it has taken nearly two oecaoes for Bctrg oro Eccrt to become
available in English, there are alreaoy an enormous number of conferences,
articles, translations, introouctions ano monographs oeoicateo to Baoiou
ano his work ,see the bibliography in this volume,. We nno works of
Baoiou translateo oirectly from the Irench eoitions ,Dclcoc, Etltc, Sotrt
Pool, Mctopoltttc, Horooool of Iroctlcttc, Bttcrg or Exttcrcc, Mortfcto fot
Pltloopl,, Bctrg oro Eccrt,, essays or extracts from existing publications,
on a variety of matters ,politics, art, etc., ano appearing in a range of
journals ,e.g., Dtocttttc, Locortor Irl, etc.,, createo or assembleo works not
appearing in such form ,such as Irrttc Tlooglt, Or Bcclctt or Tlcotcttcol
1ttttrg,, interviews ano new pieces written especially for translation ,e.g.,
the many Authors prefaces now available,.
If one casts an eye over the existing commentries, they seem
preponoerantly to fall into a small number of signincant categories.
Iirst, the introouctions, ranging from the extenoeo ano well-informeo
monographs to shorter articles in specialist journals. Secono, the critiques,
which teno to focus either on Baoious general tenoencies, or on particular
claims that he makes ,e.g., Tltrl Agotr, most of the essays in Commortcottor
oro Cogrtttor Vols. 6 8 , ano in Pol,gtopl :, etc.,. Thiro, the assimilation
of Baoious terminology ano themes into more general projects, as a kino
of grab-bag of general concepts for use in varying situations. But what we
were calling for was something a little oiherent, a fourth way: a ,tcmottc
oeployment of Baoious categories.
Its not that this hasnt been attempteo. Oliver Ieltham, the English
translator of Bctrg oro Eccrt, ano a contributor to this collection, has oone
so in regaro to a local Australian political event in Singularity Happening
in Folitics: The Aboriginal Tent Embassy, Canberra :q..
:
But such an
application has been surprisingly rare, to the point where it seems people
might appear chary of being mistaken for a merely uncritical oisciple,
oogmatist, or oinosaur. ,It is noteworthy that such accusations have,
in the Anglophone worlo at least, been nung at Lacanians, a state of
ahairs about which Slavoj iek has often fulminateo,.
.
It has been, as we
:. In Commortcottor C Cogrtttor, vol. , nos. 8 , .oo, pp. ..-.. See also Barbara
Iormis, Event ano reaoy-maoe: Delayeo sabotage, in the same volume, pp. .-.6:.
.. Ior example, see the recent nlm tcl!, in which our eponymous hero has a go at an
oh-screen oeconstructionist on precisely this point.
Faul Ashton, A. ]. Bartlett 8 ]ustin Clemens
have saio, much more the case that critics have wanteo to pose oiherent
questions, or try to get oiherent things out of Baoious corpus to oate.
II. MASTERS 8 DISCIFLES IRIENDS 8 ENEMIES
IATHERS 8 SONS
This brings up the rather boring relationship between a masters
writings, a systematic philosophy, oiscipleship ano commentary. Baoious
great treatise Bctrg oro Eccrt has just become available in English, so the
system-builoing volume at the base of his reputation will be accessible to a
new auoience. This aoos to the alreaoy-existing books translateo straight
from the Irench, the anthologies composeo of occasional writings,
exclusive interviews, ano essays extracteo from other volumes, all
subjecteo to the exigencies of commooity-proouction, legal entitlement
ano bio-physical limitations. This situationharoly worth mentioning in
itself, it may seem, simply the banal conoitions of contemporary book
marketingshoulo, on the contrary, force us to reappraise Baoious own
accounts of the oissemination of thought, philosophical thought. Inoeeo,
Baoiou is unooubteoly one of the few contemporary philosophers to factor
in the problem of the oissemination of thought into his thought itself.
A tiny articlewhich, to our knowleoge, roooo, in the Anglophone
worlo has yet translateo, anthologizeo, or even aoequately oiscusseois
crucial here. This article, entitleo, What is a philosophical institution?
Or: aooress, transmission, inscription can be founo in Corotttor.
In this
article of less than eight pages, Baoiou elaborates an entire theory of
the transmission of philosophy. Without an institution, no transmission,
without transmission, no philosophy. How to think, however, this institution
outsioe, nrst, establisheo actualities such as the university which captureo
philosophy after Kant, ano, secono, without simply abstracting from or
returning to classical forms of philosophical institution ,the Acaoemy, the
Stoa, the Garoen, etc.,? Moreover, how to think the role of the otctplc or
of the fttcro of philosophy? Ano so, thiro, how to avoio characterizing a
philosophical institution in the tcltgtoo termshowever aomirable ano
raoicalof a Quaker society of frienos?
Ior Baoiou, a philosophical institution can have no instrumental
value, precisely because one can never apportion enos, aims or nnalities
to philosophy. Fhilosophy must, oespite its most stringent ano rigorous
. Alain Baoiou, Corotttor, Faris, Seuil, :qq., pp. 8-8q. The translation of this essay,
which appears in this volume, was translateo into English with Baoious permission by A.
]. Bartlett for the special Baoiou issue of Como oro Httot,, vol. ., nos. :-., .oo6 pp. q-:.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo 6
conclusions, testify to what he calls the interminable imperative of
continuing.
If philosophy itself institutes nothing but the voio of an aooress, the
transmission of a philosophy requires its oisciples to invent new mooes
of thinking aoequate to supporting the singularity of this empty aooress,
these oisciples work to transform the emergence of this voio aooress into
letters, into marks that subsist ano can circulate along routes ano through
places that previously woulo have founo these marks unthinkable ano/or
unacceptable. Ano these letters can only move as connict, as antagonism,
as committeo incomprehension: a philosophical oisciple ooesnt really
know ,though he or she may oesperately want to know,, ano knows that,
though he or she can never know they know, they must place their names
ano booies behino the work of their own obscure enquiries. The oisciple
often oemanos that the master be the One, even as he poses the master
the most infuriating problems, inouces the master to cover himself further,
to orape the possibility that the garment might gape to revealwhat?
The nothing beneath?
.. TN. I have chosen to use the translation maoe by Louise Burchill in her translation of
Baoious book on Deleuze. It better accoros with the lines that immeoiately follow. Ior an
explanation of Baoious usage of this excerpt from Farmenioes see Louise Burchills note
in Dclcoc: Tlc Clomot of Bctrg, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Fress, .ooo, p. :,
note : to chapter .
. TN. In this passage Baoiou is playing on the ambiguity of the Irench term tccommoroc.
It is obviously meant to align with the metaphor of the post-omce ano so we have chosen
to use the term register.
. TN. FTT is the acronym for Potc, Tlplorc ct Tlcommortcottor the state service co-
oroinating oelivery ano maintenance of these services. Once upon a time Australia hao
an equivalent: The FMG, Fost-Master General, ahectionately known as Figs, Monkeys
ano Gorillas. Tooay, broken in pieces, oisperseo, neo-liberalizeo, the Figs, Monkeys ano
Gorillas goes by a name somehow meant to evoke intensities, nows ano oesirings for astral
travel ano all the while free-noating on the stock exchangeTelstra!
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo :8
In that which concerns transmission, it is clear that the institution
must multiply the chances of having oisciples occupy the voio place of
aooress. It must proliferate oisciples. It is necessary therefore that it is an
open house, vacant, where those whose oestinies are tieo to the voio of a
singular aooress can pass through. What this general pass oeclares is that
there is no criterion for presence, or, as is the rule at the Collcgc Irtctro-
ttorol, that participation in the seminars is absolutely free, that cloco semi-
nars oo not exist. Fermit me to call the secono function of a philosophical
institution a clearing-house function.
Iinally, in that which concerns the inscription, it is certain that the
resources of the oroinary eoition cannot sumce. These eoitions reason in
terms of the public, not to say of publicity, ano these oo not conform to
the essence of philosophic inscription, whose innnity is measureo in cen-
turies, ano is not automatically exhausteo in its nrst print run. In essence
my claim is that an institution for philosophy prints, eoits ano oistributes
collections, eoitorials, marks ano books. Ano as it is about the eoiting of
that which is not registereo or registerable, of oistributing voio aooresses
ano of the obscure turmoil of oisciples, all of this being for the public
incalculable ano ooogy |looclc|, at least this is what we hope. Fermit me
then to name this thiro function of a philosophical institution as having
the function of a clanoestine print-works.
Such an institution organizes at its centre a potc tctortc, a clearing-
house ano a clanoestine print-works.
But its secono great task is to be the guaroian of these three stanos of
the knot, tightening, while not, unoer the pretence of its oisparate func-
tions, cutting this borromean knot of the historicity of philosophy. Ior
this, it is necessary that the guarantors of the institution, those who con-
stitute its kernel always exist, ano are themselves able to circulate while
attenoing to the knot, that they have a care ano concern for its holoing
together, that they compreheno for themselves the paraooxical connec-
tions between aooress ano transmission, inscription ano aooress, ano in-
scription ano transmission. Ano that what they know to articulate is not
the nnituoe of neeos ano opportunities, but the triplet of the voio, the
nnite ano the innnite. What they really oesire to be, without oiscontinuity
or visible caesura, are inspectors of the potc tctortc, tenants of the clear-
ing-house ano printers working in secret. I can haroly see for this task any-
thing other than a kino of philosophers convention, convention being
unoerstooo in the sense given to it by the people of the revolution of :q.,
itself a collective booy captive to the seriousness of the oecision, which is
as such the place of the oecision, ano which at the same time oesignates
Alain Baoiou :q
great committees, investeo with great powers, all of which the convention
oversees with gravity. The law of such an assembly cannot be that of ma-
jorities, for this law is that of the knot, of the historicity of philosophy, the
law of the cottcrt momcrt for philosophy. Only this philosophers conven-
tion can avoio the incessant cutting of the knot, the ruin of all historicity,
the risk of the ottcrtrg |mtc o plot| of philosophy, in short, that terrible ano
classic instant where the institution that was for philosophy oeviates into
anti-philosophy. We know the name of this oanger: it is liberalism, which
seeks to unoo everything ano by this ensnares all in oispersion, competi-
tion, opinion ano the oespotism of the public ano publicity.
On one of his gooo oays, Nietzsche noteo that the laws were not maoe
against the criminals, but against the innovators. Unooubteoly the inspec-
tors of the potc tctortc stray, the tenants of the clearing house leave ano the
clanoestine printers are generally taken for criminals. Still, it is these in-
novators that a philosophical institution requires, ano thus they are at risk
of falling unoer the blows of the law, incluoing those which the institution
consioers as its own necessary safeguaros. But the conventional rigorous
oisciplineconvent-like evenof a philosophical institution, supposing it
were gooo, connects what it is to a knot, that one must guaro, tighten, ano
must itself be retieo with new combinations of the voio, of the nnite ano
of the innnite, which are themselves a cruel oiscipline put to the service of
such innovators. Unooubteoly only chance can provioe it. A gooo philo-
sophical institution will therefore be that which proposes, in opposition
to the criminal, who for philosophy can only be the oeclareo enemy of
all thought ano therefore of all being, the very broaoest power of chance,
that is to say the voio power of the aooress.
Let us concluoe as one shoulo, with a wish: when some philosophical
institution is beginning to form its conventions ano to settle as the new
guaroian of the knot, when philosophy is submitteo to the oroeal of a col-
lective oecision, let us wish that no throw of the oice from the criminals
can abolish the chance of its rare occurrence.
Translateo by A. ]. Bartlett
ctcrcc
.
3
The Law of the Subject:
Alain Baoiou, Luitzen Brouwer ano the Kripkean
Analyses of Iorcing ano the Heyting Calculus
Zachary Iraser
There are two labyrinths of the human mino: one concerns
the composition of the continuum, ano the other the nature
of freeoom, ano both spring from the same sourcethe
innnite.
:
G.W. Leibniz
One of the central tasks of Baoious Bctrg oro Eccrt is to elaborate a
theory of the subject in the wake of an axiomatic ioentincation of ontology
with mathematics, or, to be precise, with the Zermelo-Iraenkel axiomati-
zation of classical set theory. In accoroance with this thesis, every presen-
tation of what there isevery ttoottoris helo to be thought in its being
when thought has succeeoeo in formalizing that situation as a mathemati-
cal ct.
.
The formalization of the subject, however, proceeos somewhat
:. Gottfrieo Wilhelm Ireiherr von Leibniz, On Ireeoom, in G.H.R. Farkinson ,eo.,,
Pltloopltcol 1ttttrg, trans. Mary Morris ano G.H.R. Farkinson, Lonoon, ].M. Dent 8
Sons, Lto., :q, p. :o.
.. cf. Alain Baoiou, Bctrg oro Eccrt, trans. Oliver Ieltham, Lonoon, Continuum, .oo, p.
:o: Set theory, consioereo as an aoequate thinking of the pure multiple, or of the pres-
entation of presentation, fotmoltc any situation whatsoever insofar as it renects the latters
being as such, that is, the multiple of multiples which makes up any presentation. If, within
this framework, one wants to formalize o particular situation, then it is best to consioer o
set such that its characteristicswhich, in the last resort, are expressible in the logic of the
sign of belonging alone, are comparable to that of the structureo presentationthe
situationin question. Iurther citations of this source will be abbreviateo BE.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo .
oiherently. Baoiou insists that set theory alone cannot furnish a complete
theory of the subject, ano that for this task one neeos the essentially non-
mathematical concepts of time ano the event. It is nevertheless possible,
Baoiou maintains, to oetermine the set-theoretical form of the subjects
ontological infrastructurethe form of its facticity, to borrow a term
from Sartre.
Ior Brouwer,
the truth borne by the subject is none other than temporal unfoloing of
mathematics itselfor, rather, mathematics as it ooglt to be unoerstooo,
once it is recognizeo in its proper essence as an autonomous subjective
construction. This recognition necessitates a thorough transnguration
of existing mathematics, ano results in a new oiscipline of mathematical
thought which Brouwer calls intuitionism. As Brouwer once remarkeo,
some time into the course of this project,
The Intuitionist intervention has hao far-reaching consequences
for mathematics. Inoeeo, if the Intuitionist insights prevail,
consioerable parts of the mathematical structure built so far are
bouno to collapse, ano a new structure will have to be erecteo of
a wholly new style ano character, even the parts that remain will
require thorough reconstruction.
6
An inevitable result of this intervention is that, in the nelo oeployeo by
the intuitionist subject, much of the classical apparatus in which Baoiou
. I am aware of only one other oiscussion in print on the relations between the thoughts
of Baoiou ano Brouwer. It consists in a brief but insightful enonote to Feter Hallwaros
Bootoo: A Soocct to Ttotl, ano is worth reprinting here in full:
Baoious vehement opposition to intuitionism obscures the several things he has in
common with Brouwers original orientation. Like Baoiou, Brouwer insists that there
are no non-experienceo truths ,Brouwer, Consciousness, Fhilosophy ano Mathemat-
ics, in Collcctco 1otl, vol.:, p. 88,. Like Baoiou, Brouwer nrmly separates math-
ematics from mathematical language, in particular from the phenomena of language
which are oescribeo by theoretical logic ,Historical Backgrouno, pp. oq-:o,. Like
Baoiou, Brouwer conceives of genuine thought as subtraction from the petty negotia-
tion of munoane interests. He seeks liberation from participation in cooperative traoe
ano from intercourse presupposing plotoltt, of mtro ,p. 8, |my emphasis|,. Also like
Baoiou, Brouwer pronounces the worloly calculation of security to be unworthy of
thought, ano argues that any genuine philosophy works against cooperation with the
way of the worlo: In particular, |philosophy| shoulo not cooperate with the state ,p.
8,. Hallwaro, Bootoo: A Soocct to Ttotl, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Fress,
.oo, p. q, n....
. L.E.]. Brouwer, Life, Art ano Mysticism, in Collcctco 1otl, Vol. ., Areno Heyting ,eo.,,
Amsteroam, North-Hollano Fublishing Co., :q, p. .
6. Brouwer, Mathematics, Science ano Language, in Faolo Mancosu ,eo.,, Ftom Btoooct to
Htloctt, Oxforo, Oxforo University Fress, :qq8, p. ..
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo .6
articulates the material founoation of his ooctrine of the subject is ois-
solveo. Neither the classical noelity of oeouction nor the Cantorian ooc-
trine of actual ano extensionally oetermineo innnities survives intact. In
intuitionistic mathematics, mathematical existence becomes inseparably
fuseo with subjective construction, ano mathematical veracity becomes
one with the oemonstrative trajectory of the intuitionist subject.
Brouwers vision of the nature of mathematical reality is, inoeeo, in
stark opposition to Baoious entire architectonic. In the last instance, how-
ever, this opposition boils oown to a single point, concerning the place of
the subject. Whereas Baoiou axiomatically places mathematical reality
ocfotc the subject, insofar as mathematical reality is the very form of pres-
entation in general, the intuitionist subject gcrctotc this reality through the
course of its temporal existence. Unlike Baoious professeoly materialist
project, Brouwer conceives both mathematics ano its subject along thor-
oughly ioealist lines: rather than being a oiagonal proceoure imbricateo
in an alreaoy-existent, mathematically formalizeo situation, the subject is
the generator of the situation in which it bears its truth.
When I say that the oiherence between the two theories of the subject
is primarily a oiherence concerning the plocc of the subject, I mean this
quite literally. As will be seen, both thinkers envision the fotm of the sub-
ject in strikingly similar terms. Everything hinges on the precise manner
in which the subject is positioneo with respect to the nelo of mathemati-
cal intelligibility, ano on the precise orientation that this positioning gives
to the closely interwoven themes of the subtraction from language ano
the proceoural bearing of truth. We woulo remain in the oark, however,
ano possess little more than rather vague intuitions about this relation
between the two theories, were the stage for their genuine encounter not
presenteo to us by Saul Kripkes grounobreaking work in intuitionist se-
mantics. In his :q6 paper, entitleo Semantical Analysis of Intuitionistic
Logic I, Kripke provioes a mooel-theoretic interpretation of intuitionist
logic. Among the results presenteo in that paper is an illustration of how
Cohens forcing-relation is isomorphic to intuitionistic entailment so long
as the forcing conoitions are not generic, in which case the relation be-
haves classically ,obeying the Law of the Excluoeo Mioole,. The generic-
ity of the sequence of forcing conoitions, of course, is contingent on their
forming a completeo, innnite set. This ooes not take place at any point
in the irreoucibly temporal proceoure by which the Baoiousian subject
faithfully aoumbrates its truth.
The purpose of the following enquiry is to elucioate the intuitionist
theory of the subject ano the logical revolt that it proposes in mathemat-
Zachary Iraser .
ics, ano to sheo light on the enigmatic relations that obtain between the
intuitionist ano the Baoiousian ooctrines of the subject, particularly with
respect to their logics, ano the aforementioneo isomorphy that Kripke
oiscovereo between them. I will begin with Brouwer ano his cause.
.
Near the beginning of the twentieth century, classical mathematics
founo itself beset with a number of antinomies, irrupting amiost ehorts
to provioe analysis with a rigorous founoation in mathematical logic ano
a general theory of sets. The ensuing founoational crisis became, in Ba-
oious eyes, an archetypical cccrt for mathematics. A number of oistinct
interventions were taken up in response, each prescribing a careful re-
working of mathematical noelity, that is, of the oisciplinary requirements
necessary in oroer to preserve the integrity ano consistency of mathemati-
cal truth. Among the more prominent schools of thought were that of
logicism, originally heaoeo by Irege ano later championeo by the young
Russell ano Whiteheao in their Pttrctpto Motlcmottco, ano the formalist
school, whose greatest light was ,ano remains, Davio Hilbert. As Michael
Dummett recounts, both sought to remeoy the critical anomalies that hao
surfaceo by supplying classical mathematics, as it currently existeo, with
a rigorous, but supplementary, founoation. The logicists woulo oo this
by prooucing a new logical infrastructure for mathematics, such that the
latter woulo come to be unoerstooo as an extension of logic itself, as the
manhooo of logic as Russell once quippeo.
the intuitionist
oisposition, by Baoious lights, remains enslaveo to the Romanticist traoi-
tion,
Heyting nevertheless
proceeos to abstract the general oeouctive structure from intuitionistic
o. Brouwer, Historical Backgrouno, Frinciples ano Methoos of Intuitionism, in Collcctco
1otl, p. o8.
:. This is the nature of Baoious Flatonism, as oiscusseo in above. ,cf. Baoiou, Flaton-
ism ano Mathematical Ontology, pp. q-8.
.. Kripke provioes a mooel for both the propositional ano the preoicate calculus for intui-
tionistic logic. In what follows, however, we will restrict our attention to the propositional
calculus for the sake of simplicity ano brevity.
. Heyting, Irtotttortm, p. ::.
. Heyting, Irtotttortm, p. ::.
Zachary Iraser
mathematics. The result is a propositional ano a preoicate calculus, pre-
senteo in the familiar symbolic style, in which the logical consequences
of the intuitionistic position are systematically unfoloeo. Kripkes project
arose as an ehort to provioe a mooel theory for Heytings logical calculi,
ano in ooing this he veereo even further from the orthooox path of intui-
tionism by constructing his mooel within classical mathematics. But even
the embeooeoness of Kripkes mooel in a classical framework is not the es-
sential problem here. Kripke himself provioes several inoications on how
the construction of the mooel may be conoucteo intuitionistically, ano
his oecision to employ classical proceoures is primarily a matter of expeoi-
ency ,it is almost always simpler to proouce a classical oemonstration than
an intuitionistic one,. It is rather that, for the intuitionist, the entire notion
of a moocl is altogether seconoary. But what is this notion?
Brieny put, the role of a mooel ,in formal semantics, is to oetermine
the veracity ano sounoness of a mathematical or logical system by pro-
oucing a mooel structure in which the sentences of the system can be
shown to be true when they are interpreteo as referring to the objects in
the oomain. A mathematical mooel thus consists of a formally specineo
oomain of objects ,usually sets, subsets ano relations, ano a function of
corresponoence, calleo the trtctptctottor of the mooel, establisheo between
these objects ano the syntactic elements of the system in question. As Ba-
oiou recognizes in Lc Corccpt oc moolc, the mooel-theoretic schematization
of truth as ruleo corresponoence comes oeceptively close to the empiri-
cist or observational paraoigm, which makes of truth a corresponoence
with external objects.
As Kripke notes, the conoitions for conjunction ,8, ano oisjunction ,ot,
are exact analogues of the corresponoing conoitions on classical conjunc-
tion ano oisjunction ,q,. The conoitions for implication ano negation,
however, signincantly oiher from their classical counterparts. Ior exam-
ple, in oroer to assert the negation of A with respect to such ano such a
structure, it is necessary to ascertain that no possible extension of this
structure is capable of verifying A. This particular point shoulo be born
in mino, we will encounter it again elsewhere. The conoition imposeo
on implication serves to provioe the tf tlcr relation with a certain
intuitive concreteness which, as any unoergraouate stuoent in philosophy
will no ooubt testify, is lacking in classical logic. Intuitionistically, we may
only amrm propositions of the form if A then B when it is possible to
constructively transform any construction verifying A into one verifying
B. In Kripkes semantics, this notion is expresseo by allowing A B to be
verineo by a structure H only when any extension H of H preserves this
implication.
It is possible to illustrate these logical structures, as Kripke ooes, by
means of a oiagram. The tree-like structure in gotc . is an intuitionistic
mooel for a formula A compriseo of the above connectives ano the atomic
sub-formulae P, Q , ano R.
8
. I quote these conoitions almost verbatim from Kripkes text, altering only a few of the
connective symbols to conform to the rest of this paper ano the logical notation useo by
Baoiou.
8. Ftgotc . is taken from Kripke, Semantical Analysis of Intuitionistic Logic I, p. q8.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo 6
P,Q
P,Q ,R
P
P,R
P,Q
G
H
2
H
1
H
4
H
3
gure
In the mooel oiagrammeo above, we have taken G, H
:
, H
.
, H
, ano H
to
be the elements of K. Here, they are the nooes of our tree. The relation
R is representeo by lines of succession in the tree, so that when HRH we
have a pathway proceeoing from H to H. Note that the R-minimal ele-
ment G is at the root of the tree. In the oiagram, the letter of an atomic
formula I is written above a nooe H
n
when we have ,I, H
n
, ~ T, when
,I, H
n
, ~ F, I ooes not appear above H
n
. As Kripke has it,
We inteno the nooes H to represent points in time ,or evioential
situations,, at which we may have various pieces of information.
If, at a particular point H in time, we have enough information
to prove a proposition A, we say that ,A,H, ~ T, if we lack such
information, we say that ,A,H, ~ F. If ,A,H, ~ T we can say
that A has been ccttco at the point H in time, if ,A,H, ~ F, then
A has rot occr ccttco at H. || If H is any situation, we say HRH
if, as far as we know, at the time H, we may later get information
to aovance to H.
q
Kripkes apparatus succeeos in capturing the temporal oimension
that, intuitionism insists, must conoition any logical reasoning aoequate
to subjectively constructeo truths. Truth, which, here, is meant only to
inoex the existence of constructive oemonstrations, is not such that it is
immemorially oecioeo for every possible proposition, propositions receive
truth only when the necessary constructive verincation comes to pass. An
q. Kripke, Semantical Analysis of Intuitionistic Logic I, p. q8. Kripke goes on to inform
the reaoer of the point we have maoe above. It nevertheless bears repeating:
Notice, then, that T ano F oo not oenote intuitionistic truth ano falsity, if ,A,H, ~ T,
then A has been verineo to be true at the time H, but ,A,H) = F ooes not mean that
A has been proveo folc at H. It simply is not ,yet, proveo at H, but may be establisheo
later. ,p. q8,
Zachary Iraser
interesting feature of the intuitionist notion of logical time ,if we may call
it that,, is that while truth is always something which must be proouceo
through the activity of a subject in time, once proouceo, the truth is helo
to be eternally valio. The language of intuitionist mathematics, as op-
poseo to any metalanguage through which we may wish to analyse it, is
therefore tenseless, oespite the irreoucible temporality of the proceoures
that constitute its truths. Dummett provioes a helpful example on this
point.
6o
Ior the intuitionist, in :88., through the work of Linoemann, the
statement is transcenoental became true. Frior to :88., no such truth
existeo, it is nevertheless inaomissible to claim that in :88:, say, was rot
transcenoental, for to oo so employs a non-constructive form of negation:
no proceoure existeo in :88: that was capable of oemonstrating the non-
transcenoental nature of , nor oio any means exist of oemonstrating that
no proceoure coolo exist that woulo establish that may be transcenoen-
tal. In :88:, neither the statement is transcenoental nor the statement
is not transcenoental were true, but neither were they false. As for the
statement it is inoeterminate whether is transcenoental or notthis is
simply not a mathematical statement.
6:
It is a statement of the metalan-
guage. By aomitting as mathematical statements only those which oeclare
the existence of a constructive proceoure, intuitionism avoios encounter-
ing contraoictions between tenseless propositions concerning temporally
conoitioneo events. In this way, intuitionism proouces a logic of truths
that are at once eternal ano createo.
Dummetts example serves also to illustrate the behaviour of nega-
tion in the Kripke mooel, ano in intuitionistic logic in general. As I have
inoicateo, the reason why, in :88:, it was not legitimate to amrm the non-
transcenoental nature of is that no proceoure existeo that was capable
of showing that Linoemanns proof ,or some other to the same ehect, was
not forthcoming. This state of ahairs is expresseo quite well by the se-
mantic interpretation of negation in Kripkes tree-mooel. To assert -A
intuitionistically in the situation H, Kripke writes,
we neeo to know at H not only that A has not been verineo at H,
6o. The following example is a paraphrase of Dummett, Elcmcrt of Irtotttortm, p. .
6:. cf. Heyting, Irtotttortm: Ar Irttooocttor, p. :q: Every mathematical assertion can be
expresseo in the form: I have ehecteo the construction A in my mino. The mathemati-
cal negation of this assertion can be expresseo as I have ehecteo a construction B in my
mino, which oeouces a contraoiction from the supposition that the construction A were
brought to an eno, which is again of the same form. On the contrary, the factual negation
of the nrst assertion is: I have not ehecteo the construction A in my mino, this statement
has not the form of a mathematical assertion.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo 8
but that it cannot possibly be verineo at any later time, no matter
how much information is gaineo, so we say that ,A,H, ~ T ih
,A,H, ~ F for every H K such that HRH. ,qq,
The intuitionist assertion of a negative proposition is thus not merely a
statement of what is not actually the case ,the case being the current
state of what has been constructeo,, it is a statement on what corrot be the
case. This mooality of the negative is characteristic of the intuitionistic
unoerstanoing of truth ano its subjective essence. We will encounter it
again elsewhere.
8
In Meoitation . of Bctrg oro Eccrt, ano again in La mathmatique est
un pense,
6.
Baoiou outlines the three great orientations in thought, ano
oesignates them as Constructivist, Generic ano Transcenoent Thought,
respectively. To anyone familiar with this taxonomy, it is immeoiately
tempting to place intuitionism unoer the rubric of Constructivist Thought.
On a purely mathematical register, there is much to recommeno situat-
ing intuitionism within the constructivist orientation, ano it is common
practice in the literature to use the expressions constructive mathematics
ano intuitionist mathematics more or less interchangeably.
6
Neither the
intuitionist nor the constructivist ,in Baoious sense of the term, recognize
the existence of structures which cannot be constructeo on the basis of
a nnite algorithm, ano both schools of thought insist on the restriction
of all quantincation to oomains of alreaoy-constructeo entities.
6
But we
neeo not reao far into Baoious exposition of constructivist thought to re-
alize that this category is somewhat ill-suiteo to Brouwerian intuitionism.
Constructivist thought, as Baoiou unoerstanos it, is in its essence || a
logical grammar. Or, to be exact, it ensures that language prevails as the
norm for what may be acceptably recognizeo as an existent multiplicity
,BE .8,. Nothing coulo be more anathematic to Brouwers thought. As
we have seen, Brouwers founoing gesture ,the Iirst Act of Intuitionism,
was to announce an uncompromizing secession of genuine mathemati-
6.. Alain Baoiou, Coott ttott oortologtc ttorttottc, Faris, Eoitions ou Seuil, :qq8, pp. q-.
6. cf. Errett Bishop, Fooroottor of Corttocttcc Arol,t, New York, McGraw-Hill, :q6.
6. Ior the constructivist, Baoiou writes, if one says there exists, this must be unoer-
stooo as saying there exists a term nameo in the situation, ano if one says for all,
this must be unoerstooo as, for all nameo terms of the situation ,BE .8,. In this text,
a name is taken to mean a nnite algorithm by which the multiple in question can be
constructeo.
Zachary Iraser q
cal activity from language.
6
This is not the heart of the matter, however.
There are oimculties that must be overcome before placing intuitionism
within or, of Baoious three orientations.
All three major orientations of thought that Baoiou aooresses, insofar
as they can be exhibiteo in mathematics, are oemarcateo accoroing to
their treatment of Cantors continuum problem. This problem concerns
the quantitative relation between the set of natural numbers
o
ano the
real number continuum, or, more generally, between a given transnnite
set
o
are then oenneo by the branches o
has a o in its r
th
place ,i.e. o
,r, ~ o,. So
long as we are operating within classical mathematics, we may consioer
to be an octooll, trrttc structure, one which has completely traverseo all
of the natural numbers r. Each branch o
,r, ~ : ano o
,|,
, 8 ,
:
, 8 ,
.
,|
Zachary Iraser q
So far we have not yet parteo ways with Baoious own mooe of exposi-
tion.
q
We will oo this now, by oenning a ptcoo of correct subsets over ,
which we will call .
In oroer to capture the incremental oevelopment of the correct sub-
sets, among which those capable of characterizing truth proceoures will
ngure, let us introouce some aooitional notation to Baoious apparatus.
We will write ,r, to inoicate a correct subset with r elements. This r will
also oesignate the oistance of the sequence in question from the root of
the spreao. ,m, will be consioereo an initial sequence of ,r, when ,m,
,r, ano m r. If two sequences are not compatible ,if one is not an
initial sequence of the other,, we will oiherentiate the two by subscripts
,c.g.
:
,r, ano
.
,m,,. As stateo above, a spreao is given to us by its ptcoo
loo ano its complcmcrtot, loo. Here, for the sake of concision, we will con-
nate the two, skipping the construction of a natural number spreao ano
proceeoing oirectly with the formation of a spreao over , our connateo
law will be oenoteo
,,r,, ~ : otlctotc
It is a fairly simple exercise to ascertain that any sequence ,r, aomitteo by
this law obeys the two rules of correctness stateo above. A small portion
of the resulting spreao is oiagrammeo in gotc ..
q. The entire theory of correct subsets is to be founo in section of Meoitation of
BE.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo 6o
<0,0>
<0,1> <1,0>
<1,0,0>
<0,1,0> <0,1,1>
<1,1,1>
<1,1,0>
<1,01>
<0,0,1>
<0,0,0>
<0>
< >
<1,1>
<1>
gure
The next step in our construction consists in oelineating a potcrttoll,
gcrcttc sequence in . It must be unoerstooo that the genericity of the
sequence must always remain potcrttol, so long as we are operating within
an intuitionist spreao, for only an actually innnite sequence can be truly
generic. This state of ahairs is no oiherent than that which we nno in
any concrete truth proceoure, accoroing to the argument aovanceo in
Bctrg oro Eccrt. The innnite multiplicity proper to a concrete exercise of
noelitya truth-proceoureis always only virtual ,BE .6, or potential.
That this innnity has a fully actual locus of being in the situation itself, as
Baoiou unoerstanos it, ooes not change the fact that the truth-proceoure
itself is internally characterizeo by a potcrttoll, innnite progression, no less
than any intuitionistically aomissible sequence. Even so, a signincant con-
ceptual oiherence between an intuitionistic sequence ano a Baoiousian
truth-proceoure is legible here, namely, that the meoium of the Baoiou-
sian subject is not its own creation.
It is clear that no looltlc sequence is nt to express the concept of a
potentially generic proceoure, since a lawlike sequence is precisely one
whose elements are extracteo from the spreao accoroing to a construct-
ible principle, that is, by a formula restricteo to the ,pre-constructeo, uni-
verse in which the spreao unfolos. Lawlike sequences are, in Baoious
language, essentially otcctrtolc sequences. One may therefore suspect that
all that neeos to be oone to schematize a potentially generic proceoure
in is to oenne that proceoure as a ftcc clotcc cocrcc, a sequence whose
successive choices are entirely unrestricteo, so long as they remain within
the bounoaries set by the spreao law. This too, however, is insumcient, for
nothing guarantees that such an arbitrary sequence will not inaovertently
Zachary Iraser 6:
,t.c. extensionally, fall unoer a lawlike oeterminant, become oiscernible
to the situation, ano fall short of genericity. Neither the anarchic nor the
legalistic mooes of operation will be sumcient for our task. The anarchic
approach ooes, however, come somewhat closer to what we are after here.
The entire problem lies in placing the necessary restrictions on the free-
oom of the sequence, in oisciplining the sequence in a way that ooes not
rob it of its freeoom, but which keeps it at a oistance from the Law. Much
of Baoious own approach to the question of liberty can be gleaneo from
this problematic. Hallwaro is quite correct in observing that Baoiou sees
freeoom as an exceptionally fragile achievement, quite unlike the those
who, from Kant through to Sartre ano Brouwer, see it as a necessary
presumption.
8o
It is not a question, here, of empirical freeoom, the conoi-
tion of not being in bonoage, Baoious thesis is that rarity ano fragility are
characteristic of the ontological ano trans-ontological basis of freeoom
itself: rarity, since the prerequisite unbinoing from being in itself takes
place only in exceptional events, ano fragility, because the freeoom of the
subject can only sustaineo so long as the subject maintains the protracteo
ehort of subtracting itself from the law. Moreover, these two conoitions
support one another in their being, for the event is only possible if spe-
cial proceoures conserve the evental nature of its consequences ,BE .::,.
Only through the genericity of the truth proceoure may an event succeeo
in making its mark on being. No such fragility confronts the Brouwerian
subject, for even the lawlike sequences are conceiveo in terms of choice
sequences constraineo by self-imposeo restrictions.
In oroer to faithfully oistil the bare subjective essence of the free
choice sequence from the pseuoo-grammarian oross that surrounos it,
ano exhibit a structure that expresses the fragile ano oisciplineo freeoom
that characterizes the subjective truth proceoure, we must place certain
restrictions on an otherwise free choice sequence. These must be sum-
cient to oiscipline the sequence in a such a way that it ooes not allow
itself to be ,permanently, captureo by any existing lawlike sequence, with-
out consigning the subject to a newly inventeo lawlike sequence of its
own. The rule that we will impose will be the following: for any lawlike
sequence , if ,r, ~ ,r, then there must exist some m such that ,m,
,m,. Given that is oenumerable ,even when conceiveo as an actually
innnite subset, ano can always be ehectively enumerateo on the basis of
the natural oroer germane to all correct subsets, it follows that wherever
oihers from a oiscernible correct subset, the point at which it oihers can
8o. Feter Hallwaro, Bootoo, p. :6.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo 6.
be inoexeo by a nnite oroinal. The inoex m of this point, moreover, will
always be constructible, since the means for its oetermination are alreaoy
constructively given to us in the comparison of an algorithmically gener-
ateo lawlike sequence ano a subjectively constructeo choice sequence.
An unsettling practical consequence of this prescription, which sum-
ciently captures the potential genericity of any concrete proceoure, is that
a potentially generic proceoure can, consistently, remain lawlike trocrttcl,:
it is always possible to procrastinate its oivergence from any given lawlike
sequence. It has, so to speak, all the time in the worlo to become generic.
It is therefore impossible to oecioe, baseo on empirical evioence, whether
any proceoure is or is not generic. Strictly speaking, the ttotlfolrc of a
proceoure ooes not oisclose itself in extensionally oeterminate evioence, it
can be testineo to only in the interiority of the sequence, with respect to its
projecteo intension. Any oeclaration concerning the existence of a truth
must, therefore, always remain hypothetical ano anticipatory, without the
hope of sumcient evioence ever arriving. Ior as long as a proceoure is
conceiveo as a stepwise concatenation of oiscrete elements of a situation,
it is clear that never will this proceoure achieve historical completion. The
conoition of genericity, like the holiness to which the Kantian subject as-
pires, is a perfection of which no rational being of the sensible worlo is ca-
pable of at any moment in his existence. Since, nevertheless, it is requireo
as practically necessary, if the proceoure is to be amrmeo as a ttotl, it
can only be founo in a ptogtc tr trrttom towaros that perfect accoroance,
or rather that pure otcotoorcc, with the Law.
8:
No less than Kant, Baoiou
is forceo to postulate a form of immortality for the subject. Baoiou ooes
not balk at this exigency, ano insists that in its essence, subjectivation t
immortal.
8.
The immortality avoweo here, however, is not that of the hu-
man animal who bears the truth in question, but the ptogtc tr trrttom of
which the subjective proceoure itself is, in principle, capable, ano which
the truth that it serves oemanos of it. This illuminates a signincant point
concerning the Baoiousian subject that we have not yet mentioneo: the
subject is not ioentical with the inoivioual as such, but with the proceoure
in which the inoivioual is engageo. There may therefore be collective
subjects, just as there may be epochal subjects, whose scope far exceeos
that of any single participant. All this is quite oiherent from Brouwers
8:. See Immanuel Kant, Cttttoc of Ptocttcol Rcoor, trans. T.K. Abbott, Amherst, Frometh-
eus Books, :qq6, p. :8.
8.. Baoiou, Etltc: Ar Eo, or tlc Urocttorotrg of Ectl, trans. Feter Hallwaro, Lonoon,
Verso, .oo:, p. :.. Emphasis mine.
Zachary Iraser 6
occasionally quite solipsistic tenoencies. Nor ooes Brouwers theory of the
subject place any wager on the existence of an actual innnite, but this is
quite in accoroance with his raoically immanentist vision of the subject
ano its mathematical task.
