The Empty Form of Time—Eternal Return
by Beth Metcalf
Deleuze says that Kant’s discovery of the transcendental is
the Copernican Revolution that frees time from its cardinal
hinges. Kant’s critique of the Cartesian Cogito (Difference
& Repetition p.85-6) allowed him to realize that the
determination (I think) could not directly determine the
undetermined (I am). So, he asked how the undetermined becomes
determined. What is the determinable condition? The determinable
condition is the pure a priori form of time that internalizes the
difference between thought and being. The ‘I’ is
fractured by this pure, empty form of time. The pure form of time
is the correlate of the passive self as the empty form of the
determinable. It signifies the death of God, the fractured I, and
the passive self. Time is no longer subordinate to the cardinal
measure of movement. Movement is subordinate to the time that
conditions it. Time is pure static order---pure empty form. Time,
out of joint.
This was the Kantian initiative. Unfortunately, Deleuze says,
(DR87) this was an aborted initiative where Self, world, and God
underwent a resurrection, and all was safe for the world of
Representation again. The fracture of the ‘I’ was
filled, and with it, the empty form of time was filled too. When
Kant filled the fracture, reconstituted the self, and re-hinged
the faculties, he found himself again at the level of the
concept. His spatio-temporal forms were, a priori, in the image
of the concept. (DR218) Then, all that Kant’s transcendental
could do, as an “empty” (empty of empirical content)
form of determination of time and construction of space, was to
remain within the schema of the concept. But concepts,
themselves, are not empty forms. The concept is already a form of
logical possibility. It merely translates logical possibility
into transcendental possibility. The spatio-temporal relations
are still external to the concept, and as external, they can only
find harmony with the concept by appeal to a miracle --- a
transcendent ground of possibility. Therefore, Deleuze says,
there must be a prior internal dynamic construction of space and
time beneath the schema of the concept. The sub-representative
dynamisms are no longer schemata of concepts, but dramas of
Ideas. Univocity is that which allows Deleuze to take up
Kant’s aborted initiative. With Univocity, the faculties
remain unhinged in the sub-representative realm of the Idea.
Ideas are not schemata of concepts which keep the faculties on
their hinges. With Univocity, spatio-temporal dynamisms are
external and without concept, but internal to the
sub-representative Idea.
Therefore, Univocity gives Deleuze the means to find a
sub-representative realm beneath the form of the ‘I’
and the matter of the ‘Self’. But we cannot reach this
realm through relational forces which still remain at the level
of formed matter of an I-Self system. We must reach a realm
included only in Univocity where the faculties are unhinged, the
I is fractured, and the Self is dissolved. With Univocity, there
is no longer a prior form of the ‘I’ in comprehension.
There is no prior matter of the ‘Self’ in extension.
With Univocity, we reach a transcendental field beneath relations
of formed matter. We reach a pre-individual realm of singularity.
Here, Individuation is a process of differentiation of
intensities. Individuating factors are enveloping and enveloped
intensity. Intensity is singular difference itself. Singularity
is pre-individual. An individuated singularity is an individual
world in embryo. An individuated singularity is that which comes
into actualization.
Therefore, it is not structural relations that enter into a
process of individuation. Relations of opposition or negation are
still structures of already formed matter. Individuation would
still be a determination (I think) of the undetermined (I am).
This is the case even with infinitely variable formed matter.
Even the continuous development of form (of the ‘I’)
and the continuous variation of matter (of the ‘Self’)
never breaks the form-matter coupling. It is still always
subordinate to the possible movements of continuity and
succession. It is still subordinate to movement in a spatialized
concept of time. As long as we think in terms of Selfhood---in
terms of relational forces of the form of the I and the matter of
the Self--- we do not reach the forces of Univocity. We
misunderstand Univocity as long as we think in terms of
structural-relational forces. Therefore, the I as an other is not
the other as another I. ‘I’ is an ‘other’,
not as oppositional relation, but as problematic. That is, the
other is not the non-being of the negative of relational forces
of the concept. The ‘Other’ is the problematic Idea of
Univocity.
Individuality is not Selfhood. Individuating factors are not
formed matter in the form of the ‘I’ or the matter of
the ‘Self’. Individuating factors are pre-individual
singularities of the dissolved self and the fractured I.
