eschatology and positivism

8/12/2019 Eschatology and Positivism

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Bulletin Ia SodeteAmericaine de Philosophie de Langue FranfaeJ oume 14, Number Spril1g2004

Eschatology and Positivism:The Critique of Phenomenologyin errida and oucault

Leonard Lawlor

In his early What is 1\1etaphysics?, Heidegger claims thatthe question expressed in the tide of his essay puts the ques-t ioner-us-in question. This putting us in question thenmoves forward towards, as Heidegger says, the completion ofthe transformation of man, understood as subject, into exist-ence Dasein .l This complete transformation, fot Heidegget,as we know from the Introduction to the essay that he addedin 1949, amounts to an overcoming [ b e r w i n d u n ~ ofmetaphysics understood as Platonism or as the mere reversal ofPlatonisrn pM 363/279). At this moment, I think it is stillnecessary to take seriously Heidegget s attempt to overcomemetaphysics. Heidegger had pointed the way towards theovetcoming of metaphysics by calling us to think what hecalls the Auseinander of the opening of being itself (pM 369/284). How are we to translate ioto English this German wordAuJeinandef ? Perhaps as the outsideof one another or even


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ESCHATOLOGY AND POSITIVISMlas the outside itsel[ No matterwhat, however, Auseinandefimplies that, in order to overcome metaphysics, we must havea thought of the outside. A thought of the outside would bea thought that comes from the outside which is as weil athought abOl lt the outside. This outside, it seems to me, however, is not the opening of being, as Heidegger says, btlt theopening of life. Tb.e outside is a place in which life and deathindefinitely delimit one another. But to move us to this placeof delimitation, wemust startwith a critiqueof phenomenology.

We must start here because phenomenology has showna remarkable resilience across the Twentieth Century. Butmoreimportantly, we n1ust start here because phenomenology hasalready conceived life through its central concept of Erlebnis( lived-experience in English, VCft/ in French). Therefore,we can ask whether phenomenology itself has already initiated an overcoming of metaphysics. Husserl, oE course,thought so Yet, certain critiques France dating from the1960 s imply that lived-experience consists in a kind oE insideness, which is not i n t r n ~ and a kind oE sameness, which isnot identity-but lmxture and ambiguity. IE mixture andambiguity defme lived-experience, then it follows that some-times phenomenology restores Platonism, while other times itmerely reverses Platonism into its opposite. Understood this way as sameness and inside-ness, phenomenology doesnot overcome metaphysics. Phenomenology is not a thoughtof the outside-or at least, this is what I would like to showhere. IE you heard the allusion in the ph.rase the thought ofthe outside, you know that I am thinkillg of Foucault, particular, the critiqtle of phenomenology found his 1966 Mots ef fes fhoses 3 The other critique con1es from Derrida s1967 Voix ef lephenomene In any case, what I intend to dohere is reconstruct the critique of phenomenology found Foucault and Derrida.5 I am going to start witl1 Foucault, and particular, with Chapter Nine of LesMots et les fhoses Mallalld his Doubles.


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LEON.i\RD \ V1..0RThe Analysis of Lived Experience vecu is aDiscourse with a Mixed Nature

Chapter Nine of LeJ MotJ et leJ t hoJcs Man and hisDoubles, contains, of course, Foucault s critique of modernllumanism. 6 The chapter therefore focuses on man (and noton the human being). Foucault defines man as a double; he isat once an object of knowledge and a subject that knows (NIC323/312). ~ n (and again not the human being) is what occupies, as Foucault says, this ambiguous position. The entire critique of humanism unfolds, for Foucault, from thisdesignation of man as ambiguous, adesignation which recalls, of course, ~ l e r l e a u o n t y and Sartre. I shail turn toMerleau-Ponty in a moment. In any case, for Foucault, theambiguity that defmes man consists two senses of finitude.In one sense, finitude consists in the empirical positivities, theempirical contents of work, life, and language, which tellman that he is finite (NIC 326/315). The knowledge of life,for instance, teils man that he is going to die. The other senseis that this finitude is itself fundamental. The forms of knowledge in which the very contents that tell Ulan that he is finiteare forms w h i c l ~ are themselves finite. For instance, for man,there is no inteilectual intuition. So, fmitude is ambiguousbetween empirical content and foundational forms. For Foucault, this ambiguity of finitude results in an obligation toascend up to an analytic of fmitude. Here it is necessary tohear the word analytic in its Kantian sense, as a theory ofthe subject (MC 330/310). For Foucault, this would be ananalytic where the being of man will be able to found, intheir positivity, all the forms that indicate to him that he is notinfmite (MC 326/315, myemphasis). This analytic would bethe discourse oE phenomenology.