::
The anticipatory nature of genericity ooes not prevent the subject
from orawing conclusions regaroing the postulateo new worlo that
woulo come at the eno of the truth proceoure. This is where the opera-
tion of fotctrg comes into play. Before it is possible, however, it is necessary
to calibrate the initial situation by oenning within it a complex apparatus
of names for the elements of the new worlo, the generic extension S,,
of the initial situation S. These names are oenneo, prior to the exact oe-
termination of their referents, as sets in the initial situation of a certain
kinonamely, as oroereo pairs consisting of conoitions in ano other,
previously constructeo names. In the interest of brevity, I will forgo a oe-
taileo account of how this may be oone, one such methoo is illustrateo
in Meoitation of Bctrg oro Eccrt, another is given in Chapter IV, of
Cohens Sct Tlcot, oro tlc Corttroom H,potlct, ano still others are avail-
able in the existing literature on the topic. As Cohen notes, the precise
methoo chosen for the calibration of names is of no importance as long
as we have not neglecteo any set in the generic extension ,Cohen, ::,.
In empirical situations, moreover, it is certainly to be expecteo that the
methoo shoulo oiher from one specinc truth proceoure to another. In any
case, what is essential is that the referential value of these names is oeter-
mineo by the composition of , more precisely, the referential value of
each name is oetermineo by the membership in of the conoitions which
enter into the composition of the name in question.
The constellation of names is generateo by the subject ngure in what
Baoiou calls the subject-language, an amalgam of the native language of
the situation ano the names whose reference is contingent on the compo-
sition of the generic truth . This language is naturally empty or nonsen-
sical for inhabitants of the initial situation S, since the names it employs,
in general, oo not have a referent in S, the situation to which they refer,
moreover, has not yet fully arriveo, ano even here their referential func-
tion is nltereo through what, for those in S, is entirely inoiscernible.
8
Op-
8. As Baoiou oescribes it, this state of ahairs nnos a peculiar resonance in Brouwers
work. As ]an von Flato observes, Brouwers :q.o papers on intuitionistic mathematics
are populateo with strange ano often esoteric terminology ano notation. This unusual
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo 6
erating within this new language, the subject is capable of making certain
hypotheses of the form: If I suppose that the inoiscernible truth contains
or presents such or such a term submitteo to the enquiry by chance, tlcr
such a statement of the subject-language |c. bearing on the new situa-
tion, the generic extension S,,| will have hao such a meaning ano will
,or wont, have been verioical ,BE oo,. The hypothetical character of
these statements is graoually, but never completely, resolveo throughout
the course of the generic proceoure, as the elements of the truth become
known to the subject in question ,t.c., as the inoex r of ,r, increases,. Of
the projecteo composition of , the subject solely controlsbecause it is
suchthe nnite fragment maoe up of the present state of the enquiries.
All the rest, we are tolo, is a matter of connoence, or of knowing belief
,BE oo,.
The rational means by which the subject of the generic proceoure
makes such assertions ano hypotheses is governeo by the fotctrg tclottor,
which Baoiou names as the funoamental law of the subject. The onto-
logical form of this relation oerives from Cohens work on the continuum
problem, where forcing is useo to oemonstrate the existence of mooels for
set theory in which the power of the continuum may exceeo
:
by virtu-
ally any oegree at all ,the only restriction being
o
|,
o
,|
o
,. In
the context of Baoious theory of the subject,
|t|hat a term of the situation fotcc a statement of the subject language
means that the veracity of this statement in the situation to come
is equivalent to the belonging of this term to the inoiscernible part
which results from the generic proceoure. It thus means that this
term, bouno to the statement by the relation of forcing, belongs to
the truth ,BE o,.
8
reconnguration of mathematical language, von Flato informs us, has its theoretical mo-
tives in the programme of the Signinc Circle, a philosophical group in which Brouwer
participateo. The circle, he writes, aimeo at moral betterment of humankino through a
socio-linguistic reform. Brouwer himself believeo that olo woros contain moral connota-
tions that can leao to evil thoughts. Ior him, language was in the nrst place a means for
getting power over others. Thus the strange ano specincally intuitionistic vocabulary ,ano
notation, in part still followeo by some intuitionists, is part of a utopian program of lan-
guage revision. ,]an von Flato, Review of Dirk van Dalen, M,ttc, Gcomctct, oro Irtotttortt,
Tlc Ltfc of L.E.}. Btoooct col. .. Tlc Doortrg Rccolottor, in Bollcttr of S,mooltc Logtc, vol.,
no.: March, .oo:, p. 6, Inoeeo, Brouwer consioereo his intuitionist movement to be, in
a subtle but signincant way, of both spiritual ano political importance, ano part of his task
of creating a new vocabulary which aomits also the spiritual tenoencies in human life to
consioerate interchange of views ano hence social organization ,Signinc Dialogues, Col-
lcctco 1otl, p. 8,.
8. In more technical terms:
Zachary Iraser 6
The forcing relation is intimately relateo to the logical notion of tmpltcottor
or crtotlmcrt, as Cohen points out ,Cohen, :::,. It oetermines the states of
ahairs that will arise on the conoition that this or that set belongs to the
generic on the basis of which S,, is constructeo. As Baoiou has it, what
is at stake here is the immanent logic of a subjective truth proceoure. It
is, in several respects, analogous to the logic of beingthat is, the classi-
cal logical calculus by which set theory operates. Where forcing formally
oiverges from classical logic, it ooes so insofar as it is compelleo to oerive
its veracities from an innnite sequence whose total composition is inac-
cessible to any algorithmic oetermination. It is no accioent that these are
precisely the exigencies faceo by the intuitionist subject, when operating
in a oomain that cannot be nnitely specineo.
A oennition for the forcing relation with respect to atomic formulae
cannot be aoequately presenteo within the limits of this paper. The curious
reaoer may nno a thorough treatment in Cohens text, ano an aoequate
gloss of the forcing of atomic formulae in Appenoix of Bctrg oro Eccrt.
What is more signincant for us, in any case, is the logical structure which
the forcing relation takes with respect to compouno formulae. Here, the
structural oivergence of forcing from classical entailment is clearly legible.
With respect to the propositional connectives,
8
the oennition of forcing
is as follows:
a. forces P 8 Q if forces P ano forces Q.
b. forces P ot Q if forces P or forces Q.
c. forces P Q if either forces P or forces Q.
o. forces -P if for all oominating , ooes not force P.
86
As Cohen remarks, these oennitions oo not imply that for ano P we
must have either forces P or forces P. Also, forcing ooes not obey
some simple rules of the propositional calculus. Thus, may force - -P
- if a conoition forces a statement on the names, then, for any generic part such that
, the same statement, this time bearing on the referential value of the names, is
verioical in the generic extension S,,,
- reciprocally, if a statement is verioical in a generic extension S,,, there exists a conoi-
tion such that ano forces the statement applieo to the names whose values
appear in the verioical statement in question. ,BE p. :.,
8. As in the above exposition of Kripkes intuitionistic semantics, I leave out the conoi-
tions for the quantiners ano . Again, this is oone in the interest of brevity. The inter-
esteo reaoer may consult Chapter IV of Cohens text.
86. These oennitions are presenteo in Cohen, p. ::-8. I have altereo some of the nota-
tion to conform to Baoious. This, of course, ooes not ahect the meanings of formulae in
question.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo 66
ano yet not force P.
8
To be more precise, the oennitions we have here
oo not obey some simple rules of the clotcol propositional calculus, as
an analogue of entailment, the forcing relation here oenneo is, in fact,
highly suggestive of the trtotttortttc calculus. Consioer the oennition for
negation. As Cohen tells us, it is only possible for a conoition to force
-P so long as no other conoition participating in the generic sequence
forces P. In forcing, Baoiou observes, the concept of negation has some-
thing mooal about it: it is possible to oeny once one is not constraineo to
amrm, the certainty of non-constraint always being oeferreo until the se-
quence is completeo. This mooality of the negative, Baoiou continues, is
characteristic of subjective or post-evental negation ,BE :,just as it is
characteristic of the temporally oeployeo constructions of the intuitionist
subject ,cf. ,. It is not merely a superncial structural similarity that is at
issue here, the formal congruence between the two subjective logics is the
ehect of essentially ioentical requirements. These requirements stem from
the fact that both subjects participate in the articulation of a truth which
nnos its full oetermination only in time. We have seen that Baoious tem-
poralization of the subjective truth proceoure has the ehect of translating
the generic subset in which the subject participates into the intuitionisti-
cally legible form of a potcrttoll, gcrcttc clotcc cocrcc, we see now that this
same temporalization seems to bring the logic of the post-evental subject
into conformity with the logic of intuitionism.
In the same :q6 paper from which we earlier orew the semantical
analysis of intuitionistic logic, Kripke connrms our suspicions ,pp. ::8-
:.o,. He shows that mooel structures of the sort presenteo in can be,
rather straightforwaroly, interpreteo as mooelling the forcing relation in-
steao of the Heyting calculus for intuitionistic logic. Roughly speaking,
this involves assigning fotctrg corotttor to the nooes of the mooel structure
in such a way that R whenever we have . Ior those which are
elements of , we have ,P,, ~ T or ,P,, ~ F, accoroing to whether
forces P or fails to oo so. In this mooel, thus appears as an innnitely long
path through the tree ,in the classical context of Kripkes mooel, we may
consioer this path as a completeo structure,.
Kripke presents us with a fascinating theorem concerning this mooel:
if we say that forces Q whenever there exists a in which forces
Q, then for all Q, forces either Q or -Q, tf oro orl, tf t gcrcttc. This
theorem elegantly brings together the essential law of classical logicthe
point at which its oiherence from intuitionistic logic is concentrateoano
8. Cohen, p. ::8. Notation altereo, see previous footnote.
Zachary Iraser 6
the classical, non-intuitionistic concept pot cxccllcrcc: the actual completion
of a extensionally oetermineo, intrinsically non-constructible, innnite set.
Now, we must recall that throughout the entirety of ,r,s historical
existence, r, which marks both the age of ,r, ano its caroinality, remains
nnite. So long as ,r, is nnite, it is rot ,ct o gcrcttc cocrcc, it is merely potcr-
ttoll, generic, but extensionally consioereo, it is no oiherent than any other
nnite set in this respect. The Law of the Excluoeo Mioole is therefore rot
generally valio for the subject of a truth proceoure, insofar as this subject
remains nnite. The logic of the subject is not classical. It is intuitionistic.
:.
It is now possible to characterize the intuitionist application onto on-
tology |t.c. mathematics| rules of connection which comc ftom clcolctc ,BE
.q, in terms more precise ano more rigorously oevelopeo than the vague
epithets of empiricism ano objectivism with which Baoiou oismisses in-
tuitionistic logic in the .
th
Meoitation. We may now characterize the
logic of the intuitionist subject in terms internal to the conceptual appa-
ratus set out in Bctrg oro Eccrt: the rules of intuitionistic logic are precisely
those prescribeo by the law of the subject, the logic internal to a truth
proceoure. If intuitionist mathematics is justineo in applying these rules
back onto mathematics, it is because intuitionism seizes mathematics o o
ttotl ptoccootc. Conversely, if mathematics t a truth proceoure, then these
rules cannot be saio to be oeriveo from elsewhere, they are proceeo from
the very subjectivity which bears ontology towaros truth.
The paraoox, here, is that throughout Bctrg oro Eccrt, mathematics is
chargeo with a oouble task. It is repeateoly summoneo not only to provioe
the ontological lineaments of the worlo, but also to stano as an exemplary
truth proceoureinoeeo, as the paraoigm for an entire species of truth
proceoures ,the scientinc,. Yet if mathematics is a historical ano concrete
truth proceoure, then its logic is not classical. Ano if mathematics is ontol-
ogy, then either its logic cannot be the intuitionistic logic prescribeo by
the law of the subject, or else this ontology cannot be primarily set-theo-
retical.
Let us tackle one problem at a time: how is it possible for the logic of
the mathematical truth proceoure to be classical, when its subjective law
is intuitionistic? In truth, the problem ooes not confront Baoiou in this
form, for he ooes not make of classical oeouction the loo of tlc ortologtt
oocct. Insteao, oeouction is conceiveo as ontologys opctotot of ocltt,, the
principle whereby the ontologist subject concatenates the elements of the
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo 68
truth to which it is faithful ,BE meo. .,. Both classical ano intuitionist
oeouction are conceiveo in this way, as two bifurcating regimes of noelity
,BE .q,. Is this interpretation of oeouction legitimate? Unoer the hy-
pothesis that a truth is generic, it woulo seem that it is not. A sequence
of elements concatenateo in such a way that each is ocooctolc from the
series prior to it will not become generic. Insofar as classical mathemat-
ics is helo to express, in its axioms, the laws of being oo being, the laws
which oictate the formal structure of or, ptccrtottor olotoccct, these laws
are necessarily operative in the ontological situation wherein the math-
ematician exercises her noelity. Any sequence there articulateo in accoro-
ance with these laws woulo be a otcctrtolc or looltlc sequence, ano hence
non-generic. Of course, the same problem woulo confront us if we chose
to select trtotttortttc ocooctotltt, as a principle of connection, but this is not
the issue here. Deouction o ocl cannot be the principle of connection for
a generic proceoure. The principle of connection for mathematical truth
proceoures thus remains obscure. Of course, this is consonant with the
nature of generic sequences: by oennition, the operator of noelity cannot
be lawlike. It remains an open question how the operator of mathemati-
cal noelity is to be thought. As for oeouction, it can more consistently be
conceiveo as the subjective law corresponoing to the mathematical truth
proceoure, that is, as a manifestation of the forcing relation. Ano yet, if
this is oone, then oeouction woulo obey an intuitionistic logic, ano ontol-
ogy, if it is a truth proceoure, woulo not be classical.
If we maintain, oespite all oimculties, that mathematics is a truth pro-
ceoure in the sense outlineo in Bctrg oro Eccrt, the next question that we
face concerns its status as ontology. This is a question that is far more pro-
founo ano oimcult that can be aoequately oealt with here. A few, tentative
remarks may be maoe at this point, however.
Iirst of all, if the foregoing speculations are correct, then if math-
ematics is at once a truth ano an ontology, then it woulo be compelleo to
obey an intuitionistic logic. This is not to say that it must be intuitionistic
mathematics as suchas has been mentioneo alreaoy, it woulo be wrong
to reouce intuitionism to its abstract logical form. Nevertheless, this is a
seemingly viable hypothesis. If we oo take intuitionistic mathematics to
be that which expresses the sayable of being, however, then we face the
immeoiate consequence of having unoercut a great oeal of the formal ap-
paratus that has brought us to this point. We lose the concept of the com-
pleteo genericeven if such a ngure never arrives historically, ano we
lose the non-wellfounoeo multiplicity that Baoiou calls the eventeven if
such a structure was alreaoy forecloseo from the classical ontology. Time,
Zachary Iraser 6q
on the other hano, enters into a much more subtle ano organic relation
with intuitionist ontology than it ooes with its classical preoecessor, for
which it appears as a somewhat awkwaro supplement. The question also
arises as to the character of an intuitionistic ontology. There is no neeo to
assume in aovance that it woulo compel an ioealist metaontology, as op-
poseo to the materialist ooctrine that Baoiou sought to oraw out of clas-
sical set theory, Baoiou himself, at least in principle, wishes to oistinguish
between being in itself ano what is o,oolc of octrg.
88
It is possible to upholo
this oistinction by maintaining beyono the scope of constructive thought,
an unconstructeo horizon about which we can, as of yet, say nothing.
Lest we loose the threao we took up at the beginning of this essay,
let us take stock of the following points: Within the immanence of their
proceoures, the intuitionist ano the post-evental subject are inoiscern-
ible from one another. It is their positions which oiher. The post-evental
subject is conceptually oistinct from the intuitionistic subject in that its
form is articulateo within a meoium that it oio not create, ano in that it
proceeos from an aleatory event that is not the root of the ontological ap-
paratus that oelivers this meoium ,like the Brouwerian two-ity,, but an
exceptionsomething less than a saplingthat remains unthought by
this very apparatus. Yet the ontological apparatus is ttclf to be conceiveo
as a subjective proceoure, ano so we are oriven to think the form of the
Baoiousian truth-subject within the nelo oeployeo by another subject of
truth. If the subject of ontology is to formally coincioe with the ontologi-
cal schema of the subject, then we are presenteo with a problem, for the
subject schematizeo by ontology is trcorgtocrt with the subjective form of
ontology as such, insofar as this ontology is classical. If we insist on con-
gruence, we are leo away from classical ontology ano towaros intuition-
ism, but to take this route woulo require reformulating the problem to
which we are responoing.
At this point, the range of possible speculative solutions to these oif-
nculties appears as broao as it is unclear. It seems that it woulo be both
more fruitful ano more cautious to formulate the general questions that
confront us here. There are two:
What woulo it mean for ontology to be a truth proceoure?
What woulo it mean for this not to be the case?
88. cf. BE, p. 8: The thesis that I support ooes not in any way oeclare that being is math-
ematical, which is to say compriseo of mathematical objectivities. It is not a thesis about
the worlo but about oiscourse. It amrms that mathematics, throughout the entirety of its
historical becoming, pronounces what is expressible of being qua being.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo o
It remains to be seen whether they can be answereo within the context in
which they are poseo.
8q
8q. With respect to Baoious thought, I have intentionally restricteo the focus of this paper
to the system put forwaro in Bctrg oro Eccrt ,Lcttc ct lcrcmcrt,, ano have not taken any
consioeration of the oevelopments that this system has unoergone in Baoious .oo6 work,
Logtoc oc moroc: lcttc ct lcrcmcrt .. This is a signincant omission, given that the con-
cept of the subject unoergoes extensive revision in this recent work. Among the changes
bearing on the above enquiry are a reworking of the subject in such a way that it is no
longer simply the nnite fragment of a truth, but participates in a properly innnite system
of operations, as well as an explicit employment of the Heyting algebra for intuitionistic
logic in the context of a theory of appearances that oraws its mathematical support from
category theory. A continuation of the current line of investigation into the terrain covereo
by Logtoc oc moroc is certainly calleo for, but this must await another time.
:
!
The Limits of the Subject in
Baoious Bctrg oro Eccrt
Brian Anthony Smith
The ngure of the subject in Baoious Bctrg oro Eccrt
:
is key to unoer-
stanoing the link between his revival of a systematic ontology, in the form
of set theoretical mathematics, ano his wioer philosophical ano ethical
concerns. Through a critical examination of the subject, as it appears in
Bctrg oro Eccrt, ano an evaluation of the categories of subjective Gooo
ano Evil, oevelopeo in his book Etltc: or Eo, or tlc Urocttorotrg of Ectl
.
,
I hope to probe the limits of this subjective mooel ano to propose a new
subjective ngure that appears possible, but unexamineo, in either of these
works.
My analysis will focus on two main points: nrst, Baoious use of the
Axiom of Choice, as a key factor in his philosophy that allows for the pos-
sibility of a subject, ano, secono, his selective use of set theoretical forc-
ing, which concentrates mainly on the inoepenoence of the Continuum
Hypothesis.
Baoious ethics is baseo on the capacity of inoiviouals to oistinguish
themselves from their rttc animal nature ano to become tmmottol, to be-
come immortal is to become a subject ,E :., :.,. What constitutes this
singular ability, our rationality, is the use of mathematics ,E :.,. Spe-
cincally it is the Axiom of Choice that elevates the human animal to the
:. Alain Baoiou, Bctrg oro Eccrt, trans. Oliver Ieltham, Lonoon, Continuum, .oo ,hence-
forth BE,.
.. Alain Baoiou, Etltc: or Eo, or tlc Urocttorotrg of Ectl, trans. Feter Hallwaro, Lonoon,
Verso, .oo: ,henceforth E,.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo .
level of a potcrttol subject. This axiom expresses an inoiviouals freeoom, a
freeoom equivalent to the amrmation of pure chance.
It is this capacity
that allows an inoivioual to amrm its chance encounter with an event, the
moment of this amrmation is calleo trtctccrttor ano marks the birth of a
subject ,BE Meoitations .o ano ..,.
The importance of the Axiom of Choice is clear, it provioes the con-
nection between the inoivioual, the event ano the subject. It oennes the
inoivioual ano provioes the corotttor unoer which subjectivity is possible.
Baoious appeal to Faul Cohens theory of forcing is preoominately
oirecteo towaro his proof of the inoepenoence of Georg Cantors Con-
tinuum Hypothesis. But in Cohens book, Sct Tlcot, oro tlc Corttroom H,-
potlct, the methoo of forcing is useo equally to prove the inoepenoence
of the Axiom of Choice.
, m
n
}. A set is therefore a collection of separate
elements, which are saio to oclorg to a set. This relation of belonging is the
q. Michael Fotter, Sct Tlcot, oro tt Pltloopl,, Oxforo, Oxforo University Fress, .oo, pp.
.-, .q:.
:o. Georg Cantor, Cortttoottor to tlc Foorotrg of tlc Tlcot, of Ttorrttc ^omoct, trans. Fhilip
]ouroain, New York, Dover, :q:, p. 8.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo 8
funoamental non-logical relation that structures all sets, ano is written .
In the set M above, for example, all the elements that appear within the
brackets belong to M: m
:
M, m
.
M, ano so on. Ior Baoiou, the set is the
consistent presentation of its elements. The term element can be some-
what misleaoing, as it seems to suggest that the elements themselves are
ones, thus introoucing oneness into set theory. Baoiou avoios calling these
terms elements ano prefers to call them presenteo terms. I will continue
to call them elements as this is the name that most commonly appears
in texts on set theory. The construction of the elements of sets will make
it clear that they are not atomic inoiviouals, but rather pure multiples,
which are each multiple in their own right.
The initial set, asserteo to exist axiomatically, cannot have any mem-
bers, nothing can belong to it. If it oio, the sets members coulo legitimate-
ly be helo to be atomic inoiviouals. This woulo guarantee that the one
t, contraoicting the wager that the one t rot. Therefore, to begin with,
the only set that can be asserteo to exist, without contraoicting the above
wager, is an empty set. Unsurprisingly, the Axiom of the Empty Set asserts
that just such a set exists. Baoious technical formulation of this axiom is:
,,|,,,,|
This reaos there exists a such that there ooes not exist any which be-
longs to it ,BE 68,. The set is voio, or empty. In his formulation Baoiou
chooses to use the existential quantiner, , there exists, twice rather than
the more usual use of the universal quantiner, , for all. The more usual
formulation of this axiom is:
,,,,,,
::
This woulo reao: there exists a set such that, for all , no belongs to
. The oouble existential form is important for Baoiou: there cxtt such
that there ooc rot cxtt . There is the ptccrtottor of something that is rot
presenteo, for Baoiou this is pure inconsistent multiplicity ,BE 6,.
With this axiom, the nnal requirements of a theory of the pure mul-
tiple, a form of consistent presentation without a one, is achieveo. The
metaontological signincance of this axiom is that the unpresentable is
presenteo, as a subtractive term of the presentation of presentation ,BE
6,. As Baoiou states: If there cannot be o presentation of being because
being occurs in every presentationano this is why it ooes not present
ttclfthen there is one solution left for us: that the ontological situation
be tlc ptccrtottor of ptccrtottor ,BE .,. The Axiom of the Empty Set guar-
::. Mary Tiles, Tlc Pltloopl, of Sct Tlcot,: Ar Httottcol Irttooocttor to Cortot Potootc, Ox-
foro, Basil Blackwell, :q8q, p. :.:.
Brian Anthony Smith q
antees the existence of at least one set, from which other sets can then be
generateo, but this set presents nothing more than presentation itself. The
empty set, written , can be thought of as simply an empty pair of brack-
ets: ~ {}. If a set is the formal operation of presenting its elements, then
if a set has no elements all it presents is this formal operation itself: the
empty set, , presents nothing but presentation itself.
This corttcrt presentation is often assumeo as paraooxical, or a sleight
of hano: the assertion that exists means that the theory is not empty,
only that the cortcrt of this theory t empty. What is being presenteo here is
only the how, of how being can be presenteo: the operation of the count-
as-one. The content of mathematical set theory is empty, although there
is a great richness to the structures of presentation. The empty set in con-
junction with the other ZI axioms can be useo to generate an inoennite
number of other sets, all of which ultimately present nothing. Therefore
the theory is not empty, it is populateo by the variety of empty structures
of presentation, but it is still, nnally, empty.
Here we can see how the two alternative phrasings the one t rot
ano being t multiple are both satisneo by this axiom. Every result of a
count-as-one, a set, is formeo from the empty set, so that although the
presentation is not empty, there is a presentation of structure, rotltrg, that
is no octrg, is presenteo: the one t rot. Being is therefore subtracteo from
all presentation of it as a one, the empty set perfectly expresses this by
presenting nothing, no one, ano if being is not one then it is multiple.
The nnal point to be maoe on this is that the empty sets uniqueness
means that it acts as a proper name, the proper name of being. The empty
set, , is not the presentation of being itself, but only its proper name. The
uniqueness of is immeoiate as rotltrg oiherentiates it, the uniqueness of
the empty set is baseo on its in-oiherence ,BE 68,. The empty set, or voio
set as Baoiou often calls it, is in-oiherent rot inoiscernible. It is not that we
cannot oiscern what is presenteo in the empty set, but rather that there is
rotltrg to oiscern. This point is of vital importance when inoiscernible sets
are introouceo as being central to a theory of the subject.
To concluoe this section, set theory is baseo not on a general oenni-
tion of a set, but on the assertion that a particular set ooes exist. The
empty set, , makes it possible for set theory to be an ontology of the
pure multiple.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo 8o
o) Tlc Irrttc o tlc Spocc of ^occlt,
Having establisheo that such a form of ontology is potolc, it is now
necessary to show that it is not sterile. The space openeo by set theory
must not be forecloseo against novelty. The fear is that set theory will
present such a formal system that it will be structurally oetermineo ano
closeo. Although this is true at the nnite level, at the innnite level there is
no absolute structure. Ior Baoiou, the notion of the innnite ooes not go
hano in hano with the themes of transcenoence ano totalization, but it is
insteao what makes the inoeterminate ano the unoecioable possible. In
this section I will explore how the concept of the innnite frees ontology
from any single structure, ano allows for the appearance of the inoiscern-
ible, or non-constructible set.
In oroer to make these aims clear it will be necessary to introouce
more of the technical terminology of set theory of Bctrg oro Eccrt.
Cantors initial aim with his theory of sets was to introouce the most
abstract mathematical objects possible: at base they shoulo be pure mul-
tiples abstracteo from both their cortcrt ano their otoct of appearance.
:.
Iree from these two trtttrtc qualities a set was presenteo as a pure cxtttrtc
multiple. This ioea remains in mooern ZI set theory in the form of the
Axiom of Extension, which oennes the ioentity of a set solely in terms of
its elements. A set is nothing more than the collection of the elements that
it brings together, regaroless of how these elements have been collecteo or
arrangeo. The axiom states:
,, |,, ,,| ,~,
This reaos: a set is the same as a set if, ano only if, every element of
is also an element of , ano vice versa. This extensional, or combinato-
rial, concept of a set is vital for Baoiou, a set is a pure multiple oenneo by
nothing more than the multiples that it presents.
Cantor calleo this abstract extensional presentation of a set its pooct
or its cototrol number, but it is also possible to think of a set in terms of its
trtttrtc otoct, thus oenning the sets ototrol type. If a set is ocll otoctco, the
oroinal type of the set becomes its oroinal number. A set is partially or-
oereo if each element can be thought to have a place relative to the other
elements. Ior every m
:
ano m
.
belonging to a set M, ano m
:
m
.
, it must
be the case that either m
:
m
.
or m
.
m
:
. This equates with our general
unoerstanoing of the natural, rational ano, even, the real numbers. Well
oroering is a slightly more strict form of oroer, which restricts well oroer-
ing to the type of oiscrete oroer founo only in the natural numbers, each
:.. Cantor, Cortttoottor to tlc Foorotrg of tlc Tlcot, of Ttorrttc ^omoct, p. 86.
Brian Anthony Smith 8:
number always has a oirect successor with no number appearing between
the original number ano its successor.
Two sets ano have the same caroinal number if there is a one-to-
one relation between them, each element of maps onto a unique ele-
ment of ano vice versa. Two sets ano have the same oroinal number
if a similar one-to-one relation exists, but the relation must also preserve
the well oroering of the sets.
It is this oistinction between a sets caroinal ano oroinal character,
ano the relation between these two relations, that lies at the heart of both
Cantors life long obsession with the continuum hypothesis, ano Baoious
interest in set theory ano the innnite.
The oiherence between caroinal ano oroinal numbers is simple to
unoerstano, but the signincance of this oistinction ooes not become obvi-
ous until innnite sets are consioereo. Caroinality measures the magnituoe
of a set, while oroinality is a measure of oegree, baseo on oroer. Take for
example the set ~ {:, ., , }, this set has a caroinal power of four ano
an oroinal oegree of four. It has a caroinal power of four, as it clearly has
four elements. It has an oroinal oegree of four, as the highest rankeo ele-
ment, accoroing to its oroering, is four. If a set has a clear oroer then we
neeo only look for its highest rankeo element in oroer to know its oroinal
number.
At the nnite level every set can be well oroereo, also this oroering is
unique: you cannot change the oroinal value of a nnite set by rearrang-
ing its elements. Every nnite set can only be associateo with one oroinal
number. This oroinal number is also ioentical to its caroinal power, in the
above example the set hao both the oroinal ano caroinal number four.
The concept of an innnite oroinal can only be reacheo through an ex-
tension of the methoo that generates nnite oroinals. This is the seemingly
simple notion of aooing one. Baoious approach to the construction of
the oroinals begins with his oistinction between belonging ano inclusion.
Baoiou claims that this oistinction provioes the source of the originality of
Bctrg oro Eccrt ,BE 8:,.
Given a set ~ {a, b, c, o}, the elements that belong to it are: a, b, c
ano o. But what about sets that share coincioent elements, such as ~ {a,
b} for example? Such a set is saio to be trclooco in , or to be a ooct of
, ano is written: . If all the elements of a set are also elements of
, then is a subset of . The Fower Set Axiom then states that if a set
exists then so ooes the set of all s subsets. Taking the example ~ {a, b,
c}, the power set of is: ,, ~ {{a}, {b}, {c}, {a, b}, {a, c}, {b, c}, {a,
b, c}, }. The new set, ,,, has eight, or .
elements, ano .
~.
Here we have a oirect methoo of prooucing new caroinal numbers. It can
be shown that this holos for innnite caroinal numbers, so ,
o
, ~ .
o
~
o
.
In general, if
, ~ .
.
:q
Having establisheo this separate methoo, the question as to the relation
between these two number systems can be aooresseo.
The obvious choice woulo be to make the two systems completely
commensurate with each other. This coulo be achieveo if ,
o
, ~
:
, a
formulation of Cantors Continuum Hypothesis, or generally if ,
, ~
-:
. But it turns out that the only thing that can be conclusively oecioeo
about ,
o
, is that it has a caroinality greater than
o
. This minimal oeter-
mination can consistently be strengtheneo, both the Continuum Hypoth-
esis ano its generalization can be asserteo, but so can almost any other
value of ,
o
,. Whereas Cantor saw this as a problem within the system
of set theory, the failure of set theory to form a closeo system conoitioneo
by a single set of rules, Baoiou sees it as its saving grace. This realm of
unoecioability opens up an immanent space within set theory for the ap-
pearance of novelty, ano for the subject to act on this novelty. It is Cohens
theory of forcing, proving that the Continuum Hypothesis is inoepenoent,
which opens up this possibility.
If the Continuum Hypothesis holos, then ,
o
,, the set of all possible
subsets of countable, natural, numbers is exhausteo by the oroereo meth-
oos of construction oeployeo by oroinal generation: ,
o
, ~
:
, or ,, ~
:
. The question poseo by this hypothesis is: what woulo it mean to think
of innnite subsets of the natural numbers that were not corttoctco accoro-
ing to the oroinal rules of generation? The intuitive response woulo be
that such sets woulo, in someway, embooy a lack of oroer.
One possible argument woulo be that the existence of such sets is ir-
relevant, as they coulo in no way be ehective. The only way that our nnite
minos can cope with innnite sets is that they oo embooy some oroer that
can be cooineo in a rttc way. We can only know such trrttc sets through
their rttc structure, their members satisfy some property. This ioea recalls
the common philosophical theme of ouality, a set has its intrinsic oroinal
structure, ano its purely extrinsic caroinal magnituoe: an intensive form
ano an extensive content. At the nnite level these two aspects are inois-
tinguishable ano ioentical, but at the innnite level things change. The
Continuum Hypothesis states that the formal aspect takes preceoence
at the innnite level, we can only oiscern innnite sets that embooy some
:q. Fotter, Sct Tlcot, oro tt Pltloopl,, p. .6..
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo 86
constructible oroer. The extensive caroinal magnituoe is only accessible
through this structureo oroer. If we assert that a non-constructible set can
exist, for example if there exists innnite subsets of which oo not belong
to the secono oroinal number class ,II,, how can we have access to them
without recourse to some constructive property?
In oroer to exploit the potential of non-constructible sets a formal ap-
proach to sets that lack oroer must be oevelopeo. The Axiom of Choice
provioes such an approach, by oeveloping a concept of free choice that
is inoepenoent of any criteria of choice. This axiom amrms freeoom ano
chance, it ooes not necessarily posit non-constructible sets, but it allows
for our manipulation ano use of them shoulo they exist.
In this section I have trieo to show how Baoious approach to ontology
in Bctrg oro Eccrt attempts to answer two funoamental questions: how an
ontology baseo on the one is not is possible, ano, now, how this ontology
is not sterile, it has the potential for real novelty. Novelty can be generateo
immanently within a situation, oue to the minimal relation between a set
ano its power set, or between a situation ano its state representation. All
that can be known is that state representation is greater than the original
situation, the extent of this excess can never be lroor. But in oroer to
fully exploit this excess of the non-constructible sets, which constitute this
unoecioable excess of the state, they must be accessible to a subject. The
subject must be capable of oeploying the consequences of amrming the
existence of a certain number of non-constructible sets, without subject-
ing them to a complete construction or oiscernment.
In the next section I will introouce the ioea of the event, as something
that occurs oottoc mathematical ontology. However, the consequences of
this event can be expresseo as something novel within an ontological situ-
ation by a oocct, this subject oepenos on the proouctive ftcc amrmation of
non-constructible sets. The Axiom of Choice is essential to unoerstanoing
this free amrmation.
II. THE AXIOM OI CHOICE: INTERVENTION AND THE
TIME OI THE SUB]ECT
The central role that the Axiom of Choice plays in the subjective
realization of an events consequences oepenos on Baoious separation of
situations into two funoamental categories, Natural situations, introouceo
above, ano Historical situations ,BE :,.
.o
Natural situations are rotmol,
.o. These are not the only types of possible situation, Baoiou mentions rcottol situations,
Brian Anthony Smith 8
this normality is provioeo by their transitive nature. Here the relation be-
tween a sets extensional, caroinal, existence ano its intentional, oroinal,
construction share an absolute minimal relation: everything that exists is
constructible accoroing to the rules of oroinal generation. Here the Con-
tinuum Hypothesis holos, if is the presentation of a natural situation,
then ,, ~
:
is its state representation. Here every subset, or state rep-
resentation, is equivalent to a formal proouction. The state restrictions in
a natural situation oo not allow anything to just happen. Historical situ-
ations, on the other hano, are ab-normal, they represent something oo-
ttoctco from the state representation of a situation ,BE :,. They present
a trgolottt,, something that is presenteo, but not representeo, something
that ooes just happen.
A singular term, for Baoiou, is one that is presenteo in a situation but
not representeo ,BE qq,. The subject of an event will always be a nnite
portion of an innnite proceoure that attempts to represent a singular term,
this proouction is the proouction of a truth. So a singular term is not
strictly a presenteo term that is not representeo, it has a tcmpotol quality
with reference to a subject. It is a term that is rot ,ct representeo, or one
that otll locc occr representeo.
This is a recurrent theme in Bctrg oro Eccrt: Baoiou makes signincant
philosophical oistinctions by oissecting mathematical proofs ano proce-
oures, which are taken mathematically to occur all at once, ano imposing
a temporal structure on them ,BE :o,.
This temporalization is important for Baoious oiscussion of founoa-
tion, which is key to his oistinction between Natural ano Historical situa-
tions. Iounoation is a question of origin, in a natural situation the answer
is simple ano unique: natural situations are founoeo on the empty set, .
Irom this set all the others are explicitly generateo in a strict oroer, this
oroer can always be traceo back to its founoation. This founoation is, of
course, axiomatic. The axiom itself ooes not justify the empty sets exist-
ence it merely asserts it. A situations founoational element is the one that
shares nothing in common with any of its other elements. This inoicates
its generative function, being the element from which all others are gener-
ateo. This ioea is stateo in an axiom, the Axiom of Iounoation:
|, , |,, 8 , ~ ,||
To every non-empty multiple there belongs ot lcot one element that
shares nothing in common with the multiple itself, this is a founoational
in which it is neither a question of life ,nature, nor action ,history,, BE, p. :. As far as I
can tell, he never mentions these situations again.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo 88
set. An historical situation is one with at least one non-empty founoational
set. Baoiou calls such a non-empty founoational set the ttc of an event
,BE :,. Clearly such a set shares much in common with the empty set,
both are founoational ano both are subtracteo from the situation, in that
they share nothing in common with it. It is these properties that leao
Baoiou to state that such evental sites are or tlc cogc of tlc coto ,BE :,.
Although they share common properties with the voio, or empty set, they
are oistinguishable from it, if only because they are non-empty. An event
is concerneo with something other than the proper name of being, it is
concerneo with the singular specinc happening of the event itself.
Baoiou reaoily aomits that it is with historical situations that the gap
between ontology ano thought nrst opens up ,BE :88,. Strictly speaking,
historical situations can only appear ontologically if these situations are
given a temporal oimension. In Cohens theory of forcing the set that
is chosen to exteno the stanoaro mooel of set theory is a set whose ele-
ments are non-constructible sets.
.:
Here, if the initial situation is thought
of as , ano its state representation as all the sets constructible from it,
then if is a non-constructible subset of : {} ~ . This lool like a
founoational set, but we must remember that , ano is therefore not
founoational. The next move is typical of the kino of temporality that
Baoiou is introoucing. This potcrttol site ooes not belong to the initial situ-
ation, but it coolo be aooeo to it. The new initial situation woulo be ,
it is clear now that , but equally clear is that {} ~ . So
ocfotc its aooition to the situation it only satisneo one aspect of founoation,
ano after its aooition it only satisnes the other conoition. Only taken as a
temporal entity, not solely as a timeless mathematical entity, can the non-
constructible set constitute a site.
The oecision as to whether this site belongs, or not, is unoecioable. To
amrm its belonging oepenos only on the event actually having happeneo,
ano the trtctccrttor of a subject to begin the process of making it belong.
The augmenteo situation ooes not, therefore, have a site, it is only markeo
by the trace of a oecision. Cohens theory of forcing proouces new situa-
tions, which are extensions of the olo, but these new situations are natural,
they are stanoaro ttortttcc mooels of set theory.
..
To maintain a situation
as historical is to keep a process of forcing continually open by focusing on
the immanent subject within the situation.
.:. Cohen, Sct Tlcot, oro tlc Corttroom H,potlct, p. ::o.
... Cohen, Sct Tlcot, oro tlc Corttroom H,potlct, p. :o.
Brian Anthony Smith 8q
Here the temporal aspect is emphasizeo again. After a subjective in-
tervention, a oecision on the unoecioable belonging of a site to a situation,
the state of this situation is still that of the olo situation pttot to this inter-
vention. It is the work of the subject to play out the consequences of their
intervention through a constant ocltt, to their conviction that the event
occurreo. The post-evental state is never fully completeo, as the innnite
task of the nnite subject to exteno the state of the situation can never be
completeo.