Univocity includes the prior process of individuation, in a
pre-individual field of singularity. Individuation is a modal
process that carries real distinction, real difference, into
actualization. Each singularity may be actualized within a really
distinct, singularly Individuated world. All Individuals SAY
their universal-singularity in one sense. Therefore, the
Individual is the singular-universal. But the Individual-world is
also fluid and mobile degrees of assemblage. Individuation has
nothing to do with any process of numerical distinction of the
forms and subjects of already formed matter. Rather, with
Univocity, the fractured I and the dissolved self are actualized
as fragile, fluid, and temporary surface effects that produce
uses of representation within an Individuated world. They are no
longer thought in the form and matter of numerically distinct
substances within a fixed generality of Representation.
Therefore, as Deleuze takes up Kant’s aborted initiative,
the pure empty form of time is not just empty of all empirical
content. It is also empty in the sense that it is without
concept. It is not a dynamic determination internal to a concept
of an already spatialized time. That would merely subordinate it
to movement with its successions and continuities. Rather, this
empty form of time is static order. The pure, empty form of time
is the Univocity of Time. As Univocity, it is the nomadic
distribution of singularities in parallel series. Singularities
are distributed into the static order of BEFORE-AFTER.
Singularities are nomadically distributed into an open Time.
There are really and formally distinct times in ontologically
single Time. Only with Univocity does time truly become free from
its cardinal hinges. Univocity is that which gives Deleuze the
basis for reinitiating Kant’s aborted initiative without
falling back into the empirical conditions traced by the concept.
Time as cardinal hinge is the quantitative measure of movement.
But the pure order of time out of joint (with the unhinging of
the faculties) is no longer subordinate to movement. Time is
pure, empty form. It is purely ordinal. First, Before---Second,
After. There is no empirical content in the pure order of time.
However, neither is there a spatialized concept of time
subordinate to movement. There is only formal and static a priori
order. The order of time is before-after. It is the slowness of
‘What is going to happen?’ It is the speed of
‘What has just happened?’ Singularities are nomadically
distributed into the static order. Movement is subordinate to
duration. All duration is really and formally distinct in
ontologically single Time. This is the unhinging of time---the
unhinging of the faculties of the dissolved self. This unhinges
time from its subordination to the cardinal measure of movement.
With this unhinging, movement becomes subordinate to time. Time
becomes the transcendental condition of movement without any
prior concept of a spatialized time.
This is that strange dice game which can’t be thought. It is
the dice game of Univocity where all throws are really and
formally distinct in one ontological throw. This is the univocity
of Time. In Kant’s Critical Philosophy p.viii, Deleuze says,
“Everything which moves and changes is in time, but time
itself does not change, does not move, any more than it is
eternal. It is the form of everything that changes and moves, but
it is an immutable Form which does not change. It is not an
eternal form, but in fact the form of that which is not eternal,
the immutable form of change and movement.” This means that
time is not an eternal principle or an eternal, a priori form.
That would be a merely conceptual form of spatialized time. The
Univocity of Time means that there are really and formally
distinct durations in ontologically single Time. All really and
formally distinct change is one form which does not change or
move. The form of Time (change) does not change. Before---After.
This is the static form into which singularities are nomadically
distributed in Aion. Each event communicates with all others in
one Event. This is the eternal truth of the singular. Aion is the
unique throw of the dice from which all throws are qualitatively,
not numerically, distinguished. With the Univocity or Pure Order
of Time, every time as really and formally distinct IS the whole
of Time, ontologically one. The order, before-after, never
changes. Aion, as pure empty form of time, has no empirical or
conceptual content. It is pure, empty and static order. Action
could be anything. Aion is the third synthesis of Univocity---the
Eternal Return. Aion is ontologically single order of Time open
in eternal return to all really and formally distinct durations.
Aion nomadically distributes all times, really and formally
distinct, into open Time, ontologically single.
The Eternal Return is not actualized in bodies or states of
affairs. It is the third synthesis of counter-actualization. It
is the synthesis that affirms all disjunctions in their distance.
It condenses the singularities and makes them resonate. It is the
affirmation of all chance in the unique throw. It says all really
distinct singularities in one sense. In the eternal return of
counter-actualization, the individual affirms distance, passing
through other individuals actualized by other events, and
entering into a becoming with them. The individual becomes the
unique singularity that is all real difference. (Anti-Oedipus p.
21) “The subject spreads itself out along the entire
circumference of the circle, the center of which has been
abandoned by the ego. At the center is the desiring-machine, the
celibate machine of the Eternal Return….It is not a matter
of identifying with various historical personages, but rather
identifying the names of history with zones of intensity on the
body without organs; and each time Nietzsche-as-subject exclaims:
“They’re me! So it’s me!””