The discourse of phenomenologywould aim at, according to Foucault, a truth that would be neither empirical con


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I ESCHATOLOGYAND POSITIVISMtent nor transcendental form, while trying to keep the empirical and transcendental separated. This is an important qualification while trying to keep the empirical and transcendental separated sincewhat is at issue is herewhether pl e-nomenology canmaintain the separation between the empirical and the transcendental. In any case, according to FOllcault, phenomenologywould be an analytic of man as a subject in this precise sense: man as subject, that is, as the placeof empirical knowledge but led back as close as possible towhatmakes empiricalknowledge possible, and as the pure formthat is immediately present to these contents. Man as subject therefore would be the third and intermediary term inwhich empiricity and transcendentalitywould have their roots.According to Foucault, this third and intermecliary term hasbeen designated by Je vetu. e vecd responds to the obligation to analyze finitude, that is, to the obligation to have atheory of the subject. Here is Foucault s definition oE fe lJeCU :lived-experience, in fact, is at once the space where all empirical content is given to experience; it is also the originaryform that luakes them in gel1eral possible. We can now seethe problem with Je vel U, and indeed, with man. e v ftlmust be concrete enough order to he able to apply to it adescriptive language; yet it must he enough removed frompositivity so that it can provide the foundations for empiricalpositivity. The discourse of vel U tries to make the empiricalhold for the transcendental: the empirical is the transcendental and the transcendental is the empirical, or, the content isthe form and the form is the content. Lived-experience therefore is a mixture. And thllS FOllcault says that the al1alysis oflived-experience [lJecu] is a discourse with a mixed nature: it isaddressed to a specific hut ambiguous layer C C 332/321).This analytic mixes the transcendental and the empiricaltogether. Therefore, whatwe have seen so far is that the concept of lived-experience, as Foucault understands i t and this

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ESC -L\:fOLOGY .i'\ND P O S I T V I S ~ ftionality; these reelle moments are the data of sensation. Here,Husserl has discovered something non-intentional and therefore passive at the very heart of lived-experience, somethingthat comes from the outside, and yet he has designated thesemoments as reelle, and thereby as enclosed in dasErlebnis iiberhaupt. By means of this ii.berhallpt and this n beschlossen, we can conclude already that Erlebnis, n thisclassical formulation, consists n a sameness, wruch is not identity, and an inside-ness which is not sirnply internal; in a word,ErlebniJ in general consists in a mixture.

To demonstrate this sameness and inside-ness again, Iwould also like to look at another Husserl text: the fmal version of Husserl's 1927 EncyclopediaBritannica entry on Phe-nomenology. As iswell-known, this text introduces phenom-enology through phenomenological psychology. Phenomeno-logical psychology, Husserl says here, has the task of investigating the totality of lived experience. But, more irnportandy,phenomenological psychology, according to Husserl, is aneasier way to enter into the transcendental problem that occurred historically with Descartes, that is that all of reality,and finally the whole world, are for us in existence and inexistence in a certain way only as the represel1tational contentof our own representations. Thus everyth.ing real has to berelated back to uso But this us cal1not be the psyche, according to Husserl, because the psyche is defined by the mun-dane sense of being as Vorhandenheit, presence, or, more literally presence-at-hand. To use a mundane being whose on-tological sense is orhandenheit toaccount for the reality ofthe world whose ontological sense is also orhandenheit iscircular, and this circularity defmes psychologism.9 In contrast to psychologism, phenomenology claims, according toHusserl, that there is a parallelism between psychological subjectivity and transcendental subjectivity and that this parallelism involves a deceptive appearance Schein of transcenden-