The entire theory of the event rests funoamentally on this situateo
ano temporal appropriation of set theory. This is Baoious philosophical
use of ontology, the concepts of the inoivioual inhabitant of a situation,
ano therefore the subject are rot mathematical/ontological concepts ,BE
::,. Cohens theory of forcing is oevelopeo in the absence of any tempo-
rality, thus of any future anterior, |to| establish the ontological clcmo
of the relation between the inoiscernible ano the unoecioable ,BE :o
my emphasis,.
This helps to explain Baoious peculiar matheme of the event. The
matheme of the event is also rot an ontological statement, it explicitly
covets inconsistency. Baoiou calls the event the ultra-one ano formalizes
it in the following way:
e
x
~ {xX, e
x
}
Here, e
x
is the event occurring at the site X ano it presents not only all
its elements, xX, but also itself. Baoious use of the Axiom of Iounoation
makes such a set impossible within consistent mathematical ontology, it is
beings prohibition of the event ,BE :qo,. Self-belonging is forbiooen with-
in a system of set theory that aoopts the Axiom of Iounoation. The math-
eme acts as an inconsistent supplement outsioe of ontology that lets the
subject know that its task is never complete. The task of the subject is to
make the truth of the event consist within a situation, to builo the relation
between the inoiscernible ano the unoecioable ,BE .8,. In set theoretical
terms, the generic extension of a situation, which utilizes non-construct-
ible/inoiscernible sets, can oecioe previously unoecioable statements.
The key example is the proof of the inoepenoence of the Continuum
Hypothesis, by oemonstrating that there is a consistent situation in which
this hypothesis fails. Ior Baoiou, this process is experienceo immanently
from within the situation, a subject whose enoless task is motivateo ano
completeo by this external supplement.
Central to the philosophical unoerstanoing of an inoivioual or sub-
jects experience within a situation is the Axiom of Choice. It provioes not
only the potential of an inoivioual to become a subject through an trtctccr-
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo qo
ttor, but also the means to maintain subjectivity inoennitely, through the
continueo ocltt, to an event.
o) Tlc Axtom of Clotcc
Intervention is the tllcgol naming of an event, the wager ano oecla-
ration that something, the event, lo happeneo ,BE .o,. The clotcc of
this name is not recognizeo by the current situation, it is a non-choice
for the state ,BE .o,. The current state restrictions oo not encompass
the name of the event, this means that the presentation of the name is
not constructible accoroing to the current state laws. The name ooes not
conform to any state law of representation. By oeclaring that an event
has occurreo, ano thus naming it the state apparatus is interrupteo ano a
subject is born.
The potential subjects of a situation are the inoivioual inhabitants
who occupy it. This potential for subjectivity is what elevates man, as
rational, above the merely animal ,E 8-q, :.,. It is oepenoant on their
use of mathematics, especially the Axiom of Choice, which makes them
capable of intervention. This capacity is haro to oenne ano it seems to
involve the coincioence of many classical ioeas: rationality, freeoom, or-
oer ano chance. What is interesting is that this capacity can be exerciseo,
to the oetriment of the inoivioual, in an autonomous fashion, but it only
transforms an inoivioual into a subject when supplementeo by an event
,BE .o-:,. I shall return to this point in the next section.
In the previous section it was the oeclaration that the site belongeo
to the current situation, which maoe it a founoational set, albeit only in a
temporal sense. This is the oecision of intervention that marks the begin-
ning of the historical transformation of a situation. The subject chooses
to amrm the event, ano names its site ,BE .o,. Before the intervention
the event occurs, later the subject amrms this event by naming its site:
thus only together, an event coupleo with a subjective intervention, can a
founoation be establisheo. Initially the event is unoecioable, it is unpre-
senteo in the site, ano after its nomination it is illegal at the level of the
state representation. It will be the labour of the subject to make this illegal
choice legal, to make the truth of the event consist.
The very term illegal states something outsioe the law, here in an
ontological situation that corresponos to rules of construction. An illegal
presentation woulo be the presentation of something not controlleo or
constructeo accoroing to some clear rule. This ioea was introouceo above
with the ioea of non-constructible sets. All constructible sets are at base
Brian Anthony Smith q:
pure extensive multiples, but they all also posses an intrinsic oennition,
a conoition which all its members satisfy. A non-constructible set is one
that cannot be given such an intrinsic oennition, it can only be consio-
ereo extensively. In some sense the loo governing constructible sets are
seen as necessary if any manipulation of innnite sets is to be meaningful.
They are the conceptual tongs by which innnite sets can be accesseo ano
manipulateo. No such tools are available for non-constructible sets, so
either they are not intelligible entities, or they are inaccessible, or there
is another way in which they can be accesseo. This is what the Axiom of
Choice provioes, a non-conceptual means of clootrg ano manipulating
non-constructible sets. If the laws of constructible sets gocctr ano otctotc
the choice of elements in a set, then the Axiom of Choice states that it is
possible to choose in an ortctttctco way: the choice can be unrestricteo,
free ano arbitrary.
.
The theory of set theoretical forcing works by selecting a set of non-
constructible sets to aoo to a given situation, to expano the number of
possible sets constructible within the situation.
.
This initial selection cor-
responos to the subjects nominative intervention. After this aooition the
number of possible sets constructible from this new, extenoeo, situation
increases. The state representation of the situation is now capable of oe-
cioing things which were previously unoecioable ,BE :6-,. This exten-
sion of the state representation, baseo on the newly chosen ano amrmeo
aooition to the situation, ooes not occur all at once, nor is it ever fully
completeo. Mathematically it ooes happen all at once, baseo simply on it
being possible, but within Baoious philosophy the proceoure of exteno-
ing a situation occurs slowly. The subject is both what proouces this slow
extension, ano the extension itself, the subject is a nnite portion of a truth
proceoure.
This temporal extension of the mathematical proceoure is sustaineo
by the subjects noelity to the event. The impetus to carry on the slow
ano laborious proceoure is given by the meta-ontological matheme of the
event: e
x
~ {xX, e
x
}. The matheme has two terms, the elements of its
site ano its name. These two terms orive subjective noelity: a noelity to
the subjects clotcc of amrming the site, ano a noelity to the name of the
event.
The formal oennition of the Axiom of Choice states that if a set exists
it is possible to construct a new set by selecting a single ototttot, element
.. Tiles, Tlc Pltloopl, of Sct Tlcot,, pp. :qo-:q:.
.. Tiles, Tlc Pltloopl, of Sct Tlcot,, pp. :86-:8
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo q.
from each of the subsets of the original set. To give an example, the subsets
of a set constitute the power set of , ,,. Now there exists a new set,
oenneo by a choice function, which selects one element from each of the
elements of ,,. At the nnite level there is no neeo for this axiom, take
~ {a, b}, then ,, ~ {, {a}, {b}, {a, b}}. There are only two possible
sets constructible by choice, which oo not alreaoy appear in ,,: {a, b,
b} ~ {a, b}, or {a, b, a} ~ {a, b}. At the nnite level there is no ftcc choice,
all such sets coincioe with one of the initial sets constructible subsets.
We can see that the Axiom of Choice is operating to exteno the scope
of the Fower Set Axiom, it is trying to create, or name, rco subsets. If
only constructible innnite sets are alloweo then the limitation on choice
extenos to the innnite level. A supposeo choice function woulo coincioe
with a constructible subset, freeoom woulo be suboroinate to the law.
The power set function marks the excess between a situation ano its
state representation. If this excess is legally conoitioneo by the restrictions
of construction then it forecloses the inoivioual inhabitants of a situation
against novelty. In oroer to interrupt this legal conoitioning an illegal oec-
laration must be maoe, one which amrms freeoom, accesses the novelty
of the non-constructible ano oeploys the consequences by extenoing the
given situation. But the Axiom of Choice ooes not arbitrarily amrm the
existence of oll non-constructible subsets, it amrms the existence only of
those that it chooses. It allows for a certain corttollco anarchy, although it
amrms ano introouces chance it ooes so in a selective ano otoctco way.
A consequence of this oroereo introouction of chaos is that the axiom
has a number of signincant consequences. Ior example, the Axiom of
Choice is equivalent to stating that every set can be well oroereo.
.
This
means that every set can be put into a one-to-one relation with an oroinal
number, which means that it can be constructeo. This might seem to con-
traoict the fact that the axiom seems to introouce non-constructible sets,
but what has to be noteo is that constructability ano non-constructability
are tclottcc to a situation. This is oue, partly, to the fact that the oroinal
numbers oo not in their totality form a set: there is no set of oll oroinal
numbers.
.6
This, for Baoiou, means that although there are natural situa-
tions, there is no such thing as Nature in its totality, Nature ooes not exist
,BE :o-:,. There is no ultimate level that coulo either absolutely amrm
or oeny the non-constructible. Where non-constructible sets are amrmeo
to exist they represent a symptom of the situations limits. The question is
.. Fotter, Sct Tlcot, oro tt Pltloopl,, p. ...
.6. Fotter, Sct Tlcot, oro tt Pltloopl,, p. :8:.
Brian Anthony Smith q
whether this is a oesirable symptom, is it a symptom of oisease? Shoulo
the non-constructible be vieweo as oencient ano lacking, or shoulo it be
amrmeo ano incorporateo?
The limit oroinals cooe, in their structure, a certain oegree of complex-
ity by oenning all the possible sets constructible from a certain number of
rules. Every situation is conoitioneo by a limit oroinal, which restricts the
oegree of constructeo complexity.
.
If only constructible sets can appear
within a situation there is no problem, but the Axiom of Choice can force
sets to appear in a situation that present a greater oegree of complex-
ity than the current situation can conoition. Therefore, in this situation
the construction of these sets cannot be known ano they appear ranoom
ano non-constructible. A further oroinal external to the situation coulo
provioe a rule for construction, but it is not immanently available to an
inhabitant of the current situation.
The Axiom of Choice also greatly simplines caroinal arithmetic, ano
also oictates that every innnite caroinal number is an aleph.
.8
If we recall,
the rules of oroinal generation proouce a limitless succession of oroinal
numbers, each limit oroinal being the nrst number to be associateo with
a new caroinal number, ano these caroinal numbers are calleo alephs.
What the above ioea suggests is that there t a minimal relation between
oroinal ano caroinal number proouction, it might not be the strict rela-
tion of the General Continuum Hypothesis: ,
, ~
-:
. But there is,
nevertheless a relation, the freeoom of the Axiom of Choice still chooses
within limits. Every caroinal is always equivalent to some oroinal.
In this section I have exploreo three oiherent uses of the Axiom of
Choice. Iirst, choice is suboroinate to the current law of the situation.
Anything that appears to be a free choice in fact coincioes with a con-
structible ano legal part of the current situation: nothing new is proouceo.
Secono, a subjective intervention claims that certain freely chosen non-
constructible sets belong to the situation. They cxtcro the current situ-
ation through the novel constructions they allow. Thiro, freely chosen
non-constructible sets are accepteo as non-constructible ano novel within
the current situation, but a rco situation is positeo in which they are con-
structible. Only the secono scenario, the subjective scenario, allows the
illegal sets to retain their non-constructible status. Although, ouring the
course of a truth proceoure, the romc of the non-constructible sets occomc
legal, their non-constructible nature remains. The constructible ano non-
.. Tiles, Tlc Pltloopl, of Sct Tlcot,, p. :8.
.8. Fotter, Sct Tlcot, oro tt Pltloopl,, p. .66.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo q
constructible co-exist. In the nrst case non-constructability is oenieo, ano
in the thiro case it is a ptoolcm solveo through the introouction of a rco
situation with rco rules of construction.
The ranoom aleatory character of non-constructible sets are not con-
sioereo a oenciency by the subject, their chance nature is amrmeo. This
ioea that the subject cxtcro a situation rather than creating a rco situa-
tion is important to Baoiou ,BE :,. A new situation suggests that the
subject performs a transcenoent role. In such a transformation the subject
gains access to an oroinal number outsioe ano beyono the current situa-
tion in oroer to solve the ptoolcm of a multiples non-constructability. This
new oroinal is of sumcient complexity to oenne the construction of the
previously non-constructible multiple. With Baoious theory the subject
remains nrmly within the current situation ano transforms it immanently.
His only appeal to a meta-mathematical concept is to the matheme of the
event. The matheme ooes not provioe a transcenoent multiple necessary
for the transformation, but opens a temporal space in which the subject
operates.
Although the full theory of set theoretical forcing is necessary to ap-
preciate Baoious subject, I believe that it is with this concept of freeoom,
motivateo by the Axiom of Choice, that Baoiou makes his most signin-
cant ethical oistinctions. The three oistinctions, maoe above, all reappear
in Baoious book on ethics. The misuses of freeoom in being suboroinate
to the law, or attempting to transceno a given situation correspono to
Baoious categories of Terror, Betrayal ano Disaster. The gooo is entirely
oenneo by a correct subjective operation. But what if a correct subjective
operation unoermines the freeoom of the subject/inoivioual itself, what
kino of subject woulo that be?
o) Etltcol Cotcgottc
Baoious theory of ethics focuses entirely on a clear oistinction be-
tween Gooo ano Evil, with Evil only being possible on the basis of the
Gooo ,E :6,. The Gooo is oenneo as what results from a correct subjec-
tive response to an event. This involves the occurrence of an event, ano
the proouction of novelty/truth within the situation, as the result of an
initial subjective intervention ano their subsequent faithful labour. Evil
occurs only when some aspect of this complex arrangement goes wrong
,E 6o,. Here, the presupposition that I nno oimcult to accept is that all
events, ano subjective responses are funoamentally Gooo. This might not
seem problematic, amrming the creative free expression of a subject, who
Brian Anthony Smith q
extenos the possibilities of a situation through the proouction of truth,
but these common themes of subjectivity, freeoom ano truth are com-
pletely transformeo in Baoious system. They no longer have their eve-
ryoay intuitive appeal. Rather, the oistinction between Gooo ano Evil is
too convenient, ano seems octtcco from the system of Bctrg oro Eccrt rather
than expressing something true. The theory of ethics oevelopeo by Ba-
oiou seems to be corttcrt with his systematic philosophy rather than with
experience.
Ior me, Baoious ethics appear to be baseo too strongly on the notion
that the theory of forcing, borroweo from Cohen, is essentially a liberat-
ing operation. In provioing the nnal proof of an axioms inoepenoence
from the stanoaro axiom system, set theory is liberateo, or emancipateo,
from the constraint imposeo by it. Baoiou presupposes two things: eman-
cipation from a given axiom liberates the formal system from a constraint,
the system becomes more open as a result, ano the potential of a future
subject remains intact after a process of forcing ,BE :6,. It is this secono
ioea that I want to particularly concentrate on. As I have oemonstrateo
ouring the course of this essay, the Axiom of Choice is essential if a subjec-
tive response is to be possible within a situation. One of the aims of oevel-
oping the theory of forcing was to prove the inoepenoence of the Axiom
of Choice, that is, to force a situation in which it fails.
.q
Baoiou calls the
future anterior situation when a truth otll locc occr forceo, the post-evental
situation. This is an almost Kantian as if projection, to consioer a situa-
tion o tf the truth hao been completely forceo.
o
What is the post-evental
situation if the Axiom of Choice has been forceo to fail by a subject ao-
hering to the strictures of set theoretical forcing in strict noelity to an
event? This situation will be one in which it is impossible for a new subject
to arise, the inoivioual will be strippeo of their freeoom. The Axiom of
Choice wont be in a oormant state suboroinate to the law, as it is in the
restrictive constructivists situation. The Axiom of Choice, ano therefore
the inoiviouals freeoom will have been an inconsistent principle.
In oroer to explore this ioea more fully, I will examine the ethical
categories of Terror, Betrayal ano Disaster in oroer to show that none of
these covers the possibility I have suggesteo. The forcing of the failure of
the Axiom of Choice is a positive example of an unoesirable event ano a
subsequent, fully legitimate, unoesirable subject. This, I think, posses a
.q. Cohen, Sct Tlcot, oro tlc Corttroom H,potlct, pp. :6-:..
o. Baoiou, Truth: Iorcing ano the Unnameable in Tlcotcttcol 1ttttrg, p. :..
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo q6
signincant problem for the simple oivision of Gooo ano Evil in Baoious
philosophy.
Baoiou nnos the tmoloctom of an event the most oangerous form of
evil oue to its formal similarity to a true event ,E .,. The simulacrum
oeploys its pseuoo-subjectivity in the form of terror. The simulacrum is
potentially the most interesting form of evil as it allows for oegrees of ter-
ror. The concept rests nrmly on the Axiom of Choice ano intervention,
here though, the intervention is the intervention of an inoivioual. What
the inoivioual names as the site of the event, is only what superncially ap-
pears to be the site. Thus the inoivioual remains an inoivioual, ano ooes
not become a subject.
The importance of the site, prior to the subjective intervention, is that
it shoulo share nothing in common with the current situation. If S is the
situation ano X the potential site of an event: SX ~ , X is on the eoge
of the voio. The site is important, as sharing nothing with the situation it
is equally aooresseo to the whole situation, there is no privilegeo subset of
the situation that coulo claim special access to the event ,E ,. In the case
of the simulacra this supposeo site is not empty, it is not on the eoge of the
voio ,E ,. Here the intervention is not baseo on a raoical emptiness of
the site, but on plenituoe.
Essentially if the intersection, SX , is not empty then this inter-
section constitutes an alreaoy existent subset of the situation. A construct-
ible subset alreaoy exists that represents, at least partially, the supposeo
site of the event. The event can then become tocrttco with an alreaoy
establisheo group. In his example of Nazi Germany Baoiou gives the ex-
ample of the concept of German racial purity ,E ,. The question that
arises is, that although the intersection is not empty, woulo it be empty if
the ioentineo subset where removeo? Ior example, if SX ~ , woulo
S,X-, ~ ano, further more, is ,X-, non-empty? Here is the oanger
inherent in simulacra, as if both of these conoitions are fulnlleo, then ,X-
, coulo be a genuine site of an event. Here there are two possible types of
terror, a terror that hijacks an actual event ano one that ooes not.
Iormally or mathematically speaking the simulacra ooes not occur. If
,X-, were a genuine site, then so woulo X. The appearance of woulo
be oismisseo from the formal mathematical approach, it woulo be seen
as the mere repetition of a constructible set ano removeo or ignoreo. But
within the temporal philosophical approach, oevelopeo by Baoiou, this
repeateo subset causes immense problems.
Brian Anthony Smith q
The pseuoo-subject of a simulacrum might well be generating true
novelty, but the organization of this novelty unoer the name of a privi-
legeo subset of the original situation strips it of its truth. The aooress is
no longer universal, it is aooresseo to the preoroaineo chosen ones. Their
oomination of the potentially revolutionary novelty results in a reign of
terror. All true subjects are open to the potential for their event to be-
come a simulacrum, to ioentify its message with a preoetermineo group
or class.
Betrayal is possibly the simplest category of Evil, it is a renunciation
of ones participation in a truth proceoure, ano therefore a renunciation
of ones subjectivity. This renunciation cannot be in the form renouncing
ones trtctct in a certain cause, but must reject the very cause itself as hav-
ing ever been signincant ,E ,. The Axiom of Choice, again, plays a cen-
tral role. Here, with respect to the truth that I useo to believe in, I claim
that its novelty ano uniqueness were merely oerivative. I amrm in my
renunciation that the site, which I took to be composeo of non-construct-
ible multiples, was in fact wholly constructible. The inoivioual accepts
that their freeoom is only ever apparently free from their own perspective,
in actuality it is suboroinate to the law. Their freeoom, embooieo in the
Axiom of Choice, is actually nothing more than a theorem entaileo by a
universe restricteo to constructible multiples: the Axiom of Choice loses
its vital axiomatic status ,E o-,.
Iinally, the Disaster is what Baoiou calls an attempt to name the un-
nameable. Here the full power of the Axiom of Choice is oeployeo, in
an attempt to eraoicate the singularity of the event in favour of the pure
autonomy of the inoiviouals freeoom. There are two ways for the Axiom
of Choice to oeal with the possible appearance of non-constructible sets.
The nrst, forcing, is the methoo chosen by the subject, where the non-
constructible aspect of an events site are maoe to consist in a situation.
The secono uses the fact that the Axiom of Choice allows all sets to be
well oroereo. The oroinal requireo to well oroer the non-constructible
sets are not available within the limitations of the current situation. This
oroinal is an unnameable for the situation, ano a oisaster for truth is when
the inoivioual appeals to his freeoom, in the form of the Axiom of Choice,
in oroer to name this unnameable. As Baoiou claims: Rigio ano oog-
matic ,or blinoeo,, the subject-language woulo claim the power, baseo
on its own axioms, to name the whole of the real, ano thus to change the
worlo ,E 8,.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo q8
The ranoom character of the event, which the subject requires in
oroer to ahect an intervention, is abanooneo. The inoiviouals free choice
is exerciseo in an isolateo ano autonomous fashion, which characterizes
the event as a problem to be solveo. In the new situation nothing of the
event is left, or preserveo. This is a oisaster for truth, rather than amrm-
ing the truth of a situation the inoiviouals seek connrmation of their own
autonomy ano power in an appeal to a transcenoent realm. In the mino
of Goo there is no confusion, there is nothing that cannot be constructeo,
the inoivioual neeo only make an appeal to this totalizeo transcenoent
realm in oroer to nno a solution to the problem of the event.
All of these forms of Evil rely, in one way or another, on the misuse
of an inoiviouals capacity for free choice. The inoiviouals inability to cor-
rectly oeploy the Axiom of Choice, in the face of an event prevents them
from making a subjective intervention. But the proof of the inoepenoence
of the Axiom of Choice clearly falls into the correct use of the Axiom of
Choice, it inaugurates a subject through an intervention. It is somewhat
bizarre, though not inconsistent, that the Axiom of Choice is a necessary
axiom in the forcing of its own failure, but this ooes not stop it from being
a valio instance of set theoretical forcing.
:
The forcing of the failure of the Axiom of Choice works by aooing
non-constructible sets of a certain type to a situation. In oroer for the
Axiom of Choice to function in the extenoeo situation, supplementeo by
these non-constructible sets, it is necessary that all the sets constructible
within this situation can be well oroereo. Ior this to be possible the aooeo
sets neeo to be oistinguishable from each other given only a nnite amount
of information. It is possible to clooc non-constructible sets where this
ooes not happen, well oroering of the constructible sets fails ano so too
ooes the axiom of choice.
.
The subject is no longer able to cope with
:. Tiles, Tlc Pltloopl, of Sct Tlcot,, p. :qo. Many of the features of the Axiom of Choices
use, especially in the context of Baoious philosophy, oher parallels with Sartres concept
of bao faith. Here, for example, the Axiom of Choice, as an inoiviouals free capacity to
choose, is employeo ogotrt that very capacity, seeking to unoermine it. But this use still
requires an event to supplement it, unlike Sartre. Closer woulo be the concept of betrayal,
seen above, here freeoom oenies itself as free reoucing itself to a theorem whos results are
governeo by law. This possible relation between these two thinkers is further complicateo
by Sartres later work in the Cttttoc of Dtolccttcol Rcoor, where a similar philosophy of the
event is oevelopeo. Any substantial investigation of this relation between the Axiom of
Choice ano bao faith woulo have to aooress the question of what happens to the concept
of bao faith in Sartres later writings.
.. Cohen, Sct Tlcot, oro tlc Corttroom H,potlct, p. :6. Baoious technical response may
be that the set useo to force the inoepenoence of CH only containeo ocromctoolc non-con-
Brian Anthony Smith qq
the truth that his intervention amrmeo. The subject is not capable, even
potentially, of fully oeploying the truth of the event.
Baoious argument that his theory of the subject, mooelleo by set
theoretical forcing, brings a new rationalism to the stuoy of the subject
is unoermineo at this point. This rationalism is baseo on the subjects
ability to cope with events ano oeploy the consequences. The faith, or
noelity, of the subject is baseo on the Axiom of Choice as it allows, in the
mooel of forcing the inoepenoence of the Continuum Hypothesis, the oif-
ferentiation of the non-constructible sets from any given constructible or
non-constructible set on the basis of a nnite amount of information. The
rttc subjects faith is ottco on the grounos that it can oiherentiate sets on
a rttc amount of information, regaroless of whether it achieves a specinc
oiherentiation within its own lifetime. This faith is unoermineo if such a
oiherentiation is not nnitely possible.
The subject that forces an event that unoermines their subjectivity
ano the tottorol power of the Axiom of Choice to manage ano proouce
oroer has an echo of the sublime about it. In encountering an event of a
specinc kino the subject experiences something beyono the power of his
free rational power to manage. Although here this ooes not strengthen the
subject, but threatens to oestroy it. If the subject holos its noelity to this
event it then enters willingly into this nihilistic enoeavour. Once the Axi-
om of Choice has been unoermineo the minimal relation between the in-
tensive ano extensive character of multiples is lost, every innnite caroinal
is no longer an aleph. Extensive multiples are no longer tieo to intensive
multiples, not even to a range of possible intensive multiples. The relative
simplicity of the set theoretical universe is somewhat complicateo.
I am not sure what the possible consequences of such a subject are
for Baoious philosophy. It ooes complicate his ethics. A self oestructive
subject intent on amrming something beyono reasons control coulo be
seen as an unwelcome return of the irrational, no longer consioereo as in-
consistent but as exceeoing the power of choice, or as a reintroouction of
the sublime ano the Other, something which Baoiou specincally wants to
avoio ,E ch.,. But this subject is not the proouct of a misuse of the Axiom
of Choice, but one formeo accoroing to the mooel outlineo in Bctrg oro
Eccrt. Therefore, to preserve Baoious ethics this subject must be either
oenieo, it is not a subject, ano might possibly constitute a new category
structible elements, whereas the set useo to force the inoepenoence of AC uses ror-ocro-
mctoolc elements. This woulo force Baoiou into accepting a limiteo form of AC, baseo on
coortoolc choice, but in Bctrg oro Eccrt he amrms the full power to the axiom.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo :oo
of Evil, or it is a subject ano its activity is to be amrmeo as Gooo. Both
options oo not seem to comfortably nt into the framework as it stanos.
If this subject is amrmeo the consequences of the post-evental situation
neeo to be aooresseo. Although Bctrg oro Eccrt allows for the inoeter-
minacy of non-constructible sets, their inclusion is limiteo to those that
human inoiviouals can cope with. The inoivioual can only allow forms of
presentation that the Axiom of Choice can manipulate, that is, those sets
that can be subjecteo to the inoiviouals rational power. Without this ra-
tional capacity Baoiou feels that man is reouceo to his animal status, ano
incapable of ethical practice. But in the type of situation ano subjectivity
oescribeo above, it coulo be argueo that the subject is in the process of
exceeoing his rational limitations, acting in a selness way in the face of
something that he cannot master. Ferhaps this is a more ntting ngure for
the ethical subject, ano the post-evental situation, although it never ar-
rives, a more interesting ethical situation?
In conclusion, Baoious use of set theory, in his conceptualization of
the subject, allows him to take a truly original approach to both ontol-
ogy ano philosophy. The mathematical approach gives him the ability
to aoo great clarity ano oistinction to otherwise similar concepts, such as
the name of the voio, in general, in the form of the empty set, ano those
entities on the eoge of the voio that constitute evental sites. Here Baoious
philosophy is at its strongest, rejecting the problems of systematic phi-
losophy ano ontology as an enoless problem of grounoing by aoopting
the axiomatic methoo, ano thus explicitly nullifying the problem. The
problem of the grouno, or the Axiom of the Empty Set, ooes not recur in
ontology, what occurs, insteao, are events.
But set theory is also something of a Fanooras box. There are so
many clearly oenneo bizarre entities within this universe that many of the
aspects of philosophy that Baoiou wants to reject, especially in recent con-
tinental philosophy, can return from the realm of inconsistency, where he
banishes them, ano associate themselves with some of these more unusual
ano ohbeat prooucts of mathematics. In this essay I have introouceo the
possibility that the inoepenoence of the Axiom of Choice coulo reintro-
ouce themes of the Other ano the sublime right into the heart of Baoious
philosophy.
What this proves is not that Baoious philosophy is a failure but that
this approach has a huge potential for proouctive work, even if this may
oivert from, or unoermine, Baoious own singular vision for his work.
The central place of the subjective in the proouction of novelty ano truth
Brian Anthony Smith :o:
in Baoious philosophy of events is a position that I think neeos to be
questioneo.
:o.
The philosophical system that presents the Absolute System nnos itself
forceo into a necessary expansion, oetermineo by logic itself . As Martin
Heioegger glosses the transmogrincation:
Soon after the appearance of the Plcromcrolog, of Sptttt in :8o,
Hegel began publishing a work known as the Logtc. The nrst volume
of this work appeareo in :8:./:, ano the secono volume in :8:6.
But the Logtc oio not appear as the secono part of the system of
science. Or is this Logtc, in accoro with the matter at issue therein,
the remaining secono part of the system? Yes ano no.
Yes ano no: what I want to unoerline at this point is that Hegel, a philos-
opher notorious for enforcing a total ano systematic approach to philoso-
phy, is himself forceo to alter his oeclareo presentation so signincantly that
. G.W. I. Hegel, Tlc Sctcrcc of Logtc, trans. A.V. Miller, Atlantic Highlanos N], Humanities
Fress International, :qq6, pp. .8-q.
. M. Heioegger, Hcgcl Plcromcrolog, of Sptttt, trans. F. Emao ano K. Maly, Bloomington
ano Inoianapolis, Inoiana University Fress, :q88, p. .. As Heioegger continues, Why is
the title S,tcm omitteo as early as :8:.? Because between :8o ano :8:., a transformation
was alreaoy unoerway. The sign of the initial transformation in the ioea of the system can
be seen in the fact that the Logtc not only loses the main heaoing but also stanos separately,
by itselfnot because it turneo out to be too oetaileo, but because the Plcromcrolog, is to
take on a oiherent function ano position in the nuctuating arrangement of the system.
Because the Plcromcrolog, is no longer the nrst part of the system, the Logtc is no longer its
secono part, p. . Inoeeo, the entire Introouction is of pertinence here, pp. :-.. I woulo
like to thank Faul Ashton for reminoing me of these passages, as well as for his oetaileo
commentary on these issues ,personal communication,.
]ustin Clemens :o
the system that the original purports to present must itself be reorganizeo
accoroing to new criteria that retrospectively transform its essence. Yet
this very transformation continues to pursue its singular oivagation in the
wake of the original. I will return below to the consequences of Hegels
systemic-reconstruction-in-process. Here, however, I want to mark just
how tightly the problem of the philosophical sequel is articulateo with,
nrst, the problem of the ooolotc ano, secono, with the problem of ,tcm.
One might suggest that sequels teno to force out an impossibility of articu-
lation between the two, as they betray the intervention of new concepts.
A sequel makes its preoecessor the orc that it was not ,or hao not been,.
The wholeor at least its non-existence or its impossibilityis at stake
in a sequel.
Which is why it is not surprising that philosophy begins with a man
who writes nothing but sequels. The same action hero returns, again ano
again, hurling himself enthusiastically into oangerous ano extreme situa-
tions, one reoiscovers familiar ngures ano locations, which are then ren-
oereo uncanny by the events in which they are summoneo to participate,
a battery of narrative special-ehects are placeo in the service of a ceaseless
conceptual warfare. All of which makes the Flatonic oialogues extremely
oimcult to oecipher. Is Socrates the same character throughout the oia-
logues? How ooes he change? Why? How close a resemblance ooes he
bear to the historical Socrates? Especially since this Flatonic character
Socrates oies, then returns to life, to circumstances which are painfully
nctional or rankly impossible. What are the consequences for the elabora-
tion of concepts given this swarming of personae? Ano so on. The com-
plexity of the relation between continuity ano rupture in the presentation
ano capture of concepts is not just implicit, but itself exposeo ano put to
work in ano by such a serial presentation, to the extent that continuity
ano rupture must themselves be re-conceptualizeo in oroer to fulnl the
oemanos of philosophy.
6
Nor is it then surprising, given Alain Baoious oeclareo Flatonism,
that LOW, his most recent book, presents itself as a sequel to his inoisput-
able mogrom opo, BE. As the back cover blurb puts it, LOW is conceiveo
as a sequel |orc ottc| to his previous great book of philosophy. Why?
Baoiou himself notes that, oespite several of his books proving genuine
bestsellers in the wake of BE, this economic success was no inoex of
philosophical triumph. On the contrary, his ooubts only grew about sev-
6. To follow this line of thought, coulo then not Aristotles Pl,tc ano Mctopl,tc be
thought accoroing to a logic of the sequel?
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo :o8
eral aspects of his own work. Was Baoiou about to expel himself from his
own paraoise? In the Freface to the new English translation of Coott ttott
oortologtc ttorttottc, Baoiou puts it like this:
Irom the mioole of the :qqos, what slowly grew to become most
evioent to me were the oimculties of my unoertaking. Happy
times were coming to a close. I tolo myself: The ioea of event is
funoamental. But the theory I propose on what the event is the
name of is not clear. Or: The ontological extension of mathematics
is certain. But, then, what about logic? Many other ooubts ano
questions ensueo ,TO, ix-x,.
]ustin Clemens ::
These features have further consequences pertinent here. Iirst, one can-
not juoge mathematics by any external criteria, only mathematics is ao-
equate to its own reason. Fhilosophy must follow the leao of mathematics,
not the other way arouno. Secono, philosophy must take reason as far
as it can go, if one starts to follow mathematics, one must follow it to the
bitter eno. Thiro, in ooing so, philosophy must be prepareo to rupture
with all social prejuoices, even ano especially its own. Iour, mathematics
cannot, for all that, be permitteo to totalize what happens, inoeeo, math-
ematics explicitly theorizes ano prohibits its own totalization.
After all, what happens raoically exceeos mathematics. How coulo
one talk of a mathematics of love or politics or, inoeeo, poetry, when it is
precisely their extra-oeouctive character that is essential to these genres?
Ior Baoiou, love, politics ano art are also genres that have a genuinely
thoughtful kernelif the materials ano operations by which they reason
cannot be orttctpotco by oeouction. As we shall see, these genre-conoitions
can ,after the fact, be fotmoltco by mathematical means by philosophy
,e.g., in mathemes,, but their apparition is oue only to ungovernable
Chance ano the process of their oevelopment entirely subjective. Moreo-
ver, each of these genres oeals with a oiherent aspect of human creativ-
ity: art with the problem of being emerging as absent presence, love as
the problem of sustaining an encounter with a non-oialectizable other,
politics as the problem of non-totalizable universality.
:
Ano mathemat-
ics has a particular claim on our philosophical attention. Baoiou notori-
ously oeclares that mathematics is ontology, a statement to which we
will return in the next section of this review. These genres are founoeo in
events, that is, as non-oeoucible, illegal occurrences in a situation whose
consequences may come to bear on the experiences of all. Truths rupture
History. Ior Baoiou, all the genres share the following features. They are:
corttrgcrt in their emergence, tmmorcrt to their situations, clf-oppotttrg in
their elaboration, trotctcrt to all existing forms of self-interest, cgolttottor
in their aooress, tcttotrco in their extension. It is this six-folo aspect that
renoers truths ,or, more precisely, the event-subject-truth process, abso-
lute. Note how contingency ano restraint ,non-totalization, here become
:. How Baoiou oiherentiates these conoitions from text to text is of extreme interest. In
Tlc Ccrtot,, he notes that sciencepossesses problems, it ooes not have a project, while
in Corotttor, he shows how love ano politics begin at each others rear enos, so to speak.
Ior Baoiou, if one conoition comes to oominate one or another ,or inoeeo all, of the oth-
ers, this entails what he calls a suture: unoer such conoitions, philosophy itself oisappears,
ano the conoitions may start to take on the roles that are properly the province of philoso-
phy ,e.g., poetry in the post-Romantic era starts to think Being,.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo ::
part of what it means to be absolute, a raoically untraoitional conception,
note that self-supporting means bearing its reason within itself ano sup-
porteo by a self |subject|, note that inoiherence incluoes excepting itself
from pre-existing forms of temporality, as time is usually practiseo as an
exemplary form of self-interest, note that egalitarian is synonymous with
bearing universal aooress, ano so on.
:
Fhilosophy is to construct a system on the basis of the four conoitions,
ano on these four olorc. Why? As Baoiou reiterates in Logtoc oc moroc:
The fact is that tooayano on this point things have not
shifteo since Flatowe know only four types of truths: science
,mathematics ano physics,, love, politics ano the arts. We can
compare this situation to Spinozas report concerning the attributes
of Substance ,the expressions of Goo,: there are unooubteoly,
Spinoza says, an innnity of attributes, but we, men, know only two,
thought ano extension. Ferhaps there are, we will say, an innnity
of types of truths, but we, men, know only four. However, we know
them truly. In such a way that our relation to truthsis ooolotc
,8o,.
:
I have italicizeo the woro ooolotc in the nnal sentence above, because it
is precisely the status of our relation to the conoitions as absolute that I
want to emphasize here. No other human practices can provioe such an
absolute. This absoluteness is, as I have been concerneo to specify, of a
very precise if peculiar kino. Fhilosophy really must be conoitioneo by
these absolutes. How Baoiou ooes this will become apparent to anyone
:. I believe these features are plausible, even compelling, as a occttpttor of the peculiarities
of these four oiscourses. Empiricist ano anecootal as such a remark may be, I can verify
that English political activists, Italian historians ano Australian artists have also founo
this compelling as a oescription of their practices. It also strikes me that these features
also constitute an immanent philosophical justincationor, to use the more bombastic
term favoureo in recent Irench thought, an amrmationof these practices. Fhilosophy
must amrm the extra-philosophical thoughts that make it possible. Iinally, this coupling
of oescription ano justincation enables a thiro moment, an explanatory one, e.g., math-
ematics is ontology. What such statements present is a purely philosophical seizure of the
status of the particular oiscourse. Description-justincation-explanation: if you will excuse
such teminology, it is still possible to accept that this is one of the knots that philosophy
shoulo tie.
:. The paragraph begins a truth is certainly an experience of the inhuman. However,
our point of view that forges ,in philosophy, the theory of truths ano subjective ngures
has a price: we cannot know if the types of truths we experience are the only possible ones.
Other species, unknown to us, or even our own species, at another stage of its history ,for
example, transformeo by genetic engineering,, can, perhaps, acceoe to types of truths of
which we have no ioea, ano even no image, LOW, p. 8o.
]ustin Clemens ::
who reaos BE carefully: he oirectly transliterates the operations of the
conoitions into philosophical jargon. Theres haroly more to it than that.
The axioms of set theory provioe all the necessities for the ontology, the
operations of poetry provioe the matrix for an extra-rational thought of
the event oo unoecioable ,see, in particular, Meoitation :q on Mallarm,.
By means of such a transliteration, philosophy constructs its own ioeas.
These ioeas are phraseo in such terms as mathematics is ontology. This
means that, as Oliver Ieltham puts it in his Translators Freface to BE,
a philosophical ioea is at once a oecision, a principle ano a hypothesis
,xxii,, one which coulo only have been generateo out of some kino of con-
frontation with conoitions. The absolute forces questioning, not any kino
of belief. Inoeeo, conoition shoulo also be given the logical navour of the
corotttorol for its subjects: tf this event, tlcr what are the consequences?
So Baoious absolute conoitions are clearly not the Hegelian Abso-
lute. There is no Whole, there is no single overarching logic of presenta-
tion, oevelopmental or not, there is no necessity to a truth, nor essence
of truths, there is no temporalization of the concept, etc. In general, it
cannot be philosophys task to try to think everything, inoeeo, for Baoiou,
philosophy is necessarily a precarious oiscourse, for at least three reasons.
The nrst of these, the pragmatic reason, is that, oepenoent as philosophy
is on its conoitions, not all these conoitions are functional in all epochs
ano places: in such cases, philosophy itself must oisappear. The secono
reason, the bao reason, is that philosophy, consistently tempteo to think
outsioe the square, oissolves itself in the temptation to think the non-ex-
istent whole, either ossifying into overweening oogmatism or reoucing
itself to just another way of oescribing the incoherent slew of empirical
happenings ,for example as a glorineo grammarian or sociologue, as a
physicist manqu or psychologist,. The thiro, gooo reason, is that, even
when these conoitions are all available, they are themselves exceptionally
oimcult to grasp, every successful philosophy is therefore, at best, built
on a constitutive instability. There is no totality to think, only the contin-
gent becomings of heterogeneous event-truths ano their subjects. Fhiloso-
phy tries to seize on the ioeas these conoitions inouce, as axioms of ano
for action.
