Deleuze’s Repetition of Kant
by Beth Metcalf
To repeat: Deleuze’s Repetition of
Kant, by Beth Metcalf. That is, I do not claim that this
essay is Deleuze’s repetition of Kant. It is my
repetition of Deleuze’s repetition of Kant. And, the
reader may add his or her proper name in a new layer of
repetition. But if these are to be repetitions with real
intensive difference, what must they not be? According
to Deleuze (Difference & Repetition 126-8) they must
not be copies resembling a supposed ideal model. That is,
they must not be the “good” copies that resemble a
supposed ideal model of Kant. If we are to reach
Deleuze’s simulacra on his plane of univocal being, we must
stop treating repetition as if it were consistent with some
totalizing plane of reference whose “difference”
maintains identity of an original image. If we are to reach
what Deleuze tries to reveal to us, we must see how Kant appears
in the light of Deleuze’s plane of consistency. We
must find coherence in Deleuze’s text (i.e.,
consistency with Deleuze’s plane of univocal being) without
importing concepts he does not have (i.e., without any concept
that traces the transcendental from the empirical). That
is, we must not read Kant in order to understand Deleuze. We
must read Deleuze’s Kant if we want to see how his concept
of univocal being changes the nature of how Kant appears. Doesn’t
Deleuze tell us that his plane of consistency has nothing to do
with Kant’s transcendentalism and its categories of possible
experience? Doesn’t Deleuze tell us we must reach
a transcendental-empiricism of real experience? Deleuze
repeats Kant’s Copernican Revolution with real
difference.
Deleuze tells us (DR 218) that Kant’s
‘schemata’ are determinations that merely bring
spatio-temporal relations into correspondence with logical
relations. But since these two types of relation are
external to each other, how can we know there is correspondence
between them without appeal to a transcendent miracle? But
everything changes if we reach dynamisms internal to ideas.
We must first reach a sub-representative dramatization of ideas
beneath concepts and their representations.
With the Cartesian Cogito, determination (I
think) directly implies the undetermined (I am). But
Deleuze says that Kant does not accept determinations of the
Cogito (DR 85-6). There can be no direct correlation
between determination and the undetermined. We must first
find the form by which the undetermined is determinable. We
can no longer just assume we already know the form when we have a
merely empirical difference between two determinations. We
must no longer be satisfied with a mere conceptual difference
between determinations. We must first find an internal
difference (sense) of an a priori transcendental relation between
thought and being.
Kant’s form of the determinable is
time. Kant’s undetermined is determinable only as a
passive subject appearing as a phenomenon in time. ‘I
think’ is no longer thought as the determination of a
substantial ‘I am’. Thought acts on a passive
subject which represents that action as the effect of an Other.
‘I’ is an Other. The determined ‘I
think’ and the undetermined ‘I am’ is fractured by
the form of the determinable --- the pure empty form of time.
The empty form of time is a fracture between the active
determinations of the I (thought and being) in correlation with a
passive self as it represents active determination to itself ---
and lives it as an internal difference within thought and being.
This is the dice game of univocal being played between two tables
(DR 283-4). There is no substantial matter of self (I am)
identical to itself. There is no continuous form of self (I
think) similar to itself. Identity disappears. The
fracture is the empty form of time (Aion). On one side of
the hinge between the two tables is the determinations of
‘I’ fractured by this empty form. On the other
side a passive self, dissolved in that empty form. (DR 261)
“For it is not the other which is another I, but the I which
is an other, a fractured I.”
Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason
saw the speculative death of God which does not leave the
identity of I intact. Kant’s form of the determinable
is the pure empty form of time --- the speculative death of God
and Self. But Kant aborted this initiative in his second
Critique with a “practical resurrection” of
Self-World-God (DR 85-7). Therefore, according to Deleuze,
Kant did not follow through with his initiative. Deleuze
takes up Kant’s aborted initiative to show how Kant could
have overturned the Dogmatic Representational Image of Thought.
But Kant still maintained the good nature of thought in common
sense implied by the harmony of the faculties in form of the Same
(DR 136-7).
In Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason,
imagination, reason, and understanding find a common accord in
speculative common sense under the legislation of the faculty of
understanding. In his Critique of Practical Reason,
reason legislates for moral common sense. In his Critique
of Judgment, an aesthetic common sense finds free accord
among the faculties without legislation of any faculty. Kant
merely multiplied the forms of common sense rather than freeing
us from it. Kant never really questions the interest of
reason. (DR 137) “Far from overturning the form of
common sense, Kant merely multiplied it….Throughout, the
variable model of recognition fixes good usage in the form of a
harmony between the faculties determined by a dominant faculty
under a given common sense.”
Deleuze takes up the initiative that Kant
never followed through on (Difference & Repetition 85-6).
As Deleuze takes up the promise of Kant’s initiative, no
generalizing form of common sense is reintroduced. Deleuze
asks how necessarily unconscious Ideas are to be understood (DR
192-3). How is the unthinkable to be thought? Can
Ideas of reason be objects of a faculty? Deleuze answers
that Ideas and structures do not refer to a particular faculty,
but occur through all faculties. There is no maintenance of
any common sense form, structure, or image of identity. This
is what Deleuze sees in Kant’s initiative. (DR 194)
“There is thus a point at which thinking, speaking,
imagining, feeling, etc., are one and the same thing, but that thing
affirms only the divergence of the faculties in their
transcendent exercise. It is a question, therefore, not of
a common sense but, on the contrary, of a ‘para-sense’
(in the sense that paradox is also the contrary of good sense).
The elements of this para-sense are Ideas, precisely because
Ideas are pure mulitplicities which do not presuppose any form of
identity in a common sense but, on the contrary, animate and
describe the disjoint exercise of the faculties from a
transcendental point of view.”
The unconscious of thought is an
extra-propositional and sub-representative problematic in the
multiplicity of Ideas as “para-sense” (the paradoxical
exercise of the faculties). Ideas are the differentials of
thought. (DR 194) “Ideas, therefore, are related not
to a Cogito which functions as ground or as a proposition of
consciousness, but to the fractured I of a dissolved Cogito; in
other words, to the universal ungrounding….”
Therefore, Ideas as multiplicities of the paradoxical exercise of
the faculties give no ground for a common sense. Deleuze
says (DR169-70), “Ideas…. repeat the three aspects of
the Cogito: the I am as an indeterminate existence,
time as the form under which this existence is determinable,
and the I think as a determination. Ideas are
exactly the thoughts of the Cogito, the differentials of
thought.” Ideas swarm in the fractured I without
filling what cannot be filled. There is an internal
problematic unity of the undetermined, determinable, and
determination.
Therefore, those who tell us that
Deleuze’s ‘difference’ maintains identity are
still clinging to their common sense. They do not reach the
violence of paradoxical sense of the sub-representative and
extra-propositional domain of univocal being. When Deleuze
takes up Kant’s aborted initiative, he does it by reaching
that which he finds in Kant’s Critique of Judgment.
(DR 143) We must no longer trace the transcendental from the
empirical phenomena that still maintains a common sense. Deleuze
sees in Kant’s initiative the ground for a superior
empiricism. In this transcendental-empiricism, each faculty
undergoes a violence of dissolution. (DR 144) What is it
that can only be sensed and yet is imperceptible? What are
the requirements for a new doctrine of the faculties that do not
merely mediate relations of representation? How can we
reach a free and untamed difference in itself that Deleuze calls
‘intensity’ which is imperceptible from the point of
view of empirical sensibility?
Harmony of faculties can only arise from a
discordant accord among them so that there can be no form of
common sense. (DR 146) “Ideas, far from having as
their milieu a good sense or a common sense, refer to a
para-sense which determines only the communication between
disjointed faculties.” Isn’t the mystery of
univocal being that which Kant, according to Deleuze, would have
reached if he had followed through with the singular Genius of
his own insight?
In the Preface to Kant’s Critical
Philosophy, Deleuze writes of four poetic formulas that
summarize what Deleuze sees as an unfulfilled promise of
Kant’s philosophy. The first says, ‘time is out
of joint’. As long as time is subordinate to movement,
time measures movement. But time out of joint reverses this
relationship. With this reversal, movement is subordinate
to time. Time is no longer measured by movement. Time
conditions movement.