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LEONj\RD L\\v1..0Rtal duplication. It is important here, it seems to me, that,while Husserl recognizes that there is some sort of differencebetween the transcendental and the psychological or the empirical, he does not, we might say partition off the transcendental from the psychological or e n ~ p i r i c a l Instead, he saysthat transcendental sllbjectivity is defined by Vorhandenheit tao,but not in the same sense (nitht im selben Sinn vorhanden ist).10Indeed, Husserl thinks that by saying not the same sense,he has eliminated the deceptive appearance and makes theparallelism understandable. This is what he says, the parallelism of the transcendental and the psychological spheres ofexperience has become comprehensible ...as a kind of idencity of the interpenetration [ n e i n a n d e ~ of ontological senses. 11This kind of identity, he also describes as ambiguity(Zweideutigkeit). Here Husserl thinks the Ineinander, literally,one in the other, but not, wemight say the Auseinander, literally one outside of the other. Nevertheless, this Zweideutigkeitand Ineinander shouldmake us think of Merleau-Ponty. So Iwould like to turn now to Merleau-Ponty, and particular, tohis Phenomenology o Pert eption.

On the very first page of the ]Jhenomenology o ]Jerception,j\,ferleau-Ponty speaks of IJe U and, throughout the ]Jhenom-enology the word modifies the term monde, warld. For example, in the chapter called The Phenomenal Field, 11erleauPonty says that the fttst philosophical act therefore would bethat of returning to the lived-world on this side of the objectiveworld phP 69/57 . Yet, he uses theword as a noun- level tI -only twice. The ftrst time occurs in the chapter calledSpace ; here he says lived-experience [fe Jet ] is really livedby me ... , but I can live more things that I can think of [plus dechoses que Je m en representeJ. What is only lived is ambi?JalentphP 343/296; my emphasis . ForMerleau-Ponty, ambivalence

is the crucial characteristic of veeu. And this characteristicguides his analysis of intersubjectivity the Phenomenology oj28


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ESCfL \ l OLOGY A ND P O S l T \ T S ~ f.Perception, which is where he uses fe vectl for the second time,in the chapter called Others and tl1e Human World. Herefe vel U is defmed by self-givenness (phP 411/358); but, thisself-givenness is also given (phP 413/360). In other words,the active is also passive. In this formula we can see the importance of the positive affttmation in the is. This positiveaffttmation is the heart of ambivalence. N ow these two usesof Je 1Jectl in the ])henomenofogy ])erlr:ption depend of courseon Merleau-Ponty s appropriation of Husserl s concept of.Fundiert/ng. In the chapter called The Cogito; Merleau-Pontyspeaks of the relation between founding (fe fondant) andfounded (fe fonde) as one that is equivocal (equivoque), sinceevery truth of fact is a truth of reason, every truth of reasoniJ a truth of fact (phP 451/394; my emphasis).13 MerleauPonty also says that d1 e relation of matter and form is a relation of J-1undierung. The form integrates the content to thepoint that it appears to end up being a simple mode of theform ... but reciprocally ... the content remains as a radicalcontingency, as the fltst establishment or the foundation ofknowledge and action.... It is trus clialectic of form and content thatwe have to restore (phP 147-48/127). We can nowsummarizewhatwe see inMerleau-Ponty s concept of Ie vel UFor Merleau-Ponty, fe vetil is ambivalent or equivocal-it is,we could say a mixture, un mefange-because the content ofexperience, le sol, as J\Ierleau-Ponty also says, becomes, isintegrated into, the form of expressiol1. Phenomenologicallived experience therefore is not defmed by identity, but bysameness and mixture of form and content, or of empiricaland transcendental.U n Ecart intime mais invincible