:6
This is the funoamentally otmottcc movement of philosophy.
It is the voio place constructeo by philosophy to enable the heterogene-
ous truths proouceo by its conoitions to meet, that Baoiou refers to as
Truth. The oimculties of ooing so entails that the absolute in philosophy
:6. See A. Baoiou, Irrttc Tlooglt, eo. ano trans. ]. Clemens ano O. Ieltham, Lonoon,
Continuum .oo, p. .
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo ::6
is not something one can relax into, like a warm bath or a reliable security
system, but, on the contrary, involves the savage wrenching-away of every
certainty, the embrace of incalculable risk. Worse still, this savagery of the
absolute is quiet, fragile, almost inoiscernible.
Despite the brevity of this summary, it shoulo be clear how Baoiou
takes his oistance from theology ano analytic philosophy on the one hano,
ano the extreme ahects of religious beliefs, on the other. One must not
unoerestimate this aspect of Baoious work, which, having pure reason as
a paraoigm, inouces him to repuoiate all forms of religious ano theologi-
cal thought. This ooes not mean that he ooes not engage with examples
of such thought. On the contrary, he makes committeo interventions into
such thought, by essaying to oetach what he oc focto treats as the pure
thought of such thinkers from the religious impurities in which they have
become enmireo. In this approach, somebooy like Saint Faul becomes an
exemplary poltttcol militant ano thinker, who ought to be extracteo from
his religious envelope, incluoing from the history of the church.
:
This is why I sometimes characterize Baoious philosophy as a SLAF
philosophy: philosophy not only integrally relies on Science, Love, Art
ano Folitics, but it gives you a slap to awaken you from the nightmare of
history. Moreoverano I apologize for the cheesy sloganizing hereone
can usefully permute these letters as a hanoy mnemonic for Baoious ooc-
trines. The work of noelity can be consioereo long, protracteo, repetitive,
oimcult: its like ooing LAFS. But if one persists, one acquires FALS in
this enterprise, that is, philosophical frienos with whom you also engage
in questioning arouno the status of truths ano Truth. As such, youll attain
the heights of thought in those philosophical ALFS presently icy with for-
getting ano oesuetuoe ,ano maybe get some skiing in while youre there,.
SLAF LAFS FALS ALFS: the permutations of philosophy.
I have begun with a protracteo review of what may now appear, af-
ter many years of commentary, very familiar, even merely introouctory,
platituoes about Baoious system. I oo not, however, believe this to be the
case. One of the oimculties that commentators have so far hao is taking
seriously the concept of conoition. To the extent that they oo so, they
miss Baoious utter reliance on his conoitions. Cantorian set-theory really
t ontology for Baoiou, Mallarms poetry really ooc provioe the matheme
of the event. These are not examples, no matter how subtly one thinks
:. See A. Baoiou, Sotrt Pool: Tlc Fooroottor of Urtcctoltm, trans. R. Brassier, Stanforo,
Stanforo UF, .oo.
]ustin Clemens ::
the problematic of the example. They are ooolotc. As such, they are the
only possible founoations for a philosophical ,tcm.
III. IROM MATHEMATICS TO LOGIC, IROM SITUATIONS
TO WORLDS, IROM BEING TO BEING-THERE, IROM ES-
SENCE TO AFFEARANCE, IROM SUB]ECTS TO OB]ECTS,
IROM CONDITIONS TO TRANSCENDENTALS
As I have noteo, many things remain the same between BE ano LOW.
Mathematics remains the science of being, ano truths remain exceptions
to existence. Baoiou puts it like this: Tlctc otc orl, oootc oro lorgoogc,
cxccpt tlctc otc ttotl, as a kino of slogan of what he here oenominates his
materialist oialectic, to oistinguish it from the common or garoen kino of
oemocratic materialism oominant tooay. The slogans syntax is explicitly
Mallarmanthe stars its oestinationto oemarcate it from the repulsive
mooesties of philosophies of nnituoe. Whereas oemocratic materialism
believes that there are only inoiviouals ano communities, the material-
ist oialectic proclaims that truths are accompanieo by the eclipsing of all
inoiviouation ano community. Truths are eternal, innnite, generic, they
are supporteo by oepersonalizeo, inhuman, subjects. As we have seen,
part of the point of conoitions is to think amrmatively, i.e., proceeo on the
basis of positive constructions alone. BEs proceoure continues in LOW.
As Baoiou says, In no way oo I go back on all this ,,.
What, then, has changeo between BE ano LOW? As the title of this
subsection announces, there are a number of key changes in the vocabu-
lary, argumentation, organization ano references. The aim for Baoiou
is to reconngure his existing concerns in a oiherent framework, that is,
accoroing to the singularity of worlos where |truths| appear ,,. With
this in mino, Baoiou elaborates a fuller account of subjective variation, a
reviseo account of the event, a new account of appearance, a new concept
of objectivity, an extenoeo account of logic ,by shifting from set theory
to category theory,, ano so on.
:8
On his own account, however, the mot
:8. Eilenberg ano Mac Lane createo categories in the :qos as a way of relating systems
of algebraic structures ano systems of topological spaces in algebraic topology. The spreao
of applications leo to a general theory, ano what hao been a tool for hanoling structures
became more ano more a means of oenning them. Grothenoieck ano his stuoents solveo
classical problems in geometry ano number theory using new structuresincluoing to-
posesconstructeo from sets by categorical methoos. In the :q6os, Lawvere began to
give purely categorical oennitions of new ano olo structures, ano oevelopeo several styles
of categorical founoations for mathematics, C. McClarty, Elcmcrtot, Cotcgottc, Elcmcrtot,
Topoc, Oxforo, Oxforo University Fress, :qq., p. :.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo ::8
cortoctoolc tolc of LO1 t to ptooocc o rco ocrtttor of oootc, orocttooo o
ttotl-oootc, ot ooccttoolc oootc ,,. To oo this, however, Baoiou has to
reformulate the status of logic itself. In this new oispensation, logic ano
consistency of appearing are the same thing ,,, ano it is from this
point that he returns to the problem of the subject.
Ior Baoiou, a subject is not a register of experience, a moral category,
or an ioeological nction ,three oominant oeterminations of the subject,,
on the contrary, it is an inoex of the real, born of an event, faithful to the
trace. Though a political subject is as oiherent from a subject of love as
that subject is from a subject of mathematics, etc., each subject must be
fotmoll, thought accoroing to the same concepts. In BE, this subject is a
nnite quantity of truth. Irom the stanopoint of BEs conception, then,
inoiviouals that oiont assent or remaineo inoiherent to the event were
implicitly consioereo by Baoiou to remain mere state agents, agents of
inertia. As such, they were not helo to be, tttcto cro, subjects. In BE, a
political reactionary is not a subject, an acaoemic painter is not part of a
truth process, nor are the surgeons who sneereo at Loro Listers absuro
obsession with hygiene, ano sharpeneo their scalpels on their boots, nor
those who reouce love to a pure biological function or a category of eu-
phemistic illusion. This is a central instance of the binary minimalism of
BE: if there is a subject, it must be amrmative, if it is not amrmative, it is
not a subject. In LOW, however, to this basic mooel of the faithful subject,
Baoiou has aooeo two ,or three, more categories: the reactionary, the ob-
scure ano the resurrecteo. Spartacuss slave revolt is his primary example
in this initial oelineation.
Baoiou has hao to oo this in oroer to explain how, in the responses to
the emergence of a faithful subject, reactionaries too are perfectly capable
of inventiveness ,or, rather, are forceo to be so,. As he writes: To resist the
call of the new, it is again necessary to create arguments of resistance ao-
justeo to the novelty itself. Irom this point of view, every reactive oisposi-
tion is contemporary with the present against which it reacts ,6.,. Whats
typical of such a subject is that it works to extinguish the present that a
faithful subject has openeo, oenying its possibilities ano powers through
the negation of the evental trace. Dont revolt, its not worth it, youll
just eno up getting yourself crucineo on the Appian Way. Or: all things
in mooeration, just slow oown, well set up some committees to look into
glaoiatorial ahairs ano maybe have a sausage-sizzle too. Here Baoiou
invokes Anor Glucksmann ano his cohort of nouveaux philosophes as
contemporary imagos of such reactionary mooeration.
]ustin Clemens ::q
But we also nno an obscure |oocot| subject: What relation can a
patrician of ancient Rome have to the alarming news that assails him con-
cerning the slave revolt? Or a Venoean bishop learning of the oownfall
ano imprisonment of the king? ,6,
:q
Well, what they want is the pure ano
simple conservation of the prior oroer. The obscure subject wants above
all to repress the present, to repel the event in the name of a transcenoent
Booy ,City, Goo, Race,, ano, to this extent, obliterate the event ano its
trace altogether. If the reactive subject wishes to snuh the extremity of the
present, the obscure subject wishes thereafter to shovel it unoer.
So these three ngures of the subject all respono to the ptccrt with oif-
ferent operations: the faithful subject organizes its ptooocttor, the reactive
subject, its ocrtolano the obscure subject, its occoltottor ,o,. One can
immeoiately see how ano why the ooctrines of BE have been altereo,
this new attempt retains the methoo of oouble amrmation ,philosophy
amrms the conoitions because these conoitions are alreaoy amrmative
in the real,, but aims to provioe a fuller ano more nuanceo oescription
of some subjective features evioent in reality. Moreover, it suggests why
no-one can ignore or remain merely inoiherent to or unoecioeo about
events. To pick up on one of Baoious own examples, tooay Goo really is
oeao, ano it is this event ,some might prefer to call it a non-event, that
funoamentalists want to occluoe at all costs. Yet they betray the patency
of Goos oeath in their very attempts at occultation. Whats still miss-
ing from this triple ngure of the subject is a crucial possibility that I have
alreaoy naggeo: its tcottccttor.
The problem is a very serious one for Baoiou: can a truth, once
broacheo, ever be utterly oestroyeo? Take the avatars of Spartacus him-
self. They return in the slave revolt of the Irench Revolution, in the black
Spartacus who is Toussaint-Louverture, they return in Karl Leibnecht
ano Rosa Luxemburg, the Spartacists, they return in Stanley Kubricks
Spottoco, where all oeclaim I am Spartacus, they also return, though Ba-
oiou ooesnt mention it, in Monty Fythons Ltfc of Bttor ,I am Brian, ano
so is my wife,. Spartacus therefore returns in very oiherent worlos, in
very oiherent circumstances. It is the logic of this resurrection that Baoiou
:q. There is absolutely no question that Baoiou has orawn this term oocot from what
must be one of his favourite poems, Mallarms sonnet on Eogar Allan Foe, in which we
reao of the Calme bloc ici-bas chu oun osastre obscur Baoious allusions to this verse
occur in all sorts of contexts: his novel is entitleo Colmc oloc tct-oo, another little volume
on politics is Dor oottc oocot, ano so on ano on. Asioe from the resonances of such allu-
sions, one shoulo unooubteoly hear in oocot, not only unclear, or unknown, but oark
ano gloomy, as well as obscuring ano obscurantist, etc.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo :.o
is going to have to explicate, that is, how the multiplicity of worlos can be
articulateo with the invariance of truths. Resurrection is, as I will show,
the key, the crucial, ngure that governs the entirety of LOWin line with
the very essence of sequels.
Ior the moment, however, Baoiou is able to give only the etiolateo
lineaments of this ngure. These lineaments are summarizeo at the eno of
Book I in two ,almost excessively, helpful oiagrams, one of which I repro-
ouce here ,from 86,.
Truths Ontologi-
cal back-
ground
(A)
Evental
trace ()
Body (b) Present
(local)
Aect Present
(global)
()
Politics State ano
people
,representa-
tion ano
presenta-
tion,
A St ,A,
Iixation of
the super-
power of
the State
,St ,A,
~,
Organiza-
tion
New
egalitarian
maxim
Enthusiasm Sequence
Arts Ferceptible
inten-
sity ano
the calm of
forms
F f
What was
formless
can be
form
f f
Oeuvre New
perceptive
intensity
Fleasure Conngura-
tion
Love Sexuateo
oisjunction
m f
Unoeter-
mineo
object
,encounter,
,u, |m
u ano f
u|
Couple
,bi-sexu-
ateo,
New
existential
intensity
Happiness Enchant-
ment
Science Boroer of
the worlo
graspeo or
not by the
letter
l ,w, |
l ,w)
What
rebelleo
against the
letter is
submitteo
to it
l ,w,
l ,w,
Result
,law,
theory,
princi-
ples,
New
Enlighten-
ment
]oy Theory
Toolc .Tlc ttotl ptoccootc oro tlctt trgolot octtcottor
.o
.o. Note that I have tampereo with Baoious mathemes here. The Irench for the Onto-
logical backgrouno of Folitics is, of course, A Et ,A,, that is, A Etat ,A,, thus becoming
A State ,A, in English , for the Arts, le monoe exhibe une forme singuliere oe la tension
entre lintensit ou sensible et le calme oe la forme, p. 8:. I have here translateo sensible
as perceptible, ano hence S f becomes F f . Likewise, m for moroc becomes w for
worlo, ano the c for cotp has become b for booy. I am as yet uncertain of the value of such
]ustin Clemens :.:
The Scholium that immeoiately follows Book I, titleo A musical
variant of the metaphysics of the subject, provioes a very full ano interest-
ing example orawn from the oevelopment of serial music. This section,
moreover, ohers some excellent summarizing propositions of Baoious al-
tereo ooctrine of the subject. Whereas the restraint of BE saw it speak
very little of subjective ahectlimiting itself at most to two, anxiety ano
courage
.:
LOW insists on a quaorature of ahects, terror, anxiety, cour-
age ano justice.
..
Note that all of these ahects are now consioereo internal
ano essential moments of or, truth-process, whereas cocl truth-process
has also its characteristic or signature ahect. As the table above shows,
politics is linkeo to enthusiasm, the arts to pleasure, love to happiness, ano
science to joy. Telegraphic as these assignations coulo appear, it is equally
true that they nno strong support within the philosophical traoition itself
,e.g., think of Spinozas joy, which is very closely linkeo to the practice of
science, or of the pleasure Kant assigns to the arts, etc.,.
a transliteration. In Lacans case, his mathemes were intenoeo to be integrally transmis-
sible, that is, without any translation, e.g., a for oottc shoulo remain so in English ,ano
not become o for other, etc.,.
.:. Note that the question of ahects arises in BE particularly arouno the question of the
status of poetry, ano of the matheme of the unoecioable that Mallarm provioes: Given
that unoecioability is a rational attribute of the event, ano the salvatory guarantee of its
non-being, there is no other vigilance than that of becoming, as much through the orxtct,
of hesitation as through the cootogc of that outsioe-place, both the feather, which hovers
about the gulf , ano the star up high perhaps, BE, p. :q8, my emphasis. It is further
noteworthy that ahects are ioentineo with the subjects of truths, not with philosophy or
philosophers, in fact, I cannot think of any place where Baoiou oiscusses an ahect proper
to philosophy as such.
... Iour ahects signal the incorporation of a human animal to the subjective process of a
truth. The nrst is evioence of the oesire for a Great Foint, of a oecisive oiscontinuity, that
will install the new worlo with a single blow, ano complete the subject. We will name it tct-
tot. The secono is evioence of the fear of points, of a retreat before the obscurity of all that
is oiscontinuous, of all that imposes a choice without guarantee between two hypotheses.
Or, again, this ahect signals the oesire for a continuity, for a monotone shelter. We will
name it orxtct,. The thiro amrms the acceptance of the plurality of points, that the oiscon-
tinuities are at once imperious ano multiform. We will name it cootogc. The fourth amrms
the oesire that the subject be a constant intrication of points ano openings. It amrms the
equivalence, in regaro to the pre-eminence of the becoming-subject, of what is continuous
ano negotiateo, ano of what is oiscontinuous ano violent. It is only there that there are
subjective mooalities, which oepeno on the construction of the subject in a worlo ano the
capacities of the booy to proouce ehects. They are not to be hierarchizeo. War can be as
gooo as peace, negotiation as gooo as struggle, violence as gooo as gentleness. This ahect
by which the categories of the act are suboroinateo to the contingency of worlos, we will
name ottcc, LOW, pp. q6-.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo :..
But it is really in Books II, III ano IV that the full project of LOW
gets going. This is La Granoe Logique, which aims to provioe a general
theory of the logic of appearing, of objects ano their relations, subsuming
unoer its gargantuan umbrella the little logic that is the grammatical ano
linguistic analysis beloveo of analytic philosophy ,:o,. In oroer to oo so,
Baoiou has recourseas I have alreaoy naggeo aboveto category the-
ory. If Baoious oeployment of Zermelo-Iraenkel set theory governeo the
entire conceptual presentation of BE, here the presentation is governeo
by the necessities of the algebraic proofs. Both set theory ano category
theory are often consioereo to be rival founoations of mathematics. As
Saunoers Mac Lane, one of the ooyens of category theory, has remarkeo,
the former axiomatizes sets ano their elements, whereas the latter ax-
iomatizes functions, that is, relationsano not elements at all. Ior his
part, Baoiou will continue to amrm that set theory is ontology, but that
category theory founos the logic of appearing.
.
Book II concentrates on the construction of the concept of the tran-
scenoental. This constitutes quite a severe oeparture from the situations
of BE. In BE, being |lcttc| was thought in its raw multiplicity, here, be-
ing is thought in its organizeo localization, as being-there |lcttc-lo| in
a worlo. Every worlo must have a transcenoental organization, arouno
which multiples cohere accoroing to their oihering oegrees of ioentity or
oiherence. It is a classical problemhow to conjoin, in the substance
of the soul of the worlo, the Same ano the Other?ano immeoiately
oemanos a theory of negation or rather, for Baoiou, of the tccctc |crcct|.
.
Baoiou gives the reverse three funoamental properties:
The reverse of a being-there ,or, more precisely, of the measure
of apparition |oppottttor| of a multiple in a worlo, is in general a
being-there in the same worlo ,a oiherent measure of intensity
of apparition in that worlo,.
.. In category theory, the initial oata are particularly meager. We merely oispose of
unoiherentiateo objects ,in fact, simple letters oepriveo of any interiority, ano of arrows
,or morphisms, going from one object to anotherthe aim is ultimately for the obejcts
to become mathematical structures ano the arrows the connection between these struc-
tures. But the purely logical initial grasping renoers the oetermination of an objects sense
entirely extrinsic or positional. It all oepenos on what we can learn from the arrows going
towaro that object ,whose object is the target,, or of those coming from it ,whose object is
the source,. An object is but the marking of a network of actions, a cluster of connections.
Relation preceoes Being, TO, p. :.
.. I am translating crcct here as reverse in accoroance with the existing translation in
Tlcotcttcol 1ttttrg, e.g. pp. .:-.:q. It is possible that one shoulo see some relation to the
mathematics of the inverse, but the woro for this in Irench is, precisly, trcctc.
:.
]ustin Clemens :.
Of both the reverse ano negation it can be saio that a being-
there ano its reverse have nothing in the worlo in common ,the
conjunction of their oegrees of intensity is null,.
In general, the reverse ooesnt have all the properties of classical
negation. In particular, the reverse of the reverse of a oegree of
apparition is not inevitably ioentical to this oegree. Ano again,
the union of an appearing |oppototort| ano its reverse is not
inevitably equal to the measure of apparition of the worlo in its
entirety ,::-::8,.
Baoiou immeoiately proceeos to show that: there is no Whole ,using
an argument oirectly oeriveo from Russells critique of Irege,, that an
existent can only be thought insofar as it belongs to a worlo, that, none-
theless, there has to be some kino of minimum available, which ooesnt
appear in a worlo ,a sort of zero,, there are maximal ano minimum oe-
grees of apparition, ano so on. He gives an excellent account of Hegel,
a formal account of what he calls the three transcenoental operations
,zero, conjunction ano the envelope, of appearing, as well as a brilliant
oemonstration of the superiority of Baoious own Grano Logic over or-
oinary logic. This section is a kino of compresseo tour oe force, in which
the familiar operations of oroinary logic ,ano/or/implication/negation,
the quantiners, are oeriveo from Baoious new categories of minimum,
maximum, conjunction ano envelope. The book concluoes with a notice:
What is a classical worlo? There we nno that such a worlo has oouble
negation ano excluoeo mioole as valio principles, that o clotcol ootlo t
o ootlo oloc ttorccrocrtol t Boolcor ,.oo,, ano thatas Baoiou has saio
elsewhereontology is such a classical worlo.
.
Note the new, subtle ano
formal justincation of set theory as an ontology: a logic is now explicitly
given to this oecision, whereas in Dclcoc, it was still being put oown to a
question of taste.
.6
.. In the Rcrctgrcmcrt at the back of LOW, Baoiou notes: It nnally appears that the
two great Aristotelian principles ,non-contraoiction ano excluoeo mioole,, such as are
proposeo in Mctopl,tc , conoition three logical types ,ano not two, as has been long be-
lieveo,. One can in fact valioate universally the two principles ,classical logic,, or only the
principle of non-contraoiction ,intuitionist logic,, or only excluoeo mioole ,para-consistent
logics,, p. . Baoiou immeoiately continues : the canonical mooel of classical logic is
set theory, that of intuitionist logic, topoi theory, that of para-consistent logics, category
theory. These mooels are more ano more general, ano negation becomes more ano more
evasive, pp. -8.
.6. As Deleuze woulo have saio, in immeoiately taking up again, just as I woulo myself,
the threao of the argument ano the oesire to seouce or to win the other over: it is a ques-
tion of taste, A. Baoiou, Dclcoc: Tlc Clomot of Bctrg, trans. L. Burchill, Minneapolis, Uni-
..
.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo :.
Book III proposes an entirely new concept of what an object is ,.o,.
The novelty of this concept oerives from the fact that Baoiou thereby
constructs an object without subject, that is, that the logic of appearing
must be purely ooccttcc. This will be oone through the concept of trocxottor:
if x ano y are two elements of an existent A, ano T is the transcenoental
of the worlo unoer consioeration, inoexation is an ioentity function Id
,x, y, that measures in T the oegree of appearing of x ano y. Otherwise
put, if Id ,x, y, ~ p, this means that x ano y are ioentical to oegree p in
regaro to their power of apparition in the worlo ,.o6,. Having establisheo
the atoms of appearance, the very minimum necessary to appear in a
worlo at all, Baoiou seeks to explore this articulation between the logic
of appearing ano the ontology of the multiple ,.o8,. In BE, Baoiou shows
that the one ooes not exist, being only the self-oissimulating result of
an operation of counting, in LOW, the One is rethought as the atom of
appearing, as the quilting point of appearing in being ,.:,. Appearing
is always localizeo, it is always being-tlctc, ano being-there is inherently
bouno. If love comes in spurts ,as Richaro Hell ano the Voiooios put it,,
then existence comes in oegrees.
Nonetheless, these oegrees of existence are founoeo on something
absolutely real: In a general fashion, an atom is a certain regulateo rap-
port between an element a of a multiple A ano the transcenoental of a
worlo.The postulate of materialism is that every atom is real ,.6,.
,With the proviso, of course, that cxttcrcc is not a category of octrg., This
real synthesis is the key to this book. Whereas Kant cannot ehectively
suture the phenomenal to the noumenal, except at the cost of complex
sophistries or causal leaps, Baoiou will insist that a real atom attests to an
apparition, in appearing, of the being of appearing ,.:,. If this synthesis
ooes not work, then being ano appearance cannot be sewn together by
Baoiou. ,This will evioently be one of the key places for commentators to
intervene in future essays into the worlos of LOW., As for the object, it
receives its oennition at the same time:
Gtccr o ootlo, oc coll or oocct of tlc ootlo tlc cooplc fotmco o, o molttplc
oro o ttorccrocrtol trocxottor of tlt molttplc, or tlc corotttor tlot oll tlc
otom of oppcottrg oloc tcfctcrttol t tlc cortoctco molttplc otc tcol otom
of tlc tcfctcrttol molttplc ,.,.
The object, in other woros, is what brioges being ano existence. Even
quoting such oennitions, which can only hint, in their very oimculty, at
the logical sequences that unoerpin them, it is impossible to convey the
versity of Minnesota Fress, :qqq, p. q..
]ustin Clemens :.
enchaineo rigour of Book III in any aoequate way. It provioes some of
the most oimcult formal passages I have reao in contemporary European
philosophy ,I refer interesteo reaoers to :o if they wish to marvel at the
increoible little box Complete form of the onto-logy of worlos,. Such
passages are leaveneo only by oetaileo evocations of a political rally at the
Flace oe la Rpublique ano of the aforementioneo Robert painting that
graces the cover. Despite the oimculties, you cant help but get the orift:
Existence is at once a logical ano an intensive concept ,.8,. There are
a number of other noteworthy moments, such as the oemonstration that
phenomenology ano vitalism share a non-philosophical enthusiasm for
oeath, an enthusiasm which exposes their weaknesses: just like existence,
oeath is not a category of being ,.8,. No, oeath is a category of appear-
ing ,we will return to some consequences of this below,. Ano the book
concluoes with the aptly-titleo Scholium as impressive as it is subtle, in
which Baoiou gives a stunning example, a logical evaluation of a battle
between Alexanoer the Great ano the Fersian emperor Darius.
Book IV concluoes the Grano Logic part of LOW, with a new
thought of relation. Relation must oepeno on objects, ano not at all the
other way arouno, this is why the Grano Logic moves from object to rela-
tion, ano why there t a purely logical oroer at work in LOW. To alluoe
to a statement of Deleuze, no relation here is prior to or external to its
terms:
A relation is a bono between objective multiplicitiesa function
that creates nothing in the oroer of intensities of existence or in the
oroer of atomic localizations that was not alreaoy prescribeo by
the regime of apparition of those multiplicities ,:,.
.
Ior Baoiou, the very innnity of a worlo ,ontological characteristic, en-
tails the universality of relations ,logical characteristic, ,:8,, ano that
this universality be a consequence ano not a postulate. This books major
examples are orawn from the worlo of Quebec, its objects, politics ano
their relations. But the point is, again, funoamentally technical. Ior Ba-
oiou, every worlo must be consioereo innnite, but its innnity is inacces-
sible, that is, accoroing to the textbook formulation, if the following three
conoitions holo:
.. Ior the non-being of existence means that it is otherwise than accoroing to its being
that being is. It is, precisely, the being of an object. The object exhausts the oialectic of
being ano existence, which is also that of being ano appearing or being-there, or nnally
that of extensive or mathematical multiplicity ano intensive or logical multiplicity, LOW,
p. :6. Note that relation is here given a particular sense by Baoiou, that may signal a gap
between the mathematical ano philosophical notions of relation.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo :.6
i. ~
o
,
ii. for any caroinal , there is .
,
iii. the union of less than oroinals, each less than , is less than .
As Baoiou notes, this oennition operates a kino of nnitization of the in-
nnite itself:
o
,aleph-zero, is the smallest innnite caroinal, marking the
caesura between nnite ano innnite, ano, as such, cannot be approacheo
by operations on any natural number, an inaccessible caroinal larger than
o
woulo therefore be really pretty big.nor is it any surprise that the
existence of such a caroinal cannot be proven. The inaccessible innn-
ity of a worlo is absolutely inaccessible from within the worlo itself, ano
any worlo that pretenoeo to less woulo not be a worlo ,,. Secono,
this impossibility is what ensures that a worlo is closeo, without for all
thatbeing representable as a Whole ,.6,. Now, this ontological closure
also ensures logical completeness, it is also the case that any relation in the
worlo must be universally exposeo, objectively available.
It is with Book V The four forms of change that the oemonstra-
tion returns to Baoious more familiar terminology ,multiples, sets, sites,
events, etc.,. But it is a reconngureo account of the site ano event that we
are given here. Ior Baoiou,
The ontology of a site thus allows itself to be oescribeo by three
properties:
a site is a renexive multiplicity, that belongs to itself ano thereby
transgresses the laws of being.
A site is the instantaneous revelation of the voio that haunts
multiplicities, by its transient cancellation of the gap between
being ano being-there.
A site is an ontological ngure of the instant: it appears only to
oisappear ,8q,.
BE organizeo an entirely oiherent oisposition of the site/event couple:
the site, not being a proper subset of the situation ,or worlo,, was the
mtrtmol ehect of structure which can be conceiveo ,BE :, ano provioeo
the conoition of being for the event, the event was consioereo a vanishing
apparition composeo simultaneously of elements from the site ano itself.
Now, we have something like certain preoicates of the site mergeo into
certain preoicates of the event, ano a new hierarchy of possible changes.
Once again, against the minimality of BE ,event v. no event, change v. no
change,, we have a larger array of possibilities:
A mootcottor is the basic form of change as usual, without
:.
..
.
i.
]ustin Clemens :.
requiring a site or any transcenoental mooincation of the
worlo,
A foct is a site whose intensity of existence isnt maximal,
A trgolottt, is a site whose intensity of existence is maximal
,q,.
This is further complicateo by a oivision ottltr singularity. There we nno
weak singularities ,without maximal consequences, or what is now oe-
nominateo the event proper ,a singularity with maximal consequences
for the worlo,. In short: at the level of occomtrg, we can have no real change
,mooincation, or real change ,site,, at the level of cxttcrcc, we can have a
non-maximal existence ,a fact, or a maximal existence ,a singularity,, at
the level of corcocrcc, we have a weak singularity or an event ,see oia-
gram on q, or more technical extension on :,.
.8
The key concept in the case of the event proper turns out to be what
Baoiou calls the inexistent. Inexistence is a concept which comes up rath-
er quickly in LOW, in II.:.:, to oo with the Inexistence of the Whole ,::q-
:.:, ano in II.:., where the subtitle says it all: Inexistence of the Whole:
to amrm the existence of a set of all sets is intrinsically contraoictory
,:6-:6,. But the inexistent of an object is nrst properly oealt with in a
conceptual ano formal manner in IV.:.6 ,8-:,, then again in IV..
,6o-6.,. Its nrst formulation is as follows: oc otll coll tlc ptopct trcxttcrt
of or oocct or clcmcrt of tlc oo-occrt molttplc oloc cxttcrcc coloc t mtrtmol
,q,. Baoiou continues:
Given an object in a worlo, there exists a unique element of
this object that inexists in this worlo. It is this element that we
call the proper inexistent of the object. It proves, in the sphere
of appearance, the contingency of being-there. In this sense, its
,ontological, being has ,logical, non-being as being-there ,:,.
The inexistent is thus a oissimulating avatar in LOW of BEs voio ,or
empty set,, or, at least, it is a oistant relative. So it is no surprise that,
just as in BE, an event is integrally linkeo to the reemergence of the
voio that has been forecloseo from the situation or, in this new concep-
tual framework, to the uprising of the inexistent: Ar cccrt lo fot moxtmoll,
ttoc corcocrcc of tt ;moxtmol) trtcrtt, of cxttcrcc, tlc cxttcrt of tlc trcxttcrt
.8. The four forms of change are formally oenneo on the basis of three criteria: inexist-
ence or not of a site, force or weakness of singularity, the pickup |tclcc| or non-pickup of
the inexistent. An ontological criterion, an existential criterion, ano a criterion relative to
consequences, p. :6.
ii.
iii.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo :.8
,q8,.
.q
This returns us to a pre-BE ooctrine, emciently summarizeo by
a Heiner Muller phrase: for something to come, something has to go.
Deathwhich hao in BE been purgeo altogether from the regime of be-
ingis back on the agenoa in LOW at the level of appearing ano, of
course, oisappearing. As Baoiou puts it here, the opening of a space for
creation requires oestruction ,:8,.
This primes us for the nnal two books of LOW, Book VI, The theory
of points, ano Book VII, What is a booy? These books return us, in a
oiherent vocabulary, to some key moments in BE. The point is now
how Baoiou rethinks the proouction of a truth from the point of view of
the subject: A faithful subject is the form of a booy whose organs treat
a worloly situation point by point ,.:,. Whereas in BE the notion of
forcing, of inquiries on the generic set, was employeo to give a well-founo-
eo rational account of the process of a truth, in LOW this is given through
the treatment of points. A point is something that confronts the subject
with a binary choice. There are only two possibilities on which to oecioe,
ano one cannot not oecioe ,contrast this with BE on the ooctrine of the
intervention on the event, e.g., the meoitation on Fascal, BE .:.-...,. To
choose one is to continue in the truth, to choose the other is to abanoon
the truth, if not to oecioe for oisaster: there is a point when, through
an operation that implies a subject ano a booy, the totality of the worlo
is the stake of a coin-toss ,..,. Hence a oecision upon which the worlo
oepenos, the reouction to the Two of innnite multiplicity ,.,. The ex-
amples are, as elsewhere in LOW, rather oiverse: key oecisions in Sartres
plays, the city of Brasilia, Kierkegaaro, among others. Ior Baoiou, a sub-
ject treats points in a worlo, point by point, ano must, as the aovertizing
campaign for a popular battery has it, keep on keeping on, oespite all the
oimculties. Baoiou has never resileo from martial examples: a battle
can be abstractly oenneo as a point of war ,:-.,. Life, as the Emperor
Marcus Aurelius put it in his oiaries, is war, a war, Baoiou might aoo, of
immortals. You cant orop a point, as if it were neither here nor there. Its
immortality or nothing.
So the booy in which Baoiou is interesteo in giving the concept of is
a very peculiar booy, a purineo, new, immortal booy of truth: Foint by
point, a booy reorganizes itself, making more ano more singular conse-
quences appear in the worlo, which subjectively weave a truth of which
.q. Iormally: Gtccr or oocct ;A, Id), oc coll event tlc oppottttor/otoppcotorcc of tlc ttc A ftom
tlc momcrt tlot tlt ttc t o trgolottt,, olctlct EA=M, oltcl tcoll, occt tlc ptopct trcxttcrt of tlc
oocct, ot ;EA E
o
)=M, LOW, p. :6.
]ustin Clemens :.q
one coulo say that it eternalizes the present of the present ,.,. I woulo
like to unoerline here the term reorganize, as it has connotations im-
portant to Baoiou: of novelty ,it is a rco booy that is being proouceo,, of
metamorphosis ,the novelty is tcol,, of oiscipline ,it is an otgortottor, not
simply a oisorganization that is at stake,. In line with his injunctions that
a truth-booy can therefore be neither inoivioual nor communitarian, we
coulo pun that nobooy, newbooy. Its a materialist resurrection. But lo
ctto rooco isnt always lo oolcc ctto. You have to struggle for it. Ano since
were on this renaissance line of allusion, lets continue oown the line. Alco
tc-octo ct: having crosseo the Rubicon of mathematics once, Baoiou has
hao to cast the oice of BE again in oroer to heao for the Capitol of logic,
object ano relation.
IV. BELOW
Why, then, given its increoible range, clarity ano import, can LOW
feel unsatisfactory? There is a clue in one of Baoious own aomissions. In
V..:, unoer the heaoing Variations in the status of formal expositions,
he notes that the Grano Logic aoumbrateo in books II, III ano IV oerives
oirectly from category theory, ano that all this permitteo the ooubling
of the conceptual exposition by a formal exposition supporteo by its con-
cepts, ano homogeneous with certain strata of oeouctive mathematics
,::,. Yet it wasnt so in book I, where the formalizations of the concept of
the subject were, if one can say so, ot gcrctt. Then, he continues, In the
present book, as in books VI ano VII, we have a situation intermeoiary
between book I ,strippeo of para-mathematical apparatus, ano the three
books of the Grano Logic ,homogenous with entire strata of this appara-
tus, ,::-:.,. This thiro variation constitutes a formal exposition that,
although not oeouctive, seeks to nay, by means of its sharply uninterpret-
able literality, the nesh of sense in oroer to expose the bones of truth.
Its clear that Baoiou knows what hes ooing. But thats just it: his self-
knowleoge forces him to present this triple variation, ano it is this vari-
ation that frustrates ano provokes throughout. Baoiou knows it too: one
nnos such apologia scattereo throughout LOW. In the Technical Note
that concluoes the Freface, Baoiou writes: Irom Book II, each movement
of thought is presenteo in two oiherent ways: conceptual ,which means
without any formalism, ano with, each time, examples, ano formal ,with
symbols, ano if necessary, schemas ano calculations,. Objective phenom-
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo :o
enology ano written transpacency ,o,.
o
I oo not believe this gap is so
easily presenteo as a benent, inoeeo, it is quite not for Baoiou himself,
given the symptomatic proliferation of apologia.
:
In BE, as I have saio, we have the most rigorous minimalism. BE
asks, in the most oirect ano rational fashion possible: what is the minimal
situation of being, what are its elements, ano what are the operations that
can be performeo upon them? This makes BE a founoational work, in
the triple sense that: it takes founoations as its object ,being qua the voio,
the Two, the unoecioable, innnity, etc.,, that it ooes this in a founoational
way ,accoroing to mathematical reason, supplementeo by poetic reason,,
ano it thereby itself becomes founoational ,an act of philosophical foun-
oation,. By contrast, LOW no longer treats of founoational ontology, but
of transmunoane variations of localization, it is no longer simply founoa-
tional, but aims to be more fully oescriptive of what transpires: one can
only fully account for these nuances of appearing through the meoiation
of examples orawn from varieo worlos, ano for the invariance of transcen-
oental operations through the confrontation between the coherence of
these examples ano the transparency of forms ,-8,. Yet the persuasive-
ness of oescriptions varies raoically in this book: the early account of the
painteo horses is miserably oencient compareo to that of Hubert Roberts
painting in Book III.
This isnt a failure of style, far from it. On the contrary, Baoiou is a
master of the peoagogical announcement, the clarineo oennition, the or-
oereo progression, the oirective heaoing, the illuminating instance ano the
recapitulative slogan. I am constantly struck by the oemonstrative rigour
of what may initially seem to be only loose oiscursive gestures, but which
turn out to be highly structureo ano carefully-placeo. The examples given
in LOWs preface are, for example, clearly preliminary, intenoeo only to
give intimations of claims that will be justineo later. They thus provioe a
general rhetorical orientation. They cannot be taken as serious foooer for
refutation, precisely because they serve such a clearly peoagogical func-
o. Ior example, The systematic meoitations of BE are followeo here by an interlacing
of examples ano calculations that oirectly stage the consistent complexity of worlos. The
latter, in fact, innnitely oiversineo ngures of being-there, absorb in a transcenoental frame,
whose operations are invariant, the innnite nuances of qualititative intensities LOW, pp.
-8.
:. Yet another example: in the introouction to Book III, Baoiou notes, Its clear that, by
reason of the extreme rigour of enchainments, the formal exposition is here often more
illuminating than the phenomenological oioactics that preceoe it, p. .oq.
]ustin Clemens ::
tion, moreover, their very variety is oirecteo towaros exposing the haro
formal kernel that stabilizes their profusion.
Still, Baoious oemonstrations in BE were so clear ano precise, so con-
cerneo to ensure the reaoers unoerstanoing of extremely oimcult formal
materials ,just as Descartes taught his manservant mathematics ano wrote
in the vernacular so even women might unoerstano,, that they never felt
excessive or overwhelming. This is not always the case in LOW, where an
enormous amount of formalism is oeployeowith a much higher sym-
bol-to-page ratio than in BEbut not always with the same clarity, nor
to the same ehect. One can see the unavoioability of this state of ahairs.
After all, in the light of LOW, BE is focusseo on the elaboration of one
worlo alone, the classical worlo of ontology, in which non-contraoiction
ano excluoeo mioole reign supreme over their binary empire like Ieroi-
nano ano Isabella over an expansionist Spain. But LOW is concerneo to
speak of ootlo, of the heterogeneity of worlos ,classical, intuitionist ano
para-consistent,, ano this entails much broaoer logical oevelopments. The
algebra is uncircumventable, ano, if one cannot follow it, one cannot seri-
ously intervene in the oescriptions.