Therefore, with this reversal, time is no
longer defined by succession of things in space. Nor is
space defined by simultaneity or coexistence. Space and
time are no longer merely causal determinations (Chronos). There
must be a form of the determinable --- the empty form of time
(Aion). Time is the form of everything that moves and
changes, but it is an immutable Form of change and movement.
This empty form is the univocity of time without empirical
content. It is all real distinction of ontologically
singular intensive difference without any already formed matter.
It is the empty form of the determinable that interiorizes
difference between determinations.
The second formula says, ‘I is
another’ in The Critique of Pure Reason. Kant’s
passive and receptive ‘Self’ experiences change through
time. But also, ‘I’ acts as Other to synthesize
time. Present is divided in past and future directions.
There is not a determination (I think) that implies an
undetermined (I am). We must find the form of the
determinable. We must find the form of time that is
internalized in the changing ego. I constitute my passive
self as an Other by the form of the determinable --- the empty
form of time. I and self as Other are really distinct, but
they are ontologically one synthesis as ego is affected in a new
form. “The form of the determinable means that
determined ego represents determination as an Other.” Time
is the form in which I (mind) affects ego (itself). Therefore,
time is immutable form of interiority. Time is the form of
the determinable that relates I and Ego and continually stitches
them together. There is not one form of the
determinable. Nor are there many forms that could be
totalized into one. The empty form is ideas as
multipliticities in the paradoxical exercise of the faculties.
The third aspect is from the Critique of
Practical Reason where Kant’s Law is empty form of the
morally determinable. Kant reverses the relation of Law and
the Good, just as he reversed the relation of time and movement
in the Critique of Pure Reason. The Good depends on
the Law. The law is empty form that has no content other
than its imperative. The law is pure empty form with no
object. It does not tell us what to do. It merely
tells us to what subjective maxim our actions must conform.
A moral act must conform to a maxim that can be thought as
universal without contradiction. The moral law is pure
empty form of singular act that may be thought as universal (a
singular–universal). Law is empty of content. It
expresses itself through its sentence of guilt. “Guilt
is like the moral thread which duplicates the thread of
time.”
(DR 98) Kant saw the self merely in terms of
passive receptivity of sensations in an already formed structure
of common sense. Then, he unified self without any real
genesis. But according to Deleuze, if Kant had followed
through with his initiative hidden in his Critique of Judgment,
he could have reached a real genesis. In the first two
Critiques, the faculties are regulated under the legislation of
one of them. In the Critique of Pure Reason,
understanding dominates imagination and reason. In the Critique
of Practical Reason, reason dominates by constituting pure
form of universal law. But Deleuze says that, if the
faculties can enter such variable relations regulated by one, it
must mean that all faculties together must be able to enter free
and unregulated harmony. With the fourth aspect of the
discord of the faculties, we can reach a real genesis. Then,
this free accord in the Critique of Judgment provides the
un-grounding of the first two critiques so they may enter free
accord.
So, the fourth aspect is the Critique of
Judgment. The judgement ‘this is beautiful’
is the power of free reflection in the imagination and
indeterminate power of the understanding without concept. Faculties
enter into an accord that is no longer under the legislation of
any one of them. There is a spontaneous accord of Ego and I
under the conditions of the beautiful in nature. With the
sublime there is a discord between imagination and reason. Faculties
find a discordant accord in an unregulated exercise of all
faculties. Genius is the singularity of real difference.
It brings about new intersubjective universality of its
singularity and calls for the becoming of new singularities.
As Deleuze follows Kant’s initiative, the singularity of
genius creates universality of the singular that overturns the
universalizing and totalizing generalities of common sense.
As Deleuze reads Kant’s Critique of
Judgement’ (Chapter 3 of Kant’s Critical
Philosophy), Kant asks if there is a higher form of feeling.
With the faculty of knowledge, understanding legislates as the
higher form. Desire in its higher form is the legislation
of reason. When the faculty of feeling finds its higher
form, judgement legislates. But in this third case, aesthetic
judgement is reflective and does not legislate over objects.