Both Husserl and the early Merleau-Ponty conceiveErfebniJ as mixture and ambiguity because both want to over-29


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LEON A RD v ~come the duality of subject and ohject, or even the duality ofwhat Heidegger calls the ontological difference. In otherwords, phenomenology is an attempt to overcome Platonismor Cartesianism (dualisms) by mixing together content andform. In both Foucault and Derrida, we fmd statements thatassert that the phenomenological concept of rlebni mixes inthis way Firstwe have Foucault s statement Chapter Sevenof LesMots et les choses which is called The Limits of Repre-sentation. Foucault says:

Undoubtedly, it is not possible to give empiri-cal contents transcendental value, or to movethem onto the side of a constituting subjec-tivity, without giving rise, at least silencly, to ananthropology, that is, to a mode of thought inwhich the in principle limits of knowledge[t onnazssance] are at the same time [en meme temps]the concrete forms of existence, precisely asthey are given in that san le empirical knowl-edge [Javoitj. ~ 261/248, my emphasis)

Evel if phenomenology is transcendental, Foucault is saying,it still falls prey to a silent anthropology. It takes my presentor ourpresent experiences, which are content as foundationalforms. In otherwords, on the basis of the empirical contentsgiven to me or, better, to UJ phenomenology tries to deter-mine the form of that empirical content. While trying to keepthem separate, phenomenologymakes the transcendental andthe empirical the same. It confuses them (MC 352/341).Now,in the Introductiol1 to Voix et lephinomene Derridamakes avery similar statement, hut he adds something that helps ussee the principle of the critique:

Presence has always been and will always be,to infinity, the form inwhich-we can say thisapodictically-the infInite diversity of contentwill be produced. The opposition-which

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in the voice of interior monologue, in other words, hearingoneself speak. The primary characteristic of this absolutelyunique type of auto-affection (VP 88/78 is ten1porality.When I speak to myself silently, the sound is iterated acrossmoments. This temporal iteration is why, as Derrida explains,sOllnd is the most ideal of all signs (VP 86/77). Thlls, inhearing-oneself-speak, one still exteriorizes one s thoughts ormeaning-intention or acts of repetition in the iterated anditerable phonemes. This exteriorization-expression-seemsto imply that we have now moved from time to space. But,since the sound is heard by the subject during the time he isspeaking, the voice is in absolute proximity to its speaker,within the absolute proximity of its present (VP 85/76 ,absolutely elose to me (VP 87/77). The sllbject lets himself be affected by the phoneme (that is, he hears his ownsounds, ms own voice, la voix propre ) without any detourthrough exteriority or through the world, or, as Derrida says,without any detour through the non-proper in general (Vp88/78). Hearing-oneself-speak is lived vecue as absolutelypure auto-affeetion (VP 89/79). What makes it be a pureauto-affeetion, according to Derrida, is that it is a self-proximity which would be nothing other than the absolute reduction of spaee in general (VP 89/79). Yet-and this is a crucial yet -there is a double here between hearing and speaking. As Derrida says, this pure auto-affection, which is thevery root of transcendental rlebnis supposes that a puredifference ...divides the presence to oneself V 92/82). Tmsdifference divides the auto. As Derrida says, It producesthe same as the self-relation within the differenee with oneself, the same as the non-identical V 92/82). Being nonidentical, auto-affection is ambiguous. We rnust understandthe non-identity, however, in the following way: when I hearmyself speak, the hearing is arepetition of the speaking thathas already disappeared; re-presentation e r g e g e n w r t i g u n ~ has


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I ESCI-L;\TOLOGY AND POSITIVISMFtervened, and that intervention means, in a word, space. AsIDerrida says, the outside insinuates itself in the movementIhy which the inside of non-space,what has the name of time,appears to itself, constitutes itself, presents itself VP 96/86). Within time, there is a fundamental spacing e j p a c e m e n ~(VP 96/86).14 Derrida also calls this spacing un ecart withinJe f eed VP 77/69 . On the basis of Derrida s use of theword el art, we can rejoin Foucault.