Ior a number of reasons, category theory is more oimcult than set
theory. Iirst, there is simply the time-lag: set theory essentially oates from
the eno of the :q
th
century, category theory arises post-WWII. This tem-
poral fact means that weve all just hao more time to oeal with the impact
of set theory ano its innnite innnities. But theres more to it than that.
Category theory is, unooubteoly part of our transition to post-mooernity
,whatever that means,, it is not the accomplice of Mallarm, Lenin ano
Ireuo, but accompanies Celan, Mao ano Lacan. There is a certain oif-
nculty, intensity ano obscurity to this new worlo. Moreover, much of the
philosophy of the .o
th
century has been oirectly inspireo by ano engageo
with set theory in one way or another, from Bertrano Russell through
Luowig Wittgenstein to Michael Dummett. To oo philosophy tooay is
alreaoy to have encountereo, even if inoirectly, a set theory that has inte-
grally shapeo ano been shapeo by philosophy. This has not yet been the
case for category theory, at least not in such a thoroughgoing ano foun-
oational way. Iinally, as Baoiou himself has remarkeo, a crucial oiher-
ence between mathematics ano logic emerges here. Set theory is essential
mathematics: one can, at a pinch, unoerstano the mathematical concepts,
without having to folloo the formal calculations ,e.g., the innumerable
accounts of Russells Faraoox enoemic to nrst-year philosophy courses,.
This ooesnt mean one ooesnt have to oo the maths. Category theory, on
the other hano, bears the essential hallmarks of formal logic ,albeit math-
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo :.
ematizeo,: as the very name suggests, one cannot quite get it unless one
submits to ano goes through the formal oennitions ano proceoures step
by step.
.
As Baoiou says, logic is oennitional, whereas real mathematics
is axiomatic ,TO ::q,.
Rather, the problem is not so much a problem of style as of substance.
That is, anyone who wishes to reao LOW properly is going to have to
follow the logic. One hopeswithout any real faiththat this fact will
prevent commentators from trying to oismiss Baoious use of logic ano
mathematics as if these were simply rhetorical aoo-ons, merely smart-arse
ways of presenting a message that coulo just as well have been presenteo
in common language without the use of all those symbols. To oate, such
a position remains the most obscurantist response to Baoious work. One
can regularly reao critics ,both for ano against Baoiou, who seem to
think, if they oo not oeclare it oirectly: oh, the mathematics isnt really
important, we can go straight to the ooctrines ano treat them as if they
were like any other philosophical utterances.
. In fact, oisciples are often reactionary or obscurantist in the guise of noelity. If you be-
lieve that such propositions as Baoiou has always been interesteo in mathematics or the
key to Baoious thought throughout is the oialectic rotm BEs emphasis on conoitions, then
you are a reactionary. BE is thereby ngureo simply an extension of a pre-existing situation,
one in which the attempt to think the materialist oialectic is king. The equation motlcmottc
= ortolog, is thus submitteo to the oictates of an allegeo Ancien Rgime, on such a vision,
BE oio not mark any real rupture at all. This view is tantamount to believing BE t or oo-
otmcrt to ototr a larger, ongoing program. It reouces BE to an extension of categories that
were present from the start, but withoutthe key pointacknowleoging that they have
been totally recast, OB, p. :. Certainly, as Ray Brassier writes, Throughout Baoious
work, mathematics enjoys a privilegeo status as paraoigm of science ano of scientincity
in general. This has been a constant, from his nrst signincant philosophical intervention,
the :q66 article The ,Re,Commencement of Dialectical Materialism, notable for the way
in which it alreaoy prengures his subsequent ,career-spanning, preoccupation with the
relation between set-theory ano category-theory, to his most recent work, wherein Baoiou
nnally establishes a philosophical connection between these two branches of mathemat-
ics by arguing that the ooctrine of being, laio out via set-theory in Bctrg oro Eccrt ,:q88,,
neeos to be supplementeo by a ooctrine of appearance that mobilizes category-theory,
as Baoiou ooes in his forthcoming Logtc of 1otlo, Baoious Materialist Epistemology of
Mathematics, Argclolt, vol. :o, no. ., .oo, pp. :-:o. All this is absolutely true, but it
woulo be false if one believes that this fact bears in any serious way upon the otcocl ehecteo
]ustin Clemens :
It is unooubteoly also signincant that Kant, having seizeo the work of
his maturity, starts to proouce sequels: Cttttoc :, ., ano ,Fure Reason,
Fractical Reason, ano ]uogement,. Ior this maturation also involves an
act of raoical self-restriction. Like Kants great Cttttoc, Baoious BE pe-
rioo works exhibit a certain occttctm. This asceticism is both enacteo ano
thematizeo in the restraineo selection of targets, the style of writing, not
to mention the concepts themselves. Its no accioent that one of Baoious
favourite slogans becomes the Mallarman one of restraineo action. No
less than the problem of maturity, the problem of asceticism is entirely
immanent to the philosophical text.
Like Kantbut unlike HegelBaoiou raoically oenies the existence
of the Whole, the All. Kant is in fact so raoically opposeo to such totality
that he refuses to vitiate the rift between phenomenal ano noumenal. At
best, for Kant the ioea of totality must remain purely regulative. If there
is some of the One, its suboroinateo to its inexistence, to irrecuperable
oivision. Ior his part Baoiou, mounts one argument after another against
the One. In both LOW ano BE, he provioes nifty oemonstrations oeriveo
from Russell. What this inexistence of the Whole in fact entails is a oivi-
sion of being ano being-there. As Baoiou himself says, Kant is the begin-
ning of subtractive ontology: Ior the nrst time really, Kant was the one to
sheo light on the avenues of a subtractive ontology, far from any negative
theology ,TO :q,.
albeit in an often hesitant ano imprecise manner. Thus, the least we can
say is that, in practising the ortologtcol categories maoe available by Bctrg
oro Eccrt across Lacanian psychoanalytic notions, we will not be surpriseo
to oiscover a high oegree of compatibility between them. The ioeal result
of such a practice woulo be nothing less than an accurate set-theoretical
formalization of the relation between consciousness ano the unconscious,
succeeoing there where Lacans courageous attempts to oemonstrate that
mathematical topology t structureano meta-structurefaileo.
8
COUNT-AS-ONE, ONE, FHANTOM OI INCONSISTENCY
Everything turns on mastering the gap between the presupposition
,that must be rejecteo, of a being of the one ano the thesis of its there is
,BE .,. Ior Baoiou, the one is not, yet it exists as an operation, the count-
as-one. The count-as-one is not a presentation either: what presents itself,
6. Ior a oiscussion of Lacans ethics as an ontological ethics, see Lorenzo Chiesa ano
Alberto Toscano, Ethics ano Capital, Ex Nihilo, Umot;o): A }ootrol of tlc Urcorctoo,, no.
:, .oo, pp. q-.. Ano Chapter of Lorenzo Chiesa, Locor oro Sooccttctt,: A Pltloopltcol
Irttooocttor, Cambrioge, MIT Fress, .oo.
. Lesson of ://:q. from ]acques Lacan, Scmtrot XIX ;.,.-.,.), Oo pttc, unpub-
lisheo.
8. Topology is not maoe to leao us to structure. Topology is this structure ]acques
Lacan, Ltouroit, Aottc cttt, Faris, Seuil, .oo:, p. 8.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo :o
a situation, is multiple. However, every situation is ttoctotco by means of
the operation of the count-as-one. Thus, the relation between the multi-
ple ano the one is tcttoocttcc: the multiple will have preceoeo the one only
after having necessarily been structureo by means of the count-as-one.
As Baoiou puts it, the count-as-one ,the structure, installs the univer-
sal pertinence of the one/multiple couple for any situation ,BE .,. This
amounts to saying that, with regaro to presentation, the one is also an
operational tcolt ,BE ., my emphasis,. A concomitant splitting occurs
on the sioe of the multiple: inconsistent multiplicities, multiples that are
retroactively unoerstooo as non-one as soon as being-one is a result, are
to be oistinguisheo from consistent multiplicities, multiple|s| as several-
ones counteo by the action of structure ,BE .,. We can thus concluoe
that the law that the one is not is at the same time the law that the one
is a law of the multiple ,BE .,.
It is vital to stress that, accoroing to Baoiou, what is normally pre-
senteo in any situation is the fact that the one t: all that is presenteo in
a situation is counteo-as-one, which is to say that the principle the one
is not cannot be presenteo in it. At this level, inconsistent multiplicity is
solely the presupposition that prior to the count the one is not ,BE .,.
Having saio this, we shoulo also keep in mino that the one is an opera-
tional result, ano that for this reason, there must be something of the
multiple |that| ooes not absolutely coincioe with the result ,BE ,. In
other woros, in situations, which are as such always structureo, a remain-
oer exceeos the one of consistent multiplicities, ano this can be nothing
other than the very operation, the law of the count-as-one, from which
the one results. With regaro to a given situation, inconsistent multiplici-
ties, the pure multiple, are therefore incluoeo as an exclusion: aoopting a
quasi-psychoanalytic terminology whose Lacanian amnities, as we shall
later see, are remarkable, Baoiou suggests that this inclusive exclusion is
what causes the structureo presentation to waver towaros the plortom
of inconsistency ,BE , my emphasis,. This phantom, a retroactive by-
proouct of the count-as-one, cannot itself be presenteo, yet it is trclooco in
the situation in the name of what woulo be the presentation itself, the
presentation in-itself , if what the law ooes not authorize to think was
thinkable: that the one is not ,BE ,. Fut oiherently, from the structureo
situational stanopoint for which the law is the one is a law of the multiple,
the phantom of inconsistency amounts to the excluoeo law that the one
is not.
More specincally, the pure multiple, unpresentable insofar as it is ex-
cluoeo by the law the one is a law of the multiple, is rotltrg from the
Lorenzo Chiesa ::
stanopoint of the situation. As Baoiou observes, being-nothing is oiherent
from non-being: Tlctc t a being of nothing, as form of the unpresentable.
The nothing is what names the unperceivable gap || between ||
the one as result ano the one as operation ,BE , my emphasis,. But be-
ing-nothing t rot, just as the one is not: the tlctc t of being-nothing ooes
not instigate any search for tlc nothing, ano thus avoios falling back into
an ontology of presence: The nothing is neither a place nor a term of the
situation. Ior if the nothing were a term that coulo only mean one thing:
that it hao been counteo as one ,BE ,. Rather, the nothing is the non-
one of any count-as-one, or, the phantom of inconsistency is the name
nothing, which is not a-nothing |or-ttcr|. At this stage, it is important to
emphasize that, for Baoiou, the nothing is both the pure unpresentable
multiple, the name of unpresentation in presentation, oro the operation of
the count, that which exceeos the one-result.
q
The nothing, or better the
voio as its localyet unlocalizableoccurrence, has a oool status.
Let us consioer this question further. Being oo octrg is neither one rot
multiple, although being is certainly ptccrtco as multiple, being inoeeo
occurs in every presentation, being ooes not present ttclf ,see BE .,: be-
ing oo octrg is what presents ,itself, ,BE .,, ano, it is as such, in being
forecloseo from presentation ,BE .,, that it is sayable. Thus the voio is
the name of being insofar as the voio inoicates precisely that nothing is
presenteo, by means of the voio, presentation gives us the non-access to
an unpresentable ,see BE 6,. However, in aooition to naming being as an
unpresentable, a non-one that wanoers in the presentation in the form of
a oottocttor, the subtractive face of the count ,BE , my emphasis,, the
voio also concomitantly names being in the very operation of the count-
as-one which, in exceeoing the presentable one-result, ototc a situation
to its being ,a suture is quite literally an operation,. Again, the voio is the
name of being in two inextricable ways. Both excluoe the possibility that
the voio may be localizeo ano thus encountereo in the normal regime of
structureo situations: Baoiou believes that, from the situational stanopoint,
the voio as name of being is equivalent to an absolute unconscious of
the voio |trcorctcrcc oo ctoc| ,BE 6,. The phantom of inconsistency can-
not be conscious.
q. The law of the count as conoition for existence, which renoers presentation possible
by precluoing the presentation of inconsistent multiplicity ,i.e. being itself,, is ultimately
inoiscernible from the ontological inconsistency whose presentation it forecloses, Ray
Brassier, Fresentation as Anti-Fhenomenon in Alain Baoious Being ano Event, Corttrcr-
tol Pltloopl, Rcctco, .oo6, |available on-line at: http://www.springerlink.com/content/
kr68.o6o::.q/?p~:66:6.o8oa:bf8e8oocfoq8pi~|
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo :.
UNICITY, IORMING-INTO-ONE, ANXIETY OI THE VOID
Baoiou states that there are four meanings concealeo beneath the
single signiner one ,BE 8q,. The nrst two oistinguish the count-as-one
from the one: as we have alreaoy seen, the one, which is not, can only be
the retroactive ano cttcc ehect of a structural count, the count-as-one.
Since being is always presenteo as multiple, multiple of multiples, what is
tcoll, counteo as one through the nominal seal |ccoo| of the count-as-one
is the multiple-of-multiples ,BE qo,: multiples are counteo by the count-
as-one as one-multiples, consistent multiplicities, multiples as several
ones. In other woros, the couple one/multiple installeo by the count-
as-one oo structure shoulo ultimately be unoerstooo as the couple one-
result/one-multiple.
The thiro meaning of the signiner one is, for Baoiou, unicity. Unic-
ity is not a being, but a preoicate of the multiple ,BE qo,. Multiples are
unique: this simply means, a multiple is oiherent from any other ,BE
68,. What oiherentiates a multiple from all other multiples is its proper
name, that is, being counteo as one-multiple by the nominal seal of the
count-as-one. A notion of unicity that has oone with any nliation from
the being of the one ano only accepts the one as result, is what allows us
to think the relationship between the same ano the other in a new way:
given that the one is not, it is in regaro to themselves that the others are
Others ,BE ,. A multiple is Other than any other multiple only oue to
its unicity. Or, the Other || cannot oesignate the gap between the one
ano the others-than-one |oottc-oc-lor|, because the one is not ,BE
trans. mooineo,. Fut simply, the Other is coextensive to the unicity of the
others, not the one.
Iinally, there is a fourth meaning of the signiner one, which Baoiou
oesignates as forming-into-one |mtc-cr-or|. This is basically a ccoro
count, a count of the count ,BE 8- my emphasis,, which shoulo be
unoerstooo in two inextricable ways accoroing to the two sioes of the cou-
ple one-result/one-multiple installeo by the nrst count, the count-as-one.
Inoeeo, the forming-into-one inoicates the concomitant possibility of both
count|ing| as one an alreaoy counteo one-multiple ano apply|ing| the
count to the one-result of the count ,BE qo,. Such an operation is possible
insofar as, after the nrst count, the one is not really oistinguishable from
the multiple: given that the one is the result of the structuring count that
makes the multiple consist, it remains immanent to presentation, which,
as such, can present only multiples. Diherently put, the orc-multiple re-
Lorenzo Chiesa :
sults from the count-as-one, ano for this very reason the one-tcolt can
only itself be a multiple.
If we now consioer that the count-as-one is, as we have alreaoy re-
markeo, a law that proouces a namethe proper name of each multiple
as uniqueit also follows that the forming-into-one will be nothing other
than submitting to the law the names that it proouces ,BE qo,. It is im-
portant to emphasize that the resulting multiple of names ,BE q:,, the
proouct of the forming-into-one, is itself a multiple: even after the secono
count has taken place, the one is solely a retroactive nction, albeit a more
elaborate one, since it now transcenos presentation into representation.
At this level, the one as representation can be oistinguisheo from presen-
tation as multiple, yet it remains a tc-presentation of a multiple ano thus
a nction. On the other hano, notice that retroactive representation will
necessarily have a retroactive ehect on retroactive presentation: it is also
in this sense that I unoerstano Baoious suggestion accoroing to which
forming-into-one is not tcoll, oistinct from the count-as-one ,BE q:,.
The relation between the two counts, the counting-as-one of pres-
entation ano the forming-into-one of representation, is to be conceiveo
of in terms of a relation between structure ano metastructure, situation
ano the state of the situation. Although Baoiou insists on oiherentiat-
ing the two countsthey are absolutely oistinct ,BE 8,he also af-
nrms that the reouplication of the count is necessaryevery structure
call|s| upon a metastructure ,BE 8,ano consequently structure ano
metastructure, situation ano its state, are not really oistinct. The reason
for this necessity is countering the oanger of the voio, waroing it oh from
structureo presentation ,BE 8,: all situations are thus oenneo by an in-
evitable anxiety of the voio |orgotc oo ctoc| ,BE q,. As we have seen,
the unpresentable ano unlocalizable character of the voio as the name of
a situations ,inconsistent, being is what guarantees the consistency of this
very situation, the emergence of consistent multiplicity. That is to say, it is
only insofar as a structureo presentation ooes not encounter its own voio
that the situational one is not ruineo. However, we have also seen that,
within presentation, something exceeos the count: the very operation of
the structural count-as-one oo nothing. This means that the errant voio
coulo nx itself in the guise of structure: It is || possible that, subtracteo
from the count, ano by consequence a-structureo, the structure itself be
the point where the voio is given ,BE q,. In oroer to counter the oanger
of the voio, it is therefore necessary to structure the structure or that the
there is Oneness be valio for the count-as-one ,BE q,.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo :
Signincantly, accoroing to Baoiou, this reooubling, the secono count,
shoulo be unoerstooo as an tmogtrottottor of the nrst: if the count-as-one
as a ,symbolic, operation retroactively proouces a nctional ,imaginary,
one-result, the counts unoergoing, in turn, the operation of a count
is equivalent to the nctionalizing of the count via the imaginary being
conferreo upon it ,BE q,. Fut simply, while the nrst count symbolically
proouces the one, the secono count, the count of the count, imaginarily
t one.
UNARY TRAIT AS TRAIT UNIQUE, OR LA MULTIFLICITE
ACTUELLE
The central notion of Lacans ninth seminar is arguably what, in an
explicit attempt to echo the function of the one in set theory, is oesig-
nateo as the unary trait |ttott orottc|.
:o
Generalizing ano elaborating on
Ireuos notion of the ctrtgct _og,
::
Lacan believes that ioentincation is
ultimately baseo on ioentincation with the signiner, ano the unary trait
is what all signiners have in common, their support.
:.
More precisely,
the one as unary trait is the trttomcrt
:
by means of which ioentincation
is maoe possible: the unary trait is not a one but an operation, a count,
that constitutes the fooroottor of the one of ioentincation with the signi-
ner.
:
Simply put, the unary trait shoulo be unoerstooo as what proouces
a stroke, /, not a unity, let alone a totality:
:
Lacan openly oenies that
he is taking into consioeration any of the many signincations of the one
proposeo by philosophical traoition, rather it is a question of the : || of
the primary teacher, the one of pupil X, write out a hunoreo lines of :s
for me!, namely strokes |which have| always been sumcient for minimal
notation.
:6
In oescribing the unary trait as a count, ano even as a nrst count, the
count-as-one, that as such is to be oistinguisheo from a secono count, I
:o. Seminar IX, lesson of 6/:./6:.
::. Accoroing to Ireuo, in omc cases, ioentincation is || partial || ano only borrows a
single trait from the person who is its object, Sigmuno Ireuo, Group Fsychology ano the
Analysis of the Ego, Tlc Storooto Eotttor of tlc Complctc P,clologtcol 1otl of Stgmoro Ftcoo,
vol. XVIII, Lonoon, The Hogarth Fress ano the Institute of Fsychoanalysis, .oo:, p. :o.
:.. Seminar IX, lesson of ../::/6:.
:. Seminar IX, Lesson of .q/::/6:.
:. Seminar IX, Lesson of ../::/6:.
:. See Seminar IX, lesson of .q/::/6:.
:6. Seminar IX, Lesson of .q/::/6:.
Lorenzo Chiesa :
am far from forcing Lacans own terminology. The unary trait begins the
function of counting: this initial activity of counting |that| begins early
for the subject shoulo not be confuseo with the activity of establishing
collections.
:
In other woros, the count-as-one of the unary trait is what
proouces the one, many ones, as strokes ///, however, at this stage, there
is no secono count, or oootttor, that can count the strokes as :s, or put oif-
ferently, that can count the operation of the nrst count as or operation. As
Lacan observes, the unary trait || supports || one plus one ano one
again, the plus being meant there only to mark well |a| oiherence, where
the problem begins is precisely that one can aoo them together, in other
woros that two, that three have a meaning.
:8
In oroer to stress how / - /
- / is not the same as : - : - :, Lacan goes as far as suggesting that a chilo
may well be able to count up to two ano three ottloot being able to oper-
ate with numbers: two ano three are in this case nothing but a repetition
of the / proouceo by the unary trait, ano shoulo be oistinguisheo from the
number . ano unoerstooo as : - : ano : - : - :. This early counting is
inehective when oealing with numbers higher than : we shoulo therefore
not be surpriseo when we are tolo that certain so-calleo primitive tribes
along the mouth of the Amazon were only recently able to oiscover the
virtue of the number four, ano raiseo altars to it.
:q
What is at stake in the
gap that separates these two counts is nothing less than the birth of the
subjects ioentincation as mooern Cartesian subject split between con-
sciousness ano the unconscious.
.o
In what precise sense ooes the - of the / - / - / mark a oiherence
between the strokes proouceo by the count-as-one of the unary trait? This
question certainly has to oo with the fact that, throughout Seminar IX,
Lacan inoiscriminately alternates the phrases ttott orottc ano ttott ortoc:
put simply, a unary trait is a trglc trait. If the unary trait, as instrumental
operation, is the most simple structural trait in the sense that it presents
no variations,
.:
its sole property will be its ortctt,. That is to say, the -
separating / from / oenotes the singleness of the ttott as such, the absence
of any qualitative oiherence in it,
..
ano thus works as an inoicator of sig-
:. Seminar IX, Lesson of //6..
:8. Seminar IX, Lesson of //6..
:q. Seminar IX, Lesson of //6..
.o. Ior a oescription of the Cartesian Goo as the cogttos unary trait, see lesson of
../::/6:.
.:. Seminar IX, Lesson of ../::/6:.
... Seminar IX, Lesson of 6/:./6:.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo :6
nifying oiherence, oiherence in the pure state.
.
Or, every count, every /
is absolutely oiherent from any other / without its ever being a question of
counting the trait as a qualitatively oiherentiateo :: as we have just seen,
the unary trait preceoes number tttcto cro.
.
Two crucial specincations shoulo be maoe. Iirstly, the unary trait
motl oiherence as such,
.
which ooes not mean it t oiherence as such.
This is a straightforwaro way to oistinguish the unary trait from the full-
neogeo signiner which it supports. While the unary trait is a stroke, ano,
signincantly enough, it is as letter that it can be oiherentiateo from all
other strokes,
.6
the signiner is the one as oiherence, that is, following
Saussure, simply being what the others are not.
.
Thus, unlike the unary
trait, the signiner implies |the| function of the ortt || oo pure oiher-
ence.
.8
Accoroing to Lacan, the orc as oiherence, the emergence of the
one |which| as such is the Other,
.q
that is the nctional big Other, neces-
sitates the secono count.
Seconoly ano most importantly, at its nrst appearance, the one mani-
festly oesignates actual multiplicity |molttpltctt octocllc|.
o
The count-as-
one of the unary trait as ttott ortoc proouces nothing other than consist-
ent, that is actual, multiplicity: Lacan also refers to it as a oistinctive
unity |ortt otttrcttcc|.
:
In oroer to illustrate this last point, he evokes a
scene of everyoay pre-historic life:
I am a hunter || I kill |an animal|, it is an aoventure, I kill another
of them, it is a secono aoventure which I can oistinguish by certain
traits characteristic of the nrst, but which resembles it essentially
by being markeo with the same general line. At the fourth, there
may be some confusion: what oistinguishes it from the secono, for
.. Seminar IX, Lesson of 6/:./6:.
.. Lacan amrms that the signiner as such serves to connote oiherence at its purest, ano,
we can aoo, it is all the purer because it preceoes even number, M. Safouan, Locortoro: Lc
mtrottc oc }ococ Locor * .-., Faris, Seuil, .oo:, p. :q.
.. Seminar IX, lesson of 6/:./6:.
.6. Seminar IX, Lesson of 6/:./6:.
.. Seminar IX, Lesson of .q/::/6:.
.8. Seminar IX, Lesson of .q/::/6:.
.q. Seminar IX, Lesson of .q/::/6:.
o. Seminar IX, Lesson of 6/:./6:.
:. Safouan even names this concept oistinctive one |or otttrcttf|, Safouan, Locortoro: Lc
mtrottc oc }ococ Locor * .-., p. .o.. To the best of my knowleoge, Lacan never
uses this expression in Seminar IX. In the lessons of :/:./6: ano .o/:./6: he also refers
to the oistinctive trait, which I take to be synonymous with unary trait.
Lorenzo Chiesa :
example? At the twentieth, how will I know where I am?
.
Like a chilo who counts without numbers, our primitive man can ini-
tially oistinguish the secono aoventure from the nrst by certain imagi-
naryintuitively qualitativetraits that are then symbolically presenteo
as a stroke / on an animal rib-bone. Yet, as soon as this occurs, his two
aoventures are markeo by the same general line, the same kino of stroke
which leaos to signifying sameness, //. Although qualitative oiherence
is never eliminateo completely, the fact that each aoventure is, for a
limiteo time, intuitively experienceo as new proves to be all the more
seconoary inasmuch as quality is precisely what is overshaooweo by the
signifying in-oiherence of the traits //.
More technically,
Lacan acknowleoges that in what one calls the elements of sets, it is not
a matter of objects, or of things, it is rather a question of the multiples of
a multiple. In other woros, at the level of presentation, the set is a one-
multiple, what Lacan refers to as actual multiplicity: the count-as-one of
the unary trait presents a multiple-of-multiples, or to put with Baoiou, a
multiple as several ones ,BE .,.
In oroer to appreciate better the proximity between Baoious consist-
ent multiplicity ano Lacans oistinctive unity we shoulo not lose sight of
the following convergence. Baoious consistent multiplicity, the one-mul-
tiple, is initially oetermineo solely by its unicity, in all cases, unicity is
tlc property of consistent multiplicity oo counteo-as-one, inoepenoently
of any other possible property of o situation ,or set,. What matters at the
level of presentation without representation is the ptopct romc olplo, a letter
that seals the multiple, rather than the extension of what is being pre-
senteothe terms or elements of the situation. Inoeeo, extension is not
properly oenneo before the secono count takes place ano the state of the
situation is establisheo retroactively: only at that stage, the one-multiple
will have been counteo as o situation ,or, ontologically, oll the parts of a set
will have formeo the elements of o set as the powerset,. A situation is not
ioentical to what is being presenteo in it. Iollowing Ray Brassier, another
way to put this woulo be to say that presentation as such, presentation
without representationthe prehistoric hunters aoventureis an anti-
phenomenon.
8
LETTER AND FROFER NAME, OR A IS NOT A
The most basic formula of ioentincation is A is A. Lacan believes that
its apparent simplicity conceals a number of problems. It is therefore only
insofar as we question this formula that we can really grasp the oimcul-
ties involveo in ioentincation. This questioning is strictly relateo to the
|signifying| function of the one ano, conversely, the extenoeo use of the
6. This amounts to a very aovanceo oennition of aooition which supposes a number
of axioms which woulo be enough to cover the blackboaro ,Seminar IX, Lesson of
6/:./6:,.
. Seminar IX, Lesson of 6/:./6:.
8. See Brassier, Fresentation as Anti-Fhenomenon in Alain Baoious Being ano Event.
Lorenzo Chiesa :q
signiner in mathematics.
q
More specincally, for Lacan, A is A presup-
poses nrst of all the existence of A, the emergence of the lcttct, which, as
we have seen, shoulo be unoerstooo as a unary trait, a nrst count. Lacans
bolo propositions accoroing to which A is A is a belief ano There is
no tautology are thus always to be consioereo against the backgrouno of
the oimension of the letter. It is not insofar as the nrst A ano the secono A
mean oiherent things that I say that there is no tautology, it is in the very
status of A that there is inscribeo that A cannot be A,
o
A is not A means
that A is not ioentical to ttclf, or, to use a well-known Lacanian locution,
A is barreo, not that A is actually B: more precisely, the letter A as unary
trait counts as one but is not o one.
Lacans theory of the proper name ano his theory of writing aim to
show how the true nature of the proper name is the letter as unary trait,
which in turn is inextricable from the written mark. The proper name
cannot be unoerstooo as a woro for particulars, a oennition proposeo by
Bertrano Russell: this woulo soon leao us to paraooxes such as Socrates
not being a proper name since, for us, it is no longer a particular but
an abbreviateo oescriptionSocrates is inoeeo Flatos master, the man
who orank the hemlock, etc.or, conversely, the oemonstrative this is a
particular ano coulo therefore be oesignateo as ]ohn. Relying in part on
the linguist Alan Garoiner, Lacan believes that a proper name functions
on the basis of the oistinction between meaning ano signifying material
,signineo ano signiner,, however, oeparting from him, he specines that it
shoulo not be ioentineo with a oistinctive souno to which the subject pays
particular attention o souno. Irom a structuralist stanopoint, it is inoeeo
a matter of fact that all language is baseo on the oiherentiality of oistinc-
tive sounos, or phonomes, what is more, it is absolutely not true || that
each time we pronounce a proper name we are psychologically aware
of the accent put on the sonant material as such.
:
In other woros, the
problem with Garoiners notion of proper name is that he relies on a psy-
chologically substantialist ioea of the subject: the subject is for him simply
someone who pays attention to signiners when they are proper names.
On the other hano, for Lacan, the subject can be oenneo only with ref-
erence to signiners, not as someone unoerlying their functioning,
.
the
central role playeo by proper names in the subjects ioentincation shoulo
q. Seminar IX, lesson of .q/::/6:.
o. Seminar IX, Lesson of 6/:./6:.
:. Seminar IX, Lesson of .o/:./6:.
.. Seminar IX, Lesson of .o/:./6:.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo :6o
thus be explaineo solely in terms of the signiner, especially accoroing to
its most basic appearance, the unary trait of the letter. There cannot be a
oennition of the proper name except in the measure that we are aware of
the relationship between the naming utterance ano something which in
its raoical nature is of the oroer of the letter.
Let us owell on these issues. It is ooubtless the case that mans vocal
utterings preceoeo writing, chronologically speaking, however, language
tttcto cro as oetermineo by the function of the signiner is, for Lacan,
ultimately retroactively oepenoent on writing. Conversely, the letter as
writing potential was waiting to be phoneticizeo: this is what we have at
a nrst stage in prehistory, the simple traits, or strokes, of primitive bone
etchings. Lacan is careful in specifying that, as we have alreaoy seen,
the letter as unary trait always involves an initial imaginary oimension
something ngurativethat is soon ehaceo:
6
this is valio both for the
simple stroke / carveo on an animals ribwhich originally markeo the
image of an aoventureano, even more so, the more sophisticateo traits
. Seminar IX, Lesson of .o/:./6:.
. Seminar IX, Lesson of .o/:./6:.
. A. Schuster, Commcrtot, or Locor Scmtrot IX LIocrttcottor, .o Dcccmoct .., unpub-
lisheo ,my emphasis,.
6. Seminar IX, lesson of .o/:./6:.
Lorenzo Chiesa :6:
useo in ioeographic notationthe schematic representation of the heao *
of the animal I killeo ouring my aoventure still functions as a unary trait.
At a secono stage, the writing of the traitthat oesignates something
imaginaryis accompanieo by the utterance of a phoneme, but, for the
time being, the utterance m is not as yet oetacheo from the image rep-
resenteo by the trait *. Fut oiherently, phoneticization here oepenos on
the oesignation of an object via the marking of the trait. In a thiro ano
nnal stage, which oetermines the retroactive passage from prehistory to
history, we witness the reversal of this relation: now the marking of the
trait oepenos solely on phoneticization. This is writing proper: the letter
is retroactively transformeo into a signiner ano, being an element in a
oiherential structure of other signiners, acquires a life that is completely
inoepenoent of the object it useo to oesignate.
Irom a slightly oiherent perspective, we can say that writing proper
ano language tttcto cro with itonly really begins when the marking
of the trait * is phoneticizeo o ttott, that is, romco o ocl. At that point, *
becomes the support of the phoneme m which was previously the mere
souno of the object oesignateo by *the mooing heao of the animal I
killeo. We retroactively move from theultimately animalicsouno m
to thehumanphonematic signiner m only when m can cccr be re-
garoeo as a ptopct romc M. As Lacan has it, It is a fact that letters have
names, a is nameo alpha.
,. Iurthermore,
it also overlooks any inquiry into the particular process that informs the
manifestation of being-qua-being in possible or particular situations. Of
course, when this is poseo as a problem, what is overlookeo is the fact
that Baoiou accoros an extreme importance to the operations of both
presentation ,the count, ano representation as the means by which par-
ticular situations ano worlos are formeo. The oimculty, however, is that
for Baoiou, presentation is not a oirect presentation of being-qua-being,
it is rather a constitution of a situation from which being-qua-being is
subtracteo. Ano with respect to the fact that presentation is simply the op-
eration of the count as one, Baoiou maintains that the one ooes not exist
at all: it is purely the result of an operation. What this assumes is that only
sets have an existential valioityoperations oont. As a theory, this haroly
seems consistent with ]ohn Van Neumanns belief that an axiomatic set
theory can oepart from the existence of functions alonethe existence of
sets will follow from them.
Here Baoiou seems to refer the term voio to something that is situ-
ateo. This is very oiherent from the inherent inconsistency of a situations
latent being that is subtracteo from presentation. To be subtracteo is to
not be situateo at all. But the question is what the situateo voio is, if it
is neither a presenteo multiple among others, subtracteo being, nor the
event itself ,insofar as the event is what inscribes the situateo voio,? As
previously stateo, singular multiples are presenteo but not representeo
they provioe the site for events at an ontological level. But at the same
time, there seems to be the event itself, which names not simply that voio,
but the ooccttcc corotttor unoer which that voio will be taken up in a truth
proceoure. To establish the event both as the inconsistency of the situa-
tion ano a part of the situation itself, Baoiou is forceo to oivioe the event
in two: part of it is oirecteo towaros that situateo voio, ano part is oirecteo
towaros that aspect of the event that escapes the situation. If exclusive
emphasis is placeo on the former part of the event, then it simply becomes
another version of the state: it is simply a non-statist way of counting in-
oiscernible elements. In oroer to avoio ooubling the event with the state,
another part of the event is neeoeo which exceeos the situation, ano in so
ooing, calls upon nothing other than itself for its own valioity. It is this part
6. |. . .| only an interpreting intervention can oeclare that an event is present in the situ-
ation, as the arrival in being of non-being, the arrival amiost the visible of the invisible,
Alain Baoiou, Bctrg oro Eccrt, trans. Oliver Ieltham, Lonoon, Continuum, .oo, p. :8:.
. Baoiou, Etltc, p. 6q.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo :86
of the event that instigates subjective action. The event now supplements
the situation ano it is this, rather than presenteo or unpresenteo multiples,
that is the true catalyst for subjective action or noelity. Such principles,
along with the oennitions of the subject ano the event, are supplementary
to the rather closeo connection between ontology ano truth, as Baoiou is
well aware insofar as he believes that, beyono the static presentation of
multiplicity set theory makes available, something must happen in oroer
for there to be a transformation, in oroer for there to be truth. In ontol-
ogy, I woulo argue, nothing happens, things simply are.
By focusing on the set theoretical founoations of Baoious philosophy,
one overlooks the fact that events emerge in an unpreoictable manner,
ano thus require a possible framework outsioe ontology to explain how
they happen. This is not to say of course that events are not engageo
with unknown multiplicities that have their grounoing in a mathematical
ontology: it is to say, rather, that events ano their subjects are what force
the plastic univocity of being to assume new or unforeseeable trajectories,
new truths ano mooalities of existence. This, at bottom, is novelty in Ba-
oiou. But in oroer to ehect a possible movement from ontology to truth,
Baoious system must aoo an aooitional step that is extrinsic to ontology.
Notably, when Baoiou speaks of something that happens, his terms reveal
an uncharacteristic oisplay of sentiment. In a personal quote in reference
to the events of May of :q68 in Faris, for example, he stateo that: for what
was taking place, yes, we were the genuine actors, but actors absolutely
seizeo by what was happening to them, as by something extraoroinary,
something properly incalculable.
8
What is initially so striking about this quote ,ano others like it that
one nnos periooically in Baoiou, is that it makes recourse to personal
experiences that are otherwise entirely absent in Baoious philosophy. In
particular, here Baoiou seems to be appealing to categories of ahect that
presuppose a subject of experience who is grippeo or seizeo by some-
thing incalculable, who becomes a catalyst for all possible action. What
seems to be potentially overlookeo, then, within the overall sterile, formal
framework of the ontology of Bctrg oro Eccrt is any possible theory of af-
fect that coulo account for that very act of gripping the subject. This ab-
sence is telling when it comes to aooressing the manner in which subjects
are grippeo by events.
If this objection seems to imply a reproach that is entirely at ooos
with what makes Baoious philosophy what it is ,a minimalist metaphys-
8. Baoiou, Etltc, p. :..
Sam Gillespie :8
ics,, consioer the following two points. Iirst, it seems necessary to fall
back upon some category of ahect if we are to account for the processes
through which subjects ano events mutually enable one anther.
q
That is,
there may neeo to be something of a necessary engagement with the pos-
sible conoitions that seize ano grip subjects in the constitution of events,
ano which may oenne a political mooe of subjectivity. I woulo be arguing
here for noelity as a certain orive that propels a subject forwaro in the
pursuit of truths.
The secono consioeration is even more ambitious. In Baoious
thought, there are four conoitions unoer which truth can occur, art being
one among others. It seems, however, that a classical philosophical en-
gagement with art is impossible in Baoious systemthere is no possibility
for aesthetics for Baoiou. Given that the mathematization of ontology en-
tirely strips being of any notion of ahect, ano given that it is precisely ahect
or sensation that aesthetics stuoies, the only possibility for a philosophical
engagement with art in Baoious philosophy is through troctlcttcthat
is, the means through which philosophy can oversee the possible creation
of truths in the arts. Art, in other woros, is one instantiation of the voio
as truth. Now, this is only one instance of what occurs when Baoiou sub-
oroinates a possible arena of human action ano engagement to the foun-
oations that philosophy sets for it through science. In other woros, art is
philosophically important only insofar as it is capable of prooucing truths
that are subject to various conoitions establisheo by mathematics ,ano, by
extension, science,. I have argueo elsewhere, by looking at Deleuze, that
it is possible to have a theory of novelty that is not necessarily subjecteo to
a criterion of truth.
:o
One coulo say that, oespite its concessions to science,
Deleuzes philosophy is an aesthetic philosophy through ano through. By
making a move to Lacan, however, one nnos a possible vocabulary for
speaking of artistic proouction that is, on the one hano, compatible with
Baoious overall theory of the new, while nonetheless being inoepenoent
of the criterion of truth.
To summarize the argument so far. I am claiming that Baoiou neeos
a framework through which one can speak of how subjects are grippeo
by events. Lacan, I suggest, provioes such a conception in his relation of
the subject to its inoiscernible being, its own real. The catalyst for action
q. As Harot ano Negri observe, this coulo be part of a wioer politics of accounting for af-
fect in politics. Michael Harot ano Antonio Negri, Empttc, Cambrioge, Harvaro University
Fress, .oo:.
:o. Sam Gillespie, Tlc Motlcmottc of ^occlt,: Bootoo Mtrtmoltt Mctopl,tc, FhD., Univer-
sity of Warwick, Warwick, .oo.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo :88
,what Baoiou calls noelity, will be founo in Lacans notion of the orive
the means through which subjects create new mooalities of relating to,
or experiencing, being. Ano the orive, my argument will go, can also
provioe a framework for artistic proouction that thinks action through an
impersonalization of being at the same time that it is inoepenoent of the
category of truth as such.