It has no determinate object, but free accord of all faculties.
Kant’s higher pleasure should not be attached to any
sensible, empirical interest or any practical interest. A
higher faculty of feeling must be disinterested. It is not
an object of interest but a disinterested subjective judgement of
aesthetic feeling --- a pure empty form of a singular intensity
is reflected in the imagination. In contrast to the form of
faculties in the first two critiques, this higher form has no
interest of reason (speculative or practical). The
aesthetic faculty, in its higher form, is disinterested. Aesthetic
judgement does not legislate over an object in its empty form of
the determinable.
When an object is judged to be beautiful, we
claim a necessary universality for the judgement, but the object
is without concept. Its necessity and universality are
subjective. With the higher form of aesthetic feeling, the
imagination is in free accord with understanding that is without
concept. There is a free subjective accord in aesthetic
judgement. Therefore, aesthetic common sense is not derived
from the objective common sense of the first two critiques.
Rather, “it provides them with a basis or makes them
possible” (Kant’s Critical Philosophy 50). But
this free subjective accord can’t be presupposed. Aesthetic
common sense must be engendered. But how?
There is another type of
judgement…..‘this is sublime’. Then
imagination experiences violence when it reaches its own limits.
The sublime gives us a subjective relation of dissension between
imagination and reason. An imagination-reason accord
(conjunction) is not presupposed. It is engendered in a
dissension (disjunction). Ideas of reason are speculatively
indeterminate and practically determinate in this genesis of
conjunction of disjunctions (free accord of faculties in
dissension). The universality of the sublime is the product
of a cultural genesis. The sublime prepares the genesis of
a higher faculty and a suprasensible destination of all
faculties.
Therefore, the sublime has a universality
that is not assumed, but engendered. The beautiful is not
an object in the interest of reason, but it may find a synthesis
with an interest of reason. So, there is not merely a given
structure of common sense as a transcendental traced from the
empirical. Common sense is not a given universal structure
of generality. It must be the product of a singular genesis
--- the product of that by which the given is given
(transcendental-empiricism).
Pleasure in the beautiful is disinterested,
but there is a rational interest in contingent accord of nature
with our faculties. The genesis of the beautiful finds, in
an Idea of reason, an indirect presentation (symbol) analogous to
presentations in nature. Imagination finds free reflection
apart from the understanding. Imagination is free. Understanding
is indeterminate. Their accord is engendered and not merely
given. It is engendered in that by which the given is
given. Both the transcendental and the empirical of the
first two critiques must be engendered in the third by a new form
of the determinable --- a free discordant accord of
transcendental empiricism.
The aesthetic Idea is intuition to which no
concept is adequate. The rational Idea is a concept to
which no intuition is adequate. There is an inverse
relation between aesthetic and rational Ideas. But Deleuze
asks if this inverse relation is adequate. (KCP 57)
“The aesthetic Idea is really the same thing as the rational
Idea: it expresses what is inexpressible in the latter.” So
instead of an inverse oppositional relation between form and
formed-matter on the level of representation, Deleuze sees in
Kant’s initiative, a parallelism. There are parallel series
fractured by the form of time with the aleatory point circulating
through them. At the sub-representative level of judgement,
any intensive content may find accord with any intensive
expression without regulation. Genius expressed in art is
the creation of a new nature --- new singular genesis of
universality. This is no longer a common sense of a
universal generality. It is universality of the singular.
So, is judgement a faculty? Deleuze
says that judgement implies several faculties and expresses
accord among them. In determining judgement, the concept is
given. In reflective judgement, there is a free and
indeterminate accord among all the faculties without concept or
determinate object. Any determinate accord, at the level of
objects, presupposes a free, sub-representative indeterminate
accord. Kant’s transcendentalism then finds its
ungrounding in the free discordant accord of all faculties.
Deleuze calls this ‘transcendental empiricism’. It
is the genesis (that by which the given is given) of both the
transcendental and its own empirical (given). Kant’s
third Critique is the ungrounding that gives new ground for the
first two.