InUJMotJ et leJ t hoJeJ Foucault says that all of the doubles which man consists are based on un ecart i ~ f i m e maiJ invin-cihle ; the English translation says, a hiatus, miniscule and yetinvincible C IC 351/340). Here we can dissociate an ambiguity in the word in:fime. This Cl art is infime, that is,miniJcule; insofar as it is miniscule, the et arf closes and relatesin the manner of a mixed nature. But, this ecarf is alsoinjime, the sense of infinitesimal, infmitely divisible, andthus a great distance that separates and keeps open. It seemsto me this ecart i ~ f t m e sets up all the problems that areours. In fact, I think it is impossible to over-estimate the importance of chapter nine Lej Motj et lej thosej , Man and hisDoubles. Foucault says here, after mel1tioning this minisculehiatus, that:

[In conttast to classical thought, which timefounds space], in modern thought, what is revealed at the foundation oE the history ofthings and of the historicity proper to man isthe distance hollowing out the Same, it is thehiatus [ e c a r ~ that disperses the Same and gathers it back at the two edges of itselE It is thisprofound spatiality that allows modernthought still to think time-to know it as succession, to promise it as completion, origin orreturn. (MC 351/340)

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LEON.A.RD L\\v LORIt seems to me, if I may extend the analysis a bit, that we mustsee this profound spatiality working, s weIl, in Deleuze scritique of phenomenology found both his 1968 DiJferen(/cand Repetition15 and in his 1969 Log of SenJc. 6 For Deleuze,the phenomenological concept of Urdoxa, wmch one fmds both Hllsserl and Merleau-Ponty, s not originary, since it salways copied off decalqul the doxa or common sense.?This copying off means that the Ufdoxa s mixed with orthe same as the doxa; they resemble one another and are notdifferentiated. The phenomenological concept of Urdoxa hasviolated therefore the most basic principle of Deleuze sthought, perhaps the most basic principle of thought itself:The foundation can never resemble the founded. Deleuzecontinues, It s not enough to say about the foundation thatit s another history-it s also anothergeograp0 ,without beinganother world. 18 For Deleuze, the earth s a profound spatiality, consisting un ecart infime, mais invint ible.

onclusion Memory and LifeThe critique of phenomenology found in Foucault and

Derrida, s weil s in Deleuze, s based this miniscule hiatus. Despite the fact that ll three-Derrida, Deleuze, andFoucault-share the same critique, there s a difference between them. To conclude, I am going to outline the difference between Derrida and Foucault. For both, the critique ofphenomenologicallived-experience is a critique of auto-affection. The critique depends entirely on one necessary possibility: wherever the.re s sensing, it must be possible for thereto be a surface, and, wherever there s a surface, it must bepossible for there to be space. This necessary possibility implies that auto-affectiol1, being alone and therefore close tooneself and unified with oneself, is always already virtuallydouble, distant fron1 oneself and divided. But-and this s an34


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ESCI-L\ lOLOGY i\ N POSrll\TJS1:fimportant but as we shall see in a moment-what dividesthe auto, spacing it andmakll1g it double in Demda is mediation, Vergegenwrtigung. Derrida always conceives the ecartinfime through Vergegenwrtigung, re-presentation. In Derridare-presentation contaminates presentation;mediation, in otherwords, contaminates the immediate, hut contamination is stillme-diation. Thus understood as mediation, contamination promises unity, even tllough it cannot by necessity, ever keep thispromise. The other is always already close by and coming,without ever arriving. Without ever being able to arrive, theone who is going to keep the promise is to come person nthe flesh, Leiblich). Therefore we must characterize Derrida scritique of phenomenology (as he himself has done) as aneJchatologlJl critique. It is a critique based in a promised unitythat demands to be done over again and again.19