This move becomes necessary because it strikes me that the conoition
of art is the most problematic for Baoious philosophy in terms of the cate-
gory of truth. There certainly can be various movements in art that estab-
lish formal groupings that resemble Faul Cohens process of constructing
a generic set, but it woulo seem unnecessarily restrictive to suboroinate
these formal groupings to generic conoitions set to it by this aooenoum
to Cantorian set theory. In other woros, one is left with a rather brute
minimalism to account for what truth can be in artistic practice. Ior this
reason, there can only be inaesthetics in Baoious philosophy. What a psy-
choanalytic notion of the oriveano, by extension, sublimationmight
entail is a broaoening of the protocol that Baoiou uses for subjective ac-
tion ,a response to the inoiscernibility of being, that is not necessarily
connneo to truth. Whether or not such an aesthetics can be philosophi-
cal is an altogether oiherent question: it may be that such an aesthetics
is a properly psychoanalytic ahair. All the same, it may be necessary to
explore such an option so as to accomplish two things: one, to think the
proper framework that oetermines subjective action ano two, to think
through the problematic category of art as a truth conoition.
THE VOID: SUB]ECT OR BEING?
Lacans innuence upon Baoiou is evioent. One coulo compile a book
length stuoy on the subject, but perhaps it is more useful here to take the
primary oiherences between the two as our point of oeparture. Baoiou has
been prominent in stating that he proposes a oiherent localization of the
voio than Lacan ano that, unlike for Lacan, being for Baoiou is separate
from the real. The implication of this is that philosophy ano psychoanaly-
sis presuppose oiherent points of oeparture: one oeparts from being as a
founoation, while the other starts with the position of a subject immerseo
in language. The question that immeoiately arises, then, is whether the
voio is localizeo in being, for which it is an ontological category, or is it the
place from which the subject speaks?
If Lacan aligns himself with the latter position, Baoiou unhesitatingly
opts for the former. It shoulo be clear that Baoious voio is inhuman ano
Sam Gillespie :8q
asubjective, whereas for Lacan, on the contrary, the voio is the main core
of subjectivity. The barreo subject, S, is the voio that is markeo as a sub-
ject of lack, a subject alienateo from its own being through the meoiation
of the signiner. The inscription of such a lack ,voio, in a linguistic chain of
signiners is what makes the subjects ability to relate to the worlo through
the shifting of signiners possible.
::
The subject that those signiners repre-
sent, however, is nothing but the mark of an excluoeo existence insioe an
inert symbolic framework that is necessary for experience. The subject is
that voio that emerges oeao on arrival in the symbolic register.
One can almost immeoiately take issue with this oistinction. Irom a
Lacanian perspective, it is not entirely certain that the subject is simply a
voio toot coott. The subject as voio exists only insofar as it is markeo ano
oesignateo by the signiner, ano not as some sort of substantial absence
that can be uncovereo through a proceoural stripping away of material
signiners. The voio is always staineo or tainteo by the signiner that oesig-
nates the subject as lack. The subject, in such a perspective, is as material
as it is empty. ]uoith Butler, among others, has consistently argueo that the
Lacanian category of the real oepenos upon some instantiation of a kernel
that resists symbolization, ano this is what makes it an ahistorical ano op-
pressive category. She asks: On the one hano, we are to accept that the
Real means nothing other than the constitutive limit of the subject, yet
on the other hano, why is it that any ehort to refer to the constitutive limit
of the subject in ways that oo not use that nomenclature are consioereo a
failure to unoerstano its proper operation?
:.
Butlers argument extenos to
argue that conceiving the real as the constitutive limit to the social ,which
is the place of the subject, amounts to oetermining the subject as outsioe
the social. This is how Butler qualines her Hegelianism: the real is simply
an empty voio of oetermination. In other woros, to use the terms from
the Baoiou of Tlcot, of tlc Soocct, to refer to the subject as voio overlooks
the fact that lack is more likely the result of a structural law of placement
rather than an excess of lack over ano above that system. Thus, lack is a
thoroughly immanent category.
The crucial point that Butler misses in her argument, however, is that
it is precisely the point that the real ooes not oesignate something outsioe
the socialit is rotltrg outsioe language. In other woros, Butlers criti-
::. The classically psychoanalytic statement I feel like a motherless chilo is possible on the
basis of substituting one signiner, I, for another, motherless chilo.
:.. ]uoith Butler, Competing Universalities, in ]uoith Butler, Ernesto Laclau ano Slavoj
iek, Corttrgcrc,, Hcgcmor,, Urtcctoltt,, Lonoon, Verso, .ooo, pp. :6-8:, p. :..
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo :qo
cism overlooks the fact that speaking subjects oesignate their own real in
ano through the materiality of language ano the limits it presupposes,
not through some oeterminate process of exclusion. The Lacanian sub-
ject is the place of that nothing outsioe language, just as Baoious voio is
the name for the nothing that exceeos particular instantiations of either
thought or being. Ior the Lacanian subject, then, there is nothing outsioe
the history that the signiner inouces ano the place of this nothing is the
voio of the subject. The voio of the subject is not something that exists
outsioe the symbolic chain. Rather, the unique position of the subject
extenos from the fact that there is rotltrg outsioe the symbolic chain. This
is what makes the Lacanian subject a structurally oeterminate category:
the impasses that renoer the closure of the symbolic impossible woulo
result in a failure to oetermine the symbolic as a structureo system were
it not for the fact that a speaking subject nlls that empty place of inoeter-
mination. In other woros, the failure of the symbolic to inscribe itself as a
closeo totality is constitutive of the failure of the subject to be fully present
to itself through the meoium of speech.
This has, I believe, oirect implications for Baoious theory of the sub-
ject. Ior it asks how is it that a subject can be propelleo to act through
something that is manifest only through negation? Whether that negation
oesignates the place of the subject or the place of being is a moot point:
the fact of the matter is that it is a question of a oeterminate nothing. To
interrogate the relation between the two thinkers, it will be necessary to
retrace certain steps in Baoious thought. We coulo start with a primary
text of Lacans theory of the subject. In his seminal essay Suture, Lacans
oisciple ]acques-Alain Miller proouceo a comparative reaoing of Laca-
nian psychoanalysis with Ireges logic, which functioneo as an implicit
critique of the logical assumption that one can have existence without
a subject.
:
Given that Irege founoeo his thought of numbers upon the
exclusion of any psychological subject of renection, the subject was ex-
cluoeo from Ireges systematic account of the genesis of numbers through
a purely logical necessity. This was a simple assertion that the existence
of numbers ooes not oepeno upon the existence of a subject who thinks
them. Accoroing to Miller, however, the subject reemergeo in his system
at that very point where Irege sought to oerive an existence through logic
alone. In Ireges system, zero was the primary logical number, insofar
as it was the only number that coulo be attributeo to a purely logical,
:. ]acques-Alain Miller, Suture ,Elements of the Logic of the Signiner,, Sctccr, vol. :8,
no. , :q-8, pp. .-.
Sam Gillespie :q:
non-empirical concept. The point, for Miller, is that the assignation of
the number zero to the lack of an illogical object is the very relation that
oennes the subjects relation to the signifying chain. In other woros, zero
is the marking of the subject as a lacking subject who tries to compensate
for its own lack of being through a substitution of one signiner for another
,in the same way that the number : in Irege marks the number o as the
number assigneo to the concept not-equal-to-itself ,. What makes Mill-
ers essay more than a simple analogy between Lacan ano Irege is that
it also aims to be an explicit critique of science itself. Science, which is
presumeo to exist inoepenoently of a subject, must reintroouce a subject
in oroer to sustain the progression of number. We are left to assume, then,
that a psychoanalytic theory of the subject is the very sustenance of a logi-
cal ,or scientinc, system.
In an early essay, Marque et manque, Baoiou took issue with this
very assumption insofar as he remaineo skeptical that science requires
a concept of either a subject or of suture.
:
Given the tenets of Gooels
theorem of incompletion, there was no neeo for a logical system to be
closeo in upon itself in oroer to function as a consistent system for pro-
oucing knowleoge. Science, that is, oio not neeo closure in oroer to func-
tion. Stratineo to innnity, regulating its passages, science is a pure space,
without an outsioe or mark, or place of what is excluoeo.
:
This position
entails that if there is no neeo to mark what is excluoeo from a scientinc
oroerinsofar as in science the not-substitutable-with itself is forecloseo
with neither recourse or mark
:6
then there is no subject of science. This
is, of course, in striking contrast to the position he woulo oevelop in Bctrg
oro Eccrt where subjects only exist in ano through truth proceoures, of
which science is one part. But this ooes not mean that Baoiou saw suture
as a useless category: it founoeo a subjects relation to ioeology. Departing
from a classically Althusserian oistinction between science ano ioeology,
Baoiou puts forth the theory that psychoanalysis has nothing to say about
science, ano that this is the negative oetermination of the oesire that is
operative in ioeology. The negative oetermination of oesire in psychoa-
nalysis is a oirect ehect of the impossibility of giving a oistinctly scientinc
account of the structural relations that make that oesire possible. That
is, the psychoanalytic oennition of oesire as lack is a oesire for a scien-
:. Alain Baoiou, Marque et manque: a propos ou zero, Coltct poot lorol,c, vol. :o, :q6q,
pp. :o-.
:. Baoiou, Marque et manque, p. :6:.
:6. Baoiou, Marque et manque, p. :.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo :q.
tinc knowleoge that can account for a subjects conoitions of possibility at
the same time that, at the level of that oesire, such an account is strictly
speaking impossible. The subject who passes from representation ,ioeol-
ogy, into knowleoge is a subject that woulo cease to exist at the moment
of its gaining scientinc knowleoge. What we are left with, then, is the no-
tion of a subject that plays a constitutive role in the proouction of science
as truth, even if that role is itself nothing more than a transitory stage
towaros the gaining of that knowleoge.
The shift from this position ,where the subject is an ioeological, non-
scientinc category, to the work of the :qos ,where the subject was a oia-
lectical, political subject, to the current position ,where there can be both
political ano scientinc subjects, presupposes a potentially broao set of fac-
tors that coulo have innuenceo the oevelopment of Baoious work. On the
one hano, in :q6 he maintaineo that if there is no subject of science, it
is because science is the proper subject of philosophy. But by the work of
the :qos, science hao taken a backseat to politicsboth as a subject of
philosophy ano as a conoition for subjectivity altogether. In other woros,
there are only political subjects.
The shift to a set theoretical ontology in Bctrg oro Eccrt signaleo two
changes in Baoious thinking. There was nrst the possible coexistence of
both political ano scientinc ,as well as artistic ano amorous, subjects, at
the same time that the voio became an exclusively ontological category.
It is this secono move that nrmly oistinguishes Baoiou from Lacan, such
that, by the time of Bctrg oro Eccrt:
The choice here is between a structural recurrence, which thinks
the subject-ehect of the empty-set, so exposeo in the unineo
network of experience, ano a hypothesis of the rarity of the subject,
which oefers its occurrence to the event, to the intervention, ano
to the generic paths of noelity, referring back ano founoing the
voio on the suturing of being for which mathematics exclusively
commanos knowleoge.
:
The rarity of the subject is what is put in the service of a mathematical
oetermination of the voio as non-subject, at the same time that subjective
action is renoereo possible through both the intervention of an event,
as well as the voio of local situations that becomes oeterminate in ano
through the forcing of truths. The subject, from such a perspective, is oe-
nneo through its action. In the Lacanian register, in contrast, Baoiou pos-
its the voio as the subject-ehect of the empty set, which is nothing other
:. Alain Baoiou, Lcttc ct lcrcmcrt, Faris, Seuil, :q88, p. :.
Sam Gillespie :q
than the purely empty-place of inequality that allows for the movement
from one signiner to the next, ano for which the subject is the unineo con-
oition of possibility. Ostensibly, this severs the subject from any possibility
of transformation or change, given that the voio that is the subject works
exclusively in the interests of a structural system of oetermination. Asioe
from language, there is nothing.
The above oistinction is maoe possible on the basis of a single ques-
tion: what ooes the voio oo oiherently in philosophy than in psychoa-
nalysis? In oeparting from the above oistinction, Baoiou concluoes that
being is oistinct from the Lacanian real insofar as the real is only possible
on the basis of a subject, while for philosophy, the voio t inoepenoently
of a subject. That is, the voio is the primary name for an inhuman ano
asubjective being that preceoes any possible aovent of subjectivity. Such
a position shoulo haroly surprise: it is entirely consistent with the outlineo
trajectory of Bctrg oro Eccrt, ano it is concomitant with any philosophy
that takes ontology as founoational. It woulo be absuro to make ontology
a subjective category given that many non-human, or non-subjective enti-
ties have an ontological valioity.
If so, why ooes Baoiou bother to have a subject in his philosophy at
all? Why oio he move from oeclaring science to be the subject of phi-
losophy to writing a book on the philosophy of the subject? The reason,
I believe, oepenos on the conoitions unoer which something new can
occur. Ior the new to emerge, something neeos to oisrupt the structural.
In oroer to account for the supplementary means with which subjects ano
events appear in Baoiou, it becomes necessary to appeal to categories that
were central to Lacan. To oetermine the manner in which they inform
Baoious own position, perhaps more intimately than he realizes, one will
have to unoo the above oistinction that Baoiou has orawn between Lacan
ano himself.
Consioer the assumption that the Lacanian subject is a pure voio, a
barreo subjectin short, S. Is it really the case that the subject is nothing
other than a voio that receives its oetermination through a linguistic struc-
ture that exceeos it, on the one hano, while being nothing but an empty
system of structural oetermination, on the other? This position falls prey
to an interpretation of the subject as nothing but its symbolic oesignation,
given that the lack of the subject is, strictly speaking, nothing at all. This
woulo be no oiherent from a rather cruoe interpretation of psychoanaly-
sis as a variant of constructivist logicthe subject is insofar as it is con-
structeo in language. Such a perspective funoamentally misinterprets the
raoical nature of Lacans oennition of subjectivity insofar as it reouces the
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo :q
question of the subject as the founoation for the constitution of meaning
,insofar as it is from this position of the subject that meaning is constituteo,
to a oennition of the subject as a oeterminate ehect of meaning ,that is,
the subject as it is positeo in language,. Is the emphasis here put upon the
materiality of language which, in some variant of behaviorist psychology,
comes to oetermine an ioentity? Or is it rather the case that the exclu-
sion of being that is essential for language as a closeo system exerts an
innuence upon the meaning that the speaking subject proouces? In other
woros, the lack that sutures the subject to the signifying chain, if it is to be
something more than an inoeterminate nothing that escapes the grip of
language, must play a constitutive role in Lacanian psychoanalysis.
The implications of this oistinction oo not holo exclusively for sorting
out the internal coherence of Lacanian psychoanalysis, they are also what
founo Baoious entire critique of constructivist mathematical logicthat
is, the belief that existence can only be given through the oiscernibility of
language. To counter constructivism is, of course, to maintain that there is
an existence that is not exclusively subsumeo within the tenets of what can
be oemonstrateo within language. The Lacanian real is one such manifes-
tation of an anti-constructivist tenoency, given that it is what remains of
being in the aftermath of the failure of meta-language. The real, as a sub-
jective function, is the result of the following paraoox. On the one hano,
there is no metalanguageeverything is explicitly positeo in language,
on the other hano, language cannot totalize itself as a closeo system for
which it can then oennitively state that there is nothing outsioe it.
:8
Thus, while one can maintain that the subject is purely a voio, that it
receives its only material support through the signiner, this is quite oiher-
ent from arguing that the subject is nothing other than a lack conjoineo to
a signiner. There is an aooitional something that nlls out this gap between
the failure of a meta-language ano the impossibility of oetermining lan-
guage as a closeo system ,for which the nothing outsioe language woulo
be truly nothing,. This something is Lacans famous objet petit ,a,. The
:8. As ]oan Copjec has put it: Whenever the split between being ano appearance is oe-
nieo, you can bet that one particular inscription is being overlookeo: that which marks the
very failure of metalanguage. Language speaks voluminously in positive statements, but
it also copiously speaks of its own lack of self-sumciency, its inability to speak the whole
unvarnisheo truth oirectly ano without recourse to further, exegetical speech. Some eli-
sion or negation of its powers writes itself in language as the lack of meta-language. This
negation is no less an inscription for its not being formulateo in a statement, ano the being
it poses presents no less a claim for our consioeration. ]oan Copjec, Rcoo M, Dcttc: Locor
Agotrt tlc Httottctt, Cambrioge, MIT Fress, :qq, p. q.
Sam Gillespie :q
object ,a, is not subsumeo within language, ano thus ooes not exist as one
signiner among others. At the same time, however, what makes object ,a,
what it is results oirectly from the fact that language fails to subsume the
totality of being: the object ,a, is the emergence, in the symbolic, of that
which remains outsioe its grasp, a positive oetermination of the negative
inoeterminate. Like Baoious event, the object ,a, is the appearance of
something that is anterior to presentation, at the same time, it is subtract-
eo from what is subtracteo. It is neither being-qua-being, nor a consistent
presentation, but rather a category of the subject.
Lacans famous formula for the fantasy is the conjoining of a barreo
subject to its virtual object: S a. To the lack in the subject instituteo by the
signiner corresponos a oetermination of that lack in the form of a fantasm
of presence ,say, in a psychoanalytic context, the oesire of the analyst,.
What lies behino that fantasm is precisely nothing, but it is a nothing that
gains oeterminate form in the various oesires, repetitions, or sublimations
of the psychoanalytic subject that oesires presence beyono language. At
the risk of making a mere analogy, is this not the very same logic inform-
ing Baoious theory of the eventprecisely the neeting appearance of that
which is inoiscernible from the position of experience, ano which is given
oeterminate form through the activity of a subject? The very problematic
status of the event in Baoiou hinges upon a paraoox: on the one hano,
there is an excess of being over presentation, on the other hano, this ex-
cess is purely nothing. How can nothing present itself? Frecisely insofar
as there are events that are given form by those subjects who recognize
them. We can only unoerstano the possible corresponoence between Ba-
oious event ano Lacans object ,a, if we unoerstano that the former is not
a phenomenal event any more than the object ,a, is a phenomenal object.
Insteao, both are what one coulo call supplements to presentation itself
that makes the move from a purely subtractive theory of presentation to
a oirect oetermination of the inoeterminate possible. That is, the event
is what facilitates a movement from a negative ontology ,in which the
question of inconsistency remains a negative oetermination of something
that is subtracteo from presentation, to a positive oetermination of that
subtracteo inconsistency qua proouction of truths. Likewise, in oroer to
move from a purely negative oetermination of oesire ,which always hinges
upon the immanent failure of some impossible object,, the psychoanalytic
subject must shift its activity to the orive, where it gives form ano oetermi-
nation to the empty grouno of its causality in ano through the formation
of an object ,a,. A oistinctly Lacanian question is, how ooes the subject
give form to its own existence?
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo :q6
One possibility was put forth in Lacans theory of sublimation. In a
ruoimentary sense, sublimation is the creation of oeterminate things in
ano out of a constitutive lack that is inherent to experience. It emerges
out of the constitutive relation of the subjects relation to its own real.
In the remainoer of this essay, then, I want to examine the potential re-
lations that inhere between Lacans theory of sublimation ano Baoious
theory of truth, while at the same time as looking to Lacans theory of
the orive ,which is closely linkeo to sublimation, for a possible account
for the subjective conoitions that enable such activity. Doing so will allow
me to initially reconsioer the supplementary framework that is necessary
to account for Baoious theory of the event, the subject, ano noelity, at
the same time as putting us in a position to question the ultimate aims of
Baoious entire projectthe knotting of novelty to truth.
Now, in oroer to aoequately assess the possible connections between
Lacans object ,a, ano Baoious event, we have to ask after the ontological
status of each. The reason I say ontological is because the event, in ano
of itself, is not exclusively an ontological category: with the event, we
have the nrst cxtcttot concept to the nelo of mathematical ontology.
:q
The
event supplements presentation ano, by extension, ontology. Ior example,
when consioering the Irench revolution, there are states of ahairs that are
presenteo in the situation ,to name only a few: the bourgeoisie, ]acobins,
the guillotine, the massacres, the storming of the Bastille, which, in ano
of themselves, are a multiplicity of elements that lack a unifying princi-
ple without the name Irench Revolution that creates of these elements
an event from which a political proceoure can be oeriveo. The event
Irench Revolution is not one multiple among others ,insofar as it is not,
in itself, presenteo among the other multiplicities,. It is what unines these
oisparate multiplicities unoer the banner of its occurrence. Or, to put it
another way, the event takes these elements ano aoos something more
that exceeos oirect presentation. But this something more, insofar as it is
not presenteo, cannot be accounteo for as something. Insofar as it escapes
presentation, it is ontologically unoecioable.
Now, in a parallel trajectory, what exactly is Lacans object ,a, if it is
neither an object nor a strictly linguistic oesignation? How can something
be saio to exist if it is not articulateo in language? Consioer one of the
most basic examples of an object ,a,, the breast. It woulo be a mistake to
assume that the object simply is the breast on account of its breast-like
properties. That is, the breast is not tr ttclf an object of satisfaction. An in-
:q. Baoiou, Lcttc ct lcrcmcrt, p. .o.
Sam Gillespie :q
fant coulo presumably be just as satisneo with the warm milk it provioes,
the pleasure it proouces when oigesteo in the booy, ano the satisfaction
that is associateo with the act of suckling. The breast, as the object ,a,,
however, is what is imputeo to give the coupling of booies ano organs the
satisfaction that are proper to them: it represents something more than
just one subsioiary object among others. It is the object that acts as a sup-
port for the satisfaction proper to these objects. The object ,a,, then, is not
the object of satisfaction but that something more that satisfaction aims at.
As Alenka Zupani puts it:
After a neeo is satisneo, ano the subject gets the oemanoeo
object, oesire continues on its own, it is not extinguisheo by the
satisfaction of a neeo. The moment the subject attains the object
she oemanos, the ooct pcttt o appears, as a marker of that which the
subject has not got, or ooc rot loccano this itself constitutes the
ccltc object of oesire.
.o
What Lacans object ,a, represents is a surplus satisfaction that lan-
guage fails to proouce. That is, if a psychoanalytic subject enters language,
she ooes so at a price: there is a necessary acceptance that an unmeoiateo
relation to ones being falls out of the equation. What is left in its place
is the installation of a lack.
.:
This is not to say, however, that this lack is
simply left to persist on its own accoro: something reemerges to the sub-
ject that comes to nll that lack, as it presents itself in the form of an object
that embooies the surplus-value of a being anterior to language. Likewise
for Baoiou, if inconsistent being-qua-being must, by structural necessity,
be subtracteo from consistent presentation unoer the law of the count,
that subtracteo being can nevertheless come to supplement the consist-
ent presentation of a situation in ano through the neeting appearance of
an event. Both Baoious event ano Lacans object ,a, are what resist the
structural necessity of subtraction of exclusion: they subtract themselves
from their initial subtraction as inconsistent being at the same time that
their supplementation of a given nelo provioes a unity for oisparate phe-
nomena.
.o. Alenka Zupani, Etltc of tlc Rcol: Iort, Locor, Lonoon, Verso, .ooo, p. :8.
.:. In Lacans Seminar VII, which leo to his eventual conceptualization of object ,a,, this
constitutive lack, or unnameo being, was calleo oo Dtrg. Do Dtrg is what I will call the
beyono-of-the-signineo. It is as a function of this beyono-of-the-signineo ano of an emo-
tional relationship to it that the subject keeps its oistance ano is constituteo in a kino of
relationship characterizeo by primary ahect, prior to any repression. ]acques Lacan, Tlc
Etltc of P,cloorol,t, .-.o, trans. Dennis Forter, New York, Norton, :qq., p. .
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo :q8
One immeoiate objection presents itself with the above analogy. Ior
the purposes of the present oiscussion, it is questionable whether the ob-
ject ,a, is in any way a catalyst for action. One coulo argue that the cause
of a subjects oesire is a oetermination of the subject as pure passivity
whose oesire exists in a negative relation to its positeo object. In contrast,
Baoious event calls a subject into being in such a way that its resioual
ehects will hinge upon the action ano oecisions taken by the subject that
retroactively give form to it. The event is oetermineo in ano though sub-
jective activity. To make an analogy between Baoiou ano Lacan is prob-
lematic if we lack a means of ascribing an active agency to the Lacanian
subject. What possible forms can the object ,a, assume that oirectly result
from the activity of the Lacanian subject?
We can start with the ruoimentary assumption of Lacans that the
subjects relation to the signiner is a structural relation to emptiness, or
lack. The question that emerges from this is one of the possible relations
the subject can form with that lack. One obvious example of such a rela-
tion woulo be the avoioance, or repression, of that lack that is constitu-
tive of neurosis. Neurotic subjectivity may in fact have some coincioence
with situations in which the voio is forecloseo from presentationin ei-
ther case, normativity or stability oepenos upon a foreclosure of the voio.
But there are other possible relations of the subject to its own lack that
presuppose the oirect activity of the subject in oetermining that relation,
ano thus oetermining the lack. One such possibility was given in Ireuos
account of sublimation that was subsequently mooineo by Lacan. Subli-
mation is conventionally taken to be the oesexualization of libioo in ano
through the proouction of scientinc ano artistic objects ano knowleoge.
In contrast, the orive is usually taken to be the realization of primal, oe-
structive impulses. The former woulo be the cultural purincation of the
latter. Lacans raoical move is to have uniteo the two termsorive ano
sublimationin the very notion of an object ,a,: in each case, it is the
activity of the subject that gives form to the object as satisfaction. This
means that the object is the resioual ehect of subjective action ano not
the object that oetermines a subjects oesire.
..
Thus, the sexual activity
of booies coulo be one possible ,perhaps convenient, way of prooucing
... Alenka Zupani has opposeo the orive to sublimation as such: if the orive is a heao-
less proceoure, sublimation is not. Sublimation is a kino of navigator of the orives, ano
this is why it plays such an important role in society. Sublimation can thus leao to proouc-
tions of oeterminate mooes of that nothing, whereas the orive is simply the expenoiture of
that nothinga orive towaros nothing. See Alenka Zupani, The Splenoor of Creation:
Kant, Lacan, Nietzsche, Umot;o): A }ootrol of tlc Urcorctoo, no. :, :qqq, pp. -., p. o.
Sam Gillespie :qq
mooalities of ahect ,that is, of aiming at a being beyono language,, while
the proouction of objects or knowleoge in science, religion ano art coulo
exemplify other possibilities of giving oeterminate form to the negative
oeterminations of the real. Science woulo entail a quest for the complete
symbolization or oetermination of the realanything that remains un-
symbolizable within it woulo simply imply a limitation in our own knowl-
eoge. Religion attempts to nll out this lack through the imposition of a
raoically transcenoent other, while art, it is argueo, is the realization of
this lack in ano through its representation as something. That is, it renoers
the impossibility of the real possible in ano through the meoium of repre-
sentation ,a result of the paraoox that the real cannot be representeo,. Art,
it woulo appear, has a unique relation to the real insofar as it neither fully
excluoes it from experience ,as in the case of religion, nor fully incorpo-
rates it within knowleoge ,as in science,. Ano this may have implications
for Baoious theory of art as a truth proceoure, given that, for Baoiou,
truth is oetermineo through mathematics.
Baoiou, no less than Lacan, oennes art as an instantiation of the voio:
the artists he oesignates as exemplary prooucers of truth can all be noteo
for their minimalist tenoencies: Beckett, Mallarm, Fessoa, Schoenberg.
Art is || mobilizeo, not because it has worth in ano of itself, or with
an imitative ano cathartic aim, but to raise the voio of Truth up to the
point at which oialectical sequential linking is suspenoeo.
.
This notion of
a purincation of being is, of course, not altogether oissimilar to the com-
monplace notion of sublimation in Ireuo, who saw the sublimation of an
instinct or orive as the purincation of cruoe, ano potentially oestructive,
instincts, into higher aims that coulo be met with social approval.
.
It is a
telling sign of Ireuos conservative, ano unoer-theorizeo, take on the mat-
ter of sublimation that his aesthetics tenoeo, more often than not, to focus
on the classical or conventional: Michelangelo, Leonaroo, Shakespeare.
In :qo, at the time of Ctctltottor oro tt Dtcortcrt, where he put forwaro
his theory of the cultural value of arts, the work of Ficasso, Lissitzky, Du-
champ, ano others, was left unmentioneo. Ireuos theory of sublimation
.. Alain Baoiou, Mortfcto fot Pltloopl,, trans. Norman Maoarasz, Albany, State Univer-
sity of New York Fress, :qqq, p. :..
.. A satisfaction of this kino, such as an artists joy in creating, in giving his phantasies
booy, or a scientists in solving problems or oiscovering truths, has a special quality which
we shall certainly one oay be able to characterize in metapsychological terms. Sigmuno
Ireuo, Civilization ano its Discontents, in Albert Dickson ,eo.,, Ctctltottor, Soctct, oro
Rcltgtor, trans. ]ames Strachey, vol. XII Fenguin Ireuo Library, Lonoon, Fenguin, :qq:,
pp. .-o, p. .6.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo .oo
not only ran the risk of subscribing to a conservative sexual morality ,an
accusation commonly leveleo against psychoanalysis regaroless,, it fell
prey, to put it miloly, to a conventional aesthetics that oenieo art its po-
tential for innovation.
Ireuos notion of sublimation, then, was articulateo as a function of
the superego, insofar as it sought a way for the satisfaction of instincts in
means that were subject to cultural approval. Lacans response, although
quite contrary to Ireuos, oio not leao to a rejection of the notion of subli-
mation. Sublimation for Lacan oio result in the purincation of ahect, but
these emotions were precisely those that were instigateo by the cultural
oemanos of the superegofear ano pity. Lacans theory aims to subvert
the very cultural authority that Ireuos theory of sublimation put to work.
To unravel the possible connict between the two great psychoanalysts, we
will have to consioer the initial mockery that Lacan maoe of Ireuos own
views. In :q6, Lacan proposeo the following Ireuoian interpretation of
sublimation ano its correlate in the orive:
In other worosfor the moment, I am not fucking, I am talking
to you. Well! I can have exactly the same satisfaction as if I were
fucking. Thats what it means. Inoeeo, it raises the question of
whether in fact I am not fucking at this moment. Between these
two termsorive ano satisfactionthere is set up an extreme
antinomy that reminos us that the use of the function of the orive
has for me no other purpose than to put in question what is meant
by satisfaction.
.
The eno of the above quote proposes the following contrast: if the
orive is opposeo to satisfaction, it is contraoictory to speak of the satisfac-
tion of a orive. Taken further, it is clear that satisfaction itself is a contra-
oictory notion, insofar as there are inoiviouals who are clearly capable
of prooucing a certain stability in their lives in ano through the manifes-
tation of their symptoms ,say, compulsive hano-washing,this stability,
while forever frustrateo ano oissatisneo, is what satisfaction aims at. To
borrow the famous term of Slavoj iek, the commano to enjoy your
symptom ooes not result in a possible attainment of an aim, but in a pro-
longation of frustrateo oesire that typines neurosis. But it is just as clear
that inoiviouals who manifest neurotic symptoms are nonetheless oiscon-
tenteo oespite their attainment of satisfaction: just as, we coulo assume,
the act of speaking ooes not result in the same sort of jouissance that can
.. ]acques Lacan, Tlc Foot Foroomcrtol Corccpt of P,cloorol,t, trans. Alan Sherioan,
New York, Norton, :q8:, pp. :6-66.
Sam Gillespie .o:
be enjoyeo in sexual intercourse. This is what Lacan means when he op-
poses orive to satisfaction. The question then is what exactly the orive or
sublimation aims at if not satisfaction. How exactly ooes the orive play out
a trajectory of impossibility?
This question brings us to the centrality of the Lacanian real. Irom
most of the cultural literature that has come out in the past nfteen years
on the topic, it shoulo be evioent that the real is the impossible. The
impossibility, that is, of having an ontology from within the parameters
of psychoanalysis. Or, yet again: the impossibility of the real results from
the paraooxical conclusion that there is no meta-language at the same
time that language cannot foreclose the possibility of an existence that
escapes language. Ior the speaking subject, there is no meta-oiscursive
position from which one can state with certainty that there is nothing
outsioe language. The real is thus the minimal ontological framework
that results from the fact that, within language, being is excluoeo at the
same time that no oennitive limits for that exclusion can be oemarcateo.
We have alreaoy establisheo that the subject occupies the limit point from
which language proceeos, but there is also the question of the excess of
being that is not exhausteo by the presentative capacity of language. The
minimal ontological form this being takes is that of the object ,a,, or, in
Baoious case, the event. The question that intimately links Lacans object
,a, to Baoious event properly concerns the activity of the subject: how
ooes the subject give form to being beyono simply leaving it as an empty,
inoeterminate excess?
Ior Baoiou, it is evioent that the inoiscernible is granteo form through
the forcing of truths. Ano it is unquestionably just as true that the conoi-
tions unoer which forcing can occur oepeno upon a generic, ano thus
universalizable, framework put into place. Truth is universal, for all.
.6
The
contrast with Lacan shoulo be obvious: if the orive is itself an attainment
of Lacanian jouissance, shoulo not jouissance be universalizable, hao by
all?
.
Moreover, the orive itself, as an answer of sorts to the problems that
.6. Ano this is not simply a formal mathematical counterpart to Baoious ontology: a suf-
ncient account of universalizability was given in Baoious account of Saint Faul. See Alain
Baoiou, Sotrt Pool: Tlc Fooroottor of Urtcctoltm, trans. Ray Brassier, Stanforo, Stanforo
University Fress, .oo.
.. This is a bit of a lengthy argument in itself. The basic premise behino it is that no mat-
ter how much one enjoys, there will always be others who enjoy more. This woulo appear
to be the oriving impetus behino Lacans writing of Kant avec Saoe, trans. ]ames Swen-
son, Octooct, vol. :, :q8q, pp. -:o, as well as Slavoj ieks recent writings on enjoyment
as a political factor, see Slavoj iek, Fot Tlc, Iroo ^ot 1lot Tlc, Do: Ero,mcrt o o Poltttcol
Foctot, .no eo., Lonoon, Verso, .oo..
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo .o.
irrational forms of enjoyment may represent to the subject, remains an
ultimately inoivioual notion: there can be no collective solution to the
problem of jouissance precisely because, from the perspective of psychoa-
nalysis, only inoiviouals can be treateo on the couch. There cannot be a
collective jouissance of the community.
.8
As such, psychoanalysis woulo
be an ultimately inoivioual notion that carrieo very little truth. By exten-
sion, its usefulness for speaking about Baoious notion of subjective noelity
woulo appear quite limiteo.
My response to the above objection is twofolo. Iirst, while there is
certainly a connection between what happens at the level of a subject
being grippeo by an event ano the universal truth that may follow from
such an account, the universalizability of a truth cannot in any way serve
as a criterion for what happens at the level of a subject being grippeo
by an event. A subject oeclares its noelity to the event as a pure matter
of faith. This is because, in a position Baoiou may since have retracteo,
the truthfulness of an event cannot be oecioeo at the time of its occur-
rence. Ano from this perspective, it is just as true that subjects grippeo by
events can form reactionaryano hence untruetenoencies in response
to events ,say, collective unities who oppose political revolution, people
who regaroeo Schoenbergs music as noise, etc.,. Nothing at the level of
universalizability can oenne the trajectory of the subject in response to
something that has the power to form collective subjects out of inoiviou-
als. A theory of what creates those subjective formations is what I am
looking for in psychoanalysis.
Secono, Baoiou has, on at least two occasions, maoe concessions to
the Lacanian cure as a potential truth proceoure, insofar as the subject on
the couch can, over the course of analysis, give form to the unconscious
,or inoiscernible, mechanisms that compel it to act.
.q
At an immeoiate lev-
el, the answer is clearly that certain inoiviouals make oecisions to change
their situations ,their inoivioual lives, in oroer to form new relations to
the being ,the ootorcc, they have to bear in everyoay life. The haro work
.8. Ultimately, this is what Lacan meant with his maxim oo not ceoe your oesire! That
is, oo not let an other oictate to you what your oesire shoulo be.
.q. In Tlcot, of tlc Soocct, Baoiou wrote that: We wont pay any attention to those who
argue that a couch is not as serious as a concentration camp. To them we say without
hesitation that this remains to be seen. The axiom of the nouveaux philosophesa camp
is a campis just as false as what the Chicago therapists wanteo to promote through the
excommunication of Lacan: a couch is a couch. The fact is that the psychoanalytic cure
has no other real aim than that of the reaojustment of the subject to its own repetition. See
Alain Baoiou, Tlottc oo oct, Faris, Seuil, :q8..
Sam Gillespie .o
of analysis, then, coulo be regaroeo as a truth proceoure among others
that allows subjects ,inoivioual human subjects, say, to form new, hopeful-
ly more rational, means of existing. The manner in which we move from
psychoanalysis, a specialist nelo that concerns inoiviouals on couches, to
arguing for its signincance for philosophy will require something else: this
is what I am looking for through the theory of sublimation. Sublimation
can allow for the creation of something new in art, in a manner that will
be applicable, if not useful, for Baoious own writings on the topic.
I will thus attempt to go through these two points so as to assess what
they may have to oher Baoious theory of the event, the subject ano n-
oelity. It is ultimately a question of ahect as a principle of the subject,
over ano above the structural relations that make subjectivization pos-
sible. It may seem ooo to appeal to Lacan for these purposes, given that
he has often been accuseo of stripping psychoanalysis of or, notion of
ahect. Irom such a perspective, it ohers a colo ano sterile framework for
speaking about human behavior. Fhilosophically, however, the psycho-
analytic notion of the orive remains tainteo by an irrationality that, more
often than not, assumes morbio or abject vicissituoes ,for example, ieks
comparison of an encounter with the monstrous real with Baoious truth
proceoures,. This psychoanalytic approach, for iek, constitutes an irra-
tionality that unoerlies every philosophical approach to nll out the voio of
the inoiscernible through the forcing of truths: in a Truth-Event, the voio
of the oeath orive, of raoical negativity, a gap that momentarily suspenos
the Oroer of Being, continues to resonate.
o
In many ways, iek is entirely correct. In the nrst place, truth is
inoeeo an empty category: behino any particular or local instantiation
of it, there is nothing other than the voio, just as ontology ano thinking
are nothing apart from their particular presentations or instantiations.
But there is a surreptitious jump that iek makes from the emptiness of
truth as a category to the fact that the truth proceoures become nothing
more than a way of regulating primoroial psychic orives ,whereby love is
nothing other than the ability of human beings to rationalize an unbrioleo
jouissance, politics becomes a means of mooulating the non-universaliz-
ability of enjoyment as a political factor, art is a means of sublimating
the abject horror of the real into beautiful objects, etc,. ieks move is to
grouno oll subjective action in impulses ano interests that are applicable
only to a psychoanalytic subject. In other woros, at the bottom of Baoious
o. Slavoj iek, Tlc Ttclltl Soocct: Tlc Aocrt Ccrttc of Poltttcol Ortolog,, New York, Verso,
:qqq, pp. :6.-.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo .o
truth proceoures lie libioinal impulses. What he has oone, then, is oppose
Lacan to Baoiou without acknowleoging that this oistinction is possible
on the basis of what oistinguishes psychoanalysis from philosophy. Ano
seconoly, is it not the very point that sublimation, in supposing the oe-
sexualization of libioo, makes categories such as unbrioleo jouissance
seconoary to the ultimate aims of its activity? The applicability of the
orive for Baoious philosophy will holo only insofar as the orive ceases
to be a purely inoivioual notion ano aomits of a capacity for universaliz-
ability. In other woros, I am in no way arguing for a correlation between
Baoiou ano Lacan on the grouno that subjective action presupposes a
libioinal interest ,in the same way that sublimation presupposes a orive,,
but rather that the elementary relation of a subject to its enjoyment ,that
is, a speaking subject to its unsaio being, is constitutive of the relation
between Baoious subject ano the event. What is requireo, then, is not a
sexualizeo content, but rather a minimal conoition of ahect that oennes
that relation.
AIIECT DEIINED
Lacans major writing on the topic of ahect occurs in his tenth semi-
nar, on Anxiety. Anxiety, he says, is the only thing we can be sure of. I
take this to mean that the other emotions that regulate human experience
are always capable of oeceiving. I have alreaoy mentioneo fear ano pity:
clearly, with respect to contemporary events, there is no ooubt that we live
in a worlo where feareo enemies ano pitieo victims proliferate. Ano their
invocation in politics can often serve contraoictory aims. Ior example,
in relation to contemporary events, the same Muslim population we fear
in the name of potential terrorist attacks is the same we pity in the name
of the humanitarian interventions of just wars.
:
Iear ano pity, in either
case, arouses the neeo for a resolution, just as reaoily as their transgression
can nno form in other, more threatening, extremes. Anxiety is something
oiherent, because it is instituteo on an entirely oiherent basis. What we
fear or pity is conventionally what is other to us: in contrast, what arouses
our anxiety is altogether intimate to us. Its haroly surprising that ethical
inoignation is often arouseo with respect to people at a oistance from
ourselves ,in Bosnia, Falestine, Iraq,, rather than with regaro to people
:. See ]acqueline Roses aomirable eoitorial, We are all afraio, but of what exactly?, Tlc
Goototor, .o March .oo, http://www.guaroian.co.uk/comment/story/o,6o,q::.,oo.
html, accesseo ]uly 6, .oo.
Sam Gillespie .o
we encounter in our everyoay lives ,UK ano American citizens who live
in poverty or are incarcerateo,.
What gives structure to anxiety is not a lack ,a constitutive wouno at
the heart of experience,, but rather, in Lacans terms, a locl of locl. Anxi-
ety is not the signal of a lack, but of something that you must manage to
conceive of at this reooubleo level of being the absence of this support of
lack ,.:..6.,. Subjective lack, which makes the emergence of the speak-
ing subject in language possible, is also that which guarantees that the
object ,a,, qua cause of oesire, will always remain at a oistance from that
subject. It is always excluoeo, ano thus open to various irrational vicis-
situoes. As an object of oesire, the object ,a, remains an impossible object
which the subject relates to by virtue of some kino of constitutive failure.
But in the absence of that lack, the object no longer remains at a oistance,
it emerges full-circle to the subject as the constitutive core of its grounoing
in being. Ano this being that is revealeo to the subject as its own grouno
is precisely that empty place, that nothing that is the subjects own being.
The confrontation of the subject with this being is the proper catalyst for
action. The arousal of anxiety is thus unlike other psychological notions
of ahect that are constitutive of a subjects relation to the stability of their
symbolic oroer. While fear ano pity, among other ahects, coulo be saio to
oetermine the manner in which subjects holo irrational relations to their
jouissance ano its various vicissituoes, it is anxiety, the encounter with
the empty grouno of being, that prompts an inoivioual to go into analysis
with the hope of forming other, preferably more rational, relations to their
jouissance. Anxiety is the cause of subjective change precisely because it
lacks a support in representation.
I will present this in the simplest form to provioe a way into Baoiou.
In normal situations, there may be certain elements that are subtracteo.
As we saw in the case of immigrant workers, some may be representeo
as excluoeo in the contemporary political situation of Irance, ano this
subtractive representation may arouse various feelings of oisgust, pity or
resentment. The arousal of these feelings oepenos upon their status as
subtracteo, as lacking what Irench citizens have ,work permits, legal sta-
tus, recognition by the state, etc,. The movement that woulo facilitate the
shift to an event woulo be to consioer them not as subtracteo elements of
the situation Irance, but rather as human beings that, like Irench citi-
zens, occupy the same place. If an event, or a political sequence, is to be
establisheo in their name, what is requireo is a recognition of the common
being that is shareo with Irench citizens, from which various prescrip-
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo .o6
tions against the Irench state can be maoe on behalf of their ontological
valioity.
It is one thing to say that the example of the or-poptct can provioe
one such example of a situations recognition of its own subtracteo being.
It is another thing, however, to say that such a recognition arouses anxi-
ety, or that such anxiety is the sole catalyst for subjective action, or noelity.
Ano, of course, anxiety is not an exclusively Lacanian notion, given that
his work on the topic has been preceoeo by Kierkegaaro, Heioegger ano
Ireuo, among others. If anything coulo be saio to unite these latter three
interpretations, it is the belief that anxiety is a subjects own confrontation
with possibility: the possibility of moral obligation through the acknowl-
eogement of guilt ,Kierkegaaro,, or the possibility of ones own freeoom
to exist in the worlo ,Heioegger,. The inoeterminateness of anxiety, then,
is not anxiety about something in particular, but about being in general.
Ano this revelation of being in general, the fact that it is not something
that can be representeo as excluoeo, ano hence manageo, is constitutive
of a subjects relation to inoeterminate being.
Taking this as our point of oeparture, we must then ask what it is that
anxiety may provoke in psychoanalytic theory ano what its counterpart
may be in Baoious truth proceoure? The answer to the nrst part of the
problem is simple enough: in contrast to emotions like fear ano pity, anxi-
ety is oistinct from oroinary passionate attachments that oenne a subjects
relation to the worlo. In other woros, a person is compelleo to go into
analysis less on the basis of a compulsive neeo or oesire for something
,however much that can serve as a prop for their wish for analysis, as
because of an unoerlying anxiety that makes oroinary life unbearable.
The subject is seizeo by something it ooesnt have a name for, ano this
is what coulo be saio to prompt the series of investigations that ensue in
the course of analysis. So far, this is quite concomitant with how Baoiou
sees a truth proceoure. To speak brutally, I oo not think that analysis is
an interpretation, because it is regulateo not by sense, but by truth. This
is certainly not an uncovering of truth, of which we know that it is vain
to think it coulo be uncovereo, because it is generic.
.
Analysis ooes not
uncover a preexisting truth, but is rather a means through which a subject
gives form ano shape to the inoiscernible being that grounos its anxiety.
This nnal point is the pretext for the conclusion of this oiscussion. If
analysis is ultimately something that inoiviouals, as opposeo to collective
subjects, unoergo, why shoulo it then be seen as universal or generic? Isnt
.. Alain Baoiou, Corotttor, Faris, Seuil, :qq., p. .o8.
Sam Gillespie .o
the whole point of Lacans enterprise that jouissance cannot be univer-
salizeo, hao by all? Lacans famous utilitarian analogy of jouissance as a
white sheet illustrates this logic perfectly: if you cut enough holes in the
sheet for everyone to stick their heao through, you eno up oestroying the
sheet in turn. The universalization of jouissance is its own abnegation.
Ano if we conceive the ultimate goal of analysis to be new, more rational,
relations subjects form with their jouissance, we are left with something
that is funoamentally incompatible with Baoious truth proceoure. The
crux of this problematic takes us to the oiherence between being ano the
real. I mentioneo before that the real is a category of the subject. What is
implieo by this is that the being of a truth that comes to be instituteo in the
situation traverses the inoiviouality of the subject who chose to recognize
it over others who oio not. Baoious subjects are unique subjects to the
extent that they recognize events that others oont, however, if truth is for
all, the particularity of the subject is abnegateo. The move from psychoa-
nalysis to philosophy, ano from the real to being requires that truth must
pass over from being a subjective principle of noelity to become a truth
that exists for all qua forcing. The real, as I see it, names that part of a
truth that the subject operates in the service of, at the same time that the
subjects actions traverse the inoiviouality of the real.
I previously oistinguisheo satisfaction from jouissance on the grounos
that the former attains a certain stability that is rooteo within language,
whereas the latter is an explicit excess of being over language. ]ouissance,
at bottom, is Lacans name for being. Ano the object ,a,, that bit of jouis-
sance that supports subjective activity, is the correlate for Baoious event.
What the object ,a, ano the event both provioe is a minimal framework
through which a subject confronts being. Given that neither the event
nor the object ,a, have proper supports in representation, there is never
a guarantee that oisaster might not ensue from the subjective relations
they establish. Ferhaps their inoeterminacy is what allows them to, quite
often, assume irrational forms, as witnesseo in the example of false truth
proceoures in Baoiou, or in the obscure attachments that subjects form
with obscure forms of enjoyment, in Lacan. The conoitions of possibility
of change ano novelty in both Baoiou or Lacan are just as reaoily the pos-
sible conoitions for evil.
When Baoiou remarks that analysis is not interpretation, he means
that there is a point in the analytic situation that cannot be reouceo to the
oimension of language, which guioes the subject forth in his or her pur-
suit of a truth. In the absence of a metalanguage, jouissance is that excess
of the subject to itself, that part of the subject that is more than simply
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo .o8
the sum total of its activity. When coupleo with the object ,a,, then, the
subject is oriven in pursuit of something that is not reoucible to its experi-
ence. Ano conversely, to see the real as a category of the subject is to put
the subject in tanoem with something that exceeos its structural conngu-
ration in a linguistic network: it is that part of the subject that exceeos its
own activity. What oistinguishes Baoious subject from Lacans, then, is
the process through which that subjective excess passes over from being
a purely subjective principle ,qua the real of jouissance, into something
that holos for a collective human situation in its totality ,qua generic be-
ing of a truth,. Iorcing is what makes that shift possible. But it woulo be
oimcult to see how forcing woulo be possible were it not for the activity
of a militant subject who is put in the service of something that exceeos
all positive or representative value in the situation. Lacan, I have argueo,
provioes the framework for Baoious subjectivity.
The nnal question, then, concerns what we are to make of sublima-
tion in Lacan. Is it a notion that is concomitant with art as a truth proce-
oure in Baoiou? The question returns us to Baoious comment that truth
in analysis cannot be uncovereo because it is generic. Is there a generic,
higher faculty of jouissance? Sublimation, I have suggesteo, ohers one
such possibility in ano through the proouction of aesthetic objects that
instantiate the empty grouno of being that is annulleo in ano through
the aovent of language. Ano artistic sublimation may oo this in a manner
that is altogether oiherent from the realizations that occur in religion or
science.
When Baoiou remarkeo that jouissance cannot be reouceo to inter-
pretation, he meant that it was that limit point of the situation which
refuses closure. It becomes quite easy, then, to see that jouissance cannot
be universalizeo: it cannot be given as a totality that can then be cut up
ano oiveo equally among all inhabitants of the situation. Like Russells
paraoox, this is a oirect ehect of the inherent incompletion of being itself.
What neeos to be askeo is whether it is possible for art to instantiate that
incompletion. The artists that Baoiou champions seem to share a tenoen-
cy to strip away oetail to uncover, or localize, the purity of the voio. When
Lacan oescribes sublimation as the elevation of an object into the oignity
of a Thing,
Alain Baoiou says that what he aomires most about Fascal is his ehort
to invent the mooern forms of an ancient conviction, rather than follow
the way of the worlo ,BE ...,.
Truths make
holes in knowleogethat encyclopaeoia of the state. This encyclopaeoia
provioes the preoicative oroer of juogements such that a multiple nnos
itself belonging to a set of multiples, that is, to a part ,BE .8,. In other
woros, to paraphrase from Lacan it is the state which know|s| what you
will oo.
6
Ior Baoiou, a truth, constituteo as a generic proceoure ano sub-
ject to its event, necessarily entails a type of inoiherent ano logical revolt
against the totc of the situation. Baoious claim in regaro to an eoucation
by truths suggests therefore something like an operation of immanent ri-
valry, within justice, to an eoucation by the state.
Obviously
the interconnection between peoagogy ano philosophy is embeooeo in
:. Bruno Bosteels, Alain Baoious Theory of the Subject: The Recommencement of
Dialectical Materialism, Fart :. Plt :., .oo:, pp. .oo-..q ano Fart ., Plt :, .oo., pp. :-
.o8.
.. Baoiou, HI, p. . In regaro to mathematics Baoiou names the three schemata which
organize the link between philosophy ano mathematics, the ortologtcol, the epttcmologtcol,
ano the cttttcol. There is some scope for mapping the nrst three schemata from the realm
of art ano philosophy onto the latter from mathematics ano philosophy but such an at-
tempt must proceeo with caution. Ano in any case Romanticism is for Baoiou the central
concern, as for him it is our subjection to Romanticism post-Hegel that constitutes the
time of our time. See, Fhilosophy ano Mathematics: Innnity ano the eno of Romanti-
cism, Tlcotcttcol 1ttttrg, p. ...
. Baoiou, Dclcoc, p. q. The statement is of course from Farmenioes. See translators
note ,p. :, note :, for an explanation of this translation.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo ..o
the traoition of the oiscipline itself. However, in the same way that Ba-
oiou oetermines one aspect of the relation between art ano philosophy
to have been characterizeo, the relation between eoucation ano the state
has itself been one oetermineo by a form of philo-sophistical surveillance.
Despite the plaintive cries lamenting the states attack on the acaoemy, the
university persists in being that institution which sets ano oetermines the
stanoaro ano form of the curriculum for the nnal years of high-school,
as for itself.
within
the theory, policy ano practice of the contemporary eoucation system,,
:. See Baoiou, HI, where this link has collapseo ano must therefore also be re-founoeo
in the fourth mooality, see also MF, where this re-founoing is more accurately a return |of
philosophy| {to} itself. See, The Return of Fhilosophy to Itclf , pp. ::-:8.
.. It is interesting on this point to compare with Baoiou what ]acques Ranciere oescribes
as the non-methoo of intellectual emancipation stumbleo upon by ]oseph ]acotot,
whereby one may teach what one ooesnt know. This methoo, as with Baoiou, begins
with an axiomatic statement. Ranciere oeclares an equality of intelligence. Thus: Lets
amrm then that universal teaching otll rot tolc, it will not be establisheo in society. But tt
otll rot pcttl because it is the natural methoo of the human mino, that of all people who
look for their path themselves. What the oisciples can oo is to announce to all inoiviouals,
to all mothers ano fathers, the way to teach what one ooesnt know on the principle of
the equality of intelligence. See ]acques Ranciere, Tlc Igrotort Scloolmotct: Ftcc lcor tr
trtcllcctool cmorctpottor, trans. Kristin Ross, Stanforo: Stanforo University Fress :qq:, p. :o.
cf. Baoiou, Fhilosophy ano Folitics, p. :. What ooes equality mean? Equality means that
the political actor is representeo unoer the sole sign of his specincally human capacity
|t|his specincally human capacity is precisely thought, ano thought is nothing other than
that by which the path of a truth seizes ano traverses the human animal.
. This at once conservative ano eclectic tenoency is ruthlessly at work in the theoretico-
policy work of the contemporary state systemat least here in Australia ano especially
noticeable within the New Basics regime of Eoucation QLD. It is also very to the fore
in eoucational theory. This summary paragraph is all too exemplary: Each chilo, as a
unique human being, can be enlargeo ano enliveneo in the inclusive, enactive environ-
ment of the transactional curriculum. In such classrooms the liveo experience of stuoents
ano teacher co-exist, learning ano knowleoge co-emerge, the multiplicity of curricula
converge, nature ano nurture co-originate as proouct ano process, ano, the cognitive ano
non-cognitive learning of each as Other are brought forth through peoagogical love into
a new worlo of knowleoge, acceptance ano unoerstanoing. Truly, in such classroom set-
tings the light gets in, ano heart in becomes heart of teaching. Blaine E. Hatt, ,Assist-
ant Frofessor, Iaculty of Eoucation, Heart In is Heart Of Teaching, in ,funnily enough,
Ecclccttco, December, .ooo, http://www.ecclectica.ca/issues/.oo.//hatt.asp
A. ]. Bartlett ..
nevertheless it is necessary to follow closely the trajectory of Baoious oi-
agnoses because it is against the saturation of these schemata that he in-
troouces his ,un-explicateo, ano quite extraoroinary notion that the only
eoucation is an eoucation by truths ,HI :,. What we will oo is explore
the peoagogy of conoitions in Baoious essay in oroer to unoerstano how
that which Baoiou proposes as a fourth mooality of the peoagogical link
between art ano philosophy ,HI ::,, or of the re-entanglement of math-
ematics ano philosophy,
The peoagogical
theme unoer the saturation of the state schema functions as a collapse that
at the same time maintains an impasse. The operational function here is
nothing other than the perpetuation of the state or, the knowleoge of the
statewhich in Baoious woros is the pront of statincation, calculable
interest ano placement.
By extension, I am suggest-
ing that it is entirely within a praxis of this type that an eoucation takes
place, whereas in the state situation nothing takes place but the place
which is to say the positive proouction of impasse. So rather than force a
subject to be eoucateo, in this ioea, forcing, as that complex of the subject,
is what eoucates. As part of the complex of forcing we can say that it is
by non-knowleoge that the subject proceeos. As we have seen, the subject
follows no curriculum, no pre-establisheo methoo in its enquiries. That
it makes inquiries at all is, as Baoiou says, subject to chance: On the one
hano, the chance of an event occurring ano, on the other, the oecision
for its occurring qua event. But with no methoo, how ooes the subject
proceeo?
Ior any obscure occurrence to be an event it must proouce its name
in the subject. The name given by the subject, as an act of its very sub-
jectivity, unoer conoition of the event, belongs in the nrst instance to the
subject-language. It is the singleton of the occurrence in Baoious terms.
This name is the minimal conoition of the subject qua enquiries, or for
us, of the subject qua eoucation. How then to remake the name, a name
alreaoy incluoeo by state knowleoge, into a name belonging to the occur-
rence? That is, how ooes the name make evental that which is obscure?
In this nrst instance the subject supports the transitory status of the name
. Oliver Ieltham, A Fttc Botr: Of Ortolog,, Ptoxt, oro Forcttorol 1otl, unpublisheo FhD
oiss., Deakin University, .ooo.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo .8
which is at once attacheo to an obscurity ano an encyclopaeoia. In a
sense this is a nrst instance of tearing holes in knowleoge. The name is
subtracteo from the encyclopaeoia of the state for which language is the
meoium of commensurability between itself ano the situation it repre-
sents ,BE .88,. The voio, by which the name as supernumery is founoeo
as exposeo, is mobilizeo in the subjective proceoure of forcing. Frecisely
through this immanent gapbetween the presentation of inconsistency
markeo by the event ano its consistent presentation markeo by the ,voio,
name of this eventa truth proceoure authorizes itself. Iorcing hereby
names the proceoure of tearing the name from encyclopaeoic inclu-
sion ano remaking it as belonging to the event.
. The irreoucible multiplicity of the arts is precisely ]ean-Luc Nancys question in Lc
Moc, Faris, Gallimaro, .oo:. What we have is Meyerholo-event not as absolute source
Oliver Ieltham .6:
It is here that Baoious theory of generic truth proceoures can be sup-
plementeo. What is requireo is a more complicateo account of forcing
ano of the oevelopment of a counter state. I holo that within the oomains
of art ano politics one can think a counter-state as a collective assem-
blage of enunciation which reinforces ano unfolos the truth proceoure by
a number of typical operations. It is these operations which allow for the
multiplication of the proceoures situations ano for its possible corcctgcrcc
with otlct truth proceoures, in the realm of oance or music for exam-
ple. One of these typical operations is tlc tcromtrg of tlc ololc. It occurs
frequently in the new theatre truth proceoure: Meyerholo attempteo
to name the new theatre as stylizeo theatre, Brecht as epic theatre or
theatre for a scientinc age ano these names can be useo to multiply the
oomains of the truth proceoure. Brecht speaks of cinema as an ioeal ve-
hicle for epic theatre. In other woros, if a historical situationtheatreis
slowly transformeo by a truth proceoure, then evioently its name ano its
bounoaries have to change. The philosophical question of what oistin-
guishes one artformsuch as theatrefrom another artformsuch as
sculpture or performance or oance is in fact an tmmcototc ptocttcol octtor
insofar as the reworking of these bounoaries is precisely what the truth
proceoure ooes in its renaming of the whole.
In my work on the ]acobin assemblage of enunciation in the Irench
Revolution I ioentify three typical operations: catachrestic metonymy ,the
renaming of a whole by a part,, centrifugal translation ,]acobin spokes-
men travelling to outlying villages ano translating the law passeo by the
Assemble nationale into local oialects for the resolution of oisputes, ano
centripetal incarnation ,Robespierres attempt to let the people speak
through him,. I mention this to inoicate the kinos of operationwhich
are not just rhetorical but also technical ano physicalwhich coulo be
active in the new theatre truth proceoure. To rouno oh this preliminary
investigation lets mark some unexpecteo ehects of this explosive geneal-
ogy on both theatre ano Baoious philosophy.
VI. THE EMERGENCE OI A GENERIC ART OI
FRESENTATION
As for theatre, the multi-oirectionality of the truth proceoure means
whatever the setbacks of, say, political theatre, the new theatre continues
but as an early knot/conjuncture/transistor which concentrateo ano then explooeo out
lines of energy. We also have a series of event-knots in Iuturism, Daoa ano post-Schoen-
bergian music that leao to converging truth proceoures.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo .6.
its exploration-transformations in other oirections. Its inclusion of cer-
tain enquiries in the realm of mass communication enables it to expano
beyono the trap calleo the oeath of theatre. Its inclusion of work which
abanoons aesthetic autonomy ano seeks to integrate itself into oroinary
practice means that it ooesnt so much surpass the eno of art trap as en-
velop ano enfolo it. Ultimately what is at stake in these multiple enquiries
is not so much a new tlcottc but the unfoloing of a gcrcttc ott of ptccrtottor:
gcrcttc insofar as it links up all of these artstime-baseo, visual, sonorous,
tactile or ooorouswhich appear to be oistinct to theatre, trotcctrtolc in-
sofar as rot oll of the work in these nelos ,perhaps cct, ltttlc of it, belongs
to it.
But then how ooes this generic art of presentation carve out what
belongs to it? Earlier I suggesteo that the operator of noelitythat which
oecioes whether a multiple is connecteo to the Meyerholo-event of not
was the ioea of a corporate creative act. Yet isnt this, at least in the
realms of art ano politics, another name for any generic truth proceoure:
a corporate creative act? Ferhaps Baoious philosophy itself has been
conoitioneo by the new theatre truth proceoure.
Before exploring this possibility, lets step back in history for a moment.
Long before Baoious work, philosophy hao alreaoy been conoitioneo by
theatre as a truth proceoure. If we look at the intraphilosophical ehects
of Greek trageoy in Flatos work we see that in fact it is precisely there
that philosophy comes closest to thinking the generic ocort lo lctttc, before
Cohen, ano before Meyerholo. In Book :o of Tlc Rcpooltc Flato thinks
the being of the mimetic actor-poet as that presentation which both ap-
pears to occupy ccct, ;ptofctorol) plocc, ano which, insofar as it ooes not
maintain a proper relation to knowleoge ano the Ioea, ooc rot occop, or,
plocc olotoccct. The other moment in which Greek philosophy comes cloc
to thinking the generic is in its examination of matter ano change. Not to
mention the cloto in Flatos Ttmoco, if we turn to Aristotles Mctopl,tc, we
can see that he is leo to think being, ooto ,substance,, not only as oenn-
able form ano as composite substanceform plus matterbut also as
l,polctmcror, the material substrate tlot oroctltc clorgc in his consioeration
of proouction ,which is none other than the economic constituent of the
. These exclusions mark the oiherence between the ioea of a generic art of presentation
ano the German romantic program of turning life into a work of art, which I holo to be a
illusory temptation ano trap necessarily generateo by the ambition of a truth proceoure:
Marinetti mistakenly imagineo at one point: Thanks to us the time will come when life
will no longer be a simple matter of breao ano labour, nor a life of ioleness either, but a
ootl of ott.
Oliver Ieltham .6
polt,.
The criterion of
novelty oemanos that cocl work must initiate a new mooe of enquiry. If
an artistic creation is not surprising, incalculable, unanticipatible, it mere-
ly reiterates knowleoge, rather than exposing a truth. Repetition is the
mechanism by which the state regenerates, whereas art is chargeo with
the proouction of a generic singularity.
Documentary is engageo in the struggle to overcome mere repetition
of the pro-nlmic or material worlo in front of the camera. Its manoate is
to proouce a work of art that brings to appearance those elements of a
situation that were previously forecloseo by current mooes of representa-
tions as legislateo by the State of the Situation. Thus, while we woulo
seem to be oealing with re-presentation ,in so far as oocumentary gains its
special status via its manipulation of inoexical traces,, since its inception
as a genre it has oenneo itself in terms of what it oooa supplement, the
space for a new appearance. ]ohn Grierson, in his canonical Fttt Pttr-
:. Alain Baoiou, The Subject of Art, Tlc S,mptom, no. 6, Spring .oo, http://www.lacan.
com/symptom6_articles/baoiou.html
.. Alain Baoiou, Iifteen Theses on Contemporary Art, Locortor Irl, no. ., .oo, pp.
:oo-:q, p. ..
. Alain Baoiou, The Ethic of Truths: Construction ano Fotency, trans. Selma Sowley,
Plt: 1ototcl }ootrol of Pltloopl,, no. :., .oo:, pp. .-, p. .o.
Linosey Hair .6
ctplc of Docomcrtot,, oeliberately excluoeo the actuality nlm as one of
the lower forms because it was constructeo largely of natural materials,
arguing that the only worlo in which oocumentary can hope to achieve
the oroinary virtues of an art |is when| we pass from the plain ,or fancy,
oescriptions of natural material, to arrangements, rearrangements, ano
creative shapings of it.
to generate the oennition of a group within category theory: A group is a
.. I. W. Lawvere ano S. H. Schanuel, Corccptool Motlcmottc: A Fttt Irttooocttor to Cotcgottc,
Cambrioge, Cambrioge University Fress, :qq, p. :.
. :, Two arrows following one another make up a composition, or to put this oiherently,
if we have an arrow f that links a to its cooomain b, ano a secono arrow g that has b
as its oomain, ano c as its cooomain, then we can state that object a is linkeo to c ,by g o
fexpresseo as g following f ,. The two maps representeo by the arrow ano its respective
oomain ano cooomain proouce a composite map written:
f g
A B C.
., the associative law, which shows that
f o ,g o h, ~ ,f o g, o h
,ano thereby allows us to leave out the parentheses ano just write l o g o f, or h following
g following f ,. cf. Lawvere ano Schanuel, Corccptool Motlcmottc: A Fttt Irttooocttor to
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo .86
category that has a single object in which every arrow is an isomorphism
,TO :8,
.
Thus, a group comprises an object that is ioentineo purely by
the anonymity of a letter ano the set of morphisms that are associateo
with it, or the set of the oiherent ways in which object-letter G is ioentical
to itself ,TO :q,. Where set-theory looks at the oroering of elements to
oetermine ioentity between sets, in category theory the elements are ar-
rows, the operations mapping a composition, not the objects upon which
it operatesinoeeo the object is the point of inertia, or neutral element
that ohers zero information, other than tautological self-evioence. We are
clearly ohereo a oiherent perspective on ioentityrather than the rep-
etition of the same, we have a plurality of active ways of prooucing the
same, the conngurations via which it isomorphically manifests itself o
the same. Baoiou theorizes this via reference to the Flatonic oialectical
relation between the Same ano the Other: whereas the ioentity enoomap
conforms to a mimetic relation, the activity of the isomorphisms perform
a specular relation as the reversibility of each arrow that claims two lit-
erally oistinct elements as logically the same performs a ooubling, a pair
of symmetrical ioentincations that, when taken simultaneously, collapse
back into the inertia of the enoomap.
In rethinking ioentity in this categorical manner, we see how the be-
ing-there of an essent is oetermineo not by the composition of its nxeo
properties ,i.e. the oroering of its elements, which comprise its ontological
being, but through to its active self-proouction which gives its ioentity
via the combination of relations it entails. Diherence is not absolute, since
the ioentity arrows are caught up within a network of Same/Other rela-
tions, but a question of oegreeano here we are close to Deleuzes notion
of intensities. These areas of convergence between same/other are not
simply points of mimetic similarity between oistinct essents ,shareo ele-
ments, such as the null set that is common to all constructeo sets, but ac-
tive relations that ptooocc the ioentities of the two oomains that are joineo
by the isomorphic arrows. Since these relations are not oeriveo from nxeo
attributes but comprise active links that proouce connections of sameness
ano oiherence, we can see how a situation is nuio, ano yet rigorously
structureo.
Relating this back to the operational logic of the camps as portrayeo
in Resnais oocumentary, we can note the oeliberate attempt to erase the
oiherential of appearances, as each inmate is strippeo of any external
marker that might oistinguish them. This oescent from ontological singu-
Cotcgottc, p. :.
Linosey Hair .8
larity, to the erasure of onto-logic appearing, is portrayeo in the nlm as a
passage from family groups, lingering close-ups of inoivioual faces prior
to their boaroing the trains, to the sealing oh of carriages as preluoe to
the ultimate concealment of appearance in the camp. Within the connnes
of the camp we no longer see images of whole people, the fragmenta-
tion of ioentity is signalleo by the oe-subjectivizeo close-ups of the oiher-
ent booy parts that are regulateo, oisciplineo, upon arrival nakeo, tat-
tooeo, numbereo, ano shaveooperations that oo not seem to happen to
someorc. All inmates appear with a similar, minimum oegree of intensity,
or lack of appearance, since oiherentiation itself is systematically ehaceo.
The ehacement of ioentity can be thought of as severing, or restrict-
ing, the multiple relations via which an inoivioual constitutes the ioentity.
In being reouceo to just one more name, or number, meticulously re-
coroeo in a register, ioentity ceases to be interrelational, ano is restricteo
to the minimal tautological relation that Baoiou equates with the inertia
of the One, the pure inscription that opens the place for an essent to
appear, without allowing any oialectic between self/other to mooulate
the relational intensity with which an ontological singularity manifests the
oiversity ano variety of its situateo appearing. This inertia in ehect is the
minimum oegree of self-relation that proouces a limiteo ioentity, or nxes
the being-there within a localizeo worlo as merely countable.
This minimal inscription of presence/absence is emphasizeo in the
nlm by the many ways in which the prisoners are systematically eraseo
from the registers. The closeo universe of the camp enters into relation
with a simulacrum of the Germanic worlo beyono its gates, having a hos-
pital, but one in which all illness is reouceo to a single ailment, the same
ointment for every oisease, or treatment is in fact oeath by syringe.
Suhering is homogenizeo in the eno each inmate resembles the next,
a booy of inoeterminate age that oies with its eyes openeven oeath,
that which gives beings their singularity, is reouceo to a process in which
there remains no I to oie, only the enoless oying of someone, again, the
oegree of visibility of all apparents is negateo such that even oeath fails
to register as a singularizing event. Counter to this hospital in which all
patients receive the same oegree of inattention, we have the surgical block
where the patients receive an inoroinate oegree of surveillance, becoming
guinea pigs for pointless, grotesque operations, testing grounos for orugs,
or simply a focus for iole experimentation. The well equippeo surgeries
here are not to heal the booy, but proouce oeviant variations, new mooes
of appearing that violate the laws of nature ano the humanity of the vic-
tim.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo .88
Once ioentity is reouceo to the minimum inscription of place,
number, one woulo imagine that no further oestitution were possible.
However, the imperative of the Iinal Solution provokeo Nazi ingenuity
to take the mania for oismantlement even further: the total ehacement
of the appearing of the ]ewish prisoners is unoertaken via the methooi-
cal oissemination into parts. That all elements that combineo to proouce
the singularity of an inoivioual were methooically strippeo away we have
alreaoy establisheo, however, the perverse extent of this process that oe-
manoeo the cataloguing ano storing of all these oismembereo attributes
speaks to a oesire to mutilate the ioentity of the prisoner beyono any
possible recognition or recuperation. Iootage from the Nazi warehouses
oepicts vast piles of connscateo propertythe corollary of the proper-
ties of each inoivioual that were sheo. Files of clothes, ousty ano moth
eaten, mountains of ooo shoes, spectacles, carelessly pileo up, inoiherent
to scratches, combs, shaving equipment, the intimate oebris of particular
lives, separateo out into their oisparate elements ano formeo into a new,
amorphous multiple, constructeo of a single element that is reiterateo to
the nth oegree, a magnituoe of such scale that their original value, or use
becomes lost, their specinc features blurreo in the sheer incomprehensi-
ble volume of which they are an inoiscernible element who is to re-use
these mouloy shaving brushes, or pick out a particular crackeo pair of
reaoing glasses? Surely the point is not the thrifty cataloguing ano re-
cycling of resources, but the oismantlement of a section of humanity to
its minimum parts, an operation Baoiou terms immanent oissemination
whereby the elements that comprise an element are further broken oown
into their sub-elements, an extrapolation of relation, to its limit pointto
the point at which the original being loses all particularity, being oenuoeo
of property, ano the sub-elements themselves are re-conngureo to form
innnitely large multiplicities that exteno beyono any imaginable capacity
to think their inoivioual use. Each item is placeo in a context where there
is no possibility of it retaining its intrinsic personal value, as operateo in
relation to its original context. Thus, even the smallest elements are re-
ouceo in their appearing to an absolute minimum.
In category theory, the logical operation of negation oerives from the
relation of oepenoence. As we saw with the zero-value of a being that
ooes not appear within a worlo, this lack of relation is not unoerstooo as
a simple negation, but is linkeo to the envelope or the synthesizing tran-
scenoental, such that it has a value in the worloit inappearsrather
than functioning as a hole, or break in the fabric of its continuity. This
insight is generalizeo to proouce a logic of negation. Rather than restrict-
Linosey Hair .8q
ing our operation to a single element that accoros to the minimum oegree
of appearance, we can oeouce whole sections, or envelopes that belong to
a worlo, but are unrelateo to other envelopes. Thus, if we construct the
envelope that centres arouno the initial being-there of an apparent we
are also able to construct a set, or envelope of those beings, or elements,
with which it has zero ,or minimum, relation, ano within this set we can
again extract the measure that synthesizes this collective being-there for
this separate part of the worlo. This provioes a measure of the reverse of
our former situation.
We shall call reverse of the oegree of appearance of a being-there
in a worlo, the envelope of that region of the worlo comprising all
the beings-there whose conjunction with the nrst has a value of
zero ,the minimum,.
, was contingent
upon the erasure of a Irench soloiers cap, shown supervising the oepor-
tation of the ]ews. In answer to the closing question Who is responsible?
even ten years later, the answer continueo to be no one. In submitting
to the change oro remarking it, Resnais remains faithful to his artistic
conviction which oemanos that he inscribe the impossibility of the bring-
ing-to-appearance of the inexistent within the current state of the situa-
tionontological impossibility proper, but in parallel with the onto-logic
,as here, the crassly political, level.
So long as we consioer appearing within a traoitional ,vulgar, phe-
nomenological framework, we can leverage only inoirectly, through al-
legory, category theorys ability to map the logic of appearing within the
oiegetic frame. The real strength of category theory is its inoepenoence
from phenomenology, from the centering consciousness of the subject,
from the parameters of space ano time. This makes category theory a
particularly attractive tool for mapping the site of subtractive truth,s, in
the nelo of art, for oiscussing works of art purely in terms of their in-ap-
pearing, ano in terms of their relation with truth, ano the character of
that truth. In closing, we may consioer some woros of Chris Marker, an-
other thinker of the generic, that truth is not the oestination, but perhaps
it is the path
6
ano where oocumentary truth is at stake, it is perhaps
even more explicitly the proceoure, rather than the constructeo artefact.
. Interview at the time of the nlms release, now incluoeo with the oistribution of the
nlm on vioeo.
6. Chris Marker, quoteo in Mark Shivas, New Approach, Moctc 8, no. :, April :q6.
.q:
11
Can Cinema Be Thought?:
Alain Baoiou ano the Artistic Conoition
Alex Ling
I. THE ART OI THE MATERIALIST DIALECTIC
In his recent Logtoc oc moroc: lcttc ct lcrcmcrt, ., Alain Baoiou
names the tension integral to his philosophynamely the one which runs
between being ano event, knowleoge ano trutha materialist oialectic.
It is on the basis of this peculiar oialectic that he opposes his own phil-
osophical project to the contemporary oemocratic materialism which
more ano more oennes our epoch ,prescribeo as it is by the master signin-
ers relativism, oemocracy, terror ano the like,. In contrast to the appar-
ent sophistry of this oemocratic materialismwhose principal assertion is
that there are only booies ano languages
:
Baoious materialist oialectic
proclaims there are only booies ano languages, cxccpt tlot tlctc otc ttotl
,LM :.,. Or again: there are only worlos in which beings appear ,of which
the pure multiple ngures being qua being, cxccpt tlot tlctc otc ttotl oltcl
cor comc to opplcmcrt tlcc ootlo ,oro oltcl otc ortcctoltoolc,. Such is Baoi-
ous philosophical axiom, within which we nno the three principal strata
comprising his thought, namely, the ontological ,the thinking of the pure
multiple, of being qua being,, the logical ,the thinking of appearance,
of being-in-a-worlo, ano the subject-ive ,the thinking of truths, of tlooglt
itself,. Yet these three terms alone are meaningless without an ,albeit sub-
tracteo, fourth, which is of course the abolisheo nash that is the event
,LM :6,. Alreaoy we can oiscern here a clear conoitional oivioe between
:. Alain Baoiou, Logtoc oc moroc: lcttc ct lcrcmcrt, ., Faris, Seuil, .oo6, p. q ,henceforth
LM,.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo .q.
the nrst three terms ,ontology, logic, thought, ano the fourth ,event,, in-
sofar as whilst the former are themselves thought mathematically by vir-
tue of three oistinct scientinc eventsrespectively the Cantor-event ,set
theory,, the Grothenoieck-event ,category theory,, ano the Cohen-event
,genericity or forcing,mathematics can say nothing of the event itself.
On this point Baoiou is unequivocal, for
if real ontology is set up as mathematics by evaoing the norm of
the One, unless this norm is reestablisheo globally there also ought
to be a point wherein the ontological, hence mathematical nelo,
is oe-totalizeo or remains at a oeao eno. I have nameo this point
the cccrt.
.
Simply, mathematics can think the event only to the extent that it can
think its own real qua impasse. Or again, mathematics thinks the event
insofar as it axiomatizes its own aporetic structure ,as we see for example
in Gooels theory of incompletion or in the axiom of founoation,. Con-
trarily, the event, of which science must remain silent, ano on which the
concept of truth relies absolutely, is thought solely unoer conoition of art.
Given then the evental importance of art ,coupleo with the fact that
Baoiou is an accomplisheo novelist ano playwright in his own right, it is
surprising to observe the relative scarcity of critical renection on Baoious
conception of art ,when compareo to, say, the abunoance of works consio-
ering Baoious unoerstanoing of politics,.
So the sequence of scientinc events ,Cantor-Grothenoieck-Cohen, princi-
pally conoitioning Baoious philosophy is supplementeo by the Mallarm-
event, exceptional in its singular, non-mathematical ano axial status. Of
course this separationof poetry ano mathematicsis far from innocent,
being on the contrary illustrative of a funoamental antagonism lying at the
,voioeo, interval of art ano science.
6
Accoroingly within Baoious artistic
system or his inaestheticsinaesthetics being namely his approach to art
which restricts its consioerations to the strictly intraphilosophical ehects
proouceo by the existence of some works of art ,LM :.,
the imperial
poem takes prioe of place. Inoeeo, it is the expressly lttctol artsthose
arts of the letter: of poetry as much as theatre ano the novelwhich com-
mano Baoious closest attention, to the extent that, as ]acques Ranciere
has remarkeo, ultimately only two arts are requireo in Baoious system of
the arts: the poem as amrmation, as inscription of a oisappearance, ano
theatre as the site wherein this amrmation turns into mobilization.
8
In
point of fact, beyono these expressly literal arts art becomes for Baoiou
both oecioeoly less artistic ano less amenable to inaesthetic consioeration.
Hence in Baoious eyes oance for example falls shortunoeserveoly, one
hastens to aooof artistic status, serving insteao as its metaphor ,or rath-
er as the metaphor of real thought,. Fainting, on the other hanothough
clearly itself an art ,in Logtoc oc moroc, for example, painting exemplines
artistic truth,by virtue of its oecioeoly non-literal form, proves itself ,as
we shall see, somewhat oimcult to justify artistically ,to say nothing of
sculpture or architecture, let alone the myriao other illiterate arts,.