Like that of Derrida Foucault s critique too dependsentirely on one necessary possibility: wherever these is sensing, it must be possible for there to be a surface, a l ~ d wherever there is a surface, i tmustbe possible for there to be space.This necessary possibility implies that auto-affection, beingalone and therefore close to oneself and unified with oneself,is always already virtually double, distant from oneself anddivided. .But-and this is where we see the difference fromDerrida-what divides the auto, spacing it andmaking it doublein ~ o u l a u l t is a battle.20 Foucault conceives the etlJrt injime asa battle. The opponents the battle are words and things, orhearing and seeing. The battle consists attacks and crossings across the surface entrecroisements), but these attacks do not orm a unity. No unity is ever promised the battle. Politics,wluch looks to be peace, as Foucault pointed out in urveiller etpunir is war being fought with other means. For Foucault, theaudio-visual battle is an immediate relation. There is no mediation because the opponents are can never be mixed together, or, we might s y can never contaminate one another.

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LEON-i\RD \ \ ~ O RInstead, the opponents are posited as such; there is always theopposition of resistant e. Therefore we must eharaeterizeFoueault s eritique of phenomenology as he himself has done)as apOJitivistic eritique.21 It is a eritique based in a duality without negation and thus it is entirely positive.22

What are we to make of the clifference in their critiques?We must return onee more to Chapter Nine of LesMots et feschoses Man and his Doubles. Here, Foucault had laid out akind of genealogy of phenomenology. At the beginning ofthe nineteenth eentury, he tells us, tl1 ere was a dissoeiation inthe double sense of fmitude, between empirieal eontent andfoundational forms of knowledge. This dissoeiation wasKant s thought. The dissociation, however, led to what Foueault calls a transcendental aesthetics (the empirieal eontent)and a transeendental clialeetie (the foundational forms). Thetranseendental aestheties beeamepositivism; the transeendentaldialeetic became esehatology. During the nineteenth eenturyand at the beginning of the twentieth century, this dissociarion between positivism and esehatology eame to be associated in two ways: Marxism and phenomenology. We can seethe assoeiation Marxisminsofar as 1vfarxism claimed to givethe positive truth of man eonditions of labor and thesame time promised a revolutionary utopia. We can see thisassoeiation in phenomenology insofar as phenomenologyspeaks of the eontent of rlebniswhich can be positively described as the truth, and at the same time of the fulfillment of ameaning-intention, other words, the promise of fulfilledtruth. For Foucault, this assoeiation leads to the ambiguitythat defmes bothMarxism and phenomenology. N owit seemsto me that, in their similar but different eritiques of phenom-enology, Foueault and Derrida have onee again dissoeiatedpositivism and eschatology. The association that phenomenology and Marxism made has become unraveled. The doublesthat eame to be the ambiguity of Husserl s thought, positiv-36


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ESC -L\ l OLOGY.A.ND POSrlTVIS1-fism and eschatology, have now themselves become dissociated into the thought of Foucault and Derrida. On the onehand, we have Derrida s messianism, wh.ich leaps back to theeschatology oE the nineteenth century. On the other hand,we have Foucault s fortunate positivism un positiviJmehcurcux ,23 which obviollsly leaps back to the positivism of thenineteenth centu.ry. Foucault and Derrida have dissociatedimmanence and transcendence, Eaith and knowledge, and, wemight even say, the heart and the brain. oththe brain andthe heart are complicated spaces; we might even appropriateHeidegger s term useinander order to conceive them. Yet,without the heart, one could not speak oE life; and withoutthe brain one could not speak of memory. Now we can seewhat to make oE the difference between th.e critiques ofphenom-enology that we [md Foucault and Derrida. Thisis our task. We must continue the overcoming of metaphysics by trying to find a newway oE associating the heart and thebrain. In otherwords, is it possible for us to :find a new distribution, a new partage, as either Derrida or Foucault wouldsay, between the double oE the heart al1d the bram? Perhapsthis new partitioning can be found only under the heading ofmemoryand life. 24