. cf. Stphane Mallarm, Collcctco Pocm, trans. Henry Weinnelo, Berkeley, University of
California Fress, :qq, pp. :.-:.
6. Inoeeo, Baoiou notes that in their subjective ,true, oimension science proves to be the
opposite of art, which explains the spectacular isomorphism of their evental traces, LM,
p. 8.
. Alain Baoiou, Horooool of Iroctlcttc, trans. Alberto Toscano, Stanforo, California,
Stanforo UF, .oo, p. xiv ,henceforth HI,.
8. ]acques Ranciere, Aesthetics, Inaesthetics, Anti-Aesthetics, in Feter Hallwaro ,eo.,
Tltrl Agotr: Alotr Bootoo oro tlc Fototc of Pltloopl,, Lonoon, Continuum, .oo, p. .. I
am of course aware that in oescribing theatre as a literal art I am essentially ignoring its
funoamentally performative nature. It shoulo be noteo however that whilst Baoiou clearly
recognizes performativity to be vital to theatres artistry, his writings on the subject ,or at
least those which have been translateo into English, teno to focus on the texts themselves
,outsioe of the singularity of their performances,.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo .q
II. CINEMA DECONDITIONED
In consioering Baoious inaesthetics this paper will however take as its
focal point the case of cinema, insofar as Baoious typically polemical writ-
ings on the subject appear symptomaticano arguably serve as the most
extreme exampleof the oecreaseo amenability to inaesthetic oiscourse
presenteo by the illiterate arts. Inoeeo, Baoious writings on the subject
of cinema are oistinguisheo foremost by their oeep ambivalence: in his
eyes nlm rests somewhat precariously on the boroer of art ano non-art
,although ones immeoiate impression is that it leans somewhat towaro the
latter,. Simply, cinema is for Baoiou an art both parasitic ano inconsist-
ent oenneo nrst ano foremost by its own impurity ,HI 8,. This impurity
hinges as much on cinemas inherent bastarory ,nlm being the proouct
of an unsanctioneo union between theatre, photography, music, litera-
ture, painting, vauoeville, ano so on, ano compromiseo nature ,cinema
being a collaborative meoium governeo for the most part by capitalistic
concerns,, as on its artistically porus nature, that is, its peculiar status as
a place of intrinsic inoiscernibility between art ano non-art.
q
Inoeeo ac-
coroing to Baoiou
no nlm strictly speaking is controlleo by artistic thinking from
beginning to eno. It always bears absolutely impure elements
within it, orawn from ambient imagery, from the oetritus of other
arts, ano from conventions with a limiteo shelf life.
:o
Insofar as cinema ngures as something of a grey area between art ano
non-art Baoiou contenos that artistic activity can be oiscerneo in cinema
only as a process of purincation of its own immanent non-artistic char-
acter.
::
Yet at the same time he consents to the fact that such a process
can never be completeo ,as such cinematic purity might be at best ap-
proacheo only asymptotically,. Baoious overall position regaroing the ar-
tistic status of cinema woulo then appear to be the following: the impurity
proper to cinema forecloses from the start any possibility of its attaining
true ,pure, artistic status.
Ano yet Baoiou clearly recognizes cinema to have been an art, his
frequent citing of the thinking cinema of Grimth, Welles, Murnau ano
Eisenstein ,as much as Gooaro, Kiarostami, Visconti, Oliveira ano the
q. Alain Baoiou, Fhilosophy ano Cinema, in Irrttc Tlooglt: Ttotl oro tlc Rctotr to Plt-
loopl,, eo. ano trans. Oliver Ieltham ano ]ustin Clemens, Lonoon, Continuum, .oo,
p. :::.
:o. Baoiou, Fhilosophy ano Cinema, p. :::.
::. Baoiou, Fhilosophy ano Cinema, p. :::.
Alex Ling .q
like, amply attesting this fact. Inoeeo, cinemas artistic status woulo seem
to have been connrmeo far in aovance of Baoious own inaesthetic incur-
sions, insofar as it has serveo to conoition philosophy, most notably that
of Gilles Deleuze. As Baoiou explains,
nlm buhs have always founo it oimcult to make use of |Deleuzes|
two hefty volumes on the cinema, for, however supple the inoivioual
nlm oescriptions may be in their own right, this malleability seems
nevertheless to function in philosophys favour, rather than to
fashion, in any way whatsoever, a simple critical juogement that
nlm enthusiasts coulo oraw on to enhance the authority of their
opinions.
:.
Deleuzes apprehension of nlms intraphilosophical ehects woulo thus seem
at nrst glance an absolutely inaesthetic operation ,this being accoroingly
incongruous to any aphilosophical thinking of cinemanamely any other
consioeration of cinema whatsoeverwhich simply fall into the thought-
less ano self-interesteo realm of opiniatry,. Ano yet Baoiou proceeos to
isolate Deleuzes conceptual unoerstanoing of cinema as an exampleor
rather, as tlc exampleof Deleuzes monotonous proouction of concepts
insofar as his cinema books propose in the eno a creative repetition of
concepts ano not an apprehension of the cinematic art as such:
let us unoerstano that, unoer the constraint of the case of cinema,
it is once again, ano always, ,Deleuzes, philosophy that begins
anew ano that causes cinema to be there olctc tt corrot, of ttclf, oc.
,D :6,
Which is to say that those concepts founo in cinema are in fact not so
much founo as re-founo.
:
Thus the Deleuzian screenmeoiateo as it is
through the thought of Baoiouis strippeo of its genitive powers, reveal-
ing a space through which Deleuze oeploys concepts which, whilst cer-
tainly immanent to cinema, are funoamentally anterior in nature.
:
:.. Alain Baoiou, Dclcoc: Tlc Clomot of Bctrg, trans. Louise Burchill, Minneapolis, Univer-
sity of Minnesota Fress, .ooo, pp. :-:6 ,henceforth D,.
:. One can juoge for oneself whether this conception jars with Deleuzes explicit asser-
tionciteo by Baoiouthat a theory of cinema is not a theory about cinema, but about
the concepts that cinema gives rise to, Gilles Deleuze, Ctrcmo .: Tlc Ttmc-Imogc, trans.
Hugh Tomlinsom ano Robert Galeta, Lonoon, Continuum, .oo, pp. .68-.6q.
:. In his One, Multiple, Multiplicities Baoiou is much more oirect: I cannot register
any kino of caesura between Dtctcrcc oro Rcpcttttor ano the more oetaileo philosophical
texts to be founo in the two volumes on cinema, in Tlcotcttcol 1ttttrg, eo. ano trans. Ray
Brassier ano Alberto Toscano, Lonoon, Continuum, .oo, p. o.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo .q6
By thus attesting to the ,conceptually as much as manifestly, re-pre-
sentative nature of cinema Baoiou implicitly oetermines nlm to not in
fact conoition Deleuzes philosophy: the concept is not borne of cinema,
rather, it enoures as a passage through the works themselves. Hence as
Baoiou, as Baoiou explains, in Deleuzes philosophy
concepts, which are never concepts-of , are only attacheo to the
initial concrete case in their movement ano not in what they give
to be thought. This is why, in the volumes on the cinema, what one
learns concerns the Deleuzian theory of movement ano time, ano
the cinema graoually becomes neutralizeo ano forgotten. ,D :6,
Can we not oiscern a certain structural ,as much as conceptual, homology
between this assertion ano Baoious own inaesthetic conception of cinema
as the passage of the ioea, perhaps even of its phantom? ,HI , As with
the ioea, the concept merely passes through the concrete case, meaning
that, insofar as it evinces not the sensible creation of the Ioea ,LM ., but
rather serves only to signify its ephemerality, cinema once again falls short
of its artistic aspirations. In fact, we might ,provisionally, say that cinema
remains for the most part in Baoious writings a funoamentally Deleuz-
ian eoince, the peculiar twist or torsion here being that this Deleuze is
a oistinctly Baoiouian Deleuze ,ano inoeeo Baoious writings on cinema
clearly constitute an implicit oialogue with Deleuze, as can be seen for
example in Baoious thesis regaroing the false movements of cinema,.
:
III. IDEAL IMMOBILE MOVEMENT
As we have seen, Baoious materialist oialectic hinges on the question
of the event which is thought solely by art ,ano which nnos its immeoiate
cooroinates in the poetic thought of Mallarm,. Iurther, his inaesthetic
conception of art accoroingly allows room principally for the literal arts,
making it oimcult to properly grasp those arts which fall outsioe of this cat-
egory. Having seen then how Baoiou grants cinema an artistic pot ,which
paraooxically take the form of present, that is, as specinc artistic con-
ngurations, whilst ultimately unoercutting its conoitional status we might
wonoer whetherinsofar as it fails to proouce any intraphilosophical ef-
fectscinema can truly occupy a place in Baoious inaesthetic system.
Inoeeo, can concrete cinematic art be ioentineo at all? The opening lines
:. cf. HI, pp. 8-88. To take a simple example Deleuze asserts that as a consequence of
the supersession of the movement-image by the time-image time ceases to be oeriveo
from the movement, it appears in itself ano itself gives rise to folc moccmcrt, Ctrcmo ., pp.
xi-xii.
Alex Ling .q
of Baoious essay on Fhilosophy ano Cinemain which he asserts there
is no objective situation of cinema
:6
woulo seem to suggest not. Here
Baoiou appears to oeny from the nrst the very possibility of there being
any truth to ,contemporary, cinema for the simple reason that in Baoious
philosophy truth, by virtue of its generic nature, must ahect the entirety of
the situation: if there is no coherent situation there can be no truth of the
situation. Nonetheless Baoiou acknowleoges that select cinematic situa-
tions ,plural, might be oeriveo on the basis of previous ioentinable artistic
conngurations ,or subjects,, which he ooes not shy from cataloguing: the
nlms of Oliveira, of Kiarostami, of Straub, of the early Wenoers, of a
certain Follet, of some Gooaros, etc.
:
Yet even though we can ioentify
multiple cinematic situations in which truth is thinkablewhere the new
new ,the contemporary subjects of cinema, can come into a oialectic
with the olo new ,as oelineateo by the Oliveiras, the Kiarostamis ano
the like,
:8
cinemas ineraoicable impurity woulo seem nonetheless to en-
sure its position as properly antithetical to truth. Baoious stance is after
all that a nlmic work is both contemporary ano universalizable ,that is to
say, capable of truth, inasmuch as it purines its own intrinsic non-artistry
,plus all the visible ano auoible materials of everything which binos them
to the oomination of representation, ioentincation ano realism, as much
as spectacle ano its various operators,,
:q
which is of course, as he reao-
ily aomits, an ultimately impossible task. Clearly then a novel cinematic
thoughtan artistic cinema ,or rather one recognizeo as such by Ba-
oiou,shoulo appear as a sequence of subtractive or oissociative gestures
built uponano recognizable as entering into a oialectic withthose
prescriptive works of Straub, of Gooaro, of Follet ano so forth. That is,
cinematic thought woulo appear, like any other artistic proceoure, as a
booy of works which constitute themselves as nnite points of an innnite,
albeit anterior, truth ,for unlike truth one cannot force an event,.
.o
:6. Baoiou, Fhilosophy ano Cinema, p. :oq.
:. Baoiou, Fhilosophy ano Cinema, p. ::o.
:8. The new ooes not enter into a oialectic with the olo, but rather with the olo new, or
the new of the preceoing sequence, Baoiou, Fhilosophy ano Cinema, p. ::o
:q. Baoiou, Fhilosophy ano Cinema, p. ::.
.o. Baoiou thus implicitly argues that an artistic cinema woulo constitute a funoamen-
tally anti-statist cinema ,statist cinema being all cinema in the service of representation,
ioentincation, spectacle ano the like,. We might then infer that, insofar as statist cinema
is clearly the oominant nlmic guise ,qualitatively as much as quantitatively,, any artistic
cinema woulo necessarily present itself paraooxically as an anti-cinema. On this point Ba-
oiou woulo be in clear agreement with another of his favoureo artistic exemplars Kazimir
Malevich ano his contention that cinema must realize that art can exist without the
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo .q8
However cinemas impurity presents a further oimculty, one which
concerns any speaking of nlm qua nlm, insofar as when the nlm really
ooes organize the visitation of an Ioea it is always in a subtractive ,or
oefective, relation to one or several among the other arts ,HI 86,. Which
is to say when an ioea visits us cinematically, it is necessarily brought
forth by way of an intranlmic complication of the other arts ,for exam-
ple an ostensibly cinematic ioea might be inoebteo to a certain musical
evocation, an actors peculiar theatricality, ano so forth,. On this point
Baoiou conceoes nothing to romantic notions of an essence peculiar to
cinema: for Baoiou there is nothing artistically singular in nlm per se,
cinema is nothing but takes ano eoiting. There is nothing else ,HI 86,.
Which is why cinema is for Baoiou nothing other than a sequence of
,false, moccmcrt, meaning that any truth specinc to the cinema must relate
this movement or passage of the image to the ioea itself ,or more specin-
cally, to the timeless tmmootltt, of the ioea thus brought forth,. Inoeeo, Ba-
oiou goes so far as to state that such ioeal immobile movement constitutes
the imperative proper to cinema:
by means of the possibility that is proper to itof amalgamating the
other arts, through takes ano montage, without presenting them
cinema can, ano must, organise the passage of the immobile. But
cinema must also organise the immobility of a passage. ,HI 8,
Which is to say that if cinema is in any way to facilitate the passage of an
ioea it must concurrently ensure that the ioea thus brought forth ooes
not itself pass. Thus in other woros the unenviable task Baoiou oemanos
of any properly artistic cinema woulo appear to be nothing short of the
presentation of immobility tr movement. However this formulation itself
raises a number of questions ,to which Baoiou ohers little by way of an-
swer,. Ior example, how exactly might this peculiar immobility be real-
izeo? Baoious own example taken from ]acques Tatis Plo,ttmc ,:q6,of
the oialectic establisheo between the movement of a crowo ano the va-
cuity of what coulo be termeo its atomic composition ,HI 8, as spatially
accounting for the passage of the immobileachieves little by way of
clarincation: how precisely ooes Tatis sequence ehect the immobility of
a passage ,to say nothing of the precise status of the oialectic establisheo
image, without everyoay life, ano without the ioeas visage, Kazimir Malevich, Ano Vis-
ages Are Victorious on the Screen, in Oksana Bulgakowa ,eo., Iotmtt Molcctcl: Tlc 1lttc
Rcctorglc, 1ttttrg or Ftlm, trans. Oksana Bulgakowa, San Irancisco, Fotemkin Fress, .oo.,
p. . One ooes teno to wonoer however exactly how Baoiou can resolve such a thinking
of artistic cinema with his realization that pure cinema ooes not exist, except in the
oeao-eno vision of avant-garoe formalism. Baoiou, Fhilosophy ano Cinema, p:::.
Alex Ling .qq
therein,? Iurthermore, what exactly is the ioea that Tati is mobilizing
,ano if the ioea is that of the immobile itself how ooes Tatis sequence oif-
ferentiate itself from other seemingly equally re-presentational cases, such
as are founo in the contemporary cinemas of Terrence Malick or Davio
Lynch,? In aooition, if as Baoiou states cinema is itself nothing but takes
ano eoiting we might wonoer what the ultimate result of a purging of its
non-artistic content might be? Lastly we might question whether the very
concept of immobile movement is itself consistent with the remainoer of
Baoious thoughts on cinema, which is to say, can Baoious conception of
cinema as both a potential passage ,of the ioea, ano an inexorable passing
,of the image, be reconcileo with the ioea of immobility itself?
IV. ILLITERATE CINEMA AND THE REMAINDER OI ART
In consioering these questions let us nrst restate the oimculties en-
countereo in Baoious writings on cinema are to a large extent sympto-
matic of its imagistic nature, insofar as it is plainly more conoucive for phi-
losophy ,which is, after all, a funoamentally literal meoium, to consioer
those arts which themselves nno concrete support in the letter. The fact
of the matter is that, outsioe of formal exegesis ano the subjective neeting-
ness of ahect, the image ooes not leno itself well to the letter. This is of
course not to say that that artistic inscription itself is oirectly at issueon
the contrary it is inscription ,of the inexistent of a worlo, which serves as
the overrioing imperative of art qua generic proceourebut rather to
highlight the problem of transmissibility, which might be formulateo as
follows: how might the non-literal be transmitteo by way of the letter?
.:
Take for example Baoious recent woros on Clauoe Monets ^,mplo:
the goal of Monet is to oirectly inscribe on the artincial surface of
the painting the light ano colours as the process of oivision of light.
But light ano its oivision ooes not exist at the surface of water
So Monet has to force the painting to express the inexistent, the
inexistent which is not things in light, but light as a thing ano
nnally when we see the painting we unoerstano that its not really
light as a thing, its the impossibility of something like that. But this
failure is the victory of painting. This failure is the glory of painting
as such.
..
.:. On this point we cannot help but think both of the Lacanian concept of the pass ano
of the ultimate aim of the analytic cure, which is to renoer a knowleoge that is wholly
transmissible, without remainoer, Alain Baoiou, The Iormulas of lEtootott, Locortor Irc,
vol. ., .oo6, p. 8:.
... Baoiou, Arts Imperative: Speaking the Unspeakable Locor.com, vol. .6, .oo6, http://
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo oo
We can clearly observe here the oimcultyfaceo by artist ano philoso-
pher alikeof articulating the image through the letter in Monets ex-
pressing light as a thing ,inoeeo, it is the necessary failure of such an
inscriptionpictorially as much as literallythat oesignates for Baoiou
its true artistry,. This oimculty is one Baoiou ooes not shy from acknowl-
eoging. On the contrary, Baoiou is refreshingly forthcoming about the
problem the visual arts present philosophy, aomitting
of all the arts, its the one that intimioates me the most. Its intellectual
charge is the greatest So turning to visual art philosophically has
always been rather oimcult for me. Its not a feeling of ignorance
at all, but a feeling that the mooe in which intellectuality proceeos
irreoucibly into complex ano powerful sensory forms . . . really,
painting intimioates me Whats more, Ive never been very
satisneo by the attempts of my preoecessors to place themselves
unoer the conoition of painting. Nor have I ever founo a regime of
prose aoequate to talk about painting.
.
Returning then to the case of cinema it is clear that we encounter in
fact not one but two complicateo passages: of the ioea through the image
,the artistic or aesthetic passage,, ano of the image through the letter ,the
philosophic or inaesthetic passage,. This in mino we might concluoe the
apparent hegemony of the letter in Baoious inaesthetics to be ultimately
one of convenience, resulting as it ooes from the simple fact that the non-
literal consistently fails to renoer a whollyor even partiallytransmis-
sible knowleoge. Yet, however problematic it may be to express literally,
as we have seen painting is for Baoiou clearly an art whereas cinema re-
mains artistically unclear ,a fact which appears all the more strange given
that Deleuzes two cinema books speno a great oeal of time aooressing
this very problem,.
.
There is of course another basis for the hegemony of the letter in Ba-
oious inaesthetics. Simply, given the funoamental role playeo by subtrac-
tion ano the voio in his philosophyano given that it is art ano art alone
that thinks the event ,which itself issues forth from the voio,we might
www.lacan.com/issue.6.htm.
.. Alain Baoiou 8 Lauren Seoofsky, Being by Numbers, Attfotom, Oct, :qq, http://
www.highbeam.com/library/oocIree.asp?DOCID~:G:::6:q.
.. In Deleuzes woros cinema is not a universal or primitive language system It con-
sists of movements ano thought-processes ,pre-linguistic images,, ano of points of view on
these movements ano processes ,pre-signifying signs,, Deleuze, Ctrcmo ., p. .:. Hence,
for Deleuze, if a semiotics baseo on linguistics worries me, its because it ooes away
with both the image ano the notion of the sign, Deleuze, ^cgottottor: .,.-.o, trans.
Martin ]oughin, New York, Columbia University Fress, :qq, p. -8.
Alex Ling o:
concluoe that the more artistic a work is then the more intimate its rela-
tion to the letter qua matheme ,this being again an asymptotic approach:
art, be it literal or otherwise, can of course never be properly reouceo
to the mark of the voio,. Which is to say that Baoious inaesthetic con-
ceptions are themselves profounoly ahecteo byano inoeeo are sympto-
matic ofhis mathematical leanings: if art thinks the event ,at the precise
point at which mathematics itself falters, it ooes so only by virtue of its
relationor rather, non-relationto the matheme. Thus for Baoiou the
artistic work woulo seem to be ultimately inseparable from its mathemati-
zation. Ano yet, as we saw above, Baoiou contenos that in their subjective
oimension science proves to be the opposite of art ,LM 8,. Inoeeo, the
fact that mathematics ano poetry in particular aomit a straineo relation
is, accoroing to Baoiou, of maximal importance for philosophy in general.
Baoiou stating let us struggle for this nash of connict, we philosophers,
always torn between the mathematical norm of literal transparency ano
the poetic norm of singularity ano presence.
.
Which is to say that art has
a more ambivalent relationship to the question of transmissibilitywhose
ioeal form is of course the mathemethan nrst assumeo. Inoeeo, we
might go so far as to rewrite the imperative of artnamely, the ,oecio-
eoly political, neeo to to inscribe the inexistentas the necessity to, via
the process of subtraction, opptoocl the purity of the matheme.
.6
We say
approach rather than encounter because as we have seen the mark of
real artistic success accoroing to Baoiou paraooxically coincioes with the
very failure of inscribing the inexistent or voioeo content of a particular
worlo ,a failure that woulo itself fail were the work in question were to pu-
rify itself to the level of the matheme,.
.
Clearly then in its ,non,relation to
the matheme art proves itself a funoamentally subtractiveas opposeo to
purincatory or purely oestructiveprogramme, insofar as its aim is the
staging of a minimal, albeit absolute, oiherence, the oiherence between
the place ano what takes place in the place, the oiherence between place
.. Alain Baoiou, Language, Thought, Foetry, in Tlcotcttcol 1ttttrg, eo. ano trans. Ray
Brassier 8 Alberto Toscano, Lonoon, Continuum, .oo, p. .:.
.6. We might of course further contrast the apparent literality of art to Baoious assertion
that what, amongst the processes of truth, singularizes art, is that the subject of truth is
orawn from the sensible |whilst| the subject of truth in science is orawn from the power
of the letter, Alain Baoiou, Cttcortorcc, .: Itol, foularo, Allemagne/Irance, Faris, Lo
Scheer, .oo, p. q8.
.. Whereas true art inscribes what is voioeo ,ano is thus, while universal, necessarily situ-
ateo,, the matheme marks the ab-sense of the voio itself ,ano is thus both universal ano
unsituateo,.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo o.
ano taking-place.
.8
Which is to say, the point of the artistic enoeavour is
nothing less than to yielo a tcol tcmotroct which woulo ultimately mark the
minimal oiherence between |the| voio ano an element which functions
as its stano in.
.q
Ano inoeeo on this point we can perhaps unoerstano why
in Baoious writings poetry holos prioe of place while cinema remains
inaesthetically questionable: of all the ,literate as much as illiterate, arts
cinema woulo surely appear the least capable of such a task.
However, returning to the problematic of those in/aesthetic passages
specinc to cinemaof the ioea through the image, of the image through
the lettermight we not just as easily argue the contrary, amrming cine-
ma to be insteao, by virtue of its very form, eminently capable of realising
this passage towaro the ioeal of the matheme? Inoeeo cinema, which is
after all as Baoiou states nothing but takes ano eoiting, is a funoamental-
ly subtractive meoium, being one whose ,imaginary, presence is in truth
,real, absence, ano whose essence is accoroingly voio.
o
Iilm theoreticians
have in fact spent a great oeal of time establishing this precise point ,to
take but one example, what ooes Metzs famous imaginary signiner mark
if not the voio itself?,.
:
This is of course not to suggest that cinema nnos
any ,real or otherwise, relation to the matheme but rather simply to say
that cinema exhibits an intrinsic fotmol amnity with the concept of the
mathem,e,atical concept. Such a corresponoence remains, however, un-
acknowleogeo in Baoious writings for the simple fact that he unoerstanos
cinema to be an art of the perpetual past, in the sense that it institutes the
past of the pass ,HI 8,. Or again, nlms formal relation to the matheme
breaks oown for Baoiou insofar as he unoerstanos cinema, in its move-
ment, takes ano eoitingano in oecioeo opposition to his attestations
regaroing cinemas immobilization of the ioea ,ano vice versa, to be an
art of lo: cinema is for Baoiou an art not of subtraction but of pottcottor,
ano hence of oestruction ,or again, an art not of the voio nor the voioeo,
but rather of cototrg,. Simply, if cinema is ultimately a mechanistic proc-
ess of lossas opposeo to a subtractive passage issuing a remainoerit
.8. Baoiou, Lc Stclc, Faris, Seuil, .oo, p. 86.
.q. Slavoj iek, Irom Furincation to Subtraction: Baoiou ano the Real, in Feter Hall-
waro ,eo.,, Tltrl Agotr: Alotr Bootoo oro tlc Fototc of Pltloopl,, Lonoon, Continuum, .oo,
p. :6.
o. This is a fact Baoiou clearly recognizes, as each of the three false movements Baoiou
ioentines ,the global, the local, ano the impure, which together allow for the passage of the
ioea operate by way of subtraction ,the image is subtracteo from itself, etc.,.
:. cf. Christian Metz, P,cloorol,t oro Ctrcmo: Tlc Imogtrot, Stgrtct, trans. Celia Britton,
Annwyl Williams, Ben Brewster ano Alfreo Guzzetti, Lonoon, Macmillan Fres, :q8.
Alex Ling o
can in no way hope to facilitate so much as the passage of the ioea, let
alone inscribe the inexistent, for the simple reason that everything which
appears in its nelo only ooes so only in oroer to immeoiately oisappear:
cinema is for Baoiou ultimately an art of ois-appearance. Ano such a
ois-appearing cinema can of course yielo no remainoer, for what nnally
remains t voio ,hence Baoious oiherentiation between subtraction ano
purincation,. Thus Baoious contention regaroing the immobility of the
ioea ,that if cinema is to facilitate the passage of an ioea it must concur-
rently ensure that the ioea thus brought forth ooes not itself pass, woulo
seem ultimately inconsistent with his overall conception of the nlmic art:
in Baoious cinema, everything passes.
The entirety of Baoious consioerations on nlm are then governeo in
the nnal analysis not by his attestations to its inherent impurity ,a neces-
sary factor,, nor by its incoherent situateoness ,a contingent factor,, but
rather by his presupposition that cinema is visitation ,HI 8, ,the imme-
oiate upshot of which is thatin the case of cinemathe ioea can have
nothing other than an equally transitory existence,. Inoeeo, the peculiar
unoerstanoing of cinema mobilizeo through the use of the term visita-
tion ,as much as passage, past, pass ano the like, woulo seem to consti-
tute not only Baoious real point of oeparture from Deleuzes writings on
cinemawhose concept of the crystal alone stanos in oirect opposition to
such an insistently linear chronology ,to say nothing of ouration or experi-
ence,
.
but also from all hope of establishing any thought proper to cin-
ema. Accoroingly, if any cinematic truths are to be registereo whatsoever
Baoious unoerstanoing of cinema as an art of ois-appearancewhich
is itself a contention arguably grounoeo less in philosophy than in sub-
jectivitymust be rejecteo as being in all senses of the woro funoamen-
tally anachronistic.
Rather,
.. Of course, the concept of the crystal itself ooes not bear on Baoious philosophy insofar
as he has himself no recourse to the virtual.
. We might even go so far as to suggest his position remains ultimately untenable unless
he were to conceoe that oll artpainting as much as poetry, literature as much as thea-
treare themselves ,to varying oegrees, nnally nothing but visitation, insofar as all sub-
jects of art invariably pass ,the novel is nnisheo, the play concluoes, the poem is put oown,.
Inoeeo, is this not the precise characteristic separating the subject of art from the truth it
enters into: whereas the subject is nnite, local ano passing, truth is innnite ano spatially
unlocalizable ,hence of truth ano the subject only the former is properly immanent,.
. Of course we might oiscern here a certain ,albeit limiteo, homology with Deleuzes
argument that the chain of connections in cinema cannot be reouceo to the simple
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo o
real cinema is in both form ano content a subtractive proceoure insofar
as, like all art, its aim is to yielo a remainoer ,which woulo of course
present the minimal oiherence between the voio ano its stano-in,. Or
again, real cinema must be, contra Baoiou, nothing other than an artistic
process whose aim is to inscribe the voioeo or inexistent elements of a
worlo, to realize the oiherence between place ano taking-place. Ferhaps
then it is in this precise sense that we shoulo reinterpret Baoious two prin-
cipal oemanos of cinema, that is, that it purify ,or rather subtract, itself
of all non-artistic content ,as much as its incioental artistic content, or its
internal complication with the other arts, ano that it concurrently organ-
ize the immobility of a passage: to risk a Ireuoian analogy, with respect to
its manifest content the impossibility of cinemas becoming wholly artistic
woulo ultimately constitute the formal mark of its remainoer ,that is, its
artistic kernel, or the element which keeps cinema from oegenerating
into the pure abstraction of takes ano eoiting,, while in terms of its latent
content the remainoer woulo be nnally nothing other than the very im-
mobility of the passage itself ,inoeeo, how else coulo the immobility of the
ioea be conceiveo outsioe such an ioeal remainoer?,.
Doubtless numerous complications arise with such a conception of
cinema.
,Schmitt,, The
essence of politics is not the plurality of opinions ano his oescription of
the State the normative threefolo arrangement of economic manage-
ment, national assessment ano oemocracy ,Baoiou, ,M 8,. Obviously
there is no sense in which Baoiou ano Schmitt share the same political
aimsBaoious concept of politics consistently opposes any statist, arbi-
trary or personalist arguments, ano the occttorol nature of Baoious faith-
ful subject is preoicateo on a certain unoecioability, not sheer arbitrary
will. Bosteels, for one, points to some of the problems with unoerstanoing
Baoious faithful subject simply as a oecisionist conception, emphasizing
insteao the centrality of process ano not merely the act of oecision: The
impure ano equivocal nature of all truth processes is inseparable from
any topological unoerstanoing of the subject.
BADIOUS FOLITICAL SUB]ECTS: IROM THORIE DU SU}ET
TO BEI^G A^D EVE^T
It is important to set out the relation between Baoious conceptions of
force ano oestruction in the earlier work of Tlottc oo oct ,which consists
of seminars presenteo from :q-q with a preface from :q8:, to his later
,Bctrg oro Eccrt ano Mctopoltttc,. Baoiou is politically at his most Leninist
in the earlier text, both terminologically ano rhetorically. The book is
without ooubt, at least in part, an attempt to come to terms with certain
. Schmitt, Poltttcol Tlcolog,, p. 6.
. Bruno Bosteels, Alain Baoious Theory of the Subject: The Recommencement of
Dialectical Materialism? Fart II, Plt, vol. :, .oo., p. .o.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo ..
responses to the explosion ano rapio recapture of the events of May 68,
as well as a certain reactionary moment in Irench political life ,the bitter
perioo of betrayal as he later oescribes it, ,M xxxiv,. It is also an attempt
to oemonstrate his oistance ,as well as his oebt, to Althusser in the wake of
the Humanist controversy.
The question of why Baoiou wants to maintain a concept of the sub-
ject in the nrst place is a crucial one. Whilst it is clear that he is heavily
inoebteo both to Lacan ano to Althusser for their structural analyses ano
their anti-humanism, he sees a oanger in the way in which they hanole
the question of the subject. He writes: the essence of an activist material-
ism requires the proouction of a theory of the subject, which it once
hao the task of foreclosing ,TS .o.,. So whilst the materialism of Althus-
ser ano Lacan usefully criticizeo certain classical, humanist conceptions
of subjectivity ano the subject ot orc cttttcol orctotc, there is a sense in which
Baoiou is unwilling to give up on the term in the context in which he now
writes. Inoeeo, he speaks insteao of a kino of subjective oenciency:
More oeeply, I know that what has happeneo to us which is
essential, in force as in humiliation, bears the mark of a lorg-tctm
lack, whence oerives the fact that, however suooen, the irruption
is also light, whilst, as coulo be preoicteo long in aovance, moral
oisarray is no less ineluctable. This lack is essentially subjective.
It relates to the way in which potential forces, at the heart of the
people, have been kept apart from their own concept. ,TS :,
It is this notion of an organic link that marks Baoiou out as essentially
vanguaroist in his conception of the political subject at this point, albeit
a vanguaroism that oscillates with regaros to who the subject is: there is
an inherent ambiguity about who is the true subject in this situationthe
party or the proletariat? Or a fusion of the two? As Hallwaro puts it: |t|he
subjective, or historical, topology of partisan antagonism explooes the
static algebra of class Whereas every object stays in its place, every sub-
ject violates its place, inasmuch as its essential virtue is to be oisorienteo.
Subjectivism operates in the element of force whereby place nnos itself
altereo.
As well as a response to
Sartres problems of the neetingness of the group-in-fusion, as outlineo
in Tlc Cttttoc of Dtolccttcol Rcoor, there is a presentiment of Baoious later
.. Alain Baoiou, Corotttor, Faris, Seuil, :qq., p. ., n. :.
. Alain Baoiou, ]ean-Faul Sartre ,pamphlet,, Faris, Fotemkine, :q8o, p. .
. Hallwaro, A Soocct to Ttotl, p. .
. Hallwaro, A Soocct to Ttotl, p. 6
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo .8
faithful subjects in the role he assigns to the Farty in this earlier work:
the initial univocal act, which is always localizeo, inaugurates a noel-
ity, i.e. an invention of consequences, that will prove to be as innnite as
the situation itself .
6
In this sense, we coulo say that Baoious attempt to
make noelity an on-going process, rather than a simple oeclaration mu-
tates from oonating to the party a vanguaroist role to a retention of this
same form in later non-political ano more generically political concep-
tions of the subject. Baoious criticism in Tlottc oo oct of mass move-
ments without a party is furthermore extremely close to Lenins criticisms
of spontaneity ano his centralizing of the party in 1lot t to oc Dorc.: 1c
must take upon ourselves the task of organizing an all-sioeo political
struggle unoer the leaoership of oot party that all ano sunory oppositional
strata coulo give assistance to this struggle ano this party accoroing
to their capacities.
If the capacity that is specincally human is that of thought, ano, as
Baoiou argues, thought is nothing other than that by which the path of a
truth seizes ano traverses the human animal,
If every politics of emancipation rejects nnituoe, rejects being-to-
waros-oeath on the basis of the tmmcototc subjective universality of the
innnite, then it seems clear that, paraooxically, innnity is just as, if not
more, important for a politics of emancipation than it is for mathematics.
But what is the relation between innnity ano immortality? In the Etltc
we are tolo that every human being is capable of being tlt immortal, that
in each case, subjectivation is immortal, ano makes Man ,E :.,. This is
why there is no ethics in general, ano no politics in general. All humanity
has its root in the ioentincation in thought |cr pcrc| of singular situations.
If innnity is actually only the most general form of multiple-being, then
human capacity for innnity is perhaps the most banal of starting points.
Nevertheless it plays the founoing role for politics more than for any other
conoition, incluoing mathematics itself. In Folitics as Truth Froceoure,
Baoiou writes the following: The innnite comes into play in every truth
proceoure, but only in politics ooes it take the nrst place. This is because
only in politics is the oeliberation about the possible ,ano hence about the
innnity of the situation, constitutive of the process itself politics treats
the innnite as such accoroing to the principle of the same, the egalitarian
principle. We will say that the numericality of the political proceoure has
the innnite as its nrst term, whereas for love this nrst term is the one, for
science the voio, ano for art a nnite number.
6
Let us oigress slightly here, ano look brieny at Ieuerbach, in oroer to
go over the role that the generic plays in his thought, ano to make sense
of its relation to politics in Baoiou. In a section of Tlc Ecrcc of Clttttortt,
entitleo The Essential Nature of Man, Ieuerbach tells us that conscious-
. cf. Baoious On the Truth-Frocess: An open lecture, where he argues that: the moo-
ern politics of emancipation freeo from the oialectic scheme of classes ano parties has as
its aim something like a generic oemocracy, a promotion of the commonplace, of a quality
abstracteo from any preoicateso its possible to speak of a generic politics, ano a warf-
ielo of prose such as Samuel Becketts, which trieo by successive subtraction to oesignate
the nakeo existence of generic humanity ,August .oo., http://www.egs.eou/faculty/ba-
oiou/baoiou-truth-process-.oo..htm,.
6. Baoiou, Tlcotcttcol 1ttttrg.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo 6
ness in the strictest sense is present only in a being to whom his species,
his essential nature, is an object of thought.
Class struggle, if the term still applies, is thus not between two separate
fotcc, two subjects inoexeo to oiherent places within the apparatus of capi-
tal. It is an ehect of the proletariat ,that surviving booy, born from the
rot, expelling itself from bourgeois politics, ano thus gaining its existence
through that very process of organizeo oestruction. The theory of subjec-
tivation as oestruction thus appears to require the exclusivity of the term
subject, ano the relegation of the bourgeoisie, ano any subjects other
than the proletariat, to a phantasmagorical structural semblance.
This oscillation in the appraisal of the bourgeoisie, ano the oialectical
arguments that motivate it, inoicate the thorny problem poseo to Baoious
project by the existence of other, non-emancipatory subjects: if the bour-
geoisie is not a subject, the theory of the proletariat risks a leftist solution,
a repressive hypothesis which singles out an impersonal State or Capital
as its only enemy, if the bourgeoisie is a subject, antagonism seems to ab-
sorb Baoious theory of torsion-oestruction, ano the historicity of politics
appears ooomeo to ambivalence with the introouction of multiple forms
of universality into the situation. As we will see further on, this antinomy
of the other subject continues to haunt Baoious work.
]USTICE AND TERROR, NIHILISTS AND RENEGADES
Abioing within the rich connnes of the Tlottc oo oct, we witness the
return, in a very oiherent guise, of the problem of the other subject in
Baoious attempt to formulate an ctltc. Insisting with the metaphors of
location ano the topological arsenal that oominates the recasting of oia-
lectics in the Tlottc, Baoiou proposes to rethink the question of ethics
in terms of a topics |toptoc|: There is no major Marxist text that is not
. The untranslatable notion of pot-cttc, a play on potoittc ,to appear, is taken by Baoiou
from Lacans seminars of the :qos.
Tlc Ptoxt of Alotr Bootoo
oriven by the question: Where is the proletariat? That is why politics is
the unity of opposites of a topics ,the current situation, ano an ethics ,our
tasks, ,TS .q,.
While they
too note the gestation of contemporary Islamism in the writings Qutb, ano
some of the proto-fascist ,but also crypto-communist, organizational
mooels at the origins of the Muslim Brotherhooo, they regaro its causes as
originating in the cttt of ccolot rottoroltt occclopmcrtabetteo by a spe-
cinc ,ano poisonous, political-economic conjuncture whose vectors were
oil, primitive accumulation, ano Colo War geopolitics.
6
A similar juog-
ment was put forwaro in the wake of the Iranian Revolution by one of the
more astute Marxist analysts of Mioole East politics, Gilbert Achcar. His
theses on Islamic funoamentalism, which provioe a classical analysis of
the petty-bourgeois roots of the Islamist phenomenon, echo the analysis
of fascismsuch as when he writes that the violence ano rage of the petit
bourgeois in oistress are unparalleleo. Inoeeo, Achcar sees the bourgeoi-
sies relationship to the phenomenon of Islamism ,particularly in Egypt, as
typical of its customary stance towaros far right movements ano fascism
in generalin other woros, to borrow Baoious terminology, reactionar-
ies are always happy to use obscurantists against progressives, especially
if the obscurantists can outbio the Left on the Lefts two favourite issues:
the national question ano the social question, any gains maoe by Islamic
reaction on these two issues mean equivalent losses for the Left. Islamic
funoamentalism in this sense represents an ooxtltot, fot tlc tcocttorot, ooot-
gcottc.