UnilJersity o Memphis

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LEONi\RD L\\v LORot s

Martin Heidegger, Was ist Metaphysik? in Wegmarken(Frankfurt am Main: Victorio Klostermann, 1967), 112. English translation: What is ~ 1 e t a p h y s i c s ? in ] athmarks, trans.David Farrell I


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ESCI-L\ l OLOGY i\N POSI l IVISivfglish translation. This project would be complete, it seems,onlybya reading of ivferleau-Ponty s L Homme et l adversite,n Sig nes (paris: Gallimard, 1960), 299 and 306. English translation: SignJ, trans. Richard C McCleary (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964), 235 and 241. I intend to pursue this question of the melange in Merleall-Ponty in anotherbook project: M e r l e a u - l ~ o n r y and the ]:Jolit al.

4Jacques Derrida, La Vozx et le phenomene (paris: PressesUniversitaires de France, 1967). English translation: Speet h and.Phenomena, trans. David B Allison (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1973). Hereafter cited as VP with reference fIrst to the French, then to the English translation. I willuse the French titles oE La Voix et le phenomene and esMotsetleJ thoJeJ since the English translations are somewhat misleading.

50ne finds a similar critique of the concept of Erlebnisn Hans-Georg Gadamer s Wahrheit und Methode (Tbingen:l\1 hr, 1975). English translation: Truth and Method, 2d reved., trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G l\1arshall (NewYork: Continuum, 1989). Gadalner claims that the conceptof Erlebnis consists in the immediacy of self-consciousnessand n an immediacy that yields a content das Erlebte). Hiscritique is that ErlebniJ is unity and interiority, whereas life itself is self-diremption.. Here he takes bis inspiration fromHegel, the speculative import of the concept of life WahrheitundMethode, 237; Truth andMethod 250-51). Thus, because ofthe idea of self-diremption, Gadamer stresses the idea of judgment U r t e i ~ wbich literally meal S original partitioning.Nevertheless, despite Gadamer s emphasis on Ur-teil, we t inkwith Foucault that life is not expressed in a judgment, whichstill relies on unity or synthesis, but n the infmitive of a verbwruch can be infinitely divided without unity. It is the expression of the indefmite, a universal singularity. On this idea ofthe verb, see Gilles Deleuze, LiJgique du sens (paris: I\tfinuit,


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LEON.i\RD \ \ ~ O R1969), 11. English translation: LiJgic SenJe, trans. MarkLester,with Charles Stivale, ed. Constantin V Boundas (New York:Columbia University Press, 1990), 3 See also Foucault s review of Deleuze s Logique du JenJ and Difference el repetition,Theatrum Philosophieum, Dits et icrits I, 1954 1975 (paris:Gallimard, 2001), 950-51. E l ~ g l i s h translation: Michel FOllcalllt,Language, Counter-M emory, j)ral lice, trans. and ed. Donald FBouchard (New York: Cornell University Press, 1977), 17375. IE there is a concept in Foucault, itwould be an infmitive,like repnfJenter, clasJer, parler, echanger, or surveiller etpunir, or finally, penser. It is important to recal that Deleuzesays that a statement (un enonte -and in Foucault a s t a t e n ~ e n tis the true equivalent to the concept-is a curve (un courbe).See Gilles Deleuze, .Foucault (paris: ~ i n u i t 1986),87. Englishtranslation: .Foucault, trans. Sean Hand (Minneapolis: University of l\1innesota Press, 1988), 80.

See l\1ichel Foucault, Vie: experience et vie, in Dits etecrit, V 763-776. English translation: Life: Experience andScience, trans. Robert Hurley, in ESJentialWorkJ MichelFoucault: A e s t h e t i c J ~ Method, and Epistemology, val. 2, ed. James DFaubion (New York: The New Press, 1998), 465-478.

7EdmundHusserl, Husserliana (hereafter Hua) : IdeenZu einer reinen Phnomenologie undphanomenologiJchenPhilosophie:ErJteJ .Buch, ed. Karl Schuhmann The Hague: ~ a r t i n u sNijhoff, 1976). English translation: Ideas j)ertaining 10 a ])ure])henomenofogy and to a ])henomenologLlI])hilosophy, trans. F.I< erstenThe Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982). See also EdmundHusserl, ldies directricespour unephenominologie, trans. Paul Ricreur(paris: Gallimard, 1950).

8Here I am relying on a later revision of the passage thatHusserl made: copy D. See I


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ESCI-L \ l OLOGY .L \ND P O S l V S ~ fthing existing in the world, the psyche, which has the onto-logical sense of something existing in the world, Vorhandenheit,and tries to make this somethingpresent account for all thingspresent.

Edmund Husserl, Hua IX: ]Jhnomenologische ]Jsychologie(The Hague: 1\1artinus Nijhoff, 1962), 292. English translation: in The EJJential.Husserl, trans. Richard E. Palmer, ed. DonnWelton (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 331.

Hua IX, p. 294; The Essential HusJerl, 332 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, ]Jhenomenologie de la perception

(paris: Gallimard, 1945). English translation: l henomenology.Perception, trans. Colin Smith, rev: Forrest Williams (New Jersey: The Humanities Press, 1981). Hereafter PhP, with reference first to the French, then to the English.

Thomas Busch also cites this passage in his Maurice1-1erleau-Ponty: Alterity and Dialogue in Circulating .Being:EssqYJ in LAte ExiJtentialiJm (New York: Fordham UniversityPress, 1999), 83. Busch s interpretation of Ivlerleau-Ponty sconcept of ambiguity and equivocity is based on the idea ofdialogue, an idea very different from a battle.

14Spacing implies what Derrida calls archi-writing andthus vision: when I see myself writing and when I signify bygestures, the proximity of hearing myself speak is brokenVP 90;80). Thus here we could speak of a story of the eye,

which would allow for a further comparison with Foucault. 5 Gilles Deleuze, Difference et repetition (paris: PressesUniversitaires de France, 1968), 179. English translation: Dif-

ferente and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton (NewYork: ColumbiaUn.iversity Press, 1994), 137.

6 Gilles Deleuze, Logique du sens (paris: Iv1inuit, 1969),119 and 124; English translation: Logic Sense, trans. IvlarkLester, with Charles Stivale, ed. Constantin Boundas NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1990), 97 al d 102.

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LEON i\RD \ \ ~ O R17 See Deleuze, Difference et repetition, 177; Differen{;e and

Repetition, p 135; also Deleuze, Logique du sens, 54; Logic ojSense, 39.

8Deleuze, Logique du .rens, 120; Logir: qj Sense, 99, my em-phasis.

19 I have coined a word for this idea of a promise thatdemands to be done over again and again : refinition. Seethe Preface to my Derrida and Husserl The Basit: ])roblem of ])he-nomenology Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), asweIl as Thinking Through . F r e n r : h P h i l o . r o p ~ y : The .Being of the Que.r-tion Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003).

20 This description is based largely on v1ichel Foucault, l in est pas une pipe paris: Fata Morgana, 1973). Englishtranslation: Thi.r is l\lot aPipe trans. James Harnes Berkeley:University of Califorma Press, 1983). See also Gilles Deleuze,

~ o u l t l u l t 119/112.21 I am extrapolating from what Foucault has said in his

L ordre du di.rcourJ paris: Gallimard, 1971), p 72; English trans-lation: The Discourse on Language, appendix to TheArr:he-ofogy Knowledge, trans. A. M. Sheridan New York: Pantheon,1972),234.

22 If we were to pursue further this difference betweenFoucault and Derrida, we would have to investigate the con-cept of multiplicity.

23 Foucault, L Ordre du di.rcourJ, 72; The Discourse onLanguage, 234.

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eschatology and positivism

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